B&H90
.US' 2.
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I
AN
EXPOSITION
OP TUB
Old and New Testament:
WHEREIN
EACH CHAPTER IS SUMMED UP IN ITS CONTENTS ; THE SACRED TEXT INSERTED
AT LARGE, IN DISTINCT PARAGRAPHS ; EACH PARAGRAPH REDUCED
TO ITS PROPER HEADS ; THE SENSE GIVEN,
AND LARGELY ILLUSTRATED ;
WITH
PRACTICAL REMARKS AND OBSERVATIONS:
/
BY MATTHEW HENRY.
EDITED BY
THE REV. GEORGE BURDER, AND THE REV. JOSEPH HUGHES, A. M.
WITH THE
LIFE OF THE AUTHOR,
BY THE
REV. SAMUEL PALMER.
Jfiv at American IS&ition:
TO WHICH IS PREFIXED,
A PREFACE,
BY ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER, D. D.
PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE SEMINARY AT PRINCETON, M. i.
VOL. IV.
PHILADELPHIA .
ED. BARRINGTON & GEO. D. HASWE'LL,
MARKET STREET.
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AN
EXPOSITION,
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WITH
PRACTICAL, OBSERVATIONS,
UPON THE
PROPHETICAL BOOKS
OF THE
OLD TESTAMENT,
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KAMEL Y,
ISAIAH,
JEREMIAH,
LAMENTATIONS,
EZEKIEL,
DANIEL,
HOSEA,
JOEL,
AMOS.
OBADIAH,
JONAH,
MICAH,
NAHUM,
HABAKKUK,
ZEPHANIAH,
HAGGAI,
ZECHARIAH,
AND
MALACHI.
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THE
PREFACE
TO THE
PROPHETICAL BOOKS.
T^HOSE books of scripture are all prophetical, of which here, in weakness , and in fear, and in much
trembling, we have endeavoured a methodical explication and a practical improvement. I call them
firofihetical, because so they are for the main, though we have some histories, £here and there brought
in for the illustration of the prophecies,) and a book of Lamentations. Our Saviour often puts the Law
and the Profihets for the Ola Testament. The prophets, by waving the ceremonial precepts, and not
insisting on them, but only on the weightier matters of the law, plainly intimated the abolishing of that
part of the law of Moses by the gospel; and by their many predictions of Christ, and the kingdom of his
grace, they intimated the accomplishing and perfecting of that part of the law of Moses in the gospel.
Thus the prophets were the nexus — the connecting bond between the law and the gospel, and are
therefore fitly placed between them.
These books, being prophetical, are, as such, divine, and of heavenly original and extraction. We
have human laws, human histories, and human poems, as well as divine ones, but we can have no human
prophecies. Wise and good men may make prudent conjectures concerning future events; ( moral firog-
nostications we call them;) but it is essential to true prophecy that it be of God. The learned Huetius*
lays this down for one of his axioms, Omnis firofihetica facultas a Deo est — The frofihetic talent is en¬
tirely from God; and he proves it to be the sense both of Jews and heathen, that it is God’s prerogative
to foresee things to come, and that whoever had such a power, had it from God. And therefore the Jews
reckon all prophecy to be given by the highest degree of inspiration, except that which was peculiat
to Moses. When our Saviour asked the chief priests whether John’s baptism were from heaven, or of
men, they durst not say, Of men, because the people counted him a prophet, and, if so, then not of men.
The Hebrew name for a prophet is tea) — a sfieaker, preacher, or orator, a messenger, or interpreter,
that delivers God’s messages to the children of men; as a herald to proclaim war, or an ambassador to
treat of peace. But then it must be remembered, that he was formerly called run or npn, that is, c
seer; (1 Sam. ix. 9.) for prophets, with the eyes of their minds, first saw what they were to speak, and
then spake what they haa seen.
Prophecy, taken strictly, is the foretelling of things to come; and there were those to whom God gave
this power, not only that it might be a sign for the confirming of the faith of the church concerning the
doctrine preached, when the things foretold should be fulfilled, but for warning, instruction, and comfort,
in prospect of what they themselves might not live to see accomplished, but which should be fulfilled in
its season; so, predictions of things to come long after, might be of present use.
The learned Dr. Grewf describes prophecy in this sense to be, “ A declaration of the divine pre¬
science, looking at any distance through a train of infinite causes, known and unknown to us, upon a sure
and certain effect ” Whence he infers, “ That the being of prophecies supposes the non-being of con¬
tingents, for though there are many things which seem to us to be contingents, yet, were they so indeed,
there could have been no prophecy; and there can be no contingent seemingly so loose and independent,
but it is a link of some chain.” And Huetius gives this reason, why none but God can foretell things to
come, Because every effect depends upon an infinite number of preceding causes, all which, in their or¬
der, must be known to him that foretells the effect, and therefore to God only, for he alone is omniscient.
So Tully argues; Qui teneat causas rerum futurarum, idem necesse est omnia teneat gute futurasint;
quod facere nemo nisi Deus potest — He who knows the causes of future events, must necessarily know
the events themselves; this is the prerogative of God alone. X And therefore we find that by this the God
of Israel proves himself to be God, that by his prophets he foretold things to come, which came to pass
according to the prediction, Isa. xlvi. 9, 10. And by this he disproves the pretensions of the Pagan deities,
that they could not show the things that were to come to pass hereafter, Isa. xli. 23. Tertullian proves
the divine authority of the scripture from the fulfilling of scripture-prophecies, Idoneum, oflinor, testi¬
monium Divinitatis, veritas Divinationis — I conceive the accomplishment of prophecy to be a satisfactory
attestation from God. || And beside the foretelling of things to come, the discovering of things secret by
revelation from God is a branch of prophecy, as Ahiiah’s discovering Jeroboam’s wife in disguise, an(
Elisha’s telling Gehazi what passed between him and Naaman.
But § prophecy, in scripture-language, is taken more largely for a declaration of such things to the chil¬
dren of men, either by word or writing, as God has revealed to them that speak or write it, by vision,
dream, or inspiration, guiding their minds, their tongue, and pens, by his Holy Spirit, anti giving them
not only ability, but authority, to declare such things in his name, and to preface what they say with,
Thus saith the Lord. In this sense it is said, The prophecy of scripture came not in old time by the will
of man, as other pious moral discourses might, but holy men spake and wrote as they were moved by the
Holy Ghost, 2 Pet. i. 20, 21. The same Holy Spirit that moved upon the face of the waters to produce
the world, moved upon the minds of the prophets to produce the Bible.
* Demonstrat. Evan j vag. 15.
P Apol cap. 20.
t Cosmol. Sacra, lib. 4. cap. 6«
$ Du Pin, Hi«t. of the Canon, lib. 1. cap. 2.
t Cicero do Divin lib 1
VI
PREFACE.
Now I think it is worthy to be observed, that all nations, having had some sense of God and religion,
have likewise had a nation of prophets and prophecy, have had a veneration ft r them, and a desire and
expectation of acquaintance and communion with the gods they worshipped in that way. Witness their
oracles, their augurs, and the many arts of divination they had in use among them, in all the ages, and all
the countries, of the world.
It is commonly urged as an argument against the Atneists, to prove that there is a Gcd, That all na¬
tions of the world acknowledged some god or other, some Being above them, to be worshipped and prayed
to, to be trusted in and praised; the most ignorant and barbarous nations could not avoid the knowledge
of it; the most learned and polite nations could not avoid the belief of it. And this is a sufficient proof
of the general and unanimous consent of mankind to this truth; though far the greatest part of men made
to themselves gods, which yet were no gods. Now I think it may be urged with equal force against the
Deists, for the proof of a divine revelation, that all nations of the world had, and had veneration for, that
which they at least took to be a divine revelation, and could not live without; though in this also they be¬
came vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart u<as darkened. But if there were not a true
Deity, and a true prophecy, there would never have been pretended deities and counterfeit prophecies.
Lycurgus and Numa, those two great lawgivers of the Spartan and Roman commonwealths, brought
their people to an observance of the laws by possessing them with a notion that they had them by divinf.
revelation, and so making it a point of religion to observe them. And those that have been ever so little
conversant with the Greek and Roman histories, as well as with the more ancient ones of Chaldea and
Egypt, cannot but remember what a profound deference their princes and great commanders, and not
their unthinking commonalty only, paid to the oracles and prophets, and the. prognostications of their
soothsayers, which, in all cases of importance, were consulted with abundance of gravity and solemnity;
and how often the resolutions of councils, and the motions of mighty armies, turned upon them, though
thev appeared ever so groundless and far-fetched.
There is a full account given by that learned philosopher and physician, Casper Peucer,* of the many
kinds of divination and prediction used among the Gentiles, by which they took on them to tell the for¬
tune both of states and particular persons. They were all, he says, reduced by Plato to two heads; Di-
vinatio, Mavrin), which was a kind of inspiration, or was thought to be so; the prophet or prophetess
foretelling things to come by an internal flatus or fury; such was the oracle of Apollo at Dclphos, and
that of Jupiter Trophonius; which, with others like them, were famous for many ages, during the pre¬
valency of the kingdom of darkness, but (as appears by some of the Pagan writers themselves) they were
all silenced and struck dumb, when the gospel (that truly divine oracle) began to be preached to the na¬
tions. The other kind of divination was that which he calls 0'imi<rrt*.», which was a prognostication
by signs, according to rules of art, as by the flight of birds, the entrails of beasts, by stars or mete¬
ors, and abundance of ominous accidents, with which a foolish world was miserably imposed upon. A
large account of this matter we have also in the late learned dissertations of Anton. Van Dale, to which
I refer the reader, f
But nothing of this kind made a greater noise in the Gentile world than the oracles of the Sybils, and
their prophecies; their name signifies a divine counsel: Sibyllx, qu. Siobulse; Sios, in the fEolic dialect,
being put for Theos. Peucer says, Almost every nation had its Sibyls, but those of Greece were most
celebrated. They lived in several ages; the most ancient is said to be the Sibylla Delfihica, who lived
before the Trojan war, or about that time. The Sibylla Erythrea was the most noted; she lived about
the time of Alexander the Great. But it was the Sibylla Cumana of whom the story goes, that she pre¬
sented herself, and nine books of oracles, to Tarquinius Superbus, which she offered to sell him at so
vast a rate, that he refused to purchase them, upon which she burnt three, and, upon his second re¬
fusal, the other three, but made him give the same rate for the remaining three, which were deposited
with great care in the Capitol. But those being afterward burnt accidentally with the Capitol, a col¬
lection was made of the other Sibylline oracles, and those are they which Virgil refers to in his fourth
Eclogue. £
All the oracles of the Sibyls that are extant, were put together, and published in Holland not many
years ago, by Servatius Gallxus, in Greek and Latin, with large and learned notes; together with all that
could be met with of the metrical oracles that go under the names of Jupiter, Apollo, Serapis, *md others,
by Joannes Osopxus.
The oracles of the Sibyls were appealed to by many of the Fathers, for the confirmation of the Chris¬
tian religion. Justin Martyr|| appeals with a great deal of assurance, persuading the Greeks to give credit
to that ancient Sibyl, whose works were extant all the world over; and to their testimony, and that of Hy-
daspis, he appeals concerning the general conflagration, and the torments of hell. Clemens Alexandri-
nus§ often quotes the Sibyls’ verses with great respect; so does Lactantius^f; St. Austin.** Dc Civitate
Dei, has the famous acrostic at large, said to be one of the oracles of the Sibylla Erythrea, the first let¬
ters of the verses making ’I»<r»c Xpurrls QiS vii: zZmp — Jesus Christ the Son of God the Saviour. Di¬
vers passages they produce out of these oracles which expressly foretell the coming of the Messiah, his
being born of a virgin, his miracles, his sufferings, particularly his being buffetted, spit upon, crowned
with thorns, having vinegar and gall given him to drink, &c.
Whether these oracles were genuine and authentic or no, has been much controverted among the
learned. Baronius and the Popish writers generally admit and applaud them, and build much upon
them; so do some Protestant writers; Isaac Vossius has written a great deal to support the reputation
of them, and (as I find him quoted by Van Dale) will needs have it that they were formerly a part of
the canon of scripture; and a learned prelate of our own nation, Bishop Montague, pleads largely, and
with great assurance, for their authority, and is of opinion that some of them were divinely inspired.
But many learned men look upon it to be a pious fraud, as they call it; that those verses of the Sibyls,
which speak so very expressly of Christ and the future state, were forged by some Christians, and im¬
posed upon the over-credulous. Huetius,ff though of the Romish church, condemns both the ancient
and modern composures of the Sibyls, and refers his reader, for the proof of their vanity, to the learned
Blondel. Van Dale and Gallxus look upon them to be a forgery. And the truth is, they speak so much
* Hi* Prsacipuifl Bivinationum Gencribus, A. 1591. f De Ver;\ ac Falsa Prophetic, A. 1696. t Vid. Vir". Aaneid, lib. 6.
|| Ad Grrccos Cohortat. juzta finem. $ Apol. 2. p. mihi. 66. 1. IT Quroet. et Reapons v 436
•* Aug. do Civ. Dei, lib 18. cap. 23. ft Demonstrat. p. 748.
PREFACE.
VII
ni' .reparticularly and plainly concerning our Saviour and the future state, than any of the prophets of the
(fid Testament do, that we must conclude St. Paul, who was the apostle of the Gentiles, guilty net only
of a very great omission, (that in all his preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles, and in all his epistles to
the Gentile churches, he never so much as mentions the prophecies of the Sibyls, nor vouches their au¬
thority, as he does that of the Old Testament prophets, in his preaching and writing to the Jews,) but
likewise of a very great mistake, in making it the particular advantage which the Jews had above the
Gentiles, that to them were committed the oracles of God, (Rom. iii. 1, 2.) and that they were the chil¬
dren of the prophets, while he speaks of the Gentiles as sitting in darkness, and being afar off. We can¬
not conceive that heathen women, and those actuated by demons, should speak more clearly and fully of
the Messiah than those holy men did, who, we are sure, were moved by the Holy Ghost; or that the
Gentiles should be instructed with larger and earlier discoveries of the great salvation than that people
of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ was to come. But enough, if not more than enough, of the pre¬
tenders to prophecy. It is a good remark which the learned Gallieus makes upon the great veneration
which the Romans had for the oracles of the Sibyls, for which he quotes Dionysius Halicarnassccus, OlSh
«Tt fjt-.ar^anr, irTi Inw uri/xt. are Ufit, ic t« CarfxTa — The Romans preserve nothing
with such sacred care, nor do they hold any thing in stich high estimation, as the Sibylline oracles. Hi si
pro vitreis suis thesauris adeo decertarunt, quid nos pro genuinis nostris, a Deo inspiratis! — If they had
such a value for these counterfeits, how precious should the true treasure of the divine oracles be to us!
Of these we come next to speak.
Prophecy, we are sure, was of equal date with the church; for faith comes, not by thinking and seeing,
as philosophy does, but by hearing, by hearing the word of God, Rf m. x. 17. In the antediluvian period
Ad.un received divine revelation in the promise of the Seed of the woman, and, no doubt, communicated
it, in the name of the Lord, to his seed, and was prophet as well as priest, to his numerous family. Enoch
was a prophet, and foretold perhaps the deluge, however, the last judgment, that of the great day: Be¬
hold, the Lord comes, Jude 14. When men began, as a church, to call upon the name of the Lord,
(Gen iv. 26.) or to call themselves by his name, they were blessed with prophets, for the prophecy came
in old time; (2 Pet. i. 21.) it is venerable for its antiquity.
When God renewed his covenant of providence (and that a figure of the covenant of grace) with Noah
and his sons, we soon after find Noah, as a prophet, foretelling, not only the servitude of Canaan, but
G >d’s enlarging Japhetby Christ, and his dwelling in the tents of Shem, Gen. ix. 26, 27. And when,
up. n the general revolt of mankind to idolatry, (as, in the former period, upon the apostacy of Cain)) God
distinguished a church for himself by the call of Abraham, and by his covenant with him and his seed, he
conferred upon him and the other patriarchs the spirit of prophecy; for when he reproved kings for their
sakes, he said, Touch not mine anointed, who have received that unction from the Holy One; and do my
prophets no harm, Ps. cv. 14, 15. And of Abraham, he said expressly, He is a prophet; (Gen. xx. 7.)
for it was with a prophetic eye, as a seer, that Abraham saw Christ’s day, (John viii. 56.) saw it at so
great a distance, and yet with so great an assurance triumphed in it. And Stephen seems to speak of the
first settling of a correspondence between him and God, by which he was established to be a prophet,
when he says, The Goa of glory appeared to him, (Acts vii. 2.) appeared in glory. Jacob upon his death¬
bed, as a prophet, told his sons what should befall them in the last days, (Gen. xlix. 1, 10.) and spake very
particularly concerning the Messiah.
Hitherto was the infancy of the church, and with it of prophecy; it was the dawning of that day; and
that morning light owed its rise to the Sun of righteousness, though he rose not till long after; but it shone
more and more. During the bondage of Israel in Egypt, this, as other glories of the church, was eclipsed;
but as the church made a considerable and memorable advance in the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt,
and the forming of them into a people, so did the Spirit of prophecy in Moses, the illustrious instrument
employed in that great service; and it was by that Spirit that he performed that service; so it is said, Hos.
xii. 13. By a prophet the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet was he preserved through
the wilderness to Canaan, by Moses as a prophet. It appears, by what God said to Aaron, that there
were then other prophets among them, to whom God made known himself and his will in dreams and vi¬
sions, (Numb. xii. 6.) but to Moses he spake in a peculiar manner, mouth to mouth, even apparently, and
not in dark speeches, Numb. xii. 8. Nay, such a plentiful effusion was there of the Spirit of prophecy at
that time, (because Moses was such a prophet as was to be a type of Christ the great Prophet,) that seme
of his Spirit was put upon seventy elders of Israel at once, and they prophesied, Numb. xi. 25. What
they said, was extraordinary, and not only under the direction of a prophetic inspiration, but under the
constraint of a prophetic impulse; as appears by the case of Eldad and Medad.
When Moses, that great prophet, was lying down, he promised Israel that the Lord God would raise
'.hem up a Prophet of their brethren like unto him, Deut. xviii. 15, 18. In these words, says the learned
Bishop Stillingfieet, * (though in their full and complete sense, they relate to Christ, and to him they are
more than once applied in the New Testament,) there is included a promise of an order of prophets, which
should succeed Moses in the Jewish church, and be the Asyi* — the living oracles among them,
(Acts vii. 38;) by which they might know the mind of God. For, in the next words, he lays down rules
tor the trial of prophets, whether what they said was of God or no. And it is observable, that that pre¬
mise comes in immediately upon an express prohibition of the Pagan rites of divination, and the consulting
of wizards and familiar spirits; “ You shall not need to do that,” (said Moses,) “ for, to vour much better
satisfaction, you shall have prophets divinely inspired, by whom you may know from God himself both
what to do, and what to expect.”
But as Jacob’s dying prophecy concerning the sceptre in Judah, and the lawgiver between his feet, did
not begin to be remarkably fulfilled till David’s time, most of the Judges being of other tribes, so Moses’s
promise of a succession of prophets began not to receive its accomplishment till Samuel’s time, a little be¬
fore the other promise began to emerge and operate; and it was an introduction to the other, for it was by
Samuel, as a prophet, that David was anointed king; which was an intimation that the prophetical office
of our Redeemer should make way, both in the world, and in the heart, for his kingly office; and therefore
when he was asked, Art thou a king'/ (John xviii. 37. ) he answered, not evasively, but very pertinently, I
came to bear witness to the truth; and so to rule as a king, purely by the power "of truth.
* Ori". Sacr. B. 2. c 4.
PREFACE.
viii
During the government of the Judges, there was a pouring out of the Spirit, but more as a Spirit of con¬
duct and courage for war, than as a Spirit of prophecy. Deborah is indeed called a prophetess, because
of her extraordinary qualifications forjudging Israel; but that is the only mention of prophecy, that 1 ri
member, in all the book of Judges. Extraordinary messages were sent by angels, as to Gideon and Ma
noah; and it is expressly said, that before the word of the Lord came to Samuel, (1 Sam. iii. 1.) it was
precious, it was very scarce, there was no open vision. And it was therefore with more than ordinary
solemnity that the word of the Lord came first to Samuel; and by degrees notice and assurance were given
to all Israel, that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the Lord, v. 20.
In Samuel’s time, and by him, the schools of the prophets were erected, by which prophecy was digni¬
fied, and provision made for a succession of prophets; for it should seem, that, in those colleges, hopeful
young men were bred up in devotion, in a constant attendance upon the instruction the prophets gave from
< rod, and under a strict discipline, as candidates, or probationers, for prophecy, who were called the sons
■jf the prophets; and their religious exercises of prayer, conference, and psalmody especially, are called
prophecyings; and their prefect, or president, is called their father, 1 Sam. x. 12. Out of these, God,
ordinarily, chose the prophets he sent; yet not always: Amos was no prophet, or prophet’s son, (Amos
vii. 14. ) had not his education in the schools of the prophets, and yet was commissioned to go on God’s er¬
rands, and (which is observable) though he had not an academical education himself, yet he seems to speak
of it with great respect, when he reckons it among the favours God had bestowed upon Israel, that he
raised up of their sons for prophets, and of their young men for JVazarites, Amos ii. 11.
It is worth noting, that when the glory of the priesthood was eclipsed by the iniquity of the house of
Eli, the desolations of Shiloh, and the obscurity of the ark, there was then a' more plentiful effusion of the
Spirit of prophecy than had been before; a standing ministry of another kind was thereby erected, and a
succession of it kept up. And thus afterwards, in the kingdom of the ten tribes, where there was no legal
priesthood at all, yet there were prophets and prophets’ sons; in Ahab’s time, we meet with a hundred of
them, whom Obadiah hid by fifty in a cave, 1 Kings xviii. 4. When the people of God, who desired to
know his mind, wanted one way of instruction, God furnished them with another, and a less ceremonious
one; for he left not himself without witness, nor them without a guide. And when they had no temple or
altar, that they could attend upon with any safety or satisfaction, they had private meetings at the pro¬
phets’ houses, to which the devout faithful worshippers of God resorted, (as we find the good Shunamite
did, 2 Kings iv. 23. ) and where they kept their new-moons, and their sabbaths, comfortably, and to their
edification.
David was himself a prophet; so St. Peter calls him; (Acts ii. 30.) and though we read not of God’s
speaking to him by dreams and visions, yet we are sure that Me Spirit of the Lord spake by him, and his
word was in his tongue; (2 Sam. xxiii. 2.) and he had those about him, that were seers, that were his
seers, as Gad and Iddo, that brought him messages from God, and wrote the history of his times. And
now the productions of the Spirit of prophecy were translated into the service of the temple, not only in
the model of the house which the Lord made David understand in writing by his hand upon him, (1 Chron.
xxviii. 19.) but in the worship performed there; for there we find Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, pro¬
phesying with harps and other musical instruments, according to the order of the king, not to foretell things
to come, but to give thanks, and to praise the Lord; (1 Chron. xxv. 1 — 3.) yet, in their psalms, they
spake much of Christ and his kingdom, and the glory to be revealed.
In the succeeding reigns, both of Judah and Israel, we frequently meet with prophets sent on particulai
errands to Rehoboam, Jeroboam, Asa, and other kings, who, it is probable, instructed the people in the
things of God at other times, though it is not recorded. But prophecy growing into contempt with many,
God revived the honour of it, and put a new lustre upon it, in the power given to Elijah and Elisha to
work miracles, and the great things that God did by them, for the confirming of the people’s faith in it,
and the awakening of their regard to it, 2 Kings ii. 3. — iv. 1, 38. — v. 22. — vi. 1. In their time, and by their
agency, it should seem, the schools of the prophets were revived, and we find the sons of the prophets,
fellows of those sacred colleges, employed in carrying messages to the great men, as to Ahab, (1 Kings
xx. 35.) and to Jehu, 2 Kings ix. 1.
Hitherto, the prophets of the Lord delivered tlieir messages by word of mouth; only we read of one
writing which came from Elijah the prophet to Jehoram king of Israel, 2 Chron. xxi. 12. The histories
of those times, which are left us, were compiled by prophets, under a divine direction; and when the
Old Testament is divided into the Law and the Prophets, the historical books are, for that reason, rec¬
koned among the prophets. But, in the latter times of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel, some of the pro¬
phets were divinely inspired to write their prophecies, or abstracts of them, and to leave them upon record,
for the benefit of after ages, that the children which should be born might praise the Lord for them, and,
by comparing the event with the prediction, might have their faith confirmed. And, probably, those later
prophets spake more fully and plainly of the Messiah and his kingdom than their predecessors had done,
and for that reason their prophecies were putin writing, not only for the encouragement of the pious Jews
that looked for the consolation of Israel, but for the use of us Christians, upon whom the ends of the world
are come, as David’s psalms had been for the same reason, that the Old Testament and the New might
mutually give light and lustre to each other. Many other faithful prophets there were at the same time,
who spake in God’s name, who did not commit their prophecies to writing, but were of those whom God
sent, rising up betimes, and sending them; the contempt of whom, and of their messages, brought ruin
without remedy upon that sottish people, that knew not the day of their visitation.
In their captivity, they had some prophets, some to show them how long; and though it was not by ;;
prophet, like Moses, that they were brought up out of Babylon, as they had been out of Egypt, but by
Joshua the High Priest first, and afterward by Ezra the scribe, to show that God can do his work by or
dinary means when he pleases; yet, soon after their return, the Spirit of prophecy was poured out plenti¬
fully, and continued (according to the Jews’ computation) forty years in the second temple, but ceased in
Malachi. Then (say the Rabbins) the Holy Spirit was taken from Israel, and they had the benefit only
of the Bathkdl, the daughter of a voice, a voice from heaven, which they look upon to be the lowest de¬
gree of divine revelation. Now herein they are witnesses against themselves for rejecting the true Mes¬
siah; for our Lord Jesus, and he only, was spoken to by a voice from heaven at his baptism, his transfigu
ration, and his entrance on his sufferings.
In John the Baptist prophecy revived, and therefore in him the gospel is said to begin, when the churc*
PREFACE.
IX
find had no prophets for above 300 years. We have not only the vox populi — the voice of the people, to prove
John a prophet, for all the people counted him so, but vox Dei — the voice of God too; for Christ calls
him a prophet, Matth. xi. 9, 10. He had an extraordinary commission from God to call people tore
pent.mce, was filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb, and was therefore called the prophet
of the Highest, because he went before the face of the Lord, to prepare his way; (Luke i. 15, 16.) and
though he did no miracle, nor gave any sign or wonder, yet this proved him a true prophet, that all he
said of Christ was true, John x. 41. Nay, and this proved him more than a prophet, than any of the
other prophets, that whereas by other prophets Christ was discovered as at a great distance, by him he
was discovered as already come, and he was enabled to say, Behold the Lamb of God.
But after the ascension of our Lord Jesus there was a more plentiful effusion of the Spirit of prophecy
than ever before; then was the promise fulfilled, that God would pour out his Spirit upon all flesh, (and
not as hitherto upon the Jews only,) and their sons and their daughters should prophesy, Acts ii. 16, & c.
The gift of tongues was one new product of the Spirit of prophecy, and given for a particular reason,
that the Jewish pale being taken down, all nations might be brought into the church. These and other
gifts of prophecy', being for a sign, are long since ceased, and laid aside, and we have no encouragement
to expect the revival of them; but, on the contrary, are directed to call the scriptures the more sure word
of prophecy, more sure than voices from heaven; and to them we are directed to take heed, to search
them, and to hold them fast, 2 Pet. i. 19. All God’s spiritual Israel know that they are established to
be the oracles of God, (1 Sam. iii. 20.) and if any add to, or take from, the book of that prophecy, they
may read their doom in the close of it; God shall take blessings from them, and add curses to them,
Rev. xxii. 18, 19.
Now concerning the prophets of the Old Testament, whose writings are before us; observe,
I. That they were all holy men; we are assured by the apostle, that the prophecy came in old time by
holy men of God, (and men of God they were commonly called, because they were devoted to him,)
who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. They were men, subject to like passions as we arc,
(so Elijah, one of the greatest of them, is said to have been. Jam. v. 17.) but they were holy men,
men that in the temper of their minds, and the tenour of their lives, were examples of serious piety.
Though there were many pretenders, that, without warrant, said, Thus saith the Lord, when he sent
them not; and some that prophesied in Christ’s name, but he never knew them, and they indeed were
workers of iniquity; (Matth. vii. 22, 23.) and though the cursing, blaspheming lips of Balaam and Caia-
phas, even then when they actually designed mischief, were overruled to speak oracles; yet none were
emploved and commissioned to speak as prophets, but those that had received the Spirit of grace and
sanctification; for holiness becomes God’s house.
The Jewish doctors universally agree in this rule. That the Spirit of prophecy never rests upon any but
a holy and wise man, and one whose passions are allayed;* or, as others express it, an humble man, and
a man of fortitude; one that has power to keep his sensual, animal part in due subjection to religion and
right reason. And some of themf give this rule; That the Spirit of prophecy does not reside where
there are either, on the one hand, grief and melancholy, or, on the other hand, laughter and lightness of
behaviour, and impertinent, idle talk: and it is commonly observed by them, both from the musical in
struments used in the schools of the prophets in Samuel’s time, and from the instance of Elisha’s calling
fra minstrel, (2 Kings iii. 15.) that the divine presence does not reside with sadness, but with cheerful¬
ness; and Elisha, they say, had not yet recovered himself from the sorrow he conceived at parting with
Elijah. They have also a tradition, (but I know no ground for it,) that all the while Jacob mourned for
Joseph, the Shechinah, or Holy Spirit, withdrew from him. Yet I believe, when David intimates that
by Ins sin in the matter of Uriah he had lost the right Spirit, and the free Spirit, Ps. li. 10, 12. (which
therefore he begs might be renewed in him, and restored to him,) it was not because he was under grief,
but because he was under guilt. And therefore, in order to the return of that right and free Spirit, he
prays that God would create in him a clean heart.
It. That they had all a full assurance in themselves of their divine mission; and (though they could net
always prevail to satisfy others) they were abundantly satisfied themselves, that what they delivered as
from God, and in his name, was indeed from him ; and with the same assurance did the apostles speak of
the word of life, as that which they had heard, and seen, and looked on, and which their hands had
handled, 1 John i. 1. Nathan spake from himself, when he encouraged David to build the temple, but
afterward knew he spake from God, when, in his name, he forbade him to doit.
God had various ways of making known to his prophets the messages they were to deliver to his people;
it should seem, ordinarily, to have been by the ministry of angels. In the Apocalypse, Christ is expressly
said to have signified by his angel to his servant John, Rev. i. 1. It was sometimes done in a vision, when
the prophet was awake; sometimes in a dream, when the prophet was asleep; and sometimes bv a secret
nut strong impression upon the mind of the prophet. But Maimonides has laid down, as a maxim, Tha!
all prophecy makes itself known to the prophet that it is prophecy indeed; that is, says another of the
Rabbins, By the vigour and liveliness of the perception, whereby he apprehends the thing propounded;
(which Jeremiah intimates when he says, The word of the Lord was as a fire in my bones, Jer. xx. 9.)
and therefore they always spake with great assurance, knowing they should be justified. Isa. 1. 7.
III. That in their prophesying, both in receiving their message from God, and in delivering it to the
people, they always kept possession of their own souls, Dan. x. 8. Though sometimes their bodily
strength was overpowered by the abundance of the revelations, and their eyes dazzled with the visionary
light, as in the instances of Daniel and John, (Rev. i. 17.) yet still their understanding remained with
them, and the free exercise of their reason. This is excellently well expressed by a learned writer cf
our own;}: “ The prophetical Spirit, seating itself in the rational powers, as well as in the imagination,
did never alienate the mind, but inform and enlighten it; and they that were actuated bv it, alwavs mair-
t lined a clearness and consistency of reason, with strength and solidity rf judgment. For,” (says lie after
w',rds,§) “ God did not make use of idiots or fools to reveal his will by, but such whose intellectuals were
entire and perfect; and he imprinted such a clear copy of his truth upon them, as that it became then
own sense, being digested fully into their understandings, so that they were able to deliver and represent
: toothers, as truly as any can point forth his own thoughts.” God’s messengers were speaking men,
•tot speaking trumpets.
* Sec Mr. Smith of Prophecy. * 'Jemara Schnb. r. 2. t Smith of Prophecy, p. 190. $ Pag. 26G.
Vol. iv. — B
PREFACE.
The Fathers frequently took notice of this difference between the prophets of the Lord and the false
prophets — that the pretenders to prophecy (who either were actuated by an evil spirit, or were under
the force of a heated imagination) underwent alienations of mind, and delivered what they had to say ir.
the utmost agitation and disorder, as the Pythian prophetess, who delivered her infernal oracles witl.
many antic gestures, tearing her hair, and foaming at the mouth. And by this rule they condemned the
Montanists, who pretended to prophecy, in the second century, that what they said was in a way of ec-
stacy, not like rational men, but like men in a frenzy. Chrysostom,* having described the furious, violent
motions of the pretenders to prophecy, adds, 'O Si n^<p»Ti); ii#: — A true prophet does not do so, Sed
mcnte sobrid, isf constanti animi statu, ist intelligens qure profert, omnia jironunciat — He understands
what be utters , and utters it soberly and calmly. And Jerom, in his preface to his Commentaries upi n
Nahum, observes, that it is called the book of the vision of Nahum; Non enim loquitur h sko-t d?u, sect est
liber intelligentis omnia quee loquitur — For he speaks not in an ecstacy, but as one who understands every
thing he says. And again,! JVon ut amens loquitur propheta, nec in tnorem insanientium fsminarum
d at sine mente sonum — The prophet speaks not as an insane person , nor, like women wrought into a fury,
does he utter sound nvithout sense.
IV. That they all aimed at one and the same thing, which was, to bring people to repent of their sins,
and to return to God, and to do their duty to him. This was the errand on which all God’s messengers
were sent, to beat down sin, and to revive and advance serious piety; the burthen of every song was,
Turn ye now every one from his evil way ; amend your ways and your doings, and execute judgment
between a man and his neighbour, Jer. vii. 3, 5. See Zech. vii. 8, 9. — viii. 16. The scope and design
of all their prophecies were, to enforce the precepts and sanctions of the law of Moses, the moral law,
which is of universal and perpetual obligation. Here is nothing of the ceremonial institutes, of the carnal
ordinances, that were imposed only till the times of reformation, Heb. ix. 10. These were now waxing
old, and ready to vanish away; but they make it their business to press the great and weighty matters of
the law, judgment, mercy, and truth.
V. That they all bare witness to Jesus Christ, and had an eye to him. God’s raising up the horn of sal¬
vation for us, in the house of his servant David, was consonant to, and in pursuance of, what he spake by
the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began, Luke i. 69, "0. They prophesied
of the grace that should come to us, and it was the Spirit of Christ in them, one and the same Spirit, that
testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow, 1 Pet. i. 10, 11. Christ
was then made known, and yet comparatively hid, in the predictions of the prophets, as before in the
types of the ceremonial law. And the learned HuetiusJ observes it as really admirable, that so many
persons in different ages, should conspire with one consent, as it were, to foretell, some one particular,
and others another, concerning Christ, all which had, at length, their full accomplishment in him. Ab
ipsis mundi incunabulis, per quatuor annorum millia, uno ore venturum Christum priedixerunt viri
complures, in ejusque ortu, vita, virtutibus, rebus gestis, morte, ac Iota denique 0’nu.v.ui* prxmonstranda
consenserunt — From the earliest period of time for 4000 years, a great number of men have predicted
the advent of Christ, and presented an harmonious statement of his birth, life, character, act ons, and
death , and of that economy which he came to establish.
VI. That these prophets were generally hated and abused in their several generations bv those that
lived with them. Stephen challenges his judges to produce an instance to the contrary; fThich of the
'irophets have not your fathers persecuted? Yea, and, as it should seem, for this reason, because they
showed before of the coming of the Just One, Acts vii. 52. Some there were, that trembled at the word
of God in their mouths, but by the most they were ridiculed and despised, and (as ministers are now bv
profane people) made a jest of; (Hos. ix. 7.) the prophet was the fool in the play. Wherefore came this
mad fellow unto thee? (2 Kings ix. 11.) said one of the captains concerning one of the sons of the prophets!
The Gentiles never treated their false prophets so ill as the Jews did their true prophets, but, on the
contrary, had them always in veneration. The Jews’ mocking of the messengers of the Lord, killing of
the prophets, and stoning of them that were sent unto them, was as amazing, unaccc untable an instance of
the enmity that is in the carnal mind against God, as any that can be produced. And this makes their
rejection of Christ’s gospel the less strange, that the Spirit of prophecy, which, for many ages, was so
much the glory of Israel, in every age met with so much opposition, and there were those that always
resisted the Holy Ghost in the prophets, and turned that glory into shame, Acts vii. 51. But this was it
that was the measure-filling sin of Israel, that brought upon them both their first destruction by the Chal
deans, and their final ruin by the Romans, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 16.
VII. That though men slighted these prophets, God owned them, and put honour upon them. As
they were men of God, his immediate servants, and his messengers, so he always showed himself the
I.ord God of the holy prophets, (Rev. xxii. 6.) stood by them and strengthened them, and by his Spirit
they were full of power; and those that slighted them, when they had lost them, were made to know, to
their confusion, that a prophet had been among them. What was said < f one of the primitive fathers of
the prophets, was true of them all, The Lord was with them, and did let none of their words fall to the
ground, 1 Sam. iii. 19. What they said by way of warning and encouragement, for the enforcing of their
calls to repentance and reformation, was to be understood cenditionallv. When God spake by them
either, on the one hand, to build and to plant, or, on the other hand, to pluck up and pull down, the
change of the people’s way might produce a change of God’s way, (Jer. xviii. 7 — 10.) such was Jois h’s
prophecy of Nineveh’s min within forty days; or God might sometimes be better than his word in grant¬
ing a reprieve. But what they said by way of prediction of a particular matter, and ; s a sign, did always
come to pass exactly as it was foretold; yea, and the general predictions, sooner or later, took hold even
of those that would fain have got clear of them; (Zech. i. 6. ) for this is that which God glories in, that hr
confirms the word of his servants, and performs the counsel of his messengers, Isa. xliv. 26.
In opening these prophecies, I have endeavoured to give the genuine sense of them, as f ir as I could
reach it, by consulting the best expositors, considering the scope and coherence, and comparing spiritual
tilings with spiritual, the spiritual things of the Old Testament with those of the New, and especially bv
prayer to God for the conduct and direction of the Spirit of truth. But, after all, there are many things
here dark and hard to be understood, concerning the certain meaning of which though 1 could irt gain
myself, much less expect to give my reader, full satisfaction, yet I have n- 1, with the unlearned and tin
* In 1 Cor. xii. 1. f Prolog, in Tiabac. J Deir.onstrat. Evnng. |>. 737
PREFACE.
xi
stable, wrested them to the destruction of any, 2 Pet. iii. 16. It is the prerogative of the Lamb of God to
take this book, and to open all its seals. I have likewise endeavoured to accommodate these prophecies
to the use and service of those who desire to read the scripture, net only with understanding, hut with
pious affections, and to their edification in faith and holiness. And we shall find that whatever is given
by the inspiration of God is profitable, (2 Tim. iii. 16.) though not all alike profitable, nor all alike easy
or improvable; but when the mystery of God shall be finished, we shall see what we are now bound to
believe, that there is not one idle word in all the prophecies of this book. What God has said, as well as
what he does, we know not now, but we shall know hereafter.
The pleasure I have had in studying and meditating upon those parts of these prophecies which arc-
plain and practical, and especially those which are evangelical, has been an abundant balance to, and re¬
compense for, the harder tasks we have met with in other parts that are more obscure. In many parts
of this field, the treasure must be digged for, as that in the mines; but in other parts the surface is covered
with rich and precious products, with corn, and flocks, of which we may say, as we said of Noah, These
same have comforted us greatly concerning our work, and the toil of our hands, and have made it verv
pleasant and delightful; God grant it may be no less so to the readers!
And now let me desire the assistance of my friends, in setting up my Eben-Ezer here, in a thankful
acknowledgment that hitherto the Lord has helped me. I desire to praise God that he lias spared mv
life to finish the Old Testament, and has graciously given me some tokens of his presence with me in car
rying on of this work; though, the more I reflect upon myself, the more unworthy I see myself of the
honour of being thus employed, and the more need I see of Christ and his merit and grace. Remember
me, 0 my God, for good, and spare me according to the multitude of thy mercies. The Lord forgive
what is mine, and accept what is his own !
I purpose, if God continue my life and health, according to the measure of the grace given to me, and
in a constant and entire dependence upon divine strength, to go through the New Testament in twe
volumes more. I intimated in my preface to the first volume, that I had drawn up some expositions upor.
some parts of the New Testament; namely , The gospels of St. Matthew and St. John; but they are so
large, that to make them bear some proportion to the rest, it is necessary that they be much contracted,
so that I shall be obliged to write them all over again, and to make considerable alterations, and therefore
I cannot expect they should be published but as these hitherto have been, if God permit, a volume every
other year. I shall begin it now shortly, if the Lord will, and apply myself to it as closely as I can; and
I earnestly desire the prayers of all that wish well to the undertaking, that if the Lord spare me to go on
with it, I may be enabled to do it well, and so as that by it some may be led into the riches of the full as¬
surance of understanding in the mystery of God, even of the Father, and of Christ, Col. li. 2. And if
it shall please God to remove me by death before it is finished, I trust I shall be able to say not only.
Welcome his blessed will, but, Welcome that blessed world, in which, though now we know but in part
and prophesy but in part, that knowledge which is perfect will come, and that which is partial, will b-
done away; (1 Cor. xiii. 8. — 10, 12.) in which all our mistakes will be rectified, all our doubts resolved
all our deficiences made up, all our endeavours in preaching, catechizing, and expounding, supersedec
and rendered useless, and all our prayers swallowed up in everlasting praises; in which, prophecy, now
so much admired, shall fail, and tongues shall cease; and the knowledge we have now, shall vanish away,
as the light of the morning-star does when the sun is risen; in which we shall no longer see through a
glass darkly, but face to face. In a believing, comfortable, well-grounded expectation of that true and
perfect light, I desire to continue, living and dying; in a humble and diligent preparation for it, let me
spend my time, and in the full enjoyment of it, O that I may spend a glorious eternity !
Jult 18, 1712.
M. H
AN
EXPOSITION,
WITH
PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS,
OF THE
BOOK OF THE PROPHET
ISAIAH.
Prophet is a title that sounds very great to those who understand it, though, in the eye of the world,
many of those who were dignified with it, appeared very mean. A prophet is one who has a great in¬
timacy with Heaven, and a great interest there, and, consequently, a commanding authority upon earth.
Prophecy is put for all divine revelation, (2 Pet. i. 20, 21.) because that was most commonly, by
dreams, voices, or visions, communicated to prophets first, and by them to the children of men, Numb,
xii. 6. Once indeed God himself spake to all the thousands of Israel, from the top of Mount Sinai; but
it was so intolerably dreadful, that they entreated God would, for the future, speak to them as he had
done before, by men like themselves, whose terror should not make them afraid, nor their hands be
heavy ufion them. Job xxxiii. 7. God approved the motion; They have well said; (says he, Deut. v
27, 28. ) and the matter was then settled by consent of parties, that we must never expect to hear from
God any more in that way, but by prophets, who received their instructions immediately from God,
with a charge to deliver them to his church. Before the sacred canon of the Old Testament began to
be written, there were prophets, who were instead of Bibles to the church. Our Saviour seems to
reckon Abel among the prophets, Matth. xxiii. 31, 35. Enoch was a prophet; and by him that was
first in prediction, which is to be last in execution — the judgment of the great day; (Jude 14.) Behold,
the Lord comes with his holy myriads. Noah was a preacher of righteousness. God said of Abraham,
He is a firofihet, Gen. xx. 7. Jacob foretold things to come, Gen. xlix. 1. Nay, all the patriarchs are
called firofihets; (Ps. cv. 15.) Do my firofihets no harm. Moses was, beyond all comparison, the most
illustrious of all the Old Testament prophets, for with him the Lord sfiake face to face, Deut. xxxiv.
10. He was the first writing prophet, and by his hand the first foundations of holy writ were laid; even
those who were called to be his assistants in the government, had the Spirit of prophecy, such a plenti¬
ful effusion was there of that Spirit at that time, Numb. xi. 25. But after the death of Moses, for some
ages, the Spirit of the Lord appeared and acted in the church of Israel more as a martial Spirit, than as
a Spirit of prophecy, and inspired men more for acting than speaking; I mean, in the time of the Judges.
We find the Spirit of the Lord coming upon Othniel, Gideon, Samson, and others, for the service of
their country, with their swords, not with their pens; messages were then sent from heaven by angels,
as to Gideon and Manoah, and to the people, Judges ii. 1. In all the book of Judges there is never once
mention of a prophet, only Deborah is called a prophetess; then the word of the Lord was precious,
there was no open vision, 1 Sam. iii. 1. They had the law of Moses, recently written; let them study
that. But in Samuel prophecy revived, and in him a famous epocha, or period, of the church began;
a time of great light in a constant uninterrupted succession of prophets, till some time after the captivity,
when the canon of the Old Testament was completed in Malachi; and then prophecy ceased for near
400 years, till the coming of the great Prophet and his forerunner. Some prophets were divinely in¬
spired to write the histories of the church; but they did not put their names to their writings, thev only
referred themselves for proof to the authentic records of those times, which were known to be drawn
up by prophets, as Gad, Iddo, &c. David and others were prophets, to write sacred songs for the use
of the church. After them, we often read of prophets, sent on particular errands, and raised up for
special public services; among whom the most famous were Elijah and Elisha in the kingdom of Israel
but none of these put their prophecies in writing, nor have we any remains of them but some fragments
in the histories of their times; there was nothing of their own writing, (that I remember,) but one epis¬
tle of Elijah’s, 2 Chron. xxi. 12. But toward the latter end of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel, it
pleased God to direct his servants the prophets, to write and publish some of their sermons, or abstracts
of them. The dates of many of their prophecies are uncertain, but the earliest of them was in the days
of Uzziah king of Judah, and Jeroboam the second, his contemporary, king of Israel, about 200 years
before the captivity, and not long after Joash had slain Zechariah the son of Jehoiada, in the courts of
the temple. If they begin to murder the prophets, yet they shall not murder their prophecies; they
shall remain as witnesses against them. Hosea was the first of the writing prophets; and Joel, Amos,
and Obadiah published their prophecies about the same time. Isaiah began some time after, and not
long; but his prophecy is placed first, because it is the largest of them all, and has most in it of Him to
whom all the prophets bare witness; and indeed, so much of Christ, that he is justly styled the F.van-
14
ISAIAH, 1.
gelical Prophet, and by some of the ancients, a fifth Evangelist. We shall have the general title of
this book, v. 1. and therefore shall here only observe some things,
I. Concerning the prophet himself; he was (if we may believe the tradition of the Jews) of the roj J
family, his father being (they say) brother to king Uzziah: however, he was much at court, especially
in Hezekiah’s time, as we find in his story; to which many think it is owing that his style is more cu¬
rious and polite than that of some other of the prophets, and, in some places, exceedingly lofty and
soaring. The Spirit of God sometimes served his own purpose by the particular genius of the prophet;
for prophets were not speaking trumpets through which the Spirit spake, but speaking otto, by whom
the Spirit spake, making use of their natural powers, in respect both of light and flame, and advancing
them above themselves.
II. Concerning the prophecy; it is transcendently excellent and useful; it was so to the church of God
then, serving for conviction of sin, direction in duty, and consolation in trouble. Two great distresses
of the church are here referred to, and comfort prescribed in reference to them; That by Sennacherib’s
invasion, which happened in his own time, and that of the captivity in Babylon, which happened lone
after; in the supports and encouragements laid up for each of these times of need we find abundance of
the grace of the gospel. There are not so many quotations in the gospels out of any, perhaps not out
of all, the prophecies of the Old Testament, as out of this; nor such express testimonies concerning
Christ; witness that of his being bom of a virgin, (ch. 7. ) and that of his sufferings, ch. 53. The begin¬
ning of this book abounds most with reproofs for sin, and threatenings of judgment; the latter end of it
is full of good words and comfortable words; this method the Spirit of Christ took formerly in the pro¬
phets, and does still; first to convince, and then to comfort; and those who would be blessed with the
comforts, must submit to the convictions. Doubtless, Isaiah preached many sermons, and delivered
many messages, to the people, which are not written in this book, as Christ did; and, probably, these
sermons were delivered more largely and fully than they are here related: but so much is left on record
as Infinite Wisdom thought fit to convey to us on whom the ends of the world are come; and these pro¬
phecies, as well as the histories of Christ, are written, that we might believe on the name of the Son oj
God , and that, believing, we might have life through his name; fir to us is the gospel here preached, as
well as unto them who lived then, and more clearly. O that it may be mixed with faith!
ISAIAH.
CHAP. I.
The first verse of this chapter is intended for a title to the
whole book, and it is probable that this was the first ser¬
mon that this prophet was appointed to publish, and to af¬
fix in writing (as Calvin thinks the custom of the prophets
was] to the door of the temple, as with us proclamations
are nxed to public places, that all might read them; ( Hab.
ii. 2.) and those who would, might take out authentic
copies of them; the original being, after some time, laid
up by the priests among the records of the temple. The
sermon which is contained in this chapter has in it, I. A ;
high charge exhibited, in God’s name, against the Jewish j
church and nation : l. For their ingratitude, v. 2, 3. 2. |
For their incorrigibleness, v. 5. 3. For the universal
corruption and degeneracy of the people, v. 4, 6, 21, 22.
4. For the perversion of justice by their rulers, v. 23. II.
A sad complaint of the judgments of God, which they
had brought upon themselves by their sins, and by which
they were brought almost to utter ruin, v. 7. .9. III. A
just rejection of those shows and shadows of religion,
which they kept up among them, notwithstanding this
general defection and apostasy, v. 10 . . 15. IV. An
earnest call to repentance and reformation, setting be¬
fore them life and death; life if they complied with the
call, and death, if they did not, v. 16. . 20. V. A threat¬
ening of ruin to those who would not be reformed, v. 24,
28. . 31. VI. A promise of a happy reformation at last,
and a return to their primitive purity and prosperity, v.
25 . . 27. And all this is to be applied by us, not only to
the communities we are members of, in their public in¬
terests, but to the state of our own souls.
1 . fTVHE vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz,
I which he saw concerning Judah and
Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham,
Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
Here is, 1. The name of the prophet, Isaiah; or
Jesahiahu, for so it is in the Hebrew; which, in the
New Testament, is read Esaias. His name signi¬
fies, the salvation of the Lord. A proper name for
a prophet by whom God gives knowledge of salva¬
tion to his people, especially for this prophet, who
prophesies so much of Jesus the Saviour, and the
great salvation wrought out by him. He is said to
be the son of Amoz; not Amos the prophet, the two
names in the Hebrew differ more than in the Eng¬
lish; but, as the Jews think, of Amoz the brother,
or son, of Amaziah king of Judah; a tradition as un¬
certain as that rule which they give, That where a
prophet’s father is named, he also was himself a
prophet. The prophets, pupils and successors, are
indeed often called their sons, but we have few in¬
stances, if any, of their own sons being their succes¬
sors.
2. The nature of the prophecy; it is a vision, be¬
ing revealed to him in a vision, when he was awake,
and heard the words of God, and saw the visions of
the Almighty, as Balaam speaks, (Numb. xxiv. 4. )
though perhaps it was not so illustrious a vision at
first, as that afterwards, ch. vi. 1. The prophets
were called seers, or seeing-men, and therefore theii
prophecies are fitly called visions. It was what he
saw with the eyes of his mind, and foresaw as clear¬
ly by divine revelation, was as well assured of it, as
fully apprised of it, and as much affected with it, as
if he had seen it with his bodily eyes. Note, (1.)
God’s prophets saw what they spake of, knew what
they said, and require our belief of nothing but what
they themselves believed and were sure of, John vi.
69. — 1 John i. 1. (2.) They could not but speak
what they saw; because they saw how much all
about them were concerned jn it, Acts iv. 20. — 2
Cor. iv. 13.
3. The subject of the prophecy; it was what he
saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, the country
of the two tribes, and that city which was their me¬
tropolis; and there is little in it relating to Ephraim,
or the ten tribes, of whom there is so much in the
prophecy of Hosea. Some chapters there are in
this book, which relate to Babylon, Egypt, Tvre,
and some other neighbouring nations; but it takes
its title from that which is the main substance of it,
and it is therefore said to be concerning Judah and
Jerusalem; the other nations spoken of are such as
the people of the Jews had concerns with. Isaiah
brings to them in aspecial manner, (1.) Instruction,
for it is the privilege of Judah and Jerusalem, that to
them pertain the oracles of God. (2.) Reproof and
threatening; for if in Judah, where God is known,
if in Salem, where his name is great, iniquity be
found, they, sooner than any other, shall be reckon¬
ed with for it. (3.) Comfort and encouragement in
evil times; for the children of Zion shall be joyr il
in their king.
ISAIAH, I. lb
4. The date of the prophecy; he prophesied in
the days of Uzziah , Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah.
jiy this it appears, (1. ) That he prophesied long;
especially if (as the Jews say) he was at last put to
death by Manasseh, to a cruel death, being sawn
asunder; to which some suppose the apostle refers,
Heb. xi. 37. From the year that king Uzziah died,
[eh. vi. 1.) to Hezekiah’s sickness and recovery,
was 47 years; how much before, and after, he pro¬
phesied, is not certain; some reckon 60, and others
80 years in all. It was an honour to him, and a
happiness to his country, that he was continued so
long in, his usefulness: and we must suppose both
that he began young, and that he held out to old
age; for the prophets were not tied, as the priests
were, to a certain age, for the beginning or ending
of their ministration. (2.) That he passed through
a variety of times. Jotham was a good king, and
Hezekiah a better, who, no doubt, gave encourage¬
ment to, and took advice from, this prophet, were
atrons to him, and he privy-counsellor to them;
ut between them, and when Isaiah was in the
prime of his time, the reign of Ahaz was very pro¬
fane and wicked; then, no doubt, he was frowned
upon at court, and, it is likely, forced to abscond;
good men and good ministers must expect bad
times in this world, and prepare for them. Then
religion was run down to that degree, that the doors
of the house of the Lord were shut up, and idola¬
trous altars were erected in every corner of Jerusa¬
lem; and Isaiah, with all his divine eloquence and
messages immediately from God himself, could not
help it The best men, the best ministers, cannot
do the good they would do in the world.
2. Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O
earth ; for the Lord hath spoken : 1 have
nourished and brought up children, and they
have rebelled against me : 3. The ox know-
eth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib:
but Israel doth not know, my people doth
not consider. 4. Ah, sinful nation, a people
laden with iniquity, a seed of evil-doers,
children that are corrupters! they have for¬
saken the Lord, they have provoked the
Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are
gone away backward. 5. Why should ye
be stricken any more? ye will revolt more
and more. The whole head is sick, and
the whole heart faint 6. From the sole of
the foot even unto the head there is no
soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises,
and putrefying sores : they have not been
closed, neither bound up, neither mollified
with ointment 7. Your country is desolate,
your cities are burnt with fire : your land,
strangers devour it in your presence, and it
is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. 8.
And the daughter of Zion is left as a cot¬
tage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden
of cucumbers, as a besieged city. 9. Ex¬
cept the Lord of hosts had left unto us a
very small remnant, we should have been
as Sodom, and we should have been like
unto Gomorrah.
We will hope to meet with a bl ighter and more
leasant scene before we come to the end of this
ook ; but truly here, in the beginning of it, every
thing looks very bad, very black, with Judah and
Jerusalem. What is the wilderness of the world,
if the church, the vineyard, have such a dismal as¬
pect as this?
I. The prophet, though he speaks in God’s name,
yet, despairing to gain audience with the children
of his people, addresses himself to the heavens and
the earth, and bespeaks their attention; [v. i. )
Hear, O heavens, and give ear, 0 earth! Sooner
will the inanimate creatures hear, who observe the
law, and answer the end of their creation, than this
stupid senseless people. Let the lights of heaven
shame their darkness, and the fruitfulness of the
earth their barrenness, and the strictness of each t<
its time, their irregularity. Moses begins thus
(Deut. xxxii. 1.) to which the prophet here refers
intimating, that now those times were come, which
Moses there foretold, Deut. xxxi. 29. Or this is
an appeal to heaven and earth, to angels, and then
to the inhabitants of the upper and lower world; let
them judge between God and his vineyard: can
either produce such an instance of ingratitude? Note,
God will be justified when he speaks, and both hea¬
ven and earth shall declare his righteousness, Mic.
vi. 2. Ps. 1. 6.
II. He charges them with base ingratitude, a
crime of the highest nature: call a man ungrateful,
and you can call him no worse: let heaven and
earth hear, and wonder at, 1. God’s gracious deal¬
ings with a peevish provoking people as they were;
“ I have nourished and brought them up as chil¬
dren; they have been well fed and well taught;”
(Deut. xxxii. 6.) “I have magnified and exalted
them:” (so some;) “not only made them grow, but
made them great; not only maintained them, but
preferred them; not only trained them up, but rais¬
ed them high.” Note, We owe the continuance of
our lives, and comforts, and all our advancements,
to God’s fatherly care of us and kindness to us.
2. Their ill-natured conduct toward him, who was
so tender of chem; “ They have rebelled against
me;” or (as some read it) “ they have revolted from
me; they have been deserters, nay, traitors, against
my crown and dignity.” Note, all the instances of
God’s favour to us, as the God both of our nature
and of our nurture, aggravate our treacherous de¬
partures from him, and all our presumptuous oppo¬
sitions to him : children, and yet rebels!
III. He attributes this to their ignorance and in¬
consideration: (tt 3.) The ox knows, but Israel does
not. Observe, 1. The sagacity of the ox and the
ass, which are not only brute creatures, but of the
dullest sort: yet the ox has such a sense of duty, as
to know his owner, and to serve him, to submit to
his yoke, and to draw in it; the ass has such a sense
of interest, as to know his master’s crib or manger,
where he is fed, and to abide by it; he will go to
that of himself, if he is turned loose. A fine pass
man is come to, when he is shamed even in know¬
ledge and understanding by these silly animals; and
is not only sent to school to them, (Prov. vi. 6, 7.)
but set in a form below them, (Jer. viii. 7.) taught
more than the beasts of the earth, (Job xxxv. 11.)
and yet knowing less. 2. The sottishness and stu¬
pidity of Israel. God is their Owner and Proprie¬
tor; he made us, and his we are, more than our cat¬
tle are ours; he has provided well for us; providence
is our M ister’s crib: yet many that are called the
people of God, do not know, and will not consider
this; but ask, “ What is the Almighty, that we
should serve him? He is not our owner; and what
profit shall we have if we pray unto him? He has
no crib for us to feed at.” He had complained (v.
2. ) of the obstinacy of their wills; They have rebelled
against me; here he runs it up to its cause; “ There
fore they have rebelled, because they do not know,
they do not consider.” The understanding is dark
16
ISAIAH, I.
ened, and therefore the whole soul is alienated from
the life of God, Eph. iv. 18. Israel does not know,
though their land was a land of light and know¬
ledge; in Judah is God known, yet, because they
do not live up to what they know, it is, in effect, as
if they did not know. They know; but their know¬
ledge does them no good, because they do not con¬
sider what they know; they do not apply it to
their case, nor their minds to it. Note, (1.) Even
among those that profess themselves G<xl’s people,
that have the advantages, and lie under the engage¬
ments, of his people, there are many that are very
careless in the affairs of their souls. (2.) Inconsi¬
deration of what we do know, is as great an enemy
to us in religion as ignorance of what we should
know. (3.) Therefore men revolt from God, and
rebel against him, because they do not know and
consider their obligations to God, in duty, gratitude,
and interest.
IV. He laments the universal pravity and cor¬
ruption of their church and kingdom ; the disease
of sin was epidemical, and all orders and degrees
of men were infected with it; Ah, sinful nation! v. 4.
The prophet bemoans those that would not bemoan
themselves; Alas for them, wo to them ! He speaks
with a holy indignation at their degeneracy, and a
dread of the consequences of it. See here,
1. How he aggravates their sin, and shows the
malignity that there was in it, v. 4. ( 1. ) The wick¬
edness was universal; they were a sinful nation, the
generality of the people were vicious and profane;
they were so in their national capacity, in the ma¬
nagement of their public treaties abroad, and in the
administration of public justice at home, they Were
corrupt. Note, It is ill with a people when sin be¬
comes national. (2.) It was very great and heinous
in its nature. They were laden with iniquity; the
guilt of it, and the curse incurred by that guilt, lay
very heavy upon them; it was a heavy charge that
was exhibited against them, which they could never
clear themselves from; their wickedness was upon
them as a talent of lead, Zech. v. 7, 8. And their
sin, as it did easily beset them, and they were prone
to it, was a weight upon them, Heb. xii. 1. (3.)
They came of a bad stock, they were a seed of evil¬
doers; treachery ran in the blood, they had it by
kind, which made the matter so much the worse,
more provoking and less curable; they rose up in
their fathers’ stead, and trod in their fathers’ steps,
to fill ufi the measure of their iniquity; (Numb,
xxxii. 14. ) they were a race and family of rebels.
(4.) They were themselves debauched, did what
they could to debauch others; they are not only cor¬
rupt children, bom tainted, but children that are
corrupters, that propagate vice, and infect others
with it; not only sinners, but tempters, not only ac¬
tuated by Satan, but agents for him. If those that
are called children, God’s children, that are looked
upon as belonging to his family, be wicked and vile,
their example is of the most malignant influence.
5.) Their sin was a treacherous departure from
Jod, they were deserters from their allegiance;
They have forsaken the Lord, to whom they had
joined themselves; they are gone away backward;
are alienated or separated from God, have turned
the back upon him, deserted their colours, and quit¬
ted their service; when they were urged forward,
they ran backward, as a bullock unaccustomed to
the yoke, Hos. iv. 16. (6. ) It was an impudent and
daring defiance of him; They have provoked the
Holy One of Israel tinto anger, wilfully and design¬
edly; they knew what would anger him, and that
they did. Note, The backslidingsof those that have
professed religion, and relation to God, are in a spe
cial manner provoking to him.
2. How he illustrates it by a comparison taken
from a sick and diseased body, all overspread with
leprosy, or, like Job’s, with sore boils, v. 5, 6. (1.)
The distemper has seized the vitals, and so threat¬
ens to be mortal. Diseases in the head and heart
are most dangerous; now the head, the whole head,
is sick, the heart, the whole heart, is faint; they
were become corrupt in their judgment, the leprosy
was in their head, they were utterly unclean; their
affection to God and religion was cold and gone; the
things which remained were ready to die away,
Rev. iii. 2. (2.) It has overspread the whole body,
and so becomes exceedingly noisome; From the salt
of the foot even unto the head, from the meanest
peasant to the greatest peer, there is no soundness,
no good principles, no religion, (for that is the
health of the soul,) nothing but wounds and bruises,
guilt and corruption, the sad effects of Adam’s fall;
noisome to the holy God, painful to the sensible
soul; they were so to David, when he complained,
(Ps. xxxviii. 5.) My wounds stink, and are corrupt,
because of my foolishness, Ps. xxxii. 3, 4. No at¬
tempts were made for reformation, or, if they were,
they proved ineffectual; The wounds have not been
closed, nor bound up, nor mollified with ointment.
While sin remains unrepented of, the wounds are
unsearched, unwashed, the proud flesh in them not
cut out, and while consequently, it remains unpar¬
doned, the wounds are not mollified or closed up,
nor any thing done toward the healing of them, and
the preventing of their fatal consequences.
V. He sadly bewails the judgments of God, which
they had brought upon themselves by their sins, and
their incorrigibleness under those judgments.
1. Their kingdom was almost ruined, v. 7. So
miserable were they, that both their towns and their
lands were wasted, and yet so stupid, that they
needed to be told this, and to have it showed them;
“Look, and see how it is; your country is desolate,
the ground is not cultivated, for want of inhabitants,
the villages being deserted, Judg. v. 7. And thus
the fields and vineyards become like deserts, ail
grown over with thorns ; (Prov. xxiv. 31.) your ci¬
ties are burned with fire, by the enemies that invade
you;” (fire and sword commonly go together;) “ as
for the fruits of your land, which should be food
for your families, strangers devour them; and, to
your greater vexation, it is before your eyes, and
you cannot prevent it; you starve, while your ene¬
mies surfeit on that which should be your mainte¬
nance. The overthrow of your country is as the
overthrow of strangers; it is used by the invaders
as one might expect it should be used by stran¬
gers.” — Jerusalem itself, which was as the daugh¬
ter of Zion; (the temple built on Zion was a mother,
a nursing mother, to Jerusalem ;) or Zion itself, the
holy mountain, which had been dear to God as a
daughter, was now lost, deserted, and exposed, as a
cottage in a vineyard, which, when the vintage is
over, nobody dwells in, or takes any care of, and
looks as mean and despicable as a lodge, or hut,
in a garden of cucumbers; and every person is afraid
of coming near it, and solicitous to remove his ef¬
fects out of it, as if it were a besieged city, v. 8.
And some think it is the calamitous state of the
kingdom, that is represented by a diseased body, v
6. Probably, this sermon was preached in the reign
of Ahaz, when Judah was invaded by the kings of
Syria and Israel, the Edomites, and the Philistines,
who slew many, and carried many away into cap¬
tivity, 2 Chron. xxviii. 5, 17, 18. Note, National
impiety and immorality bring national desolation.
Canaan, the glory of all lands, mount Zion, the
joy of the whole earth, both became a reproach
and a ruin; and sin made them so, that great mia-
chief-maker.
2. Yet they were not at all reformed, and there¬
fore God threatens to take another course with
them; (v. 5.) “ Why should ye be stricken any
ISAIAH, J.
mure, with any expectation of doing you good by it, j
when you increase revolts as your rebukes are in¬
creased? You will revolt more and more, as you
have done;” as Ahaz particularly did, who, in his
distress, trespassed yet more against the Lord, 2
Chron. x’xviii. 22. Thus the physician, when he
sees the patient’s case desperate, troubles him no
more with physic; and the father resolves to cor¬
rect his child no more, when, finding him hardened,
ne determines to disinherit him. Note, (1.) There
are those who are made worse by the methods God
takes to make them better; the more they are
stricken, the more they revolt; their corruptions,
instead of being mortified, are irritated and exas-
erated, by their afflictions, and their hearts more
ardened. (2. ) God sometimes, in a way of righ¬
teous judgment, ceases to correct those who have
been long incorrigible, and whom therefore he de¬
signs to destroy. The reprobate silver shall be cast,
not into the furnace, but to the dunghill, Jer. vi. 29,
30. See Ezek. xxiv. 13. Hos. iv. 14. He that is
filthy, let him be filthy still.
VI. He comforts himself with the consideration
of a remnant that should be the monuments of di¬
vine grace and mercy, notwithstanding this general
corruption and desolation, v. 9. See here, 1. How
near they were to an utter extirpation; they were
almost like Sodom and Gomorrah, in respect both
of sin and ruin, grown almost so bad, that there
could not have been found ten righteous men among
them, and almost so miserable, that none had been
left alive, but their country turned into a sulphu¬
reous lake. Divine Justice said, Make them as Ad-
mah, set them as Zeboim; but Mercy said, How shall
I do it? Hos. xi. 8, 9. 2. What it was that saved
them from it; The Lord of hosts left unto them a
very small remnant , that were kept pure from the
i ommon apostacy, and kept safe and alive from the
common calamity. This is quoted by the apostle,
(Rom. ix. 27.) and applied to those few of the Jew¬
ish nation, who, in his time, embraced Christianity,
when the body of the people rejected it, and in
whom the promises made to the fathers were ac¬
complished. Note, (1.) In the worst of times there
is a remnant preserved from iniquity, and reserved
for mercy, as Noah and his family in the deluge,
Lot and his in the destruction of Sodom. Divine
grace triumphs in distinguishing by an act of sove¬
reignty. (2.) This remnant is often a very small
one, in comparison with the vast numbers of revolt¬
ing ruined sinners. Multitude is no mark of the
true church; Christ’s is a little flock. (3.) It is
God’s work to sanctify and save some, when others
are left to perish in their impurity; it is the work
of his power, as the Lord of hosts; except he had
left us that remnant, there had been none left; the
corrupters (x>. 4.) did what they could to debauch
all, and the devourers (to 7.) to destroy all; and
they would have prevailed, if God himself had not
interposed to secure to himself a remnant, who are
bound to give him all the glory. (4.) It is good for
a people that have been saved from utter ruin, to
look back, and see how near they were to it, just
upon the brink of it, to see how much they owed to
a few good men that stood in the gap, and that that
was owing to a good God, who left them these good
men. It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not
consumed.
1 0. Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers
of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our
God, ye people of Gomorrah ; 11. To what
purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices
unto me? saith the Lord : I am full of the
burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed
beasts ; and I delight not in the blood of
Vol. iv — C
bullocks, or of lambs, or of ne- goals. 12.
When ye come to appear before me, who
hath required this at your hand to tread my
courts? 13. Bring no more vain oblations:
incense is an abomination unto me : the
new-moons and sabbaths, the calling of as¬
semblies, I cannot away with : it is iniquity,
even the solemn meeting. 1 4. \ our new-
moons and your appointed feasts my soul
hateth : they are a trouble unto me ; I am
weary to bear them. 15. And when ye spread
forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from
you ; yea, when ye make many prayers I will
not hear : your hands are full of blood.
Here,
I. God calls to them, (but calls in vain,) to hear
his word, v. 10. 1. The title he gives them is very
strange, Ye rulers of Sodom, and Ye people of Go-
morrah. This intimates what a righteous thing it
had been with God to make them like Sodom and
Gomorrah, in respect of ruin; ( v . 9.) because they
had made themselves like Sodom and Gomorrah,
in respect of sin. The men of Sodom were wicked,
and sinners before the Lord exceedingly, (Gen. xiii.
13. ) and so were the men of Judah ; when the rulers
were bad, no wonder the people were so. V ice
overpowered virtue, for it had the rulers, the men
of figure, on its side; and it outpolled it, for it had
the people, the men of number, on its side: the
streams being thus strong, no less a power than that
of the Lord of hosts could secure a remnant, v. 9.
The rulers are boldly attacked here by the prophet,
as rulers of Sodom, for he knew not how to give flat¬
tering titles; the tradition of the Jews is, that for this
he was impeached long after, and put to death, as
having cursed the gods, and spoken evil of the ruler
of his people. 2. "His demand upon them is very-
reasonable; “ Hear the word of the Lord, and give
ear to the law of our God; attend to that which God
has to say to you, and let his word be a law to yrcu.”
The following declaration of dislike to their sacri¬
fices, would be a kind of new law to them; though
really it was but an explication of the old law; but
special regard is to be had to it, as is required to the
like, Ps. 1. 7, 8. “ Hear this, and tremble; hear it,
and take warning.”
II. He justly refuses to hear their prayers and ac¬
cept their services, their sacrifices and burnt-offer¬
ings, the fat and blood of them, (x». 11.) their atten¬
dance in his courts, (y. 12.) their oblations, their
incense, and their solemn assemblies, (v. 13.) their
new-moons, and their appointed feasts, (x>. 14.) their
devoutest addresses; (v. 15.) they are all rejected,
because their hands were full of blood. N ow observe,
1. There are many who are strangers, nay ene¬
mies, to the power of religion, and yet seem very-
zealous for the show and shadow and form of it.
This sinful nation, this seed of evil-doers, these ru¬
lers of Sodom and people of Gomorrah, brought not
to the altars of false gods, (they are not here charged
with that,) but to the altar of the God of Israel,
sacrifices, a multitude of them, as many as the_ law
required, and rather more, not only peace-offerings,
which they themselves had their share of, but burnt-
offerings, which were wholly consumed to the ho¬
nour of God; nor did they bring the torn, and lame,
and sick, but fed beasts, and the fat of them, the
best of the kind: they did not send others to offer
their sacrifices for them, but came themselves tr
appear before God; they observed the instituted
places, not in high-places, or groves, but in God’s
own courts; and the instituted time, the new-moons.
[ and sabbaths, and appointed feasts, none of which.
IK ISAIAH, 1.
they omitted; nay, it should seem, they called ex- !
traordinary assemblies, and held solemn meetings, I
f jr religious worship, beside those that God had ap¬
pointed; vet this was not all, they applied them¬
selves to God not only with their ceremonial observ¬
ances, hut with the moral instances of devotion; they
prayed, they prayed often, made many prayers,
thinking they should be heard for their much speak¬
ing; nay, they were fervent and importunate in
prayer, they spread forth their hands as men in
earnest. Now we should have thought these, and
no doubt they thought themselves, a pious, religious
people; and yet they were far from being so, for,
( 1. ) Their hearts were empty of true devotion ; they
came to aftfiear before God, (v. 12.) to be seen be¬
fore him; so the margin reads it; they rested in the
outside of the duties, they looked no further than to
be seen of men, and went no further than that which
men see. (2. ) Their hands were full of blood; they
were guilty of murder, rapine, and oppression, un¬
der colour of law and justice. The people shed
blood, and the rulers did not punish them for it; the
rulers shed blood, and the people were aiding and
abetting, as the elders of Jezreel were to Jezebel in
shedding Naboth’s blood. Malice is heart-murder,
in the account of God; he that hates his brother in
his heart, has, in effect, his hands full of blood.
2. When sinners are under the judgments of God,
they will more easily be brought to fly to their de¬
votions, than to forsake their sins, and reform their
lives. Their country was now desolate, and their
cities burnt; ( v. 7.) and this awakened them to
bring their sacrifices and offerings to God more con¬
stantly than they had done, as if they would bribe
God Almighty to remove the punishment, and give
them leave to go on in the sin. When he slew them,
then they sought him, Ps. lxxviii. 34. Lord, in
trouble have they visited thee, ch. xxvi. 16. Many
that will readily part with their sacrifices, will not
be persuaded to part with their sins.
3. The most pompous and costly devotions of
wicked people, without a thorough reformation of
the heart and life, are so far from being acceptable
to God, that really they are an abomination to him.
It is showed here in a great variety of expressions,
that to obey is better than sacrifice ; nay, that sacri¬
fice, without obedience, is a jest, an affront and pro¬
vocation to God. The comparative neglect which
God here expresses of ceremonial observances, was
a tacit intimation of what they would come to at last,
when they would all be done away by the death of
Christ; what was now made little of, would, in due
time, be made nothing of. Sacrifice and offering,
and prayer made in the virtue of that, thou wouldest
not; then said I, Lo, I come. Their sacrifices are
here represented,
(1.) As fruitless and insignificant. To what pur¬
pose is it? v. 11. They are vain oblations, v. 13.
In vain do they worshifi me, Matth. xv. 9. It was
all lost labour, and served not to answer any good
intention; for, [4. ] It was not looked upon as any act
of duty or obedience to God; Who has required these
things at your hands? v. 12. Not that God disowns
nis institutions, or refuses to stand by his own war¬
rants; but in what they did they hail not an eve to
Him that required it, nor indeed did he require it
of them, whose hands were full of blood, and who
continued impenitent. [2.] It did not recommend
them to God’s favour; he delighted not in the blood
of their sacrifices, for he did not look upon himself
as honoured by it. [3.] It would not obtain any re¬
lief for them. They pray, but God will not hear,
because they regard iniquity; (Ps. lxvi. 18.) he
would not deliver them, for though they make many
prayers, none of them came from an upright heart.
All their religious services turned to no account to
them. Nay, ||
(2. ; As odious and offensive, God did not only •’Ot
accept them, but he did detest and abhor them.
“They are your sacrifices, they are none of mine;
I am full of them, even surfeited with them.” He
needed them not, (Ps. 1. 10.) did not desire them,
had had enough of them, and more than enough.
Their coming into his courts he calls treading them,
or trampling upon them, their very attendance on
his ordinances was construed into a contempt ot
them. Their incense, though ever so fragrant, was
an abomination to him, for it was burnt ir. hypocrisy,
and with an ill design. Their solemn assemblies h<
could not away with, could not see them with an)
patience, nor bear the affront they gave him. Tht
solemn meeting is iniquity; though the thing itself
was not, yet, as they managed it, it was. It is a
vexation, (so some read it,) a provocation, to God,
to have ordinances thus prostituted, not only by
wicked people, but to wicked purposes; “ My soul
hates them, they are a trouble to me, a burthen, an
incumbrance; I am perfectly sick of them, and weary
to bear them.” He is never weary of hearing the
prayers of the upright, but soon weary of the costly
sacrifices of the wicked. He hides his eyes from
their prayers, as that which he has an aversion to,
and is angry at.
All this is to show, [1.] That sin is very hateful
to God, so hateful that it makes even men’s prayers
and their religious services hateful to him. [2.]
That dissembled piety is double iniquity. Hypo¬
crisy in religion is of all things most abominable to
the God of heaven. Jerom applies it to the Jews in
Christ’s time, who pretended a great zeal for the
law and the temple, but made themselves and all
their services abominable to God, by filling their
hands with the blood of Christ and his apostles, and
so filling up the measure of their iniquities.
1 6. Wash you, make you clean ; put away
the evil of your doings from before mine
eyes; cease to do evil ; 1 7. Learn to do well :
seek judgment, relieve the oppressed; judge
the fatherless; plead for the widow. 18.
Come now, let us reason together, saith the
Lord : Though your sins be as scarlet, they
shall be as white as snow; though they be
red like crimson, they shall be as wool. 1 9.
If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat
the good of the land : 20. But if ye refuse
and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the
sword: for the mouth of the Lord hath
spoken it.
Though God has rejected their services as insuffi¬
cient to atone for their sins, while they persisted in
them, yet he does not reject them as in a hopeless
condition; but here calls upon them to forsake their
sins, which hindered the acceptance of their servi¬
ces, and then all would be well. Let them not say
that God picked quarrels with them; no, he pro¬
poses a method of reconciliation. Observe here,
1. A call to repentance and reformation ; “ If you
would have your sacrifices accepted, and your
prayers answered, you must begin your work at the
right end; Be converted to my law,” (so the Chal¬
dee begins this exhortation,) “make conscience of
second-table-duties, else expect net to be accepted
in the acts of your devotion. ” As justice and charity
will never atone for atheism and profaneness, so
prayers and sacrifices will never atone for fraud and
oppression; for righteousness toward men is as much
a branch of pure religion, as religion toward God if
a branch of universal righteousness.
1. They must cease to do evil, must do no more
19
ISAIAH, I.
wrong, shed no more innocent blood; that is the
meaning of washing them, and making them clean,
v. 16. It is not only sorrowing for the sin they had
committed, but breaking of!' the practice of it for the
future, and mortifying all those vicious affections
and dispositions which incline them to it. Sin is
defiling to the soul; our business is to wash ourselves
from it bv repenting of it, and turning from it to
God. We must put away not only that evil of our
doings, which is before the eye of the world, by re¬
fraining from the gross acts of sin, but that which is
before God’s eyes, the roots and habits of sin, that
are in our hearts; those must be crushed and mor¬
tified.
2. They must leant to do well. This was neces¬
sary to the completing of their repentance. Note,
It is not enough that we cease to do evil, but we
must learn to do well. (1.) We must be doing; not
cease to do evil, and then stand idle. (2.) We must
be doing good, the good which the Lord our God re-
uires, and which will turn to a good account. (3. )
Ye must do it well, in a right manner, and for a
right end; and, (4.) We must learn to do well, we
must take pains to get the knowledge of our duty,
be inquisitive concerning it, in care about it, and ac¬
custom ourselves to it, that we may readily turn cur
hands to our work, and become masters of this holy
art of doing well.
He urges them particularly to those instances of
well-doing, wherein they had been defective; to se¬
cond-table-duties; “Seek judgment; inquire what is
right, that ye may do it: be solicitous to be found in
the way of your duty, and do not walk at all adven¬
tures; seek opportunities of doing good. Relieve
the oppressed, those whom you yourselves have op¬
pressed; ease them of their burthens, ch. lviii. 6.
You that have power in your hands, use it for the
relief of those whom others do oppress, for that is
your business; right those that suffer wrong; in a
special manner concern yourselves for the fatherless
and the widow, whom, because they are weak and
helpless, proud men trample upon and abuse; do
you appear for them at the bar, on the bench, as
there is occasion; speak for those that know not how
to speak for themselves, and that have not where¬
withal to gratify you for vour kindness.” Note,
W e are truly honouring God when we are doing
good in the world; and acts of justice and charity are
more pleasing to him than all burnt-offerings and
sacrifices.
II. A demonstration, at the bar of right reason,
of the equity of God’s proceeding with them; “ Come
now, and let us reasoti together; {y. 18.) while your
hands are full of blood, I will have nothing to do
with you, though you bring me a multitude of sacri¬
fices: but if you wash you, and make you clean, you
are welcome todraw nigh to me; come now, and let
us talk the matter over. ” Note, Those, and those
only, that break off their league with sin, shall be
welcome into covenant and communion with God;
he says, Come now, who before God forbade them
his courts. See Jam. iv. 8. Or rather thus; there
were those among them who looked upon them¬
selves as offended by the slights God put upon the
multitude of their sacrifices, as ch. lviii. 3. Where¬
fore have we fasted, (say thev,) and thou seest not ?
They represented God as a hard Master, whom it
was impossible to please; “ Come,” says God, “ let
us debate the matter fairly, and I doubt not but to
m ike it out that my ways are equal, but yours are
unequal.” Ezek. xviii. 25. Note, 1. Religion has
re son on its side: there is all the reason in the world
that we should do as God would have us to do. 2.
The God of heaven condescends to reason the case
with those who contradict him and find fault with
ms proceedings, for he will be justified when he
•‘beaks, Ps. li. 4. The case needs only to be stated,
(as it is here very fairly,) and it will determine it
.self. Gcd shows here upon what terms they stood,
(as he does Ezek. xviii. 21, 24. — xxxiii. 18, 19.)
and then leaves it to them to judge whether thev
were not fair.
(1.) They cannot in reason expect any more than
that, it they repent and reform, they should be re¬
stored to God’s favour, notwithstanding theirformer
provocations; “This you may expect,” says God,
“ and it is very kind; who could have the face to de¬
sire it upon any other terms?” [1.] “ It is very lit¬
tle that is required, only that you be willing and
obedient, that you consent to obey;” so some read
it; “ that you subject your wills to" the will of God,
acquiesce in that, and give up yourselves in all
things to be ruled by him that is infinitely wise and
good.” Hereisnopenance imposed for their former
stubbornness, nor the yoke made heavier, or bound
harder, on their necks; only, “Whereas hitherto
you have been perverse and refractory, and would
not comply with that which was for your own good,
now be tractable, be governable. ” He does not say,
“ If you be perfectly obedient,” but, “ If you be wil¬
lingly so;” for if there be a willing mind, it is ac¬
cepted. [2. ] That is very great, which is promised
hereupon, first. That all their sins should be par¬
doned to them, and should not be mentioned against
them ; “ Though they be as red as scarlet and
crimson, though you "lie under the guilt of blood,
yet, upon your repentance, even that shall be for¬
given you, and you shall appear in the sight of God
as white as snow.” Note, The greatest sinners, if
they truly repent, shall have their sins forgiven
them, and so have their consciences pacified ar.d
purified. Though our sins have been as scarlet and
crimson, a deep dye, a double dye, first in the wool
of original corruption, and afterwards in the many
threads of actual transgression, though we have
been often dipped, by our many backslidings, into
sin, and though we have lain long soaking in it, as
the cloth does in the scarlet dye, yet pardoning
mercy will thoroughly discharge the stain, and, be¬
ing by it purged as with hyssop, we shall be clean,
Ps. li. 7. If we make ourselves clean by repentance
and reform ation,(r. 16.) God will make us white bv
a full remission. Secondly, That they should have
all the happiness and comfort they could desire;
“Be but willing and obedient and you shall eat the
good of the land, the land of promise; you shall
have all the blessings of the new covenant, of the
heavenly Canaan; all the good of that land. ” They
that go on in sin, though they dwell in a good land,
cannot with any comfort eat the good of it, guilt im-
bitters all; but if sin be pardoned, creature-comforts
become comforts indeed.
(2. ) They cannot in reason expect any other than
that, if they continue obstinate in their disobedience,
they should be abandoned to ruin, and the sentence
of the law should be executed upon them; what can
be more just? (v. 20.) “ If you refuse and rebel, ii
you continue to rebel against the divine government,
and refuse the effers of divine grace, you shall be
devoured with the sword; with the sword of your
enemies, which shall be commissioned to destroy
you, with the sword of God’s justice, his wrath, anil
vengeance, which shall be drawn against you; for
this is that which the mouth o f the Lord has' spoken,
and which he will make good, for the maintaining
of his own honour.” Note, Those that will not be
governed by God’s sceptre, will certainly and justly
be devoured by his sword. ’
“ And now life and death, good and evil, are thus
set before you; Come and let us reason together.
What have you to object against the equity of this
or against complying with God’s terms?”
21 . How is the faithful city become a hai
'.’0
ISAIAH, 1.
lot! it was full of judgment; righteousness
lodged in it; but now murderers. 22. Thy
silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with
water: 23. Thy princes are rebellious, and
companions of thieves: every one loveth
gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge
not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of
the widow come unto them. 24. Therefore
saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the
Mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of
mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine
enemies : 25. And I will turn my hand upon
thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and
take away all thy tin : 26. And I will re¬
store thy judges as at the first, and thy coun¬
sellors as at the beginning: afterward thou
shalt be called, The city of righteousness,
Tire faithful city. 27. Zion shall be redeem¬
ed with judgment, and her converts with
righteousness. 28. And the destruction of
the transgressors and of the sinners shall be
together, and they that forsake the Lord
shall be consumed. 29. For they shall be
ashamed of the oaks which ye have desired,
and ye shall be confounded for the gardens
that ye have chosen. 30. For ye shall be
as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a gar¬
den that hath no water. 31. And the strong
shall be as tow, and the maker of it as a
spark, and they shall both burn together,
and none shall quench them.
Here,
I. The woful degeneracy of Judah and Jerusalem
is sadly lamented. See, 1. What the royal city had
been; a faithful city, faithful to God and the inte¬
rests of his kingdom among men; faithful to the na¬
tion and its public interests. It was full of judg¬
ment; justice was duly administered upon the thrones
of judgment which were set there, the thrones of
the house of David, Ps. exxii. 5. Men were gene¬
rally honest in their dealings, and abhorred to do an
unjust thing; righteousness lodged in it, was con¬
stantly resident in their palaces and in all their
dwellings, not called in now and then to serve a
turn, but at home there. Note, Neither holy cities,
nor royal ones, neither places where religion is pro¬
fessed, nor places where government is administer¬
ed, are faithful to their trust, if religion do not dwell
in them. 2. What it was now become : that beau¬
teous virtuous spouse was now debauched, and be¬
come an adulteress; righteousness no longer dwelt
in Jerusalem, ( terras Astrsea reliquit — Astrea left
the earth,) even murderers were unpunished, and
lived undisturbed there; nay, the princes themselves
were so cruel and oppressive, that they were be¬
come no better than murderers; an innocent man
might better guard himself against a troop of ban¬
ditti or assassins, than against a bench of such
judges. Note, It is a great aggravation of the wick¬
edness of any family or people, that their ancestors
were famed for virtue and probity; and commonly
Sfcose that thus degenerate, prove the most wicked
* all others. Corrufitio ofitimi est pessima — That
7 :hkh originally mas the best, when corrupted, be-
.onies the worst, Luke xi. 26. Eccl. iii. 16. See
h r xxiii. 15--17.
This is illustrated, (1.) By similitudes; (y. 22.)
Thy silver is become dross; this degeneracy of the
magistrates, whose character is the reverse of that
of their predecessors, is as great a reproach and in¬
jury to the kingdom, as the debasing of their coin
would be, and the turning of their silver into dross.
Righteous princes, and righteous cities, are as silver
for the treasury; but unrighteous ones are as dross
for the dunghill — Dow is the gold become dim ! Lam.
iv. 1. Thy wine is mixed with water, and so is be¬
come flat and sour. Some understand both these
literally; the wine they sold was adulterated, it was
half water; the money they paid was counterfeit,
and so they cheated all they dealt with. But it is
rather to be taken figuratively : justice was pervert¬
ed by their princes; and religion and the word of
God were sophisticated by their priests, and made
to serve what turn they pleased. Dross may shine
like silver, and the wine that is mixed with water
may retain the colour of wine, but neither is worth
any thing. Thus they retained a show and pretence
of virtue and justice, but had no tme sense of either.
(2.) By some instances; ( v . 23.) “Thy princes, that
should keep others in their allegiance to God, and
subjection to his law, are themselves rebellious, and
set God and his law at defiance.” They that should
restrain thieves, proud and rich oppressors, those
worst of robbers, and those that designedly cheat
their creditors, who are no better, they are them¬
selves companions of thieves, connive at them, do as
they do, and with greater security and success, be¬
cause they are princes, and have power in their
hands; they share with the thieves they protect in
their unlawful gain, (Ps. 1. 18.) and cast in their lot
among them, Prov. i. 13, 14. [1.] The profit of
their places is all their aim; to make the best hand
they can of them, right or wrong. They love gifts,
and follow after reward; they set their hearts upon
their salary, the fees and perquisites of their offices,
and are greedy of them, and never think they can
get enough; nay, they will do any thing, though
ever so contrary to law and justice, for a gift in se¬
cret. Presents and gratuities will blind their eyes
at any time, and make them pervert judgment:
these they love, and are eager in the pursuit of,
Hos. iv. 18. [2.] The duty of their places is none
of their care ; they ought to protect those that are
injured, and take cognizance of the appeals made
to them; why else were they preferred? But they
judge not the fatherless, take no care to guard the
orphans, nor does the cause of the widow come unto
them; because the poor widow has no bribe to give,
with which to make way for her, and to bring her
cause on. Those will have a great deal to answei
for, who, when they should be the patrons of the
oppressed, are their greatest oppressors.
II. A resolution is taken up to redress these griev¬
ances; (y. 24.) Therefore saith the Lord, the Lord
of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel, who has power to
make good what he says, who has hosts at command
for the executing of his purposes, and whose power
is engaged for Israel; Ah, I will ease me of mine ad¬
versaries. Observe, 1. Wicked people, especially
wicked rulers that are cruel and oppressive, are
God’s enemies, his adversaries, and shall so be ac¬
counted of, and so dealt with. If the holy seed cor¬
rupt themselves, they are the foes of his own house.
2. They are a burthen to the God of heaven, which
is implied in his easing himself of them; the Mighty
One of Israel, that can bear any thing, nay, that up¬
holds all things, complains of his being wearied with
men’s iniquities, ch. xliii. 24. Amos li. 13. 3. God
will find out a time and a way to ease himself of
this burthen, by avenging himself on those that thus
bear hard upon his patience. He here speaks as
one triumphing in the foresight of it; Ah, I will ease
me. He will ease the earth of the burthen under
which it groans, (Rom. viii. 21, 22.) will ease his
own name of the reproaches with which it is loaded.
in
ISAIAH, 11.
He will be eased of his adversaries, by taking ven¬
geance on hts enemies; he will s/me them out of his
'mouth, and so be eased of them, Rev. iii. 16. He
speaks with pleasure of the clay of vengeance being
in his heart, ch. lxiii. 4. If God’s professing people
conform not to his image, as the Holy One of Israel,
(?'. 4. ) they shall feel the weight of His hand as the
. Mighty One of Israel: his power, which was wont to
be engaged for them, shall be armed against them.
T wo ways God will ease himself of this grievance:
(1.) By reforming his church and restoring good
judges in the room of those corrupt ones. Though
the church has a great deal of dross in it, yet it shall
not be thrown away, but refined; (i>. 25. ) “ I will
purely purge away thy dross; I will amend what is
amiss. Vice and profaneness shall be suppressed,
and put out of countenance; oppressors displaced,
and deprived of their power to do mischief. ” When
things are ever so bad, God can set them to rights,
and bring about a complete reformation; when he
begins, he will make an end, will take away all
the tin.
Observe, [1.] The reformation of a people is
God’s own work ; and, if ever it be done, it is he that
brings it about; “ I will turn my hand upon thee; I
will do that for the reviving of religion, which I did,
at first, for the planting of it.” He can do it easily,
with the turn of his hand; but he does it effectually,
for what opposition can stand before the arm of the
Lord revealed? [2.] He does it by blessing them
with good magistrates, and good ministers ot state;
(n. 26.) “I will restore thy judges, as at the first,
to put the laws into execution against evil-doers;
and thy counsellors, to transact public affairs, as at
the beginning;” either the same persons that had
been turned out, or others of the same character.
[3.] He does it by restoring judgment and righ¬
teousness among them, (y. 27.) by planting in men’s
minds principles of justice, and governing their lives
by those principles. Men may do much by exter¬
nal restraints; hut God does it effectually by the in¬
fluences of his Spirit, as a Spirit of Judgment, ch.
iv. 4. — xxviii. 6. SeePs. lxxxv. 10, 11. [4.] The
reformation of a people will be the redemption of
them and their converts, for sin is the worst cap¬
tivity, the worst slavery; and the great and eternal
redemption is that by which Israel is redeemed from
all his iniquities; (Ps. exxx. 8.) and the blessed Re¬
deemer is he that turns away ungodliness from
Jacob, (Rom. xi. 26.) and saves his people from
their sins, Matth. i. 21. All the redeemed of the
Lord shall be converts, and their conversion is then-
redemption. Her converts, or, they that return of
her; so the margin. God works deliverance for us,
by preparing us for it with judgment and righteous¬
ness. [5.] The reviving of a people’s virtue, is the
restoring of their honour; Afterward thou shall be
called the city of righteousness, the faithful city;
First, Thou shaft fie so; the reforming of the magis¬
tracy is a good step toward the reforming of the city
and the country too. Secondly, Thou shalt have
the praise of being so; and a greater praise there
cannot be to any city, than to be called the city of
righteousness, and to retrieve the ancient honour,
which was lost, when the faithful city became a
harlot, v. 21.
(2.) Bv cutting off those that hate to be reform¬
ed, that they may not remain either as snares, or as
scandals, to the faithful city. [1.] It is an utter
ruin that is here threatened. They shall be de¬
stroyed and consumed, and not chastened and cor¬
rected only. The extirpation of them will be ne¬
cessary to the redemption of Zion. [2.] It is a uni¬
versal ruin, which will involve the transgressors
and the sinners together; the openly profane, that
have quite cast off all religion, and the hypocrites,
that live wicked lives under the cloak cf a religious
J profession — they sliall both be destroyed together;
; tor they are both alike an abomination to God, both
those that contradict religion, and thoSe that con¬
tradict themselves in their pretensions to it. And
they that forsake the Lord, to whom they had for
merly joined themselves, shall be consumed as the
water in the conduit-pipe is soon consumed when it
is cut off from the fountain. [3.] It is an inevitable
ruin; there is no escaping it.
First, Their idols shall not be able to help them;
the oaks which they have desired, and the gardens
which they have chosen; the images, the dunghill-
gods, which they have worshipped in their groves,
and under the green trees, which they were iond of,
and wedded to, for which they forsook the true God,
and which they worshipped privately in their own
gardens, even then when idolatry was publicly dis¬
countenanced. This was the practice of the trans¬
gressors and the sinners; but they shall be ashamed
of it, not with a show of repentance, but of despair,
v. 29. They shall have cause to be ashamed of
them; for after all the court they have made to them,
they shall find no benefit by them; but the idols
themselves shall go into captivity, ch. xlvi. 1, 2.
Note, They that make creatures their confidence,
are but preparing confusion for themselves. You
were fond of the oaks and the gm-dens; but you
yourselves shall be, 1. Like an oak without leaves,
withered and blasted, and stripped of all its orna¬
ments. Justly do those wear no leaves, that bear
no fruit; as the fig-tree that Christ cursed. 2. Like
a garden without water, that is neither rained upon,
nor watered with the foot, (Deut. xi. 10.) that has
no fountains, (Cant. iv. 15.) and consequently, is
parched, and all the fruits of it gone to decay.
Thus shall they be, that trust in idols, or in an arm
of flesh, Jer. xvii. 5, 6. But they that trust in God
never find him as a wilderness, or as waters that
fail, Jer. ii. 31.
Seco?idly, They shall not be able to help them¬
selves; (r. 31.) Fven the strong man shall be as tow;
not only soon broken, and pulled to pieces, but easily
catching fire; and his work, (so the margin reads
it,) that by which he hopes to fortify and secure
himself, shall be as a spark to his own tow, shall
set him on fire, and he and his wofk shall burn to¬
gether. His own counsels shall be his ruin; his own
sin kindles the fire of God’s wrath, which shall burn
to the lowest hell, and none shall quench it. When
the sinner has made himself as tow and stubble,
and God makes himself to him as a consuming fire,
what can prevent the utter ruin of the sinner?
Now all this is applicable, 1. To the blessed work
of reformation, which was wrought in Hezekiah’s
time, after the abominable corruptions of the reign
of Ahaz. Then good men came to be preferred, and
the faces of the wicked were filled with shame. 2.
To their return out of their captivity in Babylon,
which had thoroughly cured them of idolatry. 3.
To the gospel-kingdom, and the pouring out of the
Spirit, by which the New Testament church should
be made a new' Jerusalem, a city of righteousness.
4. To the second coming of Christ, when he shall
thoroughly purge his floor, his field, shall gather
the wheat into his barn, into his garner, and burn
the chaff, the tares, with unquenchable fire.
CHAP. II.
With this chapter begins a new sermon, which is continu¬
ed in the two following: chapters. The subject of thi*
discourse is Judah and Jerusalem, v. 1. In this chapter,
the prophet speaks, I. Of the glory of the Christians, Je
rusalem, the gospel-church in the la! ter days, in the ac¬
cession of many to it, (v. 2, 3.) and the great peace it
should introduce into the world, (v. 4.) whence he infers
the duty of the bouse of Jacob, v. 5. II. Of the shame
of the Jews, Jerusalem, as it then was, and as it would
1 be after its rejecting of the gospel, and being rejected o i
ISAIAH, 11.
God. 1. Their ain was their shame, v. 6..9. 2. God
by his judgments would humble them, and put them to
hame, v. 10. . 17. They should themselves be ashamed
of their confidence in their idols, and in an arm of flesh,
v. 19 . . 22. And now which of these Jerusalems will we
be the inhabitants of? Thai, which is full of the knowledge
of God, which will be our everlasting honour, or that
which is full of horses and chariots, and silver and gold,
and such idols, which will, in the end, be our shame.
I. npHE word that Isaiah the son of
A Amoz saw concerning Judah and
Jerusalem. 2. And it shall come to pass
in the last days, that the mountain of the
Lord’s house shall be established in the top
of the mountains, and shall be exalted
above the hills; and all nations shall flow
unto it. 3. And many people shall go and
say, Come ye, and let us go up to the moun¬
tain of the Lord, to the house of the God
of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways,
and we will walk in his paths: for out of
Zion shall go forth the law, and the word
of the Lord from Jerusalem. 4. And he
shall judge among the nations, and shall re¬
buke many people ; and they shall beat their
swords into ploughshares, and their spears
into pruning-hooks : nation shall not lift up
sword against nation, neither shall they
learn war any more. 5. O house of Jacob,
come ye, and let us walk in the light of the
Lord.
The particular title of this sermon, ( v . 1.) is the
same with the general title of the book; (ch. i. 1.)
only that what is there called the vision, is here
called the word which Isaiah saw, or the matter
or thing, which he saw, the truth of which he had
as full an assurance of in his own mind, as if he had
seen it with his bodily eyes. Or, this word was
brought to him in a vision, he saw something, when
he received this message from God. St. John turn¬
ed to see the voice that spake with him, Rev. i. 12.
This sermon begins with the prophecy relating
to the last days, the days of the Messiah, when
his kingdom should be set up in the world, at
the latter end of the Mosaic economy. In the
last days of the earthly Jerusalem, just before the
destruction of it, this heavenly Jerusalem should be
erected, Heb. xii. 22. Gal. iv. 26. Note, Gospel-
times are the last days. For, 1. They were long in
coming, were a great time waited for by the Old
Testament saints, and came at last. 2. We are not
to look for any dispensation of divine grace, but
what we have in the gospel, Gal. i. 8, 9. 3. We
are to look for the second coming of Jesus Christ at
the end of time, as the Old Testament saints did
for his first coming; this is the last time, 1 John ii. 18.
Now the prophet here foretells,
I. The setting up of the Christian church, and
the planting of the Christian religion in the world.
Christianity shall then be the mountain of the Lord’s
house; where that, is professed, God will grant his
presence, receive his people’s homage, and grant
instruction and blessing, as he did of old in the tem¬
ple of Mount Zion. The gospel-church, incorpo-
r ited by Christ’s charter, shall then be the ren¬
dezvous of all the spiritual seed of Abraham. Now
it is here promised, 1. That Christianity shall be
openly preached and professed; it shall be prepared
(so the margin reads it) in the top of the mountains,
in the view and hearing of all. Hence Christ’s disci¬
ples are compared to a city on a hill, which cannot
be hid, Matth. v. 14. They had many eyes upon
them. Christ himself spake openly to the world,
John xviii. 20. What the apostles did, was not
done in a comer, Acts xxvi. 26. It was the light¬
ing of a beacon, the setting up of a standard. Its
being ever)' where spoken against, supposes that it
was every where spoken of. 2. That it shall be
firmly fixed and rooted; that it shall be established
on the top of the everlasting mountains, built upon
a rock, so that the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it, unless they could pluck up mountains by
the roots. He that dwells safely, is said to dwell
on high, ch. xxxiii. 16. The Lord has founded the
gospei-Zion. 3. That it shall not only overcome
all opposition, but overtop all competition; it shall
be exalted above the hills. This wisdom of God
in a mystery shall outshine all the wisdom of
this world, all its philosophy, and all its politics.
The spiritual worship which it shall introduce,
shall put down the idolatries of the heathen; and
all other institutions in religion shall appear mean
and despicable, in comparison with this. See Ps.
lxviii. 16. Why leap ye, ye high hills ? This is the
hill which God desires to dwell in.
II. The bringing in of the Gentiles into it; 1.
The nations shall be admitted into it, even the un¬
circumcised, who were forbidden to ceme into the
courts of the temple at Jerusalem; the partition-
wall, which kept them out, kept them off, shall be
taken down. 2. sill nations shall flow into it; hav¬
ing liberty of access, they shall improve their li¬
berty, and multitudes shall embrace the Christian
faith. They sh ill flow into it, as streams of water;
which denotes the abundance of converts that the
gospel should make, and their speed and cheerful¬
ness in coming into the church. They shall not be
forced into it, but shall naturally flow into it. Thy
people shall be wilting; all volunteers, Ps. cx. 3.
To Christ shall the gathering of the people be, Gen.
xlix. 10. See ch. lx. 4, 5.
III. The mutual assistance and encouragement
which this confluence of converts shall give to one
another. Their pirus affections and resolutions
shall be so intermixed, that they shall come in,
in one full stream. As when the Jews from all
parts of the country went up thrice a year to wor¬
ship at Jerusalem, they called cn their friends in
the road, and excited them to go along with them,
so shall many of the Gentiles court their relations,
friends, and neighbours, to join with them in em¬
bracing the Christian religion; (v. 3.) “ Come, and
let us go up to the mountain of the Lord; though it
be up hill, and against heart, yet it is the mountain
of the Lord, who will assist the ascent ef our srub
toward him.” Note, Those that are entering into
covenant and communion with God themselves,
should bring as many as they can along with them:
it becomes Christians to provoke one another to
good works, and to further the communion of saints
by inviting one another into it: not, “ Do veu go up
to the mountain of the Lord, and pray for us, and
we will stay at home;” nor, “ We will go, and do
you as you will;” but, “ Come, and let us go, let
us go in concert, that we may strengthen one an¬
other’s hands, and support one another’s reputa¬
tion:” not, “ We will consider of it, and advise
about it, and go hereafter;” but, “ Come, and let
us go forthwith ,” Ps. exxii. 1. Many shall say this;
those that have had it said to them, shall say it to
others. The gospel-church is here called, not only
the mountain of the Lord, but the house of the God
of Jacob; for in it God’s covenant with Jaorb and
his praying seed is kept up, and has its acccmplish-
ment; for to us now, as unto them, he never said,
Seek ye me, in vain, ch. xlv. 19.
Now see here, 1, What they promise them¬
selves, in going up to the mountain of the 1 vj,
ISAIAH, II. 23
There hi will teach us of his ways. Note, God’s
ways are to be learned in his church, in communion
with his people, and in the use of instituted ordi¬
nances; the ways of duty, which he requires us to
walk, in, the ways of grace, in which he walks to¬
wards us. It is God that teaches his people, by his
word and Spirit. It is worth while to take pains to
go up to his holy mountain, to be taught his ways,
tor those who are willing to take that pains, shall
never find it labour in vain. Then shall we know,
if we follow on to know, the Lord. 2. What they
p romise for themselves, and one another; “ If he
will teach us his ivays, we will walk in his paths;
if he will let us know our duty, we will by his grace
make conscience of doing it.” Those who attend
God’s word with this humble resolution, shall not
be sent away without their lesson.
IV. The means by which this shall be brought
about; Out of Zion shall go forth the law, the New
Testament law, the law of Christ; as, of old, the
law of Moses from mount Sinai, even the word of
the Lord from Jerusalem. The gospel is a law, a
law of faith; it is the word of the Lord; it went
forth from Zion, where the temple was built, and
from Jerusalem. Christ himself began in Galilee,
Matth. iv. 23. Luke xxiii. 5. But when he com¬
missioned his apostles to preach the gospel to all na¬
tions, he appointed them to begin at Jerusalem,
Luke xxiv. 47. See Rom. xv. 19. Though most
of them had their home in Galilee, yet they must
stay at Jerusalem, there to receive the promise of
the Spirit, Acts i. 4. And in the temple on Mount
Zion they preached the gospel, Acts v. 20. This
honour was allowed to Jerusalem, even after Christ
was crucified there, for the sake of what it had
been. And it was by this gospel which took rise
from Jerusalem, that the gospel-church was estab¬
lished on the top of the mountains. This was the
rod of divine strength, that was sent forth out of
Zion, Ps. cx. 2.
V. The erecting of the kingdom of the Re¬
deemer in the world; He shall judge among the na¬
tions. He whose word goes forth out of Zion, shall
by that word not only subdue souls to himself, but
rule in them, v. 4. He shall, in wisdom and justice,
order and overrule the affairs of the world for the
good of his church, and rebuke and restrain those
that oppose his interest. By his Spirit working on
men’s consciences, he shall judge and rebuke, shall
try men, and check them; his kingdom is spiritual,
and not of this world.
VI. The great peace which should be the effect
of the success of the gospel in the world; (y. 4.)
They shall beat their swords into ploughshares;
their instruments of war shall be converted into im¬
plements of husbandry; as, on the contrary, when
war is proclaimed, ploughshares are beaten into
swords, Joel iii. 10. Nation shall not then lift up
sword against nation, as now they do, neither shall
they learn war any more, for they shall have no
more occasion for it. This does not make all war
absolutely unlawful among Christians, nor is it a
prophecy that in the days of the Messiah there
shall be no wars. The Jew* urge this against
Christians, as an argument that Jesus is not the
Messiah, because this promise is not fulfilled. But,
1. It was in part fulfilled in the peaceableness of
the time in which Christ was bom, when wars were
in a great measure ceased; witness the taxing,
Luke ii. 1. 2. The design and tendency of the
gospel are to make peace, and to slay all enmities.
It has in it the most powerful obligations and in¬
ducements to peace; so that one might reasonably
have expected it should have had this effect, and it
would have had it, if it had not been for those lusts
of men, from which come wars and fightings. 3.
Jews and Gentiles were reconciled, and brought to- 1
gether, by the gospel, and there were no more such
wars between them as had been; for they became
one sheep-fold under one shepherd, Eph. ii. 15. 4.
The gospel of Christ, as far as it prevails, disposes
men to be peaceable, softens men’s spirits, and
sweetens them; and the love of Christ, shed abroad
in the heart, constrains men to love one another.
5. The primitive Christians were famous for bro¬
therly love; their very adversaries took notice of it.
6. We have reason to hope that this promise shall
yet have a more full accomplishment in the latter
times of the Christian church, when the Spirit shall
be poured out more plentifully from on high. Then
there shall be on earth peace. Who shall live when
God doeth this? But do it he will in due time, for
he is not a man that he should lie.
Lastly, Here is a practical inference drawn from
all this; (v. 5.) O house of Jacob, come ye and let us
walk in the light of the Lord. By the house of Ja¬
cob is meant either, 1. Israel 'according to the flesh.
Let them be provoked by this to a holy emulation.
Rom. xi. 14. “Seeing the Gentiles are thus ready,
and resolved for God, thus forward to go up to the
house of the Lord, let us stir up ourselves to go too.
Let it never be said that the sinners of the Gentiles
were better friends to the holy mountain, than the
house of Jacob.” Thus the zeal of some should
rovoke many. Or, 2. Spiritual Israel, all that are
rought to the God of Jacob. Shall there be such
great knowledge in gospel times, (x>. 3.) and such
great peace? ( v . 4.) And shall we share in these
privileges? Come, then, and let us live accordingly.
Whatever others do, come, O come, let us walk in
the light of the I^ord. (1.) Let us walk circum¬
spectly in the light of this knowledge. Will God
teach us his ways? will he show us his glory in the
face of Christ* Let us then walk as the children of
the light and of the day, Eph. v. 8. 1 Thess. v. 8.
Rom. xiii. 12. (2.) Let us walk circumspectly in the
light of this peace. Shall there be no more war?
Let us then go on our way rejoicing, and let this jov
terminate in God, and be’our strength, Neh. viii. 10.
Thus shall we walk in the beams of the Sun of
righteousness.
6. Therefore thou hast forsaken thy peo¬
ple, the house of Jacob, because they be
replenished from the east, and are sooth
sayers like the Philistines, and they please
themselves in the children of strangers. 7.
Their land also is full of silver and gold,
neither is there any end of their treasures;
their land is also full of horses, neither is
there any end of their chariots. 8. Their
land also is full of idols; they worship the
work ot their own hands, that which their
own fingers have made. 9. And the mean
man boweth down, and the great man hum-
bleth himself: therefore forgive them not.
The calling in of the Gentiles was accompanied
with the rejection of the Jews; it was their fall, and
the diminishing of them, that was the riches of the
Gentiles; and the casting off of them, that was the
reconciling of the world; (Rom. xi. 12- - 15. ) and it
should seem that these verses have reference to
that, and are designed to justify God therein; and
yet, probably, they are primarily intended for the
convincing and awakening of the men of that gene¬
ration in which the prophet lived; it being usual
with the prophets to speak of the things that then
were, both in mercy and judgment, as types of the
things that should be hereafter. Here is,
I. Israel’s doom ; this is set forth in two words.
34 ISAIAH, 11.
ilie first and last of this paragraph; but they are two I
dreadful words, and which speak, 1. Their case [
sad, very sad; (y. 6.) Therefore thou hast forsaken
thy people. Miserable is the condition of that peo¬
ple whom God has forsaken, and great certainly
must the provocation be, if he forsake those that
have been his own people. This was the deplora¬
ble state of the Jewish church after they had re¬
jected Christ; Migremus hinc — Let us go hence.
Your house is left unto you desolate, Matth. xxiii.
38. Whenever anv sore calamity came upon the
Jews, thus far the Lord might be said to forsake
them, when he withdrew his help and succour from
them, else they had not fallen into the hands of
their enemies. But God never leaves any till they
first leave him. 2. Their case desperate, wholly
desperate; ( v . 9.) Therefore forgive them not.
This prophetical prayer amounts to a threatening,
that they should not be forgiven: and so some think
it may be read, And thou wilt not forgive them.
This refers not to particular persons, (many of
whom repented, and were pardoned,) but to the
body of that nation against whom an irreversible
doom was passed, that they should be wholly cut
off, and their church quite dismantled, never to be
formed into such a body again, nor ever to have
their old charter restored to them.
II. Israel’s desert of this doom, and the reasons
upon which it is grounded; in general, it is sin; that
is it, and nothing but that which provokes God to for¬
sake his people. The particular sins he specifies, are
such as abounded among them at that time, which
he makes mention of for the conviction of those to
whom he then preached, rather than that which
afterward proved the measure-filling sin, their cru¬
cifying of Christ, and persecuting of his followers;
tor the sins of every age contributed toward the
making up of the dreadful account at last. And
there was a partial and temporary rejection of
them by the captivity in Babylon hastening on,
which was a type of their final destruction by the
Romans, and which the sins here mentioned brought
upon them.
Their sins were such as directly contradicted
all God’s kind and gracious designs concerning
them.
1. God set them apart for himself, as a peculiar
people distinguished from, and dignified above, all
other people; (Numb, xxiii. 9.) but they were re¬
plenished from the east; they naturalized foreign¬
ers, not proselyted; and encouraged them to settle
among them, and mingled with them, Hos. vii. 8.
Their country was peopled with Syrians and Chal¬
deans, Moabites and Ammonites, and other eastern
nations, and with them they admitted the fashions
and customs of those nations, and pleased themselves
in the children of strangers, were fond of them, pre¬
ferred their country before their own, and thought
that the more they conformed to them, the more
polite and refined they were; thus did they profane
their crown and their covenant. Note, Those are
in danger of being estranged from God, who please
themselves with those who are strangers to him,
for we soon learn the ways of those whose company
we love.
2. God gave them his oracles, which they might
ask counsel of, not only the scriptures, and the seers,
hut the breast-plate o'f judgment; but they slighted
these, and became soothsayers like the Philistines,
introduced their arts of divination, and hearkened
to those who, by the stars, or the clouds, or the
flight of birds, or the entrails of beasts, or other
magic superstitions, pretended to discover things se¬
cret, or foretell things to come; the Philistines were
noted for diviners, 1 Sam. vi. 2. Note, Those who
slight true divinity, are justlv given up to lying di¬
vinations; and they will certainly be forsaken of
!' God, who thus forsake him and their own mercies
1 ! for lying vanities.
3. God encouraged them to put their confidence
in him, and assured them th.it he would be their
Wealth and Strength; but, disti-usting his power
and promise, they made gold their hope, and fur¬
nished themselves with horses and chariots, and re
lied upon them for their safety, x>. 7. God had ex¬
pressly forbidden even their kings to multiply horses
to themselves, and greatly to multiply silver and
gold, because he would have them to depend upon
liimself only; but they did not think their interest in
God made them a match for their neighbours, unless
they had as full treasures of silver and gold, and as
formid; ble hosts of chariots and horses, as they had.
It is not having silver and gold, horses and chariots,
that is a provocation to God, but, (1.) Desiring
them insatiably, so that there is no end of the trea¬
sures, no end of the chariots, no bounds or limits
set to the desire of them. Those shall never have
enough in God, (who alone is all-suflicient,) that
never know when they have enough of this world,
which, at the best, is insufficient. (2.) Depending
upon them, as if we could not be safe, and easy, and
happy, without them, and could not but be so with
them.
4. God himself was their God, the sole Object of
their worship, and he himself 'instituted ordinances
of worship for them; but they slighted both him
and his instljAions; (m 8. ) their land was full of
idols, every city had its god, (Jer. xi. 13.) and, ac¬
cording to the goodness of their lands, they made
goodly images, Hos. x. 1. They that think one
Gcd too little, will find two too many, and yet hun¬
dreds not sufficient; for they that love idols, will
multiply them; so sottish were they, and so wretch¬
edly infatuated, that they worshipped the work of
their own hands; as if that could be a god to them,
which was not only a creature, but their creature,
and that which their own fancies had devised, and
their own fingers had made. It was an aggravation
of their idolatry, that God had enriched them with
silver and gold, and yet of that silver and gold they
made idols; so it was, Jeshurun waxed fat, and
kicked, Hos. ii. 8.
5. God had advanced them, and put honour upon
them; but they basely diminished and disparaged
themselves; (r. 9.) The mean man boweth down to
his idol; a thing below the meanest that have any
spark of reason left them. Sin is a disparagement
to the poorest, and those of the lowest rank. It be¬
comes the mean man to bow down to his superiors,
but it ill becomes him to bow down to the stock of a
tree, ch. xhv. 19. Nor is it only the illiterate and
poor-spirited that do this, but even the great man
forgets his grandeur, and humbles himself to wor¬
ship idols, deifies men no better than himself, and
consecrates stones so much baser than himself.
Idolaters are said to debase themselves even to hell,
ch. lvii. 9. What a shame is it, that great men
think the service of the true God below them, and
will not stoop to it; and yet will humble themselves
to bow down to an idol! Some make this a threaten¬
ing, that the mean men shall be brought down, and
the great men humbled, by the judgments cf God,
when they come with commission.
10. Enter into the rock, and hide thee in
the dust, for fear of the Lord, and for the
glory of his majesty. 11. The lofty loo s
of man shall be humbled, and the haughti¬
ness of men shall be bowed down ; and the
Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.
12. For the day of the Lord of hosts shall
be upon every one that is proud and lofty.
25
ISAIAH, 11.
and ipon every one that is lifted up, and he |
si tall be brought low ; 13. And upon all the
cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted '
up, and upon all tbe oaks of Bashan. 14.
And upon all the high mountains, and upon
all the hills that are lifted up. 15. And
upon every high tower, and upon every
fenced wail, 16. And upon all the ships
of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures.
1 7. And the loftiness of man shall be bowed
down, and the haughtiness of men shall be
made low; and the Lord alone shall be
exalted in that day. 18. And the idols he
shall utterly abolish. 19. And they shall
go into the holes of the rocks, and into the
caves of the earth, for fear of the Lord, and
for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth
to shake terribly the earth. 20. In that day
a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his
idols of gold, which they made each one for
himself to worship, to the moles, and to the
bats; 21. To go into the clefts of the rocks,
and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for
fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his ma¬
jesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the
earth. 22. Cease ye from man, whose
breath is in his nostrils ; for wherein is he to
be accounted of?
The prophet here goes on to show what desola¬
tions would be brought upon their land, when God
had forsaken them; which may refer particularly to
their destruction by the Chaldeans first, and after¬
wards by the Romans; or it may have a general
respect to the method God takes to awaken and
humble proud sinners, and to put them out of con¬
ceit with that which they delighted in, and depend¬
ed on, more than God.
We are here told, that, sooner or later, God will
find out a way,
I. To startle and awaken secure sinners, who cry
peace to themselves, and bid defiance to God and
his judgments; (v. 10.) “ Enter into the rock; God
will attack you with such terrible judgments, and
strike you with such terrible apprehensions of them,
that you shall be forced to enter into the rock and
hide you in the dust, for fear of the Lord. You
shall lose all your courage, and tremble at the shak¬
ing of a leaf; your heart shall fail you for fear,
(Luke xxi. 26. j and you shall flee when none pur¬
sues," Prov. xxviii. 1. To the same purport, v. 19.
They shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into
the caves of tie earth, the darkest, and the deepest,
places; they shall call to the rocks and mountains
to fall on them, and rather crash them than not co¬
ver them, Hos. x. 8. It was so particularly at the
destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, (Lukexxiii.
30.) and of the persecuting pagan powers, Rev. vi.
16. And all, for fear of the Lord and of the glory
of his majesty, looking upon him then to be a con¬
suming fire, and themselves as stubble before him,
when he arises to shake terribly the earth, to shake
the wicked out of it, (Job xxxviii. 13.) and to shake
all those earthly props and supports which they
have buoved themselves up with, to shake them
from under them. Note, 1. With God is terrible
majesty, and the glory of it is such as, sooner or la¬
ter, will oblige us all to flee before him. 2. Those
that will not fear God, and flee to him, will be forced
Vol. iv. — D
to fear him, and flee from him to a refuge of lies,
3. It is folly for those that are pursued by the
wrath of God, to think to escape it, and to hide or
to shelter themselves from it. 4. The things of the
earth are things that will be shaken; they are sub¬
ject to concussions, and hastening towards a dissolu¬
tion. 5. The shaking of the earth is, and will be, a
terrible thing to those who set their affections wholly
on things of the earth. 6. It will be in vain to
think of finding refuge in the caves of the earth,
when the earth itself is shaken; there will be no
shelter then but in God, and in things above.
II. To humble and abase proud sinners, that look
big, and think highly of themselves, and scornfully
of all about them; ( v . 11.) The lofty looks of man
shall be humbled; the eyes that aim high, the coun¬
tenance in which the pride of the heart shows itself,
these shall be cast down in shame and despair.
And the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down,
their spirits shall be broken, and they shall be
crest-fallen, and those things which they were
proud of the)- shall be ashamed of. It is repeated
again, (v. 17.) The loftiness of man shall be bowed
down. Note, Pride will, one way or other, have a
fall. Men’s haughtiness will be brought down,
either by the grace of God convincing them of the
evil of their pride, and clothing them with humility,
or by the providence of God depriving them of all .
those things they were proud of, and laying them
low. Our Saviour often laid it down for a maxim,
that he who exalts himself shall be abased; he shall
either abase himself in true repentance, or God will
abase him, and pour contempt upon him. Now
here we are told,
1. Why this shall be done; because the Lord alone
will be exalted. Note, Therefore proud men shall
be vilified, because the Lord alone will be magnified.
It is for the honour of God’s power to humble the
proud; by this he proves himself to be God, and
disproves Job’s pretensions to rival with him; (Job
xl. 11* • 14.) Behold every one that is proud, and.
abase him; then will I also confess unto thee. It is
likewise for the honour of his justice; proud men
stand in competition with God, who is jealous for his
own glory, and will not suffer men either to take
that to themselves, or give it to another, which is
due to him only ; they likewise stand in opposition
to God, they resist him, and therefore he resists
them; for he will be exalted among the heathen,
Ps. xlvi. 10. And there is a day coming in which
he alone will be exalted, when he shall have put
down all opposing rule, principality, and power, 1
Cor. xv. 24.
2. How this shall be done; by humbling judg¬
ments, that shall mortify men, and bring them
down; ( v . 12.) The day of the Lord of hosts, the
dav of his wrath and judgment, shall be upon every
one that is proud; and therefore he now laughs at
their insolence, because he sees that his day is com¬
ing; this dav, which will be upon them ere they are
aware, Ps. xxxvii. 13. This day of the Lord is
here said to be upon all the cedars of Lebanon, that
are high and lifted up. Jerom observes that the
cedars are said to praise God, (Ps. cxlviii. 9.) and
are trees of the Lord, (Ps. civ. 16.) of his planting;
(Isa. xli. 19.) and yet here God’s wrath fastens up¬
on the cedars, which denotes (says he) that some of
every rank of men, some great men, will be saved,
and some perish. It is brought in as an instance of
the strength of God’s voice, that it breaks the cedars;
(Ps. xxix. 5.) and here the day of the Lord is said
to be upon the cedars, those of Lebanon, that were
the straightest and stateliest; upon the oaks, those
of Bashan, that were the strongest and sturdiest;
and (r>. 14.) upon the natural elevations and for¬
tresses, the high mountains, and the hills that arc
lifted up, that overtop the valleys, and seem tt
< 20
ISAIAH, II.
push the skies; and ( v . 15.) upon the artificial fast¬
nesses, every high tower, and every fenced wall.
Understand these,
( 1. ) As representing the proud people themselves,
that are like the cedars and the oaks, in their own
apprehensions firmly rooted, and not to be stirred
by any storm, and looking on all around them as
shrubs; these are the high mountains and the lofty
hills, that seem to fill the earth, that are gazed on
by all, and think themselves immoveable, but lie
most obnoxious to God’s thunderstrokes; Feriunt-
que summos fulmina monies — The highest hills are
most exfiosed to lightning. And before the power
of God’s wrath these mountains are scattered, and
these hills bow and melt like wax, Hab. iii. 6. Ps.
lxviii. 8. These vaunting men, who are as high
towers in which the noisy bells are hung, on which
the thundering murdering cannon are planted, these
fenced walls, that fortify themselves with their na¬
tive hardiness, and intrench themselves in their fast¬
nesses, they shall be brought down.
(2.) As particularizing the things they are proud
of, in which they trust, and of which they make
their boasts. The day of the Lord shall be upon
those very things which they put their confidence in
as their strength and security; he will take from
them all their armour wherein they trusted. Did
the inhabitants of Lebanon glory in their cedars,
and those of Bashan in their oaks, such as no coun¬
try could equal? The day of the Lord should rend
those cedars, those oaks, and the houses built of
them. Did Jerusalem glory in the mountains that
were round about it, as its impregnable fortifica¬
tions, or in its walls and bulwarks? These should
be levelled, and laid low in the day of the Lord.
Beside those things that were for their strength
and safety, they were proud, [1.] Of their trade
abroad; but the day of the Lord shall be upon all
the ships of Tarshish, they shall be broken as Je-
hoshaph it’s were, shall founder at sea, or be ship¬
wrecked in the harbour. Zebulun was a haven of
ships, but should now no more rejoice in his going
out. When God is bringing ruin upon a people, he
sinks all the branches of their revenue. [2. ] Of
their ornaments at home; but the day of the Lord
shall be upon all pleasant pictures, the painting of
their ships, (so some understand it,) or the curious
pieces of painting they brought home in their ships
from other countries, perhaps from Greece, which
afterward was famous for painters. Upon every
thing that is beautiful to behold, so some read it.
Perhaps they were the pictures of their relations,
and, for that reason, pleasant, or of their gods,
which to the idolaters were delectable things; or
they admired them for the fineness of their colours
or strokes. There is no harm in making pictures,
or in adorning our rooms with them, provided they
transgress not either the second or the seventh com¬
mandment. But to place our pictures among our
pleasant things, to be fond of them and proud of
them, to spend that upon them that should be laid
out in charity, and to set our hearts upon them, as
it ill becomes those who have so many substantial
things to take pleasure in, so it provokes God to
strip us all of such vain ornaments.
III. To make idolaters ashamed of their idols,
and of all the affection they have had for them, and
the respect they have paid to them; ( v . 18.) The
idols he shall utterly abolish. When the Lord alone
shall be exalted, ( v . 17. ) he will not only pour con¬
tempt upon proud men, who, like Pharaoh, exalt
themselves against him, but much more upon all
pretended deities, who are rivals with him for di¬
vine honours; they shall be abolished, utterly abol¬
ished; their friends shall desert them, their enemies
shall destroy them, so that, one way or other, an
utter riddance shall be made of them. See here, 1.
The vanity of false gods; they cannot secure them
selves, so far are they from being able to secure
their worshippers. 2. The victory of the true Gcd
over them; for great is the truth, and will prevail.
Dagon fell before the ark, and Baal before the Lord
God of Elijah. The gods of the heathen shall be
famished, (Zeph. ii. 11.) and by degrees shall pe¬
rish, Jer. x. 11. The rightful Sovereign shall tri¬
umph over all pretenders.
And as God will abolish idols, so their worship¬
pers shall abandon them; either from a gracious
conviction of their vanity and falsehood, (as Ephraim,
when he said. What have I to do any more with
idols?) or from a late and sad experience of their
inability to help them, and a woful despair of relief
by them, v. 20. When men are themselves fright¬
ened by the judgments of God into the holes of the
rocks and the caves of the earth, and find that they
do thus in vain shift for their own safety, they shall
cast their idols, which they had made their gods,
and hoped to make their friends in the time of need,
to the moles and to the bats, any whither out cf
sight, that, being freed from the incumbrance of
them, they may go into the clefts of the rocks, for
fear of the Lord, v. 21. Note, (1.) Those that
will not be reasoned out of their sins, sooner or later
shall be frightened out of them. (2. ) God can make
men sicx of those idols that they have been most
fond of; even the idols of silver, and the idols of geld,
the most precious. Covetous men make silver and
gold their idols, money their god; but the time may
come when they may feel it as much their burthen
as ever they made it their confidence, and may find
themselves as much exposed by it as ever they hop¬
ed they should be guarded by it, when it tempts
their enemy, sinks their ship, or retards their flight;
there was a time when the mariners threw the
wares, and even the wheat, into the sea; (Jonah i.
5. Actsxxvii. 38.) and the Syrians cast away their
garments for haste, 2 Kings vii. 15. Or men may
cast it away out of indignation at themselves for
leaning upon such a broken reed. See Ezek. vii.
19. The idolaters here throw away their idols,
because they are ashamed of them, and of their own
folly in trusting to them; or because they are afraid
of having them found in their possession when the
judgments of God are abroad; as the thief throws
away his stolen goods, when he is searched for or
pursued. (3.) The darkest holes, where the moles
and the bats lodge, are the fittest places for idols,
that have eyes, and see not; and God can force men
to cast their own idols there, ( ch . xxx. 22.) when
they are ashamed if the oaks which they have de¬
sired, ch. i. 29. Moab shall be ashamed of Che-
mosh, as the house of Israel was ashamed of Beth-el,
Jer. xlviii. 13. (4.) It is possible that sin may be
both loathed and left, and yet not truly repented of;
loathed, because surfeited on; left, because there is
no opportunity of committing it; yet not repented
of out of any love to God, but only from a slavish
fear of his wrath.
IV. T o make those that have trusted in an arm
of flesh, ashamed of their confidence; (v. 22.)
“ Cease ye from man. The providences of God con¬
cerning you shall speak this aloud to you, and there
fore take warning beforehand, that you may pre¬
vent the uneasiness and shame of a disappointment;
and consider,” 1. How weak man is; His breath is
in his nostrils, puffed out every moment, soon gone
for good and all. Man is a dying creature, and may
die quickly; our nostrils, in which our breath is,
are of the outward parts of the body; what is there
is like one standing at the door, ready to depart,
nay, the doors of the nostrils are always open, the
breath in them may slip away, ere we are aware,
in a moment. Wherein is man then to be account
ed of? Alas, no reckoning is to be made of him.
27
ISAIAH, III.
for lie is not what he seems to be, what he pretends
to be, what we fancy him to be. Man is like to
vanity, nay, he is vanity, he is altogether vanity, he
is less, he is lighter, than vanity, when weighed in
the balance of the sanctuary. 2. How wise there¬
fore they are that cease from man; it is our duty,
it is our interest, to do so. “ Put not your trust in
man, nor make even the greatest and mightiest of
men your confidence; cease to do so. Let not your
eye be to the power of man, for it is finite and limit¬
ed, derived and depending; it is not from him that
vour judgment proceeds: let not him be your fear,
let not him be your hope; but look up to the power
of God, to which all the powers of men are subject
and subordinate; dread his wrath, secure his favour,
take him for your Help, and let your ho/. le be in the
Lord your God.”
CHAP. III.
The prophet, in this chapter, goes on to foretell the desola¬
tions that were coming upon Judah and Jerusalem for
their sins, both that by the Babylonians, and that which
completed their ruin by the Romans; with some of the
grounds of God’s controversy with them. God threatens,
1. To deprive them of all the supports, both of their life
and of their government, v. 1 . . 3. II. To leave them to
fall into confusion and disorder, v. 4, 5, 12. III. To
deny them the blessings of magistracy, v. 6 . . 8. IV. To
strip the daughters of Zion of their ornaments, v. 1 7 . . 24.
V. To lay all waste by the sword of war, v. 25, 26. The
sins that provoked God to deal thus with them, were,
1. Their defiance of God, v. 8. 2. Their impudence, v.
9. 3. The abuse of power to oppression and tyranny, v.
13 . . 15. The pride of the daughters of Zion, v. 16. In
the midst of the chapter, the prophet is directed how to
apply himself to particular persons. (1.) To assure good
people that it should be well with them, notwithstanding
those general calamities, v. 10. (2.) To assure wicked
people that, however God might, in judgment, remember
mercy, yet it should go ill with them, v. 11. O that the
nations of the earth, at this day, would hearken to the
rebukes and warnings which this chapter gives !
I. ~B7'OR, behold, the Lord, the Lord
JC of hosts, doth take away from Jeru¬
salem, and from Judah, the stay and the
staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole
stay of water. 2. The mighty man, and the
man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and
the prudent, and the ancient, 3. The cap¬
tain of fifty, and the honourable man, and
the counsellor, and the cunning artificer,
and the eloquent orator. 4. And I will
give children to be their princes, and babes
shall rule over them. 5. And the people
shall be oppressed, every one by another,
and every one by his neighbour: the child
shall behave himself proudly against the an¬
cient, and the base against the honourable.
6. When a man shall take hold of his bro¬
ther, of the house of his father, saying, Thou
hast clothing, be thou our ruler, and let this
ruin be under thy hand: 7. In that day
shall he swear, saying, I will not be a healer:
for in my house is neither bread nor cloth¬
ing: make me not a ruler of the people.
3. For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is
fallen ; because their tongue and their do¬
ings are against the Lord, to provoke the
eyes of his glory.
t he prophet, in the clr se of the foregoing chap¬
ter, h id given a necessary caution to all, net to put
confidence in man, or any creature; he had also
given a general reason for that caution, taken from
the frailty of human life, and the vanity and weak¬
ness of human powers: here he gives a particular
reason for it — God was now about to ruin all their
creature-confidences, so that they should meet with
nothing but disappointments in all their expecta¬
tions from them, v. 1. The stay and the stun shall
be taken away; all their supports, of what kind so¬
ever, all the things they trusted to, and looked for
help and relief from. Their church and kingdom
were grown old, and going to decay, and they were
(after the manner of aged men, Zech. viii. 4.) lean¬
ing on a staff; now God threatens to take away
their staff, and then they must fall of course; to
take away the stays both of the city and of the
country, of Jerusalem and of Judah, which are in¬
deed stays to one another, and if one fail, the other
feels from it.
He that does this, is the Lord, the Lord of hosts;
Adon, the Lord that is himself the Stay or Founda¬
tion; if that Stay depart, all other stays certainly
break under us, for he is the Strength of them all.
He that is the Lord, the Ruler, that has authority
to do it, and the Lord of hosts, that has ability to
do it, he shall take away the stay and the staff. St.
Jerom refers this to the sensible decay of the Jew¬
ish nation, after they had crucified our Savieur,
Rom. xi. 9, 10. I rather take it as a warning to
all nations not to provoke God: for if they make
him their Enemy, he can, and will, thus make them
miserable. Let us view the particulars:
I. Was their plenty a support to them? It is so
to any people; bread is the staff of life: but God
can take away the whole stay of bread, and the
whole stay of water; and it is just with him to do so,
when fulness of bread becomes an iniquity, (Ezek.
xvi. 49.) and that which was given to be provision
for the life, is made provision for the lusts. He can
take away the bread and the water, by withholding
the rain, Deut. xxviii. 23, 24. Or, if he allow them,
he can take away the stay of bread and the stay
of water, by withholding this blessing, by which man
lives, and not by bread only, and which is the staff of
bread; (Matt. iv. 4.) and then the bread is not nour¬
ishing, the water not refreshing, Hag. i. 6. Christ
is the bread of life and the water of life; if he be
our Stay, we shall find that a good part not to be
taken away, John vi. 27. ch. iv. 14.
II. Was their army a support to them — their
generals and commanders, and military men?
These shall be taken away: either cut erf by the
sword, or so discouraged with the defeats they meet
with, that they shall throw up their commissions,
and resolve to act no more; or they shall be disabled
by sickness, or dispirited, so as to be unfit for busi¬
ness; the mighty man, and the man of war, and
even the inferior officer, the captain of fifty, shall
be removed. It bodes ill with a people when their
valour is lost, and their valiant men. Let not the
strong man therefore glory in his strength, nor any
people trust too much to their mighty men; but let
the strong people glorify God, and the city of the
terrible nations fear him, who can make them weak
and despicable, ch. xxv. 3.
III. W ere their ministers of state a support to
them — their learned men, theirpoliticians, their cler-
gy, their wits and virtuosos? These also should be
taken away; the judges, who were skilled in the laws,
and expert in administering justice, and the pro¬
phets, whom they used to consult in difficult cases,
the prudent, who were celebrated as men of sense
and sagacity above others, and were assistants to tli
judges; the diviners, (so the word is,) those wh •
used unlawful arts, who, though rotten stays, yei
were stayed on; but it may be taken, as we iear
it, in a good sense; the ancients, elders in ag> , ii
28
ISAIAH, III.
office, the honourable man, the gravity of whose
aspect commands reverence, and whose age and
experience make him fit to be a counsellor. Trade
is one great support to a nation, even manufactures
and handicraft trades; and therefore when the old
stay is to be broken, the cunning artificer too shall
be taken away; and the last is the eloquent orator,
the man skilful of speech, who in some cases may
do good service, though he be none of the prudent
or the ancient, by putting the sense of others in good
language; Moses cannot speak well, but Aaron can.
God threatens to take these away, 1. To disable
them for the service of their country; making the
judges fools, taking away the sfieech of the trusty,
and the understanding of the aged. Job xii. 17, 8cc.
Every creature is that to us, that God makes it to
be ; and we cannot be sure that those who have been
serviceable to us, shall always be so. 2. To put an
end to their days; for princes are therefore not to be
trusted in, because their breath goeth forth, Ps.
cxlvi. 3, 4. Note, The removal of useful men by
death, in the midst of their usefulness, is a very
threatening symptom to any people.
IV. Was their government a support to them?
It ought to be so, it is the business of the sovereign
to bear up the pillars of the land, Ps. lxxv. 3. But
it is here threatened that this stay should fail them.
When the mighty men and the prudent are remov¬
ed, Children shall be their princes; children in age,
who must be under tutors and governors, who will
be clashing with one another, and making a prey of
the young king and his kingdom; children in under¬
standing and disposition, childish men, such as are
babes in knowledge, no more fit to rule than a child
in the cradle, these shall rule over them, with all the
folly, fickleness, and frowardness, of a child. And,
reo unto thee, O land, when thy king is such a one!
Ecc.l. x. 16.
V. Was the union of the subjects among them¬
selves, their good order, and the good understanding
and correspondence that they kept with one an¬
other, a stay to them? Where this is, a people may
do better, though their princes be not such as they
should be ; but it is here threatened that God would
send an evil spirit among them too, (as Judg. ix.
23.) which would make them, 1. Injuriousandun-
neighbnurly one towards another; {v. 5.) The peo¬
ple shall be oppressed every one by his neighbour;
and their princes being children, take no care to
restrain the oppressors, or relieve the oppressed;
nor is it to any purpose to appeal to them, (which
is a temptation to every man to be his own avenger;)
and then they bite and devour one another, and will
soon lie consumed one of another. Then Homo ho-
mmi lupus — Man becomes a wolf to man. Jusquc da¬
tum sceleri — Wickedness receives the stamp of law.
jYec hospesab hospite tutus — The guest and the host
are in danger from each other. 2. Insolent and dis¬
orderly towards their superiors. It is as ill an
omen to a people as can be, when the rising genera¬
tion among them are generally untractable, rude,
and ungovernable, when the child behaves himself
proudly against the ancient; whereas he should
rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face
oj theold man, Lev. xix. 32. When young people
are conceited and pert, and carry it scornfully to¬
ward their superiors, it is not only a reproach to
themselves, but of ill consequence to the public; it
slackens the reins of government, and weakens the
hands that hold them. It is likewise ill with a peo¬
ple when persons of honour cannot support their
authority, but are affronted by the base and beg¬
garly; when judges are insulted by the mob, and
their powers set at defiance. Those have a great
deni to answer for, who do this.
VI. Is it some stay, some support, to hope that,
though matters mat' be now ill managed, yet others
! maybe raised up, who may manage better? Yet this
expectation also shall be frustrated, for the case
shall be so desperate, that no man of sense or sub¬
stance will meddle with it.
1. The government shall go a begging, v. 5.
Here, (1. ) It is taken for granted that there is no
way of redressing all these grievances, and bringing
things into order again, but by good magistrates,
who shall be invested with power by common con¬
sent, and shall exert that power for the good cf the
community. And it is probable that this was, in
many places, the true origin of government; men
found it necessary to unite in a subjection to one
who was thought fit for such a trust, in order to the
welfare and safety of them all; being aware that
they must either be ruled or ruined. Here there¬
fore is the original contract; “ Be thou our ruler,
and we will be subject to thee, and let this ruin be
under thy hand, to be repaired and restored, and
then to be preserved and established, and the inter¬
ests of it advanced, ch. lviii. 12. Take care to pro¬
tect us by the sword of war from being injured from
abroad, and by the sword of justice from being in¬
jurious one to another, and we will bear faith and true
allegiance to thee. ” (2. ) The case is represented as
very deplorable, and things were come to a sad pass;
for, [1.] Children being their princes, every man
will think himself fit to prescribe who shall be a ma¬
gistrate, and will be for preferring his own relations;
whereas, if the princes were as they should be, it
would be left entirely to them to nominate the rulers,
as it ought to be. [2.] Men will find themselves un¬
der a necessity even of forcing power into the hands
of those that are thought to be fit for it; a man shall
take hold by violence of one to make him a ruler,
perceiving him ready to resist the motion; nay, he
shall urge it upon his brother; whereas commonly,
men are not willing that their equals should be their
superiors; witness the envy of Joseph’s brethren.
[3.] It will be looked upon as ground sufficient for
the preferring of a man to be a ruler, that he has
clothing better than his neighbours; a very poor
qualification to recommend a man to a place of trust
in the government: it was a sign that the country
was much impoverished, when it was a rare thing
to find a man that had good clothes, or that could
afford to buy himself an alderman’s gown, or a
judge’s robe; and that the people were very un¬
thinking, when they had so much respect to a man
in gay clothing, with a gold ring, (Jam. ii. 2, 3.) that,
for the sake thereof, they would make him their
ruler. It had been some sense to have said, “ Thcu
hast wisdom, integrity, experience; be thou cur
ruler;” but it was a jest to say, Thou hast clothing;
be thou our ruler. A poor wise man, though in
vile raiment, delivered a city, Eccl. ix. 15. We
may allude to this, to show how desperate the case
of fallen man was, when our Lord Jesus was pleas
ed to become our Brother, and, though he was not
courted, offered himself to be ourRulerand Saviour,
and to take this ruin under his hand.
2. Those who are thus pressed to come into office,
will swear themselves off, because, though they are
taken to be men of some substance, yet they know
themselves unable to bear the charges of the r ffice,
and to answer the expectations of those that choose
them, v. 7. He shall swear, (shall lift up the hand,
the ancient ceremony used in taking an oath,) I will
not be a healer, make not me a ruler. Note, Rulers
must be healers, and good rulers will be so; they
must study to unite their subjects, and not widen
the differences that are among them; those only are
fit for government, that are of a meek, quiet, heal¬
ing spirit: they must also heal the wounds that are
given to any of the interests of their people, by suit
able applications. But why will he not be a ruler?
Because in my house is neither bread nor clothing.
29
ISAIAH, III.
(1.) If he said true, it was a sign that men’s estates
were sadly ruined, when even those who made the
best appearance, really wanted necessaries; a com¬
mon case, and a piteous one; some, who, having
lived fashionably, are willing to put the best side
outward, are yet, if the truth were known, in great
straits, and go with heavy hearts, for want of bread
and clothing. (2.) If lie'didnot speak truth, it was
a sign that men’s consciences were sadly debauched,
when, to avoid the expense of an office, they would
load themselves with the guilt of perjury, and
(which is the greatest madness in the world)' would
damn their souls to save their money. Mutth. xvi.
26. (3.) However it was, it was a sign that the case
of the nation was very bad, when nobody was willing
to accept a place in the government of it, as despair¬
ing to hav e either credit or profit by it, which are
tlte two things aimed at in men’s common ambition
of preform out.
3. The reason why God brought things to this
sad pass, even among his own people; (which is
giv en either by the prophet, or by him that refused
to be a ruler;) it was not for want' of good will to his
country, but because he saw the case desperate,
and past relief, and it would be to no purpose to
att nipt it; (n. 8.) Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah
is fallen; and they may thank themselves, they have
brought their destruction upon their own heads, for
their tongue and their doings are against the
Lord; in word and action they brake the law of
God, and therein designed an affront to him ; they
wilfully intended to offend him, in contempt of his au¬
thority, and defiance of his justice: their tongue was
against the Lord, for they contradicted his prophets;
and their doings were no better, they acted as they
talked; it was an aggravation of their sin, that God’s
eye was upon them, and that his glory was mani¬
fested among them; but they provoked him to his
face, as if the more they knew of his glory, the
greater pride they took in slighting it, and turning
'it into shame. And this, this is it, for which Jerusa¬
lem is ruined. Note, the ruin both of persons and
people is owing to their sins. If they did not pro¬
voke God, he would do them no hurt, Jer. xxv. 6.
9. The show of their countenance doth
witness against them, and they declare their
sin as Sodom, they hide it not: Wo unto
their soul ! For they have rewarded evil
unto themselves. 10. Say ye to the righte¬
ous, that it shrill be well with him ; for they
shall eat the fruit of their doings. 11.
Wo unto the wicked ! Tt shall be ill with
him ; for the reward of his hands shall be
given him. 12. As far my people, children are
their oppressors, and women rule over them.
O my people, they which lead thee cause
thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.
1 3. The Loan standeth up to plead, and
standeth to judge the people. 14. The
Loan will enter into judgment with the
ancients of his people, and the princes
thereof : for ye have eaten up the vineyard ;
the spoil of the poor is in your houses. 1 5.
What mean ye that ye beat my people to
pieces, and grind the faces of the poor ?
saith the Lord God of hosts.
Hers God proceeds in his controversy with his
p ' pie. Observe,
I. The ground of his controversy; it was for sin
that God contended with them; if they vex then;
selves, let them look a little further, and they will
see that they must thank themselves; IVo unto
their souls ! For they have rewarded evil unto them¬
selves. jilas for their souls ! (so it may be read,
in a way of lamentation,) for they have f irocured
evil to themselves, v. 9. Note, 1. The condition
of sinners is woful and very deplorable. 2. It is
the soul that is damaged and endangered by sin.
Sinners may prosper in their outward estates, and
yet at the same time there may be a wo to their
souls. 3. Whatever evil befalls sinners, it is of their
own procuring, Jer. ii. 19.
That which is here charged upon them, is,
(1.) That the shame which should restrain them
from their sins, was quite thrown off, and they were
grown impudent, v. 9. This hardens men against
repentance, and ripens them for ruin, as much as
any thing; The show of their countenance doth witness
against them, that their minds are vain, and lewd,
and malicious; their eyes speak it plain, that thev
cannot cease from sin, 2 Pet. ii. 14. One may look
them in the face, and guess at the desperate wick¬
edness that there is in their hearts; They declare
their sin as Sodom; so impetuous, so imperious, are
their lusts, and so impatient of the least check; ; nd
so perfectly are all the remaining sparks of virtue
extinguished in them. The Sodcmites declared
their sin, not onlv by the exceeding greatness of it,
(Gen.xiii. 13.) so that it cried to heaven, (Gen.
xviii. 20.) but by their shameless owning of that
which was most shameful; (Gen. xix. 5.) and thus
Judah and Jerusalem did: they were so far from
hiding it, that they gloried in it, in the bold attempt
they made upon virtue, and the victory they gained
over their own convictions: they had a whore’s
forehead, (Jer. iii. 3.) and could not blush, (Jer. vi.
15.) Note, Those that are grown impudent in sin,
arc ripe for ruin ; they that are past shame, (we sav,)
are past grace, and then past hope.
(2.) That their guides, who should direct them
in the right way, put them out of the way, v. 12.
“They who lead, (the princes, priests, and pro¬
phets,) mislead thee, they cause thee to err.” Ei¬
ther they preached to them that which was false and
corrupt, or if they preached that which was true
and good, they contradicted it by their practices;
and the people would sooner follow a bad example
than a good exhortation: thus they destroyed the
way of their paths, pulling down with one hand
what thev built up with the other. Qui te beati-
ficant — They that call thee blessed, cause thee to
err; so some read it. Their priests applauded
them, as if nothing was amiss among them; cried,
Peace, peace, to them, as if they were in no dan¬
ger; and thus they caused them to go on in their
errors.
(3.) That their judges who should have patron¬
ized and protected the oppressed, were themselves
the greatest oppressors, v. 14, 15. The elders of
the people, and the princes, who had learning, and
could not but know better things, who had great
estates, and were not under the temptation of neces¬
sity to encroach upon those about them, and who
were men of honour, and should scorn to do a base
thing, yet they have eaten up the vineyard. God’s
vineyard, which they were appointed to be the
dressers and keepers of, they burnt; so the word
signifies; they did as ill bv it as its worst enemies
could do, Ps.' lxxx. 16. Or the vineyards of the
poor; thev wrested them out of their possession, ?'
Jezebel did Naboth’s; or devoured the fruits of
them, fed their lusts with that which should have
been the necessary food of indigent families; the
spoil of the poor was hoarded up in their houses;
when God came to search for stolen goods, their
he found it, and it wras a witness against them. P
30
ISAIAH, III.
was to ne had, and they might have made restitu¬
tion, but would not. God reasons with those great
men; (to 15.) “ What mean you, that ye oeat my
/ leofile in pieces? What cause have you for it ?
What good does it do you ?” Or, “ What hurt have
they done you ? Do you think you have power given
you for such a purpose as this ?” Note, There is
nothing more unaccountable, and yet nothing which
must more certainly be accounted for, than the in-
luries and abuses that are done to God’s people by
their persecutors and oppressors; “ Ye grind the
face of the poor; ye put them into as much pain
and terror as if they were ground in a mill, and as
certainly reduce them to dust by one act of oppres¬
sion after another. Or, “ Their faces are bruised
and crushed with the blows you have given them;
you have not only ruined their estates, but given
them personal abuses.” Our Lord Jesus was smit¬
ten on the face, Matt. xxvi. 67.
II. The management of this controversy; 1. God
himself is the Prosecutor; (x\ 13.) The Lord
stands up to plead, or he sets himself to debate the
matter, and he stands to judge the people, to judge
for those that were oppressed and abused; and he
will enter into judgment with the princes, v. 14.
Note, The greatest men cannot exempt or secure
themselves from the scrutiny and sentence of God’s
judgment, nor demur to the jurisdiction of the court
of heaven. 2. The indictment is proved by the
notorious evidence of the fact; “Look upon the
oppressors, and the show of their countenance
witnesses against them; (y. 9.) look upon the op¬
pressed, and you see how their faces are battered
and abused,” v. 15. 3. The controversy is already
begun, in the change of the ministry; to punish
those that had abused their power to bad purposes,
God sets those over them, that had not sense to use
it to any good purpose; Children are their oppres¬
sors, and women rule over them, (y. 12.) men that
have as weak judgments, and strong passions, as
women and children: this was their sin, that their
rulers were such, and it became a judgment upon
them.
III. The distinction that shall be made between
particular persons, in the prosecution of this con¬
troversy; ( v . 10, 11.) Say to the righteous. It shall
be well with thee. Wo to the wicked, it shall be ill
with him. He had said, (u. 9.) they have reward¬
ed evil to themselves; and to prove that, he here
shows that God will render to every man accord¬
ing to his works. Had they been righteous, it
had been well with them; but if it be ill with them,
it is because they are wicked, and will be so. Thus
God stated the matter to Cain, to convince him
that he had no reason to be angry, Gen. iv. 7. Or
it may be taken thus; God is threatening national
judgments, which will ruin the public interests.
Now, 1. Some good people might fear that they
should be involved in that ruin, and therefore God
bids the prophets comfort them against those fears;
“ Whatever becomes of the unrighteous nation, say
ye to the righteous man, that ye shall not be lost in
the crowd of sinners, the Judge of all the earth
will not slay the righteous with the wicked; (Gen.
xviii. 25.) no, assure him in God’s name, that if
shall be well with him. The property of the trouble
shall be altered to him, and he shall be hid in the
dan of the Lord’s anger. He shall have divine
supports and comforts, which shall abound as afflic¬
tions abound, and so it shall be well with him.”
When the whole stay of bread is taken away, yet
in the day of famine they shall be satisfied , they
shall eat the fruit, of their doings; they shall have
th e t estimony of their consciences for them, that they
k' pt themselves pure from the common iniquity,
an I therefore the common calamity is not the same
thing to them that it is to otners; they brought no
fuel to the flame, and therefore are not themselves
fuel for it. 2. Some wicked people might hope
that they should escape that ruin, and therefore
God bids the prophets shake their vain hopes;
“ Wo to the wicked, it shall be ill with him-, (y.
11.) to him the judgments shall have a sting, and
there shall be wormwood and gall in the affliction
and misery.” There is a wo to wicked people,
and though they may think to shelter themselves
from public judgment, yet it shall be ill with them;
it will grow worse and worse with them if they re¬
pent not, and the worst of all will be at last; for the
reward of his hands shall be done to him, in the day
when every man shall receive according to the
things done in the body.
16. Moreover, the Lord saith, Because
the daughters of Zion are haughty, and
walked with stretched-forth necks and wan¬
ton eyes, walking, and mincing as they go,
and making a tinkling with their feet : 1 7.
Therefore the Lord will smite with a scab
the crown of the head of the daughters of
Zion, and the Lord will discover their
secret parts. 18. In that day the Lord
will take away the bravery of their
tinkling ornaments about their feet , and
their cauls, and their round tires like the
moon, 19. The chains, and the brace¬
lets, and the mufflers, 20. The bonnets,
and the ornaments of the legs, and the
head-bands, and the tablets, and the ear¬
rings, 21. The rings, and nose-jewels, 22.
The changeable suits of apparel, and the
mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping-
pins, 23. The glasses, and the fine linen,
and the hoods, and the vails. 24. And it
shall come to pass, that instead of sweet
smell, there shall be stink ; and instead of a
girdle, a rent ; and instead of well-set hair,
baldness; and instead of a stomacher, a
girding of sackcloth! and burning instead of
beauty. 25. Thy men shall fall by the
sword, and thy mighty in the war. 26.
And her gates shall lament and mourn :
and she, being desolate, shall sit upon the
ground.
The prophet’s business was to show all sorts of
people what they had contributed to the national
guilt, and what share they must expect in the na¬
tional judgments that were coming; here he re¬
proves and warns the daughters of Zicn, tells the
ladies of their faults; and Moses, in the law, having
denounced God’s wrath against the tender and deli¬
cate woman, (the prophets being a comment upon
the law, Dent, xxviii. 56.) he here tells them how
they should sm: • rt by the calamities that were coming
upon them. Observe,
1. The sin charged upon the daughters of Zion,
v. 16. The prophet expressly vouches God’s au¬
thority for what he said, lest it should be thought
it was unbecoming him to take notice of such things,
and should be ill-resented by the ladies; The Lord
saith it. Whether they will hear, or whether they
will forbear, let them know that God takes notice
of, and is much displeased with, the folly and vanity
of proud we men, and his law takes cognizance
ISAIAH, III.
SI
even of their dress. T wo things they here stand
nciicted for, haughtiness and wantonness; directly
contrary to that modesty, shamefacedness, and so¬
briety, with which women ought to adorn them¬
selves, 1. Tim. ii. 9. They discovered the disposi¬
tion of their mind by their gait and gesture, and the
lightness of their carriage. They are haughty, for
they walked with stretched-forth necks, that they may
seem tall, or, as thinking nobody good enough to
speak to them, or, to receive a look ora smile;
their eyes are wanton; receiving, so the word is;
with their amorous glances thev draw men into
their snares; they affect a formal starched way of
going, that people may look at them, and admire
them, and know they have been at the dancing-
school, and have learned the minuet-step; they go
mincing, or nicely tripping, not willing to set so
much as the sole of their foot to the ground, for
tenderness and delicacy; they make a tinklingwith
their feet, having, as some think, chains, or little
bells, upon their shoes, that made a noise; they go
as if they were fettered; so some read it; like a horse
trammelled, that he may learn to pace. Thus
Agag came delicately, 1 Sam. xv. 32. Such a nice
affected mien is not only a force upon that which is
natural, and ridiculous before men, men of sens ;
but as it is an evidence of a vain mind, it is offensive
to God. And two things aggravated it here, (1.)
That these were the daughters of Zion the holy
mountain, who should have behaved with the gravity
that becomes women professing godliness. (2.)
That it should seem, by the connexion, they were
the wives and daughters of the princes who spoil¬
ed and oppressed the poor, ( v . 14, 15.) that they
might maintain this pride and luxury of their fa¬
milies.
2. The punishments threatened for this sin; and
they answer the sin, as face answers to face in a
glass, x'. 17, 18.
(1.) They walked with stretched-forth necks, but
God will smite with a scab the crown of their head,
which shall lower their crests, and make them
ashamed to show their heads, being obliged by it to
cut off their hair. Note, Loathsome diseases are
often sent as the just punishment of pride, and are
sometimes the immediate effect of lewdness, the
flesh and the body being consumed by it.
(2.) They cared not what they laid out in fur¬
nishing themselves with great variety of fine clothes;
but God will reduce them to such poverty and dis¬
tress, that they should not have clothes sufficient to
cover their nakedness, but their uncomeliness should
be exposed through their rags.
(3. ) They were extremely fond and proud of their
ornaments; but God will strip them of those orna¬
ments, when their houses should be plundered,
their treasures rifled, and they themselves led into
captivity. The prophet here specifies many of the
ornaments which they used, as particularly as if he
had been the keeper of their wardrobe, or had at¬
tended them in their dressing-room. It is not at
all material to inquire what sort of ornaments these
respectively were, and whether the translations
rightly express the original words; perhaps a hun¬
dred years hence the names of some of the orna¬
ments that are now in use in our land will be as lit¬
tle understood as some of those here are. Fashions
alter, and so do the names of them ; and yet the 1
mention of them is not in vain, but is designed to
expose the folly of the daughters of Zion; for, (1.)
Many of these things, we may suppose, were very
odd and ridiculous, and if they had not been in
fashion, would have been hooted at. They were
fitter to be toys for children to play with, than oma-
nv-nts for grown people to go to mount Zion in.
(2.) Those things that were decent and convenient,
as the linen, hoods, and the veils, needed not to
have been provided in such abundance and va¬
riety. It is necessary to have apparel, and that
all should have it according to their rank; be* what
occasion was there for so many changeable suits
: of apparel, (x>. 22.) that they might not be seen
two days together in the same suit? “They must
have (as the homily against excess of apparel
speaks) one gown for the day, another for the
night; one long, another short; one for the working-
day, another for the holy-day; ancther of this co¬
lour, another of that colour; one of cloth, another
of silk or damask; one dress afore dinner, another
after; one of the Spanish fashion, another Turkey,
and never content with sufficient.” Which, as it is
an evidence of pride and vain curiosity, so must
needs spend a great deal, in gratifying a base lust,
that ought to be laid out in works of piety and cha¬
rity; and it is well if poor tenants be not racked, or
poor creditors defrauded, to support it. (3.) The
enumeration of these things intimates what care
they were in about them, how much their hearts
were upon them, what an exact account they kept
of them, how nice and critical they were about
them, how insatiable their desire was of them,
and how much of their comfort was bound up in
them. A maid could forget none of these orna¬
ments, though they were ever so many, (Jer. ii.
32.) but would report them as readily, and talk of
them with as much pleasure, as if they had been
things of the greatest moment. The prophet does
not speak of these things as in themselves sinful;
they may lawfully be had and used, but as things
which they were proud of, and should therefore be
deprived of.
4. They were verv nice and curious about their
clothes; but God would make those bodies of theirs
which they were at such expense to beautify and
make easy, a reproach and burthen to them; (x'.
24. ) Instead of sweet smell (those tablets, or boxes
of perfume, houses of the soul or breath, as they are
called, x>. 20. margin) there shall be stink, garments
grown filthy, with being long worn, or from some
loathsome disease, or plasters for the cure of it; in¬
stead of a rich embroidered girdle, used to make the
clothes sit tight, there shall be a rent, a rending of
the clothes for grief, or old rotten clothes rent into
rags; instead of well-set hair, curiously plaited and
powdered, there shall be baldness, the hair being
plucked off or shaven, as was usual in times of great
affliction, ( ch . xv. 2. Jer. xvi. 6.) or in great servi¬
tude, Ezek. xxix. 18. Instead of a stomacher, or a
scarf, or sash, a girding of sackcloth, in token of
deep humiliation; and burning instead of beauty.
Those that had a good complexion, and were proud
of it, when they are carried into captivitv, shall be
tanned and sun-burnt; and it is observed, that the
best faces are soonest injured by the weather. F rom
all this let us learn, (1.) Not to be nice and curious
about our apparel, nor to affect that which is gay
and costly, or to be proud of it. (2.) Not to be se¬
cure in the enjoyment of any of the delights of sense,
because we know not how soon we may be stripped
of them, nor what straits we may be reduced to.
5. They designed by these ornaments to charm
the gentlemen, and win their affections, (Prov. vii.
16, 1~. ) but th' re shall be none to be cnarmed by
them; (xe 25.) Thy men shall fall by the sword,
and thy mighty in the war. The fire shall consume
them , and then the maidens shall not be given in
marriage; as it is, Ps. lxxviii. 63. When the sword
comes with commission, the mighty commonly fall
first by it, because they are most forward to ven¬
ture. And when Zion’s guards are cut off, no mar¬
vel that Zion’s gates lament and mourn, (x>. 26.) the
enemies having made themselves masters of them,
and the city itself, being desolate, being emptied or
swept, shall sit upon the ground, like a disconsolate
32
ISAIAH, IV.
widow. If sin be harboured within the walls, la¬
mentation and mourning are near her gates.
CHAP. IV.
In this chapter, we have, 1. A threatening or the paucity
and scarceness of men, (v. I.) which might fitly enough
have been added to the close of the foregoing chapter, to
which it has a plain reference. 11. A promise of the res¬
toration of Jerusalem’s peace and purity, righteousness
and safety, in the days of the Messiah, v. 2. . 6. Thus,
in wrath,' mercy is remembered, and gospel grace is a
sovereign relief, in reference to the terrors of the law,
and the desolations made by sin.
1. A ND in that day seven women shall
j\_ take hold of one man, saying, We
will eat our own bread, and wear our own
apparel : only let us be called by thy name,
to take away our reproach.
It was threatened (ch. iii. 25.) that the mighty
men should fall by the sword in war; and it was
threatened as a punishment to the women that af¬
fected gaiety, and a loose sort of conversation. Now
here we have the effect and consequence of that
great slaughter of men;
1. That, though Providence has so wisely ordered
that, communibus annis — on an ax’erage of years,
there is nearly an equal number of males and fe¬
males born info the world, vet through the devasta¬
tions made by war, there should scarcely be one
man in seven left alive. As there are deaths at¬
tending the bringing forth of children, which are
peculiar to the woman, who was first in the trans¬
gression, so, to balance that, there are deaths pecu¬
liar to men; those by the sword in the high places
of the field, which perhaps devour more than child¬
bed does. Here it is foretold, that such multitudes
of men should be cut off, that there should be seven
women to one man.
2. That, by reason of the scarcity of men, though
marriage should be kept up, for the raising of re¬
cruits, and the preserving of the race of mankind
upon earth, yet the usual method of it should be
quite altered; that whereas men ordinarily, make
their court to the women, the women should now
take hold of the men, foolishly fearing (as Lot’s
daughters did, when they saw the ruin of Sodom,
and perhaps thought it reached further than it did)
that in a little time there would be none left; (Gen.
xix. 31.) and that, whereas women naturally hate
to come in sharers with others, seven should now, by
consent, become the wives of one man; and that,
whereas, by the law, the husband was obliged to
provide food and raiment for his wife, (Exod. xxi.
10.) which with many would be the most powerful
argument against multiplying wives, these women
will be bound to find themselves, they will eat bread
of their own earning, and wear apparel of their
oxen working; and the man they court shall be at no
expense with them, onlv they desire to be called his
wives, to take away the reproach of a single life.
Thev are willing to be wives upon any terms, though
ever so unreasonable; and perhaps the rather, be¬
cause in these troublesome times it would be a kind¬
ness to them to have a husband for their protector.
St. Paul, on the contrary, in the time of distress,
thinks the single state preferable, 1 Cor. vii. 26. It
were well if this were not introduced here partly as
a reflection upon the daughters of Zion, that, not¬
withstanding the humbling providences they were
under, (eh. iii. 18.) they remained unhumbled, and,
instead of repenting of their pride and vanity, when
God was contending with them for it, all their
rare was to get them nusbands — that modesty,
which is the greatest beauty of the fair sex, was for¬
gotten, and with them the reproach of vice was no¬
thing to the reproach of virginity ; a sad symptom of
the irrecoverable desolations of virtue.
2. In that day shall the Branch of the
Lord be beautiful and glorious, and the
fruit of the earth shall be excellent and
comely for them that are escaped of Israel
3. And it shall come to pass, that he that is
left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jeru¬
salem, shall be called holy, even every one
that is written among the living in Jerusa¬
lem: 4. When the Lord shall have wash¬
ed away the filth of the daughters of Zion,
and shall have purged the blood of Jerusa
lem from the midst thereof, by the spirit o)
judgment, and by the spirit of burning. .6
, And the Lord will create upon eveiy dwel
ling-place of mount Zion, and upon her as
semblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the
shining of a flaming fire by night : for upon all
the glory shall be a defence. 6. And there
shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the day¬
time from the heat, and for a place of refuge,
and for a covert from storm and from rain.
Bv the foregoing threatenings, Jerusalem is
brought into a very deplorable condition; eveiy
thing looks melancholy: but here the sun breaks out
from behind the cloud; many exceeding great and
precious promises we have in these verses, giving
assurance of comfort which may be discerned
through the troubles, and cf happy days which
shall come after them. And these certainly point
at the kingdom of the Messiah, and the great re¬
demption to be wrought out by him, under the
figure and type of the restoration of Judah and Je¬
rusalem by the reforming reign of Hezekiah after
Ahaz, and the return out of their captivity in Baby¬
lon; to both which it may have some reference, but
chiefly to Christ.
It is here promised, as the issue of all these
troubles,
I. That God will raise up a righteous Branch,
which should produce fruits of righteousness; (v. 2.)
In that day, that, same day, at that very time, when
Jerusalem shall be destroyed, and the Jewish nation
extirpated and dispersed, the kingdom of the Mes¬
siah shall be set up; and then shall be the reviving
of the church, when every one shall fear the utter
ruin of it.
1. Christ himself shall be exalted; lie is the
! Branch of the Lord, the Man, the Branch: it is one
of his prophetical names, my Servant, the Branch,
(Zech. iii. 8. — vi. 12.) the Branch of righteousness,
(Jer. xxiii. 5. — xxxiii. 15.) a Branch out of the
stem of Jesse; ( ch . xi. 1.) and that, as some think,
is alluded to when he is called a JVazarene, Matth.
ii. 23. Here he is called the Branch of the Lord,
because planted by his power, and flourishing to his
praise. The ancient Chaldee Paraphrase here reads
ft, The Christ, or Messiah of the Lord. He shall
be the Beauty, and Glory, and Joy. (1.) He shall
himself be advanced to the joy set before him, and
the glory which lie had with the Father before ‘110
world was. He that was a Reproach of men, .. nd
whose visage was marred more than any man’s, is
now, in the upper world, beautiful and glorious, as
the sun in his strength, admired and adored by an¬
gels. (2. ) He shall be beautiful and glorious in tin-
esteem of all believers, shall gain an interest in th-
world, and a name among men, above every name.
To them that believe he is precious, he is an Hu
notir, (1 Pet. ii. 7.) the L'airest of ten thousand,
(Cant. v. 10.) and altogether glorious. Let us re
joice that he is so, and let him be so to us.
ISAlAH, IV. 3 1
2. His gospel shall be embraced. The gospel is
the fruit of the Branch of the Lord; all the graces
and comiorts i f the gospel spring from Christ. But
it is called the fruit of the earth, because it sprang
up in tins world, and was calculated for the present
state. And Christ compares himself to a corn of
•wheal, that falls into the ground, and dies, and so
brings forth much fruit, John xii. 24. The success
of the gospel is represented by the earth's yielding
her increase, (Ps. lxvii. 6.) and the planting of the
Christian church is God’s sowing it to himself in the
earth, Hos. ii. 23. We may understand it of both
the persons, and the things, that are the products
of the gospel; they shall be excellent and comely,
shall appear very agreeable, and be very acceptable
to them that are escaped of Israel, of that remnant
of the Jews, which was saved from perishing with
the rest in unbelief, Rom. xi. 5. Note, If Christ
be precious to us, his gospel will be so, and all its
truths and promises; his church will be so, and all
that belong to it. These are the good fruit of the
earth, in comparison with which, all other things
are but weeds. It will be a good evidence to us,
that we are of the chosen remnant, distinguished
from the rest that are called Israel, and marked for
salvation, if we are brought to see a transcendent
beauty in Christ and holiness, and the saints, the
excellent ones of the earth. As a type of this blessed
day, Jerusalem, after Sennacherib's invasion, and
after the captivity in Babylon, should again flourish
as a branch, and be blessed with the fruits of the
earth: compare ch. xxxvii. 31, 32. The remnant
shall again take root downward, and bear fruit up¬
ward . And if by the fruit of the earth here we un¬
derstand the good things of this life, we may ob¬
serve, that those have peculiar sweetness in them to
the chosen remnant, who, having a covenant-right
to them, have the most comfortable use of them.
If the Branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious
in our eyes, even the fruit of the earth also will be
excellent and comely, because then we may take it
as the fruit of the promise, Ps. xxxvii. 16. 1 Tim.
iv. 8.
II. That God will reserve to himself a holy seed;
(x\ 3.) when the generality of those that have a
lace and a name in Zion, and in Jerusalem, shall
e cut off, as withered branches, by their own unbe¬
lief, yet some shall be left. Some shall remain,
some shall still cleave to the church, when its pro¬
perty is altered, and it is become Christian; for God
will not quite cast off his people, Rom. xi. 1. There
is here and there one that is left: now, 1. This is a
remnant according to the election of grace, (as the
apostle speaks, Itom. xi. 5.) such as are written
Among the living, marked in the counsel and fore¬
knowledge of God for life and salvation; written to
life, (so the word is,) designed and determined for
it unalterably; for What I have written, I have
written. Those that are kept alive in killing, dying
times, were written for life in the book of Divine
Providence: and shall we not suppose those who are
rescued from a greater death, to be such as were
written in the Lamb’s book of life? Rev. xiii. 8. As
many as were ordained unto eternal life, believed,
to the salvation of the soul. Acts xiii. 48. Note, All
that were written among the living, shall be found
among the living, every one; for of all that were
given to Christ, he shall lose none. 2. It is a rem¬
nant tinder the dominion of grace; for every one that
is written among the living, and is, accordingly,
left, shall be called holy, shall be holy, and shall be
accepted of God accordingly. Those only that are
holy, shall be left, when the Son of man shall gather
out of his kingdom every thing that offends : and all
that are chosen to salvation, are chosen to sanctifi¬
cation. See 2 Thess. ii. 13. Eph. i. 4.
III. That God will reform his church, and will
Vo D IV. — E
rectify and amend whatever (s i.miss in it, v.
Then the remnant shall be called holy, when the
Lord shall have washed away their filth, washed it
from among them by cutting off the wicked persons,
washed it from within them by purging cut the
wicked thing. They shall not be called so, till
they are in some measure made so. Gospel-times
are times of reformation, (Heb. ix. 10.) typified by
the reformation in the days of Hezekiah, and tluit
after the captivity, to which this promise refers.
Observe, 1. The places and persons to be reformed.
Jerusalem, though the holy city, needed reforma¬
tion: and, being the royal city, the reformation if
that would have a good influence upon the whole-
kingdom. The daughters of Zion also must be re¬
formed, the women in a particular manner, whom
he had reproved; ch. iii. 16. When they were
decked in, their ornaments, they thought themselves
wondrouselean; but, being proud of them, the pro¬
phet calls them theiryf ////, tor no sin is more abomi¬
nable to God than pride: or by the daughters <f
Zion may be meant the country, towns, and villages,
which were related to Jerusalem, asthe mother-city,
and which needed reformation. 2. The reforma¬
tion itself; the filth shall be washed away, for wick¬
edness is filthiness, particularly bloodshed, for
which Jerusalem was infamous, (2 Kings xxi. 16.)
and which defiles the land more than any other sin.
Note, The reforming of a city is the cleansing cf it;
when vicious customs and fashions are suppressed,
and the open practice of wickedness is restraint d,
the place is made clean and sweet, which before
was a dunghill; and this is not only for its credit and
reputation among strangers, but for the comfort and
health of the inhabitants themselves. 3. The Author
of the reformation; The Lord shall do it: reforma¬
tion-work is God’s work; if any thing be done to
purpose in it, it is his doing. But how ? By the judg¬
ment of his providence the sinners were destroyed
and consumed; but it is by the Spirit of his grace
that they are reformed and converted. This is
work that is done, not by might, or by power, but
by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts, (Zech. iv. 6. )
working both upon the sinners themselves that are
to be reformed, and upon magistrates, ministers,
and others that are to be employed as instruments
of reformation. The Spirit herein acts, (1.) Asa
Spirit of judgment, enlightening the mind, convin¬
cing the conscience, as a Spirit of wisdom, guiding
us to deal prudently, (Isa. Iii. 13.) as a discerning,
distinguishing Spirit, separating between the pre
cious and the vile. (2.) As a Spirit of burning,
quickening and invigorating the affections,- and
making men zealously affected in a good work. The
Spirit works as fire, Matth. iii. 11. An ardent love
to Christ and souls, and a flaming zeal against sin,
will carry men on with resolution in their endea¬
vours to turn away ungodliness from Jacob. See
Isa. xxxii. IS, 16.
IV. That God will protect bis church, and all
that belong to it: (u. 5, 6.) when they are purified
and reformed, they shall no longer lie exposed, but
God will take a particular care of them : they that
are sanctified are well fortified, for God will be to
them a Guide and a Guard.
1. Their tabernacles shall be defended, v. 5. (1.)
Their dwelling-places; the tabernacles of their rest,
their own houses, where they worship God, alone,
and with their families. That blessing which is
upon the habitation of the just, shall be a protection
to it, Prov. iii. 33. In the tabernacles of the righ
teous shall the voice of rejoicing and salvation be,
Ps. cxviii. 15. Note, God takes particular ccg
nizance and care of the dwelling-places of his peo¬
ple, of every one of them, the poorest cottage as
well as the stateliest palace. When iniquity fiui
far from the tabernacle, the Almighty shall be its
ISAIAH. V.
34
Defence, Job xxii. 23, 25. (2.) Their assemblies
or tabernacles of meeting for religious worship. No
■mention is made of the temple, for the promise
points at a time when not one stone of that shall be
left upon another; but all the congregations of Chris¬
tians, though but two or three meet together in
Christ’s name, shall be taken under the special pro¬
tection of Heaven; they shall no more be scattered,
no more disturbed, nor shall any weapon formed
against them prosper. Note, \Ve ought to reckon
it a great mercy, if we have liberty to worship God
in public, free from the alarms of the sword of war
or persecution.
Now this writ of protection is drawn up, [1.] In
a similitude taken from the safety of the camp of
Israel, w hen they marched through the wilderness.
God will give to the Christian church as real proofs,
though not so sensible of his care of them, ns he gave
to them then. The Lord will again create a cloud
and smoke by day, to screen them from the scorch¬
ing heat of the sun, and the shining of a flaming
fire by night, to enlighten and warm the air, which,
in the night, is cold and dark. See Exod. xiii. 21.
Neh. ix. 19. This pillar of cloud and fire interposed
between the Israelites and the Egyptians, Exod.
xiv. 20. Note, Though miracles are ceased, yet
God is the same to the Newr Testament church,
that he was to Israel of old; the very same yester¬
day, to-day, and for ever. [2.] In a similitude
taken from the outside cover of rams’ skins and
badgers’ skins, that was upon the curtains of the ta¬
bernacle, as if every dwelling-place of mount Zion
and every assembly were as dear to God as that ta¬
bernacle was; Upon all the glory shall be a defence,
to save it from wind and weather. Note, The
church on earth has its glory ; gospel-truths and or¬
dinances, the scriptures and the ministry, are the
church’s glory; and upon all this glory there is a de¬
fence, and ever shall be, for the gates of hell shall
not prex’ail against the church. If God himself be
the Glory in the midst of it, he will himself be a
Wall of fire round about it, impenetrable, and im¬
pregnable. Grace in the soul is the glory of it, and
those that have it, are kept by the power of God as
in a strong hold, 1 Pet. i. 5.
2. Their tabernacle shall be a defence to them,
v. 6. God’s tabernacle was a pavilion to the saints,
Ps. xxvii. 5. But when that is taken down, they
shall not wrant a covert: the divine power and good¬
ness shall be a tabernacle to all the saints, God him¬
self will be their Hiding-place, (Ps. xxxii. ".) they
shall be at home in him, Ps. xci. 9. He will him¬
self be to them as the shadow of a great rock, ( ch .
xxxii. 2.) and his name a strong tower, Prov. xviii.
10. He will be not only a Shadow from the heat in
the day-time, but a Covert from storm and rain.
Note, In this world we must expect change of
weather, and all the inconveniences that attend it;
we shall meet with storm and rain in this lower re¬
gion, and at other times the heat of the day, no less
burthensome : but God is a Refuge to his people, in
all weathers.
CHAP. V.
In this chapter, the prophet, in God’s name, shows the
people of God their transgressions, even the house of
Jacob their sins, and the judgments which were likely to
be brought upon them for their sins: I. By a parable,
under the similitude of an unfruitful vineyard, represent¬
ing the great favours God had bestowed upon them,
their disappointing of his expectations from them, ana
the ruin they had thereby deserved, v. 1 . . 7. II. By an
enumeration of the sins that did abound among them,
with a threatening of punishments that should answer to
the sins: 1. Covetousness, and greediness of worldly
wealth, which shall be punished with famine, v. S. . 10.
2. Rioting, revelling, and drunkenness, (v. 11, 12, 22.)
which shsHl be punished with captivitv and all the mise¬
ries that attend it, v. 13. . 17. 3. Presumption in sin,
and defying the justice of God, v. 18, 19. 4. Confound¬
ing the distinctions between virtue and vice, and so un¬
dermining the principles of religion, v. 20. 5. Self-
conceit, v. 21. 6. Perverting justice; for which, and the
other instances of reigning wickedness among them, a
great and general desolation is threatened, whicli should
lay all waste, (v. 24, 25.) and which should be effected
by a foreign invasion, (v. 26 . . 30.) referring perhaps to
the havoc made not tong after by Sennacherib’s army.
1. OW will I sing to my well-beloved
_L^ a song of my beloved touching his
vineyard. My well-beloved hath a vine¬
yard in a very fruitful hill; 2. And he fenced
it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and
planted it with the choicest vine, and built
a tower in the midst of it, and also made a
wine-press therein: and he looked that it
should bring forth grapes, and it brought
forth wild grapes. 3. And now, O inhabit¬
ants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge,
I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard.
4. W hat could have been done more to my
vineyard that I have not done in it? where¬
fore, when I looked that it should bring forth
grapes, brought it forth wild grapes ? 5. And
now, go to; I will tell you what I will do to
my vineyard : I will take, away the hedge
thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break
down the wall thereof, and it shall be trod¬
den down : 6. And I will lay it waste : it
shall not be pruned nor digged ; but there
shall come up briers and thorns : I will also
command the clouds that they rain no rain
upon it. 7. For the vineyard of the Lord
of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men
of Judah liis pleasant plant: and he looked
for judgment, but behold oppression; for
! righteousness, but behold a cry.
See what variety of methods the great God takes
to awaken sinners to repentance, by convincing
them of sin, and showing them their misery and
danger, by reason of it: to this purport he speaks
sometimes in plain terms, and sometimes in para¬
bles, sometimes in prose, sometimes in verse, as
here; “ VVe have tried to reason with you, ( ch . i.
18.) now let us put your case into a poem, inscribed
to the honour ot my Well-beloved. ’ God the Fa¬
ther dictates it to the honour of Christ his well-be¬
loved Son, whom he has constituted Lord of the
vineyard. The prophet sings it to the honour of
Christ too, for he is his \\ ell-beloved. 1 he Old
Testament prophets were friends of the Bridegroom :
Christ is God’s beloved Son, and our beloved Sa¬
viour: whatever is said or sung of the church, must
be intended to his praise, even that which (like this)
tends to our shame. This parable is put into a song,
that it might be the more moving and affecting,
might be the more easily learned, and exactly re
membered, and the better transmitted to posterity;
and it is an exposition of the song of Moses, (Deut.
I xxxii.) showing, that what he then foretold, was
I now' fulfilled. Jerom says, Christ, the \\ ell-belov
| ed, did, in effect, sing this mournful song, when he
j beheld Jerusalem, and wept over it, (Lvike xix.
41.) and had reference to it in the parable ot the
vineyard; (Matth. xxi. 33.) only here the fault was
in the vines, there in the husbandmen. Here is,
I. The great things which Grd had done for the
i Jewish church and nation: when all the rest of the
35
ISAIAH, V.
world lay in common, not cultivated by divine reve¬
lation, tliat was his vineyard, they were his pecu¬
liar people; he owned them, set them apart for him¬
self; the soil they were planted in was extraordi¬
nary; it was a very fruitful hill, the horn of the son
of oil; so it is in the margin. There was plenty, a
cornucopia; and there was dainty, they did there
eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and so were fur¬
nished with abundance of good things to honour
God with in sacrifices and free-will-offerings. The
advantages of our situation wi 1 be brought into the
account another day. Observe further, what God
did for this vineyard: 1. He fenced it; took it under
his special protection, kept it night and day under
his own eye, lest any should hurt it, ch. xxvii. 2, 3.
If they had not themselves thrown down their fence,
no inroad could have been made upon them, Ps.
cx;xv. 2. — cxxi. 4. 2. He gathered the stones out
of it, that, as nothing from without might damage it,
so nothing within might obstruct its fruitfulness. He
proffered his grace to take away the stony heart.
3. He planted it with the choicest vine, set up a
pure religion among them, gave them a most excel¬
lent law, instituted ordinances very proper for the
keeping up of their acquaintance with God, Jer. ii.
21. 4. He built a tower in the midst of it, either
for defence against violence, or for the dressers of
the vineyard to lodge in; or rather, for the Owner
of the vineyard to sit in, to take a view of the vines,
(Cant. vii. 12.) a summer-house. The temple ivas
this tower, about which the priests lodged, and
where God promised to meet his people, and gave
them the tokens of his presence among them, and
pleasure in them. 5. He made a wine-press there¬
in, set up his altar, to which the sacrifices, as the
fruits of the vineyard, should be brought.
II. The disappointment of his just expectations
from them; He looked that it should bring forth
gra/ies, and a great deal of reason he had for that
expectation. Note, God expects vineyard-fruit
from those that enjoy vineyard-privileges; not leaves
only, as Mark xi. 13. A bare profession, though
ever so green, will not serve: there must be more
than buds and blossoms; good purposes and good be¬
ginnings are good things, but not enough, there must
be fruit; a good heart and a good life; vineyard-fruit;
thoughts and affections, words and actions, agreea¬
ble to the Spirit, which is the fatness of the vine¬
yard, (Gal. v. 22, 23. ) answerable to the ordinances,
which are the dressings of the vineyard, and ac¬
ceptable to God, the Lord of the vineyard, and fruit
according to the season. Such fruit as this God ex¬
pects from us, grapes, the fruit of the \ ine, with
which they honour God and man; (Judg. ix. 13.)
and his expectations are neither high nor hard, but
righteous and verv reasonable. Yet see how his
expectations are frustrated; it brought forth wild
grapes; not only no fruit at all, but bad fruit, worse
th in none; grapes of Sodom, Deut. xxxii. 32. 1.
Wild grapes are the fruits of the corrupt nature;
fruit according to the crab-stock, not according to
the engrafted branch; from the root of bitterness,
Heb. xii. 15. Where grace does not work, corrup¬
tion will. 2. Wild grapes are hypocritical per¬
formances in religion, that look like grapes, but are
sour or bitter; and are so far from being pleasing to
Gad, that they are provoking, as theirs, ch. i. 11.
Counterfeit graces are wild grapes.
III. An appeal to themselves, whether, upon the
wh le, God must not be justified, and they con¬
demned, v. iii. 4. And now the case is plainly
st it d, 0 inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Ju¬
dah, judye, I ftray you, betwixt me and my vine¬
yard. This implies that God was blamed about
ih m: there was a controversy between them and
nim; but the equity was so plain on his side, that
'ir could venture to put the decision of the contro-
| versy to their own consciences; “ Let any inhabi-
! tant of Jerusalem, any man of Judah, that has but
the use of his reason, and a common sense of equity
and justice, speak his mind impartially in this mat-
j ter. ” Here is a challenge to any man to show,
1. Any instance wherein God had been wanting
| to them; What could have been done more to my
I vineyard, that I have not done in it? He speaks ct
! the external means of fruitfulness, and such as might
■ be expected from the dresser of a vineyard, fre m
whom it is net required that he should change the
nature of the vine. What ought to have been done
more? (so it may be read. ) They had every' thing
requisite for instruction and direction in their duty,
for the quickening of them to it, and putting of them
in mind of it: no inducements were wanting to per¬
suade them to it, but all arguments were used, pre-
per to work either upon hope or fear; and they had
all the opportunities they could desire for the per¬
formance of their duty, the new-mcons, and the sab¬
baths, and solemn feasts; they had the scriptures,
the lively oracles, a standing ministry in the priests
and Levites, beside what was extraordinary in the
prophets. No nation had statutes and judgments
so nghteous.
2. Nor could any tolerable excuse be offered for
their walking thus contrary to God; “Wherefore,
what reason can be given why it should bring forth
wild grapes, when I looked for grapes?” Note, The
wickedness of those that profess religion, and enjoy
the means of grace, is the most unreasonable, unac¬
countable thing in the world, and the whole blame
of it must lie upon the sinners themselves; If thou
scomest, thou alone shalt bear it, and shalt not have
a word to say for thyself in the judgment of the
great day. God will prove his own ways equal, and
the sinner’s ways unequal.
IV. Their doom read, and a righteous sentence
passed upon them for their bad conduct toward God;
(v. 5, 6.) “ And now go to; since nothing can be of¬
fered in excuse of the crime, or arrest of the judg¬
ment, I will tell you what I am now determined to
do to my v ineyard; I will be vexed and troubled
with it no more; since it will be good for nothing,
it shall be good for nothing; in short, it shall cease
to be a vineyard, and be turned into a wilderness;
the church of the Jews shall be unchurched, their
charter shall be taken away, and they shall become
lo-ammi — not my people. ” 1. “ They shall no
longer be distinguished as a peculiar people, but be
laid in common; I will take away the hedge thereof,
and then it will soon be eaten up, and become as
bare as other ground.” They mingled themselves
with the nations, and therefore were justly scattered
among them. They shall no longer be protected as
God’s people, but left exposed. God will not onlv
suffer the wall to go to decay, but he will break it
down, will remove all their defences from them;
and then they become an easy prey to their ene¬
mies, who had long waited for an opportunity to do
them a mischief, and will now tread them down,
and trample upon them. 3. They shall no longer
have the face of a vineyard, the form and shape of
a church and commonwealth, but shall be levelled
and laid waste. This was fulfilled when Jerusalem
for their sakes was ploughed as a field, Mic. iii. 12
4. No more pains shall be taken with them by ma
gistrates or ministers, the dressers and keepers cf
their vineyard; it shall not be pruned ordigged, but
every thing shall run wild, and nothing shall come
up but briers and thorns, the products of sin and
the curse, Gen. iii. 18. When errors and corrup¬
tions, race and immorality, go without check or con¬
trol, no testimony borne against them, no rebuke
given them, or restraint put upon them, the vine
vard is unpruned, is not dressed or ridded; and ther
it will soon be like the vineyard of the man void ' i
36
ISAIAH, V.
understanding, all grown over with thorns. 5. That
which completes its wo, is, that the dews of heaven
shall be withheld; he that has the key of the clouds,
will command them that they rain no rain upon it;
and that alone is sufficient to turn it into a desert.
Note, God, in a way of righteous judgment, denies
his grace to those that have long received it in vain.
The sum of all is, that they who would not bring
forth good fruit, should bring forth none. The curse
of barrenness is the punishment of the sin of barren¬
ness; as Mark xi. 14. This had its accomplishment,
in part, in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chal¬
deans, its full accomplishment in the final rejection
of the Jews, and has its frequent accomplishment in
the departure of God’s Spirit from those persons
who have long resisted him, and striven against
him, and the removal rjf his gospel from those places
that have been long a reproach to it, while it has
been an honour to them. It is no loss to God to lay
his vineyard waste; for he can, when he pleases,
turn a wilderness into a fruitful field; and when he
does thus dismantle a vineyard, it is but as he did
by the garden of Eden, which, when man had by
sin forfeited his place in, was soon levelled with
common soil.
V. The explanation of this parable, or a key to
it, (n. 7.) where we are told, 1. What is meant by
the vineyard; it is the house of Israel, the body of
the people, incorporated in one church and com¬
monwealth; and what by the vines, the pleasant
plants, the plants of God’s pleasure, which he had
been pleased in, and delighted in doing good to;
they are the men of Judah; these he had dealt gra¬
ciously with, and from them he expected suitable
returns. 2. What is meant by the grapes that were
expected, and the wild grapes that were produced;
he looked for judgment and righteousness, that the
people should be honest in ail their dealings, and
the magistrates should strictly administer justice;
this might reasonably be expected among a people
that had such excellent laws and rules of justice
given them ; (Deut. iv. 8. ) but it was quite other¬
wise; instead of judgment there was the cruelty of
the oppressors, and instead of righteousness the cry
of the oppressed; every thing was carried by cla¬
mour and noise, and not by equity, and according
to the merits of the cause. It is sad with a people,
when wickedness has usurped the place of judg--
inent, Eccl. iii. 16. It is very sad with a soul, when,
instead of the grapes of humility, meekness, pa¬
tience, love, and contempt of the world, which God
looks for, there are the wild grapes of pride, pas¬
sion, discontent, malice, and contempt of God; in¬
stead of the grapes of praying and praising, the
wild grapes of cursing and swearing, which are a
great offence to God. Some of the ancients apply
this to the Jews in Christ’s time, among whom Gocl
looked for righteousness, that they should have re¬
ceived and embraced Christ, but behold, a cry, that
cry, Crucify him, crucify him.
8. Wo unto them that join house to
house, that lay field to field, till there he no
place, that they may be placed alone in the
midst of the earth ! 9. In mine ears, said
die Lord of hosts, Of a truth, many houses
shall be desolate, even great and fair, with¬
out inhabitant. 10. Yea, ten acres of vine¬
yard shall yield one bath, and the seed of a
homer shall yield an ephah. 11. Wo unto
them that rise up early in the morning, that
i hey may follow strong drink; that continue
until night,//// wine inflame them! 12. And
the haip and the viol, the tabret and pipe,
and wine, are in their feasts: but they re¬
gard not the work of the Lord, neither con¬
sider the operation of his hands. 13. There¬
fore my people are gone into captivity,
because they have no knowledge; and then-
honourable men are famished, and then-
multitude dried up with thirst. 14. There¬
fore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened
her mouth without measure: and their glory
and their multitude, and their pomp, and he
that rejoiceth, shall descend into it. 15
And the mean man shall be brought down,
and the mighty man shall be humbled, and
the eyes of the lofty shall be humbled: 16.
But the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in
judgment, and God, that is holy, shall be
sanctified in righteousness. 1 7. Then shall
the lambs feed after their manner, and the
waste places of the fat ones shall stranger?
eat.
The world and the flesh are the two great ene¬
mies that we are in danger of being oveipowered
by; yet we are in no danger, if we do not ourselves
yiulti to them. Eagerness of the world, and indul¬
gence of the flesh, are the two sins against which
the prophet in God’s name, here denounces woes;
these sins abounded then among the men of Judah,
and were some of the wild grapes they brought
forth, ( v . 4. ) for which God threatens to bring ruin
upon them; they are sins which we have all need
to stand upon our guard against, and dread the con¬
sequences of.
I. Here is a wo to those who set their hearts
upon the wealth of the world, and place their hap¬
piness in that, and increase it to themselves by indi
rect and unlawful means, (y. 8. ) who join house to
house, and lay field to field, till there be no place .
no room for any body to live by them; could they
succeed, they would be placed alone in the midst ci
the earth, would monopolize possessions and pre¬
ferments, and engross all profits and employments
to themselves. Not that it is a sin for those who
have a house and a field, if they have wherewithal
to purchase another; but their fault is, 1. That they
are inordinate in their desires to enrich themselves,
and make it their whole care and business to raise
an estate; as if they had nothing to mind, nothing to
seek, nothing to do, in this world, but that. They
never know v-hen they have enough, but the mi re
they have, the more they would have; and, like the
daughters of the horseleech, they cry, Give, give;
they cannot enjoy what they have, nor do good with
it, being so intent on contriving and studying to
make it more. They must have variety of houses,
a winter-house, and a summer-house; and if am then
man’s house, oj- field, lie convenient to theirs, os
Naboth’s vineyard to Ahab’s, they must have that
too, or they cannot be easy. Their fault is, 2. That
they are herein careless of others, nay, and injurious
to them; they would live so as to let nobody live but
themselves; so that their insatiable covetings be
gratified, they matter not what becomes of all about
them : what encroachments they make upon their
neighbour’s rights, what hardships they put upon
those that they have power over, or advantage
against, or what base and wicked arts they use to
heap up treasure to themselves. They would swell
so big as to fill all space, and yet are still unsatisfied,
| Eccl. v. 10. As Alexander, who, when he fancied
j he had conquered the world, wept because hr- had
net another world to conquer: Deficiente terra, non
37
1SA1 1
imfilctur avaritia — If the whole earth were mono¬
polized, avarice would thirst for more. What, will
you be placed alone in the midst of the earth? (so
some read it.) Will you be so foolish as to desire
it, when we have so much need of the service of
others, and so much comfort in their society? Will
you be so foolish as to expect that the earth should
be forsaken for us, (Job xviii. 4.) when it is by mul¬
titudes that the earth is to be replenished? An prop¬
ter vos solos tanta terra creata est ? — Was the wide
world created merely for you? Lyra.
Now that which is threatened, as the punishment
of this sin, is, th.it neither the houses nor the fields
they were thus greedy of, should turn to any ac¬
count, v. 9, 10. God whispered it to the prophet
in his ear, as he speaks in a like case; (c/i. xxii. 14.)
It was revealed in mine ears by the Lord of hosts;
(as God told Samuel a thing in his ear, 1 Sam. ix.
15.) he thought he heard it still sounding in his ears;
but he proclaims it as he ought to do, upon the house¬
tops, Matth. x. 27. (1.) That the houses they were
so fond of, should be untenanted, should stand long
empty, and so should yield them no rent, and go out
of repair: Many houses shall be desolate, the people
that should dwell in them being cut off by sword,
famine, or pestilence, or carried into captivity; or,
trade being dead, and poverty coming upon the
country like an armed man, those that had been
house-keepers, were forced to become lodgers, or
shift for themselves elsewhere. Even great and fair
houses, that would invite tenants, and (there being
a scarcity of tenants) might be taken at low rates,
shall stand empty without inhabitants. God creat¬
ed not the earth in vain: he formed it to be inhabit¬
ed, ch. xlv. 18. But men’s projects are often frus¬
trated, and what they frame, answers not the in¬
tention. We have a saying, That fools build houses
for wise men to live in; but sometimes it proves
for no man to live in. God has many ways to empty
the most populous cities. (2. ) That the fields they
were so fond of should be unfruitful ; (y. 10. ) Ten
acres of vineyard shall yield only such a quantity
of grapes as will m ike but one bath of wine, which
was about eight gallons; and the seed of an homer,
a bushel’s sowing of ground, shall yield but an
eplvth, which was the tenth part of an homer; so
that, through the barrenness of the ground, or the
unseasonableness of the weather, they should not
have more than a tenth part of their seed again.
Note, Those that set their hearts upon the world,
will justly be disappointed in their expectations
from it.
II. Here is a wo to those that doat upon the plea¬
sures and delights of sense, v. 11, 12. Sensuality
ruins men as certainly as worldliness and oppres¬
sion. As Christ pronounced a wo against those that
are rich, so also against those that laugh now, and
are full, (Luke vi. 24, 25.) and fare sumptuously,
Luke xvi. 19.
Obseri e, 1. Who the sinners are against whom
this wo is denounced; (1.) They are such as are
given to drink, they make it their business, have
their hearts upon it, and overcharge themselves
with it. They rise early to follow strong drink, as
husbandmen and tradesmen do to follow their em¬
ployments; as if they were afraid of losing time
from that which is the greatest mispendingof time.
Whereas commonly they that are drunken, are
drunken in the night, when they have despatched
the day, these neglect business, abandon it, and give
up themselves to the service of the flesh; for they
sit at their cups all day, and continue till night, till
wine inflame them — inflame their lusts; chambering [
and wantonness follow upon rioting and drunkenness
— inflame their passions; for who but such have
contentions and wounds without cause? Prov. xxiii.
29 — 33. They make a perfect trade of drinking; ,
\H, V.
nor do they seek the shelter of the night for this
work of darkness, as men ashamed of it, but count
it a /ileasure to riot in the clay-timc. See 2 Pet. ii.
13. (2.) They are such as are given to mirth; they
have their feasts, and they are so merrily disprsed,
that they cannot dine or sup without music, musical
instruments of all sorts, like David, (Amos vi. 5.)
like Solomon; (Eccl. ii. 8.) the harp and the viol,
the tabret and pipe, must accompany the wine, that
every sense may be gratified to a nicety: they take
the timbrel and harp. Job xxi. 12. The use (if mu¬
sic is lawful in itself; but when it is excessive, when
we set our hearts upon it, mispend time in it, so
that it crowds our spiritual and divine pleasures,
and draws away the heart from God, then it turns
into sin to us. (3.) They are such as never give
their mind to anv thing that is serious; they regard
not the work of the Lord, they observe' not his
power, wisdom, and goodness, in those creatures
which they abuse, and subject to vanity, nor the
bounty of his providence, in giving them those good
things which they make the food and fuel of their
lusts. God’s judgments have already seized them,
and they are under the tokens of his displeasure, but
they regard not, they consider not the hand cf God
in all these things; his hand is lifted up, but they
will not see, because they will not disturb them¬
selves in their pleasures, nor think what God is do¬
ing with them.
2. What the judgments are, which are denounc¬
ed against them, and in part executed. It is here
foretold,
(1.) That they should be dislodged; the land
should spue out these drunkards; (v. 13.) My peo¬
ple (so they called themselves, and were proud of
it) are therefore gone into captivity, are as sure p
go, as if they were gone already, because they have
no knowledge; how should they have knowledge,
when by their excessive drinking they make sots
and fools of themselves? They set up for wits, but,
because they regard not God’s controversy with
them, nor take any care to make their peace with
him, they may tnilv be said to have no knowledge;
and the reason is, because they will have none; they
are inconsiderate and wilful, and therefore destroyed
for lack of knowledge.
(2.) That they should be impoverished, and come
to want that which they had wasted and abused to
excess; Even their glory are men of famine, subject
to it, and slain by it; and their multitude are dried
up with thirst: both the great men and the common
people are ready to perish for want of bread and
water; this is the effect of the failure of the com,
(v. 10.) for the king himself is served of the field,
Eccl. v. 9. And when the vintage fails, the dnmk
ards are called upon to weep, because the new wim
is cut off from their mouth, (Joel i. 5.) and not so
much because now they want it, as because, when
they had it, they abused it. It is just with God to
make men want that for necessity, which they have
abused to excess.
(3.) That multitudes should be cut off by famim
and sword; (v. 14.) Therefore hell has enlarged
herself; Tophet, the common burving-place, proves
too little; so many are there to be buried, that thev
shall be forced to enlarge it: the grave has opened
her mouth without measure, never saying, It it
enough, Prov. xxx. 15, 16. It may be understood
of the place of the damned; luxury and sensuality
fill those regions of darkness and horror; there they
are tormented, who made a god of their belly, Luke
xvi. 25. Phil. iii. 19.
(4.) That they should be humbled and abased,
and all their honours laid in the dust. This will be
done effectually by death and the grave; Their glory
shall descend, not only to the earth, but into it; it
shall not descend after them, (Ps. xlix. 17.) to stano
33
ISAIAH, V.
diem in any stead on the other side death, but it
shall die and he buried with them; poor glory,
which will thus wither! Did they glory in their
numbers? Their multitude shall go down to the pit,
Ezek. xxxi. 18. — xxxii. 32. Did they glory in the
figure they made? Their pomp shall be at an end;
their shouts with which they triumphed, and were
attended. Did they glory in their mirth? Death will
turn it into mounting; he that rejoices and revels,
and never knows what it is to be serious, shall go
thither where there is weeping and wailing. Thus
the mean man and the mighty man meet together
in the grave, and under mortifying judgments. Let
a man be ever so high, death will bring him low,
ever so mean, death will bring him lower; in the
prospect of winch, the eyes of the lofty should now
be humbled, v. 15. It becomes those to look low,
that must shortly be laid low.
3. What the fruit of these judgments shall be.
(1.) God shall be glorified, v. 16. He that is the
Lord of hosts, and the holy God, sh ill be exalted
and sanctified in the judgment and righteousness of
these dispensations. His justice must be owned, in
bringing those low that exalted themselves; and
herein he is glorified; [1.] As a God of irresistible
power: he will herein be exalted as the Lord of
hosts, that is able to break the strongest, humble
the proudest, and tame the most unruly. Power is
not exalted but in judgment. It is the honour of
God, that, though he has a mighty arm, yet judg¬
ment and justice are always the habitation of his
throne , Ps. lxxxix. 13, 14. [2.] As a God of un¬
spotted purity; he that is holy, infinitely holy, shall
be sanctified, shall be owned and declared to be so
in the righteous punishment of proud men. Note,
When proud men are humbled, the great God is
honoured, and ought to be honoured by us.
(2.) Good people shall be relieved and succoured;
(v. 17.) Then shall the lambs feed after their man¬
ner; the meek ones of the earth, who follow the
Lamb, who were persecuted, and put into fear by
those proud oppressors, shall feed quietly, feed in
the green pastures, and there shall be none to make
them afraid. See Ezek. xxxiv. 14. When the ene¬
mies of the church are cut off, then have the church¬
es rest; they shall feed at their pleasure; so some
read it. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit
the earth, and delight themselves in abundant peace.
They shall feed according to their order or capacity ;
so others reads it; as they are able to hear the word,
that bread of life.
(3.) The country shall be laid waste, and be¬
come a prey to the neighbours; the waste places
of the fat ones, the possessions of those inch men
that lived at their ease, those shall be eaten by
strangers that were nothing akin to them. In the
captivity, the poor of the land were left for vine¬
dressers and husbandmen; (2 Kings xxv. 12.) those
were the lambs, that feed in the pastures of the fat
ones, which were laid in common for strangers to
eat. When the church of the Jews, those fat ones,
was laid waste, their privileges were transferred to
the Gentiles, who had been long strangers; and the
lambs of Christ’s flock were welcome to them.
18. Wo unto them that draw iniquity
with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with
a cart-rope ! 1 9. That say, Let him make
speed, anti hasten his work, that we may
see it : and let the counsel of the Holy One
of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may
know it! 20. Wo unto them that call evil
good, and good evil; that put darkness for
ligot, and light for darkness; that put bitter
for sweet, and sweet for hitter! 21. Wo |
unto them that are wise in their own eyes,
and prudent in their own sight ! 22. Wo
unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and
men of strength to mingle strong drink : 23.
M Inch justify the wicked for reward, and
fake away the righteousness of the righteous
from him ! 24. Therefore as the fire devour¬
ed) the stubble, and the flame consumeth the
chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and
their blossom shall go up as dust: because
they have cast away the law of the Loud of
hosts, and despised the word of the HolyOne
of Israel. 25. Therefore is the anger of the
Lord kindled against his people, and he
hath stretched forth his hand against them,
and hath smitten them : and the hills did
tremble, and their carcases were torn in the
midst of the streets. For all this his anger
is not turned away, but his hand is stretched
out still. 26. And he will lift up an ensign
to the nations from far, and will hiss unto
them from the end of the earth: and, behold,
they shall come with speed swiftly. 27.
None shall be weary nor stumble among
them; none shall slumber nor sleep; neither
shall the girdle of their loins be loosed, nor
the latehet of their shoes be broken: 23.
W hose arrows are sharp, and all their bows
bent, their horses’ hoofs shall be counted
like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind:
29. Their roaring shall be like a lion, they
shall roar like young lions; yea, they shall
roar, and lay hold of the prey, and shall
carry it away safe, and none shall deliver it
30. And in that day they shall roar against
them like the roaring of the sea; and if one
look unto the land, behold darkness and sor¬
row ; and the light is darkened in the hea
vens thereof.
Here are,
I. Sins described, which will bring judgments
upon a people; and this perhaps is not onlv a charge
drawn up against the men of Judah', who lived at
that time, and the particular articles of that charge,
though it may relate primarily to them; but it is ra¬
ther intended for warning to ail people, in all ages, to
take heed to these sins, as destructive both to par¬
ticular persons and to communities, and exposing
men to God’s wrath and his righteous judgments.
Those that are here said to be in a woful condi
tion,
1. Who are eagerly set upon sin, and violent in
their sinful pursuits; (r. 18.) who draw iniquity
with cords of vanity, who take as much pains to
sin, as the cattle do, that draw in a team; who put
themselves to the stretch for the gratifying of theit
inordinate appetites, and to humour a base lust, of
fer violence to nature itself. They think themselves
as sure of compassing their wicked projects, as if
they were pulling it to them with strong cart-ropes:
but they will find themselves disappointed, for thev
will prove cords of vanity, which will break when
they come to any stress; for the righteous I.ord wi/i
cut in sunder the cords of the wicked, Ps. cxxix. 4.
Job iv. 8. Prow xxii. 8. They are bv long custom
ISAIAH, Vr.
30
ami confirmed habits, so hardened in sin, that they
cannot get clear of it: those that sin through infir¬
mity, are drawn away by sin; those that sin pre¬
sumptuously, draw it to them, in spite of the oppo¬
sitions of Providence and the checks of conscience.
Some by sin understand the punishment of sin; they
■■'ull God’s judgments upon their own heads, as it
were with cart-ropes.
2. Who set the justice of God at defiance, and
challenge the Almighty to do his worst; (x>. 19.)
They say, Let him make speed, and hasten his work;
this is the same language with that of the scoffers
of the last days, who say. Where is the promise of
his coining? And therefore it is, that, like them,
the)' draw iniquity with cords of vanity, are violent
and daring in sin, and walk after their own lusts, 2
Pet. iii. 1, 3, 4. (1.) They ridicule the prophets,
and banter them; it is in scorn that they call God
the Holy One of Israel, because the prophets used
with great veneration to call him so. (2. ) They will
not believe the revelation of God’s wrath from hea¬
ven against their ungodliness and unrighteousness;
unless they see it executed, they will not know it,
as if the curse were brutum fulmen — a mere flash,
and all the threatenings of the word bugbears to
frighten fools and children. (3. ) If God should ap¬
pear against them, as he has threatened, yet they
think themselves able to make their part good with
him, and provoke him to jealousy, as if they were
stronger than he, 1 Cor. x. 22. “We have heard
his word, but it is all talk; let him hasten his work,
we shall shift for ourselves well enough.” Note,
Those that wilfully persist in sin, consider not the
power of God’s anger.
3. Who confound and overthrow the distinctions
between moral good and evil, who call evil good,
and good evil, (x>. 20.) who not only live in the
omission of that which is good, but condemn it, ar¬
gue against it, and, because they will not practise it
themselves, run it down in others, and fasten invi¬
dious epithets upon it; they not only do that which
is evil, but justify it, and applaud it, and recom¬
mend it to others as safe and good. Note, (1.) Vir¬
tue and piety are good, for they are light and sweet,
they are pleasant and right; but sin and wickedness
are evil, they are darkness, all the fruit of ignorance
and mistake, and will be bitterness in the latter end.
(2.) Those do a great deal of wrong to God, and re¬
ligion, and conscience, to their own souls and to the
souls of others, who misrepresent these, and put false
colours upon them, who call drunkenness good fel¬
lowship, and covetousness good husbandry, and,
when they persecute the people of God, think they
do him good service; and, on the other hand, who
call seriousness ill-nature, and sober singularity ill-
breeding, who say all manner of evil falsely con¬
cerning the ways of godliness, and do what they
can to form in men’s minds prejudices against them ;
and this in defiance of evidence as plain and con¬
vincing as that of sense, by which we distinguish,
beyond contradiction, between light and darkness,
and that which to the taste is sweet and bitter.
4. Who, though they are guilty of such gross mis¬
takes as these, have a great opinion of their own
judgments, and value themselves mightily upon
their understanding; (x». 21.) they are wise in their
own eyes; the)' think themselves able to disprove
and baffle the reproofs and convictions of God’s
word, and to evade and elude both the searches
and the reaches of his judgments; that they can out¬
wit Infinite Wisdom, and countermine Providence
itself. Or, it may be taken more generally; God
resists the proud, those particularly who arc con¬
ceited of their own wisdom, and lean to their own
understanding; such must become fools, that they
may be truly wise, or else, at their end, they shall
appear to be fools before all the world.
5. Who gloried in it as a great accomplisninent,
that they were able to bear a great deal of strong
liquor without being overcome by it; (v. 22.) Who
are mighty to drink wine, and "use their strength
and vigour, not in the service of their country, but
in the Service of their lusts. Let drunkards know
from this scripture, that, (1.) They ungratefully
abuse their bodily strength, which God has given
them for good purooses, and by degrees cannot but
weaken it. (2.) It will not excuse them from the
guilt of drunkenness, that they can drink hard, and
yet keep their feet. (3.) Those who boast of their
drinking down others, glory in their shame. (4.)
How light soever men make of their drunkenness, it
is a sin which will certainly lay them open to the
wrath and curse of God.
6. Who, as judges, perverted justice, and went
counter to all the rules of equity, xs 23. This fol¬
lowed upon the former; they drink, and forget the
law, (Prov. xxxi. 5.) and err through wine, ( ch .
xxviii. 7.) and take bribes, that they may have
wherewithal to maintain their luxury. They" justify
the wicked for reward, and find some pretence or
other to clear him from his guilt, and shelter him
from punishment; and they condemn the innocent,
and take away their righteousness from them, over-
rale their pleas, deprive them of the means of clear¬
ing up their innocency, and give judgment against
them. In causes between man and man, might and
money would at any time prevail against right and
justice; and he who was ever so plainly in the
wrong, with a small bribe would carry the cause,
and recover costs. In criminal causes, though the
prisoner ever so plainly appeared to be guilty, yet,
for a reward, they would acquit him; if he were
innocent, yet, if he did not fc-e them well, nay, if
they were fee’d by the malicious prosecutor, or they
themselves had spleen against him, they would con¬
demn him.
II. The judgments described, which these sins
would bring upon them. Let not those expect to
live easily, who live thus wickedly; for the righte¬
ous God will take vengeance, v '. 24 — 30. Where
we may observe,
1. How complete this ruin will be, and how ne¬
cessarily and unavoidably it will follow upon their
sins. He had compared this people to a vine, (x\
7.) well-fixed, and which, it was hoped, would be
flourishing and fruitful; but the grace of God to¬
wards it was received in vain, and then the root be¬
came rottenness, being dried up from beneath, and
the blossom wculd of course blow off as dust, as a
light and worthless thing, Job xviii. 16. Sin weak¬
ens the strength, the root, of a people, so that they
are easily rooted up; it defaces the beauty, the blos¬
soms, of a people, and takes away the hopes of fruit.
The sin of unfruitfulncss is punished with the plague
of unfruitfulness. Sinners make themselves as
stubble and chaff, combustible matter, proper fuel
to the fire of God’s wrath, which then, of course,
devours and consumes them, as the fire devours the
stubble, and nobody can hinder it, or cares to hin
der it. Chaff is consumed, unhelped and unpitied.
2. How just the ruin will be; Because they have
cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and would
not have him to reign over them ; and as the law of
i Moses was rejected and thrown off, so the word of
the Holy One of Israel by his servants the prophets,
j putting them in mind of his law, and calling them
' to obedience, was despised and disregarded. God
does not reject men for every transgression of his
law and word; but, when his word is despised, and
his law cast away, what can they expect, but that
God should utterly abandon them?
3. Whence this rain should come; (x>. 25.) it is
j destruction from the Almighty. (1.) The justice
I of God appoints it; for that is the anger of the Lord
■10
ISAIAH, VI.
which is kindled against his people, his necessary
vindication of the honour of his holiness and autho¬
rity. (2.) The power of God effects it; he hath
stretched forth his hand against them; that hand
which had many a time been stretched out for them
against their enemies, is now stretched out against
them, at full length, and in its full vigour; and who
knows the / tower of his anger? Whether they are
sensible of it or no, it is God that has smitten them,
has blasted their vine, and made it wither.
4. The consequences and continuance of this ruin.
When God comes forth in wrath against a people,
the hills tremble, fear seizes even their great men,
who are strong and high; the earth shakes under
men, and is ready to sink; and as this feels dread¬
ful, (what does more so than an earthquake?) so
what sight can be more frightful than the carcases of
of men torn with dogs, or thrown as dung (so the mar¬
gin reads) in the midst of the streets? This intimates
that great multitudes should be slain, not only soldiers
in the field of battle, but the inhabitants of their cities
put to the sword in cold blood, and that the survi¬
vors should neither have hands nor hearts to bury
them. This is very dreadful, and vet such is the
merit of sin, that, for all this, God's anger is not
turned away; that fire will burn as long as there
nemains any of the stubble and chaff to be fuel for
it: and his hand, which he stretched forth against
his people to smite them, because they do not by
prayer take hold of it, nor by reformation submit
themselves to it, is stretched out still.
5. The instruments that should be employed in
bringing this ruin upon them; it should be done by
the incursion of a foreign enemy, that should lay all
waste: no particular enemy is named, and therefore
we are to take it as a prediction of all the several
judgments of this kind which God brought upon the
Jews, Sennacherib’s invasion soon after, and the de¬
struction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans first, and
at last by the Romans; and I think it is to be looked
upon also as a threatening of the like desolation of
those countries which harbour and countenance
those sins mentioned in the foregoing verses: it is
an exposition of those woes.
When God designs the ruin of a provoking peo-
ple,
(1.) He can send a great way off for instruments
to be employed in it; he can raise forces from afar,
and summon them from the end of the earth to at¬
tend his service, v. 26. Those who know him not,
are made of use to fulfil his counsel, when, by rea¬
son of their distance, they can scarcely be supposed
to have any ends of their own to serve. If God set
up his standard, he can incline men’s hearts to en¬
list themselves under it, though perhaps they know
not whv or wherefore. When the Lord of hosts is
pleased to make a general muster of the forces he
has at his command, he has a great army in an in¬
stant, Joel ii. 2, 11. He needs not sound a trumpet,
or beat a drum, to give them notice, or to animate
them; no, he does but hiss to them, or rather whis¬
tle to them, and that is enough; they hear that, and
that puts courage into them. Note, God has all the
creatures at his beck.
(2. ) He can make them come into the service with
incredible expedition; Behold , they shall come with
sfieed swiftly. Note, [1.] Those who will do God’s
work must not loiter, must not linger, nor shall they
when his time is come. [2.] Those who defy God’s
judgments, will be ashamed of their insolence when
it is too late; they said scornfully, (u. 19.) Let him
make sfieed, let him hasten his work, and they shall
find, to their terror and confusion, that he will; in
one hour is the judgment come.
(2.) He can carry them on in the service with
amazing forwardness and fury. This is described
here in very elegant and lofty expressions, v. 27 —
30. [1.] Though their marches be very long, yet
none among them shall be weary; so desirous shall
they be to engage, that they shall forget their wea¬
riness, and make no complaints of it. [2.] Though
the way be rough, and perhaps embarrassed by the
usual policies of war, yet none among them shall
stumble, but all the difficulties in their way shall
easily be got over. [3.] Though they be forced to
keep constant watch, none shall slumber nor sleep,
so intent shall they be upon their vvork, in prospect
of having the plunder of the city for their pains.
[4.] They shall not desire any rest or relaxation;
they shall not put off their clothes, nor loose the gir-
dle’of their loins, but shall always have their belts
on, and swords by their sides. [5.] They shall net
meet with the least hindrance to retard their march,
or oblige them to halt; not a latchet of their shoes
shall be broken, which they must stay to mend, as
Josh. ix. 13. [6.] Their arms and ammunition
shall all be fixed, and in good posture; their arrows
sharp, to wound deep, and all their bows bent, none
unstrung, for they expect to be soon in action. [7.]
Their horses and chariots of war are all fit for ser¬
vice; their horses so strong, so hardy, that their
hoofs shall be like flint, far from being beaten or
made tender, bv their long march; and the wheels
of their chariots not broken, or battered, or cut of
repair, but swift like a whirlwind, turning round so
strongly upon their axle-trees. [8.] All the soldiers
shall be bold and daring; (x>. 29.) their roaring, or
shouting, before a battle, shall be like a lion, who
with his roaring animates himself, and terrifies all
about him. They who would not hear the voice of
| God speaking to them by his prophets, but stopped
their ears against their charms, shall be made to
1 hear the voice of their enemies roaring against them,
and shall not be able to turn a deaf ear to it; they
shall roar like the roaring of the sea in a storm ; it
roars, and threatens to swallow up, as the lion roars,
and threatens to tear in pieces. [9.] There shall
not be the least prospect of relief or succour; the
enemy shall come in like a flood, and there shall be
none to lift up a standard against him; he shall seize
the prey, and none shall deliver it, none shall be able
to deliver it, nay, none shall so much as dare to at¬
tempt the deliverance of it, but shall give it up for
lost. Let the distressed look which way they will,
every thing appears dismal; for if God frown upon
us, how can any creature smile? First, Lock round
to the earth, to" the land, to that land that used to
be a land of light, and the joy of the whole earth,
and behold, darkness and sorrow, all frightful, all
mourning, nothing hopeful. Secondly, Look up to
heaven, and there the light is darkened, where one
would expect to have found it. If the light is dark¬
ened in the heavens, how great is that darkness!
If God hide his face, no marvel the heavens hide
theirs, and appear gloomy. Job xxxiv. 29. It is cur
wisdom, bv keeping a good conscience, to keep all
clear between us and heaven, that we may have
light from above, when clouds and darkness are
round about us.
CHAP. VI.
Hitherto, it should seem, Isaiah had prophesied a? a can
didate, having only a virtual and implicit commission
but here we have him (if I may so speak) solemnly or
dained and set apart to the prophetical office by a more
express explicit commission, as his work grew more upon
his hands: or, perhaps, having seen little success of his
ministry, he began to thinJr of giving it up; and there¬
fore God saw fit to renew m» commission here in this
chapter, in such a manner as might excite and encour¬
age his zeal and industry in the execution of if, though
he seemed to labour in vain. In this chapter, we have,
I. A very awful vision which Isaiah saw of the glory of
God, (v. 1 . .4.) the terror it put him into, (v. 5. ) and the
relief given him against that terror by an assurance of
I the pardon of his sins, v. 6,7. II. A very awful com-
ISAIAH, VI
41
aJssion which Isaiah received to go as a prophet, in Ciod’s
name, (v. 8.) by his preaching to harden the impenitent
in sin, and ripen them for ruin; (v. 9--12.) yet with a
reservation ol mercy for a remnant, v. 13. And it was
as to an evangelical prophet, that these things were show¬
ed him, and said to him.
IN the year that king Uzziah died 1
saw also the Lord sitting upon a
throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled
‘he temple. 2. Above it stood the Sera¬
phims: each one had six wings; with twain
lie covered his face, and with twain he co¬
vered his feet, and with twain he did fly.
3. And one cried unto another and said,
Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the
whole earth is full of his glory. 4. And the
posts of the door moved at the voice of him
that cried, and the house was filled with
smoke.
The vision which Isaiah saw when he was, as is
said of Samuel, established to be a j iro/ihet of the
Lord, (1 Sam. iii. 20.) was intended, 1. To con¬
firm his faith, that he might himself be abundantly
satisfied of the truth of those things which should
afterward be made known to him. Thus God
opened the communications of himself to him: but
such visions needed not to be afterward repeated,
upon every revelation. Thus God appeared at first
as a God of glory to Abraham, (Acts vii. 2.) and to
Moses, Exod. iii. 2. Ezekiel’s prophecies, and St.
John’s, begin with visions of the divine glory. 2.
To work upon his affections, that lie might be possessed
of such a reverence of God, as would both quicken
him, and fix him, to his service. They who are to
teach others the knowledge of God, ought to be well
acquainted with him themselves.
The vision is dated, for the greater certainty of
it ; it was in the year that king Uzziah died, who had
reigned, for the most part, as prosperously and well
as any of the kings of Judah, and reigned very long,
above fifty years: about the time that he died, Isaiah
saw this vision of God upon a throne; for when the
breath of princes goes forth, and they return to their
earth, this is our comfort, that the Lord shall reign
for ever, Ps. cxlvi. 3, 4, 10. Israel’s king dies,
but Israel’s God still lives. From the mortality of
great and good men, we should take occasion to look
up with an eve of faith to the King eternal, immor¬
tal. King Uzziah died under a cloud, for he was
shut up as a leper till the day of his death: as the
live’s of princes have their periods, so their glory is
often eclipsed; but as Goa is everlasting, so his
glory is everlasting. King Uzziah dies in a hospital,
but the King of kings still sits upon his throne.
What the prophet here saw is revealed to us,
that we, mixing faith with that revelation, may in
it, as in a glass, behold the glory of the Lord: let us
turn aside therefore, and see this great sight with
humble reverence.
I. See God upon his throne, and that throne high
and lifted up, not only above other thrones, as it
transcends them, but over other thrones, as it rales
and commands them. Isaiah saw not Jehovah —
the essence of God, (no man has seen that, or can
see it,) but Adonai — his dominion ; he saw the Lord
Jesus; so this vision is explained, (John xii. 41.) that
Isaiah now saw Christ’s glory, and spake of him;
which is an incontestable proof of the divinity of our
Saviour. He it is, who, when, after his resurrec¬
tion, he sat down on the right hand of God, did but
sit down where he was before, John xvii. 5. See
the rest of the Eternal Mind; Isaiah saw the Lord
Vol. iv. — F
sitting, Ps. xxix. 10. Sec the sovereignty rt the
Eternal Monarch; he shs upon a thmv , a throne
of glory, befi re which we must worship, a throne
of government, under which we must be subject,
and a throne i f grace, to which we may come bold
ly. This throne is high, and lifted up above all com¬
petition and contradiction.
II. See his temple, his church on earth, filled
with manifestations of his glory. His throne being
erected at the door of the temple, (as princes sat in
judgment at the gates,) his train, the skirts of his
robes, filled the temple, the whole world; for it is
all God’s temple; and as the heaven is his throne,
so the earth is his footstool; or, rather, the church,
which is filled, enriched, and beautified, with the
tokens of God’s special presence.
III. See the bright and blessed attendants on his
throne, in and by whom his glory is celebrated, and
his government served; (r. 2.) Above tie throne,
as it were hovering about it, or nigh to the throne,
bowing before it, with an eye to it, the seraphim
stood, the holy angels, who are called seraphim —
burners; for he makes his ministers a flaming fire,
(Ps. civ. 4.) they burn in love to God, and zeal for
his glory against sin, and he makes use of them as
instruments of his wrath, when he is a consuming
Fire to his enemies. Whether they were only two
or four, or (as I rather think) an innumerable com¬
pany of angels, that Isaiah saw, is uncertain; sec
Dan. v'li. 10. Note, It is the glory of the angels, tha*
they are seraphim, have heat proportionable to
their light, have abundance, not only cf divine
knowledge, but of holy love.
Special notice is taken of their -wings, (and of no
other part of thc-ir appearance,) because of the use
they made of them; which is designed for instruc¬
tion to us. They had each of them six wings, not
stretched upward, (as those whom Ezekiel saw, ch.
i. 11.) but, 1. Four were made use of for covering,
as the wings of a fowl, sitting, are; with the two
upper wings, next the head, they covered their
faces; and with the two 1 west wings they covered
their feet, or lower parts. This bespeaks their great
humility and reverence in their attendance upon
God, for he is greatly feared in the assembly of those
saints, Ps. lxxxix. 7. They not only cover their
feet, those members of the body which are less ho
nourable, (1 Cor. xii. 23.) but even their faces;
though angels’ faces, doubtless, are much fairer
than those of the children of men, (Acts vi. 15.)
yet, in the presence of God, they cov er them, be¬
cause they cannot bear the dazzling lustre of the
divine glory, and because, being conscious of an in¬
finite distance front the divine perfection, they are
ashamed to show their faces before the holv God,
who charges even his angels with folly, If they
should offer to vie with him, Job iv. 18. If angels
be thus reverent in their attendance on God, with
what godly fear should we approach his throne!
Else we do not the will of God as the angels do it.
Yet Moses, when he went into the mount with God,
took the vail from off his face, 2 Cor. iii. 18. 2.
Two were made use of for flight; when they are
sent on God’s errands, they fly swiftly, (Dan. ix.
21.) more swiftly with their own wings than if they
flew on the wings of the wind. This teaches us to
do the work of God with cheerfulness and expe di¬
tion. Do angels come upon the wing fr< m heaven
to earth, to minister for our good, and shall net we
soar upon the wing from earth to heaven, to share
with them in their glory? Luke xx. 36.
IV. Hear the anthem, or srng cf praise, which
the angels sing to the honour of him that sits on the
throne, v. 3. Observe, 1. How this song was sung;
with zeal and fervency they cried aloud; and with
unanimity they cried one to another, or with one
another; they sang alternately, but in concert, and
42
ISAIAH, VI.
without the least jarring voice to interrupt the har¬
mony. 2. What the song was; it is the same with
that’ which is sung by the four living creatures,
Rev. iv. 8. Note, (1.) Praising God always was,
and will be, to eternity, the work of heaven, and
the constant employment of blessed spirits above,
Ps. lxxxiv. 4. (2.) The church above is the same
in its praises; there is no change of times, or notes,
there.
Two things the seraphim here give God the
praise of;
[1.] His infinite perfections in himself. Here is
one of his most glorious titles praised; he is the
Lord of hosts, of their hosts, of all hosts; and one
of his most glorious attributes, his holiness, without
which his being the Lord of hosts, or, (as it is in the
parallel place, Rev. iv. 8.) the Lord God Almighty,
could not be, so much as it is, the matter of. our joy
and praise; for power, without purity to guide it,
would be a terror to mankind. None of all the di¬
vine attributes are celebrated in scripture so as this
is; God’s power was spoken twice, (Ps. lxii. 11.)
but his holiness thrice, Holy, holy, holy. This be¬
speaks, First, The zeal and fervency of the angels,
in praising God; they even want words to express
themselves, and therefore repeat the same again.
Secondly, The particular pleasure they take in
contemplating the holiness of God; this is a sub¬
ject they love to dwell upon, to harp upon, and are
loath to leave. Thirdly, The superlative excel¬
lency of God’s holiness above that of the purest
creatures. He is holy, thrice holy, infinitely holy,
originally, perfectly, and eternally, so. Fourthly,
It may refer to the three persons in the Godhead,
Holv Father, Holy Son, and Holy Spirit; (for it
follows, (x. 8.) Who will go for us?) or, perhaps,
to that which was, and is, and is to come; for that
title of God’s honour is added to this song, Rev. iv. 8.
Some make the angels here to applaud the equity
of that sentence which God was now about to pro-
n mice upon the Jewish nation. Herein he was,
and is, and will be, holy; his ways are equal.
[2. ] The manifestation of these to the children
of men; the earth is full of his glory, of the glory
of his power and purity; for he is holy in all his
works, Ps. cxlv. 17. The Jews thought the glory
of God should be confined to their land; but it is
here intimated, that, in gospel-times, (which are
pointed to in this chapter, ) the glory of God should
fill all the earth; the glory of his holiness, which is
indeed the glory of all his other attributes; this, then,
filed the temple, (v. 1.) but, in the latter days, the
earth shall be full of it.
V. Observe the marks and tokens of terror with
which the temple was filled, upon this vision of the
divine glory, v. 4. 1. The house was shaken; not
only the door, but even the posts of the door, which
were firmly fixed, moved at the voice of him that
cried, at the voice of God, who called to judgment,
(Ps. 1. 4.) at the voice of the angel, who praised
him. There are voices in heaven sufficient to drown
all the noises of the many waters in this lower world,
Ps. xciii. 3, 4. This violent concussion of the tem¬
ple was an indication of God’s wrath and displea¬
sure against the people for their sins; it was an
earnest of the destruction of it and the city, by the
Babylonians first, and afterwards by the Romans;
and it was designed to strike an awe upon us. Shall
walls and posts tremble before God, and shall not
we tremble? 2. The house was darkened; it was
filled with smoke, which was as a cloud spread upon
the face of his throne-, (Job xxvi. 9.) we cannot take
a full view of it, nor order our speech concerning it,
by reason of darkness. In the temple above there
will be no smoke, but every thing will be seen clear¬
ly; there God dwells in light, here he makes dark-
ntss his pavilion, 2 Chron. vi. 1.
5. Then said I, Wo is me ! for 1 am un¬
done; because I am a man of unclean lips,
and I dwell in the midst of a people of un¬
clean lips: for mine eyes have seen the
King, the Lord of hosts. 6. Then tlew one
of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal
in his hand, which he had taken with the
tongs from off the altar; 7. And he laid it
upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath
touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken
away, and thy sin purged. 3. Also I heard
the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall
I send, and who trill go for us? Then 1
said, Here am I; send me.
Our curiosity would lead us to inquire further
concerning the seraphim, their songs, and their ser¬
vices; but here we leave them, and must attend to
what passed between God and his prophet; secret
things belong not to us, the secret things of the
worfd of angels, but things revealed to and by the
rophets, which concern the administration of God’s
ingdom among men. Now here we have,
I. The consternation that the prophet was put
into by the vision which he saw of the glory of Gcd;
(v. 5.) Then said I, Wo is me! I should have said,
“ Blessed art thou, who hast been thus highly fa¬
voured, highly honoured, and dignified, for a time,
with the privilege of those glorious beings that al¬
ways behold the face of our Father. Blessed were
those eyes which saw the Lord sitting on his throne,
and those ears which heard the angels’ praists.”
And, one would think, he should have said, “ Hap¬
py am I, for ever happy; nothing now shall trouble
me, nothing make me blush or tremble;” on the
contrary, he cries out, “ Wo is me, for I am u?i-
done. Aias for me! I am a gone man, I shall surely
die; (Judges xiii. 22. — vi. 22.) I am silenced, I am
struck dumb, struck dead.” Thus Daniel, when
he heard the words of the angel, became dumb, and
there was no strength, no breath, left in him. Dan.
x. 15, 17. Observe,
1. What the prophet reflected upon in himself,
which terrified him; “lam undone, if Gcd deal
with me in strict justice, for I have made myself
obnoxious to his displeasure, because I am a man
of unclean lips.” Some think he refers particularly
to some rash word he had spoken, or to his sinful
silence in not reproving sin with the boldness and
freedom that were necessary; a sin which God’s
ministers have too much cause to charge themselves
with, and to blush at the remembrance of it. But
it may be taken more generally; I am a sinner;
particularly, I have offended in word; and who is
there that does not? Jam. iii. 2. WTe all have rea¬
son to bewail it before the Lord; (1.) That we are
of unclean lips ourselves; our lips are not consecra¬
ted to God; he has not had the first-fruits of our
lips, (Heb. xiii. 15.) and therefore they are counted
common and unclean, uncircumcised lips, Exod. vi.
30. Nay, they have been polluted with sin; we have
spoken the language of an unclean heart; that evil
communication corrupts good manners, and thereby
many have been defiled. We are un worth v and
unmeet to take God’s name into our lips. With
what a pure lip did the angels praise God ! “ But,”
says the prophet, “ I cannot praise him so, for I am
a man of unclean lips.” The best men in the world
have reason to be ashamed of themselves, and the
best of their services, when the)- come to compare
with the holy angels. The angels had celebrated
the purity and holiness of God; and therefore the
prophet, when he reflects upon sin, calls it unclean-
43
ISAIAH, VI.
ness; for the sinfulness of sin is its contrariety to the
holy nature of God, and, upon that account, espe¬
cially, it should appear both hateful and frightful
to us. The impurity of our lips ought to lie the
grief of our souls, for by our words we shall be jus¬
tified or condemned. (2. ) That we dwell among
those who are so too. We have reason to lament
it, that not we ourselves only are polluted, but that
the nature and race of mankind are so, the disease
i> hereditary and epidemical; which is so far from
lessening our guilt, that it should rather increase
our grief, especially considering that we have not
done what we might have done for the cleansing of
th ■ pollution of other people’s lips; nay, we have
rather learned their way, and spoken their language,
as Joseph in Egypt learned the courtier’s oath,
Gen. xlii. 16. “ I dwell in the midst of a people,
who by their impudent sinnings are pulling down
desolating judgments upon the land, which I, who
am a sinner, too justly may expect to be involved
in. ”
2. What gave occasion for these sad reflections at
this time; Mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord
of Hosts. He saw God’s sovereignty to be incon-
t stable, he is the King; and his power irresistible,
he is the Lord of hosts: these are comfortable truths
to God’s people, and yet they ought to strike an
awe upon us. Note, A believing sight of God’s glo¬
rious majesty should affect us all with reverence
and godly fear. We have reason to be abased in
the sense of that infinite distance that there is be¬
twixt us and God, and our own sinfulness and vile¬
ness before him, and to be afraid of his displeasure.
We are undone, if there be not a Mediator between
us and this holy God, 1 Sam. vi. 20. Isaiah was
thus humbled, to prepare him for the honour he
was now to be called to as a prophet. Note, Those
are fittest to be employed for God, who are low in
their own eyes, and are made deeply sensible of
their own weakness and un worthiness.
II. The silencing of the prophet’s fears by the
good words, and comfortable words, with which the
angel answered him, v. 6, 7. One of the seraphim
immediately flew to him, to purify him, and so to
pacify him. Note, 1. God has strong consolations
ready for holy mourners: they that humble them¬
selves in penitential shame and fear shall soon be
encouraged and exalted; they that are struck down
with the visions of God’s glory, shall soon be raised
up again with the visits of his grace; he that tears
will heal. 2. Angels are ministering spirits for the
good of the saints, for their spiritual good. Here
was one of the seraphim dismissed, for a time, from
attending on the throne of God’s glory, to be a mes¬
senger of his grace to a good man ; and so well pleas¬
ed was he with the office that he came flying to him.
To our Lord Jesus himself, in his agony, there ap¬
peared an angel from heaven, strengthening him,
Luke xxii. 43.
Here is, (1.) A comfortable sign given him of the
purging away of his sin. The seraph brought a
live coal from the altar, and touched his lips with
it ; not to hurt them, but to heal them ; not to cau¬
terize, but to cleanse them; for there were purifica¬
tions by fire, as well as by water, and the filth of
Jerusalem was purged by the spirit of burning, ch.
iv. 4. The blessed Spirit works as fire, Matth. iii. 1 1.
The seraph, being himself kindled with a divine
fire, put life into the prophet, to make him also
z •aiously affected, for the way to purge the lips
from the uncleanness of sin, is, to fire the soul with
the love of God. This live coal was taken off from the
altar, either the altar of incense, or that of burnt-
offerings; for they had both of them fire burning on
them continually. Nothing is powerful to cleanse
and comfort the soul, but what is taken from
Christ's satisfaction, and the intercession he ever
lives to make in the virtue of that satisfaction. It
must be a coal from his altar, that must put life
into us, and be our peace; it will not be done with
strange fire.
(2.) An explication of this sign; Lo, this has
touched thy lips, to assure thee of this, that thine
iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. The
guilt of thy sin is removed by pardoning mercy, the
guilt of thy tongue-sins; thy corrupt disposition to
sin is removed by renewing grace; and therefore no¬
thing can hinder thee from being accepted with
God as a worshipper, in concert with the holy an¬
gels, or from being employed for God as a messen¬
ger to the children of men.” Those only who arc
thus purged from an evil conscience, are pixpared
to serve the living God, Heb. ix. 14. The taking
away of sin is necessary to our speaking with confi¬
dence and comfort, either to God in prayer, or from
God in preaching; nor are any so fit to display to
others the riches and power of gospel-grace, as
those who have themselves tasted the sweetness,
and felt the influence of that grace; and those shall
have their sin taken away, who complain of it as a
burthen, and see themselves in danger of being un¬
done by it.
III. The renewing of the prophet’s mission, v. 8.
Here is a communication between God and Isaiah
about this matter. Those that would assist others
in their correspondence with God, must not them¬
selves be strangers to it; for how can we expect that
God should speak by us, if we never heard him
speaking to us, or that we should be accepted as the
mouth of others to God, if we never spake to him
heartilv for ourselves? Observe here,
1. The counsel of God concerning Isaiah’s mis¬
sion. God is here brought in, after the manner rf
men, deliberating and advising with himself; Whom
shall I send? And who will go for us? God needs
not either to be counselled bv others, or to consult
with himself, he knows what he will do; but thus
he would show us that there is a counsel in his whole
will, and teach us to consider our ways, and parti¬
cularly, that the sending forth of ministers is a work
not to be done but upon mature deliberation.
Observe, (1.) Who it is that is consulting; it is
the Lord; God in his glory, whom he saw upon the
throne high and lifted up. It puts an honour upon
the ministry, that, when God would send a prophet
to speak in his name, he appeared in all the glories
of the upper world: ministers are the ambassadors
of the King of kings; how mean soever the)’ are,
he who sends them is great; it is God in three per¬
sons. Who will go for us? As Gen. i. 26. Let us
make man — Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; they all
concur, as in the creating, so in the redeeming, and
governing, of man. Ministers are ordained in the
same name into which all Christians are baptized.
(2.) What the consultation is; Whom shall I send?
And who will go? Some think it refers to the par¬
ticular message of wrath against Israel, v. 9, 10.
Who will be willing to go on such a melancholy er¬
rand, on which they will go in the bitterness of their
souls? Ezek. iii. i4. But I rather take it more
largely, for all those messages which he was intrusted
to deliver, in God’s name, to that people, in which
that hardening work was by no means the primarv
intention, but a secondary effect of them, 2 Cor. ii.
16. J Vhom shall I send? Intimating that the busi¬
ness was such as required a choice and well-accom¬
plished messenger, Jer. xlix. 19. God now appear¬
ed, attended with holy angels, and yet asks, IVhor.
shall I send? For he would send them a prophet
from among their brethren, Heb. ii. 5. Note, [1. ]
It is the unspeakable favour of God to us, that he it
pleased to send us his mind by men like ourselves,
whose terror shall not make us afraid, and who :.n
themselves concerned in the messages they bring
44
ISAIAH, VI.
They are workers together with God, who are sin- j
ners and sufferers together with us. [2. ] It is a rare
Ting to find one who is fit to go tor God, and to
carry his messages to the children of men; Whom
shall I send? Who is sufficient? Such a degree of
courage for God, and concern for the souls of men,
as is necessary to make a man faithful, and withal |
such an insight into the mysteries of the kingdom of
heaven, as is necessary to make a man skilful, are
seldom to be met with'. Such an interpreter of the
mind of God is one of a thousand, Job xxxiii. 23.
[3.] None are allowed to go for God but those who
are sent by him ; he will own none but those whom
he appoints, Rom. x. 15. It is Christ’s work to put
men into the ministry, 1 Tim. i. 12.
2. Tire consent of Isaiah to it; Then said I, Here
am I, send me. He was to go on a melancholy er¬
rand; the office seemed to go a begging, and every
body declined it, and yet Isaiah offered himself to
the service. It is an honour to be singular in appear¬
ing for God, Judges v. 7. We must not say, “I
would go, if I thought I should have good success;”
but, “T will go, and leave the success to God; here
am I, send me.” Isaiah had been himself in a me¬
lancholy frame, (v. 5.) full of doubts and fears; but
now that he had the assurance of the pardon of his
sin, the clouds were blown over, and he was fit for
service, and forward to it. What he says bespeaks,
(1.) His readiness; “ Here am 1; a volunteer, not
pressed into the service. ” Behold me; so the word
is. God says to us. Behold me, ( ch . lxv. 1.) and,
Here I am, \ch. lviii. 9.) even before we call; let
us say so to him when he does call. (2.) His reso¬
lution; “Here lam, ready to encounter the greatest
difficulties. I have set my face as a Jlint.” Com¬
pare this with ch. 1. 4—7. (3.) His referring him¬
self to God; “Send me whither thou wilt; make
what use thou pleasest of me. Send me; Lord, give
me commission and full instruction; send me, and
then, no doubt, thou wilt stand by me.” It is a
great comfort to those whom God sends, that they
go f r God, and may therefore speak in his name,
as having authority; and be assured that he will
bear them out.
9. And he said, Go, and tell this people,
Hear ye indeed, hut understand not ; and
see ye indeed, but perceive not. 1 0. Make
the heart of this people fat, and make their
ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they
see with their eyes, and hear with their ears,
and understand with their heart, and con¬
vert, and be healed. 11. Then said I, Lord,
how long l And he answered, Until the ci¬
ties be wasted without inhabitant, and the
houses without man, and the land be utterly
desolate; 12. And the Lord have removed
men far away, and there be a great forsaking
in the midst of the land. 13. But yet in it
shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and
shall be eaten : as a teil-tree, and as an oak,
w hose substance is in them when they cast
their leaves , so the holy seed shall be the
substance thereof.
God takes Isaiah at his word, and here sends him
on a strange errand — to foretell the ruin of his peo¬
ple, and even to ripen them for that ruin; to preach
Oiat which, by their abuse of it, would be to them
a savour of death unto death. And this was to be
a type and figure of the state of the Jewish church
ii. *-1)0 days of the Messian. when they should obsti
nately reject the gospel, and should, thereupon, be
rejected of God. These verses are quoted in part,
or referred to, six times in the New Testament;
which intimates, that, in gospel-times, these spirit¬
ual judgments would be most frequently inflicted;
and though they make the least noise, and come
not with observation, yet they are of all other the
most dreadful.
Isaiah is here given to understand these four
things:
1. That the generality of the people to whom he
was sent, would turn a deaf ear to his preaching,
and wilfully shut their eyes against all the discove¬
ries of the mind and will of God he had to make to
them; (v. 9.) “Go, and tell this people, this foolish
wretched people, tell them their own, tell them
how stupid and sottish they are.” Isaiah must
preach to them, and they will hear him indeed, but
that is all; they will not heed him, they will not un¬
derstand him, thev will not take any pains, nor use
that application of mind which is necessary to the
understanding of him; they are prejudiced against
that which is the true intent and meaning of what
he says, and therefore they will not understand him,
or pretend they do not. They see indeed; (for the
vision is made plain on tables, so that he who runs
may read it;) but they perceive not their own con¬
cern in it; it is to them as a tale that is told. Note,
There are many who hear the sound of God’s word,
but do not feel the power of it.
2. That forasmuch as they would not be made
better by his ministry, they should be made worse
by it; they that were wilfully blind, should be judi¬
cially blinded; (x>. 10.) “ They will not understand
or perceive thee, and therefore thou shalt be instru¬
mental to make their heart fat, senseless, and sen¬
sual, and so to make their ears yet more heavy, and
to shut their eyes the closer; so that, at length, their
recovery and repentance will become utterly impos¬
sible; they shall no more see with their eyes the
danger they are in, the ruin they are upon the brink
of, or the way of escape from it; they shall no more
hear with their ears the warnings and instructions
that are given them, nor understand with their
heart the things that belong to their peace, so as to
be converted from the error of their ways, and thus
be healed.” Note, (1.) The conversion of sinners
is the healing of them. (2.) A right understanding
is necessary to conversion. (3.) God, sometimes,
in a way of righteous judgment, gives men up to
blindness of mind and strong delusions, because they
would not receive the truth in the love of it, 2
Tliess. ii. 11, 12. He that is filthy, let him be filthy
still. (4.) Even the word of God oftentimes proves
a means of doing this. The evangelical prophet
himself makes the heart of this people fat, not only
as he foretells it, passing this sentence upon them, in
God’s name, and seals them under it, but as his
preaching had a tendency to it, rocking some asleep
in security, to whom it was a lovely song, and mak¬
ing others more outrageous, to whom it was such
a reproach, that they were not able to bear it. Seme
looked upon the word as a privilege, and their con¬
victions were smothered by it; (Jer. vii. 4.) others
looked upon it as a provocation, and their corrup¬
tions were exasperated by it.
3. That the consequence of this would be their
utter ruin, v. 11, 12. The prophet had nothing to
object against the justice of this sentence, nor does
he refuse to go upon such an errand, but asks,
“Lord, horn long?” (an abrupt question;) “Shall
it always be thus? Must I and other prophets al¬
ways labour in vain among them, and will things
never be better?” Or, (as should seem by the an¬
swer,) “ Lord, what will it come to at last? What
will be in the end hereof?” In answer to which, he
was told that it should issue in the final destruction
46
ISA t AH, VII.
of the Jewish church find nation. When the word ■
of God, especially the word of the gospel, has been
thus abused by them, they shall be unchurched,
and, consequently, undone. Their cities shall be
uninhabited, and their country-houses too; the land
shall be untilled, desolate with desolation, as it is in
the margin; the people who should replenish the
h uses and cultivate the ground, being all cut off by
sw rd, famine, or pestilence, and those who escape
with their lives being removed far away into cap¬
tivity, so that there shall bea great and general for-
s iking in the midst of the land; that populous coun-
trv sh ill become desert, and that glory of all lands
sh 11 be abandoned. Note, Spiritual judgments often
bring temporal judgments along with them upon
pel s ns and places. This was in part fulfilled in !
the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans,
when the land, being left desolate, enjoyed her sab¬
baths seventy years; but the foregoing predictions
being so expressly applied in the New Testament
to the Jews in our Saviour’s time, doubtless this
points at the destruction of that people by the Ho¬
mans, in which it had a complete accomplishment;
and tlie effects of it that people and that land remain
under to this day.
4. That yet a remnant should be reserved to be
the monuments of mercy, v. 13. This was so in
the last destruction of the Jewish nation; (Rom. xi.
5.) sit this 1 iresent time there is a remnant; for so
it was written here, But in it shall be a tenth, a cer- I
tain number, but a very small number, in compari¬
son with the multitude that shall perish in their un¬
belief; it is that which under the law, was God’s
proportion; thev shall be consecrated to God as the
tithes were, and shall be for his service and honour.
Concerning this tithe, this saved remnant, we are
here told, (1.) That they shall return, ( ch . vii. 3.
— x. 21.) shall return from sin to God and duty;
shall return out of captivity to their own land. God
will turn them and they shall be turned. (2. ) That
they shall be eaten, shall be accepted of God, as the
tithe was, which was meat in God’s house, Mai. iii.
10. The saving of this remnant shall be meat to
the faith and hope of those that wish well to God’s
kingdom. (3.) That they shall be like a timber-
tree in winter, which has life, though it has no
leaves; as a teil-tree, and as an oak, whose sub¬
stance is in them, even then when they cast their
leaves: so this remnant, though they may be stript
of their outward prosperity, and share with others
in common calamities, yet they shall recover them¬
selves as a tree in the spring, and flourish again;
though they fall, they shall not be utterly cast down:
there is hope of a tree, though it be cut down, that
it will sprout again. Job xiv. 7. (4. ) That this dis¬
tinguished remnant shall be the stay and support of
the public interests: the holy seed in the soul is the
substance of the man; a principle of grace, reign¬
ing in the heart, will keep life there; he that is
born of God, has his seed remaining in him, 1 John
iii. 9. So the holy seed in the land is the substance
of the land, keeps it from being quite dissolved, and
bears up the pillars of it, Ps. lxxv. 3. See ch. i. 9.
Some read the foregoing clause with this, thus: sis
the support at Shallecheth is in the elms and the
oaks, so the holy seed is the substance thereof; as the
trees that grow on either side of the causey (the
raised way, or terrace-walk, that leads from the
king’s palace to the temple, (1 Kings x. 5.) at the
gate of Shallecheth, 1 Chron. xxvi. 16.) support
the causey by keeping up the earth, which would
otherwise be crumbling away; so the small residue
of religious, serious, praying, people, are the sup¬
port of the state, and help to keep things together,
and save them from going to decay. Some make
the holy seed to be Christ; the Jewish nation was
therefore saved from utter ruin, because out of it,
as concerning the flesh, Christ was to come, Rom.
ix. 5. Destroy it not, for that Blessing is in it; ■(•.-,.
Ixv. 8.) and when that blessing was ci.inv, it was
soon destroyed. Now the consideration < f this is
designed for the support of the prophet in his work.
Though far the greater part should perish in their
unbelief, yet to some his word should be a savi ur
of life unto life. Ministers do not wholly lose their
labour, if they be but instrumental to save one poor
soul.
CHAP. VII.
This Chapter is an occasional sermon, in which the pro
phet. sings both of mercy and judgment to those that did
not perceive or understand either; he piped unto them,
but they danced not; mourned unto them, but they wep
not. Here is, I. The consternation that. Ahaz was i
upon an attempt upon the confederate forces of Syria
and Israel against Jerusalem, v. 1,2. II. The assurance
which God, by the prophet, sent him for his encourage¬
ment, that the attempt should" be defeated, and Jerusa¬
lem should be preserved, v. 3. .9. III. The confirma¬
tion of this by a sign which God gave to Ahaz, when he
refused to ask one, referring to Christ, and our redemp¬
tion by him, v. 10. . 16. IV. A threatening of the great
desolation that God would bring upon Ahaz and his king¬
dom by the Assyrians, notwithstanding their escape from
this present storm, because they went on still in their
wickedness, v. 17. . 25. And this is written both for our
comfort and for our admonition.
1. 4 ND it came to pass in the clays of
Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of
Uzziah king of Judah, that Rezin the kin?
of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah,
king of Israel, went up towards Jerusalem
to war against it, but could not prevail
against it. 2. And it was told the house cl
David, saying, Syria is confederated with
Ephraim: and his heart was moved, and
the heart of his people, as the trees of the
wood are moved with the wind. 3. Then
said the Lord unto Isaiah, Go forth now !o
meet Ahaz, thou and Shear-jashub thy son.
at the end of the conduit of the upper pool,
in the highway of the fuller’s field; 4. And
say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet; fear
not, neither be faint-hearted, for the two
tails of these smoking firebrands, for (he
fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of
the son of Remaliah. 5. Recause Syria,
Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have
taken evil counsel against thee, saying, 6.
Let us go up against Judah and vex it, and
let us make a breach therein for us, and set
a king in the midst of it, even the son of
Tabeal: 7. Thus saith the Lord God, It
shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass.
3. For the head of Syria is Damascus, and
the head of Damascus is Rezin ; and with¬
in threescore and five years shall Ephraim
be broken, that it be not a people. 9. And
the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the
head of Samaria is Remaliah’s son. If ye
will not believe, surely ye shall not he es¬
tablished.
The prophet Isaiah had his commission renewed
in the year that king Uzziah died, ch. vi. 1. Jotham
I his son reigned, and reigned well sixteen years: a1
46
ISAIAH, Vll.
that time, no doubt, Isaiah prophesied as he was
commanded, and yet we have not in this book any
of his prophecies dated in the reign of Jotham; but
this which is put first, was in the days of Ahaz
-he son of Jotham. Many excellent useful sermons
he preached, which were not left and published
upon record; for if all that was memorable had been
written, the world could not have contained the
books, John xxi. 25. Perhaps in the reign of Ahaz,
a wicked king, he had not opportunity to preach
so much at court as in Jotham’s time, and therefore
then hetvrofethe more, fora testimony against them.
Here is, $
I. A very formidable design laid against Jerusa¬
lem by Rezin king of Syria, and Pekah king of Is¬
rael, two neighbouring potentates, who had of late
made descents upon Judah severally; at the end of
the reign of Jotham, the Lord began to send against
Judah, Rezin and Pekah, 2 Kings xv. 37. But now,
in the second or third year of the reign of Ahaz,
encouraged by their former successes, they entered
.ntoan alliance against Judah; because Ahaz, though
he found the sword over his head, began his reign
with idolatry, God delivered him into the hand of
the king of Syria and of the king of Israel, (2
Chron. xxviii. 5.) and a great slaughter they made
in his kingdom; ( v . 6, 7.) flushed with this victory,
they7 went up toward Jerusalem, the royal city, to
war against it, to besiege it, and make themselves
masters of it; but it proved, in the issue, that they
could not gain their point. Note, The sin of a lancl
brings foreign invasion upon it, and betrays the
most advantageous posts and passes to the enemy.
And God sometimes makes one wicked nation a
scourge to another; but judgment ordinarily begins
at the house of God.
II. The great distress that Ahaz and his court
were in, when they received advice of this design;
It was told the house of David that Syria and
Ephraim had signed a league against Judah, v. 2.
This degenerate royal family is called the house of
David, to put us in mind of that article of God’s
covenant with David, If his children forsake my
law , I will chasten their transgression with the rod;
but my loving-kindness will I not utterly take away;
which is remarkably fulfilled in this chapter, P’s.
lxxxix. 30. News being brought that the two ar¬
mies of Syria and Israel were joined, and had taken
the field, the court, the city, and the country, were
thrown into consternation: the heart of Ahaz was
moved with fear, and then no wonder that the heart
of his fleofile was so, as the trees of the wood are
moved with the wind; they were tossed and shaken,
and put into a great disorder and confusion, were wa¬
vering and uncertain in their counsels, hurried hither
and thither, and could not fix in any steady resolu¬
tion; they yielded to the storm, and gave up all for
gone, concluding it in vain to make any resistance.
Now that which caused this fright, was, the sense
of guilt, and the weakness of their faith: they had
made God their Enemy, and knew not how to make
him their Friend, and therefore their fears tyran¬
nized over them ; while those whose consciences are
kept void of offence, and whose hearts are fixed,
trusting in God, need not be afraid of evil tidings;
though the earth be removed, yet will not they fear;
but the wicked flee at the shaking of a leaf. Lev.
xxvi. 36.
III. The orders and directions given to Isaiah to
go and encourage Ahaz in his distress; not for his
own sake, (he deserved to hear nothing from God
but words of terror, which might add affliction to
his grief,) but because he was a son of David, and
king of Judah. God had kindness for him for his
father’s sake, who must not be forgotten, and fer his
pec, pie’s sake, who must not be abandoned, but
would be encouraged if Ahaz were. Observe,
1. God appointed the prophet to meet Ahaz,
though he did not send to the prophet to speak with
him, nor desire him to inquire of the Lord for him;
(v. 3.) Go to meet Ahaz. Note, God is often found
of those who seek him not, much more will he be
found of those who seek him diligently; he speaks
comfort to many who not only are not worthy of it,
but do not so much as inquire after it.
2. He ordered him to take his little son with him.
because he carried a sermon in his name, Shear
jashub — i remnant shall return. The prophets
sometimes recorded what they preached, in the
significant names of their children, (as Hrs. i. 4, 6,
9.) therefore Isaiah’s children are said to be for
signs, ch. viii. 18. This son was so called, for the
encouragement of those of God’s people who were
carried captive, assuring them that they should re¬
turn, at least a remnant of them, which is more
than we can pretend to merit: yet, at this time, God
was better than his word; for he took care not only
that a remnant should return, but the whole num¬
ber of those whom the confederate forces of Syria
and Israel had taken prisoners, 2 Chron. xxviii. 15.
3. He directed him where he should find Ahaz;
he was to meet with him not in the temple, or the
synagogue, or royal chapel, but at the end of the
conduit of the upper fiool, where he was, probably,
with many of his servants about him, contriving
how to order the water-works, so as to secure them
to the city, or deprive the enemy of the benefit of
them, (c/;. xxii. 9, 11. 2 Chron. xxxii. 3, 4.) or
giving some necessary directions for the fortifying
of the city as well as they could; and perhaps find¬
ing every thing in a very bad posture of defence,
the conduit out of repair, as well as other things
gone to decay, his fears increased, and he was now
in greater perplexity than ever; therefore, Go meet
him there. Note, God sometimes sends comforts to
his people very seasonably, and, what time they are
most afraid, encourages them to trust in him.
4. He put words in his mouth, else the prophet
would not have known how to bring a message of
good to such a bad man, a sinner in Zion, that
ought to be afraid; but God intended it for the sup¬
port of faithful Israelites.
(1.) The prophet must rebuke their fears, and ad¬
vise them by no means to yield to them, but keep
their temper, and preserve the possession of their
own souls; (u. 4.) Take heed, ana be quiet. Note,
In order to comfort, there is need of caution; that
we may be quiet, it is necessary that we take heed
and watch against those things that threaten to dis¬
quiet us. “Fear not with this amazement, this
fear, that weakens, and has torment; neither let thy
heart be tender, so as to melt and fail within thee;
but pluck up thy spirits, have a good heart on it,
and be courageous; let not fear betray the succours
which reason and religion offer for thy support.”
Note, Those who expert God should help them,
must help themselves, Ps. xxvii. 14.
(2.) He must teach them to despise their enemies,
not in pride, or security, or incogitancy, (nothing
more dangerous than so to despise an enemy,) but
in faith and dependence upon God. Ahaz’s fear
called them two powerful politic princes, for either
of which he was an unequal match; but if united,
he durst not look them in the face, or make head
against them. “ No,” says the prophet, “they are
two tails of smoking firebrands; they are angry,
they are fierce, they are furious, as firebrands, as
fireballs; and they make one another worse by-
being in a confederacy, as sticks of fire, put to¬
gether, burn the more violently: but they are only
smoking firebrands; and where there is smoke there
is some fire, but it mav not be so much as was fear¬
ed; their threatening will vanish into smoke; Pha
raoh king of F.gupt is but a noise, (Jer. xlvi. 17.)
ISAIAH. VII
47
and Rezinking of Syria but a smoke; (and such are
all the-enemies of God’s church, smoking fax, that
.vill soon be quenched;) nay, they are but tails of
sm 'king firebrands, in a manner burnt out already;
their force is spent, they have consumed themselves
with the heat of their own anger, you may put your
foot on them, and tread them out.” The two king¬
doms of Syria and Israel were now near expiring.
Note, The more we have an eye to God as a con¬
suming Fire, the less reason we shall have to fear
men, though they are ever so furious, nay, we shall
be able to despise them as smoking firebrands.
(3.) He must assure them that the present design
of these High allies (so they thought themselves)
against Jerusalem, should certainly be defeated, and
come to nothing, v. 5 — 7.
[1.] That very thing which Ahaz thought most
formidable, is made the ground of their defeat — and
that was the depth of their designs and the height
of their hopes; “ Therefore they shall be baffled
and sent back with shame, because they have taken
evil counsel against thee, which is an offence to God;
these firebrands are a smoke in his nose, (ch. lxv. 5. )
and therefore must be extinguished. ” First, They
are very spiteful and malicious, and therefore they
shall not prosper. Judah had done them no wrong,
they had no pretence to quarrel with Ahaz; but,
without any reason, Let us go ufi against Judah,
and vex it. Note, Those that are vexatious, can¬
not expect to be prosperous; they say. Those that
love to do mischief, cannot expect to do well. Se¬
condly, They are very secure, and confident of suc¬
cess; they will vex Judah by going up against it;
vet that is not all, they do not doubt but to make a
breach in the wall of Jerusalem, wide enough for
them to march their army in at; or they count upon
dissecting or dividing the kingdom into two parts,
one for the king of Israel, the other for the king of
Syria, who had agreed in one viceroy; a king to be
set in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal; some
obscure person; it is uncertain whether a Syrian or
an Israelite: so sure were they of gaining their
point, that they divided the prey before they had
caught it. Note, Those that are most scornful, are
commonly less successful, for surely' God scorns the
scorners.
[2.] God himself gives them his word that the
attempt should not take effect; (v. 7.) Thus saith
the Lord God, the sovereign Lord of all, who brings
the counsel of the heathen to nought, Ps. xxxiii. 10.
He saith, “ It shall not stand, neither shall come to
hass: their measures shall all be broken, and thev
shall not be able to bring to pass their enterprise.”
Note, whatever stands against God, or thinks to
stand without him, cannot stand long. Man pur¬
poses, but God disposes; and who is he that saith,
and it cometh to pass, if the Lord command it not,
or countermand it? Lam. iii. 37. SeeProv. xix. 21.
(4.) He must give them a prospect of the de¬
struction of these enemies, at last, that were now
such a terror to them. [1.] They should neither
of them enlarge their dominions, nor push their
conquests any further. The head city of Syria is Da¬
mascus, and the head man of Damascus is Rezin;
this he glories in, and this let him be content with,
v. 8. The head city of Ephraim has long been
Samaria, and the head man in Samaria is now
Pekah the son of Remaliah; these shall be made to
know their own, their bounds are fixed, and they
shall not pass them, to make themselves masters of
the cities of Judah, much less to make Jerusalem
their prey. Note, As God has appointed men the
bounds of their habitation, (Acts xvii. 26.) so he has
appointed princes the bounds of their dominion,
within which they ought to confine themselves, and
not encroach upon their neighbours’ rights. (2.)
Ephraim, which perhaps was the more malicious
and forward enemy ot me two, should shortly ne
quite rooted out, and should be so far from seizing
other people’s lands, that they should not be able to
hold their own. Interpreters are much at a loss
how to contemplate the sixty -five years within
which Ephraim shall cease to be a people ; for the
captivity of the ten tribes was but eleven years after
this; and some make it a mistake of the transcri¬
ber, and think it should be read, within six and
five years, just eleven. But it is hard to allow that.
Others make it to be sixty-five years from the time
that the prophet Amos first foretold the ruin of
the kingdom of the ten tribes: and some late inter¬
preters make it to look as far forward as the last
desolation of that country by Esarhaddon, which
was about sixty-five years after this; then Ephraim
was so broken, that it was no more a people. Now
it was the greatest folly in the world fer them to
be ruining their neighbours, who were themselves
marked for ruin, and so near to it. See what a pro¬
phet told them at this time, when they were tri¬
umphing over Judah, (2 Cbron. xxviii. 10.) .Ire
there not with you, even with you, sins against the
Lord your God?
(5.) He must urge them to mix faith with those as¬
surances which he had given them; (u. 9.) “If ye
will not believe what is said to you, surely ye shall
not be established; your shaken and disordered state
shall not be established, your unquiet unsettled
spirit shall not; though the things told you are very
encouraging, yet they will not be so to you, unless
you believe them, and be willing to take God’s
word.” Note, The grace of faith is absolutely ne¬
cessary to the quieting and composing of the mind
in the midst of all the tosses of this present time,
2 Chron. xx. 20.
10. Moreover, the Lord spake again
unto Ahaz, saying, 11. Ask thee a sign
of the Lord thy God: ask it either in the
depth, or in the height above. 1 2. But
Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I
tempt the Lord 13. And he said. Hear
ye now, O house of David; Is it a small
thing for you to weary men, but will ye
weary my God also ? 1 4. Therefore the
Lord himself shall give you a sign : Behold,
a Virgin shall conceive, and bear a son,
and shall call his name Immanuel. 15.
Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may
know to refuse the evil and choose the good:
16. For before the child shall know to re¬
fuse the evil, and choose the good, the land
that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of
both her kings.
Here,
I. God, by tbe prophet, mokes a gracious offer
to Ahaz, to confirm the foregoing predictions, and
his faith in them, by such sign or miracle as he
should choose; (v. 10, 11.) Ask thee a sign of the
Lord thy God. See here the divine faithfulness
and veracity; God tells us nothing but what he is
able and ready to prove. See his wonderful conde¬
scension to the children of men, in that he is so
willing to show to the heirs of promise the immuta¬
bility of his counsel, Heb. vi. 17. He considers our
frame, and that, living in a world of sense, we are
apt to require sensible proofs, which therefore he
has favoured us with in sacramental signs and seals.
Ahaz was a bad man, yet God is called the Lord
his God, because he was a child of Abraham and
II David, and cf the covenants made with them. See
48
rSAIAH, VTI.
now gracious God is even to the evil and unthank¬
ful; Ahaz is bid to choose his sign, as Gideon about
the fleece; (Judg. vi. 37.) let him ask for a sign
either in the air, or earth, or water, for God’s power
is the same in each.
II. Ahaz rudely refuses this gracious offer, and
(which is not mannerly towards any superior) kicks
at the courtesy, and puts a slight upon it; ( v . 12.)
I will not ask. The true reason why he would not
ask for a sign, was, because, having a dependence
upon the Assyrians, their forces, and their gods, for
help, he would not thus far be beholden to the God
of Israel, or lay himself under obligations to him.
He would not ask a sign for the confirming of his
faith, because he resolved to persist in his unbelief,
and would indulge his doubts and distrusts; yet he
pretends a pious reason, I will not tomtit the Lord;
as if it would be a tempting of God to do that which
God himself invited and directed him to do. Note,
A secret disaffection to God is often disguised with
the specious colours of respect to him; and those
who are resolved that they will not trust God, yet
pretend that they will not tempt him.
III. The prophet reproves him and his court,
him and the house of David, the whole royal family,
for their contempt of prophecy, and the little value
they had for divine revelation; (v. 13.) “Is it a
small thing for you to weary men by your oppres¬
sion and tyranny, with which you make yourselves
burthensome and odious to all mankind? But will
you weary my God also, with the affronts you put
upon him?” As the unjust judge that neitheryhererf
God nor regarded man, Luke xviii. 2. Ye have
wearied the Lord with your words, Mai. ii. 17.
Nothing is more grievous to the God of heaven than
to be distrusted; “ Will ye weary my God? Will
ye suppose him to he tired and unable to help you,
or to be weary of doing you good? Whereas the
youths may faint and be weary, you may have tired
all your friends, the Creator of the ends of the earth
faints not, neither is weary,” ch. xl. 30, 31. Or
thus; in affronting the prophets, you think you put
a slight only upon men like yourselves, and consider
not that you affront God himself, whose messengers
they are, and put a slight upon him, who will resent
it accordingly. The prophet here calls God his
God, with a great deal of pleasure; Ahaz would not
say, He is my God, though the prophet had invited
him to say so, (v. 11.) The Lord thy God; but
Isaiah will say, “He is mine.” Note, Whatever
others do, we must avouch the Lord for ours, and
abide by him.
IV. The prophet, in God’s name, gives them a
sign; “ You will not ask a sign, but the unbelief of
man shall not make the promise of God of no effect;
The Lord himself shall give you a sign, (v. 14.) a
double sign:”
1. “ A sign in general of his good-will to Israel
and to the house of David; you may conclude that
he has mercy in store for you, and that you are not
forsaken of your God, how great soever your pre¬
sent distress and danger are; for of your nation, of
your family, the Messiah is to be born, and you
cannot be destroyed while that Blessing is in you;
which shall be introduced,” (1.) “In a glorious
manner; for whereas you have been often told that
he should be born among you, I am now further to
tell you that he shall be born of a virgin; which will
signify both the divine power and the divine purity
with which he shall be brought into the world; that
he shall be an extraordinary person, for he shall not
be born by ordinary generation, and that he shall he
a holy thing, not stained with the common pollu¬
tions of the human nature, therefore incontestably
fit to have the throne of his father David given
him.” Now this, though it was to be accomplished
above 500 years after, was a most encouraging sign
to the house of D avid, (and to them, under tnat
title, this prophecy is directed, r. 13.) and an assu¬
rance that God would not cast them < ff. Ephraim
did indeed envy Judah, (ch. xii. 13.) end s< light the
min of that kingdom, but could not prevail, for the
sceptre should never depart from Judah till the
coming of Shiloh, Gen. xlix. 10. Those whom God
designs for the great salvation, may take that for a
sign to them, that they shall ni t be swallowed up by
any trouble they may meet with in the way. (2.)
The Messiah shall be introduced on a glorious er¬
rand, wrapped up in his glorious name; they shall
call his name Immanuel — God with us, God-in our
nature, God at peace with us, in covenant with us.
This was fulfilled in their calling him Jesus — a Sa¬
viour; (M itth. i. 21 — 23.) for if he had not been
Immanuel — God with us, he could not have been
Jesus — a Saviour. Now this was a further sign of
God’s favour to the house of David and the tribe
of Judah; for he that intended to work this great
salvation among them, no doubt would work out for
them all those other salvations which were to be the
types and figures of this, and as it were preludes to
this. “ Here is a sign for you, not in the depth, or
in the height, but in the prophecy, in the promise,
in the covenant made with David, which you are
no strangers to; the promised Seed shall be Im¬
manuel, God with us; let that word comfort you,
(ch. viii. 10.) God is with us, and (v. 8.) that your
land is Immanuel’s land. Let not the heart of the
house of David be moved thus, (v. 2.) nor let Judah
fear the setting up of the son of Tabea], (v. 6.) for
nothing can cut off the entail on the Son of David
that shall be Immanuel.” Note, The strongest con¬
solations, in time of trouble, are those which are
borrowed from Christ, our relation to him, our inte¬
rest in him, and our expectations of him and from
him.
Of this Child it is further foretold, (v. 15.) that
though he shall not be born like other children, but
of a virgin, yet he shall be really and truly man, and
shall be nursed and brought up like other children;
Butter and honey shall he eat, as other children do,
particularly the children of that land which flowed
with milk and honey. Though he he conceived by
the power of the Holy Ghost, yet he shall not there¬
fore be fed with angels’ food, but, as it becomes
him, shall be in all things made like unto his bre¬
thren, Heh. ii. 17. Nor shall he, though horn thus
by extraordinary generation, be a man immediately,
but, as ether children, shall ntLance gradually
through the several states of infancy, childhood
and youth, to that of manhood, and, growing in
wisdom and stature, shall at length wax strong in
spirit, and come to maturity, so as to know how to
refuse the evil and choose the good. See Luke ii.
40, 52. Note, Children are fed when they are
little, that they may be taught and instructed when
they are grown up; they have their maintenance
in order to their education.
2. Here is another sign in particular of the speed j
destruction of these potent princes that were now a
terror to Judah, v. 16. “Before this child;” so it
should be read; “this child which I have now in
my arms,” (he means not Immanuel, but Shear-ja-
slmb his own son, whom he was ordered to takt
with him for a sign, v. 3.) “before this 'child shah
know how to refuse the evil and choose the good,”
(and those who' saw what his present stature and
forwardness were, would easily conjecture how long
that would be,) “ before this child will be three or
four years older, the land that thou abhorrest, these
confederate forces of Israelites and Syrians, whom
thou hast such an enmity to, and standest in such
dread of, shall be forsaken of both their kings, both
Pekah and Rezin;” who were in so close an alli¬
ance, that they seemed as if they were the kings
ISAIAH. VII.
49
b'lt of one kingdom. This was fully accomplished,
for within two or three years after this, Hosea con¬
spired ag linst Pekah, and slew him, (2 Kings xv.
30.1 and before that, the king of Assyria took Da¬
mascus, and slew Rezin, 2 Kings xvi. 9. Nay,
there was a present event, which happened imme¬
diately, and which this child carried the prediction
of in his name, which was a pledge and earnest of
• his further event. Shear-jashub signifies, The
remnant shall return, which doubtless points at the
wonderful return of those 200,000 captives which
Pekah and Rezin had carried away, who were
brought back, not by might or power, but by the
Spirit of the Lord of hosts. Read the story, 2
Chron. xxviii. 8 — 15. The prophetical naming of
this child having thus had its accomplishment, no
doubt this, which was further added concerning
him, should have its accomplishment likewise, that
Syria and Israel should be deprived of both their
kings. One mercy from God encourages us to hope
for another, if it engages us to prepare for another.
1 7. The Lord shall bring upon thee, and
upon thy people, and upon thy father’s
house, days that have not come, from the
day that Ephraim departed from Judah;
even the King of Assyria. 1 8. And it shall
come to pass in that day, that the Lord
shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost
part of the rivers of Egypt, and for t he -bee
that is in the land of Assyria: 19. And they
shall come, and shall rest all of them in the
desolate valleys, and in the holes of the
rocks, and upon all thorns, and upon all
bushes. 20. In the same day shall the Lord
shave with a razor that is hired, namely , by
them beyond the river, by the king of As¬
syria, the head, and the hair of the feet:
and it shall also consume the beard. 21.
And it shall come to pass in that day, that
a man shall nourish a young cow and two
sheep : 22. And it shall come to pass, for
the abundance of milk that they shall give,
he shall eat butter: for butter and honey
shall every one eat that is left in the land.
23. And it shall come to pass in that day,
that every place shall be, where there were
i thousand vines at a thousand silverlings,
.t shall even be for briers and thorns. 24.
With arrows and with bows shall men
come thither; because all the land shall
become briers and thorns. 25. And on all
hills that shall be digged with the mattock,
there shall not come thither the fear of
briers and thorns: but it shall be for the
sending forth of oxen, and for the treading
of lesser cattle.
After the comfortable promises made to Ahaz as
a branch of the house of David, here follow terrible
threatenings against him, as a degenerate branch
of that house; for though the loving-kindness of
(rod shall not be utterly taken awav, for the sake
pf David and the covenant made with him, yet his
iniquity shall be chastened with the rod, and his sin
with stripes. Let those that will not mix faith with
the promises of God, expect to hear the alarms of
his threatenings.
Vol .iv. — G
! 1. The judgment threatened is very great, u. ir
It is very great, for it is general; it shall be bieughi
upon the prince himself, (high as he is, he shall not
be out of the reach of it,) and upon the people, the
whole body of the nation, and upon the royal family,
u/ton all thy father’s house; it shall be a judgmen*
entailed on posterity, and shall go along with the
royal blood. It is very great, for it shall be unpre¬
cedented, days that have not come; so dark, so
gloomy, so melancholy, as never were the like since
the revolt of the ten tribes, when Ephraim departed
from Judah, which was indeed a sad time to the
house of David. Note, The longer men c< ntinue
in sin, the sorer punishments they have reason to
expect: it is the Lord that will bring these days
upon them, for our times are in his hand; and who
can resist or escape the judgments he brings?
II. I he enemy that should be employed as the
instrument of this judgment, is the king of Assyria.
Ahaz reposed strong confidence in that prince for
help against the confederate powers of Israel and
Syria, and minded the less what God said to him by
his prophet for his encouragement, because he built
much upon his interest in the king of Assyria, and
had meanly promised to be his servant, if he would
send him some succours; he had also made him a
present of gold and silver, for which he drained the
treasures both of church and state, 2 Kings xvi. 7,
8. Now God threatens that that king of Assvria,
whom he made his stay instead of God, should be¬
come a scourge to him. He was so speedily; for
when he catne to him, he distressed hint, but
strengthened him not: the reed not only brake un¬
der him, but ran into his hand, and pierced it, (2
Chron. xxviii. 20.) and from thenceforward the
kings of Assyria were, for a long time, grieving
thorns to Judah, and gave them a great deal of
trouble. Note, The creature that we make eur
hope, commonly proves cur hurt: the king of As¬
syria, not long after this, made himself master if
the ten tribes, carried them captive, and laid their
country waste, so as fully to answer the prediction
here; and perhaps it may refer to that, as an expli¬
cation of v. 8. where it is foretold that Ephraim
shall be broken, that it shall not be a people; and it
is easy to suppose that the prophet, at v. 17. turns
his speech to the king of Israel, denouncing God’s
judgments against him for invading Judah. But the
expositors universally understand' it of Ahaz and
his kingdom. Now observe,
1. Summons given to the invaders; (y. 18.) The
Lord shall whistle for the fy and the bee: See ch.
v. 26. Enemies that seem as contemptible as a fly
or a bee, and are as easily crushed; yet, when God
pleases, they shall do his work as effectually as
lions and young lions. Though they are as far dis¬
tant from one another as the rivers of Egypt end
the land of Assyria, yet they shall punctually met t
to join in this work, when God commands their at¬
tendance; for when God has work to do, he will not
be at a loss for instruments to do it with.
2. Possession taken by them, v. 19. It should
seem as if the country were in no condition to make
resistance; they find no difficulties in forcing their
way, but come and rest all of them in the desolate
valleys, which the inhabitants had deserted, upon
the first alarm, and left them a cheap and easy prey
to the invaders: they shall come and rest in the low
grounds like swarms of flies and bees, and shall ren¬
der themselves impregnable by taking shelter in the
holes of the rocks, as bees often do; and show them¬
selves formidable by appearing openlv upon all
thorns and all bushes; so generally shall the find be
overspread with them. These bees shall knit upon
the thorns and bushes, and there rest undisturbed.
3. Great desolations made, and the country ge¬
nerally depopulated; (x>. 20. The Lord shall' have
ISAIAH, VIII.
5'.)
the hair of the head, and beard, and feet; he shall
sweep all away, as the leper, when he was cleansed,
shaved off all his hair, Lev. xiv. 8, 9. This is done
with a razor which is hired; which God has hired,
as if he had none of his own; but what he hires, and
whom he employs in any service for him, he will
^iv for: see Ezek. xxix". 18, 19. Or which Ahaz
has hired for his assistance. God will make that
to be an instrument of his destruction, which he
nired into his service. Note, Many are beaten with
that arm of flesh which they trusted to rather than
to the arm of the Lord, and which they were at a
great expense upon; when by faith and prayer they
might have found cheap and easy succour in God.
4. The consequences of this general depopulation:
(1.) The flocks of cattle shall be all destroyed; so
that a man who had herds and flocks in abundance,
shall be stripped of them all by the enemy, and shall
with much ado save for his own use a young cow
and two sheep; a poor stock, (v. 21.) yet he shall
think himself happy in having any left.
(2.) The few cattle that are left, shall have such
a large compass of ground to feed in, that they shall
give abundance of milk, and very good milk, such
as shall produce butter enough, v. 22. There shall
also be such want of men, that the milk of one cow
and two sheep shall serve a whole family, which
used to keep abundance of servants, and consume a
great deal, but is now reduced.
(3.) The breed of cattle shall be destroyed; so
that they who used to eat flesh, (as the Jews com¬
monly did,) shall be necessitated to confine them¬
selves to butter and honey; for there shall bene flesh
for them, and the country shall be so depopulated,
that there shall be butter and honey enough for the
few that are left in it.
(4.) Good land, that used to be let well, shall be
all overrun with briers and thorns; (t>. 23.) where
there used to be a thousand vines planted, for which
the tenants used to pay a thousand shekels, or pie¬
ces of silver, yearly rent, there shall be nothing now
but briers and thorns, no profit either for landlord
or tenant; all being laid waste by the army of the
invaders. Note, God can soon turn a fruitful land
into barrenness; and it is just with him to turn vines
nto briers, if we, instead of bringing forth grapes
to him, bring forth wild grapes, ch. v. 4.
(5. ) The instruments of husbandry shall be turned
into instruments of war, v. 24. The whole land
teing become briers and thorns, the grounds that
men used to come to with sickles and pruning-hooks
to gather in the fruits, they shall now come to with
arrows and bows, either to hunt for wild beasts in
the thickets, or to defend themselves from the rob¬
bers, that lurk in the bushes seeking for prey, or to
kill the serpents and venomous beasts that are hid
there. This bespeaks a very sad change of the face
of that pleasant land. But what melancholy change
is there, which sin will not make with a people?
(6.) There where briers and thorns were wont to
be of use, and to do good service, even in the hedges,
for the defence of the enclosed grounds, they shall
be plucked up, and all laid in common. There
shall be briers and thorns in abundance, there where
they should not be, but none where there should be,
v. 25. The hills that shall be digged with the mat¬
tock, for special use, from which the cattle used to
be kept off with the fear of briers and thorns, shall
now be thrown open; the hedges broken down for
the boar out of the wood to waste it, Ps. lxxx. 12,
13. It shall be left at large for oxen to run in, and
lesser cattle.
Seethe effect of sin and the curse; it has made
the earth a forest of thorns and thistles, except as it
is forced into some order by the constant care and la¬
bour of man: ahd see what folly it is to set our hearts
upon possession of lands, be they ever so fruitful.
| ever so pleasant; it they lie ever so little neglected
and uncultivated, or if they be abused by a wastefu’
careless heir or tenant, or the ccuntrv be laid waste
by war, they will soon become frightful deserts.
Heaven is a paradise not subject to such changes.
CHAP. VIII.
This chapter, and the four next that follow it, (to ch. 13.}
are all one continued discourse or sermon; the scope ot
which is, to show the great destruction that should now
shortly be brought upon the kingdom of Israel, and the
great disturbance that should be given to the kingdom
of Judah by the king of Assyria, and that both were for
their sins; but rich provision is made of comfort for those
that fear God, in those dark times, referring especially
to the days of the Messiah. In this chapter we have, 1.
A prophecy of the destruction of the confederate king¬
doms of Syria and Israel by the king of Assyria, v. 1 . . 4.
II. Of the desolations that should be made by that proud,
victorious prince, in the land of Israel and Judan, v.
5 . . 8. III. Great encouragement given to the people of
God in the midst of those destructions; they are assured,
1. That the enemies shall not gain their point against
them, v. 9, 10. 2. That if they kept up the fear of God,
and kept down the fear of man, they should find God
their Refuge, (v. 11 . . 14.) and, while others stumbled,
and fell into despair, they should be enabled to wait on
God, and should see themselves reserved for better times,
v. 15. . 18. Lastly , he gives a necessary caution to all,
at their peril, not to consult with familiar spirits, for
they would thereby throw themselves into despair, but
to keep close to the word of God, v. 19 . . 22. And these
counsels, and these comforts, will still be of use to us in
time of trouble.
1. %/TOREOVER the Lord said unto
■I? A me, Take thee a great roll, and
write in it with a man’s pen concerning
Maher-shalal-hash-baz. 2. And I took unto
me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the
priest, and Zechariah the son of Jebere-
chiah. 3. And I went unto the prophetess;
and she conceived and bare a son. Then
said the Lord tome, Call his name Maher-
shalal-hash-baz: 4. For before the child
shall have knowledge to cry, My father, and
My mother, the riches of Damascus, and the
spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before
the king of Assyria. 5. The Lord spake
also unto me again, saying, 6. Forasmuch
as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah
that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Re-
maliah’s son : 7. Now therefore, behold,
the Lord bringeth up upon them the wa¬
ters of the river, strong and many, even the
king of Assyria, and all his glory: and he
shall come up over all his channels, and go
over all his banks: 8. And he shall pass
through .ludah; he shall overflow and go
over; he shall reach even to the neck: and
the stretching out of his wings shall fill the
breadth of thy land, O Immanuel.
In these verses we have a prophecy of the suc¬
cesses of the king of Assyria against Damascus,
Samaria, and Judah; that the two former should be
laid waste by him, and the last greatly frightened.
Here we have,
I. Orders given to the prophet to write this pro
phecy, and publish it to be seen and read of all men,
and to leave it upon record, that when the thine
came to pass, they might know that God had sen'
him; for that was one end of the prophecy, John
xiv. 29. He must take a great roll, which would
61
ISAIAH, VTII.
contain those five chapters, fairly written in words
at length; he must write in it all that he had fore¬
told concerning the king of Assyria’s invading the
country; he must write it with a man’s pen, in the
usual way and style of writing, so as that it might
be legible and intelligible by all. See Hab. ii. 2.
Write the vision and make it plain. They that
speak and write of tne tilings of God, should avoid
obscurity, and study to speak and write so as to be
understood, 1. Cor. xiv. 19. They that write for
men, should write with a man’s pen, and not covet
the pen or tongue of angels. And, forasmuch as it
is usual to put some short but significant compre¬
hensive title before books that are published, the
prophet is directed to call his book Maher-shalal-
hash-baz — Make speed to the s/ioil, hasten to the
prey; intimating that the Assyrian army should
come upon them with great speed, and make great
spoil; by this title the substance and meaning of the
book would be inquired after by those that had read
it, or heard it read. It is sometimes a good help to
memory to put much matter in few words, which
serve as handles by which we take hold of more.
II. The care of this prophet to get this record
well attested; (v. 2. ) / took unto me faithful wit¬
nesses to record; he wrote the prophecy in their
sight and presence, and made them subscribe their
names to it, that they might be ready, if afterward
there should be occasion, to make oath of it, that the
prophet had foretold the descent which the As¬
syrians made upon that country so long before; he
names the witnesses for the greater certainty, that/
they might be appealed to by any; they were two in
number; (for out of the mouth of two witnesses shall
every word be established;) one was, Uriah the
priest; he is mentioned in the story of Ahaz, but for
none of his good deeds, for he humoured Ahaz with
an idolatrous altar; (2 Kings xvi. 10, 11.) however,
at this time, no exception lay against him, he was a
f .ithful witness. See what full satisfaction the pro¬
phets took care to give to all persons concerned, of
the sincerity of their intentions, that we might know
with a full assurance the certainty of the things
wherein we have been instructed, and that we have
not followed cunningly-devised fables.
III. The making of the title of his book the name
of his child, that it might be the more taken notice
of, and the more effectually perpetuated, v. 3. His
wife (because the wife of a prophet) is called the
hrophetess; she conceived and bare a son, another
son, who must carry a sermon in his name, as the
former had done, ( ch . vii. 3. ) but with this differ¬
ence, that spake mercy, Shear-jashub — The rem¬
nant shall return; but that being slighted, this
speaks judgment, Maher-shalal-hash-baz — In mak¬
ing speed to the spoil he shall hasten, or he has
hastened, to the prey. The prophecy is doubled,
even in this one name, for the thing was certain; I
will hasten my word, Jer. i. 12. Every time the
'■hild was called by his name, or any part of it, it
wi uld serve as a memorandum of the judgments ap¬
proaching. Note, It is good for us often to put our-
s.-lves in mind of the changes and troubles we are
li .Me 1 1 in this world, and which perhaps are at the
door. When we look with pleasure on our chil¬
dren, it should be with the allay of this thought,
We know not what they are yet reserved for.
IV. The prophecy itself, which explains this
mystical name;
1. That Syria and Israel, who were now in con¬
federacy against Judah, should in a very little time
become an easy prey to the king of Assyria and his
victorious army; (v. 4. )“ Before the child, now newlv
born and named, should have knowledge to cru, My
father, and My mother,” (which are usally some
of the first things that children know, and some of
the first word' rnat children speak,) “in about a
year or two, the riches of Damascus, and the spoil
of Samaria, those cities that are now so secure
themselves, and so formidable to their neighbours,
shall be taken away before the king of alssyria, who
shall plunder both city and country, and send the
best effects of both into his own land, to enrich that,
and as trophies of his victory.” Note, Those
that spoil others, must expect to be themselves
spoiled, (ch. xxxiii. 1.) for the Lord is righteous,
and those that are troublesome shall be troubled.
2. That for ismuch as there were many in Judah,
that were secretly in the interests of Syria and Israel,
and were disaffected to the house of David, God
would chastise them also by the king of Assyria,
who should create a great deal of vexation to Judah,
as was foretold, ch. vii. 17.
Observe, (1.) What was the sin of the discon¬
tented party in Judah; (v. 6.) This people, when;
the prophet here speaks to, refuse the waters cf
Shiloah that go softly, despise their own country
and the government of it, and love to run it down,
because it does not make so great a figure, and so
great a noise in the world, as some other kings and
kingdoms do. They refuse the comforts which
| God’s prophets offer them from the word of God,
j speaking to them in a still small voice, and make
i nothing of them; but they rejoice in Rezin and Re-
maliah's son, who were the enemies of their coun¬
try, and were now actually invading it; they cried
them up as brave men, magnified their policies and
strength, applauded their conduct, were well-pleas¬
ed with their success, and were hearty well-wishers
to their designs, and resolved to desert and go ovei
to them. Such vipers does many a state foster
its bosom, that eat its bread, and yet adhere to its
enemies, and are ready to quit its interests, if they
but seem to totter.
(2.) The judgment which God would bring upon
them for this sin. The same king of Assyria, that
should lay Ephraim and Syria waste, should be a
scourge and terror to those of their party in Judah,
v. vii. 8. Because they refuse the waters of Shiloah,
and will not accommodate themselves to tne govern¬
ment God has set over them, but are uneasy under
it, therefore the Lord brings upon them the waters
of the river, strong and many, the river Euphrates ;
they slighted the land of Judah, because it had no
river to boast of comparable to that; the river at Je¬
rusalem was a very inconsiderable one. “Well,”
says God, “ if you be such admirers of Euphrates,
you shall have enough of it; the king of Assyria,
whose country lies upon that river, shall come with
his glory, with his great army, which you cry up as
his glory, despising your own king, because he can¬
not bring such an army as that into the field; God
shall bring that army upon you. ” If we value men,
if we overvalue them, for their worldly wealth and
power, it is just with God to make them by that a
scourge to us. Tt is used as an argument against
magnifying rich men, that rich men oppress us,
Jam. ii. 3, 6. Let us be best pleased with the wa¬
ters of Shiloah, that go softly, for rapid streams are
dangerous. It is threatened that the Assyrian army
should break in upon them like a deluge, or inunda¬
tion of waters, bearing down all before it, should
come up over all his channels, and overflow all
his banks; it would be to no purpose to oppose
or withstand them; Sennacherib and his army
should pass through Judah, and meet with so
little resistance, that it should look more like a
march through the country, than a descent upon
it; He shall reach even to the neck; he shall ad¬
vance so far as to lay siege to Jerusalem, the
head of the kingdom, and nothing but that shall be
kept out of his hands; for that was the holy city
Note, in the greatest deluge of trouble, God can,
. and will, keep.the head of his people above wa' r.
ISAIAH, VIII.
52
nnd so preserve their comforts and spiritual lives ; 1
that the waters that come into their souls, may reach to!
the neck, (Ps. lxix. 1.) but there shall their proud
waves be stayed. And here is another comfortable
intimation, that though the stretching cut of the
wings of the Assyrian, that bird of prey, though the
right and left wing of his army, should fill the
breadth of the land of- Judah, yet still it was Im¬
manuel’s land. It is thy land, O Immanuel; it was
to be Christ’s land, for there he was to be born, and
live, and preach, and work miracles. He was Zi¬
on’s King, and therefore had a peculiar interest in,
and concern for, that land. Note, The lands that
Immanuel owns for his, as he does all those lands
that own him, though they may be deluged, shall
not be destroyed: for when the enemy shall come in
tike a flood, Immanuel shall secure his own, and
shall lift up a standard against him, ch. lix. 19.
9. Associate yourselves, O ye people, and
ye shall be broken in pieces; and give ear,
all ye of far countries: gird yourselves, and
ye shall be broken in pieces; gird yourselves,
and ye shall be broken in pieces. 1 0. Take
counsel together, and it shall come to nought ;
speak the word, and it shall not stand: for
God is with us. 1 1. For the Lord spake
thus to me with a strong hand, and in¬
structed me, that I should not walk in the
way of this people, saying, 1 2. Say ye not,
A confederacy, to all them to whom this peo¬
ple shall say, A confederacy : neither fear ye
their fear, nor be afraid. 13. Sanctify the
Lord of hosts himself ; and let him he your
fear, and let him be your dread. 1 4. And he
shall be for a sanctuary: but for a stone of
stumbling, and for a rock of offence, to both
the houses of Israel; for a gin and for a snare
to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 15. And
many among them shall stumble and fall,
and be broken, and be snared, and be taken.
The prophet here returns to speak of the present
distress that Ahaz, and his court and kingdom,
were in, upon account of the threatening confede¬
racy of the ten tribes, and the Syrians, against them.
And in these verses,
I. He triumphs over the invading enemies, and,
in effect, sets them at defiance, and bids them do
their worst; (y. ix. 10.) “ O ye people, ye of far
countries, give ear to what the prophet says to you
in God’s name.
1. “We doubt not but you will now make your
utmost efforts against Judah and Jerusalem; you as¬
sociate yourselves in a strict alliance, you gird your¬
selves, and again you gird yourselves, you prepare
far action, you address yourselves to it with resolu¬
tion, you gird on your swords, you gird up your
loins, you animate and encourage yourselves and
one another with all the considerations you can think
of, you take counsel together, call councils of war,
and all heads are at work, about the proper method
fir making yourselves masters of the land of Judah,
you speak the word, you cojne to resolutions con¬
cerning it, and are not always deliberating, you de¬
termine what to do, and are very confident of the
success of it, that the matter will be accomplished
with a word’s speaking.” Note, It is with a great
deal of policy, resolution, and assurance, that the
church’s enemies carry on their designs against it;
end abundance of pains they take to roll a stone
that will certainly return upon them. t
2. “ This is to let you know that all your efforts
will be ineffectual; you cannot, you shall not, gain
your point, nor carry the day; you shall be broken
in pieces; though you associate yourselves, though
you gird yourselves, thou you proceed with all the
policy and precaution imaginable, yet, I tell ycu
again and again, all your projects shall be baffled,
you shall be broken in pieces; nay, not only ycur
attempts shall be ruined, but your attempts shall be
your ruin; you shall be broken by those designs you
have formed against Jerusalem; your councils shall
come to naught; for there is no wisdom or counsel
against the Lord; your resolves will not be put in
execution, they shall not stand; you speak the word,
but who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, if the
Lord commandeth it not? What sets up itself against
God, and his cause, and counsel, cannot stand, but
must inevitably fall. For God is with us;” (this re¬
fers to the name of Immanuel — God with us;) “the
Messiah is to be bom among us, and a people de¬
signed for such an honour cannot be given up to ut¬
ter min; we have now the special presence of God
with us in his temple, his oracles, his promises, and
these are our defence. God is with us, he is on cur
side, to take our part, and fight for us; and if God
be for us, who can be against us?” Thus does the
daughter of Zion despise them.
II. He comforts and encourages the people of God
with the same comforts and encouragements which
he himself had received: the attempts made upon
them were very formidable; the house of David, the
court and royal family, were at their wits’ end, (ch.
vii. 2.) and then no marv el if the people were in a
consternation.
Now, 1. The prophet tells us how he was him¬
self taught of God not to give way to such amazing
fears as the people were disturbed with, nor to run
into the same measures with them ; (v. 11.) “ The
Lord spake to me with a strong hand, not to walk in
the way of this people; not to say as they say, nor
do as they do, nor to entertain the same frightful
apprehensions of things, nor to approve of their pro¬
jects of making peace upon any terms, or calling in
the help of the Assyrians.” God instructed the
prophet not to go down the stream. Note, .(1.)
There is a proneness in the best of men to be
frightened at threatening clouds, especially when
fears are epidemical. We are all too apt to walk in
the way of the people we live among, though it be
not a good way. (2.) Those whom God lov es and
owns, he will instruct, and enable to swim against
the stream of common cori-uptions, particularly of
common fears. He will find ways to teach his own
people not to walk in the way of other people, but
in a sober singularity. (3.) Corruption is some¬
times so active in the hearts even of good men, that
they have need to be taught their duty with a strong
hand, and it is God’s prerogative to teach so, for he
only can give an understanding, and overpower the
contradiction of unbelief and prejudice. He can
teach the heart; and herein none teaches like him.
(4.) Those that are to teach others have need
to be themselves well instructed in their duty, ar.d
then they teach most powerfully, when they teach
experimentally; the word that comes from the
heart, is most likely to reach to the heart; and
what we are ourselves by the grace of God instruct¬
ed in, we should, as we are able, teach others also.
2. Now what is it that he says to God’s people?
(1.) He cautions them againsta sinful fear, v. 12.
It seems, it was the way of this people at this time,
and fear is catching; he whose heart fails him,
makes his brethren’s heart to fail, like his heart;
(Deut. xx. 8.) therefore Say ye not, A confederacy ,
to all them to whom this people shall say, A con fede¬
racy: that is, [1.] “Be net associated with them
in the confederacies they are pr; jecting and fire
ISAIAH, VIII.
casting for. Do not join with those that, for the
securing of themselves, are for making a league
with the Assyrians, through unbelief, and distrust
of God and their cause. l)o not come into any such
confederacy.” Note, It concerns us, in time of
trouble, to watch against all such fears as put us
upon taking any indirect courses for our own securi¬
ty. [2.] “ Be not afraid of the confederacies they
frighten themselves and one another with. Do not
amuse yourselves with the apprehension of a con¬
federacy, upon every thing that stirs, nor, when any
little thing is amiss, cry out presently, There is a plot,
a plot. When they talk what dismal news there is,
Syria in joined with Efihraim, what will become of
us? Must we fight, or must we flee, or must we
yield? Do not you fear their fear. Be not afraid
of the signs of heaven, as the heathen are, Jer. x.
2. Be not afraid of evil things on earth, but let
your hearts be fixed. Fear not that which they
fear, nor be afraid as they are. Be not put into such
a fright as causes trembling and shaking;” so the
word signifies. Note, When the church’s enemies
have sinful confederacies on foot, the church’s
friends should watch against the sinful fears of those
confederacies.
(2.) He advises them to a gracious, religious fear;
But sanctify the Lord of hosts himself, v. 13. Note,
The believing fear of God is a special preservative
against the disquieting fear of man; see 1 Pet. iii.
Id, 15, where this is quoted, and applied to suffer¬
ing Christians, [l.j We must look upon God as
the Lord of hosts, that has all power in his hand,
and all creatures at his beck. [2.] We must sanc¬
tify him accordingly, give him the glory due to that
name, and carry it toward him as those that believe
him to be a holy God. [3.] We must make him
our Fear, the Object of our fear, and make him our
Dread; keep up a reverence of his providence, and
stand in awe of his sovereignty; be afraid of his dis¬
pleasure, and silently acquiesce in all his disposals.
Were we but duly affected with the greatness and
glory of God, we should see the pomp of our ene¬
mies eclipsed and clouded, and all their power re¬
strained and under check; see Neh. iv. 14. That
they are afraid of the re/iroach of men, forget the
Lord their Maker, ch. li. 12, 13. Compare Luke
xii. 4, 5.
(3.) He assures them of a holy security and se¬
renity of mind, in so doing; (y. 14.) “ He shall be
for a Sanctuary; make him your Fear, and vou
shall find him your Hope, your Help, your De¬
fence, and your mighty Deliverer. He will sanctify
and preserve you. He will be fora Sanctuary;’
[1.] “ To make you holy; He will be your Sancti¬
fication;” so some read if. If we sanctify God by
our praises, he will sanctify us by his grace. [2. ]
“To make you easy; He will be your Sanctuary,
to which you may flee for safety, and where you are
privileged from all the arrests of fear; you shall
find an inviolable refuge and security in him, and
see yourselves out of the reach of danger.” They
that’ truly fear God, shall not need to fear any evil.
III. He threatens the ruin of the ungodly and un¬
believing, both in Judah and Israel. They have no
part nor lot in the foregoing comforts; that God,
who will be a Sanctuary to those who trust in him,
will be a Stone of stumbling, and a Rock of offence,
to those who leave these waters of Shiloah, and re¬
joice in Rezin and Remaliah’s son, (y. 6.) who
make the creature their fear and their hope, x>. 14,
15. The prophet foresees that the greatest part of
both the houses of Israel would not sanctify the Lord
of hosts, and to them he would be for a Gin and a
Snare; he would be a terror to them, as he would
be a Support and Stay to those that trusted in him.
Instead of profiting by the word of God, they should
be offended at it; and the providences of God, in- I
stead of leading then\ to him, would drive them
from him. What was a savour of life untc life to
others, would be a savour of death unto death to
them. So that many among them shall stumble
and fall; they shall fall both into sin and into ruin,
they shall fall by the sword, shall be taken prison¬
ers, and go into captivity. Note, If the things of
God be an offence for us, they will be an undoing to
us. Some apply this to the unbelieving Jews, who
rejected Christ, and to whom he became a Stone of
stumbling, for the apostle quotes this scripture with
application to all those who persisted in their unbe¬
lief of the gospel of Christ; (1 Pet. ii. 8.) to them
he is a rock of offence, because, being disobedient to
the word, they stumble at it.
16. Bind up the testimony, seal the law
among my disciples. 1 7. And 1 will wait
upon the Lord, that hideth his face from
the house of Jacob, and I will look for him.
18. Behold, I, and the children whom the
Lord hath given me, are for signs and for
wonders in Israel, from the Lord of hosts,
which dwelleth in mount Zion. 19. And
when they shall say unto you, Seek unto
them that have familiar spirits, and unto the
wizards that peep and that mutter; should
not a people seek unto their God? for the
living to the dead? 20. To the law and to
the testimony: if they speak not according
to this word, it is because there is no light in
them. 21. And they shall pass through it
hardly bestead and hungry : and it Eyhall
come to pass, that, when they shall be hun¬
gry, they shall fret themselves, and curse
their king and their God, and look upward.
22. And they shall look unto the earth ; and
behold trouble and darkness, dimness of an¬
guish; and they shall be driven to darkness.
In these verses, we have,
I. The unspeakable privilege which the people
of God enjoy, in having the oracles of Gcd consigned
over to them, and being intrusted with the sacred
writings; that they may sanctify the Lord of hosts,
may make him their Fear, and find him their Sanc¬
tuary; Bind uji the testimony, v. 16. Note, It is a
great instance of God’s care of his church and love
of it, that he has lodged in it the valuable treasure
of divine revelation. 1. It is a testimony and a law;
not only this prophecy is so, which must therefore
be preserved safe for the comfort of God’s people in
the approaching times of trouble and distress, but
the whole word of God is so; God has attested it,
and he has enjoined it. As a testimony, it directs
our faith; as a law, it directs our practice; and we
ought both to subscribe to the truths of it, and tr
submit to the precepts of it 2. This testimony ana
this law are bound up and sealed, for we me not to
add to them, or diminish from them; tnev are a
letter from God to man, folded up and sealed; a
proclamation under the broad seal. The binding
up and sealing of the Old Testament signified, that
the full explication of many of the prophecies of it
was reserved for the New Testament times; (Dan
xii. 4.) Seal the book till the time of the end; but
what was then bound up and sealed, is now open
and unsealed, and revealed unto babes, Matth. xi.
25. Yet with reference to the other world, and the
future state, still the testimony is bound up and
sealed, for we know but in part, and prophecy bu'
54
ISAIAH, VIII.
in part. 3. They are lodged as a sacred deposit in
the hands of the disciples* of the children of the
fcrofiheta and the covenant, Acts iii. 25. This is
the good thing which is committed to tin m, and
which they are charged with the custody of, 2 Tim.
i. 13, 14. ' Those that had prophets for their tutors,
must still keep close to the written word.
II. The good use which we ought to make of this
privilege. This we are taught,
1. By the prophet’s own practice and resolutions,
17, i8. He embraced the law and the testimony,
and he had the comfort of it, in the midst of the
m my discouragements he met with. Note, Those
ministers can best recommend the word of God to
others, that have themselves found the satisfaction
of relying upon it. Observe,
(1.) The discouragements which the prophet la¬
ir lured under; he specifies two; [1.] 1 he frowns
of God, not so much upon himself, but upon his
people, whose interests lay very n.ear his heart;
“He hides his face from the house of Jacob, and
seems, at present, to neglect, and lay them under
the tokens of his displeasure.” The prophet was
himself employed in revealing God’s wrath against
them, and yet" grieved thus for it, as one that did
' not desire the woful day. If the house of Jacob for¬
sake the God of Jacob, let it not be thought strange
that he hides his face from them. [2.] The con¬
tempt and reproaches of men, not only upon him¬
self, but upon his disciples, among whom the law
and the testimony were sealed; I and the children
which the Lord hath given me, are for signs and
wonders; we are gazed at as monsters or outlandish
people, pointed at as we go along the streets. Pro¬
bably the prophetical names that were given his
children were ridiculed and bantered by the profane
scoffers of the town. Jam as a wonder unto many,
Ps. lxxi. 7. God’s people are the world’s wonder,
(Zecli. iii. 8.) for their singularity, and because
they run not with them to the same excess of riot,
1 Pet. iv. 4. The prophet was herein a type of
Christ; for this is quoted (Heb. ii. 13.) to prove
that believers are Christ’s children; Behold, land
the children which God hath given me. Parents
must look upon their children as God’s gifts, his
gracious gifts; Jacob did so, Gen. xxxiii. 5. Min¬
isters must look upon their converts as their chil¬
dren, and be tender of them accordingly, (1 Thcss.
ii. 7.) and as the children which God has given
them; for whatever good we are instrumental of to
others, it is owing to the grace of God. Christ
looks upon believers as his children, which the
Father gave him; (John xvii. 6.) and both he and
they are for signs and wonders, spoken against,
(Luke ii. 34.) every where spoken against, Acts
xxviii. 22.
(2. ) The encouragement he took, in reference to
these discouragements. [1.] He saw the hand of
God in all that which was discouraging to him, and
kept his eye upon that. Whatever trouble the
house of Jacob is in, it comes from God’s hiding his
face; nay, whatever contempt is put upon him or
his friends, it is from the Lord of hosts; he has bid¬
den Shimei curse David, Job xix. 13 — xxx. 11.
[2.] He saw God dwelling in mount Zion, mani¬
festing himself to his people, and ready to hear
their prayers, and receive their homage. Though,
for the present, he hide his face from the house of
Jacob, yet they know where to find him, and re¬
cover the sight of him; he dwells in Mount Zion.
[3.] He therefore resolved to wait upon the Lord,
: nd to look for him; to attend his motions, even
while he hid his face, and to expect with an hum¬
ble assurance his returns in a way of mercy. Those
that wait upon God by faith and prayer, may look
for him with hope and joy. When we have not
sensible comforts, we must still keep up our observ¬
ance of God and obedience to him, and then wait
awhile; at evening-time it shall be light.
2. By the. counsel and advice which he gives to
his disciples, among whom the law and the testi¬
mony were sealed, to whom were committed the
lively oracles.
(1.) He supposes they would be tempted, in the
day of their distress, to consult them that had fa¬
miliar spirits, that dealt with the devil, asked his
advice, and desired to be informed by him concern¬
ing things to come, that they might take their mea¬
sures accordingly. Thus Saul, when he was in
straits, made his application to the witch of F.ndor,
(1 Sam. xxviii. 7, 15.) and Ahaziah to the God ct
Ekron, 2 Kings i. 2. These conjurors had fantastic
gestures and tones; they peeped and muttered,
they muffled their heads, that they could neither
see nor be seen plainly, but peeped and were peep¬
ed at: or both the words here used may refer to
their voice or manner of speaking; they delivered
what they had to say with a low, hollow, broken
sound, scarcely articulate; and sometimes in a pul¬
ing or mournful tone, like a crane, or a swallow, or
a dove, ch. xxxviii. 14. They spake not with that
boldness and plainness which the prophets of the
Lord spake with, but as those who desire to amuse
people rather than to instinct them ; yet there were
those who were so wretchedly sottish as to seek to
them, and to court others to do so, even the prophet’s
hearers, who knew better things, whom therefore the
rophet warns not to say A confederacy with such.
'here were express laws against this wickedness,
(Lev. xix. 31. — xx. 27.) and yet it was found in Is¬
rael, is found even in Christian nations; but let all
that have any sense of religion show it, by startling
at the thought of it; Get thee behind me, Satan.
Dread the use of spells and charms, and consulting
those that by hidden arts pretend to tell fortunes,
cure diseases, or discover things lost; for this is a
heinous crime, and, in effect, denies the God that
is above.
(2.) He furnishes them with an answer to this
temptation, puts words into their mouths: “If any
go about to ensnare you, give them this reply ;
Should not a people seek to their God? What !
for the living to the dead!” [1.] “Tell them it
is a principle of religion, that a people ought to
seek unto their God; now Jehovah is our God, and
therefore to him we ought to seek, and to consult
with him, and not with them that have familiar
spirits. All people will thus walk in the name of
their God, Mic. iv. 5. They that made the hosts
of heaven their gods, sought unto them, Jer. viii. 2.
Should not a people under guilt, and in trouble,
seek to their God for pardon and peace? Should
not a people in doubt, in want, and in danger, seek
to their God for direction, supply, and protection?
Since the Lord is our God, and we are his people,
it is certainly our duty to seek him.” [2.] “Tell
them it is an instance of the greatest fi 11 v in the
world, to seek for living men to dead idols. ’’ What
can be more absurd than to seek to lifeless images
for life and living comforts, or to expect that our
friends that are dead, when we deify them and pray
to them, should do that for us which cur living friends
cannot do? The dead know not any thing, nor is
there with them any dei’ice or working, Ecol. ix.
5, 10. It is folly therefore for the living to make
their court to them, with any expectation of relief
from them. Necromancers consulted the dead, as
the witch of Endor, and so proclaimed their ovn
folly; we must live by the living, and not by the
dead; what life or light can we look for from them
that have no light or life themselves?
(3.) He directs them to consult with the oracles
of God; if the prophets that were among them did
not speak directly to every case, yet they had the
bo
SAIAH, IX.
written word, and to that they must have recourse.
Note, Those will never be drawn to consult wizards,
that know how to make a good use of their Bibles.
Would we know how we may seek to our God, and
co>-'e to the knowledge of liis mind? To the law
and o the testimony. There you will see what is
good, and what the Lord requires of you. Make
God's statutes your counsellors, and you will be
counselled right.
Observe, [1.] What use we must make of the
lnv and the testimony; we must speak according
to that word; we must make this our standard,
conform to it, take advice from it, make our ap-
pea. to it, and in every thing be overruled and de-
termwed by it; consent to those wholesome healing
words, (1 Tim. vi. 3.) and speak of the things of
Go l in the words which the Holy Ghost teaches.
It is not enough to say nothing against it, but we
must speak according to it.
l2.] Why we must make this use of the law and
the testimony; because we shall be convicted of
the greatest folly imaginable if we do not. They
that concur not with the word of God, prove there
is no light, no morning-light, (so the word is,) in
them; they have no right sense of things; they do
not understand themselves, nor the difference be¬
tween good and evil, truth and falsehood. Note,
Those that reject divine revelation, have not so
much as human understanding; nor do they rightly
admit the oracles of reason, who will not admit the
oracles of God. Some read it as a threatening; “ If
they speak not according to this word, there shall
be no light to them, no good, no comfort, or relief;
but they shall be driven to darkness and despair;”
as it follows here, (v. 21, 22.) What light had
Srul when he consulted the witch? 1 Sam. xxviii.
18, 20. Or what light can they expect, that turn
away from the Father of lights?
(4. ) He reads the doom of those that seek to fa¬
miliar spirits, and regard not God’s law and testi¬
mony; there shall not only be no light to them, no
comfort or prosperity, but they may expect all hor¬
ror and misery, v. 21, 22. [1.] The trouble they
feared shall come upon them; they shall pass
through the land, or pass to and fro in the land,
unfixed, unsettled, and driven from place to place
by the threatening power of an invading enemy;
they shall be hardly bestead whither to go for the
necessary supports of life; either because the coun¬
try would be so impoverished, that there would be
nothing to be had, or at least themselves and their
friends so impoverished, that there would be nothing
to be had for them; so that they who used to be fed
to the full shall be hungry. Note. Those that go
away from God, go out of the way of all good. [2. ]
They shall be very uneasy to themselves, by their
discontent and impatience under their trouble. _ A
good man may be in want, but then he quiets him¬
self, and strives to make himself easy; but these
people, when they shall be hungry, shall fret them¬
selves, and when they have nothing to feed on,
their vexation shall prey upon their own spirits; for
fretfulness is a sin that is its own punishment. [3.]
They shall be very provoking to all about them,
triv, to all above them; when they find all their
nv isures broken, and themselves at their wit’s
end, they will forget all the rules of duty and de¬
cency, and will treasonably curse their king, and
blasphemously curse their God; and this more than
in their thought , and in their bed-chamber, Eccl.
x. 20. They begin with cursing their king, for
managing the public affairs no better, as if the fault
were his, when the best and wisest kings cannot
secure success; but when they have broken the
bonds of their allegiance, no marvel if those of their
religion do not hold them long; they next curse
t’.ieir God, curse him, and die; they quarrel with his
providence, and reproach that, as if he had done
them wrong; The foolishness of man perverts his
way, and then his heart frets against the Lord,
Prov. xix. 3. See what need we have to keep our
mouth as with a bridle, when our heart is hot within
us; for the language of fretfulness is commonly
very offensive. [4] They shall abandon them¬
selves to despair, and, which way soever they lock,
shall see no probability of relief; they shall look up¬
ward, but heaven shall frown upon them, and look
gloomy; and how can it be otherwise, when they
curse their God? They shall look to the earth, but
what comfort can that yield to those whom God is
at war with? Thereis nothing there but trouble,
and darkness, and dimness of anguish, every thing
threatening, and not one pleasant gleam, not one
hopeful prospect; but they shall be driven to dark¬
ness by the violence of their own fears, which re
present every thing about them black and frightful.
This explains what he had said, (v. 20.) that there
shall be no light to them. Those that shut their
eves against the light of God’s word, will justly be
abandoned to darkness, and left to wander endless¬
ly, and the sparks of their own kindling will do
them no kindness.
CHAP. IX.
The prophet, in this chapter, (according to the directions
iven him ch. iii. 10, 11.) saith to the righteous, It shall
e well with thee , but Wo to the wicked, it shall be ill
with him . Here are, I. Gracious promises to those
that adhere to the law and to the testimony; while those
that seek to familiar spirits, shall be driven into dark¬
ness and dimness, they shall see a great light, relief in
the midst of their distresses, typical of gospel-grace.
1. In the doctrine of the Messiah, v. 1 . . 3. 2. His vic¬
tories, v. 4, 5. 3. His government and dominion, as
Immanuel, v. 6, 7. II. Dreadful threatenings against
the people of Israel, who had revolted fromj and were
enemies to, the house of David; that they should be
brought to utter ruin, that their pride should bring them
down, ( v. 8 . . 10.) that their neighbours should make a
prey of* them, (v. 11, 12.) that, for their impenitency
and hypocrisy, all their ornaments and supports should
be cut off, (v. 13. . 17.) and that by the wrath of Goa
against them, and their wrath one against another, they
should be brought to utter ruin, v. 18. .21. And this
is typical of the final destruction of all the enemies of
the son of David and his kingdom.
1. '1^'EVERTHELESS, the dimness
.1x1 shall not be such as was in her
vexation, when at the first he lightly afflict¬
ed the land of Zebulun and the land of
Naphtali, and afterward did more griev¬
ously afflict her by the way of the sea, be¬
yond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations.
2. The people that walked in darkness
have seen a great light : they that dwell in
the land of the shadow of death, upon them
hath the light shined. 3. Thou hast multi¬
plied the nation, and not increased the joy:
they joy before thee according to the joy in
harvest, and as men rejoice when they di¬
vide the spoil. 4. For thou hast broken the
yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoul¬
der, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day
ofMidian. 5. For every battle of the war¬
rior is with confused noise, and garments
rolled in blood ; but this shall be with burn¬
ing and fuel of fire. 6. For unto us a
Child is born, unto us a Son is given ; and
the government shall be upon his shoulder :
i6 1SAI
and his name shall be called Wonderful,
Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlast¬
ing Father, The Prince of Peace. 7. Of the
increase of his government anil peace there
shall be no end, upon the throne of David,
and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to
establish it with judgment and with justice,
from henceforth even for ever. The zeal
of the Lord of hosts will perform this.
The first words of this chapter plainly refer to the
close of the foregoing chapter, where every thing
looked black and melancholy: Behold, trouble, and
darkness, and dimness; very bad, yet not so bad, but
that to the upright there shall arise light in the dark¬
ness, (Ps. cxii. 4.) and at evening-time it shall be
light, Zech. xiv. 7. Nevertheless, it shall not be
such dimness (either not such for kind, or not such
for degree,) as sometimes there has been. Note,
In the worst of times, God’s people have a never¬
theless to comfort themselves with, something to
allay and balance their troubles; they are perse¬
cuted, but not forsaken, (2 Cor. iv. 9.) sorrowful,
yet always rejoicing, 2 Cor. vi. 10. And it is a
matter of comfort to us, when things are at the
darkest, that he who forms the light, and creates
the darkness, ( ch . xlv. 7.) has appointed both their
bounds, and set the one over against the other, Gen.
i. 4. He can say, “ Hitherto the dimness shall go,
so long as it shall last, and no farther, no longer. ”
Three things are here promised, and they all point
ultimately at the grace of the gospel, which the
saints then were to comfort themselves with the
hopes of, in every cloudy and dark day, as we now
are to comfort ourselves, in time of trouble, with
the hopes of Christ’s second coming, though that
be now, as his first coming then was, a thing at a
great distance. The mercy likewise which God
has in store for his church, in the latter days, mav
be a support to those that are mourning with her
for her present calamities. We have here the pro¬
mise,
I. Of a glorious light, which shall so qualify, and
by degrees dispel, the dimness, that it shall hot be,
as it sometimes has been not such as ivas in her
vexation; there shall not be such dark times as
w .re formerly,, when, at first, he lightly afflicted
the land of Zebulun and JVaphtali, which lay re¬
mote, and most exposed to the inroads of the neigh¬
bouring enemies ; and, afterward, he more griev¬
ously afflicted the land by the way of the sea, and
beyond Jordan, ( v . 1.) referring, probably, to those
days when God began to cut Israel short, and to
smite them in all their coasts, 2 Kings x. 32. Note,
1. God tries what lesser judgments will do with a
people, before he brings greater. But, 2. If a light
affliction do not do its work with us, to humble and
reform us, we must expect to be afflicted more
grievously; for when God judges he will overcome.
Well, those were dark times with the land of
Zebulun and Naphtali, and there was dimness of
anguish in Galilee of the Gentiles, both in respect of
ignorance, (they did not speak according to the laiu
and testimony, and then there was no light in them,
ch. viii. 20.) and in respect of trouble and the des-
erate posture of their outward affairs; we have
oth together, 2. Chron. xv. 3, 5. Israel has been
without the true God and a teaching priest, and in
those times there was no peace: but the dimn»ss
threatened (ch. viii. 22.) shall not prevail to such
a degree; for, (t>. 2.) The people that walked in
darkness have seen a great light. (1.) At this time,
when the prophet lived, there were manv prophets
in Judah and Isnel, whose prophecies were a great
light both for direction and comfort to the people
lH, IX.
of God, who adhered to the law and the testimony;
beside the written word, thev had prophecy; there
were those that had showed them how I ng, (Ps.
lxxiv. 9.) which was a great satisfaction tc them,
when, in respect of their outward troubles, they
sat in darkness, and dwelt in the land of the shadow
of death. (2.) This was to have its full accom¬
plishment when our Lord Jesus began to appear as
a Prophet, and to preach the gospel in the land of
Zebulun and Naphtali, and in Galilee of the Gen¬
tiles. And the Old Testament prophets, as they
were witnesses to him, so they were types of him.
When he came, and dwelt in the borders of Zebu¬
lun and Naphtali, then this prophecy is said to be
fulfilled, Matth. iv. 13 — 16. Note, [1.] Those
that want the gospel, walk in darkness, and know
not what they do, or whither they go; and they
dwell in the land of the shadow of 'death, in thick
darkness, and in the utmost danger. [2.] When
the gospel comes to any place, to any soul, light
comes, a great light, a shining light, ' which will
shine more and more. It should be welcome to us,
as light is to them that sit in darkness, and we
should readily entertain it, both because it is of
such sovereign use to us, and brings its own evi
dence with it. Truly this light is sweet.
II. Of a glorious increase, and an universal joy
arising from it; (d. 3.) “ Thou, O God, hast mul
tiplied the nation, the Jewish nation, which thou
hast mercy in store for; though it has been dimin¬
ished by one sore judgment after another, yet now
thou hast begun to multiply it again.” The num¬
bers of a nation are its strength and wealth, if the
numerous be industrious; and it is God that in¬
creases nations, Job xii. 23. Yet it follows, “ Thou
hast not increased the joy; the carnal joy and mirth,
and those things that are commonly the matter and
occasion of that; but, notwithstanding that, they
joy before thee, there is a great deal of serious spi¬
ritual joy among them, joy in the presence of God,
with an" eye to him.” This is verv applicable to
the times of gospel-light, spoken of, v. 2. Then
God multiplied the nation, the gospel-Israel. “ And
to him” (so the Masorites read it) “ thou hast mag¬
nified the joy, to every one that receives the light!”
The following words favour this reading; thev joy
before thee; they come before thee in holy ordi¬
nances with great joy; their mirth is net like that
of Israel, under their vines and fig-trees, (thou hast
not increased that joy,) but it is in the favour of God
and in the tokens of his grace.” Note, The gospel,
when it comes in its light and power, brings joy
along with it, and those who receive it aright, there¬
in do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice; therefore the
conversion of the nations is prophesied of by this,
Ps. lxvii. 4. Let the nations be glad, and sing for
joy, Ps. xevi. 11. 1. It is holy joy: “They joy be¬
fore thee;” they rejoice in spirit, (as Christ did,
Luke x. 21.) and that is before God. In the eve
of the world, they are always as sorrowful, and ye t,
in God’s sight, always rejoicing, 2 Cor. vi. 10. ' 2.
It is great joy, it is according to the joy in harvest,
when those who sowed in tears, and have with long
patience waited for the precious fruits of the earth,
reap in joy; and as in war, men rejoice, when, after
a hazardous battle, they divide the spoil. The grs-
pel brings with it plenty and victory; but those that
would hat e joy of it, must expect to go through a
hard work, as the husbandman, before he has the
joy of harvest, and a hard conflict, as the soldier,
before he has the Joy of dividing the spoil; but the
joy, when it comes, will be an abundant recom
pense for the toil. See Acts viii. 8, 39.
III. Of a glorious liberty and enlargement; (r.
4,5.) “They shall rejoice before thee, and with
good reason, for thou hast broken the yoke of his
burthen, and made him easy, for he shall no longer
ISAIAH, IX.
t>7
be in servitude, and thou hast broken the stuff of
his shoulder, and the rod of his oppressor, that red
of the wicked which rested long on the lot of the
righteous;” as the Midi-unites’ yoke was broken
from off the neck of Israel by the agency of Gideon.
If Gad makes former deliverances his patterns in
working tor us, we ought to make them our en¬
couragements to hope in him, and to seek to him;
(Ps. lxxxiii. 9.) Do unto them as to the Midian-
iles. What temporal deliverance this refers to, is
not clear, probably, the preventing of Sennacherib
from making himself master of Jerusalem, which
was done, as in the day of Midian, by the imme¬
diate hand of God; and whereas other battles were
usually won with a great deal of noise, and by the
expense of much blood, this shall be done silently
and without noise; Under his g'ory God shall kin¬
dle a burning; (ch. x. 16.) a fire not blown shall
consume him, Job xx. 26. But doubt'iess it looks
further, to the blessed fruits and effects of that
great light which should visit them that sat in dark¬
ness; it would bring liberty along with it, deliver¬
ance to the ca/itives, Luke iv. 18. 1. The design
of the gospel, and the grace of it, is, to break the
yoke of sin and Satan, to remove the burthen of
guilt and corruption, and to free us from the rod
of those oppressors, that we might be brought into
the glorious liberty of the children of God. Christ
brake the yoke of the ceremonial law, (Acts xv.
10. Gal. v. 1.) and delivered us out of the hands
of our enemies, that we might serve him without
far, Luke i. 74, 75. 7- This is done by the Spirit
working like fire, (Matth. iii. 11.) not as the battle
of the warrior is fought, with confused noise; no,
the weapons of our warfare are not carnal; but it is
done with the spirit of judgment and the spirit of
burning, ch. iv. 4. It is done as in the day of Mi¬
dian, bv a work of God upon the hearts of men.
Christ is our Gideon; it is his sword that doeth
wonders.
But who, where is he that shall undertake and
accomplish these great things for the church? He
tells us, (t>. 6, 7.) they shall be done by the Messi¬
ah, Immanuel, that son of a virgin, whose birth he
had foretold, (ch. vii. 14. ) and now speaks of, in the
rophetic style, as a thing already done: the Child is
om; not only because it was as certain, and lie was
as certain of it, as if it had been done already; but
because the church, before his incarnation, reaped
great benefit and advantage by his undertaking in
the virtue of that first promise concerning the Seed
of the woman, Gen. iii. 15. As he was the Lamb
slain, so he was the Child bom, from the founda¬
tion of the world, Rev. xiii. 8. All the great things
that God did for the Old Testament church, were
done bv him as the eternal Word, and for his sake
as the Mediator. He was the Anointed, to whom
God had respect, (Ps. lxxxiv. 9.) and it was for the
Lord’s sake, for the Lord Christ’s sake, that God
caused his face to shine upon his sanctuary, Dan.
ix. 17. Therefore the Jewish nation, and particu¬
larly the house of David, were preserved many a
time from imminent ruin, because that blessing was
in them. What greater security therefore could be
given to the church of God then, that it should be
preserved, and be the special care of Divine Provi¬
dence, than this, that God had so great a mercy in
res Tve for it? The Chaldee Paraphrase understands
it of the Man that shall endure for ever, even Christ.
And it is an illustrious prophecy of him and of his
kingdom, which doubtless they that waited for the
consolation of Israel built much upon, often turned
tA, and read with pleasure.
(1.) See him in his humiliation; the same that is
th ■ mighty God, is a Child boro; the Ancient of
I) tvs becomes the Infant of a span long; the ever-
1 .sthig Father is a Son given. Such was his conde- '
Vox., iv -P
scension in taking our nature upon him; thus did he
humble and empty himself, to exalt and fill us. He
is bom into our world; the I l ord was made flesh,
and dwelt among us. He is given, freely given, to
be all that to us, which our case, in our fallen state,
c dls for; God so loved the world, .that he gave him.
He is born to us, he is given to us, us men, and not
to the angels that sinned; it is spoken with an air
of triumph, and the angel seems to refer to these
words in the notice he gives to the shepherds of the
Messiah’s being come; (Luke ii. 11.) unto you is
bom, this day, a Saviour. Note, Christ’s being
born and giv en to us, is the great foundation of our
hopes, and fountain of our joys, in times of greatest
grief and fear.
(2.) See him in his exaltation; this Child, this
Son, this Son of God, this Son of man, that is given
to us, in a capacity to do us a great deal of kind¬
ness; for he is invested with the highest honour and
power, so that we cannot but be happy if he be our
Friend.
[1.] See the dignity he is advanced to, and the
name he has above every name. He shall be called
(and therefore we are sure he is, and shall be,)
Wonderful, Counsellor, &c. His people shall know
him, and worship him, by these names; and as one
that fully answers them, they shall submit to him,
and depend upon him.
First, He is Wonderful, Counsellor. Justly he is
called Wonderful, for he is both God and man.
His love is the wonder of angels and glorified saints;
in his birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension,
he was wonderful. A constant series of wonders
attended him, and, without controversy, great was
the mystery of godliness concerning him. He is the
Counsellor, for he was intimately acquainted with
the counsels of God from eternity, and he gives
counsel to the children of men, in which he consults
our welfare. It is by him that God has given us
counsel, Ps. xvi. 7. Rev. iii. 18. He is the vVisdcm
of the Father, and is made of God to us Wisdom.
Some join these together; He is the Wonderful
Counsellor, a wonder or miracle of a counsellor; in
this, as in other things, he has the pre-eminence;
none teaches like him.
Secondly, He is the mighty God; God, the mighty
One. As he has wisdom, so he has strength, to go
through with his undertaking; he is able to save to
the utmost; and such is the work of the Mediator,
that no less a power than that of the mighty God
could accomplish it.
Thirdly, He is the everlasting Father, or the Fa¬
ther of eternity; he is God, one with the Father,
who is from everlasting to everlasting. His fatherly
care of his people and tenderness toward them are
everlasting. He is the Author of everlasting life
and tenderness to them, and so is the Father of a
blessed eternity to them. He is the Father of the
world to come; so the LXX read it; the Father of
the gospel-state, which is put in subjection to him,
not to the angels, Heb. ii. 5. He was, from eternity,
Father of the great work of Redemption: his heart
was upon it; it was the product of his wisdem, as
the Counsellor; of his love, as the everlasting Fa
ther.
Fourthly, He is the Prince of Peace; as a King,
he preserves the peace, commands peace, nay, he
creates peace, in his kingdom. He is cur Peace,
and it is his peace that both keeps the hearts < f his
people, and rules in them. He is not only a peace¬
able Prince, and his reign peaceable, but he is the
Author and Giver of all good, all that peace which
is the present and future bliss of Lis subjects.
[2.] See the dominion he is advanced to, and the
throne he has, above every throne; (v. 6.) The go¬
vernment shall be u/ion his shoulder; his only: he
shall not only wear *ht badge cf it upon his
58
ISAIAH, IX.
•shoulder, (the key of the house of David, ch. xxii.
'22.; out he shall bear the burthen of it. The Fa¬
ther shall devolve it upon him, so that he shall have
an incontestable right to govern; and he shall un¬
dertake it, so that ■-» doubt can be made of his go¬
verning well, for lie shall set his shoulder to it, and
will never complain, as Moses did, of his being over¬
charged; lam not able to bear all this fieofile.
Numb. xi. 11, 14.
Glorious things are here spoken of Christ’s go¬
vernment, v. 7.
First, That it shall be an increasing government;
it shall be multiplied, the bounds of his kingdom
shall be more and more enlarged, and many shall
be added to it daily; the lustre of it shall increase,
and it shall shine more and more brightly in the
world. The monarchies of the earth were each less
illustrious than the other; so that what began in
gold ended in iron and clay, and every monarchy
dwindled by degrees: but the kingdom of Christ is
a growing kingdom, and will come to perfection at
last.
Secondly, That it shall be a peaceable govern¬
ment, agreeable to his character as the Prince of
Peace: he shall rule by love, shall rule in men’s
hearts; so that wherever his government is, there
shall be peace; and as his government increases,
the peace shall increase; the more we are subject
to Christ, the more easy and safe we are.
Thirdly, That it shall be a rightful government;
he that is the Son of David, shall reign upon the
throne of David, and over his kingdom, which he is
entitled to; God shall give him the throne of his fa¬
ther David, Luke i. 32, 33. The gospel-church, in
which Jew and Gentile are incorporated, is the holy
hill of Zion, on which Christ reigns, Ps. ii. 6.
Fourthly, That it shall be administered with pru¬
dence and equity, and so as to answer the great end
of government, which is the establishment of the
kingdom; he shall order it, and settle it, with jus¬
tice and judgment; every thing is, and shall be, well
managed, in the kingdom of Chi'ist, and none of his
subjects shall ever have cause to complain.
Fifthly, That it shall be an everlasting kingdom ;
here shall be no end of the increase of his govern-
nent, it shall be still growing; no end of the in-
.rease of the peace of it, for the happiness of the
•ubjects of this kingdom shall last to eternity, and
■ erhaps shall be progressive in infinitum — for ever.
He shall reign from henceforth even for ever; not
only throughout all generations of time, but even
then when the kingdom shall be delivered up to
God, even the Father, the glory both of the Re¬
deemer and the redeemed shall continue eternally.
Lastly, That God himself has undertaken to bring
all this about; The Lord of hosts, who has all power
in his hand, and all creatures at his beck, shall per¬
form this, shall preserve the throne of David till
this Prince of peace is settled in it; his zeal shall
do it; his jealousy for his own honour, and the truth
ofhis promise, and the good of his church. Note,
The heart of God is much upon the advancement
of the kingdom of Christ among men; which is very
comfortable to all those that wish well to it; the
zeal of the Lord of hosts will overcome all opposi¬
tion.
8. The Lord sent a word into Jacob,
and it hath lighted upon Israel. 9. And all
the people shall know, even Ephraim and
the inhabitants of Samaria, that say in
the pride and stoutness of heart, 10. The
bricks are fallen down, but we will build
with hewn stones; the sycamores are cut
down, but we will change them into cedars.
11. Therefore the Lord shall set up the
adversaries of liezin against him, and join
his enemies together; 12. The Syrians be¬
fore, and the Philistines behind ; and they
shall devour Israel with open mouth. For
all this his anger is not turned away, but his
hand is stretched out still. 13. For the peo¬
ple turneth not unto him that smiteth them,
neither do they seek the Lord of hosts. 1 4.
Therefore the Lord will cut off from Isiael
head and tail, branch and rush, in one day.
15. The ancient and honourable, he is the
head; and the prophet that teacheth lies, he
is the tail. 1 6. F or the leaders of this peo¬
ple cause them to err; and they that arc led
of them are destroyed. 17. Therefore the
Lord shall have no joy in their young men,
neither shall have mercy on their fatherless
and widows: for every one is a hypocrite
and an evil-doer, and every mouth speaketh
folly. For all this his anger is not turned
away, but his hand is stretched out still.
18. For wickedness burneth as the fire:
it shall devour the briers and thorns, and
shall kindle in the thickets of the forest;
and they shall mount up like the lifting up
of smoke. 19. Through the wrath of the
Lord of hosts is the land darkened, and the
people shall be as the fuel of the fire: no
man shall spare his brother. 20. And he
shall snatch on the right hand, and be hun¬
gry; and he shall eat on the left hand, and
they shall not be satisfied: they shall eat
eveiy man the flesh of his own arm : 21.
Manasseh, Ephraim; and Ephraim, Ma-
nasseh : and they together shall he against
Judah. For this his anger is not turned
away, but his hand is stretched out still.
Here are terrible threatenings, which are directed
primarily against Israel, the kingdom of the ten
tribes, Ephraim and Samaria, the ruin of which is
here foretold, with all the woful confusions that were
the prefaces to that ruin, all which came to pass
within a few years after; but they look further, to
all the enemies of the throne and kingdom of Christ
the Son of David, and read the doom of all nations
that forget God, and will not have Christ to reign
over them. Observe,
I. The preface to this prediction; (v. 8.) The
Lord sent a word into Jacob; sent it by his servants
the prophets; he warns before he wounds; he sent
notice what he would do, that they might meet him
in the wav of his judgments, but they would not
take the hint, took no care to turn away his wrath,
and so it lighted upon Israel; for no word of God
shall fall to the ground. It fell upon them as a
storm of rain and hail from on high, which they
could not avoid. “ It has lighted ufion them; it is
as sure to come as if it were come already ; and all
the people shall know bv feeling it, what they would
not know by hearing of it. ” Those that are wil¬
lingly ignorant of the wrath of God revealed from
heaven against sin and sinners, shall be made to
know it.
II. The sins charged upon the people of Israel,
59
ISAIAH, IX.
Which provoked God to bring these judgments upon
them.
]. Their insolent defiance of the justice of God,
thinking themselves a match for him; They say , in
the pride and stoutness of their heart, “ Let God
himself do his worst, we will hold our own, and
make our part good with him; if he ruin our houses,
we will repair them, and make them stronger and
finer than they were before; our Landlord shall not
turn us out of doors, though we pay him no rent,
but we will keep in possession. It the houses that
were built of bricks, be demolished in the war, we
will rebuild them with hewn stones, that shall not so
easily be thrown down. If the enemy cut down the
svcamores, we will plant cedars in the room of them.
VVe will make a hand of God’s judgments, gain by
them, and so outbrave them.” Note, Those are
ripening apace for ruin, whose hearts are unhum¬
bled under humbling providences; for God will
walk contrary to those who thus walk contrary to
him, and provoke him to jealousy, as if they were
stronger than he.
2. Their incorrigibleness under all the rebukes
of Providence hitherto; (v. 13.) The people turn
not unto him that smites them; they are not wrought
upon to reform their lives, to forsake their sins, and
to return to their duty; neither do they seek the Lord
of hosts; either they are atheists, and have no reli¬
gion, or idolaters, and seek to those gods that are
the creatures of their own fancy, and the works of
their own hands. Note, That which God designs,
in smiting us, is, to turn us to himself, and to set us a
seeking him; and if this point be not gained by lesser
judgments, greater may be expected. God smites,
that he may not kill.
3. Their general corruption of manners and
abounding profaneness. (1.) Those that should
have reformed them, helped to debauch them; ( v .
16.) The leaders of this people mislead them, and
cause them to err, by conniving at their wicked¬
ness, and countenancing wicked people, and by set¬
ting them bad examples; and then no wonder if
they that are led of them be deceived, and so destroy¬
ed; but it is ill with a people when their physicians
are their worst disease. They that bless this fieople,
or call them blessed, (so the margin reads it,) that
flatter them, and soothe them up in their wicked¬
ness, and cry Peace, peace, to them, they cause them
to err; and they that are called blessed of them, are
swallowed up ere they are aware. We have reason
to be afraid of those that speak well of us when we
do ill; see Prov. xxiv. 24. — xxix. 5. (2.) Wicked¬
ness was universal, and all were infected with it;
v. 17.) Every one is a hypocrite and evil-doer.
f there be any that are good, they do not, they dare
not, appear; for every mouth speaks folly and vil-
lany; every one is profane toward God, (so the word
properly signifies,) and an evil-doer toward man;
these two commonly go together; they that fear not
God, regard not man; and then every mouth speaks
folly, falsehood, and reproach, both against God
and man; for out of the abundance of the heart the
mouth speaks.
III. The judgments threatened against them for
this wickedness of theirs; let them not think to go
unpunished.
1. In general, hereby they exposed themselves to
the wrath of God, which should both devour as fire,
and darken as smoke. (1.) It should devour as fire;
( v . 18. ) Wickedness shall burn as the fire; the dis¬
pleasure of God, incurred by sin, shall consume the
sinners, who have made themselves as briers and
thorns before it, and as the thickets of the forest;
combustible matter, which the wrath of the Lord
of hosts, the mighty God, will go through, and bum
together. (2.) It should darken as smoke; the
briers and thorns, when the fire consumes them,
shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke, so that
the whole land shall be darkened by it; they shell
be in trouble, and see no way out; (v. 19.) Tie
people shall be as the fuel of the fire. God’s wratf
fastens upon none but those that make themselvtt
fuel for it, and then they mount up as the smoke ( f
sacrifices, being made victims to divine justice.
2. God would arm the neighbouring powers
against them, v. 11, 12. At this time, the kingdom
of Israel was in league with that of Syria against
Judah; but the Assyrians, who were adversaries to
the Syrians, when they had conquered them, should
invade Israel; and God will stir them up to do it,
and join the enemies of Israel together in alliance
against them, who yet have particular ends of their
own to serve, ;ind are not aware of God’s hand in
their alliance. Note, (1.) When enemies are set
up, and joined in confederacy against a people, God’s
hand must be acknowledged in it. (2.) Those that
partake with each other in sin, as Syria and Israel
in invading Judah, must expect to share in the pu¬
nishment of sin. Nay, the Syrians themselves,
whom they were now in league with, should be a
scourge to them, (for it is no unusual thing for those
to fall out, that have been united in sin,) they be¬
fore, and the Philistines behind; one attacking them
in the front, the other flanking them, or falling upon
their rear; so that they should be surrounded with
enemies on all sides, who should devour them with
open mouth, v. 12. The Philistines were not now
looked upon as formidable enemies, and the Syrians
were looked upon as fast friends; and yet these shall
devour Israel. When men’s ways displease the
Lord, he makes even their friends to be at war with
them.
3. God would take from the midst of them those
they confided in, and promised themselves help
from, v. 14, 15. Because the people seek not God,
those they seek to, and depend upon, shall stand
them in no stead. The Lord will cut off head and
tail, branch and rush, which is explained in the
next verse. (1.) Their magistrates, that were ho¬
nourable by birth and office, and were the ancients
of the people, these were the head, these were the
branch which they promised themselves spirit and
fruit from; but because these caused them to err,
they shall be cut off, and their dignity and power
shall be no protection to them, when the abuse of
that dignity and power was the great provocation :
it was a judgment upon the people to have their
princes cut off, though they were not such as they
should be. (2.) Their prophets, their false pro¬
phets, were the tail and the rush, the most despica¬
ble of all others. A wicked minister is the worst
of men; Corruptio optimi est pessima — That which
is best, proves, when corrupted , to be the worst.
The blind led the blind, and so both fell into the
ditch; and the blind leaders fell first, and fell unde) -
most.
4. That the desolation should be as general as the
corruption had been, and none should escape it, v.
17. (1.) Not those that were the objects of com¬
placency: none shall be spared for love: The Lord
shall have no joy in their young men, that were in
the flower of their youth; nor will he say, Deal
gently with the young men for my sake; no, “ Let
them fall with the rest, and with them let the seed
of the next generation perish.” (2.) Not these that
were the objects of compassion; none shall be spared
for pity ; He shall not have mercy on the fatherless
and widows, though he is, in a particular manner,
their Patron and Protector: they had corrupted
their way like all the rest; and if the poverty and
helplessness of their state was not an argument with
them to keep them from sin, they could not expect
it should be an argument with God to protect tl era
from judgments.
CO
ISAIAH, X.
5. That they should pull one another to pieces,
and every one should help forward the common
ruin, and they should be cannibals to themselves
and one another; JVb man shall spare his brother , if
he come in the way of his ambition or covetousness,
or if he have any colour to be revenged on him; and
how can they expect God should spare them, when
they show no compassion one to another? Men’s
passion and cruelty one against another provoke
God to be angry with them all, and are an evidence
that he is so. Civil wars soon bring a kingdom to
desolation; such there were in Israel, when, for the
transgression of the land, many were the princes
thereof Prov. xxviii. 2. In these intestine broils,
men snatched on the right hand and yet were hun¬
gry still, and did eat the flesh of their own arm,
preyed upon themselves for hunger, or upon their
nearest relations that were as their own flesh, v. 20.
This bespeaks, (1.) Great famine and scarcity;
when men had pulled all they could to them, it was
so little, that they were still hungry, at least God
did not bless it to them; so that they eat and have
not enough, Haggai i. 6. (2.) Great rapine and
plunder; Jusque datum sceleri — Iniquity is estab¬
lished by law. The hedge of property, "which is a
hedge of protection to men’s estates, shall be pluck¬
ed up, and every man shall think all that his own
which he can lay his hands on; Vivitur etc rapto;
non hos/ies ab hospite tutus — They live on the spoil,
and the rites of hospitality are all violated. And
yet when men thus catch at that which is none of
their own, they are not satisfied. Covetous desires
are insatiable, and this curse is entailed on that
which is ill got, that it will never do well.
These intestine broils should be not only among
particular persons and private families, but among
tlie tribes; {v. 21.) Manasseh shall devour Ephraim,
and Ephraim, Manasseh, though they be combined
against Judah. They that could unite against Ju¬
dah, could not unite with one another; but that
sinful confederacy of theirs against their neighbour
that dwelt securely by them, was justly punished by
this separation of them one from another. Or, Ju¬
dah having sinned like Manasseh and Ephraim,
shall not only suffer with them, but suffer by them.
Note, Mutual enmity and animosity among the tribes
of God’s Israel, is a sin that ripens them for ruin,
and a sad symptom of ruin hastening on apace. If
Ephraim be against Manasseh, and Manasseh
against Ephraim, and both against Judah, they will
all soon become a very easy prey to the common
enerav.
6. That though they should be followed with all
those judgments, yet God would not let fall his con¬
troversy with them. It is the heavy burthen of
this song; (v. 12, 17, 21.) For all this, his anger is
not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still;
(1.) They do nothing to turn away his anger; they
do not repent and reform, they do not humble them¬
selves and pray; none stand in the gap, none answer
God’s calls, nor comply with the designs of his pro¬
vidences, but they are hardened and secure. (2. )
His anger therefore continues to burn against them,
and his hand is stretched out still. The reason why
the judgments of God are prolonged, is, because the
point is not gained, sinners are not brought to re¬
pentance by them; the people turn not to him that
“ mites them, and therefore he continues to smite
them; for when God judges, he will overcome; and
the proudest, stoutest sinner shall either bend or
break.
CHAP. X.
Thepi-ophet, in this chapter, is dealing, I. With the proud
oppressors of his people at home, that abused their pow¬
er, to pervert justice, whom he would reckon with for
their tyranny, v. 1..4. If. With a threatening invnder
of bis people from abroad, Sennacherib king of Assyria;
concerning whom, observe, 1. The commission given
him to invade Judah, v. 6, 6. 2. His pride and insolence
in the execution of that commission, v. 7.. 11, 13 14.
3. A rebuke given to his haughtiness, and a threatening
of his fall arid ruin, when he had served the purposes for
which God raised him up, v. 12, 15 . . 19. 4. A promise
of grace to the people of God, to enable them to bear up
under the affliction, and to get good bv it, v. 20 . . 23. 5.
Great encouragement given to them not to fear this
threatening storm, but to hope that, though for the pre¬
sent all the country was put into a great consternation
by it, it would end well, in the destruction of this formi¬
dable enemy, v. 24 . . 34. And this is intended to quiet
the minds of good people, in reference to all the threat¬
ening efforts of the wrath of the church’s enemies : if God
be for us, who can be against us? None to do us any
harm.
1. \ VX-* unto them that decree unright-
T T eous decrees, and that write gi iev-
ousness which they have prescribed: 2. To
turn aside the needy from judgment, and to
take away the right from the poor of my
people, that widows may be their prey, and
that they may rob the fatherless! 3. And
what will ye do in the day of visitation, and
in the desolation which shall come from far ?
to whom will ye flee for help ? and where
will ye leave your glory ? 4. Without me
they shall bow down under the prisoners,
and they shall fall under the slain. For all
this his anger is not turned away, but his
hand is stretched out still.
Whether they were the princes and judges of Is¬
rael, or Judah, or both, that this prophet denounced
this wo against, is not certain: if those of Israel,
these verses are to be joined with the close of tin-
foregoing chapter; which is probable enrugh, be¬
cause the burthen of that prophecy {For all this, his
anger is not. turned away) is repeated here, i>. 4*
If those of Judah, they then show what was the par¬
ticular sin for which God brought the Assyrian
army upon them — to punish their magistrates fi 1
mal-administration, which they could not legally be
called to account for. To them he speaks wots,
before he speaks comfort to God’s own people.
Here is, 1. The indictment drawn up against
these oppressors, v. 1, 2. They are charged, (1.)
With making wicked laws and edicts: they decree
unrighteous decrees, contrary to natural equity and
the law of God; and what mischiefs they prescribe,
those under them write it, enrol it, and put it into
the formality of a law. Wo to the superior powers
that devise and decree these decrees! They are not
too high to be under the divine check. And wo to
the inferior officers that draw them up, and enter
them upon record! They are not too mean to be
within the divine cognizance; the writers that write
the grievousness, principal and accessaries, shall
fall under the same wo. Note, It is bad to do hurt,
but it is worse to do it with design and deliberation,
to do wrong to many, and to involve many in the
guilt of doing wrong. (2.) With perverting justice
in the execution of the laws that were made: no
people had statutes and judgments so righteous as
they had; and yet corrupt judges found ways to turn
aside the needy from judgment, to hinder them from
coming at their right, and recovering what was
their due, because they were needy and poor, and
such as they could get nothing by, nor expect any
bribes from. (3.) With enriching themselves by
oppressing those that lav at their mercy, whom they
ought to have protected: they make widows’ houses
and estates their prev, and they rob the fatherless
of the little that is left them, because they have no
friend to appear for them. Not to relieve them if
63
ISAIAH, X.
thev had wanted, net to right them if they were
wronged, had been crime enough in men that had
wealth and power; but to rob them because on the
side of the oppressors there was power, and the op¬
pressed had no comforter, (Eccl. iv. 1.) is such a
piece of barbarity, as one would think, none could
ever be guilty of, that had either the nature of a
man, or tlie name of an Israelite.
2. A challenge given them with all their pride
and power to outface the judgments of God; (v. 3.)
“II hat wilt ye do l To whom will ye Jlee? You can
tr mpk upon the widows and fatherless; but what
•will ye do when God riseth up?” Job xxxi. 14.
Great men, who tyrannize over the poor, think they
sh .11 never be called to account for it, shall never
hear of it again, or fare the worse for it; but shall
not God visit for these things? Jer. v. 29. Will
there not come a desolation upon those that have
made others desolate? Perhaps it may come from
far, and therefore may be long in coming; but it will
come at last; reprieves are not pardons; and, com¬
ing from far, from a quarter whence it was least
expected, it will be the greater surprise, and the
more terrible. Now what will then become of these
unrighteous judges? Now they see their help in the
ate. Job xxxi. 21. But to whom will they then
ee for help? Note, ( 1. ) There is a day of visitation
coming, a day of inquiry and discovery, a searching
day, which will bring to light, to a true light, every
man, and every man’s work. (2.) The day of vi¬
sitation will be a day of desolation to all wicked peo¬
ple, when all their comforts and hopes will be lost
and gone, and buried in ruin, and themselves left
desolate. (3. ) Impenitent sinners will be utterly at
a loss, and will not know what to do in the day of
visitation and desolation. They cannot fly and hide
themselves, cannot fight it out and defend them¬
selves; they have no refuge in which either to shel¬
ter themselves from the present evil, (To whom
will ye Jlee for help?) or to secure to themselves
better times hereafter; “ Where will you leave your
glory, to find it again when the storm is over?” The
wealth they had got was their glory, and they had
no place of safety in which to deposit that, but they
should certainly see it flee away. If our souls be
our glory, as they ought to be, and we make them
our chief care, we know where to leave them, and
into whose hands to commit them, even those of a
faithful Creator. (4.) It concerns us all seriously
to consider what we shall do in the day of visitation,
in a day of affliction, in the day of death and judg¬
ment, and to provide that we may do well.
3. Sentence passed upon them, by which they are
doomed, some to imprisonment and captivity; They
shall bow down among the prisoners, or under them:
those that were most highly elevated in sin, shall
be most heavily loaded, and most deeply sunk in
trouble; others to death, they shall fall first, and so
shall fall under the rest of the slain; they that hod
trampled upon the widows and fatherless, sh ill
themselves be trodden down: (p>. 4.) “ This it will
come to,” says God, “ without me; because you
have deserted me, and driven me away from you.”
Nothing but utter nun can be expected by those
that live without God in the world; that cast him
behind their back, and so cast themselves out of his
protection.
And yet, for all this, his anger is not turned away;
which intimates not only that God will proceed in
his controversy with them, but that they shall be
in a continual dread of it; they shall, to their un¬
speakable terror, see his hand still stretched out
against them, and there shall remain nothing but a
fearful looking-for of judgment.
5. O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and
(he staff in their hand is mine indignation.
'6. I will send him against a hypocritical
nation, and against the people of my vviatli
will -I give him a charge, to take the spoil,
and to take the prey, and to tread them
down like the mire of the streets. 7. How
beit he meaneth not so, neither doth his
heart think so; but it is in bis heart to de¬
stroy and cut off nations not a few. 8. For
he saith, Are not my princes altogethei
kings? 9. Is not Calno as Carchemish ? is
not Hamath as Arpad ? is not Samaria as
Damascus? 10. As my hand hath found
the kingdoms of the idols, ami whose graven
images did excel them of Jerusalem and ot
Samaria; 11. Shall I not, as 1 have done
unto Samaria and her idols, so do to Jerusa¬
lem and her idols? 12. Wherefore it shall
come to pass, that, when the Lord hath
performed his whole work upon mount Zion
and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of
the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and
the glory of his high looks. 1 3. For he saith,
By the strength of my hand I have done it,
and by my wisdom; for I am prudent: and
I have removed the bounds of the people,
and have robbed their treasures, and 1 have,
put down the inhabitants like a valiant man:
14. And my hand hath found, as a nest, t he
riches of the people: and as one gatheieth
eggs that are left, have I gathered all the
earth; and there was none that moved the
wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped. 15.
Shall the axe boast itself against him that
heweth therewith ? or shall the saw magnify
itself against him that shaketh it ? as if the
rod should shake itself against them that
lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself
as if it were no wood. 16. Therefore shall
the Lord, the Lord of hosts, send among
his fat ones leanness; and under his glory
he shall kindle a burning like tbe burning
of a fire. 17. And the light of Israel shall
be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flam; :
and it shall burn and devour his thorns and
his briers in one day; 18. And shall con¬
sume the glory of his forest, and of his fruit-
fid field, both soul and body : and they shall
be as when a standard-bearer fainteth. 1 9.
And the rest of the trees of his forest shall
be few, that a child may write them.
The destruction of the kingdom of Israel by Shal¬
maneser, king of Assyria, was foretold in the fore¬
going chapter, and it had its accomplishment in
the sixth vear of Hezekiah, 2 Kings xviii. 10. It
was total 'and final, head and tail were all cut off.
Now the correction of the kingdom of Judah by
Sennacherib, king of Assyria, is foretold in this
i chapter; and this prediction was fulfilled in the
fourteenth year of Hezekiah, when that potent
prince, encouraged by the successes of his prede¬
cessor against the ten tribes, came up against -t//
the fenced cities of Judah , and took them , and
G-2 ISAIAH, X.
laid siege to Jerusalem, (2 King xviii. 13.) in con¬
sequence of which, we may well suppose Hezekiah
and his kingdom were greatly alarmed, though
there was a good work of reformation lately begun
among them: but it ended well, in the confusion of
the Assyrians, and the great encouragement of He¬
zekiah and his people in their return to God.
Now let us see here,
I. How God, in his sovereignty, deputed the king
of Assyria to be his servant, and made use of him
as a mere tool to serve his own purposes with; (x>. 5,
f>. ) “ O Assyrian, know this, that thou art the rod of
mine anger; and I will send thee to be a scourge to
the people of my •wrath.” Observe here, 1. How
bad the character of the Jews is, though they ap¬
peared very good; they are a hypocritical nation,
that made a profession of religion, and, at this time
particularly, of reformation, but were not truly re¬
ligious, not truly reformed, not so good as they pre¬
tended to be, now that Hezekiah had brought good¬
ness into fashion. When rulers are pious, and so re¬
ligion is in reputation, it is common for nations to be
hypocritical; they are a profane nation; so some read
it. Hezekiah had in a great measure cured them
of their idolatry, and now they run into prof ane-
ness; nay, hypocrisy is profaneness: none profane
the name of God so much as those who are called
by that name, and call upon it, and yet live in sin.
Being a profane hypocritical nation, they are the
people of God’s wrath; they lie under his wrath,
and are likely to be consumed by it. Note, Hypocri¬
tical nations are the people of God’s wrath: nothing
is more offensive to God than dissimulation in re¬
ligion. See what a change sin made: they that had
been God’s chosen and hallowed people, above all,
were now become the people of his wrath, See
Amos iii. 2. 2. How mean the character of the As¬
syrian is, though he appeared very great; he is but
the rod of God’s anger, an instrument God is pleas¬
ed to make use of for the chastening of his people,
that, being thus chastened of the Lord, they may
not be condemned with the world. Note, The ty¬
rants of the world are but tools of Providence. Men
are God’s hand, his sword sometimes, to kill and
slay, Ps. xvii. 13, 14. At other times, they are his
rod to correct. The staff in their hand, wherewith
thev smite his people, is his indignation; it is his
wrath that puts the staff into their hand, and ena¬
bles them to deal blows at pleasure among such as
thought themselves a match for them. Sometimes
God makes an idolatrous nation, that serves him not
at all, a scourge to an hypocritical nation, that serves
him not in sincerity and truth.
The Assyrian is" called the rod of God’s anger,
because he is employed by him. (1. ) From him his
power is derived; I will send him, I will give him
a charge. Note, All the power that wicked men
have, though they often use it against God, they al-
wavs receive from him. Pilate could have no pow¬
er against Christ, unless it were given him from
above, John xix. 11. (2.) By him the exercise of
that power is directed. The Assyrian is to take the
spoil, and to take the prey, not to shed any blood;
we read not of any slain, but he is to plunder the
country, rifle the houses, drive the cattle, and strip
them of all their wealth and ornaments, and tread
them down like the mire of the streets. When God’s
professing people wallow in the mire of sin, it is just
with God to suffer their enemies to tread upon them
like mire. But why must the Assyrian prevail thus
against them? Not that they might be ruined, but
'hat they might be thoroughly reformed.
II. See how the king of Assyria, in his pride,
magnified himself as his own master, and pretend¬
ed to be absolute, and above all control; to act pure¬
ly according to his own will, and for his own honour.
God ordained him for judgment, even the mighty
[ God established him for correction, (Hab. i. 12.) to
be an instrument of bringing his people to repent¬
ance; howbeit, he means not so, nor does his heart
think so, v. 7. He does not think that he is either
j God’s servant, or Israel’s friend; either that he can
do no more than God will let him, or that he shall
do no more than God will make to work for the
good of his people. God designs to correct his peo-
le for, and so to cure them of, their hypocrisy, and
ring them nearer to him ; but was that Sennache-
I rib’s design? No, it was the furthest thing from
his thoughts: he means not so. Note, 1. The wise
God often makes even the sinful passions and pro¬
jects of men subservient to his own great and holy
purposes. 2. When God makes use of men as in¬
struments in his hand to do his work, it is very
common for him to mean one thing, and them to
mean another; nav, for them to mean the quite con¬
trary to what he intends. What Joseph’s brethren
designed for hurt, God overruled for good, Gen. 1.
20. Sec Mic. iv. 11, 12. Men have their ends, and
God has his, but we are sure the cotinsel of the Lord
shall stand. But what is it the proud Assyrian aims
at? The heart of kings is unsearchable, but God
knew what was in his heart: he designs nothing but
to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few, and to
make himself master of them. (1.) He designs to
gratify his own cruelty; nothing will serve but to
destroy, and cut off. He hopes to regale himself
with blood and slaughter; that of particular persons
will not suffice, he must cut off nations. It is below
him to deal by retail, he traffics in murder by whole¬
sale; nations, and those not a few, must have but one
neck, which he will have the pleasure of cutting off.
(2.) He designs to gratify his own covetousness and
ambition, to set up for a universal monarch, and
to gather unto him all nations, Hab. ii. 5. An in¬
satiable desire of wealth and dominion, is that which
carries him on in this undertaking.
The prophet here brings him in vaunting and
hectoring; and by bis general’s letter to Hezekiah,
written in his name, vainglory and arrogance seem
to have entered very far into the spirit and genius
of the man. His haughtiness and presumption are
here described very largely, and his very language
copied out, partly to represent him as ridiculous,
and partly to assure the people of God that he
would be brought down; for that maxim gene¬
rally holds true that pride goes before destruc-
tion. It also intimates, that God takes notice, and
keeps an account, of all men’s proud and haughty
words, with which they set heaven and earth at de¬
fiance. They that speak great swelling words of
vanity, shall hear of them again.
[1.] He boasts what great things he has done to
other nations. First, He has made their kings his
courtiers; (u. 8.) “My princes are altogether kings;
those that are now my princes, are such as have
been kings.” Or, he means that he had raised his
throne to that degree, that his servants, and those
that were in command under him, were as great,
and lived in as much pomp, as the kings of other
countries. Or, those that were absolute princes in
their own dominions, held their crowns under him,
and did him homage. This was a vainglorious
boast; but how great is our God whom we serve,
who is indeed King of kings, and whose subjects are
made to him kings! Rev. i. 6. Secondly, He has
made himself master of their cities: he names se¬
veral, (v. 9.) that were all alike reduced by him;
Calno soon yielded as Carchemish did; Hanvth
could not hold out any more than Arpad; and Sa¬
maria is become his, as well as Damascus. To sup¬
port his boasts, he is obliged to bring the victories
of his predecessor into the account; for it was he
i that conquered Samaria, not Sennacherib. Thirdly ,
! He had beer, too hard for their idols, their tute’.ai
ISAIAH, X.
63
gods, and had found out the kingdoms ot their idols,
and found out ways to make them his own, v. 10.
Their kingdoms took denominations from the idols
they worshipped ; the Moabites are called the peo¬
ple of Chemosh, (Jer. xlviii. 46.) because they ima¬
gined their gods were their patrons and protectors;
and therefore Sennacherib vainly imagines that
every conquest of a kingdom was the conquest of a
god. Fourthly, He had enlarged his own domi¬
nions, and removed the bounds of the people, (xa
13.) enclosing many large territories within the li¬
mits of his own kingdom, and shifting a great way
further the ancient landmarks which his fathers
had set; he could not bear to be hemmed in so close,
but must have more room to thrive. By his re¬
moving the border of the people, Mr. White un¬
derstands his arbitrary transplanting of colonies
from pi ice to place, which was the constant prac¬
tice of tiie Assyrians in all their conquests; tins is a
probable interpretation. Fifthly, He had enriched
himself with their wealth, and brought it into his
own exchequer; I'have robbed their treasures. In
that, he said truly. Great conquerors are often no
better than great robbers. Lastly, He had master¬
ed all the opposition he met with; “I have put
down the inhabitants as a valiant man: those that
sat high, and thought they sat firm, I have hum¬
bled, and made to come down.”
He boasts, 1. That he had done all this by his
own policy and power; (y. 13.) By the strength of
my hand, for I am valiant; and by my wisdom, for
I am prudent: not by the permission of providence,
and the blessing of God: he knows not that it is God
that makes him what he is, and puts the staff into
his hand, but sacrifices to hit own net, Hab. i. 16.
It is all gotten by my might, and the power of my
hand, Deut. viii. 17. Downright atheism and pro¬
faneness, as well as pride and vanity, are at the bot¬
tom of men’s attributing their prosperity and suc¬
cess thus to themselves and their own conduct, and
raising their own character upon it. 2. That he
had done all this with a great deal of ease, and had
made but a sport and diversion of it, as if he had
been taking birds’ nests; (xj. 14.) My hand has
found as a nest the riches of the people; and when
lie had found them, there was no more difficulty in
taking them than in rifling a nest, nor anv more re¬
luctance or regret within his own breast, in destroy¬
ing families and cities, than in destroying crows’
nests: killing children was no more to him than
killing birds. “ As one gathers the eggs that are
left in the nest by the dam, so easily have I gather¬
ed all the earth ;” (like Alexander, he thought he
had conquered the world;) and whatever prey he
seized, there was none that moved the wing, or
opened the mouth, or peeped, as birds do when their
nests are rifled; they durst not make any opposition,
no, nor any complaint; such awe did they stand in
of this mighty conqueror; they were so weak, that
they knew it was to no purpose to resist; and he
was so arbitrary, that they knew it was to no pur¬
pose to complain. Strimge! that ever men, who
were made to do good, should take a pride and a
pleasure in doing wrong, and doing mischief to all
about them without control; and should reckon that
their glory which is their shame! But their day will
come to fall, who thus make themselves the terror
of the mighty, and much more of the feeble, in the
land o f the living.
[2.] He threatens what he will do to Jerusalem,
which he was now about to lay siege to, v. 10. 11.
He would master Jerusalem and her idols, as he had
Hibdued other places and their idols, particularly
Samaria. First, He blasphemously calls the God
•or Israel an idol, and sets him on a level with the
f lse cods of other nations, as if none were the true
God but Mithras, the sun, whom he worshipped.
See how ignorant he was, and then we shall the less
wonder that he was so proud. Secondly, He pre
fers the graven images of other countries before
those of Jerusalem and Samaria, when he might
have known that the worshippers of the God of Is
racl were expressly forbidden to make any graven
images, and if any did, it must be by stealth, and
therefore they could not be so rich and pompous as
those of other nations. If he mean the ark and the
mercy-seat, he speaks like himself, very foolishly,
and as one that judged by the sight of the eye, and
might therefore be easily deceived in matters of spi¬
ritual concern. Those who make external pomp
and splendour a mark of the true church, go by the
same rule. Thirdly, Because he had conquered
Samaria, he concludes Jerusalem would fall of
course; “shall not I do so to Jerusalem? Can I not
as easily, and may I not as justly?” But it did not
follow; for Jerusalem adhered to her God, whereas
Samaria had forsaken him.
III. See how God, in his Justice, rebukes his
pride, and reads his doom. We have heard what
the great king, the king of Assyria, says, and how
big he talks; let us now hear what the great God
has to say by his servant the prophet, and we shall
find that, wherein he deals proudly, God is above
him.
1. He shows the vanitv of his insolent and auda¬
cious boasts; (xi. 15.) Shall the are boast itself
against him that hews therewith? Or, Shall the saw
magnify itself against him that draws it? So absurd
are the boasts of this proud man. “ O what a dust
do I make!” said the fly upon the cart-wheel in the
fable. “What destruction do I make among the
trees!” says the axe. Two ways the axe may be
said to boast itself against him that hews with it;
( 1. ) By way of resistance and opposition. Senna¬
cherib blasphemed God, insulted him, threatened
to serve him as he had served the gods of the na¬
tions; now this was as if the axe should fly in the
face of him that hews with it. The tool striving
with the workman is no less absurd than the clay
striving with the potter: and as it is a thing not to
be justified, that men should fight against God with
the wit, and wealth, and power, which he gives
them, so it is a thing not to De suffered; but if men
will be thus proud and daring, and bid defiance to
all that is just and sacred, let them expect that God
will reckon with them; the more insolent they are,
the surer and sorer will their ruin be. (2.) By way
of rivalship and competition. Shall the axe take to
itself the praise of the work it is employed in? So
senseless, so absurd, was it for Sennacherib to say.
By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by
my wisdom, v. 13. It is as if the rod, when it is
shaken, should boast that it guides the hand which
shakes it; whereas when the staff is lifted up, is it
not wood still? So the last clause may be read. If
it be an ensign of authority, (as the nobles of the
people carried staves, Numb. xxi. 18.) if it be an
instrument of service, either to support a weak man,
or to correct a bad man, still it is wood, and can do
nothing but as it is directed by him that uses it.
The psalmist prays that God would make the na¬
tions know that they were 'but men, (Ps. ix. 20.) the
staff to know that if is but wood.
2. He foretells his fall and ruin.
(1.) That when God hath done his work by him,
he will then do his work upon him, x'. 12. For the
comfort of the people of God, in refer; nee to Sen¬
nacherib’s invasion, though it was a dismal time
with them, let them know, [1.] That God designed
to do good in 7.ion and Jerusalem by his providence;
there is a work to be done Upon them, which God
intends, and which he will perform. Note, When
God lets loose the enemies of his church and peo¬
ple, and suffers them for a time to prevail, it is in
ISAIAH, X.
fi4
order tn the performing of some great good work
upon them ; and when that is done, then, and not till
then, he will work deliverance for them. When
God brings his people into trouble, it is to try them,
(Dan. xi. 35.) to bring sin to their remembrance,
and humble them for it, and to awaken them to a
sense of their duty, to teach them to pray, and to
love and help one another; and this must be the
fruit, even the taking aiuay of sin, ch. xxvii. 9.
When these points are, in some measure, gained by
the affliction, it shall be removed in mercy, (Lev.
xxvi. 41, 42.) otherwise not; for as the word, so the
rod, shall accomplish that for which God sends it.
[2.] That when God had wrought this work of
grace for his people, he would work a work of
wrath and vengeance upon their invaders; I will
punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of
Assyria. His big words are here said to come from
his stout heart, and they are the fruit of it, for out
of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks; no¬
tice is taken too of the glory, of his high looks, for
a proud look is the indication of a proud spirit.
The enemies of the church are commonly very high
and haughty; but, sooner or later, God will reckon
for that. He glories in it as an incontestable proof
of his power and sovereignty, that he looks upon
proud men, and abases them, Job xl. 11, &c.
(2.) That how threatening soever this attempt
was upon Zion and Jerusalem, it should certainly be
baffled and broken, and come to nothing, and he
should not be able to bring to pass his enterprise, v.
16 — 19. Observe,
[1.] Who it is that undertakes his destruction,
and will be the Author of it; not Hezekiah, or his
princes, or the militia of Judah and Jerusalem;
(what can they do against such a potent force?) but
God himself will do it, as the Lord of hosts, and as
the I right of Israel. First, We are sure he can do
it, for he is the Lord of hosts, of all the hosts of
heaven and earth; all the creatures are at his com¬
mand, he makes what use he pleases of them, and
lays what restraints he pleases on them. He is the
Lord of the hosts both of Judah and of Assyria,
and can give the victory to which he pleases. Let
us not fear the hosts of any enemy, if we have the
Lord of hosts for us. Secondly, We have reason to
hope he will do it, for he is the Light of Israel, and
his Holy One. God is Light; in him are . perfect
brightness, purity, and happiness. He is Light, for
he is the Holy One; his holiness is his glory. He is
Israel’s Light, to direct and counsel his people, to
favour and countenance them, and so to rejoice and
comfort them in the worst of times. He is their
Holy One, for he is in covenant with them ; his ho¬
liness is engaged and employed for them. God’s
holiness is the saints’ comfort; they give thanks at
the remembrance of it, and with a great deal of plea¬
sure call him their Holy One, Hab. i. 12.
[2.1 How this destruction is represented. It shall
be. First, As a consumption of the body by a dis¬
ease; The Isjrd shall send leanness among his fat¬
nesses, or his fat ones. His numerous army, that was
like a body covered with fatness, shall be diminish¬
ed, and waste away, and become like .a skeleton.
Secondly, as a consumption of buildings, or trees
and bushes, bv fire; Under his glory, that very thing
which he glories in, he will kindle a burning, as the
burning of a ,/ire, which shall lay his army in ruins,
as suddenly as a raging fire lays a stately house
in ashes. Some make it an allusion to the fire kin¬
dled under the sacrifices, for proud sinners fall as
sacrifices to divine justice. Observe, 1. How this
fire shall be kindled, x>, 17. The same God that is
a rejoicing Light to them that serve him faithfully,
will be a consuming Fire to them that trifle with
him, or rebel against him; the Light of Israel shall
be a Fire to the Assyrians, as the same pillar ol
cloud was a light to the Israelites, and a terror to
the Egyptians, in the Red sea. What can oppose
what can extinguish, such a fire? 2. What deso¬
lation it shall make; It shall burn and devour its
thorns and briers, his officers and soldiers, which
are of little worth, and vexations to God’s Israel, as
thorns and briers, whose end is to be burned, and
which are easily and quickly consumed by a de¬
vouring fire; (ch. xxvii. 4.) Who would set the bri¬
ers and thorns against me in battle ? They will be
so far from stopping the fire, that they will inflame
it; I would go through them and bum them toge
ther; they shall be devoured in one day, all cut off
in an instant. When they cried not only Peace and
safety, but Victory and triumph, then sudden de¬
struction came; it came surprisingly, and was cc m-
pleted in a little time. Even the glory of his forest,
\v. 18.) the choice troops of his army, the veterans,
the troops of the household, the bravest regiments
he had, that he was most proud of, and depended
most upon, that he values, as men do their timber-
trees, the glory of their forest, or their fruit-trees,
the glory of their Carmel; those shall be put as bri¬
ers and thorns before the fire ; they shall be consum¬
ed both soul and body, entirely consumed, not only
a limb burned, but life taken away. Note, God
is able to destroy both soul and body, and there¬
fore we should fear him more than man, who can
but kill the body; great armies before him are but
as great woods, which he can fell or fire when he
pleases.
And what would be the effect of this great slaugh
ter? The prophet tells us, (1.) That the army
would hereby, be reduced to a very small number;
The rest of the trees of his forest shall be few! verv
few shall escape the sword of the destroying angel,
so few that there needs no artist, no muster-master,
or secretary of war, to take an account of them,
for even a child may soon reckon the numbers of
them, and write the names of them. (2.) That
those few who remained, should be quite dispirited;
They shall be as when a standard-bearer faints;
when he either falls or flees, and his colours are
taken by the enemy, this discourages the whole
armv, and puts them all into confusion. Upon the
whole matter we must say, Who is able to stand be¬
fore this great and holy Lord God ?
20. And it shall come to pass in that day,
that the remnant of Israel, and such as are
escaped of the house of Jacob, shall no
more again stay upon him that smote them ;
but shall stay upon the Lord, the Holy
One of Israel, in truth. 21. The remnant
shall return, rrrn the remnant of Jacob, unto
the mighty God. 22. For though thy peo¬
ple Israel be as the sand of the sea, ijpA a
remnant of them shall return: the consump¬
tion decreed shall overflow with righteous¬
ness. 23. For the Lord God of hosts shall
make a consumption, even determined, in
the midst of all the land.
The prophet had said, (v. 12.) that the Lord
would perform his whole work upon Afount Zion
and upon 'Jerusalem, by Sennacherib’s invading of
the land; now here we are told what that work
should be. A two-fold work:
1. The conversion of some, tn whom this provi¬
dence should be sanctified, and yield the peaceable
fruit of righteousness, though for the present it was
not joyous, but grievous; these are but a remnant;
l| (i>. 22i) the remnant of Israel, (v. 20.) the remnant
11 of Jacob, (v. 21.) but a very few in comparison with
ISAIAH, X.
the vast numbers of the people of Israel, which
were as the sancl of the sea. Note, Converting-
work is wrought but on a remnant, who are distin¬
guished from the rest, and set apart for God. When
we see how populous Israel is, how numerous the
members of the visible church are, as the sand of
the sea, and yet consider that of those a remnant
only shall be saved, that of the many that are called
there are but few chosen, we shall surely strive to
enter in at the strait gate, and fear lest we seem to
come short. The remnant of Israel are said to be
such as are escaped of the house of Jacob, such as
escaped the corruptions of the house of Jacob, and
kept their integrity in times of common apostacy;
and that was a lair escape. And therefore they es¬
cape the desolations of that house, and shall be pre¬
served in safety, in times of common calamity; and
that also will be a fair and narrow escape. Their I
lives shall be given them for a prey; (Jer. xlv. 5.)
the righteous scarcely are saved.
Now, (1.) This remnant shall come off from all
confidence in an arm of flesh, this providence shall
cure them of that; they shall no more again stay
ufion him that smote them, shall never depend upon
the Assyrians, as they have done, for help against
their other enemies, finding that they are themselves
their worst enemies; Ictus piscator sap.it — Suffer¬
ings teach caution. They have now learned, by
dear-bought experience, the folly of leaning upon
that staff as a stay to them, which may perhaps
prove a staff to beat them ; it is a part of the co¬
venant of a returning people, (Hos. xiv. 3.) As¬
syria shall not save us. Note, By our afflictions
we may learn not to make creatures our confidence.
(2.) They shall come home to God, to the mighty
God, (one of the names given to the Messiah, c/i.
ix. 6.) to the Holy One of Israel. The remnant
shall return; (that was signified by the name of the
prophet’s son, Shear-jashub, ch. vii. 3.) even the
remnant of Jacob; they shall return after the rais¬
ing of the siege of Jerusalem, not only to the quiet
possession of their houses and lands, but to God and
to their duty; they shall repent and pray, and seek
his face, and reform their lives. The remnant that
escape, are a returning remnant; they shall return
to God, and shall stay upon him. Note, Those only
may with comfort stay upon God, that return to
him; then may we have a humble confidence in
God, when we make conscience of our duty to him.
They shall stay upon the Holy One of Israel, in
truth, and not in pretence and profession only. This
promise of the conversion and salvation of a rem¬
nant of Israel now, is applied by the apostle, (Rom.
ix. 27.) to the remnant of the Jews, which, at the
first preaching of the gospel, received and enter¬
tained it: and sufficiently proves, that it was no new
thing for God to abandon to ruin a great many of
the seed of Abraham, and yet preserve his pro¬
mise to Abraham in full force and virtue; for so it
was now. The number of the children of Israel was as
the sand of the sea, (according to the promise, Gen.
xxii. 17.) and yet only a remnant shall be saved.
2. The consumption of others; The Lord God of
hosts shall make a consumption; (v. 23.) this is not
meant (as that v. 18.) of the consumption of the As¬
syrian army, but of the consumption of the estates
and families of many of the Jews by the Assyrian
army. This is taken notice of, to magnify the pow¬
er and goodness of God in the escape of the distin¬
guished remnant, and to let us know what shall be¬
come of those that will not return to God; they shall
be wasted away by this consumption, this general
decay in the midst of the land. Observe, (1.) It is
a consumption of God’s own making; he is the au¬
thor of it; the Lord God of hosts, whom none can
resist, he shall make this consumption. (2.) It is
decreed, it is not the product of a sudden resolve, but
VOL. IV — 1
|j was before ordained; it is determined, not onlv tha*
i there shall be such a consumption, but it is cut out,
' (so the word is,) it is particularly appointed, how
tar it shall extend, and how long it shall continue,
who shall be consumed by it, and who not. (3.) It
is an overflowing consumption, that shall overspread
the land, and, like a mighty torrent or inundation,
bear down all before it. (4. ) Though it overflows,
it is not at random, but in righteousness, which sig¬
nifies both wisdom and equity. God will justlv
bring this consumption upon a provoking people,
but he will wisely and graciously set bounds to it;
Hitherto it shall come, and no further.
24. Therefore llius saith the Lord God
of hosts, O my people that dwellest in Zion,
be not afraid of the Assyrian; he shall smite
thee with a rod, and shall lift up his staff
against thee, after the manner of Egypt.
25. For yet a very little while, and the in¬
dignation shall cease, and mine anger, in
their destruction. ' 26. And the Lord of
hosts shall stir up a scourge for him accord¬
ing to the slaughter of Midian at the rock
of Oreb : and as his rod was upon the sea.
so shall he lift it up after the manner of
Egypt. 27. And it shall come to pass in
that day, that his burden shall be taken
away from off thy shoulder, and his yoke
from off thy neck, and the yoke shall be
destroyed because of the anointing. 28.
He is come to Aiath, he is passed to JVJi-
gron; at Michmash he hath laid up his
carriages: 29. They are gone over the pas¬
sage: they have taken up their lodging at
Geba; Ramah is afraid; Gibeah of Saul is
fled. 30. Lift up thy voice, O daughter of
Gallim; cause it to be heard unto Laish,
O poor Anathoth. 31. Madmenah is re¬
moved; the inhabitants of Gebim rather
themselves to flee. 32. As yet shall he re¬
main at Nob that day: he shall shake his
hand against the mount of the daughter of
Zion, the hill of Jerusalem. 33. Behold, the
Lord, the Lord of hosts, shall lop the
bough with terror: and the high ones of
stature shall be hewn down, and the haughty
shall be humbled. 34. And he shall cut
down the thickets of the forests with iron,
and Lebanon shall fall by a mighty one.
The prophet, in his preaching, distinguishes be¬
tween the precious and the vile; for God, in his pro¬
vidence, even in the same providence, does so; he
speaks terror, in Sennacherib's invasion, to the hy¬
pocrites, who were the people of Gotl's ’wrath, v.
6. But here he speaks comfort to the sincere, who
were the people of God’s love. The judgment was
sent for the sake of the former, the deliverance was
wrought for the sake of the latter. Here we have.
I. An exhortation to God’s people, not to he
frightened at this threatening calamitv, n< r to be
put into any confusion or consternation by it; (v.
24.) Let the sinners in Zion be afraid, ch. xxxiii
14. 0 my people that dwellest in Zion, be no’ afraa.
of the Assyrian. Note, It is against the mind and
will of God, that his people, whatever happens
oe
ISAIAH,
sh ,uld give wav to that fear which lias t rment and |
amazement. They that dwell in Zion, where God
dwells, and where his people attend him, and are
employed in his service, that are under the protec¬
tion of the bulwarks that are round about Zion,
(Ps. xlviii. 13.) need not be afraid of any enemy.
Let their souls dwell at ease in God.
II. Considerations offered for the silencing of their
fear.
1. The Assyrian shall do nothing against them
but what God has appointed and determined; they
are here told beforehand what he should do, that it
may be no surprise to them, “He shall smite, thee
by the divine pel-mission, but it shall be only with a
rod to correct thee, not with a sword to wound and
kill; nay, he shall but lift up his staff against thee,
threaten thee, and frighten thee, and shake the rod
at thee, after the manner of Egypt, as the Egyp¬
tians shook their staff against your fathers at the
Red sea, when they said, IVe will pursue, -we will
overtake, (Exod. xv. 9.) but could not reach to do
them any hurt.” Note, We should not be fright¬
ened at those enemies that can do no more than
frighten us.
2. The storm will soon blow over; (x>. 25.) Yet a
very little while, a little, little while, (so the word
is ,)'and the indignation shall cease, even mine an¬
ger, which is the staff in their hand, (y. 5.) so that
when that ceases, they are disarmed, and disabled
to do any further mischief. Note, God’s anger
against his people is but for a moment; (Ps. xxx.
5l) and when that ceases, and is turned away from
us, we need not fear the fury of any man, for it is
impotent passion.
3. The enemy that threatens them, shall himself
be reckoned with ; God’s anger against his people
shall cease in the destruction of their enemies; when
he turns away his wrath from Israel, he shall turn
it against the Assyrian; and the rod with which he
corrected his people, shall not only be laid aside,
but thrown into the fire. He lift lift 'his staff against
Zion, but God shall stir ufi a scourge for him;
(d. 26.) he is a terror of God’s people, but God will
be a Terror to him; the destroying angel shall be
this scourge; which he can neither flee from, nor
contend with. The prophet, for the encouragement
of God’s people, quotes precedents, and puts them
in mind of what God had done formerly against the
enemies of his church, that were very strong and
formidable, but were brought to ruin. The des¬
truction of the Assyrian shall be, (1.) According to
the slaughter of Midian, which was effected by an
invisible power, but done suddenly, and it was a
total rout. And as at the rock of Oreb, one of the
princes of Midian, after the battle, was slain, so
shall Sennacherib be in the temple of his god Nis-
roch, after the defeat of his forces, when he thinks
the bitterness of death is past. Compare with this,
Ps. lxxxiii. 11. Make their nobles like Oreb, and
like Zeeb; and see how God’s promises and his peo¬
ple’s prayers agree. (2.) As his rod was upon the
sea, the Red sea, as Moses’s rod was upon that, to
divide it, first for the escape of Israel, and then to
close it again for the destruction of their pursuers,
so shall his rod now be lifted up, after the manner
of Egypt, for the deliverance of Jerusalem and the
destruction of the Assyrian. Note, It is good to
observe a resemblance between God’s latter and
former appearances for his people, and against his
and their enemies.
4. Thev shall be wholly delivered from the power
of the Assyrian, and from the fear of it; (v. 27.)
they shall not only be eased of the Assyrian army,
which now quartered upon them, and which was a
grievous yoke and burthen to them, but they shall
no more pay that tribute to the king of Assyria,
which, before this invasion, he had exacted from
them, (2 Kings xviii. 14.) shall be no longer at J. is
service, nor lie at his mercy, as they have done;
nor shall he ever again put the country under con¬
tribution. Some think it looks further, to the de¬
liverance of the Jews out of their captivity in Baby¬
lon; and further yet, to the redemption of believers
from the tyranny of sin and Satan. The yoke shall
not only be taken away, but it shall be destroyed;
the enemy shall no more recover his strength, to do
the mischief he has done. And this, because of the
anointing , for their sakes, who were partakers of
the anointing. (1.) For Hezelciah’s sake, who was
the anointed of the Lord, who had been an active
reformer, and was dear to God. (2.) For David’s
sake; that is particularly given them as the reason
why God would defend Jerusalem from Sennache¬
rib, ( ch . xxxvii. 35.) For my own sake, and for my
servant David’s sake. (3.) For his people Israel’s
sake, the good people among them that had received
the unction of divine grace. (4.) For the sake of
the Messiah, the Anointed of God, whom God had
an eye to in all the deliverances of the Old Testa¬
ment church, and hath still an eye to in all the fa¬
vours he shows to his people; it is for his sake that
the yoke is broken, and that we are made free
indeed.
III. A description both of the terror of the enemy,
and the terror with which many were struck by it,
and the folly of both exposed, v. 28, to the end.
Where observe,
1. How formidable the Assyrians were, and how
daring and threatening they affected to appear
Here is a particular description of his march, what
course he steered, what swift advances he made;
He is come to Aiath, 8cc. This and the other place
he has made himself master of, and has met with
no opposition; At Michmash he has laid up his
carriages, as if he had no further occasion for his
heavy artillery, so easily was every place he came
to reduced; or, the store-cities of Judah, which were
fortified for that purpose, were now become his
magazines. Some remarkable pass, and an impor¬
tant one, he had taken, they are gone over the
passage.
2. How cowardly the men of Judah were, the de¬
generate seed of that lion’s whelp; they are afraid,
they are fled upon the first alarm, and did not offer
to make any head against the enemy; their apostacy
from God had dispirited them, so that one chases a
thousand of them. Instead of a valiant shout, to
animate one another, nothing was heard but lamen¬
tation, to discourage and weaken one another. And
poor Anathoth, a priest’s city, that should have
been a pattern of courage, shrieks louder than any;
(r>. 30.) with respect to those that gathered them¬
selves together, it was not to fight, but to flee by
consent, v. 31. This is designed either, (1.) Tc
show how fast the news of the enemies progress
flew through the kingdom; He is come to Aiath, says
one; nay, says another, He is passed to Migron, &c.
And yet, perhaps, it was not altogether so bad as
common fame represented it. But we must watch
against the fear, not only of evil thitigs, but of evil
tidings, which often make things worse than really
they are, Ps. cxii. 7. Or, (2.) To show what im¬
minent danger Jerusalem was in, when its enemies
made so many bold advances towards it, and its
friends could not make one bold stand to defend it
Note, The more daring the church’s enemies are,
and the more dastardly those are that should appear
for her, the more will God be exalted in his own
strength, when, notwithstanding this, he works de
liverance for her.
3. How impotent his attempt upon Jerusalem
shall be; He shall remain at Arob, whence he may
see mount Zion, and there he shall shake his hand
against it; (u. 32. ) he shall threaten it. and that shall
67
ISAIAH, XI.
be all; it shall be safe, anti shall set him at defiance;
the daughter of Jerusalem, to be even with him,
shall shake her head at him, ch. xxxvii. 22.
4. How fatal it would prove, in the issue, to him¬
self; when he snakes his hand at Jerusalem, and is
about to lay hands on it, then is God’s time to ap¬
pear against him; for Zion is the place of which
God has said, This is my rest for ever; therefore'
those who threaten it, affront God himself. Then
the Lord shall loft the bough with terror, and cut
down the thickets of the forests, t>. 33, 34. ( 1. ) The
ride of the enemy shall be humbled, and the
oughs that are lifted up on high shall be lopped
off, the high and stately trees shall be hewn down,
the haughty shall be humbled; those that lift up
themselves in competition with God, or opposition
to him, shall be abased. (2.) The power of the
enemy shall be broken; the thickets of the forest he
shall cut down. When the Assyrian soldiers were
under their arms, and their spears erect, they looked
like a forest, like Lebanon: but when in one night
they all became as dead corpses, the pikes were
laid on the ground, and Lebanon was of a sudden
cut down by a mighty one, the destroying angel,
who in a little time slew so many thousands of them:
and if this shall be the exit of that proud invader,
let not God’s people be afraid of him. JVho art
thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall
die?
CHAP. XI.
It is a very good transition in prophecy, (whether it be so
in rhetoric or no,) and a very common one, to pass from
the prediction of the temporal deliverances of the church
to that of the great salvation, which in the fulness of
time shall be wrought out by Jesus Christ, of which the
other were types and figures to which all the prophets
bare witness; and so the ancient Jews understand them.
For what else was it that raised so great an expectation |
of the Messiah at the time he came. Upon occasion of
the prophecy of the deliverance of Jerusalem from Sen¬
nacherib, here comes in a prophecy concerning Messiah
the Prince: I. His rise out of the house of David, v. 1.
II. His qualifications for his great undertaking, v. 2, 3.
III. The justice and equity of his government, v. 3.. 5.
IV. The peaceableness of his kingdom, v. 6.. 9. V.
The accession of the Gentiles to it, (v. 10.) and with them
the remnant of the Jews, that should be united with them
in the Messiah’s kingdom, v. 11 . . 16. And of all this,
God would now shortly give them a type, and some
dark representation, in the excellent government of He-
zekiah, the great peace which the nation should enjoy un¬
der him, after the ruin of Sennacherib’s design, and the
return of many of the ten tribes out of their dispersion
to their brethren of the land of Judah, when they enjoyed
that great tranquillity.
1. A ND there shall come forth a rod out
-fV of the stern of Jesse, and a Branch
shall grow out of his roots: 2. And the Spi¬
rit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spi¬
rit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit
of counsel and might, the 'spirit of know¬
ledge, and of the fear of the Lord ; 3. And
shall make him of quick understanding in
the fear of the Lord: and he shall not judge
after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove
alter the hearing of his ears. 4. But with
righteousness shall he judge the poor, and
reprove with equity for the meek of the earth :
and he shall smite the earth with the rod of
his mouth, and with the breath of his lips
shall he slay the wicked. 5. And righteous¬
ness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faith-
Inlness the girdle of his reins. 6. The wolf
also shall dwell with the lamb, and tlie leo¬
pard shall lie down with the kid; and the
tali, and the young lion, and the fading to¬
gether; and a little child shall lead them.
7. And the cow and the bear shall feed;
their young ones shall lie down together:
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 8.
And the sucking child shall play on the hole
ol the asp, and the weaned child shall put
his hand on the cockatrice’ den. 9. They
shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy
mountain: for the earth shall be full of the
knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover
the sea.
The prophet had before, in this sermon, spoken
of a Child that should be born, a Son that should be
given, on whose shoulders the government should
be; intending this for the comfort of the people of
God in times of trouble, as dying Jacob, many ages
before, had intended the prospect of Shiloh for the
comfort of his seed in their affliction in Egypt. He
had said, {ch. x. 27.) that the yoke should be de¬
stroyed because of the anointing; now here he tells
us on whom that anointing should rest. He foretells,
I. That the Messiah should, in due time, arise
out of the house of David, as that Branch of the
Lord, which he had said {ch. iv. 2.) should be ex
cellent and glorious; the word is JVetzer, whic
some think is referred to, Matth. ii. 23. where it is
said to be spoken by the prophets of the Messiah,
that he should be called a Nazarene. Observe here,
1. Whence this Branch should arise: from Jesse.
He should be the Son of David, with whom the
covenant of royalty was made, and to whom it was
promised with an bath, that of the fruit of his loins
God would raise ufx Christ, Acts ii. 30. David is
often called the son of Jesse, and Christ is called so,
because he was to be not only the Son of David,
but David himself, Hos. iii. 5.
2. The meanness of his appearance. (1.) He is
called a Nod, and a Branch; both the words here
used signify a weak, small, tender product, a twig,
and a s/irig; so some render them; such as is easily
broken off. The enemies of God’s church were
just before compared to strong and stately boughs,
{ch. x. 33.) which will not, without great labour,
be hewn down; but Christ, to a tender branch; {ch.
liii. 2. ) yet he shall be victorious over them. (2.)
He is said to come out of Jesse, rather than David,
because Jesse lived and died in meanness and obscu¬
rity; his family was of small account, (1 Sam. xviii.
18.) and it was in a way of contempt and reproach
that David was sometimes called the son of Jesse,
ch. xxii. 7. (3.) He comes forth out of the stem, or
stump, of Jesse; when the royal family that had
beer- -s a cedar, was cut down, and only the stump
of it left, almost levelled with the ground, and lost
in the grass of the field, (Dan. iv. 15.) yet it shall
sprout again, Job xiv. 7. Nay, it shall grow out of
his roots, which are quite buried in the earth, and,
like the roots of flowers in the winter, have no stem
appearing above ground. The house of Dai id was
reduced and brought very low at the time of Christ’s
birth, witness the obscurity and poverty of Joseph
and Mary. The Messiah was thus to begin his
estate of humiliation, for submitting to which he
should be highly exalted, 'and would thus give earlv
notice that his kingdom was not of this world. The
Ch aldee Paraphrase reads this, There shall com
forth a king from the sons of Jesse, and the Mes¬
siah (or Christ) shall be anointed out of his sons’ sons
II. That he should be every way qualified fo.
that great work to which he was designed; that th's
63 ISAIAH, XI.
tender Branch should be so watered with the dews
of heaven, as to become a strong Rod for a sceptre
to rule, v. 2.
1. In general; the Spirit of the Lord shall rest
upon him. The Holy Spirit, in all his gifts and
graces, shall not only come, but rest and abide, upon
him; he shall have the Spirit not by measure, but
without measure, the fulness of the Godhead dwell¬
ing in him. Col. i. 19.— ii. 9. He began his preach¬
ing with this, (Luke iv. 18.) The Spirit of the Lord
is upon me.
2. In particular; the spirit of government, by
which he should be every way fitted for that judg¬
ment which the Father has committed to him, and
given him authority to execute, John v. 22, 27.
And not only so, but he should be made the Foun¬
tain and Treasury of all grace to believers, that
from his fulness they might all receive the Spirit of
grace, as all the members of the body derive animal
spirits from the head. (1. ) He shall have the spirit
of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and know¬
ledge; he shall thoroughly understand the business
he is to be employed in. JVo man knows the Fa¬
ther but the Son, Matth. xi. 27. What he is to
make known to the children of men concerning
God, and his mind and will, he shall be himself ac¬
quainted with and apprised of, John i. 18. He shall
know how to administer his spiritual kingdom in all
the branches of it, so as effectually to answer the
two great intentions of it, the glory of God, and the
welfare of the children of men. The terms of the
covenant shall be settled by him, and ordinances in¬
stituted, in wisdom: treasures of wisdom shall be
in him; he shall be our Counsellor, and shall be
made of God to us Wisdom. (2.) The spirit of
courage, or might, or fortitude; the undertaking
was very great, abundance of difficulty must be
broken through, and therefore it was necessary that
he should be so endowed that he might not fail, or
be discouraged, ch. xlii. 1. He was famed tor cou¬
rage in his teaching the way of God in truth, and
not caring for any man, Matth. xxii. 16. (3.) The
Spirit of religion, or the fear of the Lord; not only
he shall himself have a reverent affection for his Fa¬
ther, as his servant, {ch. xlii. 1.) and he was heard
in that he feared, (Heb. v. 7.) but he shall have a
zeal for religion, and shall design the advancement
of it in his whole undertaking. Our faith in Christ
was never designed to supersede and justle out, but
to increase and support, our fear of the Lord.
III. That he should be accurate and critical, and
very exact in the administration of his government,
and the exercise of the power committed to him;
(v. 3.) The Spirit wherewith he shall be clothed,
shall make him of quick understanding, in the fear
if the Lord ; of an acute smell or scent, so the word
is, for the apprehensions of the mind are often ex¬
pressed by the sensations of the body. Note, 1.
Those are most truly and valuably intelligent, that
are so in the fear of the Lord, in the business of re¬
ligion, for that is both the foundation and top-stone
of wisdom. 2. By this it will appear that we have
the Spirit of God, if we have spiritual senses exer¬
cised, and are of quick understanding, in the fear
of the Lord; those have divine illumination, that
know their duty, and know how to go about it. (3.)
Therefore, Jesus Christ had the Spirit without mea¬
sure, that he might perfectly understand his under¬
taking; and he did so, as appears not only in the ad¬
mirable answers he gave to all that questioned with
him, which proved him to be of quick understand¬
ing, in the fear of the Lord; but in the management
of his whofe undertaking. He has settled the great
affair of religion so unexceptionably well, (so as ef¬
fectually to secure both God’s honour and man’s
happiness,) that it must be owned, he tho:-c uglily
uiderstood it
IV. That he should be just and righteous in all
the acts of his government, and there should appear
in it as much equity as wisdom. He shall judge, as
he expresses it himself, and as he himself would be
judged of, John vii. 24.
1. Not according to outward appearance; (v. 3.)
He shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, with
respect of persons, (Job xxxiv. 19.) and according
to outward shows and appearances, nor reprove af¬
ter the hearing of his ears, by common fame and re¬
port, and the representations of others, as men oft
do; nor does he judge of men by the fair words
they speak, calling him Lord, Lord, or their plau¬
sible actions before the eye of the world, which they
do to be seen of men; but he will judge by the hid¬
den man of the heart, and the inward principles
men are governed by, of which he is an infallible
Witness. Christ will judge the secrets of men;
(Rom. ii. 16. ) will determine concerning them, not
according to their own pretensk ns and appearan¬
ces, that were to judge after the sight of the eyes;
not according to the opinion others have of them,
that were to judge after the hearing of the ears; but
we are sure that his judgment is according to truth.
2. He will judge righteous judgment; (y. 5.) Righ¬
teousness shall be the girdle of his loins; he shall
be righteous in the administration of his govern¬
ment, and his righteousness shall be his girdle, it
shall constantly compass him and cleave to him, it
shall be his ornament and honour; he shall gird him¬
self for every action, shall gird on his sword for war
in righteousness; his righteousness shall be his
strength, and shall make him expeditious in his
undertakings, as a man with his loins girt. In con¬
formity to Christ, his followers must have the gir¬
dle of truth, (Eph. vi. 14.) and it will be the stability
of the times. Particularly,
(1.) He shall in righteousness plead for the peo¬
ple that are poor and oppressed; he will be their
Protector; (x>. 4.) with righteousness shall he judge
the poor, shall judge in favour and defence of these
that have right on their side, though they are poor in
the world, and because they are poor in spirit. It
is the duty of princes to defend and deliver the
poor, (Ps. 'lxxxii. 3, 4.) and the honour of Christ,
that he is the poor man’s King, Ps. lxxii. 2, 4. He
shall debate with evenness for the meek of the earth,
or of the land; those that bear the injuries done them,
with meekness and patience, are in a special man¬
ner entitled to the divine care and protection. I,
as a deaf man, heard not, for thou wilt hear, Ps.
xxxviii. 13, 14. Some read it, He shall reprove
or correct the meek of the earth with equity. If
his own people, the meek of the land, do amiss, he
will visit their transgression with the rod.
(2. ) He shall in righteousness plead against his
enemies that are proud and oppressors; (y. 4.) Rut
he shall smite the earth, the man of the earth, that
oppresses; (see Ps. x. 18.) the men of the world,
that mind earthly things only; (Ps. xvii. 14.) these
he shall smite with the rod of his mouth, the word
of his mouth, speaking terror and ruin to them ; his
threatenings shall take hold of them, and be exe¬
cuted upon them; with the breath of his lips, by the
operation of his Spirit, according to his word, and
working with and by it, he shall slay the wicked.
He wiil do it easily, with a word’s speaking, as he
laid those flat who came to seize him, by saying, I
am he, John xviii. 6. Killing terrors shall arrest
theii consciences, killing judgments shall ruin them,
their power, and all their interests; and in the other
world everlasting tribulation will be recompensed to
those that trouble his poor people. The apostle ap¬
plies this to the destruction of the man of sin, whom
he calls that wicked one, (2 Thes. ii. 8.) whom the
Lord will consume with the spirit of h.s month.
And the Chaldee litre reads it, lie shall slay that
IS MAH. XI.
69
wicked Romulus,* or Rome, as Mr. Hugh Brough¬
ton understands it.
V. That there should be great peace and tran¬
quillity under his government; this is an explica¬
tion of what was said, c/i. ix. 6. that he should
be the Prince of Peace. Peace signifies two things:
1. Unity and concord; these are intimated in
these figurative promises, that even the wolf shall
dwell peaceably with the lamb; men of the most
fierce and furious dispositions, who used to bite and
devour all about them, shall have their temper so
strangely altered by the efficacy of the gospel and
grace of Christ, that they shall live in love even
with the weakest, and such as formerly they would
have made an easy prey of. So far shall the sheep
be from hurting one another, as sometimes they
have done, (Ezek. xxxiv. 20, 21.) that even the
wolves shall agree with them. Christ, who is our
Peace, came to slay all enmities, and to settle
lasting friendships among his followers, particu¬
larly between Jews and Gentiles: when multitudes
of both, being converted to the faith of Christ,
united in one sheep-fold; then the wolf and the lamb
dwelt together; the wolf did not so much as threat¬
en the lamb, nor was the lamb afraid of the wolf.
The leopard shall not only not tear the kid, but shall
lie down with her: even their young ones shall lie
down together, and shall be trained up in a blessed
amity, in order to the perpetuating of it. The lion
shall cease to be ravenous, and shall eat straw like
the ox, as some think all the beasts of prey did be¬
fore the Fall. The asp and the cockatrice shall
cease to be venomous, so that parents will let their
children play with them, and put their hands among
them. A generation of vipers shall become a seed
of saints, and the old complaint of Homo homini
l u fius — Man is a wolf to man, shall be at an end.
They that inhabit the holy mountain, shall live as
amicably as the creatures did that were with Noah
in the ark, and it shall be a means of their preser¬
vation, for they shall not hurt or destroy one ano¬
ther as they have done. Now, (1.) This is fulfilled
in the wonderful effect of the gospel upon the minds
of those that sincerely embrace it; it changes the
nature and makes those that trampled on the meek
of tlie earth, not only meek like them, but kind to
them. When Paul, who had persecuted the saints,
joined himself to them, then the wolf dwelt with the
lamb. (2. ) Some are willing to hope it shall yet have
a further accomplishment in the latter days, when
swords shall be beaten into filoughshares.
2. Safety and security; Christ, the great Shep¬
herd, shall take such care of his flock, that those
who would hurt them, shall not; they shall not only
not destroy one another, but no enemy from with¬
out shall be permitted to give them any molesta¬
tion; the property of troubles, and of death itself,
shall be so altered, that they shall not do any real
hurt to, much less shall they be the destruction
of, any that have their conversation in the holy
mountain, 1 Pet. iii. 13. Who, or what, can harm
us, if we be followers of him that is good ?
G id's people shall be delivered not only from evil,
but from thi fear of it; even the sucking child shall
without any terror filay ufion the hole of the asfi;
blessed Paid does so when he says, Who shall sefia-
rate us from the love of Christ ? and O death!
where is thy sting?
Lastly, Observe what shall be the effect, and
what the cause, of this wonderful softening and
sweetening of men’s tempers by the grace of God.
1. The effect of it shall be, tractableness, and a
willingness to receive instruction; A little child shall
lead them who formerly scorned to be controlled
by the strongest man. Calvin understands it of
thei; willing submision to the ministers of Christ,
| who are to instruct with meekness, and not to use
I any coercive power, but to be as little children,
Matt, xviii. 3. See 2 Crr. v iii. 5.
2. The cause of it shall be, the knowledge of God.
The more there is of that, the more there is of a
disposition to peace. They shall thus live in lore,
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the
Lord, which shall extinguish men’s heats and ani¬
mosities. The better acquainted we are with the
God of love, the more we shall lie changed into the
same image, and the better affected shall we be to
all those that bear his image. The earth shall be
as full of this knowledge as the channels of the sea
are of water; so broad and extensive shall this
knowledge be, and so far shall it spread; so deep
and substantial shall this knowledge be, and so long
shall it last. There is much more of the know¬
ledge of God to be got by the gospel of Christ, than
could be got by the law of Moses; and whereas then
in Judah only was God known, now all shall know
him, Heb. viii. 11. But that is knowledge falsely
so called, which sows discord among men: the right
knowledge of God settles peace.
10. And in that day there shall he a root
of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of
the people ; to it shall the Gentiles seek :
and his rest shall he glorious. 11. And it
shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord
shall set his hand again the second time to
recoverthe remnant of his people, which shall
be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and
from Pathros, and from Cush, and from
Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath,
and from the islands of the sea. 12. And he
shall set up an ensign for the nations, and
shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and
gather together the dispersed of Judah from
the four corners of the earth. 13. The
envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the
adversaries of Judah shall be cut off;
Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah
shall not vex Ephraim. 14. But they shall
fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines
toward the west ; they shall spoil them of
the east together : they shall lay their liana
upon Edom and JVIoab ; and the children
of Ammon shall obey them. 15. And the
Lord shall utterly destroy the tongue of the
Egyptian sea; and with his mighty wind
shall he shake his hand over the river
and shall smite it in the seven streams, and
make men go over dry-shod. 16. And there
shall be a highway for the remnant of his
people, which shall be left from Assyria,
iike as it was to Israel in the day that he
came up out of the land of Egypt.
We have here a further prophecy of the enlarge¬
ment and advancement of the kingdom of the Mes¬
siah, under the tvpe and figure of the flourishing
condition of the kingdom of Judah in the latter end
of Hezekiah’s reign, after the defeat of Senna
cherib.
1. This prediction was in part accomplished
when the great things God did for Hezekiah and
his people, proved as an ensign, inviting the neigh¬
bouring nations to them, to inquire of the wonders
* .ir nullum. — Ed.
70
ISAIAH, XI.
done in the land, cn which errand the king of Baby¬
lon’s ambassadors came. To them the Gentiles
sought; and Jerusalem, the rest or habitation of the
Jews, was then glorious, v. 10. Then many of the
Israelites who belonged to the kingdom of the ten
tribes, who, upon the destruction of that kingdom
by the king of Assyria, were forced to flee for shel¬
ter into all the countries about, and to some that lay
very remote, even to the islands of the sea, were
encouraged to return to their own country, and
put themselves under the protection and govern¬
ment of the king of Judah; the rather, because it
was ar Assyrian army by which their country had
been ruined, and that was now routed. This is
said to be a recovery of them the second time, (v.
1 1. ) such an instance of the power and goodness of
God, and such a reviving to them, as their first de¬
liverance out of Egypt was. Then the outcasts of
Israel should be gathered in, and brought home,
and those of Judah too, who, upon the approach of
the Assyi’ian army, shifted for their own safety.
Then the old feud between Ephraim and Judah
shall be forgotten, and they shall join against the
Philistines and their other CQmmon enemies, v. 13,
14. Note, Those who have been sharers with each
other in afflictions and mercies, dangers and deli¬
verances, in consideration thereof, ought to unite
for their joint and mutual safety and protection;
and then it is likely to be well with the church, when
Ephraim and Judah are one against the Philistines.
Then, whatever difficulties there may be in the
way of the return of the dispersed, the Lord shall
find out some way or other to remove them; as,
when he brought Israel out of Egypt, he dried up
the Red sea and Jordan, ( v . 15.) and led them to
Canaan through the invincible embarrassments of a
vast howling wilderness, v. 16. The like will he
do this second time, or that which shall be equiva¬
lent; when God’s time is come for the deliverance
of his people, mountains of opposition shall become
plain before him. Let us not despair, therefore,
when the interests of the church seem to be brought
very low; God can soon turn gloomy days into glo¬
rious ones.
II. It had a further reference to the days of the
Messiah, and the accession of the Gentiles to his
kingdom; for to that the apostle applies, v. 10. of
which the following verses are a continuation.
Rom. xv. 12. There shall be a root of Jesse; and
he that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles, in him
shall the Gentiles trust. That is a key to this pro¬
phecy, which speaks of Christ as the Root of
Jesse, a branch out of his roots, (x>. 1.) a root out
of a dry ground, ch. liii. 2. He is the Root of Da¬
vid, (Rev. v. 5.) the Root and Offspring of David,
Rev. xxii. 16.
1. He shall stand, or be setup, for an Ensign of
the people; when he was crucified, he was lifted up
from the earth; that, as an Ensign or Beacon,
lie might draw the eyes and hearts of all men
unto him, John xii. 32. He is set up as an Ensign
in the preaching of the everlasting gospel, in which
the ministers, as standard-bearers, display the
banner of his love, to allure us to him, (Cant. i. 4.)
the banner of his truth, under which we may enlist
ourselves to engage in a holy war against sin and
Satan. Christ is the ensign to whom the children
of God that were scattered abroad, are gathered to¬
gether, (John xi. 52.) and in whom they meet as
the Centre of their unity.
2. To him shall the Gentiles seek; we read of
( rreeks that did so; John xii. 21. IVe would see Jesus;
and upon that occasion Christ spake of his being
lifted up, to draw all men to him. The apostle,
from the LXX, (or perhaps the LXX from the
apostle, in the editions after Christ,) reads it,
(Rom. xv. 12.) In him shall the Gentiles trust;
they shall seek to him with a dependance on him.
3. His rest shall be glorious. Some understand
it of the death of Chris ; the triumphs of the cross
made even that glorious. Others of his ascensi. n;
when he sat down to rest at the right hand of God.
Or rather, it is meant of the gospel church, that
Mount Zion, of which Christ has said, This is my rest;
and in which he resides. This, though despised by
the world, having upon it the beauty of holiness, is
truly glorious; a glorious high throne, Jer. xvii. 12.
4. Both Jews and Gentiles shall be gathered to
him, v. 11. A remnant of both, a little remnant
in comparison, which shall be recovered, as it were,
with great difficulty and hazard. As formerly God
delivered his people, and gathered them out < f all
the countries whither they were scattered, (Ps. cvi.
47. Jer. xvi. 15, 16.) so he will a second time, in
another way, by the powerful working of the Spirit
of grace with the word. He shall set his hand to
do it; lie shall exert his power, the arm of the
Lord shall be revealed to do it. 1. There shall be
a remnant of the Jews gathered in. The outcasts
of Israel, and the dispersed of Judah, {v. 12.) many
of whom, at the time of the bringing of them in to
Christ, were Jews of the dispersion, the twelve
tribes that were scattered abroad, (James i. 1. 1
Pet. i. 1.) these shall fleck to Christ; and, proba¬
bly, more of those scattered Jews were brought into
the church, in proportion, than those which re¬
mained in their own land. (2.) Many of the na¬
tions, the Gentiles, shall be brought in by the lifting
up of the ensign. Jacob foretold concerning Shiloh,
that to him shall the gathering of the people be.
Those that were strangers and foreigners, shall be
made nigh. The Jews were jealous cf Christ’s
going to the dispersed among the Gentiles, and cf
his teaching the Gentiles, John vii. 35.
5. There shall be a happy accommodation between
Judah and Ephraim, and both shall be safe from
their adversaries, and have dominion over them, v.
13, 14. The coalescence between Judah and Israel
at that time, was a type and figure of the uniting
of Jews and Gentiles in thf gospel-church, who
had been so long at variance. The house of Judah
shall walk with the house of Israel, (Jer. iii. 18.)
and become one nation; (Ezek. xxxvii. 22.) so the
Jews and Gentiles are made of twain one new man,
Eph. ii. 16. And being at peace one with ano¬
ther, those that are adversaries to them both, shall
be cutoff; (or they shall fly upon the shoulders of
the Philistines, as an eagle strikes at her prey, shall
spoil them on the west side of them: and then
they shall extend their conquests eastward, ever
the Edomites, Moabites, and Ammonites; the gos¬
pel of Christ shall be successful in all parts, and
some of all nations shall become obedient to the
faith.
Lastly, Every thing that might hinder the pro¬
gress and success of the gospel, shall be taken rut
of the way. As when God brought Israel rut cf
Egypt, he’ dried up the Red sea and Jordan before
them, (ch. lxiii. 11, 12.) and as afterward when he
brought up the Jews cut of Babylon, he prepared
them their way; {ch. lxii. 10.) so when Jews and
Gentiles are to be brought together into the gospel-
church, all obstructions shall be removed, (v. 15,
16.) difficulties that seemed insuperable shall be
strangely got over; the blind shall be led by a way
that ihey knew not. See ch. xlii. 15, 16. — xliii. 19,
20. Converts shall be brought in chariots and in
litters, ch. lxvi. 20. Some think it is the further
accession of multitudes to the church, that is point¬
ed at in that obscure prophecy of the drying up of
the river Euphrates, that the way of the kings of
the east may be prepared, (Rev. xvi. 12.) which
seems to refer to this here. Note, When God’s
time is come for the bringing of nations, or par-
71
ISAIAH. Xli.
licular persons, home to himself, divine grace will
bo victorious over all opposition. At the presence
ot the Lord, the sea shall flee, and Jordan be driven
back: and those who set their faces heaven-ward
v ill find there are not such difficulties in the way as
they thought there were, for there is a highway
thither, ch. xxxv. 8.
CHAP. XII.
The salvation promised in the foregoing chapter was com¬
pared to that of Israel, in the day that he came up out of
the land of Egypt; so that chapter ends. Now as Moses
and the children of Israel sang a song of praise, to the
lory of God, ( Exod . xv. 1.) so shall the people of God
o in that day, when the Root of Jesse shall stand for an
Ensign of the people, and shall be the Desire and Joy of
all nations. In that day, 1. Every particular believer
shall sing a song of praise for his own interest in that
salvation; (v. 1. .3.) Thou slialt say , Lord, J will praise
‘thee: thanksgiving-work shall be closet-work. II. Many
in concert shall join in praising God for the common
benefit arising from this salvation; (v. 4.. 6.) Ye shall
say, praise ye the Lord: thanksgiving- work shall be con¬
gregation-work; and the praises oi God shall be pub¬
licly sung in the congregations of the upright.
1. 4 ND in that day thou shalt say, O
£ JL Lord, I will praise thee: though
thou wast angry with me, thine anger is
turned away, and thou comfortedst me. 2.
Behold, God is my salvation ; I will trust,
and not be afraid: for the Lord JEHO¬
VAH is my strength and my song; he also
is become my salvation. 3. Therefore with
joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of
salvation.
This is the former part of the hymn of praise
which is prepared for the use of the church; of the
Jewish church, when God would work great deli¬
verances for them, and of the Christian church-
when the kingdom of the Messiah should be set up
in the world, in despite of the opposition of the
powers of darkness; In that day thou shalt say, 0
Lord, I will /iraise thee. The scattered church,
being united into one body, shall, as one man, with
one mind and one mouth, thus praise God, who is
one, and his name one. In that day, when the
Lord shall do these great things for thee, thou shalt
sail, 0 Lord, I will praise thee. That is,
I. “ Thou shalt have cause to say so.” The pro¬
mise is sure, and the blessings contained in it are
very rich, and, when they are bestowed, will furnish
the church with abundant matter for rejoicing, and
therefore with abundant matter for thanksgiving.
The Old Testament prophecies of gospel-times are
often expressed by the joy and praise that shall then
be excited; for the inestimable benefits we enjoy by
Jesus Christ, require the most elevated and enlarg¬
ed thanksgivings.
II. “Thou shalt have a heart to say so.” All
God’s other gifts to his people shall be crowned
with this; he will give them grace to ascribe all
the glory of them to him, and to speak of them
upon all occasions, with thankfulness to his praise.
Thou shalt say, thou oughtest to say so. In that
day, when many are brought home to Jesus Christ,
and flock to him as doves to their windows, in¬
stead of envying the kind reception they find with
Christ, as the Jews grudged the favour shown
to the Gentiles, thou shalt say, O Lord, I will
praise thee. Note, We ought to rejoice in, and
give thanks for, the grace of God to others as well
as to ourselves.
1. Believers are here taught to give thanks to
God for the turning away of his displeasure from
them, and the return of his favour to them; (v. 1.)
0 Lord, 1 will praise thee, though thou wast anyry
with me. Note, Even God’s frowns must not put
us out of tune for praising him; though he be angry
with us, though he slay us, yet we must put our
trust in him, and give him thanks. God has often
just cause to be angry with us, but we have never
any reason to be angry with him, nor to speak
otherwise than well of him; even when he blames
us, we must praise him. Thou wast angry with
us, but thine anger is turned away. Note, (1.)
God is sometimes angry with his own people, and
the fruits of his anger do appear: they ought to
take notice of it, that they may humble themselves
under his mighty hand. (2.) Though. God may for
a time be angry with his people, vet his anger shall,
at length, be turned away; it endures but for a mo¬
ment, nor will he contend for ever. By Jesus Christ,
the Root of Jesse, God’s anger against mankind was
turned away, for he is our Peace. (3.) Those
whom God is reconciled to, he comforts: even the
turning away of his anger is a comfort to them; yet
that is not all, they that are at peace with God, may
rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, Rom. v. 1,
2. Nay, God sometimes brings his people into a
wilderness, that there he may speak comfortably to
them, Hosea ii. 14. (4.) The turning away cf
God’s anger, and the return of his comforts to
us, ought to be the matter of our joyful, thankful
praises.
2. They are taught to triumph in God, and their
interest in him ; (v. 2.) “Behold, and wonder; God
is my salvation; not only my Saviour, by whom I
am saved, but my Salvation, in whom I am safe.
I depend upon him as my Salvation, for I have
found him to be so. He shall have the glory of
all the salvations that have been wrought for me,
and from him only will I expect the salvation's
I further need, and not from hills and mountains:
and if God be my Salvation, if he undertake my
eternal salvation, I will trust in him to prepare
me for it, and preserve me to it. I will trust
him with my temporal concerns, not doubting but
he will mate all to work for my good. I will
be confident, I will be always easy in mv own
mind.” Note, Those that have God for their Sal¬
vation, may enjoy themselves with a holy security
and serenity of mind; let faith in God, as cur Sal¬
vation, be effectual. (1.) To silence our fears; we
must trust, and not be afraid; not be afraid that the
God we trust in will fail us; no, there is no danger
of that; not be afraid of any creature, though ever
so formidable and threatening. Note, Faith in God
is a sovereign remedy against disquieting, torment¬
ing fears. (2. ) To support our hopes. Is the Lord
Jehovah our Salvation? Then he will be our Strength
and Song. We have work to do and temptations to
resist, we may depend upon him to enable us for
both; to strengthen us with all might by his Spirit
in the inner man, for he is our strength ; his grace is
so, and that grace shall be sufficient for us. We
have many troubles to undergo, and must expect
griefs in a vale of tears; and we may depend upon
him to comfort us in all our tribulations, for he is
our Song, he giveth songs in the night. If we
make God our strength, and put our confidence in
him, he will be our strength; if we make him cur
Song, and place our comfort in him, he will be our
Song. Many good Christians have God for theii
Strength, who have him not for their Song; they
walk in darkness, but light is sown for them: and
they that have God for their Strength, ought to
make him their Song, that is, to give him the glory
of it, (see Ps. lxviii. 35.) and to take to themselves
the comfort of it, for he will become their Salva¬
tion. Observe the title here given to God, Jah, Je¬
hovah; Jah is the contraction of Jehovah, and both
signify his eternity and unchangeableness; which
ISAIAH, XH1.
•.re a great comfort to those that depend upon him
as their Strength and their Song. Some make Jah
to signify the Son of God made man; he is Jehovah,
and in him we may glory as o ur Strength, and Song,
and Salvation.
3. They are taught to derive comfort to them¬
selves from the love of God, and all the tokens of
that love; ( v . 3.) “ Therefore, because the Lord
Jehovah is- vour Strength and Song, and will be
vour Salvation, you shall draw water with joy.”
Note, The assurances God has given us of his love,
and the experiences we have had of the benefit
and comfort of his grace, should greatly encourage
our faith in him and our expectations from him;
“ Out of the wells of Salvation in God, who is the
Fountain of all good to his people, you shall draw
water with joy. God’s favour shall flow forth to
vou, and you shall have the comfort of it, and make
use of the blessed fruits of it.” Note, (1.) God’s
romises revealed, ratified, and given out to us, in
is ordinances, are wells of salvation; wells of the
Saviour, so some read it; for in them the Saviour
and salvation are made known to us, and made over
to us. (2.) It is our duty by faith to draw water
out of these wells, to take to ourselves the benefit
and comfort that are treasured up for us in them, as
those that acknowledge all our fresh springs to be
there, and all our fresh streams to be thence, Ps.
lxxxvii. 7. (3.) Water is to be drawn out of the
wells of salvation with a great deal of pleasure and
satisfaction. It is the will of God that we should
rejoice before him, and rejoice in him, (Dent. xxvi.
11.) be joyful in his house of prayer, (Isa. lvi. 7.)
and keep his feasts with gladness, Acts ii. 46.
4. And in that day shall ye say, Praise
the Lord, call upon his name, declare his
doings among the people, make mention
that his name is exalted. 5. Sing unto
the Lord; for he hath done excellent
things: this is known in all the earth. 6.
Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion:
for great is the Holy One of Israel in the
midst of thee.
This is the second part of this evangelical song,
and to the same purport with the former; there be¬
lievers stir up themselves to praise God; here they
invite and encourage one another to do it, and are
contriving to spread his praise, and draw in others
to join with them in it. Observe,
1. Who are here called upon to praise God; the
inhabitants of Zion and Jerusalem, whom God had
in a particular manner protected from Sennache¬
rib’s violence, v. 6. Those that have received dis¬
tinguishing favours from God, ought to be most for¬
ward and zealous in praising him. The gospel-
church is Zion, Christ is Zion’s King; those that
have a place and a name in that, should lay out
themselves to diffuse the knowledge of Christ, and
to bring many to him. Thou inhabitress of Zion;
tlie word is feminine; Let the weaker sex be strong
in the Lord, and out of their mouth shall praise be
perfected.
2. How they must praise the Lord: (1.) By
prayer we must call upon his name: as giving thank’s
f ii' former mercy is a decent way of begging fur¬
ther mercy, so begging further mercy is graciously
•> ocepted as a thankful acknowledgment of the mer¬
les we have received. In calling upon God’s name
’c give unto him some of the glory that is due to
Vs name as our powerful and bountiful Benefactor.
v2.) By preaching and writing we must not only
speak to God, but speak to others concerning him ;
not only call upon his name, but (as the margin
reads it) proclaim his name; let others knew some
thing more from us than they did before, concern
ing God, and those things whereby he lias mad?
himself known. Declare his doings, his counsel ■;
so some read it; the work of redempti n is accord¬
ing to the counsel of his will; and in that and other
wonderful yvorks that he has done, we must take
notice of his thoughts which are to us-ward, Ps. xl.
5. Declare these among the people, among the hea¬
then, that they may be brought into communion yvith
Israel and the God of Israel. When the apostles
preached the gospel to all nations, beginning at Jem
salem, then this scripture was fulfilled, that his do
ing should be declared among the people, and that
what he has done should be known in all the earth.
(3.) By a holy exultation and transport, of joy,
“ Cry out and shout, welcome the gospel to your¬
selves, and publish it to others with huzzas and
loud acclamations, as those that shout for victory,
(Exod. xxxii. 18.) or for the coronation of a king'”
Numb, xxiii. 21.
3. For what thev must praise the Lord; (1.) Be¬
cause he has glorified himself. Remember it your¬
selves, and make mention of it to others, that his
name is exalted, is become more illustrious and
more conspicuous; in this every good man rejoices.
(2.) Because he has magnified his people; he has
done excellent things for them, which make them
look great and considerable. (3.) Because he is,
and will be, great among them; great is the Holy
One, for he is glorious in holiness; therefore great
because holy; true goodness is true greatness; great
as the Holy One of Israel, and in the midst of them;
praised by them, (Ps. lxxvi. 1.) manifesting him¬
self among them, and appearing gloriously in their
behalf. It is the honour and happiness of Israel,
that the God yvho is in covenant yvith them, and in
the midst of them, is infinitely great.
CHAP. XIII.
Hitherto, the prophecies of this book related only to Ju¬
dah and Israel, and Jerusalem especially: but now the
prophet begins to look abroad, and to read the doom of
divers of the neighbouring slates and kingdoms; for he
that is King of saints, is also King of nations, and ruler
in the affairs of the children of men as well as in those
of his own children. But the nations to whom these
prophecies do relate, were all such as the people of God
were some way or other conversant and concerned
with; such as had been kind or unkind to Israel, and
accordingly God would deal with them, either in favour
or in wrath; for the Lord’s portion is his people, and to
them he has an eye in all the dispensations of his provi¬
dence concerning those about them, Deut. xxxii. 8, 9.
The threatenings we find here, against Babylon, Mnab,
Damascus, Egypt, Tyre, ^-c. were intended for comfort
to those in Israel that feared God, but were terrified and
oppressed by those potent neighbours, and for alarm to
those among them that were wicked. If God would
thus severely reckon with those for their sins that know
him not, and made not profession of his name, how se¬
vere would he be with those that were called by his name,
and yet live in rebellion against him! And perhaps the
directing of particular prophecies to the neighbouring
nations, might invite some of those nations to the read¬
ing of the Jew's’ Bible, and so they might be brought to
their religion. This chapter, and that which follows, con¬
tain what God had to say to Babylon and Babylon’s
king, who were at present little known to Israel, but
would in process of time become a greater enemy to
them than any other had been, for which God would at
last reckon with them. In this chapter, we have, I. A
general rendezvous of the forces that were to be em¬
ployed against Babylon, v. 1. .5. II. The dreadful bloody
work that those forces should make in Babylon, v. 6. .18.
III. The utter ruin and desolation of Babylon, which
this should end in, v. 19. .22.
1 . rpHE burden of Babylon, which Isaiah
JL the son of Amoz did see. 2. Lift
ye up a banner upon the high mountain,
73
ISAIAH, XITT.
exalt the voice unto them, shake the hand,
that they may go into the gates of the no¬
bles. 3. 1 have commanded my sanctified
ones, 1 have also called my mighty ones for
mine anger, even them that rejoice in my
highness. 4. The noise of a multitude in
the mountains, like as of a great people; a
tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of na¬
tions gathered together: the Loud of hosts
mustereth the host of the battle. 5. They
come from a far country, from the end of
heaven, even the Lord, and the weapons of
his indignation, to destroy the whole land.
The general title of this book was, The visions
t f Isaiah the son of Amoz, ch. i. 1. This is that
which Isaiah did see, which was represented to his
mind as clearly and fully as if he had seen it with
his bodily eyes: but the particular inscription of
this serm n, is, the burthen of Babylon: 1. It is a
burthen, a lesson they were to learn; so some un¬
derstand it; but they would be loath to learn it, and
it would be a burthen to their memories, or a load
which should lie heavy upon them, and under which
they should sink. 'I' hose that will not make the
word of God their rest, (ch. xxviii. 12. Jer. vi.
.6. ) it shall be made a burthen to them. 2. It is
the burthen of Babylon or Babel, which at this time
was a dependent upon the Assyrian monarchy, (the
metropolis of which was Nineveh,) but soon after
revolted from it, and became a monarchy of itself,
and a very potent one, in Nebuchadnezzar. This
prophet afterward foretold the captivity of the
Jews in Babylon, ch. xxxix. 6. Here he foretells
the reprisals God would make upon Babylon for the
wrongs done to his people.
In these verses a summons is given to those pow¬
erful and warlike nations, whom God would make
use of as the instruments of his wrath for the de¬
struction of Babylon: he afterward names them ( v .
17.) the Medes,' who, in conjunction with the Per¬
sians under the command of Darius and Cyrus,
were the ruin of the Babylonian monarchy.
1. The place doomed to destruction is Babylon;
it is here called the gates of the nobles, (xn 2.) be¬
cause in the abundance of noblemen’s houses that
were in it; stately ones, and richly furnished, which
would invite the enemy to come, in hopes of a rich
booty. The gates of nobles were strong and well
guarded, and yet they would be no fence against
those who came with commission to execute God’s
judgments. Before his power and wrath, palaces
are no more than cottages; nor is it only the gates
of the nobles, but the whole land, that is doomed to
destruction; (v. 5.) for though the nobles were the
leaders in persecuting and oppressing God’s people,
yet the whole land concurred with them in it.
(2. ) The persons brought together to lay Babylon
waste, are here called, [1.] God’s sanctified ones,
(v. 3. ) designed for this service, and set apart to it
by the purpose and providence of God; disengaged
from other projects, that they might wholly apply
themselves to this; such as were qualified for that
to which they were called; for what work God em¬
ploys men in, he does in some measure fit them for.
it intimates likewise that in God’s intention, though
not in theirs, it was a holy war; they designed only
the enlargement of their own empire, but God de¬
signed the release of hispeople, and a type of the
destruction of the New Testament Babylon. Cyrus,
the person principally concerned, was justly called
a sanctified one, for he was God’s anointed, (ch.
xlv. 1.) and a figure of him that was to come. It is
a p:tv but all soldiers, especially those that fight the
Vol. iv. — K
Lord’s battles, should be, in the strictest sense,
sanctified ones; it is a wonder they dare be profane
ones, who carry their lives in their hands. [2.]
They are called God’s mighty ones, because thev
had their might from God, and were now to use it
f r him. It is said of Cyrus, that in this expedition
God held his right hand, ch. xlv. 1. God’s sancti¬
fied ones are his mighty ones; whom God calls, he
qualifies; and whom he makes holy, he makes
strong in spirit. [3.] They are said to rejoice in
his highness, to serve his glory and the purposes of
it with great alacrity. Though Cyrus did not know
God, nor actually design his honour in what he did,
yet God used him as his servant; (ch. xlv. 4. I hi. t e
surname d thee as my servant, though thou hast not
known me;) and he rejoiced in those successes b /
which God exalted his own name. [4.] They m<
very numerous, a multitude, a great people; kiny
doms of nations, (v. 4.) not rude and barbarous, 1/ >
modeled and regular troops, such as are furnish c’
out by well-ordered kingdoms: the great God ha
hosts at his command. [5.] They are far-fetched,
they come from the end of heaven: the vast country
of Assyria lay between Babylon and Persia. God
can make those a scourge and ruin to his enemies
that lie most remote from them, and therefore are
least dreaded.
(3.) The summons given them is effectual, their
obedience ready, and they make a very formidable
appearance; A banner is lifted up upon the high
mountain, v. 2. God’s standard is set up, a flag of
defiance hung out against Babylon. It is erected
on high, where all may see it; whoever will, may
erme, and enlist themselves under it, and they shall
be taken immediately into God’s pay. They that
beat for volunteers, must exalt the voice in making
proclamation, to encourage soldiers to come in; they
must shake the hand, to beckon those at a distance,
and to animate those that have enlisted themselves.
And they shall not do this in vain; God has com¬
manded and called those whom he designs to make
use of, (v. 5.) and power goes along with his calls
and commands, which cannot be resisted. He that
makes men able to serve him, can, when he pleases,
make them willing too: it is the Lord of hosts that
musters the host of the battle, v. 4. He raises them,
brings them together, puts them in order, reviews
them, has an exact account of them in his muster-
roll, sees that they be all in their respective posts,
and gives them their necessary orders. Note, All
the hosts of war arc under the command of the Lord
of hosts; and that which makes them truly formida¬
ble, is, that when they come against Babylon, the
Lord comes, and brings them with him as the wea¬
pons of his indignation, v. 5. Note, Great princes
and armies are but tools in God’s hands, weapons
that he is pleased to make use of in doing his work,
and it is his wrath that arms them, and gives them
success.
6. Howl ve; for the day of the Lord is
at haod; it shall come as a destruction from
the Almighty. 7. Therefore shall all hands
be faint, and every man’s heart shall melt :
8. And they shall be afraid: pangs and sor¬
rows shall take hold of them; they shall he
in pain as a woman that travaileth; they
shall be amazed one at another; their faces
shall hr as flames. 9. Behold, the day of
the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath
and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate,
and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out
of it. 10. For the stars of heaven, and the
74
ISAIAH, Xlll.
constellations thereof, shall not give their :
light: the sun shall be darkened in his going
forth, and the moon shall not cause her
light to shine. 11. And I will punish the
world for their evil, and the wicked for their
iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of
the proud to cease, and will lay low the
haughtiness of the terrible. 12. I will make
a man more precious than fine gold; even a
man tnan the golden wedge of Ophir. 13.
Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the
earth shall remove out of her place, in the
wrath of the Lord of hosts, and in the day
of his fierce anger. 1 4 And it shall be as
the chased roe, and as a sheep that no man
taketh up: they shall every man turn to his
own people, and flee every one into his own
land. 1 5. Every one that is found shall be
thrust through; and every one that is joined
unto them shall fall by the sword. 16. Their
children also shall be dashed to pieces be¬
fore their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled,
and their wives ravished. 17. Behold, I
will stir up the Medes against them, which
shall not regard silver; and as for gold, \
they shall not delight in it. 18. Their bewc
also shall dash the young men to pieces ;
and they shall have no pity on the fruit of
the worn!) ; their eye shall not spare chil¬
dren.
We have here a very elegant and lively descrip¬
tion of the terrible confusion and desolation which
should be made in Babylon by the descent which
the Medes and Persians should make upon it. They
that were now secure and easy, are bid to howl, and
make sad lamentation. For,
1. God is about to appear in wrath against them,
and it is a feayful thing to fail into his hands; The
day of the Lord is at hand, (v. 6.) a little day of
judgment, when God will act as a just Avenger of
his own and his people’s injured cause. And there
are those who will have reason to tremble when
that day is at hand; the day of the Lord cometh, v.
9. Men have their day now, and they think to
carry the day; but God laughs at them, for he sees
that his day is coming, Fs. xxxvii. 13. Fury is not
with God, and yet his day of reckoning with the
Babylonians is said to be cruel with turath and fierce
anger. God will deal in severity with them for the
severities they exercised upon God’s people; with
the froward, with the cruel, he will show himself
froward, will show himself cruel, and give the
blood-thirsty blood to drink.
2. Their hearts shall fail them, and they shall
have neither courage nor comfort left; they shall
not be able either to resist the judgment coming, or
to bear up under it, either to oppose the enemy, or
to support themselves, v. 7, 8. They that in the
day of their peace were proud, and haughty, and
terrible, (t>. 11.) are, when trouble comes, quite
dispirited, and are at their wits’ end; all hands
shall be faint, and unable to hold a weapon, and
every man’s heart shall melt, so that they shall be
ready to die for fear. The pangs of their fear shall
be like those of a woman in hard labour, and they
shall be amazed one at another; in frightening them¬
selves, they shall frighten one another; they shall
wonder tu see those tremble, that used to be bold
and daring; or, they shall be amazed, looking one
at another as men at a loss, Gen. xlii. 1. Their
faces shall be as flames, pale as flames, through
fear; so some; or red as flames sometimes are,
blushing at their own cowardice; or their faces shall
be as faces scorched with the flames, or as theirs
that labour in the fire, their visage blacker than a
coal; 'or like a bottle in the smoke, Ps. cxix. 83.
3. All comfort and hope shall fail them; v. 10.
The stars of heaven shall not give their light, but
shall be clouded and overcast; the sun shall be dark¬
ened in his going forth, rising bright, but lost again,
a certain sign of foul weather. They shall be as
men in distress at sea, when neither sun nor star;
appear, Acts xxvii. 20. It shall be as dreadful a
time with them as it would be with the earth, if all
the heavenly luminaries were turned into darkness;
a resemblance of the day of judgment, when the sun
shall be turned into darkness. The heavens frown¬
ing thus, is an indication of the displeasure of the
God of heaven; when things look dark on earth,
yet it is well enough if all be clear upward; but it
we have no comfort thence, wherewith shall we be
comforted?
4. God will visit them for their iniquity; and ah
this is intended for the punishment of sin, and par¬
ticularly the sin of pride, v. 11. This puts worm¬
wood and gall into the affliction and misery, (1.)
That sin must now have its punishment; though
Babylon be a little world, yet, being a wicked world,
it shall not go unpunished. Sin brings desolation cn
the world of the ungodly; and when the kingdoms
of the earth are quarrelling with one another, it is
the fruit of God’s controversy with them all. (2.)
That pride must now have its fall. The haughti¬
ness of the terrible must now be laid low, particu¬
larly of Nebuchadnezzar and his son Belshazzar,
who had, in their pride, trampled upon, and made
themselves very terrible to, the people of God. A
man’s firide will bring him low.
5. There shall be so great a slaughter as will pro¬
duce a scarcity of men; (v. 12.) I will make a man
more precious than fine gold. You could not have
a man to be employed in any of the affairs of state,
! not a man to be enlisted in the army, not a man to
match a daughter to, for the building up of a family,
if you would give any money for one. The troops
of the neighbouring nations would not be hired into
the service of the king of Babylon, because they
saw every thing go against him. Populous coun¬
tries are soon depopulated by war. And God can
soon make a kingdom that has been courted and ad¬
mired, to be dreaded and shunned by all, as a house
that is falling, or a ship that is sinking.
6. There shall be a universal confusion and con¬
sternation; such a confusion of their affairs, that it
shall be like the shaking of the heavens, with dread¬
ful thunders, and the removing of the earth, by no
less dreadful earthquakes. All shall go to wreck
and ruin in the day of the wrath of the Lord of
hosts; v. 13. And such a consternation shall seize
their spirits, that Babylon, which used to be like a
roaring lion, and a ranging bear, to all about her,
shall become as a chased roe, and as a sheep that no
man takes up, v. 14. The army they shall bring
into the field, consisting of troop's of divers nations,
(as great armies usually do,) shall be so dispersed
by their enemies’ sword, that they shall turn cz'ery
man to his own people, each man shall shift for his
own safety; the men of inight shall not find their
hands, (Ps. lxxvi. 5.) but take to their heels.
8. There shall be a general scene of blood and
horror, as is usuA where the sword devrurs. -Vo
wonder that everv one makes the best of his way
since the conqueror gives no quarter, but puts all
to the sword, and not those oniv that are found in
arms, as is usual with us even in the most cruel
75
ISAIAH, XIII.
slaughters: (v. 15.) Every one that is found alive,
shall he run through, as soon ;:s ever it appears that
he is a Babylonian. Nay, because the sword de¬
vours one as well as another, every one that is joined
to them, shall fall by the sword; those of other na¬
tions that come in to their assistance, shall be Cut off
with them. It is dangerous being in bad company,
and helping those whom God is about to destroy :
those particularly that join themselves to Babylon,
must expect to share in her plagues, Rev. xviii. 4.
And since the most sacred laws of nature, and hu¬
manity itself, are silenced by the fury of war, (though
they cannot be cancelled ,) the conquerors shall, in
the most barbarous brutish manner, dash the chil¬
dren to pieces, and ravish the wives. Jusque datum
sce/eri — JVickedness shall have free course, v. 16.
They had thus dealt with God’s people, (Lam. v.
11.) and now they shall be paid in their own coin,
Rev. iii. 10. It was particularly foretold, (Ps.
cxxxvii. 9. ) that the little ones of 'Baby Ion should
be dashed against the stones. How cruel. soever,
and unjust, they were that did it, God was righteous
who suffered it to be done, and to be done before
their eyes, to their great terror and vexation. It
was just also that the houses which they had filled
with the spoil of Israel, should be spoiled and plun¬
dered. What is got by rapine, is often lost in the
same manner.
8. The enemy that God would send against them,
sh uld be inexorable, probably being by some pro¬
vocation or other more than ordinarily exasperated
against them; or, however, God himself will stir up
the Medes to use this severity with the Babylonians.
He will not only serve his own purposes by their
dispositions and designs, but will put it into their
hearts to make this attempt upon Babylon, and
suffer them to prosecute it with all this fury. God
is not the author of sin, but he would not permit it
if he did not know how to bring glory to himself out
of it. These Medes, in conjunction with the Per¬
sians, shall make thorough work of it. F or,
( 1. ) They shall take no bribes, v. 17. All that
men have they would give for their lives, but the
PEdes shall not regard silver; it is blood they thirst
for, not gold; no man’s riches shall with them be the
ransom of his life.
(2.) They shall show no pity, (v. 18.) not to the
young men that are in the prime of their time, they
shall shoot them through with their bows, and then
dash them to pieces; not to the age of innocency,
they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb, nor
spare little children, whose cries and frights one
would think should make even marble eyes to weep,
and hearts of adamant to relent. Pause a little here,
and wonder, [1.] That men should be thus cruel
and inhuman, and so utterly divested of all compas¬
sion; and in it see how corrupt and degenerate the
nature of man is become. [2.] That the God of
infinite mercy should suffer it, nay, and should make
it to be the execution of his justice; which shows
that though he is gracious, yet he is the God to
whom vengeance belongs. [3.] That little infants,
who have never been guilty of any actual sin, should
be thus abused; which shows that there is an origi¬
nal guilt, by which life is forfeited as soon as it is had.
19. And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms,
the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency,
shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and
Gomorrah. 20. It shall never be inhabited,
neither shall it be dwelt in from generation
fo generation; neither shall the Arabian
pitch tent there, neither shall the shepherds
make their fold there: 21. But wild beasts
of the desert shall lie there; and their houses
shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls
shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance
there. 22. And the wild beasts of the islands
shall cry in their desolate houses, and dra¬
gons in their pleasant palaces; and her time
is near to come, and her days shall not be
prolonged.
The great havoc and destruction which it was
foretold should be made by the Medes and Persians
in Babylon, here end in the final destruction of it.
1. It is allowed that Babylon was a noble city; it
was the glory of kingdoms, and the beauty of the
Chaldees’ excellency; it was that head of gold;
(Dan. ii. 37, 38.) it was called the lady of king¬
doms, ( ch . xlvii. 5.) the praise of the whole earth,
(Jer. li. 41.) like a pleasant roe; (so the word signi¬
fies;) but it shall be as a chased roe; (y. 14.) the
Chaldeans gloried in the beauty and wealth of this
their metropolis.
2. It is foretold that it should be wholly destroy¬
ed, like Sodom and Gomorrah; not so miraculously,
nor so suddenly, but as effectually, though gradual¬
ly; and the destruction should come upon them as
that upon Sodom, when they were secure, eating
and drinking, Luke xvii. 28. Babylon was taken
when Belshazzar was in his revel; and though Cy¬
rus and Darius did not demolish it, yet by degrees
it wasted away, and in process of time it went all
to ruin. It is foretold here, (v. 20.) that it shall
never be inhabited; in Adrian’s time, nothing re¬
mained but the wall. And whereas it is prophesied
concerning Nineveh, that great city, that when it
should be deserted and left desolate, yet flocks
should lie down in the midst of it; it is here said
concerning Babylon, that the Arabians, who were
shepherds, should not make their folds there; the
country about should be so barren, that there would
be no grazing there; no, not for sheep; nay, it shall
be the receptacle of wild beasts, that affect solitude;
the houses of Babylon, where the sons and daughters
of pleasure used to rendezvous, shall be full of dole¬
ful creatures, owls and satyrs, that are themselves
frightened thither, as to a place proper for them,
and by whom all others are frightened thence. His¬
torians say that this was fulfilled to the letter. Ben¬
jamin Bar-Jona, in his Itinerary, speaking of Babel,
has these words; “ This is that Babel which was,
of old, thirty miles in breadth; it is now laid waste;
there are yet to be seen the ruins of a palace of Ne¬
buchadnezzar, but the sons of men dare not enter in,
for fear of serpents and scorpions, which possess the
place. ” Let none be proud of their pompous pa¬
laces, for they know not but they may become worse
than cottages; nor let any think that their houses
shall endure for ever, (Ps. xlix. 11.) when perhaps
nothing may remain but the ruins and reproaches
of them.
3. It is intimated that this destniction should
come shortly; {v. 22.) Her time is near to come.
This prophecy of the destruction of Babylon was
intended for the support and comfort of the people
of God when they were captives there, and griev¬
ously oppressed; and the accomplishment of the
prophecy was near 200 years after the time when it
was delivered; yet it followed soon after the time
for which it was calculated. When the people of
Israel were groaning under the heavy yoke of Baby
lonish tyranny, sitting down in tears by the rivers
of Babylon, and upbraided with the songs of Zion,
when their insolent oppressors were most haughty
and arrogant, (v. 11.) then let them know, for their
comfort, that Babylon’s time, her day to fall, was
near to come, and the days of her prosperity shall
not be prolonged, as they have been; when God
begins with her, he will make an end. Thus it is
r6 ISAIAH, XIV,
said of the destruction of the New Testament Baby¬
lon, whereof the former was a type; In one hour
is her judgment come.
CHAP. XIV.
In this chapter, I. More weight is added to the burthen of
Babylon, enough to sink it like a mill-stone; I. It is Is¬
rael’s cause that is to be pleaded in this quarrel with
Babylon, v. 1 . . 3. 2. The king of Babylon, for the time
being, shall be remarkably brought down and triumphed
over, v. 4. . 20. 3. The whole race of the Babylonians
shall be cut off and extirpated, v. 21 . . 23. II. A con¬
firmation of the prophecy of the destruction of Babylon,
which was a thing at a distance, is here given in the pro¬
phecy of the destruction of the Assyrian army that in¬
vaded the land, which happened not long after, v. 24 . . 27.
III. The success of Hezekiah against the Philistines is
here foretold, and the advantages which his people
would gain thereby, v. 28 . . 32.
1. I A OR the Lord will have mercy on Ja-
X. cob, and will yet choose Israel, and
set them in their own land : and the stran¬
gers shall be joined with them, and they
shall cleave to the house of Jacob. 2. And
the people shall take them, and bring them
to their place; and the house of Israel shall
possess them in the land of the Lord for
servants and handmaids: and they shall
take them captives, whose captives they
were; and they shall rule over their op¬
pressors. 3. And it shall come to pass, in
the day that the Lord shall give thee rest
from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and
from the hard bondage wherein thou wast
made to serve.
This comes in here as the reason why Babylon
must be overthrown and ruined; because God has
mercy in store for his people, and therefore, 1. The
injuries done to them must be reckoned for, and re¬
venged upon their persecutors. Mercy to Jacob
will be wrath and ruin to Jacob’s impenitent, im¬
placable adversaries, such as Babylon was. 2. The
yoke of oppression which Babylon had long laid on
their necks, must be broken off, and they must be
set at liberty; in order to this, the destruction of
Babylon is as necessary as the destmction of Egypt
and Pharaoh was to their deliverance out of that
house of bondage. The same prediction is a pro¬
mise to God’s people, and a threatening to their
enemies, as the same providence has a bright side
towards Israel, and a black and thick side toward
the Egyptians. Observe,
I. The ground of these favours to Jacob and Is¬
rael — the kindness God had for them, and the
choice he had made of them; (t>. 1.) The Lord
will have mercy on Jacob, the seed of Jacob now
captives in Babylon; he will make it to appear that
ne has compassion on them, and has mercy in store
for them, and that he will not contend for ever with'
them, but will yet choose them, will yet again re¬
turn to them, though he had seemed for a time to
refuse and reject them; he will show that they are
his chosen people, and that the election stands sure.
However it may seem to us, God’s mercy is not
gone, nor does his promise fail, Ps. lxxvii. 8.
II. The particular favours he designed them.
1. He would bring them back to their native soil
and air again; The Lord will set them in their own
land, out of which they were driven. A settlement
in the Holy Land, the Land of Promise, is a fruit of
God’s mercy, distinguishing mercy.
2. Many should be proselyted to their holy reli¬
gion, and should return with them, induced to do so
by the manifest tokens of God’s favourable presence
with them, the operations of God’s grace in them,
and his providence for them; Strangers shall bt
joined with them, saying, We will go with you, for
we have heard that God is with you, Zech. viii. 23.
It adds much to the honour and strength of Israel,
when strangers are joined with them, and there are
added to the church many from without, Acts ii.
47. Let not the church’s children be shy of stran¬
gers, but receive those whom God receives, and
own those who cleave to the house of Jacob.
3. These proselytes should not only be a credit to
their cause, but very helpful and serviceable to
them in their return home; the people among whom
they live shall take them, take care of them, take
pity on them, and shall bring them to their place,
as friends, loath to part with such good company,
as servants, willing to do them all the good offices
they could. God’s people, wherever their lot is
cast, should endeavour thus, by all the instances of
an exemplary and winning conversation, to gain an
interest in the affections of those about them, and
recommend religion to their good opinion. This
was fulfilled in the return of the captives from
Babylon, when all that were about them, pursuant
to Cyrus’s proclamation, contributed to their re¬
move, (Ezra i. 4, 6.) not, as the Egyptians, be¬
cause they were sick of them, but because they
loved them.
4. They should have the benefit of their service
when they were returned home, for many would of
choice go with them in the meanest post, rather
than not go with them; They shall possess them in
the land of the Lord, for servants and handmaids;
and as the laws of that land saved it from being the
purgatory of servants, providing that they should
not be oppressed, so the advantages of that land
made it the paradise of those servants that had been
strangers to the covenants of promise, for there was
one law to the stranger, and to them that were born
in the land. They whose lot is cast in the land of
the Lord, a land of light, should take care that then
servants and handmaids may share in the benefit of
it; who will then find it better to be possessed in
the Lord’s land, than possessors in any other.
5. They should triumph over their enemies; and
they that would not be reconciled to them, should
be reduced and humbled by them; They shall takt
them cafitives, whose captives they were, and shall
rule over their oppressors, righteously, but not re¬
vengefully. The Jews perhaps bought Babylonian
prisoners out of the hands of the Medes and Per¬
sians, and made slaves of them: or this might have
its accomplishment in the victories over their ene¬
mies in the times of the Maccabees. It is applica¬
ble to the success of the gospel, when those were
brought into obedience to it, who had made the
greatest opposition to it, as Paul; it is applicable
also to the interest believers have in Christ’s victo¬
ries over our spiritual enemies, when he led cap¬
tivity captive, to the power they gain over their
own corruptions, and to the dominion the upright
shall have in the morning, Ps. xlix. 14.
6. They should see a happy period of all their
grievances; (u. 3.) The Lord shall give thee rest
from thy sorrow, and thy fear, and from the hard
bondage. God himself undertakes to work a bless¬
ed change; (1.) In their state; they shall have rest
from their bondage; the days of their affliction,
though many, shall have an end; and the rod of the
wicked, though it lie long, shall not always lie, c r
their lot. (2.) In their spirit; they shall have rest
from their sorrow and fear, sense of their present
burthens, and dread of worse. Sometimes fear puts
the soul into a ferment as much as sorrow does, and
those must needs feel themselves very easy, to whom
God has given rest from both. They who are freed
'7
ISAIAH, XIV.
fr m the bondage of sin, have a foundation laid for .
true rest from sorrow and fear.
4. That thou slialt take up this proverb
against the king of Babylon, and say, How
hath die oppressor ceased! the golden city
ceased! 5. The Lord hath broken the staff
of die wicked, and the sceptre of the rulers.
G. 1 le who smote the people in wrath with
a continual stroke, he that ruled the nations
in anger, is persecuted, and none hindereth.
7. Tne whole earth is at rest, and is quiet :
they break forth into singing. 8. Yea, the
rir-trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of
Lebanon, saying , Since thou art laid down,
no feller is come up against us. 9. Hell
from beneath is moved lor thee to meet thee
at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for
thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it
hath raised up from their thrones all the
kings of the nations. 10. All they shall
speak, and say unto thee, Art thou also be¬
come weak as we ? art thou become like
unto us 1 11. Thy pomp is brought down
to the grave, and the noise of thy viols : the
worm is spread under thee, and the worms
cover thee. 12. How art thou fallen from
heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how
art thou cut down to the ground, which
didst weaken the nations! 13. For thou
hast said in thy heart, I will ascend into
heaven, I will exalt my throne above the
stars of God ; I will sit also upon the mount
of the congregation, in the sides of the north :
3 4. I will ascend above the heights of the
clouds; I will be like the Most High. 15. Yet
thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the
sides of the pit. 1 6. They that see thee shall
narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee,
saying. Is this the man that made the earth
to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; 17.
Thai made the world as a wilderness, and
destroyed the cities thereof ; that opened not
the house of his prisoners ? 1 8. All the kings
of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory,
every one in his own house : 19. But thou
art cast out of thy grave like an abominable
branch, and as the raiment of those that are
slain, thrust through with a sword, that go
down to the stones of the pit ; as a carcase
trodden under feet. 20. Thou shalt not be
joined with them in burial, because thou
hast destroyed thy land, and slain thy peo¬
ple : the seed of evil-doers shall never be
renowned. 21. Prepare slaughter for his
children, for the iniquity of their fathers; that
they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor
fill the face of the world with cities. 22.
For I will rise up against them, saith the
Lord of hosts, and cut off from Babylon the
name, and remnant, and son, and nephew,
saith the Lord. 23. I will also make it a
possession for the bittern, and pools of wa¬
ter : and I will sweep it with the besom ol
destruction, saith the Lord of hosts.
The kings of Babylon, successively, were the
great enemies and oppressors of God’s people, and
therefore the destruction of Babylon, the fall of the
king, and the ruin of his family, arc here particu¬
larly taken notice of and triumphed in; in the day
that God has given Israel rest, they shall take up
this proverb against the king of Babylon. We
must not rejoice when our enemy falls, as ours; but
when Babylon, the common enemy of God and his
Israel, sinks, then rejoice over her , thou heaven ,
and ye holy apostles and prophets, Rev. xviii. 20.
The Babylonian monarchy bade fair to be an abso¬
lute, universal, and perpetual one, and, in these
pretensions, t ied with the Almighty; it is therefore
very justly, not only brought down, but insulted
over when it is down; and it is not only the last mo¬
narch, Belshazzar, who was slain on that night that
Babylon was taken, (Dan. v. 30.) who is here tri¬
umphed over, but the whole monarchy, which sunk
in him; not without special reference to Nebu¬
chadnezzar, in whom that monarchy was at its
height. Now here,
I. The fall of the king of Babylon is rejoiced in;
and a most curious, elegant composition is li re
prepared, not to adorn his hearse or monument, but
to expose his memory, and fix a lasting brand of in¬
famy upon it. It gives us an account of the life and
death of this mighty monarch, how he 7 vent down
slain to the pit, though he had been the terror of the
mighty in the land of the living, Ezek. xxxii. 27.
In this parable we may observe,
1. The prodigious height of wealth and prwer at
which this monarch and monarchy arrived. Baby¬
lon was a golden city, (v. 4.) It is a Chaldee word
in the original, which intimates that she used to call
herself so; she abounded in riches, and excelh d all
other cities, as gold does all other metals. She is
gold-thirsty, or an exactress of gold; so some re; d
it; for how do men get wealth to themselves, but In-
squeezing it out of others? The New Jems; km is
the only truly golden city. Rev. xxi. 18, 21. The
king of Babylon, having so much wealth in his do¬
minions, and the absolute command of it, by the
help of that ruled the nations, (y. 6.) gave them
law, read them their doom, and, at his pleasun .
weakened the nations, (i>. 12.) that they might it t
be able to make head against him. Such vast vic¬
torious armies did he bring into the field, th; t,
which way soever he looked, he made the earth to
tremble, and shook kingdoms; (v. 16.) all his neigh¬
bours were afraid of him, and were forced to sub¬
mit to him. No one man could do this by his < wn
ersonal strength, but by the numbers he has at his
eck. Great tyrants, by making seme do what
they will, make others suffer what they will. How
piteous is the case of mankind, which thus seems to
be in a combination against itself, and its own rights
and liberties, which could not be mined but by its
own strength.
2. The wretched abuse of all this wealth and
power, which the king of Babylrn was guilty of, in
two' instances:
(1.) Great oppression and cmelty; he is known
by the name of the oppressor, (n. 4.) he has the
sceptre of the rulers, (v. 5.) has the command of all
the princes about him ; but it is the staff of the wick¬
ed, a staff with which he supports himself in his
wickedness, and wickedly strikes all about him;
He smote the people, not in justice, for their coi
rection and reformation, but in wrath, (v. 6.) to
gratify his own peevish resentments, and that with
a continual stroke, pursued them with his forces,
”8
ISAIAH, XIV.
and gave them no respite, no breathing time, no
cessation of arms. He ruled the nations, but he
ruled them in anger, every thing he said and did
was in passi. n; so that he who had the government
of all about him, had no government of himself; he
made the world as a wilderness, as if he had taken
a pride in being the plague of his generation, and
a curse to mankind, (x>. 17.) Great princes used to
glory in building cities, but he gloried in destroying
them; see Ps. ix. 6.
Two particular instances are here given of his ty¬
ranny, worse than all the rest : [1.] That he was
severe to his captives; (v. 17.) He opened not the
house of his prisoners; he did not let them loose
homeward; so the margin reads it; he kept them in
close confinement, and never would suffer any to re¬
turn to their own land. This refers especially to
the people of the Jews, and it is that which fills up
the measure of the king of Babylon’s iniquity, that
he had detained the people of God in captiv ity, and
would by no means release them; nay, and by pro¬
faning the vessels of God’s temple at Jerusalem, did,
in effect, say that they should never return to their
former use, Dan. v. 2, 3. For this he was quickly
and justly turned out by one, whose first act was to
open the house of God’s prisoners, and send home
the temple-vessels. [2.] That he was oppressive
to his own subjects; (v. 20. ) Thou hast destroyed
thy land, and slain thy people; and what did he get
by that, when the wealth of the land, and the mul¬
titude of the people are the strength and honour of
the prince, who never rules so safely, so gloriously,
as in the hearts and affections of the people? Butty-
rants sacrifice their interests to their lusts and pas¬
sions; and God will reckon with them for their bar¬
barous usage of those who are under their power,
whom they think they may use as they please.
(2.) Great pride and haughtiness; notice is here
taken of his pomp, the extravagancy of his retinue;
(n.Tl.) he affected to appear in the utmost magni¬
ficence; but that was not the worst, it was the tem¬
per of his mind, and the elevation of that, that
ripened him for ruin; (k. 13, 14.) Thou hast said
in thy heart, like Lucifer, I will ascend into heaven.
Here is the language of his vainglory, borrowed
perhaps from that of the angels who fell, who, not
content with their first estate, the post assigned
them, would vie with God, and become not only in¬
dependent on him, but equal with him : or perhaps
it refers to the story of Nebuchadnezzar, who, when
he would be more than a man, was justly turned
into a brute, Dan. iv. 30. The king of Babylon
here promises himself, [1.] That in pomp and pow¬
er he shall exceed all his neighbours, and shall ar¬
rive at the very height of earthly glory and felicity;
that he shall be as great and happy as this world
can make him; that is the heaven ot a carnal heart,
and to that he hopes to ascend, and to be as far
above those about him, as the heaven is above the
earth. Princes are the stars of God, which give
some light to this dark world; (Matth. xxiv. 29.)
but he will exalt his throne above them all. [2.]
That he shall particularly insult over God’s mount
Zion, which Belshazzar, in his last drunken frolic,
seemed to have had a particular spite against, when
he called for the vessels of the temple at Jerusalem,
to profane them; see Dan. v. 2. In the same hu¬
mour, he here said, I will sit upoti the mount of the
congregation, (it is the same word that is used for
the holy convocations,) in the sides of the north; so
Mount Zion is said to be situated,' Ps. xlviii. 2.
Perhaps Belshazzar was projecting an expedition to
Jerusalem to triumph in the ruins of it, then when
God cut him off. [3.] That he will vie with the
God of Israel, of whom he had indeed heard glo¬
rious things, that he had his residence above the
height of the clouds; “ But thither,” says he, “will
I ascend, and be as great as he; 1 will be like him
whom they call the Most High." It is a gracious
ambition to covet to be like the Most Holy, for he
has said, Be ye holy, for l am holy; but it is a sin¬
ful ambition to aim to be like the Most High, for he
has said, He who exalts himself shall be abased;
and the devil drew our first parents in to eat forbid-
den fruit, by premising them that they slu uld be
as gods. [4.] That he shall himself be deified af¬
ter his death, as some of the first founders of the
Assyrian monarchy were, and stars had even their
names from them, “ But,” (says he) “ I will exalt
my throne above them all.” Such as this was his
pride, which was the undoubted omen of his de¬
struction.
3. The utter ruin that should be brought upon
him:
(1.) It is foretold that his wealth and power
should be broken, and a final period put to his pomp
and pleasure; he has been long an oppressor, but he
shall cease to be so, v. 4. Had he ceased to be so
by true repentance and reformation, according to
the advice Daniel gave to Nebuchadnezzar, it might
have been a lengthening of his life and tranquillity.
But those that will not cease to sin, God will make
to cease. The golden city, which, one would have
thought, might have continued for ever, is ceased;
there is an end of that Babylon. The Lord, the
righteous God, has broken the staff of that wicked
prince, broken it over his head, in token of the di¬
vesting him of his office. God has taken his power
from him, and disabled him to do any more mis¬
chief: he has broken the sceptres; for even those
are brittle things, soon broken, and often justly.
(2.) That he himself should be seized; He is per¬
secuted; (y. 6.) violent hands are laid upon him, and
none hinders. It is the common fate of tyrants,
when they fall into the power of their enemies, to
be deserted by their flatterers, whom they took for
their friends. We read of another enemy like this
here, of whom it is foretold that he shall come to his
end, and none shall help him, Dan. xi. 45. Tiberius
and Nero thus saw themselves abandoned.
(3.) That he should be slain, undg’o down to the
congregation of the dead, to be free among them, as
the slain that arena more remembered, Ps. lxxxviii.
5. He shall be weak as the dead are, and like unto
them, v. 10. His pomp is brought down to the grave,
it perishes with him ; the pomp of his life shall not,
as usual, end in a funeral pomp. True glory, that
is, true grace, will go up with the soul to heaven,
but vain pomp will go down with the body to the
grave, there is an end of it. The noise of his viols
is now heard no more; death is a farewell to the
pleasures, as well as to the pomps of this world.
This mighty prince, that used to lie on a bed of
down, and tread upon rich carpets, and to have co¬
verings and canopies exquisitely fine, now shall have
the worms spread under him, and the worms cover¬
ing him, (v. 11.) worms bred out of his own putre¬
fied body, which, though he fancied himself a god,
proved him to be made of the same mould with
other men. When we are pampering and decking
our bodies, it is good to remember they will be
worms’ meat shortly.
(4. ) That he should not have the honour of a bu¬
rial, much less of a decent one, and in the sepulchres
of his ancestors; The kings of the nations lie in glo¬
ry; {v. 18.) either the dead bodies themselves, so
embalmed as to be preserved from putrefaction, as
of old among the Egyptians; or their effigies (as
with us) erected over their graves. Thus, as if they
would defy the ignominy cf death, they lay in a
poor, faint sort of glory, every one in his own house,
his own burving-place; for the grave is the house
appointed for all living, a sleeping-house, where the
busy and troublesome will lie quiet, and the treu
73
ISAIAH, XIV.
Died and weary lie at rest. Bat this king of Baby¬
lon is east out, and has no grave; (n. 19.) his dead
body is thrown, like that of a beast, into the next
ditch, or upon the next dunghill, like an abomina¬
ble branch of some noxious, poisonous plant, which
nobody will touch; or as the clothes of malefactors
put to death, and by the hand of justice thrust
through with a sword, on whose dead bodies heaps
of stones are raised, or they are thrown into some
deep quarry, among the stones of the pit. Nay, the
king ot Babylon’s dead body shall be as the carcases
of those who are slain in a battle, who are trodden
under feet by the horses and soldiers, and crushed
to pieces: thus he shall not be joined with his ances-
ters in burial, v. 20. To be denied decent burial
is a disgrace, which, if it be inflicted for righteous¬
ness-sake (asPs. lxix. 2.) may, as other similar re¬
proaches, be rejoiced in; (Matth. v. 12.) it is the lot
of the two witnesses, Rev. xi. 9. But if, as here, it
be the just punishment of iniquity, it is an intima¬
tion that evil pursues impenitent sinners beyond
death, greater evil than that, and that they shall
vise to everlasting shame and contemfit.
4. The many triumphs that should be in his fall.
(1.) Those whom he had been a great tyrant
and terror to, will be glad that they are rid of him;
( v . 7, 8.) Now that he is gone, the whole earth is
at rest, and is quiet, for he was the great disturber
of the peace; now they all break forth into singing,
i ir when the wicked perish, there is shouting; (rrov.
xi. 10.) the fir-trees and cedars of Lebanon now
think themselves safe, there is no danger now of
their being cut down, to make way for his vast ar¬
mies, or to furnish him with timber. The neigh¬
bouring princes, and great men, who are compared
to fir-trees and cedars, (Zech. xi. 2.) may now be
easy, and out of fear of being dispossessed of their
rights, for the hammer of the whole earth is cut
asunder and broken, (Jer. 1. 23.) the axe that boast¬
ed itself against him that hewed with it, ch. x. 15.
(2.) The congregation of the dead will bid him
welcome to them, especially those whom he had
barbarously hastened thither; (v. 9, 10.) “ Hell
from beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy
coming, and to compliment thee upon thy arrival at
their dark and dreadful regions. ” The chief ones
of the earth, who, when they were alive, were kept
in awe by him, and durst not come near him, but
rose from their thrones, to resign them to him, these
shall upbraid him with it; when he comes into the
state of the dead, they shall go forth to meet him,
as they used to do when he made his public entry
into cities he was become master of; with such a
parade shall he be introduced into those regions of
horror, to make his disgrace and torment the more
grievous to him. They shall scoffingly rise from
their thrones and seats there, and ask him if he will
please to sit down in them, as he used to do in their
thrones on earth? The confusion that will then cover
him they shall make a jest of; “ Art thou also be¬
come weak as we? Who would have thought it? It
is what thou thyself didst not expect it would ever
come to, when thou wast in every thing too hard for
us. Thou that didst rank thyself among the im¬
mortal gods, art thou come to take thy fate among
us poor mortal men? Where is thy pomp now, and
where thy mirth? How art thou fallen from heaven,
Q Lucifer, son of the morning," v. 11, 12. The
king of B ibylon has shone as bright as the morning-
star, and fancied that, wherever he came, he
Drought day along with him; and is such an illus¬
trious prince as this fallen, such a star become a clod
of clay? Did ever any man fall from such a height
of honour and power into such an abyss of shame
and misery? This has been commonly alluded to,
(and it is a mere allusion,) to illustrate the fall of
the angels, who were as morning-stars, Job xxxviii.
7. But hot u arc they fallen! How art thou cut
down to the ground, and levelled with it, that didst
weaken the nations! God will reckon with these
that invade the rights, and disturb the peace, of
mankind, for he is King of nations as well as saints.
Now this reception of the- king of Babylon into
the regions of the dead, which is here described,
surely is something more than, a flight of fancy, and
is designed to speak these solid truths: [1.] That
there is an invisible world, a world of spirits, to
which the souls of men remove at death, and in
which they exist and act in a state of separation
from the body. [2.] That separate souls have ac¬
quaintance and converse with each other, though
we have none with them; the parable of the rich
man and Lazarus intimates this. [3.] That death
and hell will be death and hell indeed to those that
fall unsanctified from the height of this world’s
pomps, and the fulness of its pleasures: Hon, re¬
member, Luke xvi. 25.
(3.) Spectators will stand amazed at his, fall.
When he shall be brought down to hi U, to the sides
of the pit, and to be lodged there, (n. 15.) they that
see him shall narrowly look upon hint, and consider
him, they shall scarcely believe their own eyes;
never was death so great a change to any man as it
is to him. Is it possible that a man who a few
hours ago looked so great, so pleasant, and was so
splendidly adorned and attended, should now look
so ghastly, so despicable, and lie thus naked and
neglected? Is this the man that made the earth to
tremble, and shook kingdoms? Who would have
thought he should ever have come to this? Psalm
lxxxii. 7.
Lastly, Here is an inference drawn from all
this; (d. 20.) The seed of evil-doers shall never
be renowned. The princes of the Babylonian mo¬
narch were all a seed of evil-doers, oppressors of
the people of God, and therefore they had this in¬
famy entailed upon them. They shall not be re¬
nowned forever; so some read it; they may look
big for a time, but all their pomp will only render
their disgrace at last the more shameful ; there is no
credit in a sinful way.
II. The utter ruin of the royal family is here fore¬
told, together with the desolation of the royal city.
1. The royal family is to be wholly extirpated.
The Medes and Persians that are to be employed
in this destroying work, are ordered, when they
have slain Belshazzar, to prepare slaughter for his
children, (y. 21.) and not to spare them; the little
ones of Babylon must be dashed against the stones,
Ps. cxxxvii. 9. These orders sound very harsh;
but, (1.) They must suffer for the iniquity of their
fathers, which is often visited upon the children, to
show how much God hates sin, and is displeased at
it, and to deter sinners from it, which is the end of
punishment. Nebuchadnezzar had slain Zedekiah’s
sons, (Jer. lii. 10.) and for that iniquity of his, his
seed are paid in the same coin. (2.) They must
be cut off now, that they may not rise up to possess
the land, and do as much mischief in their day
as their fathers had done in theirs; that they may
not be as vexatious to the world by building cities
for the support of their tyranny, (which was Nim¬
rod’s policy, Gen. x. 11.) as their ancestors had
been by destroying cities. Pharaoh oppressed Israel
in Egypt by 'setting them to build cities, Exod. i. 11.
The providence of God consults the welfare of na¬
tions more th in we are aware of, by cutting iff
some who, if they had lived, would have done mis¬
chief. Justly may the enemies cut < ff the children;
Tor I will rise up against them, saith the I.ord of
hosts, v. 22. And if God reveal it as his mind that
he will have it done, as none can hinder it. so none
need scruple to further it. Babvlon perhaps was
proud of the numbers of her royal family, but God
80
ISAIAH, XIV.
had determined to cut off the name ana remnant of
it, so that none should be left, to have both the sons
and grandsons of the king slain; and yet we are sure
he never did, nor ever will do, any wrong to any
of his creatures.
2. The royal city is to be demolished and desert¬
ed, v. 23. It shall be a possession for solitary fright¬
ful birds, particularly the bittern, joined with the
cormorant and the owl, ch. xxxiv. 11. And thus
the utter destruction of the New Testament Baby¬
lon is illustrated, (Rev. xviii. 2.) it is become a cage
of every unclean and hateful bird. Babylon lay
low, so that when it was deserted, and no care taken
to drain the land, it soon became pools of water,
standing puddles, as unhealthful as unpleasant: and
thus God will sweep it with the besom of destruction.
When a people have nothing among them but dirt
and filth, and will not be made clean with the besom
of reformation, what can they expect but to be
swept off the face of the earth with the besom of
destruction?
24. The Lord of hosts hath sworn, say¬
ing, Surely as I have thought, so shall it
come to pass; and as I have purposed, so
shall it stand; 25. That I will break the
Assyrian in my land, and upon my moun¬
tains tread him under loot: then shall his
yoke depart from off them, and his burden
depart from off their shoulders. 26. This is
the purpose that is purposed upon the whole
earth; and this is the hand that is stretched
out upon all the nations. 27. For the Lord
of hosts hath purposed, and who shall dis¬
annul it? and his hand is stretched out, and
who shall turn it back 1 28. In the year that
king Ahaz died, was this burden. 29. Re-
ioice not thou, whole Palestina, because the
rod of trim that smote thee is broken : for out
of the serpent’s root shall come forth a
cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery fly¬
ing serpent. 30. And the first-bom of the
poor shall feed, and the needy shall lie down
in safety : and I will kill thy root with famine,
and he shall slay thy remnant. 31. Howl,
O gate; cry, O city: thou, whole Palestina,
art dissolved : for there shall come from the
north a smoke, and none shall be alone in
his appointed times. 32. What shall one
then answer the messengers of the nation ?
That the Lord hath founded Zion, and the
poor of his people shall trust in it.
The destruction of Babylon and the Chaldean
empire was a thing at a gn at distance; the empire
was not risen to any considerable height when its
fall was here foretold: it was almost 200 years from
this prediction of Babylon’s fall to the accomplish¬
ment of it. Now the people to whom Isaiah pro¬
phesied, might ask, “ What is this to us, or what
shall we be the better for it, and what assurance
shall we huv< of it?” To both which questions he
answers in these verses, by a prediction of the ruin
both of the Assyrians and of the Philistines, the pre¬
sent enemies that infested them, which they should
shortly be eye-witnesses of, and have benefit by.
These would be a present comfort to them, and a
pledge of future deliverance, for the confirming of
the faith of their posterity. God is to his people
the same to-day that he was yesterday, and will oe
hereafter; and he will for ever be the same that he
has been, and is. Here is,
1. Assurance given of tfie destruction of the As¬
syrians; (x>. 25.) I will break the Assyrian in my
land. Sennacherib brought a very formidable army
into the land of Judah, but there God broke it,
broke all his regiments by the sword cf a destroying
angel. Note, Those who wrongfully invade God’s
land, shall find it is at their peril, and those who with
unhallowed feet trample upon his holy mountains,
shall themselves there be trodden under foot. God
undertakes to do it himself, his people having no
might against the great company that came against
them; “ 1 will break the Assyrian; let me alone to
doit, who have angels, hosts ot angels at command.”
Now the breaking of the power of the Assyrian
would be the breaking of the yoke from off the neck
of God’s people. His burthen shall depart from off
their shoulders, the burthen of quartering that vast
army, and paying contribution; therefore the Assy¬
rian must be broken, that Judah and Jerusalem
may be eased. Let those that make themselves a
yoke and a burthen to God’s people, see what they
are to expect.
Now, 1. This prophecy is here ratified and con¬
firmed by an oath; (x>. 24.) The Lord of hosts has
sworn, that he might show the immutability cf his
Counsel, and that his people may have strong con¬
solation, Heb. vi. 17, 18. What is here said of this
particular intention, is true of all Gcd’s purposes;
As I hav » thought, so shall it come to / lass ; for he
is one in mind, and who can turn him? Nor is he
ever put upon new counsels, or obliged to take new
measures, as men often are, when things occur
which they did not foresee. Let those who are the
called according to God’s fiur/iose, comfort them¬
selves with this, that as God has ftur/tosed, so shall
it stand, and on that their stability does depend.
2. The breaking of the Assyrian power is made
a specimen of what God would do with all the pow¬
ers of the nations that were engaged against him and
his church; (t. 26.) This is the purpose that is pur¬
posed upon the whole earth, the whole world, so the
LXX; all the inhabitants of the earth, so the Chal¬
dee; not only upon the Assyrian empire, (which
was then reckoned to be in a manner all the world,
as afterward the Roman empire was, (Luke ii. 1.)
and with it many nations fell, that had dependence
upon it,) but upon all those states and potentates
that should at any time attack his land, his moun-
t uns; the fate of the Assyrian shall be theirs, they
shall soon find that they meddle to their own hurt.
Jerusalem, as it was to the Assyrians, will be to all
people a burthensome stone; all that burthen them¬
selves with it, shall infallibly be cut to pieces by. it,
Zech. xii. 3, 6. The same hand of power and jus¬
tice that is now to be stretched out against the As¬
syrian for invading the people of God, shall be
stretched out upon all the nations that do likewise.
It is still true, and will be ever so, Cursed is he that
curses God’s Israel, Num. xxiv. 9. God will be an
Enemy to his people’s enemies, Exod. xxiii. 22.
3. All the powers on earth are defied to change
God’s counsel; (x). 27.) “ The Lord of hosts has
purposed to break the Assyrian's yoke, and every
rod of the wicked laid upon the lot of the righteous;
and who shall disannul this purpose? Who can per¬
suade him to recall it, or find a plea to evade it?
His hand is stretched out to execute this purpose;
and who has power enough to turn it back, or to
stay the course of his judgments?”
II. Assurance is likewise given of the destruction
of the Philistines and their power. This burthen,
this prophecy, that lay as a load upon them, to sink
their state, came in the year that king Ahaz died;
which was the first year of Hezekiali’s reign;
81
ISAIAH, XV.
t-v 28. ) when a good king came in the room of a bad
one, then this acceptable message was sent among
them. When we reform, then, and not till then,
we may look for good news from heaven. Now here
we have,
1. A rebuke *to the Philistines for triumphing in
the death of king Uzziah. He had been as a serpent
to them, had bitten them, had smitten them, had
brought them very low; (2 Chron. xxvi. 6.) he
warred against the Philistines , broke down their
walls, and built cities among them; but when Uz¬
ziah died, or rather abdicated, it was told with jov
in Gath, and f lublished in the streets of Askelon. It
is inhuman thus to rejoice in our neighbour’s fall;
but let them not be secure, for though, when Uzzi¬
ah was dead, they made reprisals upon Ahaz, and
took many of the cities of Judah, (2 Chron. xxviii.
18.) yet out of the root of Uzziah should come a
cockatrice, a more formidable enemy than Uzziah
was, even Hezekiali, the fruit of whose government
should be to them a fiery flying serpent, for he
should fall upon them with incredible swiftness and
fury: we find he did so; (2 Kings xviii. 8.) He
smote the Philistines even to Gaza. Note, If God
remove one useful instrument in the midst of his
usefulness, he can, and will, raise up others to carry-
on and complete the same work that they were em¬
ployed in, and left unfinished.
2. A prophecy of the destruction of the Philis¬
tines by famine and war. (1.) By famine; (u. 30.)
when the people of God, whom the Philistines had
wasted, and distressed, and impoverished, shall en-
jov plenty again, and the first-born of their floor
slum' feed, (the poorest among them shall have food
convenient,) then, as for the Philistines, God will
kill their root with famine; that which was their
strength, and with which they thought themselves
established as the tree is by the root, shall be starved
and dried up by degrees, as those die, that die by
famine; and thus he shall slay the remnant: those
that escape from one destruction, are but reserved
for another; and when there are but a few left, those
few shall at length be cut off, for God will make a full
end. (2.) By war; when the needy of God’s people
shall lie down in safety, {v. 30. ) not terrified with the
alarms of war, but delighting in the songs of peace,
then every gate and every city of the Philistines
shall be howling and crying, (v. 31.) and there shall
be a total dissolution of their state; for from Judea,
which lay north of the Philistines, there shall come
a smoke, a vast army raising a great dust, a smoke
that shall b<- the indication of a devouring fire at
hand: and none of all that army shall be alone in his
appointed times; none shall straggle or be missing
when they are to engage; but they shall be vigor¬
ous and unanimous in attacking the common ene¬
my, when the time appointed for the doing of it
comes. None of them shall decline the public ser¬
vice, as, in Deborah’s time, Reuben abode among
the sheepfolds, and Asher on the sea-shore, Judg.
v. 16, 17. When God has work to do, he will won¬
derfully endow and dispose men for it.
III. The good use that should be made of all
these events for the encouragement of the people of
God; (v. 32.) What shall one then answer the mes¬
sengers of the nations? This implies, 1. That the
great things God does for his people, are, and can¬
not but be, taken notice of by their neighbours;
they among the heathen make remarks upon them,
Ps. cxxvi. 2. 2. That messengers will be sent to
inquire concerning them. Jacob and Israel had long
been a people distinguished from all others, and
dignified with uncommon favours; and therefore
some, for good-will, others, for ill-will, and all, for
curiosity, are inquisitive concerning them. 3. That
it concerns us always to be ready to give a reason
of the hope that we have in the providence of God,
Vol. iv. — L
as well as in his grace, in answer to every one tho
asks it, with meekness and fear, 1 Pet. iii. 15. And
we need go no further than the sacred tinths of
God’s word, fora reason; for God, in all he does,
is fulfilling the scripture. 4. The issue of God’s
dealings with his people shall be so clearly and ma
nifestly glorious, that any one, every one, shall be
able to give an account of them to those that inquire
concerning them. Now the answer which is to be
given to the messengers of the nations, is, (1.) That
God is, and will be, a faithful Friend to his church
and people, and will secure and advance their in¬
terests. Tell them that the Lord has founded Zion.
This gives an account both of the work itself that
is done, and of the reason of it. What is Gcd
doing in the world, and what is he designing in all
the revolutions of states and kingdoms, in the ruin
of some nations, and the rise of others? He is, in all
this, founding Zion; he is aiming at the advance¬
ment of his church’s interests; and what he aims at
he will accomplish. The messengers of the nations,
when they sent to inquire concerning Hezekiah’s
successes against the Philistines, expected to learn
by what politics, counsels, and arts of war, he carried
his point; they are told that they were not owing to
any thing of that nature, but to the care God took of
his church, and the interest he had in it. The Lord
has founded Zion, and therefore the Philistines must
fall. (2.) That his church has, and will have, a de¬
pendence upon him; The poor of his people shall
trust in it, his poor pet pie who have been brought
very low, even the poorest of them; they more than
others, for they have nothing else to trust to; (Zcpli.
iii. 12, 13.) the poor receive the gospel, Matth. x\
5. They shall trust to this, to this great truth,
that the Lord has founded Zion; on this they shall
build their hopes, and not on an arm of flesh. This
ought to give us abundant satisfaction as to public af¬
fairs, that, however it goes with particular persons,
parties, and interests, the church, having God him¬
self for its founder, and Christ the Rock for its
Foundation, cannot but stand firm; The poor of his
people shall betake themselves to it; so some read
it; shall join themselves to his church, and embark
in its interests; they shall concur with God in his
designs to establish his people, and shall wind up
all on the same plan, and make all their little con¬
cerns and projects bend to that. They that take
God’s people for their people, must be willing to
take their lot with them, and cast in their lot among
them. Let the messengers of the nations know that
the poor Israelites, who trust in God, having, like
Zion, their foundation in the holy mountains, (Ps.
lxxxvii. 1.) are like Zion, which cannot be removed,
but abides for ever, (Ps. exxv. 1.) and therefore
they will not fear what man can do unto them.
CHAP. XV.
This chapter, and that which follows it, are the burthen of
Moab; a prophecy of some great desolation that was
coming upon that country, which bordered upon this
land of Israel, and had ollen been injurious and vexa¬
tious to it, though the Moabites were descended from
Lot, Abraham’s kinsman and companion, and though
the Israelites, by the appointment of God, had spared
them, when they might both easily and justly have cut
them off with their neighbours. In this chapter, we have,
I. Great lamentations made by the Moabites, and by the
prophet himself for them, v. 1 . .5. II. The great ca¬
lamities which should occasion that lamentation, and
justify it, v. 6 . . 9.
1. rpHE burden of Moab. Because in
JL the night Ar of Moab is laid waste,
and brought to silence; because in the night
Kir of Moab is laid waste, and brought to
silence: 2. He is gone up to Bajith, and
32
ISAIAH, XV.
to Dibon, the high places, to weep: Moab ji
shall howl over Nebo, and over Medeba;
on all their heads shall, be. baldness, and
every beard cut off. 3. In their streets they
shall gird themselves with sackcloth: on the
tops of their houses, and in their streets
every one shall howl, weeping abundantly.
4. And Heshbon shall cry, and Elealeh: their
voice shall be heard even unto Jahaz: there¬
fore the armed soldiers of Moab shall cry
out; his life shall be grievous unto him. 5.
My heart shall cry out for Moab; his fugi¬
tives shall flee unto Zoar, a heifer of three
years old : for by the mounting up of Luhith
with weeping shall they go it up; for in the
way of Horonaim they shall raise up a cry
of destruction.
The country of Moab was of small extent, but
very fruitful; it bordered upon the lot of Reuben on
the other side Jordan, and upon the Dead sea. Na¬
omi went to sojourn there, when there was a famine
in Canaan. This is the country which (it is here
foretold) should be wasted and grievously harass¬
ed; not quite ruined, for we find another prophecy
of its ruin, (Jer. 48. ) which was accomplished by
Nebuchadnezzar. This prophecy here was to be
fulfilled within three years, ( ch . xvi. 14.) and there¬
fore was fulfilled in the devastations made of that
country by the army of the Assyrians, which for
many years ravaged those parts, enriching them¬
selves with spoil and plunder. It was done either
by the army of Shalmaneser, about the time of the
taking of Samaria in the fourth year of Hezekiah,
(as is most probable,) or by the army of Sennache¬
rib, which, ten years after, invaded Judah.
We cannot suppose that the prophet went among
the Moabites to preach them this sermon; but he
delivered it to his own people, (1.) To show them,
that though judgment begins at'the house of God,
it shall not end there; that there is a Providence
which governs the world and all the nations of it;
and that to the God of Israel the worshippers of
false gods were accountable, and liable to his judg¬
ments. (2.) To give them a proof of God’s care of
them and jealousy for them ; and to convince them
that God was an Enemy to their enemies, for such
the Moabites had often been. (3. ) That the accom¬
plishment of this prophecy, now shortly, ( within
three years,) might be a confirmation of the pro¬
phet’s mission, and of the truth of all his other pro¬
phecies, and might encourage the faithful to depend
upon them.
Now concerning Moab, it here foretold,
1. That their chief cities should be surprised and
taken in a night by their enemy, probabiv because
the inhabitants, as the men of Laish, indulged them¬
selves in ease and luxury, and dwelt securely;
(v. 1.) Therefore there shall be great grief, be¬
cause in the night ytr of Moab is laid waste, and
Kir of Moab; the two principal cities of that king¬
dom. In the night that they were taken, or sack¬
ed, Moab was cut off. The seizing of them laid
the whole country open, and made all the wealth
of it an easy prey to the victorious army. Note, (1.)
Great changes and very dismal ones may be made
in a very little time. Here are two cities lost in a
night, though that is the time of quietness: let us
therefore lie down as those that know not what a
night may bring forth. (2. ) As the country feeds
the cities, so the cities protect the country, and
neither can say to the other, I have no need of thee.
i 2. That the Moabites, being hereDy put into th<
utmost consternation imaginable, should have re
course to their idols for relief, and pour out theit
tears before them; Cv. 2.) He, that is, Moab, es
pecially the king of Moab, is gone u/i to Bajitt., or
rather, to the house or temple bf Chemosh ; and
Dibon, the inhabitants of Dibon, are gone up to the
high places, where they worshipped their idols,
there to make their complaints. Note, It becomes
a people in distress to seek their God; and shall not
we then thus walk in the name of the Lord our God,
and call upon him in the time of trouble, before
whom we shall not shed such useless profitless tears
as they did before their gods?
3. That there should be the voice of universal
griT, all the country over. It is described here
elegantly and very a'ffectingly. Moab shall be a
vale of tears; a little map of this world, v. 2.
The Moabites shall lament the loss of Nebo and
Medeba, two considerable cities, which, it is likelv,
were plundered and burnt. They shall tear their
hair for grief, to that degree, that 'on all their heads
shall be baldness, and they shall cut off their beards,
according to the customary expressions of mourning
in those times and countries. When they go abroad,
they shall be so far from coveting to appear hand¬
some, that in the streets they shall gird themselves
with sackcloth; and perhaps being forced to use
that poor clothing, the enemies having stripped
them, and rifled their houses, and left them no other
clothing. When they come home, instead of ap¬
plying themselves to their business, they shall go up
to the tops of their houses, which were flat-roofed,
and there they shall weep abundantly, nay, they
shall howl, in crying to their gods': those that
cry not to God with their hearts, do but howl
vfion their beds, Hos. vii. 14. Amos viii. 3. They
shall come down with weefling; so the margin
reads it; they shall come down from their high
places and the tops of their houses, weeping as
much as they did when they went up. Prayer to
the true God is heart’s-ease, (1 Sam. i. 18.') but
prayers to false gods are not. Divers places are
here named, that should be full of lamentation, (v.
4. ) and it is but a poor relief to have so many fel¬
low-sufferers, fellow-mourners; to a public spirit it
is rather an aggravation, socios habuisse doloris —
to have associates in wo.
4. That the courage of their militia should fail
them; though they were bred soldiers, and were
well armed, yet they shall cry out, and shriek, for
fear, and every one of them shall have his life
become grier’ous to him; though it is a military' life,
which delights in danger, v. 4. See how easily
God can dispirit the stoutest of men, and deprive a
nation of benefit, by those whom it most depended
upon for strength and defence. The Moabites shall
generally be so overwhelmed with grief, that life
itself shall be a burthen to them. God can easily
make weary of life those that are fondest of it.
5. That the outcry for these calamities should
propagate grief to all the adjacent parts, v. 5. (1.)
The prophet himself has very sensible impressions
made upon Iris spirit by the prediction of it; “ My
heart shall cry out for Moab; though they are ene¬
mies to Israel, they are our fellow-creatures, rf the
same rank with us, and therefore it should grieve us
to see them in such distress, the rather because we
know not how soon it may be our own turn to drink
of the same cup of trembling.” Note, It becomes
God’s ministers to be of a tender spirit, not to de¬
sire the woful day, but to be like their Master, who
wept over Jerusalem, even then when he gave her
up to ruin; like their God, who desires not the
death of sinners. (2.) All the neighbouring cities
shall echo to the lamentations of Moab. The fu
gitives, who are making the best of their way t«
8.3
ISAIAH, XVI.
shift for their own safety, shall carry the cry to
Zoar, the city to which their ancestor Lot fled for
shelter from Sodom’s flames, which was spared for
his sake. They shall make as great a noise with their
cry, as a heifer of three years old does, when she
goes hiving for her calf, as 1 Sam. vi. 12. They
shall go up the hill of Luhith, as David went up the
ascent of mount Olivet, many a weary step, and all
in tears, 2 Sam. xv. 30. And in the way of Horo-
niam, (a dual termination,) the way that leads to
the two Beth-horons, the upper and the nether,
which we read of, Josh. xvi. 3, 5. Thither the cry
shall be carried, there it should be raised; even at
that great distance, a cry of destruction, that shall
be the cry; like, “Fire, fire, we are all undone.”
Grief is catching, so is fear, and justly, for trouble
is spreading, and when it begins, who knows where
it will end?
6. For the waters of Nimrim shall be de¬
solate: for the hay is withered away, the
grass faileth, there is no green thing. 7.
Therefore the abundance they have gotten,
and that which they have laid up, shall
they carry away to the brook of the wil¬
lows. 8. For the cry is gone round about
the borders of Moab ; the howling thereof
unto Eglaim, and the howling thereof unto
Beer-elim. 9. For the waters of Dimon
shall be full of blood : for I will bring more
upon Dimon, lions upon him that escapeth
of Moab, and upon the remnant of the land.
Here the prophet further describes the woful and
piteous lamentations that should be heard through¬
out all the country of Moab, when it should become
a prey to the Assyrian army. By this time the cry
is gone round about all the borders of Moab, v. 8.
Every corner of the country has received the alarm,
and is in the utmost confusion upon it. It is got to
Eglaim, a city at one end of the country; and to
Beer-elim, a city as far the other way. Where sin
has been general, and all flesh have corrupted their
wav, what can be expected but a general desolation?
T wo things are here spoken of, as causes of this
lamentation.
1. The waters of .Yimrim are desolate, (y. 6.)
The country is plundered and impoverished, and
all the wealth and substance of it swept away by
the victorious army. Famine is usually the sail
effect of war. Look into the fields that were
well watered, the fruitful meadows that yielded
delightful prospects, and more delightful pro¬
ducts, and there all is eaten up, or carried off' by
the enemy’s foragers, and the remainder trodden to
dirt by their horses. If an army encamp upon
green fields, their greenness is soon gone. Look
into the houses, and they are stripped too; (x>. 7. )
The abundance of wealth that they had gotten with
a great deal of art and industry, and that which they
have laid ufi with a great deal of care and confi¬
dence, shall they carry away to the brook of the
willows. Either the owners shall carry it thither
to hide it, or the enemies shall carry it thither to
pack it up, and send it home, by water perhaps, to
their own country. Note, (1.) Those that are
eager to get abundance of this world, and solicitous
to lay up what they have gotten, little consider
wh it may become of it, and in how little a time it
may be all taken from them. Great abundance,
by tempting the robbers, exposes the owners; and
they who depend upon it to protect them, often find
' it does but betray them. (2.) In times of distress,
great riches are often great burthens, and do but
increase the owner’s care or the enemies’ strength.
Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator — The penny-
less traveller will exult, when accosted by a robber,
in having nothing about him.
2. The waters of Dimon are turned into blood,
(f • 9. ) 'Fhe inhabitants of the country are slain in
great numbers, so that the waters adjoining to the
cities, whether rivers or pools, are discoloured with
human gore, inhumanly shed like water. Dimon
signifies bloody; the place shall answer to its name.
Perhaps it was that place in the country of Moab,
where the water seemed to the Moabites as blood,
(2 Kings iii. 22, 23.) which occasioned their over¬
throw. But now, says God, I will bring more
upon Dimon, more blood than was shed, or thought
to be seen, at that time. I will bring additions upon
Dimon, (so the word is,) additional plagues; I have
yet more judgments in reserve for them; for all
this, God’s anger is not turned away. When he
judges, lie will overcome; and to the roll of curses
be added many like words, Jer. xxxvi. 32. See
here what is the yet more evil to be brought upon
Dimon, upon Moab, which is now to be made a
land of blood. Some flee, 'and make their escape,
others sit still, and are overlooked, and are as a rem¬
nant of the land; but upon both God will bring
lions, beasts of prey; (which are reckoned one of
God’s four judgments, Ezek. xiv. 21.) and these
shall glean up those that have escaped the sword of
the enemy. Those that continue impenitent in sin,
when they are preserved from one judgment, are
but reserved for another.
CHAP. XVI.
This chapter continues and concludes the burthen ol
Moab. In it, I. The prophet gives good counsel to the
Moabites, to reform what was amiss among them, and
particularly to be kind to God’s people, as the likeliest
way to prevent the judgments before threatened, v.
1 . . 5. II. Fearing they would not take this counsel,
(they were so proud,) he goes on to foretell the lament¬
able devastation of their country, and the confusion they
should be brought to, and this within three years, v.
6 . . 14.
1. OEND ye the lamb to the ruler of the
•O land from Sela to the wilderness,
unto the mount of the daughter of Zion.
2. For it shall be, that as a wandering bird
cast out of the nest, so the daughters of
Moab shall be at the fords of Arnon. 3.
Take counsel, execute judgment, make thy
shadow as the night in the midst of the
noon-day ; hide the outcasts, bewray not
him that wandereth. 4. Let mine outcasts
dwell with thee, Moab : be thou a covert
to them from the face of the spoiler: for the
extortioner is at an end, the spoiler ceaseth.
the oppressors are consumed out of the land.
5. And in mercy shall the throne be establish¬
ed , and lie shall sit upon it in truth in
the tabernacle of David, judging and seek¬
ing judgment, and hasting righteousness.
God has made it to appear that he delights not in
the ruin of sinners, by telling them what they mav
do to prevent the ruin; so he does here to Moab.
I. He advises them to be just to the house of Da¬
vid, and to pay the tribute they had formerlv cove¬
nanted to pay to the kings of his line; (v. 1. ) Send
ye the lamb to the ruler of the land. David made
the Moabites tributaries to him; (2 Sam. viii. 2.)
they became his servants, and brought gifts. After
wards they paid their tribute to the kings of Israel.
ISAIAH, XVI.
2 Kings iii. 4.) and paid it in lambs. Now the pro¬
phet requires them to pay it to Hezekiah. Let it
be raised and levied from all parts of the country,
from Sela, a frontier city of Moab on the one side,
to the wilderness, a boundary of the kingdom on
the other side: and let it be sent, where it should
be sent, to the mount of the daughter of Zion, the
city of David. Some take it as an advice to send a
lamb for a sacrifice to God the Ruler of the earth,
(so it may be read,) the Lord of the whole earth.
Ruler of' all lands; the land of Moab, as well as
the land of Israel; “Send it to the temple built on
mount Zion.” And some think it is in this sense
spoken ironically, upbraiding the Moabites with
their folly in delaying to repent, and make their
peace with God; “Now you would be glad to send
a lamb to mount Zion, to make the God of Israel
vour Friend; but it is too late, the decree has
brought forth, the consumption is determined, and
the daughters of Moab shall be cast out as a wan¬
dering bird,” v. 2. I rather take it as good advice
seriously given, like that of Daniel to Nebuchad¬
nezzar then when he. was reading him his doom;
(Dan. iv. 27.) Break off thy sins by righteousness,
if it may be a lengthening of thy tranquillity. And
as it is applicable to the great gospel-duty of sub¬
mission to Christ, as the Ruler of the land, and our
Ruler, “ Send him the lamb, the best you have,
vourselves a living sacrifice. When you come to
God the great Ruler, come in the name of the
Lamb, the Lamb of God. For else it shall be,”
so we may read it, f. 2.) “ that as a wandering,
ird cast out of the nest, so shall the daughters of
Moab be. If you will not pay your quit-rent, your
ist tribute to the king of Judah, you shall be turned
tut of your houses: the daughters of Moab (the
country-villages, or the women of your country)
shall nutter about the fords of Arnon, attempting
that way to make their escape to some other land,
like a wandering bird thrown out of the nest half-
fledged. ” Those that will not submit to Christ,
nor be gathered under the shadow of his wings,
shall be as a bird that wanders from her nest, that
shall either be snatched up by the next bird of
prey, or shall wander endlessly in continual frights.
Those that will not yield to the fear of God, shall
be made to yield to the fear of every thing else.
II. He advises them to be kind to the seed of Is¬
rael; (y. 3.) “Take counsel, call a convention,
and consult among yourselves what is fit to be done
in the present critical juncture; and you will find
it your best way to execute judgment, to reverse
all the unrighteous decrees you have made, by
which you have put hardships upon the people of
God; and, in token of your repentance for them,
study now how to oblige them, and this shall be ac¬
cepted of God more than all burnt-offering and sa¬
crifice.”
1. The prophet foresaw some storm coming upon
the people of God, perhaps the good people of the
ten tribes, or of the two and a half on the other
side Jordan, whose country joined to that of Moab,
and who, by the merciful providence of God, es¬
caped the mry of the Assyrian army, had their
lives given them for a prey, and were reserved for
better times, but were put to the utmost extremity
to shift for their own safety. The danger and trou¬
ble they were in, were like the scorching heat at
noon; the face of the spoiler was very fierce upon
them, and the oppressor and extortioner were ready
to swallow them up.
2. He bespeaks a shelter for them in the land of
Moab, when their own land was made disagreeable
i i them. This judgment they must execute; thus
wisely must they do for themselves, and thus kindly
must they deal with the people of God. If they
would themselves continue in their habitations, let
them now open their doors to the distressed dis¬
persed members of God’s church, and be to them
like a cool shade to those that bear the burthen and
heat of the day. Let them not discover those that
absconded among them, nor deliver them up to the
pursuers that made search for them; “Bewray not
him that wandereth, nor deliver him up,” (as the
Edomites did, Obad. xiii. 14.) “but hide the out¬
casts.” This was that good work by which Ra-
hab’s faith was justified, and proved to be sincere;
(Heb. xi. 31.) “ Nay, do not only hide them for a
time, but, if there be occasion, let them be natu¬
ralized; let mine outcasts dwell with thee, Moab;
find a lodging for them, and be thou a covert to
them. Let them be taken under the protection of
the government, though they are but poor, and
likely to be achargeto thee.” Note, (1.) It is often
the lot even of those who are Israelites indeed, to
be outcasts, driven out of house and harbour, by
persecution or war, Heb. xi. 37. (2.) God owns
them, when men reject and disown them. They
are outcasts, but they are mine outcasts. The
Lord knows them that are his, wherever he finds
them, even there where no one else knows them.
(3.) God will find a restand shelter for his outcasts;
for though they are persecuted, they are not for¬
saken. He will himself be their Dwelling-Place,
if they have no other, and in him they shall be at
home. (4.) God can, when he pleases, raise up
friends for his people, even among Moabites, when
they can find none in all the land of Israel, that
can and dare shelter them. The earth often helps
the woman. Rev. xii. 16. (5. ) Those that expect
to find favour when they are in trouble themselves,
must show favour to those that are in trouble; and
what service is done to God’s outcasts, shall, no
doubt, be recompensed one way or other.
3. He assures them of the mercy God had in
store for his people. (1.) That they should not
long need their kindness, or be troublesome to them,
for the extortioner is almost at an end already, and
the spoiler ceases. God’s people shall not be long
outcasts, they shall have tribulation ten days, (Re-.',
ii. 10.) and that is all. The spoiler would never
cease spoiling, if he might have his will; but God
has him in a chain. Hitherto he shall go, but no
further. (2.) That they should, ere long, be in a
capacity to return their kindness; (x>. 5.) “Though
the throne of the ten tribes be sunk and overturn¬
ed, yet the throne of David shall be established in
mercy, by the mercy they received from God, and
the mercy they show to others; and by the same
methods may your throne be established if you
please.” It would engage great men to be kind to
the people of God, if they would but observe, as
they easily might, how often that brings the bless¬
ing of God upon kingdoms and families. “Make
Hezekiah your friend, for you will find it your inte¬
rest to do so, upon the account both of the grace of
God in him, and the presence of God with him.
He shall sit upon the throne in truth, and then he
does indeed sit in honour, and sit fast. Then he
shall sit judging, and will then be a protector to
those that have been a shelter to the people of
God.” And see in him the character of a good
magistrate. [1.] He shall seek judgment; he shall
seek occasions of doing right to those that are wr< ag¬
ed, and shall punish the injurious even before they
are complained of: or, he shall diligently search
into every cause brought before him, that he may
find where the right lies. [2.] He shall hasten
righteousness, and not delay to do justice, nor keep
those long waiting, that make application to himfot
the redress of their grievances. Though he seeks
judgment, and deliberates upon it, yet he does not,
under pretence of that, stay the progress of the
streams of justice. Let the Moabites take exam
35
ISAIAH, XVI.
pit by this, and then assure themselves that their
state shall be established.
6. We have heard of the pride of JVloab;
he is very proud: even of his haughtiness,
and his pride, and his wrath : but his lies
shall not be so. 7. Therefore shall Moab
howl for Moab, every one shall howl : for
the foundations of Kir-hareseth shall ye
mourn; surely they are stricken. 8. For
the fields of Heshbon languish, and the
vine of Sibmah: the lords of the heathen
have broken down the principal plants
thereof, they are come even unto Jazer,
they wandered through the wilderness; her
branches are stretched out, they are gone
over the sea : 9. Therefore I will bewail
with the weeping of Jazer the vine of Sib¬
mah : I will water thee with my tears, O
Heshbon, and Elealeh ; for the shouting for
thy summer-fruits, and for thy harvest, is
fallen. 10. And gladness is taken away,
and joy out of the plentiful field; and in the
vineyards there shall be no singing, neither
shall there be shouting: the treaders shall
tread out no wine in their presses ; I have
made their rm/r/ge-shouting to cease. 11.
Wherefore my bowels shall sound like a
harp for Moab, and mine inward parts for
Kir-haresh. 12. And it shall come to pass,
when it is seen that Moab is weary on the
high place, that he shall come to his sanc¬
tuary to pray; but he shall not prevail. 13.
This is the word that the Lord hath spoken
concerning Moab since that time. 1 4. But
now the Lord hath spoken, saying, Within
three years, as the years of a hireling, and
the glory of Moab shall be contemned, with
all that great multitude ; and the remnant
shall be very small and feeble.
Here we have,
1. The sins with which Moab is charged, v. 6.
The prophet seems to check himself for going about
to give good counsel to the Moabites, concluding
they would not take the advice he gave them. He
told them their duty, (whether they would hear, or
whether they would forbear,) but despairs of work¬
ing any good upon them; he would have healed
them, but they would not be healed. They that
will not be counselled, cannot be helped. Their sins
were, 1. Pride; this is most insisted upon; for per¬
haps there are more precious souls ruined by pride
than by any one lust whatsoever. The Moabites
were notorious for this; IVe have heard of the firide
of Moab ; it is what all their neighbours cry out
sname upon them for; he is very proud; the body
of the nation is so, forgetting the baseness of their
original, and the brand of infamy fastened upon them
by that Law of God, which forbade a Moabite to
enter into the congregation of the Lord for ever.
Dent xxiii. 3. We have heard of his haughtiness
and his firide; it is not the rash and rigid censure
of one or two concerning them, but it is the charac¬
ter which all that know them will give of them ;
they are a proud people: and therefore they will
not take good counsel when it is given them, they
think themselves too wise to be advised; therefore
they will not take example by Hezekiah to do justly
and love mercy; they scorn to make him their pat¬
tern, for they think themselves able to teach him.
They are proud, and therefore will not be subject
to God himself, nor regard the warnings he gives
them. The wicked, in the firide of his countenance,
will not seek after God: they are proud, and there
fore will not entertain and protect God’s outcasts,
they scorn to have any thing to do with them: but
this is not all, 2. We have heard of his wrath too,
(for those that are very proud, are commonly '
passionate,) particularly his wrath against the peo¬
ple of God, whom therefore he will rather per.m
cute than protect. 3. It is with his lies that he gab, ,
the gratifications of his pride and his passion; bu*
his lies shall not be so, he shall not compass his
proud and angry projects, as he hoped he should.
Some read it, His haughtiness, his firide, and hit
wrath, are greater than his strength. We know
that if we lay at his mercy, we should find no merev
with him, but he has not power equal to his malice,
his pride draws down ruin upon him, for it is tbi
preface to destruction, and he has not strength to
ward it off.
II. The sorrows with which Moab is threatened;
(i>. 7.) Therefore shall Moab howl for Moab; ali
the inhabitants shall bitterly lament the ruin of
their country, they shall complain one to another,
every one shall howl in despair, and not one shall
either see any cause, or have any heart, to encou¬
rage his friend. Observe,
1. The causes of this sorrow. (1.) The destruc¬
tion of their cities; For the foundations of Kir-ha¬
reseth shall ye mourn; that great and strong city,
which had held out against a mighty force, (2 Kings
iii. 15.) should now be levelled with the ground,
either burnt or broken down, and its foundations
stricken, bruised and broken; so the word signifies;
they shall howl when they see their splendid cities
turned into ruinous heaps. (2.) The desolation of
their country. Moab was famous for its fields and
vineyards; but those shall all be laid waste by the
invading army, (v. 8, 10.) See, [1.] What a fruit¬
ful, pleasant country they had, as the garden of the
Lord, Gen. xiii. 10. It was planted with choic;
and noble vines, with principal plants, which read,
even to Jazer, a city in the tribe of Gad; the luxu¬
riant branches of their vines wandered, and wound
themselves along the ranges on which they were
spread, even through the wilderness of Moab, there
were vineyards there; nay, they were stretched out,
and went even to the sea, the Dead sea; the best
grapes grew in their hedge-rows. [2.] How merry
and pleasant they had been in it; many a time they
had shouted for their summer-fruits, and for their
harvest, as the country people sometimes do with
us, when they have cut down all their com. They
had had joy and gladness in their fields and vine¬
yards, singing and shouting at the treading of their
grapes; nothing is said of theirpraising God for their
abundance, and giving him the glory of it. If they
had made it the matter of their thanksgiving, they
might still have had it the matter of their rejoicing,
but they made it the food and fuel of their lusts;
see therefore, [3.] How they should be stripped of
all; the fields shall languish, all the fruits of them
being carried away, or trodden down; they cannot
now enrich their owners as they have done, and
therefore they languish. The soldiers, called here
the lords of the heathen, shall break down all the
plants, though they were principal plants, the
choicest that could be got Now the shouting for
the enjoyment of the summer-fruits is fallen, and L
turned into howling for the loss of them; the joy of
harvest is ceased, there is no more singing, no more
shouting, for the treadiqg out of wine: they have
ISAIAH, XVII.
not what they have had to rejoice in, nor have they j|
a disposition to rejoice, the ruin of their country has |
marred their mirth. Note, First, God can easily :
change the note of those that are most addicted to [
mirth and pleasure, can soon turn their laughter |
into mourning, and their joy into heaviness. Sc- j
condly, Joy in God is, upon this account, far better !
than the iov of harvest, that it is what we cannot be !
robbed of, Ps. iv. 6, 7. Destroy the vines and the fig- !j
trees, and you make all the mirth of a carnal heart jl
to cease, Hos. ii. 11, 12. But a gracious soul can jj
rejoice in the Lord as the God of its salvation, even |j
then when the fig-tree does not blossom, and there i
is no fruit in the vine, Hab. iii. 17, 18. In God jj
therefore let us always rejoice with a holy triumph, jl
and in other things let us always rejoice with a holy j
trembling, rejoice as though we rejoiced not
2. The concurrence of the prophet with them in j
this sorrow; “/ mill with wee flint; bewail Jazer, and
the vine of Sibmah, and look with a compassionate
concern upon the desolations of such a pleasant
country; I will water thee with my tears, O Hesh-
bon, and mingle them with thy tears;” nay, (v. 11.)
it appears to be an inward grief; My bowels shall
sound like a harp for Moab; it should make such
an impression upon him, that he should feel an in¬
ward trembling, like that of the strings of a harp
when it is played upon. It well becomes God’s pro¬
phets to acquaint themselves with grief; the great
Prophet did so. The afflictions of the world, as well
as those of the church, should be afflictions to us.
See ch. xv. 5.
In the close of this chapter, we have,
*1.) The insufficiency of the gods of Moab, the
false gods, to help them, v. 12. Moab shall be soon
weary of the high-place, he shall spend his spirits
and strength in vain in praying to his idols; they
cannot help him, and he shall be convinced that
they cannot. It is seen that it is to no purpose to
expect any relief from the high-places on earth, it
must come from above the hills. Men are gener¬
ally so stupid, that they will not believe, till they
are made to see, the vanity of idols and of all crea¬
ture-confidences, nor will come off from them, till
they are made weary of them. But when he is
weary of his high-places, he will not go, as he
should, to God’s sanctuary, but to his sanctuary, to
the temple of Chemosh, the principal idol of Moab;
so it is generally understood; and he shall pray there
to as little purpose, and as little to his own ease and
satisfaction, as he did in his high-places; for, what¬
ever honours idolaters do their idols, they do not
thereby make them at all the better able to help
them; whether they are the Dii majorum Gentium
— Gods of the higher order, or minorum — of the
lower order, they are alike the creatures of men’s ]
fancy, and the work of men’s hands. Perhaps it
may be meant of their coming to God’s sanctuary:
when they found they could have no succours from
their high-places, some of them would come to the
temple of God at Jerusalem, to pray there, but in
vain; he will justly send them back to the gods
whom they have served, Judg. X. 14.
(2.) The sufficiency of the God of Israel, the only
true God, to make good what he had spoken against
them. _ _ 1 !
[1.] The thing itself was long since determined;
(v. 13.) This is the word, this is the thing, that the i
Lord has spoken concerning Moab, since the time :
that he began to be so proud and insolent, and allu¬
sive to God’s people. The country was long ago
doomed to ruin; this was enough to give an assur¬
ance of it, that it is the word which the Lord has
spoken; and as he will never unsay what he has
spoken, so all the power of hell and earth cannot
gainsay it, or obstruct the execution of it.
[2.] Now it was made known when it should be
done; the time was before fixed in the couns-1 of
God, but now it was revealed, The Lord has spoken
that it shall be within three years, v. 14. It is not
for us to know, or covet to know, the times and the
seasons, any further than God has thought fit to
make them known; and so far we may and must
take notice of them. See how God makes known
his mind by degrees; the light of divine revelation
shone more and more, and so does the light of divine
grace in the heart.
Observe, First, The sentence passed upon Moab;
The glory of Moab shall be contemned; it shall be
contemptible, when all those things they have glo¬
ried in, shall come to nothing. Such is the glory o»
this world, so fading and uncertain, admired awhik,
but soon slighted. Let that therefore which wiii
soon be contemptible in the eyes of others, be al¬
ways contemptible in our eyes, in comparison with
the far more exceeding weight of glory. It was
the glory of Moab that their country was very po¬
pulous, and their forces courageous, but where is
her glory, when all that great multitude is in a n. mi¬
ner swept away, some by one judgment, and seme
by another, and the little remnant that is left shall
be very small and feeble, not able to bear up un¬
der their own griefs, much less to make head
against their enemies’ insults? Let not therefore
the strong glory in their strength, nor the many in
their numbers.
Secondly, The time fixed for the execution of this
sentence; Within three years, as the years of a hire¬
ling, at the three years’ end exactly; for a servant
that is hired for a certain term keeps count to a day.
Let Moab know that her ruin is very near, and pre¬
pare accordingly. Fair warning is given, and with
it space to repent, which if they had improved as
Nineveh did, we have reason to think, the judg¬
ments threatened had been prevented.
CHAP. XVII..
Syria and Ephraim were confederate apr^inst -Judah, (ch.
vii. 1, 2.) and thev bein^ so closely linked together in
their counsels, this chapter, though it be entitled the
burthen of Damascus , (which was the head city of Sy¬
ria,) reads the doom of Israel too. I. The destruction
of the strong cities both of Syria and Israel is here fore¬
told, (v. 1 . .5.) and a^ain, v. 9. .1 1. II. In the midst of
judgment mercy is remembered to Israel, and a gracious
promise made that a remnant should be preserved from
the calamities, and should get good by them, v. 6 . . 8.
III. The overthrow of the Assyrian army before Jerusa¬
lem is pointed at, v. 12.. 14. in order of time, this chap¬
ter should be placed next after ch. ix. frr the destruc¬
tion of Damascus here foretold, happened in the reijrn
of Ahaz, 2 Kings xvi. 9.
1. f I MIL burden of Damascus. Behold
H Damascus is taken away from being
a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap. 2.
The cities of Aroer are forsaken; they shall
be for flocks which shall lie down, and none
shall make them afiaid. 3. The fortress
shall also cease from Ephraim, and the king¬
dom from Damascus, and the remnant of
Syria : they shall lie as the glory of the chil¬
dren of Israel, saith the Loud of hosts. 4.
And in that day it shall come to pass, thal.
the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and
the fatness of his flesh shall wax lean. .5.
And it shall be as when the harvest-man
gathereth the corn, and '-eapeth the ears
with his arm ; and it shf Jl be as he that
gathereth ears in the valley of Rephaim.
We have here the burthen cf Damascus; the
87
ISAiAH
Chaldee Paraphrase reads it, The burthen of the
cufi of the curse to drink to Damascus in; and the
ten tribes being in alliance, they must expect to
pledge Damascus in this cup of trembling that is to
go round.
1. Damascus itself, the head city of Syria, must
be destroyed; the houses, it is likely', will be burnt,
at least the walls and gates and fortifications demo¬
lished, and the inhabitants carried away captive, so
that for the present it is taken away from being a
city, and is reduced, not only to a village, but to a
ruinous heap, v. 1. Such desolating work as this
does sin make with cities.
2. The country towns are abandoned by their in¬
habitants, frightened or forced away by their inva¬
ders; The cities of Aroer (a province of Syria so
called) are forsaken, (v. 2.) the conquered dare not
dwell in them, and the conquerors have no occasion
for them, nor did they seize them for want, but
wantonness; so that the places which should be for
men to live in, are for Jlocks to lie down in, which
they may do, and none will disturb or dislodge them.
Stately houses are converted into sheep-cotes. It is
strange that great conquerors should pride them¬
selves in being common enemies to mankind. But,
how unrighteous soever they are, God is righteous
in causing these cities to spue out their inhabitants,
who by their wickedness had made themseh’es vile;
it is better that flocks should lie down there, than
that they should harbour such as are in open rebel¬
lion against God and virtue.
3. The strong-holds of Israel, the kingdom of the
ten tribes, will be brought to ruin; the fortress shall
cease from Eflhraim, (i\ 3.) that in Samaria, and
all the rest. They had joined with Syria in invad¬
ing Judah very unnaturally; and now they that had
been partakers in sin, should be made partakers in
ruin, and justly. When the fortress shall cease
from Eflhraim, by which Israel shall be weakened,
the kingdom will cease from Damascus, by which
Syria will be ruined. The Syrians were the ring¬
leaders in that confederacy against Judah, and there¬
fore they are punished first and sorest; and because
they boasted of their alliance with Israel, now that
Israel is weakened, they are upbraided with those
boasts; The remnant of Syria shall be as the glory
of the children of Israel; those few that remain of
the Syrians, shall be in as mean and despicable a
condition as the children of Israel are, and the
glory of Israel shall be no relief or reputation to
them. Sinful confederacies will be no strength, no
stay, to the confederates, when God’s judgments
come upon them.
See here what the glory of Jacob is, when God
contends with him, and what little reason Syria will
have to be proud of resembling the glory of Jacob.
(1.) It is wasted like a man in a consumption, v.
4. The glory of Jacob was their numbers, that they
were as the sand of the sea for multitude; but this
glory shall be made thin, when many are cut off,
and few left. Then the fatness of their flesh, which
was their pride and security, shall wax lean, and
the body of the people shall become a perfect skel¬
eton, nothing but skin and bones. Israel died of a
lingering disease, the kingdom of the ten tribes
wasted gradually. God was to them as a moth,
Hos. v. 12. Such is all the glory of this world, it
soon withers, and is made thin; but there is a far
more exceeding and eternal weight of glory design¬
ed for the spiritual seed of Jacob, which is not sub¬
ject to any such decay; fatness of God’s house,
which will not wax lean.
(2.) It is all gathered and carried away by the
Assyrian army, as the corn is carried out of the
field by the husbandman, v. 5. The corn is the
glory of the fields; (Ps. lxv. 13.) but when it is
reaped and gone, where is the glory? The people
I, XVII.
I had by their sins made themselves ripe for ruin, arid
I their glory was as quickly, as easily, as justly, and
as irresistibly, cut down and taken away, as the
corn is out of the field by the husbandman. God’s
judgments are compared to the thrusting in of the
sickle, when the harvest is rifle, Rev. xiv. 15. And
the victorious army, like the careful husbandmen
in the valley of Rephaim, where the corn was ex¬
traordinary, would nit, if they could help it, leave
an ear behind, would lose nothing that they could
lay their hands on.
6. Yet gleaning-grapes shall be left in it,
as the shaking of an olive-tree, two or three
berries in the top of the uppermost bough,
four or five in the outmost fruitful branches
thereof, saith the Loud God of Israel. 7.
At that day shall a man look to his Maker,
and his eyes shall have respei t to the Holy
One of Israel. 8. And he shall not look to
the altars, the work of his hands, neither
shall respect that which his fingers have
made, either the groves or the images.
Mercy is here reserved in a parenthesis, in the
midst of judgment, for a remnant that should escape
the common ruin of the kingdom of the ten tribes.
Though the Assyrians took all the care they crukl
that none should slip out of their net, yet the meek
of the earth were hid in the day cf the Lord’s an¬
ger, and had their lives given them for a prey, and
made comfortable to them by their retirement to
the land of Judah, where they had the liberty of
God’s courts.
1. They shall be but a small remnant, a very few
which shall be marked for preservation; (v. 6.)
Gleaning-grafles shall be left in it; the body of the
people were carried into captivity, but here and
there one was left behind, perhaps one of two in a
bed, when the other was taken, Luke xvii. 34. The
most desolating judgments in this world are short of
the last judgment, which shall be universal, and
which none shall escape. In times of the greatest
calamity, some are kept safe, as in times of the
greatest degeneracy some are kept pure. But the
fewness of those that escape, supposes the captivity
of the far greatest part; those that are left, are but
like the poor remains of an olive-tree, when it has
been carefully shaken by the owner; if there be two
or three berries in the tofl of the uflflermost bough,
(out of the reach of them that shook it,) that is all.
Such is the remnant according to the election of
grace, very few in comparison with the multitudes
that walk on in the broad way.
2. They shall be a sanctified remnant; (v. 7, 8.)
these few that are preserved, are such as, in the
prospect of the judgment approaching, had repent¬
ed of their sins, and reformed their lives, and there¬
fore were snatched thus as brands r ut of the burn¬
ing; or, such as, being escaped, and becoming refu¬
gees in strange countries, were awakened, partly by
a sense of the distinguishing mercy of their deliver¬
ance, and partly by the distresses they were still in,
to return to God. (1.) They shall look up to their
Creator, shall inquire, Where is God my Maker ,
who giveth songs in the night, in such a night rf
affliction as this? Job xxxv. 10, 11. They shall
acknowledge his hand in all the events concerning
them, merciful and afflictive, and shall submit to
his hand; they shall give him the glory due to his
name, and be suitable affected with his providences;
they shall expect relief and succour from him, and
depend upon him to help them; their eyes shall have
respect to him, as the eyes of a servant to tne henc
of his master, Vs. cxxiii. 2.' Observe, It is our dur
88
ISAIAH
at all times to have respect to God, to have our eyes [
ever toward him, both as our Maker, the Author
of our being, and the God of nature, and as the Holy
One of Israel, a God in covenant with us, and the
God of grace; particularly, when we are in afflic¬
tion, our eyes must be toward the Lord, to pluck
our feet out of the net; (Ps. xxv. 15.) to bring us to
this is the design of his providence, as he is our
Maker, and the work of his grace, as he is the Holy
One of Israel. (2.) They shall look off from their
idols, the creatures of their own fancy, shall no lon¬
ger worship them, and seek to them, and expect
relief from them. For God will be alone regarded,
or he does not look upon himself as at all regarded.
He that looks to his Maker, must not look to the
altars, the work of his hands, but disown them and
cast them off; must not retain the least respect for
that which his fingers have made, but break it to
pieces, though it were . his own workmanship, the
groves and the images; the word signifies images
made in honour of the sun, and by which he was
worshipped, the most ancient and most plausible
idolatry, Deut. iv. 19. Job xxxi. 26. We have
reason to account those happy afflictions, which part
between us and our sins, and, by sensible convic¬
tions of the vanity of the world, that great idol, cool
our affections to it, and lower our expectations
from it,
9. Iii that day shall his strong cities be as
a forsaken bough, and an uppermost branch,
which they left, because of the children of
Israel: and there shall be desolation. 10.
Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy
salvation, and hast not been mindful of the
Rock of thy strength; therefore shait thou
plant pleasant plants, and shait set it with
strange slips: 11. In that day shait thou
make thy plant to grow, and in the morning
shait thou make thy seed to flourish ; but the
harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief
and of desperate sorrow.
Here the prophet returns to foretell the woful
desolations that should be made in the land of Israel
by the army of the Assyrians.
1. That the cities should be deserted; even the
strong cities, which should have protected the
country, shall not be able to protect themselves;
they shall be as a forsaken bough, and an upper¬
most branch, of an old tree, which is gone to decay,
forsaken of its leaves, and appears on the top of the
tree, bare, and dry, and dead; so shall their strong
cities look, when the inhabitants have deserted
them, and the victorious army of the enemy pillaged
and defaced them ; (n. 9. ) they shall be as the ci¬
ties (so it may be supplied) which the Canaanites
left, the old inhabitants of the land, because of the
children of Israel, when God brought them in with
a high hand, to take possession of that good land,
cities which they budded not As the Canaanites
then fled before Israel, so Israel should now fly be¬
fore the Assyrians. And herein the word of God
was fulfilled, that if they committed the same
abominations, the land should spue them out, as it
spued out the nations that were before them, (Lev.
xviii. 28.) and that as, while they had God on their
side, one of them chased a thousand, so, when they
had made him their Enemy, a thousand of them
should flee at the rebuke of one; so that in the cities
should be desolation, according to the threatenings
in the law, Lev. xxvi. 31. Deut. xxviii. 52.
2. That the country should be laid waste, v. 10,
11. Observe here, (1.) The sin that had provoked
God to bring so great a destruction upon that plea-
, XVII
sant land; it was for the iniquity of them that dice.,
therein; “ It is because thou hast forgotten the Goa
of thy salvation, and all the great salvations he has
wrought for thee, hast forgotten thy dependence
upon him and obligations to him, and hast not been
mindfui of the Hock of thy strength, not i nly who
is himself a strong Rock, but has been thy Strength
many a time, or thou hadst been sunk and broken
long since.” Note, The God of our salvation is the
Rock of our strength; and our forgetfulness and un¬
mindfulness of him are at the bottom of all sin;
therefore we have perverted our way, because we
have forgotten the Lord our God, and so we undo
ourselves. (2.) The destruction itself, aggravated
by the great care they took to improve their land,
and to make it vet more pleasant. [1.] Look upon
it at the time of the seedness, and it was all like a
garden and a vineyard; that pleasant land was re¬
plenished with pleasant plants, the choicest of its
own growth; nay, so nice and curious were the in¬
habitants, that, not content with them, they sent to
all the neighbouring countries for strange slips, the
more valuable for being strange, uncommon, far¬
fetched, and dear-bought, though perhaps they had
of their own not inferior to them. This was an in¬
stance of their pride and vanity, and (that ruining
error) their affectation to be like the nations. Wheat,
and honey, and oil, were their staple commodities;
(Ezek. xxvii. 17.) but not content with these, they
must have flowers and greens with strange names
imported from other nations, and a great deal c f
care and pains must be taken by hot-beds to make
these plants to grow, the soil must be forced, and
they must be covered with glasses to shelter them,
and early in the morning the gardeners must be up
to make the seed to flourish, that it may excel those
of their neighbours. The ornaments of nature are
not to be altogether slighted, but it is a folly to be
over-fond of them, and to bestow more time, and
cost, and pains, about them than they deserve, as
many do. But here this instance seems to be put in
general for their great industry in cultivating their
ground, and their expectations from it accordingly;
they doubt not but their plants will grow and flour¬
ish. But, [2.] Look upon the same ground at the
time of harvest, and it is all like a wilderness, a dis¬
mal melancholy place, even to the spectators, much
more to the owners; for the harvest shall be a heap,
all in confusion, in the day of grief and of desperate
sorrow. The harvest used to be a time of joy, of
singing and shouting; (ch. xvi. 10.) but this harvest
the hungry eat up, (Job v. 5.) which makes it a
day of grief, and the more, because the plants were
pleasant and costly, (v. 10.) and their expectations
proportionably raised. The harvest had some¬
times been a day of grief, if the crop were thin, and
the weather unseasonable; and yet in that case
there was hope that the next would be better: but
this shall be desperate sorrow, for they shall see
not only this year’s products carried off, but the
property of the ground altered, and their conquer¬
ors lords of it. The margin reads it, The harvest
shall be removed, (into the enemy’s country or camp,
Deut. xxviii. 33. ) in the day of inheritance, (when
thou thoughtest to inherit it,) and there shall be
deadly sorrow. This is a good reason why we
should not lay up our treasure in these things which
we may so quickly be despoiled of, but in that good
part which shall never be taken away from us.
12. Wo to the multitude of many people,
which make a noise like the noise of the
seas ; and to the rushing of nations, that
make a rushing like the rushing of mighty
waters! 13. The nations shall rush like the
rushing of many waters: but God. shall re-
ISAIAH, XVIII.
l»uke them, and they shall flee far off, and
shall be chased as the chaff of the moun¬
tains before the wind, and like a rolling
tiling before the whirlwind. 14. And, be¬
hold, at evening-tide trouble ; and before the
morning he is not. This is the portion of
them that spoil us, and the lot of them that
rob us.
These verses read the doom of those that spoil
and rob the people of God; if the Assyrians and Is¬
raelites invade and plunder Judah — if the Assyrian
army take God’s people captive, and lay their
country waste, let them know that ruin will be their
lot and portion.
They are here brought in,
1. Triumphing over the people of God. They
rely upon their numbers; the Assyrian army was
made up out of divers nations, it is the multitude of
many people, (v. 12.) by which weight they hope
to carry the cause; they are very noisy, like the
roaring of the seas; they talk big, hector and
threaten, to frighten God’s people from resisting
them, and all their allies from sending in to their
aid. Sennacherib and Rabshakeh, in their speeches
and letters, made a mighty noise, to strike a terror
upon Hezekiah and his people; the nations that fol¬
lowed them, made a rushing like the rushing of
many waters, and those mighty ones, that threaten
to bear down all before them, and carry away every
thing that stands in their way: the floods have lifted
u/i their voice, have lifted up. their waves ; such is
the tumult of the people, and the heathen, when
they rage, Ps. ii. 1. — xciii. 3.
2". Triumphed over by the judgments of God.
They think to carry their point by dint of noise; but
wo to them, (u. 12.) for he shall rebuke them;
God shall, one whom they little think of, have no
regard to, stand in no awe of; he shall give them a
check with an invisible hand, and then they shall
flee afar off. Sennacherib and Rabshakeh, and the
remains of their forces, shall run away in a fright,
and shall be chased by their own terrors, as the
chaff of the mountains which stand bleak before the
wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind,
like thistle-down; so the margin; they make them¬
selves as chaff before the wind, (Ps. xxxv. 5.) and
then the angel of the Lord, (as it follows there,) the
same angel that slew many of them, shall chase the
rest God will make them like a wheel, or rolling
thing, and then persecute them with his tempest, and
make them afraid with his storm, Ps. lxxxiii. 13,
IS. Note, God can dispirit the enemies of his
church when they are most courageous and confi¬
dent, and dissipate them when they seem most
closely consolidated. This shall be done suddenly;
(?>. 14.) At evening-tide they are veiy troublesome,
and threaten trouble to the people of God; but be¬
fore the morning he is not, at sleeping time they are
c ist into a deep sleep, Ps. lxxvi. 5, 6. It was in
the night that the angel routed the Assyrian army.
God can in a moment break the power of his
church’s enemies, then when it appears most for¬
midable; and this is written for the encouragement
of the people of God in all ages, when they find
th mselves an unequal match for their enemies; for
th s is the portion of them that spoil us, they shall
th mselves be spoiled. God will plead his church’s
cause; and they that meddle, do it to their own hurt.
CHAP. XVIII.
Whatever country it is that is meant here by the land sha¬
dowing with wings} here is a wo denounced against it,
for God has, upon his people’s account, a quarrel with it.
I. They threaten God’s people, v. 1, 2. II. All the
neighbours are hereupon called to take notice what will
be the issue, v. 3. III. Though God seem unconcerned
Vol. iv.— M
8D
in the distress of his people for a time, he will at .ength
appear against their enemies, and will remarkably cut
them off, v. 4. .6. IV. This shall redound very much to
the glory of God, v. 7.
1. V%rO to the land shadowing with
▼ t wings, which is beyond the riv ers
of Ethiopia : 2. That sendeth ambassadors
by tiie sea, even in vessels of bulrushes upon
the waters, saying , Go, ye swift messengers,
to a nation scattered and peeled, to a peo¬
ple terrible from their beginning hitherto; a
nation meted out and trodden down, whose
land the rivers have spoiled! 3. All ye in¬
habitants of the world, and dwellers on the
earth, see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign
on the mountains; and when he bloweth a
trumpet, hear ye. 4. For so the Lord said
unto me, I will take my rest, and I will con¬
sider in my dwelling-place like a clear heat
upon herbs, and like a cloud of dew in the
heat of harvest. 5. For afore the harvest,
when the hud is perfect, and the sour grape
is ripening in the flower, he shall both cut
off the sprigs with pruning-hooks, and take
away and cut down the branches. 6. They
shall he left together unto the fow ls of the
mountains, and to the beasts of the earth:
and the fowls shall summer upon them, and
all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon
them. 7. In that time shall the present he
brought unto the Lord of hosts of a people
scattered and peeled, and from a people ter¬
rible from their beginning hitherto ; a nation
meted out and trodden under foot, whose
land the rivers have spoiled, to the place of
the name of the Lord of hosts, the mount
Zion.
Interpreters are very much at a loss where to find
this land that lies beyond the rivers of Cush: some
take it to be Egypt, a maritime country, and full of
rivers, and which courted Israel to depend upon
them, but proved broken reeds; but against this it
is strongly objected, that the next chapter is distin¬
guished from this by the title of the burthen of
Egypt. Others take it to be Ethiopia, and read it,
which lies near, or about, the rivers of Ethiopia, not
that in Africa, which lay in the south of Egypt, but
that which we call Arabia, which lav east of Ca¬
naan, which Tirhakah was now king of. He thought
to protect the Jews, as it were, under the shadow of
his wings, by giving a powerful diversion to the king
of Assyria, when he made a descent upon his coun¬
try, at the time that he was attacking Jerusalem, 2
Kings xix. 9. But, though by his ambassadors he
bid defiance to the king of Assyria, and encouraged
the Jews to depend upon him, God, by the prophet,
slights him, and will not go forth with him; he may
take his own course, but God will take another
course to protect Jerusalem, while he suffers the
attempt of Tirhakah to miscarry, and his Arabian
army to be ruined; for the Assyrian shall become a
present or sacrifice to the Lord of hosts, and to the
place of his name, by the hand of an angel, not by
the hand of Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, v. 7 This
1 is a very probable exposition of this chapter.
But from a hint of Dr. Lightfort’s in his Harmo-
i; ny of the Old Testament, I incline to understand this
90
ISAIAH, XVIII.
chapter as a prophecy against Assyria ; and so a
r.nntinu ition ot the prophecy in the three last verses
of tire foregoing chapter, with which therefore this
should be joined. That was against the army of
the Assyrians, which rushed in upon Judah, this
against the land of Assyria itself, which lay beyond
the rivers of Arabia, the rivers of Euphrates and
Tigris, which bordered on Arabia Deserta. And
in calling it the land shadowing with wings, he
seems to refer to what he himself had said of it, ( ch .
viii. 8.) that the stretching out of his wings shall Jill
thy land, O Immanuel. The prophet might per¬
haps describe the Assyrians by such dark expres¬
sions, not naming them, for the same reason that
St. Paul, in his prophecy, speaks of the Roman em¬
pire by a periphrasis, fie who now lelteth, 2 Thess.
li. 7. Here is,
I. l'he attempt made by this land (whatever it is)
upon a nation scattered and fieeled, v. 2. Swift
messengers are sent by water to proclaim war
against them, as a nation marked by Providence,
and meted out, to be trodden under foot. Whether
this be the Ethiopians waging war with the Assy¬
rians, or the Assyrians with Judah, it teaches us, 1.
That a people which have been terrible from their
beginning, have made a figure, and borne a mighty
sway, may yet become scattered and peeled, and
mav be spoiled even by their own rivers that should
enrich both the husbandman and the merchant.
Nations which have been formidable, and have
kept all in awe about them, may, by a concurrence
of accidents, become despicable, and an easy prey
to their insulting neighbours. 2. Princes and states
that are ambitious of enlarging their territories, will
still have some pretence or other to quarrel with
those whose countries they have a mind to; “ It is
a nation that has been terrible, and therefore we
must be revenged on it; it is now a nation scattered
and peeled, meted out and trodden down, and there¬
fore it will be an easy prey for us.” Perhaps it is
not brought so low as they represent it. God’s»peo-
ple are trampled on as a nation scattered and peel¬
ed, but whoever think to swallow them up, find
them still as terrible as they have been from their
beginning; they are cast down, but not deserted,
not destroyed.
II. The alarm sounded to the nations about, by
which they are summoned to take notice of what
God is about to do, i’. 3. The Ethiopians and As¬
syrians have their counsels and designs, which they
have laid deep, and promise themselves much from,
and, in prosecution of them, send their ambassadors
and messengers from place to place; but let us now
inquire what the great God says to all this: 1. He
lifts ufi an ensign upon the mountains, and blows a
trumpet, by which he proclaims war against the
enemies of his church, and calls in all her friends
and well-wishers into her service. He gives notice
that he is about to do some great work, as Lord of
hosts. 2. All the world is bid to take notice of it;
all the dwellers on earth must see the ensign, and
hear the trumpet, must observe the motions of the
Divine Providence, and attend the directions of the
divine will. Let all enlist under God’s banner,
and be on his side, and hearken to the trumpet of
his word, which gives not an uncertain sound.
III. The assurance God gives to his prophet, by him
to bi given to his people; though he might seem for
a time to sit by as an unconcerned spectator, yet he
would certainly and seasonably appear for the com¬
fort of his people, and the confusion of his and their
enemies; (v. 4.) So the Lord said unto me. Men will
nave their saying, but God also will have his; and
as we may be sure his word shall stand, so he often
whispers it in the ears of his servants the prophets.
When he says, “I will take my rest,” it is not as
f he were weary of governing the world, or as if
he either needed or desired to retire from it. and
repose himself; but t intimates 1. That the great
God has a perfect, u odisturbed, enjoyment of him¬
self, in the midst of all the tosses and changes <1
this world; the Lord sits even upon the floods un¬
shaken; the Eternal Mind is always easy. 2. That
sometimes he may seem to his people as if he tor k
not wonted notice of what is done in this lower world ;
they are tempted to think he is as one asleep, or as
one astonished; (Ps. xliv. 23. Jer. xiv. 9.) but evtn
then he knows very well what men do, and what he
himself will do.
(1.) He will take care of his people, and be a Shel¬
ter to them; he will regard his dwelling-place, his eye
and his heart are, and shall be, upon it for gor d conti¬
nually. Zion is his rest forever, where he will dwed;
and he will look after it; so some read it; he will lift
up the light of his countenance upon it, will consi¬
der over it what is to be done, and will be sure to do
all for the best; he will adapt the comforts and re¬
freshments he provides for them, to the exigencies
of their case; and they will therefore be acceptable,
because seasonable. [1.] Like a clear heat after
rain, (so the margin,) which is very reviving and
pleasant, and makes the herbs to flourish. [2.]
Like a dew and a cloud in the heat of harvest, which
are very welcome, the dew to the ground, and the
cloud to the labourers. Note, There is that in
God, which is a shelter and refreshment to his
people in all weathers, and arms them against the
inconveniencies of every change. Is the weathci
cooli1 There is that in his favour, which will warm
them. Is it hot? There is that in his faveur, which
will cool them. Great men have their winter-house
and their summer-house; (Amos iii. 15.) but they
that are at home with God, have both in him.
(2.) He will reckon with his and their enemies,
v. 5, 6. When the Assyrian army promises itself
a plentiful harvest in the taking of Jerusali m, and
the plundering of that rich city, when the bud of
that project is perfect, before the harvest is gather¬
ed in, while the sour grape of their enmity to He-
zekiah and his people is ripening in the flower, and
the design is just ready to put in execution, God
shall destroy that army as easily as the husbandman
cuts off the sprigs of the vine with pruning-hooks,
or, because the grape is sour, and good for nothing,
and will not be cured, takes away, and cuts down,
the branches. This seems to point at the overthrow
of the Assyrian army by a destroying angel; when
the dead bodies of the soldiers were scattered like
the branches and sprigs of a wild vine, which the
husbandman has cut to pieces. And they shall be
left to the fowls of the mountains, and 'the beasts of
the earth, to prey upon, both winter and summer;
for as God’s people are protected all seasons of the
year, both in cold and heat, (i>. 4.) so their ene mies
are at all seasons exposed; birds and beasts of prey
shall both summer and winter upon them, till they
are quite ruined.
IV. The tribute of praise which should be brought
to God from all this, v. 7. In that time, when this
shall be accomplished, shall the present be brought
unto the Lord of hosts. 1. Some understand this cf
the conversion of the Ethiopians to the faith rf
Christ in the latter days; of which we have the spe¬
cimen and beginning in Philip’s baptizing the Ethi¬
opian eunuch, Acts viii. 27. They that were a peo¬
ple scattered and peeled, meted out, and trodden
down, (v. 2.) shall be a present to the Lord; and
though they seem useless and worthless, they shall
be an acceptable present to him who judges of men
by the sincerity of their faith and love, net bv the
pomp and presperity of their outward condition.
Therefore the gospel was ministered to the Gen
tiles, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be
acceptable, Rom. xv. 16. It is prophesied (P*
91
TSAIAH, XIX.
Ixviii. 31 . j that Ethiopia should soon stretch out her
hands unto God. 2. Others understand it of the
spoil of Sennacherib’s army, out of which, as usual,
presents were brought to the Lord of hosts. Numb,
xxxi. 59. It was the present of a people scattered
and peeled. (1.) It was won from the Assyrians,
who were now themselves reduced to such a condi¬
tion as they scornfully described Judah to be in, v.
1. They that unjustly trample upon others, shall
themselves be justly trampled upon. (2.) It was of¬
fered by the people of God, who were, m disdain,
called a people scattered and peeled. God will put
honour upon his people, though men put contempt
upon them. Lastly, Observe, the present that is
brought to the Lord of hosts, must be brought to the
place of the name of the Lord of hosts; what is offer¬
ed to God, must be offered in the way that he has ap¬
pointed; we must be sure to attend him, and expect
him to meet us, there where he records his name.
CHAP. XIX.
As Assyria was a breaking rod to Judah, with which it was
smitten, so Egypt was a broken reed, with which it was
cheated; and therefore God had a quarrel with them
both. We have before read the doom of the Assyrians,
now here we have the burthen of Egypt, a prophecy con¬
cerning that nation; 1. That it should be greatly weak¬
ened and brought low, and should be as contemptible
among the nations as now it was considerable, rendered
so by a complication of judgments which God would
bring upon them, v. 1 . . 17. II. That at length God’s
'ioly religion should be brought into Egypt, and set up
there, in part by the Jews that should fly thither for re¬
fuge, but more" fully by the preachers of the gospel of
Christ, through whose ministry churches should be plant¬
ed in Egypt in the days of the Messiah, (v. 18.. 25.)
which would abundantly balance all the calamities here
threatened.
1. f' lnHE burden of Egypt. Behold, the
JL Lord rideth upon a swift cloud, and
shall come into Egypt; and the idols of
Egypt shall be moved at his presence, and
the heart of Egypt shall ‘melt in the midst
of it. 2. And I will set the Egyptians against
the Egyptians : and they shall fight every
one against his brother, and every one
against his neighbour; city against city,
and kingdom against kingdom. 3. And the
spirit of Egypt shall fail in the midst there¬
of; and I will destroy the counsel thereof :
and they shall seek to the idols, and to the
charmers, and to them that have familiar
spirits, and to the wizards. 4. And the
Egyptians will I give over into the hand of
a cruel lord ; and a fierce ’king shall rule
over them,saith the Lord, the LoRDof hosts.
5. And the waters shall fail from the sea,
and the river shall be wasted and dried up.
6. And they shall turn the rivers far away,
and the brooks of defence shall be emptied
and dried up : the reeds and flags shall wi¬
ther. 7. The paper-reeds by the brooks, by
the mouth of the brooks, and every thing
sown by the brooks, shall wither, be driven
away, and be no more. 8. The fishers also
shall mourn, and all they that cast angle
into the brooks, shall lament, and they that
spread nets upon the waters shall languish.
9. Moreover, they that work in fine flax,
and weave net-works, shall be confounded.
10. And they shall be broken in the purposes
thereof, all that make sluices and ponds for
fish. 1 1 . Surely the princesof Zoan are fools,
the counsel of the wise counsellors of Pha¬
raoh is become brutish : how say ye unto
Pharaoh, I am the son of the wise, the son
of ancient kings? 12. Where«re they? where
are thy wise men? and let them tell thee
now, and let them know what the Lord of
hosts hath purposed upon Egypt. 13. The
princes of Zoan are become fools, the prin¬
ces of Noph are deceived; they have also
seduced Egypt, even they that are the staj
of the tribes thereof. 14. The Lord hath
mingled a perverse spirit in the midst there¬
of : and they have caused Egypt to err in
every work thereof, as a drunken man stag-
gereth in his vomit. 1 5. Neither'shall there
be any work for Egypt, which the head or
tail, branch or rush, may do. 16. In that
day shall Egypt be like unto women ; and
it shall be afraid and fear, because of the
shaking of the hand of the Lord of hosts,
which he shaketh over it. 1 7. And the land
of Judah shall be a terror unto Egypt : every
one that maketh mention thereof shall be
afraid in himself, because of the counsel of
the Lord of hosts, which he hath deter¬
mined against it.
Though the land of Egypt had of old been a house
of bondage to the people of God, where they had
been ruled with rigour, yet among the unbelieving
Jews there still remained much of the humour of
their fathers, who said, Let us make a captain, and
return into Egypt. Upon all occasions they trusted
to Egypt for help, ( cti . xxx. 2.) and thither they
fled, in disobedience to God’s express command,
when things were brought to the last extremity in
their own country, Jer. xliii. 7. Rabshakeh up¬
braided Hezekiah with this, ch. xxxvi. 6. While
they kept up an alliance with Egypt, and it was a
powerful ally, they stood not in awe of the judg¬
ments of God ; for against them they depended upon
Egypt to protect them. Nor did they depend upon
the power of God, when at any time they were in
distress; but Egypt was their confidence. To pre¬
vent all this mischief, Egypt must be mortified,
and many ways God here tells them he will take to
do it.
I. The gods of Egypt shall appear to them to be
what they always really were, utterly unable to help
them; (v. 1.) The Lord rides upon a cloud, a swift
cloud, and shall come into Egypt! as a judge goes
in state to the bench to try and condemn the male¬
factors, or as a general takes the field with his troops
to crush the rebels, so shall God come into Egypt
with his judgments; and when he comes, he will
certainly overcome. In all this burthen of Egypt
here is ne mention of any foreign enemy invading
them; but God himself will come against them, and
raise up the causes of their destruction from among
themselves. He comes upon a cloud, above the
reach of opposition or resistance. He comes apace,
upon a swift cloud; for tin ir judgment lingers not,
when the time is come. He rides upon the wings
of the wind, and far excelling the greatest pomp
and splendour of earthly princes; he makes the clouds
99
ISAIAH, XIX.
his chariots, Ps. xvm. 9. — civ. 3. When he comes, j
l he idols of Egypt shall be moved, sh:dl be removed,
.n his presence, and perhaps be made to fall, as
D.igon did before the ark. Isis, Osiris, and Apis,
those celebrated idols of Egypt, being found unable
to relieve their worshippers, shall be disowned and
rejected by them. Idolatry had got deeper rooting
in Egypt than in any land besides, even the most
absurd idolatries; and yet now the idols shall be
moved, and they shall be ashamed of them. When
the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt, he executed
judgments upon the gods of the Egyptians; (Numb,
xxxiii. 4.) no marvel then if, when he comes, they
begin to tremble. The Egyptians shall seek to the
idols, when they are at their wits’ end, and consult
the charmers and wizards; (x>. 3.) but all in vain;
they see their ruin hastening on them notwith¬
standing.
II. The militia of Egypt, that had been famed
for their valour, shall be quite dispirited and dis¬
heartened. No kingdom in the world was ever in
a better method of keeping up a standing army than
the Egyptians were; but now their heroes, that used
to be celebrated for courage, shall be posted for
cowards; the 'heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst
of it, like wax before the tire; ( v . 1.) the spirit of
Egypt shall fail, (y. 3.) They shall have no inclina¬
tion, no resolution, to stand up in defence of their
country, their liberty, their property; but shall j
tamely and ingloriouslv yield all to the invader and
oppressor; The Egyptians shall be like women;
(y. 16.) they shall be frightened, and put into con¬
tusion, by the least alarm; even those that dwelt in
the heart of the country, in the midst of it, and
therefore furthest from danger, will be as full of
frights as those that are situate on the frontier. Let
not the bold and brave be proud or secure, for
God can easily cut off the spirit of princes, (Ps.
lxxvi. 12.) and take away their hearts, lob xii. 24.
III. The Egyptians shall be embroiled in endless
dissensions and quarrels among themselves. There
shall be no occasion to bring a foreign force upon
them to destny them, they shall destroy one ano¬
ther; {y. 2.) / will set the Egyptians against the
Egyptians. As these divisions and animosities are
their sin, God is not the Author of them, they come
from men’s lusts; but God, as a Judge, permits
them for their punishment, and by their destroying
differences corrects them for their sinful agree¬
ments. Instead of helping one another, and acting
each in his place for the common good, they shall
fight every one against his brother and neighbour,
whom he ought to love as himself; city against city,
and kingdom against kingdom. Egypt was then
divided into twelve provinces, or dynasties; but
Psammetichus, the governor of one of them, by set¬
ting them it variance with one another, at length
made himself master of them all. A kingdom, thus
divided against itself, would soon be brought to deso¬
lation. En quo discordia civis perduxit miseros!
— 0 the wretchedness brought upon a people by their
disagreements among themselves! It is brought to
this by a perverse spirit, a spirit of contradiction,
which the Lord would mingle as an intoxicating
draught made up of several ingredients, for the
Egyptians, x». 14. One party shall be for a thing,
for no other reason than because the other is against
it; that is a perverse spirit, which, if it mingle with
the public counsels, tends directly to the ruin of the
public interests.
IV. Their politics shall be all blasted, and turned
into foolishness; when God will destroy the nation,
lie will destroy the counsel thereof, ( v . 3.) by taking
away wisdom from the statesmen, (Job xii. 20.) or
setting them one against another, as Hushai and
Ahithophel, or, by his providence, breaking their
measures even then when they seemed well laid; so
that the princes of Zoan are fools, they make fools
of one another, every one betrays his own folly, and
Divine Providence makes fools of them all, x'. 11.
Pharaoh had his wise counsellors, Egypt was fa
mous for such; but their counsel is all become bru¬
tish, they have lost all their forecast, one would
think they were become idiots, and were bereavt d
of common sense. Let no man glory then in his
own wisdom, nor depend upon that, cr upon the
wisdom of those about him; for he that gives under¬
standing, can, when he pleases, take it away. And
from them it is most likely to be taken away, that
boast of their policy, as Pharaoh’s c< unsellors heie
did, and, to recommend themselves to places < i
public trust, boast of their great unde rstanding. “ 1
am the son of the wise, of the God of wisdom, of
wisdom itself,” says one; “My father was an emi¬
nent privy-counsellor of note, in his day, for wis¬
dom: ’ or of the antiquity and dignity cf their fami¬
lies; “I am” (says another) “the son of ancient
kings.” The nohlesof Egypt boasted much of their
antiquity, producing fabulous records of their suc¬
cession for above 10,000 years. This humour pre¬
vailed much among them about this time, as ap¬
pears by Herodotus; their common boast being, that
Egypt was some thousands of years more ancient
than any other nation. “ But where are thy wist
men? (x). 12.) Let them now show their wisdom
by foreseeing what ruin is coming upon their nation,
and preventing it, if they can. Let them with all
their skill know what the Lord of hosts has purposea
upon Egypt, and arm themselves accordingly.
Nay, so far are they from doing this, that they
themselves are, in effect, contriving the ruin of
Egypt, and hastening it on, v. 13. The princes of
Noph are not only deceived themselves, but they
have seduced Egypt, by putting their kings upon
arbitrary proceedings:” (by which both themselves
and their people were soon undone;) “ the governors
of Egypt, that are the stay and corner-stones of the
tribes thereof, are themselves undermining it.” It
is sad with a people when those that undertake for
their safety are helping forward their destruction,
and the physicians of the state are her worst dis¬
ease; when the things that belong to the public
peace, are so far hid from the eyes of those that are
entrusted with the public counsels, that in every
thing they blunder, and take wrong measures; so
here, (x\ 14.) They have caused Egypt to err in
every work thereof; every step they took, was a
false step ; they always mistook either the end or the
means, and their counsels were all unsteady and un¬
certain, like the staggerings and stammerings of a
drunken man in his vomit, who knows not what he
says, nor where he goes. Sec what reason we have
to pray for our privy-counsellors and ministers of
state, who are the great supports and blessings of the
state, if God give them a spirit of wisdom, but quite
contrary, if he hide their heart from understanding.
V. The rod of government shall be turned info
the serpent of tyranny and oppression; [v. A.) '• The
Egyptians will I give over into the hand of a cruel
lord; not a foreigner, but one of their ow’n, one that
shall rule over them by an hereditary right, but
shall be a fierce king, and rule them with rigour:”
either the twelve tyrants that succeeded Sethon, or
rather Psammetichus that recovered the monarchy
again; for he speaks of one cruel lord. Now the
barbarous usage which the Egyptian taskmaster:-
gave to God’s Israel long ago, was remembered
against them, and they were paid in their own coil:
by another Pharaoh. It is sad with a people when
the powers that should be for edification are foi
destruction, and they are ruined by those by whom
they should be ruled, when such as this is the man¬
ner of the king; as it is described, in terrorem — in
order to impress alarm. 1 Sam. viii 11.
93
ISAIAH
VI. Egypt was famous for its river Nile, which
was its wealth, an 1 strength, and beauty, and was
id ilized by them. Now it is here threatened, that
the ■waters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall
be wasted and dried up, v. 5. Nature shall not
herein favour them as she has done. Egypt was
never watered with the rain of heaven, (Zech. xiv.
18. ) and therefore the fruitfulness of their country
depended wholly upon the overflowing of their river;
it rh.it therefore be dried up, their fruitful land will
so in be turned into barrenness, and their harvests
cease; Every thing sown by the brooks will wither
of course, will be driven away, and be. no more, v.
7. If the paper-reeds by the brooks, at the very
mouth of them, wither, much more the corn, which
lies at a greater distanc , but derives its moisture
from them. Yet this is not all; the drying up of
their rivers is the destruction, 1. Of their fortifica¬
tions, for they are brooks of defence, (t. 6. ) making
the country difficult of access to an enemy; deep
rivers are the strongest lines, and most hardly
forced. Pharaoh is said to be a great dragon lying
in the midst of his rivers, and guarded by them,
bidding defiance to all about him, Ezek. xxix. 3.
But these shall be emptied and dried up, not by an
enemy, as Sennacherib with the sole of his foot
dried up mighty rivers, (c/i. xxxvii. 25.) and as Cy¬
rus, who took Babylon by drawing Euphrates into
many streams, but by the providence of God, which
sometimes turns water-springs into dry ground,
Ps. evii. 33. 2. It is the destruction of their fish,
which in Egypt was much of their food, witness that
base reflection which the children of Israel made,
(Numb. xi. 5.) We remember the fish which we did
eat in Egypt freely. The drying up of the rivers
will kill the fish, (Ps. cv. 29.) and that will ruin
those who make it their business, (1.) to catch fish,
whether by angling or nets; (v. 8.) they shall la¬
ment and languish, for their trade is at an end.
There is nothing which the children of this world
do more heartily lament, than the loss of that which
they used to get money by: Ploratur lacrymis am-
issa pecunia veris — Those are genuine tears, which
are shed over lost money. (2.) To keep fish, that
it may be ready when it is called for. There were
those that made sluices and ponds for fsh, (v. 10.)
but they shall be broken in the purposes thereof;
their business will fail, either for want of water to
fill their ponds, or for want of fish to replenish their
water's. God can find ways to deprive a country
even of that which is its staple commodity. The
Egyptians may' themselves remember the fish they
have formerly eaten freely, but now cannot have
for money. And that which aggravates the loss of
these advantages by the river, is, that it is their own
doings; (r. 6.) They shall turn the rivers far away.
Their kings and great men, to gratify their own
fancy, will drain water from the main river to their
own houses and grounds at a distance, preferring
their private conveniencies before the public, and
so by degrees the force of the river is sensibly weak¬
ened. Thus many do themselves a greater preju¬
dice at last than they think of; [1. ] Who pretend to
be wiser than nature, and to do better for them¬
selves than nature has done. [2.] Who consult their
own particular interest more than the common
good. Such may gratify themselves, but surely
they can never satisfy themselves, who, to serve a
turn, contribute to a public calamity, which they
themselves, at long run, cannot avoid sharing in.
Herodotus tells us that Pharaoh-Necho, (who reign¬
ed not long after this,) projecting to cut a free pas¬
sage by water from Nilus into the Red sea, em¬
ployed a vast number of men to make a ditch or
channel for that purpose; in which attempt he im¬
paired the river, lost a hundred and twenty thousand
of his people, and yet left the work unaccomplished.
XIX.
VII. Egypt was famous for the linen manufac
ture; but that trade shall be ruined. Solomon’?
merchants traded with Egypt for linen yam, ;
Kings x. 28. Their country produced the best flax,
and the best hands to work it; but they that work
in fine flax, shall be confounded, ( v . 9. ) either fi r
want of flax to work on, or for want of a demand
for that which they have worked, or of opportunity
to export it. The decay of trade weakens and
wastes a nation, and by degrees brings it to ru:n.
The trade of Egypt must needs sink, for (n. 15. J
There shall not be any work for Egypt to be em¬
ployed in; and when there is nothing to be done,
there is nothing to be got. There shall be an uni¬
versal stop put to business, no work which cither
head or tail, branch or rush, may do; nothing ti r
high or low, weak or strong, to do, no hire, Zech.
viii. 10. Note, The flourishing of a kingdom de¬
pends much upon the industry of the people; and
then things are likely to do well, when all hands are
at work; when the head and top branch do not dis¬
dain to labour, and the labour of the tail and rush is
not disdained. But when the learned professions are
unemployed, the principal merchants have no stocks,
and the handicraft tradesman nothing to do, poverty
comes upon a people as one that travelleth, and us
an armed man.
VIII. A general consternation shall seize the
Egyptians; they shall be afraid, and fear, (v. 16.)
which will be both an evidc nee of a universal dc c:.\ ,
and a means and presage of utter ruin. Two things
will put them into this fright; 1. What they hear
from the land of Judah; that shall be a terror
to Egvpt, v. 17. When they hear of the desola¬
tions made in Judah by the army of Sennacherib,
considering both the near neighbourhood, and the
strict alliance that was between them and Judah,
they will conclude it must be their turn next to be¬
come a prey to that victorious army. When their
neighbour’s house was on fire, they could not but
see their own danger; and therefore ever)- one cf the
Egyptians, that makes mention of Judah, shall be
afraid in himself, expecting the bitter cup shortly
to be put into his hands. 2. What they see in their
own land. They shall fear, (v. 16.) because of the
shaking of the hand of the Lord of hosts, and (to 7. )
because of the counsel of the Lord of hosts; which,
from the shaking of his hand, they shall conclude he
has determined against Egypt as well as Judah. F< i
if judgment begin at the house cf God, where will it
end? If this be done in the green tree, what shall be
done in the dry? See here, (1.) How easily God c: n
make those a terror to themselves, that have been n< t
only secure, but a terror to all about them. It is but
shaking his hand over them, or laying it upon seme
of their neighbours, and the stoutest hearts tremble
immediately. (2.) How well it becomes us to fear
before God, when he does but shake his hand ever
us, and to humble ourselves under his mighty hand,
when it does but threaten us, especially when we
see his counsel determined against us; for who c n
change his counsel?
18. In that day shall five cities in the lan 1
of Egypt speak the language of Canaan, and
swear to the Lord of hosts: one shall he
called, The city of destruction. 19. In that
day there shall be an altar to the Lord in
the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar
at the border thereof to the Lord. 20. And
it shall be for a sign and for a witness unto
the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt: for
they shall cry unto the Lord because of the
oppressors, and he shall send them a sa-
94
ISAIAH, XIX.
viour, and a great one, and he shall deliver
them. 21. And the Lord shall be known
to Egypt, and the Egyptians shall know the
Lord in that day, and shall do sacrifice and
oblation; yea, they shall vow a vow unto
the Lord, and perform it. 22. And the
Lord shall smite Egypt; he shall smite and
heal it: and they shall return even to the
Lord, and he shall be entreated of them,
and shall heal them. 23. In that day shall
there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria ;
and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt,
and the Egyptian into Assyria; and the
Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians.
24. In that day shall Israel be the third with
Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in
the midst of the land; 25. Whom the Lord
of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt
my people, and Assyria the work of my
hands, and Israel mine inheritance.
Out of the thick and threatening clouds of the
foregoing prophecy, here the sun of comfort breaks
forth, and it is the sun of righteousness. Still God
has mercy in store for Egypt, and he will show it,
not so much by reviving their trade, and replenish¬
ing their river again, as by bringing the true religion
among them, calling them to, and accepting them
in, the worship of the one only living and true God;
and these blessings of grace were much more valua¬
ble than all the blessings of nature, wherewith Egypt
was enriched. We know not of any event in which
this prophecy can be thought to have its full accom¬
plishment, short of the conversion of Egypt to the
faith of Christ, by the preaching (as is supposed) of
Mark the Evangelist, and the founding of many
Christian churches there, which flourished for many
ages. Many prophecies of this book point to the
days of the Messiah; and why not this? It is no
unusual thing to speak of gospel-graces and ordi¬
nances in the language of the Old Testament insti¬
tutions. And in these prophecies, those words, in
that day, perhaps, have not always a reference to
what goes immediately before, but have a peculiar
significancy pointing at that day which had been so
long fixed, and so often spoken of, when the day¬
spring from on high should visit this dark world.
Yet it is not improbable, which some conjecture,
that this prophecy was in part fulfilled when those
Jews who fled from their own country to take shel¬
ter in Egypt, when Sennacherib invaded their land,
brought their religion along with them, and, being
awakened to great seriousness by the troubles they
were in, made an open and zealous profession of it
..here, and were instrumental to bring many of the
Egyptians to embrace it; which was an earnest and
specimen of the more plentiful harvest of souls that
should be gathered in to God by the preaching of
the gospel of Christ. Josephus indeed tells us, that
Onias, the son of Onias the High Priest, living an
outlaw at Alexandria in Egypt, obtained leave of
Ptolemy Philometer, then king, and Cleopatra, his
queen, to build a temple to the God of Israel, like
that at Jerusalem, at Bubastis in Egypt, and pre-
1 ended a warrant for doing it from this prophecy
in Isaiah, that there shall be an altar to the Lord in
the land of Egypt; the service of God, Josephus af¬
firms, continued in it about 333 years, when it was
shut up by Paulinus, soon after the destruction of
Jerusalem bv the Romans: see Joseph. Jntia. 1. 13.
e. 6. and dc Bell. Judaic. 1. 7. c. 30. But that tem¬
ple was all along looked upon by 'he Dions 1-ws
as so great an irregularity, and an affront to the
temple at Jerusalem, that we cannot suppose this
prophecy to be fulfilled in it.
Observe how the conversion of Egypt is here de¬
scribed.
I. They shall speak the language of Canaan, the
holy language, the scripture-language; they shall
not only understand it, but use it; (v. 18.) they shall
introduce that language among them, and converse
freely with the people of God, and not, us they used
to do, by an interpreter, Gen. xlii. 23. Note, Con¬
verting grace, by changing the heart, changes the
language; for out of the abundance of the heart the
mouth speaks. Five cities in Egypt shall speak this
language; so many Jews shall come to reside in
Egypt, and they shall so multiply there, that they
shall soon replenish five cities; one of which shall
be the city of Heres, or of the sun, Heliopolis,
where the sun was worshipped, the most infamous
of all the cities of Egypt tor idolatry; even there
shall be a wonderful reformation — they shall speak
the language of Canaan. Or it may be taken thus,
as we render it, That for every five cities that shall
embrace religion, there shall be one (a sixth part
of the cities of Egypt) that shall reject it, and that
shall be called a city of destruction, because it re¬
fuses the method of salvation.
II. They shall swear to the Lord of hosts; not
only swear by him, giving him the honour of ap¬
pealing to him, as all nations did to the gods they
worshipped; but they shall by a solemn oath and
vow devote themselves to his honour, and bind
themselves to his service. They shall swear tt
cleave to him with purpose of heart, and shall wor¬
ship him not occasionally, but constantly. They
shall swear allegiance to him as their King, to
Christ, to whom all judgment is committed.
III. They shall set up the public worship of God
in their land; (v. 19.) There shall be an altar to
the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, an altar
on which they shall do sacrifice and oblation; (v.
21.) therefore it must be understood spiritually.
Christ, the great Altar, who sanctifies every gift,
shall be owned there, and the gospel-sacrifices of
prayer and praise shall be offered up; for by the
law of Moses there was to be no altar for sacrifice
but that at Jerusalem. In Christ Jesus all distinc¬
tion of nations is taken away; and a spiritual altar,
a gospel-church, in the midst of the land of Egypt,
is as acceptable to God as one in the midst of the
land of Israel; and spiritual sacrifices of faith and
love, and a contrite heart, please the Lord better
than an ox or bullock.
IV. There shall be a face of religion upon the na¬
tion, and an open profession made of it, discernible
to all who come among them; not only in the heart
of the country, but even in the borders of it, there
shall be a pillar, or pillars, inscribed, to Jehovah,
to his honour, as before there had been such pillars
set up in honour of false gods. As soon as a stranger
entered upon the borders of Egypt, he might soon
perceive what God they worshipped. Those that
serve God must not be ashamed to own him, but be
forward to do any thing that may be for a sign and
for a witness to the Lord of hosts, that even in the
land of Egypt he had some faithful worshippers,
who boasted of their relation to him, and made his
name their strong tower, or bulwark, cn their bor¬
ders, with which their coasts were fortified against
all assailants.
V. Being in distress, they shall seek to God, and
he shall be found of them; and this shall be a sign
and a witness for the Lord of hosts, that he is a God
hearing prayer to all flesh that come to him, v. 20.
See Ps. lxv. 2. When they cry to God by reason
of their oppressors, the cruel lords that shall rule
over them, (v 4.) he. shall be entreated of them;
95
ISAIAH, XX.
(e. 22.) whereas he had told his people Israel, who
had made it their own choice to have such a king,
that they should cry to him by reason of their king,
and he would not hear them, 1 Sam. viii. 18.
VI. They shall have an interest in the great Re¬
deemer. When they were under the oppression of
cruel birds, perhaps God sometimes raised them up
mighty deliverers, as he did for Israel in the days
of the judges; and by them, though he had smitten
the land, he healed it again; and, upon their return
to God in a way of duty, he returned to them in a
vay of mercy, and repaired the breaches of their
ottering state; for repenting Egyptians shall find
the same favour with God that repenting Ninevites
lid. But all these deliverances wrought for them,
is those for Israel, were but figures of gospel-salva-
"ion. Doubtless, Jesus Christ is the baviour, and
.lie Great One, here spoken of, whom God will
send the glad tidings of to the Egyptians, and by
whom he will deliver them out of the hands of their
enemies, that they may serve him without fear,
Luke i. 74, 75. Jesus Christ delivered the Gentile
nations from the service of dumb idols, and did
himself both purchase and preach liberty to the
captives.
VII. The knowledge of God shall prevail among
them, i'. 21. 1. They shall have the means of
knowledge; for many ages, in Judah only was God
known, for there only were the lively oracles found;
but now the Lord, and his name and will, shall be
known to Egyfit. Perhaps this may in part refer
to the translation of the Old T estament out of He¬
brew into Greek by the LXX., which was done at
Alexandria in Egypt, by the command of Ptolemy
king of Egypt; and it was the first time that the
scriptures were translated into any other language:
by the help of this, (the Grecian monarchy having
introduced their language into that country,) the
Lord was known to Egyfit, and a happy omen and
means it was of his being further known, v. 1. 2.
They shall have grace to improve those means; it
is promised not only that the Lord shall be known
to Egypt, but that the Egyptians shall know the
Lord; they shall receive and entertain the light
granted to them, and shall submit themselves to the
power of it. The Lord is known to our nation, and
yet I fear there are many of our nation that do not
know the Lord. But the promise of the new cove¬
nant is, that all shall know the Lord from the least
even to the greatest; which promise is sure to all
the seed. The effect of this knowledge of God is,
that they shall vow a vow to the Lord, and perform
it. For those do not know God aright, who either
are not willing to bind themselves to the Lord, or
do not make good these obligations.
VIII. They shall come into the communion of
saints; being joined to the Lord, they shall be added
to the church, and be incorporated with all the
saints.
1. All enmities shall be slain. Mortal feuds there
had been between Egypt and Assyria, they often
made war upon one another; but now there shall be
a highway between Egypt and jlssyria, ( v . 23.) a
happy correspondence settled between the two na¬
tions; they shall trade with one another, and every
tiling that passes between them shall be friendly.
The Egyptians shall serve, shall worship, the true
God with the Assyrians; and therefore the Assy¬
rians shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptians into
Assyria. Note, It becomes those who have com¬
munion with the same God, through the same Me¬
diator, to keep up an amicable correspondence with
one another. The consideration of our meeting at
the same throne of grace, and our serving with each
other in the same business of religion, should put
an end to all heats and animosities, and knit our
hearts to each other in holy love.
1 2. The Gentile nations shall not only unite with
each other in the gospel-fold under Christ the great
! Shepherd, but they shall all be united with the
| Jews. When Egypt and Assyria become partners
in serving God, Israel shall make a third with them,
j ( v . 24.) they shall become a threefold cord, not
J easily broken; the ceremonial law, which had long
been the partition- wall between Jews and Gentiles,
shall be taken down, and then they shall become
j one sheep-fold, under one shepherd. Thus united,
' they shall lie a blessing in the midst of the land,
j whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, v. 24, 25. (1.)
I Israel shall be a blessing to them all, because of
them, as concerning the flesh, Christ came; and they
were the natural branches of the good olive, to whom
did originally pertain its root and fatness, and the
Gentiles were but grafted in among them, Rem.
xi. 17. Israel lay between Egypt and Assyria, and
was a blessing to them, both by bringing them to
meet in that word of the Lord, which went forth
from Jerusalem, and that church which was first
set up in the land of Israel: Qui conveniunt in ali-
quo tertio, inter se conveniunt — They who meet in
a third, meet in each other. Israel is that third in
whom Egypt and Assyria agree, and is therefore a
blessing; for those are real and great blessings to
their generation, who are instrumental to unite those
that have been at variance. (2.) They shall all be
a blessing to the world; so the Christian church is,
made up of Jews and Gentiles; it is the beauty,
riches, and support, of the world. (3.) They shall
all be blessed of the Lord: [1.] They shall all be
owned by him as his. Though Egypt was formerly
a house of bondage to the people of God, and As¬
syria an unjust invader of them, all this shall now
be forgiven and forgotten, and they shall be as wel¬
come to God as Israel. They are all alike his peo¬
ple, whom he takes under his protection: they are
formed by him, for they are the work of his hands;
not only as a people, but as his people. They are
formed for him, for they are his inheritance, pre¬
cious in his eyes, and dear to him, and from whom
he has his rent of honour out of this lower world.
[2. ] They shall be owned together by him as jointly
his; his in concert; they shall all share in one and
the same blessing. Note, Those that are united in
the love and blessing of God, ought, for that reason,
to be united to each other in charity.
CHAP. XX.
^his chapter is a prediction of the carrying away of multi¬
tudes both of the Egyptians and the Ethiopians into cap¬
tivity by the king of Assyria. Here is, I. The sign by
which this was foretold, which was, the prophet’s going,
for some time, barefoot and almost naked, like a poor
captive, v. 1, 2. II. The explication of that sign, with
application to Egypt and Ethiopia, v. 3 . . 5. III. The
good use which the people of God should make of this,
which is, never to trust in an arm of flesh, because thus
it will deceive them, v. 6.
1 . TN the year that Tartan came unto
X Ashdod, (when Sargon the king of
Assyria sent him,) and fought against Ash¬
dod, and took it ; 2. At the same time spake
the Lord by Isaiah the son of Amoz,
saying, Go, and loose the sackcloth from off
thy loins, and put off thy shoe from thy foot.
And he did so, walking naked and barefoot.
3. And the Lord said, Like as my servant
Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot
three years for a sign and wonder upon
Egypt and upon Ethiopia; 4. So shall the
king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians
prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives,
96
ISAIAH, XX.
young and old, naked and barefoot, even
with their buttocks uncovered, to tire shame
of Egypt. 5. And they shall be afraid and
ashamed of Ethiopia their expectation, and
of Egypt their glory. 6. And the inhabitant
of this isle shall say in that day, Behold,
such is our expectation, whither we flee
for help to be delivered from the king of As¬
syria : and how shall we escape ?
God here, as King of nations, brings a sore calam¬
ity upon Egypt and Ethiopia, but, as King of saints,
brings good to his people out of it. Observe,
I. The date of this prophecy; it was in the year
that Ashdod, a strong city of the Philistines, (but
which some think was lately recovered from them
by Hezekiah, when he smote the Philistines even
unto Gaza, 2 Kings xviii. 8.) was besieged and
taken by an' army of the Assyrians; it is uncertain
what year of Hezekiah that was, but the event was
so remarkable, that they who lived then, could by
that token fix the time to a year. He that was now
king of Assyria, is called Sargon, which some take
to be the same with Sennacherib; others think he
was his immediate predecessor, and succeeded Shal¬
maneser. Tartan, who was general, or commander-
in-chief, in this expedition, was one of Sennacherib’s
officers, sent by him to bid defiance to Hezekiah,
in concurrence with Rabshakeh, 2 Kings xviii. 17.
II. The making of Isaiah a sign, by his unusual
dress, when lie walked abroad. He had been a sign
to his own people of the melancholy times that were
come, and coming, upon them, by the sackcloth
which for some time he had worn, of which he had
a gown made, which he girt about him. Some
think he put himself into that habit of a mourner,
upon occasion of the captivity of the ten tribes;
others think sackcloth was what he commonly wore
as a prophet, to show himself mortified to the world,
and that he might learn to endure hardness; soft
clothing better becomes those that attend in king’s
palaces, (Matth. xi. 8.) than those that go on God’s
errands. Elijah wore hair-cloth, (2 Kings i. 8.) and
John Baptist, (Matth. iii. 4.) and those that pre¬
tended to be prophets, supported their pretensions
by wearing rough garments; (Zec'h. xiii. 4.) but
Isaiah has orders given him to loose his sackcloth
from his loins, not to exchange it for better clothing,
but for none at all, no upper garment, no mantle,
cloak or coat, but only that which was next to him ;
his shirt, we may suppose, waistcoat, and drawers;
and he must put off his shoes, and go barefoot; so
that, compared with the dress of others, and what
he himself usually wore, he might be said to go
naked. This was a great hardship upon the pro¬
phet, it was a blemish to his reputation, and would
expose him to contempt and ridicule; the boys in
the streets would hoot at him ; and they who sought
occasion against him, would say, The prophet is in¬
deed a fool, and the spiritual man is mad, Hos. ix.
7. It might likewise be a prejudice to his health,
he was in danger of catching a cold, which might
throw him into a fever, and cost him his life; but
God bade him do it, that he might give a proof of
his obedience to God in a most difficult command,
and so shame the disobedience of his people to the
most easy and reasonable precepts. When we are
in the way of our duty, we may trust God both with
our credit and with our safety. The hearts of that
people were strangely stupid, and would not be af¬
fected with what they heard only, but must be
taught by signs, and therefore Isaiah must do this
for their edification: if the dress was scandalous, yet
the design was glorious, and what a prophet of the
Lord needed not to be ashamed of.
III. The exposition of this sign, v. 3, 4. Tt was
intended to signify that the Egyptians and the Ethi¬
opians should be led away captives by the king of
Assyria, thus stripped, rr in rags and very shabby
clothing, as Isaiah was. Grd calls him his servant
Isaiah, because in this matter particularly he had
approved himself God’s willing, faithful, obedient
servant; and for this very thing, which perhaps
others laughed at him for, Grd gloried in him. To
obey is better than sacrifice; it pleases Gcd, and
praises him more, and shall be more praised by him.
Isaiah is said to have wa’ked naked and barefoot
three years, whenever in that time he appeared as
a prophet: but seme refer the three years, net to
the sign, but to the thing signified; he has walked
naked and barefoot; there is a step to the original:
provided he did so once, there was enough to give
occasion to all about him to inquire what was the
meaning of his doing so; or, as some think, he did it
three days, a day for a year; and this ft r a three
years’ sign and wonder, for a sign of that which
shall be done three years hence, or which shall be
three years in the doing. Three campaigns suc¬
cessively shall the Assyrian armv make, in spoiling
the Egyptians and Ethiopians, and carrying them
away captive in this barbarous manner; not cnly
the soldiers taken in the field of battle, but the in¬
habitants, young and old; and it being a very pitecus
sight, and such as must needs move compassion in
those that had the least degree of tenderness left
them, to see those who had gone all their davs well-
dressed, now stripped, and scarcely having rags to
cover their nakedness; that circumstance of their
captivity is particularly taken notice of, and fore¬
told, the more to affect them to whom this prophecy
was delivered. It is particularly said to be the
shame of Egypt, (v. 4.) because the Egyptians were
a proud people, and therefore when they did fall
intn disgrace, it was the more shameful to them:
and the higher they had lifted up themselves, the
lower was their fall, both in their c.wn eyes and in
the eyes of others.
IV. The use and application of this, v. 5, 6.
1. All that had any dependence upon, or corres¬
pondence with Egypt and Ethiopia, should now be
ashamed of them, and afraid of having any thing to
do with them. Those countries that were in dan¬
ger of being overrun by the Assyrians, expected
that Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, with bis liumir
ous forces, should put a stop to the progress of their
victorious arms, and be a barrier to his neighbours;
and with yet more assurance they gloried that
Egypt, a kingdom so famous for policy and prowess,
would do their business, would oblige them to raise
the siege of Ashdod, and retire with precipitation :
but, instead of this, by attempting to oppose him,
they do but expose themselves, and make their
country a prey to him. Hereupon, all about them
are ashamed that ever they promised themselves
any advantage from two such weak and cownrdly
nations, and more afraid now' than ever they were
of the growdng greatness of the king of Assyria, be¬
fore whom Egypt and Ethiopia proved but as briers
and thorns put to stop a consuming fire, which do
but make it burn the more strongly. Note, Those
who make any creature their expectation and glory,
and so put it in the place of God, will, sooner or
later, be ashamed of it, and their disappointment in
it will but increase their fear. See Ezck. xxix. 6, 7.
2. The Jews in particular should be convinced of
their folly in resting upon such broken reeds, and
should despair of any relief from them ; (u. 6.) The
inhabitants of this Isle, the land of Judah, situated
upon the sea, though not surrounded by it; of this
country, so the margin: everyone shall now have
his eyes opened, and shall say, “ Behold, such is our
expectation, so vain, so foolish, and this is that
97
ISAIAH, XXL
which it will come to; we have fled for help to the |i
Egyptians and Ethiopians, and have hoped by them
to be delivered from the king of Assyria; but now
that they are broken thus, how shall we escape,
that are not able to bring such armies into the field
as they did?” Note, (1.) Those that confide in
creatures will be disappointed, and will be made
ashamed of their confidence, for vain is the help of
man, and in vain is salvation hoped for from the
hills, or the height and multitude of the mountains.
(2.) Disappointment in creature-confidences, in¬
stead of driving us to despair, as here, (How shall
we escape?) should drive us to God, to whom if we
flee for help, our expectation shall not be frustrated.
CHAP. XXI.
In this chapter we have a prophecy of sad times coming,
and heavy burthens; I. Upon Babylon, here called the
desert of the sea , that it should be destroyed by the Medes
and Persians with a terrible destruction, which yet God’s
people should have advantage by, v. 1 . . 10. II. Upon
Dumah, or Idumea, v. 1 1, 12. III. Upon Arabia, or Ke-
dar, the desolation of which country was very near, v. 13. .
17. These and other nations which the princes and peo¬
ple of Israel had so much to do with, the prophets of Is¬
rael could not but have something to say to : foreign af¬
fairs must be taken notice of as well as domestic ones,
and news from abroad inquired after as well as news at
home.
1. npHE burden of the desert of the sea.
JL As whirlwinds in the south pass
through; so it cometh from the desert, from
a terrible land. 2. A grievous vision is de¬
clared unto me ; The treacherous dealer
dealeth treacherously, and the spoiler spoil-
eth. Go up, O Elam: besiege, () Media:
all the sighing thereof have I made to cease.
3. Therefore are my loins filled with pain ;
pangs have taken hold upon me, as the
pangs of a woman that travaileth: I was
bowed down at the hearing of it; I was dis¬
mayed at the seeing of it. 4. My heart
panted, fearfulness affrighted me: the night
of my pleasure hath he turned into fear unto
me. 5. Prepare the table, watch in the
watch-tower, eat, drink : arise, ye princes,
and anoint the shield. 6. For thus hath the
Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman,
let him declare what he seeth. 7. And he
saw a chariot with a couple of horsemen, a
chariot of asses, and a chariot of camels ; and
he hearkened diligently with much heed. 8.
And he cried, A lion : My lord, I stand con¬
tinually upon the watch-tower in the day¬
time, and I am set in my ward whole nights;
9. And, behold, here cometh a chariot of
men, with a couple of horsemen. And he
answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is
fallen; and all the graven images of her gods
he hath broken unto the ground. 10. O my
threshing, and the com of my floor: that
which I have heard of the Lord of hosts,
the God of Israel, have I declared unto you.
We had one burthen of Babylon before, {ch. 13.)
here we have another prediction of its fall; Goa
saw fit thus to possess his people with the belief of
this event by line upon line; because Babylon some¬
times pretended to be a friend to them, (as ch.
Vol. IV. — N
xxxix. 1.) and God would hereby warn them nut to
trust to that friendship, and sometimes was really
an enemy to them, and God would hereby warn
them not to be afraid of that enmity. Babylon is
marked for ruin; and all that believe God’s pro¬
phets, can, through that glass, see it tottering, see
it tumbling, even then when with an eye of sense
they see it flourishing, and sitting as a queen.
Babylon is here called the desert or / iluin of the
sea, for it was a flat country, and full i f lakes, or
loughs, (as they call them in Ireland,) like little
seas, and was abundantly watered with the many
streams of the river Euphrates. Babylon did but
lately begin to be famous, Nineveh having outshined
it while the monarch}’ was in the Assyrian hands;
but in a little time it became the lady of kingdoms;
and before it arrived at that pitch of eminence
which it was in Nebuchadnezzar’s time, God, by
this prophet, plainly foretold its fall, again and
again, that his people might not be terrified at its
rise, nor despair of reliet in due time when they
were its prisoners, Job. v. 3. Ps. xxxvii. £5, 36.
Some think it is here called a desert, because,
though it was now a populous city, it should in time
be made a desert. And therefore the destruction cf
Babylon is so often prophesied of by this evangelical
prophet, because it was typical of the destruction
of the man of sin, the great enemy of the New Tes¬
tament church, which is foretold in the Revelation
in many expressions borrowed from these prophe¬
cies, which therefore must be consulted and collated
by those who would understand the prophecy cf
that book. Here is,
I. The powerful irruption and descent which the
Medes and Persians should make upon Babylon; ( v .
1, 2.) They will come from the desert, from a ter¬
rible land. The northern parts of Media and Per¬
sia, where their soldiers were mostly bred, was
waste and mountainous; tenable to strangers that
were to pass through it, and producing soldiers that
were very formidable. Elam, (Persia) is summrned
to go up against Babylon, and in conjunction with
the forces of Media, to besiege it; when God has
work of this kind to do, he will find, though it be in
a desert, in a terrible land, proper instruments to
be employed in it. These forces come as whirl¬
winds from the south, so suddenly, so strongly, and
so terribly: such a mighty noise shall they make,
and throw down every thing that stands in their
way. As is usual in such a case, some deserters
will go over to them, the treacherous dealers toil l
deal treacherously. Historians tell us of Gadatas
and Gobryas, two great officers of the king of Baby¬
lon, that went over to Cyrus, and, being well ac¬
quainted with all the avenues of the city, led a party
directly to the palace, where Belshazzar was slain:
thus with the help of the treacherous dealers the
sfioilers spoiled. Some read it thus, There shall be
a deceiver of that deceiver, Babylon, and a spoiler
of that spoiler. Or, which comes all to one, The
treacherous dealer has found one that deals treache¬
rously, and the spoiler one that spoils, as it is ex-
gounded, ch. xxxiii. 1. The Persians shall p. vthe
abylonians in their own coin; they that by fraud
and violence, cheating and plundering, unrighteous
wars and deceitful treaties, have made a prey cf
their neighbours, shall meet with their match, and
by the same methods shall themselves be made a
prev of.
II. The different impressions made hereby upon
those concerned in Babylon.
1. To the poor oppressed captives it would be
yvelcome news; for they had been told long ago that
Babylon’s destroyer would be their deliverer; and
therefore when they hear that Elam and Media are
coming up to besiege Babylon, all their sighing will
be made to cease; they shall no longer mingle their
98
ISAIAH, XXL
rears with Euphrates’ streams, but resume their
uarps, and smile when they remember Zion, which,
before, they wept at the thought of. For the sigh-
■ng of the needy the God of pity will arise in due
rime; (Ps. xii. 5.) he will break the yoke from off
their neck, will remove the rod of the wicked from
off their lot, and so make their sighing to cease.
2. To the proud oppressors it would be a grievous
vision, (t>. 2. ) particularly to the king of Babylon
for the time being, and it should seem that he it is
who is here brought in, sadly lamenting his inevita¬
ble fate; (x>. 3, 4.) Therefore are my loins foiled
with j lain , pangs have taken hold upon me, &c.
which was literally fulfilled in Belshazzar, for that
very night in which his city was taken, and himself
slain, upon the sight of a hand writing mystic cha- 1
racters upon the wall, his countenance was changed,
and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of
his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against
another, Dan. v. 6. And yet that was but the be¬
ginning of sorrows; Daniel’s decyphering of the
writing could not but increase his terror, and the
alarm which immediately followed, of the execu¬
tioners at the door, would be the completing of it.
And those words, The night of my pleasure has he
turned into fear to me, plainly refer to that aggra¬
vating circumstance of Belshazzar’s fall, that he
was slain on that night when he was in the height
of his mirth and jollity, with his cups and concu¬
bines about him, and a thousand of his lords revel¬
ling with him; that night of his pleasure, when he |
promised himself an undisturbed, unallayed enjoy¬
ment of the most exquisite gratifications of sense,
with a particular defiance of God and religion in the
profanation of the temple-vessels — that was the
night that was turned into all this fear. Let this
give an effectual check to vain mirth and sensual
pleasures, and forbid us ever to lay the reins on the
neck of them — that we know not what heaviness
the mirth may end in, nor how soon laughter may
be turned into mourning; but this we know, that for
all these things God shall bring us into judgment;
let us therefore mix trembling always with our joys.
III. A representation of the posture in which
Babylon should be found when the enemy should
surprise it; all in festival gaiety; (y. 5.) “Prepare
the table with a}l manner of dainties, set the guards,
let them watch in the watch-tower, while we eat
and drink securely, and make merry; and if any
alarm should be given, the princes shall arise, and
anoint the shield, and be in readiness to give the
enemy a warm reception.” Thus secure are they,
and thus do they gird on the harness with as much
joy as if they had put it off.
IV. A description of the alarm which should be
given to Babylon, upon its being forced by Cyrus
and Darius. The Lord, in vision, showed the pro¬
phet the watchman set in the watch-tower, near
the palace, as is usual in times of danger; the king
ordered those about him to post a sentinel in the
most advantageous place for discovery, and accord¬
ing to the duty of a watchman, let him declare what
he sees, v. 6. We read of a watchman thus set to
receive intelligence, in the story of David, (2 Sam.
xviii. 24.) and in the story of Jehu, 2 Kings ix. 17.
This watchman here discovered a chariot with a
couple of horsemen attending it, in which we may
suppose the commander-in-chief to ride; he then
saw another chariot drawn by asses or mules, which
were much in use among the Persians, and a chariot
drawn by camels, which were likewise much in use
among the Medes; so that (as Grotius thinks) these j
two chariots signify the two nations combined against
Babylon; or rather, these chariots come to bring ti¬
dings to the palace; compare Jer. li. 31, 32. One \
post shall run to meet another, and one messenger
:o meet another, to show the king of Babylon that
his city is taken at one end, while he is revelling a*
the other end, and knows nothing of the matter.
This watchman, seeing these chariots at some dis
tance, hearkened diligently with much heed, to re¬
ceive the first tidings. And ( v . 8.) he cried, A lion;
this word, coming out of a watchman’s mouth, no
doubt gave them a certain sound, and every body
knew the meaning of it, though we do not know it
now. It is likely that it was intended to raise at¬
tention; he that has an ear to hear, let him hear, as
when a lion roars : or he cried as a lion, very loud
and in good earnest; the occasion being very urgent.
And what has he to say? 1. He professes his con¬
stancy to his post assigned him ; “/stand, my lord,
continually upon the watch-tower, and have never
discovered any thing material, till just now; all
seemed safe and quiet. ” Some make it to be a com¬
plaint of the people of God, that they had long ex¬
pected the downfall of Babylon, according to the
prophecy, and it was not yet come; but withal a re¬
solution to- continue waiting, as Hab. ii. 1. I will
stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower,
to see what will be the issue of the present provi¬
dences. 2. He gives notice of the discoveries he
had made; (y. 9.) Here comes a chariot of men,
with a couple of horsemen; a vision representing the
enemy’s entry into the city with all their force, or
the tidings brought to the royal palace of it.
V. A certain account is at length given of the
overthrow of Babylon. He in the chariot answered
and said, (when he heard the watchman speak,)
Babylon is fallen, is fallen; or, God answered thus
to the prophet inquiring concerning the issue of
these affairs; “ It is now come to this, Babylon is
surely and irrecoverably fallen; Babylon’s business is
done now. All the graven itnages of her gods he
has broken unto the ground .” Babylon was the
mother of harlots, of idolatry, which was one of the
grounds of God’s quarrel with her; but her idols
shall now be so far from protecting her, that some
of them shall be broken down to the ground, and
others of them, that were worth carrying away,
shall go into captivity, and be a burthen to the
beasts that carried them, ch. xlvi. 1, 2.
VI. Notice is given to the people of God, who
were then captives in Babylon, that this prophecy
of the downfall of Babylon was particularly intend¬
ed for their comfort and encouragement, and they
might depend upon it, that it should be accomplish¬
ed in due season, v. 10. Observe, 1. The title the
prophet gives them in God’s name, O my threshing,
and the corn of my floor; the prophet calls them
his, because they were his countrymen, and such as
he had a particular interest in and concern for; but
he speaks it as from God, and directs his speech to
those that were Israelites indeed, the faithful in the
land. Note, (1.) The church is God’s floor, in
which the most valuable fruits and products of this
earth are, as it were, gathered together and laid up.
(2.) True believers are the corn of God’s floor; hv
pocrites are but as the chaff and straw, which take
up a great deal of room, but are of small value, with
which the wheat is now mixed, but from which it
shall be shortly and for ever separated. (3. ) The
corn of God’s floor must expect to be threshed by
afflictions and persecutions. God’s Israel of old was
afflicted from her youth, often under the plougher’s
plough, (Ps. cxxix. 3. ) and the thresher’s flail. (4. )
Even then God owns it for his threshing, it is his
still; nay, the threshing of it is by his appointment,
and under his restraint and direction. The thresh¬
ers could have no power against it, but what is given
them from above. 2. The assurance he gives them
of the truth of what he had delivered to them,
which therefore they might build their hopes upon,
That which I have heard of the Lord of hosts, the
God of Israel, that, and nothing else, that, and no
99
ISAIAH, XXI
fiction of fancy o'" my own, have I declared unto
you. Note, In all events concerning the church,
past, present, and to come, we must have an eye to
God, both as the Lord of hosts and as the God of
Israel, who has power enough to do any thing for
his church, and grace enough to do every thing that
is for her good. Let us also diligently notice the
words of his prophets, as words received from the
Lord. As they dare not smother any thing which
he has intrusted them to declare, so they dare not
declare any thing as from him, which he has not
made known to them, I Cor. xi. 23.
11. The burden of Duniah. He calleth
to me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the
night? watchman, what of the night ? 12.
The watchman said, The morning cometh,
and also the night : if ye will inquire, in¬
quire ye: return, come.
This prophecy concerning Dumah is very short,
and withal dark and hard to be understood. Some
think that Dumah is a part of Arabia, and that the
inhabitants descended from Dumah the sixth son
of Ishmael, as those of Kedar (v. 16, 17.) from Ish-
mael’s second son, Gen. xxv. 13, 14. Others, be-
c mse mount S.'ir is here mentioned, by Dumah un¬
derstand Idumea, the country of the Edomites.
Some of Israel’s neighbours are certainly meant,
whose distress is foretold, not only for warning to
them to prepare them for it, but for warning to Is¬
rael not to depend upon them, or any of the nations
about them, for relief in a time of danger, but upon
God only. We must see all creature-confidences
failing Us", and feel them breaking under us, that
we may not lay more weight upon them than they
will bear. Rut though the explication of this pro¬
phecy be difficult, because we have no history in
which we find the accomplishment of it, yet the ap¬
plication will be easy. We have here,
1. A question put by an Edomite to the watch¬
man. Some one or other calls out of Seir,
somebody that was more concerned for the public
safety and welfare than the rest, who were gene¬
rally" careless and secure; as the man of Macedonia,
in a vision, desired Paul to come over and help
them, (Acts xvi. 9.) so this man of mount Seir, in a
vision, desired the prophet to inform and intruct
them. He calls not many; it is well there are any,
that all are not alike unconcerned about the things
that belong to the public peace. Some out of Seir
ask advice of God’s prophets, and are willing to be
taught, when many of God’s Israel heed nothing.
The question is serious. What of the night? It is
put to a proper person, the watchman, whose office
it is to answer such inquiries: he repeats the ques¬
tion, as one in care, as one in earnest, and desires to
have an answer. Note, (1.) God’s prophets and min¬
isters are appointed to be watchmen, and we are to
look upon them as such. They are as watchmen
in the city in a time of peace, to see that all be safe,
to knock at every door by personal inquiries; (“ Is
it locked? Is the fire safer”) to direct those that
are at a loss, and check those that are disorderly,
Cant. iii. 3. — v. 7. They are as watchmen in the
camp in time of war; (Ezek. xxxiii. 7.) they are to
take notice of the motions of the enemy, and to give
notice of them, to make discoveries, and then
give warning; and in this they must deny them¬
selves. (2.) It is our duty to inquire of the watch¬
men, especially to ask again and again, What of
the night? For watchmen wake when others sleep.
[1.] What time of the night? After a long sleep in
sin an security, is it not time to rise, high time to
awake out of sleep? Rom. xiii. 11. We have a
great deal of work to do, a long journey to go; is it
not time to be stirring? “Watchman, what o’clock
is it? After a long dark night is there any hopes of
the day dawning?” [2.] What tidings of the night?
What from the night? So some. “ What vision
has the prophet had to-night? We are readv to
receive it.” Or rather, “What occurs to-night?
What weather is it? What news?” We must ex¬
pect an alarm, and never be secure; the day of
the Lord will come as a thief in the night; we must
prepare to receive the alarm, and resolve to keep
our ground, and then take the first hint of danger,
and to our arms presently, to our spiritual wea¬
pons.
2. The watchman’s answer to this question. The
watchman was neither asleep nor dumb; though it
was a man of mount Seir that called to him, he was
ready to give him an answer; The morning comes.
He answers, (1.) By way of prediction; “there
comes first a morning of light, and peace, and op¬
portunity, you will enjoy one day of comfort more;
but afterward comes a night of trouble and cala¬
mity.” Note, In the course of God’s providence, it
is usual that morning and night are counter-
changed, and succeed each other. Is it night?
Yet the morning comes, and the day-spring knows
his place, Ps. xxx. 5. Is it day? Yet the night
comes also: if there be a morning of youth and
health, there will come a night of sickness and old
age; if a morning of prosperity in the family, in the
public, yet we must look for changes. But God
usually gives a morning of opportunity before he
sends a night of calamity, that his own people may
be prepared for the storm, and others left inex¬
cusable. (3.) By way of excitement; If ye will in¬
quire, inquire ye. Note, It is our wisdom to im¬
prove the present morning in preparation for the
night that is coming after it; “ Inquire , return,
come. Be inquisitive, be penitent, be willing and
obedient.” The manner of expression is very ob¬
servable, but we are put to our choice what we will
do; “ If ye will inquire, inquire ye; if not, it is at
your peril ; you cannot say but you have a fair offer
made you.” We are also urged to be at a point;
“ If you will, say so, and do not stand pausing; what
you will do, do quickly, for it is no time to trifle.”
Those that return and come to God, will find they
have a great deal of work to do, a^but a little time
to do it in, and therefore they mave need to be
busy.
1 3. The burden upon Arabia. In the forest
in Arabia shall ye lodge, O ye travelling com¬
panies of Dedanini. 14. The inhabitants of
the land of Tenia brought water to him that
was thirsty, they prevented with their bread
him that fled. 15. For they fled from the
swords, from the drawn sword, and from
the bent bow, and from the grievousness of
war. 16. For thus hath the Lord said
unto me, Within a year, according to the
years of a hireling, and all the glory of
Kedar shall fail : 17. And the residue of
the number of archers, the mighty men of
the children of Kedar, shall be diminish¬
ed : for the Lord God of Israel hath spo¬
ken it.
Arabia was a large country, that lay eastward
and southward of the land of Canaan; much of it
was possessed by the posterity of Abraham. The
Dedanim here mentioned, (v. 13.) descended from
Dedan, Abraham’s son by Iveturah; the inhabitants
of Tema and Kedar descended from Ishmael, Gen.
i ou ISAIAH, XXII.
xxv. 3, 13, 15. The Arabians generally lived in
tents, and kept cattle, were a hardy people, inured
to labour; probably the Jews depended upon them
as a soil of a wall between them and the more war¬
like eastern nations; and therefore, to alarm them,
they shall hear the burthen of Arabia, and see it
sinking under its own burthen.
1. A destroying army shall be brought upon
them, with a sword, with a drawn sword, with a
bow ready bent, and with all the grievousness of
war, v. 15. It is probable that the king of Assyria,
in some of the marches of his formidable and victo¬
rious army, took Arabia in his way, and meeting
with little resistance, made an easy prey of them.
The consideration of the grievousness of war should
make us thankful for the blessings of peace.
2. The poor country people will hereby be forced
to flee for shelter wherever they can find a place;
so that the travelling com/ianies of Dedanim, which
used to keep the high-roads with their caravans,
shall be obliged to quit them, and lodge in the forest
in Arabia, (v. 13.) and shall not have the wonted
convenience of their own tents, poor and weather¬
beaten as they are.
3. They shall stand in need of refreshment, being
ready to perish for want of it, in their flight from
the invading army ; “ 0 ye inhabitants of the land of
Tenia,” (who probably, were next neighbours to the
companies of Dedanim,) “bring ye water” (so the
margin reads it) “ to him that is thirsty, and firevent
with your bread those that flee, for they are objects
of your compassion : they do not wander for wan¬
dering sake, nor are they reduced to straits by any
extravagance of their own, but they flee from the
sword.” Tema was a country where water was
sometimes a scarce commodity, (as we find, Job vi.
19.) and we may conclude it would be in a particu¬
lar manner acceptable to these poor distressed re¬
fugees. Let us learn hence, (1.) To look for dis¬
tress ourselves; we know not what straits we may
be brought into before we die. Those that live in
cities, may be forced to lodge in forests; and those
may know the want of necessary food, who now eat
bread to the full. Our mountain stands not so strong
but that it may be moved, rises not so high but that
it may be scaled. These Arabians would the bet¬
ter bear these calamities, because in their way of
living thsy had Uwd themselves to hardships. (2.)
To look with compassion upon those that are in dis¬
tress, and with all cheerfulness to relieve them, not
knowing how soon their case may be ours; “ Bring
water to them that are thirsty, and not only give
bread to those that need and ask it, but prevent
those with it that have need, give it them unask¬
ed. ” They that do so, shall find it remembered
to their praise, as (according to our reading) it is
here remembered to the praise of the land of Tema,
that they did bring water to the thirsty, and re¬
lieved even those that were on the falling side.
4. All that which is the glory of Kedar shall van¬
ish away and fail. Did they glory in their numer¬
ous herds and flocks? They shall all be driven
away by the enemy. It seems, they were famous
above other nations for the use of the bow in battle;
but their archers, instead of foiling the enemy,
shall fall themselves; and the residue of their num¬
ber, when they are reduced to a small number,
shall be diminished; (x>. 17.) their mighty, able-
bodied men, and men of spirit too, shall become
very few; for they being most forward in the de¬
fence of their country, were most exposed, and fell
first, either by the enemies’ sword, or into the
enemies’ hand. Note, Neither the skill of archers,
(though they be ever so good marksmen,) nor the
courage of mighty men, can protect a people from
the judgments of God, when they come with com¬
mission'; they rather expose the undertakers. That
is poor glory, which will thus quickly come to
nothing.
5. All this shall be done in a little time; “ Within
one year, according to the years of a hireling, (with¬
in one year, precisely reckoned,) this judgment
shall come upon Kedar.” If this fixing of the time
be of no great use to us now, (because we find not
either when the prophecy was delivered, or when it
was accomplished,) yet it might be of great use to
the Arabians then, to awaken them to repentance,
that, like the men of Nineveh, they might prevent
the judgment, when they were thus told it was just
at the door. Or, when it begins to be fulfilled, the
business shall be done, be begun and ended in one
year’s time. God, when he pleases, can do a great
work in a little time.
6. It is all ratified by the truth of God; (x>. 16.)
“ Thus hath the Lord said to me; you may take my
word for it, that it is his word;” and we may be
sure no word of his shall fall to the ground. And
again, (x>. 17.) The Lord God of Israel hath sfioken
it; as the God of Israel, in pursuance of his gra¬
cious designs concerning them; and we may be sure
the Strength of Israel will not lie.
CHAP. XXII.
We are now come nearer home, for this chapter is the
burthen of the valley of vision, Jerusalem; other places
had their burthen for the sake of their being concerned
some way or other with Jerusalem, and were reckoned
with either as spiteful enemies, or deceitful friends, to
the people of God; but now let Jerusalem hear her
doom. This chapter concerns, I. The city of Jerusalem
itself, and the neighbourhood depending upon it. Here
is, 1. A prophecy of the grievous distress they should
shortly be brought into, by Sennacherib’s invasion of the
country, and laying siege to the city, v. 1..7. Are-
proof given them for their misconduct in that distress,
in two things, (1.) Not having an eye to God in the use
of the means of their preservation, v. 8. . 11. (2.) not
humbling themselves under his mighty hand, v. 12... 14.
II. The court of Hezekiah, and the officers of that court:
1. The displacing of Shebna, a bad man, and turning
him out of the treasury, v. 15. . 19, 25. 2. The preferring
of Eliakim to his place, who should do his country bet¬
ter service, v. 20. . . 24.
l.r¥^HE burden of the valley of vision.
JL What aileth thee now, that thou
art wholly gone up to the house-tops ? 2.
Thou that art full of stirs, a tumultuous city,
a joyous city : thy slain men are not slain
with the sword, nor dead in battle. 3.
All thy rulers are fled together, they are
bound by the archers : all that are found in
thee are bound together, which have fled
from far. 4. Therefore said I, Look away
from me ; 1 will weep bitterly, labour not
to comfort me ; because of the spoiling of
the daughter of my people. 5. For it is
a day of trouble, and of treading down,
and of perplexity by the Lord God of hosts
in the valley of vision, breaking down the
walls, and of crying to the mountains.
6. And Elam bare the quiver with cha¬
riots of men anil horsemen, and Kir unco¬
vered the shield. 7. And it shall come to
pass, that thy choicest valleys shall be full
of chariots, and the horsemen shall set
themselves in array at the gate.
The title of this prophecy is very observable; it
is the burthen of the valley of vision, of Judah and
ISAIAH
Jerusalem; all so agree. Fitly enough is Jerusa¬
lem called a valley; for the mountains were round
about it; and the land of Judah abounded with fruit¬
ful valleys. And by the judgments of God, though
they h id been as a towering mountain, they should
be brought low, sunk and depressed, and become
dark and dirty, as a valley. But most emphati¬
cally it is called a valley of vision, because there
God was known, and his name great; there the
prophets were made acquainted with his mind by
visions, and there the people saw the goings of their
God and King in his sanctuary. Babylon, being a
stt anger to God, though rich and great, was called
the desert of the sea; but Jerusalem, being intrusted
with his oracles, is a valley of vision; blessed are
their eyes, for they see, and they have seers by office
among them. Where Bibles and ministers are,
there is a valley of vision, from which is expected
fruit accordingly; but here is a burthen of the val¬
ley of vision, and a heavy burthen it is. Note,
Church-privileges, if they be not improved, will
not secure men from the judgments of God; You
only have I known of all the families of the earth,
therefore mill I punish you. The valley of vision
has a p irticular burthen; Thou Capernaum, Matt,
xi.. 23. The higher any are lifted up in means
and mercies, the heavier will their doom be if they
abuse them.
Now the burthen of the valley of vision here, is
that which will not quite ruin it, but frighten it; for
it refers not to the destruction of Jerusalem by Ne¬
buchadnezzar, but to the attempt made upon it by
Sennacherib, which we had the prophecy of, (ch.
10. ) and shall meet with the history of, ch. 36. It is
here again prophecied of, because the desolation of
many of the neighbouring countries, which were
foretold in the foregoing chapters, were to be brought
to pass by the Assyrian army. Now let Jerusalem
know, that when the cup is going round, it will be
put into her hand, and though it will not be to her a
fatal cup, yet it will be a cup of trembling. Here
is foretold,
1. The consternation that the city should be in
upon the approach of Sennacherib’s army. It used
to be full of stirs, a city of great trade, people hur¬
rying to and fro about their business, a tumultuous
city, populous and noisy ; where there is great trade,
there is great tumult. It used to be a joyous re¬
velling city, made such by the busy part, and the
merry part, of mankind; places of concourse are
places of noise. “ But what ails thee now, that the
shops are quitted, and there is no more walking in
the streets and exchange, but thou art wholly gone
up to the house-tops, (v. 1.) to bemoan thyself in
silence and solitude, or to secure thyself from the
enemy, or to look abroad, and see if any succours
come to thy relief, or which way the enemies’ mo¬
tions are.” Let both men of business and sports¬
men rejoice as though they rejoiced not, for some¬
thing may happen quickly, which they little think
of, that will be a damp to their mirth, and a stop to
their business, and send them to match as a sparrow
alone upon the house-top, Ps. cii. 7.
But why is Jerusalem in such a fright? Her slain
men are not slain with the sword, {v. 2.) but, (1.)
Slain with famine; so some; for Sennacherib’s army
having laid the country waste, and destroyed the
fruits of the earth, provisions must needs be very
scarce and dear in the city, which would be the
death of many of the pooret sort of people, who
would be constrained to feed on that which was
unwholesome. (2.) Slain with fear; they were put
into this fright, though they had not a man killed,
but were so disheartened themselv s, that they
seemed as effectually stabbed with fear as if they
had been run through with a sword.
2. The inglorious flight of the rulers of Judah,
, XXII. 101
who fled from far, from all parts of the country, to
Jerusalem, (v. 6.) fled together, as it were by con¬
sent, and were found in Jerusalem, having left theii
respective cities, which they should have taken care
of, to be a prey to the Assyrian army, which, meet¬
ing with no opposition, when it came up against
all the clefenced cities of Judah, easily took them, ch.
xxxvi. 1. These rulers were bound from the bow;
so the word is; they not only quitted their own ci¬
ties like cowards, but, when they came to Jerusa¬
lem, were of no service there, but were as if their
hands were tied from the use of the bow, by the
extreme distraction and confusion they were in;
they trembled, so that they could not draw a bow.
See how easily God can dispirit men, and how cer¬
tainly fear will do it, when the tyranny of it is yield¬
ed to.
3. 'Pile great grief which this should occasion to
all serious, sensible people, among them; which is
represented by the prophet’s laying the thing to
heart himself; he lived to see it, "and was resolved
to share with the children of his people in their
sorrows, v. 4, 5. He is not willing to proclaim his
sorrow, and therefore bids those about him to look
away from him; he will abandon himself to grief,
and indulge himself in it, will weep secretly, but
weep bitterly, and will have none go about to com¬
fort him, for his grief is not obstinate, and he is
pleased with his pain. But what is the occasion of
his grief? A poor prophet had little to lose, and had
been inured to hardship, when he walked naked
and barefoot; but it is for the spoiling of the daugh¬
ter of his people. Note, Public grievances should
be our griefs. It is a day of trouble and of tread¬
ing down, and of perplexity ; our enemies trouble
us, and tread us down, and our friends are perplex¬
ed, and know not what course to take, to do us a
kindness; the Lord God of hosts is now contending
with the valley of vision; the enemies with their
battering-rams are breaking down the walls, and
we are in vain crying to the mountains, (to keep off
the enemy, or to fall on us and cover us,) or looking
for help to come to us over the mountains, or ap¬
pealing, as God does, to the mountains, to hear our
controversy, (Micah vi. 1.) and to judge between
us and our injurious neighbours.
4. The great numbers and strength of the enemv,
that should invade their country' and besiege their
city, v. 6, 7. Elam, the Persians, come with their
quiver full of arrows, and with chariots of fighting
men, and horsemen; Kir, the Medes, muster up
their arms, unsheath the sword, and uncover the
shield, and get every thing ready for battle, every
thing ready for the besieging of Jerusalem: then
the choice valleys about Jerusalem, that used to be
clothed with flocks, and covered over with corn,
shall be full of chariots of war, and at the gate of
the city the horsemen shall set themselves in array,
to cut off all provisions from going in, and to force
their way in. What a condition must the city be
in, that was beset on all sides with such an army?
8. And he discovered the covering of Ju¬
dah, and thou didst look in that day to the
armour of the house of the forest. 9. Ye
have seen also the breaches of the city of
David, that they are many; and ye gather¬
ed together the waters of the lower pool :
10. And ye have numbered the houses of
Jerusalem, and the houses have ye broken
down to fortify the wall. 1 1 . Ye made alsc
a ditch between the two walls for tne water
of the old pool : but ye have not looked unto
the maker thereof, neither had respect unto
102
ISAIAH, XXII.
him that fashioned it long ago. 12. And in
that day did the Lord God of hosts call to
weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness,
and to girding with sackcloth: 13. And,
behold, joy and gladness, slaying oxen and
killing sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine :
let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall
die. 14. And it was revealed in mine ears
by the Lord of hosts, Surely this iniquity
shall not be purged from you till ye die,saith
the Lord God of hosts.
What is meant by the covering of Judah, which,
in the beginning of this paragraph, is said to be dis¬
covered, is not agreed. The fenced cities of Judah
were a covering to the country; but those being ta¬
ken by the army of the Assyrians, they ceased to
be a shelter; so that the whole country lay exposed
to be plundered. The weakness of Judah, its na¬
kedness, and inability to help itself, now appeared
more than ever; and thus the covering of Judah
was discovered. Its magazines and stores, which
had been locked up, were now laid open for the
public use. Dr. Lightfoot gives another sense of it,
that by this distress into which Judah should be
brought, God would discover their covering, uncloak
their hypocrisy, would show all that was in their
heart, as is said of Hezekiah upon another occasion,
2 Chron. xxxii. 31. Now they discovered both
their carnal confidence, (v. 9.) and their carnal se¬
curity, v. 13. Thus, by one means or other, the
iniquity of Ephraim will be discovered, and the sin
of Samaria, Hos. vii. 1.
They were now in a great fright, and in this fright
they discovered two things much amiss:
I. A great contempt of God’s goodness, and his
power to help them. They made use of the means
they could think of for their own preservation; and
it is not that that they are blamed for, but, in doing
this, they did not acknowledge God. Observe,
1. How careful they were to improve all advan¬
tages that might contribute to their safety. When
Sennacherib had made himself master of all the
defenced cities of Judah, and Jerusalem was left as
a cottage in a vineyard, they thought it was time to
look about them; a council was immediately called,
a council of war; and it was resolved to stand upon
their defence, and not tamely to surrender. Pur¬
suant to this resolve, they took all the prudent mea¬
sures they could for their own security. We tempt
God, if, in times of danger, we do not the best we
can for ourselves. (1.) They inspected the maga¬
zines and. stores, to see if thev were well stocked
with arms and ammunition. They looked to the ar¬
mour of the house of the forest, which Solomon built
in Jerusalem for an armoury, (1 Kings x. 17.) and
thence they delivered out what they had occasion
for. It is the wisdom of princes, in time of peace,
to provide for war, that they may not have arms to
seek when they should use them, and perhaps upon
a sudden emergency. (2.) Thev viewed the forti¬
fications, the breaches of the city of David; they
walked round the walls, and observed where they
were gone to decay, for want of seasonable repairs,
or broken by some former attempts made upon
them. These breaches were many; the more shame
f r the house of David, that they suffered the city
of David to lie neglected. They had, probable,
often seen those breaches; but now they saw them
to consider what course to take about them. This
good we should get by public distresses, we should
be awakened by them to refiair our breaches, and
amend what is amiss. (3.) Thev made sure of
water for the city, and did what they could to de¬
prive the besiegers of it; Ye gathered together the
waters of the lower pool, of which there was, pro¬
bably, no great store, and of which, therefore, they
were the more concerned to be good husbands. See
what a mercy it is, that, as nothing is more neces¬
sary to the support of human life than water, so
nothing is more cheap and common; but it is bad
indeed when that, as here, is a scarce commodity.
(4.) They numbered the houses of Jerusalem, that
every house might send in their quota of men for
the public sen ice, or contribute in money to it;
which they raised by a poll, so much a head, or so
much a house. (5.) Because private property ought
to give way to the public safety, those houses that
stood in their way, when the wall was to be fortified,
were broken down; which, in such a case of neces¬
sity, is no more an injury to the owner, than blow¬
ing up houses in case of fire. (6.) They made a
ditch between the outer and inner wall, for the
greater security of the city; and they contrived to
draw the water of the old pool to it, that they
might have plenty of water themselves, and might
deprive the besiegers of it; for, it seems, that was
the project, lest the Assyrian army should come and
find much water, (2 Chron. xxxii. 4.) and so should
be the better able to prolong the siege. If it be
lawful to destroy the forage of a country, much
more to divert the streams of its waters, for the
straitening and starving of an enemy.
2. How regardless they were of God in all these
preparations; but ye have not looked unto the
Maker thereof; of Jerusalem, (the city yru are so
solicitous for the defence of,) and of all the advan¬
tages which nature has furnished it with for its de¬
fence; the mountains round about it, (Ps. exxv. 2.)
and the rivers, which were such as the inhabitants
might turn which way soever they pleased for their
convenience. Note, (1.) It is God that made his
Jerusalem, and fashioned it long ago, in his coun¬
sels. The Jewish writers, upon this place, sav,
There were seven things which God made before
the world; meaning which he had in his eye when
he made the world, the garden of Eden, the law,
the just ones, Israel, the throne of glory, Jerusa-
sa/em, and Messiah the Prince. The gospel-church
has God for its Maker. (2.) Whatever service we
do, or endeavour to do, at any time, for God’s Je¬
rusalem, it must be with an eve to him as the
Maker of it; and he takes it ill if we do not. It is
charged upon them here, that they did not look to
God. [l.j They did not design his glory, in what
they did. They fortified Jerusalem because it was
a rich city, and their own houses were in it; not be¬
cause it was the holy city, and God’s house was in
it. In all our cares for the defence of the church,
we must look more at God’s interest in it than at
our own. [2. J They did not depend upon him for
a blessing upon their endeavours, saw no need of it,
and therefore sought not to him for it, but thought
their own powers and policies sufficient for them.
Of Hezekiah himself it is said, that he trusted in
God, (2 Kings xviii. 5.) and particularly upon this
occasion; (2 Chron. xxxii. 8.) but there were those
about him, it seems, who were great statesmen and
soldiers, but had little religion in them. [3.] They
did not give him thanks for the advantages they
had in fortifying their citv from the waters of the
old pool, which were fashioned long ago, as Kishon
is called an ancient river, Judg. v. 21. Whatever in
nature is at any time serviceable to us, we must
therein acknowledge the goodness of the God of
nature; who, when he fashioned it long ago, fitted
it to be so, and according to whose ordinance it con¬
tinues to this day. Every creature is that to us that
God makes it to be; and therefore, whatever use it
is of to us, we must look at him that fashioned It,
bless him for it, and use it for him.
ISAIAH, XXII.
II. A great contempt of God’s wrath and justice
m contending with them, v. 12 — 14. Where ob¬
serve,
1. What was God’s design in bringing this cala-
lamity upon them; it was to humble them, bring
them to repentance, and make them serious. In
that day of trouble, and treading down, and per¬
plexity,' the Lord did thereby call to weeping, and
mourning, and all the expressions of sorrow, even
to baldness and girding’ with sackcloth; and all this,
to lament their sins, by which they had brought
those judgments upon their land, to enforce their
prayers, by which they might hope to avert the
judgments’ that were breaking in, and to dispose
themselves to a reformation of their lives by a holy
seriousness, and a tenderness of heart, under the
word of God. To this God called them by his
prophets’ explaining his providences, and by his
providences awakening them to regard what his
rophets said. Note, When God threatens us with
is judgments, he expects and requires that we
humble ourselves under his mighty hand; that we
tremble when the lion roars, and in a day of adver¬
sity consider.
2. H,ow contrary they walked to this design of
God; (t>. 13.) Behold, joy and gladness, mirth and
feasting, all the gaiety and all the jollity imagina¬
ble: they were as secure and pleasant as they used
to be, as if they had no enemy in their borders, or
were in no danger of falling into his hands. When
they had taken the necessary precautions for their
security, then they set all deaths and dangers at
defiance, and resolved to be merry, let come on
them what would. They that should have been
eating among the mourners, were among the wine-
bibbers, the riotous eaters of flesh; and observe
what they said, Let us eat and drink, for to-mor¬
row we shall die. This may refer either to the par¬
ticular danger they were now in, and the fair warn¬
ing which the prophet gave them of it, or to the
general shortness and uncertainty of human life,
and the nfearness of death at all times. This was
the language of the profane scoffers who mocked
the messengers of the Lord, and misused his pro¬
phets. (1. ) They made a jest of dying; “ The pro¬
phet tells us we must die shortly, perhaps to-mor-
row, and therefore we should mourn and repent
to-day; no, rather let ws eat and drink, that we
may be fattened for the slaughter, and may be in
good heart to meet our doom; if we must have a
short life, let it be a merry one.” (2.) They ridi¬
culed the doctrine of a future state on the other
side death; for if there were no such state, the
apostle grants there would be something of reason
in what they said, 1 Cor. xv. 32. If, when we die,
there were an end of us, it were good to make our¬
selves as easy and merry as we could, while we live;
but if for all these things God shall bring us into
judgment , it is at our peril if we walk in the way
of our heart and the sight of our eyes, Eccl. xi. 9.
Note, A practical disbelief of another life after this,
is at the bottom of the carnal security and brutish
sensuality, which are the sin and shame and ruin of
so great a part of mankind, as of the old world,
who were eating and drinking till the food came.
3. How much God was displeased at it; he sig¬
nified his resentment of it to the prophet, revealed
it in his ears, to be by him proclaimed upon the
house-top; Surely this iniquity shall not be purged
from you till ye die, v. 14. It shall never be ex¬
piated with sacrifice and offering, any more than
the iniquity of the house of Eli, 1 Sam. iii. 14. It
is a sin against the remedy, a baffling of the utmost
means of conviction, and rendering them ineffec¬
tual; and therefore it is not likely they should ever
repent of it, or nave it pardoned. The Chaldee reads
rt, It shall not be forgiven you till you die the second \
103
death. Those that walk contrary to God, he will
walk contrary to them; with the froward he will
show himself froward.
15. Thus saith the Lord God of hosts,
Go, get thee unto this treasurer, even unto
Shebna, which is over the house, and say,
1G. What hast thou here, and whom hast
thou here, that thou hast hewed ihee out
a sepulchre here, as he that heweth him
out a sepulchre on high, and that grav-
eth a habitation for himself in a rock? 17
Behold, the Lord will carry thee away
with a mighty captivity, and will surely
cover thee. 18. He will surely violently
turn and toss thee like a ball into a large,
country: there shalt thou die, and there
the chariots of thy glory shall be the shame
of thy lord’s house. 1 9. And I will drive
thee from thy station, and from thy state
shall he pull thee down. 20. And it shall
come to pass in that day, that I will call
my servant Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah:
21. And I will clothe him with thy robe,
and strengthen him with thy girdle, and 1
will commit thy government into his hand ;
and he shall be a father to the inhabitants
of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah.
22. And the key of the house of David will
1 lay upon his shoulder: so he shall open,
and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and
none shall open. 23. And I will fasten him
as a r ail in a sure place ; and he shall be
for a glorious throne to his father’s house.
24. And they shall hang upon him all the
glory of his father’s house, the offspring and
the issue, all vessels of small quantity, from
the vessels of cups, even to all the vessels
of flagons. 25. In that day, saith the Lord
of hosts, shall the nail that is fastened in the
sure place be removed, and be cut down,
and fall; and the burden that was upon it
shall be cut off: for the Lord hath spoken it.
We have here a prophecy concerting the displa¬
cing of Shebna, a great officer at court, and the pre¬
ferring of Eliakim to the post of honour and trust
that he was in. Such changes are common in the
courts of princes, it is therefore strange that so much
notice should be taken of it by the prophet here: but
by the accomplishment of what was foretold concern¬
ing these particular persons, God designed to con¬
firm his word in the mouth of Isaiah concerning
other and greater events; and it is likewise to show,
that, as God has burthens in store for those nations
and kingdoms abroad that are open enemies to his
church and people; so he has for those particular
persons at home, that are false friends to them, and
betray them. It is likewise a confirmation in gene¬
ral of the hand of Divine Providence in all events
of this kind, which to us seem contingent, and to de¬
pend upon the wills and fancies of princes: promo¬
tion comes neither from the east, nor from the west,
nor from the south; but God is the Judge, Ps. lxxv.
6, 7. It is probable that this prophecy was deli¬
vered at the same time with that in the former part
of the chapter, and began to be fulfilled before
ISAIAH, XXII.
104
S-nnacherib’s invasion; for now Shebna was over the
hou.tr, but then Eliakim was,((7i. xxxvi.3. ) and Sheb-
n *. coming down gradually, was only scribe. Here is,
I. The prophecy of Shebnu’s disgrace; lie is call¬
ed this treasurer, being intrusted with the manage¬
ment of the revenue; and he is likewise said to be
over the house; for such was his boundless ambition
and covetousness, that less than two places, and
those two of the greatest importance at court, would
not content him. It is common for self-seeking men
thus to grasp at more than they can manage; and
so the business of their places is neglected, while
the pomp and profit of them wholly engage the
mind. It does not appear what were the particu¬
lar instances of Shebna’s mal-administration, for
which Isaiah is here sent to prophesy against him;
but the Jews say, “ He kept up a traitorous corres¬
pondence with the king of Assyria, and was in treaty
with him to deliver the city into his hands.” How¬
ever it was, it should seem that he was a foreigner,
(for we never read of the name of his father,) and
that he was an enemy to the true interests of Judah
and Jerusalem; it is probable that he was first pre¬
ferred by Ahaz. Hezekiah was himself an excel¬
lent prince; but the best masters cannot always be
sure of good servants: we have need to pray for
princes, that they may be wise and happy in the
choice of those they trust. These were times of
reformation, yet Shebna, a bad man, complied so
far as to keep his places at court; and it is probable
that many others did like him, for which reason
S nnacherib is said to have been sent against a hy¬
pocritical nation, ch. x. 6. In this message to Sheb-
n i, we have,
1. A reproof of his pride, vanity, and security;
(v. lfi.) “ What hast thou here, and whom hast thou
h°re? What a mighty noise and bustle dost thou
oi ike! What estate hast thou here, that thou wast
barn to? 117 iom hast thou here, what relations that
thou art allied to? Art thou not of mean and ob¬
scure original, filius /io/iuli — an utter plebeian, that
comest we know not whence? What is the meaning
of this then, th it thou hast built thee a fine house,
hast graved thee a habitation?” So very nice and
curious was it, that it seemed rather to be the work
of an engraver than of a mason or carpenter. And it
seemed engraven in a rock; so firmly was it founded,
and so impregnable was it. “ Nay, thou hast hewed
thee out a sepulchre;” as if he designed that his pomp
should survive his funeral. Though Jerusalem was
not the place of his fathers' sepulchres, (as Nelie-
miah called it with a great deal of tenderness, Neh.
ii. 3.) he designed it should be the place of his own;
and therefore set up a monument for himself in his
life-time, set it up on high. They that make stately
monuments for their pride, forget that, how beauti¬
ful soever they appear outwardly, within they are
full of dead men’s bones: but it is pity that the
grave-stone should forget the grave.
2. A prophecy of his fall, and the sullying of his
glory.
(1.) That he should now quickly be displaced and
degraded; (v. 19.) I will drive thee from thy sta¬
tion. High places are slippery places; and those
are justly deprived of their honour, that are proud
of it, and puffed up with it; and deprived of their
power, that do hurt with it. God will do it who
shows himself to be God, by looking upon proud
men, ami abasing them , Job xl. 12. To this, v. 25.
refers. The nail that is now fastened in the sure
place, Shebn i, who thinks himself immoveably fixed
in Ins office, shall be removed, and cut down, and
fall. Those are mistaken, who think any place in
this world a sure place, or themselves as nails fas-
t-oed in it; for tV-re is nothing here but uncertaintv.
When the nail falls, the burthen that was upon it is
cut off: when Shebna was disgraced, all that had a
I dependence upon him fell into contempt too. Those
! that are in high places will have many hanging upon
them, as favourites whom they are proud of ana
trust to; but they are burthens upon tlu m, and per¬
haps with their weight break the nail, and both fall
together, and by deceiving ruin one another — the
common fate of great men and their flatterers, who
expect more from each other than either performs.
(2.) That after awhile he should not only be dri¬
ven from his station, but driven his country; The
Lord will carry thee away with the captivity of a
mighty man, v. 17, 18. Some think the Assyrians
seized him, and took him away, because he had
promised to assist them, and did not, but appeared
against them; or, perhaps, Hezekiah, finding out
his treachery, banished him, and forbade him ever
to return; or, he himself, finding that he was be¬
come obnoxious to the people, withdrew into some
other country, and there spent the rest of his days
in meanness and obscurity. Grotius thinks he was
stricken with a leprosy, which was a disease ccm-
monly supposed to come from the immediate hand
of God’s displeasure, particularly for the punish¬
ment of the proud, as in the case of Miriam and
Uzziah; and by reason of this disease, he was
tossed like a ball out of Jerusalem. Those who,
when they are in power, turn and toss others, will
be justly turned and tossed themselves, when their
day shall come to fall. Many who have thought
themselves fastened like a nail, may come to be
tossed like a ball; for here have we no continuing
city. Shebna thought his place too strait for him,
he had no room to thrive; God will therefore send
him into a large country, where he shall have room
to wander, but never find the way back again; for
there he shall die, and lay his bones there, and not
in the sepulchre he had hewn out for himself. And
there the chariots which had been the chariots of
his glory, in which he had rattled about the streets
of Jerusalem, and which he took into banishment
with him, should but serve to upbraid him with his
former grandeur, to the shame of his lord’s house,
of the court of Ahaz, that had advanced him.
II. The prophecy of Eliakim’s advancement, t>.
20, &c. He is God’s servant, has approved him¬
self faithfully so in other emplovments, and there¬
fore God will call him to this high station. Those
that are diligent in doing the duty of a low sphere,
stand fairest for preferment in God’s books. Elia¬
kim does not undermine Shebna, or make an inter¬
est against him, nor does he intrude into his office:
but God calls him to it; and what God calls us to,
we may expect he will own us in.
It is here foretold,
1. That Eliakim should be put into Shebna’s
place of lord chamberlain of the household, lord
treasurer, and prime minister of state. The pro¬
phet must tell Shebna this; (y. 21.) “ He shall have
thy robe, the badge of honour: and thy girdle, the
badge of power; for he shall have thy government.”
To hear of it would be a great mortification to Sheb¬
na, much more to see it. Great men, especiallv if
proud men, cannot endure their successors. God
undertakes the doing of it, not only because he
would put it into the heart of Hezekiah to do it, and
his hand must be acknowledged, guiding the hearts
of princes in placing and displacing men, (Prov.
xxi. 1.) but because the powers that are subordi¬
nate as well as supreme, are ordained of God. It is
God that clothes princes with their robes, and there¬
fore we must submit ourselves to them for the
Lord’s sake, and with an eye to him, 1 Pet. ii. 13.
And since it is he that commits the government into
their hand, they must administer it according to his
will, for his glory; they must judge for him, by
whom they judge, and decree justice, Prov. viii. 15.
And they may depend upon him to furnish them for
105
ISAIAH, XXIII.
■what he calls them to: according to the promise
here, I will clothe him; and then it follows, I will
strengthen him. Those that are called to places of
trust and power, should seek unto God for grace to
um tble them to do the duty of their places, for that
ought to be their chief care.
Eliakim’s advancement is further described by
the laving of the key of the house of David ufion
his shoulders, v. 22. Probably, he carried a golden
key upon his shoulder as a badge of his office, or
had one embroidered upon his cloak or robe, to
which this alludes. Being over the house, and hav¬
ing the key delivered to him, as the seals are to the
lord keeper, he shall often and none shall shut, shut
and none shall often. He had access to the house
of the precious things, the silver and the gold, and
the s/tices; to the house of the armour and the trea¬
sures, ( ch . xxxix. 2.) and disposed of the stores there
as he thought fit for the public service. He put
whom he pleased into the inferior offices, and turned
out whom he pleased. Our Lord Jesus describes
his own power as Mediator by an allusion to this,
(Rev. iii. 7.) that he has the key of David, where¬
with he oftetts and no man shuts, he shuts and no
man oftens: his power in the kingdom of heaven,
and in the ordering of all the affairs of that king¬
dom, is absolute, irresistible, and uncontrollable.
2. That he should be fixed and confirmed in that
office: he shall have it for life, and not durante bene-
filacito— during pleasure; (v. 23.) I will fasten
him as a nail iii a sure place, not to be removed or
cut down. Thus lasting shall the honour be, that
comes from God, to all those who use it for him.
Our Lord Jesus is as a nail in a sure place: Iris
kingdom cannot be shaken, and he himself is still
the same.
S. That he should be a great blessing in his office :
and that is it that crowns the favours here conferred
upon him. God makes his name great, for he shall
be a blessing, Gen. xii. 2.
(1.) He shall be a blessing to hiscountry; (v. 21.)
He shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem
and to the house of Judah. He shall take care not
onlv of the affairs of the king’s household, but of
all the public interests in Jerusalem and Judah.
Note, Rulers should be fathers to those that are
under their government; to teach them with wis¬
dom, rule them with love, and correct what is amiss
with tenderness; to protect them and provide for
them, and be solicitous about them, as a man is for
his own children and family. It is happy with a
people, when neither court, nor city, nor country,
has anv separate interests, but all centre in the
same, so that the courtiers are true patriots, and
whom the court blesses, the countiy has reason to
bless too; and when those who are fathers to Jeru¬
salem, the royal city, are no less so to the house of
Judah.
(2.) He shall be a blessing to his family; (v. 23,
24.) He shall be for a glorious throne to his father’s
house: the consummate wisdom and virtue which
recommended him to this great trust made him the
honour of his family, which, probably, was very
considerable before," but now became much more
so. Children should aim to be a credit to their pa¬
rents and relations. The honour men reflect upon
their families by their piety and usefulness, is more
t'l be valued than that which they derive from their
families by their names and titles.
Eliakim being preferred, all the glory of his fa¬
ther’s house was hung upon him; they all made their
court to him, and his brethren’s sheaves bowed to
his. Observe, the glory of this world gives a man
no intrinsic worth or excellency; it is but hung upon
him as an appurtenance, and it will soon drop from
him. Eliakim was compared to a nail in a sure
place; in pursuance cf which comparison, all the
Vol. IV. — O
| relations of his family, which, it is likely, were nu¬
merous, and that was the glory cf it, are said to
have a dependence upon him; as in a house the \cs-
I sels that have handles to them, are hung up upon
nails and pins. It intimates likewise, that he shall
generously take care of them all, and bear the
weight of that carryall the vessels, not only the fla¬
gons, but the cups, the vessels of small quantity,
| the meanest that belonged to his family, shall be
provided for by him. See what a burthen they bring
upon themselves, that undertake great trusts; they
little think how many and how much will hang upon
them, if they resolve to be faithful in the discharge
of their trust. Our Lord Jesus having the key of
the house of David, is as a nail in a sure place, and
all the glory of his father’s house hangs upon him,
I is derived from him, and depends upon him; even
j the meanest that belong to his church, are welcome
to him, and he is able to bear the stress of them all.
That soul cannot perish, nor that concern fall to the
ground, though ever so weighty, that is by faith
hung upon Christ.
CHAP. XXIII.
This chapter is concerning Tyre, an ancient wealthy city,
situated upon the sea, and for many ages one of the most
celebrated cities for trade and merchandise in those parts
of the world. The lot of the tribe of Asher bordered
upon it; ( Joshua xix. 29.) it is called the strong city Tyre.
We seldom find it a dangerous enemy to Israel, but some¬
times their faithful ally, as in the reigns of David and
Solomon; for trading cities maintain their grandeur, not
by conquests of their neighbours, but by commerce with
them. In this chapter is foretold, I. The lamentable
desolation of Tyre, which was performed by Nebuchad¬
nezzar and the Chaldean army, about the time that they
destroyed Jerusalem; and a hard task they had of it, as
appears, Ezek. xxix. 18. where they are said to have
served, a hard service against Tyre , and yet to have no
wages, v. 1 - . 14. II. The restoration of Tyre after 70
- years, and the return of the Tyrians out of their captivity
to their trade again, v. 15. .18.
1 . rTXIE burden of Tyre. Howl, ye ships
JL of Tarshish; for it is laid waste, so
that there is no house, no entering in : from
the land of Chittim it is revealed to them.
2. Be still, ye inhabitants of the isles ; thou
whom the merchants of Zidon, that pass
over the sea, have replenished. 3. And by
great waters the seed of Sihor, the harvest
of the river, is her revenue; and she is a
mart of nations. 4. Be thou ashamed, O
Zidon; for the sea hath spoken, even the
strength of the sea, saving, 1 travail not, nor
bring forth children, neither do I nourish up
young men, nor bring up virgins. 5. As
at the report concerning Egypt, so shall they
be sorely pained at the report of Tyre. 6.
Pass ye over to Tarshish ; howl, ye inha¬
bitants of the isle. 7. Is this your joyous
! city , whose antiquity is of ancient days? her
1 own feet shall carry her afar off to sojourn.
8. Who hath taken this counsel against
Tyre, the crowning city , whose merchants
are princes, whose traffickers ore the hon¬
ourable of the earth? 9. The LoRn of
hosts hath purposed it, to stain the pride of
all glory, and to bring into contempt all the
honourable of the earth. 10. Pass through
thy land as a river, O daughter of Tarshish
106
ISAIAH, XXIII.
there is no more strength. 11. He stretched
out his hand over the sea; he shook the
kingdoms: the Lord hath given a com¬
mandment against the merchant-city, to de¬
stroy the strong holds thereof. 1 2. And he
said, Thou shalt no more rejoice, O thou
oppressed virgin, daughter of Zidon ; arise,
pass over to Chittim ; there also shalt thou
iiave no rest. 1 3. Behold, the land of the
Chaldeans: this people was not till the As¬
syrian founded it for them that dwell in the
wilderness : they set up the towers thereof,
they raised up the palaces thereof; and he
brought it to ruin. 14. Howl, ye ships of
Tarshish: for your strength is laid waste.
Tyre being a sea-port town, this prophecy of its
overthrow fitly begins and ends with, Howl, ye ships
of Tarshish; for all its business, wealth, and honour
depended upon its shipping; if that be ruined they
are all undone. Observe,
I. Tyre flourishing. This is taken notice of, that
her fall may appear the more dismal; 1. The mer¬
chants of Zidon, who traded at sea, had at first re¬
plenished her, v. 2. Zidon was the more ancient
city, situate upon the same sea-coast, a few leagues
more to the north, and Tyre was at first only a co¬
lony of that; but the daughter had outgrown the
mother, and was become much more considerable.
It may be a mortification to great cities to think
how they were at first replenished. 2. Egypt had
helped very much to raise her, v. 3. Sihor was the
river of Egypt, by that river, and the ocean into
which it ran, the Egyptians traded with Tyre: and
the harvest of that river was her revenue. The
riches of the sea, and the gains by goods exported
and imported, are as much the harvest to trading
towns, as that of hay and corn is to the country ; and
sometimes the harvest of the river proves a better
revenue than the harvest of the land. Or, it may
be meant of all the products of the Egyptian soil,
which the men of Tyre traded in, and which were
the harvest of the river Nile, owing themselves to
the overflowing of that river. 3. She was become
the mart of the nations; the great emporium of that
part of the world. Some of every known nation
might be found there, especially at certain times of
the year, when there was a general rendezvous of
merchants. This is enlarged upon by another pro¬
phet, Ezek. xxvii. 2, 3, &c. See how the hand of
the diligent, by the blessing of God upon it, makes
rich. Tyre became rich and great by industry,
though she had no other ploughs going' than those
that plough the waters. 4. She was a joyous city,
noted for mirth and jollity, v. 7. Those that were
so disposed, might find there all manner of sports
and diversions, all the delights of the sons and daugh¬
ters of men; balls, and plays, and operas, and every
thing of that kind, that a man had a fancy to. This
made them secure and proud, and they despised the
country people, who neither knew nor relished any
joys of that nature: and this made them very loath
to believe and consider what warnings God gave
them by his servants; they were too merry to mind
them. Her antiquity likewise was of ancient days,
and she was proud of that, and that helped to make
her secure; as if because she had been a city time
out of mind, and her antiquity had been of ancient
days, therefore she must continue a city time with¬
out end, and her continuance must be to the days
of eternity. 5. She was a crowning city, (y. 8.)
that crowned herself. Such were the power and
oomp of her magistrates, that they crowned those
who had dependence on her, and dealings with hi r
It is explained in the following words; Her mer
chants are princes, and live like princes, for tin-
ease and state they take; and her traffickers, what¬
ever country they go to, are the honourable of the
earth, who are respected by all. How slightly so¬
ever some now speak of tradesmen, it seems, for¬
merly, and among the wisest nations, there were
merchants, and traders, and men of business, that
were the honourable of the earth.
II. Here is Tyre falling. It does not appear that
she brought trouble upon herself by provoking her
neighbours with her quarrels, but rather by tempt¬
ing them with her wealth: but if that was it that
induced Nebuchadnezzar to fall upon Tyre, he was
disappointed; for after it had stood out a siege of
13 years, and could hold out no longer, the inhabit¬
ants got away by sea, with their families and goods,
to other places where they had an interest, and left
Nebuchadnezzar nothing but the bare city. See a
history of Tyre in Sir Walter Raleigh’s History t f
the World, lib. ii. cap. 7, sect. 3, 43. page 283.
which will give much light to the prophecy, and
that in Ezekiel concerning Tyre.
See how the destruction of Tyre is here foretold:
1. The haven should be spoiled, or, at least, ne¬
glected: there shall be no convenient harbour for the
reception of the ships of Tarshish, but all laid nvaste,
( v . 1. ) so that there shall be no house, no dock fi r
the ships to ride in, no inns or public houses for the
seamen, no entering into the port; perhaps it w:.s
choked with sand, or blocked up by the enemy; or.
Tyre being destroyed and laid waste, the ships that
used to come from Tarshish and Chittim into that
port, shall now no more enter in; for it is revealed
and made known to them, they have received the
dismal news, that Tyre is destroyed and laid waste:
so that there is now no more business for them there.
See how it is in this world; those that are spoiled
by their enemies are commonly slighted by their
old friends.
2. The inhabitants are struck with astonishment.
Tyre was an island; the inhabitants of it, who had
made a mighty noise and bustle in the world, had
revelled with loud huzzas, shall now be still and
silent; (v. 2.) they shall sit down as mourners, so
overwhelmed with grief, that they shall not be able
to express it. Their proud boasts of themselves,
and defiances of their neighbours, shall be silenced.
God caii soon quiet those, and strike them dumb,
that are the noisy, busy people of the world. Be
still; for God will do his work, (Ps. xlvi. 10. Zech.
ii. 13. ) and you cannot resist him.
3. The neighbours are amazed, blush, and are in
pain for them; Zidon is ashamed, (v. 4.) by whom
Tyre was at first replenished, for the rolling waves
of the sea brought to Zidon this news from T yre ; and
there the strength of the sea, a high spring-tide, pro¬
claimed, saying, “I travail not, nor bring forth
children, now as I have done. I do not now bring
ship loads of young people to Tyre, to be bred up
there in trade and business, as I used to do;” which
was the thing that had made Tyre so rich and popu¬
lous. Or, the sea, that used to be loaded with fleets
of ships about Tyre, shall now be as desolate as a
sorrowful widow that is bereaved of all her chil¬
dren, and has none about her to nourish and bring
up. Egypt indeed was a much larger and more
considerable kingdom than Tyre was; and yet Tyre
had so large a correspondence, upon the account of
trade, that all the nations about shall be as much in
pain, upon the report of the ruin of that one city, as
they would have been, and, not long after, were,
upon the report of the ruin of all Egypt, v. 5. Or.
as some read it, When the report shall reach to the
Egyptians , they shall be sorely panned to hear it oj
Tyre; both because of the loss of their trade with
107
ISAIAH,
that city, and because it was a threatening step to¬
ward their own ruin; when their neighbour’s house
was on fire, their own was in danger.
4. The merchants, as many as could, should trans¬
mit their effects to other places, and abandon Tyre,
where they had raised their estates, and thought
they had made them sure; ( v . 6.) “ Ye that have
long been inhabitants of this isle,” (for it lay off
in the sea about half a mile from the continent,)
“ it is time to howl now, for ye must pass over to
Tarshish. The best course Vou can take, is to
make the best of your way to Tarshish, to the sea,”
(to Tarsessus, a city in Spain; so some,) “ or to
some other of your plantations.” Those that think
their mountain stands strong, and cannot be moved,
will find that here they have no continuing city.
The mountains shall defiart, and the hills be re¬
moved.
5. Those that could not make their escape, must
expect no other than to be carried into captivity;
for it was the way of conquerors, in those times, to
take those they conquered to be bondmen in their
own country, and send of their own to be freemen
in theirs; (x>. 7.) Her own feet shall carry her afar
off to sojourn; she shall be hurried away on foot
into c iptivity, and many a weary step they shall
take toward their own misery. Those that have
lived in the greyest pomp and splendour, know not
what hardships they may be reduced to before they
die.
6. Many of those that attempted to escape should
be pursued, and fall into the hands of the enemy.
Tyre shall pass through her land as a river, ( v .
10.) running down, one company after another, into
the ocean or abyss of misery. Or, though they
hasten away as a river, with the greatest swiftness,
hoping to outrun the danger, yet there is no more
strength, they are quickly tired, and cannot get for¬
ward, but fall an easy prey into the hands of the
enemy. And as Tyre has no more strength, so her
sister Zidon has no more comfort; (v. 12.) “ Thou
shalt no more rejoice, 0 oppressed virgin, daughter
of Zidon, that art now ready to be overpowered by
the victorious Chaldeans; thy turn is next, there¬
fore arise, pass over to Chittim; flee to Greece, to
Italy, any whither, to shift for thy own safety ; yet
there also shalt thou have no rest; thine enemies
shall disturb thee, and thine own fears shall disquiet
thee, there where thou hopedst to find some repose. ”
Note, We deceive ourselves, if we promise our¬
selves rest any where in this world. Those that are
uneasy in one place, will be so in another; and when
God’s judgments pursue sinners, they will overtake
them.
But whence shall all this trouble come?
(1.) God will be the Author of it; it is a destruc¬
tion from the Almighty. It will be asked, {y. 8.)
“ Who has taken this counsel against Tyre? Who
has contrived it? Who has resolved it? Who can
find in his heart to lay such a stately, lovely city in
ruins? And how is it possible it should be effected?
To this it will be answered;
[1.] God has designed it, who is infinitely wise
and just, and never did, nor ever will do, any wrong
to any of his creatures; (y. 9.) The Lord of hosts,
that has all things at his disposal, and gives not ac¬
count of any of his matters, he has purposed it; it
shall be done according to the counsel of his will; and
that which he aims at herein, is, to stain the pride of
all glory, to pollute it, profane it, and throw it to be
trodden upon; and to bring into contempt, and make
despicable, all the honourable ones of the earth, that
they may not admire themselves, and be admired
by others, as usual. God did not bring those cala¬
mities upon Tyre in a way of sovereignty, to show
an arbitrary and irresistible power; but he did it to
punish the Tyrians for their pride. Many other I
XXIII.
sins, no doubt, reigned among them; idolatry, sen¬
suality, and oppression; but the sin of pride is fast¬
ened upon, as that which was the particular ground
of God’s controversy with Tyre, for he resists the
proud. All the world observing, and being sur¬
prised at, the desolation of Tyre, we have here an
exposition of it. God tells the world what he meant
by it: First, He designed to convince men of the
vanity and uncertainty of all earthly glory; to show
them what a withering, fading, perishing thing it
is, even then when it seems most substantial. It
were well if men would be thoroughly taught this
lesson, though it were at the expense of so great a
destruction. Are men’s learning and wealth, their
pomp and power, their interest in, and influence
upon, all about them, their glory? Are their stately
houses, rich furniture, and splendid appearances,
their glory? Look upon the ruins of Tyre, and see
all this glory stained, and sullied, and buried in the
dust. The honourable ones of heaven will be for
ever such; but see the grandees of Tyre, some fled
into banishment, others forced into captivity, and
all impoverished; and you will conclude that the
honourable of the earth, even the most honourable,
know not how soon they may be brought into con¬
tempt. Secondly, He designed hereby to prevent
their being proud of their glory, their being puffed
up, and confident of the continuance of it. Let the
ruin of Tyre be a warning to all places and persons
to take heed of pride, for it proclaims to all the
world, that he who exalts himself shall be abased.
[2.] God will do it, who has all power in his
hand, and can do it effectually; (y. 11.) He stretch¬
ed out his hand over the sea; he has done it, wit¬
ness the dividing of the Red sea, and the drowning
of Pharaoh in it. He has often shaken the king¬
doms that were most secure; and he has now given
commandment concerning this merchant-city, to
destroy the strong holds thereof. As its beauty
shall not intercede for it, but that shall be stained;
so its strength shall not protect it, but that shall be
broken. If any think it strange that a city so well
fortified, and that has so many powerful allies,
should be so totally ruined, let them know that it is
the Lord of hosts that has given a commandment
to destroy the strong holds thereof; and who can
gainsay his orders, or hinder the execution of them 5
(2.) The Chaldeans shall be the instruments of
it; (d. 13.) Behold the land of the Chaldeans; how
easily they and their land were destroyed by the
Assyrians. Though their own hands founded it, set
up the towers of Babylon, and raised up its palaces,
yet he, the Assyrian, brought it to ruin; whence the
Tyrians might infer, that as easily as the old Chal¬
deans were subdued by the Assyrians, so easily shall
Tyre be vanquished by those new Chaldeans. Babel
was built by the Assyrian, for them that dwell in
the wilderness. It may be rendered, for the ships.
The Assyrians founded it for ships, and ship-men
that traffic upon those vast rivers Tigris and Eu¬
phrates to the Persian and Indian seas; for men oj
the desert; for Babylon is called the desert of the
sea, ch. xxi. 1. Thus Tyrus was built upon the
sea for the like purpose. But the Assyrians (says
Dr. Lightfoot) brought that to ruin, now lately, in
Hezekiah’s time, and so shall Tyre, hereafter, be
brought to ruin by Nebuchadnezzar. If we looked
more upon the failing and withering of others, we
should not be so confident as we commonly are of
the continuance of our own flourishing and standing.
1 5. And it shall come to pass in that day,
that Tyre shall be forgotten seventy years,
according to the days of one king: after the
! end of seventy years shall Tyre sing as a
!! harlot. 16. Take a harp, go about the citv,
108 ISAIAH, XXIII.
thou harlot that hast been forgotten : make
sweet melody, sing many songs, that thou
mayest be remembered. 17. And it shall
come to pass, after the end of seventy years,
that the Lord will visit Tyre, and she shall
turn to her hire, and shall commit fornica¬
tion with all the kingdoms of the world
upon the face of the earth. 18. And her
merchandise and her hire shall be holiness
to the Lord : it shall not be treasured nor
laid up; for her merchandise shall be for
them that dwell before the Lord, to eat
sufficiently, and for durable clothing.
Here is,
I. The time fixed for the continuance of the de¬
solations of Tyre, which were not to be perpetual
desolations; Tyre shall be forgotten 70 years, v. 15.
So long it shall lie neglected, and buried in obscuri¬
ty. It was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar much
about the time that Jerusalem was, and lay as long
as it did in its ruins. See the folly of that proud
ambitious conqueror. What the richer, what the
stronger, was he for making himself master of Tyre,
when all the inhabitants were driven cut of it, and
he had none of his own subjects to spare for the re¬
plenishing and fortifying of it? It is strange what
pleasure men could take in destroying cities, and
making their memorial perish with them, Ps. ix. 6.
He trampled on the pride of Tyre, and therein serv¬
ed God’s purpose; but with greater pride, for which
God soon after humbled him.
II. A prophecy of the restoration of Tyre to its
glory again; After the end of 70 years, according
to the years of one king, or one dynasty, or family,
of kings, that of Nebuchadnezzar; when that ex¬
pired, the desolations of Tyre came to an end.
And we may presume that Cyrus at the same time,
when he released the Jews, and encouraged them
to rebuild Jerusalem, released the Tyrians also, and
encouraged them to rebuild Tyre. Thus the pros¬
perity and adversity of places, as well as persons,
are set the one over against the other; that the most
glorious cities may not be secure, nor the most ruin¬
ous despair. It is foretold,
1. That God’s providence shall again smile upon
this ruined city; (v. 17.) The Lord will visit Tyre
in mercy; for though he contend, he will not con¬
tend for ever. It is not said, Her old acquaintance
shall visit her, the colonies she has planted, and the
trading cities she has had correspondence with; they
have forgotten her; but, The Lord shall visit her
by some unthought-of turn; he shall cause his in¬
dignation toward her to cease, and then things will
run, of course, in their former channel.
2. That she shall use her best endeavours to re¬
cover her trade again. She shall sing as a harlot,
that has been some time under correction for her
lewdness: but, when she is set at liberty, (so violent
is the bent of corruption,) she will use her old arts
of temptation. The Tyrians being returned from
their captivity, and those that remained recovering
new spirits thereupon, they shall contrive how to
force a trade, shall procure the best choice of goods,
undersell their neighbours, and be obliging to all
customers; as a harlot that has been forgotten,
when she comes to be spoken of again, recommends
herself to company by singing and playing; takes a
harp, goes about the city, perhaps in the night, se¬
renading, makes sweet ’ melody, and sings many
songs. These are innocent and allowable diver¬
sions, if soberly and moderately and modestly used;
but those that’ are attached to them should" not be
over fond of them, nor ambitious to excel in them;
because, whatever they are now, anciently they
were some of the baits with which harlots used to
entice fools. Tyre shall now by degrees come to be
the mart of nations again; she shall return to her
hire, to her traffic, and shall commit fornication:
she shall have dealings in trade (for she carries on
the similitude of a harlot) with all the kingdoms of
the world, that she had formerly traded with in
her prosperity. The love of worldly wealth is a spi¬
ritual whoredom, and therefore covetous people
are called adulterers and adulteresses, (James iv. 4. )
and covetousness is spiritual idolatry.
3. That, having recovered hertrade again, she shall
make a better use of it than she had done formerly;
and this good she should get by her calamities, (v.
18.) Her merchandise, and her hire, shall be holiness
to the Lord. The trade of Tyre, and all the gain of
her trade, shall be devoted to God and to his honour,
and employed in his service. It shall not be trea¬
sured and hoarded up, as formerly, to be the matter
of their pride, and the support of their carnal confi¬
dence; but it shall be laid out in acts of piety and
charity. What thev can spare from the mainten¬
ance of themselves and their families, shall be for
them that dwell before the Lord, for the priests, the
Lord’s ministers that attend in his temple at Jeru
salem ; not to maintain them in pomp and grandeur,
but that they and theirs may eat sufficiently, may
have food convenient for them, with as little as may
be of that care which would divert them from their
ministration; and that they may have, not rich and
fine clothing, but durable clothing, that which is
strong and lasting; clothing for old men; so some
read it; as if the priests, though they were young,
must wear such plain, grave clothing as old mi n
used to wear. Now, (1.) This supposes that reli¬
gion should be set up in New Tyre, that they should
come to the knowledge of the true God, and into
communion with the Israel of God. Perhaps their
being fellow-captives with the Jews in Babylon,
(who had prophets with them there,) disposed them
to join with them in their worship there, and turned
them from idols, as it cured the Jews of their idola¬
try; and when they were released with them, and,
as they had reason to believe, for their sakes, when
they were settled again in Tyre, they would send
gifts and offerings to the temple, and presents to
the priests. We find men of Tyre then dwell¬
ing in the land of Judah, Neh. xiii. 16. Tvre and
Sidon were better disposed to religion in Christ’s
time, than the cities of Israel, for if Christ had gone
among them, they would have repented, Matth. xi.
21. And we meet with Christians at Tyre, (Acts
xxi. 3. ) and, many years after, did Christianity flour¬
ish there. Some of the rabbins refer this prophecy
of the conversion of Tyre to the days of the Mes¬
siah. (2. ) It directs those that have estates, to make
use of them in the service of God and religion, and
to reckon that best laid up, which is so laid rut.
Both the merchandise of the tradesman, and the
hire of the day-labourers, shall be devoted to God.
Both the merchandise, (the employment we follow,)
and the hire, (the gain of our employment,) must
be holiness to the Lord ; alluding to the motto en¬
graven on the frontlet of the High-Priest, (Exod.
xxxix. 30.) and to the separation of the tithe under
the law. Lev. xxvii. 30. See a promise like this
referring to gospel-times, Zech. xiv. 20, 21. We
must first give up ourselves to be holiness to the
Lord, before what we do, or have, or get, can be
so. When we abide with God in our particular call
ings, and do common actions after a godly sort, when
we abound in works of piety and charity, are liberal
in relieving the poor, and supporting the ministry,
and encouraging the gospel, then our merchandise
and our hire are holiness to the Lord, if we sin
cerely look at his glory in it. And it need not
ISAIAH, XXIV.
109
ic treasured and laid up on earth; for it is trea¬
sured and laid up in heaven, in bags that ivax not
old, Luke xii. 33.
CHAP. XXJV.
It is agreed that here begins a new sermon, which is con¬
tinued to the end of ch. xxvii. And in it, the prophet,
according to the directions he had received, does, in
many precious promises, say to the righteous, It shall be
well icith them; and, in many dreadful threatening, he
says, Wo to the xoicked, it shall be ill xoith them; (ch. iii.
1 0* 11.) and these are interwoven, that they may illus¬
trate each other. This chapter is, mostly, threatening;
and as the judgments threatened are very sore and griev¬
ous ones, so the people threatened with those judgments,
are very many. It is not the burthen of any particu¬
lar city or kingdom, as those before, but the burthen
of the whole earth. The word indeed signifies only the
land , because our own land is commonly to us as all the
earth. But it is here explained by another word that it
is not so confined, it is the world , v. 4. So that it must,
at least, take in a whole neighbourhood of nations. I .
Some think (and very probably) that it is a prophecy of
the great havoc that Sennacherib and his Assyrian army
should now shortly make of many of the nations in that
part of the world. 2. Others make it to point at the like
devastations which, about 100 years after, Nebuchad¬
nezzar and his armies should make in the same coun¬
tries; going from one kingdom to another, not only to
conquer them, but to ruin them, and lay them wraste; for
that was the method which those eastern nations took
in their wars. The promises that are mixed with the
threatenings, are intended for the support and comfort
of the people of God in those very calamitous times.
And since here are no particular nations named, either
by whom, or on whom, those desolations should be
brought, I see not but it may refer to both these events.
Nay, the scripture has many fulfilling’s, and we ought to
give it its full latitude; and therefore I incline to think
that the prophet, from those and the like instances which
he had a particular eye to, designs here to represent in
general the calamitous state of mankind, and the many
miseries which human life is liable to, especially those
that attend the wars of the nations. Surely the prophets
were sent, not only to foretell particular events, but to
form the minds of men to virtue and piety, and for that
end their prophecies were written and preserved, even
for our learning, and therefore ought not to be looked
upon as of private interpretation. N ow, since a thorough
conviction of the vanity of the world, and its insufficiency
to make us happy, will go far toward bringing us to
God, and drawing out our affections towards another
world, the prophet here shows what vexation of spirit
we must expect to meet with in these things, that we
may never take up our rest in them, nor promise our¬
selves satisfaction any where short of the enjoyment of
God. In this chapter, we have, 1. A threatening of
desolating judgments for sin; (v. 1..12.) to this is
added an assurance, that, in the midst of them, good
people should be comforted, (v. 13 .. 16.) II. A further
threatening of the like desolations, (v. 16. . 22.) to which
is added an assurance, that, in the midst of all, God
should be glorified.
l.TJEHOLD, the Lord maketh the
Jj earth empty; and maketh it waste,
and turneth it upside down, and scattereth
abroad the inhabitants thereof. 2. And it
shall be, as with the people, so with the
priest; as with the servant, so with his mas¬
ter ; as with the maid, so with her mistress ;
as with the buyer, so with the seller ; as
with the lender, so with the borrower ; as
with the taker of usury, so with the giver of
usury to him. 3. The land shall be utterly
emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the Lord
hath spoken this word. 4. The earth
moumeth, and fadeth away; the world
languisheth, and fadeth away ; the haughty
people of the earth do languish. 5. The
earth also is defiled under the inhabitants
thereof, because they have transgressed the
laws, changed the ordinance, broken the
everlasting covenant. G. Therefore hath
the curse devoured the earth, and they that
dwell therein are desolate: therefore the
inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few
men left. 7. The new wine mourneth, the
vine languisheth, all the merry-hearted do
sigh. 8. The mirth of tablets ceaseth, the
noise of them that rejoice endeth, the joy of
the harp ceaseth. 9. They shall not drink
wine with a song; strong drink shall be bitter
to them that drink it. 1 0. The city of confu¬
sion is broken down ; every house is shut up,
that no man may come in. 1 1 . There is a
crying for wine in the streets; all joy is dark¬
ened, the mirth of the land is gone. 12. In
the city is left desolation, and the gate is smit¬
ten with destruction.
It is a very dark and melancholy scene that this
prophecy presents to our view; turn our eves which
way we will, every thing looks dismal. The deso¬
lations are here described in a great variety of ex¬
pressions to the same purport, and all aggravating.
I. The earth is stripped of all its ornaments, and
looks as if it were taken off its basis; it is made
empty and waste, (n. 1. ) as if it were reduced to its
first chaos, Tohu and Bohu, nothing but confusion
and emptiness again, (Gen. i. 2.) without form and
void. It is true, earth sometimes signifies the land,
and so the same word Eretz is here translated; (r.
3.) The land shall be utterly emptied, arid utterly
spoiled ; but I see not why it should not there, as
well as v. 1. be translated the earth ; for most com¬
monly, if not always, where it signifies some one
particular land, it lias something joined to it, or, at
least, not far from it, which does so appropriate it;
as, the land (or earth) of Egypt, or Canaan ; or this
land, or ours, or yours, or the like. It might indeed
refer to some particular country, and an ambiguous
word might be used to warrant such an application;
for it is good to apply to ourselves, and our own
lands, what the scripture says in general, of the va¬
nity and vexation of spirit that attend all things here
below ; but it should seem designed to speak wlfat
often happens to many countries, and will do while
the world stands, and what may, we know not how
soon, happen to our own, and what is the general
character of all earthly things, they are empty f f
all solid comfort and satisfaction, a little thing makes
them waste. We often see numerous families, and
plentiful estates, utterly emptied, and utterly spc.il-
ed, by one judgment or other, or perhaps only by a
gradual and insensible decay. Sin has turned the
earth upside down; the earth is become quite a dif¬
ferent thing to man from what it was when God
made it to be his habitation. Sin has also scattered
abroad the inhabitants thereof; the rebellion at Ba¬
bel was the occasion of the dispersion there. How
many ways are there in which the inhabitants both
of towns and of private houses are scattered abroad,
so that near relations and old neighbours know no¬
thing of one another! To the same purport, v. 4.
The earth mourns, and fades away; it disappoints
those that placed their happiness in it, and raised
their expectations high from it, and proves not what
they promised themselves it would be; The whole
world languishes and fades away, as hastening to¬
ward a dissolution. It is, at the best, like a flower,
which withers in the hands of those that please
no
ISAIAH, XXIV.
themselves too much with it, and lay it in their bo¬
soms. And as the earth itself grows old, so they that
dwell therein are desolate; men carry crazy, sickly
bodies along with them, are often solitary, and con¬
fined by affliction, v. 6. When the earth languishes,
and is not so fruitful as it used to be, then they
that dwell therein, that make it their home, and
rest, and portion, are desolate; whereas they that
Dy faith dwell in God, can rejoice in him, even when
the fig-tree does not blossom. If we look abroad,
and see in how many places pestilences and burn¬
ing fevers rage, and what multitudes are swept
away by them in a little time, so that sometimes the
living scarcely suffice to bury the dead, perhaps we
shall understand what the prophet means, when he
says, The inhabitants of the earth are burned, or
consumed, some by one disease, others by another,
and there are but few men left, in comparison.
Note, The world we live in is a world of disappoint¬
ment, a vale of tears, and a dying world; and the
children of men in it are but of few days, and full
of trouble.
II. It is God that brings all these calamities upon
the earth; the Lord that made the earth, and made
it fruitful and beautiful, for the service and comfort
of man, now makes it empty and waste; (y. 1.)
for its Creator is, and will be, its Judge; he has an
incontestable right to pass sentence upon it, and an
irresistible power to execute that sentence. It is
the Lord that has spoken this word, and he will do
the work; (u. 3.) it is his curse that has devoured
the earth, (y. 6. ) the general curse which sin brought
upon the ground for man’s sake, (Gen. iii. 17. ) and
all the particular curses which families and coun¬
tries bring upon themselves by their enormous wick¬
edness. See the power of God’s curse, how it makes
all empty, and lays all waste; those whom he
curses, are cursed indeed.
III. Persons of all ranks and conditions shall
share in these calamities; (t>. 2.) It shall be, as with
the people, so with the priest, &c. This is ti-ue of
many of the common calamities of human life; all
are subject to the same diseases of body, sorrows of
mind, afflictions in relations, and the like; there is
one event to those of very different stations; time and
chance happen to them all. It is in a special manner
true ot the destroying judgments which God some¬
times brings upon sinful nations; when he pleases,
he can make them universal, so that none shall es¬
cape them, or be exempt from them; whether men
have little or much, they shall lose it all. Those of
the meaner rank smart first by famine; but those
of the higher rank go first into captivitv, while the
poor of the land are left. It should be 'all alike, 1.
With high and low; .Is with the people, so with the
priest, or prince. The dignity of magistrates and
ministers, and the respect and reverence owing to
both, shall not secure them; the faces of elders are
not honoured, Lam. v. 12. The priests had been
as corrupt and wicked as the people; and if their
character serve not to restrain them from sin, how
can they expect it should serve to secure them from
judgments? In both, it is like people, like priest,
Hosea iv. 8, 9. 2. With bond and free; As with
the servant, so with his master; as with the maid,
so with her mistress; they have all corrupted their
way, and therefore will all be made miserable when
the earth is made waste. 3. With rich and poor;
those that have money beforehand, that are pur¬
chasing, and letting out money to interest, will fare
no better than those that are so impoverished, that
they are forced to sell their estates, and take up
money at interest. There are judgments short of
the great day of judgment, in which rich and poor
meet together. Let not those that are advance^
in the world, set their inferiors at too great a dis¬
tance, because they know not how soon they may
be set upon a level with them. The rich man’s
wealth is his strong city, in his own conceit; but it
does not always prove so.
IV. It is sin that brings these calamities upon the
earth; Therefore the earth is made empty, and
fades away, because it is defiled under the inhabi¬
tants thereof; (v. 5.) it is polluted by the -sins of
men, and therelore it is made desolate by the judg¬
ments of God. Such is the filthy nature of sin, that
it defiles the earth itself under the sinful inhabitants
thereof, and it is rendered unpleasant in the eves of
God and good men. See Lev. xviii. 25, 27, 28.
Blood, in particular, defiles the land. Numb. xxxv.
33. The earth never spues out its inhabitants, till
they have first defiled it by their sins. Why, what
have they done? 1. They have transgressed the
laws of their creation, not answered the ends of it:
the bonds of the law of nature have been broken by
them, and they have cast from them the cords of
their obligations to the God of nature. 2. They
have changed the ordinances of revealed religion,
those of them that have had the benefit of that.
They have neglected the ordincmces; so some read
it; and have made no consciencrtof observing them;
they have passed over the laws, in the commission
of sin, and have passed by the ordinance, in the
omission of duty. 3. Herein they have broken the
everlasting covenant, which is a perpetual bond, and
will be to those that keep it a perpetual blessing. It
is God’s wonderful condescension, that he is pleased
to deal with men in a covenant-way; to do them
good, and thereby oblige them to do him service.
Even those that had no benefit by God’s covenant
with Abraham, had benefit by his covenant with
Noah and his sons, which is called an everlasting
covenant, his covenant with day and night; but they
observe not the precepts of the sons of Noah, they
acknowledge not God’s goodness in the day and
night, nor study to make him any grateful returns,
and so break the everlasting covenant, and defeat
the gracious designs and intentions of it.
V. These judgments shall humble men’s pride,
and mar their mirth: when the earth is made empty.
1. It is a great mortification to men’s pride; (y.
4.) The haughty people of the earth do languish;
for they have lost that which supported their pride,
and for which they magnified themselves: those that
have held their heads highest, God can make hang
the head.
2. It is a great damp to men’s jollity; this is en¬
larged upon much; (f. 7 — 9.) All the merry-hearted
do sigh; such is the nature pf carnal mirth, it is but
as the crackling of thorns under a pot, Eccl. vii. 6.
Great laughters commonly end in a sigh: they that
make the world their chief joy, cannot rejoice ever¬
more. When God sends his judgments into the
earth, he designs thereby to make those serious
that were wholly addicted to their pleasures; Let
your laughter be turned into mourning. When the
earth is emptied, the noise of them that rejoice in it,
ends. Carnal joy is a noisy thing; but the noise of it
will soon be at an end, and the end of it is heaviness.
Two things are made use of to excite and express
vain mirth, and the jovial crew is here deprived of
both; (1.) Drinking; the new wine mourns, it is
grown sour for want of drinking; for, how proper
soever it may be for the heavy heart, (Prov. xxxi.
6.) it does not relish then as it does to the merrv-
hearted: the vine languishes, and gives little hopes
of a vintage, and therefore the merry-hearted do
sigh; for they know no other gladness than that < f
their corn and wine and oil increasing, (Ps. iv. 7.t
and if you destroy their vines and their fig-trees, you
make all their mirth to cease, Hos. ii. 11, 12. They
shall not now drink wine with a song, as they uset.
tc do, and with huzzas; but rather drink it with a
sigh: nay, Strong drink shall be bitter to them that
ISAIAH, XXIV.
drink it, bc( ause they cannot but mingle their tears
with it; or, through sickness, they have lost the re¬
lish of it God has many ways to imbitter wine and
strong drink to them that love them, and have the
highest gust'of them: distemper of body, anguish of
mind, the ruin of the estate or country, will make
tlie strong drink bitter, and all the delights of sense
tasteless and insipid. (2.) Music; The mirth of
tabrets ceases, and the joy of the harp, which used
to be at their feasts, ch. v. 12. The captives in Ba¬
bylon hang their harps on the willow trees. In
short, all joy is darkened, there is not a pleasant
look to be seen, nor has any one power to force a
smile; all the mirth of the land is gone, (y. 11.) and
if it were that mirth which Solomon calls madness,
there is no great loss of it
VI. The cities will in a particular manner feel
from these desolations of the country; {v. 10.) The
city of confusion is broken, is broken down; so we
read it; it lies exposed to invading powers, not only
by' the breaking down of its walls, but by the con¬
fusion that the inhabitants are in; every house is
shut up; perhaps by reason of the plague, which has
burned or consumed the inhabitants, so that there
are few men left, v. 6. Houses infected are usually
shut up, that no man may come in: or, they are
shut up because they are deserted and uninhabited.
There is a crying for wine, for the spoiling of the
vintage, so that there is likely to be no wine. In
the city, in Jerusalem itself, that had been so much
frequented, there shall be left nothing but desola¬
tion; grass shall grow in the streets, and the gate is
smitten with destruction; (v. 12.) all that used to
pass and repass through the gate, are smitten, and
all the strength of the city is cut off. How soon can
God make a city of order a city of confusion, and
then it will soon be a city of desolation!
1 3. When thus it shall be in the midst of
the land among the people, there shall be as
the shaking of an olive-tree, and as the
gleaning-grapes when the vintage is done.
1 4. They shall lift up their voice, they shall
sing for the majesty of the Lord, they shall
cry aloud from the sea. 15. Wherefore
glorify ye the Lord in the fires, even the
name of the Lord God of Israel in the isles
of the sea.
Here is mercy remembered in the midst of wrath;
in Judah and Jerusalem, and the neighbouring coun¬
tries, when they are overrun by the enemy, Sen¬
nacherib or Nebuchadnezzar, there shall be a rem¬
nant preserved from the general ruin, and it shall
be a devout and pious remnant. And this method
God usually observes, when his judgments are
abroad; he does not make a full end, ch. vi. 13. Or,
we may take it thus; Though the greatest part of
mankind have all their comfort ruined by the emp¬
tying of the earth, and the making of that desolate,
vet there are some few who understand themselves
better, who have laid up their treasure in heaven,
and not in things below, and therefore can keep up
their comfort and joy in God, even then when the
earth mourns and fades away.
Observe, 1. The small number of this remnant:
(x>. 13.) when all goes to ruin, there shall be as the
shaking of an olive-tree, and the gleaning-grapes,
here and there one, who shall escape the common
calamity, (;is Noah and his family, when the old
world was drowned,) that shall be able to sit down
upon a heap of the ruins of all their creature-com¬
forts, and even then rejoice in the Lord, (Hab. iii.
16 — 18.) who, when all faces gather blackness, can
lift up their heads with joy, Luke xxi. 26, 28. These
111
few are dispersed, and at a distance from each
other, like the gleanings of the olive-tree; and they
are concealed,- hid under the leaves. The Lord
only knows them that are his, the world does not.
2. The great devotion of this remnant, which is
the greater for their having so narrowly escaped
this great destruction; (v. 14.) They shall lift up
their voice, they shall sing. (1. ) They shall sing
for joy in their deliverance; when the mirth of car¬
nal worldlings ceases, the joy of the saints is as lively
as ever; when the merry-hearted do sigh because
the vine languishes, the upright-hearted do sing
because the covenant of grace, the fountain of their
comforts, and the foundation of their hopes, never
fails; they that rejoice in the Lord, can rejoice in
tribulation, and by faith may be in triumphs, when
all about them are in tears. (2. ) They shall sing
to the glory and praise of God; shall sing not only
for the mercy, but for the majesty, of the Lords
their songs are awful and serious, and in their spi¬
ritual joys they have a reverent regard to the great¬
ness of God, and keep at an humble distance, when
they attend him with their praises. The majesty
of the Lord, which is matter of terror to wicked
people, furnishes the saints with songs of praise.
They shall sing for the magnificence, or transcen¬
dent excellency, of the Lord, showed both in his
judgments and in his mercies; for we must sing, and
sing unto him, of both, Ps. ci. 1. Those who have
made, or are making, their escape from the land
(that being emptied and made desolate) to the sea
and the isles of the sea, shall from thence cry aloud ;
their dispersion shall help to spread the knowledge
of God, and they shall make even remote shores to
ring with his praises. It is much for the honour of
God, if those who fear him rejoice in him, and
praise him, even in the most melancholy times.
3. Their holy zeal to excite others to the same
devotion; (v. 15.) they encourage their fellow-suf¬
ferers to do likewise. (1.) Those who are in the
fires, in the furnace of affliction, those fires by which
th e inhabitants of the earth are burned, v. 6. Or,
in the valleys, the low, dark, dirty places. (2.)
Those who are in the isles of the sea, whither they
are banished, or are forced to flee for shelter, and
hide themselves remote from all their friends; they
went through fire and water; (Ps. lxvi. 12.) yet in
both let them glorify the Lord, and glorify him as
the Lord God of Israel. They who through grace
can glory in tribulation, ought to glorify God in tri¬
bulation, and give him thanks for their comforts,
which abound as their afflictions do abound. We
must in every fire, even the hottest, in every isle,
even the remotest, keep up our good thoughts of
God; when, though he slay us, yet we trust in him,
though, for his sake, we are killed all the day long,
yet none of these things move us, then we glorify
the Lord in the fires: thus the three children, and
the martyrs that sang at the stake.
16. From the uttermost part of the earth
have we heard songs, even glory to the righ¬
teous. But I said, My leanness, my lean¬
ness, wo unto me ! the treacherous dealers
have dealt treacherously; yea, the treacher¬
ous dealers have dealt very treacherously.
17. Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are
upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth. 1 8.
And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth
from the noise of the fear shall fall into the
pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst
of the pit shall be taken in the snare: for the
windows from on high are open, and the
ISAIAH, XXIV.
foundations of the earth do shake. 1 9. rI lie
earth is utterly broken down, .the earth is
clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceed¬
ingly. 20. The earth shall reel to and fro
like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a
cottage ; and the transgression thereof shall
be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not
rise again. 21. And it shall come to pass
in that day, that the Lord shall punish the
host of the high ones that are on high, and
the kings of the earth upon the earth. 22.
And they shall be gathered together as pri¬
soners are gathered in the pit, and shall be
shut up in the prison, and after many days
shall they be visited. 23. Then the moon
shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed,
when the Lord of hosts shall reign in mount
Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his an¬
cients, gloriously.
These verses, as those before, plainly speak,
I. Comfort to saints; they may be driven, by the
common calamities of the places where they live,
into the uttermost parts of the earth, or perhaps
they are forced thither for their religion; but there
they are singing, not sighing; from thence have we
heard songs," and it is a comfort to us to hear them,
to hear that good people carry their religion along
with them, even to the most distant regions, to hear
that God visits them there, and gives encourage¬
ment to hope that from thence he will gather them,
Deut. xxx. 4. And this is their song, even glory to
the righteous: the word is singular, and may import
the righteous God, who is just in all he has brought
upon us; this is glorifying the Lord in the fires: or,
the meaning may be,' These songs redound to the
glory or beauty of the righteous that sing them. We
do the greatest honour imaginable to ourselves,
when we employ ourselves in honouring and glorify¬
ing God. This may have reference to the sending
of the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth, as
far off as this island of ours, in the days of the Mes¬
siah, the glad tidings of which are echoed back in
songs heard from thence, from churches planted
there, even glory to the righteous God, agreeing
with the angels’ song. Glory be to God in the high¬
est, and glory to all righteous men; for the work of
redemption was ordained before the world for our
glory.
If. Terror to sinners; the prophet, having com¬
forted himself and others with the prospect of a saved
remnant, returns to lament the miseries he saw
breaking in like a mighty torrent upon the earth;
“ But I said, My leanness, my leanness, wo unto
me, ( v . 16. ) the very thought of it frets me, and
makes me lean.” He foresees,
1. The prevalency of sin, that iniquity should
abound; (x>. 16.) The treacherous dealers have dealt
treacherously ; this is itself a judgment, and that
which provokes God to bring other judgments. ( 1. )
Men are false to one another; there is no faith in
man, but a universal dishonesty. Truth, that sa¬
cred bond of society, is departed, and there is no¬
thing but treachery in men’s dealings. See Jer. ix.
1, 2. (2.) They are all false to their God; as to
him, and their covenant with him, the children of
men are all treacherous dealers, and have dealt
very treacherously with their God, in departing
from their allegiance to him : this is the original, and
this the aggravation of the sin of the world; and
when men have been false to their God, how should
they be true to any other?
2. The prevalency of wrath and judgment for
that sin:
(1.) The inhabitants of the earth will be pursuec
from time to time, from place-to place, by cne mis¬
chief or other; (y. 17, IS. ) Fear, and the pit, and
the snare; fear of the pit, and the snare, are upon
them, wherever they are; for the sons of men know
not what evil they may suddenly be snared in, Eccl.
ix. 12. These three words seem to be chosen for
the sake of an elegant paronomasia, or, as we now
scornfully call it, a jingle of words; Pachad, and
Pachath, and Pach; but the meaning is plain, (?:.
18.) that evil pursues sinners, (Prov. xiii. 21.) that
the curse shall overtake the disobedient, (Deut.
xxviii. 15.) that those who are secure, because they
have escaped one judgment, know not how soon
another may arrest them. What this prophet
threatens all the inhabitants of the earth with, an¬
other makes part of thejudgmentofMoab, Jer. xlviii.
43, 44. But it is a common instance of the calami¬
tous state of human life, that, when we seek to avoid
one mischief, we fall into a worse, and that the end
of one trouble is often the beginning of another; so
that we are least safe when we are most secure.
(2.) The earth itself will be shaken to pieces; it
will be literally so at last, when all the works therein
shall be burnt up, and often, figuratively so, before
that period; The windows from on high arc open
to pour down wrath, as in the univers; 1 deluge; upon
the wicked God shall rain snares, (Ps. xi. 6.) and,
the fountains of the great deep being broken up, the
foundations of the earth do shake of course, the
frame of nature is unhinged, and all is in confusion.
See how elegantly this is expressed; ( v . 19, 20.)
The earth is utterly broken down, it is clean dissolv¬
ed, it is moved exceedingly, moved out of its place;
God shakes heaven and earth. Hag. ii. 6. See the
misery of those who lay up their treasure in the
things of the earth, and mind those things; they
place their confidence in that which shall shortlv
be utterly broken down and dissolved; the earth
shall reel to and fro like a drunkard; so unsteady,
so uncertain, are all the motions of these thing's.
Worldly men dwell in it as in a palace, as in a cas¬
tle, as in an impregnable tower; but it shall be re¬
moved like a cottage, so easily, so suddenly, and
with so little loss to the great Landlord. The pull¬
ing down of the earth will be but like the pulling
down of a cottage, which the country is willing to
be rid of, because it does but harbour beggars; and
therefore no care is taken to rebuild it, it shall fall
and not rise again; but there shall be new heavens
and a new earth, in which shall dwell nothing but
righteousness.
But what is it that shakes the earth thus, and
sinks it? It is the transgression thereof that shall be
heavy upon it. Note, Sin is a burthen to the whole
creation; it is a heavy burthen, a burthen under
which it groans now, and will sink at last. Sin is
the ruin of states, and kingdoms, and families; they
fall under the weight of that talent of lead, Zcch.
v. 7, 8.
(3. ) God will have a particular controversy with,
the kings and great men of the earth; (y. 21.) He
will punish the host of the high ones; hosts of
princes are no more before God than hosts of com¬
mon men; what can a host of high ones do with
their combined force, when the Most High, the
Lord of hosts, contends with them to abase their
height, and scatter their hosts, and break all their
confederacies? The high ones, that are on high,
that are puffed up with their height and grandeur,
that think themselves so high that they are out of
the reach of any danger, God will visit upon them
all their pride and cruelty, with which they have
oppressed and injured their neighbours and subjects,
and it shall now return upon their own heads. The
113
JSAIAH, XXV.
Kit gs of the earth shall now be reckoned with upon .
the earth, to show that verily there is a God that
judges in the earth, and will render to the proudest
ot kings according to the fruit of their doings. Let
those that are trampled upon by the high ones of
the earth, comfort themselves with this, that,
though they cannot, dare not, must not, resist them,
yet there is a God that will call them to an account,
that will triumph over them upon their own dung¬
hill; and the earth they are kings of, is, in the eye
of God, no better. This is general only; it is par¬
ticularly foretold, (u. 22.) that they shall be ga¬
thered together as firisoners; convicted, condemned
prisoners are gathered in the pit, or dungeon, and
there they shall be shut up under close confinement;
the kings and high ones, who took all possible liber¬
ty themselves, and took a pride and pleasure in
strutting up others, shall now be themselves shut
up. Let not the free man glory in his freedom, any
more than the strong man in his strength, for he
knows not what restraints he is reserved for; but
after many days they shall be visited. Either, [1.]
They shall be visited in wrath; it is the same word,
in another form, that is used, v. 21. The Lord
shall punish them; they shall be reserved to the
day of execution, as condemned prisoners are, and
as fallen angels are reserved in chains of darkness
to the judgment of the great day, Jude 6. Let this
account for the delays of divine vengeance; sen¬
tence is not executed speedily, because execution-
day is not yet come, and perhaps will not come till
after many days; but it is certain, that the wicked
is reserv ed for the day of destruction, and is there¬
fore preserved in the mean time, but shall be
brought forth to the day of wrath. Job xxi. 30. Let
us therefore judge nothing before the time. [2.]
They shall be visited in mercy, and be discharged
from their imprisonment, and shall again obtain, if
not theii; dignity, yqf their liberty. Nebuchadnez¬
zar in his conquests made many kings and princes
his captires, and kept them in the dungeon in Baby¬
lon, and, among the rest, Jehoiachim king of Judah;
but, after many days, when his head was laid, his
son visited them, and granted fas should seem) some
reviving to them all in their bondage; for it is made
an instance of his particular kindness to Jehoiachim,
that he set his throne above the throne of the rest of
the kings that were with him, Jer. lii. 32. If we
apply it to the general state of mankind, it denotes
a revolution of conditions; those that were high are
punished, those, that were punished are relieved,
after many days; that none in this world may be
secure, though their condition be ever so prosperous,
nor any despair, though their condition be ever so
deplorable.
3. Glory to God in all this, v. 23. When all
this comes to pass, when the proud enemies of God’s
church are humbled and brought down, (1.) Then
it shall appear, beyond contradiction, that the Lord
reigns; which is always true, but not always alike
evident. When the kings of the earth are punished
for their tyranny and oppression, then it is proclaim¬
ed and proved to all the world, that God is King of
kings, King above them, by whom they are con¬
querable, King over them, to whom they are ac¬
countable; that he reigns as Lord of hosts, of all
hosts, of their hosts; that he reigns in mount Zion,
and in Jerusalem; in his church, for the honour and
welfare of that, pursuant to the promises on which
that is founded, reigns in his word and ordinances;
that he reigns before his ancients, before all his
saints, especially before his ministers, the elders of
nis church, who have their eye upon all the out¬
goings of his power and providence, and, in all these
events, observe his hand. God’s ancients, the old
disciples, the experienced Christians, that have of¬
ten, when they have been perplexed, gone into the
VOL. IV.— P
sanctuary of God in Zion and Jerusalem, and ac¬
quainted themselves with his manifestations of him¬
self there, they shall sec mere than others of God’s
dominion and sovereignty in these operations ol his
providence. (2.) Then it shall appear, beyond
comparison, that lie reigns gloriously , in such bright¬
ness and lustre, that the moon shall be confounded,
and the sun ashamed, as the lesser lights are eclips¬
ed and extinguished by the greater. Great men,
who thought themselves to have as bright a lustre '
and as vast a dominion, as the sun and moon, shall
be ashamed when God appears above them, much
more w’hen he appears against them: then shall
their faces be filled with shame, that they may seek
God’s name. The eastern nations worshipped the
sun and moon; but when God shall appear so glo¬
riously for his people against his and their enemies,
all these pretended deities shall be ashamed that
ever they received the homage of their deluded
worshippers. The glory of the Creator infinitely
outshines the glory of the brightest creatures. In
the great day, when the Judge of heaven and earth
shall shine forth in his glory, the sun shall by his
transcendent lustre be turned into darkness, and
the moon into blood.
CHAP. XXY.
After the threatening^ of wrath in the foregoing chapter,
we have here, I. Thankful praises for what God had done,
which the prophet, in the name of the church, offers up
to God, and teaches us to offer the like, v. I . .5." 11.
Precious promises of what God would yet further do for
his church, especially in the grace of the gospel, v. 6 . . 8.
III. The church’s triumph in God over her enemies
thereupon, v. 9 . . 12. This chapter looks as pleasantly
upon the church as the former looked dreadfully upon
the world.
1. LORD, thou art my God; I will
9 exalt thee, I will praise thy name:
for thou hast done wonderful things ; thy
counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.
2. For thou hast made of a city a heap ; of
a defenced city a ruin : a palace of strangers
to be no city; it shall never be built. 3.
Therefore shall the strong people glorify
thee, the city of the terrible nations shall
fear thee. 4. F or thou hast been a strength
to the poor, a strength to the needy in his
distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow
from the heat, when the blast of the terrible
ones is as a storm against the wall. 5. Thou
shalt bring down the noise of strangers as
the heat in a dry place ; even the heat with
the shadow of a cloud : the branch of the
terrible ones shall be brought low.
• It was said, in the close of the foregoing chapter,
that the I^ord of hosts shall reign gloriously ; now,
in compliance with that, the prophet here speaks
of the glorious majesty of his kingdom, (Ps. cxlv.
i2.) and gives him the glory of it; and however it
might have an accomplishment in the destruction
of Babylon, and the deliverance of the Jews out of
their captivity there, it seems to look further, to the
praises that should be offered up to God by the
gospel-church, for Christ’s victories over our spiri¬
tual enemies, and the comforts he has provid' d for
all believers. Here,
I. The prophet determines to praise God him¬
self: for they that would stir up others, should in
the first place stir up themselves, to praise God;
{v. 1.) “0 Lord, thou art my God, a God it cove-
114
ISAIAH, XXV.
innt with me.” When God is punishing the kings
of the earth upon the earth, and making them
tremble before him, a poor prophet can go to him,
and with an humble boldness, say, 0 Lord, thou art
my (lod; and therefore I will exalt thee, I will
praise thy name. Those that have the Lord for
their God, are obliged to praise him; for therefore
he took us to be his people, that we might he an to
him for a name, and for a praise, Jer. xiii. 11. In
praising God, we exalt him; not that we can make
him higher than he is, but we must make him to
appear to ourselves and others higher than he does.
See Exod. xv. 2.
II. He pleases himself with the thought that
others also shall be brought to praise God; (y. 3.)
“ Therefore, because of the desolations thou hast
made in the earth by thy providence, (Ps. xlvi. 8. )
and the just vengeance thou hast taken on thine and
thy church’s enemies, therefore shall the strong
people glorify thee in concert, and the city” (the
metropolis) “of the terrible nations” (or the cities
of such nations) “shall fear thee.” This maybe
understood, 1. Of those people that have been
strong and terrible against God; those that have
been enemies to God’s kingdom, and have fought
against the interests of it with a great deal of
strength and terror, shall either be converted, and
glorify God by joining with his people in his service,
or, at least, convinced, so as to own themselves con¬
quered. Those that had been the terror of the
mighty, shall be forced to tremble before the judg¬
ments of God, and call in vain to rocks and moun¬
tains to hide them. Or, 2. Of those that shall be
now made strong and terrible for God and by him,
though before they were weak and trampled upon.
He shall so visibly appear for them, and with them,
that fear God, and glorify him, that all shall ac¬
knowledge them a strong people, and shall stand in
awe of them. There was a time when many of the
people of the land became Jews, for the fear of the
Jews fell upon them, (Esther viii. 17.)' and when
they that knew their God, were strong, and did
exploits, (Dan. xi. 32.) for which they glorify
God.
III. He observes what is, and ought to be, the
matter of this praise: we and others must exalt God,
and praise him, for,
1. He has done wonders according to the counsel
of his own will, v. 1. We exalt God by admiring
what he has done as truly wonderful; wonderful
proofs of his power, beyond what any creature could
perform ; and wonderful proofs of his goodness, be¬
yond what such sinful creatures as we are could ex¬
pect. These wonderful things, which are new and
surprising to us, and altogether unthought of, are,
according to his counsels of old, devised by his wis¬
dom, and designed for his own glory, and the com¬
fort of his people. All the operations of providence
are according to God’s eternal counsels, (and those
faithfulness and truth itself,) all consonant to his at¬
tributes, consistent with one another, and sure to be
accomplished in their season.
2. He has in particular humbled the pride, and
broken the power, of the mighty ones of the earth;
(v. 2.) “ Thou hast made of a city, of many a city,
a heap of rubbish; of many a defenced city, that
thought itself well guarded by nature and art, and
the multitude and courage of its militia, thou hast
made a ruin.”. What created strength can holdout
against Omnipotence? “ Many a city, so richly
built, that it might be called a palace, and so much
frequented and visited by persons of the best rank
from all parts, that it might be called a palace of
strangers, thou hast made to be no city; it is levelled
with the ground, and not one stone left upon another,
audit shall never be built again. ” This has been
the case of many cities in divers parts of the world,
and in our r. >vn nation particularly; cities that flour¬
ished once, are gone to decay, and lost, and it is
scarcely known (except by urns or coins digged up
out of the earth) where they stood. How many of
the cities of Israel have long since been heaps and
ruins! God hereby teaches us, that here we have
no continuing city, and must therefore seek one to
come, which will never be a ruin, or go to decay.
3. He has seasonably relieved and succoured his
necessitous and distressed people; (v. 4.) Thou
hast been a Strength to the poor, a Strength to the
needy. As God weakens the strong that are proud
and secure, so he strengthens the weak that arc
humble and serious, and stay themselves upon him.
Nay, he not only makes them strong, but he is
himself their Strength; for in him they strengthen
themselves, and it is his favour and grace that are
the strength of their hearts. He is a Strength to
the needy in his distress, then when he needs strength,
and when his distress drives him to God. And as
he strengthens them against their inward decays, so
he shelters them from outward assaults: he is a Re¬
fuge from the storm of rain or hail, and a Shadow
from the scorching heat of the sun in summer. God
is a sufficient Protection to his people in all weathers,
both hot and cold, wet and dry; the armour of
righteousness serves both on the right hand and on
the left, 2 Cor. vi. 7. Whatever dangers or troubles
God’s people may be in, effectual care is taken that
thev shall sustain no real hurt or damage. When
perils are most threatening and alarming, God will
then appear for the safety of his people; when the
blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the
wall, which makes a great noise, but cannot over¬
throw the wall. The enemies of God’s poor are
terrible ones; they do all they can to make them¬
selves so to them; their rage is like a blast of wind,
loud, and blustering, and furious; but, like the wind,
it is under a divine check; foi'God holds the winds
in his fst.s; and God will be such a Shelter to his
people, that they shall be able to stand the shock,
keep their ground, and maintain their integrity and
peace. A storm, beating on a ship, tosses if, but
that which beats on a wall never stirs it, Ps. lxxvi.
10. — cxxxviii. 7.
4. That he does, and will, shelter those that trust
in him, from the insolence of their proud oppressors;
(y. 5.) Thou shall, or thou dost, bring down the
noise of strangers, thou shalt abate and still it, as
the heat in a dry place is abated and moderated by
the shadow of a cloud interposing; the branch, or
rather the song or triumph, of the terrible ones
shall be brought low, and they shall be made to
change their note, and fall their voice. Observe,
here, (1.) The oppressors of God’s people are call¬
ed strangers; for they forget that those they oppress
are made of the same mould, of the same blood,
with them. They are called terrible ones; for so
they affect to be, rather than amiable ones; they
would rather be feared than loved. (2.) Their in¬
solence toward the people of God is noisy and hot,
and that is all; it is but the noise of strangers, who
think to carry their point by hectoring and bullving
all that stand in their way, and talking big. Pha¬
raoh king of Egypt is but a noise, Jer. xlvi. 17. It
is like the heat of the sun scorching in the middle
of the day; but where is it, when the sun is set?
(3.) Their noise and heat, and all their triumph,
will be humbled and brought low, when their
hopes are baffled, and all their honours laid in the
dust. The branches, even the top branches, of
the terrible ones, will be broken off, and thrown to
the dunghill. (4.) If the labourers in God’s vine¬
yard be at any time called to bear the burthen and
heat of the day, he will find some way or other to
refresh them, as with the shadow of a cloud, that
they may not be pressed above measure.
Ilf.
ISAIAH, XXV.
6. And in this mountain shall the Lord
of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat
things, a feast of wines on the lees; of fat
things full of marrow, of wines on the lees
well refined. 7. And he will destroy in this
mountain the face of the covering cast over
all people, and the vail that is spread over
all nations. 8. He will swallow up death
in victory; and the Lord God will wipe
away tears from off all faces ; and the re¬
buke of his people shall he take away from
off all the earth : for the Lord hath spo¬
ken it.
If we suppose (as many do) that this refers to the
great joy that should be in Zion and Jerusalem,
either when the army of the Assyrians was routed
by an angel, or when the Jews were released out of
their captivity in Babylon, or upon occasion of some
other equally surprising deliverance; yet we cannot
avoid making it to look further, to the grace of the
gospel, and the glory which is the crown and con¬
summation of that grace; for it is at our resurrection
through Christ that the saying here written shall be
brought to pass ; then and not till then, (if we may
believe St. Paul,) it shall have its full accomplish¬
ment; death is swallowed up in victory, 1 Cor. xv.
54. This is a key to the rest of the promises here
connected together. And so we have here a pro¬
phecy of the salvation and the grace brought unto
us by Jesus Christ, into which the prophets inquired,
and searched diligently, 1 Pet. i. 10.
1. That the grace of the gospel should be a royal
feast for all people; not like that of Ahasuerus,
which was intended only to show the grandeur of
the master of the feast; (Esther i. 4.) for this is in¬
tended to gratify the guests, and therefore, whereas
all there was for show, ali here is for substance.
The preparations made in the gospel for the kind
reception of penitents and supplicants with God, are
often in the New Testament set forth by the simili¬
tude of a feast; as Matth. xxii. 1, &c. which seems
to be borrowed from this here. (1.) God himself
is the Master of the feast, and, we may be sure, he
prepares like himself, as becomes him to give,
rather than as becomes us to receive. The Lord of
hosts makes this feast. (2. ) The guests invited are,
all people, Gentiles as well as Jews. Go preach the
gospel to every creature. There is enough for all,
and whoever will, may come, and take freely, even
those that are gathered out of the highways and the
hedges. (3.) The place is mount Zion; thence the
preaching of the gospel takes rise, the preachers
must begin at Jerusalem. The gospel-church is the
Jerusalem that is above, there this feast is made,
and to it all the invited guests must go. (4.) The
provision is very rich, and every thing is of the best;
it is a feast which supposes abundance and variety;
it is a continual feast to believers, it is their own
rault if it be not. It is a feast of fat things and full
of marrow; so relishing, so nourishing, are the com¬
forts of the gospel to all those that feast upon them ,
ind digest them. The returning prodigal was en¬
tertained with the fatted calf; and David has that
pleasure in communion with God, with which his
soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness. It is a
feast of wines on the lees; the strongest-bodied wines,
that have been kept long upon the lees, and then are
well refined from them, so that they are clear and
fine. There is that in the gospel, which, like wine
soberly used, makes glad the heart, and raises the
spirits, and is fit for those that are of a heavy
heart, being under convictions of sin, and mourning
for it, that tnev may drink, and forget their misery,
(for that is the proper use of wine, it is a cordial for
those that need it, Prov. xxxi. 6, 7.) m<iy be of
good cheer, knowing that their sins are forgiven,
and may be vigorous in their spiritual work and
warfare, as a strong man refreshed with wine.
2. That the world should be freed from that dark¬
ness of ignorance and mistake, in the mists of which
it has been so long lost and buried; (r. 7.) He will
destroy in this mountain the face of the covering,
(the covering of the face,) with which all people art
covered, (hoodwinked or blindfolded,) so that they
cannot see their way, nor go about their work, and
by reason of which they wander endlessly. Theii
faces are covered as men condemned, or as dead
men. There is a vail s/iread over alt nations, fci
they all sat in darkness; and no marvel, when the
Jews themselves, among whom God was known, had
a vail upon their hearts, 2 Cor. iii. 15. But this vail
the Lord will destroy', by the light of his gospel shin¬
ing in the world, and the power of his spirit open¬
ing men’s eyes to receive it. He will raise these to
spiritual life, that had long been dead in trespasses
and sins.
3. That death should be conquered, the power of
it broken, and the property ot it altered; He will
swallow up death in victory, v. 8. (1.) Christ will
himself, in his resurrection, triumph over death;
will break its bands, its bars, asunder, and cast away
all its cords. The grave seemed to swallow him up,
but really he swallowed it up. (2.) The happiness
of the saints shall be out of the reach of death,
which puts a period to all the enjoyments of this
world, imbitters them, and stains the beauty of
them. (3.) Believers may triumph over death, and
look upon it as a conquered enemy; O death, where
is thy sting ? (4.) When the dead bodies of the
saints shall be raised at the great day, and their mor¬
tality swallowed up of life, then death will be for
ever swallowed up of victory; and it is the last enemy.
4. That grief shall be banished, and there shall
be perfect and endless joy; The Lord God will wipe
away tears from of all faces. Those that mourn
for sin, shall be comforted, and have their conscien¬
ces pacified. In the covenant of grace there shall
be that provided, which is sufficient to balance all
the sorrows of this present time, to wipe away cur
tears, and to refresh us. Those particularly that
suffer for Christ, shall have consolations abounding
as their afflictions do abound. But in the joys of
heaven, and no where short of them. Will fully be
brought to pass this saying, as that before, for there
it is that God shall wipe away all tears. Rev. vii.
17. — xxi. 4. And therefore there shall be 770 more
sorrow, because there shall be jio more death. The
hope of this should now wipe away all excessive
tears, all the weeping that hinders sowing.
5. That all the reproach cast' upon religion and
the serious professors of it, shall be for ever rolled
away; The rebuke of his people, which they have
long lain under, the calumnies and misrepresenta¬
tions by which they have been blackened, the inso¬
lence and cruelty with which their persecutors have
trampled on them and trodden them down, shall be
taken away. Their righteousness shall be brought
forth as the light, in the view of all the world, who
shall be convinced they are not such as they have
been invidiously characterized: and so their’ salva¬
tion from the injuries done them as such, shall be
wrought out. Sometimes in this world God does
that for his people, which takes away their reproach
from among men. However, it will be done ef¬
fectually at the great da \,for the Lord has spoken it,
who can, and will, make it good. Let us patiently
bear sorrow and shame now, and improve both; for
shortly both will be done away.
9. And it shall be said in that day, Lo,
ISAIAH, XXVI.
1 1 G
this is our God; we have waited for him,
and he will save us: this is the Lord; we
have waited for him, we will be glad and re¬
joice in his salvation. 10. 1 or in this moun¬
tain shall the hand of the Lord rest, and
Moab shall be trodden down under him,
even as straw is trodden down for the dung¬
hill. 1 1 . And he shall spread forth his hands
in the midst of them, as he that swimmeth
spreadeth forth his hands to swim; and he
shall bring down their pride together with
the spoils of their hands. 12. And the for¬
tress of the high fort of thy walls shall he
bring down, lay low, and bring to the
ground, even to the dust.
Here is,
I. The welcome which the church shall give to
these blessings promised in the foregoing verses;
( v . 9. ) It shall be said in that day, with a humble,
holy-triumph and exultation, Lo, this is our God,
we have waited for him! Thus will the deliverance
of the church out of long and sore troubles be cele¬
brated; thus will it be as life from the dead. With
such transports of joy and praise will those entertain
the glad tidings of the Redeemer, who looked for
him, and for redemption in Jerusalem by him: and
with such a triumphant song as this, will glorified
saints enter into the joy of the Lord. 1. God him¬
self must have the glow of all; “ Lo, this is our
God, this is the Lord. This which is done, is his
doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes. Herein he
has done like himself, has magnified his own wis¬
dom, power, and goodness. Herein he has done for
us like our God,' a God in covenant with us, and
whom we serve.” Note, Our triumphs must not
terminate in what God does for us, and gives to us;
but must pass through them to himself, who is the
Author and Giver of them; This is our God. Have
any of the nations of the earth such a God to trust
to? No, their rock is not as our Rock: there is none
like unto the God of Jeshurun. (2.) The longer it
has been expected, the more welcome it is. “ This
is he whom we have waited for, in dependence upon
his word of promise, and a full assurance that he
would come in the set time, in due time, and there¬
fore we were willing to tarry his time. And now
we find it is not in vain to wait for him; for the
mercy comes at last, with an abundant recompense
for the delay. ” (3. ) It is matter of joy unspeakable ;
“ We will be glad and rejoice in his salvation. We
that share in the benefits of it will concur in the joy¬
ful thanksgivings for it.” (4.) It is an encourage¬
ment to hope for the continuance and perfection of
this salvation; We have waited for him, and he will
save us, will carry on what he has begun; for, as
for God, our God, his work is perfect.
II. A prospect of further blessings for the se¬
curing and perpetuating of these.
1. The power of God shall be engaged for them,
and shall continue to take their part; in this moun¬
tain shall the hand of the Lord rest, v. 10. The
church and people of God shall have continued
proofs of God’s presence with them, and residence
among them, his hand shall be continually over
them, to protect and guard them, and continually
stretched out to them, fpr their supply. Mount
Zion is his rest for eye r; here he will dwell.
2. The power of their enemies, that is engaged
against them, shall be broken. Moab is here put for
ail the adversaries of God’s people, that are vexa-
lious to them; thev shall all be trodden down, or
•hreshed, ffor then thev beat out the corn by tread¬
ing it, ) and shall be thrown out as straw to. the dung¬
hill, being good for nothing else. God having ca-isea
his hand to rest ujion this mountain, it shall not be a
hand that hangs down, or is folded up, feeble and
inactive; but he shall s/iread forth his hands, in the
midst of his people, like one that swims; which inti¬
mates that he will employ and exert his power for
them vigorously, that he will be doing for them on
all sides; that he will easily and effectually put by
the opposition that is given to his gracious intentions
for them, and thereby further and push forward his
good work among them; and that he will be contin¬
ually active on their behalf, for so the swimmer is.
It is foretold, particularly, what he shall do for
them; (1.) He shall bring down the pride of their
enemies (which Moab was notoriously guilty of, ch.
xvi. 6.) by one humbling judgment after another,
stripping them of that which they are proud of. (2.)
He shall bring down the spoils of their hands, shall
take from them that which they have get by spoil
and rapine; he shall bring down the arms of their
hands, which are lifted up against God’s Israel; he
shall quite break their power, and disable them to
do mischief. (3.) He shall ruin all their fortifica¬
tions, v. 12. Moab has his walls, and his high forts,
with which he hopes to secure himself, and from
which he designs to annoy the people of God; but
God shall bring them all down, lay them low, bring
them to the ground, to the dust; and so they who
trusted to them will be left exposed. There is no
fortress impregnable to Omnipotence; no fort so
high, but the arm of the Lord can overtop it, and
bring it down. This destruction of Moab is typical
of Christ’s victory over death, (spoken of v. 8.) his
spoiling principalities and powers in his cross, (Col.
ii. 15. ) his pulling down of Satan’s strong holds by
the preaching of his gospel, (2 Cor. x. 4.) and his
reigning till all his enemies be made his footstool,
Ps. cx. 1.
CHAP. XXVI.
This chapter is a song of holy joy and praise, in which the
great things God had engaged, in the foregoing chapter,
to do for his people against his enemies and their ene¬
mies, are celebrated: it is prepared to be sung when that
prophecy should be accomplished; for we must be for¬
ward to meet God with our thanksgiving, when he is
coming towards us with his mercies. Now the people
of God are here taught, I. To triumph in the safety and
holy security both of the church in general, and of every
particular member of it, under the divine protection, v.
1 . . 4. II. To triumph over all opposing powers, v. 5,
6. III. To walk with God, and wait for him, in the
worst and darkest times, v. 7 . . 9. IV. To lament the
stupidity of those who regarded not the providence of
God, either merciful or afflictive, v. 10, 11. V. To en¬
courage themselves, and one another, with hopes that
God would still continue to do them good, (v. 12, 14.)
engaging themselves to continue in his service, v. 13.
VI. To recollect the providences of God that had respect¬
ed them in their low and distressed condition, and their
conduct under those providences, v. 15.. 18. VII. To
rejoice in hope of a glorious deliverance, which should
be as a resurrection to them, (v. 19.) and to retire in the
expectation of it, 20, 21. And this is written for the sup¬
port and assistance of the faith and hope of God’s people
in all ages, even those upon whom the ends ofthe world
are come.
l.TN that clay shall this song be sung in
A the land of Judah ; We have a strong
city : salvation will God appoint for walls
and bulwarks. 2. Open ye the gates, thal
the righteous nation which keepeth the truth
may enter in. 3. Thou wilt keep him in
perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee;
because he trusteth in thee. 4. Trust ye in
the Lord forever: for in the Lord JEHO
VAH is everlasting strength.
ISAIAH, XXVJ.
To the prophecies of gospel-grace very fitly is a
song annexed, in which we may give God the glory,
and take to ourselves the comfort, of that grace; In
that day , the gospel-day, which the day ot the vic¬
tories and enlargements of the Old Testament
church was typical of, (to some of which perhaps
this has a primary reference,) in that day, this song
shall be sung ; there shall be persons to sing it, and
cause and hearts to sing it; it shall be sung in the
land of Judah, which was a figure of the gospel-
church; for the gospel-covenant is said to be made
with the house oj Judah, Heb. viii. 8.
Glorious things are here said of the church of God:
1. That it is strongly fortified against those that
are bad; (n. 1.) ITe have a strong city; it is a city
incorporated by the charter of the everlasting cove¬
nant, fitted for the reception of till that are made
free by that charter, for their employment and en¬
tertainment; it is a strong city, as Jerusalem was,
while it was a city compact together, and had God
himself a Wall of fire round about it; so strong, that
none would have believed that an enemy could ever
have entered into the gates of Jerusalem, Lam. iv.
12. The church is a strong city, for it has walls
and bulwarks, or counterscarps, and those of God’s
own appointing; for he has, in his promise, appoint¬
ed salvation itself to be its defence. Those that are
designed for salvation will find that to be their pro¬
tection, 1 Pet. i. 4.
2. That it is richly replenished with those that
are good, and they are instead of fortifications to it;
for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, if they are such as
they should be, are its strength, Zech. xii. 5. The
gates are here ordered to be opened, that the right¬
eous nation, which keeps the truth, may enter in;
(y. 2.) they had been banished and driven out by
the iniquity of the former times, but now the laws
that were made against them are repealed, and they
have liberty to enter in again. Or, There is an act
for a general naturalization of all the righteous,
whatever nation they are of, encouraging them to
come and settle in Jerusalem. When God has
done great things for any place or people, he ex¬
pects that thus they should render according to the
oenefit done unto them; they should be kind to his
people, and take them under their protection, and
r,to their bosom. Note, (1. ) It is the character of
righteous men, that they keep the truths of God; a
•trim belief of which will have a commanding influ¬
ence upon the regularity of the whole conversation.
Good principles, fixed in the head, will produce
good resolutions in the heart, and good practices in
the life. (2. ) It is the interest of states to counte¬
nance such, and court them among them, for they
bring a blessing with them.
3. That all who belong to it are safe and easy, and
have a holy security and serenity of mind in the as¬
surance of God’s favour. (1. ) This is here the mat¬
ter of a promise; (y. 3.) Thou wilt keep, him in
peace, peace, in perfect peace, inward peace, outward
peace, peace with God, peace of conscience, peace
*.t all times, under all events; this peace shall he be
put into, and kept in the possession of, whose mind
is stayed upon God, because it trusts in him. It is
the character of every good man, that he trusts in
God; puts himself under his guidance and govern¬
ment, and depends upon him that it shall be greatly
to his advantage to do so. They that trust in God,
must have their minds stayed upon him; must tiust
him at all times, under all events, must firmly and
faithfully adhere to him, •with an entire satisfaction
.n him. Such as do so, God will keep in perpetual
peace, and that peace shall keep them. When evil
tidings are abroad, they shall calmly expect the
event, and not be disturbed by frightful apprehen¬
sions arising from them, whose hearts are fixed,
trusting in the Lord, Ps. cxii. 7. (2.) It is the mat¬
ter of a precept; (i>. 4.) “Let us make ourselves
easy 6y trusting in the Lord for ever; since God
has promised peace to those that stay themselves
upon him, let us not lose the benefit of that promise,
but repose an entire confidence in him. Trust in
him for ever, at all times, when you have nothing
else to trust to; trust in him for that peace, that po¬
tion, which will be" for ever.” Whatever we trust
to the world for, it will be but for a moment; all we
expect from it, is confined within the limits of time;
but what we trust in God for, will last as long as we
shall last. For in the Lord Jehovah, Jah, Jehovah,
in him who was, and is, and is to. come, there is a
rock of ages, a firm and lasting foundation for faith
and hope to build upon; and the house built on that
rock will stand in a storm. They that trust in God
shall not only find in him, but receive from him,
everlasting' strength, strength that will carry them
to everlasting life, to that blessedness which is for
ever; and therefore let them trust in him for eve r,
and never cast away or change their confidence.
5. For he bringetli down them that dwell
on high; the lofty city he layeth it low: he lay-
eth it low, even to the ground; he bringetli it
even to the dust. 6. The foot shall tread it
down, even the feet of the poor, and the steps
of the needy. 7. The way of the just is up¬
rightness : thou, most upright, dost weigh the
path of the just. 8. Yea, in the way of thy
judgments, O Lord, have we waited for
thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name,
and to the remembrance of thee. 9. With
my soul have I desired thee in the night ;
yea, with my spirit within me will I seek
thee early : for when thy judgments are in
the earth, the inhabitants of the world will
learn righteousness. 10. Let favour be
showed to the wicked, yet will he not learn
righteousness : in the land of uprightness
will he deal unjustly, and will not hehold
the majesty of the Lord'. 11. Lord,
ivhen thy hand is lifted up, they w ill not
see: but they shall see, and be ashamed
for their envy at the people; yea, the fire
of thine enemies shall devour them.
Here the prophet further encourages us to trust in
the Lord for ever, and continue waiting on him, for,
I. He will make humble souls that trust in him,
to triumph over their proud enemies; (to 5, 6.)
they that exalt themselves shall be abased, for he
brings down them that dwell oti high; and wherein
they dwell proudly, he is, and will be, above them;
even the lofty city, Babylon itself, or Nineveh, he
lays it low, ch. xxv. 12. He can do it, be it ever
so well fortified. He has often done it; he will do
it, for he resists the proud, it is his glory to do it,
for he proves himself to be God by looking on the
proud, and abasing them. Job xl. 12. But, on the
contrary, they that humble themselves shall be
exalted; for the feet of the poor shall tread upon
the lofty cities, v. 6. He does not say, Great
armies shall tread them down; but, When God
will have it done, even the feet of the poor shall do
it; (Mai. iv. 3.) Ye shall tread down the wicked:
come, set your feet on the necks of these kings.
See Ps. cxlvii. 6. Rom. xvi. 20.
II. He takes cognizance of the way of his peo¬
ple, and has delight in it; [y. 7.) The way of
118
ISAIAH, XXVI.
the just is evenness; so it may be read: it is their
endeavour and constant care to walk with God in
■in even, steady course of obedience and holy con¬
versation; My foot stands in an even place, goes
m an even path, Ps. xxvi. 12. And it is their hap¬
piness, that God makes their way plain and easy
before them; Thou, most upright, dost level, or
make even the path of the just, by preventing or
removing those things that would be stumbling-
blocks to them, so that nothing shall offend them,
Ps. cxix. 165. God weighs it; (so we read it;) he
considers it, and will give them grace sufficient for
them, to help them over all the difficulties they
may meet with in their way. Thus with the up¬
right, God will show himself upright.
III. It is our duty, and will be our comfort, to
wait for God, and to keep up holy desires toward
him, in the darkest and most discouraging times, v.
8, 9. This has always been the practice of God’s
people, even then when God has frowned upon
them; 1. To keep up a constant dependence upon
him; “ In the way of thy judgments we have still
waited for thee; when thou hast corrected us, we
have looked to no other hand than thine to relieve
us;” as the servant looks only to the hand of his
master, till that he have mercy upon him, Ps.
cxxiii. 2. We cannot appeal from God’s justice,
but to his mercy. If God’s judgments continue
long, if it be a road of judgments, (so the word sig¬
nifies,) yet we must not be weary, but continue
waiting.’ 2. To send up holy desires toward him;
our troubles, how pressing soever, must never put
us out of conceit with our religion, nor turn us away
from God; but still the desire of out soul must be
to his name, and to the remembrance of him; and
in the night, the darkest, longest night of affliction,
with, our souls must we desire him. (1. ) Our great
concern must be for God’s name, and our earnest
desire that that may be glorified, whatever be¬
comes of us and our names. This is that which we
must wait for, and pray for; “ Father, glorify thy
name, and we are satisfied.” (2.) Our great com¬
fort must be in the remembrance of that name, of
all that whereby God has made himself known.
The remembrance of God must be our great sup-
trort and pleasuVe; and though sometimes we be
unmindful of him, yet still our desire must be to¬
ward the remembrance of him, and we must take
pains with our own hearts to have him always in
mind. (3.) Our desires toward God must be in¬
ward,- fervent, and sincere. With our soul we
must desire him, with our soul we must pant after
him, (Ps. xlii. 1.) and with our spirits within us,
with the innermost thought, and the closest appli¬
cation of mind, we must seek him. We make no¬
thing of our religion, whatever our profession be,'
if we do not make heart-work of it. (4. ) Even in
the darkest night of affliction, our desires must be
toward God, as our Sun and Shield; for however
God is pleased to deal with us, we must never think
the worse of him, nor cool in our love to him. (5.)
If our desires be indeed toward God, we must evi¬
dence it by seeking him, and seeking him early, as
those that desire to find him, and dread the
thoughts of missing him. They that would seek j
God, and find him, must seek betimes, and seek ;
him earnestly. Though we come ever so early,
we shall find him ready to receive us.
IV. It is God’s gracious design, in sending abroad
his judgments, thereby to bring men to seek him
and serve him; When thy judgments are upon the
earth, laying all waste, then we have reason to ex¬
pect that not only God’s professing people, but
even the inhabitants of the world will learn right¬
eousness; will have their mistakes rectified and
their lives reformed, will be brought to acknow¬
ledge God’s righteousness in punishing them; will
repent of their own unrighteousness in offending
God, and so be brought to walk in right paths.
They will do this; judgments are designed to bring
them to this, they have a natural tendency to pro¬
duce this effect; and though many continue obsti¬
nate, yet some, even of the inhabitants of the world,
will profit by this discipline, and will learn right¬
eousness; surely they will, they are strangely stupid
if they do not. Note, The intention of affliction is,
to teach us righteousness; and blessed is the mail
whom God chastens, and thus teaches; Ps. xoiv. 12.
Discite justitiam, moniti, et non temnere divos —
Let this rebuke teach you to cultivate righteousness,
and cease from despising the gods. Virg.
V. Those are wicked indeed, that will not be
wrought upon by the favourable methods God takes
to reduce and reform them; and it is necessary
that God should deal with them in a severe way by
his judgments, which shall prevail to humble those
that would not otherwise be humbled. Observe,
1. How sinners walk contrary to Gcd, and refuse
to comply with the means used for their reforma
tion, and to answer the intentions of them, v. 10.
(1.) Favour is showed to them; they receive
many mercies from God, he causes liis sun to shine,
and his rain to fall, upon them, nay he prospers
them, and into their hands he brings plentifully;
they escape many of the strokes of God’s judg¬
ments, which others, less wicked than they, have
been cut off by; in some particular instances, they
seem to be remarkably favoured above their neigh¬
bours, and the design of all this is, that they may be
won upon to love and serve that God who thus fa¬
vours them ; and yet it is all in vain, they will not
learn righteousness, will not be led to repentance
by the goodness of God; and therefore it is requi¬
site that God should send his judgments into the
earth, to reckon with men for abused mercies.
(2.j They live in a land of uprightness, where
religion is professed, and is in reputation, where
the word of God is preached, and where they have
many good examples set them : in' a land of even¬
ness, where there are not so many stumbling-blocks
as in other places; in a land of correction, where
vice and profaneness are discountenanced and pun¬
ished; yet there they will deal unjustly, and go on
frowardly in their evil ways. They that do wick¬
edly, deal unjustly both with God and man, and
with their own souls; and those that will not be re¬
claimed by the justice of the nation, may expect
the judgments ot God upon them. Nor can they
expect a place hereafter in the land of blessedness,
who now conform not to the laws and usages, noi
improve the privileges and advantages of the land
of uprightness. And why do they not? It is be¬
cause they will not behold the majesty of the Lord;
will not believe, will not consider, what a Gi d of
terrible majesty he is, whose laws and justice they
persist in the contempt of. God’s majesty appears
in all the dispensations of his providence; but they
regard it not, and therefore study not to answer the
ends of those dispensations. Even when we re¬
ceive of the mercy of the Lord, we must still be¬
hold the majesty of the Lord, and his goodness.
(3.) God lifts up his hand, to give them wanting,
that they may, by repentance and prayer, make
their peace with him; but they take no notice of it,
are not aware that God is angry with them, or
coming forth against them; they will not see, and
none so blind as those who will not see, who shut
their eyes against the clearest conviction of guilt and
wrath ; who ascribe that to chance, or common fate,
which is manifestly a divine rebuke; who regard
not the threatening symptoms of their own ruin, but
cry peace to themselves, when the righteous God
is waging war with them.
2. How God will at length be too hard for them;
ISAIAH, XXVI. UO
for wlren he judges, he will overcome; They will
not see, but they shall see; they shall be made to
see, whether they will or no, that God is angry
with them. Atheists, scomers, and the secure,
will shortly feel, what now they will not believe.
That it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of
the living God. They will not see the evil of sin,
and particularly the sin of hating and persecuting
the people of God; but they shall see, by the to¬
kens of God’s displeasure against them for it, and
the deliverances in which God will plead his peo¬
ple’s cause, that what is done against them lie takes
as done against himself, and will reckon for it ac¬
cordingly. They shall see that they have done God’s
people a great deal of wrong, and therefore shall
be ashamed of their enmity and envy toward them,
and their ill usage of such as deserved better treat¬
ment. Note, Those that bear ill will to God’s peo¬
ple, have reason to be ashamed of it, so absurd and
unreasonable is it; and, sooner or later, they shall
be ashamed of it, and the remembrance of it shall
fill them with confusion. Some read it, They shall
see, and be confounded for the zeal of the people,
by the zeal God will show for his people; when
they shall be made to know how jealous God is for
the honour and welfare of his people, they shall be
confounded to think that they might have been of
that people, ajid would not. Their doom there¬
fore is, that, since they slighted the happiness of
God’s friends, the fire of his enemies shall devour
them, that fire which is prepared for his enemies,
and with which they shall be devoured, the fire de¬
signed for the devil and his angels. Note, Those
that are enemies to God’s people, and envy them,
God looks upon as his enemies, and will deal with
them accordingly.
1 2. Lord, thou wilt ordain peace for us:
for thou also hast wrought all our works in
us. l .3. O Lord our God, other lords be¬
sides thee have had dominion over us ; hut
by thee only will we make mention of thy
name. 1 4. They are dead, they shall not live ;
they are. deceased, they shall not rise: there¬
fore hast thou visited and destroyed them,
and made all their memory to perish. 15.
Thou hast increased the nation, O Lord,
thou hast increased the nation : thou art glo¬
rified ; thou hadst removed it far unto all
the ends of the earth. 16. Lord, in trou¬
ble have they visited thee ; they poured out
a prayer when thy chastening was upon
them. 17. Like as a woman with child,
that draweth near the time of her delivery,
is m pain, and crieth out in her pangs ; so
have we been in thy sight, O Lord. 1 8.
We have been with child, we have been in
pain, we have as it were brought forth
wind; we have not wrought any deliver¬
ance in the earth, neither have the inhabit¬
ants of the world fallen. 19. Thy dead
mm shall live, together with my dead body
shall lliey arise. Awake and sing, ye that
dwell in dust : for thy dew is as the dew of
herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.
The prophet, in these verses, looks back upon
what God had done with them, both in mercy and
mdgmrnt, and sings unto God of both; and then
looks forward upon what he hoped God would do
for them. Observe,
I. His reviews and reflections are mixed. When
he looks back upon the state of the church, he finds,
1. That God had in many instances been very
gracious to them, and h d done great things for
them; (to 12.) Thou hast wrought all our ivories
in us, or for us. Whatever good work is done by
us, it is owing to a good work wrought by the
grace of God in us; it is he that puts good thoughts
and affections into our hearts, if at an)' time they be
there, and that works in us both to will and to do of
his good pleasure. Acti agim us — Being acted upon,
we act. And if any kindness be showed us, or any
of our affairs be prosperous and successful, it is
God that works it forus; and every creature, every
business, that are any way serviceable to our com¬
fort, it is he that makes them to be so; sometimes
he makes that to work for us, which seemed to
make against us.
In particular; (v. 15.) Thou hast increased the
nation, 0 Lord, so that a little one has become a
thousand; in Egypt they multiplied exceedingly,
and afterward in Canaan; so that they filled the
land; and in this thou art glorified; for the multi¬
tude of the people is the honour of the prince:
and therein God was glorified as faithful to his co¬
venant with Abraham, that he would make him a fa
ther of many nations. Note, God’s nation is a grow
ing nation, and it is the glory of God that it is so. Tin
increase of the church, that holy nation, is therefore
to be rejoiced in, because it is the increase of these
that make it their business to glorify God in this
world.
2. That yet he had laid theiR under his rebukes.
(1.) The neighbouring nations had sometimes op¬
pressed them, and tyrannized over them; {y. 13.)
“O Lord our God, thou who hast the sole right to
rule us, whose subjects and servants we are, to thee
we complain, (for whither else should we go with
our complaints?) that other lords, beside thee, have
had dominion over us.” Not only in the day
of the Judges, but afterwards, God frequently sold
them into the hand of their enemies; or rather, by
their iniquities they sold themselves, ch. lii. 3 — 5.
When they had been careless in the service of God,
God suffered their enemies to have dominion over
them, that they might know the difference between
his service and the service of the kingdoms of the
countries. It may be understood as a confession of
sin, their serving other gods, and subjecting them¬
selves to the superstitious laws and customs of their
neighbours, by which other lords (for they called
their idols Baals, lords,) had dominion over them,
beside God. But now they promise that it shall be
so no more; “ From henceforth by thee only will we
make mention of thy name; we will worship thee
only, and in that wav only which thou hast instituted
and appointed.” The same may be our penitent
reflection. Other lords, beside Goa, have had domi¬
nion over us; every lust has been our lord, and we
have been led captive by it; and it has been long
enough, and too long, that we have, thus wronged
both God and ourselves. The same therefore imis*
be our pious resolution, that from henceforth w,.
will make mention of God’s name only, and by him
only; that we will keep close to God and to cur
dutv, and never desert it.
(2.) They had sometimes been carried into cap¬
tivity before their enemies; (i>. 15.) “The nation
which at first thou didst increase, and make to take
root, thou hast now diminished, and plucked up, and
removed to all the ends of the earth, driven out to
the utmost parts of heaven;” as is threatened, Deut.
xxx. 4. — xxviii. 64. But observe, betwixt the men¬
tion of the increasing of them, and that of the re
moving of them, it is said, Thou art glorified; foj
120
ISAIAK, XXVI
rhe judgments God inflicts upon his people for tlieii
si s, are for his honour, as well as the mercies lie
bestows upon them in performance of His promise.
(3. ; He remembers that when they were thus
oppressed, and carried captive, they cried unto
God; which was a good evidence that they neither
had quite forsaken him, nor were quite forsaken of
him, and that there were merciful intentions in the
judgments they were under; (x>. 16.) Lord, in trou¬
ble have they visited thee. This was usual with the
people of Israel, as we find frequently in the story
of the Judges; when other lords had dominion over
them, they humbled themselves, and said, The Lord
is righteous, 2 Chron. xii. 6. See here, [1.] The
need we have of afflictions; they are necessary to stir
up prayer; when it is said, In trouble they have vi¬
sited thee, it is implied that in their peace and pros¬
perity they were strangers to God, kept at a distance
from him, and seldom came near him; as if, when
the world smiled upon them, they had no occasion
for his favours. [2.] The benefit we often have by
afflictions; they bring us to God, quicken us to our
duty, and show us our dependence upon him. Those
that before seldom looked at God, now visit him;
they come frequently, they become friendly, and
make their court to him. Before, prayer came drop
by drop, but now they pour out a prayer; it comes
now like water from a fountain, not like water from
a still. They poured out a secret speech; so the mar¬
gin: praying is speaking to God, but it is a secret
speech; for it is the language of the heart, otherwise
it is not praying. Afflictions bring us to secret
prayer, in which we may be more free and parti¬
cular in our addresses to him, than we can be in
ublic. In affliction, those will seek God early, who
efore sought him slowly, Hos. v. 15. It will make
men fervent and fluent in prayer; “ They poured
out a prayer, as the drink-offerings were poured out,
when thy chastening was upon them.” But it is to
lie feared, when the chastening is off them, they
will by degrees return to their former carelessness,
as they had often done.
(4. ) He complains that their struggles for their
own liberty had be.en very painful and perilous, but
that thev had not been successful, v. 17, 18.
[1.] They had the throes and pangs they dread¬
ed; “We have been like a woman in labour, that
cries out in her pangs. We have with a great deal
of anxiety and toil endeavoured to help ourselves,
and our troubles have been increased by those at¬
tempts;” as when Moses came to deliver Israel, the
tale of bricks was doubled. Their prayers were
quickened by the acuteness of their pains, and be¬
came as strong and vehement as the cries of a wo¬
man in sore travail; so have sue been in thy sight, 0
Lord. It was a comfort and s itisfaction to them,
in their distress, that God had his eye upon them,
that all their miseries were in his sight; he was no
stranger to their pangs or their prayers; Lord, all
my desire is before thee, and my groaning is not
hid from thee, Ps. xxxviii. 9. Whenever they came
to present themselves before the Lord with their
complaints and petitions, they were in agonies like
those of a woman in travail.
[2.] They came short of the issue and success
thev desired and hoped for; “TVe have been with
child; we have had great expectation of a speedy
and happy deliverance, have been big with hopes,
and, when we have been in pain, have comforted
ourselves with this, that the joyful birth would make
us forget our misery, John xvi. 21. But alas, ive
have as it were brought forth wind; it has proved
a false conception, our expectations have been frus¬
trated, and our pains have been rather dying pains
than travailing ones; we have had a miscarrying
womb and dry breasts. All our efforts have proved
successless; we have not wrought any deliverance
in the earth, for oui selves or foi our friends uid
allies; but rather have made our own case and
theirs worse; neither have the inhabitants oj the
world, whom we have been contesting with, fallen
before us, either in their power or in their hopes;
but they are still as high and arrogant as ever.”
Note, A righteous cause may be strenuously plead¬
ed both by prayer and endeavour, both with God
and man; and yet for a great while may suffer, and
the point not be gained.
II. His prospects and hopes are very pleasant. In
general, “Thou wilt ordain peace for us, (v. 12.)
all that good which the necessity ot our case calls
for.” What peace the church has, or hopes for, it
is of God’s ordaining. And we may comfort cur-
selves with this. That what trouble soever may foi
a time be appointed to the people of God, peace
will at length be ordained for them ; for the end of
those men is peace. And if God by his Spirit work
all our works in us, he will ordain peace for us; fot
the work of righteousness shall be peace. And tha'
is true and lasting peace, such as the world can nei¬
ther give nor take away, which God ordains; for tc
those that have it, it shall be unchangeable as the
ordinances of the day and of the night. And from
what God has done for us, we may encourage our¬
selves to hope that he will yet further do us good.
“ Thou hast heard the desire of the humble, and
therefore wilt; (Ps. x. 17.) and when this peace is
ordained for us, then by thee only will we make
mention of thy name; (t>. 13.) we will give the glory
of it to thee only, and not to any other. And w'e will
depend upon thy grace only to enable us to do so.’
We cannot praise God’s name, but by his strength.
Two things in particular the prophet here com¬
forts the church with the prospect of.
1. The amazing ruin of her enemies; (x/. 14.)
They are dead, those other lords that have had do-
minion over us; their power is irrecoverably broken,
they are quite cut off and extinguished; and they
shall not live, shall never be able to hold up the
head any more. Being deceased, they shall not rise,
but, like Haman, when they have begun to fall be¬
fore the seed of the Jews, they shall sink like a
stone. Because they are sentenced to this final ruin,
therefore, in pursuance of that sentence, God him¬
self has visited them in wrath, as a righteous Judge,
and has cut off both the men themselves, fie has
destroyed them,) and the remembrance of them;
they and their names are buried together in the
dust. He has made all their memory to' perish:
they are either forgotten, or made mention of with
detestation. Note, The cause that is maintained in
opposition to God and his kingdom among men,
though it may prosper awhile, will certainly sink
at last, and all that adhere to it will perish with it.
The Jewish doctors, comparing this with x’. 19.
infer, that the resurrection of the dead belongs to
the Jews only, and that those of other nations shall
not rise. But we know better; that all who are in
their graves, shall hear the voice o f the Son of God;
and that this speaks of the final destruction ot
Christ’s enemies, which is the second death.
2. The surprising resurrection of her friends, v.
19. Though the church rejoices not in the birth of
the man-child, of which she travailed in pain, but
has as it were brought forth wind, (y. 18. ) yet the
disappointment shall be balanced in a way equiva
lent; Thy dead men shall live; those who were
thought to be dead, who had received a sentence of
death within themselves, who were cast out as if
they had been naturally dead, they shall appear
again in their former vigour. A spirit of life from
God shall enter into the slain witnesses, and they
shall prophesy again, Rev. xi. 11. The dry bones
shall live, and become an exceeding great army ,
Ezek. xxxvii. 10. Together with my dead body
121
ISAIAH
•hall thn/ arise. If we believe the resurrection
if the dead, of our dead bodies at the last day,
as Job did, and the prophet here, that will fa¬
cilitate our belief of the promisee! restoration of the
cburca’s lustre and strength in this world. When
God’s time is come, how low soever she may be
brought, they shall arise, even Jerusalem, the city
of God, but now lying like a dead body, a car¬
case to which the eagles are gathered together.
God owns it still for his, so does the prophet; but it
shall arise, shall be rebuilt, and flourish again. And
therefore, let 'the poor, desolate, melancholy re¬
mains of its inhabitants, that dwell as in dust, awake
and sing, for they shall see Jerusalem, the city of
their solemnities, a quiet habitation again, ch. xxxili.
20. The dew of God’s favour shall be to it as the
evening dew to the herbs, that were parched with
the heat of the sun all day, it shall revive and refresh
them. And as the spring-dews, that water the
earth, and make the herbs that lay buried in it, to
put forth and bud, so shall they flourish again, and
the earth shall cast out the dead, as it casts the
herbs out of their roots. The earth, in which they
seemed to be lost, shall contribute to their revival.
When the church and her interests are to be res¬
tored, neither the dew of heaven, nor the fatness of
the earth, shall be wanting to do their parts towards
it. Now this (as Ezekiel’s vision, which is a com¬
ment upon it) may be fitly accommodated, (1.) To
the spiritual resurrection of those that were dead in
sin, by the power of Christ’s gospel and grace. So
Dr. Lightfoot applies it, Hor. Hebr. in Joh. xii. 24.
The Gentiles shall live, with my body shall they
arise; they shall be called in after Christ’s resur¬
rection, shall rise with him, and sit with him in
heavenly places; nay, they shall arise my body;
(says he;) they shall become the mystical body of
Christ, and shall rise as part of him. (2.) To the
last resurrection; when dead saints shall live, and
rise together with Christ’s dead body; for he rose
as tiie First-Fruits, and believers shall rise by virtue
of their union with him, and their communion in his
resurrection.
20. Come, my people, enter thou into thy
chambers, and shut thy doors about thee :
hide thyself as it were for a little moment,
until the indignation be overpast. 21. For,
behold, the Lord cometh out of his place
to punish the inhabitants of the earth for
their iniquity : the earth also shall disclose
her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.
These two verses are supposed not to belong to
the song, which takes up the rest of the chapter,
but to begin a new matter, and to be rather an in¬
troduction to the following chapter than the conclu¬
sion of this. Or, whereas, in the foregoing song,
the people of God had spoken to him, complaining
of their grievances, here he returns an answer to
their complaints. In which,
1. He invites them into their chambers; (i>. 20.)
“Come, my people, come to me, come with me;”
(lie calls them no whither but where he himself
will accompany them;) “let the storm that dis¬
perses others, bring you nearer together. Come,
and entei1 into thy chambers; stay not abroad, lest
you be caught in the storm, as the Egyptians in the
hail,” Exod. ix. 21. (1.) “Come into chambers
of distinction; come into your own apartments, and
continue not any longer mixed with the children of
Babylon. Come out from among them, and be ye
separate,” 2 Cor. vi. 17. Rev. xvni. 4. If God has
set apart them that are godly for himself, they
ought to set themselves apart. (2.) “ Into chambers
of defence; in which, by the secrecy, of them, oi the
Vol. iv. — Q
, XXVI.
strength, you may be safe in the worst of times.”
The attributes of God are the secret of his taberna¬
cle, Ps. xxvii. 5. His name is a strong tower, into
which we may run for shelter, Prov. xviii. 10. We
must, by faith, find a way into these chambers, and
there hide ourselves with a holy security and seren¬
ity of mind, we must put ourselves under the divine
protection. Come, as Noah into the ark, for he
shut the doors about him; when dangers are threat¬
ening, it is good to retire, and lie hid, as Elijah did
by the brook Cherith. (3.) Into chambers of devo¬
tion; “Enter into thy closet, and shut thy door,
Matth. vi. 6. Be private with God; enter into thy
chamber, to examine thyself and commune with
thy own heart, to pray, and humble thyself before
God.” This work is to be done in times of dis¬
tress and danger; and thus we hide ourselves; we
recommend ourselves to God to hide us, and he
will hide us either under heaven or in heaven. Is¬
rael must keep within doors, when the destroying
angel is slaying the first-born of Egypt, else the
blood on the door-posts will not secure them. So
must Rahab and her family, when Jericho is de¬
stroyed. Those are most safe, that are least seen.
Qui bene latuit, bene vixit — He has lived ■well, who
has sought a proper degree of concealment.
2. He assures them that the trouble would be over
in a very short time; that they should not long be in
any fright or peril; “Hide thyself for a moment,
the smallest part of time we can conceive, like an
atom of matter; nay, if you can imagine one moment
shorter than another, it is but for a little moment,
and that with a quasi too, as it were, for a little mo¬
ment, less than you think of; when it is over, it will
seem as nothing to you, you will wonder how soon
it is gone. You shall not need to lie long in con¬
finement, long in concealment; the indignation will
presently be overpast; the indignation of the ene¬
mies against you, their persecuting power and rage,
which force you to abscond; when the wicked rise,
a man is hid. This will soon be over, God will cut
them off, will break their power, defeat their pur¬
poses, and find a way for your enlargement. ” When
Athanasius was banished Alexandria by an edict
of Julian, and his friends greatly lamented it, he
bid them be of good cheer; JVubicula est quee cito
pertransibit — It is a little cloud that will soon blow
over. You shall have tribulation ten clays; that is
all, Rev. ii. 10. This enables God’s suffering peo¬
ple to call their afflictions light, that they are but
for a moment.
3. He assures them that their enemies should be
reckoned with for all the mischief they had done
them by the sword, either of war or persecution, v.
21. The Lord will punish them for the blood they
have shed. Here is, (1.) The judgment set, anil
process issued out; The Lord conies out of his place,
to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their ini¬
quity, in giving such disturbance to all about them.
There is a great deal of iniquity among the inhabi¬
tants of the earth ; but, though they all combine in
it, though hand join in hand to carry it on, yet it
shall not go unpunished. Beside the everlasting
punishment into which the wicked shall go hereaf¬
ter, there are often remarkable punishments of
cruelty, oppression, and persecution, in this world.
When men’s indignation is overpast, and they have
done their worst, let them then expect God’s indig¬
nation, for he sees that his day is coming, Ps. xxxvii.
13. God comes out of his place, to punish; he
shows himself in an extraordinary manner from
heaven, the firmament of his power, from the sanc¬
tuary, the residence of his grace; he is raised up out
of his holy habitation, where he seemed before to
conceal himself; and now he will do something
great, the product of his wise, just, and secret coun¬
sels; as a prince that goes to take the chair, or take
122
ISAIAH, XXVII.
the field, Zech. ii. 13. Some observe, that God’s
place is the mercy-seat, there he delights to be;
when he punishes, he comes out of his place, for he
has no pleasure In the death of sinners. (2.) The
criminals convicted by the notorious evidence of the
fact; The earth shall disclose her blood; the innocent
blood, the blood of the saints and martyrs, which has
been shed upon the earth like water, and has soaked
into it, and been concealed and covered by it, shall
now be brought to light, and brought to account; for
God will make inquisition for it, and will give those
that shed it blood to drink, for they are worthy.
Secret murders, and other secret wickednesses,
shall be discovered, sooner or later. And the slain
which the earth has long covered, she shall no
longer cover, but they shall be produced as evidence
against the murderers. The voice of Abel’s blood
cries from the earth, Gen. iv. 10, 11. Those sins
which seem to have been buried in oblivion, will be
called to mind, and called over again, when the day
of reckoning comes. Let God’s people therefore
wait awhile with patience, for, behold, the Judge
stands before the door.
CHAP. XXVII.
In this chapter, the prophet g^oes on to show, I. What great
things God would do for his church and people, which
should now shortly be accomplished in the deliverance
of Jerusalem from Sennacherib, and the destruction of
the Assyrian army; but it is expressed generally, for the
•encouragement of the church in after ages, with refer¬
ence to the power and prevalency of her enemies. 1.
That proud oppressors should be reckoned with, v. 1. 2.
That care should be taken of the church, as of God’s
vineyard, v. 2, 3. 3. That God would let fall his con¬
troversy with the people, upon their return to him, v. 4,
5. 4. That he would greatly multiply and increase them,
v. 6. 5. That as to their afflictions, the property of them
should be altered; (v. 7.) they should be mitigated and
moderated, (v. 8.) and sanctified, v. 9. 6. That though
the church might be laid waste, and made desolate, for a
time, (v. 10, 11.) yet it should be restored, and the scat¬
tered members should be gathered together again, v. 12,
13. II. All this is applicable to the grace of the gospel,
and God’s promises to, and providences concerning, the
Christian church, and such as belong to it.
l.TN’ that clay the Lord, with his sore,
A and great, and strong sword, shall
punish leviathan the piercing serpent-, even
leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall
slay the dragon that is in the sea. 2. In
that day sing ye unto her, A vineyard of
red wine. 3. I the Lord do keep it ; 1 will
water it every moment ; lest any hurt it, I
will keep it night, and day. 4. F ury is not
in me: who would set the briers and thorns
against me in battle? I would go through
them, I would burn them together. 5- Or
iet him take hold of my strength, that he
may make peace with me; and he shall
make peace with me. 6. He shall cause
them that come of Jacob to take root: Is¬
rael shall blossom and bud, and fill the face
of the world with fruit.
The prophet is here singing of judgment and
mercy.
I. Of judgment upon the enemies of God’s church;
(d. l.) tribulation to them that trouble it, 2 Thess.
i. 6. When the Lord comes out of his place, to
punish the inhabitants of the earth, (ch. xxvi. 21.)
lie will be sure to punish leviathan, the dragon that
is in the sea; every proud, oppressing tyrant, that
is the terror of the mighty, and, like the leviathan,
is so fierce, that none dare stir him up, and his heart
as hard as a stone, and when he raises up himself,
the mighty are afraid, Job xli. 10, 24, 25. Th>.
church has many enemies, but commonly some on>
that is more formidable than the rest. So Senna
cherib was, in his day, and Nebuchadnezzar in his
and Antiochus in his; so Pharaoh had been forme;
ly, and he is called leviathan, and the dragon, P
lxxiv. 14. ch. li. 9. Ezek. xxix. 3. The New Tes¬
tament church has had its leviathans; we read of a
great red dragon ready to devour it, Rev. xii. 3.
Those malignant persecuting powers are here com¬
pared to the leviathan, for bulk and strength, and
the mighty bustle they make in the world; to
dragons, for their rage and fury; to serpents, pier¬
cing serpents, penetrating in their counsels, quick in
their motions, which, if they once get in their head,
will soon wind in their whole body; crossing like a
bar, so the margin, standing in the way of all their
neighbours, and obstructing them; to crooked ser¬
pents, subtle and insinuating, but perverse and mis¬
chievous. Great and mighty princes, if they op¬
pose the people of God, are, in God’s account, as
dragons and serpents, and plagues of mankind; and
the Lord will punish them in due time. They are
too big for men to deal with, and call to an account,
and therefore the great God will take the doing of
it into his own hands. He has a sore, and great,
and strong sword, wherewith to do execution upen
them, when the measure of their iniquity is full,
and their day is come to fall. It is emphatically
expressed in the original; The Lord with hisswora,
that cruel one, and that great one, and that strong
one, shall punish this unwieldy, this unruly crimi¬
nal, and it shall be capital punishment; he shall slay
the dragon that is in the sea; for the wages of his
sin is death. This shall not only be a prevention
of his doing further mischief, as the slaying of a wild
beast, but a just punishment for the mischief he has
done, as the putting of a traitor or rebel to death.
God has a strong sword for the doing of this; va¬
riety of judgments, sufficient to humble the proud-'
est, and break the most powerful, of his enemies;
and he will do it when the day of execution comes.
In that day, he will punish; his day which is coming
Ps. xxxvii. 13. This is applicable to the spiritua
victories obtained by our Lord Jesus over the powers
of darkness. He not only disarmed, spoiled, and
cast out, the prince of this world, but, with his
strong sword, the virtue of his death, and the preach¬
ing of his gospel, he does, and will, destroy him that
had the power of death, that is, the devil, that great
leviathan, that old serpent, the dragon. He shall
be bound, that he may not deceive the nations, and
that is a punishment to him, Rev. xx. 2, 3. And,
at length, for deceiving the nations, he shall be cast
into the lake of fire, Rev. xx. 10.
II. Of mercy to the church; in that same day,
when God is punishing the leviathan, let the church
and all her friends be easy and cheerful; let those
that attend her, sing to her for her comfort, sing her
asleep with these assurances; let it be sung in her
assemblies.
1. That she is God’s vineyard, and is under his
particular care, v. 2, 3. She is, in God’s eye, a vine¬
yard of red wine. The world is as a fruitless,
worthless wilderness; but the church is enclosed as
a vineyard, a peculiar place, and of value, that has
great care taken of it, and great pains taken with it,
and from which precious fruits are gathered, where¬
with they honour God and man. It is a vineyard
of red wine, yielding the best and choicest grapes;
intimating the reformation of the church, that it
now brings forth good fruit unto God, whereas be¬
fore it brought forth fruit to itself, or brought forth
wild grapes, ch. v. 4.
Now God takes care, (1.) Of the safety of this
vineyard; I the Lord do keep it. He speaks this.
123
ISAIAH, XXVII.
as glorying in it, that he is, and has undertaken to
be, tlie Keeper of Israel: those that bring forth
fruit to God, are, and shall be always, under his
protection. He speaks this, as assuring us that they
shall be so; I the Lord, that can do every thing, but
cannot lie nor deceive, I do keep it, lest any hurt it;
I will keep it night and day. God’s vineyard in
this world lies much exposed to injury; there are
many that would hurt it, would tread it down, and
lay it waste; (Ps. lxxx. 13.) but God will suffer no
real hurt or damage to be done it, but what he will
bring good out of it. He will keep it constantly,
night and day; and not without need, for the ene¬
mies are restless in their designs and attempts against
it, and, both night and day, seek an opportunity to
do it a mischief. God will keep it in the night of
affliction and persecution, and in the day of peace
and prosperity, the temptations of which are no less
dangerous. God’s people shall be preserved, not
only from the pestilence that ivalketn in darkness,
but from the destruction that ivasteth at noon-day,
Ps. xci. 6. This vineyard shall be well fenced.
(2.) Of the fruitfulness of this vineyard; I will
water it every moment, and yet it shall not be over¬
watered. The still and silent dews of God’s grace
and blessing shall continually descend upon it, that
it may bring forth much fruit. W e need the con¬
stant and continual waterings of the divine grace;
for if that be at any time withdrawn, we wither,
and come to nothing. God waters his vineyard by
the ministry of the word, that is, by his servants the
rophets, whose doctrine shall drop as the dew.
aul plants, and Apollos waters, but God gives the
increase; for without him the watchman wakes,
and the husbandman waters, in vain.
2. That though sometimes he contends with his
people, yet, upon their submission, he will be re¬
conciled to them, x’. 4, 5. Fury is not in him to¬
ward his vineyard; though he meets with many
things in it that are offensive to him, yet he does
not seek advantages against it, nor is extreme to
mark what is amiss in it. It is true, if he find in it
bries and thorns instead of vines, and they be set in
battle against him, (as indeed that in the vineyard,
which is not for him, is against him,) he will tread
them down, and burn them; but otherwise, “If I
am angry with my people, they know what course
to take; let them humble themselves, and pray, and
seek my face, and so take hold of my strength with
a sincere desire to make their peace with me, and I
will soon be reconciled to them, and all shall be
well! ” God sees the sins of his people, and is dis¬
pleased with them ; but, upon their repentance, he
turns away his wrath.
This may very well be construed as a summary
of the doctrine of the gospel, with which the church
is to be watered every moment. (1.) Here is a
quarrel supposed between God and man; for here
is a battle fought, and peace to be made. It is an
old quarrel, ever since sin first entered; it is, on
God’s part, a righteous quarrel, but, on man’s part,
most unrighteous. (2.) Here is a gracious invita¬
tion given us to make up this quarrel, and to get
these matters in variance accommodated; “Let
him that is desirous to be at peace with God, take
hold on his strength, on his strong arm, which is
lifted up against the sinner, to strike him dead; and
iet him bv supplication keep back the stroke; let
him wrestle with me, as Jacob did, resolving not to
let me go without a blessing; and he shall be Israel
— a firince with God.” Pardoning mercy is called
the power of our Lord; let him take hold on that.
Christ is the Arm of the Lord, ch. liii. 1. Christ
crucified is the power of God; (1 Cor. i. 24.) let
him by a lively faith take hold on him, as a man
that is sinking catches hold of a bough, or cord, or
plank, that is in his reach; or as the malefactor took
hold on the horns of the altar, believing that there
is no other name by which he can be saved, by
which he can be reconciled, (3.) Here is a three¬
fold cord of arguments to persuade us to do this.
[1.] Time and space are given us to do it in, for
tury is not in God; he does not carry it towards us
as great men carry it towards their inferiors, when
the one is in fault, and the other in a fury. Men in
a fury will not take time for consideration; it is,
with them, but a word and a blow. Furious men
are soon angry, and implacable when they are
angry; a little thing provokes them, and no little
thing will pacify them : but it is not so with God;
he considers our frame, is slow to anger, does not
stir up his wrath, nor always chide. [2.] It is in
vain to think of contesting with him. If we persist
in our quarrel with him, and think to make our
part good, it is but like setting briers and thorns be¬
fore a consuming fire, which will be so far from
giving check to the progress of it, that they will but
make it bum the more outrageously. We are not
an equal match for Omnipotence. Wo unto him
therefore that strives with his Maker! He knows
not the power of his anger. [3.] This is the only
way, and it is a sure way, to reconciliation; “Let
him take this course- to make peace with me, and
he shall make peace; and thereby good, all good,
shall come unto him.” God is willing to be recon¬
ciled to us, if we be but willing to be reconciled to
him.
3. That the church of God in the world shall be
a growing body, and come at length fb be a great
body; (i>. 6.) In times to come, (so some read it,) in
after-times, when these calamities are overpast; or,
in the days of the gospel, the latter days, he shall
cause Jacob to take root, deeper root than ever yet;
for the gospel-church shall be more firmly fixed
than ever the Jewish church was, and shall spread
further. Or, He shall cause them of Jacob, that
come back out of their captivity, or, as we read it,
them that come of Jacob, to take root downward,
and bear fruit upward, ch. xxxvii. 31. They shall
be established in a prosperous state, and then they
shall blossom and bud, and give hopeful prospects
of a great increase; and so it shall prove, for they
shall Jill the face of the world with fruit. Many
shall be brought into the church, proselytes shall be
numerous; some out of all the nations about, that
shall be to the God of Israel for a name and a praise:
and the converts shall be fruitful in the fruits of
righteousness; the preaching of the gospel brought
forth fruit in all the world, (Col. i. 6.) fruit that
remains, John xv. 16.
7. Hath he smitten him, as he smote those
that smote him ? or is he slain according to
the slaughter of them that are slain by him 1
8. In measure, when it shooteth forth, thou
wilt debate with it: he stayeth his rough
wind in the day of the east wind. 9. By
this, therefore, shall the iniquity of Jacob be
purged; and this is all the fruit to take away
his sin; when he maketh all the stones of
the altar as chalk-stones that are beaten in
sunder, the groves and images shall not stand
up. 10. Yet the defenced city shall he de¬
solate, and the habitation forsaken, and left
like a wilderness: there shall the calf feed,
and there shall he lie down, and consume
the branches thereof. 1 1. When the houghs
thereof are withered, they shall be broken
off: the women come and set them on fire
124
ISAIAH, XXVII.
for it is a people of no understanding: there- ;
fore lie that made them will not have mercy !
on them, and he that formed them will show
them no favour. 12. And it shall come to
pass in that day, that the Lord shall beat
off from the channel of the river unto the
stream of Egypt, and ye shall be gathered
one by one, O ye children of Israel. 1 3. And
it shall come to pass in that day, that the
great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall
come which were ready to perish in the land j
of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of
Egypt, and shall worship the Lord in the
holy mount at Jerusalem.
Here is the prophet again singing of mercy and
judgment, not, as before, judgment to the enemies,
and mercy to the church; but judgment to the
church, and mercy mixed with that judgment.
I. Here is judgment threatened even to Jacob and
Israel; they shall blossom and bud, v. 6. But, 1.
They shall be smitten and slain ; (v. 7. ) some of them
shall. If God finds any thing amiss among them,
he shall lay them under the tokens of his displea¬
sure for it. Judgment shall begin at the house of
God, and those whom God has known of all the
families of the earth, he will punish in the first place.
2. Jerusalem, their defenced city, shall be desolate,
v. 10, 11. G8d having tried a variety of methods
with them for their reformation, which, as to many,
have proved ineffectual, he will for a time lay their
country waste, which was accomplished when Jeru¬
salem was destroyed by the Chaldeans; then that
habitation was for a long time forsaken. If lesser
judgments do not do the work, God will send '
greater; for, when he judges, he will overcome.
Jerusalem had been a defenced city, not so much by
art or nature, as by grace and the divine protection; J
but when God was provoked to withdraw, her De¬
fence was departed from her, and then she was left
like a wilderness. And in the pleasant gardens of
Jerusalem cattle shall feed, shall lie down there,
and there shall be none to disturb them or drive
them away, there they shall be levant and cou-
chant* and they shall eat the tender branches of
the fruit-trees; which perhaps further signifies that
the people should become an easy prey to their ene- |
mies; when the boughs thereof are withered as they
grow upon the tree, being blasted by winds and
frosts, and not pruned, they shall be broken off for
fuel, and the women and children shall come and
set them on fire. There shall be a total destruction,
for the very trees shall be destroyed. And this is a
figure of the deplorable state of the vineyard, (v.
2.) when it brought forth wild grapes ; ( ch . v. 2.)
and our Saviour seems to refer to this, when he says
of the branches of the vine which abide not in him,
that they are cast forth and withered, and men ga¬
ther them, and cast them into the fire, and they are
burned, (John xv. 6.) which was in a particular
manner fulfilled in the unbelieving Jews.
The similitude is explained in the following words;
It is a fieofile of no understanding, brutish and sot¬
tish, and destitute of the knowledge of God, and
that have no relish or savour of divine things, like a
withered branch that has no san in it; and this is at
the bottom of all those sins for which God left
them desolate, their idolatry first, and afterward
their infidelity. Wicked people, however in other
things they may be wits and politicians, in their
greatest concerns are of no understanding; and their
* A liiw-phrnae, applicable when cattle have been so long in an¬
other man’s ground, that they have lain down, and are risen up to
feed — Ed.
ignorance being wilful, that shall not only not be their
excuse, but it shall be the ground of their condem¬
nation; for therefore he that made them, that gave
them their being, wilt not have mercy on them, nor
save them from the ruin they bring upon them¬
selves; and he that formed them into a people, form¬
ed them for himself, to show forth his praise, seeing
they do not answer the end of their formation, but
hate to be reformed, to be new-formed, will reject
them, and show them no favour; and then they are
undone: lor if he that made use of his power, do
not make us happy in his favour, we had better ne¬
ver have been made. Sinners flatter thertisclves
with hopes of impunity; at least that they shall not
be dealt with so severely as their ministers tell
them, because God is merciful, and because he is
their Maker: but here we see how weak and insuf¬
ficient those pleas will be; for if they be of no un¬
derstanding, lie that made them, though he made
them, and hates nothing that he has made, and
though he has mercy in store for those who so far
understand themselves as to apply themselves to
him for it, yet on them he will have no mercy, and
will show them no favour.
II. Here is a great deal of mercy mixed with
this judgment; for there are good people mixed
with those that are corrupt and degenerate, a rem¬
nant according to the election of grace, on whom
God will have mercy, and to whom he will show
favour: and these promises seem to point at all the
calamities of the church, for which God would gra¬
ciously provide these allays.
1. Though they should be smitten and slain, yet
not to that degree, and in that manner, that their
enemies shall be smitten and slain; (vl 7.) God
has smitten Jacob and Israel, and he is slain; many
of them that understand among the profile, shall
fall by the sword and by fame many days, Dan. xi.
33.. But it shall not be as those are smitten and
slain, (1.) Who smote him formerly, who were the
rod of God’s anger, and the staff in Iris hand, which
he made use of for the correction of his people,
and to whose turn it shall come to be reckoned with
even for that: the child is spared, but the rod Is
burned. (2. ) Who shall afterward be slain by him,
when he shall get the dominion, and repay them in
their own coin; or slain for his sake in the pleading
of his cause. God’s people and God’s enemies are
here represented, [1.] As struggling with each
other; so the seed of the woman and the seed of
the serpent have been, are, and will be: in this
contest there are slain on both sides. God makes
use of wicked men, not only to smite, but to slay his
people; for they are his sword, Ps. xvii. 13. But
when the cup of trembling comes to be put into
their hand, it will be much worse with them than
ever it was with God’s people in their greatest
straits: the seed of the woman has only his heel
bruised, but the serpent has his head crushed and
broken. Note, Though God’s persecuted people
may be great losers, and great sufferers, for awhile,
yet they that oppress them, will prove to be greater
losers, and greater sufferers, at last, here or hereaf¬
ter; for God will render double to them, Rev. xviii. 6.
[2.] As sharing together in the calamities of this
present time, they are both smitten, both slain, and
both by the hand of God; for there is one event to
the righteous and to the wicked; but is Jacob smitten
as his enemies are? No, by no means; to him the
property is altered, and it becomes quite another
thing. Note, However it may seem to us, there is
really a vast difference between the afflictions and
deaths of good people, and the afflictions and deaths
of wicked people.
2. Though God will debate with them, yet it shall
be in measure, and the affliction shall be mitigated,
moderated, and proportioned to their strength, not
ISAIAH, XXVIII. 125
■o their deserts, v. 8. He will deal out afflictions
co them, as the wise physician prescribes medicines
to his patient, just such a quantity of each ingredi¬
ent, or orders how much blood shall be taken when
a vein is opened: thus God orders the troubles of
his people, not suffering them to be temfited above
what they are able, 1 Cor. x. 13. He measures out
their afflictions by a little at a time, that they may
not be pressed above measure; for he knows their
frame, and corrects in judgment, and docs not stir
up all his wrath. When the affliction is shooting
forth, when he is sending it out, and giving it its
commission, then he debates in measure, and not in
extremity; he considers what we can bear, then
when he begins to correct; and when he proceeds
in his controversy, so that it is the day of his
east-wind, which is not only blustering and noisy,
but blasting and noxious, yet he stays his rough
wind, checks it, and sets bounds to it, does not
suffer it to blow so hard as it was feared; when
he is winnowing his corn, it is with a gentle gale,
that shall only blow away the chaff, but not the
good corn. God has the winds at his command,
and every affliction under his check; Hitherto it
shall go, but jio further. Let us not despair
when things are at the worst; be the winds ever so
rough, ever so high, God can say unto them, Peace,
be still.
3. Though God will afflict them, yet he will
make their afflictions to work for the good of their
souls, and correct them as the father does the child,
to drive out the foolishness that is bound up in their
hearts; (n. 9.) By this therefore shall the iniquity
iff Jacob be fiurged. This is the design of the af¬
fliction, to this it is adapted as a proper means, and,
by the grace of God working with it, it shall have
this blessed effect; it shall mortify the habits of sin;
by this those defilements of the soul shall be purged
away; it shall break them off from the practice ot it;
this is all the fruit, this is it that God intends, this is
all the harm it will do them, to take away their sin;
than which they could not have a greater kindness
done them, though it be at the expense of an afflic¬
tion. Therefore, because the affliction is mitigated
and moderated, and the rough wind stayed, there¬
fore we may conclude that he designs their refor¬
mation, not their destruction: and because he deals
thus gently with us, we should therefore study to
answer his ends in afflicting us. The particular sin
which the affliction was intended to cure them of,
was, the sin of idolatry, the sin which did most
easily beset that people, and to which they were
strangely addicted. Efihraim is joined to idols.
But by the captivity in Babylon they were not only
weaned from this sin, but set against it. Efihraim
shall say, What have I to do any 7 nore with idols?
Jacob then has his sin taken away, his beloved sin,
when he makes all the stones of the altar, of his idol¬
atrous altar, the stones of which were precious and
sacred to him, as chalk-stones that are beaten in sun¬
der; he not only has them in contempt, and values
them no more than chalk-stones, but he conceives
an indignation at them, and, in a holy revenge, beats
them asunder as easily as chalk-stones are broken
to pieces: the groves and the images shall not stand
before this penitent, but they shall be thrown down
too, never to be set up again. This was according to
the law for the demolishing and destroying of all the
monuments of idolatry; (Deut. vii. 5.) and accord¬
ing to this promise, since the captivity in Babylon,
no people in the world have such a rooted aversion
to idols and idolatry as the people of the Jews.
Note, The design of affliction is to part between us
and sin, especially that which has been our own
iniquity; and then it appears that the affliction has
done us good, when we keep at a distance from the
occasions of sin, and use all needful precaution that
we may not only not relapse into it, but not so much
as be tempted to it, Ps. cxix. 67.
4. Though Jerusalem shall be desolate and for¬
saken for a time, yet there will come a day when
its scattered friends Shall resort to it again out of all
the countries whither they were dispersed; (f. 12,
13.) though the body of the nation is abandoned as
a people of no understanding, yet those that are in¬
deed children of Israel shall be gathered together
again as the sheep of the flock, when the shepherds
that scattered them are reckoned with, Ezek. xxxiv.
10 — 12. Now observe concerning these scattered
Israelites, (1.) From whence thev shall be fetched;
The Lord shall beat thetn off as fruit from the tree,
or beat them out as corn out of the ear; he shall
find them out, and separate them from those whom
they dwelt among, and with whom they seemed to
be incorporated, from the channel of the river
Euphrates north-east, unto Nile the stream of
Egypt, which lay south-west; those that were driven
into the land of Assyria, and were captives there in
the land of their enemies, where they were ready to
perish for want of necessaries, and ready to despair
of deliverance; and those that were outcasts in the
land of Egyfit, whither many of those that were
left behind, after the captivity into Babvlon, went,
contrary to God’s express command, (Jen xliii. 6,
7.) and there lived as outcasts: God has mercy in
store for them all, and will make it to appear, that
though they are cast out, they are not cast off. ( 2. )
In what manner they shall be brought back; “Ye
shall be gathered one by one, not in multitudes, net
in troops forcing your way; but silently, and as it
were by stealth, dropping in, first one, and then
another.” This intimates that the remnant that
shall be saved, consists but of few, and those saved
with difficulty, and so as by fire, scarcely saved;
they shall not come for company, but as God shall
stir up every man’s spirit. (3.) By what means
they shall be gathered togther; The great trumfiet
shall be blown, and then they shall come. Cyrus’s
proclamation of liberty to the captives is this great
trumpet, which awakened the Jews that were asleep
in their thraldom to bestir themselves; it was like
the sounding of the jubilee-trumpet, which publish¬
ed the year of release. This is applicable to the
preaching of the gospel, by which sinners are gather¬
ed in to the grace of God, such as were outcasts and
ready to perish; those that were afar off are made
nigh; the gospel proclaims the acceptable year of the
Lord. It is applicable also to the archangel’s trum¬
pet at the last day, by which saints shall be gather¬
ed to the glory of God, that lay as outcasts in their
graves. (4.) For what end they shall be gathered
together; to worshifi the Lord in the holy moimt at
Jerusalem. When the captives rallied again, and
returned to their own land, the chief thing they had
their eye upon, and the first thing they applied
themselves to, was, the worship of God:' the holv
temple was in ruins, but they had the holy mount,
the filace of the altar, Gen. xiii. 4. Liberty to wor-
' ship God is the most valuable and desirable liberty;
and, after restraints and dispersions, a free access
to his house should be more welcome to us than a
free access to our own houses. Those that are ga¬
thered by the sounding of the gospel-trumpet, are
brought in to worship God, and added to the church,
and the great trumpet of all will gather the saints
together, to sei-ve God day and night in his temfile.
CHAP. XXVIII.
In this chapter, I. The Ephraimites are reproved and
threatened for their pride and drunkenness, their secu¬
rity and sensuality, v. 1. .8. But, in the midst of this,
here is a gracious promise of God’s favours to the rem¬
nant of his people, v. 5, 6. IT. They are likewise re¬
proved and threatened for their dulness and stupidity,
unaptness to profit by the instructions which the pro-
26
ISAIAH, XXVIII.
phets gave them, in God’s name, v. 9.. 13. III. The
rulers of Jerusalem are reproved and threatened for
their insolent contempt of God’s judgments, and setting
them at defiance; and, after a gracious promise of Christ
and his grace, they are made to know that the vain
hopes of escaping the judgments of God, with which
they flattered themselves, would certainly deceive them,
v. 14. . 22. IV. All this is confirmed by a comparison
borrowed from the method which the husbandman takes
with his ground and grain, according to which they must
expect God would proceed with his people, whom he had
lately called his threshing and the corn of his floor, ch.
xxi. 10. v. 23- -29. This is written for our admonition,
and is profitable for reproof and warning to us.
1. '%1SyrO to the crown of pride, to the
t T drunkards of Ephraim, whose glo¬
rious beauty is a fading flower, which are
on the head of the fat valleys of them that
are overcome with wine! 2. Behold, the
Lord hath a mighty and strong one, which,
as a tempest of hail, and a destroying storm,
as a flood of mighty waters overflowing,
shall cast down to the earth with the hand.
3. The crown of pride, the drunkards of
Ephraim, shall be trodden under feet. 4.
And the glorious beauty which is on the
head of the fat valley shall be a fading
flower, mid as the hasty fruit before the sum¬
mer: which, when he that looketh upon it
seeth, while it is yet in his hand he eatetli it
up. 5. In that day shall the Lord of hosts
be for a crown of glory, and for a diadem
of beauty, unto the residue of his people;
6. And for a spirit of judgment to him that
sitteth in judgment, and for strength to them
that turn the battle to the. gate. 7. But
they also have erred through wine, and
through strong drink are out of the way: the
priest and the prophet have erred through
strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine,
they are out of the way through Strong drink;
they err in vision, they stumble in judgment.
8. For all tables are full of vomit and filthi¬
ness, so that there is no place clean.
Here,
I. The prophet warns the kingdom of the ten
tribes, of the judgments that were coming upon
them for their sins, which were soon after executed
by the king of Assyria, who laid their country waste,
and carried the people into captivity. Ephraim
had his name from fruitfulness, their soil being very
fertile, and the products of it abundant, and the
best of the kind; they had a great many flat valleys,
(u. 1,4.) and Samaria, which was situated on a hill,
was, as it were, on the head of the fat valleys; their
country was rich and pleasant, and as the garden
of the Lord: it was the glory of Canaan, as that
was the glory of all lands: their harvest and vin¬
tage were the glorious beauty on the head of their
valleys, which were covered over with corn and
vines. Now observe,
1. What an ill use they made of their plenty;
what God gave them to serve him with, they per¬
verted, and abused, by making it the food and fuel
of their lusts.
(1.) They were puffed up with pride by it; the
goodness with which God crowned their years,
which should have been to him a crown of praise,
was to them a crown of pride. They that are rich
in the world, are -nt to be high-minded, 1 Tim. vi.
17. Their kuiv "mo wore the crown, was proud
that he ruled over so rich a country; Samaria, their
royal city, was notorious for pride. Perhaps it was
usual at their festivals, or ret els, to wear garlands
made up of flowers and ears cf corn, which they
wore, in honour of their fruitful country. Pride was a
sin that generally prevailed among tin m, and there¬
fore the prophet, in his name who resists the proud,
boldly proclaims a Wo to the crown of pride. If
those who wear crowns be proud of them, let them
not think to escape this wo. What men are preud
of, be it ever so mean, is to them as a crown; he
that is proud thinks himself as great as a king; but
wo to those who thus exalt themselves, for they
shall be abased; their pride is the preface to their
destruction.
(2.) They indulged themselves in sensuality;
Ephraim was notorious for drunkenness, and excess
ot riot; Samaria, the head of the fat valleys, was full
of those that were overcome with wine; were bro¬
ken with it, so the margin. See how f olishly
drunkards act, and no marvel, when, in the very
commission of the sin, they make fools and brutes
of themselves; they yield, [1.] To be conquered by
the sin; it overcomes them, and brings them into bon¬
dage, (2 Pet. ii. 19.) they are led captive by it, and
the captivity is the more shameful and inglorious,
as it is voluntary. Some of these wretched slaves
have themselves owned that there is not a greater
drudgery in the world than hard drinking. They
are overcome not with the wine, but with the love
of it. [2.] To be ruined bv it; they are broken by
wine; their constitution is broken by it, and their
health ruined; they are broken in their callings and
estates, and their families are brought to ruin by it;
their peace with God is broken, and their souls in
danger of being eternally undone, and all this for
the gratification of a base lust. Wo to these drunk¬
ards of Ephraim ! Ministers must bring the gene¬
ral woes of the word home to particular places and
persons. We must say, Wo to drunkards; their con¬
dition is a woful condition, their brutish pleasures
are to be pitied, and not envied; they shall not in¬
herit the kingdom of God, (1 Cor. vi. 10.) the
curse is in force against them, Deut. xxix. 19, 2C
Nay, we must go further, and say, Wo to the
drunkards of such a place; that they may hear and
fear; nay, and. Wo to this or that person, if he be a
drunkard. There is a particular wo to the drunk¬
ards of Ephraim, for they are of God’s professing
people, and it becomes them worse than any other
they know better, and therefore should give a bet¬
ter example: Some make the crown of pride to
belong to the drunkards, and to mean the garlands
with which they were crowned, that got the victory
in their wicked drinking-matches, and drank down
the rest of the company; they were proud of their
being mighty to drink wine; but wo to them who thus
glory in their shame.
2. The justice of God in taking away their plenty
from them, which they thus abused. Their glori¬
ous beauty, the plenty they were proud of, is but a
fading flower, it is meat that perishes. The most
substantial fruits, if God blast them, and blow upon
them, are but fading flowers, v. 1. God can easilv
take away their com in the season thereof (Hos. ii.
9.) and recover locum vast a turn — ground that has
been alienated and is run to waste, those goods of
his, which they prepared for Baal. God has an
officer ready to' make a seizure for him, has one at
his beck, a mighty and strong one, who is able to
do the business, even the king of Assyria, who shall
cast down t-J the earth with the hand, shall easily
and effectually, and with fhe turn of a hand, de¬
stroy all that which they are proud of, and pleased
with, v. 2. He shall throw it down to the ground,
127
ISAIAH, XXVIII.
?(■ be broken to pieces with a strong hand, with a
(land that they cannot oppose. Then the crown of
pride, and the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trod¬
den under foot; ( v . 3.) they shall lie exposed to’
contempt, and shall not be able to recover them¬
selves. Drunkards, in their folly, are apt to talk
proudly, and vaunt themselves most then when
they most shame themselves; but they render them¬
selves the more ridiculous by it. The beauty of
their valleys, which they gloried in, will be, (1. )
Like a fading flower; (as before, v. 1.) it will wither
of itself, and has in itself the principles of its own
corruption; it will perish in time by its own moth
and rust. (2.) Like the hasty fruit, which, as soon
as it is discovered, is plucked and eaten up; so the
wealth of this world, beside that it is apt to de-
c iv of itself, is subject to be devoured by others, as
greedily as the first ripe fruit, which is earnestly
desired, Mic. vii. 1. Thieves break through and
steal. The harvest which the worldling is proud
of the hungry eat u/i; (Job. v. 5.) no sooner do they
see the prey, but they catch at it, and swallow up
all they can lay their hands on. It is likewise easi¬
ly devoured, as that fruit which, being ripe before
it is grown, is very small, and is soon eaten up; and
there being little of it, and that of little worth, it is
not reserved, but used immediately.
II. He next turns himself to the kingdom of Judah,
whom he calls the residue of his people, (v. 5.) for
they were but two tribes to the other ten.
L He promises them God’s favours, and that
they should be taken under his guidance and pro¬
tection, when the beauty of Ephraim shall be left
exposed to be trodden down and eaten up, v. 5, 6.
In that day, when the Assyrian army is laying Israel
waste, and Judah might think that their neigbour’s
house being on fire, their own was in danger, in that
day of treading down and perplexity, then God will
be to the residue of his people all they need, and
can desire; not only to the kingdom of Judah, but
to those of Israel, who had kept their integrity, and,
as was, probably, the case with some, betook them¬
selves to the land of Judah, to be sheltered by good
king Hczekiah. When the Assyrian, that mighty
one, was in Israel as a tempest of hail, noisy and
battering, as a destroying storm bearing down all
before it, especially at sea, and as a flood of mighty
waters overflowing the country, ( v . 2.) then in that
day will the Lord of hosts, of all hosts, distinguish
by peculiar favours his people who have distin¬
guished themselves by a steady and singular adhe¬
rence to him, and that which they most need he
will himself be to them. This very much enhances
the worth of the promises, that God, covenanting to
be to his people a God all-sufficient, undertakes to
be himself all that to them that they can desire.
(1.) He will put all the credit and honour upon
them, which are requisite, not only to rescue them
from contempt, but to gain them esteem and repu¬
tation. He will be to them for a crown of glory, and
for a diadem of beauty. They that wore the crown
of pride looked upon God’s people with disdain, and
trampled upon them, and thev were the song of the
drunkards of Ephraim; but God will so appear for
them by his providence, as to make it evident that
they have his favour toward them, and that shall
be to them a crown of glory; for what greater glory
can any people have, than for God to own them as
his own? And he will so appear in them, by his
grace, as to make it evident that they have his image
renewed on them, and that shall be to them a diadem
of beauty : for what greater beauty can any person
have than the beauty of holiness? Note, Those that
have God for their God, have him for a Crown of
glory, and a Di; dem of beauty; for they are made
to him kings and priests. (2. ) He will give them
all the wisdom and grace necessary to the due dis¬
charge of the duty of their place. He will h.vnself
be a Spirit of judgment to them that sit in judg¬
ment; the privy-counsellors shall be guided by wis¬
dom and discretion, and the judges govern by jus¬
tice and equity. It is a great mercy to any people,
when those that are called to places of power and
public trust are qualified for their pi res; when
those that sit in judgment have a spirit of judg¬
ment, a spirit of government. (3.) He will give
them all the courage and boldness requisite to carry
them resolutely through the difficulties and opposi¬
tions they are likely to meet with. He w ill be for
strength to them that turn the battle to the gate, to the
gates of the enemy whose cities they beriige, or to
their own gates, when they sally out upon the ene¬
mies that besiege them. The strength of the sol¬
diery depends as much upon God as the wisdom of
the magistracy; and where God gives both these, he
is to that people a Crown of glory. This may well
be supposed to refer to Christ, and so the Chaldee
Paraphrase understands it; in that day shall Mes¬
siah be a Crowui of glory; Simeon calls him the
Glory of his people Israel: and he is made of God
to us Wisdom, Righteousness, and Strength.
2. He complains of the corruptions that were
found among them, and the many corrupt ones;
( v . 7.) But they also , many of them of Judah, have
erred through wine. There are drunkards of Je¬
rusalem, as well as drunkards of Ephraim; and
therefore the mercy of God is to be so much the
more admired, that he has not blasted the glory of
Judah, as he has done that of Ephraim. Sparing
mercy lays us under peculiar obligations, when it is
thus distinguishing. Ephraim’s sins are found in
Judah, and yet not Ephnim’s ruins. They have
erred through wine; their drinking to excess is it¬
self a practical error; they think to raise their fancy
by it, but they ruin their judgment, and so put "a
cheat upon themselves; they think to preserve their
health by it, and help digestion, but the)- spoil their
constitution, and hasten diseases and deaths. And
it is the occasion of a great many errors in princi¬
ple; their understanding is clruded, and con¬
science debauched, by it; and therefore, to support
themselves in it, they espouse corrupt notions, and
form their minds in favour of their lusts. Proba¬
bly, some were drawn in to worship idols by their
love of the wine and strong drink, which there was
plenty of at their idolatrous festivals; and so they
erred through wine, as Israel, for love of the daugh¬
ters of Moab, joined themselves to Baal-peor.
Three things are here observed as aggravations
of this sin;
(1.) That those were guilty of it, whose business
it was to warn others against it, and to teach them
better, and therefore who ought to have set a better
example; The priest and the prophet are swal¬
lowed up of wine; their office is quite drowned and
lost in it. The priests, as sacrificers, were obliged
by a particular law to be temperate, (Lev. x. 9.)
and, as rulers and magistrates, it was not for them
to drink wine, Prov. xxxi. 4. The prophets were
a kind of Nazarites, (as appears by Amos ii. 11.)
and, as reprovers by office, were concerned to keep
at the utmost distance from the sins they reproved
in others; yet there were many of them ensnared in
this sin. What! a priest, a prophet, a minister, and
yet drunk ! Tell it not in Gath. Such a scandal are
they to their coat.
(2.) That the consequences of it were very per¬
nicious, not only hv the ill influence of their exam¬
ple, but the prophet, when he was drunk, erred in
vision; the false prophets plainly discovered them¬
selves to be so, when they were in drink. The
priest stumbled in judgment, and forgot the law;
(Prov. xxxi. 5.) he reeled and staggered as much
in the operations of his mind as in tire motions of
128
ISAIAH, XXVIII.
his body. What wisdom or justice can be expect¬
ed from those that sacrifice reason, and virtue, and
conscience, and all that is valuable, to such a base
lust as the love of strong drink is? Happy art thou,
O land, when thy princes eat and drink for
strength, and not for drunkenness.1' Eccl. x. 17.
(3.) That the disease was epidemical, and the
generality of those that kept any thing of a table,
were infected with it; All tables are full of vomit,
v. 8. See what an odious thing the sin of drunk¬
enness is, what an affront it is to human society; it
is rude and ill-mannered, enough to sicken the
beholders; for the tables where they eat their
meat, are filthily stained with the marks of this sin,
which the sinners declare as Sodom; their tables
are full of vomit. So that the victor, instead of
being proud of his crown, ought rather to be asham¬
ed of it. It bodes ill to any people, when so sottish a
sin as drunkenness is, becomes national.
9. Whom shall he teach knowledge? and
whom shall he make to understand doc¬
trine ? them that are weaned from the milk,
and drawn from the breasts. 10. For pre¬
cept must be upon precept, precept upon
precept ; line upon line, line upon line ;
here a little, and there a little : 11.
For with stammering lips, and another
tongue, will' he speak to this people. 12.
To whom he said, This is the rest where¬
with ye may cause the weary to rest ; and
this is the refreshing : yet they would
not hear. 13. But the word of the Lord
was unto them, precept upon precept, pre¬
cept upon precept : line upon line, line
upon line ; here a little, and there a little ;
that they might go, and fall backward,
and be broken, and snared, and taken.
The prophet here complains of the wretched
stupidity of this people, that they were unteacha-
ble, ancl made no improvement of the means of
grace which they enjoyed; they still continued as
they were, their mistakes not rectified, their hearts
not renewed, nor their lives reformed.
I. What it was that their prophets and minis¬
ters designed and aimed at; it was to teach them
knowledge, the knowledge of God and his will,
and to make them understand doctrine, t>. 9. This
is God’s way of dealing with men, to enlighten
men’s minds first with the knowledge of his truth,
and thus to gain their affections, and bring their
wills into a compliance with his laws; thus he en¬
ters in by the door, whereas the thief and robber
c'imb up another way
II. What method they took, in pursuance of this
design; they left no means untried, to do them good,
but taught them as children are taught, little chil¬
dren that are beginning to learn, that are taken'
from the breast to the book; {v. 9.) for among the
Jews it was common for mothers to nurse their
children till they were three years old, and almost
ready to go to school. And it is good to begin be¬
times with children, to teach them, as they are ca¬
pable, the good knowledge of the Lord, and to in¬
struct them, even when they are but newly weaned
from the milk.
The prophets taught them as children are taught,
for,
1. They were constant and industrious in teach¬
ing them ; they took great pains with them, and with
great prudence, teaching them as they needed it,
and were able to bear it; (y. 10.) Precept upon
precept. It must be so, or, as some read it, It hat
been so. They have been taught, as children are
taught to read, by precept upon precept, and taught
lo write, by line upon line; a little here, and a little
there, a little of one thing, and a little of another,
that, the variety of instructions might be pleasing
and inviting; a "little at one time, and a little at ano¬
ther, that they might not have their memories over¬
charged; a little from one prophet, and a little from
another, that every one might be pleased with his
friend, and him he admired. Note, For our instruc¬
tion in the things of God, it is requisite that we have
precept upon precept, and line upon line: that one
precept and line should be followed, and so enforced,
by another; the precept of justice must be upon the
precept of piety, and the precept of charity upon
that of justice. Nay, it is necessary that the same
precept and the same line should be often repeated,
and inculcated upon us; that we may the better un¬
derstand them, and the more easily recollect them
when we have occasion for them. Teachers shouf’
accommodate themselves to the capacity of the
learners, give them what they most need, and can
best bear, and a little at a time, Dent. vi. 6, 7.
2. They accosted them in a kind manner, v. 12.
God, by his prophets, said to them, “This way
that we are directing you to, and directing you in,
it is the rest, the only rest, wherewith you may cause
the weary to rest; and this will be the refreshing of
your own souls, and will bring rest to your country
from the wars and other calamities with which it
has been long harassed.” Note, God, by his word,
calls us to nothing but what is really for our own ad¬
vantage; for the service of God is the only trae rest
for those that are weary of the service of sin, and
there is no refreshing but under the easy yoke of
the Lord Jesus.
III. What little effect all this had upon the peo¬
ple: they were as unapt to leam as young children
newly weaned from the milk, and it was as impos¬
sible to fasten any thing upon them; (v. 9.) nay,
one would choose rather to teach a child of two
years old than undertake to teach them: for they
have not only (like such a child) no capacity to re¬
ceive what is taught them, but they are prejudiced
against it. As children, they have need of milk,
and cannot bear strong meat, Heb. v. 12. 1. They
would not hear, (r. 12.) no, not that which' would
be rest and refreshing to them ; the)' had no mind to
hear it; the word of God commanded their serious
attention, but could not gain it; they were where it
was preached, but they turned a deaf ear to it, or,
as it came in at one ear, it went out at the other. 2.
They would not heed; it was unto them precept
upon precept, and line upon line; (v. 13.) they
went on in a road of external performances, they
kept up the old custom of attending upon the pro¬
phet’s preaching, and it was continually sounding in
their ears; but that was all, it made no impression
upon them ; they had the letter of the precept, but
no experience of the power and spirit of it; it was
continually beating upon them, but it beat nothing
into thym. Nay, 3. It should seem, they ridiculed
the prophet’s preaching, and bantered it; the word
of tne Lord was unto them Tsau latsau, kau lakau;
in the original it is in rhyme; they made a song of
the prophet’s words, and sang it when they were
merry over their wine; David was the song of the
drunkards. It is great impiety, and a high affront
to God, thus to make a jest of sacred things; to
speak of that vainly which should make us serious.
IV. How severely God would reckon with them
for this:
1. He would deprive them of the privilege of plain
preaching, and speak to them with stammering lips
and another tongue, v. 11. They that will not un¬
derstand what is plain and level to their capacity
ISAIAH,
but despise it as mean and trifling, are justly
amused with that which is above them. Or, God
will send foreign armies among them, whose lan¬
guage they understand not, to lay their country
waste. Those that will not hear the comfortable
voice of God’s word, shall be made to hear the
dreadful voice of his rod. Or, these words may be
taken as denoting God’s gracious condescension to
their capacity in his dealing with them; he lisped
to them in their own language, as nurses do to their
children, with stammering lips, to humour them;
he changed his voice, tried first one way, and then
another; the apostle quotes it as a favour, (1 Cor.
xiv. 21.) applying it to the gift of tongues, and com¬
plaining that yet for all this they would not hear.
2. He would bring utter ruin upon them; by their
profane contempt of God and his word they are but
hastening on. their own ruin, and ripening themselves
for it; it is that they may go and fall backward,
may grow worse and worse, may depart further and
further from God, and proceed from one sin to an¬
other, till they be quite broken, and snared, and
taken, and rained, v. 13. They have here a little,
and there a little, of the word of God; they think it
too much, and say to the seers, See not; but it proves
too little to convert them, and will prove enough to
condemn them. If it be not a savour of life unto
life, it will be a savour of death unto death.
14. Wherefore hear the word of the
Lord, ye scornful men, that rule this peo¬
ple which is in Jerusalem: 15. Because
ye have said, We have made a covenant
with death, and with hell we are at agree¬
ment; when the overflowing scourge shall
pass through, it shall not come unto us: for
we have made lies our refuge, and under
falsehood have we hid ourselves. 1 6. There¬
fore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay
in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried
stone, a precious corner-sforce, a sure foun¬
dation: he that believeth shall not make
haste. 17. Judgment also will I lay to the
line, and righteousness to the plummet; and
the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies,
and the waters shall overflow the hiding-
place. 18. And your covenant with death
shall be disannulled, and your agreement
with hell shall not stand; when the over¬
flowing scourge shall pass through, then ye
shall be trodden down by it. 19. From the
time that it goeth forth it shall take you : for
morning by morning shall it pass over, by
day and by night; and it shall be a vexa¬
tion only to understand the report. 20. For
the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch
himself on it; and the covering narrower than
that he can wrap himself in it. 21. For the
Lord shall rise up as in mount Perazim,
he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon,
that he may do his work, his strange wqrk;
and bring to pass his act, his strange act.
22. Now, therefore, be ye not mockers, lest
your bands be made strong: fori have heard
from the Lord God of hosts a consump¬
tion, even determined, upon the whole earth.
The prophet, having reproved those that made a
Vol. iv. — R
XXVIII. 120
jest < f the word of God, here goes cn to reprove
those that made a jest of the judgments of Gcd, and
Set them at defiance; for he is a jealous God, and
will not suffer either his ordinances or his provi¬
dences to be brought into contempt. He addresses
himself to the scornful men who ruled in Jerusalem,
who were the magistrates of the city, v. 14. It is
bad with a people, when their thrones of judgment
become the seats of the scornful, when rulers are
scorners; but that the rulers of Jerusalem should be
men of such a character, that they should make
light of God’s judgments, and scorn to take notice
oi the tokens of his displeasure, is very sad. Who
will be mourners in Zion, if they are scorners?
Observe,
I. How these scornful men lulled themselves asleep
in carnal security, and even challenged God Al¬
mighty to do his worst; (v. 15.) Ye have said, We
have made a covenant with death and the grave.
They thought themselves as sure of their lives, even
then when the most destroying judgments were
abroad, as if they had made a bargain with death,
upon a valuable consideration, not to take them away
by any violence, but by old age. If we be at peace
with God, and have made a covenant with him,
we have in effect, made a covenant with death,
and it shall come in the fittest time, that, whenever
it comes, it shall be no terror to us, nor do us anv
real damage; death is ours, if we be Christ’s:
(1 .Cor. ii. 22.) but to think of making death our
friend, or being in league with it, while by sin we
are making God our Enemy, and are at war with
him, is the greatest absurdity that can be. It was
a fond conceit which these scorners had, “ When
the overflowing scourge shall pass through cur
country, and others shall fall under it, yet it shall
not come to us, nor reach us, though it extend far,
not bear us down, though it is an overflowing
scourge.” It is the greatest folly imaginable for
impenitent sinners to think that either in this world
or the other they shall fare better than their neigh¬
bours. But what is the ground of their confidence?
Why, truly, We have made lies our refuge. Either,
1. Those things which the prophets told them,
would be lies and falsehood to them, and would de¬
ceive, though they themselves looked upon them
as substantial fences. The protection of their idols,
the promises with which their false prophets soothed
them, their policy, their wealth, their interest in the
people; these they confided in, and not in God; nay,
these they confided in against God. Or, 2. Those
things which should be lies and falsehood to the
enemy, who was flagellum Dei — the scourge of
God, the overflowing scourge; they would secure
themselves by imposing upon the enemy with their
stratagems of war, or their feigned submissions in
treaties of peace. The rest of the cities of Judah
were taken because they made an obstinate defence,
but the rulers of Jerusalem hope to succeed better,
they think themselves greater politicians than these
of the country towns; they will compliment the
king of Assyria with a promise to surrender their
city, or to become tributaries to him, with a pur¬
pose at the same time to shake off his yoke as soon
as the danger is over, not caring though they be
found liars to him; as the expression is, Deut.
xxxiii. 29. Note, Those put a cheat upon them¬
selves, that think to gain their point by putting
cheats upon those they deal with. Those that pur¬
sue their designs by trick and frajid, by mean and
paltry shifts, may perhaps compass them, but can¬
not. expect comfort in them. Honesty is the best
policy. But such refuges as these arc they driven
to that depart from God, and throw themselves cut
of his protection.
II. How God, by the prophet, awakens them out of
this sleep, and shows them the folly of their security.
130
ISAIAH,
1. He tells them upon what grounds they might
be secure: he does not disturb their f dse confi¬
dences, till he has first showed them a firm bottom
on which they may repose themselves, (v. 16.) Be¬
hold I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone. This
foundation is, (1.) The promises of God in general;
his word, upon which he has caused his people to
hope; his covenant with Abraham, that he would
be a God to him and his; this is a foundation, a
foundation of stone, firm and lasting, for faith to
build upon; it is a tried stone, for all the saints have
stayed themselves upon it, and it never failed them.
(2.) The promise of Christ in particular, for to him
this is expressly applied in the New Testament,
1 Pet. ii. 6 — 8. He is that Stone which is become
the Head of the corner. The great promise of the
Messiah and his kingdom, which was to begin at
Jerusalem, was sufficient to make God’s people
easy in the worst of times; for they knew well that
till he was come, the sceptre should not de/iart from
Judah. Zion shall continue while this Foundation
is yet to be laid there. Thus saith the Lord Jeho¬
vah, for the comfort of those that dare not make
lies their refuge; “Behold, and look upon me, as
one that has undertaken to lay in Zion a Stone.”
Jesus Christ is a Foundation of God’s laying; this is
the lord’s doing. He is laid in Zion, in the church,
in the holy hill. He is a tried Stone; a trying Stone,
so some; a Touch-stone that shall distinguish be¬
twixt ti-ue and counterfeit. He is a precious Stone,
for such are the foundations of the Hew Jerusalem;
(Rev. xxi. 19.) a Corner-stone, in whom the sides
of the building are united; the Headstone of the
corner. And he that believes these promises, and
rests upon them, shall not make haste, shall not run
to and fro in a hurry, as men at their wits’ end,
shall not be shifting here and there for his own safety,
nor be driven to his feet by any terrors, as the wick¬
ed man is said to be, (Job xviii. 11.) but with a fixed
heart shall quietly wait the event, saying, Welcome
the will of God. He shall not make haste, in his
expectations, so as to anticipate the time set in the
divine counsels, but, though it tarry, will wait the
appointed hour, knowing that he that shall come,
•will come, and will not tarry. He that believes
will not make more haste than good speed, but be
satisfied that God’s time is the best time, and wait
with patience for it. The apostle, from the LXX.
explains this, (1 Pet. ii. 6.) He that believes on him
shall not be confounded; his expectations shall not
be frustrated, but far outdone.
2. He tells them that upon the grounds which
they now built on, they could not be safe, but their
confidences would certainly fail them; ( v . 17.)
Judgment will I lay to the line, and righteousness
to the plummet. This denotes, (1.) The building
up of his church; having laid the foundation, (m. 16.)
he will raise the structure, as builders do, by line
ai\d plummet, Zech. iv. 10. Righteousness shall be
the line, and judgment the plummet. The church,
being founded on Christ, shall be formed and re¬
formed by the scripture, the standing rule of judg¬
ment and righteousness. Judgment shall return
unto righteousness, Ps. xciv. 15. Or, (2.) The pun¬
ishing of the church’s enemies, against whom he
will proceed in strict justice, according to the threat-
enings of the law; he will give them their deserts,
and bring upon them the judgments they have
challenged, but in wisdom too, and by an exact
rule, that the tares may not be plucked up with the
wheat. And when God comes thus to execute
judgment,
[1.] These scornful men will be made ashamed
of the vain hopes with which they had deluded
themselves:
First, They designed to make lies their refuge;
but it will indeed prove a refuge of lies, which .the
XXVIII.
hail shall sweep away, that tempest of hail spoken
cf, v. 2. They that make lies their refuge build
upon the sand, and the building will fall, when the
storm comes, and bury the builder in the ruins of it.
They that make any thing their hiding-place but
Christ, the waters shall overflow it, as every shel¬
ter but the ark was overtopped and overthrown by
the waters of the deluge. Such is the hope of the
hypocrite, this will come of all his confidences.
Secondly, They boasted of a covenant with death,
and an agreement with the grave: but it shall be
disannulled, as made without his consent that has
the keys and sovereign command of hell and death.
Those do but delude themselves, that think by any
wiles to evade the judgments of God.
Thirdly, They fancied that when the overflowing
scourge should pass through the land, it should not
come near them; but the prophet tells them that
then, when others were falling by the common ca¬
lamity, they should not only share in it, but should
be trodden down by it; “Ye shall be to it for a
treading down, it shall triumph over you as much
as over any other, and you shall become its easy
prey.”
1 hey are further told, (v. 19.) 1. That it shall
begin with them ; they shall be so far from escaping
it, that they shall be the first that shall fall by it;
From the time it goes forth, it shall take you, as if
it came on purpose to seize you. 2. That it shall
pursue them close; “ Morning by morning shall it
pass over; as duly as the day returns, you shall
hear of some desolation or other made by it; for di¬
vine justice will follow its blow; you shall never be
safe or easy, by day or by night; there shall be a
pestilence walking in darkness, and a destruction
wasting at noon-day. ” 3. That there shall lie no
avoiding it; “The understanding of the report of
its approach shall not give you any opportunity to
make your escape, for there shall be no way of es¬
cape open; but it shall be only a vexation, you shall
see it coming, and not see how to help yourselves.”
Or, “The very report of it at a distance will be a
terror to you ; what then will the thing itself be?”
Evil tidings arc a terror and vexation to scomers,
but he whose heart is fixed, trusting in God, is not
afraid of them; whereas, when the overflowing
scourge comes, then all the comforts and confidences
of scorners fail them, v. 20. (1.) That in which
they thought to repose themselves, reaches not to
the length of their expectations; The bed is shorter
than that a man can stretch himself upon it, so that
he is forced to cramp and contract himseif. (2.)
That in which they thought to shelter themselves
proves insufficient to answer the intention; The co
vering is narrower than that a man can wrap him¬
self in it. Those that do not build upon Christ, as
their Foundation, but rest in a righteousness of their
own, will prove in the end thus to have deceived
themselves, they can never be easy, safe, or warm;
the bed is too short, the covering is too narrow;
like our first parents’ fig-leaves, the shame of their
nakedness will still appear.
[2.] God will be glorified in the accomplishment
of his counsels, v. 21. When God comes to contend
with these scorners, First, He will do his work,
and bring to pass his act, he will work for his own
honour and glory, according to his own purpose;
the work shall appear, to all that see it, to be the
work of God as the righteous Judge of the earth
Secondly, He will do it now against his people, an
formerly he did it against their enemies; by which
his justice will appear to be impartial; he will now
rise up against Jerusalem , as, in David’s time
against the Philistines in mount Perazim, (2 Sam. v.
20.) and as, in Joshua’s time, against the Canaanites
in the valley of Gibeon. If those that profess them¬
selves members of God’s church, by their pride and
ISAIAH
scornfulness make themselves like Philistines and
Canaanites, they must expect to be dealt with as
such. Thirdly , This will be his strange work, his
strange act, his foreign deed : it is work that he is
backward to, he rather delights in showing mercy,*
and does not afflict willingly: it is work that he is
not used to; as to his own people, he protects and
favours them; it is a strange work indeed, if he turn
to be their enemy, and fight against them; ( ch . lxiii.
10. ) it is a work that all the neighbours will stand
amazed at; (Deut. xxix. 24.) and therefore the
ruins of Jerusalem are said to be, an astonishment,
Jer. xxv. 18.
Lastly, We have the use and application of all
this; (v. 22.) “ Therefore be ye not mockers; dare
not to ridicule either the reproofs of God’s word, or
the approaches of his judgments.” Mocking the
messengers of the Lord was Jerusalem’s measure¬
filling sin. The consideration of the judgments of
God that are coming upon hypocritical professors,
should effectually silence mockers, and make them
serious; “ Be ye not mockers, lest your bands be
made strong; both the bands by which you are
bound under the dominion of sin,” (for there is little
hope of the conversion of mockers,) “ and the bands
by which you are bound over to the judgments of
God.” God has bands of justice strong enough to
hold those that break ail the bonds of his law in
sunder, and cast away all his cords from them. Let
not these mockers make light of divine threaten-
ings, for the prophet (who is one of those with whom
the secret of the Lord is) assures them that the
Lord God of hosts has, in his hearing, determined
a consumfition ufion the whole earth; and can they
think to escape? Or shall their unbelief invalidate
the threatening?
23. Give ye ear, and hear my voice;
hearken, and hear my speech. 24. Doth
the ploughman plough all day to sow ? doth
he open and break the clods of his ground ?
25. When he hath made plain the face
thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches,
and scatter the cummin, and cast in the
principal wheat, and the appointed barley,
and the rye, in their place ? 26. For his God
doth instruct him to discretion, and doth
teach him. 27. For the fitches are not
threshed with a threshing instrument, neither
is a cart-wheel turned about upon the cum¬
min ; but the fitches are beaten out with a
staff, and the cummin with a rod. 23.
Bread-cora is bruised ; because he will not
ever be threshing it, nor break it with the
wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horse¬
men. 29. This also cometh forth from the
Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in coun¬
sel, and excellent in working.
This parable, which (as many of our Saviour’s
parables) is borrowed from the husbandir an’s call¬
ing, is ushered in with a solemn preface demanding
attention, He that has ears to hear, let him hear,
hear and understand, v. 23.
I. The parable here is plain enough, that the hus¬
bandman applies himself to the business of his call¬
ing with a great deal of pains and prudence, secun¬
dum artem — according to rule, and, as his judg¬
ment directs him, observes a method and order in
his work. 1. In his ploughing and sowing; Does
the filoughman plough all day to sow? Yes, he
does, and he ploughs in hope, and sows in hope, 1
XXV111. 131
Cor. ix. 10. Does he open and break the clods? Yes,
he does, that it may be fit to receive the seed. And
when he has thus made plain the face thereof does
he not sow his seed, seed suitable to the soil? For
the husbandman knows what grain is fit for clayey
ground, and what for sandy ground, and accordingly
he sows each in its place; wheat in the principal
place, (so the margin reads it;) for it is the principal
grain, and was a staple-commodity of Canaan,
(Ezek. xxvii. 17.) and hurley in the appointed place.
The wisdom and goodness of the God of nature are
to be observed in this, that, to oblige his creatures
with a grateful variety of productions, he has suited
tp them an agreeable variety of earths. 2. In his
threshing, v. 27, 28. This also he proportions to
the grain that is to be threshed out; the fitches and
the cummin, being easily got out of their husk or ear,
are only threshed with a staff and a rod; but Me
bread-corn requires more force, and therefore that
must be bruised with a threshing instrument, a
sledge shod with iron, that was drawn to and fro
over it, to beat out the corn; and yet he will not be
ever threshing it, nor any longer than is necessary
to loosen the corn from the chaff; he will not break
it, or crush it into the ground with the wheel of his
cart, nor bruise it to pieces with his horsemen; the
grinding of it is reserved for another operation. Ob¬
serve, by the wav, what pains are to be taken, not
only for the earning, but for the preparing of our
necessary food; and yet, after all, it is meat that
perishes. Shall we then grudge to labour much
more for the meat which endures to everlasting life?
Bread-corn is bruised; Christ was; it pleased the
Lord to bruise him, that he might be the Bread of
life to us.
II. The interpretation of the parable is not so
plain. Most interpreters make it a further answer
to those who set the judgments of God at defiance;
“Let them know that as the husbandman will not
be always ploughing, but will at length sow his seed,
so God will not be always threatening, but will at
length execute his threatenings, and bring upon sin¬
ners the judgments they have deserved; but in wis¬
dom, and in proportion to their strength, that they
may not be ruined, but reformed, and brought to
repentance, by them. ” But I think we may give
this parable a greater latitude in the exposition of it
1. In general; that God, who gives the husband¬
man this wisdom, is, doubtless, himself infinitely
wise. It is God that instructs the husbandman to
discretion, as his God, -v. 26. Husbandmen have
need of discretion, wherewith to order their affairs,
and ought not to undertake that business unless they
do in some measure understand it; and they should
by observation and experience endeavour to improve
themselves in the knowledge of it. Since the king
himself is served of the field, the advancing of the
art of husbandry is a common service to mankind,
more than the cultivating of most other arts. The
skill of the husbandman is from God, as every good
and perfect gift is. This takes off something'of the
weight and terror of the sentence passed on man for
sin, that when God, in execution of it, sent man to
till the ground, he taught him how to do it most to
his advantage, else, in the greatness of his folly, he
might have been for ever tilling the sand of the
sea, labouring to no purpose. It is he that gives
men capacity for this business, an inclination to it,
and a delight in it; and if some were not by Provi¬
dence cut out for it, and made to rejoice, as Issachar,
that tribe of husbandmen, in their tents, notwith¬
standing the toil and fatigue of this business, we
should soon want the supports of life. If some are
more discreet and judicious in managing these or
any other affairs than others are, God must be ac¬
knowledged in it; and to him husbandmen must
seek for direction in their business; for they, above
132 ISAIAH, XXIX.
other men, have an immediate dependence upon
the divine providence. As to the other instance of
the husbandman’s conduct in threshing his corn, it
is said, This also comes forth from the Lord of hosts,
v. 29. Even the plainest dictates of sense and reason
must be acknowledged to come forth from the Lord
of hosts. And if it is from him that men do things
wisely and discreetly, we must needs acknowledge
him to be wise in counsel, and excellent in working.
God’s working is according to his will, he never
acts against his own mind, as men often do, and
there is a counsel in his whole will; he is therefore
excellent in working, because he is wonderful in
counsel.
2. God’s church is his husbandry. 1 Cor. iii. 9.
If Christ is the true Vine, his Father is the Hus¬
bandman, (John xv. 1.) and he is continually, by his
word and ordinances, cultivating it. Poes the
filoughman plough all day, and break the clods of
his ground, that it may receive the seed, and does
not God by his ministers break up the fallow ground ?
Does not the ploughman, when the ground is fitted
for the seed, cast in the seed in its proper soil? He
does so, and so the great God sows his word by the
hand of his ministers, (Mattli. xiii. 19.) who are to
divide the word of truth, and give every one their
portion. Whatever the soil of the heart is, there is
some seed or other in the word proper for it. And
as the ivord of God, so the rod of God, is thus
wisely made use of. Afflictions are God’s thresh-
mg instruments, designed to loosen us from the
world, to part between us and our chaff, and to pre¬
pare us for use. And as to these, God will make
use of them as there is occasion; but he will propor¬
tion them to our strength, they shall be no heavier
than there is need. If the rod and the staff will an¬
swer the end, he will not make use of his cart-wheel
and his horsemen. And where these are necessary,
as for the braising of the bread-corn, (which will
not otherwise be got clean from the straw,) yet he
will not be ever threshing it, will not always chide,
but his anger shall endure but for a moment; nor
will he crush under his feet the prisoners of the earth.
And herein we must acknowledge him wonderful
in counsel, and excellent in working.
CHAP. XXIX.
This wo to Ariel, which we have in this chapter, is the
same with the burthen of the valley of vision, (ch. 22. 1.)
and (it is very probable) points at the same event — the
besieging of Jerusalem by the Assyrian army, which was
cut off there by an angel; yet it is applicable to the de¬
struction of Jerusalem oy the Chaldeans, and its last de¬
solations by the Romans. Here is, I. The event itself
foretold, that Jerusalem should be greatly distressed;
(v 1 . .4, 6.) but that their enemies, who distressed them, !
should be baffled and defeated, v. 5, 7, 8. II. A reproof
to three sorts of sinners; 1. Those that were stupid and ,
regardless of the warnings which the prophet gave them, I
v. 9. . 12. 2. Those that were formal and hypocritical in
their religious performances, v. 13, 14. 3. Those politi¬
cians thatatheistically and profanely despised God’s pro- !
vidence, and set up their own projects in competition
with it, v. 15. . 17. III. Precious promises of grace and
mercy to a distinguishing remnant whom God would
sanctify, and in whom he would be sanctified when their
enemies and persecutors should be cut off, v. 18 . . 24.
1. 'WfO to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where
V T David dwelt ! add ye year to year ;
let them kill sacrifices. 2. Yet I will dis¬
tress Ariel, and there shall be heaviness and
sorrow : and it shall be unto me as Ariel.
3. And I will camp against thee round
about, and will lay siege against thee with
a mount, and I will raise forts against thee.
4. And thou shalt be brought down, and
sh ilt speak out of the ground, and thy speech
shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice
shall be as of one that hath a familiar spiiit
out of the ground, and thy speech shall whis¬
per out of the dust. 5. Moreover, the mul¬
titude of thy strangers shall be like small
dust, and the multitude of the terrible ones
shall be as chaff that passeth away ; yea, it
shall be at an instant suddenly. 6. Thou
shalt be visited of the Lord of hosts with
thunder, and with earthquake, and great
noise, with storm and tempest, and the flame
of devouring fire. 7. And the multitude of
all the nations that fight against Ariel, even
all that fight against her and her munition,
and that distress her, shall be as a dream of
a night-vision. 8. It shall even be as when
a hungry man dreameth, and, behold, he
eateth ; but he awaketh, and his soul is emp¬
ty : or as when a thirsty man dreameth, and
behold, he drinketh ; but be awaketh, and,
behold, he is faint, and his soul hath appe¬
tite : so shall the multitude of all the nations
be, that fight against mount Zion.
That it is Jerusalem which is here called Ariel, is
agreed, for that was the city where David dwelt;
that part of it which was called Zion, was in a par¬
ticular manner the city of David, in which both the
temple and the palace were; but why it is so called is
very uncertain; probably, the name and the reason
were, then, well known. Cities, as well as persons,
get surnames and nicknames. Ariel signifies the
lion of God, or the strong lion; as the lion is king
among beasts, so was Jerusalem among the cities,
giving law to all about her; it was the city of the
great King, (Ps. xlviii. 1, 2.) it was the head city
of Judah, who is called a lion’s whelp, (Gen. xlix.
9.) and whose ensign was a lion; and he that is the
Lion of the tribe of Judah, was the glory of it. Jeru¬
salem was a terror sometimes to the neighbouring
nations, and, while she was a righteous city, was
bold as a lion. Some make Ariel to signify the altar
of burnt-offerings, which devoured the beasts offer¬
ed in sacrifice, as the lion does his prey. Wo to
that altar in the city where David dwelt; that was
destroyed with the temple by the Chaldeans. I ra¬
ther take it as a wo to Jerusalem, Jerusalem; it is
repeated here, as it is Matth. xxiii. 37. that it might
be the more awakening. Here is,
I. The distress of Jerusalem foretold; though Je¬
rusalem be a strong city, as a lion, though a holv
city, as a lion of God, yet, if iniquity be found there,
wo be to it. It was the city where David dwelt, it
was he that brought that to it, which was its glory,
and which made it a type of the gospel-church, aiid
his dwelling in it was typical of Christ’s residence
in his church. 'Phis is mentioned as an aggravation
of Jerusalem's sin, that in it were set both the testi¬
mony of Israel, and the thrones of the house of David.
1. Let Jerusalem know that her external per¬
formance of religious services will not serve as an
exemption from the judgments of God; (y. 1.) “Add
ye year to year; go on in the road of your annual
feasts, let all your males appear there three times
a year before the Lord, and none empty, according
to the law and custom, and let them never miss any
of these solemnities; let them kill the sacrifces, as
they used to do, but, as long as their lives are unre¬
formed, and their hearts unhumbled, let them not
think thus to pacify an offended God, and to turn
away his wrath.” Note, Hypocrites may be found
TSAI AH, XXIX.
133
in a constant track of clevout exercises, and tread¬
ing around in them, and with these they may flatter
themselves, but can never please God, or make
their peace with him.
2. Let her know that God is coming forth against
her in displeasure, that she shall be visited of the
Lord of hosts, (v. 6.) her sins shall be inquired into,
and punished; God will reckon for them with terri¬
ble judgments, with the frightful alarms and rueful
desolations of war, which shall lie like thunder and
earthquakes, storms and tempests, and devouring
fire, especially upon the account of the great noise.
When a foreign enemy was not in the borders, but
in the bowels, of their country, roaring and ravag¬
ing, and laying all waste, especially such an army
as that of the Assyrians, whose commanders being
so very insolent, as appears by the conduct of Rab-
shakeh, the common soldiers, no doubt, were much
more rude; they might see the Lord of those hosts
visiting them with thunder and storm. Yet this be¬
ing here said to be a great noise, perhaps it is inti¬
mated that they shall be worse frightened than hurt.
Particularly,
( 1. ) Jerusalem shall be besieged, straitly besieged.
He does not say, I will destroy Ariel, but, I will
distress Ariel; and she is therefore brought into dis¬
tress, that, being thereby awakened to repent and
reform, she may not be brought to destruction; (ti.
3 .) I will camfl against thee round about. It was
the enemy’s army that encamped against it; but God
says that he will do it, for they are his hand, he
does it by them. God had often, and long, by a
host of angels, encamped for them round about
them, for their protection and deliverance; but now
he was turned to be their Enemy, and fought against
them. The siege laid against them was of his lay¬
ing, and the forts raised against them were of his
raising. Note, When men fight against us, we
must, in them, see God contending with us.
(2.) She shall be in grief to see the country laid
waste, and all the fenced cities of Judah in the ene¬
mies’ hand; There shall be heaviness and sorrow,
(v. 2.) mourning and lamentation; so these two
words are sometimes rendered. Those that are
most merry and jovial, are, commonly, when they
come to be in distress, most overwhelmed with
heaviness and sorrow ; their laughter is then turned
into mourning. “ All Jerusalem shall then be unto
me as Ariel, as the altar, with fire upon it, and slain
victims about it:” so it was, when Jerusalem was
aestroyed by the Chaldeans; and many, no doubt,
were slain, when it was besieged by the Assyrians.
The whole ci{y shall be an altar, in which sinners,
falling by the judgments that are abroad, shall be
as victims to divine justice. Or thus; There shall
be heaviness and sorrow; they shall repent, and
reform, and return to God, and then it shall be
to me as Ariel. Jerusalem shall be like itself,
shall become to me a Jerusalem again, a holy city,
eh. i. 26.
(3.) She shall be humbled and mortified, and
made submissive;- (v. 4.) “ Thou shall be brought
down from the height of arrogancy and insolence to
which thou art come: the proud looks and the proud
language shall be brought down by one humbling
providence after another.” Those that despised
God’s judgments, shall be humbled by them ; for the
proudest sinners shall either bend or break before
him. They had talked big, had lifted ufi the horn
on high, and had sfioken with a stiff neck; (Ps.
lxxv. 5.) but now thou shalt sfieak out of the ground,
out of the dust; as one that has a familiar spirit,
whisjfiering out of the dust. This intimates that they
should be faint and feeble, not able to speak up, nor
to say all they would say; but, as those who are
sick, or whose spirits are ready to fail, their speech
(hall be low and interrupted; and that they should
;l be fearful, and in consternation, forced to speak low
as being afraid lest their enemies shtuld overheat
them, and take advantage against them ; and that
they should be tame, and obliged to submit to the
conquerors. When Htzvkiah submitted to the
king of Assyria, saying, I have offended, that which
thou /tut test on me I will bear, (2 Kings xviii. 14.)
then his speech was low, out of the dust. God can
make those to crouch, that have been most daring,
and quite dispirit them.
II. The destruction of Jerusalem's enemies is
foretold, for the comfort of all that were her friends
and well-wishers in this distress; (v. 5, 7.) “ Thou
shale be brought down, (v. 4.) to s/ieak out of the
dust; so low thou shalt be reduced. But” (so it
may be rendered) “ the multitude of thy strangers
ana thy terrible ones, the numerous armies of the
enemy, shall themselves be like small dust, not able
to speak at all, or so much as whisper, but as chaff
that fiasses away. Thou shall be abased, but they
shall be quite dispersed, smitten and slain after an¬
other manner, (ch. xxvii. 7. ) they shall pass away,
yea, it shall be at an instant, suddenly; the enemy
shall be surprised with the destruction, and you
with the salvation.” The army of the Assyrians
was by an angel laid dead upon the spot, in an in¬
stant, suddenly. Such will be the destruction of the
enemies of the gospel- Jerusalem; in one hour is
their judgment come, Rev. xviii. 10. Again, (v. 6.)
Thou shalt be visited; or, as it used to be rendered,
She shall be visited with thunder and a great noise.
Thou shalt be put into a fright which theu shalt
soon recover. But (v. 7.) the multitude of the na¬
tions that fight against her, shall be as a dream oj
a night-vision; they and their prosperity and suc¬
cess shall soon vanish past recall. The multitude
of the nations that fight against Zion, shall be as a
hungry man, who dreams that he eats, but still is
hungry; that is, 1. Whereas they hoped to make a
prey of Jerusalem, and to enrich themselves with
the plunder of that opulent city, their hopes shall
prove vain dreams, with which their fancies may
please and sport themselves for awhile, but they
shall be disappointed. They fancied themselves
masters of Jerusalem, but shall never be so. 2.
They themselves, and all their pomp, and power,
and prosperity, shall vanish like a dream, when
one awakes; shall be of as little value, and as short
continuance, Ps. lxxiii. 20. He shallop away as a
dream. Job xx. 8. The army of Sennacherib van
ished and was gone quickly, though it had filled the
country as a dream fills a man’s head; especially as
a dream of meat fills the head of him that went to
bed hungry.
Many understand these verses as part of the
threatening of wrath, when God comes to distress
Jerusalem, and lay siege to her. (1.) The multi¬
tude of her friends, whom she relies upon for help,
shall do her no good; for though they are terrible
ones, they shall be like the small dust, and shall
pass away. (2.) The multitude of her enemies
shall never think they can do her mischief enough;
but, when they have devoured her much, still they
shall be but like a man who dreams he eats, hungry,
and greedy to devour her more.
9. Stay yourselves and wonder ; cry ye
out, and cry: they are drunken, hut not
with wine ; they stagger, but not with strong
drink. 10. For the Lord hath poured out
upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath
closed your eyes : the prophets and your
rulers, the seers, hath he covered. 1 1 . And
the vision of all is become unto you as the
words of a book that is sealed, which men
134
ISAIAH, £XIX.
deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read
this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot;
for it is sealed. 12. And the book is deliv¬
ered to him that is not learned, saying, Read
this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not
learned. 13. Wherefore the Lord said,
Forasmuch as this people draw near me
with their mouth, and with their lips do
honour me, but have removed their heart
far from me, and their fear toward me is
taught by the precept of men : 1 4. There¬
fore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvel¬
lous work among this people, even a mar¬
vellous work and a wonder; for the wisdom
of their wise men shall perish, and the un¬
derstanding of their prudent men shall be
hid. 15. Wo unto them that seek deep to
hide their counsel from the Lord, and their
works are in the dark, and they say, Who
seethus? and who knoweth us? 16. Surely
your turning of things upside down shall be
esteemed as the potter’s clay : for shall the
work say of him that made it, He made
me not? or shall the thing framed say of
him that framed it, He had no understand¬
ing?
Here,
I. The prophet stands amazed at the stupidity
of the greatest part of the Jewish nation. They
had Levites, who taught the good knowledge of the
Lord, and had encouragement from Hczekiah in
doing so, 2 Chron. xxx. 22. They had prophets,
who brought them messages immediately from God,
and signified to them what were the causes, and
what should be the effects, of God’s displeasure
against them. Now one would think, surely this
great nation, that has all the advantages of divine
revelation, is a wise and understanding fleoflle,
Deut. iv. 6. But alas! it was quite otherwise, v. 9.
The prophet directs himself to the sober thinking
part of them, calling upon them to be affected with
the general carelessness of their neighbours. It
may be read, “They delay, they put off their re¬
pentance, but wonder ye that they should be so sot¬
tish; they sport themselves with their own deceiv-
mgs, they riot and revel, but do ye cry out, lament
their folly, cry to God by prayer for them. The
more insensible they are of the hand of God gone
out against them, the more do you lay to heart these
things.” Note, The security of sinners in their sin¬
ful ways is just matter of lamentation and wonder
to all serious people, who should think themselves
concerned to pray for those that do not pray for
themselves. But wlvat is the matter? What are
we thus to wonder at?
1. We may well wonder that the generality of
the people are so sottish and brutish, and so infatu¬
ated, as if they were intoxicated; They are drunken,
but not with wine; (not with wine only, with that
they were often drunk;) and they erred through
wine, ch. xxviii. 7. They were drunk with the
love of pleasures, with prejudices against religion,
and with the corrupt principles they had imbibed;
like drunken men, they know not what they do or
say, or whither they go. They are not sensible of
the divine rebukes they are under. They have
beaten me, and I felt it not, says the drunkard,
Prov. xxiii. 35. God speaks to them once, yea
twice; but, like men drunk, they perceive it not.
they understand it not, but forget the law. They
stagger in their counsels, are unstable and unsteady,
and stumble at every thing that lies in their way.
There is such a thing as spiritual drunkenness.
2. It is yet more strange that God himself has
floured out uflon them a sflirit of deep sleefl, and has
closed their eyes, (i>. 10.) that he who bids them
awake, and open their eyes, should yet lay them to
sleep, and shut their eyes; but it is in a way cf
righteous judgment, to punish them for their loving
darkness rather than light, their loving sleep.
When God by his prophets called them, they said.
Yet a little sleefl, a little slumber; and therefore he
gave them up to strong delusions, and said, Sleefl
on now. This is applied to the unbelieving Jews,
who rejected the gospel of Christ, and were justly
hardened in their infidelity, till wrath came upon
them to the uttermost; (Rom. xi. 8.) God has given
them the sflirit of slumber. And we have reason to
fear it is the woful case of many who live in the
midst of gospel-light.
3. It is very sad that this should be the case of
those who were their prophets, and rulers, and
seers; that they who should be their guides, are
themselves bjindfolded; and it is easy to tell what
the fatal consequences will be when he blind lead
the blind. This was fulfilled when, in the latter
days of the Jewish church, the chief priests, and
the scribes, and the elders of the people, were the
great opposers of Christ and his gospel, and brought
themselves under a judicial infatuation.
4. The sad effect of this was, that all the means
of conviction, knowledge, and grace, which they
enjoyed, were ineffectual, and did not answer the
end; (y. 11, 12.) “ The vision of all Me prophets,
true and false, is become to you as the words of a
book, or letter, that is sealed ufl; you cannot discern
the truth of the real visions, and the falsehood of
the pretended ones.” Or, every vision particularly
that this prophet had seen for them, and published
to them, was become unintelligible; they had it
among them, but were never the wiser for it, any
more than a man (though a good scholar) is for a
book delivered to him sealed up, and which he
must not open the seals of. He sees it is a book,
and that is all, he knows nothing of what is in it.
So they knew that what Isaiah said was a vision
and prophecy, but the meaning of it was hid from
them; it was only a sound of words to them, which
they were not at all alarmed by, or affected with:
it answered not the intention, for it made no im¬
pression at all upon them. Neither the learned nor
the unlearned were the better for all the messages
God sent them by his servants the prophets, nor
desired to be so. The ordinary sort of people ex¬
cused themselves from regarding what the prophets
said, with their want of learning and a liberal edu¬
cation; as if they were not concerned to know and
do the will of God, because they were not bred
scholars; It is nothing to me, I am not learned.
Those of better rank pretended that the prophet
had a peculiar way of speaking, which was obscure
to them, and which, though they were men of let¬
ters, they had not been used to; and, Si non vis in-
telligi, debes negligi — IJ you wish not to be under¬
stood, you deserve to be neglected. Both these are
groundless pretences; for God’s prophets have been
no unfaithful debtors either to the wise or to the
unwise, Rom. i. 14. Or, we may take it thus; the
book of prophecy was given to them sealed, so that
they could not read it, as a just judgment upon
them ; because it had often been delivered to them
unsealed, and they would not take pains to learn the
language of it, and then made excuse for their not
reading it, because they were not learned. “ But
observe, The vision is become thus to you, whose
minds the god of this world has blinded; but it is
JSAIAH, XXIX. 135
not so in itself, it is not so to all; the same vision
which to you is a savour of death unto death, to
others is, ami shall be, a savour of life unto life.”
Knowledge is easy to him that understands.
II. The prophet, in God’s name, threatens those
that were formal and hypocritical in their exercises
of devotion, v. 13, 14. Observe here,
1. The sin that is here charged upon them — dis¬
sembling with God in their religious performances,
v. 13. He that knows the heart, and cannot be im¬
posed upon with shows and pretences, charges it
upon them, whether their hearts condemn them for
it, or no. He that is greater than the heart, and
knows all things, knows that though they dram
nigh to him with their mouth, and honour him with
their li/is, yet they are not sincere in it. To wor¬
ship God is to make our approaches to him, and to
present our adorations of him; it is to draw nigh to
him as those that have business with him, with an
intention therein to honour him. This we are to do
with our mouth and with our lips, in speaking of
him, and in speaking to him; we must render to
him the calves of our lifts, Hosea xiv. 2. And if
the heart be full of his love and fear, out of the
abundance of that the mouth will speak. But there
are many whose religion is lip-labour only. They
say that which expresses an approach to God and
an adoration of him, but it is only from the teeth
outward. For, (1.) They do not apply their
minds to the service; when they pretend to be
speaking to God, they are thinking of a thousand
impertinences; They have removed their hearts far
from me, that they might not be employed in
prayer, nor come within reach of the word. When
work was to be done for God, which required the
heart, that was sent out of the way on purpose, with
the fool’s eyes into the ends of the earth. (2. ) They
do not make the word of God the rule of their wor¬
ship, nor his will their reason; Their fear toward
me is taught by the freceft of men. They wor¬
shipped the God of Israel, not according to his ap¬
pointment, but their own inventions; the directions
of their false prophets or their idolatrous kings, or
their usages of the nations that were round about
them; the tradition of the elders was of more value
and validity with them than the laws which God
commanded Moses. Or, if they did worship God
in a way conformable to his institution, in the days
of Hezekiah, a great reformer, they had more an
eve to the precept of the king than to God’s com¬
mand. This our Saviour applies to the Jews in his
time, who were formal in their devotions, and wed¬
ded to their own inventions, and pronounces con¬
cerning them, that in vain they did worship God.
Matt. xv. 8, 9.
2. It is a spiritual judgment with which God threat¬
ens to punish them for their spiritual wickedness;
( v . 14.) I will add to do a marvellous work. They
did one strange thing, they removed all sincerity
from their hearts; now God will go on and do ano¬
ther, he will remove all sagacity from their heads;
the wisdom of their wise men shall perish. They
played the hypocrite, and thought to put a cheat
upon God, and now they are left to themselves to
play the fool; and not only to put a cheat upon
themselves, but to be easily cheated by all about
them. Those that make religion no more than a
pretence, to serve a turn, are out in their politics;
and it is just with God to deprive those of their un¬
derstanding, whopait with their uprightness. This
w is fulfilled in the wretched infatuation which the
Jewish nation were manifestly under, after they had
rejected the gospel of Christ; they removed their
hearts far from God, and therefore God justly re¬
moved wisdom far from them, and hid from their
eyes the things that belonged even to their tempo¬
ral peace. This is a marvellous work; it is surpris-
| ing, it is astonishing, that wise men should of a
sudden lose their wisdom, and be given up to strong
delusions. Judgments on the mind, though least
taken notice of, are to be most wondered at.
III. He shows the folly of those that thought to
act separately and secretly frcm God, and were
carrying on designs independent upon God, and
which they projected to conceal from his all-seeing
eye.
Here we have, 1. Their politics described; (v.
15.) They seek deep to hide their counsel from the
Lord, that he may not know either what they do,
or what they design; they say, “Who sees us? No
man, and therefore not Gcd himself.” The con¬
sultations they had about their own safety, they kept
to themselves, and never asked God’s advice con¬
cerning them; nay, they knew they were displeas¬
ing to him, but thought they could conceal them
from him; and if he did not know them, he could
not baffle and defeat them. See what foolish, fruit¬
less pains sinners take in their sinful ways; they
seek deep, they sink deep, to hide their’ counsel
from the Lord, who sits in heaven, and laughs at
them. Note, A practical disbelief of God’s omni¬
science is at the bottom both of the carnal worships
and of the carnal confidences of hypocrites; Ps. xciv.
7. Ezek. viii. 12. — ix. 9.
2. The absurdity of their politics demonstrated;
(f. 16.) “Surely your turning of things upside
down thus, your various projects, turning your af¬
fairs this and that way to make them shape as ycu
would have them; or, rather, your inverting the' or¬
der of things, and thinking to make God’s provi¬
dence give attendance to your projects, ami that
God must know no more than you think fit, which
is perfectly turning things upside down, and bcgin-
ing at the wrong end, it shall be esteemed as the pot-
1 ter’s clay; God will turn and manage you, and all
your ccunsels, with as much ease and as absolute a
ower, as the potter forms and fashions his clay.”
ee how God despises, and therefore what little
reason we have to dread, those contrivances of men,
that are carried on without God, particularly these
against him. They that think to hide their coun¬
sels from God; (1.)' They do, in effect, denv him to
be their Creator. It is as if the work should say cf
him that made it, “ He made me not, I made my¬
self.” If God made us, he certainly knows us, as
the psalmist shows, Ps. cxxxix. 1, 13 — 15. So that
they who say that he does not see them, m ight as well
say that he did not make them. Much of the wick¬
edness of the wicked arises from this, thev forget
; that God formed them, Deut. xxxii. 18. Dr, (2.)
Which comes all to one, they deny him to be a wise
Creator; The thing framed saith of him that framed
it, He had no understanding: for if he had under¬
standing to make us so curiously, especially to make
us intelligent beings, and to put understanding into
the inward part, (Job xxxviii. 36.) no doubt he has
understanding to know us, and all we say and do.
As they that quarrel with God, so they that think
to conceal themselves from him, do, in effect, charge
him with folly; but he that formed the eye, shall ht
not see? Ps. xciv. 9.
1 7. Is it not yet a very little while, and
Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field,
and the fruitful field shall be esteemed as a
forest? 18. And in that day shall the deaf
hear the words of the book, and the eyes of
the blind shall see out of obscurity, and out
of darkness. 19. The meek also shall in¬
crease their joy in the Lord, and the poor
among men shall rejoice in the Holy One
I of Israel. 20. F or the terribleone is brought
136
ISAIAH, XXIX.
to nought, and the scorner is consumed, and
all that watch for iniquity are cut off: 21.
That make a man an offender for a word,
and lay a snare for him that reproveth in
the gate, and turn aside the j ust for a thing of
nought. 22. Therefore thus saith the Lord,
who redeemed Abraham, concerning the
house of Jacob, Jacob shall not now be
ashamed, neither shall his face now wax
pale. 23. But when he seeth his children,
the work of my hands, in the midst of him,
they shall sanctify my name, and sanctify
the Holy One of Jacob, and shall fear the
God of Israel. 24. They also that erred
in spirit shall come to understanding, and
they that murmured shall learn doctrine.
They that thought to hide their counsels from
the Lord, were said to turn things upside down, ( v .
16.) and they intended to do it unknown to God;
but God here tells them that he will turn things up¬
side down his way; and let us see whose word shall
stand, his or theirs. They disbelieve Providence;
“Wait awhile,” says God, “and you shall be con¬
vinced by ocular demonstration, that there is a God
who governs the world, and that he governs it, and
orders all the changes that are in it, for the good of
his church.” The wonderful revolution here fore¬
told may refer primarily to the happy settlement
of the affairs of Judah and Jerusalem after the de¬
feat of Sennacherib’s attempt, and the repose which
srood people then enjoyed, when they were delivered
fnm the alarms of the sword both of war and per¬
secution. But it may look further, to the rejection
nf the Jews at the first planting of the gospel, (for
their hypocrisy and infidelity were here foretold,
i’. 13.) and the admission of the Gentiles into the
church.
In general, it is a great and surprising change
that is here foretold, v. 17. Lebanon, that was a
forest, is turned into a fruitful field; and Carmel,
that was a fruitful field, shall become a forest It
is a counter-change. Note, Great changes, both
for the better, and for the worse, are often made in
a very little while. It was a sign given them of the
defeat of Sennacherib, that the ground should be
more than ordinarily fruitful; (c/i. xxxvii. 30.) Ye
shall eat this year such as grows of itself: food for
man shall be (as food for beasts is) the spontaneous
product of the soil; then Lebanon became a fruitful
fi 'ld, so fruitful, that that which used to be reckon¬
ed a fruitful field, in comparison with it, shall be
looked upon but as a forest. When a great harvest
of souls was gathered in to Christ from among the
Gentiles, then the wilderness was turned into a fruit-
fid field, and the Jewish church, that had long been
a fruitful field, became a desolate and deserted fo¬
rest, eh. liv. 1.
In particular, 1. Those that were ignorant shall
become intelligent, v. 18. Those that understand
not this prophecy, (but it was to them as a sealed
bonk, v. 11.) shall, when.it is accomplished, under¬
stand it, and shall acknowledge, not only the hand
nf God in the event, but the voice of God in the pre¬
diction of it. The deaf shall then hear the words of
the hook: the fulfilling of prophecy is the best ex¬
position of it. The poor Gentiles shall then have
divine revelation brought among them; and those
that sat in darkness shall see a great light; those that
were blind shall see out of obscurity; for the gospel
was sent to them to often their eyes, Acts xxvi. 18.
Observe, In order to the making of men fruitful
in good affections and actions, the course God’s
grace takes with them is, to open their under
standings, and make them hear the w< ’’ds of God’s
book.
2. Those that were erroneous shall become ortho¬
dox; ( v . 24.) They that erred in spirit, that were
under mistakes and misapprehensions concerning
the words of the book, and the meaning nf them,
they shall come to understanding, to a right under¬
standing of things; the Spirit of truth shall rectify
their mistakes, and lead them into all truth. This
should encourage us to pray for those that have err¬
ed, and are deceived, that God can, and often does,
bring such to understanding. They that murmured
at the truths of God as hard sayings, and loved to
pick quarrels with them, shall learn the true mean¬
ing of these doctrines, and then they will be better
reconciled to them. They that erred concerning
the providence of God, as to public affairs, and
murmured at the disposals of it, when they shall
see the issue of things, shall better understand them,
and be aware of what God was designing in all,
Hosea xiv. 9.
3. Those that were melancholy shall become
cheerful and pleasant; (v. 19.) The meek also shall
increase their joy in the Lord. Those who are poor
in the world, and poor in spirit, who, being in afflic¬
tion, accommodate themselves to their affliction —
are purely passive, and not passionate, when they
see God appearing for them, they shall add, or re¬
peat, joy in the Lord. This intimates, that even
in their distress they kept up their joy in the Lord,
but now they increased it. Note, They who, when
they are in trouble, can truly rejoice in God, shall
soon have cause given them greatly to rejoice in
him. When joy in the world is decreasing and fad¬
ing, joy in God is increasing and getting ground.
This shining light shall shine more and more; for
that which is aimed at is, that this joy may be full.
Even the poor among men may rejoice in the Holy
One of Israel, and their poverty needs not deprive
them of that joy, Heb. iii. 17, 18. And the meek,
the humble, the patient, and dispassionate, shall
grow in this joy. Note, the grace of meekness will
contribute very much to the increase of our holy
joy.
4. The enemies that were formidable shall be¬
come despicable. Sennacherib, that terrible one,
and his great army, that put the country into such
a consternation, shall be brought to nought, (v. 20.)
shall be quite disabled to do any further mischief.
The power of Satan, that terrible one indeed, shall
be broken by the prevalency of Christ’s gospel; and
they that were subject to bondage, through fear of
him that had the power of death, shall be deliver¬
ed, Heb. ii. 14, 15.
5. The persecutors that were vexatious shall be
quieted; and so those they were troublesome to shall
be quiet from the fear of them. To complete the
repose of God’s people, not only the terrible one
from abroad shall be brought to nought, but the
scorners at home too shall be consumed and cut off
by Hezekiah’s reformation. Those are a happy
people, and likely to be so, who, when God gives
them victory and success against their terrible ene¬
mies abroad, take care to suppress vice and pro¬
faneness, and the spirit of persecution, those more
dangerous enemies at home. Or, They shall bi
consumed and cutoff by the judgments of God, shall
be singled out to be made examples of. Or, They
shall insensibly waste away, being put to confusion
by the fulfilling of those predictions which they
had made a jest of.
Observe, What had been the wickedness of these
scunners, for which they should be cut off; they had
been persecutors of God’s people and prophets, pro
bablv of the prophet Isaiah particularly, and there¬
fore he complains thus feelingly of them, an 1 ol
137
ISAIAH, XXX.
their subtle malice. Some, as informers and per-
Si-cut .rs, others, as judges, did all they could to
t ike away his life, or, at least, his liberty. And
this is very applicable to the chief priests and Pha¬
risees, who persecuted Christ and his apostles, and
for th it sin they and their nation of scomers were
cut off and consumed. (1.) They ridiculed the pro¬
phets and the serious professors of religion; they
despised them, and did their utmost to bring them
into contempt; they were scomers, and sat in the
seat of the scornful. (2.) They lay in wait for an
occasion against them; by their spies they watch
for iniquity, to see if they can lay hold on any thing
that is s aid or done, that may be called an iniquity.
Or, They themselves watch for an opportunity to
do mischief, as Judas did to betray our Lord Jesus.
(3. ) They took advantage against them for the least
slip of the tongue; and if a thing were ever so little
said amiss, it served them to ground an indictment
upon. They made a man, though he were ever so
wise and good a man, though he were a man of God,
an offender for a word, a word mischosen or mis¬
placed, when they could not but know that it was
well-meant. They cavilled at every word that the
prophets spake to them by way of admonition,
though ever so innocently spoken, and without any
design to affront them. They put the worst con¬
struction upon what was said, and made it criminal
by strained innuendos. Those who consider how apt
we are to speak unadvisedly, and to mistake what
we hear, will think it very unjust and unfair to make
a man an offender for a word. (4.) They did all
they could to bring those into trouble, that dealt
faithfully with them, and told them of their faults.
Those that reprove in the gates, reprovers by office,
that were bound by the duty of their place, as pro¬
phets, as judges, and magistrates, to show people
their transgressions, they hated these, and laid
snares for them, as the Pharisees’ emissaries, who
were sent to watch our Saviour, that they might
entangle him in his talk, (Matth. xxii. 15.) that
they might have something to lay to his charge,
which might render him odious to the people, or
obnoxious to the government; so persecuted they the
prophets: and it is next to impossible for the most
cautious to place their words so warily, as to escape
such snares. See how base wicked people are, who
bear ill-will to those who, out of good-will to them,
seek to save their souls from death: and see what
need reprovers have both of courage to do their
duty, and of prudence to avoid the snare. (5. ) They
pervert judgment, and will never let an honest man
carry an honest cause; They turn aside the just for
a thing of nought; they condemn him, or give the
ciuse against him, upon no evidence, no colour, or
pretence, whatsoever. They run a man down, and
misrepresent him, by all the little arts and tricks
they can devise, as they did our Saviour. We must
not think it strange if we see the best of men thus
treated; the disciple is not greater than his Master.
But wait awhile, and God will not only bring forth
their righteousness, but cut off and consume these
learners.
6. Jacob, who was made to blush bythe reproaches,
and made to tremble by the threatenings, of his ene¬
mies, shall now be relieved both against his shame
and against his fear, by the rolling away of those re¬
proaches, and the defeating of those threatenings;
{v. 22.) Thus the Lord saith, who redeemed Abra¬
ham ; called him out of Ur of the Chaldees, and so
rescued him from the idolatry of his fathers, and
p'ucked him as a brand out of the fire. He that
redeemed Abraham out of his snares and troubles
will redeem all that are by faith his genuine seed,
out of theirs. He that began his care of his church
in the redemption of Abraham, when it and its Re¬
deemer were in his loins, will not now cast off the
Voh. IV. — S
care of it. Because the enemies of his people are
so industrious both to blacken them, and to frighten
them, therefore he will appear for the house of Ja¬
cob, and they shall not be ashamed as they have
been, but shall have wherewith to answer those
that reproach them, nor shall their faces now wax
pale; but they shall gather courage, and look their
enemies in the face without change of countenance,
as they have reason to do, who have the God of
Abraham on their side.
7. Jacob, who thought his family would be ex¬
tinct, and the entail of religion quite cut off, shall
have the satisfaction of seeing a numerous progeny
devoted to God for a generation, v. 23. (1.) He shall
see his children; multitudes of believers and pray¬
ing people, the spiritual seed of faithful Abraham
and wrestling Jacob. Having bis quiver full of
these arrows, he shall not be ashamed, (v. 22.) but
shall speak with his enemy in the gate, Ps. cxxvii.
5. Christ shall not be ashamed, ( ch . 1. 7.) for he
shall see his seed; (ch. liii. 10. ) he sees some, and
foresees more, in the midst of him, flocking to the
church, and residing there. ' (2. ) His children are
the work of God’s hands; being formed by him,
they are formed for him, his workmanship, created
unto good works. It is some comfort to parents, to
think that their children are God’s creatures, the
work of the hands of his providence. But it will be
much more a comfort to them, to see their children
his new creatures, the work of the hands of his
grace. (3.) He and his children shall sanctify' the
name of God as their God, as the Holy One of
Jacob, and shall fear and worship the God of Israel.
This is opposed to his being ashamed, and waxing
pale; when he is delivered from his contempts and
dangers, he shall not magnify himself, but sanctify
the Holy One of Jacob. If God make our condition
easy, we must endeavour to make his name glorious.
Parents and children are then ornaments and com¬
forts indeed to each other, when they join in sancti¬
fying the name of God. When parents give up
their children, and children give up themselves, to
God to be to him for a name ana a praise, then
the forest will soon become a fruitful field.
CHAP. XXX.
The prophecy of this chapter seems to relate (as that in
the chapter before) to the approaching- danger of Jeru¬
salem and desolations of Judah by Sennacherib’s inva¬
sion. Here is, I. A just reproof to those who, in that
distress, trusted to the Egyptians for help, and were all
in a hurry to fetch succours from Egypt, v. 1 . .7. II. A
terrible threatening against those who slighted the good
advice which God by nis prophets gave them for the re¬
pose of their minds in that distress, assuring them that
whatever became of others, the judgment would certain¬
ly overtake them, v. 8.. 17. III. A gracious promise to
those who trusted in God, that they should not only sec
through the trouble, but should see happy days after it.
times of ioy and reformation, plenty of the means or
grace, and therewith plenty of outward good things,
and increasing joys and triumphs; (v. 18 . .26.) many of
these promises are very applicable to gospel grace. IV.
A prophecy of the total rout and ruin of the Assyrian
army, which should bean occasion of great joy, and an
introduction to those happy times, v. 27 . . 33.
1. WO to the rebellious children, saith
t V the Lord, that take counsel, but
not of me; and that cover with a covering,
but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin
to sin: 2. That walk to go down into
Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth ,
to strengthen themselves in the strength of
Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of
Egypt! 3. Therefore shall the strength of
Pharaoh be your shame, and the trust in
138
ISAIAH, XXX.
the shadow of Egypt your confusion. 4.
For his princes were at Zoan, and his am¬
bassadors came to Hanes. 3. They were
all ashamed of a people that could not profit
them, nor be a help nor profit, but a shame,
and also a reproach. 6. The burden of the
beasts of the south : Into the land of trouble
and anguish, from whence come the young
and old lion, the viper and fiery flying ser¬
pent, they will carry their riches upon the
shoulders of young asses, and their treasures
upon the bunches of camels, to a people
that shall not profit them. 7. For the Egyp¬
tians shall help in vain, and to no purpose:
therefore have I cried concerning this, Their
strength is to sit still.
It was often the fault and folly of the people of the
Jews, that, when they were insulted by their neigh¬
bours on one side, they sought for succour from their
neighbours on the other side, instead of looking
up to God, and putting their confidence in him.
Against the Israelites they sought to the Syrians,
2 Chron. xvi. 2, 3. Against the Syrians they sought
to the Assyrians, 2 Kings xvi. 7. Against the As¬
syrians they sought to the Egyptians, and Rabsha-
keh upbraided them with it, 2 Kings xviii. 21. Now
observe here,
1. How this sin of theirs is described, and what
there was in it that was provoking to God. When
they saw themselves in danger and distress, (1.)
They would not consult with God. They would do
things of their own heads, and not advise with God,
though they had a ready and certain way of doing
it by Urim or prophets. They were so confident
of the prudence of their own measures, that they
thought it needless to consult the oracle; nay, they
were not willing to put it to that issue; “They take
counsel among themselves, and one from another;
but they do not ask counsel, much less will thev
take counsel of me. They cover with a covering,'’
(they think to secure themselves with one shelter
or other, which may serve to cover them from the
violence of the storm,) “but not of my S/iirit;”
(not such as God by his Spirit, in the mouth of his
prophets, directed them to;) “ and therefore it will
prove too short a covering, and a refuge of lies.”
(2.) They could not confide in God. They did not
think it enough to have God on their side, nor were
they at all solicitous to make him their Friend, but
they strengthened themselves in the strength of
Pharaoh; they thought him a powerful ally, and
doubted not but to be able to cope with the Assy¬
rian, while thev had him for them. The shadow
of Egypt (and it was but a shadow) was the cover¬
ing in which they wrapped themselves.
2. What was the evil of this sin; (1.) It bespoke
them rebellious .children; and a wo is here de¬
nounced against them under that character, xi. 1.
They were, in profession, God’s children; but, not
trusting in him, they were justly stigmatized as re¬
bellious; for if we distrust God’s providence, we do,
in effect, withdraw ourselves from our allegiance.
(2.) They added sin to sin. It was sin that brought
them into distress; and then, instead of repenting,
they tresfiassed yet against the Lord , 2 Chron.
xxviii. 22. And they that abused God’s mercies
to them, in making them the fuel of their lusts,
abused their afflictions too, in making them an ex¬
cuse for their distrust of God; and so they make
bad worse, and add sin to sin; and they that do so,
as thev make their own chain heavy, so it is just
with God to make their plagues wonderful. Now
that which aggravated it was, [1.] That they took
so much pains to secure the Egyptians for them;
They walk, or go down to Egypt, travel up and
down to find an advantageous road thither; but
they have not asked at my mouth, never considered
whether God would allow and approve of it or no.
[2. J That they were at such a vast expense to do
it, v. 6. They load the beasts of the south (horses
fetched from Egypt, which lay south from Judea,)
with their riches; fancying, as it is common with a
people in a fright, that they were safer any where
than where they were. Or, they sent their riches thi¬
ther, as bribes toPharaoh’s courtiers, to engage them
in their interests, or as pay for their armv. Ged
would have helped them gratis; but if they will
have it from the Egyptians, they must pay dearly
for it, and they seem willing to do so. The riches
that are so spent will turn to a bad account. They
carried their effects to Egypt through a land (so ft
may be read) of trouble and anguish; that vast
howling wilderness which lay between Canaan and
Egypt, whence come the lion and fiery serpent.
Dent. viii. 15. They would venture through that
dangerous wilderness, to bring what they had to
Egypt. Or, it may be meant of Egypt itself,
which had been to Israel a house of bondage, and
therefore a land of trouble and anguish, and which
abounded in ravenous and venomous creatures.
See what dangers men run into, that forsake God;
and what dangers they will ran into, in pursuance
of their carnal confidences, and their expectations
from the creature.
3. What would be the consequence rf it; (1.)
The Egyptians would receive their ambassadors,
would speak kindly to them, and be willing to treat
with them; (x'. 4.) His princes were at Zoan, at
Pharaoh’s court there, and had their audience of
the king, who encouraged them to depend upcn
his friendship, and the succcurs he would send
them. But, (2.) They would not answer their ex¬
pectation, they could not profit them, xt 5. Ft r
God says, They shall not profit them; (xi. 6.) and
every' creature is that to us, (and no more,) which
he makes it to be. Either, the forces they were to
furnish them with, could not be raised in time; or,
when they were raised, they were not fit for ser¬
vice, and they would not venture any of their vete¬
ran troops in the expedition; or, the march was so
long, that they could not come up when they had
occasion for them; or, the Egyptians w< uld not be
cordial to Israel, but would secretly incline to the
Assyrians, upon some account or other; The
Egyptians shall help in vain, and to no purpose,
v. 7. They shall hinder and hurt, instead of help¬
ing. And therefore, (3.) These people, that were
now so fond of the Egy ptians, would at length be
ashamed of them, and of all their expectations
from them, and confidence in them; (x>. 3.) “ The
strength of Pi araoh, which was your pride, shall
be your shame; all your neighbours will upbraid
you, and you will upbraid yourselves, with your
folly in trusting to it. And the shadow of Egypt,
that land shadowing with wings, {ch. xviii. 1.) that
was your confidence, shall be your confusion; it
will not only disappoint you, and be the matter of
your shame, but it will weaken all your other sup¬
ports, and be an occasion of mischief to you.”
God afterward threatens the ruin of Egypt for this
very thing, because they had dealt treacherously
with Israel, and been a staff of a reed to them,
Ezek. xxix. 6, 7. The princes and ambassadors
of Israel, that were so forward to court an alliance
with them, when they come among them, shall see
so much of their weakness, or rather of their base¬
ness, that they shall all be ashamed of a people that
could not be a help or projit to them , but a shame
and reproach, v. 5. Those that trust in God, and
139
ISAIAH
> his power, providence, and promise, are never
made ashamed of their hope: but they that put
confidence in any creature, will, sooner or later,
find it a reproach to them. God is true, and may
he trusted; but every man a liar, and must be sus¬
pected. The Creator is a Rock of ages, the crea¬
ture a broken reed; we cannot expect too little
from man, or too much from God.
4. The use and application of all this; (v. 7. )
Then-fore have I cried concerning this matter, this
project of theirs. I have published it, that all
might take notice of it. I have pressed it as one in
earnest. Their strength is to sit still, in an humble
dependence upon God, and his goodness, and a
quiet submission to his will; and not to vary about,
and agitate themselves about obtaining help from
this and the other creature. If we sit stdl in a
day of distress, hoping and quietly waiting for the
salvation of the Lord, and using only lawful, regu¬
lar methods for our own preservation, this will be
the strength of our souls, both for services and suf¬
ferings, and it will engage divine strength for us.
We weaken ourselves, and provoke God to with¬
draw from us, when we make flesh our arm, for
then our heart departs from the Lord. When we
have tired ourselves by seeking for help from crea¬
tures, wc shall find it the best way of recruiting
ourselves, to repose in the Creator; Here I am, let
him do with me as he / ileascs .
8. Now go, write it before them in a ta¬
ble, and note it in a book, that it may be
for the time to come for ever and ever; 9
That this is a rebellious people, lying chil¬
dren, children that will not hear the law of
the Lord: 10. Which say to the seers,
See not : and to the prophets, Prophesy not
onto us right things; speak unto us smooth
things, prophesy deceits : 11. Get ye out
of the way, turn aside out of the path,
cause the Holy One of Israel to cease
from before us. 12. Wherefore thus saith
the Holy One of Israel, Because ye de¬
spise this word, and trust in oppression and
perverseness, and stay thereon : 1 3. There¬
fore this iniquity shall be to you as a
breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high
wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at
an instant. 14. And he shall break it as
the breaking of the potter’s vessel that is
broken in pieces; he shall not spare: so
that there shall not be found in the burst¬
ing of it a sherd to take fire from the
hearth, or to take water withal out of the
pit. 15. For thus saith the Lord God,
the Holy One of Israel, In returning and
rest shall ye be saved ; in quietness and in
confidence shall be your strength ; and ye
would not. 16. But ye said, No ; for we
will flee upon horses; therefore shall ye
flee: and, We will ride upon the swift;
therefore shall they that pursue you be
swift. 1 7. One thousand shall flee at the
rebuke of one ; at the rebuke of five shall
ye flee ; till ye be left as a beacon upon the
top of a mountain, and as an ensign on a
hill.
, XXX.
Here,
I. Tlie preface is very awful; the prophet must
not only preach this, but he must write it, (v. 8.)
write it in a table, to be hung up, and exposed to
public view; he must carefully note it, not in loose
papers which might be lost or tom, but in a bo: k,
to be preserved for posterity in fierpetuam rei me-
moriam — for a standing testimony against this
wicked generation; let it remain not only to the
next succeeding ages, but for ever and ever, while
the world stands; and so it shall, for the bo<k if
the scriptures, no doubt, shall continue, and be
read, to the end of time. Let it be written, 1. To
shame the men of the present age, who would net
hear and heed it when it was spoken; let it be
written, that it may not be lost; their children may-
profit by it, though they will not. 2. To justify
God in the judgments he was about to bring upen
them; people will be tempted to think he was
too hard upon them, and over severe, unless they
know how vert' bad they were, how very provok¬
ing, and what fair means God tried with them be¬
fore he brought it to this extremity. 3. For warn¬
ing to others not to do as they did, lest they fare as
they fared; it is designed for admonition to those of
the remotest place and age, even those upon whom
the ends of the world are come, 1 Cor. x. 11. It may
be of use for God’s ministers not only to preach,
but to write; for that which is written remains.
II. The character given of the profane and
wicked Jews is very sad; he must, if he will draw
them in their own colours, write this concerning
them, (and we are sure he does not bear false wit¬
ness against them, nor make them worse than they
were, for the judgment of God is according to
truth,) That this is a rebellious people, v. 9 The
Jews were, for aught we know, the only professing
people God had then in the world, and yet many
of them were a rebellious people. 1. They rebel¬
led against their own convictions and covenants;
for they are lying children, that will not stand to
what they say, that promise fair, but perform no¬
thing; when he took them into covenant with him,
he said of them, Surely they are my people, chil¬
dren that will not lie; ( ch . lxiii. 8.) but they proved
otherwise. 2. They rebelled against the divine
authority; they are children that will not hear the
law of the Lord, nor heed it, but will do as they
have a mind, let God himself say what he will to
the contrary.
III. The charge drawn up against them is very
high, and the sentence passed upon them very
dreadful.
T wo things they here stand charged with, and
their doom is read for both, a fearful doom.
1. They forbade the prophets to speak to them
in God’s name, and to deal faithfully with them.
This their sin is described, v. 10, 11. They set
themselves so violently against the prophets to hin¬
der them from preaching, or, at least, from dealing
plainly with them in their preaching, did so banter
them and browbeat them, that they did, in effect,
say to the seers, See not. They had the light, but
they loved darkness rather. It was their privilege,
that they had seers among them, but they did what
thev could to put out their eyes; that they had pro¬
phets among them, but they did what they could to
stop their mouths; for they tormented them in their
wicked ways, Rev. xi. 10. Those that silence
good ministers, and discountenance good preaching,
are justly counted, and called, rebels against God.
See what it was in the prophets’ preaching, witl
which they found themselves aggrieved. (1.) The
prophets told them of their faults, and wamec.
them of their misery and danger by reason of sin,
and they could not bear that. They must speak to
them smooth things; must flatter them in theii
140
ISAIAH, XXX.
sins, and say that they did well, and there was no
harm, no peril, in the course of life they lived in.
Let a thing be ever so right and true, if it be not
smooth, they will not hear it. But if it be agreeable
to the good opinion they have of themselves, and will
confirm them in that, though it be ever so false, and
ever so great a cheat upon them, they will have it
prophesied to them. Those deserve to be deceived,
that desire to be so. (2. ) The prophets stopped them
in their sinful pursuits, and stood in their way like
the angel in Balaam’s road, with the sword of
God’s wrath drawn in their hand; so that they
could not proceed without terror. And this they
took amiss; when they went on frowardly in the
way of their hearts, they said to the prophet,
“ Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the
paths. What do you do in our way? Cannot you
let us alone to do as we please?” Those have their
hearts fully set in them to do evil, that bid their
faithful monitors to stand out of their way. For¬
bear, why shouldest thou be smitten? 2 Chron. xxv.
16. (3.) The prophets were continually telling
them of the Holy One of Israel, what an Enemy he
is to sin, and how severely he will reckon with sin¬
ners; and this they could not endure to hear of.
Both the thing itself, and the expression of it, were
too serious for them ; and therefore if the prophets
will speak to them, they will make it their bargain
that they shall not call God the Holy One of Israel;
for God’s holiness is that attribute which wicked
people most dread. Let us no more be troubled
with that state-preface (as Mr. White calls it) to
your impertinent harangues. Those have reason
to fear perishing in their sins, that cannot bear to
be frightened out of them.
Now what is the doom passed upon them for
this? We have it v. 12, 13. Observe, [1.] Who
it is that gives judgment upon them; Thus saith the
Holy One of Israel. That title of God which they
particularly excepted against, the prophet makes
use of. Faithful ministers will not be driven from
using such expressions as are proper to awaken
sinners, though they be displeasing. We must tell
men that God is the Holy One of Israel, and so
they shall find him, whether they will hear, or
whether they will forbear. [2.] What the ground
of the judgment is; because they despise this word;
either in general, every word that the prophets
said to them, or, this word in particular, which
speaks God the Holy One of Israel, they despise
this, and will neither make it their fear, to stand in
awe of it, nor make it their hope, to put any confi¬
dence in it; but, rather than they will be beholden
to the Holy One of Israel; will trust in oppression
and perr<ersenessi in the wealth they have got, and
the interests they have made, by fraud and vio¬
lence, or in the sinful methods they have taken for
their own security, in contradiction to God and his
will. On these they stay, and therefore they justly
should fall. [3.] What the judgment is, that is
passed upon them; “ This iniquity shall beta you
as a breach ready to fall. This confidence of
vours will be like a house built upon the sand,
which will fall in the storm, and bury the builder
in the ruins of it. Your contempt of that word of
God, which yon might build upon, will make every
thing else you trust to, like a wall that bulges out,
which, if any weight be laid upon it, comes down,
nay, which often sinks with its own weight.” The
ruin they would hereby bring upon themselves,
should be, First, A surprising rum; the breaking
shall come suddenly, at an instant, when they do
not expect it; which will make it the more fright¬
ful; and when they are not prepared or provided
for it, which will make it the more fatal. Second¬
ly, An utter ruin, universal and irreparable; “ You
and all your confidences shall be not only weak as
the potter’s clay, ( ch . xxix. 16.) but broken to
pieces as the potter’s vessel. He that has the rod
of iron shall break it, (Ps. ii. 9.) and he shall not
spare, nor have any regard to it, nor be in care
to preserve or keep whole any part of it. But
when once it is broken, so as to be unfit for use, let
it be dashed, let it be crushed, all to pieces, so that
there may not remain one sherd big enough to takt
up a little fire or water” — two things we have daih
need of, and which poor people commonly fetch in
a piece of a broken pitcher. They shall not only
be as a bowing wall, (Ps. lxii. 3.) but as a broker
mug or glass, which are good for nothing, nor car
ever be made whole again.
2. They slighted the gracious directions God gave
them, not only how to secure themselves, and make
themselves safe, but how to compose themselves,
and make themselves easy; they would take their
own way, v. 15. — 17. Observe here,
(1.) The method God put them into for salvation
and strength. The God that knew them, and knew
what was proper for them, and desired their wel¬
fare, gave them this prescription; and it is recom¬
mended to us all. [1.] Would we be saved from
the evil of every calamity, guarded against the
temptation of it, and secured from the curse of it,
which are the only evil things in it? It must be in
returning, and rest; in returning to God, and repos¬
ing in him as our Rest. Let us return from our evil
ways, into which we have gone aside, and rest and
settle in the way of God and duty, and that is the
way to be saved; “ Return from this project of go¬
ing down to Egypt, and rest satisfied in the will of
God, and then you may trust him with your safety.
In returning, in the thorough reformation of your
hearts and lives; and in rest, in an entire submis¬
sion of your souls to God, and a complacency in
him, you shall be saved.” [2.] Would we be
strengthened to do what is required of us, and to
bear what is laid upon us? It must be in quietness,
and in confidence; we must keep our spirits calm
and sedate by a continual dependence upon God,
and his power and goodness; we must retire into
ourselves with a holy quietness, suppressing all tur¬
bulent and tumultuous passions, and keeping the
peace in our own minds. And we must rely upon
God with a holy confidence that he can do what he
will, and will do what is best for his people. And
this will be our strength; it will inspire us with such
a holy fortitude as will carry us with ease and cou¬
rage through all the difficulties we may meet with.
(2.) The contempt they put upon this prescrip¬
tion; they would not take God’s counsel, though it
was so much for their own good. And justly will
they die of their disease, that will not take God for
their Physician. We are certainly enemies to our¬
selves, if we will not be subjects to him. They
would not so much as try the method prescribed;
“But ye said, JVo, (v. 16. ) we Will not compose our¬
selves, for sue will flee upon horses, and ire will ride
upon the ssuift; we will hurry hither and thither to
fetch in foreign aids.” They think themselves
wiser than God, and that they know what is good
for themselves better than he does. When Senna¬
cherib took all the fenced cities of Judah, those re¬
bellious children would not be persuaded to sit still,
and patiently to expect God’s appearing for them,
as he did wonderfully at last; but they would shift
for their own safety, and thereby they exposed
themselves to so much the more danger.
(3.) The sentence passed upon them for this.
Their sin shall be their punishment; “ You will flee,
and therefore you shall flee; you will be upon the
full speed, and therefore so shall those be, that pur¬
sue you.” The dogs are most apt to run barking
after him that rides fast. The conquerors protected
those that sat still, but pursued those that made
ISAIAH, XXX.
141
-heir escape; and so that \ try project by which they
hoped to save themselves, was justly their ruin, and
the most guilty suffered most. It is foretold, v. 17.
[1.] That they should be easily cut off; they should
be so dispirited with their own fears, increased by
their flight, that one of the enemy should defeat a
thousand of them, and five put an army to flight;
which could never be, unless their Rock had sold
them, Dent, xxxii. 30. [2.] That they should be
generally cut off, and only here and there one should
escape, alone in a solitary place, and left fora spec¬
tacle too, as a beacon ufion the to/ 1 of a mountain; a
warning to others to avoid the like sinful courses and
carnal confidences.
18. And therefore will the Loud wait,
that lie may be gracious unto you ; and there¬
fore will he be exalted, that he may have
mercy upon you; for the Lord is a God of
judgment : blessed are all they that wait for
him. 19. For the people shall dwell in Zion
at Jerusalem ; thou shalt weep no more : he
will be very gracious unto thee at the voice
of thy cry; when he shall hear it, he will
answer thee. 20. And though the Lord
give you the bread of adversity, and the wa¬
ter of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be
removed into a corner any more, but thine
eyes shall see thy teachers: 21. And thine
ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying,
This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn
to the right hand, and when ye turn to the
left. 22. Ye shall defile also the covering
of thy graven images of silver, and the orna¬
ment of thy molten images of gold : thou
shalt cast them away as a menstruous cloth ;
thou shalt say unto it, Get thee hence. 23.
Then shall he give the rain of thy seed, that
thou shalt sow the ground withal ; and bread
of the increase of the earth, and it shall be
fat and plenteous : in that day shall thy cat¬
tle feed in large pastures. 24. The oxen
likewise, and the young asses that ear the
ground, shall eat clean provender which
hath been winnowed with the shovel and
with the fan. 25. And there shall be upon
every high mountain, and upon every high
hill, rivers and streams of waters in the day
of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.
26. Moreover, the light of the moon shall be
as the light of the sun, and the light of the
sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven
days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up
the breach of his people, and healeth the
stroke of their wound.
The dosing words of the foregoing paragraph,
( Ye shall be left as a beacon upon a mountain, j
some understand as a promise, that a remnant of
them should be reserved as monuments of mercy.
Here the prophet tells them what good times should
succeed these calamities; or, the first words in this
paragraph may be read by way of antithesis. Not¬
withstanding this, yet will the Lord wait, that he
may be gracious. The prophet, having showed
chat those who made Egypt their confidence would
Ire ashamed of it, here shows that they who sat still
and made God alone their Confidence, would have
the comfort of it. It is matter of comfort to the peo¬
ple of God, when the times are very bad, that all
will be well yet, well with them that fear God,
when we say to the wicked, It shall be ill with them.
I. God will be gracious to them, and will have
mercy on them: that is the foundation of all good.
It we find favour with God, and he have mercy
upon us, we shall have comfort, according to the
time that we have been afflicted. 1. “ He will wait
to be gracious; (i>. 18.) he will wait till you return
to him and seek his face, and then he will be ready
to meet you with mercy. He will wait, that he may
do it in the best and fittest time, when it will be
most for his glory, when it will come to you with the
most pleasing surprise. He will continually follow
you with his favours, and not let slip any opportu¬
nity of being gracious to you.” 2. “ He will stir up
himself to deliver you, will be exalted, will be raised
up out of his holy habitation, (Zech. ii. 13.) that he
may appeal- for you in more than ordinary instances
ot power and goodness; and thus he will be exalted;
be will glorify his own name, that is it he aims at in
having mercy on his people. ” 3. He will be very
gracious; (v. 19.) and this, in answer to prayer,
which makes his kindness doubly kind; “He will
be gracious to thee, at the voice of thy cry; the cry
of thy necessity, when that is most urgent; the cry
of thy prayer, when that is most fervent. When he
shall hear it, there needs no more, at the first word
he will answer thee, and say, Here I am.” Herein
he is very gracious indeed.
In particular, (1.) Those who were disturbed in
the possession of their estates, shall again enjoy them
quietly. When the danger is over, the people shall
dwell in Zion at Jerusalem, as they used to do; they
shall dwell safely, free from the fear of evil. (2. )
Those who were all in tears shall have cause to re¬
joice, and shall weep no more; and those who dwell
in Zion, the holy city, will find enough there to
wipe away tears from their eyes. Now this is
grounded upon two great truths; [1.] That the Lord
is a God of judgment; he is both wise and just in all
the disposals of his providence, true to his word,
and tender of hispeople. If he correct his children,
it is with judgment; (Jer. x. 24.) with moderation
and discretion, considering their frame. We think
we may safely refer ourselves to a man of judgment;
and shall we not commit our way to a God of judg¬
ment? [2.] That therefore all those are blessed,
who wait for him; who not only wait on him with
their prayers, but wait for him with their hopes;
who will not take any indirect course to extricate
themselves out of their straits, or anticipate their
deliverapce, but patiently expect God’s appearances
for them in his own way and time. Because God is
infinitely wise, those are truly happy who refer
themselves to him.
II. They shall not again know the want of the
means of grace, v. 20, 21. Here, 1. It is supposed
that they might be brought into straits and troubles,
after this deliverance was wrought for them. It
was promised (v. 19.) that they should weep no
more, and that God would be gracious to them; and
yet here it is taken for granted that God may give
them the bread of adversity, and the water of afflic¬
tion, prisoners’ fare, (1 Kings xxii. 27.) coarse and
sorry food, such as the poor use. When one trou¬
ble is over, we know not how soon another may suc¬
ceed ; and we may have an interest in the favour of
God, and such consolations as are sufficient to pro
hibit weeping, and yet may have bread of adversitt
given us to eat, and water of affliction to drink.
Let us therefore not judge of love or hatred by what
is before us. 2. It is promised thattheirfyras/;o;(W
see their teachers, that they should have faithiul
U'2
ISAIAH, XXX.
teachers among them, and should have hearts to re¬
gard them, and not slight them as they had done;
and then they might the better be reconciled to the
bread of adv ersity and the water of affliction. It
was a common saying among the old Puritans,
Brown bread and the gospel are good fare. A fa¬
mine of bread is not so great a judgment as a famine
of the word of God, Amos viii. 11, 15. It seems
that their teachers had been removed into corners,
(probably, being forced to shift for their safety in
the reign of Ahaz,) but it shall be so no more. Veri¬
tas non quxrit angulos — Truth seeks no comers
for concealment; but the teachers of truth may some¬
times be driven into corners for shelter; and it goes
ill with the church when it is so; when the woman
with her crown of twelve stars is forced to flee into
the wilderness, (Rev. xii. 6.) when the prophets
are hid by fifty in a cave, 1 Kings xviii. 4. But
God will find a time to call the teachers out of their
corners again, and to replace them in their solemn
assemblies, which shall see their own teachers, the
eyes of all the synagogue being fastened on them,
Luke iv. 20. And it will be the more pleasing be¬
cause of the restraint they have been for some time
under, as light out of darkness, as life from the dead.
To all that love God, and their own souls, this re¬
turn of faithful teachers out of their corners, espe¬
cially with a promise that they shall not be removed
into comers any more, is the most acceptable part
of anv deliverance, and has comfort enough in it to
sweeten even the bread of adversity and the water
of affliction. But this is not all; it is promised that
they shall have the benefit, not only of a public
ministry, but of private and particular admonition
and advice; (it. 21.) “ Thine ears shall hear a word
behind thee, calling after thee as a man calls after a
traveller that he sees going out of his road. ” Ob¬
serve, (1.) Whence this word shall come; from be¬
hind thee, from some one whom thou dost not see,
but who sees thee. “ Thine eyes see thy teachers;
but this is a teacher out of sight, it is thy own con¬
science, which shall now by the grace of God be
awakened to doits office.” (2.) What the word
shall be; “ This is the way, walk ye in it. When
thou art doubting, conscience shall direct thee to
the way of duty; when thou art dull and trifling,
conscience shall quicken thee in that way.” As
God has not left himself without witness, so he
has not left us without guides to show us our way.
(3.) The seasonableness of this word; It shall come
when ye turn to the right hand, or to the left. We
are very apt to miss our way; there are turnings on
both hands, and those so tracked and seemingly
straight, that they may easily be mistaken for the
right way; there are right hand and left hand errors,
extremes on each side virtue; the tempter is busy
courting us into the by-paths. It is happy then if,
bv the particular counsels of a faithful minister or
friend, or the checks of conscience, and the striv¬
ings of God’s Spirit, we be set right, and prevented
from going wrong. (4.) The success of this word;
“ It shall not onlv be spoken, but thine ears shall
hear it; whereas God has formerly sfioken once, yea,
twice, and thou hast not fierceived it, (Job xxxiii.
14.) now thou shalt listen attentively to these secret
whispers, and hear them with an obedient ear. ” If
God give us not only the word, but the hearing ear,
not only the means of grace, but a heart to make a
good use of those means, we have reason to say, He
is very gracious to us, and reason to hope he has yet
further mercy in store for us.
III. They shall be cured of their idolatry, shall
fall out with their idols, and never be reconciled to
them again, v. 22. The deliverance God shall
work for them, shall convince them that it is their
interest, as well as duty, to serve him only; and they
shall own that as their trouble was brought upon
them for their idolatries, so it was removed upon
condition that they should not return to them. This
is also the good effect of their seeing of their teach¬
ers, and hearing of the word behind them; by this it
shall appear that they are the better fir the means
of grace they enjoy — they shall break off from their
best-beloved sin. Observe, 1. How foolishly mad
they had formerly been upon their idols, in the day
of their apostacy; idolaters are said to be mad upon
their idols, (Jer. 1. 38.) dotingly fond of them; they
had graven images of silver, and molten images of
gold, and, though gold needs no painting, they had
coverings and ornaments on these; they sp. red no
cost in doing honour to their idols. 2. How wisely
mad (if I may so speak) they now were at their
idols, what a holy indignation they conceived against
them in the day of their repentance! They not
only degraded their images, but defaced them ; not
only defaced them, but defiled them; they not only
spoiled the shape of them, but in a pious fury threw
away the gold and silver they were made of, though
otherwise valuable, and convertable to a good use
They could not find in their hearts to make any
vessel of honour of it. The rich clothes wherewith
their images were dressed up, they cast away as
filthy cloth, which renders those that touch them
unclean until the even, Lev. xv. 23. Note, To all
true penitents sin is become very odious; they loathe
it, and loathe themselves because of it; they cast it
away to the dunghill, the fittest place for it, nay, to
the cross, for they crucify the flesh; their cry
against it is, Crucify it, crucify it. They say unto
it, Abi hinc in malam rem — Get thee hence. They
are resolved never to harbour it any more. They
put as far from them as thev can, all the occasions
of sin, and temptations to it, though they are as a
right eye or a right hand, and protest against it as
Epraim did, (Hos. xiv. 8.) What have I to do any
more with idols? Probably, this was fulfilled in
many particular persons, who, by the deliverance
of Jerusalem from Sennacherib’s army, were con¬
vinced of the folly of their idolatry, and forsook it;
it was fulfilled in the bod}' cf the Jewish nation at
their return from their captivity in Babylon, for they
abhorred idols ever after; and it is accomplished
daily in the conversion of souls, by the power of di¬
vine grace, from spiritual idolatry to the fear and
love of God. Those that join themselves to the
Lord, must abandon every sin, and say unto it. Get
thee hence.
IV. God will then give them plenty of all good
things: when he gives them their teachers, and they
give him their hearts, so that they begin to seek the
kingdom of God, and the righteousness thereof,
then all other things shall be added to them, Matth.
vi. 33. And when the people are brought to praise
God, then shall the earth yield her increase, and
with it God, even our own God, shall bless us, Ps.
lxvii. 5, 6. So it follows here; “When ye shall
have abandoned your idols, then shall God give the
rain of your seed;” v. 23. When we return to God
in a way of duty, he will meet us with his favours.
1. God will give you rain of your seed, rain to water
the seed you sow, just at the time that it calls for it,
as much as it needs, and no more. Observe, How
man’s industry and God’s blessing concur to the
good things we enjoy relating to the life that now is;
'Thou shalt sow the ground, that is thy part, and
then God will give the rain of thy seed, that is his
part. It is so in spiritual fruit; we must take pains
with our hearts, and then wait on God for his grace.
2. The increase of the earth shall be rich and good,
and every thing the best of the kind; it shall he fat
and fat, very fat and very good ,fat and plenteous,
so we read it; good, and enough of it. Your land
shall be Canaan indeed; it was remarkably so after
the defeat of Sennacherib, by the special blessing
143
ISAIAH,
.if God, ch. xxxvii. 30. God would thus repair the ||
losses they sustained by that devastation. 3. Not I
only the tillage,- but the pasture ground, should be j
remarkably fruitful; The cattle shall feed in large |
fiast ures; those that are at grass, shall have room
enough, and the oxen and asses that are kept up for
use, to ear the ground, which must be the better fed
ft r their being worked, they shall eat clean proven¬
der: the corn shall not be given them in the chaff as
usual, to make it go the further, but good clean corn
fit for man’s use, being winnowed with the fan; the
brute creatures shall share in the abundance: it is
fit they should, for they groan under the burthen of
the curse which man’s sin has brought upon the
earth. 4. Even the tops of the mountains, that used
to be barren, shall be so well watered with the rain
of heaven, that there shall be rivers and streams
there, and running down thence to the valleys, (v.
25. ) and this in the day of the great slaughter that
should be made by the angel in the camp of the As¬
syrians; when the towers and batteries they had
erected for the carrying on of the seige of Jerusa¬
lem, the army being slain, should fall of course. It
is probable that this was fulfilled in the letter of it,
and tiiat about the same time that that army was
cut off, there were extraordinary rains, in mercy to
the land.
V. The effect of all this should be extraordinary
comfort and joy to the people of God. (v. 26.)
Light, that is, knowledge, shall increase; when the
prophecies are accomplished, they shall be fully un¬
derstood; or, rather, triumph shal’ the light of the
joy that is sown for the righteous, shall now come
up’ with a great increase; the light of the moon shall
become as bright and as strong as that of the sun,
and that of the sun shall increase proportionably,
and be as the light of seven days: every one shall be
much more cheerful, and appear much more plea¬
sant, than usual. There shall be a high spring-tide
of joy in Judah and Jerusalem, upon occasion of the
ruin of the Assyrian army, when the Lord binds ufi
the breach of his people; not only saves them from
being further wounded, but heals the wounds that
have been given them by this invasion, and makes
up all their losses. The great distress they were
reduced to, their despair of relief, and the sudden¬
ness of their deliverance, would much augment
their joy. This is not unfitly applied by many to the
light which the gospel brought into the world to
them that sat in darkness, which as far exceeded
the Old Testament light as that of the sun does
that of the moon, and which proclaims healing to
the broken-hearted, and the binding up. of their
wounds.
27. Behold, the name of the Lord cometh
from far, burning with his anger, and the
burden thereof is heavy ; his lips are full of
indignation, and his tongue as a devouring
fire: 28. And his breath, as an overflowing
stream, shall reach to the midst of the neck,
to sift the nations with the sieve of vanity:
and there shall be a bridle in the jaws of the
people, causing them to err. 29. Ye shall
have a song, as in the night when a holy so¬
lemnity is kept ; and gladness of heart, as
when one goeth with a pipe to come into the
mountain of the Lord, to the Mighty One
of Israel. 30. And the Lord shall cause
his glorious voice to be heard, and shall
shew the lighting down of his arm, with the
indignation of his anger, and with the flame
XXX.
I of a devouring fire, with scattering, and tem-
i pest, and hailstones. 31. For through Ihe
1 voice of the Lord shall the Assyrian be
beaten down, which smote with a rod. 32
And in every place where the grounded
staff shall pass, which the Lord shall lay
upon him, it shall be with tablets and harps:
and in battles of shaking will he fight with
it. 33. F or Tophet is ordained of old ; yea,
for the king it is prepared : he hath made
it deep and large; the pile thereof is fire and
much wood: t lie breath of the Lord, like
a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it.
This terrible prediction of the ruin of the Assyri¬
an army, though it is a threatening to them, is part
of the promise to the Israel of God; that God w< uld
not only punish the Assyrians for the mischief they
had done to the Israel of God, but would disable
and deter them from doing the like again; and this
prediction, which would now shortly be accom¬
plished, would ratify and confirm the foregoing pro¬
mises, which should be accomplished in the latter
days.
Here is,
I. God Almighty angry, and coming forth in anger
against the Assyrians; he is here introduced in all
the power and all the terror of his wrath, v. 27.
The name of Jehovah, which the Assyrians dis¬
dain, and set at a distance from them, as if they
were out of its reach, and it could do them no harm,
behold, it comes from far; a messenger in the name
of the Lord comes from' as far off as heaven itself;
he is a messenger of wrath, burning with his anger.
God’s lips are full of indignation at the blasphemy
of Rabshakeh, who compared the God rf Israel
with the gods of the heathen; his tongue is as a de¬
vouring fire, for he can speak his proud enemies
to ruin; his very breath comes with as much force
as an overflowing stream, and with it he shall slay
the wicked, ch. xi. 4. He does not stifle or smother
his resentments, as men do theirs, when they are
either causeless or impotent; but he shall cause his
glorious voice to be heard, when he proclaims war
with an enemy that sets him at defiance, v. 30. He
shall display the indignation of his anger, anger in
the highest degree; it shall be as the flame of a de¬
vouring fire, which carries and consumes all before
it; with lightning or dissipation, and with tempest
and hailstones, all which are the formidable phe¬
nomena of nature, and therefore expressive of the
terror of the Almighty God of nature.
II. The execution done by this anger of the Lord.
Men are often angry, when they can only threaten,
and talk big; but when God causes his glorious
voice to be heard, that shall not be all, he will show
the lighting down of his arm too, v. 30. The ope¬
rations of his providence shall accomplish the me¬
naces of his word; they that would not see the lift¬
ing up of his arm, (ch. xxvi. 11.) shall feel the
lighting down of it, and find, to their cost, that the
burthen thereof is heavy, (v. 27.) so heavy, that
they cannot bear it, nor bear up against it, but must
unavoidably sink and be crushed under it. Who
knows the power of his anger, or imagines what
an offended God can do?
Five things are here prepared for the execution:
1. Here is an overflowing stream, that shall reach
to the midst of the neek, shall quite overwhelm the
whole body of the army; and Sennacherib only, the
head of it, shall keep above water and escape this
stroke, while yet he is reserved for another in the
house of Nisroch his god. The Assyrian army had
been to Judah as an overflowing stream, reaching
144
ISAIAH, XXXI.
even to the neck, ( ch . viii. 7, 8.) and now the breath
oi God’s wrath will be so to it.
2. Here is a sieve of vanity, with which God
would sift those nations of which the Assyrian army
was composed, in 28. The great God can sift na¬
tions, for they are all before him as the small dust
of the balance: he will sift them, not to gather out
of them any that should lie preserved, but so as to
shake them one against another, put them into con¬
sternation, and shake them all away at last; for it is
a sieve of vanity (which retains nothing) that they
are shaken with, and they are found all chaff.
3. Here is a bridle, which God has in their jaws,
to curb and restrain them from doing the mischief
they would do, and to force and constrain them to
serve his purposes against their own will, ch. x. 7.
God particularly says of Sennacherib, {ch. xxxvii.
29.) that he will put a hook in his nose, and a bri¬
dle in his lips; it is a bridle causing them to err,
forcing them to such methods as will certainly be
destructive to themselves and their interest, and
in which they will be infatuated. God with a word
guides his people into the right way, {v. 21.) but
with a bridle he turns his enemies headlong upon
their own ruin.
4. Here is a rod, and a staff", even the voice of the
Lord, his word giving orders concerning it, with
which the Assyrian shall be beaten down, v. 31.
The Assyrian had been himself a rod, in God’s
hand, for the chastising of his people, and had
smitten them — {ch. x. 5.) that was a transient rod;
but against the Assyrian shall go forth a grounded
staff, that shall give a steady blow, shall stick close
to him, and strike home, so as to leave an impres¬
sion upon him; it is a staff with a foundation, found¬
ed upon the enemies’ deserts, and God’s determi¬
nate counsel; it is a consumption determined; {ch.
x. 23.) and therefore there is no escaping it, no
getting out of the reach of it, it shall pass in every
place where an Assyrian is found, and the Lord
shall lay it upon him, and cause it to rest, v. 32.
Such is the woful case of those that persist in en¬
mity to God; the wrath of God abides on them.
5. Here is Tophet ordained and prepared for
them, v. 33. The valley of the son of Hinnom, ad¬
joining to Jerusalem, was called Tophet; in that
valley it is supposed many of the Assyrian regi¬
ments lay encamped, and were there slain by the
destroying angel; or there the bodies of those that
were so slain, were burned. Hezekiah had lately,
and from yesterday, (so the word is,) ordained it;
that is, say some, lie had rid it of the images that
were set up in it, to which they there burnt their
children, and so prepared it to be a receptacle
for the dead bodies of their enemies; for the king
of Assyria, for his army, it is prepared, and there
is fuel enough ready to burn them all; and they shall
be consumed as suddenly and effectually as if the
fire were kept burning by a continual stream of
brimstone, for such the breath of the Lord, his
word and his wrath, will be to it. Now as the pro¬
phet, in the foregoing promises, slides insensibly
into the promises of gospel-graces and comforts, so
here, in the threatening of the ruin of Sennache¬
rib’s army, he points at the final and everlasting
destruction of all impenitent sinners. Our Saviour
calls the future misery of the damned, Gehenna, in
allusion to the valley of Hinnom, which gives some
countenance to the applying of this to that misery,
as also that in the Apocalypse, that is so often called
the lake that burns with fire and brimstone. This
is said to be prepared of old for the devil and his
angels, for the greatest of sinners, the proudest, and
that think themselves not accountable to any for
what they say and do; even for kings it is prepared.
It is deep and large, sufficient to receive the world
of the ungodly; the pile thereof is fire and much
wood. God’s wrath is the fire, and sinners make
themselves fuel to it; and the breath of the Lord
(the power of his anger) kindles it, and will keep it
ever burning. See ch. lxvi. 24. Wherefore stand
in awe and sin not.
III. The great joy which this should occasion to
the people of God; the Assyrian’s fall is Jerusalem’s
triumph; {v. 29.) Ye shall have a song as in the
night, a psalm of praise, such as they sing, who by
night stand in the house of the Lord, and sing to his
glory who^gv'ws songs in the night. It shall not be
a song of vain mirth, but a sacred song, such as was
sung when a holy solemnity was kept in a gra\e
and religious manner. Our jov in the fall of the
church’s enemies must be a holy joy, gladness of
heart, as when one goes, with a pipe, (such as the
sons of the prophets used when they prophesied, 1
Sam. x. 4.) to the mountain of the Lord, there to
celebrate the praises of the Mighty One of Israel.
Nay, in every place where the divine vengeance
shall pursue the Assyrians, they shall nrt only fall
unlamented, but all their neighbours shall attend
their fall with tabrets and harps, pleased to see how
God, in battles of shaking, such as shake them out
of the world, fights with them; {v. 32.) for when
the wicked perish, there is shouting; and it is with
a particular satisfaction that wise and good men see
the ruin of those who, like the Assyrians, have in¬
solently bid defiance to God, and trampled upon all
mankind.
CHAP. XXXI.
This chapter is an abridgment of the foregoing chapter;
the heads of it are much the same. Here is, I. A wo
to those who, when the Assyrian army invaded them,
trusted to the Egyptians, and not to God for succour, v.
1 . . 3. II. Assurance given of the care God would take
of Jerusalem in that time of danger and distress, v. 4, 5.
III. A call to repentance and reformation, v. 6, 7. IV.
A prediction of the fall of the Assyrian army, and the
fright which the Assyrian king should thereby be put
into, v. 8, 9.
1. to them that go down to Egypt
V ▼ for help, and stay on horses, and
trust in chariots, because they arc many
and in horsemen, because they are very
strong: but they look not unto the Holy
One of Israel, neither seek the Loud ! 2.
Yet he also is wise, and will bring evil, and
will not call back his words; but will arise
against the house of the evil-doers, and
against the help of them that work iniquity.
3. Now the Egyptians are men, and not
God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit.
When the Lord shall stretchout his hand,
both he that helpeth shall fall, and he that
is holpen shall fall down, and they all shall
fail together. 4. For thus hath the Lord
spoken unto me, Like as the lion and the
young lion roaring on his prey, when a mul
titude of shepherds is called forth against
him, he will not be afraid of their voice, nor
abase himself for the noise of them : so shall
the Lord of hosts come down to fight for
mount Zion, and for the hill thereof. 5. As
birds flying, so will the Lord of hosts defend
Jerusalem; defending also he will deliver it.
mid passing over he will preserve it.
This is the last of four chapters together, that be¬
gin with wo; and they are all woes to the sinners
ISAIAH, XXXI. 1U
that were found among the professing people of
God; to tUe drunkards of Eflhraim, (ch. xxviii. 1.)
to Ariel, ( ch . xxix. 1.) to the rebellious children,
( ch . xxx. 1.) and here, to them that go down to
Ego fit for help.; for men’s relation to the church
will not secure them from divine woes, if they live
in contempt of divine laws. Observe,
I. What the sin was, that is here reproved, v. 1.
1. Idolizing the Egyptians, and making court to
them, as if happy were the people that had the
Egyptians for their friends and allies. They go
down to Egypt for help in every exigence; as if the
worshippers' of false gods had a better interest in
heaven, and were more likely to have success on
earth, than the servants of the living and true God.
That which invites them to Egypt, is, that the
Egyptians have many chariots to accommodate
them with, and horses and horsemen that were
strong; and if they could get a good body of forces
from thence into their service, they would think
themselves able to deal with the king’of Assyria and
his numerous army. Their kings were forbidden
to multiply horses' and chariots, and were told of
the folly of trusting to them; (Ps. xx. 7.) but they
think themselves wiser than their Bible. 2. Slight¬
ing the God of Israel; They look not to the Holy
One of Israel; they treat him as if he were not
worth taking notice of in this distress; they advise
not with him, seek not his favour, nor are in any
care to make him their Friend.
II. The gross absurdity and follv of this sin.
1. They neglected one whom, if they would not
hope in him, they had reason to fear. They do not
seek the Lord, nor make their application to him,
yet he also is wise, v. 2. They are solicitous to get
the Egyptians into an alliance with them, because
thev have the reputation of a politic people; and is
not God wise too? And would not infinite wisdom,
engaged on their side, stand them in more stead than
all the policies of Egypt? They are at the pains of
going down to Egypt, a tedious journey, when they
might have had better advice, and better help, by
looking up to heaven, and would not. But if they
will not court God’s wisdom to act for them, they
shall find it act against them ; he is wise, too wise for
them to outwit, and he will bring evil upon those
who thus affront him; he will not call back his words
as men do, (because they are fickle and foolish,) but
he will rise against the house of the evil-doers, this
cabal of them that go down to Egypt; God will ap¬
pear to their confusion, according to the word that
tie has spoken, and will oppose the help they think
to bring in from the workers of iniquity. Some
think the Egyptians made it one condition of their
coming into an alliance with them, that they should
worship the gods of Egypt, and they consented to
it, and therefore they are both called evil-doers and
workers of iniquity.
2. They trusted to those who were unable to help
them, and would soon appear to be so, v. 3. Let
them know that the Egyptians, whom they depend
so much upon, are men, and not God. As it is good
for men to know themselves to be blit, men, (Ps. ix.
20.) so it is good for us to consider that those we
love and trust to are but men. They therefore can
do nothing without God, nothing against him, no¬
thing in comparison with him. They are men, and
therefore fickle and foolish, mutable and mortal,
here to-day, and gone to-morrow; they are men,
and therefore let us not make gods of them, by
making them our hope and confidence, and expect¬
ing that in them which is to be found in God only;
they are not God,, they cannot do that for us which
God can do, and will, if we trust in him. Let us
not then neglect him, to seek to them ; let us not for¬
sake the Rock of ages for broken reeds, nor the
Fountain of living waters for broken cisterns. The
V or,, iv. — T
Egyptians indeed have horses that are very strong;
but they are flesh, and not spirit, and therefore,
strong as they are, they may be wearied with a long
march, and become unserviceable, or wounded and
slain in battle, and leave their riders to be ridder
over. Every one knows this, that the Egyptians
are not God, and their horses are not spirit; but they
that seek to them for help do not consider it, else
they would not put such confidence in them. Sin¬
ners may be convicted of folly by the plainest and
most self-evident truths, which they cannot deny,
but will not believe.
3. They would certainly be ruined with the Egyp¬
tians they trusted in, v. 3. When the Lord does
but stretch out his hand, how easily, how effectual¬
ly, will he make them ashamed of their confidence
in Egvpt, and the Egyptians ashamed of the encou¬
ragement they gave them to trust in them : for he
that helps, and he that is holpen, shall fall together,
and their mutual alliance shall prove their joint ruin.
The Egyptians were shortly to be reckoned with,
as appears by the burthen of Egypt, (ch. xix.) and
then those who fled to them for shelter and succour
should fall with them, for there is no escaping the
judgments of God; evil pursues sinners, and it is
just with God to make that creature a scourge to
us, which we make an idol of.
4. They took God’s work out of his hands; they
pretended a great deal of care to preserve Jerusa¬
lem, in advising to an alliance with Egypt; and when
others would not fall in with their measures, they
pleaded self-preservation, and went to Egypt them¬
selves. Now the prophet here tells them that Je¬
rusalem should be preserved without aid from
Egypt, and that those who tarried there should be
safe, when those who fled to Egypt should be ruined.
Jerusalem was under God’s protection, and there¬
fore there was no occasion to put it under the pro¬
tection of Egypt: but a practical distrust of God’s
all-sufficiency is at the bottom of all our sinful de¬
partures from him to the creature.
The prophet tells them he had it from God’s own
mouth. Thus hath the I-ord spoken to me, we may
depend upon it;
(1.) That God would appear against Jerusalem’s
enemies with the boldness of a lion over his prey, v.
4. When the lion comes out to sieze his prey, a
multitude of shepherds come out against him ; (for
it becomes neighbours to help one another, when
persons or goods are in danger;) these shepherds
dare not come near the lion; all they can do is, to
make a noise, and with that they think to fright him
off. But does he regard it? No, he will not be afraid
of their voice, nor abase himself so far as to be in the
least moved by it, either to quit his prey, or to make
any more haste than otherwise he would do in seiz¬
ing it. Thus will the Lord of hosts come down to
fight for mount Zion, with such an unshaken, un¬
daunted resolution, not to be moved by any opposi¬
tion; and he will as easily and irresistibly destroy
the Assyrian army as a lion tears a lamb in pieces.
Whoever appear against God, they are but like a
multitude of poor simple shepherds shouting at a
lion, who scorns to take notice of them, or so much
as to alter his pace for them. Surely they that have
such a Protector need not go to Egypt for help.
(2.) That God would appear for Jerusalem’s
friends with the tenderness of a bird over her young,
v. 5. God was ready to gather Jerusalem, as a hen
gathers her brood under her wings; (Matth. xxiii.
37. ) but they that trusted to the Egyptians would
not. As birds flying to their nests with all possible
speed, when they see them attacked, and fluttering
about their nests with all possible concern, hovering
over their young ones to protect them, and drive
away the assailants, with such compassion and af¬
fection will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem.
ISAIAH, XXXI.
I 16
As an eagle stirs up her young when they are in
danger, takes them ancl bears them on her wings, so
the Lord led Israel out of Egypt: (Deut. xxxii. 11,
12. ) and he has now the same tender concern for
them that he had then, so that they need not flee
into Egypt again for shelter. Defending, he will
deliver it; he will so defend it as to secure the con¬
tinuance of its safety; not defend it for awhile, and
abandon it at last, but defend it so that it shall not
fall into the enemy’s hand; I will defend this city
to save it, ch. xxxvii. 35. Passing over, he will
preserve it; the word for passing over is used in that
sense only here and Exod. xii. 12, 23, 27. concern¬
ing the destroying angel’s passing over the houses of
the Israelites, when he slew all the first-born of the
Egyptians, to which story this refers here; the As¬
syrian army was to be routed by a destroying angel,
who should pass over Jerusalem, though that de¬
served to be destroyed, and draw his sword only
against the besiegers. They shall be slain by the
pestilence, but none of the besieged shall take the
infection. Thus he will again pass over the houses
of his people, and secure them.
6. Turn ye unto him from whom the chil¬
dren of Israel have deeply revolted. 7. For
in that day every man shall cast away his
idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which
your own hands have made unto you for a
sin. 8. Then shall the Assyrian fall with
the sword, not of a mighty man ; and the
sword, not of a mean man, shall devour
him: but he shall flee from the sword, and
his young men shall be discomfited. 9. And
he shall pass over to his strong hold for fear,
and his princes shall be afraid of the ensign,
saith the Lord, whose fire is in Zion, and
his furnace in Jerusalem.
This explains the foregoing promise of the de¬
liverance of Jerusalem; she shall be fitted for de¬
liverance, and then it shall be wrought for her; for
in that method God delivers.
1. Jerusalem shall be reformed, and so she shall
De delivered from her enemies within her walls, v.
6, 7. Here is, (1.) A gracious call to repentance.
This was the Lord’s voice crying in the city, the
voice of the rod, the voice of the sword, and the
voice of the prophets interpreting the judgment;
“ Turn ye, O turn ye now, from your evil ways,
unto God, return to your allegiance to him from
whom the children of Israel have deeply revolted,
from whom you, O children of Israel, have revolt¬
ed.” He reminds them of their birth and parent¬
age, that they were children of Israel, and therefore
under the highest obligations imaginable to the God
of Israel, as an aggravation of their revolt from him,
and as an encouragement to them to return to him.
They have been backsliding children, yet children;
therefore let them return, and their backslidings
shall be healed: they have deeply revolted, with
great address, as they supposed, the revolters are
profound; (Hos. v. 2.) but it will prove that they have
revolted dangerously ; the stain of their sins is gone
deep into their nature, not to be easily got out, like
the blackness of the Ethiopian; They have deeply
corrupted themselves, (Hos. ix. 9.) they have sunk
deep into misery, and cannot easily recover them¬
selves; therefore you have need to hasten your re¬
turn to God. (2.) A gracious promise of the good
success of this call; (v. 7.) In that day every man
shall cast away his idols, in obedience to Hezekiah’s
orders, which, till they were alarmed by the Assy¬
rian invasion, many refused to do. That is a happy
fright which frightens us from our sins. It shall
be a general reformation; every man shall cast away
his own idols; shall begin with them, before he un¬
dertakes to demolish other people’s idols, which
there will be no need of, when every man reforms
himself. It shall be a thorough reformation: for
they shall part with their idolatry, their beloved
sin, with their idols of silver and gold, their idols
that they are most fond of. Many make an idol of
their silver and gold, and by the’ love of that are
drawn to revolt from God; but those that turn to
God cast that away out of their hearts, and will be
ready to part with it when God calls. It shall be a
reformation upon a right principle, a principle of
piety, not of politics, they shall cast away their
idols, because they have been unto them for a sin,
an occasion of sin ; therefore they will have nothing
to do with them, though they had been the work of
their own hands, and upon that account they had a
particular fondness for them. Sin is the work of
our own hands, but in working it we have been
working our own ruin, and therefore we must cast
it away: and those are strangely wedded to it, who
will not be prevailed with to cast it away, when
they see that otherwise they themselves will be cast¬
aways. Some make this to be only a prediction that
those who trust in idols, when they find they stand
them in no stead, will cast them away in indigna¬
tion. But it agrees so exactly with ch. xxx. 22.
that I rather take it as a promise of a sincere refor¬
mation.
2. Jerusalem’s besiegers shall be routed, and so
she shall be delivered from the enemies about her
walls; the former makes way for this. If a people
return to God, they may leave it to him to plead
their cause against their enemies. Then, when
they have cast away their idols, then shall the Assy¬
rian fall, v. 8, 9. (1.) The army of the Assyrians
shall be laid dead upon the spot by the sword, not
of a mighty man, nor of a mean man, nor of any man
at all, either Israelite or Egyptian, not forcibly by
the sword of a mighty man, not surreptitiously by
the sword of a mean man, but by the sword of an
angel, who strikes more strongly than a mighty
man, and yet more secretly than a mean man; by
the sword of the Lord, and his power and wrath in
the hand of the angel: thus the young men of the
army shall melt, and be discomfited, and become
tributaries to death. When God has work to do
against the enemies of his church, we expect it must
be done by mighty men and mean men, officers and
common soldiers; whereas God can, if he pleases,
do it without either. He needs not armies of men,
who has legions of angels at command, Matth. xxvi.
53. (2.) The king of Assyria shall flee for the same,
shall flee from that invisible sword, hoping to get
out of the reach of itj and he shall make the best
of his wav to his own dominions, shall pass over to
some strong hold of his own, for fear lest the Jews
should pursue him, now that his army was routed.
Sennacherib had been very confident that he should
make himself master of Jerusalem, and in the most
insolent manner had set both God and Hezekiah at
defiance; yet now he is made to tremble for fear of
both. God can strike a terror into the proudest of
men, and make the stoutest heart to tremble. See
Job xviii. 11. — xx. 24. His princes that accompany
him shall be afraid of the ensign, shall be in a con¬
tinual fright at the remembrance of the ensign in
the air, which perhaps the destroying angel dis¬
played before he gave the fatal blow. Or, they
shall be afraid of every ensign they see, suspecting
it is a party of the Jews pursuing them. The ban¬
ner that God displays for the encouragement of his
people, (Ps. lx. 4.) will be a terror to his and their
enemies. Thus he cuts off the spirit of princes, and
is terrible to the kings of the earth. But who will
147
ISAIAH,
do this? It is the Lord, whose fire is in Zion, and
his furnace in Jerusalem; [1.] Whose residence is
there, and who there keeps house, as a man does
where his fire and his oven are; it is the city of the
great King, and let not the Assyrians think to turn
him out of the possession of his own house. [2.]
Who is there a consuming Fire to all his enemies,
and will make them as a fiery' oven in the day of
his wrath, Ps. xxi. 9. He is himself a Wall of fire
round about Jerusalem, so that whoever assaults
her, does it at his peril, Zecli. ii. 5. Rev. xi. 5.
[3.] Who has his altar there, on which the holy
hre is continually kept burning, and sacrifices daily
offered to his honour, and with which he is well-
pleased'; and therefore he will defend this city, es¬
pecially having an eye to the great Sacrifice which
was there also to be offered, of which all the sacri¬
fices were types. If we keep up the fire of holy
love and devotion in our hearts and houses, we may
depend upon God to be a Protection to us and them.
CHAP. XXXII.
This chapter seems to be such a prophecy of the reign of
Hezekiah, as amounts to an abridgment of the history
of it, and this with an eye to the kingdom of the Mes¬
siah, whose government was typified uy the thrones of
the house of David; for which reason he is so often
called the Son of David. Here is, I. A prophecy of that 1
good work of reformation with which he should begin j
nis reign, and the happy influence it should have upon ;
the people, who had been wretchedly corrupted and de¬
bauched in the reign of his predecessor, v. 1 . .8. II. A |
prophecy of the great disturbance that would be given to
the kingdom in the middle of his reign by the Assyrian
invasion, v. 9. . 14. III. A promise of better times after- '
ward, toward the latter end of his reign, in respect both |
of piety and peace, (v. 15.. 20.) which promise may be
supposed to look as far forwa'rd as the days of the Mes¬
siah.
1. TJEHOLD, a king shall reign in righ-
J J teousness, and princes shall rule in
judgment. 2. And a man shall be as a
hiding-place from the wind, and a covert
from the tempest; as rivers of water in a
dry place; as the shadow of a great rock in
a weary land. 3. And the eyes of them that
see shall not be dim; and the ears of them
that hear shall hearken. 4. The heart also
of the rash shall understand knowledge, and
the tongue of the stammerers shall be ready
to speak plainly. 5. The vile person shall
be no more called liberal, nor the churl said
to be bountiful. 6. For the vile person will
speak villany, and his heart will work
iniquity, to practise hypocrisy, and to utter
error against the Lord, to make empty the
soul of the hungry; and he will cause the
drink of the thirsty to fail. 7. The instru¬
ments also of the churl are evil: he de-
viseth wicked devices to destroy the poor
with lying words, even when the needy
speaketh right. 8. But the liberal deviseth
liberal things; and by liberal things shall he
stand.
We have here the description of a flourishing
kingdom; “Blessed art thou, 0 land, when it is
thus with thee, when kings, princes, and people,
are, in their places, such as they should be.” It
may be taken as a directory both to magistrates and
subjects, what both ought to do; or as a panegyric
to Hezekiah, who ruled well, and saw something of
, XXXII.
the happy effects of his good government: and it
was designed to make the people sensible how happy
they were under his administration, and how care¬
ful they should be to improve the advantages of it,
and withal to direct them to look for the kingdom of
Christ, and the times of reformation which that
kingdom should introduce.
It is here promised, and prescribed, for the com¬
fort of the church:
I. That magistrates should do their duty in their
places, and the powers answer the great ends for
which they were ordained of God, v. 1, 2. 1. There
shall be a king and princes that shall reign and
rule; for it cannot go well when there is no king in
Israel. The princes must have a king, a monarch
over them as supreme, in whom they may unite;
and the king must have princes under him as offi¬
cers, by whom he may act, 1 Pet. ii. 13, 14. They
both shall know their place, and fill it up; the king
shall reign, and yet, without any diminution to his
just prerogative, the princes shall rule in a lower
sphere, and all for the public good. 2. They shall use
their power according to law, and not against it; they
shall reign in righteousness and in judgment, with
wisdom and equity, protecting the good, and pun¬
ishing the bad : and those kings and princes Christ
owns as reigning by him, who decree justice; (Prov.
viii. 15.) such a King, such a Prince, Christ him¬
self is; he reigns by rule, and in righteousness will
he judge the world, ch. ix. 7 — 11. iv. 3. Thus they
shall be great blessings to the people, v. 2. A man,
that man, that king that reigns in righteousness,
shall be as a hiding-filace. When princes are as
they should be, people are as they would be. (1.)
They are sheltered and protected from many mis¬
chiefs; this good magistrate is a covert to the sub¬
ject from the tempest of injury and violence; he
defends the poor and fatherless, that they be not
made a prey of by the mighty. Whither should op¬
pressed innocency flee, when blasted by reproach,
or borne down by violence, but to the magistrate as
its hiding-place? To him it appeals, and by him it
is righted. (2.) They are refreshed and comforted
with many blessings; this good magistrate gives
such countenance to those that are poor, and in dis¬
tress, and such encouragement to every thing that
is praiseworthy, that he is as rivers of water in a
dry place, cooling and cherishing the earth, and
making it fruitful; and as the shadow of a great
rock, under which a poor traveller may shelter
himself from the scorching heat of the sun in a wea¬
ry land. It is a great reviving to a good man, who
makes conscience of doing his duty, in the midst of
contempt and contradiction, at length to be backed,
and favoured, and smiled upon, in it by a good ma¬
gistrate. All this, and much more, the Man Christ
Jesus is to all the willing, faithful, subjects of his
kingdom. When the greatest evils befall us, not
only the wind, but the tempest, when storms of
guilt and wrath beset us, and beat upon us, they
drive us to Christ, and in him we are not only safe,
but satisfied that we are so; in him we find ri¬
vers of water for them that hunger and thirst after
righteousness, all the refreshment and comfort that
a needy soul can desire, and the shadow, not cf a
tree, which sun or rain may beat through, but of a
rock, of a great rock, which reaches a great way
for the shelter of the traveller. Some observe here,
that as the covert, and the hiding-place, and the
rock, do themselves receive the battering of the
wind and storm, to save those from them that take
shelter in them, so Christ bore the storm himself, to
keep it off from us.
II. That subjects shall do their duty in their
places.
1. They shall be willing to be taught, and to un¬
derstand "things aright; they shall lay aside their
148
ISAIAH,
prejudices against their rulers and teachers, and
submit to the light and power of truth, v. 3. When
this blessed work of reformation is set on foot, and
men do their parts towards it, God will not be want¬
ing to do his: then the eyes of them that see, of the
prophets, the seers, shall not be dim; but God will
bless them with visions, to be by them communica¬
ted to the people; and those that read the word
written, shall no longer have a vail upon their
hearts, but shall see things clearly; then the ears
of them that hear the word preached, shall hearken
diligently, and readily receive what they hear; and
not be so dull of hearing as they have been. This
shall be done by the grace of God, especially gospel-
grace; for the hearing ear , and the seeing eye, the
Lord has made, has new-made, even both of them.
2. There shall be a wonderful change wrought in
them by that which is taught them, v. 4. (1.) They
shall have a clear head, and be able to discern things
that differ, and distinguish concerning them. The
heart of those that were hasty and rash, and could
not take time to digest and consider things, shall
now be cured of their precipitation, and shall un¬
derstand knowledge, for the Spirit of God will
open their understanding; this blessed work Christ
wrought in his disciples after his resurrection,
(Luke xxiv. 45.) as a specimen of what he would
do for all his, in giving them an understanding, 1
John v. 20. The pious designs of good princes are
then likely to take effect, when their subjects allow
themselves liberty to consider, and to think, so free¬
ly as to take things right. (2.) They shall have a
ready utterance; the tongue of the stammerers, that
used to blunder whenever they spake of the things
of God, shall now be ready to speak plainly, as those
that understand what they speak of, that believe,
and therefore speak. There shall be a great in¬
crease of such clear, distinct, and methodical know¬
ledge in the things of God, that those from whom
one would not have expected it, shall speak intelli¬
gently of those things, very much to the honour of
God, and the edification of others. Their hearts
being full of this good matter, their tongues shall be
as the pen of a ready writer, Ps. xlv. 1.
3. The differences between good and evil, virtue
and vice, shall be kept up, and no more confounded
by those who put darkness for light, and light for
darkness; (v. 5.) The vile shall no more be called
liberal; (1.) Bad men shall no more be preferred
by the prince. When a king reigns in justice, he
will not put those in places of honour and power
that are ill-natured, and of base and sordid spirits,
and care not what injury or mischief they do, so
they may but compass their own ends. Such are
vile persons; (as Antiochus is called, Dan. xi. 21.)
when they are advanced, they are called liberal and
bountiful, they are called benefactors, (Luke xxii.
25.) but it shall not always be thus; when the world
grows wiser, men shall be preferred according to
their merit; and honour (which was never thought
seemly for a fool, Prov. xxvi. 1.) shall no longer be
thrown away upon such. (2.) Bad men shall be no
more had in reputation among the people, nor vice
disguised with the colours of virtue. It shall no
more be said to Nabal, Thou art JVadib; (so the
words are;) such a covetous muckworm as Nabal
was, a fool but for his money, shall not be compli¬
mented with the title of a gentleman, or a prince;
nor shall they call a churl, that minds none but him¬
self, does no good with what he has, but is an un¬
profitable burthen of the earth. My lord; or, rather,
they shall not say of him, He is rich; for so the word
signifies: those only are to be reckoned rich, that
are rich in good works; not those that have abun¬
dance, but those that use it well. In short, it is well
with a people, when men are generally valued by
their virtue, and usefulness, and beneficence to man-
XXXII.
kind, and not by their wealth, or titles of honour.
Whether this was fulfilled in the reign of Heze-
kiah, and how far it refers to the kingdom of Christ,
(in which we are sure men are judged of by what
they are, not by what they have, nor is any man’s
character mistaken,) we will not say; but it pre¬
scribes an excellent rule both to prince and people,
to respect men according to their personal merit.
To enforce this rule, here is a description both of
the vile person and of the liberal; and by it we shall
see such a vast difference between them, that we
must quite forget ourselves if we pay that respect to
the vile person and the churl, which is due only to
the liberal.
[1.] A vile person and a churl will do mischief,
and the more if he be preferred, and have power
in his hand; his honours will make him worse and
not better, v. 6, 7. See the character of these base
ill-conditioned men. First, They are always plot¬
ting some unjust thing or other, designing ill either
to particular persons, or to the public, and contriv¬
ing how to bring it about; and so many silly piques
they have to gratify, and mean revenges, that there
appears not in them the least spark of generosity;
their hearts will be still working some iniquity or
other. Observe, There is the work of the heart, as
well as the work of the hands: as thoughts are
words to God, so designs are works in his account.
See what pains sinners take in sin; they labour at
it, their hearts are intent upon it, and with a great
deal of art and application they work iniquity.
They devise wicked devices with all the subtlety
of the old serpent, and a great deal of deliberation,
which makes the sin exceeding sinful; for the more
there is of plot and management in a sin, the more
there is of Satan in it. Secondly, They carry on
their plots by trick and dissimulation; when they
are meditating iniquity, they practise hypocrisy,
feign themselves just men, Luke xx. 20. The most
abominable mischiefs shall be disguised with the
most plausible pretences of devotion to God, regard
to man, and concern for some common good. Those
are the vilest of men, that intend the worst mis¬
chiefs when they speak fair. Thirdly, They speak
villany. When they are in a passion, you will see
what they are by the base ill language they give to
those about them, which no way becomes men of
rank and honour; or, in giving verdict or judgment,
they villanously put false colours upon things, to
pervert justice. Fourthly, They affront God, who is a
righteous God, and loves righteousness: they utter
error against the Lord, and therein they practise pro¬
faneness; for so the word signifies, which we trans¬
late hypocrisy. They give an unjust sentence, and
then profanely make use of the name of God for the
ratification of it; as if, because the judgment is God’s,
(Deut. i. 17.) therefore their false and unjust judg¬
ment was his; this is uttering error against the
Lord, under pretence of uttering truth and justice
for him: and nothing can be more impudently done
against God, than to patronize wickedness with his
name. Fifthly, They abuse mankind, those parti¬
cularly whom they are bound to protect and relieve.
1. Instead of supplying the wants of the poor, they
impoverish them, they make empty the souls of the
hungry; either taking away the food they have, or,
which is almost equivalent, denying the supply
which they want, and which they have to give.
And they cause the drink of the thirsty to fail; they
cut off the relief they used to have, though they
need it as much as ever. Those are vile persons
indeed, that rob the spital. 2. Instead of righting
the poor, when they appeal to their judgment, they
contrive to destroy the poor, to ruin them in their
courts of judicature with lying words in fav< ur of
the rich, to whom they are plainly partial: yea,
though the needy speak right, though the evidence
ISAIAH,
be ever so full for them to make out the equity of
their cause, it is the bribe that governs them, not
the right. Lastly, These churls and vile persons
have always bad instruments about them, that are
ready to serve their villanous purposes; All their
servants are wicked; there is no design so palpably
unjust, but there may be found those that would be
employed as tools to put it in execution. The in¬
struments of the churl are evil, and one cannot ex¬
pect otherwise; but this is our comfort, that they
can do no more mischief than God permits them.
[2.] One that is truly liberal, and deserves the
honour of being called so, makes it his business to
do good to every body, according as his sphei'e is,
v. 8. Observe, First, The care he takes, and the
contrivances he has, to do good. He devises liberal
things; as much as the churl or niggard projects
how to save and lay up what he has for himself
only, so much the good charitable man projects how
to use and lay out what he has in the best manner
for the good of others. Charity must be directed
by wisdom, and liberal things done prudently and
with device, that the good intention of them may be
answered, that it may not be charity misplaced.
The liberal man, when he has done all the liberal
things that are in his power, devises liberal things
for others to do according to their power, and puts
them upon doing them. Secondly, The comfort he
takes, and the advantage he has, in doing good; by
liberal things he shall stand, or be established. The
providence of God will reward him for his liberali¬
ty with a settled prosperity and an established re¬
putation. The grace of God will give him abun¬
dance of satisfaction and confirmed peace in his own
bosom; what disquiets others shall not disturb him;
his heart is fixed. This is the recompense of cha¬
rity, Ps. cxii. 5, 6. Some read it. The prince, or ho¬
nourable man, will take honourable courses; and by
such honourable or ingenuous courses he shall stand,
or be established. It is well with a land, when the
honourable of it are indeed men of honour, and
scorn to do a base thing; when its king is thus the
son of nobles.
9. Rise up, ye women that are at ease ;
hear my voice, ye careless daughters ; give
ear unto my speech. 1 0. Many days and
years shall ye be troubled, ye careless wo¬
men : for the vintage shall fail, the gather¬
ing shall not come. 1 1 . T remble, ye wo¬
men that are at ease ; be troubled, ye care¬
less ones : strip ye, and make ye bare, and
gird sackcloth upon your loins. 12. They
shall lament for the teats, for the pleasant
fields, for the fruitful vine. 13. Upon the
land of my people shall come up thorns and
briers, yea, upon all the houses of joy in the
joyous city : 1 4. Because the palaces shall
be forsaken ; the multitude of the city shall
be left; the forts and towers shall be for
dens for ever, a joy of wild asses, a pasture
of flocks; 15. Until the Spirit be poured
upon us from on high, and the wilderness
be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field
be counted for a forest. 16. Then judg¬
ment shall dwell in the wilderness, and
righteousness remain in the fruitful field.
1 7. And the work of righteousness '-hall be
peace ; and the effect of righteousness, quiet¬
ness and assurance for ever. 18. And my
, XXXII. HI/
people shall dwell in a peaceable habita¬
tion, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet
resting-places, 19. When it shall hail,
coming down on the forest ; and the city
shall be low in a low place. 20. Blessed
are ye that sow beside all waters, that send
forth thither the feet of the ox and the ass.
In these verses we have God rising up to judg¬
ment against vile persons, to punish them for their
villany; but, at length, returning in mercy to the li¬
beral, to reward them for their liberality.
I. When there was so great a corruption of man¬
ners, and so much provocation given to the holy God,
bad times might well be expected, and here is a
warning given of such times coming. The alarm is
sounded to the women that were at ease, (v. 9.) and
the careless daughters, to feed whose pride, vanity,
and luxury, their husbands and fathers were tempt¬
ed to starve the poor. Let them hear what the pro¬
phet has to say to them in God’s name; “ Rise up,
and hear with reverence and attention.”
1. Let them know that God was about to bring
wasting, desolating judgments upon the land in
which they lived in pleasure, and were wanton.
This seems to refer primarily to the desolations
made by Sennacherib's army, when he seized all
the fenced cities of Judah: but when those words,
many days and years, must be rendered, as the
margin reads them, days above a year, something
above a year shall this havock be in making; so
long it was from the first entrance of that army into
the land of Judah, to the overthrow of it. But it is
applicable to the wretched disappointment which
they will certainly meet with, first or last, that set
their hearts upon the world, and place their happi¬
ness in it; Ye shall be troubled, ye careless women. It
will not secure us from trouble to cast away care when
we are at ease; nay, to those who affect to live care¬
lessly, even little trouble will be great vexations, and
press hard upon them. They were careless and at
ease, because they had money enough and mirth
enough. But the prophet here tells them, ( 1. ) That
the country whence they had their rents and dainties,
should shortly be laid waste; the vintage should fail;
“And then what will ye do for wine to make merry
with? The gathering of-fruit shall not come, for
there shall none be gathered, and you will find the
want of them, v. 10. You will want the teats, the
good milk from the cows, the pleasant fields and
their productions; the useful fields that are service¬
able to human life, are the pleasant ones; you will
want the fruitful vine, and the grapes it used to yield
you.” The abuse of plenty is justly punished with
scarcity; and they deserve to be deprived of the
supports of life, who made them the food and fuel
of lust, and prepared them for Baal. (2. ) That the
cities too, the cities of Judah, where they lived at
ease, spent their rents and made themselves merry
with their dainties, should be laid waste too; (v. 13,
14.) Briers and thorns, the fruits of sin and the
curse, shall come up; not only upon the land of my
people, which shall lie uncultivated, but upon all
the houses of joy; the play-houses, the gaming¬
houses, the taverns in the joyous cities. When a
foreign army was ravaging the country, the houses
of joy, no doubt, became houses of mourning; then
the palaces, or noblemen’s houses, were forsaken
by their owners, who perhaps fled to Egypt for re¬
fuge; the multitude of the city were left by their
leaders to shift for themselves.' Then the stately
houses shall be for dens for ever, which had been as
forts and towers for strength and magnificence; they
shall be abandoned, the owners shall never return
to them, every body shall look upon them to be like
Jericho, an anathema; so that even when peace re-
150
ISAIAH,
turns, they shall not be rebuilt, but shall be thrown
,nto the waste; a joy of wild asses, and a pasture
of flocks. Thus is many a house brought to ruin
by sin; Jam seges est ubi Troja fuit ■ — Corn grows
on the site of Troy.
2. In the foresight of this, let them tremble, and
be troubled, strip them, and gird sackcloth upon
their loins, v. 11. This intimates not only that
when the calamity comes, they shall thus be made
ts tremble, and be forced to strip themselves, that
then God’s judgments would strip them, and make
them bare; but, (1.) That the best prevention of the
trouble would be to repent and humble themselves
for their sin?, and lie in the dust before God in true
remorse and godly sorrow, which would be the
lengthening out of their tranquillity. This is meet¬
ing God in the way of his judgments, and saving a
correction by correcting our own mistakes; those
only shall break that will not bend. (2.) That the
best preparation for the trouble would be to deny
themselves, and live a life of mortification, and to
sit loose to all the delights of sense. Those that
have already by a holy contempt of this world
stripped themselves, can easily bear to be stripped,
when trouble and death come.
II. While there was still a remnant that kept
their integrity, they had reason to hope for good
times at length, and such times the prophet here
gives them a pleasant prospect of. Such times they
saw in the latter end of the reign of Hezekiah; but
the prophecy may well be supposed to look further,
to the days of the Messiah, who is King of righte¬
ousness and King of peace, and to whom all the
prophets bear witness. Now observe,
1. How those blessed times shall be introduced;
by the pouring out of the Spirit from on high,
{y. 15.) which speaks not only of the good-will of
God towards us, but the good work of God in us;
f r then, and not till then, there will be good times,
when God by his grace gives men good hearts; and
therefore God’s ; giving his holy Spirit to them that
ask him, is, in effect, his giving them all good things,
as appears by comparing Luke xi. 13. with Matth.
vii. 11. This is the great thing that God’s people
comfort themselves with the hopes of, that the
Spirit shall be poured out upon them, that there
shall be a more plentiful effusion of the Spirit of
grace than formerly, according as the necessity of
the church, in. its desolate estate, calls for. This
comes from on high, and therefore they look up to
their Father in heaven for it. When God designs
favours for his church, he pours out his Spirit, both
to prepare his people to receive his favours, and to
qualify those whom he designs to employ as instru¬
ments of his favour, and give them success; for their
endeavours to repair the desolations of the church
are all fruitless, until the Spirit be poured out upon
them, and then the work is done suddenly. The
kingdom of the Messiah was brought in, and setup,
by ihe pouring out of the Spirit, (Acts ii.) and so it
is stdl kept up, and will be to the end.
2. Wh it a wonderfully happy change shall then
be made. That which was a wilderness, dry and
barren, shall become a fruitful field, and that which
we now reckon a fruitful field, in comparison with
what it shall be then, shall be counted for a forest;
Then shall the earth yield her increase. It is pro¬
mised, that in the days of the Messiah the fruit of
the earth shall shake like Lebanon. Ps. lxxii. 16.
Some apply this to the admission of the Gentiles
into the gospel-church, which made the wilderness
a fruitful field; and the rejection and exclusion of
tlie Jews, which made that a forest, which had been
a fruitful field. On the Gentiles was poured out a
spirit of life, but on the Jews a spirit of slumber.
See what is the evidence and effect of the pouring
nut of the Spirit upon any soul; it is thereby made
XXXII.
fruitful, and has its fruit unto holiness. Three
things go to make these times happy.
(1.) Judgment and righteousness, v. 16. When
the Spirit is poured out upon a land, then judgment
shall dwell in the wilderness, and turn it into a fruit¬
ful field; and righteousness shall remain in the
fruitful field, and make it yet more fruitful. Min¬
isters shall expound the law, and magistrates exe¬
cute it; and both so judiciously and faithfully, that
by both the bad shall be made good, and the good
made better; among all sorts of people, the poor
and low, and unlearned, that are neglected as the
wilderness, and the rich and great, and learned, that
are.valued as the fruitful field, there shall be right
thoughts of things, good principles commanding,
and conscience made of good and evil, sin and duty.
Or, in all parts of the land, both champaign and
enclosed, country and city, the ruder parts and those
that are more cultivated and refined, justice shall
be duly administered. The law of Christ introduces
a judgment or rule by which we must be governed,
and the gospel of Christ a righteousness by which
we must be saved; and wherever the Spirit is pour¬
ed out, both these dwell and remain as an ever¬
lasting righteousness.
(2. ) Peace and quietness, v. 17, 18. This is of
two kinds:
[1.] Inward peace, v. 17. This follows upon
the indwelling of righteousness, v. 16. Those in
whom that work is wrought shall experience this
blessed product of it. It is itself peace, and the
effect of it quietness and assurance for ever, a holy
serenity and security of mind, by which the soul
enjoys itself and its God, and it is not in the power
of this world to disturb it in those enjoyments.
Note, Peace and quietness, and everlasting assurance
may be expected, and shall be found, in the way
and work of righteousness. True satisfaction is to
be had only in true religion, and there it is to be had
without fail. Those are the quiet and peaceable
lives, that are spent in all godliness and honesty,
1 Tim. ii. 2. First, Even the work of righteousness
shall be peace; in the doing of our duty we shall
find abundance of true pleasure, a present great
reward of obedience in obedience. Though the
work of righteousness may be toilsome and costly,
and expose us to contempt, yet it is peace, such
peace as is sufficient to bear our charges. Secondly,
The effect of righteousness shall be quietness and
assurance, not only to the end of time, of our time,
and in the end, but to the endless ages of eternity.
Real holiness is real happiness, now, and shall be
perfect happiness, that is, perfect holiness, for ever.
[2.] Outward peace, v. 18. It is a great mercy
when those who by the grace of God have quiet
and peaceable spirits, are by the providence of God
made to dwell in quiet and peaceable habitations,
not disturbed in their houses or solemn assemblies.
When the terror of Sennacherib’s invasion was
over, the people, no doubt, were more sensible
than ever of the mercy of a quiet habitation; not
disturbed with the alarms of war. Let every
family study to keep itself quiet from strifes and
jars within; not two against three, and three against
two, in the house; and then put itself under God’s
protection to dwell safely, and to be quiet from the
fear of evil without. Jerusalem shall be a peace¬
able habitation; compare ch. xxxiii. 20. Even
when it shall hail, and there shall be a violent bat¬
tering storm coming down on the forest that lies
bleak, then shall Jerusalem be a quiet resting-place,
for the city shall be low in a low place; under the
wind, not exposed (as those cities are that stand
high) to the fury of the storm, but sheltered by the
mountains that are round about Jerusalem, Ps.
exxv. 2. The high forts and towers are brought
down; (v 14.) but the city that lies low shall oe 2
ISAIAH, XXX11I.
161
uiet resting-place. Those are most safe, and may
well most at ease, that are humble, and are willing
to dwell low, v. 19. Those that would dwell in a
peaceable habitation must be willing to dwell low,
and in a low place. Some think here is an allusion
to the preservation of the land of Goshen from the
plague of hail, which made great destruction in the
land of Egypt.
(3. ) Plenty and abundance. There shall be such
good crops gathered in every where, and every
year, that the husbandmen shall be commended
and thought happy, who sow deside all waters, (i>.
20.) who sow all the grounds that are fit for seed-
ness, who cast their bread, or bread-corn, upon the
waters, Eccl. xi. 1. God will give the increase,
but then the husbandman must be industrious, and
mind his business, and sow beside all waters; which
if he do, the corn shall come up so thick and rank,
that he shall turn in his cattl ’, even the ox and the
ass, to eat the tops of it, and keep it under. This
is applicable, [1.] To the preaching of the word.
Some think it points at the ministry of the apostles,
who, as husbandmen, went forth to sow their seed;
(Matth. xiii. 3.) and they sowed beside all waters,
they preached the gospel wherever they came.
Waters signify people, and they preached to multi¬
tudes. Wherever they found men’s hearts softened,
and moistened, and disposed to receive the word,
they cast in the good seed. And whereas, by the
law of Moses, the Jews were forbidden to plough
with an ox and an ass, (Deut. xxii. 10.)%vhich inti¬
mates that Jews and Gentiles should not intermix,
now that distinction shall be taken away, and both
the ox and the ass, both Jews and Gentiles, shall be
employed in, and enjoy the benefit of, the gospel-
hush indry. [2.] To works of charity; when God
sends these happy times, blessed are they that im¬
prove them in doing good with what they hav e,
that sow beside all waters, that embrace all oppor¬
tunities of relieving the necessitous; for in due sea¬
son they shall reap.
CHAP. XXXIII.
This chapter relates to the same events with that forego¬
ing: the distress of Judah and Jerusalem by Sennacherib’s
invasion, and their deliverance out of that distress by the
destruction of the Assyrian army. These are intermixed
in the prophecy, in the way of a pindaric. Observe, I.
The great distress that Judah and Jerusalem shall then
be brought into, v. 7.. 9. II. The particular frights
which the sinners in Zion should then be in, v 13, 14.
III. The prayers of good people to God in this distress,
v. 2. IV. The holy security which they should enjoy in
the midst of this trouble, v. 15, 16. V. The destruction
of the army of the Assyrians, (v. 1,3.) in which God
would be greatly glorified, v. 5, 10. . 12. VI. The en¬
riching of the Jews with the spoil of the Assyrian camp,
v. 4, 23, 24. VII. The happy settlement of Jerusalem,
and the Jewish state, upon this. Religion shall be up¬
permost, (v. 6.) and their civil state shall flourish, v.
17 . . 22. This was soon fulfilled, but is written for our
learning.
1 . AA70 to thee that spoilest, and thou
▼ ▼ wast not spoiled ; and dealest
treacherously, and they dealt not treacher¬
ously with thee ! when thou shalt cease to
spoil, thou shalt be spoiled ; and when thou
shalt make an end to deal treacherously,
they shall deal treacherously with thee. 2.
O Lord, be gracious unto us; we have
waited for thee; be thou their arm every
morning, our salvation also in the time of
trouble. 3. At the noise of the tumult the
oeople fled; at the lifting up of thyself the
nations were scattered. 4. And your spoil
shall be gathered like the gathering of the
caterpillar: as the running to and fro of
locusts shall he run upon them. 5. The
Lord is exalted ; for he dwelleth on high :
he hath filled Zion with judgment and
righteousness. 6. And wisdom and know¬
ledge shall be the stability of thy times, and
strength of salvation : the fear of the Lord
is his treasure. 7. Behold, their valiant
ones shall cry without ; the ambassadors of
peace shall weep bitterly. 8. The high¬
ways lie waste, the wayfaring man ceaseth:
he hath broken the covenant, he hath de¬
spised the cities, he regardeth no man. 9.
The earth mourneth and languisheth ; Le¬
banon is ashamed and hewn down ; Sharon
is like a wilderness ; and Bashan and Carmel
shake off their fruits. 10. Now will I rise,
saith the Lord; now will I be exalted;
now will 1 lift up myself. 11. Ye shall
conceive chaff ; ye shall bring forth stubble :
your breath as fire shall devour you. 12.
And the people shall be as the burnings of
lime; as thorns cut up shall they be burned
in the fire.
Here we have,
I. The proud and false Assyrian justly reckoned
with for all his fraud and violence, and laid under a
wo, v. 1. Observe, 1. The sin which the enemy
had been guilty of; he had spoiled the people of God",
and made a prey of them, and herein had broken
his treaty of peace with them, and dealt treacher¬
ously. Truth and mercy are two such sacred things,
and have so much of God in them, that those cannot
but be under the wrath of God, that make con¬
science of neither, but are perfectly lost to both, that
care not what mischief they do, what spoil they
make, what dissimulations they are guilty of, nor
what solemn engagements they violate, to compass
their own wicked designs. Bloody #id deceitful
men are the worst of men. 2. The aggravation of
this sin; he spoiled those that had never done him
any injury, and that he had no pretence to quarrel
with; and dealt treacherously with those that had
always dealt faithfullv with him. Note, The 1< ss
provocation we have from men to do a wrong thii »,
the more provocation we give to God by it. 3. The
punishment he should fall under, for this sin. He
that spoiled the cities of Judah shall have his own
army destroyed by an angel, and his camp plunder¬
ed by those whom he had made a prey of. The
Chaldeans shall deal treacherously with the As¬
syrians, and revolt from them. T wo of Sennache¬
rib’s own sons shall deal treacherously with him,
and basely murder him at his devotions. Note, The
righteous God often pays sinners in their own coin.
He that leads into captivity shall go into captivity,
Rev. xiii. 10. — xviii. 6. 4. The time when he shall
be thus dealt with; when he shall make an end to
spoil, and to deal treacherously ; not by repentance
and reformation, that might prevent his ruin, (Dan.
iv. 27.) but when he shall have done his worst,
when he shall have gone as far as God would permit
him to go, to the utmost of his tether, then the cup
of trembling shall be put into his hand. When he
shall have arrived at his full stature in impiety,
shall have filled up the measure of his iniquity, then
all shall be called over again; when he has done,
God will begin, for his day is coming.
152
ISAIAH,
II. The praying people of God earnest at the
throne of grace for mercy for the land now in its
distress; (v. 2.) “ O Lord, be merciful to us: men
are cruel, be thou gracious; we have deserved thy
wrath, but we entreat thy favour; and if we may
find thee propitious to us, we are happy ; the trouble
we are in cannot hurt us, shall not ruin us. It is in
vain to expect relief from creatures, we have no
confidence in the Egyptians; but we have waited
for thee only, resolving to submit to thee, whatever
the issue of the trouble be, and hoping that it shall
be a comfortable issue.” Those that by faith
humbly wait for God, shall certainly find him
gracious to them. They pray, 1. For those that
were employed in military services for them; “ Be
thou their arm every morning. Hezekiah, and his
princes, and all the men of war, need continual sup¬
plies of strength and courage from thee; supply
their need, therefore, and be to them a God all-
sufficient. Every morning, when they go forth
upon the business of the day, and perhaps have new
work to do, and new difficulties to encounter, let
them be afresh animated and invigorated, and as
the day, so let the strength be.” In our spiritual
warfare, our own hands are not sufficient for us, nor
can we bring any thing to pass unless God not only
strengthen our arms, (Gen. xlix. 24. ) but be himself
Our Arm; so entirely do we depend upon him as our
Arm every morning, so constantly do we depend
upon his power, as well as his compassions, which
are new every morning, Lam. iii. 23. If God leaves
us to ourselves any morning, we are undone; we
must therefore every morning commit ourselves to
him, and go forth in his strength to do the work of
the day in its day. 2. For the body of the people;
“ Be thou our salvation also in the time of trouble;
ours who sit still, and do not venture into the high
places of the field.” They depend upon God not
only as their Saviour, to work deliverance for them,
but as their Salvation itself; for whatever becomes
of their secular interests, they will reckon them¬
selves safe and saved, if they have him for their
God. If he undertake to be their Saviour, he will
be their Salvation; for as for God, his work' is per¬
fect. Some read it thus; “ Thou who wast their
Arm every morning, who wast the continual
Strength and Help of our fathers before us; be thou
our Salvation also in time of trouble; help as thou
helpedst them; they looked unto thee, and were
lightened; (Ps. xxxiv. 5.) let us then not walk in
darkness. ”
III. The Assyrian army ruined, and their camp
made a rich but cheap and easy prey to Judah and
Jerusalem. No sooner is the prayer made, (r. 2.)
than it is answered, ( v . 3.) nay, it is outdone. They
prayed that God would save them from their ene¬
mies; but he does more than that; he gives them
victory over their enemies, and abundant cause to
triumph; for, 1. The strength of the Assyrian camp
is broken, (u. 3.) when the destroying angel slew so
many thousands of them; At the noise of the tumult,
or the shrieks of the dying men, who, we may sup¬
pose, did not die silently, the rest of the people fled,
and shifted every one for his own safety. When
God did thus lift up himself, the several nations, or
clans, of which the army was composed, were
scattered. It was time to stir, when such an un¬
precedented plague broke out among them. When
God arises, his enemies are scattered, Ps. lxviii. 1.
2. The spoil of the Assyrian camp is seized, by way
of reprisal, for all the desolations of the defenced ci¬
ties of Judah; ( v . 4.) Your spoil shall be gathered
by the inhabitants of Jerusalem, like the gathering
of the caterpillar, and as the running to and fro of
locusts; the spoilers shall as easily, and as quickly,
make themselves masters of the riches of the Assy¬
rians, as a host of caterpillars, or locusts, make a
XXXI11.
field, or a tree, bare. Thus the wealth of the sin¬
ner is laid up for the just, and Israel enriched with
the spoil of the Egyptians. Some make the Assy¬
rians to be the caterpillars and locusts, which, when
they are killed, are gathered together in heaps, as
the frogs of Egypt, and are run upon, and trodden
to dirt.
IV. God and his Israel glorified and exalted
hereby. When the spoil of the enemy is thus ga¬
thered, 1. God will have the praise of it; (v. 5.)
The Lord is exalted; it is his honour thus to abase
proud men, and hide them in the dust, together;
thus he magnifies his own name, and his people
give him the glory of it, as Israel when the Egyp-
tians were drowned, Exod. xv. 1, 2, 8cc. He is
exalted as one that dwells on high, out of the reach
of their blasphemies, and that has an overruling
power over them, and, wherein they deal proudly,
delights to show himself above them; that does
what he will, and they cannot resist him. 2. His
people will have the blessing of it. W hen God
lifts up himself to scatter the nations that are in
confederacy against Jerusalem, (t>. 3.) then, as a
preparativ e for that, or, as the fruit and product of
it, he has filed Zion with judgment and righteous¬
ness; not only with a sense of justice, but with a
zeal for it, and a universal care that it be duly ad
ministered. It shall again be called. The city of
righteousness, ch. i. 26. In this the grace of God
is exalted, as much as his providence was in the
destruction of the Assyrian army. We may con¬
clude God has mercy in store for a people, when
he fills them with judgment and righteousness,
when all sorts of people, and all their actions and
affairs, are governed by them, and they are so full
of them, that no other consideration can crowd in to
sway them against these. Hezekiah and his people
are encouraged ( v . 6. ) with an assurance that God
would stand by them in their distress. Here is, (1.)
A gracious promise of God for them to stay them¬
selves upon — Wisdom and knowledge shall be the
stability of thy times, and strength of salvation.
Here is a desirable end proposed, and that is, the
stability of our times; that things be not disturbed
and unhinged at home, and the strength of salva¬
tion, deliverance from, and success against, ene¬
mies abroad. The salvation that God ordains for
his people has strength in it; it is a horn of salva¬
tion. And here are the way and means for obtain¬
ing this end — wisdom and knowledge; not only piety
but prudence. That is it, which, by the blessing
of God, will be the stability of our times, and the
strength of salvation. That wisdom which is first
pure, then peaceable, and which sacrifices private
interests to a public good; such prudence as this
will establish truth and peace, and fortify the bul¬
warks, in defence of them. (2.) A pious maxim
of state for Hezekiah and his people to govern
themselves by — The fear of the Lord is his treasure.
It is God’s treasure in the world, from which he
receives his tribute; or, rather, it is the prince’s
treasure. A good prince accounts it so, that wis¬
dom is better than gold; and he shall find it so.
Note, True religion is the true treasure of any
prince or people; it denominates them rich. Those
places that have plenty of Bibles and ministers, and
serious good people, are really rich ; and it contri¬
butes to that which makes a nation rich in this
world; it is therefore the interest of a people to
support religion among them, and to take heed of
every thing that threatens to hinder it.
V. The great distress that Jerusalem was brought
into, described; that they who believed the prophet
might know beforehand what troubles were coming,
and might provide accordingly; and that when the
foregoing promise of their deliverance should have
its accomplishment, the remembrance of the ex-
ISA [AH, XXXIII.
153
t'vmitv of their case might help to magnify God in
ir, and make them the more thankful, v. 7 — 9. It
is here foretold, 1. That the enemy would be very
insolent and abusive, and there would be no dealing
with him; either by treaties of peace, for he has
broken the covenant, and never hesitated at it, as if
it were below him to be a servant to his word; or,
bv the preparations of war, for he has despised the
cities; lie scorns to take notice either of their ap¬
peals to justice, or of their petitions for mercy. He
makes himself master of them so easily, (though
they are called fenced cities,) and meets with so
little resistance, that he despises them; and has no
relentings, when he puts all to the sword, for he re¬
gards no man; has no pity or concern, no not for
those that he is under particular obligations to. He
neither fears God, nor regards man; but is haughty
and imperious to every one. There are those that
take a pride in trampling upon all mankind, and
have neither veneration for the honourable, nor
compassjon for the miserable. 2. That therefore
he would not be brought to any terms of reconcilia¬
tion; The valiant ones of Jerusalem, being unable
to make their parts good with him, must be con¬
tentedly run down with noise and insolence, which
will make them cry without, because they cannot
serve their country, as they might have done,
against a fair adversary. The ambassadors sent by
Hezekiah to treat of peace, finding him so haughty
and unmanageable, shall weep bitterly for vexation
at the disappointment they had met with in their
negotiations; they shall weep like children, as des¬
pairing to find out any expedient to pacify him. 3.
That the country should be made quite desolate for
a time by his army. (1.) No man durst travel the
roads; so that a stop was put to trade and com¬
merce, and (which was worse) no man could safely
fo up to Jerusalem, to keep the solemn feasts; The
ighways lie waste. While the fields lie waste,
trodden like the highways, the highways lie waste,
untrodden like the fields, for the traveller ceases.
(2.) No man had any profit from the grounds, v. 9.
The earth used to rejoice in its own productions for
the service of God’s Israel, but now the enemies of
Israel eat them up, or tread them down; it mourns
and languishes; the country looks melancholy, and
the country people have misery in their countenan¬
ces, wanting necessary food for themselves and their
families; the wonted joy of harvest is turned into
lamentation, so withering and uncertain are all
worldly joys. The desolation is universal. That
part of the country which belonged to the ten tribes,
was already laid waste; Lebanon famed for cedars,
Sharon for roses, Bashan for cattle, Carmel for
com, all very fruitful, are now become like wilder¬
nesses, are ashamed to be called by their old names,
they are so unlike what they were. They shake
off their fruits, before their time, into the hand of
the spoiler, which used to be gathered seasonably
by the hand of the owner.
" VI. God appearing, at length, in hi-s glory against
this proud invader, v. 10 — 12. When things are
brought thus to the last extremity, 1. God will mag¬
nify himself. He had seemed to sit by as an uncon¬
cerned Spectator; “ But now will I arise, saith the
Lord; now will I appear and act, and therein I will
be not only evidenced, but exalted.” He will not
only demonstrate that there is a God that judges in
the earth, but that he is God over all, and higher
than the highest. Now will I lift u/i myself will
prepare for action, will act vigorously, and will be
glorified in it. God’s time to appear for his people,
is, when their affairs are reduced to the lowest ebb;
when their strength is gone, and there is none shut
up or left, Deut. xxxii. 36. When all other helpers
fail, then is God’s time to help. 2. He will bring
down the Assyrian; “You, O Assyrians, are big
VoL. IV. — II
with hopes that you shall have all the wealth of Je¬
rusalem for ycur own, and are in pain till it be so;
but all ycur hopes shall come to nothing. You shall
conceive chaff, and bring forth stubble, which arc
not only worthless and good for nothing, but com¬
bustible and proper fuel for the fire, which tnev
cannot escape, when your own breath, as fire, shall
devour you. The breath of God’s wrath, provoked
against you by the breath of your sins; your malig¬
nant breath, the threatenings and slaughter you
breathe out against the people of God, this shall de¬
vour you, and your blasphemous breath against
God and his name. God would make their own
tongues to fall upon them, and their own breath to
blow the fire that should consume them. And then
no wonder that the people are, as the burnings of
lime in a lime-kiln, all on fire together; and as
thorns cut up, which are dried and withered, and
therefore easily take fire, and are soon burnt up.
Such was the destruction of the Assyrian army; it
was like the burning up of thorns which can well be
spared, or the burning of lime, which makes it good
for something. The burning of that army enlight¬
ened the world with the knowledge of God’s power,
and made his name shine bright.
13. Hear, ye that are far off, what I have
done ; and ye that are near, acknowledge
my might. 14. The sinners in Zion are
afraid ; fearfulness hath surprised the hypo¬
crites: Who among us shall dwell with the
devouring fire? who among us shall dwell
with everlasting burnings? 15. He that
walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly,
he that despiseth the gain of oppressions,
that shaketli his hands from holding of
bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing
of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing
evil; 16. He shall dwell on high: his place
of. defence shall be the munitions of rocks;
bread shall be given him, his waters shall be
sure. 17. Thine eyes shall see the king in
his beauty: they shall behold the land that
is very far off. 1 8. Thy heart shall medi¬
tate terror. Where is the scribe? where is
the receiver? where is he that counted the
towers? i 9. Thou shalt not see a fierce peo¬
ple ; a people of a deeper speech than thou
canst perceive; of a stammering tongue,
that thou canst not understand. 20. Look
upon Zion, the city of our solemnities: thine
eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation,
a tabernacle that shall not be taken down;
not one of the stakes thereof shall evt r be
removed, neither shall any of the cords
thereof be broken. 21. But there the glo¬
rious Lord will be unto us a place of broad
rivers and streams ; wherein shall go no gal¬
ley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass
thereby. 22. For the Lord is our. judge,
the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our
king; he will save us. 23. The tacklings
are loosed ; they could not well strengthen
their mast; they could not spread the sail:
then is the prey of a great spoil divided : the
lame take the prey. 24. And the inhabit-
I :>4
ISAIAH,
ants shall not say, I am sick : the people
that dwell therein shall be forgiven their ini¬
quity.
Here is a preface that commands attention; and
it is fit that all should attend, both near and far off,
to what God says and does; ( v . 13.) Hear, ye that
are far off, whether in place or time. Let distant
regions and future ages hear what God has done.
They do so; they will do so from the scripture, with
as much assurance as those that were near; the
neighbouring nations, and those that lived then. But
whoever hears what God has done, whether near
or afar off, let them acknowledge his might, that it
is irresistible, and that he can do every thing. Those
are very stupid who hear what God has done, and
yet will not acknowledge his might.
Now what is it that God has done, which we must
take notice of, and in which we must acknowledge
his might?
I. He has struck a terror upon the sinners in
Zion; (u. 14.) Fearfulness has surprised the hypo¬
crites. There are sinners in Zion, hypocrites, that
enjoy Zion’s privileges, and concur in Zion’s ser¬
vices, but their hearts are not right in the sight of
God: they keep up secret haunts of sin under the
cloak of a visible profession, which convicts them
of hypocrisy. Sinners in Zion will have a great
deal to answer for, above other sinners; and their
place in Zion will be so far from being their security,
that it will aggravate both their sin and punishment.
Now those sinners in Zion, though always subject to
secret frights and terrors, were struck with a more
than ordinary consternation, from the convictions of
their own consciences. 1. When they saw the As¬
syrian army besieging Jerusalem, and ready to set
fire to it, and lay it in ashes, and burn the wasps in
the nest, finding they could not make their escape
to Egypt, as some had done, and distrusting the
promises God had made by his prophets, that he
would deliver them, they were at their wits’ end,
and ran about like men distracted, crying, “ Who
among us shall dwell with devouring fire? Let us
therefore abandon the city, and shift for ourselves
elsewhere; one had as good live in everlasting burn¬
ings as live here.” Who will stand up for us
against this devouring fire? So some read it. See
here how the sinners m Zion are affected when the
judgments of God are aoroad; while they were only
threatened, they slighted them, and made nothing
of them; but when they come to be executed, they
run into the other extreme, then they magnify them,
and make the worst of them ; they call them de¬
vouring fire and everlasting burnings, and despair
of relief and succour. Those that rebel against the
commands of the word, cannot take the comforts of
it in a time of need. Or, rather, 2. When they
saw the Assyrian army destroyed; for the destruc¬
tion of that is the fire spoken of immediately before,
v. 11, 12. When the sinners in Zion saw what
dreadful execution the wrath of God made, they
were in a great fright, being conscious to themselves
that they had provoked this God by their secret
worshipping of other gods; and therefore they cry
out, Who among us shall dwell with this devouring
fire, before which so vast an army is as thorns?
Who among us shall dwell with these everlasting
burtiings, which have made the Assyrians as the
burnings of lime? v. 12. Thus they said, or should
have said. Note, God’s judgments upon the ene¬
mies of Zion should strike a terror upon the sinners
in Zion, nay, David himself trembles at them, Ps.
cxix. 120. God himself is this devouring Fire,
Heb. xii. 22. Who is able to stand before him?
1 Sam. vi. 20. His wrath will burn those everlast¬
ingly that have made themselves fuel for it: it is a
XXXIII.
fire that shall never be quenched, nor will ever go
out of itself; for it is the wrath of an everlasting
God preying upon the conscience of an immortal
soul. Nor can the most daring sinners bear up
against it, so as to bear either the execution of it, ( r
the fearful expectation of it. Let this awaken us all
to fly from the wrath to come, by flying to Christ as
our Refuge.
II. He has graciously provided for the security
of his people that trust in him ; Hear this, and ac¬
knowledge his power in making those that walk
righteously, and sp.eak uprightly, to dwell on high,
v. 15, 16. We have here,
1. The good man’s character, which he preserves
even in times of common iniquity; in divers in¬
stances. (1.) He walks righteously; in the whole
course of his conversation he acts by rules of equity,
and makes conscience of rendering to all their due;
to God his due, as well as to men theirs. His walk
is righteousness itself; he would not for a world wil¬
fully do an unjust thing. (2.) He speaks uprightly;
uprightness, so the word is; he speaks what is true
and right, and with an honest intention. He cannot
think one thing, and speak another; nor look one
way, and row another. His word is to him as sacred
as his oath, and is not yea and nay. (3.) He is so far
from coveting ill-gotten gain, that he despises it;
he thinks it a mean and sordid thing, and unbecom¬
ing a man of honour, to enrich himself by any
hardship put upon his neighbour. He scorns to do
a wrong thing, nay, to do a severe thing, though
he might get by it. He does not overvalue gain
itself, and therefore easily abhors the gain that is
not honestly come by. (4. ) If he have a bribe at
any time thrust into his hand, to pervert justice, he
shakes his hands from holding it, with the utmost
detestation, taking it as an affront to have it offered
him. (5.) He stops his ears from hearing any thing
that tends to cruelty or bloodshed, or any sugges¬
tions stirring him up to revenge, Job xxxi. 31. He
turns a deaf ear to these that delight in war, and
entice him to cast in his lot among them, Prov. i. 14,
16. (6. ) He shuts his eyes from seeing of evil. He
has such an abhorrence of sin, that he cannot bear
to see others commit it, and does himself watch
against all the occasions of it. Those that would
preserve the purity of their souls, must keep a strict
guard upon the senses of their bodies, must stop
their ears to temptations, and turn away their eyes
from beholding vanity.
2. The good man's comfort, which he may pre¬
serve even in times of common calamity, v. 16. (1.)
He shall be safe; he shall escape the devouring fire
and the everlasting burnings; he shall have ac¬
cess to, and communion with, that God who is a
Devouring Fire, but shall be to him a Rejoicing
Light. And as to present troubles, he shall dwell
on high, out of the reach of them, nay, out of the
hearing of the noise of them : he shall hot be really
harmed by them, nay, he shall not be greatly fright¬
ened at them ; The floods of great waters shall not
come nigh him; or, if they should attack him, his
place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks, strong
and impregnable, fortified by nature as well as art.
The divine power will keep him safe, and his faith
in that power will keep him easy. God, the Rock
of ages, will be his high Tower. (2.) He shall be
supplied; he shall want nothing that is necessary
for him; Bread shall be given him, even when the
siege is straitest, and provisions are cut off; and his
waters shall be sure, he shall be sure of the conti¬
nuance of them, so that he shall not drink his water
by measure, and with astonishment. They that
fear the Lord shall not want any thing that is good
for them.
III. He will protect Jerusalem, and deliver it our
of the hands of the invaders. This storm, that
ISAIAH, XXXIII.
threatened them, should blow over, and they should
enjoy a prosperous state again. Many instances are
here given of this:
1. Hezekiah shall put off his sackcloth, and all
the sadness of his countenance, and shall appear
publicly in his beauty, in his royal robes, and with
a pleasing aspect, (xo 17.) to the great joy of all his
loving subjects. Those that walk uprightly shall
not only have bread given them, and their water
sure, but they shall with an eye of faith see the
King of kings in his beauty, the beauty of holiness,
and that beauty shall be upon them.
2. The siege being raised, by which they were
'kept close within the walls of Jerusalem, they shall
now be at liberty to go abroad upon business or
pleasure, without danger of falling into the ene¬
my’s hand; and they shall behold the land that is
very far of, they shall visit the utmost corners of
the nation, and take a prospect of the adjacent
countries, which will be the more pleasant after so
long a confinement. Thus believers behold the
heavenly Canaan, that land that is very far off,
and comfort themselves with the prospect of it in
evil times.
3. The remembrance of the fright they were in
shall add to the pleasure of their deliverance; (y.
18.) Thine heart shall meditate terror, meditate it
with pleasure when it is over. Thou shalt think thou
still hearest the alarm in thine ears, when all the
crv was, “ Arm, arm, arm; every man to his post.
Where is the scribe, or secretary of war? Let him
appear, to draw up the muster-roll. Where is the
receiver, and paymaster of the army? Let him see
what he has in bank, to defray the charge of a de¬
fence. Where is he that counted the towers? Let
him bring in the account of them, that care may be
taken to put a competent number of men in each.”
Or, these words may be taken as Jerusalem’s tri¬
umph over the vanquished army of the Assyrians,
and the rather, because the apostle alludes to them
in his triumphs over the learning of this world,
when it was baffled by the gospel of Christ, 1 Cor.
i. 20. The virgin, the daughter of Zion, despises all
their military preparations. Where is the scribe,
or muster-master of the Assyrian army? Where is
their weigher, (or treasurer,) and where their en¬
gineers that counted the towers? They are all
either dead or fled. There is an end of them.
4. They shall no more be terrified with the sight
of the Assyrians, who were a fierce people na¬
turally, and were particularly fierce against the
people of the Jews, and were of a strange language,
that could understand neither their petitions nor
their complaints, and therefore had a pretence for
being deaf to them, nor could themselves be under¬
stood; “They are of a deeper speech than thou
const perceive, which will make them the more for¬
midable, v. 19. Thine eyes shall no more see them
thus fierce, but their countenances changed when
they are all become dead corpses.”
5. They shall no more be under apprehensions
of the danger of Jerusalem, Zion, and the temple
there; (x>. 20.) “Look upon Zion, the city of our
solemnities, the city where our solemn sacred feasts
are kept, where we used to meet to worship God in
religious assemblies.” The good people among
them, in the time of their distress, were most in
pain for Zion, upon this account, that it was the
city of their solemnities, that the conquerors would
burn their temple, and they should not have that to
keep their solemn feasts in any more. In times of
public danger our concern should be most about our
religion, and the cities of our solemnities should be
dearer to us than either our strong cities or our
store-cities. It is with an eye to this, that God will
work deliverance for Jerusalem, because it is the
citv of religious solemnities: let those be conscien¬
lii
tiously kept up, as the glory of a people, and we
may depend upon God to create a defence upon
that gloiy. Two things are here promised to Jeru¬
salem; (1.) A well-grounded security. It shall be
a quiet habitation for the people of God; they shall
not be molested and disturbed, as they have been,
by the alarms of the sword either of war or perse¬
cution, ch. xxix. 20. It shall be a quiet habitation,
as it is the city of our solemnities. It is desirable
to be quiet in our own houses, but much more so to
be quiet in God’s house, and have none to make us
afraid there. Thus it shall be with Jerusalem; and
thine eyes shall see it, which will be a great satisfac¬
tion to a good man; (Ps. cxxviii. 5, 6.) “Thou shall
see the good of Jerusalem, and peace upon Israel;
thou shalt live to see it, and share in it.” (2.) An
unmoved stability; Jerusalem, the city of our solem¬
nities, is indeed but a tabernacle, in comparison with
the New Jerusalem; the present manifestations of
the divine glory and grace are nothing in comparison
with those that are reserved for the future state; but
it is such a tabernacle as shall not be taken down.
After this trouble is over, Jerusalem shall long enjoy
a confirmed peace; and her sacred privileges, which
are the stakes and cords of her tabernacle, shall
not be removed from her, nor any disturbance given
to the course and circle of her religious services.
God’s church on earth is a tabernacle, which,
though it may be shifted from one place to another,
shall not be taken down while the world stands; for
in every age Christ will have a seed to serve him;
the promises of the covenant are its stakes, which
shall never be removed, and the ordinances and
institutions of the gospel are its cords, which shall
never be broken. They are things which cannot be
shaken, though heaven and earth be, but shall re¬
main.
6. God himself will be their Protector and Sa¬
viour, v. 21, 22. This is the principal ground of
their confidence; “ He that is himself the glorious
Lord, will display his glory, for us, and be a Gloiy
to us; such as shall eclipse the rival glory of the
enemy.” God, in being a gracious Lord, is a glori¬
ous Lord; for his goodness is his glory. God will
be the Saviour of Jerusalem, and her glorious Lord.
(1.) As a Guard against their adversaries abroad.
He will be a Place of broad rivers and streams.
Jerusalem had no considerable river running by it,
as most great cities have, nothing but the brook
Kidron, and so wanted one of the best natural for¬
tifications, as well as one of the greatest advantages
for trade and commerce, and upon this account
their enemies despised them, and doubted not but
to make an easy prey of them; but the presence
and power of God are sufficient at any time to
make up to us the deficiencies of the creature, and
of its strength and beauty. We have all in God,
all we need, or can desire. Many external advan-
vantages Jerusalem has not, which other places
have, but in God there is more than an equivalent.
But if there be broad rivers and streams about Je¬
rusalem, may not these yield an easy access to the
fleet of an invader? No; these are rivers and
streams in which go no galley with oars, no man of
war, or gallant ship. If God himself be the River,
it must needs be inaccessible to the enemy, they can
neither find nor force their way by it. ’ (2.) As a
Guide to their affairs at home; “ For the Lord is
our Judge, to whom we are accountable, to whose
judgment we refer ourselves, by whose judgment
we abide, and who therefore, (we hope,) wiH judge
for us; he is our Lawgiver, his word is a law to us,
and to him every thought within us is brought into
obedience; he is our King, to whom we pay homage
and tribute, and an inviolable allegiance, and there¬
fore he will save us.” For as protection draws al¬
legiance, so allegiance may expect protection, and
1.56
ISAIAH,
shall have it with God. By faith we take Christ
for our Prince and Saviour, and, as such, depend
upon him, and devote ourselves to him. • Observe
with what an air of triumph, and with what an em¬
phasis laid upon the glorious name of God, they
comfort themselves with this; Jehovah is our Judge,
Jehovah is our Lawgiver, Jehovah is our King,
who, being self-existent, is self-sufficient, and all-
sufficient to us.
7. The enemies shall be quite infatuated, and all
their powers and projects broken, like a ship at sea
in stress of weather, that cannot ride out the storm,
but, having her tackle torn, her masts split, and
nothing wherewithal to repair them, is given up for
a wreck, v. 2.5. The tacklings of the Assyrians
are loosed; they are like a ship whose tacklings are
loosed, or forsaken by the ship’s crew, when they
give it over for lost, finding that they cannot
strengthen the mast, but it will come down; they
thought themselves sure of Jerusalem, but when
they were just entering the port, as it were, and
thought all was their own, they were quite becalm¬
ed, and could not spread their sail, but lay wind-
bound till God poured the fury of his wrath upon
them. The enemies of God’s church are often dis¬
armed and unrigged then when they think they
have almost gained their point.
8. The wealth of their camp shall be a rich
booty for the Jews; Then is the prey of a great
spoil divided. When the greater part were slain,
the rest fled in confusion, and with such precipita¬
tion, that (like the Syrians) they left their tents as
they were, so that all the treasure in them fell into
the hands of the besieged, and even the lame take
the prey, they that tarried at home did divide the
spoil. It was so easy to come at, that not only the
strong man might make himself master of it, but
even the lame man, whose hands were lame, that he
could not fight, and his feet, that he could not pur¬
sue; as the victory shall cost them no peril, so the
prey shall cost them no toil. And there was such
abundance of it, that when those who were forward,
and came first, had carried off as much as they
would, even the lame, who came late, found suffi¬
cient. Thus God brought good out of evil, and not
only delivered Jerusalem, but enriched it, and abun¬
dantly recompensed the losses they had sustained.
Thus comfortably and well do the frights and dis¬
tresses of the people of God often end.
9. Both sickness and sin shall be taken away;
and then sickness is taken away in mercy, when this
is all the fruit of it, and the recovery from it, even
the taking away of sin.
(1.) The inhabitants shall not say, I am sick; as
the lame shall take the prey, so shall the sick, not¬
withstanding their weakness, make a shift to get
to the abandoned camp, and seize something for
themselves; or, there shall be such a universal
transport of joy upon this occasion, that even the
sick shall, for the present, forget their sickness and
the sorrows of it, and join with the public in its re¬
joicings; the deliverance of their city shall be tbeir
cure. Or, it intimates, that, whereas infectious
diseases are commonly the effect of long sieges, it
shall not be so with Jerusalem, but the inhabitants
of it, with their victory and peace shall have health
also, and there shall be no complaining upon the
account of sickness within their gates; or, those
that are sick shall bear their sickness without
complaining, as long as' they see it goes well with
Jerusalem. Our sense of private grievances should
oe drowned in our thanksgivings for public mercies.
(2.) The people that dwell therein shall be for¬
given their iniquity; not only the body of the na¬
tion forgiven their national guilt in the removing of
the national judgment, but particular persons that
dwell therein shall repent, and reform, and have
XXXIV.
their sins pardoned. And this is promised as that
which is at the bottom of all other favours; he will
do so and so for them, for he will be merciful to
their unrighteousness, Heb. \ iii. 12. Sin is the sick¬
ness of the soul; when God pardons the sin, he
heals the disease.; and when the diseases of sin are
healed by pardoning mercy, the sting of bodily sick¬
ness is taken out, and the cause of it removed; so
that either the inhabitants shall not be sick, or, at
least shall not say, lam sick. If iniquity be taken
away, we have little reason to complain of outward
affliction. Son, be of good cheer, thy sins are for¬
given thee.
CHAP. XXXIV.
In this chapter, we have the fatal doom of all the nations
that are enemies to God’s church and people, though
Edom only is mentioned, because of the old enmity of
Esau to Jacob, which was typical, as much as that more
ancient enmity of Cain to Abel, and flowed from the ori-
?inal enmity of the serpent to the seed of the woman,
t is probable that this prophecy had its accomplishment
in the great desolations made by the Assyrian army first,
or, rather, by Nebuchadnezzar’s army some time after,
among those nations that were neighbours to Israel, ana
had been some way or other injurious to them. That
mighty conqueror took a pride in shedding blood, and
laying countries waste, and therein, quite beyond his de¬
sign, he was fulfilling what God here threatened against
his and his people’s enemies: but we have reason to
think it is intended as a denunciation of the wrath of
God against all those who fight against the interests of his
kingdom among men, that it has its frequent accomplish¬
ment in the havoc made by the wars of the nations and
other desolating judgments, and will have its full accom¬
plishment in the final dissolution of all things at the day
of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. Here is, I.
A demand of universal attention, v. 1. II. A direful
scene of blood and confusion presented, v . .7. III. The
reason given for these judgments, v. 8. IV. The conti¬
nuance of this desolation, the country being made like
the lake of Sodom, (v. 9, 10.) and the cities abandoned
to wild beasts and melancholy fowls, v. 11.. 15. V.
The solemn ratification of all this, v. 16, 17. Let us
hear, and fear.
1. d~ 1 0ME near, ye nations, to hear; and
vJ hearken, ye people; let the earth hear,
and all that is therein; the world, and all
things that come forth of it. 2. For the
indignation of the Lord is upon all nations,
and his fury upon all their armies: he hath
utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered
them to the slaughter. 3. Their slain also
shall be cast out, and their stink shall come
up out of their carcases, and the mountains
shall be melted with their blood. 4. And
all the host of heaven shall be dissolved,
and the heavens shall be rolled together as
a scroll : and all their hosts shall foil down,
as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as
a falling fig from the fig-tree. 5. For my
sword shall be bathed in heaven : behold, it
shall come down upon Idumea, and upon
the people of my curse, to judgment. 6.
The sword of the Lord is filled with hlood ;
it is made fat with fatness, and with the
blood of lambs and goats, with the fat o(
the kidneys of rams: for the Lord hath a
sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in
the land of Idumea. 7. And the unicorns
shall come down with them, and the bul¬
locks with the bulls; and their land shall be
157
ISAIAH, XXXIV.
soaked with blood, and their dust made fat
with fatness. 8. For it is the day of the
Lord’s vengeance, and the year of recom¬
penses for the controversy of Zion.
Here we have a prophecy, as elsewhere we have
a history, of the wars of the Lord, which, we are
sure, are all both righteous and successful. This
world, as it is his creature, he does good to, but, as
it is in the interest of Satan, who is called the god, of
this world, he fights against it.
I. Here is the trumpet sounded, and the war pro¬
claimed; ( v . 1.) all nations must hear and hearken,
not only because what (tod is about to do is well
worthy their remark, (as ch. xxxiii. 13.) but be¬
cause they are all concerned in it; it is with them
that God has a quarrel, it is against them that God
is coining forth in wrath. Let them all take notice
that the great God is angry with them; his indigna¬
tion is upon all nations, and therefore let all nations
come near to hear. The trumpet is blown in the
city, (Amos iii. 6.) and the watchmen on the walls
cry. Hearken to the voice of the trumpet, Jer. vi.
17. Let the earth hear, and the fulness thereof, for
it is the Lord’s, (Ps. xxiv. 1. ) and ought to hearken
to its Maker and Master. The world must hear,
and all things that come forth of it, the children of
men, that are of the earth, earthy, come out of it,
and must return to it; or the inanimate products of
the earth are called to, as more likely to hearken
than sinners, whose hearts are hardened against the
calls of God. Hear, O ye mountains, the Lord’s
controversy , ,Mich. vi. 2. It is so just a controversy,
that all the world may be safely appealed to con¬
cerning the equity of it.
II. Here is the manifesto published, setting forth,
1. Whom he makes war against; (v. 2.) The in¬
dignation of the Lord is upon all nations; they are
all in confederacy against God and religion, all in
the interests of the devil, and therefore he is angry
with them all, even with all the nations that forget
him. He has long suffered all nations to walk in
their own ways, (Acts xiv. 16.) but now he will no
longer keep silence. As they have all had the
benefit of his patience, so they must all expect now
to feel his resentments. His fury is in a special
manner upon all their armies. (1.) Because with
them they have done mischief to the people of God ;
those are they that have made bloody work with
them, and therefore they must be sure to have blood
given them to drink. (2. ) Because with them they
hope to make their part good against the justice and
power of God; they trust to them as their defence,
and therefore on them, in the first place, God’s fury
will come. Armies before God’s fury are but as
dry stubble before a consuming fire, though ever so
numerous and courageous.
2. Whom he makes war for, and what are the
grounds and reasons of the war; ( v . 8.) It is the day
of the Lord’s vengeance, and he it is to whom ven¬
geance belongs, and who is never unrighteous in
taking vengeance, Rom. iii. 5. As there is a day
of the Lord’s patience, so there will be a day of his
vengeance; for though he bear long, he will not bear
always; it is the year of recompenses for the contro¬
versy of Zion. Zion is the holy city, the city of our
solemnities, a type and figure of the church of God
in the world. Zion has a just quarrel with her
neighbours for the wrongs they have done her, for
all their treacherous and barbarous usage of her,
profaning her holy things, laying waste her palaces,
and slaying her sons; she has left it to God to plead
her cause, and he will do it when the time, even the
set time, to favour Zion comes; then he will recom¬
pense to her persecutors and oppressors all the mis¬
chiefs they have done her. The controversy will
be decided, that Zion has been wronged, and there¬
in Zion’s God has been himself abused; judgment
will be given upon this decision, and execution done.
Note, There is a time prefixed in the divine coun¬
sels for the deliverance of the church, and the de¬
struction of her enemies, a year of the redeemed,
which will come, a year of recompenses for the con¬
troversy of Zion; and we must patiently wait till
then, and judge nothing before the time.
III. Here are the operations of the war, and the
methods of it, settled, with an infallible assurance
of success.
1. The sword of the Lord is bathed in heaven,
that is all the preparation here made for the war,
v. 5. It may, probably, allude to some custom they
had then of bathing their swords in some liquor or
other, to harden them or brighten them; it is the
same with the furbishing of it, that it may glitter,
Ezek. xxi. 9 — 11. God’s sword is bathed in hea¬
ven, in his counsel and decree, in his justice and
power, and then there is no standing before it.
2. It shall come down; what he has determined
shall, without fail, be put in execution, it shall come
down from heaven, and the higher the place is,
whence it cemes, the heavier will it fall; it will
come down upon Idumea, the people of God’s curse,
that lie under his curse, and are by it doomed to de¬
struction. Miserable, for ever miserable, are they
that have by their sins made themselves the peo¬
ple of God’s curse; for the sword of the Lord will
infallibly attend the curse of the Lord, and exe¬
cute the sentences of it; and those whom he curses
are cursed indeed. It shall come down to judgment,
to execute judgment upon sinners. Note, Gcd’s
sword of war is always a sword of justice. It is ob¬
served of him out of whose mouth goeth the sharp
sword, that in righteousness he doth judge, and make
war. Rev. xix. 11, 15.
3. The nations and their armies shall be given up
to the sword; (u. 2.) God has delivered them to the
slaughter, and then they cannot deliver themselves,
nor can all the friends they have deliver them from
it. Those only are slain, whom God delivers to
the slaughter, for the keys of death are in his hand;
and, in delivering them to the slaughter, he has ut¬
terly destroyed them ; their destruction is as sure,
when God has doomed them to it, as if they were
destroyed already, utterly destroyed. God has, in
effect, delivered all the cruel enemies of his church
to the slaughter by that word, (Rev. xiii. 10.) He
that kills with the sword, must be killed by the sword,
for the Lord is righteous.
4. Pursuant to the sentence, a terrible slaughter
shall be made among them, v. 6. The sword of
the Lord, when it comes down with commission,
does vast execution; it is filled, satiate', surfeited,
with blood, the blood of the slain, and made fat
with their fatness. When the day of God’s abused
mercy and patience is over, the sword of his justice
gives no quarter, spares none. Men have by sin lost
the honour of the human nature, and made them¬
selves like the beasts that perish ; they are therefore
justly denied the compassion and respect that are
owing to the human nature, and killed as beasts;
and no more is made of slaying an army of men than
of butchering a flock of lambs or goats, and feeding
on the fat of the kidneys of rams. Nay, the sword
of the Lord shall not only despatch the lambs and
goats, the infantry of their armies, the poor com¬
mon soldiers, but (u. 7.) the unicorns too shall be
made to come down with them, and the bullocks
with the bulls, though they are ever so proud, and
strong, and fierce, the great men, and the mighty
men, and the chief captains; (Rev. vi. 15.) the
sword of the Lord will make as easy a prey of them
as of the lambs and the goats. The greatest of men
are nothing before the wrath of the great God. See
what bloody work will be made; The land shall hi
158
ISAIAH,
soaked with blood , as with the rain that comes often
upon it, and in great abundance; and their dust,
their dry and barren land, shall be made fat with
the fatness of men slain in their full strength, as with
manure. Nay, even the mountains, which are hard
and rocky, shall be melted with their blood, v. 3.
These expressions are hyperbolical, (as St. John’s
vision of blood to the horse-bridles. Rev. xiv. 20. )
and are made use of because they sound very dread¬
ful to sense, (it makes us even shiver to think of
such abundance of human gore,) and are therefore
proper to express the terror of God’s wrath, which
is dreadful beyond conception and expression. See
what work sin and wrath make even in this world,
and think how much more terrible the wrath to
come is, which will bring down the unicorns them¬
selves to the bars of the pit.
5. This great slaughter will be a great sacrifice
to the justice of God; ( v . 6.) The Lord has a sacri¬
fice in Bozrah; there it is that the great Redeemer
has his garments dyed with blood, ch. lxiii. 1. Sa¬
crifices were intended for the honour of God, to
make it appear that he hates sin, and demands sa¬
tisfaction for it, and that nothing but blood will
make atonement; for these ends, this slaughter is
made, that in it the wrath of God may be revealed
from heaven against all the ungodliness and un¬
righteousness of men, especially their ungodly, un¬
righteous enmity to his people, which was the sin
that tlte Edomites were notoriously guilty of. In
great sacrifices, abundance of beasts were killed,
hecatombs offered, and their blood poured out be¬
fore the altar; and so will it be in this day of the
Lord’s vengeance. And thus had the whole earth
been soaked with the blood of sinners, if Jesus
Christ, the great Propitiation, had not shed his
blood for us; but those who reject him, and will not
make a covenant with God by that Sacrifice, will
themselves fall as victims to divine wrath. Damned
sinners are everlasting sacrifices, Mark ix. 49.
They that sacrifice not, (which is the character of
the ungodly, Eccl. ix. 2.) must be sacrificed.
6. These slain shall be detestable to mankind, and
shall be as much their loathing as ever they were
their terror; ( v . 3.) They shall be cast out, and none
shall pay them the respect of a decent burial; but
their stink shall come out of their carcases, that all
people by the odious smell, as well as by the ghastly
sight, may be made to conceive an indignation
against sin, and a dread of the wrath of God. They
lie unburied, that they may remain monuments of
divine justice.
7. The effect and consequence of this slaughter
shall be universal confusion and desolation, as if the
whole frame of nature were dissolved and melted
down; (n. 4.) all the host of heaven shall June and
waste away, so the word is; the sun shall be dark¬
ened, and the moon look black, or be turned into
blood; the heavens themselves shall be rolled to¬
gether as a scroll of parchment, when we have done
with it, and lay it by, or as when it is shrivelled up
by the heat of the fire. The stars shall fall as the
)e ives in autumn; all the beauty, joy, and comfort,
of the vanquished nation shall be lost and done
away, magistracy and government shall be abolish¬
ed, and all dominion and rule, but that of the sword
of war, shall fall. Conquerors, in those times, af¬
fected to lay waste the countries they conquered;
and such a complete desolation is here described by
such figurative expressions, as will yet have a lite¬
ral and full accomplishment in the dissolution of all
things at the end of time; of which last day of judg¬
ment the judgments which God does now sometimes
remarkably execute on sinful nations, are figures,
earnests, and forerunners; and by these we should
be awakened to think of that, for which reason
these expressions are used here, and Rev. vi. 12, I
, XXXIV.
13. But they are used without a metaphor, 2 Pet.
iii. 10. where we are told that the heavens shall / lass
away with a great noise, and the earth shall be
burnt up.
9. And the streams thereof shall be turn¬
ed into pitch, and the dust thereof into brim¬
stone, and the land thereof shall become,
burning pitch. 10. It shall not be quenched
night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go
up for ever: from generation to generation it
shall lie waste; none shall pass through it
for ever and ever : 11. The cormorant and
the bittern shall possess it; the owl also
and the raven shall dwell in it: and he shall
stretch out upon it the line of confusion, and
the stones of emptiness. 12. They shall
call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but
none shall be there, and all her princes shall
be nothing. 13. And thorns shall come up
in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the
fortresses thereof; and it shall be a habita¬
tion of dragons, and a court for owls. 1 4.
The wild beasts of the desert shall also
meet with the wild beasts of the island, and
the satyr shall cry to his fellow ; the screech-
owl also shall rest there, and find for herself
a place of rest. 15. There shall ’the great
owl make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and
gather under her shadow ; there shall the
vultures also be gathered, every one with
her mate. 16. Seek ye out of the book of
the Lord, and read; no one of these shall
fail, none shall want her mate : for my
mouth it hath commanded, and his spirit it
hath gathered them. 17. And he hath cast
the lot for them, and his hand hath divided
it unto them by line : they shall possess it
for ever, from generation to generation shall
they dwell therein.
This prophecy looks very black, but surely it
looks no further than upon Edom and Bozrah : 1.
It speaks the melancholy changes that are often
made by the divine providence, in countries, cities,
palaces, and families; places that have flourished,
and been much frequented, strangely go to decay.
We know not where to find the places where many
great towns, celebrated in history, once stood.
Fruitful countries, in process of time, are turned
into barrenness, and pompous, populous cities into
ruinous heaps. Old decayed castles look frightful,
and their ruins are almost as much dreaded as ev er
their garrisons were. 2. It speaks the destroying
judgments which are the effects of God’s wrath, and
the just punishment of those that are enemies to his
people, which God will inflict, -when the year of the
redeemed is come, and the year of recompenses for
the controversy of Zion. Those that aim to ruin
the church, can never do that, but will infallibly
ruin themselves. 3. It speaks the final desolation
of this wicked world, which is reseri’ed unto fire at
the day of judgment, 2 Pet. iii. 7. The earth itself,
when it, and all the works that are therein, shall be
burnt up, will (for aught I know) be turned into
a hell to all those that set their affections only on
earthly things: however, it shows us what will be
I the lot of the generation of God’s curse.
ISAIAH,
I. The country shall become like the lake of So¬
dom, v. 9, 10. The streams thereof, that both wa¬
tered the land, and pleased and refreshed the inha¬
bit mts, shall now be turned into pitch, shall be
congealed, shall look black, and shall move slowly,
or not at all. Their floods to lazy streams of flitch
shall turn; so Sir H. Blackmore. The dust thereof
shall be turned into brimstone; so combustible lias
sin made their land, that it shall take fire at the
first spark of God’s wrath struck upon it; and when
it has taken fire, it shall become burning pitch; the
fire shall be universal, not a house, or town, on fire,
but a whole country ; and it shall not be in the power
of any to suppress or extinguish it; it shall burn con¬
tinually, burn perpetually, and shall not be quenched
night or day. The torment of those in hell, or that
have a hell within them in their own consciences,
is without interruption; the smoke of this fire goes
ufi for ever. As long as there are provoking sin¬
ners on earth, from one generation to another, an
increase of sinful men, to augment the fierce anger
of the Lord, '(Numb, xxxii. 14.) there will be a
righteous God in heaven to punish them for it. And
as long as a. people keep up a succession of sinners,
God will have a succession of plagues for them; nor
will any that fall under the wrath of God, be ever
able to recover themselves. It will be found, how
light soever men make of it, that it is a fearful thing
to fall into the hands of the living Goa. If the land
be doomed to destruction, none shall pass through
it, but travellers will choose rather to go a great
way about than come within the smell of it.
II. The cities shall become like old decayed
houses, which, being deserted by the owners, look
very frightful, being commonly possessed by beasts
of prey, or birds of ill omen. See how dismally the
palaces of the enemy look; the description is pecu¬
liarly elegant and fine.
1. God shall mark them for ruin and destruction ;
he shall stretch out upon Bozrah the line of confu¬
sion with the stones or plummets of emptiness, v.
11. This intimates the equity of the sentence passed
upon it; it is given according to the rules of justice,
and the exact agreeableness of the execution with
the sentence; the destruction is not wrought at ran¬
dom, but by line and level. The confusion and
emptiness that shall overspread the face of the
whole country, shall be like that of the whole earth
when it was Tohu and Bohn, the very words here
used, without form and void. Sin will soon turn a
paradise into a chaos, and sullies the beauty of the
whole creation, Gen. i. 2. When there is confu¬
sion there will soon be emptiness; but both are ap¬
pointed by the Governor of the world, and in exact
proportions.
2. Their great men shall be all cut off, and none
of them shall dare to appear; (n. 12.) They shall
call the nobles of the kingdom to take care of the
arduous affairs which lie before them, but none
shall be there to take this ruin under their hand,
and all her princes, having the sad tidings brought
them, shall be nothing, shall be at their wits’ end,
and not be able to stand them in stead, to shelter
them from destruction.
III. Even the houses of state, and those of strength,
shall become as wildernesses; ly. 13.) not only
grass shall grow, but thorns shall come ufi in her
flalaces, nettlesand brambles in the fortresses thereof,
and there shall be none to cut them up, or tread
them down. We sometimes see ruined buildings
thus overgrown with rubbish. It intimates that the
place shall not only be uninhabited and unfrequent¬
ed, where a full court used to be kept, but that it
shall be under the curse of God; for thorns and
thistles were the production of the curse, Gen.
iii. 18.
IV. They shall become the residence and ren- I
XXXIV. 15!/
dezvous of fearful, frightful beasts and birds, which
usually frequent such melancholy places, because
there they may be undisturbed; and when they are
frightened thither, they help to frighten men thence.
This circumstance of the desolation, being apt to
strike a horror upon the mind, is much enlarged
upon here, v. 11. The cormorant shall posse* it,
or the pelican, which affects to be solitary, (Ps. cii.
6. ) and the bittern, which makes a hideous noise
the owl, a melancholy bird, the raven, a bird of
prey, invited by the dead carcases, shall dwell
there, ( with all the ill-boding monsters of the air.
Sir R. B.) all the unclean birds, which were not
for the service of man, v. 13. It shall be a habi
ration for dragons, which are poisonous and hurtful
Anri in their lofty rooms of state,
Where cringing sycophants did wait,
Dragons slmll hiss, and hungry wolves shall howl.
In courts before by mighty lotds possest,
The serpent shall erert his speckled crest,
Or fold his circling spires to rest. Sir R. Blackmore.
That which was a court for princes, shall now be
a court for owls or ostriches; (n. 14.) The wild
beasts of the desert, the dry and sandy country, shall
meet, as it were by appointment, with the wild
beasts of the island, the wet marshy country, and
shall regale themselves with such a perfect desola¬
tion as they shall find there.
Leopards, and all the rav’ning brotherhoods,
That range the plains, or lurk in woods,
Each other shall invite to come,
And make this wilder place their home.
Fierce beasts of every frightful shape and size,
Shall settle here their bloody colonies.
Sir R. Blackmore.
The satyr shall cry to his fellow to go with him to
this desert place, or, being there, they shall please
themselves that they have found such an ag’ eeable
habitation. There shall the screech-owl rest, a
night-bird, and an ominous one; the great i wl shall
there make her nest, (i>. 15.) and lay and hatch;
the breed of them shall be kept up, to provide heirs
for this desolate place; the vultures, which feast on
carcases, shall be gathered there, every one with his
mate. Now, observe, 1. How the places which men
have deserted, and keep at a distance from, are
proper receptacles for other animals, which the
providence of God takes care of, and will not ne¬
glect. 2. Whom they resemble, that are morose,
unsociable, and unconversable, and affect a melan¬
choly retirement; they are like these solitary crea¬
tures, that take delight in desolations. 3. What a
dismal change sin makes; it turns a fruitful land
into barrenness, a frequented city into a wilderness.
V. Here is an assurance given of the full accom¬
plishment of this prediction, even to the most mi¬
nute circumstance of it; (y. 16, 17.) “ Seek ye out
of the book of the Lord, and read. When this de¬
struction comes, compare the event with the pre¬
diction, and you will find it to answer exactly.
Note, The book of the prophets is the book of the
Lord, (and we ought to consult it, and converse
with it,) that has the authority of a divine origin:
we must not only read it, but seek out of it, search
into it, turn first to one text, and then to another, and
compare them together. Abundance of useful know¬
ledge might thus be extracted, by a diligent search,
out of the scriptures, which cannot be got by a su¬
perficial reading of them. When you have read
the prediction out of the book of the Lord, then
observe, 1. That according to what vou have read,
so you see; not one of these shall fail, either beast
or fowl: and it being foretold that they shall possess
it from generation to generation, in order to that,
that the species may be propagated, none shall want
her mate; these marks of desolation shall be fruit¬
ful, and multiply, and replenish the land. 2. That
God’s mouth having commanded this direful mus-
1G0 ISAIAH,
ter, his S/iirit shall gather them, as the creatures
by instinct were gathered to Adam to be named,
and to Noah to be housed. What God’s word has
appointed, his Spirit will effect and bring about, for
no’ .word of God shall fall to the ground. The word
of God’s promise shall in like manner be accom¬
plished by the operations of the Spirit. 3. That
there is an exact order and proportion observed in
the accomplishment of this threatening; he has cast
the lot for these birds and beasts, so that each one
shall know his place, as readily as if it were marked
by line. See the like, Joel ii. 7, 8. They shall not
break their ranks, neither shall one thrust another.
The soothsayers among the heathen foretold events
by the flight of birds, as if the fate of men depended
on them. But here we find that the flight of birds
is under the direction of the God of Israel; he has
cast the lot for them. 4. That the desolation shall
be perpetual; They shall fiossess it for ever. God’s
Jerusalem may be laid in ruins; but Jerusalem of
old recovered itself out of its ruins, till it gave place
to the gospel-Jerusalem, which may be brought
low, but shall be rebuilt, and shall continue till it
give place to the heavenly Jerusalem. But the ene¬
mies of the church shall be for ever desolate, shall
be punished with an everlasting destruction.
CHAP. XXXV.
As after the predictions of God’s judgments upon the
world, (ch. xxiv. ) follows a promise of great mercy to be
had in store for his church, (ch. xxv.) so, here, after a
black and dreadful scene of confusion in the foregoing
chapter, we have, in this, a bright and pleasant one,
which though it foretells the flourishing estate of Heze-
kiah’s kingdom in the latter part of his reign, yet surely
looks as far beyond that as the prophecy in the foregoing
chapter does beyond the destruction of the Edomites;
both were typical, and it concerns us most to look at those
things which they were typical of, the kingdom of Christ,
and the kingdom of heaven. When the world, which
lies in wickedness, shall be laid in ruins, and the Jewish
church, which persisted in infidelity, shall become a
desolation, then the gospel-church shall be set up, and
made to flourish. I. The Gentiles shall be brought into
it, v. 1, 2, 7. II. The well-wishers to it, who were weak
and timorous, shall be encouraged, v. 3, 4. III. Miracles
shall be wrought both on the souls and on the bodies of
men, v. 5, 6. IV. The gospel-church shall be conducted
in the way of holiness, v. 8, 9. V. It shall be brought
at last to endless joys, v. 10. Thus do we find more of
Christ, and heaven, in this chapter, than one would have
expected in the Old Testament.
1. nnHE wilderness, and the solitary place,
JL shall be glad for them ; and the de¬
sert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.
2. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice
even with joy and singing; the glory of Le¬
banon shall be given unto it, the excellency
of Carmel and Sharon ; they shall see the
glory of the Lord, and the excellency of
our God. 3. Strengthen ye the weak hands,
and confirm the feeble knees. 4. Say to
them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong,
fear not ; behold, your God will come with
vengeance, even God with a recompense ;
he will come and save you.
In these verses, we have,
1. The desert land blooming. In the chapter be¬
fore, we had a populous and fruitful country turned
into a horrid wilderness; here we have, in lieu of
that, a wilderness turned into a good land. When
the land of Judah was freed from the Assyrian army,
those parts of the country that had been made as a
wilderness by the ravages and outrages they com¬
mitted, began to recover themselves, and to look
XXXV.
pleasantly again, and to blossom as the rose. WheD
the Gentile nations, that had been long as a wilder¬
ness, bringing forth no fruit to God, received the
gospel, joy came with it to them, Ps. lxvii. 3, 4. —
xcvi. 11, 12. When Christ was preached in Sa¬
maria, there was great joy in that city, (Acts viii.
8.) they that sat in darkness saw a great and joyful
light. And then they that blossomed, gave hope's of
abundance of fruit; for that was it which the preach¬
ers of the gospel aimed at, (John xv. 16.) to go, and
bring forth fruit, Horn. i. 13. Col. i. 16. Though
blossoms are not fruit, and often miscarry and come
to nothing, yet they are in order to fruit. Convert¬
ing grace makes the soul that was a wilderness to
rejoice with joy and singing, and to blossom abun¬
dantly. This flourishing desert shall have all the
glory of Lebanon given to it, which consisted in the
strength and stateliness of its cedars, together with
the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, which con¬
sisted in corn and cattle. Whatever is valuable in
any institution, is brought into the gospel. All the
beauty of the Jewish church was admitted into the
Christian church, and appeared in its perfection, as
the apostle shows at large in his epistle to the He¬
brews; whatever was excellent and desirable in
the Mosaic economy, is translated into the evangel¬
ical institutes.
2. The glory of God shining forth; They shall
see the glory of the Lord; God will manifest him¬
self more than ever in his grace and love to man¬
kind, (for that is his glory and excellency,) and he
shall give them eyes to see it, and hearts to be duly
affected with it. This is that which will make the
desert blossom. The more we see by faith of the
glory of the Lord and the excellency of our God,
the more joyful and the more fruitful shall we be.
3. The feeble and faint-hearted encouraged, v.
3, 4. God’s prophets and ministers are in a spe¬
cial manner charged, by virtue of their office, to
strengthen the weak hands, to comfort those who
could not yet recover the fright they had been put
into by the Assyrian army, with an assurance that
God would now return in mercy to them. This is
the design of the gospel; (1.) To strengthen those
that are weak, and to confirm them; the weak
hands, which are unable either to work or fight,
and can hardly be lifted up in prayer, and the fee¬
ble knees, which are unable either to stand or walk,
and unfit for the race set before us. The gospel
furnishes us with strengthening considerations, and
shows us where strength is laid up for us. Among
true Christians there are many that have weak
hands and feeble knees, that are yet but babes in
Christ; but it is our duty to strengthen our brethren,
(Luke xxii. 32.) not only to bear with the weak,
but to do what we can to confirm them, Rom. xv.
1. 1 Thess. v. 14. It is our duty also to strengthen
ourselves, to lift up the hands which hang down,
(Heb. xii. 12.) improving the strength God has
given us, and exerting it. (2.) To hearten those
that are timorous and discouraged; Say to them that
are of a fearful heart, because of their own weak¬
ness, and the strength of their enemies, that are
hasty, (so the word is,) that are for betaking them¬
selves to flight, upon the first alarm, and giving up
the cause, that say, in their haste, “We are cut
off and undone;” (Ps. xxxi. 22.) there is enough in
the gospel to silence these fears; it says to them, and
let them say it to themselves, and one to another,
Be strong, fear not. Fear is weakening; the more
we strive against it, the stronger we are both for
doing and suffering; and, for our encouragement to
strive, he that says to us, Be strong, has laid help
for us upon One that is mighty.
4. Assurance given of the approach of a Saviour;
“ Your God will come with vengeance. God will
appear for you against your enemies, he will recom
161
ISAIAH, XXXV.
pciise both their injuries and your losses.” The
Messiah will come, in the fulness of time, to take
vengeance on the powers of darkness, to spoil them,
and make a show of them openly, to recompense
those that mourn in Zion with abundant comforts;
He will come and save us: with the hopes of this,
the Old Testament saints strengthened their weak
hands. He will come again at the end of time, will
come in flaming fire, to recompense tribulation to
those who have troubled his people, and to those
who were troubled, rest, such a rest as will be not
only a final period to, but a full reward of, all their
troubles, 2 Thess. i. 6, 7. They whose hearts trem¬
ble for the ark of God, and are under a concern for
his church in the world, may silence their fears
with this, God will take the work into his own
hands. Your God will come, who pleads your
cause, and owns your interest, even God himself,
who is God alone.
5. Then the eyes of the blind shall be
opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be
unstopped : 6. Then shall the lame man
leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb
sing: for in the wilderness shall waters
break out, and streams in the desert. 7.
And the parched ground shall become a pool,
and the thirsty land springs of water : in the
habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall
be grass, with reeds and rushes. 8. And a
highway shall be there, and a way, and it
shall be called, The way of holiness; the
unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall
be for those: the wayfaring men, though
fools, shall not err therein. 9. No lion shall
be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up
thereon, it shall not be found there: but the
redeemed shall walk there. 10. And the
ransomed of the Lord shall return, and
come to Zion with songs and everlasting
joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy
and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall
flee away.
“Then when your God shall come, even Christ,
to set up his kingdom in the world, to which all the
prophets bare witness, especially toward the con¬
clusion of their prophecies of the temporal deliver¬
ances of the church, and this evangelical prophet
especially — then look for great things.”
I. Wonders shall be wrought in the kingdoms
both of nature and grace, wonders of mercy wrought
upon the children of men, sufficient to evince that
it is no less than a God that comes to us.
1. Wonders shall be wrought on men’s bodies;
( v . 5, 6.) The eyes of the blind shall be opened; this
was often done by our Lord Jesus, when he was
here upon earth, with a word’s speaking, and one
he gave sight to, that was born blind, Matth. ix.
27. — xii. 22. — xx. 30. John ix. 6. By his power the
ea. s of the deaf also were unstopped ; with one word,
Ephphatha — Be opened, Mark vii. 34. Many that
were Line had the use of their limbs restored so
perfectly, that they could not only go, but leap, and
with so much joy to them, that they could not for¬
bear leaping for joy, as that impotent man, Acts
iii. 8. The dumb also were enabled to speak, and
then no marvel that they were disposed to sing for
joy, Matth. ix. 32, 33. These miracles Christ
wrought, to prove that he was sent of God, (John
iii. 2. ) nay, working them by his own power, and
Vol. IV. — X
in his own name, he proved that he was Gr.ci, tin:
same who at first made man’s mouth, the hearing
ear, and the seeing eye. When he would prove to
John’s disciples his divine mission, he did it by mira¬
cles of this kind, in which this scripture was fulfill¬
ed. 2. Wonders, greater wonders, shall be wrr ught
on men’s souls. By the word and Spirit of Christ,
those that were spiritually blind were enlightened,
(Acts xxvi. 18.) those that were deaf to the calls of
God, were made to hear them readily, as Lydia,
whose heart the Lord opened, so that she attended.
Acts xvi. 14. Those that were impotent to every
thing that is good, by divine grace are made not
onl)' able for it, but active in it, and run the way of
God’s commandments. Those alsothat were dumb,
and knew not how to speak of God, or to God, hav¬
ing their understandings opened to know him, shall
thereby have their lips opened to show forth his
praise. The tongue of the dumb shall sing for joy,
the joy of God’s salvation. Praise shall be perfected
out of the mouth of babes and sucklings.
II. The Spirit shall be poured out from on high.
There shall be waters and streams, rivers of living
water; when our Saviour spake of these, as the ful¬
filling of the scripture, and, most probably, of this
scripture, the evangelist tells us. He spake of the
Spirit, (John vii. 38, 39.) as does also this prophet;
( ch . xxxii. 15.) so here, (o. 6.) in the wilderness,
where one would least expect it, shall waters break
out. This was fulfilled when the Holy Ghost fell
upon the Gentiles that heard the word; (Acts x.
44.) then were the fountains of life opened, whence
streams flowed, that watered the earth abundantly.
These waters are said to break out, which denotes
a pleasing surprise to the Gentile world, such as
brought them, as it were, into a new world.
The blessed effect of this shall be, that the parch¬
ed ground shall become a pool, v. 7. They that la¬
boured, and were heavy-laden, under the burthen
of guilt, and were scorched with the sense of divine
wrath, found rest, and refreshment, and abundant
comforts, in the gospel. In the thirsty land, where no
water was, no ordinances, (Ps. lxiil. 1.) there shall
be springs of water, a gospel-ministry, and by that
the administration of all gospel-ordinances in their
purity and plenty, which are the river that makes
glad the city of our God, Ps. xlvi. 4. In the habita¬
tion of dragons, who chose to dwell in the parched,
scorched ground, (ch. xxxiv. 9, 13.) these waters
shall flow, and dispossess them, so that, where each
lay, shall be grass, with reeds and rushes, great
plenty of useful productions. Thus it was when
Christian churches were planted, and flourished
greatly, in the cities of the Gentiles, which, for many
ages, had been habitations of dragons, or devils
rather, as Babylon; (Rev. xviii. 2.) when the pro¬
perty of the idols’ temples was altered, and they
were converted to the service of Christianity, then
the habitations of dragons became fruitful fields.
III. The way of religion and godliness shall be
laid open : it is here called the way of holiness, (v. 8. )
the way both of holy worship and a holy conversa¬
tion. Holiness is the rectitude of the human nature
and will, in conformity to the divine nature and will
The way of holiness is that course of religious duties
in which men ought to walk and press forward,
with an eye to the glory of God, and their own feli¬
city in the enjoyment of him. “ When our God
shall come to save us, he shall chalk out to us this
way by his gospel, so as it had never been before
described.”
1. It shall be an appointed way; not a way rf suf¬
ferance, but a highway, and a way into which we
are directed by a divine authority, and in which we
are protected by a divine warrant. It is the King’s
highway, the King of king’s highway, in which,
though we may be way-laid, we cannot be stopped.
162
ISAIAH, XXXVI.
The way of holiness is the way cf God’s command- j
merits, it is (as highways are') the good old way,
Jer. vi. 16.
2. It shall be an appropriated way; the way in
which God will bring his own chosen to himselt, |
but the unclean shall not pass over it, either to defile
it, cr to disturb those that walk in it. It is a way
by itself, distinguished from the way of the world,
for it is a way of separation from, and nonconformity
to, this world; it shall be for those whom the Lord
has set ajiart for himself, (Ps. iv. 3.) shall be re¬
served for them, the redeemed shall walk there, and
the satisfaction they take in these ways of pleasant¬
ness shall be out of the reach of molestation from an
evil world. The unclean shall not pass over it, for
it shall be a fair way; those that walk in it are the
undefiled in the way, who escape the pollution that
is in the world.
3. It shall be a straight way ; The wayfaring men,
who choose to travel in it, though fools, of weak ca¬
pacity in other things, shall have such plain direc¬
tions from the word and Spirit ot God, in this way,
that they shall not err therein; not that they shall be
infallible in their own conduct, or that they shall in
nothing mistake; but they shall not be guilty of any
fatal misconduct, shall not so miss their way, but
that they shall recover it again, and get well to their
journey’s end. 1 hey that are in the narrow way,
though some may fall into one path, and others into
another, not all equally right, but all meeting at last
in the same end, shall yet never fall into the broad
way again; the Spirit ot truth shall lead them into all
truth that is necessary tor them. Note, 1 he way to
heaven is a plain way, and easy to hit. God has
chosen the foolish things of the world, and made
them wise to salvation. Knowledge is easy to him
that understands.
4. It shall be a safe way; JVo lion shall be there,
nor any ravenous beast, {y. 9.) none to hurt and
destroy; they that keep close to this way keep out
of the reach of Satan, the roaring lion, that wicked
one touches them not. They that walk in the way
of holiness may proceed with a holy security and
serenity of mind, knowing that nothing can do them
any real hurt; they shall be quiet from the fear of
evil. It was in Hezekiah’s days, some time after
the captivity of the ten tribes, that God, being dis¬
pleased with the colonies settled there, sent lions
among them, 2 Kings xvii. 25. But Judah keeps
her integrity, and therefore no lion shall be there.
Those that walk in the way of holiness must sepa¬
rate themselves from the unclean and the ravenous,
must save themselves from an untoward generation;
hoping that they themselves are of the redeemed,
let them walk with the redeemed, which shall walk
there.
IV. The end of this way shall be everlasting joy,
v. 10. This precious promise of peace now, will
end shortly in endless joys and rest for the soul.
Here is good news for the citizens of Zion, rest to
the weary; The ransomed of the Lord, who there¬
fore ought to follow him wherever he goes, (Rev.
xiv. 4.) shall return and come to Zion; 1. 1 o serve
and worship God in the church militant; they shall
deliver themselves out of Babylon, (Zech. ii. 7.)
shall ask the way to Zion, (Jer. 1. 5. ) and shall_/fnrf
the way, ch. lii. 12. God will open them a door of
escape out of their captivity, and it shall be an effec¬
tual door, though there be many adversaries. They
shall join themselves to the gospel-church, that
mount Zion, that city of the living God, Heb. xii.
22. They shall come with songs of joy and praise
for their deliverance out of Babylon, where they
wept upon evety remembrance of Zion, Ps. cxxxvii.
1. They that by faith are made citizens of the gos-
pel-Zion, may go on their way rejoicing; (Acts viii.
39. ) they shall sing in the ways of the Lord, and be
still praising him; they rejoice in Christ Jesus, and
the sorrows and sighs of their convictions are
made to flee away by the power of divine consola¬
tions. They that mourn are blessed, for they shall
be comforted. 2. To see and enjoy God in the
church triumphant; they that walk in the way of ho¬
liness, under the conduct of their Redeemer, shall
come to Zion at last, to the heavenly Zion, shall
come m a body, shall all lie presented togetln r,
faultless, at the coming of Christ’s glory with e.r-
ceeding joy; (Jude 24. Rev. vii. 17.) they shall
come with songs. When God’s people returned rut
of Babylon to Zion, they came weeping; (Jer. 1. 4.)
but they shall come to heaven singing a new song,
which no man can learn, Rev. xiv. 3. When they
shall enter into the joy of their Lord, it shall be
what the joys of this world never could be, ever-
lastingjoy, without mixture, interruption, or period;
it shall not only fill their hearts, to their own perfect
and perpetual satisfaction, but it shall be upon their
heads, as an ornament of grace, and a crown of
glory, as a garland worn in token of victory; their
joy shall be visible, and no longer a secret thing, as
it is here in this world; it shall be proclaimed, to the
glory of God, and their mutual encouragement;
they shall then obtain the joy and gladness which
they could never expect on this side heaven; and
sorrow and sighing shall flee away for ever, as the
shadows of the night before the rising sun. Thus
these prophecies which relate tq the Assyrian inva¬
sion, conclude, for the support of the people of God
under that calamity, and to direct their joy, in their
deliverance from it, to something higher. Our joy¬
ful hopes and prospects of eternal life should swal¬
low up both all the sorrows, and all the joys, of this
present time.
CHAP. XXXVI.
The prophet Isaiah is, in this and the three following chap¬
ters, an historian; for the scripture-history, as welT as the
scripture prophecy, is given by inspiration of God, and
was dictated to holy men. Many of the prophecies of
the foregoing chapters had their accomplishment in Sen¬
nacherib’s invading of Judah, and besieging of Jerusa¬
lem, arid the miraculous defeat he met with there: and
therefore the story of this is here inserted, both for the
explication and for the confirmation of the prophecy. The
key of prophecy is to be found in history; and here, that
' we might have the readier entrance, it is, as it were,
hung at the door. The exact fulfilling of this prophecy
might serve to confirm the faith of God’s people in the
other prophecies, the accomplishment of which was at a
greater distance. Whether this story was taken from
the book of the Kings , and added here, or whether it was
first written by Isaiah here, and from hence taken into
the book of Kings, it is not material. But the story is
the same almost verbatim; and it was so memorable an
event, that it was well worthy to be twice recorded, 2
Kings xviii. and xix. and here; and on abridgment of it
likewise, 2 Chron. xxxii. We shall be but snort in our
observations upon this story here, having largely ex¬
plained it there. In this chapter, we have, I. The de¬
scent which the king of Assyria made upon Judah, and
his success against all the defenced cities, v. I. II. The
conference he desired to have with Hezekiah, and the
managers on both sides, 2, 3. III. Rabshakeh’s railing
blasphemous speech, with which he designed to frighten
Hezekiah into a submission, and persuade him to sur¬
render at discretion, v. 4. . 10 IV. His appeal to the
people, and his attempt to persuade them to desert Heze¬
kiah, and so force him to surrender, v. 11.. 20. V.
The report of this made to Hezekiah by his agents, v.
21,22.
l.XTOW it came to pass in the four-
teenth year of king Hezekiah, that
Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against
all the defenced cities of Judah, and took
them. 2. And the king of Assyria sent
Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem, unto
ISAIAH,
king Hezekiali, with a great army: and lie
stood by the conduit of the upper pool, in
the highway of the fuller’s field. 3. Then
came forth unto him Eliakim, Hilkiah’sson,
which was over the house, and Shebna the
scribe, and Joah, Asaph’s son, the recorder.
4. And Rabshakeh said unto them, Say ye
now to Hezekiali, Thus saith the great king,
the king of Assyria, What confidence is this
wherein thou trustest ? 5. 1 say, smjest t/iou,
(hut they are but vain words,) 1 have counsel
and strength for war: now, on whom dost
thou trust, that thou rebellest against me ?
6. Lo, thou trustest in the staff of this broken
reed, on Egypt ; whereon if a man lean, it
will go into his hand, and pierce it: so is
Pharaoh king of Egypt to all that trust in
him. 7. But if thou say to me, We trust
in the Loro our God: is it not he whose
high places and whose altars Plezekiah hath
taken away, and said to Judah and to Jeru¬
salem, Ye shall worship before this altar '?
8. Now, therefore, give pledges, I pray thee,
to my master the king of Assyria, and I will
give thee two thousand horses, if thou be
able on thy part to set riders upon them. 9.
How then wilt thou turn away the face of
one captain of the least of my master’s ser¬
vants, and put thy trust on Egypt for cha¬
riots and for horsemen ? 10. And am I now
come up without the Lord against this
land to destroy it? The Lord said unto
me, Go up against this land, and destroy it.
We shall here only observe some practical les¬
sons from hence;
1. That a people may be in the way of their duty,
and yet meet with trouble and distress. Hezekiali
was reforming, and his people in some measure re¬
formed; and yet their country is at that time in¬
vaded, and a great part of it laid waste. Perhaps
they began to grow remiss and cool in the work of
reformation; were doing it by halves, and ready to
sit down short of a thorough reformation; and then
God visited them with this judgment, to put life
into them, and that good cduse. We must not won¬
der, if, when we are doing well, God sends afflic¬
tions to quicken us to do better, to do our best, and
to press forward toward perfection.
2. That we must never be secure of the continu¬
ance of our peace in this world, nor think our moun¬
tain stands so strong, that it cannot be moved. Heze-
kiah was not only a pious king, but prudent, both in
his administration at home, and in his treaties
abroad. His affairs were in a good posture, and he
seemed particularly to be upon good terms with the
king of Assyria, for he had lately made his peace
with him by a rich present; (2 Kings xviii. 14. ) and
yet that perfidious prince pours an army into his
country all of a sudden, and lays it waste. It is
good for us, therefore, always to keep up an expec¬
tation of trouble, that, when it comes, it may be no
suiprise to us, and then it will be the less a terror.
3. That God sometimes permits the enemies of
his people, even those that are most impious and
treacherous, to prevail far against them. The king
of Assyria took all, or most, of the defenced cities
of Judah, and then the country would of course be
XXXVI. 163
an easy prey to him. Wickedness may prosper
awhile, but cannot prosper always.
4. Proud men love to talk big, to boast of what
they are and have, and have done, nay and of what
they will do, to insult over others, and set all man¬
kind at defiance; though thereby they l ender them¬
selves ridiculous to all wise men, and obnoxious
to the wrath of that God who resists the proud.
Hut thus they think to make themselves feared,
though they make themselves hated, and to carry
their [joint by great swelling words of vanity,
Jude 16.
5. The enemies of God’s people endeavour to
conquer them by frightening them, especially by
frightening them from their confidence in God.
Thus Rabshakeh here, with noise and banter, nans
down Hezekiali as utterly unable to cope with his
master, or in the least to make head against him.
It concerns us therefore, that we may keep our
ground against the enemies of our souls, to keep up
our spirits by keeping up cur hope in God.
6. It is acknowledged on all hands, that those
who forsake God’s service, forfeit his protection.
If that had been true, which Rabshakeh alleged,
that Hezekiah had thrown down God’s altars, he
might justly infer, that he could not with any as¬
surance trust in him for succour and relief, v. 7.
We may say thus to presuming sinners, who say
that they trust in the Lord and in his mercy; Is not
this he whose commandments they have lived in the
contempt of, whose name they have dishonoured,
and whose ordinances they have slighted? How
then can they expect to find favour with him.
7. It is an easy thing, and very common, for those
that persecute the church and people of God, to
pretend a commission from him tor so doing. Rab¬
shakeh could say, Am I now come u/i without the
Lord? when really he was come up against the
Lord, ch. xxxvii. 28. They that kill the servants
of the Lord think they do him service, and say, Let
the Lord be glorified. But, sooner or later, they
will be made to know their error to their cost, to
their confusion.
1 1. Then said Eliakim, and Shebna, and
Joah, unto Rabshakeh, Speak, I pray thee,
unto thy servants in the Syrian language;
for we understand it: and speak not to us in
the Jews’ language, in the ears of the people
that are on the wall. 1 2. But Rabshakeh
said, Hath my master sent me to thy master
and to thee, to speak these words? hath he
not sent me to the men that sit upon the wall,
that they may eat their own dung and drink
their own piss with you? 13. Then Rab¬
shakeh stood, and cried with a loud voice
in the Jews’ language, and said, Hear ye the
words of the great king, the king of Assyria :
14. Thus saith the king, Let not Hezekiah
deceive you ; for he shall not be able to de¬
liver you. 15. Neither let Hezekiah make
you trust in the Lord, saying, The Lord
will surely deliver us : this city shall not be
delivered into the hand of the king of As¬
syria. 16. Hearken not to Hezekiah; for
thus saith the king of Assyria, Makers
agreement with me by a present, and come
out to me : and eat ye every one of his vine,
and every one of his fig-tree, and drink ye
every one the waters of his own cistern;
164
ISAIAH, XXXVII.
17. Until I come and take you away to a
land like your own land, a land of corn and
wine, a land of bread and vineyards. 18.
Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, say¬
ing, The Lord will deliver us. Hath any
of the gods of the nations delivered his land
out of the hand of the king of Assyria? 19.
Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad?
where are tire gods of Sepharvaim ! and have
they delivered Samaria out of my hand?
20. Who are they among all the gods of
these lands that have delivered their land
out of my hand, that the Loan should de¬
liver Jerusalem out of my hand? 21. But
they held their peace, and answered him not
a word: for the king’s commandment was,
saying, Answer him not. 22. Then came
Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, that was over
the household, and Shebna the scribe, and
Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, to
Hezekiah with their clothes rent, and told
him the words of Rabshakeh.
We may hence learn these lessons:
1. That, while princes and counsellors have pub¬
lic matters under debate, it is not fair to appeal to
the people. It was a reasonable motion which He-
zekiah’s plenipotentiaries made, that this parley
should be held in a language which the people did
not understand, (y. 11.) because reasons of state
are secret things, and ought to be kept secret, the
vulgar being incompetent judges of them. It is
therefore an unfair practice, and not doing as men
would be done by, to incense subjects against their
rulers by base insinuations.
2. Proud and haughty scomers, the fairer they
are spoken to, commonly speak the fouler. No¬
thing could be said more mildly and respectfully
than that which Hezekiah’s agents said to Rabsha¬
keh. Beside that the thing itself was just, which
they desired, they called themselves his servants,
they petitioned for it, Speak, me pray thee; but
this made him the more spiteful and imperious.
To give rough answers to those who give us soft
answers, is one way of rendering evil for good; and
those are wicked indeed, and it is to be feared, in¬
curably, with whom that which usually turns away
wrath does but make bad worse.
3. When Satan would tempt men from trusting
in God, and cleaving to him, he does it by insinuat¬
ing, that, in yielding to him, they may better their
condition; but it is a false suggestion, and grossly
absurd, and therefore to be rejected with the ut¬
most abhorrence. When the world and the flesh
say to us, “ Make an agreement with us, and come
out to us, submit to our dominion, and come into
our interests, and you shall eat every one of his own
vine;’’ they do but deceive us, promising liberty
then when they would lead us into the basest cap¬
tivity and slavery. One might as well take Rab-
shakeh’s word as theirs, for kind usage and fair
quarter; therefore, when they speak fair, believe
them not. Let them say what they will, there is no
land like the land of promise, the holy land.
4. Nothing can be more absurd in itself, nor a
greater affront to the true and living God, than to
compare him with the gods of the heathen; as if he
could do no more for the protection of his worship¬
pers than they can for the protection of theirs;
and as if the God of Israel could as easily be mas¬
tered as the gods of Hamath and Arpad. Where¬
as they are vanity and a lie, they are nothing; he
is the great I AM: they are the creatures of men’s
fancy, and the works of men’s hands; he is the
Creator of all things.
5. Presumptuous sinners are ready to think, that,
because they have been too hard tor their fellcw-
creatures, they are therefore a matcli for their
Creator. This and the other nation they have sub¬
dued, and therefore the Lord himself shall not de¬
liver Jerusalem out of their hand. But though the
potsherds may strive with the potsherds of the
earth, let them not strive with the Potter.
6. it is sometimes prudent not to answer a fool
according to his folly. Hezekiah’s command was,
“Answer him not; it will but provoke him to rail
and blaspheme yet more and more; leave it to Gcd
to stop his mouth, for you cannot.” They had rea¬
son enough on their side, but it would be hard to
speak it to such an unreasonable adversary without
a mixture of passion ; and if they should fall a rail¬
ing like him, Rabshakeh would be too hard for
them at that weapon.
7. It becomes the people of Gcd to lay to heart
the dishonour done to God by the blasphemies of
wicked men, though they do not think it prudence
to reply to those blasphemies. Though they an¬
swered him not a word, yet they rent their clothes,
in a holy zeal for the glory of God’s name, and a
holy indignation at the contempt put upon it. They
tore their garments, when they heard blasphemy,
as taking no pleasure in their own ornaments, when
God’s honour suffered.
CHAP. XXXVII.
In this chapter we have a further repetition of the story
which we had before in the book of Kings, concerning
Sennacherib. In the chapter before, we had him conquer¬
ing, and threatening to conquer. In this chapter, we have
him falling, and, at last, fallen, in answer to prayer, and
in performance of many of the prophecies which we
have met with in the foregoing chapters. Here we
have, I. Hezekiah’s pious resentment of Rabshakeh’s
impious discourse, v. 1. II. The gracious message he
sent to Isaiah to desire his prayers, v. 2 . . 5. III. The
encouraging answer jvhich Isaiah sent him from God,
assuring him that God would plead his cause against
the king of Assyria, v. 6, 7. IV. An abusive letter
which the king of Assyria sent to Hezekiah, to the same
purport with Rabshakeh’s speech, v. 8 . . 13. V. Heze¬
kiah’s humble prayer to God upon the receipt of this
letter, v. 14 . . 20. VI. The further full answer which
God sent him by Isaiah, promising him that his affairs
should shortly take a happy turn, that the storm should
blow over, and every thing should appear bright and se¬
rene, v. 21 . . 35. V\l. The immediate accomplishment
of this prophecy in the ruin of his army, (v. 36.) and the
murder of himself, v. 37, 38. All which was largely
opened 2 Kings 19.
1. A ND it came to pass, when king He-
zekiali heard it, that he rent his
clothes, and covered himself with sack¬
cloth, and went into the house of the Lord.
2. And he sent Eliakim, who teas over the
household, and Shebna the scribe, and the
elders of the priests covered with sack¬
cloth, unto Isaiah the prophet, the son of
Amoz. 3. And they said unto him, Thus
saith Hezekiah, This is a day of trouble,
and of rebuke, and of blasphemy: for the
children are come to the birth, and there
j is not strength to bring forth. 4. It maybe
the Lord thy God will hear the words of
Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his
master hath sent to reproach the living
I God, and will reprove- the words which the
165
ISAIAH, XXXVII.
Lord thy God hath heard : wherefore lift
up thy prayer for the remnant that is left.
5. So the servants of king Hezekiah came
to Isaiah. 6. And Isaiah said unto them,
Tlius shall ye say unto your master, Thus
saith the Lord, Be not afraid of the words
that thou hast heard, wherewith the ser¬
vants of the king of Assyria have blasphem¬
ed me. 7. Behold, I will send a blast upon
him; and he shall hear a rumour, and re¬
turn to his own land: and 1 will cause him
to fall by the sword in his own land.
We may observe here,
1. That the best way to baffle the malicious de¬
signs of our enemies against us, is, to be driven by
them to God and to our duty, and so to fetch meat
out of the eater. Rabshakeh intended to frighten
Hezekiah from the Lord, but it proves that he
frightens him to the Lord. The wind, instead of
forcing the traveller’s coat from him, makes him
wrap it the closer about him. The more Rabsha¬
keh reproaches God, the more Hezekiah studies to
honour him, by rending his clothes for the disho¬
nour done to him, and attending in his sanctuary to
know his mind.
2. That it well becomes great men to desire the
prayers of good men and good ministers. Hezeki¬
ah sent messengers, and honourable ones, those of
the first rank, to Isaiah, to desire his prayers, re¬
membering how much his prophecies of late had
plainly looked toward the events of the present
day; in dependence upon which, it is probable, he
doubted not but that the issue would be comforta¬
ble, yet lie would have it to be so in answer to
prayer; This is a day of trouble, therefore let it be
a day of prayer.
3. When we are most at a plunge, we should be
most earnest in prayer; Now that the children are
brought to the birth, but there is not strength to
bring forth, now let prayer come, and help at a
dead lift; when pains are most strong, let prayers
be most lively; and when we meet with the great¬
est difficulties, then is a time to stir up not ourselves
only, but others also, to take hold on God. Prayer
is the midwife of mercy, that helps to bring it forth.
4. It is an encouragement to pray, though we
have but some hopes of mercy; (i>. 4.) It may be,
the Lord thy God will hear; who knows but he
will return and refient? The ‘ it may be ’ of the
prospect of the haven of blessings, should quicken
us with double diligence to ply the oar of prayer.
5. When there is a remnant left, and but a rem¬
nant, it concerns us to lift up a prayer for that rem¬
nant, v. 4. The prayer that reaches heaven must
be lifted up by a strong faitb, earnest desires, and
a direct intention to the glory of God: all which
should be quickened when we come to the last stake.
6. Those that have made God their Enemy, we
have no reason to be afraid of, for they are marked
for ruin; and though they may hiss, they cannot
hurt. Rabshakeh has blasphemed God, and there¬
fore let not Hezekiah be afraid of him, v. 6. He
has made God a Party to the cause by his invec¬
tives. and therefore judgment will certainly be
givei against him. God will certainly plead his
own cause.
7. Sinners’ fears are but prefaces to their falls;
he shall hear the rumour of the slaughter of his
army, which shall oblige him to retire to his own
land, and there he shall be slain, v. 7. The ter¬
rors that pursue him shall bring him at last to the
king of terrors. Job xviii. 11, 14. The curses that
come upon sinners shall overtake them.
8. So Rabshakeh returned, and found
the king of Assyria warring against Lib
nab : for lie had heard that lie was depart
ed from Lachish. 9. And he heard say
concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, He
is come forth to make war with thee: and
when he heard it, he sent messengers to
Hezekiah, saying, 10. Thus shall ye speak
to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Let not
thy God in whom thou trustest deceive
thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given
into the hand ol the king of Assyria. 1 1
Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of
Assyria have done to all lands, by destroy¬
ing them utterly; and shalt thou be deli¬
vered ? . 12. Have the gods of the nations
delivered them which my fathers have de¬
stroyed, as Gozan, and Haran, and Re-
zepli, and the children of Eden which were
in Telassar? 13. Where is the king of
Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the
king of the city of Sepharvaiin, Hena, and
Ivah? 14. And Hezekiah received the
lettep from the hand of the messengers, and
read it: and Hezekiah went up unto the
house of the Lord, and spread it before
the Lord. 15. And Hezekiah prayed unto
the Lord, saying, 1G. O Lord of hosts,
God of Israel, that dwellest between the
cherubims, thou art the God, even thou
alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth;
thou hast made heaven and earth. 1 7. In¬
cline thine ear, O Lord, and hear ; open
thine eyes, O Lord, and see ; and hear all
the words of Sennacherib, which hath sent
to reproach the living God. 18. Of a truth,
Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste
all the nations, and their countries, 19.
And have cast their gods into the fire; for
they were no gods, but the work of men’s
hands, wood and stone ; therefore they have
destroyed them. 20. Now, therefore, O
Lord our God, save us from his hand, that
all the kingdoms of the earth may know
that thou art the Lord, even thou only.
We may observe here,
1. That if God gives us inward satisfaction in the
promise, this may confirm us in our silent bearing
of reproaches. God answered Hezekiah, but it
does not appear that he, after deliberation, sent any
answer to Rabshakeh; but God having taken the
work into his own hands, he quietly left the mattei
with him. So Rabshakeh returned to the king his
master for fresh instructions.
2. Those that delight in war shall have enough
of it. Sennacherib, without provocation given to
him, or warning given by him, went forth against
Judah; and now with as little ceremony the king
of Ethiopia goes forth to war against him, v. 9.
They that are quarrelsome may expect to be quar¬
relled with; and God sometimes checks the rage of
his enemies by giving it a powerful diversion.
3. It is bad to talk proudly and profanely, but it
1 06 ISAIAH,
is worse to write so, for that argues more delibera¬
tion and design, and what is written spreads fur¬
ther, lasts longer, and does the more mischief; athe¬
ism and irreligion, written, will certainly be rec¬
koned for another day.
4. Great successes often harden sinners’ hearts
in their sinful ways, and make them the more
daring. Because the kings of Assyria have de¬
stroyed all lands, (though, in fact, they were but a
few that fell within their reach,) therefore they
doubt not but to destroy God’s land; because the
gods of the nations were unable to help, they con¬
clude the God of Israel is so; because the idola¬
trous kings of Hamath and Arpad became an
easy prey to them, therefore the religious reform¬
ing king of Judah must needs be so too. Thus is
the proud man ripened for ruin by the sunshine of
prosperity.
5. Liberty of access to the throne of grace, and
liberty of speech there, are the unspeakable privi¬
leges of the Lord’s people at all times, especially in
times of distress and danger. Hezekiah took Sen¬
nacherib’s letter, and spread it before the Lord; not
designing to make any complaints against him, but
those grounded upon his own hand-writing. Let
the thing speak itself, here it is in black and white;
Often thine eyes, O Lord , and see. God allows his
praying people to be humbly free with him, to utter
all their words, as Jephthah did, before him, to
spread the letter, whether of a friend or an enemy,
before him, and leave the contents, the concern of
it, with him.
6. The great fundamental principles of our reli¬
gion, applied by faith, and improved in prayer, will
be of sovereign use to us in our particular exigences
and distresses, whatever they are; to them there¬
fore we must have recourse, and abide by them ; so
Hezekiah did here. He encouraged himself with
this, that the God of Israel is the Lord of hosts, of
all hosts; of the hosts of Israel, to animate them;
of the hosts of their enemies, to dispirit and restrain
them; that he is God alone, and there is none that
can stand in competition with him; that he is the
God of all the kingdoms of the earth, and disposes
of them all as he pleases, for he made heaven and
earth; and therefore both can do any thing, and
does every thing.
7. When we are afraid of men that are great de¬
stroyers, we may with humble boldness appeal to
God as the great Saviour. They have indeed de¬
stroyed the nations, who had thrown themselves out
of the protection of the true God by worshipping
false gods; but the Lord, the God alone, is our God,
our King, our Lawgiver, and he will save us, who
is the Saviour of, them that believe.
8. We have enough to take hold of, in our wrestling
with God by prayer, if we can but plead that his
glory is interested in our case; that his name will
be profaned if we are run down, and glorified if
we are relieved. Thence therefore will our most
prevailing pleas be drawn; Do it for thy glory’s
sake.
21. Then Isaiah, the son of Amoz, sent
unto Hezekiah, saying, Thus saith the Loro
God of Israel, Whereas thou hast prayed to
me against Sennacherib king of Assyria:
22. This is the word which the Lord hatli
spoken concerning him, The virgin, the
daughter of Zion, hath despised thee, and
laughed thee to scorn ; the daughter of Je¬
rusalem hath shaken her head at thee. 23.
Whom hast thou reproached and blas¬
phemed? and against whom hast thou ex-
XXXVII.
alted thy voice, and lifted up thine eyes on
high ? Even against the Holy One of Israel.
24. By thy servants hast thou reproached
the Loro, and hast said, By the multitude
of my chariots am 1 come up to the height
of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon;
and I will cut down the tall cedars thereof,
and the choice fir-trees thereof: and 1 will
enter into the height of his border, and the
forest of his Carmel. 25. I have digged,
and drunk water; and with the sole of my
feet have I dried up all the rivers of the be¬
sieged places. 26. Hast thou not heard
long ago, how I have done it; and of ancient
times that I have formed it? now have I
brought it to pass, that thou shouldest be to
lay waste defenced cities into ruinous heaps.
27. Therefore their inhabitants were of small
power, they were dismayed and confounded:
they were as the grass of the field, and as
the green herb; as the grass on the house¬
tops, and as corn blasted before it be grown
up. 28. But I know thy abode, and thy
going out, and thy coming in, and thy rage
against me. 29. Because thy rage against
me, and thy tumult, is come up into mine
ears; therefore will 1 put my hook in thy
nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will
turn thee back by the way which thou earn¬
est. 30. And this shall be a sign unto thee,
Ye shall eat this year such as groweth of
itself; and the second year that which spring-
eth of the same ; and in the third year sow
ye, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat
the fruit thereof. 31. And the remnant that
is escaped of the house of Judah shall again
take root downward, and bear fruit upward :
32. For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a
remnant, and they that escape out of mount
Zion: the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall
do this. 33. Therefore thus saith the Lord
concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not
come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there,
nor come before it with shields, nor cast a
bank against it. 34. By the way that he
came, by the same shall he return, and shall
not come into this city, saith the Lord.
35. For I will defend this city to save it,
for mine own sake, and for my servant Da
vid’s sake. 36. Then the angel of the Lord
went forth, and smote in the camp of the
Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five
thousand: and when they arose early in the
morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.
37. So Sennacherib king of Assyria depart¬
ed, and went and returned, and dwelt at
Nineveh. 38. And it came to pass, as he
was worshipping in the house of Nisroch
his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer
his sons smote him with the sword; and
ISAIAH,
they escaped into the land of Armenia: and
Esar-haddon his son reigned in his stead.
We may here observe,
1. That those who receive messages of terror from
men with patience, and send messages of faith to
God by prayer, may expect messages of grace and
peace from God for their comfort, then when they
are most cast down. Isaiah sent a long answer to
Hezekiah’s prayer, in God’s name, sent it in writ¬
ing, (for it was too long to be sent by word of mouth, )
and sent it by way of return to his prayer, relation
being thereunto had; “ Whereas thou hast forayed
to me , know, for thy comfort, that thy prayer is
heard.” Isaiah might have referred him to the pro¬
phecies he had delivered, (particularly that, ch. 10. )
and bid him pick out an answer from thence; but,
that he might have abundant consolation, a message
is sent him on purpose. The correspondence be¬
tween earth and heaven is never let fall on God’s
side.
2. Those who magnify themselves, especially
who magnify themselves against God and his peo¬
ple, do really vilify themselves, and make them¬
selves contemptible in the eyes of all wise men; The
virgin, the daughter of Zion, has desfoised Senna¬
cherib, and all his impotent malice and menaces;
she knows that, while she preserves her integrity,
she is sure of the divine protection, and that, though
the enemy may bark, he cannot bite. All his threats
are a jest, it is all but brutum fulmen — a mere fash.
3. Those who abuse the people of God, affront
God himself; and he takes what is said and done
against them, as said and done against himself;
“ Jl'hom hast thou reforoached ? Even the Holy One
of Israel; whom thou hast therefore reproached,
because he is a Holy One.” And it aggravated the
indignity Sennacherib did to God, that he not only
reproached him himself, but set his servants on to
doit; By thy servants, the abjects, thou hast re¬
foroached me.
4. Those who boast of themselves and their own
achievements, reflect upon God and his providence;
“ Thou hast said, I have digged, and drunk water.
I have done mighty feats, and will do more;” and
wilt not own that I have done it, r. 24, 26. The
most active men are no more than God makes
them, and God makes them no more than of old he
designed to make them; “ What I have formed of
ancient times, in an eternal counsel, now have I
brought to foass,” (for God does all according to
the counsel of his will,) “ that thou shouldest be
to waste defenced cities; it is therefore intolerable
arrogance to make it thine own doing.”
5. All the malice, and all the motions and projects,
of the church’s enemies, are under the cognizance
and check of the church’s God. Sennacherib was
active and quick, here, and there, and every where,
but God knew his going out and coming in, and had
always an eye upon him, t>. 28. And that was not
all; he had a hand upon him too, a strict hand, a
strong hand, a hook in his nose, and a bridle in his
lifts, with which, though he was very headstrong
and unruly, he could and would turn him back by
the way he came, v. 29. Hitherto he shall come,
and no further. God had signed Sennacherib’s
commission against Judah, (r/;. x. 6.) here he su¬
persedes it ; he has frightened them but he must
not hurt them, and therefore is discharged from
going any further; nay, his commitment is here
signed, by which he is clapped up, to answer for
what he had done beyond his commission.
6. God is his people’s bountiful Benefactor, as
well as their powerful Protector; both a Sun and a
Shield to those who trust in him. Jerusalem shall
be defended, (i>. 35.) the besiegers shall not come
into it, no, nor come before it, with any regular at-
XXXVIII. ig:
i tack, but they shall be routed before they begin the
siege, v. 33. But this is not all; God will return in
mercy to his people, and will do them good. Their
land shall be more than ordinarily fruitful, so that
their losses shall be abundantly repaired; they shall
not feel any of the ill effects either of the enemy’s
wasting the country, or of their own being taken off
from husbandry. But the earth, as at first, sh ill
bring forth of itself, and they shall live, and live
plentifully, upon its spontaneous productions. The
blessing of the Lord can, when he pleases, make
rich without the hand of the diligent. And let them
not think that the desolations of their country would
excuse them from observing the sabbatical year,
which happened (as it should seem) the year after,
and when they were not to plough or sow; no,
though they had not now their usual stock before¬
hand for that year, yet they must religiously ob¬
serve it, and depend upon God to provide for them.
God must be trusted in the way of duty.
7. There is no standing before the judgments of
God, when they come with commission. (1.) The
greatest numbers cannot stand before them; cne
ungel shall, in one night, lay a vast army of men
dead upon the spot, when God commissions him so
to do, v. 36. Here are 185,000 brave soldiers in an
instant turned into so many dead corpses. Many
think the 76th Psalm was penned upon occasion of
this defeat; where, from the sfooiling of the stout-
heafted, and sending them to sleep their long sleep,
(*’• 5. ) it is inferred that God is more glorious and
excellent than the mountains of forex/, (i>. 4.) and
that he, even he, is to be feared, v. 7. Angels are
employed, more than we are aware of, as ministers
of God’s justice, to punish the pride, and break the
power, of wicked men. (2.) The greatest men
cannot stand before them. The great king, the king
of Assyria, looks very little, when he is forced to
return, not only with shame, because he cannot ac¬
complish what he had projected with so much as¬
surance, but with terror and fear, lest the angel that
had destroyed his army should destrov him; vet he
is made to look less, when his own sons, who should
have guarded him, sacrificed him to his idol, whose
protection he sought, v. 37, 38. God can quickly
stop their breath, who breathe out threatening s
and slaughter against his people, and will do it,
when they have filled up the measure of their ini¬
quity; and the I .or cl is known by these judgments
which he executes, known to be a God that resists
the proud. Manv prophecies were fulfilled in this
providence; which should encourage us, as far as
they look further, and are designed as common and
general assurances of the safety of the church and
of all that tnist in God, to depend upon God for the
accomplishment of them. He that has delivered,
doth and will. Lord, forgive our enemies; but, so
let all thine enemies foerish, O Lord.
CHAP. XXXVIII.
This chanter proceeds in the history of Hezekiah. Here
is, 1. His sickness, and the sentence of death he received
within himself, v. 1. II. His praver in his sickness, v.
2, 3. III. The answer of peace which God gave to that
prayer, assuring him that he should recover, that he
should live 15 years vet. that Jerusalem should be deli¬
vered from the king of Assyria, and that, for a sign to
confirm his faith herein, the sun should go back ten de¬
grees, v. 4. .3. And this we read and opened before,
2 Kings xx. I, &c. But, IV. Here is Hezekiah’s thanks¬
giving for his recoverv, which we had not before, v. 9. .
20. To which are added, the means used, (v. 21.) and
the end the good man aimed at in desiring to recover, v.
22. This is a chapter which will entertain the thoughts,
direct the devotions, and encourage the faith and hones,
of those that are confined by bodily distempers. It visits
those that are visited with sickness.
1. TN those days was Hezekiah sick unto
JL death. And Isaiah the prophet, the
168
ISAIAH, XXXVIII.
son of Amoz, came unto him, and said unto
him, Thus saith the Lord, Set thy house in
order : for thou shalt die, and not live. 2.
Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the
wall, and prayed unto the Lord, 3. And
said, Remember now, O Lord, I beseech
thee, how I have walked before thee in
truth, and with a perfect heart, and have
done that which is good in thy sight: and
Hezekiah wept sore. 4. Then came the
word of the Lord to Isaiah, saying, 5. Go
and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the Lord,
the God of David thy father, I have heard
thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold,
I will add unto thy days fifteen years. 6.
And I will deliver thee and this city out of
the hand of the king of Assyria: and l will
defend this city. 7. And this shall be a sign
unto thee from the Lord, that the Lord
will do this thing that he hath spoken; 8.
Behold, I will bring again the shadow of
the degrees, which is gone down in the sun¬
dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the
sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees
it was gone down.
We may hence observe, among others, these good
lessons:
1. That neither men’s greatness nor their good¬
ness will exempt them from the arrests of sickness
and death. Hezekiah, a mighty potentate on earth,
and a mighty favourite of Heaven, is struck with a
disease, which, without a miracle, will certainly be
mortal; and this, in the midst of his days, his com¬
forts, and usefulness. Lord, behold, he whom thou
/ovest is sick. It should seem, this sickness seized
him when he was in the midst of his triumphs over
the ruined army of the Assyrians, to teach us al¬
ways to rejoice with trembling.
2. It concerns us to prepare, when we see death
approaching; “ Set thy house in order, and thy heart
especially; put both thine affections and thine af¬
fairs into the best posture thou canst, that, when
thy Lord comes, thou mayest be found of him in
peace with God, with thy own conscience, and with
all men, and mayest have nothing else to do but to
die.” Our being ready for death will make it come
never the sooner, but much the more easily : and
those that are fit to die are most fit to live.
3. Is any afflicted with sickness? Let him pray,
James v. 13. Prayer is a salve for every sore, per¬
sonal or public; when Hezekiah was distressed by
his enemies, he prayed; now that he was sick, he
prayed. Whither should the child go, when any
thing ails him, but to his Father? Afflictions are
sent to bring us to our Bibles and to our knees.
When Hezekiah was in health, he went up to the
house of the Lord, to pray, for that was then the
house of prayer. When he was sick in bed, he
turned his face toward the wall; probably, toward
the temple, which was a type of Christ, to whom
we must look by faith in every prayer.
4. The testimony of our consciences for us, that
by the grace of God we have lived a good life, and
have walked closely and humbly with God, will be
a great support and comfort to us when we come to
look death in the face. And though we mav not
depend upon it as our righteousness, by which to be
justified before God, yet we may humbly plead it
as an evidence of our interest in the righteousness of
the Mediator. Hezekiah does not demand a reward
from God for his good services, but modestly begs
that God would remember, not how he had re¬
formed the kingdom, taken away the high-places,
cleansed the temple, and revived neglected ordi¬
nances; but, which was better than all burnt-offer¬
ings and sacrifices, how he had approved himself
to God with a single eye and an honest heart, net
only in these eminent performances, but in an even
regular course of holy living; I have walked before
thee in truth and sincerity, and with a perfect, that
is, an upright, heart; for uprightness is our gospel-
perfection.
5. God has a gracious ear open to the prayers of
his afflicted people. The same prophet that was
sent to Hezekiah with warning to prepare for death,
is sent to him with a promise that he shall not only
recover, or be restored to a confirmed state of healtl i .
but live fifteen years yet. As Jerusalem was dis
tressed, so Hezekiah was diseased, that God might
have the glory of the deliverance of both, and that
prayer too might have the honour of being instru¬
mental in the deliverance. When we pray in our
sickness, though God send not to us such an answer
as he here sent to Hezekiah, yet, if by his Spirit he
bids us be of good cheer, assures us that our sins are
forgiven us, that his grace shall be sufficient for us,
and that, whether we live or die, we shall be his,
we have no reason to say that we pray in vain. God
answers us, if he strengthen us with strength in our
souls, though not with bodily strength, Ps. cxxxviii. 3.
6. A good man cannot take much comfort in his
own health and prosperity, unless withal he see the
welfare and prosperity of the church of God.
Therefore God, knowing what lay near Hezekiah’s
heart, promised him not only that he should live,
but that he should see the good of Jerusalem all the
days of his life, (Ps. cxxviii. 5.) otherwise he can¬
not live comfortably. Jerusalem, which is now de¬
livered, shall still be defended from the Assyrians,
who perhaps threatened to rally again, and renew
the attack. Thus does God graciously provide to
make Hezekiah upon all accounts easy.
7. God is willing to show to the heirs of promise
the immutability of his counsel, that they may have
an unshaken faith in it, and therewith a strong con¬
solation. God has given Hezekiah repeated assu¬
rances of his favour; and yet, as if all were thought
too little, that he might expect from him uncommon
favours, a sign is given him, an uncommon sign —
none that we know of having had an absolute pro¬
mise of living a certain number of years to come, as
Hezekiah had. God thought fit to confirm this un¬
precedented favour with a miracle. The sign was
the going back of the shadow upon the sun-dial: the
sun is a faithful measurer of time, and rejoices as a
strong man to run a race; but he that set that clock
agoing can set it back, when he pleases, and make
it to return; for the Father of all lights is the Direc¬
tion of them.
9. The writing of Hezekiah kingof Judah,
when he had been sick, and was recovered
of his sickness: 10. 1 said, in the cutting off
of my days, I shall go to the gates of the
grave: I am deprived of the residue of my
years. 11.1 said, I shall not see the Lord,
even the Lord, in the land of the living: I
shall behold man no more with the inhabi¬
tants of the world. 12. Mine age is depart¬
ed, and is removed from me as a shepherd’s
tent: I have cut off like a weaver my life,
he will cut me off with pining sickness:
! from day even to night wilt thou make an
ISAIAH, XXXVIII. 1C«J
*rnl of me. 13. I reckoned till morning,
.hat, as a lion, so will he break all my
bones: from day even to night wilt thou
make an end of me. 1 4. Like a crane, or
a swallow, so did I chatter; I did mourn as
a dove: mine eyes fail with looking upward :
O Loan, I am oppressed; undertake for
me. 15. What shall I say? he hath both
spoken unto me, and himself hath done it:
I shall go softly all my years in the bitter¬
ness of my soul. 16. O I.ord, by these
things men live, and in all these things is the
life of my spirit : so wilt thou recover me,
and make me to live. 1 7. Behold, for peace
I had great bitterness; but thou hast in love
to my soul delivered it from the pit of cor¬
ruption: for thou hast cast all my sins be¬
hind thy back. 18. For the grave cannot
praise thee; death cannot celebrate thee:
they that go down into the pit cannot hope
for thy truth. 19. The living, the living, he
shall praise thee, as I do this day; the father
to the children shall make known thy truth.
20. The Lord was ready to save me: there¬
fore we will sing my songs to the stringed
instruments, all the days of our life, in the
house of the Lord. 21. For Isaiah had
said, Let them take a lump of figs, and lay
it for a plaster upon the boil, and he shall
recover. 22. Hezekiah also had said, What
is the sign that I shall go up to the house of
the Lord?
We have here Hezekiah’s thanksgiving-song,
which he penned, by divine direction, after his re¬
covery. He might have taken some of the psalms
of his father David, and have made use of them for
his purpose ; he might have found many very perti¬
nent ones. He appointed the Levites to praise the
Lord with the words of David, 2 Chron. xxix. 30.
But the occasion here was extraordinary, and, his
heart being full of devout affections, he would not
confine himself to the compositions he had, though
of divine inspiration, but would offer up his affec¬
tions in his own words, which is most natural and
genuine. He put this thanksgiving in writing, that
lie might review it himself afterward, for the re¬
viving of the good impressions made upon him by
this providence, and that it might be recommended
to others also for their use upon the like occasion.
Note, There are writings which it is proper for us
to draw up after we have been sick and are re¬
covered. It is good to write a memorial of the af¬
fliction, and of the frame of our hearts under it; to
keep a record of the thoughts we had of things when
we were sick, the affections that were then working
in us; to write a memorial of the mercies of a sick
bed, and of our release from it, that they may never
be forgotten; to write a thanksgiving to God, write
a sure covenant with him, and seal it; give it under
our hands, that we will never return again to folly.
It is an excellent writing which Hezekiah here left,
upon his recovery; and yet we find (2 Chron. xxxii.
25.) that he rendered not again according to the
benefit done to him. The impressions, one would
have thought, should never have worn off, and yet,
it seems, they did. Thanksgiving is good, but
thank s/nv'yy is better.
Vol. iv. — Y
Now, in this writing, he preserves upon record,
L The deplorable condition he was in when his
disease prevailed, and his despair of recovery, v.
10 — 13. He tells us what his thoughts were of him¬
self, when he was at the worst; and these he keeps
in remembrance; 1. As blaming himself for his
despondency, and that he gave up himself for gone;
whereas, while there is life, there is hope, and room
for our prayer and God’s mercy. Though it is good
to consider sickness as a summons to' the grave, so
as thereby to be quickened in our preparation for
another world, yet we ought not to make the worst
of our case, nor to think that every sick man must
needs be quickly a dead man. He that brings low,
can raise up. Or, 2. As reminding himself of the
apprehensions he had of death approaching, that he
might always know and consider his own frailty and
mortality, and that, though he had a reprieve for
fifteen years, it was but a reprieve, and the fatal
stroke he had now such a dread of would certainly
come at last. Or, 3. As magnifying the power of
God in recovering him when his case was desperate,
and his goodness in being so much better to him
than his own fears. Thus David sometimes, when
he was delivered out of trouble, reflected upon the
black and melancholy conclusions he had made upon
his own case when he was in trouble, and what he
had then said in his haste, as Ps. xxxi. 22. — lxxvii.
7—9.
Let us see what Hezekiah’s thoughts of himself
were :
(1.) He reckoned that the number of his months
was cut off in the midst: he was now about thirty-
nine or forty years of age, and when he had a fair
prospect of many years and happy ones, very happy,
very many, before him. This distemper that sud¬
denly seized him, he concluded would be the cut-
ting off his days; that he should now be deprived
of the residue of his years, which, in a course of na¬
ture, he might have lived; not which he could com¬
mand as a debt due to him, but which he had rea¬
son to expect, considering the strength of his consti¬
tution: and with them he should be deprived not
only of the comforts of life, but of all the oppor¬
tunities he had of serving God and his generation.
To the same purport, (i>. 12.) “ Mine age is de¬
parted and gone, and is removed from me as a shep¬
herd’s tent, out of which I am forcibly dislodged by
the pulling of it down in an instant.” Our present
residence is but like that of a shepherd in his tent,
a poor, mean, and cold lodging, where we are upon
duty, and with a trust committed to our charge, as
the shepherd has, of which we must give an ac¬
count, and which will easily be taken down by the
drawing of one pin or two. But observe. It is not
the final period of our age, but only the removal of
it to another world, where the tents of Kedar that
are taken down, coarse, black, and weather-beaten,
shall be set up again in the New Jerusalem, comely
as the curtains of Solomon. He adds another simili¬
tude; I have cutoff, like a weaver, my life. Not
that he did by any act of his own cut off the thread
of his life; but, being told that he must needs die,
he was forced to cut off all his designs and projects,
his purposes were broken off, even the thoughts of
his heart, as Job’s were, ch. xvii. 11. Our days are
compared to the weaver’s shuttle, (Job vii. 6.)
passing and repassing very swiftly, every throw leav¬
ing a thread behind it; and when they are finished,
the thread is cut off, and the piece taken out of the
loom, and showed to our Master, to be judged of
whether it be well woven or no, that we may re¬
ceive according to the things done in the body. But,
as the weaver, when he has cut off his threads, has
done his work, and the toil is over, so a good man,
when his life is cut oft', his cares and fatigues are
cut off with it, and he rests from his labours. But
170 ISAIAH, XXXV11I.
did I sav, I have cut off my life? No, my times are
not in mine own hand, they are in God’s hand, and
it is he that will cut me off from the thrum; so the
margin reads it; he has appointed what shall be the
length of the piece, and, when it comes to that
length, he will cut it off.
(2.) He reckoned that he should go to the gates
of the grave; to the grave, the gates of which are
always open; for it is still crying, Give, give. The
grave is here put not only for the sepulchres of his
fathers, in which his body would be deposited with
a great deal of pomp and magnificence, (for he was
buried in the chief of the sepulchres of the kings,
and all Judah did him honour at his death, 2 Chron.
xxxii. 33. ) which yet he himself took no care of, nor
gave any order about, when he was sick; but for the
state of the dead, that is the sheol, the hades, the
invisible world, to which he saw his soul going.
(3. ) He reckoned that he was deprived of all the
opportunities he might have had of worshipping
God, and doing good, in the world; ( v . 11.) “2
said,” [1.] “ I shall not see the Lord, as he mani¬
fests himself in his temple, in his oracles and ordi¬
nances, even the Lord here in the land of the living. ”
He hopes to see him on the other side death, but he
despairs of seeing him any more on this side death,
as he had seen him in the sanctuary, Ps. lxiii. 2.
He shall no more see, (serve) the Lord in the land
of the living, the land of conflict between his king¬
dom and the kingdom of Satan, this seat of war.
He dwells much upon this; I shall no more see the
Lord, even the Lord; for a good man wishes not to
live for any other end than that he may serve God,
and have communion with him. [2. J I shall see
man no more. He shall see his subjects no more,
whom he may protect, and administer justice to;
shall see no more objects of charity, whom he
may relieve; shall see his friends no more, who
were often sharpened by his countenance, as iron
is by iron. Death puts an end to conversation,
and removes our acquaintance into darkness, Ps.
lxxxviii. 18.
(4. ) He reckoned that the agonies of death would
be very sharp and severe; “ He will cut me off with
pining sickness, which will waste me, and wear me
off, quickly.” The distemper increased so fast,
without intermission or remission, either day or
night, morning or evening, that he concluded it
would soon come to a crisis, and make an end of
him — that God, whose servants all diseases are,
would by them, as a lion, break all his bones with
grinding pain, v. 13. He thought that next morn¬
ing was the utmost he could expect to live in such
pain and misery; when he had outlived the first
day’s illness, the second day he repeated his fears,
and concluded that this must needs be his last night;
From day even to night wilt thou make an aid of
me. When we are sick, we are very apt to be thus
calculating our time, and, after all, we are still at
uncertainty. It should be more our care how we
shall get safe to another world, than how long we
are likely to live in this world.
II. The complaints he made in this condition; ( v .
14.) “ Like a crane, or swallow, so did I chatter;
I made a noise as those birds do when they are
frightened.” See what a change sickness makes in
a little time; he that, but the other day, spake with
so much freedom and majesty, now, through the
extremity of pain, or deficiency of spirits, chatters
like a crane, or swallow. Some think he refers to
his praying in his affliction; it was so broken and in¬
terrupted with groanings which could not be utter¬
ed, that it was more like the chattering of a crane,
or a swallow, than what it used to be. Such mean
thoughts had he of his own prayers, which were yet
acceptable to God, and successful. He mourned
like a dove, sadly, but silently and patiently. He I
had found God so ready to answer his prayers at
other times, that he could not but look upward, in
expectation of some relief now; but in vain, his eyes
failed, and he saw no hopeful symptom, nor felt any
abatement of his distemper; and therefore he prays,
“lam oppressed, quite overpowered, and ready to
sink; Lord, undertake for me, bail me cut of the
hands of the serjeant that has arrested me; be Surety
for thy servant for good, Ps. cxix. 122. Come be¬
tween me and the gates of the grave, to which I am
ready to be hurried.” When we recover from sick¬
ness, the divine pity does, as it were, beg a day for
us, and undertakes we shall be forthcoming another
time, and answer the debt in full. And when we
receive the sentence of death within ourselves, we
are undone, if the divine grace do not undertake for
us to carry us through the valley of the shadow of
death, and to preserve us blameless to the heavenly
kingdom on the other side of it — if Christ do not un¬
dertake for us, to bring us off in the judgment, and
present us to his Father, and to do all that for us,
which we need, and cannot do for ourselves, lam
oppressed, ease me; so some read it; fer when we
are agitated by a sense of guilt, and the fear of
wrath, nothing will make us easy but Christ’s un¬
dertaking for us.
III. The grateful acknowledgment he makes of
God’s goodness to him in his recovery. He begins
this part of writing as one at a stand how to express
himself; (i». 15.) “ What shall Isay? Why should
I say so much by way of complaint, when this is
enough to silence all my complaints — He hasspiken
unto me, he has sent his prophet to tell me that I
shall recover, and live fifteen years yet; and him¬
self has done it, it is as sure to be done as if it were
done already; what God has spoken he will himself
do, for no word of his shall fall to the ground.” Gi d
having spoken it, he is sure of it; ( v . 16.) “ Thou
wilt recover me, and make me to live; not only
recover me from this illness, but make me to lic e
through the years assigned me.” And having this
hope,
1. He promises himself always to retain the im¬
pressions of his affliction; (v. 15.) “ I will go softly
all my years in the bitterness of my soul; as one in
sorrow for my sinful distrusts and murmurings un¬
der my affliction; as one in care to make suitable
returns for God’s favour to me, and to make it ap-
ear that I have got good by the providences I have
een under. I will go softly, gravely, and consi¬
derately, and with thought and deliberation, net
as many, who, when they are recovered, live as
carelessly, and as much at large, as ever.” Or,
“I will go pleasantly; (so some understand it:)
“ when God has delivered me, I will walk cheer¬
fully with him in all holy conversation, as having
tasted that he is gracious. Or, “ I will go softly,’
that is, “mournfully, in the bitterness of my soul
for my sins.” Or, “I will go softly, even after
the bitterness of my soul;” (so it may be read;)
“ when the trouble is over, I will endeavour to re¬
tain the impression of it, and to have the same
thoughts of things that I had then.”
2. He will encourage himself, and others, with
the experiences he had had of the goodness of God;
(y. 16.) “ By these things which thou hast done for
me, they live, the kingdom lives;” (for the life of
such a king was the life of the kingdom ;) “ all that
hear of it shall live and be comforted; by the same
power and goodness that have recovered me, all
men have their souls held in life, and they ought to
acknowledge it. In all these things is the life of
my spirit, my spiritual life, that is supported and
maintained by what God has done for the preser¬
vation of my natural life.” The more we taste of
the loving-kindness of God in every providence,
the more will our hearts be enlarged to love him.
1 7 i
ISAIAH, XXXVIII.
and live to him, and that will be the life of our
spirit. Thus our souls live, and they shall praise
him.
3. He magnifies the mercy of his recovery, on
several accounts.
( 1. ) That he was raised up from great extremity;
(v. 17.) Behold, for fieace I had great bitterness.
When upon the defeat of Sennacherib, he expected
nothing but an uninterrupted peace to himself and
his government, he was suddenly seized with sick¬
ness, which imbittered all his comforts to him, and
went to that height, that it seemed to be the bitter¬
ness of death itself, bitterness, bitterness, nothing
but gall and wormwood. This was his condition,
when God sent him seasonable relief.
(2.) That it came from the love of God, from
love to his soul. Some are spared, and reprieved,
in wrath, that they may be reserved for some
greater judgment when they have filled up the
measure of their iniquities; but temporal mercies
are then sweet indeed to us, when we can taste the
love of God in them; he delivered me because he
delighted in me; (Ps. xviii. 19.) and the word here
signifies a very affectionate love; Thou hast loved
jny soul from the pit of corruption; so it runs in
the original. God’s love is sufficient to bring a soul
from tlie pit of corruption. This is applicable to
our redemption by Christ; it was in love to our
souls, our poor perishing souls, that he delivered
them from the bottomless pit, snatched them as
brands out of everlasting burnings. In his love,
and in his pity he redeemed us; and the preserva¬
tion of our bodies, and the provision made for
them, are then doubly comfortable, when it is in
love to our souls; when God repairs the house be¬
cause he has a kindness for the inhabitant.
(3.) That it was the effect of the pardon of sin;
“Tor thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back,
and thereby hast delivered my soul from the pit of
corruption, in love to it. Note, [1.] When God
pardons sin, he casts it behind his back, as not de¬
signing to look upon it with an eye of justice and
jealousy; he remembers it no more, to visit for it;
the pardon does not make the sin not to have been,
or not to have been sin, but not to be punished as it
deserves. When we cast our sins behind our back,
and take no care to repent of them, God sets them
before his face, and is ready to reckon for them; but
when we set them before our face in true repent¬
ance, as David did when his sin was ever before
him, God casts them behind his back. [2.] When
God*pardons sins, he pardons all, casts them all be¬
hind his back, though they have been as scarlet
and crimson. [3.] The pardoning of the sin is the
delivering of the soul from the pit of corruption.
[4.] It is then pleasant to think of recoveries from
sickness, when we see them flowing from the re¬
mission of sin; then the cause is removed, and then
it is in love to the soul.
(4.) That it was the lengthening out of his oppor¬
tunity to glorify God in this world; which he made
the business and pleasure and end of life.
[1.] If this sickness had been his death, it had
put a period to that course of service for the glory
of God, and the good of the church, which he now
was pursuing, v. 18. Heaven indeed praises God,
and the souls of the faithful, when at death they re¬
move thither, do that work of heaven as angels,
and with the angels, there; but what is this world
the better for that? What does that contribute to
the support and advancement of God’s kingdom
among men in this state of struggle? The grave can¬
not praise God, nor the dead bodies that lie there;
death cannot celebrate him, cannot proclaim his
perfections and favours, to invite others into his
service. They mho go damn to the pit, being no
longer in a state of probation, nor living by faith in
his promises, cannot give him honour by hoping for
his truth. They that lie rotting in the grave, as
they are not capable of receivingany further mercy
from God, so neither are they capable of offering
any more praises to him, till they shall be raised at
the last day, and then they shall both receive and
give glory.
[2.] Being recovered from it, he resolves not
only to proceed, but to abound, in praising and serv¬
ing God; (v. 19.) The living, the living, he shall
praise thee. They may do it, they have an oppor¬
tunity of praising God: and that is the main thing
that makes life valuable and desirable to a good man.
Hezekiah was therefore glad to live, not that he
might continue to enjoy Ins royal dignity, and the
honour and pleasure of his late successes, but that
he might continue to praise God. The living must
praise God; they live in vain, if they do not. They
that have been dying, and yet are living, whose
life is from the dead, are in a special manner obliged
to praise God, as being most sensibly affected with
his goodness. Hezekiah for his part, being recover¬
ed from this sickness, will make it his business to
praise God; “ I do it this day, let others do it in
like manner.” They that give good exhortations
should set good examples, and do themselves what
they expect from others; “For my part,” says
Hezekiah, “ the Lord mas ready to' save me; he
not only did save me, but he was ready to do it,
just then when I was in the greatest extremity;
his help came in seasonably; he showed himself wil¬
ling and forward to save me; the Lord mas to save
me; was at hand to do it, saved me at the first word;
and therefore,”
First, “I will publish and proclaim his praise. I
and my family, I and my friends, I and my peo¬
ple, will have a concert of praise to his glory ; me
mill sing my song to the stringed instruments, that
others may attend to them, and be affected with
them, when they are in the most devout and seri¬
ous frame in the house of the Lord.” It is for the
honour of God, and the edification of his church,
that special mercies should be acknowledged in
public praises, especially mercies to public persons,
Ps. cxvi. 18, 19.
Secondly, “I will proceed and persevere in his
raises.” We should do it all the days of our life,
ecause every day of our life is itself a fresh mercy,
and brings many fresh mercies along with it; and as
renewed mercies call for renewed praises, so for¬
mer eminent mercies call for repeated praises. It
is by the mercy of God that we live, and therefore
as long as we live, we must continue to praise him,
while we have breath, nay while we have being.
Thirdly, “ I will propagate and perpetuate his
praises.” We should not only do it all the days of
our life, but the father to the children should make
knomn his truth, that the ages to come may give
God the glory of his truth by trusting to it. It is
the duty of parents to possess their children with a
confidence in the truth of God, which will go far
toward keeping them close to the ways of God.
Hezekiah, doubtless, did this himself, and yet Ma-
nasseh his son walked not in his steps. Parents
may give their children many good things, good
instructions, good examples, good books, but they
cannot give them grace.
In the two last verses of this chapter, we have
two passages relating to this story, which were
omitted in the narrative of it here, but which we
had, 2 Kings xx. and therefore shall here only ob
serve two lessons from them.
1. That God’s promises are intended not to su¬
persede, but to quicken and encourage, the use of
means; Hezekiah is sure to recover, and yet he
must take a lump of Jigs, and lay it on the boil, v.
21. We do not trust God, but tempt him, if, when
172
ISAIAH,
we pray to him for help, we do not second our
prayers with our endeavours. We must not put
physicians, or physic, in the place of God, but
make use of them in subordination to God and
to his providence; help thyself, and God will help
thee.
2. That the chief end we should aim at, in de¬
siring life and health, is, that we may glorify God,
and do good, and improve ourselves in knowledge,
and grace, and meetness for heaven. Hezekiah,
when he meant, What is the sign that I shall reco¬
ver? asked, What is the sign that I shall go u/i to
the house of the Lord, there to honour God, to keep
up acquaintance and communion with him, and to
encourage others to serve him, v. 22. It is taken
for granted that if God would restore him to health,
he would immediately go up to the temple with his
thank-offerings; there Christ found the impotent
man whom he had healed, John v. 14. The exer¬
cises of religion are so much the business and de¬
light of a good man, that to be restrained from
them is the greatest grievance of his afflictions,
and to be restored to them is the greatest comfort
of his deliverances. Let my soul live, and it shall
praise thee.
CHAP. XXXIX.
The story of this chapter likewise we had before, 2 Kings
xx. 12, &c. It is here repeated, not only as a very me-
morable and improvable passage, but because it con¬
cludes with a prophecy of the captivity in Babylon;
and as the former part of the prophecy of this book
frequently referred to Sennacherib’s invasion and the
defeat of that, to which therefore the history of that was
very fitly subjoined, so the latter part of this book speaks
much of the Jews’ captivity in Babylon and their de¬
liverance out of that, to which therefore the first predic¬
tion of it, with the occasion thereof, is very filly
prefixed. We have here, I. The pride and folly of
Hezekiah, in showing his treasures to the king of
Babylon’s ambassadors that were sent to congratulate
him on his recovery, v. 1, 2. II. Isaiah’s examination
of him, concerning it, in God’s name, and his confession
of it, v. 3, 4. III. The sentence passed upon him for
it, that all his treasures should, in process of time, be
carried to Babylon, v. 5 - . 7. IV. Hezekiah’s peni¬
tent and patient submission to this sentence, v. 8.
I. i T that time Merodach-baladaa, the
/Y son of Baladan king of Babylon,
sent letters and a present to Hezekiah :
for he had heard that he had been sick, and
was recovered. 2. And Hezekiah was
glad of them, and showed them the house
of his precious things, the silver, and the
gold, and the spices, and the precious oint¬
ment, and all the house of his armour, and
all that was found in his treasures: there
was nothing in his house, nor in all his do¬
minion, that Hezekiah showed them not.
3. Then came Isaiah the prophet unto king
Hezekiah, and said unto him, What said
these men? and from whence came they unto
thee? And Hezekiah said, They are come
from a far country unto me, even from Ba¬
bylon. 4. Then said he, What have they
seen in thy house? And Hezekiah answer¬
ed, All that is in my house have they seen ;
there is nothing among my treasures that
I have not showed them.
Hence we may leam these lessons,
1. That humanity and common civility teach us
XXXIX.
j to rejoice with our friends and neighbours when
they rejoice, and to congratulate them on their de
liveranccs, and particularly their recoveries from
sickness. The king of Babylon, having heard that
Hezekiah had been sick, and was recovered,
sent to compliment him upon the occasion. If
Christians be unneighbourly, heathens will shame
them.
2. It becomes us to give honour to those whom
our God puts honour upon. The sun was the Ba¬
bylonians’ god; and when they understood that it
was with a respect to Hezekiah that the sun, to
their great surprise, went back ten degrees, on
such a day, they thought themselves obliged to do
Hezekiah all the honour they could. Will all peo¬
ple thus walk in the name of their God, and shall
not we?
3. Those that do not value good men for their
goodness, may yet be brought to pay them great
respect by other inducements, and for the sake cf
their secular interests. The king of Babylon made
his court to Hezekiah here, not because he was
pious, but because he was prosperous; as the Philis¬
tines coveted an alliance with Isaac, because they
saw the Lord was with him, Gen. xxvi. 28. The
king of Babylon was an enemy to the king cf Assy¬
ria, and therefore was fond of Hezekiah, because
the Assyrians were so much weakened by the pow¬
er of his God.
4. It is a hard matter to keep the spirit low in
the midst of great advancements. Hezekiah is an
instance of it: he was a wise and good man; but
when one miracle after another was wrought in his
favour, he found it hard to keep his heart from
being lifted up, nay a little thing then drew them
into the snare of pride. Blessed Paul himself nc til¬
ed a thorn in the flesh, to keep him from being lift¬
ed u/i with the abundance of revelations.
5. We have need to watch over our own spirits,
when we are showing cur friends our possessions,
what we have done, and what we have got, that we
be not proud of them, as if our might or our merit
had purchased and procured us this wealth. When
we look upon our enjoyments, and have occasion to
speak of them, it must bewith humbleacknowledg-
ments of our own unworthiness, and thankful ac¬
knowledgments of God’s goodness, with a just
value for the achievements of others, and with an
expectation of losses and changes; not dreaming
that our mountain stands so strong but that it may
soon be moved.
6. It is a great weakness for good men to value
themselves much upon the civil respects that are
paid them (yea, though there be something parti¬
cular and uncommon in them,) by the children cf
this world, and to be fond of their acquaintance.
What a poor thing was it for Hezekiah, whom God
had so dignified, to be thus over-proud of the re¬
spect paid him by a heathen prince, as if those added
any thing to him! We ought to return the cour¬
tesies of such with interest, but not to be preud of
them.
7. We must expect to be called to an account for
the workings of our pride, though they are secret,
and in such instances as we thought there was no
harm in; and therefore we ought to call ourselves
to an account for them; and when we have had
company with us, that have paid us respect, and
been pleased with their entertainment, and com¬
mended every thing, we ought to be jealous over our¬
selves, with a godly jealousy, lest our hearts have
been lifted up. As far as we see cause to expect
that this sly and subtle sin of pride has insinuated
itself into our breasts, and mingled itself with our
conversation, let us be ashamed of it, and as Heze
kiah here, ingenuously confess it, and take shame
to ourselves for it.
173
ISAIAH, XL.
5. Then said Isaiah to Hezekiah, Hear
the word of the Lord of hosts ; 6. Behold,
the days come, that all that is in thy house,
and that which thy fathers have laid up in
store until this day, shall be carried to
Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith the
Lord. 7. And of thy sons that shall issue
from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they
take away ; and they shall be eunuchs in
the palace of the king of Babylon. 3. Then
said Hezekiah to Isaiah, Good is the word
of the Lord which thou hast spoken : he
said moreover, For there shall be peace
and truth in my days.
Hence let us observe,
1. That if God love us, he will humble us, and
will find some way or other to pull down our spirits
when they are lifted up above measure. A morti¬
fying message is sent to Hezekiah, that tie might be
humbled for the pride of his heart, and be con¬
vinced of the folly of it; for though God may suffer
his people to fall into sin, as he did Hezekiah here,
to prove him , that he might know all that was in his
heart, yet he will not suffer them to lie still in it.
2. It is just with God to take that from us, which
we make the matter of our pride, and on which we
build a carnal confidence. When David was proud
of the numbers of his people, God took a course to
make them fewer; and when Hezekiah boasts of his
treasures, and looks upon them with too great a
complacency, he is told that he acts like the foolish
traveller, who shows his money and gold to one
that proves a thief, and is thereby tempted to rob
Rim.
3. If we could but see things that will be, we
should be ashamed of our thoughts of things that
are. If Hezekiah had known that the seed and
successors of this king of Babylon would hereafter
be the ruin of his family and kingdom, he would not
have complimented his ambassadors as he did.
And when the prophet told him that he would be
so, we may well imagine how he was vexed at him¬
self for what he had done. We cannot certainly
foresee what will be, but are told, in general, Alt is
■vanity, and therefore it is vanity for us to take com¬
placency, and put confidence, in any thing that
goes under that character.
4. Those that are fond of an acquaintance and
alliance with irreligious men, first or last will have
enough of it, and will have cause to repent it.
Hezekiah thought himself happy in the friendship
of Babylon, though it was the mother of harlots
and idolatries; but Babylon, who now courted
Jerusalem, in process of time conquered her, and
carried her captive. Leagues with sinners, and
leagues with sin too, will end thus; it is therefore
our wisdom to keep at a distance from them.
5. Those that truly repent of their sins will take
it well to be reproved for them, and will be willing
to be told of their faults. Hezekiah reckoned that
word of the Lord good, which discovered sin to
him, and made him sensible that he had done amiss,
which before he was not aware of. The language
of true penitents is, Let the righteous smite me, it
shall be a kindness; and the law is therefore good,
because, being spiritual, in it sin appears sin, and
exceeding sinful.
6. T rue penitents will quietly submit, not only to
the reproofs of the word, but to the rebukes of
Providence, for their sins. When Hezekiah was
told of the punishment of his iniquity, he said, Good
is the word of the Lord, not only the mitigation of
the sentence, but the sentence itself; he has nothing
to object against the equity of it, but says, Amen,
to the threatening. They that see the evil of sin,
and what it deserves, will justify God in all that is
brought upon them for it, and own that he punishes
them less than their iniquities deserve.
7. Though we must not be regardless of those
that come after us, yet we must reckon ourselves
well done for, if there be peace and truth in our
days, and better than we had reason to expect; If
a storm be coming, we must reckon it a favour to
get into the harbour before it comes, and be gather¬
ed to the grave in peace; yet we can never be
secure of this, but must prepare for changes in our
own time, that we may stand complete in all the
will of God, and bid it welcome, whatever it is.
CHAP. XL.
At this chapter begins the latter part of the prophecy of
this book, which is not only divided from the former by
the historical chapters that come between, but seems to
be distinguished from it in the scope and style of it. In
the former part, the name of the prophet was frequently
prefixed to the particular sermons, beside the general
title; (as ch, ii. 1. ch. vii. 3. ch. xiii. 1.) but this is all
one continued discourse, and the prophet not so much
as once named. That consisted of many burthens,
many woes; this of many blessings. There, the distress
which the people of God were in by the Assyrian, and
their deliverance out of that, were chiefly prophesied of;
but that is here spoken of as a thing past, (ch. lii. 4.) and
the captivity in Babylon, and their deliverance out of
that, which were much greater events, of more extensive
and abiding concern, are here largely foretold. Before
God sent bis people into captivity, he furnished them
with precious promises for their support and comfort in
their trouble; and we may well imagine of what great
use to them the glorious, gracious light of this prophecy
was, in that cloudy and dark day, and how much it
helped to dry up their tears by the rivers of Babylon
But it looks further yet, and to greater things; much of
Christ and gospel-grace we meet with in the foregoing
part of this book, but in this latter part we shah find
much more; and as if it were designed for a prophetic
summary of the New Testament, it begins with that
which begins the gospels, The voice of one crying in the
wilderness, (ch. xl. 3.) and concludes with I hat which
concludes the book of the Revelation, The new heavens
and the new earth, ch. lxvi. 22. Even Mr. White ac¬
knowledges, that as all the mercies of God to the Jewish
nation bore some resemblance to those glorious things
performed by our Saviour for man’s redemption, so they
are by the spirit of God expressed in such terms as show
plainly, that while the prophet is speaking of the re¬
demption of the Jews, he had in his thoughts a more
glorious deliverance. And we need not look for any
further accomplishment of these prophecies vet to conn;
for if Jesus be He, and his kingdom be It, 'that shou'd
come, we are to look for no other, but the carrvini' on
and completing of the same blessed work which was
begun in the first preaching and planting of Christianity
in the world.
In this. chapter, we have, I. Orders given to preach and
publish the glad tidings of redemption, v. 1,2. II. These
glad tidings introduced by a voice in the wilderness,
which gives assurance that all obstructions shall be re¬
moved; (v. 3.. 5.) and that though all creatures fail
and fade, the word of God shall be established and ac¬
complished, v. 6 . . 8. III. A joyful prospect given to
the people of God of the happiness which this redemp¬
tion should bring along with it, v. 9.. 11. IV. The
sovereignty and power of that God magnified, who un¬
dertakes to work out this redemption, v 12.. 17. V.
Idols therefore triumphed over, and idolaters upbraided
with their folly, v. 18. . 26. VI. A reproof given to the
people of God. for their fears and despondencies, and
enough said, in a few words, to silence those fears,
v. 27. .31. And we, through patience and comfort of
this scripture, may have hope.
L f OMFORT ye, comfort ye my peo-
pie, saith your God. 2. Speak ye
comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her
that her warfare is accomplished, that her
174
i* AT AH, XL.
I
iniquity is pardoned : for she hath received
of the Lord’s hand doubie for all her sins.
We have here the commission and instructions
given not to this prophet only, but, with him, to all
the Lord’s prophets, nay and to all Christ’s minis¬
ters, to proclaim comfort to God’s people. 1. This
did not only warrant, but enjoin this prophet him¬
self to encourage the good people who lived in his
own time, who could not but have very melancholy
apprehensions of things, when they saw Judah and
Jerusalem by their daring impieties ripening apace
for ruin, and God in his providence hastening ruin
upon them. Let them be sure that, for ali this,
God had mercy in store for them. 2. It was
especially a direction to the prophets that should
live in the time of the captivity, when Jerusalem
was in ruins; they must encourage the captives to
hope for enlargement in due time. 3. Gospel-
ministers, being employed by the blessed Spirit as
comforters, and as helpers of the joy of Christians,
are here put in mind of their business. Here we
have,
(1.) Comfortable words directed to God’s people
in general, v. 1. The prophets have instructions
from their God (for he is the Lord God of Che holy
prophets. Rev. xxii. 26.) to comfort the people of
God; and the charge is doubled, Comfort ye, com¬
fort ye — not because the prophets are unwilling to
do it, (no, it is the most pleasant part of their work,)
but because sometimes the souls of God’s people
refuse to be comforted, and their comforters must
repeat things again and again, ere they can fasten
any thing upon them. Observe here, [1.] There
are a people in the world, that are God’s people.
[2.] It is the will of God that his people should be
a comforted people, even in the worst of times.
[3.] It is the work and business of ministers to do
what they can for the comfort of God’s people. [4. ]
Words of conviction, such as we had in the former
part of this book, must be followed with words of
comfort, such as we have here; for he that has torn
will heal us.
(2.) Comfortable words directed to Jerusalem in
particular; “ Speak to the heart of Jerusalem; (v.
2.) speak that which will revive her heart, and be
a cordial to her, and to all that belong to her and
wish her well. Do not whisper it, but cry unto
her: cry aloud, to show saints their comforts as well
as to show sinners their transgressions; make her
hear it:” [1.] “That the days of her trouble are
numbered and finished; her warfare is accomplish¬
ed, the set time of her servitude; the campaign is
now at an end, and she shall retire into quarters of
refreshment.” Human life is a warfare, (Job vii. 1.)
the Christian life much more; but the struggle will
not last always, the warfare will be accomplished,
and then the good soldiers shall not only enter into
rest, but be sure of their pay. [2.] “That the
cause of her trouble is removed, and, when that is
taken away, the effect will cease. Tell her that
her iniquity is pardoned, God is reconciled to her,
and she shall no longer be treated as one guilty be¬
fore him.” Nothing can be spoken more com¬
fortably than this, Son, be of good cheer, thy sins
are forgiven thee. Troubles are then removed in
love, when sin is pardoned. [3.] “That the end
of her trouble is answered; She has received of the
Lord double for the cure of all her sins, sufficient,
and more than sufficient, to part between her and
her idols,” the worship of which was the great sin
for which God had a controversy with them, and
from which he designed to reclaim them by their
captivity in Babylon; and it had that effect upon
them, it begat in them a rooted antipathy to idolatry,
and was physic doubly strong for the purging out
of that iniquity. Or, it may be taken as the lan¬
guage of the divine compassion ; His soul teas
grieved for the misery of Israel, (Judges x. 16.)
and, like a tender father, since he spake against
them, he earnestly remembered them, (Jcr. xxxi.
20.) and was ready to say that he had given them
too much correction. They, being very penitent,
acknowledged that God had punished them less
than their iniquities deserved; but he, being very
pitiful, owned, in a manner, that he had punished
them more than they deserved. True penitents
have indeed, in Christ and his sufferings, received
of the Lord's hand double for alt their sins; for the
satisfaction Christ made by his death was of such
an infinite value, that it was more than double to
the demerits of sin; for God spared not his own Son.
3. The voice of him that crieth in the wil¬
derness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for
our God. 4. Every valley shall he exalted,
and every mountain and hill shall be made
low : and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough places plain : 5. And the
glory of the Lord shall he revealed, and all
flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of
the Lord hath spoken it. 6. The voice
said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry?
All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness
thereof is as the flower of the field: 7. The
grass withereth, the flower fadeth ; because
the Spirit of the Lord blovveth upon it :
surely the people is grass. 3. The grass
withereth, the flower fadeth; but the word
of our God shall stand for ever.
The time to favour Zion, yea, the set time, being
come, the people of God must be prepared, by re¬
pentance and faith, for the favours designed them;
and, in order to call them to both these, we have
here the voice of one crying in the wilderness; which
may be applied to those prophets who were with
the captives in their wilderness-state, and who,
when they saw the day of their deliverance dawn,
called earnestly upon them to prepare for it, and
assured them that all the difficulties which stood
in the way of their deliverance should be got over.
It is a good sign that mercy is preparing for us, if
we find God’s grace preparing us for it, Ps. x. 17.
But it must be applied to John the Baptist; for
though God was the Speaker, he was the voice of
one crying in the wilderness, and his business was,
to prepare the way of the Lord, to dispose men’s
minds for the reception and entertainment of the
gospel of Christ. The way of the Lord is prepared,
I. By repentance for sin; that was it which John
Baptist preached to all Judah and Jerusalem, (Matt
iii. 2, 5.) and thereby made ready a people pre¬
pared for the Lord, Luke i. 17.' The alarm is
given, let all take notice of it at their peril; God is
coming in a way of mercy, and we must prepare
for him, v. 3 — 5. If we apply it to their captivity,
it may be taken as a promise, that, whatever diffi¬
culties lie in their way, when they return they shall
be removed. This voice in the wilderness (divine
power going along with it) sets pioneers on work to
level the roads. But it may be taken as a call to
dutv, and it is the same duty that we are called to,
in preparation for Christ’s entrance into our souls.
1. We must get into such a frame of spirit as will
dispose us to receive Christ and his gospel; “ Pre¬
pare ye the way of the Lord; prepare yourselves
for him, and let all that be suppressed which would
be an obstruction to his entrance; make room ti r
174
ISAIAH, XL.
Christ; A fake straight a highway for him.” If he
prepare the end for us, we ought surely to prepare
the way for him. Prepare for the Saviour; lift u/i
your heads , 0 ye gates, Ps xxiv. 7, 8. Prepare for
the salvation, the great salvation, and other lesser
deliverances. Let us get to be fit for them, and
then God will work them out. Let us not stand in
our own light, nor put a bar in our own door, but
find, or make, a highway for him, even in that
which was desert ground. This is that for which
he waits to be gracious.
2. We must get our hearts levelled by divine
•ace. Those that were hindered from comfort in
hrist by their dejections and despondencies, are
the valleys that must be exalted. Those that are
hindered from comfort in Christ by a proud conceit
of their own merit and worth, are the mountains
and hills that must be made low. Those that have
entertained prejudices against the word and ways
of God, that are intractable, and disposed to thwart
and contradict even that which is plain and easy,
because it agrees not with their corrupt inclinations
and secular interests, are the crooked that must be
made straight, and the rough places that must be
made plain. Let but the gospel of Christ have a
fair hearing, and it cannot fail of acceptance. This
prepares the way of the Lord; and thus God will by
his grace prepare his own way in all the vessels of
mercy, whose heart he opens as he did Lydia’s.
And when this is done, the glory of the Lord
shall be revealed, v. 5. (1.) When the captives
are prepared for deliverance, Cyrus shall proclaim
it, and they shall have the benefit of it, and they
only, whose hearts the Lord shall stir up with cou¬
rage and resolution to break through the discourage¬
ments that lay in their way, and to make nothing
of the hills, and valleys, and all the rough places.
(2.) When John Baptist has for some time preached
repentance, mortification, and reformation, and so
made ready a people prepared for the J ord, (Luke
i. 17.) then the Messiah himself shall be revealed
in his glory, working miracles, which John did not;
and by his grace, which is his glory, binding up
and healing with consolations those whom John had
wounded with convictions. And this revelation of
divine glory shall be a light to lighten the Gentiles;
All Jles/i shall see it together, and not the Jews only;
they shall see and admire it, see it, and bid it wel¬
come; as the return out of captivity was taken notice
of by the neighbouring nations, Ps. cxxvi. 3. And
it shall be the accomplishment of the word of God,
not one iota, or tittle of which shall fall to the
ground; The mouth of the Lord hath sfioken it, and
therefore the hand of the Lord will effect it.
II. By confidence in the word of the Lord, and
not in any creature: the mouth of the Lord having
spoken it, the voice has this further to cry, (he that
has ears to hear, let him hear it,) The word of our
God shall stand for ever, v. 8.
1. By this accomplishment of the prophecies and
promises of salvation, and the performance of them
to the utmost in due time, it appears that the word
of the Lord is sure, and what may be safely relied
on. Then we are prepared for deliverance, when
we depend entirely upon the word of God, build our
hopes on that, with an assurance that it will not
make us ashamed: in a dependence upon this word,
we must be brought to own that all flesh is grass,
withering and fading. (1.) The power of man,
when it does appear against the deliverance, is not
to be feared; for it shall be as grass before the
word of the Lord, it shall wither and be trodden
down : the insulting Babylonians, who promise them¬
selves that the desolations of Jerusalem shall be per-
Eetual, are but as grass which the Spirit of the
ord blows upon, makes nothing of, but blasts all
•ts glory; for the word of the Lord, which promises
their deliverance, shall stand for ever, and it is not
in the power of their enemies to hinder the execu¬
tion of it. (2. ) The power of man, when it would
appear for the deliverance, is not to be trusted to;
for it is but as grass in comparison with the word r.f
the Lord, which is the only firm foundation for us
to build our hope upon. When God is about to
work salvation for his people, he will take them off
from depending upon creatures, and looking for it
from hills and mountains; they shall fail them, and
their expectations from them shall be frustrated,
the Spirit of the Lord shall blow upon them; for
God will have no creature to be a rival with him for
the hope and confidence of his people; and as it is
his word only that shall stand tor ever, so in that
word only our faith must stand. When we are
brought to this, then, and not till then, we are fit
for mercy.
2. The word of our God, that glory of the Lord,
which is now to be revealed, the gi spel, and that
grace which is brought with it to us, and wrought
by it in us, shall stand for ever; and this is the satis¬
faction of all believers, when they find all their crea¬
ture-comforts withering and fading like grass. Thus
the apostle applies it to the word which by the gos¬
pel is preached unto us, and which lives and abides
for ever as the incorruptible seed by which we are
born again, 1 Pet. i. 23—25. To prepare the way
of the Lord we must be convinced, ( 1. ) Of the vani¬
ty of the creature; that all flesh is grass, weak and
withered; we ourselves are so, and therefore cannot
save ourselves; all our friends are so, and therefore
are unable to save us. All the beauty of the crea¬
ture, which might render it amiable, is but as the
flower of grass, soon blasted, and therefore cannot
recommend us to God and to his acceptance. We
are dying creatures, all our comforts in this world
are dying comforts, and therefore cannot be the fe¬
licity of our immortal souls; we must look further
for a salvation, look further for a portion. (2.) Of
the validity of the promise of God; we must be con¬
vinced that the word of the Lord can do that for us,
which all flesh cannot; that forasmuch as it stands
for ever, it will furnish us with a happiness that
will run parallel with the duration of < ur souls,
which must live for ever; for the things which are
not seen, but must be believed, are eternal.
9. O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get
thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem,
that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice
with strength : lift it up, be not afraid ; say
unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!
10. Behold, the Lord God will come with
strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him:
behold, his reward is with him, and his work
before him. 11. He shall feed his flock like
a shepherd; he shall gather the lamhs with
his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and
shall gently lead those that are with young.
It was promised, (?'. 5.) that the glory of the
Lord shall be revealed; that is it, with' the hopes
of which God’s people must be comforted. Now
here we are told,
I. How it shall be revealed, v. 9. 1. It shall be
revealed to Zion and Jerusalem; notice shall be
fiven of it to the remnant that are left in Zion and
erusalem, the poor of the land, who were vine¬
dressers and husbandmen; it shall be told them that
their brethren shall return to them; this shall be
told also to the captives who belonged to Zion and
Jerusalem, and retained their affection for them;
Zion is said to dwell with the daughter of Babylon,
176
ISAIAH, XL.
Zech.ii. 7. Anti there she receives notice of Cyrus’s
gracious proclamation ; and so the margin reads it, O
thou that tel/est good tidings to Zion, &c. meaning
the persons who were employed in publishing that
proclamation; let them do it with a good will, let
them make the country ring of it, and let them tell
it to the sons of Zion in their own language, Suying
to them, Behold your God. 2. It shall be published
by Zion and Jerusalem; so the text reads it; they
that remain there, or that were already returned,
when they find the deliverance proceeding toward
lerfection, let them proclaim it in the most pub¬
ic places, whence they may be best heard by
all the cities of Judah; let them proclaim it us loud
as they can, let them lift u/i their voice with strength,
and not be afraid of overstraining themselves; let
them not be afraid lest the enemy should hear it,
and quarrel with them, or lest it should not prove
true, or not such good tidings as at first it appeared;
let them say to the cities of Judah, and all the in¬
habitants of the country. Behold your God. When
God is going on with the salvation of his people, let
them industriously spread the news among their
friends, let them tell them that it is God that has
done it; whoever were the instruments, God was
the Author; it is their God, a God in covenant with
them, and he does it as theirs, and they will reap
the benefit and comfort of it. “ Behold him, take
notice of his hand in it, and look above second
causes; behold, the God you have long looked for,
is come at last; {ch. xxv. 9.) This is our God, we
have waited for him.” This may refer to the invi¬
tation which was sent forth from Jerusalem to the
cities of Judah, as soon as they had set up an altar,
immediately upon their return out of captivity, to
come and join with them in their sacrifices, Ezra iii.
2 — 4. “ When the worship of God is set up again,
send notice of it to all your brethren, that they may
share with vou in the comfort of it.” But this was
to have its full accomplishment in the apostles’ pub¬
lic and undaunted preaching of the gospel to all na¬
tions, beginning at Jerusalem. The voice crying in
the wilderness gave notice that he was coming; but
now notice is given that he is come. Behold the
Lamb of God; take a full view of your Redeemer.
Behold your King, behold your God.
II. What that glory is, which shall be revealed.
Your God will come, will show himself,
1. With the power and greatness of a Prince; (x'.
10.) He will come with strong hand, too strong to
be obstructed, though it may be opposed. His
strong hand shall subdue his people to himself, and
shall restrain and conquer his and their enemies, j
He will come, who is strong enough to break
through all the difficulties that lie in his way. Our
Lord Jesus was full of power, a mighty Saviour.
Some read it, He will come against the mighty one,
and overpower him, overcome him. Satan is the
strong man armed ; but our Lord Jesus is stronger ]
than he; and he shall make it to appear that he is i
so, for, ( 1. ) He shall reign, in defiance of all oppo¬
sition; his arm shall rule, shall overrale, for him, 1
for the fulfilling of his counsels, to his own glory; for !
he is his own End. (2. ) He shall recompense to
all according to their works, as a righteous Judge;
his reward is with him; he brings along with him,
as a returning Prince, punishments for the rebels,
and preferments for his loyal subjects. (3.) He
shall proceed and accomplish his purposes; his work
is before him, he knows perfectly well what he has
to do, which way to go about it, and how to com¬
pass it; he himself knows what he will do.
2. With the pity and tenderness of a Shepherd,
v. 11. God is the Shepherd of Israel; (Ps. lxxx. 1.)
Christ is the good Shepherd, John x. 11. The same
that rules with the strong hand of a Prince, leads
and feeds with the kind hand of a Shepherd. (1.)
He takes care of all his flock, the little flock; he.
shall feed his Jlock like a shefiherd. His word is
food tor his flock to feed on, his ordinances fields for
them to feed in; his ministers are under-shepherds
that are appointed to attend them. (2.) He takes
particular care of those that most need his care; the
lambs that are weak, and cannot help themselves,
and are unaccustomed to hardship; and those that
are with young, that are therefore heavy, and, it
any harm be done them, are in danger of casting
their young. He particularly takes care for a suc¬
cession, that they may not fail or be cut rtf. The
good Shepherd has a tender care for children, that
are towardly and hopeful; for young converts, that
are setting out in the way to heaven; for weak be¬
lievers, and those that are of a si rrowful spirit.
These are the lambs of his flock, that shall be sure
to want nothing that their case requires. [1.] H°
will gather them in the arms -of his power; his
strength shall be made perfect in their weakness, 2
Cor. xii. 9. He will gather them in when they
wander, gather them up when they fall, gather
them together when they are dispersed, and gather
them home to himself at last; and all this, with his
own arm, out of which none shall be able to pluck
them, J ahn x. 28. [2.] He will carry them in the
bosom of his love, and cherish them there. When
they tire or are weary, are sick and faint, when
I they meet with foul ways, he will carry them on,
! and" take care they be not left behind. [3.] He
| will gently lead them. By his word he requires no
more service, and by his providence he inflicts no
more trouble, than he will enable them for; for he
i considers their frame.
12. Who hath measured the waters in
j the hollow of his hand, and meted out hea¬
ven with tilt; span, and comprehended the
dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed
the mountains in settles, and the hills in a
balance? 13. Who hath directed the Spirit
of the Lord, or, being his counsellor, hath
taught him? 14. With whom took he coun
sel, and who instructed him, and taught him
in the path of judgment, and taught him
knowledge, and showed to him the way of
understanding? 15. Behold, the nations are
as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as
the small dust of the balance: behold, he
taketh up the isles as a very little thing.
16. And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn,
nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt-
offering. 1 7. All nations before him are as
nothing; and they are counted to him less
than nothing and vanity.
The scope of these verses is to show what a great
and glorious being the Lord Jehovah is, who is Is¬
rael’s God and Saviour. It comes in here, (1.) To
encourage his people that were captives in Babylon
to hope in him, and to depend upon him for deliver¬
ance, though they were ever so weak, and their op¬
pressors ever so strong. (2.) To engage them to
cleave to him, and not to turn aside after other
gods; for there are none to be compared with him.
(3.) To possess all those who receive the glad tid¬
ings of redemption by Christ, with a holy awe and
reverence of God. Though it was said, (x>. 9. ) Be¬
hold your God, and (x>. 11.) that he shall feed his
Jlock like a shepherd; yet these condescensions of his
grace must not be thought of with any diminution
177
ISAIAH, X]..
to the transcendencies of his glory. Let us see how
great our God is, and fear before him, for,
1. His power is unlimited, and what no creature
sail compare with, much less contend with, v. 12. i
(1.) He has a vast reach; view the celestial globe,
and you are astonished at the extent of it; but the
great God metes the heavens with a s/ian; to him
they are but a hand-breadth, so large-handed is he.
View the terraqueous globe, and he has the com¬
mand of that too; all the waters in the world he can
measure in the hollow of his hand, where we can
hold but a little water; and the dry land he easily
manages, for he comprehends the dust o f the earth in
a measure; or with his three fingers; it is no more
to him than a pugil, or that which we take up be¬
tween our thumb and two fingers. (2.) He has a
vast strength, and can as easily move mountains and
hills as the tradesman heaves his goods into the
scales and out of them again; he poises them with
his hand as exactly as if he weighed them in a pair
of balances. This may refer to the work of crea¬
tion, when the heavens were stretched out as ex¬
actly as that which is spanned; and the earth and
waters put together in just proportion, as if they had
been measured; and the mountains made of such a
weight ns to serve for ballast to the globe, and no
more. Or, it may refer to the work of providence,
(which is a continued creation,) and the consistency
of all the creatures with each other.
2. His wisdom is unsearchable, and what no
creature can give either information or direction to,
v. 13, 14. As none can do what God has done, and
does, so none can assist him in the doing of it, or
suggest any thing to hint which he thought not of.
When the Lord by his Spirit made the world, (Job
xxvi. 13.) there was none that directed his Spirit,
or gave him any advice, either what to do, or how
to do it. Nor does he need any counsellor to direct
him in the government of the world, nor is there
any with whom he consults, as the wisest kings do
with them that know law and judgment, Esther i.
13. God needs not to be told what is done, for he
knows it perfectly; nor needs he be advised con¬
cerning what is to be done, for he knows both the
right end and the proper means. This is much in¬
sisted upon here, because the poor captives had no
politicians among them to manage their concerns at
court, or to put them in a way of gaining their liberty;
“ No matter,” says the prophet, “you have a God
to act for you, who needs not the assistance of states¬
men. ” In the great work of our redemption by
Christ, matters were concerted before the world,
when there were none to teach Goa in the path of
judgment, 1 Cor. ii. 7.
3. The nations of the world are nothing in com¬
parison of him, v. 15, 17. Take them all together,
all the great and mighty nations of the earth, kings
the most pompous, kingdoms the most populous,
both the most wealthy; take the isles, the multi¬
tude of them, the isles of the Gentiles — before him,
when they stand in competition with him, or in op¬
position to him, they are as a drop of the bucket
compared with the vast ocean, or the small dust of
the balance, which does not serve to turn it, and
therefore is not regarded, it is so small in compari¬
son with all the dust of the earth. He takes them
up, and throws them away from him, as a very lit¬
tle thing, not worth speaking of. They are all in
his eye as nothing, as if they had no being at all;
for they add nothing to his perfection and all-suffi¬
ciency; they are counted by him, and are to be
counted by us, in comparison of him, less than no¬
thing, and vanity; when he pleases, he can as easily
bring them all into nothing as at first he brought
them out of nothing. When God has work to do,
he values not either the assistance or the resistance
of any creature. They are all vanity; the word
Vol. IV.— Z
that is used for the chaos, (Gen. i. 2.) to which
they will at last be reduced. Let this beget in us
high thoughts of God, and low thoughts of this
world, and engage us to make God, and net man,
both our Fear and our Hope. This magnifies God's
love to the world, that, though it is of such small
account and value with him, yet, for the redemp
tion of it, he gave his only-begotten Son, John iii. 16.
4. The services of the church can make no addi¬
tion to him, nor do they bear any proportion to his
infinite perfections; (x». 16.) Lebanon is not suffi¬
cient to burn: not the wood of it to be for the fuel
of the altar, though it be so well stocked with ce¬
dars; nor the beasts of it to be for sacrifices, though
it be so well stocked with cattle, v. 16. Whatever
we honour God with, it falls infinitely short of the
merit of his perfection; for he is exalted far above
all blessing and praise all burnt-offerings and
sacrifices.
1 8. To whom then will ye liken God? or
what likeness will ye compare unto him?
1 9. The workman melteth a graven image,
and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with
gold, and casteth silver chains. 20. He
that is so impoverished, that he hath no obla¬
tion, chooseth a tree that will not rot: he
seeketh unto him a cunning workman to
prepare a graven image, that shall not be
moved. 21. Have ye not known? have ye
not heard ? hath it not been told you from the
beginning? have ye not understood from the
foundations of the earth? 22. It is he that
sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the
inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers ; that
stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and
spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in ; 23.
That bringeth the princes to nothing: he
maketh the judges of the earth as vanity.
24. Yea, they shall not be planted; yea,
they shall not be sown: yea, their stock
shall not take root in the earth : and he shall
also blow upon them, and they shall wither,
and the whirlwind shall take them away as
stubble. 25. To whom then will ye liken
me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One.
26. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold
who hath created these things , that bringeth
out their host by number : he calleth them
all by names, by the greatness of his might,
for that he is strong in power; not one
faileth.
The prophet here reproves those, 1. Who re¬
presented God by creatures, and so changed his
truth into a lie, and his glory into shame; who made
images, and then said that they resembled God, and
paid their homage to them accordingly. 2. Who
put creatures in the place of God, who feared them
more than God, as if they were a match for him, or
loved them more than God, as if they were fit to be
rivals with him. Twice the challenge is here made.
To whom will ye liken God ? v. 18. and again, v.
25. The Holy One himself says. To whom will ye
liken me? This shows the folly and absurdity, (1.)
Of corporal idolatry, making visible images of him
who is invisible, imagining the image to be animated
by the Deity, and the Deity to be presentiated by
178
ISAIAH, XL.
the image; which, as it was an instance of the cor¬
ruption of the human nature, so it was an intolera¬
ble injury to the honour of the divine nature. (2.)
Of spiritual idolatry, making creatures equal with
God in our affections. Proud people make them¬
selves equal with God; covetous people make their
money equal with God; and, whatever we esteem
or love, fear or hope in, more than God, that crea¬
ture we equal with God, which is the highest af¬
front imaginable to him who is God over all.
Now, to show the absurdity of this;
I. The prophet describes idols as despicable
things; and worthy of the greatest contempt; (v. 19,
20.) “ Look upon the better sort of them, which
rich people set up, and worship; they are made of
some base metal, cast into what shape the founder
pleases, and that is gilded, or overlaid with plates
of gold, that it may pass for a golden image. It is
a creature; for the workman made it, ( therefore it
is riot God, Hos. viii. 6.) it depended upon his will
whether it should be a god at all, and of what shape
it should be. It is a cheat; for it is gold on the out¬
side, but within it is lead or copper; in this indeed
representing the deities, that they were not what
they seemed to be, and deceived their admirers.
How despicable then are the worst sort of them —
the poor men’s gods! He that is so impoverished,
that he has scarcely a sacrifice to offer to his god
when he has made him, will yet not be without an
enshrined deity of his own. And though he cannot
procure one of brass or stone, he will have a wooden
one rather than none, and for that purpose chooses
a tree that will not soon rot, and of that he will have
his graven image made; both agree to have their
image well fastened, that they may not Ire robbed
of it. Tlie better sort have silver chains to fix
theirs with; and though it be but a wooden image,
care is taken that it shall not be moved.” Let us
pause a little, and see, 1. How these idolaters shame
themselves, and what a reproach they put upon
their own reason, in dreaming that gods of their
own making, N'ehushtans, pieces of brass, or logs
of wood, should be able to do them any kindness.
Titus vain were they in their imaginations; and how
was their foolish heart darkened ! 2. See how these
idolaters shame us, who worship the only living and
true God; they spared no cost upon their idols, we
grudge that as waste which is spent in the service
of our God; they took care they should not be mov¬
ed, we wilfully provoke our God to depart from us.
II. He describes God as infinitely great, and
worthy of the highest veneration; so that between
him and idols, whatever competition there may be,
there is no comparison. To prove the greatness of
God, he appeals,
I. To what they had heard of him by the hearing
of the ear, and the consent of all ages and nations
concerning him; (u. 21.) “Have ye not known by
the very light of nature? Has it not been told you by
your fathers and teachers, according to the constant
tradition received from their ancestors and prede¬
cessors, even from the beginning?” (Those notices
of God are as ancient as the world.) “ Have ye
not understood it as always acknowledged from the
foundation of the earth, that God is a great God,
and a great King above all gods?” It has been a
truth universally admitted, that there is an Infinite
Being, who is the Fountain of all being. This is
understood not only ever since the beginning of the
world, but from and by the origin of the universe;
it is founded upon the foundation of the earth ; the
invisible things of God are clearly seen from the
creation of the world, Rom. i. 20. Thou mayest not
only ask thy father, and he shall tell thee this, and
thine elders; (l)eut. xxxii. 7.) but ask them that go
by the way, (Job xxi. 29.) ask the first man you
meet, and he will say the same. Some read it.
Will ye not know? Will ye not hear ? For, those
that are ignorant of this are willingly ignorant; the
light shines in their faces, but they shut their eyes
against it.
Now that which is here said of God, is,
(1.) That he has the command of all the crea¬
tures; the heaven and the earth themselves are un¬
der his management; he sits upon the circle, or
globe of the earth, v. 22. He that has the special
residence of his glory in the upper world, maintains
a dominion over this lower world, gives law to it,
and directs all the motions of it to his own glory; he
sits undisturbed upon the earth, and so establishes
it. He is still stretching out the heavens, his powei
and providence keep them still stretched out, and
will do so till the day comes that they shall be roll¬
ed together like a scroll. He spreads them out as
easily as we draw a curtain to and fro, opening these
curtains in the morning, and drawing them close
again at night. And the heaven is to this earth as
a tent to dwell in; it is a canopy drawn over our
heads, Et quod tegit omnia ccelum — It encircles all.
Ovid. Ps. civ. 2.
(2. ) That the children of men, even the greatest
and mightiest, are as nothing before him. The nu¬
merous inhabitants of this earth are, in his eye, as
grasshoppers in ours, so little and inconsiderable,
of such small value, and of such little use, and so
easly crushed. Proud men lifting up themselves is
but like the grasshopper’s leap; in an instant they
must down to the earth again. If the spies thought
themselves grasshoppers before the sons of Anak,
(Numb. xiii. 38.) what are we before the greal
God? Grasshoppers live but awhile, and live care
lesslv, not like the ant; so do the most of men.
(3.) That those who appear and act against him,
how formidable soever they may be to their fellow-
creatures, will certainly be humbled and brought
down by the mighty hand of God, v. 23, 24. Princes
and judges, who have great authority, and abuse it
to the support of oppression and injustice, make
nothing of those about them; as for all their enemies,
they puff at them; (Ps. x. 5. — xii. 5.) but when the
great God takes them to task, he brings them to
nothing; he humbles them, and tames them, and
makes them as vanity; little regarded, neither fear¬
ed nor loved. He makes them utterly unable to
stand before his judgments; which shall either, [1.]
Prevent their settlement in their authority; They
shall not be planted, they shall not be sown; and
those are the two ways of propagating plants, either
by seed or slips. Nay, if they should gain a little
interest, and so be planted or sown, yet their stock
shall not take root in the earth, they shall not con¬
tinue long in power. Eliphaz saw the foolish taking
root, but suddenly cursed their habitation. And
then how soon is the fig-tree withered away ! Or,
[2.] He will blast them when they think they are
settled; he does but blow upon them, and then they
shall wither, and come to nothing, and the whirl¬
wind shall take them away as stubble. For God’s
wrath, though it seem, at first, to blow slightly upon
them, will soon become a mightv whirlwind; when
God judges, he will overcome. Those that will not
bow before him cannot stand before him.
2. He appeals to what their eyes saw of him; (z>.
26.) “ Lift up your eyes on high; be not always
poring on this earth,” ( O curvx in terras animte el
cedestium inanesl — Degenerate minds, that can
bend so toward the earth , having nothing celestial in
them!) “ but sometimes look up,” (Os homini su
blimededit, ccetumque tueri jussit — Heaven gave to
man an erect countenance, and bade him gaze on
the stars,) “behold the glorious lights of heaven,
consider who has created them. They neither made
nor marshalled themselves, doubtless, therefore,
there is a God that gave them their being, power
17!)
ISAIAH, XL.
and motion.” What we see of the creature should
lead us to the Creator. The idolaters, when they
lifted up their eyes, and beheld the hosts of heaven,
being wholly im merged in sense, looked no further,
but worshipped them, Deut. iv. xix. Job xxxi. 26.
Therefore the prophet here directs us to make use
of our reason as well as our senses, and to consider
who created them, and to pay our homage to him.
Give him the glory of his sovereignty over them;
he bring. s out their host by number, as a general
draws out the squadrons and battalions of his army;
of the knowledge he has of them; he calls them all
by names, proper names, according as their place
and influence are; (Ps. cxlvii. 4.) and of the use he
makes of them; when he calls them out to any ser¬
vice, so obsequious are they, that, by the greatness
of his might, not one of them fails, but as when the
stars in their courses fought ugainst Uisera, every
one does that to which he is appointed. To m ike
these creatures therefore rivals with God, which
are such ready servants to him, is an injury to them
as well as an affront to him.
27. Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and
speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the
Lord, and my judgment is passed over from
my God ? 23. Hast thou not known, hast
thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the
Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth,
faiuteth not, neither is weary? there is no
searching of his understanding. 29. He
giveth power to the faint; and to them that
face no might he increaseth strength. 30.
E\ en the youths shall faint and he weary,
and the young men shall utterly fall: 31.
But they that wait upon the Lord shall re¬
new their strength; they shall mount up
with wings as eagles; they shall run and not
be weary, and they shall walk and not faint.
Here,
I. The prophet reproves the people of God, who
are now supposed to be captives in Babylon, for
their unbelief and distrust of God, and the dejec¬
tions and despondencies of their spirit under their
affliction; (v. 27.) “ IV hy sayest thou, 0 Jacob, to
thyself, and to those about thee, My way is hid from
the Lord? Why dost thou make hard and melan¬
choly conclusions concerning thyself, and thy pre¬
sent case, as if the latter were desperate?” 1. The
titles he here gives them were enough to shame
them out of their distrusts; O Jacob, O Israel! Let
them remember whence they took those names —
from one who had found God faithful to him, and
kind in all his straits; and why they bore these
names — as God’s professing people, a people in co¬
venant with him. 2. The way of reproving them
is by reasoning with them; “Why? Consider
whether thou hast any ground to say so.” Many
of our foolish frets, and foolish fears, would vanish
before a strict inquiry into the causes of them. 3.
That which they are reproved for, is, an ill-natured,
ill-favoured word they spake of God, as if he had
cast them off. There seems to be an emphasis laid
upon their saying it; Why sayest thou, and speakest
thou? It is bad to have evil thoughts rise in our mind,
but it is worse to put an imprimatur to them, and
turn them into evil words. David reflects with re¬
gret upon what he said in his haste, when he was in
distress. 4. The ill word they said was a word of
despair concerning their present calamitous condi¬
tion. They were ready to conclude, (1.) That God
would net heed them; “ My may is hid from the
Lord; He takes no notice of our straits, nor con¬
cerns himself any more in our concernments. There
are such difficulties in our case, that even divine
wisdom and power will be nonplussed.” A man
•whose may is hid, is one whom God has hedged in.
Job iii. 23. (2.) That God could not help them;
“My judgment is passed over front my God; my
case is past relief, so far past it, that God himself
cannot redress the grievances of it: our bones are
dried, Ezek. xxxvii. 11.
II. He reminds them of that which, if duly con¬
sidered, was sufficient to silence all those fears and
distrusts: for their conviction, as before for the con¬
viction of idolaters, (v. 21.) he appeals to what they
had known, and what they had heard. Jacob and
Israel were a knowing people, or might have been,
and their knowledge came by hearing, for Wisdom
cried in their chief places of concourse. Now,
among other things, they had heard that God had
spoken once, twice, yea many a time they had heard
it. That power belongs unto God, Ps. lxii. 11.
That is,
1. He is himself an almighty God. He must
needs be so, for he is the everlasting God, even Je¬
hovah. He was from eternity, he will be to eter¬
nity; and therefore with him there is no deficiency,
no decay. He has his being of himself, and there¬
fore all his perfections must needs be boundless. He
is without beginning of days or end of life, and
therefore with him there is no change. He is also
the Creator of the ends of the earth, of the whole
earth, and all th .t is in it from end to end. He
therefore is the rightful Owner and Ruler of all, and
must be concluded to have an absolute power over
all, and an all-sufficiency to help his people in their
great straits. Doubtless, he is still as able to save
his church as he was at first to make the world:
(I.) He has wisdom to contrive the salvation, and
that wisdom is never at a loss; There is no searching
out of his understanding, so as to countermine the
counsels of it, and defeat its intentions; no, nor so as
to determine what he will do, for he has ways by
himself, ways in the sea. None can say, “Thus
far God’s wisdom can go, and no further; for, when
we know not what to do, he knows. (2.) He has
power to bring about the salvation, and that power
is never exhausted; He faints not, nor is weary; he
upholds the whole creation, and governs all the
creatures, and is neither tired nor toiled; and there¬
fore, no doubt, he has power to relieve his church,
when it is brought ever so low, without weakness or
weariness.
2. He gives strength and power to his people, and
helps them, by enabling them to help themselves.
He that is the strong God, is the Strength of Israel.
(1. ) He can help the weak, v. 29. Many a time
he gives power to the faint; to them that are ready
to faint away, and to them that have no might, he
not only gives, but increases strength, as there is
more and more occasion for it. Many out of bodily
weakness are wonderfully recovered, and made
strong, by the providence of God: and many that
are feeble in spirit, timorous and faint-hearted,
unable for services and sufferings, are yet strength¬
ened by the grace of God with all might in the in¬
ward man. To them who are sensible of their
weakness, and ready to acknowledge they have no
might, God does in a special manner increase
strength; tor, when we are weak in ourselves, then
are we strong in the Lord.
(2.) Ho will help the willing; will help those who,
in a humble dependence upon him, help themselves,
and will do well for those who do their best, v. 30,
31. Those who trust to their own sufficiency, and
are so confident of that, that they neither exert
themselves to the utmost, nor seek unto God for his
grace, are the youths, and the young men, who are
ISO
ISAIAH, XLl.
strong, but are apt to think themselves stronger
than they are. And they shall faint and be weary,
yea they shall utterly fail in their services, in then-
conflicts, and under their burthens; they shall soon
be made to see the folly of trusting to themselves.
But they who wait on the Lord, who make con¬
science of their duty to him, and by faith rely upon
him, and commit themselves to his guidance; they
who do so, God will not fail them. [1.] They shall
have grace sufficient for them: they shall renew
their strength as their work is renewed, as there is
new occasion; they shall be anointed, and their
lamps supplied, with fresh oil; Gcd will be their
arm every morning-, c/i. xxxiii. 2. If at any time
they have been foiled and weakened, they shall re¬
cover themselves, and so renew their strength.
Heb. They shall change their strength, as their
work is changed; doing work, suffering work; they
shall have strength to labour, strength to wrestle,
strength to resist, strength to bear. As the day, so
shall the strength be. [2.] They shall use this
grace for the best purposes. Being strengthened,
First, They shall soar upward, upward toward
God; They shall mount u/i with wings like eagles;
so strongly, so swiftly, high and heaven-ward. In
the strength of divine grace, their souls shall ascend
above the world, and even enter into the holiest.
Pious and devout affections are the eagles’ wings,
on which gracious souls mount u/i, Ps. xxv. i. Se¬
condly, They shall press forward, forward toward
heaven; they shall walk, they shall run, the way of
God’s commandments, cheerfully and with alacrity,
they shall not be weary; constantly and with per¬
severance, they shall not faint; and therefore in due
season they shall reap. Let Jacob and Israel there¬
fore, in their greatest distresses, continue waiting
upon God, and not despair of timely and effectual
relief and succour from him.
CHAP. XLI.
This chapter? as the former, is intended both for the con¬
viction of idolaters, and for the consolation of all God’s
faithful worshippers; for the Spirit is sent, and ministers
are employed by him, both to convince and to comfort.
And however this might be primarily intended for the
conviction of Babylonians, and the comfort of Israelites,
or for the conviction of those in Israel that were addict¬
ed to idolatry, as multitudes were, and the comfort of
those that kept their integrity, doubtless it was intended
both for admonition and encouragement to us; admoni¬
tion to keep ourselves from idols, and encouragement to
trust in God. Here, I. God by the prophet shows the
folly of those that worshipped idols, especially that
thought their idols able to contest with him, and control
him, v. 1..9. II. He encourages his faithful ones to
trust in him, with an assurance that he would take their
part against their enemies, make them victorious over
them, and bring about a happy change of their affairs, v.
10. . 20. III. He challenges the idols, that were rivals
with him for men’s adoration, to vie with him either for
knowledge or power; either to show things to come, or
to do good or evil, v. 21 . . 29. So that the chapter may be
summed up in those words of Elijah, If Jehovah be God,
then follow him ; but if Baal be God, then follow him:
and in the people’s acknowledgment, upon the issue of
the trial, Jehovah he is the God , Jehovah he is the God.
1 . AT' EEP silence before me, O islands ;
and let the people renew their
strength: let them come near, then let
them speak ; let us come near together to
judgment. 2. Who raised up the righte¬
ous man from the east, called him to his
loot, gave the nations before, him, and made
him rule over kings? he gave them as the
dust to his sword, and as driven stubble
to his bow. 3. He pursued them, and
passed safely; even by the way that he. had
not gone with his feet. 4. Who hath
wrought and done it , calling the genera¬
tions from the beginning? I the Lord, the
first, and with the last; I am he. 5. The
isles saw it, and feared ; the ends of the
earth were afraid, drew near, and came.
6. They helped every one his neighbour;
and every one said to his brother, Be of good
courage. 7. So the carpenter encouraged
the goldsmith, and he that smootheth with
the hammer, hifn that smote the anvil, say¬
ing, It is ready for the sodering: and he
fastened it with nails, that it should not be
moved. 8. But thou, Israel, art my ser¬
vant, Jacob whom 1 have chosen, the seed
of Abraham my friend. 9. Thou whom I
have taken from the ends of the earth, and
called thee from the chief men thereof, and
said unto thee, Thou art my servant, 1 have
chosen thee, and not cast thee away.
That particular instance of God’s cave for Iris
people Israel, in raising up Cyrus to be their deli¬
verer, is here insisted upon as a great proof both of
his sovereignty above all idols, and of his power to
protect his people. Here is,
I. A general challenge to the worshippers and
admirers of idols, to make good their pretensions,
in competition with God, and opposition to him, v.
1. It is renewed, (u. 21. ) Produce your cause. The
court is set, summonses are sent to the islands that
lay most remote, but not out of God’s jurisdiction, fo;
he is the Creator and Possessor of the ends of the
earth , to make their appearance and give their atten¬
dance. Silence (as usual) is proclaimed while the
cause is in trying; “ Keep silence before me, and
judge nothing before the time;” while the cause is in
tijing between the kingdom of God and the kingdr m
of Satan, it becomes all people silently to expect the
issue; not to object against God’s proceedings, but to
be confident that he will carry the day. The defend¬
ers of idolatry are called to say what they can in de¬
fence of it; “Let them renew their strength, in opposi¬
tion to God, and see whether it be equal to the strength
which they renew that wait upon him; {ch. xl. 31.)
let them try their utmost efforts, whether by force of
arms, or force of argument. Let them come near;
they shall not complain that God’s dread makes them
afraid, (Job. xiii. 21.) so that they cannot say what
they have to say, in vindication and honour of their
idols; no, let them s/ieak freely, let us come near to¬
gether to judgment.” Note, 1. The cause of God
and his kingdom is not afraid of a fair trial; if the
case be but fairly stated, it will be surely cari-ied in
favour of religion. 2. The enemies of God’s church
and his holy religion may safely lie challenged to
say and do their worst for the support of their un
righteous cause. He that sits in heaven, laughs at
them, and the daughter of Zion despises them, for
great is the truth, and will prevail.
II. He particularly challenges the idols to do that
for their worshippers, and against his, which he
had done, and would do, for his worshippers, and
against theirs. Different senses are given of v. '2.
concerning the righteous man raised up from the
east; and since we cannot determine which is the
true, we will make use of each as good. That
which is to be proved, is, 1. That the Lord is God
alone, the first, and with the last, (t\ 4.) that he is
infinite, eternal, and unchangeable; that he govern
ed the world from the beginning, and will to the
end of time. He has reigned of old, and will reign
181 *
ISAIAH, XL1.
for ever; the counsels of his kingdom were from
eternity, and the continuance of it will be to eter¬
nity. 2. That Israel is his servant, (n. 8.) whom
he owns and protects, and employs, and in whom
lie is, and will be, glorified. As there is a God in
heaven, so there is a church on earth, that is his
particular care. Elijah prays, (1 Kings xviii. 36.)
Let it be known that thou art God, and that I am
thy servant. Now, to prove this, he shows,
(1.) That it was he who called Abraham, the fa¬
ther of this despised nation, out of an idolatrous
country, and by many instances of his favour made
his name great, Gen. xii. 2. He is the righteous
man whom God raised up. from the east. Of him
the Chaldee Paraphrase expressly understands it,
who brought Abraham publicly from the east? To
maintain the honour of the people of Israel, it was
very proper to show what a figure this great ances¬
tor of theirs made in his day; and v. 8. seems to be
the explication of it, where God calls Israel the
seed of Abraham my friend; and v. 4. he calls the
generations, namely, the generations of Israel, from
the beginning. Also, to put contempt upon idolatry,
and particularly the Chaldean idolatry, it was pro¬
per to show how Abraham was called from serving
other gods; (Josh. xxiv. 2, 3, &c.) so that an early
testimony was borne against that idolatry which
blasted so much of its antiquity. Also, to encour¬
age the captives in Babylon to hope that God would
find a way for their return to their own land, it was
proper to remind them how at first he brought their
father Abraham out of the same country into this
land, to give it him for an inheritance, Gen. xv. 7.
Now observe what is here said concerning him;
[1.] That he was a righteous man, or righteous¬
ness, a man of righteousness, that believed God, and
it was counted to him for righteousness; and so he
became the father of all those who by faith in Christ
are made the righteousness of God through him,
Rom. iv. 3, 11. 2 Cor. v. 21. He was a great ex¬
ample of righteousne ,s in his day, and taught his
household to do judgment and justice, Gen. xviii.
19. [2. ] That God raised him up from the east,
from Ur first, and afterward from Haran, which
lay east from Canaan. God would not let hint set¬
tle in either of those places, but did by him as the
eagle by her young, when she stirs up her nest: he
raised him out of iniquity, and made him pious; out
of obscurity, and made him famous. [3.] He called
him to his foot, to follow him with an implicit faith;
for he went out, rot knowing whither he went, but
whom he followed, Heb. xi. 8. Those whom God
effectually calls, he calls to his foot; to be subject
to him, to attend him, and follow the Lamb whi¬
thersoever he goes: and we must all either come to
his foot, or be made his footstool. [4.] He gave na¬
tions before him, the nations of Canaan, which he
promised to make him master of; and thus far gave
him an interest in, that the Hittites acknowledged
him a mighty prince among them, Gen. xxiii. 6.
He made him rule over those kings whom he con¬
quered for the rescue of his brother Lot, Gen. xiv.
And when God gave them as dust to his sword, and
as driven stubble to his bow, that is, made them an
easy prey to his catechised servants, he then pur¬
sued them, and passed safely, or in peace, under the
divine protection, though it was in a way he was al¬
together unacquainted with; and so considerable
was this victory, that Melchizedec. himself appear¬
ed to celebrate it. Now who did this but the great
Jehovah ? Can any of the gods of the heathen do so?
(2.) That it is he who will, ere long, raise up Cy¬
rus from the east. It is spoken of according to the
language of prophecy as a thing past, because as
sure to be done in its season as if it were already
done. God will raise him up in righteousness; so
it may be read; ( ch . xlv. 13.) will call him to his
foot; make what use cf him he pleases, make him
victorious over the nations that oppose his coming
to the crown, and give him success in all his wars;
and he shall be a type of Christ, who is Righteous¬
ness itself, the Lord our Righteousness, whom God
will, in the fulness of time, raise up, and make vic¬
torious over tlie powers of darkness; so that he slul’
spoil them, and make a show of them openly.
III. He exposes the folly of idolaters, wiio, not
withstanding the convincing proofs which the G< d
of Israel had given of his being God alone, obsti
nately persisted in their idolatry, nay, were so much
the more hardened in it; (v. S j The isles of the
Gentiles saw this; not only what God did for Abra¬
ham himself, but what he did for his seed, for hi‘
sake; how he brought them out of Egypt, and made
them rule over kings, and they feared, Excd. xv.
14. — 16. They were afraid, and, according to the
summons, (v. i.) they drew near, and came; they
could not avoid taking notice of what God did for
Abraham and his seed; but, instead of helping to
reason one another out of their sottish idolatries,
they helped to confirm one another in them, v. 6,
7. 1. They looked upon it as a dangerous design
upon their religion, which they were jealous for the
honour of, and were resolved, right or wrong, to ad¬
here to, and therefore were alarmed to appear vi¬
gorously for the support of it, as the Ephesians for
their Diana. When God, by liis wonderful appear¬
ances on the behalf of his people, went about to
wrest their idols from them, they held them so
much the faster, and said one to another, “ Be of
good courage, let us unanimously agree to keep up
the reputation of our gods.” Though Dagon fell be¬
fore the ark, he shall be set up again in his place;
one tradesman encourages another to come into a
confederacy for the keeping up the noble craft of
god-making. Thus men’s convictions often exaspe¬
rate their corruptions, and they are made worse both
by the word and the works of God, which should
make them better. 2. They looked upon it as a dan¬
gerous design upon themselves; they thought them¬
selves in danger from the growing greatness both of
Abraham that was a convert from idolatry, and of
the people of Israel that were separatists from it; and
therefore they not only had recourse to their old
gods for protection, but made new ones, Deut.
xxxii. 17. So the carpenter, having done his par*
to the timber- work, encouraged the goldsmith to dc
his part in gilding or overlaying it; and when it
came into the goldsmith’s hand, he that smooths
with the hammer, that polishes it, or beats it thin,
quickened him that smote the anvil, bade him be
expeditious, and told him it was ready for the sc-
dering; which perhaps was the last operation about
it, and then it is fastened with nails, and you have
a god of it presently. Do sinners thus hearten and
quicken one another in the ways of sin? And shall
not the servants of the living God both stir up one
another to, and strengthen one another in, his ser¬
vice? Some read all this ironically, and by way of
permission; Let them help every one his neighbour,
let the carpenter encourage the goldsmith; but all in
vain, idols shall fall for all this.
IV. He encourages his own people to trust in him ;
(t>. 8, 9.) “But thou, Israel, art my servant. They
know me not, but thou knowest me, and knowest
better than to join with such ignorant besotted peo¬
ple as these;” (for it is intended fora warning to the
people of God not to walk in the way of the hea¬
then ;) “they put themselves under the protection
of these impotent deities, but thou art under my
protection: they that make them are like unto them,
and so is every one that trusts in them; but thou,
O Israel, art the servant of a better Master. ” Ob¬
serve what is suggested here for the encouragemenl
of God’s people, when they are threatened and in
182
ISAIAH, XLI.
suite J over. 1. They are God’s servants, and he
will not see them abused, especially for what they
do in his service; Thou art my servant, (n. 8.) and
“ I have said unto thee. Thou art tny servant; and
I will not go back from mv word.” 2. He has cho¬
sen them to be a peculiar people to himself; they
were not forced upon him, but of his own good will
he set them apart. 3. They were the seed of Abra¬
ham his friend; it was the honour of Abraham that
he was called the friend of Cod, (James ii. 23.)
whom God covenanted and conversed with as a
friend, and the man of his counsel; and this honour
have all the saints, John xv. 15. And for the fa¬
ther’s sake the people of Israel were beloved. God
was pleased to look upon them as the posterity of an
old friend of his, and therefore to be kind to them;
for the covenant of friendship was made with Abra¬
ham and his seed. 4. He had sometimes, when
they had been scattered among the heathen, fetch¬
ed them from the ends of the earth, and taken them
out of the hands of the chief ones thereof, and there¬
fore he would not now abandon them. Abraham
their father was fetched from a place at a great dis¬
tance, and they in his loins; and those who had been
thus far-fetched and dear-bought, he could not easi¬
ly part with. 5. He had not yet cast them away,
though they had often provoked him, and therefore
he would not now abandon them. What God has
done for his people, and what he has further en¬
gaged to do, should encourage them to trust in him
at all times.
10. Fear thou not; for I am with thee;
be not dismayed, for I am thy God : I will
strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee ; yea,
I wilt uphold thee with the right hand of my
righteousness. 1 1. Behold, all they that were
incensed against thee shall be ashamed and
confounded : they shall be as nothing ; and
they that strive with thee shall perish. 1 2.
Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find them,
even them that contended with thee : they that
war against thee shall be as nothing, and as
a thing of naught. 13. For I the Lord thy
God will hold thy right hand, saying unto
thee, Fear not; I will help thee. 14. Fear
not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel ;
1 will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy
Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. 15.
Behold, I will make thee a new sharp
threshing instrument having teeth : thou
shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them
small, and shalt make the hills as chaff. 16.
Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall
carry them away, and the whirlwind shall
scatter them : and thou shalt rejoice in the
Lord, and shalt glory in the Holy One of
Israel. 1 7. fVhen the poor and needy seek
water, and there is none, and their tongue
faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them,
I the God of Israel will not forsake them.
1 8. I will open rivers in high places, and
fountains in the midst of the valleys : I will
make the wilderness a pool of water, and
the dry land springs of water. 1 9. I will
plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shit-
lah-tree, and the myrtle, and the oil-tree ; I
will set in the desert the fir-tree, and the
pine, and the box-tree together ; 20. That
they may see and know, and consider, and
understand together, that the hand of the
Lord hath done this, and the Holy One of
Israel hath created it.
The scope of these verses is to silence the fears,
and encourage the faith, of the servants of Gi d in
their distresses; perhaps it is intended, in the first
place, for the support of God’s Israel, in captivity;
but all that faithfully serve Gnd, through patience
and comfort of the scripture, may have hope. And
it is addressed to Israel as a single person, that it
might the more easily and readily be accommodated
and applied by every Israelite indeed to himself
That is a word of caution, counsel, and comfort,
which is so often repeated, Fear thou not; and
again, (x>. 13.) Fear not, and (v. 14.) “ Fear not,
thou worm Jacob; fear not the threatenings cf the
enemy, doubt not the promises of thy God; fear not
that thou shalt perish in thine affliction, or that the
promise of thy deliverance shall fail.” It is against
the mind of God, that his people should be a timor¬
ous people.
For the suppressing of fear, he assures them,
I. That they may depend upon his presence with
them as their God, and a God all-sufficient for them
in the worst of times. Observe with what tender¬
ness God speaks, and how willing he is to let the
heirs of promise know the immutabilitv of his
counsel, and how desirous to make them easy,
“ Fear thou not, for lam with thee; not only within
call, but present with thee; be not dismayed at the
power of those that are against thee, for I am thy
God, and engaged for thee. Art thou weak? I will
strengthen thee. Art thou destitute of friends? 1
will help thee in the time cf need. Art thou ready
to sink, ready to fall? I will uphold thee with the
right hand of my righteousness, that right hand
which is full of righteousness, in dispersing rewards
and punishments,” Ps. xlviii. 10. And again, (v.
13.) it is promised, 1. That God will strengthen
their hands — will help them; “/ will hold thy
right hand, go hand in hand with thee:” so some":
he will take us by the hand as our Guide, to lead
us in our way, will help us up when we are fallen,
or prevent our falls; when we are weak, he will
hold us up, wavering, he will fix us, trembling, he
will encourage us, and so hold us by the right hand,
Ps. lxxiii. 23. 2. That he will silence their fears,
saying unto thee. Fear not. He has said it again and
again in his word, and has there provided sovereign
antidotes against fear; but he will go further, he
will by his Spirit say it to their hearts, and make
them to hear it, and so will help them.
II. That though their enemies be now very for¬
midable, insolent, and severe, yet the day is coming
when God will reckon with them, and tlfey shall
triumph over them. There are those that are in¬
censed against God’s people, that strive with them,
(v. 11.) that war against them, (v. 12.) that hate
them, that seek their ruin, and are continually pick¬
ing quarrels with them. But let not God’s pec pie
be incensed at them, nor strive with them, nor ren¬
der evil for evil; but wait God’s time, and believe,
1. That thev shall be convinced of the folly, at
least, if not of the sin, of striving with God’s people;
and, finding it to no purpose, they shall be ashamed
and confounded, which might bring them to repont-
ance, hut will rather fill them with rage. 2. That
they shall be quite ruined and undone; (v. 11.)
They shall be as nothing before the justice anti
power of God. When God comes to deal with his
proud enemies, he makes nothing of them; or, they
shall be brought to nothing, shall be as if they hail
183
ISAIAH, XL1.
never been. This is repeated; ( v . 12.) they shall
i>e as nothing, and as a thing of naught; or, as that
which is gone and has failed. They that were for¬
midable shall become despicable; that fancied they
could do any tiling, shall be able to bring nothing to
p iss; that made a figure in the world, and a mighty
noise, shall become mere ciphers, and be buried in
silence; they shall perish, not only lie nothing, but
be miserable. Thou shall seek them; shalt inquire
what is become of them, that they do not appear
as usual, but thou shalt not find them, as David,
(Ps. xxxvii. 36.) I sought him, but he could not be
found.
III. That they themselves should become a ter¬
ror to those who were now a terror to them, and
victory sin uld turn on their side, v. 14. — 16. See
here, 1. How Jacob and Israel arc reduced, and
brought very low. It is the worm Jacob; so little,
so weak, and so defenceless, despised and trampled
on by every body, forced to creep even into the earth
for safety; and we must not wonder that Jacob is be¬
come a worm, when even Jacob’s King calls him¬
self a Worm, and no man, Ps. xxii. 6. God’s
people are sometimes as worms in their humble
thoughts of themselves, and their enemies’ haughty
thoughts of them ; worms, but not vipers, as their
enemies are — not of the serpent’s seed. God re¬
gards Jacob’s low estate, and says, “Fear not, thou
worm Jacob; fear not that thou shalt be crushed;
and ye men of Israel,” ( ye few men, so some read
it, ye dead men, so others,) “do not give up your¬
selves for gone notwithstanding.” Note, The grace
of God will silence fears, even then when there
seems to be the greatest cause for them; perplexed,
but not in despair. 2. How Jacob and Israql are
adv need from this low estate, and made as formi¬
dable as ever they had been despicable. But by
whom shall Jacob arise, for he is small? We are
here told, I will help thee, saith the Lord: and it is
the honour of God to help the weak. He will help
them, for he is their Redeemer, who is wont to re¬
deem them, who has undertaken to do it. Christ
is tile Redeemer, from him is our help found. He
will help them, for he is the Holy One of Israel,
worshipped among them in the beauty of holiness,
and engaged by promise to them. The Lord will
help them by enabling them to help themselves,
and making Jacob to become a threshing instrument.
Observe, He is but an instrument, a tool in God’s
hand, that he is pleased to make use of; and he is
an instrument of God’s making, and is no more than
God makes him. But if God make him a threshing
instrument, he will make use of him, and therefore
will make him fit for use, new and sharp, and hav¬
ing teeth, or sharp spikes; and then, by divine di¬
rection and strength, thou shalt thresh the moun¬
tains, the highest and strongest and most stubborn
of thine enemies; thou shalt not only beat them,
but beat them small; they shall not be as corn
threshed out, which is valuable, and is carefully
preserved, (such God’s people are when they are
under the flail, ( ch . xxi. 10.) 0 my threshing, vet
the corn of my floor, that shall not be lost,) f>ut
these are made as chaff, which is good for nothing,
and which the husbandman is glad to get rid of. He
pursues the metaphor, v. 16. Having threshed
them, thou shalt winnow them, and the wind shall
scatter them. This perhaps had its accomplish¬
ment, in part, in the victories of the Jews over their
enemies in the times of the Maccabees; but it seems
in general designed to read the final doom of all the
implacable enemies of the church of God, and to
have its accomplishment likewise in the triumphs
of the cross of Christ, the gospel of Christ, and all
the faithful followers of Christ, over the powers of
darkness, which, fir-stor last, shall all be dissipated,
and in Christ all believers shall be more than con¬
querors, and he that overcomes shall have power
over the nations, Rev. ii. 26.
IV. That, hereupon, they shall have abundance
of comfort in Gcd, and God shall have abundance
of honour from them; Thou shalt rejoice in the
i Lord, v. 16. When we are freed from that \\ Licit
j hindered our joy, and are blessed with that which is
tiie matter of it, we ought to remember that God is
our exceeding Joy, and in him all our joys terminate.
When we rejoice over our enemies, we must rep ice
in the Lord, for to him alone we owe our liberties
and victories. “Then shalt also glory in the Holy
One of Israel, in thine interest in him, and relation
to him, and what he has done for thee.” And if
thus we make God our Praise and Glory, we be¬
come to him for a praise and a glory.
V. That they shall have seasonable and suitable
supplies of every thing that is proper for them in
the time of need; and if there be occasion, God will
again do for them as he did for Israel in their march
from Egypt to Canaan, v. 17. — 19. When the cap¬
tives, either in Babylon, or in their return thence,
arc in distress for want of water or shelter, God
will take care of them, and one way or other, make
their journey, even through a wilderness, comforta¬
ble to them. But, doubtless, this promise has mere
than, such a private interpretation. Their return
out of Babylon was typical of our redemption by
Christ; and so the contents of these promises, 1.
Were provided by the gospel of Christ. That glo¬
rious discovery of his lor e has given full assurance
to all those who hear this joyful sound, that God has
provided inestimable comforts for them, sufficient
for the supply of all their wants, the balancing of
all their griefs, and the answering cf all their pray¬
ers. 2. They are applied by the grace and Spirit
of Christ to ail believers; that they may have strong
consolation in their way, and a complete happiness
in their end. Our way to heaven lies through the
wilderness of this world: Now, '3
(1.) It is here supposed, that the people of God,
in their passage through this world, are often in
straits; The poor and needy seek water , and there
is none; the poor in spirit hunger and thirst after
righteousness. The soul of man, finding itself enipiV
and necessitous, seeks for satisfaction somewhei.
but soon despairs of finding it in the world, that hi
nothing in it to make it easy: creatures are brokt
cisterns that can hold no water; so that their tong,
fails for thirst, they are weary of seeking that sa
tisfaction in the world, which is not to be had in it.
Their sorrow makes them thirsty; so does their toil.
(2.) It is here promised, that, one way or other,
all their grievances shall be redressed, and they
I shall be made easy.
[1.] God himself will be nigh unto them in all
that which they call upon him for. Let all the
praying people of God take notice of this, and take
comfort of it; he has said, “I the Lord will hear
them, will answer them, I the God of Israel will
not forsake them; I will be with them, as I have
always been, in their distresses. ” While we are in
the wilderness of this world, this promise is to us
what the pillar of cloud and fire was to Israel, an
assurance of God’s gracious presence.
[2.] They shall have a constant supply of fresh
water, as Israel had in the wilderness, even there,
where one would least expect it; (y. 18.) I will
open rivers in high places; rivers of grace, rivers
of pleasure, rivers of living water, which he spake
of the Spirit, (John vii. 38, 39.) that Spirit which
should be poured out upon the Gentiles, who had been
as high places, dry and barren, and lifted up in their
own conceit above the necessity of that gift. And
there shall be fountains in the midst of the valleys,
the valleys of Baca, (Ps. lxxxiv. 6.) that are sandy
and wearisome; or among the Jews who had been
184
ISAIAH, XLI.
as fruitful valleys in comparison with the Gentile jj
mountains. The preaching of the gospel to the world
turned that wilderness into a pool of water; yielding i
fruit to the Owner of it, and relief to the travellers
through it.
[3.] They shall have a pleasant shade to screen
them from the scorching heat of the sun, as Israel,
when they pitched at Elim, where they had not
onlv wells of water, but palm- trees; (Exod. xv.
37.) “I mill plant in the wilderness the cedar; (u.
19.) 1 will turn the wilderness into an orchard or
garden, such as used to be planted with these plea¬
sant trees, so that they shall pass through the wil¬
derness with as mucli ease and delight as a man
walks in his grove. These trees shall be to them
then what the pillar of cloud was to Israel in the
wilderness, a shelter from the heat.” Christ and
his grace are so to believers, as the shadow of a
great rock, ch. xxxii. 2. When God sets up his
church in the Gentile wilderness, there shall be as
great a change made by it in men’s characters, as
if thorns and briers were turned into cedars, and fir-
trees, and myrtles; and by this a blessed change is
described, ch. lv. 13.
[4.] They shall see and acknowledge the hand
of God, his power and his favour in this, v. 20.
God will do these strange and surprising things, on
purpose to awaken them to a conviction and consi¬
deration of his hand in all; that they may see this
wonderful change, and, knowing that it is above the
ordinary course and power of nature, may consider
that therefore it comes from a superior power; and,
comparing notes upon it, may understand together,
and concur in the acknowledgment of it, that the
hand of the Lord, that mighty hand of his which is
stretched out for his people, and stretched out to
them, has done this, and the Holy One of Israel has
created it, made it anew, made it out of nothing,
made it for the comfort of his people. Mote, God
does great things for his people, that he may be
taken notice of.
2 1 . Produce your cause, saith the Lord ;
bring forth your strong reasons, saitli the
King of Jacob. 22. Let them bring them
forth, and show us what shall happen: let
them show the former things what they be
that we may consider them, and know the
latter end of them; or declare us things for
to come. 23. Show the things that are to
come hereafter, that we may know that ye
are gods: yea, do good, or do evil, that we
may be dismayed, and behold it together.
24. Behold, ye are of nothing, and your
work of naught : and abomination is he that
chooseth you. 25. I have raised up one
from the north, and he shall come : from the
rising of the sun shall he call upon my name;
and he shall come upon princes as upon
mortar, and as the potter treadeth clay. 26.
, Who hath declared from the beginning, that
we may know? and before-time, that we
may say, He is righteous ? yea, there is none
that showeth; yea, there is none that de-
clareth; yea, there is none that heareth
your words. 27. The first shall say to Zion,
Behold, behold them: and I will give to
Jerusalem one that bringeth good tidings.
28. For I beheld, and there was no man;
even among them, and there was no coun¬
sellor, that, when I asked of them, could
answer a word. 29. Behold, they are all
vanity; their works are nothing: their mol¬
ten images are wind and confusion.
The Lord, by the prophet, here repeats the chal¬
lenge to idolaters, to make out the pretensions of
their idols; “ Produce your cause, (x>. 21.) and
make your best of it; bring forth the strongest rea¬
sons you have, to prove that vour idols are gods,
and worthy your adoration.” Note, There needs
no more to show the absurdity of sin, than to pro¬
duce the reasons that are given in defence of it, for
they carry with them their own confutation.
I. The idols are here challenged to bring proofs
of their knowledge and power. Let us see what
they can inform us of, and what they can do: un¬
derstanding and active power are the accomplish¬
ments of a man; whoever pretends to be a god,
must have these in perfection. And have the idols
made it to appear that they have? No; 1. “ They
can tell us nothing that we did not know before, sc
ignorant are they. We challenge them to infr rm
us,” (1.) “What has been formerly; let them show
the former things, and raise them out of the oblivion
in which they were buried;” (God inspired Moses
to write such a history of the creation as the g' ds
of the heathen could never have dictated to any of
their enthusiasts;) or, “ let the defenders of idols
tell us what mighty achievements they can boast of,
as performed by their gods in former times. What
did they ever do that was worth taking notice <f?
Let them specify any thing, and it shall be consi¬
dered, its due weight shall be given it, and it shall
be compared with the latter end of it; and if, in the
issue, it prove to be as great as it pretended to be,
they shall have the credit of it.” (2.) “We chal¬
lenge them to tell us what shall happen, to declare
to us things to come, (x>. 22.) anti again, (r. 23.)
show the things that are to come herea fter. Give this
evidence of your omniscience, that nothing can be
hid from you, and of your sovereignty and domi¬
nion; make it to appear that you have the doing of
all, by letting us know beforehand what you design
to do. Do this kindness to the world ; let them know
what is to come that they may provide accordingly.
Do this, and we will own that you are gods above
us, and gods to us, and worthy of our adorations.”
No creature can foretell things to come, otherwise
than by divine information, with any certainty
2. “ Thev can do nothing that we cannot do our¬
selves, so impotent are they.” He challenges them
to do either good or evil, good to their friends or evil
to their enemies; “Let them do, if they can, any
thing extraordinary, that people will admire and be
affected with. Let them either bless or curse with
power. Let us see them either inflict such plagues
as God brought on Egypt, or bestow such blessings
as God bestowed on Israel. Let them do seme great
thing, and we shall be amazed when we see it. and
frightened into a veneration of them, as many have
been into a veneration of the true God.”
That which is charged upon these idols, and let
them disprove it if they can, is, that they are cf
nothing, v. 24. Their claims have no foundation
at all, nor is there any ground or reason, in the
least, for men’s paying' them the respect they do;
there is nothing in them worthy our regard. “ They
are less than nothing, worse than nothing;” so some
read it. “The work they do is of naught, and so is
the ado that is made about them; there is no pre¬
tence or colour for it; it is all a jest, it is all a sham
put upon the world; and therefore he that chooses
you, and so gives you your deity, and” (as some read
it) “that delights in you, is an abomination to God
185
ISAIAH, XLTI.
and al'. wise and good men. He that chooses you,
chooses an abomination',” so some take it. A ser¬
vant is at liberty to choose his master, but a man is
not at liberty to choose his god. He that chooses
any other than the true God, chooses an abomina-
'ion ; his choosing it makes it so.
11. God here produces proofs that he is the true
God, and none besides. Let him produce his strong
reasons:
1. He has an irresistible power. This he will
shortly make to appear in the raising up of Cyrus,
and making him a type of Christ; (k. 25.) He will
raise him ufi from the north and from the rising of
the sun. Cyrus, by his father, was a Mode, by his
mother, a Persian; and his army consisted of Medes,
whose country lay north, and Persians, whose coun¬
try lay east, from Babylon. God will raise him up
to great power, and he shall come against Babylon,
with ends of his own to serve. But, (1.) He shall
f iroclaim God’s name; so it may be read. He shall
publish the honour of the God of Israel; so he did
remarkably, when, in his proclamation for the re¬
lease of the Jews out of their captivity, he acknow¬
ledged that the Lord God of Israel was the Lord
God of heaven, and the God: and he might be said
to call on his name, when he encouraged the build¬
ing of his temple, and, very probably, did himself
call upon him, and pray to him, Ezra i. 2, 3. (2.)
All opposition shall fall before him; he shall co me
upon the princes of Babylon, and all others that
stood in his way, as' mortar, and trample upon them,
as the potter treads clay, to serve his own purposes
with it. Christ, as Man, was raised up from the
north, for N azareth lay in the northern parts of Ca¬
naan; as the Angel of the covenant, he ascends
from the east. He maintained the honour of hea¬
ven; ( he shall call upon my name;) and brake the
powers of hell, came upon the prince of darkness
as mortar, and trod him down.
2. He has an infallible foresight. He would not
only do this, but he did now, by his prophet, fore¬
tell it. Now the false gods not only could not do it,
but they could not foresee it. (1.) He challenges
them to produce any of their pretended deities, or
their diviners, that had given notice of this, or could,
v. 26. “Who has declared from the beginning
any thing of this kind, or has told it beforetimer
Tell us if there by any that we know of, for we
know not any; if there be any, we will say, He is
righteous, he is true, his cause is just, his claims are
proved, and he is in the right, in demanding to be
worshipped.” This agrees with v. 22, 23. (1.)
He challenges to himself the sole honour of doing
it, and foretelling it;(n. 27.) Iam the first (so it may
be read) that will say to Zion, Behold, behold them;
that will let the people of Israel know their deliverers
are at hand ; for there were those who understood by
books, God’s books, the approach of the time, Dan.
ix. 2. And I am he that will give to Jerusalem one
that brings good tidings, these good tidings of their
enlargement. This is applicable to the work of re¬
demption, in which the Lord showed himself much
more than in the release of the Jews out of Babylon:
■ie it was that contrived our salvation, and he
•irought it about, and he has given to us the glad tid-
'ngs of reconciliation.
Lastly, Judgment is here given upon this trial:
1. None of all the idols had foretold, or could
foresee, this work ot wonder. Other nations be¬
side the Jews were released out of captivity in Ba¬
bylon by Cyrus, or, at least, were greatly concerned
in the revolution of the monarchy, and the trans¬
ferring of it to the Persians; and yet none of them
had any intelligence given them of it beforehand,
by any of tlv ir gods or prophets; “ There is none
that shows, (v. 26.) none that declares; none that
gives the least intimation of it; there is none of the
Vol. iv. — 2 A
nations that hears vour words, that can pretend to
have heard from their gods such words as you, O
Israelites, have heard from your God, by your pro¬
phets,” l’s. cxlvii. 20. None of all the gods of the
nations have showed tlfcir worshippers the way of
salvation, which God will show by the Messiah.
The good tidings which the Lord will send in the
gospel, is a mystery hid from ages and generations,
Horn. xvi. 25, 26.
2. None of those who pleaded for them could pro¬
duce any instance of their knowledge or power, that
had in it any colour of proof that they were gods:
all their advocates were struck dumb with this
challenge, ( v . 28.) “I beheld, and there was no
man that could give evidence for them, even among
them that were their most zealous admirers, and
there was no counsellor, there were none that could
offer any thing for the support of their cause. Even
among the idols themselves there was none fit to
give counsel in the most trivial matters, and yet
there were those that asked counsel of them in the
most important and difficult affairs. When I asked
them what they had to say for themselves, they
stood mute; the case was so plain against them,
there was none that could answer a word.” Judg¬
ment must therefore be given against the defendant
upon Arihil dicit — he is mute: he has nothing to say
for himself; he was speechless, Matth. xxii. 12.
3. Sentence is therefore given according to the
charge exhibited against them; (v. 24.) “Behold,
they are all vanity, (v. 29.) they are a lie and a
cheat, they are not in themselves what they pre¬
tend to be, nor will their worshippers find that in
them which they promise themselves. Their works
are nothing, of no force, of no worth; their enemies
need fear no hurt from them, their worshippers can
hope for no good from them. Their molten images,
and indeed all their images, are wind and confusion,
vanity and vexation; those that worship them will
be deceived in them, and will reflect upon their
own folly with the greatest bitterness. Therefore,
dearly beloved, flee from idolatry,” 1 Cor. x. 14.
CHAP. XLII.
The prophet seems here to launch out vet further into the
prophecy of the Messiah and his kingdom, under the type
of Cyrus; and, having the great work of man’s salvation
by him yet more in view, he almost forgets the occasion
that led him into it, and drops the return out of Babylon;
for indeetj the prospect of this would be a greater com¬
fort and support to the believing pious Jews, in their
captivity, than the hope of that. And (as Mr. Gataker
well observesj in this, and similar prophecies of Christ,
that are coucned in types, as of David and Solomon,
some passages agree to the type and not to the truth,
others to the truth and not to the type, and many to the
type in one sense, and the truth in another. Here is, I.
A prophecy of the Messiah’s coming with meekness, and
ret with power, to do the Redeemer’s work, v. 1 . . 4.
I. His commission opened, which he received from the
Father, v. 5 . . 9. III. The joy and rejoicing with which
the glad tidings of this should be received v. 10 . . 12.
IV. The wonderful success of the gospel, for the over¬
throw of the devil’s kingdom, v. 13 . . 17. V. The rejec¬
tion and ruin of the Jews for their unbelief, v. 18 . . 2 5.
l.TBEHOLD my servant, whom I up-
J IS hold; mine elect, in whom my soul
delighteth: I have put my Spirit upon him;
he shall bring forth judgment to the (ien-
tiles. 2. He shall not cry, nor lift up, noi
cause his voice to he heard in the street. 3.
A bruised reed shall he not break, and the
smoking flax shall he not quench : he shall
bring forth judgment unto truth. 4. He shall
not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set
186
ISAIAH, XLjI.
judgment in the earth : and the isles shall
wait for his law.
We are sure that these verses are to be under¬
stood of Christ, for the evangelist tells us expressly
that in him this prophecy was fulfilled, Matth. xii.
17. — 21. Behold with an eye of faith; behold, and
observe; behold, and admire, my Servant whom I
uphold. Let the Old Testament saints behold, and
expect him; let the New Testament saints behold,
and remember him. Now what must we behold
and consider concerning him?
1. The Father’s concern for him, and relation to
him; the confidence he put, and the complacency
he took, in him. This put an honour upon him,
and made him remarkable, above any other cir¬
cumstance, v. 1. (1.) God owns him as one em¬
ployed for him; He is my Servant. Though he
.vas a Son, yet, as a Mediator, he took upon him the
form of a servant; learned obedience to the will of
God, and practised it, and laid out himself to ad¬
vance the interests of God’s kingdom, and so he was
God’s servant. (2.) As one chosen by him; He is
mine elect: he did not thrust himself into the service,
but was called of God, and pitched upon as the fit¬
test person for it. Infinite Wisdom made the choice,
and then avowed it. (3.) As one he put a confi¬
dence in; He is my servant on whom I lean; so some
read it. The Father put a confidence in him, that
he would go through with his undertaking, and, in
that confidence, brought many sons to glory. It
was a great trust which the Father reposed in the
Son, but he knew him to be par negolia — equal to
it, both able and faithful. (4.) As one he took care
of; He is my servant whom I uphold; so we read it.
'File Father bore him up, and bore him out, in his
undertaking: both were included in his upholding
of him; he stood by him, and strengthened him.
(5.) As one whom he took an entire complacency
in; Mine elect, in whom my soul delights. His de¬
light was in him from eternity, when he was by him
as one brought up with him, Prov. viii. 30. He
had a particular satisfaction in his undertaking; he
declared himself well pleased in him, (Matth. iii.
ir. — xvii. 5.) and therefore loved him, because he
laid down his life for the sheep. Let our souls de¬
light in Christ, rely on him, and rejoice in him; and
thus let us be united to him, and then, for his sake,
the Father will be well pleased with us.
2. The qualification of him for his office; I have
put my Spirit upon him, to enable him to go
through his undertaking, ch. lxi. 1. The Spirit did
not only come,' but rest, upon him, (ch. xi. 2.) not
by measure, as on others of God’s servants, but
without measure. Those whom God employs as
his servants, as he will uphold them, and be well
pleased with them, so he will put his Spirit upon
them.
3. The work to which he is appointed; it is to
bring forth judgment to the Gentiles, that is, in
infinite wisdom, holiness, and equity, to set up a
religion in the world, under the bonds of which the
Gentiles should come, and the blessings of which
they should enjoy. The judgments of the Lord,
which had been hid from the Gentiles, (Ps. cxlvii.
20.) he came to bring forth to the Gentiles, for he
was to be a Light to lighten them.
4. The mildness and tenderness with which he
should pursue this undertaking, v. 2, 3. He shall
carry it on, (1.) In silence, and without noise; He
shall not strive, nor cry. It shall not be proclaim¬
ed, Lo, here is Christ; or, Lo, he is there; as when
great princes ride in progress, or make a public
entry. He shall have no trumpet sounded before
him, nor any noisy retinue to follow him. The op-
osition he meets with, he shall not strive against,
ut patiently endure the contradiction of sinners
against himself; his kingdom is spiritual, and there
fore its weapons are not carnal, nor its appearance
pompous; it comes not with observation. (2. )
Gently, and without rigour. Those that are wicked
he will be patient with; when he has begun to crush
them, so that they are as bruised reeds, lie will give
them space to repent, and not immediately break
them; though they are very offensive, as smoking
flax, (ch. lxv. 5. ) yet lie will bear with them, as he
did with Jerusalem. Those that are weak he will
be tender of; those that have but a little life, a little
heat, that are weak as a reed, oppressed with
doubts and fears, as a bruised reed, that are as
smoking flax, as the wick of a candle newly lighted,
which is ready to go cut again, he will not despise
them, will not plead against them with his great
power, nor lay upon them more work, or mere suf¬
fering, than they can bear, which would break and
! quench them, but will graciously consider their
frame. More is implied than is expressed; he will
I not break the braised reed, but will strengthen it,
that it may become as a cedar in the courts of our
God. He will not quench the smoking flax, but
blow it up into a flame. Note, Jesus Christ is
very tender toward those that have true grace,
though they are but wtak in it, and accepts the
willingness of the spirit, pardoning and passing by
the weakness of the flesh.
5. The courage and constancy with which he
should persevere in this undertaking, so as to carry
his point at last; (v. 4.) He shall not fail, nor be
discouraged; though he meets with hard service,
and much opposition, and foresees how ungrateful
the world will be, yet he goes on with his part of the
work, till he is able to say, It is finished; and he
enables his apostles and ministers to go on with
theirs too, and not to fail or be discouraged, till
they also have finished their testimony. And thus
he accomplishes wh t he undertook; (l.)He brings
forth judgment unto truth; by a leng course of
miracles, and his resurrection at last, he shall fully
evince the truth of his doctrine, and the divine
original and authority of that holy religion which
he came to establish. (2.) He sets judgment in the
earth; he erects his government in the world, a
church for himself among men; reforms the world,
and by the power of his gospel and grace fixes such
principles in the minds of men, as tend to make
them wise and just. (3.) The isles of the Gentiles
wait for his law, wait tor his gospel; bid it welcome
as if it had been a thing they had long waited for.
They shall become his disciples, shall sit at his feet,
and be ready to receive the law from his meuth.
What wilt thou have us to do?
5. Thus saith God the Lord, he that
created the heavens, and stretched them
out: he that spread forth the earth, and that
which cometh out of it ; he that giveth breath
unto the people upon it, and spirit to them
that walk therein; 6. 1 the Lord have r ill
ed thee in righteousness, and will hold thy
hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for
a covenant of the people, for a light of the
Gentiles; 7. To open the blind eyes, to
bring out the prisoners from the prison, and
them that sit in darkness out of the prison-
house. 8. 1 am the Lord; that is my name:
and my glory will I not give to another,
neither my praise to graven images. 9 Be¬
hold, the former things are come to pass,
and new things do I declare: before thev
187
ISAIAH,
spring forth 1 tell you of them. 10. Sing
unto the Lord a new song, and his praise
from the end of the earth, ye that go down
to the sea, and all that is therein; the isles,
and the inhabitants thereof. 11. Let the
wilderness and the cities thereof lift up their
voice , the villages that Kedar doth inhabit:
let the inhabitants of the rock sing, let them
shout from the top of the mountains. 12.
Let them give glory unto the Lord, and
declare his praise in the islands.
Here is,
I. The covenant God made with, and the com¬
mission he gave to, the Messiah, v. 5. — 7. which
are an exposition of v. 1. Behold my Servant,
•whom I uphold.
1. The royal titles by which the great God here
makes himself known, and distinguishes himself
from all pretenders, speak very much his glory;
(y. 5.) Thus saith God the Lord: and who art
thou, Lord? He is the Fountain of all being, and
therefore the Fountain of all power. He is the
Fountain of being, (1.) In the upper world; for he
created the heavens, and stretched them out, ( ch .
xl. 22.) and keeps the vast expanse still upon the
stretch. (2.) In the lower world; for he spread
f nth the earth, and made it a capacious habitation,
alul that which comes out of it is produced by his
power. (3.) In the world of mankind; He gives
breath to the fieofile upon it, not only air to breathe
in, but the breath of life itself, and organs to breathe
with; nay, he gives spirit, the powers and faculties
of a rational soul, to them that walk therein. Now
this is prefixed to God’s covenant with the Mes¬
siah, and the commission given him, not only to
show that he has authority to make such a covenant,
and give such, a commission, and had power suffi¬
cient to bear him out, but that the design of the
work of redemption was to maintain the honour of
the Creator, and to reduce man to the allegiance he
owes to God as his Maker.
2. The assurances which he gives to the Mes¬
siah of his presence with him in all he did pursuant
to his undertaking, speak much encouragement to
him, v. 6. (1.) God owns that the Messiah did
not t ike the nonour of being Mediator to himself,
but was called of God; that he was no Intruder,
no Usurper, but was fairly brought to it; (Heb. v.
4.) I have called thee in righteousness. God not
only did him no wrong in calling him to this hard
service, he having voluntarily offered himself to it,
but did himself right in providing for his own ho¬
nour, and performing the word which he had spoken.
(2.) He promises to stand by him and strengthen
him in it; to hold his hand, not only to his work,
but in it; to hold his hand, that it might not shake,
that it might not fail, and so to keep him. When
an angel was sent from heaven to strengthen him
in his agonies, and the Father himself was with him,
then this promise was fulfilled. Note, Those whom
God calls, he will own and help, and will hold their
hands.
3. The great intentions of this commission speak
abundance of comfort to the children of men: he
was given for a Covenant of the people, for a Medi¬
ator, or Guarantee, of the covenant of grace, which
is all summed up in him. God, in giving us Christ,
nas with him freely given us all the blessings of the
new covenant. Two glorious blessings, Christ, in
his gospel, brings with him to the Gentile world;
light, and liberty. (1.) He is given for a Light
to the Gentiles, not only to reveal to them what
they were concerned to know, and which otherwise
LXIL
they could not have known, but to open the blind
eyes, that they might know it: by his Spirit in the
word he presents the object, by his Spirit in the
heart he prepares the organ. When the gospel
came, light came, a great light to them that sat in
darkness, Matth. iv. 16. John iii. 19. And St. Paul
was sent to the Gentiles, to open their eyes, Acts
xxvi. 18. Christ is the Light of the world. (2.)
He is sent to proclaim liberty to the captives, as
Cyrus did, to bring out the prisoners; not only to
open the prison doors, and give them leave to go
out, which was all that Cyrus could do, but to bring
them out, to induce and enable them to make use
of their liberty, which none did but those whose
spirits God stirred up. This Christ does by his
grace.
II. The ratification and confirmation of this grant-
that we may be assured of the validity of it, con¬
sider,
1. The authority of him that makes the promise,
(n. 8.) 1 am the Lord, Jehovah, that is my name,
and that was the name by which he made himself
known when he began to perform the promise made
to the patriarchs; whereas, before, he manifested
himself by the name of God Almighty, Exod. vi. 3.
If he is the Lord that gives being and birth to all
things, he will give being and birth to this promise.
If his name be Jehovah, which speaks him God
alone, we may be sure his name is Jealous, and he
•will not give his glory to another, whoever it is that
stands in competition with him, especially not to
graven images. Therefore he will send the Mes¬
siah to open men’s eyes, that so he may turn them
from the service of dumb idols to serve the living
God; because, though he has long winked at the
times of ignorance, he will now maintain his prero¬
gative, and will not give his glory to graven images.
Therefore he will perform his word, because he
will not lose the honour of being true to it, nor be
ever charged with falsehood by the worshippers of
false gods. Therefore he will deliver his people
from under the power of idolaters, because it looks
as if he had given his praise to graven images, when
he gives up his own worshippers to be worshippers
of images.
2. The accomplishment of the promises he had
formerly made concerning his church, which are
proofs of the truth of his word, and the kindness he
bears to his people; (x\ 9.) “ Behold , the former
things are come to pass; hitherto the Lord has
helped his church, has supported her under for¬
mer burthens, relieved her in former straits. And
this, in performance of the promises made to the
fathers; there has not failed one word, 1 Kings viii.
56. And now new things do I declare; now I will
make new promises, which shall as certainly be
fulfilled in their season as old ones were; now I
will bestow new favours, such as have not been con¬
ferred formerly. Old Testament blessings you have
had abundantly, now I declare New Testament
blessings; not a fruitful country, and dominion over
your neighbours, but spiritual blessings in heavenly
things. Before they spring forth in the preaching
of the gospel, I tell you of them, under the type
and figure of the former things.” Note, The re¬
ceipt of former mercies may encourage us to hope
for further mercies; for God is constant in his care
for his people, and his compassions are still new.
III. The song of joy and praise which should be
sung hereupon, to the glory of God; (v. 10.) Sing
unto the Lord a new song, a New Testament song.
The giving of Christ for a Light to the Gentiles,
(v. 6.) was a new thing, and very surprising; the
apostle speaks of it as a mystery which, in other
ages, was not made known, as it is now revealed,
that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, Eph. iii,
5, 6. Now this being the new thing which God de
i«j8 ISAIAH, XLI1.
dares, the newness of the song which is to be sung
on this occasion is this; that whereas, before, the
songs of the Lord were very much confined to
the temple at Jerusalem, (David’s psalms were in
the language of the Jews only, and sung by them,
and in their own country only; for when they were
in a strange land, they hung their harps on the wil¬
low trees, and could not sing the Lord’s song, as we
find, Ps. cxxxvii. 2. — 4.) now, the songs of holy
joy and praise shall be sung all the wond over; the
Gentile nations shall share equally with the Jews in
New Testament blessings, and therefore shall join
in New Testament praises and acts of worship.
There shall be churches set up in Gentile nations,
and they shall sing a new song. The conversion of
the Gentiles is often foretold under this notion, as
appears, Rom. xv. 9. — 11.
ft is here promised that the praises of God’s grace
shall be sung with joy and thankfulness; 1. By those
that live in the end of the earth, in countries that
lie most remote from Jerusalem; From the utter¬
most parts of the earth have we heard songs, ch.
xxiv. 16. This was fulfilled when Christianity was
planted in our land. 2. By mariners and merchants,
and those that go down to the sea, that do business
in great waters, and suck the riches of the sea,
and so make themselves masters of the fulness
thereof, and all that is therein, with which they
shall praise God, and justly, for it is his, Ps. xxiv.
1. — xcv. 5. The Jews traded little at sea; if there¬
fore God’s praises be sung by them that go down
to the sea, it must be by Gentiles: seafaring men
are called upon to praise God, Ps. evii. 23. 3. By
the islands and the inhabitants thereof, (v. 10. ) and
again, v. 12. Let them declare his praise in the
islands, the isles of the Gentiles; probably referring
to the islands of Greece. 4. By the wilderness and
the cities thereof, and the villages of Kedar. These
lay east from Jerusalem, as the islands lay west, so
that the gospel-songs should be sung from the rising
of the sun to the going down of the same. The
whole Gentile world had been like an island, cut
off from communication with God’s church, and like
a wilderness uncultivated, and bringing forth no
fruit to God; but now the islands and the wilderness
shall praise God. 5. By the inhabitants of the rock,
and those that dwell on the tops of the mountains,
not only the Gentiles, but the poorest and meanest
and most despicable; they that dwell in cottages, as
well as those that inhabit cities and villages. The
rude and most barbarous, as the mountaineers com¬
monly are, shall be civilized by the gospel. Or, by
the inhabitants of the rock may be meant the inha¬
bitants of that part of Arabia which is called Pe¬
trosa — the rocky. Perhaps the neighbouring coun¬
tries shared in the joy of the Israelites when they
returned out of Babylon, and some of them came
and joined with them in their praises. But we find
not that it was to any such degree as might fully
answer this illustrious prophecy, and must conclude
that it reaches further, and was fulfilled in that
which many ether prophecies of the joy of the na¬
tions are said in the New Testament to be fulfilled
in, the conversion of the Gentiles to the faith of
Christ: when they are brought into the church,
they are brought to give glory to the Lord; then
they are to him for a praise and a name, and they
make it their business to praise him. He is glorified
in them, and by them.
1 3. The Lord shall go forth as a mighty
man, he shall stir up jealousy like a man of
war: he shall cry, yea, roar; he shall pre¬
vail against his enemies. 14. I have long
lime holden my peace; I have been still,
and refrained myself: now will I cry like a
travailing woman; I will destroy and de¬
vour at once. 15. 1 will make waste moun¬
tains and hills, and dry up all their herbs ,
and 1 will make the rivers islands, and
I will dry up the pools. 16. And I will
bring the blind by a way that they knew
not; I will lead them in paths that they
have not known: I will make darkness light
before them, and crooked things straight.
These things will I do unto them, and not
forsake them. 17. They shall be turned
back, they shall be greatly ashamed, that
trust in graven images, that say to the mol¬
ten images, Ye are our gods.
It comes all to one, whether we make these verses
(as some do) the song itself that is to be sung by the
Gentile world, or a prophecy of what God will do
to make way for the singing of that song, that evan¬
gelical new song.
1. He will appear in his power and glory more
than ever; so he did in the preaching of his gospel,
in the divine power and energy which went along
with it, and in the wonderful success it had in the
pulling down of Satan’s strong holds, v. 13, 14.
He had long holden his peace, and been still, and
refrained himself while he winked at the times of
the ignorance op the Gentile world, (Acts xvii. 30.)
and suffered all nations to walk on in their own
ways; (Acts xiv. 16. ) but now he shall go forth as
a mighty man, as a man of war, to attack the de¬
vil’s kingdom, and give it a fatal blow. The going
forth of the gospel is thus represented, Rev. vi. 2.
Christ, in it, went forth conquering and to conquer.
The ministry of the apostles is called their warfare;
and they were the soldiers of Jesus Christ. He shall
stir up jealousy, shall appear more jealous than ever
for the glory of his own name, and against idolatry.
(1.) He shall cry, in the preaching of his word.
cry like a travailing woman; for the ministers of
Christ preached as men in earnest, and that tra¬
vailed in birth again till they saw Christ formed in
the souls of the people, Gal. iv. 19. He shall cry,
yea, roar, in the gospel-woes, which are more ter¬
rible than the roaring of a lion, and which must be
preached along with gospel-biessings to awaken a
sleeping world. (2.) He shall conquer by the power
of his Spirit; He shall prevail against his enemies,
shall prevail to make them friends, Col. i. 21. Those
that contradict and blaspheme his gospel, he shall
prevail to put them to silence and shame. He will
destroy and devour at once all the oppositions of the
powers of darkness; Satan shall fall as lightning
from heaven, and he that had the power of death
shall be destroyed. As a type and figure of this, to
make wav for the redemption of the Jews out of
Babylon, God will humble the pride, and break the
power, of their oppressors, and will at once destroy
and devour the Babylonian monarchy. In accom¬
plishing this destruction of Babylon by the Persian
army under the command of Cyrus, he will make
waste mountains and hills, level the country, and
dry up all their herbs; the army, as usual, shall eitlu r
carry off the forage or destroy it, and by laying
bridges of boats over rivers shall turn them into
islands, and so drain the fens and low grounds, to
make way for the march of their army, that the
pools shall be dried up. Thus, when the gospel
shall be preached, it shall have a free course, and
that which hinders the progress of it shall be takeu
out of the way.
2. He will manifest his favour and grace toward
I those whose spirits he had stirred up to follow him,
189
ISAIAH, XLII.
ns Ezra i. 5. Those who ask the way to Zion he
will show the way, and lead in it, v. 16. Those
who by nature were blind, and those who, being
under convictions of sin and wrath, are quite at a
loss, and know not what to do with themselves, God
will lead by a way that they knew not, will show
them the way to life and happiness by Jesus Christ,
who is the Way, and will conduct and carry them
on in that way, which before they were strangers
to. Thus, in the conversion of Paul, he was struck
Dlind first, and then God revealed his Son in him,
and made the scales to fall from his eyes. 1 hey are
weak in knowledge, and the truths of God at first
seem unintelligible; but God will make darkness
light before them, and knowledge shall be easy to
them. They are weak in duty, the commands of
God seem impracticable, and insuperable difficul¬
ties are in the way of their obedience; but God will
make crooked things straight, their way shall be
lain, and their yoke easy. Those whom God
rings into the right way, he will guide in it. As a
type of this, he will lead the Jews, when they re¬
turn out of captivity, in a ready road to their own
land again, and nothing shall occur to perplex or
embarrass them in their journey. These are great
things, and kind things, very great and very kind;
but lest any should say, “They are too great, too
kind, to be expected from God by such an unde¬
serving people as that of the Jews, such an unde¬
serving world as that of the Gentiles,” he adds,
These things will I do unto them, take my word for
it I will, and I will not forsake them; he that be¬
gins to show this great mercy will go on to do them
good.
3. He will particularly put those to confusion who
adhere to idols, notwithstanding the attempts made
by the preaching of the gospel to turn them from
idols; (v. 17. ) They shall be turned back, and greatly
ashamed, that trust in graven images. The Baby¬
lonians shall, when they see how the Jews, who des¬
pise their images, are owned and delivered by the
God they worship without images; and the Gentiles,
when thev see how idolatry falls before the preach¬
ing of the gospel, is scattered like darkness before
the light of the sun, and melts like snow before its
heat, thev shall be ashamed that ever they said to
these molten images, Ye are our gods; for how can
they help their worshippers, who cannot help them¬
selves, nor save themselves from falling into con¬
tempt? In times of reformation, when many turn
from iniquity, and sin, being generally deserted, be¬
comes unfashionable, it may be hoped that those
who will not otherwise be reclaimed, will be wrought
upon by that consideration to be ashamed of it.
18. Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind,
that ye may see. 19. Who is blind, but
my servant ? or deaf, as my messenger that
I sent ? who is blind as he that is perfect,
and blind as the Lord’s servant ? 20.
Seeing many things, but thou observest
not; opening the ears, but he heareth not.
21. The Lord is well pleased for his right¬
eousness’ sake; he will magnify the law,
and make it honourable. 22. But this is
a people robbed and spoiled ; they are all
of them snared in holes, and they are hid
in prison-houses : they are for a prey, and
none delivereth ; for a spoil, and none
saith, Restore. 23. Who among you will
give ear to this ? who will hearken, and
hear for the time to come ? 24. Who gave
Jacob for a spoil and Israel to the rob¬
bers? did not the Loud, lie against whom
we have sinned ? for they would not walk
in his ways, neither were they obedient
unto his law. 2b. Therefore he hath pour¬
ed upon him the fury of his anger, and the
strength of battle: and it hath set him on
fire round about, yet lie knew not ; and it
burned him, yet he laid it not to heart.
The prophet having spoken by way cf ccmfcrt
and encouragement to the bi lieving Jews who
waited for the consolation of Israel, here turns
himself to those among them who were unbeliev¬
ing, for their conviction and humiliation. Among
those who were captivated in Babylon, there were
some who were as the evil figs in Jeremiah’s vi¬
sion, who were sent thither/or their hurt, to be re¬
moved into alt the kingdoms of the earth, for a
reproach and a proverb, Jer. xxiv. 9. In them
there was a type of the Jt-ws who rejected Christ,
and were rejected by him, and then fell more than
ever under the curse, when those who believed
were inheriting the blessing; for they were broken
and ruined, and remain dispersed unto this day.
Observe,
I. The call that is given to this people: (y. 18.)
“ Hear, ye deaf, and attend to the joyful sound, and
look, ye blind, that ye may see the joyful light.”
There is no absurdity in this command, nor is it
unbecoming the wisdom and goodness of God to call
us to do that good which yet of ourselves we are
not sufficient for; for those have natural powers,
which they may employ so as to do better than they
do, and may have supernatural grace if it be not
their own fault, who yet labour under a moral im-
potency to that which is good. This call to the
deaf to hear, and the blind to see, is like the com¬
mand given to the man that had the withered hand,
to stretch it forth; though he could not do this, be¬
cause it was withered, yet, if he had ne t attempted
to do it, he had not been healed, and his being
healed thereupon was owing, not to his act, but to
the divine power.
II. The character that is given of them; (r.
19, 20.) Who is blind, but my servant, or deaf
as my messenger? The people of the Jews we re
in profession, God’s servants, and their priests
and elders his messengers; (Mai. ii. 7.) but
they were deaf and blind. The verse before may
be understood as spoken to the Gentile idolaters,
whom he calls deaf and blind, because they wor¬
shipped gods that were so. “ But,” says he, “no
wonder ye are deaf and blind, when my own people
are as bad as you, and many of them as much set
upon idolatry.” He complains of their sottishness,
They are blind; and of their stubbornness, They
are deaf. They were even worse than the Gentiles
themselves. Corruptio optimi est pessima — What
is best, becomes, when corrupted , the worst. Who
is so wilfully, so scandalously, blind and deaf as my
servant and my messenger, as Jacob who is my
servant, (cA. xli. 8.) and as their prophets and
teachers who are my messengers? Who is blind
as he that, in profession and pretension, is perfect,
that should come nearer to perfection than other
people, their priests and prophets? The one pro¬
phesies falsely, and the other bears rule by their
means; and who so blind as they that will not see
when they have the light shining in their faces?
Note, 1. It is a common thing, but a very sad thing,
for those that, in profession, are God’s servants and
messengers, to be themselves blind and deaf in spi¬
ritual things; ignorant, erroneous, and very care¬
less. 2. Blindness and deafness in spiritual things
190 ISAIAH, XLII1.
arc worse in those that profess themselves to be
(loti’s servants and messengers than in others. It
is in them the greater sin and shame, the greater
dishonour to God, and to themselves a greater
damnation.
The prophet goes on (t>. 20.) to describe the
blindness and obstinacy of the Jewish nation, just as
our Saviour describes it in his time; (Matth. xiii.
14, 15.) Seeing many things, but thou observest
not. Multitudes are ruined fur want of observing that
which they cannot but see; the)- perish not through
ignorance," but mere carelessness. The Jews, in
our Saviour’s time, saw many proofs of his divine
mission, but they did not observe them; they
seemed to open their ears to him, but they did not
hear, they did not heed, did not understand, or be¬
lieve or obey, and then it was all one as if they had
not heard.
III. The care God will take of the honour of his
own name, notwithstanding their blindness and
deafness, especially of his word, which he has mag¬
nified above all his name. Shall the unbetiej and
obstinacy of men make tha promise of God of no
effect? God forbid, Rom. iii. 3. No, though they
are blind and deaf, God will be no loser in his glory;
(v. 21. ) The Lord is well pleased for his righteous¬
ness’ sake; not well pleased with their sin, but well
pleased in the manifestation of his own righteous¬
ness, in rejecting them for rejecting the great salva¬
tion. He speaks as one well pleased; (ch. i. 24.)
Ah, I mill ease me of mine adversaries; and (Ezek.
v. 13.) he will be comforted. The scripture was j
fulfilled in the casting off the Jews as well as in the
calling in of the Gentiles, and therein the Lord will
be well pleased. He mill magnify the lam, divine
revelation in all the parts of it, and will make it ho¬
nourable. The law is truly honourable, and the
things of it are great things; if men will not magm- I
fy it by their obedience to it, God will magnify it
himself bv punishing them for their disobedience.
He will magnify the law by accomplishing what is
written in it, will magnify its authority, its efficacy,
its equity: he will do it at last, when all men shall
be judged by the law of liberty, James ii. 12. He
is doing it every day. What is it that God is doing
in the world, but magnifying the law, and making
it honourable.
IV. The calamities God will bring upon the Jew¬
ish nation for their wilful blindness and deafness,
v. 22. They are robbed and spoiled. Those that
were impenitent and unrefnrmed in Babylon, were
sentenced to perpetual captivity. It was for their
sins that they were spoiled of all their possessions,
not only in their own land, but in the land of their
enemies. They were some of them snared in holes,
and others hidden in prison-houses; they cannot
help themselves, for they are snared; their friends
cannot help them, for they are hidden; and their
enemies have forgotten them in their prisons.
They, and all they have, are for a prey and for a
spoil: and there is none that delivers either by
force or ransom; nor any that dares say to the proud
oppressors, Restore. There they lie, and there
they are likely to lie. This had its full accomplish¬
ment in the final destruction of the Jewish nation
by the Romans, which God brought upon them for
rejecting the gospel of Christ.
V. The counsel given them in order to their re¬
lief; for, though their case be sad, it is not despe¬
rate. The generality of them are deaf, they would
not hearken to the voice of God’s word; he will
therefore try his rod, and see mho among them mill
give ear to that, v. 23. We must not despair con¬
cerning those who have been long reasoned with
in vain; some of them may, at length, give ear
and hearken: if one method do not take effect,
another may, and sinners shall be left inexcusa¬
ble. Observe, 1. We may all of us, if we will,
hear the voice ot God, and we are called and in¬
vited to hear it. 2. It is worth while to inquire
who they are, that perceive God speaking to them,
and are willing to hear him. 3. Of the many that
hear the voice of God, there are very few tha*.
hearken to it or heed it, that hear it with atten¬
tion and application. 4. In hearing the word, wo
must have an eye to the time to come. We must
hear for hereafter, for what may occur betwixt u
and the grave; we must especially hear fur cter
nity. We must hear the word with another world
in our eye. The counsel is,
(1.) To acknowledge the hand of God in their
afflictions, and, whoever were the instruments, to
have an eye to him as the principal Agent; (v. 24. )
“ Who gave Jacob and Israel, that people that
used to have such an interest in heaven, and such
a dominion on earth, who gave them for a spoil to
the robbers, as they are now to the Babylonians
and to the Romans? Did not the Lord? You
know he did; consider it then, and hear his voic ;
in these judgments.”
(2.) To acknowledge that they had provoked
God thus to abandon them, and had brought all
these calamities upon themselves. [1.] These
punishments were first inflicted on them for their
disobedience to the laws of God; it is he against
mhom me have sinned; the prophet puts himself
into the number of the sinners, as Dan ix. 7 , 8.
“ We have shined, we have all brought fuel to the
fire; and there are those among us that have wilful¬
ly refused to walk in his ways.” Jacob and Israel
had never been giv on up to the robbers, if they had
not bv their iniquities sold themselves. Therefore
it is, because they have violated the commands of
the law, that God has brought upon them the
curses of the law; he has not dropped, but poured
upon him the fury of his anger, and the strength
of battle, all "the desolations of war, which have
set him on fire round about; for God surrounds the
wicked with his judgments, as he does the right
eous with his favours. See the power of God’s an
ger; there is no resisting it, no escaping it. See the
mischief that sin makes; it provokes God to anger
against a people, and so kindles an universal con
flagration, sets all on fire. [2.] These judgments
were continued upon them for their senselessness
and incorrigibleness under the rod of God. The
fire of God’s wrath kindled upon him, and he knew
it not, was not aware of it, took no notice of the
judgments, at least not of the hand of God in them
Nay, it burned him, and though he could not then
but know it, and feel it, yet he laid it not to heart,
was not awakened by the fiery rebukes he was un¬
der, nor at all affected with them. Those who
are not humbled by lesser judgments must expect
greater; for when God judges, he will overcome.
CHAP. XL111.
The contents of this chapter are much the same with those
of the foregoing chapter, looking at the release of the
Jews out of their captivity; but looking through that,
and beyond that, to the great work of man’s redemption
by Jesus Christ, and the grace of the gospel, which,
through him, believers partake of. Here are, I. Pre¬
cious promises made to God’s people in their affliction,
of his presence with them, for their support under it,
and their deliverance out of it, v. 1 . . 7. II. A chal¬
lenge to idols to vie with the omniscience and omnipo¬
tence of God, v. 8 . . 13. III. Encouragement given to
the people of God to hope for 1 heir deliverance out of
Babylon, from the consideration of what God did for
their fathers when he brought them out of Egypt, v.
14.. 21. IV'. A method taken to prepare the people
for their deliverance, by putting them in mind of their
sins, by which they had provoked God to send them into
captivity, and continue them there, that they migl t re¬
pent, and seek to God for pardoning mercy, v 22 . . 2?.
ISAIAH, XLIll. i9i
1. "OUT now, thus sailh the Lord that
Ji created thee, O Jacob, and he that
formed thee, O Israel, Fear not ; for I have
redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy
name ; thou art mine. 2. When thou
passest through the waters, I will be with
thee; and through the rivers, they shall not
overflow thee : when thou walkest through
the fire thou shalt not be burnt; neither
shall the flame kindle upon thee. 3. For I
am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of
Israel, thy Saviour . I gave Egypt for
thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee.
4. Since thou wast precious in my sight
thou hast been honourable, and I have
loved thee : therefore will I give men for
thee, and people for thy life. 5. Fear
not ; for I am with thee : I will bring thy
seed from the east, and gather thee from
the west ; 6. I will say to the north, Give
up ; and to the south, Keep not back :
bring my sons from far, and my daughters
from the ends of the earth; 7. Even
every one that is called by my name : for I
have created him for my glory, I have form¬
ed him ; yea, I have made him.
This chapter has a plain connexion with the
close of the foregoing chapter, but a very surpris¬
ing one. It was there said that Jacob and Israel
would not walk in God’s ways, and that when he
corrected them for their disobedience, they were
stubborn, and laid it not to heart; and now one
would think it should have followed, that God
would utterly abandon and destroy them; no, the
next words are, But now, fear not, O Jacob, 0 Is¬
rael; I have redeemed thee, and thou art mine.
Though many among them were untractable and
incorrigible, yet God would continue his love and
care for his people, and the body of that nation should
still be reserved for mercy. God’s goodness takes
occasion from man’s badness to appear so much
the more illustrious; where sin abounded, grace
did much more abound, (Rom. v. 20.) and mercy
rejoices against judgment, as having prevailed and
carried the day, Jam. ii. 13.
Now the sun, breaking out thus of a sudden from be¬
hind a thick and dark cloud, shines the brighter, and
with a pleasing surprise. The expressions of God’s
f ivour and good will to his people here, are very high,
and speak abundance of comfort to all the spiritual
seed of upright Jacob and praying Israel; for to us is
this gos/iel fxreached as well as unto them that were
captives in Babylon, Heb.iv. 2. Here we have,
I. The grounds of God’s care and concern for his
people, and the interests of his church and king¬
dom among men. Jacob and Israel, though in a
sinful, miserable condition, shall be looked after;
for, 1. They are God’s workmanship, created by
him unto good works, Eph. ii. 10. He has created
them and formed them, not only given them a be¬
ing, but this being, formed them into a people, con¬
stituted their government, and incorporated them
by the charter of his covenant. The new creature,
wherever it is, is of God’s forming, and he will not
forsake the work of his own hands. 2. They are
the people of his purchase; he has redeemed them;
out of the land of Egypt he first redeemed them,
and out of many another bondage, in his love and
in his t lity , ( ch . lxiii. 9.) much more will he take
care of those who are redeemed with the blood of
his Son. 3. They are his peculiar people, whom
he has distinguished from others, and set apart
for himself; he has called them by name, as those
he has a particular intimacy with and concern for,
and they are' his, appropriated to him, and that
he has a special interest in. 4. He is their God in
covenant; (v. 3.) / am the Lord thy God, wor¬
shipped by thee, and engaged by promise to thee;
the Holy One of Israel, the God of Israel; for the
true God is a holy One, and holiness becomes his
house. And upon all these accounts he might just¬
ly say, Fear not, v. 1. and again, v. 5. Fear not.
Those that have God for them, need net fear who
or what can be against them.
II. The former instances of this care. 1. God
had purchased them dear; I gave Egypt for thy
ransom; for Egypt was quite laid waste by one
plague after another, all their first-bom slain, and all
their men of war drowned; and all this to force a
way for Israel’s deliverance from them. Egypt
shall be sacrificed rather than Israel shall be con¬
tinued in slavery, when the time is come for their
release. ' The Ethiopians had invaded them in
Asa’s time; but they shall be destroyed rather than
Israel shall be disturbed. And if this was reckon¬
ed so great a thing, to give Egypt for their ransom,
what reason have we to admire God’s love to us in
giving his own Son to be a Ransom for us! 1 John
iv. 10. What are Ethiopia and Seba, all their lives
and all their treasures, compared with the blood of
Christ? 2. He had prized them accordingly, and
they were very dear to him; (v. 4.) Since thou hast
been precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable.
Note, True believers arc precious in God’s sight,
they are his jewels, his peculiar treasure, (Exod.
xix. 5.) he loves them, his delight is in them, above
any people; his church is his vineyard. And this
makes God’s people truly honourable, and their
name great: for men are really what they are in
God’s eve. When the forces of Sennacherib, that
they might be diverted from falling upon Israel,
were directed by Providence to fall upon Egypt,
Ethiopia, and Seba, then God gave those countries
for Israel, and showed how precious his people
were in his sight. So some understand it.
III. The further instances God would vet give
them of his care and kindness:
1. He would be present with them in their great¬
est difficulties and dangers: (v. 2.) “ IVhen thou
passest through the waters and the rivers, through
the fire and the flame, I will be with thee, and that
shall be thy security; when dangers are verv immi¬
nent and threatening, thou shalt be delivered out of
them.” Did they, in their journey, pass through
deep waters? They should not perish in them; The
rivers shall not overflow thee. Should they by their
persecutors be cast into a fiery furnace, for their
constant adherence to their God? Yet then the
flame should not kindle upon them; which was ful¬
filled in the letter, in the wonderful preservation of
the three children, Dan. iii. Though they went
through fire and water, which would be to them as
the valley of the shadow of death; yet, while they
had God with them, they need fear no evil, they
should be borne up, and brought out into a wealthy
place, Ps. lxvi. 12.
2. He would still, when there was occasion, make
all the interests of the children of men give way to
the interests of his own children ; “ I will give men
for thee, great men, mighty men, and men of war,
and people, men by wholesale, for thv life. Nations
shall be sacrificed to thv welfare.” All shall be cut
off rather than God’s Israel shall, so precious are
they in his sight. The affairs of the world shall all
be ordered and directed so as to be most for the good
of the church, 2 Chron. xvi. 9.
192
ISAIAH
3. Those of them that were scattered and dis¬
persed in other nations, should all be gathered in,
and share in the blessings of the public, v. 5 — 7.
Some of the seed of Israel were dispersed into all
countries, east, west, north, and south, or into all
the parts of the country of Babylon; but those whose
spirits God stirred up to go to Jerusalem, should be
fetched in from all parts; divine grace should reach
those that lay most remote, and at the greatest dis¬
tance from each other; and when the time was
come, nothing should prevent their coming together
to return in a body; in answer to that prayer, (Ps.
cvi. 47.) Gather us from among the heathen, and
in performance of that promise, (Deut. xxx. 4 .) If
any of thine be driven to the utmost parts of hea¬
ven, thence will the Lord thy God gather thee;
which we find pleaded on behalf of the children of
the captivity, Neh. i. 9. But who are the seed of
Israel, that shall be thus carefully gathered in? He
tells us, (r. 7.) they are such as God has marked
for mercy; for, (1.) They are called by his name;
they make profession of religion, and are dis¬
tinguished from the rest of the world by their cove¬
nant-relation to God, and denomination from him.
(2.) They are created for his glory; the spirit of Is¬
raelites is created in them, and they are formed ac¬
cording to the will of God, and these shall be ga¬
thered in. Note, Those only are fit to be called by
the name of God, that are created by his grace for
his glory; and those whom God has created and
called shall be gathered in now to Christ as their
Head, and hereafter to heaven as their home. He
shall gather in his elect from the four winds. This
promise points at the gathering in of the dispersed
of the Gentiles, and the strangers scattered by the
gospel of Christ, who died to gather together in one
the children of God that were scattered abroad ; for
the promise was to all that were afar off, even as
many as the Lord our God shall call and create.
God is with the church, and therefore let her not
fear; none that belong to her shall be lost.
8. Bring forth the blind people that have
eyes, and the deaf that have ears. 9. Let
all the nations be gathered together, and let
the people be assembled: who among them
ran declare this, and show us former things?
let them bring forth their witnesses, that they
may be justified: or let them hear, and say,
ft is truth. 10. Ye are my witnesses, saith
the Lord, and my servant whom I have
chosen; that ye may know and believe me,
and understand that I am he : before me
there was no God formed, neither shall there
be after me. 11. I, even I am the Lord;
and besides me there is no Saviour. 12. I
have declared, and have saved, and I have
showed, when there teas no strange god
among you : therefore ye are my witnesses,
saith the Lord, that I am God. 13. Yea,
before the day was I am he ; and there is
none that can deliver out of my hand : I will
work, and who shall let it ?
God here challenges the worshippers of idols to
produce such proofs of the divinity of their false
gods as even this very instance (to go no further) of
the redemption of the Jews out of Babylon furnished
the people of Israel with, to prove that their God is
the true and the living God, and he only.
I. The patrons of idolatry are here called to ap¬
pear, and say what they have to say in defence of
., XL1IL
their idols, v. 8, 9. Their gods have eyes, and see
not, ears, and hear not, and they that make them,
and trust in them, are like unto them ; so David had
said, (Ps. cxv. 8.) to which the prophet set ms here
to refer, when he calls idolaters blind people that
have eyes, and deaf people that have cars. They
have the shape, capacities, and faculties, < f men;
■but they are, in i fleet, destitute of reason and com¬
mon sense, or thev would never worship gods of
their own making; “Let all the nations therefore
be gathered together, let them help one anc ther,
and with a combined force plead the cause of their
dunghill gods. And if they have nothing to say in
their own justification, let them hear what the God
of Israel has to say for their conviction and confu¬
tation.”
II. God’s witnesses are subpoenaed, or summoned
to appear, and give in evidence for him; {y. 10.)
“ Ye, O Israelites, all ye that are called by my name,
ye arc all my witnesses, and so is my Servant whom
I have chosen.” It was Christ himself that was so
described, {ch. xlii. 1.) My Servant, and mine
Elect. All the prophets that testified to Christ, and
Christ himself, the great Prophet, are here appeal¬
ed to as God’s witnesses. 1. God’s people are wit¬
nesses for him, and can attest, upon their own
knowledge and experience, concerning the power
of his grace, the sweetness cf his comforts, the ten¬
derness of his providence, and the truth of his pro¬
mise. They will be forward to witness for him that
he is gracious, and that no word of his has fallen to
the ground. 2. His prophets are in a particular
manner witnesses for him, with whom his secret is,
and who know more of him than others do. But
the Messiah especially is given to be a Witness for
him to the people; having lain in his bosom from
eternity, he has declared him. Now,
(1.) Let us see what the point is, which these
witnesses are called to prove; (y. 12.) Ye are my
•witnesses, saith the Lord, that I am God. Note,
Those who do themselves acknowledge that the
Lord is God, should be ready to testify what they
know of him to others, that they also may lie brought
to the acknowledgment of it; I believed, therefore
have I spoken. Particularly, “ Since you cannot
but know, and believe, and understand, you must be
ready to bear record, [1.] That I am he, the only
true God; that I am a Being, self-existent, and self-
sufficient; I am he whom you are to fear, and wor¬
ship, and trust in. Nay, (v. 13.) before the day
was, before the first day of time, before the crea¬
tion of the light, and, consequently, from eternity, 1
am he.” The idols were but cf yesterday, new gods
that came newly up, (Deut. xxxii. 17.) but the God
of Israel was from everlasting. [2.] That there was
no God formed before me, nor shall be after me.
The idols were gods formed, (Dii facti — made
gods, or rather /? ctitii— fictitious,) by nature they
were no gods, Gal. iv. 8. But God had a being
from eternity, yea, and a religion in this world, be¬
fore there were either idols or idolaters; truth is
more ancient than error; and he will have a being
to eternity, and will be worshipped and glorified
when idols are famished and abolished, and idolatry
shall be no more. True religion will keep its
ground, and survive all opposition and competition;
great is the truth, and will prevail. [3.] That I,
even I, am the Lord, the great Jehovah, who is,
and was, and is to come; and beside me there is no
Saviour, v. 11. See what it is that the great God
glories in, not so much that he is the only Ruler, as
that he is the only Saviour; for he delights to do
good, he is the Saviour of all men, 1 Tim. iv. 10.
(2.) Let us see what the proofs are, which are
produced for the confirmation of this point. It ap¬
pears.
[ 1. ] That the Lord is God, by two proofs. First,
ISAIAH, XLJ 11.
He has an infinite and infallible knowledge, as is
evident from the /iredictions of his word; (v. 1J.)
“ I have declared, and I have showed, that which
has without fail come to pass; nay, I never declared
or showed any thing, but it has been accomplished;
I showed when there was no strange god among you,
when you pretended not to consult any oracles but
mine, or to have any prophets but mine.” It is said,
when they came out of Egypt, that the Lord alone
did lead him, and there was no strange god with
him. Secondly, He has an infinite and irresistible
power, as is ev ident from the performances of his
jrovidence. He pleads not only, I have showed,
>ut, I have saved, not only foretold what none else
con 11 foresee, but done what none else could do;
for, (v. 13.) “ Amt can deliver out of my hand
those whom I will punish; not only no man can, but
none of all the gods of the heathen can protect.” It
is therefore a fearful thing to fall into the hands of
the living God, because there is no getting out of
them again. “ I will work what I have designed,
both in mercy and judgment, and who shall either
oppose or retard it?”
[2.] That the gods of the heathen, who are rivals
with him, arc not only inferior to him, but no gods
at all; which is proved (y. 9.) by a challenge, Who
among them can declare this that I now declare?
Who can foretell things to come? Nay, which of
them can show us former things? ch. xli. 22. They
cannot so much as inspire an historian, much less a
prophet. They are challenged to join issue upon
this; Let them bring forth their witnesses, to prove
their omniscience and omnipotence. And, First, If
they do prove them, they shall be justified, the idols
m demanding homage, and the idolaters in paying
It. Secondly, If they do not prove them, let them
say. It is truth; let them own the true God, and re¬
ceive the truth concerning him, that he is God
alone. The cause of God is not afraid to stand a
fair trial; but it may reasonably be expected that
those who cannot justify themselves in their irreli-
gion, should submit to the power of the truth and
true godliness.
1 4. Tims saith the LoRD,yoiir Redeemer,
the Holy One of Israel; For your sake I
have sent to Babylon, and have brought
down all their nobles, and the Chaldeans,
whose cry is in the ships. 15. I am the
Lord, your Holy One, the Creator of Is¬
rael, your King. 16. Thus saith the Lord,
which niaketh a way in the sea, and a path
in the mighty waters; 17. Which bringeth
forth the chariot and horse, the army, and
the power; they shall lie down together,
they shall not rise: they are extinct, they
are quenched as tow. 18. Remember ye
not the former things, neither consider the
things of old. 1 9. Behold, I will do a new
thing: now it shall spring forth; shall ye not
know it? I will even make a way in the
wilderness, and rivers in the desert. 20.
The beast of the field shall honour me, the
dragons and the owls: because I give waters
in the wilderness, and livers in the desert, to
give drink to my people, my chosen. 21.
This people have I formed for myself; they
shall show forth my praise.
To so low an ebb were the faith and hope of God’s
people in Babylon brought, that there needed line
VOL. IV. 2 B
193
upon line to assure them that they should be re¬
leased out of their captivity; and therefore that
they might have strong consolation, the assurances
of it arc often repeated, and here very expressly
and encouragingly.
1. God here takes to himself such titles of his
honour as were very encouraging to them; he is the
Lord their Redeetner; not only that will redeem
them, but will take it upon him as his office, and
make it his business. If he be their God, he wiii
be all that to them which they need, and therefore,
when they are in bondage, he will be their Re¬
deemer; he is the Holy One of Israel; and again,
(v. 15.) their Holy One, and therefore will make
good every word he has spoken to them. He is the
Creator of Israel, that made them a people out of
nothing, (for that is creation,) nay, worse than no¬
thing; and he is their King, that owns them as his
people, and presides among them.
2. He assures them he will find out a way to
break the power of their oppressors that held them
captives, and. filled up the measure of their own
iniquity by their resolution never to let them go, ch.
xiv. 17. God will take care to send a victorious
prince and army to Babylon, that shall bring down
all their nobles, and lay their honour in the dust,
and all their people too' even the Chaldeans, whose
cry is in the shifts, (for seamen are apt to be noisy,)
or whose cry is to the ships as their refuge when
the city is taken, that they may escape by the bene¬
fit of their great river. Note, The des’truction of
Babylon must make way for the enlargement of
God’s people. And in the prediction of the fall of
the New Testament Babylon, we meet with, the
cries and lamentations of the sailors, Rev. xviii. 17.
And observe, It is for Israel’s sake that Babylon is
ruined, to make way for their deliverance.
3. He reminds them of the great things he did for
their fathers when he brought them out of the land
of Egypt; for so it may be read, (t’. 16, 17.) “ Thus
saith the Lord, which did make a way in the sea, the
Red sea, and did bring forth Pharaoh’s chariot and
horse, that they might lie down together in the bot
tom of the sea, and never rise, but be extinct; He
that did this, can, if he pleases, make a way for veu
in the sea, when you return out of Babylon, and will
do it rather than leave vou there.” Note, For the
encouragement of our faith and hope, it is goed for
us often to remember what God has done formerly
for his people against his and their enemies. Think
particularly what he did at the Red sea, how he
made it, (1.) A road to his people, a straight way,
a near way; nay, a refuge to them, into which they
fled and were safe, the waters being a wall unto
them. (2.) A grave to his enemies. The charict
and horse were drawn out by him who is Lord of
all hosts, on purpose that they might fall together;
howbeit, they meant not so, Mic. iv. 11, 12.
4. He promises to do yet greater things for them
than he had done in the days of old; so that they
should not have reason to ask, in a way of complaint,
as Gideon did, Where are all the wonders that, our
fathers told us of? For they should see them re¬
peated, nay, they should see them outdone; (v. 18. )
“ Remember not the former things, from them to
take occasion, as some do, to undervalue the present
things, as if the former days were better than these;
no, you may, if you will, comparatively forget them,
and yet know enough by the events of your own (lay
to convince you that the Lord is God alone; for, be¬
hold, the Lord will do a new thing, no way inferior,
both for the wonder and the worth of the mercy, to
the things of old.” The best exposition of this is,
Jer. xvi. 14, 15. — xxiii. 7, 8. It shall no more be
said, the Lord liveth, that brought uji the children
of Israel out of the land of Egyfit; that is an old
thing, the remembrance of which will be in a man-
ISAIAH, XLIII.
194
ner lost in the new thing, in the new proof tint the
Lord liveth, for he brought ufi the children of Israel
out of the land of the north. Though former mer¬
cies must not be forgotten, fresh mercies must in a
special manner be improved. Now it springs forth,
as it were, a surprise upon you; you are like them
that dream, Shall you not know it? And will ye not
own God’s hand in it?
5. He promises not only to deliver them out of
Babylon, but to conduct them safely and comforta¬
bly to their own land; (t>. 19, 20.) I will make a
way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert; for,
it seems, the way from Babylon to Canaan, as well
as from Egypt, lay through a desert land, which
while the returning captives passed through, God
would provide for them, that their camp should be
both well victualled and under a good conduct. The
same power that made a way in the sea, (v. 16.)
can make a way in the wilderness, and will force its
passage through the greatest difficulties. And he
that made dry land in the waters, can produce wa¬
ters in the driest land, in such abundance, as not
only to give drink to his fieofile, his chosen, but to
the beasts of the field, also the dragons and the os¬
triches, who are therefore said to honour God for it;
it is such a sensible refreshment, and yields them so
much satisfaction, that, if they were capable of do¬
ing it, they would praise God for it, and shame man,
who is made capable of praising his Benefactor, and
does not. Now, (1.) This looks back to what God
did for Israel, when he led them through the wil¬
derness from Egypt to Canaan, and fetched water
out of a rock to follow them ; what God did for them
formerly, he would do again, for he is still the same.
And though we do not find that the miracle was re¬
peated in their return out of Babylon, yet the mercy
was in the common course of providence, for which
it became them to be no less thankful to God. (2. )
It looks forward, not only to all the instances of
God’s care of the Jewish church in the latter ages
of it, betwixt their return from Babylon and the
coming of Christ, but to the grace of the gospel, es¬
pecially as it is manifested to the Gentile world, by
which a way is opened in the wilderness, and rivers
in the desert; the world, which lay like a desert, in
ignorance and unfruitfulness, was blessed with di-
vine direction and divine comforts, and, in order to
both, with a plentiful effusion of the Spirit. The
sinners of the Gentiles, who had been as the beasts
of the field, running wild, fierce as the dragons, stu¬
pid as the owls or ostriches, shall be brought to
honour God for the extent of his grace to his chosen
among them.
6. He runs up all these promised blessings to
their great original, the purposes and designs of his
own glory; (d. 21.) This fieofile have I formed for
myself, and therefore I do all this for them, that
they may show forth my firaise. Note, (1.) The
church is of God’s forming, and so are all the living
members of it. The new heavens, the new earth,
the new man, are the work of God’s hand, and are
no more, no better, than he makes them; they are
fashioned according to his will. (2.) He forms it
for himself; he that is the first Cause, is the highest
End, both of the first and of the new creation. The
I.ord has made all things for himself, his Israel es¬
pecially, to be to him for a fieofile, and for a name,
and for a firaise ; and no otherwise can they be for
him, or serviceable to him, than as his grace is glo¬
rified in them, Jer. xiii. 11. Eph. i. 6, 12, 14. (3.)
It is therefore our duty to show forth his praise, not
only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up our¬
selves to his service; as he formed us, so he feeds
us, and keeps us, and leads us, and all for himself;
for every instance therefore of his goodness we must
praise him, else we answer not the end of the beings
and blessings we have. !
22. But thou hast not called upon me, O
Jacob ; but thou hast been weary of me, O
Israel. 23. Thou hast not brought me the
small cattle of thy burnt-offerings, neither
hast thou honoured me with thy sacrifices :
I have not caused thee to serve with an of¬
fering, nor wearied thee with incense. 24.
Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with
money, neither hast thou filled me with the
fat of thy sacrifices ; but thou hast made me
to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied me
with thine iniquities. 25. I, even I, am he
that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine
own sake, and will not remember thy sins.
26. Put me in remembrance : let us plead
together : declare thou, that thou mayest be
justified. 27. Thy first father hath sinned,
and thy teachers have transgressed against
me. 28. Therefore I have profaned the
princes of the sanctuary, and have given
Jacob to the curse, and Israel to reproaches.
This charge (and a high charge it is, which is
here exhibited against Jacob and Israel, God’s pro¬
fessing people,) comes in here; 1. To clear God’s
justice in bringing them into captivity, and to vindi¬
cate that. Were they not in covenant with him?
Had they not his sanctuary among them? Why then
did the Lord deal thus with the land ? Deut. xxix.
24. Here is a good reason given; they had neglect¬
ed God and had cast him off, and therefore he justly
rejected them, and gave them to the curse; {v. 28.)
and they must be brought to own this before they
are prepared for deliverance; and they did so, Dan.
ix. 5. Neh. ix. 33. 2. To advance God’s mercy
in their deliverance, and to make that appear more
glorious. Many things are before observed to mag¬
nify the flower of God in it; but this magnifies his
goodness, that he should do such great and kind
things for a people that had been so very provoking
to him, and were now suffering the just punishment
of their iniquity. The pardoning of their sin was
as great an instance of God’s power (for so Moses
reckons it, Numb. xiv. 17.) as the breaking of the
yoke of their captivity. Now observe here,
I. What the sins are which they are here charged
with;
1. Omissions of the good which God had com¬
manded; and this part of the charge is here much
insisted upon. And observe how it comes in with a
hut; comparer'. 21. where God tells them what fa¬
vours he had bestowed upon them, and what his
just expectations were from them; he had formed
them for himself, intending they should show forth
his praise. But they had not done so; they had frus¬
trated God’s expectations from them, and made
very ill returns to him for his favours. For, (1.)
They had cast off prayer; thou hast not called u/ion
me, O Jacob. Jacob was a man famous for prayer;
(Hosea xii. 4.) his seed bore his name, but did not
tread in his steps, and therefore are justly upbraided
with it. God takes it ill when children degenerate
from the virtue and devotion of their pious ances¬
tors. To boast of the name of Jacob, and yet live
without prayer, is to mock God, and deceive our¬
selves. If Jacob does not call upon Gcd, who will?
(2.) Thev were grown weary of their religion;
“Thou art Israel, the seed not only of a praying but
of a prevailing father, that was a prince with God;
and yet, not valuing his experiences any more than
his example, thou hast been weary of me.” Thev
195
ISAIAH.
had been in relation to God, employed in his ser¬
vice, and in communion with him; but they begun
to snuff at it, and to say, Behold, what a weariness
is it! Note, Those who neglect to call upon God, do
in effect tell him they are weary of him, and have
a mind to change their Master. (3.) They grudged
the expense of their devotion, and were niggardly
and penurious in it; they were for a cheap religion;
and in those acts of devotion that were costly they
desired to be excused: they had not brought, no not
their small cattle, the lambs and kids, which God
required for burnt-offerings, (v. 23.) much less did
they bring their greater cattle; pretending they
could not spare them, they must have them for the
maintenance of their families. So little sense had
they of the greatness of God and their obligations to
him, that they cuald not find in their hearts to part
with a lamb out of their flock for his honour, though
he called for it and would graciously accept it.
Sweet cane, or calamus, was used for the holy oil,
incense, and perfume; but they were not willing to
beat the charge of that; ( v . 24.) what they had
must serve; though it was old and good for nothing,
they would not buy fresh. Perhaps it was usual for
devout pious persons to bring free-will incense, as
well as other tree-will offerings; but they were not
so generous, nor did they fill the altar of God, nor
moisten it abundantly, as they should have done,
with the fat of their sacrifices; what sacrifices they
did bring were of the lean and refuse of their cattle,
that had no fat in them to regale the altar with.
(4.) What sacrifices they did offer they did not
honour God with them, and so they were, in effect,
as no sacrifices; (n. 23. ) Neither hast thou honour¬
ed me with thy sacrijices. Some of them offered
their sacrifices to false gods; others, who offered
them to the true God, were either careless in the
manner of it, or hypocritical in their intentions; so
that they might be truly said not to honour God
with them, but rather to dishonour him.
And that which aggravated their neglect of sa¬
crificing, was, that, as God had appointed it, it was
no burthensome thing; it was not a service that they
had any reason at all to complain of; “ I have not
caused thee to serve with an offering; I have not
made it a task and drudgery to you, whatever you,
through the corruption of your natures, have made
it yourselves. I have not wearied thee with in¬
cense.” None of God’s commandments are grievous,
no, not those concerning sacrifice and incense. They
were not more costly than might be afforded by
them that lived in such a plentiful country; nor did
their attendance on them require any more time
than they could well spare. But that which espe¬
cially forbade them to call it a wearisome service,
was, that they were required to be cheerful and
pleasant, and to rejoice before God in all their ap¬
proaches to him, Deut. xii. 12. They had many
feasts and good days; but only one day in all the
year in which they were to afflict their souls. The
ordinances of the ceremonial law, though, in com¬
parison with Christ’s easy yoke, they are spoken of
as heavy, (Acts xv. 10. ) yet, in comparison with the
service that idolaters did to their false gods, they
were light, and not to be called services, or found
fault with as wearisome. God did not require them
to sacrifice their children, as Moloch did.
2. Commissions of the evil which God had for¬
bidden; and omissions commonly make way for com¬
missions; Thou hast made me to serve with thy sins.
When we m ike God’s gifts the food and fuel of our
.usts, and his providence the patron of our wicked
projects, especially when we encourage ourselves to
continue in sin, because grace has abounded, then
we m ike God to serve with our sins: or, it may de¬
note what a grief and burthen sin is to God; it not
>nly wearies men and makes the creation groan, but
, XL1II.
it wearies my God also, {ch. vii. 13.) and makes the
Creator complain that he in grieved, (Ps. xcv. 10.)
that he is broken, (Ezck. vi. 9.) that he is pressed
with sinners as a cart is /tressed that is full of
sheaves, (Amos ii. 13.) and to cry out. Ah, I will
ease me of mine adversaries, ch. i. 24. The anti¬
thesis is observable; God has not made them to serve
with their sacrifices, but they had made him to
serve with their sins. The master had not tired
the sen ants with his commands, but they had tired
him with their disobedience. Those are wicked
servants indeed, that carry it 'so ill to so good a Mas¬
ter. God is tender of cur comfort, but we are care¬
less of his honour. Le t this engage us to keep close
to our duty, that it is easy and reasonable, and no
disparagement to us, nor too hard for us.
II. What were the aggravations of their sin, v.
27. 1. That they were children of disobedience;
for their first father, their forefathers, had sinned;
and they had not only sinned in their loins, but sin¬
ned like them. Ezra confesses this; Since the days
of our fathers have we been in a great trespass, ch.
ix. 7. But their forefathers are called their first
father, to put us in mind of the apostacy and rebel¬
lion of our first father Adam, to which corrupt foun¬
tain we must trace up the streams of all our trans¬
gressions.
2. That they were scholars of disobedience too,
for their teachers had transgressed against God;
were guilty of gross, scandalous sins, and the people,
no doubt, would leant to do as they did. It is ill
with a people when their leaders cause them to err,
and their teachers, who should reform them, cor¬
rupt them.
III. What were the tokens of God’s displeasure
against them for their sins, v. 28. He brought ruin
both upon church and state: 1. The honour of their
church was laid in the dust and trampled on; I have
profaned the princes of the sanctuary, the priests
and Levites who presided with great dignity and
power in the temple-service; they profaned them¬
selves, and made themselves vile, by their enor¬
mities; and then God profaned them, and made
them vile, by their calamities and the contempt
they fell into, Mai. ii. 9. 2. The honour of their
state was ruined likewise; “ I have given Jacob
to the curse, to be cursed, and hated, and abused,
by all their neighbours; and Israel to reproach, to
be insulted, ridiculed, and triumphed over, by their
enemies.” They reproached them perhaps for that
in them that was good, they mocked at their sab¬
baths; (Lam. i. 7.) but God gave them up to re¬
proach, to correct them for what was amiss. Note,
The dishonour which men at any time do us, should
humble us for the dishonour we have done to God;
and therefore we must bear it patiently, because we
suffer it justly ; and must acknowledge that to us be¬
longs confusion.
IV. What were the riches of God’s merev to¬
ward them notwithstanding; (v. 25.) I, et ten 1, am
he who yet blotteth out thy transgressions. This gra¬
cious declaration of God’s readiness to pardon sin
comes in very strangely: the charge ran very high,
Thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities, v. 24.
Now one would think it should follow, “ I, even I,
am he that will destroy thee, and burthen myself no
longer with care about thee.” No, I, even I, am
he that will forgive thee; as if the great God would
teach us, that forgiving injuries is the best way to
make ourselves easy, and to keep ourselves from be¬
ing wearied with them. This comes in here, to
encourage them to repent, because there is forgive¬
ness with God, and to show the freeness of divine
mercy; where sin has been exceeding sinful, grace
appears exceeding gracious. Apply this, 1. To the
forgiving of the sins of Israel, as a people in their
national capacity: when God stopped the course of
ISAIAH, XL1V.
threatening judgments, and saved them from utter
ruin, even then when he had them under severe re¬
bukes, then he might be said to blot out their trans¬
gressions; though he corrected them, he was re¬
conciled to them again, and did not cut them off
from being a people. This he did many a time, till
they reiected Christ and his gospel, which was a
sin against the remedy, and then he would forgive
them no more as a nation, but utterly destroyed
them. 2. To the forgiving of the sins of every par¬
ticular believing penitent; transgressions and sins,
infirmities though ever so numerous, backslidings
though ever so heinous. Observe here, (1.) How
the pardon is expressed; he will blot them out, as a
cloud is blotted out by the beams of the sun; ( ch .
xliv. 22.) as a debt is blotted out, not to appear
against the debtor; the book is crossed as if the debt
were paid, because it is pardoned, upon the pay¬
ment which the surety has made; or as a sentence
is blotted out when it’ is reversed; as the curse was
blotted out with the waters of jealousy, which made
it of no effect to the innocent, Numb. v. 23. He
will not remember the sin; which intimates not only
that he will remit the punishment of what is past,
but that it shall be no diminution to his love for the
future. When God forgives, he forgets. (2.) \\ hat
is the ground and reason of the pardon. It is not
for the sake of any thing in us, but for his own sake;
for his mercies’ sake, his promise sake, and espe¬
cially for his Son’s sake, and that he may himself
be glorified in it. (3.) How God glories in it; /,
even I, am he: he glories in it as his prerogative;
none can forgive sin but God only, and he will do it,
it is his settled resolution, he will do it willingly and
with delight; it is his pleasure, it is his honour; so
he is pleased to reckon it.
Those words, (r. 26.) put me in remembrance,
may be understood either, [1.] As a rebuke to a
proud Pharisee, that stands upon his own justifica¬
tion before God, and expects to find favour for his
merits, and not to be beholden to free grace; “ If
vou have any thing to say in your own justification,
any thing to offer tor the sake of which you should
be pardoned, and not for my sake, put me in re¬
membrance of it; I will give you leave to plead your
own cause with me, declare what your merits are,
that you may be justified by them:” but those who
are thus challenged will be speechless. Or, [2.]
As a direction and encouragement to a penitent pub¬
lican. Is God thus ready to pardon sin, and, when
he pardons it, will he remember it no mere? Let us
then put him in remembrance, mention before him
those sins which he has forgiven; for they must be
ever before us, to humble us, though they are par¬
doned, Ps. li. 3. Put him in remembrance of the
promises he has made to the penitent, and the satis¬
faction his Son has made for them. Plead these
with him in wrestling for pardon, and declare these
things, in order that thou mayest be justified freely
by his grace. This is the only way, and it is a sure
way, to peace; only acknowledge thy transgression.
CHAP. XLIV.
God by the prophet, goes on, in this chapter, as before, I.
To encourage his people with the assurance of great
blessings he had in store for them at their return out of
captivity, and those typical of much greater, which the
gospel-church, his spiritual Israel, should partake of in
the days of the Messiah: and hereby he proves himself
to be God alone against all pretenders, v. 1 . .8. II. To
expose the sottishness and amazing folly of idol-makers,
and idol- worshipers, v. 9 '• ,20. 111. To ratify and confirm
I he assurances he had given to his people of those great
blessings, and to raise their joyful and believing expecta¬
tions of them, v. 21. .28.
YET now hear, O Jacob my servant;
and Israel, whom I have chosen :
2. Thus saith the Lord that made thse,
and formed thee from the womb, which will
help thee; Fear not, O Jacob iny servant ;
and thou, Jesurun, whom I have chosen.
3. For I will pour water upon him that is
thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground ; I
will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my
blessing upon thine offspring : 4. And they
shall spring up as among the glass, as wil¬
lows by the water-courses. 5. One shall
say, I am the Lord’s ; and another shall call
himself by the name of Jacob; and another
shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord,
and surname himself by the name oi Israel.
6. Thus saith the Lord the King of Israel,
and his Redeemer the Lord of hosts; I am
the first, and I am the last; and besides me
there is no God. 7. And who, as 1, shall
call, and shall declare it, and set it in order
for me, since I appointed the ancient peo¬
ple? and the things that are coming, and
shall come, let them show unto them. 8.
Fear ye not, neither be afraid; have not I
told thee from that time, and have declared
it? ye are even my w itnesses. Is there a
God besides me? yea, there is no God; I
knowr not any.
Two great truths are abundantly made out in
these verses:
I. That the people of God are a happy pec pie,
especially upon account of the covenant that is be¬
tween them and God. The people of Israel were
so as a figure of the gospel-Israel.
Three things complete their happiness:
1. The covenant-relations wherein they stand to
God, v. 1, 2. Israel is here called Jesurun — the
upright one; for those only, like Nathanael, are Is¬
raelites indeed, in whom is no guile; and those only
shall have the everlasting benefit of these promises.
Jacob and Israel had been represented, in the close
of the foregoing chapter, as very provoking and
obnoxious to God’s wrath, and already given to the
curse and to reproaches: but, as if God’s bowels
yeanied toward him, and his repentings were kin¬
dled together, mercy steps in with a non-obstante —
notwithstanding, to' all these quarrels; Yet now
hear, O Jacob my servant ; thou and I will be friends
again for all this. God had said, (ch. xliii. 25.) I
am he that blotteth out all thy transgression, which
is the only thing that creates this distance; and
when that is taken away, the streams of mercy run
again in their former channel. The pardon of sin
is the inlet of all the other blessings of the covenant;
So and so I will do for them, says God, (Heb. \ iii.
12.) for I will be merciful to their unrighteousness:
therefore hear, O Jacob; hear these comfortable
words; therefore fear not, O Jacob; fear not thy sins,
for they are pardoned; fear not thy troubles, for by
the pardon of sin the property of them too is altered.
Now the relations wherein they stand to him are
very encouraging. (1.) They are his servants; and
those that serve him he will own and stand by, and
see that they be not wronged. (2.) They are his
chosen, and he will abide by his choice; he knows
them that are his, and whom he has chosen he takes
under special protection. (3.) They are his crea¬
tures; lie made them, and brought them into being;
he formed them, and cast them into shape; he began
betimes with them, f'rhe formed them front the
ISAIAH
womb; and therefore he will help them over their
difficulties, and help them in their services.
2. The covenant-blessings which he has secured
to them and theirs, v. 3, 4. (1.) They that are
sensible of their spiritual wants, and the insuffi-
ciencv of the creature to supply them, shall have
abundant satisfaction in God; I will pour water
upon him that is thirsty, that thirsts after righteous¬
ness; he shall be filled. Water shall be poured out
to those who truly desire spiritual blessings above
all the delights of sense. (2.) They that are bar¬
ren as the dry ground shall be watered with the
grace of God, with floods of that grace, and God (
will himself give the increase. If the ground be
ever so dry, God has floods of grace to water it
with. (3.) The water Gad will pour out is, his
Spirit, (John vii. 39.) whrch God will pour out
without measure upon the Seed, that is, Christ,
(Gal. iii. 16.) and by measure upon all the seed of
the faithful, upon all the praying, wrestling seed of
Jacob, Luke xi. 13. This is the great New Testa¬
ment promise, that God, having sent his Servant
Christ, and upheld him, will send his Spirit to up¬
hold us. (4.) This gift of the Holy Ghost is the
great blessing God had reserved the plentiful effu¬
sion of for the latter days; I will pour my Spirit,
my blessing; for where God gives his Spirit, he will
give all other blessings. (5.) This is reserved for
the seed and off spring of the church ; for so the co¬
venant of grace runs, I will be a God to thee, and
to thy seed. T o all who are thus made to partake
of the privileges of adoption, God will give the
spirit of adoption. (6.) Hereby there shall be a
great increase of the church; thus it shall be spread
to distant places. Thus it shall be propagated and
perpetuated to after-times; they shall spring up,
and grow as last as willows by the water-courses,
and in every thing that is virtuous and praiseworthy
shall be eminent, and excel all about them, as the
willows overtop the grass among which they grow,
v. 4. Note, It is a great happiness to the church,
and a great pleasure to good men, to see the rising
generation hopeful and promising. And it will be
so if God pour his Spirit upon them, that blessing,
that blessing of blessings.
3. The consent they cheerfully give to their part .
of the covenant, v. 5. When the Jews returned
out of captivity, they renewed their covenant with
God, (Jer. 1. 5.) particularly that they would have
no more to do with idols, Hos. xiv. 2, 3, 8. Back¬
sliders must thus repent, and do their first works.
Many of those that were without, did at that time
join themselves to them, invited by that glorious
appearance of God for them, Zec.h. viii. 23. Esth.
viii. 17. And they say, JVe are the Lord’s, and call
themselves by the 7iame of Jacob; for there was one
law, one covenant, for the stranger and for those
that were born in the land. And doubtless it looks
further vet, to the conversion of the Gentiles, and
the multitudes of them who, upon the effusion of
the Spirit, after Christ’s ascension, should be joined
to the Lord, and added to the church. These con¬
verts are one and another, very many, of different
ranks and nations, and all welcome to God, Col.
iii. 1 1. When one does it, another shall by his ex¬
ample be invited to do it, and then another; thus
the zeal of one may provoke many. (1.) They
shall resign themselves to God: not one in the name
of the rest, but every one for himself shall say, “I
am the Lord’s; he has an incontestable right to
rule me, and I submit to him, to all his commands,
to all his disposals. I am, and will be, his only, his
wholly, his for ever; will be for his interests, will
be for his praise; living and dying I will be his.”
(9.) They shall incorporate themselves with the
people of God, call themselves by the name of Ja-
i ob, forgetting their own people and their father’s
, XLIV. 197
house, and d sirous to wear the character and livery
of God’s family. They shall love all God’s people,
shall associate with them, give them the right hand
of fellowship, espouse their cause, seek the goodie f
the church in general, and of all the particular
members of it, and be willing to take their lot with
them in all conditions. (3.) They shall do this very
solemnly; some of them shall subscribe with their
hand unto the Lord, as, for the confirming of a bar¬
gain, a man sets his hand to it, and delivers it as his
act and deed. The more express we are in our cove¬
nanting with God, the better; Exod. xxiv. 7. Josh,
xxiv. 26, 27. Nell. ix. 38. Fast bind, fast find.
II. That, as the Israel of God are a happy peo¬
ple, so the God of Israel is a great God, and he is God
alone. This also, as the former, speaks abundant
satisfaction to all that .trust in him, v. 6. — 8. Observe
here, to God’s glory and our comfort,
1. That, the God we trust in is a God of incon¬
testable sovereignty and irresistible power. He is
the Lord, Jehovah, self-existent and self-sufficient;
and he is the Lord of hosts, of all the hosts of hea¬
ven and earth, of angels and men.
2. That he stands in relation to, and has a parti¬
cular concern for, his church. He is the King of
Israel and his Redeemer; therefore his Redeemer,
because his King; and those that take God for their
King shall have him for their Redeemer. When
God would assert himself God alone, he proclaims
himself Israel’s God, that his people may be en¬
couraged both to adhere to him and to triumph in
him.
3. That he is eternal; the first and the last. He
is God from everlasting, before the worlds were,
and will be so to everlasting, when the world shall
be no more. If there were not a God to create, no¬
thing had ever been; and if there were not a Gcd
to uphold, all would soon come to nothing again.
He is all in all; is the first Cause, from whom are
all things, and the last End, to and for whom are .
all things; (Rom. xi. 36.) the Alpha and the Omega,
Rev. i. 11.
4. That he is God alone; (v. 6.) Beside me there
is no God. Is there a God beside me? v. 8. We
will appeal to the greatest scholars. Did they ever
in all their reading meet with any other? To those
that have the largest acquaintance with the world:
did they ever meet with any other? There are
gods many, (1 Cor. viii. 5, 6.) called gods, and coun¬
terfeit gods; but is there any, beside our God, that
is infinite and eternal; any, beside him, that is the
Creator of the world, and the Protector and Bene¬
factor of the whole creation; any, beside him, that
can do that for their worshippers which he can
and will do for his? “ Ye are my witnesses. I have
been a Nonsuch to you. You have tried other gods;
have you found any of them all-sufficient to you, or
any of them like me? Yea, there is no god;” no
rock, so the word is; none besides that can be a rock
fora foundation to build on, a rock for shelter to flee
to. God is the Rock, and their rock is not as ours,
Deut. xxxii. 4, 31. I know not any; as if he had
said, “ I never met with any that offered to stand in
competition with me, or that durst bring their pre¬
tensions to a fair trial; if I did know of any that
could befriend you better than I can, I would re¬
commend you to them; but I know not any.” There .
is no God beside Jehovah ^he is infinite, and there¬
fore there can be no other; he is all-sufficient, and
therefore there needs no other. This is designed
for the confirming of the hopes of God’s people in
the promise of their deliverance out of Babylon,
and, in order to that, for the curing them of their
idolatry; when the affliction had done its work, it
should be removed. They are reminded of the
first and great article of their creed, that the J.ord
their God is one Lord, Deut. vi. 4. And therefore.
198
ISAIAH, XL IV.
(1.) They needed not to hope in any other god;
those on whom the sun shines, need neither moon
nor stars, nor the light of their own fire. (2. ) They
needed not to fear any other god; their own God was
more able to do them good than all the false and coun¬
terfeit gods of their enemies were to do them hurt.
5. That none besides could foretell these things
to come, which God now by his prophet gave notice
of to the world, above two hundred years before
they came to pass; (v. 7.) “ Who, as /, shall call,
shall call Cyrus to Babylon, shall call Israel out
of Babylon? Is there any but God that can call
effectually, and has every creature, every heart,
at his beck? Who shall declare it, how it shall
be, and by whom, as I do?” Nay, God goes fur¬
ther; he not only sees it in order, as having the
fore-knowledge of it, but sets it in order, as hav¬
ing the sole management and direction of it. Can
any other pretend to this? He has always set
things in order according to the counsel of his own
will, ever since he appointed the ancient people,
the people of Israel, who could give a truer and
fuller account of the antiquities of their own nation
than any kingdom in the world could. Ever since
lie appointed that people to be his peculiar people,
his providence was particularly conversant about
them, and he told them beforehand the events th it
should occur respecting them — their bondage in
Egypt, their deliverance, and their settlement in
Canaan. All was set in order in the divine predic¬
tions as well as in the divine purposes. Could any
other have done so? W ould any other have been
so far concerned for them? He challenges the pre¬
tenders to show the things that shall come hereaf¬
ter; “ Let them, if they can, tell us the name of
the man that shall destroy Babylon, and deliver Is¬
rael? Nay, if they cannot pretend to tell us the
things that shall come hereafter, let them tell us the
things that are coming, that are nigh at hand, and
•at the door; let them tell us what shall come to
pass to-morrow; but they cannot do that; fear them
not therefore, nor be afraid of them. What harm
can they do you? What hinderance can they give
to your deliverance, when 1 have told thee it shall
be accomplished in its season, and I have solemnly
declared it?” Note, Those who have the word of
God’s promise to depend upon, need not to be afraid
of any adverse powers or policies whatsoever.
9. They that make a graven image are
all of them vanity; and their delectable
things shall not profit: and they are their
own witnesses; they see not, nor know;
that they may be ashamed. 10. Who hath
formed a god, or molten a graven image
that is profitable for nothing? 11. Behold,
all his fellows shall be ashamed; and the !
workmen, they are of men: let them all be !
gathered together, let them stand up ; yet
they shall fear, and they shall be ashamed
together. 1 2. The smith with the tongs both
worketh in the coals, and fashioneth it with
hammers, and worketh it with the strength
of his arms: yea, he is hungry, and his
strength faileth; he drinketh no water, and
is faint. 13. The carpenter stretcheth out
his rule, he marketh it out with a line, he
fitteth it with planes, and he marketh it I
out with the compass, and maketh it af¬
ter the figure of a man, according to the '
beauty of a man; that it may remain in die I
house. 1 4. He heweth him down cedars,
and taketh the cypress and the oak, which
he strengtheneth for himself among the trees
of the forest: he planteth an ash, and the
rain doth nourish it. 15. Then shall it be
for a man to burn : for he will take thereof
and warm himself; yea, he kindleln it, and
baketh bread; yea, he maketh a god, and
vvorshippeth it: he maketh it a graven
image, and faileth down thereto. 16. He
burneth part thereof in the fire: with part
thereof he eateth flesh; he roasteth roast,
and is satisfied; yea, he warmeth himself,
and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the
fire: 1 7. And the residue thereof he maketh
a god, even his graven image: he faileth
down unto it, and worshippeth it, and pray-
eth unto it, and saith, Deliver me; for thou
art my god. 1 8. They have not known nor
understood: for he hath shut their eyes, that
they cannot see; and their hearts, that they
cannot understand. 19. And none consider¬
ed) in his heart, neither is there knowledge
nor understanding to say, I have burnt part
of it in the fire ; yea, also 1 have baked bread
upon the coals thereof; I have roasted flesh,
and eaten it; and shall I make the residue
thereof an abomination? shall I fall down
to the stock of a tree? 20. He feedeth on
ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him
aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor
say, Is there not a lie in my right hand ?
Often before, God, by the prophet, had mention¬
ed the folly and strange sottishness of idolaters; but
here he enlarges upon that head, and very fully and
articularly exposes it to contempt and ridicule.
'his discourse is intended, 1. To arm the people
of Israel against the strong temptation they would
be in to worship idols, when they were captives in
Babylon, in compliance with the custom of the
country, (they being far from the city of their own
solemnities,) and to humour those who were now
their lords and masters. 2. To cure them of their
inclination to idolatry, which was the sin that did
most easily beset them, and to reform them from
which they were sent into Babylon. As tbe rod of
God is of use to enforce tbe word, so the word of
God is of use to ex/ilain the rod, that the voice of
both together may be heard and answered. .7. To
furnish them with something to say to their Chal¬
dean task-masters. When they insulted over them,
when they asked, Where is your God? they might
from hence ask them, What are your Gods? 4. To
take off their fear of the gods of their enemies, and to
encourage their hope in their own God, that he would
certainly appear against those who set up such scan¬
dalous competitors as these with him for the throne.
Now here, for the conviction of idolaters, we have,
I. A challenge given to them to clear themselves,
if they can, from the imputation of the most shame¬
ful folly and senselessness imaginable, v. 9. — 11.
They set their wits on work to contrive, and their
hands on work to frame, graven images, and they
call them their delectable things; extremely fond
they are of them, and mighty things they expect
from them. Note, Through the corruption of men’s
nature, those things which should be detestable tn
ISAIAH, XLJV.
199
them are desirable and delectable; but those are far
gone in a distemper, to whom that which is the
Food and fuel of it is most agreeable. Now, 1. We
tell them that they that do so arc all vanity, they
deceive themselves and one another, and put a great
cheat upon those for whom they make these images.
2. We tell them that their delectable things shall
not /irofit them, nor make them any return for the
plsasure they take in them; they can neither supply
them with good, nor protect them from evil. The
graven images are profitable for nothing at all, nor
will they ever get any thing by the devoirs they
pay to them. 3. We appeal to themselves, whe¬
ther it be not a silly, sottish thing to expect any
good from gods of their own making; they are their
own rjitnessess, witnesses against themselves, if they
would but give their own consciences leave to deal
faithfully with them, that they are blind and igno¬
rant in doing thus; they see not nor know, and let
them own it, that they may be ashamed. If men
would but be true to their own convictions, ordina¬
rily we might be sure of their conversion, particu¬
larly idolaters; for who has formed a god? Who
but a madman, or one out of his wits, would think
of forming a god, of making that which, if he made
it a god, he must suppose- to be his maker? 4. We
challenge them to plead their own cause with any
confidence or assurance. If any one has the front
to say that he has formed a god, when all his fellows
come together to declare what each of them has
done toward the making of this god, they will all be
ashamed of the cheat they have put upon them¬
selves, and laugh in their sleeves at those whom
they have imposed upon; for the workmen that
formed this god are of men, weak and impotent,
and therefore cannot possibly make a being that
shall be omnipotent, nor can they, without blushing,
pretend to it; let them all be gathered together, as
Demetrius and the craftsmen were, to support their
sinking trade, let them stand up to plead their own
cause, and make the best they can of it, with hand
joined in hand; yet they shall fear to undertake it,
when it comes to the setting to, as conscious to
themselves of the weakness and badness of their
cause; and they shall be ashamed of it, not only
when they appear singly, but when by appearing
together they hope to keep one another in counte¬
nance. Note, Idolatry and impiety are things
which men may justly both tremble and blush to
appear in the defence of.
II. A particular narrative of the whole proceed¬
ing in making a god; and there needs no more to
expose it than to describe it, and tell the story of it.
1. The persons employed about it are handicraft
tradesmen, the meanest of them, the very same
that you would employ in making the common
utensils of your husbandry, a cart or a plough. You
must have a smith, ' a blacksmith, who with the
tongs works in the coals; and it is hard work, for he
works with the strength of his arms, till he is
hungry, and his strength fails, so eager is he, and
so hasty are those who set him at the work, to get
it despatched. He cannot allow himself time to
eat or drink, for he drinks no water, and therefore
is faint, v. 12. Perhaps it was a piece of supersti¬
tion among them, for the workman not to eat or
drink while he was making a god. The plates
with which the smith was to cover the image, or
whatever iron-work was to be done about it, he
fashioned it with hammers, and made it all very
exact, according to the model given him. Then
comes the carpenter, and he takes as much care
and pains about the timber-work, te 13. He brings
his box of tools, for he has occasion for them all;
he stretches out his rule upon the piece of wood,
marks it with a line, where it must be sawed or cut
off; he fits it, or polishes it, with planes, the grea er
| first, and then the less; he marks out with the com¬
pass what must be the size and shape cf it; and it is
just what he pleases.
2. The form in which it is made, is that of a
man, a poor, weak, dving creature; but it is the
noblest form and figure that he is acquainted with,
and, being his own, he has a peculiar fondness for
it, and is willing to put all the reputation he can
upon it. He makes it according to the beauty of a
man, in comely proportion, with those limbs and
lineaments that are the beauty of a man, but are
altogether unfit to represent the beauty of the Lord
God put a great honour upon man, when, in respect
of the powers and faculties of his soul, he made
him after the image of God; but man does a great
dishonour to God, when he makes him, in respect
of bodily parts and members, after the image of
man. Nor will it at all atone for the affront, so far
to compliment his god, as to take the fairest of the
children of men for his original, whence to take his
copy, and to give him all the beauty of a man that
he can think cf; for all the beauty of the body of a
man, when pretended to be put upon him who is an
infinite Spirit, is a deformity and diminution to him.
And when the goodly piece is finished, it must re¬
main in the house, in the temple or shrine prepared
for it, or perhaps in the dwelling-house, if it be one
of the lares or fienates — the household gods.
3. The matter of which it is mostly made is sorry
stuff to make a god of; it is the stock of a tree.
(1.) The tree itself was fetched out of the forest,
where it grew among other trees, of no more virtue
or value than its neighbours. It was a cedar, it may
be, or a cypress, or an oak; (y. 14. ) perhaps he had
an eye upon it some time before for this use, and
strengthened it for himself, used some art or other
to make it stronger and better grown than other
trees were. Or, as some read it, which hath
strengthened or lift up itself among the trees of the
forest, the tallest and strongest he can pick out.
Or, it may be, it pleases his fancy better to take an
ash, which is of a quicker growth, and which was
of his own planting, for this use, and which has been
nourished with rain from heaven. See what a
fallacy he puts upon himself, in making that his
refuge, which was of his own planting, and which
he not only gave the form to, but prepared the
matter for. And what an affront he puts upon the
God of heaven, in setting up that as a rival with him,
which was nourished by his rain, that rain which
falls upon the just and unjust.
(2. ) The boughs of this tree were good for nothing
but for fuel; to that use were they put, and so were
the chips that were cut off from it in the working
of it; they are for a man to bum, v. 15, 16. And
to show that that tree has no innate virtue in it for
its own protection, it is as capable of being burnt as
any other tree; and to show that he who chose it
had no more antecedent value for it than for any
other tree, he makes no difficulty of throwing pari
of it into the fire as common rubbish, asking no
question for conscience-sake. [1.] It serves him
for his parlour-fire; he will take thereof, and warm
himself, (y. 15.) and he finds the comfort of it, and
is so far from having any regret in his mind for it,
that he saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the
,/ire; and certainly that part of the tree which
served him for fuel, the use for which God and na¬
ture designed it, does him a much greater kindness,
and yields him more satisfaction, than ever that will
which he makes a god of. [2.] It serves him for
his kitchen-fire; he eats flesh with it, that is, he
dresses the flesh with it, which he is to eat, he
roasteth roast, and is satisfied that he has not done
amiss to put it to this use. Nay, [3.] It serves
him to heat the oven with, in which we use that
fuel which is of least value; he kindles it, and bakes
‘200
ISAIAH, XLIV.
bread with the heat of it, and none charges nim
with doing wrong.
(3.) Yet, after all, the stock or body, of the tree
shall serve to make a god ot, when it might as well
have served to make a bench, as cneol themselves,
even a poet of their own, upbraids them, Horat.
Sat. i. 8.
dim truncus cram ficulnuB, inutile lignum,
Quum tuber, inccrtus scamnum faceretne Pria^um,
Maluit esse deuiu ; deus inde ego -
In days of yore our godship stood
A very worthless log of wood,
The jojher, doubting or to shape us
Into a stool, or a Priapns,
At length resolv’d, for reasons wise,
Into a god to bid me rise. Francis.
And another of them threatens the idol to whom lie
had committed the custody of his woods, that if he
did not preserve them to be fuel for his fire, he
should himself be made use of for that purpose:
Furaces moneo mantis repellas,
Ft silvam domini focis reserves,
Si tlefecerit h®c, et ipse lignum es. Martial.
Drive the plunderers away, and preserve the wood for thy master’s
hearth, or thou thyself shalt be converted into fuel.
When the besotted idolater has thus served the
meanest purposes with part of his tree, and the rest
has had time to season, (he makes that a god in his im¬
agination, whilethat is inthedoing, and worships it,)
he makes it a graven image, and falls down thereto,
\v. 15.) that is, ( v . IT.) The residue thereof he
makes a god, even his graven image, according to
his fancy and intention; he falls down to it, and
worships it, gives divine honours to it, prostrates
himself before it in the most humble, reverent pos¬
ture, as a servant, as a supplicant; he prays to it,
as having a dependence upon it, and great expecta¬
tions from it; he saith, Deliver me, for thou art my
god. There where he pays his homage and allegi¬
ance, he justly looks for protection and deliverance.
What a strange infatuation is this, to expect help
from gods that cannot help themselves! But it is
this praying to them that makes them gods, not
what the smith or the carpenter did at them.
What we place our confidence in for deliverance,
that we make a god of.
Qui fingit sacros, auro vel marinore, vulius,
Non tacit ille deos ; qui rogat, ille facit. Martial.
He who supplicates the figure, whether it be of gold or of marble,
makes it a god, and not he who merely constructs it.
III. Here is judgment given upon this whole mat¬
ter, v. 18. — 20. In short, it is the effect and evi¬
dence of the greatest stupidity and sottishness that
one could ever imagine rational beings to be guilty
of, and shows that man is become worse than the
beasts that perish; for they act according to the dic¬
tates of sense; but man acts not according to the
dictates of reason; (v. 18.) They have not known
nor understood common sense; men that act ration¬
ally in other tilings, in this act most absurdly.
Though they have some knowledge and understand¬
ing, yet they are strangers to, nay they are rebels
against, the great law of consideration; (y. 19.) None
considers in his heart, nor has so much application
ol mind as to reason thus with himself, which one
would think he might easily do, though there were
none to reason with him; “1 have burnt part of this
tree in the fire, for baking and roasting; and now
shall l make the residue thereof an abomination —
an idol?” (For that is an abomination to God, and
all wise and good men.) “Shall I ungratefully
choose to do, or presumptuously dare to do, what
the Lord hates? Shall I be such a fool as to fall
down to the stock of a tree — a senseless, lifeless,
helpless thing? Shall I so far disparage myself, and
make mvself like that I bow down to?” A growing
*ree may be a beautiful, stately thing, but the stock
of a tree has lost its glory, and he has lost his that
gives glory to it.
' Upon the whole, the sad character given of these
idolaters, (y. 20.) is, 1. That they put a cheat upon
themselves; they feed on ashes; they feed them¬
selves with hopes i f advantage by worshipping these
idols; but they will be disappointed as much as a
man that would expect nourishment by feeding cn
ashes. Feeding on ashes is an evidence of a de¬
praved appetite and a distempered body; and it is
a sign that the soul is overpowered by very bad
habits, when men, in their worship, go no further
than the sight of their eyes will carry them. They
are wretchedly deluded, and it is their own fault;
a deceived heart of their own, more than the de¬
ceiving tongue of others, has turned them aside from
the faith and worship of the living God to dumb
idols. They are drawn away of their own lusts,
and enticed. The apostacy of sinners fre m God is
owing entirely to themselves, and to the evil heart
of unbelief that is in their own bosom. A revolting
and rebellious heart is a deceived heart. 2. That
they wilfully persist in their self-delusion, and will
not be undeceived. There is none of them that can
be persuaded so far to suspect himself as to say,
Is there not a lie in my right hand? and so to think
of delivering his soul. Note, (1.) Idolaters have a
lie in their l ight hand; for an idol is a lie, is not what
it pretends, performs not what it promises, and it is
a teacher oj lies, Hab. ii. 18. (2.) It highly con¬
cerns those that are secure in an evil way, seriously
to consider whether there be not a lie in their right
hand. Is not that a lie which with complacency
we hold fast as our chief good? Are our hearts set
upon the wealth of the world, and the pleasures of
sense? They will certainly prove a lie in our right
hand. And is not that a lie which with confidence
we hold fast by, as the ground on which we build
our hopes of heaven? If we trust to our external
professions and performances, as if those would save
us, we deceive ourselves with a lie in our light
hand, with a house built on the sand. (3.) Self¬
suspicion is the first step toward self-deliverance.
We cannot be faithful to ourselves, unless we are
jealous of ourselves. He that would deliver his
soul must begin with the putting of this question to
his own conscience, Is there not a lie in my right
hand? (4. ) Those that are given up to believe a
lie, are under the power of strong delusions, which
it is hard to get clear of, 2 Thess. ii. 11.
21. Remember these, O Jacob and Is¬
rael ; for thou art my servant : I have formed
thee ; thou art my servant : O Israel, thou
shalt not he forgotten of me. 22. [ have
blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy trans¬
gressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins : return
unto me; for I have redeemed thee. 23.
Sing, O ye heavens; for the Lord hath
done it : shout, ye lower parts of the earth :
break forth into singing, ye mountains, O
Torest, and every tree therein ; for the Lord
hath redeemed Jacob, and glorified himself
in Israel. 24. Thus saith the Lord, thy
Redeemer, and he that formed thee from
the womb, I am the Lord that maketh all
things ; that stretcheth forth the heavens
alone ; that spreadeth abroad the earth by
myself ; 25. That frustrateth the tokens
of the liars, and maketh diviners mad ; that
! turneth wise men backward, and maketh
201
ISAIAH, XLIV.
i h« ir knowledge foolish; 26. That con-
lirmeth the word of his servant, anrl per-
fomielh the counsel of his messengers, that
saitii to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be inhabited;
and to the cities of Judah, Ye shall be built,
and I will raise up the decayed places
thereof: 27. That saith to the deep, Be
dry, and I will dry up thy rivers: 28. That
saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and
shall perform all my pleasure: even saying
to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to
the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid.
In these verses we have,
I. The duty which Jacob and Israel, now in cap¬
tivity, are called to, that they might be qualified
and prepared for the deliverance designed them.
Our first care must be to get good by our afflictions,
and then we may hope to get out of them. The
duty is expressed in two words, Remember and Re¬
turn, as in the counsel to Ephesus, Rev. ii. 4, 5.
1. “Remember these, O Jacob; remember what
thou hast been told of the folly of idolatry, and let
the convictions thou art now under be ready to thee
whenever thou art tempted to that sin. Remember
that thou art my servant, and therefore must not
serve other masters.” 2. Return unto me, v. 22.
It is the great concern of those who have back¬
slidden from God, to hasten their return to him;
and this is that which he calls them to, when they
are in affliction, and when he is returning to them
in a wav of mercy.
II. The favours which Jacob and Israel, now in
captivity, are assured of; and what is here promis¬
ed to them upon their remembering and returning
to God, is in a spiritual sense promised to all that in
like manner return to God. It is a very comforta¬
ble word, for more is implied in it than is expressed;
( y . 21.) “ 0 Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of
me, though for the present thou seem to be so.”
When we begin to remember God, he will begin to
remember us, nay, it is he that remembers us first.
Now observe here,
1. The grounds upon which God’s favourable in-1
tentions to his people were built, and on which they
might build their expectations from him. He will
deliver them out of captivity; for, (1.) They are his
servants, and therefore he has a just quarrel with
those that detain them; Let my fieo/ile go, that they
may serve me. The servants of the King of kings
are under special protection. (2.) He formed them
into a people, formed them from the womb, v. 24.
From the first beginning of their increase into a na¬
tion, they were under his particular care and govern¬
ment, more than any other people; their national
constitution was of his framing, and his covenant
with them was the charter by which they were in¬
corporated. They are his, and he will save them.
(3.) He has redeemed them formerly, has many a
time redeemed them out of great distress, and he is
still the same, in the same relation to them, has the
same concern for them. “ Therefore return unto
me, for I have redeemed thee, v, 22. Whither
wilt thou go, but to me?” Having redeemed them
as well as formed them, he has acquired a further
title to them, and property in them, which is a good
reason why they should dutifully return to him, and
why he will graciously return to them. The Lord
has redeemed Jacob, he is about to do it, (v. 24. ) he
h is determined to do it; for he is the Lord their Re¬
deemer, v. 24. Note, The work of redemption
which God has by his Son wrought for us, encou
r igesus to hope for all promised blessings from him.
He that has redeemed us at so vast an expense, will
Vol. IV.— 2 C
| not lose Iris purchase. (4.) He has glorified himself
I in them, {v. 23.) and therefi re will do so still, John
xii. 28. It is matter of comfort to us to see God’s
glory interested in the deliverances of the church;
tor therefore he will certainly redeem Jacob, be¬
cause thus he will glorify himself. And this as¬
sures _us that he will perfect the redemption of
his saints by Jesus. Christ, because there is a day set
when he will be glorified and admired in them all.
(5.) He has pardoned their sins, which were the
cause ot their calamity, and the only obstruction to
their deliverance, v. 22. Therefore he will break
the yoke of captivity from off their necks, because
he has blotted out, as a thick • cloud, their transgres¬
sions. Note, [1.] Our transgressions and our sins
are as a cloud, a thick cloud; they interpose between
heaven and earth, and lor a time suspend and inter¬
cept the correspondence between the upper and
lower world; (sin se/iarates between us ana God, ch.
lix. 1.) they threaten a.storm, a deluge of wrath, as
thick clouds do, which God will rain upon sinners,
Rs. xi. 6. [2.] When God pardons sin, he blots
out this cloud, this thick cloud, so that the inter¬
course with heaven is laid open again. God looks
down upon the soul with favour, the soul looks up
to him with pleasure. The cloud is scattered by the
influence of the Sun of righteousness. It is "only
through Christ that sin is pardoned. When sin is
pardoned, like a cloud that is scattered, it appears
no more, it is quite gone: the iniquity of Jucob shall
be sought for, and not found, Jer. 1. 20. And the
comforts that flow into the soul when sin is pardon¬
ed, are like clear shining after clouds and rain.
2. The universal jo;- which the deliverance of
God’s people should bring along with it; (v. 23.)
Sing, 0 ye heavens. This intimates, (1.) That the
whole creation shall have cause for joy and rejoicing
in the redemption of God’s people; to that it is
owing, that it subsists, (that it is rescued from
the curse which the sin of man brought upon the
ground,) and that it is again put into a capacity of
answering the ends of its being, and is assured, that
though now it groans, being burthened, it shall at
last be delivered from the bondage of corruption.
The greatest establishment of the world isthe king¬
dom of God in it, Ps. xevi. 11, 13. — xcviii. 7, 9.
(2.) That the angels shall rejoice in it, and the in¬
habitants of the upper world. The heavens shall
sing, for the Lord has done it. And there is joy in
heaven when God and man are reconciled, (Luke
xv. 7.) and when Babylon falls, Rev. xviii. 20.
(3.) That those who lay at the greatest distance,
even the inhabitants of the Gentile world, should
join in these praises, as sharing in these joys. The
lower fiarts of the earth, the forest and the trees
there, shall bring in the tribute of thanksgiving for
the redemption of Israel.
3. The encouragement we have to hope, that,
though great difficulties, and such as have been
thought insuperable, lie in the way of the church’s
deliverance, yet, when the time for it is come, they
shall all be got over with ease, for thus saith Israel’s
Redeemer, I am the Lord that maketh all things,
did make them at first, and am still making them;
for providence is a continued creation; all being,
power, life, motion, and perfection, are frem him.
He stretched forth the heavens alone, has no help,
nor needs any; and the earth too he s/ireads abroad
by himself, and by his own power. Man was not by
him when h“ did it, (Job xxxviii. 4. ) nor did any
creature advise or assist; only his own eternal Wis¬
dom and Word was by him then as one brought ufi
with him, Prov. viii. 30. His stretching out the
heavens by himself speaks the boundless extent rf
his power. The strongest man, if he be to stretch
a thing out, must get somebody or other to lend a
hand; but God stretched out the vast expanse, and
202 ISAIAH, XLIV.
keeps it still upon the stretch himself, by his own
power. Let not Israel be discouraged then; nothing
is too hard for him to do that made the world, Ps.
cxxiv. 8. And, having made all, he can make
what use he pleases of all, and has it in his power to
serve his own purposes by them.
4. The confusion which this would put upon the
oracles of Babylon, by the confutation it would give
them, v. 25. God, by delivering his people out of
Babylon, would frustrate the tokens of the liars, of
all the lying prophets, that said the Babylonian mo¬
narchy had many ages yet to live, and pretended to
ground their predictions upon some token, some
sign or other, which, according to the rules of their
ait, foreboded its prosperity. How mad will these
conjurers grow with vexation, when they see that
their skill fails them, and that the contrary happens
to that which they so coveted, and were so confident
of. Nor would it only baffle their pretended pro¬
phets, but their celebrated politicians too; he turns
the wise men backward: finding they cannot go on
with their projects, they are forced to quit them;
and so he makes the judges fools, and makes their
knowledge foolish. Those that are made acquaint¬
ed with Christ, see all the knowledge they had be¬
fore to be foolishness in comparison with the know¬
ledge of him. And those that are adversaries to
him, will find all their counsels, like Ahithophel’s,
turned into foolishness, and themselves taken in their
own craftiness , 1 Cor. iii. 19.
5. The confirmation which this would give to the
oracles of God, which the Jews had distrusted, and
their enemies despised; God confirms the word of
his servant; (z>. 26.) he confirms it by accomplish¬
ing it in its season, and performs the counsel of the
messengers whom he hath many a time sent to his
people, to, tell them what great blessings he had in
store for them. Note, The exact fulfilling of the
prophecies of scripture is a confirmation of the truth
of the whole book, and an incontestable evidence of
its di\ ine original and authority.
6. The particular favours God designed for his
people, that were now in captivity, v. 26. — 28. These
were foretold long before they went into captivity,
that they might see reason to expect a correction,
but no reason to fear a final destruction.
(1. ) It is here supposed that Jerusalem, and the
cities of Judah, shall for a time lie in ruins, dispeo¬
pled and uninhabited; but it is promised that they
shall be rebuilt and repeopled. When Isaiah lived,
Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, were full of in¬
habitants; but they will be emptied, burnt, and de¬
stroyed; it was then hard to believe that concern¬
ing such strong and populous cities. But the justice
of God will do that; and when that is done, it will
be hard to believe that ever they will recover them¬
selves again, and yet the zeal of the Lord of hosts
will do that too. God has said to Jerusalem, Thou
shalt be inhabited; for, while the world stands, God
will have a church in it; and therefore he will raise
up those who shall say to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be
built; for, if it be not built, it cannot be inhabited,
Ps. Ixix. 35, 36. When God’s time is come for the
building up of his church, let him alone to find both
houses for his people, for they shall not lie exposed,
and people for his houses, for they shall not stand
empty. The cities of Judah too shall again be built.
The Assyrian army under Sennacherib only took
them, and then, upon the defeat of that army, they
returned undamaged to the right owners; but the
ChaWean army demolished them, and by carrying
away the inhabitants left them to go to decay of
themselves; for if lesser judgments prevail not to
humble and reform men, God will send greater;
yet these desolations shall not be perpetual, God
will raise up the wastes and decayed places thereof;
for he will not contend for ever! The city of stran¬
gers, when it is ruined, shall never be built ; ( rh. xx'
2.) but the city of God’s own children is out dis¬
continued for a time.
(2.) It is here supposed that the temple too should
be destroyed, and lie fora time razed to the founda¬
tions; but it is promised that the foundation of it
shall again be laid, and no doubt built upon. As
the desolation of the sanctuary was to all the pious
Jews the most mournful part of the destruction, so
the restoration and re-establishment of it would be
the most joyful part of the deliverance. What joy
can they have in the rebuilding of Jerusalem, if the
temple there be not rebuilt; for that is it that make*
it a holy city, and truly beautiful. This therefore
was the chief thing that the Jews had at heart, and
had in view, in their return; therefore they would
go back to Jerusalem, to build the house of the Lord
God of Israel there, Ezra i. 3.
(3.) It is here supposed that very great difficul¬
ties would lie in the way of this deliverance, which
it would be impossible for them to wade through;
but it is promised that by a divine power they
should all be removed; (v. 27.) God saith to the
deefi, Be dry; so he did when he brought Israel out
of Egypt; and so he will again when he brings them
out of Babylon, if there be occasion. Who art thou,
O great mountain? Dost thou stand in the way?
Before Zerubbabel, the commander-in-chief of the
returning captives, thou shall become a plain, Zech.
iv. 7. So, Who art thou, O great deep? Dost thou
retard their passage, and think to block it up?
Thou shalt be dry, and thy rivers that supply thee
shall be dried up. When Cyrus took Babylon by
draining the river Euphrates into many channels,
and so making it passable for his army, this was
fulfilled. Note, Whatever obstructions lie in the
way of Israel’s redemption, God can remove them
with a word’s speaking.
(4.) It is here supposed that none of the Jews
themselves would be able by might and power to
force their way out of Babylon; but it is promised
that God will raise up a stranger from afar off, that
shall fairly open the way for them, and now at
length he names the very man, many scores of
years before he was bom or thought of; (x\ 28.)
That saith of Cyrus, he is my shepherd. Israel is
his people, and the sheep of his pasture; these sheep
are now in the midst of wolves, in the hands of the
thief and robber; they are impounded for trespass.
Now Cyrus shall be his shepherd, employed by him
to release these sheep, and to take care of their re¬
turn to their own green pastures again. “ In this
he shall perform all my pleasure, shall bring about
what is putposed by me, and will be highly pleas¬
ing to me. ” Note, [1. ] The most contingent things
are certain to the divine prescience; he knew who
was the person, and what was his name, that should
be the deliverer of his people, and, when he pleas¬
ed, he could let his church know it, that, when they
heard of such a name beginning to be talked of in
the world, they might lift up their heads with jov,
knowing that their redemption drew nigh. [2.] It
is the greatest honour of the greatest men to be em¬
ployed for God as instruments of his favour to his
people. It was more the praise of Cyrus to be
God’s shepherd, than to be emperor of Persia.
[3.] God makes what use he pleases of men, of
mighty men, of those that act with the greatest
freedom; and, when they think to do as they please,
he can overrule them, and make them do as he
pleases. Nay, in those very things wherein they
are serving themselves, and look no further than
that, God is serving his own purposes by them, and
making them to perform all bis pleasure. Rich
princes shall do what poor prophets have f. retold.
IS AT AH, XLV. 203
CHAP. XLV.
Cyrus was nominated, in the foregoing chapter, to be
God’s shepherd: more is said to him, and more of him,
in this chapter, not only because he was to be instru¬
mental in the release of the Jews out of their captivity,
but because he was to be therein a type of the great
Redeemer, and that release was to be typical of the great
redemption from sin and death; for that was the salvation
of which all the prophets witnessed. We have here,
I. The great things which God would do for Cyrus, that
he might be put into a capacity to discharge God’s peo¬
ple, v. I . .4. II. The proof God would hereby give of
his eternal power and godhead, and his universal, incon¬
testable, sovereignty, v. 5. .7. 111. A prayer for the has¬
tening of this deliverance, v. 8. IV. A check to the
unbelieving Jews, who quarrelled with God for the
lengthening out of their captivity, v. 9, 10. V. Encou¬
ragement given to the believing Jews, who trusted in
God, and continued instant in prayer, assuring them that
God would in due time accomplish this work by the
hand of Cyrus, v. 11 . . 15. VI. A challenge given to
the worshippers of idols, and their doom read, and satis¬
faction given to the worshippers of the true God, and
their comfort secured, with an eye to the Mediator, who
is made of God to us both Righteousness and Sanctifica¬
tion, v. 16 .. 25. And here, as in other parts of this
prophecy, there is mufch of Christ, and gospel-grace.
1. r BSHUS saith the Lord to his anoint-
JL ed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I
have holden, to subdue nations before him ;
and I will loose the loins of kings, to open
before him the two-leaved gates; and tire
gates shall not be shut : 2. I will go before
thee, and make the crooked places straight ;
1 will break in pieces the gates of brass,
and cut in sunder the bars of iron : 3. And
I will give thee the treasures of darkness,
and hidden riches of secret places, that
thou niavest know that I the Lord which
call thee by thy name, am, the God of Is¬
rael. 4. For Jacob my servant’s sake, and
Israel mine elect, I have even called thee
by thy name : I have surnamed thee, though
thou hast not known me.
Cyrus was a Merle, descended (as some say) from
Astyages king of Media; the pagan writers are not
agreed in their accounts of his original; some tell us
that in his infancy he was an outcast, left exposed,
and was saved from perishing by a herdsman’s wife.
However, it is agreed, that, being a man of an ac¬
tive genius, he soon made himself very considerable;
especially, when Croesus king of Lydia made a de¬
scent upon his country, which he not only repulsed,
but revenged, prosecuting the advantages he had
gained against Croesus with such vigour, that in a
little time he took Sardis, and made himself master
of the rich kingdom of Lydia, and the many pro¬
vinces that then belonged to it. This made him
very great, (for Croesus was rich to a proverb, ) and
enabled him to pursue his victories in many coun¬
tries; but it was near ten years after that, in con¬
junction with his uncle Darius, and with the forces
of Persia, that he made this famous attack upon
Babylon, which is here foretold, and which we have
the history of, Dan. v. Babylon was now grown
exorbitantly rich and strong; it was forty-five miles
in compass, some say more; the walls thirty-two
feet thick, and a hundred cubits high; some say,
they were so thick, that six chariots might drive
abreast upon them; some say, they were fifty cu¬
bits thick, and two hundred high. Cyrus seems to
have had a great ambition to make himself master
of this place, and to have projected it long; and =>t
last he performed it.
Now here, 110 years before it came to pass, we
are told,
I. What great things God would do for him, that
he might put it into his power to release his people;
in order to this, he shall be a mighty conqueror,
and a wealthy monarch, and nations shall become
tributaries to him, and help him both with men and
money. Now that which God here promised to do
for Cyrus, he could have done for Zerubbabel, or
some of the Jews themselves; but the wealth and
power of this world God has seldom seen fit to in¬
trust his own people with much of, so many are the
snares and temptations that attend it; but if there
has been occasion, for the good of the church, to
make use of it, God has been pleased rather to put
it into the hands of others, to be employed for them,
than to venture it in their own hands.
Cyrus is here called God’s anointed, because he
was both designed and qualified for this great ser¬
vice, by the counsel of God, and was to be herein a
type of the Messiah. God engages to hold his right
hand, not only to strengthen and sustain him, but to
direct his motions and intentions, as Elisha put his
hands upon the king’s hands, when he was to shoot
his arrow against Syria, 2 Kings xiii. 16. Being
under such direction,
1. He shall extend his conquests very far, and
shall make nothing of the opposition that will be
given him. Babylon is too strong a place for a young
hero to begin with, and, therefore, that he may be
able to deal with that, great additions shall be made
to his strength by other conquests. (1.) Populous
kingdoms shall yield to him; God will subdue na¬
tions before him; when he is in the full career of his
successes, he shall make nothing of a nation’s being
born to him at once: yet it is not he that subdues
them, it is God that subdues them for him; the bat¬
tle is his, and therefore his is the victory. (2.) Po¬
tent kings shall fall before him; I will loose the loins
of kings; either the girdle of their loins, divest
them of their power and dignity, or the strength of
their loins, and then it was literally fulfilled in Bel¬
shazzar, for when he was terrified by the hand¬
writing on the wall, the joints of his loins were
loosed, Dan. v. 6. (3.) Great cities shall surrender
themselves into his hands, without giving him oi
themselves any trouble. God will incline the keep¬
ers of the city, to often before him the two-leaved
gates, not treacherously, or timorously, but from a
full conviction that it is to no purpose to contend
with him; and therefore the gates shall not be shut
to keep him out as an enemy, but thrown open to
admit him as a friend. (4.) The longest and most
dangerous marches shall be made easy and ready
to him; I will go before thee, to clear the way, and
to conduct thee in it, and then the crooked places
shall be made straight; or, as some read it, the hilly
places shall be levelled and made even. Those will
find a ready road, that have God going before them.
(5.) No opposition shall stand before him; he that
gives him his commission will break in pieces the
gates of brass that are shut against him, and cut in
sunder the bars of iron, wherewith they are fas¬
tened. This was fulfilled in the letter, if that be
true which Herodotus reports, that the city of Baby¬
lon had a hundred gates all of brass, with posts and
hooks of the same metal.
2. He shall replenish his coffers very much; (x>. 3.)
/ will give thee the treasures of darkness; treasures
of gold and silver, that have been long kept close
under lock and key, and had not seen the light of
many years; or had been buried under ground oy
the inhabitants, in their fright, upon the taking of
the city. The riches of many nations had been
brought to Babylon, and Cyrus seized all together.
The hidden riches of secret filaces, which belonged
either tc ‘he crown or to private persons, shall al
ISAIAH, XLV.
be a prey to Cyrus. Thus God, designing him to
do a piece of service to his church, paid him richly
for it beforehand; and Cyrus very honestly owned
God’s goodness to him, and, in consideration of
that, released the captives; (Ezra i. 2.) God has
given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and thereby
has obliged me to build him an house at Jerusalem.
II. We are here told what God designed, in doing
all this for Cyrus. What Cyrus aimed at in under¬
taking his wars, we may easily guess; but what God
aimed at in giving him such wonderful success in his
wars, we are here told:
1, It was that the God of Israel might be glori¬
fied; “That thou mavest know by all this that I
the Lord am the God" of Israel; for I have called
thee by thy name, long before thou wast born.”
When "Cyrus had this prophecy of Isaiah showed
him, and’ there found his own name, and his own
achievements particularly described so long before,
he shall thereby be brought to acknowledge that
the God of Israel is the Lord Jehovah, the only living
and true God, and continues to own his Israel,
though now in captivity. It is well when thus men’s
prosperity brings them to the knowledge of God, for
too often "it makes them forget him.
2. It was that the Israel of God might be released,
v. 4. Cyrus knew not God, as the God of Israel;
having been trained up in the worship of idols, the
true Gad was to him an unknown God; but, though
he knew not God, God not only knew him when he
came into being, but foreknew him, and bespoke
him for his shepherd; he called him by his name,
Cyrus, nay, which was vet a greater honour, he
surnamed him, and called him his anointed. And
why did God do all this for Cyrus? Not for his own
sake, be it known to him; whether he was a man
of virtue or no, is questioned. Xenophon indeed,
when he would describe the heroic virtues of an
excellent prince, made use of Cyrus’s name, and
manv of the particulars of his story, in his Cyropie-
dia; but other historians represent him as haughty,
cruel, and bloodthirsty. The reason why God pre¬
ferred him, was, for Jacob his servant’s sake. Note,
(1.) In all the revolutions of states and kingdoms,
the sudden falls of the great and strong, and the
surprising advancements of the weak and obscure,
God is designing the good of his church. (2.) It is
therefore the wisdom of those to whom God has
given wealth and power, to use it for his glory, by
being kind with it to his people. Cyrus is prefer¬
red, that Israel may be released; he shall have a
kingdom, only that" God’s people may have their
liberty; for their kingdom is not of this world, it is
yet to come. In all this, Cyrus was a type of Christ,
who was made victorious over principalities and
powers, and intrusted with unsearchable riches, for
the use and benefit of God’s servants, his elect
When he ascended on high, he led captivity cap¬
tive, took those captives that had taken others cap¬
tives, and opened the prison to those that were
bound.
5. I ant the Lord, and there is none else,
there is no God besides me: I girded thee,
(hough thou hast not known me; 6. That
they may know from the rising of the sun,
and from the west, that there is none besides
me: f am the Lord, and there is none else.
7. I form the light, and create darkness; I
make peace, and create evil : I the Lord
do all these things. 8. Drop down, yc hea¬
vens, from above, and let the skies pom-
down righteousness: let the earth open, and
le them bring forth salvation, and let right-
| eousness spring up together. I the Lord
j have created it. 9. Wo unto him that stnv-
eth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive
with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the
clay say to him that fashioneth it, Wlial
makest thou? or thy work, He hath no
hands? 10. Wo unto him that saith unto
his father, What begettest thou? or to the
woman, What hast thou brought forth?
God here asserts his sole and sovereign dominion,
as that which he designed to prove and manifest to
the world, in all the great things he did for Cyrus,
and by him. Observe,
I. How this doctrine is here laid down, concern¬
ing the sovereignty of the great Jehovah, in two
things;
1. That he is God alone, and there is no God be¬
side him; this is here inculcated as a fundamental
truth, which, if it were firmly believed, would abo¬
lish idolatry out of the world. With what an awful,
commanding air of majesty and authority, bidding
defiance, as it were, to all pretenders, does the great
God here proclaim it to the world; I am the Lord,
I the Lord Jehovah, and there is none else, there is
no God beside me, no self-existent, self-sufficient
Being, none infinite and eternal. And again, {v. 6.)
There is none beside me; all that are set up in
competition with me are counterfeits, they are all
vanity, and a lie, for I am the Lord, and there is
none else. This is here said to Cyrus, not only to
cure him of the sin of his ancestors, which was,
worshipping idols, but lo prevent his falling into the
sin of some of his predecessors in victory and uni¬
versal monarchy, which was, setting up themselves
for gods, and being idolized; to which some attri¬
bute much of the origin of idolatry. Let Cyrus,
when he is become thus rich and great, renumber
that still he is but a man, and there is no God but
one.
2. That he is Lord of all, and there is nothing
done without him; (v. 7.) I form the light, which
is grateful and pleasing, and I create darkness,
which is grievous and unpleasing, I make peace.
put here for all good, and I create evil, not the evil
of sin, God is not the Author of that, but the evil of
punishment. I the Lord order and direct, and do
all these things. Observe, (1.) The very different
events that befall the children of men; light and
darkness, opposite to each other, and yet, in the
course of providence, sometimes intermixed, like
the morning and evening twilights, neither day nor
night; (Zech. xiv. 6.) a mixture of joys and sor¬
rows in the same cup, allays to each other; some¬
times they are counterchanged, as noonday light
and midnight darkness; in the revolution of every
day each takes its turn, and there are short transi¬
tions from the one to the other; witness Job’s case.
(2.) The self-same cause of both, and that is he
that is the first Cause of all; I the Lord, the Foun¬
tain of all being, am the Fountain of all power. He
who formed the natural light, (Gen. i. 3.) still forms
the providential light; he who at first made peace
among the jarring seeds and principles of nature,
makes peace in the affairs of men; he who allowed
the natural darkness, which was a mere privation,
creates the providential darkness, for concerning
troubles and afflictions he gives positive orders.
Note, The wise God has the ordering and disposing
of all our comforts and all our crosses in this world.
II. How this doctrine is here proved and pub¬
lished :
1. It is proved by that which God did for Cyrus;
"There is no God beside me, for (v. 5.) I girded
thee, though thou hast not known me. It was not
ISAI AH, XLV.
205
thine own idol, which thou didst know and worship,
that girded thee for this expedition, that gave thee
authority and ability for it. No, it was I that gird¬
ed thee, 1 whom thou didst not know, nor seek to.”
By this it appears that the God of Israel is the only
true God, that he manages and makes what use he
pleases, even of those that are strangers to him, and
pav their homage to other gods.
2. It is published to all the world by the word of
G >d, by lus providence, and by the testimony of the
suffering Jews in Babylon, that all may know from
the cast and from the west, sunrise and sunset,
that the Lord is God, and there is none else. The
wonderful deliverance of the Israel of God pro¬
claimed to all the world that there is none like unto
the Got I of Jeshurttn, that rides on the heavens for
their helix.
111. How this doctrine is here improved and ap¬
plied:
1. For the comfort of those that earnestly longed,
and yet quietly waited, for the redemption of Israel;
(v. 8.) Drofx down , ye heavens, from above. Some
take this as the saints’ prayer for the deliverance;
I rather take it as God’s precept concerning it, for
he is said to command deliverances, Ps. xliv. 4.
Now the precept is directed to heaven and earth,
and all the hosts of both, as royal precepts com¬
monly run, To all officers, civil anti military. All
the creatures shall be made in their places to con¬
tribute to the carrying on of this great work, when
God will have it done. If men will not be aiding
and assisting, God will produce it without them, as
he does the dews of heaven, and the grass of the
earth, which tarry not for man, nor wait for the
sons of men, Mic. v. 7. Observe, (1.) The method
of this great deliverance that is to be wrought for
Israel; righteousness must first be wrought in them,
they must be brought to repent of their sins, to re¬
nounce their idolatries, to return to God, and re¬
form their lives, and then the salvation shall be
wrought for them, and not till then. We must not
expect salvation without righteousness, they spring
up together, and together the Lord hath created
them; what he has joined together, let not us there¬
fore put asunder. See Ps. lxxxv. 9. — 11. Christ
died to save us from our sins, not in our sins, and is
made Redemption to us, by being made to us Righ¬
teousness and Sanctification. (2.) The means of this
great deliverance; rather than it shall fail, when the
set time for it is come, the heavens shall drofi down
righteousness, and the earth shall often to bring
forth salvation, and both concur to the reformation,
and so to the restoration of God’s Israel. It is from
heaven, from above the skies, that righteousness
drops down, for every grace and good gift is from
above; nay, since the more plentiful effusion of the
Spirit, it is now poured.down, and if our hearts be
open to receive it, the product will be the fruits cf
righteousness, and the great salvation.
2. For reproof to those of the church’s enemies
that opposed this salvation, or those of her friends,
that despaired of it; (v. 9.) Wo unto him that
strives with his Maker! God is the Maker of all
things, and therefore our Maker, which is a reason
why we should always submit to him, and never
contend with him. (1.) Let not the proud oppres¬
sors, in the elevation of their spirits, oppose God’s
designs concerning the deliverance of his people,
nor think to detain them any longer, when the time
is come for their release. Wo to the insulting Ba¬
bylonians that set God at defiance, as Pharaoh did,
and will not let his people go! (2.) Let not the poor
oppressed, in the dejection of their spirits, murmur
and puarrel with God for the prolonging of their
captivity, as if he dealt unjustly or unkindly with
them, oi- think to force their way before God’s time
ts come Note, Those will find themselves in a
woful condition, that strive with their Maker; for
none ever hardened his heart against G' <1, and pros¬
pered. Sinful man is indeed a qu.unlsome crea¬
ture; but let the fotsherds strive with the fotsherds
of the earth: men are but earthen pots, nay, they
are broken potsherds, and are made so very much
by their mutual c ntc ntions; they arc dashed in
pieces one against another; and if they are disposed
to strive, let them strive with one ; notlier, let them
meddle with their match; but let them not dare to
contend with him that is infinitely above them,
which is as senseless and absurd as, [1.] Fertile
clay to find fault with the potter; Stall the clay say
to him that forms it, “ What makes t thou? Whv
dost thru make me of this shape, and net that?”
Nay, it is as if the clay should be in such heat and
passion with the potter as to tell him that he has no
hands, or that he works as awkwardly as if he had
none. Shall the clay pretend to be wiser than the
potter, and therefore to advise him; or mightier
than the potter, and therefore to control him? He
that gave us being, that gave us this being, may de¬
sign concerning us, and dispose of us, as he pleases;
and it is impudent presumption for us to prescribe to
him. Shall we impeach God’s wisdom, or question
his power, who are ourselves so curiously, so won¬
derfully, made? Shall we say, He has no hands
whose hands made us, and in whose hands we are?
The doctrine cf God’s sovereignty has enough in it
to silence all our discontents and objections against
the methods of his providence and grace, Rom. ix.
20,21. [2.] It is as unnatural as for the child to
find fault with the parents; to say to the father,
What begettest thou? Or to the mother, “ What
hast thou brought forth? Why was I net begotten
and born an angel, exempt from the infirmities of
human nature, and the calamities of human life?”
Must not those who are children of men expect
to share in the common lot, and to fare as others
fare? If God is our Father, where is the honour
we owe to him by submitting to his will?
1 1 . Thus saith the Lord the Holy One
of Israel, and his Maker, Ask me of things
to come concerning my sons ; and concern¬
ing the work of my hands command ye
me. 12. I have made the earth, and created
man upon it : I, even my hands, have
stretched out the heavens, and all their
hosts have I eommanded. 13. I have raised
him up in righteousness, and I will direct all
his ways : he shall build my city, and he shall
let go my captives, not for price nor re¬
ward, saith the Lord of hosts. 14. Thus
saith the Lord, The labour of Egypt, and
merchandise of Ethiopia, and of theSabeans
men of stature, shall come over unto thee
and they shall be thine : they shall come af
ter thee ; in chains they shall come over
and they shall fall down unto thee, they
shall make supplication unto thee, say
ing, Surely God is in thee, and there i:
none else; there is no God. 15. Verily,
thou art. a God that hidest thyself, O God
of Israel, the Saviour. 16. They shall be
ashamed, and also confounded, all of them:
they shall go to confusion together that ore
makers of idols. 17. But Israel shall he
saved in the Lord with an everlasting sa'
206
ISAIAH, XLV.
vation : ye shall not be ashamed nor con¬
founded world without end. 18. For thus
saith the Lord that created the heavens,
God himself that formed the earth and
made it, he hath established it, he created
it not /n vain, he formed it to be inhabited ; I
am theLoRD, and there is none else. 19. I
have not spoken in secret, in a dark place
of the earth : I said not unto the seed of
Jacob, Seek ye me in vain. I the Lord
speak righteousness, I declare things that
are right.
The people of God in captivity, who reconciled
themselves to the will of God in their affliction, and
were content to wait his time for their deliverance,
are here assured that they should not wait in vain.
I. They are invited to inquire concerning the
issue of their troubles, v. 11. The Holy One of
Israel , and his Maker, though he does not allow
them to strive with him, yet encourages them, 1.
To consult his word; “Ask of me things to come;
have recourse to the prophets and their prophecies,
and see what they say concerning these things.
Ask the watchmen. What of the night? Ask them,
How long? Things to come, as far as they are re¬
vealed, belong to us and to our children, and we must
not be strangers to them. 2. To seek unto him by
prayer; “ Concerning my sons, and concerning the
work of my hands, which, as becomes them, sub¬
mit to the will of their Father, the will of their Pot¬
ter, command ye me; not by way of prescription,
but by way of petition. Be earnest in your requests,
and confident in your expectations, as far as both are
guided by, and grounded upon, the promise.” We
may not strive with our Maker by passionate com¬
plaints, but we may wrestle with him by faithful and
fervent prayer. My sons, and the work of my
hands, commend ye to me; so some read it; bring
them to me, and leave them with me. See the
power of prayer, and its prevalency with God;
Thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am; what
would ye that I should do unto you? Some read it
with an interrogation, as carrying on the reproof,
(v. 9, 10.) Do it question me concerning things
Co come? And am I bound to give you an account?
And concerning my children, even concerning the
work of my hands, will you command me, or pre¬
scribe to me? Dare you do so? Shall any teach
God knowledge, or give law to him? Those that
complain of God, do in effect assume an authority
over him.
II. They are encouraged to depend upon the
power of God, when they were brought very low, and
were utterly incapable of helping themselves, v. 12.
Their help stands in the name of the Lord, who
made heaven and earth; which he mentions here,
not only for his own glory, but for their comfort.
The heavens and earth shall contribute, if he
pleases, to the deliverance of the church; (u. 8.)
tor he created both, and therefore has both at com¬
mand. 1. He made the earth, and created man
upon it, for it was intended to be a habitation for
man, Ps. cxv. 16. He has therefore not only au¬
thority, but wisdom, and power, sufficient to govern
man here on this earth, and to make what use he
leases of him. 2. His hands have stretched out the
eavens, and all their hosts he commanded into being
at first, and therefore still governs all their mo¬
tions and influences. It is good news to God’s Israel,
that their God is the Creator and Governor of the
world.
III. They are particularly told what God would
do for them, that they might know what to depend I
upon; and this shall lead them to expect a mote
glorious Redeemer, and redemption, of whom, and
of which, Cyrus, and their deliverance by him, were
types and figures.
1. Liberty shall be proclaimed to them, v. 13.
Cyrus is the man that shall do it; and, in order
hereunto, God will put power into his hands; I have
raised him up in righteousness, in pursuance and
performance of my promises, and to plead my peo¬
ple’s just but injured cause. He will give him suc¬
cess in all his enterprises, particularly that against
Babylon; I will direct alt his ways, and then it fol¬
lows, I will prosper him; for those must needs speed
well that are under a divine direction: and God will
make plain the wav of those whom he designs to
employ for him. Two things Cyrus must do for
Goa: (1.) Jerusalem is God’s city, but it is now in
ruins, and he must rebuild it, he must give orders
for the rebuilding of it, and give wherewithal to do
it. (2. ) Israel is God’s people, but they are now
captives, and he must release them freely and ge¬
nerously; not demanding any ransom, or compound¬
ing with them for price or reward. And Christ is
anointed to do that for poor captive souls, which
Cyrus was to do for the captive Jews, to proclaim
the opening of the prison to them that were bound,
( ch . lxi. 1. ) enlargement from a worse bondage than
that in Babylon.
2. Provision shall be made for them. They went
out poor, and unable to bear the expenses of their re¬
turn and re-establishment; and therefore it is promis¬
ed that the labour of Egypt and other nations should
come over to them, ana be theirs, v. 14. Cyrus,
having conquered those countries, out of their spoils
provided for the returning Jews; and he ordered his
subjects to furnish them with necessaries, (Ezra. i.
4. ) so that they did not go out empty from Babylon
any more than from Egypt. Those that are re¬
deemed by Christ, shall be not only provided for,
but enriched. Those whose spirits God stirs up to .
go to the heavenly Zion, may depend upon him to
bear their charges. The world is theirs as far as is
good for them.
3. Proselytes shall be brought over to them; Men
of stature shall come after thee in chains; they
shall fall down to thee, saying, Surely God is in
thee. This was in part fulfilled when many of the
people of the land became Jews, (Esther viii. 17.)
and said. We will go with you, humbly begging
leave to do so, for we have heard that God is with
you, Zech. viii. 23. The restoration would be a
means of the conviction of many, and the conversion
of some. Perhaps many of the Chaldeans who were
now themselves conquered by Cyrus, when they
saw the Jews going back in triumph, came, and
begged pardon for the affronts and abuses they had
given them, owned that God was among them, and
that he was God alone, and therefore desired to join
themselves to them. But this promise was to have its
full accomplishment in the gospel-church, when
the Gentiles should become obedient by word and
deed to the faith of Christ, (Rom. xv. 18.) as wil¬
ling captives to the church, (Ps. cx. 3.) glad to
wear her chains; when an infidel, beholding the
public worship of Christians, shall own himself con¬
vinced that God is with them of a truth, (1 Cor.
xiv. 24, 25.) and shall assay to join himself to them;
and when those that had been of the synagogue , of
Satan, shall come, and worship before the church’s
feet, and be made to know that God has loved her.
(Rev. iii. 9.) and the kings of the earth and the na
tions shall bring their glory into the gospel-Jerusa
lem, Rev. xxi. 24. Note, it is good to be with
those, though it be in chains, that have God with
them.
IV. They are taught to trust God further than
they can see him. The prophet puts this word inti.
207
ISAIAH, XLV.
their mouths, and goes before them in saying it; (y.
15.) Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself.
1. God hid himself when he brought them into tlie
trouble; hid himself and was wroth, ch. lvii. 1 7.
Note, Though God be his people’s God and Sa¬
viour, yet sometimes, when they provoke him, he
hides himself from them in displeasure, suspends
his favours, and lays them under his frowns: but let
them wait ufwn the Lord that hides his face, ch.
viii. 17. 2. He hid himself when he was bringing
them out of the trouble. Note, When God is acting
as Israel’s God and Saviour, commonly his way is
in the sea, Ps. lxxvii. 19. The salvation of the
church is carried on in a mysterious way, by the
Spirit of the Lord of hosts working on men’s spirits,
(Zech. iv. 6.) by weak and unlikely instruments,
small and accidental occurrences, and not wrought
till the last extremity: but this is our comfort, though
God hide himself, we are sure he is the God of Is¬
rael, the Saviour, Job xxxv. 14.
V. They are instructed to triumph over idolaters
and all the worshippers of other gods; (u. 16.)
They who are makers of idols, not only who frame
them, but who make gods of them by praying to
them, they shall be ashamed and confounded, when
they shall be convinced of their mistakes, and shall
be forced to acknowledge that the God of Israel is
the only true God, and when they shall be disap¬
pointed in their expectations from their idols, under
whose protection they had put themselves. They
shall go to confusion, when they shall find that they
can neither excuse the sin, nor escape the punish¬
ment of it, Ps. xcvii. 7. It is not here and there
one more timorous than the rest that shall thus
shrink, and give up the cause, but all of them; nay,
though they appear in a body, though hand join
in hand, and they do all they can to keep one an¬
other in countenance, yet they shall go to confu¬
sion together: bind them in bundles, to burn them.
VI. They are assured that those who trust in
God, shall never be made ashamed of their confi¬
dence in him, v. 17. Now that God was about to
deliver them out of Babylon, he directed them by
his prophet, 1. To look up to him as the Author of
their salvation; Israel shall be saved in the Lord.
Not only their salvation shall be wrought out by his
power, but it shall be treasured up for them in his
grace and promise, and so secured to them : they
shall be saved in him, for his name shall be their
strong tower, into which they shall run, and in
which they shall be safe. 2. To look beyond this
temporal deliverance, to that which is spiritual,
and has reference to another world; to think of that
salvation by the Messiah, which is an everlasting
salvation, the salvation of the soul, a rescue from
everlasting misery, and a restoration to everlasting
bliss; “ Give diligence to make that sure, for it may
be made sure, so sure, that ye shall not be ashamed
nor confounded world without end. Ye shall not
only be delivered from the everlasting shame and
contempt which will be the portion of idolaters,
(Dan. xii. 2.) but ye shall have everlasting honour
and glorv.” There is a world without end; and it
will be well or ill with us according as it will be with
us in that world. They who are saved with the
everlasting salvation, shall never be ashamed of
what they did, or suffered, in the hopes of it; for it
will so far outdo their expectations, as to be a more
abundant reimbursement. The returning captives
owned that to them did belong confusion of face,
(Dan. ix. 7, 8.) yet God tells them that they shall
not be confounded, but shall have assurance for ever.
They who ave confounded as penitents for their own
sin, shall not be confounded as believers in God’s
promise and power.
VII. They are engaged for ever to cleave to God,
and never to desert him, never to distrust him. What
had been often inculcated before, is here again
repeated, for the encouragement of his people to
continue faithful to him, and to hope that he would
be so to them ; lam the Lord, and there is none else.
That the Lord we serve and trust in is God alone,
appears by the two great lights; that of nature, and
that of revelation.
1. It appears by the light of nature; for he made
the world, and therefore may justly demand its
homage; {v. 18.) “ Thus saith the Lord, that cre¬
ated the heavens, and formed the earth, lam the
Lord; the sovereign Lord of all, and there is none
else.” The gods of the heathen did not do this,
nay, they did not' pretend to do it. He here men¬
tions the creation of the heavens, but t nlarges more
upon that of the earth, because that is the part of the
creation which we have the nearest view of, and
are most conversant with. It is here < bscrved, (1.)
That he formed it: it is not a rude and indigested
chaos, but cast into the most proper shape and size
by infinite wisdom. (2.) That he fixed it. When
he had made it, he established it , founded it on th •
seas, (Ps. xxiv. 2.) hung it on nothing, (Job. xxvi
7.) as at first he made it of nothing, and yet made it
substantial, and hung it fast; Ponderibus librata
suis — Poised by its weight. (3.) That he fitted it
for use, and for the service of man, to whom he
designed to give it. He ere ted it net in vain,
merely to be a proof of hispowei ; but he fi rmed it to
be inhabited by the children of men, and for that
end he drew the waters off it with which it was at
first covered, and made the dry land appear, Ps.
civ. 6, 7. Be it observed here, to the honour of
God’s wisdom, that he made nothing in vain; but
intended every thing for some end, and fitted it to
answer the intention. If any man prove to have
been made in vain, it is his own fault. It should
also be observed, to the honour of God’s goodness
and his favour to man, that he reckoned that not
made in vain, which serves for his use and benefit,
to be a habitation and maintenance for him.
2. It appears by the light of revelation: as the
works of God abundantly prove that he is God
alone, so does his word, and the discovery he has
made of himself and of his mind and will by it.
His oracles far exceed those of the Pagan deities,
as well as his operations, v. 19. The preference
is here placed in three things. All that God has
said, is plain, satisfactory, and just. (1.) In the
manner of the delivery of it, it is plain and open; I
have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the
earth. The Pagan deities delivered their oracles
out of dens and caverns, with a low and hollow
voice, and in ambiguous expressions; those that had
familiar spirits, whispered and muttered; (ch. viii.
19.) but God delivered his law from the top of
mount Sinai, before all the thousands of Israel, in
distinct, audible, and intelligible sounds; Wisdom
cries in the chief places of concourse, Prov. i. 20,
21. viii. 1. — 3. The vision is written, and made
plain, so that he who runs may read it ; if it be obscure
to any, they may thank themselves. Christ plead
ed in his own defence what God says here; In se¬
cret have I said nothing, John xviii. 20. (2.) In (he
use and benefit of it, it was highly satisfactory; I said
not unto the seed of Jacob, who consulted these ora¬
cles and governed themselves by them, Seek ye me
in vain, as the false gods did to their worshippers,
who sought for the living to the dead, ch. viii. 19.
This includes all the gracious answers that God
gave to those who consulted him, his word is to
them a faithful guide; and to those that prayed to him,
the seed of Jacob are a praying people, it is the ge¬
neration of them that seek him, Ps. xxiv. 6. And
as he has in his word invited them to seek him, so
he never denied their believing prayers, nor disap¬
pointed their believing expectations. He said not
208
ISAIAH, XLV.
to them, to any of them, Seek ye me in vain; tor if
he did not think fit to give them the particular thing
they prayed for, yet he gave them grace sufficient,
and’ the comf rt and satisfaction of soul which were
equivalent. What we say of winter, is true of prayer,
It never rots in the skies. God not only gives a
gracious answer to, but will be the bountiful Re-
warder of, those that diligently seek him. (3.) In
the matter of it,, it was incontestably just, and there
was no iniquity in it; I the Lord speak righteous¬
ness, I declare' things that are right, and consonant
to the eternal rules and reasons of good and evil.
The heathen deities dictated those things to their
worshippers, which were the reproach of human
nature, and tended to the extirpation of virtue: but
God speaks righteousness, dictates that which is
right in itself, and tends to make men righteous;
and therefore he is God, and there is none else.
20. Assemble yourselves and come; draw
near together, ye that arc escaped of the
nations: they have no knowledge that set
up the wood of their graven image, and
pray unto a god that cannot save. 21. Tell
ye, and bring them near; yea, let them take
counsel together: who hath declared this
from ancient time? tvho hath told it from
that time? have not I the Lord? and there
is no God else besides me; a just God, and
a Saviour: there is none besides me. 22.
Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the
ends of die earth; for I am God, and there
is none else. 23. 1 have sworn by myself,
the word is gone out of my mouth in righ¬
teousness, and shall not return, That unto
me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall
swear. 24. Surely, shall one say, In the
Lord have I righteousness and strength:
even to him shall men come; and all that
are incensed against him shall be ashamed.
25. In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel
be justified, and shall glory
What is here said is intended, as before,
I. For the conviction of idolaters, to show them
their follv in worshipping gods that cannot help them,
and neglecting a God that can. Let all that are es¬
caped of the nations, not only the people of the
Jews, lhit those of other nations that were by Cyrus
released out of captivity in Babylon, let them come,
and hear what is to be said against their worship¬
ping idols, that they may be cured of it as well as
the Jews; that Babylon, which had of old been the
womb of idolatry, might now become the grave of
it. Let the refugees assemble themselves, and
come together; God has something to say to them
for their own good, and it is this, that idolatry is a
foolish sottish thing, upon two accounts:
1. It is setting up a refuge of lies for themselves.
They set up the wood of their graven image, for that
is the substratum; though they overlay it with gold,
deck it with ornaments, and make a god of it, yet
still it is but wood. They pray to a god that can¬
not save; for he cannot hear, he cannot help, he
can do nothing; how do they disparage themselves,
who give honour to that as a god, which cannot, as
a god, give good to them! How do they deceive
themselves, who pray for relief to that which is in
no capacity at all to relieve them ! Certainly they
have no knowledge, or are brutish in their know- I
ledge, who take so much pains, and do so much I
penance, in seeking the favour of a god that has no
j power.
2. It is setting up a rival with God, the only liv¬
ing and true God; (z>. 21.) “Summon them all,
tell them that the great cause shall again be tried,
though once adjudged, between God and Baal,
bring them near, and let them take counsel together,
wh.it to say in defence of themselves and their idols:
it shall, as before, be put upen this issue; let them
show when any of their gods did with any certainty
foretell future events, as the God of Israel has done,
and it shall be acknowledged that they have some
colour for their pretensions. But none < f tlv. m ever
did; their prophets were lying prophets; but I the
Lord have told it from that time, long before it came
to pass; therefore you must < wn there is no God else
beside me.” (1.) Norie besides is fit to rule; heisa
just God, and rules injustice, and will execute jus¬
tice for those that are oppressed. (2.) None be¬
sides is able to help; as he is a just Gcd, so is he the
Saviour, who can save without the assistance of
any, but without whom none can save. Those
therefore have no sense of truth and falsehood, good
and evil, no, nor of their own interest, that set up
any in competition with him.
II. For the comfort and encouragement of all
God’s faithful worshippers, whoever they are, v.
22. They that worship idols pray to gods that can¬
not save; but the God of Israel says it to all the
ends of the earth, to his people, though they are
scattered into the utmost corners of the world, and
seem to be lost and forgotten in their dispersion;
“ Let them but lock to me by faith and prayer,
look above instruments and second causes, look off
from all pretenders, and look up tome, and they shall
be saved.” It seems to refer further, to the con¬
version of the Gentiles that live in the ends of the
earth; the most distant nations, when the standard
of the gospel is set up; to it shall the Gentiles seek.
When Christ is lifted up firm the earth, as the
brazen serpent upon the pole, he shall draw the
eyes of all men to him; they' shall all be invited to
look unto him, as the stung Israelites did to the
brazen serpent: and so strong is the eye of faith,
that by divine grace it will reach the Saviour, and
fetch in salvation by him even from the ends of the
earth; for he is God, and there is none else.
Two things are here promised, for the abundant
satisfaction of all that by faith look to the Saviour.
1. That the glory of the God they serve shall be
greatly advanced; and this will be good news to all
the Lord’s people, that, how much soever they and
theirnamesare depressed, Godwin beexaltcd, r. 23.
This is confirmed by an oath, that we might have
strong consolation; I have sworn by myself (and
God can swear by no greater, Heb. vi. 13.) the
word is gone out of my mouth, and shall neither be
recalled nor return empty; it is gone forth in righ¬
teousness; for it is the most reasonable, equitable
thing in the world, that he who made all should be
Lord of all; that, since all beings are derived from
him, they should all be devoted to him. He has
said it, aiid it shall be made good, I will be exalted,
Ps. xlvi. 10. He has assured us, (1.) That he will
be universally submitted to, that the kingdoms of
the world shall become his kingdom, they shall do
him homage; Unto me every knee shall bow; and
they shall bind themselves by an oath of allegiance
to him; Unto me every tongue shall swear. This
is applied to the dominion of our Lord Jesus; (Rc-m.
xiv. 10, 11.) JVe shall all stand before the judgment
seat of Christ, and give account to him; for it is
written, Jls I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall
bow to me, and evert/ tongue shall confess to God;
and it seems to be referred to, Ps. ii. 9, 10. If the
heart be brought into obedience to Christ, and made
willing in the day of his power, the knee will bow
ISAIAH, XLVI.
to him in humble adorations and addresses, in a
cheerful obedience to his commands, submission to
his disposals, and compliance with His will in both;
and the tongue will swear to him, will lay a bond
upon the soul to engage it for ever to him; for he
that bears an honest mind, never startles at strong
engagements. (2.) That he will be universally
sought unto, and application shall be made to him
from all parts of the world; Unto him shall men of
distant countries come, to implore his favour; unto
thee shall all Jlesh come, with their requests, Ps.
lxv. 2. And when Christ was lifted up from the
earth, he drew all men to him. (3.) That it shall
be to no purpose to make opposition to him; all that
are incensed against him, that rage at his bonds and
cords, the nations that are angry because he has
taken to himself his great power, and has reigned,
that have been incensed at the strictness of his laws,
the success of his gospel, and the spiritual nature of
his kingdom, they shall be ashamed; some shall be
brought to a penitential shame for it, others to
a remediless min. One way or other, sooner or
later, all that are uneasy at Christ’s government
and victories, will be made ashamedof their folly
and obstinacy. Blessed be God for the assurance
here given us, that, whatever becomes of us and our
interests, the Lord will reign for ever!
2. That the welfare of the souls they are concern¬
ed for, shall be effectually secured; Surely shall
one say, and another shall learn by his example to
say the same, so that all the seed of Israel, accord¬
ing to the Spirit, shall say, and stand to it; (1.)
That God has a sufficiency for them, and that in
Christ there is enough to supply all their needs; In
the Lord is all righteousness and strength; so the
margin reads it; he is himself righteous and strong,
he can do every thing, and yet will do nothing but
what is unquestionably just and equitable: he has
also wherewithal to supply the needs of those that
seek to him, and depend upon him, upon the equity
of his providence and the treasures of his grace;
nay, we may say, not only “ He has it,” but “ In
him, wc have it,” because he has said that he will
be to us a God. In the Lord the captive Jews had
righteousness; grace both to sanctify their afflic¬
tions to them and to qualify them for deliverance,
and strength for their support and escape. In the
Lord Jesus we have righteousness to recommend us
to the good will of God towards us, and strength to
begin and carry on the good work of God in us; he
is the Fountain of both, and on him we must depend
for both, must go forth in his strength, and make
mention of his righteousness, Ps. Ixxi. 16. (2.)
That they shall have an abundant bliss and satisfac¬
tion in this; [1.] The people of the Jews shall in
the Lord be justified before men, and openly glory
in their God. The oppressors reproached them,
loaded them with calumny, and boasted even of a
right to oppress them, as abandoned of their God;
but when God shall work out their deliv erance, that
shall be their justification from these hard censures,
and therefore they shall glory in it. [2.] All true
Christians, that depend upon Christ for strength
and righteousness, in him shall be justified, and
shall glory in that. Observe, First, All believers
are the seed of Israel, an upright, praying seed.
Secondly, The great privilege they enjoy by Jesus
Christ, is, that in him, and for his sake, they are
justified before God, Christ being made of God to
them Righteousness. All that are justified, will
own it is in Christ that they are justified, nor could
they be justified by any other; and those who are
justified shall be glorified. And therefore. Thirdly,
The great duty believers owe to Christ, is, to glory in
him, and to make their boast of him; therefore he
is made all. in all to us, that whoso glories, may glory
in the Lord; and let us comply with this intention.
Vol. iv. — 2D
201'
CHAP. XLVI.
God, by the prophet here, designing shortly to deliver them
out of their captivity, prepares them for that deliverance,
by possessing them with a detestation of idols, and with
a believing confidence in God, even their own God. 1.
Let them not be afraid of the idols of Babylon, as if they
could any way obstruct their deliverance, for they should
be defaced; (v. 1, 2.) but let them trust in that God who
had often delivered them, to do it still, to do it now, v. 3,
4. II. Let them not think to make idols of their own,
images of the God of Israel, by them to worship him, as-
the Babylonians worship their gods, v. 5- -1. Let them
not be sottish, (v. 8. ) but have an eye to God in his word,
not in an image; let them depend upon that, and upor
the promises and predictions of it, and God’s power to
accomplish them all, v. 9.. 11. And let them know that
the unbelief of man shall not make the word of God ol
no effect, v. 12, 13.
I. T9 EL boweth down, Xebo stoopetli;
their idols were upon the beasts,
and upon the cattle: your carriages were
heavy loaden: they are a burden to the
weary beast. 2. They stoop; they bow
down together; they could not deliver the
burden, but themselves are gone into cap¬
tivity. 3. Hearken unto me, O house of
Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of
Israel, which are borne by me from the belly,
which are carried from the womb: 4. And
even to your old age I am he; and even to
hoar hairs will I carry you : I have made,
and I will bear, even I will carry, and will
deliver you.
We are here told,
I. That the false gods will certainly fail their
worshippers, then when they have most need cf
them, v. 1, 2. Bel and Nebo were two celebrated
idols of Babylon; some make Bel to be a contrac¬
tion of Baal, others rather think not, but that it was
Belus, one of their first kings, who, after his death,
was deified. As Bel was a deified prince, so (some
think) Nebo was a deified prophet, for so Nebo sig¬
nifies; so that Bel and Nebo were their Jupiter and
their Mercury, or Apollo. Barnabas and Paul
passed at Lystra for Jupiter and Mercury. The
names of these idols were taken into the names of
their princes; Bel into Belshazzar’s, Nebo into Ne¬
buchadnezzar’s and Nebuzaradan’s, &c. These
gods they had long worshipped, and in their revels
praised them for their successes, (as appears, Dan.
v. 4.) and they insulted over Israel, as if Bel and
Nebo were too hard for Jehovah, and should detain
them in captivity in defiance of their God. Now that
this might be no discouragement to the poor cap¬
tives, God here tells them what shall become of these
idols, which they threaten them with. When Cy¬
rus takes Babylon, down go the idols. It was usual
then with conquerors to destroy the gods of the
places and people they conquered, and to put the
gods of their own nation in the room of them, ch.
xxx vii. 19. Cyrus will do so; and then Bel and
Nebo, that were set up on high, and looked great,
bold, and erect, stoop and bow down at the feet of
the soldiers that plunder their temples. And be¬
cause there is a great deal of gold and silver upon
them, which was intended to adorn them, but serves
to expose them, they carry them away with the rest
of the spoil; the earners’ horses, nr mules, are laden
with them, and their other idols, to be sent, among
other lumber, (for so it seems they accounted them
rather than treasure,) into Persia. So far are they
from being able to support their worshippers, that
they are themselves a heavy load in the waggons,
and a burthen to the weary beast. The idols can-
•210 ISAIAH,
not help one another; (r>. 2.) They stoofi, they bow
down, together, they are all alike, tottering things,
and their day is come to fall; their worshippers
cannot help them; they could not deliver the bur¬
then out of the enemies’ hand, but themselves
(both the idols and the idolaters) are gone into
captivity. Let not therefore God’s people be afraid
of either. When God’s ark was taken prisoner by
the Philistines, it proved a burthen, not to the
beasts, but to the conquerors, who were forced to
return it; but when Bel and Nebo are gone into
captivity, their worshippers may even give their
good word with them, they will never recover
•hemselves.
II. That the true God will never fail his wor¬
shippers; “ You hear what is become of Bel and
Nebo, now hearken to me, O house of Jacob, (z\ 3,
4.) Am I such a god as these? No; though you are
brought low, and the house of Israel is but a rem¬
nant, your God has been, is, and ever will be, your
powerful and faithful Protector.”
1. Let God’s Israel do him the justice to own that
he has hitherto been kind to them, careful of them,
tender over them, and has all along done well for
them. Let them own, (1.) That he bare them at
first; I have made. Out ot what womb came they,
but that of his mercy, and grace, and promise? He
formed them into a people, and gave them their
constitution. Every good man is what God makes
him. (2.) That he bare them up all along; You
have been borne by me from the belly, and carried
from the womb. God began betimes to do them
good, as soon as ever they were formed into a na¬
tion, nay, when as 7et they were very few, and
strangers. God took them under a special protec¬
tion, and suffered no man to do them wrong, Ps. cv.
12. — 14. In the infancy of their state, w hen they
were not only foolish and helpless, as children, but
froward and peevish, God carried them in the
arms of his power and love, bare them as upon
eagles’ wings, Exod. xix. 4. Deut. xxxii. 11. Mo¬
ses had not patience to carry them, as the nursing
father does the sucking child; (Numb. xi. 12.) but
God bare them, and bare their manners. Acts xiii.
18. And as God began early to do them good,
(when Israel was a child, then I loved him,) so he
had constantly continued to do them good; he had
carried them from the womb to this day. And we
may all witness for God that he hasbecn thus gracious
to us; we have been borne by him from the belly,
from the womb, else we had died from the womb,
and given up the ghost when we came out of the
belly; we have been the constant care of his kind
providence, carried in the arms of his power, and
m the bosom of his love and pity. The new man is
so; all that in us that is burn of God, is borne up
by him, else it would soon fail. Our spiritual life
is sustained by his grace as necessarily and con¬
stantly as our natural life by his providence. The
saints have acknowledged that God has carried them
from the womb, and have encouraged themselves
with the consideration of it, in their greatest straits,
Ps. xxii. 9, 10. — lxxi. 5, 6, 17.
2. He will then do them the kindness to promise
that he will never leave them; he that was their
First, will be their Last, that was the Author, will
be the Finisher, of their well-being; (x>. 4.) “You
have been borne by me from the belly, nursed when
you were children; and ex’en to your old age, I am
he, when, by reason of your decays and infirmities,
you will need help as much as in your infancy.”
Israel were now growing old, so was their covenant
by which they were incorporated, Heb. viii. 13.
Gray hairs were here and there upon them, Hos.
vii. 9. And they had hastened their old age, and
the calamities of it, by their irregularities; but God
will not cast them off now, will not fail them w he'll
XLV1.
their strength fails; he is still their God, will still
carry them in the same everlasting arms that were
laid under them in Moses’s time, Deut. xxxiii. 27.
He has made them, and owns his interest in them,
and therefore he will bear, will bear with then in¬
firmities, and bear them up under their afflictions;
“ Even I will carry and will deliver them; I will
now bear them upon eagles’ wings out of Babylon, as
in their infancy I bare them out of Egypt.” This pro¬
mise to aged Israel is applicable to" every aged Is¬
raelite. God has graciously engaged to support
and comfort his faithful servants, even in their old
age. “ Even to your old age, when you grow unfit
for business, when you are compassed with infirmi¬
ties, and perhaps your relations begin to grow weaiy
of you; yet lam he; he that I am; he that I have
been; the very same by whom you have been borne
from the belly, and carried from the womb. You
change, but 1 am the same. 1 am he that I have
promised to be; he that you have found me; he that
you would have me to be. I will carry you, 1 will
bear, will bear you up, and bear you out, and will
carry you on in your way, and carry you home at
last.*’
5. To whom will ye liken me, and make
me equal, and compare me, that we may
he like? 6. They lavish gold out of the hag,
and weigh silver in the balance, and hire a
goldsmith, and he maketh it a god: they fall
down; yea, they worship. 7. They bear
him upon the shoulder, they carry him, and
set him in his place, and he standeth ? from
his place shall he not remove: yea, one shall
cry unto him, yet can he not answer, nor
save him out of his trouble. 8. Remember
this, and show yourselves men; bring it
again to mind, O ye transgressors. 9. Re¬
member the former things of old: for I am
God, and there is none else ; I am God, and
there is none like me ; 1 0. Declaring the
end from the beginning, and from ancient
times the things that are not yet. done, say¬
ing, My counsel shall stand, and I will do
all my pleasure: 11. Calling a ravenous
bird from the east, the man that executeth
my .counsel from a far country : yea, I have
spoken/?, I will also bring it to pass; I have
purposed it, I will also do it. 12. Hearken
unto me, ye stout-hearted, that are far from
righteousness: 13. I bring near my righte¬
ousness ; it shall not be far off, and my sal¬
vation shall not tarry: and I will place sal¬
vation in Zion for Israel my glory.
The deliverance of Israel by the destruction of
Babylon, (the general subject of all these chapters,)
is here insisted upon, and again promised, for the
j conviction both of idolaters who set up rivals with
God, and of oppressors who were enemies to the
people of God.
I. For the conviction of those who made and wor¬
shipped idols, especially those of Israel who did so,
who would have images of their God, as the Baby¬
lonians had of theirs.
1. He challenges them either to frame an image
that should be thought a resemblance of him, or to
set up any being that should stand in competition
\ with him; (v. 5.) To whom will ye liken me 7 It is
ISAIAH, XLV1.
absurd to think < f representing an infinite and eter¬
nal Spirit by the figure of any creature whatsoever;
it is to change his truth into a lie, and to turn his
glory into shame. None ever saw any similitude of
him, nor can see his face, and live. To whom then
can we liken God'/ ch. xl. 18, 25. It is likewise ab¬
surd to think of making any creature equal with the
Creator, who is infinitely above the noblest crea¬
tures, yea, or to make any comparison between the
creature and the Creator, since, between infinite
and finite there is no proportion.
2. He exposes the folly of those who made idols,
and then prayed to them, t'. 6, 7. (1.) They were
at great charge upon their idols, and spared no cost
to fit them for their purpose; They lavish gold out
of the bag; no little will serve, and they do not care
how much goes, though they pinch their families
and weaken their estates by it. How does the pro¬
fuseness of idolaters shame the niggardliness of
many who call themselves God’s servants, but are
for a religion that will cost them nothing! Some
lavish gold out of the bag, to make an idol of it in
the house, while others hoard up gold in the bag,
to make an idol of it in the heart; for covetousness is
idolatry, as dangerous, though not as scandalous, as
the other. They weigh silver in the balance, either to
be the matter of their idol, (for even they that were
most sottish had so much sense as to think that God
should be served with the best they had, the best they
could possibly afford; they that represented him by a
calf, made it a golden one,) or, to pay the workman’s
wages. The service of sin often proves very expen¬
sive. (2.) They were in great care about their
idols, and took no little pains about them; (u. 7. )
They bear him upon their own shoulders, and do not
hire porters to do it; they carry him, and set him in
his place, more like a dead corpse than a living god;
they set him on a pedestal, and he stands; they take
a great deal of pains to fasten him, and from his
place he shall not remove, that they may know
where to find him, though at the same time they
know he can neither move a hand, nor stir a step,
to do them any kindness. (3.) After all, they paid
great respect to their idols, though they were but
the works of their own hands, and the creatures of
their own fancies: when the goldsmith has made it
that which they please to call a god, they fall down,
yea, they worship it. If they magnified themselves
too much in pretending to make a god, as if they
would atone for that, they vilified themselves as
much in prostrating themselves to a god that they
knew the original of. And if they were deceived
by the custom of their country in making such gods
as those, they did no less deceive themselves when
they cried unto them ; though they knew they could
not answer them, could not understand what they said
to them, nor so much as reply Yea, or No, much less
could they save them out of their trouble. Now, shall
any that have some knowledge of, and interest in, the
true and firing God, thus make fools of themselves?
3. He puts it to themselves, and their own rea¬
son; Let that judge in the case; (x>. 8.) “ Remember
this that has been often told you, what senseless
helpless things idols are, and show yourselves men,
men and not brutes, men and not babes; act with
reason, act with resolution, act for your own inter¬
est; do a wise thing, do a brave thing, and scorn to
disparage your own judgment as you do when you
worship idols. ” Note, Sinners would become saints,
if they would but show themselves men, if they
would but support the dignity of their nature, and
use aright its powers and capacities. “ Many things
you have been reminded of; bring them again to
mind, recall them into your memories, and revolve
them there; 0 ye transgressors, consider your ways,
remember whence ye are fallen, and repent, and so
recover yourselves ”
| _ 4. He again produces incontestable proofs that he
J is God, that he, and none besides, is so; (v. 9.) 1
' am God and there is none else, none besides me; 1
am God and there is none like me. This is that
which we have need to be reminded of again and
; again; for proof ef it, he refers,
(1.) To the sacred history; “ Remember the for-
i mer things of old, what the God of Israel did for his
people in their beginnings, whether he did not that
for them, which no one else could, and which the
' talse gods did ix t, nor could do, for their worship¬
pers. Remember these things, and you will own
that lam God and there is none else.” This is a
good reason why we should give glory to him
as a Nonsuch, and why we should not give that
glory to any other, which is due to him alone, Exod.
xv. 11.
(2.) To the sacred prophecy. He is God alone,
for it is he only that declares the end fro m the begin -
ning, v. 10. From the beginning of time he de¬
clared the end of time, the end of all things; Enoch
prophesied, Behold, the Lord comes. From the
beginning of a nation, he declares what the end of
it will be; he told Israel what should befall them in
the latter days, what their end should be, and wished
they were so wise as to consider it, Deut. xxxii.
20, 29. From the beginning of an event he declares
what the end of it will be; known unto God are all
his works, and when he pleases, he makes them
known; further than prophecy guides us it is impos¬
sible for us to find out the work that God makes
from the beginning to the end, Eccl. iii. 11. He
declares from ancient times the things that are not
yet done. Many scripture prophecies which were
declared long ago, are not yet accomplished; but the
accomplishment of some in the mean time is an ear
nest of the accomplishing of the rest in due time.
By this it appears that he is God, and none else; it
is he, and none besides, that can say, and make his
words good, “ My counsel shall stand, and all the
powers of hell and earth cannot control or disannul
it, nor all their policies correct or countermine it.’'
As God’s operations are all according to his coun
sels, so his counsels shall all be fulfilled in his ope
rations, and none of his measures shall be broken,
none of his designs shall miscarry. This yields
abundant satisfaction to those who have bound up
all their comforts in God’s counsels, that his counsel
shall undoubtedly stand; and if we are come to this,
that whatever pleases God pleases us, nothing can
contribute more to make us easy than to be assured
of this, that God will do all his pleasures, Ps.
cxxxv. 6.
The accomplishment of this particular prophecy,
which relates to the elevation of Cyrus, and his
agency in the deliverance of God’s people out of
their captivity, is mentioned for the confirmation
of this truth, that the Lord is God, and there is none
else; and this is a thing that shall shortly come to
pass, v. 11. God by his counsel calls a ravenous bird
from the east, a bird of prey, Cyrus, who, they say,
had a nose like the beak of a hawk or eagle, to
which some think this alludes, or, as others say, to
the eagle which was his standard, as it was afterward
that of the Romans, to which there is supposed to
be a reference, Mattli. xxiv. 28. Cyrus came from
the east at God’s call, for God is Lord of hosts, and
of those that have hosts at command; and if God
gave him a call, he will give him success. He is
the man that shall execute God’s counsel, though
he comes from a far country, and knows nothing of
the matter. Note, Even those that know not, and
mind not, God’s revealed will, are made use of to
fulfil the counsels of his secret will, which shall all
be punctually accomplished in their season by what
hand he pleases. That which is here added, to
ratifv this Darticular me -diction, may abundantly
ISAIAH, XLV11.
show to the heirs of promise the immutability of his
counsel; “ I have spoken it by my serv ants the pro¬
phets, and what I have spoken is just the same with
what 1 have purposed. ” For though God has many
things in his purposes, which are not in his prophe¬
cies, he has nothing in his prophecies but what are
in his purposes; and he will do it, for he will never
change his mind, he will bring it to pass, for it is
not in the power of any creature to control him.
Observe with what majesty he says it, as one having
authority; I have spoken it , I will also bring it to
pass; Dictum factum — .Yo sooner said than done; I j
have purposed it, and he does not say, “ 1 will take !
care it shall be done,” but, “ I will do it. Heaven j
and earth shall pass away sooner than one tittle of j
the word of God. .
II. For the conviction of those that daringly op¬
posed the counsels of God, assurance is here given
not only that they shall be accomplished, but they
shall be accomplished very shortly, v. 12, 13.
This is addressed to the stout-hearted, that is,
either, 1. The proud and obstinate Babylonians,
that are far from righteousness , far from doing
justice, or showing mercy, to those they have
power over; that say they will never let the op¬
pressed go free, but will still detain them in spite of
their petitions or God’s predictions; that are far
from any thing of clemency or compassion to the
miserable; or, 2. The unhumbled Jews, that have
been long under the hammer; long in the furnace,
but are not broken, are not melted, that, like the
unbelieving, murmuring Israelites in the wilderness,
think themselves far from God’s righteousness, from
the performance of his promise, and his appearing
to judge for them, and by their distrusts set them¬
selves at yet a further distance from it, and keep
good things from themselves, as their lathers, who
could not enter into the land of promise because of
unbelief. This is applicable to the Jewish nation
when they rejected the gospel of Christ; though
they followed after the law of righteousness, they
attained not to righteousness , because they sought it
not of faith, Rom. ix. 31, 32. They perished, tar
from righteousness; and it was because they were
stout-hearted, Rom. x. 3.
Now to them God says, that, whatever they think,
the one in presumption, the other in despair, (1.)
Salvation shall be certainly wrought for God s peo¬
ple. If men will not do them justice, God will, and
his righteousness shall effect that for them, which
men’s righteousness would not reach to. He will
place salvation in Zion, he will make Jerusalem a
place of safety and defence to all those who will
plant themselves there; thence shall salvation go
forth for Israel his glory. God glories in his Israel;
and he will be glorified in the salvation he designs
to work out for them; it shall redound greatly to his
honour. This salvation shall be in Zion, for thence
the gospel shall take rise, (c/z. ii. 3.) thither the Re¬
deemer comes, (c/i. lix. 20. Rom. xi. 26. ) and it is
Zion’s King that has salvation, Zech. ix. 9. (2.) It
shall be very shortly wrought; this is especially in¬
sisted on with those who thought it at a distance;
(i I bring near my righteousness, nearer than you
think of, perhaps it is nearest of all when your
straits are greatest, and your enemies most injuri¬
ous; it shall not be far off when there is occasion for
it, Ps. lxxxv. 9. Behold, the Judge stands before
the door. My salvation shall not tarry any longer
than till it is ripe, and you are ready for it; and
therefore though it tarry, wait for it; wait patiently,
tor he that shall come, will come, and will not tai'ry.”
CHAP. XLV1I.
Infinite Wisdom could have ordered things so that Israel
might have been released, and yet Babylon unhurt; but
if they will harden their hearts, and will not let the peo¬
ple go they must thank themselves that their ruin is
made to pave the way to Israel’s release; that ruin is here,
in this chapter, largely foretold, not to gratify a spirit
of revenge in the people of God, who had been used bar¬
barously by them, but to encourage their faith and hope
concerning their own deliverance, and to be a type of the
downfall of that great enemy of the New Testament
church, which, in the Revelation, goes under the name
o {Babylon. In this chapter, we have, 1. The greatness
of the ruin threatened; that Babylon should be brought
down to the dust, and made completely miserable, should
fall from the height of prosperity into the depth of adver¬
sity, v. 1 . . 5. II. The sins that provoked God to bring
this ruin upon them. 1. Their cruelty to the people of
God, v. 6. 2. Their pride and carnal security, v. 7 . .9.
3. Their confidence in themselves, and contempt of God,
v. 10. 4. The use of magic arts, and their dependence
upon enchantments and sorceries, which should be so far
from standing them in any stead, that they should but
hasten their ruin, v. 1 1 . . 15.
1. fTOME down, and sit in the dust, O
vJ virgin daughter of Babylon; sit on
the ground : there is no throne, O daughter
of the Chaldeans : for thou shalt no more
be called tender and delicate. 2. Take the.
millstones, and grind meal: uncover thy
locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh,
pass over the rivers. 3. Thy nakedness
shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be
seen : 1 will take vengeance, and I will not
meet thee as a man. 4. As for our Re¬
deemer, the Lord of hosts is his name, the
Holy One of Israel. 5. Sit thou silent, and
get thee into darkness, O daughter of the
Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be call¬
ed, The lady of kingdoms. 6. I was wroth
with my people ; I have polluted mine in¬
heritance, and given them into thy hand'
thou didst show them no tnercy; upon the
ancient hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke
In these verses God, by the prophet, sends .
messenger even to Babylon, like that of Jonah u
Nineveh; “The time is at hand when Babylon
shall be destroyed.” Fair warning is thus given
her, that she may by repentance prevent the ruin,
and there may be a lengthening other tranquillity.
We may observe here,
1. God’s controversy with Babylon; we will be¬
gin with that, for there all the calamity begins; she
has made God her Enemy, and then who can be¬
friend her? Let her know that the righteous Judge
to whom vengeance belongs, has said, ( v . 3.) I will
lake vengeance. She has provoked God, and shall
be reckoned with for it, when the measure of her
iniquities is full. W o to those on whom God comes
to take vengeance; for who knows the power of his
anger, and what a fearful thing it is to fall into his
hands? Were it a man like ourselves, who would
be revenged on us, we might hope to be a match
for him, either to make our escape from him, or to
make our part good with him. But he says, “ 1
will not meet thee as a man, not with the compas¬
sions of a man, but I will be to thee as a lion, and a
young lion;” (Hos. v. 14.) or, rather, not with the
strength of a man, which is easily resisted, but with
the power of a God, which may not be resisted.
Not with the justice of a man, which may be bribed
or biassed, or mollified by a foolish pity, but with
the justice of a God, which is strict and severe, and
can never be evaded. As in pardoning the peni¬
tent, so in punishing the impenitent, he is Goa, and
not man, Hos. xi. 9.
2. The particular ground of this controversy ; we
are sure that there is cause for it, and it is a just
ISAIAH, XLVII.
cause; it is the vengeance of his temple, (Jer. 1.28.)
it is for violence done to Zion, Jer. li. 35. God will
lead his people’s cause against them. It is ac-
nowledged (r. 6.) that God had, in wrath, deliver¬
ed his people into the hands of the Babylonians, had
made use of them for the correction of his children,
and had by their means polluted his inheritance ;
had left his peculiar people exposed to suffer in
common with the rest of the nations, had suffered
the heathen, who should have been kept at a dis¬
tance, to come into his sanctuary, and dejile his
temple, Ps. lxxix. 1. Herein God was righteous;
but the Babylonians carried the matter too far, and
when they had them in their hands, (triumphing to
see a people that had been so much in reputation
for wisdom, holiness, and honour, brought thus low,)
with a base and servile spirit they trampled upon
them, and showed them no mercy, no, not the com¬
mon instances of humanity, which the miserable
are entitled to purely by their misery. They used
them barbarously, and with an air of contempt, nay,
and of complacency in their calamities. They were
brought under the yoke; but as if that were not
enough, they laid the yoke on very heavily, adding
affliction to the afflicted. Nay, they laid it on the
ancient, the elders in years, who were past their
labour, and must sink under a yoke which those in
their youthful strength would easily bear. The
elders in office, those that had been judges and ma¬
gistrates, and persons of the first rank, took a pride
in putting them to the meanest, hardest drudgery.
Jeremiah laments this, that the faces of elders were
not honoured, Lam. v. 12. Nothing brings a surer
and sorer ruin upon any people than cruelty, es¬
pecially to God’s Israel.
3. The terror of this controversy; she has reason
to tremble when she is told who it is that has this
quarrel with her, v. 4. “ As for our Redeemer,
our Gael, that undertakes to plead our cause as the
Avenger of our blood; he has two names which
speak not only comfort to us, but terror to our ad¬
versaries. ” (1.) “ He is the Lord of hosts, that has
all the creatures at his command, and therefore has
all power both in heaven and in earth.” Wo to
those against whom the Lord fights, for the whole
creation is at war with them. (2. ) “ He is the Holy
One of Israel, a God in covenant with us, who has
his residence among us, and will faithfully perform
all the promises he has made to us.” God’s power
and holiness are engaged against Babylrn, and for
Zion. This may fitly be applied to Christ, our
great Redeemer: he is both Lord of hosts, and the
Holy One of Israel.
4. The consequences of it to Babylon; she is
called a virgin, because so she thought herself,
though she was the mother of harlots; beautiful as
a virgin, and courted by all about her; she had been
called tender and delicate, (v. l.)and the lady of
kingdoms; (v. 5.) but now the case is altered.
(1.) Her honour is gone, and she must bid fare¬
well to all her dignity; she that had sat at the upper
end of the world, sat in state, and sat at ease, must
now come down, and sit in the dust, as very mean,
and a deep mourner, must sit on the ground, for
she shall be so emptied and impoverished, that she
shall not have a seat left her to sit upon.
(2.) Her power is gone, and she must bid farewell
to all her dominion; she shall rule no more as she
has done, nor give law as she has done to her neigh¬
bours; there is no throne, none for thee, O daugh¬
ter of the Chaldeans. Note, Those that abuse their
honour and power, provoke God to deprive them of
it, and to make them come down, and sit in the
dust.
(3.) Her ease and pleasure are gone; she shall no
more be called tender and delicate as she has been,
for she shall not only be deprived of all those things ll
21b
with which she pampered herself, but shall bt put
to hard service, and made to feel both want and
pain, which should be more than doubly grievous to
her, who once would not venture to set so much ns
the sole of her foot to the ground for tenderness and
delicacy, Deut. xxviii. 56. It is our wisdom not to
use ourselves to be tender and delicate, because we
know not how hardly others may use us before we
die, nor what straits we may be reduced to.
(4.) Her liberty is gone, and she is brought into
a state of servitude and as sore a bondage as she in
her prosperity had brought others to. Even the
great men of Babylon must now receive the same
law from the conquerors, that they used to give to
the conquered; “ Take the millstones, and grind
meal, ( v . 2.) set to work, to hard labour,” (like
beating hemp in Bridewell,) “ which will make
thee sweat so that thou must throw off all thy head
dresses, and uncover thy locks.” When they were
driven from one place to another, at the capricious
humours of their masters, they must be forced to
wade up to the middle through the waters; to make
bare the leg, and uncover the thigh, that they might
pass over the rivers, which would be a great morti¬
fication to them that used to ride in state; but let
them not complain, for just thus thev had used their
captives; and with what measure they then meted,
it is now measured to them again. Let those that
have power use it with temper and moderation,
considering that the spoke which is uppermost will
be under.
(5.) All her glory, and all her glorying are gone.
Instead of glory, she has ignominy; (t. 3.) Thy
nakedness shall be uncovered, and thy shame shall
be seen; according to the base and barbarous usage
they commonly gave their captives, to whom, for
covetousness of their clothes, they did not leave rags
sufficient to cover their nakedness; so void were
they of the modesty, as well as of the pity, due to
the human nature. Instead of glorving, she sits
silent, and gets into darkness, (v. 5.) ashamed to
show her face, for she has quite lost her credit, and
shall no more be called the lady of kingdoms. Note,
God can make those sit silent, that used to make
the greatest noise in the world, and send those into
darkness, that used to make the greatest figure.
Let him that glories, therefore, glory in a God that
changes not, and not in any worldly wealth, plea¬
sure, or honour, which are subject to charge.
7. And thou saidst, I shall be a lady for
ever : so that thou didst not lay these /flings
to thy heart, neither didst remember the lat¬
ter end of it. 8. Therefore hear now this
thou that art given to pleasures, that dwell
est carelessly ; that sayest in thine heart, I
am, and none else besides me : I shall not
sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss
of children: 9. But these two things shall
come to thee in a moment, in one day, the
loss of children, and widowhood : they shall
come upon thee in their perfection for the
multitude of thy sorceries, and for the great
abundance of thine enchantments. 10. For
thou hast trusted in thy wickedness : thou
hast said, None seeth me. Thy wisdom
and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee;
and thou hast said in thine heart, I am, arid
none else besides me. 1 1. Therefore shall
evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know
from whence it riseth : and mischief stall
214 ISAIAH
fall upon thee ; thou shalt not be able to
put it off: and desolation shall come upon
thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know.
12. Stand now with thy enchantments,
and with the multitude of thy sorceries,
wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth;
if so be thou shalt be able to profit, if so be
thou mayest prevail. 13. Thou art wearied
ir. the multitude of thy counsels. Let now
the astrologers, the star-gazers, the monthly
prognosticators, stand up and save thee
from these things that shall come upon thee.
14. Behold, they shall be as stubble; the
fire shall burn them ; they shall not deliver
themselves from the power of the flame:
there shall not be a coal to warm at, nor fire
to sit before it. 1 5. Thus shall they be un¬
to thee with whom thou hast laboured, even
thy merchants from thy youth: they shall
wander every one to his quarter; none
shall save thee.
Babylon, now doomed to ruin, is here justly up¬
braided with her pride, luxury, and security, in the
day of her prosperity, and the confidence she had in
her own wisdom and forecast, and particularly in the
prognostications and counsels of the astrologers.
These things are mentioned, both to justify God in
bringing these judgments upon her, and to mortify
her, and to put her to so much the greater shame,
under these judgments; for when God comes forth
to take vengeance, glory belongs to him, but con¬
fusion to the sinner.
I. The Babylonians are here upbraided with their
pride and haughtiness, and the conceit they had of
themselves, because of their wealth and power, and
the vast extent of their dominion; it was the lan¬
guage both of tlie government, and of the body of
the people; Thou sayest in thine heart, (and God,
who searches all hearts, can tell men what they say
there, though they never speak it out,) I am, and
none else beside ?ne, v. 8. 10. The repetition of this
part of the charge intimates that they said it often,
and that it was very offensive to God. It is the very
word that God has often said concerning himself, I
am, and none else beside me; denoting his self-ex¬
istence, his infinite and incomparable perfections,
and his sole supremacy; all this Babylon pretends
to. No wonder if she that assumed a power to
make what gods and goddesses she pleased for the
people to worship, made herself one among the rest.
It is presumption to say of any creature, It is, and
there is not its like, there is none beside it; for crea¬
tures stand nearly upon a level with one another;
but it is insufferable arrogance for any to say so of
themselves, and an evidence of their self-ignorance.
II. They are upbraided with their luxury and
love of ease; ( v . 8.) “ Thou that art given to plea¬
sures, art a slave to them, art in them as in thine
element, and, that thou mayest enjoy them without
disturbance or interruption, dwellest carelessly, and
layest nothing to heart.” Great wealth and plenty
are great temptations to sensuality, and where there
is fulness of bread, there is commonly abundance of
idleness. But if those that are given to pleasures,
and dwell carelessly, would but hear this, that for
all these things God shall bring them into judg¬
ment, it would be a damp to their mirth, an allay to
their pleasure, and would find them something to
■ ie in care about.
III. They are upbraided with their carnal securi-
XLVII.
ty, and their vain confidence of the perpetuity of
their pomps and pleasures. This is much insisted
on here. Observe,
1. 1 he cause of their security. They therefore
thought themselves safe and out of danger, not be¬
cause they were ignorant of the uncertainty of all
earthly enjoyments, and the inevitable fate that at¬
tends states and kingdoms, as well as particular
persons, ljut because they did not lay this to heart,
1 did not apply it to themselves, nor give it a due con¬
sideration. '1 hey lulled themselves asleep in ease
and pleasure, and dreamt of nothing else but that
to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more
abundant. They did not remember the latter end
oj it ; nor the latter end of their prosperity, that it
is a fading flower, and will wither; not the lattei
end of their iniquity, that it will be bitterness, that
the day will come when their injustice and i ppres-
sion must be reckoned for and punished. She did
not remember her latter end; so some read it; she
forgot that her day will come to fall, and what
would be in the end hereof. It was the ruin of Je-
ru salem, (Lam. i. 9. ) that she remembered not her
last end, therefore she came clown wonderfully ; and
it was Babylon’s ruin too. Therefore the children
of men are easy, and think themselves safe, in their
sinful ways, because they never think of death, and
judgment, and their future state.
2. The ground of their security. They trusted
in their wickedness, and in their wisdom, t’. 10.
(1.) Their power and wealth, which they had got¬
ten by fraud and oppression, were their confidence.
Thou hast trusted in thy wickedness, as I)ocg, I’s.
lii. 7. Many have so debauched their own con¬
sciences, and are got to such a pitch of daring wick¬
edness, that they stick at nothing; and this they
trust to, to carry them through those difficulties
which embarrass men who make conscience rf
what they say and do. They doubt not but thev
shall be too hard for all their enemies, because tin y
dare lie, and kill, and forswear themselves, and do
any thing for their interest. Thus they trust in
their wickedness to secure them, which is the only
thing that will ruin them. (2.) Their policy and
craft, which they called their wisdom, were their
confidence. They thought they could outwit all
mankind, and therefore might set all their enemies
at defiance; but their wisdom and knowledge per¬
verted them, and turned them out of the way, made
them forget themselves, and the preparation neces¬
sary to be made for hereafter.
3. The expressions of their security. Three
things this proud and haughty monarchy said, in her
security; (1.) “I shall be a lady for ever.” She
looked upon the patent of her honour to be nc t
merely during the pleasure of the sovereign Lord,
the Fountain of honour, or during her own good
behaviour, but to be perpetual to the present gene¬
ration and their heirs and successors fi r ever; she
is not only proud that she is a lady, but confident
that she shall be a lady for ever. Thus the New
Testament Babylon says, I sit as a queen, and shall
see no sorrow, Rev. xviii. 7. Those ladies mistake
themselves, and consider not their latter end, who
think they shall be ladies for ever, for death will
shortly lay their honour with them in the dust.
Saints shall be saints for ever, but lords and ladies
will not be so for ever. (2.) “I shall not sit as a
widow, in solitude and sorrow, shall never lose the
power and wealth I am thus wedded b , the mo¬
narchy shall never want a monarch to espouse and
protect it, and be a husband to the state; nor shall
I know the loss of children.” She was as confident
of the continuance of the numbers of her people as
of the dignity of her prince, and had no fear of being
either deposed or depopulated. Those that are in
the height of prosperity, are apt to fancy them
215
• , ISAIAH.
selves out of the reach of adverse fate. (3.) “No
one sees me when I do amiss, and therefore there
will be none to call me to an account. ” It is com¬
mon for sinners to promise themselves impunity,
because they promise themselves secrecy, in their
wicked ways. They trust to their wicked arts and de¬
signs to stand them in stead, because they think they
have carried them on so plausibly that none can dis¬
cern the wickedness and deceit of them.
4. The punishment of their security. It shall be
their ruin; and it will be, (1.) A complete ruin, the
ruin of all their comforts and confidences; “ These
two things shall come u/ion thee , (the very two things
that thou didst set at defiance,) loss of children, and
widowhood. Both thy princes and thy people shall
be cut off, so that thou shalt be no more a govern¬
ment, no more a nation.” Note, God often brings
upon secure sinners those very mischiefs which they
least feared, and thought themselves in least dan¬
ger of; “They shall come upon thee in their per¬
fection, with all their aggravating circumstances,
and without any tiling to allay or mitigate them.”
Afflictions to God’s children are not afflictions in
perfection. Widowhood is not to them a calamity
in perfection, for they have this to comfort them¬
selves with, that their Maker is their Husband; loss
of children is not, for he is better to them than ten
sons; but on his enemies they come in perfection.
Widowhood and loss of children are either of them
great griefs, but both together great indeed. Naomi
thinks she may well be called Marah, when she is
left both of her sons and of her husband; (Ruth i. 5.)
and yet on her these ev ils did not come in perfec¬
tion, for she had two daughters-in-law left, that
were comforts to her; but on Babylon they come in
perfection, she has no comfort remaining. (2.) It
shall lie a sudden and surprising ruin. The evil
shall come in one day, nay in a moment, which will
make it much the more terrible, especially to those
that were so very secure. “ Evil shall come u/ion
thee, and thou shalt have neither time nor way to
provide against it, or to prepare for it; for thou shalt
not know whence it rises, and therefore shalt not
know whereto stand upon thy guard.” Thou shalt
not know the morning thereof; so the Hebrew
phrase is. We know just when and where the day
will break, and the sun rise, but we know not what
the day, when it is come, will bring forth, nor when
or where trouble will arise; perhaps the storm may
come from that point of the compass which v*e little
thought of. Babylon pretended to great wisdom
and knowledge, (x». 10.) but with all her knowledge
cannot foresee, nor with all her wisdom prevent,
the ruin threatened; “ Desolation shall come upon
thee suddenly, as a thief in the night, which thou
shalt not know, which thou little thoughtest of.”
Fair warning was indeed given them by this and
other prophets of the Lord, of this desolation; but
they slighted that notice, and would give no credit
to it, and therefore justly is it so ordered, that they
should have no other notice of it, but that, partly
through their own security, and partly through the
swiftness and subtilty of the enemy, when it came it
should be a perfect surprise to them. Those that
slight the warnings of the written word, let them
not expect any other premonition. (3.) It shall be
an irresistible ruin, and such as they should have no
fence against; “ Mischief shall come upon thee so
suddenly, that thou shalt have no time to turn thee
in, so strongly, that thou shalt not be able to make
head against it, and to put it off and save thyself.”
There is no opposing of the judgments of God when
they come with commission. Babylon herself, with
all her wealth, and power, and multitude, is not
able to put off the mischief that comes.
IV. They are upbraided with their divinations,
their magical and astrological arts and sciences,
, XLV1I.
which the Chaldeans, above any other nation, were
notorious for, and from them other nations borrowed
all their learning of that kind.
I. This is here spoken of as one of their provoking
sins, which would bring the judgments of God upon
them, v. 9. These evils shall come upon thee to
punish thee for the multitude of thy sorceries , and
the great abundance of thine enchantments. Witch¬
craft is a sin in its own nature exceeding heinous;
it is giving that honour to the devil, which is due to
God only, making God’s enemy our guide, and the
father of lies our oracle; in Babylon it was a national
sin, and had the protection and countenance of the
government; conjurers, for aught that appears, were
their privv counsellors, and prime ministers of state.
And shall not God visit for these things? Observe
what a multitude, what a great abundance of sor¬
ceries and enchantments there were among them;
such a bewitching sin this was, that, when it was
once admitted, it spread like wildfire, and they
never knew any end of it; the deceived and the de¬
ceivers both increased strangely.
II. It is here spoken of as one of their vain confi¬
dences, which they relied much upon, but should
be deceived in, for it would not serve so much as to
give them notice of the judgments coming, much
less to guard against them.
(1.) They are here upbraided with the mighty
pains they had taken about their sorceries and en¬
chantments; Thou hast laboured in them from thy
youth. They trained up their young men in these
studies, and those that applied themselves to them
were indefatigable in their labours about them;
reading books, making observations, trying experi¬
ments. Well, let them stand up now with their
enchantments, and try their skill in the critical
moment. Let them make a stand, if they can, in
opposition to the invading enemy, let them stand to
oiler their service to their country; but to what pur¬
pose? “ Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy
counsels of this kind, thou hast advised with them
all, but hast received no satisfaction from them; the
different schemes they have erected, and the dif¬
ferent judgments they have given, have but increas¬
ed thy perplexity, and tired thee out.” In the
multitude of such counsellors there is no safety.
(2.) They are upbraided with the variety they
had of such kind of people among them, v. 13.
They had their astrologers, or viewers of the hea¬
vens, that did not consider them, as l)a\id, to be¬
hold the wisdom and power of God in them, but,
under pretence of foretelling future events by them,
they viewed the heavens, and forgot him that made
them, and set their dominion on the earth, (Job.
xxxviii. 33.) and has himself dominion over them,
for he rides on the heavens. They had their star¬
gazers, who, by the motions of the stars, their con¬
junctions and oppositions, read the doom of states
and kingdoms; they had their monthly prognostica¬
tors, their almanack-makers, that told what wea¬
ther it should be, or what news they should have
each month. The great stock they had of these,
was what they valued themselves much upon; but
they were all cheats, and their art a sham. 1 con¬
fess, I see not how the judicial astrology which some
now pretend to, by the rules of which they under¬
take to prophesy concerning things to come, can be
distinguished from that of the Chaldeans, and there¬
fore how it can escape the censure and contempt
which this text lays that under; yet I fear there are
some who study their almanacks, and regard them
and their prognostications, more than their Bibles
and the prophecies there.
(3.) They are upbraided with the utter inability
and insufficiency of all these pretenders to do them
any kindness in the day of their distress. Let them
see whether with the help of their enchantments
216 ISAIAH,
they can prevail against their enemies, or profit
themselves, inspirit their own forces, or dispirit
tnose that came against them, v. 12. Let them
see what service those can do them, who make a
trade of divination; “ Let them stand up, and either
by their power save thee from these evils that are
coming upon thee, or by their foresight make such
a discovery of them beforehand, that thou mayest
by needful" precautions save thyself;” as Elisha, by
notifying to the king of Israel the motions of the
Syrian army, enabled him to save himself not once
nor twice, 2 Kings vi. 10. This baffling of the di¬
viners was literally fulfilled, when, the night that
Babylon was taken, and Belshazzar slain, all his
astrologers, soothsayers, and wise men, were quite
nonplused with the handwriting on the wall, that
pronounced the fatal sentence, Dan. v. 8.
(4.) They are upbraided with the fall of the wise
men themselves in the common ruin, v. 14. They
are unlikely to stand their friends in any stead, who
cannot secure themselves; they are as stubble at
the best, worthless and useless, and they shall be
as stubble before a consuming fire. The Persians,
to make room for their own wise men, will cut off
those of Babylon, that fire shall burn them, and
they shall not deliver themselves from the flower of
the fame. They can expect no other than to be
devuured, who by their sins make themselves fuel to
a devouring fire. When God kindles a fire among
them, it shall not be a coal to warm at, and a fire
to sit before, but a coal to burn them. Or, rather,
it denotes that they shall be utterly consumed by
the judgments of God, burnt quite to ashes, anil
there shall not remain one live coal to do any body
any service; for when God judges, he will overcome.
Lastly, They are upbraided with their mer¬
chants, and those they dealt with, ( v . 15. ) such as
they dealt with from their youth, either, [1.] In a
way of consultation; these astrologers that dealt in
the black art, they always loved to be dealing with,
and they were in effect their merchants; fortune¬
telling was one of the best trades in Babylon, and
those that followed that trade, probably lived as
such, and got as much money as the richest mer¬
chants; yet, when some of them were devoured,
others fled their country, every one to his quarter,
and there was none to save Babylon. Miserable
comforters are they all. Or, [2.] In a way of com¬
merce. As their astrologers, with whom they had
laboured, failed them, so did their merchants; they
took care to secure their own effects, and then
valued not what became of Babylon. They wan¬
dered every one to his own quarter, each man shift¬
ed for his own safety, but none would offer to lend
an helping hand, no not to a city by which they had
got so much money. Every one was for himself,
but few for his friends. The New Testament
Babylon is lamented by the merchants that were
made rich by her, but they very prudently stand
afar off to lament her, (Rev. xviii. 15.) not willing
to attempt any thing for her succour. Happy they
who by faith "and prayer deal with one that will be
a very present Help in time of trouble!
CHAP. XLVJII.
God having, in the foregoing chapter, reckoned with the
Babylonians, and showed them their sins? and the deso¬
lation that was coming upon them for their sins, to show
that he hates sin wherever he finds it, and will not con¬
nive at it in his own people, comes, in this chapter, to
show the house of Jacob their sins, but, withal, the mercy
God had in store for them notwithstanding; and he
therefore sets their sins in order before them, that by
their repentance and reformation they might be prepared
for that mercy. I. He charges them with hypocrisy in
that which is good, and obstinacy in that which is evil,
especially in their idolatry, notwithstanding the many
convincing proofs God had given them, that he is God
alone, v. 1 . .8. II. He assures them that their deliver-
XLV1I1.
ance would be wrought purely for tne sake of God's own
name, and not for any merit of theirs, v. 9.. 11. III.
He encourages them to depend purely upon God’s power
and promise for this deliverance, v. 12. .15. IV. He
show's them that as it was by their own sin that they
brought themselves into captivity, so it would be only
by the grace of God that they would obtain the necessary
preparatives for their enlargement, v. 16.. 19. V. He
proclaims their release, yet with a proviso that the
wicked shall have no benefit by it, v. 20 . . 22.
1. TJTEAR ye this, O house of Jacob,
XI which are called by the name of Is¬
rael, and are come forth out of the waters
of Judah; which swear by the name of the
Lord, and make mention of the God of
Israel, but not in truth nor in righteousness.
2. For they call themselves of the holy city,
and stay themselves upon the God of Israel ;
The Lord of hosts is his name. 3. I have
declared the former things from the begin¬
ning ; and they went forth out of my mouth,
and I shewed them; I did them suddenly,
and they came to pass. 4. Because I knew
that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an
iron sinew, and thy brow brass ; 5. I have
even from the beginning declared it to thee ;
before it came to pass I shewed it thee:
lest thou shouldesl say, Mine idol hath done
them ; and my graven image, and my mol¬
ten image, hath commanded them. 6. Thou
hast heard, see all this; and will not ye de¬
clare?’// I have shewed thee new things
from this time, even hidden things, and thou
| didst not know them. 7. They are created
now, and not from the beginning ; even be¬
fore the day when thou heardest them not ;
lest thou shouldest say, Behold, I knew
them. 8. Yea, thou heardest not ; yea, thou
knewest not; yea, from that time that thine
ear was not opened : for I knew that thou
wouldest deal very treacherously, and wast
called a transgressor from the womb.
We may observe here,
I. The hypocritical profession which many of the
Jews made of religion and relation to God; to those
who made such a profession, the prophet is here
ordered to apply himself for their conviction and
humiliation, that they might own God’s justice in
what he had brought upon tnem.
Now observe here,
1. How high their profession of religion soared,
what a fair show they made in the flesh, and how
far they went toward heaven, what a good livery
they wore, and what a good face they put upon a
very bad heart. (1.) They were the house of Jacob,
they had a place and a name in the visible church,
Jacob have I loved, Jacob is God’s chosen, and they
are not only retainers to his family, but descendants
from him." (2.) They were called by the name oj
Israel, an honourable name; they were of that peo
pie to whom peitained both the giving of the law,
and the promises. Israel signifies a prince with
God; the people prided themselves in being of that
princely race. (3.) They came forth out of the
waters of Judah, and thence were called Jews ;
they were of the royal tribe, the tribe of which
Shiloh was to come, the tribe that adhered to God
when the rest revolted. (4.) They swarc by 'be
ISAIAH, XLVII1. 217
ri'ne of the Lord, and thereby owned him to be the
true God, and their God, and" gave glory to him as
the righteous Judge of all. i'hey sware to the
name of tae Lord; (so it may be read;) they took an
oath of allegiance to him as their King, and joined
themselves to him in covenant. (5.) They made
mention of the God of Israel in their prayers and
praises; they often spake of him, observed his me¬
morials, and pretended to be very mindful of him.
(6.) They called themselves of the holy city, and,
when they were captives in Babylon, purely from a
principle of honour, and jealously for their native
country, they valued themselves upon their interest
in it. Many, who are themselves unholy, are proud
of their relation to the church, the holy city. (7.)
They stayed themselves u/ion the God oj Israel,
and boasted of his promises, and his covenant with
them; they leaned on the Lord, Mic. iii. 11. And
if they were asked concerning their God, they could
say, “ The Lord of hosts is his name, the Lord of
all;” happy we therefore, and very great, who have
relation to him!
2. How low their profession of religion sunk, for
all this. It was all in vain, for it was all a jest, it
was not in truth and righteousness. Their hearts
were not true nor right in these professions. Note,
All our religious professions avail nothing further
than they are made in truth and righteousness. If
we be not sincere in them, we do but take the name
of the Lord our God in vain.
II. The means God used, and the method he
took, to keep them close to himself, and to prevent
their turning aside to idolatry. The many excellent
laws he gave them, with their sanctions, and the
hedges about them, it seems, would not serve to re¬
strain them from that sin which did most easily be¬
set them, and therefore to those God added remark¬
able prophecies, and remarkable providences in
pursuance of those prophecies, which were all de¬
signed to convince them that their God was the only
true God, and that it was therefore both their duty
and interest to adhere to him.
1. He both dignified and favoured them with re¬
markable prophecies; ( v . 3.) / have declared the
former things from the beginning. Nothing ma¬
terial happened to their nation from its original,
which was not prophesied of before — their bondage
in Egypt, their deliverance thence, the situation of
their tribes in Canaan, 8cc. All these things went
forth out of God’s mouth, and he showed them.
Herein they were honoured above any nation, and
even their curiosity gratified — their prophecies were
such as they could rely upon, and such as concerned
themselves and their own nation; and they were all
verified by the accomplishment of them; “ I did
them suddenly, when they were least expected by
themselves or others, and therefore could not be
foreseen by any but a divine prescience; I did them
suddenly, and they came to pass;” for what God
does he does effectually. The very calamities they
were now groaning under in Babylon, God did from
the beginning declare to them by Moses; as the cer¬
tain consequences of their apostacy from God, Lev.
xxvi. 31, &c. Deut. xxviii. 36, &c. — xxix. 28. He
also declared to them their return to God, and to
their own land again, Deut. xxx. 4, &c. Lev. xxvi.
44, 45. Thus he showed them how he would deal
with them long before it came to pass. Let them
compare their present state together with the de¬
liverance they had now in prospect with what was
written in the law, and they would find the scrip¬
ture exactly fulfilled.
2. He both dignified and favoured them with re¬
markable providences; (v. 6.) I have showed thee
new things from this time. Beside the general view
given from the beginning of God’s proceedings with
them, he showed them new things by the prophets of
Vol. IV. — 2 Fa
their own day, and created them; they were hidden
things which they could not otherwise know, as the
prophecy concerning Cyrus, and the exact time of
their release out of Babylon; these things Gcd cre¬
ated new. Their restoration was in effect their
creation, and they had a promise of it nut from ’he
beginning, but of late, for, to prevent their apostacy
from God, or to recover them, prophecy was kept
up among them. Yet it was told them when they
could not come to the knowledge of it any other way
than by divine revelation; “Consider,” (says God,)
“ how much soever it is talked of now among you,
and expected, it was told you by the prophets, when
it was the furthest tiling in your thoughts, when
you had not heard it, when you had not known it,
nor had any reason to expect it, and when your ear
was not opened concerning it, (n. 7, 8.) when the
thing seemed utterly impossible, and you would
scarcely hat e given any one the hearing, who should
have told you of it.” God had showed them hidden
things which were out of the reach of their know¬
ledge, and done for them great things, out of the
reach of their power; “Now,” says he, ( v . 6.)
“ thou hast heard; see all this. Thou hast heard
the prophecy; see the accomplishment of it, and
observe whether the word and works of God do not
exactly agree; and will ye not declare it, that as
you have heard, so you have seen? Will you not
own that the Lord is the true God, the only true
God, that he has the knowledge and power which
no creature has, and which none of the gods of the
nations can pretend to? Will you not own that your
God has been a good God to you? Declare this, to his
honour, and vour own shame, who have dealt so de¬
ceitfully with him, and preferred others before him. ”
III. The reasons why God would take this me¬
thod with them.
1. Because he would anticipate their boastings of
themselves and their idols. (1.) God by his pro¬
phets told them beforehand of their deliverance,
lest they should attribute the doing of it to their
idols. Thus he saw it necessary to secure the
glory of that to himself, which otherwise would
have been given by some of them to their graven
images; “I spake of it,” (says God,) “ lest thou
shouldest say, Mine idol has done it, or has com¬
manded it to be done,” v. 5. There were those that
would be apt to say so, and so would be confirmed
in their idolatry by that which was intended to cure
them of it. But they would now be for ever pre¬
cluded from saying this; far if the idols had none it,
the prophets of the idols would have foretold it; but
the prophets of the Lord having foretold it, it was
no doubt the pow.er of the Lord that effected it.
(2. ) God foretold it by his prophets, lest they should
assume the foresight of it to themselves. Those
that were not so profane as to have ascribed the
thing itself to an idol, were yet so proud as to have
pretended that by their own sagacity they foresaw
it, if God had not been beforehand with them and
spoken first; Lest thou shouldest say, Behold, 1
knew them. Thus vain men, who would be thought
wise, commonly undervalue a thing which is really
great and surprising, with this suggestion, that it was
no more than they expected, and they knew it would
come to this. To anticipate this, and that this boast¬
ing might for ever be excluded, God told them of it
before the day, when as yet they dreamed not of it.
God has said and done enough to prevent men’s
boastings of themselves, and that no Jlesh may glory
in his presence, which, if it have not the intended
effect, will aggravate the sin and ruin of the proud;
and, sooner or later, every mouth shall be stopped,
and all Jlesh shall become silent before God.
3. Because he would leave them inexcusable in
their obstinacy. Therefore he took this pains with
them, because he knew they were obstinate, v. 4.
218 ISAIAH,
He knew they were so obstinate and perverse, that
if he had not supported the doctrine of providence
by prophecy, they would have had the impudence
to deny it, ana would have said, that their idol had
done that which God did. He knew very well, (1.)
How wilful they would be, and how fully bent they
would be upon that which is evil; I knew that thou
toast hard; so the word is. There were prophecies
as well as precepts, which God gave them because
of the hardness of their hearts; “Thy neck is an
iron sinew, unapt to yield, and submit to the yoke
of God’s commandments, unapt to turn, and look
back upon his dealings with thee, or look up to his
displeasure against thee; not flexible to the will of
God, nor pliable to his intentions, not manageable
by his word or providence. Thy brow is brass; thou
art impudent, and canst not blush; insolent, and wilt
not fear or give back, but will thrust on in the way
of thine heart.” God uses means to bring sinners
to comply with him, though he knows they are ob¬
stinate. (2.) How deceitful they would be, and in¬
sincere in that which is good, v. 8. God sent his
prophets to them, but they did not hear, they would
lot know, and it was no more than was expected,
considering what they had been; Thou wast called,
and not miscalled, a transgressor from the womb.
Ever since they were first formed into a people,
they were prone to idolatry; they brought with
them out of Egypt a strange addictedness to that
sin; and they were murmurers as soon as ever they
began their march to Canaan. They were justly
upbraided with it then, Deut. ix. 7, 24. Therefore
I knew that thou wouldest deal very treacherously.
God foresaw their apostacy, and gave this reason
for it, that he had always found them false and
fickle, Deut. xxxi. 16, 27, 29. This is applicable
to particular persons; we are all bom children of
disobedience, we were called transgressors from
the womb, and therefore it is easy to foresee that we
will deal treacherously, very treacherously. Where
original sin is, actual sin will follow of course. God
knows it, and yet deals not with us according to our
deserts.
9. For my name’s sake will I defer mine
anger, and for my praise will I refrain for
thee, that I cut thee not off. 1 0. Beholch I
have refined thee, but not with silveiyf I
have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.
1 1 . F or mine own sake, even for mine own
sake, will I do it: for how should my name
be polluted ? and T will not give my glory
unto another. 12. Hearken unto me, O
Jacob and Israel, my called ; I am he: I am
the first, I also am the last. 13. My hand
also hath laid the foundation of the earth,
and my right hand hath spanned the hea¬
vens: when I call unto them, they stand up
together. 14. All ye, assemble yourselves,
and hear; which among them hath declared
these things ? The Lord hath loved him;
he will do his pleasure on Babylon, and his
arm shall be on the Chaldeans. 15. I, even
I, have spoken; yea, I have called him; I
have brought him, and he shall make his
way prosperous.
The deliverance of God’s people out of their cap¬
tivity in Babvlon was a thing upon many accounts
so improbable, that there was need of line upon line
for the encouragement of the faith and hope of G d’s
people concerning it. T wo things were discouraging
XL VIII.
to them ; their own unworthiness that God should do
it for them, and the many difficulties in the thing
itself; now, in these verses, both these discourage¬
ments are removed, for here is,
I. A reason why God would do it for them, though
they were unworthy; not for their sake, be it known
to them, but for his name's sake, for his own sake
v. 9.— 11.
1. It is true, they had been very provoking, and
God had been justly angry with them — their cap¬
tivity was the punishment of their iniquity ; and if,
when he had them in Babylon, he had left them to
pine away and perish there, and made the desol.i
tions of their country perpetual, he had but dealt
with them according to their sins, and it was what
such a sinful people might expect from an angry
God. “But,” says God, “I will defer mine an¬
ger ,” (or, rather, stifle and suflflress it,) “I will
make it appear that I am slow to wrath, and will
refrain from thee, not pour upon thee what I justly
might, that I should cut thee off from being a peo¬
ple.” And why will God thus stay his hand? Tor
my name's sake; because this people was called bv
his name, and made profession of his name, and, if
they were cut off, the enemies would blaspheme his
name. It is for my flraise; because it would re¬
dound to the honour of his mercy, to spare and
reprieve them, and if he continued them to be to
him a people, they might be to him for a name and
a praise.
2. It is true, they were very corrupt and ill-dis¬
posed, but God would himself refine them, and
make them fit for the mercy he intended for them;
“I have refined thee, that thou mightest be made
a vessel of honour.” Though he does not find tlu m
meet for his favour, he will make them so. And
this accounts for his bringing them into the trouble ,
and continuing them in it so long as he did; it was
not to cut them off, but to do them good; it was to
refine them, but not as silver, or with silver, not so
thoroughly as men refine their silver, which they
continue in the furnace till all the dross is separat d
from it; if God should take that ccurse with them,
they should be always in the furnace, for they are
all dross, and, as such, might justly be put awav,
(Ps. cxix. 119.) as reprobate silver, Jer. vi. 30. He
therefore takes them as they are, refined in part
only, and not thoroughly. “I have chosen thee in the
furnace of affliction, I have made thee a choice one
by the good which the affliction has done thee, and
then designed thee for great things.” Many have
been brought home to God as chosen vessels, and a
a good work of grace been begun in them, in the
furnace of affliction. Affliction is no bar to God’s
choice, but subservient to his purpose.
3. It is true, they could not pretend to merit at
God’s hand so great a favour as their deliverance
out of Babylon, which would put such an honour
upon them, and bring them so much joy; There¬
fore, says God, For mine own sake, even for mine
own sake, will I do it, v. 11. See how the empha¬
sis is laid upon that, for it is a reason that cannot
fail, and therefore the resolution grounded upon it
cannot fall to the ground. God will do it, not be¬
cause he owes them such a favour, but to save the
honour of his own name, that that may not be pol¬
luted by the insolent triumphs of the heathen, who,
in triumphing over Israel, thought they triumphed
over the God of Israel, and imagined their gods too
hard for him. This was plainlv the language of
Belshazzar’s revels, when he profaned the holy ves¬
sels of God’s temple at the same time when he
praised his idols, (Dan. v. 2.) and of the Babyloni¬
ans’ demand, (Ps. cxxxvii. 3.) Sing us one of the
songs of Zior. G^d will therefore deliver his peo¬
ple, because he will iv t suffer his glory to be thus
given to another. Mcsts pleaded this often with
ISAIAH
God, Lord, what will the Egyptians say? Note,
God is jealous for the honour of his own name, and
will not suffer the wrath of man to proceed any fur¬
ther than he will make it turn to his praise. And it
is matter of comfort to God’s people, that, whatever
comes of them, God will secure his own honour;
and, as far as is necessary to that, God will work
deliverance for them.
II. Here is a proof that God could do it for them,
though they were unable to help themselves, and
the thing seemed altogether impracticable. Let
Jacob and Israel hearken to this, and believe it, and
take the comfort of it. They are God’s called, call¬
ed according to his purpose, called by him out of
Egypt, (Hos. xi. 1.) and now out of Babylon, a peo¬
ple whom with a distinguishing favour lie calls by
name, and calls to; they are his called, for they are
called to him, called bv his name, and called his:
and therefore he will look after them; and they may
be assured that as he will deliver them for his own
sake, so he will deliver them by his own strength;
they need not fear then, for,
1. He is God alone, and the eternal God; (v. 12. )
“ lam he, who can do what I will, and will do what
is best; he whom none can compare with, much
less contend with; 1 am the First, I also am the
Last.” Who can be too quick for him that is the
First, or prevent him? Who can be too hard for
him that is the Last, and will keep the field against
all opposers, and will reign till they are all made
his footstool? What room then is left to doubt of
their deliverance, when he undertakes it, whose de¬
signs cannot but be well laid, for he is the First; and
well executed, for he is the Last: as for this God,
his work is perfect.
2. He is the God that made the world, and he
that did that can do any thing, v. 13. Look we
down? We see the earth firm under us, and feel it
so, it was his hand that laid out the foundation of it.
Look we up? We see the heavens spread out as a
canopy over our heads, and it was his hand that
spread them, that spanned them, that stretched
them out, and did it by an exact measure, as the
workman sometimes metes out his work by spans.
This intimates that God has a vast reach, and can
compass designs of the greatest extent. If the palm
of his right hand (so the margin reads it) has gone
so far as to stretch out the heavens, what will he do
with his outstretched arm? Yet this is not all; he
has not only made the heavens and the earth, and
therefore he in whom our hope and help is, is omni¬
potent, (Ps. cxxiv. 8.) but he has the command of
all the hosts of both; when he calls them into his
service, to go on his errand, they stand up together,
thev come at the call, they answer to their names;
“ Here we are, what wilt thou have us to do?”
They stand up, not only in reverence to their Cre¬
ator, but in a readiness to execute his orders; they
stand up together unanimously, concurring, and help¬
ing one another in the service of their Maker. If
God therefore will deliver his people, he cannot be
at a loss for instruments to be employed in it.
3. He has already foretold it, and, having infinite
knowledge, so that he foresaw it, no doubt he has
almighty power to effect it; “All ye of the house
of Jacob, assemble yourselves, and hear this for
your comfort, Which among them, among the gods
of the heathen, or their wise men, has declared
these things, or could declare them?” v. 14. They
had no foresight of them at all, but those who con¬
sulted them were very confident that Babylon should
be a lady for ever, and Israel a perpetual slave; and
their oracles did not give them the least hint to the
contrary, to undeceive them; whereas God by his
prophets had given notice to the Jews, long before,
"f their captivity, and the destruction of Jerusalem;
i s he had now likewise given them notice of their
xlviii. 2io
release; (v. 15.) I, even I, have spoken; and he
would not have spoken it, if he could not have made
it good: none could outsee him, and therefore we
may be sure that none could outdo him.
4. The person is pitched upon, who is to be em¬
ployed in this service, and the measures are con¬
certed in the divine counsels, which are unalterable.
Cyrus is the man who must do it; and it tends much
to strengthen our assurance that a thing shall be
done, when we are particularly informed how and
by whom. It is not left at uncertainty who shall do
it, but the matter is fixed: (1.) It is one whom God
is well pleased in, upon this account, because he is
designed for this service; The Lord has loved him;
(v. 14.) he has done him this favour, this lu nour to
make him an instrument of the redemption of his
people, and therein a type of the great Redeemer,
God’s beloved Son, in whom he was well pleased.
Those God does a great kindness to, and has a great
kindness for, whom he makes serviceable to his
church. (2. ) It is one whom God will give authority
and commission to; I have called him, have given
him a sufficient warrant, and therefore will bear
him out. (3.) It is one whom God will by a series
of providences lead to this service; “ I have brought
him from a far country, brought him to engage
against Babylon, brought him step by step, quite
beyond his own intentions.” Whom God calls he
will bring, will cause them to come, (so the word is,)
to come at the call. (4.) It is one whom God will
own, and give success to. Cyrus will do God’s
pleasure on Babylon, that which it is his pleasure
should be done, and which he will be pleased with
the doing of, though Cyrus has ends of his own to
serve, and has no regard either to the will of God,
or to his favour, in the doing of it. His arm, Cy¬
rus’s army, and in it God’s arm, shall come, and be
upon the Chaldeans, to bring them down; (v. 14.)
for if God call him, and bring him, he will certainly
make his way prosperous, v. 15. Then we may
hope to prosper in our way, when we follow a di¬
vine call and guidance.
16. Come ye near unto me, hear ye this;
I have not spoken in secret horn the begin¬
ning; from the time that it was, there am I:
and now the Lord God and his Spirit hath
sent me. 17. Thus saith the Lord, thy
Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel ; I am the
Lord thy God which teacheth thee to pro¬
fit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou
shouldest go. 1 8. O that thou hadst heark¬
ened to my commandments ! then had thy
peace been as a river, and thy righteousness
as the waves of the sea; 19. Thv seed also
had been as the sand, and the offspring of
thy bowels like the gravel thereof ; his name
should not have been cut off nor destroyed
from before me. 20. Go ye forth of Baby¬
lon, flee ye from the Chaldeans, with a voice
of singing declare ye, tell this, utter it even
to the end of the earth ; say ye, The Lord
hath redeemed his servant Jacob. 21. And
they thirsted not when he led them through
the deserts : he caused the waters to flow
out of the rock for them; he clave the rock
also, and the waters gushed out. 22. Then
is no peace, saith the Lor d, unto the w icked
Here, as before, Jacob and Israel are summoned
to hearken to the prophet speaking in God’s name
22C ISAIAH, XLVII1.
or rather to God speaking in and by the prophet,
and that as a type of the great Prophet by whom
God has in these last days spoken unto us, and that
is sufficient; Come ye near therefore, ancl hear this.
Note, Those that would hear and understand what
God says, must come near, and approach to him;
let them come as near as they can; let those that
have hearkened to the tempter, now come near,
and hear this, that thev may be confirmed in their
resolutions to serve God. Those that draw nigh to
God may depend upon this, that his secret shall be
with them. Here,
I. God refers them to what he had both said to
them, and done for them, formerly, which if they
would reflect upon, they might thence fetch great
encouragement to trust in God at this time. 1. He
had always spoken plainly to them, from the be¬
ginning, by Moses and all the prophets; I have not
s/:olcen in secret, but publicly, from the top of mount
Sinai, and in the chief places of concourse, the so¬
lemn assemblies of their tribes; he did not deliver
his oracles obscurely and ambiguously, but so that
they might be understood, Hab. ii. 2. 2. He had
always acted wonderfully for them; From the ti?ne
that they were first formed into a people, there am
I, there have I been resident among them, and pre¬
siding in their affairs. He sent them prophets,
raised them up judges, and frequently appeared for
them. And therefore there 1 will be still. He
that has been with his people hitherto, will be to
the end.
II. The prophet himself, as a type of the great
Prophet, asserts his own commission to deliver this
message; Now the Lord God (the same that spake
from the beginning, and did not speak in secret,)
has by his S/iirit sent me, v. 16. 1 he Spirit of God
is here spoken of as a person distinct from the Fa¬
ther and the Son, and having a divine authority to
send prophets. Note, Whom God sends the Spirit
sends. Those whom God commissions for any ser¬
vice, the Spirit in some measure qualifies for it: and
those may speak boldly, and must be heard obe¬
diently, whom God and his Spirit send. As that
which the prophet says to the same purport with
this ( ch . lxi. 1.) is applied to Christ, (Luke iv. 21.)
so may this be; the Lord God sent him, and he 'had
the Spirit without measure.
III. God by the prophet sends them a gracious
message for their support and comfort under their
affliction. The preface to this message is both
awful and encouraging; (v. 17.) Thus saith Jeho¬
vah, the eternal God thy Redeemer, that has often
been so, that has engaged to be so, and will be faith¬
ful to the engagement, for he is the Holy One, that
cannot deceive, the Holy One of Israel, that will
not deceive them. The same words that introduce
the law, and gave authority to that, introduce the
promise, and gave validity to that; “ I am the Lord
thy God, whom thou mayest depend upon as in re¬
lation to thee, and in covenant with thee.”
1. Here is the good work which God undertakes
to fulfil in them; he that is their Redeemer, in order
to that, will be, (1.) Their Instructor; “ lam thy
God that teaches thee to profit, teaches thee such
things as are profitable for thee, things that belong
to thy peace.” By this God shows himself to be a
God in covenant with us, by his teaching us; (Hcb.
viii. 10, 11.) and none teaches like him, for he gives
an understanding. Whom God redeems, he teaches;
whom he designs to deliver out of their afflictions,
he first teaches to profit by their afflictions, makes
them partakers of his holiness; for that is the / irojit
for which he chastens us, Hcb. xii. 10. (2.) Their
Guide; he leads them to the way, and in the way by
which they should go; he not only enlightens their
eyes, but directs their steps; by his grace he leads
then in the way of duty, by his providence he leads
them in the way of deliverance. Happy they that
are under such a guidance !
2. Here is the good will which God declares he
had for them, by his good wishes concerning them,
v. 18, 19. He had indeed brought them into cap¬
tivity, but it was their own fault, nor did he afflict
them willingly. (1.) As when he gave them his
law, he earnestly wished they might be obedient,
(O that there were such a heart in them! Deut. v.
29. O that they were wise! Deut. xxxii. 29. ) so,
when he had punished them for the breach of his
law, he wished they had been obedient; O that thou
hadst hearkened to my commandments! O that my
people had hearkened unto me! Ps. Ixxxi. 13.
This confirms what God has said and sworn, that he
has no pleasure in the death of sinners. (2.) He as¬
sures them that if they had been obedient, that would
not only have prevented their captiv ity, but would
have advanced and perpetuated their prosperity.
He had abundance of good things ready to bestow
upon them, if their sins had not turned them away,
ch. lix. 1, 2. [1.] They should have been carried
on in a constant uninterrupted stream of prosperity;
“ Thy peace should have been as a river, theu
shouldst have enjoyed a series of mercies, one con¬
tinually following another, as the waters of a river,
which always last;” Labitur, et labetur in omne
volubilis avum — It flows, and will for ever flow;
not like the waters of a land-llood, which are scon
gone. [2.]] Their v irtue and honour, and the jus¬
tice of their cause, should in all cases have borne
down opposition by their own strength, as the waves
of the sea; such should their righteousness have
been, nothing should have stood before it; whereas
now they have been disobedient, the current of their
prosperity was interrupted, and their righteousm ss
overpowered. [3.] The rising generation should
have been very numerous, and very prosperous,
whereas they were now very few, as appears by the
small number of the returning captives, (Ezra ii.
64.) not so many as of one tribe when they came cut
of Egypt; they should have been numberless as the
sand, according to the promise (Gen. xxii. 17.)
which they had forfeited the benefit of; “ The off¬
spring of thy bowels had been innumerable, like the
gravel of the sea, if thy righteousness had been irre¬
sistible and unconquerable as the waves of the sea.”
[4.] The honour of Israel had still been unstained,
untouched; His name should not have been cut off ,
as now it is in the land of Israel, which is either
desolate, or inhabited by strangers; nor should it
have been destroyed from before God. We cannot
reckon the name either of a family or of a kingdom
destroyed, till it is destroyed from before God, till
it ceases to be a name in his holy place. Now G< d
tells them thus wh.it he would have done for fht m,
if they had persevered in their obedience; First,
That they might be the more humbled for their
sins, by which they had forfeited such rich mercies.
Note, This shoulcl engage us, I might say, enrage
us, against sin, that it has not only deprived us of
the good things we have enjoyed, but prevented the
good things God had in store for us. It will make
the misery of the disobedient the more intolerable,
to think how happy they might have been. Se
condly. That his mercy might appear the more il
lustrious in working deliverance and salvation foi
them, though they had forfeited it, and rendered
themselves unworthy of it. Nothing but a prero¬
gative of mercy would have saved them.
3. Here is assurance given of the great work
which God designed to work for them, even their
salvation out of their captivity, when he had accom
plished his work in them.
(1.) Here is a commission granted them to leave
Babylon; God proclaimed it long before Cvras did,
I that whoever would, might return to his own land.
221
ISAIAH, XLIX.
( v . 20.) “ You have a full discharge sent you, go ye
forth out of Babylon ; the prison-doors are thrown
open, and the trumpet sounds, proclaiming a re¬
lease. ” Perhaps, with this word, as a means, the
Spirit of the Lord stirred up the spirits of those that
did take the benefit of Cyrus’s proclamation; (Ezra
i. 5.) Flee ye from the Chaldeans, not with an ig¬
nominious, stolen flight, as Jacob fled from Laban,
but with a holy disdain, as scorning to stay any
longer among them; flee ye, not silently and sorrow¬
fully, but with a voice, with a voice of singing, as
they fled of old out of Egypt, Exod. xv. 1.
(2.) Here is the news of this sent to all parts;
“ Let it be declared, let it be told, let it be uttered,
make it to be heard by the most remote, by the most
remiss, send the tidings of it by word of mouth, send
it by writing from city to city, from kingdom to
kingdom, even to the utmost regions, to the ends of
the earth.” This was a figure of the publishing of
the gospel to all the world; but thatabrings glad ti¬
dings which all the world is concerned in, this only
that which it is fit all should take notice of, that
they may be invited by it to forsake their idols, and
come into the service of the God of Israel. Let
them all know then,
[1.] That those whom God owns for his are such
as he has dearly bought and paid for; The Lord has
redeemed his servant Jacob; he has done it formerly,
when he brought them out of Egypt, and now he is
about to do it again. Jacob was God’s servant, and
therefore he redeemed him ; for what had other mas¬
ters to do with God’s servants? Israel is God’s son,
therefore Pharaoh must let him go. God redeem¬
ed Jacob, and therefore it was fit that he should be
his servant; (Ps. cxvi. 16.) the bonds God had
loosed, tied them the faster to him. He that re¬
deemed us has an unquestionable right to us.
[2. ] That those whom God designs to bring home
to himself, he will take care of, that they want not
for the necessary expenses of their journey. When
he brought them out of Egy/it, and led them
through the deserts, [y. 21.) they thirsted not, (y.
21.) tor in all their removes the water out of the
rock followed them; thence he caused the waters to
flow, and since rock- water is the clearest and finest,
God clave the rock, and the waters gushed out; for
he can fetch in necessary supplies for his people the
way that they think least likely. This refers to
what he did for them when he brought them out of
Egypt; when all this was literally true. But it
should not be in effect done again, in their return
out of Babylon, so well provided for shall they and
theirs be in their return. God does his work as ef¬
fectually by marvellous providences as by miracles,
though perhaps they be not so much taken notice of.
This is applicable to those treasures of grace laid
up for us in Jesus Christ, from which all good flows
to us as the water did to Israel out of the rock, for
that Rock is Christ.
(3.) Here is a caveat put in against the wicked
who go on still in their trespasses; Let not them
think to have any benefit among God’s people,
though in show and profession they herd themselves
among them ; let them not expect to come in sharers;
no, (v. 22.) though God’s thoughts concerning the
body of that people were thoughts of peace, yet to
those among them that were ’wicked , and hated to
be reformed, there is no peace, no peace with God
or their own consciences, no, no real good, what¬
ever is pretended to. What have they to do with
peace, who are enemies to God? Their false pro¬
phets cried Peace to them to whom it did not be¬
long; but God tells them that there shall be no
peace, nor any thing like it, to the wicked. The
quarrel sinners have commenced with God, if not
taken up in time i>y repentance, will be an ever¬
lasting quarrel.
CHAP. XLIX.
! Glorious things had been spoken in the chapters before,
concerning the deliverance of the Jews out of Babylon:
but lest any should think, when it was accomplished,
that it looked much greater and brighter in the prophecy
than in the performance, and that the return of about
40,000 Jews in a poor condition out of Babylon to Jeru¬
salem, was not an event sufficiently answering to the
height and grandeur of the expressions used in the pro¬
phecy, he here comes to show that the prophecy had a
further intention, and was to have its full accomplish¬
ment in a redemption that should as far outdo these ex¬
pressions as the other seemed to come short of themj
even the redemption of the world by Jesus Christ, of
whom not only Cyrus, who was God’s servant in work¬
ing the Jews’ deliverance, but Isaiah too, who was God’s
servant in foretelling it, was a type. In this chapter, we
have, 1. The designation of Christ, under the type of
Isaiah, to his office as Mediator, v. I.. 3. II. The assu¬
rance given him of the success of his undertaking among
the Gentiles, v. 3. . 8. 111. The redemption thalshould
be wrought by him, and the progress of that redemption,
v. 9. . . 12. IV. The encouragement given hence to the
afflicted church, v. 13.. 17. V. The addition of many
to it, and the setting up of a church among the Gentiles,
v. 18.. 23. VI. A ratification of the prophecy of the
Jews’ release out of Babylon, which was to be the figure
and type of all these blessings, v. 24 . . 26. If this chap¬
ter be rightly understood, we shall see ourselves to be
more concerned in the prophecies relating to the Jews’
deliverance out of Babylon than we thought we were.
1.TT ISTEN, O isles, unto me; and
1 A hearken, ye people, from far ; The
Lord hath called me from the womb; from
the bowels of my mother hath he made
mention of my name. 2. And he hath made
my mouth like a sharp sword ; in the shadow
of his hand hath he hid me, and made me a
polished shaft; in his quiver hath he hid me
3. And said unto me, Thou art my servant
O Israel, in whom I will be glorified. 4.
Then I said, I have laboured in vain, I have
spent my strength for nought, and in vain
yet surely my judgment is with the Lord
and my work with my God. 5. And now
saith the Lord that formed me from th<
womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again
to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet
shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord,
and my God shall be my strength. 6. And
he said, It is a light thing that thou should-
est be my servant, to raise up the tribes of
Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel ,
I will also give thee for a light to the Gen¬
tiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto
the end of the earth.
Here,
I. An auditory is summoned together, and atten¬
tion demanded. The sermon in the chapter before
was directed to the house of Jacob and the peo¬
ple of Israel, v. 1, 12. But this is directed to the
isles, the Gentiles, for they are called the isles of
the Gentiles, (Gen. x. 5.) and to the people from
far, that were strangers to the commonwealth of
Israel, and afar off. Let these listen (7'. 1.) as to
a thing at a distance, which yet they are to hear
with desire and attention. Note, 1. The tidings of
a Redeemer are sent to the Gentiles, and to those
that lay most remote; and they are concerned to
listen to them. 2. The Gentiles listened to the gos¬
pel, when the Jews were deaf to it.
II. The great Author and Publisher of tl • rc-
222
ISAIAH
demption produces his authority from heaven for
the work he had undertaken. 1. God had ap¬
pointed him, and set him apart tor it; The Lord
has called vie from the womb to this office, and
made mention of my name , nominated me to be
the Saviour: by an angel he called him Jesus— a Sa-
viour, who should save his people from their sins,
Matth. i. 21. Nay, from the womb of the divine
counsels, before all worlds, he was called to this
service, and help was laid upon him; and he came
at the call, for he said, Lo, I come, with an eye to
what was written of him in the volume of the book.
This was said of some of the prophets, as types of
him, Jer. i. 5. Paul was separated to the apostleship
from his mother’s womb, Gal. i. 15. 2. God had
fitted and qualified him for the service to which he
designed him; he made his mouth like a sharp
sword, and made him like a polished shaft, or a
bright arrow; furnished him with every tiling ne¬
cessary to fight God’s battles against the powers of
darkness, to conquer Satan, and reduce God’s re¬
volted subjects to their allegiance, by his word, that
is, the two-eged sword (Heb. iv. 12.) which comes
out of his mouth, Rev. xix. 15. The convictions of
the word are the arrows that shall be sharp in the
hearts of sinners, Ps. xlv. 5. 3. God had prefer¬
red him to the service tor which he had reserved
him; He has hid me in the shadow of his hand
and in his quiver, which denotes, (1.) Concealment:
the gospel of Christ, and the calling in ot the Gen¬
tiles by it, were long hidden from ages and genera¬
tions, hidden in God, (Eph. iii. 5. Rom. xvi. 25.)
hidden in the shadow of the ceremonial law, and
the Old Testament types. (2.) Protection: the
house of David was the particular care ot the Di¬
vine Providence, because that blessing was in it.
Christ in his infancy was sheltered from the rage
of Herod. 4. God had owned him; had said unto
him, “ Thou art my Servant, whom 1 have em¬
ployed, and will cause to succeed; thou art Israel in
effect, the Prince with God, that hast wrestled and
prevailed; and in thee I will be glorified.” The peo¬
ple of God are Israel, and they are all gathered to¬
gether, and summed up, as it were, in Christ, the
great Representative of all Israel, as the High
Priest who had the names of all the tribes on his
breastplate; and in him God is, and will be, glori¬
fied; so he said by a voice from heaven, John xii. 27,
28. Some read the words in two clauses, Thou art
my servant, (so Christ is, ch. xlii. 1.) It is Israel in
whom I will be glorified by thee; it is the spritual
Israel, the elect, in the salvation of whom by Jesus
Christ God will be glorified, and his free grace for
ever admired.
III. He is assured of the good success of his un¬
dertaking; for whom God calls, he will prosper.
And as to this,
1. He objects the discouragement he had met
with at his first setting out; (y. 4.) “ Then I said,
with a sad heart, I have laboured in vain; those
that were ignorant, and careless, and strangers to
God, are so still; I have called and they have
refused, I have stretched out my hands to a gainsay¬
ing people.” This was Isaiah’s complaint, but it
was no more than he was bid to expect, ch. vi. 9.
The same was a temptation to Jeremiah to resolve
he would labour no more, Jer. xx. 9. It is the
complaint of many a faithful minister, that has not
•offered, but laboured, not spared, but spent, his
strength, and himself with it, and yet, as to many,
it is all in vain, and for naught, they will not be pre¬
vailed with to repent and believe. But here it seems
,o point at the obstinacy of the Jews, among whom
Christ went in person, preaching the gospel of the
kingdom, laboured, and spent his strength, and yet
the rulers and the body of the nation rejected him
and his doctrine; so very few were brought in,
, XLIX.
when one would have thought none should have
stood out, that he might well say, “ I have labour¬
ed in vain, preached so many sermons, wrought so
many miracles, in vain.” Let not the ministers
think it strange that they are slighted, when the
Master himself was.
2. He comforts himself under this discouragement
with this consideration, that it was the cause of God
in which he was engaged, and the call of God that
engaged him in it; Yet surely my judgment is with
the Lord, who is the Judge of all, and my work with
my Gocl, whose servant 1 am. His comfort is, and it
may be the comfort of all faithful ministers, when
they see little success of their labours, (1.) That,
however it be, it is a righteous cause that they are
pleading; they are witli God, and for God, they are
on his side, and workers together with him. They
like not their judgment, the rule they go by, nor
their work, the business they are employed in, ever
the worse for this; the unbelief of men gives them
no cause to suspect the truth of their doctrine, Rem.
iii. 3. (2.) That their management of this cause, nd
their prosecution of this work, were known to God,
and they could appeal to him concerning their iin-
cerity, and that it was not through any neglect of
theirs that they laboured in vain; “He knows the
way that I take ; my judgmentis with the Lord, to de¬
termine whether 1 have not delivered my soul, and
left the blood of them that perish on their own heads.”
(3.) Though the labour be in vain as to those that
were laboured with, yet not as to the labourer himself,
if he be faithful: his judgmentis with the Lord, who
will justify him, and bear him out, though men con¬
demn him, and run him down; and his work, the re¬
ward of his work, is with his God, who will take care
he shall be no loser, no, not by his lost labour. (4. )
Though the judgment be not yet brought forth unto
victory, nor the work to perfection, yet both are with
the Lord, to carry them on, and give them success,
according to his puqiose, in his own way and time.
3. He receives from God a further answer to this
objection, v. 5, 6. He knew very well that God had
set him on work, had formed him from the womb
to be his servant, had not only called him so early
to it, (y. 1. ) but begun so early to fit him for it,
and dispose him to it. Those whom God designs to
employ as his servants, he is fashioning and prepar¬
ing to be so long before, when perhaps neither
themselves nor others are aware of it; it is he that
forms the spirit of man within him. Christ was to
be his Servant, to bring Jacob again to him, that
had treacherously departed from him; the seed of
Jacob, therefore, according to the flesh, must first
be dealt with, and means used to bring them back,
Christ, and the word of salvation by him, are sent
to them first, nay, Christ comes in person to them
only, to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But
what if Jacob will not be brought back to God, and
Israel will not be gathered? So it proved; but this
is a satisfaction in that case.
(1.) Christ will be glorious in the eyes of the
Lord; and those are truly glorious, that are so in
God’s eyes. Though few of the Jewish nation
were converted by Christ’s preaching and miracles,
and many of them loaded him with ignominy and dis¬
grace, yet God put honour upon him, and made
him glorious, at his baptism, and in his transfigu¬
ration, spake to him from heaven, sent angels to
minister to him, made even his shameful death glo¬
rious by the many prodigies that attended it, much
more his resurrection. In his sufferings, God was
his Strength, so that though he met witli all the
discouragement imaginable, by the contempts of
a people whom he had done so much to oblige, yet
he did not fail, nor was discoursed. An angel was
sent from heaven to strengthen him, Luke xxii. 43.
I Faithful ministers, though they see not the fruit cf
223
ISAIAH
their labours, shall vet be accepted of God, and in
that they shall be truly glorious, for his favour is
our honour; and they shall be assisted to proceed
and persevere in their labours notwithstanding. This
weakens their hands, but their God will be their
Strength.
(2.) The gospel shall be glorious in the eyes of
the world; though it be not so in the eyes of the
Jews, yet it shall be entertained by the nations, ( v . 6. )
The Messiah seemed as if he had been primarily de¬
signed to bring Jacob bach, v. 5. But be is here told
that it is comparatively but a small matter; a higher
orb of honour than that, and a larger sphere of use¬
fulness, are designed him; “It is a light thing that
thou shouldest be my Servant-, to raise up the tribes
of Jacob to the dignity and dominion they expect
by the Messiah, and to restore the preserved of Is¬
rael, and m, ike them a flourishing church and state
as formerly;” (nay, considering what a little handful
of people they are, it would be but a small matter, in
comparison, for the Messiah to be the Saviour of
them only;) “and therefore, I will give thee for a
Light to the Gentiles, many great and mighty na¬
tions by the gospel of Christ shall be brought to the
knowledge and worship of the true God, that thou
mayest be my Salvation, the Author of that salva¬
tion which I have designed for lost man, and this
to the end of the earth, to nations at the greatest
distance.” Hence Simeon learned to call Christ a
Light to lighten the Gentiles; (Luke ii. 32.) and St.
Paul’s exposition of this text is what we ought to
abide bv, and it serves for a key to the context,
Acts xiiii. 47. Therefore, says he, we turn to the
Gentiles, to preach the gospel to them, because so
has the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee
to be a light to the Gentiles. In this, the Redeemer
was truly glorious, though Israel was not gathered;
the setting up of his kingdom in the Gentile world
was more bis honour, than if he had raised up all
the tribes of Jacob. This promise is in part fulfilled
already, and will have a further accomplishment if
that time be yet to come, which the apostle speaks of
when the fulness of the Gentiles shall tie brought in.
Observe, God calls it his salvation, which some think
intimates how well pleased he was with it, how he
gloried in it, and (if I may so say) how much his
heart was upon it. They further observe, that
Christ is given for a Light to all those to whom he
is given for salvation. It is in darkness that men
perish; Christ enlightens men’s eyes, and so makes
diem holy and happy.
7. Thus saith the Lord, the Redeemer
of Israel, and his Holy One, to him whom
man despiseth, to him whom the nation ab-
horreth, to a servant of rulers, Kings shall
see and arise, princes also shall worship,
because of the Lord that is faithful, and
the Holy One of Israel, and he shall choose
thee. 8. Thus saith the Lord, in an ac¬
ceptable time have I heard thee, and in a
day of salvation have I helped thee : and I
will preserve thee, and give thee for a cove¬
nant of the people, to establish the earth, to
cause to inherit the desolate heritages : 9.
That thou mayest say to the prisoners, Go
forth ; to them that are in darkness, Shew
yourselves: they shall feed in the ways, and
their pastures shall be in all high places. 10.
They shall not hunger nor thirst ; neither
shall the heat nor sun smite them; for he
that hath mercy on them shall lead them,
, XLIX.
even by the springs of water shall he guide
them. 11. And 1 will make all my moun¬
tains a way, and my highways shall be
exalted. 12. Behold, these shall come
from far; and, lo, those from the north and
from the west; and these from the land of
Sinim.
In these verses, we have,
I. The humiliation and exaltation of the Mes¬
siah. ; (p. 7. ) The Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, and
Israel’s Holy One, who had always taken care of
the Jewish church, and wrought out for them those
deliverances that were typical of the great salva¬
tion, speaks here to him who was the Undertaker of
that salvation. And, 1. He takes notice of his hu¬
miliation, the instances of which were uncommon,
nav, unparalleled. He was one whom man despised;
(i ch . liii. 3.) he is despised and rejected of men. To
be despised by so mean a creature, (man, who is him¬
self a worm,) bespeaks the lowest and most con¬
temptible condition imaginable. Man, whom he
came to save, and to put honour upon, yet despised
him, and put contempt upon him; so wretchedly un¬
grateful were his persecutors. The igm minv he
underwent was not the least of his sufferings: they
not only made him despicable, but odious; he was
one whom the nation abhorred; they treated him as
the worst of men, and cried out, Crucify him, cru¬
cify him. The nation did it, the Gentiles as well
as Jews, and the Jews herein worse than Gentiles;
for his cross was to the one a stumbling-block, and to
the other foolishness. He was a servant of rulers, he
was trampled upon, abused, scourged, and crucified
as a slave. Pilate boasted of his power over him,
John xix. 10. This he submitted to for our salva¬
tion. 2. He promises him his exaltation. Honour
was done him, even in the depth of his humiliation.
Herod the king stood in awe of him, saying, It is
John the Baptist; noblemen, rulers, centurions,
came and kneeled to him; but this was more fully
accomplished when kings received his gospel, and
submitted to his yoke, and joined in the worship of
him, and called themselves the vassals of Christ.
Not that Christ values the rich more than the poor,
(they stand upon a level with him,) but it is for the
honour of his kingdom among men, when the
great ones of the earth appear for him, and do ho¬
mage to him. This shall be the accomplishment of
God’s promise, that he will give him the heathen for
his inheritance, and therefore it shall be done, be¬
cause of the Lord, who is faithful and true to his
promise; and it shall be an evidence that Christ
had a commission for what he did, and that God
had chosen him, and would own the choice he bad
made.
II. The blessings he has in store for all those to
whom he is made salvation.
1. God will own and stand by him in his under¬
taking; (i/. 8.) In an acceptable time have I heard
thee, that is, 1 will hear thee. Christ, in the days
of his flesh, offered up strong cries, and was heard,
Heb. v. 7. He knew that the Father heard him
always, (John xi. 42.) heard him for himself, (for
though the cup might not pass from him, yet he was
enabled to drink it,) heard him for all that are his,
and therefore he interceded for them as one hav¬
ing authority, Father, I will, John xvii. 24. All
our happiness results from the Son’s interest in the
Father, and the prevalency of his intercession, that
be always heard him; and this makes the gospel¬
time an acceptable time, welcome to us, because we
are accepted of God, both reconciled and recom¬
mended to him, that God hears the Redeemer for
us, Heb. vii. 25. Nor will he hear him only, but
help him to go through with his undertaking. The
224
ISAIAH, XLIX.
father was always with him at his right hand, and
did nut leave him when his disciples did. Violent
attacks were made upon our Lord Jesus by the
powers of darkness, when it was their hour to h ive
driven him off from his undertakings, but God pro¬
mises to preserve him, and enable him toperseyerein
it; on that one stone were seven eyes, Zech. iii. 9.
God would preserve him, would preserve his in¬
terest; his kingdom among men, though fought
against on all sides. Christ is preserved while
Christianity is.
2. God will authorize him to apply to lus church
the benefits of the redemption he is to work out.
God’s preserving and helping him was to make the
day of his gospel a day of salvation. And so the
apostle understands it; Behold, now is the day of
salvation, now the word of reconciliation by Christ
is preached, 2 Cor. vi. 2.
(1.) He shall be a Guarantee of the treaty of
peace between God and man; I will give thee for a
covenant of the fieofde. This we had before, {ch.
xlii. 6. ) and it is here repeated as faithful, and well
worthy of all acceptation and observation. He is
given for a covenant, for a pledge of all the bless¬
ings of the covenant; it was in him that God was
reconciling the world to himself and he that spared j
not his own Son, will deny us nothing. He is given ]
for a Covenant, not only 'as he is the Mediator of
the covenant, the blessed Days-man who has laid j
his hand ufion us both, but as he is all in all in the j
covenant. All the duty of the covenant is summed j
up in our being his; and all the privilege and hap¬
piness of the covenant are summed up in his being
ours.
(2.) He shall repair the decays of the church,
and build it upon a rock. He shall establish the
earth, or rather, the land, the land of Judah, a type
of the church; he shall cause the desolate heritages
to be inherited; so the cities of Judah were after the
return out of captivity, and so the church, which in
the last and degenerate ages of the Jewish nation
had been as a country- laid waste, but was again re¬
plenished by the fruits of the preaching of the
gospel.
(3.) He shall free the souls of men from the bon¬
dage of guilt and corruption, and bring them into
the glorious liberty of God’s children. He shall say
to the prisoners that were bound over to the justice
of God, and bound under the power of Satan, (lo
forth, v. 9. Pardoning mercy is a release from the
curse of the law, and renewing grace is a release
from the dominion of sin; both are from Christ, and
are branches of the great salvation; it is he that
says, Go forth; it is the Son that makes us free,
and then we are free indeed. He saith to them that
are in darkness. Show yourselves: “Not only see
but be seen, to the glory of God, and your own com¬
fort.” When he discharged the lepers from their
confinement, he said. Go show yourselves to the
priest; when we see the light, let our light shine.
(4.1 He shall provide for the comfortable passage
of those whom he sets at liberty, to the place of
their rest and happy settlement, v. 9. — 11. These
verses refer to the provision made for the Jews’ re¬
turn out of their captivity, who were taken under
the particular care of the Divine Providence, as fa¬
vourites of heaven, and new so in a special manner;
but it is applicable to that guidance of divine grace,
which all God’s spiritual Israel are under, from
their release out of bondage to their settlement in
the heavenly Canaan. [1.] They shall have their
charges borne, and shall be fed at free cost with
food convenient; They shall feed on the ways, as
sheep; for now, as formerly, God leads Joseph like
a flock. When God pleases, even highway ground
shall be good ground for the sheep of his pastille to
teed in. Their pastures shall be not only in the val¬
leys, but in all high places, which are commonly dry
and barren. Wherever God brings his people, he will
take care they shall want nothing that is good tor
them, Ps. xxxiv. 10. And sowell shall they be pro¬
vided for, that the)- shall not hunger nor thirst, foi
what they need they shall have seasonably, before
their need of it comes to any extremity. [2.] They
shall be sheltered and protected from every tiling
that would incommode them; JYeither shall the heat
nor sun smite them, for God causes his Jlock to rest at
noon. Cant. i. 7. No evil thing shall befall those that
put themselves under a divine protection; they shall
be enabled to bear the burthen and heat of the day.
[3.] They shall be under God’s gracious guidance;
He that has mercy on- them, in bringing them out
of their captivity, shall lead them, as he did their
fathers in the wilderness, by a pillar of cloud and
fire; Even by springs of water, which will be ready
to them in their march, shall he guide them. God
will furnish them with suitable and seasonable com¬
forts, not like the pools cf rain-water in the valley
of Baca, but like the water out of the rock which
followed Israel. Those who are under a divine
guidance, and follow that closely, while they do so,
may, upon good grounds, hope for divine comforts
and cordials. The world leads its followers by
broken cisterns, or brooks that fail in summer; but
God leads those that are his by springs of water.
And those whom God guides, shall find a ready
road, and all obstacles removed; (r. 11.) I will
make all my mountains a way. He that in times
past made the sea a way, now with as much ease
will make the mountains a way, though they seemed
impassable. The highway, or causey, shall be
raised, to make it both the plainer and the fairer.
Note, The ways in which God leads his people, he
himself will be the Overseer of, and will take care
that they be well mended, and kept in repair, as of
old the ways that led to the cities of refuge. The
levelling of the roads from Babylon, as it was fore¬
told, ( ch . xl. 2, 3.) was applied to gospel-works,
and so may this be. Though there be difficulties
in the way to heaven, which we cannot by ( ur own
strength get over, yet the grace of God shall be suf¬
ficient to help us over them, and to make even the
mountains a way, ch. xxxv. 8.
(5.) He shall bring them all together from all
parts, that they may return in a body, that they
may encourage one another, and be the more taken
notice of. They were dispersed into several parts
of the country of Babylon, as their enemies pleased
to prevent any combination among themselves. But
when God’s time is come to bring them home to¬
gether, one spirit shall animate them all that lie at
the greatest distance from each other; and these
also that had taken shelter in other countries, shall
meet them in the land of Judah, v. 12; Here shall
a party come from far, some from the north, some
from the west, some from the land of Sinim, which,
probably, is some province of Babylon, not else¬
where named in scripture. But some make it to be
a country belonging to one of the chief cities of
Egypt, called Sin, of which we read, Ezek. xxx.
15,’ 16. Now this promise was to have a further
accomplishment in the great confluence of converts
to the gospel-church, and its full accomplishment
when God’s chosen shall come from the east and
from the west, to sit down with the patriarchs in
the kingdom of God, Matth. viii. 11.
13. Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O
earth ; and break forth into singing, O moun¬
tains; for the Lord hath comforted his peo¬
ple, and will have mercy upon his afflicted
14. But Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken
me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. I.r>
220
ISAIAH,
Can a woman forget her sucking child, that
she should not have compassion on the son
of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet
will I not forget thee. 16. Behold, J have
graven thee upon the palms of my hands ;
thy walls are continually before me. 17.
Thy children shall make haste; thy de¬
stroyers, and they that made thee waste,
shall go forth of thee.
The scope of these verses is to show that the re¬
turn of the people of God out of their captivitv, and
the eternal redemption to be wrought out by Christ,
(which that was a type of,) would be great occa¬
sions of joy to the church, and great proofs of the
tender care God has of the church.
I. Nothing can furnish us with better matter for
songs of praise and thanksgiving, v. 13. Let the
whole creation join with us in songs of joy, for it
shares with us in the benefits of the redemption, and
all they can contribute to this sacred melody, is lit¬
tle enough in return for such inestimable favours,
Ps. xevi. 11. Let there be joy in heaven, and let
the angels of God celebrate the praises of the great
Redeemer; let the earth and the mountains, parti¬
cularly the great ones of the earth, be joyful, and
break forth into singing, for the earnest expectation
of the creature that waits for the glorious liberty of
the children of God, (Rom. viii. 19, 21.) shall now
be abundantly answered; God’s people are the
blessings and ornaments of the world, and therefore
let there be universal joy, for God has comforted his
people that were in sorrow, and he will have mercy
upon the afflicted because of his compassion, upon
his afflicted because of his covenant.
II. Nothing can furnish us with more convincing
arguments, to prove the most tender and affection¬
ate concern God has for his church, and her inter¬
ests and comforts.
1. The troubles of the church have given some
occasion to question God’s care and concern for it,
7'. 14. Zion, in distress, said, The Lord has for¬
saken me, and looks after me no more; My Lord
has forgotten me, and will look after me no more.
See how deplorable the case of God’s people may
be sometimes, such that they may seem to be for¬
saken and forgotten of their God; and at such a
time their temptations may be alarmingly violent.
Infidels, in their presumption, say, God has for¬
saken the earth, (Ezek. viii. 12.) and has forgotten
their sins, Ps. x. 11. Weak believers, in their
despondency, are ready to say, “God has forsaken
his church, and forgotten the sorrows of his people. ”
But we have no more reason to question his promise
and grace, than we have to question his providence
and justice He is as sure a Rewarder as he is a
Revenger. Away therefore with these distrusts and
jealousies which are the bane of friendship.
2. The triumphs of the church, after her troubles,
will in due time put the matter out of question.
What God will do for Zion, we are told, it. 17.
(1.) Her friends, who had deserted her, shall be
gathered to her, and shall contribute their utmost
to her assistance and comfort; Thy children shall
make haste. Converts to the faith of Christ are the
children of the church; they shall join themselves
to her with great readiness and cheerfulness, and
flock into the communion of saints, as doves to their
windows; “ Thy builders shall make haste;” (so
some read it,) “ who shall build up thy houses, thy
walls, especially thy temple, they shall do it with
expedition.” Church-work is usually slow work;
but when God’s time is come, it shall be done sud¬
denly. (2.) Her enemies, who had threatened and
assaulted her, shall be forced to withdraw from her;
Vol. iv. — 2 F
XLIX.
Thy destroyers, and they who made thee waste,
who had made themselves masters of the country,
and ravaged it, shall go forth of thee. By Christ,
the prince of this world, the great destroyer, is cast
out, is dispossessed, his power broken, and his at
tempts quite baffled.
Now by this it will appear that Zion’s suggestions
were altogether groundless, that God has not for¬
saken her, or forgotten her, nor ever will. Be
assured,
[1.] That God has a tender affection for his
church and people, v. 15. In answer to Zion’s
fears, God speaks as one concerned fi r his own
glory; he takes himself to be reflected upon, if Zion
say, The Lord has forsaken me; and he will clear
himself. As one concerned also for his people’s
comfort, he would not have them droop and be dis
couraged, and give way to any uneasy thoughts.
\ ou think that 1 have forgotten you; can a woman
forget her sucking child ? First, It is not likely
that she should. A woman, whose honour it is to
be of the tender sex as well as the fair one, cannot
but have compassion for a child, which, being both
harmless and helpless, is a proper object of com
passion. A mother, especially, cannot but be con
cerned for her own child, for 'it is her own, a piece
of herself, and very lately one with her. A nursing
mother, most of all, cannot but be tender of her
sucking child; her own breasts will soon put her in
mind of it, if she should forget it. But, Secondly
It is possible that she may forget. A woman may
perhaps be so unhappy as' not to be ab’e to remem¬
ber her sucking child, she may be sick, and dying,
and going to the land of forgetfulness; or, slie'may
be so unnatural as net to have compassion on the
son of her womb, as those who, to conceal their
shame, are the death of their children as soon as
they are their life. Lam. iv. 10. Dent, xxviii. 57.
But, says God, I will not forget thee. Note, God’s
compassions to his people infinitely exceed those of
the tenderest parents toward their children. What
are the affections of nature to those of the Gcd of
nature !
[2.] That he has a constant care of his church
and people; (x>. 16.) I have graven thee upon the
palms of my hands. This does not allude to the
foolish artof palmistry, which imagines every man’s
fate to be engraved in the palms of his hands, and
to be legible in the lines there; but to the custom of
those who tie a string upon their hands or fingers,
to put them in mind of things which they are afraid
they shall forget; or to the wearing of signet or
locket-rings in remembrance of some dear friend.
His setting them thus as a seal upon his arm, de¬
notes his setting them as a seal upon his heart, and
his being ever mindful of them and their interest,
Cant. viii. 6. If we bind God’s law as a sign upon
our hand, (Deut. vi. 8.— 1 1, 18.) he will engrave
our interests as a sign on his hand, and will lock
upon that and remember the covenant. He adds.
Thy walls shall be continually before me; thy ruined
walls, though no pleasing spectacle, shall be in my
thoughts of compassion. Do Zion’s friends favour
her dust? Ps. cii. 14. So does her God. Or, “The
plan and model of thy walls, that are to be rebuilt,
is before me, and they shall certainly be built ac¬
cording to it.” Or, “Thy walls (thy safety) are
my continual care; so are the watchmen on thy
walls.” Some apply his graving of his church on
the palms of his hands to the wounds in Christ’s
hands when he was crucified; he will look on the
marks of them, and remember those for whom he
suffered and died.
18. Lift up thine eyes round about, and
behold: all these gather themselves to¬
gether, and come to thee. As I live, saitli
22G
ISAIAH, XLIX.
the Lord, thou sbalt surely clothe thee i
with them all as with an ornament, and
hind them on thee as a bride (loeth. 1 9. For
thy waste and thy desolate places, and the
land of thy destruction, shall even now be
too narrow by reason of the inhabitants,
and they that swallowed thee up shall be
far away. 20. The children which thou
shalt have, after thou hast lost the other,
shall say again in thine ears, The place is j
too strait for me : give place for me that
I may dwell. 21. Then shalt thou say in
thy heart, Who hath begotten me these,
seeing 1 have lost my children, and am
desolate, a captive, and removing to and
fro ? and who hath brought up these? Be¬
hold, I was left alone; these, where had
they been? 22. Thus saith the Lord God,
Behold, I will lift up my hand to the Gen¬
tiles, and set up my standard to the people :
and they shall bring thy sons in their arms,
and thy daughters shall be carried upon their
shoulders. 23. And kings shall be thy nurs¬
ing-fathers, and their queens thy nursing-
mothers; they shall bow down to thee with
their face toward the earth, and lick up the
dust of thy feet ; and thou shalt know that I
am the Lord : for they shall not be asham¬
ed that wait for me.
Two things are here promised, which were to be
in part accomplished in the reviving of the Jewish
church, after its return out of captivity, but more
fully in the planting of the Christian church, by the
preaching of the gospel of Christ; and we may take
the comfort of these promises.
I. That the church shall be replenished with
great numbers added to it It was promised, (v.
if.) that her children should make haste; that pro¬
mise is here enlarged upon, and is made very en¬
couraging. It is promised,
1. That multitudes shall flock to the church from
all parts. Look round, and see how they gather
themselves to thee, (y. 18.) by a local accession to
the Jewish church. They come to Jerusalem from
all the adjacent countries, for that was then the
centre of their unity; but, under the gospel, it is by j
a spiritual accession to the mystical body of Christ
in faith and love; those that are come to Jesus as
the Mediator of the new covenant, thereby come to
She mount Zion, the church of the first-born, Heb.
xii. 22, 23. Lift up. thine eyes, and behold how the
fields are white unto the harvest, Johniv. 35. Note,
It is matter of joy to the church to see a multitude
of converts to Christ
2. That such as are added to the church shall not
be a burthen and blemish to her, but her strength
and ornament. This part of the promise is confirm¬
ed with an oath, As I live, saith the Lord, thou
sbalt surely clothe thee with them all. The addition
of such numbers to the church shall complete her
clothing; and when all that were chosen are ef¬
fectually called, then the bride, the Lamb’s wife,
shall have made herself ready, shall be quite dress¬
ed, Rev. xix. 7. They shall make her to appear
comely and considerable; and she shall therefore
bind them on with as much care and complacency
as a bride does her ornaments. When those that i
are added to the church, are serious and holy, id!
exemplary in their conversation, they are an oma
ment to it.
3. That thus the country which was waste and
desolate, and without inhabitant, (c/i. v. 9. — vi. 11.)
shall be again peopled, nay, it shall be over-peopled;
(v. 19.) “ Thy waste and thy desolate places, that
have long lain so, and the land of thy destruction,
that land of thine which was destroyed with thee,
and which nobody cared for dwelling in, shall now
be so full of people, that there shall be no room for
the inhabitants.” Here is a blessing poured out
till there be not room enough to receive it, Mai. iii.
10. Not that they should be crowded by their
enemies, or straitened for room, as Abraham and
Lot were, because of the Canaanite in the land;
“ No, they that swallowed thee up, and took pos¬
session of thy land when thy possession of it was dis¬
continued, shall be far away. Thy people shall be
numerous, and there shall be no stranger, no enemy,
among them.” Thus the kingdom of God among
men, which had been impoverished and almost de¬
populated, partly by the corruptions of the Jewish
church, and partly by the abominations of the Gen
tile world, was again peopled and enriched by the
setting up of the Christian church, and by its graces
and glories.
4. That the new converts shall strangely increase
and multiply. Jerusalem, after she has lost abun¬
dance of her children by the sword, famine, and
captivity, shall have a new family growing up in¬
stead of them; children which she shall have after
she has lost the other, (v. 20.) as Seth, who was ap¬
pointed another seed instead of Abel, and Job’s chil¬
dren, which God blessed him with instead of those
that were killed in the mins of the house. God
will repair his church’s losses, and secure t him¬
self a seed to serve him in it. It is promised to the
Jews, after their return, that Jerusalem shall be
full of boys and girls playing in the streets, Zech.
viii. 5. The church, after it has lost the Jews, who
will be cut off by their owm infidelity, shall have
abundance of children still, more than she had when
the Jews belonged to her. See Gal. iv. 27. They
shall be so numerous, that, (1.) The children shall
complain for want of room ; they shall say, (and it is
a good hearing,) “Our numbers increase so fast,
that the place is too strait for us;” as the sons of the
prophets complained, 2 Kings vi. 1. But strait as
the place is, still more shall desire to be admitted,
and the church shall gladly admit them, and the
inconvenient straitness of the place shall be no hin-
derance to either, for it will be found, whatever we
think, that even when the poor and the maimed,
the halt and the blind, are brought in, yet still there
is room, room enough for those that are in, and rocn
for more, Luke xiv. 21, 22. (2.) The mother shall
stand- amazed at the increase k>{ her family, v. 21.
She shall say. Who has begotten me these? and
Who has brought up these? They came to her with
all the duty, affection, and submission of children;
and yet she never bore any pain for them, nor took
any pains with them, but has them ready reared to
her hand. This gives her a pleasing surprise, and
she cannot but be astonished at it, considering what
her condition had been very lately, and very long.
The Jewish nation had left her children, they were
cut off, she had been desolate, without ark, and alt r,
and temple-service, those tokens of God’s esprusals
to them; nay, she had been a captive, and continually
removing to and fro, in an unsettled condition, and
not likely to bring up children either for God or
herself. She was left alone in obscurity; This is
Zion whom no man seeks after; left in all the soli¬
tude and sorrow of a widowed state. How then
came she to be thus replenished? See here, [1.]
That the church is not perpetually visible, out there
are times when it is desolate, and left alone, and
ISAIAH, XLJX
made few in number. [2.] That yet on the other
hand its desolations shall not be perpetual, nor will
it be found too hard for God to repair them, and out
of stones to raise up children unto Abraham. [3. ]
That sometimes this is done in a very surprising
way, as when a nation is born at once, ch. lxvi. ts.
5. That this shall be done with the help of the
Gentiles, v. 22. The Jews were cast off, among
whom it was expected that the church should be
built up; but God will sow it to himself in the earth ,
and from thence will re .p a plentiful crop, Hos. ii.
23. Observe, (1. ) How the Gentiles shall be called
in; God will lift u/i his hand to them, to invite or
beckon them, having all the day stretched it out in
vain to the Jews, (c/i. lxv. 2.) Or it denotes the
exerting of an almighty power, that of his Spirit and
grace, to compel them to come in, to make them
willing. And he will set u/i his standard to them,
the preaching of the everlasting gospel, to which
they shall gather, and under which they shall list
themselves. (2.) How they shall come; They
shall bring thy sons in their arms. They shall as¬
sist the sons of Zion, which are found among them,
in their return to their own country, and shall for¬
ward them with as much tenderness as ever any
parent carried a child that was weak and helpless.
God can raise up friends for returning Israelites,
even among Gentiles; the earth hel/ied the woman.
Rev. xii. 16. Or, “When they come themselves,
they shall bring their children, and make them thy
children;” compare ch. lx. 4. “Dost thou ask,
IV ho has begotten and brought up' these? Know,
that they were begotten and brought up’ among the
Gentiles, but they are now brought into thy family.”
Let all that are concerned about young converts,
and young beginners in religion, learn hence to deal
very tenderly and carefully with them, as Christ
does with the lambs, whom he gathers with his
arms, and carries in his bosom.
II. That the church shall have a great and pre¬
vailing interest in the nations, v. 23. 1. Some of
the princes of the nations shall become patrons and
protectors to the church: Kings shall be thy nurs¬
ing fathers, to carry thy sons m their arms, v. 22.
As Moses, Numb. xi. 12. And because women are
the most proper nurses, their queens shall be thy
nursing mothers. This promise was in part fulfilled
to the Jews, after their return out of captivity; di¬
vers of the kings of Persia were very tender of their
interests, countenanced and encouraged them, as
Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes; Esther the queen
was a nursing mother to the Jews that remained in
their captivity, putting her life in her hand to
snitch the child out of the flames. The Christian
church, after a long captivity, was happy in some
such kings and queens as Constantine and his mo¬
ther Helena, and afterward Theodosius, and others,
who nursed the church with all possible care and
tenderness. Whenever the sceptre of government
is put into the hands of religious princes, then this
promise is fulfilled. The church, in this world, is
in an infant state, and it is in the power of princes
and magistrates to do it a great deal of service;
it is happy when they do so, when their power is a
praise to them that do well. 2. Others of them,
who stand it out against the church’s interests, will
be forced to yield, and to repent of their opposition;
They shall bow down to thee, and lick the dust.
The promise to the church of Philadelphia seems to
be borrowed from this; (Rev. iii. 9.) I will make
them of the synagogue of Satan to come and wor¬
ship before thy feet. Or, it may be meant of the
willing subjection which kings and kingdoms shall
p.iv to Christ, the church’s King, as he manifests
himself in the church? (Ps. lxxii. 11.) jill kings
shall fall down before him. And by all this it shall
made to appear, (1.) That God is the Lord, the
227
sovereign Lord of all, against whom there is no
standing out, or rising up. (2.) That those who
wait for him, in a dependence upon his promise, and
a resignation to his will, shall not be made ashamed
of their hope; for the vision of peace is for an ap¬
pointed time, and at the end it shall speak, and shall
not lie.
24. Shall the prey be taken from the
mighty, or the lawful captive delivered? 25.
But thus saith the Loan, Even the captives
of the mighty shall be taken away, and the
prey of the terrible shall be delivered: for I
will contend with him that contendeth with
thee, and I will save thy children. 26. And
I will feed them that oppress thee with their
own flesh ; and they shall be drunken with
their own blood, as with sweet wine: and
all flesh shall know that I the Lord am thy
Saviour, and thy Redeemer, the Mightv
One of Jacob.
Here is, 1. An objection started against the pro¬
mise of the Jews’ release out of their captivity in
Babylon, suggesting that it was a thing not to be ex¬
pected; for, (x>. 24.) they were a prey in the hand
of the mighty, of such as were then the greatest
potentates on earth, and therefore it was not likely
they should be rescued by force; yet that was not
all, they were lawful captives; by the law of God,
having offended, they were justly delivered into
captivity; and by the law of nations, being taken in
war, they were justly detained in captivity till they
should be ransomed or exchanged. Now this is
spoken either, (1.) By the enemies, as justifying
themselves in their refusal to let them go; thev
plead both might and right. Proud men think ail
their own that they can lay their hands on, and
their title good if they have but the longest sword.
Or, (2.) By their friends; either in a way of dis¬
trust, despairing of the deliverance, “ For who is
able to deal with those that detain us, either by
force of arms or a treaty of peace?” Or, in a way
of thankfulness, admiring the deliverance, “ Whc
would have thought that ever the prey should be
taken from the mighty? Yet it is done.” This is
applicable to our redemption by Christ; as to Satan,
we were a prey in the hand of the mighty, and yet
delivered even from him that had the power of
death, by him that had the power of life. As tc
the justice of God, we were lawful captives and yet
delivered by a price of inestimable value.
2. This objection answered by an express pro¬
mise, and a further promise; for God’s promises
being all yea, and amen, they may well serve to cor¬
roborate one another.
(1.) Here is an express promise with a non-ob-
stante — notwithstanding to the strength of the ene¬
my; (v. 25.) “ liven the captives of the mighty,
though they are mighty, shall be taken away, and
it is to no purpose for them to oppose it; and the
prey of the terrible, though they are terrible, shall
be delivered; and as they cannot with all their
strength outforce, so they cannot with all their im¬
pudence outface, the deliverance, and the counsels
of God concerning it.” The Lord saith thus, who,
having all power in his hands, and all hearts, is able
to make his words good.
(2.) Here is a further promise, showing how, and
in what way, God will bring about the deliverance.
He will bring judgments upon the oppressors, and
so will work salvation for the oppressed; “1 will
contend with him that contends with thee, will plead
thy c .use against those that justify themselves in
lSATAH, l.
-2-28
oppressing thee; whoever it be, though but a single
person, that contends with thee, he shall know that
it is at his peril, and thus I mill save thy children."
The captives shall be delivered by leading captivity
captive, sending those into captivity that had held
God’s people captive, Rev. xiii. 10. Nay, they
shall have blood for blood; (y. 26.) “I will feed them
that oppress thee, with their own Jlesh, and they
shall be drunken with their own blood; the proud
Babylonians shall become not only an easy, but an
acceptable prey to one another; God will send a
dividing spirit among them, and their rain, which
was begun by a foreign invasion, shall be completed
'u- their intestine divisions. They shall bite and
devour one another, till they are consumed one of
another. They shall greedily and with delight
prey upon those that are their own flesh and blood. ”
God can make the oppressors of his church to be
their own tormentors, and their own destroyers.
The New Testament Babylon, having made her¬
self drunk with the blood of the saints, shall have
blood given her to drink, for she is worthy. See
how cruel men sometimes are to themselves, and to
one another; indeed those who are so to others are
so to themselves, for God’s justice and men’s re¬
venge will mete to them what they have measured
to others; they not only thirst after blood, but drink
it so greedily, that they are drunken with it, and
with as much pleasure as if it were sweet wine. If
God had not more mercy on sinners than they
would have one upon another, were their passions
let loose, the world would soon be an Aceldama,
nay, a desolation.
And ( lastly ) see what will be the effect of Baby¬
lon’s ruin; All flesh shall know that I the Lord am
thy Saviour; God will make it to appear, to the
conviction of all the world, that, though Israel seem
lost and cast off, they have a Redeemer, and though
they are made a prey to the mighty, Jacob has a
Mighty One, who is able to deal with all his ene¬
mies. God intends, by the deliverances of his
church, both to notify, and to magnify, his own
name.
CHAP. L.
In this chapter, I. Those to whom God sends are justly
charged with bringing all the troubles they were in upon
themselves, by their own wilfulness and obstinacy; it
being made to appear that God was able and ready to
help them, if they had been fit for deliverance, v. 1 . . 3.
II. He by whom God sends, produces his commission,
(v. 4.) alleges his own readiness to submit to all the ser¬
vices and sufferings he was called to in the execution of
it, (v. 3,6.) and assures himself that God, who sent him,
would stand by him, and bear him out against all oppo¬
sition, v. 7 . . 9. III. The message that is sent is, life
and death, good and evil, the blessing and the curse;
comfort to desponding saints, and terror to presuming
sinners, v. 10, 1 1. Now all this seems to have a double
reference; 1. To the unbelieving Jews in Babylon, who
quarrelled with God for his dealings with them: and to
the prophet Isaiah, who, though dead long before the
captivity, yet, prophesying so plainly and fully of it, saw
fit to produce his credentials, to justify what he had said.
2. To the unbelieving Jews in our Saviour’s time,
whose own fault it was, that they were rejected; Christ
having preached much to them, and suffered much from
them, and being herein borne up by a divine power.
The contents of this chapter, in our Bibles, give this
sense of it, very concisely, thus; Christ shows that the
dereliction of the Jews is not to be imputed to him; bxj his
ability to save , htj his obedience in that vjork, and by his
confidence in divine assistance. The prophet concludes
with an exhortation to trust in God, and not in ourselves.
THUS saith the Lord, Where is
the hill of your mother’s divorce¬
ment, whom I have put away? or which of
my creditors is it to whom I have sold you?
Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold your¬
selves, and for your transgressions is your
mother put away. 2. Wherefore, when I
came, was there no man? when I called,
teas there none to answer? Is my hand short¬
ened at all, that it cannot redeem? or have
I no power to deliver? behold, at my rebuke
I dry up the sea : I make the rivers a wil¬
derness : their fish stinketh, because there is
no water, and dieth for thirst. 3. I clothe
the heavens with blackness, and I make
sackcloth their covering.
Those who have professed to be the people of
God, and yet seem to be dealt severely with, are
apt to complain of God, and to lay the fault upon
him, as if he had been hard with them. But, in
answer to their murmurings, we have here,
I. A challenge given them to prove, or pre (luce
any evidence, that the quarrel began on God’s side,
v. 1. They could net say that he had drne them
any wrong, or had acted arbitrarily. I. He bad
been a Husband to them; and husbands were then
al owed a power to put away their wives upen any
little disgust; if they found not favour in their eyes,
they made nothing of giving them a bill of divorce,
Deut. xxiv. 1. Matth. xix. 7. But they could not
say that God had dealt so with them ; it is true, they
were now separated from him, and bad abode many
days without ephod, altar, or sacrifice; but whose
fault was that? They cculd not say that God had
given their mother a bill of divorce ; let them produce
it if they can, for a bill of divorce was given into the
hand of her that was divorced. 2. He lipd been a
Father to them; and fathers had then a power to
sell their children for slaves to their creditors, in
satisfaction for the debts they were not otherwise
able to pay; it is true, the Jews were sold to the
Babylonians then, and afterward to the Romans;
but did God sell them for payment of his debts? No,
he was not indebted to any of those to whom they
were sold, or, if he had sold them, he did not in¬
crease his wealth by their price, Ps. xliv. 12. W hen
God chastens his children, it is neither for his plea¬
sure, (Heb. xii. 10.) nor for his profit; all that are
saved, are saved by a prerogative of grace, but
those that perish, are cut off by an act of divine ho¬
liness and justice, not of absolute sovereignty.
II. A charge exhibited against them, showing
them that they were themselves the authors of their
own ruin; “ Behold, for your iniquities, for the
leasure of them, and the gratification of your own
ase lusts, you have sold yoursehes, for your ini¬
quities you are sold; not as children are sold by
their parents, to pay their debts, but as malefactors
are sold by the judges, to punish them for theii
crimes. You sold yourselves to work wickedness,
and therefore God justly sold you into the hands of
your enemies, 2 Chron. xii. 5, 8. It is for your
transgressions that your mother is put away, for her
whoredoms and adulteries; which were always al¬
lowed to be a just cause of divorce. The Jews
were sent into Babylon for their idolatry, a sin which
broke the marriage-covenant, and were at last re¬
jected for crucifying the Lord of glory; these were
the iniquities for which they were sold and put
away.
lit. The confirmation of this challenge and this
charge.
1. It is plain that it was their own fault that they
were cast off; for God came, and offered them his
favour, offered them his helping hand, either to
prevent their trouble,. or to deliver them out of it,
but they slighted him and fdl the tenders cf his
229
ISAIAH, L.
grace; “Do you lay it upon me?” (says God,) “Tell
me then, wherefore when I came, there was no man
to meet me, when l called, there was none to answer
me,” v. 2. God came to them by his servants the
prophets, demanding the fi-uits of his vineyard;
(Matth. xxi. 34.) he sent them his messengers,
rising u/i betimes, and sending them; (Jer. xxxv.
15.) he called to them to leave their sins, and so
prevent their own ruin: but there was no man, or
next to none, that had any regard to the warnings
which the prophets gave them, none that answered
the calls of God, or complied with the messages lie
sent them; and this was it for which they were sold
and put away; because they mocked the messengers
of the Lord, therefore God brought ufion them the
king of the Chaldees, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 16, 17. Last
of all, he sent unto them his Son, he came to his own,
but his own received him not; he called them to hint-
self, but there were none that answered; he would
have gathered Jerusalem’s children together, but
they would not, they knew not, because they would
not know, the things that belonged to their peace,
nor the day of their visitation, and for that trans¬
gression it was that they were put away, and their
house left desolate, Matth. xxi. 41. — xxiii. 37, 38.
Luke xix. 41, 42. When God calls men to happi¬
ness, and they will not answer, they are justly left
to be miserable.
2. It is plain that it was not owing to a want of
power in God, for he is almighty, and could have
recovered them from so great a death, nor was it
owing to a want of power in Christ, for he is able to
save to the uttermost. The unbelieving Jews in
Babylon thought they were not delivered because
their God was notable to do it; and those in Christ’s
time were ready to ask, in scorn, Can this man save
us? For himself he cannot save. “But,” (says
God) “is my hand shortened at all, oris it weaken¬
ed?” Can any limits be set to Omnipotence’ Can¬
not he redeem, who is the great Redeemer? Has
he no power to deliver, whose all power is? To put
to silence, and to put for ever to shame, their doubts
concerning his power, he here gives unquestionable
proofs of it. (1.) He can, when he pleases, dry up
the seas, and make the rivers a wilderness; he did
so for Israel when he redeemed them out of Egypt,
he can do so again for their redemption out of Baby¬
lon. It is done at his rebuke, as easily as with a
word’s speaking; he can so dry up the rivers, as to
leave the fish to die for want of water, and to putrefy.
When God turned the waters of Egypt into blood,
he slew the fish, Ps. cv. 29. The expression our
Saviour sometimes used concerning the power of
faith, that it will remove mountains, and plant syca¬
mores in the sea, is not unlike this; if their faith
could do that, no doubt, their faith would save them,
and therefore they were inexcusable if they perished
in their unbelief. (2.) He can, when he pleases,
eclipse the lights of heaven, clothe them with black¬
ness, and make sackcloth their covering, by thick
and dark clouds interposing, which he balances. Job
xxxvi. 32. — xxxvii. 16.
4. The Lord God hath given me the
tongue of the learned, that I should know
how to speak a word in season to him that is
weary: he wakenetli morning by morning;
he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.
5. The Lord God hath opened mine ear,
and I was not rebellious, neither turned
away back. 6. I gave my back to the
smiters, and my cheeks to them that pluck¬
ed off the hair: I hid not my face from shame
and spitting. 7. For the Lord God will help
me; therefore shall I not be confounded:
therefore have I set my face like a flint, and
I know that I shall not be ashamed, fi. He.
is near that justifieth me; who will contend
with me ? let us stand together: who is mine
adversary? let him come near to me. 9.
Behold, the Lord God will help me; who is
he that shall condemn me? lo, they all shall
wax old as a garment ; the moth shall eat
them up.
Our Lord Jesus, having proved himself able to
save, here shows himself as willing as he is able
We suppose the prophet Isaiah to say something
of himself in these verses, engaging and encouraging
himself to go on in his work, as a prophet, notwith¬
standing the many hardships he met with, not doubt¬
ing but that God would stand by him, and strengthen
him; but, like David, he speaks of himself as a type
of Christ, who is here prophesied of, and promised
to be the Saviour.
I. As an acceptable Preacher, v. 4. Isaiah, as a
prophet, was qualified for the work to which he was
called, so were the rest of God’s prophets, and others
whom he employed as his messengers; but Christ
was anointed with the Spirit above his fellows. To
make the man of God perfect, he has, 1. The tongue
of the learned, to know how to give instruction, how
to speak a word in season to him that is weary.
God, who made man’s mouth, gave Moses the tongue
of the learned, to speak for the terror and con
viction of Pharaoh, Exod. iv. 11, 12. He gave to
Christ the tongue of the learned, to speak a word in
season for the comfort of those that are weary and
heavy laden under the burthen of sin, Matth. xi.
28. Grace was poured into his lips, and they are
said to drop sweet-smelling myrrh. See .vhat is
the best learning of a minister, to know how to com¬
fort troubled consciences, and to speak pertinently,
properly, and plainly, to the various cases of poor
souls. An ability to do this is God’s gift, and it is
one of the best gifts, which we should covet earnestly.
Let us repose ourselves in the many comfortable
words which Christ has spoken to the weary. 2.
The ear of the learned, to receive instruction. Pro¬
phets have as much need of this, as of the tongue
of the learned; for they must deliver what they are
taught, and no other; must hear the word from
God’s mouth diligently and attentively, that they
may speak it exactly, Ezek. iii. 17. Christ himself
received, that he might give. None must undertake
to be teachers, who have not first been learners;
Christ’s apostles were first disciples; scribes in¬
structed unto the kingdom of heaven, Matth. xiii. 52.
Nor is it enough to hear, but we must hear as the
learned, hear and understand, hear and remember,
hear as those that would learn by what we hear.
Those that would hear as the learned, must be
awake, and wakeful, for we are naturally drowsy
and sleep)-, and unapt to hear at all, or we hear by
the halves, hear, and do not heed. Our ears need
to be wakened; we need to have something said to
rouse us, to awaken us out of our spiritual slumbers,
that we may hear as for our lives. We need to be
wakened morning by morning, as duly as the day
returns, to be awakened to do the work of the day
in its day. Our case calls for continual fresh sup¬
plies of divine grace, to free us from the dulness we
contract daily. The morning, when cur spirits are
most lively, is a proper time for communion with
God; then we are in the best frame' both to speak to
him. My voice sha/t thou hear in the morning, and
to hear from him, the people came early in the
morning to hear Christ in the temple, Luke xxi. 38.
For, it seems, his were morning lectures, and it is
God that wakens us morning by morning; if we dc
230
ISAIAH, L.
any tiling to purpose in his service, it is he, who, as
our Master, calls us up; we should dose perpetually,
if he did not waken us morning by morning.
II. As a patient Sufferer, v. 5, 6. One would
think that he who was commissioned and qualified
to speak comfort to the weary, should meet with no
difficulty in his work, but universal acceptance; it
is, however, quite otherwise; he hath both hard
work to do, and hard usage to undergo; and here
he tells us with what undaunted constancy he went
through with it. We have no reason to question
but that the prophet Isaiah went on resolutely in the
work to which God had called him, though we read
not of his undergoing any such hardships as are here
supposed; but we are sure it was abundantly verified
in Jesus Christ: and here we have,
1. His patient obedience in his doing- work. “The
Lord God has not only wakened my ear to hear
what he says, but has opened my ear to receive it,
and comply with it; (Ps. xl. 6, 7.) Mine ear hast
thou opened; then said /, Lo, I come;” for when he
adds, / wasnot rebellious, neither turned away back,
more is implied than expressed — that he was will¬
ing, that, though he foresaw a great deal of difficulty
and discouragement, though he was to take pains,
and give constant attendance as a Servant, though
he was to empty himself of that which was very
great, and humble himself to that which was very
mean, yet he did not fly off, did not fail, nor was
discouraged. He continued very free and forward
to his work, even when he came to the hardest part
of it. Note, As a good understanding in the truths
of God, so a good will to the work and service of
God is from the grace of God.
.. His obedient patience in his suffering-work.
, call it obedient patience, because he was patient
with an eve to his Father’s will; thus pleading with
himself, This commandment have I received of mu
Father; and thus submitting to God, Not as I will,
but as thou wilt. In this submission, he resigned
himself, (1.) To be scourged; I gave my back to the
smiters; and that not only by submitting to it when
he was smitten, but by permitting it (or admitting
it rather) among the other instances of pain and
shame which he would voluntarily undergo for us.
(2.) To be buffeted; I gave my cheeks to them that
not only smote them, but plucked off the hair of the
beard, which was a greater degree both of pain and
ignominy. (3.) To be spit upon; I hid not my face
from shame and spitting. He could have hid his
face from it, could have avoided it, but he would
not, because he was made a Reproach of men, and
thus he would answer to the proselyte. Job, that
man of sorrows, of whom it is said, that they smote
him on the cheek reproachfully, (Job xvii. 10.) and
spared not to spit in his face, (Job xxx. 10.) an ex¬
pression not only of contempt, but of abhorrence
and indignation. All this Christ underwent for us,
and voluntarily, to convince us of his willingness to
save us.
III. As a courageous champion, v. 7. — 9. The
Redeemer is as famous for his boldness as for his
humility and patience, and, though he yields, yet he
is more than a conqueror.
Observe, 1. The dependence he has upon God.
What was the prophet Isaiah’s support, was the
support of Christ himself; (y. 7.) The Lord God
will help me; and again, v. 9. Whom God employs
lie will assist, and will take care they want not any
nelp that they or their work call for. God, having
aid help upon his Son for us, gave help to him, and
nis hand was all- along with the Man of his right
hand. Nor will he onlv assist him in his work, but
accept of him; (v. 8.) He is near that justifleth me.
Isaiah, no doubt, was falsely accused, and loaded
with reproach and calumny, as other prophets were;
Nit he despised it, knowing t''at God would roll
away the reproach, and bring forth his righteous
ness as the light, perhaps in this world, (Ps. xxxvii.
6.) at furthest in the great day, when there will be
a resurrection of names as well as bodies, and the
righteous shall shine forth as the morning sun.
And so it was verified in Christ; by his resurrection
he was proved to be not the man that he was repre ¬
sented, not a blasphemer, not a deceiver, not an
enemy to Cxsar. The judge that condemned him,
owned he found no fault in him; the centurion, or
sheriff, that had charge of his execution, declared
him a righteous man: so near was he that justified
him. But it was true of him in a further and more
peculiar sense; the Father justified him, when he
accepted the satisfaction he made for the sin of man,
and constituted him the Lord our Righteousness,
who was made sin for us: he was justified in the
Spirit, 1 Tim. iii. 16. He was near who did it; for
his resurrection, by which he was justified, soon
followed his condemnation and crucifixion; he was
straightway glorified, John xiii. 32.
2. The confidence he thereupon has of success in
his undertaking; “ If God will help me, if he will
justify me, will stand by me, and bear me rut, I
shall not be confounded, as these are that come short
of the end they aimed at, and the satisfaction they
promised themselves; I know that I shall not be
ashamed.” Though his enemies did all they could
to put him to shame, yet he kept his ground, he kept
his countenance, and was not ashamed of the work
he had undertaken. Note, Work for God is work
that we should not be ashamed of; and hope in God
is hope that we shall not be ashamed of. Those
that trust in God for help shall not be disappointed;
they know whom they have trusted, and therefore
know they shall not be ashamed.
3. The defiance which, in this confidence, he bids
to all opposers and opposition; “ God will help me,
and therefore have I set my face like a flint.” The
prophet did so, he was bold in reproving sin, in
warning sinners, (Ezek. iii. 8, 9.) and in asserting
the truth of his predictions. Christ did so; he went
on in his work, as Mediator, with unshaken constan
cy, and undaunted resolution; hedid not fail, norwa-
discouraged; and here he challenges all his opposers,
(1.) To enter the lists with him; Who will contend
with me, either in law, or by the sword? Let us
stand together as combatants, or as the plaintiff and
defendant. Who is mine adversary? Who is the
master of my cause? so the word is. “Who will
pretend to enter an action against me? Let him
appear, and come near to me, fori will not abscond. ”
Many offered to dispute with Christ, but he put
them to silence. The prophet speaks this in the
name of all faithful ministers; those who keep close
to the pure word of God, in delivering their mes¬
sage, need not fear contradiction; the scrip tures'ivill
bear them out, whoever contends with them. Great
is the truth, and will prevail. Christ speaks this
in the name of all believers, speaks it as their
Champion. Who dares be an enemy to those whom
he is a Friend to, or contend with those fir whom
he is an Advocate? Thus St. Paul applies it, (Rom.
viii. 33.) Who shall lay any thing to the charge of
God’s elect? (2.) He challenges them to prove any
crime upon 1 im; (v. 9.) Who is hr that shall con¬
demn me? The prophet, perhaps, was condemned
to die; Christ, we are sure, was; and vet both could
say. Who is he that shall condemn? For there is no
condemnation to them whom God justifies. There
were those that did condemn them, but what came
of them? They all shall wax old as a garment.
The righteous cause of Christ and his prophets shall
outlive all opposition. The moth shall rat them up
silently and insensibly; a little thing will serve to
destroy them. But the roaring lion himself shall
not prevail against God’s witnesses. All believers
231
ISAIAH, LI.
are cnaoied to muie this challenge, H'l io is he that
shall condemn? It is Christ that died.
10. Who is among you that feareth the
Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, j
that walketh in darkness, and hath no light !
let him trust in the name of the Lord, and
stay upon his God. 1 1. Behold, all ye that
kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about
with sparks; walk in the light of your fire,
and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This
shall ye have of my hand, ye shall lie down
in sorrow.
The prophet, having the tongue of the learned
given him, that he might give to every one their
portion, here makes use of it, rightly dividing the
word of truth. It is the summary of the gospel; he
that believes shall be saved, he that trusts in the name
of the Lord shall be comforted, though for awhile
he walk in darkness, and have no light. But he that
believes not shall be damned; though for awhile he
walk in the light of his own fire, yet he shall lie
down in sorrow.
I. Comfort is here spoken to disconsolate saints,
and they are encouraged to trust in God’s grace, v.
10. Where observe,
1. What is always the character of a child of
God; he is one that fears the Lord with a filial fear,
that stands in awe of his majesty, and is afraid of in¬
curring his displeasure. This is a grace that usually
appears most in good people then when they walk
in darkness, when other graces appear not. They
then tremble at his word; (cA. lxvi. 2.) and are
afraid of his judgments, Ps. cxix. 120. He is one
that obeys the voice of God’s servant; is willing to
be ruled by the Lord Jesus, as God’s servant in the
great work of man’s redemption; one that yields a
sincere obedience to the law of Christ, and cheer¬
fully comes up to the terms of his covenant. Those
that truly fear God will obey the voice of Christ.
2. What is sometimes the case of a child of God.
It is supposed, that though he has in his heart the
fear of God, and faith in Christ, yet for a time he
walks in darkness, and has no light, is disquieted,
and has little or no comfort. Who is there that does
so? This intimates that it is a case which sometimes
happens among the professors of religion, yet not
very often; but whenever it happens, God takes no¬
tice of it. It is no new thing for the children and
heirs of light sometimes to walk in darkness, and
for a time not to have any glimpse or gleam of light.
This is not meant so much of the comforts of this life,
(those that fear God, when they have ever so great an
abundance of them, do not walk in them as their
light,) as of their spiritual comforts, which relate to
their souls. They walk in darkness, when their evi¬
dences for heaven are clouded, their joy in God is
interrupted, the testimony of the Spirit is suspended,
and the light of God’s countenance is eclipsed. Pen¬
sive Christians are apt to be melancholy, and those
who fear always, to tear too much.
3. What is likely to be an effectual cure in this
sad case. He that is thus in the dark, (1.) Let him
trust in the name of the Lord, in the goodness of his
nature, and that which he has made known of him¬
self, his wisdom, power, and goodness. The name
of the Lord is a strong tower, let him ran into that.
Let him depend upon it, that if he walk before God,
which a man may do though he walk in the dark,
he shall find God all-sufficient to him. (2. ) Let him
stay himself upon his God, his in covenant; let him
keep hold of his covenant-relation to God, and call
God his God, as Christ on the cross, My God, My
God Let him stay himself upon the promises of I
I the covenant, and build his hopes on them. When
a child of God is ready to sink, he will find enough
in God to stay himself upon. Let him trust in Christ,
for God’s name is in him; (Exod. xxiii. 21.) trust
I in that name of hjs, The Lord our Righteousness,
and stay himself upon God as his God, in and
, through a Mediator.
II. Conviction is here spoken to presuming sin¬
ners, and they are warned not to trust in themselves,
J v. 11. Observe, 1. The description given of them;
They kindle a fire, and walk in the light of that fire;
they depend upon their own righteousness, offer all
their sacrifices, and bum all their incense, with that
fire, (as Nadab and Abihu,) and not with the fire
from heaven; in their hope ot acceptance with Gcd,
they have no regard to the righteousness of Christ,
they refresh and please themselves with a conceit
of their own merit and sufficiency, and warm them¬
selves with that; it is both light and heat to them.
They com/iass themselves about with sfiarks of their
own kindling. As they trust in their own righteous¬
ness, and not in the righteousness of Christ, so they
place their happiness in their worldly possessions
and enjoyments, and not in the favour rf God. Crca-
turc-coniforts are as sparks, short-lived, and soon
gone; yet the children of this world, while they last,
warm themselves by them, and walk with pride and
pleasure in the light cf them. 2. The doom passed
upon them; they are ironically bid to walk in the
light of their own fire; “ Make your best of it, while
it lasts. This shall ye have of mine hand, (says
Christ, for to him the judgment is committed,) ye
shall lie down in sorrow, shall go to bed in the
dark.” See Job xviii. 5, 6. His candle shall be /tut
out with him. Those that make the world their
comfort, and their own righteousness their confi¬
dence, will certainly meet with a fatal disappoint¬
ment, which will be bitterness in the end. A godlv
man’s way may be melancholy, but his end shall be
peace and everlasting light. A wicked man’s wav
may be pleasant, but his end and endless abode will
be utter darkness.
CHAP. LI.
This chapter is designed for the comfort and encourage¬
ment of those that fear God and keep his command¬
ments, even then when they walk in darkness, and have
no light: whether it was intended primarily for the sup¬
port of the captives in Babylon, is not certain, probably
it was, but comforts thus generally expressed ought not
to be so confined. Whenever the church of God is in
distress, her friends and well-wishers may comfort them¬
selves and one another, with these words ; I. That God,
who raised his church at first out of nothing, will take
care that it shall not perish, v. 1 . . 3. II. That the
righteousness and salvation he designs for his church
are sure and near, very near and very sure, v. 4 . . 6.
III. That the persecutors of the church are weak and
dying creatures, v. 7, 8. IV. That the same power which
did wonders for the church formerly, is now engaged
and employed for her protection and deliverance, v. 9 . .
II. V. That God himself, the Maker of the world, had
undertaken both to deliver his people out of their distress,
and to comfort them under it, and sent his prophet to as¬
sure them of it, v. 12. . 16. VI. That, deplorable as the
condition of the church now was, (v. 17 . . 20.) to the
same woful circumsiances her persecutors and oppressors
should shortly be reduced, and worse, v. 20. . 23. The
three first paragraphs of this chapter begin with, Heark¬
en unto me, and they are God’s people that are all along
called to hearken ; for even when comforts are spoken
to them, sometimes they hearken not , through anguish
of spirit , (Exod. vi. 9.) therefore they are again and
again called to hearken, v. 1,4, 7. The two other para¬
graphs of this chapter begin with, Awake , awake; in the
former, (v. 9.) God’s people call upon him to awake,
and help them; in the latter, (v. 17.) God calls upon
them to awake, and help themselves.
l.TTEARKEN to me, ye that follow
XX after righteousness, ye that seek the
'232
ISAIAH, LI.
Lou r> : look unto (hr- rock whence, ye are
hewn, anti to the hole of the pit, whence yc
are digged. 2. Look unto Abraham your
father, and unto Sarah that bare you : for I
called him alone, and blessed him, and in¬
creased him. 3. For the Lord shall com¬
fort Zion : he will comfort all her waste
places, and he will make her wilderness like
Eden, and her desert like the garden of the
Lord ; joy and gladness shall be found
therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of me¬
lody.
Observe, 1. How the people of God are here de¬
scribed, to whom the word of this consolation is sent,
and who are called upon to hearken to it, v. 1.
They are such as follow after righteousness, as are
very desirous and solicitous both to be justified and
to be sanctified, at e pressing hard after this, to have
the favour of God restored to them, and the image
of God renewed on them. These are they that seek
the Lord, for it is only in the way of righteousness
that we can seek him with any hope of finding him.
I. How they are here directed to look back to
their original, and the smallness of their beginning;
“ Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn;” (the
idolatrous family in Ur of the Chaldees, out of
which Abraham was taken, the generation of slaves
which the heads and fathers of their tribes were in
Egypt;) “look unto the hole of the flit out of which
ye arc digged, as clay, when God formed you into a
people.” Note, It is good for those that are privi¬
leged by a new birth, to consider what they were
by their first birth: how they were conceived in ini¬
quity and sha/ien in sin. That which is born of the
flesh, is flesh: how hard was that rock out of which
we were hewn, unapt to receive impressions; and
how miserable the hole of that fit out of which we
were digged! The consideration should fill us witli
low thoughts of ourselves, and high thoughts of di¬
vine grace. Those that are now advanced, would
do well to remember how low they began; (u. 2.)
“ Look unto Abraham your father, the father of all
the faithful, of all that follow after the righteousness
of faith as he did; (Rom. iv. 11.) and unto Sarah
that bare you, and whose daughters you all are as
long as you do well; think how Abraham was call¬
ed alone, and yet was blessed and multiplied; and
let that encourage you to depend upon the promise
of God, even then when a sentence of death seems
to be upon all the means that lead to the perform¬
ance of it. Particularly let it encourage the cap¬
tives in Babylon, though they are reduced to a small
number, and few of them left, to hope that yet they
shall increase so as to replenish their own land again.
When Jacob is very small, yet he is not so small as
Abraham was, who yet became father of many na¬
tions. “ Look unto Abraham, and see what he got
by trusting in the promise of God, and take exam¬
ple by him to follow God with an implicit faith.”
3. How they are here assured that their present
seedness of tears should at length end in a harvest
of joys, v. 3. The church of God on earth, even
the gospel-Zion, has sometimes had her deserts and
waste places; many parts of the church, through
either corruption or persecution, made like a wil¬
derness, unfruitful to God, or uncomfortable to the
inhabitants; but God will find out a time and way to
comfort Zion, not only by speaking comfortably to
her, but by acting graciously for her. God has com¬
forts in store even for the waste places of bis church,
for those parts of it that seem not regarded nr va¬
lued. (1.) He will make them fruitful, and so give
them cause to rejoice; her wildernesses shall put on a
new face, and look pleasant as Eden, and abound in
all good fruits as the garden of the Lord. Note, It
is the greatest comfort of the church to be made
serviceable to the glory of God, and to be as his gar¬
den in which lie delights. (2.) He will make them
cheerful, and so give them hearts to rejoice: with
the fruits of righteousness, joy and gladness shall
be found therein; for, the more holiness men have,
and the more good they do, the more gladness the'-
have. And where there is gladness, to their satis
faction, it is fit that there should be thanksgiving,
to God’s honour; for, whatever is the matter of our
rejoicing, ought to be the matter of our thanksgiv¬
ing; and the returns of God’s favour ought to be
celebrated with the voice of melody, which will be
the more melodious, when God gives songs in the
night, songs in the' desert.
4. Hearken unto me, my people, and give
ear unto me, O my nation : for a law shall
proceed from me, and 1 will make my judg¬
ment to rest for a light of the people. 5. My
righteousness is near; my salvation is gone
forth, and mine arms shall judge the people:
the isles shall wait upon me, and on mine
arm shall they trust. 6. Lift up your eyes
to the heavens, and look upon the earth be¬
neath; for the heavens shall vanish away
like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like
a garment, and they that dwell therein shall
die in like manner: but my salvation shall
be for ever, and my righteousness shall not
be abolished. 7. Hearken unto me, ye that
know righteousness, the people in whose
heart is my law ; fear ye not the reproach
of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings.
8. For the moth shall eat them up like a
garment, and the worm shall eat them like
wool : but my righteousness shall be for ever,
and my salvation from generation to gene¬
ration.
Both these firoclamations, as I may call them, end
alike with an assurance of the perpetuity of God’s
righteousness, and his salvation; and therefore we
put them together, both being designed for the com¬
fort of God’s people. Observe,
I. Who they are to whom this comfort belong;
“ My people, and my nation, that I have set apart
for myself, that own me, and are owned by me.”
Those are God’s people and his nation, who are
subject to him as their King and their God, pay
allegiance to him, and put themselves under his
protection accordingly. They are a people who
know righteousness, who not only have the means of
knowledge, and to whom righteousness is made
known, but who improve those means, and are able
to form a right judgment of truth and falsehood,
good and evil. And as they have good heads, so
they have good hearts, for they have the law of God
in them, written and ruling there. Those God
owns for his people, in whose heart his law is. Even
those who know righteousness, and have the law of
God in their heart, may yet be in great distress
and sorrow, and loaded with reproach and con¬
tempt; but their God will comfort them with the
righteousness they know, and the law they have in
their hearts.
II. What the comfort is, that belongs to God’s
people:
1. That the gospel of Christ shall be preached
233
ISAIAH, LI.
and published to the world; A law shall proceed
from me, an evangelical law, the law of Christ, the
law of faith, ch. ii. 3. This law is his judgment, for
it is that law of liberty by which the world shall be
governed and judged; this shall not only go forth,
but shall continue and rest, it shall take firm footing
and deep root in the world; it shall rest not only for
the benefit of the Jews, who had the first notice of
it, but far a light of the people of other nations. It
is this law, this judgment, that we are required to
hearken and give ear to, at our peril; for how shall
we escape if we neglect it, and turn a deaf ear to it?
When a law proceeds from God, he that has ea>-s
:o hear, let him hear.
2. That this law and judgment shall bring witli
them righteousness and salvation, shall open a ready
way to tlie children of men, that they may lie justi¬
fied and saved, v. 5. It is called God’s righteous¬
ness and his salvation, because of his contriving and
bringing it about; it is a righteousness which he will
accept for us, and accept us for; and a righteousness
which lie will work in us, and graciously accept of;
it is the salvation of the Lord, for it arises from
him, and terminates in him. Observe, There is no
salvation without righteousness; and wherever there
■sthe righteousness of God, there shall be his salva¬
tion. All those, and those only, that are justified
and sanctified, shall be glorified.
3. That this righteousness and salvation shall very
shortly appear: it is near, it is gone forth; the de¬
cree is gone fortli concerning it, it shall as certainly
be introduced as if it were gone forth already, and
the time for it is at hand. It is near in time, behold,
all tilings are now ready; it is near in place, not far
to seek, but the word is nigli us, and Christ in the
word, righteousness in the word, Rom. x. 8.
4. That tills evangelical righteousness and salva¬
tion shall not be confined to the Jewish nation, but
sli ill lie extended to the Gentiles; Mine arms shall
judge the people. Those that will not yield to the
judgments of God’s mouth, shall be crushed by the
judgments of his hand. Some shall thus be judged
bv the gospel, for for judgment Christ came into
this world; but others, and those of the isles, shall
wait upon him, and bid his gospel, and the com¬
mands as well as the comforts of it, welcome. It
was a comfort to God’s people, to his nation, that
multitudes should be added to them, and the increase
of their number should be the increase of their
Strength and beauty. It is added, And on mine arm
shall they trust, that arm of the Lord, which is re¬
vealed in Christ, ch. liii. 1. Observe, God’s arm
shall judge the people that are impenitent, and yet
on his arm shall others trust, and lie saved by it; for
it is to us, as we make it, a savour of life or of death.
5. That this righteousness and salvation shall be
for ever, and shall never be abolished, v. 8. It is
an everlasting righteousness that the Messiah brings
in, (Dan. ix. 24.) an eternal redemption that he is
the Author of, Heb. v. 9. As it shall spread through
all the nations of the earth, so it shall last through
all the ages of the world. We must never expect
any other way of salvation, any other covenant of
peace, or rule of righteousness, than what we have
in the gospel, and what we have there shall continue
to the end, Mattli. xxviii. 20. It is for ever, for the
consequences of it shall be to eternity; and by this
law of liberty men’s everlasting state will lie deter¬
mined. This perpetuity of the gospel, and the bless¬
ed things it brings in, is illustrated by the fading
and perishing of this world and all things in it. Look
up to the visible heavens above, which have conti¬
nued hitherto, and seem likely to continue, but they
shall vanish like smoke that soon spends itself and
disappears; they shall be rolled like a scroll, and
their lights shall fall like leaves in autumn. Look
down to the earth beneath, that abides too for a
Vol. iv. — 2G
short ever, (Eccl. i. ■*. , out it shall wax old like a
garment that will be the worse for wearing; and
they that dwell therein, all the inhabitants of the
earth, even those that seem to have the best settle¬
ment in it, shall die in like manner; the soul shall, as
to tliis world, vanish like smoke, and the body be
tin-own by like a garment waxen old; they shall be
easily crushed, (Jobiv. 19.) and nolossof them. But
when heaven and earth pass away, when all flesh
and tlie glory of it wither as grass, the word of the
Lord endures for ever, and not one iota or tittle of
that shall fall to the ground. Those whose happi¬
ness is bound up in Christ’s righteousness and salva¬
tion, will have the comfort of it when time and days
shall be no more.
III. What use they are to make of this comfort:
if God’s righteousness and salvation are near to them,
then let them not fear the reproach of men, of mor¬
tal, miserable men, nor be afraid of their revilings
or spiteful taunts, theirs who bid you sing them the
songs of Zion, or who ask you, in scorn, Where is
now your God ? Let not those who embrace the
gospel-righteousness be afraid of those who will call
them Beelzebub, and will say all manner of evil
against them falsely; let them not be afraid of them,
let them not be disturbed by these opprobrious
speeches, nor made uneasy by them, as if they would
be the ruin of their reputation and honour, and they
must for ever lie under the load of them. Let them
not be afraid of their executing their menaces, or be
deterred thereby from their duty, or frightened into
any sinful compliances, or driven to take any indirect
courses for their own safety. Those can bear but
little for Christ, that cannot bear a hard word for
him. Let us not fear tlie reproach of men; for, 1.
They will be quickly silenced; (x>. 8.) The moth
shall eat them up like a garment, ch. 1. 9. The
worm shall cat them like wool, or wot lien cloth. If
we have tlie approbation of a living God, we may
despise tlie censure of dying men; the matter is not
great what they say of us, who must shortly be food
for worms. Or it intimates the judgments of God
witli which they shall lie visited, with which they
shall be consumed, for their malice against the peo¬
ple of God; they shall be slowly and silently, but
effectually, destroyed, when God shall come to
reckon with them for all their hard speeches, Jude
14, 15. 2. The cause we suffer for cannot be ran
down; the falsehood of their reproaches will be de¬
tected, but truth shall triumph, and tlie righteous¬
ness of religion’s injured cause shall be for ever plain.
Clouds darken the sun, but give no obstruction to
his progress.
9. Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm
of the Lord; awake, as in the ancient clays,
in the generations of old. Art thou not it
that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the
dragon? 10. Art thou not it which hath
dried the sea, the waters of the great deep;
that hath made the depths of the sea a way
for the ransomed to pass over ? 11. There¬
fore the redeemed of the Lord shall return,
and come with singing unto Zion ; and ever¬
lasting joy shall he upon their head : they
shall obtain gladness and joy ; ant! sorrow
and mourning shall flee away. 12. I, even
I, am he that comforteth you : who art thou,
that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that
shall die, and of the son of man which shall
be made as grass; 13. And forget test the
Lord thy Maker, that hath stretched forth
234
ISAIAH, Li.
the heavens, and laid the foundations of the
earth ; and hast feared continually eveiy day,
because of the fury of the oppressor, as if he
were ready to destroy ? and where is the
fury of the oppressor? 14. The captive exile
hasteneth that he may be loosed, and that he
should not die in the pit, nor that his bread
should fail. 15. But I am the Lord thy
God, that divided the sea, whose waves
roared : the Lord of hosts is his name. 16.
And I have put my words in thy mouth, and
have covered thee in the shadow of mine
hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay
the foundations of the earth, and say unto
Zion, Thou art .my people.
In these verses, we have,
I. A prayer that God would, in his providence,
appear and act for the deliverance of his people, and
the mortification of his and their enemies; Awake,
awake, put on strength, O Arm of the Lord, v. 9.
The arm of the Lord is Christ, or it is put for God
himself, as Ps. xliv. 23. Awake, why sleepest thou ?
He that keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps;
but when we pray that he would awake, we mean
that he would make it to appear that he watches
over his people, and is always awake to do them
good. The arm of the Lord is said to awake, when
the power of God exerts itself with more than ordi¬
nary vigour on his people’s behalf. When a hand
or arm is benumbed, we say, It is asleep; when it is
stretched forth for action, It awakes. God needs
not to be reminded or excited by us, but he gives us
leave thus to be humbly earnest with him for such
appearances of his power as will be for his own
pr .ise; “ Put on strength, put forth strength : appear
in thy strength, as we appear in the clothes we put
■m,” rs. xxi. 13. The church sees her case bad, her
enemies many and mighty, her friends few and fee¬
ble; and therefore she depends purely upon the
strength of God’s arm for her relief; “ Awake as in
the ancient days, do for us now as thou didst for our
fathers formerly, repeat the wonders they told us
of,” Judg. vi. 13.
II. The pleas to enforce this prayer; 1. They
plead precedents, the experiences of their ancestors,
and the great things God had done for them; “Let
the arm of the Lord be made bare on our behalf, for
it has done great things formerly in defence of the
same cause, and we are sure it is neither shortened
nor weakened: it did wonders against the Egyptians,
who enslaved and oppressed God’s son, his first¬
born; it cut llahab to pieces with one direful plague
after another; and wounded Pharaoh, the Dragon,
the Leviathan, (as he is called, Ps. lxxiv. 13, 14.)
it gave him his death’s wound. It did wonders for
Israel; it dried u/i the sea, even the waters of the
great deep, as far as was requisite to open a way
through the sea for the ransomed to pass over,” v.
10. God is never at a loss for a way to accomplish
his purposes concerning his people, but will either
find one, or make one. Past experiences, as they
are great supports to faith and hope, so they are
good pleas in prayer, Thou hast; wilt thou not? Ps.
ixxxv. 1. — 6. 2. They plead promises; (y. 11.) And
the redeemed of the Lord shall return; (as it may be
supplied) Thou hast said. They shall; referring to
ch. xxxv. 10. where we find this promise, that the
redeemed of the Lord, when they are released out of
their captivity in Babylon, shall come with singing
unto Zion. Sinners, when they are brought out of
the slavery of sin into the glorious liberty of God’s
children, may come singing, as a bird got loose out
of the cage. The souls of believers, wner, ,ney are
delivered out of the prison of the body, come to the
heavenly Zion with singing. Then this promise will
have its full accomplishment, and we may plead it
in the mean time; he that designs such joy for us at
last, will he not work such deliverance for us in the
mean time as our case requires? When the saints
come to heaven, they enter into the joy of their Lord,
it crowns their heads with immortal honour, it fills
their hearts with complete satisfaction; they shall
obtain that joy and gladness which they could never
obtain in this vale ol tears. In this world of changes,
it is a short step from joy to sorrow, but in that
world sorrow and mourning shall flee away, never
to return, or come in view again.
III. The answer immediately given to this prayer;
(v. 12. ) I, even I, am he that comforts you. They
prayed for the operations of his power," he answers
them with the consolations of his grace, which may
well be accepted as an equivalent. If God do not
wound the dragon, and dry the sea, as formerly, yet
if he comfort us in soul under our afflictions, "we
have no reason to cpmplain. If God do not answer
immediately, with the saving strength of his right
hand, we must be thankful if he answer us, as an
angel himself was answered, (Zech. i. 13.) with
good words and comfortable words. See how God
resolves to comfort his people; I, even I, will do it.
He had ordered his ministers to do it, ( ch . xl. 1. )
but because they cannot reach the heart, he takes
the work into his own hands; I, even I, will do it.
See how he glories in it; he takes it among the titles
of his honour to be the God that comforts them that
are cast down; he delights in being so. Those whom
God comforts, are comforted indeed; nay, his under¬
taking to comfort them is comfort enough to them.
1. He comforts those that were in fear; and fear
has torment which calls for comfort; the fear of man
has a snare in it which we have 'need of comfort to
preserve us from. He comforts the timorous by-
chiding them, and that is no improper way of com¬
forting either others or ourselves; Why art thou
cast down, and why disquieted? v. 12, 13. God,
who comforts his people, would not have them dis¬
quiet themselves with amazing, perplexing fears,
either of the reproach of men, (v. 7.) or of their
growing, threatening power and greatness, or of any
mischief they may intend against us or our people.
Observe,
(1.) The absurdity of those fears; it is a disparage¬
ment to us to give way to them; Who art thou, that
thou shouldest be afraid? In the original, the pro¬
noun is feminine. Who art thou, O woman, unwor¬
thy the name of a man? Such a weak and womanish
thing it is to give way to perplexing fears. [1.] It
is absurd to be in such dread of a dying man. What !
afraid of a man, that shall die, shall certainly and
shortly die; of the son of man which shall be made
as grass, shall wither and be trodden down, or eaten
up? The greatest men, and the most formidable,
that are the terror of the mighty, in the land of the
living, are but men, (Ps. ix. 20.) and shall die like
men; (Ps. lxxxii. 7.) are but grass sprang out of the
earth, cleaving to it, and retiring again into it. Note,
We ought to look upon every man as a man that
shall die. Those we admire, and love, and trust to,
are men that shall die; let us not therefore delight
too much in them, nor depend too much upon them.
Those we fear we must look upon as frail and mor¬
tal, and consider what a foolish thing it is for the
servants of the living God to be afraid of dying men,
that are here to-day, and gone to-morrow. [2.] It
is absurd to fear continually every day, (re 13.) to
put ourselves upon a constant rack, so as never to be
easy, nor to have any enjoyment of ourselves. Now
and then a danger may be imminent and threat: nmg,
and it may be prudence to fear it; but to be always
235
ISAIAH, LI.
in a toss, jealous of dangers at every step, and to
Tumble at the shaking of every ieaf, is to make our¬
selves all our life-time subject to bondage, (Heb. ii.
15.) and to bring upon ourselves that sore judgment
which is threatened, Deut. xxviii. 66, 67. Thou
shall fear day and night. [3.] It is absurd to fear
beyond what there is cause; “Thou art afraid of
the fury of the ofifiressor; it is true, there is an
oppressor, and he is furious, and he designs, it may
be, when lie lias an opportunity, to do thee a mis¬
chief, and it will be thy wisdom therefore to stand
upon thy guard; but thou art afraid of him, as if he
were ready to destroy, aS if he were just now going
to cut thy throat, and as if there were no possibility
of preventing it. ” A timorous spirit is thus apt to
make the worst of every thing, and to apprehend
the danger greater and nearer than really it is.
Sometimes God is pleased at once to show us the
folly of it; “ Where is the fury of the oppressor? It
is gone in an instant, and the danger is over ere thou
art aware. ” His heart is turned, or his hands are
tied. Pharaoh king of £gy/it is but a noise, and
the king of Babylon no more. What is gone with
all the furious oppressors of God’s Israel, that hec¬
tored them, and threatened them, and were a terror
to them; they passed away, and lo, they were not,
and so shall these.
(2.) The impittv of those fears; “ Thou art afraid
of a man that shall die, and forgettest the Lord thy
Maker, who is also the Maker of all the world, who
has stretched forth the heavens, and laid the founda¬
tions of the earth, and therefore has all the hosts and
all the powers of both at his command and disposal. ”
Note, Our inordinate fearing of man is an implicit
forgetting of God. When we disquiet ourselves
with the fear of man, we forget that there is a God
above him, and that the greatest of men have no
power but what is given them from above; we forget
the providence of God, by which he orders and
overrules all events according to the counsel of his
own will; we forget the promises he has made to
protect his people, and the experiences we have had
of his care concerning us, and his seasonable inter¬
position for our relief many a time, when we thought
the oppressor ready to destroy; we forget our Jeho-
vah-jirehs, monuments of mercy in the mount of the
Lcrd. Did we remember to make God our fear
and our dread, we should not be so much afraid as
we are of the frowns of men, ch. viii. 12, 13. Happy
is the man that fears God always, Prov. xxviii. 14.
Luke xii. 4, 5.
2. He comforts those that were in bonds, v. 14,
15. See here, (1.) What they do for themselves;
The ca/itive exile hastens that he may be loosed, and
r^ay return to his own country, from which he is
banished; his care is, that he may not die in the pit,
not die a prisoner, through the inconveniencies of his
confinement; and that his bread should not fail,
either the bread he should have to keep him alive
in prison, or that which should bear his charges
home; his stock is low, and therefore he hastens to
be loosed. Now some understand this as his fault;
he is distrustfully impatient of delays, cannot wait
God’s time, but thinks he is undone, and must die
in the pit, if he be not released immediately; others
take it to be his praise, that when the doors are
thrown open, he does not linger, but applies himself
with all diligence to procure his discharge; and then
it follows, But I am the Lord thy God, which inti¬
mates, (2.) What God will do for them, even that
which they cannot do for themselves. God has all
power in his hand to help the captive exiles; for he
lias divided the sea, when the roaring of its waves
was more frightful than any of the impotent menaces
of proud oppressors. He has stilled or quieted the
s-' a, so some think it should be read, Ps. lxv. 7. —
I xxxix. 9. This is not only a proof of what God
| can do, out a resemblance of what he has done, and
!• will do, for his people; lie will find out a way to still
j the threatening storm, and bring them safe into the
!| harbour; The Lord of hosts is his name, his name
jj for ever; the name by which his people have long
!; known him. And as he is able to help them, so he
jj is willing and engaged to do it; for he is thy God, O
i; captive exile, thine in covenant. This is a check to
jj the desponding captives; let them not conclude that
il they must either be loosed immediately, or die in
ij the pit; for he that is the Lord of hosts can relieve
j: them when they are brought ever so low. It is also
|! an encouragement to the diligent captives, who,
jj when liberty is proclaimed, are willing to lose no
j time; let them know that the Lord is their God, and
while they thus strive to help themselves, they may
be sure he will help them.
3. He comforts all his people who depended upon
what the prophets said to them in the name of the
Lord, and built their hopes upon it. When the
deliverances which the prophets spake of, either did
not come so soon as they looked for them, or did not
come up to the height of tneir expectation, they’
began to be cast down in their own eyes; but as to
this, they are encouraged, (y. 16.) by what God
says to his prophet, not to this only, but to all his
prophets, nor to this, or them, principally, but to
Christ, the great Prophet. It is a great satisfaction
to those to whom the message is sent, to hear the
God of truth and power say to his messenger, as he
does here, I have put my words in thy mouth, that
by them I may plant the heavens. God undertook
to comfort his people; (n. 12.) but still he does it by
his prophets, by his gospel; and that he may do it
by these, he here tells us, (1.) That his word in
them is very true. He owns what the)' had said to
be what he had directed and enjoined them to say;
“ I have put my words in thy mouth, and therefi re
he that receives thee and them receives me.” This
is a great stay to our faith, that Christ’s doctrine
was not his, but his that sent him; and that the
words of the prophets and apostles were God’s words
which he put into their mouths. God’s Spirit not
only revealed to them the things themselves thev
spake of, but dictated to them the words they should
speak, (2 Pet. i. 21. 1 Cor. ii. 13.) so that these are
the true sayings of God, of a God that cannot lie.
(2.) That it is very safe; I have covered thee in the
shadow of my hand, (as before, ch. xlix. 2. ) which
speaks the special protection not only of the pro¬
phets, but of their prophecies, not only of Christ but
of Christianity, of the gospel of Christ; it is not only
the faithful word of God which the prophets deliver
to us, but it shall be carefully preserved till it have
its accomplishment for the use of the church, not¬
withstanding the restless endeavours of the powers
of darkness to extinguish this light. They shall
prophesy again, (Rev. x. 11.) though not in their
persons, yet in their writings, which God has always
covered in the shadow of his hand, preserved by a
special providence, else they had been lost ere this.
(3.) That this word, when it comes to be accom¬
plished, will be very great, and will not fall short of
the pomp and grandeur of the prophecy; “ I have
put my words in thy mouth, not that by the per¬
formance of them I may plant a nation, or found a
city, but plant the heavens, and lay the foundation?
of the earth, may do that for my people which will
be a new creation.” This must look as far forward
as to the great work done by the gospel of Christ,
and the setting up of his holy religion in the world.
As God by Christ made the world at first, (Heb. i.
2.) and by him formed the Old Testament church,
(Zocli. vi. 12.) so by him, and the words put into
his mouth, he will set up, [1.] A new world; will
again plant the heavens, and found the earth. Sin
having put the whole creation into disorder, Christ’s
ISAIAH, Li.
taking away the sin of the world put all into order
again; old things are passed away, all things are
become new; things in heaven and things on earth
are reconciled, and so put into a new posture, Col. i.
20. Through him, according to the promise, we
look for new heavens and a new earth, (2 Pet. iii.
13.) and to this the prophets bear witness. [2.]
He will set up a new church, a New Testament
church; he •will say unto Zion, Thou art my people.
The gospel-church is called Zion, (Heb. xii. 22.)
and Jerusalem, Gal. iv. 26. And when the Gen¬
tiles are brought into it, it shall be said unto them,
Ye are my people. When God works great deli¬
verances for his church, and especially when he
shall complete the salvation of it in the great day,
he will thereby own that poor despised hand¬
ful to be his people, whom he has chosen and
loved.
17. Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusa¬
lem, which hast drunk at the hand of the
Lord the cup of his fury: thou hast drunken
'the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung
them out. 1 S. There is none to guide her
among all the sons whom she hath brought
•orth ; neither is there any that taketh her
by the hand, of all the sons that she hath
brought up. 19. These two things are
come unto thee; who shall be sorry for
thee ? desolation, and destruction, and the
famine, and the sword : by whom shall I
comfort thee? 20. Thy sons have fainted,
they lie at the head of all the streets as a
wild bull in a net : they are full of the fury
of the Lord, the rebuke of thy God. 21.
Therefore, hear now this, thou afflicted, and
drunken, but not with wine : 22. Thus
saith thy Lord, the Lord, and thy God that
pleadeth the cause of his people, Behold, I
have taken out of thy hand the cup of
trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my
fury , thou shalt no more drink it again :
23. But 1 will put it into the hand of them
that afflict thee; which have said to thy
soul, Bow down, that we may go over: and
thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and
as the street, to them that went over.
God having awoke for the comfort of his people,
here calls upon them to awake, as afterward, ch.
Iii. 1. It is a call to awake not so much out of their
sleep of sin, (though that also is necessary in order
to their being ready for deliverance,) as out of the
stupor of despair. When the inhabitants of Jeru¬
salem were in captivity, they as well as those who
remained upon the spot, were so overwhelmed with
the sense of their troubles, that they had no heart
or spirit to mind any thing that tended to their com¬
fort or relief ; they were as the disciples in the gar¬
den, sleeping for sorrow, .(Luke xxii. 45.) and
therefore when the deliverance came, they are
said to be like them that dream, (Ps. exxvi. 1.)
Nay, it is a call to awake, not only from sleep,
but from death, like that to the dry bones to live,
Ezek. xxxvii. 9. “Awake, and look about thee,
that thou mayest see the day of thy deliverance
dawn, and mayest be ready to bid it welcome:
recover thy senses, sink not under thy load, but
stand up, and bestir thyself for thy own help.”
This may be applied to the Jerusalem that was
in the apostle’s time, which is said to be in bon
dage with her children, (Gal. iv. 25.) and to have
been under the power of a spirit of slumber;
(Rom. xi. 8.) they are called to awake, and mind
the things that belonged to their everlasting peace,
and then the cup of trembling should be taken r ut
of their hands, peace should be spoken to them, and
they should triumph over Satan, who had blinded
their eyes and lulled them asleep. Now,
I. It is owned that Jerusalem had long been in a
very deplorable condition, and sunk into the depths
of misery.
1. She had lain under the tokens of God’s displea¬
sure: he had put into her hand the cup of his fury,
her share of his displeasure; the dispensations of his
providence concerning her had been such, that she
had reason to think he was angry with her. She
had provoked him to anger most bitterlv, and was
made to taste the bitter fruits of it. The cup of
God’s fury is, and will be, a cup of trembling to all
those that have it put into their hands: damned sin¬
ners will find it so to eternity. It is said (Ps. lxxv
8.) that the dregs of the cup, the loathsome sedi¬
ments in the bottom of it, all the wicked of the earth
shall wring them out, and drink them; but here Je¬
rusalem having made herself as the wicked of the
earth, is compelled to wring them out, and drink
them; for wherever there has been a cup of forni¬
cation, as there had been in Jerusalem’s hand, when
she was idolatrous, sooner or later there will be a
cup of fury, a cup of trembling: therefore stand in
awe and sin not.
2. Those that should have helped her in her dis¬
tress, failed her, and were either unable or unwill¬
ing to help her, as might have been expected, v. 18.
She is intoxicated with the cup of God’s fury, and,
being so, staggers, and is very unsteady in her coun¬
sels and attempts; she knows not what she says or
does, much less knows she what to say or do. In
this unhappy condition, of all the sons that she has
brought forth and brought up, that she has borne
and educated, (and there were many famous ones,
for of Zion it was said, That this and that man was
born there, Ps. lxxxvii. 5.) there is none to guide
her, none to take her by the hand, to keep her
either from falling, or from shaming herself, to lend
either a hand to help her out of her trouble, or a
tongue to comfort her under it. Think it not
strange, if wise and good men are disappointed in
their children, and have not that succour from them
which they expected, but if those that were arrows
in their hand, prove arrows in their heart, when Je¬
rusalem herself has none of all her sons, either
prince, priest, or prophet, that has such a sense
either of duty or gratitude, as to help her when she
had most need of help. Thus they complain, (Pa
lxxiv. 9.) There is none to tell us how long.
Now that which aggravated this disappointment,
was,
(1.) That her trouble was very great, and yet
there was none to pity or help her; These two things
are come unto thee, (v. 19.) to complete thy deso¬
lation and destruction, even the famine and the
sword, two sore judgments, and very terrible. Or,
the two things were, the desolation and destruction
by which the city was wasted, and the famine and
sword by which the citizens perished. Or, the two
things were, the trouble itself, made up of desola¬
tion, destruction, famine, and sword, and her being
helpless, forlorn, and comfortless, under it; “Two
sad things indeed, to be in this woful case, and to
have none to pity thee, to sympathize with thee in
thy griefs, or to’ help to bear the burthen of thy
cares; to have none to comfort thee, by suggesting
that to thee which might help to alleviate thy g-rief,
or doing that for thee which might help to redress
thy grievances.” Or, these two things that were
237
ISAIAH, LTI.
come upon Jerusalem, are the same with the two
things that were afterward to come upon Babylon,
(c/i. xlvii. 9.) loss of children and widowhood;
piteous cases, and yet, when thou hast brought it
upon thyself by thy own sin and folly, who shall be
sorry for thee? Cases that call for comfort, and
yet, when thou art froward under thy trouble, fret-
test, and makest thyself uneasy, by whom shall I
comfort thee? They that will not be counselled,
cannot be helped.
(2. ) That those who should have been her com¬
forters, were their own tormentors, (v. 20.) They
have fainted, as quite dispirited and driven to de¬
spair, they have no patience in which to keep pos¬
session of' their own souls, and the enjoyment of
themselves, nor any confidence in God’s promise,
bv which to keep possession of the comfort of that.
They throw themselves upon the ground, in vexa¬
tion at their troubles, and there they lie at the head
of all the streets, complaining to all that pass by,
(Lam. i. 12.) pining away for want of necessary
food; there they lie like a wild bull in a net, fretting
and raging, struggling and pulling, to help them¬
selves, but entangling themselves so much the more,
and making their condition the worse, by their own
passions and discontents. They that are of a meek
and quiet spirit, are, under affliction, like a dove in
a net, mourning indeed, but silent and patient.
They that are of a froward, peevish spirit, are like
a wild bull in a net, uneasy to themselves, vexatious
to their friends, and provoking to their God: they
are full of the fury of the Lord, the rebuke of our
Goa. God is angry with them, and contends with
them, and they are full of that only, and take no
notice of his wise and gracious designs in afflicting
them, never inquire wherefore he contends with
them, and therefore nothing appears in them but an¬
ger at God, and quarrelling with him. They are
displeased at God for the dispensations of his pro¬
vidence concerning them, and so they do but make
bad worse. This had long been Jerusalem’s woful
case, and God took cognizance of it. But,
II. It is promised that Jerusalem’s troubles shall
at length come to an end, and be transfeired to her
persecutors; (y. 21.) JVevertheless, hear this, thou
afflicted. It is often the lot of God’s church to be
afflicted, and God has always something to say to
her then, which she will do well to hearken to.
“ Thou art drunken, not as formerly with wine,
not with the intoxicating cup of Babylon’s whore¬
doms and idolatries, but with the cup of affliction.
Know then, for thy comfort,
1. “ That the Lord Jehovah is thy Lord and thy
God, for all this.” It is expressed emphatically,
(v. 22.) “ Thus saith thy Lord, the Lord, and thy
God; the Lord, who is able to help thee, and has
wherewithal to relieve thee, thy Lord, who has an
incontestable right to thee, and will not alienate it,
thv God, in covenant with thee, and who has un¬
dertaken to make thee happy.” Whatever the
distresses of God’s people may be, he will not dis¬
own his relation to them, nor have they lost their
interest in him and in his promise.
?. “ That he is the God who pleads the cause of
'rs people, as their Patron and Protector; who takes
wh.it is done against them as done against himself.”
rii e cause of God’s people, and of that holy religion
which they profess, is a righteous cause, otherwise
the righteous God would not appear for it; yet it
m iv for a time be run down, and seem as if it were
I st; but God will plead it, either by convincing the
i' 1 m sciences, or confounding the mischievous projects,
of those that fight against it. He will plead it by
clearing up the equity and excellency of it to the
world, and by giving success to those that act in
defence of it. It is his own cause, he has espoused
if, and therefore will plead it with jealousy.
3. That they should shortly take leave of their
troubles, and bid a final farewell to tlum; “ > will
take out of thy hand the cup of trcinbln ,g, that
bitter cup, it shall pass from thee.” Tnn wing
away the cup of trembling will not do, nor sav ing,
“We will not, we cannot drink it;” but if we p. -
tiently submit, he that put it into rur hands will
himself take it out of our hands. Nay, it is pn -
mised, “ Thou shalt no more drink it again; God
has let fall his controversy with thee, ..nd will not
revive the judgment.”
4. That their persecutors and oppressors should
be made to drink of the same bitter cup which they
had drunk so deep of, v. 23. See hire, (1.) Hi w
insolently they had abused, and trampled upon, tli ■
people of God; They have said to thy soul, to thee,
to thy life, Bow down, that we may go over. Nat ,
they have said it to thy conscience, taking pride and
pleasure in forcing thee to worship idols. Hi rim
the New Testament Babylon triads in the stips i f
that old oppressor, tyrannizing over men’s c< n-
sciences, giving law to them, putting them upi n
the rack, and compelling them to sinful compliances.
Thev that set up an infallible head and judge, re¬
quiring an implicit faith in his dictates, and obedi¬
ence to his commands, do in effect say to men’s
souls, Boson down, that we may go over, and they
say it with delight. How meanly the people if
God (having by their sin lost much of their courage
and sense of honour). truckled to them; Thou hast
laid thy body as the ground. Observe, The i p-
pressors required souls to be subjected to them, that
every man should believe and worship just as they
would have them. But all they could gain by their
threats and violence, was, that people laid tluir
body on the ground; they brought them to an ex¬
ternal and hypocritical conformity, but conscieitce
cannot be forced, nor is it mentioned to their praise
that they yielded thus far. But, (2.) Observe how
justly God will reckon with those who have carried
it so imperiously toward his people; the cu/i of
trembling shall be put into their hand. Babylon’s
case shall be as bad as ever Jerusalem’s was. Da¬
niel’s persecutors shall be thrown into Daniel’s den;
let them see how they like it. And the Lord is
known by these judgments which he executes.
CHAP. LII.
The most part of this chapter is of the same subject with
the chapter before, concerning the deliverance of the
Jews out of Babylon, which yet is applicable to the
great salvation Christ has wrought out for us ; but the
three last verses are of the same subject with the follow¬
ing chapter, concerning the person of the Redeemer, his
humiliation, and exaltation. Observe, I. The encourage¬
ment that is given to the Jews in captivity, to hope that
God would deliver them in his own way and time, v.
1 • • 6. II. The great joy and rejoicing that shall be
both with ministers and people upon that occasion, v.
7 . . 10. III. The call given to those that remained in
captivity to shift for their own enlargement when liberty
was proclaimed, v. 11, 12. IV. A short idea given here
of the Messiah, which is enlarged upon in the next
chapter, v. 13. . . 15.
1 . A WAKE, awake ; put on thy strength,
jlm. O Zion ; put on thy beautiful gar¬
ments, O Jerusalem, the holy city : for hence¬
forth there shall no more come unto thee the
uncircumcised and the unclean. 2. Shake
thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down,
O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands
of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion. 3
For thus saith the Lord, Ye have sold
yourselves for nought ; and ye shall be re¬
deemed without money. . 4. For thus said.
233
ISAIAH, LII.
the Lord God, Mv people went down afore¬
time into Egypt to sojourn there ; and the
Assyrian oppressed them without cause.
5. Now, therefore, what have I here, saith
the Lord, that my people is taken away for
nought? They that rule over them make
them to howl, saith the Lord, and my
name continually every day is blasphemed.
6. Therefore my people shall know my
name : therefore they shall know in that day
that I am he that doth speak ; behold, it is I.
Here,
I. God’s people are stirred up to appear vigorous
for their own deliverance, v. 1,2. 1 hey had de¬
sired that God would awake, and fiut on his strength,
ch. li. 9. Here he calls upon them to awake, and
fiut on their strength, to bestir themselves; let them
awake from their despondency, and pluck up their
spirits, encourage themselves and one another with
hope that all will be well yet, and no longer succumb
and sink under their burthen. Let them awake
from their distrust, look above them, look about
them, look into the promises, look into the provi¬
dences of God that were working for them, and let
them raise their expectations of great things from
God. Let them awake from, their dulness, slug¬
gishness, and incogitancy, and raise up their en¬
deavours, not to take any irregular courses for their
own relief, contrary to the law of nations concern¬
ing captives, but to use all likely means to recom¬
mend themselves to the favour of the conqueror,
and make an interest with him.
God here gives them an assurance, 1. That they
shall be reformed by their captivity; There shall no
more come into thee the uncircumcised and the un¬
clean, their idolatrous customs shall be no more in¬
troduced, or at least not harboured ; for when by the
marriage of strange wives, in Ezra’s time and Ne-
hemiah’s, the unclean crept in, they were soon by
the vigilance and zeal of the magistrates expelled
again; and care was taken that Jerusalem should be
a holv city. Thus the gospel-Jerusalem is purified
by the blood of Christ and the grace of God, and
made indeed a holy city. 2. They shall be relieved,
and rescued out of their captivity; that the bands
of their necks should be loosed; that they should not
now be any longer oppressed, nay, that they should
not be any more invaded as they had been; There
shall no more come against thee (so it may be read,
t>. 1.) the uncircumcised and the unclean. The
heathen shall not again enter into God’s sanctuary,
and profane his temple, Ps. lxxix. 1. This must
be understood with a condition; if they keep close
to God, and keep in with him, God will keep off,
will keep out, the enemy; but if they again corrupt
themselves, Antiochus will profane their temple,
and the Romans destroy it. However, for some
time they shall have peace. And to this happy
change, now approaching, they are here called to
accommodate themselves. (1.) Let them prepare
for joy; “ Put on thy beautiful garments, no longer
to appear in mourning-weeds, and the habit of thy
widowhood. Put on a new face, a smiling counte¬
nance, now that a new and pleasant scene begins to
open. ” The beautiful garments were laid up then,
when the harps were hung on the willow-trees; but
now there is occasion for both, let both be resumed
together. “Put on thy strength, and in order to
that, put on thy beautiful garments, in token of tri¬
umph and rejoicing.” Note, The joy of the Lord
will be our strength, (Neh. viii. 10.) and our beau¬
tiful garments will serve for armour of proof against
the darts of temptation and trouble. And observe.
Jerusalem must then put on her beautiful garments
when she is become a holy city, for the beaut)* of
holiness is the most amiable beauty, and the more
holy we are, the more cause we have to rejoice.
(2. ) Let them prepare for liberty ; “ Shake thyself
from the dust in which thou hast lain, and into
which thy proud oppressors have trodden thee, (ch.
li. 23.) or into which thou hast in thy extreme sor¬
row rolled thyself.” Arise, and sit ufi; so it may
be read. “ O Jerusalem, prepare to get clear of all
the marks of servitude thou hast been under, and to
shift thy quarters; loose thyself from the bands of
thy neck, be inspired with generous principles, and
resolutions to assert thine own liberty.” Phe gos¬
pel proclaims liberty to those who were bound with
fears, and makes it their duty to take hold of their
liberty. Let those who have been weary and
heavy-laden, under the burthen of sin, finding re¬
lief in Christ, shake themselves from the dust of
their doubts and fears, and loose themselves from
those bands; for if the Son make them free, they
shall be free indeed.
II. God stirs up himself to appear jealous for the
deliverance of his people. He here pleads their
cause with himself, and even stirs up himself to
come and save them, for his reasons of mercy are
fetched from himself. Divers things he here con¬
siders.
1. That the Chaldeans who oppressed them,
never acknowledged God in the power they gained
over his people; any more than Senna •herib did,
who, when God made use of him as an instrument
for the correction and reformation of his people,
meant not so, r'. x. 6, 7. “ Ye have sold your¬
selves for naught, you got nothing by it, nor did I.”
v. 3. God considers ‘that when they by sin had
sold themselves, lie himself, who had the prior,
nay, the sole, title to them, did not increase his
wealth by the firice, Ps. xliv. 12. (They did not
so much as pay their debts to him with it; the Ba¬
bylonians gave him no thanks for them, but rather
reproached and blasphemed his name upon that
account.) “ And therefore they, having so long
had you for nothing, shall at last restore you for no¬
thing; you shall be redeemed without firice; this was
promised, ch. xlv. 13. Those that give nothing,
must expect to get nothing; however, God is a
Debtor to no man.
2. That thev had been often before in the like
distress, had often smarted for a time under the
tyranny of their taskmasters, and therefore it was
pity that they should now be left always in the hand
of these oppressors; (y. 4.) My fieofile went down
into Egyfit, in an amicable way to settle there; but
they enslaved them, and ruled them with rigour.
And then they were delivered, notwithstanding the
pride, and power, and policies of Pharaoh. And
why may we not think God will deliver his people
now? At other times, the Assyrian oppressed the
people of God without cause, as when the ten tribes
were carried away captive by the king of Assyria;
soon after, Sennacherib, another Assyrian, with a
destroying army, oppressed, and made himself
master of, all the defenced cities of Judah; the
Babylonians might not unfitly be called Assyrians,
their monarchy being a branch of the Assyrian:
and they now oppressed them without cause.
Though ’God was righteous in delivering them into
their hands, they were unrighteous in using them
as they did; and could not pretend a dominion over
them as their subjects, as Pharaoh might when they
were settled in Goshen, a part of his kingdom.
When we suffer by the hands of wicked and unrea¬
sonable men, it is some comfort to be able to say.
that as to them it is without cause, that we have not
given them any provocation, Ps. vii. 3, 5, 8ce.
3. That God’s glory suffered by the injuries that
239
ISAIAH, LI I.
were done to his people; (v. 5.) H7iat have I here,
what do I get by it, that my ficofile is taken away
for naught? God is not worshipped as he used to
be in Jerusalem, his altar there is gone, and his
temple in ruins; but if, in lieu of that, he were more
and better worshipped in Babylon, either by the
captives, or by the natives, it were another matter,
God might be looked upon as in some respect a
Gainer in his honour by it; but alas, it is not so.
(1.) The captives are so dispirited, that they can¬
not praise him; instead of this, they are continually
howling, which grieves him, and moves his pity.
They that rule over them make them to howl, as the
Egyptians of old made them to sigh, Exod. ii. 23.
So the Babylonians, now using them more hardly,
extorted from them louder complaints, and made
them to howl. This gives us no pleasing idea of the
temper the captives were now in; their complaints
were not so rational and pious as they should have
been, but brutish rather; they howled, Hos. vii. 14.
However, God heard it, and came down to deliver
them, as he did out of Egypt, Exod. iii. 7, 8. (2.)
The natives are so insolent, that they will not praise
him, but, instead of that, they are continually blas¬
pheming, which affronts him, and moves his anger.
They boasted that they were too hard for God, be¬
cause thev were too fiard for his people, and set
him at defiance, as unable to deliver them, and thus
his name continually every day was blasphemed
among them. When they praised their own idols,
they lifted u/i themselves against the Lord of hea¬
ven, £)an. v. 23. “ Now,” says God, “this is not
to be suffered, I will go down to deliver them; for
what honour, what rent, what tribute of praise,
have I from the world, when my people, who
should be to me for a name and a praise, are to me
for a reproach.'1 For their oppressors will neither
praise God themselves, nor let them do it.” The
apostle quotes this, with application to the wicked
lives of the Jews, by which God was dishonoured
among the Gentiles then, as much as now he was
by their sufferings, Rom. ii. 23, 24.
4. That his glory would be greatly manifested by
their deliverance; ( v . 6.) “ Therefore, because my
name is thus blasphemed, I will arise, and my fieo-
file shall know my name, my name, Jehovah.” By
this name he had made himself known, in deliver¬
ing them out of Egypt, Exod. vi. 3. God will do
something to vindicate his qwn honour, something
for his great name, and his people, who have almost
lost the knowledge of it, shall know it to their com¬
fort, and shall find it their strong tower. They
shall know that God’s providence governs the world,
and all the affairs of it, that it is he who speaks de¬
liverance for them by the word of his power, that
it is he only, who at first spake, and it was done.
They shall know that God’s word, which Israel is
blessed with above other nations, shall without fail
have its accomplishments in due season; that it is
he who speaks by the prophets, it is he, and they
do not speak of themselves, for not one iota or tittle
of what they say shall fall to the ground.
7. How beautiful upon the mountains are
the feet of him that bringeth good tidings,
that publisheth peace ; that bringeth good
tidings of good, that publisheth salvation;
that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth !
8. Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice;
with the voice together shall they sing : for
they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord
shall bring again Zion. 9. Break forth into
joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jeru¬
salem : for the Lord hath comforted his
people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem: 10.
The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in
the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends
of the earth shall see the salvation of our
God. • 11. Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out
from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye
out of the midst of her ; he ye clean that bear
the vessels of the Lord. 12. For ye shall
not go out with haste, nor go by (light: for
the Lord will go before you ; and the God
of Israel will he your rearward.
The removal of the Jews from Babylcn to their
own land again, is here spoken of both as a mercy,
and as a duty; and the application cf v. 7. to the
preaching of the gospel, (by the apostle, Rom. x.
15.) plainly intimates that that deliverance was a
type and figure of the redemption of mankind by
Jesus Christ, to which what is here said of their re¬
demption out of Babylon ought to be accommodated.
I. It is here spoken of as a great blessing, which
ought to be welcomed with abundance of joy and
thankfulness.
1. Those that bring the tidings of their release,
shall be very acceptable; (t\ 7.) “ How beautiful
ufion the mountains, the mountains round about
Jerusalem, over which these messengers are seen
coming at a distance, how beautiful are their feet,
when it is known what tidings they bring!” It is
not meant so much of the common posts, or the
messengers sent express by the government to
disperse the proclamation, but rather of seme of the
Jews themselves, who, being at the fountain-head
of intelligence, had early notice of it, and immedi¬
ately went themselves, or sent their own messen-
fers, to all parts, to disperse the news, and even to
erusalem itself, to tell the few who remained there,
that their brethren would be with them shortly, for
it is published not merely as matter of news, but as
a proof that Zion’s God reigns, for in that language
it is published; they say unto Zion, Thy God reigns.
Those who bring the tidings of peace and salvation,
that Cyrus has given orders for the release of the
Jews, tidings which were so long expected by them
that waited for the consolation of Israel, the se good
tidings, (so the original reads it, without the tau¬
tology of our translation, good tidings of good,)
they put this construction upon it, O Zion, thy God
reigns. Note, When bad news is abroad, this is
good news, and when good news is abroad, this is
the best news, that Zion’s God reigns; that God is
Zion’s God in covenant with her, and as such he
reigns, Ps. cxlvj. 10. Zech. ix. 9. The Lord has
founded Zion, ch. xiv. 32. All events have their
rise in the disposals of the kingdom of his provi¬
dence, and their tendency' to the advancement cf
the kingdom of his grace. This must be applied to
the preaching of the gospel, which is a proclamation
of peace and salvation; it is gospel indeed, good
news, glad tidings, tidings of victory over our spi¬
ritual enemies, and liberty from our spiritual bon¬
dage. The good news is, that the Lord Jesus
reigns, and all power is given to him. Christ him¬
self brought these tidings first; (Luke iv. 18. Heb.
ii. 3.) and of him the text speaks; How beautiful
are his feet; his feet that were nailed to the cross
how beautiful upon mount Calvary; his feet when
he came leafing ufion the mountains. Cant. ii. 8.
How beautiful were they to those who knew his
voice, and knew it to be the voice of their Beloved.
His ministers proclaim these good tidings; they
ought to keep their feet clean from the pollu lions
of the world, and then they ought to be beautiful
in the eyes of those to whom they are sent, who sit
-240
ISAIAH, LII.
tit their feet, or rather at Christ’s in them, to hear
his word. They must be esteemed in love, for their
work's sake, 1 Thess. v. 13. For their message-
sake, which is well worthy of all acceptation.
2. Those to whom the tidings are brought, shall
be put thereby into a transport of joy.
(1.) Zion’s watchmen shall then rejoice, because
they are surprisingly illuminated, t. 8. The watch¬
men on Jerusalem’s walls shall lead the chorus in
this triumph; who they were we are told, ch. Ixii. 6.
They were such as God set on the walls of Jerusa¬
lem, to make mention of his name, and to continue
instant in prayer to him, till he again make Jerusa¬
lem a praise on the earth; these watchmen stand
upon their watch-tower, waiting for an answer to
these prayers, Hab. ii. 1. And therefore when the
good news comes they have it first, and the longer
they have continued, and the more importunate
they have been in praying for it, the more will they
be elevated when it comes; they shall lift up the
voice, with the voice together shall they sing in con¬
ceit, to invite others to join with them in their
praises. And that which above all things will
transport them with pleasure is, that they shall see
eye to eye, face to face. Whereas God had been
a God hiding himself, and they could scarcely dis¬
cern anj' thing of his favour through the dark cloud
of their afflictions, now that the cloud is scattered
they shall plainly see it. They shall see Zion’s
king eye to eye; so it was fulfilled when the Word
was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and there
were those that saw his glory, (John i. 14.) and
looked upon it, 1 John i. 1. They shall see an exact
agreement and correspondence between the pro¬
phecy and the event, the promise and the perform¬
ance ; they shall see how they look one upon another
eye to eye, and be satisfied that the same God spake
the one, and did the other. When the Lord shall
bring again Zion out of her captivity, the prophets
shall thence receive and give fuller discoveries than
ever of God’s good-will to his people. Applying
this also, as the foregoing verse, to gospel-times, it
is a promise of the pouring out of the Spirit upon
gospel ministers, as a spirit of wisdom and revela¬
tion, to lead them into all truth, so that they shall
see eye to eye; shall see God’s grace more clearly
than the Old Testament saints should see it; and they
shall herein be unanimous; in these great things
concerning the common salvation, they shall concur
in their sentiments as well as their songs. Nay, St.
Paul seems to allude to this, when he makes it the
privilege of our future state, that we shall see face
to face.
(2. ) Zion’s waste places shall then rejoice, because
they shall be surprisingly comforted; ( v . 9.) Break
forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of
Jerusalem; that is, all parts of Jerusalem, for it was
all in ruins, and even those parts that seemed to lie
most desolate, shall share in the joy; arid they,
having little expected it, shall break forth into joy,
as men that dream, Ps. exxvi. 1, 2. Let them sing
together. Note, Those that share in mercies, ought
to join in praises. Here is matter for joy and praise.
[1.] God’s people will have the comfort of this sal¬
vation, and what is the matter of our rejoicing ought
to be the matter of our thanksgiving. He has re¬
deemed Jerusalem, the inhabitants of Jerusalem
that were sold into the hands of their enemies, and
thereby he has comforted his people that were in
sorrow. The redemption of Jerusalem is the joy
of all God’s people, whose character it is, that thev
look for that redemption, Luke ii. 38. [2.] God
will have the glory of it, v. 10. He has made bare
his holy arm, manifested and displayed his power,
in the eyes of all the nations. God’s arm is a holy
arm, stretched out in purity and justice, in defence
of holiness, and in pursuance of his promise. [3.]
All the world will have the benefit of it. Jo the
great salvation wrought out by our Lord Jesus, the
arm of the Lord was revealed, and all the enas of
the earth were made to see the great salvution, not
as spectators of it only, as they saw the deliverance
of the Jews out of Babylon, but as sharers in it; some
of all nations, the most remote, shall partake c.f the
benefit of the redemption. This is applied to our
salvation by Christ; (Luke iii. 6.) All flesh shall
see the salvation of God, that great salvation.
II. It is here spoken of as a great business, which
ought to be managed with abundance of care and
circumspection. When the liberty is proclaimed,
J. Let the people of God hasten out of Babylon
with all convenient speed; though they are ever so
well settled there, lot them not think of taking root
in Babylon, but Depart ye, depart ye, (y. 11.) go
ye out from the midst of her; not only these that are
in the borders, but those that are in the midst, in
the heart of the country, let them be gone. Baby¬
lon is no place for Israelites. As soon as they have
leave to go, let them lose no time; with this word
God stirred up the spirits of those that were moved
to go up, Ezra i. 5. And it is a call to all those who
are yet in the bondage of sin and Satan, to make use
of the liberty which Christ has proclaimed to them.
And if the Son make them free, they shall be free
indeed.
2. Let them take heed of carrying away with
them any of the pollutions of Babylon; Touch no
unclean thing. Now that Ged makes bare his holy
arm for you, be ye holy as he is, and keep yourselves
from every wicked thing. When they came out
of Egypt, they brought with them the idolatrous
customs of Egypt, (Ezek. xxiii. 3.) which were
their rain; let them take heed of doing so, now that
they come out of Babylon. Note, When we are re¬
ceiving any special mercy from God, we ought more
carefully than ever to watch against all impurity.
But especially let them be clean, who bear the ves¬
sels of the Lord; the priests, who had the charge of
the vessels of the sanctuary, (when they were re¬
stored by a particular grant, ) to carry them to Je¬
rusalem, Ezra i. 7. — viii. 24, Uc. Let them net
only avoid touching any unclean thing, but be very
careful to cleanse themselves according to the puri¬
fication of the sanctuary. Christians are made to
our God spiritual priests. Rev. i. 6. They are to
bear the vessels of the Lord, are intrusted to keep
the ordinances of God pure and entire; it is a good
thing committed to them, and they ought to be
clean, to wash their hands in innocency, and so to
compass God’s altars, and, to carry his vessels, and
keep themselves pure.
3. Let them depend upon the presence of God
with them, and his protection in their remove; (t>.
12.) Ye shall not go out with hash. They were to
go with a diligent haste, not to lose time, nor linger
as Lot in Sodom, but they were not to go with a dif¬
fident, distrustful haste; as if they were afraid of
being pursued, as when they came cut of Egypt, or
of having the orders for their release recalled and
countermanded: no, they shall find that, as for God,
his work is perfect, and therefore they need not
make more haste than good speed. Cyrus shall
give them an honourable discharge, and they shall
have an honourable return, and not steal away, for
the Lord will go before them as their General and
Commander-in-chief. And the God of Israel will
be their Rearward, or, he that will gather up
them that are left behind. God will both lead their
van, and bring up their rear; he will secure them
from enemies that either meet them or follow them,
for with his favour will he compass them. The pillar
of cloud and fire, when they came out of Egypt,
sometimes went behind them to secure their rear,
Exod. xiv. 19. And God’s presence with them
ISAIAH, IJ11. 241
would now be that to them which that pillar was a
visible token of. Those that are in the way of their
duty, are under God’s special protection; and he
that believes this, will not make haste.
13. Behold, my servant shall deal pru¬
dently, he shall be exalted and extolled,
and be very high. 1 4. As many were aston¬
ished at thee ; (his visage was so marred
more than any man, and his form more
than the sons of men;) 15. So shall he sprinkle i
many nations ; the kings shall shut their j
mouths at him: for that which had not been
told them shall they see, and that which
they had not heard shall they consider.
Here, as in other places, for the confirming of the
faith of God’s people, and the encouraging of their
hope in the promise of temporal deliverances, the
prophet passes from them, to speak of the great sal¬
vation which should in the fulness of time be wrought
out by the Messiah. As the prophecy of Christ’s
incarnation was intended for the ratification of the
promise of their deliverance from the Assyrian arm}',
so this of Christ’s death and resurrection is to con¬
firm the promise of their return out of Babylon: for
both these salvations were typical of the great re¬
demption, and the prophecies of them had a refer¬
ence to that. This prophecy, which begins here, and
is continued to the end of the next chapter, points as
plainly as can be at Jesus Christ; the ancient Jews
understood it of the Messiah, though the modem
Jews take a great deal of pains to pervert it; and
some of ours (no friends therein to the Christian re¬
ligion) will have it understood of Jeremiah; but Phi¬
lip, who from hence preached Christ to the eunuch,
has put it past dispute, that of him speaks the pro¬
phet this; of him, and of no other man, Acts viii.
34, 35. Here,
I. God owns Christ to be both commissioned and
qualified for his undertaking. 1. He is appointed
to it: “He is my Servant, whom I employ, and
therefore will uphold.” In his undertaking, he does
his Father’s will, seeks his Father’s honour, and
serves the interests of his Father’s kingdom. 2. He
is qualified for it; He shall deal prudently, for the
spirit of wisdom and understanding shall rest upon
him, ch. xi. 2. The word is used concerning David
when he behaved himself wisely, 1 Sam. xviii. 14.
Christ is Wisdom itself, and in the contriving and
carrying on of the work of our redemption, there
appeared much of the wisdom of God in a mystery,
1 Cor. ii. 7. Christ, when he was here upon earth,
dealt very prudently, to the admiration of all.
II. He gives a short prospect both of his humilia¬
tion, and his exaltation. See here,
1. How he humbled himself; Many were aston¬
ished at him, as they were at David, when by rea¬
son of his sorrows and troubles he became a wonder
unto many, Ps. lxxi. 7. Many wondered to see
what base usage he met with, how inveterate peo¬
ple were against him, how inhuman, and what in¬
dignities were done him; His visage was marred
more than any man’s, when he was buffeted, smit¬
ten on the cheek, and crowned with thorns, and hid
not his face from shame and spitting. His face was
foul with weefling, for he was a Man of sorrows;
he that really was fairer than the children of men,
had his face spoiled with the abuses that were done
him. Never was man used so barbarously; his
form, when he took upon him the form of a servant,
was more mean and abject than that of any of the
sons of men. They that saw him, said, “Surely
never man looked so miserably, a worm, and no
man,” Ps. xxii. 6. The nation abhorred him, (ch.
y ol. iv. — 2 h
xlix. 7.) treated him as the offscouring of all things.
JYever was sorrow like unto his sorrow.
2. How highly God exalted him, and therefore
exalted him, because lie humbled himself. Three
words are used for this, v. 13. He shall be exalted,
and extolled, and be very high. God shall exalt
him, men shall extol him, and with both he shall be
very high, higher than the highest, higher than the
heavens. He shall prosper in his work, and suc¬
ceed in it, and that shall raise him very high. (1.)
Many nations shall be the better for him, for he
shall sprinkle them, and not the Jews only; the blood
of sprinkling shall be applied to their consciences,
to purify them. He suffered and died, and so sprink¬
led many nations, for in his death there was a foun¬
tain opened, Zech. xiii. 1. He shall sprinkle many
nations bv his heavenly doctrine, which shall drop
as the rain, and distil as the dew. Moses’s did so
only on one nation, (Dent, xxxii. 2.) but Christ’s on
many nations. He shall do it by baptism, which is
the washing of the body with pure water, Heb. x.
22. So that this promise had its accomplishment
when Christ sent his apostles to disciple all nations,
by baptizing or sprinkling them.' (2.) The great
ones of the nations shall show him respect; Kings
shall shut their mouths at him, they shall not open
their mouths against him, as they have done, to con¬
tradict and blaspheme his sacred oracles; nay, they
shall acquiesce in, and be well pleased with, the
methods he takes of setting up his kingdom in the
world; they shall with great humility and rever¬
ence receive his oracles and laws, as those who,
when they heard Job’s wisdom, after his speech
sfiake not again. Job xxix. 9, 22. Kings shall see
and arise, ch. xlix. 7. (3.) The mystery which
was kept secret from the beginning of the world,
shall by him be made known to all nations for the
obedience of faith, as the apostle speaks, Rom. xvi.
25, 26. That which has not been told them shall
they see; the gospel brings to light things new and
unheard of, which will waken the attention, and en¬
gage the reverence, of kings and kingdoms. This
is applied to the preaching of the gospel in the Gen¬
tile world, Rom. xv. 21. These words are there
quoted according to the Septuagint translation; To
whom he was not spoken of they shall see, and they
that have not heard shall understand. As the things
revealed had long been kept secret, so the persons
to whom they were revealed, had long been kept in
the dark; but now they shall see and consider the
glory of God shining in the face of Christ, which be¬
fore the}' had not been told of — they had not heard.
That shall be discovered to them by the gospel of
Christ, which could never be told them by all the
learning of their philosophers, or the art of their di¬
viners, or any of their pagan oracles. Much had
been said in the Old Testament concerning the Mes
siah, much had been told them, and they had heard
it. But as the queen of Sheba found concerning So¬
lomon, vvhat they shall see in him, when he comes,
shall far exceed what had been told them. Christ
disappointed the expectations of those who looked
for a Messiah according to their fancies, as the car¬
nal Jews, but outdid theirs who looked for such a
Messiah as was promised. According to their faith,
nay, and beyond it, it was to them.
CHAP. LIIL
The two great things which the Spirit of Christ in the Old
Testament prophets testified beforehand, were, the suf¬
ferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow, 1
Pet. i. 11. And that which Christ himself* when he ex¬
pounded Moses and all the prophets, showed to be the
drift and scope of them all, was, that Christ ought to suf¬
fer, and then to enter into his glory, Luke xxiv. 26, 27.
But no where in all the Old Testament are these two so
plainly and fully prophesied of, as here in this chapter,
out of which divers passages are quoted, with applica¬
tion to Christ* in the New Testament. This chapter is
242
ISAIAH, LITJ.
so replenished with the unsearchable riches of Christ,
that it may be called rather, The gospel of the evangelist
Isaiah , than, The prophecy of the prophet Isaiah. We
may observe here, 1. The reproach of Christ’s sufferings,
the meanness of his appearance, the greatness of his
grief, and the prejudices which many conceived from
thence against his doctrine, v. 1 . . 3. II. The rolling
away of this reproach, and the stamping of immortal
honour upon his sufferings, notwithstanding the disgrace
and ignominy of them, by four considerations. l.^That
therein he did his Father’s will, v. 4, 6, 10. 2. That there¬
by he made atonement for the sin of man, v. 4 . . 6 8, 1 1,
12. For it was not for any sin of his own that he suf¬
fered, v. 9. 3. That he bore his sufferings with an invin¬
cible and exemplary patience, v. 7. 4. That he should
prosper in his undertaking, and his sufferings should end
in his immortal honour, v. 10.. 12. By mixing faith
with the prophecy of this chapter, we may improve our
acquaintance with Jesus Christ, and him crucified, with
Jesus Christ, and him glorified; dying for our sins, and
rising again for our justification.
1. hath believed our report? and
TT to whom js the arm of the Lord
revealed? 2. For he shall grow up before
him as a tender plant, and as a root out of
a dry ground; he hath no form nor comeli¬
ness; and when we shall see him, there is
no beauty that we should desire him. 3.
He is despised and rejected of men; a man
of sorrows, and acquainted with grief : and
we hid as it were our faces from him; he was
despised, and we esteemed him not.
The prophet, in the close of the former chapter,
had foreseen and foretold the kind reception which
the gospel of Christ should find among the Gentiles,
that nations and their kings should bid it welcome,
that they who had not seen him should believe in
him, and though they had not any prophecies among
them of gospel-grace, which might raise their ex¬
pectations, and dispose them to entertain it, vet
upon their first notice of it they should give it its due
weight and consideration; now, here he foretells,
with wonder, the unbelief of the Jews, notwithstand¬
ing the previous notices they had of the coming of
the Messiah in the Old Testament, and the oppor¬
tunity they had of being personally acquainted with
him. Observe here,
I. 1 he contempt they put upon the gospel of
Christ, v. 1. The unbelief of the Jews, in our Sa¬
viour’s time, is expressly said to be the fulfilling of
this word, John xii. 38. And it is applied likewise
to the little success which the apostle’s preach¬
ing met with among Jews and Gentiles, Rom. x.
16. Note, 1. Of the many that hear the report of
the gospel, there are few, very few, that believe it.
It is reported openly and publicly, not whispered in
a corner, or confined to the schools, but proclaimed
to all; and it is so faithful a saying, and so well wor¬
thy of all acceptation, that one would think it should
be universally received and believed; but it is quite
otherwise; few believed the prophets who spake be¬
fore of Christ; when he came himself, none of the
rulers, or of the Pharisees followed him, and but
here and there one of the common people; and
when the apostles carried this report all the world
over, some in each place believed, but, compara¬
tively, very few. To this day, of the many that
profess to believe this report, there are few that
cordially embrace it, and submit to the power of it.
2. Therefore people believe not the report of the
gospel, because the arm of the Lord is not revealed
to them; they do not discern, nor will be brought to
acknowledge, that divine power which goes along
with the word; the arm of the Lord is made bare (as
was said eh. lii. 10.) in the miracles that were
wrought to confirm Christ’s doctrine in the wonder¬
ful success of it, and its energy upon the conscience;
though it is a still voice, it is a strong one; but they
do not perceivethis, nor dothev experience in them¬
selves that working of the Spirit, which makes the
word effectual. They believe not the gospel, be¬
cause by rebelling against the light they had, they
had forfeited the grace of God, which therefore he
justly denied them, and withheld from them, and
for want of that they believed not. 3. This is a
thing we ought to be much affected with; it is to be
wondered at, and greatly lamented, and ministers
may go to God, and complain of it to him, as the
prophet here. What pity is it that such rich grace
should be received in vain, that precious souls should
perish at the pool’s side, because they will not step
in and be healed !
^ II. The contempt they put upon the person of
Christ, because of the meanness of his appearance,
v. 2, 3. This seems to come in as a reason why
they rejected his doctrine — they were prejudiced
against his person. When he was on earth, many
that heard him preach, and could not but approve
of what they heard, would not give it any regard or
entertainment, because it came from one that made
so small a figure, and had no external advantages
to recommend him. Observe here,
1. The low condition he submitted to, and how
he abased and emptied himself; the entry he made
into the world, and the character he wore in it,
were no way agreeable to the ideas which the Jews
had formed of the Messiah, and their expectations
concerning him, but quite the reverse.
(1.) It was expected that his extraction should
be very great and noble; he was to be the Son of
David, of the family that had a name like to the
names of the great men that are in the earth, 2 Sam.
vii. 9. But he sprung out of this royal and illustri¬
ous family, when it was reduced and sunk, and Jo¬
seph, that son of David, who was his supposed
father, was but a poor carpenter, perhaps a ship-
carpenter, for most of his relations were fishermen.
This is here meant by his being a Root out of a dry
ground, his being born of a mean and despicable
family, in the north, in Galilee, of a family, out of
which, like a dry and desert ground, nothing green,
nothing great, was expected, in a country- of such
small repute, that it was thought no good thing could
come out of it. His mother, being a virgin, was a
dry ground, yet from her he sprang, who is not onlv
Fruit, but Root. The seed on the stony ground had
no root; but though Christ grew out of a dry ground,
he is both the Root and the Offspring of David, the
Root of the good olive.
(2.) It was expected that he should make a pub¬
lic entry, and come in pomp, and with observation;
but, instead of that, he grew up before Gcd, not
before men. God had his eye upon him, but men
regarded him not; He grew up as a tender plant,
silently and insensibly, and without any noise, as
the corn, that tender plant, grows up, we know not
how, Mark iv. 7. Christ rose as a tender plant,
which, one would have thought, might easily have
been crushed, which one frosty night might have
nipped. The gospel of Christ, in its beginning, was
as a grain of mustard seed, so inconsiderable did it
seem, Matth. xiii. 31, 32.
(3.) It was expected that he should have some
uncommon beauty in his face and person, which
should charm the eye, attract the heart, and raise
the expectations, of all that saw him; but there was
nothing of that in him; not that he was in the least
deformed or misshapen, but he had no form nor
comeliness, nothing extraordinary, which one might
have thought to meet with in the countenance of an
incarnate Deity; those who saw him could not see
that there was any beauty in him, that they should
desire him, nothing in him more than in another be
243
ISAIAH, LIII.
loved , Cant. v. 9. Moses, when he was born, was
exceeding fair, to that degree, that it was looked
upon as a happy presage, Acts vii. 20. Hcb. xi. 23.
David, when he was anointed, was of a beautiful
countenance, and goodly to look to, 1 Sam. xvi. 12.
But our Lord Jesus had nothing of that to recom¬
mend him. Or, it may refer, not so much to Iris
person, as to the manner of his appearing in the
world, which had nothing in it of sensible glory.
His gospel is preached, not with the enticing words
of man’s wisdom, but with all plainness, agreeable to
the subject.
(4. ) It was expected that he should live a plea¬
sant life, and have a full enjoyment of all the de¬
lights of the sons and daughters of men, which would
have invited all sorts to him; but quite contrary, he
was a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
it was not only his last scene that was tragical,
but his whole life was so, not only mean, but mi¬
serable;
- but one continued chain
Of labour, sorrow, and consuming pain. — Sir. R. B.
Thus, being made Sin for us, he underwent the sen¬
tence sin had subjected us to, that we should cat in
sorrow all the days of our life, (Gen. iii. 17.) and
thereby relaxed much of the rigour and extremity
of the sentence as to us. His condition was, upon
many accounts, sorrowful; he was unsettled, had
not where to lay his head, lived upon alms, was op¬
posed and menaced, and endured the contradiction
of sinners against himself, his spirit was tender,
and he admitted the impressions of sorrow; we
never read that he laughed, but often that he wept.
Lentulus, in his epistle to the Roman senate con¬
cerning Jesus, says, He was never seen to laugh;
and so worn and macerated was he with continual
grief, that, when he was but a little above thirty
ye irs of age, he was taken to be near fifty, John
viii. 57. Grief was his intimate acquaintance; for
he acquainted himself with the grievances of others,
and sympathized with them, and he never set his
own at a distance; for, in his transfiguration, he
t dked of his own decease; and, in his triumph, he
wept over Jerusalem. Let us look unto him, and
mourn.
2. The low opinion that men had of him, upon
this account — they being generally apt to judge of
persons and things by the sight of the eye, and
according to outward appearance; they saw no
beauty in him, that they should desire him. There
was a great deal of true beauty in him, the beau¬
ty of holiness, and the beauty of goodness, enough
to render him the Desire of all nations; but the
far greater part of those among whom he lived
and conversed, saw none of this beauty, for it
was spiritually discerned. Carnal hearts see no
excellency in the Lord Jesus, nothing that should
induce them to desire an acquaintance with him
or interest in him. Nay, he is not only not de¬
sired, but he is des/iised and rejected, abandoned
and abhorred, a Reproach of men, an Abject, one
that men were shy of keeping company with, and
had not any esteem for; a Worm and no man.
He was despised as a mean Man, rejected as a
bad man; he was the Stone which the builders
refused, they would not have him to reign over
them; men, who should have had so much reason
as to understand things better, so much tenderness
as not to tr imple upon a man in misery, men, whom
he came to seek and save, they rejected him; “ We
hid as it were our faces from him, looked another
way, and his sufferings were as nothing to us; though
never sorrow was like unto his sorrow. Nay, we
not only behaved as having no concern for him, but
as loathing him, and having him in detestation.” It
maybe read, He hid as it were his face from us,
concealed the glory of his majesty, and drew a vail
over it, and therefore he was des/iised, and we es¬
teemed him not, because we could not see through
that vail. Christ having undertaken to make satis¬
faction to the justice of God for the injury man had
done him in Ins honour by sin, (and God cannot be
injured except in his honour,) he did it not only by
divesting himself of the glories due to an incarnate
Deity, but by submitting himself to the disgraces
due to the worst of men and malefactors; and thus,
by vilifying himself, he glorified his Father: but this
is a good reason why we should esteem him highly,
and study to do him honour; let him be received by
us, whom men rejected.
4. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and
carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him
stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 5.
But he was wounded for our transgressions,
he was bruised for our iniquities: the chas¬
tisement of our peace teas upon him ; and
with his stripes we are healed. 6. All we,
like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned
every one to his own way; and the Lord
hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted;
yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought
as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep
before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth
not his mouth. 8. He was taken from pri¬
son and from judgment : and who shall de¬
clare his generation? for he was cut off out
of the land of the living: for the transgres¬
sion of my people was he stricken. 9. And
he made his grave with the wicked, and
with the rich in his death; because he had
done no violence, neither was any deceit in
his mouth.
In these verses, we have,
I. A further account of the sufferings of Christ:
much was said before, but more is said here, of the
very low condition to which he abased and humbled
himself, to which he became obedient, even to the
death of the cross.
1. He had griefs and sorrows; being acquainted
with them, he kept up the acquaintance, and did
not grow shy, no, not of such melancholy acquaint¬
ance. Were griefs and sorrows allotted him ? He
bore them, and blamed not his lot; he carried them,
and did neither shrink from them, nor sink under
them. The load was heavy, and the way long, and
yet he did not tire, but persevered to the end, till
he said, It is finished.
2. He had blows and bruises; he was stricken,
smitten, and afflicted. His sorrows bruised him,
and he felt pain and smart from them, they touched
him in the most tender part, especially when God
was dishonoured, and when he forsook him upon
the cross. All along, he was smitten with the tongue,
when he was cavilled at and contradicted, put under
the worst of characters, and had all manner of evil
said against him; at last, he was smitten with the
hand, with blow after blow.
3. He had wounds and stripes; he was scourged,
not under the merciful restriction of the Jewish law,
which allowed not above forty stripes to be given to
the worst of malefactors, but according to the usage
of the Romans. And his scourging, doubtless, was
the more severe, because Pilate intended it as an
equivalent for his crucifixion, and yet it proved a
preface to it. He was wounded in his hands, and
!2 44
ISAIAH, Lin.
feet, and side; though it was so ordered, that not a
hone of him should be broken, yet he had scarcely
in any pait a whole skin, (how fond soever we are
to sleep in one, even when we are called out to suf¬
fer for him,) but from the crown of the head, which
was crowned with thorns, to the soles of his feet,
which were nailed to the cross, nothing appeared
but wounds and bruises.
4. He was wronged and abused; (v. 7 .) he was
oppressed, injuriously treated, and hardly dealt
with. That was laid to his charge, which he was
perfectly innocent of, that laid upon him, which he
did not deserve, and in both he was oppressed and
injured; he was afflicted both in mind and body; be¬
ing oppressed, he laid it to heart, and though he
was patient, was not stupid under it, but he mingled
his tears with those of the oppressed, that have no
comforter, because on the side of the oppressors
there is power, Eccl. iv. 1. Oppression is a sore
affliction, it has made many a wise man mad; (Eccl.
vii. 7.) but our Lord Jesus, though when he was
oppressed, he was afflicted, kept possession of his
own soul.
5. He was judged and imprisoned; that is implied
in his being taken from prison and judgment, v. 8.
God having made him sin for us, he was proceeded
against as a malefactor, he was apprehended and
taken into custody, and made a Prisoner, he was
judged, accused, tried, and condemned, according
to the usual forms of law : God filed a process against
him, judged him in pursuance of that process, and
laid him in the prison of the grave, at the door of
which a stone was rolled and sealed.
6. He was cut off by an untimely death from the
land of the living, though he lived a most useful life,
did so many good works, and they were all such,
that one would be apt to think it was for some of
them that they stoned him. He was stricken to the
death, to the grave which he made with the wick¬
ed, for he was crucified between two thieves, as if
he had been the worst of the three; and yet with the
rich, for he was buried in a sepulchre that belonged
to Joseph, an honourable counsellor. Though he
died with the wicked, and, according to the com¬
mon course of dealing with criminals, should have
been buried with them, in the place where he was
crucified, yet God here foretold, and Providence so
ordered it, that he should make his grave with the
innocent, with the rich, as a mark of distinction put
between him and those that really deserved to die,
even in his sufferings.
II. A full account of the meaning of his sufferings.
It was a very great mystery, that so excellent a
person should suffer such hard things; and it is na¬
tural to ask with amazement, “ How came it about?
What evil has he done?” His enemies indeed looked
upon him as suffering justly for his crimes; and
though they could lay nothing to his charge, they
esteemed him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted,
v. 4. Because they hated him, and persecuted him,
they thought that God did, that he was his Enemy,
and fought against him; and therefore they were the
more enraged against him, saying, God has for¬
saken him: persecute and take him, Ps. lxxi. 11.
Those that are justly smitten, are smitten of God,
for by him princes decree justice, and so they looked
upon him to be smitten, justly put to death as a
blasphemer, a deceiver, and an enemy to Caesar.
They that saw him hanging on the cross, inquired
not into the merits of bis cause, but took it for grant¬
ed that he was guilty of every thing laid to his
charge, and that therefore vengeance suffered him
not to live. Thus Job’s friends esteemed him smit-
len of God, because there was something uncom¬
mon in his sufferings. It is true, he was smitten of
God, v. 10. (or, as some read it, he was God’s
smitten and afflicted, the Son of God, though smit¬
ten and afflicted,) but not in the sense in which
they meant it: for though he suffered all these
things,
1. He never did any thing in the least to deserve
this hard usage. Whereas he was charged with
perverting the nation, and sowing sedition, it was
utterly false, he had done no violence, but went
about doing good. And whereas he was called that
Deceiver, he never deserved that character, for
there was no deceit in his mouth, ( v . 9. ) to which
the apostle refers, (1 Pet. ii. 22.) He did no sin,
neither was guile found in his mouth; he never of¬
fended either in word or deed, nor could any of his
enemies take up that challenge of his, Which of
you convinceth me of sin? The judge that condemn¬
ed him, owned he found no fault in him; and the
centurion that executed him, professed that cer¬
tainly he was a righteous man.
2. He conducted himself under his suffering so as
to make it appear that he did not suffer as an evil¬
doer; for though he was oppressed and afflicted, yet
he opened not his mouth, (u. 7.) no, not so much as
to plead his own innocency, but freely offered him¬
self to suffer and die for us, and objected nothing
against it. This takes away the scandal of the
cross, that he voluntarily submitted to it, for great
and holy ends. By his wisdom he could have evaded
the sentence, and by his power have resisted the
execution; but thus it was written, and thus it be¬
hoved him to suffer; this commandment he received
from his Father, and therefore he was led as a lamb
to the slaughter, without any difficulty or reluctance;
he is the Lamb of God, and as a sheep is dumb be¬
fore the shearers, nay, before the butchers, so he
opened not his mouth; which denotes not only his
exemplary patience under affliction, (Ps. xxxix. 9.)
and his meekness under reproach, (Ps. xxxviii. 13.)
but his cheerful compliance with his Father’s will;
JVbt my will, but thine be done; lo, 1 come. By this
will we are sanctified; his making his own soul, his
own life, an offering for our sin.
3. It was for our good, and in our stead, that Je¬
sus Christ suffered; this is asserted here plainly and
fully, and in a very great variety of emphatical ex¬
pressions.
( 1 . ) It is certain that we are all guilty before God ;
we have all sinned, and have come short of the
glory of God; (y. 6.) All we like sheep have gone
astray, one as well as another; the whole race of
mankind lies under the stain of original corruption,
and every particular person stands charged with
many actual transgressions. We have all gone
astray from God our rightful Owner, alienated our¬
selves from him, from the ends he designed us to
move towards, and the way he appointed us to move
in. We have gone astray like sheep, which are apt to
wander, and are unapt, when they are gone astray,
to find the way home again. That is our true cha¬
racter; we are bent to backslide from God, but al¬
together unable of ourselves to return to him. This
is mentioned not only as our infelicity, (that we go
astray from the green pastures, and expose our¬
selves to the beasts of prey,) but as our iniquity; we
affront God, in going astray from him,, for we turn
aside every one to his own way, and thereby set up
ourselves, and our own will, in competition with
God and his will; which is the malignity of sin: in¬
stead of walking obediently in God’s way, we have
turned wilfully and stubbornly to our own way, the
way of our own heart, the way that cur own corrupt
appetites and passions lead us to; we have set up for
ourselves, to be our own masters, our own carvers,
to do what we will, and have what we will; some
think it intimates our own evil way, in distinction
from the evil wav of others. Sinners have their
own iniquity, their beloved sin, which does most
easily beset them; their own evil way, that they
2<o
ISAIAH, LI II.
are particularly fond of, and bless themselves in.
(2.) Our sins are our sorrows and our griefs, v.
4. Or, as it may be read, our sickness and our
wounds: the LXX. read it, our sins; and so the apos¬
tle, 1 Pet. ii. 24. Our original corruptions are the
sickness and disease of the soul, an habitual indispo¬
sition; our actual transgressions are the wounds of
the soul, which put conscience to pain, if it be not
seared and senseless. Or, our sins are called our
griefs and sorrows, because all our griefs and sor¬
rows are owing to our sins; and our sins deserve all
griefs and sorrows, even those that are most ex¬
treme and everlasting.
(3. ) Our Lord Jesus was appointed, and did un¬
dertake, to make satisfaction for our sins, and to
save us from the penal consequences of them.
[1.] He was appointed to do it, by the will of his
Father, for the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of
us all. God chose him to be the Saviour of poor
sinners, and would have him to save them in this
way, by bearing their sins, and the punishment of
them; not the idem, the same that we should have
suffered, but the tantundem, that which was more
than equivalent for the maintaining of the honour of
the holiness and justice of God in the government
of the world. Observe here,
First, In what way we are saved from the ruin to
which by sin we are become liable; by laying our
sins on Christ, as the sins of the offerer were laid
upon the sacrifice, and those of all Israel upon the
head of the scape-goat. Our sins were made to
meet upon him; (so the margin reads it;) the sins
of all that he was to save from every place and
every age, met upon him, and he was met with for
them. They were made to fall upon him, (so some
read it,) as those rushed upon him, that came with
swords and staves to take him. The laying of our
sins upon Christ, implies the taking of them off from
us; we shall not fall under the curse of the law, if
we submit to the grace of the gospel: they were
laid upon Christ when he was made Sin, a Sin-
offering, for us, and redeemed us from the curse of
the law, by being made a Curse for us; thus he put
himself into a capacity to make those easy, that
come to him heavy laden under the burthen of sin.
See Ps. xl. 6, 12.
Secondly, By whom this was appointed; it was
the Lord that laid our iniquities on Christ; he con¬
trived this way of reconciliation and salvation, and
he accepted of the vicarious satisfaction Christ was
to make. Christ was delivered to death by the de¬
terminate counsel and foreknowledge of God. None
but God had power to lay our sins upon Christ, both
because the sin was committed against him, and to
him the satisfaction was to be made, and because
Christ., on whom the iniquity was to be laid, was
His own Son, the Son of his love, and his holy Child
Jesus, who himself knew no sin.
Thirdly, For whom this atonement was to be
made; it was the iniquity of us all, that was laid on
Christ; for in Christ there is a sufficiency of merit
for tlie salvation of all, and a serious offer made of
that salvation to all, which excludes none that do
not exclude themselves. It intimates, that this is
the one only way of salvation: all that are justified
are justified by having their sins laid on Jesus Christ,
and, though they were ever so many, he is able to
bear the weight of them all.
[2.j He undertook to do it; God laid upon him
our iniquity; but did he consent to it ? Yes, he did;
for some think that the true reading of the next
words, (t>. 7. ) is, It was exacted, and he answered:
divine justice demanded satisfaction for our sins,
and he engaged to make the satisfaction. He be¬
came our Surety, not as originally bound with us,
but as Bail to the action; “Upon me be the curse,
my Father.” And therefore when he was seized,
j he indented with those into whose hands no sui
| rendered himself, that that should be his disciples
discharge; If ye seek me, let these go their way.
John xviii. 8. By his own voluntary susception lit
made himself responsible for our debt, and it is well
for us that he was responsible; thus he restored that
which he look not away.
(4.) Having undertaken our debt, he underwent
the penalty. Solomon says, He that is surely for a
stranger shall smart for it. Christ, being surety
| for us, did smart for it. [1.] He bore our griefs.
and curried our sorrows, v. 4. He not only sub
mitted to the common infirmities of human nature
and the common calamities of human life, which
sin had introduced, but he underwent the extremi¬
ties of grief, when he said, Ply soul is exceeding
sorrowful. He made the sorrows of this present
time heavy to himself, that he might make them
light and easy for us. Sin is the wormwood and
tlie gall in the affliction and the misery ; Christ bore
| our sins, and so bore our griefs, bore them off us,
| that we should never be pressed above measure
j This is quoted, Mattli. viii. If. with application tr
the compassion Christ had for the sick that came to
him to be cured, and the power he put forth to curt
them. [2.] He did this by suffering for our sins;
j (v. 5.) lie was wounded for our transgressions; to
make atonement for them, and to purchase for us
the pardon of them. Our sins were the thorns in
his head, the nails in his hands and feet, the spear
in his side. Wounds and bruises were the conse¬
quences of sin, what we deserved and what we had
brought upon ourselves, ch. i. 6. That these
wounds and bruises, though they are painful, may
not be mortal, Christ was wounded for cur trims
gressions, was tormented, or pained, (the word is
used for the pains of a woman in travail,) for our
revolts and rebellions; he was bruised, or crushed,
for our iniquities; they were the procuring cause
of his death. To the same purport, r. 8. For the
transgression of my people was he smitten, was the
stroke upon him, that should have been upon us; and
so some read it, He was cut off for the iniquity of
my people, unto whom the stroke belonged, or was
due. He was delivered to death for our offences ,
Rom. iv. 25. Hence it is said to be according to
the scriptures, according to this scripture, that
Christ died for our sins, 1 Cor. xv. 3. Some read
this, by the transgressions of my people; by the
wicked hands of the Jews, who were, in profession,
God’s people, he was stricken, was ci-ucified anti
slain, Acts ii. 23. But, doubtless, we arc to take it
in the former sense, which is abundantly confirmed
by the angel’s prediction of the Messiah’s under¬
taking, solemnly delivered to Daniel, that he shall
finish transgression , make an end of sin, and make
reconciliation for iniquity, Dan. ix. 24.
(5.) The consequence of this to us is, our peace
and healing, v. 5. [1.] Hereby we have peace;
The chastisement of our peace was upon him; he,
bv submitting to these chastisements, slew the en¬
mity; and settled an amity between God and man;
he made peace by the blood of his cross. Whereas
by sin we were become odious to God’s holiness, and
obnoxious to his justice, through Christ God is
reconciled to us, and not only forgives our sins, and
saves us from ruin, but takes us into friendship and
fellowship with himself, and thereby peace, all good,
comes unto us, Col. i. 20. He is our Peace, Eph.
ii. 14. Christ was in pain, that we might be at ease,
he gave satisfaction to the justice of God, that we
might have satisfaction in our own minds, might be
of good cheer, knowing that through him our sins
are forgiven us. [2.] Hereby we have healing; for
by his stripes we are healed. Sin is not onlv a
crime, for which we were condemned to die, and
which Christ purchased for us the pardon of, but it
246
ISAIAH,
is a disease, which tends directly to the death of our
souls, and which Christ provided ten- the cure ot.
By his stripes, the suffering he underwent, he pur¬
chased for us the Spirit and grace of Cod to mortify
our corruptions, which are the distempers of our
soids, and to put our souls in a good state of health,
that they may be fit to serve God, and prepared to
enjoy him. And by the doctrine of Christ’s cross,
and the powerful arguments it furnishes us witli
against sin, the dominion of sin is broken in 11s, and
we are fortified against that which feeds the dis¬
ease.
(6.) The consequence of this to Christ was, his
resurrection and advancement to perpetual honour.
This makes the offence of the cross perfectly to
cease; he yielded himself to die as a Sacrifice, as a
Lamb, and, to make it evident that the sacrifice he
offered of himself was accepted, we are told here,
v. 8. [1.] That lie was discharged; He mas taken
from prison and from judgment; whereas he was
imprisoned in the grave, under a judicial process,
lay there under an arrest for our debt, and judg¬
ment seemed to be given against him; he was by an
express order from heaven taken out of the prison
of the grave, an angel was sent on purpose to roll
away the stone and set him at liberty, by which the
judgment given against him was reversed and taken
off; this redounds not only to his honour, but to our
comfort; for, being delivered for our offences, he
was raised again for our justification. That dis¬
charge of the bail amounted to a release ot the debt.
[2.] That he was preferred; Who shall declare his
generation ? his age, or continuance, so the word
signifies; the time of his life? He rose to die no
more, death had no more dominion over him; he
that mas d ad, is alive, and lives for evermore; and
who can describe that immortality to which he rose,
or number the years and ages of it ? And therefore
he is advanced' to this eternal life, because for the
transgression of his people he became obedient to
death. We may take it as denoting the time of his
usefulness; as David is said to ser ve his generation,
and so to answer the end of living. Who call de¬
clare how great a blessing Christ by his death and
resurrection will be to the world? Some by his
generation understand his spiritual seed; Who can
count the vast numbers of converts that shall by
the gospel be begotten to him, like the dew of the
morning ?
When thus cxnltcd, lie shall live to see
A numberless believing progeny
Of his adopted sons; the godlike race
Exceed the stars that heavVs high arches "race.
Sir R. Blackmork.
of which generation of his let us pray, as Moses did
for Israel, The Lord God of our fathers make them
a thousand times so many more as they are, and
bless them as he has promised them, Deut. i. 11.
10. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise
him; he hath pul :nm to grief: when thou
shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he
shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days,
and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper
in his hand. 1 1. He shall see of the travail
of his soul, and shall be satisfied : by his
knowledge shall my righteous servant jus¬
tify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.
1 i. Therefore will 1 divide him a portion
with the great, and ho shall divide the spoil
with the strong; because Ik1 hath poured
out his so\d unto death: and he was num¬
bered with the transgressors: and lie bare
, LI II.
the sin of many, and made intercession for
the transgressors.
In the foregoing verses, the prophet hud testified
very particularly of the sufferings of Christ, yet
mixing some hints of the happy issue of them ; here
he again .mentions his sufferings, but largely lore-
tells the glory that should follow. We may observe,
in these verses,
1. The services and sufferings of Christ’s state ol
humiliation. Come, and see how he loved us, see
what he did for us.
1. He submitted to the frowns of Heaven; (u. 10. )
Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; to put him
to pain, or torment, or grief. The scripture no
where says, that Christ in his sufferings underwent
tlie wrath of God; but it says here, (1.) That the
Lord bruised him, not only permitted men to bruise
him, but awakened his own sword against him,
Zecli. xiii. 7. They esteemed him smitten of God
for some very great sin of his own; ( v . 4.) now it
was true that he was smitten of God, but it was for
our sin; the Lord bruised him, fi r he did not spare
him, but delivered him up for us all, Horn. viii. 32.
He it was that put the bitter cup into his hand, and
obliged him to drink it, (John xviii. 11.) having laid
upon him our iniquity. He it was that made him
Sin and a Curse for us, and turned to ashes all Ins
burnt-offering, in token of the acceptance of it, Ps.
xx. 3. (2.) That he bruised him so as to put him
to grief. Christ accommodated himself to this dis¬
pensation, and received the impressions of grief from
his Father’s delivering him up; and he was tr< ublcd
to that degree, that it put him into an agony, and
he began to be amazed and very heavy. (3.) It
pleased the Lord to do this; he determined to do it,
it was the result of an eternal counsel; and he de¬
lighted in it, as it was an effectual method for the
salvation of men, and the securing and advancing ot
the honour of God.
2. He substituted himself in the room of sinners,
as a Sacrifice. He made his si ul an < ffering for sin;
he himself explains this, (Matth. xx. 28.) that he
cattle to give his life a ransom for many. When
men brought bulls and goats as sacrifices for sin,
they made them offerings, for they had an interest
in them, God having put them under the feet of
man; but Christ made himself an Offering; it was
his own act and deed; we could not put him in t in¬
stead, but he put himself, and said, Father, into thy
hands I commit my spirit, in a higher sense thru
1) ivid said, or could say it; “Father, I commit my
soul to thee, I deposit it in thy hands, as the life of
a sacrifice and the price of pardons.” Thus he
shall beat the iniquities of the many that lie design¬
ed to justify, (i>. 11.) shall take away the sin of the
world by taking it upon himself, John i. 29. This
is mentioned again; (x>. 12.) He hare the sin of
many, who, if they bad borne it themselves, would
have been sunk by it to the lowest hell. See how
this is dwelt upon; for whenever wc think of the
sufferings of Christ, we must see him in them, hear¬
ing our sin.
3. He subjected himself to that which tons is the
wages of sin; (i>. 12.) He has poured out his soul
unto death, poured it out as water, so little account
did he make of it, when the laying of it down was
the appointed means of our redemption and salva
tinn; he loved not his life unto the death, and his
followers, the martyrs, did likewise, Rev xii. 11.
Or rather, he poured it out as a drink-offering, to
make his sacrifice complete; poured it out as wine,
that his blood might he drink indeed, as his flesh is
meat indeed to all believers. There was not only
a colliquation of his body in his sufferings, (Ps. xxii.
14.) Iam poured out like mater, but a surrender of
his spirit; he poured "nt that, even unto death,
though he is the Lord of life.
2 17
ISAIAH, LII1.
4. He suffered himself to be ranked with sinners,
ami yet otfered himself to be an intercessor for sin¬
ners, v. 12.
(1.) It was a great aggravation of his sufferings,
that he was numbered with transgressors, that he
was not only condemned as a malefactor, but exe¬
cuted in company with two notorious malefactors,
and he in the midst, as if he had been the worst of
the three; in which circumstance of his suffering,
the evangelist tells us this prophecy was fulfilled,
Mark xv. 27, 28. Nay, the vilest malefactor of all,
Barabbas, who was a traitor, thief, and murderer,
was put in election with him for the favour of the
people, and carried it; for they would not have
Jesus released, but Barabbas. In his whole life he
was numbered among the transgressors: for he was
called and counted a sabbath-breaker, a drunkard,
and a friend to publicans and sinners.
(2. ) It was a great commendation of his sufferings,
and redounded very much to his honour, that in his
sufferings he made intercession for the transgressors,
for those that reviled and crucified him; for he
prayed, Father, forgive r/;em;;thcreby showing not
only that he forgave them, but that he was now
doing that upon which their forgiveness, and the
forgiveness of alt other transgressors were to be
founded. That prayer was the language of his
blood, crying, not for vengeance, but for mercy,
and therein it speaks better things than that of
Abel, even for those who with wicked hands shed it.
II. The graces and glories of his state of exalta¬
tion; and the graces he confers on us are not the
least of the glories conferred on him. These are
secured to him by the covenant of redemption,
which these verses give us some idea of. He pro¬
mises to make his soul an offering for sin, consents
that the Father shall deliver him up, and under¬
takes to bear the sin of many, in consideration of
which, the Father promises to glorify him, not only
with the glory he had, as God, before the world
was, (John xvii. 5.) but with the glories of the
Mediator.
1. He shall have the glorv of an everlasting Fa¬
ther; under this title he was brought into the world,
(eh. ix. vi.) and he shall not fail to answer the title
when he goes out of the world. This was the pro¬
mise made to Abraham, (who herein was a type of
Christ,) that he should be the father of many na¬
tions, and so be the heir of the world, Rom. iv. 13,
17. As he was the root of the Jewish church, and
the covenant was made with him and his seed, so is
Christ of the universal church, and with him and
his spiritual seed is the covenant of grace made,
which is grounded upon, and grafted in, the cove¬
nant of redemption, which here we have some of
the glorious promises of. It is promised,
(1.) That the Redeemer shall have a seed to
serve him and to bear up his name, Ps. xxii. 30.
True believers are the seed of Christ; the Father
gave them to him to be so, John xvii. 6. He died
to purchase and purify them to himself, fell to the
ground as a corn of wheat, that he might bring forth
much fruit, John xii. 24. The word, that incor¬
ruptible seed, of which they are born again, is his
word: the Spirit, the great Author of their regene¬
ration, is his Spirit, and it is his image that is im¬
pressed upon them.
(2.) That he shall live to see his seed; Christ’s
children have a living Father, and because he lives
they shall live also, for he is their Life. Though he
died, he rose again, and left not his children or¬
phans, but took effectual care to secure to them the
Snirit, the hlrssing, and the inheritance of sons.
He shall see a great increase of them; the word is
plural. He shall see his seeds, multitudes of them, so
many that they cannot be numbered.
13.) That he shall himself continue to take care
of the affairs of this numerous family; He shall fro
long his days. Many, when they see their seed,
their seed’s seed, have wished to depart in peace;
but Christ will not commit the care of his family to
any other, no, he shall himself live long, and of the
increase of his government and fence there shall be
no end, for he ever lives. Some refer it to believers;
He shall see a seed that shall frolong its days,
agreeing with Ps. lxxxix. 29, 36. His seed shall
endure for ever. While the world stands, Christ
will have a church in it, which he himself will be
the Life of.
(4.) That his great undertaking shall be success¬
ful, and shall answer expectation; The fleasure of
the Lord shall frosfer in his hand. God’s purposes
shall take effect, and not one iota or tittle of them
shall fail. Note, [1.] The work of man’s redemp¬
tion is in the hands of the Lord Jesus, and it is in
good hands; it is well for us that it is in his, for cur
own hands are not sufficient for us, but he is able to
save to the uttermost; it is in his hands, who upholds
all things. [2.] It is the good pleasure of the Lord;
which denotes not only his counsel concerning it,
but his complacency in it; and therefore God loved
him and was well pleased in him, because he under¬
took to lay down his life for the sheep. [3.] It has
prospered hitherto, and shall prosper, whatevet
obstructions or difficulties have been, or may be, in
the way of it. Whatever is undertaken according
to God’s pleasure shall prosper, ch. xlvi. 10. Cyrus,
a type of Christ, shall perform all God’s pleasure,
(ch. xliv. 28.) and therefore, no doubt, Christ shall.
Christ was so perfectly well qualified for his under¬
taking, and prosecuted it with so much vigour, and
it was from first to last so well devised, that it could
not fail to prosper, to the honour of his Father, and
the salvation of all his seed.
(5.) That he shall himself have abundant satis¬
faction in it; (v. 11.) He shall see of the travail of
his soul, and shall be satisfied; he shall see it b< -
forehand, (so it may be understood,) he shall with
the prospect of his sufferings have a prospect of the
fruit, tind he shall be satisfied with the bargain; he
shall see it when it is accomplished in the conversion
and salvation of poor sinners. Note, [1.] Our
Lord Jesus was in travail of soul for our redemption
and salvation, in great pain, but with longing desire
to be delivered, and all the pains and throes he un¬
derwent were in order to it, and hastened it on.
[2.] Christ does and will see the blessed fruit of the
travail of his soul, in the founding and building up
of his church, and the eternal salvation of all that
were given him. He will not come short of his end
in any part of his work, but will himself see that he
has not laboured in vain. [3.] The salvation of
souls is a great satisfaction to the Lord Jesus; he
will reckon all his pains well bestowed, and him¬
self abundantly recompensed, if the many sons be
by him brought through grace to glory. Let him
have this, and he has enough. God will be sancti¬
fied and glorified, penitent believers shall be justi¬
fied, and then he is satisfied. Thus, in conformity
to Christ, it should be a satisfaction to us, if we can
do any thing to serve the interests of God’s king¬
dom in the world. Let it always be our meat and
drink, as it was Christ’s, to do God’s will.
2. He shall have the glory of bringing in an ever¬
lasting righteousness; for so it was foretold concern¬
ing him, Dan. ix. 24. And here, to the same pur¬
port, By his knowledge, the knowledge of him, and
faith in him, shall my righteous Servant justify
many; for he shall bear the sins of many, and so lay
a foundation for our justification from sin. Note,
(1.) The great privilege that flows to us from the
death of Christ is, justification from sin; our being
acquitted from that guilt which alone can ruin us,
and accepted into God’s favour, which akne can
248 ISAIAH, L1V.
make us happy (2.) Christ, who purchased o i
justification for us, applies it to us, by his inter es
sion made for us, his gospel preached to us, and Ins
Spirit witnessing in us. The Son of man had power
even on earth to forgive sin. (3.) There are many
whom Christ justifies, not all, multitudes perish in
their sins, yet many, even as many as he gave his
life a ransom for, as many as the Lord our God
shall call. He shall justify, not here and there one
that is eminent and remarkable, but those of the
many, the despised multitude. (4.) It is by faith
that we are justified, by our consent to Christ and
the covenant of grace; in this way we are saved,
because thus God is most glorified, free grace most
advanced, self most abased, and our happiness most
effectually secured. (5.) Faith is the knowledge
of Christ, and without knowledge there can be no
true faith. Christ’s way of gaining the will and
affections is by enlightening the understanding, and
bringing that unfeignedly to assent to divine truths.
(6.) That knowledge of Christ, and that faith in
him, by which we are justified, have reference to
him, both as a Servant to God, and as a Surety for
us. [1. ] As one that is employed for God, to pur¬
sue his designs, and secure and advance the interests
of his glory; He is my righteous Servant, and as
such justifies men. God has authorized and ap¬
pointed him to do it; it is according to God’s will,
and for his honour that he does it. He is himself
righteous, and of his righteousness have all we re¬
ceived. He that is himself righteous, (for he could
not have made atonement for our sin, it he had had
any sin of his own to answer for,) is made of God
to us Righteousness, the Lord our Righteousness.
[2.] As one that has undertaken for us. We must
know him, and believe in him, as one that bore our
iniquities — saved us from sinking under the load by
taking it upon himself.
3. He shall have the glory of obtaining an incon¬
testable victor*", and universal dominion, v. 12.
Because he has done all these good services, there¬
fore will I divide him a fiortion with the great, and,
according to the will of the Father, he shall divide
the spoil with the strong, as a great general, when
he has driven the enemy out of the field, takes the
lunder of it for himself and his army ; which is
oth an unquestionable evidence of the victory, and
a recompense for all the toils and perils of the battle.
Note, (1.) God the Father has engaged to reward
the services and sufferings of Christ with great
glory; “I will set him among the great, highly
exalt him, and give him a name above every name; ’
great riches are also assigned him ; He shall divide
the spoil, shall have abundance of graces and com¬
forts to bestow upon all his faithful soldiers. (2. )
Christ comes at his glory by conquest; he has set
upon the strong man armed, dispossessed him, and
divided the spoil. He has vanquished principali¬
ties and powers, sin and Satan, death and hell, the
world and the flesh; these are the strong that he has
disarmed and taken the spoil of. (3.) Much of the
glory with which Christ is recompensed, and the
spoil which he has divided, consists in the vast mul¬
titudes of willing, faithful, loyal subjects that shall
be brought in to him ; for so some read it, I will give
many to him, and he shall obtain many for a spoil.
God will give him the heathen for his inheritance,
and the uttermost parts of the earth for his posses¬
sion, Ps. ii. 8. His dominion shall be from sea to
sea. Many shall be wrought upon by the grace of
God to give up themselves to him to be ruled, and
taught, and saved by him, and hereby he shall
reckon himself honoured, and enriched, and abun¬
dantly recompensed for all he did and all he suffer¬
ed. (4.) What God designed for the Redeemer he
shall certainly gain the possession of; I will divide it
to him, and immediately it follows, He shall divide
it, notwitl.standing the opposition that is giviii to
him ; for as Christ finished the work that was given
him to do, so God completed the recompense that
was promised him for it; for he is botli able and
faithful. (5.) The spoil which God divided to
Christ, he divides, (it is the same word,) he distri¬
butes, among his followers; for when he led cap¬
tivity captive, he received gifts for men, that he
might give gifts to men; for he did himself reckon
it more blessed and honourable to give th in to re¬
ceive, Acts xx. 35. Christ conquered for us, and
through him we are more than conquerors; he has
divid.d the spoils, the fruits of his conquest, to all
that are his; let us therefore cast in our lot among
them.
CHAP. LIV.
The death of Christ is the life of the Church, and of all
that truly belong to it ; and therefore, very fitly, after
the prophet had foretold the sufferings of Christ, he fore¬
tells the flourishing of the church, which is a part of his
glory, and that exaltation of him which was the reward
of his humiliation : it was promised him that he should
see his seed, and thi^chapter is an explication of that
promise. It may easily be granted that it has a primary
reference to the welfare and prosperity of the Jewish
church after their return out of Babylon, which (as other
things that happen to them) was typical of the glorious
liberty of the children of God, which through Christ we
are brought into; yet it cannot be denied but that it has
a further and principal reference to the gospel-church,
into which the Gentiles were to be admitted. And the
first words being understood by the apostle Paul of the
New Testament Jerusalem, (Gal. iv. 26, 27.) may serve
as a key to the whole chapter, and that which follows.
It is here promised concerning the Christian church, I.
That, though the beginnings of it were small, it should
be greatly enlarged by the accession of many to it among
the Gentiles, who had been wholly destitute of church-
privileges, v. 1 . . 5. II. That, though sometimes God
might seem to withdraw from her, and suspend the to¬
kens of his favour, he would return in mercy, and would
not return to contend with them any more, v. 6. . . 10. III.
That though for awhile she was in sorrow, and under
oppression, she should at length be advanced to greater
honour and splendour than ever, v. 11, 12. IV. That
knowledge, righteousness, and peace should flourish and
prevail, v. 13, 14. V. That all attempts against the
church should be baffled, and she should be secured from
the malice of her enemies, v. 14.. 17.
1. OING, O barren, thou that didst not
bear; break forth into singing, and
cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with
child : for more are the children of the deso¬
late than the children of the married wife,
saith the Lord. 2. Enlarge the place of
thy tent, and let them stretch forth the cur¬
tains of thy habitations : spare not, length¬
en thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes : 3.
F or thou shalt break forth on the right hand
and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit
the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities
to be inhabited. 4. Fear not; for thou shalt
not be ashamed : neither be thou confound¬
ed ; for thou shalt not be put to shame : for
thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth,
and shalt not remember the reproach of thy
widowhood any more. 5. For thy Maker
is thy husband ; the Lord of hosts is his
name ; and thy Redeemer, the Holy On-
of Israel ; The God of the whole earth shall
he be called.
If we apply this to the state of the Jews after their
return out of captivity, it is a prophecy of the increase
219
ISAIAH, LIV.
of 'heir nation after they were settled in their own
land. Jerusalem had been in the condition of a
wife written cliildlcss, or a desolate, solitary widow;
but now it is promised that the city should be re¬
plenished, and the country peopled again; that not
only the ruins of Jerusalem should be repaired, but
tue suburbs of it extended on all sides, and a great
m my buildings erected upon new foundations —
That those estates which had for many years been
wrongfully held by the Babylonian Gentiles should
now return to the right owners. God will again be
t Husband to them, and, the reproach of their cap¬
tivity, and the small number to which they were
then reduced, shall be forgotten. And it is to be
observed, that by virtue of the ancient promise
made to Abraham of the increase of his seed, when
they were restored to God’s favour they multiplied
greatly. Those that first came out of Babylon,
were but 42,000, (Ezraii. 64.) about a 15th part of
their number when they came out of Egypt; many
came dropping to them afterward, but wc may sup¬
pose that to be the greatest number that ever came
in a body; and yet, above 500 years after, a little
before their destruction by the Romans, a calcula¬
tion was made by the number of the paschal lambs,
and the lowest computation by that rule, (allowing
only ten to a lamb, whereas they might be twenty,)
made the nation to be near three millions; Josephus
says, seven and twenty hundred thousand and odd;
De Bell. Jud. lib. 7. cap. 17.
But we must apply it to the church of God in
general; I mean, the kingdom of God among men,
God’s city in the world, the children of God incor¬
porated. Now observe,
I. The low and languishing estate of religion in
the world, for a long time before Christianity was
brought in. It was like one barren, that did not
bear, or travail with child, was like one desolate,
that had lost husband and children; the church lay
in a little compass, and brought forth little fruit.
The Jews were indeed by profession married to
God, but few proselytes were added to them; the
rising generations were unpromising, and serious
godliness manifestly lost ground among them. The
Gentiles had less religion among them than the
Jews; their proselytes were in a dispersion; and the
children of God, like the children of a broken, re¬
duced family, were scattered abroad, (John xi. 52.)
did not appear, nor make any figure.
II. Its recovery from this low condition by the
preaching of the gospel, and the planting of the
Christian church.
1. Multitudes were converted from idols to the
living God; those were the church’s children, that
were born again, were partakers of a new and di¬
vine nature, by the word : more were the children
of the desolate than the married wife; there were
more good people found in the Gentile church,
(when that was set up,) that had been afar off, and
without God in the world, than ever were found in
tlie Jewish church. God’s sealed ones out of the
tribes of Israel are numbered; (Rev. vii. 4.) and
they were but a remnant compared with the thou¬
sands of Israel; but those of other nations were so
many, and crowded in so thick, and lay so much
scattered in all parts, that no man could number
them, v. 9. Sometimes more of the power of re¬
ligion is found in those places and families that have
made little show of it, and have enjoyed but little
of the means of grace, than in others that have dis¬
tinguished themselves by a flourishing profession;
and then more are the children of the desolate,
more the fruits of their righteousness, than those of
the married wife; so the last shall be first.
Now this is spoken of as matter of great rejoicing
to the church, which is called upon to break forth
into singing upon this account. The increase of the
Vol. IV. — 2 1
I church is the joy of all its friends, and strengthens
their hands. The longer the church has lain deso¬
late, the greater will the transports of its joy be,
i when it begins to recover the ground it has lest, and
j to gain more. Even in heaven, among the angels
of God, there is an uncommon joy for a sinner that
repents; much more for a nation that does so. If
the barren fig-tree at length bring forth fruit, it is
well, it shall rejoice, and others with it.
2. The bounds of the church were extended
much further than ever before, v. 2, 3. (1.) It is
here supposed th.it the present state of the church
is a tabernacle-state; it dwells in tents, like the
heirs of promise of old, (Heb. xi. 9.) its dwelling is
mean and moveable, and of no strength against a
storm. The city, the continuing city, is reserved
for hereafter. A tent is soon taken down and shift¬
ed, so the candlestick of church-privileges is soon
removed out of its place, (Rev. ii. 5.) and, when
God pleases, it is as soon fixed elsewhere. (2.)
Though it be a tabernacle-state, it is sometimes
very remarkably a growing state; and if this family
increase, no matter though it be in a tent. Thus it
was in the first preaching of the gospel; it was the
business of the apostles to disciple all nations, to
stretch forth the curtains of the church’s habitation,
to preach the gospel there where Christ had not
yet been named, (Rom. xv. 20.) to leaven with the
gospel those towns and countries that had hitherto
been strangers to it, and so to lengthen the cords of
this tabernacle, that more might be enclosed; which
would make it necessary to strengthen the stakes
proportionably, that they might bear the weight of
the enlarged curtains. The more numerous the
church grows, the more cautious she must be to
fortify herself against errors and corruptions, and to
support her seven pillars, Prov. ix. 1. (3.) It was
a proof of divine power going along with the gospel,
that in all places it grew and prevailed mightily,
Acts xix. 20. It broke forth, as the breaking forth
of waters; on the right hand, and on the left, on all
hands, the gospel spread itself into all parts of the
world; there were eastern and western churches.
The church’s seed inherited the Gentiles, and the
cities that had been desolate, destitute of the know¬
ledge and worship of the tine God, came to be in¬
habited, to have religion set up in them, and the
name of Christ professed.
3. This was the comfort and honour of the church;
(u. 4.) “Fear not, for thou shalt not be ashamed,
as formerlv, of the straitnessof thy borders, and the
fewness of thy children, which thine enemies up¬
braided thee with, but shalt forget the reproach of
thy youth, because there shall be no more ground
for that reproach.” It was the reproach of the
Christian religion in its youth, that none of the
rulers or princes of this world embraced it, and that
it was entertained and professed by a despicable
handful of men; but, after awhile, nations were
discipled, the empire became Christian, and then
this reproach of its youth was forgotten.
4. This was owing to the relation in which God
stood to his church, as her husband; ( v . 5.) Thy
Maker is thy Husband. Believers are said to be
married to Christ, that they may bring forth fruit
unto God; (Rom. vii. 4.) so the church is married
to him, that she may bear and bring up a holy seed
to God, that shall be accounted to him for a gene¬
ration. Jesus Christ is the church’s Maker, by
whom she is formed into a people; her Redeemer
by whom she is brought out of captivity, the brnd-
age of sin, the worst of slaveries. This is he that
espoused her to himself; and, (1.) He is the Lord
oj hosts, who has an irresistible power, an absolute
sovereignty, and an universal dominion ! Kings, who
are lords of some hosts, find there arc others, who
are lords of other hosts, as many and mighty as
250
ISAIAH, L1V.
theirs; but God is the Lord of all hosts. (2.) He is
the Holy One of Israel , the same that presided in
tne affairs of the Old Testament church, and was
the Mediator of the covenant made with it. The
promises made to the New Testament Israel, are
as rich and sure as those made to the Old Testa¬
ment Israel; for he that is our Redeemer, is the
Hoi)- One of Israel. (3.) He is, and shall be called,
'he Lord of the whole earth, as God, and as Media¬
tor, for he is the Heir of all things; but then he shall
be called so, when the ends of the earth shall be
made to see his salvation, when all the earth shall
call him their God, and have an interest in him.
L mg he had been called, in a peculiar manner, the
Hod of Israel, but now the partition wall between
Jew and Gentile being taken down, he shall be call¬
ed the God of the whole earth, there where he has
been, as at Athens itself, an unknown God.
6. For the Lord hath called thee as a
woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and
a w ife of youth, when thou wast refused,
saith thy God. 7. For a small moment
have I forsaken thee; but with great mer¬
cies will I gather thee. 8. In a little wrath
i hid my face from thee for a moment; but
wit h everlasting kindness will I have mercy
on thee, saith the Lord thy lledeemer. 9.
For this is as the waters of Noah unto me:
lor as 1 have sworn that the waters of Noah
should no more go over the earth ; so have I
sworn that I would not be wroth with thee,
nor rebuke thee. 10. For the mountains
shall depart, and the hills be removed ; but
my kindness shall not depart from thee,
neither shall the covenant of my peace be
removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy
on thee.
The seasonable succour and relief which God
sent to his captives in Babylon, when they had a dis¬
charge from their bondage there, are here foretold,
as a type and figure of all those consolations of God
which are treasured up for the church in general,
and all believers in particular, in the covenant of
grace.
I. Look back to former troubles; in comparison
witn them, God’s favours to his people appear very
comfortable, v. 6, 8. Observe,
1. How sorrowful the church’s condition had
been; she had been as a woman forsaken, whose
husband was dead, or had fallen out with her,
though she was a wife of youth; upon which ac¬
count she is grieved in spirit, takes it very ill, frets,
and grows melancholy upon it; or, as one refused
and rejected, and therefore full of discontent. Note,
Even those that are espoused to God, may yet seem
to be refused and forsaken, and may be grieved in
spirit under the apprehensions of it; those that shall
never be forsaken and left in despair, may yet for a
time lie perplexed and in distress. The similitude
is explained, (v. 7, 8.) for a small moment have I
forsaken thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from
thee. When God continues his people long in trou¬
ble, he seems to forsake them; so their enemies con¬
strue it, (Ps. lxxi. 11.) so they themselves misinter¬
pret it, ch. xlix. 11. When they are comfortless
under their troubles, because their prayers and ex¬
pectations are not answered, God hides His face
from them, as if he regarded them not, nor design¬
ed them any kindness. God owns that he had done
this; for he keeps an account of the afflictions of his .
people, and though he never turned his faci against
them, (as against the wicked, Ps. xxxiv. 16. ;he te-
members how often he turned his back upon them.
This arose indeed from his displeasure, it was in
wrath that he forsook them, and hid His face from
them; (ch. lvii. 17.) yet it was but in a little wrath;
not that God’s wrath ever is a little thing, or to be
made light of, ( Who knows the power of his anger?)
but little in comparison with what the) had deserv¬
ed, and what others justly suffer, on whom the full
vials of his wrath are poured out; he did not stii u;
all His wrath. But God’s people, though they bi
sensible of ever so small a degree of God’s displea
sure, cannot but be grieved in spirit because of it.
For the continuance of it, it was but for a moment,
a. small moment; for God does not keep his anger
against his people for ever, no, it is soon over: as lie
is slow to anger, so he is swift to show mercy. The
afflictions of God’s people, as they are light, so they
are but for a moment, a cloud that presently blow’s
over.
2. How sweet the returns of mercy would be to
them, when God should come and comfort them
according to the time that he afflicted them. God
called them into covenant with himself, then when
they were forsaken and grieved; he called them out
of their afflictions, then when they were most press¬
ing, v. 6. God’s anger endures for a moment, but
God will gather his people when they think them¬
selves neglected; will gather them out of their dis¬
persions, that they may return in a body to their
own land; will gather them into his arms, to pro¬
tect them, embrace them, and bear them up; and
will gather them at last to himself; will gather the
wheat into his barn. He will have mercy on them ;
this supposes the turning away of his anger, and .lie
admitting of them again into his favour. God’s
gathering of his people takes rise from his mercy,
not any merit of theirs; and it is with great mercies,
( v . 7.) with everlasting kindness, v. 8. The wrath
is little, but the mercies great; the wrath for a mo¬
ment, but the kindness everlasting. See how one is
set over against the other, that we may neither de¬
spond under our afflictions, nor despair of relief.
II. Look forward to future dangers, and in defi¬
ance of them. God’s favours to his people appear
very constant, and his kindness everlasting; for it is
formed into a covenant, here called a covenant of
peace, because it is founded in reconciliation, and is
inclusive of all good. Now,
1. This is as firm as the covenant of providence;
it is as the waters of JVoah, as that promise which
was made concerning the deluge, that there should
never be the like again to disturb the course of sum¬
mer and winter, seed-time and harvest, v. 9. God
then contended with the world in great wrath, and
for a full year, and yet at length returned in mercy,
everlasting mercy; for he gave his word, which was
as inviolable as his oath, that Noah’s flood should
never return, that he would never drown the world
again; see Gen. viii. 21, 22 — ix. 11. And God has
ever since kept his word, though the world has been
very provoking; and he will keep it to the end; for
the world that now is, is reserved unto fire. And
thus inviolable is the covenant of grace; I have
sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, as I have
been, and rebuke thee, as I have done. He will net
be so angry with them, as to cast them off, and
break his covenant with them, (Ps. lxxxix. 34.)
nor rebuke them as he has rebuked the heathen, to
destrov them, and put out their name for ever and
ever, Ps. ix. 5.
2. It is more firm than the strongest ports of the
visible creation ; (v. 10.) the mountains shall depart,
which are called everlasting mountains, and the
hills be removed, though they are called perpetua
hills, Hub. iii. 6. Sooner shall the)’ remove than
251
TSAIAH, LIV.
God’s covenant with his people be broken. Moun¬
tains have sometimes been shaken by earthquakes,
and removed; but the promises of God were never
broken by the shock of any event. The day will
come when all the mountains shall depart, and all
the hills be removed, not only the tops of them co¬
vered, as they were by the waters ot Noah, but the
mots of them torn up; for the earth, and all the
works that are therein, shall be burned up; but
then the covenant of peace between God and be¬
lievers shall continue in the everlasting bliss of all
those who are the children of that covenant. Moun¬
tains and hills signify great men, men of bulk and
figure. Do these mountains seem to support the
skies, (as Atlas,) and bear them up? They shall de¬
part and be removed, creature-confidences shall
fail us; in vain is salvation hoped for from those
hills and mountains: but the firmament is firm,
agreeably to its name; when those who seem to
prop it are gone, when our friends fail us, our God
does not, nor does his kindness depart. Do these
mountains threaten, and seem to top the skies, and
bid defiance to them, as Pelion and Ossa? Do the
kings of the earth, and the rulers, set themselves
against the Lord? They shall depart and be re¬
moved; great mountains, that stand in the way of
the salvation of the church, shall be made plain;
(Zcch. iv. 7.) but God’s kindness shall never de¬
part from his people, for whom he loves, he loves
to the end; nor shall the covenant of his peace ever
be removed, for he is the Lord that has mercy on
his people, Therefore the covenant is immoveable
and inviolable, because it is built not on our merit,
which is a mutable uncertain thing,* but on God’s
mercy, which is from everlasting to everlasting.
11.0 thou afflicted, tossed with tempest,
and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy
stones with fair colours, and lay thy founda¬
tions with sapphires. 12. And I will make
thy windows of agates, and thy gates of car¬
buncles, and all thy borders of pleasant
stones. 13. And all thy children shall be
taught of the Loro ; and great shall be the
peace of thy children. 14. In righteousness
shalt thou be established: thou shalt be far
from oppression; for thou shalt not fear:
and from terror; for it shall not come near
thee. 15. Behold, they shall surely gather
together, but not by me: whosoever shall
gather together against thee shall fall for
thy sake. 1G. Behold, I have created the
smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and
t hat bringeth forth an instrument for his
work; and I have created the waster to de¬
stroy. 17. No weapon that is formed
against thee shall prosper; and every tongue
that shall rise against thee in judgment thou
shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the
servants of the Lord ; and their righteous¬
ness is of me, saith the Lord.
Very precious promises aVe here made to the
church in her low condition, that God would not
* Prior lo tho, age of Mr. Henry, the term merit was occasionally
applied even by evangelical divines, (chiefly indeed on the Conti¬
nent,) to the actions of sincere believers. While this circumstance
may serve to qualify our censure, the term itself needs so much ex¬
planation, in order to make the use of it appear compatible with the
,’ystem of grace, that we presume Mr. Henry adopted it through mere
-jadvertency. — Ed. 1
only continue his love to his people under their
troubles, as before, but that lie would restore them
to their former prosperity, nay, that lie would raise
them to greater prosperity than any they had yet
enjoyed. In the foregoing chapter we had the hu¬
miliation and exaltation of Christ, here we have the
humiliation and exaltation of the church; for if we
suffer witli him, we shall reign with him. Observe,
I. The distressed state the church is here re¬
duced to by the providence of God; (v. 11.) “ 0
thou afflicted, poor and indigent society, that art
tossed with tempests, like a ship driven from her an¬
chors by a storm, and hurried into the ocean, where
she is ready to be swallowed up by the waves, and
in this condition not comforted by any compassion¬
ate friend that will sympathize witli thee, or sug¬
gest to thee any encouraging considerations, (Eccl.
iv. 1.) not comforted by any allay to thy trouble, or
prospect of deliverance out of it.” This was the
condition of the Jews in Babylon, and afterward for
a time, under Antiochus; it is often the condition of
Christian churches, and of particular believers;
without are fightings, within are fears, they are like
the disciples in a storm, ready to perish; and where
is their faith?
II. The glorious state the church is here advanced
to by the promise of God. God takes notice of the
afflicted, distressed state of His church, and com¬
forts her, when she is most disconsolate, and has no
other comforter. Let the people of God, when they
are afflicted and tossed, think they hear God speak¬
ing comfortably to them by these words, taking no¬
tice of their griefs and fears, what afflictions they
are under, what tosses they are in, and what com¬
forts their case calls for; when they bemoan them¬
selves, God bemoans them, and speaks to them witli
pity, O thou afflicted, tossed with tempests, and not
comforted; for in all their afflictions he is afflicted.
But this is not all; he engages to raise her up out of
her affliction, and encourages her with the assu¬
rance of great things he would do for her, both for
her prosperity, and for the securing of that prosperi¬
ty to her.
1. Whereas now she lay in disgrace, God pro¬
mises that which would be her beauty and honour,
which would make her easy to herself, and amiable
in the eves of others.
(1.) This is here promised by a similitude taken
from a city, and it is an apt similitude, for the
church is the city of the living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem. Whereas now Jerusalem lay in ruins,
a heap of rubbish, it shall not only he rebuilt, but
beautified, and appear more splendid than ever; the
stones shall be laid not only firm, but fine, laid with
fair colours, they shall be glittering stones, 1 Chron.
xxix. 2. The foundation shall be laid or garnished
with sapphires, the most precious of the precious
stones here mentioned; for Christ, the church’s
Foundation, and the Foundation of the apostles and
prophets, is precious above every thing else. The
windows of this house, city, or temple, shall be
made of agates, the gates of carbuncles, and all the
borders, the walls that enclose the courts, or the
boundaries by which her limits are marked, the
mere stones shall be of pleasant stones, v. 12. Never
was this literally true; but it intimates, [1.] That
God having graciously undertaken to build Ins
church, we may expect that to be done for it, that
to be wrought in it, which is very great and uncom
mon. [2.] That the glory of the New Testament
church shall far exceed that of the Jewish church;
not in external pomp and splendour, hut in these
gifts and graces of the Spirit which are infinitely
more valuable; that wisdom which is more precious
than rubies, (Pro v. iii. 15.) than the precious rnyx
and the sapphire, and which the topaz of F.thi /da
cannot equal, Job xxviii. 16, 19. [3.) That the
252
ISAIAH, LI V.
wealth of this world, and those things of it that are
accounted m st precious, shall be despised by all
the true living members of the church, as having
no value, no glory, in comparison with that which
f ir excels. That which the children of this world
lay up in their treasures, and too often in their
hearts, the children of God make pavements of, and
put under their feet, the fittest place for it.
(1.) It is here promised in the particular instances
of those things that shall be the beauty and honour
of the church, which are knowledge, holiness, and
love, the very image of God in which man was cre¬
ated, renewed, and restored. And these are the
sapphires, and carbuncles, the precious and plea¬
sant stones, with which the gospel-temple shall be
enriched and beautified, and these wrought by the
power and efficacy of those doctrines which the
apostle compares to gold, silver, and precious stones,
that are to be built upon the foundation, 1 Cor. iii.
12. Then the church is all glorious,
[1.] When it is full of the knowledge of God, and
that is promised here;(n. 13.) All tint children shall
be taught of the Lord. The church’s children, be¬
ing born of God, shall be taught of God; being his
children by adoption, he will take care of their edu¬
cation. It was promised, (u. 1.) that the church’s
children shall be many; but lest we should think
that, being many, as sometimes it happens in nu¬
merous families, they will be neglected, and not
have, instruction given them so carefully as if they
were but few, God here takes that work into his
own hand; They shall all be taught of the Lord;
and none teaches like him. First, It is a promise
of the means of instruction, and those means au¬
thorized bv a divine institution; They shall all be
taught of God, they shall be taught by those whom
God shall appoint, and whose labours shall be under
his direction and blessing. He will ordain the me¬
thods of instruction, and by his word and ordinances
will diffuse a much greater light than the Old Tes¬
tament church had. Care shall be taken for the
teaching of the church’s children, that knowledge
may be transmitted from generation to generation,
and that all may be enriched with it, from the least
even to the gre itest. Secondly, It is a promise of
the Spirit of illumination. Our Saviour quotes it
with application to gospel-grace, and makes it to
have its accomplishment in all those that were
brought to believe in him; (John vi. 45.) It is turit-
ten in the prophets, They shall all be taught of God;
whence he infers, that those, and those only, come
to him by faith, that have heard and learned of the
Father, that are taught by him, as the truth is in
Jesus, Eph. iv. 21. There shall be a plentiful ef¬
fusion of the Spirit of grace upon Christians, to teach
them all things, John xiv. 26.
[2.] When the members of it live in love and
unity among themselves; Great shall be the peace
of thy children. Peace may be taken here for all
good. As where no knowledge of God is, no good
can be expected; so those that are taught of God to
know him, are in a fair way to prosper for both
worlds. Great peace have they that know and love
God’s law, Ps. cxix. 165. But it is often put for
love and unity; and so we may take it. All that are
taught of God, are taught to love one another,
(1 Thess. iv. 9.) and that will keep peace among
;he church’s children, and prevent their falling out
by the way.
[3.] When holiness reigns; for that above any
thing is the beauty of the church; (t>. 14.) In right¬
eousness shalt thou be established; the reformation
iif manners, the restoration of purity, the due ad¬
ministration of public justice, and the prevailing of
honesty and fair dealing among men, are the
strength and stability of any church or state. The
kingdom of God, set up by the gospel of Christ, is
not meat and drink, but this righteousni ss and
peace, holiness and love.
2. Whereas now she lay in danger, God promises
that which would be her protection and security.
God engages here that though in the day of her dis¬
tress without were fightings and within were fears,
now she shall be safe from both.
(1.) There shall be no fears within; ( v . 14.)
“ Thou shalt be far from oppression: those that
have oppressed thee shall be removed, those that
would oppress thee shall be restrained, and there¬
fore thou shalt not fear, but mayest look upon it as
a thing at a distance, that thou art now in no danger
of. Thou shalt be far from terror, not only from
evil, but from the fear of evil, for it shall not come
near thee, so as to do thee any hurt, or to put thee
in any fright.” Note, Those are far from terror,
that are far from oppression; for it is as great a
terror as can fall on a people, to have the rod of
government turned into the serpent of oppression,
because against this there is no fence, nor is there
any flight from it.
(2.) There shall be no fightings without; though
attempts should be made upon them to insult them,
to invade their country, or besiege their towns, they
should all be in vain, and none of them succeed, v. 15.
It is granted, “ They shall surely gather together
against thee, thou must expect it, the confederate
force of hell and earth will be renewing their as¬
saults.” As long as there is a devil in hell, and a
persecutor out of it, God’s people must expect fre¬
quent alarms; but, [1.] God will not own them, will
not give them either commission or countenance;
they gather together, hand joins in hand, but it is
not by me. God gave them no such order as he
did to Sennacherib, to take the spoil, and take the
prey, ch. x. 6. And therefore, [2.] Their attempl
will end in their own ruin; “ Whosoever shall gather
together against thee, be they ever so many and evei
so mighty, they shall not only be baffled, but they
shall fall for thy sake, or they shall fall before thee,
which shall be the just punishment of their enmity
to thee.” God will make them to fall for the sake
of the love he bears to his church, and the care he
has of it, in answer to the prayers made by his peo¬
ple, and in pursuance of the promises made to
them; “They shall fall, that thou mayest stand,”
Ps. xxvii. 2.
Now, that we may with the greatest assurance
depend upon God for the safety of his church, we
have here,
First, The power of God over the church’s ene¬
mies asserted, v. 16. The truth is, they have no
power but what is given them from above, and he
that gave them their power can limit and restrain
them; Hitherto shall they go, and no further. 1.
They cannot carry on their design without arms
and weapons of war; and the smith that makes
those weapons is God’s creature, and he gave them
his skill to work in iron and brass, (Exod. xxxi. 3,
4. ) and particularly to make proper instruments for
warlike porpo'ses. It is melancholy to think, as if
men did not die fast enough of themselves, how in¬
genious and industrious they are to make instru¬
ments of death, and to find out ways and means to
kill one another. The smith blows the coals in the
fire, to make his iron malleable, to soften it first,
that it may be hardened into steel, and so he may
bring forth an instrument proper for their work
that seek to destroy. It is the iron age that is the
age of war. But God has created the smith, and
therefore can tie his hands, so that the project of
the enemy shall miscarry, (as many a project has
done,) for want of arms and ammunition. Or the
smith that forges the weapons is perhaps put here
for the council of war that forms the design, blows
the coals of contention, and brings forth the plan of
ISAIAH, LV.
253
the war; these can do no more than God will let
t.icm. 2. They cannot carry it on without men,
they must have soldiers, and it is God that created
the' waster to destroy. Military men value them¬
selves upon their great offices and splendid titles,
and even the common soldiers call themselves gen¬
tlemen; but God calls them wasters made to destroy,
for wasting and destruction are their business.
They think their own ingenuity, labour, and experi¬
ence made them soldiers; but it was God that
created them, and gave them strength and spirit for
th .t hazardous employment; and therefore he not
only can restrain them, but will serve his own pur¬
poses and designs by them.
Secondly, The promise of God concerning the
church’s safety solemnly laid down, as the heritage
of the servants of the Lord, {v. 17.) as that which
they may depend upon and be confident of, That
God will protect them from their adversaries both
in camps and courts.
1. From their field-adversaries, that think to de¬
stroy them by force and violence, and dint of sword ;
“ No weafion that is formed against thee,” (though
ever so artfully formed by the smith that blows the
coals, (v. 16.) though ever so skilfully managed by
the waster that seeks to destroy,) “shall prosper; it
shall not prove strong enough to do any harm to the
people of God; it shall miss its mark, shall fall out
of the hand, or perhaps recoil in the face of him that
uses it against thee.” It is the happiness of the
church, that no weapon formed against it shall
prosper long, and therefore the folly of its enemies
will at length be made manifest to all, for they are
but preparing instruments of ruin for themselves.
2. From their law-adversaries, that think to run
them down, under colour of right and justice.
When the weapons of war do not prosper, there
ire tongues that rise in judgment; both are included
m the gates of hell, that seek to destroy the church;
fir they had their courts of justice, as well as their
nagazmes and military stores, in their gates. The
,ongues that rise in judgment against the church,
are such as either demand a dominion over it, as if
God’s children were their lawful captives, pretend¬
ing an authority to oppress their consciences; or
they are such as misrepresent them, and falsely
accuse them, and by slanders and calumnies en¬
deavour to make them odious to the people and ob¬
noxious to the government. This the enemies of
the Jews did, to incense the kings of Persia against
them; (Ezra iv. 12. Esth. iii. 8.) “But these in¬
sulting, threatening tongues thou shalt condemn;
thou shalt have wherewith to answer their inso¬
lent demands, and to put to silence their mali¬
cious reflections. Thou shalt do it by well-doing,
(1 Pet. ii. 15.) by doing that which will make
thee manifest in the consciences even of thine
adversaries, that thou art not what thou art re¬
presented to be. Thou shalt condemn them, God
shall condemn them for thee; he shall bring forth
thy righteousness as the light, Ps. xxxvii. 6.
Thou shalt condemn them as Noah condemned
the old world that reproached him, by building
the ark, and so saving his house, in contempt of
their contempts.” The day is coming when God
will reckon with wicked men for all their hard
speeches which they have spoken against him,
Jude 15.
The last words refer not only to this promise, but
to all that go before; This is the heritage of the ser¬
vants of the Lord. God’s servants are his sons, for
he has provided an inheritance for them, rich, sure,
and indefeasible. God’s promises are their heritage
for ever; (Ps. cxix. 111.) and their righteousness is
of me, saith the Lord. God will clear up the right¬
eousness of their cause before men; it is with him,
for he knows it, it is with hirr for he will plead it.
Or, their reward for their righteousness, and f r all
that which they have suffered nnrightu uslv, is cf
God, that God who judges in the earth, and with
whom verily there is a reward for the righteous
Or, their righteousness itself, all that in them is good
and right, is of God, who works it in them; it is < f
Christ who is made Righteousness to them. Win m-
ever God designs a heritage for hereafter, in them
he will work righteousness now.
CHAP. LA'
As we had much of Christ in the 53d chapter, and much
of the church of Christ in the 54th chapter, so in this
chapter we have much of the covenant of grace made
with us in Christ. The sure mercies of David which are
promised here, {v. 3.) are applied by the apostle to the
benefits which flow to us from the resurrection of Christ,
( Jicts xiii. 34.) which may serve as a key to this chapter ;
not but that it was intended for the comfort of the peo¬
ple of God that lived then, especially of the captives in
Babylon, and the other dispersed of Israel ; but unto us
was this gospel preached as well as unto them, and much
more clearly and fully in the New Testament. Here is,
I. A free and gracious invitation to all, to come and take
the benefit of gospel-grace, v. I II. Pressing argu¬
ments to enforce this invitation, v. 2 . . 4. Ill. A pro¬
mise of the success of this invitation among the Gentiles,
v. 5. IV. An exhortation to repentance and reforma¬
tion, with great encouragement given to hope for pardon
and forgiveness thereupon, v. 6 . . 9. V. The ratifica¬
tion of all this, with the certain efficacy of the word of
God, v. 10, 11. And a particular instance of the accom¬
plishment of it in the return of the Jews out of their
captivity, which was intended for a sign of the accom¬
plishment of all these other promises.
1. TIO, every one that thirsteth, come ye
JLX to the waters, and he that hath no
money ; come ye, buy and eat ; yea, come,
buy wine and milk without money, and with¬
out price. 2. Wherefore do ye spend mo¬
ney for that which is not bread, and your
labour for that which satisfieth not ? Hear¬
ken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which
is good, and let your soul delight itself in
fatness. 3. Incline your ear, and* come
unto me: hear, and your soul shall live ; and
I will make an everlasting covenant with
you, even the sure mercies of David. 4.
Behold, I have given him for a witness to
the people, a leader and commander to the
people. 5. Behold, thou shalt call a nation
that thou knowest not; and nations that
knew not thee shall run unto thee, because
of the Lord thy God, and for the Holy
One of Israel ; for he hath glorified thee.
Here,
I. We are all invited to come and take the benefit
of that provision which the grace of God has made
for poor souls in the new covenant, of that which
is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, ( ch . liv.
17. ) and not only their heritage hereafter, but their
cup now, v. 1. Observe,
1. Who are invited; Ho, every one. Not the
Jews only, to whom first the word of salvation was
sent, but the Gentiles, the poor and the maimed,
the halt and the blind, are called to this marriage-
supper, whoever can be picked up out of the high¬
ways and the hedges. It intimates that in Christ
there is enough for all, and enough for each; that
ministers are to make a general offer of life and sal¬
vation to all; that in gospel-times the invitation
should be more largely made than it had been, and
should be sent to the Gentiles; and that the gospd-
254
ISAIAH, LV.
covenant excludes none that do not exclude them¬
selves. The invitation is published with an Oyez,
Ho, take notice of it. He that has ears to hear, let
him hear.
2. What is the qualification required in those that
shall be welcome; they must thirst. All shall be
welcome to gospel-grace, upon those terms only,
that gospel-grace be welcome to them. Those that
are satisfied with the world and its enjoyments for a
portion, and seek not for happiness in the favour of
God; those that depend upon the merit of their own
works for a righteousness, and see no need they have
of Christ and his righteousness; these do not thirst,
they have no sense of their need, are in no pain or
uneasiness about their souls, and therefore will not
condescend so far as to be beholden to Christ: but
those that thirst, are invited to the waters, as those
that labour, and are heavy-laden, are invited to
Christ for rest. Note, Where God gives grace, lie
first gives to thirst after it; and where he has given
to thirst after it, he will give it, Ps. lxxxi. 10.
3. Whither they are invited; Come ye to the wa¬
ters. Come to the water-side, to the ports, and
quays, and wharves, on the navigable rivers, into
which goods are imported, thither come and buy,
for that is the market-place of foreign commodities;
and to us they would have been for ever foreign, if
Christ had not brought in an everlasting righteous¬
ness. Come to Christ, for he is the F ountain opened,
he is the Rock smitten. Come to holy ordinances,
to those streams that m ike glad the city of our God,
come to them, and though they may seem to you
plain and common things, like waters, yet to those
who believe in Christ, the things signified will be as
wine and milk, abundantly refreshing. Come to
the healing waters, come to the living waters; who¬
ever will, let him come, and take of the waters
of life. Rev. xxii. 17. Our Saviour referred to it,
( John vii. 37.) If any man thirst, let him come unto
me and drink.
4. What are they invited to do; (1.) Come, and
buy. Never did any tradesman court customers
that he hoped to get by, so as Christ courts us to
that which we only are to be gainers by; “Come
and buv, and we can assure you, you shall have a
good bargain, which you will never repent of or
lose by. Come and buy; make it your own by an
application of the grace of the gospel to yourselves;
make it vour own upon Christ’s terms, nay, your own
upon any terms, and stand not hesitating about the
terms, or deliberating whether you shall agree to
them.” (2.) “ Come, and eat; make it still more
your own, as that which we eat is more our own
than that which we only buv.” We must buy
the truth, not that we may lay !t by, to be looked at,
but that we may feed and feast upon it, and that the
spiritual life may be nourished and strengthened by
it. W e must buy necessary provisions for our souls,
be willing to part with any thing, though ever so
dear to us, so that we may but have Christ and his
graces and comforts; we must part with sin, be¬
cause it is an opposition to Christ; part with all
opinion of our own righteousness, as standing in
competition with C lyrist ; and part with life itself,
and its most necessary supports, rather than quit
our interest in Christ. And when we have bought
what we need, let us not deny ourselves the com¬
fortable use of it, but enjoy it, and eat the labour of
our hands; buy, and eat.
5. What is the provision they are invited to;
“ Come, and buy wine and milk, which will not
only quench the thirst,” (fair water would do that,)
“but nourish the body, and revive the spirits.”
The world comes short of our expectations; we
promise ourselves, at least, water in it, but we are
disappointed of that, as the troops o f Tenia, Job vi.
19 But Christ outdoes our expectations; we come
i to the waters, and would be glad of them, but we
I find there wine and milk, which were the staple
commodities of the tribe of Judah, and which the
Shiloh of that tribe is furnished with to entertain the
gathering of the people to him; Gen. xlix. 10, 12.
His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white
with milk. We must come to Christ, to hoc
milk for babes, to nourish and cherish them that
are but lately born again; and with him strong men
shall find that which will be a cordial to them; they
shall have wine to make glad their hearts. We
must part with our puddle-water, nay, with em¬
poison, that we may procure this wine and milk.
6. The free communication of this provision; Buy
it without money and without price. A strange wav
of buying, not only without ready money, (that is
common enough,) but without any money, or the
promise of any; yet it seems not so strange to those
who have observed Christ’s counsel to Laodicea,
that was wretchedly poor, to come and buy, Rev.
iii. 17, 18. Our buying without money, intimates,
(1.) That the gifts offered us are invaluable, and
such as no price can be set upon. Wisdom is that
which cannot be getttn for gold. (2. ) That he who
offers them has no need of us, or of any returns we
can make him. He makes us these proposals, not
because he has occasion to sell, but because he has
a disposition to give. (3.) That the things offered
are already bought and paid for; Christ purchased
them at the full value, with price, not with money,
but his own blood, 1 Pet. i. 19. (4.) That we shall
be welcome to the benefits of the promise, though
we are utterly unworthy of them, and cannot make
a tender of any thing that looks like a valuable con¬
sideration. We ourselves are not of any value, nor
any thing we have, or can do, and we must own it,
that if Christ and heaven be ours, we may see our¬
selves for ever indebted to free grace.
II. We are earnestly pressed and persuaded (and
O that we would be prevailed with ! ) to accept this
invitation, and make this good bargain for ourselves.
1. That which we are persuaded to is, to hearken
to God, and to his proposals; “ Hearken diligently
unto me, v. 2. Not only give me the hearing, but
approve of what I say, and apply it to yourselves,
v. 3. Incline your ear, as you do to that which you
find yourselves concerned in, and pleased with; bow
the ear, and let the proud heart stoop, to the hum¬
bling methods of the gospel; bend the ear this way,
that you may hear with attention and remark; hear,
and come unto me, not only come and treat with me,
but comply with me, come up to my terms. Accept
God’s offers as very advantageous, answer his de¬
mands as very fit and reasonable.”
2. The arguments used to persuade us to this, are
taken,
(1.) From the unspeakable wrong we do to our¬
selves if we neglect and refuse this invitation;
“Wherefore do you spend money for that which is
not bread, which will not yield you, no, not beggar’s
food, dry bread, when with me you may have wine
and milk without money? Wherefore do you spend
your labour, and toil for that which will not be so
much as dry bread to you, for it satisfies not?'"
See here, [1.] The vanity of the things of this
world; they are not bread, not proper food for a soul,
they afford no suitable nourishment or refreshment.
Bread is the staff of the natural life, but it affords
no support at all to the spiritual life. All the wealth
and pleasure in the world will not make one meal’s
meat for a soul. Eternal truth and eternal good are
the only food for a rational and immortal soul, the
life of which consists in reconciliation and conformity
to God, and in union and communion with him,
which the things of the world will not at all befriend.
They satisfy not, they yield not any solid comfort
and content to the soul, nor enable it to say “ Now
-255
ISAIAH, LV.
1 have what I would have.” Nay, they do not
satisfy even the appetites of the body; the more
men have, the more they would have, Eccl. 1. 8.
Hunan was unsatisfied iii the midst of his abun-
d nice. They flatter, but they do not fill; they
please for awhile, like the dream of a hungry man,
who wakes and his soul is empty. They soon sur-
f it, but they never satisfy; they cloy a man, but do
not content ftim, or make him truly easy. It is all
rani tv and vexation.
[2.] The folly of the children of this world; they
sp nd their money and labour for these uncertain,
unsatisfying things. Rich people live by their mo-
ik v, poor people by their labour; but both mistake
their truest interest, while the one is trading, the
other toiling, for the world, both promising them¬
selves satisfaction and happiness in it, but both
miserably disappointed. God vouchsafes compas¬
sionately to reason with them; “Wherefore do you
thus act against your own interest? Why do you suf¬
fer yourselves to be thus imposed upon?” Let us rea¬
son thus with ourselves, and let the result of these
reasonings be, a holy resolution not to labour for the
•neat that fierishes, but for that which endures to
everlasting life , Joint vi. 27. Let all the disappoint-
nvnts we meet with in the world, help to drive us to
Christ, and to seek for satisfaction in him only. This
is the wav to make that sure, which will be made sure.
(2.) Emm the unspeakable kindness we do to
ourselves, if we accept this invitation, and comply
with.it.
[1‘.] Hereby we secure to ourselves present plea¬
sure and satisfaction; “ If you hearken to Christ,
you eat that, which is good, which is both wholesome
and pleasant, good in itself and good for you.” God’s
good word and promise, a good conscience, and the
comforts of God’s good Spirit, are a continual feast
to those that hearken diligently and obediently to
Christ. Their souls shall delight themselves in fat¬
tiest:; in the richest and most grateful delights. Here
t'v invitation is not, “Come, and buy,” lest that
should discourage, but, “Come, and eat, come and
entertain yourselves with that which will be abun-
d mtlv pleasing; eat, O friends.” It is sad to think
that men should need to be courted thus to their
own bliss.
[2.] Hereby we secure to ourselves lasting hap¬
piness; “ Hear and your soul shall live, you shall not
> ill y be saved from perishing eternally, but you shall
h” et -rn dly blessed;” for less than that cannot be
the life of an immortal soul. The words of Christ
are spirit and life, life to spirits, (John vi. 33, 63.)
the words of this life, Acts v. 20. On what easy
terms is happiness offered to us! It is but “ Hear,
and you shall live. ”
[3.] The great God graciously secures all this to
us; “ Come to me, and I mill make an everlasting
covenant with you, will put myself into covenant-
r 1 iti-ns, and under covenant-engagements to you,
and ther bv settle upon you the sure mercies of Da¬
vid.” Note, First, If we come to God to serve
him, he will covenant with us to do us good, and
m ike us happv; such ar? his condescension to us
and concern for us. Secondly, God’s covenant with
us is an everlasting covenant; its contrivance from
everlasting, its continuance to everlasting. Thirdly,
Th- benefits of this covenant are mercies suited to
our case, who, being miserable, are the proper ob¬
jects of mercy. They come from God’s mercy, and
are ordered every way in kindness to us. Fourthly,
They are the mercies of David, such mercies as
God promised to David, (Ps. Ixxxix. 28, 29, &c.)
which are called the mercies of David his servant,
and are appealed to by Solomon, 2 Chron. vi. 42.
It shall be a covenant as sure as that with David,
Jer. xxxiii. 25, 26. The covenant of royalty was a
figure of the covenant of grace, 2 Sam. xxiii. 5. Or, |
rather, by David here, we are to understand thr
Messiah. Ccv nont-nr rcics arc all his mercies;
they are purch isi d by him, they are premised in
him, they are treasured up in his hand, and out of
his hand they are dispensed to us. He is the Me¬
diator and Trustee (t the covenant; to him this is
applied, Arts xiii. 34. They arc the TB OCT la— the
holy things of David; the word used there, and by
the LXA. here; for they are confirmed by the holi¬
ness of God, (Ps. Ixxxix. 35.) and arc intended to
advance holiness among men. Lastly, They are
sure mercies; the covenant, being well-ordered in
all things, is sure. It is sure in the general proposal
of it; God is real and sincere, serious and in earnest,
in the offer of these mercies. It is sure in the par¬
ticular application of it to believers; God’s gifts and
callings are without repentance; they are the mer¬
cies of David, and therefore sure, for in Christ the
promises are all yea and amen.
III. Jesus Christ is promised for the making good
of all the other promises which we are here invited
to accept of, v. 4. He is that David, whose sure
mercies all the blessings and benefits of the covenant
are. And God has given him in his purpose and
promise, has constituted and appointed him; and in
the fulness of time will as surely send him as if he
were already come, to be all that to us, which is
necessary to our having the benefits of these pre¬
parations. He has given him freely; for what more
free than a gift? There was nothing in us to merit
such a favour, but Christ is the Gift of God. We
want one, 1. To attest the truth of the promises
which we are invited to take the benefit of; and
Christ is given for a Witness that God is willing to
receive us into his favour upon gospel-terms, to
confirm the promises made unto the fathers, that
we may venture our souls upon those promises with
entire satisfaction. Christ is a faithful Witness, we
may take his word ; a competent Witness, for he lay
in the bosom of the Father from eternity, and was
perfectly apprised of the whole matter. Christ as
a Prophet, testifies the will of God to the world; and
to believe is to receive his testimony. 2. To assist
us in closing with the invitation, and coming up to
the terms of it; we know not how to find the way
to the waters where we are to be supplied, but Christ
is given to be a Leader; we know not what to do,
that we may be qualified for it, and become sharers
in it, but he is given for a Commander, to show us
what to do, and enable us to do it. Much difficulty
and opposition lie in our way to Christ; we have
spiritual enemies to grapple with, but, to animate
us for the conflict, we have a good Captain, like
Joshua; a Leader and Commander to tread our ene¬
mies under our feet, and to put us in possession of the
land of promise. Christ is a Commander by his
precept, and a Leader by his example; our business
is to obey him, and follow him.
IV. The Master of the feast being fixed, it is,
next, to be furnished with guests, for the provision
shall not be lost, or made in vain, v. 5. 1. The
Gentiles shall be called to this feast, shall be invited
out of the highways and the hedges; “ Thou shall
call a nation that thou knowest not, that was not
formerly called and owned as thy nation, that thou
didst not send prophets to as to Israel, the people
which God knew above all the families of the earth. ”
The Gentiles shall now be favoured so as they nevei
were before; their knowing God is said to be rathei
their being known of God, Gal. iv. 9. 2. They
shall come at the c.ali; JYations that, know not thee,
shall ruti unto thee; those that had long been : far
off from Christ, shall be made nigh, that had been
running from him, shall run to him, with the great¬
est speed and alacrity imaginable. There shall be
a concourse of believing Gentiles to Christ, win ,
being lifted up from the earth, will draw all men Jo
ISATAH, LV.
25G
him. Now see the reason, (1.) Why the Gentiles
will thus flock to Christ; it is because of the Lord
his God, because he is the Son of God, and is de¬
clared to be so with power; because they now see
his God is one with whom they have to do, and
there is no coming to him as their God but by
making an interest in his Son. I hose that are
brought to be acquainted with God, and understand
how the concern lies between them and him, cannot
but run to Jesus Christ, who is the only Mediator
between God and man, and there is no coming to
God but by him. (2.) Why God will bring them
to him; because he is the Holy One of Israel, true
to his promises, and he has promised to glorify him,
by giving him the heathen for his inheritance. When
Greeks began to inquire after Christ, he said, The
hour is come, that the Son of man shall be glorified,
John xii. 22, 23. And his being glorified in his re¬
surrection and ascension, was the great argument by
which multitudes were wrought upon to run to him.
6. Seek ye the Lord while he may be
found, call ye upon him while he is near. 7.
Let the wicked forsake his way, and the
unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him
return unto the Lord, and he will have
mercy upon him ; and to our God, for he will
abundantly pardon. 8. For my thoughts
are not your thoughts, neither are your ways
my ways, saith the Lord. 9. For as the
heavens are higher than the earth, so are
my ways higher than your ways, and my
thoughts than your thoughts. 1 0. F or as
the rain cometh down, and the snow, from
heaven, and returneth not thither, but water-
eth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and
bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and
bread to the eater; 1 1. So shall my word
be that goeth forth out of my mouth : it shall
not return unto me void; but it shall accom¬
plish that which I please, and it shall prosper
in the thing whereto I sent it. 12. For ye
shall go out with joy, and be led forth with
peace: the mountains and the hills shall
break forth before you into singing, and all
the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
13. Instead of the thorn shall come up the
fir-tree, and instead of the brier shall come
up the myrtle-tree; and it shall be to the
Lord for a name, and for an everlasting
sign, that shall not be cut off.
We have here a further account of that covenant
of gi ace which is made with us in Jesus Christ, both
what is required, and what is promised, in the cove¬
nant, and those considerations that are sufficient
abundantly to confirm our believing compliance
with, and reliance on, that covenant. This gracious
discovery of God’s good-will to the children of men,
is not to be confined either to the Jew or to the Gen¬
tile, to the Old Testament or to the New, much less
to the captives in Babylon. No, both the precepts
and the promises here are given to all, to every one
that thirsts after ha/i/iiness, v. 1. And who does
not? Hear this and live.
I. Here is a gracious offer made of pardon, and
peace, and all happiness, to poor sinners, upon gos
pel-terms, v. 6, 7.
1. Let them pray, and their prayers shall be heat d
and answered; ( v . 6.) '‘Seek the Lord while he may
be found. Seek hint whom you have left by revolt¬
ing from your allegiance to him, and whom you
have lost by provoking him to withdraw his favour
from you. Call upon him now while he is near, and
within call.” Observe here, (1.) The duties re¬
quired. [1.] “Seek the Lord; seek to him, and
inquire of him, as your Oracle; ask the law at his
mouth. What wilt thou have me to do? Seek for him,
and inquire after him, as your Portion and Happi¬
ness; seek to be reconciled to him, and acquainted
with him, and to be happy in his favour. Be sorry
that you have lost him, be solicitous to find him; take
the appointed method of finding him, making use of
Christ as your Way, the Spirit as your Guide, and the
word ;re your rule.” [2. j “Call upon him; pray to
him to be reconciled, and, being reconciled, pray to
him for every thing else you have need of.” (2.) The
motives made use of to press these duties upon us;
While he may be found — while he is near. [1.] It
is implied that now God is near, and will be found,
so that it shall not be in vain to seek him, and to
call upon him: now his patience is waiting cn us,
his word is calling to us, and his Spirit striving with
us: let us now improve our advantages and eppor-
tunities, for now is the accepted time. But, [2.]
There is a day coming when he will be afar off, and
will not be found; when the day of his patience is
over, and his Spirit will strive no more. There
may come such a time in this life, when the heart
is incurably hardened; it is certain that at death and
judgment the door will be shut, Luke xvi. 26. —
xiii. 25, 26. Mercy is now offered, but then judg¬
ment without mercy will take place.
2. Let them repent and reform, and their sins
shall be pardoned, v. 7. Here is a call to the un¬
converted, to the wicked and the unrighteous; to
the wicked, who live in known gross sins, to the
unrighteous, who live in the neglect of plain duties:
to them is the word of this salvation sent, and all
assurance given, that penitent sinners shall find Gcd
a pardoning God. Observe here, (1.) What it is
to’ repent. There are two things in it; [1.] It is to
turn from sin, it is to forsake it; it is to leave it, and
to leave it with loathing and abhorrence, never to
return to it again. The wicked must forsake his
way, his evil way, as one would forsake a false way
that will never bring us to the happiness we aim at,
and a dangerous way, that leads to destruction. Let
him not take one step more in that way. Nay,
there must be not only a change of the way, but a
change of the mind; the unrighteous must forsake
his thoughts. Repentance, if it be true, strikes at
the root, and washes the heart from wickedness.
We must alter our judgments concerning persons
and things, dislodge the corrupt imaginations, and
quit the vain pretences which an unsanctified heart
shelters itself under. Note, It is not enough to
break off from evil practices, but we must enter a
caveat against evil thoughts. Yet this is not all;
[2.] To repent is to return to the Lord; to return
to him as our God, cur sovereign Lord, against
whom we have rebelled, and to whom we are con¬
cerned to reconcile ourselves; it is to return to the
Lord as the Fountain of life and living waters, which
we had forsaken for broken cisterns. (2. ) What en
couragement we have thus to repent. If we do so,
[1.] God will have mercy; he will not deal with us
as our sins have deserved, but will have compassion
onus. Misery is the object of mercy. Now both
the consequences of sin, by which we are become
truly miserable, (Ezek. xvi. 5, 6.) and the nature
of repentance, by whom we are made sensible of our
misery, and are brought to bemoan ourselves, (Jer
xxxi. 1 8. ) both these make us objects of pity, and
with God there are tender mercies. [2. j He will
abundantly pardon. He will multiply to pardon.
i!SAj AH, LV.
257
(v. me word is,) as we have multiplied to offend.
Though our sins have been very great, and very
nnrv, and though we have often backslidden, and
are still prone to offend, yet God will repeat his par¬
don, and welcome even backsliding children that
return to him in sincerity.
II. Here are encouragements given us to accept
this offer, and to venture ourselves upon it. For look
which way we will, we find enough to confirm us
in our belief of its validity and value.
t. If we look up to heaven, we find God’s coun¬
sels there high and transcendent; his thoughts and
ways infinitely above ours, v. 8, 9. The wicked
are bid to forsake their evil ways and thoughts, (u.
7. ) and to return to God, to bring their ways and
thoughts to concur and comply with his; “ For”
(says he) “ my thoughts and ways are not as yours;
yours are conversant only about things beneath,
they are of the earth, earthy; but mine are above, as
the heaven is high above the earth ; and if you would
approve yourselves true penitents, yours must be
so too, and your affections must be set on things
above.” Or, rather, it is to be understood as an en¬
couragement to us to depend upon God’s promise to
pardon sin, upon repentance. Sinners may be ready
to fear that God will not be reconciled to them, be¬
cause they could not find in their hearts to be re¬
conciled to one, who should have so basely and so
frequently offended them. “ But” (says God) “ my
thoughts in this matter are not as yours, but as far
above them as heaven is above the earth. ” They
are so in other things; men’s sentiments concerning
sin, and Christ, and holiness, concerning this world
and the other, are vastly different from God’s; but
in nothing more than in the matter of reconciliation.
We think God apt to take offence, and backward to
forgive; that if he forgives once, he will not forgive
a second time. Peter thought it a great deal to for¬
give seven times; (Matth. xviii. 21.) and a hundred
pence go far with us; but God meets returning sin¬
ners with pardoning mercy; he forgives freely, and,
as he gives, it is without upbraiding. We forgive,
and connot forget; but when God forgives sin, he
remembers it no more. Thus God invites sinners
to return to him, bv possessing them with good
thoughts of him, as Jer. xxxi. 20.
2. If we look down to this earth, we find God’s
word there powerful and effectual, and answering
all its great intentions, v. 10, 11. Observe here,
(1.) The efficacy of God’s word in the kingdom
of nature; He saith to the snow. Be thou on the
earth; he appoints when it shall come, to what de¬
gree, and how long it shall lie there ; he saith so to
the small rain and the great rain of his strength.
Job xxxvii. 6. And according to his order they
come down from heaven, and do whatsoever he com¬
mands them ufion the face of the world, whether it
he for correction, or for his land, or for mercy, v.
12, 13. It returns not reinfecta — without having ac¬
complished something, but waters the earth, which
he is therefore said to do from his chambers, Ps.
uv. 13. And the watering of the earth is in order
to its fruitfulness; thus he makes it to bring forth
and bud, for the products of the earth depend upon
the dews of heaven; and thus it gives not only bread
to the eater, presents maintenance to the owner and
his family, but seed likewise to the sower, that he
may have food for another year. The husbandman
must be a sower as well as an eater, else he will
soon see the end of what he has.
(2) The efficacy of his word in the kingdom of
providence and grace, which is ascertain as the for¬
mer; “So shall my word be, as powerful in the
mouth of prophets as it is in the hand of Provi¬
dence; it shall not return unto me void, as unable to
effect what it was sent for, or meeting with an in¬
superable opposition; no, it shall accomplish that
V0L. IV.— 2 K
which I please,” (for it is the declaration of his will,
according to the counsel of which he works all
things,) “and it shall prosper in the thing for which
I sent it.” This assures us, [1.] That the promises
of God shall all have their full accomplishment in
due time, and not one iotaortittle of them shall fail,
1 Kings viii. 56. These promises of mercy and
grace shall have as real an effect upon the souls of
believers, for their sanctification and comfort, as
ever the rain had upon the earth, to make it fruit¬
ful. [2.] That according to the different errands on
which the word is sent, it will have its different ef¬
fects; if it be not a savour of life unto life, it will be
a savour of death unto death; if it do not convince
the conscience, and soften the heart, it will sear the
conscience, and harden the heart; if it do not ripen
for heaven, it will ripen for hell. See ch. vi. 9. One
way or other, it will take effect. [3.] That Christ’s
coming into the world, as the dew from heaven,
(Hos. xiv. 5.) will not be in vain. For if Israel be
not gathered, he will be glorious in the conversion
of the Gentiles; to them therefore tenders of grace
must be made when the Jews refuse them, that the
wedding may be furnished with guests, and the
gospel not return void.
3. If we take a special view of the church, we
shall find what great things God has done, and will
do, forit; (v. 12, 13.) Ye shall go out with joy, and
be led forth with fieace. This refers, (1.) To the
deliverance and return of the Jews out of Babylon.
They shall go out of their captivity, and be led forth
toward their own land again. Godwin go before
them as surely, though not as sensibly, as before
their fathers in the pillar of cloud and fire. They
shall go out, not with trembling, but with triumph;
not with any regret to part with Babylon, or any
fear of being fetched back, but with joy and peace,
Their journey home over the mountains shall be
pleasant, and they shall have the good will and
good wishes of all the countries ‘hev pass through.
The hills and their inhabitants shall, as in a trans¬
port of joy, break forth into singing; and if the peo¬
ple should altogether hold their peace, even the
trees of the field would attend them with their ap¬
plauses and acclamations. And when they come to
their own land, it shall be ready to bid them wel¬
come; for whereas they expected to find it all over
grown with briers and thorns, it shall be set with
fir-trees, and mvrtle-trees; for though it lay deso¬
late, yet it enjoyed it sabbaths, (Lev. xxvi. 34.)
which, when they were over, like the land after the
sabbatical year, "it was the better for. And this
shall redound much to the honour of God, and be
to him for a name. But, (2.) Without doubt it lorks
further; this shall be for an everlasting sign. That
is, [1.] The redemption of the Jews out of Babylon
shall be a ratification of those promises that relate
to gospel-times. The accomplishment of the pre¬
dictions relating to that great deliverance, would be
a pledge and earnest of the performance of all the
other promises, for thereby it shall appear that he
is faithful, who has promised. [2.] It shall be a re¬
presentation of the blessings promised, and a type
and figure of them. First, Gospel-grace will' set
those at liberty, that were in bondage to sin and Sa¬
tan. They shall go out, and be led forth; Christ
shall make them free, and then they shall be free
indeed. Secondly, It will fill those with joy, that
were melancholy, Ps. xiv. 7. Jacob shall rejoice
and Israel shall be glad. The earth and the infe¬
rior part of the creation shall share in the joy of this
salvation, Ps. xevi. 11, 12. Thirdly , It w'ill'make a
great change in men’s characters. Those that were
as thorns and briers, good for nothing but the fire,
nay, hurtful and vexatious, shall become graceful
and useful as the fir-tree and the mvrtle-tree.
Thoms and briers came in with sin, and were the
ISAIAH, LVI.
2i>8
fruits of the curse, Gen. hi. 18. th? removal
sant trees in the room oftl^ ^ .= troduct;pn of gos-
of the cui se o t enemies were as thoi'ns
pel-blessmss The chmch s ene ^ ^ raise
?" d?tv’be her protection and ornament. Or, it
friends t' ->e e wing better; instead of a
"f FSSrl
covenant, for the present blessings of it are signs of
everlasting ones.
CHAP. LVI.
charge ■dven'tous' aHtomake conscience’of our duty, as
we fope to have the heneM of those promises, J. . ;
b IV the^enant,
of their duty; (v. 9 . f and threat-
ginnmg of a newsermo , chapters. And the
woVTofGod’was intended for conviction, as well as for
comfort and instruction m righteousn.. .
1 npHUS saith the Lord, Keep yejudg-
' J_ ment, and do justice: for my salva¬
tion is near to come, and my righteousness
to be revealed. 2. Blessed is the man that
doeth this, and the son of man that laveth
hold on it; that keepeth the sabbath from
polluting it, and keepeth his hand from do-
mg any evil.
mf ftXus1 whnat\rh?sf intentions of
that was the salvation
the^lvaSon of ttelewffrom Sennacherib, or out
of Babylon. Observe, 1. The gospel-salvation is
?he salvation of the Lord; it was contrived and
brought about by him, he glories in it as his. •
that salvation God’s righteousness is revealed, which
is so much the beauty of the gospel, that St Paul
mokes this the ground cf his glorifying m it, ( •
T vAbTame therein is the righteousness of God
revealed from faith to faith. The law revealed th
•ighteousness of God by which fU ^ers stand con-
lemned, but the gospel reveals that by which
aelievers stand acquitted. 3. The ,°h ^„*™ear
saints saw the salvation coming, and drawing near
to them, long before it came ; and -they had no ice
bv tluTprophetsof its approach. As Daniel nnder-
; T
others understood by Daniel’s books tbe^approacb
of our redemption by Christ, at the end of 70 weeks
°f TTCaHe tells us what are bis expectations of duty
from us, in consideration thereof. Say not, “ We
seethe salvation near, and therefore we may live ns
we list for there is no danger now of missing it, 01
coming short of it;” that is tarring the grace of (M
into wantonness. But, on the contrap
salvation is near, double your S"a' fvpf ^
Note The fuller assurances God gives us -
performance of his promises, the longer obla¬
tions he lays us under to obedience. The s.dvation
here spoken of is now.comej yet, tbnt
further salvation in view, the apostle pu. ... •
upon us Christians with the same argument, fRom
xiii 11 1 Now is our salvation nearer than wtienw
Zifel That which is here
and prepare us for the approaching salt ation, is,
1. That we be honest and just in all our deal
ines • Keehve judgment, and do justice. A ‘l,K ?y
p"? ’ „„d make conscience of wha.t yon say and 1 do
that ve do no wrong to any; render to all
exactly, and, in exacting what is due to you .keep up
a court of equity in your own bosom, to moderate
the rieours of the law. Be ruled by that golden rule,
"Do Is you would be done by ” M amstrates must
administer justice wisely and faithfully,
required, to evidence the sincerity of out -fa ith and
repentance, and to open the.way of mercy ,
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. God is true
to us, let us be so to one another. , , , .
2. That we religiously observe the sabbath day,
XL 2. We are not just if we rob God of his tun*
Sabbath-sanctification is here put for all the duties
of the first table, the fruits of our love to God, as
justice and judgment, for all those of seco
ble, the fruits of our love to our neighbour. Ob
serve, (1.) The duty required, which is, to keep the
sabbath; to keep it as a talent weare totm ew
as a treasure we are intrusted with, Keep , J’
keen it safe, keep it with care and caution, keep
from polluting it; allow neither yourselves nor others
either to violate the holy rest or omit the .holy work
of that day. If this be intended primarily for the Jews
in Babylon, it was fit that they should be particularly
put in mind of this ; because, when, by reason of their
distance from the temple, they could not observe the
other institutions of their law, yet they might dis in-
guish themselves from the heathen by P^tm^^hffe -
ence between God’s day and other days. But it being
required more generally of man, and the son °f man>
it mtimates that sabbath-sanctification should be a
dutv in gospel-times, when the bounds of the church
sffld be enlarged/and other rites and , ceremonies
abolished. Observe, Those that would keep the
sabbath from polluting it, must put on resolution;
must not only do this, but lay hold on it, for sabbath-
time isprecious, but is very apt to slip away, if we
take not* great care; and therefore we must lay hold
on it amf keep our hold; must do it, and persevere
in it ’ (2 ) The encouragement we have to do this
duty ; Blessed is he that doeth it. The way to have
the messing of God upon our employments all the
week, is to make conscience, and make a business,
of sabbath-sanctification: m doing so we shall be the
better qualified to do judgment ^justice. The
more godliness, the more honesty, 1 1 up- "-J-
3 That we have nothing to do with sin; Blessed
is the man that keefis his hand from doing evil, any
wrone: to his neighbour, in body, goods, or good
o? more generally, -any thing that is dis¬
pleasing to God and hurtful to his own soul. Note,
^The best evidence of our having kept the sabbath
well will be a care to keep a good conscience all the
week. By this it will appear that we have been in
the mount with God, if our faces shine in a holy
conversation before men.
3 Neither let the son of t he stranger, that
hath joined himself to the Lord, speak, say-
inv The Lord hath utterly separated me
from his people : neither let the eunuch say
259
ISAIAH, LV1.
Behold, I am a dry tree. 4. For thus saith
the Lord unto the eunuchs that keep my
sabbaths, and choose the things that please
me, and take hold of my covenant; 5. Even
unto them will I give in my house, and with¬
in my walls, a place and a name better than
of sons and of daughters : I will give them
an everlasting name, that shall not be cut
off. 6. Also the sons of the stranger that
join themselves to the Lord, to serve him,
and to love the name of the Lord, to be his
servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath
from polluting it, and taketh hold of my
covenant ; 7. Even them will I bring to my
holy mountain, and make them joyful in my
house of prayer; their burnt-offerings and
their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine
altar : for my house shall be called a house
of prayer for all people. 8. The Lord
God, which gathereth the outcasts of Israel,
saith, Yet will I gather others to him, be¬
sides those that are gathered unto him.
The prophet is here, in God’s name, encouraging
those that were hearty in joining themselves to God,
and yet laboured under great discouragements.
I. Some were discouraged because they were not
of the seed of Abraham. They had joined them¬
selves to the Lord, had bound their souls with a
bond to be his for ever. (This is the root and life
of religion, to break off from the world and the
flesh, and devote ourselves entirely to the service
and honour of God. ) But they questioned whether
God would accept of them, because they were of the
sons of the stranger, v. 3. They were Gentiles,
strangers to the commonwealth of Israel, and aliens
from the coven mts of promise, and therefore feared
they had no part or lot in the matter; they said,
“ The Lord has utterly separated me from his
heople, and will not own me as one of them, nor ad¬
mit me to their privileges.” It was often said that
there should be one law for the stranger, and for
him that was born in the Land ; (Exod. xii. 49.) and
vet they made this melancholy conclusion. Note,
Unbelief often suggests things to the discourage¬
ment of good people, which are directly contrary
to what God himself’ has said, things which he has
expressly guarded against. Let not the sons of the
stranger therefore say thus, for they have no reason
to say it. Note, Ministers must have answers ready
for the disquieting fears and jealousies of weak
Christians, which, how unreasonable soever, they
must take notice of.
II. Others were discouraged because they were
not fathers in Israel. The eunuch said, Behold, I
am a dry tree. So he looked upon himself, and it
was his grief; so others looked upon him, and it was
his reproach. He was thought to be of no use be¬
cause he had no children, nor was ever likely to
have any. This was then the more grievous, be¬
cause eunuchs were not admitted to be priests,
(Leva xxi. 20. ) nor to enter into the congregation;
(Deut. xxiii. i.) it was additionally grievous be¬
cause the promise of a numerous posterity was the
articular blessing of Israel, and the more valuable,
ecause from among them the Messiah was to
come. Yet God would not have the eunuchs to make
the worst of their case, nor to think that they should
be excluded from the gospel-church, and from be¬
ing spiritual priests, because they were shut out
from the congregation of Lrael, and the Levitical
priesthood; no, as the taking down of the partition-
wall, contained in ordinances, admitted the Gen¬
tiles, so it let in likewise those that had been kept
cut by ceremonial pollutions. Yet by the reply
here given to this suggestion, it should seem the
chief thing which the eunuch laments in his case,
is, his being written childless.
Now suitable encouragements are given to each
of those.
1. To those who have no children of their own;
who, though they had the honour to be the chil¬
dren of the church and the covenant themselves,
yet had none to whom they might transmit that
honour; none to receive the sign of circumcision,
and the privileges secured by that sign. Now cb-
serve*
(1.) What a good character they have, though
they lie under this ignominy and affliction; and those
only are entitled to the following comforts, who in
some measure answer to these characters. [1.]
They keep God’s sabbaths as he has appointed
them to be kept. In the primitive times, if a Chris¬
tian were asked, “ Hast thou kept holy the Lord’s
day?” He would readily answer, “I am a Chris¬
tian, and dare not do otherwise.” [2.] In their whole
conversation they choose those things that please
God: they do that which is good; they do it with a
sincere design to please God in it; they do it of choice,
and with delight. If sometimes, through infirmity,
they come short in doing that which pleases God, yet
they choose it, they endeavour it, and aim at it.
Note, Whatever is God’s pleasure should without
dispute be our choice. [3.] They take hold of his
covenant, and that is a thing that pleases God as
much as any thing. The covenant of grace is pro¬
posed and proffered to us in the gospel; to take
hold on it is to consent to it, to accept the offer, and
to come up to the terms; deliberately and sincerely
to take God to be to us a God, and to give up our¬
selves to hirn to be to him a people. Taking hold ol
the covenant denotes an entire and resolute consent tc
it; taking hold, as those that are afraid of coming
short; catching at it as a good bargain, and as
those that are resolved never to let it go, for it is
our life: and we take hold of it as a criminal took
hold of the horns of the altar to which he fled for
refuge.
(2.) What a great deal of comfort they may have,
if they answer to this character, though they are
not built up into families; (tv 5.) Unto them will 1
give a better place, and name. It is supposed that
there is a place and a name, Which we have from
sons and daughters, that is valuable and desirable,
It is a pleasing notion we have, that we live in ou.
children when we are dead. But there is a better
place, and a better name, which those have that
are in covenant with God, and it is sufficient to ba¬
lance the want of the former. A place and a name
denote rest and reputation; a place to live com¬
fortably in themselves, and a name to live credita¬
bly with among their neighbours; they shall be
happy, and may be easy both at home and abroad.
Though they have not children to be the music of
their house, or arrows in their quiver, to keep
them in countenance when they speak with then-
enemies in the gate, yet they shall have a place and
a name more than equivalent. For, [1.] God will
give it them, will give it them by promise, he will
himself be both their Habitation and their Glory,
their Place and their Name. [2.] He will give
it them in his house, and within his wall; there
they shall have a place, shall be planted so as to
take root, (Ps. xcii. 13.) shall dwell all the days of
their life, Ps. xxvii. 4. They shall be at home in
communion with God, as Anna, that departed not
from the temple night or day. There they shall
have a name a name for good things with God a-.
260
ISAIAH, LVI.
good people, which is a name better than that of
/ions and daughters. Our relation to God, our in¬
terest in Christ, our title to the blessings of the co¬
venant, and our hopes of eternal life, are things that
give us in God’s house a blessed place and a blessed
name. [3.1 It shall be an everlasting name, that
shall never be extinct, shall never be cut off; like
the place and name of angels, who therefore marry
not, because they die not. Spiritual blessings
are unspeakably better than those of sons and
daughters; for children are a certain care, and
may prove the greatest grief and shame of a man’s
life, but the blessings we partake of in God’s house,
are a sure and constant joy and honour, comforts
which cannot be imbittered.
2. To those that are themselves the children of
strangers,
(1.) It is here promised, that they shall now be
welcome to the church, v. 6, 7. When God’s Is¬
rael come out of Babylon, let them bring as many
of their neighbours along with them as they can
persuade to come, and God will find room enough
for them all in his house.
And here (as before) we may observe,
[1.] Upon what terms they shall be welcome;
let them know that God’s Israel, when they come
out of Babylon, will not be plagued, as they were
when they came out of Egypt, with a mixed multi¬
tude, that went with them, but were not cordially
for them; no, the sons of the stranger shall have a
place and a name in God’s house, provided, First,
That they forsake other gods, all rivals and pre¬
tenders whatsoever, and join themselves to the
Lord, so as to become one sfiirit, 1 Cor. vi. 17. Se¬
condly, That they join themselves to him as sub¬
jects to their prince, and soldiers to their general,
by an oath of fidelity and obedience, to serve him,
not occasionally, as one would serve a turn, but to
be constantly his servants, entirely subject to his
command, and devoted to his interest. Thirdly,
That they join themselves to him as friends to his
honour and the interests of his kingdom in the
world, to love the name of the Lord, to be well-
pleased with all the discoveries he has made of him¬
self, and all the memorials they make of him. Ob¬
serve, Serving him and loving him go together, for
those that love him truly will serve him faithfully,
and that obedience is most acceptable to him, as
well as most pleasant to us, which flows from a
principle of love, for then his commandments are
not grievous, 1 John v. 3. Fourthly, That they
keep the sabbath from polluting it; for the stranger
that is within thy gates, is particularly required to
do that. Lastly, That they take hold of the cove¬
nant, that they come under the bonds of it, and put
in for the benefits of it.
[2. J To what privileges they shall be welcome,
7. Three things are here promised them
in their coming to God. First, Assistance; “ 1 will
bring them to my holy mountain, not only bid them
welcome, when they come, but incline them to come,
'•ill show them the way, and lead them in it.”
David himself prays, that God by his light and
truth would bring them to his holy hill, Ps. xliii.
3. And the sons of the stranger shall be under the
same guidance. The church is God’s holy hill, on
which he hath set his King, and in bringing them
: > Zion-hill, he brings them to be subjects to Zion’s
King, as well as worshippers in Zion’s holy temple.
Secondly, Acceptance; “ Their burnt-offerings and
vlieir sacrifices shall be accepted on mine altar, and
never the less acceptable for being theirs, though
i uey are sons of the stranger.” The prayers and
praises (those spiritual sacrifices) of devout Gen¬
tiles shall be as pleasing to God as those of the pious
Jfws, and no difference shall be made between
them; foi though they are Gentiles by birth, yet
through grace they shall be looked upon as ihe
believing seed of faithful Abraham, and the p.-ay-
ing seed of wrestling Jacob, for in Christ Jesus tnere
is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncii-
cumcision. Thirdly, Comforts; they shall not only
be accepted, but they themselves shall have the
pleasure of it; I will mak e them joyful in my house
of prayer. ' They shall have grace, not only to
serve God, but to serve him cheerfully and with
gladness, and that shall make the service the more
acceptable to him; for when we sing in the ways of
the Lord, then great is the glory of our God. They
shall go away, and eat their bread with joy, because
God now accepts their works, Eccl. ix. 7. Nay,
though they come mourning to the house of prayer,
they shall go away rejoicing, for they shall there
find such ease, by casting their cares and bur¬
thens upon God, and referring themselves to him,
that, like Hannah, they shall go away, and their
countenance shall be no more sad. Many a sor¬
rowful spirit has been made joyful m the house of
prayer.
(2.) It is here promised, that multitudes of the
Gentiles shall come to the church ; not only that the
few who come dropping in, shall be bid welcome,
but that great numbers shall come in, and the door
be thrown open to them; My house shall be called
an house of firayer for all people. The temple was
then God’s house, and to that Christ applies these
words; (Matth. xxi. 13.) but with an eye to it
as a type of the gospel-church, Heb. ix. 8,' 9.
For Christ calls it his house, Heb. iii. 6. Now con¬
cerning this house, it is promised, [1.] That it
shall not be a house of sacrifice, but a house of
prayer. The religious meetings of God’s people
shall be meetings for prayer, in which they shall
join together, as a token of their united faith and
mutual love. [2.] That it shall be a house of
prayer, not for the peple of the Jews only, but for
all people. This was fulfilled when Peter was
made, not only to perceive it himself, but to tell it
to the world, that in every nation, he that fears
God and works righteousness, is accepted of him.
Acts x. 35. It had been declared again and again
that the stranger that comes nigh shall be put tj
death, but Gentiles shall now be looked upon no
longer as strangers and foreigners, Eph. ii. 19.
And it appears by Solomon’s prayer at the dedica¬
tion of the temple, both that it was primarily intend¬
ed for a house of prayer, and that strangers should
be welcome to it, 1 Kings viii. 30, 41, 43.
And it is intimated here, (y. 8.) that when the
Gentiles are called in, they shall be incorporated
into one body with the Jews, that (as Christ says,
John x. 16.) there may be one fold and one Shep¬
herd; for, First, God will gather the outcasts of Is¬
rael; many of the Jews that had by their unbelief
cast themselves cut, shall by faith be brought in
again, a remnant according to the election of grace,
Rom. xi. 5. Christ came to the lost sheep of the
house of Israel, (Matth. xv. 24.) to gather their
outcasts, (Ps. cxlvii. 2.) to restore their preserved,
(eh. xlix. 6.) and to be their Glory, Luke ii. 32.
Secondly, He will gather others also to him, be¬
side his own outcasts that are gathered to him; or
though some of the Gentiles have come over now
and then into the church, that shall not serve (as
some may think) to answer the extent of these pro¬
mises, no, there are still more and more to be
brought in; I will gather others to him beside these;
these are but the first-fruits, in comparison with the
harvest that shall be gathered for Christ in the na¬
tions of the earth, when the fulness of the Gentiles
shall come in. Note, The church is a growing
body: when some are gathered to it, we may hope
there shall be still more, till the mystical bedy be
completed’ 'It'ier sheep l have.
261
ISAIAH, LV1.
a. All ye beasts of the field, come to de¬
vour, yea, all ye beasts in the forest. 1 0.
His watchmen are blind; they are all ig¬
norant, they are all dumb dogs, they can¬
not bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to
slumber. 11. Yea, they are greedy dogs
which can never have enough, and they are
shepherds that cannot understand ; they all
look to their own way, every one for his
gain from his quarter. 1 2. Come ye, say they,
I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves
with strong drink ; and to-morrow shall
be as to-day, and much more abundant.
From words of comfort the prophet here, by a
very sudden change of his style, passes to words of
reproof and conviction, and goes on in that strain,
for the most part, in the three following chapters;
and therefore some here begin a new sermon. He
had assured the peop e, that in due time God would
deliver them out of captivity, which was designed
for the comfort of those that should live when God
would do this. N ow here he shows what their sins and
provocations were, for which God would send them
into captivity, and this was designed for the convic¬
tion of those that lived in his own time, near a hun¬
dred years before the captivity, who were now fill¬
ing up the measure of the nation’s sin, and to justify
God in what he brought upon them. God will lay
them waste by the fierceness of their enemies, for
the falseness of their friends.
I. Desolating judgments are here summoned, v. 9.
The sheep of God’s pasture are now to be made the
sheep of his slaughter, to fall as victims to his jus¬
tice, and therefore the beasts of the field and the
forest are called to come and devour. They are
beasts of prey, and do it from their own ravenous
disposition; but God permits them to do it, nay , he em¬
ploys them as his servants in doing it, the ministers
of his justice, though thev mean not so, neither does
their heart think so. If this refers primarily to
the descent made upon them by the Babylonians,
and their devouring of them, yet it may look fur¬
ther, to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish
nation by the Romans, after these outcasts of them
(mentioned v. 8.) were gathered into the Christian
church. The Roman armies came upon them as
beasts of the forest to devour them, and they quite
took away their place and nation. Note, WhenGod
has bloody work to do, he has beasts of prey within
call, to be employed in doing it.
II. The reason of these judgments is here given.
The shepherds who should have been the watchmen
of the nock, to discover the approaches of the
beasts of prey, to keep them off, and protect the
sheep, were treacherous and careless, minded not
their business, nor made any conscience of the trust
reposed in them, and so the sheep became an easy
prey to the wild beasts. Now 'Ins may refer to the
false prophets that lived in Isaiah’s, Jeremiah’s, and
Ezekiel’s time, that flattered the people in their
wicked ways, and told them they should have
peace, though they went on: it may also refer to
the priests that bare rule by their means, or to the
wicked princes, the sons of Josiah, that did evil in
the sight of the Lord , and other wicked magis¬
trates under them, that betrayed their trust, were
vicious and profane, and, instead of making up the
breach of which the judgments of God were break¬
ing in upon them, made it wider, and augmented
the fierce anger of the Lord instead of doing any
thing to turn it away. They should have kept
judgment and justice, (y. 1.) but they abandoned
joth, Jer. v. 1. Or, it may refer to those who were
the nation’s watchmen in our Saviour’s time, the
chief priests and the scribes who should have dis¬
cerned the signs of the times, and have given notice
to the people of the approach of the Messiah, but
who, instead of that, opposed him, and did all they
could to keep people from coming to the knowledge
of him, and to prejudice them against him.
It is a very sad character that is here given of
these watchmen; wo unto thee, O land, when thy
guides are such.
1. They had no sense or knowledge of their busi¬
ness; they were wretchedly ignorant of their work,
and very unfit to teach, being so ill-taught them¬
selves. His watchmen are blind, and therefore
utterly unfit to be watchmen. If the seers see not,
who shall see for us? If the light that is in us be
darkness, how great is that darkness! Christ de¬
scribes the Pharisees to be blind leaders of the blind,
Matth. xv. 14. The beasts of the field come to
devour, and the watchmen are blind, and are not
aware of them. They are all ignorant, (y. 10.)
shepherds that cannot understand, (y. 11.) that
know not what is to be done about the sheep, nor
can feed them with understanding, Jer. iii. 15.
2. What little knowledge they had, they made no
use of it, no one was the better for it. As they
were blind watchmen, that could not discern the
danger, so they were dumb dogs, that would not
give warning of it. And why are the dogs set to
guard the sheep, if they cannot bark to awaken the
shepherd, and frighten the wolf? Such were these;
they that had the charge of souls never reproved
men for their faults, nor told them what would be
in the end thereof, never gave them notice of the
judgments of God that were breaking in upon them;
they barked at God’s prophets, and bit them too,
and worried the sheep, but made no opposition to
the wolf or thief.
3. They were very lazy, and would take no pains;
they loved their ease, and hated business, were al¬
ways sleeping, lying down, and loving to slumber.
They were not overcome, and overpowered by
sleep, as the disciples, through grief and fatigue,
but they lay down on purpose to invite sleep; and
said, Soul, take thine ease. Yet a little sleep. It is
bad with a people when their shepherds slumber,
(Nah. iii. 18.) and it is well for God’s people, that
their Shepherd, the Keeper of Israel, neither
slumbers nor sleeps.
4. They were very covetous and eager after the
world, greedy dogs, that can never have enough;
if they had ever so much, they would think it too
little; they so loved silver as never to be satisfied
with silver, Eccl. v. 10. All their inquiry is, what
they shall get, not what they shall do. Let them
have the wages, and they care not whether the work
be done or no; they feed not the flock, but fleece it.
They are every one looking to his own way, mind¬
ing his own private interests, and have no regard
at all to the public welfare; it was St. Paul’s com¬
plaint of the watchmen in his time; (Phil. ii. 21.)
jlll seek their own, not the things that are Jesus
Christ’s. Every one is for propagating his own
opinion, advancing his own party, raising his own
family, and having every thing to his own mind,
while the common concerns of the public are
wretchedly neglected and postponed. They look
every one to his gain from his quarter, from his end
or part of the work, they are for gain from every’
quarter, Rem, rem, quocunque modo rem — Money,
money, by fair means, or by foul, we must have
money, but especially from their own quarter,
where they will be sure to take cave that they lose
nothing, nor miss any thing that is to be got. If any
one put not into their mouths, they not only will dc
him no service, but they prepare war against him ,
Micah iii. 5
262
ISAIAH, LV11.
5. They were perfect epicures, given to their
pleasures, never so much in their element as in
their drunken revels; (v. 12.) Come ye, (say they, )
I will fetch wine; (they have that at command,
their cellars are better furnished than their closets;)
and we will fill ourselves, or be drunk with strong
drink. They were often drunk, not overseen, (as
we say,) or overtaken, in drink, but designedly.
The watchmen did thus invite and encourage one
another to drink to excess, or they courted the peo¬
ple to sit and drink with them, and so confirmed
them in their wicked ways, and hardened their
hearts, whom they should have reproved. How
could they think it any harm to be drunk, when
the watchmen themselves joined with them, and led
them to it?
6. They were secure, and confident of the con¬
tinuance of their prosperity and ease; they said,
“ To-morrow shall be as this day, and much more
abundant; we shall have as much to spend upon
our lusts to-morrow, as we have to-day.” They
had no thought at all of their own frailty and mor¬
tality, though they were shortening their days, and
hastening their deaths, by their excesses. T hey
had no dread of the judgments of God, though they
were daily provoking him, and making themselves
liable to his wrath and curse. 1 hey never consi¬
dered the uncertainty of all the delights and enjoy¬
ments of sense, how they perish in the using, and
pass away with the lusts of them. They resolved
to continue in this wicked course, whatever their
consciences said to the contrary, to be as merry to¬
morrow as they are to-day. But boast not thyself
of to-morrow, when perhaps this night thy soul
shall be required of thee.
CHAP. LVII.
The prophet, in this chapter, makes his observations, I.
Upon the deaths of good men, comforting those that
were taken away in their integrity, and reproving those
that did not make a due improvement of such provi¬
dences, v. 1, 2. II. Upon the gross idolatries and spirit¬
ual whoredoms which the Jews were guilty of, and the
destroying judgments they were thereby bringing upon
themselves, v. 3. . 12. Ill. Upon the gracious returns
of God to his people to put an end to their captivity,
and re-establish their prosperity, v. 13'-. .21.
1. rriHE righteous perisheth, and no man
A layeth it to heart ; and merciful men
are taken away, none considering that the
righteous is taken away from the evil to come.
2. He shall enter into peace : they shall rest
in their beds, each one walking in his up¬
rightness.
The prophet, in the close of the foregoing chap¬
ter, had condemned the watchmen for their igno¬
rance and sottishness; here he shows the general
stupidity and senselessness of the people likewise;
no wonder they were inconsiderate, when their
watchmen were so, who should have awakened
tuem to consideration. We may observe here,
1. The providence of God removing good men
apace out of this world. The righteous, as to this
world, perish, they are gone, and their place knows
them no more; piety exempts none from the arrests
of death, nay, in persecuting times, the most righ¬
teous are most exposed to the violences of bloody
men. The first that died, died a martyr. Righ¬
teousness delivers from the sting of death, but not
from the stroke of it. They are said to fierish, be¬
cause they are utterly removed from us, and to ex¬
press the great loss which this world sustains by the
removal of them; not that their death is their un¬
doing, but it often proves an undoing to the places
where they lived, and were useful. Hay, even
merciful men are taken away, those good men that
are distinguished from the righteous for whom some
would even dare to die, Rom. v. 7. Those are
often removed, that could be worst spared; the fruit¬
ful trees are cut down by death, and the barren left
still to cumber the ground. Merciful men are
often taken away by the hand of men’s malice; many
good works they have done, and for some of them
they are stoned. Before the captivity in Babylon
perhaps there was a more than ordinary mortality
of good men, so that there were scarcely any left,
Jer. v. 1. The godly ceased, and the faithful failed,
Ps. xii. 1.
2. The careless world slighting these providences,
and disregarding them — no man lays it to heart,
none considers it. There are very few that lament
it as a public loss, very few that take notice of it as a
public warning. The death of good men is a thing
to be laid to heart, and considered, more than com¬
mon deaths. Serious inquiries cught to be made;
Wherefore does God contend with us? What good
lessons are to be learned by such providences?
What may we do to help to make up the breach,
and to fill up the room of those that are removed?
God is justly displeased when such events are not
laid to heart; when the voice of the rod is not heard,
nor the intentions of it answered, much more when
it is rejoiced in, as the slaying of the witnesses is,
Rev. xi. 10. Some of God’s choicest blessings to
mankind, being thus easily parted with, are really
undervalued; and it is an evidence of very great
incogitancy; little children, when they are little,
least lament the death of their parents, because
they know not what a loss it is to them.
3. The happiness of the righteous in their re¬
moval.
(1.) They are taken away from the evil to come,
then when it is just coming. [1.] In compassicn to
them, that they may not see the evil, (2 Kings xxii.
20.) nor share in it, nor be in temptation by it.
When the deluge is coming, they are called into the
ark, and have a hiding-place and rest in heaven,
when there was none for them under heaven. [2.]
In wrath to the world, to punish them for all the
injuries they have done to the righteous and merci¬
ful ones; these are taken away, that stood in the
gap to turn away the judgments of God; and then
what can be expected but a deluge of them ! It is a
sign that God intends war, when he calls heme his
ambassadors.
(2.) They go to be easy, out of the reach of that
evil. The righteous man, who, while he lived,
walked in his uprightness, enters, when lie dies, in¬
to peace, and rests in his bed. Note, [1.] Death is
gain, and rest, and bliss, to those only who walked
in their uprightness, and who, when they die, can
appeal to God concerning it, as Hezekiah, (2 Kings
xx. 3.) Aviv, Lord, remember it. [2.] They that
practised uprightness and persevered in it to the
end, shall find it well with them when they die.
Their souls then enter into peace, into the world of
peace, where peace is in perfection, and where
there is no trouble; Enter thou into the joy of thy
Lord. Their bodies rest in their beds. Note,
The grave is a bed of rest to all the Lord’s people;
there they rest from all their labours. Rev. xiv. 13.
And the more weary they were, the more welcome
will that rest be to them, Job iii. 17. This bed is
made in the darkness, but that makes it the more
quiet; it is a bed out of which they shall rise re¬
freshed in the morning of the resurrection.
3. But draw near hither, ye sons of the
sorceress, the seed of the adulterer and the
whore. 4. Against whom do ye spoil your¬
selves? aeainst whom make ye a wide
265
ISAIAH, LVIJ.
mouth, and draw out tnc tongue? are ye not
children of transgression, a seed of false¬
hood, 5. Inflaming yourselves with idols
under every green tree, slaying the children
in the valleys under the clifts of the rocks?
(>. Among the smooth stones of the stream is
thy portion; they, they are thy lot; even to
them hast thou poured a drink-offering, thou
hast offered a meat-offering. Should 1 re¬
ceive comfort in these? 7. Upon a lofty and
high mountain hast thou set thy bed : even
thither wentest thou up to offer sacrifice.
8. Behind the doors also and the posts hast
thou set up thy remembrance ; for thou hast
discovered thyself to another than me, and
art gone up : thou hast enlarged thy bed, and
made a covenant with them ; thou lovedst
their bed where thou sawedst it. 9. And
thou wentest to the king with ointment, and
didst increase thy perfumes, and didst send
thy messengers far off, and didst debase
thyself even unto hell. 10. Thou art wea¬
ried in the greatness of thy way ; yet saidst
thou not, There is no hope : thou hast found
the life of thy hand ; therefore thou wast not
grieved. 1 1 . And of whom hast thou been
afraid or feared, that thou hast lied, and hast
not remembered me, nor laid it to thy heart?
have not I held my peace even of old, and
thou fearest me not? 12. I will declare thy
righteousness, and thy works ; for they shall
not profit thee.
We have here a high charge, but a just one, no
doubt, drawn up against that wicked generation,
out of which God’s righteous ones were removed,
because the world was not worthy of them. Ob¬
serve,
I. The general character here given of them, or
the name and title by which they stand indicted, v.
3. They are bid to draw near, and hear the charge,
are set to the bar and arraigned there as sons of the
sorceress, or of a witch, the seed of an adulterer and
a whore; they were such themselves, they were
strongly inclined to be such, and their ancestors
were such before them. Sin is sorcery and adultery ,
for it is departing from God, and dealing with the
devil; and they were children of disobedience;
“ Come,” says the prophet, “draw near hither, and
1 will read you your doom; to the righteous death
will bring peace and rest, but not to you; you are
children of transgression, and a seed of falsehood,
(u. 4.) that have it by kind, and have it woven into
your very nature, to backslide from God, and to
deal treacherously with him,” (c/i. xlviii. 8.)
II. The particular crimes laid to their charge.
1. Scoffing at God and his word. They were a
generation of scorners; tv. 4.) “ Against whom do
you sport yourselves ? You think it is only against
the poor prophets, whom you trample upon as con¬
temptible men, but really it is against God himself,
who sends them, and whose message they deliver.”
Mocking the messengers of tire Lord was Jerusa¬
lem’s measure-filling sin, for what was done to them
God took as done to himself. When they were re¬
proved for their sins, and threatened with the judg¬
ments of God, they ridiculed the word of God with
the rudest and most indecent gestures and expres¬
sions of disdain. They sported themselves and
made themselves merry with that which should
have made them serious, and under which they
should have humbled themselves. They made wry
mouths at the prophets, and drew out the tongue,
contrary to all the laws of good breeding; nor did
they treat God’s prophets with the common civility
with which they would have treated a gentleman’s
servant that had been sent to them on an errand.
Note, Those who mock at God, and bid defiance
to his judgments, had best consider who it is toward
whom they carry it so insolently.
2. Idolatry. This was that sin which the people
of the Jews were most notoriously guilty of before
the captivity ; but that affliction cured them of it.
In Isaiah’s time it abounded, witness the abominable
idolatries of Ahaz (which some think are particu¬
larly referred to here) and of Manasseh. ( 1. ) They
were dotingly fond of their idols, were inflamed
with them, as those that burn in unlawful, unnatu¬
ral lusts, Rom. i. 27. They were mad upon 'their
idols, Jer. 1. 38. They inflamed themselves with
them by their violent passions in the worship of
them, as those of Baal’s prophets that leaped upon
the altar, and cut themselves, 1 Kings xviii. 26, 28.
Note, Vile corruptions, the more they are gratified,
the more they are inflamed. They worshipped
their idols under every green tree, in the open air,
and in the shade; yet that did not cool the heat of
their impetuous lusts, but, rather, the charming
beauty of the green trees made them the more fond
of their idols which they w'orshipped there. Thus
that in nature which is pleasing, instead of drawing
them to the God of nature, drew them from him.
The flame of their zeal in the worship of false gods,
may shame us for our coldness and indifference in the
worship of the true God. They strove to inflame
themselves, but we distract and deaden ourselves.
(2.) They were barbarous and unnaturally cruel in
the worship of their idols; they slew their children,
and offered them in sacrifice to their idols, not only
in the valley of the son of Hinnom, the head-quar¬
ters of that monstrous idolatry, but in other valleys,
in imitation of that, and under the clefts of the rock,
in dark and solitary places, the fittest for such
works of darkness. (3. ) They were abundant and
insatiable in their idolatries; they never thought
they could have idols enough, nor could spend
enough upon them, and do enough in their service.
The Syrians had once a notion of the God of Israel,
that he was a God of the hills, but not a God of the
valleys; (1 Kings xx. 28.) but these idolaters, to
make sure work, had both.
[1.] They had gods of the valleys, which they
worshipped in the low places by the water side; (v.
6.) Among the smooth stones of the valley, or brook,
is thy portion. If they saw a smooth carved stone,
though set up but for a way-mark, or a mere stone,
they were ready to worship it, as the papists do
crosses. Or, in stony valleys they set up their gods,
which they called their portion, and took for their
lot, as God’s people take him for their Lot and Por¬
tion. But these gods of stone would really be no
better a portion for them, no better a lot, than the
smooth stones of the stream, near which they were
set up, for sometimes they worshipped their rivers;
“ They, they are thy let which thou trustest to, and
art pleased with, but thou shalt be put off with it for
thy lot, and miserable will thy case be.” See the
folly of sinners, who take the smooth stones of the
stream for their portion, when they might have the
precious stones of God’s Jerusalem, and the High
Priest’s ephod, to portion themselves with. Having
taken these idols for their lot and portion, they re¬
fuse no charge in doing honour to them; “ To them
hast thou poured a drink-offering, and offered a
meat-offering, as if they had given thee thy meat
264
ISAIAH, LVII.
and drink.” They loved their idols better than
their children, for their own tables must be robbed,
t j replenish the altars of their idols. Have we taken
the true God for our Portion? Is he, even he, our
Lot? Let us then serve him with our meat and drink,
not as they did, by depriving ourselves of the use
of them, but by eating and drinking to his glory.
Here, in a parenthesis, comes in an expression of
God’s just resentment of this wickedness of theirs.
Should I receive comfort in these — in such a people
as this? Can they expect that God would take any
pleasure in them, or accept their devotions at his
altar, who thus serve Baal with the gifts of his pro¬
vidence? God takes comfort in his people, while
they are faithful to him; but what comfort can he
take in them, when they that should be his witnesses
against the idolatries of the world, do themselves
fall in with them? Should I have comfiassion on
these ? (so some;) Should I repent me concerning
these? (soothers.) “ How can they expect that i
should spare them, and either adjourn or abate their
punishment, when they are so very provoking ?
Shall I not visit for these things?” Jer. v. 7, 9.
[2.] They had gods of the hdlstoo; ( v . 7.) “ Upon
a lofty and high mountain (as if thou wouldest vie
with the high and lofty One himself, v. 15. ) hast
thou set thy bed, thine idol, thine idol’s temple and
altar, the bed of thine uncleanness, where thou com-
mittest spiritual whoredom, with all the wantonness
of an idolatrous fancy, and in direct violation of the
covenant of thy God. Thither wentest thou up
readily enough, though it was up-hill, to offer sacri¬
fice.” Some think this bespeaks the impudence
they arrived at in their idolatries; at first they had
some sense of shame, when they worshipped their
idols in the valleys, in obscure places; but they soon
conquered that, and came to do it upon the lofty,
high mountains; they were not ashamed, neither
could they blush.
[3. ] As if these were not enough, they had house¬
hold-gods too, their lares and penates. Behind the
doors and the posts, {v. 8. ) where the law of God
should be written for a memorandum to them of
their duty, they set up the remembrance of their
idols, not so much to keep up their own remembrance
rf them, (they were so fond of them, that they could
not forget them,) but to show to others how mindful
they were of them, and to put their children in mind
of them, and possess them betimes with a venera¬
tion for these dunghill-deities.
[4.] As -they were insatiable in their idolatries, so
they were inseparable from them ; they were harden¬
ed in their wickedness, they worshipped their idols
openly and in public view, as being neither ashamed
of the sin, nor afraid of the punishment; they went
as publicly, and in as great crowds, to the idol-tem¬
ples, as ever they had gone to God’s house. This
was like an impudent harlot, discovering themselves
to another, and not to God, making a profession of
a false religion, and not of the true. They took a
pride in making proselytes to their idolatries, and
not only went up themselves to their high places,
but enlarged their bed, their idol-temples, and (as
the margin reads the following words) thou hewedst
it for thyself larger than theirs, than theirs from
whom thou copiedst it, and tookest the platform of
it, as Ahaz of his altar from that which he saw at
Damascus, 2 Kings xvi. 10. And being thus involved
over head and ears, as it were, in their idolatries,
there is no parting them from them. Ephraim is
now joined to idols both in love and league. First,
In league; “ Thou hast made a covenant with them,
with the idols, with the idol-worshippers, to livy
and die together. This was a complete renuncia¬
tion of their covenant with God, and an avowed
resolution to persist in their apostaev from him.
Secondly, In love; “ Thou lovedst their bed, the
temple of an idol, wherever thou sawest it.” Justiv
therefore were they given up to their own hearts’
lusts.
3. Another sin charged upon them is, their trust¬
ing in, and seeking to, foreign aids and succours, and
contracting a communion with the Gentile powers;
(t>. 9.) Thou wentest to the king, which some under¬
stand of the idol they worshipped, particularly
Moloch, which signifies a king; “ Thou didst every
thing to ingratiate thyself with those idols, didst
offer incense and sweet ointments at their altars.’’
Or, it may be meant of the king of Assyria, whom
Ahaz made his court to; or, of the king of Babylon,
whose ambassadors Hezekiah caressed; or, of the
other kings of the nations whose idolatrous usages
they admired, and were desirous to learn and imi¬
tate, and, for that end, went and sent to cultivate an
acquaintance and correspondence with them, thal
they might be like them, and strengthen themselves
by an alliance with them. See here, (1.) What ai
expense they were at in forming and procuring this
grand alliance; they went with ointments and per¬
fumes, either bestowed upon themselves, to beautify
their own faces, and to make themselves considera¬
ble, and worthy the friendship of the greatest king ;
or, to be presented to those whose favour they were
ambitious of, because a man’s gift makes room for
him, and brings him before great men; “When the
first present of rich perfumes was thought too litt’e,
thou didst increase them;” and thus many seek the
ruler’s favour, forgetting that, after all, every man’s
judgment proceeds from the Lord. So fond were
they of those heathen princes, that they not only
went themselves, in all their airs, to those that were
near them, but sent messengers to those that were
afar off, ch. xviii. 2. (2. ) How much they hereby
disparaged themselves, and laid the honour of their
crown and nation in the dust; Thou didst debase thy¬
self even unto hell. They did so by their idolatries.
It is a dishonour to the children of men, who are
endued with the powers of reason, to worship that
as their god, which is the creature of their own
fancy, and the work of their own hands, to bow
down to the stock of a tree. It is much more a dis¬
honour to the children of God, who are blessed with
the privilege of divine revelation, to forsake such a
God as they know theirs to be, for a thing of naught,
their own mercies for lying vanities. They likewise
debased themselves by truckling to their heathen
neighbours, and depending upon them, when they
had a God to go to, who is all-sufficient, and in cove¬
nant with them. How did they shame themselves
to the highest degree, and sink themselves to the
lowest, that forsook the Fountain of life for broken
cisterns, and the Rock of ages for broken reeds.
Note, Sinners disparage and debase themselves; the
service of si:i is an ignominious slavery; and they
who thus debase themselves to hell, will justly have
theii portion there.
III. The aggravation of their sin:
1. They had been tired with disappointments in
their wicked courses, and yet they would not be
convinced of the folly of them; (i>. 10.) “ Thou art
wearied in the greatness of thy way; thou hast un¬
dertaken a mighty task, to find out true satisfaction
and happiness in that which is vanity and a lie.”
Those that set up idols, instead of God, for the
object of their worship, and princes, instead of God,
for the object of their hope and confidence, and think
thus to better themselves, and make themselves
easy, go a great way about, and will never come to
their journey’s end; Thou art wearied in the multi¬
tude, or multiplicity, of thy ways; so some read it;
those that forsake the only right way, wander end¬
lessly in a thousand by-paths, and lose themselves
in the many inventions which they have sought out;
they weary themselves with fresh chases, and fierce
ISAIAH, LV11.
oiii ,, but never gain their point, like the Sodomites,
that wearied themselves to Jind the door , (Gen. xix.
11.) and could not find it at last. The pleasures of
sin will soon surfeit, but never satisfy; a man may
quickly tire himself in the pursuit of them, but can
never repose himself in the enjoyment of them.
They found this by experience; the idols they had
often worshipped never did them any kindness, the
kings they courted distressed them, and helped them
not; and yet they were so wretchedly besotted, that
they could not say, “ There is no hope; it is in vain
any longer to expect that satisfaction in creature-
confidences, and in the worship of idols, which we
have so often looked for, and never met with ”
Note, Despair of happiness in the creature, and of
satisfaction in the service of sin, is the first step
towards a well-grounded hope of happiness in God,
and a well-fixed resolution to keep to his service:
and those are inexcusable, who have had a sensible
conviction of the vanity of the creature, and yet will
no* be brought to say, “There is no hope to be
happy short of the Creator.”
2. Though they were convinced that the way they
were in was a sinful way, yet, because they had
found some present sensual pleasure and worldly
profit by it, they could not persuade themselves to
be sorry for it; “ Thou hast found the life of thy
hand,” (or, the living of it;) “thou boastest how
fortune smiles upon thee, and therefore thou art not
grieved, any more than Ephraim, when he said,
(Hos. xii. 8.) I am become rich, I have found me
out substance.” Note, Prosperity in sin is a great
bar to conversion from sin. Those that live at ease
in their sinful pleasures, and raise estates by their
sinful projects, are tempted to think God favours
them, and therefore they have nothing to repent of.
Some read it ironically, or by way of question,
“Thou hast found the life of thy hand, hast found
true satisfaction and happiness, no doubt, thou hast;
hast thou not? And therefore thou art so far from
being grieved, that thou blessest thyself in thine own
evil way; but rev iew thy gains once more, and come
to a balance of profit and loss, and then say, What
fruit hast thou of those things whereof thou art
ashamed, and for which God shall bring thee into
judgment ?" Rom. vi. 21.
3. They had dealt very unworthily with God by
their sin; for, (l.)It should seem they pretended
that the reason why they left God, was, because he
was too terrible a majesty for them to deal with,
they must have gods that they could be more free
and familiar with; “But,” says God, “of whom
hast thou been afraid or feared, that thou hast lied;
that thou hast dealt falsely and treacherously with
me, and dissembled in thy covenants with me and
prayers to me? What did I ever do to frighten thee
Irom me? What occasion have I given thee to think
hardly of me, that thou hast gone to seek a kinder
master?” (2.) However, it is certain that they had
no true reverence of God, nor any awful regard to
him. So that question is commonly understood.
“Of whom hast thou been afraid, or feared? Of
none ; for thou hast not feared me whom thou shouldest
fear; for thou hast lied to me. ” Those that dissem¬
ble with God, make it to appear they stand in no
awe of him. “Thou hast not remembered me,
neither what I have said, nor what I have done,
neither the promises, nor the threatenings, nor the
performances of either; thou hast not laid them to
thy heart, as thou wouldest have done, if thou hadst
feared me.” Note, Those who lay not the word of
God and his providences to their hearts, show that
they have not the fear of God before their eyes.
And multitudes are ruined by fearlessness, forget¬
fulness, and mere carelessness; they do not aright,
nor to good purpose fear any thing, remember any
thing, or lay any thing to heart Nay, (3.) Thev
Vol. iv. — 2L
2A5
were hardened in their sin by the patience and for
bearanceof God; “ Havenot I held my fie ace of old,
and for a long time? These things thru hast done,
and I kept silence. And therefore, as it follows
here, thou fearest me not;” as if because Gi d had
spared long, he would never punish, Eccl. viii. 31.
Because he kept silence, the sinner thought him
altogether such a one as himself, and stood in no
awe of him.
Lastly, Here is God’s resolution to call them to
an account, though he had long borne with them;
(v. 12.) J will declare; like that, (Ps. 1. 21.) “ but
I will re/irove thee, I will declare thy righteousness,
which thou makest thy boast of, and let the world
see, and thyself too, to thy confusion, that it is all a
sham, all a cheat, it is not what it pretends to be.
When thy righteousness comes to be examined, it
will be found unrighteousness; and that there is no
sincerity in all thy pretensions. I will declare thy
works, what they have been, and what the gain thou
pretendest to have gotten by them, and it will appear
that at long run they shall not profit thee, nor turn
to any account.” Note, Sinful works, as they are
works of darkness, and there is no reason or right¬
eousness in them, so they are unfruitful works, and
there is nothing got by them ; and however they look
now, it will be made to appear so another day. Sin
profits not, nay, it ruins and destroys.
1 3. When thou criest, let thy companies
deliver thee: but the wind shall carry them
all away; vanity shall take them: but he
that putteth his trust in me shall possess the
land, and shall inherit my holy mountain ;
14. And shall say, Cast ye up, cast ye up,
prepare , the way, take up the stumbling-
block out, of the way of my people. 15. For
thus saith the high and lofty One that in-
habiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; 1
dwell in the high and holy place : with him
also that is of a contrite and humble spirit,
to revive the spirit df the humble, and to
revive the heart of the contrite ones. 1 6.
For I will not contend for ever, neither will
1 be always wroth : for the spirit should fail
before me, and the souls which I have made.
Here,
I. God shows how insufficient idols and creatures
were to relieve and succour those that worshipped
them, and confided in them; (y. 13.) “ When thou
criest in thy distress and anguish, lamentest thy
misery, and callest for help, let thy companies de¬
liver thee, thy idol-gods which thou hast heaped to
thyself companies of, the troops of the confederate
forces which thou hast relied so much upon, let them
deliver thee if they can; expect no other relief than
what they can give.” Thus God said to Israel,
when in their trouble they called upon him, (Judg.
x. 14.) Go, and cry to the gods which you have
chosen, let them deliver you. But in vain is salva¬
tion hoped for from them, the wind shall carry them
all away, the wind of God’s wrath, the breath of his
mouth, which shall slay the wicked; they have
made themselves as chaff, and therefore the wind
will of course hurry them away. Vanity they are,
and vanity shall take them away, to vanity they
shall be reduced, and vanity shall be their recom¬
pense. Both the idols and their worshippers shall
come to nothing.
II. He shows that there was a sufficiency, an all-
sufficiency, in him for the comfort and deliverance
of all those that put their confidence in him, and
266
fSAlAH, LVn.
made their application to him. Their safety and
satisfaction appear the more comfortable, because
their hopes are crowned with fruition, when those
that sees to other helpers have their hopes frus¬
trated; “He that puts his trust in me, and in me
only, he shall be happy, both for soul and body, for
this world and the other.” 1. They that trust in
God’s providence take the best course to secure
their secular interests; they shall possess the land,
as much of it as is good for them, and what they
have, they shall have it from a good hand, and hold
it by a good title; (Ps. xxxvii. 3.) They shall dwell
in the land, and verily they shall be fed. 2. They
that trust in God’s grace take the best course to
secure their sacred interests; They shall inherit my
holy mountain. They shall enjoy the privileges of
the church on earth, and be brought at length to the
jovs of heaven; and no wind shall carry them away.
More particularly,
(1.) The captives that trust in God, shall be re¬
leased; (v. 14.) They shall say, the messengers of
his word, and all the ministers of his providence, in
that great event shall say, cast ye up, cast ye up,
prepare the way. When God’s time is come for
their deliverance, the way of bringing it about shall
be made plain and easy, obstacles shall be removed,
difficulties that seemed insuperable shall be speedily
got over, and all things shall concur both to accele¬
rate and facilitate their return. See ch. xl. 3, 4.
This refers to the provision which the gospel, and
the grace of it, have made for our ready passage
through this world to a better. The way of religion
is now cast up, it is a highway; ministers’ business
is to direct people in it, and to help them over the
discouragements they meet with, that nothing may
offend them.
(2. ) The contrite, that trust in God, shall be re¬
vived, v. 15. They that trusted to idols and crea¬
tures for help, went with their ointments and per¬
fumes, v. 9. But here God shows that those who
may expect help from him, are such as are destitute
of, and set themselves at a distance from, the gaieties
of the world, and the delights of sense. God’s glory
appears here very bright,
[1.] In his greatnessTvnd majesty; he is the high
and lofty One that inhabits eternity. Let this pos¬
sess us with very high and honourable thoughts of
the God with whom we have to do. First, That
his being and perfections are exalted infinitely above
every creature, not only above what they have
themselves, but above what they can conceive con¬
cerning him, far above all their blessing and praise,
Neh. ix. 5. He is the high and lofty One, and there
is no creature like him, nor any to be compared
with him. It speaks likewise his sovereign domi¬
nion over all, and the incontestable right he has to
give both law and judgment to all: he is higher than
the highest, (Eccl. v. 8. ) than the highest heavens,
Ps. cxiii. 4. Secondly, That with him there is nei¬
ther beginning of days, nor end of life, nor change
of time; he is both immortal and immutable, he
only has immortality , 1 Tim. vi. 16. He has it of
himself, and he has it constantly, he inhabits it, and
cannot be dispossessed of it. We must shortly re¬
move into eternity, but God always inhabits it.
Thirdly, That there is an infinite rectitude in his
nature, an exact conformity with himself, and a
steady design of his own glory, in all that he does;
and this appears in every thing by which he has
made himself known, for his name is Holy, and all
that desire to be acquainted with him, must know
him as a holy God. Fourthly, That the peculiar
residence and discovery of his glory are in the man¬
sions of light and bliss above; “ I dwell in the high
and holv place, and will have all the world to know
it. ” Whoever have any business with God must
direct to him as their Father in heaven, fer there
he dwells. These great things are here said of God,
to possess us with a holy reverence of him, to en¬
courage our confidence in him, and to magnify his
compassion and condescension to us; that though he
is thus high, yet he has respect unto the lowly; he
that rides on the heavens by his name JAH, stoop:
to concern himself for poor widows and fatherless.
Ps. lxviii. 4, 5.
[2.] In his grace and mercy; he has a tender pitv
for the humble and contrite, for those that are so in
respect of their state; if they.be his people, he will
not overlook them, though they are poor and low
in the world, and despised and trampled upon bt
men. But it refers to the temper of their mind; h>
will have a tender regard to those, who, being u
affliction, accommodate themselves to their afflic
tion, and bring their mind to their condition, be il
ever so low, and ever so sad and sorely broken,
those that are truly penitent for sin, and mourn in
secret for it, and have a dread of the wrath of God,
which they have made themselves obnoxious to,
and are submissive under all his rebukes. Now,
First, With these Gcd will dwell; he will visit them
graciously, will converse familiarly with them by
his word and spirit, as a man does with those of his
own family; he will be always nigh to them, and
present with them; he that dwells in the highest
heavens, dwells in the lowest hearts, and inhabits
sincerity as surely as he inhabits eternity; in these
he delights. Secondly, He will revive their heart
and spirit; will speak that to them, and work that
in them, by the word and Spirit of his grace, which
will be reviving to them, as a cordial to one that is
ready to faint. He will give them reviving joys and
hopes, sufficient to balance all the griefs and fears
that break their spirits. He dwells with them, and
his presence is reviving.
(3.) Those he contends with, if they trust in him,
shall be relieved, and received into’favour, v. 16.
He will revive the heart of the contrite ones, for he
will not contend for ever. Nothing makes a soul
so contrite as God’s contending, and therefore no¬
thing revives it so as his ceasing his controversy.
Here is, [1.] A gracious promise. It is not pre¬
mised that he will never be angry with his people,
for their sins are displeasing to him, or that he will
never contend with them, for they must expect the
rod; but he will not contend for ever, nor be always
wroth. As he is not soon angry, so he is not long
angry; he will not always chide. Though he con¬
tend with them by convictions of sin, he will not con¬
tend for ever, but, instead of the spirit of bondage,
they shall receive the Spirit of adoption; he has
tom, but he will heal: though he contend with them
by the rebukes of providence, yet the correction
shall not last always, shall not last long, shall last
no longer than there is need, (1 Pet. i. 6.) no longer
than they can bear, and no longer than till it has
done its work. Though their whole life be calamit¬
ous, yet their end will be peace,' and so will then
eternity be. [2.] A very compassionate consider¬
ation, upon which this promise is grrunded ; “ If I
should contend for ever, the spirit would fail before
me, even the souls which I have made.” Note,
First, God is the Father of spirits; (Heb. xii. 9.) it
is the soul that he has made, that he gave being to
bv creation, and a new being to by regeneration.
Secondly, Though the Lord is for the body, yet he
concerns himself chiefly for the souls of his people,
that the spirit do not fail, and its graces and com¬
forts. Thirdly, When troubles last long, the spirit
even of good men is apt to fail; they are tempted to
entertain hard thoughts of God, to think it in vain
to serve him; they are ready to put ermfort away
from them, and to despair of relief, and then the
spirit fails. Fourthly, it is in consideration of this,
that God will not contend for ever; for he will net
267
ISAIAH, LVI1.
forsake the work of his own hands, nor defeat the
purchase of his Son’s blood. The reason is taken
not from our merit, but from our weakness and in¬
firmity; for he remembers that vie are Jiesh, (Ps.
Ixxviii. 39. ) and the flesh is weak.
17. For the iniquity of his covetousness
was I wroth, and smote him : I hid me, and
was wroth, and he went on frowardly in the
way of his heart. 1 8. 1 have seen his ways,
and will heal him: I will lead him also, and
restore comforts unto him and to his mourn¬
ers. 1 9. I create the fruit of the lips ; Peace,
peace to him that is far off, and to him that
is near, saith the Lord ; and I will heal him.
20. But the wicked are like the troubled
sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast
up mire and dirt. 21. There is no peace,
saith my God, to the wicked.
The body of the people of Israel, in this account
of God’s dealings with them, is spoken of as a par¬
ticular person, (t>. 17, 18.) but divided into two
sorts, differently dealt with; some who were sons of
peace, to whom peace is spoken, ( v . 19. ) and others
who were not, who have nothing to do with peace,
v. 20, 21. Observe here,
I. The just rebukes which that people were
brought under for their sin; For the iniquity of his
covetousness I was wroth, and smote, him. Covet¬
ousness was a sin that abounded very much among
that people; (Jer. vi. 13.) From the least to the
greatest of them every one is given to covetousness.
Those that did not worship images, were yet car¬
ried away by this spiritual idolatry; for covetousness
is such, it is making money the god, Col. iii. 5. No
marvel that the people were covetous, when their
watchmen themselves were notoriously so, ch. lvi.
31. Yet, covetous as they were, in the service of
their idols they were firodigal, v. 6. And it is hard
to say, whether their profuseness in that, or their
c "vetousness in every thing else, was more pro¬
voking. But for this iniquity, among others, God
was angry with them, and brought one judgment
after another upon them, and their destruction at last
by the Chaldeans. 1. God was wroth; he resented
it, took it very ill, that a people who were devoted
to himself, and portioned in himself, should be so
entirely given up to the world, and choose that for
their portion. Note, Covetousness is an iniquity
that is very displeasing to the God of heaven. It
is heart-sin, but he sees it, and therefore hates it,
and looks upon it with jealousy, because it sets up a
rival with him in the soul. It is a sin which men
bless themselves in, (Ps. xlix. 18.) and in which
their neighbours bless them; (Ps. x. 3.) but God ab¬
hors it. 2. He smote him, reproved him for it by
his prophets, corrected him by his providence, pun¬
ished him in those very things he so doated upon,
and was covetous of. Note, Sinners shall be made
to feel from the anger of God; whom he is wroth
with he smites; and covetousness particularly lays
men under the tokens of God’s displeasure. They
that set their hearts upon the wealth of this world
are disappointed of it, or it is imbittered to them; it
is either clogged with a cross, or turned into a curse.
3. God hid himself from him when he was under
these rebukes; and continued wroth with him.
When we are under the rod, if God manifest him¬
self to us, we may bear it the better; but if he both
smite us and hide himself from us, send us no pro¬
phets, speak to us no comfortable word, show us no
token for good, if he rear and go away, (Hos. v. 14.)
we are very miserable.
II. Their obstinacy and incorrigibleness under
these rebukes; He went on frowardly in the way
of his heart, in his evil way. He was not sensible
of the displeasure of God that he was under; he felt
the smart of the rod, but had no regard at all to the
hand; the more he was crossed in his worldly pur¬
suits, the more eager he was in them. He either
would not see his error, or, if he saw it, would not
amend it; covetousness was the way of his heart, it
was what he was inclined to, and intent upon, and
he would not be reclaimed, but in his distress he
tresfiassed yet more , 2 Chron. xxviii. 22. See the
strength of the corruption of men’s hearts, and the
sinfulness of sin; it will take its course, in despite of
God himself and all the flames of his wrath. See
also how insufficient afflictions of themselves are to
reform men, unless God’s grace work with them.
III. God’s wonderful return in mercy to them,
notwithstanding the obstinacy of the generality of
them. The greater part of them went on frowardly ,
but there were some among them that were mourn¬
ers for the obstinacy of the rest; with an eye to
them, or rather, for his own name’s sake, God de¬
termines not to contend for ever with them. With
the froward God may justly show himself froward,
(Ps. xviii. 26. ) and walk contrary to those that walk
contrary to him. Lev. xxvi. 24. When this sinner *•
here went on frowardly in the way of his heart, one
would think it should have followed, “ I have seen
his ways, and will destroy him, will abandon him,
will never have anything more to do with him.”
But such are the riches of divine mercy and grace,
and so do they rejoice against judgment, that it fol¬
lows, I have seen his ways and will heal him. See
how God’s goodness takes occasion from man’s bad¬
ness to appear so much the more illustrious; and
where sin has abounded, grace much more abounds.
God’s reasons of mercy are fetched from within
himself, for in us there appears nothing but what
is provoking; “ I have seen his ways, and yet I will
heal him for my own name’s sake.” God knew how
bad the people were, and yet would not cast them
off. But observe the method; God will first give
him grace, and then, and not till then, give him
peace; “I have seen his ways, that he will never
turn to me of himself, and therefore I will turn
him.” Those whom God has mercy in store for,
he has grace in readiness for, to prepare and qualify
them for that mercy, which they were running from
as fast as they could. 1. God will heal him of his
corrupt and vicious disposition, will cure him of his
covetousness, though it be ever so deeply rooted in
him, and his heart have been long exercised to co¬
vetous practices. There is no spiritual disease so
inveterate, but almighty grace can conquer it. 2.
God will lead him also; not only amend what was
amiss in him, that he may cease to do evil, but di¬
rect him into the way of duty, that he may learn to
do well. He goes on frowardly, as Saul, yet breath¬
ing out threatenings and slaughter, but God will
lead him into a better mind, a better path. And
then, 3. He will restore those comforts to him,
which he had forfeited and lost, and for the return
of which he had thus prepared him. There was a
wonderful reformation wrought upon the captives
in Babylon, and then a wonderful redemption
wrought for them, which brought comfort to them,
to their mourners, to those among them that mourn¬
ed for their own sins, the sins of their people, and
the desolations of the sanctuary. To those mourn¬
ers the mercy would be most’ comfortable, and to
them God had an eve in working it out. Blessed are
they that mourn, for to them comfort belongs, and
thev shall have it.
Now, as when that people went into captivity,
some of them were good figs, very good, others of
them bad figs, very bad, and, accordingly, their
268
ISAIAH, LVII1.
captivity was to them for their good or for their
hurt, (Jer. xxiv. 8, 9.) so, when they came out of
c iptivity, still some of them were good, others bad,
and the deliverance was to them accordingly.
(1.) To those among them that were good, their
return out of captivity was peace, such peace as
was a type and earnest of the peace which should
be preached by Jesus Christ, ( v . 19.) I create the
fruit of the lips; peace. [1.] God designed to give
them matter for praise and thanksgiving, for that is
the fruit of the lips, (Heb. xiii. 15.) the calves of
the lips, Hos. xiv. 2. I create this. Creation is out
of nothing, and this is surely out of worse than no¬
thing, when God creates matter of praise for those
that went on frowardly in the way of their heart.
[2.] In order to this, peace shall be published,
peace, peace, perfect peace, all kinds of peace, to
him that is afar off from the general rendezvous,
th“ head-quarters, as well as to him that is near.
Peace with God; though he has contended with
them, he will be reconciled, and let fall his contro¬
versy; peace of conscience, a holy security, and se¬
renity of mind, after the many reproaches of con¬
science and tosses of spirit they had been under in
their captivity. Thus God creates the fruit of the
lips, fresh matter for thanksgiving; for, when he
speaks peace to us, we must speak praises to him.
This peace is itself of God’s creating, he, and he
only, can work it; it is the fruit of the lips, of his
lips, he commands it; of the minister’s lips, he speaks
it by them, ch. xl. 1. It is the fruit of preaching
lips and praying lips; it is the fruit of Christ’s lips,
whose lips drop as a honey-comb, for to him this is
applied, (Eph. ii. 17.) He came, and preached peace
to you ic ho ivere afar off, you Gentiles, as well as
to the Jews, who were nigh; to after ages, who
were afar off in time, as well as to those of the pre- 1
sent age.
(2.) To those among them that were wicked,
though they might return with the rest, yet to them
their return was no peace, v. 20. The wicked,
wherever he is, in Babylon or in Jerusalem, carries
about with him the principle of his own uneasiness,
and is like the troubled sea. God healed those to
whom he spake peace; (t>. 19.) I will heal them,
he shall be well again and set to rights; but the
wicked would not be healed by the grace of God,
and therefore shall not be healed by his comforts.
They are always like the sea in a storm, for they
carry about with them, [1.] Unmortified corrup¬
tions; those are not cured and conquered, and their
ungoverned lusts and passions make them like the
troubled sea when it cannot rest, vexatious to all
about them, and therefore uneasy to themselves;
noisy and dangerous. When the intemperate heats
of the spirit break out in scurrilous and abusive lan¬
guage, then the troubled sea casts forth mire and
dirt. [2.] Unpacified consciences; they are under
a frightful apprehension of guilt and wrath, that
thev cannot enjoy themselves; when they seem set¬
tled, they are in a toss, when they seem merry, they
are in heaviness; like Cain, who always dwelt in
the land of shaking. The terrors of conscience dis¬
turb all their enjoyments, and cast forth such mire
and dirt as make them a burthen to themselves.
Though this do not appear (it may be) at present,
vet it is a certain truth, what this prophet had said
before, {ch. xlviii. 22.) and here repeats, (v. 21.)
There is no peace to the wicked, no reconciliation to
God, nor can they be upon good terms with him
while they go on still in their trespasses; no qui¬
etness or satisfaction in their own mind, no real
good, no peace in death, because no hope. My
God hath said it, and all the world cannot un¬
say it, Th3t there is no peace to those that allow
themselves any sin. What have they to do with
peace?
CHAP. LVI1I.
The prophet, in this chapter, has his commission and
charge renewed, to reprove the sinners in Zion, particu¬
larly the hypocrites, to show them their transgressions,
v. 1. It is intended for admonition and warning to all
hypocrites, and is not to be confined to those of any
one age. Some refer it primarily to those at that time
when Isaiah prophesied; see ch. xxxiii. 14 — xxix. 13.
Others to the captives in Babylon, the wicked among
them, to whom the prophet had declared there was no
peace, ch. lvii. 21. Against the terror of that word they
thought to shelter themselves with their external per¬
formances, particularly their fastings, which they kept
up in Babylon, and for some time after their return to
their own land, Zech. vii. 3, &c. The prophet therefore
here shows them that their devotions would not entitle
them to peace, while their conversations were not all of
a piece with them. Others think it is principally intend¬
ed against the hypocrisy of the Jews, especially the
Pharisees, before, and in, our Saviour’s time; they
boasted of their fastings, but Christ (as the prophet here )
showed them their transgressions, ( Malth . xxiii.) much
the same with those they are here charged with. Ob¬
serve, I. The plausible profession of religion which they
made, v. 2. II. The boasts they made of that profes¬
sion, and the blame they laid upon God for taking no
more notice of it, v. 3. III. The sins they are charged
with, which spoiled the acceptableness of their fasts, v.
4, 5. IV. Instructions given them how to keep fasts
aright, v. 6, 7. V. Precious promises made to those who
do so keep fasts, v, 8. . 12. VI. The like precious pro¬
mises made to those that sanctify sabbaths aright, v.
13, 14.
1. f ^ II Y aloud, spare not; lift up thy voice
VJ like a trumpet, and show my people
their transgression, and the house of Jacob
their sins. 2. Yet they seek me daily, and
delight to know my ways, as a nation that
did righteousness, and forsook not the ordi¬
nance of their God : they ask of me the or¬
dinances of justice; they take delight in ap¬
proaching to God.
When our Lord Jesus promised to send the Com¬
forter, he added. When he is come, he shall convince;
(John xvi. 7, 8.) for conviction must prepare for
comfort, and must also separate between the pre¬
cious and the vile, and mark out those to whom
comfort does not Delong. God had appointed this
prophet to comfort his people; {ch. xl. J.) here he
appoints him to convince them, and show them
their sins.
I. He must tell them how very bad they really
were, v. 1.
1. He must deal faithfully and plainly with them;
“Though they are called the people of God, and
the house of Jacob, though they wear an honourable
title and character, by which they are interested in
many glorious privileges, yet do not flatter them,
but show them their transgressions and their sins,
be particular in telling them their faults, what sins
are committed among them, which they do net
know of, nay what sins are committed by them,
which they So not acknowledge to be sins; though
in some things they are reformed, let them know
that in other things they are still as bad as ever.
Show them their transgressions and their sins, all
their transgressions in their sins, their sins and all
the aggravations of them,” Lev. xvi. 21. Note,
( 1. ) God sees sin in his people, in the house of Jacob,
and is displeased with it. (2. ) They are often unapt
and unwilling to see theirown sins, and need to have
them showed them, and to be told, Thus and thus
thou hast done.
2. He must be vehement and in good earnest
herein, must cry aloud, and not spare; not spare
them, nor touch them with his reproofs, as if he
were afraid of hurting them, but search the wound
269
ISAIAH, LVIII.
to the bottom, lay it bare to the bone; not spare
himself or his own pains, but cry as loud as he can;
though he spend his strength, and waste his spirits,
though he get their ill-will by it, and get himself
into an ill name; yet he must not spare. He must
lift up his voice like a trumpet, to make those hear
of their faults, that were apt to be deaf, when ad¬
monition was addressed to them. He must give his
reproofs in the most powerful and pressing manner
possible, as one who desired to be heeded. The
trumpet does not give an uncertain sound, but,
though loud and shrill, is intelligible; so must his
alarms be, giving them warning of the fatal conse¬
quences of sin, Ezek. xxxiii. 3.
II. He must acknowledge how very good they
seemed to be, notwithstanding, (y. 2. ) Yet they seek
me daily. When the prophet went about to show
them their transgressions, they pleaded that they
could see no transgressions which they were guilty
of; for they were diligent and constant in attending
on God’s worship — and what more would he have
of them? Now, 1. He owns the matter of fact to
be true; as far as hypocrites do that which is good,
they shall not be denied the praise of it, let them
make their best of it. It is owned that they have a
form of godliness: (1.) They go to church, and ob¬
serve their hours of prayer; They seek me daily;
they are very Constantin their devotions, and never
omit them, nor suffer any thing to put them by.
(2.) They love to hear good preaching; They de¬
light to know my ways, as Herod, who heard John
gi idly, and the stony ground, that received the seed
of the word with joy; it is to them as a lovely song,
Ezek. xxxiii. 32. (3.) They seem to take a great
pleasure in the exercises of religion, and to be in
their element when they are at their devotions;
They delight in approaching to God, not for his
sake to whom they approach, but for the sake of
some pleasing circumstance, the company, or the
festival. (4. ) They are inquisitive concerning their
duty, and seem desirous only to know it, making no
question but that then they should do it; They ask
of me the ordinances of justice, the rulers of piety in
the worship of God, the rulers of equity in their
dealings with men, both which are ordinances of
justice. (5.) They appear to the eye of the world
as if they made conscience of doing their duty ; They
are as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook
not the ordinances of their God; others took them
for such, and they themselves took on them to be
such; nothing lay open to view, that was a contradic¬
tion to their profession, but they seemed to be such
as they should be. Note, Men may go a great way
toward heaven, yet come short; nay, may go to hell
with a good reputation. But, 2. He intimates that
this was so far from being a cover or excuse for their
sin, that really it was an aggravation of it; “ Show
them their sins which they go on in, notwithstanding
their knowledge of good and evil, sin and duty, and
the convictions of their consciences concerning it.
3. Wherefore have we fasted, say they ,
and thou seest not? wherefore have we af¬
flicted our soul, and thou takest no know¬
ledge? Behold, in the day of your fast you
And pleasure, and exact all your labours.
■1. Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and
to smite with the fistof wickedness: ye shall
not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice
to be heard on high. 5. Is it such a fast
that I have chosen? a day for a man to af¬
flict his soul? is it to bow down his head as
n bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes
unde hum? Wilt thou call this a fast, and
an acceptable day to the Lord? 6. Is not
this the fast that I have chosen? lo loose
the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy
burdens, and to let the oppressed go free,
and that ye break every yoke? 7. Is it not
to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that
thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy
house? when thou seest the naked, that
thou cover him; and that thou hide not thy
self from thine own flesh?
Here we have,
I. The displeasure which these hypocrites con¬
ceived against God, for not accepting the services
which they themselves had a mighty opinion of;
(to 3.) Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and
thou seest not'/ Thus they went in the way of Cain,
who was angry at God, and resented it as a gross af¬
front, that his offering was not accepted. Having
gone about to put a. cheat upon God by their external
services, here they go about to pick a quarrel with
God for ne t being pleased with their services, as if
he had not dene fairly or justly by them. Observe,
1. How they boast ot themselves, and magnify their
own performances; “ lie have fisted, and afflicted
our souls; we have not only sought God daily, ( v .
2. ) but have kept some certain times of more solemn
devotion.” Some think it refers to the yearly fast,
which was called the day of atonement; others, to
the arbitrary occasional fasts. Note, It is common
for unhumbled hearts to be proud of their profes¬
sions of humiliation, as the Pharisee, (Luke xviii.
12.) / fast twice in the week. 2. What they ex¬
pected from their performances; they thought God
should take great notice of them, and own himself a
Debtor to them for their services. Note, It is a
common thing for hypocrites, while they perform
the external services of religion, to promise them¬
selves that acceptance with God, which he has
promised only to the sincere; as if they must be ac¬
cepted of course, or for a compliment. 3. How
heinously they take it, that God had not put some
particular marks of his favour upon them, that he
had not immediately delivered them out of their
troubles, and advanced them to honour and pros¬
perity: they charge God with injustice and parti¬
ality, and seem resolved to throw up their religion,
and justify themselves in doing so with this, that
they had found no profit in praying to God, Job xxi.
14, 15. Mai. iii. 14. Note, Reigning hypocrisy
often breaks out in daring impiety, and an open con
tempt and reproach of God anti religion, for that
which the hypocrisy itself must bear all the blame
of. Sinners reflect upon religion as a hard and me¬
lancholy service, and which there is nothing to be
got by, when really it is their own fault that it seems
so to them, because they are not sincere in it.
II. The true reason assigned why God did not
accept their fastings, nor answer the prayers they
made on their fast-days; it was because they did not
fast aright; to God, even to him, Zech. vii. 5. They
fasted indeed, but they persisted in their sins, and
did not, as the Ninevites, turn every one from his
evil way; but in the day of their fast, and notwith¬
standing the professed humiliations and covenants
of that day, they went on to find pleasure, to do
whatsoever seemed right in their own eyes, lawful
or unlawful, Quicquid libet, licet — making their in¬
clinations their law; though they seemed to afflict
their souls, they still gratified their lusts as much
as ever. 1. They were as covetous and unmerciful
as ever; “ Ye exact all your labours from your ser¬
vants, and will neither release them according to
the law, nor relax the rigour of their servitude ”
This was their fault before the captivity, Jer. xxxa
270 ISAIAH, LVIII.
8, 9. It was no less their fault after their captivity,
notwithstanding all their solemn fasts; (Neh. v. 2.)
“ Ye exact alt your dues , your debts (so some
read it;) “ ye are as rigorous and severe in extort¬
ing what you demand trom those that are poor, as
ever your were, though it was at the close of the
yearly fast that the release was proclaimed. ” 2.
"They were contentious and spiteful; (it. 4.) Behold
ye fast for strife and debate. When they proclaim¬
ed a fast to deprecate God’s judgments, they pre¬
tended to search for those sins which provoked God
to threaten them with his judgments, and under
that pretence perhaps particular persons were false¬
ly accused, as Naboth in the day of Jezebel’s fast,
1 Kings xxi. 12. Or, the contending parties among
them upon those occasions were bitter and severe
in their reflections one upon another, one side crying
out, “ It is owing to you,” and the other, “ It is ow¬
ing to you, that our deliverance is not wrought.”
Thus, instead of judging themselves, which is the
proper work of a fast-day, they condemned one
another. They fasted for strife, with emulation
which should make the most plausible appearance
on a fast-day, and humour the matter best. Nor
was it only tongue-quarrels that were fomented in
the times of their fasting, but they came to blows
too; Ye smite with the fist of wickedness. The cruel
taskmasters beat their servants, and the creditors
their insolvent debtors, whom they delivered to
the tormentors; they abused poor innocents with
•wicked hands. Now while they thus continued in
sin, in those very sins which were directly contrary
to the intention of a fasting day, (1.) God would not
allow them the use of such solemnities; “ Ye shall
not fast at all, if ye fast as ye do this day, causing
your voice to be heard on high, in the heat of your
clamours one against another; or in your devotions,
which you perform so as to make them to be taken
notice of for ostentation. Bring me no more of these
empty, noisy, vain oblations,” ch. i. 13. Note,
Those are justly forbidden the honour of a profes¬
sion of religion, that will not submit to the power of
it. (2.) He would not accept of them in the use of
them; “ Ye shall not fast, it shall not be looked upon
as a fast, nor shall the voice of your prayers on
those days be heard on high in heaven.” Note,
Those that fast and pray, and yet go on in their
wicked wavs, do but mock God and deceive them¬
selves.
III. Plain instructions given concerning the true
nature of a religious fast. In general, a fast is in¬
tended, 1. For the honouring and pleasing of God;
it must be such a performance as he has chosen;
(v. 5.) it must be an acceptable day to the Lord, in
the duties of which we must study to approve our¬
selves to him, and obtain his favour, else it is not a
fast, else there is nothing done to any purpose. 2.
For the humbling and abasing of ourselves. A fast
is a day to afflict the soul; if it do not express a ge¬
nuine sorrow for sin, and do not promote a real mor¬
tification of sin, it is not a fast; the law of the day
of atonement was, that on that day they should af¬
flict their souls. Lev. xvi. 29. That must be done
on a fast-day, which is a real affliction to the soul,
as far as it is yet unregenerate and unsanctified,
though a real pleasure and advantage to the soul as
far as it is itself.
It concerns us therefore to inquire, on a fast-day,
what it is that will be acceptable to God, and af¬
flictive to our corrupt nature, and tending to its mol¬
lification.
(1.) We are here told negatively what is not the
last that God has chosen, and which does not amount
to the afflicting of the soul. [1.] It is not enough
to look demure, to put on a grave and melancholy
aspect, to bow down the head like a bulrush that is
withered and broken; as the hypocrites, that were
of a sad countenance, and disfigured their faces,
that they might afifiear unto men to fust, Matth. vi.
16. Hanging down the head did indeed well enough
become the publican, whose heart was truly hum¬
bled and broken for sin, and therefore in token cf
that, would not so much as lift ufi his eyes to heaven;
(Lukexuii. 13.) but when it was only mimicked,
as here, it was justly ridiculed, it is but hanging
down the head like a bulrush, which nobody regards
or takes any notice of. As the hypocrite’s humilia¬
tions are but like the hanging down of a bulrush, so
his elevations in his hopes are but like the Jiourish-
ing of a bulrush, (Job viii. 11, 12.) which, while it
is yet in its greenness, withers before any other herb
[2.] It is not enough to do penance, to mortify the
body a little, while the body of sin is untouched.
It is not enough for a man to spread sackcloth and
ashes under him, which does indeed give him somt
uneasiness for the present, but is soon forgotter
when he returns to stretch himself ufion his beds cj
ivory, Amos vi. 4. Wilt thou call this a fast? No.
it is but the shadow and carcase of a fast. Will
thou call this an acceptable day to the Lord ? No,
it is so far from being so, that the hypocrisy of it is
an abomination to him. Note, The shows of reli
gion, though they show ever so fair in the eyes cf
the world, will not be accepted of God without the
substance of it.
(2.) We are here told positively what is the fast
that God has chosen; what that is, which will re¬
commend a fast-day to the divine acceptance, and
what is indeed afflicting the soul, crushing and sub¬
duing the corrupt nature: it is not afflicting the
soul for a day, (as some read it, v. 5.) that will
serve; no, it must be the business of our whole lives.
It is here required,
[ 1. ] That we be just to those with whom we have
dealt hardly. The fast that God has chosen, con
sists in reforming our lives, and undoing what we
have done amiss; (v. 6.) to loose the bands of wick¬
edness, the bands which we have wickedly tied, and
by which others are bound out from their right, ot
bound down under severe usage. Those which per¬
haps were at first bands of justice, tying men to pay
a due debt, become, when the debt is exacted with
rigour from those whom Providence has reduced
and emptied, bands of wickedness, and they must
be loosed, or they will bring us into bonds of guilt
much more terrible. It is to undo the heavy bur¬
then laid on the back of the poor servant, under
which he is ready to sink; it is to let the oppressed
go free from the oppression which makes his life
bitter to him. “ Let the prisoner for debt, that has
nothing to pay, be discharged, let the vexatious ac¬
tion be quashed, let the servant that is forcibly de¬
tained beyond the time of his servitude, be released,
and thus break every yoke; not only let go those
that are wrongfully kept under the yoke, but break
the yoke of slavery itself, that it” may not serve
again another time, nor any be made again to serve
under it.”
[2.] That we be charitable to those that stand in
need of charity, v. 7. The particulars in the for¬
mer verse may be taken as acts of charity, that we
not only release those whom we have unjustly op¬
pressed, that is justice, but what we contribute (c
the rescue and ransom of those that are oppressed
by others, to the release of captives, and the pay¬
ment of the debts of the poor; but those in this
verse are plainly acts of charity. This then is the
fast that God has chosen. First, To provide food
for those that want it; that is put first as the most
necessary, and which the poor can but a little while
live without; it is to break thy bread to the hungry.
Observe, “ It must be thy bread, that which is
honestly got, not that which thou hast rebbed ethers
of; the’bread which thou thyself hast occasion frr.
ISAIAH
th ■ bread of thine allowance.” We must deny
ourselves, that we may have to give to him that
needeth. “Thy bread, which thou hast spared
from thyself and thy family, on the fast-day, if that
or the value of it be not given to the poor, >s the
miser’s fast, which he makes a hand of, it is fasting
for the world, not for God. This is the true fast,
to break thy bread to the hungry, not only to give
them that which is already broken meat, but to
break bread on purpose for them; to give them
loaves, and not to put them off with scraps.” Se¬
condly, To provide lodging for those that want it;
it is to take care of the floor that are cast out, that
are forced from their dwelling, turned out of house
and harbour; are cast out as rebels, (so some critics
render it,) that are attainted, and whom therefore
it is highly penal to protect; “If they suffer un-
justlv, make no difficulty of sheltering them; do not
only find out quarters for them, and pay for their
lodging elsewhere, but, which is a greater act of
kindness, bring them to thine own house, make
them thine own guests. Be not forgetful to enter¬
tain strangers, for though thou mayest not, as some
have done, thereby entertain angels, thou mayest
entertain Christ himself, who will recompense it in
the resurrection of the just. I was a stranger and
ye took me in.” Thirdly, To provide clothing for
those that want it; “ When thou seest the naked,
that thou cover him, both to shelter him from the
injuries of the weather, and to enable him to appear
decently among his neighbours; give him clothes to
come to church in, and in these and other instances
hide not thyself from thine own flesh.” Some un¬
derstand it more strictly of a man’s own kindred
and relations; “If those of thine own house and
family fall into decay, thou art worse than an infi¬
del if thou dost not provide for them,” 1 Tim. v. 8.
Others understand it more generally; all that par¬
take of the human nature are to be looked upon as
our own flesh, for have we not all one Father? And
for this reason we must not hide ourselves from
them, not contrive to be out of the way when a poor
petitioner inquires for us, not look another way
when a moving object of charity and compassion
presents itself; let us remember that they are flesh of
our fl sh, and therefore we ought to sympathize
with them, and in doing good to them we really do
good to our own flesh and spirit too in the issue; for
thus we lay ufi for ourselves a good foundation, a
good bmd , for the time to come.
3. Then shall thy light break forth as the
morning, and thy health shall spring forth
speedily; and thy righteousness shall go
before thee : the glory of the Lord shall be
thy rearward. 9. Then shalt thou call, and
the 1 ,ord shall answer ; thou shalt cry, and
he shall say, Here I am. If thpu take away
from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting
forth of the finger, and speaking vanity:
10. And if thou draw out thy soul to the
hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul ; then
shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy
darkness be as the noon-day: 1 1. And the
Lord shall guide thee continually, and sa¬
tisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy
bones: and thou shalt be like a watered
garden, and like a spring of water, whose
waters fail not. 1 2. And they that shall be
of thee shall build the old waste places:
thou shalt raise up the foundations of many
, LVIII. 271
generations; and thou shalt be called, The
Repairer of the breach, The Restorer of
paths to dwell in.
Here are precious promises for those to fens'
freely and cheerfully upon by faith, who keep the
fasts that God has chosen; let them know that God
will make it up to them. Here is,
I. A further account of the duty to be done, in
order to our interest in these promises; (v. 9, 10.)
and here, as before, it is required that we both do
justly and love mercy, that we cease to do evil and
learn to do well. 1. We must abstain from all acts
of violence and fraud; “ Those must be taken away
from the midst of thee, from the midst of thy per¬
son, out of thy heart;” (so some;) “thou must not
only refrain from the practice of injury, but mortify
in thee all inclination and disposition towards it.
Or, from the midst of thy people; those in authority
must not only not be oppressive themselves, but
must do all they can to prevent and restrain it in
all within their jurisdiction; they must not only
break the yoke (v. 6.) but take away the yoke, that
those who have been oppressed may never be re-
enslaved; (as they were, Jer. xxxiv. 10, 11.) they
must likewise forbear threatening, (Eph. vi. 9.)
and take away the putting forth oj the finger, which
seems to have been then, as sometimes with us, a
sign of displeasure, and tbe indication of a purpose
to correct. Let not the finger be put forth, to point
at those that are poor and in misery, and so to ex¬
pose them to contempt: such expressions of con¬
tumely as are provoking and the products of ill-
nature, ought to be banished from all societies; and
let them not speak vanity, flattery, or fraud, to one
another, but let all conversation be governed bv
sincerity. Perhaps that dissimulation, which is the
bane of friendship, is meant by the putting forth
of the finger, by teaching with the finger; (as Prov.
vi. 13.) or, it is putting forth the finger with the
ring on it, which was the badge of authority, and
which therefore they produced when they spake
iniquity, gave unrighteous sentences. 2. We must
abound in all acts of charity and beneficence. We
must not only give alms according as the necessities
of the poor require, but (1.) We must give freely
and cheerfully, and from a principle of charity; we
must draw out our soul to the hungry, (x>. 10.) not
only draw out the money, and reach forth the hand,
but do this from the heart, heartily, and without
grudging; from a principle of compassion, and with
a tender affection to such as we see to be in miser}-;
let the heart go along with the gift, for God loves a
cheerful giver, and so does a poor man too. When
our Lord Jesus healed and fed the multitude, it was
as having compassion on them. (2.) We must give
plentifully and largely, so as not to tantalize, but to
satisfy, the afflicted soul; “Do not only feed the
hungry, but gratify the desire of the afflicted, and,
if it lies in your power, make them easy. ” What
are we bom for, and what have we our abilities of
body, mind, and estate for, but to do all the good
we can in this world with them? And the poor we
have always with us.
II. Here is a full account of the blessings and
benefits which attend the performance of this duty.
If a person, a family, a people, be thus disposed to
everv thing that is good, let them know for their
comfort that they shall find God their bountiful Re¬
warder, and what they lay out in works of charitv
shall be abundantly made up to them.
1. God will suiprise them with the return of
mercy after great affliction, which shall be ns wel¬
come as the light of the morning after a long and
dark night; (y. 8.) “ Then shall thy light break
forth as the morning, and (v. 10.) thy light shah
rise in obscurity. Though thou hast been long
272
ISAIAH
buried alive, thou shalt recover thine eminency long
overwhelmed with grief, thou shalt again look plea¬
sant as the dawning day. ” Those that are cheerful
in doing good, God will make cheerful in enjoying
good; and this also is a special gift of God, Eccl.
ii. 24. They that have showed mercy shall find
mercy. Job, who in his prosperity had done a great
deal of good, had friends raised up for him by the
Lord, when he was reduced, who helped him with
their substance, so that his light rose in obscurity.
“ Not only thy light, which is sweet, but thy health
too, or the healing of the wounds thou hast long
complained of, shall spring forth speedily; all thy
grievances shall be redressed, and thou shalt renew
thy youth, and recover thy vigour.” Those that
have helped others out of trouble, God will help
when it is their turn.
2 God will put honour upon them: good works
shall be recompensed with a good name; this is in¬
cluded in that light which rises out of obscurity.
Though a man’s extraction be mean, his family
obscure, and he has no external advantages to gain
him honour, yet, if he do good in his place, that will
procure him respect and veneration, and his dark¬
ness shall by this means become as the noon-day;
he shall become very eminent, and shine bright in
his generation. See here, what is the surest way
for a man to make himself illustrious; let him study
to do good; he that would be the greatest of all,
and best-beloved, let him by humility and industry
make himself a servant of all. “ Thy righteous
ness shall then go before thee, it shall introduce
thee into the esteem of many, and make thee an
interest. Thy righteousness shall answer for thee;
(as Jacob says, Gen. xxx. 33.) it shall silence re¬
proaches, nay, it shall bespeak thee more praises
than thy humility can be pleased with.” He that
has given to the floor, his righteousness endures for
ever, that is, the honour of it, Ps. cxii. 9.
3. They shall always be safe under the divine
protection; “ Thy righteousness shall go before thee
as thy vanguard, to secure thee from enemies that
charge thee in the front, and the glory of the Lord
shall be thy rearward, the gathering host, to bring
up those of thee that are weary and are left behind,
and to secure thee from the enemies that, like
Amalek, fall upon thy rear.” Observe, How good
people are safe on all sides; let them look which
way they will, behind them, or before them; let
them look backward, or forward; they see them¬
selves safe, and find themselves easy and quiet from
the fear of evil; and observe what it is that is their
defence, it is their righteousness, and the glory of
the Lord; that is, as some suppose, Christ; for it is
by him that we are justified, and God is glorified.
He it is that goes before us, and is the Captain of
our salvation, as he is the Lord our Righteousness;
he it is that is our Rearward, on whom alone we
can depend for safety when our sins pursue us, and
are ready to take hold on us. Or, “ God himself in
his providence and grace shall both go before thee
as thy Guide to conduct thee, and attend thee as
thy Rearward to protect thee, and this shall be the
reward of thy righteousness, and so shall be for the
glory of the Lord as the Rewarder of it.”
4. God will always be nigh unto them, to hear
their prayers, v. 9. As, on the one hand, he that
shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, shall himself
cry, and God will not hear him; so, on the other
hand, he that is liberal to the poor, his prayers shall
come up with his alms for a memorial before God,
as Cornelius’s did; (Acts x. 4.) “ Then shalt thou
call, on thy fast-days, which ought to be days of
prayer, and the Lord shall answer, shall give thee
the things thou callest to him for; thou shalt cry
when thou art in any distress or sudden fright, and
he shall say. Here I am.” This is a very con-
, Lvni.
descending expression of God’s readiness to hear
prayer; when God calls to us by his word, it be¬
comes us to say, Here we are, what saith our Lord
unto his servants? But that God should say to us,
Behold me, here I am, is strange. When we cry
to him as if he were at a distance, he will let us
know that he is near, even at our right hand, nearer
than we thought he was; It is I, be not afraid.
When danger is near, our Protector is nearer, n
very present Help; “ Here I am, ready to give yru
what you want, and do for you what you desire;
what have ye u to say to me ?” God is attentive to
the prayers of the upright, Ps. cxxx. 2. No seonei
do they call to him than he answers, Beady, ready
Wherever they are praying, God says, “ Here 1
am hearing; I am in the midst of you, nigh unto
them in all things,” Dcut. iv. 7.
5. God will direct them in all difficult and doubt¬
ful cases; (v. 11.) The Lord shall guide thee con¬
tinually. While we are here in the wilderness of
this world, we have need of continual direction from
heaven, for if at any time we be left to ourselves, we
shall certainly miss our way; and therefore it is to
those who are good in God’s sight, that he gives the
wisdom which in all cases is profitable to direct, and
he will be to them instead of eyes, Eccl. ii. 26. His
providence will make their way plain to them, both
what is their duty, and what will be most for their
comfort.
6. God will give them abundance of satisfaction
in their own minds. As the world is a wilderness
in respect of wanderings, so that they need to be
guided continually, so also is it in respect of wants,
which makes it necessary that they have continual
supplies; as Israel in the wilderness had not only
the pillar of cloud, to guide them continually, but
manna and water out of the rock, to satisfy their
souls in drought, in a dry and thirsty land where no
water is, Ps. lxiii. 1. To a gocd man God gives
not only wisdom and knowledge, but joy; he is
satisfied in himself with the testimony of his con¬
science, and the assurances of God’s favour. ‘ ‘ These
will satisfy thy soul, will put gladness into thy heart,
even in the drought of affliction; these will make
fat the bones, and fill them with marrow; will give
thee that pleasure which will be a support to thee,
as the bones to the body, that joy of the Lord which
will be thy strength. He shall give thy bones rest,”
(so some read it,) “ rest from the pain and sickness
which they have laboured under, and been chasten¬
ed with;” so it agrees with that promise made to
the merciful, (Ps. xli. 3. ) The Lord shall make all
his bed in his sickness. “ Thou shalt be like a watered
garden, so flourishing and fruitful in graces and
comforts, and like a spring of water, like a garden
that has a spring of water in it, whose waters fail
not either in droughts or in frosts. ” The principle
of holy love in those that are good shall be a well
of living water, John iv. 14. As a spring of water,
though it is continually sending forth its streams, is
yet always full, so the charitable man abounds in
good as he abounds in doing good, and is never the
oorer for his liberality. He that waters shall
imself be watered.
7. They and their families shall be public bless¬
ings. It is a good reward to those that are fruitful
and useful, to be more so, and especially to have
those who descend from them to be so too. This
is here promised; (x>. 12.) “They that now are
of thee, thy princes, and nobles, and great men,
shall have such authority and influence as they
never had;” or, “ Those that hereafter shall be of
thee, thy posterity, shall be serviceable to their
generation, as thou art to thine.” It completes the
satisfaction of a good man, as to this world, to think
that those that come after him shall be doing good
when he is gone. (1.) They shall re-edify cities
273
ISA1A1
thu' hive been long in ruins; shall build the old
waste /daces, which had lain so long desolate, that
the rebuilding of them was quite despaired of. This
was fulfilled when the captives, after their return,
repaired the cities of Judah, and dwelt in them, and
m my of those in Israel too, which had lain waste
ever since the carrying away of the ten tribes.
(2. ) They shall carry on and finish that good work
which was begun long before, and shall be helped
over the obstructions which had retai-ded the pro¬
gress of it; they shall raise up to the top that build¬
ing, the foundation of which was laid long since, and
has been for many generations in the rearing. This
was fulfilled when the building of the temple was
revived after it had stood still for many years, Ezra
v. 2. Or, they shall raise up foundations which
shall continue for many generations yet to come;
they shall do that good which shall be of lasting
consequence. (3.) They shall have the blessing
and praise of all about them; “ Thou shalt be called,
(and it slndl be to thine honour,) the repairer of the
breach, the breach made by the enemy in the wall
of a besieged city, which whoso has the courage and
dexterity to make up, or make good, gains great
applause.” Happy they who make up the breach
at which virtue is running out, and judgments break¬
ing in. “ Thou shalt be the restorer of paths, safe
and quiet paths, not only to travel in, but to dwell
in; so safe and quiet, that people shall make no dif¬
ficulty of building their houses by the road-side.”
The sum is, That if they keep such fasts as God
has chosen, he will settle them again in their former
peace and prosperity, and there shall be none to
make them afraid. See Zech. vii. 5, 9. — viii. 3. — 5.
It teaches us, that those who do justly, and love
mercy, shall have the comfort of it in this world.
13. If thou turn away thy foot from the
sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my
holy day ; and call the sabbath a Delight,
the Holy of the Lord, Honourable; and
shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways,
nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speak¬
ing thine own words : 1 4. Then shalt thou
delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause
thee to ride upon the high places of the
earth and feed thee with the heritage of
Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord
hath spoken it.
Great stress was always laid upon the due obser¬
vation of the sabbath-day, and it was particularly
required from the Jews when they were captives in
Babylon, because, by keeping that day in honour
of the Creator, they distinguished themselves from
the worshippers of the gods that have not made the
heaven and the earth. See ch. lvi. 1, 2. where
keeping the sabbath is joined, as here, with keeping
judgment and doing justice. Some, indeed, under¬
stand this of the day of atonement, which they think
is the fast spoken of in the former part of the chap¬
ter, and which is called a sabbath of rest, Lev.
xxiii. 32. But as the fasts before spoken of seem to
be those that were occasional, so this sabbath is
doubtless the weekly sabbath, that great sign be¬
tween God and his professing people; his appointing
it, a sign of his favour to them; and their observing
it, a sign of their obedience to him. Now observe
here,
1. How the sabbath is to be sanctified; (v. 13.)
and, there remaining still a sabbatism for the people
of God, this law of the sabbath is still binding to us
on our Lord’s day.
(1.) Nothing must be done that puts contempt
Vol. IV.— 2 M
, LVIIT.
upon the sabbath-day, or locks like having mean
thoughts of it, when God has so highly dignified it.
W e must turn away cur foot from the sabbath, from
trampling upon it, as profane, atheistical people do;
from travelling on that day; so some: we must turn
away our foot from doing our pleasure on that holv
day, from living at large, and taking a liberty to do
what we please on sabbath-days, without the c.on-
troul and restraint of conscience; or from indulging
ourselves in the pleasure of sense, in which the mo
deni Jews wickedly place the sanctification of the
sabbath, though it is as great a profanation of it as
any thing. On sabbath-days we must not do our
own ways, not follow our callings; not find our own
pleasure, not follow our sports and recreations; nay,
we must not speak our own words, words that con¬
cern either our callings or our pleasures; we must
not allow ourselves a liberty of speech on that day
as on other days, for we must then mind God’s ways,
make religion the business of the day; we must
choose the things that please him, and speak his
words, speak of divine things as we sit in the house,
and walk by the way; in all we say and do we must
put a difference between this day and other days.
(2.) Every thing must be done that puts an honour
on the day, and is expressive of our high thought*
of it; we must call it a delight, not a task and a bur
then; we must delight ourselves in it, in the re
straints it lays upon us, and the services it obliges
us to; we must be in our element when we are wor¬
shipping God, and in communion with him. How
amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! We
must not only count it a delight, but call it so, must
openly profess the complacency we take in the dav,
and the duties of it; we must call it so to God, in
thanksgiving for it, and earnest desire of his grace,
to enable us to do the work of the day in its day, be¬
cause we delight in it; we must call' it so to others,
to invite them to come, and share in the pleasure
of it; and we must call it so to ourselves, that we
may not entertain the least thoughts of wishing the
sabbath gone, that we may sell corn. We’ must
call it the Lord’s holy day, and honourable ; holy,
separated from common use, and devoted to God
and to his service; the holy of the Lord, the dav
which he has sanctified to' himself. Even in Old
Testament times the sabbath was called the Lord’s
day, and therefore is fitly called so still, and for a
further reason, it is the Lord Christ’s day, Rev. i.
10. It is holy, because it is the Lord’s day, and
upon both accounts it is honourable; it is a beauty
of holiness that is upon it, it is ancient, and its anti¬
quity is its honour; and we mugt make it appear that
we look upon it as honourable by honouring him,
that is, God, on that day. We then put honour
upon the day, when we give honour to him that in¬
stituted it, and to whose honour it is dedicated.
2. What the reward is of sabbath-sanctification,
v. 14. If we thus remember the sabbath-day to
keep it holy,
(1.) We shall have the comfort of it; the work
will be its own wages. If we call the sabbath a de¬
light, then shall we delight ourselves in the Lord;
he will more and more manifest himself to us as the
delightful Subject of our thoughts and meditations,
and the delightful Object of our best affections.
Note, The more pleasure we take in serving God,
the more pleasure we shall find in it. If we go
about duty with cheerfulness, we shall go from it
with satisfaction, and shall have reason to say, “ It
is good to be here, good to draw near to God.”
(2.) We shall have the honour of it; I -will make
thee to ride upon the high places of the earth; which
denotes not only great security, (as that, ch. xxxiii.
16. He shall dwell on high,') but great dignity and
advancement; “ Thou shalt ride in state, shalt ap¬
pear conspicuous, and the eyes of all thy neighbours
274
ISAIAH, L1X.
shall be upon thee.” It was said of Israel, when
God led them triumphantly out of Egypt, that he
made them to ride on the high ] daces oj the edrth,
Deut. xxxii. 12, 13. Those that honour God and
his sabbath, he will thus honour. If God by his
grace enable us to live above the world, and so to
manage it, as not only not to be hindered by it, but
to be furthered and carried on by it in our journey
toward heaven, then he makes us to ride on the
high places of the earth.
(3.) VVe shall have the profit ot it, I vj\\\ feed thee
with the heritage of Jacob thy father, with all the
blessings of the covenant, and all the precious pro¬
ducts of Canaan, which was a type of heaven, and
the heritage of Jacob. Observe, The heritage of
believers is what they shall not only be portioned
with hereafter, but fed with now; fed with the
hopes of it, and not flattered; fed with the earnests
and foretastes of it; and they that are so fed, have
reason to say that they are well fed. In order that
we may depend upon it, it is added, “ The mouth
of the Lord hath spoken it; you may take God’s
word for it, for he cannot lie nor deceive; what his
mouth has spoken his hand will give, his hand will
do, and not one iota or tittle of his good promise
shall fall to the ground.” Blessed, therefore, thrice
blessed, is he that doeth this, and lays hold on it, that
keeps the sabbath from polluting it.
CHAP. LIX.
In this chapter, we have sin appearing exceeding sinful,
and grace appearing exceeding gracious; and as what is
here said of the sinner’s sin? (v. 7, 8.) is applied to the
general corruption of mankind, (Rom. iii. 15.) so what
is here said of a redeemer, (v. 20.) is applied to Christ,
Rom. xi. 26. I. It is here charged upon this people,
that they had themselves stopped the current of God’s
favours to them, and the particular sins are specified
which kept good things from them, v. 1..8. II. It is
here charged upon them, that they had themselves pro¬
cured the judgments of God upon them, and they are
told both what the judgments were which they had
brought upon their own heads, (v. 9 . . 11.) and what the
sins were which provoked God to send those judgments,
v. 12 . . 15. III. It is here promised that, notwithstand¬
ing this, God would work deliverance for them, purely
for his own name’s sake, (v. 16. . 19.) and would reserve
ijiercy in store for them, and entail it upon them, v. 20, 21.
1. WJEHOLD, the Lord’s hand is not
shortened, that it cannot save ; nei¬
ther his ear heavy, that it cannot hear : 2.
But your iniquities have separated between
you and your God, and your sins have hid
his face from you, that he will not hear. 3.
For your hands are defiled with blood, and
your fingers with iniquity; your lips have
spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered per¬
verseness. 4. None calleth for justice, nor
avy pleadeth for truth : they trust in vanity,
and speak lies; thev conceive mischief, and
bring forth iniquity. 5. They hatch cocka¬
trice’ eggs, and weave the spider’s web: he
that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that
which is crushed breakelh out into a viper.
6. Their webs shall not become garments,
neither shall they cover themselves with
their works: their works arc works of ini¬
quity, and the act of violence is in their
hands. 7. Their feet run to evil, and they
make haste to shed innocent blood : their
thoughts ctre thoughts of iniquity ; wasting
and destruction are in their paths. 3. The
j way of peace they know' not ; and there is
no judgment in their goings: they have
made them crooked paths; whosoever goeth
therein shall not know peace.
The prophet here rectifies the mistake of those
who had been quarrelling with God, because the)
had not the deliverances wrought for them whicli
they had been often fasting and praying fur, ch.
lviii. 3. Now here he shows,
I. That it was not owing to God; they had no
reason to lay the fault upon him, that they were not
saved out ot the hands of their enemies; for, 1. He
was still as able to help as ever; His hand is not
shortened, his power is not at all lessened, straiten¬
ed, or abridged; whether we consider the extent of
his power or the efficacy of it, God can reach as far
as ever, and with as strong a hand as ever. Note,
The church’s salvation comes from the hand of
God, and that is not waxed weak, nor at all shorten¬
ed. Is the Lord’s hand waxed short ? (says God tc
Moses, Numb. xi. 23.) No, it is not; he will not
have it thought so. Neither length of time, not
strength of enemies, nor weakness of instruments,
can shorten or straiten the power of God, with
which it is all one to save by many or by few. 2.
He was still as ready and willing to help as ever, ir
answer to prayer; his ear is not heavy, that it can
not hear. Though he has many prayers to hear
and answer, and though he has been long hearing
prayer, yet he is still as ready to hear prayer as
ever; the prayer of the upright is as much his de¬
light as ever it was, and the promises which are
pleaded, and put in suit, in prayer, are still yea and
amen, inviolably sure. More is implied than is ex¬
pressed; not only his ear is not heavy, but he is
quick of hearing, even before they call, he answers,
ch. lxv. 24. If our prayers be not answered, and
the salvation we wait for be not wrought for us, it is
not because God is weary of hearing prayer, but
because we are weary of praying; not because his
ear is heavy when we speak to him, but because otu
ears are heavy when he speaks to us.
II. That it was owing to themselves, they stood
in their own light, and put a bar in their own door;
God was coming toward them in ways of mercy,
and they hindered him; Your iniquities have kept
good things from you, Jer. v. 25. See what mis¬
chief sin does. 1. It hinders God’s mercies from
coming down upon us; it is a partition-wall that
separates between us and God. Notwithstanding
the infinite distance that is between God and man
by nature, there was a correspondence settled be¬
tween them, till sin set them at variance, justly pro¬
voked God against man, and unjustly alienated man
from God; thus it separates between them and God.
“ He is your God, yours in profession, and there¬
fore there is so much the more malignity and mis¬
chievousness in sin, which separates between you
and him.” Sin hides his face from us; (which de¬
notes great displeasure, Deut. xxxi. 17.) it pro¬
vokes him in anger to withdraw his gracious pre¬
sence, to suspend the tokens of his favour, and the
instances of his help; he hides his face, as refusing
to be seen or spoken with. See here sin in its co¬
lours, sin exceeding sinful, withdrawing the crea¬
ture from his allegiance to his Creator; and see sin
in its consequences, sin exceeding hurtful, separat
ing us from God, and so separating us not only from
all good, but to all evil, (Deut. xxix. 21.) which is
the very quintessence of the curse. 2. It hinders
1 our prayers from coming up unto God; it provokes
him to hide his face, that he will not hear, as he
] has said, ch. i. 15. If we regard iniquity in our
i heart, if we indulge it, and allow ourselves in it,
275
ISAIAH, LIX.
God will not hear our Jtrayers, Ps. lxvi. 18. We
cannot expect that he should countenance us while
we go on to affront him.
Now, to justify God in hiding his face from them,
and proceeding in his controversy with them, the
prophet shows very largely, in the following verses,
how many and great their iniquities were, accord¬
ing to the charge given him, (ch. lviii. 1.) To show
God’s p-eofile their transgressions; and it is a black
bill of indictment that is here drawn up against
them, consisting of many particulars, any one of
which was enough to separate between them and a
just and a holy God. L t us endeavour to reduce
these articles of impeachment to proper heads.
(1.) We must begin with their thoughts, for there
all sin begins, and thence it takes its rise; Their
thoughts are thoughts' of iniquity, v. 7. Their ima¬
ginations are so, only evil continually; their projects
and designs are so; they are continually c ntnving
some mischief or other, and how to compass the
gratification of some base lust, v. 4. They conceive
mischief in their fancy, purpose, counsel, and reso¬
lution; thus the embryo receives its shape and life;
and then they bring forth iniquity, put it in execu¬
tion when it is ripened for it; though it be in pain
that the iniquity is brought forth, through the op¬
positions of Providence and the checks ot their own
consciences, yet, when they have compassed their
wicked purpose, they look upon it with as much
pride and pleasure as if it were a man-child born
into the world; thus when lust has conceived, it
bringeth forth sin, Jam. i. 15. This is called, (r>.
5. ) hatching the cockatrice’ egg, and weaving the
spider’s web. See how the thoughts and contri¬
vances of wicked men are employed, and about
what they set their wits on work. [ 1. ] At the best,
it is about that which is foolish and frivolous; their
thoughts are vain, like weaving the spider’s web,
which the poor silly animal takes a great deal of
pains about, and when all is done, it is a weak, in¬
significant thing, a reproach to the place where it
is, and which the besom sweeps away in an instant:
such are the thoughts which worldly men entertain
themselves with, building castles in the air, and
pleasing themselves with imaginary satisfactions;
like the spider, which takes hold with her hands
very finely, (Prov. xxx. 28.) but cannot keep her
hold. [2.] Too often it is about that which is ma¬
licious and spiteful; they hatch the eggs of the
cockatrice or adder, which are poisonous, and pro¬
duce venomous creatures; such are the thoughts of
the wicked who delight in doing mischief. He that
eats of their eggs, that has any dealings with them,
dies, he is in danger of having some mischief or
other done him; and that which is crushed in order
to be eaten of, or which begins to be hatched, and
you promise yourself some useful fowl from it,
breaks out into a viper, which you meddle with at
your peril: happy they that have least to do with
such men. Even the spider’s web which they
wove, was woven with a spiteful design to catcb
flies in, and make a prey of them ; for, rather than
not be doing mischief, they will play at small game.
(2. ) Out of this abundance of wickedness in the
heart their mouth speaks, and yet it does not always
speak out the wickedness that is within, but, for
the more effectual compassing of the mischievous
design, it is dissembled, and covered with much fair
speech, (v. 3.) Your li/is have spoken lies; and
again, (t. 4.) They speak lies, pretending kindness,
where they intend the greatest mischief; or, by
slanders and false accusations they blasted the cre¬
dit and reputation of those they had a spite to, and
so did them a real mischief unseen, and perhaps by
suborning witnesses against them took from them
their estates and lives; for a false tongue is sharp
arrows and coals of juniper, and every thing that is
mischievous; Your longue has muttered perverse¬
ness. When they could not, for shame, speak their
malice against their neighbours aloud, or durst not,
for tear of being disproved and put to confusion,
they muttered it secretly. Backbiters are called
whisperers.
(3.) Their actions were all of a piece with theii
thoughts and words. They were guilty of shedding
innocent blood, a crime of the most heinous nature;
Your hands are defiled with blood; (v. 3.) for blood
is defiling, it leaves an indelible stain of guilt upon
the conscience, which nothing but the blood ot
Christ can cleanse it from; nor was this a case o*
surprise, or one that occurred when there was some
thing of a force put upon them; but, ( v . 7.) their
feet run to this evil, naturally and eagerly, and,
hurried on by the impetus of their malice and re¬
venge, they make haste to shed innocent blood, as
if they were afraid of losing an opportunity to do a
barbarous thing, Prov. i. 16. Jer. xxii. 17. 'Wasting
and destruction are in their paths. Wherever they
go, they carry mischief along with them, and the
tendency of their way is to lay waste and destroy,
nor do they care what havock they make; nor do
they only thirst after blood, but with other iniquity
are theiryfngrrs defiled; ( v . 3.) they wrong people
in their estates, and make every thing their own
that they can lay their hands on. They trust in
vanity; ( v . 4.) they depend upon their arts of co¬
zenage to enrich themselves with, which will prove
vanity to them, and their deceiving others will but
deceive themselves; their works, which they take
so much pains about, and have their hearts so much
upon, are all works of iniquity; their whole business
is one continued course of oppressions and vexations,
and the act of violence is in their hands, according
to the arts of violence that are in their heads, and
the thoughts of violence in their hearts.
(4.) No methods are taken to redress these
grievances, and reform these abuses; (t>. 4.) None
calls for justice, none complains of the violation of
the sacred laws of justice, nor seeks to right those
that suffer wrong, or to get the laws put in execu¬
tion against vice and profaneness, and those lewd
practices which are the shame, and threaten to be
the bane, of the nation. Note, When justice is not
done, there is blame to be laid not only upon the
magistrates that should administer justice, but upon
the people that should call for it: private persons
ought to contribute to the public good by discover¬
ing secret wickedness, and giving those an oppor¬
tunity to punish it, that have it in the power of their
hands; but it is ill with a state when princes rule
ill, and the people love to have it so. Truth is op¬
posed, and there is not any that pleads for it, not
any that has the conscience and courage to appear
in defence of an honest cause, and confront a pros¬
perous fraud and wrong. The way of peace is as
little regarded as the way of truth; they know it
not, they never study the things that make for
peace; no care is taken to prevent or punish the
breaches of the peace, and to accommodate matters
in difference among neighbours; they are utter
strangers to every thing that looks quiet and peace¬
able, and affect that which is blustering and turbu¬
lent. There is no judgment in their goings; they
have not any sense of justice in their dealings,
it is a thing they make no account of at all, but can
easily break through all its fences, if they stand in
the way of their malicious, covetous designs.
(5.) In all this they act foolishly, very foolishly,
and as much against their interest as against rea¬
son and equity. They that practise iniquity trust
in vanity, which will certainly deceive them, v. 4.
Their webs, which they weave with so much art
and industry, shall not become garments, neithn
shall they cover themselves, either for shelter cr for
ISAIAH, LIX.
276
ornament, with their works, v. 6. The/ may do
hurt to others with their projects, but can never do
any real service or kindness to themselves by them;
there is nothing to be got by sin, and so it will ap¬
pear when profit and loss come to be compared.
Those paths of iniquity are crooked paths, {v. 8.)
which will perplex them, but will never bring them
to their journey’s end; whosoever go therein, though
they say that they shall have peace notwithstanding
they go on, deceive themselves, for they shall not
know peace; as appears by the following verses.
9. Therefore is judgment far from us,
neither doth justice overtake us: we wait
for light, but behold obscurity ; for bright¬
ness, but we walk m darkness. 10. We
grope for the wall like the blind, and we
grope as if we had no eyes : we stumble at
noon-day as in the night ; we are in desolate
places as dead mew. 11. We roar all like
bears, and mourn sore like doves : we look
for judgment, but there is none ; for salva¬
tion, but it is far off from us. 12. For our
transgressions are multiplied before thee,
and our sins testify against us: for our trans¬
gressions are with us; and as for our ini¬
quities, we know them : 13. In transgress¬
ing and lying against the Lord, and depart¬
ing away from our God, speaking oppression
and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the
heart words of falsehood. 14. And judg¬
ment is turned away backward, and justice
standeth afar off : for truth is fallen in the
street, and equity cannot enter. 15. Yea,
truth faileth ; and he that departeth from
evil maketh himself a prey : and the Lord
saw it, and it displeased him that there teas
iso judgment.
The scope of this paragraph is the same with
that of the last, to show that sin is the great mis¬
chief-maker; as it is that which keeps good things
from us, so it is that which brings evil things upon
us. But as there it is spoken by the prophet, in
(rod’s name, to the people, for their conviction and
humiliation, and that God might be justified when
lie speaks, and clear when he judges; so here it
seems to be spoken by the people of God, as an ac¬
knowledgment of that which was there told them,
and an expression of their humble submission and
subscription to the justice and equity of God’s pro¬
ceedings against them. Their uncircumcised hearts
here seem to be humbled in some measure, and they
are brought to confess: the confession is at least ex-
t acted from them, that God has justly walked contrary
to them, because they had walked contrary to him.
1. They acknowledge that God had contended
with them, and had walked contrary to them.
Their case was very deplorable, v. 9, 10, 11. (1.)
T hey were in distress, trampled upon and oppressed
bv their enemies, unjustly dealt with, and ruled with
rigour; and God did not appear for them, to plead
neir just and injured cause; “ Judgment is far
from us, neither does justice overtake us, Though
as to our persecutors, we are sure that we have
right on our side, and they are the wrong-doers, yet
we are not relieved, we are not righted; we have
not done justice to one another, and therefore God
suffers our enemies to deal thus unjustly with us,
and we are as far as ever from being restored to our
right, and recovering our property again; oppres¬
sion is near us, and judgment is far from us; our
enemies are far from giving our case its due consi¬
deration, but still hurry us on with the violence of
their oppressions, and justice does not overtake
us to rescue us out of their hands.” (2.) Herein
their expectations were sadly disappointed, which
made their case the more sad; “We wait for light
as they that wait for the morning, but behold ob¬
scurity; we cannot discern the least dawning of the
day of our deliverance; we look for judgment, but
there is none ;(v. 11.) neither God nor man appears
for our succour; we look for salvation, because God
(we think) has promised it, and we have prayed for
it with fasting; we looked for it as for brightness, but
it is far off from us, as far off as ever, for aught we
can perceive, and still we walk in darkness; and the
higher our expectations have been raised, the sorer is
the disappointment.” (3.) They were quite at a loss
what to do to help themselves, and were at their
wit’s end; (x>. 10.) “ We gro/ie for the wall like the
blind, we see no way open for our relief, nor know
which way to expect it, or what to do in order to
it.” If we shut our eyes against the light of divine
truth, it is just with God to hide from our eyes the
things that belong to our peace; and, if we use not
our eyes as we should, to let us be as if we had no
eyes; they that will not see their duty, shall not
see their interest. Those whom God has given up
to a judicial blindness, are strangely infatuated;
they stumble at noon-day as in the night, they see
not either those dangers, or those advantages, which
all about them see; Quos Deus vult fierdere, eos
dementat — God infatuates those whom he means
to destroy. Those that love darkness rather than
light, shall have their doom accordingly. (4.)
They sunk into despair, and were quite overwhelm¬
ed with grief, the marks of winch appeared in
every man’s countenance; they grew melancholy
upon it, shunned conversation, and affected solitude;
We are in desolate places as dead men. The state
of the Jews in Babylon is represented by dead and
dry bones, (Ezek. xxxvii. 1.) and the explanation
of the comparison there, (v. 11.) explains this text.
Our hope is lost, we are cut off for our parts. In
this despair, the sorrow and anguish of some were
loud and noisy; We roar like bears; the sorrow of
others was silent, and preyed more upon their spirits;
“ We mourn sore like doves, like doves of the val¬
leys; we mourn both for our iniquities, (Ezek. vii.
16.) and for our calamities.” Thus they own that
the hand of the Lord was gone out against them.
2. They acknowledge that they had provoked
God thus to contend with them, that he had done
right, for they had done wickedly, v. 12. — 15. (1.)
They owned that they had sinned, and that to this
day they were in a great trespass, as Ezra speaks,
(ch. x. 10.) “Our transgressions are with us; the
guilt of them is upon us, the power of them prevails
among us, we are not yet reformed, nor have we
parted with our sins, though they have done us so
much mischief ; nay, our transgressions are multi¬
plied, they are more numerous and more heinous
than they have been formerly; look which way we
will, we cannot look off them, all places, all orders
and degrees of men are infected; the sense cf our
transgression is with us, as David said, My sin is
ever before me; it is too plain to be denied or con¬
cealed, too bad to be excused or palliated. God is
a Witness to them: They are multiplied before thee,
in thy sight, under thine eye. We are witnesses against
ourselves: As for our iniquities, we know them, though
we mav have foolishly endeavoured to cover them,
nay, they themselves are witnesses, our sins stare us
in the face, and testify against us, so many have they
been, and so deeply aggravated.” (2.) They own
the great evil and malignity of sin, of their sin;
277
ISAIAH, LIX.
it is transgressing and lying against the Lord, v.
13. The sins of those that profess themselves God’s
people, and bear his name, are, upon this account,
worse than the sins of others, that in transgressing
they lie against the Lord , they falsely accuse him,
they misrepresent and belie him, as it he had dealt
hardly and unfairly with them; or, they perfidiously
break covenant with him, and falsify their most sa¬
cred and solemn engagements to him, that is lying
against him: it is departing away from our God, to
whom we are bound as our God, and to whom we
ought to cleave with purpose of heart; from him we
have departed, as the rebellious subject from his
allegiance to his rightful prince, and the adulterous
wife from the guide of her youth, and the covenant
of her God. (3.) They own that there was a
general decay of moral honesty; and it is not strange
that those who were false to their God were un¬
faithful to one another. They spake oppression,
declared openly for that, though it was a revolt
from their God, and a revolt from truth, by the
sacred bonds of which we should always be tied
and held fast. They conceived and uttered words
of falsehood; many an ill thing is conceived in the
mind, yet is prudently stifled there, and not suffered
to go any further; but these sinners were so impu¬
dent, so daring, that whatever wickedness they con¬
ceived, they gave it an imprimatur — a sanction,
and made no difficulty of publishing it; to think an ill
thing is bad, but to say it is much worse. Many a
word of falsehood is uttered in haste, for want of
consideration; but these were conceived and utter¬
ed, were uttered deliberately, and of malice pre¬
pense. They were words of falsehood, and yet
they are said to be uttered from the heart, because
though they differed from the real sentiments of the
heart, and therefore were words of falsehood, yet
they agreed with the malice and wickedness of the
heart, and were the natural language of that; it
was a double heart, Ps. xii. 2. Those who by the
grace of God keep themselves free from these
crimes, yet put themselves into the confession of
sin, because members of that nation which was
generally thus corrupted. (4.) They own that that
was not done, which might have been done, to
reform the land, and to amend what was amiss, v.
14. Judgment, that should go forward, and bear
down the opposition that is made to it, that should
run its course like a river, like a mighty stream, is
turned away backward, a contrary course; and ad¬
ministration of justice is become but a cover to the
greatest injustice; judgment, that should check the
proceedings of fraud and violence, is driven back,
and so they go on triumphantly. “Justice stands
afar off, even from our courts of judicature, which
are so crowded with the patrons of oppression, that
equity cannot enter, cannot have admission into the
court, cannot be heard, or at least will not be heeded.
Equity enters not into the unrighteous decrees which
they decree, ch. x. 1. Truth is fallen in the street,
and there it may lie to be trampled upon by every
foot of pride, and she has never a friend that will
lend a hand to help her up; yea, truth fails, in com¬
mon conversation, and in dealings between man and
man, so that one knows not whom to believe or
whom to trust.” (5.) They own that there was a
prevailing enmity in men’s minds to those that were
good; He that does evil goes unpunished; but he
that departs from evil makes himself a prey to those
beasts of prey that were before described; it is
crime enough with them for a man not to do as they
do, and they treat him as an enemy who will not
partake with them in their wickedness. He that
departs from evil is accounted mad; so the margin
reads it; sober singularity is branded as folly, and he
is thought next door to a madman, who swims
against the stream that runs so strong. (6.) They
own that all this cculd not but be very displeasing to
the God of heaven. The evil was done in his sight;
they knew very well, though they were not willing
to acknowledge it, that the Lord saw it; though it
was dune secretly, and gilded over with specious
pretences, yet it could not be concealed from his all-
seeing eye; all the wickedness that is in the world
is naked and open before the eyes of God. And as
he is of quicker eyes than not to see iniquity, so he
is of purer eyes than to behold it with the least ap¬
probation or allowance; He saw it and it displeased
him, though it was among his own professing peo¬
ple that he saw it; it was evil in Ins eyes, he saw
the sinfulness of all this sin, and that which was
most offensive to him was, that there was no judg¬
ment, no reformation; had he seen any signs of that,
though the sin displeased him, he would soon have
been reconciled to the sinners, upon their returning
from their evil way. Then the sin of a nation be¬
comes national, and brings public judgment, wher
it is not restrained by public justice.
16. And he saw that there was no man,
and wondered that there was no intercessor;
therefore his arm brought salvation unto
him; and his righteousness, it sustained him.
1 7. F or he put on righteousness as a breast
plate, and a helmet of salvation upon his
head ; and he put on the garments of ven¬
geance for clothing, and was clad with
zeal as a cloak. 18. According to their
deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his
adversaries, recompense to his enemies; tc
the islands he will repay recompense. 19.
So shall they fear the name of the Lord
from the west, and his glory from the rising
of the sun. When the enemy shall come
in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall
lift up a standard against him. 20. And
the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto
them that turn from transgression in Jacob,
saith the Lord. 21. As for me, this is my
covenant with them, saith the Lord ; My
Spirit that is upon thee, and my words
which I have put in thy mouth, shall not
depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the
mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth oi
thy seed’s seed, saith the Lord, from hence¬
forth and for ever.
How sin abounded, we have read, to our great
amazement, in the former part of the chapter; how
grace does much more abound, we read in these
verses. And as sin took occasion from the com¬
mandment to become more exceeding sinful, so
grace took occasion from the transgression of the
commandment to appear more exceeding gracious.
Observe,
I. Why God wrought salvation for this provoking
people, notwithstanding their provocations; it was
purely for his own name’s sake; because there was
nothing in them either to bring it about, or to induce
him to bring it about for them, no merit to deserve
it, no might to effect it, he would do it himself,
would bo exalted in his own strength, for his own
glorv. 1. He took notice of their weakness and
wickedness; He sail) that there was no man that
would do any thing for the support of the bleeding
cause of religion and virtue among men, not a man
that would execute judgment, (Jer. v. 1.) that would
278
ISAIAH, L1X.
I(e stir himself in a work of reformation; those that
complained of the badness of the times, had not zeal
and courage enough to appear and act against it;
there was a universal corruption of manners, and
nothing done to stem the tide; most were wicked,
and these that were not so, were yet weak, and durst
not attempt any thing in opposition to the wicked¬
ness of the wicked. There was no intercessor; either
none to intercede with God, to stand in the gap, by
prayer to turn away his wrath; (it would have
pleased him to be thus met, and he wondered that
he was not;) or, rather, none to interpose for the
support of justice and truth, which were trampled
upon, and run down, {v. 14.) no advocate to speak
a good word for those who were made a prey of be¬
cause they kept their integrity, v. 15. They com¬
plained that God did not appear for them ; (r/;. lviii.
3.) but God with much more reason complains that
they did nothing for themselves, intimating how
reacly he would have been to do them good, if he
had found among them the least motion towards a
reformation. 2. He engaged his own strength and
righteousness for them; they shall be saved, for all
this; and,
(1.) Because they have no strength of their own,
not any active men that will set to it in good earnest,
to redress the grievances either of their iniquities or
of their calamities, therefore his own arm shall bring
salvation to him, to his people, or to him whom he
would raise up to be the Deliverer, Christ, the Power
of God, and Arm of the Lord, that Man of his right
hand, whom he made strong for himself. The work
of reformation (that is the first and principal article
of the salvation) shall be wrought by the immediate
influences of the divine grace on men’s consciences.
Since magistrates, and societies for reformation, fail
of doing their part, one will not do justice, nor the
other call for it, God will let them know that he can
do it without them, when his time is come thus to
prepare his people for mercy. And then the work
of deliverance shall be wrought by the immediate
operations of the Divine Providence on men’s affec¬
tions or affairs. When God stirred up the spirit of
Cyrus, and brought his people out of Babylon, not
by might nor by flower, but by the Sfiirit of the Lord
of hosts, then his own arm brought salvation, which
is never shortened.
(2. ) Because they have no righteousness of their
own to merit these favours, and to which God might
have an eye in working for them, therefore his own
righteousness sustained him, and bore him out in it.
Divine justice, which by their sins they had armed
against them, through grace appears for them.
Though they can expect no favour as due to them,
yet he will be just to himself, to his own purpose,
and promise, and covenant with his people: he will,
in righteousness, punish the enemies of his people;
see Deut. ix. 5. -Vo l for thy righteousness, but for
the wickedness of these nations, they are driven out.
In our redemption by Christ, since we had no righ¬
teousness of our own to produce, on which God
might proceed, in favour to us, he brought in a
righteousness bv the merit and mediation of his own
Son, (it is called the righteousness which is of God
by faith, Phil. iii. 9.) and this righteousness sus¬
tained him, and bore him out in all his favours to
us, notwithstanding our provocations. He put on
righteousness as a breastfilate, securing his own
honour, as a breastplate does the vitals, in all his
proceedings, bv the justice and equity of them; and
then he put a helmet, of salvation upon his head; so
sure is he to effect the salvation he intends, that he
takes salvation itself for his helmet, which therefore
must needs be impenetrable, and in which he ap¬
pears very illustrious, formidable in the eyes of his
enemies, and amiable in the eves of his friends.
When righteousness is his coat cf arms, salvation is
his crest. Tn allusion to this, among the pieces of a
Christian’s armour we find the breastplate of righ¬
teousness, and for a helmet, the hope of salvation;
(Eph. vi. 14. — 17. 1 Th ess. v. 8.) and it is called the
armour of God, because he wore it first, and so
fitted it for us.
(3.) Because they have no spirit or zeal to do any
thing for themselves, God will put on the garments
of vengeance for clothing, and clothe himself with
zeal as a cloak; he will make his justice upon the ene¬
mies of his church and people, and his jealousy for
his own glory and the honour of religion and \ irtue
among men, to appear evident and conspicuous ir.
the eye of the world; and in these he will show him
self great, as a man shows himself in his rich attire,
or in the distinguishing habit of his < ffice. If men
be not zealous against sin, God will, and will take
vengeance on it for all the injury: it has done to his
honour, and his people’s welfare; and this was the
business of Christ in the world, to take away sin,
and be revenged on it.
II. What the salvation is, that shall be wrought cut
by the righteousness and strength of God himself.
1. There shall be a present temporal salvation
wrought out for the Jews in Babylon, or elsewhere,
in distress and captivity. This is promised (y. 18,
19.) as a type of something further. When God’s
timeds come, he will do his own work, though those
fail that should forward it. It is here promised,
(1.) That God will reckon with his enemies, and
will render to them according to their deeds; to the
enemies of his people abroad, that have oppressed
them ; to the enemies of justice and truth at home,
that have oppressed them; for they also are God’s
enemies; and when the day of vengeance comes, he
will deal with both as they have deserved ; accord¬
ing to retribution, (so the word is,) the law of retri¬
butions; (Rev. xiii. 10.) or, according to former
retributions, as he has rendered to his enemies for¬
merly, accordingly he will now repay, fury to his
adversaries, recompense to his enemies; his fury
shall not exceed the rules of justice, as men’s fury
commonly does. Even to the islands, that lie most
remote, if they have appeared against him, he will
repay recompense; for his hand shall find out all his
enemies, (Ps. xxi. 8.) and his arrows reach them.
Though God’s people have behaved so ill, that they
do not deserve to be delivered, yet his enemies be¬
have so much worse, that they do deserve to be
destroyed.
(2.) That, whatever attempts the enemies of God’s
people may afterward make upon them, to disturb
their peace, they shall be baffled and brr tight to
naught; When the enemy shall come in like a food,
like a high spring-tide, or a land-flood, which
threatens to bear down all before them without con¬
trol, then the Spirit of the Lord by some secret,
undiscerned power, shall lift up a standard against
him, and so (as the margin reads it) put him to
flight. He that has delivered, will still deliver.
When God’s people are weak and helpless, and
have no standard to lift up against the invading
power, God will give a banner to them that fear
him, (Ps. lx. 4.) will by his Spirit lift up a standard,
which will draw multitudes together to appear on
the church’s behalf. Some read it, He shall come
(the name of the Lord, and his glory, before fore¬
seen in the Messiah promised) like a straight river,
the Spirit o f the Lord lifting him up for an Ensign.
Christ by the preaching of his gospel shall cover
the earth with the knowledge of God as with the
waters of a flood, the Spirit of the Lord setting up
Christ as a Standard to the Gentiles, ch. xi. 10.
(3.) That all this should redound to the glory of
God, and the advancement of religion in the world;
( v . 19.) So shall they fear the name of the Lord and
his glory, in all nations that lie eastward or west
279
ISAIAH, LX.
ward. The deliverance of the Jews out of captivity,
tnd the destruction brought on their oppressors,
would awaken multitudes to inquire concerning the
God of Israel, and induce them to serve and worship
him, and enlist themselves under the standard which
the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up. God’s appear¬
ances for his church shall occasion the accession of
many to it. This had its full accomplishment in
gospel-times, when many came from the east and
west, to fill up the places of the children o f the king¬
dom that shall be cast out when there were set up
eastern and western churches, Matth. viii. 11.
2. There shall be a more glorious salvation wrought
out by the Messiah in the fulness of time, which
salvation all the prophets upon all occasions, had in
view. We have here the two great promises re¬
lating to that salvation.
(1.) That the Son of God shall come to us to be
our Redeemer; (v. 20.) Thy Redeemer shall come;
it is applied to Christ, (Rom. xi. 26.) There shall
come the Deliverer. The coming of Christ as the
Redeemer is the summary of all the promises both
of the Old and New Testament, and this was the
redemption in Jerusalem which the believing Jews
looked for, Luke ii. 38. Christ is our Gael, our
next Kinsman, that redeems both the person and
the estate of the poor debtor. Observe, [1.] The
place where this Redeemer shall appear; he shall
come to Zion, for there, on that holy hill, the Lord
would set him up as his King, Ps. ii. 6. In Zion
the chief Corner-stone was to be laid, 1 Pet. ii. 6.
He came to histemfile there, (Mai. iii. 1.) there sal¬
vation was to be placed, ( ch . xlvi. 13.) for thence
the law was to go forth, ch. ii. 3. Zion was a type
of the gospel-church, for which the Redeemer acts
in all his appearances; The Redeemer shall come
fir the sake of Zion; so the LXX. read it. [2.]
The persons that shall have the comfort of the Re¬
deemer’s coming, that shall then lift up their heads,
knowing that their redemption draws nigh; he shall
come to those that turn from ungodliness to Jacob,
to those that are in Jacob, to the praying seed of
Jacob, in answer to their prayers; yet not to all that
are in Jacob, that are within the pale of the visible
church, but to those only that turn from transgres¬
sion, that repent and reform, and forsake those sins
which Christ came to redeem them from. The
sinners in Zion will fare never the better for the
Redeemer’s coming to Zion, if they go on still in
their trespasses.
(2.) That the Spirit of God shall come to us, to
be our Sanctifier, v. 21. In the Redeemer there
was a new covenant made with us, a covenant of
promises; and this is the great and comprehensive
promise of that covenant, that God will give and
continue his word and Spirit to his church and peo¬
ple throughout all generations. God’s giving the
Spirit to them that ask him, includes the giving of
them all good things, Luke xi. 13. Matth. vii. 11.
This covenant is here said to be made with them,
with them that turn from transgression; for they
>.hat cease to do evil shall be taught to do well. But
the promise is made to a single person, My Spirit
■hat is upon thee, being directed, either, [ 1 . ) To
Christ as the Head of the church, who received,
that he might give. The Spirit promised to the
church was first upon him, and from his head that
precious ointment descended to the skirts of his gar¬
ments; and the word of the gospel was first put into
his mouth; for it began to be spoken by the Lord.
And all believers are his seed, in whom he prolongs
his days, ch. liii. 10. Or, [2.] To the church; and
so it is a promise of the continuance and perpetuity
>f the church in the world to the end of time,
parallel to those promises, that the throne and seed
of Christ shall endure forever, Ps. lxxxix. 29, 36. —
xxii. 30. Observe, First, How the church shall be
kept up; in a succession, as the world of mankind
is kept up, by the sct-d and the seed’s seed; as one
generation passes away, another generation shall
come; instead of the fathers shall be the children.
Secondly, How long it shall be kept up ;frcm hence¬
forth and for ever, always, even unto the end of
the world; for the world being left to stand for the
sake of the church, we may be sure that as long as
it does stand, Christ will have a church in it, though
not always visible. Thirdly, By what means it shall
be kept up; by the constant residence of the Word
and Spirit in it. 1. The Spirit that was upon Christ
shall always continue in the hearts of the faithful;
there shall be some in every age on whom he shall
work, and in whom he shall dwell, and thus the
Comforter shall abide with the church for ever, John
xiv. 16. 2. The word of Christ shall always con¬
tinue in the mouths of the faithful; there shall be
some in every age, who, believing with the heart
unto righteousness, shall with the tongue make con¬
fession unto salvation. The word shall never de¬
part out of the mouth of the church, for there shall
still be a seed to speak Christ’s holy language, and
profess his holy religion. Observe, The Spirit and
the word go together, and by them the church is
kept up. For the word in the mouths of our minis¬
ters, nay, the word in our own mouths, will not profit
us, unless the Spirit work with the word, and give us
an understanding. But the Spirit does his work by
the word, and in concurrence with it; and whatever
is pretended to be a dictate of the Spirit must be
tried by the scriptures. On these foundations the
church is built, stands firm, and shall stand for
ever; Christ himself being the chief Corner-stone.
CHAP. LX.
This whole chapter is all to the same purport, all in the
same strain; it is a part of God’s covenant with his
church, which is spoken of in the last verse of the fore¬
going chapter, and the blessings here promised are the
fruits of the word and Spirit there promised. The long
continuance of the church, even unto the utmost ages
of time, was there promised, and here the large extent
of the church, even unto the utmost regions of the earth;
and both these tend to the honour of the Redeemer. It
is here promised, I. That the church should be enlight¬
ened and shined upon, v. 1, 2. IL That it should be
enlarged, and great additions made to it, to join in the
service of God, v. 3.. 3. III. That the new converts
should be greatly serviceable to the church, and to the
interests of it, v. 9.. 13. IV. That the church shall be
in great honour and reputation among men, v. 14. .16,
V. That it shall enjoy a profound peace and tranquillity,
v. 17, 18. VI. That the members of it being all righte¬
ous, the glory and joy of it shall be everlasting, v. 19. .22.
Now this has some reference to the peaceable and pros¬
perous condition which the Jews were sometimes in,
after their return out of captivity into their own land;
but it certainly looks further, and was to have its full
accomplishment in the kingdom of the Messiah, the en¬
largement of that kingdom by the bringing in of the
Gentiles into it, and the spiritual blessings in heavenly
things by Christ Jesus, with which it should be enriched,
and all these earnests of eternal joy and glory.
1. A RISE, shine; for thy light is come,
f\ and the glory of the Lord is risen
upon thee. 2. For, behold, the darkness
shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the
people : but the Lord shall arise upon thee,
and his glory shall be seen upon thee. 3.
And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and
kings to the brightness of thy rising. 4. Lift
up thine eyes round about, and see: all they
gather themselves together, they come to
thee: thy sons shall come from far, and thy
daughters shall be nursed at thy side. 5.
280
ISAIAH, LX.
Then thou shalt see, and flow together, and
tlij7 heart shall fear, and be enlarged; be¬
cause the abundance of the sea shall be
converted unto thee, the forces of the Gen¬
tiles shall come unto thee. 6. The multitude
of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries
of Midian and Ephah ; all they from Sheba
shall come: they shall bring gold and in¬
cense ; and they shall shew forth the praises
of the Lord. 7. All the flocks of Kedar
shall be gathered together unto thee, the
rams of Nebaioth shall minister unto thee:
they shall come up with acceptance on mine
altar, and I will glorify the house of my
glory. 8. Who are these that fly as a cloud,
and as the doves to their windows ?
It is here promised that the gospel-temple shall
be very light, and very large.
I. It shall be very light; Thy light is come. When
the Jews returned out of captivity, they had light
and gladness, and joy and honour; they then were
made to know the Lord, and to rejoice in his great
goodness; and upon both accounts their light came.
When the Redeemer came to Zion, he brought
light with him, he himself came to be a Light. Now
observe, 1. What this light is, and whence it springs;
The Lord shall arise upon thee, (v. 2. ) the glory
of the Lord, (v. 1.) that shall be seen upon thee.
God is the Father and Fountain of lights, and it is
in his light that we shall see light. As far as we
have the knowledge of God in us, and the favour of
God towards us, our light is come. When God ap¬
pears to us and we have the comfort of his favour,
then the glory of the Lord rises upon us as the
morning-light; when he appears for us, and we
have the credit of his favour, when he shows us
some token for good, and proclaims his favour for
us, then his glory is seen upon us, as it was upon
Israel in the pillar of cloud and fire. When Christ
arose as the Sun of righteousness, and in him the
day-s/iring from on high visited us, then the
glory of the Lord was seen upon us, the glory as of
the First-begotten of the Father. 2. What a foil
there shall be to this light; Darkness shall cover the
earth; but, though it be gross darkness, darkness
that might be felt, like that of Egypt, that shall
overspread the people, yet the church, like Go¬
shen, shall have light at the same time. When the
case of the nations that have not the gospel shall be
very melancholy, those dark corners of the earth
being full of the habitations of cruelty to poor souls,
the state of the church shall be very pleasant. 3.
What is the duty which the rising of this light calls
for; “ Arise, shine; not only receive this light, and,”
(as the margin reads it) “ be enlightened by it, but
reflect this light; arise, and shine with rays borrow¬
ed from it.” The children of light ought to shine as
lights in the world: if God’s glory be seen upon us
to our honour, we ought not only with our lips, but
in our lives, to return the praise of it to his honour,
Matth. v. 16. Phil. ii. 15.
II. It shall be very large. When the Jews were
settled again in their own land after their captivity,
many of the people of the land joined themselves to
them; but it does not appear that there ever was
any such numerous accession to them as would an¬
swer the fulness of this prophecy; and therefore we
must conclude that this looks further, to the bring¬
ing of the Gentiles into the gospel-church; not their
flocking to one particular place, though under that
type it is here described. There is no place now
that is the centre of the church’s unity; but the [ ro-
mise respects their flocking to Christ, and connng
by faith, and hope, and holy love, into that society,
which is incorporated by the charter of his gospel,
and of the unity of which he only is the Centre; that
family which is named from him, Eph. iii. 1.5. The
gospel-church is expressly called Zion and Jerusa¬
lem, and under that notion all believers are said to
come to it: (Heb. xii. 22.) Ye are come unto mount
Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Je¬
rusalem; which serves for a key to this prophecy,
Eph. ii. 19. Observe,
1. What shall invite such multiudestothe church;
“ They shall come to thy light, and to the bright¬
ness of thy rising, v. 3. They shall be allured to
join themselves to thee,” (1.) “By the light that
shines upon thee,” the light of the glorious gospel,
which the churches hold forth, in consequence of
which they are called golden candlesticks; this light
which discovers so much of God and his good will
to man, by which light and immortality are brought
to light, this shall invite all the serious, well-affect¬
ed part of mankind to come, and join themselves to
the church, that they may have the benefit of this
light, to inform them concerning truth and duty.
(2.) “By the light with which thou shinest;” the
purity and love of the primitive Christians, thei:
heavenly-mindedness, contempt of the world, and
patient sufferings, were the brightness of the
church’s rising, which drew many into it. The
beauty of holiness was the powerful attractive by
which Christ had a willing people brought to him
in the day of his power, Ps. cx. 2.
2. What multitudes shall come to the church.
Great numbers shall come, Gentiles, or nations, of
them that are saved, as it is expressed with allusion
to this, Rev. xxi. 24. Arations shall be discipled;
(Matth. xxviii. 19.) and even kings, men of figure,
power, and influence, shall be added to the church.
They come from all parts; ( 'v . 4.) Uft up thine
eyes round about, and see them coming; devout men
out of every nation under heaven, Acts ii. 5. See
how white the fields are already to the harvest, John
iv. 35. See them coming in a body, as one man, and
with one consent; they gather themselves together,
that they may strenghen one another’s hands, and en¬
courage one another; Come and let us go, ch. ii. 3.
“ They come from the remotest parts; they come
to thee from far, having heard the report of thee, as
the queen of Sheba, or seen thy star in tire east, as
the wise men, and they will not be discouraged by
the length of the journey from coming to thee. There
shall come some of both sexes; sons and daughters
shall come in the most dutiful manner, as thy sons
and thy daughters, resolved to be of thy family, to
submit to the laws of thy family, and put themselves
under the tuition of it. They shall come to be
nursed at thy side; to have their education with
thee from their cradle.” The church’s children
must be nursed at her side, not sent out to be
nursed among strangers; there, where alone the
sincere milk of the word is to be had, must the
church’s new-born babes be nursed, that they may
grow thereby, 1 Pet. ii. 1, 2. They that would en¬
joy the dignities and privileges of Christ’s family,
must submit to the discipline of it.
3. What they shall bring with them, and wha.
advantage shall accrue to the church by their ac
cession to it. They that are brought into the church
by the grace of God, will be sure to bring all they
are worth in with them, which with themselves they
will devote to the honour and service of God, and
do good with in their places. (1.) The merchants
shall write holiness to the Lord upon their merchan¬
dise and their hire, as ch. xxiii. 18. “ The abund¬
ance of the sea, either the wealth that i» fetched out
of the sea, the fish, the pearls, or that which :s im
201
ISAIAH, LX.
ported by sea, it shall all be converted to thee and
iO thy use.” The wealth of the rich merchants
shall be laid out in works of piety and charity. (2.)
The mighty men of the nations shall employ their
night in the service of the church; “ The forces, or
troops, of the Gentiles shall come unto thie, to guard
thy coasts, strengthen thine interests, and, if occa¬
sion be, to fight thy battles.” The forces of the
Gentiles had often been against the church, but now
they shall be for it; for as God, when he pleases, can,
and, when we please him, will, make even our ene¬
mies to be at fieace with us, (Prov. xvi. 6.) so when
Christ overcomes the strong man armed, he divides
his spoils, and makes that to serve his interests,
which had been used against them, Luke xi. 22.
(3.) The wealth imported by land-carriage, as well
as that by sea, shall be made use of in the service
of God and the church; (v. 6. ) The camels and
dromedaries that bring gold and incense, gold to
make the golden altar of, and incense and sweet
erfumes to burn upon it; they of Midian and She-
a shall bring the richest commodities of their coun¬
try, not to trade with, but to honour God with, and
not in small quantities, but camel-loads of them.
This was in part fulfilled when the wise men of the
east, (perhaps some of the countries here mention¬
ed,) drawn by the brightness of the star, came to
Christ, and presented to him treasures of gold,
frankincense, and myrrh , Matth. ii. 11. (4.) Great
numbers of sacrifices shall be brought to God’s al¬
tar, acceptable sacrifices, and, though brought by
Gentiles, they shall find acceptance, v. 7. Kedar
was famous for flocks, and, probably, the fattest
rams were those of Nebaioth; they shall come up
with acceptance on God’s altar. God must be
served and honoured with what we have, according
as he has blessed us, and with the best we have.
This was fulfilled when by the decree of Darius the
governors beyond the rivers (perhaps of some of
these countries) were ordered to furnish the temple
at Jerusalem with bullocks, rams, and lambs, for
the burnt-offering of the God of heaven, Ezra vi. 9.
It had a further accomplishment, and we trust will
have, in the bringing in of the fulness of the Gen¬
tiles to the church, which is called the sacrificing
or offering ufi of the Gentiles unto God, Rom. xv.
16. The flocks and rams are precious souls; for
they are said to minister to the church, and to come
up as living sacrifices, presenting themselves to God
by a reasonable service, on his altar, Rom. xii. 1.
4. How God shall be honoured by the increase
of the church, and the accession of such numbers to
it. (1.) They shall intend the honour of God’s name
in it. When they bring their gold and incense, it
shall not be to show the riches of their country, or
to gain applause to themselves for piety and devo¬
tion, but to show forth the firaises of the Lord, v. 6.
Our greatest services and gifts to the church are
not acceptable, further than we have an eye to the
glory of God in them. And this must be our busi¬
ness in our attendance on public ordinances, to give
unto the Lord the glory due to his name; for there¬
fore, as these here, we are called out of darkness
into light, that we should show forth the firaises of
him that called us, 1 Pet. ii. 9. (2.) God will ad-
v ince the honour of his own name by it; so he has
said, (v. 7.) I will glorify the house of my glory.
The Church is the house of God’s glory, where he
manifests his glory to his people, and receives that
homage by which they do honour to him. And it
is for the glory of this house, and of him that keeps
house there, both that the Gentiles shall bring their
offerings to it, and that they shall be accepted
therein.
5. How the church shall herself be affected with
this increase of her numbers, v. 5. (1.) She shall
be in a transport of joy upon this account; “ Thou
Vol. IV. — 2 N
shall see, and flow together,” (or flow to and fro,)
“as in a pleasing agitation about it, surprised at it,
but extremely glad of it.” (2.) There shall be a
mixture of fear with this joy; “ Thine heart shall
fear, doubting whether it lie lawful to go into the
uncircumcisetl, and eat with them.” Peter was so
possessed with this fear, that lie needed a vision and
voice from heaven to help him over it, Acts x. 28.
But, (3.) “ When this fear is conquered, thy heart
shall be enlarged in holy love, so enlarged that theu
shalt have room in it for all the Gentile converts,
thou shalt not have such a narrow soul as thou hast
had, nor affections so confined within the Jewish
pale.” When God intends the beauty and pros¬
perity of his church, he gives this largeness of heart,
and an extensive charity. (4.) These converts
flocking to the church shall be greatly admired; ( v .
8.) Who are these that fly as a cloud? Observe,
[1.] How the conversion of souls is here described;
it is flying to Christ and to his church; for thither
we are directed; it is flying like a cloud, though in
great multitudes, so as to overspread the heavens,
yet with great unanimity, all as one cloud; they
shall come with speed, as a cloud flying on the wings
of the wind, and come openly, and in the view of
all, their very enemies Beholding them, (Rev. xi.
12.) and yet not able to hinder them. They shall
fly as doves to their windows, in great flights, many
together; thev fly on the wings of the harmless
dove, which flies low, denoting their innocency and
humility. They fly to Christ, to the church, to the
word and ordinances, as doves, by instinct, to their
own windows, to their own home; thither they fly
for refuge and shelter when they are pursued by the
birds of prey; and thither they fly for rest when
they have been wandering and are weary, as Noah’s
dove to the ark. [2. ] How the conversion of souls
is here admired; it is spoken of with wonder and
with pleasure; ITho are these? We have reason to
wonder that so many flock to Christ; when we see
them altogether, we shall wonder whence they all
come; and we have reason to admire with pleasure
and affection those that do flock to him; Who are
these? How excellent, how amiable are they ! What
a pleasant sight is it to see poor souls hastening to
Christ, with a full resolution to abide with him !
9. Surely the isles shall wait for me, and
the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons
from far, their silver and their gold with
them, unto the name of the Lord thy God,
and to the Holy One of Israel, because he
hath glorified thee. 10. And the sons of
strangers shall build up thy walls, and their
kings shall minister unto thee : for in my
wrath I smote thee, but in my favour have
I had mercy on thee. II. Therefore thy
gates shall be open continually: they shall
not be shut day nor night ; that men may bring
unto thee the forces of the Gentiles, and that
their kings may be brought. 12. For (he
nation and kingdom that will not serve thee
shall perish; yea, those nations shall be ut¬
terly wasted. 13. The glory of Lebanon
shall come unto thee, the fir-tree, the pine-
tree, and the box together, to beautify the
place of my sanctuary; and I will make the
place of my feet glorious. 14. The sons
also of them that afflicted thee shall come
bending unto thee; and all they that de-
282
ISAIAH, LX.
spised thee shall bow themselves down at
the soles of thy feet ; and they shall call thee,
The city of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy
One of Israel.
The promises made to the church in the foregoing
verses are here repeated, ratified, and enlarged upon ;
designed still for the comfort and encouragement of
the Jews after their return out of captivity ; but cer¬
tainly looking further, to the enlargement and ad¬
vancement of the gospel-church, and the abund¬
ance of spiritual blessings with which it shall be en¬
riched.
I. God will be very gracious and propitious to
them. We must begin with that promise, because
thence all the rest take rise. The sanctuary that
was desolate then begins to be repaired, when God
causes his face to shine ufion it, Dan. ix. 17. All
the favour that the people of God find with men, is
owing to the light of God’s countenance, and his fa¬
vour to them; (t». 10.) “ All shall now make court
to thee, for in my wrath I smote thee, while thou
wast in captivity.” (The sufferings of the church,
especially by its corruptions, decays, and divisions,
against which these promises here will be its relief,
are sad tokens of God’s displeasure.) “ But now in
my favour have I had mercy on thee, and therefore
have all this mercy in store for thee.”
1. Many shall be brought into the church, even
from far countries; (v. 9.) Surety the isles shall
wait for me, shall welcome the gospel, and shall at¬
tend God with their praises for it, and their ready
subjection to it. The shifts of Tarshish, transport-
ships, shall lie ready to carry members from far dis¬
tant regions to the church, or (which is equivalent) to
carry the ministers of the church to remote parts,
to preach the gospel, and to bring in souls to join
themselves to the Lord. Observe, (1.) Who are
brought; thy sons, such as are designed to be so,
those children of God that are scattered abroad, John
xi. 52. (2.) What they shall bring with them; they
live at such a distance, that they cannot bring their
flocks and their rams; but, like those who lived re¬
mote from Jerusalem, who, when they came up to
worship at the feast, because they could not bring
their tithes in kind, turned it into money; they shall
bring their silver and gold with them. Note,
When we give up ourselves to God, we must with
ourselves give up all we have to him. If we honour
him with our spirits, we shall honour him with our
substance. (3. ) To whom they shall devote and
dedicate themselves, and all they are worth; to the
name of the Lord thy God, to God as the Lord of
all, and the church’s God and King; even to the
Holy One of Israel, whom Israel worships as a
Holy One, in the beauty of holiness; because he has
glorified thee. Note, The honour God puts upon
his church and people, should not only engage us to
honour them, but invite us to join ourselves to them;
JVe will go with you, for God is with you, Zech.
viii. 23.
3. Those that come into the church shall be wel¬
come; for so spacious is the holy city, that though,
Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, yet still
there is room. “ Therefore thy gates shall be often
continually, (v. 11.) not only because thou hast no
reason to fear thy enemies, but because thou hast
reason to expect thy friends.” It is usual with us to
leave our doors open, or leave some to be ready to
open them, all night, if we look for a child or a guest
to come in late. Note, Christ is always ready to en-
.ertain those that come to him, is never out of
the wav, nor can they ever come unseasonably; the
gate of mercy is always open, night and dav, or
shall soon be opened, to them that knock. Minis¬
ters, the doorkeepers, must be always ready to ad¬
mit those that offer themselves to the Lord. God
not only keeps a good house in his church, but he
keeps open house; that, at any time, by the preach¬
ing of the word, in season and out of season, the forces
of the Gentiles, and the kings or commanders of
those forces, may be brought into the church. Lift
uft your heads, O ye gates, and let such welcome
guests as these come in.
4. All that are about the church shall be made
some way or other serviceable to it. Though do¬
minion is far from being founded in men’s grace, it is
founded in God’s; and he that made the inferior crea¬
tures useful toman, will make the nations of men use¬
ful to the church; The earth helped the woman; Ah
things are for your sakes. So here, (t. 10.)” Even
the sons of strangers that have neither knowledge of
thee, nor kindness for thee, that have always been
aliens to the commonwealth of Israel, even they shall
build up thy wall, and their kings shall in that and
other things minister unto thee, and not think it any
disparagement to them. ” This was fulfilled when the
king of Persia, and the governors of the provinces, by
his order, were aiding and assisting Nehemiah in
building the wall about Jerusalem. Rather than Je¬
rusalem’s walls shall lie still in ruins, the sons of the
stranger shall be raised up to build them. Even
those that do not belong to the church, may be a
protection to it. And the greatest of men should
not think it below them to minister to the church,
but rejoice that they are in a capacity, and have a
heart, to do it any service. Nay, it is the duty of
all to do what they can in their places to advance
the interests of God’s kingdom among men, it is at
their peril if they do not; for, (t>. 12.) The nation
and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish;
not that they must perish by the sword, or by human
anathemas; or as if this gave any countenance to the
using of external force for the propagating of the
gospel; or as if men might be compelled by penalties
and punishment to come into the church; bv no
means. But those who will not by faith submit to
Jesus Christ, the king of the church, and serve him,
they shall perish eternally, Ps. ii. 12. They that
will not be subject to Christ’s golden sceptre, to the
government of his word and Spirit, that will not be
brought under, or kept in, by the discipline of his
family, shall be broken in pieces by Ins iron rod;
Bring them forth, and slay them before me, Luke
xix. 27. Nations of such shall be utterly and eter¬
nally wasted, when Christ comes to take vengeance
on those that obey not his gospel, 2 Thess. i. 8.
5. There shall be abundance of beauty added to
the ordinances of divine worship; (r>. 13.) The glory
of Lebanon, the strong and stately cedars that grow
there, shall come unto thee, as of old to Solomon,
when he built the temple; (2 Chron. ii. lfi.^and
with them other timber shall be brought, proper
for the carved work thereof, which the enemy had
broken down, Ps. lxxiv. 5, 6. The temple, the
place of God’s sanctuary, shall be not cnly rebuilt,
but beautified. It is the place of his feet, where he
rests and resides, Ezek. xliii. 7. The ark is called
his footstool, because it was under the mercy-seat,
Ps. cxxxii. 7. This he will make glorious in the
eyes of his people and of all their neighbours The
glory of the latter house, to which this refers,
though in many instances inferior, was yet really
greater than the glory of the for mer, because Christ
came to that temple, Mai. lii. 1. It was likewise
adorned with goodly stones and gifs, (Luke xxi. 5. )
to which this" promise may have some reference;
yet so slightly did Christ speak of them there, that
we must suppose it to have its full accomplishment
in the beauties of holiness, and the graces and com¬
forts of the Spirit, with which gospel-' rdin in.-es
are adorned and enriched.
6. The church shall appear truly great and
283
ISAIAH, LX.
honourable, v. 14. The people of the Jews, after
their return out of captivity, by degress became
more considerable, and made a better figure, than
one would have expected, after they had been so
much reduced, and than any of the other nations
recovered, that had been in like manner humbled
by the Chaldeans. It is probable that many of
tnose who had oppressed them in Babylon, when
they were themselves driven out by the Persians,
made their court to the Jews for shelter and supply,
and were willing to scrape acquaintance with them.
It is further fulfilled, when those that have been
enemies to the church are wrought upon by the
grace of God to see their error, and come, and join
themselves to it; “ The sons of them that afflicted
thee, if not they themselves, yet their children,
shall crouch to thee, shall beg pardon for their folly,
and beg an interest in thy favour, and admission
into thy family,” 1 Sam. ii. 36. A promise like
this is made to the church of Philadelphia, Rev. iii.
9. And it is intended to be, (1.) A mortification
to the proud oppressors of the church, that have
afflicted her, and despised her, and taken a plea¬
sure in doing it; they shall be brought down, their
spirits shall be broken, and their condition shall be
so mean and miserable, that they shall be glad to
be obliged to those whom they have most studied
to disoblige. Note, Sooner or later God will pour
contempt upon those that put contempt upon his
people. (2.) An exaltation to the poor, oppressed
ones of the church; and this is tin honour that shall
be done them, they shall have an opportunity of
doing good to those who have done evil to them,
and saving those alive who have afflicted and de¬
spised them. It is a pleasure to a good man, and
he accounts it an honour, to show mercy to those
with whom he lias found no mercy. Yet this is not
all; “They shall not only become supplicants to
thee for their own interest, but they shall give ho¬
nour to thee; they shall call thee, The city of the
Lord; they shall at length be convinced that thou
art a favourite of Heaven, and the particular care
of the Div ine Providence. ” That city is truly great
and honourable, it is strong, it is rich, it is safe, it
is beautiful, it is the most desirable place that can
be to live in, which is the city of the Lord, which
he owns, in which he dwells, in which religion is
uppermost; such a one is Zion, it is the place which
God has chosen, to put his name there, it is the Zion
of the Holy One of Israel; therefore, we may be
sure, a holy city, else the Holy One of Israel would
never be called the Patron of it.
15. Whereas thou hast been forsaken and
hated, so that no man went through thee, I
will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy
of many generations. 1 6. Thou shalt also
suck the milk of the Gentiles, and shalt
suck the breasts of kings: and thou shalt
know that 1 the Lord am thy Saviour and
thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.
17. For brass I will bring gold, and for iron
I will bring silver, and for wood brass, and
for stones iron : I will also make thy officers
peace, and thine exactors righteousness. 1 8.
Violence shall no more be heard in thy
land, wasting nor destruction within thy
borders: but thou shalt call thy walls Salva¬
tion, and thy gates Praise. 19. The sun
shall be no more thy light by day; neither
for brightness shall the moon give light unto
thee : but the Lord shall be unto thee an
everlasting light, and thy God thy glory;
20. Thy sun shall no more go down ; nei¬
ther shall thy moon withdraw itself : for the
Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and
the days of thy mourning shall be ended.
21. Thy people also shall be all righteous:
they shall inherit the land for ever, the
branch of my planting, the work of my
hands, that I may be glorified. 22. A little
one shall become a thousand, and a small
one a strong nation : 1 the Lord will
hasten it in his time.
The happy and glonous state of the church is
here further foretold, referring principally and
ultimately to the Christian church, and the spiritual
peace of that; but under the type of that little gleam
of outward peace, which the Jews sometimes en¬
joyed after their return out of captivity. This is
here spoken of,
I. As compared with what it had been; this made
her peace and honour the more pleasant, that her
condition had been much otherwise.
1. She had been despised; but now she should be
honoured, v. 15, 16. Jerusalem had been forsaken
and hated, abandoned by her friends, abhorred by
her enemies, no man went through that desolate
city, but declined it as a rueful spectacle; it was ar
astonishment and hissing. But now it shall be
made an eternal excellency, being reformed from
idolatry, and having recovered the tokens of God’s
favour, and it shall be the joy of good per pie for
many generations. Yet considering how short Jeru¬
salem’s excellency was, and how short it came ol
the vast compass of this promise, we must look for
the full accomplishment of it fn the pei-petual ex¬
cellencies of the gospel-church, far exceeding those
of the Old Testament church, and the glorious
privileges and advantages of the Christian religion,
which are indeed the joy of many generations.
T wo things are here spoken of as her excellency
and joy, in opposition to her having been forsaken
and hated. ( 1. ) She shall find herself countenanced
by her neighbours. The nations, and their kings,
that are brought to embrace Christianity, shall lay
themselves out for the good of the church, and
maintain its interests, with the tenderness and affec¬
tion that the nurse shows to the child at her breast;
(y. 16.) “ Thou shalt such the milk of the Gentiles;
not suck their blood, that is not the spirit of the gos¬
pel; thou shalt suck the breast of kings, who shall be
to thee as nursing fathers. ” (2. ) She shall find her¬
self countenanced by her God; “ Thou shalt know
that I the Lord am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer
shalt know it by experience: for such a salvation,
such a redemption, shall be wrought out for thee,
as plainly discovers itself to be the work of the
Lord, the work of a mighty one, for it is a great
salvation ; of the Mighty One of Jacob, for it secures
the welfare of all those that are Israelites indeed.”
They before knew the Lord to be their God, now
they know him to be their Saviour, their Redeemer.
Their Holy One now appears their Mighty One.
2. She had been impoverished; but now she shall
be enriched, and every thing shall be changed for
the better with her, v. 17. When those who were
raised out of the dust are set among princes, instead
of brass, they have money in their purses, they
have gold and silver vessels in their houses instead
of iron ones, and other improvements agreeable: so
much shall the spiritual glory of the New Testa¬
ment church exceed the external pomp and splen¬
dour of the Jewish economv, which had no glory in
comparison with that which quite excels it, 2 C< r.
-284
ISAIAH, LX.
lii. 10. When we had baptism in the room of cir¬
cumcision, the Lord’s supper in the room of the
passoser, and a gospel-ministry in the room of a
Levitical priesthood, we had gold instead of brass.
Sin turned gold into brass, when Rehoboam made
brazen shields instead of the golden ones he had
pawned; but God’s favour, when. that returns, will
turn brass again into gold.
3. She had been oppressed by her own princes,
which was sadly complained of, not only as her sin,
but as her misery; (ch. lix. 14.) but now all the
grievances of that kind shall be redressed; Cy. 17.)
<'/ will make thine officers peace; men of peace
shall be made officers, and shall be indeed justices,
not patrons of injustice, and justices of peace, not
instruments of troublt and vexation. They shall
be fieace, they shall sincerely seek thv welfare, and
by their means thou shalt enjoy good.” They shall
be fieace, for they shall be righteousness; and then
the peace is as a river, when the righteousness is as
the waves of the sea. Even exactors, whose busi¬
ness it is to demand the public tribute, though they
be exact, must not be exacting, but must be just to
the subject as well as to the prince, and, according
to the instructions John Baptist gave to the publi¬
cans, must exact no more than is appointed them,
Luke iii. 13.
4. She had been insulted by her neighbours, in¬
vaded, spoiled, and plundered; but now it shall be
so no more; (x'. 18.) “ Violence shall no more be
heard in thy land; neither the threats and triumphs
of those that do violence, nor the outcries and com¬
plaints of those that suffer violence, shall again be
heard, but every man shall peaceably enjoy his
own. There shall be no wasting or destruction,
either of persons or possessions, any where within
thy borders, but thy walls shall be called salvation,
they shall be safe, and means of safety to thee, and
thy gates shall be firaise, praise to thee, every one
shall commend thee for the good condition they are
kept in; and praise to thy God, who strengthens the
bars of thy gates,” Ps. cxlvii. 13. When God’s
salvation is upon the walls, it is fit that his praises
should be in the gates, the places of concourse.
II. As completed in what it shall be: it should
seem that in the close of this chapter we are direct¬
ed to look further yet, as far forward as to the glory
and happiness of heaven, under the type and figure
of the nourishing state of the church on earth,
which yet was never such as to come to any thing
near to what is here foretold; and divers of the
images and expressions here made use of we find in
the description of the new Jerusalem, Rev. xxi. 23.
— xxii. 5. As the prophets sometimes insensibly
pass from the blessings of the Jewish church to the
spiritual blessings of the Christian church, which
are eternal; so sometimes they rise from the church
militant to the church triumphant, where, and
where only, all the promised peace and joy and ho¬
nour will be in perfection.
1. God shall be all in all in the happiness here
promised; so he is always to true believers; (y. 19.)
The sun and the moon shall be no more thy light.
God’s people, when they enjoy his favour, and walk
in the light of his countenance, make little account
of sun and moon, and other lights of this world, but
could walk comfortably in the light of the Lord,
though they should withdraw their shining. In
heaven there shall be no occasion for sun or moon,
for it is the inheritance of the saints in light, such
light as will swallow up the light of the sun, as
easily as the sun does that of a candle. “ Idolaters
worshipped the sun and moon; (which some have
thought the most ancient and plausible idolatry;)
but those shall be no more thy light, shall no more
be idolized; but the Lord shall be to thee a constant
Light, both day and night, in the night of adversity,
as well as in the day of prosperity.” Those that
make God their only Light, shall have him their
all-sufficient Light; their Sun and Shield; thy God,
thy Glory. Mote, God is the Glory of those whose
God he is, and will be so to eternity. It is their
glory, that they have him for their God, and they
glory in it: it is to them instead of beauty. God’s
people are, upon this account, an honourable peo¬
ple, that they have an interest in God as theirs in
covenant.
2. The happiness here promised shall know no
change, period, or allay; (x>. 20.) “ The sun shall
no more go down, but it shall be eternal day, eternal
sunshine, with thee; that shall not be thy sun,
which is sometimes eclipsed, often clouded, and,
though it shine ever so bright, ever so warm, will
certainly set, and leave thee in the dark, in the cold,
in a few hours; but he shall be a Sun, a Fountain of
light to thee, who is himself the Father of all lights,
with whom there is no variableness nor shadow of
turning ,” James i. 17. We read of the sun’s stand¬
ing still once, and not hasting to go down, for the
space of a day, and it was a glorious day, never was
the like; but what was that to the day that shall
never have a night? Or if it had, it should be a
light night; for neither shall the moon withdraw
itself, it shall never wane, shall never change, but
be always at the full. The comforts and joys that
are in heaven, the glories provided for the soul, as
the light of the sun, and those prepared for the
glorified body too, as the light of the moon, shall
never know the least cessation or interruption; how
should they, when the Lord shall himself be thine
everlasting light — a light which never wastes, nor
can ever be extinguished. And the days of thy
mourning shall be ended, so as never to return; for
all tears shall be wiped away, and the founta.ns of
them, sin and affliction, dried up, so that sorrow
and sighing shall flee away for ever.
3. Those that are entitled to this happin ss, be¬
ing duly prepared and qualified for it, shall never
be put out of the possession of it; (y. 21.) Thy peo¬
ple, that shall inhabit this New Jerusalem, shall all
be righteous, all justified by the righteousness of
the Messiah, all sanctified by his Spirit; all that
people, that Jerusalem, must be righteous, must
have that holiness without which no man shall see
the Lord. They are all righteous, for we know
that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom
of God. There are no people on earth that are all
righteous; there is a mixture of some bad in the
best societies on this side heaven; but there are no
mixtures there. They shall be all righteous; they
shall be entirely righteous; as there shall be none
corrupt among them, so there shall be no corrup¬
tion in them; the spirits of just men shall there be
made perfect. And they shall be all the righteous
together, that shall replenish the New Jerusalem;
it is called the congregation of the righteous, Ps. i.
5. And because they are all righteous, therefore
they shall inherit the land for ever, for nothing but
sin can turn them out of it. The perfection of the
saints’ holiness secures the perpetuity of their hap¬
piness.
4. The glory of the church shall redound to the
honour of the church’s God; “They shall appear
to be the branch of my planting, the work of my
hands, and I will own them as such.” It was by
the grace of God that they were designed to this
happiness; they are the branch of his planting, or
of Ins plantations; he broke them off from the wild
olive, and grafted them into the good olive; trans¬
planted them out of the field, when they were as
tender branches, into his nursery; that, being now
planted in his garden on earth, they might shortly
be removed to his paradise in heaven. It was by
his grace likewise that they were prepared and fitted
ISAIAH, LXI.
285
tor this happiness; they are the work of his hands,
(Eph. ii. 10.) are wrought to the self-same thing, 2
Cor. v. 5. It is a work of time, and, when it. snail
be finished, will appear a work of wonder; and God
will be glorified, who began it, and earned it on; for
the Lord Jesus will then be admired in all them that
believe. God will glorify himself in glorifying his
chosen.
5. They will appear the more glorious, and God
will be the more glorified in them, if we compare
what they are with what they were; the happiness
they are arrived at with the smallness of their be¬
ginning; (v. 22.) A little one shall become a thous¬
and, and a small one a strong nation. The captives
that returned out of Babylon strangely multiplied,
and became a strong nation. The Christian church
was a little one, a very small one at first, the num¬
ber of their names was once but an hundred and
twenty; yet it became a thousand; the stone rut out
of the mountain without hands swelled so as to fill
the earth. The triumphant church, and every
glorified saint, will be a thousand out of a little one,
a strong nation out of a small one. The grace and
peace of the saints were at first like a grain of mus¬
tard seed, but they increase and multiply, and make
a little one to become a thousand, the weak to be as
David; when they come to heaven, and look back
upon the sandiness of their beginning, they will
wonder how they got thither. And so wonderful is
all this promise, that it needed the ratification with
which it is closed; I the Lord will hasten it in his
time — ill hat is here said relating to the Jewish and
Christian church, to the militant and triumphant
church, and to every particular believer. (1.) It
may seem too difficult to be brought about, and
therefore may be despaired of; but the God of al¬
mighty power has undertaken it; “ I the Lord will
do it, who can do it, and who have determined to do
it. ” It will be done by him whose power is irresisti¬
ble, and his purposes unalterable. (2.) It may
seem to be delayed, and put off, so long, that we are
*out of hopes of it; but as the Lord will do it, so he
will hasten it, will do it with all convenient speed;
though much time may be passed before it is done,
no time shall be lost; he will hasten it in its time, in
the proper time, in the season wherein it will be
beautiful; he will do it in the time appointed by his
wisdom, though not in the time prescribed by our
folly. And this is really hastening it; for though it
seem to tarry, it does not tarry if it come in God’s
time; for we are sure that that is the best time,
which he that believes will patiently wait for.
CHAP. LXI.
In this chapter, I. We are sure to find the grace of Christ,
published by himself to a lost world in the everlasting
gospel, under the type and figure of Isaiah’s province,
which was to foretell the deliverance of the Jews out of
Babylon, v. 1 . . 3. II. We think we find the glories of
the church of Christ, its spiritual glories, described un¬
der the type and figure of the Jews’ prosperity after their
return out of their captivity. 1. It is promised that the
decays of the church shall be repaired, v. 4. 2. That
thcce from without shall be made serviceable to the
church, v. 5. 3. That the church shall be a royal priest¬
hood, maintained by the riches of the Gentiles, v. 6. 4.
That she shall have honour and joy in lieu of all her
shame and sorrow, v. 7. 5. That her affairs shall pros¬
per, v. 8. 6. That posterity shall enjoy these blessings,
v. 9. 7. That righteousness and salvation shall be tne
eternal matter of the church’s rejoicing and thanksgiving,
v. 10, 11. If the Jewish church was ever thus blessed,
much more shall the Christian church be so, and all that
belong to iL
1. HHHE Spirit of the Lord God is upon
A me; because the Lord hath anoint¬
ed me to preach good tidings unto the meek :
he hath sent me to hind up the broken
hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to them that
are bound; 2. To proclaim the acceptable
year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance
of our God; to comfort all that mourn; 3.
To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion,
to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil
of joy for mourning, the garment of praise
for the spirit of heaviness; that they might
be called Trees of Righteousness, The
Planting of the Lord, that he might be
glorified.
He that is the best Expositorof scripture, has, no
doubt, given us the best exposition of these verses,
even our Lord Jesus himself, who read this in the
synagogue of Nazareth, (perhaps it was the lessrp
for the day,) and applied it entirely to himself, say
ing, This day is this scripture fu If lied in your ears;
(Luke iv. 17, 18, 21.) and the gracious words
which proceeded out of his mouth, in the opening
of this text, were admired by all that heard them.
As Isaiah was authorized and directed to proclaim
liberty to the Jews in Babylon, so was Christ, God’s
Messenger, to publish a more joyful jubilee to a lost
world. And here we are told,
I. How he was fitted and qualified for this work;
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, v. 1. The
prophets had the Spirit of God moving them at
times, both instructing them what to say, and ex¬
citing them to say it: but Christ had the Spirit al¬
ways resting on him -without measure; but to the
same intent that the prophets had, as a Spirit of
counsel, and a Spirit of courage, ch. xi. 1. — 3.
When he entered upon the execution of his pro¬
phetical office, the Spirit, as a dove, descended up¬
on him, Matth. iii. 16. This Spirit which was upon
him, he communicated to those whom he sent to
proclaim the same glad tidings, saying to them,
when he gave them their commission, Receive ye
the Holy Ghost, thereby ratifying it.
II. How he was appointed and ordained to it;
The Spirit of God is upon me, because the Lord
God has anointed me. What service God called
him to he furnished him for; therefore he gave him
his Spirit, because he had by a sacred and solemn
unction set him apart to this great office, as kings
and priests were of old destined to their offices by
anointing. Hence the Redeemer was called the
Messiah, the Christ, because he was anointed with
the oil of gladness above his fellows. He has sent
me; our Lord Jesus did not go unsent, he had a
commission from him that is the Fountain of power;
the Father sent him, and gave him commandment.
This is a great satisfaction to us, that, whatever
Christ said, he had a warrant from heaven for; his
doctrine was not his, but his that sent him.
III. What the work was, to which he was ap¬
pointed and ordained.
1. He was to be a Preacher, was to execute the
office of a prophet. So well pleased was he with
the good will God showed toward men through him,
that he would himself be the Preacher of it; that an
honour might thereby be put upon the ministry of
the gospel, and the faith of the saints might be con¬
firmed and encouraged. He must preach good
tidings (so gospel signifies) to the meek, to the peni
tent, and humble, and poor in spirit; to them th>
tidings of a Redeemer will be indeed good tidings,
pure gospel, faith ful sayings, and worthy of all ac¬
ceptation. The poor are commonly best disposed
to receive the gospel; (Jam. ii. 5.) and then it
likely to profit us, when it is received with meek
286
ISAIAH, LX1.
ness, as it ought to be; to such Christ preached good
tidings when tie said, Blessed are the meek.
2. He was to be a Healer; he was sent to bind u/i
the broken-hearted, as pained limbs are rolled to
give them ease, as broken bones and bleeding
wounds are bound up, that they may knit and close
again. Those whose hearts are broken for sin,
who are truly humbled under the sense of guilt and
dread of wrath, are furnished in the gospel of Christ
with that which will make them easy, and silence
their fears. Those only who have experienced the
pains of a penitential contrition, may expect the
pleasure of divine cordials' and consolations.
3. He was to be a Deliverer; he was sent as a Pro¬
phet to preach, as a Priest to heal, and as a King to
issue out proclamations; and those of two kinds;
(1.) Proclamations of peace to his friends; He
shall proclaim liberty to the captives, (as Cyrus did
to the Jews in captivity,) and the opening of the
prison to them that were bound. Whereas by the
guilt of sin we are bound over to the justice of God,
are his lawful captives, sold for sin till payment be
made of that great debt, Christ lets us know that
he has made satisfaction to divine justice for that
debt, that his satisfaction is accepted, and if we will
plead that, and depend upon it, and make over our¬
selves and all we have to him, in a grateful sense of
the kindness he has done us, we may by faith sue
out our pardon, and take the comfort of it; there is,
and shall be, no condemnation to us. And whereas
by the dominion of sin in us we are bound under the
power of Satan, sold under sin, Christ lets us know
that he has conquered Satan, has destroyed him that
had the power of death, and his works, and provided
for us grace sufficient to enable us to shake off the
yoke of sin, and to loose ourselves from those bands
of our neck. The Son is ready by his Spirit to make
us free; and then wo shall be free indeed, not only
discharged from the miseries of captivity, but ad¬
vanced to all the immunities and dignities of citi¬
zens. This is the gospel-proclamation, and it is
like the blowing of the jubilee-trumpet, which pro¬
claimed the great year of release, (Lev. xxv. 9, 40.)
in allusion to which it is here called the acceptable
year of the Lord, the time of our acceptance with
God, which is the original of our liberties; or it is
called tlie year of the Lord, because it publishes his
free grace, to his own glory, and an acceptable year,
because it brings glad tidings to us, and what cannot
but be very accept lble to those who know the ca¬
pacities and necessities of their own souls.
(2.) Proclamations of war against his enemies.
Christ proclaims the day of vengeance of our God;
the vengeance he takes, [1.] On sin and Satan,
death and hell, and all the powers of darkness, that
were to be destroyed in order to our deliverance;
these Christ triumphed over in his cross, having
spoiled and weakened them, shamed them, and
made a show of them openly, therein taking ven-
cance on them for all the injury they had done
oth to God and man, Col. ii. 15. [|2.] On those
of the children of men, that stand it out against
those fair offers; they shall not only be left, as they
deserve, in their captivity, but be dealt with as ene¬
mies; we have the gospel summed up, Mark xvi.
16. where that part of it. He that believes shall be
saved, proclaims the acceptable year of the Lord to
those that will accept of it; but the other part. He
that believes not shall be damned, proclaims the day
• f vengeance of our God, that vengeance which he
will take of those that obey not the gospel of Jesus
Christ, 2 Thess. i. 8.
4. He was to be a Comforter, and so he is, as
Preacher, Healer, and Deliverer; he is sent to com¬
fort all who mourn, and who, mourning, seek to
him, and not to the world, for comfort. Christ not
•inly provides comfort for them, and proclaims it.
but he applies it to them; he does by his Spirit
comfort them. There is enough in him to comfort
all who mourn, whatever their sore or sorrow is;
but tills comfort is sure to them who mourn in Zion,
who sorrow after a godly sort, according to God,
for his residence is in Zion; who mourn because of
Zion’s calamities and desolations, and mingle their
tears by a holy sympathy with those of all God’s
suffering people, though they themselves are not in
trouble; such tears God has a bottle for, (Ps. h i. 8.)
such mourners he has comfort in store for. As
blessings out of Zion are spiritual blessings, so
mourners in Zion are holy mourners; such as carry
their sorrows to the throne of grace, (for in Zion
was the mercy-seat,) and pour them out as Hannah
did before the Lord. To such as these Christ has
appointed by his gospel, and will give by his Spirit,
(t>. 3.) those consolations which will not only sup¬
port them under their sorrows, but turn them into
songs of praise. He will give them, (1.) Beauty
for ashes; whereas they lay in ashes, as was usual
in times of great mourning, they shall net only be
raised out of their dust, but made to look pleasant.
Note, The holy cheerfulness of Christians is their
beauty, and a great ornament to their profession.
Here is an elegant paronomasia in the original; He
will give them pheer — beauty, for epher — ashes; he
will turn tjieir sorrow into joy, as quickly and as
easily as you can transpose a letter; for he speaks,
and it is done. (2.) The oil of joy, which makes
the face to shine, instead of mourning, which disfi¬
gures the countenance, and makes it unlovely. This
oil of joy the saints have from that oil of gladness
with which Christ himself was anointed above h.s
fellows, Heb. i. 9. (3.) The garments of praise,
such beautiful garments as were worn cn thanks¬
giving days, instead of the spirit of heaviness, dim
ness, or contraction; open joys for secret mourn
ings. The spirit of heaviness they keep to them
selves; (Zion’s mourners weep in secret ;) but the
joy they are recompensed with, they are clothed with
as with a garment in the eve of others. Observe, *
Where God gives the oil of joy, he gives the gar¬
ment of praise. Those comforts which come from
God, dispose the heart to, and enlarge the heart in,
thanksgivings to God. Whatever we have the jcy
of, God must have the praise and glory of.
5. He was to be a Planter; for the church is
God’s husbandry. Therefore he will do all this for
his people, will cure their wounds, release them
out of bondage, and comfort them in their sorrows,
that they may be called trees of righteousness, the
■planting of the Lord, that they may be such, and
be acknowledged to be such; that they may be or¬
naments to God’s vineyard, and may be fruitful in
the fruits of righteousness, as the branches of God’s
planting, ch. lx. 21. All that Christ does for us,
is to make us God’s people, and some way servicea¬
ble to him as living trees, planted in the house of the
Lord, and flourishing in the courts of our God; and
all this, that he may be glorified; that we may be
brought to glorify him by a sincere devotion and an
exemplary conversation; for herein is our Father
glorified, that we bring forth much fruit ; and
that others also may take occasion from God’s fa¬
vour shining on his people, and his grace shining in
them, to praise him; and that he might be for ever
glorified in his saints.
4. And they shall build the old wastes,
they shall raise up the former desolations,
and they shall repair the waste cities, the
desolations of many generations. 5. And
strangers shall stand and feed your flocks,
and the sons of the alien shall be your
ploughmen, and your vine-dressers. 6. But
287
ISAIAH, LX1.
V< shall be named the priests of the Lord ;
mt a shall call you the ministers of our God:
ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and
in their glory shall you boast yourselves. 7.
For your shame you shall have double, and
for confusion they shall rejoice in their por¬
tion : therefore in their land they shall pos¬
sess the double; everlasting joy shall be
unto them. 8. For I the Lord love judg¬
ment, 1 hate robbery for burnt-offering ; and
1 will direct their work in truth, and I
will make an everlasting covenant with
them. 9. And their seed shall be known
among the Gentiles, and their offspring
among the people: all that see them shall
acknowledge them, that they are the seed
which the Lord hath blessed.
Promises are here made to the Jews now returned
out of captivity, and settled again in their own land,
which are to be extended to the gospel-church, and
all believers, who through grace are delivered out
of spiritu il thraldom; for they are capable of being
spiritually applied.
1. It is promised that their houses shall be re¬
built, (v. 4.) that their cities shall be raised out of
the ruins in which they had long lain, and be fitted
up for their use again; They shall build the old
7i tastes; the old wastes shall be built, the waste ci¬
ties shall be re/iaired, the former desolations, even
the desolations of many generations, which, it was
f nrcd, would never Ire repaired, shall be raised ufi.
The setting up of Christianity in the world repaired
the decays of natural religion, and raised up those
desolations both of piety and honesty, which had
been for many generations the reproach of man¬
kind. An unsanctified soul is like a city that is
broken down, and has no walls, like a house in ruins;
but by the power of Christ’s gospel and grace it is
repaired, it is put in order again, and fitted to be an
habitation of God through the Spirit. And they
shall do this, they that are released out of captivity;
for we are brought out of the house of bondage, that
we m iy serve God, both in building up ourselves to
his glory, and in helping to buiid up his church on
earth.
2. They that were so lately servants themselves,
working for their oppressors, and lying at their
mercy, shall now have servants to do their work for
them and be at their command; not of their bre¬
thren, (they are all the Lord’s freemen,) but of the
strangers, and the sons of the alien, who shall keefi
their sheep, till their ground, and dress their gar-
d ‘ns, the ancient employments of Abel, Cain, and
A.lam; Strangers shall feed your flocks, v. 5.
When, by the grace of God, we attain to a holy in¬
difference as to all the affairs of this world, buying
2.9 though they possessed not, when, though our
hands are employed about them, our hearts are not
ent ingled with them, but reserved entire for God
and his service, then the sons of the alien are our
ploughmen and vine-dressers.
3. They shall not only be released out of their
captivity, but highlv preferred, and honourably em¬
ployed; (v. 6.) “While the strangers are keeping
your flocks, you shall he keeping the charge of the
sanctuary; instead of being slaves to your task¬
masters, you shall be named the priests of the Lord,
a high and holy calling.” Priests were princes’
peers, and in Hebrew were called by the same
name. You shall be the ministers of our God, as
the Levites were. Note, Those whom God sets at
liberty, he sets to work: he delivers them out of the
i hands of their enemies, that they may serve him,
Luke i. 74, 75. Ps. cxvi. 16. Rut his service is per¬
fect freedom, nay, it is the greatest honour. When
| God brought Israel out ( f Egypt, he took them to
be to him a kingdom of priests, Exod. xix. 6. And
the gospel-church is a royal priesthood, 1 Pet. ii. 9.
All believers are made to our God kings and priests;
and they ought to conduct themselves as such in
their devotions and in their whole conversation,
with holiness to the Lord written upon their foreheads,
that men may call them the priests of the Lord.
4. The wealth and honour of the Gentile con
verts shall redound to the benefit and credit of the
church, v. 6. The Gentiles shall be brought into
the church, those that were strangers shall become
fellow-citizens with the saints, and with themselves
they shall bring all they have, to be devoted to the
glory of God, and used in his service; and the
priests, the Lord’s ministers, shall have the advan¬
tage of it. It will be a great strengthening ancj
quickening, as well as a comfort and encourage
ment, to all good Christians, to see the Gentiles serv¬
ing the interest of God’s kingdom. (1.) They shall
eat the riches of the Gentiles, not which they have
themselves seized by violence, but which is fairly
and honourably presented to them, as gifts brought
to the altar, which the priests and their families
lived comfortably upon. It is not said, “ Ye shall
hoard the riches of the Gentiles, and treasure it,”
but, “ Ye shall eat it;” for there is nothing better
in riches than to use them, and to do good with
them. (2.) They shall boast themselves in their
glory. Whatever was the honour of the Gentile
converts before their conversion, their nobility, es¬
tates, learning, virtue, or places of trust and power,
it shall all turn to the reputation uf the church to
which they were joined themselves; and whatever
is their glory after their conversion, their holy zeal,
and strictness of conversation, their usefulness, their
patient suffering, and all the displays of that blessed
change which divine grace has made ir, them, shall
be very much for the glory of God, and therefore
all good men shall glory in it.
5. They shall have abundance of comfort and sa¬
tisfaction in their own bosoms; (y 7.) the Jews, no
doubt, were thus privileged after their return; they
were in a new world, and now knew how to value
their liberty and property, the pleasures of which
were continually fresh and blooming. Much more
do all those rejoice, whom Christ has brought into
the glorious liberty of God’s children, especially
when the privileges of their adoption shall be com¬
pleted in the resurrection of the body. (1.) They
shall rejoice in their portion; they shall not only
have their own again, but (which is a further gift
of God) they shall have the comfort of it, and a
heart to rejoice in it, Eccl. iii. 13. Though the
houses of the returned Jews, as well as their temple,
be much inferior to what they were before the cap¬
tivity, yet they shall be well pleased with them, and
thankful for them. It is a portion in their land,
their own land, the Holy land, Immanuel’s land,
and therefore they shall rejoice in it, having so lately
known what it was to be strangers in a strange land.
They that have God and heaven for their portion,
have reason to say that they have a worthy portion,
and to rejoice in it. (2.) Everlasting joy shall be
unto them; a joyful state of their people, which
shall last long, much longer than the captivity had
lasted. Yet that joy of the Jewish nation was so
much allayed, so often interrupted, and so soon
brought to an end, that we must look for the accom¬
plishment of this promise in the spiritual joy which
believers have in God, and the eternal joy they
hope for in heaven. (3. ) This shall be a doubli
recompense to them, and more than double, for all
the reproach and vexation they have lain under in
288
ISAIAH, LX1.
the land of their captivity; "For your shame you
shall have double honour, "and in your land you shall
possess double wealth, to what you lost; the blessing
of God upon it, and the comfort you shall have in it,
shall make an abundant reparation for all the dama¬
ges you have received. You shall be owned not only
as God’s sons, but as his first-born, (Exod. iv. 22.)
and therefore entitled to a double portion. ” As the
miseries of their captivity were so great, that in
them they are said to have received double for all
their sins, ( ch . xl. 2.) so the joys of their return shall
be so great, that in them they shall receive double
for all their shame. The former is applicable to
the fulness of Christ’s satisfaction, in which God
received double for all their sins; the latter to the
fulness of heaven’s joys, in which we shall receive
more than double for all our services and sufferings.
Job’s case illustrates this; when God turned again
his captivity, he gave him twice as much as he had
before.
6. God will be their faithful Guide, and a God in
covenant with them; ( v . 8.) I will direct their work
in truth. God by his providence will order their
affairs for the best, according to the word of his
truth; he will guide them in the ways of true pros¬
perity, by the rules of true policy; he will by his
grace direct the works of good people in the right
way, the true way that leads to happiness; he will
direct them to be done in sincerity, and then they
are pleasing to him. God desires truth in the in¬
ward parts; and if we do our works in truth, he
will make an everlasting covenant with us; for to
those that walk before him and are upright, he will
certainly be a God all-sufficient. Now as a reason
both of this and of the foregoing promise, that God
will recompense to them double for their shume,
those words come in in the former part of the verse,
I the Lord love judgment: he loves that judgment
should be done among men, both between magistrates
and subjects, and between neighbour and neighbour,
and therefore he hates all injustice; and when wrongs
•ire done to his people by their oppressors and per¬
secutors, he is displeased with them, not only be¬
cause they are done to his people, but because they
are wrongs, and against the eternal rales of equity.
If men do not do justice, he loves to do judgment
himself, in righting them that suffer wrong, and
punishing them that do it. God pleads his people’s
injured cause, not only because he is jealous for
them, but because he is jealous for justice. To illus¬
trate this, it is added, that he hates robbery for
burnt-offering; he hates injustice even in his own
people, that honour him with what they have in
their burnt-offerings, much more does he hate it
when it is against his own people; if he hates rob¬
bery when it is for burnt-offerings to himself, much
more when it is for burnt-offerings to idols, and
when not only his people are robbed of their estates,
but he is robbed of his offerings. It is a truth much
to the honour of God, that ritual services will never
atone for the violation of moral precepts, nor will
it justify any man’s robbery to say, “ It was for
burnt-offerings;” or Corban — It is a gift. Behold,
to obey is better than sacrifice, to do justly and love
mercy better than thousands of rams; nay, that rob¬
bery "is most hateful to God, which is covered with
this pretence, for it makes the righteous God to be
the Patron of unrighteousness. Some make this a
reason of the rejection of the Jews, upon the bring¬
ing in of the Gentiles, (y. 6.) because they were so
corrupt in their morals, and while they tithed mint
and cummin, made nothing of judgment and mercy;
(Matth. xxiii. 23.) whereas Goa loves judgment,
and insists upon that, and he hates both robbery for
burrt-offerings, and burnt-offerings for robbery
too, as that of the Pharisees, who made long pray¬
ers, that they might the more plausibly devour wi¬
dows’ houses. Others read these words thus, 1
hate rapine by iniquity, the spoil which the ene¬
mies of God’s people had unjustly made of them;
God hated this, and therefore would reckon with
them for it.
jl 7. God will entail a blessing upon their posterity
after them; (i\ 9.) Their seed, the children of these
Eersons themselves that are now the blessed of the
iord, or their successors in profession, the church’s
seed, shall be accounted to the Lord for a genera¬
tion, Ps. xxii. 30. ( 1. ) They shall signalize them
selves, and make their neighbours to take notice of
them; they shall be known among the Gentiles; shall
j distinguish themselves by the gravity, seriousness,
humility, and cheerfulness of their conversation, es
pecially by that brotherly love by which all men
j shall know them to be Christ’s disciples. And they
1 thus distinguishing themselves, God shall dignify
them, by making them the blessings of their age
and instruments of his glory, and by giving them
remarkable tokens of his favour, which shall make
them eminent, and gain them respect from all about
them. Let the children of godly parents love in
such a manner that they may be known to be such,
that all who observe them may see in them the
fruits of a good education, and an answer to the
prayers that were put up for them ; and then they
may expect that God will make them known, by
the fulfilling of that promise to them, that the gen¬
eration of the upright shall be blessed. (2.) God shall
have the glory of this, for every one shall attribute
it to the blessing of God; all that see them shall see
so much of the graceof God in them, and his favour
toward them, that they shall acknowledge them to
be the seed which the Lord has blessed, and doth
bless, for it includes both. See what it is to be bless¬
ed of God. Whatever good appears in any, it must
be taken notice of as the frait pf God’s blessing, and
he must be glorified in it.
10. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,
my soul shall be joyful in niv God: for he
hath clothed me with the garments of sal¬
vation, he hath covered me with the robe
of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh
himself with ornaments, and as a bride
adorneth ^me//'with her jewels. 11. For
as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as
the garden causeth the things that are sown
in it to spring forth ; so the Lord God will
cause righteousness and praise to spring
forth before all the nations.
Some make this the song of joy and praise to be
sung by the prophet in the name of Jerusalem, con¬
gratulating her on the happy change of her circum
stances in the accomplishment of tbe foregoing pro¬
mises; others make it to be spoken by Christ in the
name of the New Testament church triumphing in
gospel grace. We may take in both, the former a
type of the latter. We are here taught to rejoice
with holy joy, to God’s honour.
I. In the beginning of this gr.d work, the clothing
of the church with righteousness and salvation; (v.
10. ) Upon this account I will greatly rejoice in the
Lord. Those that rejoice in Gcd have cause to re
joice greatly, and we need not fear running into an
extreme in the greatness of our joy, when we make
God the Gladness of our joy. The first gospel
song begins like this, My soul doth magnify the
Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Sa
viour, Luke i. 46, 47. There is just matter for this
joy, and all the reason in the world why it should
terminate in God. for salvation and rightecusnev*
289
ISAIAH, LXJI.
arc wrought out and brought in, and the church is
clothed with it. The salvation God wrought for
the Jews, that righteousness of his in which he ap¬
peared for them, and that reformation which ap¬
peared among them, made them look as glorious in
the eyes of all wise men as if they had been clothed
in robes of state, or nuptial garments. ■ Christ has
clothed his church with an eternal salvation, (and
that is truly great,) by clothing it with the right¬
eousness both of justification and sanctification; the
clean linen is the righteousness of saints, Rev. xix.
8. Observe how these two are put together; those,
and those only, shall be clothed with the garments
of salvation hereafter, that are covered with the
r^be of righteousness now: and those garments are
rich and splendid clothing, like the priestly garments
(for sc the word signifies) with which the bride¬
groom decks himself; the brightness of the sun itself
is compared to them, Ps. xix. 5. He is as a bride¬
groom coming out of his chamber, completely dress¬
ed; such is the beauty of God’* grace in those that
are clothed with the robe of righteousness, that by
the righteousness of Christ are recommended to
God’s favour, and by the sanctification of the Spirit
have God’s image renewed upon them; they are
decked as a bride to be espoused to God, and taken
into covenant with him; they are decked as a priest
to be employed for God, and taken into communion
with him. •
2. In the progress and continuance of this good
work, v. 1 1. It is not like a day of triumph, which
is glorious for the present, but is soon over, no, the
righteousness and salvation with which the church
is clothed, are durable clothing; so are they said to
be, ch. xxiii. 18. The church, when she is pleas¬
ing herself with the righteousness and salvation that
Jesus Christ has clothed her with, rejoices to think
that these inestimable blessings shall both spring
for future ages, and spread to distant regions. (1.)
They shall spring forth for ages to come, as the
fruits of the earth which are produced every year
from generation to generation; as the earth, even
that which lies common, brings forth her bud, the
tender grass, at the return of the year, and as the
garden enclosed causes the things that are sown in
it to s/iring forth in their season, so duly, so con¬
stantly, so powerfully, and with such advantage to
mankind, will the Lord God cause righteousness and
firaise to sfiring forth, by virtue of the covenant of
grace, as, in the former case, by virtue of the cove¬
nant of providence. See what the promised blessings
are — righteousness and firaise; (for they that are
clothed with righteousness show forth the' praises of
him that clothed them;) these shall spring forth un¬
der the influence of the dew of divine grace. Though
it may sometimes be winter with the church, when
those blessings seem to wither, and do not appear,
yet the root of them is fixed, a spring-time will
come, when through the reviving beams of the ap¬
proaching Sun of righteousness they shall flourish
again. (2.) They shall spread far, and spring forth,
before all the nations; the great salvation shall be
published and proclaimed to all the world, and the
ends of the earth shall see it.
CHAP. LXII.
The business of prophets ivas both to preach and pray. In
this chapter, I. The prophet determines to apply himself
closely and constantly to this business, v. 1. II. God
appoints him and others of his prophets to continue to
do so, for the encouragement of his people during the
delays of their deliverance, v. 6, 7. III. The promises
are here repeated and ratified of the great things God
would do for his church; for -the Jews after their return
out of captivity, and for the Christian church when it
shall be set up in the world. 1. The church shall be
made honourable in the eyes of the world, v. 2. 2. It
shall appear to be very dear to God, precious and ho¬
nourable in his sight, v. 3.. 5. 3. It shall enjoy great
Vol. IV. - 20
plenty, v. 8, 9. 4. It shall be released out of cantivity.
and grow up again into a considerable nation, particu
larly owned and favoured by Heaven, v. 10.. 12.
1. ~g^OR Zion’s sake will 1 not hold my
JC peace, and far Jerusalem’s sake I
will not rest, until the righteousness thereof
go forth as brightness, and the salvation
thereof, as a lamp that burneth. 2 And tne
Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all
kings thy glory : and thou shalt be called by
a new name, which the mouth of the Lord
shall name. 3. Thou shalt also be a crown
of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a
royal diadem in the hand of thy God. 4.
Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken:
neither shall thy land any more be termed
Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hephzi-
bah, and thy land Beulah : for the Lord
delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be
married. 5. For as a young man marrieth
a virgin, so shall thy sons many thee : and
as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride,
so shall thy God rejoice over thee.
The prophet here tells us,
I. What he will do for the church. A prophet,
as he is a seer, so he is a spokesman. This prophet
here resolves to perform that office faithfully, v. 1.
He will not hold his peace, he will not rest; he will
mind his business, will take pains, and never desire
to take bis ease; and herein he was a type of
Christ, who was indefatigable in executing the
office of a prophet, and made it his meat and drink
till he had finished his work. Observe here, 1.
What the prophet’s resolution is; He will not hold
his peace, he will continue instant in fireaching;
will not only faithfully deliver, but frequently re-
?eat, the messages he has received from the Lord.
f people receive not the precepts and promises at
first, he will inculcate them, and give them line
upon line; and he will continue instant in prayer,
he will never hold his peace at the throne of grace,
till he has prevailed with God for the mercies pro¬
mised; he will givf himself to prayer, and to the
ministry of the word, as Christ’s ministers must,
(Acts vi. 4. ) who must labour frequently in both, and
never be weary of this well-doing. The business
of ministers is to speak from God to his people,
and to God for his people; and in neither of these
must they be silent. 2. What is the principle of
this resolution— -for Zion’s sake, and for Jerusa¬
lem’s; not for the sake of any private interest of his
own, but for the church’s sake, because he has an
affection and concern for Zion, and it lies near his
heart: whatever becomes of his own house and fa¬
mily, he desires to see the good of Jerusalem, and
resolves to seek it all the days of his life, Ps. exxii.
8, 9.— cxxviii. 5. It is God’s Zion, and his Jerusa¬
lem, and it is therefore dear to him, because it is so
to God, and because God’s glory is interested in its
prosperity. 3. How long he resolves to continue
this importunity — till the promise of the church’s
righteousness and salvation, given in the foregoing
chapter, be accomplished. Isaiah will not himself
live to see the release of the captives out of Baby¬
lon, much less the bringing in of the gospel, in
which grace reigns through righteousness unto life
and salvation, yet he will not hold his peace till
these be accomplished, even the utmost of them,
because his prophecies will continue speaking cf
these things, and there shall in every age be a
remnant that shall continue to pray for them, as
290
ISAIAH, LX11.
successors to him, till the promises be performed,
and so the prayers answered that were grounded
upon them. Then the church’s righteousness and
salvation will go forth as brightness, and as a lam/i '
that burns; so plainly, that it will carry its own
evidence along with it; it will bring honour and
comfort to the church, which will hereupon both look
pleasant and appear illustrious; and it will bring
instruction and direction to the world, a light not
only to the eyes but to the feet, and to the paths of
those who before sat in darkness and in the shadow
of death.
II. What God will do for the church; the prophet
can but pray and preach, but God will confirm the
word, and answer the prayers.
1. The church shall be greatly admired; when
that righteousness which is her salvation, her praise,
and her glory, shall be brought forth, the Gentiles
shall see it. The tidings of it shall be carried to the
Gentiles, and a tender of it made them; ctiey may
so see this righteousness as to share in it, if it be not
their own fault; “ Even kings shall see and be in
love with the glory of thy righteousness,” (n. 2.)
shall overlook the glory of their own courts and
kingdoms, and look at, and look after, the spiritual
glory of the church as that which excels.
2. She shall be truly admirable. Great names
make men considerable in the world, and great re¬
spect is paid them thereupon; now it is agreed, that
Honor est in honorate — Honour is to be estimated
by the character and condition of him who confers
it. God is the Fountain of honour, and from him
the church’s honour comes; “ Thou shalt be called
by a new name, a pleasant name, such as thou wast
never called by before, no, not in the day of thy
greatest prosperity, and the reverse of "that which
thou wast called by in the day of thine affliction;
thou shalt have a new character, be advanced to a
new dignity, and those about thee shall have new
thoughts of thee.” This seems to be alluded to in
that promise (Rev. ii. 17.) of the white stone, and
in the stone a new name, and that (Rev. iii. 12.) of
the name of the city of my God, and my new name.
It is a name which the mouth of the Lord shall
name, who, we are sure, miscalls nothing, and who
will oblige others to call her by the name he has
given her; for his judgment is according to truth,
and all shall concur with it sooner or later. Two
names God shall give her. «
(1.) He shall call her hiscrown; (y. 3.) Thoushalt
be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, not on
his head, as adding any real honour or power to
him, as crowns do to those that are crowned with
them, but in his hand; he is pleased to account
them, and show them forth, as a glory and beauty
to him. When he took them to be his people, it
was that they might be unto him for a name, and
for a praise, and for a glory; (Jer. xiii. 11.)
“Thou shalt be a crown of glory and a royal dia¬
dem, through the hand, the good hand, of thy God
upon thee; he shall make thee so, for he shall be
to thee a Crown of glory, ch. xxviii. 5. Thou
shalt be so in his hand, under his protection; he
that shall put glory upon thee, shall create a de¬
fence upon all that glory, so that the flowers of
thy crown shall never be withered, nor its jewels
lost.”
(2.) He shall call her his spouse; (v. 4, 5.) this
is a yet greater honour, especially considering what
a forlorn condition she had been in. [1.] Her case
had been very melancholy; she was called for¬
saken, and her land desolate, during the captivity,
like a wQman reproachfully divorced, or left a dis¬
consolate widow. Such was the state of religion in the
world before the preaching of the gospel — it was in
a manner forsaken and desolate, a thing that no
man looked after, or had anv real concern for.
[2.] It should now be very pleasant, for God would
return in mercy to her. Instead of those two names
of reproach, she shall be called bv two honourable
names. First, She shall be called Hephzibah, which
signifies, My delight is in her; it was the name of
Hezekiah’s queen, Manasseh.’s mother: (2 King*
xxi. 1.) a proper name for a wife, who ought to be
her husband’s delight, Prov. v. 19. And here it is
the church’s Maker, that is her Husband; The
Lord delights in thee. God by his grace has
wrought that in his church, which makes her his
delight, she being refined, and reformed, and
brought home to him; and then by his providence
he does that for her, which makes it appear that she
is his delight, and that he delights to do her good.
Secondly, She shall be called Beulah, which signi¬
fies married, whereas she had been desolate, a con¬
dition opposed to that of the married wife; (ch. Kv.
1. ) “ Thy land shall be married; it shall become
fruitful again, and be replenished.” Though she has
long been barren, she shall again be peopled, shall
again be made to keep house, and to be a joyful
mother of children, Ps. cxiii. 9. She shall be mar¬
ried, For, 1. Her sons shall heartily espouse the land
■ of their nativity and its interests, which they had for a
long time neglected, as despairing ever to have any
comfortable enjoyment of it; Thy sons shall marry
thee, they shall live with thee, and take delight in
thee ; when tlfey were in Babylon, they seemed to have
espoused that land, for they were appointed to set¬
tle, and to seek the peace of it, Jer. xxix. 5. — 7.
But now they shall again marry their own land, as
a young man marries a virgin that he takes great
delight in, is extremely fond of, and is likely to have
many children by. It bodes well to a land, when
its own natives and inhabitants are pleased with it,
prefer it before other lands, when its princes marry
their country, and resolve to take their lot with it.
2. Her God (this is much better) shall betroth her to
himself in righteousness, Hosea ii. 19, 20. He will
take pleasure in his church; As the bridegroom re
joices over the bride, is pleased with his relation to
her and her affection to him, so shall thy God re j
joice over thee, he shall rest in his love to thee,
(Zeph. iii. 17.) he shall take pleasure in thee, (Ps.
cxlvii. 11.) and shall delight to do thee good with his
whole heart and his whole soul, Jer. xxxii. 41.
This is very applicable to the love Christ has for
his church, and for the complacency he takes in it;
which appears so bright in Solomon’s Song, anil
which will be complete in heaven.
6. I have set watchmen upon thy walls,
O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their
peace day nor night: ye that make mention
of the Lord, keep not silence ; 7. And give
him no rest, till he establish, and till he
make Jerusalem a praise in the earth. 8.
The Lord hath sworn by his right hand,
and by the arm of his strength, Surely I
will no more give thy corn to be meat for thine
enemies ; and the sons of the stranger shall
not drink thy wine for the which thou
hast laboured : 9. But they that have gath¬
ered it shall eat it, and praise the Lord •
and they that have brought it together
shall drink it in the courts of my holiness.
Two things are here promised to Jerusalem.
I. Plenty of the means of grace — abundance of
good preaching and good praying; (v. 6, 7 ) and this
shows the method God takes when he des.gns mercy
for a people; he first brings them to their duty, and
291
ISAIAH, LXI1.
pours out a spirit of prayer upon them, and then
brings salvation to them. Provision is made,
1. That ministers may do their duty as watch¬
men; it is here spoken ot as a token for good, as a
step toward further mercy, and an earnest of it,
that, in order to what he designed for them, he
would set watchmen on their waits, who should ne¬
ver hold their peace. Note,. (1.) Ministers are
watchmen on the church’s walls, for it is as a city
besieged, whose concern it is to have sentinels on
the walls, to take notice, and give notice, of the
motions of the enemy. It is necessary that, as
watchmen, they be wakeful and faithful, and will¬
ing to endure hardness. (2. ) They are concerned
to stand upon their guard day and night; they must
never be off their watch, as long as those for whose
souls they watch, are not out of danger. (3. ) They
must never hold their peace, they must take all
opportunities to give warning to sinners, in season,
out of season, and must never betray the cause of
Christ by a treacherous or cowardly silence; they
must never hold their peace at the throne of grace,
they must pray and not faint, as Moses lifted up
his hands, and kept them steady, till Israel had got
the victory over Amalek, Exod. xvii. 10, 12.
2. That people may do their duty. As those
that make mention of the Lord, let not them keep 1
silence neither, let not them think it enough that their
watchmen pray for them, but let them pray forthem-
seves ; all will be little enough to meet the approaching
mercy with due solemnity. Note, (1.) It is the
character of God’s professing people, that they may
make mention of the Lord, and continue to do so
even in bad times, when the land is termed forsaken
and desolate; they are the Lord’s remembrances;
(so the margin reads it;) they remember the Lord
themselves, and put one another in mind of him.
(2.) God’s professing people must be a praying
people, must be public-spirited in prayer, must
wrestle with God in prayer, and continue to do so;
“ Keep not silence, never grow remiss in the duty,
or weary of it;” Give him no rest — alluding to an
importunate beggar, to the widow that with her
continual coming wearied the judge into a compli¬
ance. God said to Moses, Let me alone; (Exod. j
xxxii. 10.) and Jacob to Christ, I will not let thee
go except thou bless me, Gen. xxxii. 26. (3.) God is
so far from being displeased with our pressing im¬
portunity, as men commonly are, that he invites
and encourages it, he bids us to cry after him; he is
not like those disciples who discouraged a peti¬
tioner, Matt xv. 23. He bids us make pressing
applications at the throne of grace, and give him
no rest, Luke xi. 5, 6. He suffers himself not only
to be reasoned with, but to be wrestled with. (4. )
The public welfare and prosperity of God’s Jerusa¬
lem is that which we should he most importunate
for at the throne of grace; we should pray for the
good of the church. [ 1. ] That it may be safe, that
he would establish it, that the interests of the
church may be firm, may be settled for the present,
and secured to posterity. [2.] That it may be
great, may be a praise in the earth; that it may
be praised, and God may be praised for it When
gospel-truths are cleared and vindicated, when
gospel-ordinances are duly administered in their
purity and power, when the church becomes emi¬
nent for holiness and love, then Jerusalem'is a praise
in the earth, then it is in reputation. (5.) We must
persevere in our prayers for mercy to the church,
till the mercy comes; we must do as the prophet’s
servant did, go yet seven times, till the promising
cloud appear, l'Kings xviii. 44. (6.) It is a good
sign that God is coming toward a people in ways
of mercy, when he pours out a spirit of prayer upon
them, and stirs them up to be fervent and constant
n their intercessions.
II. Plenty of all other good things, v 8. This
follows upon the former; when the people praise God,
when all the people praise him, then shall the earth
yield her increase, (Ps. lxvii. 5, 6. ) and outward
prosperity, crowning its piety, shall help to make
Jerusalem a praise in the earth. Observe, 1. The
great distress they had been in, and the losses they
had sustained; their corn had been meat for them¬
selves and their families; here was a double griev¬
ance, that they themselves wanted that which was
necessary to the support of life, and were in danger
of perishing for want of it, and that their enemies
were strengthened by it, had their camp victualled
with it, and so were the better able to do them a mis¬
chief. God is said to give their corn to their ene¬
mies, because he not only permitted it, but ordered
it, to be the just punishment both of their abuse of
plenty, and of their symbolizing with strangers, ch.
i. 7. The wine which they had laboured for, and
which in their affliction they needed, for the relief
of those among them that were of a heavy heart,
strangers drink it, to gratify their lusts with; this
sore judgment was threatened for their sins, Lev.
xxvi. 16. Deut. xxviii. 33. See how uncertain our
creature-comforts are, and how much it is our wis¬
dom to labour for that meat which we can never be
‘ robbed of. 2. The great fulness and satisfaction
i they should now be restored to; (v. 9.) They that
have gathered it shall eat it, and praise the Lord.
See here, (1.) God’s mercy in giving plenty, and
peace to enjoy it; that the earth yields her increase,
that there are hands to be employed in gathering it
in, and that they are not taken off by plague and
sickness, or otherwise employed in war; that stran¬
gers and enemies do not come, and gather it for
themselves, or take it from us when we have ga¬
thered it, that we eat the labour of our hands, and
the bread is not eaten out of our mouths, and espe¬
cially, that we have opportunity and a heart to ho¬
nour God with it, and that his courts are open to
us, and we are not restrained from attending on
him in them. (2.) Our duty in the enjoyment of this
mercy; we must gather what God gives, with care
and industry, we must eat it freely and cheerfully,
j not bury the gifts of God’s bounty, but make use of
them; we must, when we have eaten and are full,
bless the Lord, and give him thanks for his bounty
to us, and we must serve him with our abundance,
use it in works of piety and charity, eat it and
drink it in the courts of his holiness, where the
altar, the priest, and the poor, must all have their
share. The greatest comfort that a good man has
in his meat and drink is that it furnishes him with
a meat-offering and a drink-offering for the Lord
his God; (Joel ii. 14.) the greatest comfort that he
has in an estate is, that it gives him an opportunity
of honouring God and doing good. This wine is to
be drunk in the courts of God’s holiness, and there¬
fore moderately and with sobriety, as before the
Lord. 3. The solemn ratification of this promise;
The Lord has sworn by his right hand and by the arm
of his strength, that he will do this for his people;
God confirms it by an oath, that his people, who
trust in him and his word, may have strong conso¬
lation, Heb. vi. 17, 18. And since he can swear by-
no greater, he swears by himself; sometimes by his
being, As I live; (Ezek. xxxiii. 11.) sometimes by
his holiness; (Ps. lxxxix. 35.) here by his power,
his right hand, (which was lifted up "in swearing,
Deut. xxxii. 40.) and his arm of power; for it is a
geat satisfaction to those who build their hopes cn
od’s promise, to be sure that what he has promised
he is able to perform, Rom. iv. 21. To assure us
of this, he has sworn by his strength, pawning the
reputation of his omnipotence upon it; if he did net
do it, let it be said, It was because he could not,
which the Egyptians shall never say, (Numb. xiv.
292 ISAIAH, LX1II.
1 6. ) nor an v other. It is the comfort of God’s peo¬
ple, that his power is engaged for them; his right
hand, where the Mediator sits.
10. Go through, go through the gates;
prepare you the way of the people; cast up,
cast up the highway; gather out the stones;
lift up a standard for the people. 1 1 . Be¬
hold, the Lord hath proclaimed unto the
end of the world, Say ye to the daughter of
Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh ; behold,
his reward is with him, and his work before
him. 12. And they shall call them, The
holy people, The redeemed of the Lord :
and thou shalt be called, Sought out, A city
not forsaken.
This, as many like passages before, refers to the
deliverance of the Jews out of Babylon, and, under
the type and figure of that, to the great redemption
wrought out by Jesus Christ, and the proclaiming
of gospel-grace and liberty through him.
1. Way shall be made for this salvation; all diffi¬
culties shall be removed, and whatever might ob¬
struct it shall be taken out of the way, v. 10. The
gates of Babylon shall be thrown open, that they
may with freedom go through them; the way from
Babylon to the land of Israel shall be prepared,
causeways shall be made and cast up through wet
and mil'}’ places, and the stones gathered out from
places rough and rocky; in the convenient places
appointed tor their rendezvous, standards shall be
set up for their direction and encouragement, that
tiiev may embody for their greater safety. Thus
John Baptist was sent to prepare the ’way of the Lord,
Matth. iii. 3. And before Christ by his graces
and comforts comes to any for salvation, prepa¬
ration is made for him by repentance, which is call¬
ed the preparation of the gospel of peace; (Eph. vi.
15.) here the way is levelled by it, there the feet
are shod with it, which comes all to one, for both
are in order to a journey.
2. Notice shall be given of this salvation, v. 11,
12. It shall be proclaimed to the captives, that
they are set at liberty, and may go if they please;
it shall be proclaimed to their neighbours, to all
about them, to the end of the world, that God has
headed Zion’s just, injured, and despised cause.
..ot it be said to Zion, for her comfort, Behold, thy
salvation comes, thy Saviour, who brings salvation;
he will bring such a work, such a reward, in this
salvation, as shall be admired by all; a reward of
comfort and peace with him ; but a work of humilia¬
tion and reformation before him, to prepare his peo¬
ple for that recompense of their sufferings; and then, \
with reference to each, it follows, they shall be j
called, The holy people, and, The redeemed of the
Lord; the work before him, which shall be wrought
in them and upon them, shall denominate them a
holy people, cured of their inclination to idolatry,
tnd consecrated to God only; and the reward with
him, the deliverance wrought for them, shall de¬
nominate the redeemed of the Lord, so redeemed as
none but God could redeem them; and redeemed to
he his, their bonds loosed, that they might be his
servants. Jerusalem shall then be called, Sought
out, a city not forsaken; she had been forsaken for
many years, there were neither traders nor wor¬
shippers that inquired the way to Jerusalem as for¬
merly, when it was frequented by both; but now God
will again make it considerable; it shall be sought
cut, visited, resorted to, and court made to it, as
much as ever. When it is called a holy city, then
it is called sought out, for holiness puts an honour
and beauty upon any place or person, which draws
respect, and makes them to be admired, beloved,
and inquired after.
But this, being proclaimed to the end of the world,
must have a reference to the gospel of Christ,
which was to be preached to every creature; and it
speaks, (1.) The glory of Christ. It is published
immediately to the church, but is thence echoed to
every nation; Behold, thy salvation cometh. Christ
is not only the Saviour, but the Salvation itself; for
the happiness of believers is not only from him, but in
him, cA.xii. 2. His salvation consists both in the work
and in the reward which he brings with him ; for those
that are his shall neither be idle, nor lose their la¬
bour. (2.) The beauty of the church. Christians
shall be called saints, (l Cor. i. 2.) the holy people,
for they are chosen and called to salvation through
sanctification; they shall be called the redeemed of
the Lord, to him they owe their liberty, and there¬
fore to him they owe their service, and they shall
not be ashamed to own both. None are to be called
the redeemed of the Lord, but those that are the
holy people; the people of God’s purchase is a holy
nation. And they shall be called, Sought out; God
shall seek them out, and find them, wherever they
are dispersed, eclipsed, or lost in a crowd; men
shall seek them cut, that they may join themselves
to them, and not forsake them. It is good to asso¬
ciate with the holy people, that we may learn their
ways, and with the redeemed of the Lord, that we
may share in the blessings of the redemption.
CHAP. LXIII.
In this chapter, we have, I. God coming towards his people
in ways of mercy and deliverance, and this is to be joined
to the close of the foregoing chapter, where it was said
to Zion, Behold , thy salvation comes; for here it is showed
how it comes, v. 1 . . 6. II. God’s people meeting him
with their devotions, and addressing themselves to him
with suitable affections; and this part of the chapter is
carried on to the close of the next. In this, we have, 1.
A thankful acknowledgment of the great favours God
had bestowed upon them, v. 7. 2. The magnifying of
these favours, from the consideration of God’s relation to
them, (v. 8.) his compassionate concern for them, (v. 9.)
their unworthiness, (v. 10.) and the occasion which it
gave both him and them to call to mind former mercies,
v. 11.. 14. 3. A very humble and earnest prayer to
God to appear for them in their present distress, pleading
God’s mercy, (v. 15.) their relation to him, (v. 16.) their
desire toward him, (v. 17.) and the insolence of their
enemies, v. 18, 19. So that, upon the whole, we learn
to embrace God’s promises with an active faith, and
then to improve them, and make use of them, both in
prayers and praises.
1 . A VTHO is this that cometh from Edom,
TV with dyed garments from Bozrah?
this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling
in the greatness of his strength? I that speak
in righteousness, mighty to save. 2. Where¬
fore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy
garments like him that treadeth in the wine-
fat? 3. 1 have trodden the wine-press alone;
and of the people there teas none with me:
for I will tread them in mine anger, and
trample them in my fury: and their blood
shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I
•will staifi all my raiment. 4. For the day
of vengeance is in my heart, and the year
of my redeemed is come. 5. And I looked,
and there teas none to help; and I wondered
that there teas none to uphold; therefore
mine own arm brought salvation unto me ,
and my fury, it upheld me. 6. And I will
tread down the people in mine anger, and
29;-
ISAIAH, LXI11.
make them drunk in my fury, and 1 will
bring down their strength to the earth.
It is a glorious victory that is here inquired into
first, and then accounted for; 1. It is a victory ob¬
tained by the providence of God over the enemies
of Israel; over the Babylonians, (say some,) whom
Cyrus conquered, and God by him, and they will
have the prophet to make the first discovery of him
in his triumphant return, when he is in the country
of Edom: but this can by no means be admitted,
because the country of Babylon is always spoken of
as the land of the north, whereas Edom lays south
from Jerusalem, so that the conqueror would not re¬
turn through that country; the victory therefore is
obtained over the Edomites themselves, who had
triumphed in the destruction of Jerusalem by the
Chaldeans, (Ps. cxxxvii. 7.) and cut off those who,
making their way as far as they could from the
enemy, escaped to the Edomites, (Obad. xii. 13.)
and were therefore reckoned with when Babylon
was; for, no doubt, that prophecy was accomplished,
though we do not meet in history with the accom¬
plishment of it, (Jer. xlix. 13.) Bozrah shall become
a desolation. Yet this victory over Edom is put as
an instance or specimen of the like victories, ob¬
tained over other nations that had beCTi enemies to
Israel: this over the Edomites is named, for the sake
of the old enmity of Esau against Jacob, (Gen.
xxvii. 41.) and perhaps with an allusion to David’s
glorious triumphs over the Edomites, by which it
should seem, more than by any other of his victories,
he got him a name, Ps. lx. title, 2 Sam. viii. 13, 14.
But this is not all; 2. It is a victory obtained by the
grace of God in Christ over our spiritual enemies;
we find the garments dipped in blood adorning him
whose name is called The H ard of God, Rev. xix.
13. And who that is, we know well; it is he through
whom we are more than conquerors over those
principalities and powers which on the cross he
spoiled and triumphed over.
In this representation of the victory, we have,
•I. An admiring question put to the Conqueror, v.
1, 2. It is put by the church, or by the prophet in
the name of the church. He sees a mighty Hero
returning in triumph from a bloody engagement,
and makes bold to ask him two questions; 1. Who
is he? He observes him to come frttn the country
of Edom, to come in such apparel as was glorious
to a soldier, not embroidered or laced, but besmear¬
ed with blood and dirt: he observes him to come as
one either frighted or fatigued, but that he travels
in the greatness of his strength, altogether unbroken.
Triumphant and victorious he appears,
And honour in his looks and habit wears;
How strong he treads, how stately doth he go !
Pompous and solemn is his pace,
And full of majesty, his face:
Who is this mighty hero — who? Mr. Norris.
The question, Who is this? perhaps means the same
with that which Joshua put to the same Person,
when he appeared to him with his sword drawn?
(Josh. v. 13. ) Art thou for us or for our adver¬
saries? Or rather, the same with that which Israel
put in a way of adoration, (Exod. xv. 11.) Who is a
God like unto thee? 2. The other question is,
“ Wherefore art thou red in thine afifiarel? What
hard service hast thou been engaged in, that thou
carriest with thee these marks of toil and danger?”
Is it possible that one who has such majesty and ter¬
ror in his countenance, should be employed in the
mean and servile work of treading the wine-firess?
Surely it is not. That which is really the glory of
the Redeemer seems firima facie — at jfi?st, a dispar¬
agement to him, as it would be to a mighty prince
to do the work of the vine-dressers and husband -
men; for he took ufion him the form of a servant,
and carried with him the marks of servitudet®j5?>2
; II. An admirable answer returned by him:
1. He tells who he is; I that sfieak in righteous
ness, mighty to save. He is the Saviour. God was
Israel’s Saviour out of the hand of their oppressors;
the Lord Jesus is ours; his name, Jesus, signifies a
Saviour, for he saves his /ieo/ile from their sms. In
the salvation wrought, he will have us to take no¬
tice, (1.) Of the truth of his promise, which is
therein performed; he sfieaks in righteousness, and
will therefore make good every word that he has
spoken, with which he will have us to compare
what he does; that, setting the word and the work
the one over against the other, what he does may
ratify' what he has said, and what he has said may
justify what he docs. (2.) Of the efficacy of his
power, which is therein exerted; he is mighty to
save, able to tiring about the promised redemption,
whatever difficulties and oppositions may lie in the
way of it.
’Tie I who to my promise faithful stand,
1, who the powers of death, hell, and the grave,
Have, foil’d with this all-conquering hand,
I, who most ready um, and mighty too, to save.
Mr. Norris.
2. He tells how he came to appear in this hue;
(x>. 3. ) I have trodden the wine-firess alone. Being
compared to one that treads in the wine-fat, such is
his condescension, in the midst of his triumphs, that
he does not scorn the comparison, but admits it, and
carries it on. He does indeed tread the wine-firess,
but it is the great wine-firess of the wrath of God,
(Rev. xiv. 19.) in which we sinners deserved to
have been cast; but Christ was pleased to cast cur
enemies into it, and to destroy him that had the
fiower of death, that he might deliver us. And of
this, the bloody work which God sometimes made
among the enemies of the Jews, and which is here
foretold, was a type and figure.
Observe the account the Conqueror gives of his
victory.
(1.) He gains the victory purely by his own
strength; I have trodden the wine-firess alone, v. 3.
When God delivered his people, and destroyed
their enemies, if he made use of instruments, he did
not need them ; but among his people, for whom the
salvation was to be wrought, no assistance offered
itself; they were weak, and helpless, and had no
ability to do any thing for their own relief; they
were desponding and listless, and had no heart to do
any thing; they were not disposed to give the least
stroke or straggle for liberty; neither the captives
themselves, nor any of their friends for them; (x'. 5.)
“I looked, and there was none to lielfi, as one would
have expected, nothing of a bold, active spir it ap¬
peared among them; nay, there were not only none
to lead, but, which was more strange, there was
none to ufihold, none that would come in as a se-
coqjl, that had the courage to join with Cyras
against their oppressors; therefore mine arm brought
about the salvation; not by created might or fiower,
but by the Sfiirit of the Lord of hosts, my . wn arm. ”
Note, God can help, when all other helpers fail;
nay, that is his time to help, and therefore for that
very reason he will put forth his own power so much
the more gloriously. But this is most fully applica¬
ble to Christ’s victories over our spiritual enemies,
which he obtained by single combat. He trod the
wine-press of his Father’s wrath alone, and tri¬
umphed over principalities and powers in hi?nself,
Col. ii. 15. Of the fieofile there was none with him;
for when he entered the lists with the powers of
darkness, all his discifi/es forsook him, and fled.
There was none to helfi, none that could, none that
durst; and he might well wonder not only that
among the children of men, whose concern it was.
there was not only none to ufihold, but that there
were so many to oppose and hinder it if they could.
”e undertakes the war purely out of his own
294
ISAIAH
zeal; it is in his anger, it is in his fury, that he
treads down his enemies, ( v . 3.) and that fury up¬
holds him, and carries him on in this enterprize, v.
5. God wrought salvation for the oppressed Jews,
entirely because he was very angry with the op¬
pressing Babylonians, angry at their idolatries and
sorceries, their pride and cruelty, and the injuries
they did to his people; in which, as they increased
and grew more insolent and outrageous, his anger
increased to fury. Our Lord Jesus wrought out our
redemption, in a holy zeal for the honour of his Fa-
tner, the happiness of mankind, and a holy indigna¬
tion at the daring attempts Satan had made upon
both; this zeal and indignation upheld him through¬
out his whole undertaking.
Two branches there were of this zeal, that ani¬
mated him;
[1.] He had a zeal against his and his people’s
enemies; The day of vengeance is in my heart, (y.
4. ) the day fixed in the eternal counsels for taking
v engeance on them; this was written in his heart,
so that he could not forget it, could not let it slip;
his heart was full of it, and it lay as a charge, as a
weight, upon him, which made him push on this
holy war with so much vigour. Note, There is a
day fixed for divine vengeance, which may be long
deferred, but will come at last; and we may be con¬
tent to wait for it, for the Redeemer himself does,
though his heart is upon it.
[2. ] He had a zeal for his people, and for all that
lie designed to make sharers in the intended salva¬
tion; “ The year of my redeemed is come, the year
appointed for their redemption.” The year was
fixed for the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt, and
God kept time to a day; (Exod. xii. 41.) so there
was for their release out of Babylon; (Dan. ix. 2. ) so
there was for Christ’s coming to destroy the works of
the devil; so there is for all the deliverances of the
church, and the Deliverer has an eye to it. Ob¬
serve, First, With what pleasure he speaks of his
people; they are his redeemed; they are his own,
dear to him. Though their redemption is not yet
wrought out, yet he calls them his redeemed, because
it shall as surely be done as if it were done already.
Secondly, With what pleasure he speaks of his peo¬
ple’s redemption; how glad he is that the time is
come, though he is likely to meet with a sharp en¬
counter. Now that the year of my redeemed is
come, Lo, I come; delay shall be no longer. JVow
mill I arise, saith the Lord. .Vow thou shalt see
■what I will do to Pharaoh. Note, The promised
salvation must be patiently waited for, till the time
appointed comes; yet we must attend the promises
with our prayers. Does Christ say. Surely I come
quickly; let our hearts reply, Even so, come; let the
year of the redeemed come.
(3. ) He will obtain a complete victory over them all.
[1.] Much is already done; for he now appears
red in his apparel; such abundance of blood is shed,
that the Conqueror’s garments are all stained with
it. This was predicted, long before, by dying Jacob,
concerning Shiloh, that is, Christ, that he should
•wash his garments in wise, and his clothes in the
blood of grapes, which perhaps this alludes to, Gen.
xlix. 11.
With ornamental drops bedeck’d I stood,
And writ my vict’ry with my eu’ray’s blood. Mr. Norris.
In the destruction of the antichristian powers we
meet with abundance of bloodshed, (Rev. xiv. 20.
— xix. 13.) which yet, according to the dialect of 1
prophecy, may be understood spirituallv, and doubt¬
less so may this here.
[2.] More shall yet be done; (y. 6.) I will tread
down the people, that yet stand it out against me, in
thine anger; for the victorious Redeemer, when the
liar of the Redeemer is come, will go cn conquering
, LXIII.
and to conquer, Rev. vi. 2. When he begins, he
will also make an end. Observe, How he will com
plete his victories over the enemies of his church
First, He will infatuate them; he will make them
drunk, so that there shall be neither sense nor
steadiness in their counsels; they shall drink of the
cup of his fury, and that shall intoxicate them : or,
he will make them drunk with their own blood.
Rev. xvii. 6. Let those that make themselves drunk
with the cup of riot, (and then they are in their
fury,) repent and reform, lest God make them drunk
with the cup of trembling, the cup of his fury.
Secondly, He will enfeeble them; he will bring
down their strength, and so bring them down to the.
earth; for what strength can hold out against Omni
potence?
7. I will mention the loving-kindnesses of
the Lord, and the praises of the Lord, ac¬
cording to all that the Lord hath bestowed
on us, and the great goodness toward the
house of Israel, which he hath bestow’ed on
them according to his mercies, and accord¬
ing to the multitude of his loving-kindnesses.
8. For he said, Surely they are my people,
children that will not lie: so he was their
Saviour. 9. In all their affliction he was
afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved
them : in his love and in his pity he redeemed
them: and he bare them, and carried them
all the days of old. 10. But they rebelled,
and vexed his holy Spirit: therefore he was
turned to be their enemy, and he fought
against them. 1 1 . Then he remembered
the days of old, Moses and his people, say¬
ing, Where is he that brought them up out
of the sea with the shepherd of his flock ?
w fie re is he that put his holy Spirit within
him ? 1 2. That led them by the right hand
of Moses with his glorious arm, dividing the
water before them, to make himself an ever¬
lasting name ? 1 3. That led them through
the deep, as a horse in the wilderness, that
they should not stumble? 14. As a beast
goeth down into the valley, the Spirit of the
Lord caused him to rest; so didst thou lead
thy people, to make thyself a glorious name.
The prophet is here, in the name of the church,
taking a review, and making a thankful recognition,
of God’s dealings with his church all along, ever
since he founded it, before he comes, in the latter
end of this chapter, and in the next, as a watchman
upon the walls, earnestly to pray to God for his
compassion toward her in her present deplorable
stat-e; and it was usual for God’s people, in their
prayers, thus to look back.
I. Here is a general acknowledgment of God’s
goodness to them all along, v. 7. It was said, in
general, of God’s prophets and people, ( ch . lxii. 6. )
that they make mention of the Ford; now here we
! are told what it is in God, that they do especially
J delight to make mention of, and that is, bis good¬
ness, which the prophet here so makes mention of,
as if he thought he could never say enough of it.
He mentions the kindness of God, (which neve?'
appeared so evident, so eminent, as in his love to
! mankind in sending his Son to save us, Tit. iii. 4. >
his loving-kindness, kindness that shows itself
ISAIAH, LXJ11.
295
every thing that is endearing; nay, so plenteous are
the springs, and so various the streams, of divine
mercy, that he speaks of it in the plural number,
At's loving-kindnesses; for if we would count the
fruits of his loving-kindness, they are more in num¬
ber than the sand. With his loving-kindnesses he
mentions his praises; the thankful acknowledgments
which the saints make of his loving-kindness, and
the angels too. It must be mentioned, to God’s
honour, what a tribute of praise is paid him by all
his creatures in consideration of his loving-kindness.
See how copiously he speaks, 1. Of the goodness
that is from God, the gifts of his loving-kindness;
all that the Lord has bestowed on us in particular,
relating to life and godliness, in our personal and
family capacity; let every man speak for himself,
speak as he has found, and he must own that he has
had a great deal bestowed upon him by the divine
Dounty. But we must also mention the favours be¬
stowed upon his church, his great goodness toward
the house of Israel, which he has bestowed on them.
Note, We must bless God for the mercies enjoyed
by otliers, as well as for those enjoyed by ourselves,
and reckon that bestowed on ourselves, which is
bestowed on the house of Israel. 2. Of the goodness
that is in God. God does good because he is good;
what he bestows upon us, must be run up to the
original, it is according to his mercies, not according
to our merits, and according to the multitude of his
loving-kindnesses, which can never be spent. Thus
we should magnify God’s goodness, and speak ho¬
nourably of it, not only when we plead it, (as David,
Ps. li. 1.) but when we praise it.
II. Here is particular notice taken of the steps of
God’s mercy to Israel, ever since it was formed into I
a nation.
1. The expectations God had concerning them,
that they would conduct themselves well, v. 8.
When he brought them out of Egypt and took them
into covenant with himself, he said, “ Surely they
are my people, I take them as such, and am willing
to hope they will approve themselves so; children
that will not lie;” that will not dissemble with God
in their covenantings with him, nor treacherously
depart from him by breaking their covenant, and
starting aside like a broken bow. They said, more
than once, All that the Lord shall say unto us we
will do, and will be obedient; and thereupon he took
them to be his peculiar people, saying, Surely they
will not lie. God deals fairly and faithfully with
them, and therefore expects they should deal so
with him. They are children of the covenant, (Acts
iii. 25.) children of those that clave unto the Lord,
and therefore it may be hoped that they will tread
in the steps of their father’s constancy. Note, God’s
people are children that will not lie; for those that
will, are not his children, but the devil’s.
2. The favour he showed them, with an eye to
these expectations; So he was their Saviour out of
the bondage of Egypt, and all the calamities of their
wilderness-state, and many a time since he had been
their Saviour.
See particularly, (r>. 9. ) what he did for them as
their Saviour.
(1.) The principle that moved him to work salva¬
tion for them; it was in his love, and in his pity, out
of mere compassion to them, and a tender affection
for them, not because he either needed them, or
could be benefited by them. This is strangely ex¬
pressed here, In all their a ffliction he was afflicted;
not that the Eternal Mind is capable of grieving,
or God’s infinite blessedness of suffering the least
damage or diminution; (God cannot be afflicted;)
but thus he is pleased to show forth the love and
concern he has for his people in their affliction; thus
far he sympathizes with them, that he takes what
injury is done to them as done to himself, and will
reckon for it accordingly. Their cries move lum,
(Exod. iii. 7.) and he appears for them as vigorously
as if he were pained in their pain; Saul, Saul, why
persecutest thou me? This is a matter of great com¬
fort to God’s people in their affliction, that God is
so far from afflicting willingly, (Lam. iii. 33.) that,
if they humble themselves under his hand, he is
afflicted in their affliction, as the tender parents are
I in the severe operations which the case of a sick
child calls for. There is another reading of these
words in the original; In all their affliction there
was no affliction; though they were in great afflic¬
tion, yet the property of it was so altered by the
grace of God sanctifying it to them for their good,
the rigour of it was so mitigated, and it was so allay¬
ed and balanced with mercies, they were so won¬
derfully supported and comforted under it, and it
proved so short, and ended so well, that it was in
effect no affliction. The troubles of the saints are
not that to them that they are to others, they are
not afflictions, bt>t medicines; saints are enabled to
call them light, and but for a moment, and, with an
eye to heaven as all in all, to make nothing of them.
(2.) The Person employed in their salvation; the
angel of his face, or presence. Some understand it
of a created angel; the highest angel in heaven, even
the angel of his presence, that attends next the
throne of his glory, is not thought too great, too
good, to be sent on this errand. Thus the little
ones’ angels are said to be those that always behold
the face of our Father, Matth. xviii. 10. But this
is rather to be understood of Jesus Christ, the eter¬
nal Word, that Angel of whom God spake to Moses,
(Exod. xxiii. 20.) whose voice Israel was to obey.
He is called Jehovah, Exod. xiii. 21. — xiv. 21, 24.
He is the Angel of the covenant, God’s Messenger
to the world, Mai. iii. 1. He is the Angel of God’s
face, for he is the express Image of his person; and
the glory of God shines in the face of Christ. He
that was to work out the eternal salvation, as an
earnest of that, wrought out the temporal salvations
that were typical of it.
(3. ) The progress and perseverance of this favour.
He not only redeemed them out of their bondage,
but he bare them, and carried them, all the days of
old; they were weak, but he supported them by his
power, sustained them by his bounty; when they
were burdened, and ready to sink, he bore them up,
in the wars they made upon the nations, he stood bv
them, and bore them out; though they were peevish,
he bore with them, and suffered their manners, Acts
xiii. 18. He carried them, as the nursing father
does the child, though they would have tired any
arms but his; he carried them as the eagle her
young upon her wings, Deut. xxxii. 11. And it was
a long time that he was troubled with them, (if we
may so speak,) it was all the days of old; his care of
them was not at an end, even when they were grown
up, and settled in Canaan. All this was in his love
and pity, ex mero motu — of his mere good-will; he
loved them because he would love them, as he says,
Deut. vii. 7, 8.
3. Their disingenuous conduct toward him, and
the trouble they thereby brought upon themselves;
(y. 10.) But they rebelled. Things looked verv
hopeful and promising; one would have thought that
they should have continued dutiful children to God,
and then there was no doubt but he would have con¬
tinued a gracious Father to them; but here is a sad
change on both sides, and on them be the breach.
(1.) They revolted from their allegiance to God,
and took ufi arms against him ; they rebelled, and
vexed his Holy Spirit with their unbelief and mur¬
muring, beside the iniquity of the golden calf; and
this had been their way and manner ever since.
Though he was ready to say of them. They will no.
lie, though he had done so much for them, borne
"96
ISAIAH, LXIII.
them and carried them, yet they thus ill requited
nim, like foolish people and unwise, Deut. xxxii. 6.
This grieved him, Ps. xcv. 10. The ungrateful
rebellions of God’s children against him are a vexa¬
tion to his Holy Spirit. (2.) Thereupon he justly
withdrew his protection, and not only so, but made
wav upon them, as a prince justly does upon the
rebels. He who had been so much their Friend,
was turned to be their Enemy, and fought against
them, by one judgment after another, both in the
wilderness, and after their settlement in Canaan.
See the malignity and mischievousness of sin; it
makes God an Enemy, even to those for whom he
has done the part of a good friend, and makes him
angry, who was ‘311 love and pity. See the folly of
sinners; they wilfullyleave himfor a Friend, who is
the most desirable Friend, and make him their
Enemy, who is the most formidable Enemy. This
refers especially to those calamities that were of
late brought upon them by their captivity in Babylon,
for their idolatries, and other sins. That which is
both the original, and the great aggravation of their
troubles, was, that God was turned to be their
Enemy.
4. A particular reflection made, on this occasion,
upon what God did for them, when he first formed
them into a people; Then he remembered the days
of old, v. 11. This may be understood either, (1.)
Of the people. Israel then (spoken of as a single
person) remembered the days of old, looked into
their Bibles, read the story of God’s bringing their
fathers out of Egypt, considered it more closelv than
ever they did before, and reasoned upon it, as Gideon
did; (Judg. vi. 13.) “ l There are all the wonders that
our fathers told us of ? Where is he that brought
them up out of Egypt ? Is he not as able to bring us
up out cf Babylon ? Where is the Lord God of
Elijah? Where is the Lord God of our fathers?”
This they consider as an inducement and an en¬
couragement to them to repent, and return to him:
their fathers were a provoking people, and yet found
him a pardoning God; and why may not they find
him so, if they return to him? They also use it as a
plea with God in prayer for the turning again of
their captivity, like that ch. li. 9, 10. Note, When
the present days are dark and cloudy, it is good to
remember the days of old, to recollect our own and
others’ experiences of the divine power and good¬
ness, and make use of them; to look back upon the
years of the right hand of the Most High, (Ps.
lxxvii. 5, 10.) and remember that he is God, and
changes not. Or, (2.) We may understand it of
God; he put himself in mind of the days of old, of
his covenant with Abraham; (Lev. xxvi. 42.) he
said. Where is he that brought Israel up out of the
sea? Stirring up himself to come and save them,
with this consideration, “Why should not I appear
for them now as I did for their fathers, who were as
undeserving, as ill-deserving, as they are?” See how
far off divine mercy will go, how far back it will
look, to find out a reason for doing good to his peo¬
ple, when no present considerations appear but
what make against them. Nay, it makes that a
reason for relieving them, which might have been
used as a reason for abandoning them. He might
have said, “ I have delivered them formerly, but
they have again brought trouble upon themselves,
(Prov. xix. 19.) therefore I will deliver them no
more.” Judg. x. 13. But no; mercy rejoices against
judgment, and turns the argument the other way;
“ I liave formerly delivered them, and therefore
will now.”
Which way soever we take it, whether the people
plead it with God, or God with himself, let us view
the particulars; they agree very much with the
confession and prayer which the children of the
captivity made upon a sclemn fast-day, (N,h. ix. 5,
&c.) which may serve as a comment on these verses
here, which call to mind Moses and his people; that
is, what God did by Moses for his people, especially
j in bringing them thi'ough the Red sea; for that is it
that is here most insisted on; for it was a work
which he much gloried in, and which his people
therefore may in a particular manner encourage
themselves with the remembrance of.
[1.] God led them by the right hand of Most s,
v. 12.) and the wonder-working rod in his hand;
Ps. lxxvii. 20. ) Thou leddest thy people like a flock
by the hand of Moses. It was not Moses that led
them, any more than it was Moses that fed them,
(John vi. 32.) but God by Moses; for it was he that
qualified Moses for, called him to, assisted and pros¬
pered him in, that great undertaking. Moses is
here called the shepherd of his flock; God was the
Owner of the flock, and the chief Shepherd of Is¬
rael; (Ps. lxxx. 1.) but Moses was a shepherd
under him; and he was inured to labour and pa¬
tience, and so fitted for this pastoral care, by his
being trained up to keep the flock of his father
Jethro. Herein he was a type of Christ the good
Shepherd, that lays down his life for the sheep;
which was more than Moses did for Israel, though
he did a great deal for them.
[2.] He put his holy Spirit within him; the Spirit
of God was among them, and not only his provi¬
dence, but his grace, did work for them ; (Neh. ix.
20.) Thou gavest thy good Spirit to instruct them.
The Spirit of wisdom and courage, as well as the
Spirit of prophecy, was put into Moses, to qualify
him for that service among them, to which he was
called; and some of his spirit was put upen the
seventy elders, Numb. xi. If. This was a great
blessing to Israel, that they had among them not
only inspired writings, but inspired men.
[3.] He carried them safelv through the Red sec,
and thereby saved them out of the hands of Pharaoh.
Eirst, He divided the water before them, (r. 12.) so
that it gave them net only passage, but protection, not
only opened them a lane, but erected them a wall
on either side. Secondly, He led them through the
deep as a horse in the wilderness, or in the plain;
(x). 13.) they and their wives and children, with all
their baggage, went as easily and readily through
the bottom of the sea, though we may suppose it
muddy or stony, or both, as a horse goes along upon
even ground; so that they did not stumble, though
it was an untrodden path, which neither they nor any
one else ever went before. If God make us a way,
he will make it plain and level; the road he (pi ns
to his people he will lead them in. Thirdly, To
complete the mercy, he brought them up out of the
sea, v. 11. Though the ascent, it is likely, was
very steep, dirty, slippery, and unconquerable, (at
least by the women and children, and the men, cc-n
sidering how they were loaded, (Exod. xii. 34.) and
how fatigued,) yet God by his power brought them
up from the depths of the earth; and it was a kind
of resurrection to them; it was as life from the dead.
[4.] He brought them safe to a place of rest; As
a beast goes down into the valley, carefully and gra¬
dually, so the Spirit of the Lord caused him to rest.
Many a time in their march through the wilderness
they had resting-places provided for them, by the
direction of the Spirit of the Lord in Moses, v. 11.
And at length they w'ere made to rest finally in Ca¬
naan, and the Spirit of the Lord gave them that
rest according to the promise. It is by the Spirit
of the Lord that God’s Israel are caused to return
to God, and repose in him as their Rest.
[5.] All this he did for them by his own power,
for his own praise. Eirst, It was by his own power,
as the God of nature, that has all the powers of
nature at his command; he did it with his glorious
arm; the arm of his gallantry, or bravery; so the
297
ISAIAH LXIII.
word signifies. It was not Moses’s red, but God’s
glorious arm, that did it. Secondly, It was for his
own praise; to make himself an everlasting nume, j
(r>. 12.) a glorious name, {v. 14.) that he might be
glorified, everlastingly glorified, upon this account,
’i'his is that which God is doing in the world with
Ins glorious arm, he is making to himself a glorious
name, and it shall last to endless ages, when the
most celebrated names of the great ones of the earth
shall be written in the dost.
15. Look down from heaven, and behold
from the habitation of thy holiness and of
thy glory : where is thy zeal and thy
strength, the sounding of thy bowels and of
thy mercies toward me ? are they restrain¬
ed? 16 Doubtless thou art our Father,
though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Is¬
rael acknowledge us not: thou, O Lord,
art our Father, our Redeemer; thy name is
from everlasting. 17. O Lord, why hast
thou made us to err from thy ways, and
hardened our heart from thy fear ?. Return
for thy servants’ sake, the tribes of thine
inheritance. 1 8. The people of thy holiness
have possessed it but a little while: our adver¬
saries have trodden down thy sanctuary. 1 9.
We are thine: thou never barest rule over
them; they were not called by thy name.
The foregoing praises were intended as an intro¬
duction to this prayer, which is continued to the end
of the next chapter, and it is an affectionate, impor-.
tunate, pleading prayer. It is calculated for the time
of the captivity. As they had promises, so they had
prayers, prepared for them against that time of
need; that they might take with them words in
turning to the Lord, and say unto him what he
himself taught them to say, in which they might
the better hope to prevail, the words being of God’s
own enditing. Some good interpreters think this
prayer looks further, and that it speaks the com¬
plaints of the Jews under their last and final rejec¬
tion from God, and destruction by the Romans; for
there is one passage in it, {ch. lxiv. 4.) which is
applied to the grace of the gospel by the apos¬
tle, (1 Cor. ii. 9.) that grace for the rejecting of
which they were rejected. In these verses, we
may observe,
I. The petitions they put up to God. 1. That
he would take cognizance of their case, and of the
desires of their souls toward him; Look down from
heaven, and behold. They know very well' that
God sees all, but they pray that he would regard
them, would condescend to favour them, would look
upon them with an eye of compassion and concern,
as he looked upon the affliction of his people in
Egypt, when he was about to appear for their de¬
liverance. In begging that he would only look down
upon them and behold them, they do in effect appeal
to his justice against theirenemies, and pray judgment
against them, as Jehoshaphat; (2Chron. xx. 11, 12.)
Behold, how they reward us. Wilt thou not judge
them? And they refer themselves to his mercy and
wisdom, as to the wav in which he will relieve them ;
(Ps.xxv.18.) Look ufion mine affliction and my pain.
Look down from the habitation of thy holiness and of
thy glory. God’s holiness is his glory. Heaven is his
habitation, the throne of his glory, where he most ma¬
nifests his glory, and whence he is said to look down
upon this earth, Ps. xxxiii. 14. His holiness is in a
special manner celebrated there by the blessed an¬
gels; {ch. vi. 3. Rev. iv. 8.) there his holy ones I
Vol. IV. — 2 P
[I attend him, and are continually about him; so that
it is the habitation of his holiness, which is an en¬
couragement to all his praying people, (who desire
to lie holy as he is holy,) that he dwells in a holy
place v 2. That he would take a course for their
relief; (v. 1'.) "Return; change thy way towards
us, and proceed not in thy controversy with us; re
turn in mercy, and let us have not only a gracious
look toward us, but thy gracious presence with us.”
God’s people dread nothing more than his depar¬
tures from them, and desire nothing more than his
returns to them.
II. The complaints they made to God. Two
things they complain of; 1.' That they were given
up to themselves, and God’s grace did not recover
them, v. 17. It is a strange expostulation, “ Why
hast thou made us to err from thy ways; many
among us, the generality of us; and this complaint
we have all of us some cause to make, that thou
hast hardened our heart from thy fear.” Some
make it to be the language of those among them,
that were impious and piofane; when the prophets
reproved them for the error of their ways, their
hardness of heart, and contempt of God’s word and
commandments, they with a daring impudence
charge their sin upon God, and make him the Author
of it; and why doth he then find fault? Note, Those
are wicked indeed, that lay the blame cf their wicked¬
ness upon God. But I rather take it tobe the language
of those among them, that lamented the unbelief
and impenitence of their people, not accusing God
of being the Author of them, but complaining of
them to him. They own that they had eimcd from
God’s ways, that their hearts had been hardened
from his fear, that they had not received the im¬
pressions which the fear of God ought to make
upon them; and this was the cause of all their
errors from his ways; or, from his fear; from the
true worship of God; and that is a hard heart in
deed, which is alienated from the service of a God
so incontestably great and good. Now this thej
complained of as their great misery and burthen,
that God had for their sins left them to this; had
permitted them to err from his ways, and had
justly withheld his grace, so that their hearts were
hardened from his fear. When they ask. Why
hast thou done this? it is not as charging him with
wrong, but lamenting it as a sore judgment. God
had made them to err, and hardened their hearts,
not only by withdrawing his Spirit from them, be¬
cause they had grieved, and vexed, and quenched
him, {v. 10.) but by a judicial sentence upon them,
{Go, make the heart of this people fat, ch. vi. 9,
10.) and by his providences concerning them, which
had proved sad occasions of their departure from
him. David complains of his banishment, that in it
he was in effect bidden to go serve other gods,
1 Sam. xxvi. 19. Their troubles had alienated many
of them from God, and prejudiced them against his
service; and because the rod of the wicked had
lain long on their lot, they were ready to put forth
their hand unto iniquity, (Ps. exxv. 3. ) and this was
the thing they complained most of; their afflictions
were their temptations, and to many of them in¬
vincible ones. Note, Convinced consciences com¬
plain most of spiritual judgments, and dread that most
in affliction, which draws them from Gcd and duty.
2. That they were given up to their enemies, arid
God’s providence did not rescue and relieve them;
{v. 18.) Our adversaries have trodden down thy
sanctuary. As it was a grief to them, that in their
captivity the generality of them had lost their affec¬
tions to God’s worship, and had their hearts har¬
dened from it by their affliction; so it was a further
grief, that they were deprived of their opportuni¬
ties of worshipping God in solemn assemblies.
They complained not so much of their adversaries
298 [SAIAI
treading down their houses and cities, as of their
treading down God’s sanctuary; because thereby
God was immediately affronted, and they were
robbed of the comforts they valued most, and took
most pleasure in.
III. The pleas they urge with God for mercy and
deliverance:
1. They plead the tender compassion God used to
show to his people, and his ability and readiness
to appear for them, v. 15. The most prevailing
arguments in prayer are those that are taken from
God himself; such these are; Where is thy zeal
and thy strength? God has a zeal for his own
glory, and for the comfort of his people; his name
is Jealous, and lie is a jealous God; and he has
strength proportionable, to secure his own glory,
and the interests of his people, in despite of all op¬
position. Now where are these? Have they not
formerly appeared? Why do they not appear now?
It cannot be, that divine zeal, which is infinitely
wise and just, should be cooled; that divine strength,
which is infinite, should be weakened. Nay, his
people had experienced not only his zeal and his
strength, but the sounding of his bowels, the yearn¬
ing of them, such a degree of compassion to them
as in men causes a commotion and toss within them,
as Hos. xi. 8. My heart is turned within me, my
refientings are kindled together; and Jer. xxxi. 20.
My bowels are troubled, or sound, for him. Thus
God is affected toward his people, thus he expresses
a multitude of mercies toward them; but where are
they now? Are they restrained? Ps. lxxvii. 9. Has
God, who so often remembered to be gracious, now
forgotten it? Has he in anger shut up his tender
mercies? It can never be. Note, We may ground
good expectations of further mercy upon our expe¬
riences of former mercy.
_ 2. They plead God’s relatio'n to them as their
Father; (v. 16.) “ Thy tender mercies are not re¬
strained, for they are the tender mercies of a father,
who, though he may be for a time displeased with
his child, will yet, through the force of natural
affection, soon be reconciled. Doubtless thou art
our Father, and therefore thy bowels will yearn
toward us.” Such good thoughts of God as these
we should always keep up in our hearts. However it
be, yet God is good; for he is our Father. (1.)
They own themselves fatherless, if he be not their
Father, and so cast themselves upon him with whom
the fatherless Jindeth mercy, Hos. xiv. 3. It was
the honour of their nation, that they had Abraham
to their father, (Matth. iii. 9.) who was the friend
of God, and Israel, who was a prince with God; but
what the better were they for that, unless they had
God himself for their Father? “Abraham and Is¬
rael cannot help us; they have not the power that
God has, they are dead long since, and are ignorant
of us, and acknowledge us not, they know not
what our case is, nor what our wants are, and there¬
fore know not which way to do us a kindness. If
Abraham and Israel were alive with us, they would
intercede for us, and advise us; but they are gone to
the other world, and we know not that they have any
communication at all with this world, and therefore
they are not capable of doing us any kindness, any
further than that we have the honour of being called
their children. ” When the father is dead, his sons
come to honour, and he knows it not; (Job xiv. 21.)
but thou, 0 Lord, art our Father still. The fathers
of our flesh may call themselves ex’er-loving, but
they are not ever-living; it is God only that is the
immortal Father, that always knows us, and is
never at a distance from us. “ Our Redeemer from
everlasting is thy name, the name by which we will
know and own thee; it is the name by which from
of old thou hast been known; thv people have
always looked upon thee as the God to whom they
, LXIV.
might appeal to right them, and plead their cause.
Nay,” (according to the sense some give of this
place,) “though Abraham and Israel not only can¬
not, but would not help us, thou wilt; they have not
the pity thou hast. We are so degenerate, and
corrupt, that Abraham and Israel would not own us
for their children, yet we fly to thee as cur Father.
Abraham cast out his son Ishmael; Jacob disin¬
herited his son Reuben, and cursed Simeon and
Levi; but our heavenly Father, in pardoning sin, is
God, and not man,” Hos. xi. 9.
3. They plead God’s interest in them, that he
was their Lord, their Owner and Proprietor; “We
are thy servants; what service we can do, thou art
entitled to, and therefore we ought not to serve
strange kings and strange gods; return for thy ser¬
vants’ sake.” As a father finds himself obliged by
natural affection to relieve and protect his child, so
a master thinks himself obliged in honour to rescue
and protect his servant; “ We are thine by the
strongest engagements, as well as the highest endear¬
ments. Thou hast borne rule over us, therefore,
Lord, assert thine own interest, maintain thine own
right; for roe are called by thy name, and therefore,
whither shall we go but to thee, to be righted and
protected? We are thine, save us; (Ps. cxix. 94.)
thine own, own us. We are the tribes of thine in¬
heritance, not only thy servants, but thy tenants; we
are thine, not only to do work for thee, but to pay
rent to thee. The tribes of Israel are God’s inheri¬
tance, whence issue the little.praise and worship that
he receives from this lower world; and wilt thou suf¬
fer thine own servants and tenants to be thus abused ?”
4. They plead that they had had but a short en¬
joyment of the land of promise and the privileges
of the sanctuary; (v. 18.) The people of thy holi¬
ness have possessed it but a little while. From Abra¬
ham to David were but fourteen generations,and fre m
David to the captivity but fourteen more; (Matth.
i. 17.) and that was but a little while in comparison
with what might have been expected from the pro¬
mise of the land of Canaan for an everlasting pos¬
session, (Gen. xvii. 8.) and from the power that
was put forth to bring them into that land, and
settle them in it; “Though we are the people of thy
holiness, distinguished from other people, and co n¬
secrated to thee, yet we are soon dislodged.” But
this they might thank themselves for; they were,
in profession, the people of God's holiness, but it
was their wickedness that turned them out of the
possession of that land.
5. They plead that those who had, and kept, pos¬
session of their land, were such as were strangers
to God, such as he had no service or honour from;
“ Thou never barest rule over them, nor did they
ever yield thee any obedience; they were not called
by thy name, but professed relation to other gods,
and were the worshippers of them. Will God suf¬
fer those that stand in no relation to him to trample
upon those that do? Some give another reading of
this; “ We are become as those whom thou didst
newer bear rule over, nor were called by thy name;
we are rejected and abandoned, despised and tram¬
pled upon, as if we never had been in thy sendee,
nor had thy name called upon us.” Thus the shield
of Saul was vilely cast away, as though he had not
been anointed with oil. But the covenant, that
seems to be forgotten, shall be remembered again.
CHAP. LXIV.
This chapter goes on with that pathetic pleading prayer,
which the church offered up to God in the latter part of
the foregoing chapter. They had argued from their co¬
venant relation to God and his interest and concern in
them; now here, I. They prav that God would appear
in some remarkable and surprising manner for them
against his and their enemies, v. 1,2. II. They plead
what God had formerly done, and was always ready to
ISAIAH, LXIV.
299
do, for his people, v. 3.«5. III. They confess them¬
selves to be sinful, and unworthy of God’s favour, and
that they had deserved the judgments they were now un¬
der, v. 6, 7. IV. They refer themselves to the mercy of
God as a Father, and submit themselves to his sove¬
reignty, v. 8. V. They represent the very deplorable
condition they were in, and earnestly pray for the par¬
don of sin, and the turning away of God’s anger, v. 9 . .
12. And this was not only intended for the use of the
captive Jews, but may serve for direction to the church
in other times of distress, what to ask of God, and how
to plead with him. Are God’s people at any time in af¬
fliction, in great affliction? Let them pray, let them thus
pray.
1. that thou wouldest rend the hea-
Vr vens, that thou wouldest come down,
that the mountains might flow down at thy
presence ; 2. As when the melting tire burn¬
etii, the fire causeth the waters to boil ; to
make thy name known to thine adversaries,
that the nations may tremble at thy pre¬
sence ! 3. When thou didst terrible things
which we looked not for, thou earnest down,
the mountains flowed down at thy presence.
4. For since the beginning of the world men
have not heard, nor perceived by the ear,
neither hath the eye seen, O God, besides
thee, ivhat he hath prepared for him that
waiteth for him. 5. Thou meetest him that
rejoiceth and worketh righteousness; those
that remember thee in thy ways: behold,
thou art wroth ; for we have sinned : in those
is continuance, and we shall be saved.
Here,
I. The petition is, that God would appear won¬
derfully for them now, v. 1, 2. Their case was re¬
presented, in the close of the foregoing chapter, as
very sad, and very hard, and in this case it was
time to cry, “ Help, Lord; O that God would mani¬
fest his zeal and his strength!” They had prayed,
(c/j. lxiii. 15.) that God would look down from hea¬
ven; here they pray that he would come down to
deliver them, as he had said, Exod. iii. 8.
1. They desire that God would in his providence
manifest himself both to them and for them. When
God works some extraordinary deliverance for his
people, he is said to shine forth, to show himself
strong; so, here, they pray that he would rend the
heavens, and come down; as when he delivered Da¬
vid, he is said to bow the heavens, and come down,
(Ps. xviii. 9.) to display his power, and justice, and
goodness, in an extraordinary manner, so that all
may take notice of them, and acknowledge them.
God’s people desire and pray, that, they themselves
having the satisfaction of seeing him, though his
way be in the sea, others may be made to see him
when his way is in the clouds. This is applicable
to the second coming of Christ, when the Lord him¬
self shall descend from heaven with a shout. Come,
Lord Jesus, come quickly.
2. Thev desire that he would vanquish all oppo¬
sition, and that it might be made to give way before
him; that the mountains might flow down at thy
firesencc, that the fire of thy wrath may burn so hot
against thine enemies, as even to dissolve the rocki¬
est mountains, and melt them down before it, as
metal in the furnace, which is made liquid, and
cast into what shape the operator pleases; so the
melting fire burns, v. 2. Let things be put into a
ferment, in order to a glorious revolution in favour
of the church, as the fire causes the waters to boil.
There is an allusion here, some think, to the volca¬
noes, or burning mountains, which sometimes send
forth such sulphureous streams as make the adja¬
cent rivers and seas to boil, which, perhaps, are
left as sensible intimations of the power of God’s
wrath, and warning-pieces of the final conflagration.
3. They desire that this may tend very much to
the glory and honour of God; may make his name
known, not only to his friends, (they knew it before,
and trusted in his power,) but to his adversaries
likewise, that they may know it, and tremble at
his presence, and may say, with the men of Bethshe
mesh, Who is able to stand before this Holy Lord
God? Who knows the {tower of his anger ? Note,
Sooner or later, God will make his name known to
his adversaries, and force those to tremble at his
presence, that would not come and worship in his
presence. God’s name, if it be not a strong hold
tor us, into which we may run and be safe, will be
a strong hold against us, out of the reach of which
we cannot run and be safe. The day is come, when
nations shall be made to tremble at the presence of
God, though they were ever so numerous and
strong.
II. The plea is, that God had appeared wonder¬
fully for his people formerly; and Thou hast, there¬
fore Thou wilt, is good arguing at the throne of
grace, Ps. x. 17.
1. They plead what he had done for his people
Israel in particular, when he brought them out of
Egypt, v. 9. He then did terrible things in the
plagues of Egypt, which they looked not for; they
despaired of deliverance, so far were they from any
thought of being delivered with such a high hand
and outstretched arm. Then he came down upon
mount Sinai in such terror, as made that and the
adjacent mountains to flow down at his presence, to
skip like rams, (Ps. cxiv. 4.) to tremble, so that
they were scattered, and the perpetual hills were
made to bow, Hab. iii. 6. In the many great sal¬
vations God wrought for that people, he did terrible
things which they looked not for, made great men,
that seemed as stately and strong as mountains, to
fall before him, and great opposition to give way.
See Judg. v. 4, 5. Ps. lxviii. 7, 8. Some refer this
to the defeat of Sennacherib’s powerful army, which
was as surprising an instance of the divine power as
the melting down of rocks and mountains would be.
2. They plead what God had been used to do,
and had declared his gracious purpose to do, for his
people in general. The provision he has made for
the safety and happiness of his people, even of all
those that seek him, and serve him, and trust in
him, is very rich and very ready, so that they need
not fear being either disappointed of it, for it is sure,
or disappointed in it, for it is sufficient.
(1.) It is very rich, v. 4. Men have not heard
nor seen what God has prepared for those that wait
for him. Observe the character of God’s people;
they are such as wait for him in the way of duty,
wait for the salvation he has promised and designed
for them. Observe where the happiness of this
people is bound up; it is what God has prepared for
them, what he has designed for them in his counsel,
and is in his providence and grace preparing for
them, and preparing them for; what he has done or
will do; so it may be read. Some of the Jewish
doctors have understood this of the blessings reserv¬
ed for the days of the Messiah, and to them the
apostle applies these words; and others extend them
to the glories of the world to come. It is all that
goodness which God has laid up for them that fear
him, and wrought for them that trust in him , Ps.
xxxi. 19. Of this it is here said, that since the be¬
ginning of the world, in the most prying and inqui¬
sitive ages of it, men have not, cither by hearing or
seeing, the two learning senses, come to the full
I knowiedge of it. None have seen, or heard, or can
300
ISAIAH, LXIV.
understand, but God himself, what the provision is,
that is made for the present and future felicity ot
holy souls. For, [l.J Much of it was concealed in
former ages; they knew it not, because the un¬
searchable riches of Christ were hid in God, were
hid from the wise and prudent; but in latter ages
they were revealed by the gospel; so the apostle
applies this, (1 Cor. ii. 9.) for it follows, (v. 10.)
But God has revealed them unto us by his Spirit;
compare Rom. xvi. 25, 26. with Eph. iii. 9. That
which men had not heard since the beginning of the
world, they should hear before the end of it, and at
the end of it should see, when the vail shall be rent
to introduce the glory that is yet to be revealed.
God himself knew what he had in store for be¬
lievers, but none knew beside him. [2.] It cannot
be fully comprehended by human understanding,
no, not when it is revealed; it is spiritual, and re¬
fined from those ideas which our minds are most
apt to receive in this world of sense; it is very great,
and will far outdo the utmost of our expectations.
Even the present peace of believers, much more
their future bliss, is such as passes all conception
and expression, Phil. iv. 7. None can comprehend
it but God himself, whose understanding is infinite.
Some give another reading of these words, referring
their transcendency not so much to the work itself
as to the Author of it; Neither has the eye seen a
god beside thee which doth so, (or has done, or can
do so,) for him that waits for him. W.e must infer
from God’s works of wondrous grace, as well as
from his works of wondrous power, from the kind
things, as well as from the great things, he does,
that there is no god like unto him, nor any among
the sons of the mighty to be compared with him.
(2.) It is very ready, (y. 5.) “ Thou meetest him
that rejoices, and works righteousness; meetest him
with that good which thou hast prepared for him,
(y. 4.) and dost not forget those that remember thee
in thy ways.” Sec here what communion there is
between a gracious God and a gracious soul: [1.]
What God expects from us, in order to our having
communion with him. First, We must make con¬
science of doing our duty in every thing, we must
work righteousness, must do that which is good,
and which the Lord our God requires of us, and
must do it well. Secondly, We must be cheerful in
doing our duty ; we must rejoice and work righteous¬
ness, must delight ourselves in God and in his law,
must be pleasant in his service, and sing at our
work. God loves a cheerful giver, a cheerful wor¬
shipper; we must serve the Lord with gladness.
Thirdly, We must conform ourselves to all the
methods of his providence concerning us, and be
suitably affected with them: must remember him in
his ways, in all the ways wherein he walks, whether
he walks towards us, or walks contrary to us; we
must mind him, and make mention of him, with
thanksgiving, when his ways are ways of mercy, for
in a day of prosperity we must be joyful, with pa¬
tience and submission when he contends with us; In
the way oj' thy judgments we have waited for thee;
and in a day of adversity wc must consider. [2. ]
We are here told what we must expect from God,
if we thus attend him in the way of duty; Thou
meetest him. This speaks the friendship, fellow¬
ship, and familiarity, to which God admits them;
he meets them to converse with them, to manifest
himself to them, and to receive their addresses,
Exod. xx. 24. — xxix. 43. It denotes likewise his
freeness and forwardness in doing them good; he
will prevent them with the blessings of his goodness,
will rejoice to do good to them that rejoice in work¬
ing righteousness, and wait to be gracious to those
that wait for him. He meets his penitent people
with a pardon, as the father of the prodigal met his
returning son, Luke xv. 20. He meets his praying
people with an answer of peace, while they are
yet speaking, ch. lxv. 24.
3. They plead the unchangeableness of God’s fa¬
vour, and the stability of his promise, notwithstand¬
ing tlie sins of his people, and his displeasure against
them fortheir sins; “ Behold, thou hast many a time
been wroth with us, because we have sinned, and
we have been under the tokens of thy wrath; but
in those, those ways of thine, the ways of mercy in
which we have remembered thee, in those is con¬
tinuance;" or, “in those thou art ever,” (his mercy
endures for ever,) “ and therefore we shall at last
be saved, though thou art wroth, and we have sin¬
ned.” This agrees with the tenor of God’s cove¬
nant, that if w e forsake the law, he will chasten our
transgression with a rod, but his loving-kindness
he will not utterly take away, his covenant he will
not break, (Ps. lxxxix. 30, See. jandby thishispeople
have been many a time saved from ruin, when they
were just upon the brink of it; see Ps. lxxviii. 38.
And by this continuance of the covenant we hope to
be saved, for its being an everlasting covenant is all
our salvation. Though God has been angry with
us for our sins, and justly, yet his anger has endured
but for a moment, and has been soon over; but in
his favour is life, because in it is continuance; in
the ways of his favour he proceeds and perseveres,
and on that we depend for our salvation; see ch.
liv. 7, 8. It is well for us, that our hopes of salva¬
tion are built not upon any merit or sufficiency of
our own, (for in that there is no certainty, even
Adam in innocency did not abide,) but upon God’s
mercies and promises, for in .those, we are sure, is
continuance.
6. But we are all as an unclean thing , and
all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags ; and
we all do fade as a leaf ; and our iniquities, like
the wind, have taken us away. 7. And
there is none that calleth upon thy name, that
stirreth up himself to take hold of thee: for
thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast con¬
sumed us, because of our iniquities. ~<l. But
now, O Lord, thou art our F ather : we are
the clay, and thou our Potter; and we all are
the work of thy hand?! 9- Be not wroth very
sore, O Lord, neither remember iniquity for
ever: behold, see, we beseech thee, we are
all thy people. 10. Thy holy cities area
wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem
a desolation- 11. Our holy and our beauti¬
ful house, where our fathers praised thee, is
burnt up with fire : and all our pleasant things
are laid waste. 12. Wilt thou refrain thyself
for these things, O Lord ? wilt thou hold thy
peace, and afflict us very sore ?
As we have the Lamentations of Jeremiah, so
here we have the Lamentations of Isaiah; the sub¬
ject of both is the same — the destruction of Jerusa¬
lem by the Chaldeans, and the sin of Israel that
brought that destruction; only with this difference,
Isaiah sees it at a distance, and laments it by the
Spirit of prophecy, Jeremiah saw it accomplished.
In these verses,
I. The people of God in their affliction confess
and bewail their sins, thereby justifying God in their
afflictions, owning themselves unworthy of his mer¬
cy, and thereby both improving their troubles, and
preparing for deliverance. Now that they were un¬
der divine rebukes for sin, they had nothing to trust
to but the mere mercy of God and the continuance
301
ISAIAH, LXIV.
of that, for amonf themselves there is none to help,
none to uphold, none to stand in the gap and make
intercession, for they are all polluted with sin, and
therefore unworthy to intercede, all careless and re¬
miss in duty, and therefore unable and unfit to do it.
1. There was a general corruption of manners
among them; (v. 6.) We are all as an unclean thing,
or, as an unclean person, as one overspread with a
leprosy, who was to be shut out of the camp. The
body of the people were like one under a ceremonial
pollution, who was not admitted into the courts of
the tabernacle; or, like one labouring under some
loathsome disease, from the crown of the head to
the sole of the foot, nothing but ivounds and bruises,
ch. i. 6. We are all by sin become not only ob¬
noxious to God’s justice, but odious to his holiness;
for sin is that abominable thing which the Lord
hates, and cannot endure to look upon. Even all
our righteousnesses are as filthy rags ; ( 1. ) The best
of our persons are so; we are all so corrupt and pol¬
luted, that even those among us who pass for righ¬
teous men, in comparison with what our fathers
were, who rejoiced and wrought righteousness, (y.
5. ) are but as filthy rags, fit to be cast to the dung¬
hill; The best of them is as a brier. (2.) The best
of our performances are so; there is not only a ge¬
neral corruption of manners, but in devotion too;
those which pass for the sacrifices of righteousness,
when they come to be inquired into, are the torn,
and the lame, and the sick, and therefore are pro¬
voking to God, as nauseous as filthy rags. Our per¬
formances, though they be ever so plausible, it we
depend upon them as our righteousness, and think
to merit by them at God’s hands, they are as filthy
rags; rags, and will not cover us; filthy rags, and
will but defile us. True penitents cast away their
idols as filthy rags, (ch. xxx. 22.) odious in their
sight; here they acknowledge even their righteous¬
ness to be so in God’s sight, if he should deal with
them in strict justice. Our best duties are so de¬
fective, and so far short of the rule, that they are as
rags, and so full of sin and corruption cleaving to
them, that they are as filthy rags. When we would
do good, evil is present with us; and the iniquity of
our holy things would be our ruin, if we were under
the law.
2. There was a general coldness of devotion
among them, v. 7. The measure was filled by
the abounding iniquity of the people, and nothing
was done to empty it. (1. ) Prayer was in a manner
neglected; “ There is none that calls on thy name,
none that seeks to thee for grace to reform us, and
take away sin, or for mercy to relieve us, and take
away the judgments which our sins have brought
upon us.” Therefore people are so bad, because
they do not pray; compare Ps. xiv. 3, 4. They are
altogether become filthy, for they call not upon the
I^ord. It bodes ill to a people, when prayer is re¬
strained among them. (2.) It was very negligently
performed; if there was here and there one that
called on God’s name, it was with a great deal of
indifference; There is none that stirs up himself to
take hold of God. Note, [1.] To pray is to take
hold of God, by faith to take hold of the promises,
and the declarations God has made of his good-will
to us, and to plead them with him; to take hold of
him as of one who is about to depart from us,
earnestly begging of him not to leave us; or of one
that is departed, soliciting his return; to take hold
of him, as he that wrestles takes hold of him he
wrestles with; for the seed of. Jacob wrestle with
him, and so prevail. But when we take hold of God,
it is as the boatman with his hook takes hold on
the shore as if he would pull the shore to him, but
really it is to pull himself to the shore; so we pray,
not to bring God to our mind, but to bring ourselves
'o his. [2.] Those that would take hold of God in
| prayer so as to prevail with him, must stir up
themselves to do it; all that is within us must be
employed in the duty, (and all little enough) cur
thoughts fixed, and our affections flaming. In order
hereunto, all that is within us must be engaged, and
summoned into the service; we must stir up the g ft
that is in us, by an actual consideration cf the im¬
portance ol the work that is be fore us, and a close
application of mind to it; but how can we expect
that God should come to us in ways of mercy, when
there are none that do this, when those that profess
to be intercessors are mere triflers?
II. They acknowledge their afflictions to be the
fruit and product c t their own sins and God’s wrath.
1. 1 hey brought their troubles upon themselves
by their own tolly; “We are all as an unclean
thing, and therefore we do all fade away as a leaf;
(t\ 6.) we not only wither and lose our beauty, but
we fall and dropoff,” (so the word signifies) “as
leaves in autumn; our profession of religion withers,
•and we grow dry and sapless; our prosperity withers
and comes to nothing; we fall to the ground, as
despicable and contemptible; and then our iniquities
like the wind have taken us away, and hurried us
into captivity, as the winds in autumn blow off, and
then blow away, the faded, withered leaves,” Ps. i.
3, 4. Sinners are blasted, and then carried awav,
by the malignant and violent wind of their own
iniquity; it withers them, and then ruins them.
2. God brought their troubles upon them bv his
wrath, ( v . 7.) Thou hast hid thy face from us; been
displeased with us, and refused to afford us any suc¬
cour. When they made themselves as an unclean
thing, no wonder that God turned his face away from
them, as loathing them. Yet this was not all ; Thou
hast consumed us because of our iniquities. This is
the same complaint with that, (Ps. xc. 7, 8.) We
are consumed by thine anger; thou hast melted tts,
so the word is. God had them in the furnace, not
to consume them as dross, but to melt them as gold,
that they might be refined and new-cast.
III. They claim relation to God as their God,
and humbly plead it with him, and in consideration
of it cheerfully refer themselves to him; (v. 8.)
“ Sut now, O Lord, thou art our Father: though
we have conducted ourselves very undutifully and
ungratefully toward thee, yet still we have owned
thee as our Father; and though thou hast corrected
us, yet thou hast not cast us off; foolish and careless
as we are, poor and' despised, and trampled upon
as we are by our enemies, yet still thou art our
Lather; to thee therefore we return in our repent¬
ance, as the prodigal arose, and came to his father;
to thee we apply ourselves by prayer; from whom
should we expect relief and succour but from our
Father? It is the wrath of a Father that we are
under, who will be reconciled, and not keep his
anger for ever.” God is their Father, 1. By crea¬
tion; he gave them their being, formed them into a
people, shaped them as he pleased; We are the
clay, and thou our Potter, therefore we will net
quarrel with thee, however thou art pleased to deal
with us, Jer. xviii. 6. Nay, therefore we will hope
that thou wilt deal well with us, thjit thou who
madest us will new-make us, new-form us, though
we have unmade and deformed ourselves. W e are
all as an unclean thing, but we are all the work of
thy hands, therefore do away our uncleanness, th.it
we may be fit for thy use, the use we were made
for. We are the work of thy hands, therefore for¬
sake us not, Ps. cxxxviii. 8.’ 2. By covenant; this
is pleaded, v. 9. “ Behold , see, we beseech thee,
we are all thy people, all the people thou hast in the
world that make open profession of thy name. We
are called thy people, our neighbours look upon us
as such, and therefore what we suffer reflects upon
thee; and the relief that our case requin s is ex-
ISAIAH, LXV.
pected from thee. We are thy people; and should
not a fieofile seek unto their God ? eh. viii. 19. We
are thine; save us,” Ps. cxix. 94. Note, When we
are under providential rebukes from God, it is
good to keep fast hold of our covenant relation to
him.
IV. They are importunate with God for the
turning away of his anger, and the pardoning of
their sins; (x\ 9 ) “Be not wroth very sore, O
Lord, though we have deserved that thou shouldest,
neither remember iniquity for ever against us.”
They do not expressly pray for the removal of the
judgment they were under, as to that, they refer
themselves to God. But, 1. They pray that God
would be reconciled to them, and then they can be
easy, whether the affliction be continued or re¬
moved; “ Be not wroth to extremity, but let thine
anger be mitigated by the clemency and compassion
of a father.” They do not say, Lord rebuke us not,
for that may be necessary, but, Not in thine anger,
not in thy hot displeasure. It is but in a little wrath
that God hides his face. 2. They pray that they
may not be dealt with according to the desert of
their sin; Neither remember iniquity for ever.
Such is the evil of sin, that it deserves to be remem¬
bered for ever; and this is that which they depre¬
cate, that consequence of sin, which is for ever.
Those make it to appear that they are truly hum¬
bled under the hand of God, who are more afraid
of the terror of God’s wrath and the fatal conse¬
quences of their own sin, than of any judgment
whatsoever, looking upon these as the sting of death.
V. They lodge in the court of heaven a very
melancholy representation, or memorial of the
melancholy condition they were in, and the ruins
they were groaning under.
1. Their own houses were in ruins, v. 10. The
cities of Judah were destroyed by the Chaldeans,
and the inhabitants of them were carried away, so
that there was none to repair them or take any no¬
tice of them; which would in a few years make
them look like perfect deserts; Thy holy cities are a
wilderness. The cities of Judah are called holy
cities, for the people were unto God a kingdom of
priests. The cities had synagogues in them, in
which God was served; and therefore they lament¬
ed the ruins of them, and insisted upon this in
pleading with God for them, not so much that they
were stately cities, rich or ancient ones, but that
they were holy cities, cities in which God’s name
was known, professed, and called upon; these cities
are a wilderness, the beauty of them is sullied, they
are neither inhabited nor visited, as formerly; They
have burnt ufi all the synagogues of God in the
land, Ps. lxxiv. 8. Nor was it only the lesser cities
that were thus left as a wilderness unfrequented,
but even Zion is a wilderness, the city of David
itself lies in ruins, Jerusalem, that was beautiful for
situation and the joy of the whole earth, is now de¬
formed, and is become the scorn and scandal of the
whole earth; that noble city is a desolation, a heap
of rubbish. See what devastations sin brings upon
a people; and an external profession of sanctity will
be no fence against them; holy cities, if they become
wicked cities, will be soonest of all turned into a
wilderness, Amos iii. 2.
2. God’s house was in ruins, v. 11. This they
lament most of all, that the temfile was burned with
fire; but, as soon as it was built, they were told
what their sin would bring it to; (2 Chron. vii. 21.)
This house which is high shall be an astonishment.
Observe how pathetically they bewail the ruins of
the temple; (1.) It was their holy and beautiful
house; it was a most sumptuous building, but the
holiness of it was, in their eye, the greatest beauty
of it, and, consequently, the profanation of it was
he saddest part of its desolation, and that which
grieved them most, that the sacred services which
used to be performed there, were discontinued.
(2.) It was the place where their fathers praised
God with their sacrifices and songs; what pity is it
that that should lie in ashes, which had been for so
many ages the glory of their nation! It aggravated
their present disuse of the songs of Zion, that their
fathers had so often praised God with them. They
interest God in the cause, when they plead that it
was the house where he had been praised, and put
him in mind too of his covenant with their fathers,
by taking notice of their fathers praising him. (3. )
With it all their pleasant things were laid waste;
all their desires and delights, all those things which
were employed by them in the service of God,
which they had a great delight in: not only the fur¬
niture of the temple, the altars and table, but
especially the sabbaths and new moons, and all
their religious feasts, which they used to keep with
gladness; their ministers and solemn assemblies,
these were all a desolation. Note, God’s people
reckon their sacred things their most delectable
things; rob them of holy ordinances and the means
of grace, and you lay waste all their pleasant things;
What have they more? Observe here how God
and his people have their interests twisted and in¬
terchanged; when they speak of the cities for their
own habitation, they call them thy holy cities, for
to God they were dedicated; when they speak of
the temple wherein God dwelt, they call it our
beautiful house, and its furniture our pleasant things,
for they had heartily espoused it, and all the inter¬
ests of it. If thus we interest God in all our con¬
cerns by devoting them to his service, and interest
ourselves in all his concerns by laying them near
our hearts, we may with satisfaction leave both
with him, for he will perfect both.
VI. They conclude with an affectionate expos¬
tulation, humbly arguing with God concerning their
present desolations; (r>. 12.) “ Wilt thou refrain
thyself for these things? Or, Const thou contain
thyself at these things ? Canst thou see thy temple
ruined, and not resent it, not revenge it? Has the
jealous God forgotten to be jealous, (Ps. lxxiv. 22.)
Arise, O God, plead thine own cause. Lord, thou
art insulted, thou art blasphemed; and wilt thou
hold thy peace, and take no notice of it? Shall the
highest affronts that can be done to heaven, pass
unrebuked?” When we are abused, we hold our
peace, because vengeance does not belong to us,
and because we have a God to refer our cause to.
When God is injured in his honour, it may justly be
expected that he should speak in the vindication of
it; his people prescribe not to him what he shall
sav, but their prayer is, (as here,) Ps. lxxxiii. 1.
Keep not thou silence, O God and Ps. cix. 1.
“ Hold not thy peace , 0 God of my praise. Speak
for the conviction of thine enemies, speak for the
comfort and relief of thy people; for wilt thou afflict
us very sore, or afflict us for ever ? It is a sore
affliction to good people, to see God’s sanctuary laid
waste, and nothing done toward the raising of it out
of its ruins. But God has said that he will not con¬
tend for ever, and therefore his people may depend
upon it, that their afflictions shall be neither to
extremity, nor to eternity, but light, and for a mo¬
ment.
CHAP. LXV.
We are now drawing toward the conclusion of this evan¬
gelical prophecy, ihf two last chapters of which direct
us to look as far forward as the new heavens and the
new earth, the new world which the gospel-dispensation
should bring in, and the separation that should by it be
made between the precious and the vile; For judgment
(says Christ) am I come into this world. And why
should it seem absurd that the prophet here should spealt
of that to which all the prophets bare witness ? 1 Pel. i.
303
ISAIAH, LXV.
iO, 11. The rejection of the Jews, and the calling in of the
Gentiles, are often mentioned in the New Testament, as
that which was foreseen and foretold by the prophets,
»1cts x. 43. — xiii. 40. Rom. xvi. 26. In this chapter, we
have, I. The preventing of the Gentiles with the gospel
call, v. I. II. The rejection of the Jews for their obsti¬
nacy and unbelief, v. 2.. 7. III. The saving of a rem¬
nant of them, by bringing them into the gospel church,
v. 8 . . 10. IV. The judgments of God, that should pur¬
sue the rejected Jews, v. 11.. 16. V. The blessings
reserved for the Christian church, which should be its
joy and glory, v. 17.. 25. But these things are here
prophesied of under the type and figure of the difference
God would make between some and others of the Jews,
after their return out of captivity, between those that
feared God and those that did not; with reproofs of the
sins then found among them, and promises of the bless¬
ings then in reserve for them.
1. TAM sought of them that asked not for
JL me ; 1 am found of them that sought
me not : I said, Behold me, behold me, un¬
to a nation that was not called by my name.
2. I have spread out my hands all the day
unto a rebellious people, which walketh in
a way that was not good, after their own
thoughts. 3. A people that provoketh me
to anger continually to my face; that sacri-
ficeth in gardens, and burneth incense upon
altars of brick; 4. Which remain among
the graves, anti lodge in the monuments ;
which eat swine’s flesh, and broth of abomi¬
nable things is in their vessels ; 5. Which
say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me ;
for I am holier than thou. These are a
smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all
the day. 6. Behold, .it is written before
me ; I will not keep silence, but will recom¬
pense, even recompense into their bosom,
7. Your iniquities, and the iniquities of your
fathers together, saith the Lord, which
have burnt incense upon the mountains,
and blasphemed me upon the hills: there¬
fore will I measure their former work into
'heir bosom.
The apostle Paul (an expositor we may depend
upon) has given us the true sense of these verses,
and told us what was the event they pointed at, and
were fulfilled in, namely, the calling in of the Gen¬
tiles, and the rejection of the Jews, by the preach¬
ing of the gospel, Rom. x. 20, 21. And he observes,
that herein Esaias is very bold, not only in fore¬
telling a thing so improbable ever to be brought
about, but in foretelling it to the Jews, who would
take it as a gross affront to their nation, and therein
Moses’s words would be made good, (Deut. xxxii.
21. ) / will provoke you to jealousy by them that are
no people.
I. It is here foretold that the Gentiles, who had
been afar off, should be made nigh, v. 1. Paul
reads it thus, I was found of them that sought me
not, I was made manifest to them that asked not for
me. Observe what a wonderful and blessed change
was made with them, and how they were surprised
into it, 1. Those who had long been without God in
the world, shall now be set a-seeking him; those
who had not said, Where is God my Maker? shall
now begin to inquire after him : neither they nor
their fathers had called upon his name, but either
lived without prayer, or prayed to stocks and stones,
the work of men’s hands. But now they shall be
baptized, and call on the name of the Lord, Acts ii.
21. With what pleasure docs the great God here
speak of his being sought unto, and how does he
glory in it; especially by those who in time past had
not asked for him! For there is joy in heaven over
great sinners who repent. 2. God shall prevent
their prayers with his blessings; I am found of them
that sought me not. This happy acquaintance and
correspondence between God and the Gentile world
began on his side; they came to know God because
they were known of him, (Gal. iv. 9.) to seek God
and find him because, they were first sought and
found of him. Though in after-communion God is
found of those that seek him, (Prov. viii. 17.) yet
in the first conversion he is found of those that seek
him not; for therefore we love him, because he first
loved us. The design of the bounty of common
providence to them, was, that they might seek the
Lord, if haply they should feel after him, and find
him, Acts xvii. 27. But they sought him not, still
he was to them an unknown God, and yet God was
found of them. 3. God gave the advantages of a
divine revelation to them who had never made a
profession of religion; I said, Behold me, behold me,
gave them a sight of me, and invited them to take
the comfort and benefit of it, who were not called
by my name, as the Jews for many ages had been.
When the apostles went about from place to place,
preaching the gospel, this was the substance of
what they preached: “ Behold God, behold him,
turn toward him, fix the eyes of your minds upon
him, acquaint yourselves with him, admire him,
adore him; look off your idols that you have made,
and look upon the living God who made you.”
Christ in them said. Behold me, behold me with an
eye of faith; look unto me and be ye saved. And
this was said to those that had long been lo-ammi,
and lo-r.uhamah, (Hos. i. 8, 9.) not a people, and
that had not obtained mercy, Rom. ix. 25, 26.
II. It is here foretold that the Jews, who had long
been a people near to God, should be cast off and set
at a distance, v. 2. The apostle applies this to the
Jews in his time, as a seed of evil-doers; (Rom. x.
21.) But to Israel he saith, Jill day long have I
stretched forth my hand unto a disobedient and gain¬
saying people. Where observe, 1. How the Jews
were courted to the divine grace. God himself, by
his prophets, by his Son, by his apostles, stretched
forth his hands to them, as Wisdom did, Prov. i.
24. God spread out his hands to them, as one rea¬
soning and expostulating with them; not only beck¬
oned to them with the finger, but spread out his
hands, as being ready to embrace and entertain
them; reaching forth the tokens of his favour to
them, and importuning them to accept of them.
When Christ was crucified, his hands were spread
out and stretched forth, as if he were preparing to
receive returning sinners into his bosom; and this
all the day, all the gospel-day; he waited to be
gracious, and was not weary of waiting; even those
that came in at the eleventh hour of the day were
not rejected. 2. How they contemned the invita¬
tion; it was given to a rebellious and gainsaying
people; they were bidden to the wedding supper,
and would not come, but rejected the counsel of
God against themselves. Now here we have,
(1.) The bad character of this people; the world
shall see that it is not for nothing that they are re¬
jected of God; no, it is for their whoredoms that
they are put away. Their character in general is
such as one would not expect them to deserve, who
had been so much the favourites of Heaven. [1.]
They were very wilful; right or wrong they would
do as they had a mind. “ They generally walk on
in a way that is not good, not the right wav, not a
safe way, for they walk after their own thoughts,
their own devicesand desires.” If our guide be our
own thoughts, our way is not likely to be good; for
304
ISAIAH, LXV.
every imagination of the thought of our hearts is
only evil. God had told them his thoughts, what
his mind and will were, but they would walk, after
their own thoughts, would do what they thought
best. [2.] They were very provoking! this was
God’s complaint of them all along— they grieved
him, they vexed his Holy Spirit, as if they would
contrive how to make him their Enemy. They
provoke me to anger continually to my face. They
cared not what affront they gave to God, though it
were in his sight and presence, in a downright con¬
tempt of his authority, and defiance of his justice;
and this continually ; it had been their way and
manner ever since they were a people; witness the
day of temptation in the wilderness.
The prophet speaks more particularly of their
iniquities, and the iniquities of their fathers, as the
ground of God’s casting them off, v. 7. Now he
gives instances of both.
First, The most provoking iniquity of their fa¬
thers was, idolatry; this, the prophet tells them,
was provoking God to his face; and it is an iniquity
which, as appears by the second commandment,
God often visits upon the children. This was the
sin that brought them into captivity, and, though
the captivity pretty well cured them of it, yet, when
the final ruin of that nation came, that was again
brought into the account against them; for in the
day when God visits, he will visit that, Exod. xxxii.
34" Perhaps there were many, long after the cap¬
tivity, who, though they did not worship other gods,
were yet guilty of the disorders here mentioned; for
they married strange wives. 1. They forsook
God’s temple, and sacrificed in gardens or groves,
that they might have the satisfaction of doing it in
their own way, for they liked not God’s institutions.
2. They forsook God’s altar, and burned incense
upon bricks, altars of their own contriving; they
burned incense according to their own inventions,
which were of no more value, in comparison with
God’s institution, than an altar of bricks in compari¬
son with the golden altar which God appointed
them to- burn incense on: or upon tiles, so some read
it; such as they covered their flat-roofed houses
with, and on them sometimes they burned incense
to their idols, as appears, 2 Kings xxxiii. 12. where
we read of altars on the top of the upper chamber
of Ahaz, and Jer. xix. 13. of their burning incense
to the host of heaven upon the roofs of their houses.
3. “ They use necromancy, or consulting with the
dead, and, in order to that, they remain among the
graves, and lodge in the monuments ,” to seek for
the living to the dead, ( ch . viii. 19. ) as the witch of
Endor. Or, They used to consult the evil spirits
that haunted the sepulchres. 4. They violated the
laws of God about their meat, and broke through
the distinction between clean and unclean, before it
was taken away by the gospel. They ate swine's
flesh; some indeed chose rather to die than to do
it, as Eleazer and the seven brethren in the story
of the Maccabees. But it is probable that many ate
of it, especially when it came to be a condition of
life. In our Saviour’s time, we read of a vast herd
of swine among them; which gives us cause to sus¬
pect that there were many then who made so little
conscience of the law as to eat swine’s flesh, for
which they were justly punished in the destruction
of the swine. And the broth, or pieces, of other for¬
bidden meats, called here abominable things, was
in their vessels, and made use of for food. The
forbidden meat is called an abomination, and they
that meddle with it arc said to make themselves
abominable. Lev. xi. 42, 43. Those that durst not
eat the meat, yet made bold with the broth, because
they would come as near as might be to that which
was forbidden, to show how they coveted the for¬
bidden fruit. Perhaps this is here put figuratively
for all forbidden pleasures and profits which are
obtained by sin, that abominable thing which the
Lord hates; they loved to be dallying with it, to be
tasting of its broth. But those who thus take a
pride in venturing upon the borders of sin, and the
brink of it, are in danger of falling into the depths
of it. But,
Secondly, The most provoking iniquity of the
Jews in cur Saviour’s time was, their pride and hy¬
pocrisy, that sin of the scribes and Pharisees,
against which Christ deni unced so many woes, y. 5.
They say, “Standby thyself, keep off;” (get thee
to thine, so the ( riginal is;) “ keep to thy own com¬
panions, b\it come not near to me, lest tin u pollute
me; touch me not, I will not allow thee any fami¬
liarity with me, for I am holier that: thou, and
therefore thou art not good enough to converse with
me; lam not as other men are, nor even as this
J mblican .” This they were ready to say to every'
one they met with, so that, in saying, I am holier
than thou, they thought themselves holier than any;
not only very good, as good as they should be, as
good as they needed to be, but better than any of
their neighbours. These are a smoke in my nose,
(says God,) such a smoke as comes not frem a
quick fire, which soon becomes glowing and pleasant,
but from a fire of wet wood, which burns all the
day, and is nothing but smoke. Note, Nothing in
men is more odious and offensive to God than a
proud conceit of themselves, and contempt of others;
for commonly those are most unholy of all, that
think themselves holier than any.
(2.) The controversy God had with them for
this. The proof against them is plain; Behold, it
is written before me, v. 6. It is written, to be re¬
membered against them in time to ccme; for they
may not perhaps be immediately reckoned with.
The sins of sinners, and particularly the vainglo¬
rious boasts and scorns of hypocrites, are laid up in
store with God, Deut. xxxii. 34. And what is
written shall be read and proceeded upon; “ I will
not keep silence always, though I may keep silence
long.” They shall not think him altogether such a
one as themselves, as sometimes they have done;
but he will recompense, even recompense into their
bosom. Those basely abuse religion, that honoura¬
ble and sacred thing, who make their profession of
it the matter of their pride, and the jealous God
will reckon with them for it; the profession they
boast of shall but serve to aggravate their condem¬
nation. [1.] The iniquity of their fathers shall
come against them; not but that their own sin. de¬
served whatever judgments God brought upon
them, and much heavier; and they owned it, Ezra
ix. 13. But God would not have wrought so great
a desolation upon them, if he had not therein had
an eye to the sins of their fathers. Therefore in
the last destruction of Jerusalem God is said to
bring upon them the blood of the Old Testament
martyrs, even that of Abel, Matth. xxiii. 35. God
will reckon with them, not only for their fathers
idols but for their high places, their burning incens,
upon the mountains and the hills, though perhaps it
was to the true God only. This was blaspheming
or reproaching God, it was a reflection upon the
choice he had made of the place where he would
record his name, and the promise he had made,
that there he would meet them, and bless them.
[2.] Their own with that shall bring ruin upon
them; Your iniquities, and the iniquities of your
fathers together, the one aggravating the other,
constitute the former work, which though it may
seem to be overlooked and forgotten, shall be mea¬
sured into their bosom. God will render into the
bosom, not only of his open enemies, (Ps. lxxix. 12.)
but of his false and treacherous friends, the reproach
wherewith they have repreae ted /,im.
3G&
ISAIAH, LXV.
8. Thussaith the Lord, As the new wine
is found in the cluster, and one saith, Destroy
it not; for a blessing is in it: so will I do for
my servants1 sakes, that 1 may not destroy
them all. 9. And 1 will bring forth a seed
out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor
of my mountains: and mine elect shall in¬
herit it, and my servants shall dwell there.
1 0. And Sharon shall be a fold of flocks, and
the valley of Achor a place for the herds to
lie down in, for my people that have sought
me.
This is expounded by St. Paul, Rom. xi. 1. — 5,
where, when upon occasion of the rejection of the Jews,
it is asked, Hath God then cast away his people? he
answers, No; for, at this time there is a remnant ac¬
cording to the election of grace. This prophecy lias
reference to that distinguished remnant. When
that hypocritical nation is to be destroyed, God wi 1
separate and secure to himself some from among
them; some of the Jews shall be brought to em¬
brace the Christian faith, shall be added to the
church, and so be saved. And our Saviour has
told us, that for the sake of these elect, the days of
the destruction of the Jews should be shortened, and
a stop put to the desolation, which otherwise would
have proceeded to that degree, that no flesh should
be saved, Matth. xxiv. 22. Now,
1. This is illustrated here by a comparison, v. 8.
When a vine is so blasted and withered, that there
seems to be no sap or life in it, and therefore the
dresser of the vineyard is inclined to pluck it up, or
cut it down, yet, if ever so little of the juice ot the
grape, fit to make new wine, be found, though but
in one cluster, a stander-by interposes, and says,
Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it; there is life in
the root, and hope that yet it may become good for
something. Good men are blessings to the places
where they live; and sometimes God spares whole
cities and nations for the sakeof a few such in them.
How ambitious should we be of this honour, not only
to be distinguished from others, but serviceable to
others!
2. Here is a description of those that shall make
up this saved saving remnant; (1.) They are such
as serve God; It is for my servant’s sake, (v. 8.)
and they are my servants that shall dwell there, v.
9. God’s faithful servants, however they are looked
upon, are the best friends their country has; and
those who serve him, therein serve their generation.
(2.) They are such as seek God; as make it the
end of their lives to glorify God, and the business of
their lives to call upon him. It is for my people
that have sought ?ne. They that seek God shall
find him, and shall find him their bountiful Re¬
warder.
3. Here is an account of the mercy God has in
store for them. The remnant that shall return out
of captivity shall have a happy settlement again in
their own land, and that by an hereditary right, as
a seed out of Jacob, in whom the family is kept up
and the entail preserved; and from whom, as from
the seed sown, shall spring a numerous increase;
and these typify the remnant of Jacob that shall be
incorporated into the gospel-church by faith. (1.)
They shall have a good portion for themselves;
They shall inherit my mountains, the holy moun¬
tains on which Jerusalem and the temple were built:
or, the mountains of Canaan, the land of promise, ty¬
pifying the covenant of grace, which all God’s ser¬
vants, his elect, both inhabit and inherit; they make
it their refuge, their rest and residence, so they
dwell in it, are at home in it; and they have taken
Vol. iv. — 2 Q
it to bev their heritage for ever, and it shall be to
them an inheritance incorruptible. God’s chosen,
the spiritual seed of praying Jacob, shall be the in¬
heritors of his mountains of bliss and joy, and shall
be carried safe to them through the vale of tears.
(2. ) 1 hey shall have a green pasture for their flocks,
v. 10. Sharon and the valley of Achor shall again be
as well replenished as ever they were, with cattle.
Sharon lay westward, near Joppa. Achor lay east¬
ward, near Jordan; which intimates, that they shall
recover the possession of the whole lurid, that they
shall have wherewith to stock it all, and that they
shall peaceably enjoy it, and there shall be none to
disturb them, or make them afraid. Gospel-ordi¬
nances are the fields and valleys where the sheep
of Christ shall go in and out, and find pasture,
(John x. 9.) and where they are made to lie down,
(Ps. xxiii. 2.) as Israel’s herds in the valley of
Achor, Hos. ii. 15.
11. But ye are they that forsake the
Lord, that forget my holy mountain, that
prepare a table for that troop, and that fur¬
nish the drink-offering unto that number.
12. Therefore will I number you to the
sword, and ye shall all bow down to the
slaughter: because when I called, ye did
not answer; when I spake, ye did not hear;
but did evil before mine eyes, and did
choose that wherein I delighted not. 13.
Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold,
my servants shall eat, but ye shall be hun¬
gry: behold, my servants shall drink, but
ye shall be thirsty: behold, my servants
shall rejoice, but ye shall be ashamed: 14.
Behold, my servants shall sing for joy of
heart, but ye shall cry for sorrow of heart,
and shall howl for vexation of spirit. 1 5.
And ye shall leave your name for a curse
unto my chosen : for the Lord God shall
slay thee, and call his servants by another
name : 16. That he who blesseth himself in
the earth, shall bless himself in the God of
truth ; and he that sweareth in the earth,
shall swear by the God of truth; because
the former troubles are forgotten, and be¬
cause they are hid from mine eyes.
Here the different states of the godly and wicked,
of the Jews that believed, and of those that still per¬
sisted in unbelief, are set the one over against the
other, as life and death, good and evil, the blessing
and the curse.
I. Here is the fearful doom of those that persisted
in their idolatry after the deliverance out of- Baby¬
lon, and in infidelity after the preaching of the gos¬
pel of Christ. The doom is the same upon both;
(v. 12.) “ I will number you to the sword, as sheep'
for the slaughter, and there shall be no escaping,
no standing out, ye shall all bow down to it.” God’s
judgments come, 1. Regularly, and are executed
according to the commission. Those fall by the
sword, that are numbered or counted out to it, and
none besides. Though the sword seems to devour
promiscuously one as well as another, yet it is made
to know its number, and shall not exceed. 2. Ir¬
resistibly; the strongest and most stout-hearted sin¬
ners shall be forced to bow before them; for none
ever hardened their hearts against God, and pros¬
pered. Now observe what the sins are, that num¬
ber them to the sword.
306
ISAIAH, LXV.
(1.) Idolatry was the ancient sin; (v. 11.) “ Ye
are they , who instead of seeking- we, and serving me
as my people, forsake the Lord, disown him, and
cast him off to 'embrace other gods; who forget my
holy mountain, (the privileges it confers, and the
obligations it lays you under,) to burn incense upon
the mountains of your idols, (u. 7.) and have de¬
serted the only living and true God.” They pre-
fiared a table for that troofi of deities, which the
heathen worship, and pour out drink-offerings to
that numberless number of them; for they that
thought one God too little, never thought scores and
hundreds sufficient, but were still adding to the
number of them, till they had as many gods as
cities, and their altars were as thick as heaps in the
furrows of the field, Hos. xii. 11. Some take Gad
and Meni, which we translate a troop and a num¬
ber, to be the proper names of two of their idols,
answering to Jupiter and Mercury; whatever they
were, their worshippers spared no cost to do them
honour; they prepared a table for them, and filled
out mixed wine for drink-offerings to them; they
would pinch their families rather than stint their
devotions, which should shame the worshippers of
the true God out of their niggardliness.
(2.) Infidelity was the sin of the latter Jews;
(r. 12.) When I called ye did not answer; which
l efers to the same that v. 2. did, I have stretched
out my hands to a rebellious people; and that is ap¬
plied to those who rejected the gospel. Our Lord
Jesus himself called, (he stood and cried, John vii.
37.) but they did not hear, they would not answer;
they were not convinced by his reasonings, nor
moved by his expostulations; both the fair warnings
he gave them of death and ruin, and the fair offers
he made them of life and happiness, were slighted,
and made no impression upon them. Yet this was
not all; Ye did evil before mine eyes, not by sur¬
prise, or through inadvertency, but with delibera¬
tion; Ye did choose that wherein I delighted not; he
means, which he utterly detested and abhorred.
It is not strange that those who will not be persuaded
to choose that which is good, persist in their choice
and pursuit of that which is evil. See the malignity
of sin; it is evil in God’s eyes, highly offensive to
him, and yet it is committed before his eyes, in his
sight and presence, and in contempt of him; it is
likewise a contradiction to the will of God; it is
doing that, of choice, which we know will displease
him.
II. The aggravation of this doom, from the con¬
sideration of the happy state of those that were
brought to repentance and faith. The blessedness
of those that serve God, and the woful condition of
those that rebel against him, are here set the
one over against the other, that they may serve as
a foil to each other, v. 13. — 16. 1. God’s servants
may well think themselves happy, and for ever in¬
debted to that free grace which made them so,
when they see how miserable some of their neigh¬
bours are, for want of that grace, who are hardened,
and likely to perish for ever in unbelief, and what a
narrow escape they had of being among them. See
ch. lxvi. 24. 2. It will add to the grief of those that
perish, to see the happiness of God’s servants, whom
they had hated and vilified, and looked upon with the
utmost disdain; and especially to think that they
might have shared in their bliss, if it had not been
their own fault. It made the torment of the rich
man in hell the more grievous, that he saw Abra¬
ham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom; (Luke
xvi. 23. j see Luke xiii. 28. Sometimes the provi¬
dence of Gocj makes such a difference as this be¬
tween good and bad in this world, and the pros¬
perity of the righteous becomes a grievous eye-sore
and vexation of heart to the wicked, Ps. cxii. 10.
It will, however, be so in the great day; We fools
counted his life madness, and his end without ho¬
nour; but now, how is he numbered with the saints,
and his lot is among the chosen l
Now the difference of their states here lies in two
things:
(1.) In point of comfort and satisfaction. [1.] God’s
servants shall eat and drink; they shall have the
bread of life to feed, to feast upon continually, shall
be abundantly replenished with the goodness of his
house, and shall want nothing that is good for them.
Heaven’s happiness will be to them ; n everlasting
feast; they shall be filled with that which now they
hunger and thirst after. But those who set their
hearts upon the world, and place their happiness
in that, shall be hungrv and thirsty, always empty,
always craving; for it is not bread, it surfeits, but it
satisfies not. In communion with God, and depen¬
dence upon him, there is full satisfaction, but in
sinful pursuits there is nothing but disappointment.
[2.] God’s servants shall rejoice and sing for joy of
heart; they have constant cause for joy, and there
is nothing that may be an occasion of grief to them,
but they have an allay sufficient for it. As far as
faith is an act and exercise, they have a heart to
rejoice, and their joy is their strength. They shall
rejoice in their hope, because it shall not make
them ashamed. Heaven will be a world of ever¬
lasting joy to all that are now sowing in tears. But,
on the other hand, they that forsake the Lord shut
themselves out from all true joy, for they shall be
ashamed of their vain confidence in themselves, and
their own righteousness, and the hopes they had
built thereon. When the expectations of bliss,
wherewith they had flattered themselves, are frus¬
trated, O what confusion will fill their faces! Then
shall they cry for sorrow of heart, and howl fot
vexation of spirit; perhaps in this world, when
their laughter shall be turned into mourning and
their joy into heav iness; at furthest, in that world,
where the torment will be endless, easelcss, and
remediless; nothing but weeping, and wailing, and
gnashing of teeth, to eternity. Let these two be
compared; JVow he is comforted, and Thou art tor¬
mented; and which of the two will we choose to
take our lot with?
(2.) In point of honour and reputation, v. 15, 16.
The memory of the just is, and shall be, blessed,
but the name of the wicked shall rot. [1.] The
name of the idolaters and unbelievers shall be left
for a curse, shall be loaded with ignominy, and made
for ever infamous. It shall be used in giving bad
characters — Thou art as cruel as a Jew; and in im¬
precations — God make thee as miserable as a Jew.
It shall be for a curse to God’s chosen, for a warn¬
ing to them ; they shall be afraid of falling under
the curse upon the Jewish nation; of perishing by
the same example of unbelief. The curse of those
whom God rejects, should make his chosen stand in
awe. The Lord God shall slay thee; he shall quite
extirpate the Jews, and cut them off from being a
people; they shall no longer live as a nation, nor
ever be incorporated again. [2.] The name of
God’s chosen shall become a blessing; He shall call
his servants by another name. The children of the
covenant shall no longer be called Jews, but Chris¬
tians; and to them, under that name, all the pro¬
mises and privileges of the new covenant shall be
secured. This other name shall be an honourable
name; it shall not be confined to one nation, but
with it men shall bless themselves in the earth, all
the world over. God shall have servants out of all
nations, that shall all be dignified with this new
name. First, They shall give honour to God both
in their prayers and in their solemn oaths; in their
addresses for his favour as their felicity, and their
appeals to his justice as their Judge. This is a part
of the homage we owe to God; we must bless our-
307
ISAIAH, LXV.
stives in him, we must reckon that we have enough
to make us happy, that we need no more, and can
desire no more, it we have him for our God. It is
of great consequence to determine what that is,
which we bless ourselves in, which we most please
ourselves with, and value ourselves by our interest
in. Worldly people bless themselves in the abun¬
dance they have of this world’s goods; (Ps. xlix. 18.
Luke xii. 19.) but God’s servants bless themselves
in him, as a God all-sufficient for them. He is their
Crown of glory and Diadem of beauty, their Strength
and Portion. By him also they shall swear, and not
by any creature or any false god. To his judgment
they shall refer themselves, from whom every
man’s judgment doth proceed. Secondly, They
shall give honour to him as the God of truth; the
God of the Amen; so the word is. Some understand
it of Christ, who is himself the Amen, the faithful
Witness, (Rev. iii. ,14. ) and in whom all the pro¬
mises are yea and amen, 2 Cor. i. 20. In him we
must bless ourselves, and by him we must swear
unto the Lord, and covenant with him. He that is
blessed in the earth, (so some read it,) shall be bless¬
ed in the true God, for Christ is th% true God, and
eternal life, 1 John v. 20. And it was promised of
jpld that in him should all the families of the earth
be blessed, Gen. xii. 3. Some read it, He shall
bkss himself in the God of the faith ful fieofile; in
God as the God of all believers; desiring no more
than to share in the blessings wherewith they are
blessed, to be dealt with as he deals with them.
Thirdly, They shall give him honour as the Author
of this blessed change, which they have the experi¬
ence of; they shall think themselves happy in hav¬
ing him fur their God, who has made them to forget
their former troubles, the remembrance of them
being swallowed up in their present comforts; be¬
cause they are hid from God’s eyes, they are quite
taken away; for if there were any remainder of
their troubles, God would be sure to have his eye
upon it, in compassion to them and concern for
them. They shall no longer feel them, for God
will no longer see them : He is pleased to speak as
it he would make himself easy by making them
easy; and therefore they shall with a great deal of
satisfaction bless themselves in him.
17. For, behold, I create new heavens,
and a new earth: and the former shall not
be remembered, nor come into mind. 1 8.
But be you glad and rejoice for ever in that
which I create: for, behold, I create Jeru¬
salem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. 1 9.
And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in j
my people : and the voice of weeping shall
be no more heard in her, nor the voice of
crying. 20. There shall be no more thence
an infant of days, nor an old man that hath
not filled his days : for the child shall die a
hundred years old ; but the sinner, being a
hundred years old, shall be accursed. 21.
And they shall build bouses, and inhabit
them ; and they shall plant vineyards, and
eat the fruit of them. 22. They shall not
build, and another inhabit; they shall not
plant, and another eat : for as the days of
a tree are the days of my people, and mine
elect shall long enjoy the work of their
hands. 23. They shall not labour in vain,
nor bring forth for trouble: for they are the
'eed of the blessed of the Lord, and their
| Offspring with them. 24. And it shah come
to pass, that before they call, 1 will answer;
and while the}' are yet speaking, I will
j hear. 25. The wolf and the lamb shall
I feed together, and the lion shall eat straw
J like the bullock : and dust shall be the ser-
J pent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor de-
| stroy in all my holy mountain, saith the
Lord.
If these promises were in part fulfilled when the
Jews, after their return cut of captivity, were set¬
tled in peace in their own land, and brought as it
were into a new world, yet they were to have their
full accomplishment in the gospel-church, militant
first, and at length triumphant; The Jerusalem that
is from above is free, and is the mother of us all.
In the graces and comforts which believers have in
and from Christ, we are to look for this new heaven
and new earth. It is in the gospel that old things
are fast away, and all things are become new, and
bv it that those who are in Christ are new creatures,
2 Cor. v. 17. It was a mighty and happy change
that was described, v. 16. that the former troubles
were forgotten; but here it rises much higher, even
the former world shall be forgotten, and shall no
more come in mind. They that were converted to
the Christian faith were so transported with the
comforts of it, that all the comforts they were be¬
fore acquainted with, became as nothing to them;
not only their foregoing griefs, but their foregoing
joys, were lost and swallowed up in this. The
glorified saints will therefore have forgotten this
world, because they will be entirely taken up with
the other. Tor, behold, I create new heavens and a
new earth. See how inexhaustible the divine power
is; the same God that created one heaven and earth,
can create another. See how entire the happiness
of the saints is; it shall be all of a piece: with the
new heavens God will create them (if they have
occasion for it to make them happy) a new earth
too. The world is yours, if you be Christ’s, 1 Cor.
iii. 22. When God is reconciled to us, which gives
us a new heaven, the creatures too are reconciled to
us, which gives us a new earth. The future glory
of the saints will be so entirely different from "what
they ever knew before, that it may well be called
new heavens, and a new earth, 2 Pet. iii. 13. Be¬
hold, I ma/ce all things new, Rev. xxi. 5.
1. There shall be new joys. For, (1.) All the
church’s friends, and all that belong to her, shall
rejoice; (y. 18.) You shall be glad and rejoice for
ever in that which I create. The new tilings which
God creates in and by his gospel, are, and shall be,
matter of everlasting joy to all believers. My ser¬
vants shall rejoice; (v. 13.) at last they shall, though
now they mourn. Enter thou into the joy of thy
Lord. (2. ) The church shall be the matter of their
joy; so pleasant, so prosperous, shall her condition
be; I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her fcofle
a joy. The church shall not only rejoice, but be
rejoiced in. Those that have sorrowed with the
church, shall rejoice with her. (3. ) The prosperity
of the church shall be a rejoicing to God himself,
who has fleasure in the frosferity of his servants;
(v. 19.) I will rejoice in Jerusalem’s joy, and will
joy in my feofle; for in all their affliction he was a f¬
flicted. God will not only rejoice in the church’s well¬
doing, but will himself rejoice to do her good, and
rest in his love to her, Zech. iii. 17. What God
rejoices in, it becomes us to rejoice in. (4.) There
shall be no allay of this joy, nor any alteration of
this happy condition of the church ; The voice of
weefiing shall be no more heard in her. If this re¬
late to any state of the church in this life, it means
308
ISAIAH, LXV.
no more than that the former occasions of grief shgll
not return, but God’s people shall long enjoy an
uninterrupted tranquillity. But in heaven it shall
have a full accomplishment, in respect both of the
perfection and the perpetuity of the promised joy;
there all tears shall be wi fieri away.
2. There shall be new life, v. 20. Untimely
dtaths by the sword or sickness shall be no more
known as they have been, and by this means there
shall be no more the voice of crying, v. 19. When
there shall be no more death, there shall be no more
sorrow, Rev. xxi. 4. As death has reigned by sin,
s> life shall reign by righteousness, Rom. v. 14, 21.
(I.) Believers through Christ shall be satisfied with
l,fe, though it be ever so short on earth. If an in¬
i' .nt end its days quickly, yet it shall not be reckon¬
ed to die untimely, for the shorter its life is, the
1 mger will its rest be; though death reign over them
l hat. have not sinned after the similitude of yldam’s
rrungression, yet they, dying in the arms of Christ,
t!ie second Adam, and belonging to his kingdom,
are not to be called infants of days, but even the
child shall be reckoned to die a hundred years old,
for he shall rise again at full age, shall rise to eter¬
nal life. Some understand it of children who in
their childhood are so eminent for wisdom and
grace, and by death nipt in the blossom, that they
may be said to die a hundred years old. And as for
old men, it is promised that they shall Jill their days
with the fruits of righteousness, which they shall
still bring forth in old age; to show that the Lord is
upright, and then it is a good old age. An old man,
who is wise, and good, and useful, may truly be said
to have filled his days. Old men, who have their
hearts upon the world, have never filled their days,
never have enough of this world, but would still
continue longer in it. But that man dies old and
satur dierum—full of days, who, with Simeon,
having seen God’s salvation, desires now to depart
in peace. (2.) Unbelievers shall be unsatisfied and
unhappy in life, though it be ever so long. The
sinner, though he live to be a hundred years old,
shall be accursed; his living so long shall be no token
t > him of the divine favour and blessing, nor shall it
be any shelter to him from the divine wrath and
curse; the sentence he lies under will certainly be
executed, and his long life is but a long reprieve;
n iy, it is itself a curse to him, for the longer he lives,
the more wrath he treasures up against the day of
wrath, and the more sins he will have to answer
for. So that the matter is not great, whether our
lives on earth be long or short, but whether we liv e
the lives of saints or the lives of sinners.
3. There shall be a new enjoyment of the com¬
forts of life; that, whereas before it was very uncer-
t tin and precarious, their enemies inhabited the
houses which they built, and ate the fruit of the trees
which they planted, now it shall be otherwise; they
shall build houses, and inhabit them, shall plant
vineyards, and eat the fruit of them, v. 21, 22. This
intimates that the labour of their hands shall be
blessed and be made to prosper; they shall gain what
they aimed at; and what they have gained shall be
preserved and secured to them; they shall enjoy it
comfortably, and nothing shall imbitter it to them,
and they shall live to enjoy it long. Strangers shall
not break in upon them, to expel them, and plant
themselves in their room, as sometimes they have
done; Mine elect shall wear out, or long enjoy, the
work of their hands; it is honestly get, and it will
wear well; it is the work of their hands, which they
themselves have laboured for, anil it is most com¬
fortable to enjoy that, and not to eat the bread of
idleness or bread of deceit; if we have a heart to en¬
joy it, that is the gift of God’s grace; (Eccl. iii.
1 3. ) and if we live to enjoy it long, it is the gift of
God’s providence, for that is here promised; As the
days of a tree, are the days of my people; as the
days of an oak, ( ch . vi. 13.) whose substance is in it,
though it cast its leaves; though it be stripped every
winter, it recovers itself again, and lasts many ages;
as the days of the tree of life; so the LXX. Christ
is to them the tree of life, and in him believers enjoy
all those spiritual comforts which are typified by
the abundance of temporal blessings here promised;
and it shall not be in the power of their enemies to
deprive them of these blessings, or disturb them in
the enjoyment of them.
4. There shall be a new generation rising up in
their stead, to inherit and enjoy these blessings; ( v .
23. ) They shall not labour in vain, for they shall
not only enjoy the work of their hands themselves,
but they shall leave it with satisfaction to those that
shall come after them, and not with such a melan¬
choly prospect as Solomon did; (Eccl. ii. 18, 19.)
They shall not beget and bring forth children fi r
trouble; for they are themselves the seed of the
blessed of the Lord, and there is a blessing entailed
upon them by descent from their ancestors, which
their offspring with them shall partake of, and shall
be, as well as they, the seed of the blessed of the
Lord. They shall not bring forth for trouble; for,
(1.) God will make their children that rise up com*
forts to them; they shall have the joy of seeing them
walk in the truth. (2.) He will make the times
that come after comfortable to their children; as
they shall be good, so it shall be well with them;
they shall not be brought forth to days of trouble;
nor shall it ever be said, Blessed is the womb that
bare not. In the gospel-church Christ’s name shall
be borne up by a succession; A seed shall serve him,
(Ps. xxii. 30.) the seed of the blessed of the Lord.
5. There shall be a goed correspondence be¬
tween them and their God; (i1. 24.) Even before
they call, J will answer. God will prevent their
prayers with the blessings of his goodness; David
did but say, I will confess, and God forgave, Ps.
xxxii. 5. The father of the prodigal met him in
his return; While they are yet speaking, before they
have finished their prayer, I will give them the
thing they pray for, or the assurances and earnests
of it. These are high expressions of God’s readi¬
ness to hear prayer; and this appears much more in
the grace of the gospel than it did under the law;
we owe the comfort of it to the mediation of Christ
as our Advocate with the Father, and are obliged in
gratitude to give a ready ear to God’s calls.
6. There shall be a good correspondence between
them and their neighbours; (v. 25.) The wolf and
the lamb shall feed together, as they did in Noah’s
ark. God’s people, though they are as sheep in the
midst of wolves, shall be safe and unhurt; tor God
will not so much break the power, and tie the
hands, of their enemies, as formerly; but he will
turn their hearts, will alter their dispositions by his
grace. When Paul, who had been a persecutor of
the disciples, (who, being of the tribe of Benjamin,
ravened as a wolf, Gen. xlix. 27.) joined himself to
them and became one of them, then the wolf and
the lamb feel together. So also when the enmity
between the Jews and Gentiles was slain, all hostili¬
ties ceased, and they fed together as one sheepfold
under Christ the great Shepherd, John x. 16. The
enemies of the church ceased to do the mischief
they had done, and its members ceased to be so
quarrelsome with, and injurious to, one another as
they had been, so that there was none either from
without or from within to hurt or destroy, none to
disturb it, much less to ruin it, in all the holy moun¬
tain; as was promised, ch. xi. 9. For, (1.) Men
shall be changed; the lion shall no more be a beast
of prey, as perhaps he never wtuld have been if sin
had not entered, but shall eat straw like the bullock,
shall know his owner, and his master's crib, as the
309
ISAIAH, LXVI.
ox does. When those that lived by spoil and ra¬
pine, and coveted to enrich themselves, right or
wrong, are brought by the grace of God to accom¬
modate themselves to their condition, to live by ho¬
nest labour, and to be content with such things as
they have; when they that stole steal no more, but
work with their hands the tiling that is good, then
this is fulfilled, that the lion shall eat straw like the
bullock. (2.) Satan shall be chained, the dragon
bound; for dust shall be the serfient’s meat again.
That great enemy, when he has been let loose, has
glutted and regaled himself with the precious blood
of saints, who by his instigation have been persecu¬
ted, and with the precious souls of sinners, who by
his instigation have become persecutors, and have
ruined themselves for ever; but now he shall be con¬
fined to dust, according to the sentence, On thy belly
shall thou go, and dust shalt thou eat, Gen. hi, - 1,4.
All the enemies of God’s church, that are subtle
and venomous as serpents, shall be conquered and
subdued, and be made to lick the dust. Christ shall
reign as Zion’s King, till all the enemies of his king¬
dom be made his footstool, and theirs too. In the
holy mountain above, and there only, shall this pro¬
mise have its full accomplishment, that there shall
be none to hurt or destroy.
CHAP. LXVI.
The scope of this chapter is much the same as that of the
foregoing chapter, and many expressions of it are the
same; it therefore looks the same way, to the different
state of the good and bad among the Jews, at their return
out of captivity; but that typifying the rejection of the
Jews in the days of the Messiah, the conversion of the
Gentiles, and the setting up of the gospel-kingdom in the
world. The first verse of the chapter is applied by Ste¬
phen to the dismantling of the temple by the planting of
the Christian church; ( Acts vii. 49, 50.) which may
serve as a key to the whole chapter. We have here, I.
The contempt God puts upon ceremonial services in
comparison with moral duties, and an intimation therein
of lus purpose shortly to put an end to the temple and
sacrifice, and reject those that adhered to them, v. 1 . . 4.
II. The salvation God will in due time work for his peo¬
ple, out of the hands oftheir oppressors, (v. 5. ) speaking
terror to the persecutors, (v. 6.) and comfort to the per¬
secuted, a speedy and complete deliverance, (v. 7 . . 9.) a
joyful settlement, (v. 10, 11.) the accession of the Gen¬
tiles to them, and abundance of satisfaction therein, v.
12.. 14. III. The terrible vengeance which God will
bring upon the enemies of his church and people, v.
15.. 18. IV. The happy establishment of the church
upon large and sure foundations, its constant attendance
on God, and triumph over its enemies; v. 19 . . 25. And
we may well expect that this evangelical prophet, here,
in the close of his prophecy, should (as he does) look as
far forward as to the latter days, to the last day, to the
days of eternity.
1. f ■ ^HUS saith the Lord, The heaven
_L is my throne, and the earth is my
footstool : where is the house that ye build
unto me? and where is the place of my rest?
2. For all those things hath my hand made,
and all those things have been, saith the
Lord : but to this man will I look, even to
him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and
trembleth at my word. 3. He that killeth
an ox is as if he slew a man; he that sacri¬
ficed! a lamb, as if he cut off a dog’s neck ;
lie that offereth an oblation, as if he offered
swine’s, blood ; he that burneth incense, as if
he blessed an idol : yea, they have chosen
their own ways, and their soul delighteth in
their abominations. 4. I also will choose
their delusions, and will bring their fears
upon them; because when I called, none
did answer; when I spake, they did not
hear: but they did evil before mine eyes,
and chose that in which I delighted not.
Here,
I. Tile temple is slighted in comparison with a
gracious soul, v. 1, 2. The Jews in the prophet’s
time, and afterward, in Christ’s time, gloriid much
in the temple, and promised themselves great
things from it; to humble them therefore, and to
shake their vain confidence, both the prophets and
Christ foretold the ruin of the temple, that God
would leave it, and then it would soon be desolate.
After it was destroyed by the Chaldeans, it soon re¬
covered itself, and the ceremonial services were re¬
vived with it; hut by the Romans it was made a
perpetual desolation, and the ceremonial law was
abolished with it. That the world might be pre¬
pared for this, they were often told, as here, of
what little account the temple was with God.
1. That he did not need it. Heaven is the throne
of his glory and government; there he sits, infinitely
exalted in the highest dignity and dominion, above
all blessing and praise. The earth is his footstool,
on which he stands, overruling all the affairs of it
according to his will. If God has so bright a throne,
so large a footstool, where then is the house they can
build unto God, that can be the residence of his
glory, or, where is the jxlace of his rest ? What sa¬
tisfaction can tlie Eternal Mind take in a house
made with men’s hands? What occasion lias he,
as we have, for a house to repose himself in, who
faints not, neither is weary, who neither slumbers
nor sleeps? Or, if he had occasion, he would not
tell us, (Ps. 1. 12.) for all these things hath his hand
made, heaven and all its courts, earth and all its bor¬
ders, and all the hosts of both. All these things
have been, have had their beginning, by the power
of God, who was happy from eternity before they
were, and therefore could not be benefited by them.
All these things are; so some read it; they still con¬
tinue, upheld bv the same power that made them;
so that our goodness extends not to him. If he would
have had a house for himself to dwell in, he would
have made one himself when he made the world; and
if he had made one, it would have continued to this
day, as other creatures do, according to his ordi¬
nance: so that he had no need of a temple made with
hands.
2. That he would not need it, so as he would a
humble, penitent, gracious heart. He has a heaven
and earth of his own making, and a temple of man’s
making; but he overlooks them all, that he may
look with favour to him that is poor in spirit, hum¬
ble and serious, self-abasing and self-denying, whose
heart is truly contrite for sin, penitent for it, in pain
to get it pardoned, and that trembles at God’s
word, not as Felix did, with a transient qualm that
was over when the sermon was done, but with an
habitual awe of God’s majesty and purity, and an
habitual dread of his justice and wrath; such a heart
is a living temple for God, he dwells there, and it is
the place of his rest; it is like heaven and earth, his
throne and his footstool.
II. Sacrifices are slighted when they come from
ungracious hands; the sacrifices of the wicked is not
only unacceptable, but it is an abomination to the
Lord; (Prov. xv. 8.) this is largely shown here, v.
3, 4. Observe,
1. How detestable their sacrifices were to God.
The carnal Jews, after cvieir return out of captivity,
though they relapsed nqt to idolatry, grew very
careless and loose in the service of God; they
brought the torn, and the lame, and the sick, for
sacrifice, (Mai. i. 8, 13.) and this made their servi¬
ces abominable to God; they had no regard to their
sacrifices, and therefore how could they think God
310 ISAIAH, LXV1.
should have any regard to them? The unbelieving
Jews, after the gospel was preached, and in it no¬
tice given of the offering up of the great Sacrifice,
which put an end to all the ceremonial services,
continued to offer sacrifices, as if the law of Moses
had been still in force, and could have made the
coiners thereunto perfect: this was an abomination;
tie that kills an ox for his own table, is welcome to
do it; bill he that now kills it, and thus kills it for
God’s altar, is as if he slew a man; it is as great an
offence to God as murder itself; he that does it,
does in effect set aside Christ’s sacrifice, treads un¬
der foot the blood of the covenant, and makes him¬
self accessary to the guilt of the body and blood of
the Lord; setting up what Christ died to abolish.
He that sacrifces a lamb, if it be a corrupt thing,
and not the male in his flock, the best he has, if he
think to put God off with any thing, he affronts him,
instead of pleasing him; it is as if he cut off a dog’s
neck; a creature in the eye of the law so vile, that
whereas an ass might be redeemed, the price of a
dog was never to be brought into the treasury;
Dent, xxiii. 18. He that offers an oblation, a meat¬
offering, or drink-offering, is as if he thought to
make atonement with swine’s blood; a creature that
must not be eaten or touched, the broth of it was
abominable, (cA. Ixv. 4.) much more the blood of it.
He that burns incense to God, and so puts contempt
upon the incense of Christ’s intercession, is as if he
blessed an idol; it was as great an affront to God
as if they had paid their devotions to a false god.
Hypocrisy and profaneness are as provoking as
idolatry.
2. What their wickedness was, which made their
sacrifices thus detestable; it is because they have
chosen their own ways, the ways of their own wick¬
ed hearts, and not only their hands do, but their soul
delights in, their abominations; they were vicious
and immoral in their conversations, chose the way
cf sin rather than the way of God’s commandments,
and took pleasure in that which was provoking to
God; this made their sacrifices so offensive to Gcd,
ch. i. 11. — 15. Those that pretend to honour God
by a profession of religion, and yet live wicked lives,
put an affront upon him, as if he were the Patron
of sin. And that which was an aggravation of their
wickedness, was, that they persisted in it, notwith¬
standing the frequent calls given them to repent and
reform; they turned a deaf ear to all the warnings
of divine justice and all the offers of divine grace;
IVhen I called, none did answer, as before, ch. Ixv.
12. And the same follows here that did there;
They did evil before mine eyes. Being deaf to what
he said, they cared not what he saw, but chose that
in which they knew he delighted not. How could
they expect to please him in their devotions, who
took no care to please him in their conversations,
but, on the contrary, designed to provoke him?
3. The doom passed upon them for this; They
chose their own ways, therefore, says God, I also will
-'loose their delusions; They have made their choice,
(as Mr. Gataker paraphrases it,) and now I will
make mine; they have taken what course they pleased
with me, and I will take what course I please with
them. 1 will choose their illusions, or mockeries;
so some. As they have mocked God, and disho¬
noured him by their wickedness, so God will give
them up to tlieir enemies, to be trampled upon and
insulted by them. Or, They shall be deceived by
those vain confidences with which they have de¬
ceived themselves. God will make their sin tlieir
punishment; they shall be beaten with their own
r id, and hurried into ruin by their own delusions.
God will bring their fears upon them, will bring
upon them that which shall be a terror to them,
that which they themselves have been afraid of, and
thought to escape by sinful shifts. Unbelieving
hearts, and unpurified, unpacified consciences, need
no more to make them miserable, than to have their
own fears brought upon them.
5. Hear the word of the Lord,* ye that
tremble at his word; Your brethren that
hated you, that cast you out for my name’s
sake, said, Let the Lord be glorified : but
he shall appear to your joy, and they shall
be ashamed. 6. A voice of noise from the
city, a voice from the temple, a voice of the
Lord that rendereth recompense to his en¬
emies. 7. Before she travailed, she brought
forth ; before her pain came, she was deli¬
vered of a man child. 8. Who hath heard
such a thing 1 who hath seen such things 1
Sf&ll the earth be made to bring forth in one
day 1 or shall a nation be born at once? lor
as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth
her children. 9. Shall I bring to the birth,
and not cause to bring forth 1 saith the Lord:
shall 1 cause to bring forth, and shut ihe
womb? saith thy God. 10. Rejoice ye with
Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that
love her: rejoice for joy with her, all ye that
mourn for her: 1 1 . That ye may suck, and be
satisfied with the breasts of her consolations,
that ye may milk out, and be delighted with
the abundance of her glory. 1 2. For thus
saith the Lord, Behold, I will extend peace
to her like a river, and the glory of the Gen¬
tiles like a flowing stream: then shall ye
suck, ye shall be borne upon her sides, and
be dandled upon her knees. 13. As one
whom his mother comforteth,so will I com¬
fort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jeru¬
salem. 1 4. And when ye see this, your heart
shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish
like an herb; and the hand of the Lord
shall be known toward his servants, and
his indignation towards his enemies.
The prophet, having denounced God’s judgments
against an hypocritical nation, that made a jest of
God’s word, and would not answer him when he
called to them, here turns his speech to those that
trembled at his word, to comfort and encourage
them; they shall not be involved in the judgments
that are coming upon their unbelieving nation. Min¬
isters must distinguish thus, that, when they speak
terror to the wicked, they may not make the hearts
of the righteous sad ■ Bone Christiane, hoc nihil ad
te — Good Christian, this is nothing to thee. The
prophet having assured those that trembled at God’s
word, of a gracious look from him, (v. 2.) here
brings them a gracious message from him. The
word of God has comforts in store for those that by
true humiliation for sin are prepared to receive
them. There were those (v. 4.) who, when God.
spake, would not hear; but if some will not, others
will. If the heart tremble at the word, the ear
will be open to it. Now what is here said to them?
I. Let them know that God will plead their just
but injured cause against their persecutors; (v. 5.)
Your brethren that hated you, said, Let the Lord
be glorified. But he shall appear to your joy. This
perhaps might have reference to the case of some
of the Jews at their return cut of captivity; but no-
ISAIAH ,*LXVI. 3il
thing like it appears in the history, and therefore it
is rather to be referred to the first preachers and
professors of the gospel among the Jews, to whose
case it is very applicable. Observe, 1. How the
faithful servants of (rod were persecuted; their bre¬
thren hated them. The apostles were Jews by birth,
and yet even in the cities of the Gentiles, the Jews
they met with there were their most bitter and im¬
placable enemies, and stirred ii/i the Gentiles against
them. The spouse complains, (Cant. i. 6.) that her
mother’s children were angry with her. Pilate up¬
braided cur Lord Jesus with this, Thine own nation
have delivered thee unto me, John xviii. 35. Their
brethren, who should have loved them, and encou¬
raged them, for their work’s sake, hated them, and
cast them out of their synagogues, excommunicated
them, as if they had been the greatest blemishes,
who really were the greatest blessings of their
church and nation. This was a fruit of the old en¬
mity in the seed of the serfient against the seed of
the woman. They that hated Christ hated his dis¬
ciples, because they supported his kingdom and in¬
terest; (John xv. 18.) and they cast them out for his
name’s sake, because they were called by his name,
and called upon his name, and laid out themselves
to advance his name. Note, It is no new thing for
church-censures to be misapplied, and for her artil¬
lery, that was intended for her defence, to be turned
against her best friends, by the treachery of her go¬
vernors. And they that did this said, Let the Lord
be glorified; they pretended conscience, and a zeal
for the honour of God and the church in it, and did
it with all the formalities of devotion. Our Saviour
explains this, and seems to have reference to it,
John xvi. 2. They shall put you out of their syna¬
gogues, and whosoever kills you will think that he
does God service. In nomine Domini incipit omne
malum — In the name of the Lord commences evil
of every kind. Or, we may understand it as spoken
in defiance of God. “ You say God will be glorified
in your deliverance, let him be glorified then; let
him make speed, and hasten his work; ( ch . v. 19.)
let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.”
Some take it to be the language of the profane Jews
in captivity, bantering their brethren that hoped for
deliverance, and ridiculing the expectations they
often comforted themselves with, that God would
shovtlv be glorified in it. They thus did what they
could to shame the counsel of the poor, Ps. xiv. 6.
2. How they were encouraged under these perse¬
cutions; “ Let your faith and patience hold out yet
a little while; your enemies hate you and oppress
you, your brethren hate you and cast you out, but
your Father in heaven loves veu, and will appear
for you when no one else will or dare. His provi¬
dence shall order things so as shall be for comfort
to you, he shall appear for your joy, and for the
confusion of those that abuse you and trample on
vou; they shall be ashamed of their enmity to you.”
This was fulfilled, when, upon the signals given of
Jerusalem’s approaching ruin, the Jews’ hearts fail¬
ed them for fear; but the disciples of Christ, whom
thev had hated and persecuted, lifted up their heads
with joy, knowing that their redemption drew nigh,
Luke xxi. 26, 28. Though God seem to hide him¬
self. he will in due time show himself.
II. Let them know that God’s appearances for
them will be snch as will make a great noise in the
world; (u. 6.) There shall be a voice of noise from
the city, from the temple. Some make it the joyful
and triumphant voice of the church’s friends; others
the frightful, lamenting voice of her enemies, sur¬
prised in the city, and fleeing in vain to the temple
for shelter. These voices do but echo to the voice
of the Lord, who is now rendering a recompense to
his enemies; and those that will not hear him speak¬
ing this terror, shall hear them returning the alarms
of it in dolefuPshrieks. We may well think what
a confused noise there was in the city and temple,
when Jerusalem, after a long siege, was at last taken
by the Romans. Some think this prophecy was
fulfilled in the prodigies that went before that de¬
struction of Jerusalem, related by Josephus in his
History of the wars of the Jews; fib. 7. cap. 31.)
that the temple doors flew open suddenly of their
own accord, and the priests heard a noise of motion
or shifting in the most holy place, and presently a
voice, saying, Let us depart hence. And some time
after, one Jesus Bar-Annas went up and down the
city, at the feast of tabernacles, continually cry¬
ing, A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a
voice from the four witids; a voice against Jerusa¬
lem, and the temple; a voice against all this people.
III. Let them know that God will set up a church
for himself in the world, which shall be abundantly
replenished in a little time; (v. 7.) Before she tra¬
vailed she brought forth. This is to be applied in
the type to the deliverance of the Jews out of theii
captivity in Babylon, which was brought about very
easily and silently, without any pain or struggle,
such as was when they were brought out of Egypt:
that was done by might and power, (Deut. iv. 34. )
but this by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts, Zecli.
iv. 6. The man-child of the deliverance is rejoiced
in, and yet the mother was never in labour for it;
before her pain came she was delivered. This is
altogether surprising, uncommon, and without pre¬
cedent, unless in the story which the Egyptian mid¬
wives told of the Hebrew women, (Exod. i. 19.)
that they were lively, and were delivered ere the
midwives came in unto them. But shall the earth be
made to bring forth her fruits in one day ? No, it
is the work of some weeks in the spring to renew
the face of the earth, and cover it with its products.
Some read it to the same purport with the next
clause, Shall a land be brought forth in one day,
nr shall a nation be born at oncer Is it to be ima¬
gined that a woman at one birth should bring chil¬
dren sufficient to people a country, and that thev
should in an instant grow up to maturity? No; some¬
thing like this was done in the creation; but Gcd
has since rested from all such works, and leaves se¬
cond causes to produce their effects gradually. Ni¬
hil facit per saltum — He does nothing abruptly.
Yet in this case, as soon as Zion travailed, she
brought forth. Cyrus’s proclamation was no sooner
issued out, than the captives were formed into a
body, and were ready to make the best of their
way to their own land. And the reason is given,
(y. 9.) because it is the Lord’s doing; he under¬
takes it, whose work is perfect. If he bring to the
birth in preparing his people for deliverance, he
will cause to bring forth in the accomplishment cf
the deliverance. When every thing is ripe and
ready for their release, and the number of their
months is accomplished, so that the children are
brought to the birth, shall not I then give strength
to bring forth, but leave mother and babe to perish
together in the most miserable case? How wdl this
agree with the divine pity? Shall I begin a work,
and not go through with it? How will that agree
with the divine power and perfection? Am I he that
causes to bring forth, (so the following clause mav
be read,) and shall I restrain her? Does God cause
mankind, and all the species of living creatures, to
propagate, and replenish the earth, and will he re¬
strain Zion? Will he not make her fruitful in a
blessed offspring to replenish the church? Or, Am
I he that begat, and should I restrain from bringing
forth? Did God beget the deliverance in his pur¬
pose and promise, and will he not bring it forth in
the accomplishment and performance of it? But
this was a figure of the setting up of the Christian
church in the world, and the replenishing of that
M2 ISAIAH, LX VI.
family with children, which was to be named from
Jesus Christ. When the Spirit was poured out, and
the gospel went forth from Zion, multitudes were
converted in a little time, and with little pains, com¬
pared with the vast product. The apostles, even
before they travailed, brought forth, and the chil¬
dren born to Christ were so numerous, and so sud¬
denly and easily produced, that they were ra¬
ther like the dew from the morning’s womb than
like the son from the mother’s womb, Ps. cx. 3.
The success of the gospel was astonishing; that
light, like the morning, strangely diffused itself till
it took hold even of the ends of the earth. Cities
and nations were born at once to Christ The same
day that the Spirit was poured out, there were
three thousand souls added to the church. And
when this glorious work was once begun, it was car¬
ried on wonderfully, beyond what could be imagined ;
so mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.
He that brought to the birth in conviction of sin, caus¬
ed to bring forth in a thorough conversion to God.
IV. Let them know that their present sorrows
shall shortly be turned into abundant joys, v. 10, 11.
Observe,
1. How the church’s friends are described; they
are such as love her, and mourn with her and for
her. Note, All that love God love Jerusalem: they
love the church of God, and lay its interest very
near their heart. They admire the beauty of the
church, take pleasure in communion with it, and
heartily espouse its cause. And they that have a
sincere affection for the church, have a cordial sym¬
pathy with her in all the cares and sorrows of her
militant state. They mourn for her, all her griev¬
ances are their griefs; if Jerusalem be in distress,
their harps are hung on the willow-trees.
2. How they are encouraged: Rejoice with her,
and again and again, I say. Rejoice. This intimates
that Jerusalem shall have cause to rejoice; the days
of her mourning shall be at an end, and she shall be
comforted according to the time that she has been
afflicted. It is the will of God, that all her friends
should join with her in her joys, for they shall share
with her in those blessings that will be the matter
of her joy. If we suffer with Christ, and sorrow
with his church, we shall reign with him, and re¬
joice with her. We are here called, (1.) To bear
our part in the church’s praises: “ Come, rejoice
with her, rejoice for joy with her, rejoice greatly,
rejoice and know why you rejoice; rejoice on the
davs appointed for public thanksgiving. You that
mourned for her in her sorrows, cannot but from
the same principles rejoice with her in her joy.”
(2.) To take our part in the church’s comforts. We
must suck and be satisfed with the breasts of our
consolations; the word of God, the covenant of
grace, especially the promises of that covenant, the
ordinances of God, and all the opportunities of at¬
tending on him, and conversing with him, are the
breasts, which the church calls and counts the
breasts of her consolations, where her comforts are
laid up, and whence by faith and prayer they are
drawn; with her therefore we must suck from these
breasts, by an application of the promises of God to
ourselves, and a diligent attendance on his ordinan¬
ces; and with the consolations which are drawn
hence we must be satisfied, and not be dissatisfied,
though we have ever so little of earthly comforts.
It is the glory of the church, that she has the Lord
for her God, that to her pertain the adoption and
service of God; with the abundance of this glory
we must be delighted. We must take more plea¬
sure in our relation to God, and communion with
him, than in all the delights of the sons and daugh¬
ters of men. Whatever is the glory of the church,
must be our glory and joy, particularly her purity,
unity, and increase.
V. Let them know that he who gives them this
call to rejoice, will give them cause to do so, and
hearts to do so, v. 12 _ 14.
1. He will give them cause to do so. For, (1.)
They shall enjoy a long, uninterrupted course of
prosperity; I will extend, or am extending, peace
to her, all good to her, like a river that runs in a
constant stream, still increasing till it be swallowed
up in the ocean. The gospel brings with it wher¬
ever it is received in its power, such peace as this,
which shall go on like a river, supplying souls with
all good, and making them fruitful, as a river does
the lands it passes through, such a river of peace as
the springs of the world’s comforts cannot send
forth, ana the dams of the world’s troubles cannot
stop or drive back, or its sands rack up; such a river
of peace as will carry us to the ocean of boundless
and endless bliss. (2. ) There shall be large and
advantageous additions made to them; The glory
of the Gentiles shall come to them like a flowing
stream. Gentile converts shall come pouring into
the church, and swell the river of her peace and
prosperity; for they shall bring their glory with
them; their wealth and honour, their power and in¬
terest shall all be devoted to the service of God, and
employed for the good of the church; “Then shall
you suck from the breasts of her consolations; when
you see such crowding for a share in those comforts,
you shall be the more solicitous and the more vigor¬
ous to secure your share; not for fear of having the
less for others’ coming in to partake of Christ,”
(there is no danger of that, he has enough for all,
and enough for each,) “ but their zeal shall provoke
you to a holy jealousy.” It is well when it does so,
Rom. xi. 14. 2 Cor. ix. 2. (3.) God shall be glo¬
rified in all; and that ought to be more the matter
of our joy than any thing else; (i>. 14.) The hand
of the Lord shall be known toward his servants, the
protecting, supporting hand of his almighty power,
the supplying, enriching hand of his inexhaustible
goodness, the benefit which his servants have by
both these, shall be known to his glory as well as
theirs. And to make this the more illustrious, he
will at the same time make known his indignation
toward his enemies. God’s mercy and justice shall
be both manifested and for ever magnified.
2. God will not only give them cause to rejoice,
but will speak comfort to them, will speak it to their
hearts; and it is he only that can do that, and make
it fasten there. See what he will do for the comfort
of all the sons of Zion. (1.) Their country shall be
their tender nurse; Ye shall be carried on her sides,
under her arms, as little children are, and shall be
dandled upon her knees, as darlings are, especially
when they are weary and out of humour, and must
be got to sleep. Those that are joined to the church,
must be treated thus affectionately; the Great Shep¬
herd gathers the lambs in his arms, and carries them
in his bosom , and so must the under-shepherds, that
they may not be discouraged. Proselytes should be
favourites. (2.) God will himself be their power¬
ful Comforter; as one whom his mother comforts,
when he is sick or sore, or upon any account in sor¬
row, so will I comfort you; not only with the ra¬
tional arguments which a prudent father uses, but
with the tender affections and compassions of a lov¬
ing mother, that bemoans her afflicted child when
it has fallen and hurt itself, that she may quiet it
and make it easy, or endeavours to pacify it after
she has chidden it and fallen out with it: (Jer. xxxl
20.) Since I spake against him, my bowels are trou¬
bled for him; he is a dear son, he is a pleasant
child. Thus the mother comforts. Thus you shall
be comforted in Jerusalem, in the favours bestowed
on the church, which you shall partake of, and
in the thanksgivings offered by the church, which
you shall concur with. (3.) They shall feel the
313
ISAIAH
blessed efitc.; of this comfort in their own souls;
(v. 13.) When you see this, what a happy state
ihe church is restored to, not only your tongues
and your countenances, but your hearts shall re¬
joice. This was' fulfilled in the wonderful satis¬
faction which Christ’s disciples had in the success
„f their ministry. Christ, with an eye to that, tells
‘liem, (John xvi. 22.) Your hearts shall rejoice,
and your joy no man taketh from you. Then
your' bones, that were dried and withered, (the
marrow of them quite exhausted,) shall recover a
youthful strength and vigour, and shall flourish like
an herb. Divine comforts reach the inward man,
they are marrow and moistening to the bones, Prov.
iii. 8. The bones are the strength of the body; those
shall be made to flourish with these comforts; The
joy of the Lord will be your strength, Neh. viii. 10.
1 5. For, behold, the Lord will come with
fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind,
to render his anger witli fury, and his rebuke
with flames of fire. 16. For by fire and by
his sword will the Lord plead with all flesh:
and the slain of the Lord shall be many.
1 7. They that sanctify themselves, and pu¬
rify themselves in the gardens, behind one
tree in the midst, eating swine’s flesh, and
the abomination, and the mouse, shall be
consumed together, saith the Lord. 1 8. For
I know their works and their thoughts : it
shall come, that I will gather all nations and
tongues ; and they shall come, and see my
glory. 19. And I v/ill set a sign among
them, and I will send those that escape of
them unto the nations, to Tarshish,Pul, and
Lnd, that draw the bow, to Tubal and Ja¬
van, to the isles afar off, that have not heard
my fame, neither have seen my glory ; and
they shall declare my glory among the Gen¬
tiles. 20. And they shall bring all your
brethren for an offering unto the Lord, out
of all nations, upon horses, and in chariots,
and in litters, and upon mules, and upon
swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem,
saith the Lord, as the children of Israel
bring an offering in a clean vessel into the
house of the Lord. 21 . And I will also take
of them for priests, and for Levites, saith the
Lord. 22. For as the new heavens and
the new earth, which I will make, shall re¬
main before me, saith the Lord, so shall
vour seed and your name remain. 23. And
it shall come to pass, that from one new
moon to another, and from one sabbath to
another, shall all flesh come to worship be¬
fore me, saith the Lord. 24. And they
shall go forth, and look upon the carcases
of the men that have transgressed against
me; for their worm shall not die, neither
shall their fire be quenched ; and they shall
be an abhorring unto all flesh.
These verses, like the pillar of cloud and fire, have
a dark side towards the enemies of God’s kingdom,
and all that are rebels against his crown, and a bright
Vol. iv. — 2 R
, LX VI.
side towards his faithful, loyal subjects. Probably,
it refers to the Jews in captivity in Babylon, of whom
some are said to have been sent thither for their
hurt; and those arc they with whom God hert
threatens to proceed in his controversy, who hated
to be reformed, and therefore should be ruined by
the calamity, Jer. xxiv. 9. Others were sent thither
for their good, and they should have the trouble
sanctified to them, should in due time get well
through it, and see many a good day after it. Di¬
vers of the expressions here used are accommodated
to that glorious dispensation ; but doubtless it looks
further, to the judgment for which Christ did come
once, and will come again, into this world; and to
the distinction which his word in both makes between
the 1 irecious anil the vile.
I. Christ will appear to the confusion and terror
of all those that stand it out against him ; sometimes
in temporal judgments. The Jews that persisted in
infidelity were cut off by fire, and by his sword; the
ruin was very extensive, the Lord then fileaded with
all fesh; and it being his sword with which they are
cut off, they are called his slain, sacrificed to his jus¬
tice: and they shall be many. In the great day, the
wrath of God will be his fire and sword, with which
he will cut off and consume all the impenitent; and
his word, when it takes hold of sinners’ consciences,
burns like fire, and is sharper than any two-edged
sword. Idolaters will especially be contended with in
the day of wrath, v. 17. Perhaps some of those'who
returned out of Babylon, retained such instances of
idolatry and superstition as are here mentioned; had
their idols in their gardens, (not daring to set them
up publicly in the high places,) and there fiurfied
themselves, as the worshippers of the true God used
to do, when they went about their idolatrous rites,
one after another, or, as we read it, behind one tree
in the midst; behind Ahad, or Ehad, some idol that
they worshipped by that name; and in honour of
which they ate swine’s flesh, which was expressly
forbidden by the law of God ; and other abominations,
as the mouse, or some other like animal. But it
may refer to all those judgments which the wrath
of God, according to the word of God, will bring
upon provoking sinners, that live in contempt of God,
and are devoted to the world and the flesh — they
shall be consumed together. From the happiness
of heaven we find expressly excluded all idolaters,
and whosoever worketh abomination, Rev. xxi. 27.
— xxii. 15. In the day of vengeance, secret wick¬
edness will be brought to light, and brought to the
account; for, ( v . 18.) I know their works, and their
thoughts; God knows both what men do, and from
what principle, and with what design they do it;
and therefore is fit to judge the world, because he
can judge the secrets of men, Rom. ii. 16.
II. He will appear to the comfort and joy of all
that are faithful to him in the setting up of his king¬
dom in this world, the kingdom of grace, the earnest
and first-fruits of the kingdom of glory. The time
shall come that he will gather all nations and tongues
to himself, that they might come and see his glory
as it shines in the face of Jesus Christ, v. 18. This
was fulfilled when all nations were to be discipled,
and the gift of tongues bestowed in order thereunto.
The church had hitherto been confined to one na¬
tion, and in one tongue only God was worshipped;
but in the days of the Messiah the partition-wall
shall be taken down, and those that had been stran¬
gers to God shall be brought acquainted with him,
and shall see his glory in the gospel, as the Jews had
seen it in the sanctuary. As to this, it is here pro¬
mised,
1. That some of the Jewish nation should, by the
grace of God, be distinguished from the rest, and
marked for salvation : I will not only set up a gather¬
ing ensign among them, to which the Gentiles shall
si 4 ISAIAH, LXV1.
seek, (as is promised, ch. xi. 12.) but there shall be
those among them on whom I will set a differencing
sign; for so the word signifies. Though they are a
corrupt, degenerate nation, yet God will set apart a
remnant of them, that shall be devoted to him, and
employed for him, and a mark shall be set upon
them, with such certainty will God own them, Ezek.
ix. 4. The sen’ants of God shall be sealed in their
foreheads, Rev. vii. 3. The Lord knows them
*hat are his; Christ’s sheep are marked.
2. That those who are themselves distinguished
thus by the grace of God, shall be commissioned to
invite others to come and take the benefit of that
grace: those that escape the power of those preju¬
dices by which the generality of that nation is kept
in unbelief, they shall be sent unto the nations, to
carry the gospel among them, and preach it to every
creature. Note, Those who themselves have es¬
caped the wrath to come, should do all they can to
snatch others also as brands out of the burning. God
chooses to send those on his errands that can deliver
their message feelingly and experimentally, and
warn people of their danger by sin, as those who
have themselves narrowly escaped the danger. ( 1. )
They shall be sent unto the nations, divers of which
are here named, Tarshish, and Pul, and Lud, &c.
It is uncertain, nor are interpreters agreed, what
couriers are here intended; Tarshish signifies in
general the sea, jet some take it for Tarsus in Cili¬
cia; Pul is mentioned sometimes as the name of one
of the kings of Assyria, perhaps some part of that
country might likewise bear that name; Lud is sup¬
posed to be Lydia, a warlike nation, famed for
archers; the Lydians are said to handle and bend
the bow, Jer. xlvi. 9. Tabul, some think, is Italy
or Spain; and Javan most agree to be Greece, the
Iones; and the Isles of the Gentiles, that were peo-
led by the posterity of Japhet, (Gen. x. 5.) proba-
lv, are here meant by the isles afar off, that have
not heard my name, neither have seen my glory. In
Judah only God was known, and there only his name
was great for many ages; other countries sat in
darkness, heard not the joyful sound, saw not the
jovful light. This deplorable state of theirs seems
to be spoken of here with compassion; for it is pity
that any of the children of men should be at such a
distance from their Maker as not to hear his name
and see his glory. In consideration of this, (2.)
Those that are sent to the nations shall go upon
God’s errand, to declare his glory among the Gen¬
tiles; the Jews that shall be dispersed among the
nations shall declare the glory of God’s providence
concerning their nation all .along, by which many
shall be invited to join with them, as also by the
appearances of God’s glory among them in his ordi¬
nances; some out of all languages of the nations shall
take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, entreat¬
ing him to take notice of them, to admit them into
his company, and to stay a little while for them, till
they are ready, for we will go with you, having
heard that God is with you, Zech. viii. 23. Thus
the glory of God was in part declared among the
Gentiles; but more clearly and fully by the apostles
and preachers of the gospel, who were sent into all
the world, even to the isles afar off, to publish the
glorious gospel of the blessed God. They went forth
and preached every where, the Lord working with
them, Mark xvi. 20.
3. That many converts shall hereby be made, t1.
20. They shall bring all your brethren (for pro¬
selytes ought to be owned and embraced as brethren)
for an offering unto the Lord. God’s glory shall
not be in vain declared to them, but by it they shall
be both invited and directed to join themselves to
the Lord. They that are sent to them shall succeed
so well in their negociation, that thereupon there shall
be as great a flocking to Jerusalem, as used to be at
the time of a solemn feast, when all the males from
all parts of the country were to attend there, and
not to appear empty. "Observe, (1.) The conve-
niencies that they shall be furnished with for their
coming; some shall come upon horses, because they
came from far, and the journey was too long to travel
on foot, as the Jews usually did to their feasts; per¬
sons of quality shall come in chariots, and the aged
and sickly, and little children, shall be brought in
litters or covered wagons; and the yc.ung men on
mules and swift beasts. This intimates their zeal
and forwardness to come; they shall spare no trouble
or charge to get to Jerusalem ; the se that cannot ride
on horseback shall come in litters; and in such haste
shall they be, and so impatient of delay, that those
that can shall ride upon mules and swift beasts.
These expressions are figurative, and these various
means of conveyance are heaped up to intimate (say-,
the learned Mr. Gataker) the plentiful affording < t
all gracious helps requisite for the bringing of God’,
elect home to Christ. All shall be welcome, and
nothing shall be wanting for their assistance and
encouragement (2.) The character under which
they shall be brought; they shall come, not as for¬
merly they used to come to Jerusalem, to be offerers,
but to be themselves an offering unto the Lord,
which must be understood spiritually, of their being
presented to God as living sacrifices, Rom. xii. 1.
The apostle explains this, and perhaps refers to it,
Rom. xv. 16. where he speaks of his ministering
the gospel to the Gentiles, that the offering up, or
sacrificing of the Gentiles might be acceptable. They
shall offer themselves, and those who are the instru¬
ments of their conversion shall offer them, as the
spoils which they have taken for Christ, and which
are devoted to his service and honour. They shall
be brought as the children of Israel bring an offer¬
ing in a clean vessel, with great care, that they be
holy, purified from sin, and sanctified to God. It is
said of the converted Gentiles, (Acts xv. 9.) that
their hearts were purified by faith. Whatever was
brought to God was brought in a clean vessel, a ves¬
sel appropriated to religious uses. God will be
served and honoured in the way that he has ap¬
pointed, in the ordinances of his own institution,
which are the proper vehicles for these spiritual
offerings. When the soul is offered up to Gcd, the
body must be a clean vessel for it, possessed in sanc¬
tification and honour, and not in the lusts of tin-
cleanness; (] Thess. iv. 4, 5.) and converts to Christ
are not only purged from an evil conscience, but
have their bodies also washed with pure water,
Heb. x. 22.
Now this may refer, [1.] To the Jews, deveut
men, and proselytes out of every nation under hea¬
ven, that flocked together to Jerusalem, expecting
the kingdom of the Messiah to appear, Acts ii. 5,
6, 10. They came from all parts to the holy moun¬
tain of Jerusalem as an offering to the Lord, and
there many of them were brought to the faith of
Christ by the gift of tongues poured cut on the apos¬
tles. Methinks, there is some correspondence be¬
tween that history and this prophecy. The eunuch
some time after came to worship at Jerusalem in his
chariot, and took home with him the knowledge cf
Christ and his holy religion. [2.] To the Gentiles,
some of all nations, that should be converted to
Christ, and so added to the church, which, though
a spiritual accession, is often in prophecy repre¬
sented by a local motion. The apostle says cf all
true Christians, that they are come to mount Zion,
and the heavenly Jerusalem; (Htb. xii. 22.) which
passage explains this, and shews that the meaning
of all this parade is only that they shall be brought
into the church by the grace rf God, and in the use
of the means of that grace, as can fully, safi ly, and
comfortably, as if they were carried in chariots an- 1
ISAIAH. LXV1.
31 b
litters. Thus God shall persuade Japhet, and he
shall dwell in the tents of Shem, Gen. ix. 27.
4. That a gospel-ministry shall be set up in the
church, it being thus enlarged by the addition of
such a multitude of members to it; (v. 21.) I will
take of them, of the proselytes, of the Gentile con¬
verts, for priests and for Levites, to minister in holy
tilings, and to preside in their religious assemblies,
which is very necessary for doctrine, worship, and
discipline. Hitherto the priests and Levites were
all taken from among the Jews, and were all of one
tribe; but in gospel-times God will take of the con¬
verted Gentiles to minister to him in holy things,
to teach the people, to bless them in the name of the
Lord, to be the stewards of the mysteries of God
as the priests and Levites were under the law, to be
pastors and teachers, or bishops, to give themselves
to the word and prayer; and deacons to serve tables,
and, as the Levites, to take care of the outward
business of the house of God, Phil. i. 1. Actsvi. 2. — 4.
The apostles were all Jews, and so were the seventy
disciples; the great apostle of the Gentiles was him¬
self a Hebrew of the Hebrews; but when churches
were planted among the Gentiles, they had minis¬
ters settled, who were of themselves elders in ewerjj
church, (Acts xiv. 23. Tit. i. 5.) which made the
ministry to spread the more easily, and to be the
more familiar, and if not the more venerable, yet the
more acceptable; gospel-grace, it might be hoped,
would cure people of those corruptions which kept
a prophet from having honour in his own country.
God says, I will take, not all of them, though they
are all in a spiritual sense made to our God kings and
priests, but of them, some of them. It is God’s
work originally to choose ministers by qualifying
them for, and inclining them to, the service, as well
as to make ministers by giving them their commis¬
sion. I will take them, I will admit them, though
Gentiles, and will accept of them and their minis¬
trations. This is a great honour and advantage to
the Gentile church, as it was to the Jewish church,
that God raised ufi of their sons for prophets, and
their young men for JVazarites, Amos ii. 11.
5. That the church and ministry, being thus set¬
tled, shall continue and be kept up in a succession
from one generation to another, v. 22. The change
that will lie made by the setting up of the kingdom
of the Messiah, is here described to be, (1.) A veiy
great and universal change; it shall be a new world,
the new heavens, and the new earth, promised be¬
fore, ch. lxv. 17. Old things are passed away, be¬
hold, all things are become new, (2 Cor. v. 17. ) the
old covenant of peculiarity is set aside, and a new
covenant, a covenant of grace, established, Heb.
viii. 13. We are now to serve in newness of the spirit,
and not in the oldness of the letter, Rom. vii. 6. New
commandments are given relating both to heaven
and earth, and new promises relating to both, and
both together make a New Testament; so that they
are new heavens and new earth, that God will cre¬
ate, and these a preparative for the new heavens
and new earth designed at the end of time, 2 Pet. iii.
13. (2.) A change of God’s own making: he will
create the new heavens and the new earth. The
change was made by him that had authority to
make new ordinances, as well as power to make
new worlds. (3.) It will be an abiding, lasting
change; a change never to be changed; a new
world that will be always new, and never wax old, as
that does, which is ready to vanish away. It shall
remain before me unalterable; for the gospel dis¬
pensation is to continue to the end of time, and not
to be succeeded by any other. The kingdom of
Christ is a kingdom that cannot be moved; the laws
and privileges of it are things that cannot be shaken,
but shall for ever remain, Heb. xii. 27, 28. It shall
therefore remain, because it is before God; it is
under his eye, and care, and special protection. (4.)
It will be maintained in a seed that shall serve
Christ; Your seed, and in them, your name, shall
remain — a seed of ministers, a seed of Christians;
as one generation of both passes away, another gene¬
ration shall come, and thus the name of Christ with
that of Christians, shall continue on earth while the
earth remains, and his throne as the days of heaven.
The gates of hell, though they fight against the
church, shall not prevail, nor wear out the saints
of the Most High.
6. That the public worship of God in religious
assemblies shall be carefully and constantly attend¬
ed upon by all that are thus brought as an offering
to the Lord, v. 23. This is described in expressions
suited to the Old Testament dispensation, to show
that though the ceremonial law should be abolished,
and the temple-services should come to an end, yet
God should be still as regularly, constantly, and ac¬
ceptably worshipped as ever. Heretofore Jews only
went up to appear before God, and they were bound
to attend only three times a year, and the males only;
but now all flesh, Gentiles as well as Jews, women
as well as men, shall come and worship before God
in his presence, though not in his temple at Jerusa¬
lem, but in religious assemblies dispersed all the
world over, which shall be to them as the taberna¬
cle of meeting was to the Jews. God will in them
record his name, and though but two or three come
together, he will be among them, will meet them,
and bless them. And they shall have the benefit of
these holy convocations frequently, every new moon,
and every sabbath, not, as formerly, at the three
annual feasts only. There is no necessity of one cer¬
tain place, as the temple was of old. Christ is our
Temple, in whom by faith all believers meet, and
now that the church is so far extended, it is impos¬
sible that all should meet at one place; but it is fit
that there should be a certain time appointed, that
the service may be done certainly and frequently,
and a token thereby given of the spiritual commu¬
nion which all Christian assemblies have with each
other, by faith, hope, and holy love. The new
moons and the sabbaths are mentioned, because,
under ihe law, though the yearly feasts were to be
celebrated at Jerusalem, yet the new moons and the
sabbaths were religiously observed all the country
over, in the schools of the prophets first, and after¬
ward in the synagogues, (2 Kings iv. 23. Amos viii.
5. Acts xv. 21.) according to the model of which
Christian assemblies seem to be performed. Where
the Lord’s day is weekly sanctified, and the Lc rd’s
Supper monthly celebrated, and both duly attended
on, there this promise is fulfilled, there the Chris¬
tian new moons and sabbaths are observed. See
here, that God is to be worshipped in solemn assem¬
blies, that it is the duty of all, as they have oppor¬
tunity, to wait upon God in those assemblies; all
Jlesh must come; though flesh, weak, conupt, and
sinful, let them come that the flesh may be morti¬
fied. In worshipping God, we present ourselves
before him, and are in a special manner in his pre¬
sence. For doing this, there ought to be stated
times, and are so; and we must see that it is our
interest as well as our duty constantly and conscien¬
tiously to observe these times.
7. That their thankful sense of God’s distinguish
ing favour to them, should be very much increased
by the consideration of the fearful doom and de¬
struction of those that persist and perish in their in¬
fidelity and impiety, v. 24. Those that have been
worshipping the Lord of hosts, and rejoicing before
him in the goodness of his house, shall, in order to
affect themselves the more with their own happi¬
ness, take a view of the misery of the wicked. Ob¬
serve, (1.) Who they are, whose misery is here
described; they are men that hate transgressed
316
ISAIAH, LXV1.
against God, not only broken liis laws, but broken
covenant with him, and thought themselves able to
contend with him. It may be meant especially of
the unbelieving Jews that rejected the gospel of
Christ. (2.) What their misery is; it is here repre¬
sented by the frightful spectacle of a field of battle,
covered with the carcases of the slain, that lie rot¬
ting above ground, full of worms crawling about
them, and feeding on them; and if you go to burn
them, they are so scattered, and it is such a noisome
iece of work to get them together, that it would
e endless, and the fire would never be quenched;
so that they are an abhorring to all fiesh, nobody
cares to come near them. Now this is sometimes
accomplished in temporal judgments, and perhaps
never nearer the letter than in the destruction of
Jerusalem and the Jewish nation by the Romans, in
which destruction it is computed that above two
millions, first and last, were cut off by the sword,
beside what perished by famine and pestilence. It
may refer likewise to the spiritual judgments that
came upon the unbelieving Jews, which St. Paul
looks upon, and shows us, Rom. xi. 8, &c. They
became dead in sins, twice dead ; the church
of the Jews was a carcase of a church, all its mem¬
bers were putrid carcases, their worm died not.
; their own consciences made them continually un¬
easy; and the fire of their rage against the gospel
was not quenched, which was their punishment as
well as their sin; and they became, more than ever
any nation under the sun, an abhorring to all fiesh.
But our Saviour applies it to the everlasting misery
and torment of impenitent sinners in the future state,
where their worm dies not, and their fire is not
quenched; (Mark ix. 44. ) for the soul, whose con¬
science is its constant tormentor, is immortal, and
the God, whose wrath is its constant terror, is eter¬
nal. (3.) What notice shall be taken of it; they
that worship God shall go forth, and look upon
them, to affect their own hearts with the love of
their Redeemer, when they see what misery they
are redeemed from. As it will aggravate the mise¬
ries of the damned, to see others in the kingdom of
heaven, and themselves thrust out, (Luke xiii. 28.)
so it will illustrate the joys and glories of the bless¬
ed, to see what becomes of them that died in their
transgression, and it will elevate their praises to
think that they were themselves as brands plucked
out of that burning. T o the honour of that free grace
which thus distinguished them, let the redeemed of
the Lord with all humility, and not without a holy
trembling, sing their triumphant songs.
AN
EXPOSITION,
WITH
PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS,
OF THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET
JEREMIAH.
The Prophecies of the Old Testament, as the Epistles of the New, are placed rather according to the‘<
bulk than their seniority; the longest first, not the eldest. There were divers prophets, and writing
ones, that were contemporaries with Isaiah, as Micah; or a little before him, as Hosea, and Joel, and
Amos, or soon after him, as Habakkuk and Nahum are supposed to be: and yet the prophecy of Jere¬
miah, who began many years after Isaiah had finished, is placed next to his, because there is so much
in it: where we meet with most of God’s word, there let the preference be given; and yet those of lesser
gifts are not to be despised or excluded. Nothing now occurs to be observed further concerning pro¬
phecy in general; but concerning this prophet Jeremiah we may observe,
I. That he was betimes a prophet; he began young, and therefore could say it from his own experience,
that it is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth, the yoke both of service and of affliction, Lam.
iii. 27. Jerome observes, that Isaiah, who had more years over his head, had his tongue touched with
a coal of fire, to purge away his iniquity; (ch. vi. 7.) but that when God touched Jeremiah’s mouth,
who was yet but young, nothing was said of the purging of his iniquity, ( ch . i. 9.) because, by reason
of his tender years, he had not so much sin to answer for.
II. That he continued long a prophet; some reckon fifty years, others above forty. He began in the 13th
year of Josiah, when things went well under that good king, but he continued through all the wicked
reigns that followed; for when we set out for the service of God, though the wind may be fair and fa¬
vourable, we know not how soon it may turn and be tempestuous.
III. That he was a reproving prophet, was sent in God’s name to tell Jacob of their sins, and to warn
them of the judgments of God that were coming upon them; and the critics observe, that therefore his
style and manner of speaking is more plain and rough, and less polite, than that of Isaiah and some
other of the prophets. Those that are sent to discover sin, ought to lay aside the enticing words of
man’s wisdom. Plain dealing is best when we are dealing with sinners, to bring them to repentance.
IV. That he was a ■weeping prophet; so he is commonly called, not only because he penned the Lamen¬
tations, but because he was all along a mournful spectator of the sins of his people, and of the desolating
judgments that were coming upon them. And for this reason, perhaps, those who imagined our Saviour
to be one of the prophets, thought him of any of them to be most like to Jeremiah, (Matth. xvi. 14. )
because he was a man of sorrows and actjuainted with grief.
V. That lie was a suffering prophet; he was persecuted by his own people more than any of them, as we
shall find in the story of this book; for he lived and preached just before the Jews’ destruction by the
Chaldeans, when their character seems to have been the same as it was just before their destruction by
the Romans, when they killed the Lord Jesus, and persecuted his disciples, pleased not God, and were
contrary to all men, for wrath was come upon them to the uttermost, 1 Thess. ii. 15, 16. The last ac
count we have of him, in his history, is, that the remaining Jews forced him to go down with them into
Egypt; whereas the current tradition is, among Jews and Christians, that he suffered martyrdom. Hot-
tinger, out of Elmakin, an Arabic historian, relates, that he, continuing to prophesy in Egypt against
the Egyptians and other nations, was stoned to death; and that long after, when Alexander entered
Egypt, he took up the bones of Jeremiah where they were buried in obscurity, and carried them to
Alexandria, and buried them there. The prophecies of this book, which we have in the nineteen
first chapters, seem to be the heads of the sermons he preached in a way of general reproof for sin, and
denunciation of judgment; afterward they are more particular and occasional, and mixed with the his¬
tory of his day, but not placed in due order of time. With the threatenings are intermixed many gra
cious promises of mercy to the penitent, of the deliverance of the Jews out of their captivity, and some
that have a plain reference to the kingdom of the Messiah. Among the Apocryphal writings, an epis
tie is extant, said to be written bv Jeremiah to the captives in Babylon, warning them against the wor¬
ship of idols, by exposing the vanity of them, and the folly of idolaters. It is in Baruch, ch. vi. But it
is supposed not to be authentic; nor has it, I think, any thing like the life and spirit of Jeremiah’s writ
ings. It is also related concerning Jeremiah, (2 Mac. ii. 4.) that when Jerusalem was destroyed by the
Chaldeans, he, by direction from God, took the ark and altar of incense, and carrying them to mount
N eb >, lodged them in a hollow cave there, and stopped the door; but some that followed him, and
thought that they had marked the place, could not find it: he blamed them for seeking it, telling them
that the place should be unknown till the time that God should gather his people together again. But
I know not what credit is to be given to that story, though it is there said to be found in the records.
We cannot but be concerned, in the reading of Jeremiah’s prophecies, to find that they were so little
regarded by the men of that generation; but let us make use of that as a reason why we should regard
them the more; for they are written for our learning too, and for warning to us and to our land.
318
JEREMIAH, I.
CHAP. I.
In this chapter we have, I. The general inscription or title
of this book; with the time of the continuance of Jere¬
miah’s public ministry, v. 1 . . 3. II. The call of Jere¬
miah to the prophetical office, his modest objection
against it answered, and an ample commission given
him for the execution of it, v. 4 . . 10. III. The visions
of an almond-rod and a seething-pot, signifying the ap¬
proaching ruin of Judah and Jerusalem by the Chaldeans,
v. II. . 16. IV. Encouragement given to the prophet to
go on undauntedly in his work, in an assurance of God’s
resence with him, v. 17 . . 19. Thus is he set to work
y one that will be sure to bear him out.
1. y I^HE words of Jeremiah the son of
JL Hilkiah, of the priests that were in
Anathoth, in the land of Benjamin: 2.
To whom the word of the Lord came in
the days of Josiah the son of Araon king
of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign.
3. It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the
son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the end
of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of
Josiah king of Judah, unto the carrying
away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month.
We have here as much as it was thought fit we
should know of the genealogy of this prophet, and
the chronology of his prophecy.
1. We are told what family the prcmhet was of.
He was the son of Hilkiah: not that Hilkiah, it is
supposed, that was High Priest in Josiah’s time,
(for then he would have been called so, and not, as
here, one of the firiests that were in Anathoth ,) but
another of the same name. Jeremiah signifies one
raised up by the Lord. It is said of Christ, that he
is a prophet whom the Lord our God raised up
unto us, Deut. xviii. 15, IS. He was of the priests,
and, as a priest, was authorized and appointed to
teach the people; but to that authority and appoint¬
ment God added the extraordinary commission of a
prophet. Ezekiel was also a priest. Thus God
would support the honour of the priesthood at a
time when, by their sins and God’s judgments upon
them, it was sadly eclipsed. He was of the priests
in Anathoth; a city of priests, which lay about
three miles from Jerusalem. Abiathar had his
country house there, 1 Kings ii. 26.
2. We have the general date of his prophecies;
the knowledge of which is requisite to the under¬
standing of them. (1.) He began to prophesy in
the thirteenth year of Josiah’s reign, v. 2. Josiah,
in the twelfth year of his reign, began a work of
reformation, applied himself with all sincerity to
purge Judah ami Jerusalem from the high places,
and the groves, and the images, 2 Chron. xxxiv. 3.
And very seasonably then was this young prophet
raised up to assist and encourage the young king in
that good work. Then the word of the Lord came
to him; not only a charge and commission to him to
prophesy, but a revelation of the things themselves
which He was to deliver. As it is an encourage¬
ment to ministers to be countenanced and protected
by such pious magistrates as Josiah was, so it is a
great help to magistrates, in any good work of re¬
formation, to be advised and animated, and to have
a great deal of their work done for them, by such
faithful, zealous ministers as Jeremiah was. Now,
one would have expected when these two joined
forces, such a prince, and such a prophet, (as in a
.ike case, Ezra v. 1, 2.) and both young, such a
complete reformation would have been brought about
and settled, as would have prevented the ruin of the
church and state; but it proved quite otherwise. In
the. eighteenth year of Josiah we find there were a
cv I at many of the relics of idolatry, that were not I
purged out; for what can the best princes and pro-
hets do to prevent the ruin of a people that hate to
e reformed? And therefore, though it was a time
of reformation, Jeremiah continued to forett.ll the
destroying judgments that were coming upon them;
for there is no symptom more threatening to any
people than fruitless attempts of reformation. Jo¬
siah and Jeremiah would have healed them, but
they would not be healed. (2.) He continued to
prophesy through the reigns of Jehoiakim and Ze¬
dekiah, who reigned eleven years apiece; he pro¬
phesied to the carrying away of Jerusalem captive,
(v. 3.) that great event which he had so often pro¬
phesied of. He continued to prophesy after that,
ch. xl. 1. But the computation here is made to end
with that, because it was the accomplishment of
many of his predictions; and from the thirteenth
of Josiah to the captivity was just forty years. Dr.
Lightfoot observes, that as Moses was so long with
the people, a teacher in the wilderness, till they
entered into their own land; Jeremiah was so long
to their own land a teacher, before they went intc
the wilderness of the heathen; and he thinks that
therefore a special mark is set upon the last forty
years of the iniquity of Judah, which Ezekiel bore
forty days, a dav for a year, because, during all that
time, they had Jeremiah prophesying among them,
which was a great aggravation of their impenitency.
God, in this prophet, suffered their manners, their
ill manners, forty years, and at length sware in
his wrath that they should not continue in his rest.
4. Then the word of the Lord came un¬
to me, saying, 5. Before I formed thee
in the belly I knew thee; and before
thou earnest forth out of the womb I sanc¬
tified thee; and I ordained thee a prophet
unto the nations. 6. Then said I, Ah,
Lord God! behold, I cannot speak; for I
am a child. 7. But the Lord said unto me,
Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to
all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I
command thee thou shalt speak. 8. Be not
afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to
deliver thee, saith the Lord. 9. Then the
Lord put forth his hand, and touched my
mouth: and the Lord said unto me, Be¬
hold, I have put my words in thy mouth.
10. See, I have this day set thee over the
nations, and over the kingdoms, to root out,
and to pull down, and to destroy, and to
throw down, to build, and to plant.
Here is,
I. Jeremiah’s early designation to the work and
office of a prophet, which God gives him notice of
as a reason for his early application to that business;
(v. 4, 5.) The word of the Lord came to him, with a
satisfying assurance to himself that it was the word
of the Lord, and not a delusion; and God told him,
1. That he had ordained him a prophet to the na¬
tions, or, against the nations; the nation of the Jews
in the first place, who are therefore now reckoned
among the nations, because they had learned their
works, and mingled themselves with them in theii
idolatries, which otherwise they should net have
been, Numb, xxiii. 9. Yet he was given to be a
prophet, not to Jews only, but to the neighbouring
nations; to whom he was to send yokes, (ch. xxvii.
3.) and whom he must make to drink of the cup of
[ the Lord’s anger, ch. xxv. 17. He is still in his
| writings a prophet to the nations (to ctm nations
JEREMIAH. 1.
319
among the rest,) to tell them what the national
judgments are which may be expected for national
sins. It would be well for the nations, would they
take Jeremiah for their prophet, and attend to the
warnings he gives them. 2. That, before he was
born, even in his eternal counsel, he had designed
him to be so. Let him know, that He who gave
him his commission, is the same that gave him his
being, that formed him in the belly, and brought
him forth out of the womb, and therefore was his
rightful Owner, and might employ him, and make !
use of him, as he pleased; and that this commission
was given him in pursuance of the purpose God
bad purposed in himself concerning him, before he
was born; “I knew thee, and I sanctified thee ; I
determined that thou shouldest be a prophet, and set
t’lec apart for the office.” Thus St. Paul says of
himself, that God had se/iarated him from his mo¬
ther’s womb, to be a Christian, and an apostle, Gal.
i. 15. Observe, ( 1. ) The great Creator knows what
use to make of every man before he makes him; he
has made all for himself , and of the same lumps of
clay designs a vessel oj honour or dishonour, as he
pleases, Rom. ix. 21. (2.) What God has design¬
ed men for, he will call them to; for his purposes
cannot be frustrated. Known unto God are all his
own works beforehand, and his knowledge is in¬
fallible and his purpose unchangeable. (3.) There
is a particular purpose and providence of God con¬
versant about his prophets and ministers; they are
by special counsel designed for their work, and what
they are designed for they are fitted for; I that knew
thee, sanctified thee. God destines them to it, and
forms them for it, then when he first forms the
spirit of man within him; Propheta nascitur, non
fit — A man is not educated unto a ] iro/ihet , but
originally formed for the office.
II. His modest declining of this honourable em¬
ployment, v. 6. Though God had predestinated
liim to it, yet it was news to him, and a mighty sur¬
prise to hear that he should be a prophet to the na¬
tions. We know not what God intends us for, but
He knows. One would have thought he should
have catched at it as a piece of preferment, for so it
was; but he objects against it, disables himself;
“Ah, Lord God, behold, I cannot speak to great
men and multitudes, as prophets must; I cannot
speak finely or fluently ; cannot word things well, as
a message from God should be worded; I cannot
speak with any authority, nor can expect to be
heeded, for I am a child, and my youth will be des¬
pised.” Note, It becomes us when we have any
service to do for God, to be afraid lest we misma¬
nage it, and lest it suffer, through our weakness and
unfitness for it; it becomes us likewise to have low
thoughts of ourselves, and to be diffident of our own
sufficiency. Those that are young should consider
that they are so; should be afraid, as Eliliu was, and
not venture beyond their length.
III. The assurance God graciously gave him,
that he would stand by him, and carry him on in his
work.
1. Let him not object that he is a child, he shall
be a prophet for all that; ( v . 7.) “Say not any¬
more I am a child: it is true thou art; but,” (1.)
“ Thou hast God’s precept, and let not that hinder
thee from obeying it. Go to all to whom I shall
send thee, and speak whatsoever I command thee.”
Note, Though a sense of our own weakness and insuf¬
ficiency should make us go humbly about our work,
vet it should not make us draw back from it when
God calls us to it. God was angry with Moses even
for his modest excuses, Exod. iv. 14. (2.) “Thou
hast God’s presence ; and let not thy being young dis¬
courage thee from depending upon it. Tliough thou
art a child, thou shalt be enabled to go to all to
whom I shall send thee, though they were ever so
great, and ever so many. And whatsoever J com¬
mand thee, thou shalt have judgment, memory, and
language, wherewith to speak it, as it should be
spoken. ” Samuel delivered a message from God to
Eli, when he was a little child. Note, God can,
when he pleases, make children prophets, and or¬
dain strength out of the mouths of babes and suck¬
lings.
2. Let him not object that he shall meet with
many enemies and much opposition; God will be
i his protector; (v. 8.) “ Be not af rad of their faces;
though they look big, and so think to outface thee,
and put thee out of countenance, yet be not afraid
to speak to them; no, not to speak that to them
which is mist unpleasing; thou speakest in the
name of the King of kings, and by authority from
him, and with that thou mayest face them down.
Though they look angry, be not afraid of their dis¬
pleasure, nor disturbed with apprehensions of the
consequences of it. Those that have messages to
deliver from God, must not be afraid of the face of
man, Ezek. iii. 9. And thou hast cause both to be
bold and easy; for lam with thee, not only to assist
thee in thy work, but to deliver thee out of the
hands of the persecutors: and if God be for thee,
who can be against thee?” If God do not deliver his
ministers from trouble, it is to the same effect if he.
support them under their trouble. Mr. Gataker
well observes here, That earthly princes are not
wont to go along with their ambassadors; but God
goes along with those whom he sends, and is, by
his powei'ful protection, at all times, and in all
place's, present with them; and with this they ought
to animate themselves, Acts xviii. 10.
3. Let him not object that he cannot speak as be¬
comes him — God will enable him to speak.
(1.) To speak intelligently, and as one that had
acquaintance with God, v. 9. He having now a vision
of the divine glory, the Lord put forth his hand, and
by a sensible sign conferred upon him so much of
the gift of the tongue as was necessary for him; he
touched his mouth, and with that touch opened his
lips, that his mouth should show forth God’s praise;
and with that touch sweetly conveyed his words
into his mouth, to be ready to him upon all such
occasions; so that he could never want words who
was thus furnished by Him that made man’s mouth.
God not only put knowledge into his head, but words
into his mouth; for there are words which the Holy
Ghost teaches, 1 Cor. ii. 13. It is fit God’s mes¬
sage should be delivered in his own words, that it
may be delivered punctually; (Ezek. iii. 4.) Speak
with my words. And those that faithfully do so
shall not want instructions as the case requires;
God will give them a mouth and wisdom in that
same hour, Matth. x. 19.
(2.) To speak powerfully, and as one that had
authority from God, v. 10. It is a strange commis¬
sion that is here given him; See, I have this day
set thee over the nations, and over the kingdoms;
which sounds very great, and yet Jeremiah is a poor,
despicable priest still; he is not set over the king¬
doms as a prince, to rule them by the sword, but as
a prophet, by the power of the word of God. Those
that would from hence prove the Pope’s supremacy
over kings, and his authority to depose them, and
dispose of their kingdoms at his pleasure, must
prove that he has the same extraordinary Spirit of
prophecy that Jeremiah had, else how can he have
the power that Jeremiah had by virtue of that
Spirit? And vet the power that Jeremiah had, who,
notwithstanding his power, lived in meanness and
contempt, and under oppression, would not content
these proud men. Jeremiah was set over the na¬
tions, the Jewish nation in the first place, and other
nations, some great ones besides, against whom he
prophesied; was set over them, not to demand tri-
320
JEREMIAH, I.
bute from them, or to enrich himself with theii
spoils, but to root out, and pull down, and destroy,
and yet withal to build and plant. [1.] He must
attempt to reform the nations, to root out, and pull
down, and destroy idolatry and other wickedness
among them, to extirpate those vicious habits and
customs which had long taken root, to throw down
the kingdom of sin, that religion and virtue might
be planted and built among them. And to the in¬
troducing and establishing of that which is good, it
is necessary that that which is evil be removed.
[2. ] He must tell them that it would be well or ill
with them, according as they were, or were not,
reformed. He must set before them life and death,
good or evil, according to God’s declaration of the
method lie takes with kingdoms and nations, ch.
xviii. 7, 10. He must assure those who persisted
in their wickedness, that they should be rooted and
destroyed, and those who repented, that they should
be built and planted. He was authorized to read
the doom of nations, and God would ratify it, and
fulfil it, (Isa. xliv. 26.) would do it according to
his word, and therefore is said to do it by his word.
It is thus expressed, partly to show how sure the
word of prophecy is — it will as certainly be accom¬
plished as it it were done already; and partly to put
an honour upon the prophetical office, and make it
look truly great, that others may not despise pro¬
phets, nor they disparage themselves. And yet
more honourable does the gospel-ministry look, in
that declarative power Christ gave his apostles, to
remit and retain sin, (John xx. 23.) to bind and
loose, Matth. xviii. 18.
1 1 . Moreover, the word of the Lord
came unto me, saying, Jeremiah, what seest
thou? And I said, I see a rod of an almond-
tree. 12. Then said the Lord unto me,
Thou hast .well seen: for I will hasten my
word to perforin it. 13. And the word of
the Lord came unto me the second time,
saying, What seest thou? And I said, I see
a seething-pot, and the face thereof is to¬
ward the north. 1 4. Then the. Lord said
unto me, Out of the north an evil shall
break forth upon all the inhabitants of the
land. 15. For, lo, I will call all the fami¬
lies of the kingdoms of the north, saith the
Lord; and they shall come, and they shall
set every one his throne at the entering of
the gates of Jerusalem, and against all the
walls thereof round about, and against all
the cities of Judah. 16. And I will utter
my judgments against them touching all
their wickedness, who have forsaken me,
and have burnt incense unto other gods,
and worshipped the works of their own
hands. 17. Thou therefore gird up thy loins,
and arise, and speak unto them all thai I
command thee: be not dismayed at then
faces, lest I confound thee before them. 18.
For, behold, I have made thee this day a
defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brazen
walls, against the whole land; against the
kings of Judah, against the princes thereof,
against the priests thereof, and against the
people of the land. 19. And they shall
fight against thee, but they shall not prevail
against thee; for I am with thee, saith ihe
Lord, to deliver thee.
Here,
I. God gives Jeremiah, in vision, a view of ‘.he
principal errand he was to go upon, which was to
foretell the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem by
the Chaldeans, for their sins, especially their idola¬
try. This was at first represented to him, in a way
proper to make an impression upon him, that he
might have it upon his heart in all his dealings with
this people.
1. He intimates to him that the people wen
ripening apace for ruin, and that ruin was hasten
ing apace toward them. God, having answered
his objection, that he was a child, goes on to initiat'
him in the prophetical learning and language; and,
having promised to enable him to speak intelligibly
to the people, he here teaches him to understand
what God says to him ; for prophets must have eyes
in their heads as well as tongues, must be seers as
well as speakers; he therefore asks him, “ Jert
miah, what seest thou? Look about thee, and ob
serve now.” And he was soon aware of what was
presented to him; I see a rod, denoting affliction
and chastisement; a correcting rod hanging overus:
and it is a rod of an almond-tree, which is one <f
the forwardest trees in the spring, is in the bud and
blossoms quickly, when other trees are scarcely
broken out; it flourishes, says Pliny, in the month
of January, and bv March has ripe fruits; hence it
is called in the Hebrew, Shakedh, the hasty treej
whether this rod that Jeremiah saw had already
budded, as some think, or whether it was strippee
and dry, as others think, and yet Jeremiah knew it
to be of an almond-tree, as Aaron’s rod was, is un¬
certain; but God explained it in the next words;
(t». 12.) Thou hast well seen. God lommended
him that he was so observant, and so quick of ap¬
prehension, as to be aware, though it was the first
vision he ever saw, that it was a rod of an almond-
tree; that his mind was so composed as to be able to
distinguish. Prophets have need of good eyes; and
those that see well shall be commended, and not
those only that speak well. “ Thou hast seen a
hasty tree, which signifies that I will hasten my
word to perform it.” Jeremiah shall prophesy
that which he himself shall live to see accomplish¬
ed. We have the explication of this, Ezek. vii.
10, 11. “ The rod hath blossomed, pride hath
budded, violence is risen up into a rod of wickedness.
The measure of Jerusalem’s iniquity fills very fast;
and as if their destruction slumbered too long, they
waken it, they hasten it, and I will hasten to per¬
form what I have spoken against them. ”
2. He intimates to him whence the intended ruin
should arise; Jeremiah is a second time asked, IV hat
seest thou? He sees a seething-pot upon the fire,
( v . 13.) representing Jerusalem and Judah in great
commotion, like boiling water, by reason of the de¬
scent which the Chaldean army made upon them;
made like a fiery oven, (Ps. xxi. 9.) all in a heat,
wasting away as boiling water does, and sensibly eva-
poratingand growingless and less;readyto boil over,
to be thrown out of their own city and land, as out
of the pan into the fire, from baa to worse. Some
think that those scoffers referred to this, who said,
(Ezek. xi. 3.) The city is the caldron, and we be
the fiesh. Now the mouth or face of the furnace cr
hearth, over which this pot boiled was toward the
north; for thence the fire and fuel were to come,
that must make the pot boil thus. So the vision is
explained, v. 14. Out of the north an evil shall
break forth, or shall be opened. It had been long
designed by the justice of God, and long deserved
by the sin of the people, and yet hitherto the divine
patience had restrained it, and held it in, as it were;
321
JEREMIAH, 1.
the enemies had intended it, and God had checked
them; but now all restraints shall be taken off, and
t ie evil shall break forth; the direful scene shall
open, and the enemy shall come in like a flood. It
sh ill be a universal calamity, it shall come u/ion all
the inhabitants of the land, from the highest to the
lowest, for they have all corrupted their way. Look
for this storm to arise out of the north, whence fair
weather usually comes, Job xxxvii. 22. When
there was friendship between Hezekiah and the
king of Babylon, they promised themselves many
advantages out of the north; but it proved quite
otherwise, out of the north their trouble arose.
Thence sometimes the fiercest tempests come,
whence we expected fair weather. This is further
explained, v. 15. where we may observe, (1.) The
raising of the army that shall invade Judah, and
lav it waste; I will call all the families of the king¬
doms of the north, saith the Lord. All the northern
crowns shall unite under Nebuchadnezzar, and join
with him in this expedition. They lay dispersed,
but God, who has all men’s hearts in his hand, will
bring them together; they lie at a distance from
Judah, but God, who directs all men’s steps, will
call them, and they shall come, though they be ever
so far off. God’s summons shall be obeyed; they
whom he calls shall come. When he has work to
do of any kind, he will find instruments to do it,
though he send to the utmost parts of the earth for
them. And that the armies brought into the field
may be sufficiently numerous and strong, he will
call not only the kingdoms of the north, but all the
families of those kingdoms into the service; not one
able-bodied man shall be left behind. (2.) The
advance of this army; the commanders of the troops
of the several nations shall take their post in carry¬
ing on the siege of Jerusalem, and the other cities
of Judah. They shall set every one his throne, or
seat. When a city is besieged, we say, The ene¬
my sits down before it; they shall encamp some at
the entering of the gates, others against the walls
round about, to cut off both the going out of the
mouths, and the coming in of the meat, and so to
starve them.
3. He tells him plainly what was the procuring
cause of all these judgments; it was the sin of Jeru¬
salem, and of the cities of Judah; (v. 16. ) I will
fiass sentence upon them; so it may be read; or give
judgment against them, this sentence, this judg¬
ment, because of all their wickedness; that is it that
plucks up the flood-gates, and lets in this inunda¬
tion of calamities. They have forsaken God, and
revolted from their allegiance to him, and have
burnt incense to other gods, new gods, strange gods,
and all false gods, pretenders, usurpers, the crea¬
tures of their own fancy, and they have worshipped
the works of their own hands. Jeremiah was young,
had looked but little abroad into the world, and
perhaps did not know, nor could have believed,
what abominable idolatries the children of his peo-
le were guilty of; but God tells him, that he might
now what to level his reproofs against, and what
to ground his threatenings upon, and that he might
himself be satisfied in the equity of the sentence
which, in God’s name, he was to pass upon them.
11. God excites and encourages Jeremiah to ap¬
ply himself with all diligence and seriousness to his
business. A great trust is committed to him; he is
sent, in God’s name, as a herald at arms, to pro¬
claim war against his rebellious subjects; for God is
pleased to give warning of his judgments before¬
hand, that sinners may be awakened to meet him
oy repentance, and so turn away his wrath, and
that, if they do not, they may be left inexcusable.
With this trhst Jeremiah has a charge given him;
(xc 17. ) “ Thou, therefore, gird up thy loins; free
thyself from all those things that would unfit thee
VoL. IV. — 2 S
for, or hinder thee in, this service; buckle to it with
readiness and resolution; and be not entangled with
doubts about it.” He must be quick — Arise, and
lose no time; he must be busy — Arise, and speak
unto them in season, out of season; he must be bold
— Be not dismayed at their faces, as before, v. 8.
In a word, he must be faithful; it is required of am¬
bassadors that they be so.
In two things he must be faithful. 1. He must
speak all that he is charged with; Speak all that 1
command thee. He must forget nothing as minute,
or foreign, or not worth mentioning; every word of
God is weighty. He must conceal nothing for fear
of offending; lie must alter nothing under pretence
of making it more fashionable or more palatable,
but without addition or diminution, declare the whole
counsel of God. 2. He must speak to all that he is
chargedfygainst ; he must not whisper it in a corner
to a few particular friends that will take it well,
but he must appear against the kings of Judah, if
they be wicked kings, and bear his testimony
against the sins even of the princes thereof; for the
greatest of men are not exempt from the judgments,
either of God’s hand, or of his mouth. Nay, he
must not spare the priests thereof; though he him¬
self was a priest, and was concerned to maintain the
dignity of his order, yet he must not therefore flat¬
ter them in their sins. He must appear against the
people of the land, though they were his own people,
as far as they were against the Lord.
And two reasons are here given why he should
do thus: (1.) Because he had reason to fear the
wrath of God, if he should be false; “ Be not dis¬
mayed at their faces, so as to desert thine office, or
shrink from the duty of it, lest J confound and dis¬
may thee before them; lest I give thee up to thy
faint-heartedness.'’ Those that consult their own
"credit, ease, and safety, more than their work and
duty, are justly left of God to themselves, and to
bring upon themselves the shame of their own
cowardliness. Nay, lest I reckon with thee for thy
faint-heartedness, and break thee to pieces; so some
read it. Therefore this prophet says, ch. xvii. 17.
Lord, Be not thou a terror to me. Note, The fear
of God is the best antidote against the fear of man.
Let us always be afraid of offending God, who after
he has killed has power to cast into hell, and then
we shall be in little danger of fearing the faces of
men that can but kill the body, Luke xii. 4, 5.
See Neh. iv. 14. It is better to have all the men
in the world our enemies than God our Enemy.
(2.) Because he had no reason to fear the wra .h
of man if he were faithful; for the God whom he
served, would protect him, and bear him out, so
that they should neither sink his spirits, nor drive
him off from his work, should neither stop his
mouth, nor take away his life, till he had finished!
his testimony, v. 18. This young stripling of a
prophet is made by the power of God, as an im¬
pregnable city, fortified with iron pillars and sur¬
rounded with walls of brass; he sallies out upon
them in reproofs and threatenings, and keeps them
in awe. They set upon him on every side; the
kings and princes batter him with their power, the
priests thunder against him with their church-cen¬
sures, and the people of the land shoot their arrows
at him, even slanderous and bitter words; but lie
shall keep his ground, and make Ms part good with
them; he shall still be a curh upon them; (x>. 19.)
They shall fight against thee, but they shall not
prevail to destroy thee, for I am with thee to deliver
thee out of their hands; nor shall they prevail to
defeat the word that God sends them by Jere¬
miah, nor to deliver themselves, it shall take hold
of them, for God is against them to destroy
them. Note, Those who are sure that they have
God with them, (as he is if they be with him,)
JEREMIAH, II.
522
need not, ought not, to be afraid, whoever is against
tnem.
CHAP. II.
U is probable that this chapter was Jeremiah’s first ser¬
mon alter his ordination; and a most livel>, pathetic
sermon it is as any we have in all the books of the pro¬
phets. Let him not say, I cannot speak , Jor I am a child;
for Uod having touched his mouth, and put his words
into it none can speak better. The scope of the chapter
is to show tJod’s people their transgressions, even the
house of Jacob their sins; it is all by way of reproof and
conviction, that they might be brought to repent of their
sins and so prevent the ruin that was coming upon them.
The* charge drawn up against them is very high, the ag¬
gravations black, the arguments used for their conviction
verv close and pressing, and the expostulations very
pungent and affecting. The sin which they are most
particularly charged with here, is idolatry, forsaking the
true tiod, their own God, for other false gods. Now
they are told, I. That this was ungrateful to God, who
hat/ been so kind to them, v. 1 . .8 I I. That it was
without precedent, that a nation should change their
sod v 9.. 13. III. That hereby they had disparaged
and* ruined themselves, v. 14.. 19. IV. That they had
broken their covenants, and degenerated from their good
hptrinninss v 20,21. V. That their wickedness was too
plain to be concealed, and too bad to be excused, v. 22,
23 25. VI. That they persisted wilfully and obstinately
in ’it and were irreclaimable and indelatigable in their
idolatries v. 2i, 25, 33, 36. VII. That they shamed
themselves by their idolatry, and should shortly be made
ashamed of it when thev should find their idols unable to
help™hem v. 26.. 29 37. VIII. That they had not
been convinced and reformed by the rebukes of Provi¬
dence v 30 IX. That they had put a great contempt
upon mod, v. 31, 32. X. That with their idolatries they
had mixed the most unnatural murders, shedding the
blood of Ihe poor innocents, v. 34. I hose h“r^s 'vt'r®
hard indeed, that were untouched and unhumbled when
their sins were thus set in order before them. O that by
meditating on Ibis chapter we might be brought to re¬
pent of our spiritual idolatries, giving that place in our
souls to the world and the flesh, which should have been
reserved for God only ?
1. -m/fOREOVER, the word of the Lord
i’l l, came to me, saying, 2. Go, and
cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, 1 hus
saith the Lord, I remember thee, the kind¬
ness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals,
when thou Wen test after me in the wilder¬
ness, in a land that was not sown. 3. Israel
was holiness unto the Lord, and the hrst-
fruits of his increase : all that devour him
shall offend ; evil shall come upon them,
saith the Lord. 4. Hear ye the word oi
the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the
families of the house of Israel: 5. Ihus
saith the Lord, What iniquity have your
fathers found in me, that they are gone tar
from me, and have walked after vanity, and
are become vain ? 6. Neither said they.
Where is the Lord that brought us up out
of the land of Egypt, that led us through the
wilderness; through a land of deserts, and
of pits; through a land of drought, and ot
the shadow of death, through a land that
no man passed through, and where no man
dwelt ? 7. And 1 brought you into a plen¬
tiful country, to eat the fruit thereof, and
the goodness thereof: but when ye entered,
ye defiled my land, and made my heritage
an abomination. 8. The priests said not,
Where is the Lord? and they that handle
the law knew me not: the pastors also
transgressed against me, and the prophets
prophesied by Baal, and walked after things
that do not. profit.
Here is, ... ,
I. A command given to Jeremiah to go and carry
a message from God to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
He was charged in general ( ch . i. 17.) to go, and
speak to them; here he is particulary charged to go,
and speak this to them. Note, It is good for minis¬
ters by faith and p raver to take out a fresh com¬
mission, when they address themselves solemnly to
any part of their work. Let a minister carefully
compare what he has to deliver with the word of
God, and see that it agrees with it, that lie may be
able to say, not only The Lord sent me, but, He
sent me to speak this. He must go from Anathoth,
where he lived in a pleasant retirement, spending
his time (it is likely) among a few friends, and in
the study of the law, and must make his appearance
at Jerusalem, that noisy, tumultuous city, and fry
in their ears, as a man in earnest, and that would
be heard; “Cry aloud, that all may hear, and none
may plead ignorance. Go close to them, and cry
in the ears ot those that have stopped their ears.
II The message he was commanded to, deliver.
He must upbraid them with their horrid ingratitude
in forsaking a God who had been of old so kind to
them; that this might either make them ashamed,
and bring them to repentance, or might justify God
in turning his hand against them.
1. God here puts them in mind of the favours he
had of old bestowed upon them, when they were
first formed into a people; (v. 2.) “ / remember for
thy sake, and I would have thee to remember it, and
improve the remembrance of it for thy good; 1 can¬
not forget the kindness of thy youth, and the love of
thine esliousals This may be understood,
( 1. ) Of the kindness thev had for God ; it was not
such indeed as thev had any reason to boast of, or
to plead with God 'for favour to be showed them;
(for many of them were very unkind and provoking,
and when they did return, and inquire early after
God, they did but flatter him;) yet God is pleased
to mention it, and plead it with them; for though it
was but little love that they showed him, he took it
kindly. When they believed the Lord and his ser¬
vant 'Moses, when' they sang God’s praise at the
Red sea, when at the foot of mount Sinai, they pro¬
mised, All that the Lord shall say unto us we will
do, and will be obedient; then was the kindness oj
their youth, and the love of their espousals XV hen
they seemed so forward for God, he said, Sui ely
they are my people, and will be faithful to me, chil¬
dren that will not lie. Note, Those that begin well,
and promise fair, but do not perform and persevere,
will justly be upbraided with their hopeful and pro¬
mising beginnings. God remembers the kindness
of our youth, and the love of our espousals, the zeal
we then seemed to have for him, and the affection
wherewith we made our covenants with him, the
buds and blossoms that never came to perfection;
and it is good for us to remember them, that wt
may remember whence we are fallen, and return to
our first love, Rev. ii. 4, 5. Gal. lv. 15.
In two things appeared the kindness of their
youth ri.l That they followed the direction of
the pillar of cloud and'fire in the wilderness; and
though sometimes they spake of returning into
Egypt, or pushing forward into Canaan, v et they
did neither, but for forty years together went after
Godin the wilderness, and trusted him topioude
for them, though it was a land that was not sown.
This God took kindlv, and took notice of it to their
praise long after, that though much was amiss
323
JEREMIAH, II.
among them, yet they never forsook the direction I
they were under. Thus, though Christ often chid
his disciples, yet he commended them, at parting,
for continuing with him, Luke xxii. 28. It must be
the strong affection of the youth, and the espousals,
that will carry us on to follow God in a wilderness,
with an implicit faith, and an entire resignation;
and it is a pity that those who have so followed him,
should ever leave him. [2.] That they entertain¬
ed divine institutions, set up the tabernacle among
them, and attended the service of it. Israel teas'
then holiness to the Lord, they joined themselves to
him in covenant as a peculiar people. Thus they
began in the Spirit, and God puts them in mind of
it, that they might be ashamed of ending in the Jiesh.
Or, it may be understood, (2.) Of God’s kind-
tiess to them; of that he afterwards speaks largely;
When Israel was a child, then I loved him, Hos. xi.
1. He then espoused that people to himself with
all the affection with which a young man marries a
virgin, (ch. lxii. 5.) for the time was a time of love,
Ezek. xvi. 8.
[1.] God appropriated them to himself; though
they were a sinful people, yet by virtue of the cove¬
nant made with them, and the church setup among
them, they were holiness to the Lord, dedicated to
his honour, and taken under his special tuition: they
were the Ji rst -fruits of his increase, the first consti¬
tuted church he had in the world; these were the
first-fruits, but the full harvest was to lie gathered
from among the Gentiles. The first-fruits of the
increase were God’s part of it, were offered to him,
and he was honoured with them; so were the people
of the Jews; what little tribute, rent, and homage
God had from the world, he had it chiefly from
them; and it was their honour to be thus set apart
from God. This honour have all the saints, they
are the first-fruits of his creatures. Jam. i. 18.
[2.] Having espoused them, he espoused their
cause, and became an Enemy to their enemies,
Exod. xxiii. 22. Being the first-fruits of his in¬
crease, all that devoured him, (so it should be read,)
did offend, they tresfiassed, they contracted guilt,
and evil befell them; as those were reckoned offend¬
ers, that devoured the first-fruits, or any thing else
that was holy to the Lord, that embezzled them,
or converted them to their own use, Lev. v. 15.
Whoever offered any injury to the people of God,
did it at their jieril; their God was ready to avenge
their quarrel, and said to the proudest of kings.
Touch not mine attainted, Ps. cv. 14, 15. Exod.
xvii. 14. He had in a special manner a controversy
with those that attempted to debauch them, and
draw them off from being holiness to the Lord; wit¬
ness his quarrel with the Midianites about the mat¬
ter of Peor, Numb. xxv. 17, 18.
[3.] He brought them out of Egypt with a high
hand and great terror, (Deut. iv. 34.) and yet with
a kind hand and great tenderness led them through
a vast howling wilderness, (y. 6.) a land of deserts
and pits; or of graves, terram sepulchralem — a se¬
pulchral land, where there was ground, not to feed
them, but to bury them; where there was no good
to be expected, for it was a land of drought, but all
manner of evil to be feared, for it was the shadow
of death; in that darksome valley they walked forty
years; but God was with them, his rod, in Moses’s
hand, and his staff, comforted them, and even there
God prepared a table for them, (Ps. xxiii. 4, 5.)
gave them bread out of the clouds, and drink out of
the rocks. It was a land abandoned by all man¬
kind, as yielding neither road nor rest; it was no
riiovoughfare, for no man passed through it; no set¬
tlement, for no man dwelt there; for God will teach
his people to tread untrodden paths, to dwell alone,
and to be singular. The difficulties of the journey
are thus insisted on, to magnify the power and good- \
ness of God in bringing them, through all, safe to
their journey’s end at last. All God’s spiritual Is¬
rael must own their obligations to him for a safe
conduct through the wilderness of this world, no
less dangerous to the soul than that was to the body.
[4.] At length he settled them in Canaan; ( v . 7.)
I brought you into a plentiful country; which would
be the more acceptable after they had been for so
many years in a land of drought. They did eat
the fruit thereof, and the goodness thereof, and were
allowed so to do. I brought you into a lund of Car¬
mel; so the word is; Carmel was a place of extra¬
ordinary fi-uitfulness; Canaan was as one great fruit¬
ful field, Deut. viii. 7.
[5.] God gave them the means of knowledge and
grace, and communion with him; this is implied, v.
8. They had priests that handled the law, read it,
and expounded it to them; that was part of their
business, Deut. xxxiii. 8. They had pastors to
guide them, and take care of their affairs, magis¬
trates and judges; they had prophets to consult God
for them, and to make known his mind to them.
2. He upbraids them with their horrid ingrati¬
tude, and the ill returns they had made him for
these favours; let them all come, and answer to this
charge; (u. 4.) it is exhibited in the name of God
against all the families of the house of Israel, for
they can none of them plead Not guilty.
(1.) He challenges them to produce any instance
of his being unjust and unkind to them. Though he
had conferred favours upon them in some things,
yet, if in other things he had dealt hardly with
them, they had not been altogether without ex¬
cuse. He therefore puts it fairly to them to show
cause for their deserting him; (y. 5.) “ What ini¬
quity have your fathers found in me, or you either?
Have you, upon trial, found God a hard Master?
Have his commands put any hardship upon you, or
obliged you to any thing unfit, unfair, or unbecom¬
ing you? Have his promises put any cheats upon
you, or raised your expectations of tilings which you
were afterward disappointed of? You that renounce
your covenant with God, can vou say that it was a
hard bargain, and that which you could not live
upon? You that forsake the ordinances of Gcd, can
you say that it was because they were a wearisome
service, or work that there was nothing to be got
by? No, the disappointments you have met with,
were owing to yourselves, not to God. The yoke
of his commandments is easy, and in keeping of
them there is great reward .” Note, Those that for¬
sake God cannot say that he has ever given them
any provocation to do so: for this we may safely ap¬
peal to the consciences of sinners; the slothful ser¬
vant that offered such a plea as this, had it over¬
ruled out of his own mouth, Luke xix. 22. Though
he afflicts us, we cannot say that there is iniquity in
him, he doeth us no wrong; the ways of the Lord
are undoubtedly equal, all the iniquity is in our ways.
(2.) He charges them with being very unjust and
unkind to him notwithstanding.
[1.] They had quitted his service; “ They are
gone from me, nay, they are gone far from me. ”
They studied how to estrange themselves from God
and their duty, and got as far as they could rut of
the reach of his commandments and their own con¬
victions. Those that have deserted religion, com¬
monly set themselves at a greater distance from it,
and in a greater opposition to it, than those that
never knew it.
[2.] They had quitted it for the service of idols,
which was so much the greater reproach to God
and his service; they went from him, not to mend
themselves, but to cheat themselves; they have
walked after vanity, that is, idolatry; for an idol is
a vain thing, it is nothing in the world, 1 Cor. viii.
4. Deut. xxxii. 21. Jer. xiv. 22. Tdolatrous woe
324
JEREMIAH, II.
ships are vanities, Acts xiv. 15. Idolaters are vain,
for they that make idols are like unto them, (Ps.
cxv. 8. ) as much stocks and stones as the images they
worship, and good for as little.
[3.] They had witli idolatry introduced all man¬
ner of wickedness. When they entered into the
good land which God gave them,' they defiled it, (x>.
7. ) by defiling themselves, and disfitting themselves
for the service of God. It was God’s land, they
were but tenants to him, sojourners in it. Lev. xxv.
23. It was his heritage, for it was a holy land, Im¬
manuel’s land; but they made it an abomination,
even to God himself, who was wroth, and greatly
abhorred Israel.
[4.] Having forsaken God, though they soon
found that they had changed for the worse, yet they
had no thoughts of returning to him again, nor took
any steps towards it. Neither the people nor the
priests made any inquiry after him, took no thought
about their duty to him, nor expressed any desire
to recover his favour. First, The people said not,
I Vhere is the Lord ? v. 6. Though they were train¬
ed up in an observance of him as their God, and
had been often told that he brought them out of the
land of Egypt, to be a peculiar people to himself,
yet they never asked after him, nor desired the
knowledge of his ways. Secondly, The priests said
not, Where is the Lord? v. 8. They whose office
it was to attend immediately upon him, were in no
concern to acquaint themselves with him, or ap¬
prove themselves to him. They who should have
instructed the people in the knowledge of God, took
no care to get the knowledge of him themselves.
The scribes, who handled the law, did not know
God nor his will, could not expound the scriptures
at all, or not aright. The pastors, who should have
kept the flock from transgressing, were themselves
ringleaders in transgression: They have transgress¬
ed against me. The pretenders to prophecy pro¬
phesied by Baal, in his name, to his honour, being
backed and supported by the wicked kings, to con¬
front the Lord’s prophets. Baal’s prophets joined
with Baal’s priests, and walked alter the things
which do not profit, after the idols which can be no
way helpful to their worshippers. See how the best
characters are usurped, and the best offices liable to
corruption; and wonder not at the sin and ruin of a
people when the blind are leaders of the blind.
9. Wherefore I will yet plead with you,
saith the Lord, and with your children’s
children will I plead. 10. For pass over
the isles of Chittim, and see; and send unto
Kedar, and consider diligently, and see if
there be such a thing: 11. Hath a nation
changed their gods, which are yet no gods ?
but my people have changed their glory for
that which doth not profit. 1 2. Be astonish¬
ed, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly
afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the Lord.
13. For my people have committed two
evils ; they have forsaken me, the fountain
of living waters, and hewed them out cis¬
terns, broken cisterns, that can hold no
water.
The prophet having shown their base ingratitude
in forsaking God, here shows their unparalleled
fickleness and folly; ( v . 9.) I will yet plead with
you. Note, Before God punishes sinners, he pleads
with them, to bring them to repentance. Again,
When much has been said of the evil of sin, still
there is more to be said, when one article of the
charge is made good, there is another to be uiged;
when we have said a great deal, still we have yet to
speak on God’s behalf, Job xxxvi. 2. Those that
deal with sinners, for their conviction, must urge a
variety of arguments, and follow their blow. God
had before pleaded with their fathers, and asked
why they walked after vanity, and became vain, v.
5. Now he pleads with them, who persisted in that
vain conversation received by tradition from tlnir
fathers, and with their children’s children, with all
that in every age tread in their steps. Let those
that forsake God know that he is willing to argue
the case fairly with them, that he may be justified
when he speaks. He pleads that with us, which
we should plead with ourselves.
I. He shows that they acted contrary' to the usage
: of all nations; their neighbours were more firm and
faithful to their false gods than they were to the
true God. They were ambitious of being like the
nations, and yet in tins they were unlike them. He
challenges them to produce an instance of any na¬
tion that had changed their gods, ( v . 10, 11.) or
were apt to change them. Let them survey either
the old records, or the present state, of the isles of
Chittim, Greece, and the European islands, the
countries that were more polite and learned; and of
Kedar, that lay south-east, (as the other north-west
from them,) which were more rude and barbarous;
and they should not find an instance of a nation that
had changed their gods, though they had never
done them any kindness, nor could do, for they were
no gods. Such a veneration had they for their
gods, so good an opinion of them, and such a respect
for the choice their fathers had made, that though
they were gods of wood and stone, they would not
change them for gods of silver and gold, no not for
the living and true God. Shall we praise them for
this? Mre praise them not. But it may well be urged,
to the reproach of Israel, that they who were the
only people that had no cause to change their God,
were yet the only people that had changed him.
Note, Men are with difficulty brought i fT that reli
gion which they had been brought up in, though
ever so absurd and grossly false. The zeal and con
stancy of idolaters should shame Christians out oi
their coldness and inconstancy.
II. He shows that they acted contrary to the die
tates of common sense, in that they not only chang¬
ed, (it may sometimes be our duty and wisdom to
do so,) but that they changed for the worse, and
made a bad bargain for themselves. 1. They part-
i ed from a God who was their Glory ; who made them
truly glorious, and every way put honour upon
them, one whom they might with a humble confi¬
dence glory in as theirs, who is himself a glorious
God, and the glory of those whose God he is; he
was particularly the glory of his people Israel, for
his glory had often appeared on their tabernacle.
2. They closed with gods that could do them no
good; gods that do not profit their worshippers.
Idolaters change God’s glory into shame, (Rom. i.
23.) and so they do their own; in dishonouring him,
they disgrace and disparage themselves, and are
enemies to their own interest. Note, Whatever
they turn to who forsake God, it will never do them
any good; it will flatter them and please them, but
it cannot profit them.
Heaven itself is here called upon to stand amazed
at the sin and folly of those apostates from God ; ( v .
12,13.) Be astonished, 0 ye heavens, at this. The
earth is so universally corrupt, that it will take no
notice of it; but let the heavens and heavenly bodies
be astonished at it. Let the sun blush to see such
ingratitude, and be afraid to shine upon such un¬
grateful wretches. They that forsook God, wor¬
shipped the host of heaven, the sun, morn, nd stars,
but these, instead of being pleased with the adcra-
325
JEREMIAH, II.
ions that were paid to them, were astonished, and
horribly afraid; and would rather have been very
desolate, utterly exhausted, as the word is, and de-
j rived of their light, than that it should hat e given
rccasion to any to worship them. Some refer it to
he angels of heaven; if they rejoice at the return
>f souls to God, we may suppose that they are as-
onished and horribly afraid at the revolt of souls
Yom him. The meaning is, that the conduct of
.his people toward God was such as, (1.) We may
well admire and wonder at, that ever men, who pre¬
tend to reason, should do a thing so very absurd.
2. ) Such as we ought to have a hoi)' indignation at
is impious, and a high affront to our Maker, whose
lonour every good man is jealous for. (3.) Such as
.ve may tremble to think of the consequences of;
what will tie in the end hereof. Be horribly afraid
.o think of the wrath and curse which will be the
portion of those who thus throw themselves out of
God’s grace and favour. Now what is it that is to
ae thought of with all this horror? . t is this; “My
fieo/ile, whom I have taught, and should have ruled,
have committed two great evils, ingratitude and
folly; they have acted contrary both to their duty
and to their interest. [1.] They have affronted
their God, by turning their back upon him, as if he
were not worthy their notice; “ They have forsaken
me, the Fountain of living waters, in whom they
have an abundant and constant supply of all the
comfort and relief they stand in need of, and they
have it freely.” God is their Fountain of life, Ps.
xxxvi. 9. There is in him an all-sufficiency of
grace and strength; all our springs are in him, and
our streams from him; to forsake him is, in effect, to
deny this; he has been to us a bountiful Benefactor,
a Fountain of living waters, overflowing, ever-
flowing, in the gifts of his favour; to forsake him is
to refuse to acknowledge his kindness, and to with¬
hold that tribute of love and praise, which his kind¬
ness calls for. [2.] They have cheated themselves;
they forsook their own mercies, but it was for lying
vanities; they took a great deal of pains to hew them
out cisterns, to dig pits or pools in the earth or rock,
which they would carry water to, or which should
veceive the rain; but they proved broken cisterns,
alse at the bottom, so that they could hold no wa¬
ter. When they came to quench their thirst there,
they found nothing but mud and mire, and the filthy
sediment of a standing lake. Such idols were to
their worshippers, and such a change did they ex¬
perience, who turned from God to them. If we
make an idol of any creature, wealth, or pleasure,
or honour, if we place our happiness in it, and pro¬
mise ourselves the comfort and satisfaction m it
which are to be had in God only, if we make it our
joy and love, our hope and confidence, we shall
find it a cistern, which we take a great deal of pains
to hew out and fill, and at the best it will hold but a
little water, and that dead and flat, and soon cor¬
rupting, and become nauseous. Nay, it is a broken
cistern, that cracks and cleaves in hot weather, so
that the water is gone when we have most need of
it, Job vi. 15. Let us therefore with purpose of
heart cleave to the Lord only, for whither else shall
we go? He has the words of eternal life.
14. Is Israel a servant? is he a horne-
Dorn slave? why is he spoiled? 15. The
young lions roared upon him and yelled,
and they made his land waste: his cities are
burnt without inhabitant. 16. Also the chil¬
dren of Noph and Tahapanes have broken
the crown of thy head. 17. Hast thou not
procured this unto thyself, in that thou hast
f irsaken the Lord thy God, when he led
thee by the way? 10. And now, what hast
thou to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the
waters of Sihor? Or what hast thou to do
in the way of Assyria, to drink the waters
of the river ? 1 9. Thine own wickedness
shall correct thee, and thy backslidings
shall reprove thee: know, therefore, and
see, that it is an evil thing and bitter, that
thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, and
that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord
God of hosts.
The prophet further to evince the folly of their
forsaking God, shows them what mischiefs they
had already brought upon themselves by it; it had
already cost them dear, for to this were owing all
the calamities their country was now groaning un¬
der; which were but an earnest of more and greater
if they repented not. See how they smarted for
their folly.
I. Their neighbours, who were their professed
enemies, prevailed against them, and that was in
consequence of their sin.
1. They were enslaved, and lost their liberty;
(x>. 14.) Is Israel a servant ? No, Israel is my son,
my first-born; (Exod. iv. 22.) they are children,
they are heirs; nay, their extraction is noble, they
are the seed of Abraham, God’s friend, and of Jacob
his chosen. Is he a home-born slave? No, he is
not the son of the bond-woman, but of the free; they
were designed for dominion, not for servitude.
Every thing in their constitution carried on it the
marks of freedom and honour; why then is he spok¬
ed of his liberty? Why is he used as a servant, as a
home-born slave? W'hy does he make himself a
slave to his lusts, to his idols, to that which does net
profit? v. 11. What a thing is this, that surh a
birth-right should be sold for a mess of pottage1
Such a crown profaned, and laid in the dust! Why
is he made a slave to the oppressor? God provided
that a Hebrew servant should be free the seventh
year, and that their slaves should be of the heathen,
not of their brethren, Lev. xxv. 44, 46. But, not
withstanding this, the princes made slaves of their
subjects, and masters of their servants, (ch. xxxiv.
11.) and so made their country mean and miserable,
which God had made happy and honourable. The
neighbouring princes and powers broke in upon
them, and made some of them slaves even in their
own country, and perhaps sold others for slaves into
foreign countries. And how came they thus to lose
their liberties? For their iniquities they sold them¬
selves, Isa. 1. 1. We may apply this spiritually ; Is
the soul of man a servant? Is it a home-born slat e?
No, it is not; why then is it spoiled > It is because
it has sold its own liberty, and enslaved itself to
divers lusts and passions, which is a lamentation,
and should be for a lamentation.
2. They were impoverished, and had lost theii
wealth. God brought them into a plentiful country,
(v. 7.) but all their neighbours made a prey of it.
(u. 15.) young lions roar aloud over him, and yell;
they are a continual terror to him; sometimes one.
potent enemy, and sometimes another, and some-
times many in confederacy, fall upon him, and
triumph over him. They carry off the fruits of his
land, and make that waste, bum his cities, when
first they have plundered them, so that they remain
without inhabitant, either because there are no
houses to dwell in, or because those that should
dwell in them are carried into captivity.
3. They were abused, and insulted over, and
beaten by every body; ( v . 16.) “ Even the children
of JVoph and Tahapanes, despicable people, not
326
JEREMTAH, II.
famed for military courage or strength, have broken
(he crown of thy head, or fed upon it. In all their
struggles with thee they have been too hard for
thee, and thou hast always come off with a broken
head. The principal part of thy country, that
which lay next Jerusalem, has been, and is, a prey
to them.” How calamitous the condition of Judah
had been of late, in the reign of Manasseh, we find,
2 Chron. xxxiii. 11. and perhaps it had not now
much recovered itself.
4. All this was owing to their sin; ( v . 17.) Hast
thou not procured this unto thyself? By their sin¬
ful confederacies with the nations, and especially
their conformity to them in their idolatrous customs
and usages, they had made themselves very mean
and contemptible, as all those do that have made a
profession of religion, and afterward throw it off.
Nothing now appeared of that, which, by their con¬
stitution, made them both honourable and formida¬
ble, and therefore nobody either respected them or
feared them. But this was not all; they had pro¬
voked God to give them up into the hands of their
enemies, and to make them a scourge to them and
give them success against them; and thus thou hast
procured it to thyself, in that thou hast forsaken the
Lord thy God, revolted from thine allegiance to
him, and so thrown thyself out of his protection; for
protection and allegiance go together. Whatever
trouble we are in at any time, we may thank our¬
selves for it; for we bring it upon our own head by
our forsaking God, “ Thou hast forsaken thy God,
at the time that he was leading thee by the way;”
(so it should be read;) “ then, when he was leading
thee on to a happy peace and settlement, and thou
wast within a step of it, then thou forsookest him,
and so didst put a bar in thine own door.”
II. Their neighbours, that were their pretended
friends, deceived them, distressed them, and helped
them not; and this also was owing to their sin.
1. They did in vain seek to Egypt and Assyria
for help; ( v . 18.) “ What hast thou to do in the way
of Egypt? When thou an under apprehensions of
danger, thou art running to Egypt for help, Isa.
xxx. 1, 2. — xxxi. 1. Thou art for drinking the wa¬
ters of Sihor,” that is, Ni/us. “ Thou reliest upon
their multitude, and refreshest thyself with the fair
promises they make thee; at other times thou art
in the way of Assyria, sending or going with all
speed to fetch recruits thence, and thinkest to sa¬
tisfy thyself with the waters of the river Euphrates;
but what hast thou to do there? What wilt thou
get by applying thyself to them? They shall help
in vain, shall be broken reeds to thee, and what
thou thoughtest would be to thee as a river, will be
but a broken cistern.”
■ 2. This also was because of their sin; the judg¬
ment shall unavoidably come upon them which their
sin has deserved; and then to what purpose is it to
call in for help against it? (v. 19.) “ Thine own
wickedness shall correct thee, and then it is impossi¬
ble for them to save thee; know and see therefore,
upon the whole matter, that it is an evil thing that
thou hast forsaken God, for that is it that makes
thine enemies enemies indeed, and thy friends
friends in vain.” Observe here, (l.)The nature
of sin; it is forsaking the Lord as our God; it is the
soul’s alienation from him, and aversion to him.
Cleaving to sin is leaving God. (2.) The cause of
sin; it is because his fear is not in us. It is for want
of a good principle in us, particularly for want of
the fear of God; this is at the lvittom of our apos-
ticv from him; therefore men forsake their duty to
God, because they stand in no awe of him, nor have
any dread of his displeasure. (3.) The malignity
of sin; it is an evil thing and a bitter. Sin is an
evil thing, an evil that has no good in it, an evil that
is the root and cause of all other evil; it is evil in¬
deed, for it is not only the greatest contrariety to
the divine nature, but the greatest corruption of the
human nature. It is bitter; a state ot sin is the
gall of bitterness, and every sinful way will be bit¬
terness in the latter end; the wages of it is death,
and death is bitter. (4.) The fatal consequences of
sin; as it is in itself evil and bitter, so it has a direct
tendency to make us miserable; “ Thine own wick¬
edness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall
reprove thee; not only destroy and ruin thee here¬
after, but correct and reprove thee now; they will
certainly bring trouble upon thee; the punishment
will so inevitably follow the sin, that the sin shall
itself be said to punish thee. Nay, the punishment,
in its kind and circumstances, shall so directly an¬
swer to the sin, that thou mayest read the sin in the
punishment; and the justice of the punishment shall
be so plain, that thou shalt not have a word to say
for thyself, thy own wickedness shall convince thee
and stop thy mouth for ever, and thou shalt be
forced to own that the Lord is righteous. ” (5. ) The
use and application of all this; “Know therefore,
and see it, and repent of thy sin, that so the iniquity
which is thy correction, may not be thy ruin.”
20. For of old time I have broken thy
yoke, mid hurst thy bands ; and thou saidst,
I will not transgress; when upon every
high hill, and under every green tree, thou
wanderest, playing the harlot. 21. Yet I
had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a
right seed : how then art thou turned into
the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto
me ? 22. For though thou wash thee with
nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine
iniquity is marked before me, saith the
Lord God. 23. How canst thou say, 1
am not polluted, I have not gone after Baa¬
lim ? See thy way in the valley, know what
thou hast done: thou art a swift dromedary
traversing her ways ; 24. A wild ass used
to the wilderness, that snuffeth up the wind
at her pleasure ; in her occasion who can
turn her away? All they that seek her wil
not weary themselves ; in her month they
shall find her. 25. Withhold thy foot from
being unshod, and thy throat from thirst:
but thou saidst, There is no hope : no ; for 1
have loved strangers, and after them will I
go. 26. As the thief is ashamed when he
is found, so is the house of Israel ashamed ;
they, their kings, their princes, and their
priests, and their prophets. 27. Saying to
a stock, Thou art my father; and to a stone,
Thou hast brought me forth : for they have
turned their back unto me, and not their
face; but in the time of their trouble they
will say, Arise, and save us. 28. But where
ore thy gods that thou hast made thee? Let
them arise, if they can save thee in the time
of thy trouble: for accord ins: to the number
of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah.
In these verses, the prrplv t goes on with his
charge against this backsliding people; observe
here,
I. The sin itself that he charges them with —
JEREMIAH, II.
3 2.
id ilatry, that great provocation which they were so
r toriously guilty of. 1. They frequented the places
oi idol- worship; (u. 20.) ujion every high hill, and
under every green tree, in the high places and the
gloves, such as the heathen had a foolish fondness
ai d veneration for; thou wanderest first to one and
th -n to another, like one unsettled, and still uneasy
and unsatisfied; but, in all, playing the harlot, wor¬
shipping false gods, which is spiritual whoredom,
and was commonly accompanied with corporal
whoredom too. Note, They that leave God, wan¬
der endlessly, and a vagrant lust is inevitable. 2.
They made images for themselves, and gave divine
honour to them; ( v . 26, 27.) not only the common
people, but even the kings and princes, who should
nave restrained the people from doing ill, and the
priests and prophets, who should have taught them
to do well, were themselves so wretchedly sottish
and stupid, and under the power of such a strong
delusion, as to say to a stock, “ Thou art myfather;
thou art my god, the author of my being, to whom
I owe duty, and on whom I have a dependence;”
saying to a stone, to an idol made of stone, “ Thou
hast begotten me, or brought me forth; therefore
protect me, provide for me, and bring me up.”
What greater affront could men put upon God who
is our Father that has made us? It was a downright
disowning of their obligations to him. What greater
affront could men put upon themselves anti their
own reason, than to acknowledge that which is in
itself absurd and impossible, and by making stocks
and stones their parents, to make themselves no
better than stocks and stones? When these were
first made the objects of worship, they were sup¬
posed to be animated by some celestial power or
spirit; but by degrees the thought of this was lost,
and so vain did idolaters become in their itnagina-
tion, even the princes and priests themselves, that
the very idol, though made of wood and stone, was
supposed to be their father, and adored accordingly.
3. They multiplied these dunghillrdeities endlessly;
(u. 28.) According to the number of thy cities are
thy gods, O Judah. When they had forsaken that
God who is one, and all-sufficient for all, (1.) They
wei e not satisfied with any gods they had, but still
desired more; that idolatry being in this respect of
the same nature with covetousness, which is spi¬
ritual idolatry, that the more men have the more
they would have; which is a plain evidence, that
what men make an idol of they find to be insuffi¬
cient and unsatisfying, and that it cannot make the
comers thereunto perfect. (2.) They could not
agree in the same god; having left the Centre of
unity, they fell into endless discord; one city fancied
one deity, and another another, and each was anx¬
ious to have one of its own, to be near them, and to
take special care of them. Thus did they in vain
seek that in many gods, which is to be found in one
God only.
II. The proof of this; no witnesses need be called,
it is proved by the notorious evidence of the facts.
1. They went about to deny it, and were ready to
plead JVot guilty. They pretended that they would
acquit themselves from this guilt, theywashed them¬
selves with nitre, and took much soap, offered many
things in excuse and extenuation of it, v. 22. They
pretended that they did not worship these as gods,
but as demons, and mediators between the immor¬
tal God and mortal men; or, that it was not divine
honour that they gave them, but civil respect; that
they sought to evade the convictions of God’s word,
and to screen themselves from the dread of his
wrath. Nay, some of them had the impudence to
deny the thing itself; they said, lam not polluted,
1 have not gone after Baalim, v. 23. Because it
was done secretly, and industriously concealed,
(Ezek. viii. 12.) they thought it could never be
I proved upon them, and they had front enough to
deny it. In this, as in other things, their way was
like that of the adulterous woman, that says, I have
done no wickedness, Prov. xxx. 20.
2. Notwithstanding all their evasions, they are
convicted of it, and found guilty; “How canst thru
deny the fact, and say, I have not gone after Baalim ?
How canst thou deny the fault, and say, lam not
polluted? The prophet speaks with wonder at their
impudence; “How canst thou put on a face to say
so, when it is certain?” (1.) “God’s omniscience is
a witness against thee. ThineA.niquity is marked
before me, saith the Lord God; Tt is laid up and hid¬
den, to be produced against thee in the day of judg¬
ment; sealed up among his treasures,” Dcut. xxxii.
34. Job xxi. 19. Hos. xiii. 12. “It is imprinted
deep, and stained before me;” so sorqe read it.
“Though thou endeavour to wash it out, as mur¬
derers to get the stain of the blood of the person slain
out of their clothes, yet it will never be got rut;”
God’s eye is upon it, and we are sure that his judg¬
ment is according to truth. (2.) “Thine own con¬
science is a witness against thee. See thy way in
the valley;” (they had worshipped idols, not onlv
on the high hills, but in the valleys, (Isa. lvii. 5, 6. )
in the valley over against Beth-peor, (so some,)
where they worshipped Baal-peor; (Deut. xxxiv. 6.
Numb. xxv. 3.) as if the prophet looked as far back
as the iniquity of Tear; but if it mean any particular
valley, surely it is the valley of the son of Hinnom,
for that was the place where they sacrificed their
children to Moloch, and which therefore witnessed
against them more than any other; “ look into that
valley, and thou canst not but know what thou hast
done.”
III. The aggravations of this sin with which they
are charged, which speak it exceeding sinful.
1. God had done great things for them, and yet
they revolted from him, and rebelled against him;
(u. 20. ) Of old time I have broken thy yoke, and
burst thy bands; this refers to the bringing of them
out of the land of Egypt, and the house oj bondage,
which they would not remember, {v. 6.) but Ciod
did; for when he told them that they should have no
other gods before him, he prefixed this as a reason,
I am the Lord thy God that brought thee out of the
land of Egypt! These bends of theirs, which' Gcd
had loosed, should have bound them for ever to him;
but they had ungratefully broken the bonds of duty
to that God who had broken the bonds of their
slavery.
2. They had promised fair, but had not made
good their promise; “ Thou saidst, I will not trans¬
gress; then when the mercy of thy deliverance was
tresh, thou wast so sensible of it, that thou wast
willing to lay thyself under the most sacred ties to
continue faithful to thy God, and never to forsake
him.” Then they said, JVay but we will serve the
Lord, Josh. xxiv. 21. How often have we said that
we would not transgress, we would not offend any
more, and yet we have started aside, like a deceitful
bow, and repeated and multiplied our transgressions!
3. They had wretchedly degenerated from what
they were when God first formed them into a peo¬
ple; ( v . 21.) I had planted thee a noble vine. The
constitution of their government both in church and
state was excellent, their laws righteous, and all the
ordinances instructive, and very significant; and a
generation of good men there was among them when
they first settled in Canaan; Israel served the Lord,
and kept close to him, all the days of Joshua, and
the elders that out-lived Joshua; (Josh. xxiv. 31.)
they were then wholly a right seed, likely to re¬
plenish the vineyard they were planted in with
choice vines: but it proved otherwise; the very nex.
generation knew not the Lord, nor the works whicl
he had done, (Judg. ii. 10. ) and so they were worse
323
JEREMIAH, II.
and worse till they became the degenerate plants of
a strange vine; they were now the reverse < f what
they were at first; their constitution was quite bro¬
ken, and there was nothing in them of that good
which one might have expected from a peop e so
happily formed, nothing of the purity and piety of
their ancestors. Their vine is as the vine of Sodom;
Deut. xxxii. 32. This may fitly be applied to the
nature of man; it was planted by its great Author a
noble vine, a right seed; (God made men upright,)
but it is so universally corrupt, that it is become the
degenerate plant of a strange vine, that bears gall
and wormwood, and it is so to God, it is highly dis¬
tasteful and offensive to him.
4. They were violent and eager in the pursuit of
their idolatries, doted on their idols, and were fond
of new ones, and they would not be restrained from
them neither by the word of God, nor by his pro¬
vidences; so strong was the impetus with which they
were carried out after this sin. They are here com¬
pared to a swift dromedary traversing her ways, a
female of that species of creatures hunting about for
a male, (v. 23.) and, to the same purport, a wild
ass used to the wilderness, ( v . 24.) not tamed by
labour, and therefore very wanton, snuffing up the
wind at her pleasure when she comes near the lie-
ass, and on such an occasion who can turn her away ?
Who can hinder her from that which she lusts after?
They that seek her then, will not weary themselves
for her, for they know it is to no purpose; but will
have a little patience till she is big with young, till
that month comes which is the last of the months
that she fulfils, (Job xxxix. 2.) when she is heavy
and unwieldy, and then they shall find her, and she
cannot outran them. Note, (1.) E iger lust is a
brutish thing, and those that will not be turned away
from the gratifying and indulging of it by reason and
conscience and honour, are to be reckoned as brute
beasts and no better; such as were born, and still
are, like the wild ass’s colt, let them not be looked
upon as rational creatures. (2. ) Idolatry is strangely
intoxicating, and those that are addicted to it will
with great difficulty be cured of it. That lust is as
headstrong as any other. (3.) There are some so
violently set upon the prosecution of their lusts, that
it is to no purpose to attempt to give check to them :
they that do it, weary themselves in vain. Ephraim
is joined to idols, let him alone. (4.) The time will
come when the most fierce will be tamed, and the
most wanton will be manageable; when distress and
anguish come upon them, then their ears will be
open to discipline, that is the month in which you
may find them, Ps. cxli. 5, 6.
5. They were obstinate in their sin, and, as they
could not be restrained, so they would not be re¬
formed, v. 25. Here is, (1.) Pair warning given
them of the ruin that this wicked course of life would
•certainly bring them to at last, with a caution there¬
fore not to persist in it, but to break off from it; he
would certainly bring them into a miserable cap¬
tivity, when their feet should be unshod, and they
should be forced to travel barefoot, and when they
would be denied fair water by their oppressors, so
that their throat should be dried with thirst; this
will be in the end hereof. They that affect strange
gods, and strange ways of worship, will justly be
made prisoners to a strange king in a strange land.
Take up in time therefore; thy running after thy
idols will run the shoes off thy feet, and thy panting
after them will bring thy throat to thirst; withhold
therefore thy foot from these violent pursuits, and
thy throat from these violent desires. One would
think that it should effectually check us in the
career, to consider what it will bring us to at last.
(2.) Their rejecting of this fair warning; they said
to those that would have persuaded them to repent
and reform, “ There is no hope, no, never expect to
work upon us, or prevail with us to cast away oul
idols, for we have loved strangers, and after them
we will go; we are resolved we will, and therefore
trouble not yourselves or us any more with v< nr
admonitions, it is to no purpose. There is no hope
that we should ever break the corrupt habit and dis¬
position we have got, and therefore we may as well
yield to it as go about to get the mastery of it.’’
Note, Their case is very miserable, who have
brought themselves to such a pass, that their err
ruptions triumph over their convictions; thev know
they should reform, but own they cannot, and there
fore resolve they will not. But as we must not
despair of the mercy of God, but believe that suffi¬
cient for the pardon of our sins, though ever sc
heinous, if we repent, and sue for that mercy, so
neither must we despair of the grace of (Jed, but
believe that able to subdue our corruptions, though
ever so strong, if we pray for and improve that
grace. A man must never say, There is no hope, as
long as he is on this side hell.
6. They had shamed themselves by their sin, in
putting confidence in that which would certainly
deceive them in the day of their distress, and putting
him away, that would have helped them; (v. 26 —
28.) As the thief is ashamed when, notwithstanding
all his arts and tricks to conceal his theft, he is found,
and brought to punishment, So are the house of
Israel ashamed, not with a penitent shame for the
sin they had been guilty of, but with a penal shame
for the disappointment they met with in that sin.
They will be ashamed when they find,
(1.) That they are forced to cry to the God whom
they had put contempt upon. In their prosperity
they had turned the back to God, and not the face;
they had slighted him, acted as if they had forgotten
him, or did what they could to forget him, would
not look toward him, but looked another way; they
went from him as fast and as far as they could; but
in the time of their trouble they will find no satisfac¬
tion but in applying themselves to him ; then they
will say, Arise, and save us. Their fathers had
many a time taken this shame to themselves, (Judg.
iii. 9. — iv. 3. — x. 10.) yet they would not be per¬
suaded to cleave to God, that they might have come
to him in their trouble with the more confidence.
(2.) That they have no relief from the gods they
have made their court to. They will be ashamed
when they perceive that the gods they have made
cannot serve them, and that the God who made
them will not serve them. To bring them to this
shame, if so be they might thereby be brought to
penitence, they are here sent to the gods whom they
served, as Judg. x. 14. They cried to God, Arise,
and save us; God says of the idols, “ Let them arise,
and save thee, for thou hast no reason to expect that
I should. Let them arise, if they can, from the
places where they are fixed; let them try whether
they can save thee: but thou wilt be ashamed when
thou findest that they can do thee no good, for
though thou hadst a god for every city, yet thy cities
are b’urnt without inhabitant,” v. 15. Thus i' is
the folly of sinners to please themselves with that
which will certainly be their grief, and pride them¬
selves in that which will certainly be their shame.
29. Wherefore will ye plead with me? ye
all have transgressed against me, saitli the
Lord. 30. In vain have I smitten your
children: they received no correction: your
own sword hath devoured your prophets,
like a destroying lion. 31. O generation,
see ye the word of the Lord: Have I been
a wilderness unto Israel ? a land of darkness ’>
Wherefore say my people, W e are lords ; we
JEREMIAH. 11.
329
\\ ill come no more unto thee ? 32. Can a
maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her
attire? yet my people have forgotten me
days without number. 33. Why trimmest
thou thy way to seek love ? therefore hast
thou also taught the wicked ones thy ways.
34. Also in thy skirts is found the blood of
the souls of the poor innocents : I have not
found it by secret search, but upon all these.
35. Yet thou sayest, Because I am innocent,
surely his anger shall turn from me: behold
I will plead with thee, because thou sayest,
I have not sinned. 36. Why gaddest thou
about so much to change thy way? thou
also shalt be ashamed of Egypt, as thou
wast ashamed of Assyria. 37. Yea, thou
shalt go forth from him, and thy hands upon
thy head: for the Lord hath rejected thy
confidences, and thou shalt not prosper in
them.
The prophet here goes on in the same strain,
aiming to bring a sinful people to repentance, that
their destruction might be prevented.
1. He avers the truth ot the charge; it was evi¬
dent beyond contradiction, it was the greatest ab¬
surdity imaginable in them to think of denying it;
(v. 29.) “ Wherefore will you plead with me, and
put me upon the proof of it, or wherefore will you go
about to plead any thing in excuse of the crime, or
to obtain a mitigation of the sentence? Your plea
will certainly be overruled, and judgment given
against you: "you know you have all transgressed,
one as well as another; why then do you quarrel
with me for contending with you?”
2. He aggravates it from the consideration both
of their incorrigibleness and of their ingratitude.
(1.) They had been wrought upon by the judg¬
ments of God which they had been under; (v. 30.)
In vain have I smitten your children, the children
or people of Judah. They had been under divine
rebukes of many kinds. God therein designed to
bring them to repentance, but it was in vain, they
did not answer God’s end in afflicting them; their
consciences were not awakened, nor their hearts
softened and humbled, nor were they driven to seek
unto God, they received no instruction by the cor¬
rection, were not made the better by it; and it is a
great loss thus to lose an affliction; they did not re¬
ceive, they did not submit to, or comply with, the I
correction, but their hearts fretted against the Lord,
and so they were smitten in vain. Even the chil¬
dren, the young people, among them, (so it may be
taken,) were smitteA in vain; they were so soon
prejudiced against repentance, that they were as
untractable as the old ones that had been long ac- I
customed to do evil.
(2.) They had not been wrought upon by the
word of God, which he had sent them in the mouth
of his servants the prophets, nay, they had killed
the messengers for the sake of the message; Your
own sword has devoured your prophets like a de¬
stroying lion; you have put them to death for their
faithfulness, with as much rage and fury, and with
as much greediness and pleasure, as a lion devours
his prey. The prophets, who were their greatest
Dlessings, were treated by them as if they had been
the plagues of their generation, and this was their
measure-filling sin, (2Chron. xxxvi. 16.) they killed
their own prophets, 1 Thess. ii. 15.
(3.) They had not been wrought upon by the ,
VOL. IV. - 2 T
favours God had bestowed upon them; (n. 31.) “ O
I generation ,” (he does not call them, as he might,
O faithless and perverse generation, 0 generation
; °J vipers, but speaks gently, O ye men ot this gene¬
ration,) “see ye the word of the lord, do not only
hear it, but consider it.diligently, apply your minds
closely to it.” As we are bid to hear the rod,
(Micah vi. 9.) for that has its voice, so are we bid
to see the word, f r that has its visions, its views. It
| intimates, that what is here said is plain and un¬
deniable; you may see it to be very evident; it is
written as with a sun-beam, so that he that runs
may read it; Have I been a wildertiess to Israel, a
\ land oj darkness ? Note, None of those who have
had any dealings with God ever had reason to com¬
plain oi him as a wilderness, or a land of darkness.
He has blessed us with the fruits of the earth, and
therefore we cannot say that he has been a wilder¬
ness to us, a dry and barren land, that (as Mr. Gata
ker expresses it) he has held us to hard meat, as
cattle fed upon the common; no, his sheep have
been led into green pastures. He has also blessed
us with the lights of heaven, and has not withheld
them, so that we cannot say, He has been to us a
land of darkness. He has caused his sun to shine,
as well as his rain to fall, upon the evil and un¬
thankful. Or, the meaning is, in general, that the
service of God has not been to any either as an un
pleasant or an unprofitable service. God sometimes
has led his people through a wilderness, and a land
of darkness, but he himself was then to them all that
which they needed, he so fed them with manna, and
led them by a pillar of fire, that it was to the m a
fruitful field and a land of light. The world is, to
those who make it their home and their portion, a
wilderness, and a land of darkness, vanity and vexa¬
tion of spirit; but those that dwell in God, ha,re the
lines fallen to them in pleasant places.
(4. ) Instead of being wrought upon by these, they
were grown intolerably insolent and imperious.
They say, lYe are lords, we will come no more unto
thee. Now that they were become a potent king¬
dom, or thought themselves such, they set up for
themselves, and shook off their dependence upon
God. This is the language of presumptuous sin¬
ners, and it is not only very impious and profane, but
very unreasonable and foolish. [1.] It is absurd for
us, who are subjects, to say, We are lords, (that is,
rulers,) and we will come no more to God to receive
commands from him; for as he is King of old, so
he is King for ever, and we can never pretend to be
from under his authority. [2.] It is absurd for us,
who are beggars, to say. We are lords, that is, We
are rich, and we will come no more to God, to re¬
ceive favours from him, as if we could live without
him, and need not to be beholden to him. God
justly takes it ill, when those to whom he has been
a bountiful Benefactor, care not either for hearing
from him or speaking to him.
3. He lays the blame of all their wickedness upon
their forgetting God; (v. 32.) They have forgotten
me; they have industriously banished the" thoughts
of God out of their minds, justled those thoughts cut
with thoughts of their idols, and avoided all those
things that would put them in mind of God. (1.)
Though they were his own people, in covenant with
him, and professing relation to him, and had the
tokens of his presence in the midst of them, and cf
his favour to them, yet they forgot him. (2.) They
had long neglected him, days without number, time
out of mind, as we say. They had not for a great
while entertained any serious thoughts of him; so
that they seem quite to have forgotten him, and re¬
solved never to remember him again. How many
days of our lives have passed without suitable re¬
membrance of God? Who can number these empty
days? (3.) They had not had such a regard and af
330
JEREMIAH, II.
fection to him, as young ladies generally have to their
tine clothes; Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a
bride her attire? No, their hearts are upon them,
the)r value them so much, and themselves upon
them, that they are ever and anon thinking and
speaking of them; when they are to appear in pub¬
lic, they do not forget any of their ornaments, but
fiut every one in its place, as they are described,
si. iii. 18, &c. And yet my people have for¬
gotten me. It is sad that any should be more in
love with their fine clothes than with their God;
and should rather leave their religion behind them,
or part with that, than leave any of their ornaments
behind them, or part with them. Is not God our
Ornament? Is he not a Crown of glory, and a Dia¬
dem of beauty, to his people? Did we look upon
him to be so, and upon our religion as an ornament
of grace to our head, and chains about our neck,
(Prov. i. 9.) we should be as mindful of them as
ever any maid was of her ornaments, or a bride of
ner attire; we should be as careful to preserve them,
and as fond to appear in them.
4. He shows them what a bad influence their
sins had had upon others; the sins of God’s profess¬
ing people harden and encourage those about them
in their evil ways, especially when they appear for¬
ward and ringleaders in sin; (y. 33.) Why trimmest
thou thy way to seek love? There is an allusion here
to the practice of lewd women who strive to recom¬
mend themselves by their ogling looks and gay
dress, as Jezebel, who painted her face, and tired
her head. Thus had they courted their neighbours
into sinful confederacies with them, and communion
in their idolatries, and had taught the wicked ones
their ways, their ways of mixing God’s institutions
with their idolatrous customs and usages, which
was a great profanation of that which was sacred,
and made the ways of their idolatry worse than that
of others. Those have a great deal to answer for,
who, bv their fellowship with the unfruitful works
of darkness, make wicked ones more wicked than
otherwise they would be.
5. He charges them with the guilt of murder added
to the guilt of their idolatry; (i>. 34.) Also in thy
skirls is found the blood of the souls, the life-blood
of the poor innocents, which cried to heaven, and
for which God was now making inquisition. The
reference is to the children that were offered in sa¬
crifice to Moloch; or, it may be taken more gene-
r .11 v for all the innocent blood which Manasseh shed,
and with which he had filled Jerusalem, (2 Kings
xxi. 16.) the righteous blood, especially the blood
of the prophets and others that witnessed against
their impieties. This blood was found not by secret
search, not by digging, (so the word is,) but upon
all these it was above ground. This intimates that
the guilt of this kind, which they had contracted,
was certain and evident, not doubtful, or which would
bear a dispute; and that it was avowed and bare¬
faced, and which they had not so much sense either
of shame or fear as to' endeavour to conceal; which
wish great aggravation of it.
6. He overrules their plea of JVot guilty. Though
this matter be so plain, yet thou sayest, Because I
am innocent, surely his anger shall turn from me;
and again, Thou sayest I have not sinned, (v. 35.)
therefore I will plead with thee, and will convince
thee of thy mistake. Because they deny the charge,
and stand upon their own justification, therefore
God will join issue with them, and plead with them,
both by his word and by his rod. Those shall
be made to know how much they deceived them¬
selves. (1.) Who say that they have not offended
God, that they are innocent, though thev have been
guiltv of the grossest enormities. (2.) Who expect
that God will be reconciled to them, though thev do
not repent and reform. They own that they had
been under the tokens of God’s anger, but they
think that it was causeless, and that they by plead¬
ing innocency had proved it to be so, and therefore
they conclude that God will immediately let fall his
action, and his anger shall be turned from them.
This is very provoking, and God will plead with them,
and convince them that his anger is just, for the)
have sinned and he will never cease his controversy,
till they, instead of justifying themselves thus, hum¬
ble, and judge, and condemn themselves.
7. He upraids them with the shameful disappoint¬
ments they met with, in making creatures their
confidence, while they made God their Enemy, v. 36,
37. It was a piece of spiritual idolatry they were
often guilty of, that they trusted in an arm of flesh,
and their hearts therein departed from the Lord.
Now here he shows them the folly of it. (1. ) They
were restless, and unsatisfied in the choice of their
confidences; “ Why gaddest thou about so much
to change thy way? Doubtless it is because thou
meetest not with that in those thou didst confide in,
which thou promisedst thyself.” Those that make
God their Hope, and walk in a continual deptnd-
ance upon him, need not gad about to change their
way; for their souls may return to him, and repose
in him as their Rest: Hut they that trust in crea
tures will be perpetually uneasy, like Noah’s dove
that found no rest for the sole of her foot. Every
thing they trust to fails them, and then they think
to change for the better, but thev will be still dis¬
appointed. They first trusted to Assyria, and when
that proved a broken reed, they depended upon
Egypt, and that proved no better. Creatures being
vanity, they will be vexation of spirit to all these that
put their confidence in them ; they gadabout, seeking
rest, and finding none. (2.) They were quite dis¬
appointed in the confidences they made choice rf;
the prophet tells them they should be; Thou shah
be ashamed of Egypt, which theu now trustest in, as
formerly thou wast of Assyria, who distressed them,
and helped them not, 2 Chron. xxr iii. 20. The Jews
were a peculiar people in their profession of religion,
and for that reason none of the neighbouring nations
cared for them, nor could heartily love them; and
yet the Jews were still courting them and confiding
mthem, and were well enough served when deceived
by them. See what will come of it; (u. 37.) Thou
shall go forth from him, thine ambassadors or envoys
shall return from Egypt re infecta — disappointed,
and therefore with their hands upon their heads,
lamenting the desperate condition of their people.
Or, Thou shall go forth from hence, into captivity
in a strange land, with thine hands upon thine
head, holding it because it aches, ( Ubi dolor, ibi di¬
gitus — Where the pain is the finger will be applied )
or as people ashamed, for 1 amar, in the height of
her confusion, laid her hand on her head, 2 Sam. xiii.
19. “And Egypt, that thou reliest on, shall not he
able toprevent it, or to rescue thee cut of captivi¬
ty.” They that will not lay their hand on their
heart in godly sorrow, which works life, shall be
made to lay their hand on their head in the sorrow
of the world, which works death. And no wonder
that Egvpt cannot help them , when God will not.
If the Lord do not help thee, whence should I?
The Egyptians are broken reeds, for the Lord has
rejected thy confidences; he will not make use of
them for thy relief, will neither so far honour them,
nor so far give countenance to thy confidence in
them, as to appoint them to be the instruments rf
any good to thee, and therefore thou shall not pros¬
per in them; they shall not stand thee in thy stead,
nor give thee any satisfaction. As there is no coun¬
sel or wisdom that can prevail against the Lord, so
there is none that can prevail with ut him. Some
read it, The Lord has rejected thee f r 'hii confi¬
dences; because th u hast dealt so unfaithfully with
331
JEREMIAH, III.
him as to trust in their creatures, nay, in his ene¬
mies, when thou shouldest have trusted in him only,
he has abandoned thee to thy destruction from which
thou though test thus to have sheltered thyself; and
then thou canat not prosper, for none ever either
hardened himself against God, or estranged him¬
self from God, and prospered.
CHAP. III.
The foregoing chapter was wholly taken up with reproofs,
and threatenings against the people of God, for their
apostacies from him; but in this chapter, gracious invi¬
tations and encouragements are given them to return and
repent, notwithstanding the multitude and greatness of
their provocations, which are here aggravated, to mag-
• nify the mercy of God, and to show that as sin abounded
grace did much more abound. Here, I. It is further
showed how bad they had been, and how well they de¬
served to be quite abandoned, and yet how ready God
was to receive them into his favour, upon their repent¬
ance, v. 1 . . 5. II. The impenitence of Judah, and their
persisting in sin, are aggravated from the judgments of
God upon Israel, which they should have taken warning
by, v. 6. . II. III. Great encouragements are given to
these backsliders to return and repent; and promises
made of great mercy which God had in store for them,
and which he should prepare them for by bringing them
home to himself, v. 12. .. 19. IV. The charge renewed
against them for their apostacy from God, and the invi¬
tation repeated to return and repent, to which are here
added the words that are put in their mouth, which they
should make use of in their return to God, v. 20 . . 25.
1. r i^HEY say, If a man put away his
I wife, and she go from him, and be¬
come another man’s, shall he return unto
her again? shall not that land be greatly
[Kill u ted: but thou hast played the harlot
with many lovers •, yet return again to me,
saith the Loud. 2. Lift up thine eyes unto
the high places, and see where thou hast
not been lien with: in the ways hast thou
sat for them, as the Arabian in the wilder¬
ness; and thou hast polluted the land with
thv whoredoms, and with thy wickedness.
3. Therefore the showers have been with-
holden, and there hath been no latter rain ;
and thou hadst a whore’s forehead, thou re-
fusedst to be ashamed. 4. Wilt thou not
from this time cry unto me, My father, thou
art the guide of my youth ? 5. Will he re¬
serve his anger for ever ? will he keep it to
the end? Behold, thou hast spoken and
done evil things as thou couldest.
These verses some make to belong to the sermon
in the foregoing chapter, and they open a door of
hope to those who receive the conviction of the re¬
proofs we had; therefore God wounds, that he may
heal. Now observe here,
I. How basely this people had forsaken God, and
gone a whoring from him. The charge runs very
high here:
1 . They had multiplied their idols, and their idola¬
tries. To have admitted one strange god among
them had been bad enough, but they were insatiable
in their lustings after false worships; Thou hast
f ilayed the harlot with many lovers, v. 1. She was
became a common prostitute to idols; not a foolish
deity was set up in all the neighbourhood, but the
Jews would have it quickly. Where was a high
filar; in the country, but they had an idol in it? v. 2.
S' a , In repentance, it is good to make sorrowful
reflections upon the particular acts of sin we have
been guilty of, and the several places and companies
where it has been committed, that we may give
glory to God, and take shame to ourselves, by a
particular confession of it.
2. They had sought opportunity for their idola¬
tries, and had sent about to inquire for new gods;
In the high ways hast thou sat for them, as Tamar
when she put on the disguise of a harlot , (Gen.
xxxviii. 14. ) and as the foolish woman, that sits to
call fiassengers, who go right on their way, Prov.
ix. 14, 15. As the Arabian in the wilderness: the
Arabian huckster, (so some,) that courts customers,
or waits for the merchants to get a good bargain
and forestall the market; or, the Arabian thief (so
others,) that watches for his prey; so had they
waited either to court new gods to come among
them, the newer the better, and the more fond they
were of them, or to court others to join with them
in the idolatries: they were not only sinners, but
Satans; not only traitors themselves, but tempters to
others.
3. They were grown very impudent in sin. They
not only polluted themselves, but their land, with
their whoredoms and with their wickedness; (v. 2.)
for it was univ ersal and unpunished, and so became
a national sin. And yet, (u. 3.) '■'■Thou hadst a
whore’s forehead, a brazen face of thy own. Thou
refusedst to be ashamed; thou didst enough to shame
thee for ever, and yet wouldest not take shame to
thyself.” Blushing is the colour of virtue, or at
least a relick of it; but those that are past shame,
(we say,) are past hope. Those that have an adul¬
terer’s heart, if they indulge that, will come at length
to have a whore’s forehead, void of all shame and
modesty.
4. They abounded in all manner of sin. They
polluted the land not only with their whoredoms,
their idolatries, but with their wickedness, or malice,
(y. 2. ) sins against the second table : for how can we
think that those should be true to their neighbour,
that are false to their God? “Nay, (x>. 5.) thou hast
spoken and done evil things as thou couldest; and
wouldest have spoken and done worse, if thou hadst
known how; thy will was to do it, but thou lackedst
opportunity.” Note, Those are wicked indeed, that
sin to the utmost of their power; that never refuse
to comply with a temptation because they shotild
not, but because they cannot.
II. How gently God had corrected them for their
sins. Instead of raining fire and brimstone upon
them, because, like Sodom, they had avowed their
sin, and had gone after strange gods, as Sodom after
strange flesh, he only withheld the showers from
them, and that only one pan of the year, there has
been no latter rain; which might serve as an intima¬
tion to them of their continual dependence upon God;
when they had the former rain, that was no security
to them for the latter, but they must still look up to
God: but it had not this effect.
III. How justly God might have abandoned them
utterly, and refused ever to receive them again,
though they should return; this would have been
but according to the known rale of divorces, v. 1.
They say, it is an adjudged case, nay, it is a case in
which the law is very express, and it is what everv
body knows and speaks of, (Deut. xxiv. 4.) that if
a woman be once put away for whoredom, and be
joined to another man, her first husband shall never,
upon any pretence whatsoever, take her again to be
his wife; such playing fast and loese with the mar¬
riage-bond would be a horrid profanation of that
ordinance, and would greatly pollute that land.
Observe what the law says in this case; They say,
every one will say, and subscribe to the equity of
the law in it: for every man finds something in him¬
self, that forbids him to entertain one that is another
332
JEREMIAH, Ill.
man’s. And in like manner they had reason to ex¬
pect that God should refuse ever to take them to be
his people again, who had not only been joined to
one strange god, but had played the harlot with
many lovers. If we had to do with a man like our¬
selves, after such provocations as we have been
guilty of, he would have been implacable, and we
might have despaired of his being reconciled to us.
IV. How graciously he not only invites them, but
directs them, to return to him.
1. He encourages them to hope that they should
find favour with him, upon their repentance;
“Though thou hast been bad, yet return again to
me” v. 1. This implies a promise that he will re¬
ceive them; “ Return, and thou shalt be welcome.”
God has not tied himself by the laws which he
made, nor has he the peevish resentment that men
have; he will be more kind to Israel, for the sake
of his covenant with them, than ever any injured
husband was to an adulterous wife; for in receiving
penitents, as much as in any thing, he is God, and
not man.
2. He therefore kindly expects that they will re¬
pent, and return to him, and he directs them what
to sty to him; (y. 4.) “ Wilt thou not from this
time cry unto me? Wilt not thou, who hast been
in such relation to me, and on whom I have laid
such obligations, wilt not thou cry to me? Though
thou hast gone a whoring from me, yet, when thou
findest the folly of it, surely thou wilt think of re¬
turning to me; now at least, now at last, in this thy
day. \Vilt thou not at this time, nay, wilt thou not
from this time and forward, cry unto me? What¬
ever thou hast said or done' hitherto, wilt thou not
from this time apply thyself to me? From this time
of conviction and correction; now that thou hast
been made to see thy sins, (v. 2.) and to smart for
them, (v. 3.) wilt thou not now forsake them, and
return to me, saying, I will go and return to my
first husband, for then it was better with me than
now?” Hos. ii. 7. Or, “ From this time that thou
hast had so kind an invitation to return, and as¬
surance that thou shalt be well received; will not
this grace of God overcome thee? Now that par¬
don is proclaimed, wilt thou not come in, and take
the benefit of it? Surely thou wilt.”
(1.) He expects they will claim relation to God,
as theirs; Wilt thou not cry unto me, My Father,
thou art the guide of my youth? [1.] They will
surelv come toward him as a Father, to beg his par¬
don for their undutiful conduct to him, ( Father , I
have sinned,') and will hope to find in him the ten¬
der compassions of a Father towards a returning
prodigal. They will come to him as a Father, to
whom they will make their complaints, and in
whom thev will put their confidence for relief and
succour. They will now own him as their Father,
and themselves fatherless without him; and there¬
fore hoping to find mercy with him, as those peni¬
tents, Hos. xiv. 3. [2.] They will come to him
as the Guide of their youth, as their Husband; for
so that relation is described, Mai. ii. 14. “Though
thou hast gone after many lovers, surely thou wilt
at length remember the love of thine espousals, and
return to the husband of thy youth.” Or, it may
betaken more generally; as, my Father, thou art the
Guide of my youth. Youth needs a guide. In our
return to God, we must thankfully remember that
he was the Guide of our youth, in the way of com¬
fort; and we must faithfully covenant that he shall
be our Guide from henceforward in the way of
dutv, and that we will follow his guidance, and give
up ourselves entirely to it; that in all doubtful cases
we will be determined by our religion.
(2.) He expects they will appeal to the mercy of
God, and crave the benefit of that mercy, (t>. 5. )
that they will reason tnus with themselves for their
| encouragement to return to him; “ Will he reserve
his anger for ever? Surely he will not, for lie has
proclaimed his name gracious and merciful.” Re¬
penting sinners may encourage themselves with this,
that though God chide, he will not always chide;
though he be angry, he will not keep his anger tu
the end, but that though he cause grief, he will
have compassion, and may thus plead for reconcilia¬
tion. Some understand this as describing the ir
hypocrisy, and the impudence of it; “ Though th< u
hast a whore’s forehead, (y. 3.) and art still doing
evil as thou const, (y. 5.) yet art thou not ever and
anon crying to me. My Father?” Even when they
were most addicted to idols, they pretended a re¬
gard to God and his service, and kept up the forms
of godliness and devotion. It is a shameful thing
for men thus to call God Father, and yet to do the
works of the devil; (as the Jews, John viii. 44. ) to
call him the Guide of their youth, and yet give up
themselves to walk after the flesh ; and to flatter
themselves with the expectation that his anger
shall have an end, while they are continually trea¬
suring up to themselves wrath against the day of
wrath.
6. The Loud said also unto me in the
days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen l hat
which backsliding Israel hath done? she
is gone up upon every high mountain, and
under every green tree, and there hath played
the harlot. 7. And I said, after she had
done all these things, Turn thou unto me :
but she returned not. And her treacherous
sister Judah saw it. 8. And I saw, when
for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel
committed adultery, I had put her away, and
given her a bill of divorce ; yet hey treach¬
erous sister Judah feared not, but went and
played the harlot also. 9. And it came to
pass through the lightness of her whoredom,
that she defiled the land, and committed
adultery with stones and with stocks. 1 0.
And yet for all this her treacherous sister
Judah hath not turned unto me with her
whole heart, but feignedly, saith the Lord.
11. And the Lord said unto me, The
backsliding Israel hath justified herself
more than treacherous Judah.
The date of this sermon must be observed, in
order to the right understanding of it; it was in the
days of Josiah, who set on foot a blessed work of
reformation, in which he was hearty, but thepccple
were not sincere in their compliance with it; to re¬
prove them for that, and warn them of the conse¬
quences of their hypocrisy, is the scope of that
which God here said to the prophet, and which he
delivered to them. The case of the two kingdoms
of Israel and Judah is here compared, the ten tribes
that revolted from the throne of David and the tem¬
ple of Jerusalem, and the two tribes that adhered to
both. The distinct history of those two kingdoms
we have in the two books of the Kings, and here
we have an abstract of both, as far as relates to this
matter.
1. Here is a short account of Israel, the ten tribes.
Perhaps the prophet had been just reading the his¬
tory cf that kingdom, when God came to him, and
said. Hast thou seen what backsliding Israel has
done? v. 6. For he could not see it otherwise than
in history, they having bf.en carried into captivity
333
JEREMIAH, III.
long before he was bom: but what we read in the
histories of scripture should instruct us and affect
us, as if we ourselves had been eye-witnesses of it.
She is called backsliding Israel, because that king¬
dom was first founded in an apostacy from the di¬
vine institutions, both in church and state. Now he
had seen concerning them,
(1.) That they were wretchedly addicted to
idolatry; they had played the harlot upon every
high mountain, and under every green tree; (y. 6. )
they had worshipped other gods in their high places
an 1 groves; and no marvel, when from the first they
had worshipped God by the images of the golden
calves at Dan and Bethel. The way cf idolatry is
down-hill: they that are in love with images, and
will have them',' soon become in love with other gods,
and will have them too; for how should they stick at
the breach of the first commandment, who make
no conscience of the second?
(2.) That God by his prophets had invited and
encouraged them to repent and reform; (v. 7.)
'■ After she had done all these things, for which she
might justly have been abandoned, yet I said unto
her, Turn thou unto me, and I will receive thee.”
Though they had forsaken both the house of David,
and the house of Aaron, who both had their autho¬
rity jure divino—from God, without dispute, yet
God sent his prophets among them, to call them to
return to him, to the worship of him only, not in¬
sisting so much as one would have expected upon
their return to the house of David, but pressing their
return to the house of Aaron: we read not that
E!ij ih, that great reformer, ever mentioned their
return to the house of David, while he was anxious
for their return to the faithful service of the true
God according as they had it among them. It is
serious piety that God stands upon more than even
his own rituals.
(3.) That, notwithstanding this, they had per¬
sisted in their idolatries; but she returned not, and
God saw it; he took notice of it, and was much dis¬
pleased with it, v. 7, 8. Note, God keeps account,
whether we do or no, how often he has called to us
to turn to him, and we have refused.
(4.) That he had therefore cast them off, and
given them up into the hands of their enemies; ly.
8.) IVhen I saw (so it may be read) that for all the
actions wherein she had committed adultery, I must
dismiss her, I gave her a bill of divorce. God di¬
vorced them when he threw them out of his pro¬
tection, and left them an easy prey to any that
would lay hands on them; when he scattered all
their synagogues and schools of the prophets, and
excluded them from laying any further claim to the
covenant made with their fathers. Note, Those
will justly be divorced from God, that join them¬
selves to such as are rivals with him. For proof
of this, go, and see what God did to Israel.
2. Let us now see what was the case of Judah,
tne kingdom of the two tribes; she is called thy
treacherous sister Judah; a sister, because descend¬
ed from the same common stock, Abraham and
Jacob; but as Israel had the character of a back¬
slider, so Judah is c died treacherous, because,
though she professed to keep close to God when
Israel was backslidden, (she adhered to the kings
and priests that were of God’s own appointing, and
did not withdraw from her allegiance, so that it was
expected she should deal faithfully,) yet she proved
treacherous and false, and unfaithful to her profes¬
sions and promises. Note, The treachery of those
who pretend to cleave to God, will be reckoned for,
as well as the apostacy of those who openly revolt
fr m him. Judah saw what Israel did, and what
came of it, and should have taken warning: Israel’s
captivity was intended for Judah’s admonition, but
it had not the designed effect. Judah feared not,
but thought herself safe because site had Levites to
be her priests, and sons of David to be her kings.
Note, It is an argument of great stupidity and seen
rity, when we are not awakened to a holy fear by
the judgments of God upon Others. It is here
charged on Judah,
(1.) That when they had a wicked king that de¬
bauched them, they heartily concurred with him in
his debaucheries. Judah was forward enough to
p lay the harlot, to worship any idol that was intro¬
duced among them, and to join in any idolatrt us
usage; so that through the lightness (or, as seme
read it, the vileness and baseness ) of her whoredom,
or, as the margin reads it, by the fame and report
of her whoredom, her notorious whoredom, tor
which she was become infamous, she defiled the
land, and made it an abomination to God; for she
committed adultery with stones and stocks, with the
basest idols, those made of wood and stone. In the
reigns of Manasseh and Anion, when they were dis¬
posed to idolatry, the people were so too, and all the
country was corrupted with it, and none feared the
ruin which Israel by this means had brought upon
themselves.
(2.) That when they had a good king tin t re¬
formed them, they did not heartily concur with him
in the reformation: that was the present case. God
tried whether they would be good in a good r< ign,
but the evil disposition was still the same; They
returned not to me with their whole heart, but
feigned/y, v. 10. Josiah went further in destroying
idolatry than the best of his predecessors had done,
and for his own part he turned to the Lord with
all his heart and with all his soul; so it is said of
him, 2 Kings xxiii. 25. The people were forced
to an external compliance with him, and joined with
him in keeping a very solemn passover, and in re¬
newing their covenants with God; (2 Chron. xxxiv.
32 — xxxv. 17.) but they were not sincere in it, nor
were their hearts right with God. For this reason
God at that very time said, I will remove Judah
out of my sight, as 1 removed Israel, (2 Kings
xxiii. 27.) because Judah was not removed from
their sin by the sight of Israel’s removal from their
land. Hypocritical and ineffectual reformations
bode ill to a people. We deceive ourselves, if we
think to deceive God by a feigned return to him ; I
know no religion without sincerity.
3. The case of these sister-kingdoms is compared,
and judgment given upon the comparison, that of
the two Judah was the worse; (t>. 11.) Israel has
justifed herself more than Judah, she is not so bad
as Judah is. This comparative justification will
stand Israel in little stead; what will it avail us to
say, We are not so bad as others, when yet we are
not really good ourselves? But it will serve as ar
aggravation of the sin of Judah, which was in twe
respects worse than that of Israel. (1.) More was
expected from Judah than from Israel; so that
Judah dealt treacherously, they vilified a more
sacred profession, and falsified a more sclemn pre¬
mise, than Israel did. (2.) Judah might have taken
warning by the ruin of Israel for their idolatry, and
would not. God’s judgments upon others, if they
be not means of our reformation, will help to aggra¬
vate our destruction. The prophet Ezekiel (ch
xxiii. 11.) makes the same comparison between
Jerusalem and Samaria, that this prophet litre
makes between Judah and Israel, nay, and (Ezek.
xvi. 48.) between Jerusalem and Sodom, and Jem
salem is made the worst of the three.
1 2. Go, and proclaim these words toward
the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding
Israel, saith the Loro, and I will not cause
mine anger to fall upon you; for I am me’
334
JEREMIAH, III.
ciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep
anger for ever. 13. Only acknowledge
thine iniquity, that thou hast transgiessed
against the Lord thy God, and hast scat¬
tered thy ways to the strangers under every
green tree, and ye have not obeyed my
voice, saith the Lord. 14. Turn, O back¬
sliding children, saith the Lori,; for I am
married unto you : and I will take you one
of a city, and two of a family, and l will
bring you to Zion : 1 5. And I will give you
pastors according to my heart, which shall
feed you with knowledge and understanding.
16. And it shall come to pass, when ye be
multiplied and increased in the land, in those
days, saith the Lord, they shall say no more,
The ark of the covenant of the Lo rd ; neither
shall it come to mind, neither shall they re¬
member it, neither shall they visit it, neither
shall that be done any more. 1 7. At that time
they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the
Lord; and all the nations shall be gathered
unto it, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusa¬
lem: neither shall they walk any more after
the imagination of their evil heart. 18. In
those days the house of Judah shall walk
with the house of Israel, and they shall
come together out of the land of the north
to the land that I have given for an inheri¬
tance unto your fathers. 19. But I said,
How shall I put thee among the children,
and give thee a pleasant land, a goodly
heritage of the hosts of nations ? And I
said, Thou shalt call me, My father ; and
shalt not turn away from me.
Here is a great deal of gospel in these verses, both
that which was always gospel, God’s readiness to
pardon sin, and to receive and entertain returning,
repenting sinners, and those blessings which were in
a special manner reserved for gospel- times, the
forming and founding of the gospel-church, bv bring¬
ing into it the children of tiocl that were scattered
abroad, the superseding of the ceremonial law, and
the uniting of Jews and Gentiles, typified by the
uniting of Israel and Judah in their return out of
captivity.
The prophet is directed to proclaim these words
toward the north, for they are to call to backsliding
Israel, the ten tribes that were carried captive into
Assyria, which lay north from Jerusalem. That
way he must look, to show that God had not for¬
gotten them, though their brethren had, and to up¬
braid the men of Judah with their obstinacy in re¬
fusing to answer the calls given them. One might
as well call to them who lay many hundred miles
olf in the land of the north; they will as soon hear
as these unbelieving and disobedient people; back¬
sliding Israel will sooner accept of mercy, and have
the benefit of it, than treacherous Judah. And
perhaps the proclaiming of these words toward the
north, looks as far forward as the preaching of re¬
pentance and remission of sins unto all nations,
beginning at Jerusalem, Luke xxiv. 47. A call
tc Israel in the land of the north, is a call to others
vn that land, even as many as belong to the election
■I grace; when it was suspected that Christ would
go to the dispersed Jews among the Gentiles, it was
concluded that he would teach the Gentiles, John
vii. 35. So here,
I. There is an invitation given to backsliding Israel,
and in them to the backsliding Gentiles, to return
unto God, the God from whom they had revolted;
{y. 12.) Return, thou backsliding Israel. Andagair,
(v. 14.) “ Turn , 0 backsliding children, repent ot
our backslidings, return to your allegiance; ccme
ack to that good way which you have missed, and
out of which you have turned aside.” Pursuant to
this invitation, 1. They are encouraged to return;
Repent, and be converted, and your sins shall be
blotted out. Acts iii. 19. You have incurred Gcd’s
displeasure, but return to me, and I will not cause
mine anger to full upon you.” God’s anger is rea¬
dy to fall upon sinners, as a lion falls on his prey,
and there is none to deliver; as a mountain of lead
falling on them, to sink them past recovery into the
lowest hell. But if they repent it shall be turned
away, Isa. xii. 1. I will not keep mine anger for
ever, but will be reconciled, for lam merciful. We
that are sinful, were for ever undone, if God were
not merciful; but the goodness of his nature encou¬
rages us to hope that if we by repentance undo what
we have done against him, he will by a pardon un¬
say what he has said against us. 2. They are di¬
rected how to return; (v. 13.) “ Only acknowledge
"Thine iniquity, own thyself in a fault, and thereby
take shame to thyself, and give glory to God.” 1
will not keep my anger for ever; (that is a previ¬
ous promise;) you shall be delivered from that an¬
ger of God which is everlasting, from the wrath to
come; but upon what terms? Very easy and rea¬
sonable ones. Only acknowledge thy sins '; if we con¬
fess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive
them. This will aggravate the condemnation of
sinners, that the terms of pardon and peace were
brought so low, and yet they would not come up to
them. If the prophet had bid them do some great
thing, would they not have done it? How
much more when he says, Only acknowledge thine
iniquity? 2 Kings v. 13. In confessing sin, (1.) We
must own the corruption of our nature; Acknow¬
ledge thine iniquity ; the perverseness and irregu
lantv ot thy nature. (2.) We must own our actual
sins, “ that thou hast transgressed against the Lord
thy God, hast affronted him and offended him.”
(3. ) We must own the multitude of cur transgres¬
sions, “ that thou hast scattered thy ways to the
strangers, run hither and thither in pursuit of thine
idols, under every green tree. Wherever thou hast
rambled, thou hast left behind thee the marks of
thy folly. (4.) We must aggravate cur sin frem
the disobedience that there is in it to the divine law.
The sinfulness of sin is the worst thing in it; “ Ye
have not obeyed my voice, acknowledge that, and
let that humble you more than any thing else.”
II. Here are precious promises made to these
backsliding children, if they do return; which were
in part fulfilled in the return of the Jews out of their
captivity, many that belonged to the ten tribes hav¬
ing perhaps joined themselves to those of the two
tribes, in the prospect of their deliverance, and re¬
turning with them ; but is to have its full accom¬
plishment in the gospel-church, and the gathering
together of the children of God that were scattered
abroad to that. “ Return, for though you are back¬
sliders, yet you are children; nay, though a treache¬
rous wife, yet a wife, for lam married to you, (v.
14.) and will not disown the relation.” Thus God
remembers his covenant with their fathers, that
marriage-covenant, and in consideration of that he
remembers their land, Lev. xxvi. 42.
1. He premises to gather them together from all
places whither they are dispersed and scattered
abroad; (John xi. 52.) I will take you , one of a city.
335
JEREMIAH, III.
and two of a family, or clan; and I will bring you
to Zion. All those that by repentance return to
their duty, shall return to their former comfort.
I bserve, (1.) Godwill graciously receive those that
r. turn to him, nay, it is he that by his distinguishing
grace takes them out from among the rest that per¬
sist in their backslidings; if he had left them, they
had been undone. (2.) Of the many that have
backslidden from God, there are but few, very few
in comparison, that return to him, like the glean¬
ings of the vintage; one of a city, and two of a
country; Christ’s flock is a little flock, and few
there be that find the strait gate. (3.) Of those
few, though dispersed, yet not one shall be lost.
Though there be but one in a city, God will find
out that one; he shall not be overlooked in a crowd,
lout shall be brought safe to Zion, safe to Heaven.
The scattered Jews shall be brought to Jerusalem,
and those of the ten tribes shall be as welcome
there as those of the two. God’s chosen, scattered
all the world over, shall be brought to the gospel-
church, that mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem,
that holy hill on which Christ reigns.
2. He promises to set those over them that shall
be every way blessings to them; (n. 15.) I will give
you pastors after my heart , alluding to the charac¬
ter given of David, when God pitched upon him to
be king; (1 Sam. xiii. 14.) The Lord hath sought
him a man after his own heart. Observe, (1.) When
a church is gathered it must be governed. I will
bring them to Zion, not to live as they list, but to
be under discipline, not as wild beasts, that range at
pleasure, but as sheep that are under the direction
of a shepherd. I will give them fiastors, magis¬
trates and ministers; both are God’s ordinance for
the support of his kingdom. (2.) It is well with a
people when their pastors are after God’s own
heart; such as they should be, such as he would
have them be, who shall make his will their rule in
all their administrations; and such as endeavour in
some measure to conform to his example; who rule
for him, and, as they are capable, rule like him.
(3.) Those are pastors after God’s own heart, who
make it their business to feed the flock, not to feed
themselves, and fleece the flocks, but to do all they
can for the good of those that are under their
charge; who feed them with wisdom and under¬
standing, wisely and understanding^, as David fed
them, in the integrity of his heart, and by the skil-
fulness of his hand, Ps. lxxviii. 72. Those who are
not only pastors, but teachers,. must feed them with
the word of God, which is wisdom and understand¬
ing, which is able to make us wise to salvation.
3. He promises that there should be no more oc¬
casion for the ark of the covenant, which had been
so much the glory of the tabernacle first, and after¬
ward of the temple, and was the token of God’s
presence with them; that shall be set aside, and
there sh ill be no more inquiry after, nor inquiring
of, it; (v. 16.) When ye be multifilied and increased
in the land, when the kingdom of the Messiah shall
be s"t up, which by the accession of the Gentiles
will bring into the church a vast increase, (and the
days of the Messiah the Jewish masters themselves
acknowledge to be here intended,) then they shall
say no more , The ark of the covenant of the Lord,
they sh ill have it no more among them to value, or
value themselves upon, because thev shall have a
pure spiritual way of worship set up, in which there
shall be no occasion for any of those external ordi¬
nances; with the ark of the covenant the whole ce-
r -monial law shall be set aside, and all the institu¬
tions of it, for Christ, the Truth of all those types,
exhibited to us in the word and sacraments of the
New Testament, will be to us instead of all. It is
very likely (whatever the Jews suggest to the con¬
trary) that the ark of the covenant was in the sc- i
! cond temple, being restored by Cyrus with the
other vessels of the house of the Lord, Ezra i. 7.
But in the gospel-temple Christ is the Ark, he is the
Propitiatory, or Mercy-seat; and it is the spiritual
presence of God in his ordinances that we are now
to expect. Many expressions are here used con
corning the setting aside of the ark, that it shall net
come to mind, that they shall not remember it, that
they shall not visit it, that none of these things shall
be any more done; for the true worshippers shall
worship the Father in s/iirit and in truth, John iv.
24. But this variety of expressions is used, to show
that the ceremonies of the law of Moses should be
totally and finally abolished, never to be used any
more, but that it would be with difficulty that those
who had been so long wedded to them should be
weaned from them; and that they would not quite
let them go till their Holy city and Holy house
should both be levelled with the ground.
4. He promises that the gospel-church, here call¬
ed Jerusalem, shall become eminent and conspicu¬
ous, v. 17. Two things shall make it famous. (1.)
God’s special residence and dominion in it. It shall
be called, The throne of the Lord; the throne of his
glory, for that shines forth in the church; the throne
of his government, for that also is erected there,
there he rules his willing people by his word and
Spirit, and brings every thought into obedience to
himself. As the gospel got ground, this throne of
the Lord was set up there where Satan’s seat had
been. It is especially the throne of his grace, for
they that by faith come to this Jerusalem, come to
God the Judge of all, and to Jesus the Mediator of
the new covenant, Heb. xii. 22, 23. (2.) The ac¬
cession of the Gentiles to it. All the nations shall
be discipled, and so gathered to the church, and
shall become subjects to that throne of the Lord
which is there set up, and devoted to the honour of
that name of the Lord which is there both mani¬
fested and called upon.
5. He promises that there shall be a wonderful
reformation wrought in those that are gathered to
the church; They shall not walk any more after the
imagination of their evil hearts. They shall not
live as they list, but live by rules; not do according
to their own corrupt appetites, but according to the
will of God. See what leads in sin, the imagination
of our own evil hearts; and what sin is, it is walk¬
ing after that imagination, being governed by fancy
and humour; and what converting grace does, it
takes us off from walking after our own inventions,
and brings us to be governed by religion and right
reason.
6. That Judah and Israel shall be happily united
in one body, v. 18. They were so in their return
out of captivity, and their settlement again in Ca¬
naan; The house of Judah shall walk with the house
of Israel, as being perfectly agreed, and become
one stick in the hand of the Lord, as E*ekiel also
foretold, ch. xxxvii. 16, 17. Both Assyria and Chal¬
dea fell into the hands of Cyrus, and his proclama¬
tion extended to all the Jews in all his dominions.
And therefore we have reason to think that many
of the house of Israel came with those of Judah out
of the land of the north; though at first there re¬
turned but forty-two thousand (whom we have an
account of, Ezra ii.) yet Josephus says, ( Aniiq . lib.
11. cafi. 4.) that some few years after, under Da¬
rius, Zerubbabel went, and fetched up above foui
millions of souls, to the land that was given for an
inheritance to their fathers. And we never read of
such animosities and enmities between Israel and
Judah as had been formerly. This happy coales¬
cence between Israel and Judah in Canaan, was a
type of the uniting of Jews and Gentiles in the ges-
pel-church, when, all enmities being slain, thev
i should become one sheepfold under one shepherd.
336
JEREMIAH, III.
III. Here is some difficulty started, that lies in the |
way of all this mercy; but an expedient is found to I
get over it.
1. God asks, How shall I do this for thee? Not
as if God showed favour with reluctancy, as he i
punishes with a How shall I give thee up. ? Hos. xi.
8, 9. No, though he is slow to anger, he is swift to
show mercy. But it intimates that we are utterly j
unworthy of his favours, that we have no reason to
expect them, that there is nothing in us to deserve
them, that we can lay no claim to them, and that
he contrives how to do it in such a way as may save
the honour of his justice and holiness in the govern¬
ment of the world; means must be devised, that his
banished be not for ever expelled from him, 2 Sam.
xiv. 14i How shall I do it? (1.) Even backsliders, if
they return and repent, shall be put among the chil¬
dren; and who could ever have expected that? Be¬
hold, what manner of love is this! 1 John iii. 1. How
should we, who are so mean and weak, so worthless
and unworthy, and soprovoking, ever be put among
the children? (2.) Those whom God puts among
the children, to them he will give the pleasant land,
the land of Canaan, that glory of all lands, that
goodly heritage of the hosts of nations, which na¬
tions and their hosts wish for, and prefer to their
own country; or which the hosts of the nations have
now got possession of: it was a type of heaven,
where there are pleasures for ever more; now who
could expect a place in that pleasant land, that has
so often despised it, (Ps. cvi. 24. ) and is so unwor¬
thy of it, and unfit for it? Is this the manner of men?
2. He does himself return answer to this question;
But I said. Thou shall call me. My Father. God
does himself answer all the objections that are taken
from our unworthiness, or they would never be got
over. (1.) That he may put returning penitents
among the children, he will give them the Spirit
of adoption, teachingthem tocry,Abba, Father, Gal. j
tv. 6. “ Thou shall call me. My Father; thou shalt j
return to me, and resign thyself to me as a Father,
and that shall recommend thee to my favour.” (2.)
That he may give them the pleasant land, he will
put his fear in their hearts, that they may never
turn from him, but may persevere to the end.
20. Surely as a wife treacherously de-
parteth from her husband, so have ye dealt
treacherously with me, O house of Israel,
saith the Lord. 21. A voice was heard
upon the high places, weeping and supplica¬
tions of the children of Israel: for they have
perverted their way, and they have forgotten
the Lord their God. 22. Return, ye back¬
sliding children, and I will heal your back¬
slidings, Behold, we come unto thee; for
thou art the Lord our God. 23. Truly in
vain is salvation hoped for from the hills, and
from the multitude of mountains: truly in
the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel.
24. For shame hath devoured the labour of
our fathers from our youth; their flocks and
their herds, their sons and their daughters.
25. We lie down in our shame, and ourcon-
fusioncoverethus: forwehavesinned against
the Lord our God, we and our fathers, from
our youth even unto this day, and have not
obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.
Here is,
I. The charge God exhibits against Israel for
their treacherous departures from him, v. 20. As
an adulterous wife elopes from her husband, so hav*
they gone a whoring from God. They were joined
to God by a marriage covenant, but they broke that
covenant, they dealt treacherously with God, who
had always dealt kindly and faithfully with them.
Treacherous dealing with men like ourselves is bad
enough, but to deal treacherously with God is to
deal treasonably.
II. Their conviction and confession of the truth
of this charge, v. 21. When God reproved them
for their apostaev, there were some among them,
even such as God would take, and bring to Zion,
whose voice was heard upon the high places, weep¬
ing and praying, humbling themselves before the
God of their fathers, lamenting their calamities and
their sins, the procuring cause of them; for this is
that which they lament, for this they bemoan them¬
selves, that they have perverted their way, and for¬
gotten the Lord their God. Note, 1. Sin isthe/;f?'-
verting of our way, it is turning aside to crooked
ways, and perverting that which is right. 2. For¬
getting the Lord our God is at the bottom of all sin.
If men would remember God, his eye upon them,
and their obligation to him, they would net trans¬
gress as they do. 3. By sin we embarrass ourselves,
and bring ourselves into trouble, for that also is the
perverting of our way, Lam. iii. 9. 4. Prayers
and tears well become those whose consciences tell
them that they have perverted their way and for¬
gotten their God. When the foolishness of man
perverts his way, his heart is apt to fret against the
Lord, (Prov. xix. 3.) whereas it should be melted
and poured out before him.
III. The invitation God gives them to return to
him; (t>. 22.) Return, ye backsliding children. He
calls them children, in tenderness and compassion
to them; foolish and froward as children, yet his
sons; whom though he corrects he will not disinhe¬
rit; for though they are refractory children, (so
some render it,) yet they are children. God bears
with such children, and so must parents. When
they are convinced of sin, (v. 21.) and humbled for
that, then they are prepared, and then they are in¬
vited, to return; as Christ invites those to him that
are weary and heavy laden. The promise to those
that return is, “I will heal your buckslidings; I will
comfort you under the grief you are in for your back-
slidings, deliver you out of the troubles you have
brought yourselves intoby your backslidings, and cure
you of vour refractoriness, and bent to backslide.”
God will heal our backslidings by his pardoning mer¬
er, his quieting peace, and his renewing grace.
IV. The ready consent they give to this invita¬
tion, and their cheerful compliance with it; Behold,
we come unto thee. This is an echo to God’s call;
as a voice returned from broken walls, so this from
broken hearts. God says. Return; they answer,
Behold, we come. It is an immediate, speedy an¬
swer, without delay, not, “We will come hereaf¬
ter,” but, “We do come now; we need not take
time to consider of it.” Not, “We come toward
thee,” but, “ We come to thee , we will make a tho¬
rough turn of it. ” Observe how unanimous they
are; We come, one and all.
1. They come devoting themselves to God as
theirs; “ Thou art the Lord our God, we take thee
to be ours, we give up ourselves to thee to be thine;
whither shall we go but to thee? It is our sin and
folly that we have gone from thee. It is very com¬
fortable, in ourretumsto God after our backsliding,
to look up to him as ours in covenant.
2. They come disclaiming all expectations of re¬
lief and succour but from God only; “In vain is
salvation hoped for from the hills, and from the mul¬
titude of the mountains; we now see our folly in re¬
lying upon creature-confidences, and will never so
deceive ourselves any more.” They worshipped
33;
JEREMIAH, IV.
their idols upon hills and mountains, (v. 6.) and
they had a multitude of idols upen their mountains,
which they had sought unto and put a confidence
in; but now they will have no more to do with them.
In vain do we look for any thing that is good from
them, while from God we may look for every thing
that is good; even salvation itself. Therefore,
3. They come defending upon God only as their
God; In the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel.
H a is the Lord, and he only can save; he can save
when all other succours and saviours fail; and he is
our God, and will in his own way and time work
salvation for us. It is very applicable to the great
salvation from sin, which Jesus Christ wrought out
for us; that is the salvation of the Lord, his great
salvation.
4. They come justifying God in their troubles,
and judging themselves for their sins, v. 24, 25. (1.)
They impute all the calamities they had been under
to their idols, which had not only done them no
good, but had done them abundance of mischief, all
the mischief that had been done them; Shame, (the
idol, that shameful thing,) has devoured the labour
of our fathers. Note, [1.] True penitents have
learned to call sin shame; even the beloved sin,
which has been as an idol to them, which they have
oeen most pleased with and firoud of, even that
they shall call a scandalous thing, shall put con¬
tempt upon, and be ashamed of. [2.] True peni¬
tents have learned to call sin death and ruin, and to
charge upon it all the mischiefs they suffer; “ It has
devoured all those good things which our fathers
laboured for, and left to us; we have found from our
youth that our idolatry has been the destruction of
our prosperity.” Children often throw away upon
their lusts that which their fathers took a great deal
of pains for; and it is well if at length they are
brought (as these here) to see the folly of it, and to
call those vices their shame, which have wasted
their estates, and devoured the labour oj their fa¬
thers. They mention the labour of their fathers,
which their idols had devoured, their flocks and their
herds, their sons and their daughters. First, Their
idolatries had provoked God to bring these desolat¬
ing judgments upon them, which had ruined their
country and families, and made their estates a prey,
and theirchildren captiv es to the conquering enemy.
They had procured these things to themselves. Or
rather, Secondly, These had been sacrificed to their
idols, had been separated unto that shame; (Hos. ix.
10.) and they had devoured them without mercy,
they did eat the fat of their sacrifices, (Dcut. xxxii.
38.) even their human sacrifices. (2.) They take
to themselves the shame of their sin and folly; ( v .
25.) “ We lie down in our shame, being unable to
bear up under it, our confusion covers us, both our
penal and our penitential shame. Sin has laid us
under such rebukes of God’s providence, and such
reproaches of our own consciences, as surround
us, and fill us with shame. For we have sinned,
and shame came in with sin, and still attends upon
' We are sinners by descent, guilt and corruption
• re entailed upon us; we and our fathers have sin-
"ed; we were sinners betimes, we began early in a
i iurse of sin, we have sinned from our youth; we
l.ave continued in it, have sinned even unto this
Jay, though often called to repent, and forsake our
sins. That which is the malignity of sin, the worst
thing in it, is, the affront we have put upon God by
it; we have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our
God, forbidding us to sin, and commanding us,
when we have sinned, to repent.” Now all this
seems to be the language of the penitents of the
house of Israel, (v. 20.) of the ten tribes; either of
those that were in captivity, or those of them that
remained in their own land. And the prophet takes
notice of their repentance, to provoke the men of
Vol. IV.— 2 U
| Judah to a holy emulation. David used it as an ar¬
gument with the elders of Judah, that it would be
a shame for them, that were his bone and his /lesh,
to be the last in bringing the king back, when tin.
men of Israel appeared forward m it, 2 Sam. xix.
11, 12. So the prophet excites Judah to repent, be¬
cause Israel did: and well it were if the zeal of
others less likely would provoke us to strive to get
before them, and go beyond them, in that which is
good.
CHAP. IV.
It should seem that the two first verses of this chapter
might better have been joined to the close of the forego¬
ing chapter, for they are directed to Israel, the ten tribes,
by way of reply to their compliance with God’s call, di
reeling and encouraging them to hold their resolulion,
v. 1,2. The rest of the chapter concerns Judah and Je¬
rusalem. I. They are called to repent and reform, v. 3,
4. '1. They are warned of the advance of Nebuchad¬
nezzar and his forces against them, and are told that it
is for their sins, from which they are again exhorted to
wash themselves, v. 5.. IS. III. To affect them the
more with the greatness of the desolation that was com¬
ing, the prophet does himself bitterly lament it, and
sympathize with his people in the calamities it brought
upon them, and the plunge it brought them to, repre¬
senting it as a reduction of the world to its first chaos, v.
19.. 31.
1- TF thou wilt return, O Israel, saitli the
A Lord, return unto me; and if thou
vyilt put away thine abominations out of my
sight, then shalt thou not remove. 2. And
thou shalt swear, The Lord liveth, in truth,
in judgment, and in righteousness; and the
nations shall bless themselves in him, and in
him shall they glory.
When God called to backsliding Israel to return,
(ch. iii. 22.) they immediately answered, Lord, we
return; now God here takes notice of their answer,
and, by way of reply to it,
1. He directs them how to pursue their good reso¬
lutions; “Dost thou say, I will return ?” (I.)
“ Then thou must return unto me; make a thor. ugh
work of it. Do not only return from thine idola¬
tries, but return to the instituted worship of the God
of Israel.” Or, “Thou must return speedily, and
not delay; (as Isa. xxi. 12. If ye will inquire , in¬
quire ye; so,) if ye will return unto me, return ye:
do not'talk of it, but do it.” (2.) “Thou must ut¬
terly abandon all sin, and not retain any of the relics
of idolatry; put away thine abominations out of my
sight,” out of all places, for everyplace isiindtr
mine eve; especially out of the temple; the house
which 1 have in a particular manner mine eye upon,
to see that it is kept clean. It intimates that their
idolatries were not only obvious, but offensive to the
eye of God; they were abominations which he could
not endure the sight of, therefore they were to be
put away out of his sight; they were a provocation
to the pure eyes of God’s glory. Sin must be put
away out of the heart, else it is not put away out of
God's sight, for the heart and all that is in it lie-
open before his eye. (3.) They must not return to
sin again; so some understand that, Thou shalt not
remove, reading it, Thou shalt not, or must not,
wander. “If thou wilt jiut away thine abomina¬
tions, and wilt not wander after them again,, as
thou hast done, all shall be well.” (4.) They must
give unto God the glory due unto his name 2.)
Thou shalt swear, the Lord liveth. His existence
shall be with thee the most sacred fact, than which
nothing can be more sure; and his judgment the su¬
preme court to which thou shalt appeal, than which
nothing can be more awful.” Swearing is an act of
religious worship, in which we are to give honour t«
338
JEREMIAH, IV.
tocI three ways. [1.] We must swear by the true
God only, and not by creatures, or any talse gods;
by the God that liveth, not by the gods that are
deaf, and dumb, and dead; by him only, and not by
the Lord and by Malcham, as Zeph. i. 5. [2.]
We must swear that only •which is true, in truth
and in righteousness ; not daring to assert that which
is false, or which we do not know to be true, or to
assert that as certain, which is doubtful, or to pro¬
mise that which we mean not to perform, or to vio¬
late the promise we have made. To say that which
is untrue, or to do that which is unrighteous, is bad,
but to back either with an oath is much worse.
[3.] We must do it solemnly, swear in judgment,
that is, when judicially called to it, and not in com¬
mon conversation. Rash swearing is as great a
profanation of God’s name, as solemn swearing is
an honour to it. See Deut. x. 20. Matth. v. 34, 37.
2. He encourages them to keep in this good mind,
and adhere to their resolutions. If the scatterd Is¬
raelites will thus return to God, (1.) They shall be
blessed themselves; for to that sense the first words
may be read; “If thou wilt return to me, then thou
shalt return, thou shalt be brought back out of thy
captivity into thy own land again, as was of old pro¬
mised,” Deut. iv. 29. — xxx. 2. Or, “Then thou
shalt rest in me, shalt return to me as thy rest, even
while thou art in the land of thy captivity.” (2.)
They shall be blessings to others; for their return¬
ing to -God again will be a means of others turning
to him, who never knew him. If thou wilt own the
living Lord, thou wilt thereby influence the nations
among whom thou art, to bless themselves in him, to
place their happiness in his favour, and to think
themselves happy in being brought to the fear of
him. See Isa. lxv. 16. They shall bless themselves
in the God of truth, and not in false gods; shall do
themselves the honour, and give themselves the sa¬
tisfaction, to join themselves to him ; and then in him
shall they glory, they shall make hint their Glory,
and shall please, nay shall /iride, themselves in the
blessed change they have made. Those that part
with their sins to return to God, however they
scrupled the bargain at first, when they go away,
then they boast.
.3. For thus saith the Lord to the men
of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your
fallow-ground, and sow not among thorns.
4. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and
take away the foreskins of your heart, ye
men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem;
lest my fury come forth like fire, and burn
that none can quench it, because of the evil
of your doings.
The prophet here turns his speech, in God’s
name, to the men of the place where he lived. We
have heard what words he proclaimed toward the
north, ( ch . iii. 12.) for the comfort of those that
were now in captivity, and were humbled under
the hand of God; let us now see what he says to the
men of Judah and Jerusalem, who were now in
prosperity, tor their conviction and awakening. In
these two verses, he exhorts them to repentance
and reformation, as the only way left them to pre¬
vent the desolating judgments that were ready to
break in upon them. Observe,
1. The duties required of them, which they are
concerned to do.
(1.) They must do by their hearts as they do by
their ground that they expect any good of; they
must plough it ufi; ( v . 3.) Break up your fallow
ground. Plough to yourselves a / iloughing , or,
“ Plough ufi your plough-land, that you sow not
among thorns, that you may not labour in vain, for
your own safety and welfare, as those dc that sow
i good seed among thorns, and as you have been do¬
ing a great while. Put yourselves into a frame fit
to receive mercy from God, and put away all that
which keeps it fn m you, and then you ..>ay expect
to receive mercy, and t" prosper in your endeavours
to help yourselves.” Note, [1.] An unconvinced,
unhumbled heart is like fallow-ground, ground un¬
tilled, unoccupied. It is ground capable of improve¬
ment; it is our ground, let out to us, and we must
be accountable for it; but it is fallow; it is unfenced,
and lies common, it is unfruitful, and of no advan¬
tage to the owner, and (which is principally intend¬
ed) it is overgrown with thorns and u'eeds, which
are the natural product of the corrupt heart, if it be
not renewed with grace. Rain and sunshine are
lost upon it, Heb. vi. 7, 8. [2.] We are concerned
to get this fallow-ground ploughed up; we must
search into our own hearts, let the word of God di¬
vide (as the plough does) between the joints and the
marrow, Heb. iv. 12. We must rend our hearts,
Joel ii. 13. We must pluck up by the roots those
corruptions, which, as thorns, choke both our en¬
deavours and our expectations, Hos. x. 12.
(2.) They must do that to their souls, which was
done to their bodies when they were taken into the
covenant with God; ( v . 4.) “Circumcise yourselves
to the Lord, and take away the foreskin of your
heart. Mortifv the flesh and the lusts of it. Pare
off that superfluity of naughtiness, which hinders
your receiving with meekness the engrafted word.
Jam. i. 21. Boast not of, and rest not in, the cir¬
cumcision of the body, for that is but a sign, and
will not serve without the thing signified. It is a
dedicating sign. Do that in sincerity, which was
done in profe-sion by your circumcision; devote and
consecrate yourselves unto the Lord, to be to him a
peculiar people. ” Circumcision is an obligation to
keep the law: lay yourselves afresh under that obli¬
gation. It is a seal of the righteousness of faith; lay
hold then of that righteousness, and so circumcise
yourselves to the Lord.
2. The danger they are threatened with, which
they are concerned to avoid. Repent and reform, lest
my fury come forth like fire, which it is now ready
to do, as that fire which came forth from the Lord,
and consumed the sacrifices, and which was always
kept burning upon the altar, and none might
yuench it; such is God’s wrath against impenitent
sinners, because of the evil of their doings. Note,
(1.) That which is to be dreaded by us more than
any thing else, is, the wrath of God; for that is the
spring and bitterness of all present miseries, and
will be the quintessence and perfection of everlast¬
ing misery. (2.) It is the evil of our doings, that
kindles the fire of God’s wrath against us. (3.)
The consideration of the imminent danger we are
in, of falling and perishing under this wrath, should
awaken us with all possible care to sanctify our¬
selves to God’s glory, and to see that we be sancti¬
fied by his grace.
5. Declare ye in Judah, and publish in
Jerusalem; and say, Blow ye the trumpet
in the land : cry, gather together, and say,
Assemble yourselves, and let us go into the
defenced cities. 6. Set up the standard to¬
ward Zion : retire, stay not ; for I will bring
evil from the north, and a great destruction.
7. The lion is come up from his thicket, and
the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way ;
he is gone forth from his place to make thy
land desolate: and thy cities shall belaid
waste wiinout an inhabitant 0. For this
339
JEREMIAH. IV.
gird you with sackcloth, lament and howl;
for the fierce anger of the Lord is not turn¬
ed back from us. 9. And it shall come to
pass at that day, saith the Lord, that the
heart of the king shall perish, and the heart
of the princes ; and the priests shall be aston¬
ished, and the prophets shall wonder. 10.
Then said I, Ah, Lord God! surely thou
hast greatly deceived this people and Jeru¬
salem, saying, Ye shall have peace; whereas
tlie sword reacheth unto the soul. 11. At
that time shall it be said to this people and
to Jerusalem, A dry wind of the high places
in the wilderness toward the daughter of
my people, not to fan, nor to cleanse, 12.
Even a full wind from those places shall
come unto me : now also will I give sentence
against them. 1 3. Behold, he shall come
up as clouds, and his chariots shall he as a
whirlwind: his horses are swifter than
eagles. Wo unto us ! for we are spoiled.
1 4. O Jerusalem, wash thy heart from wick¬
edness, that thou mayest be, saved : how
long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within
thee? 15. For a voice declareth from
Dan, and publisheth affliction from mount
Ephraim. 16. Make ye mention to the na¬
tions: behold, publish against Jerusalem,
that watchers come from a far country, and
give out their voice against the cities of Ju¬
dah. 1 7. As keepers of a field are they
against her round about; because she hath
been rebellious against me, saith the Lord.
1 8. Thy way and thy doings have procured
these things unto thee; this is thy wicked¬
ness, because it is bitter, because it reacheth
unto thy heart.
God’s usual method is, to warn before he wounds.
In these verses, accordingly, God gives notice to the
Jews of the general desolation that would shortly he
brought upon them by a foreign invasion. This
must be declared and published in all the cities of
Judah, and streets of Jerusalem, that all might hear
and fear, and by this loud alarm be either brought
to repentance, or left inexcusable. The prediction
of this calamity is here given very largely, and in
lively expressions, which one would think should
have awakened and affected the most stupid. Ob¬
serve,
I. The war proclaimed, and general notice given
of the advance of the enemy. It is published now,
some years before, by the prophet; but since this
will be slighted, it shall be published after another
manner, when the judgment is actually breaking in,
xi. 5, 6. The trumpet must be blown, the standard
must be set up, a summons must be issued out to the
people, to gather together, and to draw toward
Zion, either to guard it, or expecting to be guarded
by it. There must be a general rendezvous, the
militia must be raised, and all the forces mustered.
Those that are able men, and fit for service, must
go into the di fenced cities, to garrison them; those
that are weak, and would lessen their provisions,
but not increase their strength, must retire, and not
stau.
IT. An express arrived with intelligence of the
approach of the king of Babylon and his army. It
is an evil that God will bring from the north, as he
had said, ch. i. 15. even a great destruction, beyond
all that had yet come upon the nation of the Jews.
The enemy is here compared,
1. To a lion that comes up from his thicket, when
he is hungry, to seek his prey, v. 7. The helpless
beasts are so terrified with his roaring, (as some re¬
port,) that they cannot flee from him, and so be¬
come an easy prey to him. Nebuchadnezzar is this
roaring, tearing lion, the destroyer of the nations,
that has laid many countries waste, and now is on his
way on full speed toward the land of Judah. The
j destroyer of the Gentiles shall be the destroyer of
the Jews too, when they have by their idolatry made
themselves like the Gentiles. He is gone forth
from his place, from Babylon, or the place of the
rendezvous of his army, on purpose against this
land; that is the prey he has now his eye upon, not
to plunder it only, but to make it desolate, and here¬
in he shall succeed to that degree, that the cities
shall be laid waste, without inhabitants, shall be
overgrown with grass as a field; so some read it.
2. To a drying, blasting wind, (v. 11.) a parch¬
ing, scorching wind, which spoils the fruits of the
earth, and withers them. Not a wind which brings
rain, but such as comes out of the north, which
drives away rain, (Prov. xxv. 23.) but brings some¬
thing worse instead of it, such shall this evil out of
the north be to this people; a black freezing wind,
which they can neither ./wire against, nor fee from,
but, wherever they go, it shall surround and pursue
them; and they cannot see it before it comes, but,
when it comes, they shall feel it. It is a wind of the
high places in the wilderness, or plain, that beats
upon the tops of the hills, or that carries all before
it in the plain, where there is no shelter, but the
ground is all champaign. It shall come in its full
force toward the daughters of my people, that have
been brought up so tenderly and delicately, that
they could not endure to have the wind blow upon
them. Now this fierce wind shall come against
them, not to fan, or cleanse them, not such a gentle
wind as is used in winnowing corn, but a full wind,
(v. 12.) a strong and violent wind, blowing full
upon them; this shall come to me, or rather/br me,
it shall come with commission from God, and shall
accomplish that for which he sends it; for this, as
other stormy winds, fulfils his word.
3. To clouds and whirlwinds for swiftness, v. 13
The Chaldean army shall come up as clouds driven
with the wind; so thick shall they stand, so fast
shall they march, and it shall be to no pui-pose tr
offer to stop them, or to make head against them,
any more than to arrest a cloud, or give check to a
whirlwind. The horses are swifter than eagles
when they fly upon their prey; it is in vain to think
either of opposing them, or of outrunning them.
4. Towatchers, and the keepers of a field, v. 15—
17. The voice declares from Dan, a city which
lay farthest north of all the cities of Canaan, and
therefore received the first tidings of this evil from
the north, and hastened it to mount Ephraim, that
part of the land of Israel which lay next to Judea;
they received the news of the affliction, and trans¬
mitted it to Jerusalem. Ill news fly apace; and
an impenitent people, that hate to be refoimed,
expect no other than ill news. Now, what is th_
news? Tell the nations, those mixed nations that
now inhabit the cit:cs of the ten tribes, mention it to
them, that they may provide for their own snfetv:
but publish it against Jerusalem, that is the place-
aimed at, the game shot at, let them know that
watchers are come from a far country , soldiers, that
will watch all opportunities to do mischief. Private
soldiers we call private sentinels, or watchmen.
They are coming in full career, and give out then
JEREMIAH IV.
I 10
voict against the cities of Judah; they design to in- I
vest them, to make themselves masters of them, j
and to attack them with loud shouts, as sure of vic¬
tory. As keefiers of a field surround it, to keep all
out from it, so shall they surround the cities of Ju¬
dah, to keep all in them, till they be constrained to
surrender at discretion; they are against her round
about, com/iassing her on every side. See Luke
xix. 43. As formerly the good angels, those watch¬
ers and holy ones, were like keefiers of a field to Je¬
rusalem, watching about it, that nothing might go
m, to its prejudice; so now their enemies were as
watchers and keefiers of a field, surrounding it, that
nothing might go in, to its relief and succour.
III. The lamentable cause of this judgment: how
is it that Judah and Jerusalem come to be thus
abandoned to ruin ? See how it came to this. 1.
They sinned against God, it was all owing to them¬
selves; She has been rebellious against me, saith the
Lord, v. 17. Their enemies surrounded them as
keefiers of a field, because they had taken up arms
against their rightful Lord and Sovereign, and were
to be seized as rebels. The Chaldeans are break¬
ing in upon them, and it was sin that opened the
gap at which they entered; Thy way and thy
doings have firocured these things unto thee, (v. 18.)
thy evil way, and thy doings that have not been
good. It was not a false step or two that did them
this mischief, but their way and course of living
were bad. Note, Sin is the firocuring cause of all
our troubles. Those that go on in sin, while they
are endeavouring to ward off mischiefs with one
hand, are at the same time pulling them upon their
own heads with the other. 2. God was angry with
them for their sin. It is the fierce anger of the Lord
that makes the army of the Chaldeans thus fierce,
thus furious; that is kindled against us, and is not
turned back from us, v. 8. Note, In men’s anger
against us, and the violence of that, we must see and
own God’s anger, and the power of that. If that
were turned back from us, our enemies should not
come forward against us. 3. In his just and holy-
anger he condemned them to this dreadful punish¬
ment: Now also will I give sentence against them,
v. 12. The execution was done, not in a heat, but
in pursuance of a sentence solemnly passed, accord¬
ing to equity, and upon mature deliberation. Some
read it, Now will I do execution upon them, accord¬
ing to the doom formerly passed; and we are sure
that the judgment of God is according to truth, and
the execution of that judgment.
IV. The lamentable effects of this judgment,
upon the first alarm given of it. 1. The people that
should fight shall quite despair, and shall not have a
heart to make the least stand against the enemy;
(z>. 8.) “Tor this gird you with sackcloth, lament
and howl; you will do so, when the cry is made
through the kingdom, Arm, arm: all will be seized
with a consternation, and all put into confusion; in¬
stead of girding on the sword, they will gird on the
sackcloth; instead of animating one another to a
vigorous resistance, they will lam nt and howl, and
so dishearten one another. While the enemy is yet
at a distance, they will give up all for gone, and
cry, Wo unto us, for we are spoiled, v. 13. We
ere all undone, the spoilers will certainly carry the
day, and it is in vain to make head against them.”
ludah and Jerusalem had been famed for valiant
men; but see what is the effect of sin, by depriving
men of their confidence toward God, it deprives
them of their courage toward men. 2. Their great
men, who should contrive for the public safety,
shall be at their wit’s end; (v. 9.) At that day,
the heart of the king shall perish, both his wisdom
and his courage; despairing of success, he shall haz e
no spirit to do any thing, and, if he had, he will not
know what to d<% His princes and privv-counoil-
lors, who should animate and advise him, shall
be as much at a loss, and as much in despair, as he.
See how easily, how effectually, God can bring ruin
upon a people that are doomed to it, merely by dis¬
piriting them, taking away the heart of the chief of
them, (Job xii. 20, 24.) cutting off the spirit of
princes, Ps. lxxvi. 12. The business of the priests
was to encourage the people in the time of war; they
were to say to the people, Fear not,, and let not your
hearts faint, Deut. xx. 2, 3. They were to blow
the trumpets, for an assurance to them that in the
day of battle they should be remembered before the
Lord their God, Num. x. 9. But now the priests
themselves shall be astonished, and shall have no
heart themselves to do their office, and therefore
shall not be likely to put spirit into the people. The
prophets too, the false prophets, who had cried
peace to them, shall be put into the greatest atnaze-
ment imaginable, seeing their own guilty blood readv
to be shed by that sword which they had often told
the people there was no danger of. Note, God’s judg¬
ments come with the greatest terror uprn these that
have been most secure. Our Saviour foretells that
at the last destruction of Jerusalem men’s hearts
should fail them for fear, Luke xxi. 26. And it is
common for those who have cheated and flattered
people into a carnal security, not onlv to fail them,
but to discourage them when the trouble comes.
V. The prophet’s complaint of the people’s being
deceived, v. 10. It is expressed strangely, as we
read it, Ah, Lord God, surely thou hast greatly de¬
ceived this people, saying. Ye shall have peace. We
are sure that God deceives none; let no man say,
when he is tempted or deluded, that God has tempted
or deluded him. But, 1. The people deceived them¬
selves with the promises that God had made in
general of his favour to that nation, and the many
jeculiar privileges with which they were dignified;
juilding upon them, though they took no care to
perform the conditions, on which the accomplish¬
ment of those promises, and the continuance of those
privileges, did depend; they had no regal'd to the
threatenings which in the law were set over against
those promises. Thus they cheated themselves, and
then wickedly complained that God had cheated
them. 2. The false prophets deceived them with
promises of peace, which they made them in God’s
name, ch. xxviii. 17. — xxvii. 9. If God had sent
them, he had indeed greatly deceived the people,
but he did not. It was the people’s fault that they
gave them credit; and here also they deceived them¬
selves. 3. God had permitted the false prophets
to deceive, and the people to be deceived by them,
givingup both to strong delusions, to punish them for
not receiving the truth in the love of it. Herein the
Lord was righteous; but the prophet complains of
it as the sorest judgment of all, for by this means
they had been hardened in their sins. 4. It may be
read with an interrogation, Hast thou indeed thus de¬
ceived this people ? It is plain that they are greatly
deceived, for they expect peace, whereas the sword
reaches unto the soul; it is a killing sword, abund¬
ance of lives are lost, and more likely to be. Now,
was it God that deceived them? No, he had often
given them warning of judgments in general, and of
this in particular; but their own prophets deceive
them, and cry peace to them, to whom the Gcd of
heaven does not speak pence. It is a pitiable thing,
and that which every good man greatly laments, to
see people fl ittered into their own ruin, and pro¬
mising themselves peace, when war is at the door;
and this we should complain rf to Gcd, who alone
can prevent such a fatal delusion.
VI. The prophet’s endeavour to undeceive them;
when the prophets they loved and caressed dealt
falsely with them, he whom ‘hev had hated and
persecuted dt lit faithfully.
341
JEREMIAH, IV.
1. He shows them their mound; they were loath
to see it, very loath to have it searched into; but if
they will allow themselves the liberty of a free
thought, they might discover their punishment in
their sin; (v. 18.) “ This is thy wickedness, because
it is bitter. Now thou secst that it is a bitter thing
to depart from God, and will certainly be bitterness
in the latter end; ( ch . ii. 19.) it produces bitter ef¬
fects, and grief that reaches unto the heart, touches
to the quick, and in the most tender part; the sword
reaches to the soul,” v. 10. God can make trouble
reach the heart even of those that would lay nothing
to heart. And by this thou mayest see what is thy
wickedness, that it is a bitter thing, a root of bitter¬
ness, that bears gall and wormwood, and that it has
reached to the heart; it is the corruption of the soul,
of the imagination of the thought of the heart. It
the heart were not polluted with sin, it would not be
disturbed and disquieted as it is with trouble.
2. He shows them the cure, v. 14. Since thy
wickedness reaches to the heart, there the applica¬
tion must be made; 0 Jerusalem, wash thine heart
from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. By
Jerusalem he means each one of the inhabitants of
Jerusalem; for every man has a heart of his own to
take care of, and it is personal reformation that
must help the public. Every one must return from
his own evil way, and in order to that, cleanse his
own evil heart. And let the heart of the city too be
purified, notthe suburbs only, the out-skirts of it; the
vitals of a state must be amended by the reforma¬
tion of those that have the commanding influence
upon it. Note, (1.) Reformation is absolutely ne¬
cessary to salvation; there is no other way of pre¬
venting judgments, or turning them away, when we
are threatened with them, but taking away the sin
by which we have procured them to ourselves.
(2. ) No reformation is saving, but that which reach¬
es the heart. There is heart-wickedness that is de¬
filing to the soul, from which we must wash our¬
selves. By repentance and faith we must wash our
hearts from the guilt we have contracted by spi¬
ritual wickedness, by those sins which begin and
end in the heart, and go no further: and by mortifi¬
cation and watchfulness we must suppress and pre¬
vent this heart-wickedness for the future. The tree
must be made good, else the fruit will not. Jerusa¬
lem was all overspread with the leprosy of sin; now
as the physicians agree with respect to the body
when afflicted with leprosy, that external applic -
tions will do no good, unless physic be taken inward¬
ly to carry off the humours that lurk there, and to
change the m iss of the blood, so it is with the soul,
so it is with the state, there will be no effectual re¬
formation of manners, without a reformation of the
mind, the mistakes there must be rectified, the cor¬
ruptions there must be mortified, and the evil dis¬
positions there changed. “Though thou art Jeru-
silem, called a holy city, that will not save thee, un¬
less thou wash thine heart from wickedness." In the
latter part of the verse he reasons with them, How
long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee ? He
complains here, [1.] Of the delays of their reforma¬
tion; “How long shall that filthy heart of thine
continue unwashed? When shall it once be?” Note,
The God of heaven thinks the time long that his
room is usurped, and his interest opposed, in our
souls, ch. xiii. 27. [2.] Of the root of their corrup¬
tion; the vain thoughts that lodged within them,
and defiled their hearts, from which they must wash
their hearts. Thoughts of iniquity or mischief,
these are the evil thoughts that are the spawn of the
evil heart, from which all other wickedness is pro¬
duced, Matt. xv. 19. These are our own, the con¬
ceptions of our own lusts, (Jam. i. 15.) and they are
most dangerous when they lodge within us, when
they are admitted and entertained as guests, and
are suffered to continue. Some read it thoughts of
affliction, such thoughts as will bring nothing but
affliction and misery. Some by the vain thoughts
here understand all those frivolous pleas and ex¬
cuses with which they turned off the reproofs and
calls of the word, and rendered them ineffectual,
and bolstered themselves up in their wickedness.
Wash thy heart from wickedness, and think not tc
say, We are not polluted, (ch. ii. 23.) or, “We
are Jerusalem, we have Abraham to our father,”
Matth. iii. 8, 9.
19. My bowels, my bowels! I am pain¬
ed at my very heart; my heart maketh a
noise in me : I cannot hold my peace, be¬
cause thou bast heard, O my soul, the sound
of the trumpet, the alarm of war. 20. De¬
struction upon destruction is cried : for tli ■
whole land is spoiled: suddenly are my
tents spoiled, and my curtains in a mo¬
ment. 21. How long shall I see the stand¬
ard, and hear the sound of the trumpet? 22.
For my people is foolish, they have not
known me; they are sottish children, and
they have none understanding: they are
wise to do evil, but to do good theyhave no
knowledge. 23. I beheld the earth, and,
lo, it was without form and void ; and the
heavens, and they had no light. 24. I be¬
held the mountains, and, lo, they trembled,
and all the hills moved lightly. 25. I be¬
held, and, lo, there was no man, and all the
birds of the heavens were fled. 2(5. I be¬
held, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilder¬
ness, and all the cities thereof were broken
down at the presence of the Lord, and by
bis fierce anger. 27. For thus hath the
Lord said, The whole land shall be deso¬
late ; yet will I not make a full end. 28. F or
this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens
above be black : because I have spoken it, I
have purposed it, and will not repent, nei¬
ther will 1 turn back from it. 29. The whole
city shall flee for the noise of the horse¬
men and bowmen; they shall go into thick¬
ets, and climb up upon the rocks: every
city shall be forsaken, and not a man dwell
therein. 30. And when thou art spoiled,
what wilt thou do ? Though thou clothest
thyself with crimson, though thou deckest
thee with ornaments of gold, though thou
rentest thy face with painting, in vain shalt
thou make thyself fair; thy lovers will de¬
spise thee, they will seek thy life. 31. For
I have heard a voice as of a woman in tra¬
vail, and the anguish as of her that bringeth
forth her first child ; the voice of the daugh¬
ter of Zion, that bewaileth herself, that
spreadeth her hands, saying , Wo is me now!
for my soul is wearied because of murderers.
The prophet is here in agony, and cries cut like
one upon the - ack of pain with some acute distem
342
JEREMIAH, IV.
per, or as a woman in travail. The expressions are
very pathetic and moving, enough to melt a heart
of stone into compassion, My bowels, my bowels, I
am pained at my very heart; and yet well, and in
health himself, and nothing ails him. Note, A good
man in such a bad world as this is, cannot but be a
man of sorrows. My heart makes a noise in me,
through the tumult of my spirits, and I cannot hold
my fieace. Note, The grievance and the grief some¬
times may be such, that the most prudent, patient
man cannot forbear complaining.
Now, what is the matter? What is it that puts
this good man into such agitation? It is not for him¬
self, or any affliction in his family, that he grieves
thus; but it is purely upon the public account, it is
his people’s case that he lays to heart thus.
I. They are very sinful, and will not be reformed,
v. 22. These are the words of God himself, for so
the prophet chose to give this character of the peo¬
ple, rather than in his own words, or as from him¬
self; My people are foolish. God calls them his
people, though they are foolish. They have cast
him off, but he has not cast them off, Rom. xi. 1.
“They are my people, whom I have been in cove¬
nant with, and still have mercy in store for. They
are foolish, for they have not known ?ne.” Note,
Those are foolish indeed, that have not known God;
especially that call themselves his people, and have
the advantages of coming into acquaintance with
him, and yet have not known him. They are sottish
children, stupid and senseless, and have no under¬
standing. They cannot distinguish between truth
and falsehood, good and evil; they cannot discern
the mind of God, either in his word or in his provi¬
dence; they do not understand what their true in¬
terest is, nor on which side it lies. They are wise
to do evil, to plot mischief against the quiet in the
land, wise to contrive the gratification of their lusts,
and then to conceal and palliate them. But to do
good they have no knowledge, no contrivance, no
application of mind; they know not how to make a
good use either of the ordinances or of the provi¬
dences of God, nor how to bring about any design
for the good of their country. Contrary to this,
should be our character; (Rom. xvi. 19.) I would
have you wise unto that which is good, and simple
concerning evil.
II. They are very miserable, and cannot be re¬
lieved. He cries out, Because thou hast heard, 0
my soul, the sound of the trumpet, and seen the
standard, both giving the alarm of war, v. 19, 21.
He does not say. Thou hast heard , O my ear, but,
O my soul, because the event was yet future, and it
is by the spirit of prophecy that he sees it, and re¬
ceives the impression of it. His soul heard it from
the words of God, and therefore he was well as¬
sured of it, and as much affected with it, as if he
had heard it with his bodily ears. He expresses
this deep concern, 1. To show that though he fore¬
told this calamity, yet he was far from desiring the
woful day; for a woful day it would be to him.
It becomes us to tremble at the thoughts of the
misery that sinners are running themselves into,
though we have good hopes, through grace, that we
ourselves are delivered from the wrath to come. 2.
To awaken them to a holy fear, and so to a care to
prevent so great a judgment by a true and timely
repentance. Note, Those that would affect others
with the word of God, should evidence that they are
themselves affected with it.
Now let us see what there is in the destruction
here foreseen and foretold, that is so very affecting.
(1.) It is a swift and sudden destruction; it comes
upon Judah and Jerusalem, ere they are aware, and
pours in so fast upon them, that they have not the
least breathing-time. They have no time to recol-
ect their tli oughts, much less to recruit or recover
their strength; Destruction upon destruction is cried,
(v. 20.) breach upon breach, one sad calamity, like
Job’s messengers, treading upon the heels of another.
The death of Josiah breaks the ice, and plucks up
the flood-gates; within three months after that, his
son and successor Jehoahaz is deposed by the king
of Egypt; within two or three years after, Nebu¬
chadnezzar besieged Jerusalem," and took it, and
thenceforward he was continually making descents
upon the land of Judah with his armies during the
reigns of Jehoiakim, Jeconiah, and Zedekiah, till
about nineteen years after he completed their ruin
in the destruction of Jerusalem: but suddenly were
their tents spoiled, and their curtains in a moment.
Though the cities held out for some time, the coun¬
try was laid waste at the very first; the shepherds,
and all that lived in tents, were plundered immedi¬
ately, they and their effects fell into the enemies’
hands: therefore we find the Rechabites, who dwelt
in tents, upon the first coming of the army of the
Chaldees into the land, retiring to Jerusalem, Jer.
xxxv. 11. The inhabitants of the villages soon
ceased; Suddenly were the tents spoiled. The plain
men that dwelt in tents were first made a prey of.
(2. ) This dreadful war continued a great while,
not in the borders, but in the bowels of the country;
for the people were very obstinate, and would not
submit to, but took all opportunities to rebel against,
the king of Babylon, which did but lengthen out the
calamity; they might as well have yielded at first
as at last. This is complained of, v '. 21. How long
shall I see the standard? Shall the sword devour fi r
ever? Good men are none of those that delight in
war, for they know not how to fish in troubled
waters: they are for peace, (Ps. cxx. 7.) and will
heartily say Amen to that prayer, “Give peace in
our time, O Lord.” O thou sword of the Lord,
when wilt thou be quiet?
(3.) The desolations made by it in the land were
general and universal; The whole land is spoiled, or
plundered; ( v . 20.) so it was at first, and at length
it became a perfect chaos. It was such a desolation
as amounted in a manner to a dissolution; not only
the superstructure, but even the foundations, were
all out of course. The prophet in vision saw the
extent and extremity of this destruction, and he
here gives a most lively description of it, which one
would think might have made those uneasy in their
sins, who dwelt in a land doomed to such a ruin,
which might yet have been prevented by their re¬
pentance. [f.] The earth is without form, ana
void, as it was Gen. i. 2. It is Tohu and Bohu, the
words there used, as far as the land of Judea goes.
It is confusion and emptiness, stripped of all its
beauty, void of all its wealth, and, compared with
what it was, every thing out of place and out of
shape. To a worse chaos than this will the earth
be reduced at the end of time, when it, and all the
works that are therein , shall be burnt up. [2. ] The
heavens too are without light, as the earth without
fruits. This alludes to the darkness th; t was upon
the face of the deep, (Gen. i. 2. ) and represents
God’s displeasure against thorn, as the eclipse of the
sun did at our Saviour’s death. It was not only the
earth that failed them, hut heaven also frowned
upon them; and with their trouble they had dark¬
ness, for they could not see through their troubles.
The smoke of their houses and cities which the ene¬
my burned, and the dust which their army raised in
its march, even darkened the sun, so that the hea¬
vens had no light. Or, it may be taken figuratively;
The earth (that is, the common people) was im
poverished, and in confusion; and the heavens (that
is, the princes and rulers) had no light, no wisdom
in themselves, nor were anv comfort to the people,
nor a guide to them. Compare Matth. xxiv. 29.
[3.] The mountains, trembled, and the hills moved
JEREMIAH, IV.
343
lightly; v . 24 ) so formidable were the appearances
of God against his people, as in the days of old they
had been for them, that the mountains skipped like
rams, and the little hills like lambs, Ps. cxiv. 4.
The everlasting mountains seemed to be scattered,
I Jab. iii. 6. The mountains on which they had
worshipped their idols, the mountains over which
they had looked for succours, all trembled, as if they
had been conscious of the people’s guilt. The moun¬
tains, those among them that seemed to be highest
and strongest, and of the firmest resolution, trembled
at the approach of the Chaldean army. The hills
moved lightly, as being eased of the burthen of a
sinful nation, Isa. i. 24. [4.] Not the earth only,
but the air, was dispeopled, and left uninhabited;
(a’. 25. ) I beheld the cities, the countries that used
to be populous, and lo, there was no man to be seen;
all the inhabitants were either killed, or fled, or taken
captives, such a ruining, depopulating thing is sin:
nay, even the birds of the heavens, that used to fly
about, and sing among the branches, were now fled
away, and no more to be seen or heard. The land
of Judah is now become like the lake of Sodom, over
which (they say) no bird flies; see Deut. xxix. 23.
The enemies shall make suchhavock of the country,
that they shall not so much as leave a bird alive in
it. [5. J Both the ground and the houses shall be
laid waste; (i». 26.) Lo, the fruitful place was a
wilderness, being deserted by the inhabitants that
should cultivate it, and then soon overgrown with
th :rns and briers; or, being trodden down by the
destroying army of the enemy. The cities also and
t icir gates and walls are broken down, and levelled
with the ground. Those that look no further than
second causes, impute it to the policy and fury of
the invaders: but the prophet, who looked to the
first Cause, says that it is at the presence of the
Lord, at his fhce, the anger of his countenance, even
by his fierce anger, that this was done. Even angry
n i vn cannot do us any real hurt, unless God be angry
with us. If our ways please him, all is well. [6.]
The meaning of all this is, that the nation shall be
entirely ruined, and every part of it shall share in
the destruction; neither town nor country shall
escape. First, Not the country, for the whole land
shall be desolate, corn-land and pasture-land, both
common and enclosed, it shall all be laid waste, (x\
27.) the conquerors will have occasion for it all. 1
Secondly, Not the men, for (y. 29.) the whole city
shall flee, all the inhabitants of the town shall quit
their habitations by consent, for fear of the horse¬
men and bowmen; rather than lie exposed to their
fury, they shall go into the thickets, where they are
in danger of being torn by briers, nay, to be torn in
pieces by wild beasts; and they shall climb up upon
the rocks, where their lodging will be hard and cold,
and the precipice dangerous. Let us not be over-
fond of our houses and cities; for the time may come,
when rocks and thickets may be preferable, and
chosen rather. This shall be the common case, for
every city shall be forsaken, and not a man shall
be left, that dares dwell therein. Both government
and trade shall be at an end, and all civil societies
and incorporations dissolved. It is a very dismal
i iea which this gives of the approaching desolation;
but in the midst of all these threatenings comes in
one comfortable word; ( v . 27.) Yet wilt not I make
a full end; not a total consumption, for God will
reserve a remnant to himself, that shall be hid in
the day of the Lord’s anger, not a final consump¬
tion, for Jerusalem shall again be built, and the land
inhabited. This comes in here, in the midst of the
threatenings, for the comfort of those that trembled
at God’s word; and it speaks to us the changeable¬
ness of God’s providence; as it breaks down, so it
riises up again; every end of our comforts is not a
full end, however we mav be ready to think it so;
and it speaks the unchangeableness of God’s cove¬
nant, which stands so firm, that though he may-
correct his people very severely, yet he will not
cast them off, ch. xxx. 11.
(4.) Their case was helpless, and without remedy.
[1.] G°d would not help them; so he tells them
plainly, v. 28. And if the Lord do not help them,
who can? This is that which makes their case de
plorable; for this the earth mourns, and the heavens
above are black; there are no prospects but what
are very dismal; “lie-cause I have spoken it, I have
iven the word which shall not be called back, I
ave purposed it, it is a consumption decreed, de¬
termined, and I will not repent, not change this
way, but proceed in it, and will not turn back from
it.’ They would not repent, and turn back from
the way of their sins, (ch. ii. 25.) and therefore God
will not repent, and turn back from the way of his
judgments. [2.] They could not help themselves,
T’. 30, 31. When the thing appeared at a distance,
they flattered themselves with hopes that though
God should not appear for them as he had. done for
Hezekiah against the Assyrian army, yet they
should find some means or other to secure them¬
selves, and give check to the forces of the enemy.
But the prophet tells them, that when it comes to
the setting to, they will be quite at a loss: “ When
thou art spoiled, what wilt thou do? What course
wilt thou take? Sit down now, and consider this in
time.” He assures them that, whatever were now
their contrivances and confidences,
First, They will then be despised by their allies
whom they depended upon for assistance. He had
often compared the sin of Jerusalem to whoredom,
not only her idolatry, but her trust in creatures, in
the neighbouring powers. Now here he compares
her to a harlot abandoned by all the lewd ones that
used to make court to her. She is supposed to do
all she can to keep up her interest in their affections;
she does what she can to make herself appear con¬
siderable among the nations, and a valuable ally;
she compliments them by her ambassadors to the
highest degree, to engage them to stand by her now
in her distress ; she clothes herself with crimson, as
if she were rich, and decks herself with ornaments
of gold, as if her treasures were still as full as ever
they had been; she rents her face with painting,
puts the best colours she can upon her present dis¬
tresses, and does her utmost to palliate and extenu¬
ate her losses, sets a good face upon them. But this
painting, though it beautifies the face for the pre¬
sent, really rents it; the frequent use of paint sp»,ls
the skin, cracks it, and makes it rough; so the case
which by false colours has been made to appear
better than really it was, when truth comes to light,
will look so much the worse; “And after all, in
vain shalt thou make thyself fair; all thy neigh¬
bours are sensible how low thou art brought; the
Chaldeans will strip thee of thy crimson and orna¬
ments, and then thy confederates will not only slight
thee, and refuse to give thee any succour, but they
will join with those that seek thy life, that they may
come in for a share in the prey of so rich a coun¬
try. ” Here seems to be an allusion to the story of
Jezebel, who thought, by making herself look 'fair
and fine, to have outfaced her doom, but in vain, 2
Kings ix. 30, 33. See what creatures prove when
we confide in them, how treacherous they are; in¬
stead of saving the life, they seek the life; they often
change, so that they will sooner do us an ill turn,
than any service. And see to how little pui-pose it
is for those that have by sin deformed themselves
in God’s eyes, to think by any arts they can use to
beautify themselves in the eye of the world.
Secondly, They will then be themselves in de
spair; they will find their troubles to be like the
pains of a woman in travail, which she cannot es
344 JEREMIAH, V.
cape; 1 have heard the vear the daughter of
Zion, her groans echoing to the triumphant shouts
jf the Chaldean army, which he heard, v. 15. It
's like the voice of a woman in travail, whose pain
is exquisite, and the fruit of sin and the curse too,
(Gen. iii. 16.) and extorts lamentable outcries, es¬
pecially of a woman in travail of her first child,
who, having never known before what that pain is,
is the more terrified by it. Troubles are most
grievous to those that have not been used to them.
Zion, in this distress, since her neighbours refuse to
pity her, bewails herself fetching deep sighs ; (so
the word signifies;) and she spreads her hands,
either wringing them for grief, or reaching them
forth for succour. All the cry is, Wo is tne now,
(now that the decree is gone forth against her, and
is past recall,) for my soul is wearied because of
murders; the Chaldean soldiers put all to the sword
that gave them anv opposition, so that the land was
full of murders. Zion was weary of hearing tragi¬
cal stories from all parts of the country, and cried
out, Wo is me.1 It was well if their sufferings put
them in mind of their sins, the murders committed
upon them, of the murders committed by them; for
God was now making inquisition for the innocent
blood shed in Jerusalem, which the Lord would not
pardon, 2 Kings xxiv. 4. Note, As sin will find out
the sinner, so sorrow will sooner or later, find out
the secure.
CHAP. V.
Reproofs for sin and threatening^ of judgment are inter¬
mixed in this chapter, and arc set the one over against
the other : judgments are threatened, that the reproofs
of sin might be the more effectual to brin" them to re¬
pentance ; sin is discovered, that God mignt be justified
in the judgments threatened. I. The sins they are charg¬
ed with, are, Injustice, (v. 1. ) Hypocrisy in religion, (v.2.)
Incorrigibleness, (v. 3.) The corruption and debauchery
of both poor and rich, (v. 4, 5.) Idolatry and adultery,
(v. 7, 8.) Treacherous departures from Cod, (v. II.) An
impudent defiance of him, (v. 1‘2, 13.) And that which is
at the bottom of all this, Want of the fear of God, not¬
withstanding the frequent calls given them to fear him,
' . -20 . . 24. In the close of the chapter, they are charged
with violence and oppression, (v. 26 . . 28.) and a combi¬
nation of those to debauch the nation, who should have
been active to reform it, v. 30,31. II. The judgments
they are threatened with are very terrible. In general,
they shall be reckoned with, v. 9, 29. A foreign enemy
shall be brought in upon them; (v. 15. . 17.) shall set
guards upon them; (v. 6.) shall destroy their fortifica¬
tions; (v. 10.) shall carry them away into captivity;
(v. 19.) and keep all good things from them, v. 25. Here¬
in the words of God’s prophets shall be fulfilled, v. 14.
But, III. Here is an intimation twice given that God
would in the midst of wrath remember mercy, and not
utterly destroy them, v. 10, 18. This was the scope and
purport of Jeremiah’s preaching in the latter end of
Jusiah’s reign, and the beginning of Jchoiakim’s : but \
the success of it did not answer expectation.
1. TTJ UN ye to and fro through the streets
J&yt of Jerusalem, and see now, and
know, and seek in the broad places thereof,
if ye can find a man, if there he ant/ that
execureth judgment, that seeketh the truth;
and 1/ will pardon it. 2. And though they
sav, The Lord liveth, surely they swear
falselG. 3. O Lord, are not thine eyes
upod the truth? thou hast stricken them,
hut they have not grieved; thou hast con¬
sumed them, to they have refused to re-
envr correction: they have made their faces
harder than a rock; they have refused to
return. 4. Therefore I said. Surely these
are poor; they are foolish: for they know
j not the way of the Lord, nor the judgment
of their God. 5. 1 will get me unto ilia
great men, and will speak unto them: tor
they have known the way of the Lord,c.W
the judgment of their God: but these have
altogether broken the yoke, and burst the
bonds. 6. Wherefore a lion out of the forest
shall slay them, and a wolf of the evenings
shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over
their cities : every one that goeth out thence
shall be torn in pieces; because their trans¬
gressions are many, and their backslidings
are increased. 7. How shall I pardon thee
for this? thy children nave forsaken me,
and sworn by them that are no gods: when
I had fed them to the full, they then com¬
mitted adultery, and assembled themselves
by troops in the harlots’ houses. 8. They
were ns fed horses in the morning : every
one neighed after his neighbour’s wife. 9.
Shall I not visit for these things ? saitli the
Lord : and shall not my soul he avenged
on such a nation as this ?
Here is,
1. A challenge to produce any one right honest
man, or at least any considerable number of such,
in Jerusalem, v. 1. Jerusalem was become like the
old world, in which all flesh had corrupted their
way. There were some perhaps who flattered
themselves with hopes that there were yet many
good men in Jerusalem, who would stand in the gap
to turn away the wrath of God; and there might be
others who boasted of its being the Holy city, and
thought that this would save it; but God bids them
search the town, and intimates that they should
scarcely find a man in it who executed judgment,
and made conscience of what he said and did; “ Lock
in the streets where they make their appearance,
and converse together, and in the broad j daces
where they keep their markets; see if you can find
a man, a magistrate,” (so some,) “ that executes
judgment, and administers justice impartially, that
will put the laws in execution against vice and pro¬
faneness.” When the faithful thus cease and fail,
it is time to cry, J Vo is me.' (Mic. vii. 1, 2.) high
time to cry, Help, Lord, Ps. xii. 1. “If there be
here and there a man that is truly conscientious,
and does at least seek the truth, yet you shall not
find him in the streets and broad places, lie dares
not appear publicly, for he shall lie abused and run
down; truth is fallen in the street, (Isa. fix. 14.)
and is forced to seek for corners.” So pleasing
would it be to God to find any such, that for their
sake lie would pardon the city; if there were but
ten righteous men in Sodom, if but one of a thou¬
sand, of ten thousand, in Jerusalem, it should he
spared. See how ready God is to forgive, how swift
to show mercy.
But it might be said, “What do you make of
those in Jerusalem that continue to make profession
of religion and relation to God? Are not tliev men
for whose sakes Jerusalem may be spared?” No,
for they are not sincere in their profession; (r. 2.)
Then say, The Lord liveth, and will swear bv his
name only, but they swear falsely. 1. They are
not sincere in the profession they make of respect
to God, but are false to him; they honour him with
their lips, but their hearts are far from him. 2.
Though they appeal to God only, they make no
conscience of calling him to witness to a fie. Though
345
JEREMIAH, V.
they do not swear by idols, they forswear them¬
selves, which is no less an affront to God, as the
God of truth, than the other is as the only true
God.
II. A complaint which the prophet makes to God j
of the obstinacy and wilfulness of these people. God
had appealed to their eyes; (v. 1.) but here the
prophet appeals to his eyes; (v. 3.) "■Are not thine
eyes u/ion the truth? Dost thou not see every man’s
true character? And is not this the truth of their
character, that they have made their faces harder
than a rock?” Or, “ Behold , thou desirest truth in
the inward part; but where is it to be found among
the men of this generation? For though they say,
The Lord liveth, yet they never regard him; thou
hast stricken them with one affliction after another,
but they have not grieved for the affliction, they
have been as stocks and stones under it, much less
have they grieved for the sin by which they have
brought it upon themselves. Thou hast gone further
yet, hast consumed them, hast corrected them yet
more severely; but they have refused to receive cor¬
rection, to accommodate themselves to thy design
in correcting them, and to answer to it. They
would not receive instruction by the correction.
They have set themselves to outface the divine
sentence, and to outbrave the execution of it, for
they have made their faces harder than a rock; they
cannot change countenance, neither blush for shame,
nor look pale for fear, cannot be beaten back from
the pursuit of their lusts, whatever check is given
them ; for though often called to it, they have re¬
fused to return, and would go forward, right or
wrong, as the horse into the battle.”
III. The trial made botli of rich and poor, and
the bad character given of both.
1. The poor were ignorant, and therefore they
were wicked. He found many that refused to re¬
turn, for whom he was willing to make the best
excuse their case would bear, and it was this, (v. 4.)
“ Surely, these are poor, they are foolish; they
never had the advantage of a good education, nor
have they wherewithal to help themselves now
with the means of instruction; they are forced
to work hard for their living, and have no time or
capacity for reading or hearing, so that they know
not the way of the Lord, or the judgments of their
God; they understand neither the way in which
God by his precepts will have them to walk toward
him, nor the way in which he by his providence is
walking toward them.” Note, (1.) Prevailing ig¬
norance is the lamentable cause of abounding impie¬
ty and iniquity. What can one expect but works
of darkness from brutish, sottish people that know
nothing of God and religion, but choose to sit in
darkness? (2.) This is commonly a reigning sin
among poor people. There are the deviPs poor, as
well as God’s; who, notwithstanding their poverty,
might know the way of the Lord, so as to walk in
it, and do their duty, without being book-learned;
but they are willingly ignorant, and therefore their
ignorance will not be their excuse.
2. The rich were insolent and haughty, and there¬
fore they were wicked; (tj. 5.) “/ will get me to
the great men, and see if I can find them more
pliable to the word and providence of God; I will
speak to them, preach at court, in hopes to make
some impression upon men of polite literature; but
all in vain, for though they know the way of the
Lord, and the judgment of their God, yet they are
too stiff to stoop to his government: These have
altogether broken the yoke, and burst the bonds.
They know their Master’s will, but are resolved to
have their own will, to walk in the way of their
heart, and in the sight of their eyes. They think
themselves too goodly to be controlled, too big to be
corrected, even bv the sovereign Lord of all himself.
Vox.. IV.— 2 X
| They are for breaking even his bands in sunder,
Ps. ii. 3. The poor are weak, the rich are wilful,
and so neither do their duty.”
IV. Seme particular sins specified, which they
I were most notoriously guilty of, and which cried most
loudly to Heaven for vengeance. Their transgres¬
sions indeed were many, of many kinds, and often
repeated, and their backslidings were increased;
they added to the number c f them, and grew more
and more impudent in them, v. 6. Rut two sins
1 especially were justly to be looked upon as unpar
donable crimes.
1. Their spiritual whoredom; giving that honoui
to idols, which is due to God only; “ Thy childrei.
have forsaken me, to whom they were born and
dedicated, and under whom they have been brought
up, and they have sworn by them that are no gods,
have made their appeals to them as if they had
been omniscient, and their proper judges.”" This
is here put for all acts of religious worship due to
God onlv, but with which they had honoured their
idols. They have sworn to them, (so it may be
read,) have joined themselves to them, and cove¬
nanted with them. They that forsake God make
a bad change for those that are no gods.
2. Their corporal whoredom. Because they had
forsaken God, and served idols, he gave them up to
vile affections; and they that dishonoured him were
left to dishonour themselves and their own families.
They committed adultery most scandalously, with¬
out sense of shame, or fear of punishment, for they
assembled themselves by troops in the harlots’ houses,
and did not blush to be seen by one another in the
most scandalous places. So impudent and violent
was their lust, so impatient of check, and so eager
to be gratified, that they became perfect beasts;
( v . 8.) like horses high-fed, they neighed every one
after his neighbour’s wife, v. 8. Unbridled lusts
make men like natural brute beasts, such mon¬
strous, odious tilings are they. And that which ag¬
gravated their sin was, that it was the abuse of God’s
favours to them ; when they were fed to the full,
then their lusts grew thus furious. Fulness of bread
was fuel to the fire of Sodom’s lusts. Sine Cerere
et Baccho friget Venus — luxurious living feeds the
fame of lust. Fasting would help to tame the un¬
ruly evil that is so full of deadly poison, and bring
the body into subjection.
V. A threatening of God’s wrath against them
for their wickedness, and the universal debauchery
of their land.
1. The particular judgment that is threatened,
v. 6. A foreign enemy shall break in upon them,
get dominion over them, and shall lay all waste;
their country shall be as if it were overrun and per¬
fectly mastered by wild beasts. This enemy shall
be, (1.) Like a lion of the forest, so strong, so
furious, so irresistible; and he shall slay them. (2.)
Like a wolf of the evening, which comes out at
night, when he is hungry, to seek bis prey, and is
very fierce and ravenous: and the noise both of the
lions roaring and of the wolves howling, is verv
hideous. (3.) Like a leopard, which is very swift
and verv cruel, and withal careful not to miss his
prey. The army of the enemy shall watch over
their cities so strictly as to put the inhabitants to this
sad dilemma — if they stay in, they - re starved; if
they stir out, they are stabbed; ex'ery one that goeth
out thence shall be torn in pieces; which intimates
that in many places the enemy gave no quarter: and
all this bloody work is owing to the multitude of
their transgressions. It is sin that makes the great
slaughter.
2. An appeal to themselves concerning the equity
of it; (v. 9.) “ Shall I not visit for these things /
Can you yourselves think that the" God whose name
! is Jealous, will let such idolatries go imp unshed;
346
JEREMIAH, V.
or that a God of infinite purity will connive at such
abominable uncleanness?” These are things that
must be reckoned for, else the honour of God’s go¬
vernment cannot be maintained, nor his laws saved
from contempt; but sinners will be tempted to think
him altogether such a one as themselves, contrary to
that conviction of their own consciences concerning
the judgment of God, which is necessary to be sup¬
ported, That they which do such things are worthy
of death, Horn. i. 32. Observe, When God punishes
sin, he is said to visit for it, or inquire into it; for he
weighs the cause before he /lasses sentence. Sinners
have reason to expect punishment, upon the ac¬
count of God’s holiness; to which sin is highly offen¬
sive, as well as upon the account of his justice, to
which it renders us obnoxious; this is intimated in
that, Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation
as this ? It is not only the word of God, but his
soul, that takes vengeance. And he has national
judgments wherewith to take vengeance for national
sins. Such nations as this was cannot long go un-
& unished. How shall I pardon thee for this? v. 7.
lot but that those who have been guilty of these
sins, have found mercy with God, as to their eter¬
nal estate; (Manasseh himself did, though so much
accessary to the iniquity of those things;) but nations,
as such, being rewardable and punishable only in
this life, it would not be for the glory of God to let
a nation so very wicked as this pass without some
manifest tokens of his displeasure.
10. Go ye up upon her walls, and de¬
stroy; but make not a full end: take away
her battlements; for they are not the Lord’s.
1 1 . For the house of Israel and the house
of Judah have dealt very treacherously
against me, saith the Lord. 1 2. They have
belied the Lord, and said, It is not he,
neither shall evil come upon us, neither shall
we see sword nor famine; 13. And the pro¬
phets shall become wind, and the word is
not in them: thus shall it be done unto them.
14. Wherefore thus saith the Lord God of
hosts, Because ye speak this word, behold,
I will make my words in thy mouth fire,
and this people wood, and it shall devour
them. 1 5. Lo, I will bring a nation upon
you from far, O house of Israel, saith the
Lord: it is a mighty nation, it is an ancient
nation, a nation whose language thou know-
est not, neither understandest what they
say. 1 6. Their quiver is as an open sepulchre,
they are all mighty men. 17. And they
shall eat up thy harvest, and thy bread,
which thy sons and thy daughters should
eat: they shall eat up thy flocks and thy
herds; they shall eat up thy vines and thy
fig-trees: they shall impoverish thy fenced
cities, wherein thou trustedst, with the
sword. 18. Nevertheless in those days,
saith the Lord, I will not make a full end
with you. 19. And it shall come to pass,
when ye shall say, Wherefore doth the
Lord our God all these things unto us?
then shalt thou answer them, Like as ye
have forsaken me, and served strange gods j
in your land ; so shall ye serve strangers in
a land that is not yours.
We may observe in these verses, as before,
I. The sin of this people, upon whicli the com
mission signed against them is grounded. God dis¬
owns them, and dooms them to destruction, v. 10.
But is there not a cause? Yes; for, 1. They have
deserted the law of God, v. 11. The house of Israel
and the house of Judah, though at variance with
one another, yet both agreed to deal very treacher¬
ously against God. They forsook the worship of
him, and therein violated their covenants with him;
they revolted from him, and played the hypocrite
with him. 2. They have defied the judgments of
God, and given the lie to his threatenings in the
mouth of his prophets, v. 12, 13. They were often
told that evil would certainly come upon them ; they
must expect some desolating judgments, sword and
famine; but they were secure, and said, We shall
have peace, though we go on. For, (1.) They did
not fear what God is; they belied him, and coniront-
ed the dictates even of natural light concerning him,
for they said, “ It is not he, he is not such a one as
we have been made to believe he is; he does not see,
or not regard, or will not require it; and therefore
no evil shall come upon us.” Multitudes are ruined
by being made to believe that God will not be so
strict with them as his word says he will; nay, by
this artifice Satan undid us all; Ye shall not surely
die. So here, Neither shall we see sword nor fa¬
mine. Vain hopes of impunity are the deceitful
support of all impiety. (2.) They did not fear what
God said. The prophets gave them fair warning,
but they turned it off with a jest; “ They do but
talk so, because it is their trade; they are words of
course, and words are but wind. It is not the word
of the Lord that is in them; it is only the language
of their melancholy fancy, or their ill will to their
country, because they are not preferred. ” Note,
Impenitent sinners are not willing to own anv thing
to be the word of God, that makes against them;
that tends either to part them from, or disquiet
them in, their sins. They threaten the prophets;
“ They shall become wind, shall pass away unre¬
garded, and thus shall it be done unto them, what
they threaten against us we will inflict upon them.
Do they frighten us with famine? Let them be fed
with the bread of affliction.” (So Micaiah was, 1
Kings xxii. 27.) “Do they tell us of the sword?
Let them perish by the sword,” ch. ii. 30. Thus
their mocking and misusing of God’s messengers,
filled the measure of their iniquity.
II. The punishment of this people for their sin.
1. The threatenings they laughed at shall be
executed; (v. 14.) Because ye speak this word of
contempt concerning the prophets, and the word in
their mouths, therefore God will put honour upon
them and their words, for not one iota or tittle of
them shall fall to the ground, 1 Sam. iii. 19. Here
God turns to the prophet Jeremiah, who had been
thus bantered, and perhaps find been a little uneasy
at it; Behold, I will make my words in thy mouth
fire. God owns them for his words, though men
denied them, and will as surely make them to take
effect as the fire consumes combustible matter that
is in its way. The word shall be fire, and the people
wood. Sinners by sin make themselves fuel to that
wrath of God, which is revealed from heaven
against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men
in the scripture. The word of God will certainly
be too hard for those that contend with it. They
shall break, who will not bow before it.
2. The enemy they thought themselves in no dan¬
ger of, shall be brought upon them. God gives
them their commission; {v. 10.) “ Go ve up upot.
her waits, mount them, trample upon them, tread
JEREMIAH, V.
34?
them down; walls of stone, before the divine com¬
mission, shall be but mud walls. Having made
yourselves masters of the walls, you may destroy at
pleasure, you may take away tier battlements , and
leave the fenced, fortified cities to lie open; for her
battlements are not the Lord’s, he does not own
them, and therefore will not protect and fortify
them.” They were not erected in his fear, nor
with a dependence upon him : the people have trust¬
ed to them more than to God, and therefore they
are not his. When the city is filled with sin, God
will not patronise the fortifications of it, and then
they are paper walls. What can defend us, when
he who is our Defence, and the Defender of all our
defences, is departed from us? Numb. xiv. 9.
What is not of God, cannot stand, not stand long,
nor stancj us in any stead.
What dreadtul work these invaders should make,
is here described; (v. 15.) Lo, I will bring a na¬
tion upon you, 0 house of Israel. Note, God has
all nations at his command, does what he pleases
with them, and makes what use he pleases of them.
And sometimes he is pleased to make the nations
of the earth, the heathen nations, a scourge to the
house of Israel, when that is become an hypocritical
nation. This nation of the Chaldeans is here said
to be a remote nation; it is brought upon them from
afar, and therefore will make the greater spoil, and
the longer stay, that they may pay themselves well
for so long a march. “ It is a nation that thou hast
had no commerce with, by reason of their distance,
and therefore canst not expect to find favour with.”
God can bring trouble upon us from places and
causes very remote. It is a mighty nation, that
there is no making head against; an ancient nation,
that value themselves upon their antiquity, and will
therefore be the more haughty and imperious. It
is a nation whose language thou knowest not; they
sp ike the Syriac tongue, which the Jews at that
time were not acquainted with, as appears, 2 Kings
xviii. 26. The difference of language would make
it the more difficult to treat with them of peace;
compare this with the threatening, (Deut. xxviii.
49. ) which it seems to have a reference to, for the
law and the prophets exactly agree. They are
well armed; Their quiver is an open sepulchre;
their arrows shall fly so thick, hit so sure, and
wound so deep, that they shall be reckoned to
breathe nothing but death and slaughter; they are
able-bodied, all effective, mighty men, v. 16. And
when they have made themselves masters of the
country, they shall devour all before them, and
reckon all their own, that they can lay their hands
on, v. 17. (1.) They shall strip the country, shall
Tot only sustain, but surfeit, their soldiers with the
rich products of this fruitful land. They shall not
it ore up, (then it might possibly have been retriev¬
ed,) but eat up, thine harvest in the field, and thy
bread in the house, which thy sons and thy daugh¬
ters shall eat. Note, What we have, we have for
our families, and it is a comfort to see our sons and
daughters eating that which we have taken care
and pains for. But it is a grievous vexation to see
it devoured by strangers and enemies; to see their
camps victualled with our stores, while those that
are clear to us are perishing for want of it; this also
is according to the curse of the law; (Deut. xxviii.
33.) “They shall eat up thy flocks and herds, out
of which thou hast taken sacrifices for thine idols;
they shall not leave thee the fruit of thy vines and
tig-trees.’’ (2.) They shall starve the towns;
‘ They shall impoverish thy fenced cities,’’ (and
what fence is there against poverty, when it comes
like an armed man?) “those cities wherein thou
trusteclst to be a protection to the country.” Note,
•It is just with God to impoverish that which we
make our confidence They shall impoverish them
with the snvord, cutting off all provisions from cc ril¬
ing to them, and intercepting trade and commeice,
which will impoverish even fenced cities.
III. An intimation of the tender compassion God
has yet tor them: the enemy is commissioned to de¬
stroy and lay waste, but must not make a full end,
v. 10. Though they make a great slaughter, yet
some must be left to live; though they make a great
spoil, yet something must be left to live upon, for
God has said it, (v. 18. ) with a non obstante — a ne¬
vertheless, to the present desolation; Even in those
days, dismal as they are, I will make a full end
with you; and if God will not, the enemy shall not.
God has mercy in store for this people, and there¬
fore will set bounds to this desolating judgment;
hitherto it shall come, and no further.
IV. The justification of God in these proceedings
against them: as he will appear to be gracious in
not making a full end with them, so he will appear
to be righteous in coming so near it, and will have
it acknowledged that he has done them no wrong,
v. 19. Observe, 1. A reason demanded, insolently
demanded, by the people for these judgments.
They will say, “ Wherefore doth the Lord our God
do all this unto us? What provocation have we
given him, or what quarrel has he with us?” As if
against such a sinful nation there did not appear
cause enough of action. Note, Unhumbled hearts
are ready to charge God with injustice in their af¬
flictions, and pretend they are to seek for the cause
of them, when it is written in the forehead of them.
But, 2. Here is a reason immediately assigned: the
prophet is instructed what answer to give them, for
God will be justified when he speaks, though he
speaks with ever so much terror. He must tell
them that God does this against them for what they
have done against him, and that they may, if they
please, read their sin in their punishment. Do not
they know very well that they have forsaken God;
and therefore can they think it strange if he has
forsaken them? Have they forgotten how often they
served strange gods in their own land, that good
land, in the abundance of the fruits of which they
ought to have served God with gladness of heart;
and therefore is it not just with God to make them
serve strangers in a strange land, where they can
call nothing their own, as he had threatened to do?
Deut. xxviii. 47, 48. They that are fond of stran¬
gers, to strangers let them go.
20. Declare this in the house of Jacob,
and publish it in Judah, saying, 21. Hear
now this, O foolish people, and without un¬
derstanding; which have eyes, and see not;
which have ears, and hear not: 22. Fear
ye not me? saith the Lord: will ye not
tremble at my presence, which have placed
the sand for the bound of the sea, by a per¬
petual decree, that it cannot pass it; and
though the waves thereof toss themselves,
yet can they not prevail ; though they roar,
yet cau they not pass over it ? 23. But this
people hath a revolting and a rebellious
heart; they are revolted and gone. 24.
Neither say they in their heart, Let us now
fear the Lord our God that giveth rain, both
the former and the latter, in his season : he
reserveth unto us the appointed weeks of
the harvest.
The prophet, hairing reproved them for sin, and
threatened the judgments of God against them, ie
here sent to them again upon another errand, which
348
JEREMIAH, V.
lie must publish in Judah: the purport of it is to
persuade them to fear God, which would be an ef¬
fectual principle of their reformation, as the want
of that fear had been at the bottom of their apostacy.
I. He complains of the shameful stupidity of this
people, and their bent to backslide from God;
speaking as if he knew not what course to take with
them. For,
1. Their understandings were darkened, and un¬
apt to admit the rays of the divine light. They are
a foolish people and without understanding, they
apprehend not the mind of God, though ever sc
plainly discovered to them, by the written word, by
his prophets, and by his providence; (d. 21.) They
have eyes, but they see not, ears, but they hear not,
like the idols which they made and worshipped,
Ps. cxv. 5, 6, 8. One would have thought that
they took notice of things, but really they did not;
they had intellectual faculties and capacities, but
they did not employ and improve them as they
ought. Herein they disappointed the expectations
of all their neighbours, who, observing what excel¬
lent means of knowledge they had, concluded,
Surely they are a wise and an understanding people;
(Deut. iv. 6.) and yet really they are a foolish peo¬
ple, and without understanding. Note, We can¬
not judge of men by the advantages and opportuni¬
ties they enjoy; there are those that sit in darkness
in a land of light, that live in sin even in a holy land,
that are bad in the best places.
2. Their wills were stubborn, and unapt to sub¬
mit to the rules of the divine law; (x». 23.) This
people has a revolting and rebellious heart; and no
wonder, when they were foolish and without under¬
standing, Ps. lxxxii. 5. Nay, it is the corrupt bias
of the will, that bribes and besots the understand¬
ing: none so blind as those that will not see. The
character of this people is the true character of all
people by nature, till the grace of God has wrought
a change; we are foolish, slow of understanding, and
apt to mistake and forget; yet that is not the worst;
we have a revolting and a rebellious heart , a carnal
mind, that is enmity against God, and is not in sub¬
jection to his law; not only revolting from him by a
rooted aversion to that which is good, but rebellious
against him by a strong inclination to that which is
evil. Observe, The revolting heart is a rebellious
one: they that withdraw from their allegiance to
God, stick not there, but by siding in with sin and
Satan take up arms against him. They are revolt¬
ed and gone. The revolting heart will produce a
revolting life; They are gone, and they will go; (so
it may be read;) now nothing will be restrained from
them, Gen. xi. 6.
II. He ascribed this to the want of the fear of
God. When he observes them to be without un¬
derstanding, he asks, “ Fear ye not me, suith the
Lord, and will ye not tremble at my presence?” v. 22.
If you would but keep up an awe of God, you would
be’ more observant of what he says to you; and did
you but understand yourselves better, you would be
more under the commanding rule of God’s fear.”
When he observes that they are revolted and gone,
he adds this, as the root and cause of their apostacy,
(ic 24.) Neither say they in their hearts. Let us
now fear the Lord our God. Therefore so many
bad thoughts come into their mind, and hurry them
to that which is evil, because they will not admit
and entertain good thoughts; and particularly not
this good thought, Let us now fear the Ir'-d our
God. It is true, it is God’s work to put his fear
into our hearts; but it is our work to stir up our¬
selves to fear him, and to fasten upon those consi¬
derations which are proper to affect us with a holy
awe of him; and it is because we do not do this, that
our hearts are sc destitute of his fear as they are,
and so apt to revolt and rebel.
i III. He suggests some of those things which are
proper to possess us with a holy fear of God.
1. We must fear the Lord and hisgreatness; (v.
22. ) upon this account he demands our fear : Shall
we not tremble at his presence, and be airaicl oi
fronting him, or trifling with him, who in the king¬
dom of nature and providence gives such incontesta¬
ble proofs of his almighty power and sovereign do¬
minion? Here is one instance given of very many
that might be given; he keeps the sea within com
pass: though the tides flow with a mighty strength,
twice every day, and if they should flow cn fc.i
awhile, would drown the world; though in a stoim
the billows rise high, and dash to the shore with in
credible force and fury, yet they are under check,
they return, they retire, and no harm is done. This
is the Lord’s doing, and it would be man'ellous, if
it were not common, in our eyes. He has placed
the sand for the bound of the sea, not only for a
meerstone, to mark out how far it may come, and
where it must stop, but as a mound, or fence, to put
a stop to it. A wall of sand shall be as effectual as
a wall of brass to check the flowing waves, when
God is pleased to make it so; nay, that is chosen
rather to teach us that a soft answer like the soft
sand, turns away wrath, and quiets a foaming rage,
when grievous words, like hard rocks, do but exas¬
perate, and make the waters cast forth so much the
more mire and dirt. This bound is placed by a per¬
petual decree; by an ordinance of antiquity — so
some read it, and then it sends us as far back as to
the creation of the world, when God divided be¬
tween the sea and the dry land, and fixed marches
between them, (Gen. i. 9, 10.) which is elegantly
described, Ps. civ . 6, 8tc. and Job xxxviii. 8, &c. or
to the period of Noah’s flood, when God promised
that he would never drown the world again, Gen.
ix. 11. An ordinance of perpetuity — so our trans¬
lation takes it. It is a perpetual decree, it has had
its effect all along to this day, and shall still continue
till day and night come to an end. This perpetual
decree the waters of the sea cannot pass over or
break through. Though the waves thereof toss
themselves, as the troubled sea does when it cannot
rest, yet can they not prevail: though they roar and
rage as if they were vexed at the check given
them, yet can they not pass over. Now this is a
good reason why we should fear God. For, (1.)
By this we see that he is a God of almighty power
and universal sovereignty, and therefore to be fear¬
ed and had in reverence. (2.) This shows us how
easily he could drown the world again, and he w
much we continually lie at his mercy, and therefore
we should be afraid of making him cur Enemy. (3. )
Even the unruly waves of the sea observe his de¬
cree, and retreat at his check; and shall not we
then? Why are our hearts revolting and rebellious,
when the sea neither revolts nor rebels?
2. We must fear the Lord and his goodness, Hos.
iii. 5. The instances of this, as of the former, are
fetchedfrom God’s common providence; (x'. 24.) we
must fear the Lord our God, we must worship him,
and give him glory, and be always in care to keep our¬
selves in his love, because he is continually doing us
good ; he gives us both the former and the latter rain;
the former a littleafter seedness, the latter a little be¬
fore harvest, and both in their season; and by this
means he reserves to us the appointed weeks of har¬
vest. Harvest is reckoned by weeks, because ina few
weeks enough is gathered to serve for sustenance
the year round. The weeks of the harvest arc ap¬
pointed us by the promise of God, that seed-time
and harvest shall not fail. And in performance of
that promise they are reserved to us by the Divine
Providence, otherwise we should come short of
them. In harvest-mercies therefore God is to be
acknowledged, his power, and goodness, and faith
349
JEREMIAH, V.
fulness, for they all come from him. And it is a
good reason why we should fear him, that we may
keep ourselves in his love, because we have such a
necessary dependence upon him. The fruitful
seasons were witnesses for God, even to the heathen
world, sufficient to leave them inexcusable in their
contempt of him; (Acts xiv. 17.) and yet the Jews,
vho h id the written word to explain their testimony
■>v, were not wrought upon to fear the Lord, though
u appears how much it is our interest to do so.
25. Your iniquities have turned away
these things, and your sins have withholden
good things from you. 26. For among my
people are found wicked men: they lay wait
as he that setteth snares: they set a trap,
they catch men. 27. As a cage is full of
birds, so are their houses full of deceit :
therefore they are become great, and waxen
rich. 28. They are waxen fat, they shine;
yea, they overpass the deeds of the wicked :
they judge not the cause, the cause of the
fatherless, yet they prosper; and the right
of the needy do they not judge. 29. Shall I
not visit for these things? saith the Loan:
shall not my soul be avenged on such a
nation as this? 30. A wonderful and horri¬
ble thing is committed in the land; 31. The
prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests
bear rule by their means ; and my people
love to have it so: find what will ye do in
the end thereof?
Here,
I. The prophet shows them what mischief their
sins had done them; they have turned away these
thing's, (u. 25.) the former and the latter rain,
which they used to have in due season, (v. 24.) but
which had of late been withheld, (r/;. iii. 3.) by
reason of which the afifiointed weeks of harvest had
sometimes disa/ifiointed them. “ It is your sin that
has withholden good from you, when God was
ready to bestow it upon you.” Note, It is sin that
stops the current of God’s favours to us, and de¬
prives us of the blessings we used to receive. It is
that which makes the heavens as brass and the
earth as iron.
II. He shows them how great their sins were,
how heinous and provoking. When they had for¬
saken the worship of the true God, even moral ho¬
nesty was lost among them; Among my people are
found wicked men, (v. 26.) some of the worst of
men, and so much the worse they were, inasmuch
as they were found among God’s people.
1. They were spiteful and malicious. Such are
properly wicked men, men that delight in doing
mischief; they were found, caught in the very act
of their wickedness; as hunters or fowlers lay
snares for their game, so did they lie in wait to catch
men; and made a sport of it, and took as much
pleasure in it, as if they had been entrapping beasts
or birds. They contrived ways of doing mischief
to good people, (whom they hated for their good¬
ness,) especially to those that faithfully reproved
them; (Isa. xxix. 21.) or to those that stood in the
way of their preferment, or that they supposed to
have affronted them, or done them a diskindness;
or to those whose estates they coveted; so Jezebel
nsnared Naboth for his vineyard. Nay, they did
•oischief for mischief-sake.
2. They were false and treacherous; (v. 27.) -is
cage, or coop, is full of birds, and of food for
them to fatten them for the table, soar etheit houses
full of deceit, of wealth gotten by fraudulent prac¬
tices, or of arts and methods of defrauding. All the
business of their families is done with deceit; who¬
ever deals with them, they will cheat him if they
can; which is easily done by those who make no
conscience of what they say and do. Herein they
overpass the deeds of the wicked, v. 28. Those that
act by deceit, with a colour ef law and justice, do
more mischief perhaps than those wicked men,
(t. 26.) that carried all before them by open f< rce
and violence; or, They art worse than the heathen
themselves, ye;'., the worst of them. And w; uld
you think it? They prosperm these wicked courses,
and therefore their hearts are hardened in thtm.
They are greedy of the world, because they find it
flows in upon them, and they stick not at any wick¬
edness in pursuit of it, because they find that it is to
far from hindering their prosperity, that it furthers
it. They are become great in the world, they are
waxen rich, and thrive upon it. They have where¬
withal to make provision for the flesh to fulfil all the
lusts of it, to which they are very indulgent, so that
they arc waxen fat with living at ease, and bathing
themselves in all the delights of sense; thty are
sleek and smooth; they shine, they lock fair and
gay; everv body admires them. And they pass by
matters of evil, (so some read the following wcrds3)
they escape the evils which one would expect their
sins should bring upon them; they are not in trouble
as other men, much less as we might expect bad
men, Ps. lxxiii. 5, See.
3. When they were grown great, and had get
power in their hands, they did not do that good with
it which they ought to have done; They judge not
the cause, the cause of the fatherless, and the right
of the needy. Th e fatherless are often needy, al¬
ways need assistance and advice, and advantage is
taken of their helpless condition to do them an in¬
jure. W ho should succour them then but the great
and rich? What have men wealth for, but to do
good with it? But these would take no cognizance
of any such distressed cases: they had not so much
sense of justice, or compassion for the injured; or, if
they did concern themselves in the cause, it was n< t
to do right, but to protect them that did wrong.
And yet they prosper still, God layeth not folly to
them. Certainly then the things of this world are
not the best things, for often the worst men have the
most of them; yet we are not to think that, because
they prosper, God allows of their practices. No,
though sentence against their evil works be not exe¬
cuted speedily, it will be executed.
4. There was a general corruption of all orders
and degrees of men among them; (v. 30, 31.) A
wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the
land. The degeneracy of such a people, so privi¬
leged and advanced, was a wonderful thing. Hew
could they ever break through so many obligations?
It was a horrible thing, and to be detested, and the
consequences of it dreaded. To frighten < urselves
from sin, let us call it a horrible thing. Wha* was
the matter? In short, this: [1.] The leaders mis¬
led the people; The prophets prophesy falsely, coun¬
terfeit a commission from heaven, when they art-
factors for hell. Religion is never nv re dangerr us-
ly attacked than under colour and pr< tence r f di¬
vine revelation. But why did not the priests, who
had power in their hands for that purpose, restrain
these false prophets? Alas! instead of doing that,
they made use of them as the tools of their ambi •
tion and tyranny; they bare rule by their means;
they supported themselves in their grandeur and
wealth, their laziness and luxury, their impositions
and oppressions, by the help of the false prophets,
and their interest in the people. Thus they were in
i a combination against every thing that was good, ar <
350
JEREMIAH, VI.
strengthened one another’s hands in evil. (2.) The
peopie were well enough pleased to be misled;
“They are my people,” says God, “and should
nave stood up for me, and borne their testimony
against the wickedness of their priests and prophets;
but they love to have it so.” If the priests and pro •
phets will let them alone in their sins, they will give
them no disturbance in theirs. They love to be
ridden with a loose rein, and like those rulers very
well that will not restrain their lusts, and those
teachers that will not reprove them.
III. He shows them how fatal the consequences
cf this would certainly be. Let them consider,
1. What the reckoning would be for their wick¬
edness; (v. 29.) Shall not I visit for these things?
as before, v. 9. Sometimes mercy rejoices against
judgment; How shall I give thee up, Ephraim?
Here, judgment is reasoning against mercy; Shall I
not visit? We are sure that Infinite Wisdom knows
how to accommodate the matter between them.
The manner of expression is very emphatical, and
speaks, (1.) The certainty and necessity of God’s
judgments; Shall not my soul be avenged? Yes,
without doubt, vengeance will come, it must come,
if the sinner repents not. (2.) The justice and
equity of God’s judgments; he appeals to the sin¬
ner’s own conscience; Do not they deserve to be
punished, that have been guilty of such abomina¬
tions? Shall he not be avenged on such a nation, such
a wicked, provoking nation as this?
2. What the direct tendency of their wickedness
was: What will you do in the end thereof? That
is, (1.) “ What a pilch of wickedness will you come
to at last! What will you do? What will you not do
that is base and wicked; What will this grow to?
You will certainly grow worse and worse, till you
have filled up the measure of your iniquity.” (2.)
“ What a pit of destruction will you come to at last!
When things are brought to such a pass as this, as
nothing can be expected from you but a deluge of
sin, so nothing can be expected from God but a de¬
luge of wrath; and what will ye do when that
comes?” Note, Those that walk in bad ways, would
do well to consider the tendency of them both to
greater sin and utter ruin. An end will come, the
end of a wicked life will come, when it will be all
called over again, and without doubt will be bitter¬
ness in the latter end.
CHAP. VI.
In this chapter, as before, we have, I. A prophecy of the
invading: of the land of Judah, and the besieging of Je¬
rusalem by the Chaldean army, (v. 1..6. ) with the
spoils which they should make of the country, (v. 9.)
and the terror which all should be seized with on that
occasion, v. 22. . 26. II. An account of those sins of
Judah and Jerusalem, which provoked God to bring this
desolating judgment upor them. Their oppression; (v.
7.) their contempt of the word of God; (v. 10.. 12.)
their worldliness; (v. 13. ) the treachery of their prophets;
(v. 14.) their impudence in sin; (v. 15.) their obstinacy
against reproofs, v. 18, 19. These made their sacrifices
unacceptable to him, (v. 20.) and for these he gave them
up to ruin, v. 21. He tried them first, (v. 27.) and then
rejected them as irreclaimable, v. 28. . 30. III. Good
counsel given them in the midst of all this, but in vain,
v. 8, 16, 17.
of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Te-
koa, and set up a sign of fire in Beth-hae-
cerem : for evil appeareth out of the north,
nnd great destruction. 2. I have likened
(lie daughter of Zion to a comely and deli¬
cate woman. 3. The shepherds with their
flocks shall come unto her: they shall pitch
their tents against her round about; they
shall feed every one in his place. 4. Pre¬
pare ye war against her; arise, and let us
go up at noon. Wo unto us! for the day
goeth away, for the shadows of the evening
are stretched out. 5. Arise, and let us go
by night, and let us destroy her palaces. G.
For thus hath the Lord of hosts said, Hew
ve down trees, and cast a mount against
Jerusalem: this is the city to be visited;
she is wholly oppression in the midst of her.
7. As a fountain casteth out her waters, so
she casteth out her wickedness : violence
and spoil is heard in her; before me con¬
tinually is grief and wounds. 8. Be thou
instructed, O Jerusalem, lest my soul depart
from thee; lest I make thee desolate, a land
not inhabited.
Here is,
I. Judgment threatened against Judah ind Jeru¬
salem; the city and the country, which were at this
time secure, and under no apprehension of danger;
they saw no cloud gathering, but every thing looked
safe and serene: but the prophet tells them that
they shall shortly be invaded by a foreign power,
an army shall be brought against them from the
north, which shall lay all waste, and shall cause not
only a general consternation, but a general desola¬
tion. It is here foretold,
1. That the alarm of this sliould be loud and ter¬
rible. This is represented, v. 1. The children of
Benjamin, in which tribe part of Jerusalem lay, are
here called to shift for their own safety in the
country; for the city (to which it was first thought
advisable for them to flee, ch. iv. 5, 6.) would scon
be made too hot for them, and they would find it
the wisest course to flee out of the midst of it. It is
common, in public frights, for people to think any
place safer than that in which they are; and there¬
fore those in the city are for shifting into the coun¬
try, in hopes there to escape out of danger, and
those in the country are for shifting into the city, in
hopes there to make head against the danger: but
it is all in vain, when evil pursues sinners with com¬
mission. They are bid to send the alarm into the
country, and to do what they could for their own
safety; Blow the trumpet in Tekoa, a city which
lay twelve miles north from Jerusalem. Let them
be stirred up to stand upon their guard; Set up a
sign of fire, that is, kindle the beacons in Beth-Hac-
cerem, the house of the vineyard, which lay on a
hill between Jerusalem and Tekoa. Prepare to
make a vigorous resistance, for the evil appears out
of the north. This may be taken ironically; “Be¬
take yourselves to the best methods you can think
of for your own preservation, but all shall be in
vain; for when you have done your best, it will be
a great destruction, for it is in vain to contend with
God’sjudgments.
2. That the attempt upon them should be bold
and formidable, and such as they should be a very
unequal match for. (1.) See what the daughter of
Zion is, on whom the assault is made; she is likened
to a comely and delicate woman, ( v . 2. ) bred up in
every thing that is nice and soft, that will not set so
much as the sole of her foot to the ground for ten¬
derness and delicacy, (Deut. xxviii. 56.) nor suffer
the wind to blow upon her; and, not being accus¬
tomed to hardship, she will be the less able either
to resist the enemy, (for those that make war must
endure hardness,) or to bear the destruction with
36'
JEREMI
that patience which is necessary to make it tolera-
ole. The more we indulge ourselves in the plea¬
sures of this life, the more we disfit ourselves for
toe troubles of this life. (2. ) See what the daughter
of Babylon is, by whom the assault is made. The
generals and their armies are compared to shepherds
and .heir flocks; (x». 3.) in such numbers and in
such order did they come, the soldiers following
their leaders, as the sheep their shepherds. The
daughter of Zion dwelt at home, (so some read it,)
expecting to be courted with love, but was invaded
with fury. This comparing of the enemies to
shepherds, inclines me to embrace another reading,
which some give of v. 2. The daughter of Zion is
like a comely pasture-ground, and a delicate land
which invite the shepherds to bring their flocks
thither to graze; and as the shepherds easily make
themselves masters of an open field, which (as was
then usual in some parts) lies common, owned by
none, pitch their tents in it, and their flocks quickly
eat it bare; so shall the Chaldean army easily break
in upon the land of Judah, force for themselves a
free quarter where they please, and in a little time
devour all.
For tile further illustration of this, he shows,
[1.] How God shall commission them to mike
this destruction even of the holy land and the noly
city, that were his peculiar. It is he that says,
(v. 4.) Prepare ye war against her; for he is the
Lord of hosts, that has all hosts at his command,
and he has said, (x>. 6.) Hew ye down trees, and
:ast a mount against Jerusalem, in order to the
attacking of it. The Chaldeans have great power
against Judah and Jerusalem, and yet they have no
power but what is given them from above. God
has m irked out Jerusalem for destruction; he has
said, “ This is the city to be visited, visited in wrath,
visited bv the divine justice, and this is the time of
her visitation.” The day is coming, when those
that are careless and secure in sinful ways, will be
visited.
[2.] How they shall animate themselves and one
another to execute that commission. God’s coun¬
sels being against Jerusalem, which cannot be alter¬
ed or disannulled, the councils of war which the
enemies held are made to agree with his counsels.
Gxi h iving said, Prepare war against her, their
determinations are made subservient to his; and
n itwithstanding the distance of place, and the many
difficulties that lay in the way, it is soon resolved
nemine contradicente — unanimously. Arise, and let
us go. Note, It is good to see how the counsel and
decree of God are pursued and executed in the
devices and designs of men, even theirs that know
him not, Isa. x. 6, 7. In this campaign, First,
They resolved to be very expeditious. They have
no sooner resolved upon it, than they address them¬
selves to it; it shall never be said that they left any
thing to be done towards it to-morrow, which they
could do to-day; Arise, let us go up at noon, though
it be in the heat of the day; nay, (v. 5.) Arise, let us
go up by night, though it be in the dark; nothing
shall hinder them, they are resolved to lose no time.
They are described as men in care to make de¬
spatch, (t>. 4.) “ l Vo unto us, for the day goes
away, and we are not going on with our work; the
shadows of the evening are stretched out, and we
sit still, aiid let slip the opportunity. ” O that we
were thus eager in our spiritual work and warfare,
thus afraid of losing time, or any opportunity, taking
the kingdom of heaven by violence! It is folly to
trifle when we have an eternal salvation to work
out, and the enemies of that salvation to fight
against. Secondly, They confidently expect to be
very successful; “ Let us go up, and let us destroy
her palaces, and make ourselves masters of the
wealth that is in them. It was not that they might
AH, VI.
fulfil God’s .ounsels, but that they might fill their
own treasuies, that they were thus eager; yet God
thereby served his own purposes.
II. The cause of this judgment assigned. It is
all for their wickedness; they have brought it upon
themselves; they must bear it, for they must bear
the blame of it; they are thus oppressed, because
they have been oppressors; they have dealt hardly
with one another, each in their turns, as they have
had power and advantage, and now the enemy shall
come, and deal hardly with them all. This sin of
oppression, and violence, and wrong-doing, is here
charged upon them, 1. As a national sin; (x\ 6.)
Therefore this city is to be visited, it is time to
make inquisition, for she is wholly oppression in the
midst of her. All orders and degrees of men, from
the prince on the throne to the meanest master of a
shop, were oppressive to these that were under
them. Look which way you will, there were
causes for complaints of this kind. 2. As a sin that
was become in a manner natural to them; (x». 7.)
She casts out wickedness in all the instances of malice
and mischievousness, as a fountain casts out her
waters, as plentifully and constantly; the streams
bitter and poisonous, like the fountain. The waters
out of the fountain will not be restrained, but will
find or force their way, nor will they be checked
by laws or conscience in their violent proceedings.
This is fitly applied to the corrupt heart of man in
his natural state; it casts out wickedness, one evil
imagination cr other, as a fountain casts out her
waters, naturally and easily; it is always flowing, and
yet always full.' 3. As that which was become a
constant practice with them, Violence and spoil are
heard in her. The cry of it is come up before God,
as that of Sodom; Before me continually are grief
and wounds — the complaint of those that find them¬
selves aggrieved, being unjustly wounded in their
bodies or spirits, in their estates or reputation.
Note, He that is the common Parent of mankind,
regards and resents, and sooner or later will revenge
the mischiefs and wrongs that men do to one ano¬
ther.
III. The counsel given them, how to prevent
this judgment. Fair warning is given, now upon
the whole matter; “ Be thou instructed, O Jerusa¬
lem, v. 8. Receive the instruction given thee both
by the law of God and by his prophets; be wise at
length for thyself.” They knew very well what
they had been instructed to do; nothing remained
but to do it, for till then they could not be said to
be instructed. The reason for this counsel is taken
from the inevitable ruin they ran upon, if they re¬
fused to comply with the instructions given them;
lest my soul depart, or be disjoined, from thee.
This intimates what a tender affection and concern
God had had for them ; his very soul had been join¬
ed to them, and nothing but sin could disjoin it.
Note, 1. The God of mercy is loath to depart even
from a provoking people, and is earnest with them,
by true repentance and reformation to prevent
things coming to that extremity. 2. Their case is
very miserable from whom God’s soul is disjoined;
it intimates the loss not only of their outward bless¬
ings, but of those comforts and favours which are
the more immediate and peculiar tokens of his love
and' presence. Compare this with that dreadful
word, Heb. x. 38. If any man draw back, my
soul shall have no pleasure in him. 3. Those whom
God forsakes are certainly undone; -when God’s soul
departs from Jerusalem, she soon becomes deso¬
late and uninhabited, Matth. xxiii. 38.
9. Thus saith the Lord of hosts. They
shall thoroughly glean the remnant of Israe
as a vine : turn back thy hand as a grape-ga
352
JEREMIAH, VI.
therer into the baskets. 10. To whom shall
I speak and give warning, thai they may
hear ? Behold, their ear is uncircumcised,
and they cannot hearken: behold, the word
of’ the Lord is unto them a reproach ; they
have no delight in it. 11. Therefore I am
full of the fury of the Lord ; I am weary
with holding in: I will pour it out upon the
children abroad, and upon the assembly of
young men together; for even the husband
with the wife shall be taken, the aged with
him that is full of days. 12. And their
houses shall be turned unto others, with
their fields and wives together: for I will
stretch out my hand upon the inhabitants
of the land, saith the Lord. 13. For from
the least of them even unto the greatest of
them, every one is given to covetousness;
and from the prophet even unto the priest,
every one dealeth falsely. 14. They have
healed also the hurt of the daughter of my
people slightly, saying, Peace, peace ; when
there is no peace. 15. Were they ashamed
when they had committed abomination ?
nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither
could they blush ; therefore they shall fall
among them that fall: at the time that I
visit them they shall be cast down, saith the
Lord. 16. Thus saith the Lord, Stand
ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old
paths, where is the good way, and walk
therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.
But they said, We will not walk therein.
17. Also I set watchmen over you, saying ,
Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But
they said, We will not hearken.
The heads of this paragraph are the very same
with those of the last; for precept must be upon
precept, and line upon line.
1. The ruin of Judah and Jerusalem is here
threatened. We had before the haste which the
Chaldean army made to the war; (v. 4, 5. ) now
here we have the havock made by the war. How
lamentable are the desolations here described! The
enemy shall so long quarter among them, and be so
insatiable in their thirst after blood and treasure,
that they shall seize all they can meet with, and
what escapes them one time, shall fall into their
hands another; (v. 9.) They shall thoroughly glean
the remnant of Israel, as a vine, as the grape-
gatherer, who is resolved to leave none behind, still
turns back his hand into the baskets, to put more in,
till lie has gathered all; so shall they be picked up
by the enemy, though disfiersed, though hid, and
none of them shall escape their eye and hand. Per¬
haps the people, being given to covetousness, (v.
13.) had not observed that law of God, which for¬
bad them to glean all their grafies; (Lev. xix. 10.)
and now they themselves shall be in like manner
thoroughly gleaned, and shall either fall by the
sword or go into captivity. This is explained, v.
11, 12. where God’s fury and his hand are said to
be floured out and stretched out, in the fury and by
the hand of the Chaldeans; for even wicked men
are often made use of as God’s hand, (Ps. xvii. 14.)
and in their anger we may see God angry. Now
see on whom the fury is /toured out in full phials;
u/ion the children abroad, or in the streets, where
they are playing; (Zech. viii. 5.) or whether they
run out innocently to look about them ; the sword
of the merciless Chaldeans shall not spare them,
ch. ix. 21. The children perish in the calamity
which the fathers’ sins have procured. The exe¬
cution shall likewise reach the assembly of young
men, their merry meetings, their clubs which they
keep up to strengthen one another’s hands in wick¬
edness, they shall be cut off together. Nor shall
these only fall into the em. lilies’ hands, who meet
for lewdness; (ch. v. 7.) but even the husband with
the wife shall be taken, these two in bed together,
and neither left, but both taken prisoners. And as
they have no compassion for the weak but fair sex,
so they have none for decrepit but venerable age;
the old with the full of days, whose deaths can con¬
tribute no more to their safety than their lives to
their service, who are not in a capacity to do them
either good or harm, they shall be either cut off' or
carried off. Their houses shall then be turned to
others, (v. 12.) the conquerors shall dwell in their
habitations, use their goods, and live upen their
stores; their fields and wives shall fall together into
their hands as was threatened, Deut. xxviii. 30, &c.
For God stretches out his hand ufon the inhabitants
of the land, and none can go out of the reach of it.
Now as to this denunciation of God’s wrath, 1.
The prophet justifies himself in preaching thus
terribly, for herein he dealt faithfully; (v. 11.) “ /
am full of the fury of the Lord, full of the thoughts
and apprehensions of it, and am carried out with a
powerful impulse, by the spirit of prophecy, to
speak of it thus vehemently. ’ He took no delight
in threatening, nor was it any pleasure to him with
such sermons as these to make those about him tin ■
easy; but he could not contain himself, he was
weary with holding in; he suppressed it as long as
he could, as long as he durst, but he was so full of
flower by the spirit of the Lord of hosts, that he
must speak, whether they will hear, cr whether
they will forbear. Note, When ministers preach
the teiTors of the Lord according to the scripture,
we have no reason to be displeased at them ; for they
are but messengers, and must deliver their message,
pleasing or unpleasing. 2. He condemns the false
prophets, who preached plausibly, for therein they
flattered people, and dealt unfaithfully, v. 13, 14
The priest and the prophet, who should be their
watchmen and monitors, have dealt falsely, have
not been true to their trust, nor told the people their
faults and the danger they were in; they should
have been their physicians, but they murdered then
patients by letting them have their wills, and giving
them every thing they had a mind to, and flatter¬
ing them into an opinion that they were in no dan¬
ger; ( v . 14.) They have healed the hurt of the
daughter of my people slightly, or, according to the
cure of some slight hurt; skinning over the wound,
and never searching it to the bottom; applying leni¬
tives only, when there was need ot corrosives;
soothing people m their sins, and giving them
opiates, to make them easy for the present, while
the disease was preying upon their vitals. They
said, "Peace, peace, all shall be well.” If there
were some thinking people among them, who were
awake, and apprehensive of danger, they scon stop¬
ped their mouths with their priestly and prophetical
authority, boldly averring that neither church nor
state was in any danger, when there is no peace, be¬
cause they went on in their idolatries and daring
impieties. Note, Those are to be reckoned our
false friends, that is, c.ur worst and most dangerous
enemies, who flatter us in a sinful way.
II. The sin of Judah and Jerusalem is here dis
353
JEREMIAH, VI.
covered, which provoked God to bring this ruin
upon them, and justified him in it.
1. They would by no means bear to be told of
their faults, nor of the danger they were in. God
bids the prophet give them warning of the judgment
coming, v. 9. “But,” says he, “ to whom shall I
speak, and give warning? I cannot find out any
that will so much as give me a patient hearing. I
may give warning long enough, but there is nobody
that will take warning. I cannot speak, that they
may hear, cannot speak to any purpose, or with
any hope of success; for their ear is uncircumcised,
it is carnal and fleshly, indisposed to receive the
voice of God, so that they cannot hearken. They
have, as it were, a thick skin grown over the or¬
gans of hearing, so that divine things might to as
much purpose be spoken to a stone as to them.
Nay, they are not only deaf to it,- but prejudiced
against it; therefore they cannot hear, because they
are resolved that they will not.” The word of the
I.ord is unto them a reproach. Both the reproofs
and the threatenings of the word are so; they reckon
themselves wronged and affronted by both, and re¬
sent the prophet’s plain-dealing with them, as they
would the most causeless slander and calumny.
This was kicking against the pricks, (Acts ix. 5.)
as the lawyers against the word of Christ; (Luke
xi. 45.) Thus saying, thou reproachest us also.
Note, These reproofs that are counted reproaches,
and hated as such, will certainly be turned into the
heaviest woes. When it is here said, They have
no delight in the word, more is implied than is ex¬
pressed; they have an antipathy to it, their hearts
rise at it; it exasperates them, and enrages their
corruptions, and they are ready to fly in the face,
and pull out the eyes, of their reprovers. And
how can those expect that the word of the Lord
should speak any comfort to them, who have no de¬
light in it, but would rather be any where than
within hearing of it?
2. They were inordinately set upon the world,
and wholly carried away by the love of it; (y. 13.)
From the least of them even to the greatest, old and
young, rich and poor, high and low, those of all
ranks, professions, and employments, every one is
given to covetousness, greedy of filthy lucre, all for
what they can get, per fas per nefas — right or
wrong; and this made them oppressive and violent,
(u. 6, 7.) for of that evil, as well as others, the love
of money is the bitter root. Nay, and this harden¬
ed their hearts against the word of God and his
prophets; they were the covetous Pharisees that
derided Christ, Luke xvi. 14.
3. They were become impudent in sin, and past
shame. After such a high charge of flagrant
crimes proved upon them, it was very proper to
ask. (n. 15.) Were they ashamed, when they had
committed all these abominations, which are such a
reproach to their reason and religion? Did they
blush at the conviction, and acknowledge that con¬
fusion of face belonged to them? If so, there is
some hope of them yet. But, alas! there did not
appear so much as this colour of virtue among
them; their hearts were so hardened, that they
were not at all ashamed, neither could they
blush, they had so brazened their faces. They
even gloried in their wickedness, and openly con¬
fronted the convictions which should have humbled
them, and brought them to repentance. They re¬
solved to face it out against God himself, and not to
own their guilt. Some refer it to the priests and
prophets, who had healed the people slightly, and
told them that they should have peace, and yet
were not ashamed of their treachery and falsehood,
no, not when the event disproved them, and gave
them the lie. Those that are shameless are grace¬
less, and their case hopeless. But they that will not
Vol. iv. — 2 Y
submit to a penitential shame, nor take that to them¬
selves as their due, shall not escape an utter ruin;
for so it follows, Therefore they shall fall among
them that fall, they shall have their portion with
those that are quite undone; and when God visits
tlie nation in wrath, they shall be sure to be cast
down, and be made to tremble, because they would
not blush. Note, Those that sin, and cannot blush
for it, shall find that it is bad with them n< w, and
that it will be worse with them shortly. At first,
they hardened themselves, and would not blush,
afterward, they were so hardened, that they could
not. Quod unum habebant in malis bonum ptr-
dunt, peccandi verecundiam — They have lost the
only good property which once blended itself with
many bad ones, that is, shame for having done
amiss. Senec. tie Vit. Beat.
III. They are put in mind of the good ccunstl
which had been often given them, but in vain.
They had a great deal said to them to little purpose,
1. By wav of advice concerning their duty, v. 16.
God had been used to say to them, Stand in the
ways and see. That is, (1.) He would have them
to consider, not to proceed rashly, but to do as tra¬
vellers in the road, who are in care to find the right
way which will bring them to their journey’s end,
and therefore pause and inquire for it. If they
have any reason to think that they have missed then-
way, they arc not easy till they have got satisfac¬
tion. O that men would be thus wise for their
souls, and would ponder the path of their feet, as
those that believe lawful and unlawful are of no
less consequence to us than the right way and the
wrong are to a traveller! (2.) He would have them
tc consult antiquity, the observations and expe¬
riences of those that went before them; “ Ask for
the old paths; inquire of the former age; (Job viii.
8.) ask thy father, thy elders; (Deut. xxxii. 7.) and
thou wilt find that the way of godliness and right¬
eousness has always been the way which God has
owned and blessed, and in which men have pros¬
pered. Ask for the old paths, the paths prescribed
by the law of God, the written word, that true
standard of antiquity. Ask for the paths that the
patriarchs travelled in before you, Abraham, and
Isaac, and Jacob; and, as you hope to inherit the
promises made to them, tread in their steps. Ask
for the old paths; Where is the good way?” We
must not be guided merely by antiquity, as if the
plea of prescription and long usage were alone suf¬
ficient to justify our path; no, there is an old way
which wicked men have trodden, Job xxii. 15. But
when we ask for the old paths, it is only in order to
find out the good way, the highway of the upright.
Note, The way of religion and godliness is a good
old way; the way that all the saints in all ages have
walked in. (3.) He would have them to resolve to
act according to the result of these inquiries;
“ When you have found out which is the good way,
walk therein; practise accordingly, keep close to
that way, proceed and persevere in it.” Some
make this counsel to be given them with reference
to the struggles that were between the true and
false prophets, between those that said they should
have peace, and those that told them trouble was at
the door; they pretended they knew not which to
believe; “ Stand in the way,” says God, “ and see,
and inquire, which of these two agrees with the
written word, and the usual methods of God’s pro¬
vidence, which of these directs you to the good
way, and do accordingly.” (4.) fie assures them,
that if they do thus, it will secure the welfare and
satisfaction of their own souls; “ Walk in the good
old way, and you will find that your walking in that
way will be easy and pleasant; you will enjoy both
your God and yourselves, and the way will lean yru
to true rest. Though it cost you some pains to walk
854
JEREMIAH, VI.
m tli.it way, ycu will find an abundant recompense
at your journey’s end. ” (5.) He laments that this
good counsel, which was so r.ition.d in itself, and so
proper for them, could not find acceptance; “ But
they said, He will not walk therein. Net only we
will not be at the pains to inquire which is the good
way, the good old way; but when it is told us, and
we have nothing to say to the contrary but that it is
the right way, yet we will not deny ourselves and
our humours so far as to walk in it.” Thus multi¬
tudes are ruined for ever by downright wilfulness.
2. By way of admonition concerning their danger.
Because they would not be ruled by fair reasoning,
God takes another method with them; by lesser
judgments he threatens greater, and sends his
prophets to give them this explication of them, and
to frighten them with an apprehension of the dan¬
ger they were in; ( v . 17.) Also I set watchmen over
you. God's ministers are watchmen, and it is a
great mere) to have them set over us in the Lord.
Now observe here, (1.) The fair warning given by
these watchmen. This was the burthen of their
song, they cried again and again, Hearken to the
sound of the trumpet. God, in his providence,
sounds the trumpet; (Zech. ix. 14. ) the watchmen
hear it themselves and are affected with it, (Jer. iv.
19. ) and they are to call upon others to hearken to
it too, to hear the Lord’s controversy, to observe the
voice of Providence, to improve it, and answer the
intentions of it. (2.) This fair warning slighted;
“ But they said, We will not hearken; we will not
hear, we will not heed, we will not believe; the
prophets may as well save themselves and us the
trouble. The reason why sinners perish is, be¬
cause they do not hearken to Vie sound of the
trumpet; and the reason why they do not, is, be¬
cause they will not; and they have no reason to give
why tiiey will not, but because they will not, that is,
they are herein most unreasonable. One may more
easily deal wi h ten men’s reasons, than one man’s
will.
1 8. Therefore hear, ye nations, and know,
O congregation, what is among them. 1 9.
Hear, O earth; behold, I will bring evil
upon this people, even the fruit of their
thoughts, because they have not hearkened
unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected
it. 20. To what purpose cometh there to
me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane
from a far country? your burnt-offerings
are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet
unto me. 21. Therefore thus saith the
Lord, Behold, [ will lay stumbling-blocks
before this people, and the fathers and the
sons together shall fall upon them ; the
neighbour and his friend shall perish. 22.
Thus saith the Lord, Behold, a people
cometh from the north country, and a great
nation shall be raised from the sides of the
earth. 23. They shall lay hold on bow
and spear; they are cruel, and have no
mercy: their voice roareth like the sea;
and they ride upon horses, set in array as
men for war against thee, O daughter of
Zion. 24. We have heard the fame there¬
of ; our hands wax feeble : anguish hath
taken hold of us, and pain as of a woman
in travail. 25. Go not forth into the field,
' nor walk by the way ; for the sword of the
enemy and fear is on every side. 26. O
daughter ol my people, gird thee with sack¬
cloth, and wallow thyself in ashes ; make
thee mourning as for an only son, most
bitter lamentation : for the spoiler shall sud¬
denly come upon us. 27. 1 have set thee
for a tower and a fortress among my peo¬
ple, that thou mayest know and try their
way. 28. They are all grievous revolters,
walking with slanders : they are brass and
iron ; they are all corrupters. 29. The
bellows are burned, the lead is consumed
of the fire ; the founder melteth in vain ;
for the wicked are not plucked away. 30.
Reprobate silver shall men call them, be¬
cause the Lord hath rejected them.
Here,
I. God appeals to all the neighbours, nay, to the
whole world, concerning the equity of his proceed¬
ings against Judah and Jerusalem; (u. 18, 19.)
“ Hear, ye nations, and know particularly, O con¬
gregation of the mighty, the great men of the na¬
tions, that take cognizance of the affairs of the states
about you, and make remarks upon them. Observe
now what is doing among them of Judah and Jerusa¬
lem; you hear of the desolations brought upon
them, the earth rings of it, trembles under it; you
all wonder that /should bring evil upon this people,
that are in covenant with me, that profess relation
to me, that have worshipped me, and been highly
favoured by me; you are ready to ask. Wherefore
has the Lord done thus to this land? (Deut. xxix.
24.) Know then,” 1. “That it is the natural pro¬
duct of their devices. The evil brought upon them
is the fruit of their thought. They thought to
strengthen themselves by their alliance with
foreigners, and by that very thing they weakened
and diminished themselves, they betrayed and ex¬
posed themselves.” 2. “ That it is the just punish¬
ment of their disobedience and rebellion. God does
but execute upon them the curse of the law for
their violation of its commands. It is because they
have not hearkened to my words, nor to my law,
nor regarded a word I have said to them, but re¬
jected it .all. They would never have been ruined
thus by the judgments of God’s hand, if they had
refused to be ruled by the judgments of his mouth :
therefore you cannot say that they have any wrong
done them.”
II. God rejects their plea, by which they insisted
upon their external services as sufficient to atone
for all their sins. Alas! it is a frivolous plea: (v.
20.) “ To what purpose come there to me incense,
and sweet cane, to be burned for a perfume on tlv
golden altar, though it was the best of the kind, and
far-fetched? What care I for your burnt-offerings
and your sacrifices?” They not only cannot profit
God, (no sacrifice does, Ps. 1. 9.) but they do not
please him, for none does but the sacrifices of the
upright; that of the wicked is an abomination to
him. Sacrifice and incense were appointed to ex¬
cite their repentance, and to direct them to a Me¬
diator, and assist their faith in him. Where this
good use was made of them, they were acceptable,
God had respect to them and to those that offered
them. But when they were offered with an opinion
that thereby they made God their Debtor, and pur¬
chased a license to go on in sin, they were so far
from being pleasing to God, that they were a pro¬
vocation to him.
35.1
JEREMIAH, VI.
III. He foretells the desolation that was now
coming upon them. 1. God designs their ruin be¬
cause they hate to be reformed; (y. 21.) I mill lay
stumbling-blocks before this / leo/i/e , occasions of
falling, not into sin, but into trouble. Those whom
God has marked for destruction he perplexes and
embarrasses in their counsels, and obstructs and re¬
tards all the methods they take for their own safety.
The parties of the enemy, which they met with j
wherever they went, were stumbling-blocks to them,
in every corner they stumbled upon them, and were
dashed to pieces by them; The fathers and the sons
together shall fall u/wn them; neither the fathers
with their wisdom, nor the sons with their strength
and courage, shall escape them, or get over them,
The sons that sinned with their fathers, fall with
them. Even the neighbour and his friend shall
perish, and not be able to help either themselves or
one another. 2. He will make use of the Chal¬
deans as instruments of it; for whatever work God
has to do, he will find out proper instruments for
the doing of it This is a people fetched from the
north, from the sides of the earth. Babylon itself
lay a great way off northward; and some of the
countries that were subject to the king of Babylon,
out of which his army was levied, lay much further.
These must be employed in his service, v. 22, 23.
For, (1.) It is a people very numerous, a great na¬
tion, which will make their invasion the more for¬
midable. (2.) It is a warlike people; they lay hold
on bom and spear, and at this time know how to
use them, for they are used to them; they ride upon
horses, and therefore they march the more swiftly,
and in battle press the harder. No nation had yet
brought into the field a better cavalry than the
Chaldeans. (3.) It is a barbarous people; they are
cruel, and have no mercy, being greedy of prey,
and flushed with victory. They take a pride in
frightening all about them; their voice roars like
the sea. And, lastly. They have a particular de¬
sign upon Judah and Jerusalem, in hopes greatly to
enrich themselves with the spoil of that famous
country. They are set in array against thee, 0
daughter of Zion. The sins of God’s professing
people make them an easy prey to those that are
God’s enemies as well as theirs.
IV. He describes the very great consternation
which Judah and Jerusalem should be in, upon the
approach of this formidable enemy, v. 24. — 26. 1.
They owr. themselves in a fright, upon the first in¬
telligence brought them cf the approach of the
enemy; “When me have but heard the fame thereof,
our hands max feeble, and we have no heart to
make any resistance; anguish has taken hold of us,
and we are immediately in an extremity of pain,
like that of a woman in travail.” Note, Sense of
guilt quite dispirits men, upon the approach of any
threatening trouble. What can they hope to do for
themselves, who have made God their Enemy? 2.
They confine themselves by consent to their houses,
not daring to show their heads abroad, for though
they could not but expect that the sword of the
enemy would at last find them out there, yet
they would rather die tamely and meanly there
than run any venture, either by fight or flight, to
help themselves. Thus they say one to another,
“Go not forth into the field, no not to fetch in your
provision thence, nor walk by the may; dare not to
go to church or market, it is at your peril if you do,
for the sword of the enemy, and the fear of it, is on
every side; the highways are unoccupied, as in
Jael’s time,” Judg. v. 6. Let this remind us. when
we travel the roads in safety, and there is none to
make us afraid, to bless God for our share in the
public tranquillity. 3. The prophet calls upon them |
sadly to lament the desolations that were coming
upon them. He was himself the lamenting prophet, |
and called upon lus people to join with him in his
lamentations; “ O daughter of my people, hear thy
God calling thee to weeping and mourning, and an¬
swer his call: do not only put on sackcloth for a day,
but gird it on for thy constant wear; do not only put
ashes on thy head, but wallow thyself in ashes; put
thyself into close mourning, and use all the tokens
of ' bitter lamentation, not forced and for show only,
but with the greatest sincerity, as parents mourn
for an only son, and think themselves comfortless
because they are childless. Thus do thou lament
for the spoiler that suddenly comes upon us.
Though he is not come yet, he is coming, the de¬
cree is gone forth: let us therefore meet the exe¬
cution of it with a suitable sadness.” As saints
may rejoice in hope of God’s mercies, though they
see’ them only in the promise, so sinners must
mourn for fear of God’s judgments, though the)' see
them only in the threatenings.
V. He constitutes the prophet a judge over this
people that now stand upon their trial : as ch. i. 10.
I have set thee over the nations; so here, I have set
thee for a tower, or as a sentinel, or a watchman,
upon a tower, among my people, as an inspector et
their actions, that thou mayest know, and try their
may, v. 27. Not that God needed any to inform
him concerning them; on the contrary, the prophet
knew little cf them in comparison, but by the spirit
of prophecy: but thus God appeals to the prophet
himself, and his own observation concerning their
character, that he might be fully satisfied in the
equity of God’s proceedings against them, and with
the more assurance give them warning of the judg¬
ments coming. God set him for a tower conspicuous
to all, and attacked by many, but made him a for¬
tress, a strong tower, gave him courage to stem the
tide, and bear the shock, of their displeasure. They
that will be faithful reprovers, have need to be firm
as fortresses.
Now in trying their way he will find two things;
1. That they are wretchedly debauched; (v. 28.)
They are all grievous revolters, revolters of re¬
x' alters, (so the- word is,) the worst of revolters, as
a servant of servants is the meanest servant. They
have a revolting heart, have deeply revolted, and
revolt more and more. They have seemed to start
fair, but they revolt and start back. They walk
with slanders; they make nothing of belying and
backbiting one another, nay, they make a perfect
trade of it, it is their constant course; and they
govern themselves by the slanders they hear, hating
those that they hear ill-spoken of, though ever so
unjustly. They are brass and iron, base metals,
and there is nothing in them that is valuable. They
were as silver and gold, but they are degenerated.
Nay, as they are all revolters, so they are all cor¬
rupters, not only debauched themselves, but indus¬
trious to debauch others, to corrupt them as they
themselves are corrupt; nay, to make them seven
times more the children of hell themselves. It is
often so; sinners soon become tempters.
2. That thev would never be reclaimed and re¬
formed; it was in vain to think of reducing them,
for various methods had been tried with them, and
all to no puipose, v. 29, 30. He compares them to
ore that w as supposed to have some good metal in
it, and was therefore put into the furnace by the re¬
finer, who used all his art, and took abundance cf
pains, about it, but it proved all dross, nothing cf
any value could be extracted out of it. God by his
prophets and by his providences had used the most
proper means to refine this people, and to purify
them from their wickedness; but it was all in vain.
Bv the continual preaching of the word, and a scries
of afflictions, they had been kept in a constant fire,
but all to no puipose. The bellows have been still
kept so near the fire, to blow it, that they are burnt
356
JEREMIAH, VII.
with the heat of it, or they are quite worn out with
long use, and thrown into the fire as good for nothing.
The prophets have preached their throats sore with
crying aloud against the sins of Israel, and yet they
are not convinced and humbled. The lead, which
was then used in refining silver, as quicksilver is
now, is consumed of the fire, and has not done its
work; for the founder melts in vain, his labour is
lost, for the wicked are not plucked away, no care
is taken to separate between the precious and the
vile, to purge out the old leaven, to cast out of com¬
munion those who, being corrupt themselves, are in
danger of infecting others. Or, Their wickednesses
are not removed, (so some read it,) they are still as
bad as ever, and nothing will prevail to part between
them and their sins; they will not be brought off
from their idolatries and immoralities by all they
have heard, and all they have felt, of the wrath of
God against them. And therefore that doom is
passed upon them, v. 30. Reprobate silver shall
they be called, useless and worthless; they glitter as
if they had some silver in them, but there is nothing
of real virtue or goodness to be found among them;
and for this reason the Lord has rejected them. He
will no more own them as his people, nor look for
any good from them; he will take them away like
dross, (Ps. cxix. 119.) and prepare a consuming
fire for those that would not be purified by a refining
fire. By this it appears, (1.) That God has no
pleasure in the death and ruin of sinners, for he tries
all ways and methods with them to prevent their
destruction, and qualify them for salvation. Both
his ordinances and his providences have a tendency
this way, to part between them and their sins; and
yet with many it is all lost labour; We have piped
unto you, and you have not danced; we have mourn¬
ed unto you, and you have not wept. Therefore,
(2. ) God will be justified in the death of sinners, and
all the blame will lie upon themselves. He did not
reject them till he had used all proper means to re¬
duce did not cast them off so long as there
was any hope of them, nor abandon them as dross
till it appeared that they were reprobate silver.
CHAP. VII.
The prophet having in God’s name reproved the people for
their sins, and given them warning of the judgments of
God that were coming upon them, in this chapter prose¬
cutes the same intention for their humiliation and awak¬
ening. I. He shows them the invalidity of the plea they
so much relied on, that they had the temple of God
among them, and constantly attended the service of it,
and endeavours to take them off from their confidence in
their external privileges and performances, v. 1 . . 11. II.
He reminds them of the desolations of Shiloh ; and fore¬
tells that such should be the desolations of Jerusalem, v.
12 . . 16. III. He represents to the prophet their abomi¬
nable idolatries, for which he was thus incensed against
them, v. 17.. 20. IV. He sets before the people that
fundamental maxim of religion, that to obey is better
than sacrifice, (1 Sam. xv. 22.) and that God would not
accept the sacrifices of those that obstinately persisted in
disobedience, v. 21 . . 28. V. He threatens to lay the
land utterly waste for their idolatry and impiety, and to
multiply their slain as they had multiplied their sin, v.
29 . . 34.
1 . 7 R ^HE word that came to Jeremiah from
the Lord, saying, 2. Stand in the
gate of the Lord’s house, and proclaim
there this word, and say, Hear the word of
the Loro, all ye of Judah, that, enter in at
these gates to worship the Lord: 3. Thus
saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel,
Amend your ways and your doings, and I
will cause you to dwell in this place. 4.
Trust you not in lying words, saying, The
| temple of the Lord, The temple of the
Lord, The temple of the Lord, are these.
5. For if ye thoroughly amend your ways
and your doings ; if you thoroughly execute
judgment between a man and his neighbour;
6. If ye oppress not the stranger, the father¬
less, and the widow, and shed not innocent
blood in this place, neither walk after other
gods to your hurt: 7. Then will I cause you
to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave
to your fathers, for ever and ever. 8. Be¬
hold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot
profit. 9. Will ye steal, murder, and com¬
mit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn
incense unto Baal, and walk after other
gods whom ye know not; 10. And come
and stand before me in this house, which is
called by my name, and say, We are de¬
livered to do all these abominations? 1 1. Is
this house, which is called by my name, be¬
come a den of robbers in your eyes ? Behold,
even I have seen it, saith the Lord. 1 2.
But go ye now unto my place, which was in
Shiloh, where I set my name at the first,
and see what I did to it for the wickedness
of my people Israel. 13. And now, because
ye have done all these works, saith the
Lord, and I spake unto you, rising up early
and speaking, but ye heard not; and 1 called
you, but ye answered not; 14. Therefore
will I do unto this house, which is called by
my name, wherein ye trust, and unto the
place which I gave to you and to your fa¬
thers, as I have done to Shiloh. 1 5. And I
will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast
out all your brethren, even the whole seed
of Ephraim.
These verses begin another sermon, which is con¬
tinued in this and the two following chapters; much
to the same effect with those before, to reason them
to repentance. Observe,
I. The orders given to the prophet to preach this
sermon; for he had not only a general commission,
but particular directions and instructions, for every
message he delivered. This was a word that came
to him from the Lord, v. 1. We are not told when
this sermon was to be preached; but are told, 1.
Where it must be preached — in the gates of the
Lord’s house, through which they entered into the
outer court, or the court of the people. It would
affront the priests, and expose the prophet to their
rage, to have such a message as this delivered within
their precincts; but the prophet must not fear the
face of man, he cannot be faithful to his God if he
do. 2. To whom it must be preached — to the men
of Judah, that enter in at these gates to worship the
Lord; probably, it was at one of the three feasts,
when all the males from all parts of the country
were to appear before the Lord in the courts of his
house, and not to appear empty; then he had many
together to preach to, and that was the most sea¬
sonable time to admonish them not to trust to their
privileges. Note, (1.) Even those that profess re¬
ligion have need to be preached to, as well as those
that are without. (2.) It is desirable to have op¬
portunity of preaching to many together. Wisdom
JEREMIAH, VII.
35/
chooses to cry in the chief place of concourse, and as
J' remiah here, in the opening of the gates, the tem
ple-gatcs. (3.) When we are going to worship God,
we have need to be admonished to •worship him in
the spirit, and to have no confidence in the flesh,
Phil. iii. 3.
11. The contents and scope of the sermon itself.
It is delivered in the name of the Lord of hosts, the
God of Israel, who commands the world, but cove¬
nants with his people. As creatures we are bound
to regard the Lord of hosts, as Christians the God
of Israel; what he said to them he says to us, and it
is much the same with that which John Baptist said
to those whom he baptized; (Matth. iii. 8, 9.) Bring
forth fruits meet for repentance; and think not to
say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our
father. The prophet here tells them,
1. What were the true words of God, which they
might trust to. In short, they might depend upon
it, that, if they would repent, and reform their lives,
and return to God in a way of duty, he would restore
and confirm their peace, would redress their griev¬
ances, and return to them in a way of mercy; (v. 3.)
Amend your ways and your doings. This implies
that there had been much amiss in their ways and
doings, many faults and errors. But it is a great
instance of the favour of God to them, that he gives
them liberty to amend, shows them where and how
thev must mend, and promises to accept them upon
their amendment; “I will cause you to dwell quietly
and peaceably in this place, and a stop shall be put
to that which threatens your expulsion. ” Reforma¬
tion is the only way, and a sure way, to prevent ruin.
He explains himself, (n. 5. — 7.) and tells them
particularly,
( 1. ) What the amendment was which he expected
from them. They must thoroughly amend; in mak¬
ing good, they must make good their ways and
doings; they must reform with resolution, and it
must be a universal, constant, persevering reforma¬
tion; not partial, but entire; not hypocritical, but
sincere; not wavering, but constant. They must
make the tree good, and so make the fruit good;
must amend their hearts and thoughts, and so amend
their ways and doings. In particular, [1.] They
must be honest and just in all their dealings. They
that had power in their hands must thoroughly exe¬
cute judgment between a man and his neighbour,
without partiality, and according as the merits of
the cause appeared. They must not either in judg¬
ment or in contract oppress the stranger, the father¬
less, or the widow, nor countenance or protect those
that did oppress, nor refuse to do them right when
they sought for it: they must not shed innocent blood,
and with it defile this place and the land wherein
they dwelt. (2.) They must keep close to the wor¬
ship of the true God only ; Neither walk after other
gods; “Do not hanker after them, nor hearken to
those that would draw you into communion with
idolaters; for it is, and will be, to your own hurt.
Be not only so just to your God, but so wise for your¬
selves, as not to throw away your adorations upon
those who are not able to help you, and thereby
provoke him who is able to destroy you.” Well,
this is all that God insists upon.
(2.) He tells them what the establishment is which,
upon this amendment, they may expect from him;
(v. 7.) “Set about such a work of reformation as
this with all speed, go through with it, and abide
by it; and I will cause you to dwell in this place, this
temple; it shall continue your place of resort and
refuge, the place of your comfortable meeting with
God and one another; and you shall dwell in the
land that I gave to your fathers for ever and ever,
and shall never be turned out either from God’s
house or from your own. It is promised that they
snail still enjoy their civil and sacred privileges, that
they shall have a comfortable enjoyment of them; 1
will cause you to dwell here; (and those dwell at
ease, whom God gives a settlement to;) they shall
enjoy it by covenant, by virtue of the grant made ct
it to their fathers, net by providence, but by pro¬
mise. They shall continue in the enjoyment of it
without eviction or molestation, they shall net be
disturbed, much less dispossessed, for ever and ever;
nothing but sin could throw them out. An ever¬
lasting inheritance in the heavenly Canaan is hereby-
secured to all that live in godliness and honesty.
And the vulgar Latin reads a further privilege here,
v. 3, 7. Habitabo vobiscum — I will dwell with you
in this place; and we should find Canaan itself 'but
an uncomfortable place to dwell in, if God did not
dwell with us there.
2. What were the lying words of their own hearts,
which they must not trust to. He cautions them
against this self-deceit; (v. 4.) “ Trust not in lying
words; you are told in what way, and upon what
terms, you may be easy, safe, and happy; now do
not flatter yourselves with an opinion that you mav
be so on any other terms, or in any other way.”
Yet he charges them with this self-deceit arising
from vanity; ( v . S.) “ Behold , it is plain that you
do trust in lying words, notwithstanding what is
said to you; you trust in words that cannot profit;
you rely upon a plea that will stand you in no stead. ”
They that slight the words of truth, which would
profit them, take shelter in words of falsehood,
which cannot profit them. Now these lying words
were, “ The temple of the Lord, the temple of the
Lord, the temple of the Lord, are these. These
buildings, the courts, the holy place, and the holy
of holies, are the temple of the' Lord, built by his ap¬
pointment, to his glory; here he resides, here he is
worshipped, here we meet three times a year topay
our homage to him as our King in his palace.” This
they thought was security enough to them to keep
God and his favours from leaving them, God and his
judgments from breaking in upon them. When the
prophets told them how sinful they were, and how
miserable they were likely to be still, they appealed
to the temple; “ How can we be either so or so, as
long as we have that holy, happy place among us?”
The prophet repeats it because they repeated it
upon all occasions. It was the cant of the times, it
was in their mouths upon all occasions. If they
heard an awakening sermon, if any startling piece
of news was brought upon them, they lulled them¬
selves asleep again with this, “We cannot but do
well, for we have the temple of the Lord among us.”
Note, The privileges of a form of godliness, are
often the pride and confidence of those that are
strangers and enemies to the power of it. It is com¬
mon for those that are furthest from God, to boast
themselves most of their being near to the church.
They are haughty because of the holy mountain;
(Zeph. iii. 11.) as if God’s mercy were so tied to
them, that they might defy his justice.
Now, to convince them what a frivolous plea this
was, and what little stead it would stand them in,
(1.) He shows them the gross absurdity of it in
itself. If they knew any thing either of the temple
of the Lord, or of the Lord of the temple, they must
think that to plead that, either in excuse of their sin
against God, or in arrest of God’s judgment against
them, was the most ridiculous, unreasonable thing
that could be.
[1.] God is a holy God; but this plea made him
the Patron of sin, of the worst of sins, which even
the light of nature condemns; (v. 9, 10.) “What,”
says he, “ will you steal, murder, and commit adul
tery, be guilty of the vilest immoralities, and which
the common interest, as well as the common sense,
of mankind witness against? Will you swear falsely,
a crime which all nations (who with the belief of' a
358
JEREMIAH, VII.
God have had a veneration for an oath) have always
had a horror of? Will you burn incense to Baal, a
dunghill-deity, that sets'up as a rival with the great
Jehovah, and, not content with that, will you walk
after other gods too, whom you know not , and by
all these crimes put a daring affront upon God, both
as the Lord of hosts, and the God of Israel ? Will
you exchange a God whose power and goodness
you have had such a long experience of, for gods
whose ability and willingness to help you you know
nothing of? And when you have thus done the
worst you can against God, will you brazen your
ficcs so far as to come and stand before him in this
house which is called by his name, and in which his
name is called upon — stand before him as servants
waiting his commands, as supplicants expecting his
favour? Will you act in open rebellion against him,
and yet herd yourselves among his subjects, among
the best of them? By this, it should seem, you
think that either he does not discover, or does not
dislike, your wicked practices, to imagine either of
which is to put the highest indignity possible upon
him. It is as if you should say, He are delivered
to do all these abominations.” If they had not the
front to say this totidem verbis — in so many words,
yet their actions speak it aloud. They could not but
own that God, even their own God, had many a
time delivered them, and been a present Help to
them, when otherwise they must have perished.
He, in delivering them, designed to reduce them
to himself, and by his goodness to lead them to re¬
pentance; but they resolved to persist in their abo¬
minations notwithstanding; as soon as they were de¬
livered, (as of old in the days of the Judges,) they
did evil again i?i the sight of the Lord; which was,
in effect, to say, in direct contradiction to the true
intent and meaning of the providences which had
affected them, that God had delivered them in order
to put them again into a capacity of rebelling against
him bv sacrificing the more profusely to their idols.
Note, Those who continue in sin because grace has
abounded, or that grace may abound, do, in effect,
make Christ the Minister of sin. Some take it
thus; “You present yourselves before God with
your sacrifices and sin-offerings, and then say, IVe
are delivered, we are discharged from our guilt,
now it shall do us no hurt; when all this is but to
blind the world, and stop the mouth of conscience,
that you may, the more easily to yourselves, and
the more plausibly before others, do all these abo¬
minations.”
[2.] His temple was a holy place; but this plea
made it a protection to the most unholy persons;
“Is this house, which is called by my name, and is
a standing sign of God’s kingdom, set up among
men in opposition to the kingdom of sin and Satan
— is this become a den of robbers in your eyes? Do
you think it was built to be not only a rendezvous
of, but a refuge and shelter to, the vilest of malefac¬
tors?” No; though the horns of the altar were a
sanctuary to him that slew a man unawares, yet
they were not so to a wilful murderer, nor to one
that did aught presumptuously, Exod. xxi. 14. — 1
Kingsii. 29. Those that think to excuse themselves
in unchristian practices with the Christian name,
and sin the more boldly and securely because there
is a Sin-offering provided, do, in effect, make God’s
house of prayer a den of thieves; as the priests in
Christ’s time, Mattb. xxi. 13. But could they thus
impose upon God? No, Behold, I have seen it, saith
the Lord, have seen the real iniquity through the
counterfeit and dissembled piety. Note, Though
men may deceive one another with the shows of de¬
votion, vet they cannot deceive God.
(2.) He shows them the insufficiency of this plea
adjudged long since in the c: se of Shiloh.
[1 1 It is certain that Shiloh was ruined, though
it had God’s sanctuary in it, when by its wicked
ness it profaned that sanctuary ; (v. 12. ) Go ye now
to my place which was in Shiloh; it is probable that
the ruins of that once flourishing city were yet re¬
maining; they might, at least, read the history of it,
which ought to affect them as if they saw the place:
there God set his name at the first, there the taber¬
nacle was set up when Israel first took possession
of Canaan, (Josh, xviii. 1.) and thither the tribes
went up; but those that attended the service of the
tabernacle there, corrupted both themselves and
others, and from them arose the wickedness of his
people Israel; that fountain was poisoned, and sent
forth malignant streams; and what came of it? Go,
see what God did to it! Was it protected by its
having the tabernacle in it? No, God forsook it,
(Ps. lxxviii. 60.) sent his ark into captivity, cut off
the house of Eli that presided there; and it is very
probable that the city was quite destroyed, for we
never read any more of it but as a monument of di¬
vine vengeance upon holy places when they har¬
bour wicked people. Note, Gcd’s judgments uprn
others, who have really revolted frem God, while
they have kept up a profession of nearness to him,
should be a warning to us not to trust in lying words.
It is good to consult precedents, and make use of
them ; remember Lot’s wife; remember Shiloh and
the seven churches of Asia; and know that the ark
and candlestick are moveable things, Rev. ii. 5.
Matth. xxi. 43.
[2.] It is as certain that Shiloh’s fate will be Je¬
rusalem’s doom, if a speedy and sincere repentance
prevent it not. First, Jerusalem was now as sinful
as ever Shiloh was; that is proved by the unerring
testimony of God himself against them; (t. 1,3.)
“You have done all these works, you cannot deny
it:” and they continued obstinate in their sin; that
is proved by the testimony of Gcd’s messengers, by
whom he spake unto them to return and repent,
rising up early and speaking, as one in care, as one
in earnest, as one who would lose no time in deal¬
ing with them; nay, who should take the fittest op¬
portunity for speaking to them early in the morning,
when, if ever, they were sober, and had their
thoughts free and clear; but it was all in vain, God
spake, but they heard not, they heeded not, they
never minded; he called them, but they answered
not; they would not come at his call. Note, What
God has spoken to us greatly aggravates what we
have done against him.
Secondly, Jerusalem shall shortly be as miserable
as ever Shiloh was; Therefore will I do unto this
house as I did to Shiloh, ruin it, and lay it waste:
v. 14. Those that tread in the steps of the wicked
ness of those that went before them, must expert to
fall by the like judgments, for all these things hap¬
pen to them for ensamples. The temple at Jerusa¬
lem, though ever so strong built, if wickedness was
found in it, would be as unable to keep its ground,
and as easily conquered, as even the tabernacle in
Shiloh was, when God’s day of vengeance was
come; “ This house” (says God) “ is called by my
name, and therefore you may think that I should
protect it; it is the house in which you trust, and
you think that it will protect veu; this land is the
place, this city the place, which I gave to you and
your fathers, and therefore you are secure of the
continuance of it, and think that nothing can turn
you out of it; but the men of Shiloh thus flattered
themselves, and did but deceive themselves.” He
quotes another precedent, (v. 15.) the ruin rf the
kingdom of the ten tribes, who were the seed of
Abraham, and had the covenant of circumcision,
and possessed the land which God gave to them
and their fathers, and yet their idolatries threw
them out, and extirpated them? “And ran you
think but that the same evil courses should be as
JEREMIAH, VII.
fatal to you?” Doubtless they will be so, for God
is uniform, and of a piece with himself in his judi¬
cial proceedings. It is a rule of justice, ut parium
fiar sit ratio — that in a paritq of cases the same
judgment should proceed; “ Vou have corrupted
yourselves as your brethren the seed of E/ihraim
did, and are become their brethren in iniquity, and
therefore I will cast you out of my sight as I have
cast them.” The interpretation here given of the
judgment, makes it a terrible one indeed; the cast¬
ing of them out of their land signified God’s casting
them out of his sight as if he would never look upon
them, never look after them more. Wherever we
are cast, it is well enough, if we be kept in the love
of God; but if we are thrown out of his favour, our
case is miserable though we dwell in our own land.
This threatening, that God would make this house
like Shiloh, we shall meet with again, and find Jere¬
miah indicted for it, ch. xxvi. 6.
16. Therefore pray not thou for this peo¬
ple, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them,
neither make intercession to me : for I will
not hear thee. 1 7. Seest thou not what they
do in the cities of Judah, and in the streets
of Jerusalem? 18. The children gather
wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and
the women knead their dough, to make
cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour
out drink-offerings unto other gods, that they
may provoke me to anger. 19. Do they
provoke me to anger? saith the Lord: do
they not provoke themselves, to the confu- !
sion of their own faces? 20. Therefore thus
saith the Lord God, Behold, mine anger
and my fury shall be poured out upon this
place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon
the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of
the ground ; and it shall burn, and shall not
be quenched.
God hud showed them, in the foregoing verses,
that the temple, and the service of it, of which they
boasted, and in which they trusted, should not avail
to prevent the judgment threatened. But there
was another thing which might stand them in some
stead, and which yet they had no value for, and
that was, the prophet’s intercession for them; his
prayers would do them more good than their own
pleas: now here that support is taken from them;
and their case is sad indeed, who have lest their in¬
terest in the prayers of God’s ministers and people.
I. God here forbids the prophet to pray for them;
(y. 16.) “The decree is gone forth, their ruin is
resolved on, therefore pray not thou for this peo¬
ple , pray not for the preventing of this judgment
threatened; they have sinned unto death, and there¬
fore pray not for their life, but for the life of their
souls,” i John v. 16. See here, 1. That God’s pro¬
phets are praying men; Jeremiah foretold the de¬
struction of Judah and Jerusalem, and yet prayed
for their preservation, not knowing that the decree
was absolute; and it is the will of God that we pray
for the peace of Jerusalem. Even when we threat¬
en sinners with damnation, we must pray for their
salvation, that they may turn, and live. Jeremiah
was hated, and persecuted, and reproached, by the
children of his people, and yet he prayed for them,
for it becomes us to render good for evil. 2. That
God’s praying prophets have a great interest in
heaven, how little soever they have on earth. When
God was determined to destroy this people, he be¬
speaks the prophet net to pray for them, because
he would not have his prayers to lie (as prophets’
prayers seldom did) unanswered. God said to Mo¬
ses, Let me alone, Exod. xxxii. 10. 3. It is an ill
omen to a people, when God restrains the spirits of
his ministers and people from praying for them,
and gives them to see their case so desperate, that
thev have no heart to speak a good word for them.
4. Those that will not regard good ministers’ preach¬
ing, cannot expect any benefit by their praying. If
you will not hear us when we speak from God to
you, God will not hear us when we speak to him
for you.
II. He gives him a reason for this prohibition.
Praying breath is too precious a thing to be lost and
thrown away upon a people hardened in sin, and
marked for ruin.
1. They are resolved to persist in their rebel lion
I against God, and will not be turned back hy the
prophet’s preaching: for this he appeals to the pro¬
phet himself, and his own inspection and observa¬
tion; (to 17.) Seest thou not what they do openly,
and publicly, without either shame or fear, in the
cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem it
This intimates both that the sin was evident, and
could not be denied, and that the sinners were im¬
pudent, and would not be reclaimed: they commit¬
ted their wickedness even in the prophet’s presence
and under his eye; he saw what they did, and yet
they did it, which was an affront to his > ffic.e, and
to him whose officer he was, and bade defiance to
both.
Now observe, (1.) What the sin is, with which
they are here charged — it is idolatry, v. 18. Their
idolatrous respects are paid to the queen of heax'en,
the moon, either in an image, or hi the original, or
both: they worshipped it, probably, under thename
of Ashtaroth, or some other of their goddesses,
being in love with the brightness in which they saw
the moon walk, and thinking themselves indebted to
her for her benign influences, orfearingher malignant
ones, Job xxxi. 26. The worshipping cf the moon
was much in use among the heathen nations, Jer.
xli v. 17, 19. Some read it the frame or workman¬
ship of heaven; the whole celestial globe with all
its ornaments and powers was the object cf their
adoration. They worshipped the host of heaven.
Acts yii. 42. The homage they should have paid
to their Prince, they paid to the statues that beau¬
tified the frontispiece of his palace; they worshipped
the creatures instead cf him that made them, the
servants instead of him that commands them, and
the gifts instead of him that gave them. With the
queen of heaven they worshipped other gods, ima¬
ges of things not only in heaven above, but in the
earth beneath, and in the waters under the earth;
for those that forsake the true God, wander end¬
lessly after false ones. To these deities of their own
making they offer cakes for meat-offerings, and pour
out drink-offerings, as if they had their meat and
drink from them, and were obliged to make to them
their acknowledgments; and see how busy they are,
and how every hand is employed in the service cf
these idols, according as they used to be employed
in their domestic services. The children were sent
to gather wood, the fathers kindled the fire to heat
the oven, being of the poorer sort, that cculd net
afford to keep servants to do it, yet they would ra¬
ther do it themselves than it should be undone; the
women kneaded the dough with their own hands,
for perhaps though they had servants to do it, thev
took a pride in showing their zeal for their idols bv
doing it themselves. Let us be instructed even bv
this bad example, in the service of rur God. [1. j
Let us honour him with our substance, as these th; t
have our subsistence from him, •, ml eat i nd drink
to the glory of him from win m we have < ur meat
JEREMIAH, VII.
3G0
and drink. [2.] Let us not decline the hardest ser¬
vices, nor disdain to stoop to the meanest , by which
God may be honoured; tor none shall kindle a Jirc
on God’s altar for naught. Let us think it an ho¬
nour to be employed in any work for God. [3.]
Let us bring up our children in the acts of devo¬
tion; let them, as they are capable, be employed in
doing something toward the keeping up of religious
exercises.
2. What is the direct tendency of this sin; “ It is
that they may provoke me to anger, they cannot
design any thing else in it. But, (v. 19.) do they
provoke me to anger? Is it because I am hard to be
pleased, or easily provoked? Or am I to bear the
blame of the resentment? No, it is their own doing,
they may thank themselves, and they alone shall
bear it.” Is it against God, that they provoke him
to wrath? Is he the worse for it? Does it do him
any real damage? No, is it not against themselves,
to the confusion of their own faces? It is malice
against God, but it is impotent malice, it cannot hurt
him; nay, it is foolish malice, it will hurt them¬
selves; they show their spite against God, but they
do the spite to themselves. Canst thou think any
other than that a people, thus desperately set upon
their own ruin, should be abandoned?
2. God is resolved to proceed in his judgments
against them, and will not be turned back by the
prophet’s prayers; (v. 20.) Thus saith the Lord
God, and what he saith he will not unsay, nor can all
the world gainsay; hear it therefore, and tremble;
“ Behold , my anger and my fury shall be poured
out upon this place as the flood of waters was upon
the old world, or the shower of fire and brimstone
upon Sodom; since they will anger me, let them see
what will come of it.” They shall soon find, (1.)
That there is no escaping this deluge of fire, either
by flying from it, or fencing against it; it shall be
poured out on this place, though it be a holy place,
the Lord’s house. It shall reach both man and
beast, like the plagues of Egypt, and, like some of
them, shall destroy the trees of the field, and the
fruit of the ground, which they had designed and
prepared for Baal; and of which they had made
cakes to the queen of heaven. (2.) There is no ex¬
tinguishing it; it shall burn, and shall not be quench¬
ed; prayers and tears shall then avail nothing; when
his wrath is kindled but a little, much more when
it is kindled to such a degree, there shall be no
quenching of it. God’s wrath is that fire unquench¬
able, which eternity itself will not see the period of;
Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.
21. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the
God of Israel; Put your burnt-offerings unto
your sacrifices, and eat flesh. 22. For I
spake not unto your fathers, nor command¬
ed them in the day that I brought them out
of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt-of¬
ferings or sacrifices: 23. But this thing
commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice,
and I will be your Goci, and ye shall be my
people; and walk ye in all the ways that I
have commanded you, that it may be well
unto you. 24. But they hearkened not, nor [
inclined their ear, but walked in the coun¬
sels and in the imagination of their evil
heart, and went backward, and not for¬
ward. 2.5. Since the day that your fathers
came forth out of the land of Egypt unto
this day, I have even sent unto you all my
servants the prophets, daily rising up early,
and sending them. : 26. Y et they hearkened
not unto me, nor inclined their ear, but hard¬
ened their neck : they did worse than their
fathers. 27. Therefore thou shalt speak all
these words unto them ; but they will not
hearken to thee : thou shalt also call unto
them; but they will not answer thee. 28.
But thou shalt say unto them, This is a na¬
tion that obeyeth not the voice of the Lord
their God, nor receiveth correction : truth is
perished, and is cut off from their mouth.
God, having showed the people that the temple
would not protect them while they polluted it with
their wickedness, here shows them that their sacri¬
fices would not atone for them, nor be accepted, while
they went on in disobedience. See with what con¬
tempt he here speaks of their ceremonial service;
(u. 21.) “Put your bumt-ojferings to your sacrifi¬
ces, goon in them as long as you please; add one
sort of sacrifice to another; turn your burnt-offer¬
ings, which were to be wholly burnt to the honour
of God, into peace-offerings,” (which the offerer
himself had a considerable share of,) “ that you may
eat flesh, for that is all the good you are likely to
have from your sacrifices, a good meal’s meat or
two; but expect not any other benefit by them while
you live at this loose rate. Keep your sacrifices to
yourselves,” (so some understand it,) “ let them be
served up at your own table, for they are no way
acceptable at God’s altars.” For the opening of
this,
I. He shows them that obedience was the only
thing he required of them, v. 22, 23. He appeals
to the original contract, by which they were first
formed into a people, when they were brought out
of Egypt. God made them a kingdom of priests to
himself, not that he might be regaled with their
sacrifices, as the devils, whom the heathen worship¬
ped, which are represented as eating with pleasure
the fat of their sacrifices, and drinking the wine of
their drink-offerings, Deut. xxxii. 38. No, Will
God eat the flesh of bulls? Ps. 1. 13. I spake not to
your fathers concerning burnt-offerings or sacrifi¬
ces, not of them at first. The precepts of the moral
law were given before the ceremonial institutions;
and those came afterward, as trials of their obe¬
dience, and assistances to their repentance and faith.
The Levitical law begins thus, if any man of you
will bring an offering, he must do so and so, (Lev.
i. 2. — ii. 1. ) as if it were intended rather to regulate
sacrifice than to require it: but that which God
commanded, which he bound them to by his su¬
preme authority, and which he insisted upon as the
condition of the covenant was, Obey my voice; see
Exod. xv. 26. where this was the statute and the or¬
dinance by which God proved them, Hearken dili¬
gently to the voice of the Lord thy God. The con¬
dition of their being God’s peculiar people was this,
(Exod. xix. 5.) If ye will obey my voice indeed.
“Make conscience of the duties of natural religion,
observe positive institutions from a principle of obe¬
dience; and then, I will be your God, and ye shall
be mu people,” the greatest honour, happiness, and
satisfaction, that any of the children of men are ca¬
pable of. “ Let your conversation be regular, and
in every thing study to comply with the will and
word of God; walk within the bounds that I have
set you, and in all the ways that I have commanded
you, and then you may assure yourselves that it
shall be well with you.” The demand here is very
reasonable, that we should be directed by Infinite
Wisdom to that which is fit; that he that made us
should command us, and that he should give us law.
JEREMIAH, VII.
361
who gives us our being, and all the supports of it.
And the promise is very encouraging; Let God’s
will be your rule, and his favour shall be your
felicity.
II. He shows them that disobedience was the only
thing for which he had a quarrel with them. He
would not reprove them for their sacrifices, for the
omission of them, they had been continually before
him, (Ps. 1. 8.) with them they hoped to bribe God,
and purchase a license to go on in sin. That there¬
fore which God had all along laid to their charge,
was, breaking his commandments in the course of
their conversation; while they observed them, in
some instances, in the course of their devotion, v.
24, 25, &c.
1. They set up their own will in competition with
the will of God. They hearkened not to God and
to his law, they never heeded that, it was to them
as if it had never been given, or were of no force;
they inclined not their ear to attend to it, much less
their hearts to comply with it. But they would
have their own way, would do as they chose, and
not as they were bidden. Their own counsels were
their guide, and not the dictates of divine wisdom ;
that shall be lawful and good with them, which
they think so, though the word of God says quite
contrary. The imaginations of their evil heart, the
appetites and passions of it, shall be a law to them,
and they will walk in the way of it, and in the sight
of their eyes.
2. If they began well, yet they did not proceed,
but soon flew off. They went backward, when they
talked of making a captain, and returning to Egypt
again, and would not go forward under God’s con¬
duct. They promised fair, All that the Lord shall
say unto us we will do; and if they would but have
kept in that good mind, all had been well; but, in¬
stead of going on in the way of duty, they drew
back into the way of sin, and were worse than ever.
3. When God sent to them by word of mouth to
put them in mind of the written word, which was
the business ol the prophets, it was all one, still
they were disobedient. God had servants of his
among them in every age, since they came out of
Egypt, unto this day, some or other to tell them of
their faults, and put them in mind of their duty,
whom he rose up early to send, (as before, v. 13.)
as men rise up early to call servants to their work;
but they were as deaf to the prophets as they were
to the law; (y. 26.) Yet they hearkened not, nor in¬
clined their ear. This had been their way and man¬
ner all along; they were of the same stubborn, re¬
fractory disposition with those that went before
them; it had all along been the genius of the nation,
and an evil genius it was, that continually haunted
them till it ruined them at last.
4. Their practice and character were still the
same; they are worse, and not better, than their fa¬
thers.
(1.) Jeremiah can himself witness against them,
that they were disobedient, or he shall soon find it
so; (o. 27.) "Thou shalt speak all these words to
them, shalt particularly charge them with disobe¬
dience and obstinacy; but even that will not work
upon them, they will not hearken to thee, nor heed
thee; thou sh dt go, and call to them with all the
plainness and earnestness imaginable, but they will
not answer thee, they will either give thee no an¬
swer at all, or not an obedient answer; they will not
come at thy call. ”
(2.) He must therefore own that they deserved
the character of a disobedient people that were ripe
for destruction, and must go to them, and tell them
so to their faces; (u. 28.) “Say unto them. This is
a nation that obeys not the voice of the Lord their
God; they are notorious for their obstinacy; they
sacrifice to the Lord as their God, but they will not !
Vol. iv. — 2Z
be ruled by him as their Goa; they will not receive
| either ^he instruction of his word or the correction
1 of his rod, they will not be reclaimed or. reformed
, by either; truth is perished among them, they can¬
not receive it, they will not submit to it, nor be
governed by it; they will not speak truth, there is
jj no believing a wi rd they say, for it is cut off from
their mouth, and lying comes in the room of it; they
are false both to God and man.
29. Cut off thy hair, O Jerusalem , and
cast it away, and take up a lamentation on
high places ; for (he Lord hath rejected and
forsaken the gene* at ion of his wrath. 30.
For the children of Judah have done evil in
my sight, saith the Lord : they have set
their abominations in the house which is
called by my name, to pollute it. 31. And
they have built the high places of Tophet,
which is in the valley of the son of Hin-
nom, to burn their sons and their daughters
in the fire; which I commanded thevi not,
neither came it into my heart. 32. There¬
fore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord,
that it shail no more be called Tophet, nor,
The valley of the son of Hinnom, but, The
valley of slaughter: for they shall bury in
Tophet till there be no place. 33. And the
carcases of this people shall be meat for
the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts
of the earth; and none shall fray them away.
34. Then will I cause to cease from the ci¬
ties of Judah, and from the streets of Jeru¬
salem, the voice of mirth, and the voice of
gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and
the voice of the bride ; for the land shall be
desolate.
Here is,
I. A loud call to weeping and mourning. Jeru¬
salem, that had been a joyous city, the joy of the
whole earth, must now take up a lamentation on
high places, (u. 29.) the high places where they had
served their idols; there must they now bemoan
their misery. In token both of sorrow and slavery,
Jerusalem must now cut off her hair, and cast it
away; the word is peculiar to the hair of the Naza-
rites, which was the badge and token of their dedi¬
cation to God, and it is called their crown. Jerusa¬
lem had been a city which was a Nazarite to God,
but must now cut off her hair, must be profaned,
degraded, and separated from God, as she had
been separated to him. It is time for those that
have lost their holiness, to lay aside their joy.
II. Just cause given for this great lamentation.
1. The sin of Jerusalem appears here very hein¬
ous, nowhere worse, or more exceedingly sinful.
“The children of Judah” (God’s professing peo-
f le, that came forth out of the waters of Judah,
sa. xlviii. 1.) “have done evil in my sight, under
my eye, in my presence; they have affronted me to
my face, which very much aggravates the affront:”
or, “ They have done that which they know to be evil
in my sight, and in the highest degree offensive to
me.” Idolatry was the sin which was, above ali
other sins, evil in God’s sight. Now here are two
things charged upon them in their idolatry, which
were very provoking.
(1.) That they were very impudent in it toward
Gcd, and set him at defiance; (v. 30.) They have
362
JEREMIAH, VII.
set their abominations, their abominable idols, and
the altars erected to them, in the house that is called
bit mi/ name, in the very courts of the temple, to
pollute it. Manasseh did so, (2 Kings xxi. 7. xxiii.
12.) as if they thought God would connive at it, or
cared not though he was never so much displeased
with it; or as if they would reconcile heaven and
hell, God and Baal. The heart is the place which
God has chosen to put his name there; if sin have
the innermost and uppermost place there, we pol¬
lute the temple of the Lord, and therefore he re¬
sents nothing more than setting up idols in their
heart, Ezek. xiv. 4.
(2.) That they were very barbarous in it toward
their own children, v. 31. They have particularly
built the high places of Tophet, where the image of
Moloch was set up, in the valley of the son of Hin-
nom, adjoining to Jerusalem; and there they burned
their sons and their daughters in the fire, burned
them alive, killed them, and killed them in the most
ci'uel manner imaginable, to honour or appease
those idols that were devils, and not gods. This
was surely the greatest instance that ever was of the
power of Satan in the children of disobedience, and
of the degeneracy and corruption of the human na¬
ture: one would willingly hope that there were not
man)’ instances of such a barbarous idolatry, but it
is amazing that there should be any, that men could
be so perfectly void of natural affection, as to do a
thing so inhuman, as to burn little innocent children,
and their own too; that they should be so perfectly
void of natural religion, as to think it lawful to do
this; nav, to think it acceptable; surely it was in a
way of righteous judgment, because they had chang¬
ed the glory of God into the similitude of a beast,
that God gave them up to such vile affections as
changed them into worse than beasts. God says of
this, that it was what he commanded them not, nei¬
ther came it into his heart; which is not meant of his
not commanding them thus to worship Moloch,
(this he had expressly forbidden them,) but, he had
never commanded that his worshippers should be at
such an expense, nor put such a force upon their
natural affection, in honouring him; it never came
into his heart to have children offered to him, yet
they had forsaken his service for the service of
such gods as, by commanding this, showed them¬
selves to be indeed enemies to mankind.
2. The destruction (f Jerusalem appears here
verv terrible: that speaks misery enough in general;
(t. 29.) The Lord hath rejected and forsaken the
generation of his wrath. Sin makes those the gene¬
ration of God’s wrath, that had been the generation
cf his love. And God will reject and quite forsake
them, who have thus by their impenitence made
themselves vessels of wrath fitted to destruction.
He will disown them for his; Verily, I say unto you,
I know you not; and lie will give them up to the
terrors of their own guilt, ana leave them in those
hands.
(1.) Death shall triumph over them, v. 32, 33.
Sin reigns unto death, for that is the wages of it, the
end of those things. Tophet, the valley adjoining
to Jerusalem, shall be called the valley of slaughter,
f r there multitudes shall be slain, when, in their
sallies out of the city, and their attempts to escape,
they fall into the hands of the besiegers. Or, it
shall be called the valley of slaughtered ones, be¬
cause thither the corpses of those that are slain shall
be brought, to be buried, all other burying-places
being full; and there they shall bury until there be
no more place to make a grave. This intimates the
multitude of those that shall die by the sword, pes-
til-nce, and f mine; death shall ride on prosperously
w'th dreadful pomp and power, conquering and to
conquer. The slain of the Lord shall be many.
This valley of Tophet was a place where the citi
zens of Jerusalem walked to take the air; but it
shall now be spoiled for that use, for it shall be so
full of graves, that there shall be no walking there,
because of the danger of contracting a ceremonial
pollution by the touch of a grave. There it was
that they sacrificed some of their children, and dedi¬
cated others to Moloch, and there they shall full as
victims to divine justice. Tophet had formerly
been the burying-place, or burning-place, of the
dead bodies of the besiegers, when the Assyrian
army was routed by an angel; and for this it was or¬
dained of old, Isa. xxx. 33. But they having for¬
gotten this mercy, and made it the place of their
sin, God will now turn it into a burying-place for
the besieged. In allusion to this valley, hell is in the
New Testament called Gehenna — the valley of
Hinnom, for there were buried both the invading
Assyrians, and the revolting Jews; so hell is a re¬
ceptacle after death both for infidels and hypocrites,
the open enemies of God’s church, and its treacher¬
ous friends; it is the congregation of the dead; it is
prepared for the generation of God’s wrath. But
so great shall that slaughter be, that even the spa¬
cious valley of Tophet shall not be able to contain
the slain; and at length there shall not be enough
left alive to bury the dead, so that the carcases of
the people shall be meat for the birds and beasts of
prey, that shall feed upon them like carrion, and
none shall have the concern or courage to frighten
them away, as Rizpah did from the dead bodies of
Saul’s sons, 2 Sam. xxi. 10. This was according
to the threatening of the law, and a branch of the
curse; (Deut. xxviii. 26.) Thy carcase shall be
meat to the fowls and beasts, and no man shall fray
them away. Thus do the law and the pix phots
agree, and the execution with both. The decent
burying of the dead is a piece of humanity, in re¬
membrance of what the (lead body has been — the
tabernacle of a reasonable soul. Nay, it is a piece
of divinity, in expectation of what the dead body
shall be at the resurrection: the want of it has some¬
times been an instance of the rage of men against
God’s witnesses, Rev. xi. 9. Here it is threatened
as an instance of the wrath of God against his ene¬
mies, and is an intimation that evil pursues sirmers
even after death.
(2.) Joy shall depart from them; ( v . 34.) Then
will I cause to cease the voice of mirth. Gcd had
called by his prophets, and by lesser judgments, to
weeping and mourning; but they walked contrary
to him, and would hear of nothing but joy and glad¬
ness, Isa. xxii. 12, 13. And what came cf it? Now
God called to lamentation, (y. 29.) and he made
his call effectual, leaving them neither cause i or
heart for joy and gladness. They that will net
weep, shall weep; they that will not by the grace of
God be cured of their vain mirth, shall by the jus¬
tice of Gcd be deprived of all mirth; for when Goa
judges he will overcome. It is threatened here,
that there shall be nothing to rejoice in; there shall
be none of the joy of weddings; no mirth, for there
shall be no marriages; the comforts c f life shall be
abandoned, and all care to keep up mankind upr n
earth cast off; there shall be none of the voice of the
bridegroom and the bride; no music, no nuptial
songs; nor shall there be any more r.f the joy of har¬
vest, for the land shall be desolate, uncultivated and
unimproved: both the cities of Judah, and the streets
of Jerusalem, shall look thus melancholy; and when
they thus look about them, and see no cause to re¬
joice, no marvel if they retire into tin mselves, and
find no heart to rejoice. Note, God cm soon mar
the mirth of the most jovial, and make it to cease,
which is a reason why we slv uld alw vs rij ice
with trembling; be merry and wise.
363
JEREMIAH, VIII.
CHAP. VIII.
The prophet proceeds, in this chapter, both to magnify and
to justify the destruction that God was bringing upon
his people^ to show' how grievous it would be, and yet
how righteous. I. He represents the judgments coming
as so very terrible, that death should appear so as most
to be dreaded, and yet should be desired, v. 1 . .3. II.
He aggravates the wretched stupidity and wilfulness of
this people, as that which brought this ruin upon them,
v. 4-. 12. III. He describes the great confusion and
consternation that the whole land should be in, upon the
alarm of it? v. 13- • 17. IV. The prophet is himself deeply
affected with it, and lays it very much to heart, v.
IS . .22.
1 . A T that time, saith the Lord, they
13 l shall bring out the bones of the kings
of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and
the bones of the priests, and the bones of
the prophets, and the bones of the inhabit¬
ants of Jerusalem, out of their graves: 2.
And they shall spread them before the sun,
and the moon, and all the host of heaven,
whom they have loved, and whom they
have served, and after whom they have
walked, and whom they have sought, and
whom they have worshipped : they shall
not be gathered, nor be buried ; they shall
be for dung upon the face of the earth. 3.
And death shall be chosen rather than life
by all the residue of them that remain of
this evil family, which remain in all the
places whither I have driven them, saith
die Lord of hosts.
These verses might fitly have been joined to the
dose of the foregoing chapter, as giving a further
description of tire dreadful desolation which the
army of the Chaldeans should make in the land. It
shall strangely alter the property of death itself,
and for the worse too.
1. Death shall not now be, as it always used to
be — the repose of the dead. When Job makes his
court to the grave, it is in hope of this, that there he
shall rest with /tings and counsellors of the earth;
but now the ashes of the dead, even of kings and
princes, shall be disturbed, and their bones scatter¬
ed at the grave’s mouth, Ps. cxli. 7. It was threat¬
ened in the close of the former chapter, that the
slain should be unburied; that might be through
neglect, and was not so strange; but here we find
the graves of those that were buried, industriously
and maliciously opened by the victorious enemy;
who, either for covetousness, hoping to find treasure
in the graves, or for spite to the nation, and in a
rage against it, brought out the bones of the kings
of Judah, and the princes. The dignity of their
sepulchres could not secure them, nay, did the more
expose them to be rifled; but it was base and bar¬
barous thus to trample upon royal dust. We will
hope that the bones of good Josiah were not dis¬
turbed, because he piously protected the bones of
the man of God, when he burned the bones of the
idolatrous priests, 2 Kings xxiii. 18. The bones of
the priests and prophets too were digged up and
thrown about. Some think the false prophets, and
the \A<\-priests, God putting this mark of ignominy
upon them: but if they were God’s prophets and
his priests, it is what the Psalmist complains of, as
the fruit of the outrage of the enemies, Ps. lxxix:
1, 2. Nay, those of the spiteful Chaldeans that
c mid not reach to violate the sepulchres of princes
mi nriests, would rather play at small game than
sit out, and therefore pulled the bones of the ordi¬
nary inhabitants of Jerusalem out of their graves.
The barbarous nations were sometimes guilty of
these absurd and inhuman triumphs over those they
had conquered, and God permitted it here, for a
mark of his displeasure against the generation of his
wrath, and for terror to those that survived. The
bones being digged out of the graves, were spread
abroad upon the face of the earth in contempt, and
to make the reproach the more spreading and last¬
ing. They spread them to be dried, that they
might carry them about in triumph, or might make
fuel of them, or make some superstitious use of
them. They shall be spread before the sun; for
they shall not be ashamed openly to avow the fact
at noon-day : and before the moon and stars, even all
the host of heaven, whom they have made idols of,
v. 2. From the mention of the sun, moon, and
stars, which should be the unconcerned spectators
of this tragedy, the prophet takes occasion to show
how they had idolized them, and paid those respects
to them, which they should have paid to God only;
that it might be observed how little they got by
worshipping the creature, for the creatures they
worshipped when they were in distress, saw it, but
regarded it not, nor gave them anv relief, but were
rather pleased to see those abused in being vilified,
by whom they had been abused in being deified.
See how their respects to their idols are enumer¬
ated, to show how we ought to behave toward cur
God. (1.1 They loved them; as amiable beings and
bountiful Denefactors they esteemed them and de¬
lighted in them, and therefore did all that follows.
(2.) They served them, did all they could in honour
of them, and thought nothing too much; they con¬
formed to all the laws of their superstition, without
disputing. (3.) They walked after them, strove to
imitate and resemble them, according to the cha¬
racters and accounts of them they had received,
which gave rise and countenance to much of the
abominable wickedness of the heathen. (4. ) They
sought them, consulted them as oracles, appealed
to them as judges, implored their favour, and prayed
to them as their benefactors. (5.) They worshipped
them, gave them divine honour, as having a sove¬
reign dominion over them. Before these lights of
heaven, whom they had courted, shall their dead
bodies be cast, and left to putrefy, and to be as
dung upon the face of the earth; and the sun’s shin-
ingupon them will but make them the more noisome
and offensive. Whatever we make a god of but
the true God only, it will stand us in no stead on the
other side death and the grave, not for the body,
much less for the soul.
2. Death shall now be what it never used to be —
the choice of the living: not because there appears
in it any thing delightsome; on the contrary, death
never appeared in more horrid, frightful shapes
than now, when they cannot promise themselves
either a comfortable death or a human burial; and
yet every thing in this world shall become so irk¬
some, and all the prospects so black and dismal,
that death shall be chosen rather than life; (v. 3.)
not in a believing hope of happiness in the other
life, but in an utter despair of any ease in this life.
The nation is now reduced to a family, so small is
the residue of those that remain in it; and it is an
evil family, still as bad as ever, their hearts un¬
humbled, and their lusts unmortified: these remain
alive (and that is all) in the many places whither
they were driven by the judgments <f God; some
risoners in the country of their enemies, others
eggars in their neighbours’ country, and others
fugitives and vagabonds there and in their own
country. And though those that died, died very
miserably, yet those that survived, anol were thus
driven out, should live yet mere miserably; so that
3(54 JEREMIAH, VIII.
they should choose death rather than life, and wish
a thousand times that they had fallen with them
tn it f 11 by the sword. Let this cure us of the in-
ordm ite love of life, that the case may be such, that
it may become a burthen and terror, and we may
he strongly tempted to choose strangling and death
rather.
4. Moreover, thou shalt say unto them,
Thus saith the Lord; Shall they fall, and
not arise? shall he turn away, and not re¬
turn? 5. Why then is this people of Jeru¬
salem slidden back by a perpetual back¬
sliding? they hold fast deceit, they refuse to
return. 6. 1 hearkened and heard, but they
spake not aright : no man repented him of
his wickedness, saying, What have I done?
every one turned to his course, as the horse
rusheth into the battle. 7. Yea, the stork
in the heaven knoweth her appointed times;
and the turtle, and the crane, and the swal¬
low, observe the time of their coming: but
my people know not the judgment of the
Lord. 8. How do ye say, We are wise,
and the law of the Lord is with us? Lo,
certainly in vain made he it; the pen of the
scribes is in vain. 9. The wise men are
ashamed, they are dismayed and taken : lo,
they have rejected the word of the Lord ;
and what wisdom is in them? 10. There¬
fore will I give their wives unto others, and
their fields to them that shall inherit them:
for every one, from the least even unto the
greatest, is given to covetousness; from the
prophet even unto the priest, every one
dealeth falsely. 11. For they have healed
the hurt of the daughter of my people
slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there
is no peace. 12. Were they ashamed when
they had committed abomination? nay, they
were not at all ashamed, neither could they
blush : therefore shall they fall among them
that fall: in the time of their visitation they
shall be cast down, saith the Lord.
The prophet here is instructed to set before this
people the folly of their impertinence, which was it
that brought this ruin upon them. They are here
represented as the most stupid, senseless people in
the world, that would not be made wise by all the
methods that Infinite Wisdom took to bring them
to themselves and their right mind, and so to pre¬
vent the ruin that was coming upon them.
I. They would not attend to the dictates of reason;
they would not act in the affairs of their souls with
the same common prudence with which they acted
m other things. Sinners would become saints, if
they would show themselves men; and religion
would soon rule them, if right reason might. Ob¬
serve it here; Come, and let us reason together,
saith the Lord; (v. 4, 5.) Shall men fall, and not
arise ? If men happen to fall to the ground, to tall
into the dirt, will they not get up again as fast as
they can? They are not such fools as to lie still
when they are down. Shall a man turn aside out
of the right way? Yes, the most careful traveller
may miss his way; but then, as soon as he is aware
of it, will he not return ? Yes, certainly he will,
with all speed, and will thank him that showed him
his mistake. Thus men do in other things; why
then is this people of Jerusalem slicldeh back by a
ficrfietual backsliding? Why do not they, when
they are fallen into sin, hasten to get up again by
repentance? Why do not they, when they see tin y
have missed their way, correct their error, and re¬
form? No man in his wits will go on in a way that
he knows will never bring him to his journey’s end;
why then is his fieo/ile shdden back by a ficrfietual
backsliding? See the nature of sin— it is a back¬
sliding, it is going back from the right way ; nc t
only into a by-path, but into a contrary path; back
from the way that ieads to life to that which leads
to utter destruction. And this backsliding, if al¬
mighty grace do not interpose to prevent it, will be
a perpetual backsliding! the sinner not only wan¬
ders endlessly, but proceeds endwise toward ruin.
The same subtilty of the tempter that brings men
to sin, holds them fast in it, and they contribute to
their own captivity, they hold fast deceit. Sin is a
great cheat, and they hold it fast; they love it
dearly, and resolve to stick to it, and baffle all the
methods God takes to part between them and their
sins. The excuses they make for their sins are
deceits, and so are all their hopes of impunity; yet
they hold fast these, and will not be undeceived,
and therefore they refuse to return. Note, There
is some deceit or other which those hold fast that
go on wilfully in sinful wayspsome lie in their right
hand, by which they keep hold of their sins.
II. They would not attend to the dictates of con¬
science, which is our reason reflecting upon ourselves
and our own actions, v. 6. Observe, 1. What ex¬
ecutions there were from them, that they would
ethink themselves; I hearkened and heard. The
orophet listened to see what effect his preaching
lad upon them; God himself listened, as one that
desires not the death of sinners, that would have
been glad to hear any thing that promised repent¬
ance, that would certainly have heard it, if there
had been any thing said of that tendency, and would
soon have answered it with comfort, as he did David
when he said, I will confess, Ps. xxxii. 5. God
looks upon men, when they have done amiss, (Job
xxxiii. 27.) to see what they will do next; \\e heark¬
ens and hears. 2. How these expectations were
disappointed; They spake not aright, as I thought
they would have done. They did not only not do
right, but not so much as speak right; God could
not get a good word from them, nothing on which
to ground any favour to them, or hopes concerning
them. There was none of them that spake aright,
none that repented him of his wickedness. These
that have sinned, then, and then only, speak aright,
when they speak of repenting; and it is sad when
those that have made so much work for repentance,
do not say a word of repenting. Not only did God
not And any repenting of the national wickedness,
which might have helped to empty the measure rf
public guilt, but none repented of that particular
wickedness which he knew himself guilty of. (1.)
They did not so much as take the first step toward
repentance; they did not so much as say, 117iat
have I done? There was no motion towards it, not
the least sign or token of it. Note, True repentance
begins in a serious and impartial inquiry into our¬
selves, what we have done, arising from a convictk n
that we have done amiss. (2.) They were so far
from repenting of their sins, that they went on
resolutely in their sins; Every one turned to his
course, his wicked course, that course of sin which
he had chosen and accustomed himself to, as the
horse rushes into the battle, eager upon action, and
scorning to be curbed. How the horse rushes into
the battle, is elegantly described, Jobxxxix. 21,8cc.
365
JEREMIAH, VIII.
He mocks at fear, and is not affrighted. Thus the
during sinner laughs at the threatenings of the word
as bugbears, and runs violently upon the instruments
of death and slaughter, and nothing will be restrain¬
ed from him.
III. They would not attend to the dictates of
providence, nor understand the voice of God in
them, v. 7. 1. It is an instance of their sottishness,
that, though they are God’s people, and therefore
should readily understand his mind, upon every in¬
timation of it, yet they know not the judgment of
the Lord, they apprehend not the meaning either
of a mercy or of an affliction, not how to accommo¬
date themselves to either, or to answer God’s inten¬
tion in either. They know not how to improve the
seasons of grace that God affords them when he
sends them his prophets', nor how to make use of
the rebukes they are under when his -voice cries in
the city. They discern not the signs of the times,
(Matth. xvi. 3.) nor are aware how God is dealing
with them. They know not that way of duty,
which God had prescribed them, though it be
written both in their hearts and in their books. 2.
It is an aggravation of their sottishness, that there
is so much sagacity in the inferior creatures. The
stork in the heaven knows her appointed times of
coming and continuing; so do other season-birds,
the turtle, the crane, and the swallow; these by a
natural instinct change their quarters, as the tem¬
per of the air alters; they come when the spring
comes, and are gone, we know not whither, when
the winter approaches; probably, into warmer cli¬
mates, as some birds come with winter, and are
gGne when that is over.
IV. They would not attend to the dictates of the
written word. They say, We are wise; but how
can they say so? With what face can they pretend
to any thing of wisdom, when they do not under¬
stand themselves so well as the brute creatures?
Why, truly, they think they are wise, because the
law of the Lord is with them, the book of the law
and the interpreters of it; and their neighbours, for
the same reason, conclude they are wise ; Deut. iv. 6.
But their pretensions are groundless for all this; Lo,
certainly in vain made he it; surely never any peo¬
ple had Bibles to so little purpose as they have.
They might as well have been without the law, un¬
less they had made a better use of it. God has
indeed made it able to make men wise to salvation,
but as to them it is made so in vain, for they are
never the wiser for it; The pen of the scribes, of
those that first wrote the law, and of those that now
write expositions of it, are in vain. Both the favour
of their God, and the labour of their scribes, are
lost upon them; they receive the grace of God
therein in vain. Note, There are many that enjoy
abundance of the means of grace, that have great
plenty of Bibles and ministers, but they have them
in vain; they do not answer the end of their having
them. But it might be said, They have some wise
men among them, to whom the taw and the pen of
the scribes are not in vain. To this it is answered,
(v. 9.) The wise men are ashamed, they have rea¬
son to be so, that they have not made a better use
of their wisdom, and lived more up to it. They
are confounded and taken; all their wisdum has net
served to keep them from those courses that tend
to their min. They are taken in the same snares
that others of their neighbours, who have not pre¬
tended to so much wisdom, are taken in, and filled
with the same confusion. Those that have more
knowledge than others, and yet do no better than
others for their own souls, have reason to be
ashamed. They talk of their wisdom, but, Lo,
they have rejected the word of the Lord; they would
not be governed by it, would not follow its direction,
would not do what they knew; and then what wis¬
dom is in them? None to any purpose; none that
will be found to their praise at the great day, how
much soever it is found to their pride now.
The pretenders to wisdom, who said, " H e are
wise, and the law of the Lord is with us,” were the
priests and the false prophets; with them the pro¬
phet here deals plainly.
1. He threatens the judgments of God against
them. Their families and estates shall be ruined;
(v. 10.) Then • wives shall be given to others, when
they are taken captives, and their fields shall be
taken from them by the victorious enemy, and shall
be given to those that shall inherit them; not only
strip them for once, but take possession ot them as
their own, and acquire a property in them, which
they shall transmit to their posterity. And, (v. 12.)
notwithstanding all their pretensions to wisdom and
sanctity, they Jail among them that fall; for if the
blind lead the blind, both shall fall together into the
ditch. In the time of their visitation, when the
wickedness of the land comes to be inquired into, it
will be found that they have contributed to it nu re
than any, and therefore they shall be sure to be cast
down and cast out. *
2. He gives a reason for these judgments, (y.
10, 12.) even the same account of their badness
which we meet with before, (c/i. vi. 13. — 15.) where
it was opened at large. (1.) They were greedy of
the wealth of this world, which is bad enough in
any, but worst in prophets and priests, who slu uld
be best acquainted with another world, and there¬
fore should be most dead to this. But these, from
the least to the greatest, were given to covetousness.
The priests teach for hire, and the prophets divine
for money, Mic. iii. 11. (2.) They made no con¬
science of speaking truth, no not when they spake
as priests and prophets; Every one deals falsely;
looks one way, and rows another. There is no
such thing as sincerity among them. (3.) They
flattered people in their sins, and so flattered them
into destruction. They pretended to be the physi¬
cians of the state, but knew not how to apply propel
remedies to its growing maladies; they healed them
slightly, killed the patient with palliative cures;
silencing their fears and complaints with “Peace,
peace, all is well, and there is no danger,” when the
God of heaven was proceeding in his controversy
with them, so that there could be no peace to them.
(4.) When it was made to appear how basely they
prevaricated, they were not at all ashamed of it,
but rather gloried in it; (y. 12.) They could not
blush, so perfectly lost were they to all sense of
virtue and honour; when they were convicted ( f the
grossest forgeries, they would justify what they had
done, and laugh at those whom they had imposed
upon. Such as these were ripe for ruin.
13. 1 will surely consume them, saitli the
Lord : there shall be no grapes on the vine,
nor tigs on the fig-tree, and the leaf shall
fade; and the things that 1 have given them
shall pass away from them. 14. Why do
we sit still ? assemble yourselves, and let us
enter into the defenced cities, and let us be
silent there: for the Lord our God hath put
us to silence, and given us waters of gall to
drink, because we have sinned against the
Lord. 15. We looked for peace, but no
good came ; and for a time of health, and be¬
hold trouble ! 1 6. The snorting of his
horses was heard from Dan ; the whole land
trembled at the sound of the neighing of his
strong ones; for they are come, and have.
JEREMIAH, VIII.
3P6
devoured the land, and all that is in it; the
city, and those that dwell therein. 1 7. For,
behold, I, will send serpents, cockatrices,
among you, which will not be charmed, and
they shall bite you, saith the Lord. 18.
fVhen 1 would comfort myself against sor¬
row, my heart is faint in me. 19. Behold,
the voice of the cry of the daughter of my
people, because of them that dwell in a far
country. Is not the Lord in Zion 1 is not
her king in her ? why have they provoked
me to anger with their graven images, and
with strange vanities ? 20. The harvest is
past, the summer is ended, and we are not
saved. 21. For the hurt of the daughter of
my people am I hurt; I am black; astonish¬
ment hath taken hold on me. 22. Is there
no balm in Gilead ? is there no physician
there ? why then is not the health of the
daughter of my people recovered ?
In these verses, we have,
I. God threatening the destruction of a sinful
people. He has borne long with them, but they
are still more and more provoking, and therefore
now their ruin is resolved on; I will surely consume
them ; (y. 13.) consuming Twill consume them, not
only surely, but utterly, consume them; will follow
them with one judgment sifter another, till they are
quite consumed; it is a consumption determined,
Isa. x. 23.
1. They shall be quite stripped of all their com¬
forts; [y. 13.) There shall he no grapes on the vine.
Some understand it as intimating their sin; God
came looking for grapes from this vineyard, seek¬
ing fruit upon this fig-tree, but he found none, (as
Isa. v. 2. Luke xiii. 6.) nay, they had not so much
as leaves, Matth. xxi. 19. But it is rather to be
understood of God’s judgments upon them; and may
be meant literally; The enemy shall seize the fruits
of the earth, shall pluck the grapes and figs for
themselves, and beat down the very leaves with
them; or, rather, figuratively ; They shall be de¬
prived of all their comforts, and shall have nothing
left them wherewith to make glad their hearts. It
is expounded in the last clause, The things that I
have given them shall pass away from them.
Note, God’s gifts are upon condition, and revocable
upon non-perf nuance of the condition. Mercies
abused are forfeited, and it is just with God to take
the forfeiture.
2. They shall be set upon by all manner of griev¬
ances, and surrounded with calamities; ( v . 17.) I
will send serpents among you, the Chaldean army,
fiery serpents, flying serpents, cockatrices; these
shall bite them with their venomous teeth, give
them wounds that shall be mortal: and they shall
not be charmed, as some serpents used to be, with
music. These are serpents of another nature, that
are not so wrought upon; or they are as the deaf
adder, that stops her ear, and will not hear the voice
of the charmer. The enemies are so intent upon
making slaughter, that it will be to no purpose to
accost them gently, or offer any thing to pacify
them or mollify them, or to bring them to a better
temper. No peace with God, therefore none with
them.
II. The people sinking into despair under the
pressure of those calamities. They that were void
oj fear, (when the trouble was at a distance,) and
set it at defiance, are void of hope now that it breaks
i in upon them, and have no heart, either to make
head against it, or to bear up under it, v. 14. They
; cannot think themselves safe in the open villages;
l Thy do we sit still here ? Get us assemble and go in
a body into the defenced cities. Though they could
expect no other than to be surely cut off there at
last, yet not so soon as in the country, and therefoi e,
“ Let us go, and be silent there: let us attempt no¬
thing, nor so much as make a complaint; fer to
what purpose?” It is not a submissive, but a sullen,
silence, that they here condemn themselves to.
Those that are most jovial in their prosperity, com¬
monly despond most, and are most melancholy, in
trouble.
Now observe what it is that sinks them.
1. They are sensible that God is angry with
them; The Lord our God has put us to silence, has
struck us with astonishment, and given us water
of gall to drink, which is both bitter and stupifying,
or intoxicating; (Ps. lx. 3.) “ Thou hast made us to
drink the wine of astonishment. We had better sit
still than rise up and fall; better say nothing than
say nothing to the purpose. To what purpose is it
to contend with our fate, when God himself is be¬
come our Enemy, and fights against us? Because
we have sinned against the Lord, therefore we are
brought to this plunge.” This may be taken as the
language, (1.) Of their indignation. They seem to
quarrel with God, as if he had dealt hardly with
them, in putting them to silence, not permitting
them to speak for themselves, and then telling
them, that it was because they had sinned against
him. Thus men’s foolishness perverts their way,
and then their hearts fret against the Lord. Or,
rather, (2.) Of their convictions. At length thev
begin to see the hand of God lifted up against them,
and stretched out in the calamities under which
they are now groaning, and to own that they have
provoked him to contend with them. Note, Sooner
or later, God will bring the most obstinate to ac¬
knowledge both his providence and his justice, in
all the troubles they are brought into; to see a d
say, both that it is his hand, and that he is righteous.
2. They are sensible that the enemy islikelv to
be too hard for them, v. 16. They are soon ap¬
prehensive that it is to no purpose to make head
against such a mighty force; they and their people
are quite dispirited; and when the courage of a na¬
tion is gone, their numbers will stand them in little
stead. The snorting of the horses was heard from
Dan, the report of the formidable strength of their
cavalry was soon carried all the nation over, and
every body trembled at the sound of the neighing
of his steeds; for they are come, and there is no op¬
posing them; they have devoured the land, and all
that is in the city; both town and country are laid
waste before them, not only the wealth, but the in¬
habitants of both, those that dwell therein. Note,
When God appears against us, every thing else
that is against us appears very formidable; whereas
if he be for us, every thing appears very despicable,
Rom. viii. 31.
3. They are disappointed in their expectations
of deliverance out of their troubles, as they had
been surprised when their trouble came upon them:
and this double disappointment very much aggra-
va ed their calamity. (1.) The trouble came when
they little expected it; (n. 15. ) He looked for peace.
the continuance of our peace, but no good came, no
good news from abroad; we looked for a time of
health and prosperity to our nation, but behold trou
ble, the alarms of war; for, as it follows, ( v . 16.) the
noise of the enemies’ horses was heard from Dan.
Their false prophets had cried, Peace, peace, to
them, which made it the more terrible, when the
scene of war opened on a sudden. This complaint
will occur again, ch. xiv. 19. (2.) The deliverance
JEREMIAH, VIII.
367
did not come, when they had long exfiected it; (y.
20. ) The harvest is past', the summer is ended; there
is .1 great deal of time gone. Harvest and summer
■ire parts of the year, and when they are gone, the
■. ear draws toward a conclusion; so the meaning is,
“ One year passes after another, one campaign alter
another, and yet our affairs are in as bad a posture
as ever they were; no relief comes, nor is any thing
d >ne towards it; We are not saved.” Nay, there
is a great deal of opportunity lost, the season of ac¬
tion is over and slipt, the summer and harvest are
gone, and a cold and melancholy winter succeeds.
Note, The salvation of God’s church and people
often goes on very slowly, and God keeps his peo¬
ple long in the expectation of it, for wise and holy
ends. Nay, they stand in their own light, and put
a bar in their own door, and are not saved, because
they are not ready for salvation.
4. They are deceived in those things which were
their confidence, and which they thought would
have secured their peace to them; (x1. 19.) The
daughter of my / xeople cries, cries aloud, because
of them that dwell in a far country, because of the
foreign enemy that invades them, that comes from
a f ir country to take possession of ours; this occa¬
sions the cry; and what is the cry ? It is this; Is not
the Lord in Zion? Is not her king in her? These
were the two things that they had all along buoyed
up themselves with, and depended upon. (1.) That
they had among them the temple of God, and the
tokens of his special presence with them: the com¬
mon cant was, “ Is not the Lord in Zion? What
danger then need we fear?” And they held by this
when the trouble was breaking in upon them;
“Surely we shall do well enough, for have we not
God among us?” But when it grew to an extremity,
it was an aggravation of their misery that they had
thus flattered themselves. (2.) That they had the
thr ne of the house of David: as they had a temple,
so they had a monarch, jure divino — by divine
right; Is not Zion’s king in her? And will not
Zion’s God protect Zion’s king and his kingdom?
Surely he will; but why does he not? “What,”
(say they,) “ has Zion neither a God nor a king to
stand by her and help her, that she is thus run
down, and likely to be ruined?” This outcry of
theirs reflects upon God, as if his power and pro¬
mise were broken or weakened; and therefore he
r turns an answer to it immediately. Why have they
firovoked me to anger with their graven images?
They quarrel with God, as if he had dealt unkindly
by them in forsaking them, whereas they by their
idolatry had driven him from them; they have
withdrawn from their allegiance to him, and so
h ive thrown themselves out of his protection.
They fret themselves and, curse their king and their
God, (Isa. viii. 21.) when it is their own sin that
separates between them and God; (Isa. lix. 2. ) they
feared not the Lord, and then what can a king do
for them? Hos. x. 3.
Ill. We have here the prophet himself bewail¬
ing the calamity and ruin of his people; for there
were more of the lamentations of Jeremiah than
those we find in the book that bears that title. Ob¬
serve here,
1. How great his griefs were. He was an eye¬
witness of the desolations of his country, and saw
those things which by the spirit of prophecy he had
foreseen. In the foresight, much more in the sight
of them, he cries out, “ My heart is faint in me, I
sink, I die away at the consideration of it, v. 18.
When I would comfort myself against my sorrow,
I do but labour in vain; nay, every attempt to alle¬
viate the grief does but aggravate it.” It is our
wisdom and duty, under mournful events, to do
what we can to comfort ourselves against our sor¬
row, by suggesting to ourselves such considerations
as are proper to allay the grief, and balance the
grievance. But sometimes the sorrow is such, that,
the more it is repressed, the more strongly it re¬
coils. It may sometimes be the case of very good
men, as of the prophet here, whose soul refused to
be comforted, and fainted at the cordial, Ps. lxxvii.
2, 3. He tells, (i1. 21.) what was the matt r; “ It
is for the hurt of the daughter of my people, that I
am thus hurt; it is for their sin, and the miseries
they have brought upon themselves by it; it is for
this, that I am black, that I look black, that I go
in black as mourners do, and that astonishment has
taken hold on me, so that I know not what to do,
nor which way to turn.” Note, The miseries of
our country ought to be very much the grief of
our souls. A gracious spirit will be a public spirit,
a tender spirit, a mourning spirit. It becomes us
to lament the miseries of our fellow-creatures, much
more to lay to heart the calamities of our country,
and especially of the church of God, to grieve for
the affliction of Joseph. Jeremiah had prophesied
the destruction of Jerusalem, and though the truth
of his prophecy was questioned, yet he did not re¬
joice in the proof of the truth of it by the accom¬
plishment of it, preferring the welfare of his coun¬
try before his own reputation. If Jerusalem had
repented and been spared, he would have been far
from fretting, as Jonah did. Jeremiah had many
enemies irt Judah and Jerusalem, that hated and re¬
proached and persecuted him; and in the judgments
brought upon them, God reckoned with them for it,
and pleaded his prophets cause; vet he was far
from rejoicing in it, so truly did he forgive his ene¬
mies, and desire that God would forgive them.
2. How small his hopes were; (xc 22.) “ Is there
no balm in Gilead? No medicine proper for a sick
and dying kingdom? Is there no physician there?
No skilful, faithful hand to apply the medicine?”
He looks upon the case to be deplorable, and past
relief. There is no balm in Gilead, that can cure
the disease of sin ; no physician there, that can re¬
store the health of a nation quite overrun by such
a foreign army as that of the Chaldeans. The de¬
solations made are irreparable, and the disease is
presently come to such a height, that there is no
checking it. Or, this verse may be understood as
laying all the blame of the incurableness of their
disease upon themselves; and so the question must
be answered affirmatively; Is there no balm in Gi¬
lead? JVo physician there? Yes, certainly there is;
God is able to help and heal them, there is a suffi¬
ciency in him to redress all their grievances. Gi¬
lead was a place in their own land, not far off; they
had among themselves God’s law and his prophets,
with the help of which they might have been
brought to repentance, and their ruin might have
been prevented; they had princes and priests,
whose business it was to reform the nation, and re¬
dress their grievances. What could have been
done more than has been done for their recovery?
Why then is not their health restored? Certainly it
was not owing to God, but to themselves; it was not
for want of balm, and a physician, but because they
would not admit the application, nor submit to the
methods of cure. The physician and physic were
both ready, but the patient was wilful and irregular,
would not be tied to rules, but must be humoured.
Note, If sinners die of their wounds, their blood is
upon their own heads. The blood of Christ is balm
in Gilead, his Spirit is the Physician there. Doth
sufficient, all-sufficient, so that they might have been
healed, but would not.
CHAP. IX.
In ihis chapter, the prophet goes on faithfully to reprove
sin, and to threaten God’s judiments for it, and yet bit¬
terly to lament both, as one that neither rejoiced al
368
JEREMIAH, IX.
quity, nor was glad at calamities. I. He here expresses
his great grief for the miseries of Judah and Jerusalem,
and his detestation of their sins, which brought those
miseries upon them, v. 1.. 11. II. He justifies God in
the greatness of the destruction brought upon them, v. 9.
12.. 16. 111. He calls upon others to bewail the woful
case of Judah and Jerusalem, v. 17 . . 23. IV. He shows
them the folly and vanity of trusting in their own strength
or wisdom, or the privileges of their circumcision, or
any thing but God only, v. 23. . 26.
1 . £ that my head were waters, and
\Jf my eyes a fountain of tears, that I
might weep day and night for the slain of
the daughter of my people! 2. Oh that I
had in the wilderness a lodging-place of
wayfaring men, that I might leave my peo¬
ple, and go from them! for they be all adul¬
terers, an assembly of treacherous men. 3.
And they bend their tongue like their bow
for lies; but they are not valiant for the
truth upon the earth ; for they proceed from
evil to evil, and they know not me, saith
the Lord. 4. Take ye heed every one
of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any
brother: for every brother will utterly sup¬
plant, and every neighbour will walk with
slanders. 5. And they will deceive .every
one his neighbour, and will not speak the
truth : they have taught their tongue to
speak lies, and weary themselves to commit
iniquity. 6. Thy habitation is in the midst
of deceit; through deceit they refuse to
know me, saith the Lord. 7. Therefore
thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, I will
melt them, and try them; for how shall I
do for the daughter of my people? 8. Their
tongue is as an arrow shot out; it speaketh
deceit : one speaketh peaceably to his neigh¬
bour with his mouth, but in heart he layeth
his wait. 9. Shall I not visit them for these
things? saith the Lord: shall not my soul
be avenged on such a nation as this? 10.
For the mountains will I take up a weep¬
ing and wailing, and for the habitations of
the wilderness a lamentation, because they
are burnt up, so that none can pass through
them; neither can men hear the voice of the
cattle: both the fowl of the heavens and the
beast are fled ; they are gone. 1 1 . And I
will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of
dragons; and I will make the cities of Ju¬
dah desolate, without an inhabitant.
The prophet, being commissioned both to foretell
the destruction coming upon Judah and Jerusalem,
and to point out the sin for which that destruction
was brought upon them, here, as elsewhere, speaks
of both very feelingly: what he said of both came
from the heart , and therefore one would have
thought it should have reached to the heart.
I. He abandons himself to sorrow , in considera¬
tion of the calamitous condition of his people, which
he sadlv laments, as one that preferred Jerusalem
before his chief joy, and her grievances 1 efore his
chief sorrows.
1. He laments the slaughter of the persons; the
bloodshed, and the lives lost; (v. 1.) “ 0 that my
head were waters, quite melted and dissolved with
grief, that so mine eyes might be fountains of tears,
weeping abundance, continually, and without inter¬
mission, still sending forth fresh floods of tears, as
there still occur fresh occasions for them!” The
same word in Hebrew signifies both the eye and a
fountain, as if in this land of sorrows our eves were
designed rather for weeping than seeing. Jeremiah
wept much, and yet wished he could weep more,
that he might affect a stupid people, and reuse them
to a due sense of the hand of God gone out against
them. Note, It becomes us, while we are here in this
vale of tears, to conform to the temper of the rli-
m ite, and to sow in tears. Blessed are they that
mourn, for they shall be cortforted hereafter; but
let them expect that while they are here, the clouds
will still return after the rain! While we find our
hearts such fountains of sin, it is fit that our eyes
should be fountains of tears. But Jeremiah’s grief
here is upon the public account: he would weep day
and night, not so much for the death of his own near
relations, but for the slain of the daughter of his
people, the multitudes of his countrymen that fell
by the sword of war. Note, When we hear of the
number of the slain in great battles and sieges, we
ought to be much affected with it, and net to make
a light matter of it; yea, though they be not of the
daughter of our people, for, whatever people they
are of, they are of the same human nature with us";
and there are so many precious lives lost, as dear
to them as ours to us, and so many precious souls
gone into eternity.
2. He laments the desolations of the country.
This he brings in, v. 10. (for impassioned mourners
are not often very methodical in their discourses,)
“Not for the towns and cities merely, but for the
mountains, will I take up a weeping and wailing;”
not barren mountains, but the fruitful hills with
which Judea abounded; and for the habitations of
the wilderness, cr, rather, the pastures of the plain,
that used to be clothed with Jlocks, or covered over
with corn; and a goodly sight it was; but now they
are burnt up by the Chaldean army, which, ac¬
cording to the custom of war, destroyed the forage,
and carried off all the cattle; so that no one dares to
pass through them, for fear of meeting with some
parties of the enemy; no one cares to pass through
them, every thing looks so melancholy and frightful;
no one has any business to pass through them, for
they hear not the voice of the cattle there as usual,
the bleating of the sheep and the lowing of the oxen,
that grateful music to the owners; nay, both the
fowl of the heavens, and the beasts, are fled, either
frightened away by the rude noises and terrible fires
which the enemies make, or forced away because
there is no subsistence for them. Note, God has
many ways of turning a fruitful land into barren¬
ness for the wickedness of them that dwell therein;
and the havock war makes in a country cannot but
be for a lamentation to all tender spirits, for it is a
tragedy which destroys the stage it is acted on.
II. He abandons himself to solitude, in considera¬
tion of the scandalous character and conduct of his
people. Though he dwells in Judah where God is
known, in Salem where his tabernacle is, yet he is
ready to cry out, Tic is me that I sojourn in Me-
sechl Ps. cxx. 5. While all his neighbours ere
fleeing to the defenced cities, and Jerusalem espe¬
cially, in dread of the enemies’ rage, (c/i. iv. 5, 6.)
he is contriving to retire into some desert, in detes¬
tation of his people’s sin; (r;. 2.) O that I had in the
wilderness a lodging-place of wayfaring men, such
a lonely cottage to dwell in as they have in the de¬
serts of Arabia, which are uninhabited, for travel¬
lers to repose themselves in. that / may leave my
people, and go from them'. Nr t cnly because < f the
365
JEREMJAH, IX.
it I usages they gave him, he would rather venture
himself among the wild beasts of the desert than
among such treacherous, barbarous people; but
principally, because his righteous soul was vexed
from day to day, as Lot’s was in Sodom, with the
wickedness of their conversation, 2 Pet. ii. 7, 8.
This does not bespeak any intention or resolution
that he had thus to retire. God had cut him out
work among them, which he must not quit for his
own ease; we must not go out of the world, bad as
it is, before our time: if he could not reform them,
he could bear a testimony against them; if he could
not do good to many, yet he might to some. But
his language bespeaks the temptation he was in to
leave them, a threatening that they should be de¬
prived of his ministry, and especially the holy in¬
dignation he had against their wickedness, which
continued so abominable, notwithstanding all the
pains he had taken with them to reclaim them. It
made him even weary of his life to see them dis¬
honouring God as they did, and destroying them¬
selves. Time was, when the place which God had
chosen to put his name there, was the desire and
delight of good men. David, in a wilderness, long¬
ed to be again in the courts of God’s house; but now
Jeremiah, in the courts of God’s house, (for there
he was when he said this,) wishes himself in a wil¬
derness. Those have made themselves very mise¬
rable, that have made God’s people and ministers
weary of them, and willing to get from them.
Now, to justify his willingness to leave them, he
shows,
1. What he himself had observed among them.
He would not think of leaving them because they
were poor, and in distress, but because they were
wicked.
(1.) They were filthy ; they be all adulterers;
that is, the generality of them are, ch. v. 8. They
all either practised this sin, or connived at those
that did. Lewdness and uncleanness constituted
that crying sin of Sodom, at which righteous Lot
was vexed in soul, and it is a sin that renders men
loathsome in the eyes of God and all good men; it
makes men an abomination.
(2. ) They were false. This is the sin that is
most enlarged upon here; they that had been un¬
faithful to their God, were so to one another, and it
was a part of their punishment as well as their sin,
for even those that love to cheat, yet hate to be
cheated. [1.] Go into their solemn meetings, ei¬
ther for the exercises of religion, for the adminis¬
tration of justice, or for commerce, either to church,
to court, or to the exchange; and they are an as¬
sembly of treacherous men, they are so by consent,
they strengthen one another’s hands in doing any
thing that is perfidious. There they will cheat de¬
liberately and industriously, with design, with a
malicious design; for they bend their tongue, like
their bow, for lies, with a great deal of craft; their
tongues are fitted for lying, as a bow that is bent
is for shooting, and are as constantly used for that
purpose. Their tongue turns as naturally to a lie
as the bow to the string. But they are not valiant
for the truth upon the earth. Their tongues are
like a bow strung, with which they might do good
service, if they would use the art and resolution
which they are so much masters of, in the cause of
truth; but they will not do so. They appear notin
defence of the truths of God, which were delivered
to them by the prophets; but even those that could
not deny them to be truths, were content to see them
run down. In the administration of justice, they
have not courage to stand by an honest cause that
has truth on its side, if greatness and power be on
the other side. Those that will be faithful to the
truth must be valiant for it, and not be daunted by
the opposition given to it, nor fear the face of man.
Vol. iv. — 3 A
They are not valiant for truth in the land, the land
which has truth for the glory of it. Truth is fallen
in the laud, and they dare not lend a hand to help it
up, ls..lix. 14, 15. We must answer, another day,
not only for our enmity in opposing truth, but fi r
our cowardice in defending it. [2.j Go into then
families, and you will find they will cheat theii
own brethren, ( every brother will utterly supplant,)
they will trip up one another’s heels if they can, fi >•
they ho at the catch, to seek all advantages against
those they hope to make a hand of. Jacob had his
name from supplanting, it is the word here used,
they followed him in his name, but not in his true
character, without guile. So very false are they,
that you cannot trust in a brother, but must stand
as much upon your guard, as if you were dealim
with a stranger, with a Canaanite that has balances
of deceit in his hand. Things are come to an ill pass
indeed, when a man cannot put confidence in Ids
own brother. [3.] Go into company, and observi
both their commerce and their conversation, mu’
you will find there is nothing of sincerity or ccmnu n
honesty among them; JVec hospes ab hospite tutus —
The host and the guest are in danger from each
other. The best advice a wise man can give vou.
is, to lake heed every one of his neighbour, nay, of
his friend, (so some read it,) of him whom he has
befriended, and who pretends friendship to him.
No man thinks himselt bound to be either grateful
or sincere. Take them in their converse; and
every neighbour will walk with slandi r, they care
not what ill they say one of another, though ever so
false; that way that the slander goes thev will go;
they will walk with it. They will walk about fre m
house to house too, carrying slanders along with
them, all the ill-natured stories they can pick up,
or invent, to make mischief. Take them in theii
trading and bargaining; and they will deceive every
one his neighbour, will say any thing, though thev
know it to be false, for their own advantage. Nav,
they will lie for lying sake, to keep their tongues in
use to it, for they will not speak the truth, but will
tell a deliberate lie, and laugh at it when they have
done.
That which aggravates the sin of this false and
lying generation, is, First, That they are ingenious
to sin; They have taught their tongue to speak lies ;
implying, that, through the reluctances of natural
conscience, they found it difficult to bring them¬
selves to it. Their tongue would have spoken truth,
but they taught it to speak lies, and by degrees have
made themselves masters of the art of lying, and
have got such a habit of it, that use has made it a
second nature to them. They learned it when they
were young, (for the wicked are estranged from the
womb, speaking lies, Ps. lviii. 3.) and now they are
grown dexterous at it. Secondly, That they are
industrious to sin; They weary themselves to com¬
mit iniquity; they put a force upon their consciences,
to bring themselves to it; they tire out their convic¬
tions by offering them continual violence, and they
take a great deal of pains, till they have even spent
themselves in bringing about their malicious de¬
signs. They are wearied with their sinful pursuits,
and yet not weary of them. The service of sin is a
perfect drudgery; men run themselves out of breath
in it, and put themselves to a great deal of toil, to
damn their own souls. Thirdly, That they grew
worse and worse; (v. 3.) They proceed from evil
to evil, from one sin to another, from one degree of
sin to another. They began with lesser sins; ( JVemt.
repente fit turpissimus — .A o one reaches the height
of vice at once;) they began with equivocating end
bantering, but at last came to downright lying. And
they are now proceeding to greater sins ye*, foi
they know not me, saith the Lord. Where men
have no knowledge of God, or no consideration ol
JEREMIAH IX.
.■(TO
wh it they have known c.f him, what good cm be
expected thorn them? Men’s ignorance of God is
the cause of all their ill conduct one towards an tiler.
2. The prophet shows what God had informed
hhn of their wickedness, and what he had deter¬
mined against them.
(1.) God had marked their sin. He could te l
the pr phet, (and he speaks of it with compassion,)
want s ,rt of people they were, that he had to deal
with. I know thy works, and where thou dwellest,
Rev. ii. 13. So here, (v. 6.) “ Thy habitation is
in the midst of deceit, all about thee are addicted to
it; therefore stand upon thy guard.” If all men are
liars, it concerns us to beware of men, and to be
wise as serpents. They are deceitful men, there¬
fore there is little hope of thy doing any good among
them; for make things ever so plain, they have
some trick or other wherewith to shuffle off their
convictions. This charge is enlarged upon, v. 8.
Their tongue was a bow bent, (y. 3.) plotting and
preparing mischief; here it is an arrow shot out,
putting in execution what they had projected. It is
as a slaying arrow ; so some readings of the original
have it: their tongue has been to many an instru¬
ment of death. They speak peaceably to their
neighbours, against wh .m they are at the same time
lying in wait: as Joab kissed Abner, when he was
about to kill him; and Cain, that he might not be
suspected of any ill design, talked with his brother
freely and familiarly. Note, Fair words, when they
are not attended with good intentions, are despica¬
ble, but when they are intended as a cloak and cover
for wicked intentions, they are abominable. While
they did all this injury to one another, they put a
great contempt upon God; “Not only they know
not me, but, (v. 6. ) through deceit, through the de¬
lusions of the false prophets, they refuse to know me;
they are so cheated into a good opinion of their own
ways, the ways of their own heart, that they desire
not the knowledge of my ways.” Or, They are so
wedded to this sinful course which they are in, and
so bewitched with that, and its gains, that they will
by no means admit the knowledge of God, because
tn.it would be a check upon them in their sins.
This is the ruin of sinners, they might be taught the
good knowledge of the Lord, and they will not learn
it. Where no knowledge of Gcd is, what good can
be expected? Hos. iv. 1.
(2.) He had marked them for ruin, v. 7, 9, 11.
Those that will not know God as their Lawgiver,
shall be made to know him as their Judge. God
determines here to bring his judgments upon them,
for the refining of some, and the ruining of the rest.
[1.] Some shall be refined; (y. 7.) “ Because they
are thus corrupt, behold, I will melt them, and try
them, will bring them into trouble, and see wiiat
that will do toward bringing them to repentance;
whether the furnace of affliction will purify them
from their dross, and whether, when they are melt¬
ed, they will be new-cast in a better mould.” He
will make trial of lesser afflictions, before he brings
upon them utter destruction, for he desires not the
death of sinners. They shall not be rejected as re¬
probate silver, till the Founder has melted in vain,
ch. vi. 29, 30. For how shall I do for the daughters
of my people ? He speaks as one -consulting with
himself what to do with them, that might be for the
best, and as one that could not find in his heart to
cast them off, and give them up to ruin, till he had
first tried all means likely to bring them to repent¬
ance. Or, “ How else shall I do for them? They
are grown so very corrupt, that there is no other
w iy with them but to put them into the furnace;
what other course can I take with them? (Isa v. 4,
5.) It is the daughter of my people, and 1 must do
something to vindicate my own honour, which will
he reflected upon if I connive at their wickedness; 1
must do something to reduce and reform them.” A
parent corrects Ins own children because they are
his own. Note, When God afflicts his people, it is
with a gracious design to mollify and reduce them;
it is but when need is, and when he knows it is the
best method he can use.
[2.] The rest shall be ruined; (v. 9.) Shall 1
not visit for these things? Fraud and falsehood are
sins whicn God hates, and which he will reckon for;
“ Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as
this, that is so universally corrupt, and, by its im¬
pudence in sin, even dares and defus divine ven¬
geance? The sentence is past, the decree is gene
forth, v. 11. I will make Jerusalem heaps cf rub¬
bish, and lay it in such ruins, that it shall be fit fi r
nothing but to be a den of dragons; and the cities of
Juda shall be a desolation.” God makes them so,
for he gives the enemy warrant and power to do it:
but why is the holy city made a heap? The answer
is ready, Because it was become an unholy one.
12. Who is the wise man, that may un¬
derstand this; and who is he to whom the
mouth of the Lord hath spoken, that he
may declare it, for what the land peiisheth
and is burnt up like a wilderness, that none
passeth through? 13. And the Lord saith,
Because they have forsaken my law which
I set before them, and have not obeyed my
voice, neither walked therein ; 1 4. But have
walked after the imagination of their own
heart, and after Baalim, which their fathers
taught them; 15. Therefore thus saitli the
Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, 1
will feed them, even this people, with worm¬
wood, and give them water of gall to drink.
16. 1 will scatter them also among the hea¬
then, whom neither they nor their fathers
have known: and I will send a sword after
them, till I have consumed them. 1 7. Thus
saitli the Lord of hosts, Consider ye, and
call for the mourning women, that they may
come; and send for cunning women , that
they may come; 18. And let them make
haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our
eyes may run down with tears, and our
eyelids gush out with waters. 19. For a
voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, How
are we spoiled ! we are greatly confound¬
ed, because we have forsaken the land, be¬
cause our dwellings have cast us out. 20.
Yet hear the word of the Lord, O ye wo¬
men, and let your ear receive the word of
his mouth, and teach your daughters wail¬
ing, and every one her neighbour lamenta¬
tion : 2 1 . For death is come up into our win¬
dows, and is entered into our palaces, to cut
off the children from without, and the young
men from the streets. 22. Speak, Thus
saith the Lord, Even the carcases of men
shall fall as dung upon the open field, and
as the handful after the harvest-man, and
none shall gather them.
Two things the prophet designs in tluse versts,
with reference to the approaching destruction cf
JEREMIAH, IX. 37)
hida. and Jerusalem. 1. To convince people of
the justice of God in it, that they had by sin brought
it upon themselves, and that therefore they had no
reason to quarrel with God, who did them no wrong
at all, but a great deal of reason to fall out with
their sins, which did them all this mischief. 2. To
affect people with the greatness of the desolation
that was coming, and the miserable effects of it,
that by a terrible prospect of it they might be
awakened to repentance and reformation, which
was the only way to prevent it, or, at least, mitigate
their own share in it. This being designed,
I. He calls for the thinking men, by them to show
people the equity of God’s proceedings, though they
seemed harsh and severe; (v. 12.) “ Who, where,
is the wise man, or the prophet, to whom the mouth
of the Lord hath sfioken? You boast of your wis¬
dom, and of the prophets you have among you; pro¬
duce me any one that has but the free use of human
reason, or any acquaintance with divine revelation,
and he will soon understand this himself, and it will
be so clear to him, that he will be ready to declare
it to others, th..t there is a just ground of God’s con¬
troversy with this people.” Do these wise men in¬
quire, For what does the land perish? What is the
matter, that such a change is made with this land?
It used to be a land that God cared for, and he had
his eyes upon it for good; (Deut. xi. 12.) but it is
now a land that he has forsaken, and that his face is
against: it used to flourish as the garden of the Lord,
and to be replenished with inhabitants; but now it
is burnt up like a wilderness, that none passeth
through it, much less cares to settle in it. It was
supposed, long ago, that it would be asked, when
it came to this. Wherefore has the Lord done thus
unto this land? What means the heat of this great
anger? (Deut. xxix. 24.) to which question God
here gives a full answer, before which all flesh must
be silent. He produces out of the record,
1. The indictment preferred and proved against
them, upon which they had been found guilty, v.
13, 14. It is charged upon them, and it cannot be
denied, (1.) That they have revolted from their
allegiance to their rightful Sovereign: therefore God
has forsaken their land, and justly, because they
h ive forsaken his law , which he had so plainly, so
fully, so frequently set before them, and had not ob¬
served his orders, not obeyed his voice, nor walked
in the ways that he had appointed. Here their
wickedness began, in the omission of their duty to
their God, and a contempt of his authority. But it
did not end here. It is further charged upon them,
(2.) That they have entered themselves into the
service of pretenders and usurpers, have not only
withdrawn themselves from their obedience to their
Prince, but have taken up arms against him. For,
[1.] They have acted according to the dictates of
their own'lusts, have set up their own will, the wills
of the flesh, and the carnal mind, in competition
with, and contradiction to, the will of God; They
have walked after the imagination of their own
heart ; they would do as they pleased, whatever God
and conscience said to the contrary. [2.] They
have worshipped the creatures of their own fancy,
the work of their own hands, according to the tra¬
dition received from their fathers; They have walk¬
ed after Baalim; the word is plural; they had many
Baals, B lal-peor, and Baal-berith, the Baal of this
place, and the Baal of the other place; for they had
lords many, which their fathers taught them to wor¬
ship, but which the God of their fathers had again
and again forbidden. This was it for which the land
perished. The King of kings never makes war thus
upon his own subjects, but when they treacherously
dep irt from him, and rebel against him, and it is
become necessary by this means to chastise their
rebellion, and reduce them to their allegiance; and
they themselves shall at length acknowledge that
lie is just in all that is brought upon them.
2. Th judgment given upon this indictment, the
sentence upon the convicted rebels, which must non
be executed, for it was righteous, and nothing could
be moved in arrest of it; The Lord of hosts, the God
of Israel, hath said it; ( v . 15, 16.) and who can re¬
verse it? (1.) That all their o mforts at home shall
be poisoned and imbittered to them; I will feed this
people with worm wood; or, rather, with wolfs¬
bane, for it signifies an herb that is not wholesome,
as wormwood is, though it be bitter, but some herb
that is both nauseous and noxious; and I will give
them water of gall, or juice of hemlock, or some
other herb that is poisonous, to drink. Every thing
about them, till it comes to their very meat and
drink, shall be a terror and torment to them. God
will curse their blessings, Mai. ii. 2. (2.) That
their dispersion abroad shall be their destruction;
(i'. 16.) I will scatter them among the heathen.
They are corrupted and debauched by their intima¬
cy with the heathen, with whom they mingled them¬
selves, and learned their works; and now they shall
lose themselves there where they lost their virtue,
among the heathen; they had violated the laws of
that truth, which is the bond and cement of society
and commerce, and addicted themselves to deceit
and lying, and therefore are justly crumbled to dust,
and scattered among the heathen. They set up
gods which neither they nor their fathers had known,
strange gods, new gods; (Deut. xxxii. 17.) and now
God will put them among neighbours which neither
they nor their fathers have known, which they can
claim no acquaintance with, and therefore can ex¬
pect no favour from. And yet, though they are
scattered so as that they will not know where to
find one another, God will know where to find them
all out, (Ps. xxi. 8.) with that evil which still pur¬
sues impenitent sinners; I will send a sword after
them, some killing judgment or other, till I have
consumed them; for when God judges, he will over¬
come, when he pursues, he will overtake. And
now we see for what the land perishes; all this de¬
solation is the desert of their deeds, and the per¬
formance of God’s words.
II. He calls for the mourning women, and en¬
gages them with their arts to affect people, and
move their passion, to lament these sad calamities
that were come, or coming, upon them, that the
nation might be alarmed to prepare for them. The
Lord of hosts himself says, Call for the mourning
women, that they may come, v. 17. The scope of
this is to show how very woful and lamentable the
condition of this people was likely to be.
1. Here is work for the counterfeit mourners;
Send for the cunning women that know how to com¬
pose mournful ditties, or, at least, to sing them in
mournful tunes and accents, and therefore are made
use of at funerals to supply the want of true mourn¬
ers. Let these take up a wailing for us, v. 18. The
deaths and funerals were so many, that people
wept for them till they have no more power to weep,
as those, 1 Sam. xxx. 4. Let them therefore do it
now, whose trade it is; or, rather, it intimates the
extreme sottishness and stupidity of the people, that
laid not to heart the judgments they were under,
nor, even when there was so much blood shed, could
find in their hearts to shed a tear. They cry not
when God binds them. Job xxxvi. 13. God sent
his mourning prophets to them, to call them to
weeping and mourning, but his word in their nv uths
did not work upon their faith; rather therefore than
they shall go laughing to their ruin, let the mourn¬
ing women come, and try to work upon their fanev,
that their eyes may at length run down with tears,
and their eyelids gush out with waters. First
last, sinners must be weepers.
372 JEREMIAH, IX.
2. Here is work for the real mourners.
(1.) There is that which is a lamentation. The
present scene is very tragical; (v. 19.) j1 voice of
mailing is heard out of Zion; some make this to be
the song of the mourning women; it is rather an
echo to it, returned by those whose affections were
moved by their wailings. In Zion the voice of joy
and praise used to be heard, while the people kept
close to God; but sin has altered the note, it is now
the voice of lamentation. It should seem to be the
voice of those who fled from all parts of the country
to the castle of Zion for protection. Instead of re¬
joicing that they were got safe thither, they lament¬
ed that they were forced to seek for shelter there.
“ How are me spoiled! How are we stripped of
all our possessions! JVe are greatly confounded,
ashamed of ourselves and our poverty;” for that is
it that they complain of, that is it that they blush at
the thoughts of, rather than of their sin; We are
confounded because me have forsaken the land,
forced so to do by the enemy, not because we have
forsaken the Lord, drawn aside of our own lust and
enticed; because our dwellings have cast us out,
not because our God has cast us off. Thus unhum¬
bled hearts lament their calamity, but not their ini¬
quity, the procuring cause of it.
(2.) There is more still to come, that shall be for
lamentation. Things are bad, but they are likely
to be worse. They whose land has sfiued them out,
(as it did their predecessors the Canaanites, and just¬
ly, because they trod in their steps, (Lev. xviii. 28.)
complain that they are driven into the city, but after
awhile, those of the city, and they with them, shall
be forced thence too; Yet hear the word of the Lord,
he has something more to say to you; (v. 20.) let
the women hear it, whose tender spirits are apt to 1
receive the impressions of grief and fear, for the
men will not heed it, will not give it a patient hear¬
ing. The prophets will be glad to preach to a con¬
gregation of women that tremble at God’s word.
Let your ear receive the word of God’s mouth, and
bid it welcome, though it be a word of terror. Let
the women teach their daughters wailing; this in¬
timates that the trouble shall last long; grief shall
be entailed upon the generation to come. Young
people are apt to love mirth, and expect mirth, and
are disposed to be gay and airy; but let the elder
women teach the younger to be serious, tell them
what a vale of tears they must expect to find this
world, and train them up among the mourners in
Zion, Tit. ii .4, 5. Let everyone teach her neighbour
lamentation; this intimates that the trouble shall
s /tread far, shall go from house to house, people
shall not need to sympathise with their friends, they
■.hall all have cause enough to mourn for themselves.
Note, Those that are themselves affected with the
terrors of the Lord, should endeavour to affect others
with them.
The judgment here threatened is made to look
terrible.
[1.] Multitudes shall be slain, v. 21. Death shall
ride in triumph, and there shall be no escaping his
arrests, when he comes with commission, neither
within doors nor without : not within doors, for let
the doors be shut ever so fast, let them be ever so
firmlv locked and bolted, death comes ufi into our
windows, like a thief in the night; it steals upon us
•■re we are aware. Nor does it thus boldly attack
the cottages only, but it is entered into our palaces,
the palaces of our princes and great men, though
ever so stately, ever so strongly built and guarded.
Note, No palaces can keep out death. Nor are
those more safe that are abroad; death cuts off even
t'ie children from without, and the young men from
the streets. The children who might have been
.pared by the enemy in pity., because they had
never been hurtful to them, and the young men
who might have been spared in policy, because ca
pable of being serviceable to them, shall fall to
gether by the sword. It'is usual now, even in the
severest military executions, to put none to the
sword but those that are found in arms; but then
even the boys and girls playing in the streets were
sacrificed to the fury of the conqueror.
[2.] Those that are slain shall be left unburied;
(v. 22.) Speak, Thus saith the Lord, (for the con¬
firmation and aggravation of what was before said,)
Even the carcases of men shall fall as dung, ne¬
glected, and left to be offensive to the smell, as dung
is. Common humanity obliges the survivors to bury
the dead, even for their own sake; but here such
numbers shall be slain, and those so dispersed all
the country over, that it shall be an endless thing to
bury them all, nor shall there be hands enough to do
it, nor shall the conquerors permit it, and those that
should do it, shall be overwhelmed with grief, so that
they shall have no heart to do it. The dead bodies
even of the fairest and strongest, when they have
lain awhile, become as dung, such vile bodies have
we. And here such multitudes shall fall, that their
bodies shall lie as thick as heaps of dung in the fur¬
rows of the field, and no more notice shall be taken
of them than of the handfuls which the harvestman
drops for the gleaners, for tione shall gather them,
but they shall remain in sight, monuments of divine
vengeance, that the eye of the impenitent survivors
may affect their heart. Slay them not, bury them
not, lest my people forget, Ps. lix. 11.
23. Thus saith the Lord, Let not the
wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let
the mighty man glory in his might, let not
the rich man glory in his riches: 24. But
let him that glorieth, glory in this, that he
understandeth and knoweth me, that I am
the Lord which exercise loving-kindness,
judgment, and righteousness, in the earth :
for in these things I delight, saith the Lord.
25. Behold, the days come, saith the Lort,
that I will punish all them which are c’rcum-
cised with the uncircumcised ; 26. Egypt,
and Judah, and Edom, and the children of
Ammon, and Moab, and all that are in the
utmost comers, that dwell in the wilderness :
for all these nations are uncircumcised, and
all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in
the heart.
The prophet had been endeavouring to possess
this people with a holy fear of God and his judg¬
ments, to convince them both of sin and wrath; but
still they had recourse to some sorry subterfuge oi
other, under which to shelter themselves from the
conviction, and with which to excuse themselves in
their obstinacy and carelessness: he therefore sets
himself here to drive them from these refuges of
lies, and to show them the insufficiency of them.
I. When they were told how inevitable the judg¬
ment would be, they plead the defence of their
politics and powers, which, with the help of their
wealth and treasure, they thought made their city
impregnable. In answer to this he shows them the
folly of trusting to, and boasting of, all these stays,
while they have not a God in covenant to stay them¬
selves upon, v. 23, 24.
Hcreheshows, 3. What we may nor depend upon
in a day of distress; Let not the svise man glory in
his wisdom, as if with the help of that he could rut-
wit or countermine the enemy, or in tire greatest
JEREMIAH, X.
“Xtremitv find out some evasion or other; for a man’s
•vit.il m may fail him then when he needs it most,
and he may betaken in his own craftiness. Ahitho-
phel was befooled, and counsellors are often led away
foiled. But if a man’s policies fail him, vet surely
he may gain his point by might, and dint of courage;
n let not the strong man glory in his strength, tor
the battle is not always to the strong: David the
stripling proves too hard for Goliath the giant. All
human force is nothing without God, worse than
nothing against him. But may not the rich man’s
wealth be his strong city ? (Money answers all
things. ) No, Let not the rich man glory in his riches,
f >r they may prove so far from sheltering him,
that they may expose him, and make him the fairer
mark. Let not the people boast of the wise men,
and mighty men, and rich then that they have
among them, as if they could make their part good
against the Chaldeans, because they have wise men
to advise concerning the war, mighty men to fight
their battles, and rich men to bear the charges of the
war. Let not particular persons think to escape the
common calamity by their wisdom, might, or money,
for all these will prove but vain things for safety.
2. He shows what we may depend upon in a day
of distress, (1.) Our only comfort in trouble will be,
that we have done our duty. They that refused to
know God, (it. 6.) will boast in vain of their wisdom
and wealth; but they that know God intelligently,
that understand aright that he is the Lord, that
have not only right apprehensions concerning his
nature, and attributes, and relation to man, but re¬
ceive and retain the impressions of them, may glory
in this, it will be their rejoicing in the day of evil.
(2.) Our only confidence in trouble will be, that,
having through grace in some measure done our duty,
we shall find God a God all-sufficient to us. We may
glory in this, that, wherever we are, we have an
acquaintance with, and an interest in, a God that
exercises loving-kindness, and judgment, and righ¬
teousness, in the earth; that is not only just to all his
creatures, and will do no wrong to any of them, but
kind to all his children, and will protect them, and
provide for them. For in these things I delight.
God delights to show kindness, and to execute judg¬
ment himself, and is pleased with those who herein
are followers of him as dear children. Those that
have such knowledge of the glory of God as to be
changed into the same image, and' to partake of his
holiness, find it to be their perfection and glory; and
the God they thus faithfully conform to, they may
cheerfully confide in, in their greatest straits. But
the prophet intimates that the generality of this
people took no care about this. Their wisdom, and
might, and riches, were their joy and hope, which
would end in grief and despair. But those few
among them that had the knowledge of God, might
please themselves with it, and boast themselves of
it; it would stand them in better stead than thousands
of gold and silver.
II. When they were told how provoking their
sins were to God, they vainly pleaded the covenant
of their circumcision. They were, undoubtedly,
tire people of God; as they had the temple of the
Lord in their city, so thev had the mark of his chil¬
dren in their flesh. “ It Is true, the Chaldean army
has laid such and such nations waste, because they
weie uncircumcised, and therefore not under the
protection of the Divine Providence, as we are.”
To this the prophet answers, That the days of
visitation were now at hand, in which God would
punish all wicked people, without making any dis¬
tinction between the circumcised and uncircumcised,
v. 25, 26. They had by sin profaned the crown of
their peculiarity, and lived in common with the un¬
circumcised nations, and so had forfeited the benefit
of that peculiarity, and must expect to fare never
the better for it. God will fiunish the circumcised
with the uncircumcised. As the ignorance of the
uncircumcised shall not excuse their wickedness, so
neither shall the privileges of the circumcised ex¬
cuse theirs, but they shall be punished together.
Note, The Judge of all the earth is impartial, and
none shall fare the better af his bar for any external
advantages, but he will render to every man, cir¬
cumcised or uncircumcised, according to his works.
The condemnation of impenitent sinners that are
baptized, will be as sure as, nay, and more severe
than, that of impenitent sinners that are unbaptized.
It would affect one to find here Judah industriously
put between Egypt and Ed< m, as standing upon "a
level with them, and under the same doom, v. 26.
These nations were forbidden a share in the Jews’
privileges, Deut xxiii. 3. But the Jews are here
told that they shall share in their punishments.
Those in the utmost comers, that dwell in the wil¬
derness, are supposed to be the Kedarenes, and those
of the kingdoms of Huzor, as appears by comparing
ch. xlix. 28. — 32. Some think they are so called,
because they dwelt as it were in a corner of the
world: others, because they had the hair of their
head polled into corners. However that was, they
were of those nations that were uncircumcised in
flesh, and the Jews are ranked with them, and are as
near to ruin for their sins as they; for all the house
of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart: they have
the sign, but not the thing signified, ch. iv. 4. They
are heathens in their hearts, strangers to God, and
enemies in their minds by wicked works. Their
hearts are disposed to idols, as the hearts of the un¬
circumcised Gentiles are. Note, The seals of the
covenant, though they dignify us, and lay us under
obligations, will not save us, unless the temper of
our minds, and the tenor of our lives, agree with the
covenant. That only is circumcision, and that bap¬
tism, which is of the heart, Rom. ii. 28, 29.
CHAP. X. *
We may conjecture that the prophecy of this chapter was
delivered afler the first captivity, in the time of Jeconiah
or Jehoiachin, when many were carried away to Baby
Ion; for it has a double reference. I. To those that were
carried away into the land of the Chaldeans, a country
notorious above any other for idolatry and superstition':
they are here cautioned against the infection of the place,
not to learn the way of the heathen; (v. 1, 2.) for that
their astrology and idolatry are both foolish things, hr.
3. . 5. ) and the worshippers of idols brutish, v. 8, 9. So
it will appear in the day of their visitation, v. 14, 15.
They are likewise exhorted to adhere firmly to the God
of Israel, for that there is none like him, v. 6, 7. He is
the true God, lives for ever, and has the government of
the world ; (v. 10. . 13.) and his peopl&are happy in him,
v. 16. II. To those that yet remained in their own land.
They are cautioned against security, and bid to expect
distress, (v. 17, 18.) and that by a foreign enemy, which
God would bring upon them for their sin, v. 20. .22. This
calamity the prophet laments, (v. 19.) and prays for the
mitigation of it, v. 23. .25.
1. TTEAR ye the word which the Lord
XX speaketh unto you, O house of Is¬
rael: 2. Thus saith the Lord, Learn not
the way of the heathen, and be not dismay¬
ed at the signs of heaven ; for the heathen
are dismayed at them. 3. For the customs
of the people are vain : for one cutteth a tree
out of the forest (the work of the hands of
the workman) with the axe: 4. They deck
it with silver and with geld ; they fasten it
with nails and with hammers, that it move
not. 5. They are upright as the palm-tree,
but speak not; they must needs be borne
because they cannot go. Be not afraid of
JEREMIAH, X.
374
them; for they cannot do evil, neither also
is it in them to do good. 6. Forasmuch as
there is none like unto thee, O Lord; thou
art great, and thy name is great in might. 7.
Who would not fear thee, O King of na¬
tions? for to thee doth it appertain: foras¬
much as among all the wise men of the na¬
tions, and in all their kingdoms, there is none
like unto thee. 3. But they are altogether
Brutish and foolish ; the stock is a doctrine
of vanities. 9. Silver spread into plates is
brought from Tarshish, and gold from
IJphaz, the work of the workman, and of
the hands of the founder: blue and purple
is their clothing; they are all the work of
cunning men. 10. But the Lord is the true
God, he is the living God, and an everlasting
Iving; at his wrath the earth shall trem¬
ble, and the nations shall not be able to
abide his indignation. 1 1 . Thus shall ye say
unto them, The gods that have not made
the heavens and the earth, even they shall
perish from the earth, and from under these
heavens. 12. He hath made the earth by
his power, he hath established the world
by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the
heavens by !i:s discretion. 13. When he ut-
tereth his oice, there is a multitude of wa¬
ters in the heavens, and he causeth the va¬
pours to ascend liomthe ends of the earth; he
malmth lightnings with rain, and bringeth
form the wind out of his treasures. 1 4. Every
man is brutish in his knowledge; every
founder is confounded by the graven image:
for his molten image is falsehood, and there
is no breath in them. 15. They are vanity,
and the work of errors : in the time of their
visitation they shall perish. 16. The Por¬
tion of Jacob is not like them : for he is the
former of all things; and Israel is the rod of
his inheritance: The Lord of hosts is his
name.
The prophet Isaiah, when he prophesied of the
captivity in Babylon, added warnings against idola¬
try, and largely exposed the sottishness of idolaters,
not only because the temptations in Babylon would
be in danger of drawing the Jews there to idolatry,
but because the afflictions in Babylon were designed
1 1 cure them of their idolatry. Thus the prophet
Jeremiah here arms people against the idolatrous
usages and customs of the heathen, not only for the
use of those that were gone to Babylon, but of those
also that staid behind; that, being convinced and
reclaimed by the word of God, the rod might be
prevented, and it is written for our learning. Ob¬
serve here,
I. A sol -mn charge given to the people of God,
n 't to conform themselves to the wavs and customs
cf the heathen. Let the house of Israel hear and
receive this word from the God of Israel; “ Learn
not the way of the heathen, do not approve of it, no, j
ir r think indifferently c< ncerningit, much less imi-
tite it, or accustom yourselves to -it. Let not any
of their customs ste J in among y. u, (as thev are l
apt to do insensibly,) nor mingle themselves with
your religion.” Note, It ill becomes those that are
taught ot God, to learn the way of the heathen, and
to think of worshipping the true God with such rites
and ceremonies as they used in the worship of their
false gods. See Dent. xii. 29. — 31. It was the way
of the heathen to worship the host of heaven, the
sun, moon, and stars; to them they gave divine
honours, and from them they expected divine fa
vours, and therefore, according as the sigtis of hea
ven were, whether they were aus/iicious or ominous,
they thought themselves countenanced or discoun¬
tenanced by their deities; which made them observe
those signs, the eclipses of the sun and mot n, the
conjunctions and oppositions of the planets, and all
the unusual phenomena of the celestial globe, with
a great deal of anxiety and trembling. Business
was stopped, if any thing occurred that was thought
to bode ill; if it did but thunder on their left hand,
they were almost as if they had been thunderstruck.
Now God would not have his people to be dismayed
at the signs of heaven; to reverence the stars as
deities, or to frighten themselves with any prognos¬
tications grounded upon them. Let them fear the
God of heaven, and keep up a reverence of his
providence, and then they need not be dismayed at
the signs of heaven, for the stars in their courses
fight not against any that are at peace with God.
The heathen are dismayed at these signs, for they
know no better; but let not the house of Israel, that
are taught of God, be so.
II. Divers good reasons given to enforce this
charge.
1. The way of the heathen is very ridiculous and
absurd, and is condemned even by the dictates cf
right reason, v. 3. The statutes and ordinances cf
the heathen are vanity itself, they cannot stand the
test of a rational disquisition. This is again and again
insisted upon here, as it was by Isaiah. The Chal¬
deans valued themselves on their wisdom, in which
they thought that they excelled all their neighbours;
but the prophet here shows that they, and all others
that worshipped idols, and expected help and relief
from them, were brutish and sottish, and had nut
common sense.
(1.) Consider what the idol is that is worshipped;
it was a tree cut out of the forest originally, it was
fitted up by the hands of the workman, squared and
sawed, and worked into shape; see Isa. xliv. 12, 8cc.
But, after all, it was but the stock of a tree, fitter to
make a gate-post of than any thing else. But to
hide the wood, they deck it with silver and gold,
they gild or lacker it, or they deck it with gold and
silver lace, or cloth of tissue. They fasten it to its
place, which they themselves have assigned it, with
nails and hammers , that it fall net, or be thrown
down, or stolen away, v. 4. The image is made
straight enough, and it cannot be denied but that
the workman did his part, for it is upright as the
palm-tree, (t>. 5.) it looks stately, and stands up as
if it were going to speak to you, but it cannot speak,
it is a poor dumb creature; nor can it take one step
toward your relief. If there be any occasion for it
to shift its place, it must be carried in precession,
for it cannot go. Very fitly does it come in here,
“ Be not afraid of them, any more than of the signs
of heaven; be. not afraid of incurring their displea¬
sure, for they can do no evil: be net afraid ot for¬
feiting their favour, for neither is it in them to do
good. If you think to mend the matter by mt nding
the materials of which the idol is made, y< u dt ctive
yourselves. Idols of gold and silver are as unworthy
to be worshipped as wooden gods. The stock is "a
doctrine of vanities, v. 8. It teaches lies, teaches lies
concerning God. It is an instruction of vanities, it
is wood.” It is probable th t the idols of gohl and
silver had wood underneath Lr the substratum, and
375
JEREMIAH, X.
then silver spread into plates is brought from Tar-
shis/i, imported from beyond sea, and gold from
Uphaz, or J’haz, which is sometimes rendered the
fine gold, Ps. xxi. 3. A great deal of art is used
and pains taken about it. They are not such or¬
dinal', mechanics that are employed about these,
as about the wooden gods, v. 3. These are cunning
men, it is the work of the workman, the graver
must do Iris part, when it has passed through the
hands of the founder. Those were but decked
here and there with silver and gold, these are silver
and gold all over. And that these gods might be
reverenced as kings, blue and purple are their
clothing, the colour of royal robes, (n. 9.) which
amuses ignorant worshippers, but makes the mat¬
ter no better. For what is the idol when it is made,
and when they have made the best they can of it?
He tells us, ( v . 14.) They are falsehood, they are
not what they pretend to be, but a great cheat put
upon the world. They are worshipped as the gods
that give us breath and life and sense, whereas
they are lifeless, senseless things themselves, and
there is no breath in them; there is no spirit in them,
(so the word is,) they are not animated or inhabited,
as they are supposed to be, by any divine spirit or
numen — divinity, they are so far from being gods,
that they have not so much as the spirit of a beast
that goes downward. They are vanity, and the
work of errors, v. 15. Inquire into the use of them;
you will find they are vanity, they are good for
nothing, no help is to be expected from them, nor
any confidence put in them. They are a deceitful
work, works of illusions, or mere mockeries: so
some read the following clause. They delude those
that put their trust in them, make fools of them, or,
r..ther, they make fools of themselves. Inquire
into the rise of them; they are the work of errors,
grounded upon the grossest mistakes that ever men
who pretended to reason were guilty of. They are
the creatures of a deluded fancy; and the errors by
which they were produced, they propagate among
their worshippers.
(2. ) Infer hence what the idolaters are that wor¬
ship these idols; ( v . 8.) They are altogether brutish
and foolish; they that make them are like unto
them, senseless and stupid, and there is no spirit in
them, no use of reason, else they would never be¬
lieve in such gods, no sense of honour, else they
would never stoop to them, v. 14. Every man that
makes or worships idols, is become brutish in his
knowledge, brutish for want of knowledge, or brut¬
ish in that very thing which one would think they
should be fully acquainted with; compare Jude 10.
What they know naturally, what they cannot but
know by the light of nature, in those things, as
brute beasts, they corrupt themselves. Though in
tile works of creation they cannot but see the eter-
ntl power and godhead of the Creator, yet they are
become vain in their imaginations, not liking to re¬
tain God in their knowledge. See Rom. i. 21, 28.
Hay, whereas they thought it a piece of wisdom
thus 1 1 multiply gods, it really was the greatest folly
they could be guilty of. The world by wisdom
knew not God, 1 Cor. i. 21. Rom. i. 22. Every
founder is himself confounded by the graven image;
when he has made it by a mistake, he is more and
more confirmed in his mistake by it; he is bewil¬
dered, bewitched, and cannot disentangle himself
from the snare; or, it is what he will one time or
other be ashamed of.
2. The God of Israel is the one only living and
true God, and those that have him for their God,
need not make their application to any other; nay,
to set up any other in competition with him is the
greatest affront and injury that can be done him.
Let the house of Israel cleave to the God of Is¬
rael, and serve and worship him only. For,
(1.) He is a Nonsuch. Whatever men may sc*
in competition with him, there is none to be con-
pared with him. The prophet turns from spcal-
ing with the utmost disdain of the idols of the hea¬
then, (as well he might,) to speak with the most
profound and awful reverence of the God c f Israel;
(r. 6, 7:) “Forasmuch as there is none like unto
thee, O Lord, none of all the heroes which the
heathen have deified, and make such ado about;”
the dead men of whom they made dead images, and
whom they worshipped. “ Some were deified and
adored for their wisdom, but among all the wire
men of the nations, tiie greatest philosophers or
statesmen, as Apollo or Hermes, there is none like
thee. Others were deified and adored for their do¬
minion, but in all their royalty ,” ^so it may be read,)
“ among all their kings, as Saturn and Jupiter, there
is none like unto thee.” What is the glory of a
man that invented an useful art, or founded a flou¬
rishing kingdom, (and these were grounds sufficient
among the heathen to entitle men to an apotheosis,)
compared with the glory of him that is the Creator
of the world, and that forms the spirit of man with¬
in him? What is the glory of the greatest prince cr
potentate, compared with the glory of him whose
kingdom rules over all? He acknowledges, (i>. 6.)
0 Lord, thou art great, infinite and immense, and
thy name is great in might; thou hast all power,
and art known to have it. Men’s name is often be¬
yond their might, they are thought to be greater
than they are; but God’s name is great, and no
greater than he really is. And therefore who would
not fear thee, 0 King of nations? Who w< old not
choose to worship such a God as this, that can do
every thing, rather than such dead idols as the hea¬
then worship, that can do nothing? Who would not
be afraid of offending or forsaking a God whose name
is so great in might? Which of all the nations, if
they understand themselves aright, would not fear
him who is the King of nations? Note, It is no t
only the house of Israel that is bound to worship the
great Jehovah as the God of Israel, the Ewg of
saints, (Rev. xv. 3, 4.) but all the families of the
earth are bound to worship him as King of nations;
for to him it appertains, to him it suits and agrees.
Note, There is an admirable decency and congruity
in the worshipping of God only. It is fit that he
who is God alone, should alone be served; that he
who is Lord of all, should be served by all; that he
who is great, should be greatly feared, and greatly
praised.
(2.) His verity is as evident as the idol’s vanity,
v. 10. They are the work of men’s hands, and
therefore nothing is more plain than that it is a jest
to worship them, if that may be called a jest, which
is so great an indignity to him that made us; but the
Lord is the true God, the God of truth, he is God
in truth. God Jehovah in truth, he is not a Coun¬
terfeit, and Pretender, as they are, but is really
what he has revealed himself to be; he is one we
may depend upon, in whom, and bv whom, we can¬
not be deceived. [1.] Look upon him as he is in
himself, he is the living God; he is Life itself, has
life in himself, and is the Fountain of life to all the
creatures. The gods of the heathen are dead
things, worthless and useless, but ours is a living
God, and hath immortality. [2.] Look upon him
with relation to his creatures, he is a King, and ab¬
solute Monarch over them all, is their Owner and
Ruler, has an incontestable right both to command
them and dispose of them; as a King, he protects
the creatures, provides for their welfare, and pre¬
serves peace among them. He is an everlasting
King. The counsels of his kingdom were fr< m
everlasting, and the continuance of it will be to
everlasting. He is a King of eternity. The idols
whom they call their kings, are but of yeste rday,
JEREMIAH, X.
’ <’6
rtii.i will so r lie abolished ; and the kings uf the
LV.rtt th t them up to b ; worshi- red, will them¬
selves be in the dust snort!;. ; but the I ord shall reign
for ever, thy God, 0 Zion, unto al! generations:.
(3.) None knows the power of his anger. Let us
stand in awe, and not dare to provoke him by giving
that glory to another which is due to him alone, for
at his wrath the earth shall tremble, even the strong¬
est and stoutest of the kings of the earth; nay, the ]
earth, firmly as it is fixed, when he pleases, is made
to quake, and the rocks to tremble, Ps. civ. 32.
Hab. iii. 6, 10. Though the nations should join
together to contend with him, and unite their force,
vet they would be found utterly unable not only to
resist, but even to abide, his indignation. They
cannot only not make head against it, for it would
overcome them, but they cannot bear up under it,
for it would overload them, Ps. lxxvi. 7, 8. Nahum
i. 6.
(4.) He is the God of nature, the Fountain of all
being; and all the powers of nature are at his com¬
mand and disposal, v.' 12, 13. The God we wor¬
ship, is he that made the heavens and the earth, and
has a sovereign dominion over both; so that his in¬
visible things are manifested and proved in the
things that are seen.
[1.] If we look back, we find that the whole
world owed its original to him, as its first Cause.
It was a common saying even among the Greeks —
He that sets ufi to be another god, ought first to
make another world. While the heathen worship
gods that are made, we worship the God that made
us and all things. First, The earth is a body of
vast bulk, has valuable treasures in its bowels, and
more valuable fruit on its surface. It and them he
has made by his power; and it is by no less than an
infinite power, that it hangs upon nothing, as it does,
Job xxvi. 7. Ponderibus librata suis — Poised by
its own weight. Secondly, The world, the habita¬
ble part of the earth, is admirably fitted for the use
and %rvice of man, and he hath established it so by
his wisdom, so that it continues serviceable in con¬
st ant changes, and yet a continual stability from one
generation to another. Therefore both the earth
and the world are his, Ps. xxiv. 1. Thirdly, The
heavens are wonderfully stretched out to an incredi¬
ble extent, and it is by his discretion that they are
so, and that the motions of the heavenly bodies are
directed for the benefit cf this lower world. These
declare his glory, (Ps. xix. 1.) and oblige us to de¬
clare it, and not give that glory to the heavens,
which is due to him that made them.
[2. ] If we look up, we see his providence to be a
continued creation; (v. 13.) When he uttereth his
voice, (gives the word of command,) there is a mul¬
titude of waters in the heaxiens, which are poured
out on the earth, whether for judgment or mercy,
as he intends them. When he utters his voice in
the thunder, immediately there follow thunder¬
showers, in which there are a multitude of waters;
and those come with a noise, as the margin reads
it; and we read of the noise of abundance of
rain, 1 Kings xviii. 41. Nay, there are wonders
done daily in the kingdom of nature without
noise; He causes the vapours to ascend from the
ends of the earth, from all parts of the earth, even
the most remote, and chiefly those that lie next the
sea. All the earth pays the tribute of vapours, be¬
cause all the earth receives the blessing of rain.
And thus the moisture in the universe, like the
money in a kingdom, and the blood in the body, is
continu illy circulating for the good of the whole.
Those vapours produce wonders, for of 'hem are
f irmed lightnings for the rain and the winds which
God from time to time brings forth out of his trea¬
sures, as there is occasion for them, directing them
all in such measure and for such use as he thinks fit.
I a - payments are made cut cf the treasury. All the
mtteors are so ready to serve God’s purposes, that
he seems to have treasures of them, that cannot be
exhausted, and may at any time be drawn from, Ps.
cxxxv. 7. God glories in the treasures hehascf
these, Job xxxviii. 22, 23. This God can do; but
which of the idols of the heathen can do the like?
Note, There is no sort of weather but what furnishes
us with a proof and instance of the wisdom and
power cf the great Creator.
(5.) This God is Israel’s God in covenant, and the
felicity of even- Israelite indeed. Therefore let the
house of Israel cleave to him, and net forsake him
to embrace idols; for, if they do, they certainly
change for the worse, for (i». 16.) the Portion of
Jacob is not like them; their rock is net as cur Reck,
(Dcut.xxxii.31.) norcursliketheirmole-hills. Note,
[1.] They that have the Lord for their God, have
a full and complete happiness in him. The God cf
Jacob is the Portion of Jacob; he is his all, and in
him he has enough, and needs no more in this world
or the other. In him we have a worthy portion,
Ps. xvi. 5. (2.) If we have entire satisfaction and
complacency in God as our Portion, he will have a
gracious delight in us as his people, whom he owns
as the rod of his inheritance, his possession and trea¬
sure, with whom he dwells and by whom he is served
and honoured. [3. ] It is the unspeakable comfort of
all the Lord’s people, that he who is their God, is the
Former of all things, and therefore is able to do all
that for them, and give all that to them, which they
stand in need of. Their help stands in his name
who made heaven and earth. And he is the Lord
of hosts, of all the hosts in heaven and earth, has
them all at his command, and will command them
into the service of his people when there is oc¬
casion. This is the name by which they know
him, which they first give him the glory of, and
then take to themselves the comfort of. [4.] Herein
God’s people are happy above all other people,
happy indeed, bona si sua norint — did they but
know their blessedness. The gods which the hea¬
then pride, and please, and so portion themselves
in, are vanity and a lie; but the Portion of Jacob is
not like them.
3. The prophet, having thus compared the gods
! of the heathen with the God of Israel, (between
whom there is no comparison,) reads the doom, the
certain doom, of all those pretenders, and directs
the Jews in God’s name, to read it to the worship¬
pers of idols, though they were their lords and mas¬
ters; fi». 11.) Thus shall ye say unto them, and
the God ye serve will bear you out in saying it. The
gods which have not made the heavens and the earth,
and therefore are no gods, but usurpers of the ho¬
nour due to him only who did make heave n and
earth, those shall perish; perish of course, because
they are vanity; perish by his righteous sentence,
because they are rivals with him, as gods they shall
perish: from off the earth, even all those things on
earth beneath, which they make gods 'if ; and from
under these heavens, even all those things in the
firmament of heaven, under the highest heavens,
which are deified, according to the distribution in
the second commandment. These words in the ori¬
ginal are not in the Hebrew, like all the rest, but in
the Chaldee dialect, that the Jews in captivity might
have this ready to say to the Chaldeans in their own
language, when they tempted them to idolatry;
“ Do vou press us to worship vour gods? We will
never" do that; for,” (1.) “They are counterfeit
deities; they are no gods, for they have not made
the heavens and the earth, and therefore are not en¬
titled to our homage ; nor are we indebted to them
either for the products of the earth, or the influences
of heaven, as we are to the God cf Israel.” The
primitive Christians would say, when they were
377
JEREMIAH, X.
linked to worship such a god, Let him make a world,
and he shall be my god. While we have him to
worship, who made heaven and earth, it is very ab¬
surd to worship any other. (2.) “ Thev are con-
d mned deities; thev shall perish, the time shall
come when they shall be no more respected as they
are n iw, but shall be buried in oblivion, and they
and their worshippers shall sink together; the earth
shall no longer bear them, the heavens shall no
longer cover them, but both shall abandon them.”
It is repeated, v. 15. In the time of their visitation.
\\ hen G<xl comes to reckon with idolaters, he shall
make them weary of their idols, and glad to be rid
of them; they shall cast them to the moles and to the
bats, Isa. ii. 20. Whatever runs against God and
religion, will be run down at last.
1 7. Gather up thy wares out of the land,
O inhabitant of the fortress: 18. For thus
saith the Lord, Behold, I will sling out the
inhabitants of the land at this once, and will
distress them, that they may find it so. 19.
Wo is me for my hurt ! my wound is griev¬
ous: but I said, Truly this is a grief, and I
must bear it. 29. My tabernacle is spoiled,
and all my cords are broken : my children
are gone forth of me, and they are not; there
is none to stretch forth my tent any more,
and to set up my curtains. 21. For the pas¬
tors are become brutish, and have not sought
the Lord: therefore they shall not prosper,
and all their flocks shall be scattered. 22.
Behold, the noise of the bruit is come, and
a great commotion out of the north country,
to make the cities of Judah desolate, and a
den of dragons. 23. O Lord, I know that
the way of man is not in himself: it is not
m man that walketh to direct his steps. 24.
O Lord, correct me, but with judgment ;
not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to no¬
thing. 25. Pour out thy fury upon the hea¬
then that know thee not, and upon the fa¬
milies that call not on thy name : for they
have eaten up Jacob, and devoured him,
and consumed him, and have made his ha¬
bitation desolate.
In these verses,
I. The prophet threatens, in God’s name, the ap¬
proaching rum of Judah and Jerusalem, v. 17, 18.
The Jews that continued in their own land, after
some were carried into captivity, were very secure;
they thought themselves inhabitants of a fortress,
their country was their strong hold, and, in their
own conceit, impregnable; but they are here bid to
think of leaving it: thev must prepare to go after
their brethren, and pack up their effects in expec¬
tation of it; “ Gather up thy wares out of the land;
contract your affairs, and bring them into as little a
compass as you can. Arise, depart, this is not your
rest, Mic. ii! 10. Let not what you have lie scat¬
tered, for the Chaldeans will be upon you again, to
be the executioners of the sentence God has passed
upon you, (v. 18.) Behold, I will sling out the inha¬
bitants of the land at this once: they have hitherto
drop/ied out, by a few at a time, but one captivity
more shall make a thorough riddance, and they
shall be slung out as a stone out of a sling, so easily,
so thoroughly shall they be cast out; nothing of them
shall remain, they shall be thrown out with vio-
Vol. iv. — 3 B
I lence, and driven to a place at a great distance oft,
in a little time.” See this comparison used to sig¬
nify an utter destruction, 1 Sam. xxv. 29. Yet once
more, God will shake their land, and shake the
wicked out of it, Heb. xii. 26. He adds, And I will
distress them, that they mayfnd it so. He will ne t
only throw them out hence, (that he may dr, and
yet they may be easy elsewhere,) but, whitherso¬
ever they go, trouble shall follow them ; they shall
be continually perplexed and straitened, and at a
loss within themselves; and who or what can make
those easy whom God wilt distress, whom he will
distress, that they may find it so, that they may
feel that which they would not believe ? They were
often told of the weight of God’s wrath, and their
utter inability to make head against it, or bear up
under it: they were told that their sin would be their
ruin, and they would not regard or credit what was
told them; but now they shall find it so; and there¬
fore God will pursue them with his judgments, that
they may find it so, and be forced to acknowledge it.
Note, Sooner or later, sinners will find it just so as
the word of God has represented things to them,
and no better, and that the threatenings were not
bugbears.
II. He brings in the people sadly lamenting their
calamities; (v. 19.) Wo is me for my hurt! Some
make this the prophet’s own lamentation, not for
himself, but for the calamities and desolations of his
country. He mourned for those that would not be
persuaded to mourn for themselves; and since there
were none that had so much sense as to join with
them, he weeps in secret, and cries out, 1 Vo is me!
In mournful times, it becomes us to be of a mourn¬
ful spirit. But it may be taken as the language of
the people, considered as a body, and therefore
speaking as a single person. The prophet puts into
their mouths the words they should say; whether
they would say them or no, they should have cause
to sty them. Some among them would thus bemoan
themselves, and all of them, at last, would be forced
to do it.
1. They lament that the affliction is very great,
and that it is very hard to them to bear it; the more
hard because they had not been used to trouble,
and now did not expect it; “ Wo is me for my hurt,
not for what I fear, but for what I feel;” for they
are not, as some are, worse frightened than hurt.
Nor is it a slight hurt, but a wound, a wound that
is grievous, very painful, and very threatening.
2. That there is no remedy but patience; they
cannot help themselves, but must sit still, and abide
it. But I said, when I was about to complain of
my wound, To what purpose is it to complain?
This is a grief, and I must bear it as well as I can.
This is the language rather of a sullen than of a
gracious submission; of a patience per force, not a
patience by principle. When I am in'affliction, I
should say, “ This is an evil, and I will bear it, be¬
cause it is the will of God that I should, because his
wisdom has appointed this for me, and his grace
will make it work for good to me.” This is receiv¬
ing evil at the hand of God, Job ii. 10. But to say,
" This is an evil, and I must bear it, because I can¬
not help it,” is but a brutal patience, and argues a
want of those good thoughts of God, which we
should always have, even under our afflictions; sav¬
ing, not only, God can and will do what he pleases,
but, Let him do what he pleases.
3. That the country was quite ruined and wasted;
(u. 20.) My tabernacle is sfioiled. Jerusalem, though
a strong city, now proves as weak and moveable as
a tabernacle: their government is dissolved, and
their state fallen to pieces, like a tabernacle or tent,
when it is taken down, and all its cords, that should
keep it together, are broken. Or, by the taberna¬
cle here may be meant the temple, the sanctuary.
378
JEREMIAH, X.
which at first was but a tabernacle, and is now call¬
ed so, as then it was sometimes called a temple.
Their church is ruined, and all the supports of it
fail. It was a general destruction of church and
state, city and country, and there were none to re¬
pair these desolations; "My children are gone forth
of me; some are fled, others slain, others carried
into captivity, so that as to me they are not; I am
likelv to be an outcast, and to perish for want of
shelter; for there is none to stretch forth my tent any
more, none of my children that used to do it for me,
none to set up my curtains, none to do me any ser¬
vice.” Jerusalem has none to guide her of dll her
sons, Isa. li. 18.
4. That the rulers took no care, nor any proper
measures, for the redress of their grievances, and
the re-establishing of their ruined state; (v. 21.)
The pastors are become brutish. When the tents,
the shepherds’ tents, were spoiled, {y. 20.) it con¬
cerned the shepherds to look after them; but they
were foolish shepherds. Their kings and princes
had no regard at all to the public welfare, seemed
to have no sense of the desolations of the land, but
were quite besotted and infatuated. The priests,
the pastors of God’s tabernacle, did a great deal to¬
wards the ruin of religion, but nothing toward the
repair of it. They are brutish indeed, for they have
not sought the Lord; they have neither made their
peace with him nor their prayer to him; they had
no eye to him and his providence, in their manage¬
ment of affairs; they neither acknowledged the
judgment, nor expected the deliverance, to come
from his hand. Note, Those are brutish people,
that do not seek the Lord, that live without prayer,
and live without God in the world; every man is
either a saint or a brute. But it is sad indeed with
a people, when their pastors, that should feed them
with knowledge and understanding, are themselves
thus brutish. And what comes of it? Therefore
they shall not prosper; none of their attempts for
the public safety shall succeed. Note, Those can¬
not expect to prosper, who do not by faith and
prayer t ike God along with them in all their ways.
And when the pastors are brutish, what else can
he expected but that all their flocks should be scat¬
tered? For if the blind lead the blind, both will fall
into the ditch. The ruin of a people is often owing
to the brutishness of their pastors.
5. Th it the report of the enemy’s approach was
very dreadful; (v. 22.) The noise of the bruit is
come, of the report which at first was but whisper¬
ed and bruited abroad, as wanting confirmation. It
now proves too true; A great commotion arises out
of the north country, which threatens to make all
the cities of Judah desolate, and a den of dragons;
for they must all expect to be sacrificed to the ava¬
rice and fury of the Chaldean army. And what
else can that place expect, but to be made a den
of dragons, which has by sin made itself a den of
thieves?
III. He turns to God, and addresses himself to
him, finding it to little purpose to speak to the peo¬
ple. It is some comfort to poor ministers, that, if
men will not hear them, God will; and to him they
have liberty of access at all times. Let them close
their preaching with prayer, as the prophet, and
then they shall have no reason to say that they have
laboured in vain.
1. The prophet here acknowledges the sove¬
reignty and dominion of the divine providence, that
bv it, and not by their own will and wisdom, the
aff lirs both of nations and particular persons are di¬
rected and determined, v. 23. This is an article of j
our faith, which it is very proper for us to make j
confession of at the throne of grace, when we are
complaining of an affliction, or suing for a mercy;
"O Lord. I know, and believe, that the way of j
man is not in himself; Nebuchadnezzar did not
come of himself against our land, but by the direc¬
tion of a divine providence.” We cannot of our¬
selves do any thing for our own relief, unless God
work with us, and command deliverance for us, for
it is not in man that walketh, to direct his steps,
though he seem in his walking to be perfectly at
liberty, and to choose his own way. Those that
had promised themselves a long enjoyment of their
estates and possessions, were made to know by sad
experience, when they were thrown cut by the
Chaldeans, that the way of man is not in himself;
the designs which men lay deep, and think well
formed, are dashed to pieces in a mrment. We
must all apply this to ourselves, and mix faith with
it, that we are not at our own disposal, but under a
divine direction; the event is often overruled, so as
to be quite contrary to our intention and expecta¬
tion. We are not masters of our own way, nor can
we think that every thing should be according to
our mind; we must therefore refer ourselves to Gcd
and acquiesce in his will. Some think that the pro
phet mentions this, here, witli a design to makt
this comfortable use of it, that the way of the Chal
dean anny being not in themselves, they can do n<
more than God permits them; he can set bounds to
these proud waves, and say, Hitherto they shall
come, and no further. And a quieting considera¬
tion it is, that the most formidable enemies have
no power against us but what is given them from
above.
2. He deprecates the divine wrath, that it might
not fall upon God’s Israel, v. 24. He speaks not
for himself only, but on the behalf of his people;
O Lord, correct me, but with judgment, in mea¬
sure and with moderation, and in wisdom, no more
than is necessary for the driving cut of the foolish¬
ness that is bound up in our hearts: not in thine an¬
ger; how severe soever the correction be, let it
come from thy love, and be designed for cur good,
and made to work for good; not to bring us to no¬
thing, but to bring us home to thyself. "Let it not
be according to the desert of our sins, but according
to the designs of thy grace. Note, (1.) We cannot
pray in faith that we may never be corrected, while
we are conscious to ourselves that we need it and
deserve it, and know that as many as God loves, he
chastens. (2.) The great thing we should dread in
affliction, is, the wrath of God. Say not, Lord, do
not correct me, but, Lord, do not correct me in an¬
ger; for that will infuse wormwood and gall into the
affliction and misery; that will bring us to nothing;
we may bear the smart of his rod, but we cannot
bear the weight of his wrath.
3. He imprecates the divine wrath against the
oppressors and persecutors of Israel; ( v . 25.) Four
out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not.
This prayer does not come from a spirit of malice
or revenge, nor is it intended to prescribe to Gcd
whom he should execute his judgments upon, or in
what order: but, (1.) It is an appeal to his justice;
“Lord, we are a provoking people; but are there
not other nations that are more so? And shall we
only be punished? We are thy children, and may
expect a fatherly correction; but they are thine ene¬
mies, and against them we have reascn to think
thine indignation should be, not against us. ” This
is God’s usual method. The cup put into the hands
of God’s people is full of mixtures, mixtures of
mercv: but the dregs of the cup are reserved for
the wicked of the earth, let the m wring them out,
Ps. lxxv 8. (2.) It is a prediction of God’s judg¬
ments upon all the impenitent enemies < f his church
and kingdom. If judgment begin thus at the house
of God, what shall be the end of these that obm
not his gospel? 1 Pet. iv. 17. See how the heather.
are described, on whem God’s fury shall be piui
379
JEREMIAH, XI.
eri out. [1.] They are strangers to God, and are
content to be so. They know him not, nor desire
to know him. They are families that live without
prayer, that have nothing of religion among them;
they call not on God’s name. Those that re¬
strain prayer, prove that they know not God; for
they that know him will seek to him, and entreat
his favour. [2.] They are persecutors of the peo¬
ple of God, and are resolved to be so. They have
eaten up Jacob, with as much greediness, as those
that are hungry eat their necessary food; nay, with
more, for they never know when they have enough;
they have devoured him and consumed him , and
made his habitation desolate, that is, the land in
which he lives, or the temple of God, which is his
habitation among them. Note, What the heathen,
in their rage and malice, do against the people of
God, though therein he makes use of them as the
instruments of his correction, yet he will, for that,
make them the objects of his indignation. This
prayer is taken from Ps. lxxix. 6, 7.
CHAP. XI.
In this chapter, I. God by the prophet puts the people in
mind of the covenant he had made with their fathers, and
how much he had insisted upon it, as the condition of the
covenant, that they should be obedient to him, v. 1. .7.
II. He charges it upon them, that they, in succession
to their fathers, and in confederacy among themselves,
had obstinately refused to obey him, v. 8 - .10. III. He
threatens to punish them with utter ruin for their dis¬
obedience, especially for their idolatry; (v. II, 13.) and
tells them, that their idols should not save them, (v. 12.)
that their prophets should not pray for them ; (v. 14. ) he
also justifies his proceedings therein, they having brought
all this mischief upon themselves by their own folly and
wilfulness, v. 15 . . 17. IV. Here is an account of a con¬
spiracy formed against Jeremiah by his fellow-citizens,
the men of Anathoth; God’s discovery of it to him ; (v.
18, 19.) his prayer against them, (v. 20.) and a prediction
of God’s judgments upon them for it, v. 21 . . 23.
1 . f IT HE word that came to Jeremiah from
I the Lord, saying, 2. Hear ye the
words of this covenant, and speak unto the
men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of
Jerusalem; 3. And say thou unto them,
Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Cursed
be the man that obeyeth not the words of
this covenant, 4. Which I commanded your
fathers in the day that I brought them forth
out of the land of Egypt, from the iron fur¬
nace, saying, Obey my voice, and do them,
according to all which I command you: so
shall ye be my people, and I will be your
God ; 5. That I may perform the oath which
1 have sworn unto your fathers, to give them
a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is
this day. 7'hen answered I, and said, So
be it, O Lord. 6. Then the Lord said
unto me, Proclaim all these words in the
cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusa¬
lem, saying, Hear ye the words of this cove¬
nant, and do them. 7. For 1 earnestly pro¬
tested unto your fathers, in the day that I
brought them up out of the land of Egypt,
even, unto this day, rising early and protest¬
ing, saying, Obey my voice. 8. Yet they
obeyed not, nor inclined their ear, but walked
every one in the imagination of their evil
heart: therefore I will bring upon them all
the words of this covenant which I com¬
manded them to do: but they did them not.
9. And the Lord said unto me, A con¬
spiracy is found among the men of Judah,
and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
10. They are turned back to the iniquities
of their forefathers, which refused to hear
my words; and they went after other gods
to serve them : the house of Israel and the
house of Judah have broken my covenant,
which I made with their fathers.
The prophet here, as prosecutor in God’s name,
draws up an indictment against the Jews, for wilful
disobedience to the commands of their rightful So¬
vereign. For the more solemn management of this
charge,
I. He produces the commission he had to draw
up the charge against them ; he did not take pleasure
in accusing the children of his people, but God com¬
manded him to speak it to the men of Judah, v. 1, 2.
In the original it is plural; Speak ye this. For what
he said to Jeremiah, was the same that he gave in
charge to all his servants the prophets. They none
of them said any other than what Moses, in the law,
had said; to that therefore they must refer them¬
selves, and direct the people; “ Hear the words of
this covenant; turn to your Bibles, be judged by
them.” Jeremiah must now proclaim this in the
cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, that all
may hear, for all are concerned. All the words of
reproof and conviction, which the prophets spake,
were grounded upon the words of the covenant, and
agreed with that; “And therefore hear these words,
and understand by them upon what terms you stood
with God at first; and then, by comparing your
selves with the covenant, you will soon be aware
upon what terms you now stand with him.”
II. He opens the charter upon which their state
was founded, and by which they held their privi¬
leges. They had forgotten the tenure of it, and lived
as if they thought that the grant was absolute, and
that they might do what they pleased, and yet have
what God had promised; or as if they thought that
the keeping up of the ceremonial observances was
all that God required of them. He therefore shows
them, with all possible plainness, that the thing God
insisted upon was, obedience, that was better than
sacrifice. He said, Obey my voice; (v. 4.) and again,
(x>. 7.) “ Obey my voice; own God for your Master,
give up yourselves to him as his subjects and ser¬
vants; attend to all the declarations of his mind and
will, and make conscience of complying with them.
Do my commandments, not only in some things, but
according to all which I command you; make con¬
science of moral duties especially, and rest not in
those that are merely ritual; hear the words of the
covenant, and do them.”
1. This was the original contract between God
and them, when he first formed them into a people.
It was what he commanded their fathers, when he
first brought them forth out of the land of Egypt,
(v. 4.) and again, v. 7. He never intended to take
them under liis guidance and protection upon any
other terms. This was it that he required from
them, in gratitude for the great things he did for
them when he brought them from the iron furnace.
Therefore he redeemed them out of the service of
the Egyptians, which was perfect slavery, that he
might take them into his own service, which is per¬
fect freedom, Luke i. 74, 75.
2. This was not only laid before them then, but
it was with the greatest importunity imaginable
pressed upon them. v. 7. God not only commanded
380
JEREMIAH, XI.
it, but earnestly protested it, to their fathers, when
he brought them into covenant with himself. Moses
inculcated it again and again, by precept upon pre¬
cept, and line upon line.
3. This was made the condition of the relation
between them and God, which was so much their
honour and privilege; “ So shall ye be my people,
and I wilt be your God; I will own you for mine,
and you may call upon me as yours;” which inti¬
mates that if they refused to obey, they could no
longer claim the benefit of the relation.
4. It was upon these terms that the land of Canaan
was given them for a possession; Obey my voice, that
I may fier/orm the oath sworn to your fathers, to
give them a land flowing with milk and honey ,v. 5.
God was ready to fulfil the promise, but then they
must fulfil the condition; if not, the promise is void,
and it is just with God to turn them out of possession.
Being brought in upon their good behaviour, they
had no wrong done them if they were turned out
upon their ill behaviour. Obedience was the rent
reserved by the lease, with a power to re-enter for
non-p ivment.
5. This obedience was not only made a condition
of the blessing, but was required under the penalty
of a curse. This Is mentioned first here, (x>. 3.)
that they might, if possible, be awakened by the
terrors of the Lord; Cursed be the man, though it
were but a single person, that obeys not the words
of this covenant, much more when it is the body of
the nation, that rebels. There are curses of the
covenant as well as blessings; and Moses set before
them not only life and good, but death and evil;
(Deut. xxx. 15.) so that they had fair warning given
them of the fatal consequences of disobedience.
6. Lest this covenant should be forgotten, and,
because out of mind, should be thought out of date,
God had from time to time called to them to re¬
member it, and by his servants the prophets had
made a continu d claim of this rent; so that they
could not plead, in excuse of their non-payment, that
it had never been demanded ; from the day he brought
them out of Egypt to this day, (and that was near
one thousind years,) he had been, in one way or
other, at sundry times and in divers manners, pro¬
testing to them the necessity of obedience. God
keeps an account how long we have enjoyed the
means of grace, and how powerful those means have
been; how often we have been not only spoken to,
but protested to, concerning our duty.
7. This covenant was consented to; (v. 5.) Then
answered I, and said. Amen, so be it, O Lord.
These are the words of the prophet, expressing
either, (1.) His own consent to the covenant for
himself, and his desire to have the benefit of it.
God promised Canaan to the obedient; “Lord,” says
he, “ I take thee at thy word, I will be obedient; let
me have mine inheritance in the land of promise, of
which Canaan is a tvpe. ” Or, (2.) His good will,
and good wish, that his people might have the benefit
of it; ‘‘Amen; Lord, let them still be kept in pos¬
session of this good land, and not turned out of it;
make good the promise to them.” Or, (3.) His
people’s consent to the covenant; “Then answered
I, in the name of the people. So be it.” Taking it
in this sense, it refers to the declared consent which
the people gave to the covenant, not only to the pre¬
cepts of it, when thev said. All that tlie Lord shall
say unto us we will do, and will be obedient, but to
the penalties, when they said Amen to all the curses
upon mount Ebal. The more solemnly we have
engaged ourselves to God, the more reason we have
t< hope that it will be perpetual; and yet here it did
n it prove so.
III. He charges them with breach of covenant,
such a breach as amounted to a forfeiture of their
charter, v. 8. God had s;ud again and again, by
his law and by his prophets, “ Obey mu voire, do
as you are bidden, and all shall be well;” yet they
obeyed not; and because they wer<- esolved tun. to
submit the ir souls to God’s commandments, thev
would not so much as incline their ears to them, but
got as far as they could out of call; They wanted
every one in the imagination of their evil hear’, fol¬
lowed their own inventions; every man did as his
fancy and humour led him, right or wrong, lawful
or unlawful, both in their devotions and in their con¬
versations; see ch. vii. 24. What then can they tx-
pect, but to fall under the curse of the covenant,
since they would not comply with the commands
and conditions of it; Therefore I will bring upon
them all the words of this covenant, all the threatt n-
ings contained in it, because they did not what they
were commanded. Note, The words of the covenant
shall not fall to the ground. If we do not by i ur
obedience qualify ourselves for the blessings ol it,
we shall by our disobedience bring ourselves under
the curses of it.
That which aggravated their defection from God,
and rebellion against him, was, that it was general,
and as it were by consent, v. 9, 10. Jeremiah him¬
self saw that many lived in open disobedience to
God, but the Lord told him that the matter was
worse than he thought of; A conspiracy is found
among them, by him whose eye is upon the hidden
works of darkness. There is a combination against
God and religion, a dangerous design formed to over¬
throw God’s government, and bring in the preten¬
ders, the counterfeit deities. This intimates that
they were wilful and deliberate in wickedness; they
rebelled against God, not through incogitancy, but
presumptuously, and with a high hand; that they
were subtle and ingenious in wickedness, and car¬
ried on their plot against religion.witli a great deal
of art and management; that they were linked to¬
gether in the design, and, as is usual among con¬
spirators, engaged to stand by one another in it, and
to live and die together; they were resolved to go
through with it. A cursed conspiracy! O that there
were not the like in our day! Observe, 1. What the
conspiracy was; they designed to overthrow divine
revelation, and set that aside, and persuade people
not to hear, not to heed, the words of God. Thev
did all they could to derogate from the authorin' < f
the scriptures, and to lessen the value of them; they
designed to draw people after other gods to serve
them, to consult them as their oracles, and make
court to them as their benefactors. Human reason
shall be their god, a light within their god, an infal¬
lible judge their god, saints and angels their gods,
the god of this or the other nation shall be theirs;
thus, under several disguises, they are in the same
confederacy against the Lord and against his
anointed. 2. Who were in the conspiracy; one
would have expected to find some foreigners ring¬
leaders in it. No, (1.) The inhabitants of Jerusa¬
lem are in conspiracy with the men of Judah; ritv
and country agree in this, however they may differ
in other things. (2. ) Those of this generation seem
to be in conspiracy with those of the foregoing gene¬
ration, to carry on the war from age to age against
religion; They are turned back to the iniquities of
their forefathers, and are risen up in their ste al, a
seed of evil-doers, an increase of sinful men, Num.
xxxii. 14. In Josiah’s time there had heen a refor¬
mation, but after his death they returned to the
idolatries which then thev had renounced. (3.)
Judah and Israel, the kingdom of the ten tribes and
the two that were often at daggers-drawing one
with another, were yet in a conspiracy to break the
covenant God had made with their fathers, even
with the heads of all the twelve tribes. The house
of Israel began the revolt, but the house of Judah
soon came into the conspiracy. Now what else could
381
JEREMIAH, XI.
be expected, but that God should take severe me¬
thods, both for the chastising of these conspirators,
and the crushing of this conspiracy; for none ever
hardened his heart thus against God, and prospered.
He that rolls this stone, it will return upon him.
1 1 . Therefore thus saith the Lord, Be¬
hold, I will bring evil upon them, which they
shall not be able to escape; and though they
shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto
them. 12. Then shall the cities of Judah,
and inhabitants of Jerusalem, go and cry
unto the gods unto whom they offer incense:
but they shall not save them at all in the
time of their trouble. 13. For according to
the number of thy cities were thy gods, O
Judah; and according to the number of the
streets of Jerusalem have ye set up altars to
that shameful thing, even altars to burn in¬
cense unto Baal. 1 4. Therefore pray not
thou for this people, neither lift up a cry or
prayer for them: for I will not hear them in
the time that they ciy unto me for their trou¬
ble. 15. What hath my beloved to do in
my house, seeing she hath wrought lewdness
with many, and the holy flesh is passed from
thee? when thou doest evil, then thou re-
joicest. 16. The Lord called thv name,
A green olive-tree, fair, and of goodly fruit;
with the noise of a great tumult he hath
kindled fire upon it, and the branches of it
are broken. 1 7. For the Lord of hosts that
planted thee hath pronounced evil against
thee, for the evil of the house of Israel, and
of the house of Judah, which they have done
against themselves, to provoke me to anger,
in offering incense unto Baal.
This paragraph, which contains so much of God’s
wrath, might very well be expected to follow upon
that which goes next before, which contained so
much of his people’s sin. When God found so
much evil among them , we cannot think it strange
If it follows. Therefore I ivill bring evil upon them,
(v. 11.) the evil of punishment for the evil of sin;
and there is no remedy, no relief, the decree is gone
forth, and the sentence will be executed.
1. They cannot help themselves, but will be found
too weak to contest with God’s judgment; it is evil
•which they shall not be able to escape, or to go forth
out of, by any evasion whatsoever. Note, Those
that will not submit to God’s government, shall not
be able to escape his wrath. There is no fleeing
from his justice, no avoiding his cognizance. Evil
pursues sinners, and entangles them in .snares out of
which they cannot extricate themselves.
2. Their God will not help them, his providence
shall no way favour them; Though they shall cry
unto me, I will not hearken unto them. In their
affliction they will seek the God whom before they
slighted, and cry to him whom before they would
not vouchsafe to speak to. But how can they ex¬
pect to speed? For he has plainly told us, that he
lint turns away his ears from hearing the law, as
they did, (v. 8. "fur they inclined not their ear,) even
his prayer sh ,11 be an abomination to lnm, as the
iv r.l of the Lord was now to them a reproach.
3. "Phcir idols shall not helh them. v. 12. Thev
shall go and cry to the gods to whom they now offer
incense, and put them in mind of the costly services
wherewith they had honoured them, expecting they
should now have relief from them, but in vain: they
shall be sent to the gods whom they served; (Judg.
x. 4. Dent, xxxii. 37, 38.) and what the better?
7 hey shall, not save them at all, shall do nothing
toward their salvation, nor give them any prospect
ot it; they shall not afford them the least comfort or
relief, or mitigation of their trouble. It is God only
that is a Friend at need, a present powerful Help
in time oj trouble. The idols cannot help them¬
selves;^ how then sh uld they help their worship¬
pers? I hose th it make idols of the world and the
flesh, will in vain hoe recourse to them in a day
ot distress. It the idols could have done any real
kindness to their worshippers, they would have done
it tor this people, who had renounced the true God
to embrace them, had multiplied them according to
the number of their cities; {y. 13.) nay, in Jerusa¬
lem, according to the number of their 'streets; sus¬
pecting both their sufficiency and their readiness to
help them, they must have many, lest a few would
nut serve; they must have them dispersed in even
corner, lest they should be out of the way when they
had occasion for them. In Jerusalem, the city which
God had chosen to put his name there, publicly in
the streets of Jerusalem, in every street, they had
altars to that shameful thing, that shame, even to
Baal, which they ought to have been ashamed of,
with which they did reproach the Lord, and bring
contusion upon themselves. But now in their dis¬
tress, their many gods, and many altars, should
stand them in no stead. Note, Those that will not
be ashamed of their commission of sin as a wicked
thing, will be ashamed of their expectations from
sin as a fmitless thing.
4. Jeremiah's prayer shall not help them; (u. 14.)
what God had said to him before, (ch. vii. 16.) he
here says again. Pray not thou for this people.
This is not designed for a command to the prophet,
so much as for a threatening to the people, that they
should have no benefit by: the prayers ot their friends
for them. God would give no encouragement to the
prophets to pray for them, would not stir up the
Spirit of prayer, but cast a damp upon it; would
put it into their hearts to pray, not for the body of
the people, but for the remnant among them, to pray
for their eternal salvation, not for their deliverance
from the temporal judgments that were coming upon
them: and what other prayers were put up for
them, should not be heard. Those are in a sad case
indeed, that are cut off from the benefit of prayer.
“I will not hear them when they cry, and therefore do
not thou pray for them.” Note, Those that have
so far thrown themselves out of God’s favour, that
he will not hear their prayers, cannot expect bene¬
fit by the prayers of others for them.
5. The profession they make of religion shall
stand them in no stead, v. 15. They were originally
God’s beloved, his spouse, he was married to them
by the covenant of peculiarity; even the unbelieving
Jews are said to be beloved for the fathers' sakes,
Horn. xi. 28. As such, they had a place in God’s
house, they were admitted to worship in the courts
of his temple, they partook of God’s altar, they ate
of the flesh of their peace-offerings, here called the
holy flesh, which God had the honour of, and thev
had tlie comfort of. This they gloried in, and trust¬
ed to. What harm ci uld come to tin se who were
God’s beloved, who were under the protection of
his house? Even when they did evil, yet they re¬
joiced and gloried in this, made a mighty noise of
this. And when their evil was, (so the margin reads
it,) when trouble came upon them, they rejoiced in
this, and made this their confidence ; but their con¬
fidence would deceive them, for God has rejected it,
382
JEREMIAH, XI.
they themselves have forfeited the privileges they
so much boasted of. They have wrought lewdness
with many , have been guilty of spiritual whoredom,
have worshipped many idols. And therefore, (1. )
God’s temple will yield them no protection; it is fit
that the adulteress, especially when she has so often
repeated her whoredoms, and is grown so impudent
in them, and irreclaimable, should be put away,
and turned out of doors; “ What has my beloved to
do in my house? She is a scandal to it, and there¬
fore it shall no longer be a shelter to her.” (2.)
God’s altar will yield them no satisfaction, nor can
they expect any comfort from that; The holy flesh
is passed from thee, an end will soon be put to thy
sacrifices, when the temple shall be laid in ruins;
and where then will the holy flesh be that thou art
so proud of?” A holy heart will be a comfort to us
when the holy flesh is passed from us; an inward
principle of grace will make up the want of the out¬
ward means of grace. But wo unto us if the de¬
parture of the holy flesh be accompanied with the
departure of the Holy Spirit.
6. God’s former favours to them shall stand them
in no stead, v. 16, 17. Their remembrance of them
shall be no comfort to them under their troubles,
and God’s remembrance of them shall be no argu¬
ment for their relief. (1.) It is true, God had done
great things for them; that people had been favour¬
ites above any people under the sun, they had been
the darlings of heaven, God had called Israel’s name
a green olive-tree, and had made them so, for he
miscalls nothing; he had planted them, (v. 17.) had
formed them into a people, with all the advantages
they could have to make them a fruitful and flou¬
rishing people, so good was their law, and so good
was their land. One would think no other, than
that a people so planted, so watered, so cultivated,
should be, as the olive-tree is, ever green, in re¬
spect both of piety and prosperity, Ps. lii. 8. God
called them fair, and of goodly fruit; both good
for food, and pleasant to the eye; both amiable and
serviceable to God and man, for with the green¬
ness and fatness of the olive both are honoured,
Judg. ix. 9. (2.) It is as true, that they have done
evil things against God; he had planted them a
green olive, a good olive, but they were degenerated
into a wild olive, Rom. xi. 17. Both the house of
Israel and the house of Judah had done evil, had
provoked God to anger in burning incense unto
Baal, setting up other mediators between them
and the supreme God beside the promised Messiah;
nay, setting up other gods in competition with the
true and living God, for they had gods many, as
well as lords many. (3.) When they have conduct¬
ed themselves so ill, they can expect no other than
that, notwithstanding what good he has done to
them, and designed for them, he should now bring
upon them the evil he has pronounced against them.
He that made them will not save them. He that
planted this green olive-tree, and expected fruit from
it, finding it barren and grown wild, has kindled fire
upon it., to 1 urn it as it stands; for, being without
fruit, it is twice dead, plucked up by the roots,
(Jude 12.) it is cut down, and cast into the fire, the
fittest place for trees that cumber the ground,
Matth. iii. 10. The branches of it, the high and
lofty boughs, (so the word signifies,) are broken,
are broken down, both princes and priests cut off.
And thus it proves, that the evil done against Gotl,
to provoke him to anger, is really done against them¬
selves, they wrong their own souls; God is out of
their reach, but they ruiu themselves. See ch. vii.
19. Note, Every sin against God is a sin against
ourselves, and so it will be found sooner or later.
18. And the Lord hath given me know¬
ledge of it, and I know it, then thou shew-
edst me their doings. 19. But I teas like
a lamb, or an ox, that is brought to the
slaughter; and I knew not that they had
devised deviees against me, saying, I ,et us
destroy the tree with the fruit thereof, and
let us cut him off from the land of the
living, that his name may be no more
remembered. 20. But, O Lord of hosts,
that judgest righteously, that triest the reins
and the heart, let me see thy vengeance on
them ; for unto thee have I revealed my
cause. 21. Therefore thus saith the Lord
of the men of Anathoth that seek thy life,
saying, Prophesy not in the name of the
Lord, that thou die not by our hand: 22.
Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts.
Behold, I will punish them ; the y'oung men
shall die by the sword, their sons and their
daughters shall die by famine : 23. And
there shall be no remnant of them, for I will
bring evil upon the men of Anathoth, even
the year of their visitation.
Tfie prophet Jeremiah has much in his writings
concerning himself, much more than Isaiah had,
the times he lived in being very troubles: me. Here
we have (as it should seem) the beginning of his
sorrows, which arose from those of his own city,
Anathoth, a priest’s city, and yet a malignant one.
Observe here,
1. Their plot against him, v. 19. They devised
devices against him, laid their heads together to
contrive how they might be in the mest plausible
and effectual manner the death of him. Malice is
ingenious in its devices, as well as industrious in its
prosecutions. They said concerning Jeremiah, Let
us destroy the tree with the fruit thereof; a prover¬
bial expression; “ Let us utterly destroy him, root
and branch. Let us destroy both the father and the
family;” (as, when Naboth was put to death for
treason, his sons were put to death with him;) or,
rather, “ Both the prophet and the prophecy; let us
kill the one, and defeat the other. Let us cut hin j
off from the land of the living, as a false prophet,
and load him with ignominy and disgrace, that his
name may be no more remembered with respect.
Let us sink his reputation, and so spoil the credit of
his predictions.” This was their plot; and, (1.) It
was a barbarous one; but so cruel have the perse¬
cutors of God’s prophets been. They hunt for no
less than the precious life, and very precious the
lives are, that they hunt for. But (2.) It was a baf¬
fled one. They thought to put an end to his days,
but he survived most of his enemies; they though*
to blast his memory, but it lives to this day, a, a.
will be blessed while time lasts.
2. The information which God gave him of this
conspiracy against him. He knew nothing of it him¬
self, so artfully had they concealed it; lie came to
Anathoth, tneaning no harm to them, and therefore
fearing no harm from them, like a lamb or an ox,
that thinks he is driven as usual to the field, when
he is brought to the slaughter; so little did poor
Jeremiah dream of tile design his citizens that hated
him had upon him. None of his friends c uld, and
none of his enemies would, give him any notice if
his danger, that lie might shift for his own safety;
as Paul’s sister’s son gave him intelligence of the
Jews that were Iv ing in wait frr him. There is but
a step between Jeremiah and death; hut tli n 'he
Lord gave him knowledge of it, by dream or visi* o,
383
JEREMI
or impression upon his spirit, that he might save ]
himself, as the king of Israel did upon the notice
Elisha gave him, 2 Kings vi. 10. Thus he came to
know it, God shows him their doings; and such
were their devices, that the discovering of them was j
tlie defeating of them. If God had not let him know
his own danger, it would have been improved by
unreasonable men against the reputation of his pre¬
dictions, that he who foretold the ruin of his coun¬
try, could not foresee his own peril and avoid it.
See what care God takes of his prophets; he suffers
no man to do them wrong; all the rage of their ene¬
mies cannot prevail to take them off till they have
finished their testimony. God knows all the secret
designs of his and his people’s enemies, and can,
when he pleases, make them known; A bird of the
air shall carry the voice.
3. His appeal to God hereupon, v. 20. His eye
is to God as the Lord of hosts that judges righte¬
ously. It is matter of comfort to us, when men deal
unjustly with us, that we have a God to go to, who
does and will plead the cause of injured innocency,
and appear against the injurious. God’s justice,
which is a terror to the wicked, is a comfort to the
godly. His eye is to him, as the God that tries the
reins and the heart; that perfectly sees what is in
m in; what are his thoughts and intents. He knew
the integrity that was in Jeremiah’s heart, and that
he was not the man they represented him to be.
He knew the wickedness that was in their hearts,
though ever so cunningly concealed and disguised.
Now, (1.) He prays judgment against them; “Let
me see thy x<engeance on them, do justice between
me and them in such a way as thou pleasest. ” Some
think there was something of human frailty in this
irayer; at least, Christ has taught us another lesson, |
loth by precept and by pattern, which is, to pray
for our persecutors. Others think it comes from a
pure zeal for the glory of God, and a pious prophetic
indignation against men that were, by profession,
priests, the Lord’s ministers, and vet were so des¬
perately wicked as to fly out against one that did
them no harm, merely for the service he did to God.
This petition was a prediction that he should see
God’s vengeance anthem. (2.) He refers himself
entirely to the judgment of God; “ Unto thee have I
revealed my cause; to thee I have committed it, not
desiring or expecting to interest any other in it”
Note, It is our comfort, when we are wronged, that
we have a God to commit our cause to; and our duty
to commit it to him, with a resolution to acquiesce
in his definitive sentence; to subscribe, and not pre¬
scribe, to him.
4. Judgment given against his persecutors, the
men of Anathoth. It was to no purpose for him to
appeal to the courts of Jerusalem, he could not have
right done him there, the priests there would stand
by the priests at Anathoth, and rather second them
than discountenance them; but God will therefore
take cognizance of the cause himself, and we are
sure that his judgment is according to truth.
Here is, (1.) Their crime recited, on which the
sentence is grounded, v. 21. They sought the pro¬
phet's life, for they forbid him to prophesy upon
pain of death; they were resolved either to silence
him or to slay him. The provocation he gave them,
was, his prophesying in the name of the Lord, with¬
out license from them that were the governors of
the city, which he was a member of; and not pro¬
phesying such smooth things as they always bespoke.
Their forbidding him to prophesy, was, in effect,
seeking his life; for it was seeking to defeat the end
and business of his life, and to rob him of the com¬
fort of it. It is as bad to God’s faithful ministers to
have their mouth stopped, as to have their breath
stc ipped. But especially when it was resolved, that,
if he did prophesy, as certainly he would, notwith-
AH, XIJ.
standing their inhibition, he should die by their hand;
they would be accusers, judges, executioners, and
all.' It used to be said, th..t a prophet could not
perish but at Jerusalem, fi r there the great council
sat; but so bitter were the men of Anathoth against
Jeremiah, that they would undertake to be the death
of him themselves. A prophet then shall find not
only no honour, but no favour, in his own country
(2.) The sentence passed upon them for this
crime, v. 22, 23. God says, 1 will punish them; let
me alone to deal with them, I will visit this upon
them; so the word is: God will inquire into it, and
reckon for it. Two of God’s fuur sore judgments
shall serve to ruin their town. The sword shall
devour their young men, though they were young
priests, not men ot war; their character shall not be
their protection; and fumine shall destroy the chil¬
dren, sons and daughters, that tarry at home;
which is a more grievous death than that by the
sword, Lam. iv. 9. The destruction shall be final,
(r’. 23.) There shall be no remnant of them left,
none to be the seed of another generation; they
sought Jeremiah’s life, and therefore they shall die;
they would destroy him, root and branch, that his
name might be no more remembered, and therefore
there shall be no remnant of them: and herein the
Lord is righteous. Thus evil is brought upon them,
even the year of their visitation; and that is evil
enough, a recompense according to their deserts.
Then shall Jeremiah see his desire upon his enemies.
Note, Their condition is sad, who have the prayers
of good ministers and good people against them.
CHAP. XU.
In this chapter, we have. I. The prophet’s humble com¬
plaint to God of the success that wicked people had in
their wicked practices, (v. 1,2.) and his appeal to God
concerning his own integrity, (v. 3.) with a prayer that
God would, for the sake of the public, bring the wicked¬
ness of the wicked to an end, v. 3, 4. II. God’s rebuke
to the prophet for his uneasiness at his present troubles,
bidding him prepare for greater, v. 5, 6. III. A sad la¬
mentation of the present deplorable state of the Israel
of God, v. 7 . . 13. IV. An intimation of mercy to God’s
eople, in a denunciation of wrath against their neigh-
ours that helped forward their affliction, that they
should be plucked out ; but with a promise, that if they
would at last join themselves with the people of God,
thev should come in sharers with them in their privileges,
v. 14. . 17.
Righteous art thou, o Lord,
j when [ plead with thee ; yet let me
talk with thee of thy judgments: Wherefore
doth the way of the wicked prosper? where¬
fore are all they happy that deal very
treacherously ? 2. Thou hast planted them;
yea, they have taken root: they grow ; yea,
they bring forth fruit : thou art near in their
mouth, and far from their reins. 3. But
thou, O Lord, knovvest me; thou hast seen
me, and tried my heart toward thee ; pull
them out like sheep for the slaughter, and
prepare them for the day of slaughter. 4.
How long shall the land mourn, and the
herbs of every field wither, for the wicked¬
ness of them that dwell therein ? the beasts
ate consumed, and the birds; because the\
said, He shall not see our last end. 5. 1 1
thou hast run with the footmen, and they
have wearied thee, then how canst thou
contend with horses ? and if in the land of
[ peace, wherein theu trustedst, they wearied
384
JEREMIAH, XII.
litre, then how wilt thou do in the swelling
of Jordan? 6. For even thy brethren, and
tile house of thy father, even they have dealt
treacherously with thee; yea, they have
railed a multitude after thee : believe them
not, though they speak fair words unto thee.
The prophet doubts not but it would lie of use to
others, to know what had passed between God and
his soul; what temptations he had been assaulted
with, and how he had got over them; and therefore
he here tells us,
I, What liberty he humbly took, and was gra¬
ciously allowed him, to reason with God concerning
his judgment, v. 1. He is about to plead w.th God,
not to quarrel with him, or find fault with his pro¬
ceedings, but to inquire into the meaning of them,
that he might more and more see reason to be satis¬
fied in them, and might have wherewith to answer
both his own and others’ objections against them.
The works of the Lord, and the reasons of them,
are sought out even of those that have pleasure
therein, Ps. cxi. 2. We may not strive with our
Maker, but we may reason with him. The pro¬
phet lays down a truth of unquestionable certainty,
which he resolves to abide by in managing this argu¬
ment; Righteous art thou, O Lord, when I plead
with thee. Thus he arms himself against the temp¬
tation wherewith he was assaulted, to envy the
prosperity of the wicked, before he entered into a
parley with it. Note, When we are most in the
d irk concerning the meaning of God’s dispensations,
we must still resolve to keep up right thoughts of
God, and must be confident of this, that he never
did, nor ever will do, the least wrong to any of his
creatures; even when his judgments are unsearch¬
able as a great deep, and altogether unaccountable,
yet his righteousness is as conspicuous and im¬
moveable as the great mountains, Ps. xxxvi. 6.
Though sometimes clouds and darkness are round
about him, yet justice and judgment are always the
habitation of his throne, Ps. xcvii. 2. When we
find it hard to understand particular providences,
we must have recourse to general truths as our first
principles, and abide bv them: however it be, the
Lord is righteous ; see Ps. lxxiii. 1. And we must
acknowledge it to him, as the prophet here, even
when we plead with him, as those that have no
thoughts of contending, but of learning, being fully
assured that he will be justified when he speaks.
Note, However we may see cause for our own in¬
formation to plead with God, yet it becomes us to
own that, whatever he says or does, he is in the
ht.
I. What it was in the dispensations of Divine
Providence, that he stumbled at, and that he
thought would bear a debate. It was that which
has been a temptation to many wise and good men,
and such a one as they had hardly got over. 1. They
see the designs and projects of wicked people suc¬
cessful: The way of the wicked prospers; they com¬
pass their malicious designs, and gain their point.
2. They see their affairs and concerns in a good
pos’ure; They are happy, happy as the world can
make them, though they deal treacherously, very
treacherously, both with God and mail. Hypo¬
crites are chiefly meant, (as appears, v. 2.) who
dissemble in their good professions, and depart from
their good beginnings and good promises, and in
both they deal treacherously, very treacherously.
It has been said, that men cannot expect to prosper
who are unjust and dishonest in their dealings; but
these deal treacherously, and yet they are happy.
He shows ( v . 2.) both their prosperity, and their
abuse of their prosperity. (1.) God had been very
indulgent to them, and they were got beforehand in
the world; “They are planted in a good land, a
land flowing with milk and honey, and thou hast
planted them; nay, thou didst cast out the heathen
to plant them,” 'Ps. xliv. 2. — lxxx. 8. Many a
tree is planted, that yet never grows, or comes to
any thing; but they have taken root, their prosperity
seems to be confirmed and settled; they take root in
the earth, for there they fix themselves, and thence
they draw the sap of all their satisfaction. Yet
many trees take root, which vet never come on; but
these grow, yea, they bring forth fruit; their fami¬
lies are built up, they live high, and spend at a great
rate; and all this was owing to the benignity ot the
Divine Providence, which smiled upon them, Ps.
lxxiii. 7. (2.) Thus God had favrured them,
though they had dealt treacherously with him: Thou
art near in their mouth, and far from their reins.
This was no uncharitable censure, for he spake by
the Spirit of prophecy, without which it is n< t sate
to charge men with hypocrisy, whose appearances
are plausible. Observe, [1.] Though they cared
not for thinking of God, nor had any sincere affec¬
tion to him, yet they could easily persuade them¬
selves to speak of him frequently, and with an air
of seriousness. Piety from the teeth outward is no
difficult thing. Many speak the language of Israel,
that are not Israelites indeed. [2.] 1 hi ugh the)
had on all occasions the name of God ready in their
mouth, and accustomed themselves to those forms
of speech that savoured of piety, yet they could net
persuade themselves to keep up the fear of God in
their hearts. The form of godliness should engage
us to keep up the power of it; but with them it did
not so.
III. What comfort he had in appealing to Gcd
concerning his own integrity; (n. 3.) But thou, 0
Lord, knowest me. Probably, the wicked men he
complains of were forward to reproach and censure
him, (c/i. xviii. 18.) in reference to which, this was
his comfort, that God was a Witness < f his integ¬
rity. God knew he was not such a rne as they
were, who had God near in their mouths, but far
from their reins; nor such a one as they took him
to be, and represented him, a deceiver and false
prophet; they that thus abused him did not know
him; (1 Cor. ii. 8.) “ But thou, 0 Lord, knowest
me, though they think me not worth their notice.”
1. Observe what the matter is, concerning which
he appeals to God, Thou knowest my heart toward
thee. Note, We are as our hearts are, and cur
hearts are good or bad, according as they are, or
are not, toward God; and this is that therefore con¬
cerning which we should examine ourselves, that
we may approve ourselves to God. 2. The cogni¬
zance to which he appeals; “Thou knowest me bet¬
ter than I know myself, not by hearsay or report,
for thou hast seen me, not with a transient glance,
but thou hast tried my heart. God’s knowing of us
is as clear and exact and certain, as if he had made
the most strict scrutiny. Note, The God with
whom we have to do, perfectly knows how cur
hearts are toward him. He knows both the guile
of the hvpocrite, and the sincerity of the upright.
IV. He prays that God would turn his hand
against these wicked people, and not suffer them to
prosper always, though they had prospered Irng;
“Let some judgment come to pull them out of this
f it pasture as sheep for the slaughter, that it may
appear thtir long prosperity was but like the feed¬
ing of lambs in a large place, to prepare them for
the day of slaughter,” Hos. iv. 16. God suffered
them to prosper, that by their pride and luxury
thev might fill up the measure of their iniquity, and
so be ripened for destruction; and therefore he
thinks it a piece cf necessary justice, that the y
should fall into mischief themselves., because the y
had done so much mischief to others, that they
38o
JEREMIAH, XII.
Mould be / lulled out of their land, because they had
brought ruin upon the land, and the longer they
continued in it, the more hurt they did, as the
plagues of their generation; (t>. 4.) “How long shall
'he land mourn (as it does under the judgments ot
God inflicted upon it) for the wickedness of them that
dwell therein ? Lord, shall they prosper themselves,
that ruin all about them?” 1. See here what the
judgment was, which the land was now groaning
under; The herbs of every field wither, the grass is
burnt up, and all the products of the earth fail; and
then it follows of course, the beasts are consumed,
and the birds, 1 Kings xviii. 5. This was the effect
of a long drought, or want of rain, which happened,
as it should seem, at the latter end of Josiah’s reign,
and the beginning of Jehoiakim’s; it is mentioned,
ch. iii. 3. — viii. 13. — ix. 10, 12. and more fully af¬
terwards, ch. xiv. If they would have been brought
to repentance by this lesser judgment, the greater
had been prevented. Now, why was it that this
fruitful land was turned into barrenness, but for
the wickedness of them that dwelt therein? Ps. evii.
34. Therefore the prophet prays that these wicked
people might die for their own sin, and that the
whole nation might not suffer for it. 2. See here
what was the language of their wickedness. They
said, He shall not see our last end; God himselt
shall not. Atheism is the root of hypocrisy; there¬
fore God is far from their reins, though near in
their mouth, because they say, How doth God
know? Ps. lxxiii. 11. Job xxii. 13. He knows not
what way we take, nor what it will end in. Or,
Jeremiah shall not see our last end; whatever* he
pretends, when he asks us what shall be in the end
hereof, he cannot himself foresee it. They look
upon him as a false prophet. Or, “ Whatever it is,
he shall not live to see it, for we will be the death
of him,” ch. xi. 21. Note, (1.) Men’s setting their
latter end at a great distance, or looking upon it as
uncertain, is at the bottom of all their wickedness,
Lam. i. 9. (2.) The whole creation groans under
the burthen of the sin of man, Rom. viii. 22. It is
for this, that the earth mourns; (so it may be read;)
cursed is the ground for thy sake.
V. He acquaints us with the answer God gave to
those complaints of his, v. 5,6. We often find the
prophets admonished, whose business it was to ad¬
monish others, as Isa. viii. 11. Ministers have les¬
sons to learn, as well as lessons to teach, and must
themselves hear God’s voice, and preach to them¬
selves. Jeremiah complained much of the wicked¬
ness of the men of Anathoth; and that, notwith¬
standing that, they prospered. Now this seems to
be an answer to that complaint. 1. It is allowed
that he had cause to complain ;(tu. 6.) “ Thy brethren,
the priests of Anathoth, that are ot the house of thy
father, who ought to have protected thee, and pre¬
tended to do so, even they have dealt treacherously
with thee, have been false to thee, and, under colour
of friendship, have designedly done thee all the
mischief they could; they have called a multitude
after thee, raised the mob upon thee, and incensed
the common people against thee, to whom they have
endeavoured, bv all arts possible, to render thee
despicable or odious, while at the same time they
pretend that they had no design to persecute thee,
or deprive thee of thy liberty. They are indeed
such as thou canst not believe, though they speak
fair words to thee. They seem to be thy friends,
but are really thine enemies.” Note, God’s faithful
servants must not think it at all strange, if their foes
be those of their own house, (Matth. x. 36.) and if
those they expect kindness from, prove such as they
can put no confidence in, Mic. vii. 5. 2. Yet he is
told that he carried the matter too far. (1.) He
laid the unkindness of his countrymen too much to
heart. They wearied him, because it was in a land
Vol. IV. — 3 C
of fieace wherein he trusted, v. 5. It was very griev¬
ous to him to be tlius hated and abused by his own
kindred. He was disturbed in his mind by it, his
spirit was sunk and overwhelmed with it, so that he
was in great agitation and distress about it. Nay,
he was discouraged in his work by it, began to be
weary of prophesying, and to think of giving it up.
(2.)He did not consider that this was but the begin¬
ning of his sorrow, and that he had sorer trials yet
before him; and whereas he should endeavour bv a
patient bearing of this trouble to prepare himself
tor greater, by his uneasiness under this he did but
unfit himself for what further lay before him; If
thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wea¬
ried thee, and run thee quite out of breath, then how
wilt thou contend with horses? If the injuries done
him by the men of Anathoth made such an impres¬
sion upon him, what would he do when the princes
and chief priests at Jerusalem should set upon him
with their power, as they did afterward, ch. xx. 2.
— xxxii. 2. If he was so soon tired in a land of
peace, where there was little noise or peril, what
would he do in the swellings of Jordan, when that
overflows all its banks, and frightens even lions cut
of their thickets? ch. xlix. 19. Note, [1.] While
we are in this world, we must expect troubles and
difficulties. Our file is a race, a warfare; we are in
danger of being run down. [2. ] God’s usual method
being to begin with lesser trials, it is our wisdom to
expect greater than any we have yet nut with.
We may be called cut to contend with horsemen,
and the sons of Anak may perhaps be reserved for
the last encounter. [3.] It highly concerns us to
prepare for such trials, and to consider what tut
should do in them. How shall we preserve cur in¬
tegrity and peace, when we come to the swelling-
of Jordan? [4.] In order to cur preparation for
further and greater trials, we are concerned to ap¬
prove ourselves well in present lesser trials, to keep
up our spirits, keep hold of the promise, keep in cur
way, with our eye upon the prize, so run that we
may obtain it.
Some good interpreters understand this as spoke n
to the people, who were very secure, and fearless
of the threatened judgments. If they have been so
humbled and impoverished by lesser calamities,
wasted by the Assyrians; if the Ammonites and
Moabites, who were their brethren, and with whom
they were in league, if these proved false to them,
(as undoubtedly they would,) then how would they
be able to deal with such a powerful adversary as
the Chaldeans would be? How would they bear
up their head against that invasion which she uld
come like the swelling of Jordan?
7. I have forsaken my house, I have left
my heritage; I have given the dearly-belov-
ed of my soul into the hand of her enemies.
8. My heritage is unto me as a lion in the
forest ; it crieth out against me : therefore
have I hated it. 9. My heritage is unto me
as a speckled bird; the birds round about
are against her; come ye, assemble all the
beasts of the field, come to devour. 10.
Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard,
they have trodden my portion under foot,
they have made my pleasant portion a deso¬
late' wilderness. 1 1. They have made it
desolate, and being desolate it mourneth
unto me; the whole land is made desolate,
because no man layeth it to heart. 12. The
spoilers are come upon all high places
JEREMIAH, XII.
. 3S6
through the wilderness: for the sword of the
Lord shall devour from the owe end of the
land even to the other end of the land: no
flesh shall have peace. 13. They have
sown wheat, but shall reap thorns; they
have put themselves to pain, hut shall not
profit ; and they shall be ashamed of your
revenues, because of the fierce anger of the
Lord.
The people of the Jews are here marked for ruin.
I. God is here brought in, falling out with them,
and leaving them desolate; and they could never
have been undone, if they had not provoked God
to desert them. It is a terrible word that God
here s lys, (y. 7.) I have forsaken my house; the
temple, which had been his palace, they had pollu¬
ted it, and so forced him out of it: I have left mine
heritage , and will look after it no more; his people
that lie has taken such delight in, and care of, are
now thrown out of his protection. They had been
the dearly beloved of his soul, precious in his sight,
and honourable above any people; which is men¬
tioned to aggravate their sin, in returning him
hatred for his love, and their misery, in throwing
themselves out of the favour of one that had such a
kindness for them, and to justify God in his dealings
with them: he sought not occasion against them, but
if they would have conducted themselves tolerably,
he would have made the best of them, for they were
the beloved of his soul; but they had conducted
themselves so that they had provoked him to give
them into the hand of their enemies, to leave them
unguarded, an easy prey to those that bore them ill
will. But what was the quarrel God had with a
people that had been so long dear to him? Why,
truly, they were degenerated. 1. They were be¬
come like beasts of prey, which nobody loves, but
every bodv avoids and gets as-f.ir off from as they
can; (v. 8.) Mine heritage is unto me as a lion in
the forest. Their sins cry to heaven for vengeance
as loud as a Hon roars. Nav, they cry out against
God in the threatenings and slaughter which they
breathe against his prophets that speak to them in
his name; and what is said and done against them,
God takes as said and done against himself. They
blaspheme his name, oppose his authority, and bid
defiance to his justice, and so cry out against him
as a lion in the forest. They that were the sheep
of God’s pasture, are become barbarous and raven¬
ous, and as ungovernable as lions in the forest,
therefore I hated them: for what delight could the
God of love take in a people that were now become
as roaring lions and raging beasts, fit to be taken and
shot at, as a vexation and torment to all about them?
2. Thev were become like birds of prey, and there¬
fore also unworthy a place in God’s house, where
neither beasts nor birds of prey were admitted to be
offered in sacrifice; (i>. 9.) Mine heritage is unto
me as a bird with talons; (so some read it, and so
the margin;) they are continually pulling and peck¬
ing at one another, they have by their unnatural
cont ntions made their country a cock-pit. Or, as
a speckled bird, dyed, or sprinkled, or bedewed, j
with the blood of her prey; the shedding of innocent
blood was Jerusalem’s measure-filling sin, and hast¬
ened their ruin, not only as it provoked God against
them, but as it provoked their neighbours likewise;
for those that have their hand against every ?nan,
shall have every man's hand against them; (Gen.
xvi. 12.) and so it follows here, the birds round
about are against her. Some make her a speckled,
pied, or motley bird, upon the account of their mix¬
ing the superstitious customs and usages of the
heathen with divine institutions in the worship of
God; they were fond of a party-coloured religion,
and thought it made them fine, when really it made
them odious. God’s turtle-dove is no speckled bird.
II. The enemies are here brought in falling upon
them, and laying them desolate. And some think
it is upon this account that they are compared to a
speckled bird, because fowls make a noise about n
bird of an odd, unusual colour. God’s people are,
among the children of this world, as men wondere~'
at, as a speckled bird; but this people had by their
own folly made themselves so; and the beasts and
birds are called and commissioned to prey upc
them, Let all the birds round be against her, for
God has forsaken her, and with them let all the
beasts of the field come to devour. Those that
have made a prey of others, shall themselves be
preyed upon. It did not lessen the sin of the nations,
but very much greatened the misery of Judah and
Jerusalem, that the desolation brought upon them
was by order from heaven. The birds and beasts
are perhaps called to feast upon the bodies of the
slain, as in St. John’s vision. Rev. xix. 17.
The utter desolation of the land by the Chaldean
army is here spoken of as a thing done; so sure, so
near, was it. God speaks of it as a thing which he
had appointed to be done, and vet which he had no
pleasure in, any more than in the death of other
sinners.
1. See with what a tender affection he speaks of
this land, notwithstanding the sinfulness of it, in re¬
membrance of his covenant, and the tribute of ho¬
nour and glory he had formerly had from it; It is
my vineyard, my portion, my pleasant portion, v.
10. Note, God has a kindness and concern for his
church, though there be much amiss in it; and his
correcting of it will every way consist with his com¬
placency in it.
2. See with what a tender compassion he speaks
of the desolations of this land; Many pastors, the
Chaldean generals that made themselves masters
of the country, and ate it up with their armies as
easily as the Arabian shepherds with their flocks
eat up the fruits of a piece of ground that lies com¬
mon; they have destroyed my vineyard, without
any consideration had either of the value of it, or of
my interest in it; they have with the greatest inso¬
lence and indignation trodden it under foot; and
that which was a pleasant land they have made a
desolate wilderness. The destruction was universal;
The whole land was made desolate; (y. 11.) it is
made so by the sword of war; the spoilers, the
Chaldean soldiers, are come through the plain upon
all high places; thev have made themselves masters
of all the natural fastnesses and artificial fortresses,
v. 12. The sword devours from one end of the
land to the other; all places lie exposed, and the
numerous army of the invaders disperse themselves
into every comer of that fruitful country, so that
no flesh shall have peace, none shall be exempt from
the calamity, nor be able to enjoy any tranquillity.
When all flesh have corrupted their way, no flesh
shall have peace; those only have peace, that walk
after the Spirit.
3. See whence all this misery comes. (1.) It
comes from the displeasure of God. It is the sword
of the Lord, that devours, v. 12. While God’s
people keep close to him, the sword of their pro¬
tectors and deliverers is the sword of the Lord,
witness that of Gideon; but when they have forsa¬
ken him, so that he is become their Enemy, and
fights against them, then the sword of their inva¬
ders and destroyers is become the sword of the
Lord; witness this of the Chaldeans. It is becattse
of the fierce anger of the Lord; (e. 13.) that was it
which kindled this fire among them, r nd made their
enemies so furious. And who may stand before
him, when he is angry? (2.) It is their sin that has
387
JEREMIAH, XII.
made God their Enemy, particularly their incor-
rigiblencss under former rebukes; (v. 11.) The land
mourns unto me, the country that lies desolate does,
as it were, pour out its complaint before God, and
humbles itself under his hand; but the inhabitants
are so senseless and stupid, that none of them lays
it to heart ; they do not mourn to God, but are un¬
affected with his displeasure, while the very ground
they go upon shames them. Note, When God’s
hand is lifted u/i, and men will not see, it shall be
laid on, and they shall be made to feet, Isa. xxvi. 11.
4. See how unable they should be to fence against
it; (v. 13.) “ They have sown wheat, they have
taken a deal of pains for their own security, and
promised themselves great matters from their en¬
deavours, but it is all in vain; they shall rea/i thorns,
that which shall prove very grievous and vexatious
to them; instead of helping themselves, they shall
but make themselves more uneasy: they have put
themselves to /lain, both with their labour, and with
their expectations, but it shall not profit; they shall
not prevail to extricate themselves out of the diffi¬
culties into which they have plunged themselves.
They shall be ashamed of your revenues, that they
have depended so much upon their preparations for
war, and particularly upon their ability to bear the
charges ot it.” Money is the sinews of war; they
thought they had enough of that, but shall be
ashamed of it; for their silver and gold shall not profit
them in the day of the Lord’s anger.
1 4. Tims saitli the Lord against all mine
evil neighbours, that touch the inheritance
which I have caused my people Israel to
inherit; Behold, I will pluck them out of
their land, and pluck out the house of Judah
from among them. 15. And it shall come
to pass, after that I have plucked them out
I will return, and have compassion on them,
and will bring them again, every man to his
heritage, and every man to his land. 16.
And it shall come to pass, if they will dili¬
gently learn the ways of my people, to swear
by my name, The Lord liveth; (as they
taught my people to swear by Baal;) then
shall they be built in the midst of my peo¬
ple. 17. But if they will not obey. I will
utterly pluck up and destroy that nation,
saitli the Lord.
The prophets sometimes, in God’s name, deliver¬
ed messages both of judgment and mercy to the na¬
tions that bordered on the land of Israel; but here is
a message to them all in general, who had in their
turns been one way or other injurious to God’s peo¬
ple, had either oppressed them, or triumphed in
their being oppressed. Observe,
I. What the quarrel was that God had with
them. They were his evil neighbours, v. 14. evil
neighbours to his church, and what they did against
it he took as done against himself, and therefore
called them his evil neighbours, that should have
been neighbourly to Israel, but were quite other¬
wise. Note, It is often the lot of good people to
live among bad neighbours, that are unkind and
provoking to them; and it is bad indeed when they
ar all so. These evil neighbours were the Moab¬
ite.-,. Ymmonites, Syrians, Edomites, Egyptians,
th it h id been evil neighbours to Israel in help¬
ing to debauch them, and draw them from God;
theref re God calls them his evil neighbours, and
now they helped to make them desolate, and joined
with the Chaldeans against them. It is just with
God to make those the instruments of trouble to us,
whom we have made instruments of sin. That
which God lays to their charge, is, that they have
meddled with the inheritance which I have caused
my people Israel to inherit; they unjustly seized
that which was none of their own: nay, they sacri¬
legiously turned that to their own use, which was
given to God’s peculiar people. He that said.
Touch not mine anointed, said also, “ Touch not
their inheritance; it is at your peril if you do.” Not
only the persons, but the estates, of God’s people
are under his protection.
II. What course he would take with them. 1. He
would break the power they had got over his peo¬
ple, and force them to make restitution; I will /iluck
out the house of Judah from among them; this
would be a great favour to God’s people, who had
either been taken captive by them, or, when they
fled to them for shelter, had been detained and
made prisoners; but it would be a great mortification
to their enemies, who would be like a lion disap¬
pointed of his prey. The house of Judah either
cannot, or will not, make any bold struggles toward
their own liberty; but God will with a gracious vio¬
lence pluck them out, will by his Spirit compel
them to come out, and by his power compel their
taskmasters to let them go, as he plucked Israel
out of Egypt 2. He would bring upon them the
same calamities that they had been instrumental to
bring upon his people; I will pluck them out of
their land. Judgment began at the house of God,
but it did not end there. Nebuchadnezzar, when
he had wasted the land of Israel, turned his hand
against their evil neighbours, and was a scourge to
them.
III. What mercy God had in store for such of
them as would join themselves to him, and become
his people, v. 15, 16. They had drawn in God’s
backsliding people to join with them in the service
of idols. If now they would be drawn by a return¬
ing people to join with them in the service of the
true and living God, they should not only have their
enmity to the people of God forgiven them, but the
distance which they had been kept at before should
be removed, and they should be received to stand
upon the same level with the Israel of God; this had
its accomplishment in part, when, after the return
out of captivity, many of the people of the lands
that had been evil neighbours to Israel, became
Jews; and was to have its full accomplishment in
the conversion of the Gentiles to the faith of Christ.
Let not Israel, though injured bv them, be implaca¬
ble toward them, for God is not; After that I have
plucked them out in justice for their sins, and in
jealousy for the honour of Israel, I will return, will
change my way, and have compassion on them.
Though, being heathen, they can lay no claim to
the mercies of the covenant, yet they shall have
benefit by the compassions of the Creator, who will
notwithstanding look upon them as the work of his
hands. Note, God’s controversies with his crea¬
tures, though they cannot be disputed, may be ac¬
commodated. Those who (as these here) have
been not only strangers, but enemies in their minds
by wicked works, may be reconciled, Col. i. 21.
Observe here,
1. What were the terms on which God would
show favour to them. It was always provided, that
they will diligently learn the ways of my people.
That is, in general, the ways that they walk in,
when they believe, as my people, not the crooked
wavs into which they have turned aside; the waj s
which my people are directed to take. Note, (1.)
There are good ways that are peculiarly the ways
of God’s people, which, however they may differ in
the choice of their paths, they are all agreed tr
383
JEREMIAH, XIII.
\v,,lk in. The ways of holiness and heavenly-mind-
ediiL-bs, of love and peaceableness, the ways of
piMVtT and sabbath-sanctification, and diligent at¬
tendance on instituted ordinances — these, and the
like, are the ways of God’s people. (2.) 1 hose
that would have their lot with God’s people, and
their last end like theirs, must learn their ways,
and walk in them; must observe the rule they walk
by, and conform to that rule, and the steps they
take by that rule, and go forth by those footsteps.
By an intimate conversation with God’s people they
must learn to do as they do. (3.) It is impossible
to learn the ways of God’s people as they should be
learned, without a great deal of care and pains: we
must diligently observe these ways, and diligently
oblige ourselves to walk in them; look diligently,
(Heb. xii. 15.) and work diligently, Luke xiii. 24.
In particular, they must learn to give honour to
God’s name, by making all their solemn appeals to
him. They must learn to say, The Lord liveth,
to own him, and to adore him, and to abide by his
judgment; as they taught my people to swear by
Baal. It was bad enough that they did themselves
swear by Baal, worse that they taught others, and
worst of all that they taught God’s own people, who
had been better taught: and yet, if they will at
length reform, they shall be accepted. Observe,
[1.] We must not despair of the conversion of the
worst; no, not of those who have been instrumental
to pervert and debauch others; even they may be
brought to repentance, and, if they be, shall find
mercv. [2.] Those whom we have been industri¬
ous to draw to that which is evil, when God opens
their eyes and ours, we should be as industrious to
follow in that which is good. It will be a holy re¬
venge upon ourselves to become pupils to those in
the way of duty, to whom we have been tutors in
the way of sin. [3.] The conversion of the deceiv¬
ed may prove a happy occasion of the conversion
even ot the deceivers. Thus they who fell together
into the ditch, are sometimes plucked together out
of it.
2. What should be the tokens and fruits of this fa¬
vour, when they return to God, and God to them.
(1.) They shall be restored to, and re-established
in, their own land; (n. 15.) I bring them again,
every man to his heritage. The same hand that
plucked them up, shall plant them again. (2.)
They shall become entitled to the spiritual privi¬
leges of God’s Israel; “If they will be towardly,
and learn the ways o f my people, will conform them¬
selves to the rules, and confine themselves to the
restraints, of my family, then shall they be built in
the midst of my people. They shall not only be
brought among them, to have a name and a place
in the house of the Lord, where there was a court
for the Gentiles, but they shall be built among them,
thev shall unite with them, the former enmities
shall be slain, they shall be both edified and settled
among them. See Isa. lvi. 5. — 7. Note, I hey that
diligently learn the ways of God’s people, shall en-
j ry the privileges and comforts of his people.
IV. What should become of those that were still
wedded to their own evil ways, yea though many of
t Pose about them turned to the Lord; (y. 17.) Jf
they will not obey, if any of them continue to stand
it out, I will utterly pluck up and destroy that na-
/ on, that family, that particular person, saith the
Lord. Those that will not be ruled by the grace
• f God, shall be ruined by the justice of God. And
jf disobedient nations shall be destroyed, much more
disobedient churches, from whom better things are
expected.
CHAP. XIII.
Still the prophet is attempting to awaken this secure and
stubborn people lo repentance, by the consideration of
the judgments of God that were coming upon them. He
is to tell them, I. By the sign of a girdle spoiled, that
their pride should be stained, v. 1 . . 11. 11. By the sign
of bottles filled with wine, that their counsels should be
blasted, v. 12 .. 14. III. In consideration hereof, he is
to call them to repent, and humble themselves, v. 15. .
21. IV. He is to convince them that it is for their obsti¬
nacy and incorrigibleness that the judgments of God
are so prolonged, and brought to extremity, v. 22 . . 27.
1. ^l^HUS saith the Lord unto me, Go
JL and get thee a linen girdle, and put
it upon thy loins, and put it not in water.
2. So I got a girdle, according to the word
of the Lord, and put it on my loins. 3.
And the word of the Lord came unto me
the second time, saying, 4. Take the girdle
that thou hast got, which is upon thy loins,
and arise, go to Euphrates, and hide it there
in a hole of the rock. 5. So I went, and
hid it by Euphrates, as the Lord com¬
manded me. 6. And it came to pass after
many days, that the Lord said unto me,
Arise, go to Euphrates, and take the girdle
from thence, which I commanded thee to
hide there. 7. Then I went to Euphrates,
and digged, and took the girdle from the
place where I had hid it; and, behold, the
girdle was marred, it was profitable for no¬
thing. 8. Then the word of the Lord
came unto me, saying, 9. Thus saith the
Lord, After this manner will I mar the
pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jeru¬
salem. 10. This evil people, which refuse
to hear my words, which walk in the imagi
nation of their heart, and walk after other
gods to serve them, and to worship them,
shall even be as this girdle, which is good
for nothing. 1 1. For as the girdle cleaveth
to the loins of a man, so have I caused to
cleave unto me the whole house of Israel,
and the whole house of Judah, saith the
Lord ; that they might be unto me for a
people, and for a name, and for a praise,
and for a glory : but they would not hear.
Here is,
I. A sign, the marring of a girdle which the pro
phet had worn for some time, by hiding it in a hole
of a rock, near the river Euphrates. It was usual
with the prophets to teach by signs, that a stupid,
unthinking people might be brought to consider and
believe, and be affected with what was thus set be¬
fore them. 1. He was to wear a linen girdle foi
some time, v. 1, 2. Some think he wore it under
his clothes, because it was linen, and it is said to
cleave to his loins, v. 11. It should rather seem to
be worn upon his clothes, for it was worn for a
name and a praise, and probably was a fine sash,
such as officers wear, and such as are commonly
worn at this day in the eastern nations. Hr must
not put it in water, but wear it as it was, that it
might be the stronger, and less likely to rot linen
wastes almost as much with washing as with wear¬
ing. Being not wet, it was the more stiff, and less
apt to ply, yet he must make a shift to wear it.
Probably, it was very fine linen, which will wear
long without washing. The prophet, like John
Baptist, was none of those that wore soft clothing.
38!i
JEREMIAH, XIII.
and therefore it would be the more strange to see him
with a linen girdle on, who probably used to wear a
leathern one. 2. After he had worn this linen gir¬
dle for some time, he must go and hide it in a hole
of a rock, (v. 4.) by the water’s side, where, when
the water was high, it would be wet, and when it
fell, would grow dry again, and by that means would
soon rot, sooner than if it were always wet or al¬
ways dry. 3. After many days, he must look for it,
and he should find it quite spoiled, gone all to rags,
and good for nothing, v. 7. It has been of old a
question among interpreters, whether this was
really done, so as to be seen and observed by the
people, or only in a dream or vision, so as to go no
further tluin the prophet’s own mind. It seems
hard to imagine that the prophet should be sent on
two such long journeys as to the river Euphrates,
each of which would take him up some weeks time,
when he could so ill be spared at home: fur that
reason, most incline to think the journey, at least,
was only in vision, like that of Ezekiel, from the
captivity in Clnddea to Jerusalem, (Ezek. viii. 3.)
and from thence back to Chaldea, ch. xi. 24. The
explanation of this sign is given only to the prophet
himself, (v. 8.) not to the people, the sign not being
public. But there being, it is probable, at that
time, great convcniencies of travelling between Je¬
rusalem and Babylon, and some part of Euphrates
being not so far off, but that it was made the utmost
□order of the land of promise, (Josh. i. 4. ) I see no
inconvenience in supposing the prophet to have
made two journies thither; for it is expressly said,
He did as the Lord commanded him; and thus gave
a signal proof of his obsequiousness to his God, to
shame the stubborness of a disobedient people; the
toil of his journey would be very proper to signify
both the pains they took to corrupt themselves
with their idolatries, and the sad fatigue of their
captivity; and Euphrates being the river of Baby¬
lon, which was to be the place of their bondage, was
a material circumstance in this sign.
II. The thing signified by this sign. The pro¬
phet was willing to be at any cost and pains to affect
this people with the word of the Lord: ministers
must spend, and be spent, for the good of souls.
We have the explanation of this sign, v. 9. — 11.
1. The people of Israel had been to God as this
girdle, in two respects. (1.) He had taken them
into covenant and communion with himself; As the
girdle cleaves very close to the loins of a man, and
surrounds him, so have I caused to cleave to me the
houses of Israel and Judah. They were a people
near to God; (Ps. cxlviii. 14.) they were his own,
a peculiar people to him, a kingdom of priests that
had access to him above other nations. He caused
them to cleave to him by the law he gave them, the
prophets he sent among them, and the favours
which in his providence he showed them. He re¬
quired their stated attendance in the courts of his
house, and the frequent ratification of their cove¬
nant with him by sacrifices: thus they were made
so to cleave to him, that one would think they could
never have been parted. (2.) He had herein de¬
signed his own honour; when he took them to be to
him for a fieofile, it was that they might be to him
for a name, and fora firaise, and for a glory ; as a
girdle is an ornament to a man, and particularly the
rurious girdle of the efihod was to the High Priest
for glory and for beauty. Note, Those whom
God takes to be to him for a fieofile, he intends to
be to him for a firaise. [1.] It is their duty to ho¬
nour him, by observing his institutions, and aiming
therein at his glory, and thus adorning their profes¬
sion. [2.] It is their happiness that he reckons
himself honoured in them and by them. He is
pleased with them, and glories in his relation to
them, while they behaved themselves as becomes
his people. He was pleased to take it among the
titles of his honour to be the God of Israel, even a
God to Israel, 1 Chron. xvii. 24. In vain do wc
pretend to be to God for a fieofile, if we be not to
him for a firaise.
2. They had by their idolatries and other iniqui¬
ties loosed themselves from him, thrown themselves
at a distance, robbed him of the honour they owed
him, buried themselves in the earth, and foreign
earth too, mingled themselves among the nations,
and were so spoiled and corrupted, that they were
good for nothing; they could no more be to God, as
they were designed, for a name and a firaise, for
they would not hear either their duty to do it, or
their privilege to value it; They refused to hear the
words of God, by which they might have been kept
still cleaving close to him; They walked in the im¬
agination of their heart, wherever their fancy led
them; and denied themselves no gratification they
had a mind to, particularly in their worship; They
would not cleave to God, but walked after other
gods, to serve them, and to worshifi them; they
doted upon the gods of the heathen nations that lay
towards Euphrates, so that they were quite spoiled
for the service of their own God, and were as this
girdle, this rotten girdle, a disgrace to their profes¬
sion, and not an ornament. A thousand pities it
was, that such a girdle should be so spoiled, that
such a people should be so wretchedly degenerate.
3. God would by his judgments separate them
from him, send them into captivity, deface all their
beauty, and ruin their excellency, so that they
should be like a fine girdle gone to rags, a worth¬
less, useless, despicable people. God will after this
manner mar the firide of Judah, and the great firide
of Jerusalem. He would strip them of all that
which was the matter of their pride, of which they
boasted, and in which they trusted; it should not
only be sullied and stained, but quite destroyed, like
this linen girdle. Observe, He speaks of the firide
of Judah; the country people were proud of their
holy land, their good land, but it is the great firide
of Jerusalem, there the temple was, and the royal
palace, and therefore those citizens were more proud
than the inhabitants of other cities. God takes no¬
tice of the degrees of men’s pride, thepride of some,
and the great pride of others; and he will mar it, he
will stain it. Pride will have a fall, for God resists
the proud. He will either mar the firide that is in
us, that is, mortify it by his grace, make us ashamed
of it, and, like Hezekiah, humble us for the pride
of our hearts, the great pride, and cure us of it,
great as it is; (and this marring of the pride will be
the making of the soul; happy for us, if by humbling
providences our hearts be humbled;) or else, he
will mar the thing we are proud of. Parts, gifts,
learning, power, external privileges, if we are proud
of these, it is just with God to blast them ; even the
temple, when it became Jerusalem’s pride, was
marred and laid in ashes. It is the honour of God
to look ufion every one that is firoud, and abase him.
12. Therefore thou shalt speak unto
them this word, Thus saith the Lord God of
Israel, Every bottle shall be filled with wine;
and they shall say unto thee, Do we not
certainly know that every bottle shall be fill¬
ed with wine? 1 3. Then shalt thou say unto
them, Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will
fill all the inhabitants of this land, even the
kings that sit upon David’s throne, and the
priests, and the prophets, and all the inhabi¬
tants of Jerusalem, with drunkenness. 14.
And I will dash them one against another,
390
JEREMIAH, XIII.
even the fathers and the sons together, saith
the Lord; I will not pity, nor spare, nor
have mercy, but destroy them. to. Hear
ye, and give ear; be not proud: for the
Lord hath spoken. 16. Give glory to the
Lord your God, before he cause darkness,
and before your feet stumble upon the dark
mountains, and while ye look for light, he
turn it into the shadow of death, and make
it gross darkness. 17. But if ye will not
hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places
for your pride ; and mine eyes shall weep
sore, and run down with tears, because the
Lord’s flock is carried away captive. 18.
Say unto the king and to the queen, Hum¬
ble yourselves, sit down ; for your principali¬
ties shall come down, even the crown of
your glory. 19. The cities of the south
shall be shut up, and none shall open them ;
Judah shall be carried away captive all of
it, it shall be wholly carried away captive.
20. Lift up your eyes, and behold them that
come from the north; where is the flock
that was given thee, thy beautiful flock ? 21.
What wilt thou say when he shall punish
thee? (for thou hast taught them to be cap¬
tains, and as chief over thee ;) shall not sor¬
rows take thee, as a woman in travail ?
Here is,
I. A judgment threatened against this people,
that would quite intoxicate them. This doom is
pronounced against them in a figure, to make it the
more taken notice of, and the more affecting, (to 12. )
Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Every bottle
shall be filled with wine; those that by their sins
have made themselves vessels of wrath fitted to
destruction, shall be filled with the wrath of God,
as a bottle is with wine; and as every vessel of
mercy prepared for glory shall be filled with mercy
and gloiy, so they shall be full of the fury of the
Lord, (Isa. li. 20.) and they shall be brittle as bot¬
tles; and as old bottles into which new wine is put,
they shall burst and be broken to pieces; (Matth.
ix. 17.) or, They shall have their heads as full of
wine as bottles are; for so it is explained, v. 13.
They shall be filled with drunkenness; compare Isa.
li. 17. It is probable that this was a common pro¬
verb among them, applied divers ways; but they,
not being aware of the prophet’s meaning in it, ridi¬
culed him for it; “ Do we not certainly know that
every bottle shall be filled with wine? What strange
thing is there in that? Tell us something that we
did not know before.” Perhaps they were thus
touchy with the prophet, because they apprehend¬
ed this to be a reflection upon them for their drunk¬
enness, and probably, it was in part so intended.
They love flagons of wine, Hos. iii. 1. They made
their king sick with bottles of wine, Hos. vii. 5.
Their watchmen were all for wine, Isa. lvi. 15.
They love their false prophets, that prophesied to
them of wine, (Mich. ii. 11.) that bid them lie
merry, for that they should never want their bot¬
tle to make them so. “Well,” savs the pro¬
phet, “ you shall have your bottles full of wine,
but not such wine as you desire.” They suspected
that he had some mystical meaning in it, which
prophesied no good concerning them, but evil; and
he owns that so he had. What he meant was this,
1. That they should be as giddy as men in drink.
A drunken man is fitly compared to a bottle or cask
full of wine; for when the wine is in, the wit, and
wisdom, and virtue, and all that is good for any
thing, are out. Now God threatens, (to 13.) that
they shall all be filled with drunkenness; they shall
be full of confusion in their counsels, shall falter in
all their talk, and stagger in all their motions; they
shall not know what they say or do, much less what
they should say or do. 1 hey shall be sick of all their
enjoyments, and throw them up as drunken men do.
Job xx. 15. They shall fall into a slumber, and be
utterly unable to help themselves, and, like men
that have drunk away their reason, shall lie at the
mercy, and expose themselves to the contempt, of
all about them. And this shall be the condition not
of some among them; (if any had been sober, they
might have helped the rest;) but even the kings that
sit upon the throne of David, that should have been
like their father David, who was wise as an angel
of God, shall be thus intoxicated. Their priests
and prophets too, their false prophets, that pretend¬
ed to guide them, were as indulgent of their lusts,
and therefore were justly as much deprived of tluir
senses, as any other. Nay, and all the inhabitants
both of the land and of Jerusalem were as far gone
as they. Whom God will destroy, he infatuates.
2. That, being giddy, they should run upon one
another. The cup of the wine of the Lord’s furv
shall throw them not only into a lethargy, so that
they shall not be able to help themselves cr one
another, but into a perfect phrenzy, so that they
shall do mischief to themselves and one another;
(i>. 14.) I will dash a man against his brother. N't
only their drunken follies, but their drunken frays,
shall help to ruin them. Drunken men are often
quarrelsome, and upon that account the y have wo
and sorrow; (Prov. xxiii. 29, 30.) so their sin is
their punishment; it was so here. God sent an evil
spirit intofamiles and neighbourhoods, (as Judg. ix.
23.) which made them jealous of, and spiteful to¬
wards, one another; so that the fathers and sons
went together by the ears, and were ready to pull
one another to pieces, which made them all an easy
prey to the common enemy. This decree against
them being gone forth, God says, I will not pity,
nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them; for
they will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but
destroy one another; see Hab. ii. 15, 16.
II. Here is good counsel given, which, by being
taken, might prevent this desolation. It is, in short,
to humble themselves under the mighty hand of
God. If they will hearken and give ear, this is
that which God has to say to them, Be not proud,
v. 15. This was one of the sins for which God had
a controversy with them; (to 9.) let them mortify
and forsake this sin, and God will let fall his con¬
troversy. “ Be not proud; when God speaks to you
by his prophets, do not think yourselves too good to
be taught; be not scornful, be not wilful, let not
your hearts rise against the word, nor slight the
messengers that bring it you. When God is coming
forth against you in his providence, (and by them
he speaks,) be not secure when he threatens, be not
impatient when he strikes, for pride is at the bot¬
tom of both.” It is the great God that has spoken,
whose authority is incontestable, whose power is ir¬
resistible; therefore bow to what he says, and be no
proud, as you have been.
They must not be proud, for,
1. They must advance God, and study how to do
him honour; Give glory to the Lord your God,
and not to your idols, not tc ' ther gods. Give him
glory, by confessing your sins, owning yourselves
guilty before him, and accepting the punishment of
your iniquity, to 16. Give him glory bv a sincere
repentance and reformation.” Then, and not till
JEREMIAH, XIII.
391
then, we begin to live as we should, and to some
good purpose, when we begin to give glory to the
Lord our God; to make his honour your chief end,
and to seek it accordingly. “ Do this quickly, while
your space to repent is continued to you; before he
cause darkness, before he bring his judgments upon
you, which you will see no way of escaping.” Note,
Darkness will be the portion of those that will not
repent, to give glory to God. When those that by
the fourth vial were scorched with heat, re/iented
not, to give glory to God, the next vial filled them
with darkness, Rev. xvi. 9, 10. The aggravation
of the darkness here threatened, is, (1.) That their
attempts to escape shall hasten their ruin; Their
feet shall stumble when they are making all the
haste they can over the dark mountains, and they
shall fall, and be unable to get up again. ' Note,
Those that think to outrun the judgment of God, will
find their road impassable; let them make the best
of their way, they can make nothing of it, the judg¬
ments that pursue them will overtake them; then-
way is dark and slippery, Ps. xxxv. 6. And there¬
fore, before it comes to that extremity, it is our wis¬
dom to give glory to him, and so make our peace
with him; to fly to his mercy, and then there will
be no occasion to fly from his justice. (2.) That
their hopes of a better state of things will be disap-
p inted; While ye look for light, for comfort and
relief, he will turn it into the shadow of death,
which is very dismal and terrible, and make it gross
darkness, like that of Egypt, when Pharaoh con¬
tinued to harden his heart, which was darkness
that might be felt. The expectation of impenitent
sinners perishes, when they die, and think to have
it satisfied.
2. They must abase themselves, and take shame
to themselves; the prerogative of the king and queen
will not exempt them from this; (n. 18.) “Say to
the king and queen, that, great as they are, they
must humble themselves by true repentance, and so
give both glory to God and a good example to their
subjects.” Note, Those that are exalted above
others in the world, must humble themselves be¬
fore God, who is higher than the highest, and to
whom kings and queens are accountable. They
must humble themselves, and sit down; sit down,
and consider what is coming; sit down in the dust,
and lament themselves. Let them humble them¬
selves, for God will otherwise take an effectual
course to humble them. “Your principalities shall
come down, the honour and power on which you
value yourselves, and in which you confide, even the
crown of your glory, your goodly or glorious
crown; when you are led away captives, where will
vour principality and all the badges of it be then?”
blessed be God, there is a crown of glory, which
those shall inherit who do humble themselves, that
shall never come down.
III. This counsel is enforced by some arguments,
if they continue proud and unhumbled.
1. It will be the prophet’s unspeakable grief; [y.
15.) “If you will not hear it, will not submit to the
word, but continue refractory, not only mine eye,
but my soul, shall weep in secret places.” Note,
The obstinacy of people, in refusing to hear the
word of God, will be a heart-breaking to their
poor ministers, who know something of the terrors
of the Lord and the worth of souls, and are so far
from desiring, that they tremble at, the thoughts of
the death of sinners. His grief for it was undis¬
sembled, his soul wept; and void of affectation, for
he chose to weep in secret places , where no eye saw
him but his who is all eye. He would mingle his
tears not only with his public preaching, but with
his private devotions. Nav, thoughts of their case
would make him melancholy, and he would become
a pertect recluse. It would grieve him, (1.) To see
their sins unrepented of; “My soul shall weep fat
your pride, your haughtiness, and stubbornness, and
vain confidence.” Note, The sins of others should
be matter of sorrow to us. We must mourn for that
which we cannot mend; and mourn the more for it,
because we cannot mend it. (2.) To see their ca
lamity past redress and remedy; “Mine eyes shal.
weep sore, not so much because my relations, friends,
and neighbours are in distress, but because the
Lord’s flock, his people, and the sheep of his p. s-
ture, are carried away captive.” That should al
ways grieve us most, by which God’s honour suf
fers, and the interest of his kingdom is weakened.
2. It will be their own inevitable ruin.r. 19. — 21.
(1.) The land shall be laid waste; The cities oj
the south shall be shut up. The cities of Judah lay
in the southern part of the land of Canaan; these
shall be straitly besieged by the enemy, so that
there shall be no going in and cut; or they shall be
deserted bv the inhabitants, that there shall be none
to go in and out. Some understand it cf the cities
of Egypt, which was south from Judah; the [daces
there, whence they expected succours, shall fail
them, and they shall find no access to them.
(2.) The inhabitants shall be hurried away into
a foreign country, there to live in slavery; Judah
shall be carried away captive. Some were already
carried off, which they hoped might serve to an¬
swer the prediction, and that the residue should
still be left; no, it shall be carried away all of it;
God will make a full end with them, it shall be
wholly carried away. So it was in the last captivity
under Zedekiah, because they repented not.
(3.) The enemy was now at hand, that should do
this; [v. 20.) “ Lift up your eyes. I see them upon
their march, and you may, if you will, behold them
that come from the north, from the land of the
Chaldeans; see how fast they advance, how fierce
they appear.” Upon this, he addresses himself to
the king, or, rather, (because tbe pronouns are fe¬
minine,) to the city rr state. [1.^ “What will
you do now with the people which is committed to
vour charge, and which you ought to protect?
Where is the flock that was given thee, thy beauti¬
ful flock? Whither canst thou take them now for
shelter? How can they escape these ravening
wolves?” Magistrates must look upon themselves
as shepherds, and those that are under their charge
as their flock, which they are intrusted with the
care of, and must give an account of; they must take
delight in them as their beautiful flock, and consi¬
der what to do for their safety in times of public
danger. Masters of families, who neglect their chil¬
dren, and suffer them to perish for want of a good
education, and ministers who neglect their people,
should think they hear God putting this question to
them. Where is the flock that was given thee to feed,
that beauteous flock? It is starved, it is left exposed
to the beasts of prey. What account wilt thou give
of them when the Chief Shepherd shall appear?
'2.1 “What have you to object against the equity
of God’s proceedings? What wilt thou say when he
shall visit upon thee the former days? Thru canst
say nothing, but that God is just in all that is brought
upon thee.” They that flatter themselves with
hopes of impunity, what will they say ! What con¬
fusion will cover their faces, when they shall find
themselves deceived, and that God punishes them!
[3.] “What thoughts will you now have of vrur
own folly, in giving the Chaldeans such power over
vou, by seeking to them for assistance, and joining
in league with them? Thus thou hast taught them
against thyself to be captains, and to become the
head.” Hezekiah began, when he showed his trea¬
sures to the ambassadors of the king of Babvl r,
tempting him thereby to come and plunder him.
Those who, having a God to trust to, court foreign
302
JEREMIAH, XIII.
alliances, and confide in them, do but make rods
fur tnemsvb cs, and teach their neighbours how to
become their masters. [4.] “How will you bear
tlie trouble that is at the door? tihall nut sorrows
take thee as a woman in travail'/ Sorrows which
thou canst not escape or put off, extremity of sor¬
rows; and in these respects more grievous than those
of a woman in travail, that they were not expected
before, and that there is no man-child to be born,
the joy of which shall make them afterward to be
forgotten. ”
22. And if thou say in thy heart, Where¬
fore come these tilings upon me? For the
greatness of thine iniquity are thy skirts dis¬
covered, and thy heels made bare. 23. Can
the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard
his spots? then may ye also do good, that
aie accustomed to do evil. 24. Therefore
will I scatter them as the stubble that pass-
eth away by the wind of the wilderness. 25.
This is thy lot, the portion of thy measures
from me, saith the Lord; because thou hast
forgotten me, and trusted in falsehood. 26.
Therefore will I discover thy skirts upon
thy face, that thy shame may appear. 27.
I have seen thine adulteries, and thy neigh-
ings, the lewdness of thy whoredom, and
thine abominations on the hills in the fields.
Wo unto thee, O Jerusalem! wilt thou not
be made clean? when shall it once be?
Here is,
I. Ruin threatened, as before, that the Jews shall
go into captivity, and fall under all the miseries of
beggary and bondage; shall be stripped of their
clothes, their skirts discovered, for want of upper
garments to cover them, and their heels made bare,
tor want of shoes, v. 22. Thus they used to deal
with prisoners taken in war, when they drove them
into captivity, naked and barefoot, Isa. xx. 4. Be¬
ing thus carried off into a strange country, they shall
be scattered there, as the stubble that is blown
away by the wind of the wilderness, and nobody is
concerned to bring it together again, v. 24. If the
stubble escape the fire, it shall be carried away by
the wind. If one judgment do not the work, ano¬
ther, shall with those that by sin have made them¬
selves as stubble. They shall be stripped of all
their ornaments, and exposed to shame, as harlots
that are carted, v. 26. They made their pride ap¬
pear, but God will make their shame appear ; so
that those who have doated on them, shall be
ashamed of them.
II. An inquiry made by the people into the cause
of this ruin, v. 22. Thou wilt say in thine heart,
(and God knows how to give a proper answer to
what men say in their hearts, though they do not
speak it out; Jesus knowing their thoughts, replied
to them, Matth. ix. 4.) Wherefore came these
things upon me/ The question is supposed to come
into the heart, 1. Of a sinner quarrelling with God,
and refusing to receive correction; they could not
see that they had done any thing which might justly
provoke God to be thus angry with them. They
durst not speak it out; but in their hearts they thus
charged God with unrighteousness, as if he had
laid upon them more than was meet. They seek
for the cause of their calamities, when, if they had
not b en wilfully blind, they might easily have seen
it. Or, 2. Of a sinner returning to God. If there
come but a penitent thought into the heart at any
time, (saying, What have I done/ ch. viii. 6. Where¬
fore am I in .affliction? Why doth God contend with
rpe?) God takes notice of it, and is ready by his
Spirit to impress the conviction, that, sin being dis¬
covered, it may be repented of.
III. An answer to this inquiry. God will be jus¬
tified wnen he speaks, and will oblige us to justily
him; and therefore will set the sin of sinners in i rrD r
before them. Do they ask. Wherefore come these
things upon us? Let them know, it is all owing tn
themselves.
1. It is for the greatness of their iniquities, v. 22.
God does not take adv antage against them for small
faults; no, the sins. for which he now punishes them
are of the first rate, very heinous in their own na¬
ture, and highly aggravated; for the multitude of
thine iniquity; so it may be read. Sins of every
kind, and often repeated and relapsed into. Some
think we are more in danger from the multitude of
our lesser sins than from the heinousness of cur
greater sins; of both we may say, Who can under
stand his errors'/
2. It is for their obstinacy in sin; their being s<
long accustomed to it, that there was little hope left
of their being reclaimed from it, v. 23. Can the
Ethiopian change his skin, that is by nature black,
or the leopard his spots, that are even woven into
the skin? Dirt contracted may be washed off, but
we cannot alter the natural colour of a hair, (Matth.
y. 36.) much less of the skin; and so impossible is
it, morally impossible, to reclaim and reform these
people. (1.) They had been long accustomed to
do evil; they were taught to do evil, they had been
educated and brought up in sin, they had served an
apprenticeship to it, and had all their days made a
trade of it. It was so much their constant practice,
that it was become a. second nature to them. (2.)
Their prophets therefore despaired of ever bring¬
ing them to do good. That was it they aimed at;
they persuaded them to cease to do evil, and learn
to do well, but could not prevail. They had so long
been used to do evil, that it was next to impossible
for them to repent, and amend, and begin to do
good. Note, Custom in sin is a very great hinder-
ance to conversion from sin. The disease that is
inv eterate, is generally thought incurable. Those
that have been long accustomed to sin, have shaken
off the restraints of fear and shame; their con¬
sciences are seared, the habits of sin are confirmed,
it pleads prescription, and it is just with God to
give those up to their own hearts’ lusts, that have
iong refused to give up themselves to his grace.
Sin is the blackness of the soul, the deformity of it;
it is its spot, the discolouring of it; it is natural to us,
we were shapen in it, so that we cannot get clear
of it by any power of our own; but there is an al¬
mighty grace that is able to change the Ethiopian’s
skin, and that grace shall not be wanting to these
that in a sense of their need of it seek it earnestly,
and improve it faithfully.
3. It is for their treacherous departures from the
God of truth, and dependence on lying vanities; ( v .
25. ) “ This is thy lot, to be scattered and driven
away; this is the portion of thy measures from me,
the punishment assigned thee as by line and mea¬
sure; this shall be thy share of the miseries of this
world; expect it, and think not to escape it: it is be¬
cause thou hast forgotten me, the favours I have
bestowed upon thee, and the obligations thou art
under to me; thou hast no sense, no remembrance,
of these.” Forgetfulness of God is at the bottom of
all sin, as the remembrance of our Creator betimes
is the happv and hopeful beginning of a holy life.
“ Having forgotten me, thou hast trusted in false¬
hood, in idols, in an arm of flesh, in Egypt and As¬
syria, in the self-flatteries of a deceitful heart.”
Whatever those trust to, that forsake G id, they
will find it a broken reed, a broken cisltrr,
39.3
JEREMIAH, XIV.
A It is for their idolatry, their spiritual whore¬
dom, that sin which is of all other most provok¬
ing to the jealous God. Therefore they are ex¬
posed to a shameful calamity , (u. 26.) because they
have been guilty of a shameful inirjuity, and yet are
shameless in it; (v. 27.) “/ have seen thine adulte¬
ries, thine inordinate fancy for strange gods, which
thou hast been impatient for the gratification of, and
h tst even neighed after it; even the lewdness of thy
whoredoms, thine impudence and insatiableness in
them, thy eager worshipping of idols on the hills in
the fields, upon the high places. This is that for
which a wo is denounced against thee, O Jerusa¬
lem; nay, and many woes.”
IV. Here is an affectionate expostulation with
them, in the close, upon the whole matter. Though
it was adjusted next to impossible for them to be
brought to do good, (y. 23.) yet, while there is life
there is hope, and therefore still he reasons with
them, to bring them to repentance, v. 27. 1. He
reasons with them concerning the thing itself; Wilt
thou not be made clean? Note, It is the great con¬
cent of those who are polluted by sin, to be made
clean by repentance and faith, and universal re¬
formation. The reason why sinners are not made
clean, is, because they will not be made clean; and
herein they act most unreasonably. “ Will thou not
be made clean? Surely thou wilt at length be per¬
suaded to wash thee, and make thee clean, and be so
wise for thyself.” 2. Concerning the time of it;
When shall it once be? Note, It is an instance of the
wonderful grace of God, that he desires the repent¬
ance and conversion of sinners, and thinks the time
long till they are brought to it; but it is an instance
of the wonderful folly of sinners, that they put that
off from time to time, which is of such absolute ne¬
cessity, that, if it be not done some time, they are
certainly undone for ever. They do not say that
they will never be cleansed, but not yet; they will
defer It to a more convenient season, but cannot tell
us when it shall once be.
CHAP. XIV.
This chapter was penned upon occasion of a great drought,
for want of rain. This judgment began in the latter end
of Josiah’s reign, but, as it should seem, continued in j
the beginning of Jehoiakim’s: for lesser judgments are
sent to give warning of greater coming, if not prevented
by repentance. This calamity was mentioned several 1
limes before, but here, in this chapter, more fully. Here
is, 1. A melancholy description of it, v. 1 . . 6. II. A
prayer to God to put an end to this calamity, and to re¬
turn in mercy to their land, v. 7 . . 9. III. A severe
threatening, that God would proceed in his controversy,
because they proceeded in their iniquity, v. 10 . . 1 2. IV.
The prophet’s excusing the people, by laying the blame
on their false prophets; and the doom passed both on the
deceivers and the deceived, v. 13.. 16. V. Direction
given to the prophet, instead of interceding for them, to
lament them, yet he continued to intercede for them,
v. 17. .22.
I. P'g^HE word of the Lord that came to
JL Jeremiah concerning the dearth. 2.
Judah mourneth, and the gates thereof lan¬
guish ; they are black unto the ground ; and
the cry of Jerusalem is gone up. 3. And
their nobles have sent their little ones to the
waters : they came to the pits, and found no
water; they returned with the vessels empty;
they were ashamed and confounded, and
covered their heads. 4. Because the ground
is chapt, for there was no rain in the earth,
the ploughmen were ashamed, they covered
their heads. 5. Yea, the hind also calved
in the field, and forsook il, because there i
Vot.. iv— 3 D
was no grass. 6. And the wild asses did
stand in the high places, they snuffed up the
wind like dragons; their eyes did fail, be¬
cause then; was no grass. 7. O Loud,
though our iniquities testify against us, do
thou il for thy name’s sake: for our back-
slidings are many; we have sinned against
thee. 8. O the Hope of Israel, the Saviour
thereof in time of trouble, why shouldest
thou be as a stranger in the land, and as a
wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry
for a night ? 9. Why shouldest thou be as
a man astonished, as a mighty man that
cannot save ? yet thou, O Loud, art in the
midst of us, and we are called by thy name;
leave us not.
The first verse is the title of the whole chapter:
it does indeed all concern the dearth, but much of it
is the prophet’s prayers concerning it; yet these are
not unfitly said to be, 1 'he vjord of the Lord which
came to him concerning it; for every acceptable
prayer is that which God puts into our hearts; no¬
thing is our word that comes to him, but what is
first his word that comes from him. In these verses,
we have,
I. The language of nature lamenting the calami¬
ty. When the heavens were as brass, and distilled
no dews, the earth was as iron, and produced no
fruits; and then the grief and confusion were uni¬
versal.
1. The people of the land were all in tears. De¬
stroy their vines and their fg-trees, and ycu cause
all their mirth to cease, Hos. ii. 11, 12. All their
joy fails with the joy of harvest, with that of their
corn and wine, v. 2. Judah mourns, not for the
sin, but for the trouble; for the withholding of the
rain, not for the withdrawing of God’s favour. The
gates thereof, all that go in and out at their gates
languish, look pale, and grow feeble, for want of
the necessary supports of life, and for fear of the
further fatal consequences of this judgment. The
gates, through which supplies of corn formerly used
to be brought into their cities, now look melancholy;
when, instead of that, the inhabitants are departing
through them to seek for bread in other countries.
Even those that sit in the gates languish; they are
black unto the ground, they go in black as mourn¬
ers, and sit on the ground; as the poor beggars at
the gates are black in the face, for want of food,
blacker than a coal, Lam. iv. 8. Famine is repre¬
sented by a black horse, Rev. vi. 5. They fall to
the ground through weakness, not being able to go
along the streets. The cry of Jerusalem (that is,
of the inhabitants) is gone up; for the city is served
by the field; or, of people from all parts of the coun¬
try met at Jerusalem to pray for rain; so some. But
I fear it was rather the cry of their trouble, and the
cry of their sin, than the cry of their prayer.
2. The great men of the land felt from this judg¬
ment; (r. 3.) The nobles sent their little ones to the
water, perhaps their own children, having been
forced to part with their servants, because they had
not wherewithal to keep them; and being willing to
train up their children, when they were little, to la¬
bour, especially in a case of necessity, as this was.
We find Allah and Obadiah, the king and the lord
chamberlain of his household, in their own persons,
seeking for water in such a time of distress as this
was, 1 Kings xviii. 5, 6. Or, rather, their meaner
ones, their servants, and small officers; these they
sent to seek for water, which there is no living with¬
out; but there was none to be found, they returned
394
JEREMIAH XIV.
•With their vessels empty, the springs were dried up,
when there was no rain to feed them; and then they
(their masters that sent them) were ashamed and
confounded at their disappointment. They would
nut be ashamed of their sins, nor confounded at the
sense of them, but were unhumbled under the re¬
proofs of the word, thinking their wealth and dig¬
nity set them above repentance; but God took a
course to make them ashamed of that which they
were so proud of, when they found that even on this
side hell their nobility would not purchase them a
drofi of water to cool their tongue. Let our reading
the account of this calamity make us thankful for
tne mercy of water, that we may not by the feeling
of the calamity be taught to value it. What is most
needful is most plentiful.
3. The husbandmen felt most sensibly and imme¬
diately from it; (n. 4.) The ploughmen were asham¬
ed, for the ground was so parched and hard, that it
would not admit the plough, even then when it was
so chapt and cleft, that it seemed as if it did not
need the plough. They were ashamed to be idle,
f > r there was nothing to be done, and therefore no¬
thing to be expected. The sluggard, that will not
plough by reason of cold, is not ashamed of his own
folly; but the diligent husbandman, that cannot
plough by reason of heat, is ashamed of his own af¬
fliction. See what an immediate dependence hus¬
bandmen have upon the Divine Providence, which
therefore they should always have an eye to, for
they cannot plough or sow in hope, unless God wa¬
ter their furrows Ps. lxv. 10.
4. The case ev en of the wild beasts was very pi¬
tiable, v. 5, 6. Man’s sin brings those judgments
upon the earth, which make even the inferior crea¬
tures groan; and the prophet takes notice of this as
a plea with God for mercy; Judah and Jerusalem
have sinned, but the hinds and the wild asses, what
have they done? The hinds are pleasant creatures,
lovely and loving, and particularly tender of their
young: and yet such is the extremity of the case,
that, contrary to the instinct of their nature, thev
leave their young, even when they are newly calvea,
and most need them, to set k for grass elsewhere; and
if they can find none, thev abandon them, because
not able to suckle them. It grieved not the hind so
much, that she had no grass for herself, as that she
had none for her young; which will shame those
who spend that upon their lusts, which they should
preserve for their families. The hind, when she
has brought forth her young, is said to have cast
forth her sorrows, (Job xxxix. 3.) and yet she
continues her cares; but, as it follows there, she
soon sees the good effect of them, for her young ones
in a little while grow up, and trouble her no more,
v. 4. But here the great trouble of all is, that she
has nothing for them. Nay, one would be sorry
even for the wild asses, (though they are creatures
that none have any great affection tor,) for though
the barren land is made their dwelling at the best,
(Job xxxix. 5, 6.) yet even that is now made too hot
for them, so hot, that they cannot breathe in it, but
they get to the highest places they can reach, where
the air is coolest, and snuff up the wind like dra¬
gons, like those creatures which, being very hot,
are continually panting for breath. Their eyes fail,
and so does their strength, because there is no grass
to support them. The tame ass, that serves her
owner, is welcome to his crib, (Isa. i. 3.) and has
her keeping for her labour; when the wild ass that
scorns the crying of the driver, is forced to live
upon air, and is well enough served for not serving:
he that will not labour, let him not cat.
II. Here is the language of grace, lamenting the
iniquity, And. complaining to God of the calamity.
The peo] le are not forward to pray, but the pro¬
phet here prays for them, and so excites them to
pray for themselves, and puts words into their
mouths, which they may make use of, in hopes to
speed, v. 7. — 9. In this prayer,
1. Sin is humbly confessed. When we come to
pray for the preventing or removing of any judg¬
ment, we must always acknowledge that we deserve
it, and a thousand times worse. We cannot hope
by extenuating the crime to obtain a mitigation of
the punishment, but must acknowledge that our
iniquities testify against us. Our sins are witnesses
against us, and true penitents see them tc be such.
1 hey testify, for they are plain and evident, we can
not deny the charge; they testify against us, for our
conviction; which tends to our present shame and
confusion, and our future condemnation. They dis¬
prove and overthrow all cur pleas for ourselves; and
so not only accuse us, but answer against us. If we
boast of our own excellencies, and trust to our own
righteousness, our iniquities testify against us, and
prove us perverse. If we quarrel with God as deal
ing unjustly or unkindly with us in afflicting us, oui
iniquities testify against us, that we do him wrong;
for our backslidings are many, and our revolts are
great, whereby nve have sinned against thee; too
numerous to be concealed, for they are many, too
heinous to be excused, for they are against thee.
2. Mercy is earnestly begged; “ Though our ini
quiiies testify against us, and against the granting
of the favour which the necessity of our case calls
for, yet do thou it.” ■ They do not say particularly
what they would have done; but, as neccmes peni¬
tents and beggars, they refer themselves to God;
“Do with us as thou thinkest fit,” Judg. x. 15.
Not, Do thou it in this way, or at this time, but,
“ Do thou it for thy name’s sake; do that which will
be most for the glory of thy name. ” Note, Our best
pleas in prayer are those that are fetched from the
glory of God’s own name; “ Lord, do it, that thy
mercy may be magnified, thy promise fulfilled, and
thine interest in the world kept up; we have no¬
thing to plead in ourselves, but every thing in thee.”
There is another petition in this prayer, and it is a
very modest one, ( v . 9.) “ Leave us not, withdraw
not thy favour and presence.” Note, We should
dread and deprecate God’s departure from us, more
than the removal of any of all our creature-comforts.
3. Their relation to God, their interest in him,
and their expectations from him grounded there¬
upon, are most pathetically pleaded with him,
v. 8, 9.
(1.) They look upon him as one they have reason
to think should deliver them when they are in dis¬
tress, yea, though their iniquities testify against
them; for in him mercy has often rejoiced against
judgment. The prophet, like Moses of old, is will¬
ing to make the best he can of the case of his people,
and therefore, though he must own that they have
sinned many a great sin, (Exod. xxxii. 31.) yet he
pleads, Thou art the Hope of Israel. God has en¬
couraged his people to hope in him; in calling him¬
self so often the God of Israel, the Rock of Israel,
and the Holy One of Israel, he has made himself
the Hope of Israel. He has given Israel his word
to hope in, and caused them to hope in it; and there
are those vet in Israel, that make God alone their
Hope, and expect he will be their Saviour in time
of trouble, and thei look not for salvation in any
other; “ Thou hast many a time been such, in the
time of their extremity.” Note, Since God is his
people’s all-sufficient Saviour, they ought to hope in
him, in their greatest straits; and since he is their
only Saviour, they ought to h pe in him alone. They
plead likewise, “ Thou art in the midst of us, we
have the special tokens of thv presence with us, thy
temple, thine ark, thine oracles, and we are called
by thy name, the Israel >.1 Gnd; and tiler, fare we
have reason to hope thou wilt not leave us; we are
395
JEREMIAH, XIV.
thine, save us. Thy name is called upon us, and
therefore what evils we are under reflect dishonour
upon thee, as if thou wast not able to relieve thine
own.” The prophet had often told the people, tnat
their profession of religion would not protect them
from the judgments of God; yet here he pleads it
with God, as Moses, Exod. xxxii. 11. Even this
may go far as to temporal punishments with a God
of mercy. Valeai quantum valere potest — Let the
plea avail as far as it is Jit that it should.
(2.) It therefore grieves them to think that he
does not appear for their deliverance; and though
they do not charge it upon him as unrighteous, they
humbly plead it with him why he should be gra¬
cious, for the glory of his own name. For other¬
wise he will seem, [1.] Unconcerned for his own
people; IV hat will the Egyptians say? They will
say, “ Israel’s Hope and Saviour does not mind
them, he is become as a stranger in the land, that
does not at all interest himself in its interests; his
temple, which he called his rest for ever, is no more
so, but he is in it as a wayfaring man, that turns
aside to tarry but for a night in an inn, which he
never inquires into the affairs of, nor is in any care
about. Though God never is, yet he seems to be,
as if he cared not what became of his church: Christ
slept when his disciples were in a storm. [2. ] In¬
capable of giving them any relief; the enemies once
said, Because the Lord wus not able to bring his
people to Canaan, he let them perish in the wilder¬
ness; (Numb. xiv. 16.) so now they will say,
“ Either his wisdom or his power fails him; either
he is as a man astonished, who, though he has the
reason of a man, yet, being astonished, is quite at a
loss and at his wit’send; or, as a mighty man, who
is overpowered by such as are more mighty, and
therefore cannot save, though mighty, yet a man,
and therefore having his power limited.” Either
of these would be a most insufferable reproach to
the diiine perfections; and therefore, why is the
God that we are sure is in the midst of us become
as a stranger ? Why does the almighty God seem as
if he were no more than a mighty man; who, when
he is astonished, though he would, yet cannot save?
It becomes us in prayer to show ourselves concern¬
ed more for God’s glory than for our own comfort:
Lord, what wilt thou ao unto thy great name?
10. Thus saith the Lord unto this peo¬
ple, Thus have they loved to wander, they
have not refrained their feet; therefore the
Lord doth not accept them: he will now
remember their iniquity, and visit their sins.
1 1 . Then said the Lord unto me, Pray not
for this people for their good. 12. When
they fast, 1 will not hear their cry; and
when they offer burnt-offering and an obla¬
tion, I will not accept them ; but I will con¬
sume them by the sword, and by the famine,
and by the pestilence. 13. Then said I,
Ah, Lord God ! behold, the prophets say
unto them, Ye shall not see the sword,
neither shall ye have famine ; but I will give
you assured peace in this place. 14. Then
the Lord said unto me, The prophets pro¬
phesy lies in my name; I sent them not,
neither have I commanded them, neither
spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a
false vision and divination, and a thing of
nought, and the deceit of their heart. 15. :
Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning [
the prophets that prophesy in my name, and
I sent them not, yet they say, Sword and
famine shall not be in this land ; By sword
and famine shall those prophets be con¬
sumed. 16. And the people to whom they
prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of
Jerusalem, because of the famine and the
sword ; and they shall have none to bury
them, them, their wives, nor their sons, nor
their daughters ; for 1 will pour their wick¬
edness upon them.
The dispute between God and his prophet, in
this chapter, seems to be like that between the
owner and the dresser of the vineyard concerning
the barren fig-tree, Luke xiii. 7. The justice ot
the owner condemns it to be cut down, the clemency
of the dresser intercedes for a reprieve: Jeremiah
had been earnest with God, in prayer, to return in
mercy to this people. Now here,
I. God overrules the plea which he had offered
in their favour, and shows him that it would not
hold. In answer to it, he says, Concerning this
people, v. 10. He does not say, Concerning my
' people, for he disowns them, because they had bro¬
ken covenant with him. It is true, they were called
by his name, and had the tokens of his presence
among them; but they had sinned, and provoked
God to withdraw. This the prophet had owned,
and hoped to obtain mercy for them, notwithstanding
this, through intercession and sacrifice; therefore
God here tells him,
1. That they were not duly qualified for a pardon.
The prophet had owned that their backslidings were
many; and though they were so, yet there was hopes
for them if they returned; but they show no dispo¬
sition at all to return; they have wandered, and they
have loved to wander; their backslidings have been
their choice and their pleasure, which should have
been their shame and pain, and therefore they will
be their ruin. They cannot expect God should take
up his rest with them, when they take such delight
in going astray from him after their idols. It is not
through necessity or inadvertency that they wander,
but they love it. Sinners are wanderers from God;
their wanderings forfeit God’s favour, but it is their
loving to wander, that quite cuts them off from it.
They were told what their wanderings would come
to, that one sin would hurry them on to another,
and all to ruin; and yet they have not taken warn¬
ing, and refrained their feet. So far were they
from returning to their God, that neither his pro¬
phets nor his judgments could prevail with them to
give themselves the least check in a sinful pursuit
This is that for which God is now reckoning with
them; when he denies them rain from heaven, he
is remembering their iniquity and visiting their sins;
that is it for which their fruitful land is thus turned
into barrenness.
2. That they had no reason to expect that the
God they had rejected should accept them; no, not
though they betook themselves to fasting and pray¬
er, and put themselves to the expense of burnt-
offerings and sacrifice; The Lord doth not accept
them, v. 10. He takes no pleasure in them; (so the
word is;) for what pleasure can the holy God take
in those that take pleasure in his rivals, in any ser¬
vice, in any society, rather than his? When they
fast, (y. 12.) which is a proper expression of re¬
pentance and reformation; when they offer a burnt-
offering and an oblation, which was designed to be
an expression < f faith in a Mediator; though their
prayers be thus enforced, and offered up in those
vehicles that used to be cceptable, yet, because
396
JEREMIAH, XIV.
they do not proceed from humble, penitent, and re¬
newed hearts, but still they love to wander, there-
f ire I wilt not hear their cry, be it ever so loud; nor
will I accept them, either their persons, or their
performances. It had been long since declared, The
sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord;
and those only are accepted that do well, Gen. iv. 7.
3. That they had forfeited all benefit by the pro¬
phet’s prayers for them, because they had not re¬
garded his preaching to them. This is the meaning
of that repeated prohibition given to the prophet,
( v . 11.) Tray not thou for this people for their
good, as before, ch. xi. 14. — vii. 16. This did not
forbid him thus to express his good will to them,
(Moses continued to intercede for Israel, after God
had said, Let me alone, Exod. xxxii. 10.) but it
forbade them to expect any good effect from it, as
long as they turned away their car from hearing the
law. Thus was the doom of the impenitent ratified,
as that of Saul’s rejection was by that word to Sa¬
muel, When wilt thou cease to mourn for Saul?
It therefore follows, (u. 12. ) I will consume them,
not only by this famine, but by the further sore
judgments of sword and pestilence; for God has
many arrows in his quiver, and those that will not
be convinced and reclaimed by one, shall be con¬
sumed by another.
II. The prophet offers another plea, in excuse
for the people’s obstinacy, and it is but an excuse,
but he was willing to say whatever their case would
bear; it is this, That the prophets, who pretended
a commission from heaven, imposed upon them, and
flattered them with assurances of peace, though
they went on in their sinful way, v. 13. He speaks
of it with lamentation, “Ah, Lord God, the poor
people seem willing to take notice of what comes in
thy name, and there are those who in thy name tell
them that they shall not see the sword or famine;
and they say it as from thee, with all the gravity
and confidence of prophets, I will continue you in this
place, and will give you assured peace here, peace
of truth; I tell them the contrary, but I am one
against many, and every one is apt to credit that
which makes for them; therefore, Lord, pity and
spare them, for their leaders cause them to err.”
This excuse had been of some weight if they had
not had warning given them before, of false pro¬
phets, and rules by which to discover them; so that
if they were deceived, it was entirely their own
fault. But this teaches us, as far as we can with
truth, to make the best of bad, and judge as cha¬
ritably of others as their case will bear.
III. God not only overrules this, but condemns
both the blind leaders and the blind followers to fall
together into the ditch.
1. God disowns the flatteries; (t>. 14.) They pro¬
phesy lies in my name. They had no commission
from God to prophesy at all; I neither sent them,
nor commanded them, nor spake unto them. They
never were employed to go on any errand at all
from God, he never made himself known to them,
much less toy them to the people; never any word
of the Lord came to them, no call, no warrant, no
instruction, much less did he send them on this
errand, to rock them asleep in security. No; men
may flatter themselves, and Satan may flatter them,
but God never does. It is a false vision, and a
thing of naught. Note, What is false and ground¬
less is vain and worthless. The vision that is not
true, be it ever so pleasing, is good for nothing; it
is the deceit of their heart, a spider’s web spun out
of their own bowels, and in it they think to shelter
themselves, but it will be swept away in a moment,
and prove a great cheat. They that oppose their
own thoughts to God’s word, (God indeed says so,
but they think otherwise,) walk in the deceit of their
heart, and it will be their ruin.
I] 2. He passes sentence upon the flatterers, v. 15.
As for the prophets who put this abuse upon the
people, by telling them they shall have peace, and
this affront upon God by telling them so in God’s
name; let them know that they shall have no peace
themselves. They shall fall first by those very
judgments which they have flattered others with
the hopes of an exemption from. They undertook
to warrant people, that sword and famine should
not be in the land; but it shall soon appear how
little their warrants are good for, when they them¬
selves shall be cut off by sword and famine. How
should they secure others, or foretell peace to them,
when they cannot secure themselves, nor have such
a foresight of their own calamities, as to get out of
the way of them. Note, The sorest punishments
await those who promise sinners impunity in theii
sinful ways.
3. He lays the flattered under the same doom, v.
16. The people to whom they prophesy lies, and
who willingly suffer themselves to be thus imposed
upon, they shall die by sword and famine. Note,
The unbelief of the deceived, with all the falsehood
of the deceiytrs, shall not make the divine threat-
enings of no effect; sword and famine will come,
whatever they say to the contrary; and those will
be least safe that are most secure. Impenitent sin¬
ners will not escape the damnation of hell, by say¬
ing that they can never believe there is such" a
thing; but will feel what they will not fear. It is
threatened that this people shall not only fall by
sword and famine, but that they shall be as it
were hanged up in chains, as monuments of that
divine justice which they set at defiance; their
bodies shall be cast out, even in the streets of Je¬
rusalem, which of all places, one would think,
should be kept clear from such nuisances: there
they shall lie unburied; their nearest relations,
who should do them that last office of love, being
either so poor that they cannot afford it, or so
weakened with hunger that they are not able
to attend it, or so overwhelmed with grief, that
they have no heart to it, or so destitute of natural
affection, that they will not pay them so much
respect. Thus will God pour their wickedness
upon them, the punishment of their wickedness;
the full vials of God’s wrath shall be poured on
them, to which they have made themselves ob¬
noxious. Note, When sinners are overwhelmed
with trouble, they must in it see their own wick¬
edness poured upon them. This refers to the
wickedness both of the false prophets and of the
people; the blind lead the blind, and both fall to¬
gether into the ditch, where they will be miserable
comforters one to another.
17. Therefore thou shalt say this word
unto them, Let mine eyes run down with
tears night and day, and let them not cease :
for the virgin daughter of my people is
broken with a great breach, with a very
grievous blow. 18. If I go forth into the
field, then behold the slain with the sword!
and if I enter into the city, then behold
them that are sick with famine ! yea, both
the prophet and the priest go about into a
land that they know not. 19. Hast thou
utterly rejected Judah? hath thy soul loath¬
ed Zion? why hast thou smitten us, and
there is no healing for us? we looked for
peace, and there is no good; and for the
time of healing, and behold trouble ! 20
397
JEREMIAH, XIV.
We acknowledge, O Lord, our wicked¬
ness, and the iniquity of our fathers ; for
we have sinned against thee. 21. Do not
abhor us, for thy name’s sake; do not dis¬
grace the throne of thy glory : remember,
break not thy covenant with us. 22. Are
there any among the vanities of the Gen¬
tiles that can cause rain ? or can the hea¬
vens give showers 1 Art not thou he, O
Lord our God: therefore we will wait
upon thee; for thou hast made all these
things.
The present deplorable state of Judah and Jeru¬
salem is here made the matter of the prophet’s
lamentation, ( v . 1 7, 18.) and the occasion of his
prayer and intercession for them; (x>. 19.) and I am
willing to hope that the latter, as well as the former,
was bv divine direction, and that these words, (n.
17.) Thus shalt thou say unto them, (or concerning
them, or in their hearing,) refer to the intercession,
as well as to the lamentation, and then it amounts to
a revocation of the directions given to the prophet
not to pray for them, v. 11. However, it is plain,
by the prayers we find in these verses, that the pro¬
phet did not understand it as a prohibition, but only
as a discouragement, like that, 1 John v. 16. I do
not say he shall pray for that. Here,
I. The prophet stands weeping over the ruins of
his country; God directs him to do so, that, show¬
ing himself affected, he might, if possible, affect
them with the foresight of the calamities that were
coming upon them. Jeremiah must say it not only to
himself, but to them too; Let mine eyes run down
with tears, v. 17. Thus he must signify to them,
that he certainly foresaw the sword coming, and
another sort of famine, more grievous even than
tiiis which they were now groaning under; this was
in the country for want of rain, that in the city
through the straitness of the siege. The prophet
speaks as if he already saw the miseries at¬
tending the descent which the Chaldeans made
upon them; The virgin daughter of my people,
that is as dear to me as a daughter to her father, is
broken with a great breach, with a very grievous
blow, much greater and more grievous than any she
has yet sustained; for, (y. 18.) in the field multi¬
tudes lie dead that were slain by the sword, and in
the city multitudes lie dying for want of food.
Doleful spectacles! The prophets and the priests,
the false prophets that flattered them with their lies,
and the wicked priests that persecuted the true
prophets, these are now expelled their country, and
go about either as prisoners and captives, whither¬
soever their conquerors lead them, or as fugitives
and vagabonds, wherever they can find shelter and
relief, in a land that they know not. Some under¬
stand it of the true prophets, Ezekiel and Daniel,
that were carried to Babylon with the rest. The
prophet’s eyes must run down with tears day and
night, in prospect of this, that the people might be
convinced, -not only that this woful day would infal¬
libly come, and would be a very woful day indeed,
but that he was far from desiring it, and would as
gladly have brought them messages of peace as
their false prophets, if he might have had warrant
from heaven to do it. Note, Because God, though ]
lit inflicts death on sinners, yet delights not in it, it
becomes his ministers, though in his name they pro¬
nounce the death of sinners, vet sadly to lament it.
II. He stands up to mike intercession for them;
for who knows but God will yet return and repent?
While there is life, there is hope, and room for
prayer. And though there were many among
them, who neither prayed themselves, nor valued
the prophet’s prayers, yet there wire some who
were better affected, would join with him in his
devotions, and set the seal of their Amen to them.
1. He humbly expostulates witli God concerning
the present deplorableness of their case, v. 19. It
was very sad, .for, (1.) Their expectations from
their God failed them; they thought he had avouch¬
ed Juduh to be his, but now, it seems, he has utterly
rejected it, and cast it off; will not own any relation
to it, or concern for it. However, they thought
Zion was thebeloved if his soul, was his rest for
ever; but now h s soul evcjj loathes Zion, loathes
even the services there performed, for the sake of
the sins there committed. (2.) Then no marvel
that all their other expectations failed them; They
were smitten, and their wounds were multiplied,
but there was no heating for them; they looked for
peace, because after a storm there usually ccmes a
calm, and fair weather after a long fit of wet; but
there was no good, things went still worse and
worse. They looked for a healing time, but could
not gain so much as a breathing time; “ Behold ,
trouble at the door, by which we hoped peace wi uld
enter. And is it so then? Hast thou indeed re¬
jected Judah ? Justly thou mightest. Has thy
soul loathed Zion? We deserve it should. But
wilt thou not at length in wrath remember mercy?”
2. He makes a penitent confession of sin, speak¬
ing that language which they all should have
spoken, though but few did; (n. 20.) “ We acknow¬
ledge our wickedness, the abounding wickedm ss of
our land, and the iniquity of our fathers, which we
have imitated, and therefore justly smart for. We
know, we acknowledge, that we have sinned against
thee, and therefore thou art just in all that is brt ught
upon us; but, because we confess our sins, we hope
to find thee faithful and just in forgiving c ur sins.’’
3. He deprecates God’s displeasure, and bv faith
appeals to his honour and promise, v. 21. His pe¬
tition is, “Do not abhor us; though thou afflict us,
do not abhor us; though thy hand be turned against
us, let not thy heart be so, nor let thy mind be
alienated from us. ” They own God might justly abhor
them, they had rendered themselves odious in his
eyes; yet when they pray , Do not abhor ms, they mean,
“Receive us into favour again. Let not thy soul
loathe Zion, v. 19. Let not our incense be our
abomination.” They appeal, (1.) To the honour
of God, the honour of his scriptures, by which he
has made himself known; his word, which he has
magnified above all his name; “ Do not abhor us
for thy name’s sake, that name of thine by which we
are called, and which we call upon.” The honour
of his sanctuary is pleaded; “Lord, do not abhor
us, for that will disgrace the throne of thy glory,”
(the temple, which is called a glorious high throne
from the beginning, ch. xvii. 12.) let not that which
has been the joy of the whole earth, be made a
hissing and an astonishment; we deserve to have
disgrace put upon ns, but let it not be so as to reflect
upon thyself; let not the desolations of the temple
give occasion to the heathen to reproach him that
used to be worshipped there, as if he could not, or
would not, protect it, or as if the gods of the Chal¬
deans had been too hard for him. Note, Good men
lay the credit of religion, and its profession in the
world, nearer their hearts than any private interest
or concern of their own; and those are powerful
pleas in prayer, which are fetched from thence, and
great supports to faith. We may be sure that God
will not disgrace the throne of his glory, on earth;
nor will he eclipse the glorv of his throne by one
providence, without soon making it shine forth, and
more brightly than before, by another. God will
be no loser in his honour at the long run. (2.) To
the promise of God; of this they are humbly bold
JEREMJAH, XV.
398
to put Him in mind; Remember thy covenant with
us, and break not that covenant. Not that they
had any distrust of his fidelity, or that they thought
he needed to be put in mind of his promise to them,
but what he had said he would plead with himself,
they take the liberty to plead with him; Then ivi/t
I remember my covenant. Lev. xxvi. 42.
4. He professed a dependence upon God for the
mercy of rain, which they were now in want of, v.
22. If they have forfeited their interest in him as
their God in covenant, yet they will not let go their
hold on him as the God of nature. (1.) They will
never make their application to the idols of the
heathen, for that would be foolish and fruitless;
Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles
that cause rainy No, in a time of great drought in
Israel, Baal, though all Israel was at his devotion in
the days of Ahab, could not relieve them; it was
that God only, who answered by fire, that could
answer by water too. (2.) They will not terminate
their regards in second causes, nor expect supply
from nature only; Can the heavens give showers?
No, not without orders from the God of heaven:
for it is he that has the key of the clouds, that ofiens
the bottles of heaven, and waters the earth from his
chambers. But, (3.) All their expectation therefore
is from him, and their confidence in him; “ Art not
thou he, O Lord our God, from whom we may ex¬
pect succour, and to whom we must apply ourselves?
Art thou not he that causest rain, and givest show¬
ers? For thou hast made all these things; thou
gavest them being, and therefore thou givest them
law, and hast them all at thy command; thou
madest that moisture in nature, which is in a con¬
stant circulation, to serve the intentions of Provi¬
dence, and thou directest it, and makest what use
thou pleasest of it; therefore we will wait upon thee,
and upon thee only; we will ask of the Lord rain,
Zech. x. 1. We will trust in him to give it us in
due time, and be willing to tarry his time; it is fit
that we should, and it will not be in vain to do so. ”
Note, The sovereignty of God should engage, and
his all-sufficiency encourage, our attendance on him,
and our expectations from him, at all times.
CHAP. XV.
When we left the prophet, in the close of the foregoing
chapter, so pathetically pouring out his prayers before
God, we had reason to hope that in this chapter we
should find God reconciled to the land, and the prophet
brought into a quiet, composed frame ; but, to our <jreat
surprise, we find it much otherwise as to both. I. Not¬
withstanding the prophet’s prayers, God here ratifies the
sentence given against the people, and abandons them
to ruin, turning a deaf ear to all the intercessions made
for them, v. 1 . . 9. II. The prophet himself, notwith¬
standing the satisfaction he had in communion with God,
still finds himself uneasy and out of temper. 1. He
complains to God of his continual struggle with his per¬
secutors, v. 10. 2. God assures him that he shall betaken
under special protection, though there was a general
desolation coming upon the land, v. 11. . 14. 3. He
appeals to God concerning his sincerity in the discharge
of his prophetical office, and thinks it hard that he
should not have more of the comfort of it, v. 15.. 18.
4. Fresh security is given him, that upon condition he
continue faithful, God will continue his care of him and
his favour to him, v. 19. .21. And Ihus, at length, we
hope he regained the possession of his own soul.
1. rr^HEN said the Lord unto me,
1. Though Moses and Samuel stood
before me, yet my mind could not be, toward
this people; cast them out of my sight, and
let them go forth. 2. And it shall come to
pass, if they say unto thee, Whither shall
we go forth ? then thou shalt tell them,
Thus saith the Lord, Such as are for death,
to death; and such as are for the sword, to
the sword ; and such as are for the famine,
to the famine ; and such as are for the cap¬
tivity, to the captivity. 3. And I will ap¬
point over them four kinds, saith the Lord ;
the sword to slay, and the dogs to tear, and
the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of
the earth, to devour and destroy. 4. And
I will cause them to be removed into all
kingdoms of the earth, because of Manas-
seh the son of Hezekiah king of Judah, for
that which he did in Jerusalem. 5. For
who shall have pity upon thee, O Jerusa¬
lem ? or who shall bemoan thee ? or who
shall go aside to ask how thou doest ? 6
Thou hast forsaken me, saith the Lord
thou art gone backward ; therefore will i
stretch out my hand against thee, and de¬
stroy thee ; I am weary with repenting. 7.
And I will fan them with a fan in the gates
of the land ; 1 will bereave them of children
I will destroy my people, since they return
not from their ways. 8. Their widows are
increased to me above the sand of the seas:
I have brought upon them, against the mo¬
ther of the young men, a spoiler at noon¬
day ; I have caused him to fall upon it sud¬
denly, and terrors upon the city. 9. She
that hath borne seven languisheth; she hath
given up the ghost ; her sun is gone down
while it was yet day; she hath been ashamed
and confounded : and the residue of them
will I deliver to the sword before their ene¬
mies, saith the Lord.
We scarcely find any where more pathetic ex¬
pressions of divine wrath against a provoking people
than we have here in these verses. The prophet
had prayed earnestly for them, and found some
among them to join with him; and yet not so much
as a reprieve was gained, or the least mitigation of
the judgment; but this answer is given to the pro¬
phet’s prayers, that the decree was gone forth, was
irreversible, and would shortly be executed. Ob¬
serve here,
I. What the sin was, upon which this severe sen¬
tence was grounded. 1. It is in remembrance of a
former iniquity; it is because of Manasseh, for that
which he did in Jerusalem, x’. 4. What that was,
we are told, and that it was for it that Jerusalem
was destroyed, 2 Kings xxiv. 3, 4. It was for
his idolatry, and the innocent blood which he shed,
which the Lord would not pardon. He is called
the son of Hezekiah, because his relation to so good
a father was a great aggravation of his sin, so far
was it from being an excuse of it. The greatest
part of a generation was wont off since Mnnasseh’s
time, yet his sin is brought into the account; as in
Jerusalem’s last ruin God brought upon it all the
righteous blood shed on the earth, to show how
heavy the guilt of blood will light and lie some¬
where, sooner or later, and that reprieves are not
pardons. It is in consideration of their present im-
I penitence. See how their sin is described; ( v . 6.)
“ Thou hast forsaken me, my sen ices and thy dutv
to me; thou art gone backward into the wavs > f
contradiction, art become the reverse of what tlv u
JEREMIAH, XV. 399
sliouldst have been, and of what God by this law
would have led thee forward to.” See how the im¬
penitence is described; (v. 7.) They return not
from their ways, the ways of their own hearts, into
the ways of God’s commandments again. There
is mercy for those who have turned aside, if they
will return; but what favour can they expect, that
persist in their apostaev?
II. What the sentence is. It is such as denotes
no less than an utter ruin.
1. God himself abandons and abhors them; My
mind cannot be toward them. How can it be
thought that the holy God should have any remain¬
ing complacency in those that have such a rooted
antipathy to him? It is not in a passion, but with a
just and holy indignation, that he says, “ Cast them
out of my sight, as that which is in the highest de-
ree odious and offensive; and let them go forth, for
will be troubled with them no more.”
2. He will not admit of any intercession to be
made for them; ( v . 1.) “Though Moses and Sa¬
muel stood before me, by prayer or sacrifice to re¬
concile me to them, yet I could not be prevailed
with to admit them into favour. ” Moses and Samuel
were two as great favourites of Heaven, as ever
were the blessings of this earth, and were particu¬
larly famed for the success of their mediation be¬
tween God and his offending people; many a time
they had been destroyed, if Moses had not stood
before him in the breach; and to Samuel’s prayers
thev owed their lives; (1 Sam. xii. 19.) yet even
their intercessions should not prevail, no, not though
they were now in a state of perfection, much less
Jeremiah’s, who was now subject to like fiassions as
others. The putting of this as a case, Though they
should stand before me, supposes that they do not,
and is an intimation that saints in heaven are not in¬
tercessors for saints on earth. It is the prerogative
of the Eternal Word, to be the only Mediator in the
other world, whatever Moses and Samuel and others
were in this.
3. He condemns them all to one destroying judg¬
ment or other. When God casts them out of his
presence, whither shall they go forth? v. 2. Cer¬
tainly no whither, to be safe or easy, but to be met
by one judgment, while they are fiursued by ano¬
ther, till they find themselves surrounded with mis¬
chiefs on all hands, so that they cannot escape;
Such as are for death, to death. By death here is
meant the pestilence, (Rev. vi. 8.) for it is death
without visible means. Such as are for death, to
death, or for the sword, to the sword; every man
shall perish in that way that God has appointed:
the law that appoints the malefactor’s death, deter¬
mines what death he shall die. Or, He that is by
his own choice for this judgment, let him take it, or
for that, let him take it, but by the one or the other
they shall all fall, and none shall escape. It is a
choice like that which David was put to, and was
thereby put into a great strait, 2 Sam. xxiv. 14.
Captivity is mentioned last, some think, because
the sorest judgment of all, it being both a complica¬
tion and continuance of miseries. That of the
sword is again repeated, (x>. 3.) and is made the
first of another four frightful set of destroyers,
which God will appoint over them, as officers over
the soldiers to do what they please with them. As
those that escape the sword shall be cut off by pes¬
tilence, famine, or captivity, so those that fall by
the sword shall be cut off by divine vengeance,
which pursues sinners on the other side death;
there shall be dogs to tear in the city, and fowls of
the air and wild beasts in the field to devour. And
if there be any that think to outrun justice, they
shall be made the most public monuments of it;
They shall be removed into all kingdoms of the
earth, (r. 4.) like Cain, who, that he might be
made a spectacle tf hrrrorto all, became a fugi
live and a vagabond in the earth.
4. They sh.,11 fall without being relieved. Who
can do any thing to help them? When (1.) God,
even their own G d, (so he had been,) appearp
against them; I will stretch out my hand against
thee; which denotes a deliberate, determined stroke,
which will reach far, and wound deep, v. 6. I. am
weary of repenting, it is a strange expression; they
had behaved so provokingly, especially by their
treacherous professions of repentance, that they had
put even infinite patience itself to the stretch. God
had often turned away his wrath, when it was ready
to break forth against them; but now he will grant
no more reprieves. Miserable is the case of those
who have sinned so long against God’s mercy, that
at length they have sinned it away. (2.) Their
own country expels them, and is ready to spue them
out, as it had done the Canaanites that were before
them; for so it was threatened, (Lev. xviii. 28.) I
will fan them with a fan in the gates of the land, in
their own gates, through which they shall be scat¬
tered; or, into the gates of the earth, into the cities
of all the nations about them. (3.) Their own chil¬
dren, that should assist them when they speak with
the enemy in the gate, shall be cut off' from them;
(v. 7.) I will bereave them of children; so that they
shall have little hopes that the next generation will
retrieve their affairs, for I will destroy my people;
and when the inhabitants are slain, the land will
soon be desolate. This melancholy article is en¬
larged upon, v. 8, 9. where we have,
[1.] The destroyer brought upon them. When
God has bloody work to do, he will find cut bloody
instruments to do it with. Nebuchadnezzar is here
called a spoiler at noon-day; not a thief in the night
that is afraid of being discovered, but one that with¬
out fear shall break through and destroy all the
fences of rights and properties, and this in the face
of the sun, and in defiance of its light; I have
brought against the mother, a young man, a spoiler;
(so some read it;), for Nebuchadnezzar, when he
first invaded Judah, was but a young man, in the
first year of his reign. We read it, I have brought
upon them, even against the mother of the young
man, a spoiler, against Jerusalem, a mother-city,
that had a very numerous family of young men; or,
that invasion was in a particular manner terrible to
those mothers who had many sons fit for war, who
must now jeopard their lives in the high places of
the field: and, being an unequal match for the ene¬
my, would be likely to fall there, to the inexpressi¬
ble grief of their poor mothers, who had nursed
them up with a deal of tenderness. The same God
that brought the spoiler upon them, caused him to
fall upon it, upon the spoil delivered to him, sud¬
denly and by surprise; and then terrors came upon
the city. 1 he original is very abrupt, the city and
terrors. O the city, what a" consternation will it
then be in? O the terrors that shall then seize it!
Then the city and terrors shall be brought together,
that seemed at a distance from each other. I will
cause suddenly to fall upon her (upon Jerusalem)
a watcher and terrors; so Mr. Gataker reads it, for
the word is used fora watcher, (Dan. iv. 13, 23.)
and the Chaldean soldiers were called watchers, ch.
iv. 16.
[2.] The destruction made by this destroy'er. A
dreadful slaughter is here described. First, The
wives are deprived of their husbands; Their widows
are increased above the sand of the seas, so nume¬
rous are they now grown. It was promised that the
men of Israel (for those only were numbered) should
be as the sand of the sea for multitude; but new they
shall be cut off) and their widows shall be so. Em
observe, God says, Thev are increased to me. Thcugh
the husbands were cut off by the sword of his jus-
■100
JEREMIAH, XV.
tice, their poor widows were gathered in the arms |
of his mercy, who has taken it among the titles of
his honour to be the God of the widows. Widows j
are said to be taken into the number, the number of
those whom God has a particular compassion and
concern for. Secondly, The parents are deprived
of their children; She that has borne seven sons,
whom she expected to be the support and joy of her
age, now languishes, when she has seen them all
cut off by the sword in one day, who had been many
years her burthen and care. She that had many
children is waxen feeble, 1 Sam. ii. 5. See what
uncertain comforts children are; and let us therefore
rejoice in them, as though we rejoiced not. When
the children are slain, the mother gives up the ghost,
for her life was bound up in theirs: Her sun is gone
down while it was yet day: she is bereaved of all her
comforts then when she thought herself in the midst
of the enjoyment of them. She is now ashamed and
confounded to think how proud she had been of her
sons, how fond of them, and how much she promised
herself from them. Some understand by this lan¬
guishing mother, Jerusalem lamenting the death of
her inhabitants as passionately as ever pom- mother
bewailed her children. Many are cut off already,
and the residue of them, who have yet escaped, and,
as was hoped, were reserved to be the seed of an¬
other generation, even them will I deliver to the
sword before their enemies, (as the condemned male¬
factor is delivered to the sheriff to be executed,)
saith the Lord, the Judge of heaven and earth, who,
we are sure, herein judges right, though the judg¬
ment seem severe.
5. They shall fall without being pitied; (v. 5.)
“For who shall have pity on thee, O Jerusalem ?
When thy God has cast thee out of his sight, and
his compassions fail, and are shut up from thee,
neither thine enemies nor thy friends shall have any
compassion for thee. They shall have no sympathy
with thee, they shall not bemoan thee, or be sorry
f ,r thee, they shall have no concern for thee, shall
n it go a step out of their way to ifsk how thou dost.”
For, (1.) Their friends, who were expected to do
these friendly offices, were all involved with them
in the calamities, and had enough to do to bemoan
themselves. (2.) It was plain to all their neigh¬
bours, that they had brought all this mis-ry upon
themselves by their obstinacy in sin, and that they
might have easily prevented it by repentance and
reformation, which they were often in vain called
to; and therefore who can pity them? 0 Israel, thou
hast destroyed thyself. Those will perish for ever
unpitied, that might have been saved upon such
easy terms, and would not. (3.) God will thus
complete their misery, he will set their acquaint¬
ance, as he did Job’s, at a distance from them; and
his hand, his righteous hand, is to be acknowledged
in all the unkindnesses of our friends, as well as in
all the injuries done us by our foes.
1 0. Wo is me, my mother, that thou hast
home me a man of strife, and a man of con¬
tention to the whole earth! I have neither
lent on usury, nor men have lent to me on
usury; yet every one of them doth curse
me. 1 1. The Loan said, Verily it shall be
well with thy remnant, verily [ will cause
the enemy to entreat thee well in the time
of evil, and in the time of affliction. 12.
Shall iron break the northern iron and the
steel ? 1 3. Thy substance and thy treasures
will T give to the. spoil without price, and
thm for all thy sins, even in all thy borders.
14. And I will make thee to pass with thine
enemies into a land which thou knowest not ;
for a lire is kindled in mine anger, which
shall burn upon you.
Jeremiah is now returned from bis public work,
and is retired into his closet; what passed between
him and his God there, we have an account of in
these and the following verses, which he published
afterward, to affect the people with the weight and
importance of his messages to them. Here is,
I. The complaint which the prophet makes to
God of the many discouragements he met with in
his work, v. 10.
1. He met with a great deal of contradiction and
opposition. He was a man of strife and contention
to the whole land; (so it might be read, rather than
to the whole earth, for his business lay only in that
land;) both city and country quarrelled with him,
and set themselves against him, and said and did all
they could to thwart him. He was a peaceable man,
gave no provocation to any, nor was apt to resent
the provocations given him, and yet a man of strife,
not a man striving, but a man striven with; he was
for peace, but, when he spake, they were for war.
And, whatever they pretended, that which was the
real cause of their quarrels with him, was, his faith¬
fulness to God and to their souls. He showed them
their sins that were working their ruin, and put
them into a way to prevent that ruin, which was
the greatest kindness he could do them; and yet this
was it for which they were incensed against him,
and looked upon him as their enemy. Even the
Prince of peace himself was thus a man of strife, a
sign spoken against, continually enduring the con¬
tradiction of sinners against himself. And the gos¬
pel of peace brings division, even to fire and sword,
Matth. x. 34, 35. Luke xii. 49, 51. Now this made
Jeremiah very uneasv, even to a degree rf impa¬
tience; he cried cut, JVo is me, my mother, that thou
hast borne me. As if it were his mother’s fault,
that she bore him, and he hid better never have been
born, than be born to such an uncomfortable life;
nay, he is angry that she had borne him a man of
strife; as if he had been fatally determined to. this
bv the stars that were in the ascendant at his birth.
If he had any meaning of this kind, doubtless it was
very much his infirmity; we rather hope it was in¬
tended for no more than a pathetic lamentation of
his own case. Note, (1.) Even those who are most
quiet and peaceable, if they serve God faithfully,
are often made men of strife. We can but follow
peace; we have the making only of one side of the
bargain, and therefore can but, as much as in us ties,
live peaceably. (2.) It is very uncomfortable to
those who are of a peaceable disposition, to live
among those who are continually picking quarrels
with them. (3.) Yet, if we cannot live so peaceably
as we desire with our neighbours, we must not be so
disturbed at it as thereby to lose the repose of our
own minds, and put ourselves upon the fret.
2. Hemet with a great deal of contempt, contumely,
and reproach. They every one of them cursed him;
thev branded him as a turbulent, factious man, as
an incendiary, and a sower of discord and si diticn.
They ought to have blessed him, and to have blessed
i God for him; but they were arrived at such a pitch
\ of enmity against God and his word, that for his sake
] they cursed his messenger, spoke ill of him, wished
ill to him, did all they could to make him odious:
they all did so, he had scarcely one friend in Judah or
Jerusalem, that would give him a good word. Note.
It is often the lot of the best of men to have the
worst of characters ascribed to them; So persecuted
they the prophets. But one would be apt to suspi c'
I that surely Jeremiah had given them some prove-
401
JEREMIAH, XV.
cation, else he could not have lost himself thus: no,
not the least; I have neither lent money, nor bor¬
rowed money; have been neither creditor nor debtor;
for so general is the signification of the words here.
(1.) It is implied here, that those who deal much in
the business of this world, are often involved there¬
by in strife and contention; meum and tun m — mine
and thine are the great makebates, lenders and
borrowers, sue and are sued, and great dealers often
?et a deal of ill-will. (2.) It was an instance of
eremiah’s great prudence, and it is written for our
learning, that, being called to be a prophet, he
entangled not himsel f in the affairs of this life, but
kept clear from them, that he might apply himself
the more closely to the business of his profession,
and might not give the least shadow or suspicion
that he aimed at secular advantages in it, nor any
occasion to his neighbours to contend with him. He
fiut out no money, for he was no usurer, nor indeed
had he any money to lend: he took u/i no money,
for he was no purchaser, no merchant, no spend¬
thrift. He was perfectly dead to this world, and
the things of it: a very little served to keep him,
and we find (rA. xvi. 2.) that he had neither wife
nor children to keep. And yet, (3.) Though he
behaved thus discreetly, and so as one would have
thought should have gained him universal esteem,
yet he lay under a general odium, through the
iniquity of the times. Blessed be God, bad as things
are with us, they are not so bad, but that there are
those with whom virtue has its praise; yet let not
those who behave most prudently, think it strange
if they have not the respect and esteem they de¬
serve. Marvel not, my brethren, if the world
hate you.
II. The answer which God gave to this complaint.
Though there was in it a mixture of passion and
infirmity, yet God graciously took cognizance of it,
because it was for his sake that the prophet suffered
reproach. In this answer,
1. God assures him that he should weather the
storm, and be made easy at last, v. 11. Though
his neighbours quarrelled with him for what he did
in the discharge of his office, yet God accepted him,
and promised to stand by him. It is in the original
expressed in the form of an oath; If I take not care
of thee, let me never be counted faithful; verily, it
shall go well with thy remnant, with the remainder
of thy life; for so the word signifies. The residue
of thy days shall be more comfortable to thee than
those hitherto have been. Thy end shall be good;
so the Chaldee reads it. Note, It is a great and
sufficient support to the people of God, that, how
troublesome soever their way may be, it shall be
well with them in their latter end, Ps. xxxvii. 37.
They have still a rerynant, a residue, something
behind, and left in reserve, which will be sufficient
to balance all their grievances, and the hope of it
may serve to make them easy. It should seem that
Jeremiah, besides the vexation that his people gave
him, was uneasy at the apprehension he had of
sharing largely in the public judgments which he
foresaw coming; and though he mentioned not this,
God replied to his thought of it, as to Moses, Exod.
iv. 19. Jeremiah thought, “ If my friends are thus
abusive to me, what will my enemies be?” And
God had thought fit to awaken in him an expecta¬
tion of this kind, eh. xii. 5. But here he quiets his
mind with this promise, “ Verily, I will cause the
enemy to entreat thee well in the time of evil, when
all about thee shall be laid waste.” Note, God has
all men’s hearts in his hand, and can turn those to
favour his servants, whom they were most afraid of.
\nd the prophets of the Lord have often met with
fairer and better treatment among open enemies
*han among those that call themselves his people.
.Vhen we see trouble coming, and it looks very
Vo i,. iv. — 3 E
threatening, let us not despair, but hope in God, be¬
cause it may prove better than we expect. This
promise was accomplished, when Nebuchadnezzar,
having taken the city, charged the captain of the
guard to be kind to Jeremiah, and let him have
everything he had a mind to, ch. xxxix. 11, 12.
The following words, Shall iron break the northern
iron, and the steel, or brass? (y. 12.) being erm-
pared with the promise of God made to Jeremiah,
{ch. i. 18.) that he would make him an iron f Hilar
and brazen walls, seem intended for his comfort.
They were continually clashing with him, and were
rough and hard as iron; but Jeremiah, being armed
witii power and courage from on high, is as north¬
ern iron, which is naturally stronger, and as steel,
which is hardened by art; and therefore they shrll
not prevail against him; compare this with Ezek.
11. 6. — iii. 8, 9. He might the better bear their
quarrelling with him, when he was sure of the vic¬
tory.
2. God assures him that his enemies and perse¬
cutors should be lost in the storm, should be ruined
at last, and that therein the werd of God in his
meuth should be accomplished, and he proved a
true prophet, v. 13, 14. God here turns his speech
from the prophet to the people. To them also, re
12. may be applied; Shall iron break the northern
iron, and the steel? Shall their courage and strength,
and the most hardy and vigorous of their iffi rts, be
able to contest either with the counsel of Gcd, rr
with the army of the Chaldeans, which are as in¬
flexible, as invincible, as the northern iron, and the
steel. Let them therefore hear their doom; Thy
substance and thy treasure will I give to the t ft oil,
and that without price; the spoilers shall have it
S'-atis, it shall be to them a cheap and easy prey.
bserve. The prophet was poor, he neither lent
nor borrowed, he had nothing to lose, neither sub¬
stance nor treasure, and therefore the enemy will
treat him well, Cantabit vacuus coram lai 'rone via¬
tor — The traveller that has no property about him,
will congratulate hhhself, when accosted by a rob¬
ber. But the people that hod great estates in money
and land, would be slain for what they had, ■.or the
enemy, finding they had much, would use them
hardly, to make them confess more. And it is their
own iniquity that herein corrects them; It is for all
thy sins, even in all thy borders. All parts of the
country, even those which lay most remote, had
contributed to the national guilt, and all shall new
be brought to account. Let not one tribe lay the
blame upon another, but each take shame to itself;
It is for all thy sins in all thy borders. Thus shall
they stay at home till they see their estates ruined,
and then they shall be carried into captivity, to
spend the sad remains of a miserable life in slavery :
“ I will make thee to pass with thine enemies , who
shall lead thee in triumph, into a land thou kvowest
not, and therefore canst expect to find no comfort
in it.” All this is the fruit of God’s wrath: “It is
a fire kindled in mine anger, which shall burn upon
you, and, if not extinguished in time, will burn
eternally. ”
15. O Lord, thou k no west : remember
me, and visit me, and revenge me of my
persecutors; take me not away in thy Tong-
suffering: know that for thy sake I have suf¬
fered rebuke. 16. Thy words were found,
and T did eat them: and thy word was onto
me the joy and rejoicing of my heart : for J
am called by thy name, O Lord God of
hosts. 17. I sat not in the assembly of the
mockers, nor rejoiced; I sat alone, because
402
JEREMIAH, XV.
of thy hand : for thou hast filled me with j
indignation: 18. Why is my pain perpetual,
and my wound incurable, which refuseth to
be healed ? wilt thou be altogether unto me
as a liar, and as waters that fail? 19. There¬
fore thus saith the Lord, If thou return, then
will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand
before me: and if thou take forth the pre¬
cious from the vile, thou shalt be as my
mouth : let them return unto thee ; but re¬
turn not thou unto them. 20. And I will
make thee unto this people a fenced brazen
wall ; and they shall fight against thee, but
they shall not prevail against thee : for I am
with thee to save thee, and to deliver thee,
saith the Lord. 21. And I will deliver thee
out of the hand of the wicked, and I will
redeem thee out of the hand of the terrible.
Here, as before, we have,
I. The prophet’s humble address to God, con¬
taining a representation both of his integrity, and of
the hardships he underwent notwithstanding. It is
matter of comfort to us, that whatever ails us, we
have a God to go to, before whom we may spread
our case, and to whose omniscience we may appeal,
as the prophet here, “ O Lord, thou knowest: thou
knowest my sincerity, which men are resolved they
will not acknowledge; thou knowest my distress,
which men disdain to take notice of. ” Observe here,
1. What it is that the prophet prays for, v. 15.
(1 1 That God would consider his case, and be
mindful of him; “ O Lord, remember me; think
upn me for good.” (2.) That God would commu¬
nicate strength and comfort to him; Visit me; not
only remember me, but let me know that thou re-
memberest me, that thou art nigh unto me.” (3.)
That he would appear for him against those that
did him wrong; Revenge me of my persecutors, or,
rither, “ Vindicate me from my persecutors; give
judgment against them, and let that judgment be
executed so far as is necessary for my vindication,
and to compel them to acknowledge that they have
done me wrong.” Further than this, a good man
will not desire that God would revenge him. Let
something be done to convince the world that ( what¬
ever blasphemers say to the contrary) Jeremiah is a
righteous man, and the God whom he serves is a
righteous God. (4. ) That he would yet spare him
and continue him in the land of the living: “ Take
me not away by a sudden stroke, but in thy long-
suffering lengthen out my days.” The best men
will own themselves so obnoxious to God’s wrath,
that they are indebted to his patience for the con¬
tinuance of their lives. Or, “ While thou exer-
cisest lor.g-suffering toward my persecutors, let not
them prevail to take me away.” Though in com¬
passion he complained of his birth, ( v . 10.) yet he
desires here that his death might not be hastened;
for life is sweet to nature; the life of a useful man
is so to grace. I pray not that thou shouldest take
them out of the world.
2. What it is that he pleads with God for, mercy
and relief against his enemies, persecutors, and
slanderers.
(1. ) That God’s honour was interested in his case;
Know, and m ike it known, that for thy sake I have
suffered rebuke. Those that lay themselves open
to reproach by their own fault and tolly, have great
reason to bear it patiently, but no reason to expect
that Gad should appear for them. But if it is for
doing well that we suffer ill, and/or righteousness’
sake that we have all manner of evil said against us,
we may hope that God will vindicate our honour
with his own. To the same purport, (v. 16.) I am
called by thy name, O Lord of hosts; it was for that
reason that his enemies hated him, and therefore
for that reason he promised himself that God would
own him, and stand by him.
(2.) That the word of God, which he was employ¬
ed to preach to others, he had experienced the
power and pleasure of in his own soul, and therefore
had the graces of the Spirit to qualify him for the
divine favour, as well as his gifts. We find some re¬
jected of God, who yet could say, Lord, we have pro¬
phesied hi thy name. But Jeremiah could say more,
( v . 16.) “ Thy words were found, found by me;’’
(he searched the scriptures, diligently studied the
law, and found that in it which was reviving to him.
If we seek, we shall find;) “found for me;” (the
words which he was to deliver to others, were laid
ready to his hand, were brought to him by inspira¬
tion;) “ and I did not only taste them, but eat them,
received them entirely, conversed with them inti¬
mately; they were welcome to me, as food to one
that is hungry; I entertained them, digested them,
turned them in succum et sanguinem — into blood
and spirits, and was myself delivered into the mould
of those truths which I was to deliver to others.”
The prophet was bid to eat the roll, Ezek. ii. 8.
Rev. x. 9. I did eat it, that is, as it follows, it was
to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart, nothing
could be more agreeable. Understand it, [1.] Of
the message itself which he was to deliver. Though
he was to foretell the ruin of his country, which
was dear to him, and in the ruin of which he could
not but have a deep share, yet all natural affections
were swallowed up in zeal for God’s glory, and e' en
these messages of wrath, being divine messages,
were a satisfaction to him. He also rejoiced, at
first, in hope that the people would take warning,
and prevent the judgment. Or, [2.] Of the com¬
mission he received to deliver this message. Though
the work he was called to was not attended with
any secular advantages, but, on the contrary, ex¬
posed him to contempt and persecution, yet, be¬
cause it put him in a way to serve God, and do
good, he took pleasure in it, was glad to be so em¬
ployed, and it was his meat and drink to do the will
of him that sent him, John iv. 34. Or, [3. J Of the
promise God gave him, that he would assist and
own him in his work; ( ch . i. 8.) he was satisfied in
that, and depended upon it, and therefore hoped it
should not fail him.
(3. ) That he had applied himself to the discharge
of his office with all possible gravity, seriousness, and
self-denial, though he had had of late but little satis¬
faction in it, v. 17. [1- J It was his comfort, that he
had given up himself wholly to the business of his
office, and had done nothing inconsistent with it;
nothing either to divert himself from it, or d is fit
himself for it. He kept no unsuitable company, de¬
nied himself the use even of lawful recreations, ab
stained from every thing that looked like levity, lest
thereby he should make himself mean and less re¬
garded. He sat alone, spent a deal of time in his
closet, because of the hand of the Lord that was
strong upon him to carry him on in his work, Ezek.
iii. 14. “ Tor thou hast' filled me with indignation,
with such messages of wrath against this people, as
have made me always pensive.” It will be a comfort
to God’s ministers, when men despise them, if they
have the testimonies of their consciences for them,
that they have not by any vain, foolish behaviour,
made themselves despicable; that they have been
dead not only to the wealth of the world, as this pro¬
phet was, (x>. 10.) but to the pleasures of it too, as
here. But, [2.] It is his complaint, that he had had
but little pleasure in his work. It was at first the
403
JEREMIAH, XV.
rejoicing of his heart, but of late it had made him
melancholy; so that he had no heart to sit in the
meeting of those that make merry; he cared not for
company, for indeed no company cared for him; he
s at alone , fretting at the people’s obstinacy, and the
little success of his labours among them; this filled
him with a holy indignation. Note, It is the folly
and infirmity of some good people, that they lose
much of the pleasantness of their religion by the fret¬
fulness and uneasiness of their natural temper, which
they humour and indulge, instead cf mortifying it.
(4.) He throws himself upon God’s pity and pro¬
mise in a very passionate expostulation; (v. 18.)
“ Why is my /lain fierfietual, and nothing done to
ease it? Why are the wounds which my enemies
are continually giving both to my peace and to my
reputation, incurable, and nothing done to retrieve
either my comfort or my credit? I once little thought
that I should have been thus neglected; will the
God that has promised me his presence, be to me
as a liar; the God on whom I depend, be to me as
waters that fail'/” We are willing to make the best
we can of it, and to take it as an appeal, [1.] To
the mercy of God; “ I know he will not let the pain
of his servant be perpetual, but he will ease it, will
not let his wound be incurable, but he will heal it;
and therefore I will not despair.” [2.] To hisfaith-
u l ness; “ Wilt thou be to me as a liar? No, I
now thou wilt not; God is not a man that he should
lie. The Fountain of life will never be to his people
as waters that fail
II. God’s gracious answer to this address, v. 19. —
21. Though the prophet betrayed much human
frailty in his address, yet God vouchsafed to answer
him with good words and comfortable words; for
he knows our frame. Observe,
1. What God here requires of him as the condi¬
tion of the further favours he designed him. Jere¬
miah had done and suffered much for God, yet God
no Debtor to him, but he is still upon his good be¬
haviour. God will own him. But,
(1 ) He must recover his temper, and be recon¬
ciled to his work, and friends with it again, and not
quarrel with it any more as he had done. He must
return; must shake off these distrustful, discontent¬
ed thoughts and passions, and not give way to them,
must regain the peaceable possession and enjoyment
of himself, and resolve to be easy. Note, When
we have stept aside into any disagreeable frame or
way, our care must be to return , and compose our¬
selves into a right temper of mind again; and then
we may expect God will help us, if thus we endea¬
vour to help ourselves.
(2.) He must resolve to be faithful in his work,
for he could not expect the divine protection any
longer than he did approve himself so. Though
there was no cause at all to charge Jeremiah with
unfaithfulness, and God knew his heart to be sin¬
cere, yet God saw fit to give him this caution.
Those that do their duty must not take it ill to be
told their duty. In two things he must be faithful.
[1.] He must distinguish between some and others
of those he preached to; Thou must take forth the
hrecious from the vile. The righteous are the pre-
cious, be they ever so mean and poor, the wicked
are the vile, be they ever so rich and great. In our
congregations these are mixed, wheat and chaffin
the same floor; we cannot distinguish them by
name, but we must by character, and must give to
each a portion, speaking comfort to firecious saints,
and terror to vile sinners; neither making the heart
of the righteous sad, nor strengthening the hands of
the wicked, (Ezek. xiii. 22.) but rightly dividing
the word of truth. Ministers must take those whom
they see to be precious, into their bosoms, and not
sit alone as Jeremiah did, but keep up conversation
vith those they may do good to, and get good by.
[2.] He must closely adhere to his instructions,
and not in the least vary from them; Let them re¬
turn to thee, but return not thou to them. That is,
he must do the utmost he can, in his preaching, to
bring people up to the mind of God; he must tell
them they must, at their peril, comply with that.
They that had flown off from him, that did not like
the terms upon which God’s favour was offered to
them, “ Let them return to thee, and, upon second
thoughts, come up to the terms, and strike the bar¬
gain; but do not thou return to them, do not com¬
pliment them, or comply with them, or think to
make the matter easier to them than the word of
God has made it.” Men’s hearts and lives must
come up to God’s law, and comply with that, for
God’s law will never come down to them, or com¬
ply with them.
2. What he here promises them, upon the per¬
formance of these conditions. If he approve him¬
self well,
(1.) God will quiet his mind, and pacify the pre¬
sent tumult of his spirits; If thou return, I will
bring thee again; will restore thy soul, as Ps. xxiii.
3. The best and strongest saints, if at any time they
have gone aside out of the right way, and are de¬
termined to return, need the grace of God to bring
them again.
(2.) God will employ him in his service as a pro¬
phet, whose work, even in those bad times, had
comfort and honour enough in it to be its own wages;
“ Thou shall stand before me, to receive instruc¬
tions from me, as a servant from his master; and
thou sha/t be as my mouth to deliver my messages
to the people, as an ambassador is the mouth of the
prince that sends him.” Note, Faithful ministers
are God’s mouth to us; they are so to look upon
themselves, and to speak God’s mind, and us be¬
comes the oracles of God; and we are so to look
upon them, and to hear God speaking to us by them.
Observe, If thou keep close to thine instructions,
thou sha/t be as my mouth, not otherwise; so far
and no further, God will stand by ministers, as they
go by the written word; “ Thou shalt be as my
mouth, what thou savest shall be made good, as if I
myself had said it.” See Isa. xliv. 26. lSam.iii. 19.
(3.) He shall have strength and courage to face
the difficulties he meets with in his work, and his
spirit shall not fail again, as now it does; ( v . 20.)
“ I will make thee unto this people as a fenced
brazen wall, which the storm batters and beats vio¬
lently upon, but cannot shake. Return riot thou to
them, by any sinful compliances, and then trust thy
God to arm thee by his grace with holy resolutions.
Be not cowardly, and God will make thee daring.”
He had complained that he was made a man of
strife; “ Expect (says God) that they will fight
against thee; they will still continue their opposi¬
tion, but they shall not prevail against thee, to drive
thee off from thy work, or to cut thee off from the
land of the living.”
(4.) He shall have God for his Protector and
mighty Deliverer; I am with thee, to save thee.
Those" that have God with them, have a Saviour
with them, who has wisdom and strength enough
to deal with the most formidable enemy; and those
that are with God and faithful to him, he will de¬
liver, (x». 21.) either from trouble or through it.
They may perhaps fall into the hand of the wicked.
and they may appear terrible to them, but God will
rescue them out of their hands. They shall not be
able to kill them, till thev have finished their testi-
monv; they shall not prevent their happiness. God
will so deliver them as to' preserve them to his hea-
j venly kingdom, (2 Tim. iv. 18.) and that isdeliver-
ai ce enough. There are many things that appear
vt ry frightful, that vet do not prove at all hurtful,
tc i good man.
104
JEREMIAH, XVI.
CHAP. XVI.
In this chapter, I. 'f’he greatness of the calamity that was
coming upon the Jewish nation, is illustrated by prohi¬
bitions given to the prophet, neither to set up a house
of his own, (v. 1 . .4.) nor to go into the house of mourn¬
ing, {v. 5. . 7.) or into the house of feasting, v. 8, 9. II.
God is justified in these severe proceedings against them,
by an account of their great wickedness, v. 10. .13. III.
An intimation is given of mercy in reserve, v. 14, 15.
IV. Some hopes are given that the punishment of the
sin should prove the reformation of the sinners, and that
they should return to God at length in a way of duty,
and so be qualified for his returns to them in a way of
favour, v. 16- .21.
THE word of the Lord came also
unto me, saying, 2. Thou shalt not
take thee a wife, neither shalt thou have
sons nor daughters in this place. 3. P'or
thussaiththe Lord concerning the sons, and
concerning the daughters that are horn in
this place, and concerning their mothers that
bare them, and concerning their fathers that
begat them in this land; 4. They shall die
of grievous deaths: they shall not be lament¬
ed, neither shall they be buried; but they
shall be as dung upon the face of the earth:
and they shall be consumed by the sword,
and by famine; and their carcases shall be
meat for the fowls of heaven, and for the
beasts of the earth. 5. For thus saith the
Lord, Enter not into the house of mourn¬
ing, neither go to lament nor bemoan them,
for I have taken away my peace from this
people, saith the Lord, even loving-kindness
and mercies. 6. Both the great and the
small shall die in this land : they shall not
be buried, neither shall men lament for
them, nor cut themselves, nor make them¬
selves bald for them: 7. Neither shall men
tear themselves for them in mourning, to
comfort them for the dead; neither shall
men give them the cup of consolation to
drink for their father or for their mother.
3. Thou shalt not also go into the house of
feasting, to sit with them to eat and to drink.
9. For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the
God of Israel; Behold, I will cause to cease
out of this place in your eyes, and in your
days, the voice of mirth, and the voice of
gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and
the voice of the bride.
The prophet is here for a sign to the people; they
would not regard what he said, let it be tried whe¬
ther they will regard what he does. In general, he
must conduct himself so, in every thing, as became
one that expected to see his country in ruins very
shortly. This he foretold, but few regarded the
prediction; therefore he is to show that he is him¬
self fully satisfied in the truth of it. Others go on in
their usual course, but he, in the prospect of these
sad times, is forbidden, and therefore forbears, mar¬
riage, mourning for the dead, and mirth. Note,
Those that would convince others of, and affect
them with, the word of God, must make it appear,
even in the most self-denying instances, that they
do believe it themselves, and are affected with it. I
If we would rouse others out of their security, and
persuade them to sit loose to the world, we must
ourselves be mortified to present things, and show
that we expect the dissolution cf them.
1. Jeremiah must not marry, nor think of having
a family, and being a housekeeper; ( v . 2.) Thou
shalt not take thee a wife, nor think of having sons
and daughters in this place, net in the land of Judah,
not in Jerusalem, not in Anathoth. The Jews, more
than any people, valued themselves on their early
marriages, and their numerous offspring. But Jere¬
miah must live a bachelor, not so much in honour
ot virginity, as in diminution of it; by this it appears
that it was adviseable and seasonable only in calami¬
tous times, and times of present distress, 1 Cor. vii.
26. That it is so, is a part of the calamity. There
may be a time when it will be said, Blessed is the
womb that bare not, Luke xxiii. 29. When we see
such times at hand, it is wisdom for all, especially
for prophets, to keep themselves as much as may
be from being entangled with the affairs of this life,
and encumbered with that which, the dearer it is to
them, the more it will be the matter of their care,
and fear, and grief, at such a time. The reason
here given, is, because the fathers and mothers, the
sons and the daughters, shall die of grievous deaths,
v. 3, 4. As for those that have wives and children,
(1.) They will have such a clog upon them, that
they cannot flee from those deaths. A single man
may make his escape, and shift for his own safetv,
when he that has a wife and children, can neither
find means to convey them with him, nor find in his
heart to go and leave them behind him. (2.) They
will be in continual terror for fear of those deaths;
and the more they have to lose by them, the greater
will the terror and consternation be, when death
appears every where in its triumphant pomp and
power. (3.) The death of every child, and the
aggravating circumstances of it, will be a new
death to the parent. Better have no children
than have them brought forth, and bred up, for
the murderer, (Hos ix. 13, 14.) than see them
live and die in misery. Death \%grievous, but some
deaths are more grievous than others, both to them
that die and to their relations that survive them:
hence we read of so great a death, 2 Cor. i. 10. T wo
things are used a little to palliate and alleviate the
terror of death, as to this world, and to sugar the
bitter pill; bewailing the dead, and burying them;
but to make those deaths grievous indeed„these are
denied; They shall not be lamented, but shall be
carried off, as if all the world were weary of them;
nay, they shall not be buried, but left exposed, as if
they were designed to be monuments of justice.
They shall be as dung upon the face of the earth,
not only despicable, but detestable, as if they were
good for nothing but to manure the ground; being
consumed, some by the sword, and some by famine,
their carcases shall be meat for the fowls of heaven,
and the beasts of the earth. Will not any one say,
“ Better be without children, than live to see them
come to this.” What reason have we to say, all is
vanity and vexation of spirit, when those creatures
that we expect to be our greatest comforti, may
prove not only our heaviest cares, but our sorest
crosses!
2. Jeremiah must not go to the house of mourn ■
ing, upon occasion of the death of any of his neigh -
bours.or relations; (t>. 5.) Enter thou not into the
house of mourning. It was usual to condole with
those whose relations were dead, to bemoan them,
to cut themseh'es, and make themselves bald, which,
it seems, was commonly practised, as an expression
of mourning, though forbidden by the law, Deut.
xiv. 1. Nay, some’imes, in a passion cf grief, they
tare themselves for them ; (in 6, 7.) partly in horn in
of the deceased, thus signifying that they thought
405
JEREMIAH, XVI.
there was a great loss ot then.; and partly, in com¬
passion to the surviving relations, to whom the bur¬
then will be made tile lighter, by their having
sharers with them in their grief. They used to
mourn with them, and so to comfort them for the
dead, as Job’s friends with him, and the Jews with
Martha and Mary ; and it was a friendly office to
give them a cup of consolation to drink, to provide
cordials for then/, and press them earnestly to drink
of them for the support of their spirits; give wine
to them that are ot heavy heart, for their father or
mother, that it may be some comfort to them to find
that, though they have lost their parents, yet they
have some friends left, that have a concern for them.
Thus the usage stood, and it was a laudable usage;
it is a good work to others, as well as of good use to
ourselves, to go to the house of mourning. It seems,
the prophet Jeremiah had been wont to abound in
good offices of this kind, and it well became his cha¬
racter, both as a pious man and as a prophet; and
one would think it should have made him better be¬
loved among his people, than it should seem he was.
But now God bids him not lament the death of his
friends, as usual. For, (1.) His sorrow for the de¬
struction of his country in general, must swallow up
his sorrow for particular deaths. His tears must
now be turned into another channel; and there is
occasion enough for them all. (2.) He had little
reason to lament those who died now just before the
judgments entered, which he saw at the door; but
rather to think them happy, who were seasonably
taken away from the evil to come. (3.) This was
to be a type of what was coming, when there should
be such universal confusion, that all neighbourly,
friendly offices should be neglected. Men shall be
in deaths so often, and even dying daily, that they
shall have no time, no room, no heart, for the cere¬
monies that used to attend death; the sorrows shall
be so ponderous as not to admit relief; and every
one so full of grief for his own troubles, that he shall
have no thoughts of his neighbour’s. All shall be
mourners then, and no comforters; every one will
find it enough to bear his own burthen; for, (y. 5.)
“ I have taken away my peace from this people, put
a full period to their prosperity, deprived them of
health, and wealth, and quiet, and friends, and
every thing wherewith thev might comfort them¬
selves and one anothev.” Whatever peace we en¬
joy, it is God’s peace ; it is his gift, and if he gives
quietness, who then can make trouble? But if we
make not a good use of his peace, he can and will
take it away; and where are we then? Job xxxiv.
29. I will take away my peace, even my loving-
kindness and mercies; these shall be shut up and
restrained, which are the fresh springs from which
all their fresh streams flow, and then farewell all
good. Note, Those have cut themselves off from
all true peace, that have thrown themselves out of
the favour of God. All is gone, when God takes
away from us his loving-kindness and his mercies.
Then it follows, (v. 6.) Both the great and the small
shall die, even in this land, the land of Canaan, that
used to be called the land of the living. God’s fa¬
vour is our life; take away that, and we die, we pe¬
rish, wc all perish.
3. Jeremiah must not go to the house of mirth,
any more than to the house of mourning, v. 1. It
had been his custom, and it was innocent enough,
when any of his friends made entertainments at their
houses, and invited him to them, to go and sit with
them, not merely to drink, but to eat and to drink,
soberly and cheerfully. But now he must not take that
liberty. ( 1. ) Because it was unseasonable, and incon¬
sistent with the providences of God that fell upon
the land and nation. God called loud to weeping, and
mourning, and fasting; he was coming forth against
them in his judgments, and it was time for them
] to humble themselves; and it well became the pru-
; phot, who gave them the warning, to give them an
[ example of taking the warning, and complying wit! i
it, and so to make it appear that he did himself be¬
lieve it. Ministers ought to be examples cf self-
denial and mortification, and to show themselves
affected with those terrors of the Lord, with which
they desire to affect others. And it becomes all the
sons of Zion to sympathize with her in her atflic -
tiems, and not to be merry when she is perplexed,
Amos vi. 6. (2. ) Because he must thus show the
people what sad times were coming upon them.
His friends wondered that he would not meet them,
as he used to do, in the house of feasting. But he
lets them know, it was to intimate to them that all
their feasting would be at an end shortly; (v. 9.)
“ I will cause to cease the voice of mirth. You shall
have nothing to feast on, nothing to rejoice in, but
be surrounded with calamities that shall mar your
mirth, and cast a damp upon it.” God can find
ways to tame the most jovial. “This shall be dene
in this place, in Jerusalem, that used to be the joyous
city, and thought her joys were all secure to her;
it shall be' done in your eyes, in your sight, to be
a vexation to you, who now look so haughty, and so
merry; it shall be done in your days, you yourselves
shall live to see it.” The voice of praise they had
mf^de to cease by their iniquities and idolatries, and
therefore justly God made to cease among them the
voice of mirth and gladness. The voice of God’s
prophets was not heard, was not heeded, among
them, and therefore no longer shall the voice of the
bridegroom and of the bride, of the songs that used
to grace the nuptials, be heard among them. See
ch. vii. 34.
10. And it shall come to pass, when thou
shalt shew this people all these words, and
they shall say unto thee, Wherefore hath
the Lord pronounced all this great evil
against us? or what is our iniquity, or what
is our sin, that we have committed against
the Lord our God? 11. Then shalt thou
say unto them, Because your fathers have
forsaken me, saith the Lord, and have
walked after other gods, and have served
them, and have worshipped them, and have
forsaken me, and have not kept my law:
12. And ye have done worse than your fa¬
thers; (for, behold, ye walk every one after
the imagination of his evil heart, that they
may not hearken unto me ;) 1 3. Therefore
will I cast you out of this land into a land
that ye know not, neither ye nor your fathers ;
and there shall ye serve other gods day and
night, where I will not shew you favour.
Here is,
1. An inquiry made into the reasons why God
would bring those judgments upon them; (v. 10.)
When thou shale show this people all these words,
the words of this curse, they will say unto thee,
Wherefore has the Lord pronounced all this great
evil against us? One would hope that there were
some among them that asked this question with a
humble, penitent heart, desiring to know what was
the sin for which God contended with them, that
they might cast it away, and prevent the judgment;
“Show us the Jonah that raises the storm, and we
will throw it overboard. ” But it seems here to be
the language of those who quarrelled at the word
of God, and challenged him to show what they had
106
JEREMIAH, XVI.
done, which might deserve so severe a punishment;
‘ What is our iniquity? Or, what is our sin? What
crime have we ever been guilty of, proportionable
to such a sentence?” Instead of humbling and con¬
demning themselves, they stand upon their own
justification; and insinuate that God did them
wrong, in pronouncing this evil against them, that
he laid u/ion them more than was right, and that
they had reason to enter into judgment with God,
Job xxxiv. 23. Note, It is amazing to see how
hardly sinners are brought to justify God, and judge
themselves, when they are in trouble, and to own
the iniquity and the sin that have procured them
the trouble.
2. Aplainandfullanswergiventothisinquiry. Do
they ask the prophet why, and for what reason,
God is thus angry with them? He shall not stop
their mouths by telling them that they may be sure
there is a sufficient reason, the righteous God is
never angry without cause, without good cause; but
he must tell them particularly what is the cause,
that they may be convinced and humbled, or, at
least, that God may be justified. Let them know
then,
(1.) That God visited upon them the iniquities
of their fathers; ( v . 11.) Your fathers have for¬
saken me, and have not kept my law; they shook
off divine institutions and grew weary of them, they
thought them too plain, too mean, and then they
walked after other gods, whose worship was more
gay and pompous; and, being fond of variety and
novelty, they served them and worshipped them;
and this was the sin which God had said, in the se¬
cond commandment, he would visit upon their chil¬
dren, who kept up these idolatrous usages, because
they received them by tradition from their fathers,
1 Pet. i. 18.
(2.) That God reckoned with them for their own
iniquities; (v. 12.) “You have made your fathers’
sin your own, and are become obnoxious to the pu¬
nishment which in their days was deferred, for you
have done worse than your fathers.” If they had
made a good use of their fathers’ reprieve, and had
been led by the patience of God to repentance, they
should have fared the better for it, and the judg¬
ment should have been prevented, the reprieve
turned into a national pardon; but, making an ill
use of it, and being hardened by it in their sins, they
fared the worse for it, and the reprieve being ex¬
pired, an addition was made to the sentence, and it
was executed with the more severity. They were
more impudent and obstinate in sin than their fa¬
thers, walked every one after the imagination of his
heart, made that their guide and rule, and were re¬
solved to follow that on purpose that they might not
hearken to God and his prophets. They designedly
suffer their own lusts and passions to be noisy, that
they might drown the voice of their consciences.
No wonder then that God has taken up this resolu¬
tion concerning them, (v. 13.) “I will cast you out
of this land, this land of light, this valley of vision;
since you will not hearken to me, you shall not hear
me, you shall be hurried away, not into a neigh¬
bouring country which you have formerly had some
acquaintance and correspondence with, but into a
far country, a land that ye know not, neither you
nor your fathers; in which you have no interest,
nor can expect to meet with any comfortable society,
to be an allay to your misery.” Justly were they
banished into a strange land, who doted upon
strange gods, which neither they nor their fathers
knew, Deut. xxxii. 17. Two things would make
their case there very miserable, and both of them
relate to the soul, the better part; the greatest ca¬
lamities of their captivity were those which affected
that, and debarred them from its bliss. [l.J “It
is the happiness of the soul to be employed in the
service of God; but there shall you serve other godt
day and night, you shall be in continual temptation
to serve them, and perhaps compelled to do it by
your cruel taskmasters; and when you are forced
to worship idols, you will be as averse to it as ever
you were fond of it when it was forbidden you by
your godly kings.” Sec how God often makes
men’s sin their punishm, nt, and fills the backslider
in heart with his own ways. “You shall have no
public worship at all, but the worship of idols, and
then you will think with regret how you slighted
the worship, of the true God.” [2.] “It is the
happiness of the soul to have some tokens of the
loving-kindness of God, but you shall go to a strange
land, where I will not show you favour.” If they
had had God’s favour, that would have made even
the land of their captivity a pleasant land; but, if
they lie under his wrath, the yoke of their oppres¬
sion will be intolerable to them.
14. Therefore, behold, the days come,
saith the Lord, that it shall no more be
said, The Lord liveth that brought up the
children of Israel out of the land of Egypt ;
15. But, The Lord liveth that brought up
the children of Israel from the land of the
north, and from all the lands whither he had
driven them: and I will bring them again
into their land that I gave unto their fathers.
16. Behold, I will send for many fishers,
saith the Lord, and they shall fish them ;
and after I will send for many hunters, and
they shall hunt them from every mountain,
and from every hill, and out of the holes of
the rocks. 17. For mine eyes are upon all
their ways: they are not hid from my face,
neither is their iniquity hid from mine eyes.
1 8. And first I will recompense their iniquity
and their sin double ; because they have de¬
filed my land, they have filled mine inheri¬
tance with the carcases of their detestable
and abominable things. 19. O Loud, my
strength, and my fortress, and my refuge in
the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come
unto thee from the ends of the earth, and
shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited
lies, vanities, and things wherein there is no
profit. 20. Shall a man make gods unto
himself, and they ore no gods? 21. There¬
fore, behold, I will this once cause them to
know, I will cause them to know, my hand
and my might; and they shall know that my
name is the Lord.
There is a mixture of mercy and judgment in
these verses, and it is hard to know to whicn to ap¬
ply some of the passages here, they are so interwo¬
ven; and some seem to look as far forward as the
times of the gospel.
I. God will certainly execute judgment upon them
for their idolatries. Let them expect it, for the de¬
cree is gone forth.
1. God sees all their sins, though they commit
them ever so secretly, and palliate them ever so
artfully; (v. 17.) Mine eyes are upon all their ways.
They have not their eye upon God, have no regard
to him, stand in no awe of him; but he has his eye
upon them, neither they nor their sins are hid from
JEREMIAH. XVI.
407
his face, from his eyes. Note, None of the sins of
sinners either can be concealed from God, or shall
be overlooked, by him, Prov. v. 21. Job xxxiv. 21.
Ps. xc. 8.
2. God is highly displeased, particularly at their
idolatries, v. 18. As his omniscience convicts them,
so his justice condemns them; I will recompense
their iniquity and their sin double; not double to
what it deserves, but double to what they expect,
and to what I have done formerly. Or, I will re¬
compense it abundantly, they shall now pay for
their long reprieve, and the divine patience they have
abused. The sin for which God has a controversy
with them, is, their having defied God’s land with
their idolatries, and not only alienated that which
he was entitled to as his inheritance, but polluted
that which he dwelt in with delight as his inherit¬
ance, and made it offensive to him with the carcases
of their detestable things, the gods themselves which
ttiey worshipped, the images of which, though they
were of gold and silver, were as loathsome to God
as the putrid carcases of men or beasts are to us;
idols are carcases of detestable things, God hates
them, and so should we. Or, he might refer to the
sacrifices which they offered to these idols, with
which the land was filled; for they had high places
in all the coasts and corners of it. This was the sin
which, above any other, incensed God against
them.
3. He will find out and raise up instruments of
his. wrath, that shall cast them out of their land, ac¬
cording to the sentence passed upon them, ( v . 16.)
I will send for many fishers, and many hunters;
the Chaldean army, that shall have many ways of
insnaring and destroying them, by fraud as fishers,
by force as hunters: they shall find them out where-
ever they are, and shall chase and closely pursue
them, to their ruin; they shall discover them where-
ever they are hid, in hills or mountains, or holes of
the rocks, and shall drive them out. God has vari¬
ous ways of prosecuting a people with his judgments,
that avoid the convictions of his word. He has
men at command fit for his purpose; he has them
within call, and can send for them when he pleases.
4. Their bondage in Babylon shall be sorer and
much more grievous than that in Egypt, their task¬
masters more cruel, and their lives made more bit¬
ter. This is implied in the promise, (y. 14, 15.)
that their deliverance out of Babylon shall be more
illustrious in itself, and more welcome to them,
than that out of Egypt. Their slavery in Egypt
came upon them gradually and almost insensibly,
that in Babylon came upon them at once, and with
all the aggravating circumstances of terror. In
Egypt they had a Goshen of their own, but none
such in Babylon. In Egypt they were used as ser¬
vants that were useful; in Babylon, as captives that
had been hateful.
5. They shall be warned, and God shall be glori¬
fied, by these judgments brought upon them. These
judgments have a voice, and speak aloud, (1.) In¬
struction to them; when God chastens them he
teaches them. By this rod God expostulates with
them, ( v . 20.) “Shall a man make gods to himself?
Will any man be so perfectly void of all reason and
consideration, as to think that a god of his own mak¬
ing can stand him in any stead? Will you ever again
be such fools as you have been, to make to your¬
selves gods, which are no gods, when you have a
God whom you may call your own, who made you,
and is himself the true and living God?” (2.) Ho¬
nour to God; for he will be known by the judgments
which he executeth. He will first recompense
their iniquity, ( v . 18.) and then he will this once,
{v. 21.) this once for all, not by many interruptions
of th' ir peace, but this one desolation and destruc¬
tion of it; or. This once and no more, I will cause
them to know my hand, the length and weight of
my punishing hand, how far it can reach, and how
deep it can wound. And they shall know that my
name is Jehovah, a God with whom there is no
contending, who gives being to threatenings, and
puts life into them as well as promises.
H. Y et he has mercy in store for them, intima¬
tions of which come in here for the encouragement
of the prophet himself, and of those few among
them that trembled at God’s word. It was said,
with an air of severity, (i>. 13.) that God would ban¬
ish them into a strange land; but that thereby they
might not be driven to despair, there follow, imme¬
diately, words of comfort:
I. The days wilt come, the joyful days, when the
same hand that dispersed them, shall gather them
again, v. 14, 15. They are cast out, but they are
not cast off, they are not cast away; they shall be
brought up from the land of the north , the land of
their captivity, where they are held with a strong
hand, and from all the lands whither they are driven,
and where they seemed to be lost and buried in the
crowd; nay, I will bring them again into their own
land, and settle them there. As the foregoing
threatenings agreed with what was written in the
law, so does this promise, (Lev. xxvi. 44.) Yet will
I not cast them away, Deut. xxx. 4. Thence will
the Lord thy God gather thee. And the following
words (v. 16.) may be understood as a promise;
God will send for fishers and hunters, the Modes
and Persians, that shall find them out in the coun¬
tries where they are scattered, and send them back
to their own land; or, Zerubbabel, and others of
their own nation, who should fish them out, and
hunt after them, to persuade them to return; or
whatever instruments the Spirit of God made use
of to stir up their spirits to go up, which at first
they were backward to. They began to nestle in
Babylon; but as an eagle stirs up her nest, and flut¬
ters over her young, so God did by them, Zech.
ii. 7.
2. Their deliverance out of Babylon should, upon
some accounts, be more illustrious and memorable
than their deliverance out of Egypt was. Both
were the Lord’s doing, and marvellous in their eyes,
both were proofs that the Lord liveth, and were to
be kept in everlasting remembrance, to his honour,
as the living God; but the fresh mercy shall be so
surprising, so welcome, that it shall even abolish the
memory of the former. Not but that new mercies
should put us in mind of old ones, and give us occa¬
sion to renew our thanksgivings for them; yet, be¬
cause we are tempted to think that the former days
were better than these, and to ask, Where are alt
the wonders that our fathers told us of? as if God’s
arm were waxen short; and to cry up the age of
miracles above the later ages, when mercies are
wrought in a way of common providence; therefore
we are allowed here comparatively to forget the
bringing of Israel out of Egypt as a deliverance out¬
done by that out of Babylon. That was done by
might and power, this by the Spirit of the Lord of
hosts, Zech. iv. 6. In this there was more of par¬
doning mercy (the most glorious branch of divine
mercy) than in that; for their captivity in Babylrn
had more in it of the punishment of sin than their
bondage in Egypt; and therefore that which com¬
forts Zion in her deliverance out of Babylon, is this,
that her iniquity is pardoned, Isa. xl. 2. Note,
God glorifies himself, and we must glorify him, in
those mercies that have no miracles in them, as well
as in those that have. And though the favours of
God to our fathers must not be forgotten, yet those
to ourselves in our own day we must especially give
thanks for.
3. Their deliverance out of captivity shall be ac¬
companied with blessed reformation, and they
403 , JEREMIAH, XVII.
shall return, effectually cured of their inclination to I
idolatry, which will complete their deliverance, !
and make it a mercy indeed. They had defiled ;
their own land with their detestable th vgs, v. 18.
lsut when they have smarted for so doing, they shall
come and humble themselves before God, v. 19.
—21.
(1.) They shall be brought to acknowledge that
their God only is God indeed, for he is a God in
need; My Strength to support and comfort me, my
Fortress to protect and shelter me, and my Refuge
to whom I may flee in the day of affliction. Note,
Need drives many to God, who had set themselves
at a dist ance from him. Those that slighted him
■n the day of their prosperity, will be glad to flee to
nim in the day cf their affliction.
(2.) They shall be quickened to return to him by
the conversion of the Gentiles; The Gentiles shall
come to thee from the ends of the earth ; and there¬
fore shall not we come? Or, The Jews who had by
their idolatries made themselves as Gentiles, (so 1
rather understand it,) shall come to thee by repent¬
ance and reformation, shall return to their duty and
allegiance, even from the ends of the earth, from all
the countries whither they were driven. The pro¬
phet comforts himself with the hopes of this, and in
a transport of joy returns to God the notice he had
given him of it; “O Lord, my Strength and my
Fortress, I am now easy, since thou hast given me
a prospect of multitudes that shall come to thee from
the ends of the earth, both of Jewish converts and
of Gentile proselytes.” Note, Those that are
brought to God themselves, cannot but rejoice
greatly to see others coming to him, coming back
to him.
(3.) They shall acknowledge the folly of their
ancestors, which it becomes them to do, when they
were smarting for the sins of their ancestors;
“Surely our fathers have inherited, not the satis¬
faction the v promised themselves and their children,
but lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no pro¬
fit; we ire now sensible that our fathers were
cheated in their idolatrous worship, it did not prove
what it promised, and therefore, what have we to
do any more with it?” Note, It were well if the dis¬
appointment which some have met with in the ser¬
vice of sin, and the pernicious consequences of it to
them, might prevail to deter others from treading
in their steps.
(4.) They shall reason themselves out of their
idolatry; and that reformation is likely to be sincere
and durable, which results from a rational convic¬
tion of the gross absurdity there is in sin. They
shall argue thus with themselves, (and it is well
argued,) Should a man be such a fool, so perfectly
void of the reason of a man, as to make gods to him¬
self, the creatures of his own fancy, the work of his
own hands, when they are really no gods? v. 20.
Can a man be so besotted, so perfectly lost to hu¬
man understanding, as to expect any divine blessing
or favour from that which pretends to no divinity
but what is first received from him?
(5.) They shall herein give honour to God, and
make it to appear that they know both his hand in
his providence, and his name in his word, and that
they are brought to know his name, by what they
are made to know of his hand, v. 21. This once,
now at length, they shall be made to know that
which they would not be brought to know by all the
pains the prophets took with them. Note, So stu¬
pid are we, that nothing less than the mighty hand
of divine grace, known experimentally, can make
us know rightly the name of God as it is revealed
to us.
4. Their deliverance out of captivity shall be a
tvpc and figure of the great salvation to be wrought
out by the Messiah, who shall gather together in
one the children of God that were scattered ubr r.. id.
And this is that which so far outshines the deliver¬
ance out of Egypt, as even to eclipse the lustre of it,
and make it even to be forge tten. To this some
apply that of the many fishers and hunters, the
preachers of the gospel, who were fishers of men,
to enclose souls with the gospel-net to fine! t . < m
out in every mountain and hill, and secure them for
Christ. Then the Gentiles came to God, some
from the ends of the earth, and turned to the wor¬
ship of him from the service of dumb idols.
CHAP. XVII.
In this chapter, I. God convicts the Jews of the sin of
idolatry by the notorious evidence of the fact, and con¬
demns them to captivity for it, v 1 . . 4. II. He shows
them the folly of all their carnal confidences, which
should stand them in no stead, when God’s time was to
contend with them; and that this was one of the sins
upon which his controversy writh them was grounded, v.
5. . 11. III. The prophet makes his appeal and address
to God, upon occasions of the malice of his enemies
against him, committing himself to the divine protection,
and begging of God to appear for him, v. 12 . . IS. IV.
God, by the prophet, warns the people to keep holy the
sabbath-day, assuring them that, if they did, it should be
the lengthening out of their tranquillity; but that, if not,
God would by some desolating judgment assert the ho¬
nour of his sabbaths, v. 19 . . 27.
1. PTHHE sin of Judah is written with a
JL pen of iron, and with the point of a
diamond: it is graven upon the table of thpir
heart, and upon the horns of your altars;
2. Whilst their children remember their al¬
tars and their groves by the green trees upon
the high hills. 3. O my mountain in tiie
field, I w ill give thy substance and all thy
treasures to the spoil, and thy high places
for sin, throughout all thy borders. 4. And
thou, even thyself, shaft discontinue from
thy heritage that I gave thee; and I will
cause thee to serve thine enemies in the land
w’hich thou knowest not; for ye have kin¬
dled a fire in mine anger, which shall burn
for ever.
The people had asked, (ch. xiv. 10.) What is our
iniquity, and what is our sin? As if they could
not be charged with any thing worth speaking cf,
for which God should enter into judgment with
them ; their challenge was answered there, but here
we have a further reply to it; in which,
I. The indictment is fully proved upon the pri¬
soners, both the fact and the fault; their sin is too
plain to be denied, and too bad to be excused, and
they have nothing to plead either in extenuation of
the crime, orin arrest and mitigation of thejudgment.
(1.) They cannot plead not guilty, for their sins
are upon record in the book cf God’s omniscience,
and their own conscience; nay, and they are obvirus
to the eye and observation of the world, v. 1, 2.
They are written before God in the most legible
and indelible characters, and sealed among his
treasures, never to be forgotten, Dcut. xxxii. 34.
They are written there with a pen of iron, and with
the point of a diamond; what is so written will not
be worn out by time, but is, as Job speaks, graven
in the rock for ever. Note, 'The sin of sinners is
never forgotten, till it is forgiven. It is ever before
God, till by repentance it comes to be ever before
us. It is graven upon the table of their heart; their
own consciences witness against them, and are in¬
stead of a thousand witnesses. What is graven on
the heurt, though it may be covered and closed up
for a time, yet, being graven, it cannot be razed
109
JEREMI
out, but will be produced in evidence, when the
hooks sh ill he opened. N ay, we need not appeal
to the tables of the heart, perhaps the)’ will not own
the convictions of their consciences. We need go
no further, f r proof of the charge, than the horns
of their altars, on which the blood of their idola¬
trous sacrifices was sprinkled, and perhaps the
names of the idols, to whose honour they were
erected, were inscribed. Their neighbours will
. witness against them, and all the creatures they
nave abused by using them in the service of their
lusts. To complete the evidence, their own children
shall be witnesses against them; they will tell truth,
when their fathers dissemble and prevaricate; they
remember the altars and the groves to which their
parents took them when they were little, v. 2. It
appears that they were full of them, and acquainted
with them betimes, they talk of them so frequently,
so familiarly, and with so much delight.
(2.) They cannot plead that they repent, or are
come to a better mind; no, as the guilt of their sin is
undeniable, so their inclination to sin is invincible
and incurable. In this sense many understand v.
1, 2. Their sin is deeply engraven as with a pen
of iron in the tables of their hearts; they have a
rooted affection to it, it is woven into their very na¬
ture; their sin is dear to them as that is of which we
say, It is engraven on our hearts. The bias of their
minds is still as strong as ever toward their idols,
and they are not wrought upon either by the word
or rod of God to forget them, and abate their af¬
fection to them. It is written upon the horns of
their a/tais, for they have given up their names to
their idols, and resolve to abide by what they have
done; they have bound themselves, as with cords, to
the horns of the altars. And v. 2. may be read
fully to this sense, As they remember their children,
so remember they their altars and their groves;
they are as fond of them and take as much pleasure
in them, as men do in their own children, and are
as loath to part with them; they will live and die
with their idols, and can no more forget them than
a woman can forget her sucking child.
2. The indictment being thus fully proved, the
judgment is affirmed, and the sentence ratified, v.
3, 4. Forasmuch as they are thus wedded to their
sins, and will not part with them.
(1.) They shall be made to part with their trea¬
sures, and those shall be given into the hands of
strangers. Jerusalem is God’s mountain in the field,
it was built on a hill in the midst of a plain; all the
treasures of that wealthy city will God give to the
spoil. Or, My mountains with the fields, thy wealth
and all thy treasures, will I eorpose to spoil; both
the products of the country, and the stores of the
city, shall be seized by the Chaldeans. Justly are
men stripped of that which they have served their
idols with, and have made the food and fuel of their
lusts. My mountain (so the whole land was, Ps.
Ixxviii. 54. Deut. xi. 11.) you have turned into your
high places for sin, have worshipped your idols upon
the high hills, (v. 2. ) and now they shall be giveti
for a spoil in all your borders. What we make for
a sin, God will make for a spoil; for what comfort
can we expect in that wherewith God is disho¬
noured?
(2.) They shall be made to part with their in¬
heritance, with their real estates, as well as per¬
sonal, and shall be carried captives into a strange
1 md; (f. 4.) Thou, even thyself, or thou thyself and
those that are in thee, all the inhabitants, shall dis¬
continue from thy heritage that I gave thee. God
owns that it was their heritage, and that he gave it
them; they had an unquestionable title to it, which
w s an aggravation of their folly in throwing them¬
selves out of the possession of it. It is through thy¬
self. (so some read it,) through thine own default,
Vol. iv -3 F
4H, XVII.
that thou an disseized. Thou shall discontinue, or
intermit, the occupation of thy land. The law ap¬
pointed them to let their land rest, (it is the word
here used,) one year in seven, Exi d. xxiii. 11.
They did not observe th t law, and now God would
compel them to let it rest; The 1 md shall enjoy her
sabbaths; (Lev. xx\ i. 34. ) and yet it shall be no rest
to them, they shall serve their enemies in a land they
know not. Observe, [1.] Sin works a discontinuance
of our covnfi ms, and deprives us < f the enjoyment of
that which God has given us. Yet, [2.J A discon¬
tinuance of the possession is not a defeasance of the
right, but it is intimated, that upon their repentance,
they shall recover possession again. For the pre¬
sent, ye have kindled a fire in mine anger, which
burns so hot, that it seems as if it would bum for
ever; and so it will, unless you repent, for it is the
anger of an everlasting God fastening upon immortal
souls; and who knows the power of that anger?
4. Thus saitli the Lord, Cursed be the
man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh
his arm, and whose heart departeth from the
Lord: 6. For he shall be like the heath in
the desert, and shall not see when good
cometh ; but shall inhabit the parched places
in the wilderness, in g salt land and not in¬
habited. 7. Blessed is the man that trusteth
in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is:
8. For he shall be as a tree planted by the
waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by
the river, and shall not see when heat cometh,
but her leaf shall be green ; and shall not be
careful in the year of drought, neither shall
cease from yielding fruit. 9. The heart is
deceitful above all things, and desperately
wicked: who can know it? 10. I the Lord
search the heart, / try the reins, even to give
every man according to his ways, and ac¬
cording to the fruit of his doings. 11. As
the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth
them not; so he that gettelh riches, and not
by right, shall leave them in the midst of his
days, and at his end shall be a fool.
It is excellent doctrine that is preached in these
verses, and of general concern and use to us all, and
it does not appear to have any particular reference
to the present state of Judah and Jerusalem; the
prophet’s sermons were not all prophetical, but
some of them practical; yet this discourse, which,
probably, we have here only the heads of, would be
of singular use to them by way of caution, not to
misplace their confidence in the day of their dis¬
tress. Let us all learn what we are taught here,
1. Concerning the disappointment and vexation
they will certainly meet with who depend upon crea¬
tures for success and relief when they are in trouble;
(r>. 5, 6.) Cursed be the man that trusts in man;
God pronounces him cursed for the affront he there¬
by puts upon him; or, Cursed, that is, miserable, is
the man that does so, for he leans upon a broken
reed, which will not only fail him, but will run into
his hand and pierce it. "Observe, (1.) The sin here
condemned; it is trusting in man, putting that con¬
fidence in the wisdom and power, the kindness and
faithfulness, of men, which should be placed in those
attributes of God only; making our applications to
men, and raising our expectations from them as
principal agents, whereas they are but instruments
in the hand of Providence. It is making flesh the
410 JEREMIAH, XVII.
arm we stay upon, the arm we work with, and with
which we hope to work our point; the arm under
which we shelter ourselves, and on which we de¬
pend for protection. God is his people’s Arm, Isa.
xxxiii. 2. We must not think to make any crea¬
ture to be that to us, which God has undertaken to
be. Man is called flesh, to show the folly of those
that make them their confidence; he is flesh, weak
and feeble, as flesh without bones or sinews, that
has no strength at all in it; he is inactive as flesh
without spirit, which is a dead thing. He is mortal
and dying, as flesh which soon putrefies and cor¬
rupts, and is continually wasting. Nay, he is false
and sinful, and has lost his integrity; so his being
flesh signifies, Gen. vi. 3. (2.) The great malig¬
nity there is in this sin; it is the departure of the
evil heart of unbelief from the living God. They
that trust in man, perhaps draw nigh to God with
their mouth, and honour him with their lips, they
call him their Hope , and say that they trust in him;
but really their heart departs from him: they dis¬
trust him, despise him, and decline a correspondence
with him. Cleaving to the cistern is leaving the
Fountain, and is resented accordingly. (3.) The
fatal consequences of this sin. He that puts a con¬
fidence in man, puts a cheat upon himself; for, (v.
6. ) He shall be like the heath in the desert, a sorry
shrub, the product of barren ground, sapless, use¬
less, and worthless; his comforts shall all fail him,
and his hopes be blasted; he shall wither, be dejected
in himself, and trampled on by all about him. When
good comes, he shall not see it, he shall not share in
it; when the times mend, they shall not mend with
him, but he shall inhabit the parched places in the
wilderness ; his expectation shall be continually
frustrated; when others have a harvest, he shall
h sve none. They that trust to their own righteous¬
ness and strength', and think they can do well enough
without the merit and grace of Christ, thus make
Jiesh their arm, and their souls cannot prosper in
graces or comforts; they can neither produce the
fruits of acceptable services to God, nor reap the
fruits of saving blessings from him ; they dwell in a
dry land.
2. Concerning the abundant satisfaction which
they have, and will have, who make God their con¬
fidence, who live by faith in his providence and pro¬
mise, who refer themselves to him and his guidance
at all times, and repose themselves in him and his
love in the most unquiet times, v. 7, 8. Observe,
(1.) The duty required of us, To trust in the Lord,
to do our duty to him, and then depend upon him
to bear us out in doing it; when creatures and second
causes either deceive or threaten us, either are false
to us or fierce against us, to commit ourselves to
God as all-sufficient, both to fill up the place of those
who fail us, and to protect us from those who set
upon us. It is to make the Lord our Hope, his
favour the good we hope for, and his power the
strength we hope in. (2.) The comfort that attends
the doing of thi^ duty. He that does so, shall be as
a tree planted by the waters, a choice tree, about
which great care has been taken to set it in the best
soil, so far from being like the heath in the wilder¬
ness; like a tree that spreads out her roots, and
thereby is firmly fixed, spreads them out by the
rivers, whence it draws abundance of sap; which
denotes both the establishment and the comfort
which they have, who make God their Hope; they
are easy, they are pleasant, and enjoy a continual
security and serenity of mind; a tree thus planted,
thus watered, shall not see when heat comes, shall
not sustain any damage from the most scorching
heats of summer; it is so well moistened from its
roots, that it shall be sufficiently guarded against
drought. Those that make God their Hope, [1.]
They shall flourish in credit and comfort; like a tree
that is always green, whose leaf does not wither;
they shall be cheerful to themselves, and beautiful
in the eyes of others. Those who thus give honour
to God by giving him credit, God will put honour
upon them, and make them the ornament and de¬
light of the places where they live, as green trees
are. [2.] They shall be fixed in an inward peace
and satisfaction; they shall not be careful in a year
of drought, when there is want of rain, for, as it lias
seed in itself, so it has its moisture. These who
make God their Hope, have enough in him to make '
up the want of all creature-comforts. We need not
be solicitous about the breaking of a cistern, as long
as we have the fountain. [3.] They shall be fruit¬
ful in holiness, and in all good works. They who
trust in God, and by faith derive strength and grace
from him, shall not cease from yielding fruit ; they
shall still be enabled to do that which will redound
to the glory of God, the benefit of others, and their
own account.
3. Concerning the sinfulness of man’s heart, and
the divine inspection it is always under, v. 9, 10. It
is folly to trust in man, for he is not only frail, but
false and deceitful. We are apt to think that' we
trust in God, and are entitled to the blessings here
promised to them who do so. But this is a thing
about which our own hearts deceive us as much as
any thing; we think that we trust in Gcd, when
really we do not, as appears by this, that our hopes
and fears rise or fall, according as second causes
smile or frown. But it is true, in general.
(1.) 1 here is that wickedness in our hearts, which
we ourselves are not aware of, and do not suspect to
be there; nay, it is a common mistake among the
children of men to think themselves, their own
hearts at least, a great deal better than they really
are. The heart, the conscience of man, in his cor¬
rupt and fallen state, is deceitful above all things; it
is subtle and false, it is apt to supplant; so the word
properly signifies, it is that from which Jacob had
his name, a supp/anter. It calls evil good, and good
evil; puts false colours upon things, and cries peace
to those to whom peace does not belong. When
men say in their hearts, suffer their hearts to whisper
to them, that either there is no God, or he does net
see, or he will not require, or they shall have peace,
though they go on; in these, and a thousand similar
suggestions, the heart is deceitful: it cheats men into
their own ruin; and this will be the aggravation of it,
that they are self-deceivers, self-destroyers. Herein
the heart is desperately wicked; it is deadly, it is
desperate. The case is bad indeed, and in a man¬
ner deplorable, and past relief, if the conscience,
which should rectify the errors of the other facul ies,
is itself a mother of falsehood, and a ringleader in
the delusion. What will become of a man, if that
in him which should be the candle of the Lord, give
a false light, if God’s deputy in the soul, that is in¬
trusted to support his interests, betrays them? Such
is the deceitfulness of the heart, that we may truly
say, Who can know it? Who can describe how bad
the heart is? We cannot know our own hearts, not
what they will do in an hour of temptation, (Heze
kiah did not, Peter did not,) not what corrupt dis
positions there are in them, nor in how many things
they have turned aside; who can understand his
errors? Much less can we know the hearts of others,
or have any dependence upon them. But,
(2.) Whatever wickedness there is in the heart,
God sees it, and knows it, is perfectly acquainted
with it, and apprized of it; I the Lord search the
heart. This is true of all that is in the heart, all
the thoughts of it, the quickest, and those that are
most carelessly overlooked by ourselves; all the in¬
tents of it, the closest, and those that are most art¬
fully disguised, and industriously concealed firm
others. Men may be imposed upon, but Gcd can-
411
JEREMIAH, XVII.
ac t. He not only searches the heart with a piercing
eye, but he tries the reins, to pass a judgment upon
what he discovers, to give every thing its true cha¬
racter and due weight. He tries, as the gold is tried,
whether it be standard or no; as the prisoner is tried,
whether he be guilty or no. And this judgment
which he makes of the heart, is in order to his pass¬
ing judgment upon the man; it is to give to every
man according to his i ways , according to the desert
and the tendency of them; life to those that walked
in the ways of life, and death to those that persisted
in the { laths of the destroyer; and according to the
fruit of his doings, the effect and influence his
doings have had upon others; or, according to what
is settled by the word of God to be the fruit of men’s
doings, blessings to the obedient, and curses to the
disobedient. Note, Therefore God is Judge him¬
self, and he alone, because he, and none besides,
knows the hearts of the children of men. It is true
especially of all the deceitfulness and wickedness of
the heart; all its corrupt devices, desires, and de¬
signs, God observes and discerns; and (which is
more than any man can do) he judges of the overt
act by the heart. Note, God knows more evil of us
than we do by ourselves; which is a good reason why
we should not flatter ourselves, but always stand in
awe of the judgment of God.
4. Concerning the curse that attends wealth un¬
justly gotten: fraud and violence had been reigning,
crviiig sins in Judah and Jerusalem; now the pro¬
phet would have those who had been guilty of these
sins, and were now stripped of all they had, to read
their sin in their punishment; (v. 11.) He that gets
riches, and not by right, though he may make them
his hope, he shall never have joy of them. Observe,
It is possible that those who use unlawful means to
get wealth may succeed therein, and prosper for a
time; and it is a tempt .tion to many to defraud and
oppress their neighbours, when there is money to
be got by it. He who has got treasures by vanity
and a lying tongue, may hug himself in his success,
and say, I am rich; nay, and I am innocent too,
(Hos. xii. 8.) but he shall leave them in the midst of
his days; they shall be taken from him, or he from
them;’ God shall cut him off with some surprising
stroke then, when he says, Soul, take thine ease,
thou hast goods laid up for many years, Luke xii.
19, 20. He shall leave them to he knows not whom,
and shall not be able to take any of his riches away
with him. It intimates what a great vexation it is
to a worldly man at death, that he must leave his
riches behind him; and justly may it be a terror to
those who got them unjustly; for though the wealth
will not follow them to another world, the guilt will,
and the torment of an everlasting, Son, remember,
Luke xvi. 25. Thus, at his end, he shall be a fool,
a Nabul, whose wealth did him no good, which he
had so sordidly hoarded, when his heart became
dead as a stone. He was a fool all along, sometimes
perhaps his own conscience told him so, but at his
end he will appear to be so. Those are fools indeed,
who are fools in their latter end: and such multitudes
will prove, who were cried up as wise men, that did
well for themselves, Ps. xlix. 13, 18. They that
get grace will be wise in their latter end, will have
the comfort of it in death, and the benefit of it to
eternity; (Prov. xix. 20.) but they that place their
happiness in the wealth of the world, and, right or
wrong, will be rich, will rue the folly of it, when it
is too late to rectify the fatal mistake. This is like
the partridge that sits on eggs, and hatches them not,
but they are broken (as Job xxxix. 15.) or stolen,
(as Isa. x. 14.) or they become addle: some sort of
fowl there was, well known among the Jews, whose
case this commonly was. The rich man takes a
great deal of pains to get an estate together, and sits
brooding upon ;t, but never has any comfort or satis¬
faction in it; his projects to enrich himself by sinful
courses miscarry, and come to nothing. Let us
therefore be wise in time; what we get, to get t
honestly; and what we have, to use it charitably ;
that we may lay up in store a good foundation, and
be wise for eternity.
12. A glorious high throne from the be¬
ginning is the place of our sanctuary. 1 3. O
Lord, the Hope of Israel, all that forsake
thee shall be ashamed, and they that depar*
from me shall be written in the earth, be
cause they have forsaken the Lord, the
fountain of living waters. 1 4. Heal me, ( >
Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and
1 shall be saved : for thou art my praise. 1 5.
Behold, they say unto me, Where is the
word of the Lord ? let it come now. 16. As
for me, I have not hastened from being a
pastor to follow thee; neither have I desired*
the woful day, thou knowest: that which
came out of my lips was right before thee.
17. Be not a terror unto me: thou art my
hope in the day of evil. 1 8. Let them be
confounded that persecute me, but let not
me be confounded ; let them be dismayed,
but let not me be dismayed : bring upon them
the day of evil, and destroy them with dou¬
ble destruction.
Here, as often before, we have the prophet retir¬
ed for private meditation, and alone with God.
Those ministers that would have comfort in their
work, must be much so. In his converse here with
God and his own heart, he takes the liberty, which
devout souls sometimes use in their soliloquies, to
pass from one thing to another, without tying them¬
selves too strictly to the laws of method and cohe¬
rence.
1. He acknowledges the great favour of God to
his people, in setting up a revealed religion among
them, and dignifying them with divine institutions;
{v. 12.) A glorious high throne from the beginning
is the place of our sanctuary; the temple at Jerusa¬
lem, where God manifested his special presence,
where the lively oracles were lodged, where the
people paid their homage to their Sovereign, and
whither they fled for refuge in distress, was the
place of their sanctuary. That was a. glorious high
throne; it was a throne of holiness, that made it
truly glorious; it was God’s throne, that made it
truly high. Jerusalem is called the city of the great
King, not only Israel’s King, but the King of the
whole earth, so that it might justly be deemed the
metropolis, or royal city of the world. It was from
the beginning so, from the first projecting of it by
David, and building of it by Solomon, 2 Chron. ii.
9. It was the honour of Israel, that God set up such
a glorious throne among them. As the glorious and
high throne, that is, heaven, is the place of our sanc¬
tuary; so some read it. Note, All good men have a
high value and veneration for the ordinances of God,
and reckon the place of the sanctuary a glorious
high throne. Jeremiah mentions this here, either
as a plea with God for mercy to their land, in honour
of the throne of his glory, {eh xiv. 21.) or as an ag¬
gravation of the sin of his people, in forsaking God,
though his throne was among them, and so profan¬
ing his crown, and the place of his sanctuary.
2. He acknowledges the righteousness of God, in
abandoning thos* to ruin, that forsook him, and re¬
volted from their allegiance to him, v. 13. He
4,2 JEREMIAH, XVII.
speaks it tn God, as subscribing both to the certain¬
ty and 1 1 the equity of it; 0 Lord, the Ho fie of those
in Isr..tl that adhere to thee, all that forsake thee
shall be ashamed. They must of necessity be so,
or they forsake thee for lying vanities, which will
deceive them and make them ashamed; they will
be ashamed, for they shame themselves; they will
justly be put to shame, for they have forsaken him
who alone can keep them in countenance, when
troubles come. Let them be ashamed; so some read
it; and so it is a pious imprecation of the wrath of
God upon them, or of petition for his grace, to make
them penitently ashamed. They that depart from
vie, from the word of God which I have preached,
they do in effect depart from God; as those that re¬
turn to God are said to return to the prophet, eh.
xv. 19. They that depart from thee, (so some read
it,) shall be written in the earth; they shall soon be
blotted out, as that is which is written in the dust;
they shall be trampled upon, and exposed to con¬
tempt; they belong to the earth, and shall be num¬
bered among earthly people, who lay up their trea¬
sure on earth, and whose names are not written in
.leaven. And they* deserve to be thus written with
the fools in Israel, that their folly may be made ma¬
nifest unto all, because they have forsaken the Lord,
the Fountain of living waters, spring waters, and
that for broken cisterns. Note, God is to all that
are his, a Fountain of living waters. There is a
fulness of comfort in him, an overflowing, ever-
flowing fulness, like that of a fountain; it is always
fresh, and clear, and clean, like spring water, while
the pleasures of sin are puddle-waters. They are
free to it, it is not a fountain sealed; they deserve
therefore to be condemned, as Adam, to red earth,
tn which by the corruption of their nature they are
allied, because they have forsaken the garden of
the Lord, which is«so well watered. Tb-y that de¬
part from God are written in the earth.
3. He prays to God for healing, saving mercy
for himself. “ If the case of those be so miserable,
that depart from God, let me always draw nigh to
him, (Ps. lxxiii. 2.7, 28.) and, in order to that, Lord
heal me, and save me, v. 14. Heal my backslidings,
mv bent to backslide, and save me from being car¬
ried away by the strength of the stream, to forsake
thee.” He was wounded in spirit with grief upon
many accounts; “ Lord, heal me with thy comforts,
and make me easy.” He was continually exposed
to the malice of unreasonable men; “ Lord, save me
from them, and let me not fall into their wicked
hands. Heal me, sanctify me by thy grace; save
me, bring me to thy glory.” All that shall be saved
hereafter are sanctified now; unless the disease of
sin be purged out, the soul cannot live. To enforce
this petition he pleads, (1.) The firm belief he had
of God’s power; Heal thou me, and then I shall be
healed; the cure will certainly be wrought if thou
undertake it; it shall be a thorough cure, and not a
palliative one. Those that come to God to be heal¬
ed, ought to be abundantly satisfied in the all-suffi¬
ciency of their Physician. Save me, and then I shall
certainly be saved, be my dangers and enemies ever
so threatening. If God hold us up, we shall live;
if he protect us, we shall be safe. (2. ) The sincere
regard he had to God’s glory; “For thou art my
Praise, and for that reason I desire to be healed and
saved, that I may live and praise thee, Ps. cxix.
175. Thou art he whom I praise, and the praise
due to thee I never gave to another. Thou art he
whom I glory in, and boast of, for on thee do I de¬
pend. Thou art he that furnishes me with continual
matter for praise, and I have given thee praise of
the favours already bestowed upon me. Thou shalt
be my praise;” (so some read it;) “ heal me, and save
me, and thou shalt have the glory o&it. My praise
shall be continually of thee,” Ps. lxxi. 6. — lxxix. 13.
4. He complains of the infidelity and daring im¬
piety of the people to win m he preached, ligrtatlv
troubled him, and he shows before God this trouble";
as the servant that had slights put upon him by the
guests he was sent to invite, came and showed his
Lord these things. He had faithfully delivered
.God’s message to them; and what answer has he to
return to him that sent him? Behold, they suy unto
me, Where is the word of the Lord? Let it come
now, v. 15. Isa. v. 19. They bantered the pro
phet, and made a jest of that which he delivered
with the greatest seriousness. (1.) They denied
the truth of what he said; “ If that be the word of
the Lord, which thou speakest to us, where is u?
Why is it not fulfilled?” Thus the patience of God
was impudently abused, as a ground to question his
veracity. (2.) They defied the terror of what he
said; “Let God Almighty do his worst, let all he
has said come to pass, we shall do will enough; the
lion is not so fierce as he is paintid, Amos\. 18.
Lord, to what purpose is it to speak to men that
will neither believe nor fear?”
5. He appeals to God concerning the faithful dis¬
charge of the office to which he was called, v. 16.
The people did all they could to make him weary
of his work, to exasperate him, and make him un¬
easy, and tempt him to prevaricate, and alter his
message, for fear of displeasing them ; but, “ Lord,”
says he, “ thou knowest I have not yielded to them.”
(1.) He continued constant to his work. His office,
instead of being his credit and protection, expostd
him to reproach, contempt, and injury; “Vet,”
says he, “ I have not hastened from being a pastor
after thee; I have not left my work, nor sued for a
discharge, or quietus." Prophets were pastors to
the people, to feed them with the good word of
God; but they were to be pastors after God, and all
ministers must be so, according to his heart, ( ch
iii. 15.) to follow him, and the directions and in¬
structions he gives; such a pastor Jeremiah was: and
though he met with as much difficulty and discou¬
ragement as ever any man did, yet he did not fly off
as Jonah did, nor desire to be excused from going
any more on God’s errands. Note, Those that are
employed for God, though their success answer not
their expectation, must not therefore throw up their
commission, but continue to follow God, though the
storm be in their faces. (2.) He kept up his affec¬
tion to the people. Though they were very abusive
to him, he was compassionate to them; 1 have not
desired the woful day. The day of the accomplish¬
ment of his prophecies would be a woful day indeed
to Jerusalem, and therefore he deprecated it, and
wished it might never come; though, as to himself,
it would be the avenging of him upon his persecu¬
tors, and the proving of him'a true prophet, (which
they had questioned, v. 15.) and upon those ac¬
counts he might be tempted to desire it. Note, God
does not, and therefore ministers must not, desire
the death of sinners, but rather that they may turn
and live. Though we warn of the woful day, we
must not wish for it, but rather weep because of it,
as Jeremiah did. (3.) He kept close to his instruc¬
tions; though he might have carried favour with the
people, or at least have avoided their displeasure,
if he had not been so sharp in his reproofs, and se¬
vere in his threatenings, yet he would deliver his
message faithfully; and that he had done so, was a
comfort to him; “Lord, thou knowest that that
which came out of my lips, was right before thee; it
exactly agreed with what I had received from thee,
and therefore thou art reflected upon in their quar¬
relling with me.” Note, If what we say and do be
right before God, we may easily despise the re¬
proaches and censures of men. It is a small thing
to be judged of their judgment.
6. He humbly begs of God, that he would own
JEREMI
him, and protect him, and carry him on cheerfully
in that work to which God had so plainly called
him, and he had so sincerely devoted himself Two
things he here desires,
(1.) That he might have comfort in serving the
God that sent him; (v. 17.) Be not thou a terror to
me. Surely more is implied than is expressed;
“ Be thou a Comfort to me, and let thy favour re¬
joice my heart, and encourage me, when my ene¬
mies do all they can to terrify me, and either to
drive me from my work, or to make me drive on
heavily in it.” Note, Th best have that in them,
which might justly make God a terror to them, as
he was for sometime to Job, (c//. vi. 4.) to Asaph,
(Ps. lxxvii. 3.) to Heman, (Ps. lxxxviii. 15.) And
this is that which good men, knowing the terrors of
the Lord, dread and deprecate more than any thing;
nay, whatever frightful accidents may befall them,
or how formidable soever their enemies may appear
to them, they can do well enough, so long as God is
not a Terror to them. He pleads, “ Thou art my
hofie; and then nothing else is my fear, no, not in
the day of evil, when it is most threatening, most
pressing. My dependence is upon thee; and there¬
fore be not a Terror to me.” Note, Those that by
faith make God their Confidence, shall have him
for their comfort in the worst of times, if it be net
their own fault: if we make him our trust, we shall
not find him our terror.
(2. ) That he might have courage in dealing with
the fieo/i/e to whom he was sent, v. 18. They per¬
secuted him, who should have entertained and en¬
couraged him; “ Lord,” says he, “ let them be con¬
founded, let them be overpowered by the convic¬
tions of the world, and made ashamed of their ob¬
stinacy, or else let the judgments threatened be at
length executed upon them ; but let not me be con¬
founded, let not me be terrified by their menace-,
so as to betray my trust. Note, God’s ministers
have work to do, which they need not be either
ashamed or afraid to go on in, but they do need to
be helped by the divine grace to go on in it without
shame or fear. Jeremiah had not desired the woful
day upon his country in general; but as to his per¬
secutors, in a just and holy indignation at their ma¬
lice, he prays, Bring ufion them the day of evil; in
hope that the bringing of it upon them might pre¬
vent the bringing of it upon the country; if they
were taken away, the people would be better;
“ Therefore destroy them with a double destruc¬
tion, let them be utterly destroyed, root and branch;
and let the prospect of that destruction be their pre¬
sent confusion.” This the prophet prays, not at all
that he might be avenged, nor so much that he
might be eased, but that the Lord may be known
by the judgments which he executes.
19. Thus saitli the Lord unto me, Go
and stand in the gate of the children of the
people, whereby the kings of Judah come
in, and by the which they go out, and in
all the gates of Jerusalem; 20. And say
unto them, Hear ye the* word of the Lord,
ye kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all
the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that enter
in by these gates: 21. Thus saith the
Lord, Take heed to yourselves, and bear
no burden on the sabbath-day, nor bring it
in by the gates of Jerusalem; 22. Neither
carry forth a burden out of your houses on
the sabbath-day, neither do ye any work,
but hallow ye the sabbath-day, as 1 com-
\H, XVII. 413
not, neither inclined their ear, but made
their neck still', that they might not hear,
nor receive instruction. 24. And it shall
come to pass, if ye- diligently hearken unto
me, saith the Lord, to bring in no burden
through the gates of this city on the sab-
bath-day, but hallow the sabbath-day, to do
no work therein; 25. Then shall there en¬
ter into the gates of this city kings and
princes sitting upon the throne of David,
riding in chariots and on horses, they, and
their princes, the men of Judah, and the in¬
habitants of Jerusalem: and this city shall
remain for ever. 2G. And they shall come
from the cities of Judah, and from the places
about Jerusalem, and from the land of Ben¬
jamin, and from the plain, and from the
mountains, and from the south, bringing
burnt-offerings, and sacrifices, and meat¬
offerings, and incense, and bringing sacri¬
fices of praise, nnlo the house of the Lord.
27. But if ye will not hearken unto me to
hallow the sabbath-day, and not to bear a
burden, even entering in at the gates of Je¬
rusalem on the sabbath-day; then will I
kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall
devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall
not be quenched.
These verses are a sermon concerning sabbath-
sanctification; it is a word which the prcphet re¬
ceived from the Lord, and was ordered to deliver in
the most solemn, public manner to the people; for
they were sent not only to reprove sin, and to press
obedience in general, but they must descend to par¬
ticulars. This message must be proclaimed in all
the places of coilcourse, and therefore in the gates,
not only because through them people were conti¬
nually passing and repassing, but because in them
they kept their courts, and laid up their stores. It
must be proclaimed (as the king or queen is usually
proclaimed) at the court-gate first, the gate by
which the kings of Judah come in, and go out, v.
19. Let them be told their duty first, particularly
this duty; for if sabbaths be not sanctified as they
should be, the rulers of Judah are to be contended
with, (so they were, Neh. xiii. 17.) for they arc cer¬
tainly wanting in their duty. He must also preach
it in all the gates of Jerusalem. It is a matter < f
great and general concern, therefore let all take no¬
tice of it. Let the kings of Judah hear the word of
the Lord, for, high as they are, he is above them;
and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for, mean as
they are, he takes notice of them, and of what thev
say and do on sabbath-days. Observe,
1. How the sabbath is to b c sanctified, and what
is the law concerning it, v. 21, 22. (1.) They must
rest from their worldly employment on the sabbath-
day, must do no servile work. They must bear no
burthen into the city, or out of it, into their houses,
or out of them; husbandmen’s burthens cf corn must
not be carried in, nor manure carried cut; nor must
tradesmen’s burthens of wares or merchandises be
imported or exported. There must not a loaded
horse, or cart, or waggon, be seen on the sabbath-
day, either in the streets or in the roads; the por¬
ters must not ply c n that day, nor must the servants
be suffered to fetch in provisions or fuel. It is a
day of rest, and must not be made a o<»y cf labour,
414 JEREMIAH, XVIII.
unless in case of necessity. (2.) They must apply
themselves to that which is the proper work and
business of the day; “ Hallow ye the sabbath, conse¬
crate it to the honour of God, and spend it in his
service and worship.” It is in order to this, that
worldly business must be laid aside, that we may
be entire for, and intent upon, that work which
requires and deserves the whole man. (3.) They
must herein be very circumspect; “ Take heed to
yourselves, watch against every thing that borders
upon the profanation of the sabbath.” Where God
is jealous, we must be cautious. “ Take heed to
yourselves, for it is at your fieril, if you rob God of
that part of your time which he has reserved to
himself.” Take heed to your souls; so the word is;
in order to the right sanctifying of sabbaths, we
must look well to the frame ot our spirits, and have
a watchful eye upon all the motions of the inward
man. Let not the soul be burthened with the cares
of this world on sabbath-days, but let that be em¬
ployed, even all that is within us, in the work of
the day. And, (4.) He refers them to the law, the
statute in this case made and provided; “This is
no new imposition upon you, but is what I com¬
manded your fathers; it is an ancient law, it was
an article of the original contract; nay, it was a com¬
mand to the patriarchs. ”
2. How the sabbath had been profaned; (v. 23.)
“Your fathers were required to keep holy the sab-
bath-day; but they obeyed not, they hardened their
necks against this as well as other commands that
were given them.” This is mentioned, to show that
there needed a reformation in this matter, and that
God had a just controversy with them for the long
transgression of this law, which they had been guilty
of. They hardened their necks against this com¬
mand, that they might not hear and receive instruc¬
tion concerning other commands. Where sabbaths
are neglected, all religion sensibly goes to decay.
3. What blessings God had in store for them, if
they would make conscience of sabbath-sanctifica¬
tion. Though their fathers had been guilty of the
profan dion of the sabbath, they should not only not
smart for it, but their city and nation should reco¬
ver its ancient glory, if they would keep sabbaths
better, v. 24. — 26. Let them take care to hallow
the sabbath, and do no work therein; and then,
(1.) The court shall flourish. Kings in succes¬
sion, or the many branches of the royal family at
the same time, all as great as kings, with the other
princes that sit upon the thrones of judgment, the
thrones of the house of David, (Ps. cxxii. 5.) shall
ride in great pomp through the gates of Jerusalem,
some in chariots, and some on horses, attended with
a numerous retinue of the men of Judah. Note, The
honour of the government is the joy of the kingdom;
and the support of religion would contribute greatly
to both.
(2. ) The city shall flourish. Let there be a face
of religion kept up, in Jerusalem, by sabbath-sanc¬
tification, that it may answer to its title, the holy
city, and then it shall remain for ever, shall for
ever be inhabited; (so the word may be rendered;)
it shall not be destroyed and dispeopled, as it is
threatened to be. Whatever supports religion,
tends to establish the civil interests of a land.
(3.) The country shall flourish. The cities of
Judah and the land of Benjamin shall be replenish¬
ed with vast numbers of inhabitants, and those
abounding in plenty, and living in peace, which
will appear by the multitude and value of their of¬
ferings which they shall present to God. By this
the flourishing of a country may be judged of; What
docs it do for the honour of God? Those that starve
their religion, either are poor, or are in a fail' way
to be so.
(4.) The church shall flourish. Meat-offerings,
| and incense, and sacrifices of praise, shall be brought
to the house of the ford, for the maintenance of
the service of that house, and the servants that at¬
tend it. God’s institutions shall be conscientiously
observed, no sacrifices and incense shall be offered
to idols, ami alienated from God, but every thing
shall go in the right ch ,nnel. They shall have botn
occasion and hearts to bring sacrifices of praise to
God. This is made an instance of their prosperity.
Then a people truly flourish, when religion flou¬
rishes among them. And this is the effect of sab¬
bath-sanctification; when that branch of religion is
kept up, other instances of it are kept up likewise,
but when that is lost, devotion is lost either in super¬
stition or in profaneness. It is a true observation
which some have made, That the streams of all re¬
ligion run either deep or shallow, according as the
banks of the sabbath are kept up or neglected.
4. What judgments they must expect would come
upon them, if they persisted in the profanation of
the sabbath; (u. 27.) '‘If you will not hearken to
me in this matter, to keep the gates shut on sabbath-
days, so that there may be no unnecessary enter¬
ing in, or going cut, on that day; if you will break
through the enclosure of the divine law, and lay
that day in common with other days, know that
God will kindle a fire in the gates of your citv ;”
intimating, that it shall be kindled by an enemy bt
sieging the city, and assaulting the gates, who shall
take this course to force their entrance. Justly shall
those gates be fired, that are not used as they ought
to be, to shut out sin, and to keep people in to an
attendance on their duty. The hre shall devour
even the palaces of Jerusalem, where the princes
and nobles dwell, who did not use their power and
interest as they ought to have done, to keep up the
honour of God’s sabbaths; but it shall not be quench
ed, until it has laid the whole city in ruins. This
was fulfilled by the army of the Chaldeans, ch. lii.
13. The profanation of the sabbath is a sin fci
which God has often contended with a people by
fire.
CHAP. XVIII.
In this chapter, we have, I. A general declaration of God’s
ways in dealing with nations and kingdoms; that he can
easily do what he will with them, as easily as the potter
can with the clay; (v. 1..6.)but that he certainly will
do what is just and fair with them. If he threaten their
ruin, yet, upon their repentance, he will return in mercy
to them, and when he is coming toward them in mercy,
nothing but their sin will stop the progress of his fa¬
vours, v. 7. .10. II. A particular demonstration of the
folly of the men of Judah and Jerusalem, in departing
from their God to idols, and sobringing ruin upon them¬
selves, notwithstanding the fair warnings given them,
and God’s kind intentions toward them, v. 11.. 17. III.
The prophet’s complaint to God of the base ingratitude
and unreasonable malice of his enemies, persecutors, and
slanderers, and his prayers against them, v. 18 . . 23.
1. rpHE word which came to Jeremiah
JL from the Lord, saying, 2. Arise,
and go down to the potter’s house, and there
will I cause thee to hear my words. 3.
Then I went down to the potter’s house,
and, behold, he wrought a work on the
wheels. 4. And the vessel that he made
of clay was marred in the hand of the pot¬
ter; so he made it again another vessel, as
seemed good to the potter to make it. !>.
Then the word of the Lord came to me,
saying, 6. O house of Israel, cannot I do
with you as this potter? saith the Lord
Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s liar, ;
JEREMIAH XVI11.
415
re ye in my hand, O house of Israel. 7.
what instant I shall speak concerning a
on, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck
and to pull down, and to destroy it: 8.
hat nation, against whom I have pro-
need, turn from their evil, I will repent
he evil that 1 thought to do unto them.
Vnd at what instant I shall speak con-
ling a nation, and concerning a king-
1, to build, and to plant it :
said
The prophet is here sent to the flatter’s house,
(he knew where to find it,) not to preach a sermon,
as before to the gates of Jerusalem, but to prepare
a sermon, or rather to receive it ready prepared.
Those needed not tc study their sermons, that had
them, as he had this, by immediate inspiration.
“Go to the potter's house, and observe how he
manages his work, and there I will cause thee, by
silent whispers, to hear my words. There thou
shalt receive a message, to be delivered to the peo¬
ple.” Note, Those that would know God’s mind,
must observe his appointments, and attend there
where they may hear his words. The prophet was
never disobedient to the heavenly vision, and there¬
fore went to the potter’s house, ( v . 3.) and took
notice how he wrought his work upon the wheels,
just as he pleased, with a great deal of ease, and in
a little time. And, (v. 4.) when a lump of clay
that he designed to form into one shape, either
proved too stiff, or had a stone in it, or some way
or other came to be marred in his hand, he presently
God has an incontestable sovereignty over us, is not
Debtor to us, may dispose of us as he thinks fit, and
is not accountable to us; and that it would be as ab¬
surd tor us to dispute this as for the clay to quarrel
with the potter. (2. ) That it is a \ ery easy thing
with God to make what use he pleases of us, and
what changes he pleases with us, and that we can¬
not resist him. One turn of the hand, one turn of
the wheel, quite alters the shape of the clav, makes
it a vessel, unmakes it, new-makes it. Thus are
our tirnes in God’s hand, and not in our own, and it
is in vain for us to strive with him. It is spoken here
of nations; the most politic, the most potent, are
what God is pleased to make them, and no other:
10. If it do
in my sight, that it obey not my voice, r
1 I will repent of the good wherewith I t!)*s c>xP1;imed by Jeb, (ch. xii. 23.) He increas-
r ill c, ,i a ft/l tne nations and destroyeth them, he enlargeth
\ 1 would benefit them. . the nations and straiteneth them again; (Ps. evii.
33, 8cc.) and compare Job xxxiv. All nations before
God are as the drop of the bucket, soon wiped
away, or the small dust of the balance, soon blown
away, (Isa. xl. 15. ) and therefore, no doubt, as easily
managed as the clay by the potter. (3. ) That God
will not be a Loser by any in his glory, at long run,
but that if he be not glorified by them, he will be
glorified upon them.
honour, just as seems good to the potter. It is pro-'
bable that Jeremiah knew well enough how the
potter wrought his work, and how easily he threw
it into what form he pleased; but he must go, and
observe it now, that, having the idea of it fresh in
his mind, he might the more readily and distinctly
apprehend that truth which God designed thereby
to represent to him, and might the more intelli¬
gently explain it to the people. God used simili¬
tudes by his servants the prophets, (Hos. xii. 10.)
and it was requisite that they should themselves un¬
derstand the similitudes they used. Ministers will
make a good use of their converse with the busi¬
ness and affairs of this life, if they learn thereby to
speak more plainly and familiarly to people about
the things of God, and to expound scripture com¬
parisons. For they ought to make all their know¬
ledge, some way or other, serviceable to their pro¬
fession.
Now let us see what the message is, which Jere¬
miah receives, and is intrusted with the delivery of,
at the potter’s house. While he looks carefully
upon the potter’s work, God darts into his mind
these two great truths, which he must preach to the
house of Israel,
1. That God has both an incontestable authority,
and an irresistible ability, to form and fashion king¬
doms and nations as he pleases, so as to serve his
own purposes; “ Cannot I do with you as this pot¬
ter, saith the Lord? v. 6. Have not I as absolute
a power over you in respect both of might and of
right?” Nay, God has a clearer title to a dominion
over us than the potter has over the clay, for the
potter only gives it its form, whereas we have both
matter and form from God. As the clay is in the
potter’s hand to be moulded and shaped as he pleases,
so are ye in my hand. This intimates, (1.) That
If the potter’s vessel be mar¬
red for one use, it shall serve for another; those that
will not be monuments of mercy, shall be monu¬
ments of justice: The Lord has made alt things for
himself, yea even the wicked for the day of evil,
Hrov. xvi. 4. NGod formed us out of the clay, (Job
xxxiii. 6.) nay, and we are still as clay in his
hands; (Isa. lxiv. 8.) and has not he the same pow¬
er over us, that the potter has over the clay? Rom.
ix. 21. And are not we bound to submit, as the
clay to the potter’s wisdom, and will? Isa. xxix. 15,
i6. — xiv. 9. >
2. That, in the exercise of tiffs authority and
ability, he always goes by fixed rules of equity and
turned it into another shape; if it will not serve for goodness. He dispenses favours indeed in a way of
a vessel of honour, it will serve for a vessel of dis-^ -sovereignty, but never punishes by arbitrary power.
High is his right hand, yet he rules not with a high
hand, but, as it follows there, Justice and judgment
are the habitation of his throne, Ps. lxxxi. i3, 14.
God asserts his despotic power, andtellsus what he
might do, but at the same time assures us, that he
will act as a righteous and merciful Judge.
(1.) When God is coming against us in ways of
judgment, we may be sure that it is for our sins,
which shall appear by this, that national repentance
will stop the progress of the judgments; (t>. 7, 8.)
If God speak concerning a nation, to pluck up its
fences that secure it, and so lay it open, its fruit-
trees that adorn and enrich it, and so leave it deso¬
late; to pull down its fortifications, that the enemy
Imhy have liberty to enter in, its habitations, that
. the inhabitants may be under a necessity of going
out, and so destroy it, as either a vineyard or a city
is destroyed; in this case, if that nation take the
alarm, and repent of its sins, and reform its lives,
turn every one from his evil way, and return to
God, God will return in mercy to them, and though
he cannot change his mind, he will change his way,
so that it may be said, He repents him of the evil
he said he would do to them. Thus often in the
time of the Judges, when the oppressed people were
penitent people, still God raised them up saviours;'
and when they turned to God, their affairs immedi¬
ately took a new turn. It was Nineveh’s case, and
we wish it had oftener been Jerusalem’s; see 2
Chron. vii. 14. It is an undoubted truth, that a sin¬
cere conversion from the evil of sin will be an ef¬
fectual prevention of the evil of punishment; and
God can as easily raise up a penitent people from
their ruins, as the potter can make anew the vessel
of clay, when it was marred in his hand.
(2. ) When God is coming towards us in ways of
mercy, if any stop be given to the progress of that
416
JEREMIAH, XV1I1.
mercy, it is nothing but sin that gives it; ( v . 9, 10.)
If God speak concerning a nation , to build and to
plant it, to advance and establish all the true inter¬
ests of it, it is bis husbandry, and his building, (1
Cor. iii. 9. ) and if he speak in favour of it, it is done,
it is increased, it is enriched, it is enlarged, its tr ade
flourishes, its government is settled in good hands,
and all its affairs prosper, and its enterprises suc¬
ceed. But if this nation, which God had thus load¬
ed with benefits, do evil in his sight, and obey not
his voice; if it lose its virtue, and become debauched
and profane; if religion grow into contempt, and
vice get to be fashionable, and so be kept in counte¬
nance and reputation, and there be a general decav
of serious godliness among them, then God will
turn his hand against them, will pluck u/i what he
was planting, and pull down what he was building;
(r/i. xlv. 4.) the good work that was in the doing,
shall stand still, and be let fall; and what favours
were further designed, shall be withheld, and this
is called his repenting of the good wherewith he
said he would benefit them, as he changed his pur-
ose concerning hli’s house, (1 Sam. ii. 30.) and
urried Israel back into the wilderness, when he
had brought them within sight of Canaan. Note,
Sin is the great mischief-maker between God and a
people; it forfeits the benefit of his promises, and
spoils the success of their prayers. It defeats his
kind intentions concerning them, (Hos. vii. 1.) and
baffles their pleasing expectations from him. It
ruins their comforts, prolongs their grievances,
brings them into straits, and retards their deliver¬
ances, Isa. xlix. 1, 2.
1 1 . Now, therefore, go to, speak to the
men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Je¬
rusalem, saying, Thus saith the Lord, Be¬
hold, I frame evil against you, and devise a
device against you : return ye now every
one from his evil way, and make your ways
and your doings good. 12. And they said,
There is no hope; but we will walk after
our own devices, and we will every one do
the imagination of his evil heart. 13.
Therefore thus saith the Lord, Ask ye
now among the heathen, who hath heard
such things ? the virgin of Israel hath done
a very horrible thing. 1 4. Will a man leave
the snow of Lebanon which cometh from the
rock of the field ? or shall the cold flowing
waters that come from another place be
forsaken ? 1 5. Because my people hath
forgotten me, they have burnt incense to
vanity, and they have caused them to stum¬
ble in th 'ir ways from the ancient paths, to
walk in paths m a way not cast up; 16.
To make their land desolate, and a per¬
petual hissing: every one that passeth there¬
by shall be astonished, and wag his head.
1 7. I will scatter them as with an east wind
before the enemy: I will shew them the
back, and not the face, in the day of their
calamity.
These verses seem to be the application of the
general truths laid down in the foregoing part of the
chapter, to the nation of the Jews and their present
state.
I. God was now speaking concerning them, to
pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy; for it
is that part of the rule of judgment that their case
agrees with; (v. 11.) “ Go, and tell them,” (saith
God,) “ Behold, I Jrame evil against you, and de¬
vise a device against you. Providence in all its
operations is plainly working toward your ruin.
Look upon your conduct toward God, and you can¬
not but see that you deserve it; look upon his deal¬
ings with you, and you cannot but see that he de¬
signs it.” He frames evil, as the potter frames the
vessel, so as to answer the end.
II. He invites them by repentance and reforma¬
tion to meet him in the way of his judgments, and
so to prevent his further proceedings against them;
“ Return ye now every one from his evil ways, that
so (according to the rule before laid down) God may
turn from the evil he had proposed to do unto you,
and that providence which seemed to have been
framed like a vessel on the wheel against you, shall
immediately be thrown into a new shape, and the
issue shall be in favour of you.” Note, The warn¬
ings of God’s word, and the threatenings of his pro¬
vidence, should be improved by us as strong induce¬
ments to us to reform our lives; in which it is net
enough to turn from our evil ways, but we must
make our ways and our doings good, conformable
to the rule, to the law.
III. He foresees their obstinacy, and their per¬
verse refusal to comply with this invitation, though
it tended so much to their own benefit, v. 12. They
said, “ There is no hope. If we must not be deliv¬
ered unless we return from our evil ways, we may
even despair of ever being delivered, for we are re¬
solved that we will walk after our own devices. It
is to no purpose for the prophets to say any more to
us, to use any more arguments, or to press the mat¬
ter any further; we will have our way., whatever it
cost us; we will do every one the imagination of his
own evil heart, and will not be under the restraint
of the divine law.” Note, That which ruins sin¬
ners, is, affecting to live as they list; they call it li¬
berty to live at large, whereas for a man to be a
slave to his lusts, is the worst of slaveries. See how
strangely some men’s hearts are hardened by the
deceitfulness of sin, that they will not so much as
promise amendment; nay, they set the judgments
of God at defiance; “ We will go on with our oum
dex’ices, and let God go on with his; and we will
venture the issue.”
IV. He upbraids them with the monstrous folly
of their obstinacy, and their hating to be reformed.
Surely never were people guilty of such an absur¬
dity, never any that pretended to reason, acted so
unreasonably; (t>. 13.) Ask ye among the heathen,
even those that had not the benefit of divine revela¬
tion, no oracles, no prophets, as Judah and Jerusa¬
lem had, yet, even among them, who hath heard
such a thing? The Ninevites, when thus warned,
turned from their evil ways. Some of the worst oi
men, when they are told of their faults, especially
when they begin to smart for them, will at least
promise reformation, and say that they will endea¬
vour to mend. But the virgin of Israel bids defi¬
ance to repentance, is resolved to go on frowardly,
whatever conscience and Providence say to the con¬
trary, and thus hath done a horrible thing. She
should have preserved herself pure and chaste for
God, who had espoused her to himself; but she has
alienated herself from him, and refuses to return to
him. Note. It is a horrible thing, enough to make
one tremble to think of it, that the se who have
made their condition sad by sinning, should make it
desperate by refusing to reform. Wilful impeni¬
tence is the grossest self-murder; and that is a hor¬
rible thing, which we should abhor the thought of.
He shows their folly in two things:
1. In the nature of the sin itself th t they were
guilty of. They forsook God for idols, which was
JEREMIAH, XVIII.
tile most horrible thing that could be, for they put
a cheat upon themselves, v. 14, 15. Wilt a thirsty
traveller leave the snow, which, being melted, runs
down from the mountains of Lebanon, and, passing
over the rock of the field, flows in clear, clean, crys¬
tal streams? Will he leave these, pass these by, and
think to mend himself with some dirty puddle-wa¬
ter? Or, Shall the cold flowing waters that come
from any other /ilace, be forsaken in the heat of
summer? No; when men are parched with heat
and drought, and meet with cooling, refreshing
streams, they will make use of them, and not turn
their backs upon them. The margin reads it, “Will
a man that is travelling the road, leave my fields,
which are plain and level, for a rock, which is rough
and hard, or for the snow of Lebanon, which, lying
in great drifts, makes the road unpassable? Or,
shall the running waters be forsaken for the strange
cold waters ? No; in these things men know when
they are well off, and will keep so: they will not
leave a certainty for an uncertainty; but my people
hai’e forgotten me, (v. 15.) have quitted a Fountain
of living waters for broken cisterns; they have
burnt incense to idols, that are as vain as vanity it¬
self, that are not what they pretend to be, nor can
perform what is expected f' om them.” They had
not the common wit of travellers, but even their
leaders caused them to err, and they were content to
be misled. (1.) They left the ancient paths, which
were appointed by the divine law, which had been
walked in by all the saints, which were therefore
the right way to th jir journey’s end, a safe way, and,
being well tracked, was both easy to hit, and easy
to walk in. But when they were advised to keep to
the good old way, they positively said that they
would not, ch. vi." 16. (2.) They chose by-paths;
ihev walked in a way not cast up; not in the high¬
way, the King’s highway, in which they might tra¬
vel safely, and which would certainly lead them to
their right end, but in a dirty way, a rough way, a
way in which they could not but stumble; such was
the way of idolatry; such is the way of all iniquity;
it is a false way, it is a way full of stumbling-blocks;
and yet this way they chose to walk in, and lead
others in.
2. In the mischievous consequences of it. Though
the thing itself had been bad, they might have had
some excuse for it, if they could have promised
themselves any good out of it. But the direct ten¬
dency of it was to make their land desolate, and,
consequently, themselves miserable, (for so the in¬
habitants must needs be, if their country be laid
waste,) and both themselves and their land a perpe¬
tual hissing. Those deserve to be hissed, that have
fair warning given them, and will not take it.
Every one that passes by their land shall make his
remarks upon it, and shall be astonished, and wag
his head; some wondering at, others commiserating,
others triumphing in, the desolations of a country
that had been the glory of all lands. They shall
wag their heads in derision, upbraiding them with
their folly in forsaking God and their duty, and so
pulling this misery upon their own heads. Note,
Those that revolt from God will justly be made the
scorn of all about them; and, having reproached
the Lord, will themselves be a reproach. Their
land being made desolate, in pursuance of their de¬
struction, it is threatened, (v. 17.) I will scatter
them as with an east-wind, which is fierce and vio¬
lent; by it they shall be hurried to and fro before
the enemy, and find no way open to escape. They
shall not only flee before the enemy, (that they may
do, and yet make an orderly retreat,) but they shall
be scattered, some one way, and some another.
That which completes their misery, is, I will show
them the back, and not the face, in the day of their
calamity. Our calamities may be easily borne, if
Vol iv. — 3 G
God look towards us, and smile upon us, when we
are under them, if he com tenance us, and show
us favour; but if he turn the back upon us, if he
show himself displeased, if he be deaf to our pray¬
ers, and refuse us his help; if he forsake us, leave
us to ourselves, and stand at a distance from us, we
are quite undone. If he hide his face, who then can
behold him ? Job xx’xiv. 39. Herein God would deal
with them as they had dealt with him; ( ch . ii. 27.)
They have turned their back unto me, and not their
face. It is a righteous thing with God to show him¬
self strange to those in the day of their trouble, who
have showed themselves rude and undutiful to him
in their prosperity. This will have its full accom¬
plishment in that day, when God will say to those,
who, though they have been professors of piety,
were yet workers of iniquity, Depart from me, 1
know you not, nay, I never knew you.
13. Then said they, Gome, and let us
devise devices against Jeremiah; for the
law shall not perish from the priest, nor
counsel from the wise, nor the word from
the prophet: come, and let us smite him
with the tongue, and let us not give heed to
any of his words. 1 9. Give heed to me, O
Lord, and hearken to the voice of them
that contend with me. 20. Shall evil be
recompensed for good ? for they have dig¬
ged a pit for my soul. Remember that I
stood before thee to speak good for them,
and to turn away thy wrath from them. 21.
Therefore deliver up their children to the
famine, and pour out their blood by the force
of the sword; and let their wives be be¬
reaved of their children, and be widows;
and let their men be put to death ; let their
young men be slain by the sword in battle.
22. Let a cry be heard from their houses,
when thou shalt bring a troop suddenly
upon them ; for they have digged a pit to
take me, and hid snares for my feet. 23.
Yet, Lord, thou knowest all their counsel
against me to slay me: forgive not their ini¬
quity, neither blot out their sin from thy
sight; but let them be overthrown before
thee: deal thus with them in the time of
thine anger.
The prophet here, as sometimes before, brings in
his own affairs, but very much for instruction to us.
I. See here what are the common methods of
tlie persecutors. We may see this in Jeremiah’s
enemies, v. 18.
1. They laid their heads together, to consult what
they should do against him, both to be revenged on
him for what he had said, and to stop his mouth for
the future. They said, Come, and let us devise de¬
vices against Jeremiah. The enemies of God’s
people and ministers have been often very crafty
themselves, and confederate with one another, to.
do them mischief. What they cannot act to the
prejudice of religion separately, they will try to do
in concert. The wicked plots against the just. Caia-
phas, and the chief priests and i filers, did so agains*-
our blessed Saviour himself. The opposition w Inch
the gates of hell give to the kingdom c f heaven, is
carried on with a great deal of cursed policy. God
had said, (v. 11.) I devise a device against you;
and now, as if they resolved to be quits with him.
ilO JEREMIAH, XVIT1.
and to outwit Infinite Wisdom itself, they resolve to
devise devices against God’s prophet, not only
against his person, but against the word he deliver¬
ed to them, which they thought by their subtle
management to defeat. O the prodigious madness
of those that hope to disannul God’s counsel!
2. Herein they pretended a mighty zeal for the
church, which, they suggested, was in danger, if
Jeremiah was tolerated to preach as he did;
“ Came,” say they, let us silence and crush him,
for the law shall not perish from the priest: the law
of truth is in their mouths, (Mai. ii. 6.) and there
we will seek it; the administration of ordinances
according to the law is in their hands, and neither
the one nor the other shall be wrested from them.
Counsel shall not perish from the wise; the admin¬
istration of public affairs shall always be lodged with
the privy-counsellors and ministers of state, to
whom it belongs; nor shall the word perish from
the prophets;” they mean those of their own choos¬
ing, who prophesied to them smooth things, and
flattered them with visions of peace. Two things
they insinuated, (1.) That Jeremiah could not be
himself a true prophet, but was a pretender and
a usurper, because he was neither commissioned by
the priests, nor concurred with the other prophets,
whose authority therefore will be despised, if he be
suffered to go on. If Jeremiah be regarded as an
oracle, farewell the reputation of our priests, out-
wise men and prophets; but that must be supported,
which is reason enough why he must be suppressed.
(2.) That the matter of his prophecies could not be
from God, because it reflected sometimes upon the
prophets and priests; he had charged them with be¬
ing the ringleaders of all the mischief, ( ch . v. 31.)
and deceiving the people; ( ch . xiv. 14.) he had
foret >1 1 that their heart should perish, and be aston¬
ished, {ch. iv. 9.) that the wise men should be dis¬
mayed, {ch. viii. 9, 10.) that the priests and pro¬
phets should be intoxicated; {ch. xtii. 13.) now this
galled them more than any thing else; presuming
upon the promise of God’s presence with their
priests and prophets, they could not believe that he
would ever leave them. The guides of the church
must needs be infallible, and therefore he who fore¬
told their being infatuated, must be condemned as a
false prophet. Thus, under colour of zeal for the
church, have its best friends been run down.
3. Thev agreed to do all they could to blast his
reputation; “Come, let us smite him with the tongue,
fasten a bad character upon him, represent him to
some as despicable, and fit to be slighted; to others,
as dangerous, and fit to he prosecuted; to all, as
odious, and not fit to be tolerated.” This was their
device, fortiter calumniari, aliquid adhierebit — to
throw the vilest calumnies at him, in hope that some
would adhere, to dress him up in bear-skins, other¬
wise they could not bait him. They who projected
this, it is likely, were men of figure, whose tongue
was no small slander, whose representations, though
ever so false, would be credited both by princes and
people, to make him obnoxious to the justice of the
one and the fury of the other. The scourge of such
tongues will give not only smart lashes, but deep
wounds; it is a great mercy therefore to be hid from
it. Job v. 21.
4. To set others an example, they resolve that
they would not themselves regard any thing he said,
though it appeared ever so weighty, and ever so
well confirmed as a message from God; Let us not
give heed to any of his words; for, right or wrong,
they will look upon them to be his words, and not
the words of God. What good can be done with
those who hear the word of God with a resolution
not to heed it, or believe it? Nay,
5. That they may effectually silence him, they
resolve to be the death of him; (i>. 23.) All their
counsel against me is to slay me; they hunt Jor the
precious life; and a precious life indeed it was tha*
they hunted for. Long was this Jerusalem’s wretch
ed character. Thou that kil/est many of the pro
phets, and wouldest have killed them all.
II. See here what is the common relief of the
persecuted. This we niay see in the course that
Jeremiah took, when he met with this hard usage.
He immediately applied himself to his God by
prayer, and so gave himself ease.
1. He referred himself and his cause to God’s
cognizance, v. 19. They would not regard a word
he said, would not admit his complaints, or take any
notice of his grievances; but, Lord, (says he,) do
thou give heed to me. It is matter of comfort to
faithful ministers, that, if men will not give heed to
their preaching, yet God will give heed to then-
praying. He appeals to God as an impartial Judge,
that will hear both sides, as every judge ought to
do; “Do not only give heed to me, but hearken to
the voice of them that contend with me; hear what
they have to say against me, and for themselves,
and then make it to appear that thou sittest in the
throne, judging right. Hear the voice of my con¬
tenders, how noisy and clamorous they are, how
false and malicious all they say is, and let them be
judged out of their own mouth; cause their own
tongues to fall upon them.”
2. He complains of theirbase ingratitude tohim; (t>.
20.) “ Shall evil be recompensed for good, and shall
it yet go unpunished? Wilt not thou recompense
me good for that evil?” 2 Sam. xvi. 12. To render
good for good is human, evil for evil is brutish, good
for evil is Christian, but evil for good is devilish; it
is so very absurd and wicked a thing, that we can¬
not think but God will avenge it. See how great
the evil was, that they did against him; they digged
a pit for his soul; they aimed to take away his life,
no less would satisfy them, and that, not in a gene¬
rous way, by an open assault, against which he
might have an opportunity of defending himself, but
in a base, cowardly, clandestine way, they digged
pits for him, which there was no fence against, Ps.
cxix. 85. But see how great the good was, which
he had done for them; Remember that I stood be¬
fore thee to speak good for them; he had been an
intercessor with God for them, had used his interest
in heaven on their behalf, which was the greatest
kindness they could expect from one of his cha¬
racter. He is a prophet, and he shall pray for
thee, Gen. xx. 7. Moses often did this for Israel,
and yet they quarrelled with him, and sometimes
spake of stoning him. He did them this kindness
when they were in imminent danger of destruction,
and most needed it. They had themselves pro¬
voked God’s wrath against them, and it was ready
to break in upon them, but he stood in. the gap, (as
Moses, Ps. cvi. 23.) and turned away that wrath.
Now, (1.) This was very base in them. Call a man
ungrateful, and you can call him no worse. But it
was not strange that they who had forgotten their
God, did not know their best friends. (2.) It was
very grievous to him, as the like was to David; (Ps.
xxxv. 13. — cix. 4.) For my love they are my ad¬
versaries. Thus disingenuously do sinners deal with
the great Intercessor, crucifying him afresh, and
speaking against him on earth, while his blood is
speaking for them in heaven. See John x. 32. But,
(3.) It was a comfort to the prophet, that, when
they were so spiteful against him, he had the testi
monv of his conscience for him, that he had done
his duty to them; and the same will be our rejoic¬
ing in such a day of evil. The blood-thirsty hate
the upright, but the just seek his soul, Prov.
xxix. 10.
3. He imprecates the judgments of God upon
them, not from a revengeful disposition, but in a
JEREMIAH, XIX.
419
prophetical indignation against their horrid wicked¬
ness, v. 21. — 23. He prays, ( 1. ) That their fami¬
nes might be starved for want of bread; Deliver up
'-heir children to the famine, to the famine in the
country for want ot rain, and that in the city
through the straitness of the siege. Thus let this
iniquity of the fathers be visited upon the children.
(2.) That they might be cut off by the sword of
war, which, whatever it was in the enemy’s hand,
would be, in God’s hand, a sword of justice; “ Pour
them out (so the word is) by the hands of the sword;
let their blood be shed as profuseiy as water, that
their wives may be left childless and widows, their
husbands being taken away by death;” (some think
that the prophet refers to pestilence;) let their young
men, that are the strength of this generation, and
the hope of the next, be stain by the sword in battle.
(3.) That the terrors and desolations of war might
seize them suddenly and by surprise, that thus their
punishment might answer to their sin; ( v . 22.)
“ Let a cry be heard from their houses, loud shrieks,
when thou shall bring a troop of the Chaldeans sud¬
denly upon them, to seize them and all they have,
to make them prisoners, and their estates a prey;”
for thus they would have done by Jeremiah, they
aimed to ruin him at once ere he was aware; “ They
have digged a pit for me, as for a wild beast, and
have hid snares for me, as for some ravenous, nox¬
ious fowl.” Note, They that think to insnare
others, will justly be themselves insnared in an evil
time. (4.) That they might be dealt with accord¬
ing to the desert of this sin which was without ex¬
cuse; “ Forgive not their iniquity, neither blot out
their sin from thy sight; let them not escape the
just punishment of it: let them lie under all the
miseries of those whose sins are unpardoned.” (5.)
That God’s wrath against them might be their ruin;
Let them be overthrown before thee. This inti¬
mates, that justice is in pursuit of them, that they
endeavour to make their escape from it, but in vain;
they shall be made to stumble in their flight, and,
being overthrown, they will certainly be overtaken. ”
And then. Lord, in the time of thine, anger, do to
them, (he does not say what he would have done to
them, but,) do to them as thou thinkest fit, as thou
used to do with those whom thou art angry with;
deal thus with them.
Now this is not written for our imitation. Jere¬
miah was a prophet, and, by the impulse of the
spirit of prophecy, in the foresight of the rain cer¬
tainly coming upon his persecutors, might pray
such prayers as we may not; and if we think, by
this example, to justify ourselves in such impreca¬
tions, we know not what manner of spirit we are of:
our Master has taught us, by his precept and pat¬
tern, to bless them that curse us, ana pray for
them that dcspitefully use us; yet it is written for
our instruction, and is of use to teach us, [1.] That
those who have forfeited the benefit of the prayers
of God’s prophets for them, may justly expect to
have their prayers against them. [2.] That per¬
secution is a sin that fills the measure of a people’s
■niquity very fast, and will bring as sure and sore a
destruction upon them as any other. [3. ] Those
who will not be won upon by the kindness of God
and his prophets, will certainly at length feel the
just resentments of both.
CHAP. XIX.
The same melancholy theme is the subject of this chapter,
that was of those foregoing- — the approaching ruin of
Judah and Jerusalem for their sins; Jeremiah had often
foretold this; here he has particular full orders to do it
again. I. He must set their sins in order before them,
as he had often done, especially their idolatry, v. 4, 5.
II. He must describe the particular judgments which
were now coming apace UDon them for these sins, v. 6 . . 9.
III. He must do this in the valley of Tophet, with great
solemnity, and for some particular reasons, v. 2, 3. IV.
He must summon a company of the ciders together, to
be witnesses of this, v. 1. V. He must confirm this, and
endeavour to affect his hearers with it, by a sign, which
was, the breaking of an earthen bottle, signifying that
they should be dashed to pieces like a potter’s vessel, v.
10.. 13. \ 1. When he had done this in the valley of
Tophet, he ratified it in the court of the temple, v. 14,
15. Thus were all likely means tried to awaken this
stupid, senseless people to repentance, that their ruin
might be prevented; but all in vain.
1. r SMI US saith the Loitn, Go, and got a
JL potter’s earthen bottle, and take of
the ancients of the people, and of the an¬
cients of the priests, 2. And go forth unto
the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is
by the entry of the east gate, and proclaim
there the words that I shall tell thee; 3.
And say, Hear ye the word of the Lord,
O kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusa¬
lem; Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God
of Israel, Behold, I will bring evil upon this
place, the which whosoever heareth, his
ears shall tingle. 4. Because they have
forsaken me, and have estranged this place,
and have burnt incense in it unto other gods,
whom neither they nor their fathers have
known, nor the kings of Judah, and have
filled this place with the blood ol innocents;
5. They have built also the high places of
Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt-
offerings unto Baal, which I commanded
not, nor spake it, neither came it into my
mind : fi. Therefore, behold, the days come,
saith the Lord, that this place shall no
more he called Tophet, nor, The valley of
the son of Hinnom, but, The valley of
slaughter. 7. And I will make void the
counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this
place; and I will cause them to fall by the
sword before their enemies, and by the
hands of them that seek their lives; and
their carcases will I give to be meat for the
fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of
the earth. 8. And I will make this city
desolate, and a hissing: every one that pass-
eth thereby shall be astonished and hiss,
because of all the plagues thereof. 9. And
I will cause them to eat the flesh of their
sons, and the flesh of their daughters, and
they shall eat every one the flesh of his
friend, in the siege and straitness wherewith
their enemies, and they that seek their lives,
shall straiten them.
The corrnptii n of man having made it necessary
that precept sin uld be upon precept, and line upon
line, (so unapt are wc to receive, and so very apt to
let slip, the things of God,) the grace of God has
provided that there shall be, accordingly, precept
upon precept, and line upon line, that those who
are irreclaimable may be inexcusable. For this
reason, the prophet here is sent with a message to
the same purport with what he had often delivered,
but with some circumstances that might make it
the more taken notice of, a thing which ministers
<120
JEREMIAH, XIX.
should study, for a little circumstance may some¬
times be a great advantage, and they that would
win souls, must be wise.
1. He must take of the elders and chief men,
both in church and state, to be his auditors, and
witnesses to what he said; the ancietits of the people,
and the ancients of the priests, the most eminent
men both in the magistracy, and in the ministry,
that they might be faithful witnesses, to record, as
those, Isa. vtii. 2. It is strange that these great
men would be at the beck of a poor prophet, and
obey his summons to attend him out of the city, they
knew not whither, and they knew not why. But,
though the generality of the elders were disaffected
to him, yet it is likely that there were some few
among them, who looked upon him as a prophet of
the Lord, and would pay this respect to the hea¬
venly vision. Note, Persons of rank and figure have
an opportunity of honouring God by a diligent at¬
tendance on the ministry of the word, and other
divine institutions; and they ought to think it an
honour, and no disparagement to themselves, yea,
tho"gh the circumstances be mean and despicable.
It is certain that the greatest of men is less than the
least of the ordinances of God.
2. He must go to the valley of the son of Hin-
nom, and deliver this message there; for the word
of the Lord is not bound to any one place; as good
a sermon may be preached in the valley of T ophet
as in the gate of the temple. Christ preached on a
mountain, and out of a ship. This valley lay partly
on the south side of Jerusalem, but the prophet’s
way to it was by the entry of the east gate, the sun-
gate, (v. 2.) so some render it, and suppose it to
look not toward the sun-rising, but the noon-sun:
the potter’s gate; so some. This sermon must be
preached in that place, in the valley of the son of
Ifinnom, (1.) Because there they had been guilty
of the vilest of their idolatries, the sacrificing of their
children to Moloch, a horrid piece of impiety,
which the sight of the place might serve to remind
them of, and upbraid them with. (2.) Because
there they should feel the sorest of their calamities;
there the greatest slaughter should be made among
them; and it being the common sink of the city, let
them look upon it, and see what a miserable spec¬
tacle this magnificent city would be, when it should
be all like the valley of Tophet. God bids him go
thither, and proclaim there the words that I shall
tell thee, when thou comest thither; whereby it ap¬
pears, (as Mr. Gataker well observes,) that God’s
messages were frequently not revealed to the pro¬
phets before the very instant of time wherein they
were to deliver them.
3. He must give general notice of a general ruin
now shortly coming upon Judah and Jerusalem, x>.
3. He must, as those that make proclamations,
begin with an “ Oyes, Hear ye the word of the
Lord, though it be a terrible word, for you may
thank yourselves if it be so.” Both rulers and ruled
must attend to it, at their peril; the kings of Judah,
the king and his sons, the king and his princes, and
privy-counsellors, they must hear the word of the
King of kings, for, high as they are, he is above
them. The inhabitants of Jerusalem also must hear
wh it God has to say to them. Both princes and
people hive contributed to the national guilt, and
must concur in the national repentance, or they will
I > th share in the national ruin. Let them all know
that the Lord of hosts, who is therefore able to do
what he threatens, though he is the God of Israel,
n v, because he is so, will therefore punish them in
th ■ first place for their iniquities; (Amosiii. 2.) He
will bring evil upon this place, upon Judah and Je¬
rusalem, so surprising, and so dreadful, that who¬
ever hears it, his ears shall tir.gle; whosoever hears
' he prediction of it, hears the report and represen¬
tation of it, it shall make such an impression of ter¬
ror upon him, that he shall still think he hears it
sounding in his ears, and shall not be able to get it
out of his mind. The ruin of Eli’s house is thus de¬
scribed, (1 Sam. iii. 11.) and of Jerusalem, 2 Kings
xxi. 12.
4. He must plainly tell them what their sins were,
for which God had this controversy with them; (v.
4, 5.) they were, apostacy from God; They have
forsaken me; abuse of the privileges of the visible
church, with which they had been dignified; They
have estranged this place. Jerusalem, the holy city,
the temple, the holy house, which were designed
for the honour of God, and the support of his king¬
dom among men, they had alienated from those
purposes and (as some render the word) they had
strangely abused. They had so polluted both with
their wickedness, that God had disowned both, and
abandoned them to ruin. He charges them with an
affection for, and the adoration of, false gods, such
as neither they nor their fathers have known, such
as never had recommended themselves to their be¬
lief and esteem bv any acts of power or goodness
done for them or their ancestors, as that God had
abundantly done, whom they forsook; yet they took
them at a venture for their gods; nay, being fond
of change and novelty, they liked them the better
for their being upstarts; and new fashions in reli¬
gion were as grateful to their fancies as in other
things. They also stand charged with murder,
wilful murder, from malice prepense; They have
filled this place with the blood of innocents. It was
Manasseh’s sin, (2 Kings, xxiv. 4.) which the Lord
would not pardon. Nay, as if idolatry and murder,
committed separately, were not bad enough, and
affront enough to God and man, they have put them
together, have consolidated them into one compli¬
cated crime, that of burning their children in the
fire to Baal, (i>. 5. ) which was the most insolent
defiance to all the laws both of natural and revealed
religion that ever mankind was guilty of; and by it
they openly declared that they loved their new gods
better than ever they loved the true God, though
they were such cruel taskmasters, that they re¬
quired human sacrifices, Inhuman I should call
them, which the Lord Jehovah, whose all lives and
souls are, never demanded from his worshippers;
he never spake of such a thing, nor came it into his
mind. See ch. vii. 31.
5. He must endeavour to affect them with the
greatness of the desolation that was coming upon
them. He must tell them, (as he had done before,
ch. vii. 32.) that this valley of the son of Hinnom
shall acquire a new name, the valley of slaughter,
(y. 6. ) for (v. 7. ) multitudes shall fall there by the
sword, when either they sally out upon the besiegers,
and are repulsed, or attempt to make their escape,
and are seized; They shall fall before their enemies,
who not only endeavour to make themselves mas¬
ters of their houses and estates, but have such an
implacable enmity to them, that they seek their lives,
they thirst after their blood, and, when they are
dead, will not allow a cartel for the burying of the
slain, but their carcases shall be meat for the fowls
of the heaven and beasts of the earth. What a dis¬
mal place will the valley of Tophet be then! And
as for those that remain within the city, and will
not capitulate with the besiegers, they shall perish
for want of food, when first they have eaten the
flesh of their sons and daughters, and dearest
friends, through the straitness wherewith their ene¬
mies shall straiten them, v. 9. This was threatened
in the law, as an instance of the extremity to which
the judgments of God should reduce them, (Lev.
xxvi. 29. Deut. xxviii. 33.) and was accomplished,
Lam. iv. 10. And lastly, the while city sh- 11 be
desolate, the houses laid in ashes, the iuh diitants
JEREMIAH, XIX.
421
slain, or taken prisoners; there shall be no resort to
it, nor any thing in it but what looks rueful and hor¬
rid; so that every one that /lasses by shall be aston¬
ished, {v. 8.) as lie had said before, eh. xviii. 16.
That place which holiness had made the joy of the
whole earth, sin had made the reproach and shame
of the whole earth.
6. He must assure them that all their attempts to
prevent and avoid this ruin, so long as they continued
impenitent and unreformed, would be fruitless and
vain; (x>. 7.) 1 will make void the counsel of Judah
and Jerusalem, of the princes and senators of Ju¬
dah and Jerusalem, in this /dace, in the royal palace,
which lay on the south side of the city, not far from
the place where the prophet now stood. Note,
There is no fleeing from God’s justice, but by flee¬
ing to his mercy. They that will not make good
God’s counsel, by humbling themselves under his
mighty hand, God will make void their counsel,
and biast their projects, which they think ever so
well concerted for their own preservation. There
is no counsel or strength against the Lord.
10. Then shalt them break the bottle in
the sight of the men that go with thee, 11.
And shalt say unto them, Thus saith the
Lord of hosts, Even so will I break this
people, and this city, as one breaketh a pot¬
ter’s vessel, that cannot be made whole
again; and they shall bury them, in Tophet,
till there be no place else to bury. 12. Thus
will I do unto this place, saith the Lord,
and to the inhabitants thereof, and even
make their city as Tophet: 13. And the
houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the
kings of Judah, shall be defiled, as the place
of Tophet, because of all the houses upon
whose roofs they have burnt incense unto
all the host of heaven, and have poured out
drink-offerings unto other gods. 14. Then
came Jeremiah from Tophet, whither the
Lord had sent him to prophesy; and he
stood in the court of the Lord’s house, and
said to all the people, 15. Thus saith the
L >rd of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I
will bring upon this city, and upon all her
towns, all the evil that I have pronounced
against it; because they have hardened then-
necks, that they might not hear my words.
The message of wratli delivered in the foregoing
verses is here enforced, that it might gain credit,
two ways.
I. By a visible sign. The prophet was to take
along with him an earthen bottle, (v. 1.) and when
he had delivered his message, he was to break the
bottle to pieces, (y. 10. ) and the same that were au¬
ditors of the sermon, must be spectators of the sign.
He had compared this people, in the chapter before,
to the potter’s clay, which is easily marred in the
making; but some might say, “It is past that with
us, we have been made and hardened long since.”
“And what though you be,” says he, “the potter’s
vessel is as soon broken in the hand of any man, as
the vessel while it is soft clay is marred in the pot¬
ter’s hand, and its case is, in this respect much
worse; that the vessel, while it is soft clay, though
it be marred, may be moulded again, but after it is
hardened, when it is broken, it can never be pieced
again.” Perhaps what they see will affect them
more than what they onlv hear talk rf; that is the
intention of sacramental signs, and teaching by sym¬
bols was anciently used. In the explication of "this
sign, he must inculcate what he had before said,
with a further reference to the place where this
was done, in the valley of To/ihet.
1. As the bottle was easily, irresistibly, and irre¬
coverably broken, so shall Judah and Jerusalem be
broken by the Chaldean army, r. 11. They de¬
pended much upon the firmness of their constitu¬
tion, and the fixedness of their courage, which they
thought hardened them like a vessel of brass; but
the prophet shows that all that did but harden them
like a vessel of earth, which, though hard, is brit¬
tle, and sooner broken than that which is not so
hard. Though they were made vessels of honour,
still they were vessels of earth, and so they shall be
made to know, if they dishonour God and them¬
selves, and serve not the purposes for which they
were made. It is God himself who made them that
resolves to unmake them ; I will break this people,
and this city, dash them in pieces like a potter’s
vessel; the doom of the heathen, (Ps. ii. 9. Rev. ii.
27.) but now Jerusalem’s doom, Isa. xxx. 14. A
potter’s vessel, when once broken, cannot be made
whole again; cannot be cured, so the word is. The
ruin of Jerusalem shall be an utter ruin; no hand
can repair it, but his that broke it; and if they re¬
turn to him, though he has torn, he will heal.
2. This was done in Tophet to signify two things,
(1.) That Tophet should be the receptacle of the
slain; They shall burn in Tophet, for want of room
to bury elsewhere; (so some read it;) and "if thev
had had conveniencies any where else, they would
not have buried there, where all the filth of the
city was carried. Or, as we read it, They shall
bury in Tophet, till there be no place to bury any
more there; they shall justle for room to lay their
dead; and a very little room will then serve those,
who, while they lived, laid house to house, and field
to field. They that would be placed clone in the
midst of the earth, while they were above ground,
and obliged all about them to keep their distance,
must lie with the multitude when they are under
ground, for they are innumerable before them.
(2.) That Tophet should be a resemblance of the
whole city; ( v . 12.) I will make this city as Tophet.
As they had filled the valley of Tophet with the
slain which they sacrificed to their idols, so God
will fill the whole city with the slain, that shall fall
as sacrifices to the justice of God. We read (2
Kings xxiii. 10.) of Josiah’s defling Tophet, be¬
cause it had been abused to idolatry; which he did,
(as should seem, v. 14.) by filling' it with the bones
of men; and, whatever it was before, thenceforward
it was looked upon as a detestable place. Dead
carcases, and other filth of the city, were carried
thither, and a fire continually kept there, for the
burning of it. This was the posture of that valley,
when Jeremiah was sent thitherto prophesy; and
so execrable a place was it looked upon to be", that,
in the language of our Saviour’s time, hell was call
ed, in allusion to it, Gehenna, the valley of Hinnom.
“Now,” (says God,) “since that blessed reforma¬
tion, when Tophet was defiled, did not proceed as
it ought to have done, nor prove a thorough reforma¬
tion, but though the idols in Tophet were abolished
and made odious, those in Jerusalem remained, there
fore will I do with the city as Josiah did by Tophet.
fill it with the bodies of men, and make it an heap
of rubbish.” Even the houses of Jerusalem, and
those of the kings of Judah, the royal palaces not
excepted, shall be defiled as the place of Tophet,
(v. 13.) and for the same reason, because of the
idolatries that have been committed there; since
thev will not defile them by a reformation, God will
defile them by a destruction, because upon the roof
422
JEREMIAH, XX.
of their houses they have burnt incense unto the host
if heaven. The flat roofs of their houses were
sometimes used by devout people as convenient
places for prayer, (Actsx. 6.) and by idolaters they
were used as high places, on which they sacrificed
to strange gods, especially to the host of heaven, the
sun, moon, and stars, that there they might be so
much nearer to them, and have a clearer and fuller
view of them. We read of those that worshipped
the host of heaven on the house-tops, (Zeph. i. 5.)
and of altars on the tofi of the upper chamber of
Ahaz, 2 Kings xxiii. 12. This sin upon the house¬
tops brought a curse into the house, which consumed
it, and made it a dunghill like Tophet.
II. By a solemn recognition and ratification of
what he had said in the court of the Lord’s house,
v. 14, 15. The prophet returned from Tophet to
the temple, which stood upon the lull over that val¬
ley, and there confirmed, and, probably, repeated,
what he had said in the valley of Tophet, for the
benefit of those who had not heard it: what he had
said he would stand to. Here, as often before, he
both assures them of judgments coming upon them,
and assigns the cause of them, which was their sin.
Both these are here put together in a little compass,
with a reference to all that had gone before. 1. The
accomplishment of the prophecies is here the judg¬
ment threatened. The people flattered themselves
with a conceit that God would be better than his
word; the threatening was but to frighten them,
and keep them in awe a little; but the prophet tells
them that they deceive themselves if they think so;
For thus saith the Lord of hosts, who is able to
make his words good, I will bring upon this city,
and upon all her towns, all the lesser cities that be¬
long to Jerusalem the metropolis, all the evil that
I have pronounced against it. Note, Whatever
men may think to the contrary, the executions of
Providence will fully answer the predictions of the
word; and God will appear as terrible against sin
and sinners as the scripture makes him; nor shall
the unbelief of men make either his promise or his
threatenings of no effect, or of less effect than it was
thought to' be of. 2. The contempt of the prophe¬
cies is here the sin charged upon them, as the pro¬
curing cause of this judgment. It is because they
have hardened their necks, and would not bow and
bend them to the yoke of God’s commands, would
not hear my words, would not heed them, and yield
obedience to them. Note, The obstinacy of sinners
in their sinful ways, is altogether their own fault;
if their necks are hardened, it is their own act and
deed, thev have hardened them; if they are deaf
to the word of God, it is because they have stopped
their own ears. We have need therefore to pray
that God, by his grace, would deliver us from hard-
7iess of heart, and contempt of his word, and com¬
mandments.
CHAP. XX.
Such plain dealing as Jeremiah used in the foregoing chap¬
ter, one might easily foresee, if it did not convince and
humble men, would provoke and exasperate them ; and
so it. did ; for here we find, 1. Jeremiah persecuted by
Pashur, for preaching that sermon, v. 1, 2. II. Pashur
threatened for so doing, and the word, which Jeremiah
had preached, confirmed, v. 3. .6. III. Jeremiah com¬
plaining to God concerning it and the other instances of
hard measure that he had since he began to be a prophet,
and the grievous temptation he had struggled with, (v.
I. .10.) encouraging himself in God, lodging his appeal
with him, not doubting but that he shall yet praise him,
by which it appears that he had much grace, (v. 1 1 . . 13. )
and yet peevishly cursing the day of his birth, (v. 14..
18.) by which it appears that he had sad remainders of
corruption in him too, and was a man subject to like
passions as we are.
I. Pashur, the son of I miner the
priest, who was also the chief gover¬
nor in the house of the Lord, heard tha
Jeremiah prophesied these things. 2. Then
Pashur smote Jeremiah the prophet, and put
him in the stocks that were in the high gate
of Benjamin, which teas by the house of the
Lord. 3. And it came to pass on the mor¬
row, that Pashur brought forth Jeremiah
out ot the stocks. Then said Jeremiah unto
him, The Lord hath not called thy name
Pashur, but Magor-missabib. 4. For thus
saith the Lord, Behold, I w ill make thee a
terror to thyself, and to all thy friends; and
they shall fall by the sword of their enemies,
and thine eyes shall behold it : and I will
give all Judah into the hand of the king of
Babylon, and he shall carry them captive
into Babylon, and shall slay them with the
sword. 5. Moreover, I will deliver all the
strength of this city, and all the labours
thereof, and all the precious things thereof,
and all the treasures of the kings of Judah
will I give into the hand of their enemies,
which shall spoil them, and take them, and
carry them to Babylon. 6. And thou, Pa¬
shur, and all that dwell in thy house, shall
go into captivity: and thou shalt come to
Babylon, and there thou shalt die, and shalt
be buried there, thou, and all thy friends, to
whom thou hast prophesied lies.
Here is,
I. Pashur’s unjust displeasure against Jeremiah,
and the fruits of that displeasure, v. 1, 2. This
Pashur was a priest, and therefore, one would think,
should have protected Jeremiah, who was of his
own order, a priest too; and the more, because he
was a prophet of the Lord, whose interests the
priests, his ministers, ought to consult: but this
priest was a persecutor of him whom he should
have patronized. He was the son of Jmmer; he
was of the sixteenth course of the priests, of which
Immer, when these courses were first settled by
David, was father, (1 Chron. xxiv. 14.) as Zecha-
riah was of the order of Abiah, Luke i. 5. Thus
this Pashur is distinguished from another of the
same name, mentioned ch. xxi. 1. who was of the
fifth course. This Pashur was chief governor in
the temple ; perhaps he was only so pro tempore —
for a short period, the course he was head of being
now in waiting; or he was suffragan to the High
Priest; or, perhaps, captain of the temple, or of the
guards about it, Acts iv. 1. This was Jeremiah’s
great enemy. The greatest malignity to God’s pro¬
phets was found among those that professed sanctity,
and concern for God and the church.
We cannot suppose that Pashur was one of those
ancients of the priests that went with Jeremiah to
the valley of Tophet, to hear him prophesy, unless
it were with a malicious design to take advantage
against him; but when he came into the courts of
the Lord’s house, it is probable that he was himself
a witness of what he said, and so it may be read,
(v. 1. ) He heard Jeremiah prophesying these things.
As we read it, the information was brought him Dy
others, whose examinations he took; He heard that
Jeremiah prophesied these things, and could not bear
it; especially that he should dare to preach in the
courts of the Lord’s house, where he was chief go¬
vernor, without his leave. When power in the
JEREMIAH. XX. 423
church is abused, it is the most dangerous power
that can be employed against it. Being incensed at
Jeremiah, 1. He smote him, struck him with his
hand, or staff of authority. Perhaps it was a blow
intended only to disgrace him, like that which the
High Priest ordered to be given Paul; (Acts xxiii.
2.) he struck him on the mouth, and bade him hold
his prating. Or, perhaps, he gave him many blows
intended to hurt him; he beat him severely, as a
malefactor. It is charged upon the husbandmen,
(Matth. xxi. 35. ) that they beat the servants. The
method of proceeding here was illegal; the High
Priest, and the rest of the priests, ought to have
been consulted, Jeremiah’s credentials examined,
and the matter inquired into, whether he had an au¬
thority to say what he said. But these rules of jus¬
tice are set aside, and despised, as mere formalities;
right or wrong, Jeremiah must be run down. The
enemies of piety would never suffer themselves to
be bound by the laws of equity. 2. He put him in
the stocks. Some make it only a place of confine¬
ment; he imprisoned him. It rather seems to be
an instrument of closer restraint, and intended to
put him both to pain and shame. Some think it
.vas a pillory for his neck and arms; others (as we)
a pair of Stocks for his legs; whatever engine it
was, he continued in it all night, and in a public
pi ice too, in the high gate of Benjamin, •which was
in, or by the house of the Lord; probably, a gate
through which they passed between the city and the
temple. Pashur intended thus to chastise him, that
he might deter him from prophesying; and thus to
expose him to contempt, and render him odious,
that he might not be regarded if he did prophesy.
Thus have the best men met with the worst treat¬
ment from this ungracious, ungrateful world; and
the greatest blessings of their age have been count¬
ed as the off-scouring of all things. Would it not
raise a pious indignation, to see such a man as Pashur
upon the bench, and such a man as Jeremiah in the
stocks? It is well that there is another life after this,
when persons and things will appear with another
face.
II. God’s just displeasure against Pashur, and the
tokens of it. On the morrow, Pashur gave Jere¬
miah his discharge, brought him out of the stocks;
(v. 3. ) it is probable that he continued him there, in
little ease, as long as was usual to continue any in
that punishment. And no*' Jeremiah has a message
from God to him. We do not find that, when
Pashur put Jeremiah in the stocks, the latter gave
him any check for what he did; he appears to have
quietly and silently submitted to the abuse; when
he suffered, he threatened not : but, when he brought
him out of the stocks, then God put a word into the
prophet’s mouth, which would awaken his con¬
science, if he had any. For when the prophet of the
Lord was bound, the word of the Lord was not. —
What can we think Pashur aimed at, in smiting
and abusing Jeremiah? Whatever it is, we shall
see by what God says to him, that he is disap¬
pointed.
1. Did he aim to establish himself, and make
himself easy, by silencing one that told of his faults,
and would be likely to lessen his reputation with the
people? He shall not gain this point; for, (1.)
Though the prophet should be silent, his own con¬
science shall fly in his face, and make him always
uneasy. To confirm this, he shall have a name
given him, Magor-missabib — Terror round about,
or. Fear on every side. God himself shall give him
this name, whose calling him so, will make him so.
It seems to be a proverbial expression, bespeaking
a man not only in distress, but in despair; not only
in danger on every side, (that a man may be, and
yet by faith may be in no terror, as David, Ps. iii. 6.
xxvii. 3.) but in fear on every side; arid that a man
may be when there appears no danger; The wicked
fee when no man pursues; are in great feur where
nofearis. This shall be Pashur’s case; (v. 4.) “Be¬
hold, I will make thee a terror to thyself; thou shalt
be subject to continual frights, and thy own fancy
and imagination shall create thee a constant uneasi¬
ness.” Note, God can make the most daring sinner
a terror to himself, and will find out a way to fright¬
en those that frighten his people from doing their
duty. And those that will not hear of their faults
from God’s prophets, that are reprovers in the gate,
shall be made to hear of them from conscience,
which is a reprover in their own bosoms, that will
not be daunted or silenced. And miserable is the
man that is thus m ide a terror to himself ! Yet this
is not all; some arc very much a terror to them¬
selves, but they conceal it, and seem to others to be
pleasant; but, “Twill make thee a terror to all thy
friends; thou shalt, upon all occasions, express thy¬
self with so much horror and amazement, that all
thy friends shall be afraid of conversing with thee,
and shall choose to stand aloof from thy torment. ”
Persons in deep melancholy and distraction are a
terror to themselves and all about them; which is
a good reason why we should be very thankful, so
long as God continues to us the use of our reason
and the peace of our consciences. (2.) His friends,
whom he put a confidence in, and perhaps, studied
to oblige, in what he did against Jeremiah, shall all
fail him. God does not presently strike him dead
for what he did against Jeremiah, but lets him live
miserably, like Cain in the land of shaking; in such
a continual consternation, that, wherever he goes,
he shaii be a monument of divine justice; and when
it is asked, “What makes this man in such contin¬
ual terror?” it shall be answered, “It is God’s hand
upon him for putting Jeremiah in the stocks.” His
friends, who should encourage him, shall all be cut
off; they shall fall by the sword of the enemy, and
his eyes shall behold it; which dreadful sight shall
increase his terror. (3.) He shall find, in the issue,
that his terror is not causeless, but that divine ven¬
geance is waiting for him; (i». 6.) he and his family
shall go into captivity, even to Babylon; he shall
neither die before the evil comes, as Josiah, nor live
to survive it, as some did, but he shall die a captive,
and shall in effect, be buried in his chains, he and
all his friends. Thus far is the doom of Pashur. —
Let persecutors read it, and tremble; tremble to re¬
pentance before they be made to tremble to their
ruin.
2. Did he aim to keep the people easy, to prevent
the destruction that Jeremiah prophesied of, and by
sinking his reputation to make his words fall to the
ground? It is probable that he did; for it appears
by t'. 6. that he did himself set up for a prophet,
and told the people that they should have peace; he
prophesied lies to them, and because Jeremiah’s
prophecy contradicted his, and tended to awaken
those whom he endeavoured to rock asleep in their
sins, therefore he set himself against him. But could
he gain his point? No, Jeremiah stands to what he
has said against Judah and Jerusalem; and God by
his mouth repeats it. Men get nothing by silencing
those who reprove and want them, for the word
will have its course; so it had here.
(1.) The country shall be ruined: ( v . 4.) I will
gix'e all Judah into the hand of the king of Baby¬
lon. It had long been God’s own land, but he will
now transfer his title to it to Nebuchadnezzar, he
shall be master of the country, and dispose of the in¬
habitants; some to the sword, and some to captivitv,
as he pleases, but none shall escape him.
(2.) The city shall be ruined too, v. 5. The king
of Babylon shall spoil that, and carry all that is val¬
uable in it to Babvlon. [1.] He shall seize their
magazines and military stores, ,x'«ve called the
12.4
JEREMIAH, XX.
strength of the city,') and turn those against them.
Ta.se they trusted to as their strength; hut what
stead could they stand them in, when they had thrown
themselves out of God’s protection, and when he
who was indeed their Strength, was departed from
them? [2.] He shall carry off all their stock in
trade, their wares and merchandises, here called
their labours, because it was what they laboured
about, and got by their labour. [3.] He shall plun¬
der their fine houses, and take away their rich fur¬
niture, here called their precious things, because
they valued them, and set their hearts so much upon
them. Happy they who have secured to themselves
precious things in God’s precious promises, which are
out of the reach of soldiers. [4. ] He shall rifle the
exchequer, and take away the jewels of the crown
and all the treasures of the kings of Judah. This
was that instance of the calamity which was first of
all threatened to Hezekiah long ago, as his punish¬
ment for showing his treasures to the king of Baby¬
lon’s ambassadors, Isa. xxxix. 6. The treasury, they
thought, was their defence; but that betrayed them,
and became an easy prey to the enemy.
7. O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and
I was deceived; thou art stronger than I,
and hast prevailed : I am in derision daily,
every one mocketh me. 8. For since I
spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil ;
because the word of the Lord was made
a reproach unto me, and a derision daily.
9. Then I said, I will not make mention of
nim, nor speak any more in his name : but
his word, was in mine heart as a burning
tire shut up in my bones, and I was weary
with forbearing, and I cotdd not stay. 10.
For 1 heard the defaming of many, fear on
every side. Report, say they , and we will
report it. All my familiars watched for my
halting, saying , Peradventure he will be en¬
ticed, and we shall prevail against him, and
we shall take our revenge on him. 11.
But the Lord is with me as a mighty terrible
one; therefore my persecutors shall stumble,
and they' shall not prevail ; they shall be
greatly ashamed ; for they shall not prosper:
their everlasting confusion shall never be
forgotten. 12. But, O Lord of hosts, that
triesl the righteous, and seest the reins and
the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them :
for unto thee have I opened my cause. 1 3.
Sing unto the Lord, praise ye the Lord ;
for he hath delivered the soul of the poor
from the hand of evil-doers.
Pashur’s doom was, to be a terror to himself; Jere¬
miah, even now, in this hour of temptation, is far
from being so; and yet it cannot be denied but that
he is here, through the infirmity of the flesh, strange-
’v agitated within himself; good men are but men at
the best; God is not extreme to mark what they
say and do amiss, and therefore we must not be so,
but make the best of it. In these verses, it appears
that, upon occasion of thegreat indignation and injury
that Pashur did to Jeremiah, there was a struggle
in his breast between his graces and his corruptions.
His discourse with himself, and with his God, upon
this occasion, was somewhat perplexed; let us try
to methodise it
I. Here is a sad representation of the wrong that
was done him, and the affronts that were put upon
him; and this representation, no doubt, was acci rd-
ing to truth, and deserves no blame, but was very
justly and very fitly made to him that sent him, and,
no doubt, would bear him out. He complains, 1.
That he was ridiculed and laughed at; they made a
jest of every thing he said and did; and this cannot
but be a great grievance to an ingenuous mind; (7'.
7, 8.) Iam in derision, lam mocked. They play¬
ed upon him, and made themselves and one another
merry with him, as if he had been a fool, good for
nothing but to make sport. Thus he was continu¬
ally; I was in derision daily: thus he was univer¬
sally; Every one mocks me; the greatest so far forget
their own gravity, and the meanest so far forget
mine. Thus our Lord Jesus, on the cross, was revil¬
ed both by priests and people; and the revilings of
each had’ their peculiar aggravation. And what
was it that thus exposed him to contempt and scorn?
It was nothing but his faithful and zealous discharge
of his office; (v. 8. ) they could find nothing for
which to deride him, but his preaching; it was the
word of the Lord that was made a reproach: that
for which they should have honoured and respected
him — that he was instructed to deliver the word oj
the Lord to them, was the very thing for which
they reproached and reviled him. He never preach¬
ed a sermon, but, though he kept as closely as pos¬
sible to his instructions, they found something or
other in it, for which to banter and abuse him.
Note, It is sad to think that, though divine revela¬
tion be one of the greatest blessings and honours that
ever was bestowed upon the world, yet it has been
turned very much to the reproach of the most zeal¬
ous preachers and believers of it. Two things they
derided him for, (1.) The manner of his preach¬
ing: Since he spake, he cried out. He had always
been a lively, affectionate preacher, and since he
began to speak in God’s name, he always spake as
a man in earnest; he cried aloud, and did not spare,
spared neither himself, nor them to whom he
preached; and this was enough for them to laugh at,
who hated to be serious. It is common for these
that are unaffected with, and disaffected to, the
things of God themselves, to ridicule those that are
much affected with them. Lively preachers are
the scorn of careless, unbelieving hearers. (2.) The
matter of his preaching; he cried violence and spoil.
He reproved them for the violence and sfioil which
they were guilty of toward one another; and he
prophesied of the violence and spoil which should
be brought upon them, as the punishment of that
sin; for the former they ridiculed him as over-
precise, for the latter as over-credulous; in both
he was provoking to them, and therefore they re¬
solved to run him down. This was bad enough, yet
he complains further, 2. That he was plotted
against, and his ruin contrived; he was not cnly ridi¬
culed as a weak man, but reproached and misrepre¬
sented as a bad man, and dangerous to the govern¬
ment. This he laments as his grievance, v. 10.
Being laughed at, though it touches a man in point
of honour, is yet a thing that may be easily laughed at
again; for, as it has been well observed, it is no shame
to be laughed at, but to deserve to be so. But there
were those that acted a more spiteful part, and with
more subtilty. (1.) They spake ill of him behind
his back, when he had no opportunity of clearing
himself, and were industrious to spread false report,
concerning him ; I heard, at second-hand, the defam
ing of many , fear on every side, ( of many Magor
missabibs; so some read it,) of many such men as
Pashur was, and who may therefore expect his
doom. Or, this was the matter of their defamation,
they represented Jeremiah as a man that instilled
fears and jealousies on every side into the minds of
425
JEREMIAH, XX.
the people, and so made tliem uneasy under the
government, and disposed them to a rebellion. Or,
he perceived them so malicious against him, that he
could n it but be afraid on every side; wherever
he was, he had reason to fear informers; so that
they made him almost a Magor-m issa bib. These
wards are found in the original, verbatim , the same,
Ps. xxxi. 13. I have heard the slander, or defaming
of many, fear on every side. Jeremiah, in his com¬
plaint, chooses to make use of the same words that
David had made us of before him, that it might be
a comfort to him to think that other good men had
suffered the abuses before him, and to teach us to
m ike use of David’s psalms with application to our¬
selves, as there is occ ision. Whatever we have to
say, we may from thence take with us words. See
how Jeremiah’s enemies contrived the matter; Re-
fort, say they, and sue will re fort it. They resolve
to cast an odium upon him, and this is the method
they take; “ Let some very bad thing be said of him,
which may render him obnoxious to the govern¬
ment, and though it be ever so false, we will second
it, and spread it, and add to it. ” (For the reproaches
of good men lose nothing by the carriage. ) “Do you
that frame a story plausibly, or you that can pre¬
tend to some acquaintance with him, report it once,
and we will report it from you, in all companies that
we come into. Do you say it, and we will swear it;
do you set it agoing, and we will follow it.” And
thus both are equally guilty, they that raise, and they
that propagate, the false report. The receiver is as
had as the thief. (2.) They flattered him to his
fire, that they might get something from him, on
which to ground an accusation, as the spies that
came to Christ, feigning themselves to be just men,
Luke xx. 20. — xi. S3, 54. His familiars, that he
conversed freely with, and put a confidence in,
watched for hi\ halting, observed what he said,
which they could by any strained innuendo put a bad
construction upon, and carried it to his enemies.
His case was very sad, when those betrayed him
whom he took to be his friends. They said among
themselves, “If we accost him kindly, and insinu¬
ate ourselves into his acquaintance, peradventure he
will b • enticed to own that he is in confederacy with
the enemv, and a pensioner to the king of Babylon,
or we sh ill wheedle him to speak some treasonable
words; and then sue shall flrevail against hi?n, and
take our revenge on him for telling us of our faults,
and threatening us with the judgments of God.”
Note, Neither the innocence of the dove, no, nor
the prudence of the serpent to help it, can secure
men from unjust censure and false accusation.
II. Here is an account of the temptation he was in,
under this affliction; his feet were almost gone, as
the Psalmist’s, Ps. xxxi. 2. And this is that which is
to be most dreaded in affliction, being driven to it by
sin, Neh. vi. 13.
1. He was tempted to quarrel with God for mak¬
ing him a prophet. This he begins with; (u. 7.) O
Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I svas deceived.
This, as we read it, sounds very harsh. God’s ser¬
vants have been always ready to own that he is a
f lithful M ister, and never cheated them ; and there¬
fore this is the language of Jeremiah’s folly and cor¬
ruption. If, when God called him to be a prophet,
and told him he would stt him over the kingdoms,
( ch . i. 10.) and make him a defenced city, he flat¬
tered himself with an expectation of having uni¬
versal respect paid him as a messenger from heaven,
and living safe and easy, and afterward it proved
otherwise, he must not say that God had deceived
him, but that he had deceived himself; for he knew
how the prophets before him had been persecuted,
and had no reason to expect better treatment. Nay,
God had expressly told him that all the frinces,
/meits, and fieo/ile of the land, svould fight against
Vol. iv. — 3 H
him, ( ch . i. 19.) which he had forgotten, else he
would not h ive 1 lid the blame on God thus. Christ
thus told his disciples wh it opp' sition thev should
meet with, that they might not oe offended, John X vi.
1, 2. But the words may very wi ll be read thus,
Thou hast / lersuaded me, ami I svas fersuaded; it
is the same word that was used, Gen. ix. 27. margin,
God shall fiersuade Ja/ihet. And Prov. xxv. 15
By much forbearance is a Jirince fersuaded. And
Hos. ii. 14. I su !l allure her. And this agrees
best with what follows; “ Thou suast stronger than
I, didst over-persuade me with argument; nay,
didst overpower me by the influence of thy Spirit
upon me, and thou hast frevailed. ” Jeremiah was
very backward to undertake the prophetical office,
he pleaded that he was under age, and unfit for the
ser\ ice; but God overruled his pleas, and told him
that he must go, ch. i. 6, 7. “Now, Lord,” says he,
“since thou hast put this office upon me, why dost
thou not stand by me in it? Had I thrust myself
upon it, I might justly have been in derision; but
why am I so when thou didst thrust me into it. It
was Jeremiah’s infirmity to complain thus of God, as
putting a hardship upon him in calling him to be a
prophet, which he would not have done, had he
considered the lasting honour thereby done him,
sufficient to balance the present contempt he was un¬
der. Note, As long as we see ourselves in the way
of God and duty, it is weakness and foil)', when we
meet with difficulties and discouragements in it, to
wish we had never set out in it.
2. He was tempted to quit his work, and give it
over; partly because he himself met with so much
hardship in it, and partly because those to whom
he was sent, instead of being edified and made bet¬
ter, were exasperated and made worse; (v. 9.)
“ Then I said, Since by prophesying in the name
of the Lord I gain nothing to him or myself but
dishonour and disgrace, I suill not make mention of
him as my Author for any thing I say, ncr sfeak
any more in his name; since my enemies do all they
can to silence me, I will even silence myself, and
speak no more, since I may as well speak to the
stones as to them.” Note, It is strong temptation
to poor ministers to resolve that they will preach no
more, when they see their preaching slighted and
wholly ineffectual. But let people dread putting
their ministers into this temptation. Let not their
labour be in vain with us, lest we provoke them to
say that they will take no more pains with us, and
provoke God to say, They shall take no more.
Vet let not ministers hearken to this temptation, but
go on in their duty, notwithstanding their discourage¬
ments, for this is the more thank-worthy; and
though Israel be not gathered, yet they shall be glo¬
rious.
III. Here is an account of his faithful adherence
to his work, and cheerful dependence on his God,
notwithstanding.
1. He found the grace of God mighty in him to
keep him to his business, notwithstanding the temp¬
tation he was in to throw it up; “/ said, in my
haste, I will sfeak no more "in his name, what I have
in my heart to deliver I will stifle and suppress; but 1
soon found it was in my heart as a burning fire shut
uf in my bones, which glowed inwardly, and must
have vent, it was impossible to smother it; I was like
a man in a burning fever, uneasv, and in a continual
agitation; while I kef t silence from good, my heart
was hot within me, it was fain and grief to me, and
I must speak, that I may be refreshed Ps. xxxix.
2, 3. Job xxxii. 20. While Ikeft silence, my bones
waxed old, Ps. xxxii. 3. See the power of the
spirit of prophecy in those that were actuated by it;
and thus will a holy zeal for God even eat men uf,
and make them forget themselves. I be/iex’ed,
therefore have I sfoken. Jeremiah was soon weary
426
JEREMIAH, XX.
with forbearing to preach, and could not contain
himself; nothing puts faithful ministers to pain so
much as being silenced, nor to terror so much as si¬
lencing themselves. Their convictions will soon
triumph over temptations of that kind; for, Wo is
unto me if I preach not the gospel, whatever it cost
me, 1 Cor. ix. 16. And it is really a mercy to have
the word of God thus mighty in us to overpower our
corruptions.
2. He was assured of God’s presence with him,
which would be sufficient to baffle all the attempts
of his enemies against him; ( v . 11.) “ They say,
We shall prevail against him, the day will un¬
doubtedly be our own; but I am sure that they shall
not prevail, they shall not prosper, I can safely set
them all at defiance, for the Lord is with me, is on
my side, to take my part against them, (Rom. viii.
31.) to protect me from all their malicious designs
upon me. He is with me, to support me and bear
me up under the burthen which now presses me
down. He is with me, to make the word I preach
answer the end he designs, though not the end I de¬
sire. He is with me as a mighty terrible one, to
strike a terror upon them, and so to overcome them. ”
Note, Even that in God which is terrible, is really
comfortable to his servants that trust in him, for it
shall be turned against those that seek to terrify his
people. God’s being a mighty God, bespeaks him
a terrible God to all those that take up arms against
him, or any one that, like Jeremiah, was commis¬
sioned by him. How terrible will the wrath of God
be to those that think to daunt all about them, and
will themselves be daunted by nothing! The most
formidable enemies that act against us, appear des¬
picable when we see the Lord for us as a mighty
terrible one, Neh. iv. 14. Jeremiah speaks now
with a good assurance, “If the Lord be with me,
my persecutors shall stumble, so that when they
pursue me, they shall not overtake me, (Ps. xxvii.
2.) and then they shall be greatly ashamed of their
impotent malice and fruitless attempts. Nay, their
everlasting confusion and infamy shall never be for¬
gotten; they shall not forget it themselves, but it
shall be to them a constant and lasting vexation,
whenever they think of it; others shall not forget it,
but it shall leave upon them an indelible reproach.”
3. He appeals to God against them as a righteous
Judge, and prays judgment upon his cause, v. 12.
He looks upon God as the God that tries the right¬
eous, takes cognizance of them, and of every cause
that they are interested in. He does not judge in
favour of them, with partiality, but tries them, and,
finding that they have right on their side, and their
persecutors wrong them and are injurious to them, he
gives sentence for them. He that tries the righteous,
tries the unrighteous too, and he is very well qualified
to do both. For he sees the reins and the heart, he
certainly knows men’s thoughts and affections, their
aims and intentions, and therefore can pass an un¬
erring judgment on their words and actions. Now
this is the God, (1.) To whom the prophet here
refers himself, and in whose court he lodges his ap¬
peal; Unto thee have I opened my cause. Not but
that God perfectly knew his cause, and all the
merits of it, without his opening; but the cause we
commit to God we must spread before him, he
knows it, but he will know it from us, and allows
us to be particular in the opening of it, not to affect
him, but to affect ourselves. Note, It will be an
ease to our spirits, when we are oppressed and
Durthened, to open our cause to God, and pour out
our complaints before him. (2.) By whom he ex¬
pects to be righted; “ Let me see thy vengeance
upon them; such vengeance as thou thinkest fit to
take for their conviction and my vindication, the
vengeance thou usfest to take on prosecutors.”
Note, Whatever injuries are done us, we must not
study to avenge ourselves, but must leave it to that
God to do it, to whom vengeance belongs, and whc
hath said, I will repay.
4. He greatly rejoices and praises God, in a full
confidence that God would appear for his deliver¬
ance, v. 13. So full is he ot the comfort of God’s
presence with him, the divine protection he is
under, and the divine promise he has to depend
upon, that in a transport of joy he stirs up himself
and others to give God the glory of it; Sing unto
the Lord, praise ye the Lord. Here appears a
great change with him since he began this dis
course; the clouds are blown over, his complaints
all silenced, and turned into thanksgivings. He has
now an entire confidence in that God whom ( v . 7.)
he was distrusting; he stirs up himself to praise
that Name which (v. 9.) he was resolving no more
to make mention of. It was the lively exercise of
faith, that made this happy change, that turned his
sighs into songs, and his tremblings into triumphs.
It is proper to express our hope in God by out
praising him, and our praising God by our singing
to him. That which is the matter of the praise is,
He hath delivered the soul of the poor from the
hand of the evil-doers; he means especially himself,
his own poor soul. “ He hath delivered me for¬
merly when I was in distress, and now of late out
of the hand of Pashur, and he will continue to de¬
liver me, 2 Cor. i. 10. He will deliver my soui
from the sin that I am in danger of falling into,
when I am thus persecuted. He hath delivered me
from the hand of evil-doers, so that they hat e not
gained their point, nor had their will.” Note,
Those that are faithful in well-doing need not fear
those that are spiteful in evil-doing, for they have a
God to trust to, who has well-doers under the hand
of his protection, and evil-doers under the hand of
his restraint.
•
14. Cursed be the day wherein I was
born : let not the day wherein my mother
bare me be blessed. 15. Cursed be the
man who brought tidings to my father, say¬
ing, A man-child is born unto thee; making
him very glad. 16. And let that man be
as the cities which the Lord overthrew,
and repented not ; and let him hear the ciy
in the morning, and the shouting at noon¬
tide; 17. Because he slew me not from
the womb ; or that my mother might have
been my grave, and her womb to be always
great with me. 18. Wherefore came I
forth out of the womb to see labour and
sorrow, that my days should be consumed
with shame ?
What is the meaning of this? Does there proceed
out of the same mouth blessing and cursing? Could
he that said so cheerfully, (v. 13.) Sing unto the
Lord, praise ye the Lord, say so passionately, (v.
14. ) Cursed be the day wherein I was bom ? How
shall we reconcile these? What we have in these
verses the prophet records, I suppose, to his own
shame, as he had recorded that in the forego¬
ing verses, to God’s glory. It seems to be a relation
of the ferment he had been in, while he w,as in the
stocks, out of which by faith and hope he had re¬
covered himself, rather than a new temptation
which he afterwards fell into, and it should come in
like that of David, (Ps. xxxi. 22. ) I said in my haste,
1 am cut off This is also implied, Ps. Ixxvii. 7.
When grace has got the victory, it is good to re¬
member the struggles of corruption, that we may
497
JEREMIAH, XXI.
De ashamed of ourselves and our own folly, may ad¬
mire the goodness of God in not taking us at our
word, and may be warned by it to double our guard
upon our spirits, another time. See here how strong
the temptation was, which the prophet, by divine
assistance, got the victory over, and how far he
yielded to it, that we may not despair, if we through
the weakness of the flesh be at any time thus
tempted. Let us see here,
1. What the prophet’s language was, in this
temptation.
(1.) He fastened a brand of infamy upon his birth-
da}' , as Job did in a heat; (ch. iii. i.) “Cursed be
the day wherein I was born. It was an ill day to
me, [y. 14.) because it was the beginning of sor¬
rows, and an inlet to all this misery.” It is a wish
that he had never been born. Judas in hell had
reason to wish so; (Matth. xxvi. 24.) but no man
on earth has reason to wish so, because he knows
not but that he may yet become a vessel of mercy,
much less has any good man reason to wish so.
Whereas some keep their birth-day, at the return
of the year, with gladness, he will look upon his
birth-day as a melancholy day, and will solemnize
it with sorrows, and will have it looked upon as an
ominous day.
(2.) He wished ill to the messenger that brought
his father the news of his birth, v. 15. It made his
father very glad to hear that he had a child born,
(perhaps it was his first-born,) especially that it was
a man-child, for then being of the family of the
priests, he might live to have the honour of serving
God’s altar; and yet he is ready to curse the man
that brought him the tidings, when perhaps the
father to whom they were brought, gave him a gra¬
tuity for it. Here Mr. Gataker well observes,
“ That parents are often much rejoiced at the birth
of their children, when, if they did foresee what
misery they are horn to, they would rather lament
over them than rejoice in them.” He is very free
and very fierce in the curses he pronounces upon
the messenger of his birth; (it. 16.) “ Let him be as
the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, which the Lord
utterly overthrew, and repented not, did not in the
least mitigate or alleviate their misery. Let him
hear the cry of the invading, besieging enemy in
the morning, as soon as he is stirring, then let him
take the alarm, and by noon let him hear their
shouting for victory. And thus let him live in con¬
stant terror.”
(2.) He is angry that the fate of the Hebrews’
children in Egypt was not his, that he was not slain
from the womb, that his first breath was not his
last, and that he was not strangled as soon as he
came into the world, v. 17. He wishes the mes¬
senger of his birth had been better employed, and
had been his murderer; nay, that his mother of
whom he was bom, had been, to her great misery,
always with child of him, and so, the womb in
which he was conceived, would have served, with¬
out move ado, as a grave for him to be buried in.
Job intimates a near alliance and resemblance be¬
tween the womb and the grave; (Job i. 21.) JVaked
came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall
I return thither.
(4. ) He thinks his present calamities sufficient to
justify these passionate wishes; ( v . 18.) “ Where¬
fore came I forth out of the womb, where I lay
hid, was hot seen, was not hated, where I lay safe,
and knew no evil, to see all this labour and sorrow,
nay to have my days consumed with shame, to be
continually vexed and abused, to have my life not
only spent in trouble, but wasted and worn away by
trouble?”
2. What use we m?,v make of this. It is not re¬
corded for our imitation, and yet we may learn good
lessons from it.
(1.) See the vanity of human life, and the vexa¬
tion of spirit that attends it. If there were not
another life after this, we should be tempted many
a time to wish that we had never known this, for
our few days here are full of trouble.
(2.) See the folly and absurdity of sinful passion,
how unreasonably it talks when it is suffered to
ramble. What nonsense is it to curse a day — to
curse a messenger for the sake of his message!
What a brutish, barbarous thing for a child to wish
his own mother had never been delivered of him!
See Isa. xlv. 10. We can easily see the folly of it
in others, and should take warning thence to sup¬
press all such intemperate heats and passions in
ourselves, to stifle them at first, and not to suffer
these evil spirits to speak. When the heart is hot,
let the tongue be bridled, Ps. xxxix. 1, 2.
(3.) See the weakness even of good men, who
are but men at the best. See how much those who
think they stand, are concerned to take heed lest
they fall, and to pray daily, Father in heaven, lead
us not into temptation l
CHAP. XXI.
It is plain that the prophecies of this book are not placed
here in the same order in which they were preached ; for
there are chapters after this, which concern Jehoahaz,
Jehoiakim, and Jeconiah, who all reigned before Zede-
kiah, in whose reign the prophecy of this chapter bears
date. Here is, I. The message which Zedekiah sent to
the prophet, to desire him to inquire of the Lord for them,
v. 1, 2. II. The answer which Jeremiah, in God’s name,
sent to that message ; in which, 1. He foretells the cer¬
tain and inevitable ruin of the city, and the fruitlessness
of their attempts for its preservation, v. 3 . . 7. 2. He
advises the people to make the best of bad, by going
over to the king of Babylon, v. 8. . 10. 3. He advises
the king and his family to repent and reform, (v. 11, 12.)
and not to trust to the strength of their city, and grow
secure, v. 13, 14.
1 . r I THE word which came unto Jere-
JL miah from the Lord, when king
Zedeziah sent unto him Pashur the son of
Melchiah, and Zephaniah the son of Maa-
seiah the priest, saying, 2. Inquire, I pray
thee, of the Lord for us; for Nebuchad¬
rezzar king of Babylon maketh war against
us ; if so be that the Lord will deal with us
according to all his wondrous works, that
lie may go up from us. 3. Then said Jere¬
miah unto them, Thus shall ye say to Ze¬
dekiah, 4. Thus saith the Lord God of
Israel, Behold, I will turn back the weapons
of war that are in your hands, wherewith
ye fight against the king of Babylon, and
against the Chaldeans, which besiege you
without the walls, and I will assemble them
into the midst of this city. 3. And I myself
will fight against you with an outstretched
hand, and with a strong arm, even in anger,
and in fuiy, and in great wrath. 6. And I
will smite the inhabitants of this city, both
man and beast : they shall die of a great
pestilence. 7. And afterward, saith the
Lord, I will deliver Zedekiah king of Ju¬
dah, and his servants, and the people, and
such as are left in this city from the pesti¬
lence, from the sword, and from the famine,
into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of
428
JEREMIAH. XXL
Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies,
and into the hand of those that seek their
life: and he shall smite them with the edge
of the sword ; he shall not spare them,
neither have pity, nor have mercy.
Here is,
I. A very humble, decent message which king
Zedekiah sent to Jeremiah the prophet, when he
was in distress. It is indeed charged upon this
Zedekiah, that he humbled not himself before Jere¬
miah the prophet, sfieaking from the mouth of the
Lord; (2 Chron. xxxvi. 12.) he did not always hum¬
ble himself as he did sometimes; he never humbled
himself till necessity forced him to it; he humbled
himself so far as to desire the prophet’s assistance,
but not so far as to take his advice, or to be ruled
by him. Observe,
1. The distress which king Zedekiah was now in;
Nebuchadrezzar made tear u/ion him, not only in¬
vaded (he land, but besieged the city, and now
actually invested it. Note, Those that put the evil
day far from them, will be the more terrified when it
comes upon them: and they who before slighted
God’s ministers, may then perhaps be glad to court
an acquaintance with them.
2. The messengers he sent, Pashur and Zepha-
niah, one belonging to the 5th course of the priests,
the other to the 24th. 1 Chron. xxiv. 9, 18. It was
well that he sent, that he sent persons of rank; it
had been better if he had desired a personal con¬
ference with the prophet, which, no doubt, he might
easily have had if he would so far have humbled
himself. Perhaps these priests were no better than
the rest, and yet, when they were commanded by
the king, they must carry a respectful message to
the prophet, which was both a mortification to them
and an honour to Jeremiah. He had rashly said,
(c/i. xx. IS.) Mu days are consumed with shame;
and yet here wc find that he lived to see better days
than those were, when he made that complaint; now
he appears in reputation. Note, It is folly to say,
when things are bad with us, “They will always be
s i. ” It is possible that those who are despised, may
come to be respected; and it is promised, that those
who honour God, he will honour, and that those
who have afflicted his people, shall bow to them, Isa.
lx. 14.
3. The message itself, Inquire, I pray thee, of
the Lord for us, v. 2. Now that the Chaldean
army was got into their borders, into their bowels,
they were at length convinced that Jeremiah was a
true prophet, though loath to own it, and brought
too late to it. Under this conviction, they desire him
to stand their friend with God, believing him to have
that interest in heaven, which none of their other
prophets had, who had flattered them with hopes
of peace. They now employ Jeremiah, (1.) To
consult the mind of God for them; “ Inquire of the
Lord for us; ask him what course we shall take in
our present strait, for the measures we have hitherto
taken are all broken. ” Note, Those that will not
take the direction of God’s grace, how to get clear
of their sins, would yet be glad of the directions of
his providence, how to get clear of their troubles.
(2.) To seek the favour of God for them: so some
read it; “ Entreat the Lord for us; be an intercessor
for us with God.” Note, Those that slight the
prayers of God’s people and ministers when they
are in prosperity, may perhaps be glad of an interest
in them when they come to be in distress. Give us
of your oil. The benefit they promise themselves,
is, It may be, the Lord will deal with us now accord¬
ing to the wondrous works he wrought for our
fathers, that the enemy may raise the siege, and go
up from us. Observe, [1.] All their care is, to get
I rid of their trouble: not to make their peace with
I God, and be reconciled to him: “ That cur enemv
| may go up from us;” not, “That our God may re¬
turn to us.’’ Thus Pharaoh, (Exod. x. 17.) Entreat
the Lord that he may take away this death. [2. ] All
their h6pe is, that God had done wondrous works
formerly in the deliverance of Jerusalem when Sen¬
nacherib besieged it, at the prayer of Isaiah: so we
are told, 2 Chron. xxxii. 20, 21. And who can tell
but he may destroy these besiegers, (as he did those,)
at the prayer of Jeremiah? But the) did not consider
how different the character of Zedekiah and his
people was from that of Hezekiah and his people:
those were days of general reformation and pietv,
these of general corruption and apostacy. Jerusalem
is now the reverse of what it was then. Note, It is
folly to think that God should do for us while we
hold fast our iniquity, as he did for those that held
fast their integrity.
II. A very startling, cutting reply, which God, by
the prophet, sent to that message. If Jeremiah had
been to have answered the message of himself, we
have reason to think that he would have returned a
comfortable answer, in hope their sending of such a
message was an indication of some good purposes in
them, which he would be glad to make the best of,
for he did not desire the woful day. But God knows
their hearts better than Jeremiah does, and sends
them an answer which hath scarcely one word of
comfort in it. He sends it them in the name of the
Lord God o f Israel, {v. 3.) to intimate to them, that
though God allowed himself to be called the God
o f Israel, and had done great things for Israel for¬
merly, and had still great things in store for Israel,
pursuant to his covenants with them, yet this should
stand the present generation in no stead, who were
Israelites in name only, and not in deed, any more
than God’s dealings with them should cut off his re
lation to Israel as their God. It is here foretold,
1. That God will render all their endeavours for
their own security fruitless and ineffectual; (7'. 4.)
“ I will be so far from teaching your hands to war,
and putting an edge upon your swords, that I will
turn back the weapons of war that are in your hand,
when you sally out upon the besiegers to beat the m
off, so that they shall not give the stroke you design;
nay, they shall recoil into your own faces, and Ire
turned upon yourselves.” Nothing can make fri
those who have God against them.
2. That the besiegers shall in a little time make
themselves masters of Jerusalem, and of all its wealth
and strength; I will assemble them in the midst of
this city, who are now surrounding it. Note, If that
place, which should have been a centre of devotion,
be made a centre of wickedness, it is not strange if
God make it a rendezvous of destroyers.
3. That God himself will be their Enemy; and
then I know not who can befriend them, no, not
Jeremiah himself; (v. 5.) “I will be so far from
protecting vou, as 1 have done formerly in a like
case, that I myself will .fight against you. ” No te,
Those who rebel against God may justly expect that
he will make war upon them; and that. (1.) With
the power of a God who is irresistibly victorious; 7
will fight against you with an outstretched hard,
which will reach far, and with a strong arm. which
will strike home, and wound deep. (2.) With the
displeasure of a God, who is indisputably righteous.
It is a correction in love, but an execution in anger,
and in fury, and in great wrath; it is upon a sen¬
tence sworn in wrath, against which there will lie
no exception; and it will soon be found what a fear¬
ful thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God.
4. That those who, for their own safety, decline
sallying out upon the besiegers, and so avoid their
sword, shall yet not escape the sword of God’s jus
tice; (v. 6.) I will smite those that abide in the city.
420
JEREMIAH, XXI.
(so it may be read,) both man and beast; both the
beasts that are for food, and those that tire for ser-
the enemies are encamped about them. Though
Jerusalem’s gates and walls may for a time keep out
the Chaldeans, they cannot keep out God’s judg¬
ments. His arrows of pestilence can reach those
til it 11111111 themselves sate from other arrows.
5. That the king himself, and all the people that
escape the sword, famine, and J lestilence , shall fall
into the hands of the Chaldeans, who shall cut them
off in cold blood; {v. 7.) They shall not spare them,
nor have pity on them. Let not them expect to find
mercy with men, who have forfeited God’s compas¬
sions, and shut themselves out from his mercy.
Thus was the decree gone forth; and then to what
purpose was it for Jeremiah to inquire of the Lord
for them?
8. And unto this people thou shalt say.
Thus saitli the Lord ; Behold, I set before
you the way of life, and the way of death,
tl. He that abideth in this city shall die by
the sword, and by the famine, and by the
pestilence: but he that goeth out, and falleth
to the Chaldeans that besiege you, he shall
live, and his life shall be unto him for a prey.
10. For I have set my face against this city,
lor evil, and not for good, saitli the Lord ;
it shall be given into the hand of the king of
Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire. 1 1.
And touching the house of the king of Judah,
say. Hear ye the word of the Lord: 12. O
house of David, thus saith the Lord, Exe¬
cute judgment in the morning, and deliver
him that is spoiled out of the hand of the
oppressor, lest my fury go out like fire, and
burn that none can quench it, because of
the evil of your doings. 13. Behold, I am
against thee, O inhabitant of the valley, and
rock of the plain, saith the Lord; which
say, Who shall come down against us ? or
who shall enter into our habitations ? 14.
But I will punish you according to the fruit
of your doings, saith the Lord : and I will
kindle a fire in the forest thereof, and it shall
devour all things round about it.
By the civil message which the king sent to Jere¬
miah, it appeared that both he and the people began
to have a respect for him, which it had been Jere¬
miah’s policy to make some advantage of for him¬
self; but the reply which God obliges him to make,
is enough to crush the little respect they begin to
have for him, and to exasperate them against him
more than ever. Not only the predictions in the
foregoing verses, but the prescriptions in these, were
provoking; for here,
1. He advises the people to surrender and desert
to the Chaldeans, as the only means left them to
save their lives, v. 8. — 10. This counsel was very
displeasing to those who were flattered by their false
prophets into a desperate resolution to hold out to
the last extremity, trusting to the strength of their
walls and courage of their soldiery, to keep out the
enemy, or to their foreign aids to raise the siege.
The prophet assures them, “ The city shall be given
into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall
aot only plunder it, but burn it with fire, fur God
himself hath set his face against this city for evil,
and not for good, to lay it waste, and not to protect
h, for evil which shall have no good mixed with it,
no mitigation or merciful allay; and therefore if viu
would make the best of bad, you must beg quarter
ot the Chaldeans, and surrender prisoners il war.”
In vain did Rabshakeh persuade the Jews to do this
while they had find for them, (Isa. xxxvi. 16.) but
it was the best course they could take now that God
was against them. Both the law and the prophets
had often set before them life and death in another
sense — life, if they obey the voice of God, death, if
they persist in disobedience, Unit. xxx. 19. But
they had slighted that life which wiuld have made
them truly happy, to upbraid them with which the
prophet here uses the same expression; (v. 8.) Be¬
hold, I set before you the way of life and the way of
death, which denotes not, as that, a fair proposal,
but a melancholy dilemma, advising them of two
evils to choose the least; and that lesser evil, a
shameful and wretched captivity, is all the life now
left for them to propose to themselves. He that
abides in the c ty, and trusts to that to secure them,
shall certainly die either by the sword without the
walls, or famine or* pestilence within. But he that
can so far bring down his spirit, and quit his vain
hopes, as to go out, and fall to the Chaldeans, his life
shall be given him for a prey; he shall save his life,
but with much difficulty and hazard, as a prey is
taken from the mighty. It is an expression like
that, He shall be saved, yet so as by fire. He shall
escape, but very narrowly; or, he shall have such
surprising joy and satisfaction in escaping with his
life from such a universal destruction, as shall equal
theirs that divide the spoil. They thought to have
made a prey of the camp of the Chaldeans, as their
ancestors did that of the Assyrians, (Isa. xxxiii. 2 3. )
but they will be sadly disappointed; if by yielding at
discretion they can but save their lives’, that is all
the prey they must promise themselves. No-.v one
would think this advice from a prophet, in God’s
name, should have gained some credit with them,
and been universally followed; but, for aught that
appears, there were few or none that took it; so
wretchedly were their hearts hardened to their
destruction.
2. He advises the king and princes to reform, and
make conscience of the duty ot their place. Because
it was the king that sent the message to him, in the
reply there shall be a particular word for the house
of the king, not to compliment or court them, (that
was no part of a prophet’s business, no not when
they did him the honour to send to him,) but to give
them wholesome counsel; (v. 11, 12.) “Execute
judgment in the morning; do it carefully and dili¬
gently. Those magistrates that would fill up their
place with duty, had need rise betimes. Do it
quickly, and do not delay to do justice upon appeals
made to you, and tire out poor petitioners as you
have done. Do not lie in your beds in a morning,
to sleep away the debauch of the night before, nor
spend the morning in pampering the body, (as those
princes, Eccl. x. 16.) but spend it in the despatch
of business. You would be delivered out of the hand
of those that distress you, and expect that therein
God should do you justice; see then that you do jus¬
tice to those that apply themselves to you, and de¬
liver them out of the hand of their oppressors, lot
my fury go out like fire against you in a particular
maimer, and you fare worst, who think to escape
best, becauseof the evil of your doings.” Now, (1.)
This intimates that it was their neglect to do their
duty, that brought all this desolation upon the peo¬
ple. It was the evil of their doings, that kindled
the fire of God’s wrath. Tims plainly does he deal
even with the house of the king; fir those that would
have the henefitnf a prophet’s prayers, must thank-
430 JEREMIAH, XXII.
fully take a prophet’s reproofs. (2.) This directs
them to take the right method for a national refor¬
mation. The princes must begin, and set a good
example, and then the people will be invited to re¬
form. They must use their power for the punish¬
ment of wrong, and then the people will be obliged
to reform. He reminds them that they are the Ho use
of David, and therefore should tread in his steps,
who executed judgment and justice to his people.
(3.) This gives them some encouragement to hope
that there may yet be a lengthening of their tran¬
quillity, Dan. iv. 27. If any thing will recover their
state from the brink of ruin, this will.
3. He shows them the vanity of all their hopes so
long as they continued unreformed, v. 13, 14. Jeru¬
salem is an inhabitant of the valley, guarded with
mountains on all sides, which were their natural
fortifications, making it difficult for an army to ap¬
proach them. It is a rock of the plain, which made
it difficult for an armv to undermine them. These
advantages of their situation they trusted to more
than to the power and promise of God; and thinking
their city by these means to be impregnable, they
set the judgments of God at defiance, saying, “ Who
shall come down against us? None of our neighbours
dare make a descent upon us; or, if they do, who
shall enter into our habitations?” They had some
colour for this confidence; for it appears to have
been the sense of all their neighbours that no enemy
could force his way into Jerusalem, Lam. iv. 12.
But those are least safe, that are most secure. God
soon shows the vanity of that challenge, Who shall
come down against us? when he says, ( v . 13.) De-
hold, Jam against thee. They had indeed by their
wickedness driven God out of their city, when he
would have tarried with them as a Friend; but they
could not by their bulwarks keep him out of their
city, when he came against them as an Enemy. If
God be for us, who can be against us? But if he be
against us, who can be for us, to stand us in any
stead? Nay, he comes against them not as an Enemy
that may lawfully and with some hope of success be
resisted, but as a Judge that cannot be resisted; for
he says, ( v . 14.) I will furnish you, by due course
of law, according to the fruit of your doings, ac¬
cording to the merit of them, and the direct tendency
of them. That shall be brought upon you, which
is the natural product of sin. Nay, he will not only
come with the anger of an enemy, and the justice ot‘
a judge, but with the force of a consuming fire,
which has no compassion, as a judge sometimes has,
nor spares anv thing combustible, that comes in its
way. Jerusalem is become a forest, in which God
will kindle a fire that shall consume all before it;
for our God is himself a consuming Fire; and who
is able to stand in his sight, when once he is
angry.
CHAP. XXII.
Upon occasion of the message sent in the foregoing chap¬
ter to the house of the kino;, we have here recorded some
sermons which Jeremiah preached at court, in some
preceding reigns, that it might appear they had had fair
warning long before that fatal sentence was pronounced
upon them, and were put in a way to have prevented it.
Here is, 1. A message sent to the royal family, as it
should seem, in the reign of Jehoiakim, relating partly
to Jehoahaz, who was carried away captive into Egypt,
and partly to Jehoiakim, who succeeded him, and was
now upon the throne. The king and princes are ex¬
horted to execute judgment, and are assured that, if they
do so, the royal family should flourish, but otherwise it
should be ruined, v. 1 . .9. Jehoahaz, called here, Slml-
lum, is lamented, v. 10. .12. Jehoiakim is reproved and
threatened, v. 13. . 19. II. Another message sent them
in the reign of Jehoiachin, alias Jeconiah, the son of
Jehoiakim. He is charged with an obstinate refusal to
hear, and is threatened with destruction, and it is fore¬
told -Pat in him Solomon’s house should fail, v. 20 . . 30.
l.r|',HUS saith the Lord, Go down to
JL the house of the king of Judah, and
speak there this word, 2. And say, Hear
the word of the Lord, O king of Judah,
that sittest upon the throne of David, tin u,
and thy servants, and thy people that enter
in by these gates; 3. Thus saith the Lord,
Execute ye judgment and righteousness, and
deliver the spoiled out of the hand of tiie
oppressor: and do no wrong, do no violence
to the stranger, the fatherless, nor the widow,
neither shed innocent blood in this place.
4. For if ye do this thing indeed, then shall
there enter in by the gates of this house
kings, sitting upon the throneof David, riding
in chariots and on horses, he, and his ser¬
vants, and his people. 5. But if ye will not
hear these words, I swear by vnyself, saith
the Lord, that this house shall become a
desolation. 6. For thus saith the Lord
unto the king’s house of Judah, Thou art
Gilead unto me, and the head of Lebanon :
yet surely I will make thee a wilderness,
and cities which are not inhabited. 7. .And
I will prepare destroyers against thee, every
one with his weapons; and they shall cut
down thy choice cedars, and cast them into
the fire. 8. And many nations shall pass
by this city, and they shall say every man
to his neighbour, Wherefore hath the Lord
done thus unto this great city? 9. Then
they shall answer, Because they have for¬
saken the covenant of the Lord their God,
and worshipped other gods, and served them.
Here we have,
I. Orders given to Jeremiah to preach before the
king. In the chapter before, Zedekiah sent mes¬
sengers to the prophet, but here the prophet is bid¬
den to go, in his own proper person, to the house of
the king, and demand his attention to the word of
the King of kings; ( v . 2.) //- ar the word of the
Lord, O king of Judah. Subjects must own, that
where the word of a king is, there is power over
them; but kings must own, that where the word of
the Lord is, there is power over them. The king
of Judah is here spoken to, as sitting ufion the
throne of David, who was a man after God’s own
heart, as holding their dignity and power by the co¬
venant made with him; let them therefore conform
to his example, that they may have the benefit of
the promises made to him. With the king his ser¬
vants are spoken to, because a good government
depends upon a good ministry as well as a good king.
II. Instructions given him what to preach.
1. He must tell them what was their duty, what
was the good which the Lord their God required of
them, v. 3. They must take care, (1.) That they
do all the good they can with the power they have.
They must do justice, in defence of those that were
injured, and must deliver the spoiled out of the hand
of their oppressors. This was the duty of their
place, Ps. lxxxii. 3. Herein they must be minis¬
ters of God for good. (2.) That they do no hurt
with it, no wrong, no violence. That is the great¬
est wrong and violence, which is d< ne under cclom
of law and justice, and by those whose busitv ;s h
is to punish and protect from wrong and violen. c
431
JEREMIAH, XXII.
They must do no wrong to the stranger, fatherless,
and widow, for these God does in a particular man¬
ner patronize, and take under his tuition, Exod.
xxii. 21, 22.
2. He must assure them that the faithful dis¬
charge of their duty would advance and secure their
prosperity, v. 4. There shall then be a succession
of kings, an uninterrupted succession, upon the
throne of David, and ot his line; these enjoying a
perfect tranquillity, and living in great state and
dignity, riding on chariots, and horses, as before,
ch. xvii. 25. Note, The most effectual way to pre¬
serve the dignity of the government, is, to do the
duty of it.
3. He must likewise assure them that the iniquity
of their family, if they persisted in it, would be the
ruin of their family, though it was a royal family;
(t». 5.) If ye will not hear, will not obey, this house
shall become a desolation, the palace of the kings
of Judah shall fare no better than other habitations
in Jerusalem. Sin has often been the ruin of royal
palaces, though ever so stately, ever so strong.
This sentence is ratified by an oath; I swear by my¬
self, (and God can swear by no greater, Heb. vi.
13.) that this house shall be laid in ruins. Note,
Sin will be the ruin of the houses of princes as well
as of mean men.
4. He must show how fatal their wickedness
would be to their kingdom as well as to themselves,
to Jerusalem especially, the royal city, d. 6. — 9. (1.)
It is confessed that Judah arid Jerusalem had been
valuable in God’s eyes, and considerable in their
own; Thou art Gilead unto me, and the head of Le¬
banon. Their lot was cast in a place that was rich
and pleasant as Gilead; Zion was a strong hold, as
stately as Lebanon: this they trusted to as their se¬
curity. But, (2.) This shall not protect them; the
country that is now fruitful as Gilead, shall be made
a wilderness. The cities that are now strong as
Lebanon, shall be cities not inhabited; and when the
country is laid waste, the cities must be dispeopled.
See how easily God’s judgments can ruin a nation,
and how. certainly sin will do it.
When this desolating work is to be done, [1.]
There shall be those that shall do it effectually ; (y.
7.) “I will prepare destroyers against thee; I will
sanctify them,” (so the word is,) “ I will appoint
them to this service and use them in it. ” Note,
When destruction is designed, destroyers are pre¬
pared, and perhaps are in the preparing, and things
are working toward the designed destruction, and
are getting ready for it, long before. And who can
contend with the destroyers of God’s preparing?
They shall destroy cities as easily as men fell trees
in a forest; They shall cut down thy choice cedars;
and yet, when they are down, shall value them no
more than thorns or briers; they shall cast them into
the fire, for their choicest cedars are become rotten
ones, and good for nothing else. [2.] There shall
be those who shall be ready to justify God in the
doing of it; (n. 8, 9.) persons of many nations,
when they pass by the ruins of this city in their tra¬
vels, will ask, “ Wherefore hath the Lord done thus
unto this city? How came so strong a city to be
overpowered? So rich a city to be impoverished?
So populous a city to be depopulated? So holy a city
to be profaned? And a city that had been so dear to
God, to be abandoned by him? The reason is so
obvious, that it shall be ready in every man’s mouth.
Ask them that go by the way. Job xxi. 29. Ask the
next man you meet, and he will tell you it was be¬
cause they changed their gods, which other nations
never used to do. They forsook the covenant of Je¬
hovah their own God, revolted from their allegiance
to him, and from the duty which their covenant
with him bound them to, and they worshipped other
gods, and served them, in contempt of him; and
therefore he gave them up to this destruction. Note,
God never casts any off until they first cast him ofl.
“Go,” says God to the prophet, “and preach this
to the loyal family.”
10. Weep ye not for the dead, neither be¬
moan him; but weep sore for him that goeth
away: for he shall return no more, nor see
his native country. 11. For thus saith the
Lord touching Shallum the son of Josiah
king of Judah, which reigned instead of Jo¬
siah his father, which went forth out of this
place, He shall not return thither any more :
12. But he shall die in the place whither
they have led him captive, and shall see this
land no more. 1 3. Wo unto him that build-
eth his house by unrighteousness, and his
chambers by wrong ; that useth his neigh¬
bour’s service without wages, and giveth
him not for his work; 14. That saith, I w ill
build me a wide house, and large chambers,
and cutteth him out windows; and it is ceiled
with cedar, and painted with vermilion!
15. Shalt thou reign because thou closest
thyself in cedar? Did not thy father eat and
drink, and do judgment and justiecywr? then
it was well with him ? 16. He judged the
cause of the poor and needy ; then it was
well with him: was not this to know me?
saith the Lord. 17. But thine eyes and
thy heart are not but for thy covetousness,
. and for to shed innocent blood, and for op¬
pression, and for violence to do it. 1 8. There¬
fore thus saith the Lord concerning Jehoia-
kim the. son of Josiah king of Judah, They
shall not lament for him, saying , Ah my
brother ! or, Ah sister ! they shall not la¬
ment for him, saying , Ah lord ! or, Ah his
glory ! 19. He shall be buried with the bu¬
rial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond
the gates of Jerusalem.
Kings, though they are gods to us, are men tc
God, and shall die like men; so it appears in these
verses, where we have a sentence of death past upon
two kings who reigned successively in Jerusalem,
two brothers, and both the ungracious sons of a
very pious father.
I. Here is the doom of Shallum, who doubtless is
the same with Jehoahaz, for he is that son of Josiah,
king of Judah, who reigned in the stead of Josiah
his father, (n. 11.) which Jehoahaz did by the act
of the people who made him king, though he was
not the eldest son, 2 Kings xxiii. 30. 2 Chron. xxxvi.
1. Among the sons of Josiah (1 Chron. iii. 15.)
there is one Shallum mentioned, and not Jehoahaz.
Perhaps the people preferred him before his elder
brother, because they thought him a more active,
daring young man, and fitter to rule; but God soon
showed them the folly of their injustice, and that it
could not prosper, for within three months the
kings of Egypt came upon them, deposed him, and
carried him away prisoner into Egypt, as God had
threatened, Deut. xxviii. 68. It does not appear
that any of the people were taken into captivity
with him. We have the story, 2 Kings xxiii. 34. 2
Chron. xxxvi. 4. Now here,
1. The people are directed to lament him rather
432
JEREMIAH, XXIT.
than his father Josiah; “Weep, not for the dead,
weep not any more for Josiah. ” Jeremiah had been
himself a true mourner for him, and had stirred up
the people to mourn for him; (2 Chron. xxxv. 25.)
yet now he will have them go out of mourning for
him, though it was but three months after his death,
and to turn their tears into another channel, they
must weep sore for Jehoahaz, who is gone into Egypt;
not that there was any great loss of him to the pub¬
lic, as there was of his father, but that his case was
much more deplorable. Josiah went to the grave
in peace and honour, was prevented from seeing
the evil to come in this world, and removed to see
the good to come in the other world; and therefore,
Weep not for him, but for his unhappy son, who is
likely to live and die in disgrace and misery, a
wretched captive. Note, Dying saints may be justly
envied, while living sinners are justly pitied. Anil
so dismal perhaps the prospect of the times may be,
that tears even tor a Josiah, even for a Jesus, must
be restrained, that they may be reserved for our¬
selves and for our children, Luke xxiii. 28.
2. The reason given is, because he shall never
return out of captivity, as he and his people expect¬
ed, but shall die there. They were loath to believe
this, therefore it is repeated here again and again,
he shall return no more, v. 10. He shall never have
the pleasure of seeing his native country, but shall
have the continual grief of hearing of the desola¬
tions of it. He is gone forth out of this place, and
shall never return, v. 11. He shall die in the place
whither they have led him captive, v. 12. This
came of his forsaking the good example of his fa¬
ther, and usurping the right of his elder brother.
In Ezekiel’s lamentation for the princes of Israel,
this Jehoahaz is represented as a young lion, that
soon learned to catch the prey, but was taken, and
brought in chains to Egypt, and was long expected
to return, but in vain. See Ezek. xix. 3. — 5.
II. Here is the doom of Jehoiakim, who succeed¬
ed him. Whether he had any better right to the
crown than Shallum, we know not; for though he
was elder than his predecessor, there seems to be
another son of Josian, elder than he, called Johan-
an, 1 Chron. iii. 15. But this we know, he ruled
no better, and fared no better at last. Here is,
1. His sins faithfully reproved. It is not fit for a '
rivate person to say to a king, Thou art wicked;
ut a prophet, who has a message from God, be¬
trays his trust if he does not deliver it, be it ever
so unpleasing, even to kings themselves. Jehoia¬
kim is not here charged with idolatry, and, proba¬
bly, he had not yet put Urijah the prophet to death,
(as we find afterward he did, ch. xxvi. 22, 23.) for
then he would have been told of it here; but the
crimes for which he is here reproved, are, (1.)
Pride, and affectation of pomp and splendour; as if
the business of a king were to look great, and to do
good were to be the least of his care. He must
build him a stately palace, a wide house, and large
chambers, v. 14. He must have windows cut out
after the newest fashion, perhaps like sash-windows
with us. The rooms must be ceiled with cedar, the
richest sort of wood. His house must be as well
roofed and wainscotted as the temple itself, or else
it will not please him, 1 Kings vi. 15, 16. Nay, it
must exceed that, for it must be painted with mini¬
um, or vermilion, which dyes red, or, as some read
it, with indigo, which dyes blue. No doubt, it is
lawful for princes and great men to build and beau¬
tify and furnish their houses, so as is agreeable to
their dignity; but he that knows what is in man,
knew that Jehoiakim did this in the pride of his
heart, which makes that to be sinful, exceeding
sinful, which is in itself lawful. Those therefore
that are enlarging their houses, and making them
more sumptuous, have need to look well to the
frame of their own spirits in the doing of it, and
carefully to watch against all the workings of vain¬
glory. But that which was particularly amiss in
Jehoiakim’s case, was, that he did this when he
could not but perceive, both by the word of God,
and by his providence, that divine judgments were
breaking in upon him. He reigned his three first
years by the permission and allowance of the king
! of Egypt, and all the rest by the permission and
allowance of the king of Babylon; and yet he that
was no better than a viceroy, will covet to vie with
the greatest monarch in building and furniture. Ob¬
serve how peremptory he is in this resolution; “1
will build me a wide house; I am resolved I will,
whoever advises me to the contrary.” Note, It is
the common folly of those that are sinking in their
estates, to covet to make a fair show. Many have
unhumbled hearts under humbling providences, and
look most haughty then when God is bringing them
down. This is striving with our Maker. (2.) Car¬
nal security and confidence in his wealth, depend¬
ing upon the continuance of his prosperity, as if his
mountain now stood so strong, that it could never
I be moved. He thought he must reign without any
disturbance or interruption, because he had closed
himself in cedar, (v. 15.) as if that were too fine
to be assaulted, and too strong to be broken through,
and as if God himself could not, for pity, give up
such a stately house as that to be burned. Thus
when Christ spake of the destruction of the tem¬
ple, his disciples came to him, to show him what a
magnificent structure it was, Matth. xxiii. 38. —
xxiv. 1. Note, Those wretchedly deceive them¬
selves, who think their present prosperity is a last¬
ing security, and dream of reigning, because they
are enclosed in cedar. It is but in his own conceit,
that the rich man’s wealth is his strong city. (3.)
Some think he is here charged with sacrilege, and-
robbing the house of God to beautify and adorn his
own house. He cuts him out my windows; so it is
in the margin; which some understand as if he had
taken windows out of the temple to put into his own
palace, and then painted them (as it follows) with
vermilion, that it might not be discovered, but
might look of a piece with his own building. Note,
Those cheat themselves, and ruin themselves at
last, who think to enrich themselves by robbing
God and his house; and however they may disguise
it, God discovers it. (4.) He is here charged with
extortion and oppression, violence and injustice.
He built his house by unrighteousness, with money
unjustly got, and materials which were not honestly
come by, and perhaps upon ground obtained as
Ahab obtained Naboth’s vineyard. And beemse
he went beyond what he could afford, he defraided
his workmen of their wages, which is one of the
sins that cries in the ears of the Lord of hosts, Jam.
v. 4. God takes notice of the wrong done by the
greatest of men to their poor servants and labourers,
and will repay them, in justice, that will not in jus¬
tice pay those whom they employ, but use their
neighbour’s service without wages. Observe, The
greatest of men must look upon the meanest as their
neighbours, and be just to them accordingly, and
love them as themselves. Jehoiakim was oppres¬
sive, not only in his buildings, but in the administra¬
tion of his government. He did not do justice, made
no conscience of shedding innocent blood, when it
was to serve the purposes of his ambition, avarice,
and revenge. He was all for oppression and vio¬
lence; not to threaten it only, but to do it; and when
he was set upon any act of injustice, nothing should
stop him, but he would go through with it. And
that which was at the bottom of all, was, covetous¬
ness, that love of money, which is the root of all evil.
Thine eyes and thine heart are not but for covetous¬
ness; they were for that, and nothing else. Observe,
435
JEREMIAH, XXII.
In covetousness the heart walks after the eyes: it is
therefore called Me lust of t lie eye, 1 John ii. 16. Job
xxxi. 7. It is setting the eyes upon that which is
not, Prov. xxxiii. 5. The eyes and the heart are
then for covetousness, when the aims and affections
are wholly set upon the wealth of this world; and
where they are so, the temptation is strong to mur¬
der, oppression, and all manner of violence and
villany. (5 A That which aggravated all his sins,
was, that he was the son of a good father, who had
left him a good example, if he would but have fol¬
lowed it; (v. 15, 16.) Did not thy father eat and
drink? When Jehoiakim enlarged and enlightened
hjs house, it is probable that he spake scornfully of
his father for contenting himself with such a mean
and inconvenient dwelling, below the grandeur of a ;
sovereign prince, and ridiculed him as one that had
:t dull fancy, a low spirit, that could not find in his
heart to lay out his money, nor cared for what was
fashionable; that should not serve him, that served
his father: but God, by the prophet, tells him that
his father, though he had not the spirit of building,
was a man of an excellent spirit, a better man than
he, and did better for himself and his family. Those
children that despise their parents’ old fashions,
commonly come short of their real excellencies.
Jeremiah tells him,
[1.] That he was directed to do his duty by his
father’s practice; He did judgment and justice; he
never did wrong to any of his subjects, never op¬
pressed them, or put any hardship upon them, but
was careful' to preserve all their just rights and pro¬
perties. Nay, he not only did not abuse his power
for the support of wrong, but he used it for the
maintaining of right. He judged the cause of the
floor and needy, was ready to hear the cause of the
meanest of his subjects, and do them justice. Note,
The care of magistrates must be, not to support
their grandeur and take their ease, but to do good;
not only not to oppress the poor themselves, but to
defend those that are oppressed.
[2.] That he was encouraged to do his duty by
his father’s prosperity. First, God accepted him;
“ IVas not this to know me, saith the Lord? Did he
not hereby make it to appear that he rightly knew
his God, and worshipped him, and, consequently,
was known and owned of him?” Note, The right
knowledge of God consists in doing our duty, par¬
ticularly that which is the duty of our place and
station in the world. Secondly, He himself had the
comfort of it; Did he not eat and drink soberly and
cheerfully, so as to fit himself for his business,
for strength, and not for drunkenness? Eccl. x. 17.
He did eat, and drink, and do judgment; he did
not (as perhaps Jehoiakim and his princes did)
drink, and forget the law, and pervert the judgment >
of the afflicted, Prov. xxxi. 5. He did eat and
drink; God blessed him with great plenty, and he
had the comfortable enjoyment of it himself, and
gave handsome entertainments to his friends, was
very hospitable, and very charitable. It was Je-
hoiakini’s pride, that he had built a fine house, but
Josiah’s true praise, that he kept a good house.
Many times those have least in them of true gene¬
rosity, that have the greatest affection for pomp and
grandeur; for, to support the extravagant expense
of that, hospitality, bounty to the poor, yea, and
justice itself, will be pinched. It is better to live
with Josiah in an old-fashioned house, and do good,
than live with Jehoiakim in a stately house, and
leave debts unpaid. Josiah did justice and judg¬
ment, and then it was well with him; (v. 15.) and
it is repeated again, v. 16. He lived very com¬
fortably, his own subjects, and all his neighbours,
respected him; and, whatever he put his hand to,
prospered. Note, While we do well, we may ex¬
pect it will be well with us. This Jehoiakim knew,
VOL. IV — 3 I
that his father found the way of duty to be the way
of comfort, and yet he would not tread in his steps.
Note, It should engage us to keep up religion in
our day, that our godly parents kept it up in theirs,
and recommended it to us from their own experi¬
ence of the benefit of it. They told us that they
had found the promises which godliness has, of the
life that now is made good to them, and that reli¬
gion and piety are friendly to outward prosperity.
So that we are inexcusable, if we turn aside from
that good way.
2. Here we have Jelioiakim’s doom faithfully
read, v. 18, 19. We may suppose that it was in
the utmost peril of his own life, that Jeremiah here
foretold the shameful death of Jehoiakim; but Th us
saith the Lord concerning him, and therefore thus
saith he; (1.) He shall die unlamentcd; he shall
make himself so odious by his oppression and cru¬
elty, that all about him shall be glad to part with
him, and none shall do him the honour of dropping
one tear for him; whereas his father, who did judg¬
ment and justice, was universally lamented; and it
is promised to Zedekiah, that he should be lamented
at his death, for he conducted himself better than
Jehoiakim had done, ch. xxxiv. 5. His relations
shall not lament him, no, not with the common ex¬
pressions of grief used at the funeral of the meanest,
where they cried, Ah, my brother! or, Ah, sister!
His subjects shall not lament him, nor cry cut, as
they used to do at the graves of their princes, Ah,
lord! or, Ah, his glory! It is sad for any to live so,
that, when they die, none will be 'sorry to part with
them. Nay, (2.) He shall lie unburie'd; this is
worse than the former. Even those that have no
tears to grace the funerals of the dead with, would
willingly have them buried out of their sight; but
Jehoiakim shall be buried with the burial of an ass,
he shall have no burial at all, but his dead body
shall be cast into a ditch, or upon a dunghill ; it shall
be drawn, or dragged, ignominiously, and cast forth
beyond the gates of Jerusalem. It is said, in the
story of Jehoiakim, (2 Chron. xxxvi. 6.) that Ne¬
buchadnezzar bound him in fetters, to carry him to
Babylon, and (Ezek. xix. 9.) that he was brought
in chains to the king of Babylon. But it is probable
that he died a prisoner, before he was carried away
to Babylon, as was intended; perhaps he died for
grief, or, in the pride of his heart, hastened his own
end, and, for that reason, was denied a decent burial,
as self-murderers usually are with us. Josephus
says that Nebuchadnezzar slew him at Jerusalem,
and left his body thus exposed, somewhere at a
great distance from the gates of Jerusalem. And it
is said, (2 Kings xxiv. 6. ) He slept with his fathers.
When he built himself a stately house, no doubt he
designed himself a stately sepulchre; but see how
he was disappointed. Note, Those that are lifted
up with great pride, are commonly reserved for
some great disgrace in life or death.
20. Go up to Lebanon, anti cry ; and lift
up thy voice in Bashan, and cry from the
passages: for all thy lovers are destroyed.
21. I spake unto thee in thy prosperity ; but
thou saidst, I will not hear : this hath been
thy manner from thy youth, that thou obey-
edst not my voice. 22. The wind shall eat
up all thy pastures, and thy lovers shall go
into captivity: surely then shalt thou be
ashamed and confounded for all thy wick¬
edness. 23. O inhabitant of Lebanon, that
makest thy nest in the cedars, how gnu ious
shalt thou be when pangs come upon thee.
434
JEREM.AH, XXfl.
the pain as of a woman in travail ! 24. As I
live, saith the Loud, though Coniah the son
of Jehoiakini king of Judah were the signet
upon my right hand, yet would I pluck thee
thence ; 25. And 1 will give thee into the
hand of them that seek thy life, and into the
hand of them whose face thou fearest, even
into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Ba¬
bylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans.
26. And I will cast thee out, and thy mother
that bare thee, into another country, where
ye were not born ; and there shall ye die.
27. But to the land whereunto they desire
to return, thither shall they not return.
28. Is this man Coniah a despised broken
idol ? is he a vessel wherein is no pleasure ?
wherefore are they cast out, he and his seed,
and are cast into a land which they know
not? 29. O earth, earth, earth, hear the word
of the Lord: 30. Thus saith the Lord,
Write ye this man childless, a man that shall
not prosper in his days: for no man of his
seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne
of David, and ruling any more in Judah.
This prophecy seems to have been calculated for
the ungracious, inglorious reign of Jeconiah, or Je-
hoiakin, the somof Jehoiakini, who succeeded him
in the government, reigned but three months, and
was then carried captive to Bab) Ion, where he lived
many years, Jer. lii. 31. We have, in these verses,
a prophecy,
I. Of the desolations of the kingdom, which were
now hastening on apace, v. 20.— 23. Jerusalem
and Judah are here spoken to, or the Jewish state
as a single person, and we have it here under a
threefold character.
1. Very haughty in a day of peace and safety; i
(v. 21.) “ I spake unto thee in thy prosperity ; spake, f
by my servants the prophets, reproofs, admonitions, !
counsels, but thou saidst, I will not hear, I will not !
heed, thou obeyedst not my voice, and wast resolved
that thou wouldest not, and hadst the front to tell me |
so.” It is common for those that live at ease, to live
in contempt of the word of God; Jeshurun waxed
fat, and kicked. This is so much the worse, that
they had it by kind; This has been thy manner from
thy youth. They were called transgressors from
the womb, Isa. xlviii. 8.
2. Verv timorous upon the alarms of trouble; (x>.
20.) “When thou seest all thy lovers destroyed,
when thou findest thine idols unable to help thee,
and thy foreign alliances failing thee, thou wilt then
go up to Lebanon, and cry, as one undone, and giv¬
ing up all for lost, cry with a bitter cry; thou wilt
cry, Help, help, or we are lost; thou wilt lift up thy
voice in fearful shrieks, upon Lebanon and Bashan,
two high hills, in hope to be heard from thence by
the advantage of the rising ground. Thou wilt cry
from the passages, from the roads, where thou wilt
ever and anon be in distress.” Thou wilt cry from i
Abarim; so some read it, as a proper name, a fa- ;
mous mountain in the border of Moab. “ Thou
wilt cry, as those that are in great consternation use
to do, to all about thee; but in vain, for, (n. 22.) 1
the wind shall eat tip all thy pastors, or rulers, that
should protect and lead thee, and provide for thy
safety: they shall be blasted, and withered, and
brought to nothing, as buds and blossoms arc by a \
bleak or freezing wind; they shall be devoured sud- j|
deni)-, insensibly, and irresistibly, as fruits b\ the
wind. Thy lovers, that thou dependest upon, and
hast an affection for, shall go into captivitu, and
shall be so far from saving thee, that they shall not
be able to save themselves.”
3. Very tame under the heavy and lasting pres¬
sures ot trouble; “When there appears no relief
from any of thy confederates, and thy own priests
are at a loss, then shalt thou be asheyned'and con¬
founded for all thy wickedness, v. 22. Note, Many
will never be ashamed of their sins till they arc
brought by them to tlie last extremity ; and it is well
if we get this good by our straits, ‘bv them to be
brought to confession for our sins. The Jewish state
is here called an inhabitant of Lebanon, because
that famous forest was within their border, (x’. 23.)
and all their country was wealthy, and well guarded
as with Lebanon’s natural fastnesses; but so proud
and haughty were they, that they are said to make
their nest in the cedars, where they thought them¬
selves out of the reach of all danger, and whence
they looked with contempt upon all about them.
“But, how gracious wilt thou be when pangs cotne
upon thee! Then thou wilt humble thyself before
God, and promise amendment. When thou art
overthrown in stony places, thou wilt be glad to
hear those words which in thy prosperity thou
wouldest not hear, Ps. cxli. 6. Then thru wilt en¬
deavour to make thyself acceptable with that God
whom, before, thou madest light of.” Note, Many
j have their pangs of piety, who, when the pangs are
1 oyer, show that they have no true piety. Some
l give another sense of it; “What will all thy pomp,
and state, and wealth avail thee? What will be¬
come of it all, or what comfort shalt thou have of it,
when thou shalt be in these distresses? No more
than a woman in travail, full of pains and fears,
can take comfort in her ornaments while she is in
that condition.” So Mr. Gataker. Note, Those
that are proud of their worldly advantages, would
do well to consider how they will look when pangs
come upon them, and how they will then hive lost
i all their beauty.
II. Here is a prophecy of the disgrace of the king;
his name was Jeconiah, but he is here once and
again called Coniah, in contempt. The prophet
shortens his name, and gives him, as we say, a nick¬
name, perhaps to denote that he should be despoiled
of his dignity, that his reign should be shortened,
and the number of his months cut off in the midst.
T wo instances of dishonour are here put upon him.
1. He shall be carried away into captivitu, and
shall spend and end his days in bondage. He was
born to a crown, but it should quickly fall from his
head, and he should exchange it for fetters. Ob¬
serve the steps of this judgment.
(1.) God will abandon him, v. 24. The God of
truth says it, and confirms it with an oath ; “ Though
he were the signet upon my right hand, (his prede¬
cessors have been so, and he might have been so,
if he had conducted himself well; but he being de
generated,) / will pluck him thence.” The godly
kings of Judah had been as signets on God’s right
hand, near and dear to him; he had gloried in them,
and made use of them as instruments of his govern¬
ment, as the prince does of his signet-ring, or sign-
manual: but Coniah has made himself utterly un-
w«irthy of the honour, and therefore the privilege
of his birth shall be no security to him; notwith¬
standing that, he shall be thrown off. Answerable
to this threatening against Jeconiah is God’s promise
to Zertibbabel, when he made him his people’s guide
in their return out of captivity; (Hag. ii. 23.) I will
take thee, O Zerubbabel, my servant, and make thee
as a signet. Those that think themselves as signets
on God’s right hand, must not be secure, but fear
lest they be plucked thence.
JEREMIAH, XXIII.
435
^2.) The king of Bahvlon shall seize him. Those
Knew not what enemies and mischiefs they lie ex¬
posed to, who have thrown themselves out of God’s
protection, v. 25. The Chaldeans are here said to
be such as had a spite to Coniah, they sought his
life; no less than that, they thought, would satisfy
their rage; they were such as he had a dread ot,
(They are those whose face thou fearcst,) which
would make it the more terrible to him to fall into
their hands, especially when it was God himself
that gave him into their hands. And if God deliver
him to them, who can deliver him from them?
(3.) He and his family shall be carried to Baby-
'on, where they shall wear out the many tedious
years of their lives in a miserable captivity; he and
n:s mother, (v. 26.) he and his seed, ( v . 28.) he and
all the royal family, (for he had no children of his
own when h<* went into captivity,) or, he and the
children of his loins; they shall all be cast out to
another country, to a strung^ country, a country
where they were not born, nor such a country as
that where they were born, a land which they know
not, in which they have no acquaintance with whom
to converse, or from whom to expect any kindness.
Thither they shall be carried, from a land where
they were entitled to dominion, into a land where
they shall be compelled to servitude. But have
they no hopes of seeing their own country again?
No, To the land whereunto they desire to return,
thither shall they not return, v. 2 7. They conduct¬
ed themselves ill in it, when they were in it, and
therefore they shall never see it more. Jehoahaz
was carried to Egypt, the land of the south, (k. 10.)
Jeconiah to Babylon, the land of the north, both far
remote, the quite contrary way, and must never
expect to meet again, nor either of them to breathe
their native air again. Those that had abused the
dominion they had over others, were justly brought
thus under the dominion of others. Those that had
indulged and gratified their sinful desires, by their
oppression, luxury, and cruelty, were justly denied
the gratification of their inn cent desire to see their
own native country again. We may observe some¬
thing very emphatical in that part of this threaten¬
ing, (y. 26.) In the country where ye were not born,
there shall ye die. As there is a time to be born, and
a time to die, so there is a place to be born in, and a
place to die in. We know where we were born,
but where we shall die we know not; it is enough
th it our God knows. Let it be our care that we die
in Christ, and then it will be well with us wherever
we die, though it should be in a far country.
(4.) This shall render him very mean and des-
icable in the eyes of all his neighbours. They shall
e ready to say, (z>. 28.) “ Is this Coniah a des/iis-
ed, broken idol? Yes, certainly he is, and much de¬
based from what he was.” [1.] Time was when he
was dignified, nay, when he was almost deified.
This people, who had seen his father lately depos¬
ed, were ready to adore him when they saw him
upon the throne; but now he is a despised, broken
idol, which, when it was whole, was worshipped,
but, when it is rotten and broken, is thrown by and
despised, and nobody regards it, or remembers
what it has been. Note, What is idolized will, first
or last, be despised and broken; what is unjustly
honoured, will be justly contemned, and rivals
with God will be the scorn of man. Whatever we
idolize we shall be disappointed in, and then shall
despise. [2.] Time was, when he was delighted
in; but now he is a vessel in which is no pleasure,
or to which there is no desire, either because grown
out of fashion, or because cracked or dirted, and so
rendered unserviceable. Those whom God has no
pleasure in, will, some time or other, be so mortified,
ihat men will have no pleasure in them.
2 He shall leave no posterity to inherit his ho- i
nour. The prediction of this is ushered in with a
solemn preface, (t>, 29.) 0 earth, earth, earth, hear
the word of the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of
the world take notice of these judgments of God
upon a nation and a family that had been near and
dear to him, and thence infer that God is impartial
in the administration of justice. Or, it is an appeal
to the earth itself, on which we tread, since those
that dwell on earth are so deaf and careless, like
that, (Isa. i. 2.) Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O
earth. God’s word, however slighted, will be
heard; the earth itself will be made to hear it, and
yield to it, when it, and all the works that are
therein, shall be burnt up. Or, it is a call to men
that mind earthly things, that are swallowed up in
those things, and are inordinate in the pursuit of
them; such have need to be called upon again and
again, and a third time, to hear the word of the
Lord. Or, it is a call to men, considered as mortal,
ot the earth, and hastening to the earth again ; we
all are so, earth wc are, dust we are, and, in con¬
sideration ot that, are concerned to hear and regard
the word of the Lord, that, though we are earth,
we may be found among those whose names are
written in heaven.
Now that which is here to be taken notice of, is,
that Jeconiah is written childless, (v. 30.) that is, as
it follows, No man of his seed shall prosper, sitting
upon the throne of David. In him the line of Da¬
vid was extinct as a roval line. Some think that he
had children born in Babylon, because mention is
made of his seed being cast cut there, (z>. 28.) and
that they died before him. \Ye read in the gene¬
alogy, (i Citron, iii. 17.) of seven sons of Jeconiah
Assir, that is, Jeconiah the captive, of which Sala-
thiel is the first. Some think that they were only
his adopted sons, and that, when it is said, (Matth.
i. 12.) Jeconiah begat Salathiel, no more is meant
than that he bequeathed to him what claims and
pretensions he had to the government; the rather,
because Salathiel is called the son of Neri, (Luke
iii. 27.) of the house of A'athan, v. 31. Whether
he had children begotten, or only adopted, thus fai¬
lle was childless, that none of his seed ruled as kings
in Judah. He was the Augustulus of that empire,
in whom it determined. Whoever are childless, it
is God that writes them so; and those who take no
care to do good in their days, cannot expect to
prosper in their days.
CHAP. XXIII.
In this chapter, the prophet, in God’s name, is dealing his
reproofs and threatenings, I. Among the careless
princes, or pastors of the people ; (v. I, 2.) vet promis¬
ing to take care, of the flock, which they had'been want¬
ing in their duty to, v. 3 . . 8. II. Among the wicked
prophets and priests, whose bad character is here given
at large in divers instances, especially their imposing
upon the people with their pretended inspirations, at
which the prophet is astonished, and for which they
must expect to be punished, v. 9 .. 32. 111. Among the
profane people, who ridiculed God’s prophets, and 'ban¬
tered them, v. 33. . 40. When all have thus corrupted
their way, they must all expect to be told faithfully of it.
1. be unto the pastors that destroy
▼ ▼ and scatter the sheep of my pas¬
ture! saith the Lord. 2. Therefore thus
saith the Lord God of Israel against the
pastors that feed my people, Ye have scat¬
tered my flock, and driven them away,
and have not visited them: behold, I will
visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith
the Lord. 3. And I will gather the rem-
: nant of my flock out of all countries
i whither I have driven them, and will bring
•1,56
JEREMIAH, XXIII.
them again to their folds ; and they shall be
fruitful and increase. 4. And I will set up
shepherds over them, which shall feed
them; and they shall fear no more, nor be
dismayed, neither shall they be lacking,
saith the Lord. 5. Behold, the days come,
saith the Lord, that I will raise unto Da¬
vid a righteous Branch, and a King shall
reign and prosper, and shall execute judg¬
ment and justice in the earth. 6. In his days
Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell
safely; and this is his name whereby he
shall be called, THE LORD OUR
RIGHTEOUSNESS. 7. Therefore, be¬
hold, the days come, saith the Lord, that
they shall no more say. The Lord liveth,
which brought up the children of Israel out
of the land of Egypt; 8. But, The Lord
liveth, which brought up, and which led the
seed of the house of Israel out of the north
country, and from all countries whither I
had driven them; and they shall dwell in
their own land.
Here is,
I. A word of terror to the negligent shepherds;
the day is at hand when God will reckon with them
concerning the trust and charge committed to them;
Wo be to the pastors, to the rulers, both in church
and state, who should be to those they are set over
as pastors to lead them, feed them, protect them,
and take care of them. They are not owners of
the sheep; God here calls them the sheep of my
/ tasture , whom I am interested in, and have pro¬
vided good pasture for. IVo be to those therefore
who are commanded to feed God’s people, and pre¬
tend to do it; but who, instead of that, scatter the
flock , and drive them away, by their violence and
oppression, and have not visited them, nor taken
any care for their welfare, nor concerned themselves
at all to do them good. In not visiting them, and
doing their duty to them, they did in effect scatter
them, and drive them away. The beasts of prey
scattered them, and the shepherds are in the fault,
who should have kept them together. Wo be to
them, when God will visit upon them the evil of
their doings, and deal with them as they deserve.
They would not visit the flock in a way of duty, and
therefore God will visit them in a way of vengeance.
II. Here is a word of comfort to the neglected
sheep. Though the under-shepherds take no care
of them, no pains with them, but betray them, the
chief Shepherd will look after them ; When my
father ana my mother forsake me, then the Lord
tiketh me up. Though the interests of God’s
church in the world are neglected by those who
should take care of them, and postponed to their
own private secular interests, yet they shall not
therefore sink. God will perform his promise,
though those he employs do not perform their duty.
1. The dispersed Jews shall at length return to
their own land, and be happily settled there under
a good government, v. 3, 4. Though there be but
a remnant of God’s flock left, a little remnant, that
has narrowly escaped destruction, he will gather
tint remnant; will find them out wherever they
are, and find out ways and means to bring them
I >ick out of all countries whither he had driven
them. It was the justice of God, for the sin of their
sh pherds, that dispersed them; but the mercy of
G id shall gather in the sheep, when the shepherds
that betrayed them are cut off. They shall be
brought to their former habitations, as sheep to
their folds, and there they shall be fruitful, and
increase in numbers. And though their former
shepherds took no care of them, it does not there¬
fore follow that they shall have no more. If some
have abused a sacred office, that is no good reason
why it should be abolished; “ They destroyed the
sheep, but I will set shepherds over them, which
shall make it their business to feed them.” For¬
merly, they were continually exposed and disturbed
with some alarm or other; "but now they shall fear
no more, nor be dismayed; they shall be in no dan¬
ger from without, in no fright from within. For¬
merly, some or other of them were ever and anon
picked up by the beasts of prey; but now none of
them shall be lacking, none of them missing.
Though the times may have been long bad with the
church, it does not follow, that they will be ever so.
Such pastors as Zerubbabel and Nehemiah were,
though they lived not in the pomp that Jehoiakim
and Jeconiah did, nor made such a figure, were as
great blessings to the people as the others were
plagues to them. The church’s peace is not bound
up in the pomp of her rulers.
2. Messiah the Prince, that great and good Shep¬
herd of the sheep, shall in the latter days be raised
up to bless his church, and to be the Glory of his
people Israel, v. 5, 6. The house of David seemed
to be quite sunk and ruined by that threatening
against Jeconiah, (ch. xxii. 30.) that none of his
seed should ever sit upon the throne of David; but
here is a promise which effectually secures the
honour of the covenant made with David notwith¬
standing; for by it the house will be raised cut of its
ruins to a greater lustre than ever, and shine bright¬
er far than it did in Solomon himself. We have
not so many prophecies of Christ in this book as we
had in that of the prophet Isaiah but here we
have one, and a very illustrious one; of him doubt¬
less the prophet here speaks, of him, and of no
other man. The first words intimate, that it would
be long ere this promise should have its accomplish¬
ment; The days come, but they are not yet; I shall
see him, but not now; but all the rest intimate that
the accomplishment of them will be glorious.
(1.) Christ is here spoken of as a Branch from
David, the Man the Branch; (Zech. iii. 8.) his
appearance mean, his beginnings small, like those
of a bud or sprout, and his rise seemingly out of the
earth, but growing to be green, to be great, to be
loaded with fruits. A branch from David’s family,
when it seemed to be a root in a dry ground, buried,
and not likely to revive. Christ is the Root and
Offspring of David, Rev. xxii. 16. In him doth
the horn of David bud, Ps. cxxxii. 17, 18. He is
a Branch of God’s raising up; he sanctified him,
and sent him into the w*rld, gave him his commis¬
sion and qualifications. He is a righteous Branch,
for he is righteous himself, and through him many,
even all that are his, are made righteous; as an
Advocate, he is Jesus Christ the righteous.
(2.) He is here spoken of as his church’s King.
This Branch shall be raised as high as the throne of
his father David, and there he shall reign and pros¬
per, not as the kings that now were of the house of
David, who went backward in all their affairs; no,
he shall setup a kingdom in the world, that shall be
victorious over all opposition. In the chariot of the
everlasting gospel he shall go forth, he shall go on
conquering and to conquer. If God raise him up,
he will prosper him, for he will own the work of
his own hands; what is the good pleasure of the
Lord, shall prosper in the hands of those to whom
it is committed. He shall prosper, for he shall ex¬
ecute judgment and justice in the earth, all the
world over. Ps. cvi. 13. The present kings of me
JEREMIAH, XXIII.
house of Davicf were unjust and oppressive, and
therefore it is no wonder that they did not prosper;
but Christ shall, by his gospel, break the usurped
power of Satan, institute a perfect rule of holy
living, and, as far as it prevails-, make all the world
righteous. The effect of this shall be a holy secu¬
rity and serenity of mind in all his faithful, loyal
subjects. In his days, under his dominion, Judah
shall be saved, and Israel shall dwelt safely; all the
spiritual seed of believing Abraham and praying
Jacob shall be protected from the curse of heaven
and the malice of hell; shall be privileged from the
arrests of God’s law, and delivered from the at¬
tempts of Satan’s power; shall be saved from sin,
the guilt and dominion of it, and then shall dwell
safely, and be quiet from the fear of all evil. See
Luke i. 74, 75. Those that shall be saved hereafter
from the wrath to come, may dwell safely now; for
if God be for us, who can be against us? In the
days of Christ’s government in the soul, when he is
uppermost there, the soul dwells at ease.
(3.) He is here spoken of as The Lord our
Righteousness. Observe,
[1.] Who and what he is. As God, he is Jeho¬
vah, the incommunicable name of God, denoting
his eternity and self-existence. As Mediator, he is
our Righteousness; by making satisfaction to the
justice of God for the sin of man, he has brought in
an everlasting righteousness, and so made it over
to us in the covenant of grace, that, upon our be¬
lieving consent to that covenant, it becomes ours.
His being Jehovah our Righteousness implies that
he is so our Righteousness, as no creature could be.
He is a sovereign, all-sufficient, eternal Righteous¬
ness. All our righteousness has its being from him,
and by him it subsists, and we are made the righte¬
ousness of God in him. [2.] The profession and
declaration of this; This is the name whereby he
shall be called; not only he shall be so, but he shall
be known to be so. God shall call him by this
name, for he shall appoint him to be our Righte¬
ousness. By this name Israel shall call him, every
true believer shall call him, and call upon him.
That is our righteousness, by which, as an allowed
plea, we are justified before God, acquitted from
guilt, and accepted into favour; and nothing else
have we to plead but this, “ Christ has died, yea,
rather, is risen again;” and we have taken him for
our Lord.
3. This great salvation, which will come to the
Jews in the latter days of their state, after their re¬
turn out of Babylon, shall be so illustrious as far to
outshine the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt; (v.
7, 8.) They shall no more say. The Lora liveth,
that brought u/i Israel out of Egypt; but, The
Lord liveth, that brought them up out of the north.
This we had before, cli. xvi. 14, 15. But here it
seems to point more plainly than it did there to the
days of the Messiah, and to compare not so much
the two deliverances themselves, giving the prefer¬
ence to the latter, as the two states to which the
church by degrees grew after those deliverances.
Observe the proportion: Just 480 years after they
were come out of Egypt, Solomon’s temple was
built, (1 Kings vi. 1.) and at that time that nation,
which was so wonderfully brought up out of Egypt,
was gradually arrived to its height, to its zenith.
Just 490 years (70 weeks) after they came out of
Babylon, Messiah the Prince set up tlie gospel-tem¬
ple, which was the greatest glory of that nation that
was so wonderfully brought out of Babylon; see
Dan. ix. 24, 25. Now the spiritual glory of the se¬
cond part of that nation, especially as transferred to
the gospel-church, is much more admirable and il- 1
lustrious than all the temporal glory of the first part
of it in the days of Solomon; for that was no glory,
compared with the glory which excelleth.
9. My heart within me is broken beeaus*
of the prophets; all my bones shake : I am
like a drunken man, and like a man whom
wine hath overcome, because of the Lord,
and because ol the words of his holiness.
10. For the land is full of adulterers; for be¬
cause of swearing the land mourneth, the
pleasant places of the wilderness are dried
up, and their course is evil, and their force
is not right. 1 1 . For both prophet and priest
are profane; yea, in my house have 1 found
their wickedness, saith the Lord. 12.
Wherefore their w'ay shall be unto them as
slippery ways in the darkness; they shall be
driven on, and fall therein: for I w ill bring
evil upon them, even the year of their visita¬
tion, saith the Lord. 13. And I have seen
folly in the prophets of Samaria; they pro¬
phesied in Baal, and caused my people Is¬
rael to err. 14. 1 have seen also in the pro¬
phets of Jerusalem a horrible thing: they
commit adultery, and walk in lies: they
strengthen also the hands of evil-doers, that
none doth return from his wickedness: they
are all of them unto me as Sodom, and
the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah. 15.
Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts con¬
cerning the prophets, Behold, 1 will feed
them with wormwood, and make them
drink the water of gall : for from the prophets
of Jerusalem is profaneness gone forth into
all the land. 16. Thus saith the Lord of
hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the
prophets that prophesy unto you; they make
you vain: they speak a vision of their own
heart, and not out of the mouth of the Lord
17. They say still unto them that despise
me, The Lord hath said, Ye shall have
peace; and they say unto every one that
walketh after the imagination of his own
heart, J\o evil shall come upon you. 18.
For who hath stood in the counsel of the
Lord, and hath perceived and heard his
word ? who hath marked his word, arid heard
it? 19. Behold, a whirlwind of the Lord is
gone forth in fury, even a grievous whirl¬
wind: it shall fall grievously upon the head
of the wicked. 20. The anger of the Lord
shall not return, until he have executed,
and till he have performed, the thoughts of
his heart: in the latter days ye shall consi¬
der it perfectly. 21. I have not sent these
prophets, yet they ran : I have not spoken
to them, yet they prophesied. 22. But if
they had stood in my counsel, and had
caused my people to hear my words, then
they should have turned them from their
evil way, and from the evil of their doings.
23. Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord,
and not a God afar off? 24. Can any hide
•138
JEREMIAH, XX1I1.
himself in secret places hat I shall not see
him ? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven
and earth ? saith the Lord. 25. I have
heard what the prophets said, that prophesy
lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I
have dreamed. 26. How long shall this be
in the heart of the prophets that prophesy
lies ? yea, they are prophets of the deceit of
their own heart; 27. Which think to cause
my people to forget my name by their
dreams, which they tell every man to his
neighbour, as their fathers have forgotten
my name for Baal. 28. The prophet that
hath a dream, let him tell a dream ; and he
that hath my word, let him speak my word
faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat ?
saith the Lord. 29. Is not my word like
as a fire? saith the Lord; and like a ham¬
mer breaketh the rock in pieces? 30.
Therefore, behold, I am against the pro¬
phets, saith the Lord, that steal my word,
every one from his neighbour. 31. Behold,
1 am against the prophets, saith the Lord,
that use their tongues, and say, He saith.
32. Behold, I am against them that pro¬
phesy false dreams, saith the Lord, and do
tell them, and cause my people to err by
their lies, and by their lightness; yet 1 sent
them not, nor commanded them: therefore
they shall not profit this people at all, saith
the Lord.
Here is a long lesson for-the false prophets. As
none were more bitter and spiteful against God’s
true prophets than they, so there were none on
whom the true prophets were more severe, and
justly. The prophet had complained to God of
those false prophets, (ch. xiv. 13.) and had often
foretold that they should be involved in the com¬
mon ruin; but here they have woes of their own.
I. He expresses the deep concern that he was
under, upon this account, and what a trouble it was
to him to see men who pretended to a divine com¬
mission and inspiration, ruining themselves, and the
people among whom they dwelt, by their falsehood
and treachery ; (v. 9. ) My heart within me is broken,
I am like a drunken man. His head was in confu¬
sion with wonder and astonishment, his heart was
under oppression with grief and vexation. Jere¬
miah was a man that laid things much to heart, and
what was any way threatening to his country, made
a deep impression upon his spirits. He is here in
trouble, 1. Because of the prophets, and their sin,
the false doctrine they preached, the wicked lives
they lived; especially it filled him with horror, to
hear them making use of God’s name, and pretend¬
ing to have their instructions from him. Never was
ihe Lord so abused, and the words of his holiness,
as by these men. Note, The dishonour done to
God’s name, and the profanation of his holy word,
are the greatest grief imaginable to a gracious soul.
2. Because of the Lord, and his judgments, which
by this means are brought in upon us like a deluge.
He trembled to think of the ruin and desolation
which were coming from the face of the Lord, (so
the word is,) and from the face of the word of his
holiness, which will be inflicted by the power of
God’s wiath, according to the threatenings of his
word, confirmed by his holiness. *Note, Even those
that have God for them, cannot but tremble to
think of the misery of those that have God against
them.
II. He laments the abounding abominable wick¬
edness of the land, and the present tokens of God’s
displeasure they were under for it; (i\ 10.) The
land is full of adulterers, it is full both of spiritual
'and corporal whoredom; they go a whoring from
God, and, having cast off the fear of him, no marvel
that they abandon themselves to all manner cf lewd¬
ness; and having dishonoured themselves and their
own bodies, they dishonour God and his name by
rash and false swearing, because of which the land
mourns. Both perjury and common swearing are
sins, for which a land must mourn in true repent¬
ance, or it will be made to mourn under the judg¬
ments of God. Their land mourned now under the
judgment of famine; the / ileasant places, or, rather,
the pastures, or, as some read it, the habitations of
the wilderness, are dried up for want of rain, and
yet we see no signs of repentance; they answer not
the end of the correction: the tenour and tendency cf
men’s conversations are sinful, their course continues
evil, as bad as ever, and they will not be diverted
from it. They have a great deal of resolution, but
it is turned the wrong way, they are zealously ef¬
fected, but not in a good thing, their force is not
right; their heart is fully set in them to do evil, and
they are not valiant for the truth, have not courage
enough to break off their evil courses, though the)
see God thus contending with them.
III. He charges it all upon the prophets and
priests, especially the prophets. They are both
profane ; (v. 11.) the priests profane the ordinances
of God they pretend to administer, the prophets
profane the word of God they pretend to deliver;
their converse and all their conversation are pro¬
fane, and then it is not strange that the people are
so debauched. They both play the hypocrite; so
some read it; under sacred pretensions they carry
on the vilest designs; yea, not only in their own
houses, and the bad houses they frequent, but A; my
house have I found their wickedness; in the temple,
where the priests ministered, where the prophets
prophesied, there were they guilty both of idolatry
and immorality. See a woful instance in Hophni
and Phinehas, 1 Sam. ii. 22. God searches his
house, and what wickedness is there he will find it
out; and the nearer it is to him, the more offensive
it is. Two things are charged upon them :
1. That they taught people to sin by their exam¬
ples. He compares them with the prophets of Sa¬
maria, the head city of the kingdom cf the ten
tribes, which had been long since laid waste. It
was the folly of the prophets of Samaria, that they
prophesied in Baal, in Baal’s name; so Ahab’s pro¬
phets did, and so they caused my people Israel to
err, to forsake the service of the true God, and to
worship Baal, x>. 13. Now the prophets of Jerusa¬
lem did not do so, they prophesied in the name of
the true God, and valued themselves upon that, that
they were not like the prophets of Samaria, who
prophesied in Baal; but what the better, when they
debauched the nation as much by their immorali
ties as the other had done by their idolatries? It is
a horrible thing in the prophets of Jerusalem, that
they make use of the name of the holy God, and
yet'wallow in all manner of impurity! they make
nothing of committing adultery, they make use of
the name of the God of truth, and yet walk in lies,
they not only prophesy lies, but in their common
conversation one cannot believe a word they say. It
is all either jest and banter, or fraud and design.
Thus they encourage sinners to go on in their wick¬
ed ways; for every one will say, “Surely we may-
do as'the prophets do; who can expect that we
JEREMIAH, XX1I1. 430
should be better than our teachers?” By this means
it is, that none returns from his wickedness; but
they all say that they shall have peace, though they
go on, for their prophets tell them so. By this
means Judah and Jerusalem are become as Sodom
and Gomorrah, that were wicked, and sinners be¬
fore the Lord exceedingly ; and God looked upon
them accordingly, as fit for nothing but to be de¬
stroyed, as they were, with fire and brimstone.
2. That they encouraged people in sin by their
false prophecies. They made themselves believe
th at there was no harm, no danger in sin, ahd prac¬
tised accordingly; and then no marvel that they
made others believe so too, v. 16. They speak a
vision of their own heart; it is the product of their
own invention, and agrees with their own inclina¬
tion, but it is not out of the mouth of the Lord; he
never dictated it to them, nor does it agree either
with the law of Moses, or with what God has spoken
by other prophets. They tell sinners that it shall
be well with them, though they persist in their sins,
v. 17. See here who they are that they encourage;
those that despise God, that slight his authority,
and have low and mean thoughts of his institutions,
and those that walk after the imagination of their
own heart, that are worshippers ot idols, and slaves
to their own lusts; those that are devoted to their
pleasures, put contempt upon their God. Yet see
how these prophets caressed and flattered them;
they should have been still saying, There is no
peace to them that go on in their evil ways; Those
that despise God, shall be lightly esteemed; Wo,
and a thousand woes, to them; but they still said,
Ye shall have peace, no evil shall come upon you.
And, which was worst of all, they told them, God
has said so; so making him to patronise sin, and to
contradict himself. Note, Those that are resolved
to. go on in their evil ways, will justly be given up to
believe the strong delusions of those who tell them
that they shall have peace, though they go on.
IV. God disowns all that these false prophets
said to soothe people up in their sins; {y, 21.) I
have not sent these prophets; they never had any
mission from God, they were not only not sent by
him on his errand, but they were never sent by him
on any errand, he never had employed them in any
service or business for him ; and as to this matter,
whereas they pretended to have instructions from
him to assure this people of peace, he declares that
he never gave them any such instructions; yet they
were very forward, they ran, they were very bold,
they prophesied without any of that difficulty with
which the true prophets sometimes struggled. They
said to sinners, You shall have peace. But v. 18.
“ Who hath stood in the counsel of the Lord? Who
of you has, that are so confident of this? You deliver
this message with a great deal of assurance; but
have you consulted God about it? No, you never
considered whether it be agreeable to the discove¬
ries God has made of himself, whether it will con¬
sist with the honour of his holiness and justice, to
let sinners go unpunished. You have not perceived
and heard his word, nor marked that, you have not
compared this with the scripture; if you had taken
notice of that, and of the constant tenour of it, vou
would never have delivered such a message.” The
prophets themselves must try the spirits by the
touchstone of the law and of the testimony, as well
as those to whom they prophesy; but which of those
did so, that prophesied of peace? That they did not
stand in God’ftounsel nav hear his word, is proved
afterward, v. 22. If they had stood in my counsel,
as they pretend, 1. They would have made the
scriptures their standard; They would have caused
my people to hear my words, and would have con¬
scientiously kept close to them. But, not speaking
according to that rule, it is a plain evidence that
there is no light in them. 2. They would have
made the conversion of souls their business, and
would have aimed at that in all their preaching;
they would have done all they could to turn people
from their evil way in general, from all the parti¬
cular evil of their doings. They would have en¬
couraged and assisted, the reformation of manners,
would have made this their scope in all their
preaching, to part between men and their sins; but
it appeared that this was a thing they never aimed
at, but, on the contrary, to encourage sinners in
their sins. 5. They would have had some seals of
their ministry. This sense our translation gives it;
If they had stood in my counsel, and the words they
had preached had been my words, then they should
have turned them from their evil way: a divine
power should have gone along with the word for
the conviction of sinners; God will bless his own
institutions. Yet this is no certain rule; Jeremiah
himself, though God sent him, prevailed with but
few to turn from their evil way.
V. God threatens to punish these prophets for
their wickedness. They promised the people peace;
to show them the folly of that, God tells them that
they should have no peace themselves; they were
very unfit to warrant the people, and pass their
word to them, that no evil shall come upon them,
when all evil is coming upon themselves, and they
are not aware of it, v. 12. Because the prophets
and priests are profane, therefore their ways shall
be unto them as slippery ways in the darkness.
They that undertake to lead others, because they
mislead them, and know they do so, they shall
themselves have no comfort in their way. 1. They
pretend to show others the way, but they shall them¬
selves be in the dark, or in a mist; their light cr
sight shall fail, so that they shall not be able to look
before them, shall have no forecast for themselves.
2. They pretend to give assurances to others, but
they themselves shall find no firm footing; Their
ways shall be to them as slippery ways, in which
they shall not go with any steadiness, safety, or
satisfaction. 3. They pretend to make the people
easy with their flatteries, but they shall themselves
be uneasy: They shall be driven, forced forward as
captives, or making their escape as those that are
pursued, and they shall fall in the way by which they
hoped to escape, and so fall into the enemies’ hands.
4. They pretend to prevent the evils that threatens
others, but God will bring evil upon them, even
' the year of their visitation, the time fixed for call¬
ing them to an account; such a time is fixed con-
I corning all that do not judge themselves, and it will
be an evil time. The year of visitation is the year
of recompenses. It is further threatened, (i>. 15.)
I will feed them with wormwood, or poison, with
that which is not only nauseous, but noxious, and
make them drink waters of gall, or, as some read
it, juice of hemlock; see ch. ix. 15. Justly is the
cup of trembling put into their hand first, for from
the prophets of Jerusalem, who should have been
patterns of piety and every thing that is praise- wor¬
thy, even from them is profaneness gone forth into
all the lands. Nothing more effectually debauches
a nation, than the debauchery of ministers.
VI. The people are here warned not to give any
credit to these false prophets; for though they flat¬
tered them with hopes of impunity, the judgments of
God would certainly break out against them, unless
they repented; (v. 16.) “ Take notice of what Grd
says, and hearken not to the words of these prophets;
for you will find, in the issue, that God’s word shall
stand, and not theirs. God’s word will make you
serious, but they make you vain, feed veu with vain
hopes, which will fail you at last. They tell vru,
JVo evil shall come upon you; but hear what Grd
snvs, ( v . 19.) Behold, a whirlwind of the Lord is
440
JEREMIAH, XXIII.
gone forth in fury: they tell you, All shall be calm
and serene; but God tells you, There is a storm
coming, a whirlwind of the Lord, of his sending, and
therefore there is no standing before it; it is a whirl¬
wind raised by divine wrath ; it is gone forth in fury,
a wind that is brought forth out of the treasures of
divine vengeance, and therefore it is a grievous
whirlwind, and shall light heavy, with rain and hail,
nfion the head of the wicked, which they c mnot
avoid, nor find any shelter from.” It shall fall,
upon the wicked prophets themselves who deceived
the people, and the wicked people who suffered
themselves to be deceived. A horrible tempest shall
be the portion of their cup, Ps. xi. 6. This sentence
is bound on as irreversible; (y. 20.) The anger of
the Lord shall not return, for the decree is gone
forth, God will not alter his mind, nor suffer his an¬
ger to be turned away, till he have executed the
sentence, and performed the thoughts of his heart.
God’s whirlwind, when it comes down from heaven,
returns not thither, but accomplishes that for which
he sent it, Isa. lv. 11. This they will not consider
now; But in the latter days he shall consider it per¬
fectly, consider it with understandirig, (so the word
is,) or, with consideration. Note, Those that will
not fear the threatenings, shall feel the execution of
them, and will then perfectly understand what they
will not now admit the evidence of, what a fearful
thing it is to fall into the hands of a just and jealous
God. They that will not consider in time, will be
made to consider when it is too late. Son, remember.
VII. Divers things are here offered to the con¬
sideration of these false prophets for their convic¬
tion, that, if possible, they might be brought to re¬
cant their error, and acknowledge the cheat they
had put upon God’s people.
1. Let them consider, that though they may im-
ose upon men, God is too wise to be imposed upon,
len cannot see through their fallacies, but God j
can, and does. Here,
(1.) God asserts his own omnipresence and omni¬
science in general, v. 23, 24. When they told the
people that no evil should befall them though they
went on in their evil ways, they went upon athe¬
istical principles, that the Lord doth not see their
sin, that he cannot judge through the dark cloud,
that he will not require it; and therefore they must
be taught the first principles of their religion, and
confronted with the most incontestable, self-evident
truths, [l.j That though God’s throne is.prepartd
in the heavens, and this earth seems to be at a dis¬
tance from him, yet he is a God here in this lower
world, which seems to be afar off, as well as in the
upper world, which seems to be at hand, v. 23.
The eye of God is the same on earth that it is in
heaven; here it runs to and fro as well as there; (2
Chron. xvi. 9.) and what is in the minds of men,
whose spirits are veiled in flesh, is as clearly seen by
him, as what is in the mind of angels, those unveiled
spirits above, that surround his throne. The po>ver
of God is the same on earth among its inhabitants
that it is in heaven among his armies. With us,
nearness and distance make a great difference both
in our observations and in our operations, but it is
not so with God; to him darkness and light, at hand,
and afar off, are both alike. [2.] That how ingeni¬
ous and industrious soever men are to disguise them¬
selves and their own characters and counsels, they
cannot possibly be concealed from God’s all-seeing
eye; (r. 24.) “Can any hide himself in the secret
places of the earth, that I shall not see him? Can
any hide his projects and intentions in the secret
/ daces of the heart, that I shall not see them?” No
arts of concealment can hide from the eve of God,
nor deceive his judgment of them. [3.] That he is
every where present ; he does not only rule hea ven and
earth, and uphold both by his universal providence, |
but he fills heaven and earth by his essential pre¬
sence, Ps. cxxxviii. 7, 8, & c. Noplace can either
delude him, or exclude him.
(2.) He applies this to these prophets, who had a
notable art of disguising themselves; ( v . 25, 26.) 1
have heard what the prophets said, that prophesy
lies in my name. They thought that he was sc
wholly taken up with the other world, that he had
no leisure to take cognizance of what passed in this.
But God will make them know that he knows al!
their impostures, all the shams they have put upon
the world, under colour of divine revelation. What
they intended to humour the people with, they pre¬
tended to have had from God in a dream, when
there was no such thing. This they could not dis¬
cover; if a man tell me that he dreamed so and so,
I cannot contradict him; he knows I cannot; but
God discovered the fraud. Perhaps the false pro¬
phets whispered what they had to say in the ears cf
such as were their confidants, saying. So and so I
have dreamed; but God overheard them. The
heart-searching eye of God traced them in all the
methods thev took to deceive the people, and he
cries out, How long? Shall I always bear with
them ? Is it in the hearts of those prophets (so seme
read it) to be ever prophesying lies, and prophesying
the deceits of their own hearts? Will they never see
what an affront they put upon God, what an abuse
they put upon the people, and what judgments they
are preparing for themselves?
2. Let them consider that their palming upon peo¬
ple counterfeit revelations, and fathering their own
fancies upon divine inspiration, was the ready way
to bring all religion into contempt, and make men
turn atheists and infidels; and this was' the thing
they really intended, though they frequently made
mention of the name of God, and prefaced all they
said with, Thus saith the Lord. Yet, says God,
They think to cause my people to forget my name,
by their dreams. They designed to draw people off
from the worship of God, from all regard to God’s
laws and ordinances, and the true prophets, as their
fathers forgot God’s name for Baal. Note, The
great thing' Satan aims at, is, to make people forget
God, and all that whereby he has made himself
known; and he has many subtle methods to bring
them to this: sometimes he does it by setting up
false gods; (bring men in love with Baal, and they
soon forget the name of God;) sometimes by misre¬
presenting the true God, as if he were altogether
such a one as ourselves. Pretences to new revela¬
tion may prove as dangerous to religion as the deny¬
ing of all revelation; and false prophets in God’s
name may perhaps do more mischief to the power
of godliness than false prophets in Baal’s name, as
being less guarded agairist.
3. Let tiiem consider what a vast difference there
was between their prophecies and those that were
delivered by the true prophets of the Lord ; (v. 28. )
The prophet that has a dream, which was the way
of inspiration that the false prophets most pretend¬
ed to, if he has a dream, let him tell it as a dream;
so Mr. Gataker reads it. “Let him lay no more
stress upon it than men do upon their dreams, nor
expect any more regard to be had to it; let them
not say that it is from God, nor call their foe lish
dreams divine oracles; but let the true prophet,
that has my word, speak my word faithfully , speak
it as a truth;” { so some read it;) “let him keep
close to his instructions, and you will soon perceive
a vast difference between the dreams that the false
prophets tell, and the divine dictates which the true
prophets do-liver; he that pretends to have a mes¬
sage from God, whether f y dream or voice, let him
declare it, and it will easily appear which is of God,
and which is not. Those that have spiritual senses
exercised will be able to distinguish; for what is tl;e
441
JEREMIAH, XXIII.
chaff to the wheat? The promises of peace which
these prophets make to you, arc no more to be com-
arecl to God’s promises, than chaff to wheat,
len’s fancies arc light, and vain, and worthless, as
the chaff which the wind drives away. But the
word of God has substance in it; it is of value, is
food for the soul, the bread of life. Wheat was the
staple commodity of Canaan, that valley of vision,
Deut. viii. 8. Ezek. xxvii. 17. There is as much
difference between the vain fancies of men, and the
pure word of God, as between the chaff and the
wheat. It follows, , c. 29.) Is not my word like a
fire, saith the Lord? Is their word so? Has it the
power and efficacv that the word of God has? No,
yothing like it; there is no more comparison than
between painted fire and real fire. Theirs is like an
ignus fatuus — a deceh’ing meteor, leadingmen into
bv-paths and dangerous precipices. Note, The word
of God is like fire. The law was a fiery law ; (Deut.
xxxii. 2.) and of the gospel, Christ says, lam come
to send Jire on the earth, Luke xii. 49. Fire has dif¬
ferent effects, according as the matter is on which
it works; it hardens clay, but softens wax; it con¬
sumes the dross, but purifies the gold; so the word
of God is to some a savour of life unto life, to others
of death unto death. God appeals here to the con¬
sciences of those to whom the word was sent; “ Is
not my word like fire? Has it not been so to you?
Zech. i. 6. Speak as you have found.” It is com¬
pared likewise to a hammer breaking the rock in
fiieces. The unhumbled heart of man is like a rock;
if it will not be melted by the word of God as the
fire, it will be broken to /lieces by it as the hammer.
Whatever opposition is given to the word, it will be
borne down and broken to pieces.
4. Let them consider that while they went on in
this course, God was against them. Three times ,
they are told this, v. 30, 31, 32. Behold, I am
against the firo/ihets. They pretended to be for
God, and made use of his name, but were really
against him ; he looks upon them as they were
really, and is against them. How can they be long
safe, or at all easy, that have a God of almighty
power against them? While these prophets were
promising peace to the people, God was proclaim¬
ing war against them. They stand indicted here,
(1.) For robbery; They steal my word every one
from his neighbour. Some understand it of that
word which the good prophets preached; they
stole their sermons, their expressions, and mingled
them with their own, as hucksters mingled bad
wares with some that are good, to make them vendi¬
ble. Those that were strangers to the spirit of the
true prophets, mimicked their language, picked up
some good sayings of theirs, and delivered them to
the people as if they had been their own, but with
an ill grace; it was not of apiece with the rest of
their discourses. The legs of the lame are not equal,
so is a / mrable in the mouth of fools, Prov. xxvi. 7.
Others understand it of the word of God as it was
received and entertained by some of the people;
they stole it out of their hearts, as the wicked one in
the parable is said to steal the good seed of the word,
M nth. xiii. 19. By their insinuations they dimi¬
nished the authority, and so weakened the efficacy,
of the word of God upon the minds of those that
seemed to be under convictions by it.
(2.) They stand indicted for counterfeiting the
broad seal. Therefore God is against them, (v. 31.)
because they use their tongues at their pleasure in
their discourses to the people, they say what they
themselves think fit, and then father it upon God,
pretend they had it from him, and say, He saith it.
Some read it, They smooth their tongues; they are
very complais mt to the people, and say nothing but
what is pleasing and plausible; they never reprove
them or threaten them, but their words are smoother
Vol. iv. — 3 K
than butter; thus they ingratiate themselves with
them, and get money by them, and they have the
impudence and impiety "to make God the Patron of
their lies; they say, “ He saith so.” What greater
indignity can be done to the God of truth than to
lay tlie brats of the father of lies at his door?
(3.) They stand indicted as common cheats; ( v .
32.)/ um against them, for they f.rojihesy false
dreams, pretending that to be a divine inspiration,
which is but an invention of their own; this is a hor¬
rid fraud; nor will it excuse them to say. Caveat
emfilor — Let the buyer take care of himself, and Si
/wjhulus vult deci/ii, decifiiatur — If /it ofi'lc will be
deceived, let them. No, it is the people’s fault,
that they err, that they take things upon trust, and
do not try the spirits; but it is much more their fault,
that they cause God’s people to err by their lies, and
by their lightness, by the flatteries rf their preach
ing, soothing them up in their sins, and by the
looseness and lewdness of their conversation, en
couraging them to persist in them. [1.] God dis
owns their having any commission from him; I sent
them not, nor commanded them; they are not God’s
messengers, nor is what they say his message. [2.]
He therefore justly denies his blessing with them,
Therefore they shall not firojit thisfieojile at all. All
the profit they aim at is, to make them easy; but they
shall not so much as do that, for God’s providences
will at the same time be making them uneasy. They
do not firofit this J teo/ile ; so some read it; and more
is implied than is expressed; they not only do them
no good, but do them a great deal of hurt. Note,
Those that corrupt the word of God, while they
pretend to preach it, are so far from edifying the
church, that they do it the greatest mischief ima¬
ginable.
33. And when this people, or the prophet,
or a priest, shall ask thee, saying, What is
the burden of the Lord ? thou shalt then say
unto them, What burden ? I will even for¬
sake you, saith the Lord. 34. And as for
the prophet, and the priest, and the people,
that shall say, The burden of the Lord, I
will even punish that man and his house.
35. Thus shall ye say every one to his neigh¬
bour, and every one to bis brother, What
hath the Lord answered ? and, What hath
the Lord spoken ? 36. And the burden ol
the Lord shall ye mention no more ; for
every man’s word shall be his burden: for
ye have perverted the words of the living
God, of the Lord of hosts our God. 37.
Thus shalt thou say to the prophet, What
hath the Lord answered thee? and. What
hath the Lord spoken? 38. But since ye
say, The burden of the Lord; therefore
thus saith the Lord, Because you say this
word, The burden of the Lord, and I have
sent unto you, saying, Ye shall not say,
The burden of the Lord ; 39. Therefore,
behold, I, even I, will utterly forget you,
and I will forsake you, and the city that I
gave you and your fathers, and cast yon
out of my presence: 40. And I will bring
an everlasting reproach upon you, and a per¬
petual shame, which shall not be forgotten.
The profaneness of the people, with that of tne
442
JEREMIAH, XXIJ1.
Iiriests and prophets, is here reproved in a particu-
ar instance, which may seem of small moment in
comparison of their greater crimes; but profaneness
in common discourse, and the debauching of the lan¬
guage of a nation, being a notorious evidence of the
prevalency of wickedness in it, we are not to think
it strange that this matter was so largely and warmly
insisted upon here. Observe,
1. The sin here charged upon them is, bantering
God’s prophets, and the dialect they used, and jest¬
ing with sacred things. They asked, What is the
burthen of the Lord '? v. 33. and v. 34. They say,
7 'he burthen of the Lord, v. 38. This was the word
that gave great offence to God, that, whenever they
spake of the luord of the Lord, they called it, in
scorn and derision, the burthen of the Lord. Now,
(1.) This was the word that the prophets much
used, and used it seriously, to show what a weight
the word of God was upon their spirits, of what im¬
portance it was, and how pressingly it should come
upon those that heard it. The words of the false
prophets had nothing ponderous in them, but God’s
Words had; those were as chaff, these as wheat.
Now the profane scoffers took this word, and made
a jest and a by-word of it; they made people merry
with it, that so, when the prophets used it, they
might not make people serious with it. Note, It
has been the artifice of Satan, in all ages, to obstruct
the efficacy of sacred things by turning them into
matter of sport and ridicule; the mocking of God’s
messengers was the baffling of his messages. (2. )
Perhaps this word was caught at and reproached by
the scoffers as an improper word, new-coined by the
prophets, and not used in that sense by any classic
author. It was only in this and the last age, that
the word of the Lord was called the burthen of the
Lord, and it could not be found in their lexicons to
have that signification. But if men take a liberty,
as we see they do, to form new phrases which they
think more expressive and significant in other parts
of learning, why not in divinity? But especially we
must observe it as a rule, that the Spirit of God is
not tied to our rules of speaking. (3. ) Some think
that, because, when the word, of the Lord is called
a burthen, it signifies some word of reproof and
threatening, which would lay a load upon the hear¬
ers, (yet I know not whether that observation will
always hold,) that in using this word, the burthen of
the Lord, in a canting way, they reflected upon
God as always bearing hard upon them, always
teazingthem, always frightening them, and =o mak¬
ing the word of God a perpetual uneasiness to them.
They make the word of God a burthen to them¬
selves, and then quarrel with the ministers for
making it a burthen to them. Thus the scoffers of
the latter days, while they slight heaven and salva¬
tion, reproach faithful ministers for preaching hell
and damnation. Upon the whole, we may observe.
That how light soever men may make of ic, the
great God takes notice of, and is much displeased
with, those who burlesque sacred things, and who,
that they may make a jest of scripture-truths and
laws, put jests upon scripture-language. In such
wit as this I am sure there is no wisdom, and so it
will appear at last. Be ye not mockers, lest your
bands be made strong. Those that were here
guilty of this sin, were some of the false prophets,
who perhaps came to steal the word of God from
the true prophets, some of the priests, who perhaps
came to seek occasions against them, on which to
ground an information, and some of the people,
who had learned of the profane priests and prophets
to play with the things of God. The people would
not have affronted the prophet and his God thus, if
the priests and the prophets, those ringleaders of
mischief, had not shown them the way.
2 When they are reproved for this profane way
of speaking, they are directed how to express them
selves more decently. We do not find that the pro¬
phets are directed to make no more use of this word;
we find it used long after this; (Zech. ix. 1. Mai. i.
1. Nah. i. 1. Hab. i. 1.) and we do not find it once
used in this sense by Jeremiah either before or after.
It is true indeed, that in many cases it is advisable
to make no use of such words and things as somt
have made bad use of, and it may be prudence tc
avoid such phrases as, though innocent enough, are
in danger of being perverted and made stumbling-
blocks. But here God will have the prophet keep
to his rule; (r/i. xv. 19.) Let them return unto thee,
but return not thou unto them. Do not thou leave
off using this word, but let them leave off abusing it;
ye shall not mention the burthen of the Lord any
more in this profane, careless manner, (y. 36.) for
it is perverting the words of the living God, and
making a bad use of them, which is an impicus,
dangerous thing; for consider, he is the Lord oj hosts
our God. Note, If we will but look upon God, rs
we ought to do, in his greatness and goodness, and
be but duly sensible of our relation and obligation to
him, it may be hoped that we shall not dare to af¬
front him by making a jest of his words. It is an
impudent thing to abuse him that is the living God,
the Lord of hosts and our God. How then must
they express themselves? He tells them, (n. 37.)
Thus shalt thou say to the prophet, when theu art
i inquiring of him, What hath the Lord answered
] thee? And what hath the Lord spoken? And they
must say thus, when they inquire of their neigh¬
bours, v. 3.5. Note, We must always speak of the
things of God reverently and seriously, and as be¬
comes the oracles of God. It is a commendable
practice to inquire after the mind of God, to inquire
of our brethren what they have heard, to inquire
of our prophets what they have to say from God;
but then, to show that we do it for a right end, we
must do it after a right manner. Ministers may
learn here, when they reprove people for what they
say and do amiss, to teach them how to say and do
better.
3. Because they would not leave off this bad way
of speaking, though they were admonished of it,
God threatens them here with utter ruin. They
would still say, The burthen of the Lord, though
God had sent to them to forbid them, v. 38. What
little regard have those to the divine authority, that
will not be persuaded by it to leave an idle word!
But see what will come of it.
(1.) Those shall be severely reckoned with, that
thus pervert the words of God, that put a wrong
construction on them, and make a bad use of them;
and it shall be made to appear that it is a great pro¬
vocation to God, to mock his messengers; I will
even punish that man and his house, whether he be
prophet or priest, or one ot the common people, it
shall be visited upon him, v. 34. Perverting God’s
word, and ridiculing the preachers of it, are sins
that bring ruining judgments upon families, and en¬
tail a curse upon a house. Another threatening we
have, v. 36. Every man’s word shall be his own
burthen; the guilt of this sin shall be so heavy upon
him, as to sink him into the pit of destruction. God
shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves,
Ps. lxiv. 8. God will give them enough of their jest,
so that the burthen of the Lord they shall have no
heart to mention any more; it will be too heavy to
make a jest of. They are as the madman that casts
firebrands, arrows, and death, while they pretend
to be in sport.
(2. ) The words of God, though thus perverted,
shall be accomplished. Do they ask, What is the
burthen of the ford? Let the prophet ask them,
Il’hat burtheti do you mean? Is it this? Twill even
forsake you, v. 33. This is the burthen that shall
JEREMIAH, XXIV.
44.3
Du laid and bound upon them, (t\ 39, 40.) “Behold,
/, even I, will utterly forget you, and I will for¬
sake you.” I will leave you, and have no thoughts
of returning to you. Those are miserable indeed,
that are forsaken and forgotten of God; and men’s
bantering God’s judgments will not baffle them. Je¬
rusalem was the city God had taken to himself as a
holy city, and then given to them and their fathers;
but that shall now be forsaken and forgotten. God
had taken them to be a people near to him, but
they shall now be cast out of his presence. They
had been great and honourable among the nations,
but now God will bring upon them an everlasting
reproach and a perpetual shame; both their sin and
their punishment shall be their lasting disgrace. It
is here upon record, to their infamy, and will re¬
main so to the world’s end. Note, God’s word will
be magnified and made honourable, when those that
mock at it shall be vilified and made contemptible.
They that despise me shall be lightly esteemed.
CHAP. XXIV.
In the close of the foregoing chapter, we had a general pre¬
diction of the utter ruin of Jerusalem, that it should be
forsaken and forgotten; which, whatever ett'ect it had
upon others, we have reason to think, made the prophet
himself very melancholy. Now, in this chapter, God
encourages him, by showing him that though the dcsoja-
tion seemed to be universal, yet all were not equally in¬
volved in it, but God knew how to distinguish, how to
separate, between the precious and the vile. Some were
gone into captivity already with Jeconiah, over them
Jeremiah lamented, but God tells him that it should turn
to their good; others yet remained hardened in their
sins, against whom Jeremiah had a just indignation; but
those, God tells him, should go into captivity, and it
should prove to their hurt. To inform the prophet of
this, and atiect him with it; here is, I. A vision of two
baskets of figs, one very good, and the other very bad,
v. 1 . .3. II. The explication of this vision, applying the
good figs to those that were already sent into captivity
for their good, (v. 4.. 7.) the bad figs to those that
should hereafter be sent into captivity for their hurt, v.
8.. 10.
1 . TjpHE Lord shewed me, and, behold,
JL two baskets of figs were set before
the temple of the Lord, after that Nebu¬
chadrezzar king of Babylon had carried
away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoia-
kim king of Judah, and the princes of Judah,
with the carpenters and smiths, from Jeru¬
salem, and had brought them to Babylon.
2. One basket had very good figs, even like
the figs that are first ripe; and the other
basket had very naughty figs, which could
not be eaten, they were so bad. 3. Then
said the Lord unto me, What seest thou,
Jeremiah? And I said, Figs; the good figs,
very good; and the evil, very evil, that can¬
not be eaten, they are so evil. 4. Again the
word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
5. Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel,
Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge
them that are carried away captive of Ju¬
dah; whom I have sent out of this place
into the land of the Chaldeans for their good.
6. For I will set mine eyes upon them for
good, and I will bring them again to this
land : and I will build them, and not pull
them down; and I will plant them, and not
pluck them up. 7. And I will give them a
heart to know me, that I am the Lord; and
they shall be my people, and I will be their
God: for they shall return unto me with
their whole heart. 8. And as the evil figs,
which cannot be eaten, they are so evil;
surely thus saith the Lord, So will i give
Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes,
and the residue of Jerusalem, that remain
in this land, and them that dwell in the land
of Egypt; 9. And I will deliver them to
be removed into all the kingdoms of the
earth for their hurt, to he a reproach and a
proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places
whither I shall drive them. 10. And I w ill
send the sword, the famine, and the pesti¬
lence, among them, till they be consumed
from off the land that I gave unto them and
to their fathers.
This short chapter helps us to put a very com¬
fortable construction upon a great many long ones,
by showing us that tire same providence which to
some is a savour of death unto death, may by the
grace and blessing of God be made to others a sa¬
vour of life unto life; and that though God’s people
share with others in the same calamity, r et that it
is not the same to them that it is to ethers, but is
designed for their good, and shall issue in their
good; to them it is a correcting rod in the hand of a
tender Father, while to others it is an avenging
sword in the hand of a righteous Judge.
Observe, I. The date of this sermon. It was af¬
ter, a little after, Jeconiah’s captiv ity, v. 1. Jeco¬
niah was himself a despised, broken vessel, but with
him were carried away some very valuable persons,
Ezekiel for one; ( ch . i. 2.) many of the princes of
Judah then went into captivity; Daniel and his fel¬
lows were carried off a little before; of the people
only the carpenters and the smiths were forced away,
either because the Chaldeans needed some ingenious
men of those trades, (they had a great plenty of
astrologers and stargazers, but a great scarcity of
smiths and carpenters ,) or because the Jews would
severely feel the loss of them, and would, for want
of them, be unable to fortify their cities, and furnish
themselves with weapons of war. Now, it should
seem, there were many good people carried away
in that captivity, which the pious prophet laid
much to heart, while there were those that tri¬
umphed in it, and insulted over those to whose lot
it fell to go into captivity. Note, We must not con¬
clude concerning the first and greatest sufferers,
that they were the worst and greatest s'nners; for
perhaps it may appear quite otherwise, as it did
here.
II. The vision by which this distinction of the
captives was represented to the prophet’s mind;
He saw two baskets of Jigs set before the temple,
there ready to be offered as first-fruits to the honour
of God. Perhaps the priests, being remiss in their
duty, were not ready to receive them, and dispose
of them, according to the law, and therefore Jere¬
miah sees them standing before the temple. But
that which was the significancy of the vision, was,
that the figs in one basket were extraordinarily good,
those in tire other basket extremely bad. The chil¬
dren of men are all as the fruits of the fig-tree, ca¬
pable of being made serviceable to God and man;
(Judg. ix. 11.) but some areas good figs, than which
nothing is more pleasant, others as damaged, rotten
figs, than which nothing is more nauseous. Whai
creature viler than a wicked man, and what more
valuable than a godly man? 'Ihegood figs were like
those that are first ripe, which are most acceptable.
444
JEREMIAH, XXIV.
(Mic. vii. 1.) and most prized, when newly come
into season. The bad fgs are such as could not be
eaten, theij were so evil; they could not answer the
end of their creation, were neither pleasant, nor good
for food; and what then were they good for? If
God has no honour from men, nor their generation
any service, they are even like the bad Jigs, that can¬
not be eaten, that will not answer any good purpose;
if the salt have lost its savour, it is thenceforth fit
tor nothing but the dunghill. Of the persons that
are presented to the Lord at the door of his taber¬
nacle, some are sincere, and they are very good;
others dissemble with God, and they are very bad;
sinners are the? worst of men, hypocrites the worst
of sinners. Corruptio ofitimi est fiessima — That
which is best becomes, when corrupted, the worst.
Ill. The exposition and application of this vision.
God intended by it to raise the dejected spirits of
those that were gone into captivity, by assuring
them of a happy return, and to humble and awaken
the proud and secure spirits of those who continued
yet in Jerusalem, by assuring them of a miserable
captivity.
1. Here is the moral of the good Jigs, that were
very good, the first ripe; these represented the pious
captives, that seemed first ripe for ruin, for they
went first into captivity, but should prove first ripe
for mercy, and their captivity should help to ripen
them; these are pleasing to God, as good Jigs are to
us, and shall be carefully preserved for use. Now
observe here,
(1.) Those that were already carried into captiv¬
ity, w ere the good Jigs that God would own. This
shows, [1.] That we cannot determine of God’s
love or hatred by all that is before us. When God’s
judgments are abroad, they are not always the worst
that are first seized by them. [2.] That early suf¬
ferings sometimes prove for the best to us. The
sooner the child is corrected, the better effect the
correction is likely to have: those that went first
into captivity were as the son whom the father
loves, and chastens betimes, chastens while there is
hope, and it did well; but those that staid behind
were like a child long left to himself, who, when
afterward corrected, is stubborn, and made worse
by it, Lam. iii. 27.
(2.) God owns their captivity to be his doing;
whoever were the instruments of it, he ordered and
directed it; (t’. 5.) I have sent them out of this
place into the land of the Chaldeans. It is God that
puts his gold into the furnace, to be tried; his hand
is, in an especial manner, to be eyed in tbe afflic¬
tions of good people. The judge orders the male¬
factor into the hand of an executioner, but the father
corrects the child with his own hand.
(3.) Even this disgraceful, uncomfortable cap¬
tivity, God intended for their benefit; and we are
sure that his intentions are never frustrated; I have
sent them into the land of the Chaldeans for their
good. It seemed to be every way for their hurt,
not only as it was the ruin of their estates, honours,
and liberties, parted them from their relations and
friends, and put them under the power of their ene¬
mies and oppressors, but as it sunk their spirits,
discouraged their faith, deprived them of the bene¬
fit of God’s oracles and ordinances, and exposed
them to temptations; and yet it was designed for
their good, and proved so, in the issue, as to many
of them. Out of the eater came forth meat. By
their afflictions they were convinced of sin, humbled
under the hand of God, weaned from the world,
made serious, taught to pray, and turned from their
iniquity, particularly they were cured of their in¬
clination to idolatry; and thus it was good for them
that they were afflicted, Ps. cxix. 67, 71.
(4.) God promises them that he will own them
in their captivity; though they seem abandoned,
they shall be acknowledged; the scornful relations
they left behind will scarcely own them, or their
kindred to them, but God says, I will acknowledge
them. Note, The Lord knows them that are his,
and will own them in all conditions; nakedness and
sword shall not separate them from his love.
(5.) God assures them of his protection in their
trouble, and a glorious deliverance out of it in due
time, v. 6. Being sent into captivity for their good,
they shall not be lost there; but it shall be with
them as it is with gold which the refiner puts into
the furnace. [1.] He has his eye upon it while it
is there, and it is a careful eye, to see that it sustain
no damage; “/ will set mine eyes upon them for
good, to order every thing for the best, that all the
circumstances of the affliction may concur to the
answering of the great intention of it.” [2.] He
will be sure to take it out of the furnace again, as
soon as the work designed upon it is done; I will
bring them again to this land. They were sent
abroad for improvement awhile, under a divine dis¬
cipline: but they shall be fetched back, when they
have gone through theirtrial there, to their Father’s
house. [3.] He will fashion his gold when he has
refined it, will make it a vessel of honour fit for his
use; so, when God has brought them back from
their trial, he will build them, and make them a
habitation for himself, will plant them, and make
them a vineyard for himself. Their captivity was
to square the rough stones, and make them fit for
his building, to prune up the young trees, and make
them fit for his planting.
(6.) He engages to prepare them for these tem¬
poral mercies which he designed for them, by be¬
stowing spiritual mercies upon them, x>. 7. It is
this that will make their captivity be for their good;
this shall be both the improvement of their afflic¬
tion, and their qualification for deliverance. When
our troubles are sanctified to us, then we may be
sure that they will end well. Now that which is
promised, is, [1.] That they' should be better ac-
uainted with God; they shall learn more of God
y his providences in Babylon than they had learned
by all his oracles and ordinances in Jerusalem;
thanks to divine grace, for if that had not wrought
mightily upon them in Babylon, they would for ever
have forgotten God. It is here promised, I will
give them, not so much a head to know me, as a
heart to know me, for the right knowledge of God
consists not in notion and speculation, but in the con¬
victions of the practical judgment directing and go¬
verning the will and affections. A good understand¬
ing have all they that do his commandments, Ps.
cxi. 10. Where God gives a sincere desire and in¬
clination to know him, he will give that knowledge.
It is God himself that gives a heart to know him,
else we should perish for ever in our ignorance.
[2.] That they should be entirely converted to God;
to his will as their rule, his service as their busi¬
ness, and his glory as their end; They shall return
to me with their whole heart. God himself under¬
takes for them that they shall; and if he turn us,
we shall be turned. This follows upon the former;
for those that have a heart to know God aright,
! will not onlv turn to him, but turn with their whole
heart; for "those that are either obstinate in their
rebellion, or hypocritical in their religion, may truly
be said to be ignorant of God. [3.] That thus they
should be again taken into covenant with God, as
much to their comfort as ever; They shall be my
people, and I will be their God. God will own
them, as formerly, for his people, in the discoveries
of himself to them, in his acceptance of their ser¬
vices, and in his gracious appearances on their be¬
half, and they shall have liberty to own him for
their God, in "their prayers to him, and their ex-
| pectations from him. Note, Those that have back-
445
JEREML
Midden from God, if they do in sincerity return
to him, arc admitted as freely as any to all the pri¬
vileges and comforts of the everlasting covenant,
which is herein well ordered, that every transgres¬
sion in the covenant does not throw us out of cove¬
nant, and that afflictions are not only consistent with,
but flowing from, covenant-love.
2. Here is the moral of the bad Jigs; Zedekiah
and his princes and partisans yet remain in the land,
roud and secure enough, Ezek. xi. 3. Many were
ed into Egypt for shelter, and they thought they
had shifted well for themselves and their own safety,
and boasted that though therein they had gone con¬
trary to the command of God, yet they had acted
prudently for themselves. Now as to these that
looked so scornfully upon those that were gone into
captivity, it is here threatened,
(1.) That, whereas those who were already car¬
ried away were settled in one country, where they
had the comfort of one another’s society, though in
captivity, these should be dispered and removed
into all the kingdoms of the earth, where they
should have no joy one of another.
(2. ) That, whereas these were carried away cap¬
tives for their good, these should be removed into all
countries for their hurt. Their afflictions shculd
be so far from humbling them, that they should
harden them; not bring them nearer to God, but
set them at a greater distance from him.
(3.) That, whereas those should have the honour
of being owned of God in their troubles, these
should have the shame of being abandoned by all
mankind; In all places whither I shall drive them,
they shall be a reproach and a proverb. “Such a
one is as false and proud as a Jew;” “Such a one is
as poor and miserable as a Jew.” All their neigh¬
bours shall make a jest of them, and of the calami¬
ties brought upon them.
(4.) That, whereas those should return to their
own land, these shall be consumed from that land,
never to see it more, and it shall be of no avail to
them to plead, that it was the land God gave to
their fathers, for they had it from God, and he
gave it them upon condition of their obedience.
(5.) That, whereas those were reserved for better
times, these were reserved for worse; wherever
they are removed, the sword, and famine, and pes¬
tilence, shall be sent after them, shall soon overtake
them, and, coming with commission so to do, shall
overcome them. God has variety of judgments
wherewith to prosecute those that fly from jus¬
tice; and those that have escaped one, may expect
another, till they are brought to repent and reform.
Doubtless, this prophecy had its accomplishment
in the men of that generation: yea, because we
read not of any such remarkable difference between
those of Jeconiah’s captivity and those of Zedeki-
ah’s, it is probable that this was a typical reference
to the last destruction of the Jews bv the Romans,
in which those of them that believed were taken
care of; but those that continued obstinate in unbe¬
lief, were driven into all countries for a taunt and a
curse, and so they remain to this day.
CHAP. XXV.
The prophecy of this chapter bears date some time before
those propnecies in the chapters next foregoing, for they
are not placed in the exact order of time in which they
were delivered. This is dated in the first year of Nebu¬
chadrezzar, that remarkable year w'hen the sword of
the Lord began to be drawn and furbished. Here is, I.
A review of the prophecies that had been delivered to
Judah and Jerusalem for many years past, by Jeremiah
himself and other prophets, with the little regard given
to them, and the little success of them, v. 1 . . 7. II. A
very express threatening of the destruction of Judah and
Jerusalem, by the king of Babylon, for their contempt
of God ana their continuance in sin, v. 8 . . 1 1. To which
is annexed a promise of their deliverance out of their
\H, XXV.
captivity in Babylon, after 70 years, v. 12. 14. III. A
prediction of the devastation of divers other nations
about, by Nebuchadrezzar, represented by a cup of fury
put into their hands, (v. J5 . . 28.) by a sword sent among
them, (v. 29. .33.) and a desolation made among the
shepherds, and their flocks and pastures; (v. 34.. 38.)
so that we have here judgment beginning at the liutise
of God , but not ending there.
1. rgTHE word that came to Jeremiah eou-
JL ceraing all tlie people of Judah, in
the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Jo-
siali king of Judah, that tens the first year of
Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon; 2. The
which Jeremiah the prophet spake unto all
the people of Judah, and to all the inha¬
bitants of Jerusalem, saying, 3. From the
thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon
king of Judah, even unto this day, (that is
the three and twentieth year,) the word of
the Lord hath come unto me, and I have
spoken unto you, rising caily and speaking;
but ye have not hearkened. 4. And the
Lord hath sent unto you all his servants
the prophets, rising early and sending them;
but ye have not hearkened, nor inclined
your ear to hear. 5. They said, Turn ye
again now every one from his evil way, and
from the evil of your doings, and dwell in
the land that the Lord hath given unto you
and to your fathers for ever and ever: 6.
And go not after other gods to serve them,
and to worship them, and provoke me not
to anger with the works of your hands; and
1 will do you no hurt. 7. Yet ye have not
hearkened unto me, saith the Lord; that
ye might provoke me to anger with the
works of your hands to your own hurt.
We have here a message from God concerning
all the people of Judah, (v. 1.) which Jeremiah de¬
livered, in his name, unto all the people of Judah,
v. 2. Note, That which is of universal concern,
ought to be of universal cognizance. It 4s fit that
the word which concerns all the people, as the word
of God does, the word of the gospel particularly,
should be divulged to all in general, and as far as
may be, addressed to each in particular. Jere¬
miah had been sent to the house of the king, ( ch .
xxii. 1.) and he took courage to deliver his mes¬
sage there; here he is sent to all the people, and he
takes the pains to deliver his message to them, pro¬
bably when they were all come up to Jerusalem, to
worship at some of the solemn feasts; then he had
them together, and it was to be hoped then, if ever,
they would be well disposed to hear counsel and re¬
ceive instruction.
This prophecy is dated in the 4th year of Jehoia¬
kim, and the 1st of Nebuchadrezzar. It was in the
latter end of Jehoiakim’s 3d year, that Nebuchad¬
rezzar began to reign himself alone, (having reigned
some time before in conjunction with his father,) as
appears, Dan. i. 1. but Jehoiakim’s 4th year was
begun before Nebuchadrezzar’s 1st was completed.
Now that that active, daring, martial prince began
to set up for the world’s master, God, by his pro¬
phet, gives notice that he is his sen’ant, and inti¬
mates what work he intends to employ him in, that
his growing greatness, which was so formidable to
the nations, might not be construed as any reflection
upon the power and providence cf Gcd in the go-
*46 JEREMIAH, XXV.
vernment of the world. Nebuchadrezzar should
not bid so fair for universal monarchy, (I should
have said universal tyranny ,) but that God had
purposes of his own to serve by him; in the exe¬
cution of which, the world shall see the meaning of
God’s permitting and ordering a thing that seemed
such a reflection on his sovereignty and goodness.
Now in this message we may observe the great
pains that had been taken with the people to bring
them to repentance, which they are here put in
mind of, as an aggravation of their sin, and a justifi¬
cation of God in Ins proceedings against them.
1. Jeremiah, for his part, had been a constant
preacher among them 23 years; he began in the
13th year of Josiah, who reigned 31 years, so that
he prophesied about 18 or 19 years in his reign, then
in the reign of Jehoahaz, and now 4 years of Jehoi-
akim’s reign. Note, God keeps an account, whe¬
ther we do or no, how long we have enjoyed the
means of grace; and the longer we have enjoyed
them, the heavier will our account be if we have
not improved them. These three years (these three
and twenty years) have I come seeking fruit on this
fig-tree. All this while, (1.) God had been con¬
stant in sending messages to them, as there was oc¬
casion for them; “ From that time to this very day,
the word of the Lord has come unto me, for your
use.” Though they had the substance of the warn¬
ing sent them already in the books of Moses, j et,
because those were not duly regarded and applied,
God sent to enforce them, and make them more
particular, that they might be without excuse.
Thus God’s Spirit was striving with them, as with
the old world, Gen. vi. 3. (2.) Jeremiah had been
faithful and industrious in delivering those messages;
he could appeal to themselves, as well as to God
and his own conscience, concerning this; I have
spoken to you, rising early and s/teaking. He had
declared to them the whole counsel of God; he had
taken a great deal of care and pains to discharge
his trust in such a manner as might be most likely
to win and work upon them. What men are soli¬
citous about and intent upon, they rise up early to
prosecute. It intimates that his head was so full of
thoughts about it, and his heart so intent upon doing
good, that it broke his sleep, and made him get up
betimes to project which way he might take, that
would be most likely to do them good. He rose
earlv, both because he would lose no time, and be¬
cause he would lay hold on and improve the best
time to work upon them, when, if ever, they were
sober and sedate. Christ came early in the morn¬
ing to preach in the temple, and the people as
early to hear him, Luke xxi. 38. Morning-lectures
have their advantages. My voice shall thou hear
in the morning.
2. Beside him, God had sent them other pro¬
phets, on the same errand, v. 4. Of the writing
prophets, Micah, Nahum, and Habakkuk, were a
little before him, and Zephaniah cotemporary with
him. But, beside those, there were many other of
God’s servants the prophets, who preached awaken¬
ing sermons, which were never published. And here
God himself is said to rise early and send them; inti¬
mating how much his heart also was upon it, that
this people should turn and live, and not go on and
die , Ezek. xxxiii. 11.
3. All the messages sent them were to the pur¬
pose, and much to the same purpose, v. 5, 6. (1.)
They all told them of their faults, their evil way,
and the evil of their doings. Those were not of
God’s sending, who flattered them as if there were
nothing amiss among them. (2.) They all reproved
them particularly for their idolatry, as a sin that
was in a special manner provoking to God; their
going after other gods, to serve them, and to wor¬
ship them, gods that were the work of their own
hands. (3.) They all called on them to repent ( f
their sins, and to reform their lives. This was the
burthen of every song. Turn ye now every one
from his evil way. Note, Personal and particular
reformation must be insisted on as necessary to a
national deliverance; every one must turn from his
own evil way. The street will not be clean unless
everyone sweep before his own door. (4.) They
all assured them, that, if they did so, it would cer¬
tainly be the lengthening out of their tranquillity.
The mercies they enjoyed should be continued to
them; “You shall dwell in the land, dwell at ease,
dwell in peace, in this good land, which the Lord
has given you and your fathers. Nothing but sin
will turn you out of it, and that shall not if you turn
from it.” The judgments they feared should be
prevented; Provoke me not, and I will do you no
hurt. Note, We should never receive from God
the evil of punishment if we did not provoke him
by the evil of sin. God deals fairly with us, never
corrects his children without cause, nor causes grief
to us unless we give offence to him.
4. Vet all was to no purpose. They were not
wrought upon to take the right and only method to
turn away the wrath of God. Jeremiah was a lively,
affectionate preacher, yet they hearkened not to
him, v. 3. The other prophets dealt faithfully
with them, but neither did they hearken to them,
nor incline their ear, v. 4. That very particular
sin which they were told, of all ethers, was most
offensive to God, and made them obnoxious to his
justice, they wilfully persisted in; You provoke me
with the works of your hands, to your own hurt.
Note, What is a provocation to God will prove, in
the end, hurt to ourselves, and we must bear the
blame of it. O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself.
8. Therefore thus saitli the Loud of hosts.
Because ye have not heard my words, 9.
Behold, i will send and take all the fami¬
lies of the north, saitli the Lord, and Ne¬
buchadrezzar the king of Babylon my ser¬
vant, and will bring them against this land,
and against, the inhabitants thereof, and
against all these nations round about, and
will utterly destroy them, and make them
an astonishment, and a hissing, and per¬
petual desolations. 10. Moreover, I will
take from them the voice of mirth, and
the voice of gladness, the voice of the
bridegroom, and the voice of the bride,
the sound of the millstones, and the light
of the candle. 11. And this whole land
shall be a .desolation, and an astonishment;
and these nations shall serve the king of
Babylon seventy years. 12. And it shall
come to pass, when seventy years are ac¬
complished, that I will punish the king of
Babylon, and that nation, saitli the Lord,
for their iniquity, and the land of the Chal¬
deans, and will make it perpetual desola¬
tions. 1 3. And I will bring upon that land
all my words which I have pronounced
against it, et -en all that is written in this book,
which Jeremiah hath prophesied against
all the nations. 14. For many nations and
great kings shall serve themselves of them
also : and I will recompense them accord-
447
JEREM1
ing to their deeds, and according to the
works of their own hands.
Here is the sentence grounded upon the forego-
going charge. ‘‘Because ye have not heard my
words, I must take another course with you,” v. 8.
Note, When men will not regard the judgments of
God’s mouth, they may expect to feel the judg¬
ments of his hands; to hear the rod, since they
would not hear the word; for the sinner must either
be parted from his sin, or perish in it. Wrath
comes without remedy against those only that sin
without repentance. It is not so much men’s turn¬
ing aside that ruins them as their not returning.
1. The ruin of the land of Judah by the king of Ba¬
bylon’s armies is here decreed, v. 9. God sent them
his servants the prophets, and they were not heeded,
and therefore God will send for his servant the king
of Babylon, whom they cannot mock, and despise,
and persecute, as they did his servants the prophets.
Note, The messengers of God’s wrath will be sent
against those that would not receive the messengers
ot his mercy. One way or other, God will be
heeded, and will make men know that he is the
Lord. Nebuchadrezzar, though a stranger to the
true God, the God of Israel, nay, an enemy to him,
and afterward a rival with him, was yet, in the
descent he made upon this country, God’s servant,
accomplished his purpose, was employed by him,
and was an instrument in his hand for the correction
of his people. He was really serving God’s designs
when he thought he was serving his own ends.
Justly therefore does God here call himself, The
Lord of hosts, ( v . 8.) for here is an instance of his
sovereign dominion, not only over the inhabitants,
but over the armies, of this earth, of which he
makes what use he pleases. He has them all at his
command; the most potent and absolute monarchs
are his servants. Nebuchadrezzar, who is an in¬
strument of his wrath, is as truly his servant, as
Cyrus is an instrument of his mercy. The land of
Judah being to be m ule desolate, God here musters
his army that is to do it, gathers it together, takes
all the families of the north, if there be occasion
for them, leads them on as their Commander
in chief, brings them against this land, gives
them sufccess, not only against Judah and Jerusalem,
but against all the nations round about, that there
might be no dependence upon them as allies, or as¬
sistants against that threatening force. The utter
destruction of this and all the neighbouring lands is
here described, v. 9. — 11. It shall be total; The
whole land shall be a desolation; not only desolate,
but a desolation itself, both city and country shall
be laid waste, and all the wealth of both be made a
prey of ; it shall be lasting, even perpetual desola¬
tions; they shall continue so long in ruins, and after
long waiting there shall appear so little prospect of
relief, that every one shall call it per/iftual. This
desolation shall be the ruin of their credit among
their neighbours; it shall bury their honour in the
dust, shall make them an astonishment and an hiss¬
ing; every one will be amazed at them, and hiss
them off the stage of action with just disgrace, for
deserting God who would have been their protec¬
tion, for impostors who would certainly be their de¬
struction. It will likewise be the rum of all their
comfort among themselves; it shall be a final period
of all their joy; I will take from them the voice of
mirth, hang their harps on the willow trees, and put
them out of tune for songs. I will take from them
the voice of mirth; they shall neither have cause
foi it, nor hearts for it. They would not hear the
voice of God’s word, and therefore the voice of mirth
shall no more be heard among them. They shall
be deprived of food; the sound of the millstones
shall not be heard, for when the enemy has seized
AH, XXV.
their stores, the sound of the grinding must needs
be low, Eccl. xii. 4. An end shall be put to all
business, there shall not be seen the light of a candle,
fur there shall be no work to be done worth candle¬
light. And, lastly, they shall be deprived of their
liberty; Those nations shall serve the king of Baby¬
lon 7 0 years. The fixing of the time during which
the captivity should last, would be of great use, not
only for the confirmation of the prophecy, when the
event (which in this particular could by no human
sagacity be foreseen) shculd exactly answer the
prediction, but for the comfort cf the people of God
in their calamity, and the encouragement of faith
and prayer. Daniel, who was himself a prophet,
had an eye to it, Dan. ix. 2. Nay, God himself had
an eye to it, (2 Chron. xxx\i. 22.) for then fore he
stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, that the word spoken
by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished.
Known unto God are all his works, from the begin¬
ning of the world; which appears by tiffs, that,
when he has thought fit, some of them have been
made known to his servants the prophets, and by
them to his church.
2. The ruin of Babylon, at last, is here likewise
foretold, as it had been, long before, by Isaiah, v.
12. — 14. The destroyers must themselves be de¬
stroyed, and the rod thrown into the fire, when the
correcting-work is done with it. This shall be done
when 70 years are acctimplished, for the destruction
of Babylon must make way for the deliverance of
the captives. It is a great doubt when these 70
years commence; some date them from the capti¬
vity in the 4th year of Jehoiakim, and 1st cf Nebu¬
chadrezzar; others from the captivity of Jehoiachin
eight years after. I rather incline to the former,
because then these nations began to serve the king
of Babylon, and because usually God has taken the
earliest time from which to reckon the accomplish¬
ment of a promise of mercy, as will appear in com¬
puting the 400 years’ servitude in Egypt. And if
so, 18 or 19 years of the 70 were run out before Je¬
rusalem and the temple were quite destroyed in the
11th year of Zedekiah. However that be, when
the time, the set time, to favour Zion is come, the
king of Babylon must be visited, and all the in¬
stances of his tyranny reckoned for; then that
nation shall be punished for their iniquity, as the
other nations have been punished for theirs. That
land must then be a perpetual desolation, such as
they had made other lands; for the Judge of all the
earth will botli do right, and avenge wrong, as King
of nations, and King of saints. Let proud conquerors
and oppressors be moderate in the use of their
power and success, for it will come at last to their
own turn to suffer; their day will come to fall. In
this destruction of Babylon, which was to be brought
about by the Medes and Persians, reference shall
be had, (1.) To what God had said; I will bring
upon that land all my words; for all the wealth and
honour of Babylon shall be sacrificed to the truth
of the divine predictions, and all its power broken,
rather than one iota or tittle of God’s word shall fall
to the ground. The same Jeremiah that prophesied
the destruction of other nations by the Chaldeans,
foretold also the destructian of the Chaldeans them¬
selves; and this must be brought upon them, v. 13. It
is with reference to this very event, that God says,
I will confirm the word of my servant, and per¬
form the counsel of my messengers, Isa. xliv. 26.
(2.) To what they had done; (n. 14.) I will recom¬
pense them according to their deeds, by which they
transgressed the law of God, even then when they
were made to serve his purposes. They had made
many nations to serve them, and trampled upon
them with the greatest insolence imaginable: but
now that the measure of their iniquity is full, many
nations and great kings, that are in alliance with,
443
JEREMIAH, XXV.
V
and come in to the assistance of, Cyras king of
Persia, sh.dl serve the pi selves of them also, shall
make themselves masters of their country, enrich
themselves with their spoils, and make them the
footstool by which to mount the throne of universal
monarchy. They shall make use of them for ser¬
vants anil soldiers. He that tends into captivity,
shall go into captivity.
15. For thus saith the Lord God of Israel
unto me, Take the wine-cup of this fury at
my hand, and cause all the nations to whom
I send thee, to drink it. 16. And they shall
drink, and be moved, and be mad, because
of the sword that 1 will send among them.
17. Then took 1 the cup at the Loud’s
hand, and made all the nations to drink,
unto whom the Lord had sent me: 18.
To wit , Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah,
and the kings thereof, and the princes
thereof, to make them a desolation, an as¬
tonishment, a hissing, and a curse ; (as it is
this day;) 19. Pharaoh king of Egypt,
and his servants, and his princes, and all
his people ; 20. And all the mingled peo¬
ple, and all the kings of the land of Uz,
and all the kings of the land ol the Philis¬
tines, and Ashkelon, and Azzah, and Ekron,
and the remnant ol Ashdod. 21. Edom,
and Moab, and the children of Ammon,
22. And all the kings of Tyrus, and all the
kings of Zidon, and the kings ol the isles
which are beyond the sea, 23. Dedan,
and Tema, and Buz, and all that are in the
utmost corners, 24. And all the kings ol
Arabia, and all the kings of the mingled
people that dwell in the desert, 25. And
all the kings of Zimri, and all the kings of
Elam, and all the kings of the Medes, 26.
And all the kings of the north, far and near,
one with another, and all the kingdoms of
the world, which are upon the face of the
earth : and the king of Sheshach shall drink
after them. 27." Therefore thou shalt
say unto them, Thus saith the Lord of
hosts, the God of Israel, Drink ye, and be
drunken, and spue, and fall, and rise no
more, because of the sword which I will
send among you. 28. And it shall be, if they
refuse to take the cup at thy hand to drink,
then shalt thou- say unto them, Thus saith
the Lord of hosts, Ye shall certainly drink.
29. For, lo, I begin to bring evil on the city
which is called by my name, and should ye
be utterly unpunished? Ye shall not be un¬
punished': for I will call for a sword upon
all the inhabitants of the earth, saith the
Lord of hosts.
Under the similitude of a cup going round, which
all the company must drink of, is here represented
the universal desolation that was now coming upon
that part of the world, which Nebuchadrezzar, who
just now began to reign and act, was to be the in¬
strument of, and which should at length recoil upon
his own country. The cup in the vision is to be a
sworcl in the accomplishment of it: so it is explain¬
ed, v. 16. It is the sword that I will send among
them, the sword of war, that should be irresistibly
strong and implacably cruel. 1 Observe,
1. Whence this destroying sword should ccme;
from the hand of God, it is the sword of the Lord,
i (Vi. xlvii. 6.) bathed in heaven, Isa. xxxiv. 5.
Wicked men are made use of as his sword, Ps. xvii.
13. It is the wine-cup of his Jury. It is the just
anger of God that sends this judgment; the nations
have provoked him by their sins, and they must fall
under the tokens of his wrath. These are compared
to some intoxicating liquor, which they shall be
forced to drink of, as formerly condemned male¬
factors were sometimes executed by being com¬
pelled to drink poison. The, wicked are said to
drink the wrath of the Almighty, Job xxi. 20. Rev.
xiv. 10. Their share of troubles in this world is
represented bv the dregs of a cup of red wine full
of mixture, Ps. lxxv. 8. See Ps. xi. 6. The
wrath of God in this world is but as a cup, in com¬
parison of the full streams of it in the ether world.
2. By whose hand it should be sent them; by the
hand of Jeremiah, as the judge set over the nations,
( ch . i. 10.) to pass this sentence upon them; and by
the hand of Nebuchadrezzar, as the executioner.
What a much greater figure then does the poor pro¬
phet make, than what the potent prince makes, if
we look upon their relation to God, though in the
eye of the world it was the reverse of it ! Jeremiah
must take the cup at God’s /.and, and compel the
nations to driuk it. He foretells no hurt to them,
but what God appoints him to fortell; .and what is
foretold by a divine authority, will certainly be ful¬
filled by a divine power.
3. On whom it should be sent; on all the nations
within the verge of Israel’s acquaintance, and the
lines of their communication. Jeremiah took the
cup, and made all nations to drink of it, that is, he
prophesied concerning each of the nations here
mentioned, that they should share in this great de¬
solation that was coming. Jerusalem and the cities
of Judah are put first; (y. 18.) (or judgment begins
at the house of God, (1 Pet. iv. 17.) at the sanc¬
tuary, Ezek. ix. 6. Whether Nebuchadrezzar
had his eye principally upon Jerusalem and Judah
in this expedition or no, does not appear; probably
he had; tor it was as considerable as any of the na¬
tions here mentioned; however, God had his eye
principally to them. And this part of the prophecy
was already begun to be accomplished; this is de¬
noted by that melancholy parenthesis, ( as it is this
day,) for in the 4th year ot Jehoiakim things were
come into a very bad posture, and all the founda¬
tions were cut of course. Pharaoh, king of Kgypt,
comes next, because the Jews trasted to that broken
reed; (r>. 19.) the remains of them fled to Egypt,
and then Jeremiah particularly foretold the destruc¬
tion of that country, ch. xliii. 10, 11. All the other
nations that bordered upon Canaan, must pledge
Jerusalem in this bitter cup, this cup of trembling.
The mingled people, the Arabians, so some; some
rovers ot divers nations that lived by rapine, so
others; the kings of the land of Uz, joined to the
country of the Edomites. The Philistines had
been vexatious to Israel, but now their cities and
their lords became a prey to this mighty conqueror.
Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Zidon, are places
well known to border upon Israel; the Isles beyond,
or beside, the sea, are supposed to be those parts of
Phoenicia and Syria, that lay upon the coast of the
Mediterranean sea. Dedan, and the other countries
mentioned, (y. 23, 24.) seem to have lain upon the
confines of Idumea and Arabia the desert. Those
of Elam are the Persians, with whom the Medes
449
JEREMIAH, XXV.
are joined, now looked upon as inconsiderable, and
yet afterward able to make reprisals upon Babylon
For themselves and all their neighbours. The kings
of the north, that lay nearer to Babylon, and others
that lay up at some distance, will be sure to be seized
on, and made a prey of, by the victorious sword of
Nebuchadrezzar. Nay, he shall push on his victo¬
ries with such incredible fury and success, that all
the kingdoms of the world that were then and there
known, should become sacrifices to his ambition.
Thus Alexander is said to have conquered the
world, and the Roman empire is called the world,
Luke ii. 1. Or it may be taken as reading the
doom of all the kingdoms of the earth; one time or
other they shall feel the dreadful effects of war.
The world has been, and will be, a great cock-pit,
while men’s lusts war as they do in their members,
Jam. iv. 1. But that the conquerors may see their
fate with the conquered, it concludes, The king of
Sheshach shall drink after them, that is, the king
of Babylon himself, who has given his neighbours
all this trouble and vexation, shall at length have
it return upon his own head. That by Sheshach is
meant Babylon, is plain, from eh. li. 41. but whether
it was another name of the same city, or the name
of another city of the same kingdom, is uncertain.
Babylon’s ruin was foretold, x'. 12, 13. Upon this
prophecy of its being the author of the ruin of so
many nations, it was very fitly repeated here again.
4. What should be the effect of it. The desola¬
tions which the sword should make in all these
kingdoms, are represented by the consequences of
excessive drinking; ( v . 16. ) They shall drink and
be moved, and be mad. They shall be drunken
and s/iue, and fall and rise no more, v. 27. Now
this may serve, ( 1. ) To make us loathe the sin of
drunkenness, that the consequences of it are made
use of to set forth a most woful and miserable con¬
dition. Drunkenness deprives men, for the pre¬
sent, of the use of their reason, makes them mad.
It takes from them likewise that which, next to
reason, is the most valuable blessing, and that is
health; it makes them sick, and endangers the
bones and the life. Men in drink often fall, and
rise no more; it is a sin that is its own punishment.
I low wretchedly are they intoxicated and besotted,
that suffer themselves at any time to be intoxicated,
especially to be, by the frequent commission of this
sin, besotted .with wine or strong drink! (2.) To
make us dread the judgments of war. When God
sends the sword upon a nation, with warrant to
make it desolate, it soon becomes like a drunken
man, filled with confusion at the alarms of war, put
into a hurry; its counsellors mad, and at their wit’s
end, staggering in all the measures they take, all
the motions they make; sick at heart with continual
vexation; vomiting up. the riches they have greedily
swallowed down; (Job xx. 15. ) falling down before
the enemy, and as unable to get up again, or do any
thing to help themselves, as a man dead drunk is,
Hab. ii. 16.
5. The undoubted certainty of it, with the reason
given for it, v. 28, 29. They will refuse to take
the cup at thy hand; not only they will be loath that
the judgment should come, but they will be loath to
believe that ever it will come; they will not give
credit to the prediction of so despicable a man as
Jeremiah; but he must tell them that it is the word
of the Lord of hosts, he hath said it; and it is in
vain for them to struggle with Omnipotence; Ye
shall certainly drink. The prophet must give them
this reason, It is a time of visitation, it is a reckon¬
ing day, and Jerusalem has been called to an ac¬
count already; I begin to bring evil on the city that
is called by my name; its relation to me will not
exempt it from punishment, and should ye be utterly
unpunished? No, If this be done in the green tree,
Vol. iv. — 3 L
what will be done in the dry? If they who have
some good in them, smart so severely for the evil
that is found in them, can they expect to escape,
who have worse evils, and no good, found among
them? If Jerusalem be punished for learning idola¬
try of the nations, shall not the nations be punished
of whom they learned it? No doubt they shall; /
will call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the
earth, for they have helped to debauch the inhabi¬
tants of Jerusalem.
Upon this whole matter we may observe, (1.)
That there is a God that judges in the eaith, to
whom all the nations of the earth are accountable,
and by whose judgment they must abide. (2.)
That God can easily bring to ruin the greatest na¬
tions, the most numerous and powerful, and such as
have been most secure. (3.) That those w.ho have
been vexatious and mischievous to the people of
God, will be reckoned with for it at last. Many of
these nations had in their turns given disturbance to
Israel, but now comes destruction on them. The
year of the Redeemer will come, even the year of
recompenses for the controversy of Zion. (4. ) That
the burthen of the word of the Lord will at last be¬
come the burthen of his judgments. Isaiah had
prophesied long since against most of these nations,
\ch. xiii. &c.) and now at length all his prophecies
will have their complete fulfilling. (5. ) That those
who are ambitious of power and dominion, common¬
ly become the troublers of the earth and the plagues
of their generation; Nebuchadrezzar was so proud
of his might, that he had no sense of right. These
are the men that turned the world upside down, and
yet expect to be admired and adored. Alexander
thought himself a great prince, when others thought
him no better than a great pirate. (6.) That the
greatest pomp and power of this world are of very
uncertain continuance. Before Nebuchadrezzar’s
greater force kings themselves must yield, and be¬
come captives.
30. Therefore prophesy thou against them
all these words, and say unto them, The
Lord shall roar from on high, and utter his
voice from his holy habitation; he shall
mightily roar upon his habitation ; he shall
give a shout, as they that tread the grapes,
against all the inhabitants of the earth. 31.
A noise shall come even to the ends of the
earth: for the Lord hath a controversy
with the nations; he will plead with all
flesh: he will give them that are wicked to
the sword, saith the Lord. 32. Thus saith
the Lord of hosts, Behold, evil shall go
forth from nation to nation, and a great
whirlwind shall be raised up from the coasts
of the earth. 33. And the slain of the
Lord shall be at that day from one end of
the earth even unto the other end of the
earth: they shall not be lamented, neither
gathered, nor buried; they shall be dung
upon the ground. 34. Howl, ye shepherds,
and cry; and wallow yourselves in the ashes,
ye principal of the flock: for the days of
your slaughter and of your dispersions are
accomplished; and ye shall fall like a plea¬
sant vessel. 35. And the shepherds shal’
have no way to flee, nor the principal of
the flock to escape. 36. A voice of the erv
450
JEREMIAH, XXV.
of the shepherds, and a howling of the prin¬
cipal of the flock, shall be heard: for the
Lord hath spoiled their pasture. 37. And
the peaceable habitations are cut down, be¬
cause of the fierce anger of the Lord. 38.
He hath forsaken his covert, as the lion :
for their land is desolate, because of the
fierceness of the oppressor, and because of
his fierce anger.
We have in these verses, a further description of
those terrible desolations which the king ot Baby¬
lon with his armies should make in all the countries
and nations round about Jerusalem. In Jerusalem
God had erected his temple; there were his oracles
and ordinances which the neighbouring nations
should have attended to, and might have received
benefit by; thither they should have applied them¬
selves for the knowledge of God and their duty, and
then they might have had reason to bless God for
their neighbourhood to Jerusalem; but they, instead
of that, taking all opportunities either to debauch or
to disturb that holy city, when God came to reckon
with Jerusalem, (because it learned so much of the
way of the nations,') he reckoned with the nations
because they learned so little of the way of Jeru¬
salem.
They will soon be aware of Nebuchadnezzar’s
making war upon them; but the prophet is here
bidden to tell them that it is God himself that makes
war upon them, a God with whom there is no con¬
tending.
1. The war is here proclaimed; (t\ 30.) The
Lord shall roar from on high; not from mount Zion
and Jerusalem, (as Joel iii. 16. Amos i. 2.) but from
heaven, from his holy habitation there; for now Je¬
rusalem is one of the places against which he roars;
he shall mightily roar upon his habitation on earth
from that above. He has been long silent, and
seemed not to take notice of the wickedness of the
nations; the times of this ignorance God winked at;
but now he shall give a shout, as the assailants in
battle do, against all the inhabitants of the earth, to
whom it shall be a shout of terror, and yet a shout
of joy in heaven, as theirs that tread the grapes; for
when God is reckoning with the proud enemies of
his kingdom among men, there is a great voice of
much people heard in heaven, saying, Hallelujah,
Rev. xix. 1. He roars as a lion, (Amos iii. 4, 8.)
as a lion that has forsaken his covert, {v. 38.) and
is going abroad to seek his prey, upon which he
roars, that he may the more easily seize it.
2. The manifesto is here published, showing the
causes and reasons why God proclaims this war;
(y. 31.) The Lord has a controversy with the na¬
tions; he has just cause to contend with them, and
he will take this way of pleading with them. His
quarrel with them is, in one word, for their wicked¬
ness, their contempt of him, and his authority over
them, and kindness to them; He will give them that
are wicked to the sword. They have provoked
God to anger, and thence comes all this destruction ;
it is because of the fierce anger of the Lord, (v. 37.)
and again (v. 38. ) the fierceness of the oppressor;
or, as it might be better read, the fierceness of the op¬
pressing sword (for the word is feminine) is because
of his fierce anger; and we are sure that he is never
angry without cause; but who knows the power of
his anger?
3. The alarm is here given and taken; A noise
will come even to the ends of the earth, so loud shall
it roar, so far shall it reach, v. 31. The alarm is
not given by sound of trumpet, or beat of dram, but
by a whirlwind, a great whirlwind, storm or tem¬
pest, which shall fie raised up from the coasts, the
remote coasts of the earth, v. 32. The Chaldean
army shall be like a hurricane raised in the north,
but thence carried on with incredible fierceness and
swiftness, bearing down all before it. It is like the
whirlwind out of which God answered Job, which
was exceeding terrible, Job xxxvii. 1. — xxxviii. 1.
And when the wrath of God thus roars like a lion
from heaven, no marvel if it be echoed with shrieks
from earth; for who can choose but tremfile when
God thus speaks in displeasure? See Hosea xi. 10.
Now the shepherds shall howl and cry, the kings
and princes, and great ones of the earth, the prin¬
cipal of the flock; they used to be the most coura¬
geous and secure, but now their hearts shall fail
them, they shall wallow themselves in the ashes, v.
34. _ Seeing themselves utterly unafile to make head
against the enemy, and seeing their country, which
they have the charge of, and a concern for, inevita¬
bly ruined, they shall abandon themselves to sor¬
row. There shall be a voice of the cry of the shep¬
herds, and a howling of the principal of the flock
shall be heard, v. 36. Those are great calamities
indeed, that strike such a terror upon the great
men, and put them into this consternation; The
Lord hath spoiled their pasture, in which they fed
their flocks, and out of which they fed themselves;
the spoiling of that makes them cry out thus. Per¬
haps, carrying on the metaphor of a lion roaring, it
alludes to the great fright that shepherds are in
when they hear a roaring lion coming toward their
flocks, and find they have no way to flee (v. 35. )
for their own safety, neither can the principal of
the flock escape. The enemy will be so numerous,
so. furious, so sedulous, and the extent of their ar¬
mies so vast, that it will be impossible to avoid fall¬
ing into their hands. Note, As we cannot outface,
so we cannot outrun, the judgments of Gcd. This
is that for which the shepherds howl and cry.
4. The progress of this war is here described;
(t>. 32.) Behold, evil shall go forth from nation to
nation; as the cup goes round, every nation shall
have its share, and take its turn, because one does
not take warning by the calamities of another to re¬
pent and reform. Nay, as if this were to be a little
representation of the last and general judgment, it
shall reach from one end of the earth even unto the
other end of the earth, v. 33. The day of vengeance
is in his heart, and now his hand shall find out all
his enemies wherever they are, Ps. xxi. 8. Note,
When our neighbour’s house is on fire, it is time to
be concerned for our own. When one nation is a
seat of war, every neighbouring nation should hear,
and fear, and make its peace with God.
5. The dismal consequences of this war are here
foretold; The days of slaughter and dispersions are
accomplished, they are fully come, (t>. 34.) the time
fixed in the divine counsel for the slaughter of some
and the dispersion of the rest, which will make the
nations completely desolate. Multitudes shall fall
by the sword of the merciless Chaldeans, so that the
slain of the Lord shall be every where found; they
are slain by commission from him, and are sacri
ficed to his justice. The slain for sin are the slain of
the Lord. To complete the misery of their slaugh¬
ter, they shall not be lamented in particular, so gen¬
eral shall the matter of lamentation be. Nay, they
shall not be gathered up, nor buried, for they shall
have no friends left to do it, and the enemies shall
not have so much humanity in them as to do it; and
then they shall be as dung upon the earth, so vile
and noisome: and it is well if, as dung manures the
earth, and makes it fruitful, so these horrid specta¬
cles, which lie as monuments of divine justice, might
be a means to a^vaken the inhabitants of the earth to
learn righteousness. The effect of this war will be
the desolation of the whole land that is the seat of it,
(it. 38.) one land after another. But here are two
451
JEREMIAH, XXVI.
expressions more, that seem to make the case in a
particular manner piteous, (1.) Ye shall fall like a
pleasant -vessel, v. 34. The most desirable persons
among them who most valued themselves, and were
most valued, shall fall by the sword; who were
looked upon as vessels of honour. Ye shall fall as a
Venice glass or a China dish, which is scon broken
all to pieces: even the tender and delicate shall
share in the common calamity; the sword devours
one as well as another. (2.) Even the peaceable
habitations are cut down. Those that used to be
quiet, and not molested, the habitations in which ye
have long dwelt in peac.-, shall now be no longer
such, but cut down by the war; or, Those who used
to be quiet, and not molesting any of their neigh- I
hours, those who lived in peace, easily, and gave no
provocation to any, even those shall not escape.
This is one of the direful effects of war, that even
those who were most harmless and inoffensive suf¬
fer hard things. Blessed be God, there is a peacea¬
ble habitation above for all the sons of peace, which
is out of the reach of fire and sword.
CHAP. XXVI.
As in the historv of the Ads of the Apostles , that of their
preaching and that of their suffering are interwoven, so
it is in the account we have of the prophet Jeremiah;
witness this chapter, where we are told, I. How faith¬
fully he preached, v. 1 . . 6. II. How spitefully he was
persecuted for so doing by the priests and the prophets,
v. 7 . . 1 1. III. How bravely he stood to his doctrine, in
the face of his persecutors, v. 12 . . 15. IV. How won¬
derfully he was protected and delivered by the prudence
of the princes and elders, v. 16. . 19. Though Urijah,
another prophet, was about the same time put to death
by Jehoiakim, ( v. 20 . . 23.) yet Jeremiah met with those
that sheltered him, v. 24.
1 . TN the beginning of the reign of Jehoia-
JL kina, the son of Josiah king of Judah,
came this word from the Lord, saying, 2.
Thus saith the Lord, Stand in the court of
the Lord’s house, and speak unto all the
cities of Judah, which come to worship in
the Lord’s house, all the words that I com¬
mand thee to speak unto them : diminish not
a word : 3. If so be they will hearken, and
turn every man from his evil way, that I
may repent me of the evil, which I purposed
to do unto them because of the evil of their
doings. 4. And thou shalt say unto them,
Thus saith the Lord, If ye will not hearken
to me, to walk in my law which I have set
before you, 5. To hearken to the words
of my servants the prophets, whom I sent
unto you, both rising up early, and sending J
them, but ye have not hearkened ; 6. Then
will I make this house like Shiloh, and will
make this city a curse to all the nations of
the earth.
We have here the sermon that Jeremiah preach¬
ed, which gave such offence, that he was in danger
of losing his life for it. It is here left upon record,
as it were, by way of appeal to the judgment of
impartial men in all ages, whether Jeremiah was
worthv to die for delivering such a message as this
from God, and whether his pei-secutors were not
very wicked and unreasonable men.
I. God directed him where to preach this sermon,
and when, and to what auditorv, v. 2. Let not any
censure Jeremiah as indiscreet in the choice of place
•>nd time, nor say that he might have delivered his
message more privately, in a comer, among his
friends that he could confide in, and that he deserved
to smart for not acting more cautiously; for God
gave him orders to preach in the court of the Lord’s
house, which was within the peculiar jurisdiction
of his sworn enemies the priests, and who would
therefore take themselves to be in a particular
manner affronted. He must preach this, as it
should seem, at the time of one of the most solemn
festivals, when persons were come from all the
cities of Judah to worship in the Lord’s house.
These worshippers, we may suppose, had a great
veneration for their priests, would credit the cha¬
racter they gave of men, and be exasperated against,
those whom they defamed, and would, consequently,
side with them and strengthen their hands against
Jeremiah: but none of these things must move him
or daunt him ; in the face of all this danger, he must
preach this sermon, which, if it were not convincing,
would be very provoking. And because the prophet
might be in some temptation to palliate the matter,
and make it better to his hearers than God had
made it to him, to exchange an offensive expression
! for one more plausible, therefore God charges him
particularly not to diminish a word, but to speak
all the things, nay, and all the words, that he had
commanded him. Note, Gcd’s ambassadors must
keep close to their instructions, and not in the least
vary from them, either to please men, or to save
themselves from harm. 1 hey must neither add
nor diminish, Deut. iv. 2.
II. God directed him what to preach, and it is
that which could not give offence to any but such as
were resolved to go on still in their trespasses.
1. He must assure them that if they would repent
of their sins, and turn from them, though they
were in imminent danger of ruin, and desolating
judgments were just at the door, yet a stop should
be put to them, and God would proceed no fur¬
ther in his controversy with them; (x\ 3.) this
was the main thing God intended in sending him to
them, to try if they would return from their sins,
that so God might turn from his anger, and turn
away the judgments that threatened them; which
he was not only willing, but very desirous, to do, as
soon as he could do it without prejudice to the
honour of his justice and holiness. See how God
waits to be gracious, waits till we are duly qualified,
till we are fit for him to be gracious to, and in the
mean time tries a variety of methods to bring us to
be so.
2. He must, on the other hand, assure them that
if they continued obstinate to all the calls God gave
them, and would persist in their disobedience, it
would certainly end in the ruin of their city and
temple, v. 4. — 6. (1.) That which God required
of them, was, that they should be observant of what
he had said to them, both by the written word and
by his ministers; that they should walk in all his law
which he set before them, the law of Moses, and the
ordinances and commandments of it; and that they
should hearken to the words of his servants the pro¬
phets, who pressed nothing upon them but what
was agreeable to the law of Moses, which was set
before them as a touchstone to try the spirits by;
and by this they were distinguished from the false
prophets, who drew them from the law, instead of
drawing them to it. The law was what God him¬
self set before them. The prophets were his own
servants, and were immediately sent by him to
them, and sent with a great deal of care and con¬
cern, rising early to send them, lest they should
come too late, when their prejudices had got pos¬
session, and were become invincible. They had
hitherto been deaf both to the law and to the pro¬
phets; Ye have not hearkened; all he expects now,
is, that at length they should heed what he said,
452
JEREMIAH, XXVI.
and make his word their rule. A reasonable de¬
mand! (2.) That which is threatened in case of
refusal, is, that this city, and the temple in it, shall
fare as their predecessors did, Shiloh and the taber¬
nacle there, for a like refusal to walk in God’s law
and hearken to his prophets, then when the present
dispensation of prophecy just began in Samuel.
Now could a sentence be expressed more unex-
ceptionably? Is it not a rule of justice, Parium par
sit ratio — Let those whose cases are the same, be
dealt with alike? If Jerusalem be like Shiloh in
respect of sin, why should it not be like Shiloh in
respect of punishment? Can any other be expected?
This was not the first time he had given them warn¬
ing to this effect; see ch. vii. 12. — 14. When the
temple, which was the glory of Jerusalem, was de¬
stroyed, the city was thereby made a curse; for the
temple was that which made it a blessing. If the
salt lose that savour, it is thenceforth good for
nothing. It shall be a curse, it shall be the pattern
of a curse; if a man would curse any city, he would
say, God make it like Jerusalem! Note, Those that
will not be subject to the commands of God, make
themselves subject to the curse of God.
7. So the priests, and the prophets, and
all the people, heard Jeremiah speaking
these words in the house of the Lord. 8.
Now it came to pass, when Jeremiah had
made an end of speaking all that the Lord
hacl commanded him to speak unto all the
people, that the priests, and the prophets,
and all the people, took him, saying, Thou
shalt surely die. 9. Why hast thou prophe¬
sied in the name of the Lord, saying, This
house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall
be desolate without an inhabitant? And all
the people were gathered against Jeremiah
in the house of the Lord. 10. When the
princes of Judah heard these things, then
they came up from the king’s house unto
the house of the Lord, and sat down in the
entry of the new gate of the Lord’s house.
1 1 . Then spake the priests and the prophets
unto the princes, and to all the people, say¬
ing, This man is worthy to die; for he hath
prophesied against this city, as ye have
heard with your ears. 12. Then spake
Jeremiah unto all the princes, and to all the
people, saying, The Lord sent me to pro¬
phesy against this house, and against this
city, all the words that ye have heard. 1 3.
Therefore now amend your ways and your
doings, and obey the voice of the Lord
your God; and the Lord will repent him
of the evil that he hath pronounced against
you. 1 4. As for me, behold, I am in your
hand ; do with me as seemeth good and meet
unto you: 15. But know ye for certain,
that, if ye put me to death, ye shall surely
bring innocent blood upon yourselves, and
upon this city, and upon the inhabitants
thereof: for of a truth the Lord hath sent
me unto you, to speak all these words in
your ears.
One would have hoped that such a sermon as that
in the foregoing verses, so plain and practical, so
rational and pathetic, and delivered in God’s name,
should have wrought upon even this people, espe¬
cially meeting them now at their devotions, and
should have prevailed with them to repent and
reform; but instead of awakening their convictions,
it did but exasperate their corruptions, as appears
by this account of the effect cf it.
I. Jeremiah is charged with it as a crime, that he
had preached such a sermon, and is apprehended
for it as a criminal. The priests and false prophets,
and people, heard him speak these words, v. 7.
They had patience, it seems, to hear him out, did
not disturb him when he was preaching, nor give
him any interruption till he had made an end of
speaking all that the Lord commanded him to speak:
so far they were fairer with him than some cf the
persecutors of God’s ministers have been; they let
him say all he had to say, and yet perhaps with a
bad design, in hopes to have something worse yet
to lay to his charge; but, having no worse, this shall
suffice to ground an indictment upon; He hath said.
This house shall be like Shiloh. See how unfair
they are in representing his words. He had said,
in God’s name, If ye will not hearken to me, then
will I make this house like Shiloh; but they leave
out God’s hand in the desolation, (/ will make it so,)
and their own hand in it, in not hearkening to the
voice of God, and charge it upon him, that he
blasphemed this holy place; the crime charged both
on our Lord Jesus and on Stephen; He said, This
house shall be like Shiloh. Well might he complain,
as David does, (Ps. lvi. 5.) Every day they wrest
my words; and we must not think it strange if we,
and what we say and do, be thus misrepresented.
When the accusation was so weakly grounded, nc
marvel that the sentence passed upon it was unjust.
Thou shalt surely die. What he had said agreed
with what God had said when he took possession
of the temple, (1 Kings ix. 6. — 8.) If you shall at
all turn from following after me, then this house
shall be abandoned; and yet he is condemned to die
for saying it. It is not out of any concern for the
honour of the temple, that they appear thus warm,
but because they are resolved not to part with their
sins, in which they flatter themselves with a conceit
that the temple of the Lord will protect them;
therefore, right or wrong. Thou shalt surely die.
This outcry of the priests and prophets laised the
mob, and all the people were gathered together
against Jeremiah, in a popular tumult, ready to
pull him to pieces; were gathered about him; (so
some read it;) they flocked together, some crying-
one thing, and some another. The people that were
at first present, were hot against him, (v. 8.) but
their clamours drew more together, only to see
what the matter was.
II. He is arraigned and indicted for it before the
highest court of judicature they had. Here, 1. The
princes of Judah were his judges, v. 10. Those
that filled the thrones of judgment, the thrones of
the house of David, the elders of Israel, they, hear¬
ing of this tumult in the temple, came up from the
king’s house, where they usually sat near the court,
to the house of the Lord, to inquire into this matter,,
and to see that nothing was done disorderly. They
sat down in the entry of the new gate of the Lord’s
house, and held a court, as it were, bv a special
commission of Oyer and Terminer. 2. The priests
and prophets were his persecutors and accusers,
and were violently set against him. They appealed
to the princes and to all the people, to the court and
the jury, whether this man be not worthy to die, v.
11. The corrupt priests and counterfeit prophets
have always been the most bitter enemies of the
prophets of the Lord; they had ends of their own to
453
JEREMIAH, XXVI.
serve, which they thought such preaching as this
would be an obstruction to. When Jeremiah pro¬
phesied in the house of the king concerning the fall
of the royal family, (ch. xxii. 1.) the court, though
very corrupt, bore it patiently, and we do not find
that they persecuted him for it; but when he comes
into the house of the Lord, and touches the copy-
hold of the priests, and contradicts the lies and flat¬
teries of the false prophets, then he is- adjudged
worthy to die. For the prophets prophesied falsely,
and the priests bore rule by their means, Jer. v. 31.
Observe, When Jeremiah is indicted before the
princes, the stress of his accusation is laid upon
what he said concerning the city, because they
thought the princes would be most concerned about
that. But concerning the words spoken, they ap¬
peal to the people, “Ye have heard what he hath
said, let it be given in evidence.”
III. Jeremiah makes his defence before the prin¬
ces and the people. He does not go about to deny
the words, or to diminish aught from them ; what
he has said he will stand to, though it cost him his
life; he owns that he had prophesied against this
house, and this city. But,
3. He asserts that he did this by good authority;
not maliciously or seditiously, not out of any ill-will
to his country, or any disaffection to the government
in church or state, but, The Lord sent me to pro¬
phesy thus; so he begins his apology, (u. 12.) and
so he concludes it, for this is that he resolves to
abide by as sufficient to bear him out; (y. 15.) Of a
truth the Lord hath sent me unto you, to speak all
these words. As long as ministers keep close to the
instructions they have from heaven, they need not
fear the opposition they may meet with from hell or
earth. He pleads that he is but a messenger, and
if he faithfully deliver his message, he must bear
no blame; but he is a messenger from the Lord, to
whom they were accountable as well as he, and
therefore might demand regard. If he speak but
what God appointed him to speak, he is under the
divine protection, and whatever affront they offer
to the ambassador, will be resented by the Prince
that sent him.
2. He shows them that he did it with a good de¬
sign, and that it was their fault if they did not make a
good use of it. It was said, not by way of fatal sen¬
tence, but of fair warning; if they would take the
warning, they might prevent the execution of the
sentence, v. 13. Shall I take it ill of a man that
tells me of my danger, while I have an opportunity
of avoiding it, and not rather return him thanks for
it, as the greatest kindness he could do me? “I have
indeed (says Jeremiah) prophesied against this city;
but if you will now amend your ways and your
doings, the threatened ruin shall be prevented,
which was the thing I aimed at in giving you the
warning.” Those are very unjust who complain
of ministers for preaching hell and damnation, when
it is only to keep them from that place of torment,
and to bring them to heaven and salvation.
3. He therefore warns them of their danger, if
they proceed against him; (v. 14.) ‘ ‘As for me, the
matter is not great what becomes of me; behold, I
am in your hand; you know I am; I neither have
any power, nor can make any interest, to oppose
you, nor is it so much my concern to save my own
life; do with me as seems meet unto you; If I be led
to the slaughter, it shall be as a lamb.” Note, It
becomes God’s ministers, that are warm in preach¬
ing, to be calm in suffering, and to behave submis¬
sively to the powers that are over them, though
they be persecuting powers. But for themselves,
he tells them that it is at their peril if they put him
to death; Ye shall surely bring innocent blood upon
yourselves, v. 15. They might think that killing
the prophet would help to defeat the prophecy, but
they would prove wretchedly deceived, it would but
add to their guilt, and aggravate their ruin. Their
own consciences could not but tell them, that if
Jeremiah was (as certainly he was) sent of God to
bring them this message, it was at their utmost
eril if they treated him for it as a malefactor.
’hose that persecute God’s ministers, hurt not them
so much as themselves.
16. Then said the princes and all the peo¬
ple unto the priests and to the prophets, This
man is not worthy to die ; for he hath spo¬
ken to us in the name of the Lord our God.
1 7. Then rose up certain of the elders of the
land, and spake to all the assembly of the
people, saying, 1 8. Micah the Morasthite
prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of
Judah, and spake to all the people of Judah,
saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Zion
shall be ploughed like afield, and Jerusalem
shall become heaps, and the mountain of
the house as the high places of a forest. 19.
Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah
put him at all to death? did he not fear the
Lord, and besought the Lord, and the
Lord repented him of the evil which he
had pronounced against them? Thus might
we procure great evil against our souls. 20.
And there was also a man that prophesied
in the name of the Lord, Urijah the son
of Shemaiah of Kirjath-jearim, who pro¬
phesied against this city, and against this
land, according to all the words of Jere¬
miah: 21. And when Jehoiakim the king,
with all his mighty men, and all the princes,
heard his words, the king sought to put him
to death; but when Urijah heard it, he was
afraid, and fled, and went into Egypt; 22.
And Jehoiakim the king sent men into
Egypt ; namely, Elnathan the son of Aeh-
bor, and certain men with him into Egypt:
23. And they fetched, forth Urijah out of
Egypt; and brought him unto Jehoiakim
the king, who slew him with the sword, and
cast his dead body into the graves of the
common people. 24. Nevertheless, the hand
of Ahikam the son of Shaphan was with
Jeremiah, that they should not give him into
the hand of the people to put him to death.
Here is, 1. The acquitting of Jeremiah from the
charge exhibited against him. He had indeed
spoken the words as they were laid in the indict¬
ment, but they are not looked upon to be seditious
or treasonable, ill-intended, or of any bad tendency,
and therefore the court and country agree to find
him net guilty. The priests and prophets, notwith¬
standing his rational plea for himself, continued to
demand judgment against him; but the princes, and
all the people, are clear in it, This man is not worthy
to die; (v. 16.) for (say they) he hath spoken to us,
not of himself, but in the name of the Lord our God.
And are they willing to own that he did indeed
speak to them in the name of the Lord, and that
that Lord is their God? Why then did they not
amend their ways and doings, and take the method
454
JEREMIAH, XXVI.
he prescribed to prevent the ruin of their country?
If they say, His prophecy is from heaven, it may
justly be asked. Why did ye not then believe him?
Matth. xxi. 25. Note, It is pity that those who
are so far convinced of the divine original of gospel¬
preaching, as to protect it from the malice of others,
do not submit to the power and influence of it them¬
selves.
2. A precedent quoted to justify them in acquit¬
ting Jeremiah. Some of the elders of the land, either
the princes before mentioned, or the more intelli¬
gent men of the people, stood up, and put the as¬
sembly in mind of a former case, as is usual with us
in giving judgment; for the wisdom of our predeces¬
sors is a direction to us. The case referred to is
that of Micah. We have extant the book of his
prophecy among the minor prophets. (1.) Was it
thought strange that Jeremiah prophesied against
this city and the temple? Micah did so before him,
even in the reign of Hezekiah, that reign of reforma¬
tion, v. 18. Micah said it as publicly as Jeremiah
had now spoken to the same purport, Zion shall be
ploughed like a field, the building shall be all de¬
stroyed, so that nothing shall hinder but it may be
ploughed; Jerusalem shall become heaps of ruins,
and the mountain of the house on which the temple
is built shall be as the high places of the forest, over¬
run with briers and thorns. That prophet not only
spake this, but wrote it, and left it on record; we
find it, Mic. iii. 12. By this it appears that a man
may be, as Micah was, a true prophet of the Lord,
and yet may prophesy the destruction of Zion and
Jerusalem. When we threaten secure sinners with
the taking away of the Spirit of God and the king¬
dom of God from them, and declining churches with
the removal of the candlestick, we say no more
than what has been said many a time, and what we
have warrant from the word of God to say. (2.)
Was it thought fit by the princes to justify Jeremiah
in what he had done? It was what Hezekiah did
before them in a like case. Did Hezekiah, and the
people of Judah, the representatives of the people,
the commons in parliament, did they complain of
Micah the prophet? Did they impeach him, or
make an act to silence him, and put him to death?
No; on the contrary, they took the warning he gave
them. Hezekiah, that renowned prince, of blessed
memory, set a good example before his successors,
for he feared the Lord as Noah, who, being warned
of God of things not seen as yet, was moved with
fear. Micah’s preaching drove him to his knees;
he besought the Lord to turn away the judgment
threatened, and to be reconciled to them ; and he
found it was not in vain to do so, for the Lord re¬
pented him of the evil, and returned in mercy to
them ; he sent an angel, who routed the army of the
Assyrians, that threatened to have ploughed Zion
like a field, v. 19. Hezekiah got good by the
preaching, and then you may be sure he would do
no harm to the preacher. These elders conclude
that it would be of dangerous consequence to the
state, if they should gratify the importunity of the
priests and prophets in putting Jeremiah to death;
Thus might ive procure great evil against our souls.
Note, It is good to deter ourselves from sin, with
the consideration of the mischief we shall certainly
do to ourselves by it, and the irreparable damage it
will be to our own souls.
3. Here is an instance of another prophet that was
put to death by Jehoiakim for prophesying as Jere¬
miah had done, v. 20, &c. Some make this to be
urged by the persecutors, as a case that favoured
the prosecution, a modern case, in which speaking
such words as Jeremiah had spoken was adjudged
treason. Others think that the elders who were
advocates for Jeremiah, alleged this, to show that
thus they might procure great evil against their
souls, for it would be adding sin to sin. Jehoiakim,
the present king, had slain one prophet already,
let them not fill up the measure by slaying another.
Hezekiah, who protected Micah, prospered; but
did Jehoiakim prosper, who slew Urijah? No, they
all saw the contrary. As good examples, and the
good consequences of them, should encourage us in
that which is good, so the examples of bad men,
and the bad consequences of them, should deter us
from that which is evil. But some good interpre¬
ters take this narrative from the historian that pen¬
ned the book, Jeremiah himself, or Baruch, who, to
make Jeremiah’s deliverance by means of the
princes the more wonderful, takes notice of this
that happened about the same time; for both were
in the reign of Jehoiakim, and this in the beginning
o f his reign, v. 1. Observe, (1.) Urijah ’s prophe¬
cy; it was against this city, and this land, accord¬
ing to all the words of Jeremiah. The prophets of
the Lord agreed in their testimony, and one would
have thought that out of the mouth of so many wit¬
nesses the word should have been regarded. (2. )
The prosecution of him for it, v. 21. Jehoiakim
and his courtiers were exasperated against him, and
sought to put him to death ; in this wicked design
the king himself was principally concerned. (3.)
His absconding thereupon; When he heard that the
king was become his enemy, and sought his life, he
was afraid, and feel, and went into Egypt. This
was certainly his fault, and an effect of the weak
ness of his faith, and it sped accordingly. He dis¬
trusted God, and his power to protect him and bear
him out; he was too much under the power of that
fear of man, which brings a snare. It looked as
if he durst not stand to what he had said, or was
ashamed of his Master. It was especially unbe¬
coming him to flee into Egypt, and so in effect to
abandon the land of Israel, and to throw himself
quite out of the way of being useful. Note, There
are many that have much grace, but they have little
courage; that are very honest, but withal very
timorous. (4. ) His execution notwithstanding. Je-
hoiakim’s malice, one would have thought, might
have contented itself with his banishment, and it
might suffice to have driven him outof the country;
but they are blood thirsty that hate the upright;
(Prov. xxix. 10.) it was the life, that precious life,
that he hunted after, and nothing else would satisfy
him. So implacable is his revenge, that he sends a
party of soldiers into Egypt, some hundreds of miles,
and thev bring him back by force of arms. It would
not sufficiently gratify him to have him slain in
Egypt, but he must feed his eyes with the bloody
spectacle; they brought him to Jehoiakim, and he
slew him with the sword, for aught I know, with his
own hands. Yet neither did this satisfy his insatia¬
ble malice, but he loads the dead body of the good
man with infamy, would not allow it the decent re¬
spects usually and justly paid to the remains of men of
distinction, but cast it into the graves of the common
people, as if he had not been a prophet of the Lord;
thus was the shield of Saul vilely cast away, as
though he had not been anointed with oil. Thus Je¬
hoiakim hoped to ruin his reputation with the people,
that no heed might be given to his predictions, and
to deter others from prophesying in like manner;
but in vain; Jeremiah says the same. There is no
contending with the word of God. Herod thought
he had gained his point when he had cut off John
Baptist’s head, but found himself deceived, when,
soon after, he heard of Jesus Christ, and said, in a
fright, This is John the Baptist.
4. Here is Jeremiah’s deliverance. Though Uri¬
jah was lately put to death, and persecutors, when
they have tasted the blood of saints, are apt to thirst
after more, (as Herod, Acts xii. 2, 3.) yet God
wonderfully preserved Jeremiah, though he did not
JEREMIAH, XXVJi.
flee, as Urijah did, but stood his ground. Ordinary
ministers may use ordinary means, provided they
be lawful ones, for their own preservation; but they
that had an extraordinary mission, might expect an
extraordinary protection. God raised up a friend
for Jeremiah, whose hand was with him; he took
him by the hand in a friendly way, encouraged him,
assisted him, appeared for him. It was Ahikam the
son of Shafihan, one that was a minister of state in
Josiah’s time; we read of him, 2 Kings xxii. 12.
Some think Gedaliah was the son of this Ahikam.
He had a great interest, it should seem, among the
princes, and he used it in favour of Jeremiah, to
prevent the further designs of the priests and pro¬
phets against him, who would have had him turned
over into the hand. of. the f leofile ; not those people
(v. 16.) that had adjudged him innocent, but the
rude and insolent mob, whom they could persuade
by their cursed insinuations not only to cry, Crucify
him, crucify him, but to stone him to death, in a
popular tumult; for perhaps Jehoiakim had been so
reproached by his own conscience for slaying Uri¬
jah, that they despaired of making him the tool of
their malice. Note, God can, when he pleases,
raise up great men to patronise good men; and it is
an encouragement to us to trust him in the way of
duty, that he has all men’s hearts in his hands.
CHAP. XXVII.
Jeremiah the prophet, since he cannot persuade people to
submit to God’s precept, and so to prevent the destruc¬
tion of their country by the king of Babylon, is here
persuading them to submit to God’s providence, by yield¬
ing tamely to the king of Babylon, and becoming tribu¬
taries to him, which was the wisest course they could
now take, and would be a mitigation of the calamity,
and prevent the laying of their country waste by fire and
sword; the sacrificing of their liberties would be the sav¬
ing of their lives. I. He gives this counsel, in God’s
name, to the kings of the neighbouring nations, that they
might make the best of bad, assuring them that there
was no remedy, but they must serve the king of Baby¬
lon; and yet in time there should be relief, for his domi¬
nion should last but 70 years, v. 1 . .11. II. He gives this
counsel to Zedekiah king of Judah particularly, (v. 12. .
14.) and to the priests and people, assuring them that the
king of Babylon should still proceed against them, till
things were brought to the last extremity, and a patient
submission would be the only way to mitigate the cala¬
mity, and make it easy, v. 12. .22. Thus the prophet, if
they would but have hearkened to him, would have di¬
rected them in the paths of true policy as well as of true
piety.
1 . TN the beginning of the reign of Jehoia-
A kim the son of Josiah king of Judah,
came this word unto Jeremiah from the
Lord, saying, 2. Thus saith the Lord to
me, Make thee bonds and yokes, and put
them upon thy neck. 3. And send them to
the king of Edom, and to the king of Moab,
and to the king of the Ammonites, and to
the king of Tyrus, and to the king of Zidon,
by the hand of the messengers which come
to Jerusalem unto Zedekiah king of Judah ;
4. And command them to say unto their
masters, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the
God of Israel, Thus shall ye say unto your
masters; 5. I have made the earth, the
man and the beast that are upon the ground,
by my great power, and by my out-stretched
arm, and have given it unto whom it seem¬
ed meet unto me. 6. And now have I
given all these lands into the hand of Ne-
455
buchai ?jezzar the king of Babylon, my ser¬
vant ^nd the beasts of the field have I
givei/.Am also to serve him. 7. And all na-
tionsmyall serve him, and his son, and his
son’s son, until the veiy time of his land
come; and then many nations and great
kings shall serve themselVes of him. 8. And
; it shall come to pass, that the nation and
kingdom which will not serve the same Ne¬
buchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and that
will not put their neck under the yoke of
the king of Babylon, that nation will I pun¬
ish, saith the Lord, with the sword, and
with the famine, and with the pestilence,
until I have consumed them by his hand.
9. Therefore hearken not ye to your pro¬
phets, nor to your diviners, nor to 30 ur
dreamers, nor to your enchanters, nor to
your sorcerers, which speak unto you, say¬
ing, Ye shall not serve the king of Baby¬
lon : 10. For they prophesy a lie unto you,
to remove you far from your land ; and that
I should drive you out, and ye should perish,
11. But the nations that bring their neck
under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and
serve him, those will I let remain still in
their own land, saith the Lord; and they
shall till it, and dwell therein.
Some difficulty occurs in the date of this pro¬
phecy. This word is said to come to Jeremiah in the
begmning of the reign of Jehoiakim, (v. 1.) and yet
the messengers, to whom he is to deliver the badges
of servitude, are said (t>. 3. ) to come to Zedekiah
king of Judah, who reigned not till 11 years after
the beginning of Jehoiakim’s reign. Some make it
an error of the copy, and that it should be read, (v.
1.) In the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah, for
which some negligent scribe, having his eye on the
title of the foregoing chapter, wrote Jehoiakim.
And if one would admit a mistake any where, it
should be here, for Zedekiah is mentioned again,
(v. 12.) and the next prophecy is dated the same
year, and said to be in the beginning of the reign of
Zedekiah, ch. xxviii. 1. Dr. Lightfoot solves it thus,
In the beginning of Jehoiakim’s reign, Jeremiah is to
make these bonds and yokes, and to put them upon his
own neck, in token of Judah’s subjection to the king
of Babylon, which began at that time; but he is to
send them to the neighbouring kings afterward in
the reign of Zedekiah, of whose succession to Jehoia-
kim, and the ambassadors sent to him, mention is
made by way of prediction.
I. Jeremiah is to prepare a sign of the general re¬
duction of all these countries into subjection to the
king of Babylon, v. 2. Make thee bonds and yokes,
yokes witli bonds to fasten them, that the beast may
not slip his neck out of the yoke. Into these the
prophet must put his own neck, to make them taken
notice of as a prophetic representation; for every
one would inquire. What is the meaning of Jere¬
miah’s yokes? We find him with one on, ch. xxviii. 10.
Hereby he intimated that he advised them to nothing
but what he was resolved to do himself; for he was
none of those that bind heavy burthens on others,
which they themselves will not touch with one of
their fingers. Ministers must thus lay themselves
under the weight and obligation of what they preach
to others.
45l>
JEREMIAH, XXVII.
II. He is to send this, with a sermon a-, aexed to
it, to all the neighbouring princes; those a, e men¬
tioned, (t>. 3.) that lay next to the land ofeuanaan.
It should seem, there was a treaty of allian'aose £oot
between the king of Judah and all those oth'f gp ;gs.
Jerusalem was the place appointed for the" J „75y;
thither they all sent their plenipotentiaries; afia it
was agreed that they, should bind themselves in a
league offensive and defensive, to stand by one an¬
other, in opposition to the growing, threatening
greatness of the king of Babylon, and to reduce his
exorbitant power. They had great confidence in
their strength thus united, and were ready to call
themselves the High Allies; but when the envoys
were returning to their respective masters, with the
ratification of this treaty, Jeremiah gives each of
them a yoke to carry to his master, to signify to
him that he must either by consent or by compulsion
become a servant to the king of Babylon, let him
choose which he will. In the sermon upon this
sign,
1. God asserts his own indisputable right to dis¬
pose of kingdoms as he pleases, v. 5. He is the
Creator of all things; he made the earth at first,
established it, and it abides; it is still the same, though
one generation passeth away, and another comes;
he still by a continued creation produces man and
beast upon the ground; and it is by his great power
and outstretched arm. His arm has infinite strength,
though it be stretched out. Upon this account, he
may give and convey a property and dominion to
whomsoever he pleases. As he hath graciously
given the earth to the children of men in general,
(Ps. cxv. 16.) so he gives to each his share of it, be
it more or less. Note, Whatever any have of
the good things of this world, it is what God sees fit
to give them; we ourselves should therefore be con¬
tent, though we have ever so little, and not envy any
their share, though they have ever so much.
2. He publishes a grant of all these countries
to Nebuchadnezzar. Know all men by these pres¬
ents. Sciant prtesentes ct futun — Let those of the
present and those of the future age know. “ This
is to certify all whom it may concern, that I have
given all these lands, with all the wealth of them,
into the hands of the king of Babylon, even the
beasts of the field, whether tame or wild, have I
given to him, parks and pastures, they are all
his own.” Nebuchadnezzar was a proud, wicked
man, an idolater; and yet God, in his providence,
gives him this large dominion, these vast posses¬
sions. Note, The things of this world are not
the best things, for God often gives the largest
share of them to bad men, that are rivals with
him, and rebels against him. He was a wicked
man, and yet what he had, he had by divine
grant. Note, Dominion is not founded in grace.
Those that have not any colourable title to eternal
happiness, may yet have a justifiable title_ to their
temporal good things. Nebuchadnezzar is a very
bad man, and yet God calls him his servant, because
he employed him as an instrument of his provi¬
dence for the chastising of the nations, and particu-
larlv his own people; and for his service therein,
he thus liberally repaid him. Those whom God
makes use of, shall not lose by him; much more will
he be found the bountiful Rewarder of all those that
designedly and sincerely serve him.
3. He assures them that they should all be una¬
voidably brought under the dominion of the king of
Babylon, for a time; (i>. 7.) All nations, all these
nations, and many others, shall serve him and his
son, and his son’s son. His son was Evil-merodach,
and his son’s son Belshazzar, in whom his kingdom
ceased: then the time of reckoning with his land
came, when the tables were turned, and many nations
and great kings, incorporated into the empire of the
Medes and Persians, served themselves of him, as
before, ch. xxv. 14. Thus Adonibezek was tram¬
pled upon himself, as he had trampled on other
kings.
4. He threatens those with military execution,
that stood out, and would not submit to the king of
Babylon; (u. 8.) That nation that will not put their
neck under his yoke, I will punish with sword and
famine, with one judgment after another, till it is
consumed by his hand. Nebuchadnezzar was very
unjust and barbarous in invading the rights and li¬
berties of his neighbours thus, and forcing them into
a subjection to him; yet God had just and holy ends
in permitting it, to punish these nations for their
idolatry and gross immoralities. They that would
not serve the God that made them, were justly made
to serve their enemies that sought to ruin them.
5. He shows them the vanity of all the hopes they
fed themselves with, that they should preserve their
liberties, v. 9, 10. These nations had their pro¬
phets too, that pretended to foretell future events by
the stars, or by dreams, or enchantments; and they,
to please their patrons, and because they would
themselves have it so, flattered them with assur¬
ances that they should not serve the king of Babylon.
Thus they designed to animate them to a vigorous
resistance; and though they had no ground for it,
they hoped hereby to do them service. But he tells
them that it would prove to their destruction; for
by resisting they' would provoke the conqueror to
deal severely with them, to remove them, and drive
them out into a miserable captivity, in which they
should all be lost, and buried in oblivion. Parti¬
cular prophecies against these nations that bordered
on Israel severally, the ruin of which is here fore¬
told in the general, w£ shall meet with, ch. xlviii.
and Ezek. xxv. which had the same accomplish¬
ment with this here. Note, When God judges, he
will overcome.
6. He puts them in a fair way to prevent their
destruction, by a quiet and easy submission, v. 11.
The nations that will be content to seme the king of
Babylon, and pay him tribute for seventy years, (ten
apprenticeships,) those will I let retrain still hi
their own land. They that will bend shall not break.
Perhaps the dominion of the king of Babylon may
bear no harder upon them than that of their own
kings had done. It is often more a point of honour
than true wisdom, to prefer liberty before life. It
is not mentioned to the disgrace of Issachar, that
because he saw rest was good, and the land pleasant,
that he might peaceably enjoy it, he bowed his
shoulder to bear, and became a servant to tribute,
(Gen. lix. 14, 15.) as these here are advised to do;
Serve the king of Babylon, and you shall till the land
and dwell therein. Some would condemn this as the
evidence of a mean spirit, but the prophet recom¬
mends it as that of a meek spirit, which yields to
necessity, and by a quiet submission to the hardest
turns of Providence, makes the best of bad: it is
better to do so, than by struggling to make it worse.
- - — Levius fit patientia
Quicquid corrigere est nefas. - Hor.
- When we needs must bear,
Enduring patience makes the burthen light. — Creech.
Many might have prevented destroying provi¬
dences, by humbling themselves under humbling
providences. It is better to take up a lighter cross
in our way than to pull a heavier on our own head.
12. I spake also to Zedekiah king of
Judah according to all these words, saying
Bring your necks under the yoke of the king
of Babylon, and serve him and his people,
and live 1 3 Why will ye die, thou and
457
JEREMIAH, XXVII.
thy people, by the sword, by the famine, and
by the pestilence, as the Lord hath spoken
against the nation that will not serve the
king of Babylon? 14. Therefore hearken
not unto the words of the prophets that
speak unto you, saying, Ye shall not serve
the king of Babylon : for they prophesy a
lie unto you. 1 5. For I have not sent them,
saith the Lord, yet they prophesy a lie in
my name, that I might drive you out, and
that ye might perish, ye, and the prophets
that prophesy unto you. 16. Also I spake
to the priests, and to all this people, saying,
Thus saith the Lord, Hearken not to the
words of your prophets that prophesy unto
you, saying, Behold, the vessels of the Lord’s
house shall now shortly be brought again
from Babylon : for they prophesy a lie unto
you. 17. Hearken not unto them; serve
the king of Babylon, and live: wherefore
should this city be laid waste ? 1 8. But it
they be prophets, and if the word of the
Lord be with them, let them now make in¬
tercession to the Lord of hosts, that the
vessels which are left in the house of the
Lord, and in the house of the king of Judah,
and at Jerusalem, go not to Babylon. 1 9.
For thus saith the Lord of hosts concern¬
ing the pillars, and concerning the sea, and
concerning the bases, and concerning the
residue of the vessels that remain in this
city, 20. Which Nebuchadnezzar king
of Babylon took not, when he carried away
captive Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim
king of Judah, from Jerusalem to Babylon,
and all the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem;
21. Yea, thus saith the Lord of hosts, the
God of Israel, concerning the vessels that
remain in the house of the Lord, and in the
house of the king of Judah and of Jerusa¬
lem; 22. They shall be carried to Babylon,
and there shall they be until the day that I
visit them, saith the Lord : then will I bring
them up, and restore them to this place.
What was said to all the nations, is here with a
particular tenderness applied to the nation of the
Jews, for whom Jeremiah was sens’ibly concerned.
The case at present stood thus; Judah and Jerusa¬
lem had often contested with the king of Babylon,
and still were worsted; many both of their valuable
persons and their valuable goods were carried to
Babylon already, and some of the vessels of the
Lord’s house particularly. Now, how this struggle
would issue, was the question. They had those
among them at Jerusalem, who pretended to be
prophets, who bade them hold out, and they should,
m a little time, be too hard for the king of Babylon,
and recover all that they had lost. Now Jeremiah
is sent to bid them yield and knock under, for that,
instead of recovering what they had lost, they
should otherwise lose all that remained; and to press
them to this, is the scope of these verses.
I. Jeremiah humbly addresses the king of Judah,
to persuade him to surrender to the king of Baby-
Vol. IV.— 3 M
Ion; his act would be the people’s, and would de¬
termine them, and therefore he speaks to him as to
them all; (v. 12.) Bring your necks under the yoke
of thakingof Babylon, and live. Is it their wisdom
to submit to the heavy iron yoke of a cruel tyrant,
that they may secure the lives of their bodies; and
is it not much more our wisdom to submit to the
sweet and easy yoke of our rightful Lord and Mas¬
ter Jesus Christ, that we may secure the lives of out
souls? Bring down your spirits to repentance and
faith, and that is the way to bring up your spirits to
heaven and glory. And with much more cogency
and compassion may we expostulate with perishing
souls than Jeremiah here expostulates with a pe¬
rishing people, “ Why mill ye die by the sword and
the famine — miserable deaths, which you inevita
bly run yourselves upon, under pretence of avoid
ing miserable lives?” What God had spoken, it
general, of all those that would not submit to the
king of Babylon, he would have them to apply to
themselves, and be afraid of. It were well if sinners
would, in like manner, be afraid of the destruction
threatened against all those that will not have Christ
to reign over them, and reason thus with them¬
selves, “ Why should we die the second death, which
is a thousand times worse than that by sword and
famine, when we might submit and live?”
II. He addresses himself likewise to the priests
and the people, (u. 16.) to persuade them to serve
the king of Babylon, that they might live, and
might prevent the desolation of the city; (t>_. 17.)
“ Wherefore should it be laid waste, as certainly it
will be it you stand it out?” The priests had been
Jeremiah’s enemies, and had sought his life to de¬
stroy it, yet he approves himself their friend, and
seeks their lives, to preserve and secure them;
which is an example to us to render good for evil.
When the bloodthirsty hate the upright, yet the just
seek his soul, and the welfare of it, Prov. xxix. 10.
The matter was far gone here, they were upon the
brink of ruin, which they had not been brought to
if they would have taken Jeremiah’s counsel, yet he
continues his friendly admonitions to them, to save
the last stake and manage that wisely, and now at
length in this their day to understand the things that
belong to their peace, when they had but one day to
turn them in.
III. In both these addresses he warns them
against giving credit to the false prophets that rock¬
ed them asleep in their security, because they saw
that they loved to slumber; “ Hearken not to the
words of the prophets, (t>. 14.) your prophets, v. 16.
They are not God’s prophets, he never sent them,
they do not serve him, nor seek to please him; they
are yours, for they say what you would have them
say,’ and aim at nothing but to please you.” _
Two things their prophets flattered them into th
belief of.
1. That the power which the king of Babylon had
gained over them, should now shortly be broken.
They said, (v. 14. ) “ You shall not serve the king of
Babylon; you need not submit voluntarily, for you
shall not be compelled to submit.” This they prophe¬
sied in the name of the Lord, ( v . 15.) as if God had
sent them to the people on this errand, in kindness to
them, that they might not disparage themselves by
an inglorious surrender. But it was a lie. They
said that God sent them; but that was false, he
disowns it, I have not sent them, saith the Lord.
They said that they should neverbe brought into sub¬
jection to the king of Babylon ; but that was false too,
the event proved it so. They said that to hold out
to the last would be the way to secure themselves
and their city; but that was false, for it would
certainly end in their being driven out and perish¬
ing. So that it was all a lie, from first to last; and
the prophets that deceived the people with these
*58 JEREMIAH, XXVIII.
lies, did, in the issue, but deceive themselves, the
blind leaders and the blind followers fell together
into the ditch; that ye might perish, ye, and the
prophets that prophesy unto you; who will tie so
far from warranting your security, that they cannot
secure themselves. Note, They that encourage
sinners to go on in their sinful ways, will in the end
perish with them.
2. They prophesied that the vessels of the tem¬
ple, which the king of Babylon had already carried
away, should now shortly be brought back; (n. 16.)
this they fed the priests with the hopes of, knowing-
how acceptable it would be to them who loved the
gold of the temple better than the temple that sancti¬
fied the gold. These vessels were taken away when
Jeconiah was carried captive into Babylon, v. 20.
We have the story, and it is a melancholy one, 2
Kings xxiv. 13. — 15. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 10. All the
goodly vessels, that is, all the vessels of gold that
were in the house of the Lord, with all the trea¬
sures, were taken as prey, and brought to Babylon.
This was grievous to them above any thing, for the
temple was their pride and confidence, and the
stripping of that was too plain an indication of that
which the true prophet told them, that their God
•was departed from them. Their false prophets
therefore had no other way to make them easy than
by telling them that the King of Babylon should be
forced to restore them in alittle while. Now here,
(1.) Jeremiah bids them think of preserving the
vessels that remained, by their prayers, rather than
of bringing back those that were gone, by their pro¬
phecies; (v. 18.) If they be prophets, as they pre¬
tend, and if the word of the Lord be with them — if
they have any intercourse with Heaven, and any
interest there, let them improve it for the stopping
of the progress of the judgment, let them step into
the gap, and stand with their censer between the
living and the dead, between that which is carried
away and that which remains, that the plague may
be stayed; let them make intercession with the Lord
of hosts, that the vessels which are left go not after
the rest. [1.] Instead of prophesying, let them
pray. Note, Prophets must be praying men; by
being much in prayer they must make it to appear
that they keep up a correspondence with Heaven.
We cannot think that those do, as prophets, ever
hear thence, who do not frequently by prayer send
thither. By praying for the safety and prosperity
of the sanctuary they must make it to appear that,
as becomes prophets, they are of a public spirit; and
by the success of their prayers it will appear that
God favours them. [2.] Instead of being concerned
for the retrieving of what the); had lost, they must
bestir themselves for the securing of what was left,
and take it as a great favour if they can gain that
point. When God’s judgments are abroad, we must
not seek great things, but be thankful for a little.
(2.) He assures them that even this point should
not be gained, but the brazen vessels should go after
the golden ones, v. 19. — 22. Nebuchadnezzar had
found so good a booty once, that he would be sure to
come again, and take all he could find, not only in
the house of the Lord, but in the king’s house. They
shall all be carried to Babylon in triumph, and there
shall they be. But he concludes with a gracious
promise, that the time should come when they should
all be returned; Until the day that I visit them in
mercy, according to appointment, and then I will
bring those vessels up again, and restore them to
this place, to their place. Surely they were under
the protection of a special Providence, else they had
been melted down, and put to some other use; but
there was to be a second temple, for which they
were to be reserved. We read particularly of the
return of them, Ezra i. 8. Note, Though the return
of the church’s prosperity do not come in our time,
we must not therefore despair of it, for it will come
in God’s time. Though they who said, The vessels
of the Lord’s house shall shortly be brought again,
prophesied a lie, ( v . 16.) yet he that said. They
shall at length be brought again, prophesied the
truth. We are apt to set our clock before God’s
dial, and then to quarrel because they do not agree;
but the Lord is a God of judgment, and it is fit that
we should wait for him.
CHAP. XXVIII.
In the foregoing chapter, Jeremiah had charged those pro¬
phets with lies, who foretold the speedy breaking of the
yoke of the king of Babylon, and the speedy return of
the vessels of the sanctuary; now here we have his con¬
test with a particular prophet upon those heads. I.
Hananiah, a pretender to prophecy, in contradiction to
Jeremiah, foretold the sinking of Nebuchadnezzar’s
power, and the return both of the persons and of the
vessels that were carried away; (v. 1 . . 4. ) and, as a sign
of this, he brake the yoke from the neck of Jeremiah, v.
10, 11. II. Jeremiah wished his words might prove true,
but appealed to the event, whether they were so or no,
not doubting but they would disprove them, v. 5.-9.
III. The doom both of the deceived and the deceiver is
here read. The people that were deceived, should have
their yoke of wood turned into a yoke of iron, (v. 12. .
14.) and the prophet that was the deceiver, should be
shortly cut off by death, and he was so, accordingly,
within two months, v. 15 . . 17.
1. 4 ND it came to-pass the same year, in
1%. the beginning of the reign of Zede-
kiah king of Judah, in the fourth year, and
in the fifth month, that Hananiah the son of
Azur the prophet, which was of Gibeon,
spake unto me in the house of the Lord, in
the presence of the priests, and of all the
people, saying, 2. Thus speaketh the Lord
of hosts, the God of Israel, saying, I have
broken the yoke of the king of Babylon.
3. Within two full years will I bring again
into this place all the vessels of the Lord’s
house that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon
took away from this place, and carried them
to Babylon: 4. And I will bring again to
this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim
king of Judah, with all the captives of Judah,
that went into Babylon, saith the Lord: for
I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.
5. Then the prophet Jeremiah said unto the
prophet Hananiah, in the presence of the
priests, and in the presence of all the people
that stood in the house of the Lord, 6. Even
the prophet Jeremiah said, Amen : the Lord
do so; the Lord perform thy words which
thou hast prophesied, to bring again the ves¬
sels of the Lord’s house, and all that is
carried away captive, from Babylon into
this place. 7. Nevertheless, hear thou now
this word that I speak in thine ears, and in
the ears of all the people ; 8. The prophets
that have been before me, and before thee
of old, prophesied both against many coun¬
tries, and against great kingdoms, of war,
and of evil, and of pestilence. 9. The pro¬
phet which prophesieth of peace, when the
word of the prophet shall come to pass,//; m
JEREMIAH, XXVIII. 459
shall the prophet be known that the Lord
hath truly sent him.
This straggle between a true prophet and a false
one, is said here to have happened in the beginning
of the reign of Zedekiah, and yet in the fourth year,
for the tour first years of his reign might well be
called the beginning, or former part of it, because
during those years he reigned under the dominion
of the king of Babylon, and as a tributary to him;
whereas the rest of his reign, which might well be
called the latter part of it, in distinction from that
former part, he reigned in rebellion against the king
of Babylon. In this fourth year of his reign, he went
m person to Babylon, (as we find, ch. li. 59. ) and it
is probable that this gave the people some hope that
his negotiation in person would put a good end to the
war, in which hope the false prophets encouraged
them, this Hananiah particularly, who was of
Gibeon, a priest’s city, and therefore probably, him¬
self a priest, as well as Jeremiah. Now here we
have,
I. The prediction which Hananiah delivered
publicly, solemnly, in the house of the Lord, and in
the name of the Lord, in an august assembly, in the
presence of the priests, and of all the people, who,
probably, were expecting to have some message
from heaven. In delivering this prophecy, he faced
Jeremiah, he spake it to him, (i\ 1.) designing to
confront and contradict him, as much as to say,
“Jeremiah, thou liest. ” Now his prediction is, that
the king of Babylon’s power, at least his power over
Judah and Jerusalem, should be speedily broken,
that within two full years the vessels of the temple
should be brought back, and Jeconiah, and all the
captives that were carried away with him, should
return ; whereas Jeremiah had foretold that the yoke
of the king of Babylon should be bound on yet faster,
and that the vessels and captives should not return
for "0 years, v. 2. — 4-. Now, upon the reading of
this sham prophecy, and comparing it with the mes¬
sages that God sent by the true prophets, we may
observe what a vast difference there is between
them. Here is nothing of the spirit and life, the
majesty of style and sublimity of expression, that
appear in the discourses of God’s prophets, nothing
of that divine flame and flatus. But that which is
especially wanting here, is, an air of piety; he speaks
with a great deal of confidence of the return of their
prosperity, but here is not a word of good counsel
given them to repent and reform, and return to God,
to pray, and seek his face, that they might be pre¬
pared for the favours God had in reserve for them.
He promises them temporal mercies, in God’s name,
but makes no mention of those spiritual mercies
which God always promised should go along with
them, as ch. pcxiv. 7. I will give them a heart to
know me. By all which it appears that, whatever
he pretended, he had only the spirit of the world,
not the Spirit of God, (1 Cor. ii. 12.) that he aimed
to please, not to profit.
II. Jeremiah’s reply to this pretended prophecy:
1. He heartily wishes it might prove true; such
an affection has he for his country, and so truly de¬
sirous is he of the welfare of it, that he would be
content to lie under the imputation of a false pro¬
phet, so that their ruin might be prevented. He
said, Amen, the Lord do so, the Lord perform thy
words, v. 5, 6. This was not the first time that
Jeremiah had prayed for his people, though he had
prophesied against them, and deprecated the judg¬
ments, which yet he certainly knew would come; as
Christ prayed, Father, if it be possible, let this cup
pass from me, when yet he knew it must not pass
from him. Though, as a faithful prophet, he fore¬
saw and foretold the destruction of Jerusalem, yet,
as a faithful Israelite, he prayed earnestly for the
preservation of it, in obedience to that command.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Though the will
of God’s purpose is the rule of prophecy and patience,
the will of his precept is the rule of prayer and
practice. God himself, though he has determined,
does not desire, the death of sinners, but would have
all men to be saved. Jeremiah often interceded for
his people, ch. xviii. 20. The false prophets thought
to ingratiate themselves with the people by pro¬
mising them peace; now the prophet shows that he
bore them as great a good-will as their prophets did,
whom they were so lond of; and though he had no
warrant from God to promise them peace, yet he
earnestly desired it, and prayed for it. How strangely
were they besotted, who caressed- those who did
them the greatest wrong imaginable by flattering
them, and persecuted him who did them the greatest
service imaginable by interceding for them ! See ch.
xxvii. 18.
2. He appeals to the event, to prove it false, v. 7.
— 9. The false prophets reflected upon Jeremiah,
as Ahab upon Micaiah, because he never prophesied
good concerning them, but evil; now he pleads that
this had been the purport of the prophecies that
other prophets had delivered, so that it ought not to
be looked upon as a strange tiling, or as rendering
his mission doubtful, for prophets of old prophesied
against many countries and great kingdoms, so bold
were they in delivering the messages which God
sent by them, and so far from fearing men, or seek¬
ing to please them, as Hananiah did; they made no
difficulty, any more than Jeremiah did, of threaten¬
ing war, famine, and pestilence, and what they said
was regarded as coming from God; why then should
Jeremiah be run down as a pestilent fellow, and a
sower of sedition, who preached no otherwise than
God’s prophets had always done before him? Other
prophets had foretold destruction, and sometimes the
destruction did not come, which yet did not disprove
their divine mission, as in the case of Jonah, for God
is gracious, and ready to turn away his wrath from
those that turn away from their sins: but the prophet
that prophesied of peace and prosperity, especially
as Hananiah did, absolutely and unconditionally,
without adding that necessary proviso, that they do
not by wilful sin put a bar in their own door, and
stop the current of God’s favours, will be proved a
true prophet only by the accomplishment ol his pre¬
diction; if it come to pass, then it shall be known
that the Lord has sent him, but if not, he will appear
to be a cheat arid an impostor.
10. Then Hananiah the prophet took the
yoke from off the prophet Jeremiah’s neck,
and brake it. 11. And Hananiah spake in
the presence of all the people, saying, Thus
saith the Lord, Even so will I break the
yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon
from the neck of all nations, within the space
of two full years. And the prophet Jeremiah
went his way. 1 2. Then the word of the
Lord came unto Jeremiah the prophet , (after
that Hananiah the prophet had broken the
yoke from off the neck of the prophet Jere¬
miah,) saying, 1 3. Go and tell Hananiah,
saying, Thus saith the Lord, Thou hast
broken the yokes of wood; but thou shalt
make for them yokes of iron. 1 4. For thus
saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, I
have put a yoke of iron upon the neck of all
these nations, that they may serve Nebu¬
chadnezzar king of Babylon ; and they shall
460
JEREMIAH, XXIX.
serve him : and I have given him the beasts
of the field also. 1 5. Then said the prophet
Jeremiah unto Hananiah the prophet, Hear
now, Hananiah, The Lord hath not sent
thee; but thou makest this people to trust in
a lie. 16. Therefore thus saith the Lord,
Behold, 1 will cast thee from off the face of
the earth : this year thou shalt die, because
thou hast taught rebellion against the- Lord.
1 7. So Hananiah the prophet died the same
year, in the seventh mqpth.
We have here an instance,
I. Of the insolence of the false prophet. To com¬
plete the affront he designed Jeremiah, he took the
yoke from off his neck, which he carried as a me¬
morial of what he had prophesied concerning the
enslaving of the nations to Nebuchadnezzar, and he
brake it, that he might give a sign of the accomplish¬
ment of his prophecy, as Jeremiah had given of his,
and might seem to have conquered him, and to have
defeated the intention of his prophecy. See how
the lying spirit in the mouth of this false prophet
mimics the language of the Spirit of truth; Thus
saith the Lord, So will I break the yoke of the king
of Babylon, not only from the neck of this nation,
but from the neck of all nations, within two full
years. Whether by the force of a heated imagina¬
tion Hananiah had persuaded himself to believe this,
or whether he knew it to be false, and only per¬
suaded them to believe it, does not appear; but it is
plain that he speaks with abundance of assurance.
It is no new thing for lies to be fathered upon the
God of truth.
II. Of the patience of the true prophet. Jeremiah
quietly went his way, and, when he was reviled, he
reviled not again, and would not contend with one
that was in the height of his fury, and in the midst
of the priests and people that were violently set
against him. The reason why he went his way,
was, not because he had nothing to answer, but be¬
cause he was willing to stay till God was pleased to
furnish him with a direct and immediate answer,
which as yet he had not received. He expected
that God would send a special message to Hananiah,
and he would say nothing till he had received that;
I, as a deaf man, heard not, for thou wilt hear, and
thou shalt answer, Lord, for me. It may sometimes
be our wisdom rather to retreat than to contend.
Currenti cede furori — Give place unto wrath.
III. Of the justice of God in giving judgment be¬
tween Jeremiah and his adversary. Jeremiah went
his way, as a man in whose mouth there was no re¬
buke, but God soon put a word into his mouth, for
he will appear for those who silently commit their
cause to him.
1. The word of God, in the mouth of Jeremiah, is
ratified and confirmed. Let not Jeremiah himself
distrust the truth of what he had delivered in God’s
name, because it met with such a daring opposition
and contradiction. If what we have spoken be the
truth of God, we must not unsay it because men
gainsay it; for great is the truth, and will prevail.
It will stand, therefore let us stand to it, and not fear
that men’s unbelief or blasphemy will make it of no
effect. Hananiah has broken the yokes of wood, but
Jeremiah must make for them yokes of iron, which
cannot be broken; (v. 13.) for (says God) “ I have
put a yoke of iron upon the neck of all these nations,
which shall lie heavier, and bind harder, upon them,
(v 14.) that they may serve the king of Babylon,
and not be able to shake off the yoke, however they
may struggle, for they shall serve him whether they
will or no;” and who is he that can contend with
God’s counsel? What was said before is repeated
again, I have given him the beasts of the field also,
as if there were something significant in that; men
had by their wickedness made themselves like the
beasts that perish, and therefore deserved to be ruled
by an arbitrary power, as beasts are ruled, and such
a power Nebuchadnezzar ruled with, for whom he
would he slew, and whom he would he kept alive.
2. Hananiah is sentenced to die for contradicting
it, and Jeremiah, when he has received commission
from God, boldly tells him so to his face; though,
before he received that commission, he went away,
and said nothing.
(1.) The crimes of which Hananiah stands con¬
victed, are, cheating the people, and affronting
God; Thou makest this people to trust in a lie, en¬
couraging them to hope that they shall have peace,
which will make their destruction the more terrible
to them when it comes; yet this was not the worst;
Thou hast taught rebellion agaijist the Lord, thou
hast taught them to despise all the good counsel
given them in God’s name by the true prophets,
and hast rendered it ineffectual. Those have a
great deal to answer for, who, by telling sinners
that they shall have peace though they go on, har¬
den their hearts in a contempt of the reproofs and
admonitions of the word, and the means and
methods God takes to bring them to repentance.
(2.) The judgment given against him, is, “ I will
cast thee off from the face of the earth, as unworthy
to live upon it; thou shalt be buried in it; this year
thou shalt die, and die as a rebel against the Lord,
to whom death will come with a sting and a curse.”
This sentence was executed, v. 17. Hananiah died
the same year, within two months: for his prophecy
is dated the fifth month, ( v . 1.) and his death the
seventh. Good men may perhaps bi suddenly
taken off by death, in the midst of their days, and
in mercy to them, as Josiah was; but this being
foretold, as the punishment of his sin, and coming
to pass accordingly, it may safely be construed as a
testimony from Heaven against him, and a confir¬
mation of Jeremiah’s mission. And if the people’s
hearts had not been wretchedly hardened by the
deceitfulness of sin, it would have prevented their
being further hardened by the deceitfulness of their
prophets.
CHAP. XXIX.
The contest between Jeremiah and the false prophets was
carried on before by preaching, here by writing : there
we had sermon against sermon, here we have letter
against letter ; for some of the false prophets are now
carried away into captivity in Babylon, while Jeremiah
remains in his own country. Now here is, I. A letter
which Jeremiah wrote to the captives in Babylon, against
their prophets that they had there, (v. 1..3. ) in which
letter, 1. He endeavours to reconcile them to their cap¬
tivity, to be easy under it, and to make the best of it, v.
4 . . 7. 2. He cautions them not to give any credit to
their false prophets, who fed them with hopes o’f a speedy
release, v. 8, 9. 3. He assures them that God would
restore them in mercy to their own land again, at the
end of 70,years, v. 10. .14. 4. He foretells the destruction
of those who yet continued, and that they should be
persecuted with one judgment after another, and sent at
last into captivity, v. 15.. 19. 5. He prophesies the
destruction of two of their false prophets that they had
in Babylon, that both soothed them up in their sins, and
set them bad examples; (v. 20.. 23.) and this is the
purport of Jeremiah’s letter. II. Here is a letter which
Shemaiah, a false prophet in Babylon, wrote to the
priests at Jerusalem, to stir them up to persecute Jere¬
miah, (v. 24. . 29.) and a denunciation of God’s wrath
against him for writing such a letter, v. 30 . . 32. Such
struggles as these have there always been between the
seed°of the woman and the seed of the serpent.
1. I^TOW these are the words of the let-
ter that Jeremiah the prophet sent
461
JEREMIAH, XXIX.
from Jerusalem unto the residue of the el¬
ders which were carried away captives,
and to. the priests, and to the prophets, and
to all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar
had carried away captive from Jerusalem
to Babylon, 2. (After that Jeeoniah the
king, and the queen, and the eunuchs, the
princes of Judah and' Jerusalem, and the
carpenters, and the smiths, were departed
from Jerusalem,) 3. By the hand of Ela-
sah the son of Shaphan, and Gemariah the
son of Hilkiah, (whom Zedekiah king of
Judah sent unto Babylon to Nebuchadnez¬
zar king of Babylon,) saying, 4. Thus
saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel,
unto all that are carried away captives,
whom I have caused to be carried away
from Jerusalem unto Babylon, 5. Build
ye houses, and dwell in them; and plant
gardens, .and eat the fruit of them ; 6.
Take ye wives, and beget sons and daughr
ters; and take wives for your sons, and give
your daughters to husbands, that they may
bear sons and daughters; that ye may be
increased there, and not diminished. 7.
And seek the peace of the city whither I
have caused you to be carried away cap¬
tives, and pray unto the Lord for it; for in
the peace thereof shall ye have peace.
W e are here told,
I. That Jeremiah wrote to the captives in Baby¬
lon, in the name of the Lord. Jeeoniah had sur¬
rendered himself a prisoner, with the queen his
mother, the chamberlains of his household, called
here the eunuchs, many of the princes of Judah
and Jerusalem, who were at that time the most
active men; the carpenters and stniths likewise,
being demanded, were yielded up, that those who
remained might not have any proper hands to
fortify their city, or furnish themselves with
weapons of war; by this tame submission it was
hoped that Nebuchadnezzar would be pacified;
Satis est proslrasse leoni — It suffices the lion to have
laid his antagonist prostrate; but the imperious
conqueror grows upon their concessions, like Ben-
hadad upon Ahab’s, 1 Kings xx. 5, 6. And not
content with this, when these were departed from
Jerusalem, he comes again, and fetches away many
more of the elders, the priests, the prophets, and the
people, (y. 1.) such as he thought fit, or such as
his soldiers could lay hands on, and carries them to
Babylon. The case of these captives was very
melancholy, the rather, because they, being thus
distinguished from the rest of their brethren who
continued in their own land, looked as if they were
greater sinners than all men who dwelt at Jerusa¬
lem. Jeremiah therefore writes a letter to them to
comfort them, assuring them that they had no rea¬
son either to despair of succour themselves, or to
envy their brethren that were left behind. Note, 1.
The word of God written, is as truly given by in¬
spiration of God as his word spoken was; and this
was the proper way of spreading the knowledge of
God’s will among his children scattered abroad. 2.
We may serve God, and do good, by writing to our
f riends at a distance pious letters of seasonable com¬
forts and wholesome counsels. Whom we cannot
speak to, we ma; write to; that which is written
remains. This letter of Jeremiah’s was sent to the
captives in Babylon by the hands of the ambassa¬
dors whom king Zedekiah sent to Nebuchadnezzar,
probably to pay him his tribute, and renew his sub
mission to him, or to treat of peace with him, in
which treaty the captives might perhaps hope that
they should be included, v. 3. By such messengers
Jeremiah chose to send this message, to put an ho¬
nour upon it because it was a message from God.
Or, perhaps, because there was no settled way of
sending letters to Babylon, but as such an occasion
as this offered. And then it made the condition of
the captives there the more melancholy, that they
could rarely hear from their friends and relations
they had left behind, which is some reviving and
satisfaction to those that are separated from one
another.
II. We are here told what he wrote. A copy of
a letter at large follows here to v. 24. In these
verses,
1. He assures them that he wrote in the name ol
the Lord of hosts the God of Israel, who endited
the letter; Jeremiah was but the scribe or amanu¬
ensis. It would be comfortable to them, in theii
captivity, to hear that God is the Lord of hosts, of
all hosts, and is therefore able to help and deliver
them; and that he is the God of Israel still, a God
in covenant with his people, though he contend with
them, and their enemies for the present are too hard
for them; this would likewise be an admonition to
them to stand upon their guard against all temptations
to the idolatry of Babylon, because the God of Israel,
the God whom they served, is Lord of hosts. God’s
sending to them in this letter might be an encou¬
ragement to them in their captivity, as it was an
evidence that he had not cast them eff, had not
abandoned them and disinherited them, though he
was displeased with them and corrected them; for
if the Lord had been pleased to kill them, he would
not have written to them.
2. God by him owns the hand he had in their
captivitv; I have caused you to be carried assay, (v.
4. ) and again, v. 7. All the force of the king of
Babylon could not have dene it, if God had not or¬
dered it; nor could he have any power against
them, but what was given him from above. If God
caused them to be carried captives, they might be
sure that he neither did them any wrong, nor meant
them any hurt. Note, It will help very much to
reconcile us to our troubles, and to make us patient
under them, to consider that they are what Ged
has appointed us to; I opened not my mouth, be¬
cause thou didst it.
3. He bids them think of nothing but settling
there; and therefore let them resolve to make the
best of it; ( v . 5, 6.) Build ye houses, and dwell in
them, &c. By all this it is intimated to them, (1.)
That they must not feed themselves with hopes of
a speedy return out of their captivity, for that
would keep them still unsettled, and, consequently,
uneasy; they would apply themselves to no busi¬
ness, take no comfort, but be always tiring them¬
selves, and provoking their conquerors, with the
expectations of relief; and their disappointment at
last would sink them into despair, and make their
condition much more miserable than otherwise it
would be; let them therefore count upon a continu¬
ance there, and accommodate themselves to it as
well as they can. Let them build, and plant, and
marry, and dispose of their children there, as if
they were at home in their own land; let them take
a pleasure in seeing their families built up and mul¬
tiplied, for though they must expect themselves to
die in captivitv, yet their children may live to see
better days. If they live in the fear of God, what
should hinder them but they may live comfortably
in Babylon? They cannot but weep sometimes
JEREMIAH, XXIX.
when they remember Zion; but let not weeping
binder sowing, let them not sorrow as those that
have no hope, no joy, for they have both. Note, In
all conditions of life, it is our wisdom and duty to
make the best of that which is, and not to throw
away the comfort of what we may have, because
we have not all we would have. We have a natu¬
ral affection for our native country, it strangely
draws our minds; but it is with a nescio qua dul-
cedine — we can give no good account of the sweet
attraction; and therefore if Providence remove us
to some other country, we must resolve to live easy
there, to bring our mind to our condition, when our
condition is not in every thing to our mind; if the
earth be the Lord’s, then, wherever a child of God
goes, he does not go off his father’s ground; Patria
est ubicunque bene est — That place is our country
■in which we are well off. If tilings be not as they
have been, instead of fretting at that, we must live
in hopes that they will be better than they are.
Non si male nunc, et olim sic erit.
Though we suffer now, we shall not always.
(2.) That they must not disquiet themselves with
fears of intolerable hardships in their captivity.
They might be ready to suggest (as persons in trou¬
ble are always apt to make the worst of things,)
that it would be in vain to build houses, for their
lords and masters would not suffer them to dwell in
them when they had built them, nor to eat the fruit
of the vineyards they planted; “ Never fear,” says
God; “if vou live peaceably with them, you shall
find them civil to you.” Meek and quiet people,
that work, and mind their own business, have often
found much better treatment, even with strangers
and enemies, than they expected; and God has
made his people to be pitied of those that carried
them captive; (Ps. cvi. 40.) and pity it is, but that
those who have built houses, should dwell in them.
Nav,
4. He directs them to seek the good of the coun¬
try where tliev were captives, (v. 7.) to pray for it,
to endeavour it. This forbids them to attempt any
thing against the public peace, while they were
subjects to the king of Babylon; though he was a
heathen, an idolater, an oppressor, and an enemy
to God and his church, yet, while he gave them
protection, they must pay him allegiance; and live
quiet and peaceable lives ooder him, in all godliness
and honesty; not plotting to shake off his yoke, but
patiently leaving it to Gnd in due time to work de¬
liverance for them. Nay, they must pray to God
for the peace of the place where they were, that
they might oblige them to continue their kindness
to them, and disprove the character that had been
given their nation, that they were hurtful to. Pings
and provinces, and moved sedition, Ezra iv. 15.
Both the wisdom of the serpent, and the innocency
of the dove, required them to be true to the govern¬
ment they lived under; for in the peace thereof ye
shall have peace; should the country be embroiled
in war, they would have the greatest share in the
calamitous effects of it. Thus the primitive Chris¬
tians, according to the temper of their holy religion,
prayed for the powers that were, though they were
persecuting powers. And if they were to pray for,
and seek the peace of, the land of their captivity,
much more reason have we to pray for the welfare
of the land of our nativity, where we are a free
people under a good government, that in the peace
thereof we and ours may have peace. Every pas¬
senger is concerned in the safety of the ship.
8. For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the
God of Israel, Let not your prophets and
your diviners, that be in the midst of you,
deceive you, neither hearken to your dreams
which ye cause to be dreamed. .9. For
they prophesy falsely unto you in my name;
I have not sent them, saith the Lord. 10.
For thus saith the Lord, That after se¬
venty years be accomplished at Babylon 1
will visit you, and perform my good word
towards you, in causing you to return to this
place. 1 1 . For I khow the thoughts that I
think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts
of peace, and not of evil, to give you an
expected end. 12. Then shall ye call upon
me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and
1 will hearken unto you. 13. And ye shall
seek me, and find me, when ye shall search
for me with all your heart. 14. And I will
be found of you, saith the Lord; and I
will turn away your captivity, and I will
gather you from all the nations, and from
all the places whither I have driven you,
saith the Lord; and I will bring ^ou again
into the place whence I caused you to be
carried away captive.
To make the people quiet and easy in their cap
tivlty,
I. 'God takes them off from building upon tin
false bottom which their pretended prophets laid,
xe 8, 9. They told them that their captivity should
be short, and therefore that they must not think of
taking root in Babylon, but be upon the wing to gc
back: “Now, herein, they deceive you,” (says
God,) “they prophesy a lie to you, though they
prophesy in my name. But let them not deceive
you, suffer not yourselves to be deluded by them.”
As long as we have the word of truth to try the
spirits by, it is cur own fault if we be deceived; ’for
by it we may be undeceived. Hearken not to your
dreams, which ye cause to be dreamed. He means
either the dreams or fancies which the people
pleased themselves with, and with which they filled
their own heads; by thinking and speaking of no¬
thing else but a speedy enlargement when they
were awake, they caused themselves to dream of it
when they were "asleep, and then took that for a
good omen, and with it strenghtened themselves in
their vain expectations; or, the dreams which the
prophets dreamed, and grounded their prophecies
upon. God tells the people, They are your dreams,
because thev pleasNl them, were the dreams that
they desired and wished for; they caused them to
be dreamed, for they hearkened to them, and en¬
couraged the prophets to put such deceits upon
them, desiring them to prophesy nothing but smooth
things, Isa. xxx. 10. They were dreams of their
own bespeaking. False prophets would not flatter
people in their sins, but that they love to be flatter¬
ed, and speak smoothly to their "prophets that their
prophets may speak smoothly to them.
II. He gives them a good bottom to build their
hopes upon. We would not persuade people to
pull down the house they have built upon the sand,
but that there is a rock ready for them to rebuild
upon. God here promises them, that though they
should not return quickly, they should return at
length, after 70 years be 'accomplished. By this it
appears, that the 70 years of the captivity are not
to be reckoned from the last captivity, but the first.
Note, Though the deliverance of the church do not
come in our time, it is sufficient that it will come in
God’s time, and we are sure that that is the best
time. The promise is, that God will visit them in
463
JEREMIAH, XXIX.
mercy; though he had long seemed to be strange to
them, he will come among them, and appear for
them, and put honour upon them, as great men do
upon their inferiors, by coming to visit them. He
will put an end to their captivity, and turn away all
the calamities of it. Though they are dis/iersed,
some in one country, and some in another, he will
gather them from all the places whither they are
driven, will set up a standard for them all to resort
to, and incorporate them again in one body. And
though they are at a great distance, they shall be
brought again to their own land, to the place whence
they were carried captive, v. 14.
Now, 1. This shall be the performance of God’s
promise to them; ( v . 10.) I will perform my good
word toward you. Let not the failing of those pre¬
dictions which are delivered as from God, lessen
the reputation of those that really are from him.
That which is indeed God’s word, is a good word,
and therefore it will be made good, and not one iota
or tittle of it shall fall to the ground. Hath he said,
and shall he not do it? This will make their return
out of captivity very comfortable, that it will be the
performance of God’s good word, to them, the pro¬
duct of a gracious promise.
2. This shall be in pursuance of God’s purposes
concerning them : ( v . 11.) I know the thoughts that
I think toward you. Known unto God are all his
works, for known unto him are all his thoughts,
(Acts xv. 18.) and his works agree exactly with
his thoughts; he doeth all according to the counsel
of his will. We often do not know ourown thoughts,
not know our own mind, but God is never at any
uncertainty within himself. We are sometimes
ready to fear that God’s designs concerning us are
all against us; but he knows the contrary concerning
his own people, that they are thoughts of good, ana
not of evil; even that which seems evil, is designed
for good. His thoughts are all working toward the
expected end, which he will give in due time. The
end they expect will come, though perhaps not
when they expect it. Let them have patience till
the fruit is ripe, and then they shall have it. He
will give them an end, and expectation; so it is in
the original. (1.) He will give them to see the end,
the comfortable period, of their trouble; though it
last long, it shall not last always; the time to favour
Zion, yea, the set time, will come; when things are
at the worst, they will begin to mend; and he will
give them to see the glorious perfection of their de¬
liverance; for, as for God, his work is perfect. He
that in the beginning finished the heavens and the
earth, and all the hosts of both, will finish all the
blessings of both to his people. When he begins in
ways of mercy, he will make an end. God does
nothing by halves. (2.) He will give them to see
the expectation, that end which they desire and
hope for, and have been long waiting for. He will
give them, not the expectations of their fears, or the
expectations of their fancies, but the expectations
of their faith; the end which he has promised, and
which will turn for the best to them.
3. This shall be in answer to their prayers and
supplications to God, v. 12. — 14. (1.) God will
stir them up to pray; Then shall ye call upon me,
and ye shall go, and pray unto me. Note, When
God is about to give his people the expected good,
he pours out a spirit of prayer, and it is a good sign
that he is coming toward them in mercy. Then
when you see the expected end approaching, then
you shall call upon me. Note, Promises are given,
not to supersede, but to quicken and encourage,
prayer; and when deliverance is coming, we must
by prayer go forth to meet it. When Daniel un¬
derstood that the 70 years were near expiring, then
he set his face with more fervency than ever to seek
the Lord, Dan. ix. 2,3. (2.) He will then stir up
himself to come and save them, (Ps. lxxx. 2.) I will
hearken unto you, oxdklwill be found of you. God
has said it, and we may depend upon it; seek, and
ye shall find. We have a general rule laid down,
(z>. 13.) Ye shall find me, when ye shall search for
me with all your heart. In seeking God, we must
search for him, accomplish a diligent search, search
for directions in seeking him, and encouragements
to our faith and hope. We must continue seeking,
and take pains in seeking, as those that search; and
this we must do with our heart, in sincerity and up¬
rightness, and with our whole heart, with vigour
and fervency, putting forth all that is within us, in
prayer; those who thus seek God, shall find him,
and shall find him their bountiful Rewarder, Hob.
xi. 6. He never said to such, Seek ye me in vain .
15. Because ye have said, The Lord
hath raised us up prophets in Babylon; 1G.
Know that thus saitli the L<5rd of the king
that sitteth upon the throne of David, and
of all the people that dwelleth in this city,
and of your brethren that are not gone forth
with you into captivity ; 1 7. Thus saitli the
Lord of hosts, Behold, I will send upon
them the sword, the famine, and the pesti¬
lence, and will make them like vile figs, that
cannot be eaten, they are so evil. 18. And
I will persecute them with the sword, with
the famine, and with the pestilence, and
will deliver them to be removed to all the
kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse, and an
astonishment, and a hissing, and a re¬
proach, among all the nations whither I
have driven them: 19. Because they have
not hearkened to my words, saitli the Lord,
which I sent unto them by my servants the
prophets, rising up early and sending them ;
but ye would not hear, saith the Lord. 20.
Hear ye, therefore, the word of the Lord,
all ye of the captivity, whom I have sent
from Jerusalem to Babylon : 21. Thus saith
the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, of
Ahab the son of Kolaiah, and of Zedekiah
the son of Maaseiah, which prophesy a lie
unto you in my name, Behold, I will deliver
them into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king
of Babylon, and he shall slay them before
your eyes ; 22. And of them shall, be taken
up a curse by all the captivity of Judah
which are in Babylon, saying, The Lord
make thee like Zedekiah, and like Ahab,
whom the king of Babylon roasted in the
fire; 23. Because thev have committed
illany in Israel, and have committed adul¬
tery with their neighbours’ wives, and have
spoken lying words in my name, which I
have not commanded them ; even I know,
and am a witness, saith the Lord.
Jeremiah, having given great encouragement to
those among the captives whom he knew to be seri¬
ous and well-affected, assuring them that God had
very kind and favourable intentions concerning
them, here turns to those among them who slighted
464
JEREMIAH, XXIX.
the counsels and comforts that Jeremiah ministered
to them, and depended upon what the false pro¬
phets flattered them with. When this letter came
from Jeremiah, they would be ready to say, “Why
should he make himself so busy, and take upon him
to advise us? The Lord has raised us up prophets
in Babylon, v. 15. We are satisfied with those
prophets, and can depend upon them, and have no
occasion to hear from any prophets in Jerusalem.”
See the impudent wickedness of this people; as the
prophets, when they prophesied lies, said that they
had them from God, so the people, when they in¬
vited those prophets thus to flatter them, fathered
it upon God, and said that it was the Lord that
raised them up those prophets. Whereas we may
be sure that those who harden people in their sins,
and deceive them with false and groundless hopes
of God’s mercy, are no prophets of God’s raising
up. These prophets of their own told them that no
more should be carried captive, but that those who
were in captivity should shortly return. Now, in
answer to this,
1. The prophet here foretells the utter destruc¬
tion of those who remained still at Jerusalem, not¬
withstanding what those false prophets said to the
contrary; “As for the king and people that dwell in
the city, who, you think, will be ready to bid you
welcome when you return, you are deceived, they
shall be followed with one judgment after another,
sword, famine, and pestilence, which shall cut off
multitudes; and the poor and miserable remains
shall be removed into all kingdoms of the earth,”
v. 16. — 18. And thus God will make them, or rather
deal with them, like vile Jdgs; they have made them¬
selves so by their wickedness, and God will use
them accordingly; as the salt that has lost its savour,
which, being good for nothing, is cast to the dung¬
hill; and so are rotten figs. This refers to the vision,
and the prophecy upon it, which we had, ch. xxiv.
And the reason given for these proceedings against
them, is the same that has often been given, and
will justify God in the eternal ruin of impenitent
sinners, ( y . 19.) Because they have not. hearkened
to my words; I called, but they refused.
2. He foretells the judgment of God upon the
false prophets in Babylon, who deceived the people
of God there. He calls upon all the children of the
captivity, who boasted of them as prophets of God’s
raising up; (u. 20.) “ Stand still, and hear the doom
of the prophets you are so fond of.” The two pro-
prets are named here Ahab and Zedekiah, v. 21.
Observe, (1.) The crimes charged upon them —
impiety and immorality; They prophesied lies in
God’s'name, (n. 21.) and again, (v. 23.) They have
spoken lying words in my name. Lying was bad,
lying to the people of God to delude them into a
false hope was worse, but fathering their lies upon
the God of truth was worst of all. And no marvel
if they that had the face to do that, could allow
themselves in the gratification of those vile affec¬
tions to which Godwin a way of righteous judgment,
gave them up. Thev have done villany in Israel,
for they have committed adultery with their neigh¬
bours' wives. Adultery is villany, and it is an ag¬
gravation of it, if it be villany in Israel, and in such
as pretend to be prophets, who by such wickedness
manifestly disprove their own pretensions. God
never sent such profligate wretches on his errands.
He is the Lord God of the holy prophets, not of
such impure ones. Here it appears why they flat¬
tered others in their sins — because they could not
reprove them without condemning themselves.
These lewd practices of theirs they knew how to
conceal from the eye of the world, that they might
preserve their credit: but I know it, and am a Wit¬
ness, saith the Lord. The most secret sins are known
to God; he can see the villany that is covered with
the thickest cloak of hypocrisy, and there is a day
coming when he will bring to light all these hidden
works of darkness, and every man will appear in
his own colours. (2. ) The judgments threatened
against them; The king of Babylon shall slay them
before your eyes; nay, he shall put them to a misera¬
ble death, roast them in the fire, v. 22. We may
suppose that it was not for their impiety and im¬
morality that Nebuchadnezzar punished them thus
severely, but for sedition, and some attempts of their
turbulent spirits upon the public peace, and stir¬
ring up the people to revolt and rebel. So much
of their wickedness shall then be detected, and
in such a wretched manner they shall end their
day's, that their names shall be a curse among the
captives in Babylon, v. 22. When men would im¬
precate the greatest evil upon one they hated, they
would think they could not load them with a heavier
curse, in fewer words, than to say. The Lord make
thee like Zedekiah, and like Ahab! Thus were
they made ashamed of the prophets they had been
proud of, and convinced at least of their folly in
hearkening to them. God’s faithful prophets were
sometimes charged with being the troublers of the
land, and, as such, were tortured and slain; but their
names were a blessing when they were gone, and
their memory sweet, not as these here. As male¬
factors are attended with infamy and disgrace, so
martyrs with glory and honour.
24. Thus shalt thou also speak to She-
maiah the Nehelamite, saying, 25. Thus
speaketh the Lord of hosts, the God of
Israel, saying, Because thou hast sent letters
in thy name unto all the people that are at
Jerusalem, and to Zephaniah the son of
Maaseiah, the priest, and to all the priests,
saying, 26. The Lord hath made thee
priest in the stead of Jehoiada the priest,
that ye should be officers in the house of the
Lord, for every man that is mad, and mak-
eth himself a prophet, that thou shouldest
put him in prison, and in the stocks: 27.
Now, therefore, why hast thou not reproved
Jeremiah of Anathoth, which maketh him¬
self a prophet to you? 23. For therefore he
sent unto us in Babylon, saying, This cap¬
tivity is long: build ye houses, and dwell in
them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit
of them. 29. And Zephaniah the priest read
this letter in the ears of Jeremiah the pro¬
phet. 30. Then came the word of the Lord
unto Jeremiah, saying, 31. Send to all
them of the captivity, saying, Thus saith the
Lord concerning Shemaiah the Nehelam¬
ite; Because that Shemaiah hath prophe¬
sied unto you, and I sent him not, and he
caused you to trust in a lie; 32. Therefore
thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will punish
Shemaiah the Nehelamite, and his seed: he
shall not have a man to dwell among this
people ; neither shall he behold the good that
I will do for my people, saith the Lord ;
because he hath taught rebellion against- the
Lord.
W e have perused the contents of Jeremiah’s lettei
to the captives in Babylon, who had reason, with a
4G5
JEREMIAH, XXIX.
great deal of thanks to God and him, to acknow-
't'dgc the receipt of it, and lay it up among their
treasures. But we cannot wonder if the false pro¬
phets they had among them were enraged at it, for
it gave them their true character. Now here we
are told concerning one of them,
I. How lie discovers his malice against Jeremiah.
This busy fellow is called Shemaiah the JVehe/am-
ite; the dreamer, (so the margin reads it,) because
all his prophecies he pretended to have received
from God in a dream. He had got a copy of Jere¬
miah’s letter to the captives, or had heard it read,
or information was given to him concerning it, and
it nettled him exceedingly; and he will take pen in
hand, and answer it, yea, that he will. But how?
He does not write to Jeremiah in justification of his
own mission, nor offer any rational arguments for
the support of his prophecies concerning the speedy
return of the captives; but he writes to the priests,
tjiose faithful patrons of the false prophets, and in¬
stigates them to persecute Jeremiah. He writes in
his own name, not so much as pretending to have
the people’s consent to it, but, as if he must be dic¬
tator to all mankind, he sends a circular letter (as
it should seem) among the priests at Jerusalem,
and the rest of the people, probably by the same
messengers that brought the letter from Jeremiah.
But it is chiefly directed to Zephaniah, who was
either the immediate son of Maaseiali, or of the
twenty-fourth course of the priests, of which Maa-
seiah was the father and head. He was not the
High Priest, but sagan or suffragan to the High
Priest, or in some other considerable post of com¬
mand in the temple, asPashur, ch. xx. 1. Perhaps
he was chairman of that committee of priests that
was appointed in a particular manner to take cog¬
nizance of those that pretended to be prophets, of
which there were very many at this time, and to
give judgment concerning them. Now,
1. He puts him and the other priests in mind of
the duty of their place; (v. 26.) The Lord hath
made thee priest instead of Jehoiada the priest.
Some think that he refers to the famous Jehoiada,
that great reformer in the days of Joash; and (says
Mr. Gataker) he would insinuate that this Zepha¬
niah is for spirit and zeal such another as he, and
raised up, as he was, for the glory of God and the
good of the church; and therefore it was expected
from him that he should proceed against Jeremiah.
Thus (says he) there is no act so injurious or im¬
pious, but that wicked wretches and false prophets
will not only attempt it, but colour it also with some
specious pretence of piety, and zeal for God’s glory,
Isa. lxvi. 5. John xvi. 2. Or, rather, it was some
other Jehoiada, his immediate predecessor in this
office, who perhaps was carried to Babylon among
the priests, v. 1. Zephaniah is advanced, sooner
than he expected, to this place of trust and power,
and Shemaiah would have him think that Provi¬
dence h id preferred him, that he might persecute
God’s prophets, that he was come to this govern¬
ment for such a time as this, and that he was un¬
just and ungrateful, if he did not thus improve his
power, or, rather, abuse it Their hearts are
wretchedly hard, who can justify the doing of mis¬
chief by their having a power to do it. These
priests’ business was to examine every man that is
mad, and makes himself a j irofihet . God’s faithful
prophets are here represented as prophets of their
own making, usurpers of the office, and lay-intru¬
ders; and as men that were mad, actuated by some
demon, and not divinely inspired; or as distracted
men, and men in a frenzy. Thus the characters
of the false prophets are thrown upon the true ones;
if this had been indeed their character, they ought
to be bound as madmen and punished as pretenders,
and therefore he concludes that Jeremiah must be
V OL. IV. — 3 X
so done to. He does not bid them examine whether
Jeremiah could produce any proofs of his mission,
and could make it to appear that he was not mad;
no, that is taken for granted, and when once he has
had a bad name given him, he must be run down of
course.
2. He informs them of the letter which Jeremiah
had written to the captives; (y. 28.) He sent unto
us in Babylon, with the authority of a prophet, say¬
ing, This captivity is long, and therefore resolve to
make the best of it. And what harm was there in
this, that it should be objected to him as a crime?
The false prophets had formerly said that the cap¬
tivity would never come, ch. xiv. 13. Jeremiah
had said that it would come, and the event had al¬
ready proved him in the right, which obliged them
to give credit to him, who now said that it would be
long, rather than to them who said it would be short,
but had once before been found liars.
3. He demands judgment against him ; taking it
for granted that he is mad, and makes himself a
prophet. He expects that they will order him to
be put in prison, and in the stocks, (it. 26.) that they
will thus punish him, and by putting him to dis¬
grace possess the people with prejudices against
him, ruin his reputation, and so prevent the giving
of any credit to his prophecies at Jerusalem, hoping
that if they could gain that point, the captives in
Babylon would not be influenced by him. Nay, he
takes upon him to chide Zephaniah for his neglect,
(ti. 27.) Why hast thou not rebuked and restrained
Jeremiah of Anathoth ? See how insolent and im¬
perious these false prophets were grown, that
though they were in captivity, they would give law
to the priests, who were not only at libeity but in
power. It is common for those that pretend to
more knowledge than their neighbours, to be thus
assuming. Now here is a remarkable instance of
the hardness of the hearts of sinners, and it is enough
to make us all fear, lest our hearts be at any time
hardened. For here we find, (1.) That these sin¬
ners would not be1 convinced by the clearest evi¬
dence. God had confirmed his word in the mouth
of Jeremiah, it had taken hold of them ; (Zech. i. 6.)
and yet, because he does not prophesy to them the
smooth things they desired, they are resolved to look
upon him as not duly called to the office of a pro¬
phet. None so blind as those that will not see. (2.)
That they would not be reclaimed and reformed by
the most severe chastisement. They were now
sent into a miserable thraldom for mocking the mes¬
sengers of the Lord, and misusing his prophets; this
was the sin for which God now contended with
them ; and yet in their distress they trespass yet more
against the Lord, 2 Chron. xxviii. 22. This very
sin they are notoriously guilty of in their captivity,
which shows that afflictions will not of themselves
cure men of their sins, unless the grace of God work
with them, but will rather exasperate the corrup¬
tions they are intended to mortify; so true is that
adage of Solomon, (Prov. xxvii. 22.) Though thou
shou/dest bray a fool in a mortar, yet will not his
foolishness depart from him.
II. How Jeremiah came to the knowledge of this;
(v. 29.) Z,ephaniah read this letter in the ears of
Jeremiah. He did not design to do as Shemaiah
would have him, but, as it should seem, had a re¬
spect for Jeremiah, (for we find him employed in
messages to him as a. prophet, ch. xxi. 1. — xxxvii.
3. ) and therefore protected him. He that continued
in his dignity and power, stood more in awe of God
and his judgments than he that was now a captive.
Nay, he made Jeremiah acquainted with the con¬
tents of the latter, that he might see what enemies
he had even among the captives. Note, It is kind¬
ness to our friends, to let them know their foes.
III. What was the sentence passed upon She-
466
JEREMIAH, XXX.
maiah for writing this letter. God sent him an an¬
swer, for to him Jeremiah committed his cause: it
was ordered to be sent not to him, but to them of
the captivity, who encouraged and countenanced
him, as if he had been a prophet of God’s raising
up, v. 31, 32. Let them know,
1. That Shemaiah had made fools of them; he
promised them peace in God’s name, but God
did not send him, he forged a commission, and
counterfeited the broad seal of Heaven to it, and
made the people to trust in a lie, and by preaching
false comfort to them deprived them of true
Cumfort; nay, he had not only made fools of them,
but, which was worse, had made traitors of them,
he had taught rebellion against the Lord, as Hana-
niah had done, ch. xxviii. 16. And if vengeance
shall be taken on them that rebel, much more on
them that teach rebellion by their doctrine and ex¬
ample.
2. That at his end he shall also be a fool; (as the
expression is, ch. xvii. 11.) his name and family
shall be extinct, and shall be buried in oblivion; he
shall leave no issue behind him to bear up his
name, his pedigree shall end in him; he shall not
have a man to dwell among this people; and neither
he, nor any that come from him, shall behold the
good that I will do for my people. Note, Those
are unworthy to snare in God’s favours to his
church, that are not willing to stay his time for
them. Shemaiah was angry at Jeremiah’s advice
to the captives, to see to the building up of their
families in Babylon, that they might be increased,
and not diminished, and therefore justly is he writ¬
ten childless there. Those that slight the blessings
of God’s word, deserve to lose the benefit of them.
See Amos vii. 16, 17.
CHAP. XXX.
The sermon which we have in this and the following chap¬
ter, is of a very different complexion from all those be¬
fore. The prophet does indeed, by direction from God,
change his voice. Most of what he had said hitherto,
was by way of reproof and threatening; but these two
chapters are wholly taken up with precious promises of
a return out of captivity, and that typical of the glorious
things reserved for the church in the days of the Messiah.
The prophet is bid not only to preach this, but to write
it, because it is intended for the comfort of the genera¬
tion to come, v. 1 . . 3. It is here promised, I. That
they should hereafter have a joyful restoration. 1.
Though they were now in a great deal of pain and ter¬
ror, v. 4 . . 7. 2. Though their oppressors were very
strong, v. 8. . 10. 3. Though a full end was made of
other nations, and they were not restored, v. 11. 4.
Though all means of their deliverance seemed to fail and
be cut off, v. 12.. 14. 5. Though God himself had sent
them into captivity, and justly, for their sins, v. 15, 16.
6. Though all about them looked upon their case as des¬
perate, v. 17. II. That after their joyful restoration
they should have a happy settlement; that their city
should be rebuilt, (v. 18.) their numbers increased, (v.
19, 20.) their government established, (v. 21.) God’s
covenant with them renewed, (v. 22.) and their enemies
destroyed and cut off, v. 23, 24.
l.r|MIE word that came to Jeremiah
-I. from the Lord, saying, 2. Thus
speaketh the Lord God of Israel, saying,
Write thee all the words that 1 have spoken
unto thee in a book. 3. For, lo, the days
come, saith the Lord, that I will bring again
the captivity of my people Israel and Judah,
saith the Lord; and I will cause them to
return to the land that I gave to their fathers,
and they shall possess it. 4. And these are
the words that the Lord spake concerning
Israel, and concerning ludah. 5. For thus
saith the Lord, We have heard a voice of
trembling, of fear, and not of peace. 6. Ask
ye now, and see whether a man doth travail
with child? wherefore do I see every man
with his hands on his loins, as a woman in
travail, and all faces are turned into pale¬
ness? 7. Alas! for that day is great, so that
none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s-
trouble; but he shall be saved out of it. 3
For it shall come to pass in that day, saith
the Lord of hosts, that I will break his yoke
from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds
and strangers shall no more serve themselves
of him: 9. But they shall serve the Lord
their God, and David their king, whom I
will raise up unto them.
Here,
I. Jeremiah is directed to write what God had
spoken to him; which perhaps refers to all the
foregoing prophecies; he must write them and pub
lish them, in hopes that they who had not profited
by it upon once hearing it, might take more notice
of it when, in reading it, they had leisure for a more
considerate review. Or, rather, it refers to the
promises of their enlargement, which had been of
ten mixed with his other discourses. He must col¬
lect them and put them together, and God will now
add unto them many like words. He must write
them for the generations to erme, who should see
them accomplished, and thereby have their faith ip
the prophecy confirmed. He must write it not in c
letter, as that in the chapter before, to the captives,
but in a book, to be carefully preserved in the ar¬
chives, or among the public rolls or registers of the
state. Daniel understood by these books when the
captivity was about coming to an end, Dan. ix. 2.
He must write it in a book, not in loose papers; For
the days come, and are yet at a great distance, when
I will bring again the captivity of Israel and Ju¬
dah, great numbers of the ten tribes, with those of
the two, v. 3. And it must be written, that it may
be read then also, that so it may appear how ex¬
actly the accomplishment answers the prediction,
which is one. end of the writing of prophecies. It is
intimated that they shall be beloved for their fathers'
sake; (Rom. xi. 28.) for therefore God will bring
them again to Canaan, because it was the land that
he gave to their fathers, which therefore they shall
possess.
II. He is directed what to write. The very
words are such as the Holy Ghost teaches, v. 4.
These are the words which God ordered to be writ¬
ten; and those promises which are written by his
order, are as truly his word as the ten command¬
ments, which were written with his finger.
1. He must write a description of the fright and
consternation which the people were now in, and
were likely to be still in upon every attack that the
Chaldeans made upon them, which will much mag¬
nify both the wonder and the welcomeness of their
deliverance; (v. 5.) We have heard a voice of
trembling — the shrieks of terror echoing to the
alarms of danger. The false prophets told them
that they should have peace, but there is fear, and
not peace; so the margin reads it. No marvel that
when without are fightings, within are fears. The
men, even the men of war, shall be quite over¬
whelmed with the calamities of their nation, shall
sink under them, and yield to them, and shall look
like women in labour, whose pains come upon them
in great extremity, and they know that they cannot
escape them, v. 6. You never heard of a man tra-
467
JEREMIAH, XXX.
vailing with child, and yet here you find not here
and there a timorous man, but every man, with his
hands on his loins, in the utmost anguish and agony,
as women in travail, when they see their cities
burnt and their countries laid waste. But this pain
is compared to that of a woman in travail, not to
that of a death-bed, because it shall end in joy at
last, and the pain, like that of a travailing woman,
shall be forgotten. All faces shall be turned into
paleness. The word signifies not only such pale¬
ness as arises froui a sudden fright, but that whjch
is the effect of a bad habit of body, the jaundice, or
green sickness. The prophet laments the calamity,
upon the foresight of it; (y. 7.) Alas, for that day
is great, a day of judgment, which is culled the great
day, the great and terrible day of the Lord; (Joel
ii. 31. Jude 6.) great, so that there has been none
like it. The last destruction of Jerusalem is thus
spoken of bv our Saviour as unparalleled, Matth.
xxiv. 21. ft is even the time of Jacob's trouble, a
sad time, when God’s professing people shall be in
distress, above other people. I'he whole time of
the captivity was a time of. Jacob's trouble; and such
times ought to be greatly lamented by all that are
concerned for the welfare of Jacob, and the honour
of the God of Jacob.
2. He must write the assurances which God had
given, that a happy end should at length be put to
these calamities, (1.) Jacob’s troubles shall cease;
He shall be saved out of them. Though the afflic¬
tions of the church may last long, they shall not last
always. Salvation belongs to the Lord, and shall be
wrought for his church. (2.) Jacob’s troublers
shdl be disabled to do him any further mischief,
and shall be reckoned with for the mischief they
have done him, v. 1. The Lord of hosts, who has
all power in his hand, undertakes to do it; “I will
break his yoke from off thy neck, which has long
lain so heavy, and hath so sorely galled thee; I will
burst thy bonds and restore thee to liberty and ease,
and thou shalt no more be at the beck and com¬
mand of strangers, shalt no more serve them, nor
shall they any more serve themselves of thee, they
shall no more enrich themselves either by thy pos¬
sessions or by thy labours.” And, (3.) That which
crowns and completes the mercy is, that they shall
be restored to the free exercise of their religion
again, v. 9. They shall be delivered from serving
their enemies, not that they may live at large, and do
v. hat they please, but that they may serve the Lord
their God and David their king, that they may
come again in order, under the established govern¬
ment both in church and state. Therefore they are
brought into trouble and made to serve their ene¬
mies, because they had not served the Lord their
God as they ought to have done, with joyfulness and
gladness of heart, Deut. xxviii. 47. But when the
time is come that they should be saved out of their
trouble, God will prepare and qualify them for it,
by giving them a heart to sen’e him; and will make
it doubly comfortable, by giving them opportu¬
nity to serve him. Therefore we are delivered out
of the hands of our enemies, that we may serve
God, Luke i. 74, 75. And then deliverances out of
temporal calamities are mercies indeed to us, when
by them we find ourselves engaged to, and enlarged
in, the service of God. They shall serve their own
God, and neither be inclined, as they had been of
old in the day of their apostacy, nor compelled, as
they had been of late in the day of their captivity,
to serve other gods. They shall serve David their
king, such governors as God should from time to
time set over them, of the line of David, as Zerub-
babel; or, at least, sitting on the thrones of judg¬
ment, the thrones of the house of David, as Nehe-
miah. But certainly this has a further meaning.
The Chaldee Paraphrase reads it, They shall obey,
or hearken to, the Messiah, or Christ, the Son of
David, their king. Tohim theJewish interpreters
apply it. That dispensation, which commenced at
their return out of captivity, brought them to the
Messiah. He is called David their king, because
he was the Son of David, (Matth. xxii. 42.) and he
answered to the name. Matth. xx. 31, 32. David
was an illustrious type of him both in his humilia¬
tion and his exaltation. The covenant of royalty
made with David had principal reference to him,
and in him the promises of that covenant had their
full accomplishment. God gave him the throne of
his father David, he raised him up unto them, set
him upon the holy hill of Zion. God is often in the
New Testament said to have raised up Jesus, raised
him up as a King, Acts iii. 26. — xiii. 23, 33. Ob¬
serve, [1. ] Those that serve the Lord as their God,
must also serve David their King, must give up
themselves to Jesus Christ, to be ruled by him. For
all men must honour the Son as they honour the
Father, and come into the service and worship of
God by him as Mediator. [2. ] Those that are de¬
livered out of spiritual bondage, must make it ap¬
pear that they are so by giving up themselves to
the service of Christ. They to whom he gives
rest, must take his yoke upon them.
10. Therefore fear thou not, O my ser¬
vant Jacob, saith the Lord ; neither be
dismayed, O Israel : for, lo, I will save thee
from afar, and thy seed from the land of
their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and
shall be in rest and be quiet, and none shall
make him afraid. 1 1 . For I am with thee,
saith the Lord, to save thee : though I make
a full end of all nations whither I have scat¬
tered thee, yet will I not make a full end
of thee ; but I will correct thee in measure,
and will not leave thee altogether unpunish¬
ed. 12. For thus saith the Lord, Thy
bruise is incurable, and thy wound is griev¬
ous. 13. There is none to plead thy
cause, that thou mayest be bound up: thou
hast no healing medicines. 14. All thy
lovers have forgotten thee ; they seek thee
not: fori have wounded thee with the wound
of an enemy, with the chastisement of a
cruel one, for the multitude of thine iniquity;
because thy sins were increased. 15. Why
criest thou for thine affliction ? thy sorrow
is incurable for the multitude of thine ini¬
quity : because thy sins were increased I
have done these things unto thee. 16.
Therefore all they that devour thee shall
be devoured; and all thine adversaries,
every one of them, shall go into captivity ;
and they that spoil thee shall be a spoil, and
all that prey upon thee will I give for a prey.
17. For I will restore health unto thee, and I
will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord;
because they called thee an Outcast, saying,
This is Zion, whom no man seeketh after.
In these verses, as in those foregoing, the deplo¬
rable case of the Jews in captivity is set forth, but
many precious promises are given them, that in due
time they should be relieved, and a glorious salva¬
tion wrought for them.
408
JEREMIAH, XXX.
4. God himself appeared against them; he scat¬
tered them; ( v . 11.) he did all these things unto
them, v. 15. All their calamities came from his
hands; whoever were the instruments, he was the
principal Agent. And this made their case very
sad, that God, even their own God, spake concern¬
ing them, to pull down and to destroy. Now, (1.)
This was intended by him as a fatherly chastise¬
ment, and no other; (y. 11.) “I will correct thee
in measure, or according to judgment,- with discre¬
tion, no more than thou desen est, nay, no more
than thou canst well bear.” What God does
against his people, is in a way of correction, and
that correction is always moderated, and always
proceeds from love. “I will not leave thee alto¬
gether unpunished, as thou art ready to think I
should, because of thy relation to me.” Note, A
rofession of religion, though ever so plausible, will
e far from securing to us impunity in sin. God is
no Respecter of persons, but will show his hatred
of sin, wherever he finds it, and that he hates it
most in those that are nearest to him. God here
corrects his people for the multitude of their ini¬
quity, and because their sins were increased, v. 14,
15. Are our sorrows multiplied at any time, and
do they increase? We must acknowledge that it is
becaus’e our sins have been multiplied, and they
have increased. Iniquities grow in us, and there¬
fore troubles grow upon us. But, (2.) What God
intended as a fatherly chastisement, they and others
interpreted as an act of hostility; they looked upon
him as having wounded them with the wound of an
enemy, and with the chastisement of a cruel one, (y.
14. ) as if he had designed their ruin, and neither
mitigated the correction, nor had any mercy in re¬
serve for them. It did indeed seem as if God had
dealt thus severely with them, as if he had turned
to be their Enemy, and had fought against them,
Isa. lxiii. 10. Job complains that God was become
cruel to him, and multiplied his wounds. When
troubles are great and long, we have need carefully
to watch over our own hearts, that we entertain
not such hard thoughts as these of God and his
providence. His are the chastisements of a mer¬
ciful one, not of a cruel one, however they may
appear.
2. Their friends forsook them, and were shy of
them; none of those who had courted them in their
prosperity, would take notice of them now in their
distress, v. 13. It is commonly thus when families go
to decay; those hang off from them, that had been
their hangers-on. In two cases we are glad of the
assistance of our friends, and need their service; (1. )
If we be impeached, accused, or reproached, we
expect that our friends should appear in vindication
of us, should speak a good word for us, when we
cannot put on a face to speak for ourselves; but
here there is none to plead thy cause, none to stand
up in thy defence, none to intercede for thee with
thine oppressors: therefoi’e God will plead their
cause, for he might well wonder there was none to
uphold a people that had been so much the. fa¬
vourites of heaven, Isa. lxiii. 5. (2.) If we be sick,
or sore, or wounded, we expect our friends should
attend us, advise us, sympathize with us, and, if
occasion be, lend a hand for the applying of healing
medicines; but here, there is none to do that, none
to bind up thy wounds, and by counsels and comforts
to make proper applications to thy case; nay, (r.
14.) All thy lovers have forgotten thee; out of sight
out of mind; instead of seeking thee they forsake
thee. Such as this has often been the case of reli¬
gion and serious godliness in the world; those, that
from their education, profession, and hopeful begin¬
nings, one might have expected to have been its
friends and lovers, its patrons and protectors, desert
it, forget it, and have nothing to say in its defence,
nor will do any thing toward the healing of its
wounds. Observe, Thy ' 'lovers have forgotten thee,
for I have wounded thee. When God is against a
people, who will be for them? Who can be for
them, so as to do them any kindness? See Job xxx.
11. Now, upon this account, their case seemed
desperate and past relief; (v. 12.) Thy bruise is in
curable, thy wound grievous, and (x>. 15.) thy sot-
row is incurable; the condition of the Jews in cap¬
tivity was such as no human power could redress
the grievances of ; there they were like a valley full
of dead and dry boties, which nothing less than Om¬
nipotence can put life into. Who could imagine
that a people so diminished, so impoverished,
should ever be restored to their own land, and re¬
established there? So many were the aggravations
of their calamity, that their sorrow would not ad¬
mit of any alleviation, but they seemed to be hard¬
ened in it, and their souls refused to be comforted,
till divine consolations proved strong ones, too strong
to be borne dowm even by the floods of grief that
overwhelmed them. Thy sorrow is incurable, be¬
cause thy sins, instead of being repented of and for¬
saken, were increased. Note, Incurable griefs are
owing to incurable lusts. Now in this deplorable
condition they are looked upon with disdain; (x». 17.)
They called thee an outcast, abandoned by all, aban¬
doned to ruin; they said, This is Zion, whom no
man seeks after. When they looked on the place
where the city and temple had been built, they
called that an outcast; now all was in ruins, there
was no resort to it, no residence in it, none asked
the way. to Zion, as formerly, no man seeks after it.
When they looked on the people that formerly
dwelt in Zion, but were now m captivity, (and we
read of Zion dwelling with the daughter of Baby¬
lon, Zech. ii. 7.) they called them outcasts; these
are they who belong to Zion, and talk much of it,
and weep at the remembrance of it, but no man
seeks after them, or inquires concerning them.
Note, It is often the lot ot Zion to be deserted and
despised by those about her.
3. For all this, God will work deliverance and
salvation for them in due time. Though no other
hand, nay, because no other hand, can cure their
wound, his will and shall. (1.) Though he seem¬
ed to stand at a distance frbm them, yet he as¬
sures them of his presence with them, his powerful
and gracious presence; I will save thee, v. 10. I
am with thee, to save thee; v. 11. When they are
in their troubles, he is with them, to save them
from sinking under them; when the time is come
for their deliverance, he is with them, to be ready
upon the first opportunity, to save them out of their
trouble. (2.) Though they were at a distance, re¬
mote from their own land, afar off in the land of
their captivity, yet there shall salvation find them
out, thence shall it fetch them, them and their seed,
for they also shall be known among the Gentiles,
and distinguished from them, that they may re¬
turn, v. 10. (3.) Though they were now full of
fears, and continually alarmed, yet the time shall
come when they shall be in rest and quiet, safe and
easy, and none shall make them afraid, v. 10. (4.)
Though the nations into which they were dispersed,
should be brought to ruin, yet they should be pre¬
served from that ruin; (v. 11.) Though I make
a full end of the nations whither I have scattered
thee, and there might be danger of thy being lost
among them, yet I will not make a full end of thee.
It was promised that in the peace of these nations
they should have peace; ( ch . xxix. 7.) and yet in
the destruction of these nations they should escape
destruction. God’s church may sometimes be
brought very low, but he will not make a full end
of it, ch. v. 10, 18. (5.) Though God correct them,
and justly, for their sins, their manifold transgres-
JEREMIAH, XXX.
409
sions and mighty sins, yet he will return in mercy
to them, and even their sin shall not prevent their
deliverance when God’s time is come. (6. ) Though
their adversaries were mighty, God will bring them
down, and break their power; ( y . 16.) All that de¬
vour thee shall be devoured, and thus Zion’s cause
will be pleaded, and will be made to appear to all
the world a righteous cause. Thus Zion's deliver¬
ance will be brought about by the destruction of her
oppressors; and thus her enemies will be recom¬
pensed for all the injury they have done her; for
there is a God that judges in the earth, a God to
whom vengeance belongs; they shall every one of
them, without exception, go into captivity, and the
day will come when they that now spoil thee, shall
be a spoil; they that lead into captivity, shall go
into captivity, Rev. xiii. 10. This might serve to
oblige the present conquerors to use their captives
well, because the wheel would turn round, and the
day would come when they also should be captives,
and let them do now as they would then be done by.
(7.) Though the wound would seem incurable, God
will make a cure of it; (y. 17.) I will restore health
unto thee. Be the disease ever so dangerous, the
patient is safe if God undertake the cure.
4. Upon the whole matter, they are cautioned
against inordinate fear and grief, for in these pre¬
cious promises there is enough to silence both. ( 1. )
They must not tremble as those that have no hope,
in the apprehension of future further trouble that
might threaten them; (y. 10.) Fear thou not, 0 my
servant Jacob, neither be dismayed. Note, Those
that are God’s servants must not give way to dis¬
quieting fears, whatever difficulties and dangers
may be before them. (2.) They must not sorrow
as those that have no hope, for the troubles which
at present they lie under, v. 15. “ Why criest thou
for thine affliction? It is true, thy carnal confi¬
dences fail thee, creatures are physicians of no
value, but I will heal thy wound, and therefore, Why
criest thou? Why dost thou fret and complain
thus? It is for thy sin, ( v . 14, 15.) and therefore,
instead of repining, thou shouldest be repenting.
Wherefore should a man complain for the punish¬
ment of his sins ? The issue will be good at last,
and therefore rejoice in hope.”
18. Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will
bring again the captivity of Jacob’s tents,
and have mercy on his dwelling-places; and
the city shall be budded upon her own heap,
and the palace shall remain after the man¬
ner thereof. 19. And out of them shall
proceed thanksgiving, and the voice of
them that make merry : and I will multiply
them, and they shall not be few ; I w ill also
glorify them, and they shall not be small.
20. Their children also shall be as afore¬
time, and their congregation shall be es¬
tablished before me, and I will punish all
that oppress them. 21. And their nobles
shall be of themselves, and their governor
shall proceed from the midst of them ; and
1 will cause him to draw near, and he shall
approach unto me : for who is this that en¬
gaged his heart to approach unto me ? saith
the Lord. 22. And ye shall be my people,
and I will be your God. 23. Behold, the
whirlwind of {he Lord goeth forth with
fury, a continuing whirlwind ; it shall fall
; with pain upon the head of the wicked.
24. '1'he fierce anger of the Lord shall not
return, until he have done it, and until he
have performed the intents of his heart : in
the latter days ye shall consider it.
We have here further intimations of the favour
God had in reserve for them after the days of then
calamity were over. It is promised,
1. That the city and temple should be rebuilt, (v.
18. ) Jacob’s tents, and his dwelling-places, felt the
effects of the captivity, for they lay in ruins when
the inhabitants were carried away captives; but
when they are returned, the habitations shall be re
paired, and raised up out of their ruins, and therein
God will have mercy upon their dwelling-places,
that had been monuments of his justice. Then the cit /
of Jerusalem shall be built upon her own heap, her
own hill, though now it be no better than a ruinous
heap. The situation was unexceptionable, and there¬
fore it shall be rebuilt upon the same spot of ground.
He that can make of a city a heap, (Isa. xxv. 2.)
can, when he pleases, make of a heap a city again.
The palace, the temple, God’s palace shall retrain
after the manner t/hreof it shall be built after the
old model; and the service of God shall be con¬
stantly kept up there, and attended as formerly.
2. That the sacred feasts should again be so¬
lemnized; (r>. 19.) Out of the city, and the temple,
and all the dwelling-places of Jacob, shall proceed
thanksgiving, and the voice of them that make
merry. They shall go with expressions of joy to
the temple-service, and with the like shall return
from it. Observe, The voice of thanksgiving is
the same with the voice of them that make merry ;
for whatever is the matter of our joy, should be the
matter of our praise. Is any merry? Let him sing
psalms. What makes us cheerful should make us
thankful. Serve the Lord with gladness.
3. That the people should be multiplied and in¬
creased, and made considerable; They shall not be
few, they shall not be small, but shall become nume¬
rous and illustrious, and make a figure among the
nations; for I will multiply them and I will glorify
them. It is for the honour of the church to have
many added to it, that shall be saved; this would
make them to be of some weight among their neigh¬
bours. Let a people be ever so much diminished
and despised, God can multiply and glorify them.
They shall be restored to their former honour, their
children shall be as aforetime, playing in the streets;
(Zech. viii. 5.) they shall inherit their parents’ es¬
tates and honours as formerly, and their congrega¬
tions shall, both in civil and sacred things, be esta
blished before me. There shall be a constant suc¬
cession of faithful magistrates in the congregation
of the elders, to establish that, and of faithful wor¬
shippers in the congregation of the saints. As one
generation passes away, another shall be raised up,
and so the congregation shall be established before
God.
4. That they shall be blessed with a good govern¬
ment; (t. 21.) Their nobles and judges shall be of
thetnselves, of their own nation, and they shall no
longer be ruled by strangers and enemies; their go¬
vernor shall proceed from the midst of them, shall
be one that has been a sharer with them in the af¬
flictions of their captive state; and this has refer¬
ence to Christ our Governor, David our King; (v.
9.) he is of ourselves, in all things made like unto
his brethren. And I will cause them to draw near:
this may be understood, either, (1.) Of the people,
Jacob and Israel; “/ will cause them to draw near
to me in the temple-service, as formerly, to come
into covenant with me, as my people, (v. 22.) to ap¬
proach to me in communion; for, who hatii engaga.
470
JEREMIAH, XXXI.
his heart, made a covenant with it, and brought it
into bonds, to approach unto me?” How few are
there that do so! None can do it but by the special
grace of God, causing them to draw near. Note,
Whenever we approach to God in any holy ordi¬
nance, we must engage our hearts to do it; the heart
must tie prepared for the duty, employed in it, and
kept close to it. The heart is the main thing that
God looks at and requires; but it is deceitful, and
will start aside, if a great deal of care and pains be
not taken to engage it to bind this sacrifice with
cords. Or, (2.) It may be understood of the gover¬
nor, for it is a single person that is spoken of; their
governor shall be duly called to his office, shall
draw near to God to consult him upon all occasions.
God will cause him to approach to him, for other¬
wise, who would engage to take care of so weak a
people, and let this ruin come under their hand?
But when God has work to do, though attended
with many discouragements, he will raise up in¬
struments to do it. But it looks further, to Christ,
to him as Mediator. Note, [1.] The proper work
and office of Christ, as Mediator, is to draw near
and approach unto God, not for himself only, but
for us, and in our name and stead, as the High
Priest of our profession. The priests are said to
draw nigh to God, Lev. x. 3. — xxi. 17. Moses
drew near, Exod. xx. 21. [2.] God the Father
did cause Jesus Christ thus to draw near and ap¬
proach to him as Mediator. He commanded and
appointed him to do it, he sanctified and sealed him,
anointed him for this purpose, and accepted of him,
and declared himself well-pleased in him. [3.] Je¬
sus Christ, being caused by the Father to approach
unto him as Mediator, did engage his heart to do it,
he bound and obliged himself to it, undertook for
his heart, (so some read it,) for his soul, that, in the
fulness of time, it should be made an offering for sin.
His own voluntary susception, in compliance with
his Father’s will, and in compassion to fallen man,
engaged him, and then his own honour kept him to
it. It also intimates that he was hearty and reso¬
lute, free and cheerful, in it, and made nothing of
the difficulties that lay in his way, Isa. lxiii. 3. —
5. [4.] Jesus Christ was, in all this, truly wonder¬
ful; we may well ask, with admiration, Who is this
that thus engages his heart to such an undertaking?
5. That they shall be taken again into covenant
with God, according to the covenant made with
their fathers; (v. 22.) Ye shall be my people; and
it is God’s good work in us, that makes us to him a
people, a people for his name, Acts xv. 14. I will
be your God; it is his good-will to us, that is the
summary of that part of the covenant.
6. That their enemies shall be reckoned with and
brought down; (i\ 20.) I will punish all them that
oppress them, so that it shall appear to all a danger¬
ous thing to touch God’s anointed, Ps. cv. 15. The
two last verses come under this head, The whirl¬
wind of the Lord shall fall with pain upon the
head of the wicked. These two verses we had be¬
fore: (ch. xxiii. 19, 20.) there they were a denunci¬
ation of God’s wrath against the wicked hypocrites
in Israel; here, against the wicked oppressors of
Israel; the expressions, exactly agreeing, speak the
same with that, (Isa. li. 22, 23. ) I will take the cup
of trembling out of thy hand, and put it into the
hand of them that a fflict thee. The wrath of God
against the wicked is here represented to be, (1.)
Very terrible, like a whirlwind, surprising and irre¬
sistible. (2.) Very grievous; it shall fall with pain
upon their heads, they shall be as much hurt as
frightened. (3.) It shall pursue them ; whirlwinds
are usually short, but this shall be a continuing
whir'wind. (4. ) It shall accomplish that for which
it is sent; The anger of the Lord shall not return,
till he hate done it; the purposes of his wrath, as
well as the purposes of his love, will all be fulfilled;
he will perform the intents of his heart: and, (5. )
Those that will not lay this to heart now, will then
be unable to put off the thoughts of it; In the latter
days ye shall consider it, when it will be too late to
prevent it.
CHAP. XXXI.
This chapter goes on with the good words and comforta¬
ble words which we had in the chapter before, for the
encouragement of the captives, assuring them that God
would in due time return them or their children to their
own land, and make them a great and happy nation
again, especially by sending them the Messiah, in whose
kingdom and grace many of these promises were to have
their full accomplishment. 1. They shall be restored to
peace and honour, and joy and great plenty, v. 1 - .14.
II. Their sorrow for the loss of their children shall be at
an end, v. 15 . . 17. III. They shall repent of their sins,
and God will graciously accept them in their repent¬
ance, v. 18. . 20. IV. They shall be multiplied and in¬
creased, both their children and their cattle, and not be
cut off and diminished as they had been, v. 21 . . 30. V.
God Mill renew his covenant with them, and enrich it
with spiritual blessings, v. 31 • . 34. VI. These blessings
shall be secured to theirs after them, even to the spiritual
seed of Israel forever, v. 35- -37. VII. As an earnest
of this, the city of Jerusalem shall be rebuilt, v. 38. .40.
These exceeding great and precious promises were firm
foundations of hope, and full foundations of joy, to the
poor captives; and we also may apply them to ourselves,
and mix faith with them.
1. i T the same time, saith the Lord,
J\. will 1 be the God of all the families
of Israel, and they shall be my people. 2.
Thus saith the Lord, The people which
were left of the sword found grace in the
wilderness; even Israel, when 1 went to
cause him to rest. 3. The Lord hath ap¬
peared of old unto me, saying , Yea, I have
loved thee with an everlasting love; there¬
fore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee.
4. Again I will build thee, and thou shalt
be built, O virgin of Israel : thou shalt again
be adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go
forth in the dances of them that make merry.
5. Thou shalt yet plant vines upon the moun¬
tains of Samaria : the planters shall plant,
and shall eat them as common things. 6.
For there shall be a day, that the watchmen
upon the mount Ephraim shall cry, Arise
ye, and let us go up to Zion unto the Lord
our God. 7. For thus saifh the Lord, Sing
with gladness for Jacob, and shout among
the chief of the nations: publish ye, praise
ye, and say, O Lord, save thy people, the
remnant of Israel. 8. Behold, 1 will bring
them from the north country, and gather
them from the coasts of the earth, and with
them the blind and the lame, the woman
with child and her that travaileth with child
together: a great company shall return
thither. 9. They shall come with weeping,
and with supplications will I lead them : I
will cause them to walk by the rivers of
waters in a straight way, wherein they shall
not stumble; for I am a father to fsrael,
and Ephraim is my first-born
JEREMIAH XXXI. 471
God here assures his people,
1. That he will again take them into a covenant-
relation to himself, from which they seemed to have
been cut off. At the same time, when God’s anger
breaks out against the wicked, (c/i. xxx. 24.) his
own people shall be owned by him as the children
of his love; I will be the God, I will show myself
to be the God, of all the families of Israel; (v. 1.)
not of the two tribes only, but of all the tribes; not
of the house of Aaron only, and the families of
Levi, but of all their families; not only their state
in general, but their particular families, and the in¬
terests of them, shall have the benefit of a special
relation to God. Note, The families of good peo¬
ple, in their family-capacity, may apply themselves
to God, and stay themselves upon him as their God.
If we and our houses serve the Lord, we and our
houses shall be protected and blessed by him, Prov.
iii. 33.
2. That he will do for them, in bringing them
out of Babylon, as he had done for their fathers
when he delivered them out of Egypt, and as he
had purposed to do when he first took them to be
his people. (1.) He puts them in mind of what he
did for their fathers when he brought them out of
Egypt; (xj. 2.) they were then, as these were, a
people left of the sword, that sword of Pharaoh,
with which he cut off all the male children as soon
as they were bom, (a bloody sword indeed they had
narrowly escaped,) and that sword with which he
threatened to cut them off when he pursued them to
the Red Sea. They were then in the wilderness, where
they seemed to be lost and forgotten, as they were
now in a strange land, and yet they found grace in
God’s sight, were owned and highly honoured by
him, and blessed with wonderful instances of his
peculiar favour, and he was at this time going to
cause them to rest in Canaan. Note, When we are
brought very low, and insuperable difficulties ap¬
pear in the way of our deliverance, it is good to
remember that it has been so with the church for¬
merly, and yet that it has been raised up from its
low estate, and has got to Canaan through all the
hardships of a wilderness; and God is still the same.
(2.) 'They put him in mind of what God had done
for their fathers, intimating that they now saw not
such signs, and were ready to ask, as Gideon did,
Where are all the wonders that our fathers told us
of? x>. 3. It is true, The Lord hath appeared of
old unto me, in Egypt, in the wilderness, hath ap¬
peared with me, and for me, hath been seen in his
glory as my God; the years of ancient times were
glorious years; but now it is otherwise; what good
will it do us, that he appeared of old to us, when
now he is a God that hides himself from us? Isa.
xlv. 15. Note, It is hard to take comfort from for¬
mer smiles, under present frowns. (3.) To this he
answers, with an assurance of the constancy of his
love. Yea, I have loved thee, not only with an an¬
cient love, but with an everlasting love, a love that
shall never fail, however the comforts of it may for
a time be suspended. It is an everlasting love,
therefore have I extended or drawn out loving-
kindness unto thee also, as well as to thine ances¬
tors; or, with loving-kindness have I drawn thee to
myself as thy God, from all the idols to which
thou hadst turned aside. Note, It is the happiness
of those who are through grace interested in the
love of God, that it is an everlasting love, ( from
everlasting in the counsels of it, to everlasting in
the continuance and consequences of it,) and that
nothing can separate them from that love. Those
whom God loves with this love, he will draw into
covenant and communion with himself, by the in¬
fluences of his Spirit upon their souls; he will draw
them with loving-kindness, with the cords of a man.
| and bands of love, than which no attractive can b>‘
more powerful.
3. That he will again form them into a people,
and give them a very joyful settlement in their own
land, i>. 4, 5. Is the church cf Gcd his house, his
temple? Is it now in ruins? It is so; but, Again I
will build thee, and thou shalt be built. Ax-e the
parts of this building dispersed? They shall be col¬
lected, and put together again, each in its place.
If God undertake to build them, they shall be built,
whatever opposition may be given to it. Is Israel
a beautiful virgin? Is she now stripped of her or¬
naments, and reduced to a melancholy state? She
i is so; but thou shalt again be adorned, and made
fine, adorned with thy tabrets, or timbrels, the or¬
naments of thy chamber, and made merry. They
shall resume their harps which had been hung upon
the willow trees, shall tune them, and shall them¬
selves be in tune to make use of them ; they shall
be adorned with their tabrets, for now their mirth
and music shall be seasonable, it shall be a proper
time for it, God in his providence shall call them to
it, and then it shall be an ornament to them; where¬
as tabrets, at a time of common calamity, when
Gcd called to mourning, were a shame to them.
Or, it may refer to their use of tabrets in the so¬
lemnizing of their religious feasts, and their going
forth in dances then, as the daughters of Shiloh,
Judg. xxi. 19, 21. Our mirth is then indeed an or¬
nament to us, when we serve God and honour him
with it. Is the joy of the city maintained by the
products of the country? It is so; and therefore it
is promised, (x\ 5.) Thou shalt yet plant vines
upon the mountains of Samaria, which had been
the head city of the kingdom of Israel, in opposi¬
tion to that of Judah: but they shall now be united,
(Ezek. xxxvii. 22.) and there shall be such perfect
peace and security, that men riiall apply themselves
wholly to the improvement of their ground; the
planters shall plant , not fearing the soldiers’ coming
| to eat the fruits of what they had planted, or to
pluck it up; but they themselves shall eat them
freely, as common things, not forbidden fruits, not
forbidden bv the law of God, (as they were till the
fifth year, Lev. xix. 23. — 25.) net forbidden by the
owners, because there shall be such plenty as to
yield enough for all, for each.
4. That they shall have liberty and opportunity
to worship God in the ordinances of his own ap¬
pointment, and shall have both invitations and incli¬
nations to do so; (x>. 6.) There shall be a day, and a
glorious day it will be, when the watchmen upon
mount Ephraim, that are set to stand sentinel
there, to give notice of the approach of the enemy,
finding that all is very quiet, and that there is no
appearance of danger, shall desire for a time to be
discharged from their post, that they may go up to
Zion , to praise God for the public peace. Or, the
watchmen that tend the vineyards, spoken of, v. 5.
shall stir up themselves, and one another, and all
their neighbours, to go, and keep the solemn feast
at Jerusalem. Now this implies that the service of
God shall be again set up in Zion, that there shall
be a general resort to it, with much affection and
mutual excitement, as in David’s time, Ps. exxii. 1.
But that which is most observable here, is, that the
watchmen of Ephraim are forward to promote the
worship of God at Jerusalem, whereas formerly
the watchman of Ephraim was hatred against the
house of his God, (Hos. ix. 8.) and, instead of in¬
viting people to Zion, laid snares for those that set
their faces thitherward, Hos. v. 1. Note, God can
make those who have been enemies to religion and
the true worship of God, to become encouragers of
them, and leaders in them. This promise was to
have its full accomplishment in the days of the
JEREMIAH, XXXI.
Messiah, when the gospel should be preached to
all these countries, and a general invitation .here¬
by given into the church of Christ, of which Zion
was a type.
5. That God shall have the glory, and the church
both the honour and comfort, of this blessed change;
7 Sing with gladness for Jacob, let all her
friends ami well-wishers rejoice with her, Deut.
xxxii. 43. Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his / teofile ,
Rom. xv. 10. The restoration of Jacob will be taken
notice of by all the neighbours, it will be matter
of joy to them all, and they shall all join with Ja¬
cob in his joys, and thereby pay him respect, and
put a reputation upon him. Even the chief of the
nations, that make the greatest figure, shall think
it an honour to them to congratulate the restoration
of Jacob, and shall do themselves the honour to send
their ambassadors on that errand. Publish ye, praise
ye; in publishing these tidings, praise the God of
Israel, praise the Israel of God, speak honourably
of both. The publishers of the gospel must do it
with /iraise, and therefore it is often spoken of in
the Psalms, as mingled with praises, Ps. lxvii. 2,
3. _ xcvi. 2, 3. What we either bring to others, or
take to ourselves the comfort of, we must be sure
to give God the praise of. Praise ye, and say, 0
Lord, save thy people; perfect their salvation, go
on to save the remnant of Israel, that are yet in
bondage; as Ps. cxxvi. 3, 4. Note, When we are
praising God for what he has done, we must call
upon him for the future favours which his church
is in need and expectation of; and in praying to
him we really praise him, and give him glory; he
takes it so.
6. That, in order to a happy settlement in their
own land, they shall have a joyful return out of the
land of their captivity, and a very comfortable pas¬
sage homeward, (x'.' 8, 9.) and this beginning of
mercy shall be to them a pledge of all the other
blessings here promised. (1.) Though they are
scattered to places far remote, yet they shall be
brought together from the north country, and from
the coasts of the earth; wherever they are, God will
find them out. (2.) Though many of them are very
unfit for travel, yet that shall be no hinderance to
them; the blind and the lame shall come; such a
good-will shall they have to their journey, and such
a good heart upon it, that they shall not make their
blindness and lameness an excuse for staying where
they are. Their companions will be ready to help
them, will be eyes to the blind, and legs to the lame,
as good Christians ought to be to one another in their
travels heavenward. Job xxix. 15. But, above all,
their God will help them; and let none plead that
he is blind, who has God for his Guide; or lame,
who has God for his Strength. The women with
child are heavy, and it is not fit that they should
undertake such' a journey, much less those that tra¬
vail with child; and yet, when it is to return to Zion,
neither the one nor the other shall make any diffi¬
culty of it. Note, When God calls, we must not
plead any inability to come; for he that calls us will
help us, will strengthen us. (3. ) Though they seem
to be diminished, and to become few in numbers,
yet, when they come all together, they shall be a
great company ; and so will God’s spiritual Israel
be, when there shall be a general rendezvous of
them, though now they are but a little flock. (4.)
Though their return will be matter of joy to them,
yet prayers and tears will be both their stores and
their artillery; (x>. 9.) They shall come with weep¬
ing, and with supplications; weeping for sin, sup¬
plication for pardon; for the goodness of God shall
lead them to repentance; and they shall weep with
more bitterness and more tenderness for sin, when
they are delivered out of their captivity, than ever
they did when they were groaning under it. Weep¬
ing and praying do well together; tears put life into
prayers, and express the liveliness of them, and
prayers help to wipe away tears. With favours
will I lead them; (so the margin reads it;) in their
journey they shall be compassed with God’s favours,
the fruits of his favour. (5.) Though they have a
perilous journey, yet they shall be safe under a divine
convoy. Is the country they pass through dry and
thirsty? I will cause them to walk by the rivers of
waters, not the waters of a land-flood, which fail in
summer. Is it a wilderness where there is no road,
no track? I will cause them to walk in a straight
way, which they shall not miss. Is it a rough and
rocky country? Yet they shall not stumble. Note,
Whithersoever God gives his people a clear call, he
will either find them, or make them, a ready way;
and while we are following Providence, we may be
sure that Providence will not be wanting to us. And,
lastly, here is a reason given why God will take all
this care of his people; for lam a Father to Israel,
a father that begat ’him, and therefore will maintain
him, that have the care and compassion cf a father
for him ; (Ps. ciii. 13. ) and Fphraim is my first-born,
even Ephraim, who, having gone astray from God,
was no more worthy to be called a son, shall yet be
owned as a first-born, particularly dear, and heir of
a double portion of blessings. The same reason that
was given for their release out of Egypt, is given for
their release out of Babylon; they are free-born, and
therefore must not be enslaved; are born to God,
and therefore must not be the servants of men;
(Exod. iv. 22, 23.) Israel is my son, my first-born;
let my son go, that he may serve me. If we take
God for our Father, and join ourselves to the church
of the first-born, we may be assured that we shall
want nothing that is good for us.
1 0. Hear the word of the Lord, O ye na¬
tions, and declare it in the isles afar off, and
say, He that scaltereth Israel will gather
him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his
flock. 11. For the Lord hath redeemed
Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand of
him that ivas stronger than he. 1 2. There¬
fore they shall come and sing in the height
of Zion, and shall flow together to the good¬
ness of the Lord, for wheat, and for wine,
and for oil, and for the young of the flock,
and of the herd : and their souls shall be as
a watered garden ; and they shall not sor¬
row anymore at all. 13. Then shall the
virgin rejoice in the dance, both young men
and old together: for I will turn their mourn¬
ing into joy, and will comfort them, and
make them rejoice from their sorrow. 14.
And I will satiate the soul of the priests
with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied
with my goodness, saith the Lord. 15.
Thus saith the Lord, A voice was heard
in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping;
Rachel weeping for her children, refused to
be comforted for her children, because they
were not. 1 6. Thus saith the Lord, Re¬
frain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes
from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded,
saith the Lord ; and they shall come again
from the land of the enemy. 1 7. And there
is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that
473
JEREMIAH, XXXI.
thy children shall come again to their own
border.
This paragraph is much to the same purport with
the last, publishing to the world, as well as to the
church, the purposes of God’s love concerning his
people. This is a word of the Lord, which the
nations must hear, for it is a prophecy of a work of
the Lord, which the nations cannot but take notice
of. Let them hear the prophecy, that they may the
better understand and improve the performance;
and let them that hear it themselves, declare it to
others, declare it in the isles afar off. It will be a
Jiiece of news that will spread all the world over,
t will look very great in history; let us see how it
looks in prophecy. It is foretold,
1. That those who are dispersed, shall be brought
together again from their dispersions; He that scat¬
tered Israel will gather him; for he knows whither j
lit scattered them, and therefore where to find them ,
v. 10. Una eademque manus vulnus o/iemque tulit
— The hand that inflicted the wound shall heal it.
And when he has gathered him into one body, one
fold, he will keep him, as a shepherd does his flock,
from being scattered again.
2. That those who are sold and alienated, shall
be redeemed and brought back, v. 11. Though the
enemy that had got possession of him, was stronger
than he, yet the Lord, who is stronger than all, has
redeemed and ransomed him, not by price, but by
power, as of old out of the Egyptians’ hands.
3. That with their liberty they shall have plenty
and joy, and God shall be honoured and served with
it, v. i2, 13. When they are returned to their own
land, they shall come, and sing in the high filace of
Zion; on the top of that holy mountain they shall
sing to the praise and glory of God. We read that
they did so when the foundation of the temple was
laid there; they sang together, praising, and giving
thanks to the Lord, Ezra iii. 11. They shall flow
together to the goodness of the Lord; they shall nock
in great numbers and with great forwardness and
cheerfulness, as streams of water, to the goodness of
the Lord, to the temple where he causes his good¬
ness to pass before his people. They shall come
together in solemn assemblies, to praise him for his
goodness, and to pray for the fruits of it, and the
continuance of it; they shall come to bless him for
his goodness, in giving them wheat, and wine, and
oil, and the young of the flock and of the herd,
which, now that they have obtained their freedom,
they have an uncontested property in, and the quiet
and peaceable enjoyment of; and which therefore
they honour God with the first-fruits of, and out of
which they bring offerings to his altar. Note, It is
comfortable to observe the goodness of the Lord in
the gifts of common providence, and even in them
to taste covenant-love. Having plenty, (plenty out
of want and scarcity,) they shall greatly rejoice,
their soul shall be as a watered garden, flourishing
and fruitful, (Isa. lviii. 11.) pleasant and fragrant,
and abounding in all good things. Note, Our souls
are never valuable as gardens but when they are
watered with the dews of God’s Spirit and grace.
It is a precious promise which follows, and which
will not have its full accomplishment any where on
this side the height of the heavenly Zion, that they
shall not sorrow any more at all; for it is only in that
new Jerusalem that all tears shall be wiped away,
Rev. xxi. 4. However, so far it was fulfilled to the
returned captives, that they had not any more those
causes for sorrow, that they had had; and therefore
(in 13.) young men and old shall rejoice together;
so grave shall the young men be in their joys, as to
keep company with the old men, and so transported
shall the old men be, as to associate with the young.
Salva res est, saltat senex — The state prospers, and
Vol. IV. — 3 O
the aged dance. God will turn their mourning into
joy, their fasts into solemn feasts, Zech. viii. ly. it
was in the return out of Babylon that they who
sowed in tears, were made to reap in joy, Ps. cxxvi.
5, 6. Those are comforted indeed, whom God
comforts, and may forget their troubles, when he
makes them to rejoice front their sorrow; not only
rejoice after it, but rejoice from it; their joy shall
borrow lustre from their sorrow, which shall serve
as a foil to it; and the more they think of their trou¬
bles, the more shall they rejoice in their deliverance.
4. That both the ministers, and those they minis¬
ter to, shall have abundant satisfaction in what God
gives them; (re 14.) I will satiate the soul of the
priests with fatness; there shall be such plenty of
sacrifices brought to the altar, that they who live
upon the altar, shall live very comfortably, they
and their families shall be satiated with fatness, they
shall have enough, and that of the best; and my peo¬
ple shall be satisfied with my goodness, and shall
think there is enough in that to make them happy;
and so there is. God’s people have an abundant
satisfaction in God’s goodness, though they have but
little of this world. Let them be satisfied of God’s
loving-kindness, and they will be satisfied with it,
and desire no more to make them happy. All this
is applicable to the spiritual blessings which the re¬
deemed of the Lord enjoy by Jesus Christ, infinitely
more valuable than corn, and wine, and oil, and the
satisfaction of soul which they have in the enjoyment
of them.
5. That those, particularly, who had been in sor¬
row for the loss of their children who were carried
into captivity, should have that sorrow turned into
joy upon their return, v. 15. — 17. Here we have,
(1.) The sad lamentation which the mothers made
for the loss of their children; ( v . 15.) In Hamah
was there a voice heard, at the time when the gene¬
ral captivity was, nothing but lamentation, and bitter
weeping, more there than in other places, because
there Nebuzaradan had the general rendezvous of
his captives, as appears, ch. xl. 1. where we find
him sending Jeremiah back from Ramah. Rachel
is here said to weep for her children. The sepulchre
of Rachel was between Ramah and Bethlehem.
Benjamin, one of the two tribes, and Ephraim, head
of the ten tribes, were both descendants from Rachel.
She had but two sons, the elder of which was one for
whom his father grieved, and refused to be comforted,
(Gen. xxxvii. 35. ) the other she herself called Renom
— the son of my sorrow. Now the inhabitants of
Ramah did in like manner grieve for their sons and
their daughters that were carried away, (as 1 Sam.
xxx. 6.) and such a voice of lamentation was there,
as, to speak poetically, might even have raised
Rachel out of her grave to mourn with them. The
tender parents even refused to be comforted for their
children, because they were not, were not with them,
but were in the hands of their enemies; they were
never likely to see them more. This is applied by
the evangelists to the great mourning that was at
Bethlehem for the murder of the infants there by
Herod; (Matth. ii. 17, 18.) and this scripture is said
to be then fulfilled. They wept for them, and would
not be comforted, supposing the case would not admit
any ground of comfort, because they were not. Note,
Sorrow for the loss of children cannot but be great
sorrow, especially if we so far mistake as to think
they are not.
(2.) Seasonable comfort administered to them in
reference hereunto, v. 16, 17. They are advised to
moderate that sorrow, and to set bounds to it; Re¬
frain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from
tears. We are not forbidden to mourn in such a
case, allowances are made for natural affection; but
we must not suffer our sorrow to run into an extreme,
to hinder our joy in God, or take us off from cur
474
JEREMIAH, XXXI.
duty to him; though we mourn, we must not mur¬
mur, nor must we resolve, as Jacob did, to go to the
grave mourning. In order to repress inordinate
grief, we must consider that there is hope in our end,
hope that there will be an end, the trouble will not
last always, that it will be a happy end, the end will
be peace. Note, It ought to support us under our
troubles, that we have reason to hope they will end
well. The righteous has hope in his death; that will
be the blessed period of his griefs, and the blessed
passage to his joys. “ There is hope for thy pos¬
terity;” (so some read it;) “ though thou mayest not
live to see these glorious days thyself, there is hope
that thy posterity shall. Though one generation
falls in the wilderness, the next shall enter Canaan.
Two things thou mayest comfoit thyself with the
hope of,” [1.] “The reward of thy work; Thy suf-
fering-TOorX- shall be rewarded. The comforts of
the deliverance shall be sufficient to balance all the
grievances of thy captivity. ” God makes his people
glad according to the days wherein he has afflicted
them , and so there is a proportion between the joys
and the sorrows, as between the reward and the
work. The glory to be revealed, which the saints
hope for in their end, will abundantly countervail the
sufferings of this present time, Rom. viii. 18. [2.]
“The restoration of thy children;” 'They shall come
again from the land of the enemy, (t>. 16. ) they shall
come again to their own border, v. 17. There is hope
that children at a distance may be brought home;
Jacob had a comfortable meeting with Joseph, after
he had despaired of ever seeing him. There is hope
concerning children removed by death, that they
shall return to their own border, to the happy lot
assigned them in the resurrection, a lot in the hea¬
venly Canaan, that border of his sanctuary. We shall
see reason to repress our grief for the death of our
children that are taken into covenant with God, when
we consider the hopes we have of their resurrection
to eternal life. They are not lost, but gone before.
1 8. I have surely heard Ephraim bemoan¬
ing himself thus; Thou hast chastised me,
and I was chastised, as a bullock unac¬
customed to the yoke: turn thou me, and I
shall be turned; for thou art the Lord my
God. 19. Surely after that I was turned, 1
repented; and after that I was instructed, I
smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea,
even confounded, because I did bear the re¬
proach of my youth. 20. Is Ephraim my
dear son ? is he a pleasant child ? F or since
I spake against him, I do earnestly remem¬
ber him still ; therefore my bowels are trou¬
bled for him: I will surely have mercy upon
him, saith the Lord. 21. Set thee up way-
marks, make thee high heaps: set thy heart
toward the highway, even the way which
thou wentest: turn again, O virgin of Israel,
turn again to these thy cities. 22. How
long wilt thou go about, O thou backsliding
daughter ? for the Lord hath created a new
thing in the earth, A woman shall compass
a man. 23. Thus saith the Lord of hosts,
the God of Israel, As yet they shall use this
speech in the land of Judah, and in the cities
thereof, when I shall bring again their cap¬
tivity; The Lord bless thee, O habitation
of justice, and mountain of holiness. 24.
And there shall dwell in Judah itself, and
in all the cities thereof together, husband¬
men, and they that go forth with flocks. 25,
For I have satiated the weary soul, and I
have replenished every sorrowful soul. 26.
Upon this I awaked, and beheld; and mj
sleep was sweet unto me.
We have here,
1. Ephraim’s repentance, and return to God
Not only Judah, but Ephraim, the ten tribes, shall
be restored, and therefore shall thus be prepared
and qualified for it, Hos. xiv. 8. Ephraim shall say,
What have I to do any more with idols? Ephraim,
the people, is here spoken of as a single person, co
denote their unanimity; they shall be as one man in
their repentance, and shall glorify God in it with
one mind and one mouth, one and all. It is likevise
thus expressed, that it might be the better accom¬
modated to particular penitents, for whose direc¬
tion and encouragement this passage is interded.
Ephraim is here brought in, weeping for sin, per¬
haps because Ephraim, the person from whom that
tribe had its denomination, was a man of a lendei
spirit, mourned for his children many days; (1
Chron. vii. 21, 22.) and sorrow for sin is compared
to that for an only son. This penitent i, here
broughtin, (1.) Bemoaning himself, and the miseries
of his present case. T rue penitents do thus bemoan
themselves. (2.) Accusing himself, laying a load
upon himself as a sinner, a great sinner. He cnarges
upon himself, in the first place, that sin which his
conscience told him that he was more especially
guilty of at this time; and that was, impatience un
der correction; “ Thou hast chastised me; I have
been under the rod, and I needed it; I deserved it;
I was justly chastised, chastised as a bullock, who
had never felt the goad if he had not first rebelled
against the yoke.” True penitents look upon their
afflictions as fatherly chastisements; “ Thou hast
chastised me, and I was chastised ; it was well that I
was chastised, otherwise I had been undone; it did
me good, or at least was intended to do me good;
and yet I have been impatient under it.” Or, it
may- speak his want of feeling under the affliction;
“ Thou hast chastised me, and / was chastised, that
was all, I was not awakened by it, and quickened
by it; 1 looked no further than the chastisement. 1
have been under the chastisement as a bullock un¬
accustomed to the yoke, unruly and unmanageable,
kicking against the pricks, like a wild bull in a net,”
Isa. li. 20. This is the sin he finds himself gui*lty
of now; but (r. 19. ) he reflects upon his former sins,
and looks as far back as the days of his youth. The
discovery of one sin should put us upon searching
out more; now he remembers the reproach of his
youth. Ephraim, as a people, reflects upon the mis¬
conduct of their ancestors, when they were first
formed into a people. It is applicable to particular
persons. Note, The sin of our youth was the re¬
proach of our youth, and we ought often to remem¬
ber it against ourselves, and to bear it in a peniten¬
tial sorrow and shame. (3.) He is here brought in,
angrv at himself, having a holy indignation at him¬
self for his sin and folly; he smote upon his thigh, as
the publican upon his breast; he was even amazed
at himself, and at his own stupidity and froward-
ness; he was ashamed, yea, even corifounded, could
not with any confidence look up to God, nor with
any comfort reflect upon himself. (4.) He is here
recommending himself to the mercy and grace of
God. He finds he is bent to backslide from God,
and cannot by any power of his own keep himself
close with God, much less, when he is revolted,
bring himself back to God, and therefore he prays,
475
JEREMIAH, XXXI.
1'um thou me, and I shall be turned; which im¬
plies that unless God do turn him by his grace, he
shall never be turned, but wander endlessly; that
therefore he is very desirous of converting grace,
has a dependence upon it, and doubts not but that
that grace will be sufficient for him, to help him over
all the difficulties that were in the way ot his return
to God. See ch. xvii. 14. Heal me, and I shall be
healed. God works with power, can make the un¬
willing willing; if he undertake the conversion of a
soul, it will be converted. (5.) He is here pleasing
himself with the experience he had of the blessed
effect of divine grace; Surely after that I was turn¬
ed, I refiented. Note, All the pious workings of
our hearts toward God, are the fruit and conse¬
quence of the powerful working of his grace in us.
And observe, He was turned, he was instructed, his
will was bowed to the will of God, by the right in¬
forming of his judgment concerning the truths of
God. Note, The way God takes of converting souls
to himself, is, by opening the eyes of their under¬
standings, and all good follows thereupon; After
that I was instructed, I yielded, I smote ufion my
thigh. When sinners come to a right knowledge,
they will come to a right way. Ephraim was chas¬
tised, and that did not produce the desired effect,
it went no further; I was chastised, and that was
all. But when the instructions of God’s Spirit ac¬
companied the corrections of his providence, then
the work was done, then he smote upon his thigh,
was so humbled for sin as to have no more to do
with it.
2. God’s compassion on Ephraim, and the kind
reception he finds with God, v. 20. (1.) He owns
him for a child, though he has been an undutiful
child and a prodigal; Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he
a /ileasant child ? Thus when Ephraim bemoans
himself, God bemoans him, as one whom his mother
comforts, though she had chidden him, Isa. lxvi.
13. Is this Ephraim my dear son? Is this that
pleasant child ? Is it he that is thus sad in spirit,
and that complains so bitterly? So it is like that of
Saul, (1 Sam. xxvi. 17.) Is this thy voice, my son
David? Or, as it is sometimes supplied, Is not
Ephraim my dear son? Is he not a pleasant child?
Yes, now he is, now he repents and returns. Note,
Those that have been undutiful, backsliding chil¬
dren, if they sincerely return and repent, however
they have been under the chastisement of the rod,
shall be accepted ot God as dear and pleasant chil¬
dren. Ephraim had afflicted himself, but God thus
heals him: and abased himself, but God thus ho¬
nours him; as the returning prodigal, who thought
himself no more worthy to be called a son, yet, by
his father, had the best robe put upon him, and a
ring on his hand. (2.) He relents toward him, and
speaks of him with a great deal of tender compas¬
sion; Since I spake against him, by the threatemngs
of the word and the rebukes of providence, I do
earnestly remember him still, mv thoughts toward
him are thoughts of peace. Note, When God afflicts
his people, yet he does not forget them; when he
casts them out of their land, yet he does not cast
them out of sight, nor out of mind. Even then
when God is speaking against us, yet he is acting
for us, and designing our good in all; and this is our
comfort in our affliction, that the Lord thinks upon
us, though we have forgotten him. I remember
him still, and therefore my bowels are troubled for
him, as Joseph’s yearned toward his brethren, even
then when he spake roughly to them. When Israel’s
afflictions extorted a penitent confession and submis¬
sion, it is said, that his soul was grieved for the
misery of Israel; (Judg. x. 16.) for he always af¬
flicts with the greatest tenderness. It was God’s
compassion that mitigated Ephraim’s punishment;
My heart is turned within me; (Hos. xi. 8, 9.) and
now the same compassion accepted Ephraim’s re¬
pentance. Ephraim had pleaded, (x>. 18.) Thou
art the Lord my God, therefore to thee will I re¬
turn, therefore on thy mercy and grace I will de¬
pend; and God shows it was a valid plea, and pre-
vailing, for he makes it appear both that he is God,
and not man, and that he is his God. (3.) He re¬
solves to do him good; I will surely have mercy
upon him, saith the Lord. Note, God has mercy
in store, rich mercy, sure mercy, suitable mercy,
for all that in sincerity seek him, and submit to him;
and the more we are afflicted for sin, the better pre¬
pared we are for the comforts of that mercy.
3. Gracious excitements and encouragements
given to the people of God in Babylon, to prepare
for their return to their own land. ’ Let them not
tremble, and lose their spirits; let them not trifle,
and lose their time; but with a firm resolution and a
close application address themselves to their jour¬
ney, v. 21, 22. (1.) They must think of nothing
but of coming back to their own country, out of
which they had been driven; “ Turn again, O vir¬
gin of Israel, a virgin to be again espoused to thy
God, turn again to these thy cities; though they are
laid waste and in ruins, they are thy cities, which
thy God gave thee, and therefore turn again to
them. ” They must be content in Babylon no longer
than till they had liberty to return to Zion. (2. )
They must return the same way that they went,
that the remembrance of the sorrows which attend¬
ed them, or which their fathers had told them of,
in such and such places upon the road, the sight of
which would, by a local memory, put them in mind
of them, might make them the more thankful for
their deliverance. Those that have departed from
God into the bondage of sin, must return by the
way in which they went astray, to the duties they
neglected, must do their first works. (3.) They
must engage themselves and all that is within them
in this affair; Set thy heart toward the highway;
bring thy mind to it; consider thy duty, thine inter¬
est, and go about it with a good will. Note, The
way from Babylon to Zion, from the bondage of sin
to the glorious liberty of God’s children, is a high¬
way; it is right, it is plain, it is safe, it is well tracked;
(Isa. xxxv. 8.) yet none are likely to walk in it, un¬
less they set their hearts towards it. (4.) They
must furnish themselves with all needful accommo¬
dations for their journey; Set thee up way-marks,
and make thee high heaps or pillars; send before to
have such set up in all places where there is any
danger of missing the road. Let those that go first,
and are best acquainted with the way, set up such
directions for those that follow. (5.) They must
compose themselves for their journev. How long
wilt thou go about, 0 backsliding daughter? Let
not their minds fluctuate, or be uncertain about it,
but resolve upon it; let them not distract themselves
with care and fear; let them not seek about to crea¬
tures for assistance, nor hurry hither and thither in
courting them, which had often been an instance of
their backsliding from God; but let them cast them¬
selves upon God, and then let their minds be fixed.
(6.) They are encouraged to do this by an assurance
God gives them, that he would create a new thing,
strange and surprising in the earth, in that land a
woman shall compass a man. The church of God,
that is weak and feeble as a woman, altogether unapt
for military employments, and of a timorous spirit,
shall surround, besiege, and prev'ail against a
mighty man, Isa. liv. 6. The church is compared
to a woman. Rev. xii. 1. And whereas we find ar¬
mies compassing the camp of the saints, (Rev. xx.
9. ) now the camp of the saints shall compass them.
Many good inteipreters understand this new thing
created in that land to be the incarnation of Christ,
which God had an eye to in bringing them back to
476
JEREMIAH, XXXI.
that land, and which had sometimes been given
them for a sign, Isa. vii. 14. — ix. 6. A woman, the
Virgin Mary, enclosed in her womb the Mighty
One, for so Geber, the word here used, signifies;
and God is called Gibbor, the Mighty God, (c/i.
xxxii. 18.) and so is Christ there where his incarna¬
tion is spoken of, as it is supposed to be here, Isa. ix.
6. He is £1- Gibbor, the Mighty God. Let this
assure them that God would not cast off this people,
for that blessing was to be among them, Isa. lxv. 8.
4. A comfortable prospect given them of a happy
settlement in their own laqd again. ( 1. ) They shall
have an interest in the esteem and good-will of all
their neighbours, who will give them a good word,
and put up a good prayer for them ; (n. 23.) As yet,
or rather, yet again, (though Judah and Jerusalem
have long been an astonishment and an hissing,)
this speech shall be used, as it was formerly, con¬
cerning the land of Judah, and the cities thereof,
The Lord bless thee, O habitation of justice, and
mountain of holiness. This intimates that they
shall return much reformed, and every way better;
and this reformation shall be so conspicuous, that
all about them shall take notice of it. The cities,
that used to be nests of pirates, shall be habitations
of justice; the mountain of Israel, (so the whole
land is called, Ps. lxxviii. 54.) and especially mount
Zion, shall be a mountain of holiness. Observe,
justice toward men, and holiness toward God, must
go together. Godliness and honesty* are what God
has joined, and let no man think to put them asun¬
der, or to make one to atone for the want of the
other. It is well with a people when they come out
of trouble thus refined, and it is a sure presage of
further happiness. And we may with great com¬
fort pray for the blessing of God upon those houses
that are habitations of justice, those cities and coun¬
tries that are mountains of holiness. There the
Lord will undoubtedly command the blessing. (2.)
There shall be great plenty of all good things among
them; (n. 24, 25.) There shall dwell in Judah itself,
even in it, though it has now long lain waste, both
husbandmen and shepherds, the two ancient and
honourable employments of Cain and Abel, Gen.
iv. 2. It is comfortable dwelling in a habitation of
justice, and a mountain of holiness. And the hus¬
bandmen and shepherds shall eat of the fruit of
their labours, for I have satiated the weary and sor¬
rowful souls; they that came weary from their
journey, and have been long sorrowful in their cap¬
tivity, shall now enjoy great plenty. This is appli¬
cable to the spiritual blessings God has in store for
all true penitents, for all that are just and holy;
they shall be abundantly satisfied with divine graces
and comforts. In the love and favour of God the
weary soul shall find rest, and the sorrowful soul joy.
Lastly, The prophet tells us what pleasure the
discovery of this brought to his mind, v. 26. The
foresight God had given him sometimes of the ca¬
lamities of Judah and Jerusalem, were exceedingly
painful to him, (as ch. iv. 19.) but these views were
pleasing ones, though at a distance. Upon this I
awaked, overcome with joy, which burst the fetters
of sleep; and I reflected upon my dream, and it was
such as had made my sleep sweet to me; I was re¬
freshed, as men are with quiet sleep. Those may
sleep sweetly, that lie down and rise up in the favour
of God, and in communion with him. Nor is any
prospect in this world more pleasing to good men,
and good ministers, than that of the flourishing state
of the church of God. .What can we see with more
satisfaction than the good of Jerusalem, all the dans
of our life, and peace upon Israel?
27. Behold, the days come, saith the
Lord, that I will sow the house of Israel,
mid the house of Judah, with the seed of
man, and with the seed of beast. 28. And
it shall come to pass, that like as I have
watched over them, to pluck up, and to
break down, and to throw down, and to de
stray, and to afflict; so will 1 watch over
them, to build, and to plant, saith the Lord
29. In those days they shall say no more,
The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and
the children’s teeth are set on edge. 30.
But every one shall die for his own iniquity;
every man that eateth the sour grape, his
teeth shall be set on edge. 31. Behold, the
days come, saith the Lord, that I will make
a new covenant with the house of Israel,
and with the house of Judah; 32. Not ac¬
cording to the covenant that I made with
their fathers, in the day that 1 took them by
the hand, to bring them out of the land of
Egypt; (which my •covenant they brake,
although I was a husband unto them ; saith
the Lord;) 33. But this shall be the cove¬
nant that I will make with the house of
Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I
will put my law in their inward parts, and
write it in their hearts; and will be their
God, and they shall be my people. 34.
And they shall teach no more every man
his neighbour, and every man his brother,
saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all
know me, from the least of them unto the
greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will
forgive their iniquity, and I will remember
their sin no more.
The prophet, having found his sleep sweet, made
so by the revelations of divine grace, sets himself to
sleep again, in hopes of further discoveries, and is
not disappointed; for it is here further promised,
I. That the people of God shall become both
numerous and prosperous. Israel and Judah shall
be replenished both with men and cattle, as if they
were sown with the seed of both, v. 27. They shall
increase and multiply like a field sown with corn;
and this is the product of Gcd’s blessing, (u. 23.)
for whom God blessed, to them he said, Be fruitful.
This should be a type of the wonderful increase of
the gospel-church. God will build them, and plant
them, v. 28. He will watch over them, to do them
good; no opportunity' shall be lost, that may further
their prosperity. Every thing for a long time had
turned so much against them, and all occurrences
did so conspire to ruin them, that it seemed as if God
had watched over them, to pluck up, and to throw
down ; but now every thing that falls out, shall hap¬
pily fall in to strengthen and advance their interests.
God will be as ready to comfort those that repent of
their sins, and are humbled for them, as he is to
punish those that continue in love with their sins,
and arc hardened in them.
II. That they shall be reckoned with no further
for the sins of their fathers; (y. 29, 30.) They shall
say no more, they shall have no more occasion to
say, that God visits the iniquity, of the parents upon
the children, which God had done in the captivity;
for the sins of their ancestors came into the account
against them, particularly those of Manasseh: this
they had complained of as a hardship. Other
scriptures justify- God in this method of proceeding.
47;
JEREMIAH, XXXI.
ar.d our Saviour tells the wicked Jews in his days,
that they should smart for their fathers’ sins, because
they persisted in them, Matth. xxiii. 35, 36. But
it is here promised that this severe dispensation
with them should now be brought to an end ; that
God would proceed no further in his controversy
with them for their fathers’ sins, but remember for
them his covenant with their fathers, and do them
good according to that covenant; They shall no more
complain, as they have done, that the fathers have
eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on
edge; (which speaks something of an absurdity, and
is an invidious reflection upon God’s proceedings;)
but every one shall die for his own iniquity still;
though God will cease to punish them in their na¬
tional capacity, yet he will still reckon with parti¬
cular persons that provoke him. Note, Public sal¬
vations will give no impunity, ho security to pri¬
vate sinners: still every man that cats the sour
grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge. Note, Those
that eat forbidden fruit, how temptingly soever it
looks, will find it a sour grape, and it will set their
teeth on edge, sooner or later they will feel from it,
and reflect upon it with bitterness. There is as di¬
rect a tendency in sin to make a man uneasy, as there
is in sour grapes to set the teeth on edge.
III. That God will renew his covenant with them,
so that all these blessings they shall have, not by
providence only, but by promise, and thereby they
shall be both sweetened and secured. But this cove¬
nant refers to gospel-times, the latter days that
shall come; for of gospel-grace the apostle under¬
stands it, ( Heb. viii. 8, 9, 8cc. ) where this whole pas¬
sage is quoted, as a summary of the covenant of grace
made with believers in Jesus Christ. Observe,
1. Who the persons are, with whom this cove¬
nant is made, with the house of Israel and Judah,
with the gospel-church, the Israel of God, on which
heace shall be, (Gal. vi. 16.) with the spiritual seed
of believing Abraham and praying Jacob. Judah
and Israel had been two separate kingdoms, but
were united, after their return, in the joint favours
God bestowed upon them: so Jews and Gentiles
were in the gospel-church and covenant.
2. What is the nature of this covenant in general;
it is a new covenant, and not according to the cove¬
nant made with them, when they came out of Egypt;
not as if that made with them at mount Sinai were a
covenant of nature and innocencv, such as was made
with Adam in the day he was created ; no; that was,
for substance, a covenant of grace, but it was a dark
dispensation of that covenant, in comparison with this
in gospel-times. Sinners were saved by that cove¬
nant, upon their repentance, and faith in a Messiah
to come, whose blood, confirming that covenant, was
typified by that of the legal sacrifices, Exod. xxiv.
", 8. Yet this may upon many accounts be called new,
in comparison with that; the ordinances and pro¬
mises are more spiritual and heavenly, and the dis¬
coveries much more clear. That covenant God
made with them when he took them by the hand, as
if they had been blind or lame, or weak, to lead
them out of the land of Egypt, which covenant they
brake. Observe, It was God that made this cove¬
nant, but it was the people that brake it; for our sal¬
vation is of God, but our sin and ruin are of our¬
selves. It was an aggravation of their breach of it,
that God was a Husband to them, that he had espous¬
ed them to himself, it was a marriage-covenant that
was between him and them, which they brake by
idolatry, that spiritual adultery. It is a great ag¬
gravation of our treacherous departures from God,
that he has been a Husband to us, a loving, tender,
careful Husband, faithful to us, and yet we false to
him.
.■>. What are the particular articles of this cove¬
nant; they all contain spiritual blessings; not, “I
will give them the land of Canaan and a numerous
issue,” but, “I will give them pardon, and peace ,
and grace, good heads and good hearts.” He
promises,
(1.) That he will incline them to their duty ; I will
put my law in their inward part, and write it in their
heart; not, I will give them a new law, (as Mr. Ga
taker well observes,) for Christ came not to destroy
the law, but to fulfil it; but the law shall be written
in their hearts by the finger of the Spirit, as former¬
ly it was written in the tables of stone. God writes
his law in the hearts of all believers, makes it ready
and familiar to them, at hand when they have oc¬
casion to use it, as that which is written in the heart,
Prov. iii. 3. He makes them in care to observe it,
for that which we are solicitous about, is said to lie
near our hearts. He works in them a disposition to
obedience, a conformity of thought and affection to
the rules of the divine law, as that of the copy to
the original. This is here promised, and ought to
be prayed for, that our duty may be done conscien¬
tiously and with delight.
(2.) That he will take them into relation to him¬
self; I will be their God, a God all-sufficient to them;
and they shall be my people, a loyal, obedient people
to me. God’s being to us a God is the summary
of all happiness, heaven itself is no more, Heb. xi.
16. Rev. xxi. 3. Our being to him a people may
be taken either as the condition on our part, (those
and those only shall have God to be to them a God,
that are truly willing to engage themselves to be to
him a people,) or as a further branch of the promise,
that God will by his grace make us his people, a
willing people, in the day of his power; and, who¬
ever are his people, it is his grace that makes
them so.
(3.) That there shall be an abundance of the
knowledge of God among all sorts of people, and
this will have an influence upon all good; for they
that rightly know God’s name, will seek him, and
serve him, and put their trust in him; (t>. 34.) All
shall know me; all shall be welcome to the know¬
ledge of God, and shall have the means of that
knowledge; his way shall be known upon earth;
whereas, for many ages, in Judah only was God
known. Many more shall know God than did in
the Old Testament times, which among the Gen¬
tiles were times of ignorance, the true God be¬
ing to them an unknown God. The things of God
shall in gospel-times be made more plain and intel¬
ligible, and level to the capacities of the meanest,
than they had been, while Moses had a veil upon his
face. There shall be such a general knowledge of
God, that there shall not be so much need as had
formerly been of teaching. Some take it as a hy¬
perbolical expression, (and the dulness of the Jews
needed such expressions tc awaken them,) design¬
ed only to show that the knowledge of God, in
gospel-times should vastly exceed that knowledge
of him, which they had under the law. Or, per¬
haps, it intimates that in gospel-times there shall
be such great plenty of public preaching, stat¬
edly and constantly, by men authorised and ap¬
pointed to preach the word in season and out of
season, much beyond what was under the law; that
there shall be less need than there was then of
fraternal teaching, by a neighbour and a brother.
The priests preached but now and then, and in the
temple, to a few in comparison; but now all shall or
may know God by frequenting the assemblies of
Christians, wherein, through all parts of the church,
the good knowledge of God shall be taught. Some
give this sense of it, (Mr. Gataker mentions it,) that
many shall have such clearness of understanding in
the things of God, that they may seem rather to
have been taught by some immediate irradiaticn
than by any means of instruction in short, the
JEREMIAH, XXXI.
■ira
things of God shall by the gospel of Christ be
brought to a clearer light than ever, (2 Tim. i.
10.) and the people of God shall by the grace of
Christ be brought to a clearer sight of those things
than ever, Eph i. 17, 18.
(4. ) That, in order to all these blessings, sin shall be
pardoned; this is made the reason of all the rest;
For I will forgive their iniquity, will not impute
that to them, nor deal with them according to the
desert of that, will forgive and forget; I will re¬
member their sin no more. It is sin that keeps good
things from us, that stops the current of God’s
favours; let sin be taken away by pardoning mercy,
and the obstruction is removed, and divine grace
runs down like a river, like a mighty stream.
35. Thus saith the Lord, which giveth
the sun for a light by day, and, the ordinan¬
ces of the moon and of the stars for a light
by night, which divideth the sea when the
waves thereof roar ; The Lord of hosts is
his name: 36. If those ordinances depart
from before me, saith the Lord, then the
seed of Israel also shall cease from being a
nation before me for ever. 37. Thus saith
the Lord, If heaven above can be mea¬
sured, and the foundations of the earth
searched out beneath, I will also cast off
all the seed of Israel, for all that they have
done, saith the Lord. 38. Behold, the
days come, saith the Lord, that the city
shall be built to the Lord, from the tower
of Hananeel unto the gate of the corner.
39. And the measuring-line shall yet go forth
over against it upon the hill Gareb, and shall
compass about to Goath. 40. And the
whole valley of the dead bodies, and of the
ashes, and all the fields, unto the brook of
Kidron, unto the corner of the horse-gate
towards the east, shall be holy unto the
Lord; it shall not be plucked up, nor
thrown down, any more for ever.
Glorious things have been spoken in the foregoing
verses concerning the gospel-church, which that
epocha of the Jewish church, that was to commence
at the return from captivity, would at length termin¬
ate in, and which all those promises were to have
their full accomplishments in. But may we depend
upon these promises? Yes, we have here a ratification
of them, and the utmost assurance imaginable given
of the perpetuity of the blessings contained in them.
The great thing here secured to us, is, that while the
world stands, God will have a church in it, which,
though sometimes it may be brought very low, shall
yet be raised again, and its interests re-established;
it is built ufton a rock, and the gates of hell shall
not firevail against it. Now here are two things
offered for the confirmation of our faith in this matter;
the building of the world, and the rebuilding of
Jerusalem.
I. The building of the world, and the firmness
and lastingness of that building, are evidences of
the power and faithfulness of that God who has un¬
dertaken the establishment of his church. He that
built all things at first is God, (Heb. iii. 4.) and the
s ime is he that makes all things now. The con¬
stancy of the glories of the kingdom of nature may
encourage us to depend upon the divine promise for
the continuance of the glories of the kingdom of
grace, for this is as the waters of Noah, Isa. liv. 9.
Let us observe here,
1. The glories of the kingdom of nature, and
infer thence how happy they are that have this
God, the God of nature, to be their God for ever
and ever. Take notice, (1.) Of the steady and re¬
gular motion of the heavenly bodies, which God is the
first Mover and supreme Director of ; He gives the
sun for a light by day; (v. 35.) not only made it at
first to be so, but still gives it to be so, for the light
and heat, and all the influences of the sun, conti¬
nually depend upon its great Creator. He gives the
ordinances of the moon and stars for a light by night;
their motions are called ordinances, both because
they are regular and by rule, and because they are
determined and under rule. See Job. xxxviii. 31. —
33. (2.) Take notice of the government of the sea,
and the check that is given to its proud billows; The
Lord of hosts divides the sea, or, as some read it, set¬
tles the sea, when the waves thereof roar; ( Divide, et
imfiera — Divide, and rule;) when it is most tossed,
God keeps it within compass, (Jer. v. 22.) and
soon quiets it and nwkes it calm again. The power
of God is to be magnified by us, not only in maintain¬
ing the regular motions of the heavens, but in con-
trollingthe irregular motions of the seas. (3.) Take
notice of the vastness of the heavens and the un¬
measurable extent of the firmament; he must needs
be a great God, who manages such a great world as
this is; the heavens above cannot he measured, (x>.
37. ) and yet God fills them. (4.) Take notice of
the mysteriousness even of that part of the creation
in which our lot is cast, apd which we are most con¬
versant with. The foundations of the earth cannot he
searched out beneath, for the Creator hangs the earth
upon nothing, (Job. xxvi. 7. ) and we know not how
the foundations thereof are fastened. Job. xxxviii. 6.
(5.) Take notice of the immovable steadfastness of
all these; {y. 36.) These ordinances cannot depart
from before God; he has all the hosts of heaven
and earth continually under his eye, and all the
motions of both; he has established them, and they
abide, abide according to his ordinance, for all are
his servants, Ps. cxix. 90,91. The heavens are
often clouded, and the sun and moon often eclipsed,
the earth may quake and the sea be tossed, but they
all keep their place, are moved, but not removed.
Herein we must acknowledge the power, goodness
and faithfulness of the Creator.
2. The securities of the kingdom of grace inferred
from hence; we may be confident of this very thing,
that the seed of Israel shall not cease from being a
nation, for the spiritual Israel, the gospel-church,
shall be a holy nation, a peculiar people, 1 Pet. ii. 9.
When Israel according to the flesh is no longer a
nation, the children of the promise are counted for
the seed, (Rom. ix. 8.) and God will not cast off all
the seed of Israel, no, not for all that they have clone,
though they have done very wickedly, v. 37. He just¬
ly might cast them off, but he will not. Though he
cast them out from their land, and cast them down
for a time, yet he will not cast them off. Some of
them he casts off, but not all ; to this the apostle seems
to refer, (Rom. xi. 1.) Hath God cast away his
people? God forbid that we should think so! For,
(v. 5.) at this time there is a remnant, enough to save
the credit of the promise, that God will not cast off
all the seed of Israel, though many among them
throw away themselves bv unbelief. Now we may
be assisted in the belief of this, by considering, (1.)
That the God that has undertaken the preservation
of the church, is a God of almighty power, win,
upholds all things by his almighty word. Our help
stands in his name, who made heaven and earth, and
therefore can do anything. (2.) That God would
not take all this care of the world, but that he designs
to have some glory to himself out of it; and how shall
JEREMIAH, XXXII. 47!)
he have it but by securing to himseif a church in it,
a people that shall he to him for a name and a
p raise? (3.) That if the order of the creation there¬
fore continues firm, because it was well fixed at first,
and is not altered because it needs no alteration, the
method of grace shall for the same reason continue
invariable, as it was at first well settled. (4.) That
he who has promised to preserve a church for him¬
self, has approved himself faithful to the word
which he has spoken, concerning the stability of the
world. He that is true to his covenant with Noah
and his sons, because he established it for an ever¬
lasting covenant, (Gen. ix. 9, 16.) will not, we may
be sure, be false to his covenant with Abraham and
his seed, his spiritual seed, for that also is an ever¬
lasting covenant. Even that which they have done
amiss, though they have done much, shall not pre¬
vail to defeat the gracious intentions of the cove¬
nant. See Ps. lxxxix. 30, See.
II. The rebuilding of Jerusalem which was now
in ruins, and the enlargement and establishment ot
that, shall be an earnest of these great things that
God will do for the gospel-church, the heavenly Je¬
rusalem, v. 38. — 40. The days -.fill come, though
they may be long in coming, 1. When Jerusalem
shall be entirely built again, as large as ever it was;
the dimensions are here exactly described, by the
places through which the circumference passed^
and, no doubt, the wall which Nehemiah built, anu
which, the more punctually to fulfil the prophecy,
began about the tower of tiananeel, here mention¬
ed, (Neh. iii. 1.) enclosed as much ground as is here
intended, though we cannot certainly determine the
places here called the gate of the corner, the hill
Gareb, See. 2. When, Deing built, it shall be con¬
secrated to God and to his service. It shall be built
to the Lord, (x>. 38.) and even the suburbs and fields
adjacent shall be holy unto the Lord. It shall not be
polluted with idols as formerly, but God shall be
praised and honoured there; the whole city shall be
as it were one temple, one holy place, as the new
Jerusalem is, which therefore has no temple, be¬
cause it is all temple. 3. Being thus built by virtue
of the promise of God, and then devoted to the
praise of God, it shall not be plucked up, or thrown
down, any more for ever, it shall continue very long;
the time of the new city from the return to its last
destruction being full as long as that of the old from
David to the captivity. But this promise was to
have its full accomplishment in the gospel-church,
which, as it is the spiritual Israel, and therefore God
will not cast it off, so it is the holy city, and there¬
fore all the powers of men shall not pluck it up, or
throw it down. It may lie waste for a time, as Je¬
rusalem did, but shall recover itself, shall weather
the storm, and gain its point, and the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it.
CHAP. XXXII.
In this chapter, we have, I. Jeremiah imprisoned for fore¬
telling the destruction of Jerusalem, and the captivity of
king Zedckiah, v. 1 . . 5. II. We have him buying land,
by divine appointment, as an assurance that in due time
a” happy end should be put to the present troubles, v.
6. . 15. III. We have his prayer, which he offered up
to God upon that occasion, v. 16. . 25. IV. We have a
message which God thereupon intrusted him to deliver
to the people. 1. He must foretell the utter destruction
of Judah and Jerusalem for their sins, v. 26. . 35. But,
2. At the same time he must assure them that, though
the destruction was total, it should not be final, but that
at length their posterity should recover the peaceable
possession of their own land, v. 36 . . 44. The predic¬
tions of this chapter, both threatenings and promises,
are much the same with what we have already met with
again and again, but here are some circumstances that
are very particular and remarkable.
J.rjNHE word that came to Jeremiah
_L from the Lord in the tenth year of
Zedekiah king of Judah, which teas the
i eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar. 2.
For then the king of Babylon's army he
sieged Jerusalem: and Jeremiah the pro¬
phet was shut up in the court of the prison,
which teas in the king of Judah’s house. 3.
For Zedekiah king of Judah had shut him
up, saying, Wherefore dost thou prophesy,
and say, Thus saith the Lord, Behold, J
will give this city into the hand of the king
of Babylon, and he shall take it; 4. And
Zedekiah king of Judah shall not escape out
of the hand of the Chaldeans, but shall surely
be delivered into the hand of the king of
Babylon, and shall speaft with him mouth to
mouth, and his eyes shall behold his eyes;
5. And he shall lead Zedekiah to Babylon,
and there shall he be until I visit him, saith
the Lord : though ye fight with the Chal¬
deans, ye shall not prosper. 6. And Jere¬
miah said, The word of the Lord came
unto me, saying, 7. Behold, Hanameel, the
son of Shallum, thine uncle, shall come unto
thee, saying, Buy thee my field that is in
Anathoth; for the right of redemption is
thine to buy it. 8. So Hanameel, mine
uncle’s son, came to me in the court of the
prison, according to the word of the Lord,
and said unto me, Buy my field, I pray thee,
that is in Anathoth, which is in the country
of Benjamin: for the right of inheritance is
thine, and the redemption is thine ; buy it for
thyself. Then I knew that this was the
word of the Lord. 9. And I bought the
field of Hanameel, mine uncle’s son, that
was in Anathoth, and weighed him the mo¬
ney, even seventeen shekels of silver. 10.
And 1 subscribed the evidence, and sealed it,
and took witnesses, and weighed him the
money in the balances. 11. So I took the
evidence of the purchase, both that which
was sealed according to the law and cus¬
tom, and that which was open. 12. And I
gave the evidence of the purchase unto Ba¬
ruch the son ofNeriah,the son of Maaseiah,
in the sight of Hanameel mine uncle’s son,
and in the presence of the witnessesthat sub¬
scribed the book of the purchase, before all
the Jews that sat in the court of the prison.
13. And I charged Baruch before them, say¬
ing, 1 4. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the
God of Israel, Take these evidences, this
evidence of the purchase, (both which is
sealed,) and this evidence which is open,
and put them in an earthen vessel, that they
may continue many days: 15. For thus
saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel,
Houses, and fields, and vineyards, shall he
possessed again in this land.
It appears by the date of this chapter, that we are
180 JEREMIAH, XXXII.
now coming very nigh to that fatal year which com¬
pleted the desolations of Judah and Jerusalem by
tire Chaldeans. God’s judgments came gradually
upon them, but they not meeting him by repentance
in the wav of his judgments, he proceeded in his
controversy till all was laid waste, which was in the
eleventh year of Zedekiah; now what is here re¬
corded happened in the tenth. The king of Baby¬
lon’s army had now invested Jerusalem, and was
carrying on the siege with vigour, not doubting but
in a "little time to make themselves masters of it,
while the besieged had taken up a desperate reso¬
lution not to surrender, but to hold it out to the last
extremity. Now,
I. Jeremiah prophesies that both the city and the
court shall fall into the hands of the king of Babylon.
He tells them expressly, that the besiegers shall
take the city as a prize, for God, whose city it was
in a peculiar manner, %ill give it into their hands,
and put it out of his protection; ( v . 3.) that though
Zedekiah attempt to make his escape, he shall be
overtaken, and shall be delivered a prisoner into the
hands of Nebuchadnezzar, shall be brought into his
presence, to his great confusion and terror, he hav¬
ing made himself so obnoxious by breaking his faith
with him ; he shall hear the king of Babylon pro¬
nounce his doom, and see with what fury and indig¬
nation he will look upon him; his eyes shall behold
his eyes, v. 4. That Zedekiah shall be carried to
Babylon, and continue a miserable captive there,
until God visit him, till God put an end to his life
by a natural death, as Nebuchadnezzar had long
before put an end to his days, by putting out his
eyes. Note, Those that live in misery may be
truly said to be visited in mercy, when God by
death takes them home to himself. And, lastly,
he foretells that all their attempts to force the be¬
siegers from their trenches should be ineffectual;
Though ye Jight with the Chaldeans, ye shall not
prosper; how should they, when God did not fight
for them? v. 5. See ch. xxxiv. 2, 3.
II. For prophesying thus, he is imprisoned, not
in the common gaol, but in the more creditable pri¬
son that was within the verge of the palace, in the
king of Judah’s house, and there not closely con¬
fined, but in custodia libera, in the court of the pri¬
son, where he might have good company, good air,
and good intelligence brought him, and would be
sheltered from the abuses of the mob; but, however,
it was a prison, and Zedekiah shut him up in it for
prophesying as he did, v. 2, 3. So far was he
from humbling himself before Jeremiah, as he ought
to have done, (2 Chron. xxxvi. 12. ) that he har¬
dened himself against him. Though he had for¬
merly so far owned him to be a prophet, as to de¬
sire him to inquire of the J-ord for them, {ch. xxi.
2.) yet now he chides him for prophesying, {v. 3.)
and shuts him up in prison, perhaps not with de¬
sign to punish him any further, but only to restrain
him from prophesying any further, which was crime
enough. Silencing God’s prophets, though it is not
so bad as mocking and killing them, is yet ^ great
affront to the God of heaven. See how wretchedly
the hearts of sinners are hardened by the deceitful¬
ness of -sin. Persecution was one of the sins for
which God was now contending with them, and yet
Zedekiah yfersists in it even now that he was in the
depth of distress. No providences, no afflictions,
will of themselves part between men and their sins,
unless the grace of God work with them. Nay,
some are made worse by those very judgments
that should make them better.
III. Being in prison, he purchases a piece of
ground from a near relation of his, that lay in Ana-
thoth. v. 6, 7, See. One would not have expected,
1. That a prophet should concern himself so far in
'he business of this world; but why not? Though
ministers must not entangle themselves, yet they
may concern themselves, in the affairs of "this life.
2. That one who had neither wife nor children
should buy land; we find, {ch. xvi. 2.) that he had
no family of his own, yet he may purchase for his
own use while he lives, and leave it to the children
of his relations when he dies. 3. One would little
have thought that a prisoner should be a purchaser;
how should he get money beforehand to buy land
with? It is probable that he lived frugally, and
saved something out of what belonged to him as a
priest, which is no blemish at all to his character;
but we have no reason to think that the people were
kind, or that his being beforehand was owing to
their generosity. Nay, 4. It was most strange of
all, that he should buy a piece of land, when he
himself knew that the whole land was now to be
laid waste, and fall into the hands of the Chaldeans;
and then what good would this do him? But it was
the will of God that he should buy it, and he sub¬
mitted, though the money seemed to be thrown
away. His kinsman came to offer it him; it was
not of his own seeking; he coveted not to lay house
to house and field to field, but Providence brought
it to him, and it was, probably, a good bargain; be¬
sides, the right of redemption belonged to him, (n.
8.) and if he refused, he did not do the kinsman’s
part. It is true, he might lawfully refuse; but, be¬
ing a prophet, in a thing of this nature, he must do
that which would be for the honour of his profession ;
it became him to fulfil all righteousness. It was a
land that lay within the suburbs of a priest’s city,
and if he should refuse it, there was danger lest, in
these times of disorder, it might be sold to one of
another tribe, which was contrary to the law, to
prevent which it was convenient for him to buy it.
It would likewise be a kindness to his kinsman,
who, probably, was at this time in great want of
money. Jeremiah had but a little, but what he had
he was willing to lay it out in such a manner as
might tend most to the honour of God and the good
of his friends and country, which he preferred be¬
fore his own private interests. Observe,
(1.) How fairly the bargain was made. When
Jeremiah knew by Hanameel’s coming to him, as
God had foretold he would, that it was the word
the I.ord, that it was his mind that he should make
this purchase, he made no more difficulty of it, but
bought the field. And, [1.] He was very honest
and exact in paying the money. He weighed him
the money, did not press him to take it upon his re¬
port, though he was his near kinsman, but weighed
it to him, current money. It was seventeen shekels
of silver, amounting to about forty shillings of our
money. It was, probably, but a little field, and of
small yearly value, when the purchase was so low:
besides, the right of inheritance was in Jeremiah, so
that he was only to buy out his kinsman’s life, the
reversion was his already. Some think this was
only the earnest of a greater sum; but we shall not
wonder at the smallness of the price, if we consider
what scarcity there was of money at this time, and
how little lands were counted upon. [2.] He was
very prudent and discreet in preservingthe writings.
They were subscibed before witnesses; one copy
was sealed up, the other was open. One was the
original, the other the counterpart; or perhaps that
which was sealed up was for his own private use,
the other that was open was to be laid up in the
public register of conveyances, for any person con¬
cerned to consult. Due care and caution, in things
of this nature, might prevent a great deal of injus¬
tice and contention, l'he deeds of purchase were
lodged in the hands of Baruch, before witnesses, and
he was ordered to lay them up in an earthen vessel,
(an emblem of the nature of all the securities this
world can pretend to give us, brittle things, ami
481
. EREMIAH, XXXII.
Boon broken,) that they might continue many days,
for the use of Jeremiah’s heirs, after the return out
of captivity; for they might then have the benefit
of this purchase. Purchasing reversions may be a
kindness to those that come after us, and a good
man thus lays up an inheritance for his children’s
children.
(2. ) What was the design of having this bargain
made? It was to signify that though Jerusalem was
now besieged, and the whole country was likely to
be laid waste, yet the time should come, when
houses and fields and vineyards should be again
possessed in this land, v. 15. As God appointed
Jeremiah to confirm his predictions of the approach¬
ing destruction of Jerusalem, by his own practice in
living unmarried, so he now appointed him to con¬
firm his predictions of the future restoration of Je¬
rusalem, by his own practice in purchasing this
field. Note, It concerns ministers to make it to ap¬
pear in their whole conversation, that they do them¬
selves believe that which they preach to others;
and that they may do so, and impress it the deeper
upon their hearers, they must many ti time deny
themselves, as Jeremiah did in both these instances.
God having promised that this land should again
come into the possession of his people, Jeremiah
will, in behalf ot his heirs, put in for a share. Note,
It is good to manage even our worldly affairs in
faith, and to do common business with an eye to
the providence and promise of God. Lucius Florus
relates it as a great instance of the bravery of the
Roman citizens, that in the time of the second Punic
war, when Hannibal besieged Rome, and was very
near making himself master of it, a field on which
part of his army lay, being offered to sale at that
time, was immediately purchased, in a firm belief
that the Roman valour would raise the siege, lib.
2. cap. 6. And have not we much more reason to
venture our all upon the word of God, and to em¬
bark in Zion’s interests, which will undoubtedly be
the prevailing interests at last? Non si male nuncet
olirn sic erit — Though now we suffer, we shall not
suffer always.
1C. Now when I had delivered the evi¬
dence of the purchase unto Baruch the son
of Neriah, I prayed unto the Lord, saying,
17. Ah, Lord God! behold, thou hast made
the heaven and the earth by thy great
power and stretched-out arm, and there is
nothing too hard for thee: 18. Thou shew-
est loving-kindness unto thousands, and re-
compensest the iniquity of the fathers into
the bosom of their children after them : The
Great, the Mighty God, the Lord of hosts,
is his name. 19. Great in counsel, and
mighty in work: (for thine eyes are open
upon all the ways of the sons of men; to
give every one according to his ways, and
according to the fruit of his doings :) 20.
Which hast set signs and wonders in the
land of Egypt, even unto this day, and in
Israel, and among other men; and hast
made thee a name, as at this day; 21. And
hast brought forth thy people Israel out of
the land of Egypt, with signs, and with won¬
ders, and with a strong hand, and with a
stretched-out arm, and with great terror;
22. And hast given them this land, which
thou didst swear to their fathers to give them,
Vol. IV. - 3 P
a land flowing with milk and honey; 23.
And they came in, and possessed it; but
they obeyed not thy voice, neither walked
in thy law: they have done nothing of all
that thou commandedst them to do; there¬
fore thou hast caused all this evil to come
upon them. 24. Behold the mounts, they
are come unto the city to take it ; and the
city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans
that fight against it, because of the sword,
and of tiie famine, and of the pestilence:
and what thou hast spoken is come to pass;
and, behold, thou seest it. 25. And thou
hast said unto me, O Lord God, Buy thee
the field for money, and take witnesses;
for the city is given into the hand of the
Chaldeans.
We have here Jeremiah’s prayer to God, upon
occasion of the discoveries God had made to him
of his purposes concerning this nation, to pull it
down, and in process of time to build it up again,
which puzzled the prophet himself, who, though
1 he delivered his messages faithfully, yet, in reflect¬
ing upon them, was at a loss within himself how to
reconcile them; in that perplexity he poured out
his soul before God in prayer, and so gave himself
l ease. That which disturbed him was, not the bad
bargain he seemed to have made for himself in pur¬
chasing a field that he was likely to have no good
ot; but the case of his people, for whom he was still
a kind and faithful intercessor, and he was willing
to hope that if God had so much mercy in store for
them hereafter as he had promised, he would not
proceed with so much severity against them now as
he had threatened. Before Jeremiah went to prayer,
he delivered the deeds that concerned his new pur
chase to Baruch; which may intimate to us, that
when we are going to worship God, we should get
our minds as clear as may be from the cares and
encumbrances of this world. Jeremiah was in pri¬
son, in distress, in the dark about the meaning of
God’s providences, and then he prays. Note,
Prayer is a salve for every sore. Whatever is a
burthen to us, we may by prayer cast it upon the
Lord, and then be easy.
In this prayer, or meditation,
1. Jeremiah adores God and his infinite perfections,
and gives him the glory due to his name as the Cre¬
ator, Upholder, and Benefactor, of the» whole cre¬
ation ; thereby owning his irresistible power, that he
can do what he will, and his incontestable sovereign¬
ty, that he may do what he will, v. 17. — 19. Note,
When at any time we are perplexed about the par¬
ticular methods and dispensations of Providence, it
is good for us to have recourse to our first princi¬
ples, ami to satisfy ourselves with the general doc¬
trines of God’s wisdom, power, and goodness. Let
us consider, as Jeremiah does here, (1.) That God
is the Fountain of all being, power, life, motion, and
perfection; He made the heaven and the earth with
his outstretched arm; and therefore who can con¬
trol him? Who dares contend with him? (2.)
That with him nothing is impossible, no difficulty
insuperable; Nothing is too hard for thee. When
human skill and power is quite nonplussed, with
God are strength and wisdom sufficient to master
all the opposition. (3.) That he is a God of bound¬
less, bottomless mercy; that is his darling attribute;
it is his goodness that is his glory; “ Thou not only
art kind, but thou showest loving-kindness , not to
a few, to here and there one, but to thousands, thou¬
sands of persons, thousands of generations.” (4.)
482
JEREMIAH, XXXII.
That lie is a God of impartial and inflexible justice.
His reprieves are not pardons, but if in mercy he
spares the parents, that they may be led to repent¬
ance, yet such a hatred has he to sin, and such a
displeasure against sinners, that he recompenses
their iniquity into the bosom of their children, and
yet does them no wrong: so hateful is the unrighte¬
ousness of man, and so jealous of its own honour is
the righteousness of God. (5.) That he is a God
of universal dominion and command; He is the great
God, for he is the mighty God ; and might among
men makes them great. He is the Lord of hosts,
of all hosts, that is his name, and he answers to his
name, for all the hosts of heaven and earth, of men
and angels, are at his beck. (6.) That he contrives
every thing for the best, and effects every thing as
he contrived it; He is great in counsel; so vast are
the reaches, and so deep are the designs, of his wis¬
dom; and he is mighty in doing, according to the
counsel of his will. Now such a God as this is not
to be quarrelled with. His service is to be con¬
stantly adhered to, and all his disposals cheerfully
acquiesced in.
2. He acknowledges the universal cognizance God
takes of all the actions of the children of men, and
the unerring judgment he passes upon them; (x>.
19.) Thine eyes are open upon all the sons of men,
wherever they are, beholding the evil and the good,
and upon all their ways, both the course they take,
and every : tep they take, not as an unconcerned
Spectator, but as an observing Judge, to give every
one according to his ways, and according to his
deserts, which are the fruit of his doings, for men
shall find God as they are found of him.
3. He recounts the great things God had done for
his people Israel formerly. (1.) He brought them
out of Egypt, that house of bondage, with signs and
wonders which remain, if not in the marks of them,
yet in the memorials of them, even unto this day;
for it would never be forgotten, not only in Israel,
who were reminded of it every year by the ordi¬
nance of the passover, but among other men; all the
neighbouring nations spake of it, as that which re¬
dounded exceedingly to the glory of the God of
Israel, and made him a name as at this day. This
is repeated again, ( v . 21.) that God brought them
forth, not only with comforts and joys to them, but
with glory to himself, with signs and wonders,
(witness the ten plagues,) with a strong hand, too
strong for the Egyptians themselves, and with a
stretchcd-out arm, that reached Pharaoh, proud as
he was, and with great terror to them and all about
them. This seems to refer to Deut. iv. 34. (2.)
He brought them into Canaan, that good land, that
land flowing with milk and honey; he sware to their
fathers to give it them, and because he would per¬
form his oath, he did give it to the children, (v. 22. )
and they came in, and possessed it. Jeremiah men¬
tions this both as an aggravation of their sin and dis¬
obedience, and also as a plea with God to work
deliverance for them. Note, It is good for us often
to reflect upon the great things that God did for his
church formerly, especially in the first erecting of
it, that work of wonder.
4. He bewails the rebellions they had been guilty
of against God, and the judgments God had brought
upon them for these rebellions. It is a sad account
he here gives of the ungrateful conduct of that peo¬
ple toward God. He had done every thing that he
promised them to do, (they had acknowledged it,
1 Kings viii. 56.) but they had done nothing of all
that he commanded them to do; (i>. 23.) they made
no conscience of any of his laws, they walked not in
them, paid no respect to any of his calls by his pro¬
phets, for they obeyed not his voice. And therefore
he owns that God was righteous in causing all this evil
to come upon them. The city is besieged, is attacked
by the sword without, is weakened and ,v«siej oy
the fim-.ne and pestilence within, so that it is ready to
fall into the hands of the Chaldeans that fight against
it; (v. 24.) it is given into their hands, v. 25. Now,
(1.) He compares the present state of Jerusalem
with the di\ine predictions, and finds that what
God has spoken, is come to pass. God had given
them fair warning of it before; if they had regarded
this, the ruin had been prevented: but if they will
not do what God has commanded, they can expect
no other than that he should do what he has threat¬
ened. (2.) He commits the present state of Jerusa¬
lem to the divine consideration and compassion; ( v .
24.) Behold the moutits, or ramparts, or the e ngines,
which they make use of to batter the city, and beat
down the wall of it. And again, “Behold, thou
seest it, and takest cognizance of it. Is this the city
that thou hast chosen to put tliv name there? And
shall it be thus abandoned?” He neither complains
of God for what he had done, nor prescribes to God
what he should do, but desires he would behold
their case, and is pleased to think that he does be¬
hold it. Whatever trouble we are in, upon a per¬
sonal or public account, we may comfort ourselves
with this, that God sees it, and sees how to reme¬
dy it.
5. He seems desirous to be let further ipto the
meaning of the order that God had now given him,
to purchase his kinsman’s field: (v. 25.) “ Though
the city is given itito the hands of the Chaldeans, no
man is likely to enjoy what he has, yet thou hast
said unto me, Buy thee the field." As soon as he
understood that it was the mind of God, he did it,
and made no objections, was not disobedient to the
heavenly vision; but when he had done it, he desired
better to understand why God had ordered him to do
it, because the thing looked strange and unaccounta¬
ble. Note, Though we are bound to follow God
with an implicit obedience, yet we should endeavour
that it maybe more and more intelligent obedience.
We must never dispute God’s statutes and judg¬
ments, but we may and must inquire. What mean
these statutes and judgments? Deut. vi. 20.
26. Then came the word of the Lord
unto Jeremiah, saying, 27. Behold, I am
the Lord, the God of all flesh: is there any
thing too hard for me? 28. Therefore thus
saith the Lord, Behold, I will give this city
into the hand of the Chaldeans, and into
the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Baby¬
lon, and he shall take it. 29. And the
Chaldeans, that fight against this city, shall
come and set fire on this city, and burn it,
with the houses upon whose roofs they have
offered incense unto Baal, and poured out
drink-offerings unto other gods, to provoke
me to anger. 30. For the childien of Israel,
and the children of Judah have only done
evil before me from their youth: for the
children of Israel have only provoked me
to anger with the work of their hands, saith
the Lord. 31. For this city hath been to
me as a provocation of mine anger and of
my fury, from the day that ihey built it,
even unto this day, that I should remove it
from before my face ; 32. Because of all
the evil of the children of Israel, and of the
children of Judah, which they have done to
JEREMIAH, XXXII.
provoke me to anger, they, their kings, their
princes, their priests, and their prophets,
and the men of Judah, and the inhabitants
of Jerusalem. 33. And they have turned
unto me the back, and not the face: though
I taught them, rising up early and teaching
them, yet they have not hearkened to receive
instruction. 34. But they set their abomi¬
nations in the house which is called by my
name, to defile it. 35. And they built the
high places of Baal, which are in the valley
of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons
and their daughters to pass through the fire
unto Molech, which 1 commanded them
not, neither came it into my mind, that they
should do this abomination, to cause Judah
to sin. 3G. And now therefore thus saith
the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning
this city, whereof ye say, It shall be deliver¬
ed into the hand of the king of Babylon by
the sword, and by the famine, and by the
pestilence; 37. Behold, I will gather them
out of all countries whither 1 have driven
them in mine anger, and in my fury, and in
great wrath ; and I will bring them again
unto this place, and I will cause them to
dwell safely: 38. And they shall be my
people, and I will be their God : 39. And
i will give them one. heart, and one way,
that they may fear me for ever, for the good
of them, and of their children after them :
40. And I will make an everlasting cove¬
nant with them, that I will not turn away
from them to do them good; but I will put
my fear in their hearts, that they shall not
depart from me. 41. Yea, I will rejoice
over them to do them good, and I will plant
them in this land assuredly with my whole
heart, and with my whole soul. 42. For
thus saith the Lord, Like as I have brought
all this great evil upon this people, so will I
bring upon them all the good that I have
promised them. 43. And fields shall be
bought in this land, whereof ye say, It is
desolate without man or beast; it is given
into the hand of the Chaldeans. 44. Men
shall buy fields for money, and subscribe
evidences, and seal them, and take witnesses
in the land of Benjamin, and in the places
about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah,
and in the cities of the mountains, and in
the cities of the valley, and in the cities of
the south : for I will cause their captivity to
return, saith the Lord.
We have here God’s return to Jeremiah’s prayer,
designed to quiet his mind, and make him easy; and
it is a full discovery of the purposes of God’s wrath
against the present generation, and the purposes of
his grace concerning the future generations. Jere¬
miah knew not how to sing both of mercy and judg¬
ment, hut God here teaches to sing unto him of both.
483
When we know net how to reconcile one word of
God with another, we may yet be sure that both
are true, both are pure, both shall be made good,
and not one iota or tittle of either shall fall to the
ground. \\ hen Jeremiah was ordered to buy the
field in Anathoth, he was willing to hope that God
was about to revoke the sentence of his wrath, and
to order the Chaldeans to raise the siege. “No,”
says God, “the execution of the sentence shall go
on, Jerusalem shall be laid in ruins.” Note, As¬
surances of future mercy must not be interpreted as
securities from present troubles. But, lest Jere¬
miah should think that his being ordered to buy this
field intimated that all the mercy God had in store
for his people, after their return, was only that they
should have the possession of their own land again;
he further acquaints him that that was but a type
and figure of those spiritual blessings which should
then be abundantly bestowed upon them, unspeaka¬
bly more valuable than fields and vineyards. So that
in this word of the Isjrd, which came here to Jere¬
miah, first as dreadful threatenings, and then as
precious promises as perhaps any we have in the
Old Testament; life and death, good and evil, are
here set before us; let us consider and choose
wisely.
I. The ruin of Judah and Jerusalem is here pro¬
nounced; the decree is gone forth, and shall not be
recalled.
1. God here asserts his own severeignty and pow¬
er; (y. 27.) Behold, I am Jehovah, a self-existent,
self-sufficient Being; lam that I am; lam the God
of all flesh, of all mankind; here called flesh, be¬
cause weak, and unable to contend with God, (Ps.
lvi. 4.) and because wicked and corrupt, and unapt
to comply with God. God is the Creator of all,
and makes what use he pleases of all. He that is
the God of Israel is the God of all flesh, and of the
sfiirits of all flesh; and, if Israel were cast off, could
raise up a people to his name out of some other
nation. If he be the God of all flesh, he may well
ask, Is any thing too hard for me? What can he
do, from whom all the powers of men are derived,
on whom they depend, and by whom all their ac¬
tions are directed and governed? Whatever he de¬
signs to do, whether in wrath or in mercy, nothing
can hinder him, or defeat his designs.
2. He abides by what he had often said of the
destruction of Jerusalem by the king of Babylon;
(x\ 28. ) I will give this city into his hand, now that
he is grasping at it, and he shall take it, and make a
prey of it, v. 29. The Chaldeans shall come and
set fire to it, shall bum it and all the houses in it,
God’s house not excepted, nor the king’s neither.
3. He assigns the reason for these severe pro¬
ceedings against the city that had been so much in
his favour. It is sin, it is that, and nothing else,
that ruins it. (1.) They were impudent and daring
in sin. They offered incense to Baal, not in corners,
as men ashamed or afraid of being discovered, but
upon the tofis of their houses, {y. 29.) in defiance of
God’s justice. (2.) They designed an affront to
God herein. They did it to firovoke me to anger,
v. 29. They have only firovoked me to anger with
the works of their hands, v. 30. They could not
promise themselves any pleasure, profit, or honour
out of it, but did it on purpose to offend God. And
again, (n. 32.) All the evil which they have done
was to firovoke me to anger. They knew he was a
jealous God in the matters of his worship, and
there they resolved to try his jealousy and dare him
to his face. Jerusalem has been to me a firovoca-
tion of my anger and fury, v. 31. Their conduct
in every thing was provoking. (3.) They began
betimes, and had continued all along provoking to
God. They have done evil before me from their
youth, ever since they were first formed into a pec.
184
JEREMIAH, XXXII.
pic; ( v . 30.) witness their murmurings and rebel¬
lions in the wilderness. And as for Jerusalem,
though it was the holy city, it has been a provoca¬
tion to the holy God from the day that they built
it, even to this day, v. 31. O what reason have we
to lament the little honour God has from this world,
and .the great dishonour that is done him, when
even in Judah, where he is known and his name is
great, and in Salem where his tabernacle is, there
was always that found, that was a provocation to
him! (4.) All orders and degrees of men contri¬
buted to the common guilt, and therefore were just¬
ly involved in the common ruin. Not only the
children of Israel, that had revolted from the tem¬
ple, but the children of Judah too, that still ad¬
hered to it. Not only the common people, the men
of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem, but those
that should have reproved and restrained sin in
others, were themselves ringleaders in it, their
kings and princes, their priests and prophets. (5. )
Clod had again and again called them to repentance,
but they turned a deaf ear to his calls, and rudely
turned their back on him that called them, though
he was their Master, to whom they were bound in
duty, and their Benefactor, to whom they were
bound in gratitude and interest, v. 33. “ I' taught
them better manners, with as much care as ever
any tender parent taught a child, rising up early,
and teaching them, studying to adapt the teaching to
their capacities, taking’ them betimes, when they
might have been most pliable, but all in vain; they
turned not the face to me, would not so much as
look upon me, nay, they turned the back upon me;”
an expression of the highest contempt; as he called
them, like froward children, so they went from him,
Hos. xi. 2. They have not hearkened to receive
instruction, they regarded not a word that was said
to them, though it was designed for their own good.
(6.) There was in their idolatries an impious con¬
tempt of God, for, (v. 34.) They set their abomina¬
tions, their idols, which they knew to be in the
highest degree abominable to God, they set them
in the house which is called by my name, to defile it.
They had {heir idols not only in their high places
and groves, but even in God’s temple. (7.) They
were guilty of the most unnatural cruelty to their own
children, for they sacrificed them to Molech, v. 35.
Thus because they liked not to retain God in their
knowledge, but changed his glory into shame, they
were justly given up to vile affections, and stript of
natural ones, and their glory was turned into
shame.
And lastly, What was the consequence of all
this? [1.] They caused Judah to sin, v. 35. The
whole country was infected with the contagious
idolatries and iniquities of Jerusalem. [2.] They
brought ruin upon themselves. It was as if they
had done it on purpose that God should remove
them from before his face; (v. 31.) they would
throw themselves out of his favour.
II. The restoration of Judah and Jerusalem is
here promised, v. 36, &c. God will in judgment
remember mercy, and there will a time come, a set
time, to favour Zion.
Observe, 1. The despair to which this people
were now at length brought. When the judgment
was threatened at a distance, they had no fear;
when it attacked them, they had no hope. They
said concerning the city, (v. 36.) It shall be de¬
livered into the hand of the king of Babylon, not
by any cowardice or 'ill conduct of ours, but by
the sword, famine, and pestilence. Concerning the
country, they said, with vexation, (x». 43.) It is
< Isolate without man or beast, there is no relief,
there is no remedy. It is given into the hand of
the Chaldeans. Note, Deep security commonly
cuds in deep despair; whereas those that keep up a
holy fear at all times, have a good hope to support
themselves in the worst of times.
2. The hope that God gives them of mercy
which he had in store for them hereafter. Though
their carcases must fall in captivity, yet their chil¬
dren after them should again see this good land,
and the goodness of God in it.
(1.) They shall be brought up from their cap¬
tivity, and shall come, and settle again in this land,
v. 37. They had been under God’s anger and
fury, and great wrath; but now they shall partake
of his grace, and love, and great favour. He had
dispersed them, and driven them, into all countries;
those that fled dispersed themselves; the se that fell
into the enemies’ hands were dispersed by them, in
policy, to prevent combinations among them. Grd’s
hand was in both: but now God will find them out,
and gather them cut of all the countries whither
they were driven, as he promised in the law, (Deut.
xxx. 3, 4.) and the saints had prayed, Ps. cvi. 47.
Neh. i. 9. He had banished them, but he will
bring them again to this place, which they could
not but have an affection for. For many years past,
while they were in their own land, they were con¬
tinually exposed, and terrified with the alarms of
war; but now I will cause them to dwell safely.
Being reformed, and returned to God, neither theii
own consciences within, nor their enemies without,
shall be a terror to them. He promises, (x1. 41.)
I will plant them in this land assuredly; not only I
will certainly do it, but they shall here enjoy a holy
security and repose, and they shall take root here,
shall be planted in stability, and net again be un¬
fixed and unshaken.
(2.) God will renew his covenant with them, a
covenant of grace, the .blessings of which are spi¬
ritual, and such as will work good things in them,
to qualify them for the great things God intended
to do for them. It is called an everlasting covenant,
(x>. 40.) not only because God will be for ever faith¬
ful to it, but because the consequences of it will be
for everlasting. For, doubtless, here the promises
look further than to Israel according to the flesh,
and are sure to all believers, to every Israelite in¬
deed. Good Christians may apply them to them¬
selves, and plead them with God, may claim the
benefit of them, and take the comfort of them.
[1.] God will own them for his, and make over
himself to them to be theirs; (x’. 38.) They shall
be my people. He will make them his, by working
in them all the characters and dispositions of his
people, and then he will protect and guide and
govern them as his people. And, to make them
truly, completely, and eternally happy, I will be
their God. They shall serve and worship God as
theirs, and cleave to him only, and he will ap¬
prove himself theirs. All he is, all he has, shall
re engaged and employed for their good.
[2.] God will give them a heart to fear him, v.
39. That which he requires of those whom he
takes into covenant with him as his people, is, that
they fear him, that they reverence his majesty,
dread his wrath, stand in awe of his authority,
pay homage to him, and give him the glory due
unto his name. Now what God requires of them
he here promises to work in them, pursuant to
his choice of them as his people. Note, As it is
God’s prerogative to fashion men’s hearts, so it
is his promise to his people to fashion theirs aright,
and a heart to fear God is indeed a good heart, and
well-fashioned. It is repeated again, (x). 40.) 1
will put my fear in their hearts, work in them gra
cious principles and dispositions, that shall influence
and govern their whole conversation. Teachers
may put good things into our heads, but it is God
only that can put them into our hearts, that can
work in us both to will and to do.
485
JEREMIAH, XXXIII.
[3. ] He will give them one heart and one way.
In order to their walking in one way, he will give
them one heart; as the heart is, so will the way be,
and both shall be one; that is, First, They shall be
each of them one with themselves; one heart is the
same with a new heart, Ezek. xi. 19. The heart
is then one, when it is fully determined for God,
and entirely devoted to God; when the eye is single,
and God’s glory alone aimed at; when our hearts
are fixed, trusting in God, and we are uniform and
universal in our obedience to him; then the heart is
one, and the way one; and unless the heart is thus
steady, the goings will not be steadfast. From this
promise we may take direction and encouragement
to pray, with David, (Ps. lxxxvi. 11.) Unite my
heart to fear thy name; for God says, I will give
them one heart, that they may fear me. Secondly,
They shall be all of them one with each other. All
good Christians shall be incorporated into one body,
Jews and Gentiles shall become one shee/i-fold; and
they shall all, as far as they are sanctified, 'have a
disposition to love one another; the gospel they pro¬
fess, having in it the strongest inducements to mu¬
tual love, and the Spirit that dwells in them, being
the Spirit of love. Though they may have differ¬
ent apprehensions about lesser things, they shall be
all one in t'.ie great things of God, being renewed
after the same image; though they may have many
paths, they have but one way , that of serious godliness.
[4.] He will effectually provide for their perse¬
verance in grace, and the perpetuating of the cove¬
nant between him and them. They would have
been happy when they were first planted in Canaan,
like Adam in paradise, if they had not departed
from God. And therefore now that they are re¬
stored to their happiness, they shall be confirmed
in it, by the preventing of their departures from
God, and this will complete their bliss. First, God
will never leave nor forsake them; I will not turn
away from them to do good. Earthly princes are
fickle, and their greatest favourites have fallen un¬
der their frowns; but God’s mercy endures for ever;
whom he loves, he loves to the end. God may seem
to turn from his people, (Isa. liv. 8.) but even then
he does not turn from doing and designing them
good. Secondly, They shall never leave nor for¬
sake him; that is the thing we are in danger of; we
have no reason to distrust God’s fidelity and con¬
stancy, but our own. And therefore it is here pro¬
mised, that God will give them a heart to fear him
for ever, all days, to be in his fear every day, and
all the day long, (Prov. xxiii. 17.) and to continue
so to the end of their days. He will put such a
principle into their hearts, that they shall not de-
fiart from him. Even those who have given up
their names to God, if they be left to themselves,
will defiart from him; but the fear of God, ruling
in the heart, will prevent their departure. That,
and nothing else, will do it. If we continue close
and faithful to God, it is owing purely to his al¬
mighty grace, and not to any strength or resolution
of our own.
[5.] He will entail a blessing upon their seed,
will give them grace to fear him, for the good of
them, and of their children after them. As their
departures from God had been to the prejudice of
their children, so their adherence to God should be
to the advantage of their children. We cannot better
consult the good of posterity, than by settingup, and
keeping up, the fear and worship of God in our fa¬
milies.
[6.] He will take a pleasure in their prosperity,
and will do everything to advance it; (re 41.) /
will rejoice over them to do them good. God will
therefore do them good, because he rejoices over
them: they are dear to him, he makes his boast of
them, and therefore will not only do them good, but
will delight in doing them good. When he punishes
them, it is with reluctance; How shall I give thet
ufi, Ephraim ? But when he restores them it is
with satisfaction, he rejoices in doing them good.
We ought therefore to serve him with pleasure,
and to rejoice in all opportunities. of serving him.
He is himself a cheerful Giver, and therefore loves
a cheerful servant. I wilt plant them (says God)
with my whole heart, and with my whole soul. He
will be intent upon it, and take delight in it; he will
make it the business of his providence to settle
them again in Canaan, and the various dispensation-
of providence shall concur to it. All things shall
appear at last so to have been working for the good
of the church, that it will be said, The Governor of
the world is entirely taken up with the care of his
church.
[7. ] These promises shall as surely be performed
as the foregoing threatenings were, and the accom¬
plishment of those, notwithstanding the security of
the people, might confirm their expectation of the
performance of these, notwithstanding tneir pre¬
sent despair; ( v . 42.) As I have brought all this
great ex’il ufion them, pursuant to the threatenings,
and for the glory of divine justice, so I will bring
upon them all this good, pursuant to the promise,
and for the glory of divine mercy. He that is faith¬
ful to his threatenings will much more be so to his
promises; and he will comfort his people according
to the time he has afflicted them. The churches
shall have rest after the days of adversity.
[8.] As an earnest of all this, houses and lands
shall again take a good price in Judah and Jerusa¬
lem, and though now they are a drug, there shall
again be a sufficient number of purchasers; (u. 43,
44.) Fields shall be bought in this land, and peo
pie will covet to have lands here rather than any
where else. Lands, wherever they lie, will go off,
not only in the places about Jerusalem, but in the
cities of Judah and of Israel too, whether they lit
on mountains, or in valleys, or in the south, in all
parts of the countrv, men shall buy fields, and sub¬
scribe evidences. T rade shall revive, for they shall
have money enough to buy land with; husbandry
shall revive, for those that have money shall covet
to lay it out upon lands; laws shall again have theii
due course, for they shall subscribe evidences, and
seal them. This is mentioned to reconcile Jeremiah
to his new purchase; though he had bought a piece
of ground and could not go to see it, yet he must
believe that this was the pledge of many a pur
chase, and those but faint resemblances of the pur
chased possessions in the heavenly Canaan, reserved
for all those who have God’s fear in their hearts,
and do not depart from him.
CHAP. XXX1TI.
The scope of this chapter is much the same with that ol
the foregoing chapter — to confirm the promise of the re
storation of the Jews, notwithstanding the present deso
lations of their country, and dispersions of their people
And these promises have, both in type and tendency, a
reference as far forward as to the gospel-church, to which
this second edition of the Jewish church was at length to
resign its dignities and privileges. It is here promised,
I. That the city shall be rebuilt and re-established in
statu quo — in its former state, v. I.. 6. II. That the
captives, having their sins pardoned, shall be restored,
v. 7, 8. III. That this shall redound very much to the
glory of God, v. 9. IV. That the country shall have
both joy and plenty, v. 10.. 14. V. That way shall be
made for the coming of the Messiah, v. 15, 16. VI.
That the house of David, the house of Levi, and the
house of Israel, shall flourish again, and be established,
and all three in the kingdom of Christ; a gospel-minis
try and the gospel-church shall continue while the world
stands, v. 17. .26.
1
~jV|rOREOVER, the word of the Lo mt
lvJL came unto Jeremiah the second
4f!C JEREMIAH, XXXIII.
time, w hile he was yet shut up in the court
of the prison, saying, 2. Thus saith the
Lord, the maker thereof, the Lord that
formed it, to establish it; the Lord is his
name; 3. Call unto me, and I will answer
thee, and shew thee great and mighty tilings,
which thou knowest not. 4. For thus saith
the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning
the houses of this city, and concerning the
houses of the kings of Judah, which are
thrown down by the mounts, and by the
sword; 5. They come to fight with the
Chaldeans, but it is to fill them with the
dead bodies of men, whom I have slain in
mine ariger, and in my fury, and for all
whose wickedness I have hid my face from
this city. 6. Behold, I will bring it health
and cure, and I will cure them, and will
reveal unto them the abundance of peace
and truth. 7. And I will cause the cap¬
tivity of Judah, and the captivity of Israel,
to return, and will build them as at the first.
8. And I will cleanse them from all their
iniquity, whereby they have sinned against
me ; and I will pardon all their iniquities,
whereby they have sinned, and whereby
they have transgressed against me. 9. And
it shall be to me a name of joy, a praise
and an honour before all the nations of the
earth, which shall hear all the good that I
do unto them: and they shall fear and trem¬
ble for all the goodness, and for all the pros¬
perity, that I procure unto it.
Observe here,
I. The date ot this comfortable prophecy which
God intrusted Jeremiah with. It is not exact in the
time, only that it was after that in the foregoing
chapter, when things were still growing worse and
worse; it was the second time; God sfieaketh once,
yea, twice, for the encouragement of his people. We
are not only so disobedient, that we have need of
/irece/it ufion precept to bring us to our duty, but so
distrustful, that we have need of promise upon pro¬
mise to bring us to our comfort. This word, as the
former, came to Jeremiah when he was in prison.
Note, No confinement can deprive God’s people of
his presence; no locks or bars can shut out his
gracious visits; nay, oftentimes as their afflictions
abound, their consolations much more abound, and
they have the most reviving communications of his
favour then, when the world frowns upon them.
Paul’s sweetest epistles were those that b;*re date
out of a prison.
II. The prophecy itself. A great deal of comfort
is wrapt up in it for the relief of the captives, to
keep them from sinking into despair. Observe,
1. Who it is that secures this comfort to them, v.
2. It is the Lord, the Maker thereof, the Lord that
framed it. He is the Maker and Former of heaven
and earth, and therefore has all power in his hands;
so it refers to Jeremiah’s prayer, ch. xxxii. 17. He
is the Maker and Former of J rusalem, of Zion,
built them at first, and therefore can rebuild them,
built them for his own praise, and therefore will.
He formed it, to establish it, and therefore it shall
be established till those things be introduced, which
cannot be shaken, but shall remain for ever. He is
the Maker and Former of this promise; he has laid
the scheme for Jerusalem’s restoration, and he that
has formed it will establish it, he that has made the
promise will make it good; for Jehovah is his name ;
a God giving being to his promises by the perform¬
ance of them; when he does this, he is known by
that name, (Exod. vi. 3.) a perfecting God; when
the heavens and the earth were finished, then, and
not till then, the Creator is called Jehovah, Gen.
ii. 1.
2. How this comfort must be obtained and fetch¬
ed in; by prayer; ( v . 3.) Call upon me, and I will
answer thee. The prophet, having received some
intimations of this kind, must be humbly earnest
with God for further discoveries of his kind inten¬
tions. He had prayed, {ch. xxxii. 16.) but he must
pray again. Note, Those that expect to receive
comforts from God must continue instant in prayer;
we must call upon him, and then he will answer us;
Christ himself must ask, and it shall be given him,
Ps. ii. 8. I will show thee great and mighty things,
give thee a clear and full prospect of them; hidden
things, which, though in part discovered already,
yet thou knowest not, thou canst not understand, or
give credit to. Or, this may refer not only to the
prediction of these things, which Jeremiah, if he de¬
sire it, shall be favoured with, but to the perform¬
ance of the things themselves, which the pe<ple of
God, encouraged by this prediction, must pray for.
Note, Promises are given, not to supersede, but to
quicken and encourage, prayer. SeeEzek. xxxvi. 37.
3. How deplorable the condition of Jerusak m was,
which made it necessary that such comforts as
these should be provided for it; and notwithstanding
which, its restoration should be brought about in
due time; (v. 4, 5.) The houses of this city, not ex¬
cepting those of the kings of Judah, are thrown down
by the mounts, or engines of battery, and by the
sword, or axes, or hammers. It is the same word
that is used, Ezek. xxvi. 9. With his acces he shall
break down thy towers. The strongest, stateliest
houses, and those that were best furnished, were
levelled with the ground. The fifth verse comes in
a parenthesis, giving a further instance of the pre¬
sent calamitous state of Jerusalem. They that came
to fight with the Chaldeans, to beat them off from
the siege, did more hurt than good, provoked the
enemy to be more fierce and furious in their assaults,
so that the houses in Jerusalem were filled with the
dead bodies of men, who died of the wounds thev
received in sallying out upon the besiegers. God
says, that they were such as he had slain in his
anger, for the enemies’ sword was bis sword, and
their anger his anger. But it seems, the men
that were slain were generally such as had distin¬
guished themselves by their wickedness, for thev
were the very men for whose wickedness God did
now hide himself from this city; so that he was just
in all he brought upon them.
4. What the blessings are which God has in store
for Judah and Jerusalem, such as will redress all
their grievances.
(1.) Is their state diseased? Is it wounded? God
will provide effectually for the healing of it, though
the disease was thought mortal and incurable, ch.
viii. 22. “The whole head is sick, and the whole
heart faint; but, (v. 6.) / will bring it health and
cure, I will prevent the death, remove the sickness,
and set all to rights again,” ch. xxx. 17. Note, Be the
case ever so desperate, if God undertake the cure,
he will effect it. The sin of Jerusalem was the
| sickness of it; (Isa. i. 6.) its reformation therefore
will be its recov ery. And the following words tell
us how that is wrought; “ I will reveal unto them
the abundance of peace and truth; I will give it
them in due time, and give them an encouraging
prospect of it in the mean time.” Peace stands here
48?
JEREMIAH, XXXIII.
for all good; peace and truth are peace according
to the promise, and in pursuance ot that: or, peace
and truth are peace and the true religion; peace
and the true worship of God, in opposition to the
many falsehoods and deceits by which they had
been led away from God. We may apply it more
generally, and observe, [1.] That peace and truth
are the great subject-matter of divine revelation.
These promises here lead us to the gospel of Christ,
and in that God has revealed to us peace and truth,
the method of true peace; truth to direct us, peace
to make us easy. Grace and truth, and abundance
of both, come by Jesus Christ. Peace and truth are
the life of the soul, and Christ came, that we might
have that life, and might have it more abundantly.
Christ rules by the power of truth, (John xviii. 17.)
and by it he gives abundance of peace, Ps. lxxii. 7. —
lxxxv. 10. [2.] That the divine revelation of peace
and truth brings health and cure to all those that
bv faith receive it: it heals the soul of the diseases
it has contracted,. as it is a means of sanctification,
John xvii. 17. He sent his word, and healed them.
And it puts the soul into good order, and keeps it in
frame, and fit for the employments and enjoyments
of the spiritual and divine life.
(2.) Are they scattered and enslaved, and is their
nation laid in ruins? “ I will cause their captivity to
return, (v. 7.) both that of Israel and that of Ju¬
dah;” (for though those who returned under Zerub-
babel were chiefly of Judah, and Benjamin, and
Levi, yet afterward many of all the other tribes re¬
turned;) “and I will rebuild them, as I built them
at first.” When they by repentance do their first
works, God will by their restoration do his first
works.
(3. ) Is sin the procuring cause of all their trou¬
bles? That shall be pardoned and subdued, and so
the root of the judgments shall be killed, v. 8. [1.]
By sin they are become filthy, and odious to God’s
holiness, but God will cleanse them, and purify
them from their iniquity; as those that were cere¬
monially unclean, and were therefore shut out from
the tabernacle, when they were sprinkled with the
water of purification, had liberty of access to it
again, so had they to their own land and the privi¬
leges of it, when God had cleansed them from their
iniquities. In allusion to that sprinkling, David
rays, Purge me with hyssop. [2.] By sin they are
ecome guilty, and obnoxious to his justice; but he
will pardon all their iniquities, will remove the pu¬
nishment to which for sin they were bound over.
All who by sanctifying grace are cleansed from the
filth of sin, by pardoning mercy are freed from the
guilt of it.
(4.) Have both their sins and their sufferings
turned to the dishonour of God? Their reformation
and restoration shall redound as much to his praise,
t’. 9. Jerusalem, thus rebuilt, Judah, thus re-peo¬
pled, shall be to me a name of joy, as pleasing to
God as ever thev have been provoking, and a praise
and an honour before all the nations. They, being
thus restored, shall glorify God by their services,
and lie shall glorify himself by his favours. This
renewed nation shall be as much a reputation to re¬
ligion as formerly it has been a reproach to it. The na¬
tions shall hear all of the good that God has wrought
in them by his grace, and of all the good he has
wrought for them by his providence. The wonders
of their return out of Babylon shall make as great a
noise in the world as ever the wonders of their deli¬
verance out of Egypt did. And they shall fear and
tremble for all this goodness. [1.] The people of
God themselves shall fear and tremble; they shall
be much sui-prised at it, shall be afraid of offending
so good a God, and of forfeiting bis favour, Hos. iii.
a. They shall fear the Lord and his goodness. [2.]
The neighbouring nations shall fear because of the |
prosperity of Jerusalem; shall look upon the grow
ing greatness of the Jewish nation as really formida¬
ble, and shall be afraid of making them their ene¬
mies. When the church is fair as the moon, and
clear as the sun, she is terrible as an army with
banners.
1 0. Thus saith the Lord, Again there shall
be heard in this place (which ye say shall,
be desolate without man and without beast,
even in the cities of Judah, and in the streets
of Jerusalem, that are desolate without man,
and without inhabitant, and without beast,)
1 1. The voice of joy, and the voice of glad¬
ness; the voice of the bridegroom, and the
voice of the bride; the voice of them that
shall say, Praise the Lord of hosts: for the
Lord is good ; for his mercy endureth foi
ever: and of them that shall bring the sacri
fice of praise into the house of the Lord.
For I will cause to return the captivity ol
the land, as at the first, saith the Lord. 12.
Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Again in this
place, which is desolate without man and
without beast, and in all the cities thereof,
shall be a habitation of shepherds causing
their flocks to lie down. 13. In the cities of
the mountains, in the cities of the vale, and in
the cities of the south, and in the land of Ben¬
jamin, and in the places about Jerusalem,
and in the cities of Judah, shall the flocks
pass again under the hands of him that tell-
eth them, saith the Lord. 14. Behold, the
days come, saith the Lord, that I will per¬
form that good thing which I have promised
unto the house of Israel, and to the house
of Judah. 15. In those days, and at that
time, will I cause the Branch of righteous¬
ness to grow up unto David ; and he shall
execute judgment and righteousness in the
land. 16. In those days shall Judah be
saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely:
and this is the name wherewith she shall be
called, The Lord our righteousness.
Here is a further prediction of the happy state ol
Judah and Jerusalem after their glorious return ou
of captivity, issuing gloriously at length in the king¬
dom i f the Messiah.
1. It is promised, that the people who were long
in sorrow, shall again be filled with joy. Every oni
concluded now, that the country would lie for evei
desolate, that no beast should be found in the land of
Judah, no inhabitants in the streets of Jerusalem,
and, consequently, there would be nothing but uni¬
versal and perpetual melancholy; (v. 10.) yet,
though weeping may endure for a time, joy will" re¬
turn. It was threatened, (c/i. vii. 34. and xvi. 9.)
that thevoice of joy and gladness should cease there;
but here it is promised that they shall revive again,
that the voice of joy and gladness should be heard
there, because the captivity shall be returned; for
then was their mouth filled with laughter, Ps. exxvi.
1, 2. (1.) There shall be common joy there, the
voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride;
marriages shall again be celebrated, as formerly,
with songs, which in Babylon they had laid aside,
JEREMiAH, XXXIIi
■180
for their harps were hung on the willow trees. (2.)
There shall be religious joy there; temple-songs
shall be revived, the Lord’s songs, which they could
not sing in a strange land. There shall be heard,
in their private houses, and in the cities of Judah, as
well as in the temple, the voice of them that shall
say. Praise the Lord of hosts. Note, Nothing is
more the praise and honour of a people, than to
have God praised and honoured among them. This
shall complete the mercy of their return and re¬
storation, that with it they shall have hearts to be
thankful for it, and give God the glory of it, the
glory both of the power and of the goodness by
which it is effected; they shall praise him both as
the Lord of hosts, and as the God who is good, and
whose mercy endures for ever. This, though a
song of old, yet, being sung upon this fresh occasion,
will be a new song. We find this literally fulfilled
at their returnout of Babylon, Ezra iii. 11. They
sang together in praising the Lord, because he is
good, for his mercy endures for ever. The public
worship of God shall be diligently and constantly at¬
tended upon; They shall bring the sacrifice of praise
to the house of the Lord. All the sacrifices were
intended for the praise of God, but this seems to be
meant of the spiritual sacrifice of humble adorations
and joyful thanksgivings, the calves of our lifts,
(Hos. xiv. 2.) which shall please the Lord better
than an ox ora bullock. The Jews say, that in the
days of the Messiah all sacrifices shall cease, but
the sacrifices of praise, and to those days this pro¬
mise has a further reference.
2. It is promised, that the country, which had lain
long depopulated, should be replenished and stocked
again. It was now desolate, without man, and without
beast; but, after their return, the pastures shall again
be clothed with flocks, Ps. lxv. 13. In all the cities of
Judah and Benjamin there shall be a habitation of
shepherds, v. 12, 13. This speaks, (1.) The wealth
of the country, after their return. It shall not be a
habitation of beggars, who have nothing, but of
shepherds and husbandmen, men of substance, with
good stocks upon the ground they are returned to.
(2.) The peace of the country. It shall not be a
habitation of soldiers, nor shall there be tents and
barracks set up to lodge them, but there shall be
shepherd’s tents; for they shall hear no more the
alarms of war, nor shall there be any to make even
the shepherds afraid. See Ps. cxliv. 13, 14. (3.)
The industry of the country, and their return to
their original plainness and simplicity, from which,
in the corrupt ages, they had sadly degenerated.
The seed of Jacob, in their beginning, gloried in this,
that they were shepherds, (Gen. xlvii. 3.) and so they
shall now be again, giving themselves wholly to that
innocent employment, causing their flocks to lie
down, ( v . 12.) and to pass under the hands of him
that telleth them; (n. 13.) for though their flocks
are numerous, they are not numberless, nor shall
they omit to number them, that they mav know if
any be missing, and may seek after it. Note, It is
the prudence of those who have ever so much of
the world, to keep an account of what they have.
Some think that they pass under the hand of him
that "telleth them, that they may be tithed. Lev.
xxvii. 32. Then we may take the comfort of what
we have, when God has had his dues out of it. Now
because it seemed incredible that a people, reduced
as now they were, should ever recover such a degree
of peace and plenty as this, here is subjoined a gene¬
ral ratification of these promises; (y. 14.) / will
perform that good thing which I have promised.
I hough the promise may sometimes work slowly
towards an accomplishment, it works surely. The
days will come, though they are long in coming.
3. To crown all these blessings which God has
■n store for them, here is a promise of the Messiah,
and of that everlastn.g nghteousness which he
should bring in, (y. 15, 16.) and, probably, this is
that good thing, that great good thing, which, in
the latter days, days that were yet to come, God
would perform, as he had promised to Judah and
Israel, and which their return out of capti\ ity, and
their settlement again in their own land, respected
and promoted. Prom the captivity to Christ is one
of the famous periods, Matth. i. 17. This promise
of the Messiah we had before; (ch. xxiii. 5, 6.) and
there it came in as a confirmation of tne promise ol
the shepherds which God would set over them,
which would make one think that the promise here
concerning the shepherds and their flocks, which
introduces it, is to be understood figuratively. Christ
is here prophesied of, (1.) As a rightful King: he
is a Branch of righteousness, not a Usurper, for he
grows up unto David, descends from his loins,
with whom the covenant of royalty was made, and
is that Seed with whom that covenant should be es¬
tablished, so that his title is unexceptionable. (2.)
As a righteous King, righteous in enacting laws,
waging wars, and giving judgment; righteous in
vindicating those that suffer wrong, and punishing
those that do wrong; He shall execute judgment
and righteousness in the land. This may point at
Zerubbabel in the type, who governed with equity,
not as Jehoiakim had done; (cA. xxii. 17.) but it has
a further reference to him to whom all judgment is
committed, and who shall judge the world in righ-
teotisness. (3.) As a King that shall protect his
subjects from all injury. By him Judah shall be
saved from wrath and the curse, and being so saved,
Jerusalem shall dwell safely, quiet from the fear
of evil, and enjoying a holy security and serenity c f
mind, in a dependence upon the conduct of this
Prince of peace, this Prince of their peace. (4.)
As a King that shall be praised by his subjects;
“ This is the name whereby they shall call him;” (so
the Chaldee reads it, the Syriac, and vulgar Latin;)
“this name of his they shall celebrate and triumph
in, and by this name they shall call upon him.” It
may be read, more agreeably to the original, This
is he who shall call her. The Lord our Righteous¬
ness, as Moses’s altar is called Jehovah-nissi, (Excd.
xvii. 15.) and Jerusalem, Jehovah-shammah, (Ezek.
xlviii. 35.) intimating that they glory in Jehovah as
present with them, and their Banner; so here the city
is called, The Lord our Righteousness, because they
glory in Jehovah as their Righteousness. That which
was before said to be the name of Christ, (savs Mr.
Gatake’%) is here made the name of Jerusalem, the
city of the Messiah, the church of Christ. He it is
that imparts righteousness to her, for he is made of
God to us righteousness, and she, by bearing that
name, professes to have her whole righteousness, not
from herself, but from him, In the Lord have 1
righteousness and strength! (Isa.xlv.24.) and we are
made the righteousness of God in him. The inha¬
bitants of Jerusalem shall have this name of the
Messiah so much in their mouths, that they shall
themselves be called by it.
17. For thus saith the- Lon d, David
shall never want a man to sit upon the
throne of the house of Israel; 18. Neither
shall the priests the Levites want a man
before me, to offer burnt-offerings, and to
kindle meat-offerings, and to do sacrifice
continually. 19. And the word of the Lorq
came unto Jeremiah, saying, 29. Thus
saith the Lord, If you can break my cove¬
nant of the day, and my covenant of the
night, and that there should not be day and
489
JEREMIAH, XXXIII.
night in their season; 21. Then may also
my covenant be broken with David my ser¬
vant, that he should not have a son to reign
upon his throne; and with the Levites the
priests, my ministers, 22. As the host of
heaven cannot be numbered, neither the
sand of the sea measured; so will I multiply
the seed of David my servant, and t he Le¬
vites that minister unto me. 23. Moreover,
the word of the Loro came to Jeremiah,
saying, 24. Considerest thou not what
this people have spoken, saying, The two
families which the Lord hath chosen, he
hath even cast them off? Thus they have
despised my people, that they should be no
more a nation before them. 25. Thus saith
the Lord, If my covenant he not with day
and night, and if I have not appointed the
ordinances of heaven and earth; 26. Then
will 1 cast away the seed of Jacob, and Da¬
vid my servant, so that I will not take any
of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abra¬
ham, Isaac, and Jacob : for I wdl cause their
captivity to return, and have me rcy on them.
Three of God’s covenants, that of royalty with
David and Iris seed, that of the priesthood with
Aaron and his seed, and that of peculiarity with
Abraham and his seed, seemed to have been all
broken and lost while the captivity lasted; but it is
here promised, that, notwithstanding' that interrup¬
tion and discontinuance for a time, they shall all
three take place again, and the true intents and
meaning of them all shall be abundantly answered in
the New’ Testament blessings typified by those con¬
ferred on the Jews after their return out of captivity.
1. The covenant of royalty shall be secured, and
the promises of it shall have their full accomplish¬
ment, in the kingdom of Christ, the Son of David,
v. 17. The throne of Israel was overturned in the
captivity, the crown was fallen from their head,
there was not a man to sit on the throne of Israel,
Jeconiah was written childless. After their return,
the house of David made a figure again; but it is in
the Messiah that this promise is performed, that
David shall never want a man to sit on the throne
of Israel; and that David shall have always a Son
to reign ufion his throne. For as long as the Man
Christ Jesus sits on the right hand of the throne of
God, rules the world, and rules it for the good of
the church, to which he is a quickening Head, and
glorified Head over all things, as long as he is King
ufion the holy hill of Zion, David does not want a
successor, nor is the covenant with him broken.
When the First-begotten was brought into the
world, it was declared concerning him, that the
Lord God shall give him the throne of his father
David, and he shall reign over the house oj Jacob
for ever, Luke i. 33.
For the confirmation of this, it is promised, (1.)
That the covenant with David shall be as firm as
the ordinances of heaven; to the stability of which
that of God’s promise is compared, ch. xxxi. 35,
36. There is a covenant of nature, by which the
common course of providence is settled, and on
which it is founded, here called, a covenant of the
day and the night, (t. 20, 25.) because that is one
of the articles of it, That there shall be day and
night in their season, according to the distinction
put between them in the creation, when God di¬
vided between the light and the darkness, and esta- I
Vol. iv.— 3 Q
blished their mutual succession, and a government
to each, that the sun should rule by day, and the
moon and stars by night, (Gen. i. 4, 5, 16.) which
establishment was renewed after the, flood, (Gen.
viii. 22.) and has continued ever since, Ps.,xix. 2.
The morning and the evening have both of them
their regular outgoings; (Ps. lxv. 8.) the day-spring
knows its place, knows its time, and keeps both, so
do the shadows of the evening; and while the world
stands, this course shall not be altered, this covenant
shall not be broken. The ordinances of heaven and
earth, (of this communication between heaven and
earth, the dominion of these ordinances of heaven
iipon the earth,) which God has appointed, (v. 25.
compare Job xxxviii. 33. ) shall never be disappoint¬
ed. Thus firm shall the covenant of redemption
be with the Redeemer — God’s Servant, but David
our King, v. 21. This intimates that Christ shall
have a church on earth to the world’s end, he shall
see a seed in which he shall prolong his days till
time and days shall be no more. Christ’s kingdom
is an everlasting kingdom, and when the end cometh,
and not till then, it shall be delivered up to God,
even the Father. But it intimates that the condition
of it in this world shall be intermixed and counter-
changed, prosperity and adversity succeeding each
other, as light and darkness, day and night. But
this is plainly taught us, that, as sure as we mav
be, that though the sun will set to-night, it will rise
again to-morrow morning, whether we live to see
it or no, so sure we may be, that though the king¬
dom of the Redeemer in the world may for a time
be clouded and eclipsed by corruptions and perse¬
cutions, yet it will shine forth again, and recover its
lustre, in the time appointed. (2.) That the seed
of David shall be as numerous as the host of heaven,
the spiritual seed of the Messiah, that shall be born
to him by the efficacy of his gospel, and his Spirit
working with it; from the womb of the morning he
shall have the dew of their youth, to be his willing
people, Ps. cx. 3. Christ’s seed are not, as David’s
were, his successors, but his subjects; yet the day is
coming when they also shall reign with him; (i\
22.) fs the host of heaven cannot be numbered, so
will I multiply the seed of David, so that there
shall be no danger of the kingdom’s being extinct,
or extirpated for want of heirs. The children are
numerous; and if children, then heirs.
2. The covenant of priesthood shall be secured,
and the promises of that also shall have their full
accomplishment. This seemed likewise to be for¬
gotten during the captivity, when there was no
altar, no temple-service, for the priests to attend
upon; but this also shall revive. It did so; imme¬
diately upon their coming back to Jerusalem, there
were priests and Levites ready to offer burnt-offer¬
ings, and to do sacrifice continually, (Ezra iii. 2, 3.)
as he here promised, v. 18, But that priesthood
soon grew corrupt, the covenant of Levi was pro¬
faned, (as appears Mai. ii. 8.) and in the destruc¬
tion of Jerusalem by the Romans it came to a final
period. We must therefore look elsewhere for the
performance of this word, that the covenant with
the Levites, the priests, God’s ministers, shall be
as firm, and last as long, as tire covenant with the
day and the night. And we find it abundantly per¬
formed, (1.) In the priesthood of Christ, which su¬
persedes that of Aaron, and is the substance of that
shadow. While that great High Priest of our pro¬
fession is always appearing in' the presence of God
for us, presenting the virtue of his blood by" which
he made atonement in the incense of his interces¬
sion, it may truly be said, that the Levites do not
want a man before God to offer continually, Heb.
viii. 3. He is a Priest for ever. The covenant of
the priesthood is called a covenant of peace, (Numb,
xxv. 12.) of life and peace, Mai. ii. 5. Now we
490 JEREMIAH, XXXIV
are sure that this covenant is not broken, or in the
least weakened, while Jesus Christ is himself our
Life and our Peace. This covenant of priesthood
is here again and again joined with that of royalty,
for Christ is a Priest u/ion his throne , as Melchize-
dek. (2.) In a settled gospel-ministry. While
there are faithful ministers to preside in religious
assemblies, and to offer up the spiritual sacrifices
of prayer and praise, the / iriests , the Levites do not
want successors, and such as have obtained a more
excellent ministry. The apostle makes those that
fireach the gospel, to come in the room of those that
served at the altar, 1 Cor. ix. 13, 14. (3.) In all
true believers, who are a holy priesthood, a royal
priesthood, (1 Pet. ii. 5, 9.) who are made to our
God kings and /iriests, (Rev. i. 6.) they offer up
s/tiritual sacrijices, acceptable to God, and them¬
selves, in the first place, living sacrifices. Of these
Levites, this promise here must be understood, ( v .
22.) that they shall be as numerous as the sand of
the sea, the same that is promised concerning Is¬
rael in general; (Gen. xxii. 17.) for all God’s spi¬
ritual Israel are spiritual priests, Rev. v. 9, 10. —
vii. 9, 13.
3. The covenant of peculiarity likewise shall be
secured, and the promises of that covenant shall
have their full accomplishment in the gospel-Israel.
Observe, (1.) How this covenant was looked upon
as broken during the captivity, v. 24. God asks
the prophet, “ Hast thou not heard, and dost thou
not consider, what this people have spoken?” Either
the enemies of Israel, who triumphed in the extir¬
pation of a people that had made such a noise in the
world, or the unbelieving Israelites themselves, this
people, among whom thou dwellest, they have
broken covenant with God, and then quarrel with
him, as if he had not dealt faithfully with them.
The two families which the Lord hath chosen, Is¬
rael and Judah, whereas they were but one when he
chose them, he hath even cast them off. “ Thus
have they despised my people, despised the privilege
of being my people, as if it were a privilege of no
value at all. The neighbouring nations despised
them, as now no more a nation, but the ruins of a
nation, and looked upon all their honour as laid in
the dust; but, (2.) See how firm the covenant stands
notwithstanding, as firm as that with day and night;
sooner will God suffer day and night to cease, than
he will cast away the seed of Jacob. This cannot
refer to the seed of Jacob according to the flesh, for
they are cast away, but to the Christian church, in
which all these promises were to be lodged, as ap¬
pears by the apostle’s discourse, Rom. xi. 1, &c.
Christ is that Seed of David, that is to be perpetual
Dictator to the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob;
and as this people shall never want such a King, so
this King shall never want such a people. Chris¬
tianity shall continue in the dominion of Christ, and
the subjection of Christians to him, till day and night
come to an end. And as a pledge of this, that pro¬
mise is again repeated, / will cause their captivity
to return; and, having brought them back, I will
have mercy on them. Whom this promise refers
to, appears, Gal. vi. 16. where all that walk accord¬
ing to the gospel-rule, are made to be the Israel of
God, on whom peace and mercy shall be.
CHAP. XXXIV.
In this chapter, we have two messages which God sent by
Jeremiah. 1. One, to foretell the fate of Zedekiah king
of Judah, that he should fall into the hands of the king
of Babylon, that he should live a captive, but should at
last die in peace in his captivity, v. 1 . .7. II. Another,
to read the doom both of prince and people for their
treacherous dealings with God, in bringing back their
servants into bondage, whom they had released accord¬
ing to the law, and so playing fast and loose with God.
They had walked at all adventures with God, (r. 8 . . 11.)
and therefore God would walk at all adventures with
them, in bringing the Chaldean army upon them again,
then when they began to hope that they were got clear
of them, v. 12. . 22.
1 . npHE word which came unto Jeremiah
X from the Lord, (when Nebuchad¬
nezzar king of Babylon, and all his army,
and all the kingdoms of the earth of his do¬
minion, and all the people, fought against
Jerusalem, and against all the cities thereof,)
saying, 2. Thus saith the Lord, the God
of [srael, Go, and speak to Zedekiah king of
Judah, and tell him; Thus saith the Lord.
Behold, I will give this city into the hand
of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn
it with fire. 3. And thou shalt not escape
out of his hand, but shalt surely be taken,
and delivered into his hand; and thine eves
shall behold the eyes of the king of Baby¬
lon, and he shall speak with thee mouth to
mouth, and thou shalt go to Babylon. 4.
Yet hear the word of the Lord, O Zede¬
kiah king of Judah ; Thus saith the Lord
of thee, Thov sbalt not die by the sword;
5. But thou shalt die in peace: and with the
burnings of thy fathers, the former kings
which were before thee, so shall they burn
odours for thee; and they will lament thee,
saying , Ah, lord! for I have pronounced the
word, saith the Lord. 6. Then Jeremiah
the prophet spake all these words unto Ze¬
dekiah kingof Judah in Jerusalem, 7. When
the king of Babylon’s army fought against
Jerusalem, and against all the cities of Ju¬
dah that were left, against Lachish, and
against Azekah : for these defericed cities
remained of the cities of Judah.
This prophecy concerning Zedekiah was deliver¬
ed to Jeremiah, and by him to the parties concerned,
before he was shut up in the prison, for v e find this
prediction here made the ground of his commit¬
ment, as appears by the recital of some passages out
of it, ch. xxxii. 4.
Observe, 1. The time when this message was
sent to Zedekiah; it was when the king of Babylon,
with all his forces, some out of all the kingdoms of
the earth that were within his jurisdiction, fought
against Jerusalem, and the cities thereof, (v. 1.) de¬
signing to destroy them, having often plundered
them. The cities that now remained, and yet held
out, are named, (r. 7.) Lachish and Azekah. This
intimates that things were now brought to the last
extremity, and yet Zedekiah obstinately stood it
out, his heart being hardened to his destruction.
2. The message itself that was sent him.
(1.) Here is a threatening of wrath. He is told
that again, which he had been often told before, that
the city shall be taken by the Chaldeans, and burnt
with fire, (v. 2.) that he shall himself fall into the
enemy’s hands, shall be made a prisoner, shall be
brought before that furious prince Nebuchadnezzar,
and be. carried away captive into Babylon; (v. 3.)
yet Ezekiel prophesied that he should not see Ba¬
bylon; nor did he, for his eyes were put out, Ezek.
xii. 13. This Zedekiah brought upon himself from
God by his other sins, and from Nebuchadnezzar
by his breaking of his faith with him.
JEREMIAH, XXXIV.
-*91
(2. ) Here is a mixture of mercy. He shall die a
captive, but he shall not die by the sword, he shall
die a natural death; (ic 4.) he shall end his days
with some comfort, shall die in peace, v. 5. He
never had been one of the worst of the kings, but
we are willing to hope that what evil he had done
in the sight of the Lord, he repented of it in his
captivity, as Manasseh had done, and it was forgiven
to him; and, God being reconciled to him, he might
truly be said to die in / teace . Note, A man may die
in a prison, and yet die in peace. Nay, he shall end
his days with some reputation, more than one would
expect, all things considered. He shall be buried
with the burnings of his fathers, with the respect
usually shown to their kings, especially those that had
done good in Israel. It seems, in his captivity he had
conducted himself so well toward his own people,
that they were willing to do him this honour, and
toward Nebuchadnezzar, that he suffered it to be
done. If Zedekiah had continued in his prosperity,
perhaps he would have grown worse, and would
have departed at last without being desired; but
his afflictions wrought such a change in him, that
his death was looked upon as a great loss. It is
better to live and die penitent in aprison, than live
and die impenitent in a palace. They will lament
thee, saying, Ah, Lord! an honour which his bro¬
ther Jeiioiakim had not, ch. xxii. 18. The Jews
say that they lamented thus over him, Alas ! Zede¬
kiah is dead, who drank the dregs of all the ages
that went before him, who suffered for the sins of
his ancestors, the measure of iniquity being filled
up m his days. They shall thus lament him, saith
the Lord, for I have pronounced the word; and what
God hath spoken shall without fail be made good.
3. Jeremiah’s faithfulness in delivering this mes¬
sage; though he knew it would be ungrateful to the
king, and might prove, as indeed it did, dangerous
to himself, (for he was clapped up for it,) yet he
spake all these words to Zedekiah, v. 6. It is a
mercy to great men to have those about them that
will deal faithfully with them, and tell them the
evil consequences of their evil courses, that they
may reform, and live.
8. This is the word that came unto Jere¬
miah from the Lord, after that the king
Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the
people which were at Jerusalem, to pro¬
claim liberty unto them ; 9. That every
man should let his man-servant, and every
man his maid-servant, being a Hebrew or
a Hebrewess, go free; that none should
serve himself of them, to wit, of a Jew his
brother. 10. Now, when all the princes,
and all the people which had entered into
the covenant, heard that every one should
let his man-servant, and every one his maid¬
servant, go free, that none should serve
themselves of them any more ; then they
obeyed, and let them go. 11. But after¬
wards they turned, and caused the servants,
and the handmaids, whom they had let go
free, to return, and brought them into sub¬
jection for servants and for handmaids. 1 2.
Therefore the word of the Lord came to
Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, 13.
Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, I
made a covenant with your fathers in the
day that I brought them forth out of the i
land of Egypt, out of the house of bondmen,
saying, 14. At the end of seven years, let
ye go every man his brother a Hebrew,
which hath been sold unto thee ; and, when
he hath served thee six years, thou shalt let
him go free from thee: but your lathers
hearkened not unto me, neither inclined
their ear. 15. And ye were now turned,
and had done right in my sight, in proclaim¬
ing liberty every man to his neighbour: and
ye had made a covenant before me in the
house which is called by my name: 16.
But ye turned, and polluted my name, and
caused every man his servant, and every
man his handmaid, whom ye had set at
liberty at their pleasure, to return, and
brought them into subjection, to be unto
you for servants and for handmaids. 17.
Therefore thus saith the Lord, Ye have
1 not hearkened unto me, in proclaiming
liberty every one to his brother, and every
man to his neighbour : behold, I proclaim a
liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the
sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine ;
and I will make you to be removed into all
the kingdoms of the earth. 18. And I will
give the men that have transgressed my
covenant, which have not performed the
words of the covenant which they had
made before me, when they cut the calf in
twain, and passed between the parts thereof,
19. The princes of Judah, and the princes
of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, and the priests,
and all the people of the land, which pass¬
ed between the parts of the calf; 20. I
will even give them into the hand of their
enemies, and into the hand of them that
seek their life ; and their dead bodies shall
be for meat unto the fowls of the hea¬
ven, and to the beasts of the earth. 21.
And Zedekiah king of Judah, and his
princes, will I give into the hand of their
enemies, and into the hand of them that
seek their life, and into the hand of the king
of Babylon’s army, which are gone up from
you. 22. Behold, I will command, saith
the Lord, and cause them to return to this
city; and they shall fight against it, and
take it, and burn it with fire : and I will
make the cities of Judah a desolation with¬
out an inhabitant.
We have here another prophecy upon a parti¬
cular occasion, the history of which we must take
notice of, as necessary to give light to the prophecy.
I. When Jerusalem was -closely besieged by the
Chaldean army, the princes and people agreed upon
a reformation In one instance, and that was concern¬
ing their servants.
1. The law of God was very express, that those
of their own nation should not be held in servitude
above seven years, but after they had served one
492
JEREMIAH, XXXIV.
apprenticeship, they should be discharged, and have
their liberty; yea, though they had sold themselves
into servitude for the payment of their debts, or
though they were sold by the judges for the punish¬
ment of their crimes. This difference was put be¬
tween their brethren and strangers, that those of
other nations, taken in war, or bought with money,
might be held in perpetual slavery, they and theirs;
but their brethren must serve but for seven years at
the longest. This God calls the covenant that he
had made with them, when he brought them out of
the land of Egypt, v. 13, 14. This was the first of
the judicial laws which God gave them, (Exod.
xxi. 2.) and there was good reason for that law.
(1.) God had put honour upon that nation, and he
would have them thus to preserve the honour of it
themselves, and to put a difference between it and
other nations. (2. ) God had brought them out of
slaver)' in Egypt, and he would have them thus to
express their grateful sense of that favour, by
letting those go, to whom their houses were houses
of bondage, as Egypt had been to their forefathers.
That deliverance is therefore mentioned here, (n.
13.) as the ground of that law. Note, God’s com¬
passions towards us should engage our compassions
towards our brethren; we must release as we are
released, forgive as we are forgiven, and relieve
as we are relieved. And this is called a covenant:
for our performance of the duty required is the
condition of the continuance of the favours God has
bestowed.
2. This law they and their fathers had broken;
their worldly profit swayed more with them than
God’s command or covenant. When their servants
had lived seven years with them, they understood
their business, and how to apply themselves to it,
better than they did when they first came to them,
and therefore they would then by no means part
with them, though God himself by his law had
made them free; Your fathers hearkened not to me
in this matter, ( y . 14. ) so that from the days of their
fathers they had been in this trespass; and they
thought they might do it, because their fathers did
it, and their servants had by disuse lost the benefit
of the provision God made for them ; whereas against
an express law, especially against an express law
of God, no custom, usage, or prescription, is to be
admitted in plea. For this sin of theirs, and their
fathers, God now brought them into servitude, and
justly.
3. When they were besieged, and closely shut in,
by the army of the Chaldeans, they, being told of
their fault in this matter, immediately reformed,
and let go all their servants that were entitled to
their freedom by the law of God; as Pharaoh, who,
when the plague was upon him, consented to let the
people go, and boupd themselves in a covenant to
do so. (1.) The prophets faithfully admonished
them concerning their sin. From them they heard
that they should let their Hebrew servants go free,
v. 10. They might have read it themselves in the }
book of the law, but did not, or did not heed it, there¬
fore the prophets told them what the law was. See
what need there is of the preaching of the word ;
people must hear the word preached, because they
will not make the use they ought to make of the
word written. (2.) All orders and degrees of men
concurred in this reformation. The king, and the
princes, and all the people, agreed to let go their
servants, whatever loss or damage they might sus¬
tain by so doing. When the king and princes led
in this good work, the people could not for shame
but follow. The example and influence of great
men would go very far towards extirpating the most
inveterate corruptions. (3.) They bound them¬
selves by a solemn oath and covenant, that they
would do this, whereby they engaged themselves to
God and one another. Note, What God has bound
us to by his precept, it is good for us to bind our¬
selves to by our promise. This covenant was very
solemn: it was made in a sacred place, made before
me, in the house which is called by my name, (t;.
15. ) in the special presence of God, the tokens of
which, in the temple, ought to strike an awe upon
them, and make them very sincere in their appeals
to him. It was ratified by a significant sign; they
cut a calf in two, and passed between the parts
thereof, (v. 18, 19.) with tins dreadful imprecation,
“Let us be in like manner cut in sunder, if we do
not perform what we now promise.” This calf
was, probably, offered up in sacrifice to God, who
was thereby made a Party to the covenant. When
God covenanted with Abram, for the ratification of
it, a smoking furnace and a burning lamp passed
between the pieces of the sacrifice, in allusion to this
federal rite, Gen. xv. 17. Note, That we may
effectually oblige ourselves to our duty, it is good to
alarm ourselves with the apprehensions of the
terror of the wrath and curse to which we expose
ourselves, if we live in the contempt of it, that
wrath which will cut sinners asunder; (Matth.
xxiv. 51.) and sensible signs may be of use to make
the impressions of it deep and durable, as here.
(4.) They conformed themselves herein to the com¬
mand of God, and their covenant with him ; they
did let their servants go, though at this time, when
the city was besieged, they could very ill spare
them. Thus they did right in God’s sight, v. 15.
Though it was their trouble that drove them to it,
yet he was well pleased with it; and if they had
persevered in this act of mercy to the poor, to their
poor servants, it might have been a lengthening of
their tranquillity, Dan. iv. 27.
II. When there was some hope that the siege
was raised, and the danger over, they repented of
their repentance, undid the good they had done,
and forced the servants they had released, into their
respective services again. 1. The king of Baby¬
lon's army was now gone up from tliem, v. 21.
Pharaoh was bringing an army of Egyptians to
oppose the progress of the king of Babylon’s victo¬
ries, upon the tidings of which the Chaldeans raised
the siege for a time, as we find, ch. xxxvii. 5.
They departed from Jerusalem. See how ready
God was to put a stop to his judgments, upon the
first instance of reformation, so slow is he to anger,
and so swift to show mercy. As soon as ever they
let their servants go free, God let them go free. 2.
When they began to think themselves safe from the
besiegers, the)' made their servants come back into
subjection to them, (k. 11.) and again, v. 16. This
was a great abuse to their servants, to whom servi¬
tude would be more irksome, after they had had
some taste of the pleasures of liberty. It was a
great shame to themselves, that they could not keep
in a good mind when they were in it. But it was
especially an affront to God; in doing this, they pol¬
luted his name, v. 16. It was a contempt of the
command he had given them, as if that were of no
force at all, but they might either keep it, or break
it, as they thought fit. It was a contempt of
the covenant they had made with him, and of that
wrath which they had imprecated on themselves,
in case they should break that covenant. It was jest¬
ing with God Almighty, as if lie could be imposed
upon by fallacious promises, which, when they had
gained their point, they would look upon themselves
no longer obliged by. It was lying to God with
their mouths, and faltering him with their tongues.
It was likewise a contempt of the judgments of
God, and setting them at defiance; as if, when once
the course of them was stopped a little and inter¬
rupted, they would never proceed again, and the
judgment would never be revived. Whereas re
493
JEREMIAH, XXXV.
E neves are so fur from being pardons, that if they
e abused thus, and sinners take encouragement
from them to return to sin, they are but prepara¬
tives for heavier strokes of divine vengeance. ,
III. For this treacherous dealing with God, they
are here severely threatened; Be not deceived , God
is not mocked. Those that think to put a cheat
upon God by a dissembled repentance, a fallacious
covenant, and a partial temporary reformation, will
prove in the end to have put the greatest cheat upon
their own souls; for the Lord, whose name is Jealous,
is a jealous God. It is here threatened with an ob¬
servable air of displeasure against them, l.That since
they had not given liberty to their servants to go w here
they pleased, God would give all his judgments liberty
to take their course against them without control;
(v. 17.) You have not proclaimed liberty to your
servants. Though they had done it, (v. 10. ) yet
they might truly be said hot to have done it, because
they did not stand to it, but undid it again; and
Factum non dicitur quod non perseverant — Thai is
not said to be done, which does not last. The
righteousness that is forsaken and turned aw«y
from, shall be forgotten, and not mentioned, any
more than if it had never been; (Ezek. xviii. 24.)
“ Therefore I will proclaim a liberty for you ; 1
will discharge you from my service, and put you < ut
of my protection, which those forfeit that withdraw
from their allegiance. You shall have liberty to
choose which of these judgments you will be cut
off by, sword, famine, or pestilence;” such a liberty
as was offered to David, which put him into a great
strait, 2 Sam. xxiv. 14. Note, Those that will not be
in subjection to the law of God put themselves into
subjection to the wrath and curse of God. But this
shows what liberty to sin really is — it is but a liberty
to the sorest judgments. 2. That, since they had
brought their servants back into confinement in their
houses, God would make them to be removed into all
the kingdoms of the earth , where they shall live in
servitude, and, being strangers, could not expect
the privileges of free-born subjects. 3. That,
since they had broken the covenant which they ra¬
tified by a solemn imprecation, God would bring on
them the evil which they imprecated upon them¬
selves, in case they should break it. Out of their
own mouth will he judge them, and so shall their
doom be; the penalty of their bond shall be reco¬
vered, because they have not performed the condi¬
tion; for so some read v. 18. “ I will make the men
•which have transgressed my covenant, as the calf
which they cut in twain; I will divide them in sunder
as they divided it in sunder.” 4. That, since they
would not let go their servants out of their hands,
God would deliver them into the hands of those
that hated them. Even the princes and nobles,
both of Judah and Jerusalem, of the country and
of the city; the eunuchs, chambeAiins, or great
officers of the court, the priests, ana all the people,
they had all dealt treacherously with God, and
therefore shall all be involved in the common ruin,
without exception; (y. 19.) they shall all be given
into the hand of their enemies, that seek, not their
wealth only, or their service, but their life. And
they shall have what they seek; but neither shall
that content them; when they have their lives, they
shall leave their dead bodies unburied, a loathsome
spectacle to all mankind, and an easy prey to the
fowls and beasts, a lasting mark of ignominy being
here fastened on them. 5. That, since they had
emboldened themselves in returning to their sin,
contrary to their covenant, by the retreat of the
Chaldean army from them, God would therefore
bring it upon them again; “ They are now gone up
from you, and your fright is over for the present,
but I will command them to face about as they were;
they shall return to this city, and take it and burn
it.” Note, (1.) As confidence in God is a hopefu,
presage of approaching deliverance, so security in
sin is a sad omen of approaching destruction. (2.)
When judgments are removed from a people be¬
fore tln^y have done their work, leave them, but
leave them unhumbled and unreformed, (it is cum
animo revertendi — with a design to return,) they
do but retreat to come on again with so much the
greater force; fi r when God judges, he will over-
cc me. (3.) It is just with God to disappoint those
expectatn ns of mercy which his providence had
given cause for, when we disappoint those expecta¬
tions of duty which our professions, pretensions, and
fair promises, had given cause for. If we repent
of the good we had purposed, God will repent of
the good he had purposed. With the f reward thou
wilt show thyself froward.
CHAP. XXXV.
A variety of methods is tried, and every stone turned, to
awaken the Jews to a sense of their sin, and to bring
them to repentance and reformation. The scope and ten¬
dency of many of the prophet’s sermons was to frighten
them out of their disobedience, by setting before them
what would be the end thereof, if they persisted in it.
The scope of this sermon, in this chapter, is to shame
them out of their disobedience, if they had any sense ot
honour left in them for a discourse of this nature to fas¬
ten upon. I. He sets before them the obedience of the
family of the Rechabites to the commands which were
left them by Jonadab their ancestor, and how they per¬
severed in that obedience, and would not be tempted
from it, v. 1. .11. 11. With this he aggravates the diso¬
bedience of the Jews to God, and their contempt of his
precepts, v. 12. .15. III. He foretells the judgments of
God upon the Jews for their impious disobedience to
God, v. 16, 17. IV. He assures the Rechabites of the
blessing of God upon them for their pious obedience to
their father, v. 18, 19.
1.^1 THE word which came onto Jeremiah
A from the Lord, in the days of Je-
hoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah,
saying, 2. Go unto the house of the Re¬
chabites, and speak unto them, and bring
them into the house of the Lord, into one
of the chambers, and give them w ine to
drink. 3. Then I took Jaazaniah the son
of Jeremiah, the son of Habaziniah, and
his brethren, and all his sons, and the whole
house of the Rechabites; 4. And I brought
them into the house of the Lord, into the
chamber of the sons of Hanan, the son of
Igdaliah, a man of God, which was by the
chamber of the princes, which teas above
the chamber of Maaseiah, the son of Slial-
lum, the keeper of the door : 5. And I set
before the sons of the house of the Rechab¬
ites pots full of wine, and cups ; and I said
unto them, Drink ye wine. 6. But they
said, We will drink no wine: for Jonadab
the son of Reehab, our father, commanded
us, saying, Ye shall drink no wine, neither
ye nor your sons for ever : 7. Neither shall
ye build house, nor sow seed, nor plant vine¬
yard, nor have any : but all your days ye
shall dwell in tents ; that ye may live many
days in the land where ye be strangers. 8.
Thus have we obeyed the voice of Jonadab
the son of Reehab, our father, in all that he
hath charged us, to drink no wine all our
494
JEREMIAH, XXXV.
days, we, our wives, our sons, nor our daugh¬
ters ; 9. Nor to build houses for us to dwell
in ; neither have we vineyard, nor field, nor
seed : 10. But we have dwelt in tents, and
have obeyed, and done according to all that
Jonadab our father commanded us. 1 1. But
it came to pass, when Nebuchadrezzar king
of Babylon came up into the land, that we
said. Come, and let us go to Jerusalem for
fear of the army of the Chaldeans, and for
fear of the army of the Syrians : so we dwell
at Jerusalem.
This chapter is of an earlier date than many of
those before; for what is contained in it, was said
and done in the days of Jehoiakim; ( v . 1.) but then
it must be in the latter part of his reign, for it was
after the king of Babylon with his army came u/i
into the land, (v. 11.) which seems to refer to the
invasion mentioned 2 Kings xxiv. 2. which was upon
occasion of Jehoiakim’s rebelling against Nebuchad¬
nezzar. After the judgments of God had broken in
upon this rebellious people, he continued to deal with
them by his prophets, to turn them from sin, that
his wrath might turn away from them. He endea¬
vours it by the example of the Rechabites, a family
that kept distinct by themselves, and were no more
numbered with the families of Israel than they with
the nations. They were originally Kenites, as ap¬
pears 1 Chron. ii. 55. These are the Kenites that
came out of Hemath, the father of the house of Re-
chab. The Kenites, at least those of them that
gained a settlement in the land of Israel, were of
the posterity of Hobab, Moses’s father-in-law, Judg.
i. 16. We find them separated from the Amalekites,
1 Sam. xv. 6. See Judg. iv. 17. One family of these
Kenites had their denomination from Rechab ; his
son, or a lineal descendant from him, was Jonadab,
a man famous in his time for wisdom and piety. He
flourished in the days of Jehu, king of Israel, near
300 years before this; for there we find him courted
by that rising prince, when he affected to appear
zealous for God, (2 Kings x. 15, 16.) which he
thought nothing more likely to confirm people in the
opinion of, than to have so good a man as Jonadab
ride in the chariot with him. Now we are told,
I. What the rules of living were, which Jonadab,
probably by his last will and testament, in writing,
and duly executed, charged his children, and his
posterity after him, throughout all generations, re¬
ligiously to observe; and we have reason to think
that they were such as he himself had all his days
observed. 1. He forbade them to drink wine, ac¬
cording to the law of the Nazarites. Wine is indeed
given to make glad the heart of man, and we are al¬
lowed the sober and moderate use of it; but we are
so apt to abuse it, and get hurt by it, and a good man,
who has his heart made continually glad with the
light of God's countenance, has so little need of it
for that purpose, (Ps. iv. 6, 7.) that it is a commend¬
able piece of self-denial, either not to use it at all, or
very sparingly and medicinally, as Timothy used it,
1 Tim. v. 23. 2. He appointed them to dwell in
tents, and not to build houses, or purchase lands, Or
rent, or occupy either, v. 7. This was an instance
of strictness and mortification beyond what the Na¬
zarites were obliged to. Tents were mean dwellings,
so that this would teach them to be humble; they
were cold dwellings, so that this would teach them
to be hardy, and not to indulge the body; they were
moveable dwellings, so that this would teach them
not to think of settling or taking root any where in
this world. They must dwell in tents all their days,
not for a few days, as Israel at the feast of taberna¬
cles, not only in summer days, as soldiers and shep
herds, but all their days. They must from the be¬
ginning thus accustom themselves to endure hard¬
ness, and then it would be no difficulty to them, no,
not under the decays of old age.
Now why did Jonadab prescribe these rules of liv¬
ing to his posterity? It was not merely to show his
authority, and to exercise a dominion over them, by
imposing upon them what he thought fit; but it was
to show his wisdom, and the real concern he had fi r
their welfare, by recommending to them what he
knew would be beneficial to them; yet, not tying
them by any oath or vow, or under any penalty, to
observe these rules, but only advising them to con¬
form to this discipline, as far as they found it for edi¬
fication, yet to be dispensed with in any case of ne¬
cessity, as here, v. 11. He prescribed these rules
to them, (1.) That they might preserve the ancient
character of their family; which, however looked
upon by some with contempt, he thought its real
reputation. His ancestors had addicted themselves
to a pastoral life, (Exod. ii. 16.) and he would have
his posterity kept to it, and not degenerated from
it, as Israel had done, who originally were shep¬
herds, and dwelt in tents, Gen. xlvi. 34. Notp, We
ought not to be ashamed of the honest employments
of our ancestors, though they were but mean. (2.)
That they might comport with their lot, and bring
their mind to their condition, Moses had put them
in hopes that the)' should be naturalized; (Numb. x.
32.) but, it seems, they were not, they were still
strangers in the land, (x/. 7.) had no inheritance in
it, and therefore must live by their employments,
which was a good reason why they should accustom
themselves to hard fare and hard lodging: for stran¬
gers, such as they were, must not expect to live as
the landed men, so plentifully and delicately. Note,
It is our wisdom and duty to accommodate ourselves
to our place and rank, and not aim to live above it.
What has been the lot of our fathers, why may we
not be content that it should be our lot, and live ac¬
cording to it? Mind not high things. (3.) That
they might not be envied and disturbed by their
neighbours among whom they lived. If they that
were strangers should live great, raise estates, and
fare sumptuously, the natives would grudge them
their abundance, and have a jealous eye upon them,
as the Philistines had upon Isaac, (Gen. xxvi. 14.)
and would seek occasions to quarrel with them and
do them a mischief; therefore he thought it would
be their prudence to keep low, for that would be the
wav to continue long; to live meanly, that they might
live many days in the land where they were stran¬
gers. Note, Humility and contentment in obscurity
are often the best policy, and men’s surest protec¬
tion. (4.) That they might be armed against tempt¬
ations to luxury and sensuality, the prevailing sin of
the age and pice they lived in. Jonadab saw a ge ¬
neral corruptron of manners ; the drunkards of
Ephraim abounded, and he was afraid lest his chil¬
dren should be debauched and ruined by them; and
therefore he obliged them to live by themselves, re¬
tired in tlxe country; and, that they might not run
into any unlawful pleasures, to deny themselves the
use even of lawful delights. They must be very
sober, and temperate, and abstemious, which would
contribute to the health both of mind and body, ar.d
to their living manv days and easy ones, and such as
they might reflect upon with comfort in the land
where they were strangers. Note, The considera¬
tion of this, that we are strangers and pilgrims,
should oblige us to abstain from all fleshly lusts, to
live above the things of sense, and look upon them
with a generous and gracious contempt. (5.) That
they might be prepared for times of trouble and ca¬
lamity, Jonadab might, without a spirit of prophecy,
foresee the destruction of a people so wretchedly do
196
JEREMIAH, XXXV.
generated, and he would have his famdy provided,
that, if they could not in the ficace thereof, yet even
in the midst of the troubles thereof, they might have
peace. Let them therefore have little to lose, and
then losing times would be the less dreadful to them:
let them sit loose to what they had, and then they
might with less pain be stript of it. Note, Those
are in the best frame to meet sufferings, who are
mortified to the world, and live a life of seff denial.
(6.) That in general they might learn to live by
rule, and under discipline. It is good for us all to do so,
and to teach our children to do so. Those that have
lived long, as Jonadab, probably, had done, when
he left this charge to his posterity, can speak by ex¬
perience of the vanity of the world, and the dan¬
gerous snares that are in the abundance of its wealth
and pleasures, and therefore ought to be regarded,
when they warn those that come after them to stand
upon their guard.
II. We are here told how strictly his posterity
observed these rules, v. 8. — 10. They had in their
respective generations all of them obeyed the voice
of Jonadab their father, had done according to all
that he commanded them. They drank no wine,
though they dwelt in a country where there was
plenty of it; their wives and children drank no wine,
for they that are temperate themselves should take
care that all under their charge should be so too.
They built no houses, tilled no ground, but lived
upon the products of their cattle. This they did,
partly in obedience to their ancestor, and out of a
veneration they had for his name and authority, and
partly from the experience they themselves had of
the benefit of living such a mortified life. See the
force of tradition, and the influence that antiquity, j
example, and great names have upon men, and how
that which seems very difficult, will by long usage i
and custom become easy, and in a manner natural. '
Now, (1.) As to one of the particulars he had
given them in charge, we are here told how in a
case of necessity they dispensed with the violation
of it; (v. 11.) When the king of Babylon came into
the land, with his army, though they had hitherto
dwelt in tents, they now quitted their tents, and
came and dwelt in Jerusalem, and in such houses as
they could furnish themselves with there. Note,
The rules of a strict discipline must not be made
too strict, but so as to admit of a dispensation when
the necessity of the case calls for it; which, there¬
fore, in making vows of that nature, it is wisdom to
provide expressly for, that the way may be made
the more clear, and we may not afterward be forced
to say, It was an error, Eccles. v. 6. Commands
of that nature are to be understood with such limit¬
ations. These Rechabites had tempted God, and
not trusted him, if they had not used proper means
for their own Safety in a time of common calamity,
notwithstanding the law and custom of,. their family.
(2.) As to the other particular, we Sre here told
how, notwithstanding the greatest urgency, they re¬
ligiously adhered to it. Jeremiah took them into the
temple, (k. 2.) into a prophet’s chamber there, ra¬
ther than into the chamber of the princes, that joined
to it, because he had a message from God, which
would look more like itself, when it was delivered in
the chambers of a man of God. There he not only
asked the Rechabites, Whether they drink any wine,
but he set pots full of wine before them, and cups to
drink out of, made the temptation as strong as pos¬
sible, and said, “Drink ye wine, ye shall have it on
free cost; ye have broken one of the rules of your
order, in coming to live at Jerusalem; why may ye
not break this too; and when ye are in the city, do
as they there do?” But they peremptorily refused,
they all agreed in the refusal; “No, we will drink
no wine; for with us it is against the law.” The
prophet knew very well they would deny it, and |
when they did, urged it no further, for he saw they
were stedfastly resolved. Note, Those temptations
are of no force with men of confirmed sobriety,
which yet daily overcome such as, notwithstanding
their convictions, are of no resolution in the paths of
virtue.
12. Then came the word of the Lord
unto Jeremiah, saying, 13. Thus saith the
Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Go and
tell the men of Judah, and the inhabitants
of Jerusalem, Will ye not receive instruc¬
tion to hearken to my words? saith the
Lord. 14. The words of Jonadab the son
of Rechab, that he commanded his sons not
to drink wine, are performed; for unto this
day they drink none, but obey their father’s
commandment : notwithstanding I have
spoken unto you, rising early and speaking;
but ye hearkened not untome. 15. I have
sent also unto you all my servants the pro¬
phets, rising up early and sending them, say¬
ing, Return ye now every man from his evil
way, and amend your doings, and go not
after other gods to serve them, and ye shall
dwell in the land which I have given to you
and to your fathers; but ye have not inclin¬
ed your ear, nor hearkened unto me. 16.
Because the sons of Jonadab the son of Re¬
chab have performed the commandment of
their father, which he commanded them;
but this people hath not hearkened untome:
17. Therefore thus saith the Lord God of
hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will bring
upon Judah, and upon all the inhabitants
of Jerusalem, all the evil that I have pro¬
nounced against them : because I have spo¬
ken unto them, but they have not heard;
and I have called unto them, but they have
not answered. 1 8. And Jeremiah said unto
the house of the Rechabites, Thus saith the
Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Because
ye have obeyed the commandment of Jona¬
dab j our father, and kept all his precepts,
and done, according unto all that he hath
commanded you ; 1 9. Therefore thus saith
the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Jona¬
dab the son of Rechab shall not want a
man to stand before me for ever.
The trial of the Rechabites’ constancy was intend¬
ed but for a sign; now here we have the application
of it.
1. The Rechabites’ observance of their father’s
charge to them is made use of as an aggravation of
the disobedience of the Jews to God. Let them see
it, and be ashamed. The prophet asks them, in
God’s name, “ Will ye not at length receive in¬
struction? v. 13. Will nothing affect you? Will
nothing fasten upon you? Will nothing' prevail to
discover sin and duty to you? You see how obedient
the Rechabites are to their father’s commandment;
(v. 14.) but you have not inclined your ear to me,”
(v. 15. ) though one might much more reasonably
expect that the people of God should have obeyed
him, than that the sons of Jonadab should have
496
JEREMIAH, XXXVI.
obeyed him; and the aggravation is very' high, for,
(1.) The Rechabites were obedient to one who was
but a man like themselves, who had but the wisdom
and power of a man, and was only the father of
their flesh; but the Jews were disobedient to an in¬
finite and eternal God, who had an absolute au¬
thority' over them, as the Father of their spirits.
(2.) Jonadab was long since dead, and was igno¬
rant of them, and could neither take cognizance of
their disobedience to his orders, nor give correction
for it: but God lives for ever, to see how his laws
are observed, and is in a readiness to revenge all
disobedience. (3.) The Rechabites were never
put in mind of their obligations to their father; but
God often sent his prophets to his people, to put
them in mind of their duty to him, and yet they
would not do it. This is insisted on here as a great
aggravation of their disobedience; “I have myself
spoken to you, rising early, and s/ieaking, by the
written word and the dictates and admonitions of
conscience; (r. 14.) nay, I have sent unto you all
my servants the prophets, men like yourselves,
whose terrors shall not make you afraid, rising up
early and sending them, (y. 15. ) and yet all in vain. ”
(4.) Jonadab never did that for his seed, that God
had done foi his people; he left them a charge, but
left them no estate to bear the charge; but God had
given his people a good land, and promised them,
that, if they would be obedient, they should still
dwell in it; so that they were bound both in grati¬
tude and interest to be obedient, and yet they would
not hear, they would not hearken. (5. ) God did
not tie up his people to so much hardship, and to
such instances of mortification, as Jonadab obliged
his seed to; and yet Jonadab’s orders were obeyed,
and God’s were not.
2. Judgments are threatened, as often before,
against Judah and Jerusalem, for their disobedience
thus aggravated. The Rechabites shall rise up in
judgment against them, and shall condemn them;
for they very punctually jierformed the command¬
ment of their father, and continued and persevered
in their obedience to it; (v. 16.) but this fieo/ile,
this rebellious and gainsaying people, have not
hearkened unto me; and therefore, (v. 17.) because
they have not obeyed the precepts of the word,
God will perform the threatenings of it; “I will
briyg upon them, by the Chaldean army, all the
evil pronounced against them, both in the law and
in the prophets, for I have spoken to them, I have
called to them; spoken in a still small voice to them
that were near, and called aloud to them that were
at a distance; tried all ways and means to convince
and reduce them: spoken by my word, called by
my providence, both for the same purpose, and yet
all to no purpose; they have not heard, nor an¬
swered.
3. Mercy is here promised to the family of the
Rechabites, for their steady and unanimous adher¬
ence to the laws of their house; though it was only
for the shaming of Israel that their constancy was
tried; yet, being unshaken, it was found unto praise,
and honour, and glory. And God takes occasion
from it to tell them that he had favours in reserve
for them, (to 18, 19.) and that they should have the
comfort of them. It is promised, (1.) That the
family should continue as long as any of the families
of Israel, among whom they were strangers and
sojourners. It shall never want a man to inherit
what they had, though they had no inheritance to
leave them. Note, Sometimes those that have the
smallest estates have the most numerous progeny:
but he that sends mouths, will be sure to send meat.
(2.) That religion shall continue in the family;
"He shall not want a man to stand before me, to serve
me.” Though they are neither priests nor Levites,
Dor appear to have had any post in the temple-ser¬
vice, yet, in a constant course of regular devotion,
they stand before God, to minister to him. Note,
[ 1. ) The greatest blessing that can be entailed upon
a family, is, to have the worship of God kept up in
it from generation to generation. [2.] Tempe¬
rance, self-denial, and mortification to the world, do
very much befriend the exercises of piety, and help
to transmit the observance of them to posterity.
The more dead we are to the delights of sense, the
better we are disposed for the service of God; but
nothing is more fatal to the entail of religion in a
family than pride and luxury.
CHAP. XXXVI.
Here is another expedient tried to work upon this heedless
and untoward people, hut it is tried in vain. A roll of
a book is provided, containing an abstract or abridg¬
ment of all the sermons that Jeremiah had preached to
them, that they mjghl be put in mind of what they had
heard, and might the better understand it, when they
had it all before them at one view. Now here we have,
1. The writing of this roll by Baruch, as Jeremiah dic¬
tated it, v. 1..4. II. The reading of the roll by Baruch
to all the people publicly on a fast-day, (v. 5 . . 10.) after¬
ward by Baruch to the princes privately, (v. 11 . . 19.) and
lastly by Jehudi to the king, v. 20, 21. III. The burn¬
ing of the roll by the king, with orders to prosecute Je¬
remiah and Baruch, v. 22 . . 26. IV. The writing of
another roll, with large additions, particularly of Jehoia-
kim’s doom for burning the former, v. 27 . . 32.
1. 4 ND it came to pass, in the fourth
±\- year of Jehoiakint the son of Josiah
king of Judah, that this word came unto Je¬
remiah from the Lord, saying, 2. Take
thee a roll of a book, and write therein all
the words that I have spoken unto thee
against Israel, and against Judah, and
against all the nations, from the day 1 spake
unto thee, from the days of Josiah, even un¬
to this day. 3. It may be that the house
of Judah will hear all the evil which I pur¬
pose to do unto them; that they may return
every man from his evil w ay, that I may
forgive their iniquity and their sin. 4. Then
Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah :
and Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jere¬
miah. all the words of the LoRn, w hich he
had spoken unto him, upon a roll of a hook.
5. And Jeremiah commanded Baruch, say¬
ing, I am shut up; I cannot go into the
house of the Lord-: 6. Therefore go thou,
and read in the roll, which thou hast w ritten
from my mouth, the words of the Lord, in
the ears of the people, in the Lord’s house
upon the fasting-day: and also thou sbalt
read them in the ears of all Judah that come
out of their cities. 7. It may be they will
present their supplication before the Lord,
and will return every one from his evil w ay:
for great is the anger and the fury that the
Lord hath pronounced against this people.
8. And Baruch the son of Neriah did ac¬
cording to all that Jeremiah the prophet
commanded him, reading in the book the
words of the Lord in the Lord’s house.
In the beginning of Ezekiel’s prophecy \ve meet
with a roll written in vision, for the discovery of
the things therein contained to the preph? t himself,
who was to receive and digest them, F.zek. ii. 10. —
497
JEREMIAH, XXXVL
u, 1. Here in the latter end of Jeremiah’s pro¬
phet}, we meet with a roll, written in fact, for the
discu'v cry of the things contained therein to the peo¬
ple, who were to hear and give heed to them; for
the written word and other good books are of great
use both to ministers and people. We have here,
1. The command which God gave to Jeremiah
to write a summary of his sermons, of all the re¬
proofs and all the warnings he had giv en in God’s
nanw to his people, ever since he first began to be
a preacner, in the 13th year of Josiah, to this day,
which was in the 4th year of Jehoiakim, v. 2, 3.
What had been spoken only, must now be written,
that it might be reviewed, and that it might spread
the further, and last the longer. What had been
spoken at large, with frequent repetitions of the
same things, perhaps in the same words, (which
has its advantage one way,) must now be contracted,
and put into less compass, that the several parts of
it might be better compared together, which has its
advantage another way. What they had heard once,
must be recapitulated, and rehearsed to them again,
that what was forgotten, might be called to mind
again, and what made no impression upon them at
the first hearing, might take hold of them when
the) heard it the second time. And what was per¬
haps already written, and published in single ser¬
mons, must be collected into one volume, that none
might be lost. Note, The writing of the scripture
is by divine appointment. And observe the reason
here given for the writing of this roll; (x>. 3.) It
may be, the house of Judah •will hear. Not that
the divine prescience was at any uncertainty concern¬
ing the event, with that there is no peradventure;
God knew certainly that they would deal very
treacherously, Isa. xlviii. 8. But the divine wisdom
directed to this as a proper means for attaining the
desired end; if it failed, they would be the more in¬
excusable And though God foresaw that they
would not hear, he did not tell the prophet so, but
rescribed this method to him as a probable one, to
e used, in the hopes that they would hear, that is,
heed and regard what they heard, take notice of it,
and mix faith with it: for otherwise our hearing of
the word, though an angel from heaven were to
read or preach it to us, would stand us in no stead.
Now observe here, (1.) What, it is hoped, they
will thus hear; Ml that evil which I purpose to do
unto them. Note, The serious consideration of the
certain fatal consequence of sin, will be of great
use to us to bring us to God. (2A What, it is
hoped, will be produced thereby; They will hear,
that they may return every man from his evil way.
Note, The conversion ol sinners from their evil
courses, is that which ministers should aim at in
preaching; and people hear the word in vain, if
that point be not gained with them. To what pur¬
pose do we hear of the evil God will bring upon
us for sin, if we continue, notwithstanding, to do
evil against him? (3.) Of what vast advantage their
consideration and conversion will be to them; that
I may forgive their iniquity. This plainly implies
the honour of God’s justice, with which it is not
consistent that he should forgive the sin, unless the
sinner repent of it, and turn from it; but it plainly
expresses the honour of his mercy, that he is very
ready to forgive sin, and only waits till the sinner
be qualified to receive forgiveness, and therefore
uses various means to bring us to repentance, that
he may forgive.
2. The instructions which Jeremiah gave to Ba¬
ruch his scribe, pursuant to the command he had
received from God, and the writing of the roll ac¬
cordingly, u. 4. God bid Jeremiah write, but, it
should seem, he had not the pen of a ready writer,
he could not write fast, or fair, so as Baruch could,
and therefore he made use of him as his amanuen-
Vol. iv. — 3 R
, sis. St. Paul wrote but few of his epistles with lus
own hand. Gal. vi. 11. Rom. xvi. 22. God dis¬
penses his gifts variously; some have a good faculty
of speaking, others at writing, and neither can say
to the other, We have no need of you, 1 Cor. xii.
21. The Spirit of God dictated to Jeremiah, and
he to Baruch, who had been employed by Jeremiah
as trustee for him in his purchase of the field, (c/;.
xxxii. 12.) and now was advanced to be his scribe
and substitute in his prophetical office; and if we
may credit the Apocryphal book that bears his
name, he was afterward himself a prophet to the
captives in Babylon. Those that begin low are
likely to rise high, and it is good for those that are
designed for prophets to have their education under
prophets, and to be serviceable to them. Bai-uch
wrote what Jeremiah dictated in a roll of a book, on
pieces of parchment, or vellum, which were joined
together, the top of one to the bottom of the other,
so making one long scroll, which was rolled per¬
haps upon a staff.
3. The orders which Jeremiah gave to Bai-uch,
to read what he had written to the people. Jere¬
miah, it seems, was shut up, and could not go to
the house of the Lord himself; (xc 5.) though he
was not a close prisoner, for then there had been
no occasion to send officers to seize him, (xi. 26.) yet
he was forbidden by the king to appear in the tem¬
ple, was shut out thence, where he might be serv¬
ing God, and doing good, which was as bad to him
as if he had been shut up in a dungeon. Jehoiakim
was ripening apace for ruin, when he thus silenced
God’s faithful messengers. But when Jeremiah
could not go to the temple himself, he sent one that
was deputed by him, to read to the people what he
would himself have said. Thus St. Paul wrote
epistles to the churches which he could not visit in
person. Nay, it was what he himself had often
said to them. Note, The writing and repeating of
the sermons that have been preached, may contribute
very much toward the answering of the great ends
of preaching. What we have heard and known,
it is good for us to hear again, that we may know it
better. To preach and write the same thing is safe
and profitable, and many times very necessary,
(Phil. iii. 1.) and we must be glad to hear a goed
word from God, though we have it, as here, at
second-hand. Both ministers and people must do
what they can, when they cannot do what they
would. Observe, When God ordered the read-ng
of the roll, he said. It may be, they will hear, nd
return from their evil ways, v. 3. When Jeremiah
orders it, he says, It may be, they will pray, (they
will present their supplications before the Lord,)
and will return from their evil way. Note, Prayer
to God for grace to turn us, is necessary in order to
our turning; and those that are convinced by the
word of God of the necessity of returning to him,
will present their supplications to him for that grace.
And the consideration of this, that great is the an¬
ger which God has pronounced against us for sin,
should quicken both our prayers and our endeavours.
Now according to these orders, Baruch did read out
of the book the words of the Lord, whenever there
was a holy convocation, v. 8.
9. And it came to pass, in the fifth year of
Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah,
in the ninth month, that they proclaimed a
fast before the Lord to all the people in
Jerusalem, and to all the people that came
from the cities of Judah unto Jerusalem.
10. Then read Baruch in the book the
words of Jeremiah in the houseof the Lord.
in the chamber of Gemariah the son of
198
JEREMIAH, XXXVI.
Shaphan the scribe, in the higher court, at
tiie entry of the new gate of the Lord’s
house, in the ears of all the people. 11.
When Michaiah the son of Gemariah, the
son of Shaphan, had heard out of the book
all the words of the Lord, 12. Then he
went down into, the king’s house, into the
scribe’s chamber, and, lo, all the princes sat
there, even Elishama the scribe, and Delaiah
the son of Shemaiah, and Elnathan the son
of Achbor, and Gemariah the son of Sha¬
phan, and Zedekiah the son of Hananiah,
and all the princes. 13. Then Michaiah
declared unto them all the words that he
had heard, when Baruch read the book in
the ears of the people. 14. Therefore all the
princes sent Jehudi the son of Nethaniah,
the son of Shelemiah, the son of Cushi, unto
Baruch, saying, Take in thy hand the roll
wherein thou hast read in the ears of the
people, and come. So Baruch the son of
Neriah took the roll in his hand, and came
unto them. 15. And they said unto him,
Sit down now, and read it in our ears. So
Baruch read it in their ears. 16. Now it
came to pass, when they had heard all the
words, they were afraid both one and other,
and said unto Baruch, We will surely tell
the king of all these words. 1 7. And they
asked Baruch, saying, Tell us now, How
didst thou write all these words at his
mouth? 18. Then Baruch answered them,
He pronounced all these words unto me
with his mouth, and I wrote them with ink
in the book. 1 9. Then said the princes unto
Baruch, Go hide thee, thou and Jeremiah,
and let no man know where ye be.
It should seem that Baruch had been frequently
reading out of the book, to all companies that would
give him the hearing, before the most solemn read¬
ing of it altogether, which is here spoken of; for the
directions were given about it in the 4 th year of Je-
hoiakim, whereas this was done in the 5th year, v. 9.
But some think that the writing of the book fair
over, took up so much time, that it was another
year ere it was perfected; and yet perhaps it might
not be past a month or two, he might begin in the
latter end of the 4th year, and finish it in the begin¬
ning of the 5th, for the 9th month refers to the com¬
putation of the year in general, not to the year of
that reign. Now observe here,
1. The government appointed a public fast to be
religiously observed, (i>. 9. ) on account either of the
distress they were brought into by the army of the
Chaldeans, or of the want of rain; (ch. xiv. I.) They
proclaimed a fast to the people; whether the king
and princes, or the priests, ordered this fast, is not
certain; but it was plain that God by his providence
called them aloud to it. Note, Great shows of piety
and devotion may be found even among those, who,
though they keep up these forms of godliness, are
strangers and enemies to the power of it. But what
will such hypocritical services avail? Fasting, with¬
out reforming, and turning away from sin, will never
turn away the judgments of God, Jonah iii. 10. Not¬
withstanding this fast, God proceeded in his contre-
versy with this people.
2. Baruch repeated Jeremiah’s sermons publicly
in the house of the Lord, on the fast-day. He stood
in a chamber that belonged to Gemariah, and out
of a window, or balcony, read to the people that
were in the court, v. 10. Note, When we are
speaking to God, we must be willing to hear from
him; and therefore on days of fasting and prayer,
it is requisite that the word be read and preached.
Hearken unto me, that God may hearken unto you,
Judg. ix. 7. For our help in suing out mercy and
grace, it is proper that we should be told of sin and
duty.
3. An account was brought of this to the princes
that attended the court, and were now together in
the secretary’s office, here called the scribe’s cham¬
ber, v. 12. It should seem, though the princes had
called the people to meet in the house of God, to
fast, and pray, and hear the word, they did not
think fit to attend there themselves, which was a
sign that it was not from a principle of true devo¬
tion, but merely for fashion-sake, that they pro¬
claimed this fast. We are willing to hope that it
was not with a bad design, to bring Jeremiah into
trouble for his preaching, but with a good design,
to bring the princes into trouble for their sins, that
Michaiah informed the princes of what Baruch had
read; for his father Gemariah so far countenanced
Baruch, as to lend him his chamber to read out of.
Michaiah finds the princes sitting in the scribe’s
chamber, and tells them, they had better have been
where he had been, hearing a good sermon in the
temple, which he gives them the heads of. Note,
When we have heard some good word that has
affected and edified us, we should be ready to com¬
municate it to others, that did not hear it, for their
edification. Out of the abundance of the heart the
mouth speaks.
4. Baruch is sent for, and is ordered to sit down
among them, and read it all over again to them,
(y. 14, 15.) which he readily did', not complaining
that he was weary with his public work, and there¬
fore desiring to be excused, nor upbraiding the
princes with their being absent from the temple,
where they might have heard it when he read it
there. Note, God’s ministers must become all things
to all men, if by any means they may gain some;
must comply with them in circumstances, that they
may secure the substance. St. Paul preached pri¬
vately to them of reputation, Gal. ii. 2.
5. The princes were for the present much affected
with the word that was read to them, v. 16. Ob¬
serve, They heard all the words, they did not inter¬
rupt him, but very patiently attended to the reading
of the whole book; for otherwise how could they
make a competent judgment of it? And when they
had heard all, they were afraid, were all afraid, one
as well as another; like Felix, who trembled at
Paul’s reasonings. The reproofs were just, the
threatenings terrible, and the predictions now in a
fair way to be fulfilled; so that, laying all together,
they were in a great consternation. We are not
told what impressions this reading of the roll made
upon the people, ( v . 10.) but the princes were put
into a fright by it, and (as some read it) looked one
upon another, not knowing what to say. They
were all convinced that it was worthy to be regard¬
ed, but none of them had courage to second it, only
they agreed to tell the king of all these words; anil
if he think fit to give credit to them, they will,
otherwise not, no, though it were to prevent the
ruin of the nation. And yet at the same time they
knew the king’s mind so far, that they advised
Baruch and Jeremiah to hide themselves, (?>. 1°.)
and to shift as they could for their own safety, ex¬
pecting no other than that the king, instead of being
499
JEREMIAH, XXXVI.
convinced, would be exasperated. Note, It is com- j
mon for sinners, under convictions, to endeavour to
shake them off, by shifting off the prosecution of
them to other persons, as these princes here, or to
another more convenient season, as Felix.
6. They asked Baruch a trifling question. How
he wrote all those words ? v. 1". as if they sus¬
pected there was something extraordinary in it; but
Baruch gives them a plain answer, that there was
nothing but what was common in the manner of the
writing — Jeremiah dictated, and he wrote, v. 18.
But thus it is common for those who would avoid
the convictions of the word of God, to start needless
questions about the way and manner of the inspira¬
tion of it.
20. And they went in to the king into the
court, but they laid up the roll in the cham¬
ber of Elishama the scribe, and told all the
words in the ears of the king. 21. So the
king sent Jehudi to fetch the roll; and he
took it out of Elishama the scribe’s cham¬
ber: and Jehudi read it in the ears of the
king, and in the ears of all the princes which
stood beside the king. 22. Now the king
sat in the winter-house, in the ninth month:
and there ivas a fire on the hearth burning
before him. 23. And it came to pass, that
when Jehudi had read three or four leaves,
he cut it with the pen-knife, and cast it into
the lire that was on the hearth, until all the
roll was consumed in the fire that was on
the hearth. 24. Yet they were not afraid,
nor rent their garments, neither the king,
nor any of his servants that heard all these
words. 25. Nevertheless, Elnathan, and
Delaiah, $nd Gemariah, had made inter¬
cession to the king that he would not burn
the roll; but he would not hear them. 26.
But the king commanded Jerahmeel the
son of Hammelech, and Seraiah the son
of Azriel, and Shelemiah the son of Abdeel,
to take Baruch the scribe, and Jeremiah
the prophet: but the Lord hid them. 27.
Then the word of the Lord came to Jere¬
miah, (after that the king had burnt the
roll, and the words which Baruch wrote at
the mouth of Jeremiah,) saying, 28. Take
thee again another roll, and write in it all
the former words that were in the first roll,
which Jehoiakim the king of Judah hath
burnt. 29. And thou shalt say to Jehoiakim
king of Judah, Thus saith the Lord, Thou
hast burnt this roll, saying, Why hast thou
written therein, saying, The king of Baby¬
lon shall certainly come and destroy this
land, and shall cause to cease from thence
man and beast? 30. Therefore thus saith
the Lord of Jehoiakim king of Judah, He
shall have none to sit upon the throne of
David; and his dead body shall be cast out
in the day to the heat, and in the night to
the frost. 31. And I will punish him, and
his seed, and his servants, for their iniquity;
and 1 will bring upon them, and upon the
inhabitants of Jerusalem, and upon the men
of Judah, all the evil that I have pronounced
against them: but they hearkened not. 32.
Then took Jeremiah another roll, and gave
it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah;
who wrote therein, from the mouth of Jere¬
miah, all the words of the book which Je¬
hoiakim king of Judah had burnt in the fire:
and there were added besides unto them
many like words.
We have traced the roll to the people, and to the
princes, and here we are to follow it to the king;
and we find,
1. That, upon notice given him concerning it, he
sent for it, and ordered it to be read to him, v. 20,
21. He did not desire that Baruch would come and
read it himself, who could read it more intelligently,
and with more authority and affection, than any one
else; nor did he order one of his princes to do it;
(though it had been no disparagement to the great¬
est of them;) much less would he vouchsafe to read
it himself; but Jehudi, one of his pages now in wait¬
ing, who was sent to fetch it, is bid to read it, who,
perhaps, scarcely knew how to make sense of it.
But those who thus despise the word of God, will
soon make it to appear, as this king here did, that
they hate it too, and have not only low but ill
thoughts of it.
2. That he had not patience to hear it read
through as the princes had, but that, when he had
heard three or four leaves read, in a rage, he cut it
with his fienknife, and threw it piece by piece into
the fire , tiiat lie might be sure to see it all consumed,
v. 22, 23. This was a piece of as daring impiety
as a man could lightly be guilty of, and a most im¬
pudent affront to the God of heaven, whose message
this was. (1.) Thus he showed his impatience of
reproof; being resolved to persist in sin, he would
by no means bear to be told of his faults. (2. ) Thus
he showed his indignation at Baruch and Jeremiah;
he would have cut them inpieces, and burned them,
if he had had them in his reach, when he was in
this passion. (3.) Thus he expressed an obstinate
resolution, never to comply with the designs and
intentions of the warnings given him; he will do
what he will, whatever God bv his prophets says to
the contrary. (4.) Thus he foolishly hoped to de¬
feat the threatenings denounced against him; as if
God knew not how to execute the sentence when
the roll was gone in which it was written. (5.)
Thus he thought he had effectually provided that
the things contained in this roll should spread no
further, which was the care of the chief-priest con¬
cerning the gospel, Acts iv. 17. They had told him
how this roll had been read to the people and to the
princes; “But,” (says he) “ I will take a course that
shall prevent its being read any more.” See what
an enmity there is against God in the carnal mind,
and wonder at the patience of God, that he bears
with such indignities done to him !
3. That neither the king himself, nor any of his
princes, were at all affected with the word; They
were not afraid, (y. 24.) no, not those princes that
trembled at the word, when they heard it the first
time, v. 16. So soon, so easily, do good impressions
wear off! They showed some concern till they saw
how light the king made of it, and then they shook
off all that concern. They rent not their garments,
as Josiah did; this Jehoiakim’s own father did, when
he had the book of the law read to him, though it
was not so particular the contents of this roll
500
JEREMIAH, XXXVII.
were, nor so immediately adapted to the present
posture of affairs.
4. That there wei'e three of the princes who had
so much sense and grace left as to interpose for the
preventing of the burning of the roll, but in vain,
v. 25. If they had from the first showed them¬
selves, as they ought to have done, affected with
the word, perhaps they might have brought the
king to a better mind, and have persuaded him to
bear it patiently; but frequently they that will not
do the good they should, put it out of their own
power to do the good they would.
5. That Jehoiakim, when he had thus in effect
burnt God’s warrant by which he was arrested, as
it were in a way of revenge, now that he thought he
had got the better, signed a warrant for the appre¬
hending of Jeremiah and Baruch, God’s ministers;
( v . 26.) But the Lord hid them. The princes bid
them abscond, (n. 19.) but it was neither the prin¬
ces’ care for them, nor theirs for themselves, that
secured them, it was under the divine protection
that they were safe. Note, God will find out a
shelter for his people, though their persecutors be
ever so industrious to get them into their power,
till their hour be come; nay, and then he will him¬
self be their Hiding-place.
6. That Jeremiah had orders and instructions to
write in another roll the same words that were writ¬
ten in the roll which Jehoiakim had burnt, v. 27,
28. Note, Though the attempts of hell against the
word of God are very daring, yet not one iota or tit¬
tle of it shall fall to the ground, nor shall the unbelief
of man make the word of God of no effect. Ene¬
mies may prevail to burn many a Bible, but they
cannot abolish the word of God, can neither extir¬
pate it, nordefeatthe accomplishment of it. Though
the tables of the law were broken, they were re¬
newed again; and so out of the ashes of the roll that
was burnt, arose another Phoenix. The word of
the Lord endures for ever.
7. That the king of Judah, though a king, was
severely reckoned with by the King of kings for this
indignity done to the written word. God noticed
what it was in the roll that Jehoiakim took so much
offence at. Jehoiakim was angry, because it was
written therein, sayfng, Surely the king of Babylon
shall come and destroy this land, v. 29. And did
not the king of Babylon come two years before this,
and go far toward the destroying of this land ? He
did so, (2 Chron. xxxvi. 6, 7.) in his third year,
Dan. i. 1. So that God and his prophets were
therefore become his enemies, because they told him
the truth, told him of the desolation that was com¬
ing, but at the same time putting him into a fair way
to prevent it. But if this be the thing he takes so
much amiss, let him know, (1.) That the wrath of
God shall come upon him and his family, in the
first place, bv the hand of Nebuchadnezzar; he
shall be cut off, and in a few weeks his son shall be
dethroned, and exchange his royal robes for prison-
garments, so that he shall have none to sit upon the
throne of David; the glory of that illustrious house
shall be eclipsed, and die, in him; his dead body
shall lie unburied, or, which comes all to one, he
shall be buried with the burial of an ass, that is,
thrown into the next ditch; it shall lie exposed to
all weathers, heat and frost, which will occasion its
putrifying, and becoming loathsome, the sooner.
“Not that his body” (says Mr. Gataker) “could
be sensible of such usage, or himself, being de¬
ceased, of aught that should befall his body; but
that the king’s body in such a condition should be a
hideous spectacle, and a horrid monument of God’s
heavy wrath and indignation against him, unto all
that should behold it.” Even his seed and his ser¬
vants shall fare the worse for their relation to him,
{v. 31.) for they shall be punished, not for his ini¬
quity, but so much the sooner for their own. (2.)
That all the evil pronounced against Judah and Je¬
rusalem in that roll, shall be brought upon them.
Though the copy be burnt, the original remains in
the divine counsel, which shall again be copied out
after another manner in bloody characters. Note,
There is no escaping of God’s judgments by strug¬
gling with them; who ever hardened his heart
against God, and prospered?
Lastly, That, when the roll was written anew,
there were added to the former many like words,
( v . 32.) many more threatenings of wrath and ven¬
geance; for since they will yet walk contrary to God,
he will heat the furnace seven times hotter. Note,
as God is in one mind, and none can turn him, so he
has still more arrows in his quiver; and those who
contend with God’s woes, do but prepare for them¬
selves heavier of the same kind.
CHAP. XXXVII.
This chapter brings us very near the destruction of Jerusa¬
lem by the Chaldeans, for the story of it lies in the latter
end of Zedekiah’s reign; we have in it, I. A general idea
of the bad character of that rei^n, v. 1,2. II. The mes¬
sage which Zedekiah, notwithstanding, sent to Jeremi¬
ah to desire his prayers, v. 3. III. The flattering hopes
which the people had conceived, that the Chaldeans
would quit the siege of Jerusalem, v. 5. IV. The as¬
surance God gave them by Jeremiah, (who was now at
liberty, v. 4. ) that the Chaldean army should renew the
siege, and take the city, v. 6.. 10. V. The imprison¬
ment of Jeremiah, under pretence that he was a deserter,
v. 11.. 15. VI. The kindness which Zedekiah showed
him when he was a prisoner, v. 16 . . 21.
1 . A ND king Zedekiah, the son of Josiah,
J\. reigned instead of Coniah the son of
Jehoiakim, whom Nebuchadrezzar king of
Babylon made king in the land of Judah.
2. But neither he, nor his servants, nor the
people of the land, did hearken unto the
words of the Lord, which he spake by the
prophet Jeremiah. 3. And Zedekiah the
king sent Jehucal the son of Shelemiah, and
Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah the priest,
to the prophet Jeremiah, saying, Pray now
unto the Lord our God for us. 4. Now
Jeremiah came in and went out among the
people ; for they had not put him into prison.
5. Then Pharaoh’s army was come forth
out of Egypt: and when the Chaldeans that
besieged Jerusalem heard tidings of them,
they departed from Jerusalem. 6. Then
came the word of the Lord unto the pro¬
phet Jeremiah, saying, 7. Thus saith the
Lord, the God of Israel, Thus shall ye say
to the king of Judah, that sent you unto me
to inquire of me ; Behold, Pharaoh’s army,
which is come forth to help you; shall re¬
turn to Egypt into their own land. 8. And
the Chaldeans shall come again, and fight
against this city, and take it, and burn it
with fire. 9. Thus saith the Lord, Deceive
not yourselves, saying, The Chaldeans shall
surely depart from us : for they shall not de¬
part. 10. For though ye had smitten the
whole army of the Chaldeans that fight
against you, and there remained hit wound¬
ed men among them, yd should they rise
JEREMIAH, XXXVII.
up every man in his tent, and burn this city
with fire.
Here is,
1. Jeremiah’s preaching slighted, v. 1, 2. Zede-
kiah succeeded Coniah, or Jechoniah, and though
he saw in his predecessor the fatal consequences of
contemning the word of God, yet he did not take
warning, nor give any more regard to it than others
had done before him; Neither he, nor his courtiers,
nor the people of the land, hearkened unto the words
of the Lord, though they already began to be ful¬
filled. Note, Those have hearts wretchedly hard
indeed, that see God’s judgments on others, and feel
them on themselves, and yet will not be humbled,
and brought to heed what he says. These had
proof sufficient that it was the Lord who spake by
Jeremiah the prophet, and yet they would not
hearken to him.
2. Jeremiah’s prayers desired. Zedekiah sent
messengers to him, saying, Pray now unto the Lord
our God for us. He did so before; (cA. xxi. 1, 2.)
and one of the messengers, Zephaniah, is the same
there and here. Zedekiah is to be commended for
this, and it shows that he had some good in him,
some sense of his need of God’s favour, and of his
own unworthiness to ask it for himself, and some
value for good people, and good ministers, who had
an interest in Heaven. Note, When we are in dis¬
tress, we ought to desire the prayers of our minis¬
ters and Christian friends, for thereby we put an
honour upon prayer, and an esteem upon our breth¬
ren. Kings themselves should look upon their pray¬
ing people as the strength of the nation, Zech. xii.
5,' 10. And yet this does but help to condemn Zede¬
kiah out of his own mouth. If indeed he looked
upon Jeremiah as a prophet, whose prayers might
avail much both for him and his people, why did he
not then believe him, and hearken to the words of
the Lord, which he spake by him? He desired his
good prayers, but would not take his good counsel,
nor be ruled by him, though he spake in God’s
name, and it appears by this that Zedekiah knew
he did. Note, It is common for those to desire to
be prayed for, who yet will not be advised; but
herein they put a cheat upon themselves; for how
can we expect that God should hear others speaking
to him for us, if we will not hear them speaking to
us from him, and for him? Many who despise
prayer when they are in prosperity, will be glad of
it when they are in adversity; Now give us of your
oil. When Zedekiah sent to the prophet to pray
for him, he had better have sent for the prophet to
pray with him; but he thought that below him: and
how can they expect the comforts of religion, who
will not stoop to the services of it ?
3. Jerusalem flattered by the retreat of the Chal¬
dean army from it. Jeremiah was now at liberty;
(v. 4.) he went in and out among the fieofile, might
freely speak to them, and be spoken to by them.
Jerusalem also, for the present, was at liberty, v.
5. Zedekiah, though a tributary to the king of Baby¬
lon, had entered into a private league with Pharaoh
king of Egypt, (Ezek. xvii. 15.) pursuant to which,
when the king of Babylon came to chastise him for
his treachery, the king of Egypt, though he came
no more in person, after that great defeat which
Nebuchadnezzar gave him in the reign of Jehoia-
kim,(2 Kings xxiv.7.) yet sent some forces to relieve
Jerusalem when it was besieged; upon notice of the
approach of which, the Chaldeans raised the siege,
probably not for fear of them, but in policy, to fight
them at a distance, before any of the Jewish forces
could join them. From this they encouraged them¬
selves to hope that Jerusalem was delivered for
good and all out of the hands of its enemies, and
that the storm was quite blown over. Note, Sinners
501
are commonly hardened in their security by the in
termissions of judgments, and the slow proceedings
of them; and those who will not be awakened by the
word of God, may justly be lulled asleep by the pro¬
vidence of God.
4. Jerusalem threatened with the return of the
Chaldean army, and with ruin by it. Zedekiah
sent to Jeremiah to desire him to pray for them,
that the Chaldean army might not return; but Jere¬
miah sends them word back that the decree was
gone forth, and that it was but a folly for them to
expect peace, for God had begun a controversy
with them, which he would make an end of; Thus
saith the Lord, deceive not yourselves, v. 9. Note,
Satan himself, though he is the great deceiver,
could not deceive us, if we did not deceive ourselves;
and thus sinners are their own destroyers by being
their own deceivers; of which this is an aggrava¬
tion, that they are so frequently warned of it, and
cautioned not to deceive themselves; and they have
the word of God, the great design of which is to un¬
deceive them. Jeremiah uses no dark metaphors,
but tells them plainly,
(1.) That the Egyptians shall retreat, and eithn
give back, or be forced back, into their own land,
(Ezek. xvii. 17.) which was said of old, (Isa. xxx
7.) and is here said again, v. 7. That the Egyptian*
shall help in vain; they shall not dare to face th<
Chaldean army, but shall retire with precipitation
Note, If God help us not, no creature can. As nc
power can prevail against God, so none can avai
without God, nor countervail his departures from us
(2.) That the Chaldeans shall return, and shaij
renew the siege, and prosecute it with more vigoui
than ever. They shall not depart for good and all
v. 9. They shall come again; (v. 8.) they shall
fight against the city. Note, God has the sovereign
command of all the hosts of men, even of those that
know him not, that own him not, and they are all
made to serve his purposes. He directs their
marches, their counter-marches, their retreats,
their returns, as it pleases him; and furious armies,
like stormy winds, in all their motions ace fulfilling
his word.
(3.) That Jerusalem shall certainly be delivered
into the hand of the Chaldeans! They shall take it,
and burn it with fire, v. 8. The sentence passed
upon it shall be executed, and they shall be the exe¬
cutioners. “O but” (say they) “the Chaldeans
are withdrawn, they have quitted the enterprize as
impracticable;” “And though they have,” says the
prophet, “ nay, though you had smitten their'armv,
so that many were slain, and all the rest wounded,
yet those wounded men should rise up, and bum
this city,” v. 10. This is designed to denote that
the doom passed upon Jerusalem is irrevocable, and
its destruction inevitable; it must be laid in ruins,
and these Chaldeans are the men that must do it,
and it is now in vain to think of evading the stroke,
or contending with it. Note, Whatever instruments
God has determined to make use of in any service
for him, whether of mercy or judgment, they shall
accomplish that for which they are designed, what¬
ever incapacity or disability they may lie under, or
be reduced to. Those by whom God has resolved
to save or to destroy, sav iours they shall be, and
destroyers they shall be, yea, though they were all
wounded; for as when God has work to do, he will
not want instruments to do it with, though they
may seem far to seek; so when he has chosen his
instruments, they shall do the work, though they
may seem very unlikely to accomplish it
11. And it came to pass, that when the
army of the Chaldeans was broken up from
Jerusalem for fear of Pharaoh’s army, 1 2
502
JEREMIAH, XXXVII.
Then Jeremiah went forth out of Jerusalem
to go into the land of Benjamin, to separate
himself thence in the midst of the people.
13. And when he was in the gate of Benja¬
min, a captain of the ward ivas there, whose
name was Irijah, the son of Shelemiah, the
son of Hananiah; and he took Jeremiah
(he prophet, saying, Thou fallest away to
the Chaldeans. 14. Then said Jeremiah,
It is false; I fall not away to the Chaldeans.
But he hearkened not to him : so Irijah took
Jeremiah, and brought him to the princes.
1 5. Wherefore the princes were wroth with
Jeremiah, and smote him, and put him in
prison in the house of Jonathan the scribe;
for they had made that the prison. 16.
When Jeremiah was entered into the dun¬
geon, and into the cabins, and Jeremiah had
remained there many days; 1 7. Then Zede-
kiah the king sent, and took him out; and
the king asked him secretly in his house,
and said, Is there any word from the Lord?
And Jeremiah said, There is: for, said he,
thou shalt be delivered into the hand of the
king of Babylon. 1 8. Moreover, Jeremiah
said unto king Zedekiah, What have I of¬
fended against thee, or against thy servants,
or against this people, that ye have put me
in prison? 19. Where arc now your pro¬
phets which prophesied unto you, saying,
The king of Babylon shall not come against
you, nor against this land ? 20. Therefore
hear now, I pray thee, O my lord the king:
let my supplication, I pray thee, be accepted
before thee; that thou cause me not to re¬
turn to the house of Jonathan the scribe,
lest I die there. 21. Then Zedekiah the
king commanded that they should commit
Jeremiah into the court of the prison, and
that they should give him daily a piece of
bread out of the bakers’ street, until all the
Dread in the city were spent. Thus Jere¬
miah remained in the court of the prison.
We have here a further account concerning Jere¬
miah, who relates more passages concerning himself
than any other of the prophets; for the histories of
the lives and sufferings of God’s ministers have been
very serviceable to the church, as well as their
preaching and writing.
I. We are here told that Jeremiah, when he had
an opportunity for it, attempted to retire out of Je¬
rusalem into the country; (?>. 11, 12.) When the
Chaldeans had broken up from Jerusalem, because
of Pharaoh's army, upon the notice of their ad¬
vancing towards them, Jeremiah determined to go
into the country, and (as the margin reads it) to
sli/i away from Jerusalem in the midst of the peo¬
ple, who, in that interval of the siege, went out into
the country to look after their affairs there; he en¬
deavoured to steal away in the crowd, for, though
he was a man of great eminence, he could well re¬
concile himself to obscurity; though he was one of
a thousand, he was content to be lost in the multi¬
tude, and buried alive in a corner, in a cottage.
I Whether he designed for Anathoth or no, does not
| appear; his concerns might call him thither, but his
neighbours there were such as, unless they were
mended since, ( ch . xi. 21.) might discourage him
from coming among them; or he might intend to
hide himself somewhere where he was not known,
and fulfil his own wish, {eh. xi. 2.) Oh that I had
in the wilderness a lodging place! Jeremiah found he
could do no good in Jerusalem, he laboured in vain
among them, and therefore determined to leave
them. Note, There are times when it is the wisdom
of good men to retire into privacy, to enter into the
chamber, and shut the doors about them, Jsa. xxvi. 20.
II. That in this attempt he was seized as a de¬
serter, and committed to prison; ( v . 13. — 15.) He
was in the gate of Benjamin, so far he had gained
his point, when a captain of the ward, who, proba¬
bly, had the charge of that gate, discovered him,
and took him into custody. He was the grandson of
Hananiah, who, the Jews say, was Hananiah the
false prophet, who contested with Jeremiah, (ch.
xxviii. 16.) and that this young emttain had a spite
to Jeremiah upon that account. He could not ar¬
rest him without some pretence, and that which he
charges upon him is, Thou fallest away to the Chal¬
deans; an unlikely story, for the Chaldeans were
now gone off, Jeremiah could not reach them: or if
he could, who Would go over to a baffled army?
Jeremiah, therefore, with good reason, and with
both the confidence and the mildness of an innocent
man, denies the charge, “ It is false, I fall not away
to the Chaldeans, I am going upon my own lawful
occasions. ” Note, It is no new thing for the church’s
best friends to be represented as in the interest of
her worst enemies; thus have the blackest charac¬
ters been put upon the fairest, purest minds, and,
in such a malicious world as this is, innocency, nay,
excellency itself, is no fence against the basest ca¬
lumny. When at any time we are thus falsely ac¬
cused, we may do as Jeremiah did, boldly deny the
charge, and then commit our cause to him that
judges righteously. Jeremiah’s protestation of his
integrity, though he be a prophet, a man of God, a
man of honour and sincerity, though he is a priest,
and is ready to say it in verbo sacerdotis — on the
word of a priest, is not regarded; but he is brought
before the privy-council, who, without examining
him and the proofs against him, but upon the base,
malicious insinuation of the captain, fell into a pas¬
sion with him, thev were wroth; and what justice
could be expected from men, who, being in anger,
would hear no reason? They beat him, without any
regard had to his coat and character, and then put
him in prison, in the worst prison they had, that in
the house of Jonathan the scribe; either it had been
his house, and he had quitted it for the incon-
veniencies of it, but it was thought good enough for
a prison; or it was now his house, and perhaps he
was a rigid severe man, that made it a house of cruel
bondage to bis prisoners. Into this prison Jeremiah
was thrust, into the dungeon, which was dark and
cold, damp and dirty, the most uncomfortable, un¬
healthful place in it; in the cells or cabins, there he
must lodge, among which there is no choice, for
they are all alike miserable lodging places; there
•Jeremiah remained many days, and, for aught up-
ears, nobody came near him, or inquired after him.
ee what a world this is! The wicked princes, who
are in rebellion against God, lie at ease, lie in state,
in their palaces, while godly Jeremiah, who is in the
service of God, lies in pain, in a loathsome dungeon.
It is well that there is a world to come!
III. That Zedekiah at length sent for him, and
showed him some favour; but, probably, not till the
Chaldean army was returned, and had laid fresh
siege to the city; when their vain hopes, with which
they fed themselves, (and in confidence < f which
503
JEREMIAH, XXXVIII.
hey had re-enslaved their servants, ch. xxxiv. 11.)
were ull vanished, then they were in a greater con¬
fusion and consternation than ever; “O then” (says
Zedehiah) “send in all haste for the prophet; let
me have some talk with him. ” When the Chal¬
deans were withdrawn, he only sent to the prophet
to pray for him; but now that they had again in¬
vested the city, he sent for him to consult him. Thus
gracious will men be when pangs come upon them!
1. The king sent for him to give him private au¬
dience as an ambassador from God. He asked him
secretly in his house, being ashamed to be seen in his
company, “ Is there any word from the Lord ? v.
17. Any word of comfort? Canst thou give us any
hopes that the Chaldeans shall again retire?” Note,
Those that will not hearken to God’s admonitions
when they are in prosperity, would be glad of his
consolations when they are in adversity, and expect
that his ministers should then speak words of peace
to them; but how can they expect it? What have
they to do with peace? Jeremiah’s life and comfort
are in Zedekiah’s hand, and he has now a petition
to present to him for his favour, and yet, having this
opportunity, he tells him plainly, that there is a
word from the Lord, but no word of comfort for
him or his people; Thou shall he delivered into the
hand of the king of Babylon. If Jeremiah had con¬
sulted with flesh and blood, he would have given
him a plausible answer, and though he would not
have told him a lie, yet he might have chosen whe¬
ther he would tell him the worst at this time; what
occasion was there for it, when he had so often told
it him before? But Jeremiah was one that had ob-
tair.ed mercy of the Lord to be faithful, and would
not, to obtain mercy of man, be unfaithful either to
God or to his prince; he therefore tells him the
truth, the whole truth. And, since there was no
remedy, it would be a kindness to the king to know
his doom, that being no surprise to him, it might be
the less a terror, and he might provide to make the
best of bad. Jeremiah takes this occasion to up¬
braid him and his people with the credit they gave
to the false prophets, who told them that the king
of Babylon should not come at all, or when he was
withdrawn, should not come again against them, v.
19. “ Where dre now your / irofihets , who told you
that you should have peace?” Note, Those who de¬
ceive themselves witli groundless hopes of mercy,
will justly be upbraided with it when the event has
undeceived them.
2. He improved this opportunity for the present¬
ing of a private petition, as a poor prisoner, v. 18,
20. It was not in Jeremiah’s power to reverse the
sentence God had passed upon Zedekiah, but it was
in Zedekiah’s power to reverse the sentence which
the princes had given against him ; and therefore,
since he thought him fit to be used as a prophet, he
would not think him fit to be abused as the worst of
malefactors. He humbly expostulates with the king;
What have I offended against thee, or thy ser¬
vants, or this fieofile, what law have I broken, what
injury have I done to the common welfare, that ye
have fiut me in firison?" And many a one that has
been very hardly dealt with, has been able to make
the same appeal, and to make it good. He likewise
earnestly begs, and very pathetically, (n. 20.) Cause
me not to return to yonder noisome gaol, to the house
of Jonathan the scribe, lest I die there. This was
the language of innocent nature, sensible of its own
grievances, and solicitous for its own preservation.
Though he was not at all unwilling to die God’s
martyr, yet, having so fair an opportunity to get re¬
lief, he would not let it slip, lest he should die his
own murderei When Jeremiah delivered God’s
message, he spake, as one having authority, with
the greatest boldness; but when he presented his
own request, he spake as one under authority, with
the greatest submissiveness; Hear me, I fray thee,
0 my lord the king, let my sufflications, f fray
thee, be accefted before thee. Here is not a word of
complaint of the princes that unjustly committed
him, no offer to bring an action of false imprison¬
ment against them, but all in a way of modest sup¬
plication to the king, to teach us that even when we
act with the courage that becomes the faithful ser¬
vants of God, yet we must conduct ourselves with
the humility and modesty that become dutiful sub¬
jects to the government God hath set over us. A
lion in God’s cause, must be a lamb in his own. And
we find that God gave Jeremiah favour in the eyes
of the king. (1.) He gave him his request, took
care that he should not die in the dungeon, but or¬
dered that he should have the liberty of the court
of the firison, where he might have a pleasant walk,
and breathe a free air. (2.) He gave him more
than his request, took care that he should not die for
want, as many did that had their liberty, by reason
of the straitness of the siege; he ordered him his
daily bread out of the public stock (for the prison
was within the verge of the court) till all the bread
wassfent. Zedekiah ought to have released him,
nay, to have preferred him, to have made him a
privy-counsellor, as Joseph was taken from prison
to be the second man in the kingdom; but he had
not courage to do that, — it was well he did as he did,
and it is an instance of the care God takes of his
suffering servants that are faithful to him. He can
make even their confinement turn to their advan¬
tage, and the court of their prison to become as
green pastures to them, and raise up such friends to
provide for them, that in the days of famine they
shall be satisfied, jit destruction and famine thou
shall laugh.
CHAP. XXXVIII.
In this chapter, just as in the former, we have Jeremiah
greatly debased under the frowns of the princes, and yet
greatly honoured by the favour of the king; they used
him as a criminal, he used him as a privy-counsellor.
Here, I. Jeremiah for his faithfulness is put into the dun¬
geon by the princes, v. 1..6. II. At the intercession of
Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, by special order from the
king, he is taken up out of the dungeon, and confined
only to the court of the prison, v. 7.. 13. III. He has a
private conference with the king upon the present con¬
juncture of affairs, v. 14.. 23. IV. Care is taken to keep
that conference private, v. 24.. 28.
1 . npHEN Shephatiah the son of Mattan,
JL and Gedaliah the son of Pashur, and
Jucal the son of Shelenhah, and Pashur the
son of Malchiah, heard the words that Je¬
remiah had spoken unto all the people, say¬
ing, 2. Thus saith the Lord, He that re-
maineth in this city shall die by the sword,
by the famine, and by the pestilence : but
he that goeth forth to the Chaldeans shall
live ; for he shall have his life for a prey,
and shall live. 3. Thus saith the Lord,
This city shall surely be given into the hand
of the king of Babylon’s army, which shall
take it. 4. Therefore the princes said unto
the king, We beseech thee, let this man be
put to death; for thus he weakeneth the
hands of the men of war that remain in
this city, and the hands of all the people, in
speaking such words unto them : for this
man seeketh not the welfare of this people,
but the hurt. 5. Then Zedekiah the king
said, Behold, he is in your hand : for the
JEREMIAH, XXXV11I.
504
king is not he that can do any thing against I
you. 6. Then took they Jeremiah, and cast
him into the dungeon of Malchiah the son
of Hammelech, that was in the court of the
prison: and they let down Jeremiah with
cords. And in the dungeon there was no
water, but mire : so Jeremiah sunk in the
mire. 7. Now when Ebed-melech the Ethi¬
opian, one of the eunuchs, which was in the
king’s house, heard that they had put Jere¬
miah in the dungeon, (the king then sitting
in the gate of Benjamin,) 8. Ebed-melech
went forth out of the king's house, and spake
to the king, saying, 9. My lord the king,
these men have done evil in all that they
have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom
they have cast into the dungeon ; and he is
like to die for hunger in the place where he
s ; for there is no more bread in the city.
1 0. Then the king commanded Ebed-melech
the Ethiopian, saying, Take from hence
thirty men with thee, and take up Jeremiah
the prophet out of the dungeon, before he
die. 11. So Ebed-melech took the men with
lim, and went into the house of the king
under the treasury, and took thence old cast
clouts and old rotten rags, and let them
down by cords into the dungeon to Jeremiah.
2. And Ebed-melech the Ethiopian said
unto Jeremiah, Put now these old cast clouts
and rotten rags under thine arm-holes, un¬
der the cords. And Jeremiah did so. 13.
So they drew up Jeremiah with cords, and
took him up out of the dungeon : and Jere¬
miah remained in the court of the prison.
Here, X. Jeremiah persists in his plain preach¬
ing; what he had many a time said, he still says, ( v .
3.) This city shall be given into the hand of the king
of Babylon; though it hold out long, it will be taken
at last; nor would he have so often repeated this un¬
welcome message, but that he could put them in a
certain way, though not to save the city, yet to save
themselves; so that every man might have his own
life given him for a prey, if he would be advised.
v. 2. Let him not stay in the city, in hopes to de¬
fend that, for it will be to no purpose, but let him
go forth to the Chaldeans, and throw himself upon
their mercy, before things come to extremity, and
then he shall live; they will not put him to the sword,
out give him quarter, Satis est firostrasse leoni. — It
suffices the lion to lay his antagonist prostrate, and
he shall escape the famine and pestilence, which will
be the death of multitudes within the city. Note,
Those do better for themselves, who patiently sub¬
mit to the rebukes of Providence, than those who
contend with them. And if we cannot have our
liberty, we must reckon it a mercy to have our lives,
and not foolishly throw them away upon a point of
honour; they may be reserved for better times.
2. The princes persist in their malice against Je¬
remiah. He was faithful to his country, and his
trust as a prophet, though he had suffered many a
time for his faithfulness; and though at this time he
ate t lie king’s bread, yet that did not stop his mouth.
But his persecutors were still bitter against him,
and complained that he abused the liberty he had
of walking in the court of the prison, for though he
could not go to the temple to preach, yet he vented
the same things in private conversation to those that
came to visit him; and therefore (u. 4.) they repre¬
sented him to the king as a dangerous man, disaf¬
fected to his country, and to the government he lived
under; He seeks not the welfare of this people, but
the hurt: an unjust insinuation, for no man had laid
out himself more for the good of Jerusalem than he
had done. They represent his preaching as having
a bad tendency; the design of it was plainly to bring
men to repent, and turn to God, which would have
been as much as any thing a strengthening to the
hands both of the soldiery and of the burghers, and
yet they represented it as weakening their hands, and
discouraging them; if he did this, it was their own
fault. Note, It is common for wicked people to look
upon God’s faithful ministers as their enemies, only
because they show them what enemies they are to
themselves while they continue impenitent.
3. Jeremiah, hereupon, by the king’s permission,
is put into a dungeon, with a view to his destruction
there. Zedekiah, though he felt a conviction that
Jeremiah was a prophet, sent of God, had not cou¬
rage to own it, but yielded to the violence of his per¬
secutors, v. 5. He is in your hand; and a worse
sentence he could not have passed upon him. We
found in Jehoiakim’s reign, that the princes were
better affected to the prophet than the king was,
(ch. xxx vi. 25.) but now they were more violent
against him, a sign that they were ripening apace
for ruin. Had it been in a cause that concerned his
own honour or profit, he would have let them know
that the king is he who can do what he pleases,
whether they will or no; but in the cause of Goil
and his prophet, which he was very cool in, lie
basely sneaks, and truckles to them, The king is
not he that can do any thing against you. Note,
Those will have a great deal to answer for, who,
though they have a secret kindness for good people,
dare not own it in a time of need, nor will do what
they might do, to prevent mischief designed them.
The princes having this general warrant from
the king, immediately put poor Jeremiah into the
dungeon of Malchiah, that was in the court of the
prison, (u. 6.) a deep dungeon, for they le' him
down into it with cords: and a dirty one, for there
was no water in it, but mire; and he sunk in the
mire, up to the neck, says Josephus. They that put
him here, doubtless designed that he should die
here, die for hunger, die for cold, and so die miser¬
ably, die obscurely, fearing, if they should put him
to death openly, the people might be affected with
what he would say, and be incensed against them.
Many of God’s faithful witnesses have thus been
privately made away, and starved to death in pri¬
sons, whose blood will be brought to account in the
day of discovery. We are not here told what Jere¬
miah did in this distress, but he tells us himself,
(Lam. iii. 35, 57.) I called upon thy name, 0 Lord,
out of the low dungeon, and thou drewest near, say¬
ing, Tear not.
4. Application is made to the king by an honest
courtier, Tbed-melech, one of the gentlemen of the
bed-chamber, in behalf of the poor sufferer. Though
the princes carried on the matter as privately as
they could, yet it came to the ear of this good man,
who, probably, sought opportunities to do good. It
may be, he came to the knowledge of it by hearing
Jeremiah’s moans out of the dungeon, for it was in
the king’s house, v. 7. Ebed-melech was an Ethio¬
pian, a stranger to the commonwealth of Israel, and
yet had in him more humanity, and more divinity
too, than native Israelites had. Christ found more
faith among Gentiles than among Jews. Ebed-me¬
lech lived in a wicked court, and a vert corrupt,
degenerate age, and yet had a great sense both of
JEREMIAH XXXVIII.
505
equity and piety. God lias his remnant in all
places, among all sorts. There were saints even in
Cesar’s household. The king was now sitting in
the gates of Benjamin, to try causes, and receive
appeals and petitions, or perhaps holding a council
ot war there: thither Ebed-melech went immedi¬
ately to him, for the case would not admit delay;
the prophet might have perished, if he had trifled,
or put it off till he had an opportunity of speaking
to the king in private. No time must be lost when
life is in danger, especially so valuable a life. He
boldly asserts that Jeremiah had a great deal of wrong
done him, and is not afraid to tell the king so, though
they were princes that did it, though they were now
present in court, and though they had the king’s war¬
rant for what they did. Whither should oppressed
innocency flee for protection but to the throne, espe¬
cially when great men are its oppressors? Ebed-me¬
lech appears truly brave in this matter; he does not
mince the matter; though he had a place at court,
which he would be in danger of losing for his plain
dealing, yet he tells the king faithfully, let him take
it as he will: These men have done ill in all that they
have done to Jeremiah. They dealt unjustly with
him, for he had not deserved any punishment at all;
and they had dealt barbarously with him, so as they
used not to deal with the vilest malefactors. And
they needed not to have put him t« this miserable
death, for if they had let him alone where he was,
he was likely to die for hunger in the place where
he was, in the court of the prison to which he was
confined, for there was no more bread in the city;
the stores out of which he was to have his allow¬
ance, (c/i. xxxvii. 21.) were in a manner spent.
See how God can raise up friends for his people in
distress, where they little thought of them; and
spirit men for his sen ice even beyond expectation !
5. Orders are immediately given for his release,
and Ebed-melech takes care to see them executed.
The king who, but now, durst do nothing against
the princes, had his heart wonderfully changed on
a sudden, and will now have Jeremiah released, in
defiance of the princes, for therefore he orders no
less than 30 men, and those of the life-guard, to be
employed in fetching him out of the dungeon, lest
the princes should raise a party to oppose it, v. 10.
Let this encourage us to appear boldly for God — we
may succeed better than we could have thought,
for the hearts of kings are in the hand of God.
Ebed-melech gained his point, and soon brought
Jeremiah the good news; and it is observable how
particularly the manner of his drawing him out of
the dungeon is related: (for God is not unrighteous
to forget any work or labour of love which is
showed to his people or ministers, no, nor any cir¬
cumstance of it, Heb. vi. 10. ) special notice is taken
of his great tenderness in providing old soft rags for
Jeremiah to put under his arm-holes, to keep the
cords from hurting him, wherewith he was to be
drawn up, his arm-holes being, probably, galled by
the cords wherewith he was let down. Nor did he
throw the rags down to him, lest they should be lost
in the mire, but carefully let them down, v. 11, 12.
Note, Those that are in distress should not only be
relieved, but reliev ed with compassion and marks
of respect; all which shall be placed to account,
and abound to a good account in the day of recom¬
pense. See what a good use even old rotten rags
may be put to, which therefore should not be made
waste of, any more than broken meat: even in the
king’s house, and under the treasury too, these were
carefully preserved for the use of the poor or sick.
Jeremiah is brought up out of the dungeon, and is
now where he was, in the ctuirt of the prison, v. 13.
Perhaps Ebed-melech could have made interest
with the king to have got him his discharge from
thence also, now that he had the king’s ear, but he
V0L. IV.— 3 S
thought him safer, and better provided for there,
than he would be any where else. God can, when
he pleases, make a prison to become a refuge and
hiding-place to his people in distress and danger.
14. Then Zcdekiah the king sent, and
took Jeremiah the prophet unto him into
the third entry that is in the house of the
Lokl>: and the king said unto Jeremiah, J
will ask thee a thing; hide nothing from,
me. 15. Then Jeremiah said unto Zede-
kiah, It 1 declare it unto thee, wilt thou not
surely put me to death? and if l give thee
counsel, wilt thou not hearken unto me
16. So the king sware secretly unto Jere¬
miah, saying, As the Lord liveth, that
made us this soul, 1 will not put thee to
death, neither will 1 give thee into the hand
of these men that seek thy life. 17. Then
said Jeremiah unto Zedekiah, Thus saith
the Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Is¬
rael, If thou wilt assuredly go forth unto
the king of Babylon’s princes, then thy soul
shall live, and this city shall not be burnt
with fire ; and thou shalt live, anc thy house:
13. But if thou wilt not go forth to 'the king
of Babylon’s princes, then shall this city be
given into the hand of the Chaldeans, and
they shall burn it with fire, and thou shalt
not escape out of their hand. 19. And
Zedekiah the king said unto Jeremiah, I am
afraid of the Jews that are fallen to the
Chaldeans, lest they deliver me into their
hand, and they mock me. 20. But Jeremiah
said, They shall not deliver thee. Obey, I
beseech thee, the voice of the Lord, which
I speak unto thee : so it shall be well unto
thee, and thy soul shall live. 21. But it
thou refuse to go forth, this is the word that
the Lord hath showed me: 22. And, be¬
hold, all the women that’are left in the king
of Judah’s house shall be brought forth to
the king of Babylon’s princes: and those
women shall say, Thy friends have set thee
on, and have prevailed against thee: thy
feet are sunk in the mire, and they are
turned away back. 23. So they shall'bring
out all thy wives and thy children to the
Chaldeans; and thou shalt not escape out
of their hand, but shalt be taken by the
hand of the king of Babylon : and thou shalt
cause this city to be burnt with fire. 24.
Then said Zedekiah unto Jeremiah, Let no
man know of these words, and thou shalt
not die. 25. But if the princes hear that I
have talked with thee, and they come unto
thee, and say unto thee, Declare unto us
now what thou hast said unto the king, hide
it not from us, and we will not put thee to
death; also what the king said unto thee;
26. Then thou shalt say unto them, I pre-
506
JEREMIAH, XXXVIII.
sented my supplication before the king, that
he would not cause me to return to Jona¬
than’s house, to die there. 27. Then came
all the princes unto Jeremiah, and asked
him: and he told them according to all these
words that the king had commanded. So
they left off speaking with him: for the mat¬
ter was not perceived. 28. So Jeremiah
abode in the court of the prison until the
day that Jerusalem was taken: and he was
there when Jerusalem was taken.
In the foregoing chapter, we had the king in close
conference with Jeremiah, and here again, though
(i'. 5.) he had given him up into the hands of his
enemies; such a struggle there was, in the breast
of this unhappy prince, between his convictions and
his corruptions. Observe,
1. The honour that Zedekiah did to the prophet
When he was newly fetched out of the dungeon, he
sent for him to advise with him privately. He met
him in the third entry, or, as the margin reads it,
the /irinci/iat entry, that is in, or leads towards, or
adjoins to, the house of the Lord, v. 14. In appoint¬
ing this place of interview with the prophet, per¬
haps he intended to show a respect and reverence
for the house of God, which was proper enough
now that he was desiring to hear the word of God.
Zedekiah would ask Jeremiah a thing; it should
rather be rendered, a word; “I am here asking
thee for a word of prediction, of counsel, of comfort,
a word from the Lord, ch. xxxvii. 17. Whatever
word thou hast for me, hide it not from me, let me
know the worst.” He had been fold plainly what
things would come to, in the foregoing chapter, but,
like Balaam, he asks again, in hopes to get a more
pleasing answer, as if God, who is in one mind,
were altogether such a one as himself, who was in
many minds.
2. The bargain that Jeremiah made with him,
before he would give him his advice, v. 15. He
would indent, (1.) For his own safety; Zedekiah
would have him deal faithfully with him; “ And if
I do,” says Jeremiah, “wilt thou not put me to
death? I am afraid thou wilt;” (so some take it;)
“ what else can I expect when thou art led blind¬
fold by the princes?’^ Or, “ Wilt thou promise that
thou wilt not.” Not 'that Jeremiah was backward
to seal the doctrine he preached, with his blood,
when he was called to it; but, in doing our duty, we
ought to use all lawful meansfor ourown preservation ;
even the apostles of Christ did so. (2. ) He would
indent for the success of his advice, being no less
concerned for Zedelciah’s welfare than for his own.
He is willing to give him wholesome advice, and
does not upbraid him with his unkindness in suffer¬
ing him to be put into the dungeon, nor bid him go
and consult with his princes, whose judgments he
had such a value for. Ministers must with meek¬
ness instruct even those that oppose themselves,
and render good for evil. He is desirous that he
should hear counsel, and receive instruction. “ Wilt
thou not hearken unto me? Surely thou wilt, I am
in hopes to find thee pliable at last, and now in this
thy day willing to know the things that belong to
thy peace. ” Note, Then, and then only, there is
hope of sinners, when they are willing to hearken
to good counsel. Some read it as spoken despair¬
ingly; “If I give thee counsel, thou wilt not hearken
unto me; 1 have reason to fear thou wilt not, and
then I might as well keep my counsel to myself.”
Note, Ministers have little heart to speak to those
who have long and often turned a deaf ear to them.
Now, as to this latter concern of Jeremiah’s, Zede¬
kiah makes him no answer, will not promise to
hearken to his advice: though he desires to know
what is the mind of God, yet he will reserve him¬
self at liberty, when he does know it, to do as he
thinks fit; as if it were the prerogative of a prince
not to have his ruin prevented by good counsel.
But, as to the prophet’s safety, he promises him,
upon the word of a king, and confirms his promise
with an oath, that, whatever he should say to him,
no advantage should be taken against him for it; I
will neither put thee to death, nor deliver thee into
the hands of those that will, v. 16. This, he thought,
was a mighty favour, and yet Nebuchadnezzar and
Belshazzar, when Daniel read their doom, not only
protected him, but preferred and rewarded him,
Dan. ii. 29, 48. Zedekiah’s oath on this occasion
is solemn, and very observable; “As the Lord liveth,
who made us this soul, who gave me my life, and
thee thine, I dare not take away thy life unjustly,
knowing that then I should forfeit my own to him
that is the Lord of life.” Note, God is the Father
of spirits; souls are his workmanship, and they are
more fearfully and wonderfully made than bodies
are. The soul both of the greatest prince and of the
poorest prisoner is of God’s making; He fashioned
their hearts alike easily. In all our appeals to God,
and in all our dealings both with ourselves and
others, we ought to consider this, that the living
God made us these souls.
3. The good advice that Jeremiah gave him, with
good reasons why he should take it, not from any
prudence or politics of his own, but in the name of
the Lord, the God of hosts and God of Israel; not
as a statesman, but as a prophet, he advises him by
all means to surrender himself and the city to the
king of Babylon's princes; “Go forth to them, and
make the best terms thou canst with them,” r. 17.
This was the advice he had given to the people,
(n. 2.) and before, (c/i. xxi. 9.) to submit to divine
judgments, and not think of contending with them.
Note, In dealing with God, that which is good
counsel to the meanest, is so to the greatest, for there
is no respect of persons with him. To persuade him
to take this counsel, he sets before him good and
evil, life and death. (1.) If he will tamely yield,
he shall save his children from the sword, and
Jerusalem from the flames. The white flag is yet
hung out; if he will but acknowledge God’s justice,
he shall experience his mercy; The city shall not be
burnt, and thou shalt live, and thy house. But,
(2.) If he "will obstinately stand it out, it will be the
ruin both of his house and Jerusalem; (v. 18.) for
when God judges he will overcome. This is the
case of sinners with God; let them humbly submit
to his grace and government, and they shall live;
let them take hold on his strength, that they may
make peace, and they shall make peace; but if they
harden their hearts against his proposals, it will
certainly be to their destruction; they must either
bend or break.
4. The objection which Zedekiah made against
the prophet’s advice, v. 19. Jeremiah spake to
him by prophecy, in the name of God, and there¬
fore it he had had a due regard to the divine au¬
thority, wisdom, and goodness, as soon as he under
stood what the mind cf God was, he should imme¬
diately have acquiesced in it, and resolved to observe
it without disputing; but, as if it had been the dictate
only of Jeremiah’s prudence, he advances against it
some prudential considerations of his own; but hu¬
man wisdom is folly when it contradicts the divine
counsels. All he suggests, is, “I am afraid, not
of the Chaldeans, their princes are men of honour,
but of the Jews, that are already gone over to the
Qialdeans; when they see me follow them, who had
so much opposed their going, they will laugh at
me, and say, Art thou also become weak as water?"
JEREMIAH, XXXIX.
507
Isa. xiv. 10. Now, (1.) It was not at all likely that
he should be thus exposed and ridiculed, that the
Chaldeans should so far gratify the Jews, or trample
upon him, as to deliver him into their hands; nor
that the Jews, who were themselves captives,
should be in such a gay humour, as to make a jest
of the misery of their prince. Note, We often
frighten ourselves from our duty by foolish, cause¬
less, groundless fears, that are merely the creatures
of our own fancy and imagination. (2.) If he should
be taunted at a little by the Jews, could he not
despise it, and make light of it? What harm would
it do him ? Note, Those have very weak and fretful
spirits indeed, that cannot bear to be laughed at for
that which is both their duty and their interest.
(3. ) Though it had been really the greatest personal
mischief that he could have imagined it to be, yet
he ought to have ventured it, in obedience to God,
and for the preservation of his family and city. Re¬
thought it would be looked upon as a piece of cow¬
ardice to surrender, whereas it would be really an
instance of true courage cheerfully to bear a lesser
evil, the mocking of the Jews, for the avoiding of a
greater, the ruin of his family and kingdom.
5. The pressing importunity with which Jere¬
miah followed the advice he had given the king.
He assures him that if he would comply with the
will of God herein, the thing he feared should not
come upon him; (v. 20.) They shall not deliver thee
ufi, but treat thee as becomes thy character. He
begs of him, after all the foolish games he had play¬
ed, to manage wisely the last stake, and now at
length to do well for himself; Obey, I beseech thee,
the voice of the Lord, because it is his voice, so it
shall be well unto thee. But he tells him what would
be the consequence if he would not obey. (1.) He
himself would fall into the hands of the Chaldeans,
as implacable enemies, whom he might now make
his friends, by throwing himself into their hands.
If he must fall, he should contrive how to fall easily ;
“ Thou shall not esca/ie, as thou hopest to do,” v.
23. (2. ) He would himself be chargeable with the
destruction of Jerusalem, which he pretended a con¬
cern for the preservation of; “ Thou shall cause
this city to be burned with fire, for by a little sub¬
mission and self-denial thou mightest have prevent¬
ed it.” Thus subjects often suffer for the pride and
wilfulness of their rulers, who should be their pro¬
tectors, but prove their destroyers. (3. ) Whereas
he causelessly feared an unjust reproach for surren¬
dering, he should certainly fall under a just reproach
for standing it out, and that from women too, v. 22.
The court-ladies who were left when Jehoiakim and
Jeconiah were carried away, will now at length fall
into the hands of the enemy, and they shall say,
“The men of thy peace, whom thou didst consult
with, and confide in, and who promised thee peace
if thou wouldest be ruled by them; they have set
thee on, have encouraged thee to be bold and brave,
and hold out to the last extremity; and see what
comes of it? They, by prevailing upon thee, have
prevailed against thee, and thou findest those thy
real enemies, that would be thought thine only
friends. Now thy feet are sunk in the mire, thou
art embarrassed, and hast no way to help thyself;
thy feet cannot get forward, but are turned away
back.” Thus will Zedekiah be bantered by the
women, when all his wives and children shall be
made a prey to the conquerors, v. 23. Note, What
we seek to avoid by sin, will be justly brought upon
us by the righteousness of God. And those that de¬
cline the way of duty, for fear of reproach, will cer¬
tainly meet with much greater reproach in the way
of disobedience. The fear of the wicked, it shall
come upon him, Prov. x. 24.
6. The care which Zedekiah took to keep this
conference private; {y. 24.) Let no man know of
these words. He does not at all incline to take
God’s counsel, nor so much as promise to consider
of it; for so obstinate has he been to the calls of God,
and so wilful in the ways of sin, that though he has
good counsel given him, he seems to be given up to
walk in his own counsels. He has nothing to object
against Jeremiah’s advice, and yet he will not follow
it. Many hear God’s words, but will not do them.
(1.) Jeremiah is charged to let no man know of
what had past between the king and him. Zedekiah
is concerned to keep it private, not so much for
Jeremiah’s safety, (for he knew the princes could do
him no hurt without his permission,) but for his own
reputation. Note, Many have really a better affec¬
tion to good men and good things than they are will¬
ing to own. God’s prophets are manifest in their
consciences, (2 Cor. v. 11.) but they care not for
manifesting that to the world; they would rather do
them a kindness than have it known that tliev do;
such, it is to be feared, love the praise of men 'more
than the praise of God.
(2.) He is instructed what to say to the princes,
if they should examine him about it. He must tell
them that he was petitioning the king not to remand
him back to the house of Jonathan the scribe, (x>.
25, 26.) and he did tell them so, (v. 27.) and, no
doubt, it was tree; he would not let slip so fair an
opportunity of engaging the king’s favour; so that
this was no lie or equivocation, but a part of the
truth, which it was lawful for him to put them off
with when he was under no obligation at all to tell
them the whole truth. Note, Though we must be
harmless as doves, so as never to tell a wilful lie,
yet we must be wise as serpents, so as not needlessly
to expose ourselves to danger by telling all we know
CHAP. XXXIX.
As the prophet Isaiah, after he had largely foretold the de¬
liverance of Jerusalem out of the hands of the king of
Assyria, gave a particular narrative of the story, that it
might appear how exactly the event answered to the pre¬
diction, so the prophet Jeremiah, after he had largely
foretold the delivering of Jerusalem into the hands of the
king of Babylon, gives a particular account of that sad
event for the same reason. That melancholy story we
have in this chapter, which serves to disprove the false,
flattering prophets, and to confirm the word of God’s
messengers. We are here told, I. That Jerusalem, after
eighteen months’ siege, was taken by the Chaldean
army, v. 1 . . 3. II. That king Zedekiah, attempting to
make his escape, was seized, and made a miserable cap¬
tive to the kingof Babylon, v. 4 . . 7. III. That Jerusalem
was burnt to the ground, and the people carried captive,
except the poor, v. 8 . . 10. IV. That the Chaldeans were
very kind to Jeremiah, and took particular care of him,
v. 11.. 14. V. That Ebed-melech too, for his kindness,
had a protection from God himself in this day of desola¬
tion, v. 15. . 18.
1. TN the ninth year of Zedekiah king of
JL Judah, in the tenth month, came Ne->
buchadrezzar king of Babylon, and all his
army against Jerusalem, and they besieged
it. 2. And in the eleventh year of Zede¬
kiah, in the fourth month, the ninth day of
the month, the city was broken up. 3. And
all the princes of the king of Babylon
came in, and sat in the middle gate, even
Nergal-sharezer, Samgar-nebo, Sarsechim,
Rab-saris, Nergal-sharezer, Rab-mag, with
all the residue of the princes of the king
of Babylon. 4. And it came to pass
that when Zedekiah the king of Judah
saw them, and all the men of war, then
they fled, and went forth out of the city by
night, by the way of the king’s garden, by
608
JEREMIAH, XXXIX
the gate betwixt the two walls; and lie
went out the way of the plain. 5. But the
Chaldeans’ army pursued after them, anc
overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho:
and when they had taken him, they brought
him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon
to Riblah, in the land of Hamath, where he
gave judgment upon him. 6. Then the king
of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah in
Riblah before his eyes: also the king of
Babylon slew all the nobles of Judah. 7.
Moreover, he put out Zedekiah’s eyes, and
bound him with chains, to carry him to
Babylon. 8. And the Chaldeans burned
the king’s house, and the houses of the peo¬
ple, with fire, and brake down the walls of
Jerusalem. 9. Then Nebuzar-adan, the
captain of the guard, carried away captive
into Babylon the remnant of the people that
remained in the city, and those that fell
away, that fell to him, with the rest of the
people that remained. 10. But Nebuzar-
adan, the captain of the guard, left of the
poor of the people, which had nothing, in
the land of Judah, and gave them vineyards
and fields at the same time.
We were told, in the close of the foregoing chapter,
that Jeremiah abode patiently in the court of the
/irison , until the day that Jerusalem was taken. He
gave the princes no further disturbance by his pro¬
phesying, nor they him by their persecutions, for he
had no more to say than what he had said, and, the
siege being carried on briskly, God found them
other work to do. See here what it came to.
1. Tlte city is at length taken by storm; for how
could it hold out when God himself fought against
it? Nebuchadnezzar’s army sat down before it in
the ninth year of Zedekiah, in the tenth month , ( v .
1.) in the depth of winter. Nebuchadnezzar him¬
self soon after retired to take his pleasure, and left
his generals to carry on the siege: they intermitted it
awhile, but soon renewed it with redoubled force and
vigour. At length, in the eleventh year, in the fourth
month, about midsummer, they entered the city,
the soldiers being so weakened bv famine, and all
their provisions being now spent, that they were not
able to make any resistance, v. 2. Jerusalem was
so strong a place, that nobody would have believed
the enemy could ever have entered its gates, Lam.
iv. 12. But sin had provoked God to withdraw his
protection, and then, like Samson when his hair is
cut, it is weak as other cities.
2. The princes of the king of Babylon take pos¬
session of the middle gate, v. 3. Some think that it
was the same with that which is called the second
gate, (Zeph. i. 10.) which is supposed to be in the
middle wall that divided between one part of the
city and the other; here they cautiously made a
halt, and durst not go forward into so large a city,
among men that perhaps would sell their lives as
dear as they could, until they had given directions
for the searching of all places, that they might not
be surprised by any ambush. They sat in the mid¬
dle gate, from thence to take a view of the city, and
give orders. The princes are here named, rough
and uncouth names they are, to intimate what a sad
change sin had made; there where Eliakim and
Hilkiah, who bare the name of the God of Israel,
used to sit, now sit JVergal-sharezer, and Samgar-
nebo, &c. who bare the names of the heathen gods.
Rab-saris and Rab-mag are supposed to be not the
names of distinct persons, but the titles of those
whose names go before. Sarsechim was Rab-saris,
that is, captain of the guard, and JVergal-sharezer,
to distinguish him from the other of the same name
that is put first, is called Rab-mag, that is, camfi-
master, either muster-master, or quarter-master:
these and the other great generals sat in the gate.
And now was fulfilled what Jeremiah prophesied
long since, (c/;. i. 15.) that the families of the king¬
doms of the north should set every one his throne at
the entering of the gates of Jerusalem; justly do the
princes of the heathen set up themselves there,
where the gods of the heathen had been so often
set up.
3. Zedekiah having, in disguise perhaps, seen the
princes of the king of Babylon take possession of one
of the gates of the city, thought it high time to shift
for his own safety, and, loaded with guilt and fear,
he went out of the city, under no other protection
but that of the night, (y. 4.) which soon failed him,
for he was discovered, pursued, and overtaken;
though he made the best of his way, he could make
nothing of it, could not get forward, but in the plains
of Jericho fell into the hands of the pursuers; (v.
5.) thence he was brought prisoner to Riblah, where
the king of Babylon passed sentence upon him as a
rebel, not sentence of death, but, one may almost
say, a worse thing. For, (1.) He slew his sons be¬
fore his eyes, and they must all be little, some of
them infants, for Zedekiah himself was now but
thirty-two years of age. The deaths of these sweet
babes must needs be so many deaths to himself,
especially when he considered that his own obsti¬
nacy was the cause of it, for he was particularly
told of this thing; ( ch . xxxviii. 23.) They shall bring
forth thy wives and children to the Chaldeans. (2.)
He slew all the nobles of Judah, (t;. 6. ) probably
not those princes of Jerusalem who had advised him
to this desperate course, (it would be a satisfaction
to him to see them cut off,) but the great men of the
country, who were innocent of the matter. (3.) He
ordered Zedekiah to have his eyes put out, (v. 7.)
so condemning him to darkness, for life, who had
shut his eyes against the clear light of God’s word,
and was of those princes who will not understand,
but walk on in darkness, Ps. lxxxii. 5. (4. ) He bound
him with two brazen chains of fetters, (so the mar¬
gin reads it,) to carry him away to Babylon, there
to spend the rest of his days in misery. All tliis sad
story we had before, 2 Kings xxv. 4, &c.
4. Some time after, the city was burnt, temple
and palace and all, and the wall of it broken down,
v. 8. “ O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! this comes of
killing the prophets, and stoning them that were
sent to thee. 0 Zedekiah, Zedekiah! this thou
mightest have prevented, if thou wouldest but have
taken God’s counsel, and yielded in time.”
5. The people that were left were all carried away
captives to Babylon, v. 9. Now they must bid a final
farewell to the land of their nativity, that pleasan:
land, and to all their possessions and enjoyments ir
it; must be driven some hundreds of miles, like
beasts, before their conquerors, that were nowtheii
cruel masters; must lie at their mercy in a strange
land, and be servants to them who would be sure t<
mile them with rigour. The word Tyrant is origi
nallv a Chaldee word, and is often used for Lords by
the Chaldee paraphrast, as if the Chaldeans, when
they were lords, tyrannized more than any other:
we have reason to think that the poor Jews had rea¬
son to say so. Some few were left behind, but they
were the poor of the people, that had nothing to lose,
and therefore never made any resistance. And they
not only had their liberty, and were left to tarry at
509
JEREMIAH, XXXIX.
home, but the cafitain of the guard gave them vine¬
yards and fields at the same time, such as they were
never masters of before, v. 10. Observe here, (1.)
The wonderful changes of Providence; some are
abased, others advanced, (1 Sam. ii. 5.) the hungry
are Jilted with good things, and the rich sent empty
away. The ruin of some proves the rise of others.
Let us therefore rejoice as though we rejoiced not,
in our abundance, and weep as though we wept not,
in our distresses. (2.) The just retributions of Pro¬
vidence; the rich had been proud oppressors, and
now they were justly punished for their injustice;
the poor had been patient sufferers, and now they
are graciously rewarded for their patience, and
amends made them for all their losses; for, verity
there is a God that judges in the earth, even in this
world, much more in the other.
11. Now Nebuchadrezzar king of Baby¬
lon gave charge concerning Jeremiah to
Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard,
saying, 12. Take him, and look well to
him, and do him no harm; but db unto him
even as he shall say unto thee. 1 3. So Ne-
buzar-adan, the captain of the guard, sent,
and Nebushasban, Rab-saris, and Nergal-
sharezer, Rab-mag, and all the king of Ba¬
bylon’s princes, 14. Even they sent, and
took Jeremiah out of the court of the pri¬
son, and committed him unto Gedaliah the
son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan, that he
should carry him home: so he dwelt among
the people. 15. Now the word of the Lord
came unto Jeremiah, while he was shut up
in the court of the prison, saying, 16. Go
and speak to Ebed-melech the Ethiopian,
saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the
God of Israel, Behold, I will bring my words
upon this city for evil, and not for good; and
they shall be accomplished in that day be¬
fore thee. 17. For I will deliver thee in
that day, saith the Lord; and thou shalt
not be given into the hand of the men of
whom thou art afraid. 18. For I will surely
deliver thee, and thou shalt not fall by the
sword, but thy life shall be for a prey unto
thee; because thou hast put thy trust in me,
saith the Lord.
Here we must sing of mercy, as in the former
part of the chapter we sang of judgment, and must
sing unto God of both. We may observe here,
I. A gracious providence concerning Jeremiah.
When Jerusalem was laid in ruins, and all men's
hearts failed them for fear, then might he lift up
his head with comfort, blowing that his redemption
drew nigh, as Christ’s followers, when the second
destruction of Jerusalem was hastening on, Luke xxi.
28. Nebuchadnezzar had given particular orders
that care should be taken of him, and that he should
be in all respects well used, v. 11, 12. Nebuzar-
adan and the rest of the king of Babylon’s princes ob¬
served these orders, and discharged him out of pri¬
son, and did every thing to make him easy, v. 13, 14.
Now we may look upon this,
1. As a very generous act of Nebuchadnezzar,
who, though he was a haughty potentate, yet took
cognizance of this poor prophet; doubtless he had
i "reived information concerning him from the de- !
| setters, that he had foretold the king of Babylon’s
| successes against Judah and other countries, that he
had pressed his prince and people to submit to him,
and that he had suffered very hard tilings for so
doing; and in consideration ok all this, (though per¬
haps he might have heard also that he had foretold
the destruction of Babylon at length,) he gave him
| these extraordinary marks of his favour. Note, It
is the character of a great soul to take notice of the
services and sufferings of the ijieanest. It was ho¬
nourably done of the king, to give this charge, even
before the city was taken, and of the captains to
observe it, even in the heat of action, and it is re¬
corded for imitation.
2. As a reproach to Zedekiah and the princes of
Israel; they put him in a'prison, and the kipg of
Babylon and his princes took him out. God’s peo¬
ple and ministers have often found fairer and kinder
usage among strangers and infidels than among those
that call themselves of the holy city. St. Paul found
more favour and justice with king Agrippa- than
with Ananias the high-priest.
3. As the performance of God’s promise to Jere¬
miah, in recompense for his services; ( ch . xv. 11.)
I will cause the enemy to treat thee well in the day
J of avil. Jeremiah had been faithful to his trust as
i a prophet, and now God approves himself faithful
to him, and the promise he had made him. Now
he is comforted, according to the time wherein he
had been afflicted, and sees thousands fall on each
hand, and himself safe. The false prophets fell by
those judgments which they said should never come,
(ch. xiv. 15.) which made their misery the more
terrible to them. The true prophet escaped those
judgments which he said would come, and that
made his escape the more comfortable to him. The
same that were the instruments of punishing the
persecutors, were the instruments of relieving the
persecuted; and Jeremiah thought never the worse
of his deliverance for its coming by the hand of the
king of Babylon, but saw the more of the hand of
God in it. A fuller account of this matter we shall
meet with in the next chapter.’
II. A gracious message to Ebed-melech, to assure
him of a recompense for his kindness to Jeremiah.
This message was sent him by Jeremiah himself,
who, when he returned him thanks for his kind¬
ness to him, thus turned him over to God to be his
Paymaster. He relieved a prophet in the name of
a prophet, and thus he had a prophet’s reward.
This message was delivered to him immediately
after he had done that kindness to Jeremiah, but it
is mentioned here after the taking of the citv, to
show that as God was kind to Jeremiah at that time,
so he was to Ebed-melech for his sake; and it was
a token of special favour to both, and they ought so
to account it, that they were not involved in any of
the common calamities. Jeremiah is bid to tell him,
1. That God would certainly bring upon Jerusalem
the ruin that had been long and often threatened;
and, for his further satisfaction, in having been kind
to Jeremiah, he should see him abundantly proved
a true prophet, v. 16. 2. That God took notice of
the fear he had of the judgments coming. Though
he was bravely bold in the service of God, yet he
was afraid of the rod of God. The enemies were
men of whom he was afraid. Note, God knows
how to adapt and accommodate his comforts to the
fears and griefs of his people, for he knows their
souls in adversity. 3. That he shall be delivered
from having a share in the common calamity; Twill
deliver thee, I will surely deliver thee. He had
been instrumental to deliver God’s prophet out of
the dungeon, and now God promises to deliver him;
for he will be behind-hand with none for any ser¬
vice they do, directly or indirectly, for his name;
“Thou hast saved Jeremiah’s life, that was pre-
510
JEREMIAH, XL.
cious to thee, and therefore thy life shall be given j
thee for a firey. ” 4. The reason given for this dis¬
tinguishing favour which God had in store for him,
is, because thou hast put thy trust in me, saith the
Lord. God, in recompensing men’s services, has
an eye to the principle they go upon in those ser¬
vices, and rewards according to those principles:
and there is no principle of obedience that will be
more acceptable to God, nor have a greater influ¬
ence upon us, than a believing confidence in God.
Ebed-melech trusted in God that he would own him,
and stand by him, and then he was not afraid of the
face of man. And those who trust God, as this
good man did, in the way of duty, will find that
their hope shall not make them ashamed in times
of the greatest danger.
CHAP. XL.
We have attended Jerusalem’s funeral pile, and have taken
our leave of the captives that were carried to Babylon,
not expecting to hear any more of them in this book,
perhaps we may in Ezekiel, and must in this and the
four following chapters observe the story of those few
Jews that were left to remain in the land, after their bre¬
thren were carried away, and it is a very melancholy
story; for, though at first there were some hopeful pros¬
pects of their well-doing, they soon appeared as obstihate
in sin as ever, unhumbled and unreformed, till all the
rest of the judgments, threatened in Deut. xxviii. being
brought upon them, that which in the last verse of that
dreadful chapter completes the threatenings, was accom¬
plished, The Lord shall bring thee into Egypt again. In
this chapter we have, I. A more particular account of
Jeremiah’s discharge, and his settlement with Gedaliah,
v. 1 . . 6. II. The great resort of the Jews that remained
scattered in the neighbouring countries to Gedaliah,
who was made their governor under the king of Babylon;
and the good posture they were in for awhile under him,
v. 7 . . 12. III. A treacherous design formed against
Gedaliah, by Ishmael, which we shall find executed in
the next chapter, v. 13 . . 16.
1. rjriHE word which came to Jeremiah
JL from the Lokd, after that Nebuzar-
adan the captain 'of the guard had let him
go from Ramah, when lie had laken him,
being bound in chains among all that were
carried away captive of Jerusalem and Ju¬
dah, which were carried awaycaplive unto
Babylon. 2. And the captain of the guard
took Jeremiah, and said unto him, The
Lord thy God bath pronounced this evil
upon this place. 3. Now the Lord hath
brought it, and done according as he hath
said: because ye have sinned against the
Lord, and have not obeyed his voice,
therefore this thing is come upon you. 4.
And now, behold, I loose thee this day
from the chains which were upon thy hand.
If it seem good unto thee to come with me
into Babylon, come, and I will look well
unto thee; but if it seem ill unto thee to
come with me into Babylon, forbear: be¬
hold, all the land is before thee: whither it
seemeth good and convenient for thee to go,
thither go. 5. Now, while he was not yet
gone back, he said , Go back also to Geda-
liab the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan,
whom the king of Babylon hath made go¬
vernor over all the cities of Judah, and
dwell with him among the people; or go
wheresoever it seemeth convenient unto thee
to go. So the captain of the guard gave
him victuals and a reward, and let him go
6. Then went Jeremiah unto Gedaliah the
son of Ahikam, to Mizpah, and dwelt with
him among the people that were left in the
land.
The title of this part of the book, which begins
the chapter, seems misapplied, ( The word which
came to Jeremiah ,) for here is nothing of pro¬
phecy in this chapter, but it is to be referred to, ch
xlii. 7. where we have a message that God sent by
Jeremiah to the captains and the people that re¬
mained, and the story betwixt, and that is only to
introduce that prophecy, and show the occasion of
it, that it may be the better understood; and Jere¬
miah, being himself concerned in the story, was
the better able to give an account of it.
In these verses, we have Jeremiah’s adhering, by
the advice of Nebuzar-adan, to Gedaliah. It should
seem that Jeremiah was very honourably fetched
out of the court of the prison by the king of Baby¬
lon’s princes, {ch. xxxix. 14.) but afterward, being
found among the people in the city, when orders
were giv en to the inferior officers to bind all they
found that were of any fashion, in order to their be¬
ing carried captives to Babylon, he, through igno¬
rance and mistake, was bound among the rest, and
hurried away. Poor man! he seems to have been
born to hardship and abuse; a man of sorrows in¬
deed! But when the captives were brought mana¬
cled to Ramah, not far off, where a council c.f war,
or court martial, was held, for giving orders con¬
cerning them, Jeremiah was soon distinguished from
the rest, and, by special order of the court, was
discharged.
1. The captain of the guard solemnly owns him
to be a true prophet; (u. 2, 3.) “ The Lord thy
God, whose messenger thou hast been, and in whose
name thou hast spoken, has by thee pronounced
this evil upon this place; they had fair warning
given them of it, but they u'ould not take the warn¬
ing, and now the Lord hath brought it, and as by
thy mouth he said it, so by my hand he hath done
what he said.” He seems thus to justify what he
had done, and to glory in it, that he had been God’s
instrument to fulfil that which Jeremiah had been
his messenger to foretell; and upon that account it
was indeed the most glorious action he had ever
done. He tells all the people that were now in
chains before him, It is because ye have sinned
against the Lord, that this thing is come u/ion you.
The princes of Israel would never be brought to
acknowledge this, though it was as evident as if it
had been written with a sun-beam; but this heathen
prince plainly sees it, that a people that had been
so favoured as they had been by the divine good¬
ness, would never have been abandoned thus, had
they not been very provoking. The people of Is¬
rael had been often told this from the pulpit by
their prophets, and they would not regard it; now
they are told it from the bench of their conqueror,
whom they dare not contradict, and who will make
them regard it. Note, Sooner or later, men shall
be made sensible that their sin is the cause of all
their miseries.
2. He gives him free leave to dispose of himself
as he thought fit. He loosed him from his chains a
second time, {v. 4.) invited him to come along with
him to Babylon, not as a captive, but as a friend, as
a companion; and I will set my eye upon thee, so
the word is; “ Not only I will look well to thee, but
I will show thee respect, will countenance thee, and
will see that thou be safe and well provided for. ”
JEREMIAH, XL.
If lie was not disposed to go to Babylon, he might
dwell where he pleased in his own country, for it
was all now at the disposal of the conquerors. He
may go to Anathoth if lie please, and enjoy the field
lie had purchased there. A great change with this
good man! He that hut lately was tossed from one
prison to another, may now walk at liberty from one
possession to another.
3. He advises him to go to Gedaliali, and settle
with him. This Gedaliali was made governor of
the land under the king of Babylon, an honest Jew,
who (it is probable) betimes went over with his
friends to the Chaldeans, and approved himself so
well, that he liad this great trust put into his hands,'
v. 5. While Jeremiah was not yet gone back, but
stood considering what he should do, Nebuzar-adan,
perceiving him neither inclined to go to Babylon,
nor determined whither to go, turned the scale for
him, and bid him by all means go to Gedaliali. Sud¬
den thoughts sometimes prove wise ones. But when
he gave this counsel, he did not design to oblige
him by it, nor will he take it ill if he do not follow
it; Go wheresoever it seemeth convenient unto thee.
It is friendly in such cases to give advice, but un¬
friendly to prescribe, and to be angry if our advice
be not taken. Let Jeremiah steer what course he
pleases, Nebuzar-adan will agree to it, and believe
lie does for. the best. Nor does he only give him
his liberty, and an approbation ot the measures he
shall take, but provides for his support; he gave
him victuals, and a present, either in clothes or
money, and so let him go. See how considerate
the ca/itain o f the guard was in his kindness to Jere¬
miah. He set him at liberty, but it was in a coun¬
try that was laid waste, and in which, as the posture
of it now was, he might have perished, though it
was his own country, if he had not thus kindly fur¬
nished him with necessaries. ■ Jeremiah not only
accepted his kindness, but took his advice, and
went to Gedaliali, to Mizpah, and dwelt with him,
v. 6. Whether we may herein commend his pru¬
dence, 1 know not; the event does not commend it,
for it did not prove at all to his comfort. How¬
ever, we may commend his pious affection to the
land of Israel, that, unless he were forced out of it,
as Ezekiel and Daniel and other good men wei e, he
would not forsake it, but chose rather to dwell with
the poor in the holy land, than with princes in an
unholy one.
7. Now when all the captains of the
forces which were in the fields, even they and
their men, heard that the king of Babylon
had made Gedaliali the son of Ahikam go¬
vernor in the land, and had committed unto
him men, and women, and children, and of
the poor of the land, of them that were not
carried away captive to Babylon; 8. Then
they came to Gedaliali (o Mizpah, even
Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and Johanan
and Jonathan the sons of Kareah, and Se-
raiah the son of Tanhumeth, and the sons
of Ephai the Netophathite, and Jezaniah the
son of a Maachathite, they and their men.
9. And Gedaliali the son of Ahikam, the
son of Shaphan, sware unto them, and to
their men, saying, Fear not to serve the
Chaldeans: dwell in the land, and serve the
king of Babylon, and it shall be well with
you. 10. As for me, behold, I will dwell
at Mizpah, to serve the Chaldeans which I
511
will come unto us: but ye, gather ye wine,
and summer-fruits, and oil, and put them in
your vessels, and dwell in your cities that
ye have taken. 1 1. Likewise, when all the
Jews that were in Moab, and among the
Ammonites, and in Edom, and that were in
all the countries, heard that the king of Ba
bylon had left a remnant of Judah, and that
he had set over them Gedaliali the son of
Ahikam, the son of Shaphan: 12. Even
all the Jews returned out of all places
whither they were driven, and came to the
land of Judah, to Gedaliali, unto Mizpah,
and gathered wine and summer-fruits very
much. 13. Moreover, Johanan the son of
Kareah, and all the captains of the forces
that were in the fields, came to Gedaliali to
Mizpah, 14. And said unto him, Dost thou
certainly know that Baalis the king of the
Ammonites hath sent Ishmael the son of
Nethaniah to slay thee? But Gedaliali the
son of Ahikam believed them not. 15. Then
Johanan the son of Kareah spake to Geda-
liali in Mizpah secretly, saying, L.et me go,
I pray thee, and 1 will slay Ishmael the son
of Nethaniah, and no man shall know it:
wherefore should he slay thee, that all the
Jews which are gathered unto thee should
be scattered, and the remnant in Judah pe¬
rish? 16. But Gedaliali the son of Ahikam
said unto Johanan the son of Kareah, Thou
slialt not do this thing; for thou speakest
falsely of Ishmael.
We have, in these verses,.
I. A bright sky opening upon the remnant of the
Jews that were left in their own land, and a com¬
fortable prospect given them of some peace and
quietness, after the many years of trouble and terror
with which they had been afflicted. Jeremiah in¬
deed had never in his prophecies spoken of any such
good days reserved for the Jews immediately after
the captivity; but Providence seemed to raise and
encourage such an expectation, and it would be to
that miserable people as life from the dead. Ob¬
serve the particulars.
1. Gedaliali, one of themselves, is made governor
in the land, by the king of Babylon, v. 7. To show
that he designed to make and keep them easy, he
did not give this commission to one of the princes of
Babylon, but to one of their brethren, who, they
might be sure, would seek their peace. He was the
son of Ahikam, the son of Sha/ihan, one of the
princes. We read of his father, (r/i. xxvi. 24. ) that
he took Jeremiah’s part against the people. He
seems to be a man of great wisdom and a mild tem¬
per, and under whose government the few that were
left might be very happy. The king of Babylon
had a good opinion of him, and reposed a confidence
in him, for to him he committed all that were left
behind.
2. There is great resort to him from all parts, and
all those that were now the Jews of the dispersion,
came and put themselves under his government and
protection. (1.) The great men that had escaped
the Chaldeans by force, came and quietly submitted
to Gedaliali for their own safety and common pre¬
servation. Divers are here named; (t>. 8. ) they came
M2 JEREMTAH, XLI.
with their men, their servants, their soldiers, and so
strengthened one another; and the king of Babylon
had such a good opinion of Gedaliah his delegate,
that he was not at all jealous of the increase of their
numbers, but rather pleased with it. (2.) The poor
men that had escaped by flight into the neighbour¬
ing countries of Moab, Ammon, and Edom, were
induced bv the love they bare to their own land, to
return to it again, as soon as they heard that Geda¬
liah was in authority there, v. 11, 12. Canaan itself
would be an unsafe, unpleasant country,, if there
were no government or governors there, and those
that loved it dearly would not come back to it till
they heard there were. It would be a great reviving
to them that were dispersed, to come together again ;
that were dispersed into foreign countries, to come
together in their own country; that were under
strange kings, to be under a governor of their own
nation. See here, in wrath God remembered mercy,
and yet admitted some of them upon a further trial
of their obedience.
3. The model of this new government is drawn
up and settled by an original contract, which Geda¬
liah confirmed with an oath, a solemn oath; ( v . 9.)
He sware to them, and to their men, it is probable,
according to the warrant and instructions he had
received from the king of Babylon, who empowered
him to give them these assurances. (1. ) They must
own the property of their lands to be in the Chal¬
deans; “ Come,” jf says Gedaliah,) “fear not to serve
the Chaldeans. Fear not the sin of it.” Though
the divine law' had forbidden them to make leagues
with the heathen, yet the divine sentence had obliged
them to yield to the king of Babylon. “Fear not
the refiroach of it, and the disparagement it will be
to your nation; it is what God has brought you to,
has bound you to, and 'it is no disgrace to any to
comply with him. Fear not the consequences of it,
as if it would certainly make you and yours misera¬
ble; no, you will find the king of Babylon not so hard
a landlord as vou apprehend him to be; if you will
but live peaceably, peaceably you shall live; disturb
not the government, and it will not disturb you.
Serve the king of Babylon, and it shall be well with
you.” If they should make any difficulty of doing
personal homage, or should be apprehensive of dan¬
ger, when the Chaldeans should come among them,
Gedaliah, probably by instruction from the king of
Babylon, undertakes upon all occasions to act for
them, and make their applications acceptable to the
king; (v. 20.) “As for me, behold, I will dwell at
Mizjiah, to serve the Chaldeans, to do homage to
them in the name of the whole body, if there be oc¬
casion, to receive orders, and to pay them their
tribute when they come to us." All that passes
between them and the Chaldeans shall pass through
his hand; and if the Chaldeans put such a confidence
in him, surely his own countrymen may venture to
do it. Gedaliah is willing thus to give them the
assurance of an oath, that he will do his part in pro¬
tecting them, but being apt to err (as many good
m ?n are) on the charitable side, it did not require
an oath from them, that they would be faithful to
him, else the following mischief might have been
prevented. However, protection draws allegiance,
though it be not sworn ; and, by joining in with Geda¬
liah, they did, in effect, consent to the terms of
government, that they should serve the king of
Babylon. But, (2.) Though they own the property
of their lands to be in the Chaldeans, yet, upon that
condition, they shall have the free "enjoyment, of
them, and all the profits of them; (u. 10.) “ Gather
ye wine and summer-fruits, and take them for your
own use; /nit them in your vessels, to be laid up for
winter-store, as those do that live in a land of peace,
and hope to eat the labour of your hand; nay, the
labour of other people’s hands, for you reap what
i| they sowed.” Or perhaps they were the spontane
I ous products of that fertile soil, for which none had
laboured. And accordingly we find, (v. 12.) that
1 they gathered wine and summer-fruits very much,
such as were at present upon the ground, for their
corn-harvest was over some time before Jerusalem
was taken. While Gedaliah was in care fer the
public safety, he left them to enjoy the advantages
of the public plenty, and, for aught appears, de¬
manded no tribute from them; for he sought not his
own profit, but the profit of many.
II. Here is a dark cloud gathering over this infant
, state, and threatening a dreadful storm. How soon
is this hopeful prospect blasted! For when God
begins in judgment he will m.tke an end. It is here
intimated to us,
1. That Baalis the king of the Ammonites had a
particular spite at Gedaliah, and was contriving to
take him off, either out of malice to the nation of the
Jews, whose welfare he hated the thought of, or a
gersonal pique against Gedaliah, v. 14. Some make
aalis to signify the queen-mother of the king of the
Ammonites, or queen-dowager, as if she were the
first mover of this bloody and treacherous design.
One would have thought this little remnant might
have been safe, when the great king of Babylon pro¬
tected it; and yet it is ruined by the artifices of this
petty prince or princess. Happy they that have the
King of kings on their side, who can take the wise
in their own craftiness; for the greatest earthly king
cannot with all his power secure us against fraud
and treachery'.
2. That he employed Ishmael, the son of JVetha-
niah, as the instrument of his malice, instigated him
to murder Gedaliah; and that he might have a fair
opportunity to do it, directed him to go and enrol
himself among his subjects, and promise him fealty.
Nothing could be more barbarous than the design
itself, nor more base than the method of compassing
it. How wretchedly is human nature corrupted and
degenerated, (even in those that pretend to the best
blood,) when it is capable of admitting the thought
of such abominable wickedness! Ishmael was of the
seed royal, and would therefore be easily tempted
to envy and bate one that set up fi r a governor in
Judah, who was not, as he was, of David’s line,
though he had ever so much of David’s spirit.
3. That Johanan, a brisk and active man, having
got scent of this plot, informed Gedaliah of it, yet
taking it for granted he could not but know of it be¬
fore, the proofs of the matter being so very plain;
Dost thou certainly know? surely thou dost, v. 14.
He gave him private intelligence of it, (v. 15.)
hoping be would then take the more notice of it.
He proffered his service to prevent it, by taking off
Ishmael, whose very name was ominous to all the
seed of Isaac; I will slay him. Wherefore should
he slay thee? Herein he showed more courage and
zeal than sense of justice; for'if it be lawful to kill
for prevention, who then can be safe, since malice
always suspects the worst?
4. That Gedaliah, being a man of sincerity him¬
self, would by no means give credit to the informa¬
tion given him of Ishmael’s treachery. He said,
Thou sfieakest falsely of Ishmael. Herein he dis-
. covered more good humour than discretion, more of
i the innocency of the dove than the wisdom of the
] serpent. Princes become uneasy to themselves, and
all about them, when they are jealous. Queen
Elizabeth said, that she would believe no more evil
of her people, than a mother would believe of her
own children; yet many have been ruined by being
over-confident of the fidelity of those about them.
CHAP. XLI.
It is a very tragical story that is related in this chapter, and
shows that evil pursues sinners. The black cloud thal
was gathering in the foregoing chapter, here bursts in a
513
JEREMIAH, XLI.
dreadful storm. Those few Jews that escaped their cap¬
tivity were proud to think that they were still in their
own land, when their brethren were gone they knew not
whither ; were fond of the wine and summer-fruits they
had gathered , and were very secure under Gedaliah’s
protectorship, when, on a sudden, even these remains
prove ruins too. 1. Gedaliah is barbarously slain by
Ishmael, v. 1,2. II. All the Jews that were with him
were slain likewise, (v. 3.) and a pit filled with their dead
bodies, v. 9. III. Some devout men, to the number of
fourscore, that were going toward Jerusalem, were drawn
in by Ishmael, and murdered likewise, v. 4 . . 7. Only
ten of them escaped, v. 8. IV. Those that escaped the
sword were taken prisoners by Ishmael, and carried ofi'
toward the country of the Ammonites, v. 10. V. By the
conduct and courage of Johanan, though the death of the
slain is not revenged, yet the prisoners are recovered,
and he now becomes their commander in chief, v. 1 1 . . 16.
VI. His project is to carry them into the land of Egypt,
(v, 17, 18.) which we shall hear more of in the next
chapter.
J. 1WTOW it came to pass in the seventh
month, that Ishmael the son of
Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, Of the seed
royal, and the princes of the king, even ten
men with him, came unto Gedaliah the son
of Ahikam, to Mizpah; and there they did
eat bread together in Mizpah. 2. Then
arose Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and the
ten men that were with him, and smote
Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of
Shaphan, with the sword, and slew him,
whom the king of Babylon had made gover¬
nor over the land. 3. Ishmael also slew all
the Jews that were with him, even with
Gedaliah at Mizpah, and the Chaldeans
that were found there, and the men of war.
4. And it came to pass, the second day after
he had slain Gedaliah, and no man knew it,
6. That there came certain from Shechem,
from Shiloh, and from Samaria, even four¬
score men, having their beards shaven, and
their clothes rent, and having cut themselves,
with offerings and incense in their hand, to
bring them to the house of the Lord. 6. And
Ishmael the son of Nethaniah went forth
from Mizpah to meet them, weeping all
along as he went: and it came to pass, as
he met them, he said unto them, Come to
Gedaliah the son of Ahikam. 7. And it
was so, when they came into the midst of
the citv, that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah
slew them, and cast them into the midst of
the pit, he, and the men that were with him.
8. But ten men were found among them
that said unto Ishmael, Slay us not; for we
have treasures in the field, of wheat, and of
barley, and of oil, and of honey. So he for-
bare, and slew them not among their bre¬
thren. 9. Now the pit wherein Ishmael
had cast all the dead bodies of the men,
whom he had slain because of Gedaliah,
was it which Asa the king had made for fear
of Baasha king of Israel ; and Ishmael the
son of Nethaniah filled it with them that
ivere slain. 10. Then Ishmael carried away
Vol. iv. — 3 T
captive all the residue of the people that
were in Mizpah, even the king’s daughters,
and all the people that remained in Mizpah,
whom Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard
had committed to Gedaliah the son of Ahi¬
kam: and Ishmael the son of Nethaniah
earned them away captive, and departed to
go over to the Ammonites.
It is hard to say which is more astonishing, God’s
permitting, or men’s perpetrating, such villanies as
here we find committed. Such base, barbarous,
bloody work is here done by men, who by their birth
should have been men of honour, by their religion
just men, and this done upon those of their own na¬
ture, their own nation, their own religion, and now
their brethren in affliction, when they were all
brought under the power of the victorious Chal¬
deans, and smarting under the judgments of God,
upon no provocation, nor with any prospect of ad¬
vantage; all done, not only in cold blood, but with
art and management. We have scarcely such an
instance of perfidious cruelty in all the scripture; so
that with John, when he saw the woman drunk with
the blood of the saints, we may well wonder with
great admiration. But God permitted it for the
completing of the ruin of an unhumbled people, and
the filling up of the measure of their judgments, who
had filled up the measure of their iniquities. Let it
possess us with an indignation at the wickedness of
men, and an awe of God’s righteousness.
1. Ishmael and his party treacherously killed
Gedaliah himself in the first place. Though the
king of Babylon had made him a great man, had
given him a commission to be governor of the land
which he had conquered; though God had made
him a good man, and a great blessing to his country,
and his agency for its welfare was as life from the
dead; yet neither could secure him. Ishmael was
of the seed royal, (y. 1.) and therefore jealous of
Gedaliah’s growing greatness, and enraged that he
should merit and accept a commission under the
king of Babylon. He had ten men with him, that
were princes of the king too, guided by the same
peevish resentments that he was; these had been
with Gedaliah before, to put themselves under his
protection, ( ch . xl. 8.) and now came again to make
him a visit; and they did eat bread together in
Mizpah. He entertained them generously, and
entertained no jealousy of them, notwithstanding
the information given him by Johanan. They pre¬
tended friendship to him, and gave him no warning
to stand on his guard; he was in sincerity friendly to
them, and did all he could to oblige them, but they
that did eat bread with him lifted up the heel against
him. They did not pick a quarrel with him, but
watched an opportunity, when they had him alone,
and assassinated him, v. 2.
2. They likewise put all to the sword that they
found in arms there, both Jews and Chaldeans, all
that were employed under Gedaliah, or were in any
capacity to revenge his death, v. 3. As if enough
of the blood of Israelites had not been shed by the
Chaldeans, their own princes here mingled it with
the blood of the Chaldeans. The vine-dressers and
the husbandmen were busy in the fields, and knew
nothing of this bloody massacre; so artfully was it
carried on and concealed!
3. Some good, honest men, that were going all ira
tears to lament the desolations of Jerusalem, were-
drawn in by Ishmael, and murdered with the rest..
Observe, (1.) From whence they came; (v. 5.)'
from Shechem, Samaria, and Shiloh, places that
had been famous, but were now reduced; they be¬
longed to the ten tribes, but there were strove >n
514
JEREMIAH, XI A.
those countries that retained an affection for the
worship of the God of Israel. (2.) Whither they
were going; to the house of the Lord, the temple at
Jerusalem, which, no doubt, they had heard of the
destruction of, and were going to pay their respects
to its ashes, to see its ruins, that their eye might af¬
fect their heart with sorrow for them. They/a-
vour the dust thereof, Ps. cii. 14. They took of¬
ferings and incense in their hand, that if they
should find any altar there, though it were but an
altar of earth, and any priest ready to officiate, they
might not be without something to offer; if not, yet
they showed their good-will, as Abraham, when he
came to the place of the altar, though the altar was
gone. The people of God used to go rejoicing to
the house of the Lord, but these went in the habit
of mourners, with their clothes rent, and their heads
shaven; for the providence of God loudly called to
weeping and mourning, because it was not with the
faithful worshippers of God as in months past. (3. )
How they were decoyed into a fatal snare by Ish-
mael’s malice. Hearing of their approach, he resolv¬
ed to be the death of them too; so bloodthirsty was
he ! He seemed as if he hated every one that had
the name of an Israelite, or the face of an honest
man; these pilgrims toward Jerusalem he had a
spite to, for the sake of their errand. Ishmael went
out to meet them with crocodile’s tears, pretending
to bewail the desolations of Jerusalem as much as
they, and, to try how they stood affected to Geda-
liah and his government, he courted them into the
town, and found them to have a respect for him,
which confirmed him in his resolution to murder
them. He said, Come to Gedaliah, pretending he
would have them come, and live with him, when
really he intended that they should come, and die
with him, v. 6. They had heard such a character
of Gedaliah, that they were willing enough to be
acquainted with him; but Ishmael, when he had
them in the midst of the town, fell upon them, and
stem them, (y. 7.) and, no doubt, took the offerings
they had, and converted them to his own use; for
he that would not stick at such a murder, would not
stick at sacrilege. Notice is taken of his disposing
of the dead bodies of these, and the rest that he had
slain; he tumbled them all into a great pit, {v. 7.)
the same pit that Asa king of Judah had digged
long before, either in the city, or adjoining to it,
when he built or fortified Mizpah, (1 Kings xv. 22.)
to be a frontier garrison against Baasha king of Is¬
rael, and for fear o/him, v. 9. Note, Those that
dig pits with a good intention know not what bad
use they may be put to, one time or other. He
slew so many, that he could not afford them each a
grave, or would not do them so much honour, but
threw them all promiscuously into one pit.
Among these last that were doomed to the slaugh¬
ter, there were ten that obtained a pardon, by
working, not on the compassion, but the covetous¬
ness, of those that had them at their mercy, v. 8.
They said to Ishmael, when he was about to suck
their blood, like an insatiable horse-leech, after that
of their companions, Slay us not, for we have trea¬
sures in the field, country-treasures, large stocks
upon the ground, abundance of such commodities as
the country affords, wheat and barley, and oil and
honey; intimating that they would discover it to
him, and put him in possession of it all, if he would
spare them. Skin for skin, and all that a man has,
will he give for his life. This bait prevailed. Ish¬
mael saved them, not for the love of mercy, but for
the love of money. Here were riches kept for the
owners thereof, not to their hurt, (Eccl. v. 13.) and
to cause them to lose their lives, (Job xxxi. 39.)
but to their good, and the preserving of their lives.
Solomon observes, that sometimes the ransom of a
man’s life is his riches. But those who think 'Mu
to bribe death, when it comes with commission, and
plead with it, saying, Slay us not, for we have trea¬
sures in the field, will find death inexorable, and
themselves wretchedly deceived.
4. He carried off the people prisoners; the king’s
daughters, whom the Chaldeans cared not for
troubling themselves with, when they had the
king’s sons; and the poor of the land, the vine¬
dressers and husbandmen, that were committed to
Gedaliah’s charge, were all led away prisoners to¬
ward the country of the Ammonites; ( v . 10.) Ish¬
mael probably intending to make a present of them,
as the trophies of his barbarous victory, to the king
of that country that set him on. This melancholy
story is a warning to us, never to be secure in this
world. Worse may be yet to come then, when we
think the worst is over; and that end of one trouble,
which we fancy to be the end of all trouble, may
prove to be the beginning of another, of a greater.
These here thought, Surely the bitterness of death
and of captivity is past; and yet some died by the
sword, and others went into captivity. When we
think ourselves safe, and begin to be easy, destruc¬
tion may come that way that we little expected it.
There is many a ship wrecked in the harbour. We
can never be sure of peace on this side heaven.
1 1 . But when Johanan the son of Kareah,
and all the captains of the forces that were
with him, heard of all the evil that Ishmael
the son of Nethaniah had done, 12. Then
they took all the men, and went to fight
with Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and
found him by the great waters that are in
Gibeon. 13. Now it came to pass, /hat
when all the people which were with Ish¬
mael saw Johanan the son of Kareah, and
all the captains of the forces that were with
him, then they were glad. 14. So all the
people that Ishmael had carried away cap¬
tive from Mizpah cast about, and returned,
and went unto Johanan the son of Kareah.
15. But Ishmael the son of Nethaniah es¬
caped from Johanan with eight men, and
went to the Ammonites. 16. Then took
Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the cap¬
tains of the forces that were with him, all
the remnant of the people whom he had re¬
covered from Ishmael the son of Nethaniah,
from Mizpah, (after that he had slain Geda¬
liah the son of Ahikam,) even mighty men
of war, and the women, and the children,
and the eunuchs, whom he had brought
again from Gibeon: 17. And they departed,
and dwelt in the habitation of Chimham,
which is by Beth-lehem, to go to enter into
Egypt, 18. Because of the Chaldeans: for
they were afraid of them, because Ishmael
the son of Nethaniah had slain Gedaliah the
son of Ahikam, whom the king of Babylon
made governor in the land.
It hart been well if Johanan, when he gave infor¬
mation to Gedaliah of Ishmael ’s treasonable design,
though he could not obtain leave to kill Ishmael,
and to prevent it that way, yet had stayed with Ge¬
daliah; for he, and his captains, and their forces,
•night have been a life-guard to Gedaliah, and t
515
JEREMIAH, XL11.
terror to Ishmael, and so have prevented the mis¬
chief, without the effusion of blood: but it seems,
they were out upon some expedition, perhaps no
good one, and so were out of the way when they
should have been upon the best service. Those
that affect to ramble are many times out of their
place when they are most needed. However, at
length they hear of all the evil that Ishmael had
done, (v. 11.) and are resolved to try an after-game,
which we have an account of in these verses.
1. We heartily wish Johanan could have taken
revenge upon the murderers, but he prevailed only
to rescue the captives. They that had shed so
much blood, it was pity but their blood should have
been shed; and it is strange that vengeance suffered
them to live; yet it did. Johanan gathered what
forces he could, and went to fight with Ishmael; ( y .
12.) upon notice of the murders he had committed,
(for though he concealed it for a time, (v, 4.) yet
murder will out,) and which way he was gone, he
pursued him, and overtook him by the great pool
of Gibeon, which we read of, 2 Sam. ii. 13. And
upon his appealing with such a force, Ishmael’s
heart failed him, his guilty conscience flew in his
face, and he durst not stand his ground against an
enemy that was something like a match for him.
The most cruel are often the most cowardlv. The
poor captives were glad when they s'aw Johanan,
and the captains that were with him, looking upon
them as their deliverers, (x\ 13.) and they imme¬
diately found a way to wheel about, and come over
to them, (v. 14.) Ishmael not offering to detain them
when he saw Johanan. Note, Those that would be
helped must help themselves. These captives
stayed not till their conquerors were beaten, but
took the first opportunity to make their escape, as
soon as they saw their friends appear, and their
enemies thereby disheartened. Ishmael quitted his
prey, to save his life, and escaped with eight men,
v. 15. It seems, two of his ten men, that were his
banditti or assassins, spoken of, v. 1. either deserted
him, or were killed in the engagement; but he
made the best of his way to the Ammonites, as a
perfect renegado, that had quite abandoned all rela¬
tion to the commonwealth of Israel, though he was
of the seed royal, and we hear no more of him.
2. We heartily wish that Johanan, when he had
rescued the captives, would have sitten down quiet-
Iv with them, and governed them peaceably, as
Gedaliah did; but, instead of that, he is for leading
them into the land of Egypt, as Ishmael would have
.ed them into the land of the Ammonites; so that
though he got the command over them in a better
way than Ishmael did, and honestly enough, yet he
did not use it much better. Gedaliah, who was of
a meek and quiet spirit, was a great blessing to
them; but Johanan, who was of a fierce and restless
spirit, was set over them for their hurt, and to com¬
plete their ruin, even after they were, as they
thought, redeemed. Thus did God still walk con¬
trary to them. (1.) The resolution of Johanan and
the captains was very rash; nothing would serve
them but they wotdd go to enter into Egypt, (n. 17. )
and, in order to that, they encamped for a time in
the habitation of Chimham, by Bethlehem, David’s
city. Probably it was some land .which David gave
to Chimham, the son of Barzillai, which, though it
returned to David’s family, at the year of Jubilee,
yet still bore the name of Chimham. Here Johanan
made his head-quarters, steering his course to¬
wards Egypt, either from a personal affection to
that country, or an ancient national confidence in
the Egyptians for help in distress. Some of the
mighty men of war, it seems, had escaped; those
he took with him, and the women ana children,
whom he had recovered from Ishmael, who were
thus emptied from vessel to vessel, because they
were yet unchanged. (2.) The reason for this re¬
solution was very frivolous. They pretended that
they were afraid of the Chaldeans, that they would
come and do I know not what with them, because
Ishmael had killed Gedaliah, v. 18. I cannot think
they really had any apprehensions of danger upon
this account; for though it is true that the Chal¬
deans had cause enough to resent the murder of
their viceroy, yet they were not so unreasonable, or
unjust, as to revenge it upon those who appeared so
vigorously against the murderers. But they only
made use of this as a sham to cover that corrupt in¬
clination of their unbelieving ancestors, which was
so strong in them, to return into Egypt. Those
will justly lose’ their comfort in real tears, that ex¬
cuse themselves in sin with pretended fears.
CHAP. XLII.
Johanan and the captains being strongly bent upon going
into Egypt, either their affections or politics advising
them to take that course, they had a great desire that
God should direct them to do so too; like Balaam, who,
when he was determined to go curse Israel, asked God
leave. Here is, I. The fair bargain that was made be¬
tween Jeremiah and them about consulting God in this
matter, v. 1 . . 6. II. The message at large which God
sent them, in answer to their inquiry; in which, 1. Thev
are commanded and encouraged to continue in the land
of Judah, and assured that if they did so, it should be
well with them, v. 7.. 12. 2. They are forbidden to go
to Egypt, and are plainly told that if they did, it would
be their ruin, v. 13. .18. 3. They are charged with dis¬
simulation in their asking what God’s will was in this
matter, and disobedience when they were told what it
was; and sentence is passed upon them for it, v. 19. .22.
1 . r R 'M IEN all the captains of the forces,
JL and Johanan the son of Ivareah,
and Jezamah the son of Hoshaiah, and all
the people, from the least even to the great¬
est, came near, 2. And said unto Jere¬
miah the prophet, Let, we beseech thee, our
supplication be accepted before thee, and
pray for us unto the Lord thy God, even
for all this remnant; (for we are left but a
few of many, as thine eyes do behold us;)
3. That the Lord thy God may shew us
the way wherein we may walk, and the
thing that we may do. 4. Then Jeremiah
the prophet said unto them, I have heard
you ; behold, I will pray unto the Lord
your God according to your words, and it
shall come to pass, that whatsoever thing
the Lord shall answer you, I will declare
it unto you ; I will keep nothing back from
you. 5. Then they said to Jeremiah, The
Lord be a true and faithful witness between
us, if we do not even according to all things
for the which the Lord thy God shall send
thee to us. 6. Whether it be good, or
whether it be evil, we will obey the voice of
the Lord our God, to whom we send thee;
that it may be well with us, when we obey
the voice of the Lord our God.
We have reason to wonder how Jeremiah the pro ¬
phet escaped the sword of Ishmael; it seems lie did
escape, and it was not the first time that the Lord
hid him. It is strange also that in these violent
turns he was not consulted before now, and his ad¬
vice asked and taken. But it should seem as if they
knew not that a prophet was among them; though
516 JEREMIAH, XLII.
this people were as brands plucked out of the fire,
yet have they not returned to the Lord. This peo¬
ple has a revolting and a rebellious heart; and con¬
tempt of God and his providence, God and his pro¬
phets, is still the sin that most easily besets them.
But now at length, to serve a turn, Jeremiah is
sought out, and all the captains, Johanan himself
not excepted, with all the people from the least to
the greatest, make him a visit; they came near, (y.
1.) which intimates that hitherto they had kept at
a distance from the prophet, and had been shy of
him. Now here,
1. They desire him by prayer to ask direction
from God what they should do in the present criti¬
cal juncture, v. 2, 3. They express themselves
wonderfully well. (1.) With great respect to the
prophet. Though he was poor and low, and under
their command, yet they apply themselves to him
with humility and submissiveness, as petitioners for
his assistance, which yet they intimate their own
unworthiness of; Let, we beseech thee, our supplica¬
tion be accepted before thee. They compliment him
thus, in hopes to persuade him to say as they would
have him say. (2.) With a great opinion of his in¬
terest in heaven; “ Pray for us, who know not how
to pray for ourselves. Pray to the Lord thy God,
for we are unworthy to call him ours, nor have we
reason to expect any favour from him.” (3.) With
a great sense of the need of divine direction. They
speak of themselves as objects of compassion; “ Ire
are but a remnant, but a few of many; how easily
will such a remnant be swallowed up, and yet it is
pity that it should. Thine eyes see what distress we
are in, what a plunge we are at; if thou canst do
any thing, help us.” (4.) With desire of divine
direction; “Let the Lord thy God take this ruin
into his thoughts, and under his hand, and show us
the way wherein we may walk, and may expect to
have his presence with us, and the thing that we
may do, the course we may take for our own safety. ”
Note, In every difficult, doubtful case, our eye must
be up to God for direction. They then might ex¬
pect to be directed by a spirit of prophecy , which is
now ceased; but we may still in faith pray to be
guided by a spirit of wisdom in our hearts, and the
hints of Providence.
2. Jeremiah faithfully promises them to pray for
direction for them, and, whatever message God
should send to them by him, he would deliver it to
them just as he received it, without adding, alter¬
ing, or diminishing, v. 4. Ministers may hence
learn, (1.) Conscientiously to pray for those who
desire their prayers; I will pray for you, according
to your words. Though they had slighted him, yet,
like Samuel, when he was slighted, he will not sin
against the Lord in ceasing to pray for them, 1
Sam. xii. 23. (2.) Conscientiously to advise those
who desire their advice, as near as they can to the
mind of God, not keeping back any thing that is
profitable for them, whether it be pleasing or no,
but to declare to them the whole counsel of God, that
they may approve themselves true to their trust.
3. They fairly promise that they will be govern¬
ed by the will of God, as soon as they know what
it is, ( [v . 5, 6.) and they had the impudence to ap¬
peal to God concerning their sincerity herein,
though at the same time they dissemble; “ The
Lora be a true and faithful Witness between us;
do thou in the fear of God tell us truly what his
mind is, and then we will in the fear of God comply
with it; and for this, the Lord the Judge be judge
between us.” Note, Those that expect to have
the benefit of good ministers’ prayers, must con¬
scientiously hearken to their preaching, and be go¬
verned by it, as far as it agrees with the mind of
God. Nothing could be better said than this here,
Whether it be good, or whether it be evil, we will
obey the voice of the Lord our God, that it may be
well with us. (1.) They now call God their God,
for Jeremiah had encouraged them to call him so;
(y. 4.) I will pray to the Lord your God. He is
ours, and therefore we will obey his voice. Our
relation to God strongly obliges us to obedience. (2 . ,
They promise to obey his voice, because they sent
the prophet to him to consult him. Note, We do
not truly desire to know the mind of God if we do
not fully resolve to comply with it when we do
know it. (3.) It is an implicit, universal obedience
that they here promise. They will do what God
appoints them to do, whether it be good, or whether
it be evil; “Though it may seem evil to us, yet we
will believe that if God commands it, it is certainly
good, and we must not dispute it, but do it. What¬
ever God commands, whether it be easy or difficult,
agreeable to our inclinations or contrary to them,
whether it be cheap or costly, fashionable or un¬
fashionable, whether we get or lose by it in our
wordly interests, if it be our duty, we will do it.”
(4.) It is upon a very good consideration that they
promise this, a reasonable and powerful one, that
it may be well with us; which intimates a convic¬
tion that they could not expect it should be well
with them upon any other terms.
7. And it came to pass, after ten days,
that the word of the Lord came unto Jere¬
miah. 8. Then called he Johanan the son
of Kareah, and all the captains of the
forces which icere with him, and all the
people, from the least even to the greatest,
9. And said unto them, Thus saith the
Lord, the God of Israel, unto whom ye
sent me to present your supplication before
him; 10. If ye will still abide in this land,
then will I build you, and not pull you
down ; and I will plant you, and not pluck
you up: for I repent me of the evil that ]
have done unto you. 1 1. Be not afraid of
the king of Babylon, of whom ye are afraid,
be not afraid of him, saith the Lord: for 1
am with you to save you, and to deliver you
from his hand. 12. And I will shew mer¬
cies unto you, that he may have mercy
upon you, and cause you to return to your
own land. 13. But if ye say, We will not
dwell in this land, neither obey the voice ol
the Lord your God, 14. Saying, No; but
we will go into the land of Egypt, where
we shall see no war, nor hear the sound of
a trumpet, nor have hunger of bread ; and
there will we dwell : 1 5. And now, there¬
fore, hear the word of the Lord, ye rem¬
nant of Judah; Thus saith the Lord of
hosts, the God of Israel, If ye wholly set
your faces to 'enter into Egypt-, and go to
sojourn there; 16. Then it shall come to
pass, that the sword, which ye feared, shall
overtake you there in the land of Egypt,
and the famine, whereof ye were afraid,
shall follow close after you in Egypt ; and
there ye shall die. 17. So shall it be with
all the men that set their faces to go into
Egypt, to sojourn there; they shall die by
JEREMIAH, XLII. 517
the sword, by the famine, and by the pesti¬
lence: and none of them shall remain or
escape from the evil that I will bring upon
them. 18. For thus saith the Lord of
hosts, the God of Israel, As mine anger and
mj' fury hath been poured forth upon the
inhabitants of Jerusalem; so shall my fury
be poured forth upon you, when ye shall
enter into Egypt: and ye shall be an exe¬
cration, and an astonishment, and a curse,
and a reproach; and ye shall see this place
no more. 19. The Lord hath said con¬
cerning you, O ye remnant of Judah, Go
ye not into Egypt: know certainly that I
have admonished you this day. 20. For
ye dissembled in your hearts, when ye sent
me unto the Lord your God, saying, Pray
for us unto the Lord our God ; and accord¬
ing unto all that the Lord our God shall
say, so declare unto us, and we will do it.
21. And now I have this day declared it to
you ; but ye have not obeyed the voice of
the Lord your God, nor any thing for the
which he hath sent me unto you. 22. Now,
therefore, know certainly that ye shall die
by the sword, by the famine, and by the
pestilence, in the place whither ye desire to
go, and to sojourn.
We have here the answer which Jeremiah was
sent to deliver to those who employed him to ask
counsel of God.
I. It did not come immediately, not till ten days
after, v. 7. They were thus long held in suspense,
perhaps to punish them for their hypocrisy, or to
show that Jeremiah did not speak of himself, nor
what he would; for he could not speak when he
would, but must wait for instructions. However, it
teaches us to continue waiting upon God for direc¬
tion in our way. The vision is for an appointed
time, and at the end it shall speak.
II. When it did come, he delivered it publicly,
both to the captains, and to all the people, from the
meanest to those in the highest station; he deliver¬
ed it fully and faithfully as he received it, as he had
promised that he would keep nothing back from
them. If Jeremiah had been to direct them by his
own prudence, perhaps he could not have told what
to advise them to, the case was so difficult; but
what he has to advise, is what the Lord the God of
Israel saithl to whom they had sent him, and there¬
fore thev were bound in honour and duty to observe
it And this he tells them,
1. That it is the will of God that they would stay
where they were; and his promise, that if they do
so, it shall undoubtedly be well with them; he would
have them still to abide in this land, v. 10. Their
brethren were forced out of it into captivity, and it
was their affliction; let them therefore count it a
mercy that they may stay in it, and a duty to stay
in it. Let those whose lot is m Canaan, never quit
it while they can keep it. It had been enough to
oblige them, if God had only said, “I charge you
upon your allegiance, to abide still in the land;”
but he rather persuades them to it as a Friend than
commands it as a Prince.
( 1. ) He expresses a very tender concern for them
in their present calamitous condition; It repenteth
me of the evil that I have done unto you. Though
they had shown small sign of their repenting of
their sins, yet God, as one grieved for the misery oj
Israel, (Judg. x. 16.) begins to repent of the judg¬
ments he had brought upon them for their sins.
Not that he changed his mind, but he was very
ready to change his way, and to return in mercy to
them. God’s time to repent himself concerning his
servants is when he sees that, as here, their strength
is gone, and there is none shut up or left, Deut.
xxxii. 36.
(2.) He answers the argument they had against
abiding in this land; they feared the king of Baby¬
lon, ( ch . xli. 18.) lest he should come, and avenge
the death of Gedaliah upon them, though they
were no wav accessary to it, nay, had witnessed
against it The surmise was foreign and unreason¬
able; but if there had been any ground for it,
enough is here said to remove it; ( v . 11.) “ Be not
afraid of the king of Babylon, though he is a man
of great might and little mercy, and a very arbi¬
trary prince, whose will is a law, and therefore you
are afraid he will, upon this pretence, though with¬
out colour of reason, take advantage against you; be
not afraid of him, for that fear will bring a snare:
fear not him, for / am with you; and if God be for
you to save you, who can be against you to hurt
you?” Thus has God provided to obviate and si¬
lence even the causeless fears of his people, which
discourage them in the way of their duty; there is
enough in the promises to do it.
(3. ) He assured them that if they will still abide
in this land, they shall not only be safe from the
king of Babylon, but be made happy by the King
of kings; “I will build you and plant you; you
shall take root again, and be the new foundation of
another state; a phcenix-kingdom, rising out of the
ashes of the last.” It is added, {v. 12.) I will
show mercies unto you. Note, In all our comforts
we may read God’s mercies. God will show them
mercy in this, that not only the king of Babylon
shall not destroy them, but he shall have mercy
upon them, and help to settle them. Note, What¬
ever kindness men do us, we must attribute it to
God’s kindness. He makes those whom he pities
to be pitied even by those that' carried them cap¬
tives, Ps. cvi. 46. “The king of Babylon, having
now the disposal of the country, shall cause you to
return to your own land, shall settle you again in
your own habitations, and put you in possession of
the lands that formerly belonged to you.” Note,
God has made that our duty, which is really our
privilege, and our obedience will be its own recom¬
pense. “Abide in this land, and it shall be your
own land again, and you shall continue in it. Do
not quit it, now that you stand so fair for the enjoy¬
ment of it again. Be not so unwise as to forsake
your own mercies for lying vanities.”
2. That as they tender the favour of God and
their own happiness, they must by no means think
of going into Egypt; not thither, of all places, that
land out of which God had delivered their fathers,
and which he had so often warned them not to make
alliance with, nor to put confidence in. Observe here,
(1.) The sin they are supposed to be guilty of;
(and to him that knew their hearts it was more
than a supposition;) “You begin to say. We will
not dwell in this land, (y. 13.) we will never think
that we can be safe in it, no, not though God him¬
self undertake our protection; we will not continue
in it, no, not in obedience to the voice of the Lord
our God; he may say what he pleases, but we will
do what we please; we will go into the land of
Egypt, and there will we dwell, whether God give
us leave, and go along with us, or no,” v. 14. It is
supposed that their hearts were upon it; “ If ye
wholly set your faces to enter into Egypt, are ob¬
stinately resolved that ye will go, and sojourn the^e,
518 JEREMIAH, XLIII.
though God oppose you in it, both by his word and
by his providence, then take what follows.” Now
the reason they go upon in this resolution, is, that
in Egypt we shall see no war, nor have hunger of
bread, as we have had for a long time in this land,
v. 14. Note, It is folly to quit our place, especially
to quit the holy land, because we meet with trouble
in it; but greater folly to think by changing our place
to escape the judgments of God, and that evil which
pursues sinners in every way of disobedience, and
which there is no escaping but by returning to our
allegiance.
(2. ) The sentence passed upon them for this sin,
if they will persist in it. It is pronounced in God’s
name; (v. 15.) “ Hear the word of the Lord, ye
remnant of Judah, who think that because you are
a remnant, you must be spared of course, (t/. 2.) and
indulged in your own humour. [1.] Did the sword
and famine frighten them? Those very judgments
shall pursue them into Egypt, shall overtake them,
and overcome them, there; ( v . 16, IT. ) “You
think, because war and famine have long been rag¬
ing in this land, that they are entailed upon it;
whereas, if you trust in God, he can make even
this land a land of peace to you; you think they
are confined to it, and if you can get clear of this
land, you shall get out of the reach of them, but
God will send them after you wherever you go.”
Note, The evils we think to escape by Sin, we cer¬
tainly and inevitably run ourselves upon. The men
that go to Egypt, in contradiction to God’s will, to
escape the sword and famine, shall die in Egypt by
snvord and famine. We may apply it to the com¬
mon calamities of human life; those that are impa¬
tient of them, and think to avoid them by changing
their place, will find that they are deceived, and
that they do not at all mend themselves; the griev¬
ances common to men will meet them wherever
they go; all our removes in this world are but from
one wilderness to another; still we are where we
were. [2.] Did the desolations of Jerusalem fright¬
en them? Were they willing to get as far as they
could from them? They shall meet with the second
part of them too in Egypt: (y. 18.) As my anger
and fury have been poured out here upon Jerusa¬
lem, so they shall be poured out upon you in
Egypt. Note, Those that have by sin made God
their Enemy, will find him a consuming Fire,
wherever they go. And then ye shall be an exe¬
cration and an astonishment. The Hebrews were
of old an abomination to the Egyptians; (Gen xliii.
32. ) and now they shall be made more so than ever.
When God’s professing people mingle themselves
with infidels, and make their court to them, they
lose their dignity, and make themselves a reproach.
3. That God knew their hypocrisy in their in¬
quiries of him, and that when they asked what he
would have them to do, they were resolved to take
their own way; and therefore the sentence which
was before pronounced conditionally is made abso¬
lute. Having set before them good and evil, the
blessing and the curse, in the close he makes appli¬
cation of what he had said. And here, (1.) He
solemnly protests that he had faithfully delivered
his message, v. 19. The conclusion of the whole
matter is, “ Go not down into Egypt, you disobey
the command of God if you do, and what I have
said to you will be a witness against you; for know
certainly, that whether you will hear, or whether
you will forbear, I have plainly admonished you,
you cannot now plead ignorance of the mind of
God.” (2.) He charges them with base dissimula¬
tion in the application they made to him for divine
direction; {v. 20.) “ You dissembled in your hearts,
you professed one thing and intended another, you
promised what you never meant to perform.” You
have used deceit against your souls; so the margin
reads it: for those that think to put a cheat upon
God, will prove in the end to have put a damning
cheat upon themselves. (3.) He is already aware
that they are determined to go contrary to the com¬
mand of God; probably, they discovered it in their
countenance and secret mutterings already, before
he had finished his discourse. However, he spake
from him who knew their hearts; “ Ye have not
obeyed the voice of the Lord your God, ye have
not a disposition to obey it. ” Thus Moses, in the
close of his farewell sermon, had told them, (Deut.
xxxi. 27, 29.) I know thy rebellion and thy stiff
neck — and that ye will corrupt yourselves. Admire
the patience of God, that he is pleased to speak to
those who, he knows, will not regard him, and deal
with those who, he knows, will deal treacherously ,
Isa. xlviii. 8. (4.) He therefore reads them their
doom, ratifying what he had said before, Know
certainly that ye shall die by the sword, v. 22. Gcd’s
threatenings maybe vilified, but cannot be nullified,
by the unbelief of man. Famine and pestilence
shall pursue these sinners; for there is no place
privileged from divine arrests, nor can any male¬
factors go out of God’s jurisdiction. Ye shall die in
the place whither ye desire to go. Note, We know
not what is good for ourselves; and that often proves
afflictive, and sometimes fatal, which we are most
fond of, and have our hearts most set upon.
CHAP. XLIII.
Jeremiah had faithfully delivered his message from God,
in the foregoing chapter, and the case was made so very
plain by it, that one would have thought there needed
no more words about it ; but we find it quite otherwise.
Here is, I. The people’s contempt of this message; they
denied it to be the word of God, (v. 1 . . 3.) and then
made no difficulty of going directly contrary to it. Into
Egypt they went, and took Jeremiah himself along with
them, v. 4 . . 7. II. God’s pursuit of them with another
message, foretelling the king of Babylon’s pursuit of
them into Egypt, v. 8 . . 13.
1. 4 ND it came to pass, that when Jerc
miah had made an end of speaking
unto all the people all the words of the
Lord their God, for which the Lord their
God had sent him to them, even all these
words, 2. Then spake Azariah the son of
Hoshaiah, and Johanan the son of Kareah,
and all the proud men,saying unto Jeremiah,
Thou speakest falsely: the Lord our God
hath not sent thee to say, Go not into Egypt
to sojourn there : 3. But Baruch the son
of Neriah setteth thee on against us, for to
deliver us into the hand of the Chaldeans,
that they might put us to death, and carry
us away captives into Babylon. 4. So Jo¬
hanan the son of Kareali, and all the cap¬
tains of the forces, and ail the people, obey¬
ed not the voice of the Lord, to dwell in
the land of Judah; 5. But Johanan the
son of Kareah, and all the captains of the
forces, took all the remnant of Judah, that
were returned from all nations whither they
had been driven, to dwell in the land of
Judah ; 6. Even men, and women, and
children, and the king’s daughters, and every
person that Nebuzar-adan the captain of
the guard had left with Gedaliah the son of
Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, and Jeremiah
519
JEREMIAH, XLIII.
tile prophet, and Baruch the son of Neriah.
7. So they came into the land of Egypt :
for they obeyed not the voice of the Lord.
Tlius came they even to Tahpanhes.
VVliat God said to the builders of Babel, may
truly said of this people that Jeremiah is now
iealing with; JVow nothing will be restrained from
them which they have imagined to do, Gen. xi. 6.
They have a fancy for Egypt, and to Egypt they
will go, whatever God himself saith to the contrary.
Jeremiah made them hear all he had to say, though
he saw them uneasy at it; it was what the Lord
their God had sent him to speak to them, and they
shall have it all. And now let us see what they
have to say to it.
1. They deny it to be a message from God; Joha-
<ian, and all the proud men, said to Jeremiah, Thou
”j leakest falsely, v. 2. See here, (1.) What was
the cause of their disobedience, it was pride; only
by that comes contention both with God and man:
they were proud men that gave the lie to the pro¬
phet. They could not bear the contradiction of
their sentiments, and the control of their designs,
no, not by the divine wisdom, by the divine will
itself. Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord that I should
obey him? Exod. v. 2. The proud, unhumbled
heart of man is one of the most daring enemies God
has on this side hell. (2.) What was the colour for
their diobedience. They would not acknowledge it
to be the word of God; The Lord hath not sent thee
on this errand to us. Either they were not con¬
vinced that what was said came from God, or,
(which I rather think,) though they were convinced
of it, they would not own it. The light shone
sti ong in their face, but they either shut their eyes
against it, or would not confess that they saw it.
Note, The reason why men deny the scriptures to
be the word of God, is, because they are resolved
not to conform themselves to scripture-rules, and
so an obstinate infidelity is made the sorry subter¬
fuge of a wilful disobedience. If God had spoken
to them by an angel, or as he did from mount Sinai,
they would have said that it was a delusion. Had
they not consulted Jeremiah as a prophet? Had not
he waited to receive instructions from God what to
say to them? Had not what he said all the usual
marks of prophecy upon it? Was not the prophet
himself embarked in the same bottom with them?
What interests could he have separate from theirs?
Had he not always approved himself an Israelite
indeed; And had not God proved him a prophet in¬
deed? Had any of his words ever fallen to the
ground? Why truly they had some good thoughts
of Jeremiah, but they suggest, ( [v . 3.) Baruch sets
thee on against us. A likely thing, that Baruch
should be in a plot to deliver them into the hands of
the Chaldeans; and what would he get by that? If
Jeremiah and he had been so well affected to the
Chaldeans as they would represent them, they
would have gone away at first with Nebuzar-adan,
when he courted them, to Babylon, and not have
staid to take their lot with this despised, ungrateful
remnant. But the best services are no fence
against malice and slander. Or, if Baruch had
been so ill disposed, could they think Jeremiah
would be so influenced by him as to make God’s
name an authority to patronize so villanous a pur¬
pose? Note, Those that are resolved to contradict
the great ends of the ministry, are industrious to
bring a bad name upon it. When men will persist
in sin, they represent those that would turn them
from it as designing men for themselves, nav, as ill-
designing men against their neighbours. It is well
for persons who are thus misrepresented, that their
witness is in heaven, and their record on high.
2. They determine to go to Egypt however. They
resolve not to dwell in the land of Judah, as God
had ordered them, ( v . 4. ) but to go themselves witn
one consent, and to take all that they had undet
thei' power along with them to Egypt. Those that
catr.e from all the nations whither they had been
driven, to dwell in the land of Judah, out of a sin¬
cere affection to that land, they would not leave to
their liberty, but forced them to "o with them into
Egypt, (y. 5.) men, women, and children, (v. 6.) along
journey into a strange country, an idolatrous country,
a country that had never been kind or faithful to Israel ;
yet thither they would go, though they deserted their
own land and threw themselves out of God’s protec¬
tion. It is the folly of men, that they know not when
they are well off, and often ruin themselves by endea¬
vouring to mend themselves; and it is the pride of
great men to force those they have under their
power to follow them, though ever so much against
their duty and interest. These proud men com¬
pelled even Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch his
scribe to go along with them to Egypt; they carried
them away as prisoners, partly to punish them,
(and a greater punishment they could not indict
upon them than to force them against their con¬
sciences; theirs is the worst of tyranny who say to
men’s souls, even to good men’s souls, Bow down,
that we may go over,) partly to put some reputation
upon themselves and their own way; though the
prophets were under a force, they would make the
world believe that they were voluntary in going
along with them. Who could have blamed them
for acting contrary to the word of the Lord, if the
prophets themselves had acted so? They came to
Tahpanhes, a famous city of Egypt, (so called from
a queen of that name, 1 Kings xi. 19.) the same
with Hanes; (Isa. xxx. 4.) it was now the metro¬
polis, for Pharaoh’s house was there, (u. 9.) no
place could serve these proud men to settle in but
the royal city, and near the court; so little mindful
were they of Joseph’s wisdom, who would have his
brethren settle in Goshen, if they had had the
spirit of Israelites, they would have chosen rather
to dwell in the wilderness of Judah than in the
most pompous, populous cities of Egypt.
8. Then came the word of the Lord unto
Jeremiah in Tahpanhes, saying, 9. Take
great stones in thy hand, and hide them in
the clay in the brick-kiln, which is at the
entry oi' Pharaoh’s house in Tahpanhes, in
the sight of the men of Judah; 10. And
say unto them, Thus saith the Lord of
hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will send
and take Nebuchadrezzar the king of Ba¬
bylon my servant, and will set his throne
upon these stones that I have hid ; and he
shall spread his royal pavilion over them.
11. And when he cometh, he shall smite
the land of Egypt, and deliver such as are
for death, to death; and such as are for
captivity, to captivity ; and such as are for
the sword, to the sword. 12. And I will
kindle a fire in the houses of the gods of
Egypt ; and he shall burn them, and carry
them away Aptives; and he shall array
himself with the land of Egypt, as a shep¬
herd putteth on his garment ; and he shall
go forth from thence in peace. 13. He
shall break also the images of Beth-she-
520
1EREMIAH, XLIV.
mesh, that is in the land of Egypt; and the
houses of the gods of the Egyptians shall
he burn with fire
We have here, as also in the next chapter, Jere¬
miah prophesying in Egypt. Jeremiah was now in
Tahpanhes, for there his lords and masters were;
he was there among idolatrous Egyptians and
treacherous Israelites; but there, 1. He received the
nuord of the Lord; it came to him. God can find
his people, with the visits of his grace, wherever
they are; and when his ministers are bound, yet the
word of the Lord is not bound. The spirit of pro¬
phecy was not confined to the land of Israel. W lien
Jeremiah went into Egypt, not out of choice, but
by constraint, God withdrew not his wonted favour
from him. 2. What he received of the Lord he de¬
livered to the people. Wherever we are, we must en¬
deavour todo good, for that is our business in this world.
Now we find two messages which Jeremiah was
appointed and intrusted to deliver, when he was in
Egypt. We may suppose that he rendered what
services he could to his countrymen in Egypt, at
least as far as they would be acceptable, in perform¬
ing the ordinary' duties of a prophet, praying for
them, and instructing and comforting them; but
only two messages of his, which he had received
immediately from God, are recorded; one in this
chapter, relating to Egypt itself, and foretelling its
destruction; the other in the next chapter, relating
to the Jews in Egypt.
God had told them before, that if they went into
Egypt, the sword they feared should follow them;
here he tells them further, that the sword of Nebu¬
chadrezzar, which they .were in a particular man¬
ner afraid of, should follow them.
I This is foretold by a sign. Jeremiah must take
great stones , such as are used for foundations, and
lay them in the clay of the furnace, or brick-kiln,
which is in the often way, or beside the way that
leads to Pharaoh’s house', (v. 9.) some remarkable
place in view of the royal palace. Egypt was fa¬
mous for brick-kilns, witness the slavery of the Is¬
raelites there, whom they forced to make bricks,
(Exod. v. 7.) which perhaps was now remembered
•against them. The foundation of Egypt’s desola¬
tion was laid in those brick-kilns, in that clay.
This he must do, not in the sight of the Egyptians,
(they knew not Jeremiah’s character,) but in the
sight of the men of Judah to whom he was sent,
that since he could not prevent their going into
Egypt, he might bring them to repent of their
going.
II. It is foretold in express words, as express as
can be,
1. That the king, the present king of Babylon,
Nebuchadrezzar, the very same that had been em¬
ployed in the destruction of Jerusalem, should come
in person against the land of Egypt, should make
himself master even of this royal city, that he
should set his throne in that very place where these
stones were laid, v. 10. This niinute circumstance
is particularly foretold, that, when it was accom¬
plished, they might be put in mind of the prophecy,
and confirmed in their belief of the extent and cer¬
tainty of the divine prescience, to which the smallest
and most contingent events are evident. God calls
Nebuchadrezzar his servant, because herein he
executed God’s will, accomplished ‘his purposes,
and was instrumental to carry on his designs. Note,
The world’s princes are God’s servants, and he
makes what use he pleases of them, and even those
that know him not, nor aim at his honour, are the
tools which his providence makes use of.
2. That he should destroy many of the Egyp¬
tians, and have them all at his mercy; (y. 11.) He
shall smite the land of Egypt; and t'r ugh it has been
always a warlike nation, yet none shall be able to
make head against him, but whom he will he shall
slay, and by what sort of death he will, whether pes¬
tilence, (for that is here meant by death, as ch. xv,
2.) by shutting them up in places infected, or by
the sword of war or justice, in cold blood or hot.
And whom he will, he shall save alive, and carry
into captivity. The Jews, by going into Egypt,
brought the Chaldeans thither, and so did but ill
repay those that entertained them. They who
promised to protect Israel from the king of Babylon
exposed themselves to him.
3. That he shall destroy the idols of Egypt, both
the temples, and the images, of their gods; ( v . 12.)
He shall burn the houses of the gods of Egypt, but
it shall be with a fire of God’s kindling; the fire of
God’s wrath fastens upon them, and then he burns
some of them, and carries others captive, Isa.
xlvi. 1. Beth-shemesh, or the house of the sun,
was so called from a temple there built to the sun,
where at certain times there was a general meeting
of the worshippers of the sun. The statues or
standing images there he shall break in pieces, ( v .
13. ) and carry away the rich materials of them. It
intimates that he should lay all waste, when even
the temple and the images should not escape the
fury of the victorious army. The king of Babylon
was himself a great idolater, and a patron of idola
try, he had his temples and images in honour of th(
sun, as well as the Egyptians, and yet he is em¬
ployed to destroy the idols of Egypt. Thus God
sometimes makes one wicked man, or wicked na
tion, a scourge and plague to another.
4. That he shall make himself master of the land
of Egypt, and none shall be able to plead its cause,
or avenge its quarrel ; ( v . 12. ) He shall array himself
with the rich spoils of the land of Egypt, hoth beautify
and fortify himself with them ; he shall array him¬
self with them as ornaments and as armour, and
this, though it shall be a rich and heavy booty;
being expert in war, and expeditious, he shall slip
on with as much ease, and in as little time, in com
parison, as a shepherd slips on his garment, when
he goes to turn out his sheep in a morning. And,
being loaded with the wealth of many other nations,
the fruits of his conquests, he shall make no more of
the spoils of the land of Egypt than of a shepherd’s
coat. And when he has taken what he pleases, (as
Benhadad threatened to do, 1 Kings xx. 6. ) he shall go
forth in peace, without any molestation given him, or
any precipitation for fear of it, so effectually reduced
shall the land of Egypt be. This destruction of
Egypt by the king of Babylon is foretold, Ezek.
xxix. 19," and xxx. 10. Babylon lay at a great dis¬
tance from Egypt, and yet from thence the destruc¬
tion of Egypt comes; for God can make those judg
ments strike home which are far-fetched.
CHAP. XLIV.
In this chapter we have, I. An awakening sermon which
Jeremiah preached to the Jews in Egypt, to reprove them
for their idolatry, notwithstanding the warnings given
them both by the word and the rod of God, and to threat¬
en the judgments of God against them for it, v. 1 . . 14.
II. The impudent and impious contempt which the peo¬
ple put upon this admonition, and their declared resolu¬
tion to persist in their idolatries notwithstanding, in de¬
spite of God and Jeremiah, v. 15. . 19. III. The sen¬
tence passed upon them for their obstinacy, that they
should all be cut off and perish in Egypt, except a very
small number: and, as a sign or earnest of it, the king
of Egypt should shortly fall into the hands of the king of
Babylon, and be unable any longer to protect them, v.
20. . 30.
1 . FTNHE word that came to Jeremiah con-
M cerning all the Jews which dwell in
the land of Egypt, which dwell at Migdol,and
JEREMIAH, XLIV.
dt Tahpanhes, and at Nopli, and in the
country of Pathros, saying, 2. Thus saith the
Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Ye have
seen all the evil that I have brought upon
Jerusalem, and upon all the cities of Judah;
and, behold, this day they are a desolation,
and no man dvvelleth therein; 3. Because
of their wickedness which they have commit¬
ted, to provoke me to anger, in that they
went to burn incense, and to serve other
gods, whom they knew not, neither they,
you, nor your fathers. 4. Howbeit I sent
unto you all my servants the prophets, rising
early and sending them, saying, Oh, do not
this abominable thing that I hate. 5. But
they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear to
turn from their wickedness, to burn no in¬
cense unto other gods. 6. Wherefore my fury
and mine anger was poured forth, and was
kindled in the cities of Judah and in the
streets of Jerusalem; and they are wasted
and desolate, as at this day. 7. Therefore
now thus saith the Lord, the God of hosts,
the God of Israel, Wherefore commit ye this
great evil against your souls, to cut off from
you man and woman, child and suckling,
out of Judah, to leave you none to remain;
8. In that ye provoke me unto wrath with
the works of your hands, burning incense
unto other gods in the land of Egypt,
whither ye be gone to dwell, that ye might
cut yourselves off, and that ye might be a
curse and a reproach among all the nations
of the earth? 9. Have ye forgotten the
wickedness of your fathers, and the wicked¬
ness of the kings of Judah, and the wick¬
edness of their wives, and your own wicked¬
ness, and the wickedness of your wives,
which they have committed in the land of
Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem ? 1 0.
They are not humbled even unto this day,
neither have they feared, nor walked in my
law, nor in my statutes, that I set before
you, and before your fathers. 1 1 . Therefore
thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of
Israel, Behold, I will set my face against
you for evil, and to cut off all Judah. 12.
And I will take the remnant of Judah, that
have set their faces to go into the land of
Egypt to sojourn there, and they shall all be
consumed, and fall in the land of Egypt;
they shall even be consumed by the sword
and by the famine : they shall die, from the
least even unto the greatest, by the sword and
by the famine ; and they shall be an execra¬
tion, and an astonishment, and a curse, and
a reproach. 1 3. For I will punish them that
dwell in the land of Egypt, as I have pu¬
nished Jerusalem, by the sword, by the fa¬
mine, and by the pestilence : 1 4. So that none
Vol. iv. — 3 tj
521
of the remnant of Judah, which are gone
into the land of Egypt to sojourn there,
shall escape or remain, that they should re¬
turn into the land of Judah, to the which they
have a desire to return to dwell there ; for
none shall return but such as shall escape.
The Jews in Egypt are now dispersed into divers
parts of the country, into Migdol and JVoji/i, and
other places, and Jeremiah is sent on an errand from
God to them, which he delivered either when he
had the most of them together, in Pathros , ( v . 15. )
or going about from place to place preaching to this
purport. He delivered this message in the name of
the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, and in it,
1. God puts them in mind of the desolations of
Judah and Jerusalem, which, though the captives by
the rivers of Babylon were daily mindful of them,
(Ps. cxxxvii. 1.) the fugitives in the cities of Egypt
seem to have forgotten, and needed to be put in
mind of, though these desolations, one would have
thought, had not been so long out of sight as to be¬
come out of mind; (y. 2.) Ye have seen what a de¬
plorable condition Judah and Jerusalem are brought
into; now will you consider whence those desola¬
tions came? From the wrath of God; it was his fury
and his anger that kindled the fire which made Jeru¬
salem and the cities of Judah waste and desolate;
(v. 6.) whoever were the instruments of the de¬
struction, they were but instruments: it was a de¬
struction from the Almighty.
2. He puts them in mind of the sins that brought
those desolations upon Judah and Jerusalem ; it was
for their wickedness, that was it that /irovoked God
to anger, and especially their idolatry, their serving
other gods, {y. 3.) and giving that honour to counter¬
feit deities, the creatures of their own fancy, and the
work of their own hands, which should have been
given to the true God only; they forsook the God
who was known among them, and whose name was
great, for gods that they knew not, upstart deities,
whose original was obscure, and not worth taking
notice of; “JVeither they, nor you, nor your fathers,
could give any rational account why the God of Is¬
rael was exchanged for such impostors.” They
knew not that they were gods, nay, they could not
but know that they were no gods.
3. He puts them in mind of the frequent fair
warning he had given them by his word not to serve
other gods, the contempt of which warnings was a
great aggravation of their idolatry, v. 4. The pro¬
phets were sent with a great deal of care to call to
them, saying, Oh, do not this abominable thing that
I hate. It becomes us to speak of sin with the ut
most dread and detestation as an abominable thing;
it is certainly so, for it is that which God hates, and
we are sure that his judgment is according to truth.
Call it grievous, call it odious, that we may by all
means possible put ourselves and others out of love
with It. It becomes us to give warning of the dan¬
ger of sin, and the fatal consequences of it, with all
seriousness and earnestness; ’‘Oh, do not doit! If
you love God, do not, for it is provoking to him; if
you love your own souls, do not, for it is destructive
to them.” Let conscience do this for us in an hour
of temptation, when we are ready to yield. O take
heed; do not this abominable thing which the Lord
hates; for if God hates it, thou shouldest hate it. But
did they regard what God said to them? No! They
hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, (v. 5.) they
still persisted in their idolatries; and you see what
came of it, therefore God’s anger was poured out
upon them, as at this day. Now this was intended
for warning to you, who have not only heard the
judgments of God’s mouth, as they did, but have
likewise seen the judgments of his hand, by which
622
JEREMIAH, XLIV.
you should be startled and awakened, for they were
inflicted in terrorem — that others might hear and
fear, and do no jnore as they did, lest they should
fare as they fared. ”
4. He reproves them for, and upbraids them with,
their continued idolatries, now that they were come
into Egypt; (v. 8.) You burn incense to other gods
in the land of Egypt; therefore God forbade them
to go into Egypt, because he knew it would be a
snare to them. Those whom God sent into the land of
the Chaldeans, though that was an idolatrous coun¬
try, were there, by the power of God’s grace, wean¬
ed from idolatry; but those who went against God’s
mind into the land of the Eyptians, were there by
the power of their own corruption, more wedded
than ever to their idolatries; for when we thrust our¬
selves without cause or call into places of tempta¬
tion, it is just with God to leave us to ourselves. In
doing this, (1.) They did a great deal of injury to
themselves and their families; “You commit this
great evil against your souls, ( v . 7.) you wrong them,
you deceive them with that which is false, you de¬
stroy them, for it will be fatal to them.” Note, In
sinning against God, we sin against our own souls.
“It is the ready way to cut yourselves off from all
comfort and hope, ( v . 8.) to cut off your name and
honour; so that you will, both by your sin and by
your misery, become a curse and a reproach among
all nations. It will become a proverb, As wretch¬
ed as a Jew. It is the ready way to cut off from
you all your relations, all that you should have joy
of, and have your families built up in, man and wo¬
man, child and suckling, so that Judah shall be a
land lost for want of heirs.” (2.) They filled up the
measure of the iniquity of their fathers, and, as if
that had been too little for them, added to it; (u. 9. )
“ Have ye forgotten the wickedness of those who
are gone before you, that you are not humbled for it
as you ought to be, and afraid of the consequences
of it?” Have you forgotten the punishments of your
fathers? So some read it. “ Do you not know how
dear their idolatry cost them? And yet dare you
continue in that vain conversation received by tra¬
dition from your fathers, though you received the
curse with it?” He reminds them of the sins and
punishments of the kings of Judah, who, great as
they were, escaped not the judgments of God for their
idolatry; yea, and they should have taken warning
by the wickedness of their wives, who had seduced
them to idolatry. In the original it is, And of his
wives, which, Dr. Lightfoot thinks, tacitly reflects
upon Solomon’s wives, particularly his Egyptian
wives, to whom the idolatry of the kings of Judah
owed its original. “ Have you forgotten this, and
what came of it, that you dare venture upon the
same wicked courses?” (See Nell. xiii. 18, 26.)
“Nay, to come to your own times, Have you for¬
gotten your own wickedness and the wickedness of
your wives, when you lived in prosperity in Jeru¬
salem, and what ruin it brought upon you? But,
alas! to what purpose do I speak to them?” (says
God to the prophet, v. 10.) “ They are not hum¬
bled, unto this day, by all the humbling provi¬
dences that they have been under. They have not
feared nor walked in my law.” Note, Those that
walk not in the law of God, thereby show that they
are destitute of the fear of God.
5. He threatens their utter ruin for their persisting
in their idolatry, now that they were in Egypt.
Judgment is given against them, as before, (c/i. xlii.
22.) that they shall perish in Egypt; the decree is
gone forth, and shall not be called back; they set
their faces to go into the land of Egypt, ( v . 12.)
were resolute in their purpose against God, and now
God is resolute in his purpose against them; I will
set my face to cut off all Judah, v. 11. They that
think not only to q/front but to confront God Al¬
mighty, will find themselves outfaced; for the face
of the Iwrd is against them that do evil, Ps. xxxiv.
16. It is here threatened, concerning these idola¬
trous Jews in Egypt, (1.) That they shall all be con¬
sumed, without exception, no degree or order among
them shall escape; They shall fall, from the least to
the greatest, (y. 12.) high and low, rich and poor.
(2.) That they shall be consumed by the very same
judgments which God made use of for the punish¬
ment of Jerusalem, the sword, famine, and pes¬
tilence, v. 12, 13. They shall not be wasted by
natural deaths, as Israel in the wilderness, but by
these sore judgments, which, by flying into Egypt,
they thought to get out of the reach of. (3.) That
none (except a very few that will narrowly escape)
shall ever return to the land of Judah again, v. 14.
They thought, being nearer, that they stood fairer
for a return to their own land than those that were
carried to Babylon; yet those shall return, and these
shall not; for the way in which God has promised
us any comfort is much surer than that in which we
have projected it for ourselves. Observe, Those
that are fretful and discontented will be uneasy, and
fond of change, wherever they are. The Israel¬
ites, when they were in the land of Judah, desired
to go into Egypt; ( ch . xlii. 22.) but when they were
in Egypt, they desired to return to the land of Judah
again; they lifted up their soul to it, (so it is in the
margin,) which denotes an earnest desire. But be¬
cause they would not dwell there when God com¬
manded it, they shall not dwell there when they de¬
sire it. If we walk contrary to God, he will walk
contrary to us. How can those expect to be well
ofl', who would not know when they were so, though
God himself told them?
15. Then all the men which knew that
their wives had burnt incense unto other
gods, and all the women that stood by, a
great multitude, even all the people that
dwelt in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, an¬
swered Jeremiah, saying, 16. As for the
word which thou hast spoken unto us in the
name of the Lord, we will not hearken
unto thee. 17. But we will certainly do
whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own
mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of
heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings unto
her, as we have done, we, and our fathers,
our kings, and our princes, in the cities of
Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for
then had we plenty of victuals, and were
well, and saw no evil. 18. But since we
left off to burn incense to the queen of hea¬
ven, and to pour out drink-offerings unto her,
we have wanted all things, and have been
consumed by the sword and by the famine
19. And when we burnt incense to the
queen of heaven, and poured out drink-
offerings unto her, did we make her cakes
to worship her, and pour out drink-offerings
unto her without our men ?
We have here the people’s obstinate refusal to
submit to the power of the word of God in the
mouth of Jeremiah. We have scarcely such an
instance of downright, daring contradiction to God
himself as this, or such an avowed rebellion of the
carnal mind. Observe,
I. The persons who thus set God and his judg¬
ment at defiance; it was not some one that was thus
523
JEREMIAH, XLIv .
obstinate, but the generality of the Jews; and they
were such as knew either themselves or their wives
lobe guilty of the idolatry Jeremiah had reproved,
v. 15. We find, 1. That the women had been
more guilty of idolatry and superstition than the
men, not because the men stuck closer to the true
God and the true religion than the women, but, I
fear, because they were generally atheists, and were
for no God and no religion at all, and therefore
could easily allow their wives to be of a false reli¬
gion, and to worship false gods. 2. That conscious-
gods, and that they had countenanced them in it,
and the women that stood by knew that they had
joined with them in their idolatrous usages; so that
what Jeremiah said touched them in a sore place,
which made them kick against the pricks, as chil¬
dren of Belial, that will not bear the yoke.
II. The reply which these persons made to Jere¬
miah, and in him to God himself; it is in effect the
same with theirs who had the impudence to say to
the Almighty, Depart from us, we desire not the
knowledge of thy ways.
1. They declare their resolution not to do as God
commanded them, but what they themselves had a
mind to do; that is, they would go on to worship the
moon, here called the queen of heaven; yet some un¬
derstand it of the sun, which was much worshipped
in Egypt, (c/i. xliii. 13.) and had been so at Jerusa¬
lem; (2 Kings xxiii. 11.) and they say, that the He¬
brew word for the sun being feminine, it may not
unfitly be called the queen of heaven. And others
understand it of all the hosts of heaven, or the frame
of heaven, the whole machine, ch. vii. 18. These
daring sinners do not now go about to make excuses
for their refusal to obey, nor suggest that Jeremiah
spake from himself, and not from God, (as "before,
ch. xliii. 2. ) but they own that he spake to them in
the name of the Lord, and yet tell him flatly, in so
many words, “We will not hearken unto thee; we
will do that which is forbidden, and run the venture
of that which is threatened.” Note, Those that
live in disobedience to God commonly grow worse
and worse, and the heart is more and more harden¬
ed by the deceitfulness of sin. Here is the genuine
language of the rebellious heart; We will certainly
do whatsoever thing goes forth out of our own
mouth, let God and his prophets say what they
please to the contrary. What they said, many
think, who yet have not arrived at such a degree of
impudence as to speak it out. It is that which the
young man would be at in the days of his youth; he
would walk in the way of his heart, and the sight
of his eyes, and would have and do every thing he
lias a mind to, Eccl. xi. 9.
2. They give some sort of reasons for their reso¬
lution; for the most absurdly and unreasonably
wicked men will have something to say for them¬
selves, till the day comes when every mouth shall
be stopped.
( 1. ) They plead many of those things which the
advocates for Rome make the marks of a true
church, and not only justify but magnifythemselves
with; and these here have as much right to them as
they have. [1.] They plead antiquity; We are re¬
solved to burn incense to the queen of heaven, for
our fathers did so; it is a practice that pleads pre¬
scription; and why should we pretend to be wiser
than our fathers? [2.] They plead authority; they
that had power practised it themselves, and pre¬
scribed it to others; Our kings and our princes did
it, whom God set over us, and who were of the seed
of David. [3.] They plead unity; it was not here
and there one that did it, but we, we all with one
consent, we that are a great multitude, (v. 15.) we
did it. [4.] They plead universality; it was not
done here and there, but in the cities of Judah.
[5.] They plead visibility; it was not done in a cor¬
ner, in dark and shady groves only, but in the
streets, cpenly and publicly. [6.] They plead that
it was the practice of the mother-church, the holy
see; it was not now learned first in Egypt, but it
had been done in Jerusalem. [7.] They plead
prosperity; then had we plenty of bread, arid of all
good things, we were well, and saw no evil. All
the former pleas, I fear, were too true in fact;
God’s, witnesses against their idolatry were few and
hid; Elijah thought that he was? left alone: and this
last might perhaps be true as to some particular
persons, but as to their nation, they were still under
rebukes for their rebellions, and there was no peace
to them that went out or came in, 2 Chron. xv. 5.
But supposing all to be true, yet this does not at all
excuse them from idolatry; it is the law of God that
we must be ruled and judged by, not the practice
of men.
(2.) They suggest that the judgments they had
of late been under, were brought upon them for
leaving off to burn incense to the queen of heaven,
v. 18. So perversely did they misconstrue Provi¬
dence, though God, by his prophets, had so often
explained it to them, and the thing itself spake the
direct contrary! Since we forsook cur idolatries,
we have wanted all things, and have been consumed
by the sword; the true reason cf which was, because
they still retained their idols in their heart, and an
affection to their old sins; but they would have it
thought that it was because they had forsaken the
acts of sin. Thus the afflictions which should have
been for their welfare, to part between them and
their sins, being misinterpreted, did but confirm
them in their sins. Thus, in the first ages of Chris¬
tianity, when God chastised the nations by any pub¬
lic calamities for opposing the Christians, and per¬
secuting them, they put a contrary sense upon the
calamities, as if they were sent to punish them for
conniving at the Christians, and tolerating them,
and cried, Christian os ad leones — Throw the Chris¬
tians to the lions. Yet, if it had been true, as they
said here, that since they returned to the service of
the true God, the God of Israel, they had been in
want and trouble, was that a reason why they should
revolt from him again? That was as much as to
say that they served not him, but their own bellies.
Those who know God, and put their trust in him,
will serve him, though he starve them, though he
slay them, though they never see a good day with
him in this world, being well assured that they shall
not lose by him in the end.
(3.) They plead that though the women were
most forward and active in their idolatries, yet they
did it with the consent and approbation of their hus¬
bands; the women were busy to make cakes for meat-
offerings to the queen of heaven, and to prepare and
pour out the drink-offerings, v. 19. W e found,
before, that it was their work, ch. vii. 18. “ But
did we do it without our husbands, privately and
unknown to them, so as to give them occasion to be
jealous of us? No; the fathers kindled the fire, while
the women kneaded the dough; the men that were
our heads, whom we were bound to learn of, and to
be obedient to, taught us to do it by their example.”
Note, It is sad when those who are in the nearest
relation to each other, who should quicken each
other to that which is good, and so help one another
to heaven, harden each other in sin, and so ripen
one another for hell. Some understand this as
spoken by the husbands, (v. 15.) who plead that
they did not do it without their men , without their
elders and rulers, their great men, and men in au¬
thority; but because the making of the cakes, and
the pouring out of the drink-offerings, are expressly
spoken of as the women’s work, (c/i. vii. 18.) V
524
JEREMIAH, XLIV.
seems rather to be understood as their plea: but it
was a frivolous plea. What would it avail them to
be able to say that it was according to their hus¬
bands’ mind, when they knew that it was contrary
to their God’s mind?
20. Then Jeremiah said unto all the peo¬
ple, to the men, and to the women, and to
all the people which had given him that an¬
swer, saying, 21 . The incense that ye burnt
in the cities of Jtidah, and in the streets of
Jerusalem, ye, and your fathers, your kings,
and your princes, and the people of the land,
did not the Lord remember them, and
came it hot into his mind ? 22. So that the
Lord could no longer bear, because of the
evil of your doings, and because of the abomi¬
nations which ye have committed ; therefore
is your land a desolation, and an astonish¬
ment, and a curse, without an inhabitant, as
at this day. 23. Because you have burnt in¬
cense, and because ye have sinned against
the Lord, and have not obeyed the voice
of the Lord, nor walked in his law, nor in
his statutes, nor in his testimonies; therefore
this evil is happened unto you, as at this
day. 24. Moreover, Jeremiah said unto all
the people, and to all the women, Hear the
word of the Lord, all Judah that are in
the land of Egypt; 25. Thus saith the Lord
of hosts, the God of Israel, saying, Ye and
your wives have both spoken with your
mouths, and fulfilled with your hand, saying,
YVe will surely perform our vows that we
have vowed, to burn incense to the queen of
heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings unto
her: ye will surely accomplish your vows,
and surely perform your vows. 26. There¬
fore hear ye the word of the Lord, all Judah
that dwell in the land of Egypt; Behold, I
have sworn by my great name, saith the
Lord, that my name shall no more be named
in the mouth of any man of Judah, in all the
land ofEgypt, saying, The Lord God liveth.
27. Behold, I will watch over them for evil,
and not for good; and all the men of Judah
that are in the land ofEgypt shall be consum¬
ed by the sword and by the famine, until there
be an end of them. 28. Yet a small num¬
ber that escape the sword shall return out
of the land of Egypt into the land of Judah;
and all the remnant of Judah, that are gone
into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, shall
know whose words shall stand, mine, or
theirs. 29. And this shall he a sign unto
you, saith the Lord, that I will punish you
in this place, that ye may know that my
words shall surely stand against you for evil :
30. Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will
give Pharaoh-hophra king of Egypt into the
hand ol his enemies, and into the hand of
them that seek his life, as I gave ZedekiaJi
king of Judah into the hand of Nebuchad¬
rezzar king of Babylon his enemy, and that
sought his life.
Daring sinners may speak many a bold word, and
many a big word, but, after all, God will have the
last word; for he will be justified when he speaks;
and all flesh, even the proudest, shall be silent be¬
fore him. Prophets may be run down, but God
cannot; nay, here the prophet would not.
I. Jeremiah has something to say to them from
himself, which he could say without a spirit of pro¬
phecy, and that was to rectify their mistake, (a
wilful mistake it was,) concerning the calamities
they had been under, and the true intent and mean
ing of them. They said that these miseries came
upon them because they had now left off buring in¬
cense to the queen of heaven; “No,” says he, “it
was because you had formerly done it, not because
you had now left it off. ” When they gave him that
answer, he immediately replied, (y. 20.) that f/ie
incense which they and their fathers had burnt to
other gods did indeed go unpunished a great while,
for God was long-suffering toward them, and during
the day of his patience it was, perhaps, as they
said, well with them, and they saw no evil: but at
length they grew so provoking, that the Lord could
no longer bear, (x>. 22.) but began a controversy
with them, whereupon some of them did a little re¬
form, their sins left them, for so it might be said,
rather than that they left their sins. But their old
guilt being still upon the score, and their corrupt
inclinations still the same, God remembered against
them the idolatries of their fathers, their kings, and
their princes, in the streets of Jerusalem, which
the}’, instead of being ashamed of, gloried in, as a
justification of them in their idolatries; they all
came into his mind, (v. 21.) all the abominations
which they had committed, (y. 22.) and all their diso¬
bedience to the voice of the Lord, (z1. 23.) all
were brought to account; and therefore, to punish
them for these is their land a desolation and a curse,
as at this day; (v. 22.) therefore, not for their late
reformation, but for their old transgressions, is all
this evil happened to them, as at this day, v. 23.
Note, The right understanding of the cause of our
troubles, one would think, should go far toward the
cure of our sins. Whatever evil comes u/ion us, it
is because we have sinned against the Lord, and
should therefore stand in awe, and sin not.
II. Jeremiah has something to say to them, to the
women particularlv, from the Lord of hosts, the
God of Israel; they have given their answer, now
let them hear God’s reply, v. 24. Judah, that
dwells in the land of Egypt, has God speaking to
them, even there, that is their privilege; let them
observe what he says, that is their duty, v. 26.
Now God, in his reply, tells them plainly,
1. That since they were fully determined to per¬
sist in their idolatry, God was fully determined to
proceed in his controversy with them; if they would
go on to provoke him, he would go on to punish
them, and see which would get the better at last.
God repeats what they had said; ( v . 25.) "You and
your wives are agreed in this obstinacy, you have
sfioken with your mouths, and fulfilled with your
hands, you have said it, and you stand to it, have
said it, and go on to do accordingly, We will surely
fierform our vows that we have vowed, to burn in¬
cense to the queen of heaven,” as if, though it were
a sin, yet their having vowed to do it, were suffi¬
cient to justify them in the doing of it; whereas no
man can by his vow make that lawful to himself,
much less duty, which God has already made sin.
“Well,” (says God,) “ you will accomplish, you
JEREMIAH XLV
52*
will perform, your wicked vows: now hear what is
my vow, what I have sworn by my great name,”
and if the Lord hath sworn, he will not repent,
since they have sworn and will not repent; with the
froward he will show himself froward, Ps. xviii.
25. He hath sworn, (1.) That what little remains
of religion there were among them, should be lost,
v. 26. Though they joined with the Egyptians in
their idolatries, yet they continued upon many occa¬
sions to make mention of the name of Jehovah, par¬
ticularly in their solemn oaths; they said, Jehovah
liveth, he is the living God, so they owned him to
be, though they worshipped dead idols; they swear,
The Lord liveth; {ch. v. 2.) but I fear they retained
this form of swearing more in honour of their nation
than of their God; but God declares that his name
shall no more be thus named by any man of Judah
in all the land of Egypt, that there shall be no Jews
remaining to use this dialect of their country, or, if
there be, they shall have forgotten it, and shall
learn to swear, as the Egyptians do, by the life of
Pharaoh, not of Jehovah. Note, Those are very
miserable whom God has so far left to themselves,
that they have quite forgotten their religion, and
lost all the remains of their good education. Or,
this may intimate that God would take it as an af¬
front to him, and would resent it accordingly, if they
did make mention of his name, and profess any re¬
lation to him. (2.) He hath sworn, that what little
remnant of people there was there, shall all be con¬
sumed; (v. 27. ) I will watch over them for evil; no
opportunity shall be let slip to bring some judgment
upon them, until there be an 'end of them, and they
be quite rooted out. Note, To those whom God
finds impenitent sinners he will be found an impla¬
cable Judge. And when it comes to this, they shall
know (y. 28.) whose word shall stand, mine, or
theirs. They said that they should recover them¬
selves, when they returned to worship the queen of
heaven; God says that they should ruin themselves;
and now the event will show which was in the right.
The contest between God and sinners is, whose
word shall stand, whose will shall be done, who
shall get the better. Sinners say that they shall
have peace, though they go on; God says they shall
have no peace. But when God judges, he will
overcome; God’s word shall stand, and not the
sinner’s.
2. He tells them that a very few of them should
escape the sword, and in process of time return into
the land of Judah, a small number, (v. 28.) next to
none, in comparison with the great numbers that
should return out of the land of the Chaldeans.
This seems designed to upbraid those who boasted
of their numbers that concurred in sin; there were
none to speak of, that did not join in idolatry;
“Well,” says God, “ and there shall be as few that
shall escape the sword and famine.”
3. He gives them a sign that all these threaten-
ings shall be accomplished in their season, that they
shall be consumed here in Egypt, and shall quite
perish: Pharaoh-hophra, the present king of Egypt,
shall be delivered into the hand of his enemies that
seek his life; of his own rebellious subjects, (so some,)
under Amasis, who usurped his throne; of Nebu¬
chadnezzar, king of Babylon, (so others,) who in¬
vaded his kingdom; the former is related Dy Hero¬
dotus, the latter by Josephus. It is likely that this
Pharaoh had tempted the Jews to idolatry by pro¬
mises of his favour; however they depended upon
him for his protection, and it would be more than a
presage of their ruin, it would be a step towards it,
if he were gone. They expected more from him
than from Zedekiah king of Judah, he was a more
potent and politic prince; “ But,” says God, “ I will
give him into the hand of his enemies, as I gave
Zedekiah.” Note, Those creature-comforts and
confidences that we promise ourselves most from,
may fail us as soon as those that we promise our
selves least from, for they are all what God makes
them, not what we fancy them.
The sacred history records not the accomplish¬
ment of this prophecy, but its silence is sufficient;
we hear no more of these Jews in Egypt, and there
fore conclude them, according to this prediction, lost
there; for no word of God shall fall to the ground.
CHAP. XLV.
The prophecy we have in this chapter concerns Baruch
only, yet is intended for the support and encouragement
of all the Lord’s people that serve him faithfully, and
keep close to him in difficult, trying times. It is placed
here after the story of the destruction of Jerusalem, and
the dispersion of the Jews, but was delivered long be¬
fore, in the 4th year of Jehoiakim, as was the prophecy
in the next chapter, and, probably, those that follow.
We here find, I. How Baruch was terrified when he was
brought into trouble for writing and reading Jeremiah’s
roll, v. 1 . .3. II. How his fears were checked with a
reproof for his greatexpectations, andsilenced with a pro¬
mise of special preservation, v. 4, 5. Though Baruch
was only Jeremiah’s scribe, yet this notice is taken of
his frights, and this provision made for his comfort; for
God despises not any of his servants, but graciously con¬
cerns himself for the meanest and weakest, for Baruch
the scribe as well as for Jeremiah the prophet.
1. r | ''HE word that Jeremiah the prophet
A spake unto Baruch the son of Ne-
riah, when he had written these words in a
book at the mouth of Jeremiah, in the fourth
year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of
Judah, saying, 2. Thus saith the Lord, the
God of Israel, unto thee, O Baruch ; 3.
Thou didst say, Wo is me now ! for the
Lord hath added grief to my sorrow; I
fainted in my sighing, and I find no rest. 4.
Thus shalt thou say unto him, The Lord
saith thus ; Behold, that which I have built
will I break down, and that which I have
planted I will pluck up, even this whole
land. 5. And seekest thou great things for
thyself? seek them not: for, behold, I will
bring evil upon all flesh, saith the Lord;
but thy life will I give unto thee for a prey
in all places whither thou goest.
How Baruch was employed in writing Jeremiah’s
prophecies, and reading them, we had an account,
ch. xxxvi. and how he was threatened for it by the
king, warrants being out for him, and he forced to
abscond, and how narrowly he escaped under a di¬
vine protection, to which story this chapter should
have been subjoined, but that, having reference to
a private person, it is here thrown into the latter
end of the book, as St. Paul’s epistle to Philemon is
put after his other epistles. Observe,
1. The consternation that poor Baruch was in
when he was sought for by the king’s messengers,
and obliged to hide his head, and the notice which
God took of it. He cried out, fid is me now', v.
3. He was a young man setting out in the world,
he was well-affected to the things of God, and was
willing to serve God and his prophet; but when it
came to suffering, he was desirous to be excused,
being an ingenious man, and a scholar, he stood fair
for preferment, and now to be driven into a corner,
and in danger of a prison, or worse, was a great dis¬
appointment to him. When he read the roll pub¬
licly, he hoped to gain reputation by it, that it would
have made him to be taken notice of and employed,
but when he found that, instead of that, it exposed
526
JEREMIAH, XLVI.
him to contempt, and brought him into disgrace, he
cried out, “ I am undone, I shall fall into the pur¬
suers’ hands, and be imprisoned, and put to death,
or banished; the Lord has added grief to my sor¬
row, has loaded me with one trouble after another;
after the grief of writing and reading the prophe¬
cies of my country’s ruin, I have the sorrow of being
treated as a criminal for so doing; and though an¬
other might make nothing of this, yet, for my part,
I cannot bear it, it is a burthen too heavy for me; I
fainted in my sighing, or, lam faint with my sigh¬
ing, it just kills me, and I find no rest, no satisfac¬
tion in my own mind, I cannot compose myself as I
should aiid would to bear it, nor have I any prospect
of relief or comfort.” Baruch was a good man, but,
we must say, this was his infirmity. Note, (1.)
Young beginners in religion, like fresh-water sail¬
ors, are apt to be discouraged with the little diffi¬
culties which they commonly meet with at first in
the service of God. They do but run with the foot¬
men, and it wearies them; they faint upon the very
dawning of the day of adversity, and it is an evi¬
dence that their strength is small, (Prov. xxiv. 10.)
that their faith is weak, and that they are yet but
babes, who cry for every hurt and every fright.
(2.) Some of the best and dearest of God’s saints
and servants, when they have seen storms rising,
have been in frights, and apt to make the worst of
things, and to disquiet themselves with melancholy
apprehensions, more than there was cause for. (3.)
God takes notice of the frets and discontents of his
people, and is displeased with them. Baruch should
have rejoiced that he was counted worthy to suffer
in such a good cause, and with such good company,
but, instead of that, he is vexed at it, and blames
his lot, nay, and reflects upon his God, as if he had
dealt hardly with him; what he said was spoken in
a heat and passion, but God was offended, as he was
with Moses, who paid dear for it, when, his spirit
being provoked, he spake ttnadvisedly with his li/is.
Thou didst say so and so, and it was not well said;
God keeps account of what we say, even when we
speak in haste.
2. The reproof that God gave him for talking at
this rate. Jeremiah was troubled to see him in such
an agitation, and knew not well what to say to him;
he was loath to chide him, and yet thought he de¬
served it; was willing to comfort him, and yet knew
not which way to go about it; but God tells him
what he shall say to him, v. 4. Jeremiah could not
be certain what was at the bottom of these com¬
plaints and fears, but God sees it; they came from
his corruptions; that the hurt therefore might not
be healed slightly, he searches the wound, and shows
him that he had raised his expectations too high in
this world, and had promised himself too much from
it, and that made the distress and trouble he was in
so very grievous to him, and so hard to be borne.
Note, The frowns of the world would not disquiet
us as they do, if we did not foolishly flatter ourselves
with the hopes of its smiles, and court and covet
them too much. It is our over-fondness for the good
things of this present time, that makes us impatient
under its evil things. Now God shows him that it
was his fault and folly, at this time of day especially,
either to desire, or to look for, an abundance of the
wealth and honour of this world. For, (1.) The
ship was sinking; ruin was coming upon the Jewish
nation, an utter and universal ruin; “ That which I
have built, to be a house for myself, I am breaking
down, and that which I have planted, to be a vine¬
yard for myself, I am plucking up, even this whole
land, the Jewish church and state; and dost thou
now seek great things for thyself? Dost thou expect
to be rich and honourable, and to make a figure
now? No.” (2.) “It is absurd for thee to be now
painting thine own cabin. Canst thou expect to be
high, when all are brought low, to be full when all
about thee are empty?” To seek ourselves more
than the public welfare, especially to seek great
things to ourselves, when the public is in danger, is
very unbecoming Israelites. We may apply it to
this world, and our state in it; God, in his provi¬
dence, is breaking down and pulling up, every thing
is uncertain and perishing, we cannot expect any
continuing city here. What folly is it then to seek
great things for ourselves here, where every thing
is little, and nothing certain !
3. The encouragement that God gave him to hope
that though he should not be great, yet he should be
safe; “I will bring evil upon all fiesh, all nations
of men, all orders and degrees of men, but thy life
•will I give to thee for a prey,” ( thy soul, so the word
is,) “ in all places whither thou goest. Thou must
expect to be hurried from place to place, and, wher¬
ever thou goest, to be in danger, but thou slialt es¬
cape, though often very narrowly, slialt have thy
life, but it shall be as a prey, which is got with much
difficulty and danger; thou shalt be saved as by fire. ”
Note, The preservation and continuance of life are
very great mercies, and we are bound to account
them such, as they are the prolonging of our oppor¬
tunity to glorify God in this world, and to get ready
for a better; and at some times, especially when the
arrows of death fly thick about us, they are a sig¬
nal favour, and what we ought to be thankful for,
and, while we have them, must not complain, though
we be disappointed of the great things we expected.
Is not the life more than meat ?
CHAP. XL VI.
How judgment began at the house of God we have found
in the foregoing prophecy and history; but now we shall
find that it did not end there; in this and the following
chapters we have predictions of the desolations of the
neighbouring nations, and those brought upon them too
mostly by the king of Babylon, till at length Babylon
itself comes to be reckoned with. The prophecy against
Egypt is here put first, and takes up this whole chapter;
in which we have, I. A prophecy of the defeat of Pha-
raoh-necho’s army by the Chaldean forces at Carchemish,
which was accomplished soon after, in the 4th year of
Jehoiakim, v. 1..12. II. A prophecy of the descent
which Nebuchadrezzar should make upon the land of
Egypt, and his success in it, which was accomplished
some years after the destruction of Jerusalem, v. 13. .26.
III. A word of comfort to the Israel of God in the midst
of these calamities, v. 27, 28.
1. HT^HE word of the Lord which came
JL to Jeremiah the prophet against the
Gentiles ; 2. Against Egypt, against the
army of Pharaoh-necho king of Egypt,
which was by the river Euphrates in Car¬
chemish, which Nebuchadrezzar king of
Babylon smote in the fourth year of Jehoia¬
kim the son of Josiah king of Judah. 3
Order ye the buckler and shield, and draw
near to battle. 4. Harness the horses ; and
get up, ye horsemen, and stand forth with
your helmets; furbish the spears, and, put
on the brigandincs. 5. Wherefore have I
seen them dismayed and turned away back ?
and their mighty ones are beaten down, and
are fled apace, and look not back : for fear
teas round about, saith the Lord. 6. Let
not the swift flee away, nor the mighty man
escape; they shall stumble, and fall toward
the north by the river Euphrates. 7. Who
is this that cometh up as a flood, whose wa-
JEREMIAH, XL VI. 527
ters are moved as the rivers ? 8. Egypt riseth
up like a flood, and his waters are moved
like the rivers; and lie saith, I will go up,
and will cover the earth; I will destroy the
city, and the inhabitants thereof. 9. Come
up, ye horses; and rage, ye chariots; and
let the mighty men come forth ; the Ethio¬
pians and the Libyans, that handle the
shield ; and the Lydians*, that handle and
bend the bow. 10. For this is the day of
the Lord God of hosts, a day of vengeance,
that he may avenge him of his adversaries :
and the sword shall devour, and it shall be
satiate and made drunk with their blood ;
for the Lord God of hosts hath a sacrifice
in the north country by the river Euphrates.
11. Go up into Gilead and take balm, O
virgin, the daughter of Egypt : in vain shalt
thou use many medicines; for thou shalt
not be cured. 12. The nations have heard
of thy shame, and thy cry hath filled the
land: for the mighty man hath stumbled
against the mighty, and they are fallen both
together.
The first verse is the title of that part of this book
which relates to the neighbouring nations, and fol¬
lows here. It is the word of the Lord which came
to Jeremiah against the Gentiles; for God is King
and Judge of nations, knows them, and will call
them to an account, who know him not, nor take any
notice of him. Both Isaiah and Ezekiel prophesied
against these nations that Jeremiah here has a se¬
veral saying to, and with reference to the same
events. In the Old Testament we have the word
of the Lord against the Gentiles, in the New Tes¬
tament we have the word of the Lord for the Gen¬
tiles, that they who were afar off are made nigh.
He begins with Egypt, because they were of old
Israel’s oppressors,.and of late their deceivers, when
they put confidence in them. In these verses he
foretells the overthrow of the artny of Pharaoh-
necho, by Nebuchadnezzar, in the fourth year of
Jehoiakim, which was so complete a victory to the
king of Babylon, that thereby he recovered from
the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates, all that
/ lertained to the king of Egypt, and so weakened
him that he came not again any more out of his land,
(as we find, 2 Kings, xxiv. 7.) and so made him pay
dear for his expedition against the king of Assyria
four years before, in which he slew Josiah, 2 Kings
xxiii. 29. This is the event that is here foretold in
lofty expressions of triumph over Egypt thus foiled;
which Jeremiah would speak of with a particular
pleasure, because the death of Josiah, which he had
lamented, was now avenged on Pharaoh-necho. Now
here,
1. The Egyptians are upbraided with the mighty
preparations they made for this expedition, in which
the prophet calls to them to do their utmost, for so
they would; “ Come then, order the buckler, let
the weapons of war be got ready,” v. 3. Egypt
was famous for horses, let them be harnessed, and
the cavalry well mounted; Get up, ye horsemen,
and stand forth, &c. v. 4. See what preparations
the children of men make, with abundance of care
and trouble, and at a vast expense, to kill one an¬
other, as if they did not die fast enough of them¬
selves! He compares their marching out upon this
expedition to the rising of their river Nile; (v. 7, 8. )
Egypt now rises up like a flood, scorning to keep
within its own banks, and threatening to overflow
all the neighbouring lands; it is a very formidable
army that the Egyptians bring into the field upon
this occasion; the prophet summons them, (v. 9.)
Come up, ye horses; rage, ye chariots; he cha^engcs
them to bring all their confederate troops toge ther,
the Ethiopians, that descended from the same stork
with the Egyptians, (Gen. x. 6.) and were their
neighbours and allies; the Libyans and Lydians,
both seated in Africa, to the west of Egypt, and
from them the Egyptians fetched their auxiliary
forces: let them strengthen themselves with all the
art and interest they have, yet it shall be all in vain,
they shall be shamefully defeated notwithstanding,
for God will fight against them, and against him
there is no wisdom, nor counsel, Prov. xxi. 30, 31.
It concerns them that go forth to war, net only to
order the buckler and harness the horses, but to re¬
pent of their sins, and pray to God for his presence
with them, and that they may have it to keep them¬
selves from every wicked thing.
2. They are upbraided with the great expecta¬
tions they had from this expedition, which were
quite contrary to what God intended in bringing
them together. They knew their own thoughts,
and God knew them, and sat in heaven, and laughed
at them ; but they knew not the thoughts of the Lord,
for he gathers them as sheaves into the floor, Mic.
lv. 11, 12. Egypt saith, (y. 8.) I will go up, I will
cover the earth, and none shall hinder me; I will
destroy the city, whatever city it is that stands in my
way; like Pharaoh of old, I will pursue, I will over¬
take. The Egyptians say that they shall have a day
of it, but God saith, that it shall be his day; This is
the day of the Lord God of hosts, (i>. 10.) the day
in which he will be exalted in the overthrow of the
Egyptians. They meant one thing, but God meant
another; they designed it for the advancement of
their dignity, and the enlargement of their dominion,
but God designed it for the great abasement and
weakening of their kingdom. It is a day of ven
geance for Josiah’s death; it is a day of sacrifice to
divine justice, to which multitudes of the sinners ot
Egypt shall fall as victims. Note, When men think
to magnify themselves by pushing on unrighteous
enterprises, let them expect that God will glorify
himself by blasting them, and cutting them off.
3. They are upbraided with their cowardice and
inglorious flight when they come to an engagement;
(u. 5, 6.) “ Wherefore have I seen them, notwith¬
standing all these mighty and vast preparations, and
all these expressions of bravery and resolution, when
the Chaldean army faces them, dismayed, turned
back, quite disheartened, and no spirit left in them.”
(1.) '1 hey make a shameful retreat, even their
mighty ones, who, one would think, should have
stood their ground, flee a flight, flee by consent,
make the best of their way, flee in confusion, and
with the utmost precipitation; they have neither
time nor heart to look back, but fear is round about
them, for they apprehend it so. And yet, (2.) They
cannot make their escape: they have the shame of
flying, and yet not the satisfaction of saving them¬
selves by flight; they might as well have stood their
ground, and died upon the spot; for even the swift
shall not flee away. The lightness of their heels
shall fail them when it comes to the trial, as well as
the stoutness of their hearts; the mighty shall not
escape, nay, they are beaten down, and broken to
pieces. They shall stumble in their flight, and fall
toward the north, toward their enemy’s country; for
such confusion were they in when they took to their
feet, that, instead cf making homeward, as men
usually do in that case, they made forward. Note,
The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the
strong. Valiant men are not alwavs victorious.
JEREMIAH, XL VI.
528
4. They are upbraided with their utter inability
ever to recover this blow, which should be fatal to
their nation, v. 11, 12. The damsel, the daughter
of JEgyfit, that lived in great pomp and state, is
sorely wounded by this defeat. Let her now seek
for balm in Gilead, and physicians there; let her use
all the medicines her wise men can prescribe for the
healing of this hurt, and the repairing of the loss
sustained by this defeat; but all in vain, no cure shall
be to them; they shall never be able to bring such a
powerful army as this into the field again. “ The
nations that rang of thy glory and strength, have
now heard of thy shame, how shamefully thou wast
routed, and how thou art weakened by it.” It needs
not be spread by the triumphs of the conquerors,
the shrieks and outcries of the conquered will pro¬
claim it; thy cry hath filled the country about. For
when they fied several ways, one mighty man stum¬
bled upon another, and dashed against another, such
confusion were they in, so that both together became
a prey to the pursuers, an easy prey. A thousand
such dreadful accidents there should be, which
should fill the country with the cry of them that
were overcome. Let not the mighty man therefore
glory in his might, for the time may come when it
will stand him in no stead.
13. The word that the Lord spake to
Jeremiah the prophet, how Nebuchadrez¬
zar king of Babylon should come and smite
the land of Egypt. 1 4. Declare ye in Egypt,
and publish in Migdol,and publish in Noph,
and in Tahpanhes: say ye, Stand fast, and
prepare thee; for the sword shall devour
round about thee. 15. Why are thy valiant
men swept away? they stood not, because
the Lord did drive them. 1 6. He made
many to fall, yea, one fell upon another ;
and they said, Arise, and let us go again to
our own people, and to the land of our na¬
tivity, from the oppressing sword. 17. They
did cry there, Pharaoh king of Egypt is but
a noise ; he hath passed the time appointed.
18. As I live, saith the King, whose name
is The Lord of hosts, Surely as Tabor is
among the mountains, and as Carmel by the
sea, so shall he come. 19. O thou daughter
dwelling in Egypt, furnish thyself to go into
captivity: for Noph shall be waste and de¬
solate without an inhabitant. 20. Egypt
is like a very fair heifer, but destruction
cometh; it cometh out of the north. 21.
Also her hired men are in the midst of
her like fatted bullocks; for they also are
turned back, and are fled away together :
they did not stand, because the day of
their calamity was come upon them, and
the time of their visitation. 22. The voice
thereof shall go like a serpent; for they
shall march with an army, and come
against her with axes, as hewers of wood.
23. They shall cut down her forest, saith
the Lord, though it cannot be searched;
because they are more than the grasshop¬
pers, and are innumerable. 24. The daugh¬
ter of Egypt shall be confounded ; she shall
be delivered into the hand of the people of
the north. 25. The Lord of hosts, the God
of Israel, saith, Behold, I will punish the
multitude of No, and Pharaoh, and Egypt,
with their gods, and their kings; even Pha¬
raoh, and all them that trust in him : 26.
And I will deliver them into the hand oP
those that seek their lives, and into the hand
of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and
into the hand of his servants: and after¬
wards it shall be inhabited, as in the days
of old, saith the Lord. 27. But fear not
thou, O my servant Jacob, and be not dis¬
mayed^ Israel: for, behold, I will save
thee from afar off, and thy seed from the
land of their captivity; and Jacob shall re¬
turn, and be in rest and at ease, and none
shall make him afraid. 28. Fear thou not,
O Jacob my servant, saith the Lord; for I
am with thee: for I will make a full end of
all the nations whither I have driven thee;
but I will not make a full end of thee, but
correct thee in measure: yet will I not leave
thee wholly unpunished.
In these verses, we have,
I. Confusion and terror spoken to Egypt. The
accomplishment of the prediction in the former part
of the chapter disabled the Egyptians to make any
attempts upon other nations; for what could they do
when their army was routed? But still they remained
strong at home, and none of their neighbours durst
make any attempts upon them. Though the kings
of Egypt came no more out of their land, (2 Kings
xxiv. 7.) yet they kept safe and easy in their land;
and what would thev desire more, than peaceably
to enjoy their own? One would think all men should
be content to do this, and not covet to invade their
neighbours. But the measure of Egypt’s iniquity is
full, and now they shall not long enjoy their own ;
they that encroached on others shall now be them¬
selves encroached on. The scope of the prophecy
here is to show how the king of Babylon should
shortly come, and smite the land of Lgyfit, and bring
the war into their own bosoms, which they had
formerly carried into his borders, v. 13. This was
fulfilled by the same hand with the former, even
Nebuchadrezzar’s, but many years after, twenty at
least, and, probably, the prediction of it was long
after the form er prediction, and perhaps much about
the same time with that other prediction of the same
event which we had, ch. xliii. 10.
1. Here is the alarm of war sounded in Egypt, to
their great amazement, (v. 14.) notice given to the
country that the enemy is approaching, the sword is
devouring round about in the neighbouring coun¬
tries, and therefore it is time for the Egyptians to
put themselves in a posture of defence, to prepare
for war, that they may give the enemy a warm re¬
ception. This must be proclaimed in all parts of
Egypt, particularly in Migdol, Noph, and Tahpan¬
hes, because in these places especially the Jewish
refugees, or fugitives rather, had planted them¬
selves, in contempt of God’s command; ( ch . xliv.
1.) and let them hear what a sorry shelter Egypt is
likely to be to them.
2. The retreat, hereupon, of the forces of other
nations which the Egyptians had in their pay, is
here foretold. Some considerable number of those
troops, it is probable, were posted upon the frontiers
529
JEREMIAH, XLV1.
.0 gii .nl them, where they were beaten off by the I
invaders, and put to flight. Then were the valiant
men swept away, (i>. 15.) as with a sweeping rain ;
(it is tilt- word that is used, Prov. xxviii. 3.) they
cm none of them stand their ground, because the
Lard drives them from their respective posts; he
drives them by his terrors, he drives them by
enabling the Chaldeans to drive them. It is not
possible that those should fix whom the wrath of
God chases. He it was, (i>. 16.) that made many
to fall, yea, when their day is come to fall, the
en ;my needs not throw them down, they shall fall
u /ion one another, every man shall be a stumbling-
block to his fellow, to his follower; nay, if God
pleases, they shall be made to fall upon one another,
every man’s sword shall be against his fellow. Her
hired men, the troops Egypt has in her service, are
indeed in the midst of her like fatted bullocks, lusty
men, able-bodied, and high-spirited, who were
likvlv for action, and to have made their part good
against the enemy; but they are turned back, their
hearts f died them, and, instead of fighting, they are
fed away together. How could they withstand
their fate, when the day of their calamity was come,
the dav in which God will visit them in wrath?
Some think they are compared to fatted bullocks
for their luxury; they had wantoned in pleasures,
so th it they were very unfit for hardships, and
therefore turned back, and could not stand. In this
consternation, (1.) They all made homeward to-
w ird their own country; (x>. 16.) They said, “ Arise,
and let us go again to our own people, where we
m iv be safe from the oppressing sword ofithe Chal¬
deans, that bears down all before it.” In times of
exigence little confidence is to be put in mercenary
troops, that fight purely for pay, and have no interest
in theirs whom they fight for. (2.) They exclaimed
vehemently against Pharaoh, to whose cowardice or
ill conduct, it is probable, their defeat was owing.
W hen he posted them there upon the borders of his
country, it is probable that he told them, he would
within such a time come himself with a gallant
army of his own subjects to support them; but he
f ailed them, and when the enemy advanced, they
found they had none to back them, so that they
were perfectly abandoned to the fury of the invaders;
no marvel then that they quitted their post, and
deserted the sendee, crying out, Pharaoh king of
Egypt is but a noise, (y. If.) he can hector, and
talk big of the mighty things he would do, but that
is all; hr brings nothing to pass, all his promises to
those in alliance with him, or that are employed for
him, vanish into smoke; he brings not the succours
he engaged to bring, or not till it is too late; He has
passed the time appointed, he did not keep his word,
nor keep his day, and therefore they bid him fare¬
well, they will never serve under him any more.
N' ite, Those that make most noise in any business,
ore frequently but a noise. Great talkers are little
d'v rs.
3 The formidable power of the Chaldean army
is here described as bearing down all before it The
Ping of kings, whose tiame is the Lord of hosts, and
before whom the mightiest kings on earth, though
g?.ds to us, are but as grasshoppers, he hath said it,
he hath sworn it, As I live, saith this King, as
Tabor overtops the mountains, and Carmel over¬
looks the sea, so shall the king of Babylon overpower
all the force of Egypt; such a command shall he
have, such a sway shall he bear! v. 18. He and his
army shall come against Egypt with axes, as hewers
of wood, (v. 22.) and the Egyptians shall be no
more able to resist them than the tree is to resist the
man that comes with an axe to cut it down: so that
Egypt shall be felled as a forest is by the hewers of
wood, which (if they be many of them, and those
well provided with instruments for the purpose)
VOL. IV. — 3 X
will be done in a little time. Egypt is very populous,
full of towns and cities, like a forest, the trees of
which cannot be searched or numbered, and very
rich, full of hid treasures, many of which will escape
the searching eye of the Chaldean soldiers; but they
shall make a great spoil in the country, for they are
more than the locusts, that come in vast swarms, and
overrun a country, devouring every green thing;
(Joel i. 6, 7.) so shall the Chaldeans do, for they are
innumerable. Note, The Lord of hosts hath num¬
berless hosts at his command.
4. The desolation of Egypt hereby is foretold, and
the waste that should be made of that 7'ich country.
Egypt is now like a very fair heifer, or calf, (x>. 20. )
fat and shining, and not accustomed to the yoke of
subjection; wanton as a heifer that is well fed, and
very sportful. Some think here is an allusion to
Apis, the bull or calf which the Egyptians worship¬
ped, from whom the children of Israel learned to
worship the golden calf. Egypt is as fair as a god¬
dess, and adores herself, but destruction comes; cut¬
ting up comes, so some read it; it comes out of the
north; thence the Chaldean soldiers shall come, as
so many butchers or sacrificers, to kill and cut up
this fair heifer. (1.) The Egyptians shall be brought
down, shall be tamed, and their tune changed. The
daughters of Egypt shall be confounded, [y. 24.)
shall be filled with astonishment; their voice shall
go like a serpent, it shall be very low and submis¬
sive, they shall not low like a fair heifer, that makes
a great noise, but hiss out of their holes like serpents.
They shall not dare to make loud complaints of the
cruelty of the conquerors, but vent their griefs in
silent murmhrs. They shall not now, as they used
to do, answer roughly, but, with the poor, use in¬
treaties, and beg for their lives. (2.) They shall
be carried away prisoners into their enemy’s land;
(n. 19.) "0 thou daughter, dwelling securely and
delicately in Egypt, that fruitful, pleasant country,
do not think this will last always, but furnish thy¬
self to go into captivity; instead of rich clothes,
which will but tempt the enemy to strip thee, get
plain and warm clothes; instead of fine shoes, pro¬
vide strong ones; and inure thyself to hardship, that
thou mayest bear it the better. ” Note, It concerns
us, among all our preparations, to prepare for trou¬
ble; we provide for the entertainment of our friends,
let us not neglect to provide for the entertainment
of our enemies, nor among all our furniture omit
furniture for captivity. The Egyptians must pre¬
pare to flee, for their cities shall be evacuated;
Noph particularly shall be desolate without an inha¬
bitant, so general shall the slaughter and the cap¬
tivity be. There are some penalties which, we
say, the king and the multitude are exempted from,
but here even these are obnoxious; The multitude
of No shall be punished; it is called populous No,
Nah. iii. 8. Though hand join in hand, yet they
shall not escape; nor can any think to go off in the
crowd. Be they ever so many, they shall find God
will be too many for them. Their kings and all
their petty princes shall fall; and their gods too,
!ch. xliii. 12, 13.) their idols and their great men.
Those which they call their tutelar deities, shall be
no protection to them. Pharaoh shall be brought
down, and all those that trust in him; (y. 25.) par¬
ticularly the Jews that came to sojourn in his coun¬
try, trusting in him rather than in God. All these
shall be delivered into the hands o f the northern na
tions, (v. 24.) into the hand not only of Nebuchad¬
nezzar, that mighty potentate, but into the hands
of his servants, according to the curse on Ham’s
posterity, of which the Egyptians were, that they
should be the servants of servants; these seek their
lives, and into their hands they shall be delivered.
5. An intimation is given that in process of time
Egypt shall recover itself again; (y. 26.) After-
530
JEREMIAH, XLVI1.
ward it shall be inhabited , shall be peopled again,
whereas by this destruction it was almost dispeo¬
pled. Ezekiel foretells that this should be at the
end of 40 years, Ezek. xxix. 13. See what changes
the nations of the earth are subject to, how they are
emptied and increased again ; and let not nations that
prosper be secure, nor those that for the present are
In thraldom despair.
II. Comfort and peace are here spoken to the Is¬
rael of God, v. 27, 28. Some understand it of those
whom the king of Egypt had carried into captivity
with Jehoahaz, but we read not of any that were
carried away captives with him; it may therefore
rather refer to the captives of Babylon, whom God
had mercy in store for, or, more generally to all the
people of God, designed for their encouragement
In the most difficult times, when the judgments of
God are abroad among the nations. We had these
words of comfort before, ch. xxx. 10, 11. 1. Get
the wicked of the earth tremble, they have cause
for it; but fear not thou, O my servant Jacob, and
be not not dismayed, O Israel; and again, Fear thou
not, 0 Jacob. God would not hav^ his people to
be a timorous people. 2. The wicked of the earth
shall be put away like dross, not to be looked after
any more; but God’s people, in order to their being
saved, shall be found out and gathered, though they
be afar off, shall be redeemed, though they be held
fist in captivity, and shall return. 3. The wicked
is like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, they flee
when none pursues; but Jacob, being at home in
God, shall be at rest, and at ease, and none shall
make him afraid; for what time he is.afraid, he has
a God to trust to. 4. The wicked, God beholds
afar off; but, wherever thou art, 0 Jacob, I am
with thee, a very present Help. 5. A full end shall
be made of the nations that oppressed God’s Israel,
as Egvpt and Babylon; but mercv shall be kept in
store for the Israel of God: they shall be corrected,
hut not cast off, the correction shall be in measure,
in respect of degree and continuance. Nations have
their periods, the Jewish nation itself is come to an
end, as a nation; but the gospel-church, God’s spi¬
ritual Israel, still continues, and will to the end of
time; in that this promise is to have its full accom¬
plishment, that though God correct it, he will never
make a full end of it.
CHAP. XLVII.
This chapter reads the Philistines their doom, as the former
read the Egyptians theirs; and by the same hand, that
of Nebuchadrezzar. It is short, but terrible; and Tyre
and Zidon, though they lay at some distance from them,
come in sharers with them, in the destruction here
threatened. I. It is foretold that the forces of the north¬
ern crowns should come upon them, to their great terror,
v. 1 . . 5. II. That the war should continue long, and
their endeavours to put an end to it should be in vain,
v. 6, 7.
1 . HpHE word of the Lord that came to
H Jeremiah the prophet against the
Philistines, before that Pharaoh smote Gaza.
2. Thus saith the Lord, Behold, waters rise
up out of the north, and shall be an over¬
flowing flood, and shall overflow the land,
and all that is therein; the city, and them
that dwell therein; then the men shall cry,
and all the inhabitants of the land shall
howl. 3. At the noise of the stamping of
the hoofs of his strong horses , at the rushing
of his chariots, and at the rumbling of his
wheels, the fathers shall not look back to
their children for feebleness of hands', 4.
; Because of the day that eometh to spoil all
the Philistines, and to cut off from Tyrus
and Zidon every helper that remaineth; for
the Lord will spoil the Philistines, the rem¬
nant of the country of Caphtor. 5. Bald¬
ness is come upon Gaza; Ashkelon is cut
off with the remnant of their valley: how
long wilt thou cut thyself ! 6. O thou sword
of the Lord, how long will it be ere thou be
quiet? Put up thyself into thy scabbard, rest,
and be still. 7. How can it be quiet, seeing
the Lord hath given it a charge against
Ashkelon, and against the sea-shore ? there
hath he appointed it.
As the Egyptians bad often proved false friends,
so the Philistines had always been sworn enemies,
to the Israel of God, and the more dangerous and
\ vexatious for their being such near neighbours to
them. They were considerably humbled in David’s
: time, but, it seems, they had got head again, and
were a considerable people till Nebuchadnezzar cut
them off with their neighbours, which is the event
here foretold. The date of this prophecy is ob¬
servable; it was before Pharaoh smote Gaza: when
this blow was given to Gaza by the king of Egypt
is not certain, whether in his expedition against
Carchemish, or in his return thence, after he had
slain Jojiah, or when he afterward came with de¬
sign to relieve Jerusalem; but this is mentioned
here, to show that this word of the Lord came to
Jeremiah against the Philistines, when they were
in their full strength and lustre, themselves and
their cities in good condition, in no peril from any
adversary or evil occurrent, when no disturbance
of their repose was foreseen by any human proba¬
bilities; then Jeremiah foretold their ruin, which
Pharaoh's smiting Gaza soon after would be but an
earnest of, and, as it were, the beginnings cf sorrow
to that country. It is here foretold,
1. That a foreign enemy and a very formidable
one shall be brought upon them: TPaters rise up out
of the north, v. 2. Waters sometimes signify mul¬
titudes of people and nations, (Rev. xvii. 15.) some¬
times great and threatening calamities, (Ps. lxix.
1.) these here signify both. They rise out of the
north, whence fair weather, and the wind that
drives away rain, are said to come; but now a ter¬
rible storm comes out of that cold climate. The
Chaldean army shall overflow the land like a de¬
luge. Probably, this happened before the destruc¬
tion of Jerusalem, for it should seem that in Geda-
liah’s time, which was just after, the army of the
Chaldeans was quite withdrawn out of those parts.
The country of the Philistines was but of small ex¬
tent, so that it would soon be overwhelmed by so
vast an army.
2. That they shall all be in a consternation upon
it: the men shall have no heart to fight, but shall
sit down and cry like children; all the inhabitants
of the land shall howl, so that nothing but lamenta¬
tion shall be heard in all places. The occasion of
the fright is elegantly described, v. 3. Before it
comes to killing and slaying, the very stamping of
the horses and' rattling of the chariots, when the
enemv makes his approach, shall strike a terror
upon ’the people, to that degree, that parents in
their fright shall seem void of natural affection, for
they shall not look back to their children, to provide
for their safety, or so much as to see what becomes
of them. Tlieir hands shall be so feeble, that they
shall despair of carrying them off with them, and
therefore they shall not care for seeing them, but
leave them to take their lot; or they shall be in such
JEREMIAH, XLVIII.
.->31
a consternation, that they shall quite forget even
those pieces of thcmsch es. Let none be over-fond
of their children, nor dote upon them, since such
distress may come, that they may either wish they
had none, or forget that they have, and have no
heart to look upon them.
3. That the country of the Philistines shall be
spoiled and laid waste, and the other countries ad¬
joining to them and in alliance with them. It is
a day to spoil the Philistines, for the Lord will s/ioil
them, v. 4. Note, Those whom God will spoil must
needs oe spoiled; for, if God be against them, who
can be for them? Tyre and Zidon were str< ng and
wealthy cities, and they used to help the Philistines
in a strait, but now they shall themselves be in¬
volved in the common ruin, and God will cut off
from them every liel/ier that remains. Note, Those
that trust to help from creatures, will find it cutoff
when they most need it, and will thereby be put
into the utmost confusion. Who the remnant of
the country of Caphtor were, is uncertain, but we
find that the Caphtorim were near akin to the Phi¬
listine, (Gen. x. 14.) and, probably, when their own
country was destroyed, such as remained came and
settled with their kinsmen the Philistines, and were
now spoiled with them. Some particular places
are here named, Gaza and .'tshkelon; (t>. 5.) bald¬
ness is come u/ion them, the invaders have stripped
them of all their ornaments, or, they have made
themselves bald in token of extreme grief, and they
are cut off, with the other cities that were in the
pi tin or valley about them. The products of their
Fruitful valleys shall be sfioiled, and made a prey of,
oy the conquerors.
4. That these calamities should continue long.
The prophet, in the foresight of this', with his usual
tenderness, asks them, first, (r. 5.) How long will
ye cut yourselves, as men in extreme sorrow and
anguish do? Oh how tedious will the calamity be!
not only cutting, but long cutting: but he turns from
tlv effect to the cause; They cut themselves, for the
sword of the Lord cuts them. And therefore, (1.)
H - hespe :ks that to be still; (v. 6.) O thou sword j
of the Lord, how long will it be ere thou be quiet?
H ■ begs it would put up itself into the scabbard,
w add devour no more flesh, drink no more blood.
This expresses the prophet’s earnest desire to see
an end of the war, looking with compassion, as be¬
came a m in, even upon the Philistines themselves,
when their country was made desolate bv the sword.
Note, War is the sword of the Lord, with it he
punishes the crimes of his enemies, and pleads the
cause of his own people. When war is once begun,
it often lasts long; the sword, once drawn, does not
quickly find the way into the scabbard again; nay,
some, when they draw the sword, will throw away
the scabbard, for they delight in war. So deplora¬
ble are the desolations of war, that the blessings of
peace cannot but be very desirable. O that swords
might be beaten into ploughshares! (2.) Yet he
gives a satisfactory account of the continuance of
the war, and stops the mouth of his own complaint;
(t>. 7. ) How can it be quiet, seeing the Lord hath
given it a charge against such and such places, par¬
ticularly specified in its commission? There hath he
appointed it. Note, [1.] The sword of war has
its charge from the Lord of hosts; every bullet has
its charge; you call them blind bullets, but they are
directed by an all-seeing God: the war itself has its
charge; he saith to it. Go, and it goes; Come, audit
comes; Do this, and it does it; for he is Commander
in chief. [2.] When the sword is drawn, we can¬
not expect it should be sheathed till it has fulfilled
its charge. As the word of God, so his rod and his
sword shall accomplish that for which he sends
them.
CHAP. XLVIII.
Moab is next set to the bar before Jeremiah the piophet
whom God had constituted judge over nations and king¬
doms, from his mouth to receive its doom. Isaiah’s
predictions concerning Moab had had their accomplish¬
ment, (we had the predictions, Isa. xv, xvi. and the like,
•Amos ii. 1.) and they were fulfilled when the Assyrians,
under Salmanassar, invaded and distressed Moab. But
this is a prophecy of the desolations of Moab by the
Chaldeans, which were accomplished under Nebuzar-
adun, about live years after he had destroyed Jerusalem.
Here is, I. The destruction foretold, that it should be
great and general, should extend itself to all parts of
the country, (v. 1 . . 6, 8.) and again, v. ‘21 . . 25, 34.
That spoilers should come upon them, and force some
to flee, (v. 9.) should carrv many into captivity; (v. 12,
46.) that the enemy should come shortly, (v. 16.) come
swiftly, and surprise them; (v. 40, 41.) that he should
make thorough work, (v. 10.) and lay the country quite
waste, though it was very strong; (v. 14, 15.) that there
should be no escaping, (v. 42, 45.) that this should force
them to quit their idols, (v. 13, 35.) and put an end to
all their joy; (v. 33, 34.) that their neighbours shall
lament them, (v. 17. . 19.) and the prophet himself does,
v. 31,36, &c. 11. The causes of this destruction assigned;
it was sin that brought this ruin upon them, their pride,’
and security, and carnal confidence, (v. 7, 11, 14, 29.)
and their contempt of. and enmity to, God and his peo¬
ple, v. ‘26, 27, 30. III. A promise of the restoration of
Moab, v. 47.
1. A GAINST Moab thus saith the Lord
of hosts, the God of Israel, Wo unto
Nebo ! for it is spoiled; Kiriathaim is con¬
founded and taken ; Misgab is confounded
and dismayed. 2. There shall be no more
praise of Moab : in Heshbon they have de¬
vised evil against it ; cope, and let us cut it
off from being a nation : also thou shalt be
cut down, O Madmen; the sword shall pur¬
sue thee. 3. A voice of crying shall be from
Horonaim, spoiling and great destruction.
4. Moab is destroyed; her little ones have
caused a cry to be heard. 5. For in the
going up of Luhith continual weeping shall
go up; for in the going down of Horonaim
the enemies have heard a cry of destruc¬
tion. 6. Flee, save your lives, and be like
the heath in the wilderness. 7. For because
thou hast trusted in thy works, and in thy
treasures, thou shalt also be taken; and
Chemosh shall go forth into captivity, with
his priests and his princes together. 8. And
the spoiler shall come upon every city, and
no city shall escape; the valley also shall
perish, and the plain shall be destroyed, as
the Lord hath spoken- 9. Give wings unto
Moab, that it may tlee and get away: for
the cities thereof shall be desolate, without
any to dwell therein. 10. Cursed be he
that doeth the work of the Lord deceitfully,
and cursed be. he that keepeth back his
sword from blood. 11. Moab hath been at
ease from his youth, and he hath settled on
his lees, and hath not been emptied from
vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into
captivity: therefore his taste remained in
him, and his scent is not changed. 12.
Therefore, behold, the days c.ome, saith the
332
JEREMIAH, XL VIII.
Lord, that I will send unto him wanderers,
that shall cause him to wander, and shall
empty his vessels, and break their bottles.
13. And Moab shall be ashamed of Che-
mosh, as the house of Israel was ashamed
of Beth-el their confidence.
We may observe, in these verses,
1. The Author of Moab’s destruction; it is the
Lord of hosts, that lias armies, all armies, at his
command, and the God of Israel, (u. 1.) who will
herein plead the cause of his Israel against a peo¬
ple that have always been vexatious to them, and
will punish them now' for the injuries done to Israel
of old, though Israel was forbidden to meddle with
them; (Deut. ii. 9.) therefore the destruction of
Moab is called the work of the Lord, (y. 10.) for it
is he that pleads for Israel; and his work will ex¬
actly agree with his word, v. 8.
2. The instruments of it; S/ioilers shall come, (y.
8.) shall come with a sword, a sword that shall
/lursue them, v. 2. I mill send unto him wanderers,
such as come from afar, as if they were vagrants,
or had missed their way, but they shall cause him
to wander; they seem as wanderers themselves, but
they shall make the Moabites to be really wander¬
ers, some to flee, and others to be carried into cap¬
tivity. These destroyers stir up themselves to do
execution; they have devised evil against Heshbon,
one of the principal cities of Moab, and they aim at
no less than the ruin of the kingdom, Come, and
let us cut it off from being a nation; ( v . 2.) nothing
less will serve the turn of the invaders, they come
not to plunder it, but to ruin it. The prophet, in
God’s name, engages them to make thorough work
of it; (y. 10.) Cursed be he that doeth the work of
the Lord deceitfully, this bloody work, this destroy¬
ing work; though it goes against the grain with men
of compassion, yet it is the work of the Lord, and
must not be done by the halves. The Chaldeans
have it in charge, by a secret instinct, (says Mr.
Gataker,) to destroy the Moabites, and therefore
they must not spare, must not, out of foolish pity,
keep back their sword from blood, they would
thereby bring a sword, and a curse with it, upon
’hemselves, as Saul did by sparing the Amalekites;
ind Ahab by letting Benhadad go; Thy life shall go
for his life. To this work is applied that general
rule given to all that are employed in any service
f it- God. Cursed be he that doeth the work of the
Lord deceitfully or negligently, that pretends to do
it, but does it not to purpose, makes a show of serv¬
ing God’s glory, but is really serving his own ends,
and carries on the work of the Lord no further
than will suit his own purposes; or that is slothful
in business for God, and takes neither care nor
pains to do it as it should be done, Mai. i. 14. Let
not such deceive themselves, for God will not thus
be mocked.
3. The woful instances and effects of this de¬
struction. The cities shall be laid in ruins, they
shall be sfioiled, (v. 1.) and cut down, (y. 2.) they
shall be desolate, (y. 9. ) without any to dwell there¬
in ; there shall be no houses to dwell in, or no people
to dwell in them, or no safety and ease to those that
would dwell in them. Every city shall be sfioiled,
and no city shall cscafie. The strongest city shall
not be able to secure itself against the enemies’
power, nor shall the finest city be able to recom¬
mend itself to the enemies’ pity and favour. The
country also shall be wasted, the valley shall
fierish, and the filain be destroyed, v. 8. The corn
and the flocks, which used to cover the plains, and
make the valley rejoice, shall all be destroyed, eaten
up, trodden down, or carried off". The most sacred
persons shall not escape, the priests and princes
shall go together into captivity. Nay, Chemosh,
the god they worship, who, they hope, will protect
them, shall share with them in the ruin, his tem¬
ples shall be laid in ashes, and his image carried
away with the rest of the spoil. Now the conse¬
quence of all this will be, (1.) Great shame and
confusion; Kirjathaim is confounded, and Misgah
is so. They shall be ashamed of the mighty boasts
they have sometimes made of their cities. There
shall be no more vaunting in Moab concerning
Heshbon; (so it might be read, v. 2.) they shall no
more boast of the strength of that city, when the
evil which is designed against it is brought upon it.
Nor shall they any more boast of their gods; (v. 13.)
they shall be ashamed of Chemosh, ashamed of all
the prayers they made to, and all the confidence
they put in, that dunghill deity: as Israel was
ashamed of Beth-el, of the golden calf they had at
Beth-el, which they confided in as their protector,
but were deceived in, for it was not able to save
them from the Assyrians; nor shall Chemosh be
able to save the Moabites from the Chaldeans.
Note, Those that will not be convinced and made
ashamed of the folly of their idolatry by the word
of God, shall be convinced and made ashamed of it
by the judgments of God, when they shall find by
woful experience the utter inability of the gods they
have served to do them any service. (2.) There
will be great sorrow; there is a voice of crying
heard, ( v . 3.) and the cry is nothing but spoiling
and great destruction; Alas! alas! Moab is destroy¬
ed, v. 4. The great ones having quitted the cities
to shift for their own safety, even the little ones
have caused a cry to be heard, the meaner sort of
people, or the little children, the innocent, harmless
ones, whose cries at such a time are the most pite¬
ous. Go up to the hills, go down to the valley, and
you meet with continual weeping, weepingj with
weeping all are in tears, you meet none with dry
eyes. Even the enemies have heard the cry, from
whom it had been policy to conceal it, for tKey will
be animated and encouraged by it; but it is so great,
that it cannot be hid. (3.) There will be great
hurry; they will cry to one another, “ Away, away,
flee, save your lives, (ti. 6.) shift for your own
safety with all imaginable speed, though you escape
as bare and naked as the heath, or grig, or dry
shrub, in the wilderness; think not of carrying away
any thing you have, for it may cost you your life to
attempt if, Matth. xxiv. 16. — 18. Take shelter,
though it be in a barren wilderness, that you may
have your lives for a prey. The danger will come
suddenly and swiftly; and therefore give wings unto
Moab, (y. 9.) that would be the greatest kindness
you could do them, that is it that they will call for,
O that we had wings like a dove'! for unless thev
have wings, and can fly, there will be no escaping.”
4. The sins for which God will now reckon with
Moab, and which justify God in these severe pro¬
ceedings against them.
(1. ) It is because they have been secure, and have
trusted in their wealth and strength, in their works,
and in their treasures, v. 7. They had taken a
great deal of pains to fortify their cities, and make
large works about them, and to fill their exchequer
and private coffers; so that they thought themselves
in as good a posture for war as any people could be,
and that none durst invade them, and therefore set
danger at defiance: they trusted in the abundance
of their riches, and strengthened themselves in their
wickedness, Ps. lii. 7. Now, for this reason, that
they may have a sensible conviction of the vanity
and folly of their carnal confidences, God will send
an enemy that shall master their works, and rifle
538
JEREMIAH, XLVIII.
their treasures. Note, We forfeit the comfort of
that creature, which we repose that confidence in
that should be reposed in God only. The reed will
break that is leaned upon.
(2.) It is because they have not made a right im¬
provement of the days of their peace and prospe¬
rity, v. 11. [1. jHThey had been long undisturbed;
71 loub hath been flPease from his youth. It was an
ancient kingdom before Israel was, and had enjoyed
great tranquillity, though a small country, and sur-
r unded with potent neighbours. God’s Israel were
afflicted from their youth, (Ps. cxxix. 1, 2.) but
M-jab hath been at ease from his youth. He has not
been em/itied from vessel to vessel, has not known
any troublesome, weakening changes, but is as wine
kept on the lees, and not racked or drawn off, by
which it retains its strength and body. He has not
been unsettled, nor any wav made uneasy; he has
not gone into ca/ilivity, as Israel have often done,
and vet Moab is a wicked, idolatrous nation, and
one of the confederates against God’s hidden ones,
Ps. lxxxiii. 6. Note, There are many that persist
in unr pented iniquity, and yet enjoy uninterrupted
pr sperity. [2.] They had been as long corrupt
and unreformed; He has settled on his lees, he has
been secure and sensual in his prosperity, has rested
in it, and fetched all the strength and life of the soul
from it, as the wine from the lees; his taste remain¬
ed in him, and his scent is not changed; he is still
the same, as bad as ever he was. Note, While bad
people are as happy as they used to be in the world,
it is no marvel if they are as bad as they used to be.
They have no changes of their peace and prosperity,
therefore they fear not God, their hearts and lives
are unchanged, Ps. lv. 19.
14. How say ye, We are mighty and
strong men for the war? 15. Moab is spoil¬
ed, and gone up out of her cities, and his
chosen young men are gone down to the
slaughter, saith the King, whose name is
The Lord of hosts. 16. The calamity of
Moab is near to come, and. his affliction
hasteth fast. 1 7. All ye that are about him,
bemoan him; and all ye that know his
name, say, How is the strong staff broken,
and the beautiful rod! 18. Thou daughter
that dost inhabit Dibon, come down from
thy glory, and sit in thirst; for the spoiler
of Moab shall come upon thee, and he
shall destroy thy strong holds. 19. O in¬
habitant of Aroer, stand by the way, and
espy; ask him that fieeth, and her that
escapeth, and say, What is done? 20. 1
Moab is confounded; for it is broken
down: houd and ciy; tell ye it in Arnon,
that Moab is spoiled, 21. And judgment
is come upon the plain country ; upon Ho-
lon, and upon Jahazah, and upon Me-
phaath, 22. And upon Dibon, and upon
Nebo, and upon Beth-diblathaim, 23. And
upon Kiriathaim, and upon Beth-gamul,
and upon Beth-meon. 24. And upon Ke-
rioth, and upon Bozrah, and upon all the
cities of the land of Moab, far or near. 25.
The horn of Moab is cut off, and his arm is
broken, saith the Lord. 26. Make ye him
drunken ; for he magnified himself against
the Lord: Moab also shall wallow in his
vomit, and he also shall be in derision. 27.
For was not Israel a derision unto thee?
was he found among thieves? for since thou
spakest of him, thou skippedst for joy. 28
O ye that dwell in Moab, leave the cities,
and dwell in the rock, and be like the dove
that maketh her nest in the sides of the
hole’s mouth. 29. We have heard the
pride of Moab, (lie is exceeding proud,) his
loftiness, and his arrogancy, and his pride,
and the haughtiness of his heart. 30. I
know his wrath, saith the Lord: but it
shall not be so ; his lies shall not so effect
it. 31. Therefore will I howl forMoah, and
I will cry out for all Moab; my heart shall
mourn for the men of Kir-heres. 32. O vine
of Sibmah, I will weep for thee with the
weeping of Jazer ; thy plants are gone over
the sea, they reach even to the sea of Jazer
the spoiler is fallen upon thy summer-fruits,
and upon thy vintage. 33. And joy and
gladness is taken from the plentiful field,
and from the land of Moab; and I have
caused wine to fail from the wine-presses:
none shall tread with shouting ; their shout¬
ing shall be no shouting. 34. F rom the cry
of Heshbon even unto Elealeh, and even
unto Jahaz, have they uttered their voice,
from Zoar even unto floronaim, as a heifer
of three years old; for the waters also of
Nimrim shall be desolate. 35. Moreover,
I will cause to cease in Moab, saith the
Lord, him that offereth in the high places,
and him that burnetii incense to his gods.
36. Therefore my heart shall sound for
Moab like pipes, and my heart shall
sound like pipes for the men of Kir-heres:
because the riches that he hath gotten is
perished. 37. For every head shall be bald,
and every beard dipt: upon all the hands
shall be cuttings, and upon the loins sack¬
cloth. 38. There shall be lamentation gene¬
rally upon all the house-tops of Moab, and
in the streets thereof: for I have broken
Moab like a vessel wherein is no pleasure,
saith the Lord. 39. They shall howl, say¬
ing, How is it broken down! how hath
Moab turned the back with shame! so shall
Moab be a derision and a dismaying to all
them about him. 40. For thus saith the
Lord, Behold, he shall fly as an eagle, and
shall spread his wings over Moab. 41. Ke-
rioth is taken, and the strong holds are sur¬
prised, and the mighty men’s hearts in Moab
at that day shall be as the heart of a wo¬
man in her pangs. 42. And Moab shall be
destroyed from being a people, because he
hath magnified himself against the Lord.
43. Fear, and the pit, and the snare, shall
534
JEREMIAH, XLVIII.
he upon thee, O inhabitant of Moab, saith
the Lord. 44. He that fleeth from the
fear shall fall into the pit; and he that get-
teth up out of the pit shall be taken in the
snare: for 1 will bring upon it, even upon
Moab, the year of their visitation, saith the
Lord. 45. They that fled stood under the
shadow of Heshbon, because of the force:
but a fire shall come forth out of Heshbon,
and a flame from the midst of Sihon, and
shall devour the corner of Moab, and the
crown of the head of the tumultuous ones.
46. Wo be unto thee, O Moab! the people
of Chemosh perisheth: for thy sons are
taken captives, and thy daughters captives.
47. Yet will I bring again the captivity of
Moab in the latter days, saith the Lord.
Thus far is the judgment of Moab.
The destruction is here further prophesied of very
largely, and with a great copiousness and variety of
expression, and very pathetically, and in moving
language, designed not only to awaken them by a
national repentance and reformation to prevent the
trouble, or by a personal repentance and reforma¬
tion to prepare tor it, but to affect us with the ca¬
lamitous state of human life, which is liable to such
lamentable occurrences; and with the power of
God’s anger and the terror of his judgments, when
lie comes forth to contend with a provoking people.
In reading this long roll of threatenings, and medi¬
tating the terror of them, it will be of more use to
us to keep this in our eye, and to get our hearts
thereby possessed with a’ holy awe of God and of
his wrath, than to inquire critically into all the lively
figures and metaphors here used.
I. It is a surprising destruction, and very sudden,
that is here threatened. They were very secure,
thought themselves strong for mar, and able to deal
with the most powerful enemy; (n. 14.) and yet the
calamity is near, and he is not able to keep it off,
nor so much as to keep the enemy long in parley,
for the affliction hastens fast, (t>. 16.) and will soon
come to a crisis. The enemy shall jly as an eagle,
so swiftly, so strongly shall he come, (v. 40.) as an
eagle flies upon his prey, and he shall s/iread his
•wings, the wings of his army, over Moab; he shall
surround it, that none may escape. The strong holds
of Moab are taken by sur/irise, (y. 41.) so that all
their strength stood them in no stead; and this made
the hearts even of their mighty men to fail, for they
had not time to recollect the considerations that
might have animated them. It requires a more than
ordinary degree of courage not to be afraid of sud¬
den fear.
II. It is an utter destruction, and such as lays Moab
all in ruins. Moab is spoiled, (v. 15. ) quite spoiled,
is confounded and broken damn; (v. 20.) their cities
are laid in ashes, or seized by the enemy, so that
they are forced to quit them, v. }S. Divers cities
are here named, upon which judgment is come, and
the list concludes with an et cetera. What occasion
was there for him to mention more particulars, when
it comes ufion all the cities of Moab in general, far
and near? v. 21.— 24. Note, When iniquity is uni¬
versal, wc have reason to expect that calamity
should be so too. The kingdom is deprived of its
dignity anl authority; The horn of Moab is cut off,
the horn of its strength and power, both offensive
and defensive; his arm is broken, that he can nei¬
ther give a blow, nor save a blow, v. 25. Is the
youth of the kingdom the strength and beauty of it?
His chosen young men are gone down to the slaugh
ter, v. 15. They went down to the battle, pro¬
mising themselves that they should return victoii-
ous; but God told them that they went down to the
slaughter; so sure are they to fall against whem
God fights! In a word, Moab shall be destroyed
from being a fieo/ile, v. 42. TJA^e that are ene¬
mies to God’s people will soon blmi ade no people.
III. It is a lamentable destruction, it will be just
matter of mourning, and will turn joy into heavi¬
ness.
1. The prophet that foretells it does himself la¬
ment it, and mourns at the very foresight of it, from
a principle of compassion to his fellow-creatures,
and concern for human nature. The prophet will
himself howl for Moab, his very heart shall mourn
for them; (v. 31.) he will weep, for the vine of Si b-
mah, (n. 32.) his heart shall sound like pi/ies for
Moab, v. 36. Though the destruction of Moab
would prove him a true prophet, yet he could not
think of it without trouble. The ruin of sinners is
no pleasure to God, and therefore should be a pair
to us; even those that give warning of it should lay
it to heart. These passages, and many others in
this chapter, are much the same with what Isaiah
had used in his prophecies against Moab; (Isa. xv.
16.) for though there was a long distance of time be¬
tween that prophecy and this, yet they were both
dictated by one and the same Spirit; and it becomes
God’s prophets to speak the language of those that
went before them. It is no plagiarism sometimes
to make use of old expressions, provided it be with
new affections and applications.
2. The Moabites themselves shall lament; it will
be the greatest mortification and grief imaginable to
them. Those that sat in glory, in the midst < f
wealth and mirth, and all manner of pleasure, shall
sit in thirst, in a dry and thirsty land, where no
water, no comfort, is, v. 18. It is time for them to
sit in thirst, and inure themselves to hardship, when
the spoiler is come, who will strip them of all, and
empty them. The Moabites in the remote corners
of the country, that are furthest from the danger,
will be inquisitive how the matter goes, what news
from the armv, will ask every one that escapes,
What is done? v. 19. And when they are told that
all is gone, that the invader is the conqueror, they
will howl and cry, in bitterness and anguish of spirit,
(y. 20.) they will abandon themselves to solitude, to
lament the desolations of their country, they will
leave the cities that used to be full of mirth, and
dwell in the rock, where they may have their ti 11 < f
melancholy: they shall no more be singing birds,
but mourning birds, like the dove, (y. 28. ) the doves
of the valleys, Ezek. vii. 16. Let those that give
themselves up to mirth know that God can sorn
change their note. Their sorrow shall be so very
extreme, that they shall make themselves bald, and
cut themselves, hi. 37.) which were expressions of
a desperate grief, such as tempted men to be even
their own destroyers. Job, indeed, rent his mantle,
and shaved his head, but he did not cut himself.
When the flood of passion rises ever so high, wisdom
and grace must set bounds to it, set banks to it, to
restrain it from such barbarities. The sorrow
shall be universal; (v. 38.) There shall be a gene¬
ral lamentation upon all the house-tops of Moab,
where thev worshipped their idols, to whom they
shall in vain bemoan themselves, and in all the
streets, where they conversed with one another, fi r
they shall be free in communicating their griefs and
fears, and in propagating them; for they see all lost;
“I have broken Moab like a vessel wherein is no
pleasure, which shall not be regarded, and cantv t be
pieced again. That which Moab used to rejoice
in, was, their pleasant fruits, and the abundance of
their rich wines. The delights of sense were all
535
JEREMIAH, XLVIU.
the matter of their joy. Take away these, destroy j
their gardens and vineyards, and you make all their
mirth to cease, Hos. ii. 11, 12. There is great weep¬
ing when their plants are transplanted, are gone
ever the sea, (y. 32.) are carried into other coun¬
tries, to be planted there. The spoiler is fallen
u/ion thy summer-fruits, and upon thy vintage,
and that is it that makes theory of Heshbon to reach
even to Elealeh, v. 34. Take joy and gladness from
the plentiful field, and you take it from the land of
Moab, v. 33. If the wine fail from the wine-presses,
th at used to be trodden with acclamations of joy, all
their gladness is cut off. Take away that shouting,
and there shall be no shouting. Note, They who
make the delights of sense their chief joy, their ex¬
ceeding joy, since these are things they may be
easily deprived of in a little time, subject themselves
to the tyranny of the greatest grief; whereas they
who rejoice in God may do that even when the fig-
tree doth not blossom, and there is no fruit in the
vine. These Moabites lost not only their wine, but
their water ton, even the waters of Nimrim shall be
desolate, ( v . 34.) and therefore their grief grew ex¬
travagantly loud and noisy, and their lamentations
were heard in all places like the lowing of a heifer
of three years old. The expressions here are bor¬
rowed from Isa. xv. 5, 6.
3. All their neighbours are called to mourn with
them, and to condole with them on their ruin; ( v .
IT.) All ye that are about him, bemoan him. Let
him have that allay to his grief, let him see himself
pitied by the adjoining countries. Nay, let those at
a distance, who do but know his name, and have
heard of his reputation, take notice of his fall, and
say, How is the strong stajf broken, whose strength
was the terror of its enemies, and the beautiful rod,
whose beauty was the pride of its friends! Let the
nations take notice of this, and receive instruction.
Let none be puffed up with, or put confidence in,
their strength or beauty, for neither will be a secu¬
rity' against the judgments of God.
IV. It is a shameful destruction, and such as shall
expose them to contempt; Moab is made drunk,
{v. 26.) and he that is made drunk, is made vile,
he shall wallow in his vomit, and become an odious
spectacle, and shall justly be in derision. Let the
Moabites be intoxicated with the cup of God’s
wrath, till they stagger and fall, and be brought to
their suits’ end, and make themselves ridiculous by
the wildness not only of their passions but of their
counsels. And again, (x>. 39.) Moab shall be a de¬
rision and a dismaying to all about him; they shall
laugh at the fall of the pomp and power he was so
proud of. Note, They that are haughty are pre¬
paring reproach and ignominy for themselves.
V. It is the destruction of that which is dear to
them; not only of their summer-fruits, and their
vintage, but of their wealth; ( v . 36.) The riches that
he has gotten are perished; though he thought he
had laid them up very safe, and promised himself
a long enjoyment of them, yet they are gone. Note,
The money that is hoarded in the chest, is as liable
to perishing as the summer-fruits that lie exposed
in the open fields. Riches are shedding things, and,
like dust as they are, slip through our fingers then
when we are in most care to hold them fast, and
gripe them hard. Yet this is not the worst; even
th ^se whose religion was false and foolish were fond
of it above any thing, and, such as it was, would not
p irt with it; and therefore, though it was really a
promise, yet to them it was a threatening, (i*. 35.)
th a God will cause to cease him that offers in the
high places, for the high places shall be destroyed,
and the fields of offerings shall be laid waste, and
the priests themselves, who burnt incense to their
gods, shall be slain, or carried into captivity, v. 7.
Note, It is only the true religion, and the worship
and service of the true God, that will stand us in
stead in a day of trouble.
VI. It is a just and righteous destruction, and that
which they have deserved, and brought upon them¬
selves, by sin.
1. The sin which they had been most notoriously
guilty of, and for which God now reckoned with
them, was pride. It is mentioned six times, v. 29.
IVe have all heard of the pride of Moab; his neigh¬
bours took notice of it, it has testified to his face, as
Israel’s did, he is exceeding proud, and grows worse
and worse. Observe his loftiness, his arrogancy,
his pride, his haughtiness; the multiplying of words
to the same purport, intimates in how many in¬
stances he discovered his pride, and how offensive
it was both to God and man. It was charged upon
them, Isa. xvi. 6. but here it is expressed more
largely than there. Since then, they had been un¬
der humbling providences, and yet were unhum¬
bled; nay, they grew more arrogant and haughty,
which plainly marked them for that utter destruc¬
tion of which pride is the forerunner. Two in¬
stances are here given of the pride of Moab: (1.)
He had conducted himself insolently toward God.
He must be brought down with shame, (n. 26.) for
he has magnified himself against the Lord; and
again, ( v . 42.) he shall be destroyed from being a
people, fur this very reason; the Moabites preferred
Chemosh before Jehovah, and thought themselves
a match for the God of Israel, whom they set at
defiance. (2.) He had conducted himself scorn¬
fully toward Israel, particularly in their late trou¬
bles; therefore Mo;ib shall fall into the same trou¬
bles, into the same hands, and be a derision, for
Israel was a derision to him, v. 26, 2 7. The gene¬
rality of the Moabites, when they heard of the ca¬
lamities and desolation of their neighbours the Jews,
instead of lamenting them, rejoiced in them as if
they had been thieves taken in the act of robbing;
as often as they spake of them, they skipped for
joy. Many, in such a case, entertained in their
minds a secret pleasure at the fall of those they had
a dislike to, who yet have so much discretion as to
conceal it, it is so invidious a thing; but the Moab¬
ites industriously proclaimed their joy, and avowed
the enmity they had to Israel, triumphing over
every Israelite they met with in distress, and laugh¬
ing at him; which was as inhuman as it was im¬
pious, and an impudent affront both to man, whose
nature they were of, and to God, whose name they
were called by. Note, Those that deride others in
distress will justly and certainly, sooner or later,
come into distress themselves, and be had in deri¬
sion. Those that are glad at calamities, especially
the calamities of God’s church, shall not long go
unpunished.
2. Beside this, they had been guilty of malice
against God’s people, and treachery in their deal¬
ings with them, v. 30. They made a jest of the
desolations of Judah and Jerusalem, and pretended,
when they laughed at them, that it was but in
sport, and to make themselves merry; but, says
God, “ I know his wrath, I know it comes from tfie
old enmity he has to the seed of Abraham, and the
worshippers of the true God. I know he thinks
these calamities of the Jewish nation will end in their
utter extii-pation. He now tells the Chaldeans
what bad people the Jews are, and irritates them
against them; but it shall not be so as he expects;
his lies shall not so effect it. The nation, whose fall
they triumph in, shall recover itself. ” Some read
it, I know his rage. Is it not so? (Is he not very
furious against the people of God?) And his lies 1
know also. Do they not do so? Do they not belie
them? Note, All the fury and all the falsehood of
536
JEREMIAH, XLIX.
the church’s enemies are perfectly known to God,
whatever the pretences are with which they think
to cuver them, Isa. xxxvii. 28.
VII. It is a complicated destruction, and by one
instance after another will at length be completed;
for those that make their escape from one judgment,
shall perish by another; Fear, and the pit, and the
snare, shall be upon them, v. 43. There shall be
fear to drive them into the pit, and a snare to hold
them fast in it, when they are in it; so that they
shall neither escape from the destruction, nor es¬
cape out of it. What was said of sinners in gene¬
ral, (Isa. xxiv. 17, 18.) that they who Jlee from the
fear shall fall into the pit, and they who come up
out of the pit, shall be taken in the snare, is here
articularly foretold concerning the sinners of
loab, (v. 44. ) for it is the year of their visitation,
when God comes to reckon with them, and will be
known by the judgments which he executes, for he
is the King, whose name is the Lord of hosts; (n.
15.) he is not only the King, who has authority to
give judgment, but he is the Lord of hosts, who is
able to do what he has determined. The figurative
expressions used, x>. 44. are explained in one in¬
stance; (v. 45.) Those that fed out of the villages
for fear of the enemy’s forces, put themselves un¬
der the shadow of Heshbon, stood there, and sup¬
posed they stood safe, as now armies sometimes re¬
tire under the cannon of a fortified city, and it is
their protection; but here they shall be disappoint¬
ed, for when they fee out of the pit they fat! into
the snare; Heshbon, which they thought would
have sheltered them, devours them, as Moses had
foretold long since; (Numb. xxi. 28.) Jf re is gone
out of Heshbon, and a fame from the city of fiihon,
and devours those that come from all the corners of
Moab, and fastens upon the crown of the head of
the tumultuous noisy ones, or of the revellers, or
children of noise; not meant of the rude, clamorous
multitude, but of the great men, who bluster, and
hector, and make a noise; the judgments of God
shall light on them. Shall we hear the conclusion
of this whole matter? We have it; (n. 46.) Wo
be to thee, 0 Moab! thou art undone; the people
that worship Chemosh perish, and are gone; fare¬
well Moab. The sons and daughters, the hopes of
the next generation, are gone into captivity after
the Jews, whose calamities they rejoiced in.
VIII. Yet it is not a perpetual destruction. The
chapter concludes with a short promise of their re¬
turn out of captivity in the latter days. God, who
brings them into captivity, will bring again their
captivity, v. 47. 1 hus tenderly does God deal
with Moabites, much more with his own people!
Even with Moabites he will not contend for ever,
nor be always wroth. When Israel returned Moab
did; and perhaps the prophecy was intended chiefly
for the encouragement of God’s people, to hope for
that salvation which even Moabites shall share in.
Yet it looks further, to gospel-times; the Jews
themselves refer it to the days of the Messiah; then
the captivity of the Gentiles, under the yoke of sin
and Satan, shall be brought back by divine grace,
which shall make them free, free indeed. This
prophecy concerning Moab is long, but here it ends,
it ends comfortably, Thus far is the judgment of
Moab.
CHAP. XLIX.
The cup of trembling still goes round, and the nations
must all drink of it, according to the instructions given
to Jeremiah, ch. xxv. 15. This chapter puts it into the
hands, 1. Of the Ammonites, v. 1 . . 6. II. Of the
F.domites, v. 7 . . 22. III. Of the Syrians, v. 23. .27.
IV. Of the Kcdarencs, and the kingdoms of Hazor, v.
28 . . 33. V. Of the Elamites, v. 34 . . 39. When Israel
was scarcely saved, where shall all these appear?
1. /T CONCERNING the Ammonites,
thus saith the Lord, Hath Israel no
sons ? hath he no heir? why then doth their
king inherit Gad, and his people dwell in
his ciues? 2. Therefore, behold, the days
come, saith the Lord, that I will cause an
alarm of war to be heard in Rabbah of the
Ampionites; and it shall be a desolate
heap, and her daughters shall be burnt with
fire: then shall Israel be heir unto them
that were his heirs, saith the Lord. 3.
Howl, O Heshbon; for Ai is spoiled: cry,
ye daughters of Rabbah, gird ye will) sack¬
cloth ; lament, and run to and fro by the
hedges: for their king shall go into captivity,
and his priests and his princes together. 4.
Wherefore gloriest thou in the valleys, thy
flowing valley, O backsliding daughter ?
that trusted in her treasures, saying , Who
I shall come unto me ? 5. Behold, I will
bring a fear upon thee, saith the Lord God
of hosts, from all those that be about thee;
and ye shall be driven out every man right
forth; and none shall gather up him that
wandereth. 6. And afterward I will bring
again the captivity of the children of Am¬
mon, saith the Lord.
The Ammonites were next, both in kindred and
neighbourhood, to the Moabites, and therefore are
next set to the bar. Their country joined to that of
the two tribes and a half, on the other side Jordan,
and was but a bad neighbour; however, being a
neighbour, they shall have a share in these circular
predictions.
1. An action is here brought, in God’s name,
against the Ammonites, for an illegal encroachment
upon the rightful possessions of the tribe of Gad,
that lay next them, v. 1. A writ of inquiry is
brought to discover what title they had to those
territories, which, upon the carrying away of the
Gileadites by the king of Assyria, (2 Kings yv. 29.
— 1 Chron. v. 26.) were left almost dispeopled, at
least unguarded, and an easy prey to the next inva¬
der. What! Does it escheat ob defectum sanguinis
— for want of an heir ? Hath Israel no sons? Hath
he no heir? Are there no Gadites left, to whom the
right of inheritance belongs? Or, if there were not,
are there no Israelites, none left of Judah, that are
nearer akin to them than you are? Why then does
their king, as if he were entitled to the forfeited
estates, or Milcom, their idol, as if he had the right
to dispose of it to his worshippers, inherit Gad, and
his people dwell in the cities which fell by let to that
tribe of God’s people. Nay, they were sons and
heirs of their own body, en ventre de sa mere — in
their mother’s womb, and the Ammonites, to pre¬
vent their claim, most barbarously murdered them;
(Amos i. 13.) They ripped up the women with child,
of Gilead, that they might enlarge their border; that,
having seized it, none might rise up hereafter to
recover it from them. Thus they magnified them¬
selves against their border, and boasted it was their
own, Zeph. ii. 8. Note, Though among men might
often prevails against right, yet that might shall be
controlled by the Almighty, who sits in the throne,
judging aright; and those will find themselves
mistaken, who think every thing their own which
they can lay their hands on, or which none yet ap-
I ears to lay claim to. As there is justice owing to
537
JEREMIAH, XLIX.
owners, so also to their heirs, when they are dead,
whom it is a great sin to defraud, though they either
know not their right, or know not how to come at
it. This shall be reckoned for particularly, when
injuries of this kind are done to God’s people.
2. Judgment is here given against them for this
violence.
(1.) Terrors shall come upon them; God w ill
cause an alarm of war to be heard, even in Kab¬
bah, their capital city, and a very strong one, v. 2.
The Lord God of hosts, who has all armies at his
command, will bring a far upon them from all
that be about them, v. 5. Note, God has many
ways to terrify those who have been a terror to his
people.
(2.) Their cities shall be laid in ruins; Kabbah,
the mother-city, shall be a desolate heu/t, and her
daughters, the other cities that have a dependence
upon her, and receive law from her as daughters,
shall be burnt with fire; so that the inhabitants
shall be forced to quit them, and they shall cry,
and gird themselves with sackcloth, as having lost
all they have, and not knowing whither to betake
themselves.
(3. ) Their country, which they were so proud of,
shall be wasted, (x>. 4.) Wherefore gloriest thou in
the valleys, and trustest in thy treasures, 0 back¬
sliding daughter? They are charged with back¬
sliding or turning away from God and from his
worship, for they were the posterity of righteous
Lot. It is true, they had never been so in covenant
with God as Israel was; yet all idolaters may be
called backsliders, for the worship of the true God
was prior to that of false gods. They were unto¬
ward and refractory ; so some read it: and when
they had forsaken their God, they gloried in their
valleys, particularly one that was called the flowing
valley, because it flowed with all good things.
These they had violently taken away from Israel,
and gloried in it when they had done so. They
gloried in the strength of their valleys, so surrounded
with mountains, that they were inaccessible; gloried
in the products of them, gloried in the treasures
they got together out of them, saying. Who shall
come unto me? While they bathed themselves in
the pleasures of their country, they flattered them¬
selves with a conceit that they should never be dis¬
turbed in the enjoyment of them; To-morrow shall
be as this day; therefore they set God and his judg¬
ments at defiance; they are proud, voluptuous, and
secure; but wherefore dost thou do so? Note,
Those who backslide and turn away from God
have little reason either to take complacency, or to
put confidence, in any worldly enjoyments whatso¬
ever, Hos. ix. 1.
(4. ) Their people, from the least to the greatest,
shall be forced out of the country; some shall flee to
seek for shelter, others shall be carried into cap- 1
tivity, so that their land shall be quite evacuated;
Their king and his princes, nay, and Milcom, their
god, and his priests, shall go into captivity, (v. 3.)
and every man shall be driven out right forth, shall
take the next way, and make the best of it in his
flight, (v. 5.) forgetting the valleys, the flowing
valleys, which now fail them. And, to complete j
their misery, none shall gather up him that wan¬
ders, none shall open their doors to them, as Jael to
Sisera, to entertain them; and those that flee shall
be so much in care to secure themselves, that they
shall not take notice of others, no, not of those that
are nearest to them, that wander, and are at a loss j
which way to go, as ch. xlvii. 3.
(5.) Then the country of the Ammonites shall i
fall into the hands of the remaining Israelites; (v.
2.) Then shall Israel be heir to them that were his
heirs, shall possess himself of their land, who had
possessed themselves of his, by way of reprisal.
Vol. iv. — 3 Y
; Note, The equity cf Divine Providence is to be
acknowledged, when the losses of the injured are
recompensed out of the unjust gains of the injurious.
Though the enemies of God’s Israel may make a
prey of them for awhile, the tables will shortly be
turned.
3. Vet there is a prospect giv en them of mercy
hereafter, (v. 6.) as before to Moab. The day will
come, when the captivity of the children of yhnmon
: will be brought again; tor so it is in hum. n affairs,
the wheel goes round.
7. Concerning Edom, thus saith the Lord
of hosts, Is wisdom no more in Teman? is
! counsel perished from the prudent? is their
wisdom vanished? 8. Flee ye, turn back,
dwell deep, O inhabitants of Dedan; for I
will bring the calamity of Esau upon him,
the time that I will visit him. 9. If gt ape-
gatherers come to thee, would they not leave
some gleaning-grapes? if thieves by night,
they will destroy till they have enough. 10.
But I have made Esau bare, J have un¬
covered his secret places, and he shall not
be able to hide himself: his seed is spoiled,
and his brethren, and his neighbours, and
lie is not. 11. Leave thy fatherless children,
I will preserve them alive; and let thy
widows trust in me. 12. For thus saith the
I/Ord, Behold, they whose judgment was
not to drink of the cup have assuredly
drunken; and art thou he that shall altoge¬
ther go unpunished? thou shalt not go un¬
punished, but thou shalt surely drink of it.
13. For 1 have sworn by myself j saith the
Lord, that Bozrah shall become a desola¬
tion, a reproach, a waste, and a curse; and
all the cities thereof shall be perpetual
wastes. 1 4. I have heard a rumour from
the Lord, and an ambassador is sent unto
the heathen, saying , Gather ye together, and
come against her, and rise up to the battle.
15. For, lo, I will make thee small among
the heathen, and despised among men. 16.
Thy terribleness hath deceived thee, and
the pride of thy heart, O thou that dwellest
in the clefts of the rock, that boldest the
height of the hill: though thou shouldest
make thy nest as high as the eagle, I will
bring thee down from thence, saith the
Lord. 17. Also Edom shall be a desola¬
tion; every one that goeth by it shall be
astonished, and shall hiss at all the plagues
thereof. 1 8. As in the overthrow of Sodom
and Gomorrah, and the neighbour cities
thereof, saith the Lord, no man shall abide
there, neither shall a son of man dwell in it.
19. Behold, he shall come up like a lion
from the swelling of Jordan against the
habitation of the strong: but 1 w ill suddenly
make him run away from her; and who is
a chosen man , that I may appoint over her?
538
JEREMIAH, XLIX.
for who is like me? and who will appoint |
me the time? who is that shepherd that will i
stand before me? 20. Therefore hear the
counsel of the Lord, that he hath taken
against Edom; and his purposes, that he
hatli purposed against the inhabitants of
Teman: Surely the least of the flock shall
draw them out; surely he shall make their
habitations desolate with them. 21. The
earth is moved at the noise of their fall; at
the cry, the noise thereof was heard in the
Red Sea. 22. Behold, he shall come up
and fly as the eagle, and spread his wings
over Bozrah: and at that day shall the
heart of the mighty men of Edom be as the
heart of a woman in her pangs.
The Edomites come next to receive their doom
from God, by the mouth of Jeremiah; they also
were old enemies to the Israel of God; but their day
will come to be reckoned with, and it is now at
hand, and is foretold, not only for warning to them,
but for comfort to the Israel of God, whose afflic¬
tions were very much aggravated by their triumphs
over them, and joy in their calamity, Ps. cxxxvii. 7.
Manv of the expressions used in this prophecy con- >
corning Edom , are borrowed from the prophecy of
Obadi th, which is concerning Edom; for all the
prophets being inspired by one and the same Spirit,
there must needs be a wonderful harmony and
agreement in their predictions.
Now here it is foretold,
1. That the country of Edom should be all wasted,
and made desolate; that the calamity of Esau should
be brought u/ion him, the calamity "he has deserved,
and God has long designed him, for his old sins, v. 8.
The time is at hand when God will visit him, and
call him to an account, and then they shall flee from
the sword, turn back from the battle, and dwell
deep in some close caverns, where they shall hide
themselves. All they have shall be carried off by
the conqueror: whereas grape-gatherers will leave
some gleanings, and even thieves know when they
have enough, "and will destroy no further, they that
destroy' them shall never be satiated, (v. 9, 10. )
they shall make Esau quite bare, shall strip the
Edomites of all they have, shall find out ways and
means to come at their most hidden treasure, shall
discover even the secret places, where they thought
to secure their wealth, and rifle them, so that they
shall none of them save their wealth, no, nor save
themselves or their children, that might be con¬
cealed in a little room; He shall not be able to hide
himself, and his seed too is spoiled. His brethren
the Moabites, and his neighbours the Philistines,
whom he might have expected succours from, or at
least shelter with, are spoiled as well as he, and j
disabled to do him any service. And he is not, or,
there is not he, there is none to him, none left him,
that may say what follows, (y. 11.) Leave thy fa¬
therless children, I will preserve them alive. When
they are flying, or dying, there shall be none left,
no relation, no friend, no, not so much as any parish-
officers to take care of their wives and children that
they leave behind. Edom is not, he is cut off and
gone; nor is there any to say. Leave me thine or¬
phans. If the master of a family be cut off, or 1
forced away, it is some comfort if he have a friend
to leave his family with, whom he can confide in;
but they shall have none such, for they shall all be
involved in the same calamity'. The Chaldee makes
these to be the words of God to his people, distin¬
guishing them from the Edomites in this calamity;
and they read it, “But you, O house of Israel, you
shall not leave your orphans, I will secure them,
and let your widows rest on my word. Whatever
becomes of the widows and fatherless of the Edom¬
ites, I will take care of yours.” Note, It is an un¬
speakable comfort to the children of God, when
they are dying, that they mav leave their sun iving
relations with God, may, in faith, commit them to
him, and encourage them to trust in him; and
though they cannot promise themselves great things
in the world for them, yet they may hope that he
will preserve them alive, always provided that they
trust m him. Let the Edomites, for their part,
count upon no other than to be made a desolation,
and a reproach, for the decree is gene forth, God
hath sworn it by himself, (v. 13.) that their cities
shall be wasted, nay, they shall be perpetual wastes,
they shall be made mean and despicable; they had
made a mighty figure, but God will make them
small among the heathen; and they that despised
God’s people shall themselves be despised among
I men; (v. 15. Obad. 2.) nay, they shall be made
monstrous, and even a prodigy; (v. 17.) Edom shall
| be such a desolation, that every one who goes by
shall be astonished : nay, worse yet, they shall be
made a terror, Edom shall be made like Sodom and
Gomorrah, none shall care for coming near the
ruins of it, no man shall abide there, (y. 18.) such a
frightful place shall it be made!
2. That the instruments of this de struction sho uld
be very resolute and formidable. They have their
commission from God, he summons them into this
service; [y. 14.) I have heard a rumour, or report,
from the Lord, heard it by the prophecy of Oba-
diah, heard it by a whisper to myself, that an am¬
bassador, or herald, or messenger, is sent to the
Gentiles, who are to lay Edom waste, saying, Ga¬
ther ye together, muster all the forces ye can, and
come against her; for (o'. 20. ) this is the counsel that
he hath taken against Edom : the matter is settled,
the decree is gone forth, and there is no resisting it;
God has determined that Edom shall be laid waste,
and then he that is to be employed in it shall ccme
swiftly and strongly. Nebuchadrezzar is he, of
whom it is here foretold, (1.) That he shall come
up like a lion, with fierceness and fury, like a lion
enraged by the swelling of Jordan overflowing his
banks, which forces him out of his covert by the
water-side, into the higher grounds, v. 19. He
shall come roaring, come to devour all that come
in his way. He shall come against the habitation
of the strong, the forts and castles; and I will cause
him to come suddenly into the land, (so the next
words might well be read,) so as to find them un¬
provided with necessaries for a defence; for I will
look out a chosen man to appoint over her, to do
this execution, a man fit for the purpose, one chosen
out of the people: for when God has work to do, he
will find out the fittest instruments to be employed
in it. “ Who is like me for choosing the instruments,
and spiriting them for the work? And, who wilt
appoint me the time? Who will challenge me, and
fix a time and place to meet me? Who will join
issue with me in battle? And when I send a lion
into the flock. Who is that shepherd, that can, or
dare, stand before me, or against me, to oppose that
lion, and think to rescue any of the flock?” Note,
When God has work to do of any kind, he will soon
find those that are able to engage in it; and all the
\ world cannot find those that are able to engage against
, it. Nay, if God will have Edom destroyed, and their
people dislodged, there needs not a lion, a fierce lien,
to do it; even the least of the flock shall draw them
out,{y. 20.) the meanest servant in Nebuchadrez¬
zar’s retinue, the weakest of all that follow his camp,
J shall draw them out for the slaughter, shall force
I them to flee, or to surrender, and make their habita-
JEREMIAD, XL IX.
tions desolate with them. God can bring to pass
the greatest works by instruments least likely.
When the Chaldean army comes against the Edom¬
ites, all hands shall be employed, and the poorest
soldier in it shall have a pluck at them. (2.) Ne¬
buchadrezzar shall come, not only like a lion, the
king of beasts, but like an eagle, the king of birds,
v. 22. He shall Jly as the eagle upon his prey, so
swiftly, so strongly; shall clap his wings upon Boz-
rah, to secure it for himself, (as before, eh. xlviii.
40.) and immediately the hearts of the mighty men
shall fail them, for they shall see he is an enemy
that it is in vain to struggle with.
3. That the Edomites’ confidences should all fail
them in the day of their distress. (1.) They trusted
to their wisdom, but that shall stand them in no
stead; this is the first thing fastened upon in this
rophecy against Edom, v. 7. That nation used to
e famous for wisdom, and their statesmen were
thought to excel in politics; and yet now they shall
take such wrong measures in all their counsels, and
be so baffled in all their designs, that people shall
ask, with wonder, What is the matter with the
Edomites? Is wisdom no more in Teman ? Are the
wise men of the east country (1 Kings iv. 30.) be¬
come fools? Are those at their wits’ end, that were
thought to have the monopoly of prudence? Is coun¬
sel perished from the understanding men? It is so,
when God is designing the ruin of a people; for
whom he will destroy he infatuates. See Job xii. 20.
Is their wisdom vanished ? Is it tired? So some;
Is it worn out? So others; Is it become useless? So
others. Yes, it will do them no service when God
comes forth to contend with them. (2.) They
trusted to their strength, but neither shall that avail
them, v. 16. They had been a terror to all their
neighbours, every body feared them, and truckled
to them, and this made them proud and conceited
of themselves, and their own strength, and very
secure; because no neighbouring nation durst med¬
dle with them, they thought no nation in the world
durst. Their country was much of it mountainous,
having many passes which they thought themselves
able to make good against any invader; but this ter¬
ribleness of theirs deceived them, and so did their
imaginary inaccessibleness; they did not prove so
strong as they were formidable, nor so safe as they
were secure. High as they are, God will bring
them down; for as there is no wisdom, so there is no
might, against the Lord. See these expressions,
Obad. 3, 4, 8.
4. That their destruction should be inevitable,
and very remarkable. (1.) God hath determined
it; (t>. 12.) he hath said it; nay, (i». 13.) he hath
sworn it, that the Edomites shall not go unpunished,
but they shall drink the cup of trembling, which is
put into the hands of all their neighbours; even
they, whose judgment, or doom, was not to drink
of the cup, who had not so well deserved it as they
had done, nations that had not been such enemies
to Israel as they had been; or, Israel itself, that was
God’s peculiar people, and among whom there
were many, very many, who kept his ordinances,
\ipon which account they might have expected an
exemption, and yet they had been made to drink
of the bitter cup; and shall the Edomites think to
pass it? No; they shall surely drink of it. Note,
When God punishes the less guilty, it is folly for
the more guilty to promise themselves impunity;
and when judgment begins at God’s house, it will
reach the strangers. (2.) All the world shall take
notice of it; (n. 21.) The earth is moved, and all the
nations put into a concern, at the noise of their full;
the news of it shall make them tremble. The noise
of the outcry is heard at the Red sea, which flowed
upon the coasts of Edom. So loud shall be the
shouts of the conquerors, and the shrieks of the
539
conquered, and such a mighty noise shall the news
of this destruction of Idumea make in the nation,
that it shall be heard among the ships that lie in the
Red sea to take in lading, (1 Kings ix. 26. ) and then
they shall carry the news of it to the remotest shore.
Note, The fall of those who have affected to make
a noise with their pomp and power, will make so
much the greater noise.
23. Concerning Damascus. Hamath is
confounded, and Arpad ; for they have heard
evil tidings; they are faint-hearted : there is
sorrow on the sea ; it cannot be quiet. 24.
Damascus is waxed feeble, and turneth
herself to flee, and fear hath seized on her:
anguish and sorrows have taken her, as a
woman in travail. 25. How is the city of
praise not left, the city of my joy! 26.
Therefore her young men shall fall in her
streets, and all the men of war shall be cut
off in that day, sailh the Lord of hosts. 27.
And I will kindle a fire in the wall of Da¬
mascus, and it shall consume the palaces
of Ben-hadad.
The kingdom of Syria lay north of Canaan, as
that of Edom lay south, and thither we must new
remove, and take a view of the approaching fate of
that kingdom, which had been often vexatious to
the Israel of God. Damascus was the metropolis
of that kingdom, and the ruin of the whole is sup¬
posed in the ruin of that; yet Hamath and Arpad,
two other considerable cities, are named, (v. 23. )
and the palaces of Ben-hadad, which he built, are
particularly marked for ruin; (r>. 27.) see also
Amos i. 4. Some think Ben-hadad (the son of Ha-
dad, either their idol, or one of their ancient kings,
whence the rest descended,) was a common name
of the kings of Syria, as Pharoah of the kings of
Egypt. Now observe concerning the judgments of
Damascus,
1. It begins with a terrible fright and faint-heart¬
edness. They hear evil tidings, that the king of
Babylon, with all his force, is coming against them,
and they are confounded, they know not what mea¬
sures to take for their own safety, their souls are
melted, they are faint-hearted, they have no spirit
left them, they are like the troubled sea, that cannot
be quiet, (Isa. lvii. 20.) or like men in a storm at
sea; (Ps. evii. 26.) or, the sorrow that begins in the
city shall go to the sea-coast, v. 23. See how easily
God can dispirit those nations that have been most
celebrated for valour! Damascus now waxes feeble;
(v. 24.) a city that thought she could have looked
the most formidable enemy in the face, now turns t
herself to Jlee, and owns it is to no more purpose to'
think of contending with her fate, than for a woman
in labour to contend with her pains, which she can¬
not escape, but must yield to. It was a city of
praise, (v. 25.) not praise to God, but to herself;
a city much commended and admired by all stran¬
gers that visited it. It was a city of joy, where
there was an affluence and confluence ot all the de¬
lights of the sons of men, and abundance of mirth in
the enjoyment of them. We read it, (though there
is no necessity for it,) the city of my joy, which the
prophet himself had sometimes visited with plea¬
sure. Or, it may be tbe speech of the king lament¬
ing the ruin of the city of his joy. But now it is all
overwhelmed with fear and grief. Note, Those
deceive themselves who place their happiness in
carnal joys; for God in his providence can sot n cast
a damp upon them, and put an end to them. He
540
JEREM1/'
can soon make a city of praise to be a reproach,
and a city of joy to be a terror to itself.
S. It ends with a terrible fall and fire. (1.) The
inhabitants are slain; (x. 26.1 The young men, who
should fight the enemy, and defend the city, shall
fall by the sword in her streets; and all the men of
war, mighty men, expert in war, and engaged in
t:ie service of their country, shall be cut of. (2.)
The city is laid in ashes; (v. 27. ) The fire is kin¬
dled by tile besiegers in the wall, but it shall devour
all before it, the palaces of Ben-hadad particularly,
where so much mischief had formerly been hatched
against God’s Israel, for which it is now thus
visited.
28. Concerning Kedar, and concerning
the kingdoms of Razor, which Nebuchad¬
rezzar king of Babylon shall smite, thus saith
the Lord; Arise ye, go up to Kedar, and
spoil the men of the east. 29. Their tents
and their flocks shall they take away: they
shall take to themselves their curtains, and
all their vessels, and their camels; and they
shall cry unto them, Fear is on every side.
30. Flee, get you far off, dwell deep, O ye
inhabitants of Hazor, saith the Lord; lor
Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon hath ta¬
ken counsel against you, and hath conceived
a purpose against you. 31. Arise, get you
up unto the wealthy nation, that dwelleth
without care, saith the Lord, which have
neither gates nor bars, which dwell alone.
32. And their camels shall be a booty, and
the multitude of their cattle a spoil ; and I
will scatter into all winds them that are in
the utmost corners; and I will bring their
calamity from all sides thereof, saith the
Lord. 33. And Hazor shall be a dwelling
for dragons, and a desolation forever: there
shall no man abide there, nor any son of
man dwell in it.
These verses foretell the desolation that Nebu¬
chadrezzar and his forces should make among the
people of Kedar, (who descended from Kedar the
son of Ishmael, and inhabited a part of Arabia the
Stony,) and of the kingdoms, the petty principali¬
ties of Hazor, that joined to them, who, perhaps,
were originally Canaanites, of the kingdom of Ha¬
zor, in the north of Canaan, which had Jabin for its
king, but, being driven thence, settled in the deserts
of Arabia, and associated themselves with the Ke-
darenes. Concerning this people, we may here
observe,
1. What was their present state and posture.
They dwelt in tents, and had no walls, but curtains,
(v. 29.) no fortified cities; they had neither gates
nor bars, v. 31. They were shepherds, and had no
treasures, but stock upon land, no money, but flocks
and camels. They had no soldiers among them,
for they were in no fear of invaders; no merchants,
for they dwelt alone, v. 31. Those of other nations
neither came among them, nor traded with them;
but they lived within themselves, content with the
products and pleasures of their own country. This
was their manner of living, very different from that
of the nations that were round about them. And,
(1.) They were very rich; though they had no
trade, no treasures, yet they are here said to be a
wealthy nation, (t\ 31.) because they had a suffi-
\H, XLIX.
ciency to answer all the occasions of human life, and
they were content with it. Note, Those are truly
rich who have enough to supply their necessities,
and know when they have enough. We need not
go to the treasures of kings and provinces, or to the
cash of merchants, to look for wealthy people; they
may be found among shepherds that dwell in tents.
(2.) They were very easy, they dwelt without care,
their wealth was such as nobody envied them, or, if
any did, they might come peaceably, and enjoy the
like, and therefore they fear nobody. Note, Those
that live innocently and honestly may live very se-
curelv, though they have neither gates nor bars.
2. The design of the king of Babylon against
them, and the descent he made upon them; He has
taken counsel against you, and has conceived a pur¬
pose against you, v. 30. That proud man resolves
it shall never be said, that he, who had conquered
so many strong cities, will leave those unconquered
that dwell in tents. It was strange that that eagle
would stoop to catch these flies; that so great a
prince should play at such small game; but all is
fish that comes to the ambitious, covetous man’s
net. Note, It will not always secure men from suf¬
fering wrong, to be able to say that they have done
no wrong; not to have given of fence will not be a
defence against such men as Nebuchadrezzar. Yet,
how unrighteous soever he was in doing it, God was
righteous in directing it. These people had lived
inoffensively among their neighbours, as many do,
who yet, like them, are guilty before God; and it
was to punish them for their offences against him,
that God said, (xi. 28.) Arise, go up to Kedar, and
spoil the men of the east. They will do it to gratify
their own covetousness and ambition, but God or¬
ders it for the correcting of an unthankful people,
and for warning to a careless world, to expect
trouble when they seem to be most safe. God says
to the Chaldeans, ( v . 31.) “Arise, get up to the
wealthy nation that dwells without care; go, and give
them an alarm, that none may imagine their moun¬
tain stands so strong, that it cannot be removed.”
3. The great amazement that this put them into,
and the great desolation hereby made among them;
They shall cry unto them, those on the borders shall
send the alarm into all parts of the country, which
shall be put into the utmost confusion by it; they
shall cry, “ Fear is on every side, we are surround¬
ed by the enemy ;” the very terror of which shall
drive them all to their feet, and they shall m ne of
them have any heart to make resistance. The
enemy shall proclaim fear upon them, or against
them, on every side; they need not strike a stroke,
they shall shout them out of their tents, v. 29.
Upon the first alarm, they shall fee, get far off, and
dwell deep, (xc 30.) as the Edomites, v. 8. And
it will be . found that this fear on every side is not
groundless, for their calamity shall be brought from
all sides thereof, v. 32. No marvel there are fears
on every side, when there are foes on every side.
The issue will be, (1.) What they have will be a
prey to the Chaldeans; they shall take to themselves
their curtains and vessels; though they are but
plain and coarse, and they have better of their own,
yet they shall take them for spite, and spoil for
spoiling sake. They shall carry away t/.eir tents
and their flocks, v. 29. Their camels shall be a
booty to those that came for nothing else, xc 32.
(2.) It is not said that any of them shall be si dn,
for they attempt not to make any resistance, and
their tents and flocks are accepted as a ransom for
their lives; but they shall be dislodged and dispersed;
though now they dwell in the utmost corners, out
of the way, and therefore they think out of the
reach, of danger, (by this character those pet pie
were distinguished, ch. ix. 26. — xxv. 23.) vet they
shall from thence be scattered into all wind i, into all
511
JEREMIAH, L.
parts of the world. Note, Privacy and obscurity
are not always a protection and security. Many
that affect to be strangers to the world, may yet by
unthought-of providences be forced into it; and those
that live most retired, may have the same lot with
those that thrust themselves forth, and lie most ex¬
posed. (.".) Their country shall lie uninhabited;
tor, lying remote, and out of all high roads, and
having neither cities nor lands inviting to strangers,
none shall care to succeed them, so that Hazor
shall be a desolation for ever, v. 33. If busy men
be displaced, many strive to get into their places,
because they lived great; but here are easy, quiet
men displaced, and no man cares to abide where
they did, because they lived mean.
34. The word of the Lord that came to
Jeremiah the prophet against Elam, in the
beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of
Judah, saying, 35. Thus saith the Lord
of hosts, Behold, I will break the bow of
Elam, the chief of their might. 36. And
upon Elam will 1 bring the four winds from
the four quarters of heaven, and will scatter
them toward all those winds; and there
shall be no nation whither the outcasts of
Elam shall not come. 37. Fori will cause
Elam to be dismayed before their enemies,
and before them that seek their life; and J
will bring evil upon them, even my fierce an¬
ger, saith the Lord; and! will send the sword
after them, till 1 have consumed them: 38.
And I will set my throne in Elam, and will
destroy from thence the king and the prin¬
ces, saith the Lord. 39. But it shall come
to pass in the latter days, that I will bring
again the captivity of Elam, saith the Lord.
This prophecy is dated in the beginning of Zede-
kiah’s reign; it is probable that the other prophe¬
cies against the Gentiles, going before, were at the
same time. The Elamites were the Persians, de¬
scended from Elam the son of Shem; (Gen. x.
22.) yet some think it was only that part of Persia
which lay nearest to the Jews, which was called
Elymais, and adjoined to Media-Elam, which, say
they, had icted against God’s Israel, bare the quiver
in an expedition against them, (Isa. xxii. 6.) and
therefore must be reckoned with among the rest.
It is here foretold, in general, that God will bring
evil u/ion them, even his fierce anger, and that is
evil enough, it has all evil in it, v. 37. In par¬
ticular,
1. Their forces shall be disabled, and rendered
incapable of doing them any service. The Elam¬
ites were famous archers, but, Behold, I will break
the bow of Elam, ( v . 35.) will ruin their artillery,
and then the chief of their might is gone. God often
orders it so, that that which we most trust to first
fails us; and that which was the chief of our might
proves the least of our help.
2. Their people shall be dispersed. There shall
come enemies against them from all parts of the
world, and they shall all carry some of them away
captive into their respective countries; while others
shall flee, some one way, and some another, to shift
for themselves, so that there shall be no nation
whither the outcasts of Elam shall not come, v. 36.
The four winds shall be brought upon them; the
storm shall come sometimes from one point, and
sometimes from another, to toss and hurry them
several ways; and we know not from what point
the wind of trouble may blow; but if God compass
us with his favour, »e are safe, and may be easy,
which way soever the storm comes. Fear shall
drive them into other countries; they shall be dis¬
mayed before their enemies ; but, as it that were not
enough, I will send the sword after them, t'. 37.
Note, God can make his judgments fellow thtse
that think by flight to escape them, and to get cut
of the reach of them. Evil /tursues sinners.
3. Their princes shall be destroyed, and the go¬
vernment quite changed; (r>. 38.) I will set my
throne in Elam. The throne ef Nebuchadrezzar
shall be set there, or the throne of Cyrus, who be¬
gan his conquests with Elymais. Or, it may be
meant of the throne on which God sits for judgment;
he will make them know that he reigns, that he
judges in the earth, and that kings and / irinces are
accountable to him, and that high as they are lie is
above them. The king of Elam was famous ef old,
Gen. xiv. 1. Chedorlaomer was king of Elam, and
a mighty man he was in his day; the nations about
him served him; his successes, we mav suppose,
made a great figure; but the king of Elam is nc
more to God than another man. When God sets
hisHhrone in Elam, he will destroy from thence the
king and the princes that are, and set up whom he
pleases.
4. Yet the destruction of Elam shall not be per¬
petual; (y. 39.) In the latter days I will bring again
the captivity of Elam. When Cyrus had destroved
Babylon, brought the empire into the hands of the
Persians, the Elamites, no doubt, returned in tri¬
umph out of all the countries whither they were
scattered, and settled again in their own country.
But this promise was to have its full and principal
accomplishment in the days of the Messiah, when
we find Elamites particularly among those, who,
when the Holy Ghost was given, heard spoken in
their own tongues, the wonderful works of God;
(Acts ii. 9.) and that is the most desirable return of
the captivity. If the Son makes you free, then you
shall be free indeed.
CHAP. L.
In this chapter, and that which follows, we have the judg¬
ment of Babylon, which is put last of Jeremiah’s pro¬
phecies against the Gentiles, because it was last accom¬
plished; and when the cup of God’s fury went round,
(ch. xxv. 17.) the king of Sheshach, Babylon, drank last.
Babylon was employed as the rod in God’s hand for the
chastising of all the other nations, and now at length
that rod shall be thrown into the fire. The destruction
of Babylon by Cyrus was foretold, long before it came
to its height, by Isaiah, and now again, when it is come
to its height, by Jeremiah; for though at this time he
saw that kingdom flourishing like a green bay-tree , yet
at the same time he foresaw it withered and cut down.
And as Isaiah’s prophecies of the destruction of Babylon,
and the deliverance of Israel out of it, seem designed
to typify the evangelical triumphs of all believers over
the powers of darkness, and the great salvation wrought
out by our Lord Jesus Christ; so Jeremiah’s prophecies
of the same events seem designed to point at apocalyptic
triumphs of the gospel-church in the latter days over the
New Testament Babylon, many passages in the Revela¬
tion being borrowed from hence. The kingdom of Ba¬
bylon being much larger and stronger than any other of
the kingdoms here prophesied against, its fall was the
more considerable in itself; and it having been more op¬
pressive to the people of God than any of the others, the
prophet is very large upon this subject, for the comfort
of the captives; and what wTas foretold in general often
before, (ch. xxv. 12. and xxvii. 7.) is here more particu¬
larly described, and with a great deal of prophetic heat
as well as light. The terrible judgments God had in
store for Babylon, and the glorious blessings he had in
store for his people that were captives there, are inter¬
mixed and counterchanged in the prophecy of this chap¬
ter; for Babylon was destroyed to make way for the
turning again of the captivity of God’s people. Here is,
I. The ruin of Babylon, (v. 1 . . 3. ) and again, ( v. 9 . -16.)
and again, (v. 21 . . 32.) and again, v. 35 . . 46. II. The
512
JEREMIAH, I
redemption of God’s people, (v. 4.. 8.) and again, (v.
17. . 20.) and again, v. 33, 34. And these being set the
one against the other, it is easy to say which one would
choose to take one’s lot with, the persecuting Babylo¬
nians, who, though now in pomp, are reserved for so
great a ruin; or the persecuted Israelites, who, though
now in thraldom, are reserved for so great a glory.
1. rpHE word that the Loro spake
I against Babylon, and against the
land of the Chaldeans, by Jeremiah the
prophet. 2. Declare ye among the nations,
and publish, and set up a standard; pub¬
lish, and conceal not: say, Babylon is taken,
Bel is confounded, Merodach is broken in
nieces; her idols are confounded, her images
are broken in pieces. 3. For out of the
north there cometh up a nation against her,
which shall make her land desolate, and
none shall dwell therein: they shall remove,
they shall depart, both man and beast. 4.
In those days, and in that time, saith the
Lord, the children of Israel shall come,
they and the children of Judah together,
going and weeping: they shall go, and seek
the Lord their God. 5. They shall ask the
way to Zion, with their faces thitherward,
saying , Come, and let us join ourselves to
the Lord in a perpetual covenant that shall
not be forgotten. 6. My people hath been
lost sheep; their shepherds have caused
them to go astray, they have turned them
away on the mountains: they have gone
from mountain to hill, they have forgotten
their resting-place. 7. All that found them
have devoured them; and their adversaries
said, We offend not, because they have
sinned against the Lord, the habitation of
justice; even the Lord, the hope of their
fathers. 8. Remove out of the midst of
Babylon, and go forth out of the land of the
Chaldeans, and be as the lie-goats before
the flocks.
Here is,
I. A word spoken against Babylon, by him whose
works all agree with his word, and none of whose
words fall to the ground. The king of Babylon had
been very kind to Jeremiah, and yet he must fore¬
tell the ruin of that kingdom; for God’s prophets
must not be governed by favour or affection. Who¬
ever are our friends, if, notwithstanding, they are
God’s enemies, we dare not speak peace to them.
1. The destruction of Babylon is here spoken of as
a thing done, v. 2. Let it be published to the na¬
tion as a piece of news, true news, and great news,
and news they are all concerned in; let them hang
out the flag, as is usual on days of triumph, to give
notice of it; let all the world take notice of it, Baby¬
lon is taken; let God have the honour of it, let his
people have the comfort of it, and therefore do not
conceal it. Take care that it be known, that the
Lord may be known by those judgments which he
executes, Ps. ix. 16.
2. It is spoken of as a thing done thoroughly.
For, (1.) The very idols of Babylon, which the
people would protect with all possible care, and
from which they expected protection, shall be de¬
stroyed. Bel and Merodach were their two princi¬
pal deities, they shall be confounded, and the
images of them broken to /lieccs. (2.) The country
shall be laid waste, (v. 3.) cut of the north; from
Media, which lay north of Babylon, and fr in As¬
syria, through which Cyrus made his descent upon
Babylon; from thence the nation shall come, that
shall make her land desolate. Their land was north
of the countries that they destroyed, who were there¬
fore threatened yvith evil from the north; ( Omne
malum ab acquilone — Every evil comes from the
north;) but God will find out nations yet fmther
north to come upon them. The pomp and power
of old Rome yvere brought down by northern nations,
the Goths and Vandals.
II. Here is a word spoken for the people of God,
and for their comfort, both the children of Israel and
of Judah; for many there were of the ten tribes,
that associated yvith those of the two tribes in their
return out of Baby lon. Now here,
1. It is promised that they shall return to their
God first, and then to their own land; and the pro¬
mise of their conversion and reformation is that
yvhich makes way for all the other promises, v. 4,
5. (1.) They shall lament after the Lord; (as the
yvhole house of Israel did in Samuel’s time, 1 Sam.
vii. 2.) they shall go ivee/iing. These tears flow
not from the sorroyv of the yvorld, as those when
they went into captiy ity, but from godly sorrow;
they are tears of repentance for sin, tears of joy for
the goodness of God, in the dawning of the day of
their deliverance, which, for aught that appears,
does more toyvard the bringing of them to mourn for
sin, than all the calamities of their captivity; that
prevails to lead them to re/ientance, when the other
did not prevail to drive them to it. Note, It is a
good sign that God is coming toyvard a people in
ways of mercy, yvhen they begin to be tenderly af¬
fected under his hand. (2.) They shall inquire
after the Lord; they shall not sink under their sor-
royvs, but bestir themselves to find out comfort
where it is to be had; They shall go weeping to
seek the Lord their God; Those that seek the Lord
must seek him sorrowing, as Christ’s parents sought
him, Luke ii. 48. And those that sorrow must seek
the Lord, and then their sorrow shall soon be turned
into joy, for he will be found of those that so seek
him. They shall seek the Lord as their God, and
shall noyv have no more to do yvith idols. When
they shall hear that the idols of Babylon are con¬
founded and broken, it will be seasonable for them
to inquire after their own God, and to return to Him
yvho lives for ever. Therefore men are deceived in
false gods, that they may depend on the true God
only- (3.) They shall think of returning to their
oyvn country again; they shall think of it not only as
a mercy, but as a duty, because there only is the
holy hill of Zion, on yvhich once stood the house of
the Lord their God, v. 5. They shall ask the way
to Zion, with their faces thitherward. Zion was the
citv of their solemnities, they often thought of it in
the depth of their captivity; (Ps. cxxxvii. 1.) but
noyv that the ruin of Babylon gave them some hopes
of a release, they talk of nothing else but cf going
back to Zion. Their hearts were upon it before,
and noyv they set their faces thitherward; they long
to be there, they set out for Zion, and resolve not
to take up short. The journey is long, they know
not the road, but they shall ask the way, for they
yvill press forward till they come to Zion; and as
they are determined not to turn back, so tbev are in
care not to miss the way. This represents the re¬
turn of poor souls to God : heaven is the Zion they
aim at as their end, on this they have set their
hearts, toyvard this they have set their faces, and
therefore they ask the way thither. They do not
ask the way to heaven, and set their faces toyvard
the yvorld; nor set their faces toyvard heaven, and
543
JEREMIAH, L.
go on at a venture without asking the way. But in
all true converts there are both a sincere desire to
attain the end, and a constant care to keep in the
way; and a blessed sight it is, to see people thus
asking the way to heaven with their faces (.hither¬
ward. (4.) They shall renew their covenant to
walk with God closer for the future; Come, and let
us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual cove¬
nant. They had broken covenant with God, had
in effect separated themselves from him, but now
they resolve to join themselves to him again, by en¬
gaging themselves afresh to be his. Thus, when
backsliders return, they must do their first works,
must renew the covenant they first made; and it
must be a perpetual covenant, that must never be
br ken; and, in order to that, must never be forgot¬
ten; for a due remembrance of it will be the means
of a due observance of it.
2. Their present case is lamented as very sad,
and as h iving been long so; "My people ” (for he
owns them as his, now that they are returning to
him) 'have been lost sheep, (u. 6P) they have gone
from mountain to hill, have been hurried from
place to place, and could find no pasture, they have
forgotten their resting-place in their own country,
and cannot find their way to it.” And that which
aggravated their misery, was, (1.) That they were
led astray by their own shepherds, their own princes
and priests; they turned them from their duty, and
so provoked God to turn them out of their own land.
It is b id with a people when their leaders cause
them to err, when those that should direct and re¬
form them seduce and debauch them; and when
those that should secure and advance their interests
are the betravers ot them. (2.) That in their wan¬
derings they lay exposed to the beasts of prey, who
thought they were entitled to them, as waifs and
strays that have no owner; (v. 7.) it is with them
as with wandering sheep, all that found them have
devoured them, and made a prey of them; and when
they did them the greatest injuries, they laughed at
them, telling them it was what their own prophets had
many a time told them they deserved: that was far
from justifying those who did them wrong, yet they
bantered them with this excuse, IVe offend not, be¬
cause they have sinned against the Lord; but they
could not pretend that they had sinned against them.
And see what notion they had of the Lord they had
sinned against, not as the only true and living God,
but only as the Habitation of justice, and the Hope
of their fathers; they had put a contempt upon the
temple, and upon the tradition of their ancestors,
and therefore deserved to suffer these hard things.
And yet it was indeed an aggravation of their sin,
and justified God, though it did not justify their ad¬
versaries in what was done to them, that they had
forsaken the Habitation of justice, and him that was
the Hope of their fathers.
3. They are called upon to hasten away, as soon
as ever the door of liberty was opened to them;
{v. 8.) “Remove, not only out of the borders, but
out of the midst of Babylon; though you be ever so
well seated there, think not to settle there, but
hasten to Zion, and be as the he-goats before the
J locks , strive which shall be foremost, which shall
lead in so good a work;” a he-goat is comely in
going, (Prov. xxx. 31.) because he goes first. It is
a graceful thing to be forward in a good work, and
to set others a good example.
9. For, lo, I will raise, and cause to come
up against Babylon, an assembly of great
nations from the north country: and they
shall set themselves in array against her;
from thence she shall be taken: their arrows
shall he as of a mighty expert man; none
shall return in vain. 10. And Chaldea
shall be a spoil: all that spoil her shall b“
satisfied, saith the Loud. 11. Because y<
were glad, because ye rejoiced, O ye de
stroyers of my heritage; because ye are
grown fat as the heifer at grass, and bellow
as bulls; 12. Your mother shall be sore
confounded; she that bare you shall be
ashamed: behold, the hindermost of the na¬
tions shall be a wilderness, a .dry land, and
a desert. 1 3. Because of the wrath of the
Loan it shall not be inhabited, but it shall
be wholly desolate: every one that goeth by
Babylon shall be astonished, and hiss at all
her plagues. 14. Put yourselves in array
against Babylon round about: all ye that
bend the bow shoot at her, spare no arrows;
for she hath' sinned against the Lord. 15.
Shout against her round about; she hath
given her hand : her foundations are fallen,
her walls are thrown down; for it is the
vengeance of the Lord: take vengeance
upon her; as she hath done, do unto her.
1 6. Cut off the sower from Babylon, and
him that handleth the sickle in the time of
harvest: for fear of the oppressing sword
they shall turn every one to his people, and
they' shall flee every one to his own land.
1 7. Israel is a scattered sheep, the lions have
driven him away: first the king of Assyria
hath devoured him, and Iasi this Nebuchad¬
rezzar king of Babylon hath broken his
bones. 18. Therefore thus saith the Lord
of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will
punish the king of Babylon and his land, as
I have punished the king of Assyria. 19.
And I will bring Israel again to his habita¬
tion, and he shall feed on Carmel and Ba-
shan, and his soul shall be. satisfied upon
mount Ephraim and Gilead. 20. In those
days, and in that time, saith the Lord, the
iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and
there, shall be none; and the sins of Judah,
and they shall not be found: for I will par¬
don them whom I reserve.
God is fiere, by his prophet, as afterward in his
providence, proceeding in Lis controversy with
Babylon. Observe,
1. The commission and charge given to the in¬
struments that were to be employed in destroying
Babylon. The army that is to do it, is called an as¬
sembly of great nations, (v. 9.) the Medes and Per¬
sians, and all their allies and auxiliaries; it is called
an assembly, because regularly formed by the divine
will and counsel to do this execution. God will
raise them up to do it, will incline them to, and fit
them for, this service, and then he will cause them
to come up, for all their motions are under his con¬
duct and direction: he shall give the word of com¬
mand, shall order them to put themselves in array
against Babylon, (v. 14.) and then they shall put
themselves in array, (y. 9.) for what God appoints
to be done shall be done; and from thence she shall
5 \4
JEREMIAH, L.
bt quickie taken; from tlieir first sitting down be¬
fore it, they shall be still gaining ground against it
till it be taken. God shall bid them shoot at her ,
and s/iare no arrows, (ic 14.) and then their arrows
shall be as of a mighty exfiert man, that has both
skill and strength, a good eye, and a good hand;
(y. 9.) none shall return in vain. When God gives
commission, he 'will give success. Nay, they are
bidden not only to shoot at her, (xn 14.) but to shout
against her, (y. 15.) with a triumphant shout, as
those that are already sure of victory. Those whom
God directs to shoot, may do it with shouting, for
they are sure not to miss the mark.
2. The desolation and destruction itself that shall
be brought upon Babylon. This is set forth here in
a great variety of expressions: (1.) The wealth of
Babylon shall he a rich and easy prey to the con-
uerors; [y. 10.) Chaldea shall be a spoil to all her
estroyers, who shall enrich themselves by plunder¬
ing her, and, which is strange, all that s/ioil her |
shall be satisfied; they shall have so much, that
even they themselves shall say that they have
enough. (2.) The country of B ibyion shall be dis¬
peopled, and lie uninhabited; It shall be wholly de¬
solate, ( v . 13. ) to that degree, that every one suho
goeth by shall tiiumph in her fall, and, instead of
condoling with them, shall hiss at all her j ilagues ,
v. 13. (3.) Their ancestors shall be ashamed of
their cowardice, in fleeing from the first onset; (v.
12.) or. Your mother, Babylon itself, the mother-
city, shall be confounded, when she sees herself de¬
serted by those that should have been her guards.
Thus the first ages of Christians may justly be con¬
founded and ashamed to see how unlike them the
.atter ages are, and how wretchedly they have de¬
generated; and no sin brings a surer and sorer ruin
upon persons, or people, than apostacy. (4.) The
great admirers of B ibylon shall see it rendered very
despicable: the last of kingdoms, the very tail of
the nations, shall it be, a wilderness, a dry land, a
desert, v. 12. Tire country that was populous, shall
be dispeopled, that was enriched with a fertile soil,
shall become barren. (5.) The great city, the head
of it, shall be quite ruined, her foundations are
fallen, and therefore her walls are thrown down;
for how can the walls stand, when divine vengeance
is at the door, and shakes the very foundations? It
is the vengeance of the Lord, which nothing can
contend with either in law or battle. (6.) There
shall not be left in B ibylon so much as the floor of
the land, foY vin'e-d ressers and husbandmen, as there
was in Israel; (x>. 16.) The sower shall be cut off
from Babylon, and he that handles the sickle; the
country shall be so emptied of people, that there
shall be none to till the ground, and gather in the
fruits of it. Harvest shall come, and there shall be
no reapers; seedness shall come, and there shall be
no sower; Gcd will do his part, but there shall be
no men to do theirs. (7.) All their auxiliary forces,
which they have hired into their service, shall de¬
sert them, as mercenary men often do upon the ap¬
proach of danger; (v. 16.) for fear of the ofifiress-
ing sword they shall turn every one to his fieofile.
This was threatened before, concerning Egypt, ch.
xlvi. 16.
3. 'Dae procuring, provoking cause of this de¬
struction. It comes from God’s displeasure; it is
because of the wrath of the Lord, that Babylon
shall be wholly desolate; (an 13. ) and his wrath is
righteous, for, (y. 14.) she hath sinned against the
Lord, therefore sfiare no arrows. Note, It is sin
that makes men a mark for the arrows of God’s
judgments. An abundance of idolatry and immo¬
rality was to be found in Babylon, yet those are not
mentioned as the reason of God’s displeasure against
them, but the injuries they had done to the people
of God, from a principle of enmity to them as his I
people. They have been the destroyers of God’s
heritage; (y. 11.) herein indeed God made use of
them for the necessary correction of his people;
and yet it is laid to their charge as a henious crime,
because they designed nothing but their utter de¬
struction. (l.) What they did against Jerusalem
they did with pleasure; (v. 11.) Ye were glad, ye
rejoiced. God does not afflict his people willingly,
and therefore takes it very ill if the instruments he
employs, afflict them willingly. When Titus Ves¬
pasian destroyed Jerusalem, he wept over it, but
these Chaldeans triumphed over it. (2.) The
spoils of Jerusalem they made use of to feed their
own luxury; “ Ye are grown fat as the heifer at
frass, and bellow as bulls: your having conquered
erusalem has made you very wanton and proud,
easy to yourselves, formidable to all about you, and
therefore you must be a sfioil.” They that have
thus swallowed down riches, must vomit them up
again.' Therefore they have given thxir hand; (v.
15.) they have surrendered themselves to the con¬
queror, have tamely yielded, so that now you may
take vengeance on her, now you may make repri¬
sals, and do unto her as she lia/h done. (3.) They
aimed at nothing less than the utter ruin of God’s
Israel; Israel is a scattered sheefi, as before, ( v . 6.)
that is not only barked at and worried by dogs, but
even lions, the most potent adversaries, have roared
upon him, and driven him away, v. 17. One king
of Assyria carried the ten tribes quite away, and
devoured them; another invaded Judah, and plun¬
dered and impoverished it, tore the fleece and flesh
of this poor sheep; and now at last this Nebuchad¬
nezzar, that is the terror and plague of all his
neighbours, has taken advantage of the low condi¬
tion to which he is reduced, and he has fallen upon
him, and broken his hones, has quite ruined him,
and therefore the king of Babylon must be punished
as the king of Assyria was, v. 18. Note, Those who
pursue and prosecute the sins of their predecessors,
must expect to be pursued and prosecuted by their
plagues; if they do as they did, let them fare as
they fared.
4. The mercy promised to the Israel of God,
which shall not only accompany, but accrue from,
the destruction of Babylon. (1.) God will return
their captivity, they shall be released out of their
bondage, and brought again to their own habita¬
tion, as sheep that were scattered, to their own
fold, v. 19. They still retained a title to the land
of Canaan, it is their habitation still, the discon¬
tinuance of their possession was not the destruction
of their right, but now they shall recover the en¬
joyment of it again. (2.) He will restore their
prosperity; they shall not only live, but live com¬
fortably, in their own land again; they shall feed
ufion Carmel and Bashan, the richest and most
fruitful parts of the country. These sheep shall be
gathered from the deserts to which they were dis¬
persed, and put again into good pasture, which
their soul shall be satisfied with; though they shall
come hungry to it, having been so long stinted, and
straitened, and kept short, yet they shall find
enough to satiate them, and shall have hearts to be
satiated with it. They inquired the way to Zion,
(y. 5.) where God was to be served and worship¬
ped, that was it they chiefly aimed at in their re¬
turn; but God will not only bring them thither, but
bring them also to Carmel and Bashan, where they
shall abundantly feed themselves. Note, They that
return to God and their duty, shall find true satis¬
faction of soul in so doing; and they that seek first
the kingdom of God and the righteousness thereof,
that aim to make their habitation in Zion, the ho)v
hill, shall have other things added to them, even all
the comforts of Efihraim and Gilead, the fruitful
hills. (3.) God will pm-don their iniquity; this is
54o
JEREMIAH, L.
thi root of all the rest; (v. 20.) In those days the
ir.i./uity of Israel shall be sought for, and there
shall be none. Not only the punishments of their
iniquity shall be taken off, but the offence which it
gave to God shall be forgotten, and he will be re¬
conciled to them. Their sin shall be before him as
if it had never been, it shall be blotted out as a
cloud, crossed out as a debt, shall be cast behind his
back; nay, it shall be cast into the depth of the sea,
shall be no longer sealed up among God’s treasures,
nor in any danger of appearing again, or rising up
against them. This denotes how fully God forgives
sin; he remembers it no more. Note, Deliverances
out of trouble are then comforts indeed, when they
are the fruits of the forgiveness of sin, Isa. xxxviii.
17. Judah and Israel were so fully forgiven when
they were brought back out of Babylon, that they
are said to have received of the Lord’s hand double
for all their sins, Isa. xl. 2. This may include also
a thorough reformation of their hearts and lives, as
well as a full remission of their sins. If any seek
for idols or any idolatrous customs among them,
after their return, there shall be none, they shall not
find them; their dross shall be purely purged
away, and by that it shall appear that their guilt is
so; for I will pardon them whom I reserve; I will
be propitious to them; (so the word is;) and that
must be through him who is the Great Propitiation.
Note, Those whose sins God pardons, he reserves
for something very great; for whom h e justifies,
’hem he glorifies.
21. Go up against the land of Merathaim,
even against it, and against the inhabitants
of Pekod: waste and utterly destroy after
them, saith the Lord, and do according to
all that I have commanded thee. 22. A
sound of battle is in the land, and of great
destruction. 23. How is the hammer of the
whole earth cut asunder and broken! how
is Babylon become a desolation among the
nations! 24. I have laid a snare for thee,
and thou art also taken, O Babylon, and
thou wast not aware : thou art found, and
also caught, because thou hast striven
against the Lord. 25. The Lord hath
opened his armoury, and hath brought forth
the weapons of his indignation : for this is
the work of the Lord God of hosts in the
land of the Chaldeans. 26. Come against
her from the utmost border, open her store¬
houses; cast her up as heaps, and destroy
her utterly: let nothing of her be left. 27.
Slay all her bullocks; let them go down to
the slaughter; wo unto them! for their day
is come, the time of their visitation. 28.
The voice of them that flee and escape out
of the land of Babylon, to declare in Zion
the vengeance of the Lord our God, the
vengeance of his temple. 29. Call together
the archers against Babylon: all ye that
bend the bow, camp against it round about:
let none thereof escape : recompense her
according to her work; according to all
that she hath done do unto her: for she hath
been proud against the Lord, against the
Holy One of Israel. 30. Therefore shall
Vol. iv. — 3 Z
her young men fall in the streets, and all her
men of war shall be cut off in that day,
saith the Lord. 31. Behold, T am against
thee, O thou most proud, saith the Lord God
of hosts : for thy day is come, the time that I
will visit thee. 32. And the most proud
shall stumble and fall, and none shall raise
him up: and I will kindle a fire in his cities,
and it shall devour all round about him.
Here, 1. The forces are mustered and commis¬
sioned to destroy Babylon, and every thing got
ready for a descent upon that potent kingdom ; Go
up against that land by Merathaim, the country of
the Mardi, that lay part in Assyria, and part in
Armenia; and go among the inhabitants of Pekod,
another country, (mentioned Ezek. xxiii. 23.)
which Cyrus took in his way to Babylon. The
forces of Cyrus are called to go up against Babylon,
{v. 21.) to come against her from the utmost bor
der. Let all come together, for there will be both
work and pay enough for them all, v. 26. Distance
of place must not be their hindrance from engaging
in this work; the archers particularly must be called
together against Babylon, v. 29. Thus the Lord
hath opened his armoury, ( v . 25.) his treasury, (so
the word is,) and hath brought forth the weapons
of his indignation; as great princes fetch out of
their magazines and stores all necessary provisions
for their armies, when they undertake any great
expedition. Media and Persia are now God’s ar¬
moury, thence lie fetches the weapons of his wrath,
Cyrus, and his great officers and armies, whom he
will make use of for the destruction of Babylon.
Note, Great men are but instruments which the
great God makes use of to serve his own purposes.
He has variety of instruments, has them at com¬
mand, has armouries ready to be opened according
as the occasion is. This is the work of the Lord
God of hosts. Note, When God has work to do,
he will make it appear that he is God of hosts, and
will not want instruments to do it with.
2. Instructions are given them what to do. In
general, Do according to all that I have command¬
ed thee, v. 21. It was said of Cyrus, (Isa. xliv. 28.)
He shall perform all my pleasure, in his expedition
against Babylon. They must waste and utterly de¬
stroy after them; when they have destroyed once,
they must go over them again; or destroy their pos¬
terity that should come after them. They must
open her storehouses, (v. 26.) rifle her treasures,
and turn her artillery against herself; they must
cast her up as heaps; let all the wealth and pomp
of Babylon be shovelled up in a heap of ruins and
rubbish. Tread her down as heaps, (so the margin
reads it,) and destroy her utterly. See how little
account the great God makes of those things which
men so much value, and value themselves upon!
Their princes and great men, who are fat and
bulky, shall fall by the sword, not as men of war in
the field of battle, which we call a bed of honour,
but as beasts by the butcher’s hand; ( v . 27.) Slay
all her bullocks, all her mighty men; let them go
down sottishly and insensibly, as an ox to the slaugh¬
ter. Wo unto them! their case is the more sad for
the little sense they have of it; their day is come to
fall, the time when they must be reckoned with,
and they are not aware of it.
3. Assurances are given them of success. Let
them do what God commands, and they shall ac¬
complish what he threatens. A great destruction
shall be made, te 22. Babylon shall become a deso¬
lation; (v. 23.) her young men, and all her men of
war, shall be cut off in that day, that should have
been her defence; (t». 30.) God is against her.
546
JEREMIAH, L.
(k. 31.)lie has laid a snare for her; (v. 24.) he hath
formed this enterprise against her, that she should
be surprised as a bird taken in a snare. Cyrus
shall, no doubt, prevail, for he fights under God;
God will kindle a Jire in the cities of Babylon; (t>.
32.) and who can stand before him when he is an¬
gry, or quench the fire that he has kindled?
4. Reasons are given for these severe dealings
with Babylon. They that are employed in this war,
may, if they please, know the grounds of it, and be
satisfied in the justice of it, which it is fit all should
be, that are called to such work. (1.) Babylon has
been very troublesome, vexatious, and injurious, to
all its neighbours; it has been the hammer of the
whole earth, ( v . 23.) beating, beating down, and
beating to pieces, all the nations far and near. It
has done so long enough; it is time now that it be
cut asunder and broken. Note, He that is the God
of nations will, sooner or later, assert the injured
right of nations against those that unjustly and vio¬
lently invade them. The God of the whole earth
will break the hammer of the whole earth. (2.)
Babylon has bid defiance to God himself; Thou
hast striven against the Lord, (y. 24. ) hast joined
issue with him, (so the word signifies,) as in law or
battle, hast openly opposed him, set up rivals with
him, raised rebellion against him; therefore thou
art now found, and caught, as in a snare. Note,
Those that strive against the Lord will soon find
themselves over-matched. (3.) Babylon ruined Je¬
rusalem, the holy city, and the holy house there,
and must now be called to an account for that.
This is the manifesto published in Zion, in the day
of Babylon’s visitation; it is the vengeance of the
Lord our God, the vengeance of his / leople , v. 28.
The burning of the temple, and the carrying away
of its vessels, were articles in the charge against
Babylon, on which greater stress was laid than upon
its being the hammer of the whole earth; for Zion
was the joy and glory of the whole earth. Note,
Whatever wrong is done to God’s church, (his
temple in the world,) it will certainly be reckoned
for; and no vengeance will be sorer and heavier
than the vengeance of the temple. (4.) Babylon
had been verv haughty and insolent, and therefore
must have a fall, for it is the glory of God to look
upon those that are proud, and to abase them, Job
xl. 12.) I am against thee, 0 thou most proud, v.
31. Thou pride; (so the word is;) and again, v.
32. as proud as pride itself. Note, The pride of
men’s hearts sets God against them, and ripens
them apace for ruin; for God resists the proud, and
will bring them down. The most proud shall stum¬
ble and fall; they shall fall not so much by others
thrusting them down, as by their own stumbling;
for they hold their heads so high, that they never
look under their feet, to choose their way, and
avoid stumbling-blocks, but walk at all adventures.
Babylon’s pride must unavoidably be her ruin; for
she has been proud against the Lord, against the
Holy One of Israel, (v. 29.) has insulted him in
insulting over his people; she has made him her
Enemy, and therefore, when she is fallen, none
shall raise her up, v. 32. Who can help those up
whom God will throw down?
33. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, The
children of Israel and the children of Judah
were oppressed together; and all that took
them captives held them fast ; they refused
to let them go. 34. Their Redeemer is
strong; The Lord of hosts is his name; he
shall thoroughly plead their cause, that he
may give rest to the land, tind disquiet the
inhabitants of Babylon. 35. A sword is
upon the Chaldeans, saith the Lord, and
upon the inhabitants of Babylon, and upon
her princes, and upon her wise men. 36.
A sword is upon the liars; and they shall
dote : a sword is upon her mighty men ; and
they shall be dismayed. 37. A sword is upon
their horses, and upon their chariots, and
upon all the mingled people that are in the
midst of her; and they shall become as
women : a sword is upon her treasures ;
and they shall be robbed. 38. A drought
is upon her waters ; and they shall be dried
up : for it is the land of graven images, and
they are mad upon their idols. 39. There¬
fore the wild beasts of the desert, with the
wild beasts of the islands, shall dwell there ,
and the owls shall dwell therein: and it
shall be no more inhabited for ever; neither
shall it be dwelt in from generation to gene¬
ration. 40. As God overthrew Sodom and
Gomorrah, and the neighbour cities thereof,
saith the Lord ; so shall no man abide there,
neither shall any son of man dwell there¬
in. 4 1 . Behold, a people shall come from
the north, and a great nation, and many
kings shall be raised up from the coasts of
the earth. 42. They shall hold the bow
and the lance; they are cruel, and will not
shew mercy : their voice shall roar like the
sea, and they shall ride upon horses, evert/
one put in array, like a man to the battle,
against thee, O daughter of Babylon. 43.
The king of Babylon hath heard the report
of them, and his hands waxed feeble; an¬
guish took hold of him, and pangs as of a
woman in travail. 44. Behold, he shall
come up like a lion from the swelling of
Jordan unto the habitation of the strong;
but I will make them suddenly run away
from her: and who is a chosen man, that I
may appoint over her? for who is like me ?
and who will appoint me the time ? and
who is that shepherd that will stand before
me ? 45. Therefore hear ye the counsel of
the Lord that he hath taken against Baby¬
lon, and his purposes that he hath purposed
against the land of the Chaldeans; Surely
the least of the flock shall draw them out ;
surely he shall make their habitation deso¬
late with them. 46. At the noise of the
taking of Babylon the earth is moved, and
the cry is heard among the nations.
We have, in these verses,
I. Israel’s sufferings, and their deliverance out of
those sufferings. God takes notice of the bondage
of his people in Babylon, as he did of their bondage
in Egypt; he hath surely seen it, and has heard
their cry. Israel and Judah were oppressed to¬
gether, v. S3. Those that remained of the captives
of the ten tribes, upon the uniting of the kingdoms
of Assyria and Chaldea, seemed to have come and
547
JEREMIAH, L.
mingled themselves with those of the two tribes,
and to have mingled tears with them, so that they
were oppressed together. They were humble sup¬
plicants for their liberty, and that was all; they
could not attempt any thing towards it, for all that
took them cafitives held them fast, and were too hard
for them. But this is their comfort in distress, that,
though they are weak, their Redeemer is strong;
( v . 34. their Avenger, so the word signifies;) he
that has a right to them, and will claim his right,
and make good his claim; he is stronger than their
enemies that hold them fast; he can overpower all
the force that is against them, and put strength into
his own people though they are very weak. The
Lord of hosts is his name, and he will answer to his
name, and make it to appear that he is what his
people call him, and will be that to them, for which
they depend upon him. Note, It is the unspeak¬
able comfort of the people of God, that, though they
have hosts against them, they have the Lord of
hosts for them; and he shall thoroughly filead their
cause; pleading he shall plead it, plead it with jea¬
lousy, plead it effectually, plead it, and carry it,
that he may give rest to the land, to his people’s
land, rest from all their enemies round about. This
is applicable to all believers, who complain of the
dominion of sin and corruption, and of their own
weakness and manifold infirmities; let them know
that their Redeemer is strong, he is able to keep
what they commit to him, and he will plead their
cause, sin shall not have dominion over them; he
will make them free, and they shall be. free indeed;
he will give them rest, that rest which remains for
the people of God.
II. Babylon’s sin, and their punishment for
that sin.
1. The sins they are here charged with are, idol¬
atry and persecution. (1.) They oppressed the peo¬
ple of God, they held them fast, and would not let
them go; they opened not the house of his ) prisoners ,
Isa. xiv. 17. This was God’s quarrel with them,
as of old with Pharaoh; it cost him dear, and yet
they would not take warning. The inhabitants of
Babylon must be disquieted, ( v . 34. ) because they
have disquieted God’s people, whose honour and
comfort he is jealous for, and therefore will recom¬
pense tribulation to those that trouble them, as well
as rest to them that are troubled, 2 Thess. i. 6, 7.
(2.) They wronged God himself, and robbed him,
giving that glory to others, which is due to him
alone; for, (v. 38.) it is the land of graven images;
all parts of the country abounded with idols, and
they were mad upon them, were in love with
them, and doted on them, cared not what cost and
pains they were at in the worship of them, were
unwearied in paying their respects to them, and in
all this they were wretchedly infatuated, and acted
like men out of their wits; they were carried on in
their idolatry without reason or discretion, like men
in a perfect fury. The word here used for idols,
properly signifies terrors, F.nim, the name given
to giants that were formidable, because they made
the images of their gods to look frightful, to strike
a terror upon fools and children. Their idols were
scarecrows, yet they doted on them. Babylon was
the mother of harlots, (Rev. xvii. 5.) the source of
idolatry. Note, It is the maddest thing in the world
to make a god of any creature; and those who are
proud against the Lord, the true God, are justly
given up to strong delusions, to be mad upon idols
that cannot profit. But this madness is wickedness,
for which sinners will be certainly and severely
reckoned with.
_ 2. The judgments of God upon them for these
sins are such as will quite lay them waste, and ruin
them.
( 1. ) All that should be their defence and support
shall be cut off by the sword. The Chaldeans had
long been God’s sword, wherewith he had done exe¬
cution upon the sinful nations round about; but now,
they being as bad as any of them, or worse, a sword
is brought upon them, even upon the inhabitants of
Babylon, (y. 35.) a sword of war; and, as it is in
God’s hand, sent and directed by him, it is a sword
of justice. It shall be, [1.] Upon their princes;
they shall fall by it, and their dignity, wealth, and
power, shall not secure them. [2.] Upon their
wise men, their philosophers, their statesmen and
privy-counsellors; their learning and policy shall
neither secure themselves, nor stand the public in
any stead. [3.] Upon their soothsayers and astrolo¬
gers, here called the liars, (v. 36. ) for they cheated
with their prognostications of peace and prosperity:
the sword upon them shall make them dote, so that
they shall talk like fools, and be as men that had
lost all their wits. Note, God has a sword that can
reach the soul and affect the mind, and bring men
under spiritual plagues. [4.] Upon their mighty
men; a sword shall be upon their spirits; if they are
not slain, yet they shall be dismayed, and shall be
no longer mighty men; for what stead will their
hands stand them in when their hearts fail them?
[5.] Upon their militia; (x>. 37.) the sword shall be
upon their horses and chariots, the invaders shall
make themselves masters of all their warlike stores,
shall seize their horses and chariots for themselves,
or destroy them. The troops of other nations, that
were in their service, shall be quite disheartened,
1 the mingled people shall become as weak and timor¬
ous as women. [6.] Upon their exchequer; the
i sword shall be upon her treasures, which are the
sinews of war, and they shall be robbed, and made
use of by the enemy against them. See what uni¬
versal destruction the sword makes when it comes
with commission!
(2.) The country shall be made desolate; (v. 38.)
The waters shall be dried up; the water that se¬
cures the city. Cyrus drew the river Euphrates
into so many channels as made it passable for his
army, so that they got with ease to the walls of
Babylon, which were thought, having such a river
before them, to be inaccessible. The water like¬
wise, that made the country fruitful, shall be dried
up, so that it shall be turned into barrenness, and
shall be no more inhabited by the children of men,
but by the wild beasts of the desert, v. 39. 1'his
was foretold concerning Babylon, Isa. xiii. 19. — 22.
It shall become like Sodom and Gomorrah, v. 40.
The same was foretold concerning Edom, ch. xlix.
18. As the Chaldeans had laid Edom waste, so
they shall themselves be laid waste.
(3.) The king and kingdom shall be put into the
utmost confusion and consternation by the enemies’
invading of them, v. 41. — 43. All the expressions
here used, bespeaking the formidable power of the
invaders, the terrors wherewith they should array
themselves, and the fright which both court and
country should be put into thereby, we met with be¬
fore, (ch. vi. 22. — 24.) concerning the Chaldeans
invading the land of Judah. This battle, which
is there said to be against thee, 0 daughter of
Zion, is here said to be against thee, O daughter
of Babylon, to intimate that they should be paid in
their own coin. God can find out such as shall be
for terror and destruction to those that are for ter¬
ror and destruction toothers. And those who have
dealt cruelly, and have showed no mercy, may ex¬
pect to be cruelly dealt with, and to find no mercy.
Only there is one difference between these passages;
there it is said, We have heard the fame thereof,
and our hands wax feeble; here it is said, The king
of Babylon has heard the report, and his hantls
waxed feeble; which intimates that that proud and
daring prince shall, in the day of his distress, be as
548
JEREMIAH, LI.
weak and dispirited as the meanest Israelites were
in the day of their distress.
(4.) That they shall be as much hurt as fright¬
ened, for the invader shall come up like a lion to
tear and destroy, ( v . 44.) and shall make them and
their habitation desolate; ( v . 45.) and the desolation
shall be so astonishing, that all the nations about
shall be terrified by it, v. 46. These three verses
we had before, (c/i. xlix. 19.— 21.) in the prophecy
of the destruction of Edom, which was accomplish¬
ed by the Chaldeans, and they are here repeated,
mutatis mutandis — with a few necessary alterations,
in the prophecy of the destruction of Babylon,
which was to be accomplished upon the Chaldeans,
to show that though the distributions of Providence
may appear unequal for a time, its retributions will
be equal at last; when thou shalt make an end to
spoil, thou shalt be spoiled, Isa. xxxiii. 1. — Rev.
xiii. 10.
CHAP. LI.
The prophet, in this chapter, goes on with the prediction
of Babylon’s fall, to which other prophets also bare wit¬
ness. He is very large and lively in describing the fore¬
sight God had given him of it, for the encouragement of
the pious captives, whose deliverance depended upon it,
and was to be the result of it. Here is, I. The record
of Babylon’s doom, with the particulars of it, intermixed
with the grounds of God’s controversy with her, many
aggravations of her fall, and great encouragements given
from thence to the Israel of God, that suffered such hard
things by her, v. 1..58. II. The representation and rati¬
fication of this, by the throwing of a copy of this pro¬
phecy into the river Euphrates, v. 59. .64.
1. ^ff^HUS saith the Lord, Behold, I will
8 raise up against Babylon, and against
them that dwell in the midst of them that
rise up against me, a destroying wind ; 2.
And will send unto Babylon fanners, that
shall fan her, and shall empty her land : for
in the day of trouble they shall be against
her round about. 3. Against him that bendeth
let the archer bend his bow, and against
him that lifteth himself up in his bngandine:
and spare ye not her young men ; destroy ye
utterly all her host. 4. Thus the slain shall
fall in the land of the Chaldeans, and they
that are thrust through in her streets. 5.
For Israel hath not been forsaken, nor Ju¬
dah of his God, of the Lord of hosts; though
their land was filled with sin against the
Holy One of Israel. 6. Flee out of the midst
of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul;
be not cut off in her iniquity : for this is the
time of the Lord’s vengeance ; he will ren¬
der unto her a recompense. 7. Babylon
hath been a golden cup in the Lord’s hand,
that made all the earth drunken : the nations
have drunken of her wine; therefore the na¬
tions are mad. 8. Babylon is suddenly fallen
and destroyed : howl for her ; take balm for
her pain, if so be she may be healed. 9. We
would have healed Babylon, but she is not
healed : forsake her, and let us go every one
into his own country; for her judgment
reachelh unto heaven, and is lifted up even
to the skies. 10. The Lord hath brought
forth our righteousness : come, and let us de¬
clare in Zion the work of the Lord our
God. 11. Make bright the arrows, gather
the shields: the Lord hath raised up the
spirit of the kings of the Medes: for his de
vice is against Babylon, to destroy it ; be¬
cause it is the vengeance of the Lord, the
vengeance of his temple. 12. Set up the
standard upon the walls of Babylon, make
the watch strong; set up the watchmen, pre¬
pare the ambushes: for the Lord hath both
devised and done that which he spake
against the inhabitants of Babylon. 1 3. O
thou that dwellest upon many waters, abun¬
dant in treasures, thine end is come, and the
measure of thy covetousness. 1 4. The Lord
of hosts hath sworn by himself, saying ,
Surely 1 will fill thee with men as with
caterpillars ; and they shall lift up a shout
against thee. 15. He hath made the earth
by his power, he hath established the world
by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the
heaven by his understanding. 1 6. When he
uttereth his voice there is a multitude of wa¬
ters in the heavens; and he causeth the va¬
pours to ascend from the ends of the earth:
he maketh lightnings with rain, and bringeth
forth the wind out of his treasures. 17.
Every man is brutish by his knowledge;
eveiy founder is confounded by the graven
image : for his molten image is falsehood,
and there is no breath in them. 1 8. They
are vanity, the work of errors: in the time
of their visitation they shall perish. 1 9. The
Portion of Jacob is not like them; for he is
the F ormer of all things, and Israel is the
rod of his inheritance; The Lord of hosts
is his name. 20. Thou art my battle-axe
and weapons of war: for with thee will 1
break in pieces the nations; and with thee
will I destroy kingdoms; 21. And with thee
will I break in pieces the horse and his
rider ; and with thee will I break in pieces
the chariot and his rider; 22. With thee
also will I break in pieces man and woman;
and with thee will 1 break in pieces old and
young ; and with thee will I break in pieces
the young man and the maid; 23. I will
also break in pieces with thee the shepherd
and his flock; and with thee will I break in
pieces the husbandman and his yoke of
oxen; and with thee will I break in pieces
captains and rulers. 24. And I will render
unto Babylon, and to all the inhabitants of
Chaldea, all their evil that they have done
in Zion in your sight, saith the Lord. 25.
Behold, I am against thee, O destroying
mountain, saith the Lord, which destroyest
all the earth; and I will stretch out my
hand upon thee, and roll thee down from
the rocks, and will make thee a burnt moun-
JEREMIAH, LI.
tain. 26. And they shall not take of thee a
stone for a corner, nor a stone for founda¬
tions ; but thou shalt be desolate for ever,
saith the Lord. 27. Set ye up a standard
in the land, blow the trumpet among the na¬
tions, prepare the nations against her, call
together against her the kingdoms of Ararat,
Minni, and Ashchenaz; appoint a captain
against her ; cause her horses to come up as
the rough caterpillars. 28. Prepare against
her the nations, with the kings of the Modes,
the captains thereof, and all the rulers there¬
of, and all the land of his dominion. 29.
And the land shall tremble and sorrow: for
every purpose of the Lord shall be per¬
formed against Babylon, to make the land
of Babylon a desolation without an inhabi¬
tant. 30. The mighty men of Babylon have
forborne to fight, they have remained in
their holds : their might hath failed ; they be¬
came as women: they have burnt their
dwelling-places; her bars are broken. 31.
One post shall run to meet another, and one
messenger to meet another, to show the king
of Babylon that his city is taken at one end,
32. And that the passages are stopped, and
the reeds they have burnt with fire, and the
men of war are affrighted. 33. For thus
saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel,
The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing-
floor, it is time to thresh her : yet a little
while, and the time of her harvest shall come.
34. Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon
hath devoured me, he hath crushed me, he
hath made me an empty vessel, he hath
swallowed me up like a dragon, he hath
filled his belly with my delicates, he hath
cast me out. 35. The violence done to me
and to my flesh be upon Babylon, shall the
inhabitant of Zion say; and, My blood upon
the inhabitants of Chaldea, shall Jerusa¬
lem say. 36. Therefore thus saith the Lord,
Behold, I will plead thy cause, and take
vengeance for thee; and I will dry up her
sea, and make her springs dry, 37. And
Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling-
place for dragons, an astonishment, and a
hissing without an inhabitant. 38. They
shall roar together like lions: they shall yell
as lions’ whelps. 39. In their heat I will
make their feasts, and I will make them
drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a
perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the
Lord. 40. I will bring them down like
lambs to the slaughter, like rams with he-
goats. 41. How is Sheshach taken! and
how is the praise of the whole earth surpris¬
ed! how is Babylon become an astonishment
among the nations ! 42. The sea is come
up upon Babylon: she is covered with the
319
multitude of the waves thereof. 43. Her
cities are a desolation, a dry land, and a
wilderness, a land wherein no man dwell-
eth, neither doth any son of man pass there¬
by. 44. And I will punish Bel in Babylon;
and I will bring forth out of his mouth that
which he hath swallowed up : and the na¬
tions shall not flow together any more unto
him; yea, the wall of Babylon shall fall. 45.
My people, go ye out of the midst of her,
and deliver ye every man his soul from the
fierce anger of the Lord. 46. And lest your
heart faint, and ye fear for the rumour that
shall be heard in the land: a rumour shall
both come one year, and after that in another
year shall come a rumour, and violence in the
land, ruler against ruler. 47. Therefore, be¬
hold, the days come, that I will do judgment
upon the graven images of Babylon: and
her whole land shall be confounded, and all
her slain shall fall in the midst of her. 48.
Then the heaven and the earth, and all that
is therein, shall sing for Babylon: for the
spoilers shall come unto her from the north,
saith the Lord. 49. As Babylon hath caused
the slain of Israel to fall, so at Babylon shall
fall the slain of all the earth. 50. Ye that have
escaped the sword, go away, stand not still :
remember the Lord afar off, and let Jeru¬
salem come into your mind. 51. We are
confounded, because we have heard re¬
proach: shame hath covered our faces; for
strangers are come into the sanctuaries of
the Lord’s house. 52. Wherefore, behold,
the days come, saith the Lord, that I will
do judgment upon her graven images; and
through all her land the wounded shall
groan. 53. Though Babylon should mount
up to heaven, and though she should fortify
the height of her strength, yet from me shall
spoilers come unto her, saith the Lord. 54.
A sound of a cry cometh from Babylon, and
great destruction from the land of the Chal¬
deans: 55. Because the Lord hath spoiled
Babylon, and destroyed out of her the great
voice; when her waves do roar like great
waters, a noise of their voice is uttered: 56.
Because the spoiler is come upon her, even
upon Babylon, and her mighty men are ta¬
ken; every one of their bows is broken: for
the Lord God of recompenses shall surely
requite. 57. And I will make drunk her
princes, and her wise men , her captains, and
her rulers, and her mighty men : and they
shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake,
saith the King, whose name is The Lord
of hosts. 58. Thus saith the Lord of hosts,
The broad walls of Babylon shall be ut¬
terly broken, and her high gates shall be
burnt with fire ; and the people shall labour
550
JEREMIAH, LI.
in vain, and the folk in the fire, and they
shall be weary.
The particulars of this copious prophecy are dis¬
persed and interwoven, and the same things left
and returned to so often, that it could not well he
divided into parts, but we must endeavour to collect
them under their proper heads.
Let us then observe here,
1. An acknowledgment of the great pomp and
power that Babylon had been in, and the use that
God in his providence hadmade of it; ( v . 7.) Baby¬
lon hath been a golden cufl, a rich and glorious em¬
pire, a golden city, (Isa. xiv. 4.) a head of gold,
(Dan. ii. 38.) filled with all good things, as a cup
with wine; nay, she had been a golden cup in the
Lord’s hand, he had in a particular manner filled
and favoured her with blessings, he had made the
earth drunk with this cup; some were intoxicated
with her pleasures, and debauched by her; others
intoxicated with her terrors, and destroyed by her.
In both senses, the New Testament Babylon is said
to have made the kings of the earth drunk, Rev.
xvii. 4. — xviii. 3. Babylon had also been God’s battle-
axe; it was so at this time, when Jeremiah prophe¬
sied, and was likely to be yet more so, v. 20. The
forces of Babylon were God’s weapons of war, tools in
his hand, with which be brake in pieces, and knocked
down, nations and kingdoms, horses and chariots,
which are so much the strength of kingdoms; (v.
21.) men and women, young and old, with which
kingdoms are replenished; (y. 22.) the shepherd
and his flock, the husbandman and his oxen, with
which kingdoms are maintained and supplied, v.
23. Such havock as this the Chaldeans had made,
when God employed them as instruments of his
wrath for the chastising of the nations; and yet now
Babylon herself must fall. Note, Those that have
carried all before them a great while, will yet at
length meet with their match, and their day also
will come to fall, the rod will itself be thrown into
the fire at last; nor can any think it will exempt
them from God’s judgments, that they have been
instrumental in executing his judgments on others.
2. A just complaint made of Babylon, and a charge
drawn up against her by the Israel of God. (1.)
They are complained of for their incorrigible
wickedness; (v. 9.) We would have healed Baby¬
lon, but she is not healed. The people of God that
were captives among them, endeavoured, according
to the instructions given them, (Jer. x. 11.) to con¬
vince them of the folly of their idolatry, but they
could not do it; still the Babylonians doted as much
as ever upon their graven images, and therefore the
Israelites resolve to quit them, and go to their own
country. Yet some understand this as spoken by
the forces they had hired for their assistance, de¬
claring that they had done their best to save her
from ruin, but that it was all to no purpose, and
therefore they had as good go home to their respec¬
tive countries; for her judgment reaches unto hea¬
ven, and it is in vain to withstand it, or think to
avert it. (2. ) They are complained of for their in¬
veterate npalice against Israel; other nations had
been hardly used by the Chaldeans, but Israel only
complains to God of it, and with confidence appeals
to him, (v. 34, 35.) “ The king of Babylon has de¬
voured me, and crushed me, and never thought he
could do enough to ruin me ; he has emptied me of
all that was valuable, has swallowed me up, as a
dragon or whale swallows up the little fish by shoals;
he has filed his belly, filled his treasures, with my
delicates, with all my pleasant things, and has cast
me out, cast me away as a vessel in which there is no
pleasure; and now let them be accountable for all
this.” Zion and Jerusalem shall say, “Let the
violence done to me and my children, that are my
I own flesh, and pieces of myself, and all the blood of
my people, which they have shed like water, be
upon them; let the guilt of it lie upon them, and let
it be required at their hand.” Note, Ruin is not
far off from those that lie under the guilt of wrong
done to God’s people.
3. Judgment given upon this appeal by the right¬
eous Judge of heaven and earth, on behalf of Israel
against Babylon. He sits in the throne judging
right, is ready to receive complaints, and answers,
( v . 36.) “I will plead thy cause, leave it with me,
1 will in due time plead it effectually, and take
vengeance for thee; and every drop of Jerusalem’s
blood shall be accounted for with interest.” Israel
and Judah seem to have been neglected and forgot¬
ten, but God has an eye to them, v. 5. It is true,
their land was filled with sin against the Holy One
of Israel, they were a provoking people, and their
sins were a great offence to God, as a holy God,
and as their God, their Holy One; and therefore he
justly delivered them up into the hands of their ene¬
mies, and might justly have abandoned them, and
left them to perish in their hands; but God deals
better with them than they deserve, and, notwith¬
standing their iniquities and his severities, Israel is
not forsaken, is not cast off, though he be cast out,
but is owned and looked after by his God. by the
Lord of hosts; God is his God still, and will act for
him as the Lord of hosts, a God of power. Note,
Though God’s people may have broken his laws,
and fallen under his rebukes, yet it does not there¬
fore follow that they are thrown out of covenant;
but God’s care of them and love to them will flourish
again, Ps. lxxxix. 30, 33. The Chaldeans thought
they should never be called to an account for what
they had done against God’s Israel; but there is a
time fixed for vengeance, v. 6. We cannot expect
it should come sooner than the time fixed, but then
it will come; he will render unto Babylon a recom-
peyise, for the avenging of Israel is the vengeance oj
the Lord, who espouses their cause; it is the ven¬
geance of his temple, (v. 11.) as before, ch. 1. 28. The
Lord of recom/ienses, the God to whom vengeance
belongs, will surely recpiite, (n. 56.) will pay them
home; he will render unto Babylon all the evil they
have done in Zion, (y. 24.) he will return it in the
sight of his people; they shall have the satisfaction
to see their cause pleaded with jealous)-; they shall
not only live to see those judgments brought upoi.
Babylon, but they shall plainly see them to be the
punishment of the wrong they have done to Zion;
and man may see it, and say, Verily there is a Goa
that judges in the earth: for just as Babylon has
caused the slain of Israel to fall, has not only slain
those that were found in arms, but all without dis¬
tinction; even all the land, (almost all were put to
the sword,) so at Babylon shall fall, the slam not
only of the city, but of all the country, v. 49. Cy¬
rus shall measure to the Chaldeans the same that
they measured to the Jews, so that every observer
may discern that God is recompensing them for
what they did against his people; but Zion’s chil¬
dren shall in a particular manner triumph in it; (v.
10.) “ The Lord has brought forth our righteous¬
ness, he has appeared in our behalf against those
that dealt unjustly with us, and has righted us; he
has also made it to appear that he is reconciled to
us, and that we are yet in his eyes a righteous na¬
tion. Let it therefore be spoken of to his praise,
Come and let us declare in Zion the work of the
Lord our God, that others may be inv ited to join
with us in praising him.”
4. A declaration of the greatness and sovereignty
of that God who espouses Zion’s cause, and under¬
takes to reckon with this proud and potent enemy;
(u. 14.) It is the Lord of hosts that had said it, that
has sworn it, has sworn it by himself, for he could
JEREMIAH, LI.
55 J
•
.,wear by no greater, that he will fill Babylon with
vast and incredible numbers of the enemy’s forces,
will fill it with men as with cater/iillars, that shall
overpowei it with multitudes, and need only to lift
up. a shout against it, for that shall be so terrible as
to dispirit all the inhabitants, and make them an
easy prey to this numerous army. But who, and
where, is he that can break so powerful a kingdom
as Babylon? The prophet gives an account ot him
from the description he had formerly given of him,
and of his sovereignty and victory over all pretend¬
ers, (Jer. x. 12. — 16.) which was there intended
for the conviction of the Babylonian idolaters, and
the confirmation of God’s Israel in the faith and
worship of the God of Israel; and it is here repeat¬
ed, to show that God will convince those by his
judgments, who would not be convinced by his
word, that he is God over all. Let not any doubt
but that he who has determined to destroy Babylon,
is able to make his words good, for, (1.) He is the
God that made the world, (t». 15.) and therefore
nothing is too hard for him to do; it is in his name
that our help stands, and on him our hope is built.
(2.) He has the command of all the creatures that
he has made; (n. 16.) his providence is a continued
creation; he has wind and rain at his disposal; if he
speak the word, there is a multitude of waters in the
heavens; and it is a wonder how they hang there,
fed by vapours out of the earth; and it is a wonder
how they ascend thence. Lightnings and rain seem
contraries, as fire and water, and yet they are pro¬
duced together; and the wind, which seems arbi¬
trary in its motions, and we know not whence it
comes, is yet, we are sure, brought out of his trea¬
sures. (3.) The idols that oppose the accomplish¬
ment of his word, are a mere sham, and their wor¬
shippers brutish people, v. 17, 18. The idols are
falsehood, they are vanity, they are the work of
errors; when they come to be visited, to be exa¬
mined and inquired into, they perish, their reputa¬
tion sinks, and they appear to be nothing; and those
that make them are like unto them. But between
the God of Israel and these gods of the heathen
there is no comparison; (u. 19.) The portion of
Jacob is not like them; the God who speaks this,
and will do it, is the Former of all things, and the
Lord of all hosts, and therefore can do what he
will; and there is a near relation between him and
his people, for he is their Portion, and they are his;
they put a confidence in him as their Portion, and
he is pleased to take a complacency in them, and a
particular care of them, as the lot of his inheritance;
and therefore he will do what is best for them. The
repetition of these things here, which were said be¬
fore, intimates both the certainty and the impor¬
tance of them, and obliges us to take special notice
of them; God hath spoken once; yea, twice have we
heard this, that power belongs to God; power to
destroy the most formidable enemies of his church;
and if God thus speak once, yea, twice, we are in¬
excusable if we do not perceive it, and attend to it.
5. A description of the instruments that are to be
employed in this service. God has raised up the
spirits of the kings of the Medes, (v. 11.) Darius
and Cyrus, who come against Babylon by a divine
instinct; for God’s device is against Babylon to de¬
stroy it; they do it, but God devised it, he designed
it; they are but accomplishing his purpose, and act¬
ing as he directed. Note, God’s counsel shall stand,
and according to it all hearts shall move. Those
whom God employs against Babylon are compared
(v. 1.) to a destroying wind, which either by its
coldness blasts the fruits of the earth, or by its
fierceness blows down all before it; this wind is
brought out of God’s treasures, (y. 16.) and it is
here said to be raised up against them that dwell
in the midst of the Chaldeans, those of other nations
that inhabit among them, and are incorporated with
them. The Chaldeans rise up against God by fall¬
ing down before idols, and against them God will
raise up destroyers, for he will be too hard for
them that contest with him. These enemies are
compared to fanners, ( v . 2.) who shall drive them
away, as chaff is driven away by the fan. The
Chaldeans had been fanners to winnow God’s peo¬
ple, ( ch . xv. 7.) and to empty them, and now they
shall themselves be in like manner despoiled and
dispersed.
6. An ample commission given them to destroy,
and lay all waste. Let them bend their bow against
the archers of the Chaldeans, (v. 3.) and not spare
her young men, but utterly destroy them, for the
Lord has both devised and done what he spake
against Babylon, v. 12. This may animate the in¬
struments he employs, by assuring" them of success;
the methods they take are such as God has devised,
and therefore they shall surely prosper; what he
has spoken shall be done, for he himself will do it;
and therefore let all necessary preparations be
made; this "they are called to, v. 27, 28. Let a stan¬
dard be set up, under which to enlist soldiers for
this expedition: let a trumpet be blown to call men
together to it, and animate them in it; let the na¬
tions, out of which Cyrus’s army is to be raised,
prepare their recruits; let the kingdoms of Ararat
and Minni, and Ashkenaz, of Armenia, both the
higher and the lower, and of Ascania, about Phry¬
gia and Bithynia, send in their quota of men for this
service; let general officers be appointed, and the
cavalry advance; let the horses come up in great
numbers, as the caterpillars, and come, like them,
leaping and pawing in the valley; let them lay the
country waste, as caterpillars do, (Joel i. 4. ) espe¬
cially rough caterpillars; let the kings and captains
prepare nations against Babylon, for the service is
great, and there is occasion for many hands to be
employed in it.
7. The weakness of the Chaldeans, and their ina¬
bility to make head against this threatening, de¬
stroying force. When God employed them against
other nations, they had spirit and strength to act
offensively, and went on with admirable resolution,
conquering and to conquer; but now that it comes to
their turn to be reckoned with, all their might and
courage are gone, their hearts fail them, and none
of all their men of might and mettle have found
their hands to act so much as defensively. They
are called upon here to prepare for action, but it is
ironically, and in an upbraiding way; (v. 11.) Make
bright the arrows, which are grown rusty through
disuse; gather the shields, which in a long tin e of
peace and security have been scattered, and thiowt.
out of the way; (x>. 12.) Set up the standard upon
the walls of Babylon, upon the towers on those
walls, to summon all that owed suit and service to
that mother-city, now to come in to her assistance.
Let them make the watch as strong as they can,
and appoint the sentinels to their respective posts,
and prepare ambushes for the reception of the en¬
emy. This intimates that they would be found very
secure and remiss, and would need to be thus quick¬
ened; (and they were so to that degree, that they
were in the midst of their revels when the city was
taken;) but that all their preparations should be to
no purpose; who will may call them to it, but they
shall have no heart to come at the call, v. 29. The
whole land shall tremble and sorrow, a universal
consternation shall seize upon them, for they shall
see both the irresistible arm, and the irreversible
counsel and decree, of God against them; they shall
see that God is making Babylon a desolation, and
therein is performing what he has purposed; and
then the mighty men of Babylon have forborne to
fight, v. 30, God having taken away their strength
552
JEREMIAH, LI.
md spirit, so that they have remained in their holds,
not daring so much as to peep forth, the might both
of their hearts and of their hands fails, they become
as timorous as women, so that the enemy has, with¬
out any resistance, burnt her dwelling-places, and
broken her bars. It is to the same purport with
v. 56 _ 58. When the spoiler comes upon Baby¬
lon, her mighty men, who should make head against
him, are immediately taken, their weapons of war
foil them, every one of their bows is broken, and
stands them in no stead; their politics fail them,
they call councils of war, but their princes and cap¬
tains, who sit in council to concert measures for the
common safety, are made drunk, they are as men
intoxicated through stupidity or despair, they can
form no right notions of things, they stagger, and
are unsteady in their counsels and resolves, and dash
one against another, and, like drunken men, fall out
among themselves; at length they sleep a perpetual
sleep, and never awake from their wine, the wine
of God’s wrath, for it is to them an opiate that lays
them into a fatal lethargy. The walls of their city
fail them, v. 58. When "the enemy had found ways
to ford Euphrates, which was thought impassable,
yet surely, think they, the walls are impregnable,
they are the broad walls of Babylon, or, as the
margin reads it, the walls of broad Babylon; the
compass of the city, within the walls, was 385 fur¬
longs, some say 480, that is, about sixty miles; the
wails were 200 cubits high, and 50 cubits broad, so
that two chariots might easily pass by one another
upon them. Some say that there was a threefold
wall about the inner city, and the like upon the
outer; and that the stones of the wall, being laid in
pitch instead of mortar, (Gen. xi. 3.) were scarcely
separable; and yet these shall be utterly broken,
and the high gates and towers shall be burnt, and
the people that are employed in the defence of the
city shaR labour in vain, in the fire, they shall quite
tire themselves, but shall do no good.
8. The destruction that shall be made of Babylon
by these invaders. (1.) It is a certain destruction,
the doom is past, and it cannot be reversed; a divine
power is engaged against it, which cannot be re¬
sisted; (x>. 8.) Babylon is fallen and destroyed, is
as sure to fall, to fa’ll into destruction, as if it were
fallen and destroyed already; though, when Jere¬
miah prophesied this, and many a year after, it was
in the height of its power and greatness. God de¬
clares, God appears against Babylon; (x>. 25.) Be¬
hold, I am against thee, and those cannot stand
long whom God is against.; he will stretch out his
hand upon it, a hand which no creature can bear
the weight of, or withstand the force of. It is his
purpose which shall be performed, that Babylon
must be a desolation, v. 29. (2.) It is a righteous
destruction; Babylon has made herself meet for it,
and therefore cannot fail to meet with it. For, ( v .
25.) Babylon has been a destroying mountain, very
lofty and "bulky as a mountain, and destroying all
the earth, as the stones that are tumbled from high
mountains spoil the grounds about them; but now it
shall itself be rolled down from its rocks, which
were as the foundations on which it stood; it shall
be levelled, its pomp and power broken. It is now
a burning mountain, like Altna and the other volca¬
noes, that throw out fire, to the terror of all about
them; but it shall be a burnt mountain, it shall at
length have consumed itself, and shall remain a
heap of ashes — so will this world be at the end of
time. Again, (xi. 33.) Babylon is like a threshing-
floor, in which the people of God have been long
threshed, as sheaves in the floor; but now the time
is come that she shall herself be threshed, and her
sheaves in her; her princes and great men, and all
her inhabitants, shall be beaten in their own land,
as in the threshing-floor. The threshing-floor is
prepared, Babylon is by sin made meet to be a seat
of war, and her people, like corn in harvest, are
ripe for destruction, Rev. xiv. 15. Mic. iv. 12. (3.)
It is an unavoidable destruction. Babylon seems to
be well fenced and fortified against it; she dwells
upon many waters; (x>. 13.) the situation of her
country is such, that it seems inaccessible, it is so
surrounded, and the march of an enemy into it so
embarrassed, by rivers. In allusion to this, the
New Testament Babylon is said to sit upon many
waters, to rule over many nations, as the other Ba¬
bylon did, Rev. xvii. 35. Babylon is abundant in
treasures; and yet thine end is come, and neither
thy waters nor thy wealth shall secure thee. This
end that comes shall be the measure of thy covet¬
ousness, it shall be the stint of thy gettings, it shall
set bounds to thine ambition and avarice, which
otherwise had been boundless. God, by the de¬
struction of Babylon, said to its proud waves,
Hitherto shall ye come, and no further. Note, If
men will not set a measure to their covetousness by
wisdom and grace, God will set a measure to it bv
his judgments. Babylon, thinking herself very safe
and very great, was very proud; but she will be de¬
ceived, x'. 53. Though Babylon should mount her
walls and palaces up to heaven, and though (be¬
cause what is high is apt to totter) she should take
care to fortify the height of her strength, yet all
will not do, God will send spoilers against her, that
shall break through her strength, and bring down
her height. (4.) It is a gradual destruction, which,
if they had pleased, they might have foreseen, and
had warning of; for, (xi. 46.) A rumour will come
one year, that Cyrus is making vast preparations
for war, and after that, in another year, shall come
a rumour, that his design is upon Babylon, and he
is steering his course that way; so that when he was
a great way off, they might have sent, and desired
conditions of peace; but they were too proud, too
secure, to do that, and their hearts were hard, ned
to their destruction. (5. ) Yet, when it comes, it is a
surprising destruction; Babylon is suddenly fallen;
(xe 8.) the destruction comes upon them when they
did not think of it, and is perfected in a little time,
as that of the New Testament Babylon in one hour.
Rev. xviii. 17. The king of Babylon, who should
have been observing the approaches of the enemy,
was himself at such a distance from the place where
the attack was made, that it was a great while ere
he had notice that the city was taken; so that they
who were posted near the place, sent one messen¬
ger, one courier, after another, with advice of it,
v. 31. The foot-posts shall meet at the court from
several quarters with this intelligence to the king
of Babylon, that his city is taken at one end, and
there is nothing to obstruct the progress of the con¬
querors, but they will be at the other end quickly.
They are to teU’him that the enemy has seized the
passes, (v. 32.) the forts or blockades upon the
river; and that having got over the river, they set
fire to the reeds on the river-side to alarm and ter¬
rify the city, so that all the men of war arc affright¬
ed, and have thrown down their arms, and surren¬
dered at discretion. The messengers come, like
Job’s, one upon the heels of another, with these
tidings, which are immediately confirmed with a
witness, by the enemies being in the palace, and
slaying the king himself, Dan. v. 30. That profane
feast which they were celebrating at the very time
when their city was taken, which was both an evi¬
dence of their strange security, and a great advan¬
tage to the enemy, seems here to be referred to;
(xi. 38, 39.) They shall roar together like lions, as
men in their revels do, when the wine is got into
their heads; they call it singing, but in scripture-
language, and in the language of sober men, it is
calied yelling like lions' whelps. It is probable that
555
JEREMIAH, LI.
they were drinking confusion to Cyrus and his army
with loud huzzas; Well, says God, in their heat,
when they are inflamed, (Isa. v. 11.) and their
heads are hot with hard drinking, 1 will make their
feasts, I will give them their fiction; they have
passed their cup round, now the cufi of the Lord’s
right hand shall be turned unto them, (Hab. ii. 15,
16.) a cup of fury, which shall make them drunk,
that they may rejoice, or rather that they may revel
it, and sleep a fierfietual sleep; let them be as merry
as they can with that bitter cup, but it shall lay
them to sleep, never to wake more; (as v. 57.) for
on that night, in the midst of the jollity, was Bel¬
shazzar slain. (6.) It is to be a universal destruc¬
tion, God will make thorough work of it; for, as he
will perform what he has purposed, so he will per¬
fect what he has begun. The slain shall fall in
great abundance throughout the land of the Chal¬
deans, multitudes shall be thrust through in her
streets, v. 4. They are brought down like lambs to
the slaughter, (v.40. ) in such great numbers, so easi¬
ly; and the enemies make no more of killing them
titan the butcher does of killing lambs. The strength
of the enemy, and their invading of them, are here
compared to an irruption and inundation of waters;
(it. 42.) The sea is come up upon Babylon, which,
when it has once broken through its bounds, there
is no fence against, so that she is covered with the
multitude of its waves, overpowered by a numerous
army; her cities then become a desolation, an unin¬
habited, uncultivated desert, i>. 43. (7.) It is a de¬
struction that shall reach the gods of Babylon, the
idols and images, and fall with a particular weight
upon them. In token that the whole land shall be
confounded, and all her slain shall fall, and that
throughout all the country the wounded shall groan,
I will do judgment upon her graven images, v. 47,
52. All must needs perish, if their gods perish,
from whom they expect protection. Though the
invaders are themselves idolaters, yet they shall de¬
stroy the images and temples of the gods of Baby¬
lon, as an earnest of the abolishing of all counterfeit
deities. Bel was the principal idol that the Baby¬
lonians worshipped, and therefore that is by name
here marked for destruction; (v. 44.) I will punish
Bel, that great devourer, that image to which such
abundance of sacrifices are offered, and such rich
spoils dedicated, and to whose temple there is such
a vast resort; he shall disgorge what he has so
greedily regaled himself with; God will bring forth
out of his temple all the wealth laid up there, Job
xx. 15. His altars shall be forsaken, none shall re¬
gard him any more, and so that idol which was
thought to be a wall to Babylon, shall fall, and fail
them. (8.) It shall be a final destruction; you may
take balm for her pain, but in vain; she that would
not be healed by the word of God, shall not be healed
by his providence, v. 8, 9. Babylon shall become
heaps, (v. 37.) and to complete its infamy, no use
shall be made even of the ruins of Babylon, so exe¬
crable shall they be, and attended with such ill
omens! v. 26. They shall not take of thee a stone
for a corner, nor a stone for foundations. People
shall not care for having any thing to do with Ba¬
bylon, or whatever belonged to it. Or it denotes
that there shall be nothing left in Babylon, on which
to ground any hopes or attempts of raising it into a
kingdom again; for, as it follows here, it shall be deso¬
late forever. St. Jerome says, thatin his time, though
the ruins of Babylon’s wall were to be soen, yet the
ground enclosed by them was a forest of wild beasts.
9. Here is a call to God’s people to go out of
Babylon. It is their wisdom, when ruin is approach¬
ing, to quit the city, and retire into the country; (i».
6.) “ Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and get into
some remote corner, that you may save your lives,
and may not be cut off in her iniquity.” When
Vol. iv. — 4 A
God’s judgments are abroad, it is good to get as far
as we can from those against whom they are level¬
led, as Israel from the tents of Korah. This agrees
with the advice Christ gave his disciples, with re¬
ference to the destruction of Jerusalem ; Let them,
which be in Judea, fee to the mountains, Matth.
xxiv. 16. It is their wisdom to get out of the midst
of Babylon, lest they be involved, if not in her ruins,
yet in her fears; (u. 45, 46.) Lest your heart faint,
and ye fear for the rumour that shall be heard' in the
land. Though God has told them that Cyrus
should be their deliverer, and Babylon’s destruction
their deliverance, vet they had been told also, that in
the peace thereof they should have peace, and there¬
fore the alarms given to Babylon would put them
into a fright, and perhaps they might not have
faith and consideration enough to suppress these
fears; for which reason they are here advised to get
out of the hearing of the alarms. Note, Those who
have not grace enough to keep their temper in
temptation, should have wisdom enough to keep cut
of the way of temptation. But this is not all; it is
not only their wisdom to quit the city when the ruin
is approaching, but it is their duty to quit the coun¬
try too, when the ruin is accomplished, and they are
set at liberty bv the pulling down of the prison" over
their heads. This they are told, v. 50, 51. “ \e
Israelites, who have escaped the sword of the Chal¬
deans your oppressors, and of the Persians their de¬
stroyers, now that the year of release is come, go
away, stand not still, hasten to your own country
again, however you may be comfortablv seated in
Babylon, for this is not your rest, but Canaan is.”
(1.) He puts them in mind of the inducements they
had to return; “Remember the Lord afar off, his
presence with you now, though you are here afar off
from your native soil; his presence with your fathers
formerly in the temple, though you are now afar off
from the ruins of it.” Note, Wherever we are, in
the greatest depths, at the greatest distances, we
may and must remember the Lord our God; and in
the time of the greatest fears and hopes it is season¬
able to remember the Lord. “And let Jerusalem
come into your mind; though it be now in ruins, yet
favour its dust, (Ps. cii. 14.) though few of you
ever saw it, yet believe the report you have had
concerning it, from those that wept when they re¬
membered Zion; and think of Jerusalem until you
come up to a resolution to make the best of vour way
thither.” Note, When the city of cur solemnities
is out of sight, yet it must not be out of mind : and it
will be of great use to us, in our journey through this
world, to let the heavenly Jerusalem come often
into our mind. (2.) He takes notice of the discou¬
ragement which the returning captives labour under;
(ic 51.) being reminded of Jerusalem, they cry out,
“ We are confounded, we cannot bear the thought
of it, shame covers our faces at the mention of it, for
we have heard of the reproach of the sanctuary,
that it is profaned and ruined by strangers; how
can we think of it with any pleasure?” To which
he answers, (v. 52.) that the God of Israel will now
triumph over the gods of Babylon, and so that re¬
proach will be for ever rolled away. Note, The
believing prospect of Jerusalem’s recovery will keep
us from being ashamed of Jerusalem’s ruins.
10. Here is the diversified feeling excited by Ba¬
bylon’s fall, and it is the same that we have with
respect to the JVew Testament Babylon, Rev. xviii.
9, 19. (1.) Some shall lament the destruction of
Babylon. There is the sound of a cry, a great out¬
cry coming from Babylon, (y. 54.) lamenting this
great destruction, the voice of mourning, because
the Lord has destroyed the voice of the multitude, that
great voice of mirth, which used to be heard in Baby¬
lon, v. 55. We are told what they shall say in their
lamentations; (v. 41.) How is Sheshach taken, and
554
JEREMIAH, LI.
how are we mistaken concerning her! How is that
city surprised, and become an astonishment among
the nations, that was the praise, and glory, and ad¬
miration, of the whole earth! See how that may fall
into a general contempt, which has been universally
cried up! (2.) Yet some shall rejoice in Babylon’s
fall, not as it is the misery of their fellow-creatures,
but as it is the manifestation of the righteous judg¬
ment of God, and as it opens the way for the release
of God’s captives; upon these accounts the heaven
and the earth, and all that is in both, shall sing for
Babylon; (v. 48.) the church in heaven and the
church on earth shall give to God the glory of his
righteousness, and take notice of it with thankful¬
ness to his praise. Babylon’s ruin is Zion’s praise.
59. The word which Jeremiah the pro¬
phet commanded Seraiah the son of Ne-
riah, the son of Maaseiah, when he went
with Zedekiah the king of Judah into Baby¬
lon, in the fourth year of his reign. And
this Seraiah ivas a quiet prince. 60. So Jere¬
miah wrote in a book all the evil that should
come upon Babylon, even all these words
that are written against Babylon. 61. And
Jeremiah said to Seraiah, When thou com-
est to Babylon, and shalt see, and shalt read
all these words, 62. Then shalt thou say,
O Lord, thou hast spoken against this
place, to cut it off, that none shall remain in
it, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be
desolate for ever. 63. And it shall be, when
thou hast made an end of reading this book,
that thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast
it into the midst of Euphrates: 64. And
thou shalt say, Thus shall Babylon sink,
and shall not rise from the evil that I will
bring upon her, and they shall be weary.
Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.
We have been long attending the judgment of Ba¬
bylon, in this and the foregoing chapter; now here
we have the conclusion of that whole matter.
1. A copy is taken of this prophecy, it should
seem, by Jeremiah himself, for Baruch his scribe is
not mentioned here; ( v . 60.) Jeremiah wrote in a
book all these words that are here written against
Babylon. He received this notice, that he might
give it to all whom it might concent. It is of great
advantage both to the propagating, and to the per¬
petuating, of the word of God, to have it written,
and to have copies taken of the law, prophets, and
epistles.
2. It is sent to Babylon, to the captives there, by
the hand of Seraiah, who went there attendant on,
or ambassador for, king Zedekiah, in the fourth
year of his reign, v. 59. He went with Zedekiah,
or, as the margin reads it, on the behalf of Zedekiah,
into Babylon. The character given of him is ob¬
servable, That this Seraiah was a quiet prince, a
prince of rest; he was in honour and power, but not,
as most of the princes then were, hot and heady,
making parties, and heading factions, and driving
things furiously; he was of a calm temper, studied
the tilings that made for peace, endeavoured to pre¬
serve a good understanding between the king his
master and the king of Babylon, and to keep his
master from rebelling; he was no persecutor of
God’s prophets, but a moderate man. Zedekiah
was happy in the choice of such a man to be his en- I
voy to the king of Babylon, and Jeremiah might
safely intrust such a man with his errand too. Note,
It is the real honour of great men to be quiet men,
and it is the wisdom of princes to put such into
places of trust.
3. Seraiah is desired to read it to his countrymen
that were already gone into captivity ‘ When thou
shalt come to Babylon, and shalt see what a magni¬
ficent place it is, how large a city, how strong, how
rich, and how well fortified, and shalt therefore be
tempted to think, Surely it will stand for ever;”
(as the disciples, when they observed the buildings
of the temple, concluded that nothing would throw
them down but the end of the world, Matth. xxiv.
13.) “ then thou shalt read all these words to thv-
self, and thy particular friends, for their encourage¬
ment in their captivity: let them with an eye of
faitli see to the end of these threatening powers, and
comfort themselves and one another herewith.”
4. He is directed to make a solemn protestation
of the divine authority and unquestionable certainty
of that which he had read; (v. 62.) Then thou shalt
look up to God, and say, O Lord, thou hast spoken
against this /dace, to cut it off. This is like the an¬
gel’s protestation concerning the destruction of the
New Testament Babylon; These are the true say
ings of God. These words are true and faithful,
Rev. xix. 9. — xxi. 5. Though Seraiah sees Baby¬
lon flourishing, having read this prophecy, lie mast
foresee Babylon falling; and by virtue of it, must
curse its habitation, though it be taking root; (Job
v. 3. ) “ O Lord, thou hast spoken against this place,
and I believe what thou Hast spoken, that, as thou
knowest every thing, so thou canst do every thing.
Thou hast passed sentence upon Babylon, and it shall
be executed. Thou hast spoken against this j dace ,
to cut it off, and therefore we will neither envy its
pom]), nor fear its power.” When we see what this
world is, how glittering its shows are, and how flat¬
tering its proposals, let us read in the book of the
Lord that its fashion passes away, and it shall shortly
be cut off, and be desolate for ever, and we shall
learn to look upon it with a holy contempt. Ob¬
serve here, When we have been reading the word
of God, it becomes us to direct to him whose word
it is, an humbling, believing acknowledgment of the
truth, equity, and goodness, of what we have read.
5. He must then tie a stone to the book, and throw
it into the midst of the river Euphrates, as a con¬
firming sign of the things contained in it, saying,
“Thus shall Babylon sink, and not rise; for they
shall be weary, they shall perfectly succumb, as
men tired with a burthen, under the load of the evil
that I will bring upon them, which they shall never
shake off, or get from under, v. 63, 64. In the sign,
it was the stone that sunk the book, which other¬
wise would have swam, but in the thing signified, it
was rather the book that sunk the stone; it was the
divine sentence passed upon Babylon in this pro¬
phecy, that sunk that city, which seemed as firm as
a stone. The fall of the New Testament Babylon
was represented by something like this, but much
more magnificent; (Rev. xviii. 21.) A mighty angel
cast a great millstone into the sea, saying. Thus shall
Babylon fall. Those that sink under the weight
of God’s wrath and curse, sink irrecoverably. The
last words of the chapter seal up the vision and pro¬
phecy of this book; Thus far are the words of Jere¬
miah. Not that this prophecy against Babylon was
the last of his prophecies, for it was dated in the
fourth year of Zedekiah, (y. 59.) long before he
finished his testimony; but this is recorded last of his
prophecies, because it was to be last accomplished
of all his prophecies against the Gentiles, eh. xlvi.
1. And the chapter which remains is purely his¬
torical, and, as some think, was added by some
other hand
555
JEREMIAH, LII.
CHAP. LT1.
History is the best expositor of prophecy; and therefore,
for the better understanding- the prophecies of this book,
which relate to the destruction of Jerusalem and the
kingdom of Judah, we are here furnished with an account
of that sad event. It is much the same with the history
we had, 2 Kings xxiv. 25. and many of the particulars
we had before in that book, but the matter is here re¬
peated, and put together, to give light to the book of the
Lamentations , which follows next, and to serve as a key
to it. That article in the close, concerning the advance¬
ment of Jehoiachin in his captivity, which happened after
Jeremiah’s time, gives colour to their conjecture, who
suppose that this chapter was not written by Jeremiah
himself, but by some man divinely inspired among those
in captivity, for a constant memorandum to those who in
Babylon preferred Jerusalem above their chief joy. In
this chapter, we have, 1. The bad reign ofZedekiah, very
bad in regard both of sin and of punishment, v. 1..3. II.
The besieging and taking of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans,
v. 4 - .7. III. The severe usaije which Zedekiah and the
princes met with? v. 8.. 11. IV. The destruction of the
temple and the city, v. 12 . . 14. V. The captivity of the
people, (v. 15, 16.) and the numbers of those that were
carried away into captivity, v. 28 . . 30. VI. The carry¬
ing oft' the plunder of the temple, v. 17 . . 23. VII. The
slaughter of the priests, and some other great men, in
cold blood, v. 24 . . 27. VIII. The better days which
king Jehoiachin lived to see in the latter end of his time,
after the death of Nebuchadrezzar, v. 31 . . 34.
t. TM EDEKIAH was one and twenty
ALA years old when lie began to reign; and
he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem : and
his mother’s name was Hamutal, the daugh¬
ter of Jeremiah of Libnah. 2. And he did
that which teas evil in the eyes of the Lord,
according to all that Jehoiakim had done.
3. For through the anger of the Lord it
came to pass in Jerusalem and Judah, till
he had cast them out from his presence, that
Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Ba¬
bylon. 4. And it came to pass, in the ninth
year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the
tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadrez¬
zar king of Babylon came, he and all
his army, against Jerusalem, and pitched
against it, and built forts against it round
about. 3. So the city was besieged unto
the eleventh year of king Zedekiah. 6. And
in the fourth month, in the ninth day of the
month, the famine was sore in the city, so
that there was no bread for the people of
the land. 7. Then the city was broken up,
and all the men of war fled, and went forth
out of the city by night, by the way of the
gate between the two walls, which teas by
the king’s garden ; (now the Chaldeans were
by the city round about;) and they went by
the way of the plain. 8. But the army of
the Chaldeans pursued after the king, and
overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho;
and all his army was scattered from him.
9. Then they took the king, and carried
him up unto the king of Babylon to Riblah,
in the land of Hamath; where he gave
judgment upon him. 10. And the king of
Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah before
his eyes: he slew also all the princes of Ju¬
dah in Riblah. 11. Then he put out the
eyes of Zedekiah ; and the king of Babylon
bound him in chains, and carried him to Ba¬
bylon, and put him in prison till the day of
his death.
This narrative begins nn higher than the begin¬
ning of the reign of Zedekiah, though there were
two captivities before, one in the fourth year of Je¬
hoiakim, the other in the first of Jec.oniah; but, pro¬
bably, it was drawn up by some of those that were
carried away with Zedekiah, as a reproach to them¬
selves for imagining that they should not go into cap¬
tivity after their brethren, with which hopes they
had long flattered themselves. We have here,
1. God’s just displeasure against Judah and Jeru¬
salem for their sin, v. 3. His anger was against
them to that degree, that he determined to cast
them out from his presence, his favourable, gracious
presence; as a father, when he is extremely angry
with an undutiful son, bids him get out of his pre¬
sence. He expelled them from that good land that
had such tokens of his presence in providential
bounty, and that holy city and temple that had such
tokens of his presence in covenant-grace and love.
Note, Those that are banished from God’s ordi¬
nances have reason to complain that they are in
some degree cast out of his presence; yet none are
cast out from God’s gracious presence, but those
that by sin have first thrown themselves cut of it.
This fruit of sin we should therefore deprecate
above any thing, as David, (Hs. li. 11.) Cast me not
away from thy presence.
2. Zedekiah’s bad conduct and management, to
which God left him, in displeasure against the peo¬
ple, and for which God punished him, in displea¬
sure against him. Zedekiah was arrived at years
of discretion when he came to the throne; he was
21 years old; (v. 1.) he was none of the worst of
the kings, (we never read of his idolatries,) yet his
character is, that he did evil in the eyes of the Lord,
for he did not do the good he should have done.
But that evil deed of his, which did in a special
manner hasten his destruction, was, his rebelling
against the king, of Babylon, which was both his
sin and his folly, and brought ruin upon his people,
not only meritoriously, but efficiently. God was
greatly displeased with him for his perfidious deal¬
ing with tiie king of Babylon; (as we find, Ezek.
xvii. 15, &c. ) and because he was angry at Judah
and Jerusalem, he put him into the hand of his own
counsels, to do that foolish thing which proved fatal
to him and his kingdom.
3. The possession which the Chaldeans at length
gained of Jerusalem, after eighteen months’ siege.
They sat down before it, and blocked it up, in the
ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, in the tenth month,
(v. 4.) and made themselves masters of it in the
elventh year in the fourth month, v. 6. In remem¬
brance of these two steps towards their ruin, while
they were in captivity, they kept a fast in the fourth
month and a fast in the tenth; (Zech. viii. 19. ) that in
the fifth month was in remembrance of the burning
of the temple, and that in the seventh of the murder
of Gedaliah. We may easily imagine, or rather
cannot imagine, what a sad time it was with Jeru¬
salem, during this year and half that it was besieg¬
ed, when all provisions were cut off from coming to
them, and they were ever and anon alarmed by the
attacks of the enemy, and, being obstinately resolved
to hold out to the last extremity, nothing remained
but a certain fearful looking for of judgment. That
which disabled them to hold out, and yet could not
prevail with them to capitulate, was, the famine in
the city; ( v . 6.) there was no bread for the people
of the land, so that the soldiers could not make
556
JEREMIAH, LII.
good their posts, but were rendered wholly unservice- :
able.: and then no wonder that the city was broken
itfi, v. 7. Walls, in such a case, will not hold
out long without men, any more than men without j
walls; nor will both together stand people in any '
stead without God and his protection.
4. The inglorious retreat of the king and his migh¬
ty men. They got out of the city by night, ( v . 7.)
and made the best of their way, I know not whither,
nor perhaps they themselves; but the king was
overtaken by the pursuers in the plains of Jericho,
and his guards dispersed, and all his army scattered
from him, v. 8. His fright was not causeless, for
where there is guilt there will be fear in time of
danger. But his flight was fruitless, for there is no \
escaping of the judgments of God; they will come
upon the sinner, and will overtake him, let him flee
where he will; (Deut. xxviii. 15.) and these judg¬
ments particularly that are here executed, were
there threatened, v. 52, 53, &c.
5. The sad doom past upon Zedekiahby the king
of Babylon, and immediately put in execution. He
treated him as a rebel, gave judgment upon him, v.
9. One cannot think of it without the utmost vex¬
ation and regret, that a king, a king of Judah, a
king of the house of David, should be arraigned as
a criminal at the bar of this heathen king. But he
humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet;
therefore God thus humbled him. Pursuant to the
sentence passed upon him by the haughty conqueror,
his sons were slain before his eyes, and all the prin¬
ces of Judah; ( v . 10.) then his eyes were put out,
and he was bound in chains, carried in triumph to
Babylon; perhaps they made sport with him as
they did with Samson when his eyes were put out;
however, he was condemned to perpetual imprison¬
ment, wearing out the remainder ot his life (I can¬
not say his days, for he saw day no more) in dark¬
ness and misery; he was kept in prison till the day
of his death, but had some honour done him at his
funeral, ch. xxxiv. 5. Jeremiah had often told him
what it would come to, but he would not take warn¬
ing when he might have prevented it.
12. Now in the fifth month, in the tenth
day of the month, (which was the nine¬
teenth year of Nebuchadrezzar king of
Babylon,) came Nebuzar-adan captain of
the guard, which served the king of Baby¬
lon, into Jerusalem, 13. And burnt the
house of the Lord, and the king’s house;
and all the houses of Jerusalem, and all
the houses of the great men, burnt he with
fire. 14. And all the army of the Chal¬
deans, that were with the captain of the
guard, brake down all the walls of Jerusa¬
lem round about. 15. Then Nebuzar-adan
the captain of the guard carried away cap- j
five certain of the poor of the people, and
the residue of the people that remained in
the city, and those that fell away, that fell
to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the
multitude. 16. But Nebuzar-adan the cap¬
tain of the guard left certain of the poor of
the land, for vine-dressers and for husband¬
men. 17. \lso the pillars of brass that
were in the iiouse of the Lord, and the
bases, and the brazen sea that was in the
house of the Lord, the Chaldeans brake,
and carried all the brass of them to Baby- 1
Ion. 18. The caldrons also, and the shovels,
and the snuffers, and the bowls, and the
spoons, and all the vessels of brass, where¬
with they ministered, took they away. 19.
And the basons, and the fire-pans, and the
bowls, and the caldrons, and the candle¬
sticks, and the spoons, and the cups ; that
which was of gold in gold, and that which
was of silver in silver, took the captain of
the guard away. 20. The two pillars, one
sea, and twelve brazen bulls that were under
the bases, which king Solomon had made
in the house of the Lord : the brass of all
these vessels was without weight. 21. And
concerning the pillars, the height of one pil¬
lar was eighteen cubits, and a fillet of twelve
cubits did compass it ; and the thickness
thereof was four fingers: it teas hollow. 22.
And a chapiter of brass was upon it ; and
the height of one chapiter was five cubits,
with net-work and pomegranates upon the
chapiters round about, all of brass: the se¬
cond pillar also and the pomegranates were
like unto these. 23. And there were ninety
and six pomegranates on aside; and all the
pomegranates upon the net-work were a
hundred round about.
We have here an account of the woful havock
that was made by the Chaldean army, a month
after the city was taken, under the command of
Nebuzar-adan, who was captain of the guard, or
general of the army, in this action. In the margin
he is called the chief of the slaughter-men, or execu¬
tioners; for soldiers are but slaughter-men, and Gcd
employs them as executioners of his sentence
against a sinful people. Nebuzar-adan was chief
of those soldiers, but in the execution he did, we
have reason to fear he had no eye to God, but he
served the king of Babylon and his own designs, now
that he came into Jerusalem, into the very bowels
of it, as captain of the slaughter-men there. And, 1.
He laid the temple in ashes, having first plundered
it of every thing that was valuable; he burnt the
house of the Lord, that holy and beautiful house,
where their fathers praised him, Isa. lxiv. 11. 2.
He burnt the royal palace, probably that which
Solomon built, after he had built the temple, which
was, ever since, the king’s house. 3. He burnt all
the houses of Jerusalem, that is, all the houses of
the great men, or those particularly; if any escap¬
ed, it was onlv some sorry cottages for the poor of
the land. 4. He broke doion all the walls of Jeru¬
salem, to be revenged upon them for standing in the
way of his army so long. Thus, of a defenced city
it was made a ruin, Isa. xxv. 2. 5. He carried
away many into captivity, (y. 15.) he took away
certain of 'the poor of the people, of the people in
the city, for the poor of the land, the poor of the
country, he left for vine-dressers and husbandmen.
He also carried off the residue of the people that re¬
mained in the city, that had escaped the sword and
famine; and the deserters, such as he thought fit, or
rather such as God thought fit; for he had already
determined some for the pestilence, some for the
sword, some for famine, and some for captivity, ch.
xv. 2.
But nothing is more particularly and largely re¬
lated here than the carrying away of the app'urtc-
557
JEREMIAH, Lll.
nances of the temple. All that were of great value
were carried away before, the vessels of silver and
gold, yet some of that sort remained, which were
now carried away, v. 19. But most of the temple-
prey that was now seized, was of brass; which, be¬
ing of less value, was carried off last. When the
gold was gone, the brass soon went after, because
the people repented not, according to Jeremiah’s
prediction, ch. xxvii. 19, 8cc. When the walls of
the city were demolished, the pillars of the temple
were pulled down too, and both in token that God,
who was the Strength and Stay both of their civil
and their ecclesiastical government, was departed
from them. No walls can protect nor pillars
sustain those, from whom God withdraws. These
pillars, of the temple were not for support, (for
there was nothing built upon them,) but for orna¬
ment and significancy. They were called Jachin,
He will establish; and Boat, In him is strength; so
that the breaking of these signified that God would
nojonger establish his house, nor be the Strength of
it. These pillars are here very particularly de¬
scribed, ( v . 21. — 23. from 1 Kings vii. 15.) that the
extraordinary beauty and stateliness of them may af¬
fect us the more with the demolishing of them. All
the vessels that belonged to the brazen altar were
carried away; for the iniquity of Jerusalem, like that
uf Eli’s house, was not to be purged by sacrifice or
offering, 1 Sam. iii. 14. It is said, (v. 2C. ) The
brass of all these z’esse/s was without weight; so it
was in the making of them, (1 Kings vii. 47.) the
weight of the brass was not then found out, (2
Chron. iv. 18.)andsoitwasinthedestroyingofthem.
Those that made great spoil of them did not stand to
weigh them, as purchasers do, for whatever they
weighed it was all their own.
24. And the captain of the guard took
Seraiah the chief priest, and Zephaniah the
second priest, and the three keepers of the
door: 25. He took also out of the city a
eunuch which had the charge of the men of
war ; and seven men of them that were near
the king’s person, which were found in the
city ; and the principal scribe of the host, who
mustered the people of the land; and three¬
score men of the people of the land, that were
found in the midst of the city. 26. So Ne-
buzar-adan the captain of the guard took
them, and brought them to the king of Ba¬
bylon to Riblah. 27. And the king of Baby¬
lon smote them, and put them to death in
Riblah, in the land of Hamath. Thus J udah
wras carried away captive out of his own
land. 23. This is the people whom Nebu¬
chadrezzar carried away captive : In the
seventh year, three thousand Jews and three I
and twenty: 29. In the eighteenth year of
Nebuchadrezzar he carried away captive
from Jerusalem eight hundred thirty and
two persons: 30. In the three and twenti¬
eth year of Nabuchadrezzar, Nebuzar-adan
the captain of the guard carried away cap¬
tive of the Jews seven hundred forty and
live persons: all the persons were four thou¬
sand and six hundred.
We have here a very melancholy account,
1. Of the slaughter of some great men, in cold
Dlooa, at Riblah, seventy-two in number, (accord¬
ing to the number of the elders of Israel, Numb,
xi. 26, 27. ) so they are computed, 2 Kings xxv. 18, 19.
We read there of five out of the temple, two out of
the city, five out of the court, and sixty out of the
country. The account here agrees with that, ex¬
cept in one article; there, it is said that there were
five, here, there were seven, of those that were
near the king; which Dr. Lightfoot reconciles thus,
that he took away seven of those that were near the
king, but two of them were Jeremiah himself and
Ebed-melech, who were both discharged, as we have
read before, so that there were only five of them put
to death, and so the number was reduced to seventy-
two; some of all ranks, for they had all corrupted
their way; and it is probable that such were made
examples of, as had been most forward to excite
and promote the rebellion against the king of Baby¬
lon. Seraiah the chief priest is put first, whose
sacred character could not exempt him from this
stroke; how should it, when he himself had profan¬
ed it by sin? Seraiah the prince was a quiet prince,
{ch. lxi. 59.) but perhaps Seraiah the priest was not
so, but unquiet and turbulent, by which he had
made himself obnoxious to the king of Babylon.
The leaders of this people had caused them to err,
and now they are in a particular manner made
monuments of divine justice.
2. Of the captivity cf the rest. Come, and see
how Judah was carried away captive out of his
own land, ( v . 27.) and how it spued them out as it
spued out the Canaanites that went before them,
which God had told them it would certainly do, if
they trod in their steps, and copied out their abomi¬
nations, Lev. xviii. 28. Now here is an account,
(1.) Of two captivities which we had an account
of before, one in the seventh year of Nebuchadnez¬
zar, the same with that which is said to be in his
eighth year, (2 Kings xxiv. 12.) another in his eigh¬
teenth year, the same with that which is said (x\
12. ) to be in his nineteenth year. But the sums
here are very small, in comparison with what we
find expressed concerning the former, (2 Kings
xxiv. 14, 16. ) when there was 18,000 carried captive,
whereas here they are said to be 3023; small too in
comparison with what we may reasonably suppose
concerning the latter; for when all the residue of
the people were carried away, (v. 15.) one would
think there should be more than 832 souls; there¬
fore Dr. Lightfoot conjectures that these accounts
being joined to the story of the putting to death of
the great men at Riblah, all that are here said to be
carried away were put to death as rebels.
(1.) Of a third captivity, not mentioned before,
which was in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadrez¬
zar, four years after the destruction of Jerusalem;
(v. 30. ) then Nebuzar-adan came, and carried away
745 Jews; it is probable that this was done in re¬
venge of the murder of Gedaliah, which was
another rebellion against the king of Babylon, and
that those who were now taken, were aiders and
abettors of Ishmael in that murder, and were not
only carried away, but put to death, for it; yet this
is uncertain. If this be the sum total of the cap- *
tives, ( All the persons were 4600, v. 30. ) we may see
how strangely they were reduced from what they
had been, and may wonder as much how they came
to be so numerous again, as afterward we find them;
for it should seem that, as at first in Egypt, so again
in Babylon, the Lord made them fruitful in the land
of their affliction, and the more they were oppressed
the more they multiplied. And the truth is, this
people were often miracles both of judgment and
mercy.
3 1 . And it came to pass, in the seven and
thirtieth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin
king of Judah, in the twelfth month, in the
JEREMIAH, LIT.
658
five and twentieth day of the month, that
Evil-merodach king of Babylon, in th q first
year of his reign, lifted up the head ol Je-
hoiachin king of Judah, and brought him
forth out of prison, 32. And spake kindly
unto him, and set his throne above the throne
of the kings that were with him in Babylon,
33. And changed his prison-garments; and
he did continually eat bread before him all
the days of his life. 34. And for his diet,
there was a continual diet given him of the
king of Babylon, every day a portion, until
the day of his death, all the days of his
life.
This passage of story concerning the reviving
which king Jehoiachin had in his bondage, we had
likewise before, 2 Kings xxv. 27. — 30. Only there
it is said to be done on the twenty-seventh day of the
twelfth month, here on the twenty-fifth ; but in a
thing of this nature, two days make a very slight
difference in the account. It is probable that the
orders were given for his release on the twenty-fifth
day, but that he was not presented to the king till
the twenty -seventh. We may observe in this story,
1. That new lords make new laws. Nebuchad¬
rezzar had long kept this unhappy prince in prison;
and his son, though well-affected to the prisoner,
could not procure him any favour, not one smile,
from his father; any more than Jonathan could for
David from his father ; but when the old peevish man
was dead, his son countenanced Jehoiachin, and made
him a favourite. It is common for chi'dren (o undo
what their fathers have done; it were well if it were
always as much for the better as this here.
2. That the world we live in is a changing world.
Jehoiachin, in his beginning, fell from a throne into
a prison, but here he is advanced again to a throne
of state, ( v . 32.) though not to a throne of power.
\s, before, the robes were changed into prison-gar¬
ments, so, now, they were converted into robes
again. Such chequer-work is this world; prosperity
and adversity are set the one over against the other,
that we may learn to rejoice as though we rejoiced
not, and weep as though we wept not.
3. That though the night of affliction be very long,
yet we must not despair but that the day may dawn
at last. Jehoiachin was thirty-seven years a prisoner;
in confinement, in contempt, ever since he was
eighteen years old, in which time we may suppose
him so inured to captivity, that he had forgotten the
sweets of liberty; or rather, that after so long an
imprisonment it would be doubly welcome to him.
Let those whose afflictions have been lengthened
out, encourage themselves with this instance; the
vision will at the end speak comfortably, and there¬
fore wait for it. I) mn spiro spero — While there is
life, there is hope. JVon si male nunc, et olim sic erit
— Though now we suffer, we shall not always suffer.
4. That God can make his people to find favour
in the eyes of those that are their oppressors, and
unaccountably turn their hearts to pity them, ac¬
cording to that word, (Ps. cvi. 46. ) Me made them
to be pitied of all those that carried them captives.
He can bring those that have spoken roughly to
speak kindly, and those to feed his people that have
fed upon them. Those therefore that are under
oppression will find that it is not in vain to hope, and
quietly to wait for the salvation of the Lord. There¬
fore our times are in God’s hand, because the hearts
of all we deal with are so.
And now, upon the whole matter, comparing the
prophecy and the history of this book together, we
may learn, in general, ( 1. ) That it is no new thing for
churches and persons highly dignified to degenerate,
and become very corrupt. (2.) That iniquity tends
to the ruin of those that harbour it; and if it be not
repented of and forsaken, will certainly end in their
ruin. (3.) That external professions and privileges
will not only not amount to an excuse for sin, and
an exemption from rain, but will be a very great
aggravation of both. (4.) That no word of God
shall fall to the ground, but the event will fully an¬
swer the prediction; and the unbelief of man shall
not make God’s threatenings, any more than his
promises, of no effect. The justice and truth of
God are here written in bloody characters, for the
conviction or the confusion of all those that make a
jest of his threatenings. Let them not be deceived,
God is not mocked.
AN
EXPOSITION,
WITH
PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS,
OF THE
LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH.
Since what Solomon says, though contrary to the common opinion of the world, is certainly true, that Sor¬
row is better than laughter, and, It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting,
we should come to the reading and consideration of the melancholy chapters of this book, not only willingly,
but with an expectation to edify ourselves by them; which that we may do, we must compose ourselves
to a holy sadness, and resolve to weep with the weeping prophet. Let us consider,
I. The title of this book; in the Hebrew it has none, but is called, (as the books of Moses are,) from the
first word, Ecah — How; but the Jewish commentators call it, as the Greeks do, and we from them,
Kinoth — Lamentations. As we have sacred odes or songs of joy, so have we sacred elegies or songs of
lamentation; such variety of methods has Infinite Wisdom taken to work upon us, and move our affec¬
tions, and so soften our hearts, and make them susceptible of the impressions of divine truths, as the
wax of the seal. We have not only fiified unto you, but have mourned likewise, Matth. xi. 17.
II. The penman of this book; it was Jeremiah the prophet, who is here Jeremiah the poet, and votes sig¬
nifies both ; therefore this book is fitly adjoined to the book of his prophecy, and is as an appendix to it.
We had there at large the predictions of the desolations of Judah and Jerusalem, and then the history
of them, to show how punctually the predictions were accomplished, for the confirming of our faith :
now here we have the expressions of his sorrow upon occasion of them, to show that he was very sin¬
cere in the protestations he had often made, that he did not desire the woful day, but that, on the con¬
trary, the prospect of it filled him with bitterness. When he saw these calamities at a distance, he
wished his head waters, and his eyes fountains of tears; and when they came, he made it to appear
that he did not dissemble in that wish, and that he was far from being disaffected to his country,
which was the crime his enemies charged him with. Though his country had been very unkind to him,
and though the ruin of it was both a proof that he was a true prophet, and a punishment of them for
prosecuting him as a false prophet, which would have tempted him to rejoice in it, yet he sadly lamented
it, and herein showed a better temper than that which Jonah was of with respect to Nineveh.
III. The occasion of these Lamentations was the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem by the Chaldean
army, and the dissolution of the Jewish state both civil and ecclesiastical thereby. Some of the Rab¬
bins will have these to be the Lamentations which Jeremiah penned upon occasion of the death of Jo-
siah, which are mentioned, 2 Chron. xxxv. 25. But though it is true that that opened the door to all
the following calamities, yet these Lamentations seem to be penned in the sight, not in the ybresight, of
those calamities; when they were already come, not when they were at a distance; and there is nothing
of Josiah in them, and his praise, as was, no question, in the Lamentations for him. No, it is Jerusa¬
lem’s funeral that this is an elegy upon. Others of them will have these Lamentations to be contained
in the roll which Baruch wrote from Jeremiah’s mouth, and which Jehoiakim burnt, and they suggest,
that at first there were in it only the 1st, 2d, and 4th chapters, but that the 3d and 5th were the many
like words that were afterward added; but this is a groundless fancy; that roll is expressly said to be a
repetition and summary of the prophet’s sermons, Jer. xxxvi. 2.
IV. The composition of it: it is not only poetical, but alphabetical, all except the 5th chapter, as some of
David’s psalms are; each verse begins with a several letter in the order of the Hebrew alphabet, the
1st aleph, the 2nd beth, &c. but the third chapter is a triple alphabet, the three first beginning with
aleph, the three next with beth, &c. which was a help to memory, (it being designed that these mourn¬
ful ditties should be got by heart,) and was an elegance in writing then valued, and therefore not now to
be despised. They observe, that in the 2d, 3d, and 4th chapters, the letter fie is put before ajin, which
in all the Hebrew alphabets follows it; for a reason of which Dr. Lightfoot offers this conjecture, That
the letter ajin, which is the numeral letter for LXX., was thus, by being displaced, made remarkable,
to put them in mind of the seventy years, at the end of which God would turn again their captivity.
V. The use of it: of great use, no doubt, it was to the pious Jews in their sufferings, furnishing them with
spiritual language to express their natural grief by; helping to preserve the lively remembrance of Zion
among them, and their children that never saw it, when they were in Babylon; directing their tears
into the right channel; for they are here taught to mourn for sin, and mourn to God; and withal en¬
couraging their hopes, that God would yet return, and have merev upon them; and it is of use to us, to
affect us with godly sorrow for the calamities of the church of God, as becomes those that are living
members of it, and are resolved to take our lot with it.
560
LAMENTATIONS, I.
.CHAP. I.
We have here the first alphabet of this lamentation, twenty-
two stanzas, in which the miseries of Jerusalem are bit¬
terly bewailed, and her present deplorable condition
aggravated by comparing it with her former prosperous
state; and, all along, sin is acknowledged and complained
of as the procuring cause of all these miseries; and God
is appealed to for justice against their enemies, and ap¬
plied to for compassion toward them. The chapter is all
of a piece, and the several remonstrances are interwoven;
but here is, I. A complaint made to God of their cala¬
mities, and his compassionate consideration desired, v.
I. .11. II. The same complaint made to their friends,
and their compassionate consideration desired, v. 12..
17. III. An appeal to God and his righteousness con¬
cerning it, (v. 18.. 22.) in which he is justified in their
affliction, and is humbly solicited to justify himself in
their deliverance.
1 . S | OW doth the city sit solitary that
XX was full of people ! how is she be¬
come as a widow ! she that ivas great among
the nations, and princess among the pro¬
vinces, how is she become tributary ! 2.
She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears
are on her cheeks; among all her lovers she
hath none to comfort her: all her friends
have dealt treacherously with her ; they are
become her enemies. 3. Judah is gone into
captivity, because of affliction, and because
of great servitude ; she dwelleth among the
heathen, she findeth no rest : all her perse¬
cutors overtook her between the straits. 4.
The ways of Zion do mourn, because none
come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are
desolate ; her priests sigh, her virgins are af¬
flicted, and she is in bitterness. 5. Her ad¬
versaries are the chief, her enemies prosper;
for the Lord hath afflicted her for the mul¬
titude of her transgressions : her children
are gone into captivity before the enemy.
6. And from the daughter of Zion all her
beauty is departed : her princes are become
like harts that find no pasture ; and they are
gone without strength before the pursuer.
7. Jerusalem remembered in the days of
her affliction, and of her miseries, all her
pleasant things that she had in the days of
old, when her people fell into the hand of
the enemy, and none did help her : the ad¬
versaries saw her, and did mock at her sab¬
baths. 3. Jerusalem hath grievously sin¬
ned ; therefore she is removed : all that
honoured her despise her, because they have
seen her nakedness : yea, she sigheth, and
turneth backward. 9. Her filthiness is in
her skirts; she remembereth not her last
end ; therefore she came down wonderfully:
she had no comforter. O Lord, behold my
affliction, for the enemy hath magnified him¬
self. 10. The adversary hath spread out
his hand upon all her pleasant things: for
she hath seen that the heathen entered into
her sanctuary, whom thou didst command
that they should not enter into thy congre¬
gation. 11. All her people sigh, they seek
bread ; they have given their pleasant things
for meat to relieve the soul : see, O Lord,
and consider; for 1 am become vile.
Those that have any disposition to weep with them
that weep, one would think, should scarcelv be able
to refrain from tears at the reading these verses, so
very pathetic are the lamentations here.
I. The miseries of Jerusalem are here complained
of as very pressing, and by many circumstances
very much aggravated. Let us take a view cf
these miseries.
1. As to their civil state.
(1.) A city that was populous, is now depopulat¬
ed, v. 1. It is spoken of by way of wonder; Who
would have thought that ever it should come to this!
Or by way of inquiry; What is it that has brought
it to this? Or by way of lamentation; Alas, alas, (as
Rev. xviii. 10, 16, 19.) how doth the city sit solitary,
that was full of people! She was full of her own
people that replenished her, and full cf the people
of other nations that resorted to her, with whom
she had both profitable commerce and pleasant con¬
verse: but now her own people are carried into
captivity, and strangers make no court to her; she
sits solitary. The chief places of the city are not
now, as they used to be, places of concourse,
where Wisdom cried; (Prov. i. 20, 21.) and justlv
are they left unfrequented, because Wisdom’s cry
there was not heard. Note, Those that are ever so
much increased, God can soon diminish. How is
she become as a widow! Her king that was, or
should have been, as a husband to her, is cut off,
and gone; her God is departed from her, and has
given her a bill of divorce; she is emptied of her
children, is solitary and sorrowful as a widow. Let
no family, no state, not Jerusalem, no, nor Babylon
herself, be secure, and say, I sit as a rjueen, and
shall never sit as a widow, Isa. xlvii. 8. Rev. xviii. 7.
(2.) A city that had dominion, is now in subjec¬
tion. She had been great among the nations,
greatly loved by some, and greatly feared by others,
and greatly observed and obeyed by both; some
made her presents, and others paid her taxes; so
that she was really princess among the provinces,
and every sheaf bowed to hers, even the princes of
the people entreated her favour: but now the tables
are turned, she has not only lost her friends, and
sits solitary, but has lost her freedom too, and sits
tributary; she paid tribute to Egypt first, and then
to Babylon. Note, Sin brings a people not only into
solitude but into slavery.
(3.) A city that usefl to be full of mirth, is now
become melancholy, and upon all accounts full of
grief. Jerusalem had been a joyous city, whither
the tribes went up on purpose to rejoice before the
Lord; she was the joy of the whole earth, but now
she weeps sore, her laughter is turned into mourn¬
ing, her solemn feasts are all gone; she weeps in
the night, as true mounters do who weep in secret,
in silence and solitude; in the night, when others
compose themselves to rest, her thoughts are most
intent upon her troubles, and grief then plays the
tyrant. What the prophet’s head was for her,
when she regarded it not, now her head is — as wa¬
ters, and her eyes fountains of tears, so that she
weeps day and night, (Jer. ix. 1.) her tears are con¬
tinually on her cheeks. Though notiiing dries away
sooner than a tear, yet fresh griefs extort fresh
tears, so that her cheeks are never free from them.
Note, There is nothing more commonlv seen under
the sun, than the tears of the oppressed, with whom
the clouds return after the rain, Eccl. iv. 1.
(4. ) Those that were separated from the heathen,
now dwell among the heathen; those that were a
peculiar people, are now a mingled people; (v. 3.)
Judah is gone into captivity, out of her own land
561
LAMENTATIONS, 1.
into tin; land of her enemies, and there she abides,
and is likely to abide, among t(iose that are aliens
to God and the covenants of promise, with whom
she Jindeth no rest, no satisfaction of mind, nor any
settlement of abode, but is continually hurried from
place to place at the will of the victorious, im¬
perious tyrants. And again, (y. 5.) Her children
nre gone into captivity before the enemy; they that
were to have been the seed of the next generation,
are carried off ; so that the land that is no w desolate,
is likely to be still desolate and lost for want of heirs.
Those that dwell among their own people, and that
t free people, and in their own land, would be more
thankful for the mercies they thereby enjoy, if they
would but consider the miseries of those that are
forced into strange countries.
(5.) Those that used in their wars to conquer,
are now conquered and triumphed over; All her
persecutors overtook her between the straits; (v. 3.)
they gained all possible advantages against her, so
that her people unavoidably fell into the hand o f the
enemy, for there was no way to escape, ( v . 7.) they
were hemmed in on every side, and which way so¬
ever they attempted to flee, they found themselves
embarrassed; and when they made the best of their
way, they could make nothing of it, but were over¬
taken and overcome; so that every where her ad¬
versaries are the chief, and her enemies prosper; (xi.
5.) which way soever their sword turns, they get
the better. Such straits do men bring themselves
into by sin! If we allow that which is our greatest
adversary and enemy to have dominion over us,
and to be chief in us, justly will our other enemies
Je suffered to have dominion over us.
(6.) Those that had been not only a distinguished
but a dignified people, on whom God had put honour,
and to whom all their neighbours had paid respect,
are now brought into contempt; (x>. 8.) All that
honoured her before, despise her; those that courted
an alliance with her, now value it not; those that
caressed her when she was in pomp and prosperity,
slight her now that she is in distress, because they
have seen her nakedness. By the prevalency of the
enemies against her they perceive her weakness,
and that she is not so strong a people as they thought
she had been; and by the prevalency of God’s
judgments against her they perceive her wicked¬
ness, which now comes to light, and is every where
talked of. Now it appears how they have vilified
themselves by their sins; the enemies magnify them¬
selves against them, ( v . 9.) they trample upon
them, and insult over them, and in their eyes they
are become vile; the tail of the nations, though
once they were the head. Note, Sin is the reproach
of any people.
(J. ) Those that lived in a fruitful land were
ready to perish, and many of them did perish, for
want of necessary food; (x>. 11.) All her people sigh
in despondency and despair, they are ready to faint
away, their spirits fail, and therefore they sigh, for
they seek bread, and seek it in vain. They were
brought at last to that extremity, that there was no
bread for the people of the land, (Jer. lii. 6.) and in
their captivity they had much ado to get bread, ch.
y. 6. They have given their pleasant things, their
jewels and pictures, and all the furniture of their
closets and cabinets, which they used to please
themselves with looking upon, they have sold these,
to buy bread for themselves and their families, have
parted with them for meat to relieve the soul, or,
as the margin is, to make the soul come again, when
they were ready to faint away. They desired no
other cordial than meat. All that a man has ;uill
he give for life, and for bread which is the staff of
life. Let those that abound in pleasant tilings, not
be proud of them, or fond of them, for the time may
come w'.ien they may be glad to let them go for nc-
Vol. iv. — 4 B
cessary things. And let those that have competent
food to relieve their soul, be content with it, and
thankful for it, though they have not pleasant
things.
2. We have here an account of their miseries in
their ecclesiastical state, the ruin of their sacred in¬
terest, which was much more to be lamented than
that of their secular concerns.
(1.) Their religious feasts were no more observed,
no more frequented; (x\ 4.) The mays of Zion do
mourn, they look melancholy, overgrown with grass
and weeds. It used to be a pleasant diversion to
see people continually passing and repassing in the
high way that led to the temple, but now you may
stand there long enough, and see nobody stir, for
none came to the solemn feasts, a full end is put. to
them by the destruction of that which was the city
of our solemnities, Isa. xxxiii. 20. The solemn
feasts had been neglected and profaned, (Isa. i. 11,
12.) and therefore justly is an end now put to them.
But when thus the ways of Zion are made to mourn,
all the sons of Zion cannot but mourn with them.
It is very grievous to good men to see religious as¬
semblies broken up and scattered, and those re¬
strained from them, that would gladly attend them.
And as the ways of Zion mourned, so the gates of
Zion, in which the faithful worshippers used to
meet, are desolate, for there is none to meet in them.
Time was when the Lord loved the gates of Zion
more than all the dwellings of Jacob, but now he
has forsaken them, and is provoked to withdraw
from them, and therefore it cannot but fare with
them as it did with the temple when Christ quitted
it. Behold, your house is left unto you desolate,
Matth. xxiii. 38.
(2.) Their religious persons were quite disabled
to perform their wonted services, were quite dispi¬
rited; Her priests sigh for the desolations of the
temple, their songs are turned into sighs; they sigh,
for they have nothing to do, and therefore there is
nothing to be had; they sigh, as the people, [y. 11.)
for want of bread, because the offerings of the Lord,
which were their livelihood, failed. It is time to
sigh when the priests, the Lord’s ministers, sigh.
Her virgins also, that used, with their music and
dancing, to grace the solemnities of their feasts, are
afflicted and in heaviness. Notice is taken.of their
service in the day of Zion’s prosperity, (Ps. lxviii.
25. Among them were the damsels playing with
timbrels ,) and therefore notice is taken of the failing
of it now. Her virgins arc afflicted, and therefore
she is in bitterness; all the inhabitants of Zion are
so, whose character it is, that they are sorrowful
for the solemn assembly, and that to them the re
proach of it is a burthen, Zeph. iii. 18.
(3.) Their religious places were profaned; (x>
10.) The heathen entered into her sanctuary, into
the temple itself, into which no Israelite was per¬
mitted to enter, though ever so reverently and de¬
voutly, but the priests only. 'The stranger that
comes nigh, even to worship there, shall be put to
death. Thither the heathen now crowd rudely in,
not to worship, but to plunder. God had com¬
manded that the heathen should not so much as en¬
ter into the congregation, nor be incorporated with
the people of the Jews; (Deut. xxiii. 3.) yet now
they enterinto the sanctuary without control. Note,
Nothing is more grievous to those who’have a true
concern for the glory of God, nor is more lamented,
than the violation of God’s jaws, and the contempt
they see put upon sacred things. What the enemy
did wickedly in the sanctuary, was complained of,
Ps. lxxiv. 3, 4.
(4.) Their religious utensils, and all the rich
things with which the temple was adorned and
beautified, and which were made use of in the wor¬
ship of God, were made a prey to the enemy;
562
LAMENTATIONS, 1.
( v . 10.) The adversary has spread out his hand upon
all her fileasant things, has grasped them all, seized
them all, for himself. What these pleasant things
are, we may learn from Isa. lxiv. 11. where, to the
complaint of the burning of the temple, it is added, All
cur pleasant things are laid waste; the ark and the
altar, and all the other tokens of God’s presence
with them, these were their pleasant things above
any other things, and these were now broken to
pieces, and carried away. Thus from the daughter
of Zion all her beauty is departed, v. 6. The beau¬
ty of holiness was the beauty of the daughter of
Zion; when the temple, that holy and beautiful
house, was destroyed, her beauty was gone; that
was the breaking of the staff of beauty, the taking
away of the pledges and seals of the covenant,
Zech. xi. 10.
(5.) Their religious days were made a jest of; ( v .
7. ) The adversaries saw her, and did mock at her
sabbaths. They laughed at them for their observ¬
ing of one day in seven, as a day of rest from worldly
business. Juvenal, a heathen poet, ridicules the
Jews in his time for losing a seventh part of their
time;
- Cui septima qutpque fuit lux
Ignava et vilce partam non attigit ullam —
They keep their sabbaths to their cost,
For thus one day in seven is lost;
whereas sabbaths, if they be sanctified as they
ought to be, will turn to a better account than all
the days of the week besides. And whereas the
Jews professed that they did it in obedience to their
God, and to his honour, their adversaries asked
them, “ What do you get by it now? What profit
have you in keeping the ordinances of your God,
who now deserts you in your distress?” Note, It is
a very great trouble to all that love God, to hear
his ordinances mocked at, and particularly his sab¬
baths. Zion calls them her sabbaths, for the sab¬
bath was made for men; they are his institutions,
but they are her privileges; and the contempt put
upon sabbaths all the sons of Zion take to them¬
selves, and lay to heart accordingly; nor will they
look upon sabbaths, or any other divine ordinances,
as less honourable, nor value them less for their be¬
ing mocked at.
(6.) That which greatly aggravated all these
grievances, was, that her present state was just the
reverse of what it had been once; ( v . 7.) Now, in
the days of affliction and misery, when every thing
was black and dismal, she remembers all her plea¬
sant things that she had in the days of old, and now
knows how to value them better than formerly,
when she had the full enjoyment of them. God of¬
ten makes us know the worth of mercies by the
want of them : and adversity is most hardly borne
by those that are fallen into it from the height of
prosperity. This cut David to the heart, when he
was banished from God’s ordinances, that he could
remember when he went with the multitude to the
house of God, Ps. xlii. 4.
II. The sins of Jerusalem are here complained
of as the procuring, provoking cause of all these
calamities. Whoever are the instruments, God is
the Author, of all these troubles; it is the Lord that
has afflicted her, (y. 5. ) and he has done it as a
righteous Judge, for she has sinned.
1. Her sins arc for number numberless. Are her
troubles many? Her sins are many more. It is for
the multitude of her transgressions that the Lord
has afflicted her. See Jer. xxx. 14. When the
transgressions of a people are multiplied, we cannot
say, as Job does, in his own case, that wounds are
multiplied without cause, Job ix. 17.
2. They are for nature exceeding heinous; y. 8.)
Jerusalem has grievously sinned; has sinned sin, so
the word is; sinned wilfully, deliberately; ha? sin¬
ned that sin, which of all others is the abominable
thing that the Lord hates, the sin of idolatry. . The
sins of Jerusalem, that makes such a profession, and
enjoys such privileges, are of all others the mos*
grievous sins. She has sinned grievously, (v. 8.)
and therefore (y. 9.) she came down wonderfully.
Note, Grievous sins bring wondrous ruin; there are
some workers of iniquity, to whom there is a
strange punishment, Job xxxi. 3.
3. They are such sins as may plainly be read in the
punishment. (1.) They have been very oppressive,
and therefore are justly oppressed; (v. 3.) Judah
is gone into captivity, and it is because of affliction
and great servitude, because the rich among them
afflicted the poor, and made them serve with rigour,
and particularly (as the Chaldee paraphrases it,)
because they had oppressed their Hebrew servants,
which is charged upon them, Jer. xxxiv. 11. Op¬
pression was one of their crying sins, (Jer. vi. 6, 7.)
and it is a sin that cries loud. (2.) They have
made themselves vile, and therefore are justly vili¬
fied. They all despise her, (y. 8.) for her filthiness
is in her skirts; it appears upon her garments, that
she has rolled them in the mire of sin. None can
stain our glory, if we did not stain it ourselves. (3.)
They have been very secure, and therefore are
justly surprised with this ruin; (v. 9.) She remem¬
bers not her last end; she did not take the warning
that was given her, to consider her latter end, to
consider what would be the end of such wicked
courses as she took, and therefore she came down
wonderfully, in an astonishing manner, that she
might be made to feel what she would not fear;
therefore God shall make their plagues wonderful.
III. Jerusalem’s friends are here complained of
as false and faint-hearted, and very unkind ; They
have all dealt treacherously with her, {v. 2.) so that,
in effect, they are become her enemies. Her deceiv¬
ers have created as much vexation as her destroy¬
ers. The staff that breaks under us, may do us as
great a mischief as the staff that beats us, Ezek.
xxix. 6, 7. Her princes, that should have protect¬
ed her, have not courage enough to make head
against the enemy for their own preservation; they
are like harts, that, upon the first alarm, betake
themselves to flight, and make no resistance; nay,
they are like harts that are famished for want of
pasture, and therefore are gone without strength
before the pursuer, and, having no strength foi
flight, are soon run down, and made a prey of. Her
neighbours are unneighbourly, for, 1. There is none
to help her; [y. 7.) either they could not, or they
would not; nay, 2. She has no comforter, none to
sympathize with her, or suggest any thing to alle¬
viate her griefs; (v. 7, 9. ) like Job’s friends, they
saw it was to no purpose, her grief was so great;
and miserable comforters were they all in such a
case.
IV. Jerusalem’s God is here complained to, con¬
cerning all these things, and all is referred to his
compassionate consideration; (v. 9. ) “ O Lord, be¬
hold my affliction, and take cognizance of it;” and,
(v. 11.) “See, O Lord, and consider, take ordei
about it.” Note, The only way to make ourselves
easy under our burthens, is, to cast them upon God
first, and leave it to him to do with us as seemeth
him good.
1 2. Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass
by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow
like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me,
wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the
day of his fierce anger. 13. From above
hath he sent fire into my bones, and it pre¬
vailed! against them:, he hath spread a net
563
LAMENTATIONS, I.
for my feet; he hath turned me back; he
hath made me desolate and faint all the day.
14. The yoke of my transgressions is
bound by his hand ; they are wreathed, and
come up upon my neck; he hath made my
strength to fall ; the Lord hath delivered me
into their hands, from whom I am not able to
rise up. 15. The Lord hath trodden under
foot all my mighty men in the midst of me;
he hath called an assembly against me to
crush my young men : the Lord hath trod¬
den the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in
a wine-press. 16. For these things I weep :
mine eye, mine eye runneth down with wa¬
ter, because the comforter that should relieve
my soul is far’ from me ; my children are
desolate, because the enemy prevailed. 1 7.
Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is
none to comfort her: the Lord hath com¬
manded concerning Jacob, that his adver¬
saries should be round about him : Jerusa¬
lem is as a menstruous woman among them.
18. The Lord is righteous; for I have re¬
belled against his commandment : hear, I
pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow;
my virgins and my young men are gone into
captivity. 19. I called for my lovers, but
they deceived me; my priests and mine
elders gave up the ghost in the city, while
they sought their meat, to relieve their souls.
20. Behold, O Lord, for I am in distress;
my bowels are troubled : my heart is turned
within me; for I have grievously rebelled:
abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there
is as death. 21. They have heard that I
sigh; there is none to comfort me: all mine
enemies have heard of my trouble; they are
glad that thou hast done it: thou wilt bring
the day that thou hast called, and they shall
be like unto me. 22. Let all their wicked¬
ness Come before thee; and do unto them
as thou hast done unto me for all my trans¬
gressions : for my sighs are many, and my
heart is faint.
The complaints here tire, for substance, the same
with those in the foregoing part of the chapter; but,
in these verses, tire prophet, in the name of the
lamenting church, does more particularly acknow¬
ledge the hand of God in these calamities, and the
righteousness of his hand.
1. The church in distress here magnifies her
affliction; and yet no more than there was cause for;
her groaning was not heavier than her strokes. She
appeals to all spectators; See if there be any sorrow
like unto my sorrow, v. 12. This might, perhaps,
be truly said of Jerusalem’s griefs; but we are apt
to apply it too sensibly to ourselves when we are in
trouble, an.l more than there is cause for. Because
we feel most from our own burthen, and cannot be
persuaded to reconcile ourselves to it, we are ready
to cry out, Surely, never was sorrow like unto our
sorrow; whereas, if our troubles were to be thrown
into a common stock with those of others, and then
an equal dividend made, share and share alike |
rather than stand to that, we should each of us say,
‘ ‘ Pray, give me my own again. ”
2. She here looks beyond the instruments to the
Author of her troubles, and owns them all to be di¬
rected, determined, and disposed of, by him; “It is
the Lord that has afflicted me, and he has afflicted
me because he is angry with me; the greatness of
his displeasure may be measured by the greatness
of my distress; it is in the day of his fierce anger,”
v. 12. Afflictions cannot but be very much our
griefs, when we see them arising from God’s wrath ;
so the church does here. (1.) She is as one in a
fever, and the fever is of God’s sending; He has sent
fre into my bones, (y. 13.) preternatural heat,
which prevails against them, so that they are burnt
like a hearth, (Ps. cii. 3.) pained and wasted, and
dried away. (2.) She is as one in a net, which the
more he struggles to get out of, the more he is en¬
tangled in, and this net is of God’s spreading: “The
enemies could not have succeeded in their stra¬
tagems, had not God spread a net for my feet.” (3.)
She is as one in a wilderness, whose way is embar¬
rassed, solitary, and tiresome; “He has turned me
back, that I cannot go on, has made me desolate,
that I have nothing to support me with, but am faint
all the day.” (4.) She is as one in a yoke, not yoked
for service, but for penance, tied neck and heels
together; (v. 14.) The yoke of my transgressions is
bound by his hand. Observe, We never are en¬
tangled in any yoke but what is framed out of our
own transgressions. The sinner is ho/den with the
cords of his own sins, Prov. v. 22. The yoke of
Christ’s commands is an easy yoke, (Matth. xi. 30.)
but that of our own transgressions is a heavy one,
God is said to bind this yoke, when he charges guilt
upon us, and brings us into those inward and out¬
ward troubles which our sins have deserved; when
conscience, as his deputy, binds us over to his judg¬
ment, then the yoke is bound and wreathed by the
hand of his justice, and nothing but the hand of his
pardoning mercy will unbind it. (5.) She is as one
in the dirt, and he it is that has trodden under foot
all her mighty men, that has disabled them to stand,
and overthrown them by one judgment after an¬
other, and so left them to be trampled upon by their
proud conquerors, i>. 15. Nay, she is as one in a wine¬
press, not only trodden down, but trodden to pieces,
crushed as grapes in the wine-press of God’s wrath,
and her blood pressed out as wine, and it is God that
has thus trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah.
(6.) She is in the hand of her enemies, and it is the
Lord that has delivered her into their hands; (y.
14.) He has made my strength to fall, so that lam
not able to make head against them; nay, not only
not able to rise up against them, but, ?iot able to rise
up from them, and then he has delivered me into
their hands; nay, (x\ 15.) he has called an assembly
against me, to crush my young men, and such an
assembly as it is in vain to think of opposing; and
again, (v. 17.) The Lord has commanded concern¬
ing Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about
him. He that had many a time commanded deliver¬
ances for Jacob, (Ps. xliv. 4.) now commands an in¬
vasion against Jacob, because Jacob had disobeyed
the commands of his law.
3. She justly demands a share in the pity and com¬
passion of those that were the spectators of her
misery; (x'. 12.) “ Is it nothing to you, all ye that
pass by? Can you look upon me without concern?
What! are your hearts as adamants, and your eyes
as marbles, that you cannot bestow upon me one
compassionate thought, or look, or tear? Are not
you also in the body? Is it nothing to you that your
neighbour’s house is on fire?” There are those to
whom Zion’s sorrows and ruins are nothing; they
are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph. How
pathetically does she beg their compassion ! (y I R )
664
LAMENTATIONS, I.
“ Hear , I firay you, all people, and behold my sor¬
row: hear my complaints, and see what cause I
have for them.” This is a request like that of Job,
\ch. xix. 21.) Have pity, have pity upon me, 0 ye
my friends l It helps to make a burthen sit lighter,
if our friends sympathise with us, and mingle their
tears with ours, for this is an evidence that, though
we are in affliction, we are not in contempt, which
is commonly as much dreaded in an affliction as any
thing.
4. She justifies her own grief, though it was very
extreme, for these calamities; (v. 16.) “ For these
things I weep, I weep in the night; ( v . 2. ) when
none sees, mine eye, mine eye runs down with
water.” Note, This world is a vale of tears to the
people of God. Zion’s sons are often Zion’s mourn¬
ers. Zion spreads forth her hands, (v. 17.)
which is here an expression rather of despair than
of desire; she flings out her hands as giving up all
for gone. Let us see how she accounts for this pas¬
sionate grief. ( 1. ) Her God is withdrawn from her;
and Micah, that had but gods of gold, when they
were stolen from him, cried out, What have I more?
And what is this that ye say unto me? What aileth
thee? The church here grieves excessively, For,
says she, the comforter that should relieve my soul,
is far from me. God is the Comforter; he used to be
so to her, he only can administer effectual comforts, it
is his word that speaks them, it is his Spirit that
speaks them to us. His are strong consolations, able
to relieve the soul, to bring it back when it is gone, and
we cannot of ourselves fetch it again; but now he is
departed in displeasure, he is far from me, and be¬
holds me afar off. Note, It is no marvel that the
souls of the saints faint away, when God, who is the
only Comforter that can relieve them, keeps at a
distance. (2.) Her children are removed from her,
and are in no capacity to help her: it is for them
that she weeps, as Rachel for hers, because they
were not, and therefore she refuses to be com¬
forted. Her children were desolate, because the
enemy prevailed against them, there is none of all
her sons to take her by the hand; (Isa. li. 18.) they
cannot help themselves, and how should they help
her? Both the damsels and the youths, that were
her joy and hope, are gone into captivity, v. 18. It
is said of the Chaldeans, that they had no compas¬
sion upon young men or maidens, not on the fair
sex, not on the blooming age, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 17.
(3.) Her friends failed her; some would not, and
others could not, give her any relief. She spread
forth her hands, as begging relief, but there is none
to comfort her, (m. 17.) none that can do it, none
that cares to do it; she called for her lovers, and, to
engage them to help her, called them her lovers, but
they deceived her, (v. 19.) they proved like the
brooks in summer to the thirsty traveller, Job vi.
15. Note, Those creatures that we set our hearts
upon and raise our expectations from, we are com¬
monly deceived and disappointed in. Her idols
were her lovers, Egypt and Assyria were her con¬
fidants; but they deceived her. Those that made
court to her in her prosperity, were shy of her and
strange to her in her adversity. Happy they that
have made God their Friend, and keep themselves
in his love, for he will not deceive them ! (4. ) Those
whose office it was to guide her, were disabled to
do her any service. The priests and the elders, that
should have appeared at the head of affairs, die for
hunger, (k. 19.) they gave up the ghost, or were
ready to expire, while they sought their meat; they
went a begging for bread to keep them alive. The
famine is sore indeed in the land, when there is no
bread to the wise, when priests and elders are
starved. The priests and elders should have been
her comforters; but how should they comfort others
when they themselves were comfortless? “ They
have heard that I sigh, which should have summon¬
ed them to mine assistance; but there is none to com¬
fort me. Lover and friend hast thou put far from
me. ” (5. ) Her enemies were too hard for her, and
then insulted over her; they have prevailed, v. 16.
Abroad the sword bereaves, and slays all that comes
in its way, and at home all provisions are cut off by
the besiegers, so that there is as death, famine,
which is as bad as the pestilence, or worse — the
sword without, and terror within, Deut. xxxii. 25.
And as the enemies, that were the instruments of
the calamity, were very barbarous, so were they that
were the standers-by, the Edomites and Ammonites,
that bore ill-will to Israel; They have heard of
my trouble, and are glad that thou hast done it, (y.
21.) they rejoice in the trouble itself, they rejoice
that it is God’s doing, it pleases them to find that
God and his Israel are fallen out, and they act ac¬
cordingly with a great deal of strangeness towards
them: Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among
them, that they are afraid of touching, and are shy
of, v. 17. Upon all these accounts, it cannot be
wondered at, nor can she be blamed, that her sighs
are many, in grieving for what is, and that her heart
is faint, ( v . 22.) in fear of what is yet further likely
to be.
5. She justifies God in all that is brought upon
her, acknowledging that her sins had deserved these
severe chastenings. The yoke that lies so heavy,
and binds so hard, is the yoke of her transgressions,
v. 14. The fetters we are held in are of our own
making, and it is with our own rod that we arc
beaten. When the church had spoken here, as if
she thought the Lord severe, she does well to cor¬
rect herself, at least to explain herself, by acknow¬
ledging, (y. 18.) The Lord is righteous. He does
us no wrong in dealing thus with us, nor can we
charge him with any injustice in it; how unright¬
eous soever men are, we are sure that the Lord is
righteous, and manifests his juctice, though they
contradict all the laws of theirs. Note, Whatever
our troubles are which God is pleased to inflict upon
us, we must own that therein he is righteous; we
understand neither him nor ourselves if we do not
own it, 2 Chron. xii. 6. She owns the equity of
God’s actions, by owning the iniquity of her own; I
have rebelled against his commandments, (y. 18.)
and again, (y. 20.) I have grievously rebelled. We
cannot speak ill enough of sin, and we must always
speak worst of our own sin, must call it rebellion,
grievous rebellion; and very grievous sin is to all
time penitents. It is this that lies heavier upon her
than the afflictions she was under; “My bowels are
troubled, they work within me as the troubled sea;
my heart is turned within me, is restless, is turned
upside down;/or I have grievously rebelled.” Note,
Sorrow for sin must be great sorrow, and must affect
the soul.
6. She appeals both to the mercy and to the
justice of God, in her present case. (1.) She ap¬
peals to the mercy of God concerning her own sor¬
rows, which had made her the proper object of his
compassion; ( v . 20.) “Behold, O Lord, for I am
in distress; take cognizance of my case, and take
such order for my relief as thou pleasest.” Note,
It is matter of comfort to us, that the troubles
which oppress our spirits are open before God’s eye.
(2.) She appeals to the justice of God concerning
the injuries that her enemies did her; (z>. 21, 22.)
“ Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called,
the day that is fixed in the counsels of God, and pub¬
lished in the prophecies, when mine enemies, that
now prosecute me, shall be like unto me, when the
cup of trembling, now put into my hands, shall be
put into theirs.” It may be read as a prayer, “Let
the days appointed come,” and so it goes cn, “Let
their wickedness come before thee, let it come to br
565
LAMENTATIONS, II.
remembered, let it come to be reckoned for; take
vengeance on them, for all the wrong they have done
to me; (Ps. cix. 14, 15.) hasten the time when thou
wilt do to them for their transgression as thou hast
done to me for mine. ” This prayer amounts to a pro¬
testation against all thoughts of coalition with them,
and to a prediction of their ruin, subscribing to that
which God had in his word spoken of it. Note, Our
prayers may and must agree with God’s word; and
what day God has there called, we are to call for,
and no other. And though we are bound in charity
to forgive our enemies, and to pray for them, yet we
may in faith pray for the accomplishment of that
which God has spoken against his and his church’s
enemies, that will not repent to give him glory.
CHAP. II.
The second alphabetical ele^y is set to the same mournful
tune with the former, ana the substance of it is much
the same; it begins with Ecah , as that did, “ How sad
is our case! Alas! for us.” I. Here is the anger of Zion’s
God taken notice of, as the cause of her calamities, v.
1 . . 9. II. Here is the sorrow of Zion’s children taken
notice of, as the effect of her calamities, v. 10. .19. III.
The complaint is made to God, and the matter referred
to his compassionate consideration, v. 20. .22. The hand
that wounded must make whole.
1. XXOW hath the Lord covered the
XX daughter of Zion with a cloud in
his anger, and cast down from heaven unto
the earth the beauty of Israel, and remem¬
bered not his footstool in the day of his an¬
ger! 2. The Lord hath swallowed up all
the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied:
he hath thrown down in his wrath the strong
holds of the daughter of Judah; he hath
brought them, down to the ground : he hath
polluted the kingdom and the princes there¬
of. 3. He hath cut off in his fierce anger
all the horn of Israel : he hath drawn back
his right hand from before the enemy, and
he burned against Jacob like a flaming fire,
ivhich devoureth round about. 4. Pie hath
bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with
his right hand as an adversary, and slew all
that were pleasant to the eye in the taber¬
nacle of the daughter of Zion : he poured
out his fury like fire. 5. The Lord was
as an enemy; he hath swallowed up Israel,
he hath swallowed up all her palaces ; he
hath destroyed his strong holds, and hath
increased in the daughter of Judah mourn¬
ing and lamentation. 6. And he hath vio¬
lently taken away his tabernacle, as if it
were of a garden ; he hath destroyed his
places of the assembly : the Lord hath
caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to
be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised, in
the indignation of his anger, the king and
the priest. 7. The Lord hath cast off his
altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary, he
hath given up into the hand of the enemy
the walls of her palaces; they have made
a noise in the house of the Lord, as in the
day of a solemn feast. 8. The Lord hath
purposed to destroy the wall of the daugh¬
ter of Zion ; he hath stretched out a line,
he hath not withdrawn his hand from de¬
stroying: therefore he made the rampart and
the wall to lament ; they languished toge¬
ther. 9. Her gates are sunk into the ground ;
he hath destroyed and broken her bars ; her
king and her princes are among the Gentiles:
the law is no more; her prophets also find
no vision from the Lord.
It is a very sad representation which is here made
of the state of God's church, of Jacob and Israel,
of Zion and Jerusalem ; but the emphasis in these
verses seems to be laid all along upon the hand of
God in the calamities which they were groaning un¬
der. The grief is not so much that such and such
things are done, as that God has done them, that he
appears angry with them ; it is he that chastens them,
and chastens them in wrath and in his hot disfl/ea-
sure; he is become tbeir Enemy, and fights against
them; and this, this is the wormwood and the gall
in the affliction and the misery.
I. Time was, when God’s delight was in his
church, and he appeared to her, and for her, as a
Friend; but now his displeasure is against her, he
is angry with her, and appears and acts against her
as an Enemy. This is frequently repeated here,
and sadly lamented. What he has done he has done
in his anger; this makes the present day a melan¬
choly day indeed with us, that it is the day of his
anger , (v. 1.) and again, ( v . 2.) it is in his wrath,
and (t>. 3. ) it is in his fierce anger, that he has thrown
down and cut off; and (y. 6.) in the indignation of
his anger. Note, To those who know how to value
God’s favour, nothing appears more dreadful than
his anger; corrections in love are easily borne, but
rebukes in wrath wound deep. It is God’s wrath
that barns against Jacob like a flaming fire, (v. 3.)
and it is a consuming fire, it devours round about,
devours all her honours, all her comforts. This is
the fury that is floured out like fire, (y. 4.) like the
fire and brimstone which were rained upon Sodom
and Gomorrah: but it was their sin that kindled this
fire. God is such a tender Father to his children,
that we may be sure he is never angry with them
but when they provoke him, and give him cause to
be angry; nor is he ever angry more than there is
cause for. God’s covenant with them was, that if
they would obey his voice, he would be an Enemy
to their enemies, (Exod. xxiii. 22.) and he had been
so, as long as they kept close to him; but now he is
an Enemy to them; at least he is as an Enemy, v.
5. He has bent his bow like an Enemy, v. 4. He
stood with his right hand stretched out against them,
and a sword drawn in it as an Adversary. God is
not really an Enemy to his people, no, not when
he is angry with them, and corrects them in anger.
We may be sorely displeased against our dearest
friends and relations, whom yet we are far from hav¬
ing an enmity to. But sometimes he is as an Enemy
to them, when all his providences concerning them
seem in outward appearance to have a tendency to
their ruin; when every thing makes against them,
and nothing for them. But, blessed be God, Christ
is our Peace, our Peacemaker, who has slain the
enmity, and in him we may agree with our Adver¬
sary, which it is our wisdom to do, since it is in vain
to contend with him, and he offers us advantageous
conditions of peace.
II. Time was when God’s church appeared very
bright and illustrious, and considerable among the
nations; but now the Lord has covered the daughter
of Zion with a cloud, (v. 1.) a dark cloud, which is
very terrible to herself, and through which she can¬
not see his face; a thick cloud, (so the word sigrn-
LAMENTATIONS, II.
lies,) a black cloud, which eclipses all her glory, and
conceals her excellency; not such a cloud as that
under which God conducted them through the wil¬
derness, or that in which God took possession of the
temple, and filled it with his glory : no, that side of the
cloud is now turned toward them, which was turned
toward the Egyptians in the Red sea. The beauty of
Israel is now cast down from heaven to the earth; their
princes, (2 Sam. i. 19.) their religious worship, their
beauty of holiness, all that which recommended
them to the affection and esteem of their neighbours,
and rendered them amiable, which had lifted them
up to heaven, was now withered and gone; because
God had covered it with a cloud. He has cut off all
the horn of Israel, (r>. 3.) all her beauty and ma¬
jesty, (Ps.' cxxxii. 17.) all her plenty and fulness,
and all her power and authority. They had, in their
pride, lifted up their horn against God, and there¬
fore justly will God cut off their horn; he disabled
them to resist and oppose their enemies, he turned
back their right hand, so that they were not dble to
follow the blow which they gave, nor to ward off
the blow which was given them. What can their
right hand do against the enemy, when God draws
it back, and withers it, as he did Jereboam’s? Thus
was the beauty of Israel cast down, when a people
famed for courage were not able to stand their ground,
or make good their post.
III. Time was, when Jerusalem and the cities of
Judah were strong and well fortified, were trusted to
by the inhabitants, and let alone by the enemy as
impregnable; but now the Lord has in anger swal¬
lowed them up, they are quite gone, the forts and
barriers are taken away, and the invaders meet with
no opposition: the stately structures, which were
their strength and beauty, are pulled down and laid
waste. 1. 1 The Lord has in anger swallowed . up all
the habitations of Jacob, {y. 2.) both the cities and
the country-houses; thev are burnt, or otherwise de¬
stroyed, so totally ruined, that they seem to have
been swallowed up, and no remains left of them.
He has swallowed up, and has not pitied; one would
have thought it pity that such sumptuous houses, so
well built, so well furnished, should be quite de¬
stroyed; and that some pity should have been had
for the poor inhabitants that were thus dislodged
and driven to wander; but God’s wonted compas¬
sions seemed to fail; He has swallowed up Israel,
as a lion swallows up his prey, v. 5. 2. He has
swallowed up not only her common habitations, but
her palaces, all her palaces, the habitations of their
princes and great men, {y. 5.) though those were
most stately, and strong, and rich, and well guarded.
God’s judgments, when they come with commission,
level palaces with cottages, and as easily swallow
them up. If palaces be polluted with sin, as theirs
were, let them expect to be visited with a curse,
which shall consume them, with the timber thereof,
and the stones thereof, Zech. v. 4. 3. He has de¬
stroyed not only their dwelling-places, but their
strong holds, their castles, citadels, and places of
delence; these he has thrown down in his wrath,
and brought them to the ground; for shall they stand
in the way of his judgments, and give a check to the
progress of them? No, let them drop like leaves in
autumn, let them be razed to the foundations, and
made to touch the ground, v. 2. And again, (i>. 5.)
He has destroyed his strong holds; for what strength
could they have against God? And thus has he in¬
creased in the daughter of Judah mourning and la¬
mentation, for they could not but be in a dreadful
consternation when they saw all their defence de¬
parted from them. This is again insisted on, v. 7. —
9. In order to the swallowing up of her palaces,
he has given up into the hand of the enemy the walls
of her palaces, which were their security, and when
they are broken down the palaces themselves are
soon broken into. The walls of palaces cannot pro¬
tect them, unless God himself be a Wall of fire
round about them. This God did in his anger, and
yet he has done it deliberately; it is the result of a
previous purpose, and is done by a wise and steady
providence; for the Lord has purposed to destroy
the wall of the daughter of Zion, he brought the
Chaldean army in, on purpose to do this execution.
Note, Whatever desolations God makes in his
church, they are all according to his counsels; he
performs the thing that is appointed for us, even that
which makes most against us. But when it is done,
lie has stretched out a line, a measuring-line, to do
it exactly and by measure: hitherto the destruction
shall go, and no further; no more shall be cut off
than what is marked to be so. Or, it is meant of
the line of confusion, (Isa. xxxiv. 11.) a levelling¬
line; for he will go on with his work, he has not
withdrawn his hand from destroying, that right hand
which he stretched out against his people as an Ad¬
versary; (d. 4. ) as far as the purpose went the per¬
formance shall go, and his hand shall accomplish his
counsel to the utmost, and not be withdrawn. There¬
fore he made the rampart and the wall which the
people had rejoiced in, and upon which, perhaps,
they had made merry, to lament, and they lan¬
guished together; the walls and the ramparts, or
bulwarks upon them, fell together, and were left to
condole with one another on their fall. Her gates
are gone in an instant, so that one would think they
were sunk into the ground with their own weight,
and he has destroyed and broken her bars, those bars
of Jerusalem’s gates which formerly he had strength¬
ened, Ps. cxlvii. 13. Gates and bars will stand us in
no stead when God has withdrawn his protection.
IV. Time was, when their government flourished,
their princes made a figure, and their kingdom was
great among the nations, and the balance of power
was on their side; but now it is quite otherwise; He
has polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof, v.
2. They had first polluted themselves with their
idolatries, and then God dealt with them as with
polluted things, he threw them to the dunghill, the
fittest place for them. He has given up their glory,
which was looked upon as sacred, (that is a charac¬
ter we give to majesty,) to be trampled upon and
profaned ; and no marvel that the king and the
priest, whose characters were always deemed vene¬
rable and inviolable, are despised" by every body,
when God has, in the indignation of ' his anger, de¬
spised the king and the priest, v. 6. He has aban¬
doned them ; he looks upon them as no longer wor¬
thy of the honours conveyed to them by the covenants
of royalty and priesthood, but as having forfeited
both; and then Zedekiah the king was used despite-
fully, and Seraiah the chief priest put to death as a
malefactor. The crown is fallen from their heads,
for her king and her princes are among the Gentiles,
prisoners among them, insulted over by them, (i>. 9.)
and treated not only as common persons, but as the
basest, without any regard had to their character.
Note, It is just with God to debase those by his judg¬
ments, who have by sin debased themselves.
V. Time was, when the ordinances of God were
administered among them in their power and purity,
and they had those tokens of God’s presence with
them; but now those were taken from them, that
part of the beauty of Israel was gone, which was
indeed their greatest beauty.
1. The ark was God’s, footstool, under the mercy-
seat, between the cherubims; this was of all others
the most sacred symbol of God’s presence; (it is
called his footstool, 1 Chron. xxviii. 2. Ps. xeix.
5. — cxxxii. 7. ) there the Shcchinah rested, and with
an eye to this, Israel was often protected and saved:
but now he remembered not his footstool, the ark
itself was suffered, as it should seem, to fall into the
LAMENTATIONS, II. 567
hands oi the Chaldeans. God, being angry, threw
that away, for it shall be no longer his footstool, the
earth shall be so, as it had been before the ark was,
Isa. lxvi. 1. Of what little value are the tokens of
his presence, when his presence is gone! Nor was
this the first time that God gave his ark into cap¬
tivity, Ps. lxxviii. 61. God and his kingdom can
stand without that footstool.
2. They that ministered in holy things had been
/ ileaaant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter
of Zion, (d. 4.) they had been purer than snow,
whiter than milk, (c/i. iv. 7. ) none more pleasant in
the eyes of all good people than those that did the
service of the tabernacle; but now these are slain,
and their blood mingled with their sacrifices: thus
is the priest despised as well as the king. Note,
When those that were pleasant to the eye in Zion’s
tabernacle are slain, God must be acknowledged in
it, he has done it, and the burning which the Lord
has kindled must be bewailed by the whole house of
Israel, as in the case of Nadab and Abilin, Lev. x. 6.
3. The temple was God’s tabernacle, (as the
tabernacle, while that was in being, is called
his tem/ile, Ps. xxvii. 4. ) and this he has violently
taken away, (v. 6.) he has plucked up the stakes
of it, and cut the cords, it shall be no more a taber¬
nacle, much less his; he has taken it away, as the
keeper of a garden takes away his hovel or shade,
when he has done with it, and has no more occa¬
sion for it; he takes it down as easily, as speedily,
and with as little regret and reluctance, as if it were
but a cottage in a vineyard, and a lodge in a garden
of cucumbers, (Isa. i. 8.) but a booth which the
kee/ier makes. Job xxvii. 18. When men profane
God’s tabernacle, it is just with him to take it from
them. God had justly refused to smell in their so¬
lemn assemblies; (Amos v. 21.) they had provoked
him to withdraw from them, and then no marvel
that he has destroyed his ] daces of the assembly;
what should they do with the places when the ser¬
vices were become an abomination? He has now
abhorred his sanctuary; (v. 7.) it has been defiled
with sin, that only thing which he hates, and for
the sake of that he abhors even his sanctuary, which
he had delighted in, and called his rest for ever, Ps.
cxxxii. 14. Thus he had done to Shiloh. Now the
enemies have made as great a noise of revelling and
blaspheming in the house of the Lord, as ever had
been made with the temple-songs and music in the
day of a solemn feast, Ps. lxxiv. 4. Some, by the
/; laces of the assembly, (t>. 6.) understand not only
the temple, but the synagogues, and the schools of
the prophets, which the enemy had burnt up, Ps.
lxxiv. 8.
4. The solemn feasts and the sabbaths had been
carefully remembered, and the people constantly
put in mind of them; but now the Lord has caused
those to be forgotten, not only in the country, among
those that lived at a distance, but even in Zion itself;
for there were none left to remember them, nor
were the places left where they used to be ob¬
served. Now that Zion was in ruins, no difference
was made between sabbath-times and other times;
every day was a dav of mourning, so that all the
solemn feasts were forgotten. Note, It is just with
God to deprive those of the benefit and comfort of
sabbaths and solemn feasts, who have not duly va¬
lued them, nor conscientiously observed them, but
nave profaned them, which was one of the sins that
the Jews were often charged with. They that have
seen the days of the Son of man, and slighted them,
may desire to see one of those days, and not have
them, Luke xvii. 22.
5. The altar that had sanctified their gifts is now
cast off, for God will no more accept their gifts nor
be honoured by their sacrifices, v. 7. The altar was
the table of the Lord, but God will no longer keep
house among them, he will neither feast them, nor
feast with them.
6. They had been blest with prophets, and
teachers of the law; but now the law is no more, (v.
9. ) it is no more read by the people, no more ex¬
pounded by the scribes, the tables of the law are
gone with the ark, the book of the law is taken from
them, and the people are forbidden to have it.
What should they do with Bibles, who had made no
better improvement of them when they had them?
Her prophets also find no vision from the Lord;
God answers them no more by prophets and dreams,
which was the melancholy case of Saul, 1 Sam.
xxviii. 15. They had persecuted God’s prophets,
and despised the visions they had from the Lord,
and therefore it is just with God to say that they
shall have no more prophets, no more visions. Let
them go to the prophets that had flattered and de¬
ceived them with visions of their own hearts, for
they shall have none from God to comfort them, or
tell them how long. They that misuse God’s pro¬
phets justly lose them.
10. The ciders of the daughter of Zion
sit upon the ground, and keep silence: they
have cast up dust upon their heads; they
have girded themselves with sackcloth : the
virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads
to the ground. 11. Mine eyes do fail with
tears, my bowels arc troubled, my liver is
poured upon the earth, for the destruction of
the daughter of my people; because the chil¬
dren and the suckling swoon in the streets
of the city. 12. They say to their mothers,
Where is corn and wine ? when they swoon¬
ed as the wounded in the streets of the city,
when their soul was poured out into their
mothers’ bosom. 13. What thing shall I
take to witness for thee? what thing shall I
liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem?
what shall I equal to thee, that I may com¬
fort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion ? for thy
breach is great like the sea; who can heal
thee? 14. Thy prophets have seen vain and
foolish things for thee ; and they have not
discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy
captivity ; but have seen for thee false bur¬
dens, and causes of banishment. 15. All
that pass by clap their hands at thee; they
hiss and wag their head at the daughter of
Jerusalem, saying , Is this the city that men
call The perfection of beauty, The joy of
the whole earth ? 16. All thine enemies have
opened their mouth against thee : they hiss
and gnash the teeth: they say, We have
swallowed her up : certainly this is the day
that we looked for ; we have found, we have
seen it. 17. The Lord hath done that
which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his
word that he had commanded in the days
of old : he hath thrown down, and hath not
pitied: and he hath caused thitie enemy to
rejoice over thee; he hath set up the horn
of thine adversaries. 18. Their heart cried
unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter of
668
LAMENTATIONS, II.
Zion, let tears run down like, a river day
and night; give thyself no rest; let not the
apple of thine eye cease. 19. Arise, cry out
in the night; in the beginning of the watches
pour out thy heart like water before the face
of the Lord : lift up thy hands toward him
for the life of thy young children, that faint
for hunger in the top of every street. 20.
Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom
thou hast done this. Shall the women eat
their fruit, and children of a span long?
shall the priest and the prophet be slain in
the sanctuary of the Lord ? 21. The young
and the old lie on the ground in the streets:
my virgins and my young men are fallen by
the sword ; thou hast slain them in the day
of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not
pitied. 22. Thou hast called, as in a solemn
day, my terrors round about; so that in the
day of the Lord’s anger none escaped nor
remained : those that I have swaddled and
brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
Justly are these called Lamentations, and they
are very pathetic ones; the expressions of grief in
perfection, mourning and wo, and nothing else, like
the contents of Ezekiel’s roll, Ezek. ii. 10.
I. Copies of lamentations are here presented, and
they are painted to the life. 1. The judges and
magistrates, who used to appear in robes of state,
have laid them aside, or rather are stripped of
them, and put on the habit of mourners; ( v . 10.)
the elders now sit no longer in the judgment-seats,
the thrones of the house of David, but they sit upon
the ground, having no seat to repose themselves in,
or in token of great grief, as Job’s friends sat with
him upon the ground. Job ii. 13. They open not
their mouth in the gate, as usual, to give their
opinion, but they keep silence, overwhelmed with
grief, and not knowing what to say. They have
cast dust upon their heads, and girded themselves
With slackcloth, as deep mourners used to do; they
had lost their power and wealth, and that made
them take on thus; Ploratur lachrymis amissci pe-
cunia veris — Genuine are the tears which we shed
over lost property. 2. The young ladies, who used
to dress themselves so richly, and walk with stretch-
ed-forth necks, (Isa. iii. 16.) now are humbled: the
virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the
ground: they are made to know sorrow, who
seemed to bid defiance to it, and were always dis¬
posed to be merry. 3. The prophet himself is a
pattern to the mourners; (r>. 11.) his eyes do fail
with tears, he has wept till he can weep no more,
has almost wept his eyes out, wept himself blind.
Nor are the inward impressions of grief short of the
outward expressions; his bowels are troubled, as
they were when he saw these calamities coming,
(Jer. iv. 19, 20.) which, one would think, might
have excused him now; but even he, to whom they
were no surprise, felt them an insupportable grief,
to that degree that his liver is poured out on the
earth; he felt himself a perfect colliquation; all his
entrails ore melted and dissolved, as Ps. xxii. 14.
Jeremiah himself had better treatment than his
neighbours, better than he had before from his own
countrymen, nay, their destruction was his deliver¬
ance, their captivity his enlargement; the same that
made them prisoners, made him a favourite, and
yet his private interests are swallowed up in a con¬
cern for the public, and he bewails the destruction
of the daughter of his people, as sensibly as if he
himself had been the greatest sufferer in that com
mon calamity. Note, The judgments of God upon
the land and nation are to be lamented by us, though
we, for our parts, may escape pretty well.
II. Calls to lamentation are here given; The heart
of the people cried unto the Lord, v. 18. Some
fear it was a cry, not of true repentance, but of bit¬
ter complaint; their heart was as full of grief as it
could hold, and they gave vent to it in doleful shrieks
and outcries, in which they made use of God’s name;
yet we will charitably suppose that many of them
did in sincerity cry unto God for mercy in their dis¬
tress, and the prophet bids them go on to do so; 0
wall of the daughter of Zion, either ye that stand
upon the wall, ye watchmen on the walls, (Isa. lxii.
6. ) when ye see the enemies encamped about the
walls, and making their approaches towards them,
or because of the wall, (that is the subject of the la¬
mentation,) because of the breaking down of the
wall, which was not done till about a month after
the city was taken, because of this further calamity,
let the daughter of Zion lament still. This was a
thing which Nehemiah lamented long after, Neh. i.
3, 4. Let tears run down like a river day and
night, weep without intermission, give thyself no
rest from weeping, let not the apple of thine eye
cease. This intimates, 1. That the calamities would
be continuing, and the causes of grief would fre¬
quently recur, and fresh occasion would be given
them every day and every night to bemoan them¬
selves. 2. That they would be apt, by degrees, to
grow insensible and stupid under the hand of God,
and would need to be still called upon to afflict their
souls yet more and more, till their proud and hard
h'earts were thoroughly humbled and softened.
III. Causes for lamentation are here assigned, and
the calamities that are to be bewailed are very par¬
ticularly and pathetically described.
1. Multitudes perish by famine; a very sore judg¬
ment, and piteous is the case of those that fall under
it. God had corrected them by scarcity of provi¬
sions through want of rain some time before, (Jer.
xiv. 1.) and they were not brought to repentance by
that lower degree of this judgment, and therefore
now by the straitness of the siege God brought it
upon them in extremity; for, (1.) The children died
for hunger in their mothers’ arms; The children and
sucklings, whose innocent and helpless state entitles
them to relief as soon as any, swoon in the streets,
(v. 11.) as the wounded, (y. 12.) there being no
food to be had for them ; they that are starved die
as surely as they that are stabbed; they lie a great
while crying to their poor mothers for corn to feed
them, and wine to refresh them, for they are such
as had been bred up to the use of wine, and wanted
it now; but there is none for them, so that at length
their soul is poured out into their mothers’ bosom,
and there they breathe their last-. This is mention¬
ed again, (t>. 19.) They faint for hunger in the top
of every street. Yet this is not the worst, (2.)
There were some little children that were slain by
their mothers’ hands, and eaten, v. 20. Such was
the scarcity of provision, that the women ate the
fruit of their own bodies, even their children, when
they were but of a span long, according to the
threatening, Deut. xxviii. 53. The like was done
in the siege of Samaria, 2 Kings vi. 29. Such ex¬
tremities, nay, such barbarities, were they brought
to by the famine. Let us, in our abundance, thank
God that we have food convenient, not only for our¬
selves, but for our children.
2. Multitudes fall by the sword, which devours
one as well as another, especially when it is in the
hand of such cruel enemies as the Chaldeans were.
(1.) They spared no character, no, not the most dis¬
tinguished; even the priest and the prophet, who ot
569
LAMENTATIONS, II.
all men, one would think, might expect protection
from heaven, and veneration on earth, are slain, not
abroad in the field of battle, where they are out of
their place, as Hophni and Phinehas, but in the
sanctuary of the Lord, the place of their business,
and which they hoped would have been a refuge to
them. (2.) They spared no age, no, not those who,
by reason of their tender or their decrepit age, were
exempted from taking up the sword; for even they
fierished by the sword; the young, who were not
yet come to bear arms, and the old, who had had
their discharge, lie on the ground, slam in the
streets, till some kind hand is found that will 'bury
them. (3.) They spared no sex; My virgins and
my young men are fallen by the sword. In the
most barbarous military executions that ever we
read of, the virgins were spared, and made part of
the spoil; (Numb. xxxi. IS. Judges v. 30.) but here
the virgins were put to the sword as well as the
young men. (4. ) This was the Lord’s doing, he
suffered the sword of the Chaldeans to devour thus
without distinction ; Thou hast slain them in the day
of thine anger, for it is God that kills and makes
alive, and saves alive, as he pleases. But that
which follows is very harsh, Thou hast killed, and
not fiitied; for his soul is not grieved for the misery
of Israel. The enemies that used them thus cruelly
were such as he had both mustered and summoned;
(x>. 22.) Thou hast called in, as in a solemn day,
my terrors round about, the Chaldeans, who are
such a terror to me; enemies crowded into Jerusa¬
lem now as thick as ever worshippers used to do on
a solemn festival; so that they were quite over¬
powered with numbers, and none escaped nor re¬
mained; Jerusalem was made a perfect slaughter¬
house. Mothers are cut to the heart to see those
whom they have taken such care of, and pains with,
and whom they have been so tender of, thus inhu¬
manly used, suddenly cut off, though not soon
reared; Those that I have swaddled and brought
up, has mine enemy consumed, as if they were
brought forth for the murderer, like lambs for the
butcher, Hos. ix. 13. Zion, who was a mother to
them all, lamented to see those who were brought
up in her courts, and under the tuition of her oracles,
thus made a prey.
3. Their false prophets cheated them, v. 14.
This was a thing which Jeremiah had lamented long
before, and had observed with a great concern ;
(Jer. xiv. 13.) Ah, Lord God, the prophets say
unto them, Ye shall not see the sword; and here he
inserts it among his lamentations; Thy prophets
have seen vain and foolish things for thee, they pre¬
tended to discover for thee, and then to discover to
thee, the mind and will of God, to see the visions of
the Almighty, and- then to speak his words; but
they were all vain and foolish things, their visions
were all their own fancies, and if they thought they
had any, it was only the product of a crazed head,
or a heated imagination, as appeared by what they
delivered, which was all idle and impertinent: nay,
it is most likely that they themselves knew that the
visions they pretended, were counterfeit, and all a
sham, and made use of only to colour that which
they designedly imposed upon the people with, that
they might make an interest in them for themselves;
they are thy prophets, not God’s prophets, he never
sent them, nor were they pastors after his heart, but
the people set them up, told them what they should
say, so that they were prophets after their hearts. (1. )
Prophets should tell people of their faults, should
show them their sins, that they may bring them
to repentance, and so prevent their ruin; but these
prophets knew that would lose them the people’s
affections and contributions, and knew they could
not reprove their hearers without reproaching them¬
selves at the same time, and therefore they havenot
Vol. IV. — 4 C
discovered thine iniquity, they saw it not themselves,
or, if they did, saw so little evil in it, or danger from
it, that they would not tell them of it, though that
might have been a means, by taking away their
iniquity, to turn away their captivity. (2.) Pro¬
phets should warn people of the judgments rf God
coming upon them, but these saw for them false
burthens; the messages they pretended to deliver
to them from God, they knew to be false, and
falsely ascribed to God; so that by soothing them
up in carnal security, they caused that banish¬
ment which, by plain dealing, they might have pre¬
vented.
4. Their neighbours laughed at them; (x>. 15.)
All that pass by thee clap their hands at thee. Jeru¬
salem had made a great figure, got a great name,
and borne a great sway, among the nations; it was
the envy and terror of all about; and when that
city was thus reduced, they all (as men are apt to
do in such a case) triumphed in its fall, they hissed,
and wagged the head, pleasing themselves to see
how much it was fallen from its former preten¬
sions; Is this the city (said they) that men called the
perfection of beauty? Ps. 1. 2. How is it now the
perfection of deformity! Where is all its beauty
now? Is this the city which was called the joy of the
whole earth? (Ps. xlviii. 2.) which rejoiced in the
gifts of God’s bounty and grace more than any other
place, and which all the earth rejoiced in? Where
is all its joy now, and all its glorying? It is a great
sin thus to make a jest of others miseries, and adds
very much affliction to the afflicted.
5. Their enemies triumphed over them, x’. 16.
Those that wished ill to Jerusalem and her peace,
now vent their spite and malice, which before they
concealed; they now open their mouths, nay, they
widen them, they hiss and gnash their teeth in scorn
and indignation; they triumph in their own success
against her, and the rich prey they have got in
making themselves masters of Jerusalem; “ We
have swallowed her up, it is our doing, and it is our
gain, it is all our own now; Jerusalem shall never
be either courted or feared as she has been; certain¬
ly this is the day that we have long looked for, we
have found it, we have seen it; Aha, so would we
have it.” Note, The enemies of the church are apt
to take its shocks for its ruins, and to triumph in
them accordingly; but they will find themselves de¬
ceived; for the gates of hell shall not prevail against
the church.
6. Their God, in all this, appeared against them,
(xc 17.) The Lord has done that which he had de¬
vised. The destroyers of Jerusalem could have no
power against her, unless it were given them front
above; they are but the sword in God’s hand, it is
he that has thrown down, and has not pitied ; “In
this controversy of his with us, we have not had the
usual instances of his compassion toward us.” He
has caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee; (see
Job xxx. 11.) he has set up the horn of thine adver
saries, has given them power and matter for pride;
this is indeed the highest aggravation of the trouble,
that God is become their Enemy, and yet it is fhe
strongest argument for patience under it; we are
bound to submit to what God does, for, (1.) It is the
performance of his purpose: The Lord has done
that which he had devised; it is done with counsel
and deliberation, not rashly, or upon a sudden re
solve; it is the evil that he has framed, (Jer. xviii.
11.) and we may be sure it is framed so as exactly
to answer the intention; what Gcd devises against
his people is designed for them, and so it will be
found in the issue. (2.) It is the accomplishment of
his predictions; it is the fulfilling of the scripture;
he has now put in execution his word that he had
commanded in the days of old. When he gave them
his law by Moses, he’ told them what judgments he
570
LAMENTATIONS, III.
would certainly inflict upon them if they transgressed
that law; and now that they had been guilty of the
Lrangression of this law, he had executed the sen¬
tence of it, according to Lev. xxvi. 16, &c. Deut.
xxviii. 15. Note, In all the providences of God
concerning his church, it is good to take notice of
the fulfilling of his word; for there is an exact
agreement between the judgments of God’s hand
and the judgments of his mouth; and when they are
compared, they will mutually explain and illustrate
each other.
IV. Comforts for the cure of these lamentations
are here sought for, and prescribed. 1. They are
sought for, and inquired after, v. 13. The prophet
seeks to find out some suitable, acceptable words to
say to her in this case; Wherewith shall I comfort
thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? Note, We should
endeavour to comfort those whose calamities we la¬
ment, and when our passions have made the worst
of them, our wisdom should correct them, and la¬
bour to make the best of them; we should study to
make our sympathies with our afflicted friends turn
to their consolation. Now the two most common
topics of comfort in case of affliction, are here tried,
but are laid by, because they would not hold. We
commonly endeavour to comfort our friends by tell¬
ing them, (1.) That their case is not singular, nor
without precedent; there are many whose trouble is
greater, and lies heavier upon them, than theirs
does; but Jerusalem’s case will not admit this argu¬
ment; “ What thing shall I liken to thee, or what
shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee?
What city, what country, is there, whose case is
parallel to thine? What witness shall I produce to
prove an example that will reach thy present ca¬
lamitous state? Alas, there is none, no sorrow
like thine; because there is none whose honour was
like thine.” (2.) We tell them that their case is
not desperate, but that it may easily be remedied;
but neither will that be admitted here, upon a view
of human probabilities; for thy breach is great, like
the sea, like the breach which the sea sometimes
makes upon the land, which cannot be repaired, but
still grows wider and wider. Thou art wounded,
and who shall heal thee? No wisdom or power of
man can repair the desolations of such a broken,
shattered state. It is to no purpose therefore to ad¬
minister anv of these common cordials; therefore,
2. The method of cure prescribed is, to address
themselves to God, and by a penitent prayer to com¬
mit their case to him, and to be instant and constant
in such prayers; (n. 19.) ‘V drise out of thy dust, out
of thy despondency, cry out in the night, watch unto
raver; when others are asleep, be thou upon thy
nees, importunate with God for merev; in the be¬
ginning of the watches, of each of the four watches
of the night, (let thine eyes prevent them, Ps. cxix.
148.) then pour out thine heart like water before
the Lord, be free and full in prayer, be sincere and
serious in praver, open thy mind, spread thy case
before the Lord; lift up thine hands toward him in
holy desire and expectation; beg for the life of thy
young children; These poor lambs, what have they
clone? 2 Sam. xxiv. 17. Take with you words, take
with you these words, (v. 20.) Behold, O Lord, and
conisder to whom thou hast done this, with whom
thou hast dealt thus! Are thev not thine own, the
seed of Abraham thy friend, and of Jacob thy
chosen? Lord, take their case into thy compassion¬
ate consideration!” Note, Prayer is a salve for
every sore, even the sorest; a remedy for every
malady, even the most grievous. And our business
in prayer is not to pre scribe, but to subscribe to the
wisdom and will of God; to refer our case to him,
and then leave it with him; Lord, behold and con¬
sider, and thy will be done.
CHAP. III.
The scope of this chapter is the same with that of the two
foregoing copters, but the composition is somewhat
different; that was in long verse, this in short; another
kind of metre; that was in single alphabets, this in a tre¬
ble one. Here is, I. A sad complaint of God’s displea*
sure, and the fruits of it. v. 1 . . 20. II. Words of com¬
fort to God’s people when they are in trouble and distress,
v. 21 . . 36. III. Duty prescribed in this afflicted slatej
v. 37 . . 41. IV. The complaint renewed, v. 42 . . 54. V.
Encouragement taken to hope in God, and continue wait¬
ing for his salvation; with an appeal to his justice against
the persecutors of the church, v. 55 . . 66. Some make
all this to be spoken by the prophet himself, when he
was imprisoned and persecuted; but it seems rather to
be spoken in the person of the church now in captivity,
and in a manner desolate; and in the desolations ot
which the prophet did in a particular manner interest
himself. But the complaints here are somewhat more
general than those in the foregoing chapter, being ac¬
commodated to the case as well of particular persons as
of the public; and intended for the use of the closet
rather than of the solemn assembly. Some think Jere¬
miah makes these complaints, not only as an intercessor
for Israel, but as a type of Christ, who was thought by
some to be Jeremiah the weeping prophet, because he
was much in tears; (Matth. xvi. 14.) and to him many
of the passages here may be applied.
1. |T AM the man that hath seen affliction
JL by the rod of his wrath. 2. He hath
led me, and brought me into darkness, but
not into light. 3. Surely against me is he
turned •, he turneth his hand against me all
the day. 4. My flesh and my skin hath he
made old he hath broken my bones, a.
He hath builded against me, and compass¬
ed me with gall and travail. 6. He hath
set me in dark places, as theij that be dead
of old. 7. He hath hedged me about, that
I cannot get out:_ he hath made my chain
heavy. 8. Also when I cry and shout, he
shutteth out my prayer. 9. He hath en¬
closed my ways with hewn stone; he hath
made my paths crooked. 10. He urns unto
me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in
secret places. 11. He hath turned aside
my ways, and pulled me in pieces : he hath
made me desolate. 12. He hath bent his
bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
1 3. He hath caused the arrows of his quiver
to enter into my reins. 14. I was a derision
to all my people, and their song all the day.
15. He hath filled me with bitterness, he
hath made me drunken with wormwood.
16. He hath also broken my teeth with
gravel-stones, he hath covered me with
ashes. 17. And thou hast removed my soul
far off from peace: I forgat prosperity. 18.
And I said, My strength and my hope is
perished from the Lord : 1 9. Remember¬
ing mine affliction and my misery, the
wormwood and the gall. 20. My soul hath
them still in remembrance, and is humbled
in me.
The title of the 102d Psalm .might very fitly lie
prefixed to this chapter; The prayer of the afflicted,
when he is overwhelmed, and pours out his com¬
plaint before the Lord; for it is very feelingly and
571
LAMENTATIONS. III.
fluently that the complaint is here poured out. Let
us observe the particulars of it.
1. The prophet complains that God is angry; this
gives both birth and bitterness to the affliction; (v.
1.) I am the man, the remarkable man, that has
seen affliction, and has felt it sensibly, by the rod of
his ’wrath. Note, God is sometimes angry with his
own people; yet it is to be complained oi', not as a
sword to cut off, but only as a rod to correct; it is to
them the rod of his wrath, a chastening which,
though grievous for the present, will in the issue be
advantageous. By this rod we must expect to see
affliction, and if we be made to see more than ordi¬
nary affliction by that rod, we must not quarrel; for
we are sure that the anger is just, and the affliction
mild, and mixed with mercy.
2. That lie is at a loss, and altogether in the dark;
darkness is put for great trouble and perplexity,
the want both of comfort and of direction; this was
the case of the complainant; (t1. 2.) “He has led
me by his providence, and an unaccountable chain
of events, into darkness, and ?iot into light; the
darkness I feared, and not into the light 1 hoped
for.” And, (r\ 6.) He has set me in dark places,
dark as the grave, like those that be dead of old,
that are quite forgotten, nobody knows who or what
they were. Note, The Israel of God, though chil¬
dren of light, sometimes walk in darkness.
3. That God appears against him as an Enemy,
as a professed Enemy. God had been for him, but
now “Surely against me is he turned, (v. 3.) as far
as I can discern, for his hand is turned against me
all the day, I am chastened every morning,” Ps.
lxxiii. 14. And when God’s hand is continually
turned against us, we are tempted to think that his
heart is turned against us too; God had said once,
(Hos. v. 14.) I will be as a lion to the house of Ju¬
dah, and now he has made his word good; (t>. 10.)
“He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, surprising
me with his judgments, and as a lion in secret
places; so that which way soever I went, I was in
continual fear of being set upon, and could never
think myself safe.” Do men shoot at those they
are enemies to? He has bent his bow, the bow that
was ordained against the church’s persecutors, that
is bent against her sons, v. 12. He has set me as a
mark for his arrow, which he aims at, and will be
sure to hit, and then the arrows of his quiver enter
into my reins, give me a mortal wound, an inward
wound, v. 13. Note, God has many arrows in his
quiver, and they fly swift, and pierce deep.
4. That he is as one sorely afflicted both in body
and mind. The Jewish state may now be fitly com¬
pared to a man wrinkled with age, for which there
is no remedy; ( v . 4.) “My flesh and my skin has
he made old, they are wasted and withered, and I
look like one that is ready to drop into the grave;
nay, he has broken my bones, and so disabled me to
help myself, v. 15. He has filled me with bitter¬
ness, a bitter sense of these calamities.” God has
access to the spirit, and can so imbitter that, as
thereby to imbitter all the enjoyments; as when the
stomach is foul, whatever is eaten, sours in it. “He
has made me drunk with wormwood, so intoxicated
me with the sense of my afflictions, that I know not
what to say or do. He has mingled gravel with my
bread, so that my teeth are broken with it, (it. 16.)
and what I eat, is neither pleasant nor nourishing.
He has covered me with ashes, as mourners are; or,
as some read it, he has fed me with ashes; I have
eaten ashes like bread,” Vs. cii. 9.
5. That he is not able to discern any way of es¬
cape or deliverance; (v. 2. ) “ He has builded
against me, as forts and batteries are built against a
besieged city; where there was a way open, it is
now quite made up; he has compassed me on every
side with gall and travail; I vex, and fret, and tire
myself, to find a way of escape, but can find none,
v. 7. He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get
out.” When Jerusalem was besieged, it was said
to be compassed in on every side, Luke xix. 43. “ I
am chained, and as some notorious malefactors are
double-fettered, and loaded with irons, so he has
made my chain heavy. He has also ( v . 9.) enclosed
my ways with hewn stone, not only hedged up my
way with thorns, (Hos. ii. 6.) but stopped it up
with a stone wall, which cannot lie broken through,
so that my paths are made crooked; I traverse to
and fro, to the right hand, to the left, to try to get
forward, but am still turned back.” It is just with
God to make those who walk in the crooked paths
of sin, crossing God’s laws, walk in the crooked
paths of affliction, crossing their designs, and break¬
ing their measures. So, (t. 11.) “ He has turned
aside my ways; he has blasted all my counsels,
ruined my projects, so that I am necessitated to
yield to my own ruin; he has pulled me in pieces,
he has torn, and is gone away, (Hos. v. 14.) and
has made me desolate, has deprived me of all so¬
ciety, and all comfort in my own soul.”
6. That Gcd turns a deaf ear to his prayers; (zt.
8.) “ When I cry and shout, as one in earnest, as
one that would make him hear, yet he shuts out my
prayer, and will not suffer it to have access to him. ”
God’s ear is wont to be open to the prayers of his
people, and his door of mercy to them that knock
at it; but now both are shut, even to one that cries
and shouts. Thus sometimes God seems to be an¬
gry even against the prayers of his people, (Ps.
Ixxx. 4.) and their case is deplorable indeed, when
they are denied not only the benefit of an answer,
but the comfort of acceptance.
7. That his neighbours made a laughing matter
of his troubles; (v. 14.) I was a derision to all my
people; to all the wicked among them, that made
themselves and one another merry with the public
judgments, and particularly the prophet Jeremiah’s
griefs. I am their song, their neginoth, or hand-
instrument of music, their tabret, (Job xvii. 6.) that
they play upon, as Nero on his harp, when Rome
was on fire.
8. That he was ready to despair of relief ana
deliverance; “ Thou hast not only taken peace from
me, but hast removed my soul far off from peace,
(y. 17.) so that it is not only not within reach, but
not within view: I forget prosperity ; it is so long
since I had it, and so unlikely that I should ever re¬
cover it, that I have lost the idea of it; I have been
so inured to sorrow and servitude, that I know not
whnt joy and liberty mean. I have even given up
all for gone, concluding, My strength and my hope
are perished from the Lord, (y. 18.) I can no longer
stay myself upon God as my Support, for I do not
find that he gives me encouragement to do so; nor
can I look for his appearing in my behalf, so as to
put an end to my troubles, for the case seems reme¬
diless, and even my God inexorable.” Without
doubt, it was his infirmity to say thus, (Ps. lxxvii.
10.) for with God there is everlasting strength, and
he is his people’s never-failing Hope, whatever they
may think. •
9. That grief returned, upon every remembrance
of his troubles, and his reflections were as melan¬
choly as his prospects, v. 19, 20. Did he endea¬
vour, as Job did, to forget his complaint? (Job ix.
27.) Alas; it was to no purpose, he remembers
upon all occasions, the affliction and the misery, the
wormwood and the gall; thus emphatically does he
speak of his affliction, for thus did he think of it,
thus heavy did it lie when he reviewed it! It was
an affliction that was misery itself ; My affliction
and my transgression; (so some read it;) my trou¬
ble, and my sin that brought it upon me; that was
the wormwood and the gall in the affliction and the
572
LAMENTATIONS, III.
misery; it is sin that makes the cup of affliction a
bitter cup. My soul has them still in remembrance.
The captives in Babylon had all the miseries of the
siege in their mind continually, and the flames and
ruins of Jerusalem still before their eyes, and we fit
when they remembered Zion; nay, they could never
forget Jerusalem, Ps. cxxxvii. 1, 5. My soul,
having them in remembrance, is humbled in me,
not only oppressed with a sense of the trouble, but
in bitterness for sin. Note, It becomes us to have
humble hearts under humbling providences, and to
renew our penitent humiliations for sin upon every
remembrance of our afflictions and miseries. Thus
we may get good by former corrections, and prevent
further.
21. This I recall to my mind, therefore
have I hope. 22. It is of the Lord’s mer¬
cies that we are not consumed, because his
compassions fail not. 23. They are new
every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
24. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul ;
therefore will I hope in him. 25. The
Lord is good unto them that wait for him,
to the soul that seeketh him. 26. It is good
that a man should both hope and quietly
wait for the salvation of the Lord. 27. It
is good for a man that he bear the yoke in
his youth. 28. He sitteth alone, and keep-
eth silence, because he hath borne it upon
him. 29. He putteth his mouth in the dust,
if so be there may be hope. 30. He giveth
his cheek to him that smiteth him : he is
filled full with reproach. 31. For the Lord
will not cast off for ever: 32. But though
he cause grief, yet will he have compassion
according to the multitude of his mercies.
33. For he doth not afflict willingly, nor
grieve the children of men. 34. To crush
under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,
35. To turn aside the right of a man before
the face of the Most High, 36. To sub¬
vert a man in his cause, the Lord approv-
eth not.
Here the clouds begin to scatter, and the sky to
clear up; the complaint was very melancholy in
the former part of the chapter, and vet here the
tune is altered, and the mourners in Zion begin to
look a little pleasant. But for hope, the heart would
break. To save the heart from being quite broken,
here is something called to mind, which gives
ground for ho/ie, (v. 21.) which refers to what
comes after, not to what goes before. I make to
return to my heart; so the margin words it; what
we have had in our hearts, and have laid to our
hearts, is sometimes as if it were quite lost and
forgotten, till God by his grace make it return to
our hearts, that it may be ready to us when we
have occasion to use it. “ I recall it to mind; there¬
fore have I hope, and am kept from downright
despair.”
Let im see what these things are, which he calls
to mind.
1. That bad as things are, it is owing to the mercy
of God that they are not worse. We are afflicted
by the rod of his wrath, but, it is of the Lord's
mercies that we are not consumed, v. 22. When
we are in distress, we should, for the encourage¬
ment of our faith and hope, observe what makes
for us as well as what makes against us. Things
are bad, but they might have been worse, and
therefore there is hope that they may be better.
Observe here, (1.) T. he streams of mercy acknow¬
ledged; IVe are not consumed. Note, The church
of God is like Moses’s bush burning, yet not con¬
sumed; whatever hardships it has met with, or may
meet with, it shall have a being in the world to the
end of time. It is persecuted of men, but not for¬
saken of God, and therefore, though it is cast down,
it is not destroyed; (2 Cor. iv. 9.) corrected, yet
not consumed; refined in the furnace as silver, but
not consumed as dross. (2.) These streams followed
up to the fountain; It is of the Lord’s mercies.
Here are mercies in the plural number, denoting
the abundance and variety of those mercies; Gcd is
an inexhaustible Fountain of mercy, the Father of
mercies. Note, We all owe it to the sparing mercy
of God, that we are not consumed; others have
been consumed round about us, and we ourselves
have been in the consuming, and yet we are tiot con¬
sumed; we are out of the grave, we are out of hell.
Had we been dealt with according to our sins, we
had been consumed long ago; but we have been
dealt with according to God’s mercies, and we are
bound to acknowledge it to his praise.
2. That even in the depth of their affliction they
still have experience of the tenderness < f the divine
pity, and the truth of the divine promise. They
had several times complained that God had not
pitied {ch. ii. 17, 21.) but here they corrected them¬
selves, and own, (1.) That God’s compassions fail
not; they do not really fail, no, not then when in
anger he seems to have shut up his tender mercies.
These rivers of mercy run fully and constantly, but
never run dry; no, they are new ex<ery morning,
every morning we have fresh instances of God’s
compassion toward us; he visits us with them every
morning, (Job vii. 18.) every morning does he bring
his judgment to light, Zeph. iii. 5. When our com¬
forts fail, yet God’s compassions do not. (2.) That
great is his faithfulness. Though the covenant
seemed to be broken, they own that it still continues
in full force; and though Jerusalem be in ruins, the
truth of the Lord endures for ever. Note, What¬
ever hard things we suffer, we must never entertain
any hard thoughts of God, but must still be ready
to own that he is both kind and faithful.
3. That God is, and ever will be, the all-sufficient
happiness of his people, and they have chosen him,
and depend upon him to be such; ( v . 24.) The
Lord is my Portion, saith my soul; that is, (1.)
“When I have lost all I have in the world, liberty
and livelihood, and almost life itself, yet I have not
lost my interest in God.” Portions on earth are
perishing things, but God is a Portion for ever.
(2.) “While I have an interest in God, therein I
have enough; I have that which is sufficient to
balance all my troubles, and make up all my losses.”
Whatever we are robbed of, our Portion is safe.
(3.) “ That is that which I depend upon, and rest
satisfied with; Therefore will I hope in him. I will
stay myself upon him, and encourage myself in him,
when all other supports and encouragements fail
me.” Note, It is our duty to make God the Por¬
tion of our souls, and then to make use of him as
our Portion, and to take the comfort of it in the
midst of our lamentations.
4. That those who deal with God will find it is
not in vain to trust in him; for, (1.) He is good to
those who do so, v. 25. He is good to all, his ten¬
der mercies are over all his works, all his creatures
taste of his goodness; but he is in a particular man¬
ner good to them that wait for him, to the soul that
seeks him. Note, While trouble is prolonged, and
deliverance is deferred, we must patiently wait for
God, and his gracious returns to us; while we wait
LAMENTATIONS, III. 6"3
for him by faith, we must seek him by prayer; our
souls must seek him, else we do not seek so as to
find; our seeking will help to keep up our waiting;
and to those who thus wait and seek, God will be
fracious, he will show them his marvellous loving-
indness. (2. ) They that do so will find it good for
them ; (v. 26. ) It is good, it is our duty, and will
be our unspeakable comfort and satisfaction, to ho/ie
and quietly to wait for the salvation of the Lord.
To hope that it will come, though the difficulties
that lie in the way of it seem insupportable; to wait
till it does come, though it be long delayed; and
while we wait to be quiet and silent, not quarrelling
with God, or making ourselves uneasy, but acqui¬
escing in the divine disposals; Father, thy will be
done. If we call this to mind, we may have hope
that all will end well at last.
5. That afflictions are really good for us, and, if
we bear them aright, will work very much for our
good. It is not only good to hope and wait for the
salvation, but it is good to be under the trouble in
the mean time; (v. 27.) It is good for a man that
he bear the yoke in his youth. Many of the young
men were carried into captivity; to make them easy
in it, he tells them that it was good for them to bear
the yoke of that captivity, and they would find it so,
if they would but accommodate themselves to their
condition, and labour to answer God’s ends in laying
that heavy yoke upon them. It is very applicable
to the yoke of God’s commands; it is good for
young people to take that yoke upon them in their
youth; we cannot begin too soon to be religious; it
will make our duty the more acceptable to God,
and easy to ourselves, if we engage in it when we
are young. But here it seems to be meant of the
yoke of affliction; many have found it good to bear
this in youth, it has made them humble and serious,
and has weaned them from the world, who other¬
wise would have been proud and unruly, and as a
bullock unaccustomed to the yoke. But when do we
bear the yoke so that it is really good for us to bear
it in our youth? He answers in the following verses,
(1.) When we are sedate and quiet under our
afflictions; when we sit alone, and keefi silence;
do not run to and fro into all companies with our
complaints, aggravating our calamities, and quar¬
relling with the disposals of Providence concerning
us, but retire into privacy, that we may in a day of
adversity consider, sit alone, that we may converse
with God; and commune with our own hearts,
silencing all discontented, distrustful thoughts, and
laying our hand upon our mouth, as Aaron, who,
under a very severe trial, held his peace. We must
keep silence under the yoke, as those that have
borne it upon us, not wilfully pulled it upon our own
necks, but patiently submitted to it when God laid
it upon us. When those who are afflicted in their
youth accommodate themselves to their afflictions,
fit their necks to the yoke, and study to answer
God’s end in afflicting them, then they will find it
good for them to bear it, for it yields the peaceable
fruit of righteousness to those who are thus exer¬
cised thereby. (2.) When we are humble and
patient under our affliction; he gets good by the
voke, who puts his mouth in the dust, not only lays
his hand upon his mouth, in token of submission to
the will of God in the affliction, but puts it in the
dust, in token of sorrow, and shame, and self-loath¬
ing, at the remembrance of sin, and as one perfectly
reduced and reclaimed, and brought as those that
are vanquished to lick the dust, Ps. lxxii. 9. And
we must thus humble ourselves, if so be there may
be hope, or, as it is in the original, peradventure
there is hope. If there be any wav to acquire and
secure a good hope under our afflictions, it is this
way, and yet we must be very modest in our ex¬
pectations of it, must look for it with an ‘ it may be,’
as those who own ourselves utterly unworthy of it.
Note, Those who are truly humble for sin will be
glad to obtain a good hope, through grace, upon
any terms, though they put their mouth in the dust
for it; and those who would have hope, must do so,
and ascribe it to free grace if they have any encou
ragements, which may keep their hearts from sink
ing into the dust, when they put their mouth there.
(3.) When we are meek and mild toward those
who are the instruments of our trouble, and are of
a forgiving spirit, v. 30. He gets good by the yoke,
who gives his cheek to him that smites him, and
rather turns the other cheek, (Matth. v. 39.) than
returns the second blow. Our Lord Jesus has left
us an example of this, for he gave his back to the
smiters, Isa. 1. 6. He who can bear contempt and
reproach, and not render railing for railing, and
bitterness for bitterness; who, when he is filled full
with reproach, keeps it to himself, and does net re¬
tort it, and empty it again, upon those who filled
him with it, but pours it out before the Lord, (as
those did, Ps. cxxiii. 4. whose souls were exceedingly
filled with the contempt of the proud,) he shall find
that it is good to bear the yoke, and that it shall turn
to his spiritual advantage. The sum is, If tribula¬
tion work patience, that patience will work expe¬
rience, and that experience a hope that makes not
ashamed.
6. That God will graciously return to his people
with seasonable comforts, according to the time that
he has afflicted them, v. 31, 32. therefore the suf¬
ferer is thus penitent, thus patient, because he be¬
lieves that God is gracious and merciful, which is
the great inducement both to evangelical repent¬
ance, and to Christian patience. We may bear
ourselves up with this, (1.) That when we are cast
down, yet we are not cast off; the father’s correct¬
ing of his son is not a disinheriting of him. (2.)
That though we may seem to be cast off for a time,
while sensible comforts are suspended, and desired
salvations deferred, yet we are not really cast off,
because not cast off for ever; the controversy with
us shall not be perpetual. (3.) That whatever
sorrow we are in, it is what God has allotted us,
and his hand is in it: it is he that causes grief, and
therefore we may be assured it is ordered wisely
and graciously; and it is but for a season, and when
need is, that we are in heaviness, 1 Pet. i. 6. (4. )
That God has compassions and comforts in store
even for those whom he has himself grieved; we
must be far frem thinking that, though God cause
grief, the world will relieve and help us; no, the
very same that caused the grief, must bring in the
favour, or we are undone; Una eademque manus
vulnus opemque tulit — The same hand infficted the
wound, and healed it. He has torn, and he will
heal us, Hos. vi. 1. (5.) That, when God returns
to deal graciously with us, it will not be according
to cur merits, but according to his mercies, accord¬
ing to the multitude, the abundance, of his mercies.
So unworthy we are, that nothing but an abundant
mercy will relieve us; and from that what may we
not expect? And God’s causing our grief ought to
be no discouragement at all to those expectations.
7. That, when God does cause grief, it is for wise
and holy ends, and he takes not delight in cur ca¬
lamities, v. 33. He does indeed afflict, and grieve
the children of men, all their grievances and afflic¬
tions are from him, but he does not do it willingly,
not from the heart ; so the word is. (1.) He never
afflicts us but when we give him cause to do it; he
does not dispense his frowns as he does his favours,
ex mero motu—from his mere good pleasure; if he
show us kindness, it is because so it seems good unto
him ; but if he write bitter things against us, it is
because we both deserve it, and need it. (2. ) H-
docs not afflict with pleasure; he delights not in tin
574
LAMENTATIONS, III.
death of sinners, or the disquiet of saints, but pun¬
ishes with a kind of reluctance; he comes out of his
place to punish, for his place is the mercy-seat; he
delights not in the misery of any of his creatures,
but, as it respects his own people, he is so far from
it, that in all their afflictions he is afflicted, and his
soul is grieved for the misery of Israel. (3.) He
retains his kindness for his people even then when
he afflicts them : if he does not willingly grieve the
children of men, much less his own children; how¬
ever it be, yet God is good to them, (Ps. lxxiii. 1.)
and they may by faith see love in his heart even
then when they see frowns in his face, and a rod in
his hand.*
8. That, though he makes use of men as his
hand, or rather instruments in his hand, for the
correcting of his people, yet he is far from being
pleased with the injustice of their proceedings, ant!
the wrong they do them, v. 34. — 36. Though Clod
serves his owii purposes by the violence of wicked
and unreasonable men, yet it does not therefore fol¬
low that he countenances that violence, as his op¬
pressed people are sometimes tempted to think;
(Hab. i. 13.) Wherefore lookest thou u/ion them
that deal treacherously ? Two ways the people of
God are injured and oppressed by their enemies,
and the prophet here assures us that God does not
approve of either of them. (1.) If men injure
them by force of arms, God does not approve of
that. He does not himself crush under his feet the
prisoners of the earth, but he regards the cry of the
prisoners; nor does he approve of men’s doing it;
nay, he is much displeased with it. It is barbarous
to trample on them that are down, and to crush
those that are bound, and cannot help themselves.
(2.) If men injure them, under colour of law, and
m the pretended administration of justice; if they
turn aside the right of a man, so that he cannot
discover what his rights are, or cannot come at
them, they are out of his reach; if they subvert a
man in his cause, and bring in a wrong verdict, or
give a false judgment, let them know, [1.] That
God sees them. It is before the face of the Most
High, (re 35. ) it is in his sight, under his eye, and
is very displeasing to him; they cannot but know it
is so, and therefore it is in defiance of him that they
do it. He is the Most High, whose authority' over
them they contemn by abusing their authority over
their subjects: not considering that he that is higher
than the highest, regardeth, Eccl. v. 8. [2. ] That
God does 'riot approve of them; more is implied
than is expressed; the perverting of justice, and
the subverting of the just, are a great affront to
God; and though he may make use of them for the
correction of his people, yet he will, sooner or later,
severely reckon with those that do thus. Note,
However God may for a time suffer evil-doers to
prosper, and serve his own purposes by them, yet
lie does not therefore approve of their evil doings.
Far be it from God that he should do iniquity, or
countenance those that do it.
37. Who is lie that saith, and it cometh
to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?
33. Out of the mouth of the Most High
proceedeth not evil and good? 39. Where¬
fore dotli a living man complain, a.man for
the punishment of his sins? 40. Let us
search and try our ways, and turn again to
the Lord. 41. Let tr lift up our heart
with our hands unto God in the heavens.
That we may be entitled to the comforts adminis¬
tered to the afflicted in the foregoing verses, and
may taste the sweetness of them, we have here the
duties of an afflicted state prescribed to us, in the
performance of which we may expect those com¬
forts.
We must see and acknowledge the hand of God
in all the calamities that befall us at any time,
whether personal or public, v. 37, 38. This is
here laid down as a great truth, which will help to
quiet our spirits under our afflictions, and to sanc¬
tify them to us, (1.) That, whatever men’s actions
are, it is God that overrules them; Who is he that
saith, and it cometh to pass, that designs a thing,
and brings his designs to effect, if the Lord command
it not? Men can do nothing but according to the
counsel of God, nor have any power or success but
what is given them from above. Jl man’s heart de
vises his way; he projects and purposes; he savs
that he will do so and so, (Jam. iv. 13.) but the
Lord directeth his steps far otherwise than he de¬
signed them, and what he contrived and expected
does not come to pass, unless it be what God’s hand
and his counsel had determined before to be done,
Prov. xvi. 9. Jer. x. 23. The Chaldeans said that
they would destroy Jerusalem, and it came to pass,
not because they said it, hut because God com¬
manded it, and commissioned them to do it. Note,
Men are but tools which the great God makes use
of, and manages as he pleases, in the government
of this lower world; and they cannot accomplish
any of their designs without him. (2.) That, what¬
ever men’s lot is, it is God that orders it; Out of the
mouth of the Most High do not evil and good pro¬
ceed? Yes, certainly they do; and it is more em¬
phatically expressed in the original. Do not this
evil, and this good, proceed out of the mouth of the
Most High? Is it not what he has ordained and ap¬
pointed for us? Yes, certainly it is; and for the re¬
conciling of us to our own afflictions, whatever they
be, this general truth must thus be particularly ap¬
plied. This comfort I receive from the hand of
God, and shall not I receive that evil also? so Job
argues, ch. ii. 10. Are we healthful or sickly, rich
or poor? Do we succeed in our designs, or are we
crossed in them? It is all what God orders; every
?nan’s judgment jiroceeds from him. The Lord
gave, and the I^ord has taken away; he forms the
light, and creates the darkness, as he did at first.
Note, All the events of Divine Providence are the
products of a divine counsel; whatever is done God
has the directing of it, and the works of his hands
agree with the words cf his mouth; he speaks, and
it is done; so easily, so effectually are all his pur¬
poses fulfilled!
2. We must not quarrel with God for any afflic¬
tion that he lays upon us at any time; (v. 30.)
Wherefore does a living man complain? The pro¬
phet here seems to check himself for the complaint he
had made in the former part of the chapter, wherein
he seemed to reflect upon God as unkind and se¬
vere; “Do I well to he angry? Why do I fret thus?”
Those who in their haste have chidden with God,
must, in the reflection, chide themselves for it.
From the doctrine of God’s sovereign and universal
providence, which he had asserted in the verses
before, he draws this inference, Wherefore does a
living man complain? What God does we must not
open our mouths against, Ps. xxxix. 9. They thn'
blame their lot, reproach him that allotted it to
them. The sufferers in the captivity must submit
to the will of God in all their sufferings. Note,
Though we may pour out our complaints before
God, we must never exhibit any complaints against
God. What! Shall a living man complain, a man
for the punishment of his sins? The reasons here
urged are very cogent. (1.) We are men; let us
herein show ourselves men. Shall a man complain?
And again, a man! We are men, and not brutes,
reasonable creatures, who should act with reason,
576
LAMENTATIONS, III.
«h> should look upward, and look forward, and
bol li ways may fetch considerations enough, to si¬
lence our complaints. We are men, and not chil¬
dren that cry tor every tiling that hurts them ; we
are men, and not gods, subjects, not lords; we are
not our own masters, not our own carvers, we are
bound, and must obey, must submit; we are men,
and not angels, and therefore cannot expect to be
free from troubles as they are; we are not inhabi¬
tants of that world where there is no sorrow, but this
where there is nothing but sorrow; we are men, and
not devils, are not in that deplorable, helpless, hope¬
less state that they are in, but have something to com¬
fort ourselves with, which they have not. (2.) We
are living men; through the good hand of our God
upon us we are alive yet, though dying daily; and
shall a living man complain? No, he has more rea¬
son to be thankful for life than to complain of any
of the burthens and calamities of life. Our lives are
frail and forfeited, and yet we are alive; now the
living, the living, they should praise, and not com¬
plain; (Isa. xxxviii. 19.) while there is life there is
hope, and therefore, instead of complaining that
things are bad, we should encourage ourselves with
the hope that they will be better. (3.) We are
sinful men, and that which we complain of is the
just punishment of our sins; nay, it is far less than
our iniquities have deserved; we have little reason
to complain of our trouble, for it is our own doing,
we may thank ourselves, our own wickedness cor¬
rects us; (Prov. xix. 3.) we have no reason to quar¬
rel with God, for he is righteous in it, he is the Go¬
vernor of the world, and it is necessary that he
should maintain the honour of his government by
chastising the disobedient. Are we suffering for
our sins? Then let us not complain, for we have
other work to do; instead of repining, we must be
repenting; and as an evidence that God is reconciled
to us, we must be endeavouring to reconcile our¬
selves to his holy will. Are we punished for our
sins? It is our wisdom then to submit, and to kiss
the rod; for if we still walk contrary to God, he
will punish us yet seven times more, for ivhen he
judges he wilt overcome; but if we accommodate
ourselves to him, though we be chastened of the
Lord, we shall not be condemned with the world.
3. We must set ourselves to answer God’s inten¬
tion in afflicting us, which is, to bring sin to our re¬
membrance, and to bring us home to himself, v. 40.
These are the two things which our afflictions should
put us upon. (1.) A serious consideration of our¬
selves, and a reflection upon our lives past; Let us
search and try our ways, search what they have
been, and then try whether they have been right
and good or no; search as for a malefactor in dis¬
guise, that flies, and hides himself, and then try
whether guilty or not guilty. Let conscience be
employed both to search and to try, and let it have
leave to deal faithfully, to accomplish a diligent
search, and to make an impartial trial. Let us try
our ways, that by them we may try ourselves, for
we are to judge of our state not by our faint wishes,
but by our steps; not by one particular step, but by
our ways; the ends we aim at, the rules we go by,
and the agreeableness of the temper of our minds
and the tenour of our lives to those ends and those
rules. When we are in affliction, it is seasonable to
consider our ways, (Hag. i. 5.) that what is amiss
may be repented of, and amended for the future,
and so we may answer the intention of the affliction.
We are apt, in times of public calamity, to reflect
upon other people’s ways, and lay blame upon them,
whereas our business is to search and try our own
ways; we have work enough to do at home: we
must each of us say, “What have I done? What
have I contributed to the public flames?” That we
may each of us mend one, and then we should all be
mended. (2.) A sincere conversion to God; “Let
us turn again to the Lord, to him who is turned
against us, and whom we have turned from; to him
let us turn by repentance and reformation, as to our
Owner and Ruler: we have been with him, and it
has never been well with us since we forsook him,
let us therefore now turn again to him.” This must
accompany the former, and be the fruit of it; there¬
fore we must search and try our ways, that we may
turn from the evil of them to God; this was the
method David took; (Ps. cxix. 59.) I thought on
my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies.
4. We must offer up ourselves to God, and cui
best affections and services, in the flames of devo¬
tion, v. 41. When we are in affliction, (1.) We
must look up to God, as a God in the heavens, in¬
finitely above us, and who has an incontestable do¬
minion over us; for the heavens do rule, and are
therefore not to be quarrelled with, but submitted
to. (2.) We must pray to him, with a believing
expectation to receive mercy from him; for that is
implied in our lifting up our hands to him, (a ges¬
ture commonly used in prayer,) and sometimes'put
forit, as, (Ps. cxli. 2.) Let the lifting up of my hands
be acceptable in thy sight. It signifies our request¬
ing mercy from him, and our readiness to receive
that mercy. (3.) Our hearts must go along with
our prayers; we must lift up our hearts with our
hands, as we must pour out our souls with out
words. It is the heart that God looks at in that,
and every other service; for what will a sacrifice
without a heart avail ? If inward impressions be not
in some measure answerable to outward expressions,
we do but mock God, and deceive ourselves. Pray¬
ing is lifting up the soul to God, (Ps. xxv. 1.) as to
our Father in heaven; and the soul that hopes to be
with God in heaven for ever, will thus, by frequent
acts ot devotion, be still learning the way thither,
and pressing forward in that way.
42. We have transgressed, and have re¬
belled: thou hast not pardoned. 43. Thou
hast covered with anger, and persecuted us:
thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied. 44.
Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud,
that our prayer should not pass through.
45. Thou hast made us os the offscouritig
and refuse' in the midst of the people.
46. All our enemies have opened their
mouths against us. 47. Fear and a snare
is come upon us, desolation and destruction
48. Mine eye runneth down with rivers of
water for the destruction of the daughter of
my people. 49. Mine eye trickleth down,
and ceaseth not, without any intermission,
50. Till the Lord look down, and behold
from heaven. 51. Mine eye affected] my
heart, because of all the daughters of my
city. 52. Mine enemies chased me sore,
like a bird, without cause. 53. They have
cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a
stone upon me. 54. Waters flowed over
my head; then I said, I am cut off.
It is easier to chide ourselves for complaining than
to chide ourselves out of it: the prophet had owned
that a living man should not complain, as if he
checked himself for his complaints in the former
part of the chapter; and yet here the clouds return
afterthe rain, and the wounds bleed afresh; for great
576
LAMENTATIONS, III.
pains must be taken with a troubled spirit, to bring
it into temper.
I. They confess the righteousness of God in af¬
flicting them; (y. 42.) We have transgressed and
have rebelled. Note, It becomes us, when we are
in trouble, tq justify God, by owning our sins, and
laying the load upon ourselves for them. Call sin
a transgression, call it a rebellion, and you do not
miscall it. This is the result of their searching and
trying their ways; the more they inquired into them,
the worse they found them.
II. Yet they complain of the afflictions they are
under, not without some reflections upon God,
which we are not to imitate, but, under the sharpest
trials, must always think and speak highly and
kindly of him.
1. They complain of his frowns, and the tokens
of his displeasure against them. Their sins were
repented of, and yet, ( v . 42.) Thou hast not /par¬
doned. They had not the assurance and comfort
of the pardon; the judgments brought upon them
for their sins were not removed, and therefore they
thought they could not say the sin was pardoned,
which was a mistake, but a common mistake with
the people of God when their souls are cast down,
and disquieted within them. Their case was really
pitiable, vet they complain, Thou hast not fiitied,
v. 43. Their enemies persecuted and slew them,
but that was not the worst of it, they were but the
instruments in God’s hands; “ Thou hast /persecuted
us, and thou hast slain us, though we expected
thou shouldest have protected and delivered us.”
They complain that there was a wall of partition
between them and God, and, (1.) This hindered
God’s favours from coming down upon them: “The
reflected beams of God’s kindness to them, used to
be the beauty of Israel; but now thou hast covered
us with anger, so that our glory is concealed and
gone; now God is angry with us, and we do not ap- i
pear that illustrious people that we have formerly '
been thought to be.” Or, “ Thou hast covered us
up as men that are buried or covered up and forgot¬
ten.” (2.) It hindered their prayers from coming
up unto God; {v. 44.) “ Thou hast covered thyself
with a cloud;” not like that bright cloud in which
he took possession of the temple, which enabled the
worshippers to draw near to him, but like that in
which he came down upon mount Sinai, which
obliged the people to stand at a distance. “ This
cloud is so thick, that our firayers seem as if they
were lost in it, they cannot pass through, we cannot
obtain an audience.” Note, The prolonging of
troubles is sometimes a temptation, even to praying
people, to question whether God be what they have
always believed him to be, a prayer-hearing God.
2. They complain of the contempt of their neigh¬
bours, and the reproach and ignominy thev were
under; (it. 45. ) Thou hast made us as the off-scour¬
ing , or scrapings of the first floor, which are thrown
to the dunghill. This St. Paul refers to, in his ac¬
count of the sufferings of the apostles; (1 Cor. iv.
13.) We are made as the filth of the world, and are
the off-scouring of all things. “ We are the refuse,
or dross, in the midst of the people, trodden upon by
every body, and looked upon as the vilest of the na¬
tions, and good for nothing but to be cast out as salt
which has lost its savour. Our enemies have opened
their mouths against us, (v. 46. ) have gaped upon
us as roaring lions, to swallow us up; or made
mouths at us; or have taken liberty to say what
they please of us:” these complaints we had before,
ch. ii. 15, 16. Note, It is common for base and ill-
natured men to run upon, and run down, those that
are fallen into the depths of distress from the height
of honour. But this they brought upon themselves
by sin; if they had not made themselves vile, their
enemies could not have made them so; but there¬
fore men call them reprobate silver, because the
Lord has rejected them for rejecting him.
3. They complain of the lamentable destruction
that their enemies made of them; (y. 47.) Fear and
a snare are come upon us; the enemies have not
only terrified us with those alarms, but prevailed
against us by their stratagems, and surprised us
with the ambushes they laid for us; and then follows
nothing but desolation and destruction, the destruc
tion of the daughter of my people, ( v . 48. ) of all the
daughters of my city, v. 51. The enemies having
taken some of them like a bird in a snai e, chased
others as a harmless bird is chased by a bird of
prey; (t\ 52.) Mine enemies chased me sore like a
bird which is beaten from bush to bush, as Saul
hunted David like a partridge. Thus restless was
the enmity of their persecutors, and yet causeless;
They have done it without cause, without any pro¬
vocation given them; though God was righteous,
they were unrighteous. David often complains of
those that hated him without cause; and such are
the enemies of Christ and his church, John xv. 25.
Their enemies chased them till they had quite pre¬
vailed over them; (n. 53.) They have cut off my
life in the dungeon. They have shut up their cap¬
tives in close and dark prisons, where they are, as it
were, cut off from the land of the living; (as v. 6.)
or, the state and kingdom are sunk and ruined, the
life and being of them are gone, and they are, as it
were, thrown into the dungeon or grave, and a stone
cast upon them, such as used to be rolled to the door
of the sepulchres. They look upon the Jewish na¬
tion as dead and buried, and that there is no possi¬
bility of its resurrection. Thus Ezekiel saw it, in
vision, a valley full of dead and dry bones. Their
destruction is compared not only to the burying c f a
dead man, but to the sinking of a living man into
the water, who cannot long be a living man there,
v. 54. Waters of affliction flowed over niine head;
the deluge prevailed and quite overwhelmed them,
the Chaldean forces broke in upon them as the
breaking forth of waters, which rose so high as to
fiow over their heads; they could not wade, they
could not swim, and therefore must unavoidably
sink. Note, The distresses of God’s people some¬
times prevail to that degree, that they cannot find
any footing for their faith, nor keep their head above
water, with any comfortable expectation.
4. They complain of their own excessive grief
and fear upon this account (1.) The afflicted
church is drowned in tears, and the prophet for her;
(y. 48, 49.) Mine eye runs down xvith rivers of wa¬
ter; so abundant was their weeping: it trickles
down and ceases not; so constant was their weeping,
without anv intermission, there being no relaxation
of their miseries. The distemper was in continual
extremity, and they had no better day. It is added,
( v . 51.) “ Mine eye affects my heart; my seeing
eye affects my heart; the more I look upon the de¬
solations of the city and country, the more I am
grieved; which way soever I cast mine eye, I see
that which renews my sorrow, even because of all
the daughters of my city;” all the neighbouring
towns, which were as daughters to Jerusalem the
motlier-citv. Or, My weeping eye affects my heart;
the venting of tlie grief, instead of easing it, did but
increase and exasperate it. Or, Mine eye melts my
soul; I have quite wept away my spirits; not only
mine eye is consumed with grief but my soul and
my life are spent with it, rs. xxxi. 9, 10. Great
and long grief exhausts the spirits, and brings not
only many a grey head, but many a green head
too, to the grave. " I weep, says the prophet, more
than all the daughters of my city; so the margin
reads it; he outdid even those of the tender sex in
the expressions of grief. And it is no diminution
to anv to be much in tears for the sins of sinners and
57?
LAMENTATIONS, III.
the sufferings of saints; our Lord Jesus was so; for
when he came near, he beheld this same city, and
wept over it, which the daughters of Jerusalem did
not. (2.) She is overwhelmed with fears; not only
grieves for what is, but fears worse, and gives up all
forgone; (y. 54.) “Then I said, lam cutoff, ruined,
and see no hope of recovery; I am as one dead.”
Note, Those that are cast down, are commonly
tempted to think themselves cast off, Ps. xxxi. 22.
Jon. ii. 4.
5. In the midst of these sad complaints here is one
word of comfort, by which it appears that their case
was not altogether so bad as they made it, v. 50.
We continue thus weeping till the Lord look down
and behold from heaven. This intimates, (1.) That
they were satisfied that God’s gracious regard to
them in their miseries would be an effectual redress
of all their grievances; “ If God, who now covers
himself with a cloud, as if he took no notice of our
troubles, (Job xxii. 13.) would but shine forth, all
would be well; if he look upon us, we shall be saved,”
Ps. lxxx. 19. Dan. ix. 17. Bad as the case is, one
favourable look from heaven will set all to lights.
(2.) That they had hopes that he would at length
look graciously upon them, and relieve them; nay,
they take it for granted that he will; “ Though he
contend long, he will not contend for ever, though
we deserve that he should.” (3.) That while they
continued weeping they continued waiting; and nei¬
ther did nor would expect relief and succour from
any hand but liis; nothing shall comfort them but
his gracious returns, nor shall any thing wipe tears
from their eyes tillhelook down. Their eyes, which
now run down with water, shall still wait upon the
Lord their God until that he have mercy upon
them, Ps. xii. 2.
55. I called upon thy name, O Lord, out
of the low dungeon. 56. Thou hast heard
my voice; hide not thine ear at my breath¬
ing, at my cry. 57. Thou drevvest near in
the day that 1 called upon thee: thou saidst,
Fear not. 58. O Lord, thou hast pleaded
the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed
my life. 59. O Lord, thou hast seen my
wrong; judge thou my cause. 60. Thou
hast seen all their vengeance, and all their
imaginations against me. 61. Thou hast
heard their reproach, O Lord, and all their
imaginations against me ; 62. The lips of
those that rose up against me, and their de¬
vice against me all the day. 63. Behold
their sitting down, and their rising up ; I am
their music. 64. Render unto them a re¬
compense, O Lord, according to the work
of their hands. 65. Give them sorrow of
heart, thy curse unto them. 66. Persecute
and destroy them in anger from under the
heavens of the Lord.
We may observe throughout this chapter a strug¬
gle in the prophet’s breast between sense and faith,
fear and hope; he complains and then comforts him¬
self, yet drops his comforts, and returns again to his
complaints, as Ps. xlii. But as there, so here, faith
gets the last word, and comes off a conqueror, for
in these verses he concludes with some comfort.
And here are two things with which he comforts
himself.
I. His experience of God’s goodness even in his
affliction. This may refer to the prophet’s personal
Vol. iv. — 4 D
| experience, with which he encourages himself in
j reference to the public troubles. He that has sea¬
sonably succoured particular saints, will not fail the
church in general. Or, it may include the remnant
of good people that were among the Jews, who had
found it was not in vain to wait upon God. In three
things the prophet and his pious friends had found
God good to them. 1. He had heard their prayers;
though they had been ready to fear that the cloud
of wrath was such as their prayers could not pass
through, (v. 44.) yet, upon second thoughts, or at
least upon further trial, they find it otherwise, and
that God had not said unto them, Seek ye me in
vain. When they were in the low dungeon, as
free among the dead, they called upon Goa’s name;
(v. 55. ) their weeping did not hinder praying. Note,
Though we are cast into ever so low a dungeon, we
may from thence find a way of access to God in the
highest heavens; Out. of the depths have I cried
unto thee, (Ps. exxx. 1.) as Jonah out of the whale’s
belly. And could God hear them out of the low
dungeon, and would he? Yes, he did; Thou hast
heard my voice: and some read the following words
as carrying on the same thankful acknowledgment;
Thou didst not hide thine ear at my breathing, at
mu cry: and the original will bear that reading.
We read it as a petition for further audience; Hide
not thine ear. God’s having heard cur voice when
we cried to him, even out of the low dungeon, is an
encouragement for us to hope that he will not at any
time hide his ear. Observe how he calls prayer his
breathing; for in prayer we breathe toward God.
we breathe after him; though we be but weak in
prayer, cannot cry aloud, but only breathe in groan-
ings that cannot be uttered, yet we shall not be ne¬
glected, if we be sincere. Prayer is the breath of
the new man, sucking in the air of mercy in peti¬
tions, and returning it in praises; it is both the evi¬
dence and the maintenance of the spiritual life.
Some read it, at my gasping; “When I lay gasping
for life, and ready to expire, and thought I was
breathing my last, then thou tookest cognizance
of my distressed case.” 2. He had silenced their
fears, and quieted their spirits; (v. 57.) “ Thou
drewest near in the day that I called upon thee;
thou didst graciously assure me of thy presence with
me, and give me to see thee nigh unto me, whefeas
I had thought thee to be at a distance from me.”
Note, When we draw nigh to God in a way of duty,
we may by faith see him drawing nigh to us in a
way of mercy; but this was not all; Thou saidst.
Fear not. This was the language of God’s pro¬
phets preaching to them not to fear, (Isa. xli. 10,
13. ) of his providence preventing those things which
they were afraid of, and of his grace quieting their
minds, and making them easy, by the witness of his
Spirit with their spirits, that they were his people
still, though in distress, and therefore ought not to
fear. 3. He had already begun to appear for them;
(v. 58.) “ O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of
my soul ,” (that is, as it follows,) “thou hast re¬
deemed my life, hast rescued that out of the hands
of those who would have taken it away, hast saved
that when it was ready to be swallowed up, hast
given me that for a prey.” And this is an encou¬
ragement to them to hope that he would yet further
appear for them; “Thou hast delivered my soul
from death, and therefore wilt deliver my feet from
falling; thou hast pleaded the causes of my life, and
therefore wilt plead my other causes.”
II. He comforts himself with an appeal to God’s
justice, and (in order to the sentence of that) to his
omniscience.
1. He appeals to God’s knowledge of the matter
of fact, how very spiteful and malicious his enemies
were; (u. 59.) “ O Lord, thou hast seen my wrong,
that I have done no wrong at all, but suffer a great
578
LAMENTATIONS, fV
deal.” He that knows all things, knew, (1.) The
malice they had against him; 'Thou hast seen all
' their vengeance ; how they desire to do me a mis¬
chief, as if it were by way of reprisal for some great
injury I had done them.” Note, We should consi¬
der, to our terror and caution, that God knows all
the revengeful thoughts we have in our minds
against others, and therefore we should not allow
of those thoughts, or harbour them: and that he
knows all the revengeful thoughts others have
causelessly in their minds against us, and therefore
we should not be afraid of them, but leave it to him
to protect us from them. (2.) The designs and
projects they had laid to do him a mischief; Thou
hast seen all their imaginations against me, [y. 60.)
and again, (n. 61.) “Thou hast heard all their
imaginations against me, both the desire and the
device they have to ruin me; whether it show itself
in word or deed, it-is known to thee; nay, though
the products of it are not to be seen or heard, yet
their device against me all the day is perceived and
understood by him to whom all things are naked
and open. ” Note, The most secret contrivances of
the church’s enemies are perfectly known to the
church’s God, from whom they can hide nothing.
(3.) The contempt and calumny wherewith they
loaded him, all that they spake slightly of him, and
all that they spake reproachfully; “Thou hast
heard their reproach, ( v . 61.) all the bad charac¬
ters they give me, laying to my charge things that
I know not; all the methods they use to make me
odious and contemptible, even the lifts of those that
rose lift against me, (to 62.) the contumelious lan¬
guage they use whenever they speak of me; and that
at their sitting down and rising up, when they lie
down at night, and get up in the morning, when
they sit down to their meat, and with their com¬
pany, and when they rise from both, still 1 am their
music, they make themselves and one another merry
with my miseries, as the Philistines made sport
with Samson.” Jerusalem was the tabret they
played upon; perhaps they had some tune or play,
some t pera or interlude, that was called the destruc¬
tion oj Jerusalem, which though in the nature of a
tragedv, was very entertaining to those who wished
ill to the holy city. Note, God will one day call
sinners to an account for all the hard speeches which
they have spoken against him and his people,
Jude 15.
2. He appeals to God’s judgment upon this fact,
“ Lord, thou hast seen my ivrong; there is no need
of any evidence to prove it, or any prosecutor to en¬
force and aggravate it, thou seest it in its true co¬
lours; and now I leave it with thee, judge thou my
cause, v. 59. Let them be dealt with,” (1.) “As
they deserve; (v. 64.) Render to them a recomftense
according to the work o f their hands. Let them lie
dealt with as they have dealt with us; let thv hand
be against them as their hand has been against us.
They have created us a great deal of vexation;
now, Lord, give them sorrow of heart : {v. 65.) per¬
plexity of heart;” (so some read it;) “let them be
surrounded with threatening mischiefs on all sides,
and not be able to see their way out: give them des¬
pondency of heart;” (so others read it;) “ let them
lie driven to despair, and give themselves up for
gone. ” God can entangle the head that thinks it¬
self clearest, and sink the heart that thinks itself
stoutest. (2.) “ Let them be dealt with according
to the threatenings; Thy curse unto them; let thy
curse come upon them, all the evils that are pro¬
nounced in thy word against the enemies of thy peo¬
ple, v. 65. They have loaded us with curses; as
they loved cursing, so let it come unto them, thy
curse which will make them truly miserable. Theirs
is causeless, and therefore fruitless, it shall not
come; but thine is just, and shall take eflect; those
whom thou cursest are cursed indeed. Let the
curse be executed, v. 66. Persecute and destroy
them in anger, as they persecute and destroy us in
their anger. Desti oy them from under the heavens
of the Lord, let them have no benefit of the light
and influence of the heavens. Destroy them in such
a manner, that all who see it may say, It is a de¬
struction from the Almighty, who sits in the heavens
and laughs at them, (Ps. ii. 4.) and may own that
the heavens do rule,” Dan. iv. 26. What is said
of the idols is here said of their worshippers, (who
in this also shall be like unto them,) They shall
fterish from under these heavens, Jer. x. 11. They
shall be not only excluded from the happiness of the
invisible heavens, but cut off from the comfort even
of these visible ones; which are the heavens of the.
Lord, (Ps. cxv. 16.) and which they therefore are
unworthy to be taken under the protection of, who
rebel against him.
CHAP. IV.
This chapter is another single alphabet of Lamentation#
for the destruction of Jerusalem, like those in the two
first chapters. I. The prophet here laments the injuries
and indignities done to those to whom respect used to be
showed, v. 1, 2. II. He laments the direful effects of the
famine to which they were reduced by the siege, v. 3. . 10.
111. He laments the taking and sacking of Jerusalem,
and its amazing desolations, v. 11, 12. IV. He acknow¬
ledges that the sins of their leaders were the cause of all
these calamities, v. 13 . . 16. V. He gives up all as doom¬
ed to utter ruin, for their enemies were every way too
hard for them, v. 17 . . 20. VI. He foretells the destruc¬
tion of the Edomites who triumphed in Jerusalem’s fall,
v. 21. VII. He foretells the return of the captivity of
Zion at last, v. 22.
1. 1| OW is the gold become dim! how is
JOl the most fine gold changed! the
stones of the sanctuary are poured out in
the top of every street. 2. The precious
sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how
are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the
work of the hands of the potter! 3. Even
the sea-monsters draw out the breast, they
give suck to their young ones: the daughter
of my people is become cruel, like the os¬
triches in the wilderness. 4. The tongue
of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of
his mouth for thirst; the young children ask
bread, rind no man breaketh it unto them.
5. They that did feed delicately are desolate
in the streets; they that were brought up in
scarlet embrace dunghills. 6. For the pun¬
ishment of the iniquity of the daughter ol my
people is greater than the punishment of the
sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a
moment, and no hands stayed on her. 7.
Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they
were whiter than milk, they were more
ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing
was of sapphire: 8. Their visage is blacker
than a coal; they are not known in the
streets : their skin cleaveth to their bones
it is withered, it is become like a stick. 9.
They that be slain with the sword are better
than they that be slain with hunger : for these
pine away, stricken through for leant of the
fruits of the field. 10. The hands of the
pitiful women have sodden their own chil
57:)
LAMENTATIONS, IV.
dren, they were (heir meat in the destruc¬
tion of the daughter of my people. 1 1. The
Lord hath accomplished his fury; he hath
poured out his tierce anger, and hath kin¬
dled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured
the foundations thereof. 12. The kings of
the earth, and all the inhabitants ol the
world, would not have believed that the ad¬
versary and the enemy should have entered
into the gates of Jerusalem.
The elegy in this chapter begins with a lamenta¬
tion of the very sad and doleful change which the
judgments of God had made in Jerusalem. The
citv that had been as gold, as the most fine gold,
so "rich and splendid, the perfection of beauty, and
the joy of the whole earth, is become dim, and is
changed, has lost its lustre, lost its value, is not
what it was, it is become dross. Alas, what an
alteration is here!
1. The temple is laid waste, which was the glory
of Jerusalem and its protection; it is given up into
the hands of the enemy. As some understand the
gold spoken of, (i>. 1.) to be the gold of the temple,
the fine gold with which it was overlaid; (1 Kings
vL 22. ) when the temple was burned, the gold of it
was smoked and sullied, as if it had been of little
value; it was thrown among the rubbish, it was
changed, converted to common uses, and made no¬
thing of. The stones of the sanctuary, which were
curiously wrought, were thrown down by the Chal¬
deans, when they demolished it, or were brought
down by the force of the fire, and were poured out,
and thrown about in the top of every street, they
lav mingled without distinction among the common
ruins. When the God of the sanctuary was by sin
prr.\ ked to withdraw, no wonder that the stones
of the sanctuary were thus profaned.
2. Tlie princes and priests who were in a special
manner the sons of Zion, were trampled upon and
abused, v. 2. Both the house of God and the house
of David were in Zion; the sons of both those houses
were upon this account precious, that they were
heirs to the privileges < f those two covenants of
priesthood and royalty; they were comparable to
fine gold; Israel was more rich in them than in
treasures of gold and silver; but now they are es¬
teemed as earthen pitchers; they are broken as
earthen pitchers, thrown by as vessels in which
there is no favour. They are grown poor, and
brought into captivity, and thereby are rendered
mean and despicable, and every one treads upon
them, and insults over them. Note, The contempt
put upon God’s people ought to be matter of lamen¬
tation to us.
3. Little children were starved for want of bread
and w iter, v. 3, 4. The nursing-mothers, having
no meat for themselves, had no milk for the babes
at their breast, so that though in disposition they
Were really compassionate, yet in fact they seemed
to be cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness, that
leave their eggs in the dust; (Job xxxix. 14, 15.)
having no food for their children, they were forced
to neglect them, and do what they could to forget
them, because it was a pain to them to think of
them when they had nothing for them; in this they
were worse than the seals, or sea-monsters, or
whales, (as some render it,) for they drew out the
breast, and gave surk to their young, which the
daughter of my people will not do. Children can¬
not shitt for themselves as grown people can; and
therefore it was the more painful to see the tongue
of the sucking-child cleave to the roof of his mouth
for thirst, because there was not a drop of water
to moisten it; and to hear the young children, that
could but just speak, ask bread of their parents, who
had none to give them, no, nor any friend that could
supply them. As doleful as our’thoughts are of this
case, sorthankful should our thoughts be of the great
plenty wc enjoy, and the food convenient we havt
for ourselves and for our children, and for those oj
our own house.
4. Persons of good rank were reduced to extreme'
poverty, v. 5. They who were well-born and well-
bred, and had been accustomed to the best, both for
food and clothing, who had fed delicately, had
every thing that was curious and nice, (they call it
eating well, whereas those only eat well, who eat
to the glory of God,) and fared sumptuously emery
day; they had not only been advanced to the scarlet,
but from their beginning were brought up. in scar¬
let, and were never acquainted with any thing mean
or ordinary; they were brought up upon scarlet,
(so the word is,) their foot-cloths, and the carpets
they walked on, were scarlet, yet these, being stript
of all by the war, are desolate in the streets, have
not a house to put their head in, not a bed to lie
on, nor clothes to cover them, nor fire to warm
them. They embrace dunghills, on them they are
glad to lie, to get a little rest; and perhaps raked
in the dunghills for something to eat, as the prodi¬
gal son who would fain have filled his belly with
the husks. Note, Those who live in the greatest
pomp and plenty, know not what straits they may
be reduced to before they die; as sometimes the
needy are raised out of the dunghill, (Ps. cxiii. 7.)
so there are instances of the wealthy being brought
to the dunghill. Those who were full, have hired out
themselves for bread, 1 Sam. ii. 5. It is therefore
the wisdom of those who have abundance, not to
use themselves too nicely, for then hardships, when
they come, will be doubly hard, Deut. xx' iii. 56.
5. Persons who were eminent for dignity, nay,
perhaps for sanctity, shared with others in the com¬
mon calamity, v. 7, 8. Her Nazarites are ex¬
tremely changed. Some understand it only of her
honourable ones, the young gentlemen, who were
very clean, and neat, and well-dressed, washed and
perfumed; but I see not why we may not understand
it of those devout people among them, who sepa¬
rated themselves to the Lord by the JYazarites’ vow,
Numb. vi. 2. That there were such among them
in the most degenerate times, appears, Amos ii. 11.
I raised up of your young men for Arazarites.
These JVazarites, though they were not to cut their
hair, yet, by reason of their temperate diet, their
frequent washings, and especially the pleasure they
had in devoting themselves to God, and conversing
with him, which made their faces to shine as Mo¬
ses’s, were purer than snow, and whiter than milk;
drinking no wine nor strong drink, they had a more
healthful complexion and cheerful countenance than
those who regaled themselves daily with the blood
of the grape, as Daniel and his fellows with pulse
and water. Or, It may denote the great respect
and veneration which all good people had for them;
though perhaps to the eye they had no form or
comeliness, yet, being separated to the Lord, they
were valued as if they had been more ruddy than
rubies, and their polishing had been as sapphire.
But now their visage is marred, (as is said of Christ,
Isa. lii. 14.) it is blacker than a coal, they look mi¬
serably, partly through hunger, and partly through
grief and perplexity; they are not known in the
streets, they who respected them now take no notice
of them, and they who had been intimately ac¬
quainted with them now scarcely knew them, their
countenance was so altered by the miseries that at¬
tended the long siege. Their skin cleaves to their
bones, their flesh being quite consumed and wasted
away; it is withered, it is become like a stick, as dry
and hard as a piece of wood. Note, It is a thing to
580
LAMENTATIONS, IV.
be much lamented, that even those who are sepa¬
rated to God, are .yet, when desolating judgments
are abroad, often involved with others in the com¬
mon calamity.
6. Jerusalem comes down slowly, and dies a lin¬
gering death, for the famine contributes more to her
destruction than any other judgment whatsoever.
Upon this account, the destruction of Jerusalem was
greater than that of Sodom, ( v . 6.) for that was
overthrown in a moment, one shower of fire and
brimstone despatched it, no hand stayed on her, she
did not endure any long siege, as Jerusalem has
done, she fell immediately into the hands of the
Lord, who strikes home at a blow, and did not fall
into the hands of man, who, being weak, is long in
doing execution, Judg. viii. 21. Jerusalem is kept
m my months upon the rack, in pain and misery,
and dies by inches, dies so as to feel herself die.
And when the iniquity of Jerusalem is more ag¬
gravated than that of Sodom, no wonder that the
punishment of it is so. Sodom never had the means
of grace that Jerusalem had, the oracles of God, and
his prophets, and therefore the condemnation of Je¬
rusalem will be more intolerable than that of Sodom,
M itth. xi. 23, 24.
The extremity of the famine is here set forth by
two frightful instances of it. (1.) The tedious
deaths that it was the cause of; (v. 9.) many were
slain with hunger, were famished to death, their
stores being spent, and the public stores so nearly
spent, that they could not have any relief out of
them; they were stricken through, for want of the
fruits of the field; they who were starved were as
sure to die as if they had been stabbed and stricken
di rough; only their case was much more miserable;
they who are slain with the stvord, are soon rid out
of their pain, in a moment they go down to the
•■rave; (Job xxi. 13.) they have not the terror of
seeing death make its advances toward them, and
scarcely feel it when the blow is given; it is but one
sharp struggle, and the work is done. And if we be
mdy for another world, we need not be afraid of a
short passage to it; the quicker the better. But
they who die by famine pine away, hunger preys
upon their spirits, and wastes them gradually, nay,
ind it frets their spirits, and fills them with vexa-
ti in, and is as great a torture to the mind as to the
i >dv. There are bands in their death, Ps. lxxiii.
4. (2.) The barbarous murders that it was the
occasion of; (n. 10.) The hands of the pitiful wo¬
men have first slain, and then sodden, their own
children. This was lamented before; (rA. ii. 20.)
and it was a thing to be greatly lamented, that any
should be so wicked as to do it, and that they should
be brought to such extremities as to be tempted to
it. But this horrid effect of long sieges had been
threatened in general, (Lev. xxvi. 29. Deut. xxviii.
53.) and particularly against Jerusalem in the siege
of the Chaldeans, Jer. xix. 9. Ezek. v. 10. The
case was sad enough that they had not wherewithal
to feed their children, and make meat for them,
(v. 4.) but much worse that they could find in their
hearts to feed upon their children, and make meat
of them. I know not whether to make it an in¬
stance of the power of necessity, or of the power
of iniquity; but as the Gentile idolaters were justly
f'iven up to vile affections, (Rom. i. 26.) so these
ewish idolaters, and the women particularly, who
had made cakes to the queen of heaven, and taught
their children to do so too, were stript of natural
affection, and that to their own children. Being
thus left to dishonour their own nature, was a righ¬
teous judgment upon them for the dishonour they
nad done to God.
7. Jerusalem comes down utterly and wonder¬
fully. (1.) The destruction of Jerusalem is a com¬
plete destruction; ( v . 11.) The Lord has accom¬
plished his fury, he has made thorough work of
it, has executed all that he purposed in wrath
against Jerusalem, and has remitted no part of the
sentence. He has poured out the full vials of his
fierce anger, poured them out to the bottom, even
the dregs of them. He has kindled a fire in Zion,
which has not only consumed the houses, and le¬
velled them with 'the ground, but, beyond what
other fires do, has devoured the foundations thereof,
as if they were to be no more built upon. (2. ) It
is an amazing destruction, v. 12. It w .s a surprise
to the kings of the earth, who are acquainted with,
and inquisitive about, the state of their neighbours;
nay, it was so to all the inhabitants of the world,
who knew Jerusalem, or had ever heard or read of
it; they could not have believed that the adversary
and enemy should ever have entered into the gates
of Jerusalem; for, [1.] They knew that Jerusalem
was strongly fortified, not only by walls and bul¬
warks, but by the numbers and strength of its inha¬
bitants; the strong hold of Zion was thought to be
impregnable. [2.] They knew that it' was the
city of the great King, where the Lord of the whole
earth had in a more peculiar manner his residence;
it was the holy city, and therefore they thought
that it was so much under the divine protection,
that it would be in vain for any of its enemies to
make an attack upon it. [3.] They knew that
many an attempt made upon it had been baffled,
witness that of Sennacherib. They were therefore
amazed when they heard of the Chaldeans making
themselves masters of it, and concluded that it was
certainly by an immediate hand of God that Jerusa¬
lem was given up to them; it was by a commission
from him that the enemy broke through, and enter¬
ed the gates of Jerusalem.
13. For the sins of her prophets, and the
iniquities of her priests, that have shed the
blood of the just in the midst of her. 14.
They have wandered as blind men in the
streets, they have polluted themselves with
blood, so that men could not touch their
garments. 15. They cried unto them, De¬
part ye ; it is unclean ; depart, depart, touch
not: when they fled away and wandered,
they said among the heathen, They shall no
more sojourn there. 16. The anger of the
Lord hath divided them ; he will no more
regard them: they respected not the per¬
sons of the priests, they favoured not the
elders. 1 7. As for us, our eyes as yet failed
for our vain help : in our watching we have
watched for a nation that could not save us.
1 8. They hunt our steps, that we cannot go
in our streets: our end is near, our days are
fulfilled ; for our end is come. 1 9. Our perse¬
cutors are swifter than the eagles of the hea¬
ven: they pursued us upon the mountains,
they laid wait for us in the wilderness. 20.
The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of
the Lord, was taken in their pits, of whom
we said, Under his shadow we shall live
among the heathen.
We have here,
1. The sins they are charged with, for which
God brought this destruction upon them, and which
serve to justify God in it; (v. 13, 14.) It is for the
sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests ;
LAMENTATIONS, IV.
St: I
not 'Sat the people were innocent, no, they loved
tu have it so, (Jer. v. 31.) and it was to please them
that the prophets and priests did as they did; but
the fault is chiefly laid upon them who should have
taught them better, should have reproved and ad¬
monished them, and told them what would be in the
end hereof; of the hands of those watchmen who
did not give them warning, will their blood be re¬
quired. Note, Nothing ripens a people more for
ruin, nor fills the measure faster, than the sins of
their priests and prophets. The particular sin
charged upon them is, persecution; the false pro¬
phets and corrupt priests joined their power and
interest to shed the blood of the just in the midst of
her , the blood of God’s prophets, and of those that
adhered to them: they not only shed the blood of
their innocent children, whom they sacrificed to
Moloch, but the blood of the righteous men that
were among them, whom they sacrificed to that
more cruel idol of enmity to the truth and true reli¬
gion. This was that sin which the Lord would not
p irdon, (2 Kings xxiv. 4.) and which brought the
l ist destruction upon Jerusalem; (Jam. v. 6.) Ye
have condemned and killed the just. And the
priests and prophets were the ringleaders in perse¬
cution, as in Christ’s time the chief priests and
scribes were the men that incensed the people
against him, who otherwise would have persisted
in their hosannas. Now these are they that wan¬
dered as blind men in the streets; (n. 14.) they
strayed from the paths of justice, were blind to
every thing that is good, but to do evil they were
quick-sighted. God says of corrupt judges, They
know not, neither do they understand, they walk in
darkness; (Ps. lxxxii. 5.) and Christ says of the cor¬
rupt teachers, They are blind leaders of the blind,
M itth. xv. 14. They have so polluted themselves
with innocent blood, the blood of the saints, that men
could not touch their garments; they made them¬
selves odious to all about them, so that good men
were as shy of touching them as of touching a dead
body, which contracted a cerelTionial pollution; or
of touching the bloody clothes of one slain, which
tender spirits eare not to do. There is nothing that
will make prophets and priests to be abhorred so
much as a spirit of persecution.
2. The testimony of their neighbours produced in
evidence against them, both to convict them of sin,
and to show the equity of God’s proceedings against
them. Some that are grown very impudent in sin,
boast that they care not what people say of them;
but God, by the prophet, would have the Jews to
take notice’of what people said of them, and what
was the opinion of the standers-by concerning them;
(x’. 15, 16.) what they said, nay, what they cried
unto them, especially to the corrupt priests and pro¬
phets, among the heathen. (1.) They upbraided
them with their pretended purity, while they lived
in all manner of real iniquity. They cried to them,
Defiart ye, it is unclean. You were so precise, you
would not touch a Gentile, but cried, Depart, de¬
part, stand by thyself, I am holier than thou, Isa.
lxv. 5. Thus the prosecutors of Christ would not
go into the judgment-hall, lest they should be de¬
fied. But can you now keep the Gentiles from
touching you, when God has delivered you into
th-ir h inds? When you flv away and wander, you
will bid them stand off, and not touch you, because
they are unclean; but in vain, these serpents will not
be charmed or enchanted thus, no, they will not
respect the persons of the priests, nor favour the
elders; the most venerable persons will to them be
despicable. (2.) They upbraided them with their
sins, 'lid the anger of God against them for their
sins, and the direful effects of that anger. They
cried to them, Depart ye, it is unclean; they all
cried out shame on them, and could easily foresee J
that God would not long suffer so p invoking a people
to continue in so good a land. They knew their sta -
tutes and judgments were righteous, and expected
they should be a wise and understanding people ,
Deut. iv. 6. But when they saw them quite other ¬
wise, they cried, Depart, depart; they scon read
their doom, that the land would spue them out, as
it had done their predecessors, and when they saw
the dispersed of Jacob fleeing and wandering, they
told them of it. They said, Now the anger of the
Lord has divided them, has dispersed them into all
countries, because they respected not the persons of
the priests, the pious priests that were among them,
such as Zechariah the son of Jehoiada, Jeremiah,
and others; neither did they favour the elders, but
despised them and their authority, when they went
about to check them for their vicious courses; the
very heathen foresaw this would ruin them. (3.)
They triumph in their ruin as irrecoverable. They
said, when they saw them expelled out of their own
land, “Now they shall no more sojourn there, they
have bidden it a final farewell, never more to return
to it, for God will no more regard them; and how
then can they help themselves?” Herein they were
mistaken, God had not cast them off, for all this;
yet thus much is intimated, that all about them ob¬
served them to be so very provoking to their God,
that there was no reason to expect any other, than
that they should be quite abandoned.
3. The despair which they themselves were almost
brought to, under their calamities. Having heard
what they said concerning them among the heathen,
let us now hear what they say concerning them¬
selves; (x\ 17.) “As for us, we look upon our case
to be in a manner helpless. Our end is near, (x>.
18.) the end both of our church and of our state;
we are just at the brink of the ruin of both; nav,
our end js come, we are utterly undone, a fatal, final
period is put to all our comforts, the days of our
prosperity are fulfilled, they are numbered and fin¬
ished. ” Thus their fears concurred with the hopes
of their enemies, that the Lord would no more re¬
gard them. For, (1.) The refuges they fled to dis¬
appointed them. They looked for help from this and
the other powerful ally, but to no purpose, it proved
vain help, the succours they expected did not come
in, or at least they had not the success they ex¬
pected, and their eyes failed with looking for that
which never came; {y. 17.) they watched in watch¬
ing, they watched long, and with a great deal of
earnestness and impatience, for a nation that pro¬
mised them assistance, but failed them, and frus¬
trated their expectations, they could not save them,
they were too weak to contend with the Chaldean
army, and therefore retired. Help from creatures
is vain help, (Ps. lx. 11.) and we may look for it
till our eyes fail, till our hearts fail, and come short
of it at last. (2.) The persecutors they fled from
overtook them, and overcame them; (x>. 18.) They
hunt our steps, that we cannot go into our streets.
When the Chaldeans besieged the city, they raised
their batteries so high above the walls, that they
could command the town, and shoot at people
as they went along the streets; they hunted them
with their arrows from place to place. When the
city' was broken up, and all the men of war fled,
their persecutors were swifter than the eagles of
heaven when they' fly upon their prey, (y. 19. ) there
was no escaping them; they pursued them upon the
mountains, and when they thought they had got
clear of them, they fell into the hands of those that
laid wait for them in the wilderness, to cut off their
retreat, and to pick up stragglers; nav, the king
himself, though he may be supposed to have all the
advantages the exigence of the case would admit tf
favour his flight, yet he cannot escape, for divine
vengeance pursues him with them, and then, (x>.
582
LAMENTATIONS, V.
20.) The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the
Lord, was taken in their pits. Some apply it to
Josiah, who was killed in battle by the king of Egypt;
but it is rather to be understood of Zedekiah, who
was the last king of the house of David, and who
was pursued by the Chaldeans, and seized in the
plains of Jericho, Jer. xxxix. 5. He was the anoint¬
ed of the Lord, heir of that family which God had
appointed to the government; he was very much
confided in by the Jewish state; they said, Under
his shadow we shall live among the heathen-, they
promised themselves that the remnant which were
left after Jeconiah’s captivity, should, under the
protection of his government, yet again take root
downward, and bear fruit upward. They thought,
though they were so reduced that they could not
think of reigning over the heathen, as they had
done, yet they might make a shift to live among
them, and not be insulted and pulled to pieces by
them. Thus apt are sinking interests not only to
catch at every twig, but to think it will recover
them. Jerusalem died of a consumption, a flattering
distemper; even when she was ready to expire she
formed some hopeful symptoms to herself, and on
them grounded a hope that she should recover; but
what came of it? The shadow, under which they
thought they should live, proved like that of Jonah’s
gourd, which withered in a night. He that was
the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits, as
if he had been but a beast of prey; so little account
did they make of a person deemed sacred, and not
to be violated! Note, When we make any creature
the breath of our nostrils, and promise ourselves that
we shall live by it, it is just with God to stop that
breath, and deprive us of the life we expected by
it, for God will have the honour of being himself
alone our Life, and the Length of our days.
21. Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of
Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz: the
cup also shall pass through unto thee; thou
shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself
naked. 22. The punishment of thine ini¬
quity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion;
he will no more carry thee away into
captivity : he will visit thine iniquity, O
daughter of Edom ; he will discover thy sins.
David’s psalms of lamentation commonly conclude
with some word of comfort, which is as life from
the dead, and light shining out of darkness; so does
this lamentation here in this chapter. The people
of God are now in great distress, their aspects all
doltful, their prospects all frightful, and their ill-
natured neighbours the Edomites insult over them,
and do all they can to exasperate their destroyers
against them; such was their violence against their
brother Jacob, (Obad. 10.) such their spleen at Je¬
rusalem, of which they cried, Raze it, raze it, Ps.
cxxxvii. 7. Now it is here foretold, for the encou¬
ragement of God’s people,
1. That an end shall be put to Zion’s troubles;
(r>. 22.) The punishment of thine iniquity is ac¬
complished, 0 daughter of Zion; not the fulness of
that punishment which it deserves, but of that which
God has designed and determined to inflict, and
which was necessary to answer the end, the glori¬
fying of God’s justice, and the taking away of their
sin. The captivity, which is the punishment of
'bine iniquity, is accomplished, (Isa. xl. 2.) and he
will no longer keep thee in captivity; so it may be
read, as well as, he will no more carry thee into cap¬
tivity; he will turn again thy captivity, and work a
glorious release for thee. Note, The troubles of
God’s people shall be continued no longer than till
they have done their work for which they were sent.
2. That an end shall be put to Edom's triumphs.
It is spoken ironically ; (y. 21.) “Rejoice and be
glad, O daughter of Edom, go on to insult over Zion
m distress, till thou hast filled up the measure of
thine iniquity; do so, rejoice in thy own present ex¬
emption from the common fate of thy neighbours.”
This is like Solomon’s upbraiding the young man
with his ungovemed mirth, (Eccles. xi. 9.) “ Re¬
joice, O young man, in thy youth; rejoice, if thou
canst, when God comes to reckon with thee, and
that he will do ere long; the cup‘ of trembling, which
it is now Jerusalem’s turn to drink deep of, shall pass
through unto thee, it shall go round till it comes to
be thy lot to pledge it.” Note, This is a good rea¬
son why we should not insult over any who are in
misery, because we ourselves also are in the body,
and we know not how soon their case may be ours.
But those who please themselves in the calamities
of God’s church, must expect to have their doom,
as aiders and abettors, with them that are instru¬
mental in those calamities. The destruction of the
Edomites was foretold by this prophet; (Jer. xlix.
7, &c.) and the people of God must encourage
themselves against their present rudeness and inso¬
lence with the prospect of it. (1.) It will be a
shameful destruction ; “ The cup that shall pass
unto thee shall intoxicate thee;” (and that is shame
enough to any man;) “ thou shalt be drunken, quite
infatuated, and at thy wits’ end, shalt stagger in all
thy counsels, and stumble in all thy enterprises, and
then, as Noah, when he was drunk, thou shalt make
thyself naked, and expose thyself to contempt.”
Note, Those who ridicule God’s people, will justly
be left to themselves to do that, some time or other,
by which they will be made ridiculous. (2.) It will
be a righteous destruction; God will herein visit thine
iniquity, and discover thy sins; he will punish them,
and, to justify himself therein, he will discover
them, and make it to appear that he has just cause
thus to proceed against them. Nay, the punish¬
ment of the sin shall so exactly answer the sin, that
it shall itself plainly discover it. Sometimes God
does so visit the iniquity, that he that runs may
read the sin in the punishment. But, sooner or late, r,
sin will be visited and discovered, and all the hidden
works of darkness brought to light.
CHAP. V.
This chapter, though it has the same number of verses with
the 1st, 2nd, and 4th, is not alphabetical, as they were,
but the scope of it is the same with that of all the fore¬
going elegies. We have in it, I. A representation of
the present calamitous state of God’s people in their
captivity, v. 1 . . 16. II- A protestation of their concern
for God’s sanctuary, as that which lay nearer their heart
than any secular interest of their own, v. 17, 18. III. A
humble supplication to God, and expostulation with him,
for the returns of mercy; (v. 19.. 22.) for they that la¬
ment, and do not pray, sin in their lamentations. Some
ancient versions call this chapter, The Prayer of Jeremiah.
1. T® EMEMBER, O Lord, what is
come upon us : consider, and be¬
hold our reproach. 2. Our inheritance is
turned to strangers, our houses to aliens.
3. We are orphans and fatherless, our mo¬
thers are as widows. 4. W e have drunken
our water for money ; our wood is sold un¬
to us. 5. Our necks are under persecution :
we labour, and have no rest. 6. We have
given the hand to the Egyptians, and to the
Assyrians, to be satisfied w ith bread. 7.
Our fathers have aincd, and are not : and
we have borne their iniquities. 8. Servants
have ruled over us; there is none that, doth
583
LAMENTATIONS, V.
deliver us out of their hand. 9. We gat
our bread with the peril of our lives, be¬
cause of the sword of the w ilderness. 10.
Our skin was black like an oven, because
of the terrible famine. 11. They ravished
the women in Zion, and the maids in the
cities of Judah. 12. Princes are hanged
up by their hand: the faces of elders were
not honoured. 13. They took the young
men to grind, and the children fell under
the wood. 14. The elders have ceased
from the gate, the young men from their
music. 15. The joy of our heart is ceased ;
our dance is turned into mourning. 16.
The crown is fallen from our head: wo
unto us that we have sinned!
Is any afflicted? Let him pray; and let him in
raver pour out his complaint to God, and make
nown bef re him his trouble; the people of God do
so here; being overwhelmed with grief, they give
vent to their sorrows at the footstool of the throne
of grace, and so give themselves ease; they com¬
plain not of evils feared, but of evils felt; “ Re¬
member what is come upon us; (v. 1.) what was of
old threatened against us, and was long in the com¬
ing, is now at length come upon us, and we are ready
to sink under it. Remember what is past, consider
and behold what is present, and let not alt the trou¬
ble we are in seem little to thee, and not worth taking
n tice of,” Nell. ix. 32. Note, As it is a .great com¬
fort to us, so it ought to be a sufficient one, in our
tr ubles, that God sees, and considers, and remem¬
bers, all that is come upon us; and in our prayers we
need only to recommend our case to his gracious and
compasionate consideration. The one word in which
all their grievances are summed up, is, reproach;
Consider, and behold our reproach. The troubles
thev were in, compared with their former dignity
and plentv, were a greater reproach to them than
they would have been to any other people, especi-
ally considering their relation to God, and depend¬
ence upon him, and his former appearances for
them; and therefore this they complain of very
sensible, because, as it was a reproach, it reflected
upon the name and honour of that God who had
owned them for his people. And what wilt thou do
unto thy great name?
I. They acknowledge the reproach of sin which
thev bear, the reproach of their youth, (which
Ephraim bemoans himself for. Jer. xxxi. 19.) of the
early davs of their nation. This comes in, in the
midst of their c mpLints, (r. 7.) but may well be
put in the front of them; Our fathers have sinned,
and are not, they are dead and gone, but we have
borne their iniquities. This is not here a peevish
c mplaint, or an imputation of unrighteousness to
God, like that which we have, Jer. xxxi. 29. Ezek.
xviii. 2. The fathers did eat sour grapes, and the
children’s teeth are set on edge, and therefore the
wans of the Lord are not equal; but it is a penitent
confession of the sins of their ancestors, which they
themselves also had persisted in, for w nich they
now justlv suffered; the judgments God brought
upon them were so very great, that it appeared that
God h 'din them an eve to the sins of their ances¬
tors, (because they had not been remarkably punish¬
ed in this world,) as well as to their own sins; and
thus God was justified both in his connivance at
their ancestors, (he laid up their iniquity for their
children,') and in his severity with them, on whojn
he visited that iniquity, M itth. xxiii. 35, 36. Thus
they do here, 1. Submit themselves to the divine
justice; “Lord, thou art just in all that is brought
upon us, for we are a seed of evil-doers, children
of wrath, and heirs of the curse; we are sinful, and
we have it by kind.” Note, The sins which God
looks back upon in punishing we must look back
upon in repenting, and must take notice of all that
which will help to justify God in correcting us. 2.
They refer themselves’to the divine pity; “Lord,
our fathers have sinned, and we justly smart for
their sins; but they are not, they were taken away
from the evil to come, they lived not to see and share
in these miseries that are come upon us, and we are
left to bear their iniquities; now, though herein God
is righteous, yet it must be owned that our case is pi¬
tiable, and worthy of compassion.” Note, If we be
penitent and patient under what we suffer for the
sins of our fathers, we may expect that he who
punishes will pity, and will soon return in mercy to us.
II. They represent the reproach of trouble which
they bear, in divers particulars, which tend much
to their disgrace.
1. They are disseized of that good land which
God gave them, and their enemies have got posses¬
sion of it, v. 2. Canaan was their inheritance, it
was theirs by promise, God gave it to them and
their seed, and they held it by grant from his crown;
(Ps. cxxxvi. 21, 22.) but now, “It is turned to
strangers, they possess it, who have no right to it,
who are strangers to the commonwealth of Israel,
and aliens to the covenants of promise, they dwell in
the house that we built, and this is our reproach.”
It is the happiness of all God’s spiritual Israel, that
the heavenly Canaan is an inheritance that they
cannot be disseized of, that shall never be turned to
strangers.
2. Their state and nation are brought into a con¬
dition like that of widows and orphans; ( y . 3.) “ We
are fatherless, helpless, we have none to protect us,
to provide for us, to take any care of us: our king
who is the father of the country, is cut off; nay, God
our Father seems to have forsaken us and cast us
off; our mothers, our cities, that were as fruitful
mothers in Israel, are now as widows, are as wives
whose husbands are dead, destitute of comfort, and
exposed to wrong and injury-, and this is our re¬
proach; for we who made a figure, are now looked
on with contempt.”
3. They are put hard to it to provide necessaries
for themselves and their families, whereas once
thev lived in abundance, and had plenty of every
thing. Water used to be free and easily come bv,
but now, (v. 4.) We have drunk our water for
money, and the saying is no longer true, Usus com¬
munis aquarum — Water is free to all. So hardly
did their oppressors use them, that they could not
hav e a draught of fair water but they must purchase
it either with money or with work! Formerly they
had fuel too for the fetching; but now, “Our wood
is sold to us, and we pay dear for every faggot.”
Now were they punished for employing their chil¬
dren to gather wood for fire, with which to bake
cakes for the queen of heaven, Jer. vii. 18. They
were perfectly proscribed by their oppressors, were
forbidden the use both of fire and water, according
to the ancient form, Interdico tibi aqual et igni — 1
forbid thee the use of water and fre. But what
must they do for bread? Truly that was as hard to
come by as any thing, for, (1.) Some of them sold
their liberty for it; (i'. 6.) “ We have given the hana
to the Egyptians and to the Assyrians, have made
the best bargain we could with them, to serve them,
that we might be satisfied with bread. We were
glad to submit to the meanest employment, upon
the hardest terms, to get a sorry livelihood; we have
yielded ourselves to be their vassals, have parted
with all to them, as the Egyptians did to Pharaoh in
i the years of famine, that we might have something
i«4 LAMENTATIONS, V.
tor ourselves and families to subsist on.” The
neighbouring nations used to trade with Judah for
wiieat, (Ezek. xxvii. 17.) for it was a fruitful land;
out now it eats up the inhabitants, and they are
glad to make court to the Egyptians and Assyrians.
(2.) Others of them ventured their lives for it; (x>.
9. ) We got our bread with the fieril of our lives;
when, being straitened by the siege, and all pro¬
visions cut off, they either sallied or stole out of the
city, to fetch in some supply, they were m danger
of falling into the hands ot the besiegers, and being
put to the sword, the sword of the wilderness it is
called, or of the plain, (for so the word signifies,)
the besiegers lying dispersed every where in the
plains that were about the city. Let us take occa¬
sion from hence to bless God for the plenty that we
enjoy, that we get our bread so easily, scarcely witli
the sweat of our face, much less with the peril of
our lives; and for the peace we enjoy, that we can
go out, and enjoy not only the necessary produc¬
tions, but the pleasures, of the country, without any
fear of the sword of the wilderness.
4. They are brought into slavery who were a free
people, and not only their own masters, but masters
of all about them, and this is as much as any thing
their reproach; (x>. 5.) Our necks are under the
grievous and intolerable yoke of persecution; (the
iron yoke which Jeremiah foretold should be laid
upon them, Jer. xxviii. 24. ) we are used like beasts
■ n the yoke, that wholly serve their owners, and are
it the command of their drivers. That which ag¬
gravated the servitude, was, (1.) That their labours
were incessant, like those of Israel in Egypt, who
were daily tasked, nay, overtasked; We labour, and
'mve no rest, neither leave nor leisure to rest. The
oxen in the yoke are unyoked at night and have rest,
so they have, by a particular provision of the law,
on the sabbath-day; but the poor captives in Baby¬
lon, who were compelled to work for their living,
laboured, and had no rest, no night’s rest, no sab¬
bath-rest; they were quite tired out with continual
toil. (2.) That their masters were insufferable; (it.
8.) Servants have ruled over us; and nothing is
more vexatious than a servant when he reigns, Prov.
xxx. 22. They were not only the great men of the
Chaldeans that commanded them, but even the
meanest of their servants abused them at pleasure,
and insulted over them; and they must be at their
beck too. The curse of Canaan is now become the
doom of Judah; A servant of servants shall he be.
They would not be ruled by their God, and by his
servants the prophets, whose rule was gentle and
gracious, and therefore justly are they ruled with
rigour by their enemies and their servants. (3.)
That they saw no probable way for the redress of
their grievances; There is none that doth deliver us
out of ther hand; not only none to rescue us out of
our captivity, but none to check and restrain the in¬
solence of the servants that abuse us, and trample
upon us;” which one would think their masters
should have done, because it was an usurpation of
their authority; but, it should seem, they connived
at it, and encouraged it, and as if they were not wor¬
thy of the correction of gentlemen, they are turned
over to the footmen to be spurned by them. Well
might they pray, Lord, consider, and behold our
reproach.
5. They who used to be feasted, are now famished;
(v. 10.) Our skin was black like an oven, dried and
parched too, because of the terrible famine, the
storms of famine; (so the word is;) for though fa¬
mine comes gradually upon a people, yet it comes
violently, and bears down all before it, and there is
no resisting of it; and this also is their disgrace;
hence we read of the reproach of famine, wliich in
captivity they received among the heathen, Ezek.
xxxvi. 30.
6. All sorts of people, even they whose persons
and characters were most inviolable, were abused
and dishonoured. (1.) The women were ravished,
even the women in Zion, that holy mountain, v. 11.
The committing of such abominable wickedness
there is very justly and sadly complained of. (2.)
The great men were not only put to death, but put
to ignominious deaths; Princes were hanged, as it
they had been slaves, by the hands of the Chaldeans,
(x1. 12.) who took a pride in doing this barbarous
execution with their own hands. Some think that
the dead bodies of the princes, after they were slain
with the sword, were hung up, as the bodies of
Saul’s sons, in disgrace to them, and as it were to
expiate the nation’s guilt. (3.) No respect was
showed to magistrates, and those in authority; The
faces of elders; elders in age, elders in office, were
not honoured; this will be particularly remembered
against the Chaldeans another day; (Isa. xlvii. 6.)
Upon the ancient hast thou very heavily laid thy
yoke. (4. ) The tenderness of youth was no more
considered than the gravity of old age; (v. 13.)
They took the young men to grind at the hand-mills,
nay, perhaps at the horse-mills. The young men
have carried the grist; so some; have carried the
mill, or mill-stones, so others. They loaded them
as if they had been beasts of burthen, and so broke
their backs when they' were young, and made the
rest of their lives the more miserable. Nay, they
made the little children carry their wood home for
fuel, and laid such burthens upon them, that they
fell down under them. So very inhuman were these
cruel taskmasters!
7. An end was put to all their gladness, and their
joy was quite extinguished; (x>. 14.) The young
men, who used to be disposed to mirth, have ceased
from their music, have hung their harps upon the
willow-trees. It does indeed well become old men
to cease from their music, it is time to lay it by with
a gracious contempt, when all the daughters of mu¬
sic are brought low; but it speaks some great ca¬
lamity upon a people, when their young men are
made to cease from it. It was so with the body of
the people; ( v . 15.) The joy of their heart was
ceased, they never knew what |oy was since the
enemy came in upon them like a flood, for ever since
deep called unto deep, and one wave flowed in upon
the neck of another, so that they were quite over¬
whelmed; Our dance is turned into mourning; in¬
stead of leaping for joy, as formerly, we sink and lie
down in sorrow. This may refer especi illy to the
joy of their solemn feasts, and the dancing used in
them, (Judg. xxi. 21.) which was not only modest,
but sacred dancing; this was turned into mourning,
which was doubled on their festival days, in remem¬
brance of their former pleasant tilings.
8. An end was put to all their glory. (1.) The
public administration of justice was their glory, but
that was gone; The elite «•- have ceased from the
gate; (y. 14.) the course of justice, which used to
run down like a river, is now stopped; the courts
of justice, which used to be kept with so much so¬
lemnity, are put down; for the judges are slain, or
carried captives. (2.) The royal dignity was their
glory, but that also was gone; The crown is fallen
from our head; not only the king himself fallen
into disgrace, but the crown; he has no successor;
the regalia are all lost. Note, Earthly crowns are
fading, falling things; but, blessed be God, there is
a crown of glory that fades not away, that never
f ills; a kingdom that cannot be moved. Upon this
complaint, but with reference to all the foregoing
complaints, they make that penitent acknowledg¬
ment, “ Wo unto us that we have sinned! Alas for
us! Our case is very deplorable, and it is all owing
to ourselves; we are undone, and, which aggravates
the matter, we are undone by our own hands; God
585
LAMENTATIONS. V.
is righteous, for we have sinned.” Note, All our
woes are owing to our own sin and folly. If the
crown of our head be fallen, (for so the words run,)
if we lose our excellency, and become mean, wi
may thank ourselves, we have by our own iniquity
profaned our crown, and laid our honour in the dust.
1 7. For this our heart is faint ; for these
things our eyes are dim, 18. Because of
the mountain of Zion, which is desolate,
die foxes walk upon it. 19. Thou, O Lord,
remainest for ever ; thy throne from genera¬
tion to generation. 20. Wherefore dost thou
forget us for ever, and forsake us so long
time? 21. Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord,
and we shall be turned ; renew our days as
of old. 22. But thou hast utterly rejected
us ; thou art very wroth against us.
Here, 1. The people of God express the deep
concern they had for the ruins of the temple, more
than for any other of their calamities; the interests
of God’s house lay nearer their hearts than those
of their own; (v. 17, 18.) For this our heart is
faint, and sinks under the load of its own heaviness;
for these things our eyes are dim, and our sight is
gone, as is usual in a deliquium, or fainting fit; “ It
is because of the mountain of Zion, which is deso¬
late, the holy mountain, and the temple built upon
that mountain. For other desolations our hearts
grieve, and our eyes weep; but for this our hearts
faint, and our eyes are dim.” Note, Nothing lies
so heavy upon the spirits of good people as that
which threatens the ruin of religion, or weakens its
interests; and it is a comfort if we can appeal to
God, that that afflicts us more than any temporal
affliction to ourselves. The people had polluted the
mountain of Zion with their sins, and therefore God
has justly made it desolate, to that degree, that the
foxes walk upon it, as freely and commonly as they
do in the woods. It is sad indeed when the moun¬
tain of Zion is become a portion for foxes; (Ps.
lxiii. 10.) but sin had first made it so, Ezek. xiii. 4.
2. They comfort themselves with the doctrine of
God’s eternity, and the perpetuity of his govern¬
ment; (v. 19.) But thou , O Lord, remainest for
ever. This they are taught to do bv that Psalm
which is entitled, A Prayer of the afflicted, Ps. cii.
27, 28. When all our creature-comforts are re¬
moved from us, and our hearts fail us, we may then
encourage ourselves with the belief, (1.) Of God’s
eternity; Thou remainest forever. What shakes
the world gives no disturbance to him who made it;
whatever revolutions there are on earth, there is no
change in the Eternal Mind; God is still the same,
and remains for ever infinitely wise and holy, just
and good; with him there is no variableness nor
shadow of turning. (2.) Of the never-failing con¬
tinuance of his dominion; Thy throne is from gene¬
ration to generation ; the throne of glory, the throne
of grace, and the throne of government, are all un¬
changeable, immovable: and this is matter of com¬
fort to us when the crown is fallen from our head.
When the thrones of princes, that should be our
protectors, are brought to the dust, and buried in it,
God’s throne continues still; he still rales the world,
and rules it for the good of his church. The Lord
reigns, reigns for ever, even thy God, 0 Zion.
3. They humbly expostulate with God concern¬
ing the low condition they were now in, and the
frowns of heaven they were now under; (v. 20.)
“ Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, as if we
were quite cast out of mind? f Therefore dost thou
forsake us so long time, as if we were quite de¬
prived of the tokens of thy presence? Wherefore
Vol. iv. — 4 E
dost thou defer our deliverance, as if thou hadst ut¬
terly abandoned us ? Thou art the same, and,
though the throne of thy sanctuary is demolished,
thy throne in heaven is unshaken. But wilt thou
not be the same to us?” Not as if they thought God
had forgotten and forsaken them, much less feared
his forgetting and forsaking them for ever; but thus
they express the value they had for his favour and
presence, which they thought it long that they were
deprived of the evidence and comfort of. The last
verse may be read as such an expostulation, and so
the margin reads it; “ For wilt thou utterly reject
us? Wilt thou be perpetually wroth with us; not
only not smile upon us, and remember us in mercy,
but frown upon us, and lay us under the tokens of
thy wrath; not only not draw nigh to us, but cast us
out of- thy presence, and forbid us to draw nigh unto
thee? How will this be reconciled with thy good¬
ness and faithfulness, and the stability of thy cove¬
nant?” We read it, “ But thou hast rejected us;
thou hast given us cause to fear that thou hast. Lord,
how long shall we be in this temptation?” Note,
Though we may not quarrel with God, yet we may
plead with him; and though we may not conclude
that he has cast us off, yet we may (with the pro¬
phet, Jer. xii. 1.) humbly reason with him concern¬
ing his judgments, especially the continuance of the
desolations of his sanctuary.
4. They earnestly pray to God for mercy and
grace; “Lord, do not reject us for ever, but turn
thou us unto thee, renew our days,” v. 21. Though
these words are not put last, yet the Rabbins, be¬
cause the}’ would not have the book to conclude
with those melancholy words, (k. 22.) repeat this
prayer again, that the sun may not set under a cloud,
and so make these the last words, both in writing
and reading this chapter. They here pray, (1.)
For converting grace, to prepare and qualify them
for mercy; Turn us to thee, 0 Lord. They had
complained that God had forsaken and forgotten
them, and then their prayer is not. Turn thou to us,
but, Turn us to thee; which implies an acknowledg¬
ment that the cause of the distance was in them¬
selves. God never leaves any till they first leave
him, nor stands afar off any longer than while
they stand afar off frcm him; if therefore he turn
them to him in a way of duty, no doubt but he will
quickly return to them in a way of mercy. This
agrees with that repeated prayer, (Ps. lxxx. 3, 7,
19.) Turn us again, and then cause thy face to
shine. Turn us from our idols to thyself, by a sin¬
cere repentance and reformation, and then we shall
be turned. This implies a further acknowledgment
of their own weakness and inability to turn them¬
selves. There is in our nature a bent to backslide
from God, but no disposition to return to him till his
grace works in us both to will and to do. So neces¬
sary is that grace, that we may truly say, Turn us,
or we shall not be turned, but shall wander end¬
lessly; and so powerful and effectual is that grace,
that we may as truly say, Turn us, and we shall be
turned; for it is a day of power, almighty power,
in which God’s people are made a willing people,
Ps. cx. 3. (2.) For restoring mercy; Turn us to
thee, and then renew our days as of old, put us into
the same happy state that our ancestors were in long
ago, and that they continued long in; let it be with
us as it was at the first, and at the beginning, Isa. i.
26. Note, If God by his grace renew cur hearts,
he will by his favour renew our days, so that we
shall renew our youth as the eagle, Ps. ciii. 5. Thev
that repent, and do their first works, shall rejoice,
and recover their first comforts. God’s mercies to
his people have been ever of old; (Ps. xxv. 6.) and
therefore they may hope, even then when he seems
to have forsaken and forgotten them, that the mercy
which was from everlasting will be to everlasting.
AN
EXPOSITION,
WITH
PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS,
OF THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET
EZEKIEL.
When we entered upon the writings of the Prophets, which speak of the things that should be hereafter, we
seemed to have the same call that St. John had, (Rev. iv. 1.) Come up. hither ; but when we enter upon
the prophecy of this book, it is as if the voice said, Come up higher, as we go forward in time; for
Ezekiel prophesied in the captivity', as Jeremiah prophesied just before it; so we soar upward in dis¬
coveries yet more sublime of the divine glory. 1 hese waters of the sanctuary still grow deeper; so
far are they from being fordable, that in some places they are scarcely fathomable; yet, deep as they
are, out of them flow streams which make glad the city of our God, the holy place of the tabernacles oj
the Most High. As to this prophecy now before us, we may inquire,
I. Concerning the penman of it — it was Ezekiel; his name signifies, The strength of God; or one girt
or strengthened of God. He girded up the loins of his mind to the service, and God put strength into
him. Whom God calls to any service he will himself enable for it; if he gives commission, he will
give power to execute it. Ezekiel’s name was answered when God said, (and no doubt did as he said,)
I have made thy face strong against their faces. The learned Selden, in his book De Diis Syris, says
that it was the opinion of some of the ancients, that the prophet Ezekiel was the same with that Naza-
ratus Assvrius, whom Pythagoras (as himself relates) had for his tutor for some time, and whose lec¬
tures he attended; and it is agreed that they lived mucli about the same time. We have reason to
think that many of the Greek philosophers were acquainted with the sacred writings, and borrowed
some of the best of their notions from them. If we may credit the tradition of the Jews, he was put to
death by the captives in Babylon, for his faithfulness and boldness in reproving them; it is stated that
they dragged him upon the stones till his brains were dashed out. An Arabic historian says that he
was put to death, and was buried in the sepulchre of Shem the son of Noah. So Hottinger relates,
Thesaur. Philol. lib. ii. cap. 1.
II. Concerning the date of it — the place whence it is dated, and the time when. The scene is laid in
Babylon, when it was a house of bondage to the Israel of God; there the prophecies of this book were
preached, there they were written, when the prophet himself, and the people to whom he prophesied,
were captives there. Ezekiel and Daniel are the only writing prophets of the Old Testament who
lived and prophesied any where but in the land of Israel, except we add Jonah, who was sent to Nineveh
to prophesy. Ezekiel prophesied in the beginning of the captivity, Daniel in the latter end of it; it was
an indication of God’s good will to them, and his gracious designs concerning them in their affliction,
that he raised up prophets among them, both to convince them, when, in the beginning of their troubles,
they were secure and unhumbled, which was Ezekiel’s business, and to comfort them, when, in the
1 utter end of their troubles, they were dejected and discouraged. If the Lord had been pleased to kill
them, he would not have used such apt and proper means to cure them.
III. Concerning the mutter and scope of it; 1. There is much in it that is very mysterious, dark, and hard
to be understood; especially in the beginning and the latter end of it; which therefore the Jewish
rabbins forbade the reading of to their young men, till they came to be thirty years of age, lest by the
difficulties they met with there they should be prejudiced against the scriptures; but if we read these
difficult parts of scripture with humility and reverence, and search them diligently, though wemay not be
able to untie all the knots we meet with, no more than we can solve all the phxnomena in the book
of nature, vet we may from them, as from the book of nature, gather a great deal for the confirming
of our faith, and the encouraging of our hope, in the God we worship. 2. Though the visions here
be intricate, such as an elephant may swim in, yet the sermons are mostly plain, such as a lamb
may wade in; and the chief design of them is to show God’s people their transgressions, that in their
captivity they might be repenting, and not repining. It should seem, he was constantly attended, for
we read of their sitting before him as God’s people sat to hear his words; ( ch . xxxiii. 31.) and that he
was occasionally consulted, for we read of the elders of Israel who came to inquire of the Lord by him,
( ch . xiv. 1, 3.) And as it was of great use to the oppressed captives themselves to have a prophet with
them, so it was a testimony to their holy religion against their oppressors, who ridiculed it and them.
3. Though the reproofs and the threatenings here be very sharp and bold, yet toward the close of the
book very comfortable assurances are given of great mercy God had in store for them; and there, at
length, we shall meet with something that has reference to gospel-times, and. which was to have its ac¬
complishment in the kingdom of the Messiah, of whom indeed this prophet speaks less than almost any
of the prophets. But by opening the terrors of the Lord he prepares Christ’s way; by the law is the
knowledge of sin, and so it becomes our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. The visions, which weie
587
EZEKIEL, 1.
the prophet’s credentials, we have, ch, i. — iii. the reproofs and threatenings, ch. iv. — xxiv. and betwixt
the comforts we have in the latter part of the book we have messages sent to the nations that bordered
upon tlie land of Israel, whose destruction is foretold, {ch. xxv. — xxxv. ) to make way for the restoration
of God’s Israel, and the re-establishment of their city and temple, which are foretold, ch. xxxvi. to the
end. Those who would apply the comforts to themselves, must apply the convictions to themselves.
The Book of the Prophet EZEKIEL.
CHAP. I.
In this chapter, we have, I. The common circumstances
of the prophecy now to be delivered, the time when it
was delivered, (v. 1.) the place where, (v. 2.) and the
person by whom, v. 3. II. The uncommon intro¬
duction to it by a vision of the glory of God; 1. In
his attendance and retinue in the upper world, where his
throne is surrounded with angels, here called living
creatures, v. 4 . . 14. 2. In his providences concerning
the lower world, represented by the wheels and their
motions, v. 15. . 26. 3. In the face of Jesus Christ sit¬
ting upon the throne, v. 26 . . 28. And the more we are
acquainted, and the more intimately we converse, with
the glory of God in these three branches of it, the more
commanding influence will divine revelation have upon
us, and the more ready shall we be to submit to it,
which is the thing aimed at in prefacing the prophecies
of this book with these visions. When such a God of
glory speaks, it concerns us to hear with attention and
reverence; it is at our peril if we do not.
1. l^TOW it came to pass in the thirtieth
year, in the fourth month , in the fifth
day of the month, as I was among the cap¬
tives by the river of Chebar, that the hea¬
vens were opened, and I saw visions of
God. 2. In the fifth day of the month,
(which teas the fifth year of king Jehoiachin’s
captivity,) 3. The word of the Lord came
expressly unto Ezekiel the priest, the son
of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans, by
the river Chebar; and the hand of the Lord
was there upon him.
The circumstances of the vision which Ezekiel
saw, and in which he received his commission and
instructions, are here very particularly set down,
t’.iat the narrative may appear to be authentic, and
not romantic. It may be of use to keep an account
when and where God has been pleased to manifest
himself to our souls in a peculiar manner, that the
return of the day, and our return to the place of the
altar, (Gen. xiii. 4.) may revive the pleasing,
grateful remembrance of God’s favour to us. “ Re¬
member, O my soul, and never forget what commu¬
nications of divine love thou didst receive at such a
time, at such a place; tell others what God did for
thee.”
I. The time when Ezekiel had this vision, is here
recorded. It was in the thirtieth year, v. 1. Some
make it the thirtieth year of the prophet’s age;
being a priest, he was at that age to enter upon the
full execution of the priestly office, but being de¬
barred from that by the iniquity and calamity of
the times, now that they had neither temple nor
altar, God at that age called him to the dignity of a
prophet. Others make it to be the thirtieth year
from the beginning of the reign of Nabopolasser, the
father of Nebuchadnezzar, from which the Chal¬
deans began a new computation of time, as they had
done from Nabonassar one hundred and twenty-
three years before. Nabopolasser reigned nineteen
years, and this was the eleventh of his son, which
makes the thirty. And it was proper enough foi
Ezekiel, when he was in Babylon, to use the com¬
putation they there used; as we in foreign countries
date bv the new style; and he afterwards uses the
melancholy computation of his own countn', ob¬
serving, {v. 2.) that it was the fifth year of Jehoia¬
chin’s captivity. But the Chaldee Paraphrase fixes
upon another era, and says that this was the thir¬
tieth year after Hilkiah the / iriest found the book of
the law in the house of the sanctuary, at midnight,
after the setting of the moon, in the clays of Josiah
the king. And it is true, that this was just thirty
years from that time; and that was an event so re¬
markable, (as it put the Jewish state upon a new
trial,) that it was proper enough to date from it;
and perhaps therefore the prophet speaks indefinite¬
ly of thirty years, as having an eye both to that
event, and to the Chaldean computation, which
were coincident.
It was in the fourth month, answering to our
June, and in ihe fifth day of the month, that Ezekiel
had this vision, v. 2. It is probable that it was cn
the sabbath-day, because we read {ch. iii. 16.) that
at the end of seven days, which we may well sup¬
pose to be the next sabbath, the word of the Lord
came to him again. Thus John was in the Sfiirit on
the Lord's day, when he saw the visions of the Al-
mighty. Rev. i. 10. God would hereby put an
honour upon his sabbaths, then when the enemies
mocked at them, Lam. i. 7. And he would here
thus encourage his people to keep up their attend¬
ance on the ministry of his prophets every sabbath-
day, by the extraordinary manifestations of himself
on some sabbath-days.
II. The melancholy circumstances he was in
when God honoured him, and thereby favoured his
people, with this vision. He was in the land of the
Chaldeans, among the cafitives, by the river of
Chebar, and it was in the fifth year of king Jehoia¬
chin’s cafitivity. Observe,
1. The people of God were now, some of them,
cafitives in the land of the Chaldeans. The body
of the Jewish nation yet remained in their own land,
but these were the first-fruits of the captivity, and
they were some of the best: for in Jeremiah’s vision
these were the good Jigs, whom God had sent into
the land of the Chaldeans for their good ; (Jer. xxiv.
5.) and that it might be for their good, God raised
up a prophet among them, to teach them out of the
law, then when he chastened them, Ps. xciv. 12.
Note, It is a great mercy to have the word of God
brought us, and a great duty to attend to it diligently
when we are in affliction. The word of instruction
and the rod of correction may be of great service to
us, in concert and concurrence with each ether;
the word to explain the rod, and the rod to enforce
the word; both together give wisdom. It is happy
for a man, when he is sick and in pain, to have a
messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a
thousand, if he have but his ear open to discipline.
Job. xxxiii. 23. One of the quarrels God had with
the Jews, when he sent them into captivity, was
for mocking his messengers and misusing his pro¬
phets; and yet when they were suffering for this
sin, he favoured them with this forfeited mercy.
It were ill with us if God did not sometimes gra¬
ciously thrust upon us those means of grace and
salvation which we have foolishly thrust from us.
In their captivity they wanted ordinary' helps for
their souls, and therefore God raised them up these
extraordinary ones; for God’s children, if they be
588
EZEKIEL, J.
hindered in their education one way, shall have it
made up another way. But observe, It was in the
fifth year of the captivity that Ezekiel was raised
up among them, and not before. So long God left
them without any prophet, till they began to lament
after the Lord, and to complain that they saw not
their signs, and there was none to tell them how
long; (Ps. lxxiv. 9.) and then they would know how
to value a prophet, and God’s discoveries of himself
to them by him would be the more acceptable and
comfortable. The Jews that remained in their own
land had Jeremiah with them, those that were gone
into captivity had Ezekiel with them; for wherever
the children of God are scattered abroad he will
find out tutors for them.
2. The prophet was himself among the captives,
those of them that were posted by the river Chebar;
for it was by the rivers of Babylon that they sat
down, and on the willow-trees by the rivers’ side
that they hanged their harps, Ps. cxxxvii. 2. The
planters in America keep along by the sides of the
rivers, and perhaps those captives were employed
by their masters in improving some parts of the
country by the rivers’ sides that were uncultivated,
the natives being generally employed in war; or
they employed them in manufactures, and there¬
fore chose to fix them by the sides of rivers, that
the goods they made might the more easily be con¬
veyed by water-carriage. Interpreters agree not
what river this of Chebar was, but among the cap-
tives by that river Ezekiel was, and himself a
captive.
Observe here, (1.) The best men, and those that
are ’dearest to God, often share, not only in the
common calamities of this life, but in the public and
national judgments that are inflicted for sin; they
feel the smart who contributed nothing to the guilt;
by which it appears that the difference between
good and bad arises not from the events that befall
them, but from the temper and disposition of their
spirits under them. And since not only righteous
men, but prophets, share with the worst in present
punishments, we may infer thence, with the great¬
est assurance, that there are rewards reserved for
them in the future state. (2.) Words of conviction,
counsel, and comfort, come best to those who are in
affliction from their fellow-sufferers. The cafitives
will be best instructed by one who is a cafitive
among them, and experimentally knows their sor¬
rows. (3.) The spirit of prophecy was not confined
to the land of Israel, but seme of the brightest of
divine revelations were revealed in the land of the
Chaldeans, which was a happy presage of the car¬
rying of the church, with that divine revelation upon
which it is built, into the Gentile world; and as now,
so afterward, when the gospel-kingdom was to be
set up, the dispersion of the Jews contributed to the
spreading of the knowledge of God. (4.) Wherever
we are, we may keep up our communion with God.
Undique ad ccelos tantundem est vise — From the
remotest corners of the earth we may find a way
ofien heavenward. (5.) When God’s ministers are
bound, the word of the Lord isnot bound, 2 Tim. ii.
9. When St. Paul was a prisoner, the gospel had
a free course. When St. John was banished into
the Isle of Patmos, Christ visited him there; nay,
God’s suffering servants have generally been treated
as favourites, and their consolations have much
more abounded then when affliction has abounded,
2 Cor. i. 5.
III. The discovery which God was pleased to
make of himself to the prophet, when he was in
these circumstances, to be by him communicated to
his people. He here tells us what he saw what he
heard, and what he felt.
1. He saw visions of God, v. 1. No man can
see God, and live; but many have seen visions of
j God, such display’s of the divine glory as have both
instructed and affected them; and commonly when
i God first revealed himself to any prophet, he did
it by an extraordinary vision, as to Isaiah, (c/i. 6.)
to Jeremiah, ( ch . 1.) to Abraham; (Acts vii. 2.) to
settle a correspondence and a satisfactory way of
intercourse, so that there needed not afterward a
vision upon every revelation. Ezekiel was employ¬
ed in turning the hearts of the people to the Lord
their God, and therefore he must himself see the
visions of God. Note, It concerns those to be well
acquainted with God themselves, and much affected
with what they know of him, whose business it is to
bring others to the knowledge and love of him.
That he might see the visions of God, the heavens
were opened; the darkness and distance which hin¬
dered his visions were conquered, and he was let
into the light of the glories of the upper world, as
near and clear as if heaven had been opened to
him.
2. He heard the voice rf God; (r>. 3.) The word
of the Lord came exfiressly to him, and what he
saw was designed to prepare him for what he was
to hear. The expression is emphatical, Essendo
fuit verbum Lei — The word of the Lord was
really as it was to him; there was no mistake in it;
it came to him in the fulness of its light and power,
in the evidence and demonstration of the Spirit; it
came close to him, nay, it came into him, took pos¬
session of him, and dwelt in him richly: it came ex¬
firessly, or accurately, to him; he did himself
clearly understand what he said, and was abun¬
dantly satisfied of the truth of it. The essential
Word, (so we may take it,) the Word who is, who
is what he is, came to Ezekiel, to send him on his
errand.
3. He felt the power of God opening his eyes to
see the visions, opening his< ear to hear the voice,
and opening his heart to receive both; The hand oj
the Lord was there ufion him. Note, The hand oj
the Lord goes along with the word of the Lord, and
so it becomes effectual; those only understand and
believe the report, to whom the arm of the Lord is
revealed. The hand of God was ufion him, as upon
Moses to cover him, that he should not be over¬
come by the dazzling light and lustre of the visions
he saw, Exod. xxxiii. 22. It was ufion him, (as
upon St. John, Rev. i. 17.) to revive and support
him, that he might bear up, and not faint, under
these discoveries. That he might neither be lifted
up nor cast down with the abundance of the revela¬
tions, God’s grace is sufficient for him, and, in token
of that, his hand is ufion him.
4. And I looked, and, behold, a whirl¬
wind came out of the north, a great cloud,
and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness
teas about it, and out of the midst thereof,
as the colour of amber, out of the midst of
the fire: 5. Also out of the midst (hereof
came the likeness of four living creatures.
And this was their appearance; they had
the likeness of a man. 6. And every one
had four faces, and every one had four
wings. 7. And their feet were straight feet,
and the sole of their feet was like the sole of
a calf’s foot; and they sparkled like the co¬
lour of burnished brass. 8. And they had
the hands of a man under their wings, on
their four sides; and they four had their
faces and their wings. 9. Their wings were
joined one to another; they turned not
589
EZEKIEL, I.
when they went; they went every one
straight forward. 10. As for the likeness
of their faces, they four had the face of a
man, and the face of a lion on the right side;
and they four had the face of an ox on the
left side; they four also had the face of an
eagle. 11. Thus were their faces: and their
wings were stretched upward; two icings
of every one were joined one to another, and
two covered their bodies. 12. And they
went everyone straight forward: whither
the spirit was to go, they went; and they
turned not when they went. 13. As for the
likeness of the living creatures, their ap¬
pearance was like burning coals of fire, and
iike the appearance of lamps: it went up
and down among the living creatures; and
the fire was bright, and out of the fire went
forth lightning. 14. And the living crea¬
tures ran and returned as the appearance
of a flash of lightning.
The visions of God which Ezekial here saw,
were very glorious, and had more particulars than
those which other prophets saw. It is the scope
and intention of these visions,
1. To possess the prophet’s mind with verv great
and high and honourable thoughts of that God by
whom he was commissioned, and for whom he was
employed. It is the likeness of the glory of the
Lord that he sees, (n. 28.) and from hence he may
infer that it is his honour to serve him, for he is one
whom angels serve; he may serve him with safetv,
for he has power sufficient to bear him out in his
work; it is at his peril to draw back from his service,
for he has power to pursue him, as he did Jonah;
so great a God as this must be served with reve¬
rence and godly fear; and with assurance may
Ezekiel foretell what this God will do, for he is able
to make his words good.
2. To strike a terror upon the sinners who re¬
mained in Zion, and those who were already come
to Babylon, who were secure, and bid defiance to
the threatenings of Jerusalem’s ruin, as we have
found in Jeremiah’s prophecy, and shall find in this,
many did; “Let those who said, We shall hax’e
peace, though we go on, know that our God is a
consuming Fire, whom they cannot stand before. ”
That this vision had a reference to the destruction
of Jerusalem, seems plain from ch. xliv. 3. where
he says that it was the vision which he saw when he
came to destroy the city, to prophesy the destruction
of it.
3. To speak comfort to those that feared God,
and trembled at his word, and humbled themselves
under his mighty hand; “Let them know that
though they are captives in Babylon, yet they have
God nigh unto them; though they have not the
place of the sanctuary to be their glorious high
throne, they have the God of the sanctuary.” Dr.
Lightfoot observes, “ Now that the church is to be
planted for a longtime in another country, the Lord
shoals a glory in the midst of them, as he had done
at their first constituting into a church in the wil¬
derness, and out of a cloud and fire, as he had done
there, he showed himself, and from between living
creatures, as from between the cherubims, he gives
his oracles.” This put an honour upon them, by
which they might value themselves when the Chal¬
deans insulted over them; and this might encourage
-heir hopes of deliverance in due time.
Now, to answer these ends, we have in these
verses the first part of the vision, which represents
God as attended and served by an innumerable c< m
pany of angels, who are all his messengers, . .is
ministers, doing his commandments, and hearken¬
ing to the voice of his word; this denotes his gran¬
deur; as it magnifies an earthly prince to have a
splendid retinue, and numerous armies at his com
mand; thus his allies are led to trust in him, and
his enemies to fear him.
I. l'he introduction to this vision of. the angels is
very magnificent and awakening, v. 4. The pro¬
phet, observing the heavens to open, looked, looked
up, (as it was time,) to see what discoveries God
would make to him. Note, When the heavens are
opened, it concerns us to have our eves open. To
clear the way, behold, a whirlwind came out of the
north, which would drive away the interposing
mists of this lower region; fair weather comes out
of the north, and thence the wind comes that drives
away rain. God can by a whirlwind clear the sky
and air, and produce that serenity of mind wh ch is
necessary to o.ur communion with Heaven. Yet
this whirlwind was attended with a great cloud;
when we think that the clruds which arise from
this earth are dispelled, and we can see beyond
them, yet still there is a cloud which heavenly
things are wrapt- in, a cloud from above, so that we
cannot order our speech concerning them by reason
of darkness. Christ here descended, as he ascend¬
ed, in a cloud. Some by this whirlwind and cloud
understand the Chaldean army coming out of the
north against the land of Judah, bearing down all
before them as a tempest; and so it agrees with
that which was signified by one of the first of Jere¬
miah’s visions, (Jer. i. 14.) Out of the north an evil
shall break forth; but I take it here as an introduc¬
tion rather to the vision than to the sermons. This
whirlwind came to Ezekiel, as that to Elijah, (1
Kings xix. 11.) to prepare the way of the Lord, and
to demand attention. He that has eyes, that has
ears, let him see, let him hear.
II. The vision itself. A great cloud was the ve¬
hicle of this vision, in which it was conveyed to the
prophet; for God’s pavilion in which he rests, his
chariot in which he rides, is darkness and thick
clouds; (Ps. xviii. 11. — civ. 3.) thus he holds back
the face of his throne, lest its dazzling light and lus¬
tre should overpower us, by spreading a cloud upon
it. Now,
1. The cloud is accompanied with a fire, as upon
mount Sinai, where God resided in a thick cloud;
but the sight of his glory was like dex’ouring fire,
(Exod. xxiv. 16, 1”.) and his first appearance to
Moses was in a flame of fire in the bush; for our
God is a consuming Fire. This was a fire infold¬
ing itself; a globe, or orb, or wheel, of fire; G< d
being his own Cause, his own Rule, and his own
End, if he be as a fire, he is as a fire infolding it¬
self or as some read it, kindled by itself. The Hie
of God’s glory shines forth, but it quickly infolds it¬
self, for he lets us know but part of his ways; the
fire of God’s wrath breaks forth, but it also quickly
infolds itself, for the divine patience suffers not all
his wrath to be stirred up. If it were not a fire
thus infolding itself, O Lord, who shall stand?
2. The fire is surrounded with a glory; A bright¬
ness was about it, in which it infolded itself, yet it
made some discovery of itself. Though we camv t
see into the fire, cannot by searching find out God
to perfection, yet we see *4-e brightness that is round
about it, the reflection ot this fire from the thick
cloud. Moses might see God’s back parts, but not
his face; we have some light concerning the nature
of God, from the brightness which encompasses it,
though we fiave not an insight into it, by reason of
the cloud spread upon it. Nothing is more easy
590
EZEKIEL, I
than to determine that God is; nothing more diffi
cult than to describe what he is. When God dis¬
plays his wrath as fire, yet there is a brightness
about it; for his holiness and justice appear very
illustrious in the punishment of sin and sinners: even
about the devouring Jire there is a brightness,
which glorified saints will for ever admire.
.1. Out ut this fire there shines the colour of am¬
ber; we are not told who or what it was that had
this colour of amber, and therefore I take it to be
the whole frame of the following vision, which came
into Ezekiel’s view out of the midst of the fire and
brightness; and the first thing he took notice of be¬
fore he viewed the particulars, was, that it was of
the colour of amber, or the eye of amber; it looked
as amber does to the eye, of a bright flaming fiery
colour, the colour of a burning coal; so some think
it should be read. The living creatures which he
saw coming out of the midst of the Jire, were sera-
fihims — burners, for he maketh his angels spirits,
his ministers a Jlamingfire.
4. That which comes out of the fire, of a fiery
amber colour, when it comes to be distinctly viewed,
is the likeness of four living creatures; not the liv¬
ing creatures themselves, (angels are spirits, and
cannot be seen,) but the likeness of them, such a
hieroglyphic, or representation, as God saw fit to
make use of for the leading of the prophet, and us
with him, into some acquaintance with the world of
angels, (a matter purely of divine revelation,) so
far as is requisite to possess us with an awful sense
of the greatness of that God who has angels for his
attendants, and the goodness of that God who has
appointed them to be attendants on his people; The
likeness of these living creatures came out of the
midst of the Jire; for angels derive their being and
power from God, they are in themselves, and to us,
what he is pleased to make them; their glory is a
ray of his. The prophet himself explains this
vision, (ch. x. 20.) I know that the living creatures
•were the cherubims, which is one of the names by
which the angels are known in scripture. To Daniel
was made known their numbers, ten thousand times
ten thousand, Dan. vii. 10. But though they are
m my, yet they are one, and that is made known to
Ezekiel here; they are one in nature and operation,
as an army, consisting of thousands, is yet called a
body of men. We have here an account of,
(i.) Their nature; they are living creatures, they
are the creatures of God, the work of his hands,
their being is derived, they have not life in and of
themselves, but receive it from him who is the
Fountain of life. As much as the living creatures
of this lower world excel the vegetables that are the
ornaments of the earth, so much do the angels, the
living creatures of the upper world, excel the sun,
moon, and stars, the ornaments of the heavens.
The sun, say some, is aflame of Jire infolding itself,
but it is not a living creature, as angels, those flames
of fire, are. Angels are living creatures, living be¬
ings, emphatically so; men on earth are dying crea¬
tures, dying daily, (in the midst of life we are in
death,) but angels in heaven are living creatures,
they live indeed, live to good purpose, and when
saints come to be eyual unto the angels, they shall
not die any more, Luke xx. 36.
(2.) Their number; they are four, so they ap¬
pear here, though they are innumerable; not as if
these were four particular angels set up above the
rest, as some have fondly imagined, Michael and
Gabriel, Raphael and Uriel, but for the sake of the
four faces they put on, and to intimate their being
sent forth toward the four winds of heaven; (Matth.
xxiv. 31.) Zechariah saw them as four chariots
going forth, east, wrst, north, and south, Zech. vi. 1.
God has messengers to send each way; for his king¬
dom is universal, and reaches to all parts of the world.
I (3.) Their qualifications, by which they are fitted
for the service of their Maker a" 1 Master. These
are set forth figuratively and b) similitude, as is
proper in visions, which are parables to the eye.
Their description here is such, and so expressed,
that, I think, it is not possible by it to torm an ex¬
act idea of them in our fancies, or with the pencil,
for that would be a temptation to worship them;
but the several instances of their fitness for the
work they are employed in, are intended in the se¬
veral parts of this description. Note, It is the
greatest honour of God’s creatures to be in a ca¬
pacity of answering the end of their creation; and
the more ready we are to every good work, the
nearer we approach to the dignity of angels.
These living creatures are described here,
[1.] By their general appearance; They had the
likeness of a man, they appeared, for the main, in a
human shape. First, To signify that these living
creatures are reasonable creatures, intelligent be¬
ings, who have that spirit of a man, which is the
candle of the Lord. Secondly, To put an honour
upon the nature of man, who is made lower, yet but
a little lower than the angels, in the very next rank
of beings below them; when the invisible intelli¬
gences of the upper world would make themselves
visible, it is in the likeness of man. Thirdly, To
intimate that their delights are with the sons of
men, as their Master’s are, (Prov. viii. 31.). that
they do service to men, and men may have spiritual
communion with them by faith, hope, and holy love.
Fourthly, The angels of G(d appear in the likeness
of man, because in the fulness of time the Son of
God was not only to appear in that likeness, but to
assume that nature; they therefore show this love
to it. •
[2.] By their faces; every one had four faces,
looking four several ways. In St. John’s vision,
which has a near affinity with this, each of t(ie four
living creatures has one of these faces here mention¬
ed; (Rev. iv. 7.) here each of them has all four, to
intimate that they have all the same qualifications
for service; though, perhaps, among the angels of
heaven, as among the angels of the churches, some
excel in one gift, and others in another, but all for
the common service* Let us contemplate their
faces till we be in some measure changed into the
same image, that we may do the will of God as the
angels do it in heaven. They all four had the face
of a man; (for in that likeness they appeared, v. 5.)
but, beside that, they had the face of a lion, an ox,
and an eagle, each masterly in his kind; the lion
among wild beasts, the ox among tame ones, and
the eagle among fowls, v. 10. Docs God make use
of them for the executing of judgments upon his
enemies? They are fierce and strong as the lion
and the eagle in tracing their prey. Does he make
use of them for the good of lus people? They are
as oxen, strong for labour and inclined to serve.
And in both they have the understanding of a man.
The scattered perfections of the living creatures on
earth meet in the angels in heaven. They have
the likeness of a man; but, because there are some
things in which man is excelled even by the inferior
creatures, they are therefore compared to some of
them; they have the understanding of a man, and
such as far exceeds it; they also_ resemble man in
tenderness and humanity; but, First, A lion excels
man in strength and boldness, and is much more
formidable; therefore the angels, who in this resem¬
ble them, put on the face of a lion. Secondly, yin
ox excels man in diligence and patience, and pains¬
taking, and an unwearied discharge of the work he
has to do; therefore the angels, who are constantly
employed in the service of God and the church, pu-'
on the J'ace of an ox. Thirdly, An eagle excels
man in quickness and piercingness of sight, and ii
591
EZEKIEL, 1.
soaring high; and therefore the angels, who seek
things above, and see far into divine mysteries, put
on the face of a fiying eagle.
[3. ] By their wings; Every one had four wings,
v. 6. In the vision Isaiah had of them, they ap¬
peared with six, now with four; for they appeared
^bove the throne, and had occasion for two to
cover their faces with. The angels are fitted with
wings, to fly swiftly on God’s errands: whatever
business God sends them upon, they lose no time.
Faith and hope are the soul’s wings, upon which it
soars upward; pious and devout affections are its
wings on which it is carried forward, with vigour
and alacrity. The prophet observes here, concern¬
ing their wings, First, That they were joined one
to another, (t>. 9.) and again, v. 11. They did not
make use of their wings for fighting, as some birds
do, there is no contest among the angels, God makes
f trace, perfect peace, in his high /daces; but their
wings were joined in token of their perfect unity
and unanimity, and the universal agreement there
is among them. Secondly, That they were stretched
upward, extended and ready for use, not folded up
or flagging. Let an angel receive the least intima¬
tion of the divine will, and he has nothing to seek,
but is upon the wing immediately; while our poor,
dull souls are like the ostrich, that with much diffi¬
culty lifts up herself on high. Thirdly, That two
of their wings were made use of in covering their
bodies, the spiritual bodies they assumed. '1 he
clothes that cover us, are our hinderance in work;
angels need no other covering than their own wings,
which are their furtherance. They cover their bo¬
dies from us, so forbidding us needless inquiries con¬
cerning them; ask not after them, for they are won¬
derful, Judg. xiii. 18. They cover them before
God, so directing us, when we approach to God, to
see to it that we be so clothed with Christ’s righte¬
ousness, that the shame of our nakedness may not
appear.
[4. ] By their feet, including their legs and thighs;
They were straight feet; {v. 7.) they stood straight,
and firm, and steady, no burthen of service could
make their legs to bend under them. The spouse
makes this part of the description of her beloved,
that his legs were as /ullars of marble set upon
sockets of fine gold; (Cant. v. 15. ) such are the an¬
gels’ legs. The sole of their feet was like that of a
calf’s foot, which divides the hoof, and is therefore
clean; as it were the sole of a round foot, (as the
Chaldee words it,) they were ready for motion any
way. Their feet were winged; (so the Seventy;)
they went so swiftly, that it was as if they flew.
And their very feet sparkled like the colour of bur¬
nished brass; not only their faces, but the very feet,
of those are beautiful, whom God sends on his er¬
rands; (Isa. lii. 7.) every step the angels take is glo¬
rious. In the vision John had of Christ, it is said,
His feet were like unto fine brass, as if they burned
in a furnace. Rev. i. 15.
[5.] By their hands; {v. 8.) They had the hands
of a man under their wings on their four sides; an
arm and a hand under every wing. They had not
only wings for motion, but hands for action. Many
are quick, who are not active; they hurry about a
great deal, but do nothing to purpose, bring nothing
to pass; they have wings, but no hands; whereas
God’s servants, the angels, not only go when he
sends them, and come when he calls them, but do
what he bids them. They are the hands of a man,
which are wonderfully made, and fitted for service;
which are guided by reason and understanding; for
what angels do, they do intelligently and with judg¬
ment. They have calves’ feet; this denotes the
swiftness of their motion; (the cedars of Lebanon
are said to skip like a calf, Ps. xxix. 6.) but they
nave a man’s hand; this denotes the niceness and
exactness of their performances; as the heavens are
said to be the work of God’s fingers. Their hands
were under their wings, which concealed them as
they did the rest of their bodies. Note, The agency
of angels is a secret thing, and their work is carried
on in an invisible way. In working for God, though
we must not, with the sluggard, hide our hand in
our bosom, yet we must, with the humble, not let
our left hand know what our right hand doeth.
We may observe, that where these wings were,
their hands were under their wings; wherever their
wings carried them, they carried hands along with
them, to be still doing something suitable, something
that the duty of the place requires.
(4.) Their motions. The living creatures are
moving; angels are active beings; it is not their hap¬
piness to sit still, and do nothing, but to be always
well employed, and we must reckon ourselves then
best, when we are doing good; doing it as the angels
do it, of whom it. is here observed,
[1.] That whatever service they went about,
they went every one straight forward, (v. 9, 12.)
which intimates, First, That they sincerely aimed
at the glory of God, and had a single eye to that,
in all they did; their going straight forward sup¬
poses that they looked straight forward, and never
had any sinister intentions in what they did. And
if thus our eye be single, our whole body will be full
of light; the singleness of the eye is the sincerity of
the heart. Secondly, That they were intent upon
the service they were employed in, and did it with
a close application of mind; they went forward with
their work; for what their hand found to do, they
did it with all their might, and did not loiter in it.
Thirdly, That they were unanimous in it; they went
straight forward, every one about his own work,
they did not thwart or justle one another, did not
stand in one another’s light, in one another’s way.
Fourthly, That they perfectly understood their bu¬
siness, and were thoroughly apprized of it, so that
they needed not to stand still to pause or hesitate,
but they pursued their work with readiness, as
those that knew what they had to do, and how to
do it. Fifthly, They were steady and constant in
their work; they did not fluctuate, did not tire, did
not vary, byt were of a piece with themselves;
they moved in a direct line, and so went the near¬
est way to work, in all they did, and lost no time.
When we go straight, we go forward, when we
serve God with one heart, we rid ground, we rid
work.
[2.] They turned not when they went, v. 9, 12.
First, They made no blunders or mistakes, which
would give them occasion to turn back to rectify
them ; their work needed no correction, and there¬
fore needed not to be gone over again. Secondly,
They minded no diversions; as they turned not back,
so they turned not aside, to trifle away with any
thing that was foreign to their business.
[3.] They went whither the Spirit was to go: (v.
12. ) either, First, Whither their own spirit was dis¬
posed to go: thither they went, having no bodies, as
we have, to clog or hinder them. It is our infelicity
and daily burthen, that, when the spirit is willing
yet the flesh is weak, and cannot keep pace with it,
so that the good which we would do, we do it not;
but angels and glorified saints labour under no such
impotency, whatever they incline or intend to do,
they do it, and never come short of it. Or. rather.
Secondly, Whithersoever the Spirit of God would
have them go thither they went; though they had
so much wisdom of their own, yet in all their mo¬
tions and actions they subjected themselves to the
conduct and government of the divine will; whith¬
ersoever the divine providence was to go, they went,
to serve its purposes, and to execute its orders. The
Spirit of God (says Mr. Greenhill) is the grea*
592
EZEKIEL, I.
Agent that sets angels to work, and it is their honour
that they are led, they are easily led, by the Spirit.
See how tractable and obsequious these noble crea¬
tures arc! Whithersoever the Spirit is to go, they
o immediately, with all possible alacrity. Note,
hose that ivalk after the Spirit, do the will of God
as the angels do it.
• [4-] They ran and returned like a flash of light¬
ning, v. 14. This intimates, First, That they made
haste; they were quick in their motions, as quick as
lightning: whatever business they went about, they
despatched it immediately, in a moment, in the
twinkling of an eye. Happy they that have no bo¬
dies to retard their motion in holy exercises! And
happy shall we be when we come to have spiritual
bodies for spiritual work ! Satan falls like lightning
into his own ruin, Luke x. 18. Angels flv like light¬
ning in their Master’s work; the angel Gabriel flew
swiftly. Secondly, That they made haste back;
they ran, and returned; ran to do their work, and
execute their orders, and then returned to give an
account of what they had done, and receive new
instructions, that they might be always doing. They
ran into the lower world, to do what was to be done
there; but when they had done it, they returned
like a flash of lightning tc the upper world again,
to the beatific vision of their God, which they could
not with any patience be lunger from than their ser¬
vice did require. Thus we should be in the affairs
of this world as out of our element; though we run
into them, we must not repose in them, but our souls
must quickly return like lightning to God their Rest
and Centre.
Lastly, W e have an account of the light by which
the prophet saw these living creatures, or the look¬
ing-glass in which he saw them, v. 13. [1.] He
saw them bv their own light, for their appearance
was like burning coals of fire; they are seraphims
-burners; denoting the ardour of their love to God,
their fervent zeal in his service, their splendour and
brightness, and their terror against God’s enemies.
When God employs them to flght his battles, they
are as coals office, (Ps. xviii. 12.) to devour the
adversaries as lightnings shot out to discomfit them.
[2. ] He sa w them by the light of some lamps, which
went up and down among them, the shining where¬
of was wry bright. Satan’s works are works of
darkness, he is the ruler of the darkness of this
world; but the angels of light are in the light, and
though they conceal their working, they show their
work, for it will bear the light. But we see them
and their works only by candle-light, by the dim
light of lamps that go up and down among them;
when the day breaks, and the shadows flee away,
we shall see them clearly. Some make the appear¬
ance of these burning coals, and of the lightning that
issues out of the fire, to signify the wrath of God,
and his judgments, that were 'now to be executed
upon Judah and Jerusalem for their sins, in which
angels were to be employed: and accordingly we
find afterward coals office scattered upon the city
to consume it, which were fetched from between
the cherubims, ch. x. 2. But by the appearance of
the lamps then, we may understand the light of com¬
fort which shone forth to the people of God in the
darkness of this present trouble. If the ministry of
the angels is as a consuming fire to God’s enemies,
it is as a rejoicing light to his own children. To
the one this fire is bright, it is very reviving and
refreshing: to the other, out of the fire comes
fresh lightning to destroy them. Note, Good an¬
gels are our friends, or enemies, according as God is.
15. Now, as I beheld the living creatures,
behold, one wheel upon the earth by the
living creatures, with his four faces. 16.
The appearance of the wheels and the-r
work was like unto the colour of a beryl;
and they four had one likeness: and their
appearance and their weak was as it were
a wheel in the middle of a wheel. 1 7. When
they went, they went upon their four sides;
and they turned not when they went. 1 8.
As for their rings, they were so high, that
they were dreadful; and their rings were
full of eyes round about them four. 19. And
when the living creatures w ent, the wheels
went by them ; and when the living crea¬
tures were lifted up from the earth, the
wheels were lifted up. 20. Whithersoever
the spirit was to go, they went, thither was
their spirit to go ; and die wheels w ere lifted
up over against them : for the spirit of thp
living creature teas in the wheels. 2 1 . When
those went, tlw&e went ; and when those
stood, these stood ; and when those were
lifted up from the earth, the wheels were
lifted up over against them: for the spirit
of the living creature was in the wheels. 22.
And the likeness of the firmament upon the
heads of the living creature was as the co¬
lour of the terrible crystal, stretched forth
over their heads above. 23. And under the
firmament icere their wings straight, the one
toward the other: every one had two, which
covered on this side, and every one had*
two, which covered on that side, their bo¬
dies. 24. And when they went, I heard
tire noise of their wings, like, the noise of
great waters, as the voice of the Almighty,
the voice of speech, as the noise of a host:
when they stood, they let dow n their wings.
25. And there w as a voice from the firma¬
ment that was over their heads, when they
stood, and had let down their wings.
The prophet is very exact in making and record¬
ing, his •observations concerning this vision. And
here we have, 1
I. The notice he took of the wheels, v. 15. — 21.
The glory of God appears not only in the splendour
of his retinue in the upper world, hut in the steadi¬
ness of his government here in this lower world.
Having seen how God doeth according to his will
in the armies of heaven, let us now see how he
doeth according to it among the inhabitants of the
earth; for there, on the earth, the prophet saw the
wheels, y. 15. As he beheld the living creatures,
and was contemplating the glory of that vision, and
receiving instruction from it, this other vision pre¬
sented itself to his view. Note, Those who make
a good use of the discoveries God has favoured them
with, may expect further discoveries; for to him
that hath shall be given. We are sometimes tempt¬
ed to think there is nothing glorious but what is in
the upper world, whereas, could we with an eye
of faith discern the beauty of Providence, and the
wisdom, power, and goodness, which shine in the
administration of that kingdom, we should see, and
sav, Verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth,
and acts like himself. There are many things in
i
593
EZEKIEL, I.
this vision which give us some light concerning the
Di vine Providence.
1. The dispensations of Providence are compared
to wheels, either the wheels of a chariot, in which
the conqueror rides in triumph, or, rather, the
wheels of a clock or watch, winch all contribute to
the regular motion of the machine. We read of the
course or wheel of nature, (James iii. 6.) which is
here set before us as under the direction of the God
of nature. Wheels, though they move not of them¬
selves, as the living creatures do, are yet made
moveable, and are almost continually kept in action.
Providence, represented by these wheels, produces
changes; sometimes one spoke of the wheel is up¬
permost, and sometimes another; but the motion of
the wheel on its own axle-tree, like that of the orbs
above, is very regular and steady. The motion of
the wheels is circular; by the revolutions of provi¬
dence things are brought to the same posture and
pass which they were in formerly; for the thing that
is, is that which has been, and there is no new thing
under the sun, Eccl. i. 9, 10.
2. The wheel is said to be by the living creatures,
who attended it to direct its motion; for the angels
are employed as the ministers of God’s providence,
and have a greater hand in directing the motions of
second causes to serve the divine purpose than we
think they have. Such a close connexion is there
between the living creatures and the wheels, that
they moved and rested together. W ere angels busily
employed? Men were busily employed, as instru¬
ments in their hand, whether of mercy or judgment,
though they themselves were not aware of it. Or,
Are men active to compass their designs? Angels at
the same time are acting to control and overrule them.
This is much insisted on here; (v. 19.) When the
living creatures went, to bring about any business, the
wheels went by them; when God has work to do by
the ministry of angels, second causes are all found,
or made, ready to concur in it; and (x\ 21.) when
those stood, these stood; when the angels had done
their work, the second causes had done theirs. If
the living creatures were lifted u/i from the earth,
were elevated to any service above the common
course of nature, and out of the ordinary road, as
supposed in the working of miracles, the dividing
of the water, the standing still of the sun, the
wheels, contrary to their own natural tendency,
which is toward the earth, move in concert with
them, and are lifted up over against them; this is
thrice mentioned, v. 19. — 21. Note, All inferior
creatures are, and move, and act, as the Creator,
by the ministration of angels, directs and influences
them. Visible effects are managed and governed
by invisible causes.
The reason given of this, is, because the s/iirit of
the living creatures was in the wheels; the same
wisdom, power, and holiness of God, the same
will and counsel of his, that guides and governs the
angels, and all their performances, does, by them,
order and dispose of all the motions of the creatures
in this- lower world, and the events and issues of
them. God is the Soul of the world, and animates
the whole, both that above, and that beneath, so
that they move in perfect harmony, as the upper
and lower parts of the natural body do; so that
whithersoever the Spirit is to go, whatever God
wills and purposes to be done and brought to pass,
thither their spirit is to go; the angels, knowingly
and designedly, set themselves to bring it about, and
their spirit is in the wheels, which are therefore
lifted up over against them; both the powers of
nature and the wills of men, are all made to serve
the intention, winch they infallibly and irresistibly
effect, though perhaps they mean not so, neither
doth their heart think so, Isa. x. 7. Mic. iv. 11, 12.
Vol. iv. — 4 F
Thus, though the will of God’s precept be not dont
on earth, as it is done in heaven, yet the will of his
purpose and counsel is, and shall be.
3. The wheel is said to have four faces, looking
four several ways, (i>. 15.) denoting that the pro¬
vidence of God exerts itself in all parts of the world,
east, west, north, and south, and extends itself to
the remotest corners of it. Look which way you
will upon the wheel of Providence, and it has a face
toward you, a beautiful one, which you may admire
the features and complexion of; it looks upon you as
ready to speak to you, if you be but read); to heat
the voice of it; like a well-drawn picture, it has an
eye upon all that have an eye upon it.
The wheel had so four faces, that it had in it four
wheels, which went upon their four sides, v. 17. At
first, Ezekiel saw it as one wheel, ( v . 15.) one
sphere; but afterward, he saw it was four, but they
four had one likeness; (y. 16.) not only they were
like one another, but they were as if they had been
one. This intimates, (1.) That one event of pro¬
vidence is like another; what happens to us is that
which is common to men, and what we are not to
think strange. (2.) That various events have a
tendency to the same issue, and concur to answer
the same intention.
4. Their appearance and their work are said to be
like the colour of a beryl, ( v . 16.) the colour of
Tarshish, (so the word is,) that is, of the sea; the
beryl is of that colour, sea-green; blue J\reptune we
call it. The nature of things in this world is like
that of the sea, which is in a continual flux, and yet
there is a constant coherence and succession of its
parts. There is a chain of events which is always
drawing one way or other. The sea ebbs and
flows, so does providence in its disposals, but always
in the stated, appointed times and measures. The
sea looks blue, as the air does, because of the short¬
ness and feebleness of our sight, which can see but
a little way of either; to that colour therefore are
the appearance and work of Providence fitly com¬
pared, because we cannot find out that which God
does from the beginning to the end, Eccl. iii. 11.
We see but parts of his ways, (Job xxvi. 14.) and all
beyond looks blue, which gives us to understand no
more concerning it, but that in truth we know it
not, it is far above out of our sight.
5. Their appearance and their work are likewise
said to be as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel.
Observe here again, Their appearance to the pro¬
phet is designed to set forth what their work really
is; men’s appearance and their work often differ,
but the appearance of God’s providence and its
work agree; if they seem to differ, it is through our
ignorance and mistake. Now both were as a wheel
in a wheel, a lesser wheel moved by a greater; we
pretend not to give a mathematical description of it;
the meaning is, that the disposals of Providence
seems to us intricate, perplexed, and unaccountable,
and yet that they will appear in the issue to have
been all wisely ordered for the best; so that though
what God does we know not now, yet we shall know
hereafter, John xiii. 7.
6. The motion of these wheels, like that of the
living creatures, was steady, regular, and constant;
They returned not when they went, (n. 17.) because
they ntver went amiss, nor otherwise than they
should do. God, in his providence, takes his work
before him, and he will have it forward; and it is
going on even then when it seems to us to be going
backward. They went as the Spirit directed them,
and therefore returned not. We should not hav ;
occasion to return back as we have, and to undo that
by repentance which we have done amiss, and to do
it over again, if we were but led by the Spirit, and
followed his conduct. The Spirit of life (so some
594
read it) was in the wheels, which carried them on
with ease and evenness, and then they returned not
when they went.
7. The rings, or rims, of the wheels were so high,
that they were dreadful, v. 18. They were of a
vast circumference, so that when they were reared,
and put in motion, the prophet was even afraid to
look upon them. Note, The vast compass of God’s
thought, and the vast reach of his design, are really
astonishing; when we go about to describe the cir¬
cle of Providence, we are struck with amazement,
and are even swallowed up. O the height and
depth of God’s counsels! The consideration of them
should strike an awe upon us.
8. They were full of eyes round about. This
circumstance of the vision is most surprising of all,
and yet most significant, plainly denoting that the
motions of Providence are all directed by infinite
wisdom. The issues of things are not determined
by a blind fortune, but by those eyes of the Lord,
which run to and fro through the earth, and are
in every place, beholding the evil and the good.
Note, It is a great satistaction to us, and ought to
be so, that, though we cannot account for the springs
and tendencies of events, yet they are all under the
cognizance and conduct of an all- wise, all-seeing God.
II. The notice he took of the firmament above,
over the heads of the living creatures. When he
saw the living creatures moving, and the wheels by
them, he looked up, as it is proper for us to do when
we observe the various motions of providence in this
lower world; looking up, he saw the firmament
stretched forth over the heads of the living creatures,
v. 22. What is done on earth is done under the
heaven, (as the scripture often speaks,) under its
inspection and influence.
Observe, 1. What he saw; The firmament was
as the colour of the terrible crystal, truly glorious,
but terribly so; the vastness and brightness of it put
the prophet into an amazement, and struck him
with an awful reverence. The terrible ice, or frost;
(so it may be read;) the colour of snow congealed,
or as mountains of ice in the northern seas, which
are very frightful. Daring sinners ask, Can God
judge through the dark cloud? Job xxii. 13. But
that which we take to be a dark cloud, is to him
transparent as crystal, through which, from the
place of his habitation, he looks upon all the inha¬
bitants of the earth, Ps. xxxiii. 14. Under the fir-
mamen' he saw the wings of the living creatures
erect; ( v . 23.) when they pleased, they used them
either f >r flight or for covering, or two for flight,
and two for covering. God is on high, above the
firmament, the angels are under the firmament,
which denotes their subjection to God’s dominion,
and their readiness to fly on his errands in the open
firmament of heaven, and to serve him unanimously.
2. What he heard.
(1.) He heard the noise of the angels’ wings,
v. 24. Bees and other insects make a great noise
with the vibration of their wings; here the angels do
so, to awaken the attention of the prophet to that
which God was about to say to him from the firma¬
ment, v. 25. Angels, by the providences they are
employed in, sound God’s alarms to the children of
men, and stir them up to hear his voice; for that is
it that cries in the city, and is heard and understood
by the men of wisdom. The noise of their wings
was loud and terrible as the noise of great waters,
like the rout or roaring of the sea; and as the noise
of a host, the noise of war; but it was articulate and
intelligible, and did not give an uncertain sound;
for it was the voice of speech; nay it was as the
voice of the Almighty ; for God, by his providences,
sfieaks once, yea twice; if we could but perceive it;
(Job xxxiii. 14. ) the Lord’s voice cries, Mic. vi. 9.
IEL, 1.
(2.) He heard a. voice from the firmament, from
him that sits upon the throne there, v. 25. When
the angels moved, they made a noise with their
wings; but when with that they had roused a care¬
less world, they stood still, and let down their wings,
that there might be a profound silence, and so Gcd’s
voice might be the better heard. The voice of
Providence is designed to open men’s ears to the
voice of the word, to do the office of the crier, who
with a loud voice charges silence while the judge
asses sentence. He that has ears to hear, let him
ear. Note, Noises on earth should awaken our
attention to the voice from the firmament ; for how
shall we escape, if we turn away from him that
speaks from heaven!
26. And above the firmament that was
over their heads was the likeness of a throne,
as the appearance of a sapphire-stone: and
upon the likeness of the throne rocs the like¬
ness as the appearance of a man above upon
it. 27. And 1 saw as the colour of amber, as
the appearance of fire round about within
it; from the appearance of his loins even
upward, and from the appearance of his
loins even downward, I saw it as it were the
appearance of fire, and it had brightness
round about. 28. As the appearance of the
bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain,
so was the appearance of the brightness
round about. This was the appearance of
the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And
when 1 saw it, 1 fell upon my face, and J
heard a voice of one that spake.
All the other parts of this vision were but a pre¬
face and introduction to this. God in them had
made himselfknown as Lord of angels, and supreme
Director of all his affairs of this lower world,
whence it is easy to infer that whatever God by his
prophets either promises or threatens to do, he is
able to effect it; angels are his servants, men are his
tools. But now that a divine revelation is to be
given to a prophet, and by him to the church, we
must look higher than the living creatures of the
wheels, and must expect that from the eternal
Word, of whom we have an account in these verses.
Ezekiel, hearing a voice from the firmament, looked
up, as John did, to see the voice that spake with him,
and he saw one like unto the Son of man, Rev. i.
12, 13. The second Person sometimes tried the
fashion of a man, occasionally, before he clothed
himself with it for good and all ; and the spirit of pro¬
phecy is called the Spirit of Christ, (1 Pet. i. 11.)
and the Testimony of Jesus, Rev. xix. 10.
1. This glory of Christ that the prophet saw,
was above the firmament that was over the heads
of the living creatures, v. 26. Note, The heads of
angels themselves are under the feet of the Lord
Jesus; for the firmament that is over their heads, is
under his feet; angels, principalities, and powers,
are made subject to him, 1 Pet. iii. 22. This dignity
and dominion of the Redeemer before his incarna¬
tion magnify his condescension in his incarnation,
when he was made a little lower than the angels,
Heb. ii. 9.
2. The first thing he observed, was a throne; for
divine revelations come backed and supported with
a royal authority: we must have an eye of faith to
God and Christ as upon a throne. The first thing
that John discovered in his visions was a throne set
in heaven, (Rev. iv. 2.) which commands reverence
69 6
EZEKIEL, II.
and subjection. It is a throne of glory, a throne of
grace, a throne of triumph, a throne of government,
a throne of judgment. The Lord has prepared his
throne in the heavens, lias prepared it for his Son,
whom he has set King on his holy hill of Zion.
3. On the throne he saw the appearance of a man.
This is good news to the children of men, that the
throne above the firmament is filled with one that is
not ashamed to appear, even there, in the likeness
of man. Daniel, in vision, saw the kingdom and
dominion given to one like the Son of man, who
therefore has authority given him to execute judg¬
ment, because he is the Son of man, (John v. 27.) so
appearing in these visions.
4. The prophet sees him as a Prince and Judge
upon this throne; though he appear in fashion as a
man, yet he appears in more than human glory, v.
27. (1.) Is God a shining Light? So is he: when
the prophet saw him, he saw as the colour of am¬
ber, that is, a brightness round about; for God
dwells in light, and covers himself with light as with
a garment. How low did the Redeemer stoop for
us, when, to bring about our salvation, he suffered his
glory to be eclipsed by the veil of his humanity!
(2.) Is God a consuming Fire? So is he: from his
loins, both upward and downward there was the
a/i/iearance of fire. The fire above the loins was
round about within the amber, it was inward and
involved; that below the loins was more outward
and open, and yet that also had brightness round
about. Some make the former to signify Christ’s
divine nature, the glory and virtue of which are
hidden within the colour ■ of amber; it is what no
man has seen, or can see; the latter they suppose to
be his human nature, the glory of which there were
those who saw; the glory as of the Only-begotten
of the Father, full of grace and truth, John i. 14.
He had rays coming out of his hand, and yet there
was the hiding of his power, Hub. iii. 4. The fire
in which the Son of roan appeared here, might be
intended to signify the judgments that were ready to
be executed upon Judah and Jerusalem, coming
from that fiery indignation of the Almighty, which
devours the adversaries. Nothing is more "dreadful
to the most daring sinners than the wrath of him
that sits upon the throne, and of the Lamb, Rev.
vi. 16. The day is coming, when the Lord Jesus
shall be revealed in flaming fire, 2 Tliess. i. 7, 8.
It concerns us therefore to kiss the Son, lest he be
angry.
5. The throne is surrounded with a rainbow; ( v .
28. ) it is so in St. John’s vision; (Rev. iv. 3.) the
brightness about it was of divers colours, as the bow
that is in the cloud in the day of rain; which, as it
is a display of majesty, and looks very great, so it is a
pledge of mercy, and looks very kind; for it is a
confirmation of the gracious promise God has made,
that he will not drown the world again; and he has
said, I will look upon the bow, and remember the
covenant, Gen. ix. 16. This intimates that he who
sits upon the throne, is the Mediator of the cove¬
nant; that his dominion is for our protection, not
our destruction; that he interposes between us and
the judgments our sins have deserved; and that all
the promises of God are in him yea and amen. Now
that the fire of God’s wrath was breaking out against
Jerusalem, bounds should be set to it, and he would
not make an utter destruction of it, for he would
look upon the bow, and remember the covenant, as
he promised in such a case, Lev. xxvi. 42.
Lastly, We have the conclusion of this vision:
(1.) What notion the prophet himself had of it;
This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory
of the Lord. Here, as all along, he is careful to
guard against all gross, corporeal thoughts of God,
which might derogate from the transcendant purity
of his nature. He does not say, This was the Lora,
(for he is invisible,) but, This was the glory of the
Lord, in which he was pleased to manifest himself
a glorious Being; yet it is not the glory of the Lord,
but the likeness of that glory, some faint resem¬
blance of it; nor is it any adequate likeness of that
glory, but only the appearance of that likeness, a
shadow of it, and not the very image of the thing,
Heb. x. 1.
(2.) What impressions it made upon him;
I saw it, I fell upon my face. [1.] He was ovei
powered by it, the dazzling lustre of it conquered
him, and threw him upon his face; for who is able
to stand before this holy Lord God? Or, rather,
[2.] He prostrated himself, in an humble sense of
his own unworthiness of the honour now done him,
and of the infinite distance which he now, more
than ever, perceived to be between him and God;
he fell upon his face, in token of that holy awe and
reverence of God which his mind was possessed
and filled with. Note, The more God is pleased to
make known of himself to us, the more low we
should be before him. He fell upon his face, to
adore the majesty of God, to implore his mercy,
and to deprecate the wrath he saw ready to break
out against the children of his people.
(3.) What instructions he had from it; all he saw
was only tc prepare him for that which he was to
hear, {nr faith comes by hearing: he therefore heard
a voice of one that spake; for we are taught by
words, not merely by hieroglyphics. When he fell
on his face, ready to receive the word, then he
heard the voice of one that spake; for God delights
to teach the humble.
CHAP. II.
What our Lord Jesus said to St. Paul, {Jlcls xxvi. 16.)
may fitly be applied to the prophet Ezekiel, to whom
the same Jesus is here speaking-, Rise, and stand upon
tliy feet, for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to
make tliee a minister. We have here Ezekiel’s ordina¬
tion to his office which the vision was designed to fit him
for; not to entertain his curiosity with uncommon specu¬
lations, but to put him into business. Now here, I.
He is commissioned to go as a prophet to the house of
Israel, now captives in Babylon, and to deliver GocPs
messages to them from time to time, v. 1..5. II. He is
cautioned not to be afraid of them, v. 6. III. He is in¬
structed what to say to them, and has words put into his
mouth, signified by the vision of a roll, which he was
ordered to eat, (v. 7 . . 10.) and which, in the next chap¬
ter, we find he did eat.
1. A ND he said unto me, Son of man,
-TjL stand upon thy feet, and I will speak
unto thee. 2. And the spirit entered into
me when he spake unto me, and set me
upon my feet, that I heard him that spake
unto me. 3. And he said unto me, Son of
man, I send thee to the children of Israel,
to a rebellious nation that hath rebelled
against me: they and their fathers have
transgressed against me, even unto this very
day. 4. For they are impudent children,
and stiff-hearted: I do send thee unto them;
and thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith
the Lord God. 5. And they, whether they
will hear, or whether they will forbear, (for
they are a rebellious house,) yet shall know
that there hath been a prophet among them.
The title here given to Ezekiel, as often after¬
wards, is very observable; God, when he speaks to
him, calls him, Son of man, (v. 1, 3.) Son of Mam,
Son of the earth. Daniel is once called so, (Dan.
viii. 17. ) and but once; the compellation is usee' to
EZEKIEL, II.
no other of the prophets, but to Ezekiel all along.
We may take it, 1. As an humble, diminishing
title; lest Ezekiel should be lifted up with the
abundance of the revelations, he is put in mind of
this, that still he is a son of man, a mean, weak,
mortal creature. Among other tilings made known
to him, it was necessary he should be made to know
this, that he was a son of man, and therefore that
it was wonderful condescension in God, that he was
pleased thus to manifest himself to him. Now he is
among the living creatures, the angels; yet he must
remember that he is himself a man, adying creature.
What is man, or the son of man, that he should be
thus visited, thus dignified? Though God had here
a splendid retinue of holy angels about his throne,
who were ready to go on his errands, yet he passes
them all by, and pitches on Ezekiel, a son of man,
to be his messenger to the house of Israel, for we
have this treasure in earthen vessels, and God’s
messages sent us by men like ourselves, whose ter¬
ror shall not make us afraid, nor their hand be heavy
upon us. Ezekiel was a priest, but the priesthood
was brought low, and the honour ot it laid in the
dust: it therefore became him, and all of his order,
to humble themselves, and to lie low, as sons of
men, common men. He was now to be employed
as a prophet, God’s ambassador, and a ruler over
the kingdoms, (Jer. i. 10.) a post of great honour,
but he must remember that he is a son of man, and
whatever good he did, it was not by any might of
his own, for he was a son of man, but in the strength
of divine grace, which must therefore have all the
glory. Or, 2. We may take it as an honourable,
dignifying title; for it is one of the titles of the
Messiah in the Old Testament; (Dan. vii. 13.) /
saw one like the Son of man come with the clouds
of heaven, from whence Christ borrows the title he
often calls himself by, The Son of man. The pro¬
phets were types of him, as they had near access
to God, and great authority among men; and there¬
fore as David the king is called the Lord’s anointed,
or Christ, so Ezekiel the prophet is called son of
man.
I. Ezekiel is here set up, and made to stand,
that he might receive his commission, v. 1, 2. He
is set up,
1. By a divine command; Son of man, stand
upon thy feet. His lying prostrate was a posture
of great reverence, but his standing up would be a
posture of greater readiness and fitness for business.
Our adorings of God must not hinder, but rather
quicken and excite, our actings for God. He fell
on his face in a holy fear and awe of God, but he
was quickly raised up again; for they that humble
themselves shall be exalted. God delights not in
the dejections of his servants, but the same that
brings them low, will raise them up; the same that
is a Spirit of bondage will be a Spirit of adoption.
Stand, and I will speak to thee. Note, We may
then expect that God will speak to us, when we
stand ready to do what he commands us.
2. By a divine power going along with that com¬
mand, v. 2. God bid him stand up, but because he
had not strength of his own to recover his feet, nor
courage to face the vision, the Spirit entered into
him and set him upon his feet. Note, God is gra¬
ciously pleased to work that in us which he requires
of us, and raises those whom he bids rise. We
must stir up ourselves, and then God will put
strength into us; we must work out our salvation,
and then God will work in us. He observed that
the Spirit entered into him then when Christ spake
to him; for Christ conveys his ’Spirit by his word as
the ordinary means, and makes the word effectual
by the Spirit. The Spirit set the prophet upon his
feet, to raise him up from his dejections, for he is
the Comforter. Thus, in the like case, Daniel was
strengthened by a divine touch, (Dan. x. 18.) and
John was raised by the right hand of Christ laid
upon him, Rev. i. 17. The Spirit set him upon his
feet, made him willing and forward to do as he was
bidden, and then he heard him that spake to him.
He heard the voice before, ( ch . i. 28.) but now he
heard it more distinctly and clearly, heard it, and
submitted to it. The Spirit sets us upon our feet,
by inclining our will to our duty, and thereby dis¬
poses the understanding to receive the knowledge
of it.
II. Ezekiel is here sent, and made to go, with a
message to the children of Israel; (r. 3.) I send
thee to the children of Israel. God had for many
ages been sending to them his servants the prophets,
rising up betimes, and sending them, but to little
purpose, they were now sent into captivity for
abusing God’s messengers; and yet even there God
sends this prophet among them, to try if their ears
were open to discipline, now that they were holden
in the cords of affliction. As the supports of life,
so the means of grace, are continued to us after
they have been a thousand times forfeited. Now
observe,
1. The rebellion of the people to whom this am¬
bassador is sent; he is sent to reduce them to their
allegiance, to bring back the children of Israel to
the Lord their God; let the prophet know that
there is occasion for his going on this errand, for
they are a rebellious nation, (t>. 3.) a rebellious
house, v. 5. They are called children of Israel:
they retain the name of their pious ancestors, but
they are wretchedly degenerated, they are become
Goim — Yations, the word commonly used for the
Gentiles; the children of Israel are become as the
children of the Ethiopian, (Amos ix. 7.) for they
are rebellious; and rebels at home are much more
provoking to a prince than enemies abroad. Their
idolatries and false worships were the sins which,
more than any other, denominated them a rebellious
nation; for thereby they set up another prince in
opposition to their rightful Sovereign, and did ho¬
mage and paid tribute to the usurper, which is the
highest degree of rebellion that can be.
(1.) They had been all along a rebellious genera¬
tion, and had persisted in their rebellion; They and
their fathers have transgressed against me. Note,
Those are not always in the right, that have anti¬
quity and the fathers on their side; for there arc
errors and corruptions of long standing: and it is so
far from being an excuse for walking in a bad way,
that our fathers walked in it, that it is really an
aggravation, for it is justifying the sin of those that
have gone before us. They have continued in their
rebellion even unto this very day; notwithstanding
the various means and methods that have been
made use of to reclaim them, to this day, when they
are under divine rebukes for their rebellion, they
continue rebellious; many among them, like Ahaz,
even in their distress, trespass yet more; they are
not the better for all the changes that have befallen
them, hut still remain unchanged.
(2. ) They were now hardened in their rebellion.
They are impudent children, brazen-faced, and can¬
not blush; they arc stiff-hearted, self-willed, and can¬
not bend, cannot stoop; neither ashamed nor afraid to
sin; they will not be wrought upon by the sense either
of honour or duty. We are willing to hope this was
not the character of all, but of many, and those
perhaps the leading men. Observe, [1.] God
knew this concerning them, how inflexible, how
incorrigible, they were. Note, God is perfectly
acquainted with every man’s true character, what¬
ever his pretensions and professions maybe. [2.]
He told the prophet this, that he might know the
better how to deal with them, and what handle to
take them by. He must rebuke such men as those
597
EZEKIEL, II.
sharply, cuttingly; must deal plainly with them,
though they call it dealing roughly. God tells him
this, that it might be no surprise or stumbling-block
to him, if he found that his preaching should not
make that impression upon them, which he had
reason to think it would.
2. The dominion of the Prince by whom this
ambassador is sent. (1.) He has authority to com¬
mand him whom he sends; “ I do send thee unto
them , and therefore thou shall say thus and thus
unto them,” v. 4. Note, It is the prerogative. of
Christ to send prophets and ministers, and to enjoin
them their work. St. Paul thanked Christ Jesus
who put him into the ministry; (1 Tim. i. 12.) for
as he was sent of the Father, ministers are sent by
him; and as he received the Spirit without mea¬
sure, he gives the Spirit by measure, saying, Re¬
ceive ye the Holy Ghost. They are impudent and
rebellious, and yet I send thee unto them. Note,
Christ gives the means of grace to many who he
knows will not make a good use of those means;
puts many a price into the hand of fools who have
not only no heart to it, but have their hearts turned
against it. Thus he will magnify his own grace,
justify his own judgment, leave them inexcusable,
and make their condemnation more intolerable. (2.)
He has authority by him to command those to
whom he sends him; Thou shall say unto them,
Thus saith the Lord God. All he said to them
must be spoken in God’s name, enforced by his au¬
thority, and delivered as from him. Christ deliver¬
ed his doctrines as a Son; Verily, verily, Isay unto
you; the prophets, as servants. Thus saith the
Lord God, our Master and yours. Note, The
writings of the prophets are the word of God, and
so are to be regarded by every one of us. (3.) He
has authority to call those to an account, to whom
he sends his ambassadors. Whether they will hear,
or whether they will forbear, whether they will at¬
tend to the word, or turn their backs upon it, they
shall know that there has been a prophet among
them, shall know by experience. [1.] If they hear
and obey, they will know by comfortable expe¬
rience, that the word which did them good was
brought them by one that had a commission from
God, and a divine power going along with him in
the execution of it. Thus they who were converted
by St. Paul’s preaching, are said to be seals of his
apostleship, 1 Cor. ix. 2. When men’s hearts are
made to bum under the word, and their wills to
bow to it, then they know and hear the witness in
themselves, that it is not the word of men, but of
God. [2.] If they forbear, if they turn a deaf ear
to the word, (as it is to be feared they will, for they
are a rebellious house,) yet they shall be made to
know that he whom they slighted was indeed a
prophet, by the reproaches of their own consciences,
and the just judgments of God upon them for refus¬
ing him; they shall know it to their cost, know it to
their confusion, know it by sad experience, what a
pernicious, dangerous thing it is to despise God’s
messengers. They shall know by the accomplish¬
ment of the threatenings, that the prophet who
denounced them was sent of God; thus the word
will take hold of men, Zech. i. 6. Note, First,
Those to whom the word of God is sent, are upon
their trial, whether they will hear, or whether they
will forbear, and accordingly their doom will be.
Secondly, Whether we be edified by the word or
no, it is certain that God will be glorified, and his
word magnified and made honourable. Whether it
be a savour of life unto life, or of death unto death,
either way it will appear to be of divine original.
6. And thou, son of man, be not afraid
of them, neither be afraid of their words,
though briers and thorns be. with thee, and
thou dost dwell among scorpions: be not.
afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at
their looks, though they be a rebellious
house. 7. And thou shalt speak my words
unto them, whether they will hear, or whe¬
ther they will forbear: for they are most
rebellious. 8. But thou, son of man, hear
what I say unto thee; Be not thou rebel¬
lious like that rebellious house: open thy
mouth, and eat that I give thee. 9. And
when I looked, behold, a hand was sent
unto me; and, lo, a roll of a book was
therein ; 1 0. And he spread it before me :
and it teas written within and without ; and
there was written therein lamentations, and
mourning, and wo.
The prophet, having received his commission,
here receives a charge with it. It is a post of ho¬
nour to which he is advanced, but withal it is a post
of service and work, and it is here required of him,
I. That he be bold. He must act in the discharge
of this trust with an undaunted courage and resolu¬
tion, and not be either driven off from his work, or
made to drive on heavily, by the difficulties and op¬
positions that he would be likely to meet with in it;
Son of man, be not afraid of them, v. 6. Note,
Those that will do any thing to purpose in the ser¬
vice of God, must not'be afraid of the face of man;
for the fear of men will bring a snare, which will
be very entangling to us in the work of God. 1.
God tells the prophet what was the character of
those to whom he sent him, as before, v. 3, 4.
They are briers and thorns, scratching, and tearing,
and "vexing a man, which way soever he turns.
They are continually teazing God’s prophets, and
entangling them in their talk; (Matth. xxii. 15.)
they are pricking briers and grieving thorns. The
best of them is as a brier, and the most upright
shar/ier than a thorn-hedge, Mic. vii. 4. Thoms
and briers are the fruit of sin and the curse, and of
equal date with the enmity between the seed of the
woman and the seed of the serpent. Note, Wicked
men, especially the persecutors of God’s prophets
and people, are as briers and thorns, which are
hurtful to the ground, choke the good seed, hinder
God’s husbandry, are vexatious to his husbandmen;
but they are nigh unto cursing, and their end is to
be burned: yet God makes use of them sometimes
for the correction and instruction of his people, as
Gideon taught the men of Succoth with thorns and
briers, Judg. viii. 16. Yet this is not the worst of
their character, they are scor/iions, venomous and
malignant; the sting of a scorpion is a thousand
times more hurtful than the scratch of a brier.
Persecutors are a generation of vipers, are of the
serpent’s seed, and the poison of asps is under their
tongue; and they are more subtle than any beast of
the field. And, which makes the prophet’s case the
more grievous, he dwells among these scorpions;
they are continually about him, so that he cannot be
safe or quiet in his own house; these bad men are
his bad neighbours, who thereby have many oppor¬
tunities, and will let slip none to do him a mischief.
God takes notice of this to the prophet, as Christ to
the angel of one of the churches; (Rev. ii. 13.) I
know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even
where Satan’s seat is. Ezekiel had been, in vision,
conversing with angels, but when he comes down
from this mount, he finds he dwells with scorpions.
2. He tells him .what would be their conduct to¬
wards him, that they would do what they could to
frighten him with their looks and their words; they
69 8
EZEKIEL, III.
would hector him and threaten him, would look
scornfully and spitefully at him, and do their utmost
to face him down, and put him out of countenance,
that they might drive him off from being a prophet,
or at least from telling them of their faults, and
threatening them with the judgments of God; or,
if they could not prevail in this, that they might
vex and perplex him, and disturb the repose of his
mind. They were now themselves in subjection,
divested of all power, so that they had no other way
of persecuting the prophet than with their looks and
their words ; and so they did persecute him. Be¬
hold, thou hast spoken, and done evil things as thou
couldest, Jer. iii. 5. If they had had more power
they would have done more mischief. They were
now in captivity, smarting for their rebellion, and
particularly their misusing of God’s prophets; and
yet they are as bad as ever. Though thou bray a
fool in a mortar, yet will not his foolishness depart
from him ; no providences will of themselves hum¬
ble and reform men, unless the grace of God work
with them. But, how malicious soever they were,
Ezekiel must not be afraid of them, nor dismayed,
he must not be deterred from his work, or any part
of it, nor be disheartened or dispirited in it by all
their menaces, but go on in it with resolution and
cheerfulness, assuring himself of safety under the
divine protection.
II. It is required that he be faithful, v. 7. 1. He
must be faithful to Christ who sent him; Thou sha/t
speak my words unto them. Note, As it is the ho¬
nour of prophets, that they are intrusted to speak
God’s words, so it is their duty to cleave closely to
them, and to speak nothing but what is agreeable to
the words of God; ministers must always speak ac¬
cording to that rule. 2. He must be faithful to the
souls of those to whom he was sent; whether they
will hear, or whether they will forbear, he must de¬
liver his message to them as he received it. He
must bring them to comply with the word, and not
study to accommodate the word to their humours.
“ It is true, they are most rebellious, they are rebel¬
lion itself; but, however, speak my words to them,
whether they are pleasing or unpleasing.” Note,
The untractableness and unprofitableness of people
under the word, are no good reasons why ministers
should leave off preaching to them; nor must we de¬
cline an opportunity by which good may be done,
though we have a great deal of reason to think no
good will be done.
III. It is required that he be observant of his in¬
structions.
1. Here is a general intimation what the instruc¬
tions were, that were given him, in the contents of
the book which was spread before him, v. 10. (1.)
His instructions were large, for the roll was written
within and without, on the inside and on the outside
of the roll; it was as a sheet of paper written on all
the four sides. One side contained their sins, the other
side contained the judgments of God coming upon
them for those sins. Note, God has a great deal to say
to his people when they are degenerated and be¬
come rebellious. (2. ) His instructions were melan¬
choly, he was sent on a sad errand; the matter con¬
tained in the book was, lamentations, and mourning,
and wo. The idea of his message is taken from
the impression it would make upon the minds of
those that carefully attended to it; it would set them
a weeping and crying out, Wo, and, Alas! Both
the discoveries of sin and the denunciations of wrath
would be matter of lamentations. What could be
more lamentable, more mournful, more woful, than
to see a holy, happy people sunk into such a state
of sin and misery, as it appears by the prophecy of
this book the Jews were at this time? Ezekiel
echoes to Jeremiah’s lamentation?. Note, Though
God is rich in mercy, yet impenitent sinners will
find there are even among his words lamentations
and wo.
2. Here is an express charge given the prophet
to observe his instructions, both in receiving his
message and delivering it. He is now to receive it,
and is here commanded,
(1.) To attend diligently to it; Son of man, hear
what Isay unto thee, v. 8. Note, Those that speak
from God to others, must be sure to hear from God
themselves, and be obedient to his voice; “ Be not
thou rebellious; do not refuse to go on this errand,
or to deliver it; do not fly off, as Jonah did, for fear
of disobliging thy countrymen. They are a rebel¬
lious house among whom thou livest; but be not thou
like them, do not comply with them in any thing
that is evil. If ministers, who are reprovers by of¬
fice, connive at sin, and indulge sinners, either show
them not their wickedness, or show them not the
fatal consequences of it, for fear of displeasing them,
and getting their ill-will, they hereby make them¬
selves partakers of their guilt, and are rebellious
like them. If people will not do their duty in re¬
forming, yet let ministers do theirs in reproving,
and they will have the comfort of it in the reflection,
whatever the success be, as that prophet had; (Isa.
1. 5.) The Lord God has opened mine ear, and I was
not rebellious. Even the best men, when their lot
is cast in bad times and places, have need to be cau¬
tioned against the worst crimes.
(2.) To digest it in his own mind by an experience
of the favour and power of it; “ Do not only hear
what I say unto thee, but open thy mouth, and eat
that I give thee. Prepare to eat it, and eat it will¬
ingly, and with an appetite.” All God’s children
are content to be at their heavenly Father’s finding,
and to eat whatever he gives them. That which
God’s hand reached out to Ezekiel, was, a roll of a
book, or the volume of a book; a book, or scroll of
paper or parchment full written, and rolled up.
Divine revelation comes to us from the hand of
Christ, he gave it the prophets, Rev. i. 1. When
we look at the roll of the book, we must have an
eye to the hand by which it is sent to us. He that
brought it to the prophet, spread it before him,
that he might not swallow it with an implicit faith,
but might fully understand the contents of it, and
then receive it, and make it his own. Be not re¬
bellious, says Christ, but eat wha. I give thee. If
we receive not what Christ in his ordinances and
providences allots for us, if we submit not to his
word and rod, and reconcile not ourselves to both,
we shall be accounted rebellious.
CHAP. III.
In this chapter we have the further preparation of the pro¬
phet for the work to which God called him. I. His eat¬
ing of the roll that was presented to him in the close of
the foregoing chapter, v. 1 . . 3. II. Further instructions
and encouragements given him to the same purport with
those in the foregoing chapter, v. 4 . . 11. III. The mighty
impulse he was under, with which he was carried to
those that were to be his hearers, v. 12 . . 15. IV. A fur¬
ther explication of his office and business as a prophet,
under the similitude of a watchman, v. 16 . . 21. V. The
restraining and restoring of the prophet’s liberty of
speech, as God pleased, v. 22.. 27.
1. “Ifyg'OREOVER, he said unto me, Son
If JL of man, eat that thou findest : eat
this roll, and go speak unto the house of
Israel. 2. So I opened my mouth, and he
caused me to eat that roll. 3. And he said
unto me, Son of man, cause thy belly to
eat, and fill thy bowels with this roll that I
give thee. Then did I eat it; and it was in
my mouth as honey for sweetness. 4 And
EZEKIEL, III.
lie said unto me, Son of man, go, get thee
unto the house of Israel, and speak with my
words unto them. 5. For thou art. not sent
to a people of a strange speech, and of a
hard language, but to the house of Israel*
C. Not to many people, of a strange speech,
and of a hard language, whose words thou
canst not understand: surely, had I sent
thee to them, they would have hearkened
unto thee. 7. But the house of Israel will
not hearken unto thee; for they will not
hearken unto me: for all the house of Israel
are impudent and hard-hearted. 8. Behold,
1 have made thy face strong against their
faces, and thy forehead strong against their
foreheads. 9. As an adamant, harder than
flint, have I made thy forehead: fear them
not, neither be dismayed at their looks,
though they be a rebellious house. 10.
Moreover, he said unto me, Son of man, all
my words that I shall speak unto thee re¬
ceive in thy heart, and hear with thine ears.
1 1 . And go, get thee to them of the cap¬
tivity, unto thy people, and speak unto
them, and tell them, Thus saith the Lord
God, whether they will hear, or whether
they will forbear. 1 2. Then the spirit took
me up, and I heard behind me a voice of a
great rushing, saying , Blessed be the glory
of the Lord from his place. 13. I heard
also the noise of the wings of the living crea¬
tures that touched one another, and the
noise of the wheels over against them, and
a noise of a great rushing. 1 4. So the spirit
lifted me up, and took me away, and I
went in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit;
but the hand of the Lord was strong upon
me. 15. Then I came to them of the cap¬
tivity at Telabib, that dwelt by the river of
Chebar, and I sat where they sat, and re¬
mained there astonished among them seven
days.
These verses are fitly joined by some translators
to the foregoing chapter, as being of a piece with it,
and a continuation of the same vision. The pro¬
phets received the words from God, that they might
deliver them to the people of God; furnished them¬
selves, that they might furnish them, with the
knowledge of the mind and will of God. Now here
the prophet is taught,
I. How he must receive divine revelation himself,
v. 1. Christ (whom he saw upon the throne, ch. i.
26.) said to him, “ Son of man, eat this roll; admit
this revelation into thine understanding, take it, take
the meaning of it, understand it aright, admit it into
thy heart, apj|)y it, and be affected with it; imprint
it in thy mind, ruminate and chew the cud upon it;
take it as it is entire, and make no difficulty of it,
nay, take a pleasure in it as thou dost in thy meat,
and let thy soul be nourished and strengthened by
it; let it be meat and drink to thee, and as thy ne¬
cessary food; be full of it, as thou art of the meat
thou hast eaten.” Thus ministers should in their
studies and meditations take in that word of God,
which they are to preach to others; Thy words
were found, and I did eat them, Jer. xv. 16. They
must be both well acquainted and much affected
witli the things of God, that they may speak of
them both clearly and warmly, with a great deal of
divine light and heat. Now observe,
1. How this command is inculcated upon the pro¬
phet. In the chapter before. Eat what I give thee;
and here, (n. 1.) “ Eat that thou fndest, that which
is presented to thee by the hand of Christ.” Note,
Whatever we find to be the word of God, what¬
ever is brought to us by him who is the Word of
God, we must receive without disputing. What
we find set before us in the scripture, that we must
eat. And again, ( [v . 3.) “ Cause thy belly to eat,
and fill thy bowels with this roll; do not eat it and
bring it up again, as that which is nauseous, but eat
it, and retain it, as that which is nourishing and
grateful to the stomach. Feast upon this vision till
thou be full of matter, (as Elihu was, Job xxxii.
IS.) Let the word have a place in thee, the inner¬
most place. ” We must take pains with our own
hearts, that we may cause them duly to receive and
entertain the word of God, that every faculty may
do its office, in order to the due digesting of the
word of God; that it may be turned in succum et
sanguinem — into blood and spirits. W e must empty
ourselves of worldly things, that we may fll our
bowels with this roll.
2. How this command is explained; (v. 10.) All
my words that I shall speak unto thee, to be spo¬
ken unto the people, thou must receive in thine
heart, as well as hear with thine ears, receive them
in the love of them.” Let these sayings sink down
into your ears, Luke ix: 44. Christ demands the
prophet’s attention not only to what he now says,
but to all that he shall at any time hereafter speak;
Receive it all in thine heart, meditate on these things,
and give thyself wholly to them, 1 Tim. iv. 15.
3. How this command was obeyed in vision. He
opened his mouth, and Christ caused him to eat the
roll, v. 2. If we be truly willing to receive the
word into our hearts, Christ will by his Spirit bring
it into them, and cause it to dwelt in us richly. If
he that opens the roll, and by his Spirit, as a Spirit
of revelation, spreads it before us, did not also open
our understanding, and by his Spirit, as a Spirit oj
wisdom, give us the knowledge of it, and cause us
to eat it, we should be for ever strangers to it. The
prophet had reason to fear that the roll would be an
unpleasant morsel and a sorry dish to make a meal
of, but it proved to be in his mouth as honey for
sweetness. Note, If we readily obey even the most
difficult commands, we shall find that comfort in
the reflection, which will make us abundant amends
for all the hardships we met with in the way of our
duty. Though the roll was filed with lamentations,
ana mourning, and wo, yet it was to the prophet
as honey for sweetness. Note, Gracious souls can
receive those truths of God with great delight,
which speak most terror to wicked people. We
find St. John let into some part of the revelation by
such a sign as this, Rev. x. 9, 10. H e took the book
out of the angel’s hand, and ate it up, and it was,
as this here, in his mouth sweet as honey; but it was
bitter in the belly; and we shall find that this here
was so too, for ( v . 14.) the prophet went in bit¬
terness.
II. How he must deliver that divine revelation to
others, which he himself had received; (z>. 1.) Eat
this roll, and then go, speak to the house of Israel.
1. He must not undertake to preach the things of
God to others, till lie did himself fully understand
them; let him not go without his errand, or take it
by the halves. 2. vVhen he does himself fully un¬
derstand them, he must be both busv and bold to
preach them for the good of others. We must not
fiOO EZEKIEL, III.
conceal the words of the Holy One, (Job vi. 10.) for
that is burying a talent which was given us to trade
with. He must go, and speak to the house of Israel,
for it is their privilege to have God’s statutes and
judgments made known to them; as the giving of
the law, (the lively oracles,) so prophecy, (the living
oracle,) pertains to them. He is not sent to the
Chaldeans to reprove them for their sins, but to the
house of Israel to rej rove them for theirs; for the
father corrects his own child if he do amiss, not the
child of a stranger.
The instructions given him in speaking to them
are much the same with those in the foregoing
chapter.
(1.) He must speak to them all that, and that
only, which God spake to him. He had said be¬
fore, (c/i. ii. 7.) Thou shalt speak my words to them;
here he says, (v. 4.) Thou shalt speak with my
words unto them; or, in my words. He must not
only say that which for substance is the same that
God had said to him, but as near as may be in the
same language and expressions. Blessed Paul,
though a man of a very happy invention, yet speaks
of the things of God in the words which the Holy
Ghost teaches, 1 Cor. ii. 13. Scripture-truths look
best in scripture-language, their native dress; and
how can we better speak God’s mind than with his
words?
(2.) He must remember that they are the house
of Israel, whom he is sent to speak to; God’s house,
and his own; and therefore such as he ought to
have a particular concern for, and to deal faithfully
and tenderly with; they were such as he had an in¬
timate acquaintance with, being not only their
countryman, but their companion in tribulation;
they and he were fellow-sufferers, and had lately been
fellow-travellers, in very melancholy circumstances,
from Judea to B ibylon, and had often mingled their
tears, which could not but knit their affections to
each other. It was well for the people that they
had a prophet who knew experimentally how to
sympathize with them, and could not but be touch¬
ed with the feeling of their infirmities; it was well
for the prophet that he had to do with those of his
own nation, not with a people of strange speech and
a hard language; deep of lip, so that thou canst not
fathom their meaning, and heavy of tongue, whom
it is intolerable and impossible to converse with.
Every strange language seems to us to be deep and
heavy. “ Thou art not sent to many such people,
whom thou couldest neither speak to nor hear from,
neither understand nor be understood among, but by
an interpreter.’-’ The apostles indeed were sent to
many people of a strange speech, but they could not
have done anv good among them if they had not
had the gift of tongues; but Ezekiel was sent only
to one people, those but a few, and his own, whom
having acquaintance with, he might hope to find
acceptance with.
(3.) He must remember what God had already
told him of the bad character of those to whom he
was sent, that if he met with discouragement and
disappointment in them, he might not be offended.
They are impudent and hard-hearted; (y. 7.) no
convictions of sin would make them blush, no de¬
nunciations of wrath would make them tremble.
Two things aggravated their obstinacy; [1.] That
they were more obstinate than their neighbours
would have been, if the prophet had been sent to
them. Had God sent him to any other people,
though of a strange speech, surely they would have
hearkened to him, they would at least have given
him a patient hearing, and showed him that respect
which he could not obtain of his own countrymen.
The Ninevites were wrought upon by Jonah’s
prea' fling, when the house of Israel, that was com¬
pass' d about with so great a cloud of prophets, was
unhumbled and unreformed. But what shall we
say to these things? The means of grace are given
to those that will not improve them, and withheld
from those that would have improved them. We
must resolve this into the divine sovereignty, and
♦ay, Lord, thy judgments are a great deep. [2.]
That they were obstinate against God himself;
They will not hearken unto thee, and no marvel,
for they will not hearken unto me; they will not re¬
gard the word of the prophet, for they will not re¬
gard the rod of God, by which the Lord’s voice
cries in the city. If they believe not God speaking
to them by a minister, neither would they believe
though he should speak to them by a voice from
heaven: nay, therefore they reject what the prophet
says, because it comes from God, whom the carnal
mind is enmity to. They are prejudiced against
the law of God, and for that reason turn a deaf ear
to his prophets, whose business it is to enforce his
law.
(4.) He must resolve to put on courage, and
Christ promises to steel him with it, v. 8, 9. He is
sent to such as are impudent and hard-hearted, who
will receive no impressions, nor be wrought upon
either by fair means or foul, who will take a pride
in affronting God’s messenger, and confronting the
message. It will be a hard task to know how to
deal with them; but [1.] God will enable him to
put a good face on it; “ / have made thy face strong
against their faces, endued thee with all the firm¬
ness and boldness that the case calls for.” Perhaps
Ezekiel was naturally bashful and timorous, but if
God did not find him fit, yet by his grace he made
him fit, to encounter the greatest difficulties. Note,
The more impudent wicked people are in their op¬
position to religion, the more openly and resolutely
should God’s people appear in the practice and de¬
fence of it. Let the innocent stir up himself against
the hypocrite. Job xvii. 8. When vice is daring,
let not virtue be sneaking. And when God has
work to do, he will spirit men for it, and give them
strength according to the day. If there be occasion,
God can and will by Lis grace make the foreheads
of faithful ministers as an adam~nt, so that the most
threatening powers shall not dash them out of coun¬
tenance. The Lord God will help me, therefore have
I set my face like a flint, Isa. 1. 7. [2.] He is there¬
fore commanded to have a good heart on it, and to
go on in his work with a holy security, not valuing
either the censures or the threats of Lis enemies;
“Fear not, neither be dismayed at their looks; let
not the menaces of their impotent malice cast either
a damp upon thee, or a stumbling-block before
thee.” Bold sinners must have bold reprovers; evil
beasts must be rebuked cuttingly, (Tit. i. 12, 13.)
must be saved with fear, Jude 23. Those that
keep close to the service of God, may be sure of the
favour of God, and then they need not be dismayed
at the proud looks of men. Let not the angry coun¬
tenance that drives away a backbiting tongue, give
any check to a reproving tongue.
(5. ) He must continue instant with them in his
preaching, whatever the success was, v. 11. He
must go to them of the captivity , who, being in
affliction, it was to be hoped would receive instruc¬
tion; he must look upon them as the children of his
people, to whom he was nearly allied, and for
whom he therefore ought to have a very tender con¬
cern, as Paul for his kinsmen, Rom. itc. 3. And he
must tell them not only what the Lord said, but that
the Lord said it; let him speak in God’s name, and
back what he said with his authority; Thus saith
the Lord God; tell them so, whether they will hear,
or whether they will forbear. Not that it maybe
indifferent to us what success our ministry has, but,
whatever it be, we must go on with our wbrk, and
leave the issue to God. We must not say, “ Here
EZEKIEL. III.
601
•are tome so good, that we do not need to speak to
them,'" or, “ Here are others so bad, that it is to no
purpose to speak to them;” but, however it be, de¬
liver thy message faithfully, tell them, the Lord God
saith so and so, let them reject it at their peril.
Full instructions being thus given to the prophet,
pursuant to his commission, we are here told,
[1.] With what satisfaction this mission of his
was applauded by the holy angels, who were very
well pleased to see one, of a nature inferior to their
own, thus honourably employed and intrusted. He
heard a voice of a great rushing, (r. 12.) as if the
angels thronged and crowded to see the inaugura¬
tion of a prophet; for to them is known by the
church, that is, by reflection from the church, the
manifold wisdom of God, Eph. iii. 10. They
seemed to strive who should get nearest to this great
sight. He heard the noise of their wings that touched,
or, as the word is, kissed, one another; denoting the
mutual affections and assistances of the angels. He
heard also the noise of the wheels of Providence
moving over against the angels, and in concert with
them. All this was to engage his attention, and to
convince him that the God who sent him, having
such a glorious train of attendants, no doubt had
power sufficient to bear him out in his work. But
all this noise ended in the voice of praise; he heard
them saying, Blessed be the glory of the Lord from
his /dace; First, From heaven, his / dace above,
whence his glory was now in vision descending, or
whither perhaps it was now returning. Let the in¬
numerable company of angels above join with those
employed in this vision, in saying. Blessed be the
glory of the Lord. Praise ye the Lord from the
heavens. Praise him, all his angels, Ps. cxlviii. 1,
2. Secondly, From the temple, his /dace on earth,
whence his glory was now departing. They lament
the departure of the glory, but adore the righteous-
less of God in it: however it be, yet God is blessed
and glorious, and ever will be so. The prophet
. saiali heard God thus praised when he received
ais commission; (Isa. vi. 3.) and a comfort it is to
all the faithful servants of God, when they see how
much God is dishonoured in this lower world, to
think how much he is admired and glorified in the
upper world. The glory of the Lord has many
slights from our place, but many fi raises from his
place.
[2.] With what reluctance of his own spirit, and
yet with what a mighty efficacy of the Spirit of God,
the prophet was himself brought to the execution
of his office. The grace given to him was not in
vain; for,
First, The Spirit led him with a strong hand.
God bid him go, but he stirred not till the Spirit
took him up. The Spirit of the living creatures
that was in the wheels, now was in the prophet too,
and took him up; first to hear more distinctly the
acclamations of the angels, (v. 12.) but afterward,
(d. 14.) lifted him up, and took him away to his
work, which he was backward to, being very loath
either to bring trouble upon himself, or foretell it to
his people. He would gladly have been excused,
but must own, as another prophet does, (Jer. xx. 7.)
Thou wast stronger than 1, and hast prevailed.
Ezekiel would willingly have kept all he heard and
saw to himself, that it might go no further, but the
hand of the Lord was strong upon him, and over¬
powered him; he was carried on contrary to his
own inclinations by the prophetical impulse, so that
he could not but speak the things which he had
heard and seen, as the apostles. Acts iv. 20. Note,
Those whom God calls to the ministry, as he fur¬
nishes their heads for it, so he bows their hearts
to it.
Secondly, He followed with a sad heart; The
Spirit took me away, says he, and then I went, but
Vol. IV. - 4 G
it was in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit. He had
perhaps seen what a hard task Jeremiah had at Je¬
rusalem when he appeared as a prophet, what
pains he took, what opposition he met with, how he
was abused by hand and tongue, and what ill treat¬
ment he met with, and all to no purpose; “And”
(thinks Ezekiel) “ must I be set up for a mark like
him?” The life of a captive was bad enough; but
what would the life of a prophet in captivity be?
Therefore he went in this fret, and under this dis¬
composure. Note, There may in some cases be a
great reluctance of corruption even there where
there is a manifest predominance of grace. I went,
not disobedient to the heavenly vision, or shrinking
from the work, as Jonah, but I went in bitterness,
not at all pleased with it. When he received the
divine revelation himself, it was to him sweet as ho¬
ney, (v. 3.) he cculd with abundance of pleasure
have spent all his days in meditating upon it ; but
when he is to preach it to others, who, he foresees,
will be hardened and exasperated by it, and have
their condemnation aggravated, then he goes in bit¬
terness. Note, It is a great grief to faithful minis¬
ters, and makes them go on in their work with a
heavy heart, when they find people untractable,
and hating to be reformed. He went in the heat of
his spirit, because of the discouragements he fore¬
saw he should meet with; but the hand of the Lord
was strong upon him, net only to compel him to his
work, but to fit him for it, to carry him through it,
and animate him against the difficulties he would
meet with; (so we may understand it;) and when
he found it so, he was better reconciled to his busi¬
ness, and applied himself to it; Then he came to
them of the captivity, (y. 15.) to srme place where
there were many of them together, and sat where
they sat, either working, or reading, or talking, and
continued among them seven days, to hear what
they said, and observe what they did; and all that
time he was waiting for the word of the Lord to
come to him. Note, Those that would speak suit¬
ably and profitably to people about their souls,
must acquaint themselves with them, and with their
case; must do as Ezekiel did here, must sir where
they sit, and speak familiarly to them of the things
of God, and put themselves into their condition, yea,
though they sit by the rivers of Babylon. But ob¬
serve, He was there astonished, overwhelmed with
grief for the sins and miseries of his people, and
overpowered by the pomp of the vision he had seen:
he was there desolate; (so some read it;) God show¬
ed him no visions, men made him no visits; thus
was he left to digest his grief, and come to a better
temper, before the word of the Lord should come
to him. Note, These whom God designs to exalt
and enlarge, he first humbles and straitens for a
time.
16. And it came to pass, at the end of
seven days, that the word of the Lord
came unto me, saying, 17. Son of man, I
have made thee a watchman unto the house
of Israel: therefore hear the word at my
mouth, and give them warning from me.
18. When I say unto the wicked, Thou
shalt surely die; and thou givest him not
warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked
from his wicked way, to save his life; the
same wicked man shall die in his iniquity:
but his blood will I require at thjf hand.
19. Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he
turn not from his wickedness, nor from his
wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity : but
602
EZEKIEL, III.
thou hast delivered thy soul. 20. Again,
when a righteous man doth turn from his
righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I
lay a stumbling-block before him, he shall
die : because thou hast not given him warn¬
ing, he shall die in his sin, and his righteous¬
ness which he hath done shall not be re¬
membered ; but his blood will I require at
thy hand. 21. Nevertheless, if thou warn
the righteous man , that the righteous sin not,
and he doth not sin, he shall surely live, be¬
cause he is warned: also thou hast deliver¬
ed thy soul.
These further instructions God gave to the prophet
at the end of seven days, that is, on the seventh day-
after the vision he had; and it is very probable, that
botli that and this were on the sabbath-day, which
the house of Israel, even in their captivity, observed
as well as they could in those circumstances: we do
not find that their conquerors and oppressors tied
them to any constant service, as their Egyptian
taskmasters had formerly done, but that they
might observe the sabbath-rest, for a sign to distin¬
guish between them and their neighbours; but for
the s ibbath-work, they had not the convenience of
temple or synagogue, only it should seem they had
a /ilace by the river side, where prayer was wont to
be made; (as Acts xvi. 13.) there they met on the
sabbath-day, there their enemies upbraided them
with the song's of Zion; (Ps. cxxxvii. 1, 3.) there
Ezekiel met them, and the word of the Lord then
and there came to him. He that had been musing
and meditating on the things of God all the week,
was fit to speak to the people in God’s name on the
sabbath-day, and disposed to hear God speak to
him.
This sabbath-day Ezekiel was not so honoured
with visions of the glory of God as he had been the
sabbath before; but is plainly, and by a very com¬
mon similitude, told his duty, which he is to com¬
municate to the people. Note, Raptures and tran¬
sports of joy are not the daily bread of God’s chil¬
dren, however they may upon special occasions be
feasted with them. We must not deny that we
have truly communion with God, (1 John i. 3.)
though we have it not always so sensibly as at some
times. And though the mysteries of the kingdom
of heaven may sometimes be looked into, yet ordi¬
narily, it -is plain preaching that is most for edifica¬
tion.
God here tells the prophet what his office was,
and what the duty of that office; and this (we may
suppose) he was to tell the people, that they might
attend to what he said, and improve it accordingly.
Note, It is good for people to know and consider
what a charge their ministers have of them, and
what an account they must shortly give of that
charge. Observe,
I. What the office is to which the prophet is
called; Son of man, I have made thee a watchman
to the house o f Israel, v. 17. The vision he saw as¬
tonished him, he knew not what to make of that,
and therefore God used this plain comparison,
which served better to lead him to the understand¬
ing of his work, and so to reconcile him to it. He
sat among the captives, and said little, but God
comes to him, and tells him that will not do, he is a
watchman, and has something to say to them; he is
appointed to be as a watchman in the city, to guard
against fire, robbers, and disturbers of the peace;
as a watchman over the flock, to guard against
thieves and beasts of prey ; but especially as a watch¬
man in the camp, in an invaded country or a besieged
town, that is to watch the motions of the enemy,
and to sound an alarm upon the approach, nay, upon
the first appearance, of danger. This supposes the
house of Israel to be in a military state, and exposed
to enemies, who are subtle and restless in their at¬
tempts upon it; yea, and each of the particular
members of that house to be in danger, and con¬
cerned to stand upon their guard. Note, Ministers
are watchmen on the church’s walls, (Isa. lxii. 6.)
watchmen that go about the city. Cant. iii. 3. It is
a toilsome office; watchmen must keep awake, be
they ever so sleepy, and keep abroad, be it ever so
cold; they must stand all weathers upon the watch-
tower, Isa. xxi. 8. Gen. xxxi. 40. It is a dangerous
office; sometimes they cannot keep their post, but
are in peril of death from the enemy, who gain
their point if they kill the sentinel; and yet they
dare not quit their post upon pain of death from their
general; such a dilemma are the church’s watch¬
men in; men will curse them if they be faithful,
and God will curse them if they be false. But it is
a needful office; the house of Israel cannot be safe
without watchmen, and yet, except the Lord keep
it, the watchman waketh but in vain, Ps. cxxvii. 1, 2.
II. What is the duty of this office. The work of
a watchman is to take notice, and to give notice.
1. The prophet, as a watchman, must take notice
of what God said concerning this people, not only
concerning the body of the people, to which the
prophecies of Jeremiah and other prophets had most
commonly reference, and concerning particular per¬
sons, according as their character was; he must not.
as other watchmen, look round to spy danger, and
gain intelligence, but he must look up to God, and
further he need not look; Hear the word at my
mouth, v. 17. Note, Those that are to preach,
must first hear; for how can they teach others, who
have not first learned themselves?
2. He must^grue notice of what he heanl; as a
watchman must have eyes in his head, so he must
have a tongue in his head; if he be dumb, it is as
bad as if he were blind, Isa. lvi. 10. Thou shalt
give them warning from me, sound an alarm in the
holy mountain; not in his own name, or as from
himself, but in God’s name, and from him. Minis¬
ters are God’s mouth to the children of men. The
scriptures are written for our admonition; By them
is thy servant warned, Ps. xix. 11. But because
that which is delivered viva voce — by the living
voice, commonly makes the deepest impression,
God is pleased, by men like ourselves, who are
equally concerned, to enforce upon us the warnings
of the written word.
Now the prophet, in his preaching, must distin¬
guish between the wicked and the righteous, the
precious and the vile, and in his applications must
suit his alarms to each, giving every one his por¬
tion; if he did this, he should have the comfort of it,
whatever the success was, but if not, he was ac¬
countable.
( 1. ) Some of those he had to do with, were wicked,
and he must warn them not to go on in their wick¬
edness, but to turn from it, v. 18, 19. We may
observe here,
[1.] That the God of heaven has said, and does
say, to every wicked man, that if he go on still in his
trespasses, he shall surely die; his iniquity shall un¬
doubtedly be his ruin, it tends to ruin, and will end
in ruin. Dying thou shalt die, thou shalt die so
great a death, shalt die eternally, be ever dying, but
never dead. The wicked man shall die in his ini¬
quity, shall die under the guilt of it, die under the
dominion of it.
[2.] That if a wicked man turn from his wicked¬
ness, and from his wicked way, he shall live, and
the ruin he is threatened with shall be prevented;
and that he may do so, he is warned of the danger
EZEKIEL, III.
603
he is in. The wicked man shall die if he go on, but
shall live if he repent. Observe, He is to turn from
his wickedness, and from his wicked way. It is not
enough for a man to turn from his wicked way by an
outward reformation, which may be the effect of
his sins leaving him, rather than of his leaving his
sins, but he must turn from his wickedness, from the
love of it, and the inclination to it, by an inward re¬
generation; if he do not so much as turn from
his wicked way, there is little hope that he will turn
from his wickedness.
[3.] That it is the duty of ministers both to warn
sinners of the danger of sin, and to assure them of
the benefit of repentance; to set before them how
miserable they are if they go on in sin, and how
happy they may be if they will but repent and re¬
form. Note, The ministry of the word is concern¬
ing matters of life and death, for those are the things
it sets before us, the blessing and the curse, that we
may escape the curse, and inherit the blessing.
[4.] That though ministers do not warn wicked
people as they ought of their misery and danger,
yet that shall not be admitted as an excuse for those
that go on still in their trespasses; for though the
watchman did not give them warning, yet they
shall die in their iniquity; for they had sufficient
warning given them by the providence of God and
their own consciences; if they would have taken it,
they might have saved their lives.
[5.] That if ministers be not faithful to their
trust, if they do not warn sinners of the fatal conse¬
quences of sin, but suffer them to go on unreproved,
the blood of those that perish through their care¬
lessness, will be required at their hand; it shall be
charged upon them in the day of account, that it
was owing to their unfaithfulness that such and such
precious souls perished in sin; for who knows but if
they had had fair warning given them, they might
have fled in time from the wrath to come? And if
it contract so heinous a guilt as it does to be acces¬
sary to the murder of a dying body, what is it to be
accessary to the ruin of an immortal soul?
[6.] That if ministers do their duty in giving
warning to sinners, though the warning be not taken,
yet they may have this satisfaction, that they are
clear from their blood, and have delivered their own
souls, though they cannot prevail to deliver theirs.
Those that are faithful, shall have their reward,
though they be not successful.
(2.) Some of those he had to deal with were
righteous, at least he had reason to think, in a judg¬
ment of charity, that they were so; and he must
warn them not to apostatize and turn away from
their righteousness, v. 20, 21. We may oOser/e
here,
[1.] That the best men in the world have need
to be warned against apostacy, and to be told of the
danger they are in of it, and the danger they are in
by it. God’s servants must be warned, (Ps. xix.
11.) that they do not neglect his work, and quit his
service. One good means to keep us from falling
is, to keep up a holy fear of falling, Heb. iv. 1. Let
us therefore fear; and (Rom. xi. 20.) even those
that stand by faith, must not be high-minded, but
fear, and must therefore be warned.
[2.] There is a righteousness which a man may
turn from, a seeming righteousness; from which if
men turn, thereby it appears that it was never sin¬
cere, how passable, nay how plausible soever, it
was; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt
have continued with us, 1 John ii. 19. There are
many that begin in the spirit, but end in the flesh;
that set their faces heavenward, but look back; that
had a first love, but have lost it, and turned from
the holy commandment.
[3.] When men turn from their righteousness,
they soon learn to commit iniquity. vVhen they
grow careless and remiss in the duties of God’s wor¬
ship, neglect them, or are negligent in them, they
become an easy prey to the tempter. Omissions
make wav for commissions.
[4.] When men turn from their righteousness, and
commit iniquity, it is just with God \.a\ay stumbling-
blocks before them, that they may grow worse and
worse, till they are ripened for destruction. When
Pharaoh hardened his heart, God hardened it.
When sinners turn their back upon God, desert
his service, and so cast a reproach upon it, he does,
in a way of righteous judgment, not only withdraw
his restraining grace, and give them up to their own
hearts’ lust, but order them by his providence into
such circumstances, as occasion their sin and hasten
their ruin. There are those to whom Christ him¬
self is a Stone of stumbling and a Rock of offence,
1 Pet. ii. 8.
[5.] The righteousness which men relinquish,
shall never be remembered to their honour and
comfort; it will stand them in no stead in this world
or the other. Apostates lose all that they have
wrought, their services and sufferings are all in vain,
and shall never be brought to an account, because
not continued in. It is a rule in the law, Factum
non dicitur, quod non flerseverat — We do that, and
that only, which we do fierseveringly, Gal. iii. 3, 4.
[6.] If ministers do not give fair warning, as they
ought, of the weakness of the best, their aptness to
stumble and fall, the particular temptations they are
in, and the fatal consequences of apostacy, the min
of those that do apostatize will be laid at their door,
and they shall answer for it. Not but that there are
those who are warned against it, and yet turn from
their righteousness; but that case is not put here, as
was concerning the wicked man; but, on the con¬
trary, that a righteous man, being warned, takes
the warning, anil does not sin, (v. 21.) for if you give
instruction to a wise man, he will be yet wiser. vVe
must not only not flatter the wicked, but not even
flatter the righteous, as if they were perfectly safe
any where on this side heaven.
[7.] If ministers give warning, and people take it,
it is well for both; nothing is more beautiful than a
wise reprover upon an obedient ear; the one shall
live because he is warned, and the other has delivered
his soul. What can a' good minister desire more
than to save himself, and those that hear him? 1
Tim. iv. 16.
22. And the hand of the Loud was there
upon me; and he said unto me, Arise, go
forth into the plain, and I will there talk
with thee. 23. Then I arose, and went
forth into the plain ; and, behold, the glory
of the Lord stood there, as the glory which
1 saw by the river of Chebar: and 1 fell on
my face. 24. Then the spirit entered into
me, and set me upon my feet, and spake
with me, and said unto me, Go, shut thyself
within thy house. 25. But thou, O son of
man, behold, they shall put bands upon
thee, and shall bind thee with them, and
thou shalt not go out among them : 26. And
I will make thy tongue cleave to the rool
of thy mouth, that thou shalt he dumb, and
shalt not be to them a reprover; for they
are a rebellious house. 27. But when I
speak with thee, I will open thy mouth, and
thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the
Lord God, He that heareth, let him hear.;
604
EZEKIEL, III.
and he that forbeareth, let him forbear: for
they are a rebellions house.
After all this large and magnificent discovery
which God had made of himself to the prophet, and
the full instructions he had given him how to deal
with those to whom he sent him with an ample com¬
mission, we should have expected presently to see
him preaching the word of God to a great congre¬
gation of Israel; but here we find it quite otherwise.
His work here, at first, seems not at all proportion-
able to the pomp of his call.
I. We have him here retired for further learning.
By his unwillingness to go, it should seem as if he
were not so thoroughly convinced as he might have
been of the ability of him that sent him to bear him
out; and therefore, to hearten him against the diffi¬
culties he foresaw, God will favour him with an¬
other vision of his glory, which (if any thing) would
put life into him, and animate him for his work. In
order td this, God calls him out to the plain, ( v . 22.)
and there he will have some talk with him. See
and admire the condescension of a God in convers¬
ing thus familiarly with a man, a son of man, a poor
captive, nay, with a sinful man, who, when God
sent him, went in bitterness of spirit, and was at
this time out of humour with his work! And let us
own ourselves for ever indebted to the mediation of
Christ for this blessed intercourse and communion
between God and man, between heaven and earth.
See here the benefit of solitude, and how much it
befriends contemplation ! It is very comfortable to
be alone with God, withdrawn from the world for
converse with him; to hear from him, to speak to
him; and a good man will say, I am never less
alone, than when thus alone.
Ezekiel went forth into the plain' more willingly
than he went among them of the captivity; ( v . 15.)
for they that know what it is to have communion
with God, cannot but prefer that before any con¬
verse with this world, especially such as is com¬
monly met with. He went out into the plain, and
there he saw the same vision that he had seen by
the river of Chebar; for God is not tied to places.
Note, Those who follow God shall meet with his
consolations, wherever they go. God called him
out to talk with him, but mid more than that, he
showed him his glory, v. 23. We are not now to
expect such visions, but we must own that we have
a favour done us no way inferior, if we so by faith
behold the glory of the Lord, as to be changed into
the same image, by the Spirit of the Lord; and this
honour have all his saints. Praise ye the Lord, 2
Cor. iii. 18.
II. We have him here restrained from further
teaching for the present, When he saw the glory
of the Lord, he fell on his face, being struck with
an awe of God’s majesty, and a dread of his dis¬
pleasure; but the Spirit entered into him to raise
him up, and then he recovered himself, and got
upon his feet, and heard what the Spirit whispered
to him, which is very surprising. One would have
expected now that God should send him directly to
the chief place of concourse, should give him favour
in the eyes of his brethren, and make him and his
message acceptable to them; that he should have a
wider door of opportunity opened to him, and that
God should give him a door of utterance to open his
mouth boldly; but what is here said to him is the
reverse of all this.
1. Instead of sending him to a public assembly, he
orders him to confine himself to his own lodgings;
Go, shut thyself within thy house, v. 24. He was
not willing to appear in public, and when he did,
the people did not regard him, nor show him the
respect he deserved, and, as a just rebuke both to
him and them, to him for his shyness of them, and
to them for their coldness toward him, God forbids
him to appear in public. Note, Our choice is often
made our punishment; and it is a righteous thing with
God to remove teachers into corners, when they, or
their people, or both, grow indifferent to solemn as¬
semblies. Ezekiel must shut up himself, seme
think, to give a sign of the besieging of Jerusalem,
in which the people should be closely shut up as he
was in his house, and which he speaks of in the
next chapter. He must shut himself within his
house, that he might receive further discoveries of
the mind of God, and might abundantly furnish him
self with something to say to the people when he
went abroad. We find that the elders of Judah
visited him, and sat before him, sometimes in his
house, (eh. viii. 1.) to be witnesses of his ecstasies;
but it was not till ch. xi. 25, that he sfiake to them
of the captivity all the things that the L-ord had
showed him. Note, Those that are called to preach
must find time to study, and a great deal of time
too.; must often shut themselves up in their houses,
that they may give attendance to reading and medi¬
tation, and so their profiting may appear to all.
2. Instead of securing him an interest in the es¬
teem and affections < f those to whom he sent him,
he tells him that they shall put bands upon him, and
bind him, (v. 25.) either, (1.) As a criminal; they
shall bind him in order to the further punishing of
him as a disturber of the peace; though they were
themselves sent into bondage in Babylon for perse¬
cuting the prophets, yet there they continue to per¬
secute them; or, rather, (2.) As a distracted man;
they would go about to bind him as one beside him¬
self; for to that they imputed his violent motions in
his raptures. The captains asked Jehu, Wherefore
came this mad fellow unto thee? Festus said to Paul,
Thou art beside thyself; and so they said cf our
Lord Jesus, Mark iii. 21. Perhaps this was the
reason why he must keep within doors, because
otherwise they would bind him, under pretence of
his being mad, and therefore he must not go out
among them. Justly are prophets forbidden to go
to those that will abuse them.
3. Instead of opening his lips, that his mouth
might show forth God’s praise, God silenced him,
made his tongue cleave to the roof of his mouth, so
that he was dumb for a considerable time, v. 26.
The pious captives in Babylon used this imprecation
upon themselves, that if they should forget Jerusa¬
lem, their tongue might cleave to the roof of their
mouth, Ps. cxxxvii. 6. Ezekiel remembers Jerusa¬
lem more than any of them, and yet his tongue
cleaves to the roof his mouth; and he that can speak
best is forbidden to speak at all; and the reason
given is, because they are a rebellious house to whom
he is sent, and they are not worthy to have him for
a reprover. He shall not give them instructions
and admonitions, for they are lost and thrown away
upon them. He is before commanded to speak
boldly to them, because they are most rebellious;
(ch. ii. 7.) but since that proves to no purpose, he is
now for that reason enjoined silence, and shall not
speak at all to them. Note, Those whose hearts
are hardened against conviction, are justly deprived
of the means of conviction. Why should not the
reprovers be dumb, if, after long trials, it be found
that the reproved resolve tobe deaf? If Ephraim be
joined to idols, let him atone. Thou shalt be dumb,
and not be a reprover; implying, that unless he
were dumb, he would be reproving; if he could
speak at all, he would witness against the wicked¬
ness of the wicked.
But when God speaks with him, and designs to
speak by him, he will open his mouth, v. 27. Note,
Though God’s prophets may be silenced awhile,
there will come a time when God will give them
the opening of the mouth again. And when God
605
EZEKIEL, IV.
speaks to his ministers, he not only opens their ears to
hear what he says, but opens their mouth to return
an answer. Moses, who had a veil on his face when
he went down to the people, took it off when he
went up again to God, Exod. xxxiv. 34.
4. Instead of giving him assurance of success
when he should at any time speak to the people, he
here leaves the matter very doubtful, and bzekiel
must not perpley. and disquiet himself about it, but
let it be as it will; He that hears, let him hear, and
he is welcome to the comfort of it; let him hear,
and his soul shall live; but he that forbears, let him
forbear at his peril, and taxc what comes; if thou
scornest, thou alone shalt bear it, lie-' .her God nor
his prophet shall be any losers by it; but the pro¬
phet shall be rewarded for his faithfulness in re¬
proving the sinner, and God will have the glory of
his justice in condemning him for not taking the re¬
proof.
CHAP. IV.
Ezekiel was now among the captives in Babylon, but they
there had Jerusalem still upon their hearts; the pious
captives looked toward it with an eye of faith, (as Da¬
niel, ch. vi. 10.) the presumptuous ones looked towards
it with an eye of pride, and flattered themselves with a
conceit that they should shortly return thither again;
they that remained corresponded with the captives, and,
it is likely, buoyed them up with hopes that all would be
well yet, as long as Jerusalem was standing in its
strength; and perhaps upbraided those with their folly
who had surrendered at first; therefore, to take down
this presumption, God gives the prophet, in this chapter,
a very clear and affecting foresight of the besieging of
Jerusalem by the Chaldean army, and the calamities
which would attend that siege. Two things are here re¬
presented to him in vision, I. The fortifications that
should be raised against the city; this is signified by the
prophet’s laying siege to the portraiture of Jerusalem,
(v. 1..3.) and lying first on one side, and then on the
other side, before it, v. 4 . . 8. II. The famine that
should rage within the city; this is signified by his eating
very coarse fare, and confining himself to a little of it,
so long as this typical representation lasted, v. 9 . . 17.
1. F’EnHOU also, son of man, take thee a
JL tile, and lay it before thee, and
pourtray upon it the city, even Jerusalem:
2. And lay siege against it, and build a fort
against it, and cast a mount against it ; set
the camp also against it, and set battering-
rams against it round about. 3. Moreover,
take thou unto thee an iron pan, and set it
for a wall of iron between thee and the city.;
and set thy face against it, and it shall be
besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it.
This shall be a sign to the house of Israel.
4. Lie thou also upon thy left side, and lay
the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it:
according to the number of the days that
thou shalt lie upon it thou shalt bear their
iniquity. 5. For I have laid upon thee the
years of their iniquity, according to the num¬
ber of the days, three hundred and ninety
days: so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the
house of Israel. 6. And when thou hast
accomplished them, lie again on thy right
side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the
house of Judah forty days: I have appointed
thee each day for a year. 7. Therefore
thou shalt set thy face toward the siege of
Jerusalem, and thine arm shall be unco¬
vered, and thou shalt prophesy against it 1
[ 8. And, behold, I will lay bands upon thee,
and thou shalt not turn thee from one side
to another, till thou hast ended the days of
thy siege.
The prophet is here ordered to represent to him¬
self and others, by signs which would be proper
and powerful to strike the fancy and to affect the
mind, the siege of Jerusalem; and this amounted to
a prediction.
I. He was ordered to engrave a draft of Jerusa¬
lem upon a tile, v. 1. It was Jerusalem’s honour,
that while she kept her integrity, God had graven
her upon the palms of his hands, (Isa. xlix. 16.) and
the names of the tribes were engraven in precious
stones on the breast-plate of the High Priest; but
now the faithful city is become a harlot, a worthless,
brittle tile or brick is thought good enough to pour¬
tray it upon. This the prophet must lay before
him, that the eye may affect the heart.
II. He was ordered to build little forts against
this portraiture of the city, resembling the batteries
raised by the besiegers, v. 2. Between the city that
was besieged and himself that was the besieger he
was to set up an iron pan, as an iron wall, v. 3.
This represented the inflexible resolution of both
sides; the Chaldeans resolved, whatever it cost
them, that they would make themselves masters of
the city, and would never quit it till tfjey had con¬
quered it; on the other side, the Jews resolved never
to capitulate, but to hold out to the last extremity.
Ill He was ordered to lie upon his side before it( as
it were to surround it, representing the Chaldean
army lying before it to block it up, to keep the
meat from going in, and the mouths from going out.
He was to lie on his left side three hundred and
ninety days, ( v . 5.) about thirteen months; the
siege of Jerusalem is computed to last eighteen
months, (Jer. lii. 4. — 6.) but if we deduct from that
five months’ interval, when the besiegers withdrew
upon the approach of Pharaoh’s army, (Jer. xxxvii.
5. — 8.) the number of the days of the close siege
will be three hundred and ninety. Yet that also
had another signification; three hundred and ninety
days, according to the prophetic dialect, signified
three hundred and ninety years; and when the
prophet lies so many days on his side, he bears the
guilt of that iniquity which the house of Israel, the
ten tribes, had borne three hundred and ninety-
years, reckoning from their first apostacy under
Jeroboam to the destruction of Jerusalem, which
completed the ruin of those small remains of them
that had incorporated with Judah. He is then to
lie forty days upon his right side, and so long to
bear the iniquity of the house of Judah, the king¬
dom of the two tribes, because the measure-filling
sins of that people were those which they were
guilty of during the last forty years before their
captivity, since the thirteenth year of Josiah, when
Jeremiah began to prophesy, Jer. i. 1, 2. Or, as
some reckon it, since the eighteenth, when the
book of the law was found, and the people renewed
their covenant with God; when they persisted in
their impieties and idolatries, notwithstanding they
had such a prophet, and such a prince, and were
brought into the bond of such a covenant, what
could be expected but ruin without remedy? Ju¬
dah, that had such helps and advantages for re¬
formation, fills the measure of its iniquity in less
time than Israel does. How we are not to think
that the prophet lay constantly night and day upon
his side; but every "day, for so many days together,
at a certain time of the day, when he received vi¬
sits, and company came in, he was found lying
three hundred and ninety days on his left side, and
forty days on his right side, before his portraiture
of Jerusalem, which all that saw might easily un
606
EZEKIEL, IV.
derstand to mean the close besieging of that city,
and people would be flocking in daily, some for cu¬
riosity, and some for conscience, at the hour ap¬
pointed, to see it, and to make their different remarks
upon it.
His being found constantly on the same side, as
if bands were laid u/ion him, (as indeed they were
by the divine command,) so that he could not turn
him from one side to another till he had ended the
days of the siege , did plainly represent the close and
constant continuance of the besiegers about the city
during that number of days, till they had gained
their point.
IV. He was ordered to prosecute the siege with
vigour; {v. 7.) Thou shalt set thy face toward the
siege of Jerusalem, as wholly intent upon it, and re¬
solved to carry it; so the Chaldeans would be, and
neither bribed nor forced to withdraw from it. Ne¬
buchadnezzar’s resentments of Zedekiah’s treache¬
ry in breaking his league with him, made him very
furious in pushing on this siege, that he might chas¬
tise the insolence of that faithless prince and people;
and this army promised themselves a rich booty of
that pompous city, so that both set their faces against
it, for they were very resolute. Nor were they less
active and industrious, exerting themselves to the
utmost in all the operations of the siege, which the
prophet was to represent by the uncovering of his
arm, or, as some read it, the stretching out of his
arm, as it were to deal blows about without mercy.
When God is about to do some great work, he is
said to make bare his arm, Isa. Iii. 10. In short,
the Chaldeans will go about their business, and go
on in it, as men in earnest, who resolve to go
through with it.
Now, 1. This is intended to be a sign to the house
of Israel, (t>. 3. ) both to them in Babylon, who
were eye-witnesses of what the prophet did, and to
them also who remained in their own land, who
would hear the report of it. The prophet was dumb,
and could not speak ; ( ch . iii. 26.) but as his silence
had a voice, and upbraided the people with their
deafness, so even God then left not himself without
witness, but ordered him to make signs, as dumb
men used to do, and as Zacharias did when he was
dumb, and by them to make known his mind, that
is, the mind of God, to the people. And thus like¬
wise the people were upbraided with their stupidity
and dulness, that they were not capable of being
taught as men of sense are, by words, but must be
taught as children are, by pictures, or as deaf men
are, by signs. Or, perhaps, they are hereby up¬
braided with their malice against the prophet: had
he spoken in words at length what was signified by
these figures, they would have entangled him in hi’s
talk, would have indicted him for treasonable ex¬
pressions, for they knew how to make a man an of¬
fender for a word; (Isa. xxix. 21.) to avoid which
he is ordered to make use of signs. Or, the prophet
made use of signs for the same reason that Christ
made use of parables, that hearing they might hear,
and not understand, and seeing they might see, and
not fierceive, Matth. xiii. 14, 15. They would not
understand what was plain, and therefore shall be
taught by that which is difficult; and herein the
Lord was righteous.
2. Thus the prophet prophesies against Jerusa¬
lem; ( v . 7.) and there were those who not only un¬
derstood it so, but were the more affected with it by
its being so represented; for images to the eye com¬
monly make deeper impressions upon the mind
than words can; and for this reason sacraments are
instituted to represent divine things, that we might
see and believe, might see and be affected with those
things; and we may expect this benefit by them, and
a blessing to go along with them, while (as the pro¬
phet here! we make use only of such signs as God
himself has expressly appointed, which, we must
conclude, are the'fittest. Note, The power of imagi¬
nation, if it be rightly used, and kept under the
direction and correction of reason and faith, may be
of good use to kindle and excite pious and devout
affections, as it was here to Ezekiel and his attend¬
ants. Methinks I see so and so, myself dying, time
expiring, the world on fire, the dead rising, the great
tribunal set, and the like, may have an exceedingly
good influence upon us: for fancy is like fire, a good
servant, but a bad master.
3. This whole transaction has that in it which the
prophet might, with a good colour of reason, have
hesitated at, and excepted against, and yet, in
obedience to God’s command, and in execution of
his office, he did it according to order. (I.) It
seemed childish and ludicrous, and beneath Ins gra¬
vity, and there were those that would ridicule him
for it; but he knew the divine appointment put ho¬
nour enough upon that which otherwise seemed
mean, to save his reputation in the doing of it. (2.)
It was toilsome and tiresome to do as he did; but our
ease and credit must be sa.crificed to our duty, and
we must never call God’s service in any instance of
it a hard service. (3.) It could not but be very
much against the grain with him to appear thus
against .Jerusalem, the city of God, the holy city, to
act as an enemy against a place to which he was so
good a friend; but he is a prophet, and must follow
his instructions, not his affections, and must plainly
preach the ruin of a sinful place, though its welfare is
what he passionately desires, and earnestly prays for.
4. All this that the prophet sets before the chil¬
dren of his people concerning the destruction of
Jerusalem, is designed to bring them to repentance,
by showing them sin, the provoking cause of this
destruction, sin, the ruin of that once flourishing
city, than which surely nothing could be more ef¬
fectual to make them hate sin, and turn from it;
while he thus in lively colours describes the cala¬
mity with a great deal of pain and uneasiness to
himself, he is bearing the iniquity of Israel and
Judah; “Look here,” (says lie,) “and see what
work sin makes, what an evil and bitter thing it is
to depart from God; this comes of sin, your sin and
the sin of your fathers; let that therefore be the
daily matter of your sorrow and shame now in your
captivity, that you may make your peace with God,
and he may return in merev to you.” But observe,
It is a day of punishment for a year of sin; I have
appointed thee each day for a year. The siege is
a calamity of three hundred and ninety days, in
which God reckons for the iniquity of three hundred
and ninety years; justly therefore do they acknow¬
ledge that God had punished them less than their
iniquity deserved, Ezra ix. 13. But let impenitent
sinners know that though now God is long-suffering
toward them, in the other world there is an ever¬
lasting punishment. When God laid bands upon
the prophet, it was to show them how they were
bound with the cords of their own transgression,
(Lam. i. 14.) and therefore they were now /widen
in the cords of affliction. But we may well think
of the prophet’s case with compassion, when God
laid upon him the bands of dutv, as he does on all
his ministers, 1 Cor. ix. 16. Arecessily is laid upon
me, and wo unto me if I preach not the gospel;
and yet men laid upon him bonds of restraint; {ch.
iii. 25.) but under both it is satisfaction enough that
they are serving the interests of God’s kingdom
among men.
9. Take tliou also unto thee wheat, and
bailey, and beans, and lentiles, and millet,
and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and
make thee bread thereof according to the
607
EZEKIEL, IV.
number of the days that thou shalt lie upon
thy side; three hundred and ninety days
shalt thou eat thereof. 10. And thy meat
which thou shalt eat shall be by weight,
twenty shekels a-day: from time to time
shalt thou eat it. It. Thou shalt drink also
water by measure, the sixth part of a hin :
from time to time shalt thou drink. 1 2. And
thou shalt eat it as barley-cakes, and thou
shalt hake it with dung that cometh out of
man, in their sight. 13. And the Lord
said, Even thus shall the children of Israel
eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles,
whither I will drive them. 14. Then said
I, Ah Lord God! behold, my soul hath not
been polluted; for from my youth up, even
till now, have I not eaten of that which
dielh of itself, or is torn in pieces; neither
came there abominable flesh into my mouth.
15. Then he said unto me, Lo, I have given
thee cow’s dung for man’s dung, and thou
shalt prepare thy bread therewith. 16.
Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, be¬
hold, I will break the staff of bread in Jeru¬
salem; and they shall eat bread by weight,
and with care; and they shall drink water
by measure, and with astonishment: 17.
That they may want bread and water, and
be astonished one with another, and con¬
sume away for their iniquity.
The best exposition of this part of Ezekiel’s pre¬
diction of Jerusalem’s desolation is Jeremiah’s La¬
mentation of it, Lam. iv. 3, 4, &c. and c/i. v. 10.
where he pathetically describes the terrible famine
that was in Jerusalem during the siege, and the sad
effects of it. The prophet here, to affect the people
with the foresight of it, must confine himself for
390 days to coarse fare and short commons, and that
ill-dressed, for they should want both food and fuel.
I. His meat, for the quality of it, was to be of the
worst bread, made of but little wheat and barley,
and the rest of beans, and lentiles, and millet, and
fitches, such as we feed horses or fatten hogs with,
and this is mixed, as mill-corn, or as that in the beg¬
gar’s bag, that has a dish full of one sort of corn at
one house, and of another at another’s house ; of
such corn as this must the prophet’s bread be made,
while he underwent the fatigue of lying on his side,
and needed something better to support him, v. 9.
Note, It is our wisdom not to be too fond of dainties
and pleasant bread, because we know not what hard
meat we may be tied to, nay, and may be glad of,
before we die. The meanest sort of food is better
than we deserve, and therefore must not be despised
or wasted, nor must those that use it be looked upon
with disdain, because we know not what may be our
own lot.
II. For the quantity of it, it was to be of the least
that a man could be kept alive with; to signify that
the besieged should be reduced to short allowance,
and should hold out till all the bread in the city was
spent, Jer. xxxvii. 21. The prophet must eat but
twenty shekels weight of bread a day, (y. 10. ) that
was about ten ounces; and he must drink but the
sixth part of a hin of water, that was half a pint,
about eight ounces, v. 11. The stint of the Lessian
diet is fourteen ounces of meat, and sixteen of drink.
The prophet in Babylon had bread enough and to
spare, and was by the river-side, where there was
plenty of water; and yet, that he might confirm his
own prediction, and be a sign to the children of Is¬
rael, God obliges him to live thus sparingly, and h ;
submits to it. Note, God’s servants must learn to
endure hardness, and to deny themselves the use of
lawful delights, when they may thereby serve the
glory of God, evidence the sincerity of their faith,
and express their sympathy with their brethren in
affliction. The body must be kept under, and
brought into subjection; nature is content with a
little, grace with less, but lust with nothing. It is
good to stint ourselves of choice, that we may the
better bear it if ever we should come to be stinted
by necessity. And in times, of public distress and
calamity, it ill becomes us to make much rf cur
selves, as those that drank wine in bowls, and wen
not griei.<ed for the affliction of Joseph, Amos vi.
4.-6.
III. For the dressing of it, he must bake it with
man’s dung, (y. 12.) that must be dried, and serve
for fuel to heat his oven with; the thought of it
would almost turn one’s stomach; yet the coarse
bread, thus baked, he must eat as barley-cakes, as
freely as if it were the same bread he had been used
to. This nauseous piece of cookery he must exer¬
cise publicly in their sight, that they might be the
more affected with the calamity approaching, which
was signified by it; that in the extremity of the fa¬
mine they should not only have nothing that was
dainty, but nothing that was cleanly, about them;
they must take up with what they could get. To
the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.
This circumstance of the sign, the baking of his
bread with man’s dung, the prophet with submission
humbly desired might be dispensed with; (n. 14.)
it seemed to have in it something of a ceremonial
pollution, for there was a law that man’s dung should
be covered with earth, that God might .see no unclean
thing in their camp, Deut. xxiii. 13, 14. And must
he go gather a thing so offensive, and use it in the
dressing of his meat in the sight of the people ?
“ Ah Lord God,” says he, “behold, my soul hath
not been polluted, and I am afraid lest by this it be
polluted.” Note, The pollution of the soul by sin
is what good people dread more than any thing; and
yet sometimes tender consciences fear it without
cause, and perplex themselves with scruples about
lawful things, as the prophet here, who had not yet
learned that it is not that which goes into the mouth
that defies the man, Matth. xv. 1 1. But observe,
He does not plead, “Lord, from my youth I have
been brought up delicately, and never used to any
thing but what was clean and nice;” (and there were
those who were so brought up, who in the siege of
Jerusalem did embrace dunghills, Lam. iv. 5.) but
that he had been brought up conscientiously, and
had never eaten any thing that was forbidden by the
law, that died of itself, or was torn in pieces; “ And
therefore, Lord, do not put this upon me now.”
Thus Peter pleaded, (Acts x. 14.) Lord, I have
never eaten any thing that is common or unclean.
Note, It will be comfortable to us, when we are re¬
duced to hardships, if our hearts can witness for us
that we have always been careful to abstain from
sin, even from little sins, and the appearances of
evil. Whatever God commands us, we may be
sure is good; but if we be put upon any thing that
we apprehend to be evil, we should argue against
it, from this consideration, that hitherto we have
preserved our purity — and shall we lose it now?
Now, because Ezekiel with a manifest tenderness
of conscience made this scruple, God dispensed with
him in this manner. Note, Those who have power
in their hands, should not be rigorous in pressing
their commands upon those that are dissatisfied con¬
cerning them, yea, though their dissatisfactions be
(508
EZEKIEL, V.
groundless, or arising from education and long usage,
but should recede from them rather than grieve or
offend the weak, or put a stumbling-block before
them; in conformity to the example of God’s con¬
descension to Ezekiel, though we are sure his au¬
thority is incontestable, and all his commands wise
and good. God allowed Ezekiel to use cow’s dung
instead of man’s dung, v. 15. This is an implicit
reflection upon man, as intimating that, lie being
polluted with sin, his filthiness is more nauseous and
odious than that of any other creature. How much
more abominable and. filthy is man! Job xv. 16.
Now this sign is particularly explained here; it
signified,
1. That those who remained in Jerusalem should
be brought to extreme misery for want of necessary
food; all supplies being cut off by the besiegers, the
city would soon find a want of the country, for the
king himself is served of the field; and thus the
staff of bread would be broken in Jerusalem, v. 16.
God would not only take away from the bread its
power to nourish, so that they shall eat, and not be
satisfied, (Lev. xxvi. 26.) but would take away the
bread itself, Isa. iii. 1. So that what little remained
should be eaten by weight, so much a-day, so much
a-head, that they might have an equal share, and
might make it last as long as possible. But to what
purpose when they could not mike it last always;
and the besieged must be tired out before the besieg¬
ers? They shall eat and drink with care, to make
it go as far as might be, and with astonishment,
when they saw it almost spent, and knew not which
way to look for a recruit. They shall be astonished
one with another; whereas it used to be some alle¬
viation of a calamity to have others share with us
in it, ( So/amen miseris socios habuisse doloris,) and
some ease to the spirit to complain of the burthen,
it should be an aggravation of the misery, that it
was universal, and their complaining to one another
should but make them all the more uneasy, and in¬
crease the astonishment; and the event shall be as
bad as their fears; they cannot make it worse than
it is, for they shall consume away for their iniquity ;
multitudes of them shall die of famine, a lingering
death, worse than that by the sword; (Lam. iv. 9. )
they shall die so as to feel themselves die; and it is
sin that brings all this misery upon them; They shall
consume away in their iniquity; so it may be read.
They shall continue hardened and impenitent, and
shall die in their sins, which is more miserable than
to die on a dunghill.
Now, (1.) Let us see here what woful work sin
makes with a people, and acknowledge the righte¬
ousness of God herein. Time was when Jerusalem
was filled with the finest of the wheat; (Ps. cxlvii.
14. ) but now it would be glad of the coarsest, and
cannot have it. Fulness of bread, as it was one of
Jerusalem’s mercies, so it was become one of her
sins, Ezek. xvi. 49. The plenty was abused to luxury
and excess, which was therefore thus justly punished
with famine. It is a righteous thing with God to
deprive us of those enjoyments which we have made
the food and fuel of our lusts.
(2. ) Let us see what reason we have to bless God
for plenty; not only for the fruits of the earth, but
for the freedom of commerce, that the husbandman
can have money for his bread, and the tradesman
bread for his money; that there is abundance not
only in the field, but in the market, that those who
live in cities and great towns, though they sow not,
neither do they reap, are yet fed from day to day
with food convenient.
2. It signified, that those who were carried into
captivity should be forced to cat their defiled bread
among the Gentiles, (u. 13.) to eat meat made up
by Gentile hands, otherwise than according to the
law of the Jewish church, which they were always
taught to call defiled, and which they would haw
as great an aversion to as a man would have to bread
prepared with dung, that is, (as perhaps it may be
understood,) kneaded and moulded with dung.
Daniel and his fellows confined themselves to pulse
and water, rather than they would eat the portion
of the king’s meat assigned them, because they ap¬
prehended it would defile them; (Dan. i. 8.) or,
they should be forced to eat putrid meat, such as
their oppressors would allow them in their slavery,
and sucli as formerly they would have scorned to
touch. Because they served not God with cheerful¬
ness in the abundance of all things, God will make
them serve their enemies in the want of all things.
CHAP. V.
In this chapter we have a further, and no less terrible, de¬
nunciation of the judgments of God, which were coming
with all speed and force upon the Jewish nation, which
would utterly ruin it; for w hen God judges he will over¬
come. This destruction of Judah and Jerusalem is here,
I. Represented by a sign, the cutting, and burning, and
scattering of hair, v. 1 . . 4. 11. That sign is expounded,
and applied to Jerusalem. I. Sin is charged upon Je¬
rusalem as the cause of this desolation — contempt of
God’s law, (v. 5. .7.) and profanation of his sanctuary,
v. 11. 2. Wrath is threatened, great wrath, (v. S. .10.)
a variety of miseries, (v. 12, 16, 1 7. ) such as should be
their reproach and ruin, v. 13. .15.
1. A ND thou, son of man, take thee a
-Is l sharp knife, take thee a barber’s ra¬
zor, and cause it to pass upon thy head, and
upon thy beard ; then take thee balances to
weigh, and divide the hair. 2. Thou shalt
burn with fire a third part in the midst of
the city, when the days of the siege are ful¬
filled: and thou shalt take a third part, and
smite about it with a knife ; and a third part
thou shalt scatter in the wind : and I will
draw out a sword after them. 3. Thou
shalt also take thereof a few in number,
and bind them in thy skirts. 4. Then take
of them again, and cast them into the midst
of the fire, and burn them in the fire ; for
thereof shall a fire come forth into all the
house of Israel.
We have here the sign by which the litter de¬
struction of Jerusalem is set forth; and here, as be¬
fore, the prophet is himself the sign, that the people
might see how much he affected himself with, and
interested himself in, the case of Jerusalem, and
how near it lav to his heart, even then when he fore¬
told the desolations of it; he was so much concerned
about it as to take what was done to it as done to
himself, so far was he from desiring the woful day.
1. He must shave off the hair of his head and
beard, ( v . 1.) which signified God’s utter rejecting
and abandoning of that people, as a useless, worth¬
less generation, such as could well be spared, nay,
such as it would be his honour to part with; his
judgments, and all the instruments he made use of
in cutting them off were, this sharp knife and this
razor, that were proper to be made use of, and
would do execution. Jerusalem had been the head,
but, being degenerated, was become as the hair,
which, when it grows thick and long, is but a bur¬
then which a man wishes to get clear of, as Gcd of
the sinners in Zion; Jlh, J will case me of mine ad¬
versaries, Isa. i. 24. Ezekiel must net cut off that
hair only which was superfluous, but cut it all off,
denoting the full end that God would make of Jeru¬
salem. The ha r that would not be trimmed and
kept neat and clean by the admonitions of the pro-
609
EZEKIEL, V.
phets, must be all shaved off by an utter destruc¬
tion. Those will be mined that will not be re¬
formed.
2. He must weigh the hair, and divide it into three
/tarts. This intimates the very exact directing of
God’s judgments according to equity, (by him men
and their actions are weighed in the unerring balance
of truth and righteousness,) and the proportion
which divine justice observes in punishing some by
one judgment and others by another; one way or
other, they shall all be met with. Some make the
shaving of the hair to denote the loss of their liberty
and of their honour: it was looked upon as a mark
of ignominy, as in the disgrace Hanun put on Da¬
vid’s ambassadors; it denotes also the loss of their
joy, for they shaved their heads upon occasion of
great mourning; I may add the loss of their Naza-
l'iteship, for the shaving of the head was a period
to that vow, (Numb. vi. 18.) and Jerusalem was
now no longer looked upon as a holy city.
3. He must dispose of the hair so that it might
all be destroyed or dispersed, v. 2. (1.) One third
part must be burnt in the midst of the city, denoting
the multitudes that should perish by famine and
pestilence, and perhaps many in the conflagration
of the city, when the days of the siege were fulfilled;
or the laying of that glorious city in ashes might
well be looked upon as a third part of the destruc¬
tion threatened. (2.) Another third part was to be
cut in pieces with a knife, representing the many
who, during the siege, were slain by the sword, in
their sallies out upon the besiegers, and especially
when the city was taken by storm, the Chaldeans
being then most furious, and the Jews most feeble.
(3. ) Another third part was to be scattered in the
wind, denoting the carrying away of some into the
land of the conqueror, and the flight of others into
the neighbouring countries for shelter; so that they
were hurried some one way and some another, like
loose hairs in the wind. But lest they should think
that this dispersion would be their escape, God adds,
Iwilldraw out a sword after them; sothat, wherever
they go, evil shall pursue them. Note, God has
variety of judgments wherewith to accomplish the
destruction of a sinful people, and to make an end
when he begins.
4. He must preserve a small quantity of the third
sort that were to be scattered in the wind, and bind
them in his skirts, as one would bind that which he
is very mindful and careful of, v. 3. This signified
perhaps that little handful of people which were left
under the government of Gedaliah, who, it was
hoped, would keep possession of the land when the
body of the people was carried into captivity. Thus
God would have done well for them if they would
have done well for themselves. But these few that
were reserved, must be taken, and cast into the fire,
v. 4. When Gedaliah and his friends were slain,
the people that put themselves under his protection
were scattered, some gone into Egypt, others car¬
ried off by the Chaldeans, and in short the land to¬
tally cleared of them, then this was fulfilled, for out
of those combustions a fire catne forth into all the
house of Israel, who, as fuel upon the fire, kindled
and consumed one another. Note, It is ill with a
people when those are taken away in wrath that
seemed to be marked for monuments of mercy, for
then there is no remnant or escaping, none shut up
or left.
5. Thus saith the Lord God, This is Je¬
rusalem : I have set it in the midst of the
nations and countries that are round about
her. 6. And she hath changed my judg¬
ments into wickedness more than the na¬
tions, and my statutes more than the coun-
Vol. iv. — 4 H i
tries that are round about her; for they have
refused my judgments and my statutes, they
have not walked in them. 7. Therefore
thus saitli the Lord God, Because ye mul¬
tiplied more than the nations that are round
about you, and have not walked in my sta¬
tutes, neither have kept my judgments, nei¬
ther have done according to the judgments
of the nations that arc round about you ;
8. Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Be¬
hold, I, even \,am against thee, and will exe¬
cute judgments in the midst of thee, in the
sight of the nations. 9. And I will do in
thee that which 1 have not done, and where-
unto I will not do any more the like ; be¬
cause of all thine abominations. 10. There¬
fore the fathers shall eat the sons in the
midst of thee, and the sons shall eat their
fathers ; and I will execute judgments in
thee, and the whole remnant of thee will 1
scatter into all the winds. 11. Wherefore,
as I live, saith the Lord God, Surely, be¬
cause thou hast defiled my sanctuary with
all thy detestable things, and with all thine
abominations, therefore will I also diminish
thee ; neither shall mine eye spare, neither
will I have any pity. 12. A third part of
thee shall die with the pestilence, and with
famine shall they be consumed in the midst
of thee; and a third part shall fall by the
sword round about thee ; and I will scatter
a third part into all the winds; and I will
draw out a sword after them. 13. Thus
shall mine anger be accomplished, and I
will cause my fury to rest upon them, and
1 will be comforted : and they shall know
that I the Lord have spoken it in my zeal,
when I have accomplished my fury in them.
14. Moreover, I will make thee waste, and
a reproach among the nations that are round
about thee, in the sight of all that pass by.
1 5. So it shall be a reproach and a taunt,
an instruction and an astonishment, unto
the nations that are round about thee, when
I shall execute judgments in thee, in anger
and in fury, and in furious rebukes. I the
Lord have spoken it. 16. When I shall
send upon them the evil arrows of famine,
which shall be for their destruction, and
which I will send to destroy you : and I
will increase the famine upon you, and will
break your staff of bread. 17. So will I
send upon you famine, and evil beasts, and
they shall bereave thee ; and pestilence and
blood shall pass through thee; and 1 will
bring the sword upon thee. I the Lord
have spoken it.
We liave here the explanation of the foregoing
similitude: This is Jerusalem. Thus it is usual in
G 1 0
EZEKIEL. V.
scripture-language to give the name of the thi 4g
signified to the sign; as when Christ said, This is my
body. The prophet’s head, which was to be shaved,
signified Jerusalem, which by the judgments of God
was now to be stripped of all its ornaments, to be
emptied of all its inhabitants, and to be set naked
and bare, to be shaved with a r^tzor that is hired,
Isa. vii. 20. The head of one that was a priest, a
prophet, a holy person, was fittest to represent Je¬
rusalem the holy city. Now the contents of these
verses are much the same with what we have often
met with, and still shall, in the writings of the pro¬
phets. Here we have,
I. The privileges Jerusalem was honoured with;
(t\ 5.) I have set it in the midst of the nations and
countries that are round about her, and those, fa¬
mous nations, and very considerable. Jerusalem
was not si mated in a remote, obscure corner of the
world, far from neighbours, but in the midst of
kingdoms that were populous, polite, and civilized,
famed for learning, arts, and sciences, and which
then made the greatest figure in the world. But
there seems to be more in it than this. 1. Jerusa¬
lem was dignified and preferred among the neigh¬
bouring nations, and their cities; it was set in the
midst of them as excelling them all; this holy moun-
tai>, was exalted above all the hills, Isa. ii. 2. Why
leap ye, ye high hills? This is the hill which God
desires to dwell in, Ps. lxviii. 16. Jerusalem was
a city upon a hill, conspicuous and illustrious, and
which all the neighbouring nations had an eye upon,
some for good-will, some for ill-will. 2 Jerusalem
was des gned to have a good influenct upon the na¬
tions end countries round about, » as set in the
midst of them as a candle upon a ( andlestick, to
spread the light of divine revelation, which she was
blessed with,' to all the dark corners of the neigh¬
bouring nations, that from them it might diffuse
itself further, even to the ends of the earth. Jeru¬
salem was set in the midst of the nations, to be as
the heart in the body, to invigorate this dead world
with a divine life, as well as to enlighten this dark
world with a divine light, to be an example of every
thing that was good. The nations that observed
what excellent statutes and judgments they had,
concluded them to be a wise and understanding
j leop/e , (Deut. iv. 6.) fit to be consulted as an ora¬
cle, as they were in Solomon’s time, 1 Kings iv. 34.
And had they preserved this reputation, and made
aright use of it, what a blessing had Jerusalem been
to all the nations about! But, failing to be so, the
accomplishment of this intention was reserved for
its latter days, when out of Zion went forth the
gospel-feu, and the word of the Lord Jesus from
Jerusalem-, and there refientance and remission be¬
gan to be preached, and thence the preachers of
them went forth into all nations. And when that
was done, Jerusalem was levelled with the ground.
Note, When places and persons are made great, it
is with design that they may do good, and that those
about them may be the better for them; that their
light may shine before men.
II. The provocations Jerusalem was guilty of. A
very high charge is here drawn up against that city,
and proved beyond contradiction sufficient to justify
God in seizing its privileges, and putting it under
military execution.
1. Slie had not walked in God’s statutes, nor kefit
his judgments; (y.7.) nav, they had refused his
judgments and his statutes, ( [v . 6.) they ffid not
do their duty, nay, they would not, they & J that
thev would not: those statutes and judgments which
their neighbours admired, they despised; which
they should have set before their face, they uast
behind their back. Note, A contempt of the wo 'd
and law of God opens a door to all manner < if ini¬
quity. God’s statutes are the terms on which he
deals with men; they that refuse his terms, cannot
expect his favours.
2. She had changed God’s judgments *nto wick
edness, (x>. 6.) a very high expression of their pro¬
faneness, that they had not only broken God’s laws,
but had so perverted and abused them, that they
had made them the excuse and colour of their
wickedness; they introduced the abominable cus¬
toms and usages of the heathen, instead ofGod’s in¬
stitutions; this was changing the truth of God into a
lie, (Rom. i. 25.) and the glory of God into shame,
Ps. iv. 2. Note, Those that have been well educat¬
ed, if they live ill, put the highest affront imagina¬
ble upon God, as if he were the Patron of sin, and
his judgments were turned into wickedness.
3. She had been worse than the neighbouring na¬
tions, to whom she should have set a good example;
She has changed my judgments, by idolatries and
false worship, more than the nations, (i>. 6.) and
she has multiplied idols and altars, gods and tem¬
ples, multiplied those things the unity of which was
their praise, more than the nations that were round
about. Israel’s God is one, and his name one, his
altar one; but they, not content with this one God,
multiplied their gods to that degree, that according
to the number of their cities so were their gods, ana
their altars as heaps in the furrows of the field;
so that they exceeded all their neighbours in having
gods many and lords many. They corrupted re¬
vealed religion more than the Gentiles had corrupt¬
ed natural religion. Note, If those who have made
a profession of religion, and have had a pious educa¬
tion, apostatize from it, they are commonly more
profane and vicious than those who never made any
profession; they have seven other spirits more
wicked.
4. She had not done according to the judgments
of the nations; (v. 7.) they had not acted toward
their God, though he is the only true God, as the
nations had acted toward their gods, though they
were false gods; they had not been so observant of
him, nor so constant to him. Has a nation changed
their gods, or slighted them, so as they have? Jer.
ii. II. Or, it may refer to their morals; instead of
reforming their neighbours, they came short of
them; and many who were of the uncircumcision
kept the righteousness of the law better than those
who were of the circumcision, Rom. ii. 26, 27.
Those who had the light of scripture did not ac¬
cording to the judgtnenls of many who had only the
light of nature. Note, There are those who are
called Christians, who will in the great day be con¬
demned by the better tempers and better lives of
sober heathens.
5. The particular crime charged upon Jerusa¬
lem is, profaning the holy things, which she had_
been both intrusted and honoured with; (v. 11.)
Thou hast defiled my sanctuary with all thy detest¬
able things, with thine idols and idolatries. The
images of their pretended deities, and the groves
erected in honour of them, were brought into the
temple; and the ceremonies used by idolaters were
brought into the worship of God; thus every thing
that is sacred was polluted. Note, Idols are de¬
testable things any where, but more especially so in
the sanctuary.
III. The punishments that Jerusalem should fill
under for these provocations; Shall not God visit
for these things ? No doubt he shall. The matter
of the sentence here passed upon Jerusalem is very
dreadful, and the manner of expression makes it
yet more so; the judgments are various, and the
threatenings of them varied, reiterated, inculcated-
that one may well say, Who is able to stand in God’s
sight when once he is angry?
1. God will take this work of punishing Jerusa¬
lem into his own hands; and nuho knows the power
EZEKIEL, V. 6li
of his anger, and what a fearful thing it is to fall
into his Iiands? Observe what a strong emphasis is
laid upon it, ( v . 8.) I, even I, am against thee. God
had been for Jerusalem, to defend and save it; but
miserable is its case when he is turned to be its
Enemy, and fights against it. If God Joe against us,
the whole creation is at war with us, and nothing
can be for us so as to stand us in any stead; “ You
think ir is only the Chaldean army that is against
you, but they are God’s hand, or rather the staff
m his hand; it is /, even I, that am against thee;
not only to speak against thee by prophets, but to
act against thee by providence. I will execute
judgments in thee, (i>. 10.) in the midst of thee,
{v. 8. ) not only in the suburbs, but in the heart of
the citv; not only in the borders, but in the bowels
of the country.” Note, Those who will not observe
the judgments of God’s mouth, shall not escape the
judgments of his hand; and God’s judgments, when
they come with commission, will penetrate into the
midst of a people, will enter into the soul, into the
bowels like water, and like oil into the bones; I will
execute judgments. Note, God himself undertakes
to execute his own judgments, according to the true
and full intent of them; whatever are the instru¬
ments, he is the principal Agent.
2. These punishments shall come from his dis¬
pleasure. As to the body of the people, it shall not
be a correction in love, but he will execute judg¬
ments in anger, and in fury, and in furious re¬
bukes; [y. 15.) strange expressions to come from a
God, who has said, Fury is not in me; and who has
declared himself gracious, and merciful, and slow
to anger. But they are designed to show the ma-
lignity of sin, and the offence it gives to the just and
holy God. That must needs be a very evil thing
which provokes him to such resentments, and
against his own people ton, that had been so high in
his favour, and expressed with so much satisfaction;
(r. 13.) “ Mine anger, which has long been with¬
held, shall now be accompl'shed, and I will cause- my
fury to rest upon them; it shall not only light upon
them, but lie upon them, and fill them as vessels
of wrath fitted by their own wickedness to destruc¬
tion: and, justice being hereby glorified, I will be
comforted, I will be entirely satisfied in what I have
done.” As when God is dishonoured by the sins of
men, he is said to be grieved, (Ps. xcv. 10.) so when
he is honoured by their destruction, he is said to be
comforted. The struggle between mercy and judg¬
ment is over, and in this case judgment triumphs,
triumphs indeed; for mercy that has been so long
abused, is now silent, and gives up the cause, has
not a word more to say on the behalf of such an un¬
grateful, incorrigible people; Mine eye shall not
spare, neither will I have any pity, v. 11. Divine
compassion defers the punishment, or mitigates it,
or supports under it, or shortens it, but here is
judgment without mercy, wrath without any mix¬
ture or allay of pity. These expressions are thus
sharpened and heightened, perhaps with design to
look further, to the vengeance of eternal fire, which
some of the destructions we read of in the Old Tes¬
tament were typical of, and particularly that of Je¬
rusalem ; for surely it is no where on this side hell
that this word has its full accomplishment, Mine
eye shall not spare, but I will cause my fury to rest.
Note, Those who live and die impenitent, will perish
for ever unpitied; there is a day coming when the
Lord will not spare.
3. Punishments shall be public and open; I will
execute these judgments in the sight of the nations;
(y. 8.) the judgments themselves shall be so re¬
markable, that all the nations far and near shall
take tiotice of them; they shall be all the talk of that
part of the world, and more for the conspicuousness
of l fie place and people on which hey are inflicted.
Note, Public sins, as they call for public reproofs,
( Them that sin rebuke before all ,) so, if those pre¬
vail not, they call for public judgments. He strikes
them as wicked men in the open sight of others, (Job
xxxiv. 26.) that he may maintain and vindicate the
honour of his government, for (as Grotius descants
upon it here) why should he suffer it to be said. See
what wicked lives they lead, who profess to be the
worshippers of the only true God.' And as the pub ¬
licity of the judgments will redound to the honour
of God, so it will serve, (1.) To aggravate the pun¬
ishment, and to make it lie the more heavy. Jeru¬
salem, being made waste, becomes a reproach
among the nations, in the sight of all that pass by,
v. 14. The more conspicuous and the more pecu¬
liar any have been in the day of their prosperity,
the greater disgrace attends their fall; and that was
Jerusalem’s case. The more Jerusalem had been
a praise in the earth, the more it is now a reproach
and a taunt, v . 15. This she was warned of as
much as any thing when her glory commenced, (1
Kings ix. 8.) and this was lamented as much as any
thing when it was laid in the dust, Lam. ii. 15. (2.)
To teach the nations to fear before the God of Israel,
when they saw what a jealous God he is, and how
severely he punishes sin, even in those that are
nearest to him. It shall be an instruction to the na¬
tions, v. 15. Jerusalem should have taught her
neighbours the fear of God by her piety and virtue,
but she not doing that, God will teach it them by
her ruin ; for they have reason to say. If this be done
in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry? If
judgment begin at the house of God, where will it
end? If they be thus punished, who only had some
idolaters among them, what will become of us who
are all idolaters? Note, The destruction of some is
designed for the instruction of others. Malefactors
are publicly punished, in terrorem — that others
may take warning.
4. These punishments, in the kind of them, shall
be very severe and grievous. (1.) They shall be
such as have no precedent or parallel. Their sins
being more provoking than those of others, the judg¬
ments executed upon them should be uncommon.
{v. 9.) “I will do in thee that which I have noi
done in thee before, though thou hast long since de¬
served it; nay, that which I have not done in any
other city.” This punishment of Jerusalem is said
to be greater than that of Sodom, (Lam. iv. 6.)
which was the sorest of all that went before it; nay,
it is such as I will not do any more the like, all the
circumstances taken in, to any other city, till the
like come to be done again to this city, in its final
overthrow by the Romans. This is a rhetorical
expression of the most grievous judgments, like that
character of Heztkiah, that there was none like
him, before or after him. (2.) They shall be such
as will force them to break the strongest bonds of
natural affection to one another, which will be a just
punishment i f them for their wilful breaking of the
bonds of their duty to God; (i\ 10.) The fathers
shall eat the sons, and the sons shall eat the fathers,
through the extremity of the famine, or compelled
to do it by their barbarous conquerors. (3.) There
shall be a complication of judgments, any one of
them terrible enough, and desolating; but what then
would they be when they came all together, and in
perfection? Some shall be taken away by the plague;
(t>. 12.) the pestilence shall pass through thee, ( v .
17.) sweeping all before it, as the destroying angel;
others shall be consumed with famine, snail gradu¬
ally waste away as men in a consumption; (y. 12.)
this is again insisted on; (n. 16.) I will send upon
them the evil arrows of famine; hunger shall make
them pine, and shall pierce them to the heart, as
if arrows, evil arrows, poisoned darts were shot
into them; God has many arrows, evil arrows, in
612 EZEKIEL, VI.
his quiver; when some are discharged, he lias still
more in reserve. I will increase the famine upon
you; a famine in a bereaved country may decrease,
as fruits spring forth; but a famine in a besieged city
will increase of course: yet God speaks of it as his
act; “I will increase it, and will break your staff
of bread; will take away the necessary supports of
life, will disappoint you of all that which you de¬
pend upon, so that there is no remedy, but you must
fall to the ground.” Life is frail, is weak, is bur-
thened, so that, if it have not daily bread for its
staff to lean upon, it cannot but sink, and is soon
gone if that staff be broken. Others shall fall by
the sword round about Jerusalem, when they sally
out upon the besiegers; it is a sword, which God
will bring, v. 17. The sword of the Lord, that
used to be drawn for Jerusalem’s defence, is now
drawn for its destruction. Others are devoured by
evil beasts, which will make a prey of those that
fiv for shelter to the deserts and mountains; they
shall meet their ruin where they expected refuge,
for there is no escaping the judgments of God, i’¬
ll . And lastly, those who escape shall be scattered
into all parts of the world, into all the winds, (so it
is expressed, v. 10, 12. ) intimating that they should
not only be dispersed, but hurried, and tossed, and
driven to and fro, as chaff before the wind. Nay,
and Cain’s curse (to be fugitives and vagabonds) is
not the worst of it neither, their restless life shall be
cut off by a bloody death; I will draw out a sword
after them, which shall follow them wherever they
go. Evil pursues sinners: and the curse shall come
upon them, and overtake them.
5. These punishments will prove their ruin by
degrees; they shall be diminished, (v. 11.) their
strength and glory shall grow less and less; they
shall be bereaved, (v. 17.) emptied of all that
which was their joy and confidence. God sends
• 'hese judgments on purpose to destroy them, v. 16.
The arrows are not sent (as those which Jonathan
shot) for their direction, but for their destruction:
for God will accomplish his fury upon them, (v.
13.) the day of God’s patience is over, and the ruin
is remediless. Though this prophecy was to have
its accomplishment now quickly, in the destruction
of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans’, yet the execution¬
ers not being named here, but the criminal only,
f This is Jerusalem, ) we may well suppose that it
looks further, to the final destruction of that great
city by the Romans, when God made a full end of
the Jewish nation, and caused his fury to rest upon
them.
6. All this is ratified by the divine authority and
veracity; / the Lord have spoken it, (r. 15.) and
again, v. 17. The sentence is passed by him that
is Judge of heaven and earth, whose judgment is
according to truth, and the judgments of his hand
according to the judgments of his mouth. He has
spoken it, who cun do it, for with him nothing is
impossible. He has spoken it, who will do it, for
he is not a man that he should lie. He has spoken it,
whom we are bound to hear and heed; whose ipse
dixit — word commands the most serious attention
and submissive assent; And they shall know that I
the Lord have spoken it, v. 13. There were those
who thought it was only the prophet that spake it
"ji his delirium; but God will make them know, by
the accomplishment of it, that he has spoken it :n
his zeal. Note, Sooner or later, God’s word will
prove itself.
CHAP. VI.
In this chapter, we have, I. A threatening of the destruc¬
tion of Israel for their idolatry, and the destruction of
their idols with them, v. 1 . . 7. II. A promise of the
gracious return of a remnant of them to God, by true
repentance and reformation v. 8 IQ III. Directions
given to the prophet and others, the Lord’s servants, ti
lament both the iniquities and the calamities of Israel,
v. II . . 14.
1. 4 ND the word of the Lord came
J\. unto me, saying, 2. Son of man,
set thy face toward the mountains of Israel,
and prophesy against them, 3 And say.
Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of
the Lord God; Thus saith the Lord God
to the mountains and to the hills, to the
rivers, and to the valleys, Behold, I, even I
will bring a sword upon you, and I will de¬
stroy your high places; 4. And your altars
shall be desolate, and your images shall be
broken ; and I will cast down your slain
men before your idols. 5. And I will lay
the dead carcases of the children of Israel
before their idols; and I will scatter youi
bones round about your altars. 6. In all
your dwelling-places the cities shall be laid
waste, and the high places shall b$ deso¬
late; that your altars may be laid waste
and made desolate, and your.idols may be
broken and cease, and your images may be
cut down, and your works may be abolish¬
ed. 7. And the slain shall fall in the midst
of you ; and ye shall know that I am the
Lord.
Here, 1. The prophecy is directed to the moun¬
tains of Israel, {v. 1, 2.) the prophet must set his
face toward them; if he could see so far off as the
land of Israel, the mountains of that land would
be first and furthest seen; toward them therefore
he must look, and look boldly and stedfastly, as the
judge looks at the prisoner, and directs his speech
to him, when he passes sentence upon him. Though
the mountains of Israel be ever so high and ever
so strong, he must set his face against them, as hav¬
ing judgments to denounce, that should shake their
foundation. The mountains of Israel had been
holy mountains, but now that they had polluted
them with their high places, God sets his face
against them, and therefore the prophet must. Is¬
rael is here put, not, as sometimes, for the ten tribes,
but for the whole land. The mountains are called
upon to hear the word of the Lord, to shame the
inhabitants that would not hear. The prophets
might as soon gain attention from the mountains as
from that rebellious and gainsaying people, to
whom they all day long stretched out their hands in
vain. Hear, 0 mountains, the Lord’s controversy ;
(Mich. vi. 1, 2.) for God’s cause will have a hearing,
whether we hear it or no. But from the mountains
the word of the Lord echoes to the hilts, to the rivers,
and to the valleys; for to them also the Lord God
speaks; intimating that the whole land is concerned
in what is now to be delivered, and shall be witnesses
against this people, that they had fair warning given
them of the judgments coming, but they would not
take it; nay, they contradicted the message, and
persecuted the messengers, so that God’s prophets
might more safely and comfortably speak to the hills
and mountains than to them.
2. That which is threatened in this prophecy, is
the utter destruction of the idols and the idolaters,
and both by the sword of war. God himself is com¬
mander in chief of this expedition against themoun
tains of Israel; it is he that says, Behold, I, even 1,
will bring a sword upon you; (x\ 3. ) the sword of the
613
Chaldeans is at God’s command, goes where he
sends it, comes where he brings it, and lights as he
directs it. In the desolations of th^t war,
( 1 ) The idols and all their appurtenances should
be destroyed. The high places, which were on the
tops of mountains, (v. 3.) these shall be levelled,
and made desolate , (v. 6.) they shall not be beauti¬
fied, shall not be frequented as they had been ; the
altars , on which they offered sacrifice and burnt in-
cense to strange gods, shall be broken to i pieces and
laid waste; the images and idols shall be defaced,
shall be broken and cease, and be cut down, and all
the fine costly works about them shall be abolished,
v. 4, 6. Observe here, [1.] That war makes wotul
desolations, which those persons, places, and things,
that were esteemed most sacred, cannot escape; for
the sword devours one as well as another. [_2. ]
Tli it God sometimes ruins idolatries, even by the
nands of idolaters, for such the Chaldeans them¬
selves were; but, as if the deity were a local thing,
the greatest admirers of the gods of their own coun¬
try were the greatest despisers of the gods of other
countries. [3.] It is just with God to make that a
desolation, which we make an idol of; for he is a
jealous God, and will not bear a rival. [4.] If men
do not, as they ought, destroy idolatry, God will,
first or last find out a way to do it. When Josiah
had destroyed the high places, altars, and images,
with the sword of justice, they set them up again ;
but God will now destroy them with the sword of
war, and let us see who dares re-establish them.
(2.) The worshippers of idols and all their adhe¬
rents should be destroyed likewise; as all their high
places shall be laid waste, so shall all their dwelling-
places too, even all their cities, v. 6. They that
profane God’s dwelling-place as they had done, can
expect no other than that he should abandon theirs,
ch. v. 11. If any man defile the temple of God,
him will God destroy, 1 Cor. iii. 17. It is here
threatened, that their slain shall fall in the midst
of them; (x-. 7.) there shall be abundance slain,
even in those places which were thought most safe;
but it is added as a remarkable circumstance, that
they shall fall before their idols, ( v . 4.) that their
dead carcases should be laid, and their bones scat¬
tered, about their altars, v. 5. [1.] Thus their
idols should be polluted, and those places profaned
bv the dead bodies, which thev had had in venera¬
tion. If they will not defile the covering of their
graven images, God will, Isa. xxx. 22. The throw¬
ing of the carcases among them, as upon the dung¬
hill, intimates that they were but dunghill deities.
[2.] Thus it was intimated that they were but dead
things, unfit to be rivals with the living God; for
the carcases of dead men, that, like them, have
eyes and see not, ears and hear not, were the fittest
company for them. [3.] Thus the idols were up¬
braided with their inability to help their worship¬
pers, and idolaters upbraided with the folly of trust¬
ing in them; for, it should seem, they fell by the
sword of the enemy then when they were actually
before their idols, imploring their aid, and putting
themselves under their protection. Sennacherib
was slain by his sons then when he was worshipping
in the house of his god. [4.] The sin might be
read in this circumstance of the punishment; the
slain men are cast before the idols , to show that
therefore they are slain, because they worshipped
those idols: see Jer. viii. 2. Let the survivors ob¬
serve it, and take warning not to worship images:
let them see it, and know that God is the J .ord , that
the Lord he is God, and he alone.
8. Yet will I leave a remnant, that ye
may have some that shall escape the sword
among the nations, when ye shall be scat¬
tered through the countries. 9. And they
CL, VI.
that escape of you shall remember mo
among the nations, whither they shall be
carried captives, because I am broken with
their whorish heart, which hath departed
from me, and with their eyes, which go a
whoring after their idols: and they shall
loathe themselves for the evils which they
have committed in all their abominations.
10. And they shall know that I am the
Lord, and that I have not said in vain that
I would do this evil unto them.
Judgment had hitherto triumphed, but in these
verses mercy rejoices against judgment: a sad end
is made of this provoking people, but not a full end;
the ruin seems to be universal, and yet will I leave
a remnant, a little remnant, distinguished from the
body of the people, a few of many; such as are left
when the rest perish; and it is God that leaves
them. This intimates that they deserved to have
been cut off with the rest, and had been cut off if
God had not left them. See Isa. i. 9. And it is God
who by his grace works that in them which he has
an eye to in sparing them. Now,
I. It is a preserved remnant , saved from the ruin
which the body of the nation is involved in; {v. 8.)
that ye may have some who shall escape the sword.
God said, (ch. v. 12.) that he would draw a sword
after them who were scattered, that destruction
should pursue them in their dispersions; but here is
mercy remembered in the midst of that wrath , and
a promise that some of the Jews of the dispersion,
as they were afterward called, should escape the
sword.' None of those who were to fall by the
sword about Jerusalem, shall escape, for they trust
to Jerusalem’s walls for security, and shall be made
ashamed of that vain confidence; but some of them
shall escape the sword among the nations, where,
being deprived of all other stays, they stay them¬
selves upon God only. They are said to have those
who shall escape; for they shall be the seed of ano¬
ther generation, out of which Jerusalem shall flou¬
rish again.
II. It is a penitent remnant; (v. 9.) They who
escape of you, shall remember me. Note, To those
whom God designs for life, he will give repentance
unto life: they are reprieved, and escape the sword,
that they may have time to return to God. Note,
God’s patience both leaves room for repentance,
and is an encouragement to sinners to repent. Where
God designs grace to repent, he allows space to
repent; yet many who have the space want the
grace; many who escape the sword, do not forsake
the sin, as it is promised that these shall do. This
remnant, here marked for salvation, is a type of the
remnant reserved out of the body of mankind to be
monuments of mercy, which are made safe in the
same way that these were, by being brought to re¬
pentance. Now observe here,
1. The occasion of their repentance, and that is
a mixture of judgment and mercy; judgment, that
they were carried captives; but mercy, that they
escaped the sword in the land of their captivity;
they were driven out of their own land, but not out
of the land of the living; not chased out of the world,
as others were, and thev deserved to be. Note,
The consideration of the just rebukes of Providence
we are under, and yet of the mercy mixed with
them, should engage us to repent, that we may
answer God’s end in both. And true repentance
shall be accepted of God, though we are brought
to it by our troubles; nav, sanctified afflictions often
prove means of conversion, as to Manasseh.
2. The root and principle of their repentance:
They shall remember me among the nations. Thev
614
EZEKIEL, VI.
who forgat God in the land of their peace and pros¬
perity, waxed fat and kicked, were brought to re¬
member him in the land of their captivity. The
prodigal son never bethought himself of his father’s
house till he was ready to perish for hanger in the
far country. Their remembering of God was the
first step they took in returning to him. Note,
Then there begins to be some hopes of sinners,
when they begin to think of him whom they have
sinned against, and to inquire, Where is God my
Maker? Sin takes rise in forgetting God,.Jer. iii.
21. Repentance takes rise from the remembrance
of him, and of our obligations to him. God savs,
They shall remember me, that is, “ I will give
them grace to do so;” for otherwise they would for¬
ever forget him. That grace shall find them out
wherever they are, and by bringing God to their
mind shall bring them to their right mind. The
prodigal, when he remembered his father, remem¬
bered how he had sinned against heaven, and before
him; so do these penitents.
(1.) They remember the base affront they had
put upon God by their idolatries, and this is that
which an ingenuous repentance fastens upon, and
most sadly laments. They had departed from God
to idols, and given that honour to pretended deities,
the creatures of men’s fancies, and the work of
men’s hands, which they should have given to the
God of Israel. They departed from God, from his
word, which they should have made their rule; from
his work, which they should have made their busi¬
ness; their hearts departed from him. The heart,
which he requires and insists upon, and without
which bodily exercise profits nothing ; the heart,
which should be set upon him, and carried out to¬
ward him, when that departs from him, is as the
treacherous elopement of a wife from her husband,
or the rebellious revolt of a subject from his sove¬
reign. Their eyes also go after their idols; they
doted on them, and had great expectations from
them. Their hearts followed their eyes in the choice
of their gods; they must have gods that they could
see, and then their eyes followed their hearts in the
adoration of them. 'Now the malignity of this sin
is, that it is spiritual whoredom; it is a whorish
heart that departs from God; and they are eyes that
go a whoring after their idols. Note, Idolatry is
spiritual whoredom; it is the breach of a marriage
covenant with God; it is the setting of the affec¬
tions upon that which is a rival with him, and the
indulgence of a base lust, which deceives and de¬
files the soul, and is a great wrong to God in his
honour.
(2.) They remember what a grief this was to him,
and how he resented it. They shall remember that I
am broken with their whorish heart, and their eyes
that are full of this spiritual adultery; not only angry
at it, but grieved, as a husband is at the lewdness of
a wife whom he dearly loved, grieved to that degree,
that he is broken with it ; it breaks his heart to think
that he should be so disingenuously dealt with ; he
is broken as an aged father is with the undutiful be¬
haviour of a rebellious and disobedient son, which
sinks his spirits, and makes him to stoop. Forty
years long was I grieved with this generation, Ps.
xcv. 10. God’s measures were broken; so some; a
stop was put to the current of his favours toward
them, and he was even compelled to punish them.
This they shall remember in the day of their re¬
pentance, and it shall affect and humble them more
than any thing; not so much that their peace was
broken, and their country broken, ds that God was
broken by their sin. Thus they shall look on him
whom they have pierced, and shall mourn, Zech. xii.
10. Note, Nothing grieves a true penitent so much
as to think that his sin has been a grief to God, and
to the Spirit of his grace.
3. The product and evidence of their repentance;
They shall loathe themselves for the evils which they
have committed in all their abominations. Thus Gcd
will give them grace to qualify them for pardon and
deliverance. Though he had been broken by their
whorish heart, yet he would not quite cast them off.
See Isa. lvii. 17, 18. Hos. ii. 13, 14. His goodness
takes occasion from their badness to appear the
more illustrious. Note, (1.) True penitents see sin
to be an abominable thing, that abominable thing
which the Lord hates, and which makes sinners,
and even their services, odious to him, Jer. xliv. 4.
Isa. i. 11. It defiles the sinner’s own ccnscknce,
and makes him, unless he be past feeling, an
abomination to himself. An idol is particularly
called an abomination, Isa. xliv. 19. Those gratifi¬
cations which the hearts of sinners were set upon
as delectable things, the hearts of penitents are
turned against as detestable things. (2.) There are
many evils committed in these abominations, many
included in them, attendant on them, and flew mg
from them; many transgressions in one sin, Lev.
xvi. 21. In their idolatries they were sometimes
guilty of whoredom, as in the worship < f Pe< r;
sometimes of murder, as in the worship of Mob ch;
these were evils committed in their abominations.
Or, it denotes the great malignity there is in sin; it
is an abomination that has abundance of evil in it.
(3.) Those that truly loathe sin, cannot but lo;the
themselves because of sin; self-loathing is ever¬
more the companion of true repentance. Penitents
quarrel with themselves, and can never be re cen-
ciled to themselves till they have some ground to
hope that God is reconciled to them; nay, thin
they shall lie down in their shame, when he Is paci¬
fied toward them, Ezek. xvi. 1.
4. The glory that will redound to God by their
repentance; (z>. 10.) “ They shall know that lam
the Lord; they shall be convinced of it bv experi¬
ence, and shall be ready to own it, and that I have
not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them,
finding that what I have said is made good, and
made to work for good, and to answer a good inten¬
tion, and that it was not without just provocation
that they were thus threatened and thus punished.”
Note, (1.) One way or other, God will make sin¬
ners to know and own that he is the l.ord, either by
their repentance or by their mini (2.) All true
penitents are brought to acknowledge both the
equity and the efficacy of the word <f God, parti¬
cularly the threatenings of the word, and to justify
God in them, and in the accomplishment of them.
11. Thus saith the Lord God, Smite
with thy hand, and stamp with thy foot, and
say, Alas, for all the evil abominations of
the house of Israel! for they shall fall by
the sword, by the famine, and by the pesti¬
lence. 12. He that is far off shall die of
the pestilence; and he that is near shall fall
by the sword ; and he that remaineth and is
besieged shall die by the famine: thus will I
accomplish my fury upon them. 13. Then
shall ye know that I am the Lord, when
their slain men shall be among their idols
round about their altars, upon every high
hill, in all the tops of the mountains, and
under every green tree, and under every
thick oak, the place where they did offer
sweet savour to all their idols. 1 4. So will I
stretch out my hand upon them, and make
the land desolate, yea, more desolate than
EZEKIEL, VIJ.
the wilderness toward Diblath, in all their
habitations; and they shall know that 1 am
the Lord.
The same threatening* which -ve had before
in the foregoing chapter, and in the former part
of this, are here repeated, with a direction to the
prophet to lament them, that those he prophesied to
might be the more affected with the foresight of
them.
1. H e must by his gestures in preaching express
the deep sense lie had both of the iniquities and of
the calamities of the house of Israel; (y. lb ) Smite
•with thy hand, and stamp with thy foot. Thus he
must make it to appear that he was in earnest in what
he said to them, that he firmly believed it, and laid
it to heart; thus he must signify the just displeasure
he had conceived at their sins, and the just dread he
was under of the judgments coming upon them.
Some would reject this use of these gestures, and
call them antic and ridiculous; but God bids him
use them because they might help to enforce the
word upon some, and give it the setting on; and those
that know the worth of souls, will be content to be
laughed at by the wits, so they may but edify the
weak. Two things the prophet must thus lament;
(1.) National sins. Alas, for all the evil abomina¬
tions of the house of Israel! Note, The sins of
sinners are the sorrows of God’s faithful servants,
especially the evil abominations of the house of
Israel, whose sins are more abominable, and nave
more evil in them, than the sins of others. Alas!
What will be in the end hereof? (2.) National judg¬
ments. To punish them for these abominations,
they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by
the pestilence. Note, It is our duty to be affected
n it only with our own sins and sufferings, but with the
sins and sufferings of others; and to iook with com-
p ission upon the miseries that wicked people bring
upon themselves; as Christ beheld Jerusalem, and
wept over it.
2. He must inculcate what he had said before
concerning the destruction that was coming upon
them.
(1.) They shall be run down and ruined by a
variety of judgments which shall find them out, and
follow them wherever they are; (x>. 12.) He that
is far off, and thinks himself out of danger, be¬
cause out of the reach of the Chaldeans’ arrows,
shall find himself not out of the reach of God’s
arrows, which fly day and night; (Ps. xci. 5.)
he shall die of the pestilence; he that is near a place
of strength, which he hopes will be to him a place of
safety, shall fall by the sword, before he can retreat;
he that is so cautious as not to venture out, but re¬
mains in the city, there he shall die by the famine,
the saddest death of all. Thus will God accomplish
his fury; do all that against them which he had
purposed to do.
(2.) They shall read their sin in their punishment;
for their slain men shall be among their idols, round
about their altars, as was threatened before, v. 5. — 7.
There, where they had prostrated themselves in
honour of their idols, God will lay them dead, to
their own reproach, and the reproach of their idols.
They lived among them and shall die among them.
They had offered sweet odours to their idols, but
there shall their dead carcases send forth an offen¬
sive smell, as it were to atone for that misplaced
incense.
(3.) The country shall be all laid waste, as be¬
fore the cities; (t. 6.) I will make the land desolate.
That fruitful, pleasant, populous country, that has
been as the garden of the Lord, the glory of all
lands, shall be desolate, more desolate than the wil¬
derness toward Diblath, v. 14. It is called Dib-
6IA
luthaim, (Numb, xxxiii. 46. — xlviii. 22.) that great
and terrible wilderness, which is described, Ucut.
viii. IS. wherein were fiery serpents and scorpions.
The land of Canaan is at this day one of the most
barren, desolate countries in the world. City and
country are thus depopulated, that the altars may be
laid waste, and made desolate, v. 6. Rather than
their idolatrous altars shall be left standing, both
town and country shall be laid in ruins. Sin is a
desolating thing; therefore stand iti awe, and sin not.
CHAP. VII.
In this chapter, the approaching ruin of the land of Israel
is most particularly foretold in affecting expressions
often repeated, that if possible they might be awakened
by repentance to prevent it. The prophet must tell them,
l. That it will be a final ruin, a complete, utter destruc¬
tion, which would make an end of them, a miserable end.
v. 1 . . 6. II. That it is an approaching ruin, just at the
door, v. 7 . . 10- III. That it is an unavoidable ruin, be¬
cause they nad by sin brought it upon themselves, v.
10. . . 15. IV. That their strength and wealth should be
no fence against it, v. 16.. 19. V. That the temple,
which the}' trusted in, should itself be ruined, v. 20 . . 22.
VI. That it should be a universal ruin, the sin that
brought it having been universal, v. 23 . . 27.
MOREOVER, the word of the Lord
came unto me, saying, 2. Also, thou
son of man, thus saith the Lord God unto
the land of Israel, An end, the end is come
upon the four corners of the land. 3. Now
is the end come upon thee, and I will send
mine anger upon thee, and will judge thee
according to thy ways, and will recompense
upon thee all thine abominations. 4. And
mine eye shall not spare thee, neither will I
have pity: but 1 will recompense thy ways
upon tliee, and thine abominations shall be
in the midst of thee; and ye shall know that
I am the Lord. o. Thus saith the Lord
God, An evil, an only evil, behold, is come.
6. An end is come, the end is come: it
watcheth for thee; behold, it is come. 7.
The morning is come unto thee, O thou that
dwellest in the land : the time is come, the
day of trouble is near, and not the sound¬
ing again of the mountains. 8. Now will
I shortly pour out my fury upon thee, and
accomplish mine anger upon thee; and 1
will judge thee according to thy ways, and
will recompense thee for all thine abomina¬
tions. 9. And mine eye shall not spare,
neither will I have pity: I will recompense
thee according to thy ways, and thine abo¬
minations that are in the midst of thee; and
ye shall know that I am the Lord that
smiteth. 10. Behold the day, behold, it is
come ; the morning is gone forth ; the rod
hath blossomed; pride hath budded. It.
Violence is risen up into a rod of wicked¬
ness: none of them shall remain , nor of
their multitude, nor of any of theirs; neither
shall there be wailing for them. 12. The
time is come, the day draweth near: let not
the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn ; for
wrath is upon all the multitude thereof. 1 3.
For the seller shall not return to that which
616
EZEKIEL, VII.
is sold, although they were yet alive : for the
vision is touching the whole multitude there¬
of, which shall not return; neither shall any
strengthen himself in the iniquity of his life.
14. They have blown the trumpet, even to
make all ready ; but none goeth to the battle :
tor my wrath is upon all the multitude
thereof. 15. The sword is without, and the
pestilence and the famine within : he that is
in the field shall die with the sword ; and he
that is in the city, famine and pestilence
shall devour him.
We have here fair warning given of the destruc¬
tion of the land of Israel, which was now hasten¬
ing on apace. God, by the prophet, not only sends
notice of it, but will have it inculcated in the same
expressions, to show that the thing is certain, that
it is near, that the prophet is himselt affected with it,
and desires they should be so too, but finds them
deaf, and stupid, and unaffected. When the town
is on fire, men do not seek for fine words and quaint
expressions, in which to give an account of it, but
cry about the streets, with a loud and lamentable
voice, “Fire, fire.” So the prophet here pro¬
claims, An end, an end, it is come, it is come, be¬
hold, it is come. He that has ears to hear, let him
hear.
1. An end is come, the end is come, (v. 2. ) and
again, (v. 3, 6.) How is the end come upon thee;
the end which all their wickedness had a tendency
to, and which God had often told them it would
come to at last, when by his prophets lie had asked
them, What will ye do in the end thereof? The end,
which all the foregoing judgments had been working
toward, as means to bring it about; their ruin shall
now be completed; or, the end, that is, the period of
their state, the final destruction of their nation, as the
deluge was the end of all flesh, Gen. vi. 13. They had
flattered themselves with hopes that they should
shortly see an end of their troubles; “Yea,” says
God, “ An end is come, but a miserable one, not the
expected end,” (which is promised to the pious rem¬
nant among them, Jer. xxix. 11.) “it is the end, that
end which you have been so often warned of; that
last end, which Moses wished you to consider, (Deut.
xxxii. 29.) and which because Jerusalem remem¬
bered not, therefore she came down wonderfully,”
Lam. i. 9. This end was long in coming, but now
it is come. Though the ruin of sinners comes slowly,
It comes surely. “It is come, it watches for thee,
ready to receive thee.” This perhapslooks further,
to the last destruction of that nation by the Romans,
which that by the Chaldeans was an earnest of; and
still further, to the final destruction of the world of
the ungodly. The end of all things is at hand; and
Jerusalem’s last end was a type of the end of the
world, Matth. xxiv. 3. O that we could all see
that end of time and days very near, and the end
of our own time and days much nearer, that we may
secure a happy lot in the end of the days! Dan. xii.
13. This end. comes upon the four corners of the
land; the ruin, as it shall be final, so it shall be total;
no part of the land shall escape; no, not that which
lies most remote; such will the destruction of the
world be; all these things shall be dissolved;
such will the destruction of sinners be; none can
avoid it. O that the wickedness of the wicked might
come to an end, before it bring them to an end.
2. An evil, an only evil, behold, is come, v. 5.
Sin is an evil, an only evil, an evil that has no good
in it; it is the worst of evils; but this is spoken of
the evil of trouble; it is an evil, one evil; and that
one shall suffice to effect and complete the ruin of
the nation, there needs no more to do its business;
this one shall make an utter end, affliction needs not
rise up a second time, Nah. i. 9. It is an evil without
precedent or parallel, an evil that stands alone, you
cannot produce such another instance. It is to the
impenitent an evil, an only evil, it hardens their
hearts, and irritates their corruptions; whereas
there were those to whom it was sanctified by the
grace of God, and made a means of much good;
they were sent into Babylon for their good, Jer.
xxiv. 5.
The wicked have the dregs of that cup to drink,
which to the righteous is full of mixtures of mercy,
Ps. lxxv. 8. The same affliction is to us either a
half evil, or an only evil, according as we conduct
ourselves under it, and make use of it. But when an
end, the end, is come upon the wicked world, then
an evil, an only evil, comes upon it, and not till then.
The sorest of temporal judgments have their allays,
but the torments of the damned are an evil, an
only evil.
3. The time is come, the set time, for the inflict¬
ing of this only evil, and the making of this full end;
for to all God’s purposes there is a time, a proper
time, and that prefixed, in which the purpose shall
have its accomplishment; particularly the time of
reckoning with wicked people, and rendering to
them according to their deserts, is fixed; the dai/ of
the revelation of the righteous judgment of Goa;
and he sees, whether we see it or no, that his day is
coming. This they are here told of again and
again; (v. 10.) Behold, the day, that has lingered so
long, is come at last, behold, it is come. The time
is cotne, the day draws near, the day of trouble is
near, v. 7, 12. Though threatened judgments may
be long deferred, yet they shall not be dropped; the
time for executing them will come. Though God’s
patience may put them off, nothing but man’s sin¬
cere repentance and reformation will put them by.
The morning is come unto thee, (v. 7.) and again,
(x>. 10.) The morning is gone forth; the day of
trouble dawns, the day of destruction is already
begun. The morning discovers that which was
hidden; they thought their secret sins would never
come to light, but now they will be brought tw light.
They used to try and execute malefactors in the
morning, and such a morning of judgment and exe¬
cution is now coming upon them, a day of trouble to
sinners, the year of their visitation See how stupid
these people were, that, though the day of their
destruction was already begun, yet they were not
aware of it, but must be thus told of it again and
again ! The day of trouble, real trouble, is near, and
j not the sounding again of the mountains, not a
mere echo or report of troubles, as they were willing
to think it was, nothing but a groundless surmise;
as if the men that came against them were but the
shadow of the mountains ,' (as Zebul suggested to
Gaal, Judg. ix. 36.) and the intelligence they re¬
ceived were but an empty sound, reverberated from
the mountains. No, the trouble is not a fancy, and
so you will soon find.
4. All this comes from God’s wrath, not allayed,
as sometimes it has been, with mixtures of mercy.
This is the fountain from which all these calamities
flow; and this is the wormwood and the gall, in the
affliction and the misery, which makes it bitter in¬
deed; (y. 9.) / will send mine anger upon thee.
Observe, God is Lord of his anger; it does not
break out but when he pleases, nor fasten upon any
but as he directs it, and gives it commission. The
expression rises higher, (y. 8.) How will I shortly
pour out my fury upon thee in full vials, and accom¬
plish mine anger, all the purposes and all the pro¬
ducts of it, upon thee. This wrath does not single
out here and there one to be made examples, but it
is upon all the multitude thereof; (y. 12, 14.) the
617
EZEKIEL, VII.
wl, ,le body of the nation is become a vessel of wrath,
fitted for destruction. God does sometimes in wrath
remember mercy, but now he says, Mine eye shall
not sfiure thee, neither will I have fiity, (y. 4.) and
again, (v. 9.) They shall have judgment without
mercy, who made light of mercy when it was offered
them.
6. All this is the just punishment of their sins,
and it is what they have by their own folly
brought upon themselves. This is much insist¬
ed on here, that they might be brought to justify
God in all he had brought upon them. God never
sends his anger but in wisdom and justice; and
therefore it follows, “ I will judge thee according
to thy ways, v. 3. I will examine what thy ways
have been, compare them with the law and then
deal with thee according to the merit of them, and
recomfiense them to thee,” v. 4. Note, In the
Heaviest judgments God inflicts upon sinners, he
does but recompense their own ways upon them ;
they are beaten with their own rod. And when
God comes to reckon with a sinful people, he will
bring every provocation to account; “ I will recom¬
pense upon thee all thine abomitiations; (y. 3.)
and now thine iniquity shall be found to be hateful,
(Ps. xxxvi. 2.) and thine abominations shall be in
the midst of thee; (v. 4.) the secret wickedness shall
now be brought to light, and that shall appear to have
been in the midst of thee, which before was not sus¬
pected; and thy sin shall now become an abomination
to thyself. ” So the abomination of iniquity will be,
when it comes to be an abomination of desolation.
Matt. xxiv. 15. Or, Thine abominations, the pu¬
nishments of them, shall be in the midst of thee, they
shall reach to thy heart. See Jer. iv. 18. Or,
Therefore God will not spare, nor have pity, be¬
cause even then when he is recompensing their
ways upon them, yet in their distress they trespass
yet more; their abominations are still in the midst
of them, indulged and harboured in their hearts. It
is repeated again, (y. 8, 9.) / will judge thee, Iwi/l
recompense thee.
T wo sins are particularly specified as provoking
God to bring these judgments upon them; pride,
and oppression. (1.) God will humble them by his
judgments, for they have magnified themselves.
The rod of affliction has blossomed, but it was pride
that budded, v. 10. What buds in sin, will blossom
in some judgment or other. The pride of Judah
and Jerusalem appeared among all orders and de¬
grees of men, as buds upon the tree in spring. (2.)
Their enemies shall deal hardly with them, for
they have dealt hardly with one another; ( v . 11.)
Violence is risen up into a rod of wickedness; their
injuriousness to one another is protected and patron¬
ized by the power of the magistrate. The rod of
government was become a rod of wickedness; to such
a degree of impudence was violence risen up. I
saw the place of judgment, that wickedness was
there, Ec.cl. iii. 16. Isa. v. 7. Whatever are the
fruits of God’s judgments, it is certain that our sin
is the root of them.
6. There is no escape from these judgments, nor
fence against them, for they shall be universal, and
shall beardown all before them, without remedy.
(1.) Death in its various shapes shall ride tri¬
umphantly, both in town and in country, both within
the city and without it, v. 15. Men shall be safe
no where, for he that is in the field shall die by the
sword, every’ field shall be to them a field of battle;
and he that is in the city, though it be a holy city, yet
it shall not be his protection, but famine and pesti¬
lence shall devour him. Sin had abounded both in
city and country, Iliacos infra muros peccatur et ex¬
tra — Trojans and Greeks offend alike; and there¬
fore among both d-. solutions are made.
Vol. IV. — 4 I
(2.) None of those that are marked for death
shall escape; there shall none of them remain; none
of those proud oppressors that did violence to their
poor neighbours with the rod of wickedness, none ot
them shall be left, but they shall be all swept away
by the desolation that is coming; (i>. 11.) None of
their multitude, of the rabble, whom they set on to
do mischief, and to countenance them in doing it; to
cry, “Crucify, crucify,” when they were resolved
on the destruction of any; none of them shall re¬
main, nor any of theirs; their families shall all be
destroyed, and neither root nor branch left them;
this multitude, this mob, divine vengeance will in a
particular manner fasten upon; j'or wrath is upon
all the multitude thereof, (r. 12, 14.) and the vision
was touching the whole multitude thereof , ( v . 13.)
the bulk of the common people. The judgments
coming shall carry them away by wholesale,
and they shall neither secure themselves nor their
masters, whose creatures and tools they were. God’s
judgments, when they come with commission,
cannot be overpowered by multitudes. Though
hand join in hand, yet shall riot the wicked go un¬
punished.
(3.) Those that fall shall not be lamented; (t>.
11.) There shall be no wailing for them, for there
shall be none left tu bewail them, but such as are
hastening apace after them. And the times shall
be so bad, that men shall rather congratulate than
lament the death of their friends, as reckoning those
happy that are taken away from seeing those deso¬
lations, and sharing in them, Jer. xvi. 4, 5.
(4.) They shall net be able to make any resist¬
ance. The decree is gone forth, and the vision
concerning them shall not return, v. 13. God will
not recall it, and they cannot defeat it; and there¬
fore it shall not return re infecta — without having
accomplished any thing, but shall accomplish that
for which he sends it. God’s word will take place,
and then, [1.] Particular persons cannot make their
part good against God; no man shall strengthen
himself in the iniquity of his life; it will be to no
purpose for sinners to set God and his judgments at
defiance as they used to do; none ever hardened his
heart against God, and prospered. Those that
strengthen themselves in their wickedness, will be
found not only to weaken but to ruin themselves,
Ps. Iii. 7. [2.] The multitude cannot resist the
torrent of these judgments, nor make head against
them; (v. 14.) They have blown the trumpet, to
call their soldiers together, and to animate and en¬
courage those whom they have got together, and
thus they think to make all ready; but all in vain,
none enlist themselves; and those that do have not
courage to face the enemy. Note, If God be against
us, none can be for us, to do us any service.
(5.) They shall have no hope of the return of
their prosperity, with which to support themselves
in their adversity; they shall have given up all for
gone; and therefore, “Let not the buyer rejoice
that he is increasing his estate, and is become a
purchaser; nor let the seller mourn that he is les¬
sening his estate, and is become a bankrupt,” v. 12.
See the vanity of the things of this world, and how
worthless they are — that in a time of trouble, when
we have most need of them, we may perhaps make
the least account of them. They that have sold are
the more easy, having the less to lose; and they that
have bought have but increased their own cares
and fears. Because the fashion of this world
passes away, let those that buy be as though they
possessed not, because they know not how soon they
may be dispossessed, 1 Cor. vii. 29. It is added,
(v. 13.) “ The seller shall not return, at the year
of jubilee, to that which is sold, according to the
law, though he should escape the sword and pesti-
618
EZEKIEL, VII.
lence, and live till that year comes; foi '.o inherit¬
ances shall be enjoyed here, till the seventy years
be accomplished, and then men shall return to their
fossessions, shall claim and have their own again.”
n the belief of which, Jeremiah about this time,
bought his uncle’sjield, yet, according to the charge,
the buyer did not rejoice, butcomplain, Jer. xxxii.25.
Lastly, God will be glorified in all; “ Ye shall know
that lam the Lord, (d. 4. ) that I am the I^ord that
smitell , v. 9. You look at second causes, and think
it is Nebuchadnezzar that smites you, but you shall
be made to know he is but the staff, it is the hand
of the 1 ,01'd that smiteth you; and who knows the
weight of his hand?” Those who would not know it
was the Lord that did them good, shall be made to
know it is the Lord that smiteth them; for, one way
or other, he will be owned.
16. But they that escape of them shall
escape, and shall be on the mountains like
doves of the valleys, all of them mourn¬
ing, every one for his iniquity. 1 7. All
hands shall be feeble, and all knees shall be
weak ns water. 18. They shall also gird
tJiemselves with sackcloth, and horror shall
cover them; and shame shall be upon all
faces, and baldness upon all their heads.
1 9. They shall cast their silver in the streets,
and their gold shall be removed: their silver
and their gold shall not be able to deliver
them in the day of the wrath of the Lord:
they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill
their bowels; because it is the stumbling-
block of their iniquity. 20. As for the beauty
of his ornament, he set it in majesty; but they
made the images of their abominations, and
of their detestable things therein : therefore
have I set it far from them. 21. And I will
give it into the hands of the strangers for a
prey, and to the wicked of the earth for a
spoil; and they shall pollute it. 22. My
face will I turn also from them, and they
shall pollute my secret place: for the rob¬
bers shall enter into it, and defile it.
We have attended the fate of those that are cut
off, and are now to attend the flight of those that
h tve an opportunity of escaping the danger; some
of them shall escape, (v. 16.) but what the better?
As good die once, as, in a miserable life* die a thou¬
sand deaths, and escape only like Cain, to be fugi¬
tives and vagabonds, and afraid of being slain by
every one they meet; so shall these be.
I. They shall have no comfort or satisfaction in
their own minds, but be in a continual anguish and
terror; for, wherever they go, they carry about
with them guilty consciences, which make them a
burthen to themselves.
1. They shall be always solitary, and under pre¬
vailing melancholy; they shall not be in the cities,
oi- places of concourse, but all alone upon the moun¬
tains, not caring for society, but shy of it, as being
ashamed of the low circumstances to which they are
reduced.
2. They shall be always sorrowful. Those have
reason to be so that are under the token of God’s'
displeasure; and God can make those so, that have
been most jovial, and have set sorrow at defiance.
They that once thought themselves as the lions of
the mountains, so daring were they jow become as
the doves of the valleys, so timid are they, and Sv.
dispirited, ready to fee when none pursues, and to
tremble at the shaking of a leaf. They are all of
them mourning, not with a godly sorrow, but with
the sorro-jv °f ^le world, which works death, even,
one for his iniquity, for those calamities which they
now see their iniquity has brought upon them ; not
only the iniquity of the land, but their own: they
shall then be brought to acknowledge what the*
have each of them contributed to the national guilt.
Note, Sooner or later sin will have sorrow of one
kind or other; and those that will not repent of
their iniquity may justly be left to pine away in it;
those that will not mourn for it as it is an offence to
God, shall be made to mourn for it as it is a shame
and ruin to themselves; to mourn at the last, when
the flesh and the body are consumed, and to say,
How have I hated instruction! Prov. v. 11.
3. They shall be deprived of all their strength of
body and mind; (v. 17".) Hll hands shall be feeble,
so that they shall not be able to fight, or defend
themselves, and all knees shall be weak as water, so
that they shall not be able to flee, or to stand their
ground: they shall feel a universal colliquation;
their knees shall flow as water, so that they must
fall of course. Note, It is folly for the strong man
to glory in his strength, for Gcd can soon weaken it.
4. They shall be deprived of all their hopes, and
shall abandon themselves to despair, (v. 18.) they
shall have nothing to hold up their spirits with,
their aspects shall show what are their prospects, all
dreadful, for they shall gird themselves with sack¬
cloth, as having no expectation ever to wear better
clothing; horror shall cover them, and shame, and
baldness, all the expressions of a desperate sorrow,
Isa. xvii. 11. Note, Those that will not be kept
from sin by fear and shame, shall by fear and shame
be punished for it; such is the confusion that sin
will end in.
II. They shall have no benefit from their wealth
and riches, but shall be perfectly sick of them, v.
19. They that were reduced to this distress, were
such as had had abundance of silver and gold, mo¬
ney, and plate, and jewels, and other valuable
goods; from which they promised themselves a
great deal of advantage in times of public trouble;
they thought it would be their strong city, that with
it they could bribe enemies and buy friends, that it
would be the ransom of their lives, and that they
could never want bread as long as they had money,
and that money would answer all things: but see
how it proved; 1. It had been a great temptation
to them in the day of their prosperity; they set their
affections upon it, and put their confidence in it; by
their eager pursuit of it they were drawn into sin,
and by their plentiful enjoyment of it they were
hardened in sin; and thus it was the stumbling-
block of their iniquity, it occasioned their falling
into sin, and obstructed their return to God. Note,
There are many whose wealth is their snare and
ruin: the gaining of the world is the losing of their
souls, it makes them proud, secure, covetous, op¬
pressive, voluptuous; and that which, if well used,
might have been the servant of their piety, being
abused, becomes the stumbling-block of their ini¬
quity. 2. It was no relief to them now in the day
of their adversity; for, (1.) Their gold and silver
could not protect them from the judgments of God;
they shall not be able to deliver them in the day of
the wrath of the Lord, they shall not serve to atone
his justice, or turn away his wrath, or to screen
them from the judgments he is bringing upon them.
Note, Riches profit not in the day of wrath; (Prov.
xi. 4.) they neither set them so high, that God’s
judgments cannot reach them, nor make them so
619
EZEKIEL, VII
strong, that they cannot conquer them. There is
a day of wrath coming, when it will appear that
men’s wealth is utterly unable to deliver them, or
do them any service. What the better was the
rich man for his full barns, when his soul mas re¬
quired of him; or that other rich man for his pur-
jile, anil scarlet, and sumptuous fare, when in hell
he could not procure a drop of water to cool his
tongue? Money is no defence against the arrests
of death, nor any alleviation to the miseries of
the damned. (2.) Their gold and silver could
not give them any content under their calamities.
[1.] They could not fill their bowels; when there
was no bread left in the city, none to be had for love
or money, their silver and gold could not satisfy
their hunger, nor serve to make one meal’s meat
for them. Note, We could better be without mines
of gold than fields of corn; the products of the
earth, which may easily be gathered from the sur¬
face of it, are much greater blessings to mankind
than its treasures, which are with so much difficulty
and hazard digged out of its bowels. If God give
us daily bread, we have reason to be thankful, and
no reason to complain, though silver and gold we
have none. [2.] Much less could they satisfy their
souls, or yield them any inward comfort. Note,
The wealth of this world has net that in it which
will answer the desires of the soul, or be any satis¬
faction to it in a day of distress. He that loves sil¬
ver shall not be satisfied with silver, much less he
that loses it. (3.) Their gold and silver shall be
thrown into the streets, either by the hands of the ene¬
my, who shall have more spoil than they care for, or
can carry away; silver shall be nothing accounted
of, they shall cast that in the streets; but the gold,
which is more valuable, shall be removed, and
brought to Babylon; or, they themselves shall throw
awau their silver and gold, either because it would
be an encumbrance to them, and retard their flight,
or because it would expose them, and be a tempta¬
tion to the enemy to cut their throats for their mo¬
ney; or in indignation at it, because they found that
after all the care and pains they had taken to scrape
it together and hoard it up, they found it would
stand them in no stead, but do them a mischief ra¬
ther. Note, The world passes away, and the lust
thereof , 1 John ii. IT. The time may come when
worldly men will be as weary of their wealth as
now they are wedded to it, when those fare best that
have least.
III. God’s temple shall stand them in no stead,
v. 20. — 22. This they had prided themselves in,
and promised themselves security from; (Jer. vii.
4. Mic. iii. 11.) but this confidence of theirs shall
fail them. Observe, 1. The great honour God had
done to that people in setting up his sanctuary
among them; (v. 20.) As for the beauty of his or¬
nament, that holy ana beautiful house, where they
and their fathers praised God, (Isa. lxiv. 11.)
which was therefore beautiful because holy. It was
called the beauty of holiness, and that is the beauty
of its ornament; it was also adorned with gold and
gifts; as for this, he set it in majesty, every thing
was contrived to make it magnificent, that it might
help to make the people of israel the more illus¬
trious among their neighbours. He built his sanc¬
tuary like high palaces, (Ps. lxxviii. 69.) it was a
glorious high throne from the beginning, Jer. xvii.
12. But, 2. Here is the great dishonour they had
done to God in profaning his sanctuary; they made
the images of their counterfeit deities, which they
set up in rivalship with God, and which are here
called their abominations, and their detestable things,
(for so they were to God, and so they should have
been to them,) and these they set up in God’s tem¬
ple, than which a greater affront could not be put
upon him. And therefore, 3. It is here threatened
that they shall be deprived of the temple; and it
shall be no succour to them, Therefore have I set
it far from them, sent them far from it, so that it is
out of the reach of their services, and they out of
the reach of its influences. Note, God’s ordinances,
and the privileges of a profession of religion, will
justly be taken away from those that despise and
profane them. Nay, they shall not only be kept at
a distance from the temple, but the temple itself
shall be involved in the common desolation; (v. 21.)
the Chaldeans, who are strangers, and therefore
have no veneration for it, who are the wicked of the
earth, and therefore have an antipathy to it, shall
have it for a prey and for a spoil; all the ornaments
and treasures of it shall fall into their hands, who
will make no difference between that and other plun¬
der. This was a grief to the saints in Zion, who
complained of nothing so much as of that which the
enemy did wickedly in the sanctuary ; (Ps. lxxiv. 3.)
but it was the punishment of the sinners in Zion,
who by profaning the temple with strange gods,
provoked God to suffer it to be profaned by stratige
nations, and to turn his face from them that did it,
as if he hud not seen them and their crimes; and
from them that deprecated it, as not regarding
them and their prayers. Let the soldiers do as
they will, let them enter into the secret place, into
the holy of holies, as robbers, let them strip it, let
them pollute it, its defence is departed, and then
farewell all its glory. Note, Those are uinvorthv
to be honoured with the form of godliness, who will
not be governed by the power of godliness.
23. Make a chain; for the land is full of
bloody crimes, the city is full of violence.
24. Wherefore I will bring the worst of the
heathen, and they'shall possess their houses:
I will also make the pomp of the strong to
cease, and their holy places shall be defiled.
25. Destruction cometh; and they shall
seek peace, and there shall he none. 26.
Mischief shall come upon mischief, and ru¬
mour shall be upon rumour; then shall they
seek a vision of the prophet: but the law
shall perish from the priest, and counsel
from the ancients. 27. The king shall
mourn, and the prince shall be clothed with
desolation, and the bands of the people of
the land shall be troubled: I will do unto
them after their way, and according to their
deserts will I judge them; and they shall
know that I am the Lord.
Here is,
I. The prisoner arraigned; Make a chain, in
which to drag the criminal to the bar, and set him
before the tribunal of Divine Justice; let him stand
in fetters, (as a notorious malefactor,) stand pinioned
to receive his doom. Note, Those that break the
bands of God’s law asunder, and cast away these
cords from them, will find themselves bound and
held bv the chains of his judgments, which they
cannot break or cast from them. The chain signi¬
fied the siege of Jerusalem, or the slavery of those
that were carried into captivity, or that they were
all bound over to the righteous judgment of God,
reserved in chains.
II. The indictment drawn up against the prison¬
er; The land is full of bloody crimes, (full of the
iudgnients of blood, so the word is,) of the guilt of
blood which they had shed, under the colour of
justice and bv forms of law, with the solemnity of a
judgment. The innocent blood which Man’asseh
U20
EZEKIEL, VIII.
shed, probably thus shed, by the judgment of the
blood, was the measure-filling sin of Jerusalem, 2
Kings xxiv. 4. Or, It is full of such crimes as by
the law were to be punished with death, the judg¬
ment of blood; idolatry, blasphemy, witchcraft,
sodomy, and the like, were bloody crimes, for which
particular sinners were to die; and therefore when
they were become national, there was no remedy
but the nation must be cut off. Note, Bloody crimes
will be punished with bloody judgments. 1 he city,
the city of David, the holy city, that should have
been the pattern of righteousness, the protector of
it, and the punisher of wrong, is now full of vio¬
lence; the rulers of that city, having greater power
and reputation, are greater oppressors than any
others. This was sadly to be lamented. How is
the faithful city become a harlot!
111. Judgment given upon this indictment. God
will reckon with them not only for the profaning of
his sanctuary, but for the perverting of justice be¬
tween man and man; for as holiness becomes his
house, so the righteous Lord loves righteousness,
and is the Avenger of unrighteousness. Now the
judgment given is,
1. That since they had walked in the way of the
heathen, and done worse than they, God would
bring the worst of the heathen upon thetn to destroy
them and lay them waste, the most barbarous and
outrageous, that have the least compassion to man¬
kind, and the greatest antipathy to the Jews. Note,
Of the heathen some are worse than other, and
God sometimes picks out the worst to be a scourge
t his own people, because he intends them for the
f re when the work is done.
2. That since they had filled their houses with
goods unjustly gotten, and used their pomp and
power for the crushing and oppressing of the weak,
God would give their houses to be possessed, and all
the furniture of them to be enjoyed, by strangers,
and make the pomp of the strong to cease, so that
their great men should not dazzle the eyes of the
weak-sighted with their pomp, nor with their might
at any time prevail against right, as they had done.
3. That since they had defiled the holy places
with their idolatries, God would defile them with
his judgments; since they had set up the images of
other gods in the temple, God would remove thence
the tokens of the presence of their own God. When
the holy places are deserted by their God, they will
soon be defiled by their enemies.
4. Since they had followed one sin with another,
God would pursue them with one judgment upon
another; Destruction comes, utter destruction, ( v .
25. ) for there shall come mischief upon mischief to
ruin you, and rumour upon rumour to frighten you ;
like the waves in a storm, one upon the neck of
another. Note, Sinners that are marked for ruin
shall be prosecuted to it, for God will overcome
when he judges.
5. Since they had disappointed God’s expecta¬
tions from them, he would disappoint their expecta¬
tions from him. For, (1.) They shall not have the
deliverance out of their troubles that they expect.
They shall seek peace; they shall desire it, and
pray for it, thev shall endeavour it, and expect it,
but there shall be none; their attempts both to court
their enemies, and to conquer them, shall be in vain,
and their troubles shall grow worse and worse. (2. )
They shall not have the direction in the trouble that
they expect; (v. 26.) They shall seek a vision of
the prophet, shall desire, for their support under
their troubles, to be assured of a happy issue out of
them; they did not desire a vision to reprove them
for sin, or to warn them of danger,' but to promise
them deliverance; such messages they longed to
hear; but the law shall perish from the priest, he
•hall have no words either of counsel or comfort to I
say to them: they would not hear what God had to
say to them by way of conviction, and therefore
he has nothing to say to them by way of encourage¬
ment. Counsel shall perish from the ancients; the
elders of the people that should advise them what to
do in this difficult juncture, shall be infatuated and
at their wits’ end. It is bad with a people when those
that should be their counsellors, know not how to con¬
sider within themselves, consult with one another,
or counsel them.
6. Since they had animated and encouraged one
another to sin, God would dispirit and dishearten
them all, so that they should not be able to make
head against the judgments of God that were break¬
ing in upon them. All orders and degrees of men
shall lie down by consent under the load; (v. 27.)
The king, that should inspire life into them, and the
prince, that should lead them on to attack the ene¬
my, they shall mourn, and be clothed with desola¬
tion, their heads and hearts shall fail, their politics
and their courage; and then no wonder if the hands
of the people of the land, that should fight for them,
be troubled; none of the men of might shall find
their hands. What can men contrive or do for
themselves when God is departed from them, and
appears against them? All must needs be in tears,
all in trouble, when God comes to judge them ac¬
cording to their deserts, and so make them know, to
their cost, that he is the Lord, the God to whom
vengeance belongs.
CHAP. VIII.
God, having given the prophet a clear foresight of the peo¬
ple’s miseries that were hastening on, here gives him a
clear insight into the people’s wickedness, by which God
was provoked to bring those miseries upon them; that
he might justify God in all his judgments, mi"ht the
more particularly reprove the sins of the people, and
with the more satisfaction foretell their ruin. Here God,
in vision, brings him to Jerusalem, to show him the
sins that were committed there, though God had begun
to contend with them; (v. 1..4.1 and there he sees, 1.
The image of jealousy set up at tne gate of the altar, v.
5, 6. II. The elders of Israel worshipping all manner of
images in a secret chamber, v. 7.. 12. III. The women
weeping for Tammuz, v. 13, 14. IV. The men worship¬
ping the sun, v. 15, 16. And then appeals to him whether
such a provoking people should have any pity showed
them, v. 17, 18.
1. A ND it came to pass in the sixth year,
J\. in the sixth month , in the fifth day
of the month, as I sat in my house, and the
elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand
of the Lord God fell there upon me. 2.
Then I beheld, and, lo, a likeness as the ap¬
pearance of fire: from the appearance of
his loins, even downward, fire; and from
his loins, even upward, as the appearance
of brightness, as the colour of amber. 3.
And he put forth the form of a hand, and
took me by the lock of my head, and the
spirit lifted me up between the earth and
the heaven, and brought me in the visions
of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the in¬
ner gate that looketh toward the north,
where teas the seat of the image of jealousy,
which provoketh to jealousy. 4. And, be¬
hold, the glory of the God of Israel was
there, according to the vision that I saw in
the plain. 3. Then said he unto me, Son
of man, lift up thine eyes now the way to¬
ward the north. So I lifted up mine eyes
EZEKIEL, VIII.
621
the way toward the north, and behold,
northward at the gate of the altar, this
image of jealousy in the entry. 6; He said
furthermore unto me, Son of man, seest
thou what they do? even the great abomina¬
tions that the house of Israel committeth
here, that I should go far off from my sanc¬
tuary? But turn .thee yet again, and thou
shalt see greater abominations.
Ezekiel was now in Babylon; but the messages
of wrath he had delivered in the foregoing chapters
were concerning Jerusalem, for in the peace or
trouble thereof the captives looked upon themselves
to have peace or trouble; and therefore here he has a
vision ot what was done at Jerusalem, and this vision
is continued to the close of the 11th chapter.
I. Here is the date of this vision. The first vision
he had was in the fifth year of the captivity, in the
fourth month, and the fifth day of the month, ch.
i. 1,2. This was just fourteen months after. Per¬
haps it was after he had lain 390 days on his left
side, to bear the iniquity of Israel, and before he
began the forty days on his right side, to bear the
iniquity of Judah, for now he was sitting in the
house, not lying. Note, God keeps a particular ac¬
count of the messages he sends to us, because he
will shortly call us to account about them.
II. The opportunity is taken notice of, as well as
the time.
1. The prophet was himself sitting' in his house,
in a sedate, composed frame; deep perhaps in con¬
templation. Note, The more we retreat from the
world, and retire into our own hearts, the better
frame we are in for communion with God: they that
sit down to consider what they have learned shall
be taught more. Or, He sat in his house, ready to
preach to the company that resorted to him, but
waiting for instructions what to say. God will com¬
municate more knowledge to those who are commu¬
nicative of what they do know.
2. The elders of Judah, that were now in capti¬
vity with him, sat before him. It is probable that
it was on the sabbath-day, and that it was usual for
them to attend on the prophet every sabbath-day,
both to hear the word from him, and to join with
him in prayer and praise: and how could they
spend the sabbath better, now that they had neither
temple nor synagogue, priest nor altar? It was a
great mercy that they had opportunity to spend it
so well, as the good people in Elisha’s time, 2 Kings
iv. 23. But some think it was on some extraordinary
occasion that they attended him, to inquire of the
Lord, and sat down at his feet to hear his word.
Observe here, (1.) When the law was fierished
from the priests at Jerusalem, whose lips should
keep knowledge, ( ch . vii. 26.) they in Babylon had a
prophet to consult. God is not tied to places or
persons. (2.) Now that the elders of Judah were
in captivity, they paid more respect to God’s pro¬
phets, and his word in their mouth, than they did
when they lived in peace in their own land. When
God brings men into the cords of affliction, then he
opens their ears to discipline. Job xxxvi. 8, 10. Ps.
cxli. 6. Those that despised vision in the valley
of vision, prized it now that the word of the Lord
was precious, and there was no open vision. (3. )
When our teachers are driven into comers, and are
forced to preach in private houses, we must dili¬
gently attend them there. A minister’s house should
be a church for all his neighbours. St. Paul
preached in his own hired house at Rome, and God
owned him there; and no man forbad him.
III. The divine influence and impression that tne
prophet was now under; The hand of the Lord fell
there upon me. God’s hand took hold of him, and
arrested him, as it were, to employ him in this- vision,
but at the same time supported him to bear it.
IV. The vision that tne prophet saw; (v. 2.) he
beheld a likeness of a man, we may suppose; for
that was the likeness he saw before, but it was all
brightness above the girdle, and all fire below; fire
and flame. This agrees with the description we
had before of the apparition he saw; (r/i. i. 27.) it
is probable that it was the same Person, the Man
Christ Jesus. It is probable that the elders that sat
with him, (as the men that journeyed with Paul,)
saw a light, and were afraid, and this happy sight
they gained by attending the prophet in a private
meeting, but they h id no distinct view of him that
spake to him, Acts xxii. 9.
V. The prophet’s remove, in vision, to Jerusalem.
The apparition he saw, put forth the form of a
hand, which took him by a lock of his head, and "the
Spirit was that hand which was put forth, for the
Spirit of God is called the Finger of God. Or,
The spirit within him lifted him up, so that he was
borne up and carried on by an internal principle,
not an external violence. A faithful servant of God
will be drawn by a hair, by the least intimation of
the divine will, to his duty, for he has that within
him which inclines him to a compliance with it, Ps.
xxvii. 8. He was miraculously lifted up between
heaven and earth, as if he were to fly away upon
eagles’ wings. This, it is probable, (so Grotius
thinks,) the elders that sat with him saw; they
were witnesses of the hand taking him by the lock
of hair, and lifting him up, and then perhaps laying
him down again in a trance or ecstasy, while he had
the following visions, whether in the body or out of
the body, we may suppose, he could not tell, any
more than Paul in a like case, much less can we.
Note, Those are best prepared for communion with
God and the communications of divine light, that by
divine grace are raised up above the earth and the
things of it, to be out of their attractive force.
But being lifted up toward heaven, he was carried
in vision to Jerusalem, and to God’s sanctuary there;
for those that would go to heaven, must take that
in their way'. The Spirit represented to his mind
the city and temple as plainly as if he had been
there in person. O that by faith we could thus enter
into the Jerusalem, the holy city above, and see the
things that are invisible!
VI. The discoveries that were made to him there.
1. There he saw the glory of God; (v. 4.) Be¬
hold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, the
same appearance of the living creatures, and the
wheels, and the throne, that he had seen, ch. i.
Note, God’s servants, wherever they are, and
whithersoever they go, ought to carry about with
them a believing regard to the glory of God, and
to set that always before them : and those that have
seen God’s power and glory in the sanctuary, should
desire to see it again, so as they have seen it, Ps.
lxiii. 2. Ezekiel has this repeated vision of the glory
of God, both to give credit to, and to put honour
upon, the following discoveries. But it seems to
have a further intention here; it was to aggravate
this sin of Israel, in changing their own God, the
God of Israel, (who is a God of so much glory as
here he appears to be,) for dunghill gods, scandalous
gods, false gods, and indeed no gods. Note, The
more glorious we see God to be, the more odious
we shall see sin to be, especially idolatry, which
turns his truth into a lie, his glory into shame. It
was also to aggravate their approaching misery,
when this glory of the Lord should remove from
them, (ch. xi. 23.) and leave the house and city
desolate.
2. There he saw the reproach of Israel — uid
that was the image of jealousy, set northward, at
EZEKIEL, VIII.
the gate of the altar, v. 3, 5. What image this
was, is uncertain; probably, an image of Baal, or
of the grove, which Manasseh made, and set in the
temple, (2 Kings xxi. 7. 2 Chron. xxxiii. 3.) which
Josiah removed, but his successors, it seems, re¬
placed there, as probably they did the chariots of
the sun, which he found at the entering in of the
house of the Lord; (2 Kings xxiii. 11.) and this is
here s ud to be in the entry. But the prophet, in¬
stead of telling us what image it was, which might
gratify our curiosity, tells us that it was the image
ot jealousy, to convince our consciences that, what¬
ever image it was, it was in the highest degree
offensive to God, and /irovoked him to jealousy; he
resented it as a husband would resent the whore¬
doms of his wife, and would certainly revenge it;
for God is jealous, and the Lord revenges, Nah. i.
2. The very setting up of this image in the house
of the Lord was enough to firovoke him to jealousy ;
for it is in the matters of his worship that we are par¬
ticularly told, I the Lord thy God am a jealous God.
They that placed this image at the door of the inner
gate, where the people assembled, called the gate
of the altar, (y. 5.) thereby plainly intended, (1.)
To affront God, to provoke him to his face, by ad¬
vancing an idol to be a rival with him for the adora¬
tions of his people, in contempt of his law, and in
defiance of his justice. (2.) To debauch the peo¬
ple, and pick them up as they were entering into the
courts of the Lord’s house to bring their offerings to
him, and to tempt them to offer them to this image;
like the adulteress Solomon describes, that sits at
the door of her house, to call passengers who go
right on their ways, IVhoso is sim/i/e, let him turn
in hither, Prov. ix. 14. With good reason there¬
fore is this called the image of jealousy.
We may well imagine what a surprise, and what
a grief it was to Ezekiel, to see this image in the
house of God, when he was in hopes that the judg¬
ments they were under had, by this time, wrought
some reformation among them: but there is more
wickedness in the world, in the church, than good
men think there is. And now, [1.] God appeals
to him whether this was not bad enough, and a suf¬
ficient ground for God to go upon in casting off this
people, and abandoning them to ruin. Could he,
or any one else, expect any other than that God
should go far from his sanctuary, when there were
such abominations committed there, in that very
place; nay, was he not perfectly driven thence?
They did these things designedly, and on purpose
that he should leave his sanctuary, and so shall
their doom be; they have hereby, in effect, like the
Gadarenes, desired him to de/iart out of their
coasts, and therefore he will depart, he will no
more dignify and protect his sanctuary, as he had
done, but will give it up to reproach and ruin. But,
re. ] Though this is bad enough, and serves abun¬
dantly to justify God in all that he brings upon
them, yet the matter will appear to be. much worse;
But turn thee yet again, and thou wilt be amazed
to see greater abominations than these. Where
there is one abomination, it will be found there are
many more. Sins do not go alone.
7. And lie brought me to the door of the
court •, and when I looked, behold, a hole in
the wall. 8. Then said he unto me, Son of
man, dig now in the wall : and when I had
digged in the wall, behold, a door. 9. And
he said unto me, Go in, and behold the
wicked abominations that they do here. 10.
So I went in and saw; and, behold, every
form of creeping things, and abominable
beasts, and all the idols of the house of Is¬
rael, pourtrayed upon the wall round about.
11. And there stood before them seventy
men of the ancients of the house of Israel,
and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah
the son of Shaphan, with every man his
censer in his band; and a thick cloud of
incense went up. 12. Then said he unto
me, Son of man, hast thqu seen what the
ancients of the house of Israel do in me
dark, every man in the chambers of his
imagery ? for they say, The Lord seeth us
not; the Lord hath forsaken the earth.
We have here a further discovery of the abomi¬
nations that were committed at Jerusalem, and
within the confines of the temple too. Now observe,
I. How this discovery is made. God, in vision,
brought him to the door of the court, the outer
court, along the sides of which the priests’ lodgings
were. God could have introduced him at first into
the chambers of imagery, but he brings him to them
by degrees, partly to employ his own industry, in
searching out these mysteries of iniquity, and partly
to make him sensible with what care and caution
those idolaters concealed their idolatries. Before
the priests’ apartments they had run up a wall, to
make them the more private, that they might not
lie open to the observation of those who passed by;
a shrewd sign that they did something which they
had reason to be ashamed of. He that doeth evil
hates the light. They were not willing that those
who saw them in God’s house should see them in
their own, lest they should see them contradict
themselves, and undo in private what they did in
public. But behold, a hole in the wall, (v. 7.) a
spy-hole, by which you might see that which would
give cause to suspect them. \\ hen hypocrites
screen themselves behind the wall of an external
profession, and with it think to conceal their wick¬
edness from the eye of the world, and carry on
their designs the more successfully, it is hard for
them to manage it with so much art but that there
is some hole or other left in the wall, . something
that betrays them to those who look diligently, not
to be what they pretend to be. The ass’s ears in
the fable appeared from under the lion’s skin. This
hole in the wall Ezekiel made wider, and, behold,
a door, v. 8. This door he goes in by into the trea¬
sury, or some of the apartments of the priests, and
sees the wicked abominations that they do there, v.
9. Note, Those that would discover the mystery of
iniquity in others, or in themselves, must accom¬
plish a diligent search; for Satan has his wiles, and
depths, anil devices, which we should not be igno¬
rant of, and the heart is deceitful above all things;
in the examining of it therefore we are concerned
to be very strict.
II. What the discovery is; it is a very melan¬
choly one.
1. He sees a chamber set round with idolatrous
pictures; (v. 10.) Jill the idols of the house of Israel,
which they had borrowed from the neighbouring
nations, were fiourtrayed upon the wall round
about, even the vilest of them, the forms of creep¬
ing things, which they worshipped, and beasts,
even abominable ones, which are poisonous and
venomous; at least, they were abominable when
they were worshipped. This was a sort of pan¬
theon, a collection of all the idols together, which
they paid their devotions to. Though the second
commandment, in the letter of it, forbids only graven
images, yet painted ones are as bad and as dan-
eerous.
2. He sees this chamber filled with idolatrous
EZEKIEL, VIII.
623
worshippers; (n. 11.) There were seventy men of
the elders of Israel offering incense to these painted
idols. Here was a great number of idolaters
strengthening one another’s hands in this wicked¬
ness, though it was in a private chamber, and the
meeting industriously concealed; yet here were
seventy men engaged in it. I doubt these elders
were many more titan those in Babylon that sat be¬
fore the prophet in his house, v. 1. They were
seventy men, the number of the great Sanhedrim,
or chief council of the nation, and we have reason
to fear, the same men; for they were the ancients
of the house of Israel, not only in age, but in office,
who were bound, by the duty of their place, to re¬
strain and punish idolatry, and to destroy and
abolish all superstitious images wherever they
found then;; yet these were they that did them¬
selves worship them in private, so undermining
that religion, vhich in public they professed to own
and promote, only because by it they held their
preferments. They had every man his censer in
his hand; so fi.nd were they of the idolatrous ser¬
vice, that they would all be their own priest; and
very prodigal they were of their perfumes in ho¬
nour of these images, for a thick cloud of incense
•went lift, that filled the room. O that the zeal of
these idolaters might shame the worshippers of the
true God out of their Indifference to his service !
The prophet took particular notice of one whom he
knew, who stood in the midst of these idolaters, as
chief among them, being perhaps president of the
great council at this time, or most forward in this
wickedness. No wonder the people were corrupt,
when the elders were so. The sins of leaders are
leading sins.
3. What the remark is, that is made upon it; (v.
12.) “ Son of man, hast thou seen this ? Couldest
thou have imagined that there was such wicked¬
ness committed?” It is here observed concerning
it, (1.) That it was done in the dark; for sinful
works are works of darkness. They concealed it,
lest they should lose their places, or at least their
credit. There is a great deal of secret wickedness
in the world, which the day will declare; the day
of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God.
(2.) That this one idolatrous chapel was but a
specimen of many the like; here they met together, 1
to worship their images in concert, but, it should '
seem, they had every man the chamber of his
imagery besides, a room in his own house for this
purpose, in which every man gratified his own
fancy with such pictures as he liked best. Idolaters
had their household gods, and their family-worship
of them in private, which is a shame to those who
call themselves Christians, and yet have no church
in their house, no worship of God in their family.
Had they chambers of imagery, and shall not we
have ch imbers of devotion? (.3.) That atheism was
at the bottom of their -idolatry. They worship
images in the dark, the images of the gods of other
nations, and they say, “Jehovah, the God of Israel,
whom we should serve, seeth u»not; Jehovah hath
forsaken the earth, and we may worship what god
'we will, he regards us not.” [1.] They think
themselves out of God’s sight; they say, The Lord
seeth us not_ They imagined, because the matter
was carried on so closely, that men could not dis¬
cover it, nor did any of their neighbours suspect
them to be idolaters, that therefore it was hid from
the eye of God; as if there were any darkness, or
shadow of death, where the workers of iniquity may
hide themselves. Note, A practical disbelief of
God’s omniscience is at the bottom of our treacher- j
ous departure from him; but the church argues
right, as to this very sin of idolatry, (Ps. xliv. 20.)
if we have forgotten the name of our God, and
■stretched forth our hand to a strange god, shall not
God search this out? No doubt, he shall. [2.]
ill ,y tnink themselves out of God’s care; "The
Lord has forsaken the earth, and looks not alter the
; affairs of it; and then we may as well worship any
other god as him.” Or, “ He has forsaken our
land, and left it to be a prey to its enemies; and
therefore it is time for us to look out for some other
god, to whom to commit the protection of it; our
one God cannot, or will not, deliver us; and there¬
fore let us have many.” This was a blasphemous
reflection upon God," as if he had forsaken them
first, else they would not have forsaken him. Note,
Those are ripe indeed for ruin, who are arrived at
such a pitcli of impudence as to lay the blame of
their sins upon God himself.
13. He said also unto me, Turn thee yet
again, and thou shalt see greater abomina¬
tions that they do. 1 4. Then he brought
me to the door of the gate of the Lord’s
house which was toward the north ; and,
behold, there sat women weeping for Tam-
muz. 1 5. Then said he unto me, Hast thou
seen this, O son of man? Turn thee yet
again, and thou shalt see greater abomina
tions than these. 16. And he brought me
into the inner court of the Lord’s house;
and, behold, at the door of the temple of
the Lord, between the porch and the altar,
were about five and twenty men, with their
backs toward the temple of the Lord, and
their faces toward the east; and they wor¬
shipped the sun toward the east. 1 7. Then
he said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son
of man ? Is it a light thing to the house of
Judah that they commit the abominations
which they commit here ? for they have
filled the land with violence, and have re¬
turned to provoke me to anger; and, lo,
they put the branch to their nose. 13.
Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine
eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity;
and though they cry in mine ears with a
loud voice, yet will I not hear them.
Here we liave,
I. More anti greater abominations discovered to
the prophet. He thought that what he had seen
was bad enough, and yet, ( v . 13.) Turn thee again,
and thou shalt see yet greater abominations, and
greater still, (v. 15.) as before, v. 6. There are
those who live in retirement, who do not think what
wickedness there is in this world; and the more we
converse with it, and the further we go abroad into
it, the more corrupt we see it. When we have
seen that which is bad, we may have our wonder at
it made to cease by the discovery of that which,
upon some account or other, is a great deal worse.
We shall find it so in examining our own hearts, and
searching into them; there is a world of iniquity in
them, a great abundance and variety of abomina¬
tions, and when we have found out much amiss, still
we shall find more; for the heart is desperately wick¬
ed, who can know it perfectly?
Now the abominations here discovered were,
1. Women weeping for Tammuz, v. 14. An
abominable thing indeed, that any should choose
rather to serve an idol in, tears than to serve the
true God with joyfulness and gladness of heart'.
Yet such absurdities as these are they guilty of, who
C24
EZEKIEL, IX.
follow after lying vanities, and forsake their own
mercies. Some think it was for Adonis, an idol
among the Greeks, others for Osiris, an idol of the
Egyptians, that they shed these tears. The image,
they say, was made to weep, and then the worship¬
pers wept with it. They bewailed the death of
this Tammuz, and anon rejoiced in its returning to
life again. These mourning women sat at the door
of the gate of the Lord’s house, and there shed their
idolatrous tears, as it were in defiance of God and
the sacred rites of his worship; and some think, with
their idolatry, prostrating themselves also to cor¬
poral whoredom; for these two, commonly, went
together; and they that dishonoured tv j divine na¬
ture by the one, were justly given up to vile affec¬
tions and a reprobate sense, to dishonour the human
nature, which no where ever sunk so far below itself
as in these idolatrous rites.
2. Men worshipfling the sun, v. 16. And this
was so much the greater an abomination, that it was
practised in the inner court of the Lord’s house, at
the door of the temple of the l.ord, between the porch
and the altar; there, where the most sacred rites
of their holy religion used to be performed, was
this abominable wickedness committed: justly might
God in jealousy say to those who thus affronted him
at his own door, as the king to Human, Will he
force the queen also before me in the house? Here
were about twenty-five men giving that honour to
the sun which is due to God only; some think they
were the king and his princes; it should rather
seem that they were priests, for this was the court
of the priests, and the proper place to find them in.
They that were intrusted with the true religion, had
it committed to their care, and were charged with
the custody of it, they were the men that betrayed
it. (1.) They turned their back toward the temple
of the Lord, resolvedly forgetting it, and design¬
edly slighting it, and putting contempt upon it.
Note, When men turn their backs upon God’s in¬
stitutions, and despise them, it is no marvel if they
wander endlessly after their own inventions. Im¬
piety is the beginning of idolatry and all iniquity.
(2.) They turned their faces toward the east, and
worshipped the sun, the rising sun. This was an
ancient instance of idolatry; it is mentioned in Job’s
time, (Job xxxi. 26.) and had been generally prac¬
tised among the nations, some worshipping the sun
under one name, others under another; these priests,
finding it had antiquity and general consent and
usage on its side, (the two pleas which the priests
use at this day in defence of their superstitious rites,
and particularly this of worshipping toward the I
east,) practised it in the court of the temple, think- j
mg it an omission that it was not inserted in their
ritual. See the folly of idolaters in worshipping
that as a god, and calling it Baal — a lord, which
God made to be a servant to the universe ; (for such
the sun is, and so his name Shemesh signifies, Deut.
iv. 19.) and in adoring the borrowed light, and des¬
pising the Father of lights!
II. The inference drawn from these discoveries;
(r. 17.) “Hast thou seen this, 0 son of man, and
couldest thou have thought ever to see such things
done in the temple of the Lord?” Now, 1. He ap¬
peals to the prophet himself concerning the hein¬
ousness of the crime. Can he think it is a light
thing to the house of Judah, who know and profess
better things, and are dignified with so many pri¬
vileges above other nations? Is it an excusable
thing in them that have God’s oracles and ordi¬
nances, that they commit the abominations which
they commit here? Do not they deserve to suffer
that thus sin? Should not such abominations as
these make desolate? Dan. ix. 27. 2. He aggra¬
vates it from the fraud and oppression that were to
be found in all parts of the nation; They have filed
I the land with violence. It is not strange if the) that
| wrong God thus, makt no conscience of wronging
I one another, and wi'h all that is sacred trample
likewise upon all that is just. And thei.r wicked¬
ness in their conversations made even the worship
the)' paid to their own god an abomination; (Isa. x.
11, &c.) “Thru Jill the t and with violence, and thei
they return to .lie temple to provoke me to anger
there; for even their sacrifices, instead of making
an atonement, do but add to their guilt; they return
to provoke me, (they repeat the provocation, do it,
and do it again,) and to, they put the branch to their
nose;” a proverbial expression, denoting perhaps
their scoffing at God, and having him in derision;
they snuffed at his service, as men do when they
put a branch to their nose. Or, it was some custom
used by idolaters in honour of the idols they served.
We read of garlands used in their idolatrous wor¬
ships, (Acts xiv. 13.) cut of which every zealot
took a branch, which they smelled to as a nosegay.
Dr. Lightfoot ( Hor.Heb . in Joh. xv. 6.) gives an¬
other sense of this place; They put the branch to
their wrath, or to his wrath, as the Masorites read
it; they are still bringing more fuel (such as the
withered branches of the vine) to the fire of divine
wrath, which they have already kindled, as if that
wrath did not burn hot enough already. Or, put¬
ting the branch to the nose may signify the giving
of a very great affront and provocation either to God
or man; they are an abusive generation of men. 3.
He passes sentence upon them that they shall be
utterly cut off; Therefore, because they are thus
furiously bent upon sin, I will also deal in fury with
them, v. 18. They filled the land with their vio¬
lence, and God will fill it with the violence of their
enemies; and he will not lend a favourable ear to the
suggestions, either, (1.) Of his own pity; Mine eye
shall not spare, neither will I have pity; repentance
shall be hid from his eyes; or, (2.) Of their pray¬
ers; Though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice,
yet will I not hear them; for still their sins cry
louder for v engeance than their prayers cry for
mercy. God will now be as deaf to their prayers as
their own idols were, on whom they cried aloud,
but in vain, 1 Kings xviii. 26. Time was when God
was read)' to have heard even before they cried, and
to answer while they were yet speaking; but now
they shall seek me early, and not find me, Prov. i.
28. It is not the loud voice, but the upright heart,
that God will regard.
CHAP. IX.
The prophet had, in vision, seen the wickedness that was
committed at Jerusalem, in the foregoing chapter, and
we may be sure that it was not represented to him worse
than really it was; now here follows, of course, a repre¬
sentation of their ruin approaching; for when sin goes
before, judgments come next. Here is, I. Preparation
made of instruments that were to be employed in the de¬
struction of the city, v. 1, 2. II. The removal of the She-
chinah from the cherubim to the threshold of the tem¬
ple, v. 3. III. Orders given to one of the persons em¬
ployed, who is distinguished from the rest, for the
marking of a remnant to be preserved from the common
destruction, v. 3, 4. IV. The warrant signed for the
execution of those that were not marked, and the execu¬
tion begun accordingly, v. 5. . 7. V. The prophet’s
intercession for the mitigation of the sentence, and a
denial of any mitigation, the decree being now gone
forth, v. 8. . 10. VI. The report made by him that was
to mark the pious remnant of what he had done in that
matter, v. 11. And this show's a usual method of Pro¬
vidence in the government of the world.
1. TTE cried also in mine ears with a loud
Xl voice, saying, Cause them that have
charge over the city to draw near, even
eveiy man with his destroying weapon in
625
EZEKIEL, IX.
his hand. 2. And, behold, six men came
from the way of the higher gate, which lieth
toward the north, and every man a slaugh¬
ter-weapon in his hand; and one man among
them was clothed with linen, with a writer’s
ink-horn by his side: and they went in, and
stood beside the brazen altar. 3. And the
glory of the God of Israel was gone up
from the cherub, whereupon he was, to the
threshold of the house: and he called to
the man clothed with linen, which had the
writer’s ink-horn by his side; 4. And the
Lord said unto him, Go through the midst
of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem,
and set a mark upon the foreheads of the
men that sigh, and that cry, for all the abo¬
minations that be done in the midst thereof.
In these verses, we have,
1. The summons given to Jerusalem’s destroyers
to come forth and give their attendance. He "that
appeared to the prophet, ( ch . viii. 2. ) that had
brought him to Jerusalem, and had showed the
wickedness that was done there, he cried. Cause
them that have charge over the city to draw near,
( v . 1.) or, as it might better be read, and nearer
the original, They that have charge over the city
are drawing near. He had said, (ch. viii. 18.) /
will deal in fury; Now, says he to the prophet,
thou shalt see who are to be employed as the instru¬
ments of my wrath; Appropinyuaverunt visitatio-
nes civitatis — The visitations (or visitors) of the city
are at hand. They would not know the day of their
visitation in mercy, and now they are to be visited
in wrath.
Observe, 1. How the notice of this is given to the
prophet; Pie cried it in mine ears with a loud voice,
which intimates the vehemency of him that spake;
when men are highly provoked, and threaten in
anger, they speak loud; they that regard not the
counsels God gives them in a still, small voice, shall
be made to hear the threatenings, to hear and trem¬
ble. It denotes also the prophet’s unwillingness to
be told this; he was deaf on that ear, but there is no
remedy, their sin will not admit an excuse, and
therefore their judgment will not admit a delay; he
cried it in mine ears with a loud voice, he made me
hear it, and I heard it with a sad heart.
2. What this notice is; There are those that have
charge over the city to destroy it, nut the Chaldean
armies, they are to be indeed employed in this
work, but thev are not the visitors, they are only
the servants, or tools rather. God’s angels have
received a charge now to lay that city waste, which
they had long had a charge to protect and watch
over; they are at hand, as destroying angels, as
ministers of wrath, for every man has his destroying
weapon in his hand, as the angel that kept the way
of the tree of life with a flaming sword. Note,
Those that have by sin made God their Enemy,
have made the good angels their enemies too. These
visitors are called and caused to draw near. Note,
God has ministers of wrath always within call,
always at command; invisible powers, by whom he
accomplishes his purposes. The prophet is made
to see this in vision, that he might with the greater
assurance in his preaching denounce these judg¬
ments. God told it him with a loud voice, taught
it him with a strong hand, (Isa. viii. 11.) that it
might make the deeper impression upon him, and
that he might thus proclaim it in the people’s ears.
II. Their appearance, upon this summons, is re¬
corded. Immediately six men came, (v. 2.) one for
Vol. iv. — 4 K
each of the principal gates of Jerusalem. Two de¬
stroying angels were sent against Sodom, but six
against Jerusalem; for Jerusalem’s doom in the judg¬
ment will be thrice as heavy as that of Sodom. There
is an angel watching at every gate to destroy, to
bring in judgments from every quarter, and to take
heed that none escape. One angel served to de¬
stroy the first-born ot Egypt, and the camp of the
Assyrians, but here are six. In the Revelation we
find seven, that were to pour out the vials of God’s
wrath, Rev. xv. 6. They came with every one
! a slaughter-weapon in his hand, prepared for the
work to which they were called. The nations of
which the king of Babylon’s army was composed,
which some reckon to be six, and the commanders
of his army, (of whom six are named as principal,
Jer. xxxix. 3.) may be called the slaughter-weapons
in the hands of the angels. The angels are tho¬
roughly furnished for every service.
Observe, 1. From whence they came; from the
way of the higher gate, which lies toward the north;
j (n. 2. ) either because the Chaldeans came from the
north, (Jer. i. 14. Out of the north an evil shall
break forth,) or because the image of jealousy was
set up at the door of the inner gate, that looks to¬
ward the north, ch '. viii. 3, 5. At that gate of the
temple the destroying angels entered, to show what
it was that opened the door to them. Note, That
way that sin lies, judgment may be expected to
.come. 2. Observe where they placed themselves;
They went in, and stood beside the brazen altar,
on which sacrifices were wont to be offered, and
atonement made. When they acted as destroyers,
they acted as sacrificcrs, not from any personal re¬
venge nr ill-will, but with a pure and sincere regard
to the glory of God; for to his justice all they slew
were offered up as victims. They stood by the altar,
as it were, to protect and vindicate that, and plead
its righteous cause, and avenge the horrid profana¬
tion of it. At the altar they were to receive their
commission to destroy, to intimate that the iniquity
of Jerusalem, like that of Eli’s house, was not to be
purged by sacrifice.
III. The notice taken of one among the destroy¬
ing angels distinguished in his habit from the rest,
from whom some favour might be expected; it
should seem, he was not one of the six, but among
them, to see that mercy be mixed with judgment,
v. 2. This man was clothed with linen, as the
priests were, and he had a writer’s ink-horn hang¬
ing at his side, as anciently attornies and lawyers’
clerks had, which he was to make use of, as the
other six were to make use of their destroying wea¬
pons. Here the honours of the pen exceeded those
of the sword; they were angels that bore the sword,
but he was the Lord of angels that made use of the
writer’s ink-horn; for it is generally agreed, among
the best interpreters, that this man represented
Christ as Mediator, saving those that are his from
the flaming sword of divine justice. He is our
High Priest, clothed with holiness, tor that was sig¬
nified by the fine linen , Rev. xix. 8. As Prophet,
he wears the writer’s ink-horn — the book of life is
the Lamb’s book; the great things of the law and
gospel which God has written to us, are of his writ¬
ing, for it is the Spirit of Christ, in the writers of
the scripture, that testifies to us, and the Bible is
the revelation of Jesus Christ. Note, It is a matter
of great comfort to all good Christians, that, in the
midst of the destroyers and the destructions that are
abroad, there is a Mediator, a great High Priest,
who has an interest in heaven, and whom saints on
earth have an interest in.
IV. The temoval of the appearance of the div'ne
glory from over the cherubim. Some think this
was that usual display of the divine glory which
wa* between the cherubims over the mercy-seat, in
626 EZEKIEL, IX.
the most holy place, hat took leave of them now,
and never returned; for it is suppose.d it was net in
the second temple. Others think it was that dis¬
play of the divine glory which the prophet now saw
over the cherub in vision; and this is more proba¬
ble, because this is called the glory of the Gocl of
Israel, (c/i. viii. 3.) and this is it which he had now
his eye upon; this was gone to the threshold of the
house, as it were to call to the servants that attended
without the door, to send them on their errand, and
give them their instructions. And the removal of
this, as well as the former, might be significant of
God’s departure from them, and leaving them their
house desolate; and when God goes, all good goes;
but he goes from none till they first drive him from
them. He went at first no further than the thresh¬
old, that he might show how loath he was to de¬
part, and might give them both time and encou¬
ragement to invite his return to them, and his stay
with them. Note, God’s departures from a people
are gradual, but gracious souls are soon aware of
the first step he takes towards a remove. Ezekiel
immediately observed that the glory of the God of
Israel was gone u/i from the cherub: and what is a
vision of angels, if God be gone?
V. The charge given to the man clothed in linen
to secure the pious remnant from the general deso¬
lation. We do not read that this Saviour was sum¬
moned and sent for, as the destroyers were; fur he
is always ready, appearing in the presence of God
for us; and to him, as the most proper Person, the
care of those that are marked for salvation is com¬
mitted, v. 4. Now observe,
1. The distinguishing character of this remnant
that is to be saved. They are such as sigh and cry,
sigli in themselves, as men in pain and distress, cry
to God in prayer, as men in earnest, because of all
the abominations that are committed in Jerusalem.
It was not only the idolatries they were guilty of,
but all their other enormities, that were abomina¬
tions to God. These pious few had witnessed against
those abominations, and had done what they could
in their places to suppress them ; but, finding all their
attempts for the reformation of manners fruitless,
they sat down, and sighed, and cried, wept in secret,
and complained to God, because of the dishonour
done to his name by their wickedness, and the ruin
it was bringing upon their church and nation. Note,
It is not enough that we do not delight in the sins of
others, and that we have not fellowship with them,
but we must mourn for them, and lay them to heart,
we must grieve for that which we cannot help, as
those that hate sin for its own sake, and have a ten¬
der, concern for the souls of others, as David, (Ps.
cxix. 136.) and Lot, who vexed his righteous soul
with the wicked convers ition of his neighbours.
The abominations committed in Jerusalem are to be
in a special manner lamented, because they are in
a particular manner offensive to God.
2. The distinguishing care taken of them. Or¬
ders arc given to find them all out that are of such
a pious, public spirit; “Go through the midst of the
city in quest of them, and though they are ever so
much dispersed, and ever so closely hid from the
fury of their persecutors, yet see that you discover
them, and set a ma k upon their foreheads.” (1.)
To signify that God wns them for his, and he will
confess them another day. A work of grace in the
soul is to God a mark upon the forehead, which he
will acknowledge as his mark, and by which he
knows them that are his. (2.) To give to them who
are thus marked an assurance of God’s favour, that
they may know it themselves; and the comfort of
knowing it will be the most powerful support and
cordial in calamitous times. Why should we per-
lex ourselves about this temporal life, if we know
y the mark that we have eternal life? (3.) To be
a direction to the destroyers whom to pass by, as
the blood upon the door-posts was an indication that
that was an Israelite’s /rouse, and the first-boni
there must not be slain. Note, Those who keep
themselves pure in times of c< mmon iniquity, God
will keep safe in times of common calamity. They
that distinguish themselves shall be distinguished;
they that cry for other men’s sins shall not need I
cry for their own afflictions; for they shall be eithe,-
delivered from them, or comforted under them.
God will set a mark upon his mourners, will buck
their sighs, and bottle their tears. The sealing of
the servants of God in their foreheads, (Rev. vii. 3.)
was the same token of the care God has of his own
people with this here; only this was to secure them
from being destroyed, that from being seduced,
which is equivalent.
5. And to the others he said in my hear¬
ing, Go ye after him through the city, and
smite; let not your eye spare, neither have
ye pity: 6. Siay utterly old and young,
both maids, and little children, and women;
but come not near any man upon whom is
the mark; and begin at my sanctuary.
Then they began at the ancient men which
were before the house. 7. And he said unto
them, Defile the house, and fill the courts
with the slain ; go ye forth. And they went
forth, and slew in the city. 8. And it came
to pass, while they were slaying them, and
1 was left, that 1 fell upon my face, and
cried, and said, Ah Lord God! wilt thou
destroy all the residue of Israel in thy pour¬
ing out of thy fury upon Jerusalem ? 9.
Then said he unto me, The iniquity of the
house of Israel and Judah is exceeding
great, and the land is full of blood, and the
city full of perverseness; for they say, The
Lord hath forsaken the earth, and the
Lord seeth not. 10. And as for me also,
mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have
pity; but I will recompense their way upon
their head. 1 1. And, behold, the man cloth¬
ed with linen, which had the ink-horn by
his side, reported the matter, saying, I have
done as thou hast commanded me
In these verses, we have,
I. A command given to the destroyers to do exe¬
cution according to their commission. They stood by
the brazen altar, waiting for orders; and orders are
here given them to cut off and destroy all that were
either guilty of, or accessary to, the abominations
of Jerusalem, and that did not sigh and cry foi
them. Note, When God has gathered his wheat
into his garner, nothing remains but to burn up the
chaff, Matth. iii. 12.
1. They are ordered to destroy al(, (1.) Without
exception; they mustg-o through the city, and smite,
they must slay utterly, slay to destruction, give
them their death’s wound; they must make no dis¬
tinction of age or sex, but cut off old and young;
neither the beauty of the virgins, nor the innocency
of their babes, shall secure them. This was fulfilled
in the death of multitudes by famine and pestilence,
especially by the sword of the Chaldeans, as far as
the military execution went. Sometimes even such
bloody work as this has been God’s work. But
what an evil thing is sin then, which provokes the
027
EZEKIEL, IX.
God of infinite mercy to such severity ! (2. ) With¬
out com passion; Let not your eye spare, neither
have ye pity; (i>. 5.) you must not save any whom
God has doomed to destruction, as Saul did Agag
and the Amalekitcs, that is doing the work of God
deceitfully , Jer. xlviii. 10. None need to be more
merciful than God is; and he had said, {ch. viii. 18.)
Mine eye shall not s/iare, neither will I have / lity .
Note, Those that live in sin, and hate to be reform¬
ed, will perish in sin, and deserve not to be pitied;
for they might easily have prevented the ruin, and
would not.
2. They are warned not to do the least hurt to
them that were marked for salvation ; “ Come not
near any man u/ion whom is the mark, do not so
much as threaten or frighten any of them; it is pro¬
mised them that there shall no evil come nigh them,
and therefore you must keep at a distance from
them.” The king of Babylon gave particular or¬
ders that Jeremiah should be protected. Baruch
and Ebed-melech were secured, and, it is likely,
others of Jeremiah’s friends, for his sake. God had
promised that it should go well with his remnant,
and they should be well treated; (Jer. xv. 11.) and
we have reason to think that none of the mourning,
praying remnant fell by the sword of the Chaldeans,
but that God found out some way or other to secure
them all; as in the last destruction of Jerusalem by
the Homans, the Christians were all secured in a
city called Pella, and none of them perished with
the unbelieving Jews. Note, None of those shall be
lost whom God has marked for life and salvation;
f r the foundation of God stands sure.
3. They are directed to begin at the sanctuary,
(v. 6.) that sanctuary which, in the chapter before,
he had seen the horrid profanation of; they must
begin there, because there the wickedness began,
which provoked God to send these judgments; the
debaucheries of the priests were the poisoning of
the springs, to which all the corruption of the
streams was owing. The wickedness of the sanc¬
tuary was of all other most offensive to God, and
therefore there the slaughter must begin; “ Begin
there, to try if the people will take warning by the
judgments of God upon their priests, and will re¬
pent and reform ; begin there, that all the world
may see and know that the Lord, whose name is
Jealous, is a jealous God, and hates sin most in
those that are nearest to him.” Note, When judg¬
ments are abroad, they commonly begin at the house
of God, 1 Pet. iv. 17. You only have I known, and
therefore I will fiunish you, Amos iii. 2. God’s
temple is a sanctuary, a refuge and protection for
penitent sinners, but not for any that go on still in
their trespasses; neither the sacredness of the place,
n< r the eminency of their place in it, will be their
security.
It should seem, the destroyers made some diffi¬
culty of putting men to death in the temple, but
God bids them not hesitate at that, but, (v. 7. ) De¬
file the house, and fill the courts with the slain.
They will not be taken from the altar, (as was ap¬
pointed by the law, Exod. xxi. 14.) but think to
secure themselves by keeping hold of the horns of
it, like Joab, and therefore, like him, let them die
there, 1 Kings ii. 30, 31. There the blood of one
of God’s prophets had been shed, (Matth. xxiii.
35. ) and therefore there let their blood be shed.
Note, If the servants of God’s house defile it with
their idolatries, God will justly suffer the enemies
of it to defile it with their violences, Ps. lxxix. 1.
But these acts of necessary justice were really,
whatever they were ceremonially, rather a purifi¬
cation than a pollution of the sanctuary; it was put¬
ting away evil from among them.
4. They were appointed to go forth into the city,
6, 7. Note, Wherever sin has gone before, judg¬
ment will follow after: and though judgment begins
at the house of God, yet it shall not end there. The
liolv city shall no more be a protection to the wicked
people than the holy house was to the wicked priests.
II. Here is execution done accordingly. They
observed their orders, and, 1. They began at the el¬
ders, the ancient men that were before the house,
and slew them first, either those seventy ancients
who worshipped idols in their chambers, {ch. viii.
12.) or those twtntv-five who worshipped the sun
between the porch and the altar, who might more
troperly be said to be before the house. Note,
■ringleaders in sin may expect to be first met with
by the judgments of God; and the sins of those who
are in the most eminent and public stations, call for
the most exemplary punishments. 2. They pro¬
ceeded to the common people; They went forth,
and slew in the city; for when the decree is gone
forth, there shall be no delay; if God begin, he will
make an end.
III. Here is the prophet’s intercession for a miti¬
gation of the judgment, and a reprieve for some;
(v. 8.) I Chile they were slaying them, and I was
left, I fell upon my face. Observe here, 1. How
sensible the prophet was of God’s mercy to him, in
that he was spared, when so many round about him
were cut off. Thousands fell on his right hand,
and on his left, and yet the destruction did not come
nigh him; only with his eyes did he behold the just
reward of the wicked, Ps. xci. 7, 8. He speaks as
one that narrowly escaped the destruction, attribut¬
ing it to God’s goodness, not his own deserts. Note,
The best saints must acknowledge themselves in¬
debted to sparing mercy that they are not consumed.
And when desolating judgments are abroad, and
multitudes fall by them, it ought to be accounted a
great favour if we have orn- lives given us for a prey;
for we might justly have perished with them that
perish. 2. Observe how he improved this mercy;
lie looked upon it that therefore he was left, that he
might stand in the gap to turn away the wrath of
God. Note, W e must look upon it that for this reason
we are spared, that we may do good in our places,
may do good by our prayers. Ezekiel did not tri¬
umph in the slaughter he made, but his flesh trem¬
bled for fear of God; (as David’s, Ps. cxix. 120.) he
fell on his face, and cried, not in fear for himself,
(he was one of them that were marked,) but in
compassion to his fellow-creatures. They that sigh
and erv for the sins of sinners, cannot but sigh and
cry for their tniscries too; yet the day is coming,
when all this concern will be entirely swallowed up
in a full satisfaction in this, that God is glorified;
and they that now fall on their faces, and cry. Ah,
Lord God.' will lift up their heads, and sing, Hal¬
lelujah, Rev. xix. 1, 3. The prophet humbly ex¬
postulates with God; “ Wilt thou destroy all the
residue of Israel, and there shall be none left but
the few that are marked? Shall the Israel of God be
destroyed, utterly destroyed? When there are but a
few left, shall those few be cut off, who might have
been the seed of another generation? And will the
God of Israel be himself their Destroyer? Wilt thou
now destroy Israel, who was wont to protect and
deliver Israel? Wilt thou so pour out thy fury upon
Jerusalem, as by the total destruction of the city to
ruin the whole country too? Surely thou wilt not!”
Note, Though we acknowledge that God is right¬
eous, yet we have leave to plead with him concern¬
ing his judgments, Jer. xii. 1.
IV. Here is God’s denial of the prophet’s request
for a mitigation of the judgment, and his justifica¬
tion of himself in that denial, v, 9, 10. 1. Nothing
could be said in extenuation of this sin. God was
as willing to show mercy as the prophet could de¬
sire; he always is so; but here the case will not ad- ■
mi* it; it is such, that mercy cannot be granted
EZEKIEL, X.
028
without wrong to justice; and it is not fit that one
attribute of God should be glorified at the expense
of another. Is it any pleasure to the Almighty that
he should destroy, especially that he should destroy
Israel? By no means. But the truth is, their crimes
are so flagrant, that the reprieve of the sinners
would be a connivance at the sin; “ The iniquity of
the house of Judah and Israel is exceeding great ,
there is no suffering them to go on at this rate, the
land is filled with innocent blood , and when the city-
courts are appealed to for the defence of injured in-
nocency, the remedy is as bad as the disease, for
the city is full of perverseness , or wresting oj judg¬
ment; and that which they support themselves vvith
in this iniquity, is the same atheistical, profane
principle, with which they flattered themselves in
their idolatry, ch. viii. 12. The Lord has forsaken
the earth , and left it to us to do what we will in it;
he will not intermeddle in the affairs of it; and,
whatever wrong we do, he sees not; he either knows
it not, or will not take cognizance of it.” Now
how can these expect benefit by the mercy of God,
who thus bid defiance to his justice? No, nothing
can be offered by an advocate in excuse of the
crimes, while the criminal puts in such a plea as
this in his own vindication; and therefore, 2. No¬
thing can be done to mitigate the sentence ; (v. 10. )
“ Whatever thou thinkest of it, as for me, mine
eyes shall not spare, neither will I have pity ; I have-
borne with them as long as it was fit that such im¬
pudent sinners should be borne with, and therefore
now I will recompense their way oti their head . ”
Note, Sinners sink and perish under the weight of
their own sins; it is their own way, which they deli¬
berately chose, rather than the way ot God, and
which they obstinately persisted in, in contempt of
the word of God, that is recompemed on them.
Great iniquities justify God in great severities; nay,
he is ready to justify himself, as he does here to the
prophet, for he will be clear when he judges.
V. Here is a return made of the writ of protec¬
tion, which was issued out for the securing ot them
that mourned in Zion; (y. 11.) The man clothed with
linen reported the matter, gave an account ot what
he had done in pursuance ot his commission; he had
found out all that mourned in secret for the sins ot
the land, and cried out against them by a public
testimony, and had marked them all in the fore¬
head; Lord, I have done as thou hast commanded
me. We do not find that those who were commis¬
sioned to destroy, reported what destruction they
had made, but he who was appointed to protect,
reported his matter; for it would be more pleasing
both to God, and to the prophet, to hear of those
that were saved, than of those that perished.
Or, this report was made now, because the thing was
finished, whereas the destroying work would be a
work of time, and when it was brought to an end,
then the report should be made. See how faithful
Christ is to the trust reposed in him! Is he com¬
manded to secure eternal life to the chosen remnant?
He has done as was commanded him; Oj all that
thou hast given me, I have lost none .
CHAP. X.
The prophet had observed to us, (ch. viii. 4.) that when he
was in vision at Jerusalem, he saw the same appearance
of the glory of God there, that he had seen by the river of
Chebar; now, in this chapter, he gives us some account
of the appearance there, as far as was requisite for the
clearing up of two further indications of the approach¬
ing destruction of Jerusalem, which God here gave the
prophet. 1. The scattering of the coals of fire upon the
city, which were taken from between the cherubims, v.
' * II. The removal of the glory of God from the
temple, and its being upon the wing to be gone, v. 8. .
22. When God goes out of a people, all judgments break
in upon them.
1. ^S^HEN I looked, and, behold, in the
I firmament that was above the head
of the cherubims there appeared over them
as it were a sapphire-stone, as the appear¬
ance of the likeness of a throne. 2. And
he spake unto the man clothed with linen,
and said, Go in between the wheels, even
under the cherub, anil fill thy hand with
coals of fire from between the cherubims,
and scatter them over the city. And he
went in in my sight. 3. Now the cherubims
stood on the right side of the house when
the man went in; and the cloud filled the
inner court. 4. Then the glory ofthe'LoRn
went up from the cherub, and stood over the
threshold of the house; and the house was
filled with the cloud, and the court was full
of the brightness of the Lord’s glory. 5.
And the sound of the cherubims’ wings was
heard even to the outer court, as the voice
of the Almighty God when he speaketh. 6.
And it came to pass, that when he had com¬
manded the man clothed with linen, saying,
Take fire from between the wheels, from
between the cherubims; then he went in,
and stood beside the wheels. 7. And one
cherub stretched forth his hand from be¬
tween the cherubims unto the fire that was
between the cherubims; and took thereof,
and put it into the hands of him that teas
clothed with linen; who took it, and went
out.
To possess us with a holy awe and dread of God,
and to fill us with his fear, we may observe, in this
part of the vision which the prophet had,
I. The glorious appearance of his majesty. Some
thing of the invisible world is here made visible;
some faint representations of its brightness and
beauty, some shadows; but such as are no more to
be compared with the truth and substance than a
picture with the life; yet here is enough to oblige
us all to tile utmost reverence in our thoughts of
God and approaches to him, if we will but admit
the impressions this discovery of him will make.
1. He is her e in the firmament above the head of
the cherubims, v. 1. He manifests his glory in the
upper world, where purity and brightness are both
in perfection; and the vast expanse of the firmament
aims to speak the God that dwells there infinite. It
is the firmament of his power and of his prospect
too ; for from thence he beholds all the children
of men. The divine nature infinitely transcends
the angelical nature, and God is above the head of
the cherubims, in respect not only of his dignity
above them, but of his dominion ever them. Cheru¬
bims have great power and wisdom and influence,
but they are subject to God and Christ.
2. He is here upon the throne, or that which had
the appearance of the likeness of a throne; (for
God’s glory and government infinitely transcend all
the brightest ideas our minds can either form or re¬
ceive concerning them ;) and it was as it were p sap¬
phire-stone, pure and sparkling; such a throne has
God prepared in the heavens, far exceeding the
thrones of any earthlv potentates.
3. Here he is attended with a gloiious train of
| holy angels. When God came into his temple, the
629
EZEKIEL, X.
cherubims stood on the right side of the house, (y.
3. ) as the Prince’s life-guard attending the gate of
his palace. Christ has angels at command. The
orders given to all the angels of God are, to worship
him. Some observe, that they stood on the right
side of the house, that is, the south side, because on
the nortl ;ide the image of jealousy was, and other
instances of idolatry, from which they would place
themselves at as great a distance as might be.
4. The appearance of Iris glory is veiled with a
cloud, and yet out of that cloud darts forth a daz¬
zling lustre; in the house and inner court there was
a cloud and darkness, which filled them, and yet
either the outer court, or the same court, after some
time, was full of the brightness of the Lord’s glory,
v. 3, 4. There was a darting forth of light and
brightness; but if any over-curious eye pried into it,
it would find itself lost in a cloud. His righteous¬
ness is conspicuous as the great mountains , and the
brightness of it fills the court; but his judgments
are a great dee/}, which we cannot fathom, a cloud,
which we cannot see through. The brightness dis¬
covers enough to awe and direct our consciences,
but the cloud forbids us to expect the gratifying of
our curiosity; for we cannot order our speech by
reason of darkness. Thus, (Hab. iii. 4.) He had
beams coining out of his hand, and yet there was the
hiding of his power. Nothing is more clear than
that God is, nothing more dark than what he is.
God covers himself with light, and yet, as to us,
makes darkness his pavilion. God took possession
of the tabernacle and temple in a cloud, which was
always the symbol of his presence. In the temple
above there will be no cloud, but we shall see face
to face.
5. The cherubims made a dreadful sound with
their wings, v. 5. The vibration of them, as of the
strings of musical instruments, made a curious me¬
lody; bees, and other winged insects, make a noise
with their wings. Probably, this intimated their
preparing to remove, by stretching forth and lifting
up their wings, which made this noise as it were to
give warning of it. This noise is said to be as the
voice of the Almighty God when he speaks, as the
thunder, which is called the voice of the Lord, (Ps.
xxix. 3.) or as the voice of the Lord when he spake
to Israel on mount Sinai; and therefore he then gave
the law with abundance of terror, to signify with
what terror he would reckon for the violation of it,
which he was now about to do. This noise of their
wings was heard even to the outer court, the court
of the people; for the Lord’s voice, in his judgments,
cries in the city, which those may hear, that do not,
as Ezekiel, see the visions of them.
II. The terrible directions of his wrath. This
vision has a further tendency than merely to set
forth the divine grandeur; further orders are to be
given for the destruction of Jerusalem. The great¬
est devastations are made by fire and sword: for a
general slaughter of the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
orders were given in the foregoing chapter; now
here we have a command to lay the city in ashes,
by scattering coals of fire upon it, which in the
vision were fetched from between the cherubims.
1. For the issuing out of orders to do this, the
glory of the Lord was lifted up from the cherub,
(as in the chapter before for the giving of orders
there, v. 3. ) and stood upon the threshold of the house,
in imitation of the courts of judgment which they
kept in the gates of their cities. The people would
not hear the oracles which God delivered to them
from his holy temple, and therefore from thence
they shall be made to hear their doom.
2. The man clothed in linen, who had marked
those who were to be preserved, is to be employed
in this service; for the same Jesus that is the Pro¬
tector and Saviour of them that believe, having all
judgment committed to him, that of condemnation
as well as that of absolution, will come in Jiaming
fire, to take vengeance on those that obey not his
gospel. He that sits on the throne calls to the man
clothed in linen to go in between the wheels, and fiU
his hands with coals of fire from between the cheru¬
bims, and scatter them over the city. This intimates,
(1.) That the burning of the city and temple by
the Chaldeans was a consumption determined, and
that therein they executed God’s counsel, did what
he designed before should be done. (2.) That the
fire of divine wrath, which kindles judgment upon
a people, is just and holy, for it is fire fetched from
between the cherubims. The fire on God’s altar,
where atonement was made, had been slighted, to
avenge which, fire is here fetched from heaven, like
that by which Nadab and Abihu were killed for of¬
fering strange fire. If a city, or town, or house be
burned, whether by design or accident, if we trace
it. in its original, we shall find that the coals which
kindled the fire came from between the wheels; for
there is not any evil of that kind in the city, but the
Lord has done it. (3. ) That Jesus Christ acts by
commission from the Father, for from him he re¬
ceives authority to execute judgment, because he is
the Son of man. Christ came to send fire on the
earth, (Luke xii. 49. ) and in the great day will speak
this world into ashes. By fire from his hand, the
earth, and all the works that are therein, will be
burnt up.
3. This man clothed with linen readily attended
to this service; though, being clothed with linen, he
was very unfit to go among the burning coals, yet,
being called, he said, Lo, I come; this command¬
ment he had received of his Father, and he com¬
plied with it; the prophet saw him go in, v. 2. He
went in, and stood beside the wheels , expecting to be
furnished there with the coals he was to scatter; for
what Christ was to give, he first received, whether
for mercy or judgment. He was directed to take
fire, but he stayed till he had it given him, to show
how slow he is to execute judgment, and how long-
suffering to us-ward.
4. One of the cherubims reached him a handful
of fire from the midst of the living creatures. The
prophet, when he first saw this vision, observed
that there were burning coals of fire, and lamps,
that went up and down among the living creatures;
( ch . i. 13. ) from thence this fire was taken, v. 7.
The spirit of burning, the refiner’s fire, by which
Christ purifies his church, is of a divine original.
It is by a celestial fire, fire from between the cheru¬
bims, that wonders are wrought. The cherubim
put it into his hand; for the angels are ready to be
employed by the Lord Jesus, and to serve all his
purposes.
5. When he had taken the fire, he went out, no
doubt to scatter it up and down upon the city, as he
was directed. And who can abide the day of his
coming ? Who can stand before him when he goes
out in his anger?
8. And there appeared in the cherubims
the form of a man’s hand undrr their wings.
9. And when T looked, behold, the four
wheels by the cherubims, one wheel by one
cherub, and another wheel by another che¬
rub: and the appearance of the wheels tens
as the colour of a beryl-stone. 1 0. And as
for their appearances, they four had one
likeness, as if a wheel had been in the midst
of a wheel. 11. When they went, they
went upon their four sides; they turned not
as they went, but to the place whither the
EZEKIEL, X.
H30
head looked they followed it ; they turned
not as they went. 12. And their whole
body, and their backs, and their hands, and
their wings, and the wheels, were full of
eyes round about, even the wheels, that they
four had. 13. As for the wheels, it was
cried unto them in my hearing, O wheel!
14. And every one had four faces : the first
face was the face of a cherub, and the se¬
cond face was the face of a man, and the
third the face of a lion, and the fourth the
face of an eagle. 15. And the cherubims
were lifted up. This is the living creature
that 1 saw by the river of Chebar. 16.
And when the cherubims went, the w heels
went by them; and when the cherubims
lifted up their wings, to mount up from the
earth, the same wheels also turned not from
beside them. 17. When they stood, these
stood; and when they were lifted up, these.
lifted up themselves also: for the spirit of
the living creature teas in them. 18. Then
the glory of the Lord departed from off the
threshold of the house, and stood over the
cherubims. 19. And the cherubims lifted
tip their wings, and mounted up from the
earth in my sight : when they went out, the
wheels also were beside them ; and every
one stood at the door of the east gate of the
Lord’s bouse ; and the glory of the God of
Israel ivas over them above. 20. This is
the living creature that I saw' under the God
of Israel, by the river of Chebar; and I
knew that they were the cherubims. 21.
Every one had four faces apiece, and every
one four wings; and the likeness of the
hands of a man was under their w'ings. 22.
And the likeness of their faces was the same
faces which I saw by the river of Chebar,
their appearances and themselves : they
w'ent every one straight forward.
W e have here a further account of the vision of
God’s glory which Ezekiel saw, here intended to
introduce that direful omen of the departure of that
glory from them, which would open the door for
ruin to break in.
I. Ezekiel sees the glory of God shining in the
sanctuary, so as he had seen it by the river of Che¬
bar , and gives an account of it, that they who had
by their wickedness provoked God to depart from
them, might know what they had lost, and might
lament after the Lord, groaning out their Ichabod,
Where is the glory?
Ezekiel here sees the operations of Divine Pro¬
vidence in the government of the lower world, and
the affairs of it, represented by the four wheels;
and the perfections of the holy angels, the inhabit¬
ants of the upper world, and their ministrations, re¬
presented by the four living creatures, every one
of which had four faces: the agenev of the angels
in directing the affairs of this world is represented
by the close communication that was between the
iv'ng creatures and the wheels, the wheels being
guided by them in all their motions, as the chariot
is by him that drives it; but the same Spirit being
both in the lvnr>\<r creatures and in the wheels, de¬
notes that infinite wisdom which serves its own pur¬
poses by the ministration of angels, and all the oc¬
currences of this lower world. So that this vision
gives our faith a view of that throne which the Lord
has prepared in the heavens, and that kingdom of
his which rules over all, Ps. ciii. 19.
The prophet observes, that this was the same vi¬
sion with that he saw by the river of Chebar; (r.
15, 22.) and yet in one thing there seems to be a
material difference, that that which was there the
face of an ox, and was on the left side, ( ch . i. 10.)
is here the face of a cherub, and is the first face, (v.
14.) whence some have concluded that the peculiar
face of a cherub was that of an ox, which the Is¬
raelites had an eye to when they made the golden
calf. I rather think that in this latter vision the first
face was the proper appearance or figure of a che¬
rub, which Ezekiel knew very well, being a priest,
by what he had seen in the temple of the Lord, (’
Kings vi. 29.) but which we now have no certainty
of at all; and by this Ezekiel knew assuredly, where¬
as before he only conjectured it, that they were all
cherubims, though putting on different faces, to 20.
And this first appearing in the proper figure of a
cherub, and yet it being proper to retain the num¬
ber of four, that of the ox is left out and dropped,
because the face of the cherubim had been most
abused by the worship of an ox. As sometimes
when God appeared to deliver his people, so now
when he appeared to depart from them, he rode
upon a cherub, and d d Jiy. Now observe here,
1. That this world is subject to turns and changes,
and various revolutions; the course of affairs in it is
represented by wheels, (v. 9. ) sometimes one spoke
is uppermost, and sometimes another, they are still
ebbing and flowing like the sea, waxing and waning
like the moon, 1 Sam. ii. 4, &c. Nay, their ap¬
pearance is as if there were a wheel in the midst of
a wheel, [y. 10.) which intimates the mutual refer¬
ences of providences to each other, their depend¬
ences on each other, and the joint tendency of all to
one common end, while their motions as to us are
intricate and perplexed, and seemingly contrary.
2. That there is an admirable harmony and uni¬
formity in the various occurrences of providence;
(y. 13.) As for the wheels, though they moved
several ways, yet it was cried to them, O wheel;
they were all as one, being guided by one Spirit to
one end, for God works all according to the counsel
of his own will, which is one, for his own glory,
which is one. And this makes the disposals of
Providence truly admirable, and to be looked upon
with wonder. As the works of his creation, con¬
sidered separately, were good, but altogether,
very good, so the wheels of providence, considered
by themselves, are wonderful, but put them to¬
gether, and they are very wonderful; 0 wheel l
3. That the motions of Providence are steady and
regular, and whatever the Lord pleases that he does,
and is never put upon new counsels. The wheels
turned not as they went, ( v . 11.) and the living
creatures went straight forward, v. 22. Whatever
difficulties lay in their way, they were sure to get
over them, and were never obliged to stand still,
turn aside, or go back. So perfectly known to God
are all his works, that he is never put upon new
counsels.
4. That God makes more use of the ministration
of angels in the government of this lower world than
we are aware of; The four wheels were by the che¬
rubims, one wheel by one cherub, and another
wheel by another cherub, v. 9. What has been
imagined by some concerning the spheres above,
that every orb has its intelligence to guide it, is here
intimated concerning the wheels below, that every
031
EZEKIEL, XI.
wheel has its cherub to guide it. We think it a
satisfaction to us, if under the wise God there are
wise men employed in managing the affairs of king¬
doms and churches; whether there be so or no, it
appears by this that there are wise angels employed,
a cherub to every wheel.
5. That all the motions of providence and all the
ministrations of angels are under the government of
the great God. They are all full of eyes; those
eyes of the Lord which run to and fro through the
earth, and which the angels have always an eye to,
v. 12. The living creatures and the wheels concur
in their motions and rests; (v. 17.) for the Sfiirit of
life, as it may be read, or the Spirit of the living
creatures, is in the wheels. The spirit of God directs
all the creatures, both upper and lower, so as to
make them serve the divine purpose. Events are
not determined by the wheel of fortune, which is
blind, but by the wheels of Providence, which are
full of eves.
II. E zekiel sees the glory of God removing out of
the sanctuary, the place where God’s honour had
long dwelt, and this sight is as sad as the other was
grateful. It was pleasant to see that God had not
forsaken the earth, (as the idolaters suggested, ch.
ix. 9. ) but sad to see that he was forsaking his sanc¬
tuary. The glory of the Lord stood over the thresh¬
old, v. 4. But now it departed from off the threshold,
having thence given the necessary orders for the de¬
struction of the city, and it stood over the cherubims,
not those in the most holy place, but those that
Ezekiel now saw in vision, v. 18. It ascended that
stately chariot, as the judge, when he comes off the
bench, goes into his coach, and is gone. And imme¬
diately the cherubims lifted u/i their wings, {v. 19.)
as they were directed, and they mounted up from
the earth, as birds upon the wing; and when they
went out, the wheels of this chariot were not drawn,
but went by instinct, beside them; by which it ap¬
peared, that the Spirit of the living creatures was
in the wheels. Thus when God is leaving a people
in displeasure, angels above, and all events here
below, shall concur to further his departure. But
observe here. In the courts of the temple where the
people of Israel had dishonoured their God, had
cast off his yoke, and withdrawn the shoulder from
it, blessed angels appear very ready to serve him,
to draw in his chariot, and to mount upward with
it. God had shown the prophet hew the will of
God was disobeyed by men on earth; {ch. viii.)
here he shows him how readily it is obeyed by
angels and inferior creatures; ar.d it is a comfort to
•s, when we grieve for the wickedness of the wicked,
to think how his angels do his commandments,
hearkening to the voice of his word, Ps. ciii. 20.
Let us now, 1. Take a view of this chariot in
which the glory of the God of Israel rides triumph¬
antly. He that is the God of Israel, is the God of
heaven and earth, and has the command rf all the
powers of both. Let the faithful Israelites comfort
themselves with this, that he who is their God is
above the cherubims; their Redeemer is so, (1 Pet.
iii. 22. ) and has the sole and sovereign disposal of
all events, the living creatures and the wheels agree
to serve him, so that he is Head over all things to
the church. The Rabbins call this vision that
Ezekiel had, Mercabah, the vision of the chariot;
and from thence they call the more abstruse part
of divinity, which treats concerning God and spirits,
Opus currus — The work of the chariot, as thev do
the other part that is more plain and familiar, Opus
bereshith — The work of the creation. 2. Let us at¬
tend the motions of this chariot; The cherubims,
and the glory of God above them, stood at the door
cf'tr.e cast gale of the Lord’s house, ready to depart
and .cave the house, v. 19. But observe with how
maDv stops and pauses God departs, as loath to go,
as if to see if there be any that will intercede with
him to return. None ol the priests in the innei
court, between the temple and the altar, would
court his stay; therefore he leaves their court, and
stands at the east gate, which led into the court of
the people, to see if any of them would yet at length
stand in the gap. Note, God removes by degiees
from a provoking people; and, when he is ready to
depart, would return to them, if they were but a
repenting, praying people.
CHAP. XI.
This chapter concludes the vision which Ezekiel saw, and
this part of it furnishes him with two messages; I. A
message of wrath against those who continued still at
Jerusalem, and were there in the height of presumption,
thinking they should never fall, v. 1 . . 13. II. A message
of comfort to those who were carried captives into
Babylon, and were there in the depth of despondency,
thinking they should never rise. And as the former are
assured that God has judgments in store for them, not¬
withstanding their present security; so the latter are as-
I sured that God has mercy in store for them, notwith-
! standing thejr present distress, v. 14.. 21. And so the
i glory of God removes further, v. 22, 23. The vision dis¬
appears, (v. 24.) and Ezekiel faithfully gives his hearers
an account of it, v. 25.
1. MOREOVER,the spirit lifted nu up,
at_IL and brought me unto the east gate
of the Lord’s house, which looketh east¬
ward; and, behold, at the door of the" gate
five and twenty men; among whom I saw
Jaazaniah the son of Azur, and Pelatiah
the son of Benaiah, princes of the people.
2. Then said he unto me, Son of man, these
are the men that devise, mischief, and give
wioktxl counsel, in this city; 3. Which say,
It is not near: let us build houses: this city
is the caldron, and we be the flesh. 4.
Therefore prophesy against them, prophesy,
O son of man. 5. And the Spirit of th«
Lord fell upon me, and said unto me
Speak; Thus sailh the. Lord, Thus ha\e
ye said, O house of Israel : for I know the
things that come into your mind, every one
of them. 6. Ye have i> dtiplied your slain
in this city, and ye ha j filled the streets
thereof with the slain 7. Therefore thus
saith the Lord God, Your slain, whom ye
have laid in the midst of it, they are the
flesh, and this city is the caldron; but I will
bring you forth out of the midst of it. 8. Ye
have feared the sword ; and I will bring a
sword upon you, saith the Lord God. 9.
And I will bring you out of the midst
thereof, and deliver you into the hands
of strangers, and will execute judgments
among you. 10. Ye shall fall by the sword:
I will judge you in the border of Israel and
ye shall know' that I am the Lord. 11.
This city shill not be your caldron, nt.dier
shall ye bf the flesh in the midst thereof:
but I will judge you in the border of Israel:
12. And ye shall know that I am the Lord:
for ye have not walked in ,my statutes,
neither executed my judgments, hut have
done after the manners of the heathen that
EZEKIEL, XI
>13i
are lcuiid about you. 13. And it came to
pass, when I prophesied, that Pelatiah, the
son of Benaiah, died : then fell J down upon
my face, and cried with a loud voice, and
said, Ah Lord God! wilt thou make a full
end of the remnant of Israel ?
We have here,
I. The great security of the princes of Jerusalem,
notwithstanding the judgments of God that were
upon them. The prophet was brought, in vision,
to the gate of the temple where these princes sat in
council upon the present arduous affairs of the city;
The Spirit lifted me up, and brought me to the east
gate of the Lord’s house, and behold, twenty-five
men were there. See how obsequious tire prophet
was to the Spirit’s orders, and how observant of all
the discoveries that were made to him. It should
seem, these twenty-five men were not the same with
those twenty-five whom he saw at the door of the
temple, worshi/i/iing toward the east; (ch. viii. 16.)
those seem to have been priests or Levites, for they
were between the porch and the altar, but these
were princes sitting in the gate of the Lord’s house,
to try causes, (Jer. xxvi. 10.) and these here are
charged, not with corruptions in worship, but mal¬
administration to the government; two of them are
named, because they were the most leading, active
men, and perhaps because the prophet knew them,
though he had been some years absent; Pelatiah,
and Jaazaniah, not that mentioned, ch. viii. 11. for
he was the son of Shaphan, this is the son of Azur.
Some tell us that Jerusalem was divided into twenty-
four wards, and that these were the governors or
aldermen of those wards, with their mayor or presi¬
dent. Now observe,
1. The general character which God gives of
these men to the prophet; ( [v . 2.) These are the men
that devise mischief; under pretence of concerting
measures for the public safety, they harden people
in their sins, and take off their fear of God’s judg¬
ments which they are threatened with by the pro¬
phets; they give wicked counsel in this city, coun¬
selling them to restrain and silence the prophets, to
rebel against the king of Babylon, and to resolve
upon holding the city out to the last extremity.
Note, It is bad with a people when the things that
belong to their peace are hid from the eyes of those
who are intrusted with their counsels. And when
mischief is done, God knows at whose door to lay
it, and, in the day of discovery and recompense,
will be sure to lay it at the right door, and will say,
These are the men that devised it, though they are
great men, and pass for wise men, and must not now
be contradicted or controlled.
2. Tlie particular charge exhibited against them
in proof of this character. They are indicted for
words spoken at their council-board, which he that
stands in the congregation of the mighty would take
cognizance of; ( v . 3.) they said to this effect, “ It is
not near; the destruction of our city, that has been
so often threatened by the prophets, is not near,
not so near as they talk of.” They are conscious to
themselves of such an enmity to reformation, that
they cannot but conclude it will come at last; but
they have such an opinion of God’s patience, (though
they have long abused it,) that they are willing to
hope it will not come this great while. Note,
Where Satan cannot persuade men to look upon the
judgment to come as a thing doubtful and uncer-
f tin, yet he gains his point by persuading them to
look upon it as a thing at a distance, so that it loses
its force. If it be sure, yet it is not near, whereas,
la truth, the Judge stands before the door.
Now if the destruction is not near, they conclude,
Let us build houses; let us count upon a continuance,
for this city is the caldron, and we are tl e flesh.
This seems to be a proverbial expression, signifying
no more than this, “We are as safe in this city as
flesh in a boiling pot; the walls .of the city shall be
to us as walls of brass, and shall receive no more
damage from the besiegers about it, than the caldron
does from the fre under it. Those that think to
force us out of our city into captivity, shall find it to
be as much at their peril as it would be to take the
flesh out of a boiling pot with their hands.” This
appears to be the meaning of it, by the answer God
gives to it, (i>. 9.) “/ will bring you cut of the
midst of the city, where you think yourselves safe,
and then it will appear (v. 11.) that this is not your
caldron, neither are you the flesh. ” Perhaps it has
a particular reference to the flesh of the peace-offer¬
ings, which it was so great an offence for the priests
themselves to take out of the caldron while it was
in seething; (as we find, 1 Sam. ii. 13, 14.) and
then it intimates that they were the more secure
because Jerusalem was the holy city, and they
thought themselves a holy people in it, not to be
meddled with. Some think this was a banter upon
Jeremiah, who in one of his first visions saw Jeru¬
salem represented by a seething pot, Jer. i. 13.
“Now,” say they, in a way of jest and ridicule,
“ if it be a seething pot, we are as the flesh in it,
and who dares meddle with us?” Thus they con¬
tinued mocking the messengers of the Lord, even
while they suffered for so doing; but be ye not
mockers, lest your bands be made strong. Those
hearts are hard indeed, which are made more se¬
cure by those words of God which were designed
for warning to them.
II. The method taken to awaken them out of
their security. One would think that the provi
dences of God, which related to them, were enough
to startle them; but to help them to understand and
improve those, the word of God is sent them to
give them warning; (y. 4.) Therefore prophesy
against them, and try to undeceive them; prophesy,
O son of man, upon these dead and dry bones.
Note, The greatest kindness ministers can do to se¬
cure sinners is, to preach against them, and to show
them their misery and danger though they are ever
so unwilling to see it. We then act most for them,
when we appear most against them. But the pro-
het being at a loss what to say to men that were
ardened in sin, and that bade defiance to the judg¬
ments of God, the Spirit of the Lord fell upon him,
to make him full of power and courage, and said
unto him, Speak. Note, When sinners are flatter¬
ing themselves into their own ruin, it is time to
speak, and to tell them that they shall have no
eace if they go on. Ministers are sometimes so
ashful and timorous, and so much at a loss, that
they must be put on to speak, and to speak boldly.
But he that commands the prophet to speak, gives
him instructions what to say; and he must address
himself to them as the house of Israel, (v. 5.) for
not the princes only, but all the people, were con¬
cerned to know the truth of their cause, to know
the worst of it. They are the house of Israel, and
therefore the God of Israel is concerned, in kind¬
ness to them, to give them warning; and they are
concerned, in duty to him, to take the warning.
And what is it that he must say to them in God’s
name?
1. Let them know that the God of heaven takes •>
notice of their vain confidences with which they
support themselves; (y. 5.) “ I know the thing i
that come into your minds, every one of them, what
secret reasons you have for these resolutions, and
what you aim at in putting so good a face upon a
matter you know to be bad.” Note, God perfectly
knows not only the things that come out of out
mouths, but the things that come into our minds;
633
EZEKIEL, XI.
not only all we say, but all we think; even those
thoughts that are most suddenly darted into our
minds, and that as suddenly slip out of them again,
so that we ourselves are scarcely aware of them,
et God knows them ; he knows us better than we
now ourselves; he understands our thoughts afar
off: the consideration of this should oblige us to
keep our hearts with all diligence, that no vain
thoughts come into them, or lodge within them.
2. Let them know that of all who had fallen, or
should yet fall in Jerusalem, by the sword of the
Chaldeans, they who advised to stand it out, should
be accounted before God the murderers; and those
slain were the only ones that should remain in the
city, as the flesh in the caldron, v. 6. “ You have
multiplied your slain in the city, not only those
whom you have by the sword of justice unjustly put
to death under colour of law, but those whom you
have by your wilfulness and pride unwisely exposed
to the sword of war, though you were told by the
prophets that you should certainly go by the worst.
Thus, you with your stubborn humour, ha ve filled the
streets of Jerusalem with the slain.” Note, Those
who are either unrighteous or imprudent in beginning
or carrying on a war, bring upon themselves a great
deal of the guilt of blood; and those who are slain
in battles or sieges which they, by such a reasonable
peace as the war aimed at, might have prevented,
will be called their slain. Now these slain are the
only flesh that shall be left in this caldron, v. 7.
There shall none remain to keep possession of the
city but those that are buried in it. There shall be
no inhabitant of Jerusalem but the inhabitants of the
graves there, no freeman of the city but the free
among the dead.
3. Let them know that how impregnable soever
they thought their city to be, they should be forced
out of it, either driven to flight, or dragged into cap¬
tivity; I will bring you forth out of the midst of it,
whether you will or no, v. 7, 9. They had pro¬
voked God to forsake the city, and thought they
should do well enough by their own policy and
strength when he was gone; but God will make
them know that there is no peace to them that have
left their God. If the-y have by their sins driven
God from his house, he will soon by his judgments
drive them from theirs; and it will be found that
those are least safe that are most secure; “This
city shall not be your caldron, neither shall ye be the
flesh; you shall not soak away in it as you promise
yourselves, and die in your nest; you think your¬
selves safe in the midst thereof, but you shall not be
long there.
4. Let them know that when God has got them
out of the midst of Jerusalem, he will pursue them
with his judgments wherever he finds them; the
judgments which they thought to shelter themselves
from by keeping close in Jerusalem. They feared
the sword if they should go out to the Chaldeans,
and therefore would abide in their caldron; But,
says God, I will bring a sword upon you, (t>. 8.) and
you shall fall by the sword, v. 10. Note, The fear
of the wicked shall come upon him. And there is
no fence against the judgments of God when they
come with commission, no, not in walls of brass.
They were afraid of trusting to the mercy cf stran¬
gers. “But,” says God, “I will deliver you into
the hands of strangers, whose resentments you shall
feel, since you were not willing to lie at their mercy. ”
See Jer. xxxviii. 17, 18. They thought to escape
the judgments of God, but God says that he will
execute judgments upon them; and whereas the}'
resolved, if they must be judged, that it should be
;n Jerusalem, God tells them, (v. 10. and again,
t. 11.) that he will judge them in the borders of
Israel, which was fulfilled when Nebuchadnezzar
slew all the nobles of Judah at Riblah in the land of
Vol. iv. — 4 L
Hamath, on the utmost border of the land of Canaan.
Note, Those who have taken ever so deep root in
the place where they live, cannot be sure that in
that place they shall die.
5. Let them know that all this is the due punish¬
ment of their sin, and the revelation of the righteous
judgment of God against them; Ye shall /enow that
I am the Lord, v. 10. and again, v. 12. Those shall
be -ntade to know by the sword of the Lord, who
would not be taught by his word, what a hatred he
has to sin, and what a fearful thing it is ft r impeni¬
tent sinners to fall into his hands. I will execute
judgments, and then you shall know that I am the
Lord, fur the Lord is known by the judgments which
he executes upon those that have not walked in his
statutes. Hereby it is known that he made the law,
because he punishes the breach of it. I will execute
judgments among you, (says Gcd,) because you
have not executed my judgments, v. 12. Note, The
excuting of the judgments of God’s mouth by us, in a
uniform, steady course of obedience to his law, is the
only way to prevent the executing cf the judgments
of his hand upon us, in our ruin and confusion ; one
way or other, God’s judgments will be executed; the
law will take place either in its precept or in its pe¬
nalty. If we do not give honour to God by executing
his judgments as he has commanded, he will get him
honour upon us by executing his judgments as he
has threatened; and thus we shall know that he is
the Lord, the sovereign Lord of all, that will net be
mocked. And observe, When they cast tiff God’s
statutes, and walked not in them, they did after the
manners of the heathen that were round about them,
and introduced into their worship all their impure,
ridiculous, and barbarous usages. When men leave
the settled rule of divine institutions, they wander
endlessly. Justly therefore was this made the reason
why they should keep God’s ordinances, that they
might not commit the abominable customs of the
heathen, Lev. xviii. 30.
III. This awakening word is immediately here
followed by an awakening providence, v. 13. Where
we may observe,
1. With what power Ezekiel prophesied,, or,
rather, what a divine power went along with it; It
came to pass, when I prophesied, that Pelatiah the
son of Benaiah died; he was mentioned, v. 1. as a
principal man among the twenty-five princes that
made all the mischief in Jerusalem. It should
seem, this was done in vision now, as the slaying of
the ancient men, (c/i. ix. 6.) upon occasion of which
Ezekiel prayed, (y. 8.) as he did here; but it was
an assurance that when this prophecy should be
published, it should be done in fact. The death of
Pelatiah was an earnest of the complete accom¬
plishment of this prophecy. Note, God is pleased
oftentimes to single out some sinners, and make
them monuments of his justice, for warning to others
of what is coming; and some that thought them¬
selves very safe, are snatched away suddenly, and
drop down dead in an instant; as Ananias and Sap-
phira at Peter’s feet when he prophesied.
2. With what pity Ezekiel prayed. Though the
sudden death of Pelatiah was a confirmation of
Ezekiel’s prophecy, and really an honour to him,
yet he was in deep concern about it, and laid it to
heart as if he had been his relation or friend. He
fell on his face, and cried with a loud voice, as one
in earnest; “Ah Lord God! wilt thou make a full
end of the remnant of Israel? Many are swept
away by the judgments we have been under ; and
shall the remnant which have escaped the sword,
die thus by the immedi. te hand of heaven ? Then
thou wilt indeed-make a full end.” Perhaps it was
Ezekiel’s infirmity to bewail the death of this wicked
prince thus, as it was Samuel’s to rnr.urn so long for
Saul ; but thus he showed how far he was from de-
G34
EZEKIEL, XI.
siring the woful day he foretold. David lamented
the sickness of those that hated and persecuted him.
And we ought to be much affected with the sudden
death of others, yea, though they are wicked.
14. Again the word of the Lord came
unto me, saying, 15. Son of man, thy bre¬
thren, even thy brethren, the men of thy. kin¬
dred, and all the house of Israel wholly, are
they unto whom the inhabitants of Jerusa¬
lem have said, Get ye far from the Lord;
unto us is this land given in possession. 16.
Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord' God,
Although I have cast them far off among the
heat lien, and although I have scattered them
among the countries, yet will I be to them
as a little sanctuary in the countries where
they shall come. 1 7. Therefore say, Tlius
saith the Lord God, I will even gather you
from the people, and assemble you out of
the countries where ye have been scattered,
and I will give you the land of Israel. 18.
And they shall come thither, and they shall
take away all the detestable things there¬
of, and all the abominations thereof, from
thence. 19. And I will give them one heart,
and I will put a new spirit within you: and
I will take the stony heart out of their flesh,
and will give them a heart of flesh; 20.
That they may walk in my statutes, and
keep mine ordinances, and do them : and
they shall be my people, and I will be their
God. 21. But as for them whose heart
walketh after the heart of their detestable
things and their abominations, 1 will recom¬
pense their way upon their own head, saith
the Lord God.
Prophecy was designed to exalt every valley, as
well as to bring low every mountain and hill ; (Isa-
xl. 4.) and prophets were to speak not only convic¬
tion to t!ie presumptuous and secure, but comfort to
the despised and desponding that trembled at God’s
word. The prophet, having in the former part of
this chapter received instructions for the awakening
of those that were at ease in Zion, is in these verses
furnished with comfortable words for those that
mourned in Babylon, and by the rivers there sat
weeping when they remembered Zion. Observe,
I. How the pious captives were trampled upon
and insulted over by those who continued in Jerusa¬
lem, v. 15. God tells the prophet what the inhabit¬
ants of Jerusalem said of him and the rest of them
that were already carried away to Babylon. God
had owned them as good figs, and declared it was
for their good that he had sent them into Babylon ;
but the inhabitants of Jerusalem abandoned them,
supposing them that were really the best saints to be
the greatest sinners of all men that dwelt in Jerusa¬
lem. Observe, 1. How they are described ; They
are thy brethren, (says God to the prophet,) whom
thou hast a concern and affection for ; they are the
men of thy kindred ; ( the men of thy redemption,
so the word is ;) thy next of kin, to whom the right
of redeeming the alienated possession belongs, but
who are so far from being able to do it, that they are
themselves gone into captivity. They are the whole
house of Israel;' God so accounts of them, because
they only have retained their integrity, and are bet¬
tered by their captivity. They are not only oi the
same family and nation with Ezekiel, but of the same
spirit ; they were his hearers, and he had commu¬
nion with them in holy ordinances ; and perhaps
upon that account they are called his brethren, and
the men of his kindred. 2. How they were dis¬
owned by the inhabitants of Jerusalem ; they said
of them, Get ye far from the I.ord. They that
were at ease and proud themselves, scorned their
brethren that were humbled and under humbling
providences. (1.) They cut them off from being
members of their church; because they had sepa¬
rated themselves from their rulers, and in compli¬
ance with the will of God had surrendered them¬
selves to the king of Babylon, they excommunicated
them, and said, “ Get ye far from the Lord, we
will have nothing to do with you. ” Those that were
superstitious were very willing to shake off those
who were conscientious, and were severe in their
censures of them and sentences against them, as if
they were forsaken and forgotten of the Lord, and
were cut off from the communion of the faithful.
(2.) They cut them off from being members of the
commonwealth ton, as if they had no longer any part
or lot in the matter ; “ Unto us is this land given in
possession, and you have forfeited ycur estates by
surrendering to the king of Babylon, and we are
thereby become entitled to them. ” God takes notice
of, and is much displeased with, the contempt which
those that are in prosperity put upon their brethren
that are in affliction.
II. The gracious promises which God made tc
them in consideration of the insolent conduct of their
brethren toward them. They that hated them and
cast them out, said, Let the I.ord be glorified ; but
he shall appear to their joy, Isa. lxvi. 5. God owns
that his hand was gone out against them, which had
given occasion to their brethren to triumph over
them ; (y. 16.) “It is tme, I have cast them far off
among the heathen, and scattered them among the
countries ; they look as if they were an abandoned
people, and so mingled with the natirns that they
would be lost among them ; but I have mercy in store
for them.” Note, God takes occasion from the con
tempts which are put upon his people to speak com¬
fort to them ; as David hoped God would reward
him good for Shimei’s cursing. His time to support
his people’s hopes is, when their enemies are en¬
deavouring to drive them to despair. Now God
promises,
1. That he will make up to them the want of the
temple and the privileges of it ; (t. 16. ) I will be to
them as a little sanctuary, in the countries where
they shall come. They at Jerusalem have the tem¬
ple, but without God ; they in Babylon have God,
though without the temple. (1.) God will be a
sanctuary to them, a place of refuge ; to him they
shall flee, and in him they shall be safe, as he was
that took hold on the horns of the altar. Or, rather,
they shall have such communion with God in the
land of their captivity, as it was thought could be
had no where but in the temple: they shall there
see God’s power and his glory, so as they used to see
it in the sanctuary: they shall have the tokens of
God’s presence with them, and his grace in their
hearts shall sanctify their prayers and praises, as
well as ever the altar sanctified the gift, so that they
shall please the Lord better than an ox or bullock.
(2. ) He will be a little sanctuary, not seen or ob¬
served by their enemies, who looked with an evil
and an envious eye upon that house at Jerusalem
which was high and great, 1 Kings ix. 8. They
were but few and mean, and a little sanctuary was
fittest for them. God regards the low estate of his
people, and suits his favours to their circumstances.
Observe the condescensions of divine grace ; the
I great God will be to his people a little sanctuary.
635
EZEKIEL, XI.
Note, They that are deprived of the benefit of pub¬
lic ordinances, if it be not their own fault, may have
the want of them abundantly made up m the imme¬
diate communications of divine grace and comforts.
2. That God would in due time put an end to their
afflictions, bring them out of the land of their cap¬
tivity, and settle them again, them or their children,
in their own land; (t>. 17. ) “ / will gather even you
that are thus dispersed, thus despised, and given
over for lost by your own countrymen; I will gather
you from the jieof lie, distinguish you from those with
whom you are mingled, deliver you from those by
whom you are held captives, ana assemble you in a
body out of the countries where you have been scat¬
tered; you shall not come back one by one, but all
together, which will make your return more honour¬
able, safe, and comfortable; and then I will give you
the land of Israel, which now vour brethren look
upon you as forever shut out from.” Note, It is
well for us that men’s severe censures cannot cut us
off from God’s gracious promises. There are many
that will be found to hat e a place in the holy land,
whom uncharitable men by their monopolies of it to
themselves, had secluded from it. I will give you
the land of Israel, give it you again by a new grant,
and they shall come thither. If there be any thing in
the change of the person from you to them, it may
signify' the posterity of those to whom the promise is
made. “ You shall have the title as the patriarchs
had, and they that come after shall have the pos¬
session. ”
3. That God by his grace would part between
them and their sins, v. 18. Their captivity shall
effectually cure them of their idolatry ; When they
come thither to their own land again, they shall take
away all the detestable things thereof. Their idols
that had been their delectable things, should now be
looked upon with detestation; not only the idols of
Babylon, where they were captives, but the idols of
Canaan, where they were natives; they should not
only not worship them as they had done, but they
should not suffer any monuments of them to remain;
they shall take all the abotninations thereof from
thence. Note, Then it is in mercy that we return
to a prosperous estate, when we return not to the
sins and follies of that state. What have I to do any
more with idols ?
4. That God would powerfully dispose them to
their duty; they shall not only cease to do evil, but
they shall learn to do well; because there shall be
not only an end of their troubles, but a return to
their peace.
(1.) God will plant good principles in them; he
will make the tree good, v. 19. This is a gospel-
promise, and is made good to all those whom God
designs for the heavenly Canaan; for God prepares
all for heaven whom he has prepared heaven for.
It is promised, [1.] That God will give them one
heart, a heart entire for the true God, and not divid¬
ed as it had been among many gods; a heart firmly
fixed and resolved for God, and not wavering;
steady and uniform, and not inconstant with itself.
One heart is a sincere and upright heart, its inten¬
tions of a piece with its professions. [2.] That he
will put a new spirit within them, a temper of mind
agreeable to the new circumstances into which God
in his providence would bring them. All that are
sanctified have a new spirit, quite different from
what it was; they act from new principles, walk by
new rules, and aim at new ends. A new name, or
a new face, will not serve without a new spirit. If
any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. [3.]
That he will take away the stony heart out of their
fesh, out of their corrupt nature. Their hearts
shall no longer be, as they have been, dead and dry,
and hard and heavy, as a stone; no longer incapable
of bearing good fruit, so that the good seed is lost
upon it, as it was on the stony ground. [4. J That
he will give them a heart of fesh, not dead or proud
flesh, but living flesh; he will make their hearts
sensible of spiritual pains and spiritual pleasures;
will make them tender, and apt to receive impres¬
sions; this is God’s work, it is his gift, his gift by
promise; and a wonderful and happy change it is
that is wrought by it, from death to life. This is
promised to those whom God would bring back to
their own land; for then such a change ot the con¬
dition is for the better indeed, when it is accom¬
panied with such a change of the heart; and such
a change must be wrought in all those that shall
be brought to the better country, that is, the hea¬
venly.
(2.) Their practices shall be consonant to those
principles; I will give them a new spirit, not that
they may be able to discourse well of religion, and
to dispute for it, but that they may walk in my
statutes, in their whole conversation, and keep mine
ordinances in all acts of religious worship, v. 20.
These two must go together; and those, to whom
God has given a new heart and a new spirit, will
make conscience of both; and then they shall be my
people, and I will be their God. The ancient cove¬
nant, which seemed to have been broken and fi r-
gotten, shall be renewed. By their idolatry, it
should seem, they had cast God off, by their cap¬
tivity, it should seem, God had cast them iff; but
when they were cured of their idolatry, and deli¬
vered out of their captivity, God and his Israel own
one another again. God, by his good work in them,
will make them his people; and then, by the 0 kens
of his good will toward them, he will show that he
is their God.
III. Here is a threatening of wrath against these
who hated to be reformed. As, when judgments
are threatened, the righteous are distinguished so
as not to share in the evil of those judgments; so,
when favours are promised, the wickeel are distin¬
guished so as not to share in the comfort of those
Favours; they have no part or lot in the matter, v.
21. But as for them that have no grace, what
have they to do with peace ? Observe, 1. Their
description; their heart walks after the heart of
their detestable things; they have as great a mind to
worship devils as devils have to be worshipped.
Or, in opposition to the new heart which God gives
his people, which is a heart after his own heart, they
have a heart after the heart of their idols; in their
temper and practice they conformed themselves to
the characters and accounts given them of their
idols, and the ideas they have of them, and of them
they learned lewdness and cruelty. Here lies the
root of all their wickedness, the corruption of the
heart; as the root of their reformation is laid in the
renovation of the heart. The heart has its walks,
and according as those are, the man is. 2. Their
doom; it carries both justice and terror in it; I will
recompense their way upon their own head; I will
deal with them as they deserve. There needs no
more than this to speak God righteous, that he
does but render to men according to their deserts,
and yet such are the deserts of sin, that there needs
no more than this to speak the sinner miserable.
22. Then did the cherubims lift up their
wings, and the wheels beside them; and
the glory of the God of Israel was over
them above. 23. And the glory of the
Lord went up from the midst of the city,
and stood upon the mountain whi' h is on
the east side of the city. 24. Afterwards
the spirit took me up, and brought me in
vision by the Spirit of God into Chaldea, to
636
EZEKIEL, XII.
them of the captivity : so the vision that I
had seen went up from me. 25. Then I
spake unto them of the captivity all the
things that the Lord had shewed me.
Here is, 1. The departure of God’s presence
from the city and temple. When the message was
committed to the prophet, and he was fully apprized
of it, fully instructed how to separate between the
precious and the vile, then the cherubims lifted ufi
their wings, and the wheels beside them, (y. 22. ) as
before, c/i. x. 19. Angels, when they have done
their errands in this lower world, are upon the wing
to be gone, for they lose no time. We left the glory
of the Lord last at the east gate of the temple, [eh.
x. 19.) which is here said to be in the midst of the
city. Now here we are told, that, finding, and won¬
dering, that there was none to intercede, none to
uphold, none to invite its return, it removed next to
the mountain, which is on the east side of the city,
( v . 23.) that was the mount of Olives. On the
mountain they had set up their idols, to confront
God in his temple, when he dwelt there, (1 Kings
xi. 7.) and thence it was called the mount of cor¬
ruption; (2 Kings xxiii. 13.) therefore their God
does as it were set up his standard, his tribunal, as
it were to confront them, who thought to keep pos¬
session of the temple for themselves now that God
had left it. From that mountain there was a full
prospect of the city, thither God removed, to make
good what he had said, (Deut. xxxii. 20.) I will
hide my face from them, I will see what their end
shall be. It was from this mountain that Christ
beheld the city, and wept over it, in the foresight of
its last destruction by the Romans. The glory of
the Lord removed thither, to be as it were yet
within call, and ready to return, if now at length,
in this their day, they would have understood the
things that belonged to their peace. Loath to de¬
part bids often farewell. God, by going away thus
slowly, thus gradually, intimated that lie left them
with reluctance, and would not have gone if they
had not perfectly forced him from them. He did
now, in effect, say, How shall I give thee up,
Lphraim ? How shall I deliver thee, Israel? But
though he bear long, he will not bear always, but
will at length forsake those, and cast them off for
ever, who have forsaken him, and cast him off.
2. The departure of this vision from the prophet;
at length it went up from him, (v. 24.) he saw it
mount upward, till it went out of sight, which
would be a confirmation to his faith that it was a
heavenly vision, that it descended from above, for
thitherward it returned. Note, The visions which
the saints have of the glory of God, will not be con¬
stant till they come to heaven. They have glimpses
of that glorv, which they soon lose again; visions
which go up from them; tastes of divine pleasures,
but not a continual feast. It was from the mount of
Olives that the vision went up, typifying the ascen¬
sion of Christ to heaven from that very mountain,
when those that had seen him manifested in the
flesh, saw him no more. It was foretold (Zech.
xiv. 4.) that his feet should stand upon the mount
of Olives, stand last there.
3. The prophet’s return to them of the captivity.
The same Spirit that had carried him in a trance or
ecstasy to Jerusalem, brought him back to Chaldea;
for there the bounds of his habitation are at present
appointed, and that is the place of his service. The
Spirit came to him, not to deliver him out of cap¬
tivity, but (which was equivalent) to support and
comfort him in his captivity.
4. The account which he gave to his hearers of
all he had seen and heard, v. 25. He received,
that he might give, and he was faithful to him that
appointed him; he delivered his message very
honestly; he spake all that, and that only, which
God had showed him: he told them of the great
wickedness he had seen at Jerusalem, and the ruin
that was hastening toward that city, that they might
not repent of their surrendering themselves to the
king of Babylon, as Jeremiah advised them, and
blame themselves for it, nor envy those that stayed
behind, and laughed at them for going when they
did, nor wish themselves there again, but be con¬
tent in their captivity. Who would covet to be in
a city so full of sin, and so near to ruin? It is better
to be in Babylon under the favour of God, than in
Jerusalem under his wrath and curse. But though
this was delivered immediately to them of the cap¬
tivity, yet we may suppose that they sent the con¬
tents of it to them at Jerusalem, with whom they
kept up a correspondence; and well had it been for
Jerusalem, if she had taker, the warning hereby
given.
CHAP. XII.
Though the vision of God’s glory be gone up from Ihe
prophet, yet his word comes to him still, and is by him
sent to the people, and to the same purport with that
which was discovered to him in the vision, namely, to
set forth the terrible judgments that were coming upon
Jerusalem, by which the city and temple should be en¬
tirely laid waste. In this chapter, I. The prophet, by
removing his stuff, and quitting his lodgings, must be a
sign to set forth Zedekiah’s flight out of Jerusalem in
the utmost confusion when the Chaldeans took the city,
v. 1 - - 1 6. II. The prophet, by eating his meat with
trembling, must be a sign to set forth the famine in the
city during the siege, and the consternation that the in¬
habitants should be in, v. 17. -20. III. A message is
sent from God to the people, to assure them that all these
predictions should have their accomplishment very short¬
ly, arid not be deferred, as they flattered themselves, v.
21.. 28.
I. npHE word of the Lord also carru
X. unto me, saying, 2. Son of man,
thou dwellest in the midst of a rebellious
house, which have eyes to see, and see not;
they have ears to hear, and hear not: for
they are a rebellious house. 3. Therefore,
thou son of man, prepare thee stuff for re¬
moving, and remove by day in their sight;
and thou shalt remove from thy place to
another place in their sight : it may be they
will consider, though they be a rebellious
house. 4. Then shalt thou brine forth thy
stuff by day in their sight, as stuff for re¬
moving: and thou shalt go forth at even in
their sight, as they that go forth into cap¬
tivity. 5. Dig thou through the wall in
their sight, and cany out thereby. 6. In
their sight shalt thou bear it upon thy shoul¬
ders, and carry it forth in the twilight: thou
shalt cover thy face, that thou see not the
ground; for I have set thee for a sign unto
the house of Israel. 7. And I did so as I
was commanded: I brought forth my stuff
by day, as stuff for captivity, and in the
even l digged through the wall with my
hand ; I brought it forth in the twilight, and
I bare it upon my shoulder in their sight.
3. And in the morning came the word of
the Lord unto me, saying, 9. Son of man,
hath not the house of Israel, the rebellious
house, said unto thee, What doest thou?
637
EZEKIEL, XH.
13. Say thou unto them, Thus saith the
Lord God, This burden concernet/i the
prince in Jerusalem, and all the house of'
Israel that are among them. 1 1 . Say, 1
can your sign: like as 1 have done, so shall
it be done unto them; they shall remove,
and go into captivity. 1 2. And the prince
that is among them shall bear upon his
shoulder in the twilight, and shall go forth;
they shall dig through the wall to carry out
thereby: he shall cover his face, that he see
not the ground with his eyes. 1 3. My net
also will I spread upon him, and he shall
be taken in my snare: and I will bring him
to Babylon, to the land of the Chaldeans ;
3'et shall he not see it, though he shall die
there. 14. And I will scatter toward every
wind all that are about him to help him,
and all his bands; and I will draw out the
sword after them. 15. And they shall know
that 1 am the Lord, when 1 shall scatter
them among the nations, and disperse them
in the countries. 16. But I will leave a
few men of them from the sword, from the
famine, and from the pestilence, that they
may declare all their abominations among
the heathen whither they come; and they
shall know that I am the Lord.
Perhaps Ezekiel reflected with so much pleasure
upon the vision he had had of the glory of God,
that often, since it went up from him, he was wish¬
ing it might come down to him again, and, having
seen it once and a second time, he was willing to
hope he might be a third time so favoured; but we
do not find that he ever saw it any more; and yet
the word of the Lord comes to him; for God did in
divers manners speak to the fathers, (Heb. i. 1.)
and they often heard the words of God, when they
did not see the visions of the Almighty. Faith
comes by hearing that word of prophecy, which is
more sure than vision. We may keep up our com¬
munion with God without raptures and ecstasies.
In these verses, the prophet is directed,
I. By what signs and actions to express the ap¬
proaching captivity of Zedekiah king of Judah;
that was the thing to be foretold; and it is foretold
to them that are already in captivity, because as
long as Zedekiah was upon the throne, they flatter¬
ed themselves with hopes that he would make his
part good with the king of Babylon, whose yoke he
was now projecting to shake off; from which, it is
probable, these poor captives promised themselves
great things, and, it may be, when he was forming
that design, he privately sent encouragement to
them to hope that he would rescue them shortly, or
procure their liberty by exchange of prisoners; and
while they were fed with these vain hopes, they
could not set themselves either to submit to their
affliction, or get good by their affliction. It was
therefore necessary, but very difficult, to convince
them that Zedekiah, instead of being their deli¬
verer, should very shortly be their fellow-sufferer.
Now, one would have thought, it might have been
sufficient if the prophet had only told them this in
God’s name, as he does afterward; (v. 10.) but, to
prepare them for the prophecy of it, he must first
give them a sign of it ; must speak it to their eyes
first, and then to their ears: and here we have.
1. The reason why he must take this method;
(v. 2. ) it is because they are a stupid, dull, unthink¬
ing people, that will not heed, or will sot n forget,
or at least will not be at all affected with, what tlay
only hear of; it will make no impression at all upon
them; Thou dwellest in the midst of a rebellious
house, whom it is next to impossible to work any
good upon; they have eyes and ears, they have in
tellectual powers and faculties, but they see not,
they hear not; they wire idolaters, whose charac¬
ter it was, that they were like the idols tluy wer
shipped, which have eyes, und see not; ears, ami
hear not, Ps. cxv. 5, 8. Note, Those are to lit
reckoned rebellious, that shut their eyes against the
divine light, and stop their ears to the divine law
The ignorance ( f them that are wilfully ignorant,
that have faculties and means, and will not use
them, is so f..r from being their excuse, that it adds
rebellion to their sin. None so blind, so deaf, as
those that will not hear, that will in t see. They
see not, they hear not; for they are a rebellious
house. The cause is all from themselves; the dark¬
ness of the understanding is owing to the stubborn¬
ness of the will. Now this is the reason why he
must speak to them bv signs, as deaf people are
taught, that they might be either instructed or
ashamed. Note, Ministers must accommodate
themselves not only to the weakness, but to the
wilfulness, of those they deal with, and deal with
them accordingly: if they dwell among those that
are rebellious, they must speak to them the more
plainly and prcssingly, and take that course that is
most likely to work upon them, that they may be
left inexcusable.
2. The method he must take to awaken and af¬
fect them; he must furnish himself with all necessa¬
ries for removing, (v. 3.) provide for a journey
clothes and money; he must remove from one place
to another, as one unsettled and forced to shift; this
he must do by day, in the sight of the people; he
must bring out all his household goods to be packed
up and sent away; (r. 4.) and, because all the doors
and gates were either locked up that they cruld net
pass through them, or so guarded by the enemy
that they durst not, he must therefore dig through
the wall, and convey his goods away clandestinely
through that breach in the wall, v. 5. He must
carry his goods away himself upon his own shoulders,
for want of a servant to attend him ; he must do this
in the twilight, that he might not be discovered;
and, when he has made what shift he can to secure
some of the best of his effects, he must himself steal
away at even in their sight, with fear and trembling,
and must go as they that go forth into captivity, (v.
4.) that is, he must cover his face, (v. 6.) as being
ashamed to be seen, and' afraid to be known, er in
token of very great sorrow and concern; he must
go away as a poor broken tradesman, who, when
he is forced to shut up shop, hides his bead, or runs
his country.
Thus Ezekiel must be himself a sign to them,
and when perhaps he scented somewhat backward
to put himself to all this trouble, and to expose
himself to be bantered and ridiculed for it, to recon¬
cile him to it, God says, (x>. 3.) “ It may be they
will consider, and will by it be taken off from their
vain confidences, though they be a rebellious house.”
Note, We must not despair, even of the worst, but
that yet they may be brought to bethink themselves,
and repent; and therefore we must continue the use
of proper means for their conviction and conversion,
because, while there is life, there is hope. And
ministers must be willing to go through the most
difficult and inconvenient offices, (for such was this
Ezekiel’s removing,) though there be but the ‘it
may be' of success. If but one soul be awakened to
consider, our care and pains will be well bestowed.
EZEKIEL, XII.
CS8
3. Ezekiel’s ready and punctual obedience to the
orders God gave him; (f. 7.) I did so as I was com¬
manded. Hereby he teaches us all, and ministers
especially, (1.) To obey with cheerfulness every
command of God, even the most difficult. Christ
himself learned obedience, and so we must all. (2.)
To <1„ all we can for the good of the souls of others,
t ) put ourselves to any trouble or pains for the con¬
viction of those that are unconvinced. We do all
things, tnat i£, we are willing to do any thing, dearly
beloved, for your edifying. (3.) To be ourselves af¬
fected with those things wherewith we desire to affect
others. When Ezekiel would give his hearers a
melancholy prospect, he does himself put on a me¬
lancholy aspect. (4.) lo sit loose to this world,
and prepare to leave at; to carry out our stuff for
removing, because we have here no continuing city.
Arise, defart, this is not your rest, for it is polluted.
Thou dwellest in a rebellious house, therefore pre¬
pare for removing; for who would not be willing. to
leave such a house, such a wicked world as this is?
II. He is directed by what words to explain those
signs and actions, as Agabus, when he bound his
own hands and feet, told whose binding was thereby
signified. Hut observe, it was not till morning that
God gave him an exposition of the sign, till the next
morning, to keep up in him a continual depen¬
dence upon God for instruction. As what God does,
so what he directs us to do, perhaps we know not
now, but shall know hereafter.
1. It was supposed that the people would ask the
meaning of this sign, or at least they should; (y. 9. )
“ Hath not the house of Israel said unto thee, What
doest thou? Yes, I know they have. . I hough they
are a rebellious house, yet they are inquisitive con¬
cerning the mind of God;” as those (Isa. lviii. 2.)
who sought God daily. Therefore the prophet
must do such a strange, uncouth thing, that they
might inquire what it meant; and then, it may be
hoped, people will take notice of what is told them,
and profit by it, when it comes to them in answer
to their inquiries. But some understand it as an
intimation, that they had not made any such inquiries;
Hath not this rebellious house so much as asked
thee, What doest thou ? No, they take no no¬
tice of it; but tell them the meaning of it, though
they do not ask.” Note, When God sends to us by
his ministers, he observes what entertainment we
give to the messages he sends us; he hearkens and
hears what we sav to them, and what inquiries we
make upon them; and is much displeased if we pass
them by without taking any notice of them. When
we have heard the word, we should apply ourselves
to our ministers for further instruction; and then
we shall know, if we thus follow on to know.
2. The prophet is to tell them the meaning of it.
In general, ( v . 10.) This burthen concerns the prince
in Jerusalem; they knew who that was, and gloried
in it now that they were in captivity, that they had
a prince of their own in Jerusalem, and that the
house of Israel was yet entire there, and therefore
doubted not but in time to do well enough; “But
tell them,” says God, “ that in what thou hast done
they may read the doom of their friends at Jerusa¬
lem. Say, I am your sign,” v. 11. As the con¬
versation of ministers should teach the people what
they should do, so the providences of God concern¬
ing them are sometimes intended to tell them what
they must expect. The unsettled state and removes
of ministers give warning to people what they must
expect in this world, no continuance, but constant
changes. When times of trouble are coming on,
Christ tells his disciples, They shall first lay their
hands on you, Luke xxi. 12.
(1.) The people shall be led away into captivity;
(a1. 11.) As I have done, so shall it be done unto them,
they shall be forced away from their own houses,
no more to return to them, neither shall their place
know them any more. We cannot say concerning
our dwelling-place, that it is our resting-place; for
how far we may be tossed from it before we die, we
cannot foresee.
(2.) The prince shall in vain attempt to make
his escape, for he also shall go into captivity. Jere¬
miah had told Zedekiah the same to his face; (Jer.
xxxiv. 3.) Thou sha/t not escape, but shall surely
be taken. Ezekiel here foretells it to those who
made him their confidence, and promised them¬
selves relief from him. [1.] Thatheshall himself
carry away his own goods; He shall bear upon his
shoulder some of his most valuable effects. Note,
The judgments of God can turn a prince into a
porter. He that was wont to have the regalia car¬
ried before him, and to march through the city at
noon-day, shall now himself carry his goods on his
back, and steal away out of the city in the twilight.
See what a change sin makes with men! All the
avenues to the palace being carefully watched by the
enemy, they shall dig through the wall, to carry out
thereby. Men shall be their own housebreakers,
and steal away their own goods; so it is when the
sword of war has cancelled all right and property.
[2.] That he shall attempt to escape in a disguise,
with a mask or vizor on, which shall cover his face,
so that he shall be able only to look before him, and
shall not see the ground with his eyes. He who,
when lie was in pomp, affected to be seen, now that
he is in his flight, is afraid to be seen; let none
therefore either be proud of being looked at, or
overmuch pleased with looking about them, when
they see a king with his face covered, that he cannot
see the ground. [3.] That he shall be made a pri¬
soner, and carried captive into Babylon; (v. 13.)
My net will I spread upon him, and he shall be
taken in my snare. It seemed to be the Chaldean’s
net, and their snare, but God owns it for his.
Those that think to escape the sword of the Lord,
will find themselves taken in his net. Jeremiah
had said, that king Zedekiah should see the king of
Babylon, and that he should go to Babylon; Eze¬
kiel says, He shall be brought to Babylon, vet he
shall not see it, though he shall die there. Those
that were disposed to cavil, would perhaps object
that these two prophets contradicted one another;
for one said, He shall see the king of Babylon , the
other said, He sh 11 not see Babylon; and yet both
proved true: he did see the king of Babylon at Riblah,
where he passed sentence upon him for his rebellion,
but there he had his eyes put out, so that he did not
see Babylon when he was brought thither. These
captives expected to see their prince come to Baby¬
lon as a conqueror, to bring them out of their trou¬
ble; but he shall come thither a prisoner, and his
disgrace will be a great addition to their troubles.
Little joy could they have in seeing bin. when he
could not see them.' [4.] That all his gu; rds should
be dispersed, and utterly disabled to do him any
service; (v. 14.) I will scatter all that are about
him to help him, so that he shall be left helpless; I
will scatter them among the nations, and disperse
them in the countries, ( v . 15.) to be monuments of
divine justice wherever they go. But are there not
hopes that they mav rally again? (He that flies one
time, may fight another time;) No, I will draw out
the sword after them, which shall cut them < ff
wherever it finds them; for the sword that God
draws out will be sure to do the execution designed
yet of Zedekiah’s scattered troops some shall es¬
cape; (y. 16.) I will leave a few men of them;
though they shall all be scattered, yet they shall not
all be cut (iff, some shall have their lives given them
for a prey; the end for which they are thus re¬
markably spared, is very observable, that they may
declare all their abominations among the heathen
EZEKIEL, XII.
639
•whither they come; the troubles hey are brought
into will bring them to themselves and to their
right mind, and then they will acknowledge the
justice of God in all that is brought upon them, and
will make an ingenuous confession of their sins
which provoked God thus to contend with them;
and as by this it shall appear that they were spared in
mercy, so hereby they will make a suitable, grate¬
ful return to God for his favours to them in sparing
them. Note, When God has remarkably delivered
us from the deaths wherewith we were surrounded,
we must look upon it that for this end, among
others, we were spared, that we might glorify God,
and edify others, by making a penitent acknow¬
ledgment of our sins. Those that by their afflic¬
tions are brought to this, are then made to know
that God is the Lord, and may help to bring others
to the knowledge of him. See how God brings good
out of evil ! The dispersion of sinners, who had done
God much dishonour and disservice in their own
country, proves the dispersion of penitents, who
shall do him much honour and service in other
countries. The Levites are by a curse divided in
Jacob, and scattered in Israel, yet it is turned into a
blessing, for thereby they have the fairest opportu¬
nity to teach Jacob God’s law.
17. Moreover, the word of the Lord
came to me, saying, 18. Son of man, eat
thy bread with quaking, and drink thy wa¬
ter with trembling and with carefulness;
19. And say unto the people of the land,
Thus saith the Lord God of the inhabitants
of Jerusalem, and of the land of Israel, They
shall eat their bread with carefulness, and
drink their water with astonishment, that
her land may be desolate from all that is
therein, because of the violence of them that
dwell therein. 20. And the cities that are
inhabited shall be laid waste, and the land
shall be desolate ; and ye shall know that 1
am the Lord.
Here again the prophet is made a sign to them of
the desolations that were coming on Judah and Je¬
rusalem.
1. He must himself eat and drink in care and
fear, especially when he was in company, v. 17, 18.
Though he was under no apprehension of danger to
himself, but lived in safety and plenty, yet he must
eat his bread with quaking, (the bread of sorrows,
Ps. cxxvii. 2.) and drink his water with trembling
and with carefulness, that lie might express the ca-
1 imitous condition of those that should be in Jerusa¬
lem during the siege: not that he must dissemble,
and pretend to be in fear and care when really he
was not; but, being to foretell this judgment, to
show that he firmly believed it himself, and yet was
far from desiring it, in the prospect of it he was
himself affected with grief and fear. Note, When
ministers speak of the ruin coming upon impenitent
sinners, they must endeavour to speak feelingly, as
those that know the terrors of the Lord. And they
must be content to endure hardness, so they may
but do good.
2. He must tell them that the inhabitants of Jeru¬
salem should in like manner eat and drink with
c .re and fear, v. 19, 20. Both those that have their
lnme in Jerusalem, and those of the land of Israel,
tint come to shelter themselves there, they shall
eat their bread with carefulness, and drink their
water with astonishment, either because they are
afraid it will not hold out, but theyshall want short¬
ly, or because they are continually expecting the
alarms of the enemy, their life bunging in doubt be
fore them, (Deut. xxviii. 66.) so that what they
have they shall have no enjoyment of, nor will it do
them any good. Note, Care and fear, if they pre¬
vail, are enough to imbitter all our comforts, and
are themselves very sore judgments. They shall
be reduced to these straits, that thus by degrees,
and by the hand of those that thus straiten them,
both city and country may be laid in ruins; for it is
no less than an utter destruction cf both that is
aimed at in these judgments; that her land may be
desolate from all the fulness there: f, may be strip¬
ped of all its ornaments, and robbed cf all its fruits;
and then of course the cities that are inhabited shall
be laid waste, for they are served by the field. This
universal desolation was coming upon them, and
then no wonder that they eat their bread with care
and fear. Now we are here told, (1.) How bad the
cause of this judgment was; it is because of the vio¬
lence of all them that dwell therein; their injustice
and oppression, and the mischief they did one ano¬
ther; for which God would reckon with them, as well
as for the affronts put upon him in his worship.
Note, The decay of virtue in a nation brings on a
decay of every thing else; and when neighbours
devour one another, it is just with God to bring ene¬
mies upon them to devour them all. (2.) How
good the effect of this judgment should be; Ye shall
know that I am the Lord, and if, by these judg¬
ments, they learn to know him aright, that will
make up the loss of all they are deprived of by these
desolations. Those are happy afflictions, how
grievous soever to flesh and blood, that help to in¬
troduce us into, and improve us in, an acquaintance
with God.
21. And the word of the Lord came un¬
to me, saying, 22. Son of man, what is that
proverb that ye have in the land of Israel,
saying, The days are prolonged, and every
vision faileth? 23. Tell them therefore,
Thus saith the Lord Gor>, 1 will make this
proverb to cease, and they shall no more
use it as a proverb in Israel ; but say unto
them, The days are at hand, and the effect
of every vision. 24. For there shall be no
more any vain vision nor flattering divina¬
tion within the house of Israel. 25. For I
am the Lord : l will speak, and the word
that I shall speak shall come to pass ; it
shall be no more prolonged : for in your
days, O rebellious house, will I say the
word, and will perform it, saith the Lord
God. 26. Again, the word of the Lord
came to me, saying, 27. Son of man, be¬
hold, they of the house of Israel say, The
vision that he seeth is for many days to
come, and he prophesieth of the times that
are far off. 28. Therefore say unto them,
Thus saith the Lord God, There shall none
of my words be prolonged any more ; but
the word which I have spoken -shall be done,
saith the Lord God.
Various methods have been used to awaken this
secure and careless people to an expectation of the
judgments coming, that they might be stirred up by
repentance and reformation, to prevent them. The
prophecies of their ruin were confirmed by visions.
640
EZEKIEL, XII.
and illustrated by signs, and all with such evidence
and power, that one would think the)' must needs be
wrought upon ; but here we are told how they
evaded the conviction, and guarded against it, name¬
ly, by telling them selves, and one another, that though
these judgments threatened should come at last, yet
they would not come of a long time. This sugges¬
tion, with which they bolstered themselves up in
their security, is here answered, and showed to be
vain and groundless, in two messages which God
sent to them by the prophet at different times, both
to the same purport ; sucn care, such pains, must
the prophet take to undeceive them! v. 21, 26.
Observe,
I. How they flattered themselves with hopes that
the judgments should be delayed. One saying they
had, which was become proverbial in the land of
Israel, x>. 22. They said, "The days are prolonged,
the judgments are not come when they were ex¬
pected to come, but seem to be still put off dc die in
diem— from day to day, and therefore we may con¬
clude that every vision fails, because it should seem
that some do; that, because the destruction is not
come yet, it will never come ; we will never trust a
rophet again, for we have been worse frighted than
urt.” And another saying they had, which, if it
would not conquer their convictions, yet should cool
their affections, and abate their concern, and that
was, “ The vision is for a great while to come, it re¬
fers to events at a vast distance, and he prophesies
of things, which, though they may be true, are yet
very far off, so that we need not to trouble our
heads about them, (y. 27. ) we may die in horn ur
and peace befoye these troubles come. ” And it in¬
deed the troubles had been thus adjourned, they
might have made themselves easy, as Hezekiah did.
Is it not well, if peace and truth shall be in my
days ? But it was a great mistake, and they did but
deceive themselves into their own ruin ; and God is
here much displeased at it, for, 1. It was a wretched
abuse of the patience of God, who, because for a
time he kept silence, was thought to be altogether
such ft one as themselves, Ps. 1. 21. That forbear¬
ance of God, which should have led them to repent¬
ance, hardened them in sin. They were willing to
think their works were not evil, because sentence
against them was not executed speedily; and there¬
fore concluded the vision itself failed, because the
days were prolonged. 2. It received countenance
from the false prophets that were among them, as
should seem from the notice God takes (y. 24.) of
the vain visions, and flattering divinations, even
within the house of Israel, to whom were committed
the oracles of God. No marvel if they that deceived
themselves by worshipping pretended deities, de¬
ceived themselves by crediting pretended prophe¬
cies, to which strong delusions God justly gave them
up for their idol Uries. 3. These sayings were be¬
come proverbial, they were industriously spread
among the people, so that they were got into every
one’s mouth, and not only so, but were generally
assented to, as proverbs are, not only the proverbs
of the ancients, but those of the moderns too. Note,
It is a token of universal degeneracy in a nation,
when corrupt and wicked sayings are grown pro¬
verbial ; and it is an artifice of Satan, by them to
confirm men in their prejudices against the word
and ways of God, and a great offence to the God of
heaven. It will not serve for an excuse, in saying
ill, to plead that it is a common saying.
II. How they are assured that they do but deceive
themselves, for the judgments shall be hastened,
these profane proverbs shall be confronted ; Tell
them therefore, The days are at hand ; (y. 23.) and
again, (y. 28.) There shall none of my words be
prolonged any more. Their putting the evil day
far from them does but provoke God to bring it the
sooner upon them ; and it will be so much the sorer,
so much the heavier, so much the more' a surprise
and terror to them, when it does come. He must
tell them,
1. That Gi d will certainly silence the lying pro¬
verbs, and the lying prophecies, with which they
buoyed up their vain hopes, and will make them
ashamed of both ; (1.) Iwill make this proverb to
cease ; for when they find the days of vengeance are
come, and not one iota or tittle of the prediction falls
to the ground, they will be ashamed to use it as a
proverb in Israel, The days are prolonged, and the
vision fails. Note, Those that will not have their
eyes opened, and their mistakes rectified, by the
word of God, shall be undeceived by his judgments,
for every mouth that speaks perverse things shall
be stopped. (2.) There shall be no more any vain
vision, v. 24. The false prophets, who told the
people they should hat e peace, and should soon see
an end of their troubles, shall be disproved by the
event, and then shall be ashamed of their preten¬
sions, and shall. hide their heads, and impose silence
upon themselves. Note, As truth was older than
error, so it will survive it ; it got the start, and it
will get the race. The true prophet’s visions and
predictions stand, and are in full force, power, and
virtue ; they give law, and receive credit, when the
vain visions, and the flattering divinations, are lost
and forgotten, and shall be no more in the house of
Israel ; for great is the truth, and will prevail.
2. That God will certainly, and very shortly, ac¬
complish every word that he has sprken. With
what majesty does he say it, (v. 25.) I am the
Lord ! I am Jehovah l That glorious name of his
speaks him a God giving being to his word by the
performance of it, and therefore to the patriarchs,
who lived by faith in a promise not yet performed,
he was not known by his mmc Jehovah, Exod. vi. 3.
But as he is Jehovah in making good his promise, so
he is in making good his threatenings. Let them
know then that God, with whom they have to do, is
the great Jehovah, and therefore,
(1.) He will speak, whether they will hear, or
whether they will forbear ; I am the Lord, I will
speak. God will have his saying, whoever gainsays
it. God’s oracles are called lively ones, for they
still speak, when the pagan oracles are long ago
struck dumb. There has been, and shall be, a suc¬
cession of God’s ministers to the end of the world,
by whom he will speak ; and though contempt may
be put upon them, that shall not put a period to their
ministration; In your days, O rebellious house, will
I say the word. Even in the worst ages of the
church God left not himself without witness, but
raised up men that spake for him, that spake from
him. Iwill say the word, the word that shall stand.
(2.) The word that he speaks shall come to pass,
it shall infallibly be accomplished according to the
true intent and meaning of it, and according to the
full extent and compass of it ; I will say the word,
and will perform it ; (v. 25.) for his mind is never
changed nor his arm shortened, nor is infinite wis¬
dom ever nonplussed. With men, saying and doing
are two things, but they are not so with God ; with
him it is dictum, factum — said and done. In the
works of providence, as in those of creation, he
speaks, audit is done ; for he said, Let there be light,
and there was light : Let there be a firmament, and
there was a firmament. Numb, xxiii. 19. 1 Sam.
xv. 29. Whereas they had said, Every vision fails,
( v . 22.) God says, “No, there shall be the effect of
every vision, (v. 23.) it shall not return void, but
every sign shall be answered by the thing signified. ”
They that see the visions of the Almighty, do not see
vain visions; God confirms the word of his servants
by performing it.
(3.) It shall be accomplished very shortly; “ The
EZEKIEL, XIII. b4l
days are at hand, when you shall see the effect of
every vision, v. 23. It is said, it is sworn, that delay
shall be no longer ; (Rev. x. 6.) the year of God’s
patience is now just expired, and he will no longer
defer the execution 'of the sentence. It shall be no
more prolonged; (y. 25. ) he has borne with you a
great while, Dut he will not bear always. In your
dans, O rebellious house, shall the word that is said
be / lerformed , and you shall see the threatened judg¬
ments, and share in them. Behold, the Judge stands
at the door. The righteous are taken away from
the evil to come, but this rebellious house shall not
be so quietly taken away; no, they shall live to be
hurried away, to be chased out of the world.'” This
is repeated again; (v. 28.) “ There shall none of my
words be prolonged any more, but judgment shall
now hasten on apace; and the longer the bow has
been in the drawing, the deeper shall the arrow
pierce.” When we tell sinners of death and judg¬
ment, heaven and hell, and think by them to per¬
suade them to a holy life, though we do not find them
downright infidels, (they will own that they do be¬
lieve there is a state of rewards and punishments in
the other world,) yet they put by the force of those
great truths, and avoid the impressions of them, by
looking upon the things of the other world as very
remote: they tell us, “ The vision you see is for
many days to come, and you prophesy of the times
that are very far off; it will be time enough to think
of them when they come nearer;” whereas really
there is but a step between us and death, between
us and an awful eternity; yet a little while, and the
vision shall speak and not lie, and therefore it con¬
cerns us to redeem time, and get ready with all
speed for a future state; for though it is future, it is
very near; and while impenitent sinners slumber,
their damnation slumbers not.
CHAP. XIII.
Mention had been made, in the chapter before, of the vain
visions and flattering- divinations with which the people
of Israel had suffered themselves to be imposed upon;
(v. 24.) now this whole chapter is levelled against them.
God’s faithful prophets are no where so sharp upon any
sort of sinners as upon the false prophets; not because
they were the most spiteful enemies to them, but because
they put the highest affront upon God, and did the
greatest mischief to his people. The prophet here shows
the sin and punishment, !. Of the false prophets, v.
1 . . 1 6. II. Of the false prophetesses, v. 17.. 23. Both
agreed to soothe men up in their sins, and, under pretence
of comforting God’s people, to flatter them with hopes
that they should yet have peace; but the prophets shall
be proved liars, their prophecies were shams, and the
expectation of the people illusions; for God will let them
know, that the deceived and the deceiver are his , are both
accountable to him, Job xii. 16.
1. A ND the word of the Loud came
unto me, saying, 2. Son of man, pro¬
phesy against the prophets of Israel, that pro¬
phesy, and say thou unto them that prophesy
out of their own hearts, Hear ye the word
of the Lord; 3. Thus saith the Lord God,
Wo unto the foolish prophets that follow
their own spirit, and have seen nothing ! 4.
O Israel, thy prophets are like the foxes in
the deserts. 5. Ye have not gone up into
the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the
house of Israel, to stand in the battle in the
day of the Lord. 6. They have seen vanity
and lying divination, saying, The Lord
saith; and the Lord hath not sent them:
and they have made others to hope that they
would confirm the word. 7. Have ye not
ox, iv. — 4 M
seen a vain vision, and have ye not spoken
a lying divination, whereas ye say, The
Lord saith it ; albeit I have not spoken ?
8. Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Be¬
cause ye have spoken vanity, and seen lies,
therefore, behold, I am against you, saith the
Lord God. 9. And my hand shall be upon
the prophets that see vanity, and that divine
lies: they shall not be in the assembly of
my people, neither shall they be written in
the writing of the house of Israel, neither
shall they enter into the land of Israel; and
ye shall know that I am the Lord God.
The false prophets, who are here prophesied
against, were some of them at Jerusalem; (Jer. xxiii.
14.) I have seen in the prophets at Jerusalem a hor¬
rible thing; some of them among the captives in
Babylon, tor to them Jeremiah writes, (Jer. xxix. 8.)
Let not your diviners, that be in the midst of you,
deceive you. And as God’s prophets, though at a
distance from each other in place or time, yet
preached the same truths, which was an evidence
that they were guided by one and the same good
Spirit, so the false prophets prophesied the same
lies, being actuated by one and the same spirit of
error. There were little hopes of bringing them to
repentance, they were so hardened in their sin; yet
Ezekiel must prophesy against them, in hopes that
the people might be cautioned not to hearken to
them; and thus a testimony will be left upon record
against them, and they thereby left inexcusable.
Ezekiel had express orders to prophesy against
the prophets of Israel; so they called themselves,
as if none but they had been worthy of the name of
Israel’s prophets, who were indeed Israel’s de
ceivcrs. But it is observable that Israel was never
imposed upon by pretenders to prophecy till after
they had rejected and abused the true prophets; as
afterward, they were never deluded by counterfeit
messiahs, till after they had refused the true Mes¬
siah, and rejected him. These false prophets must
be required to hear the word of the Lord. They
took upon them to speak what concerned others, as
from God; let them now hear what concerned them¬
selves, as from him.
And two things the prophet is directed to do ;
I. To discover their sin to them, and to convince
them of that if possible, or thereby to prevent their
proceeding any further, by making manifest their
folly unto all men, 2 Tim. iii. 9. They are here
called foolish prophets, (y. 3.) men that did not at
all understand the business they pretended to : to
make fools of the people, they made fools of them¬
selves, and put the greatest cheat upon their own
souls. Let us see what is here laid to their charge.
1. They pretend to have a commission from God,
whereas he never sent them; they thrust themselves
into the prophetical office, without warrant from
him who is the Lord God of the holy prophets, which
was a foolish thing; for how could they expect that
God should own them in a work to which he never
called them ? They are prophets out of their own
hearts; so the margin reads it; (t>. 2.) prophets of
their own making, v. 6. They say, The Lord saith,
they pretend to be his messengers, but the Lord hath
not sent them, has not given them any orders; they
counterfeit the broad seal of heaven, than which
they cannot do a greater indignity to mankind, for
hereby they put a reproach upon divine revelation,
lessen its credit, and weaken its credibility; when
these pretenders are found to be deceivers, atheists
and infidels will thence infer, they are all so. The
Lord has not sent them; for, though crafty enough
642
EZEKIEL, XIII.
in other things, like the foxes, and very wise for the
world, yet they are foolish prophets, and have no
experimental acquaintance with the things of God.
Note, Foolish prophets are not of God’s sending, for
whom he sends he either finds fit, or makes fit.
Where he gives warrant, he gives wisdom.
2. They pretend to have instructions from God,
whereas he never made himself and his mind known
to them; They fol.owed their own s/lirit, (v. 3.) they
deliver that as a message from God, which is the
product either of their subtle invention, to serve a
turn for themselves, or of their own crazed and
heated imagination, to give vent to a fancy; for they
have seen nothing, they have not really had any
heavenly vision; they pretend that what they say,
the Lord saith it, but God disowns it, “I have riot
s/ioken it, I never said it, never meant any such
thing.” What they delivered was not what they
had seen or heard, as that is which the ministers of
Christ deliver, (1 John i. 1.) but either what they
had dreamed, or what they thought would please
those they coveted to make an interest in ; this is
called their seeing vanity and lying divination, ( v .
6.) they pretend to have seen that which they did
not see, and produced that as a divine truth, which
they knew to be false. To the same purport, (y 7.)
Ye have seen a vain vision, and spoken a lying di¬
vination, which had no divine original, and would
have no effect, but would certainly be disproved by
the event; the words are changed, ( v . 8.) Ye have
spoken vanity and seen lies; what they saw and what
they said was all alike, a mere sham ; they saw no¬
thing, they said nothing to the purpose, nothing that
could be relied on, or that deserved regard. Again,
fi'. 9.) they see vanity, and divine lies; they pre¬
tend to have had visions, as the true prophets had,
whereas really they had none, but either it was the
creature of their own fancy, (they thought they had
a vision, as men in a delirium do, that was seeing
vanity,) or it was a fiction of their own politics, and
they knew they had none, and then they sa-ru ties,
and divined lies. See Jer. xxiii. 16, &c. Note,
Since the devil is universally known to be the father
of lies, those put the highest affront imaginable upon
God, who tell lies, and then father them upon him.
But they that had put God’s character upon Satan, in
worshipping devils, arrived at length at such a pitch
of impiety as to put Satan’s character upon God.
3. They took no care to prevent the judgments
of God, that were breaking in upon the kingdom.
They are like the foxes in the deserts, running to and
fro, and seeming to be in a great hurry, but it was
to get away, and shift for their own safety, not to do
any good; The hireling flees, and leaves the sheep.
They are like foxes that are greedy of prey for
themselves, crafty and cruel to feed themselves.
But, (v. 5.) “Ye have not gone up into the gaps,
nor made up the hedge of the house of Israel. A
breach is made in their fences, at which judgments
are ready to pour in upon them, and then, if ever,
is the time to do them service; but ye have done
nothing to help them.” They should have made-
intercession for them, to turn away the wrath of
God; but they were not praying prophets, had no
interest in heaven, nor intercourse with heaven, (as
prophets used to have, Gen. xx. 7.) and so could do
them no service that way. They should have made
it their business by pi-eaching and advice, to bring
people to repentance and reformation, and so have
made up the hedge, and put a stop to the judgments
of God; but this was none of their care, they con¬
trived how to please people, not how to profit them.
They saw a deluge of profaneness and impiety
breaking in upon the land, waging war with virtue
and holiness, and threatening to crush them and
bear them down, and then they should have come
in to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord
against the mighty, by witnessing against the wick¬
edness of the time and place they lived in; but they
thought that would be as dangerous a piece of ser¬
vice as standing in a breach to make it good against
the besiegers, and therefore they declined it, did
nothing to stem the tide, stood 'not in the battle
against vice and immorality, but basely deserted the
cause of religion and reformation, in the day of the
1 ord, when it was proclaimed, Who is on the Lord’s
side? Who will rise up for me against the evil-do¬
ers? Ps. xciv. 16. Those were unworthy the name
of prophets, that could think so favourably of sin,
and had so little zeal for God and the public wel¬
fare.
4. They flattered people into a vain hope that the
judgments God had threatened would never come,
whereby they hardened those in sin whom they
should have endeavoured to turn from sin; (y. 6.)
They have made others to hope that all should be
well, and they should have peace, though they went
on still in their trespasses, and that the event would
confirm the word. They were still ready to say.
We will warrant you that these troubles will be at
an end quickly, and we shall be in prosperity again;
as if their warrants would confirm false pro’phecies,
in defiance of God himself.
II. He is directed to denounce the judgments of
God against them for these sins, from which their
pretending to the character of prophets would not
exempt them.
1. In general, here is a I Vo against them, {y. 3.)
and what that wo is, we are told; (y. 8.) Behold,
I am against you, saith the Lord God. Note, Those
are in a woful condition, that have God against them.
Wo, and a thousand woes, to them that have made
him their Enemy.
2. In particular, they are sentenced to be ex¬
cluded from all the privileges of the commonwealth
of Israel, for they are adjudged to have forfeited
them all; (1). 9.) God’s hand shall be upon them, to
seize them, and bring them to his bar, to shut them
out from his presence, and they will find it a fearful
thing to fall into his hands. They pretend to be
prophets, particular favourites of Heaven, and au¬
thorized to preside in the congregation of his church
on earth; but by pretending to the honours thev
were not entitled to they lost those that otherwise
they might have enjoyed, Matth. v. 19. Their doom
is, (1.) To be expelled out of the communion of
saints, and not to be looked upon as belonging to it;
They shall not be in the secret of my people; theii
folly shall be so clearly manifested, that they shall
never be consulted, nor their advice asked; they
shall not be present at any debates about public af¬
fairs. Or, rather, they shall not be in the assem¬
bly of God’s people for religious worship, for they
shall be ashamed to show their heads there, when
they are proved by the events to be false prophets,
and, like Cain, shall go out from the presence of the
Lord. The people that are deceived by them shall
abandon them, and resolve to have no more to do
with them. They that usurped Moses’s chair shall
not be allowed so much as a door-keeper’s place. In
the great day they shall not stand in the congrega¬
tion of the righteous, (Ps. i. 5.) when God gathers
his saints together to him, (Ps. 1. 5, 16.) to be for
ever with him. (2.) To be expunged out of the
book of the living. They shall die in their captivity,
and shall die childless, shall leave no posterity to
take their denomination from them, and so their •
names shall not be found among those who either
themselves or their posterity returned out of Baby¬
lon, of whom a particular account was kept in a
public register, which was called the writing of the
house of Israel, such as we have, Ezra ii. They
shall not be found among the living in Jerusalem,
Isa. iv. 3. Or, They shall not be fomid written
64.3
EZEKIEL, XIII.
imong those whom God has from eternity chosen to
Oe vessels of his mercy to eternity. We read of
those who prophesied in Christ’s name, and yet he
will tell them that he never knew them, (Matth. vii.
22, 23.) because they were not among those that
were given to him. The Chaldee Paraphrase reads
it, They shall not be written in the writing of eter¬
nal life, which is written for the righteous of the
house of Israel. See Ps. l'xix. 28. (3.) To be for
ever excluded out of the land of Israel. God has
sworn in his wrath concerning them, that they shall
never enter with the returning captives into the land
of Canaan, which a second time remains a rest for
them. Note, Those who oppose the design of God’s
threatenings, and will not be awed and influenced
by them, forfeit the benefit of his promises, and can¬
not expect to be comforted and encouraged by them.
10. Because, even because they have se¬
duced my people, saying, Peace, and there
teas no peace; and one built up a wall, and,
10, others daubed it with untempered mortar.
1 1 . Say unto them which daub it with un¬
tempered mortar , that it shall fall : there
shall be an overflowing shower; and ye, O
great hailstones, shall fall; and a stormy
wind shall rend it. 12. Lo, when the wall
is fallen, shall it not be said unto you, Where
is the daubing wherewith ye have daubed
it? 13. Therefore thus saith the Lord God,
1 will even rend it with a stormy wind in
my fury; and there shall be an overflowing
shower in mine anger, and great hailstones,
in my fury, to consume it. 14. So will I
break down the wall that ye have daubed
with untempered mortar , and bring it down |
to the ground, so that the foundation there¬
of shall be discovered, and it shall fall, and
ye shall be consumed in the midst thereof:
and ye shall know that I am the Lord. 15.
Thus will I accomplish my wrath upon the
wall, and upon them that have daubed it
with untempered mortar ; and will say unto
you, The wall is no more , neither they that
daubed it; 16. To wit, the prophets of Is¬
rael, which prophesy concerning Jerusalem,
and which see visions of peace for her, and
there is no peace, saith the Lord God.
We have here more plain dealing with the false
prophets, and some further articles of their doom.
We have seen the people made ashameeft of the
false prophets, (though sometimes they had been
fond of them,) and casting them away, as they shall
do their false gods, with indignation; now here we
find them as much ashamed of their false prophe¬
cies, which they had sometimes depended upon with
much assurance. Observe,
I. How the people are deceived by the false pro¬
phets. Those flatterers seduce them, saying, Peace,
and there was no peace, v. 10. They pretended to
have seen visions of peace, v. 16. But that could
not be, for there was no peace, saith the Lord God.
There was no prosperity designed for them, and
therefore there could be no ground for their secu¬
rity; yet they told them that God was at peace with
them, and had mercy in reserve for them, and that
t!ie war they were engaged in with the Chaldeans,
should soon end in an honourable peace, and their
land should enjev a happv repose and tranauillity. I
They told the idolaters and other sinners, that there
was neither harm nor danger in the way they were
in. Tims they seduced God’s people, they put a
cheat upon them, led them into mistakes, and drew
them aside out of that way of repentance and re¬
formation which the other prophets were endea¬
vouring to bring them into. Note, Those are the
most dangerous seducers, who suggest to sinners that
which tends to lessen their dread of sin and their
fear of God. Now this is compared to the building
of a slight, rotten wall, or, according to our Sa¬
viour’s similitude, which is to the same purport with
this, (Matth. vii. 26.) the building of a house upon
the sand, which seems to lie a shelter and protec¬
tion for awhile, but will fall when a storm comes.
One false prophet built the wall, set up the no¬
tion that God was not at all displeased with Jerusa
lem, but that the city should be confirmed in its
flourishing state, and be victorious over the powers
that now threatened it. This notion was very pleas,
ing, and he that started it made himself very ac
ceptable by it, and was caressed by every body:
which invited others to say the same. They made
the matter look yet more ‘plausible and promising;
they daubed the wall, which the first had built, but
it was with untempered mortar, sorry stuff, that
will not bind nor hold the bricks together; they had
no ground for what they said, nor had it any con¬
sistency with itself, but was like ropes of sand. 'They
did not strengthen the wall, were in no care to make
it firm, to see that they went upon sure grounds;
they only daubed it to hide the cracks, and made it
look well to the eye. And the wall thus built, when
it comes to any stress, much more to any distress,
will bulge and totter, and come down by degrees.
Note, Doctrines that are groundless, though ever so
grateful, that are not built upon a scripture-founda¬
tion, nor fastened with a scripture-cement, though
ever so plausible, ever so pleasing, are not of any
worth, nor will stand men in any stead. And those-
hopes of peace and happiness which are not war¬
ranted by the word of God, will but cheat men, like
a wall that is well daubed indeed, but ill built.
II. How they will be soon undeceived by the judg¬
ment of God, which, we are sure, is according to
truth.
1. God will in anger bring a terrible storm that
shall beat fiercely and furiously upon the wall. The
descent which the Chaldean army shall make upon
Judah, and the siege which they shall lay to Jerusa¬
lem, will be as an overflowing shower, or inunda¬
tion, (such as Solomon calls a sweeping rain that
leaves no food, Prov. xxviii. 3.) will bear down all
before it, as the deluge did in Noah’s time: Ye, O
great hailstones, shall fall, the artillery of heaven,
every hailstone like a cannon-ball, battering this
wall, and with these a stormy wind, which is some¬
times so strong as to rend the rocks, (1 Kings xix.
11.) much more an ill-built wall, v. 11. But that
which makes this rain, and hail, and wind most ter¬
rible, is, that they arise from the wrath of God, and
are enforced by that; that is it that sends them, that
is it that gives them the setting-on; (v. 13.) it is a
stormy wind in my fury, and an overflowing show .r
in mine anger, and great hailstones in my fury.
The fury of Nebuchadnezzar and his princes, who
highly resented Zedekiah’s treachery, made the in¬
vasion very formidable, but that was nothing in com¬
parison with God’s displeasure; the staff in their
hand is mine indignation, Isa. x. 5. Note, An an¬
gry God has winds and storms at command, where¬
with to alarm secure sinners; and his wrath makes
them frightful and forcible indeed; for who can stand
before him when he is angry?
2. This storm shall overturn the wall ; it shall fall,
and the wind shall rend it, (v. 11.) the hailstones
shall consume it; (v. 13.) I will break it down, (r.
G44
EZEKIEL, XIII.
14.) and bring it to the ground, so that the founda¬
tion thereof shall be discovered, it will appear how
false, how rotten it was, to the prophetical reproach
of the builders; when the Chaldean army has made
Judah and Jerusalem desolate, then this credit of
the prophets, and the hopes of the people, will botli
sink together; the former will be found false in flat¬
tering the people, and the latter foolish in suffering
themselves to be imposed upon by them, and so ex¬
posed to so much the greater confusion, when the
judgment shall surprise them in their security.
Note, Whatever men think to shelter themselves
with against the judgments of God, while they con¬
tinue unreformed, will prove but a refuge of lies,
and will not profit them in the day of wrath. See
Isa. xxviii. 17. Men’s anger cannot shake that
which God has built, (for the blast of the terrible
ones is but as a storm against the wall, which makes
a great noise, but never stirs the wall; see Isa. xxv.
4.) but God’s anger will overthrow that which men
have built in opposition to him. They and all their
attempts, they and all the securities wherein they
intrench themselves, shall be as a bowing wall, a?id
as a tottering fence; (Ps. lxii. 3, 10.) and when their
vain predictions are disproved, and their vain ex¬
pectations disappointed, then it will be discovered
that there was no ground for either; (Hab. iii. 13.)
the day will declare what every man’s work is, and
the fire will try it, 1 Cor. iii. 13.
3. The builders of the wall, and those that daubed
it, will themselves be buried in the ruins of it; It
shall fall, and ye shall be consumed in the midst
thereof, v. 14. And thus the threatenings of God’s
wrath, and all the just intentions of it, shall be ac¬
complished to the uttermost, both upon the wall and
upon them that have daubed it, v. 15. The same
judgments that will prove the false prophets to be
false, will punish them for their falsehood; and they
themselves shall be involved in the calamity which
they made the people believe there was no danger
of, and become monuments of that justice which
they bid defiance to. Thus, if the blind lead the
blind, both the blind leaders and the blind followers
will fall together into the ditch. Note, Those that
deceive others will, in the end, prove to have de¬
ceived themselves; and no doom will be more dread¬
ful than that of unfaithful ministers, that flattered
sinners in their sins.
4. Both the deceivers and the deceived, when
they thus perish together, will justly be ridiculed
and triumphed over; (v. 12.) Jl'hen the wall is
fallen, shall it not be said unto you, by those that
gave credit to the true prophets, and feared the
word of the Lord, “ Now where is the daubing
wherewith ye have daubed the wall? What is gone
with all the fine soft words and fair promises where¬
with you flattered your wicked neighbours, and all
the assurances you gave them that the troubles of
the nation should soon be at an end? The righteous
shall laugh at them, the righteous God shall, right¬
eous men shall, saying, Lo, this is the man that
made not God his Strength, Ps. hi. 6, 7. I will
also laugh at your calamity, Prov. i. 26. They will
say unto you, (y. 15.) The wall is no more, neither
he that daubed it; your hopes are vanished, and
they that supported them, even the prophets of Is¬
rael,” v. 16. Note, those that usurp the honours
that do not belong to them, will shortly be filled with
the shame that does.
17. Likewise, thou son of man, set thy
face against the daughters of thy people,
which prophesy out of their own heart; and
prophesy thou against them, 1 3. And say,
Thus sailli the Lord God, Wo to the women
that sew pillows to all arm-holes, and make
kerchiefs upon the head of every stature, to
hunt souls! Will ye hunt the souls of my
people, and will ye save the souls alive that
come unto you? 19. And will ye pollute me
among my people for handfuls of barley,
and for pieces of bread, to slay the souls that
should not die, and to save the souls alive
that should not live, by your lying to my peo¬
ple that hear your lies? 20. Wherefore thus
saith the Lord God, Behold, I am against
your pillows, wherewith ye there hunt the
souls to make them fly ; and I will tear them
from your arms, and will let the souls go,
even the souls that ye hunt to make them fly.
21. Your kerchiefs also will I tear, and de¬
liver my people out of your hand, and they
shall be no more in your hand to be hunted;
and ye shall know that I am the Lord. 22.
Because with lies ye have made the heart
of the righteous sad, whom I have not made
sad; and strengthened the hands of the
wicked, that he should not return from his
wicked way, by promising him life; 23.
Therefore ye shall see no more vanity, nor
divine divinations: for I will deliver my peo¬
ple out of your hand ; and ye shall know
that I am the Lord.
As God has promised that when he pours out his
Spirit upon his people, both their sons and their
daughters shall prophesy, so the devil, when he acts
as a spirit of lies and falsehood, is so in the mouth,
not only of false prophets, but of false prophetesses
too; and those are the deceivers whom the prophet
is here directed to prophesy against; for they are
not such despicable enemies to God’s truths as de¬
serve not to be taken notice of; nor yet will either
the weakness of their sex excuse their sin, nor the
tenderness and respect that are owing to it, exempt
them from the reproaches and threatenings of the
word of God; no, Son of man, set thy face against
the daughters of thy people, v. 17. God takes no
pleasure in owning them for his people; They are
thy people, as Exod. xxxii. 7. The women pre¬
tend to a spirit of prophecy, and are in the same
song with the men, as Ahab’s prophets were; Go
on, and prosper. They prophesy out of their own
heart too; they say what comes uppermost, and
what they know nothing of; Therefore prophesy
against them from God’s own mouth. The prophet
must set his face against them, and try if they can
look him in the face, and stand to what they say.
Note, When sinners grow very impudent, it is time
for reprovers to be very bold. Now observe,
I. How the sin of these false prophetesses is de¬
scribed, and what are the particulars of it.
1. They told deliberate lies to those who con¬
sulted them, and came to them to be advised, and
to be told their fortune; “You do mischief by your
lying to my people that hear your lies; {v. 19.) they
come to be’ told the truth, but you tell them lies;
and because you humour them in their sins, they
are willing to hear you.” Note, It is ill with those
people who can better hear pleasing lies than un¬
pleasing truths; and it is a temptation to them who
lie in wait to deceive to tell lies, when they find peo¬
ple willing to hear them, and to excuse themselves
with this, Si populus vult decipi, decipiatur — If
the people will be deceived, let them.
2. They profaned the name of God by pretending
645
EZEKIEL, XIII.
to have received those lies from him; (v. 19.) “ Ye
/ lollute my name among my fieo/i/e, and make use
of that for the patronising of your lies, and the gain¬
ing of credit to them.” Note, Those greatly pol¬
lute God’s holy name, that make use of it to give
countenance to falsehood and wickedness. Yet this
they did for handfuls of barley and pieces of bread:
they did it for gain; they cared not what dishonour
they did to God’s name by their lying, so they could
hut make a hand of it for themselves. There is
nothing so sacred which men of mercenary spirits,
in whom the love of this world reigns, will not pro¬
fane and prostitute, if they can but get money by the
bargain. But they did it for poor gain; if they could
get no more for it, rather than break, they would
sell you a false prophecy that should please you to
a nicety, for the beggar’s dole, a piece of bread, or a
handful of barley; and yet that was more than it
was worth. Had they asked it as an alms, for
God’s sake, surely they might have had it, and God
would have been honoured; but, taking it as a fee
for a false prophecy, God’s name is polluted, and
the smallness of the reward greatens the offence;
for a piece of bread that man will transgress, Prov.
xxviii. 21. Had their poverty been their tempta¬
tion to steal, and so to take the name of the Lord in
vain, it had not been so bad as when it tempted
them to prophesy lies in his name, and so to pro¬
fane it.
3. They kept people in awe, and terrified them
with their pretensions; “ You hunt the souls of my
people, (t>. 18.) hunt them to make them flee, {y.
20.) hunt them into gardens; (so the margin reads
it;) you use all the arts you have to court or compel
them into those places where you deliver your pre¬
tended predictions; or, you have got such an influ¬
ence upon them, that you make them do just as you
would have them do, and tyrannize over them.”
It was indeed the people’s fault, that they did re¬
gard them, but it was their fault by lies and false¬
hoods to command that regard; they pretended to
save the souls alive that came to them, v. 18. If
they would but be hearers of them, and contributors
to them, they might be sure of salvation; thus they
beguiled unstable souls that had a concern about
salvation as their end, but did not rightly understand
the way, and therefore hearkened to those who
were most confident in promising it them. But
will you pretend to save souls, or secure salvation to
your party? Those are justly suspected, that make
such pretensions.
4. They discouraged those that were honest and
good, and encouraged those that were wicked and
profane; You slay the souls that should not die, and
save those alive that should not lix'e, v. 19. This is
explained, x'. 22. “ You have made the heart of the
righteous sad, whom I have not made sad; because
they would not, they durst not, countenance your
pretensions, you thundered out the judgments of
God against them, to their great grief and trouble;
you put them under invidious characters, to make
them either despicable or odious to the people, and
pretended to do it in God’s name, which made them
go many a time with a sad heart; whereas it was
the will of God that they should be comforted, and
by having respect put upon them should have en¬
couragement given them. But, on the other side,
and which is still worse, you have strengthened the
hands of the wicked, and emboldened them to go
on in their wicked ways, and not to return from
them, which was the thing the true prophets with
earnestness called them to. You have promised
sinners life in their sinful ways, have told them that
they shall have peace though they go on, by which
their hands have been strengthened, and their hearts
hardened.” Some think this here refers to the
severe censures they passed upon those who were
already gone into captivity, who were humbled un¬
der their affliction, by which their hearts were made
sad; and the commendations they gave to those who
rebelled against the king of Babylon, who were
hardened in their impieties, by which their hands
were strengthened; or, by their polluting of the
name of God they saddened the hearts of good peo¬
ple who have a value and veneration for the word
of God, and confirmed atheists and infidels in their
contempt of divine revelation, and furnished them
with arguments against it. Note, Those have a
great deal to answer for, who grieve the spirits, and
weaken the hands, of good people, and who gratify
the lusts of sinners, and animate them in their oppo¬
sition to God and religion. Nor can any thing
strengthen the hands of sinners more than to teil
them that they may be saved in their sins without
repentance; or that there may be repentance,
though they do not return from their wicked ways.
5. They mimicked the true prophets, by giving
signs for the illustrating of their false predictions,
as Hananiah did; (Jer. xxviii. 10.) and they were
signs agreeable to their sex; they sewed little pil¬
lows to the people’s arm-holes, to signify that they
might be easy, and repose themselves, "and needed
not be disquieted with the apprehensions of trou¬
ble approaching. And they made kerchiefs upon
the head of every stature, o'f persons of every age,
young and old, distinguishable by their stature, v.
18. These kerchiefs were badges of liberty, or
triumph; intimating that they should not only be de¬
livered from the Chaldeans, but be victorious over
them. Some think these were some superstitious
rites which they used with those to whom they de¬
livered their divinations, preparingthem for the re¬
ception of them, by putting enchanted pillows under
their arms, and handkerchiefs on their heads, to
raise their fancies and their expectations of some¬
thing great. Or, perhaps, the expressions are figura¬
tive; they did all they could to make people secure,
which is signified by laying them easy, and to make
people, proud, which is signified by dressing them
fine with handkerchiefs, perhaps laid or embroi¬
dered on their heads.
II. How the wrath of God against them is ex¬
pressed. Here is a wo to them; (v. 18.) and God
declares himself against the methods they took to
delude and deceive, xo 20. But what course will
God take with them?
1. They shall be confounded in their attempts,
and shall proceed no further; for (x\ 23.) ye shall
see no more vanity, nor divine divinations; not that
they shall themselves lay down their pretensions in
a way of repentance, but when the event gives them
the lie, they shall be silent for shame. Or, their
fancies and imaginations shall not be disposed to re¬
ceive impressions which assist them in their divina¬
tions as they have been; or they themselves shall
be cut off.
2. God’s people shall be delivered out of their
hands; when they see themselves deluded by them
into a false peace and a fool’s paradise, and that
though they would not leave their sin, their sin has
left them, and they see no more vanity, nor divine
divinations, they shall turn their back upon them,
shall slight their predictions, the righteous shall be
no more saddened by them, no, nor the wicked
strengthened; The pillows shall be torn from their
arms, and the kerchiefs from their heads, the falla¬
cies shall be discovered, their frauds detected, and
the people of God shall no more be in their hand,
to be hunted as they had been. Note, It is a great
mercy to be delivered from a servile regard to, and
fear of, those who, under colour of a divine au¬
thority, impose upon and tyrannize over the con¬
sciences of men, and say to their souls, Bow down,
that we may go over But it is a sore grief to those
646
EZEKIEL, XIV.
who delight in such usurpations, to have their
power broken, and the prey delivered; such was
the reformation to the church of Rome. And
when God does this, he makes it to appear that he
is the Lord, that it is his prerogative to give law to
souls.
CHAP. XIV.
Hearing the word, and prayer, are two great ordinances
of God, in which we are to give honour to him, and may
hope to find favour and acceptance with him; and yet, in
this chapter, to our great surprise, we find some waiting
upon God in the one, and some in the other, and yet not
meeting with success, as they expected. I. The elders
of Israel come to hear the word, and inquire of the pro¬
phet, but, because they are not duly qualified, they meet
with a rebuke instead of acceptance, (v. 1 . . 5.) and are
called upon to repent of their sins, and reform their
lives, else it is at their peril to inquire of God, v. 6 . . 11.
II. Noah, Daniel, and Job, are supposed to pray for this
people, and yet, because the decree is gone forth, and the
destruction of them is determined by a variety of judg¬
ments, their prayers shall not be answered, v. 12 . . 21.
And yet it is promised, in the close, that a remnant shall
escape, v. 22, 23.
1 . y | MIEN came certain of the elders of
JL Israel unto me, and sat before me.
2. And the word of the Lord came unto
me, saying, 3. Son of man, these men have
(set up their idols in their heart, and put the
stumbling-block of their iniquity before their
face: should I be inquired of at all by them?
4. Therefore speak unto them, and say unto
them, Thus saith the Lord God, Every man
of the house of Israel that setteth up his
idols in his heart, and putteth the stumbling-
block of his iniquity before his face, and
cometh to the prophet, I the Lord will an¬
swer him that cometh according to the mul¬
titude of his idols; 5. That I may take the
house of Israel in their own heart, because
they are all estranged from me through their
idols. 6. Therefore say unto the house of
Israel, Thus saith the Lord God, Repent,
and turn yourselves from your idols; and
turn away your faces from all your abomi¬
nations. 7. For every one of the house of
Israel, or of the stranger that sojourneth in
Israel, which separateth himself from me,
and setteth up his idols in his heart, and
putteth the stumbling-block of his iniquity
before his face, and cometh to a prophet to
inquire of him concerning me; I the Lord
will answer him by myself: 8. And I will
set my face against that man, and will make
him a sign and a proverb, and I will cut
him off from the midst of my people; and ye
shall know that I am the Lord. 9. And
■f the prophet be deceived when he hath
spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived
that prophet ; ami I will stretch out my hand
upon him, and will destroy him from the
midst of my people Israel. 10. And they
shall bear the punishment of their iniquity :
the punishment of the prophet shall be even
as the punishment of him that seeketh unto
him; 1 1. That the house of Israel may go
no more astray from me, neither be polluted
any more with all their transgressions ; but
that they may be my people, and I may be
their God, saith the Lord God.
Here is, 1. The address which some of the elders
of Israel made to the prophet, as an oi acle, to in¬
quire of the Lord by him; They came, and sat be¬
fore him, v. 1. It is probable that they were not
of those who were now his fellow-captives, and con¬
stantly attended his ministry, (such as those we
read of, ch. viii. 1.) but some occasional hearers;
some of the grandees of Jerusalem who were come
upon business to Babylon, perhaps public business,
on an embassy from the king, and in their way call¬
ed on the prophet, having heard much of him, and
being desirous to know if he had any message from
God, which might be some guide to them in their
negociation. By the severe answer given them, one
would suspect they had a design to ensnare the pro¬
phet, or to try if they could catch hold of any thing
that might look like a contradiction to Jeremiah’s
prophecies, and so they might have occasion to re¬
proach them both. However, they feigned them¬
selves just men, complimented the prophet, and sat
before him gravely enough, as God’s people used
to sit. Note, It is no new thing for bad men to be
found employed in the external performances of
religion.
2. The account which God gave the prophet
privately concerning them. They were strangers
to him, lie only knew that they were elders of Israel,
that was the character they wore, and as such he
received them with respect, and, it is likely, was
glad to see them so well disposed; but God gives
him their real character, (v. 3.) they were idola¬
ters, and did only consult Ezekiel, as they would
any oracle of a pretended deity, to gratify their cu¬
riosity; and therefore he appeals to the prophet
himself, whether they deserved to have any counte¬
nance or encouragement given them; “ Should I be
inquired of at all by them ? Should I accept their
inquiries as an honour to myself, or answer them
for satisfaction to them? No; they have no reason to
expect it;” for, (1.) They have set u/i their idols in
their heart; they not only have idols, but they are in
love with them, they dote upon them, are wedded to
them, and have laid them so near their hearts, and
have given them so great a room in their affections,
that there is no parting of them. The idols they
have set up in their houses, though they are now at
a distance from the chambers of their imagery, yet
they have them in their hearts, and they are ever
and anon worshipping them in their fancies and
imaginations; They have made their idols to ascend
upon their hearts; (so the word is;) they have sub¬
jected their hearts to their idols, they are upon the
throne there: or, when they come to inquire of the
prophe.t, they pretended to put away their idols,
but it was in pretence only, they still had a secret
reserve for them, they kept them uji in their hearts;
and if they left them for awhile, it was cum animo
revertendi — with an intention to return to them, not
a final farewell. Or, it may be understood *of spi¬
ritual idolatry; those whose affections are placed
upon the wealth of the world and the pleasures of
sense, whose god is their money, whose god is their
belly, they set up their idols in their heart. Many
who have no idols in their sanctuary, have idols in
their hearts; which is no less an usurpation of God’s
throne, and a profanation of his name. Little chil¬
dren, keep yourselves from those idols. (2.) Thev
put the stumbling-block • of their iniquity before their
face. 'Their silver and gold were called the stum¬
bling-block of their iniquity, (ch. vii. 19. ) their idols
of silver and gold, by the beauty of which they were
EZEKIEL, XIV. . • 047
allured to idolatry, and so it was the block at which
they stumbled, and fell into that sin; or, their ini¬
quity is their stumbling-block , which throws them
down, so that they fall into ruin. Note, Sinners are
their own tempters; every man is tempted when he
is Hrawn aside of his own lust; and so they are their
own destroyers; If thou scornest, thou shalt alone
bear it; and thus they jiut the stumbling-block of
their iniquity before their own faces, and stumble
upon it, though they see it before their eyes. It
intimates that they are resolved to go on in sin,
whatever comes of it; I have loved strangers, and
after them I will go; that is the language of their
hearts. And should God be inquired of by such
wretches? Do they not hereby rather put an af¬
front upon him than do him any honour, as those
did, who bowed the knee to Christ, in mockery?
Can they expect an answer of peace from God,
who thus continue their acts of hostility against
him? “ Ezekiel, what thinkest thou of it?”
3. The answer which God, in just displeasure,
orders Ezekiel to give them, v. 4. Let them know
that it is not out of any disrespect to their persons,
that God refuses to give them an answer, but it is
laid down as a rule for every man of the house of
Israel, whoever he be, that if he continue in love
and league with his idols, and come to inquire of
God, God will resent it as an indignity done to him,
and will answer him according to his real iniquity,
not according to his pretended piety. He comes to
the prophet, who, he expects, will be civil to him,
but God will give him his answer, by punishing him
for his impudence; I the Lord, who sfieak, and it is
done; I will answer him that cometh, according to
the multitude of his idols. Observe, Those who
set up idols in their hearts, and set their hearts upon
their idols, commonly have a multitude of them.
Humble worshippers God answers according to the
multitude of his mercies, but bold intruders he an*-
swers according to the multitude of their idols, that
is, (1.) According to the desire of their idols; he
will give them up to their own hearts’ lust, and
leave them to themselves to be as bad as they have
a mind to be, till they have filed ufi the measure
of their iniquity. Men’s corruptions are idols in
their hearts, and they are of their own setting up;
their temptations are the stumbling-block of their
iniquity, and they are of their own putting, and God
will answer them accordingly ; let them take their
course. (2.) According to the desert of their idols;
they shall have such an answer as it is just that such
idolaters should have. God will punish them as he
punishes idolaters, that is, when they stand in need
of his help, he will send them to the gods whom
they have chosen, Judg. x. 13, 14. Note, The judg¬
ment of God will dwell with men according to what
they are really, that is, according to what their
hearts are, not according to what they are in show
and profession.
And what will be the end of this? What will this
threatened answer amount to? He tells them, ( v .
5.) That I may take the house of Israel in their own
heart, may lay them open to the world, that they
may be ashamed; nay, lav them open to the curse,
that they may be rained. Note, The sin and shame,
and pain and ruin of sinners, are all from them¬
selves, and their own hearts are the snares in which
they are taken; they seduce them, they betray them;
their own consciences witness against them, con¬
demn them, and are a terror to them. If God take
them, if he discover them, if he convict them, if he
bind them over to his judgment, it is all by their
own hearts. 0 Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself.
The house of Israel is ruined by its own hands; Be¬
cause they are all estranged from me through their
idols. Note, [1.] The ruin of sinners isowing to
their estrangement from God. [2.] It is through
some idol or other, that the hearts of men arc es¬
tranged from God; some creature has gained that
place and dominion in the heart, that Gcd should
have.
4. The extent of this answer which God had
given them, to all the house of Israel, v. 7, 8. The
same thing is repeated, which intimates God’s just
displeasure against hypocrites, who mock him with
the shows and forms of devotion, while their hearts
are estranged from him, and at war with him. Ob¬
serve, (1.) To whom this declaration belongs; it
concerns not only every one of the house of Israel,
(as before, v. 4.) but the stranger that sojourns in
Israel: let him not think it will be an excuse for
him in his idolatries, that lie is but a stranger and
a sojourner in Israel, and does but worship the gods
that his father served, and that he himselt was bred
up in tlie service of; no, let him net expect any be¬
nefit from Israel’s oracles or prophets, unless he
thoroughly renounce his idolatry. Note, Even pro¬
selytes shall not be countenanced, if they be net
sincere: a dissembled conversion is no conversion.
(2.) The description here given of hypocrites: They
separate themselves from God by their fellowship
with idols; they cut themselves off from their rela¬
tion to God, and their interest in him; they break
off their acquaintance and intercourse with him, and
set themselves at a distance from him. Note,
Those that join themselves to idols, separate them¬
selves from (iod; nor shall any be for ever separat¬
ed from the vision and fruition of God, but sucli as
now separate themselves from his service, and wil¬
fully withdraw their allegiance from him. But
there are those who thus separate themselves from
God, and yet come to the prophets, with a seeming
respect and deference to their office, to inquire of
them concerning God; either to satisfy a vain curi¬
osity, to stop the mouth of a clamorous conscience,
or to get or save a reputation among men; but with¬
out any desire to be acquainted with God, or any
design to be ruled by him. (3.) The doom of those
who thus trifle with God, and think to impose upon
him: “I the Lord will answer him by myself: let
me alone to deal with him; I will give him an an¬
swer that shall fill him with confusion, that shall
make him repent of his daring impiety.” He shall
have his answer, not by the words of the prophet,
but by the judgments of God. And I will set my
face against that man; which denotes great dis¬
pleasure against him, and a fixed resolution to rain
him. Gcd can outface the most impenitent sinner.
The hypocrite thought to save his credit, nay, and
to gain applause, but, on the contrary, God will
make him a sign and a proverb; will inflict such
judgments upon him, as shall make him remarka¬
ble and contemptible in the eyes of all about him;
his misery shall be made use of to express the
greatest misery: as wh.en the worst of sinners are
said to have their portion appointed them with hy¬
pocrites, Matth. xxiv. 51. God will make him an
example; his judgments upon him shall be for
warning to others to take heed of mocking God: for
thus shall it be done to the man that separates him¬
self from God, and yet pretends to inquire concern¬
ing him. The hypocrite thought to have passed
for one of God’s people, and to have crowded into
heaven among them; but God will cut him from
the midst of his people, will discover him, and pluck
him cut from the thickest of them; and bv this, says
God, ye shall know that I am the Lord. By the
discovery of hypocrites, it appears that God is om¬
niscient: ministers know not how people stand af¬
fected when they come to hear the word, but God
does; and by the punishment of hypocrites, it ap¬
pears that he is a jealous God, and one that cannot,
and will not, be imposed upon.
5. The doom of those pretenders to prophecy,
EZEKIEL, XIV.
who give countenance to these pretenders to piety,
v. 9, 10. These hypocritical inquirers, though
Ezekiel will give them no comfortable answer, yet
hope to meet with some other prophets that will;
and if they do, as perhaps they may, let them know
that. God permits those lying prophets to deceive
them, in part of punishment: “If the prophet that
flatters them be deceived, and gives them hopes
which there is no ground for, I the Lord have de¬
ceived that prophet, have suffered the temptation
to be laid before him, and suffered him to yield to
it, and overruled it for the hardening of those in
their wicked courses, who were resolved to go on
in them.” We are sure that God is not the Author
of sin, but we are sure that he is the Lord of all, and
the Judge of sinners, and that he often makes use
of one wicked man to destroy another, and so of one
wicked man to deceive another. Both are sins in
him who does them, and so they are not from God:
both are punishments to him 'to whom they are
done, and so they are from God. We have a lull
instance of this in the story of Ahab’s prophets, who
were deceived by a lying spirit, which God put into
their mouths, (1 Kings xxii. 23.) and another in
those whom God gives ufi to strong delusions to be¬
lieve a lie, because they received not the love of the
truth, 2 Thess. ii. 10, 11. But read the fearful
doom of the lying prophet; I will stretch out my
hand upon him, and ivill destroy him. When God
has served his own righteous purposes by him, he
shall be reckoned with for his unrighteous purposes:
as when God had made use of the Chaldeans for
the wasting of a sinful people, he justly punished
them for their rage; so when he had made use of
false prophets, and afterward of false christs, for
the deceiving of a sinful people, he justly punished
them for their falsehood. But herein we must ac¬
knowledge (as Calvin upon this place reminds us)
that God’s judgments are a great deep.; that we
are incompetent judges of them: and that though
we cannot account for the equity of God’s proceed¬
ings to the satisfying and silencing of every caviller,
et there is a day coming when he will be justified
efore all the world; and particularly in this in¬
stance, when the punishment of the prophet that
flattereth the hypocrite in his evil way, shall be
as the punishment of the hypocrite that seeketh
to him, and bespeaks smooth things only, Isa. xxx.
10. The ditch shall be the same to the blind leader,
and the blind followers.
6. The good counsel that is given them for the
preventing of this fearful doom; (v. 6.) “Therefore
repent, and turn yourselves from your idols; let
this separate between you and them, that they se¬
parate not between you and God; because they set
God’s face against you, do you turn away your faces
from them: which "denotes, not only forsaking them,
but forsaking them with loathing and detestation;
“ Turn from them as from abominations that you
are sick of; and then you will be welcome to inquire
of the Lord. Come now, and let us reason together.”
7. The good issue of all this, as to the house of
Israel; therefore the pretending prophets, and the
pretending saints, shall perish together by the judg¬
ments of God, that, some being made examples,
the body of the people may be reformed; that
the house of Israel may go no more astray from
me, v. 11. Note, The punishments of some are
designed for the prevention of sin, that others
may hear, and fear, and take warning. When
we see what comes of those that go astra>r from
God, we should thereby be engaged to keep - 'ose
to liim. And if the house of Israel go not astr ay,
they will not be polluted any more. Note, Sin is a
polluting thing; it renders the sinner odious in the
eyes of the pure and holy God, and in his own
eyes too, whenever conscience is awakened; and
therefore they shall no more bt polluted, that they
may be my people, and I may be their God. Note,
Those whom God takes into covenant with himself,
must first be cleansed from the pollutions of sin,
and those who are so cleansed shall not only be
saved from ruin, but be entitled to all the privileges
of God’s people.
12. The word of the Lord came again
to me, saying, 13. Son of man, when the
land sinneth against me, by trespassing
grievously, then will I stretch out my hand
upon it, and will break the staff of the bread
thereof, and will send famine upon it, and
will cut off man and beast from it. 14.
Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and
Job, were in it, they should deliver but their
own souls by their righteousness, saith the
Lord God. 15. If I cause noisome beasts
to pass through the land, and they spoil it,
so that it be desolate, that no man may pass
through because of the beasts: 16. Though
these three men were in it, as I live, saith
the Lord God, they shall deliver neither
sons nor daughters-, they only shall be deli¬
vered, but the land shall be desolate. 1 7. Or
if I bring a sword upon that land, and say,
Sword, go through the land; so that I cut
off man and beast from it: 18. Though
these three men were in it, as I live, saith
the Lord God, they shall deliver neither
sons nor daughters, but they only shall be
delivered themselves. 1 9. Or if I send a
pestilence into that land, and pour out my
fury upon it in blood, to cut off from it man
and beast: 20. Though Noah, Daniel, and
Job, were in it, as I live, saith the Lord
God, they shall deliver neither son nor
daughter; they shall but deliver their own
souls by their righteousness. 2 1 . F or thus
saith the Lord God, How much more
when I send my four sore judgments upon
Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and
the noisome beast, and the pestilence, to
cutoff from it man and beast? 22. Yet,
behold, therein shall be left a remnant that
shall be brought forth, both sons and daugh¬
ters; behold, they shall come forth unto you,
and ye shall see their way and their doings:
and ye shall be comforted concerning the
evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem,
even concerning all that I have brought upon
it. 23. And they shall comfort you, when
ye see their ways and their doings: and ye
shall know that I have not done without
cause all that I have done in it, saith the
Lord God.
Tlie scope of these verses is to show,
1. That national sins bring national judgments;
when virtue is ruined and laid waste, every thing
else will soon be ruined and laid waste too: (v. 13.)
When the land sins against me, when vice and
wickedness become epidemical, when the land sins
EZEKIEL, XIV. 649
f/y trespassing grievously, when the sinners are
become very numerous, and their sins very heinous,
when gross impieties and immoralities universally
prevail, then will I stretch forth mine hand ufion it,
for the punishment of it; the divine power shall be
vigorously and openly exerted, the judgments shall
he extended and stretched forth to all the corners
of the land, to all the concerns and interests of the
nation. Grievous sins bring grievous plagues.
2. That God has a variety of sore judgments
wherewith to punish sinful nations; and he has them
all at command, and inflicts which he pleases. He
did indeed give David his choice what judgment he
would be punished with for his sin in numbering
the people; for any of them would serve to answer
the end, which was to lessen the number he was
proud of: but David, in effect, referred it to God
again; “ Let us fall into the hands of the Lord;
let him choose with what rod we shall be beaten.”
But he uses a variety of judgments, that it may
appear he has an universal dominion, and that in
all our concerns we may see our dependence on
him.
Lour sore judgments are here specified: (1.) Fa¬
mine. The denying and withholding of common
mercies is itself judgment enough, there needs no
more to make a people miserable. God needs not
bring the staff of oppression, it is but breaking the
staff of bread, and the work is soon done; he cuts
off man and beast, by cutting off the provisions
which nature makes for both in the annual products
of the earth. God breaks the staff of bread, when,
though we have bread, yet we are not nourished
and strengthened by it; (Hag. i. 6.) Ye eat, but ye
have not enough. (2.) Hurtful beasts, noisome and
noxious, either as poisonous, or as ravenous: God
can make these to pass through the land, to increase
in all parts of it, and to bereave it, not only of the
tame cattle, preying upon their flocks and herds,
but of their people, devouring men, women, and
children, so that no man may pass through because
of the beasts; none dare travel even in the high
roads, for fear of being pulled in pieces by lions, or
other beasts of prey, as the children of Beth-el bv
two bears. Note, When men revolt from their alle¬
giance to God, and rebel against him, it is just with
God that the inferior creatures should rise up in
arms against man. Lev. xxvi. 22. (3.) War; God
often chastises sinful nations by bringing a sword
upon them, the sword of a foreign enemy, and he
gives it its commission, and orders what execution
it shall do; ( v . If.) he says, Sword, go through the
land. It is bad enough if the sword do but enter
into the borders of a land, but much worse when it
goes through the bowels of a land. By it God cuts
off man and beast, horse and foot; what execution
the sword does, God does by it; for it is his sword,
and it acts as he directs. (4.) Pestilence; a dread¬
ful disease, which has sometimes depopulated cities;
by it God pours out his fury in blood; that is, in
death: tile pestilence kills as effectually as if the
blood were shed by the sword; for it is poisoned by
the disease; the sickness we call it. See how miser¬
able the case of mankind is, that lies thus exposed
to deaths in various shapes! See how dangerous
the case of sinners is, against whom God has so
many ways of fighting; so that though they escape
one judgment, God has another waiting for them !
3. That, when God’s professing people revolt
from him, and rebel against him, they may justly
expect a complication of judgments to fall upon
them. God has various ways of contending with a
sinful nation: but if Jerusalem, the holy city, be¬
come a harlot, God will send upon her all his four
sore judgments; (y. 21.) for the nearer any are to
God in name and profession, the more severely will
he reckon with them, if they reproach that worthy
Vol. iv. — 4 N
name by which they are called, and give the lie to
that profession. They shall be punished seven limes
more.
4. That there may be, and commonly are, some
few very good men, even in those places that, by1
sin, are ripened for ruin. It is no foreign supposi¬
tion, that, even in aland that has trespassed griev¬
ously, there may be three such men as Noah, Daniel,
and Job. Daniel was now living, and at this
time had scarcely arrived to the prime of his emi¬
nence, but he was already famous, at least this word
of God concerning him would without fail make
him so; yet he was carried away into captivity with
the first of all, Dan. i. 6. Seme of the better sort
of people in Jerusalem might perhaps think that if
Daniel (of whose fame in the king of Babylon’s
court they had heard much) had but continued in
Jerusalem, it had been spared for his sake, as the
magicians in Babylon were. “No,” says Gcd,
“though you had him, who was as eminently good
in bad times and places, as Noah in the old world,
and Job in the land of Uz, yet a reprieve should not
be obtained.” In the places that are most corrupt,
and in the ages that are most degenerate, there are
a remnant which God reserves to himself, and
which still hold fast their integrity, and stand fair
for the honour of delivering the land, as the inno¬
cent arc said to do, Job xxii. 30.
5. That God often spares very wicked places for
the sake of a few godly people, in them. This is
implied here as the expectation of Jerusalem’s
friends in the day of its distress: “ Surely God will
stay his controversy with us; for are there not some
among us, that are emptying the measure of na¬
tional guilt by their prayers, as others are filling it
by their sins? And rather titan God will destroy the
righteous with the wicked, he will preserve the
wicked with the righteous. If Sodom might have
been spared for the sake of ten good men, surely
Jerusalem may.”
6. That such men as Noah, Daniel, and Job will
prevail, if any can, to turn away the wrath of Gcd
front a sinful people. Noah was a perfect man, and
kept his integrity, when all flesh had corrupted
their way; and for his sake, his family, though one
of them was wicked, (Ham,) was saved in the ark.
Job was a great example of piety, and miglitv in
prayer for his children, for his friends; and God
turned his captivity when he prayed. Those were
very ancient examples, before Moses that great in¬
tercessor; and therefore God mentions them, to in¬
timate that he had some very peculiar favourites
long before the Jewish nation was formed or founded,
and would have such when it was ruined; for which
reason, it should seem, those names were made use
of, rather than Moses, Aaron, or Samuel; and yet,
lest any should think that God was partial in his
respects to the ancient days, here is a modern in¬
stance, a living one, placed between those two that
were the glories of antiquity, and he now a captive,
and that is Daniel, to teach us not to lessen the use¬
ful, good men of our own day, by over-magnifying
the ancients. Let the children of the captivity
know that Daniel, their neighbour, and companion
in tribulation, being a man of great humility, piety,
and zeal for God, and instant and constant in prayer,
had as good an interest in heaven as Noah or Job
had. Why may not God raise up as great and good
men now as he did formerly, and do as much for
them?
7. That when the sin of a people is come to its
height, and the decree is gone forth for their ruin,
the piety and prayers of the best men shall net pre¬
vail to finish the controversy. This is here as¬
serted again and again, that, though these three men
were in Jerusalem at this time, yet they should de¬
liver neither son nor daughter; not so much as the
650
EZEKIEL. XV.
little ones should be spared lor their sakes, as the
little ones of Israel were upon the prayer of Moses,
Numb. xiv. 31. No, the land shall be desolate, and
God will not hear their prayers for it, though Moses
•and Samuel stood before him, Jer. xv. 1. Note,
Abused patience will turn at last into inexorable
wrath; and it should seem as if God would be more
inexorable in Jerusalem’s case than in another, (v.
6.) because, beside the divine patience, they had
enjoyed greater privileges than any people besides,
which were the aggravations of their sin.
8. That though pious, praying men may not prevail
to deliver others, yet they shall deliver their own
souls, by their righteousness; so that though they
may suffer in the common calamity, yet to them the
property of it is altered, it is not to them what it is
to the wicked; it is unstung, and does them no hurt;
it is sanctified, and does them good; sometimes
their souls, their lives, are remarkably delivered,
and given them for a jirey; their' souls, at least,
their spiritual interests, are secured; if their bodies
be not delivered, yet their souls are. Riches indeed
firojit not in the day of wrath, but righteousness
delivers from death, from so great a death, so many
deaths as are here threatened. This should encou¬
rage us to keep our integrity in times of common
apostacy, that, if we do so, we shall be hid in the
day of the Lord's anger.
9. That, even then when God makes the greatest
desolations by his judgments, he reserves some to
be the monuments of his mercy, v. 22, 23. In Je¬
rusalem itself, though marked for utter ruin, yet j
there shall be left a remnant, who shall not be cut
off by any of those sore judgments before mentioned,
but shall be carried into captivity, both sons and ■
daughters, who shall be the seed of a new genera- ■
tion. The young ones, who were not grown up to
such an obstinacy in sin as their fathers were, who
were therefore cut off as incurable, these shall be
brought fortji out of the ruins of Jerusalem by the
victorious enemy, and behold, they shall come forth
to you that are in' captivity, they shall make a virtue
of a necessity, and shall come the more willingly to
Babylon, because so many of their friends are gone
thither before them, and are there ready to receive
them ; and when they come, you shall see their ways
and their doings; you shall hear them make a free
and ingenuous confession of the sins they had former¬
ly been guilty of, and a humble profession of repent¬
ance for them, with promises of reformation; and
you shall see instances of their reformation, shall
see what good their affliction has done them, and
how prudently and patiently they conduct them¬
selves under it. Their narrow escape shall have a
good effect upon them; it shall change their temper
and conversation, and make them rlew men. And
this will redound, (1.) To the satisfaction of their
brethren; They shall comfort you, when ye see
their ways. Note, It is a very comfortable sight to
see people, when they are under the rod, repenting,
and humbling themselves, justifying God, and ac¬
cepting the punishment of their iniquity. When we
sorrow (as we ought to do) for the affliction of
others, it is a great comfort to us in our sorrow to
see them improving their afflictions, and making a
good use of them. When those captives told their
friends how bad they had been, and how righteous
God was in bringing these judgments upon them, it
made them very easy, and helped to reconcile them
to the calamities of Jerusalem, to the justice of God
in punishing his own people so, and to the goodness
of God, which now appeared to have had kind in¬
tentions in all; and thus “ You shall be comforted
concerning all the evil that I have brought ujion
Jerusalem, and, when you better understand the
thing, shall not have such direful apprehensions
concerning it as you have had,” Note, It is a debt
we owe to our brethren, if we have got good by our
afflictions, to comfort them, by letting them know
it. (2.) It will redound to the honour of God; “ Ye
shall know that I have not done without cause, not
without a just provocation, and yet not without a
racious design, all that I have done in it." Note,
Vhen afflictions have , done their work, and have
accomplished that for which they were sent, then
will appear the wisdom and goodness of God in
sending them, and God will be not only justified, but
glorified, in them.
CHAP. XV.
Ezekiel has a^ain and again, in God’s name, foretold the
utter ruin of Jerusalem; but, it should seem, he finds i„
hard to reconcile himself to it, and to acquiesce in the
will of God in this severe dispensation: and therefore God
takes various methods to satisfy him not only that it shall
be so, but that there is no remedy, it must be so, it is fit
that it should be so; here in this short chapter, he shows
him (probably with design that he should tell the people)
that it was as requisite Jerusalem should be destroyed, as
that the dead and withered branches of a vine should be
cut off’, and thrown into the fire. I. The similitude is
very elegant; (v. 1 . .5.) but, II. The explanation of the
similitude is very dreadful, v. 6 . . 8.
1. 4 ND the word of the Lord came unto
LSL me, saying, 2. Son of man, what is
the vine-tree more than any tree, or than a
branch which is among the trees of the
forest? 3. Shall wood be taken thereof to
do any work? or will men take a pin of it to
hang any vessel thereon? 4. Behold, it is
cast into the fire for fuel ; the fire devoureth
both the ends of it, and the midst of it is
burnt. Is it meet for any work? 5. Be¬
hold, when it was whole it was meet for no
work: how much less shall it be meet yet
for any work when the fire hath devoured
it, and it is burned? 6. Therefore thus saith
the Lord God, As the vine-tree among the
trees of the forest, which I have given to the
fire for fuel, so will 1 give the inhabitants
of Jerusalem. 7. And I will set my face
against them; they shall go out from one
fire, and another fire shall devour them;
and ye shall know that I am the Lord,
when I set my face against them. 8. And
I will make the land desolate, because they
have committed a trespass, saith the Lord
God.
The prophet, we may suppose, was thinking
what a glorious city Jerusalem was, above any city
in the world; it was the crown and joy of the whole
earth; and therefore what a pity it was that it
should be destroyed; it was a nobie structure, the
city of God, and the city of Israel’s solemnities; but
if these were the thoughts of his heart, God here
returns an answer to them, by comparing Jerusalem
to a vine.
1. It is true, if a vine be fruitful, it is a most va¬
luable tree, none more so; it was one of those that
were courted to have dominion over the trees, and
the fruit of it is such as cheers God and man; (Judg.
ix. 32, 13.) it makes glad the heart, Ps. civ. 15. So
Jerusalem was filanted a choice and noble vine,
wholly a right seed; (Jer. ii. 21.) and if it had
brought forth fruit suitable to its character, as a holy
city, it would have been the glory both of God and
Israel; it was a vine which God’s right hand had
651
EZEKIEL, XV.
planted, a branch out of a dry ground, which,
though its original was mean and despicable, God
had made strong for himself, (Ps. lxxx. 15.) to be
to him for a name and for a praise,
2. But if it be not fruitful, it is good for nothing,
it is as worthless and useless a production of the
earth aseven thorns and briers are; II ’hat is a vine-
tree, if you take the tree by itself, without conside¬
ration of the fruit? What is it more than any
tree, that it should have so much care taken of it,
and so much cost laid out upon it? What is a
branch of the vine, though it spread more than a
branch which is among the trees of the forest, where
it grows neglected and exposed? Or, as some read
it, What is the vine more than any tree, if the
branch of it be as the trees of the forest; if it bear no
fruit, as forest-trees seldom do, being designed for
timber-trees, not fruit-trees? Now there are some
fruit-trees, the wood of which, if they do not bear,
is of good use, and may be made to turn to a good
account; but the vine is not of this sort; if that do
not answer its end as a fruit-tree, it is worth nothing
as a timber-tree. Observe,
I. How this similitude is expressed here. The
wild vine, that is among the trees of the forest, or
the empty vine, (which Israel is compared to, Hos.
x. 1. ) that bears no more fruit than a forest-tree, is
good for nothing, it is as useless as a brier, and more
so, for that will add some sharpness to the thorny
hedge, which the vine-branch will not do. He
shows, 1. That it is fit for no use; the wood of it is
not taken to do any work, one cannot so much as
make a pin of it to hang a vessel upon, x>. 3. See
how variously the gifts of nature are dispensed for
the service of man ! Among plants, the roots of
some, the seeds or fruits of others, the leaves of
others, and of some the stalks, are most serviceable
to us; so among trees, some are strong and not
fruitful, as the oaks and cedars; others weak but
very fruitful, as the vine, which is unsightly, low,
and depending, yet of great use. Rachel is comely
but barren, Leah homely but fruitful. 2. That
therefore it is made use of for fuel; it will serve to
heat the oven with. Because it is not meet for any
■work, it is cast into the fire, v. 4. When it is good
for nothing else, it is useful this way, and answers a
very needful intention, for fuel is a thing we must
have, and to burn any thing for fuel, which is good
for other work, is b id husbandry. To what pur¬
pose is this waste? The unfruitful vine is disposed
of the same way with the briers and thorns, which
are rejected, and whose end is to be burned, Heb.
vi. 8. And what care is taken of it then? If a
piece of solid timber be kindled, somebody perhaps
may snatch it as a brand out of the burning, and
say, “It is a pity to burn it, for it may be put to
some better use;” but if the branch of a vine be on
fire, and, as usual, both the ends of it and the mid¬
dle be kindled together, nobody goes about to save
it; When it was whole it was meet for no work,
much less when the fire has devoured it; (y. 5.)
even the ashes of it are not worth saving.
II. How this similitude is applied to Jerusalem:
1. That holy city was become unprofitable, and
good for nothing; it had been as the vine-tree among
the trees of the vineyard, abounding in the fruits of
righteousness to the glory of God; when religion
flourished there, and the pure worship of God was
kept up, many a joyful vintage was then gathered
in from it; and while it continued so, God made a
hedge about it; it was his pleasant plant, (Isa. v. 7.)
he watered it every moment, and kept it night and
day; (Isa. xxviL 3.) but it wa., now become the
degenerate plant of a strange vine, of a wild vine,
(such as we read of, 2 Kings iv. 39.) a vine-tree
among the trees of the forest, which, being wild,
brings forth wild grapes, (Isa. v. 4. ) which are not
only of no use, but are nauseous and noxious; (Deut.
xxxii. 32. ) their graprs are grapes of gall, and their
clusters are bitter. It is explained, v. 8. “ They
have trespassed a trespass; they have treacherously
prevaricated with God, and perfidiously apostatized
from him;” for so the word signifies. Note, Pro¬
fessors of religion, if they do not live up to their pro¬
fession, but contradict it, if they degenerate and de¬
part from it, are the most unprofitable creatures in
the world, like thesa?f that has lost its savour, and
is therefore good for nothing, Mark ix. 50. Other
nations were famed for valour or politics, some for
war, others for trade, and retained their credit; but
the Jewish nation, being famous as a holy people,
when they lost their holiness, and became wicked,
were thenceforth good for nothing; with that they
lost all their credit and usefulness, and became the
most base and despicable people under the sun,
trodden under foot of the Gentiles. Daniel, and
other pious Jews, were of great use in their genera¬
tion; but the idolatrous Jews then, and the unbe¬
lieving Jews now, since the preaching of the gospel,
have been, and are, of no common service, not fit
for any work.
2. Being so, it is given to the fire for fuel. Note,
Those who are not fruitful to the glory of God’s
grace, shall be fuel to the fire of his wrath; and
thus, if they give not honour to him, he will get him
honour upon them, honour that will shine bright in
that flaming fire, by which impenitent sinners will
be for ever consumed. He will not be a loser at
last by any of his creatures. The Lord has made
all things for himself, vea, even the wicked, that
would not otherwise be for him, for the day of evil;
(Prov. xvi. 4.) and in those who would not glorify
him as the God to whom duty belongs, he will be
glorified as the God to whom vengeance belongs.
The fire of God’s wrath had before devoured both
the ends of the Jewish nation, (d. 4.) Samaria and
the cities of Judah; and now Jerusalem, that was
the midst of it, was thrown into the fee, to be
burnt too, tor it is meet for no work, it will not be
wrought upon by any of the methods God has taken
to be serviceable to him. The inhabitants of Jeru¬
salem were like a vine-branch, rotten and awkward;
and therefore, ( v . 7.) I will set my face against
them, to thwart all their counsels, as they set their
faces against God, to contradict his word and defeat
all his designs. It is decreed, the consumption is
determined; I will make the land quite desolate,
and therefore, when they go out from one fre,
another fire shall devour them, (y. 7.) the end of
one judgment shall be the beginning of another, and
their escape from one only a reprieve till another
comes; they shall go from misery in their own
country to misery in Babylon. They who kept out
of the way of the sword, perished by famine or
pestilence: when one descent of the Chaldean forces
upon them was over, and they thought, Surely the
bitterness of death is past, yet soon after they re¬
turned again with double violence, till they had
made a full end. Thus they shall know that I am
the LORD, a God of almighty power, when I set
my face against them. Note, God shows himself
to be the LORD, by perfecting the destruction of
his implacable enemies as well as the deliverances
of his obedient people. Those against whom God
sets his face, though they may come out of one trou¬
ble little hurt, will fall into another, though they
come out of the pit, will be taken in the snare, (Isa.
xxiv. 18.) though thev escape the sword of Hazael,
will fall by that of Jehu; (1 Kings xix. 17.) for
evil pursues sinners: nay, though thexj go out from
the fre of temporal judgments, and seem to die in
peace, yet there is an everlasting fire that will de¬
vour them; for when God judges, first or last he
will overcome; and he will be known by the judg-
652
merits which he executeth . See Matth. iii. 10.
John xv. 6.
CHAP. XVI.
Still God is justifying himself in the desolations he is
about to bring upon Jerusalem; and very largely, in
this chapter, he shows the prophet, and orders him to
show the people, that he did but punish them as their
sins deserved. In the foregoing chapter, he had com¬
pared Jerusalem to an unfruitful vine, that was fit for
nothing but the lire; in this chapter, he compares it to
an adulteress, that, in justice, ought to be abandoned and
exposed; and he must therefore show the people their
abominations, that they might see how little reason they I
had to complain of the judgments they were under. In
this long discourse are set forth, I. The despicable
and deplorable beginnings of that church and nation, v.
3. . 5. II. The many honours and favours God had be¬
stowed upon them, v. 6 . . 14. III. Their treacherous and
ungrateful departures from him to the services and wor¬
ship of idols, here represented by the most impudent
whoredom, v. 15 . . 34. IV. A threatening of terrible,
destroying judgments, which God would bring upon
them for this sin, v. 35. .43. V. An aggravation both of
their sin and their punishment, by comparison with
Sodom and Samaria, v. 44- -59. VI. A promise of mercy
in the close, which God would show to a penitent rem¬
nant, v. 60. .63. and this is designed for admonition to us.
1. 4 GAIN the word of the Lord came
f\. unto me, saying, 2. Son of man,
cause Jerusalem to know her abominations,
3. And say, Thus saith the Lord God unto
Jerusalem, Thy birth and thy nativity is of
the land of Canaan; thy father was an
Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite. 4. And
as for thy nativity, in the day thou wast
born, thy navel was not cut, neither wast
thou washed in water to supple thee: thou
wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all.
5. None eye pitied thee, to do any of these
unto thee, to have compassion upon thee;
but thou wast cast out in the open field, to
the loathing of thy person, in the day that
thou wast born.
Ezekiel is now among the captives in Babylon;
but as Jeremiah at Jerusalem wrote for the use of
the captives, though they had Ezekiel upon the spot
with them, ( ch . 29.) so Ezekiel wrote for the use
of Jerusalem, though Jeremiah himself was resident
there; and yet they were far from looking upon it
as an affront to one another, or an interference with
one another’s business; for ministers have need of
one another’s help, both by preaching and writing.
Jeremiah wrote to the captives for their consolation,
which was the thing they needed; Ezekiel here is
directed to write to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for
their conviction and humiliation, which was the
thing they needed. This is his commission, ( v . 2.)
“ Cause Jerusalem to know her abominations, her
sins; set them in order before her.” Note, (1.)
Sins are not only / irovocations which God is angry
at, but abominations which he hates, as contrary to
his nature, and which we ought to hate, Jer. xliv.
4. (2.) The sins of Jerusalem are in a special man¬
ner so. The practice of profaneness appears most
odious in those that make a profession of religion.
(3.) Though Jerusalem is a place of great know¬
ledge, yet she is loath to know her abominations; so
partial are men in their own favour, that they are
hardly made to see and own their own badness, but
deny it, palliate or extenuate it. (4.) It is requisite
tnat we should know our sins, that we may confess
them, and may justify God in what he brings upon
us for them. (5.) It is the work of ministers to
cause sinners, sinners in Jerusalem, to know their
;l, xvi.
abominations; to set before them the glass of the
law, that in it they may see their own deformities
and defilements; to tell them plainly of their faults;
Thou art the man.
Now, that Jerusalem may be made to know her
abominations, and particularly the abominable in¬
gratitude she had been guilty of, it was requisite
that she should be put in mind of the great things
God had done for her, as the aggravations of her
bad conduct toward him; and, to magnify these fa¬
vours, she is, in these verses, made to know the
meanness and baseness of her original, from what
poor beginnings God raised her, and how unworthy
she was of his favour, and of the honour he had put
upon her. Jerusalem is here put for the Jewish
church and nation, which is here Compared to an
outcast child, base-born and abandoned, which the
mother herself has no affection or concern for.
1. The extraction of the Jewish nation was mean;
“ Thy birth is of the land of Canaan; (v. 3.) theu
hadst from the very first the spirit and disposition
of a Canaanite. ” The patriarchs dwelt in Canaan,
and they were there but strangers and sojourners,
had no possession, no power, not one foot of ground
of their own, but a burying-place. Abraham and
Sarah were indeed their father and mother, but
they were only inmates with the Amorites and Hit-
tites, who, having the dominion, seemed to be as
parents to the seed of Abraham, witness the court
Abraham made to the children of Heth, (Gen. xxiii.
4, 8.) and the dependence they had upon their
neighbours the Canaanites, and the fear they were
in of them, Gen. xiii. 7. — xxxiv. 30. If the pa¬
triarchs, at their first coming to Canaan, had con¬
quered it, and made themselves masters of it, it had
put an honour upon their family, and had looked
great in history; but, instead of that, they went from
one nation to another, (Ps. cv. 13.) as tenants from
one farm to another, almost as beggars from one
door to another, when they were but few in number,
yea, very few. And yet this was 'not the worst;
their fathers had served other gods in Ur of the
Chaldees; (Josh. xxiv. 2.) even in Jacob’s family
there were strange gods, Gen. xxxv. 2. Thus
early had they a genius leading them to idolatry:
and upon this account their ancestors were Amorites
and Hittites.
2. When they first began to multiply, their con¬
dition was really very deplorable, like that of anew-
born child, which must of necessity die from the
womb if the knees prevent it not, Job iii. 11, 12.
The children of Israel, when they began to increase
into a people and became considerable, were thrown
out from the country that was intended for them, a
famine drove them thence. Egypt was the open
field into which they were cast; there they had no
protection or countenance from the government they
were under, but, on the contrary, were ruled with
rigour, and their lives imbittered; they had no en¬
couragement given them to build up their families;
no help to build up their estates, no friends or allies
to strengthen their interests. Joseph, who had been
the shepherd and stone of Israel, was dead; the king
of Egypt, who should have been kind to them for
Joseph’s sake, set himself to destroy this man-child
as soon as it was bom, (Rev. xii. 4.) ordered all the
males to be slain, which, it is likely, occasioned the
exposing of many as well as Moses, to which per¬
haps the similitude here has reference. The foun¬
ders of nations and cities had occasion for all the arts
and arms they were masters of, set their heads on
work, by policies and stratagems, to preserve and
nurse up their infant-states. Tantx molis erat jRo-
manam condere gentem — So vast were the efforts re¬
quisite to the establishment of the Romati name.
Virg. But the nation of Israel had no such care
taken of it. no such pains taken with it, as Athens
663
EZEKIEL, XVI.
Sparta, Rome, and other commonwealths, had
when they were first founded, but, on the contrary,
was doomed to destruction, like an infant new-born,
exposed to wind and weather, the navel-string- not
cut, the poor babe not 'washed, not clothed, not
swaddled, because not pitied, v. 4, 5. Note, We
owe the preservation of our infant-lives to the natu¬
ral pity and compassion which the God of nature
lias put into the hearts of parents and nurses toward
new-born children. This infant is said to be cast
out, to the loathing of her person : it was a sign that
she was loathed by those that bare her, and she ap¬
peared loathsome to all that looked upon her. The
Israelites were an abomination to the Egyptians, as
we find, Gen xliii. 32. — xlvi. 34.
Some think that this refers to the corrupt and vi¬
cious disposition of that people from their beginning:
they were not only the weakest and fewest of all
people, (Deut. viil 7. ) but the worst and most ill-
humoured of all people; God giveth thee this good
land, not for thy righteousness, for thou art a stiff¬
necked people, Deut. ix. 6. And Moses tells them
there, (v. 24.) You have been rebellious against
the Lord from the day that I knew you. They
were not suppled, nor washed, nor swaddled; they
were not at all tractable or manageable, nor cast
into any good shape. God took them to be his
people, not because he saw any thing in them in¬
viting or promising, but so it seemed good in his
sight. And it is a very apt illustration ot the miser¬
able condition of all the children of men by nature.
As for owv nativity in the day that we were born,
we were shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin, our
understandings darkened, our minds alienated from
the life of God, polluted with sin, which rendered
us loathsome in the eyes of God. Marvel not then
that we are told, Ye must be born again.
G. And when I passed by thee, and saw
thee polluted in thine own blood, I said
unto thee, ivhcn thou wast in thy blood, Live;
yea, I said unto thee, token thou toast in thy
blood, Live. 7. I have caused thee to mul¬
tiply as the bud of the field, and thou hast
increased and waxen great, and thou art
come to excellent ornaments: thy breasts
are fashioned, and thy hair is grown,
ivhereas thou toast naked and bare. 8.
Mow when I passed by thee, and looked
upon thee, behold, thy time was the time
of love; and I spread my skirt over thee,
and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware
unto thee, and entered into a covenant with
thee, saith the Lord God, and thou be-
camest mine. 9. Then washed I thee with
water; yea, I thoroughly washed away thy
blood from thee, and I anointed thee with
oil. 10. I clothed thee also with broider-
cd work, and shod thee with badgers’ skin,
and I girded thee about with fine linen, and
I covered thee with silk. 1 1 . I decked thee
also with ornaments, and I put bracelets
upon thy hands, and a chain on thy neck.
12, And I put a jewel on thy forehead, and
ear-rings in thine ears, and a beautiful crown
upon thy head. 13. Thus wast thou decked
with gold and silver; and thy raiment was
f fine linen, and silk, and broidered work:
(hou didst eat fine flour, and honey, and
oil; and thou wast exceeding beautiful, and
thou didst prosper into a kingdom. 14. And
thy renown went forth among the heathen
for thy beauty: for it was perfect through
my comeliness, which I had put upon thee,
saith the Lord God.
In these verses, we have an account of the great
things which God did for the Jewish nation, in
raising them up by degrees to be very considerable.
1. God saved them from the ruin they were upon
the brink of in Egypt; (v. 6.) “ When I passed by
thee and saw thee polluted in thine own blood,
loathed and abandoned, and appointed to die, as
sheep for the slaughter, then I suid unto thee, Live.
I designed thee for life when thou wast doomed to
destruction, and resolved to save thee from death.”
Those shall live, to whom God commands life.
God looked upon the world of mankind as thus cast
off, thus cast out, thus polluted, thus weltering in
blood, and his thoughts toward it were thoughts of
good, designing it life, and that more abundantly.
By converting grace, he says to the soul, Live.
2. He looked upon them with kindness and a
tender affection, not only pitied them, but set his
love upon them, which was unaccountable, for there
was nothing lovely in them; but I looked upon thee
and behold, thy time was the time of love, v. 8. I
was the kindness and love of God our Saviour, that
sent Christ to redeem us, that sends the Spirit to
sanctify us, that brought us out of a state of nature
into a state of grace; that was a time of love indeed,
distinguishing love, 'when God manifested his love
to us, and courted our love to him ; Then was I in
his eyes as one that found favour, Cant. viii. 10.
3. He took them under his protection; “ I spread
my skirt over thee, to shelter thee from wind and
weather, and to cover thy nakedtiess, that the shame
of it might not appear. ” Boaz spread his skirt over
Ruth, in token of the special favour he designed her,
Ruth iii. 9. God took them into his care, as an
eagle bears her young ones upon her wings, Deut.
xxxii. 11, 12. When God owned them for his
people, and sent Moses to Egypt to deliver them,
which was an expression of the good-will of him
that dwelt in the bush, then he spread his skirt over
them.
4. He cleared them from the reproachful charac¬
ter which their bondage in Egypt laid them under;
(y. 9.) “ Then washed I thee with water, to make
thee clean, and anointed thee with oil, to make thee
sweet, and. supple thee.” All the disgrace of their
slavery was rolled away, when they were brought,
with a high hand and a stretched-out arm, into the
glorious liberty of the children of God; when God
said, Israel is my son, my first-born. Let my people
go, that they may serve me. That word, backed as
it was with so many works of wonder, thoroughly
washed away their blood; and when God led them
under the convoy of the pillar of cloud and^fre, lie
spread his skirt over them.
5. He multiplied them and built them up into a
people. This is here mentioned, (v. 7.) before his
spreading his skirt over them, because their numbers
increased exceedingly, while they were yet bond-
slaves in Egypt; they multiplied as the bud of the
held in spring-time,' they waxed great, exceeding
mighty, (Exod. i. ", 20.) their breasts were fashion¬
ed, -when they were formed into distinct tribes, and
had officers of their own, (Exod. v. 19.) their hair
grew when they grew numerous, whereas they had
been naked and bare, very few, and therefore con¬
temptible. .
6. He admitted them into covenant with himself.
See what glorious nuptials this poor forlorn infan' is
preferred to at last! How she is dignified, who a-
654
EZEKIEL, XVi.
first had scarcely her life given her for a prey; I
sware unto thee, and entered into covenant with
thee; this was done at Mount Sinai, when the cove¬
nant between God and Israel was sealed and ratified,
t.ien thou becamest mine. God called them his
people, and himself the God of Israel. Note, Those
to whom God gives spiritual life he takes into cove¬
nant with himself; by that covenant they become
his subjects and servants, that intimates their duty;
his portion, his treasure, that intimates their privi¬
lege; and it is confirmed with an oath, that we
might have strong consolation.
7. He beautified and adorned them. This maid
cannot forget her ornaments, and she is gratified with
abundance of them, v. 10. — 13. We need not be
particular in the application of these; .her wardrobe
was well furnished with rich apparel, they had em¬
broidered work to wear, shoes of fine badgers’ skins,
linen girdles, and silk veils, bracelets and necklaces,
jewels and ear-rings, and even a beautiful crown,
or coronet; perhaps this may refer to the jewels and
other rich goods which they took from the Egyp¬
tians, which might well be spoken of thus long after
as a merciful circumstance of their deliverance,
when it was spoken of long before, (Gen. xv. 14.)
They shall come out with great substance. Or, it
may be taken figuratively for all those blessings of
heaven which adorned both their church and state.
In a little time they came to excellent ornaments,
v. 7. The laws and ordinances which God gave
them, were to them as ornaments of grace to the
head, and chains about the neck, Prov i. 9. God’s
sanctuary, which he set up among them, was a beau¬
tiful crown upon their head; it was the beauty of
holiness.
8. He fed them with abundance, with plenty,
with dainties; Thou didst eat fine flour, and honey,
and oil; manna, angels’ food; honey out of the rock,
oil out of the flinty rock. In Canaan they did eat
nread to the full, the finest of the wheat, Deut.
xxxii. 13, 14. Those whom God takes into cove¬
nant with himself are fed with the bread of life,
clothed with the robe of righteousness, adorned
with the graces and comforts of the spirit; the
hidden man of the heart is that which is incorrup¬
tible.
9. He gave them a great reputation among their
neighbours, and made them considerable, accepta¬
ble to their friends and allies, and formidable to
their adversaries; Thou didst prosper into a king¬
dom; ( v . 13.) which speaks both dignity and do¬
minion; and, ( v . 14.) Thy renown went forth
among the heathen for thy beauty; the nations about
had their eve upon them, and admired them for the
excellent laws by which they were governed, the
privilege they had of access to God, Deut. iv. 7, 8.
Solomon’s wisdom, and Solomon’s temple, were
very much the renown of that nation; and if we
put all the privileges of the Jewish church and
kingdom together, we must own that it was the
most accomplished beauty of all the nations of the
earth; the beauty of it was perfect, you could not
name the thing that would be the honour of a peo¬
ple but it was to be found in Israel, in David’s and
Solomon’s time, when that kingdom was. in its
zenith; piety, learning, wisdom, justice, victory,
peace, wealth; and all sure to continue if they had
kept close to God. It was perfect, saith God,
dirough my comeliness which I had put upon thee;
through the beauty of their holiness, as they were
a people set apart for God, and devoted to him, to
be to him for a name, and for a praise, and for a
glory. This was it that put a lustre upon all their
other honours, and was indeed the perfection of
their beauty. W e may apply this spiritually; sanc¬
tified souls are truly beautiful, they are so ir God’s
sight, and they themselves may take the comfort of il
it. But God must have all the glory, for they were
by nature deformed and polluted, and, whatever
comeliness they have, it is that which God has put
upon them, and beautified them with, and he will
be well pleased with the work of his own hands.
15. But thou didst trust in thine own
beauty, and playedst the harlot because of
thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornica¬
tions on every one that passed by; his it
was. 16. And of thy garments thou didst
take, and deckedst thy high places with di¬
vers colours, and playedst the harlot there¬
upon : the like, things shall not come, nei¬
ther shall it be so. 17. Thou hast also
taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my
silver, which 1 had given thee, and madest
to thyself images of men, and didst commit
whoredom with them; 18. And tookest
thy broidered garments, and coveredst them:
and thou hast set mine oil and mine incense
before them. 19. My meat also which I
gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey,
wherewith 1 fed thee, thou hast even set it
before them for a sweet savour: and tints it
was, saith the Lord God. 20. Moreover,
thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters,
whom thou hast borne unto me, and these
hast thou sacrificed unto them to be devour¬
ed. Is this of t hy whoredoms a small matter,
21. That thou hast slain my children, and
delivered them to cause them to pass through
the fire for them? 22. And in all thine
abominations and thy whoredoms thou hast
not remembered the days of thy youth,
when thou wast naked and bare, cnid wast
polluted in thy blood. 23. And it came to
pass, after all thy wickedness, (wo, wo unto
thee! saith the Lord God,) 24. That thou
hast also built unto thee an eminent place,
and hast made thee a high place in every
street. 25. Thou hast built thy high plac e
at every head of the way, and hast made
thy beauty to he abhorred, and hast opened
thy feet to every one that passed hy, and
multiplied thy whoredoms. 26. Thou hast
also committed fornication with the Egyp¬
tians thy neighbours, great of flesh; and
hast increased thy whoredoms, to provoke
me to anger. 27. Behold, therefore, I have
stretched out my hand over thee, and have
diminished thine ordinary food , and deliver¬
ed thee unto the will of them that hate thee,
the daughters of the Philistines, which are
ashamed of thy lewd way. 28. Thou hast
played the whore also with the Assyrians,
because thou wast unsatiahle; yea, thou
hast played the harlot with them, and yet
couldest not be satisfied. 29. Thou hast,
moreover, multiplied thy fornication in the
land of Canaan unto Chaldea, and yet thou
G5A
EZEKIEL, XVI.
wast not satisfied herewith. 30. How weak
is thy heart, saith the Lord God, seeing
thou doest all these things, the work of an
imperious whorish woman; 31. In that
thou buildest thine eminent place in the
head of every way, and makest thy high
place in every street ; and hast not been as
a harlot, in that thou scornest hire; 32.
But as a wife that committeth adultery,
which taketh strangers instead of her hus¬
band ! 33. They give gifts to all whores ;
but thou givest thy gifts to all thy lovers,
and hirest them, that they may come unto
thee on every side for thy whoredom. 34.
And the contrary is in thee from other wo¬
men in thy whoredoms, whereas none fol-
loweth thee to commit whoredoms: and in
that thou givest a reward, and no reward is
given unto thee ; therefore thou art contrary.
In these verses we have an account of the great
wickedness of the people of Israel, especially in
worshipping idols, notwithstanding the great fa¬
vours that God had conferred upon them, by which,
one would think, they should have been for ever
engaged to him. This wickedness of theirs is here
represented by the lewd and scandalous conversa¬
tion of that beautiful maid which was rescued from
ruin, brought up and well provided for by a kind
Friend and Benefactor, that had been in all respects
as a Father and a Husband to her.
I. Their idolatry was the great provoking sin
that they were guilty of; it began in the latter end
of Solomon’s time, (for from Samuel’s till then I do |
not remember that we read any thing of it,) and
from thence continued more or less the crying sin
of that nation till the captivity; and though it now
and then met with some check from the reforming
kings, yet it was never totally suppressed, and for
the most part appeared to a high degree impudent
and barefaced. They not only worshipped the
true God by images, as the ten tribes by the calves
at Dan and Bethel, but they worshipped false gods,
Baal and Moloch, and all the senseless rabble of
the pagan deities.
II. This is that which is here all along represent¬
ed (as often elsewhere) under the similitude of
whoredom and adultery. 1. Because it is the vio¬
lation of a marriage-covenant with God, forsaking
him, and embracing the bosom of a stranger; it is
giving that affection and that service to his rivals,
which are due to him alone. 2. Because it is the
corrupting and defiling of the mind, and the en¬
slaving of the spiritual part of the man, and sub¬
jecting it to the power and dominion of sense, as
whoredom is. 3. Because it debauches the con¬
science, sears and hardens it; and those who by
their idolatries dishonour the divine nature, and
change the truth of God into a lie, and his glory
into shame, God justly punishes by giving them
over to a reprobate mind to dishonour the human
nature with vile affections, Rom. i. 23, &c. It is a
besotting, bewitching sin; and when men are given
up to it, they seldom recover themselves out of the
snare. 4. Because it is a shameful, scandalous sin,
for those that have joined themselves to the Lord,
to join themselves to an idol. Now observe here,
(1.) What were the causes of this sin; how came
the people of God to be drawn away to the service
of idols: How came a virgin so well taught, so well
educated, to be debauched? Who would have
thought it? But, [1.] They grew proud; (v. 15.)
“ Thou trustedst to thy beauty, and didst expect
that that should make thee an interest, and didst
filay the harlot because of thy renown.” They
thought, because they were so complimented and
admired by their neighbours, that, further to in
gradate themselves with them, and return theii
compliments, they must join with them in their
worship, and conform themselves to their usages
Solomon admitted idolatry to gratify his wives ana
their relations. Note, Abundance of young people
are ruined by pride, and particularly pride in their
beauty. Rara est concordia formes atque pudicitice
— Beauty and chastity are seldom associated. [2.]
Theyforgot their beginning; ( v . 22.) “Thou hast not
remembered the days of thy youth, how poor and
mean and despicable thou wast, and what great
things God did for thee, and what lasting obligations
he laid upon thee thereby.” Note, It would be an
effectual check to our pride and sensuality, to con¬
sider what we are, and how much we are beholden
to the free grace of God. [3.] They were weak
in understanding and in resolution; ( v . 30.) How
•weak is thy heart, seeing thou dost all these things.
Note, The strength of men’s lusts is an evidence of
the weakness of their hearts; they have no ac¬
quaintance with themselves, nor government of
themselves. She is weak, and yet an imperious,
whorish woman. Note, Those that are most fool¬
ish are commonly most imperious, and think them¬
selves fit to manage others when they are far from
being able to manage themselves.
(2.) What were the particulars of it.
[1.] They worshipped all the idols that came in
their way; all that they were ever courted to the
worship of; they were at the beck of all their
neighbours; (r\ 15.) Thou pouredst out thy forni¬
cations on every one that { tossed by, his it was.
They were ready to close with every temptation of
this kind, though ever so absurd. No foreign idol
could be imported, no new god invented, but they
were ready to catch at it; as a common strumpet
that prostitutes herself to all new comers, and mul-
tifilies her whoredoms, v. 25. Thus some common
drunkards will be company for every one that puts
up the finger to them; how weak are the hearts of
such!
[2.] They adorned their idol-temples, and groves,
and high places, with the fine, rich clothing that
God had given them; ( v . 16, 18.) Thou deckedst
thy high / ilaces with divers colours, with the coats
of divers colours, like Joseph’s, which God ljad
given them as particular marks of his favour, and
hast played the harlot, worshipped idols thereupon;
of this he saith, The like things shall not come;
neither shall it be so; this is a thing by no means to
be suffered; I will never endure such practices as
these without showing my retentments.”
[3.] They made images for worship of the jew¬
els which God had given them; (v. 17.) the jewels
of my gold and my silver, which 1 had given thee.
Note, It is God that gives us our gold and silver;
the products of trade, of art and industry, are the
gifts of God’s providence to us, as well as the fruits
of the earth. And what God gives us the use of he
still retains a property in; it is my silver and my
gold, though I have given it thee. It is his still, so
that we ought to serve and honour him with it, and
are accountable to him for the disposal of it. Every
i penny has God’s image upon it as well as Cresar’s.
Should we make our silver and gold, our plate,
l money, jewels, the matter of our pride and conten¬
tion, our covetousness and prodigality, if we duly
considered that it is God’s silver and his gold?
The Israelites began betimes to turn their jewels
into idols, when Aaron made the golden calf of their
ear-rings.
[4. ] They served their idols with the good things
656
EZEKIEL, XVI.
■which God gave them for their own use, and to
serve him with; (t. 18.) “ Thou hast set mine oil
and my incense before them, upon their altars, as
perfumes to these dunghill deities; my meat, and
fine four, and oil, and that honey which Canaan
flowed with, and wherewith I fed thee, thou hast
regaled them and their hungry priests with; hast
made an offering of it to them for a sweet savour, to
purify them, and procure acceptance with them:
and thus it was, saith the Lord God; it is too
plain to be denied, too bad to be excused. These
things thou hast done. He that knows all things,
knows it.” See how fond they were of their idols,
that they would part with that which was given
them for the necessary subsistence of themselves
and their families, to honour them with; which may
shame our niggardliness and strait-handedness in
the service of the true and living God.
[5.] They had sacrificed their children to their
idols. This is insisted upon here, and often else¬
where, as one of the worst instances of their idola¬
try, as indeed there was none in which the devil
triumphed so much over the children of men, both
their natural reason and their natural affection, as
in this; (seeJer. vii. 31. — xix. 5. — xxxii. 35.) Thou
hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, and not only
made them to pass through the fire, or between two
fires, in token of their being dedicated to Moloch,
but thou hast sacrificed them to be devoured, v. 20.
Never was there such an instance of the degenerat¬
ing of the paternal authority into the most barbarous
tyranny as this was. Yet that was'not the worst of
it; it was an irreparable wrong to God himself, who
challenged a special property in their children more
than in their gold and silver, and their meat; They
are my children, (i>. 21.) the sons and daughters
which thou hast borne unto me, v. 20. He is the
Father of spirits, and rational souls are in a parti¬
cular manner his; and therefore the taking away of
life, human life, unjustly, is a high affront to the
God tf life. But the children of Israelites were his
by a further right; they were the children of the
covenant, born in God’s house. He had said to
Abraham, I will be a God to thee and to thy seed;
they had the seal of the covenant in their flesh from
eight days old; they were to bear God’s name, and
keep up his church; to murder them was in the
highest degree inhuman, but to murder them in
honour of an idol was in the highest degree impious.
One cannot think of it without the utmost indigna¬
tion: to see the pitiless hands of the parents shed¬
ding the guiltless blood of their own children, and
by offering those pieces of themselves to the devil
for dying sacrifices, openly avowing the offering up
of themselves to him for living sacrifices! How
absurd was this, that the children which were born
to God, should be sacrificed to devils! Note, The
children of parents that are members of the visible
church, are to be looked upon as born unto God,
and his children; as such, and under that character,
we are to love them, and pray for them, bring them
up for him, and, if he calls for them, cheerfully part
with them to him; for may he not do what he will
w th his own ? Upon this instance of their idolatry,
which indeed ought not to pass without a particular
brand, this remark is made, (r>. 20.) Is this of thy
whoredoms a small matter? Which intimates, that
there were those who made a small matter of it,
and turned it into a jest. Note, There is no sin so
heinous, so apparently heinous, which men of pro¬
fligate consciences will not make a mock at. But is
whoredom, is spiritual whoredom, a small matter?
Is it a small matter for men to make their children
brutes, and the devil their god? It will be a great
matter shortly.
T6. ] They built temples in honour of their idols,
that others might be invited to resort thither, and
1 join with them in the worship cf their idols; ‘ ‘ .4f
ter all thy wickedness of this kind committed in pri¬
vate, for which, wo, wo unto thee,” (that comes in
a sad parenthesis, denoting those to be in a woful
condition, who are going on in sin, and giving them
warning in time, if they would but take it,) “ thou
hast at length arrived at such a pitch cf impudence
as to proclaim it; thou hast long had a whore’s
heart, but now thou art come to have a whore’s
forehead, and canst not blush,” v. 23. — 25. Thou
hast built there an eminent place, a brothel-house;
(so the margin reads it:) and such their idol-tem¬
ples were. Thou hast made thee a high place, for
one idol or other, in every street, and at every head
of the way; and again, v. 31. They did all they
could to seduce and debauch ethers, and to spread
the contagion, by making the temptations to idola¬
try as strong as possibly they could; and hereby the
ringleaders in idolatry did but make themselves vile,
and even those that had courted them to it, finding
themselves outdone by them, began to be surfeited
with the abundance and violence cf their idolatries;
Thou hast made thy beauty to be abhorred, even
by those that had admired it. The Jewish nation,
by leaving their own God, and doting on the gods
of the nations round about them, had made them¬
selves mean and despicable in the eyes even of their
heathen neighbours: much more was their beauty
abhorred by ail that were wise and good, and had
any concern for the honour cf God and religion.
Note, Those shame themselves, that bring a re¬
proach on their profession. And justly will that
beauty, that excellency, at length be made the ob¬
ject of the loathing of others, which men have made
the matter of their own pride.
(3.) What were the aggravations of this sin.
[1.] They were fond of the idols of those nations
which had been their oppressors and persecutors.
As, First, The Egyptians; they were a people no¬
torious for idolatry, and for the most sottish, sense¬
less idolatries; they had of old abused them by their
barbarous dealings, and of late by their treacherous
dealings — were always either cruel or false to them ;
and yet so infatuated were they, that they commit¬
ted fornication with the Fgyptians their neighbours,
not only by joining with them in their idolatries, but
by entering into leagues and alliances with them,
and depending upon them for help in their straits,
which was an adulterous departure from God. Se¬
condly, The Assyrians; they had also been vexa¬
tious to Israel; “And yet thou hast played the
whore with them; (v. 28.) though they lived at a
greater distance, yet thou hast entertained their
idols and their superstitious usages, and so hast
multiplied thy fornications unto Chaldea, hast bor¬
rowed images of gods, patterns of altars, rites of
sacrificing, and one foolery or other of that kind,
from that remote country, that enemy’s country,
and hast imported them into the land of Canaan,
enfranchised and established them there.” Thus
Mr. George Herbert long since foretold, or feared
at least.
That Seine shall swallow Tiber, and the Thames,
By letting in them both, pollute her streams.
[2.] They had been under the rebukes of Provi¬
dence for their sins, and yet they persisted in them ;
(t>. 27. ) I have stretched out mij hand over thee,
to threaten and frighten thee; so God did before
lie laid his hand upon them to ruin and destroy
them; and that is his usual method, to try to bring
men to repentance first by lesser judgments; he did
so here. Before lie brought such a famine upon
them as broke the staff of bread, he diminished
their ordinary food, cut them short before he cut
them off. When the overplus is abused, it is just
with God to diminish that which is for necessity
Before he deliverer 'hem to the Chaldeans to be
657
EZEKIEL, XVJ.
destroyed, he delivered them to the daughters of
the Philistines to be ridiculed, for their idolatries;
(or they hated them, and, though they were idola¬
ters themselves, yet were ashamed of the lewd way
of the Israelites, who were grown more profane in
their idolatries than any of their neighbours; who
changed their gods, whereas other nations did not
change theirs; (Jer. ii. 10, 11.) for this they were
justly chastised by the Philistines. Or, it may re¬
fer to the inroads which the Philistines made upon
the south of Judah in the reign of Ahaz, by which
it was weakened and impoverished, and which was
the beginning of sorrows to them; (2 Ghron. xxviii.
18.) but they did not take warning by those judg¬
ments, and therefore were justly abandoned to ruin
at last. Note, In the account which impenitent sin¬
ners shall be called to, they will be told not only of
tile mercies for which they have been ungrateful,
but of the afflictions under which they have been
incorrigible, Amos iv. 11.
[3.] They were insatiable in their spiritual
whoredom; Thou couldest not be satisfied, v. 28.
and again, v. 29. When they had multiplied their
idols and superstitious usages beyond measure, yet
still they were inquiring after new gods and new
fashions in worship. They that in sincerity join
themselves to the true God, find enough in him for
their satisfaction; and though they still desire more
of God, yet they never desire more than God; but
they that forsake this living Fountain for broken
cisterns, will find themselves soon surfeited, but
never satisfied; they have soon enough of the gods
they have, and are still inquiring after more.
[4.] They were at great expense with their
idolatry, and laid out a great deal of wealth in pur¬
chasing patterns of images and altars, and hiring
priests to attend upon them from other countries.
Harlots generally had their hires; but this impu¬
dent adulteress, instead of being hired to serve idols,
hired idols to protect her, and accept her homage.
This is much insisted on, ( v . 31. — 34.) “In this
respect the contrary is in thee from other women in
thy whoredoms: others are courted, but thou makest
court to those that do not follow thee; art fond of
making leagues and alliances with those heathen
nations that despise thee: others have gifts given
them, but thou givest thy gifts, the gifts which God
had graciously given thee, to thine idols; herein like
a wife that commits adultery, not for gain, as har¬
lots do, but entirely for the sin’s sake.” Note,
Spiritual lusts, those of the mind, such as theirs af¬
ter idols were, are often as strong and impetuous as
any carnal lusts are. And it is a great aggravation
of sin when men are their own tempters, and, in- j
stead of proposing to themselves any worldly ad¬
vantage by it, are at great expense with it; such
are transgressors without cause, (Ps. xxv. 3.)
wicked transgressors indeed.
And now is not Jerusalem in all this made to know
her abominations? For what greater abominations
could she be guilty of than these? Here we may see
with wonder and horror what the corrupt nature of
men is when God leaves them to themselves, yea,
though they have the greatest advantages to be bet¬
ter and do better. And the way of sin is down-hill.
JVitimur in vetitum — We incline to the forbidden.
35. Wherefore, O harlot, hear the word
of the Lord: 36. Thus saith the Lord
God, Because thy filthiness was poured out,
and thy nakedness discovered through thy
whoredoms with thy lovers, and with all the
idols of thine abominations, and by the
blood of thy children, which thou didst give
unto them: 37. Behold, therefore, I will
Vol. IV- — 4 O
gather all thy lovers, with whom thou liasi
taken pleasure, and all them that thou hast
loved, with all them that thou hast hated,
I will even gather them round about against
thee, and will discover thy nakedness unto
them, that they may see all thy nakedness.
38. And I will judge thee, as women that
break wedlock, and shed blood, are judged:
and I will give thee blood in fury and jeal¬
ousy. 39. And I will also give thee into
their hand, and they shall throw down thine
eminent place, and shall break down thy
high places: they shall strip thee also of thy
clothes, and shall take thy fair jewels, and
leave thee naked and bare. 40. They shall
also bring up a company against thee, and
they shall stone thee with stones, and thrust
thee through with their swords. 41. And
they shall burn thy houses with fire, and ex¬
ecute judgments upon thee in the sight of
many women : and I will cause thee to
cease from playing the harlot, and thou also
shall give no hire any more. 42. So w ill 1
make my fury towards thee to rest, and my
jealousy shall depart from thee, and I will
be quiet, and will be no more angry. 43.
Because thou hast not remembered the
days of thy youth, but hast fretted me in all
these things; behold, therefore, I also will
recompense thy way upon thy head, saith
the Lord God; and thou shalt not commit
this lewdness above all thine abominations.
Adultery was by the law of Moses made a c'apital
crime; this notorious adulteress, the criminal at the
bar, being in the foregoing verses found guilty, here
has sentence passed upon her. It is ushered in with
solemnity, v. 35. The prophet, as the judge, in
God’s name calls to her, 0 harlot, hear the word of
the Lord. Our Saviour preached to harlots for
their conversion, to bring them into the kingdom
of God, not as the prophet here, to expel them out
of it. Note, An apostate church is a harlot; Jeru¬
salem is so if she become idolatrous. How is the
faithful city become a harlot'. Rome is so repre¬
sented in the Revelation, then when it is marked for
ruin, as Jerusalem here; (Rev. xvii. 1.) Come, and
I will show thee the judgments of the great whore.
Those who will not hear the commanding word of
the Lord and obey it, shall be made to hear the con¬
demning word of the Lord and shall all tremble at
it. Let us attend while judgment is given.
I. The crime is repeated, and the articles of the
charge arc summed up, ( v . 36.) and (as is usual)
with the attendant aggravations; (v. 43.) for when
God speaks in wrath, he will be justified, and clear
when he judges, clear when he is judged; and sin¬
ners, when they are condemned, shall have their
sins so set in order before them, that their mouth
shall be stopped, and they shall not have a word to
object against the equity of the sentence. The
crimes which this harlot stands convicted of, and is
now to be condemned for, are, 1. The violation ol
the two first commandments of the first table, by
idolatry ; which is here called her whoredoms with
her lovers ; so she called them, (Hos. ii. 12 ) be¬
cause she loved them as if they had been indeed
her benefactors ; that is, with all the idols of her
EZEKIEL, XVI.
65b
abominations, the abominable idols which she serv¬
ed and worshipped. This was the sin which pro¬
voked God to jealousy. 2. The violation of the
two first commandments of the second table, by the
murder of their own innocent infants; the blood of
thy children which thou didst give unto them. It is
not strange if those that have cast off God and his
fear, break through the strongest and most sacred
bonds of natural affection.
The sins are aggravated from the consideration,
(1.) Of the dishonour they had thereby done to
themselves; “ Hereby thy filthiness was floured out;
the uncleanness that was in thy heart was hereby
discovered and brought to light, and thy nakedness
was exposed to view, and thou thereby exposed to
contempt.” God is displeased with his professing
people for shaming themselves by their sins. (2.)
Their base ingratitude is another aggravation of
their sins; “ Thou hast not remembered the days
of thy youth, and the kindness that was done thee
then, when otherwise thou hadst perished,” v. 43.
And, (3.) The vexation which their sins gave to
God, whom they ought to have pleased; “ Thou
bast fretted me in all these things; not only angered
me, but grieved me.” It is a strange expression,
and, one would think, enough to melt a heart of
stone, that the great God, who cannot admit any
uneasiness, is pleased to speak of the sins and follies
of his professing people as fretting to him. Forty
years long was I grieved with this generation.
II. The sentence is passed in general; I will
judge thee as women that break wedlock, and shed
blood, are judged; ( v . 38. ) those two crimes were
punished with death, with an ignominious de^fth;
“Thou hast shed blood, and therefore I will give
thee blood; thou hast broken wedlock, and therefore
I will give it thee, not only in justice, but in jealousy,
not only as a righteous Judge, but as an injured and
incensed Husband, who will not sfiarein the day of
vengeance,” Prov. vi. 34, 35. He will recompense
their way upon their head, v. 43. In all the judg¬
ments God executes upon sinners, we must see their
own way recom/iensea upon their head; they are
dealt with not only as they deserved, but as they
procured; it is the end which their sin, as a way,
had a direct tendency to. More particularly,
1. This criminal must be (as is usually done with
criminals) exposed to public shame, v. 37. Male¬
factors are not executed privately, but are made a
spectacle to the world; care is here taken to bring
•spectators together; “ All them whom thou hast
loved, with whom thou hast taken pleasure, shall
come to be witnesses of the execution, that they
may take warning, and prevent their own like ruin;
and those also whom thou hast hated, who will in¬
sult over thee, and triumph in thy fall.” Both
ways the calamities of Jerusalem will be aggravated,
that they, will be the grief of her friends and the
joy of her foes. These shall not only be gathered
around her, but gathered against her; even those
with whom she took unlawful pleasure, with whom
she contracted unlawful leagues, the Egyptians and
Assyrians, shall now contribute to her ruin. As
when a man’s ways please the Lord, he makes even
his enemies to be at peace with him, so when a man’s
ways displease the Lord, he makes even his friends
to be at war with him; and justly makes those a
scourge and a plague to sinners, and instruments of
their destruction, who were their tempters, and
with whom they were partakers in wickedness.
Those whom they have suffered to strip them of
their virtue, shall see them stript, and perhaps help
to strip them, of all their other ornaments; to see
the nakedness of the land will they come. It is ad¬
ded, to the same purport, (x». 41.) I will execute
judgments upon thee in the sight of many women;
M>ou shalt be made an example of, in terrorem —
j that others may see and fear, and do no more pie-
|j sumptuously.
2. The criminal is condemned to die, for her sins
are such as death is the wages of; (y. 40.) They
shall bring up a company, a company shall be
brought up against thee, and they shall stone thee
with stones, and thrust thee through with their
swords; so great a death, so many deaths in one, is
this adulteress adjudged to. When the walls of
Jerusalem were battered down with stones shot
against them, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem
were put to the sword, then this sentence was ex¬
ecuted in the letter of it.
3. The estate of the criminal is confiscated, and
all that belonged to her destroyed with her; (u. 39.)
They shall throw down thine eminent place, and ( v
41.) they shall bum thine houses, as the habitations
of bad women are destroyed, in detestation of their
leu dness. Their high places, erected in honour cf
their idols, by which they thought to ingratiate
themselves with their neighbours, shall be an of¬
fence to them, and even they shall break them
down. It was long the complaint, even in some of
the best reigns of the kings of Judah, that the high
places were not taken away; but now the army of
the Chaldeans, when they lay all waste, shall break
them down. If iniquity be not taken away by the
justice of the nation, it shall be taken away by the
judgments of God upon the nation.
4. Thus both the sin and the sinners shall be
abolished together, and an end put to both; Thou
shalt cease from playing the harlot; there shall be
no remainders of idolatry in the land, because the
inhabitants shall be wholly extirpated, and they
shall give no more hire, because they have no more
to give. Some that will not leave their sins, live till
their sins leave them. When all that with which
they honoured their idols is taken from them, they
shall not give hire any more; (u. 41.) “ Then thou
shalt not commit this lewdness of sacrificing thy
children, which was a crime provoking above all
thine abominations, for thy children shall all be cut
off by the sword, or carried into captivity, so that
thou shalt have none to sacrifice,” v. 43. Or, it
may be meant of the reformation of those of them
that escape and survive the punishment; they shall
take warning, and shall do no more presumptuously.
The captivity in Babylon made the people of Israel
to cease for ever from playing the harlot, it effectu¬
ally cured them of their inclination to idolatry; and
then all shall be well, when this is the fruit, even
the taking away of sin; then (v. 42.) my jealousy
shall depart, I will be quiet, and no more angry.
When we begin to be at war with sin, God will be
at peace with us; for he continues the affliction no
longer than till it has done its work. When sin de¬
parts, God’s jealousy will soon depart, for he is
never jealous but when we give him just cause to be
so. Yet some understand this as a threatening of
utter ruin, that God will make a full end, and the
fire of his anger shall burn as long as there is any
fuel for it. His fury shall rest upon them, and not
remove. Compare this with that doom of unbe
lievers, (John iii. 36. ) The wrath of God abideth on
them. They shall drink the dreg's of the cup, and
then God will be no more angry, for he is eased of
his adversaries, (Isa. i. 24. ) is satisfied in the aban¬
doning of them, and therefore will be no more angry,
because there are no more for his anger to fasten
upon. They had fretted him, when judgment and
mercy were contesting; but now he is quiet, as he
will be in the eternal damnation of sinners, wherein
he will be glorified, and therefore he will be satisfied.
44. Behold, every one that useth proverbs
shall use this proverb against thee, saying,
As is the mother, so is her daughter. 45.
659
EZEKIEL, XVI.
Thou art thy mother’s daughter, that loath-
eth her husband and her children; and thou
art the sister of thy sisters, which loathed
their husbands and their children : your mo¬
ther was a Hittite, and your lather an Amo-
rite. 46. And thine elder sister is Samaria,
she and her daughters that dwell at thy left
hand: and thy younger sister, that dwelleth
at thy right hand, is Sodom and her daugh¬
ters. 47. Yet hast thou not walked alter
their ways, nor done after their abomina¬
tions; but, as if that were a very little thing,
thou wast corrupted more than they in all
thy ways. 43. As 1 live, saith the Lord God,
Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her
daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy
daughters. 49. Behold, this was the ini¬
quity ot thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of
bread, and abundance of idleness, was in
her, and in her daughters, neither did she
strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.
50. And they were haughty, and committed
abomination before me: therefore I took
them away as I saw good. 51. Neither hath
Samaria committed half of thy sins ; but
thou hast multiplied thine abominations more
than they, and hast justified thy sisters in all
thine abominations which thou hast done.
52. Thou also, which hast judged thy sis¬
ters, bear thine own shame, for thy sins that
thou hast committed more abominable than
they: they are more righteous than thou;
yea, be thou confounded also, and bear
thy shame, in that thou hast justified thy
sisters. 53. When I shall bring again
their captivity, the captivity of Sodom and
her daughters, and t he captivity of Samaria
and her daughters, then will 1 bring again
the captivity of thy captives in the midst of
them; 54. That thou mayest bear thine own
shame, and mayest be confounded in all that
thou hast done, in that thou art a comfort
unto them. 55. When thy sisters, Sodom
and her daughters, shall return to their
former estate, and Samaria and her daugh¬
ters shall return to their former estate, then
thou and thy daughters shall return to your
former estate. 56. For thy sister Sodom
was not mentioned by thy mouth in the day
of thy pride. 57. Before thy wickedness was
discovered, as at the time of thy reproach
of the daughters of Syria, and all that are
round about her, the daughters of the Phi¬
listines, which despise thee round about. 58.
Thou hast borne thy lewdness and thine
abominations, saith the Lord. 59. For thus
saith the Lord God, I will even deal with
thee as thou hast done, which hast despised
the oath in breaking the covenant.
The prophet here further shows Jerusalem her
abominations, by comparing her with those places
that had gone before her, and showing that she was
worse than any of them ; and therefore should, like
them, be utterly and irreparably ruined. We are
all apt to judge of ourselves by comparison, and to
imagine that we are sufficiently good, if we are but
as good as such and such, who are thought passable;
or that we are not dangerously bad, if we are no worse
than such and such, who, though bad, are not of the
worst. Now God by the prophet shows Jerusalem,
I. 1 hat she was as bad as her mother , as the ac¬
cursed, devoted Canaanites that were the possessors
of this land before heft They that use proverbs, as
most people do, shall apply that proverb to Jerusa¬
lem, As is the mother , so is' her daughter , v. 44. She
is even her mother's own child; the Jews are as like
the Canaanites in temper and inclination as if they
had been their own children. The character of the
mother was, that she loathed her husband and her
children, she had all the marks of an adulteress;
and that is the character of the daughter, she for¬
sakes the Guide of her youth, and is barbarous to
the children of her own bowels. When God brought
Israel into Canaan, he particularly warned them
not to do according to the abominations of the men
of that land, who went before them, (for which it
had s/iued them out, Lev. xviii. 27, 28. ) the monu¬
ments of whose idolatry, with the remains of the
idolaters themselves, would be a continual tempta¬
tion to them : but they learned their way, and trod
in their steps, and were as well affected to the idols
of Canaan as ever they were, (Ps. cvi. 38. ) and thus,
in respect of imitation, it might truly be said that
their mother was a Hittite, and their father an
Amorite, ( v . 45.) for they resembled them more
than Abraham and Sarah.
II. That she was worse than her sisters Sodcm
and Samaria, that were adulteresses too, that loath¬
ed their husbands and their children, that were
weary of the gods of their fathers, and were for in¬
troducing new gods, a-la-mode — quite in style, that
came newly up, and new fashions in religion, and
were given to change. On this comparison between
Jerusalem and her sisters the prophet here enlarges,
that he might either shame them into repentance,
or justify God in their ruin. Observe,
1. Who Jerusalem’s sisters were, v. 45. Samaria
and Sodom. Samaria is called the elder sister, or,
rather, the greater, because it was a much larger
city and kingdom, richer and more considerable, and
more nearly allied to Israel. If Jerusalem look
northward, this is partly on her left hand, this city
of Samaria, and the towns and villages that were as
daughters to that mother-city, these had been lately
destroyed for their spiritual whoredom; Sodom, and
the adjacent towns and villages that were her
daughters, dwelt at Jerusalem’s right hand, and was
her lesser sister; less than Jerusalem, less than Sa¬
maria, and these were of old destroyed for their cor¬
poreal whoredom, Jude 7.
2. Wherein Jerusalem’s sins resembled her sis¬
ters’, particularly Sodom’s; (v. 49.) This was the
iniquity of Sodom, (it is implied, and this is thine
iniquity too,) pride, fulness of bread, and abundance
of idleness; their going after strange flesh, which
was Sodom’s most flagrant wickedness, is not men¬
tioned, because notoriously known; but those sins
which did not look so black, but opened the door
and led the way to these more enormous crimes,
and began to fill that measure of her sins, which was
filled up at length by their unnatural filthiness.
Now these initiating sins were, (1.) Pride, in which
the heart lifts up itself .above and against both God
and man; pride was the first sin that turned angels
into devils, and the garden of the Lord into a hell
upon earth. It was the pride of the Sodomites, that
I they despised righteous Lot, and would not bear to
660
EZEKIEL, XVI.
be reproved by him; and this ripened them for ruin.
(2. ) Gluttony, here called fulness of bread. It was
God’s great mercy that they had plenty, but their
great sin that they abused it, glutted themselves
with it, ate to excess, and drank to excess, and made
that the gratification of their lusts, which was given
them to be the support of their lives. (3.) Idleness,
abundance of idleness, a dread of labour, and a love
of ease. Their country was fruitful, and the abun¬
dance they had they came easily by, which was a
temptation to them to indulge themselves in sloth,
which disposed them to all that abominable filthi¬
ness which kindled their flatties. Note, Idleness is
an inlet to much sin; the men of Sodom, who were
idle, were wicked, and sinners before the Lord ex¬
ceedingly, Gen. xiii. 13. The standing waters ga¬
ther filth, and the sitting bird is the fowler’s mark.
When David rose from off his bed at evening, he
saw Bathsheba. Quceritur, JEgisthus quare sit fac-
tus adulter? In promptu causa est; deskliosus erat
— What made JEgisthus an adulterer? Indolence.
(4.) O/ifiression; neither did she strengthen the
hands of the floor and needy; probably, it is implied
that she weakened their hands and Arof-etheir arms;
however, it was bad enough that, when she had so
much wealth, and, consequently, power and interest
and leisure, she did nothing for the relief of the poor,
in providing for whose wants those that themselves
are full of bread may employ their time well, they
need not be so abundantly idle, as too often they are.
These were the sins of the Sodomites, and these
were Jerusalem’s sins; their firide, the cause of their
sins, is mentioned again ; ( v . 50. ) they were haughty;
with the horrid effects of their sins, their abomina¬
tions which they committed before God. Men ar¬
rive gradually at the height of impiety and wicked¬
ness; Nemo repent e Jit turpissimus — No man
reaches the height of vice at once. But where pride
has got the ascendant in a man, he is in the high
road to all abominations.
3. How much the sins of Jerusalem exceeded
those of Sodom and Samaria: they were more hein¬
ous in the sight of God, either in themselves, or by
reason of several aggravations: “ Thou hast not only
walked after theirways, and trod in their steps, but
hast quite outdone them in wickedness, v. 47. Thou
thoughtest it a very little thing to do as they did;
didst laugh at them as sneaking sinners, and silly
ones; thou wouldest be more cunning, more daring,
in wickedness; wouldest triumph more boldly over
thy convictions, and bid more open defiance to God
and religion; if a man will break, let him break
for something; thus thou wast corrupted more than
they in all thy ways.” Jerusalem was more polite;
and therefore sinned with more wit, more art and
ingenuity, than Sodom and Samaria could. Jerusa¬
lem had more wealth and power, and its government
was more absolute and arbitrary; and therefore had
the more opportunity of oppressing the poor, and
shedding malignant influences around her, than So¬
dom and Samaria had. Jerusalem had the temple,
and the ark, and the priesthood, and kings of the
house of David; and therefore the wickedness of that
holy city, that was so dignified, so near, so dear to
God, was more provoking to him than the wicked¬
ness of Sodom and Samaria, that had not Jerusa¬
lem’s privileges and means of grace. Sodom has
not done as thou hast done, v. 48. This agrees with
what Christ says, (Matt. xi. 24.) it shall be more
tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judg¬
ment than for thee. The kingdom of the ten tribes
had been very wicked; and yet Samaria has not
committed half of thy sins, ( v . 51.) has not wor¬
shipped half so many idols, nor slain half so many
prophets. It was bad enough that they of Jerusalem
were guilty of Sodom’s sins, sodomy itself not ex¬
cepted, 1 Kings xiv. 24. 2 Kings xxiii. 7. And
though the Dead sea, the standing monument of So¬
dom’s sin and ruin, bordered upon their country,
(Numb, xxxiv. 12.) and that sulphureous lake was
always under their nose, (God having taken away
Sodom and her daughters in such a way and manner
as he saw good, (as he says here, v. 50. ) so that one
thing should effectually make their overthrow an en-
sample to those that after should live ungodly; 2
Pet. ii. 6.) yet they did not take warning, but mul¬
tiplied their abominations more than they; and, (1.)
By this they justified Sodom and Samaria, v. 51.
They pretended, in their haughtiness and superci¬
liousness, to judge them, and in the days of old, when
they retained their integrity, they did judge them,
v. 52. But now they justify them comparatively;
Sodom and Samaria are more righteous than thou,
less wicked. It will look like some extenuation of
their sins, that, bad as they were, Jerusalem was
worse, though it was God’s own city. Not that it
will serve for a plea to justify Sodom, but it ci n-
demns Jerusalem, against which Sodom and Sama¬
ria will rise up in judgment. (2.) For this they
ought themselvis to be greatly ashamed: “Thru
who hast judged thy sisters, and cried out shame cn
them, now bear thine own shame, for thy sins which
thou hast committed, which, though of the same
kind with theirs, yet, being committed by thee, are
more abominable than theirs,” v. 52. This may be
taken either as foretelling their ruin, Thou shall
bear thy shame, or as inviting them to repentance,
“ Be thou confounded, and bear thy shame, take the
shame to thyself that is due to thee;” it may be
hoped that sinners will forsake their sins when they
begin to be heartily ashamed of them. And there
fore they shall go into captivity, and there they shall
lie, that they may be confounded in all that they
have done; because they had been a comfort and
encouragement to Sodom and Samaria, v. 54. Ni.te,
There is nothing in sin which we have more reason
to be ashamed of than this, that by our sin we have
encouraged others in sin, and comforted them in that
for which they must begriex'ed, or they are undone.
Another reason why they must now be ashamed
is, because in the day of their prosperity they had
looked with so much disdain uprn their neighbours;
Thy sister Sodom was not mentioned by thee in the
day of thy pride, v. 56. They thought Sodom not
worthy to be named the same day with Jerusalem,
little dreaming that Jerusalem would at length lie
under a worse and more scandalous character than
Sodom herself. Those that are high may perhaps
come to stand upon a level with those they contemn.
Or, “Sodom was not mentioned, the warning de¬
signed to be given to thee bv Sodom’s ruin, was not
regarded.” If the Jews had but talked more fre¬
quently and seriously to one another, and to their
children, concerning the wrath of God revealed from
heaven against Sodom’s ungodliness and unrighte¬
ousness, it might have kept them in awe, and pre¬
vented their treading in their steps; but they kept
the thought of it at a distance, would not bear the
mention of it, and (as the ancients say) put Isaiah
to death for putting them in mind of it, when he
called them riders of Sodom and people of Gomorrah,
Isa. i. 10. Note, Those are but preparing judg¬
ments for themselves, that will not take notice of
God’s judgments upon others.
4. What desolations God had brought, and was
bringing, upon Jerusalem, for these wickednesses
wherein they had exceeded Sodom and Samaria.
(1.) She has already long ago been disgraced, and
has fallen into contempt among her neighbours; ( v .
57. ) Before her wickedness was discovered, before
she came to be so grossly and openly flagitious, she
bore the just punishment of her secret and more
concealed lewdness, when she fell under the re
Jiroach of the daughters of Syria, of the Philit
661
EZEKIEL, XVI.
tines, who were said to des/iisc her, and be ashamed
of her, (v. 27. ) and under the reproach of all that
were round about her; which seems to refer to the
descent made upon Judah by the Syrians in the days
of Ahaz, and soon after another by the Philistines,
2 Chron. xxviii. 5, 18. Note, Those that disgrace
themselves by yielding to their lusts, will justly be
brought into 'disgrace by being made to yield to
their enemies; and it is observable, that before God
brought potent enemies upon them, for their de¬
struction, he brought enemies upon them that were
less formidable, for their reproach; if lesser judg¬
ments would do the work, God would not send
greater. In this thou hast borne thy lewdness, v. 58.
Those that will not cast off their sins by repentance
and reformation, shall be made to bear their sins to
their confusion. (2.) She is now in captivity, or
hastening into captivity, and therein is reckoned
with, not only for her lewdness, (v. 58.) but for her
perfidiousness and covenant-breaking; (x>. 59.) “I
will deal with thee as thou hast done; I will forsake
thee as thou hast forsaken me, and cast thee off as
thou hast cast me off, for thou hast despised the oath,
in breaking the covenant. ” This seems to be meant
of the covenant God made with their fathers, at
mount Sinai, whereby he took them and theirs to
be a peculiar people to himself. They flattered
themselves with a conceit, that because God had
hitherto continued his favour to them, notwith¬
standing their provocations, he would do so still.
“No,” says God, “you have broken covenant
with me, have despised both the promises of the
covenant, and the obligations of it, and therefore I
will deal with thee as thou hast done.” Note, Those
that will not adhere to God as their God, have no
reason to expect that he should continue to own
them as his people. (3.) The captivity of the
wicked Jews, and their ruin, shall be as irrevocable
as that of Sodom and Samaria. In this sense, as a
threatening, most interpreters take v. 53, 55. When
I shall bring again the captivity of Sodom and Sa¬
maria, and when they shall return to their former
estate, then I will bring again the captivity of thy
captives in the midst of them, and as it were, for
their sakes, and under their shadow and protection,
because they are more righteous than thou, and
then thou shall return to thy former estate. But
Sodom and S imaria were never brought back, nor
ever returned to their former estate, and therefore
let not Jerusalem expect it, that is, those who now
remained there, whom God would deliver to be re¬
moved into all the kingdoms of the earth for their
hurt, Jer. xxiv. 9, 10. Sooner shall the Sodomites
arise out of the salt sea, and the Samaritans return
out of the land of Assyria, than they enjoy their
peace and prosperity again; for, to their shame be
it spoken, it is a comfort, to those of the ten tribes,
who are dispersed and in captivity, to see those of
the two tribes, who had been as bad as they, or
worse, in like manner dispersed and in captivity;
and therefore they shall live and die, shall stand
and fall, together; the bad ones of both shall perish
together, the good ones of both shall return together.
Note, Those who do as the worst of sinners do,
must expect to fare as they fare. Let mine enemy
be as the wicked.
60. Nevertheless, I will remember my
covenant with thee in the days of thy youth,
and I will establish unto thee an everlasting
covenant. 61. Then thou shalt remember
thy ways and be ashamed, when thou shalt
receive thy sisters, thine elder and thy
younger: and I will give them unto thee for
daughters, but not by thy covenant. 62.
And 1 will establish my covenant with thee,
and thou shalt know that I am the Lord •
63. That thou mayest remember, and be
confounded, and never open thy mouth any
more because of thy shame, when I am pa¬
cified toward thee for all that thou hast
done, saith the Lord God.
Here, in the close of the chapter, after a most
shameful conviction of sin, and a most dreadful de¬
nunciation of judgments, mercy is remembered,
mercy is reserved, for those who shall come after,
as was when God sware in his wrath concerning
those who came out of Egypt, that they should not
enter into Canaan; “ Yet’’ (says God) “ your little
ones shall;” so here. And some think that what is
said of the return of Sodom and Samaria, (v. 53,
55.) and of Jerusalem with them, is a promise; it
may be understood so, if by Sodom we understand
(as Grotius and some of the Jewish writers do) the
Moabites and Ammonites, the posterity of Lot, who
once dwelt in Sodom; their captivity was returned,
(Jer. xlviii. 47. — xlix. 6.) as was that of many of
the ten tribes, and Judah’s with them. But these
closing verses are, without doubt, a precious pro¬
mise, which was in part fulfilled at the return of
the penitent and retormed Jews out of Babylon,
but was to have its full accomplishment in gospel-
times, and in that repentance and that remission
of sins which should then be preached with suc¬
cess to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. Now
observe here,
1. From whence this mercy should take rise;
from God himself, and his remembering of his co¬
venant with them; (v. 60.) JVevertheless, though
they had been so provoking, and God has been so
provoked, to that degree that one would think they
could never be reconciled again, yet “I will remem¬
ber my covenant with thee, that covenant which I
made with thee in the days of thy youth, and will
revive it again. Though thou hast broken the cove¬
nant, ( v . 59.) I will remember it, and it shall flou¬
rish again.” See how much it is our comfort and
advantage that God is pleased to deal with us in a
covenant-way, for thus the mercies of it come to be
sure mercies and everlasting, (Isa. lv. 3.) and while
this root stands firm in the ground, there is hope of
the tree, though it be cut down, that through the
scent of water it will bud again. Wc do not find
that they put him in mind of the covenant, but ex
mero molu — from his own mere good pleasure, he
remembers it as he had promised; (Lev. xxvi. 42.)
Then will I remember my covenant, and will re¬
member the land. He that bids us to be ever mind¬
ful of the covenant, no doubt will himself be ever
mindful of it, the word which he commanded (and
what he commands stands fast for ever) to a thou¬
sand generations.
2. How they should be prepared and qualified for
this mercy; (v. 61.) “Thou shalt remember thy
ways, thine evil ways; God will put thee in mind
of them, will set them in order before thee, that
thou mayest be ashamed of them.” Note, God’s
good work in us commences and keeps pace with
his good will towards us. When he remembers his
covenant for us, that he may not remember our
sins against us, he puts us upon remembering of
our sins against ourselves. And if we will but be
brought to remember our ways, how crooked and
perverse they have been, and how we have walked
contrary to God in them, we cannot but be ashamed ;
and when we are so, we are best prepared to re¬
ceive the honour and comfort'of a sealed pardon and
a settled peace.
3. What the mercy is, that God has in reserve
for them. (1.) He will take them into coven uit
EZEKIEL, XVII.
■m2
with himself; (v. 60.) I will establish unto thee an
everlasting covenant; and again, ( v . 62.) I will
establish, re-establish, and establish more firmly
than ever, my covenant with thee. Note, It is an
unspeakable comfort to all true penitents, that the
covenant of grace is so well ordered in all things,
that every transgression in the covenant does not
throw us out of covenant, for that is inviolable. (2.)
He will bring the Gentiles into church-communion
with them; (v. 61.) “ Thou shall receive thy sisters,
the Gentile nations that are round about thee, thine
elder and thy younger, greater than thou art, and
lesser, ancient nations and modern, and I will give
them unto thee for daughters, they shall be founded,
nursed, taught, and educated, by that gospel, that
word of the Lord, which shall go forth from Zion
and from Jerusalem; so that all the neighbours shall
call Jerusalem mother, while the church continues
there, and shall acknowledge the Jerusalem which
is from above, and which is free, to be the mother
f us all, Gal. iv. 26. They shall be thy daugh¬
ters, but not by thy covenant, not by the covenant
of peculiarity, not as being proselytes to the Jewish
religion, and subjects to the yoke of the ceremonial
law, but as being converts with thee to the Chris¬
tian religion.” Or, Not by thy covenant, may mean,
“ not upon such terms as thou shalt think fit to im¬
pose upon them as conquered nations, as captives
and homagers to whom thou mayest give law at
pleasure;” (such a dominion as that the carnal Jews
hope to have over the nations;) “no, they shall be
thy daughters by my covenant, the covenant of
grace made with thee and them in concert, as an
indenture tripartite. I will baa Father, a common
Father, both to Jews and Gentiles, and so they shall
become sisters to one another. And when thou
shalt receive them, thou shalt be ashamed of thine
own evil ways wherein thou wast conformed to
them. Thou shalt blush to look a Gentile in the
face, remembering how much worse than the Gen¬
tiles thou wast in the day of thine apostacy.”
4. What the fruit and effect of this will be.
(1.) God will hereby be glorified; ( v . 62.) Thou
shalt k now that lam the Lord. It shall hereby be
known that the God of Israel is Jehovah, a God of
power, and faithful to his covenant; and thou shalt
know it, who hast hitherto lived as if thou didst not
know or believe it. It had often been said in wrath.
Ye shall know that I am the Lord, shall know it to
your cost; here it is said in mercy, Ye shall know
it to your comfort; and it is one of the most precious
promises of the new covenant which God has made
with us, that all shall know him from the least to
the greatest.
(2.) They shall hereby be more humbled and
ibased for sin; (y. 63.) “ 'That thou mayest be the
nore confounded at the remembrance of all that
•hou hast done amiss, mayest .reproach thyself for
•t, and call thyself a thousand times unwise, undu-
tiful, ungrateful, and unlike what thou wast, and
mayest never open thy mouth any more in contra¬
diction to God, reflection on him, or complaints of
him, but mayest be for ever silent and submissive
because of thy shame.” Note, Those that rightly
remember their sins, will be truly ashamed of them ;
and those that are truly ashamed of their sins, will
see great reason to be patient under their afflictions;
to be dumb, and not open their mouths against what
God does. But that which is most observable, is,
that all this shall be when 1 am pacified toward
thee, saith the I.ord God. Note, It is the gracious
ingenuousness of true penitents, that, the clearer
evidences and the fuller instances they have of
God’s being reconciled to them, the more grieved
and ashamed they are that ever they have offended.
God is in Jesus Christ pacified toward us; he is our
Peace, and it is by his cross that we are reconciled,
and in his gospel that God is reconciling the world
to himself: now the consideration of this should be
powerful to melt our hearts into a godly sorrow for
sin. This is repenting because the kingdom of hea¬
ven is at hand. The prodigal, after he had received
the kiss which assured him that his father was pa¬
cified toward him, was ashamed and confounded,
and said, Father, 1 have sinned against heaven and
before thee. And the more our shame for sin is in¬
creased by the sense of pardoning mercy, the more
will our comfort in God he increased.
CHAP. XVII.
God was, in the foregoing chapter, reckoning with the
people of Judah and bringing ruin upon them, for their
treachery in breaking covenant with him; in this chap¬
ter he is reckoning with the king of Judah, for his trea¬
chery in breaking covenant with the king of Babylon;
for when God came to contend with them, he found man)
grounds of his controversy. The thing was now in
doing; Zedekiah was practising with the king of Egypt
underhand for assistance in a treacherous project he had
formed to shake off the yoke of the king of Babylon,
and violate the homage and fealty he had sworn to him.
For this, God by the prophet here, I. Threatens the ruin
of him and his kingdom, by a parable of two eagles and
a vine, (v. 1 . . 10.) and the explanation of that parable,
v. 11.. 21- But, in the close, II. He promises hereafter
to raise the royal family of Judah again, the house of
David, in the Messiah and his kingdom, v. 22. . 24.
1 . i ND the word of the Lord came unto
A me, saying, 2. Son of man, put forth
a riddle, and speak a parable unto the house
of Israel; 3. And say, Thus saith the Lord
God, Atgreat eagle with great wings, long¬
winged, lull of feathers, which had divers
colours, came unto Lebanon, and took the
highest branch of the cedar: 4. He crop¬
ped off the top of his young twigs, and car¬
ried it into a land of traffic ; he set it in a city
of merchants. 5. He took also of the seed
of the land, and planted it in a fruitful field;
he placed it by great waters, and set it as a
willow-tree; 6. And it grew, and became a
spreading vineof low stature, whose branch¬
es turned toward him, and the roots thereof
were under him: so it became a vine, and
brought forth branches, and shot forth sprigs.
7. There was also another great eagle with
great wings and many feathers; and, be¬
hold, this vine did bend her roots toward
him, and shot forth her branches toward
him, that he might water it by the furrows
of her plantation. 8. It was planted in a
good soil by great waters, that it might bring
forth branches, and that it might bear fruit,
that it might be a goodly vine. 9. Say thou,
Thus saith the Lord God, Shall it prosper?
shall he not pull up the roots thereof, and
cut off the fruit thereof, that it wither? it
shall wither in all the leaves of her spring,
even without great power, or many people
to pluck it, up by the roots thereof. 10. Yea,
behold, being planted, shall it prosper? shall
it not utterly wither when the east wind
toucheth it? it shall wither in the furrows
where it grew. 11. Moreover, the word cl
EZEKIEL, XVII.
663
the Lord came unto me, saying,
Say
now to the rebellious house, Know ye not
what these things mean? tell them. Behold,
the king of Babylon is come to Jerusalem,
and hath taken the king thereof, and the
princes thereof, and led them with him to
Babylon; 13. And hath taken of the king’s
seed, and made a covenant with him, and
hath taken an oath of him: he hath also
taken the mighty of the land: 14. That the
kingdom might be base, that it might not
lift itself up, but that by keeping of his cove¬
nant it might stand. 15. But he rebelled
against him, in sending his ambassadors into
Egypt, that they might give him horses and
much people. Shall he prosper? shall he
escape that doeth such things ? or shall he
break the covenant, and be delivered? 16.
As 1 live, saith the Lord God, surely in the
place where the king dwellelh that made him
king, whose oath he despised, and whose
covenant he brake, even with him, in the
midst of Babylon, he shall die. 17. Neither
shall Pharaoh with his mighty army and
great company, make for him in the war,
by casting up mounts, and building forts, to
cut off many persons: 13. Seeing he des¬
pised the oath by breaking the covenant,
when, lo, he had given his hand, and hath
done all these things , he shall not escape.
1 9. Therefore thus saith the Lord God, As
I live, surely mine oath that he hath despis¬
ed, and my covenant that he hath broken,
even it will I recompense upon his own
head. 20. And I will spread my net upon
him, and he shall be taken in my snare; and
I will bring him to Babylon, and will plead
with him there for his trespass that he hath
trespassed against me. 21. And all his fugi¬
tives, with all his bands, shall fall by the
sword, and they that remain shall be scat¬
tered towards all winds; and ye shall know
that I the Lord have spoken it.
We must take all these verses together, that we
may have the parable and the explanation of it at
one view before us, because they will illustrate one
another.
I. The prophet is appointed to /nit forth a riddle
to the house of Israel; ( v . 2.) not to puzzle them,
as S.imson’s riddle was put forth to the Philistines,
not to hide the mind of God from them in obscurity,
or to leave them in uncertainty about it, one advanc¬
ing one conjecture and another another, as is usual
in expounding riddles; no, he is immediately to tell
them the meaning of it. Let him that speaks in an
unknown tongue, pray that he may interpret, 1 Cor.
xiv. 13. But he nnlst deliver his message in a rid¬
dle or parable, that they might take the more no¬
tice of it, might bp the more affected with it them¬
selves, and might the better remember it, and tell it
to others. For these reasons God often used simili¬
tudes by his servants the prophets, and Christ him¬
self opened his mouth in parables. Riddles and
parables are used for an amusement to ourselves,
and an entertainment to our friends; the prophet
must make use of these, to see if in this dress the
things of God might find acceptance, and insinuate
themselves into the minds of a careless people.
Note, Ministers should study to find out accept ,ble
words, and try various methods to do good; and, as
far as they have reason to think will be for edifica¬
tion, should both bring that which is familiar into
their preaching, and tlV-ir preaching too into their
familiar discourse; tha .here may not be so vast a
dissimilitude as with some there is between what
they say in the mlpit and what they say out.
II. He is appointed to expound this riddle to the
rebellious house; (v. 12.) though, being rebellious,
they might justly have been left in ignorance, to see
and hear, and not perceive, yet the thing shall be
explained to them; Know ye not what these things
mean? They that knew the story, and what was
now in agitation, might make a shrewd guess at the
meaning of this riddle, but, that they might be left
•without excuse, he is to give it them 'in plain terms,
stripped of the metaphor. But the enigma was first
propounded for them to study on awhile, and to
send to their friends at Jerusalem, that they might
inquire after and expect the solution of it some time
after.
Let us now see what the matter of this message is:
1. Nebuchadnezzar had some time ago carried
off Jehoiachin, the same that was called Jeconiah,
when he was but eighteen years of age, and had
reigned in Jerusalem but three months, him and his
princes and great men, and had brought them cap¬
tives to Babylon, 2 Kings xxiv. 12. This in the
parable is represented bv an eagle’s cropping the
top and tender branch of a cedar, and carrying it
into a land of traffic, a city of merchants, (v. 3, 4. )
which is explained, x>. 12. The king of Babylon
took the king of Jeru alem, who was no more able
to resist him than a young twig of a tree is to con¬
tend with the strongest bird of prey, that easily
crops it off, perhaps toward the making of her vest.
Nebuchadnezzar, in Daniel’s vision, is a lion, the
king of beasts; (Dan. vii. 4.) there he has eagle's
wings, so swift were his motions, so speedy were
his conquests. Here, in this parable, he is an eagle,
the king of birds ; a great eagle, that lives upon
spoil and rapine, whose young ones suck up blood,
Job xxxix. 30. His dominion extends itself far and
wide, like the great and long wings of an eagle;
the people are numerous, for it is full of feathers;
the court splendid, for it has divers colours, which
look like embroidering, as the word is. Jerusalem
is Lebanon, a forest of houses, and very pleasant;
the royal family is the cedar, Jehoiachin is the to/i
branch, the top of the young twigs, which he crops
off; Babylon is the land of traffic, and city of mer¬
chants where it is -set. And the king of Judah, being
of the house of David, will think himself much de¬
graded and disgraced to be lodged among trades¬
men; but he must make the best of it.
2. When he carried him to Babylon, he made his
uncle Zedekiah king in his room, v. 5, 6. His name
was Mattaniah — the gift of the Lord, which Nebu¬
chadnezzar changed into Zedekiah — the justice of
the Lord, to remind him to be just like the God he
called his, for fear of his justice. This was one of
the seed of the land, a native, not a foreigner, not
one of his Babylonian princes; he was planted in a
fruitful field, for so Jerusalem as yet was; he placed
it by great waters, where it would be likely to grow,
like a willow-tree, which grows quick, and grows
best in moist ground, but is never designed or ex¬
pected to be a stately tree. He set it with care and
circumspection; (so some read it;) he wisely pro
vided that it might grow, but that it might not grow
too big. He took of the king's seed, (so it is ex
plained, v. 13.) and made a covenant with him, that
664
EZEKIEL, XVII.
he should have the kingdom, and enjoy the regal
power and dignity, provided he held it as his vassal,
dependent on him, and accountable to him. He
Cook an oath of him, made him sWear allegiance to
him, swear by his own God, the God of Israel, that
he would be a faithful tributary to him, 2 Chron.
xxxvi. 13. He also took away the mighty of the
land, the chief of the men of war, partly as host¬
ages for the performance of the covenant, and partly
that, the land being thereby weakened, the king
might be '.he less able, and therefore the less in
temptation, to break his league. What he designed
we are told, v. 14. That the kingdom might be base,
in respect both of honour and strength, might nei¬
ther be a rival with its powerful neighbours, nor a
terror to its feeble ones, as it had been, that it. might
not lift up itself to vie with the kingdom of Baby¬
lon, or to bear down any of the petty states that
were in subjection to it. But yet he designed that
by keeping of this covenant it might stand, and con
tinue a kingdom. Hereby the pride and ambition
of that haughty potentate would be gratified, who
aimed to be like the Most High, (Isa. xiv. 14.) to
have all about him subject to him. Now see here,
(1.) How sad a change sin made with the royal fa¬
mily of Judah; time was when all the nations about
were tributaries to that, now that has not only lost
its dominion over other nations, but is itself become
a tributary. How is the gold become dim! Nations
by sin sell their liberty, and princes their dignity,
and profane their crowns by casting them to the
ground. (2.) How wisely Zedekiah did for him¬
self in accepting these terms, though they were dis¬
honourable, when necessity brought him to it. A
man may live very comfortably and contentedly,
though he cannot bear a part, and make a figure, as
formerly. A kingdom may stand firm and safe,
though it do not stand so high as it has sometimes
done; and so may a family.
3. Zedekiah, while he continued faithful to the
king of Babylon, did very well, and if he would but
have reformed his kingdom, and returned to God
and his duty, he had done better, and by that means
might soon have recovered his former dignity, v. 6.
This plant grew, and though it was set as a willow-
tree, and little account was made of it, yet it became
a spreading vine of low stature, a great blessing to
his own country, and his fruits making glad their
hearts; and it is better to be a spreading vine of low
stature than a lofty cedar of no use. Nebuchad¬
nezzar was pleased, for the branches turned toward
him, and rested on him as the vine on the wall, and
he had his share of the fruits of this vine; the roots
thereof too were under him, and at his disposal.
The Jews had reason to be pleased, for they sat un¬
der their own vine, which brought forth branches,
and shot forth sprigs, and looked pleasant and pro¬
mising. See how gradually the judgments of God
came upon this provoking people; how God gave
them respite, and so gave them space to repent.
He made their kingdom base, to try if that would
humble them, before he made it no kingdom ; yet
left it easy for them, to try if that would win upon
them to return to him, that the troubles threatened
might be prevented.
4. Zedekiah knew not when he was well off, but
grew impatient of the disgrace of being a tributary
to the king of Babylon, and, to get clear of it, en¬
tered into a private league with the king of Egypt.
He had no reason to complain that the king of Ba¬
bylon put any new hardships upon him, or improved
his advantages against him, that he oppressed or
impoverished his country, for, as the prophet had
said before, (m. 6.) to aggravate his treachery, he
shows again, (y. 8.) what a fair way he was in to
be considerable; He was planted in a good soil by
great waters, his family was likely enough to be
built up, and his exchequer to be filled, in a little
time, so that, if he had dealt faithfully, he might
have been a goodly vine. But there was another
great eagle that he had an affection for, and put a
confidence in, and that was the king of Egypt, v
7. Those two great potentates, the kings of Baby
Ion and Egypt, were but two eagles, birds of prey
Tlijs great eagle of Egypt is said to have grea.
wings, but not to be long-winged as the king of
Babylon, because, though the kingdom of Egypt
was strong, yet it was not of such a vast extent as
that of Babylon was. The great eagle is said to
hav e many feathers, much wealth, and many sol¬
diers, which lie depended upon as a substantial de¬
fence, but which really were no more than so many
feathers. Zedekiah, promising himself liberty,
made himself a vassal to the king of Egypt, fool¬
ishly expecting ease by changing his master. Now
this vine did secretly and underhand bend her roots
toward the king of Egypt, that great eagle, and
after a while did openly shoot forth her branches to¬
ward him, gave him an intimation how much she
coveted an alliance with him, that he might water it
by the furrows of her plantation, whereas it was
planted by great waters, and did not need any assist¬
ance from him. This is expounded, v. 1.5. Zede¬
kiah rebelled against the king of Babvlon in sending
his atnbassadors into Egypt, that they might give
him horses and much people, to enable him to con¬
tend with the king of Babylon. See what a change
sin had made with the people cf God! God pro¬
mised that they should be a numerous people, as
the sand of the sea; yet now, if their king had oc¬
casion for much people, he must send to Egypt for
them, they being for sin minished and brought low,
Ps. evii. 39. See also the folly of fretful, discon¬
tented spirits, that ruin themselves by striving to
mend themselves, whereas they might be easy and
happy enough if they would but make the best of
that which is.
5. God here threatens Zedekiah with the utter
destruction of him and his kingdom, and, in dis¬
pleasure against him, passes that doom upon him
for his treacherous revolt from the king of Babvlcn.
This is represented in the parable, (v. 9, 1 0" ) by
the plucking up of this vine by the roots, the cutting
off the fruit, and the withering of the leaves, the
leaves of her spring, when they are in their green¬
ness, (Job viii. 12.) before they begin in autumn to
wither of themselves. The project shall be blasted,
it shall utterly wither, the affairs of this perfiditus
prince shall be ruined past retrieve; as a vine when
the east wind blasts it, so that it shall be fit for no¬
thing but the fire, (as we had it in that parable, ch.
xv. 4.) it shall wither even in the furrows where it
grew, though they were ever so well watered. It
shall be destroyed without great power or ma-oy
people to pluck it up; for what need is there of rais¬
ing the militia to pluck up a vine? Note, God can
bring great things to pass without ado; he needs not
great power and many people to effect his purpos s,
a handful will serve if lie pleases. He can with- lit
any difficulty ruin a sinful king and kingdom, and
make no more of it than we do of rooting up a tree
that cumbers the ground.
In the explanation of the parable the sentence is
very largely recorded; Shall he prosper? (v. 15.) Can
he expect to do ill, and fare well? Nay, shall he that
does such wicked things escape ? Shall he break the
covenant, and be delivered from that vengeance
which is the just punishment of his treachery? No,
can he expect to do ill, and not suffer ill? Let him
hear his doom:
(1.) Itisratified bytheoathof God; ( v . 16. ) yls
I live, saith the Lord God, he shall die for it. This
intimates how highly God resented the crime, and
how sure and severe the punishment of it would be.
665
EZEKIEL, XVII.
God swears in his wrath, as he did, Ps. xcv. 11.
Note, As God’s promises are confirmed with ar.
oath, for comfort to the saints, so are his threaten-
mgs, for terror to tire wicked. As sure as God lives,
and is happy, I may add, and as long, so sure, so
long, shall impenitent sinners die, and be miserable.
(2.) It is justified by the heinousness of the crime
he had been guilty of. [1.] He had been very un¬
grateful to his benefactor, who had made him king,
and undertook to protect him, had made him a
prince, when he might as easily have made him
a prisoner. Note, It is a sin against God to be un¬
kind to our friends, and to lift up the heel against
those that have helped to raise us. [2.] He had
neen very false to him whom he had covenanted
with; this "is mostly insisted on. He despised the
oath; when his conscience or friends reminded him
of it, he made a jest of it, put on a daring resolution
and broke it, V. 15, 16, 18, 19. He broke through
it, and took a pride in making nothing of it, as a
great tyrant in our own day, whose maxim (they
say) it is, That princes ought not to be slaves to their
word any further than is for their interest. That
which aggravated Zedekiah’s perfidiousness was,
that the oath by which he had bound himself to the
king of Babylon, was, First, A solemn oath; an em¬
phasis is laid upon this, (v. 18.) When, lo, he had
iven his hand, as a confederate with the king of
abylon, not only as his subject, but as his friend;
the joining of hands being a token of the joining of
hearts. Secondly, A sacred oath. God says, (d.
19. ) It is mine oath that he has despised, and my
covenant that he has broken. In every solemn oath
God is appealed to as a Witness of the sincerity of
him that swears, and invocated as a Judge and Re¬
venger of his treachery if he now swear falsely, or
at any time hereafter break his oath. But the oath
of allegiance to a prince is particularly called the
oath of God, (Eccl. viii. 2.) as if that had some¬
thing in it more sacred than another oath; for princes
are ministers of God to us for good, Rom. xiii. 4.
Now Zedekiah’s breaking this oath and covenant is
the sin which God will recompense upon his own
head, (y. 19.) the trespass which he has trespassed
against God, for which God will plead with him, v.
20. Note, Perjury is a heinous sin, and highly pro¬
voking to the God of heaven. It would not serve
for an excuse, 1. That he who took this oath was a
king, a king of the house of David, whose liberty
and dignity might surely set him above the obliga¬
tion of oaths; no, though kings are gods to us, they
are men to God, and not exempt from his law and
judgment. The prince is doubtless as firmly bound
before God to the people by his coronation-oath, as
the people to the prince by the oath of allegiance.
2. Nor that this oath was sworn to the king of Ba¬
bylon, a heathen prince, worse than a heretic, with
whom the church of Rome says, JVo faith is to be
kept; no, though Nebuchadnezzar was a worship¬
per of false gods, yet the true God will avenge this
quarrel when one of his worshippers breaks his
league with him; for truth is a debt owing to all
men; and if the professors of the true religion deal
perfidiously with those of a false religion, their pro-
f -ssion will be so far from excusing, much less justi¬
fying, them, that it aggravates their sin, and God
will the more surely and severely punish it, because
by it they give occasion to the enemies of the Lord
to blaspheme; as that Mahometan prince, who,
when the Christians broke their league with him,
cried out, O Jesus, are these thy Christians? 3. Nor
would it justify him, that the oath was extorted from
him by a conqueror, for the covenant was made upon
a valuable consideration. He held his lifp and crown
upon this condition, that he should be faithful and
near true allegiance to the king of Babylon; and if
he enjoy the benefit of his bargain, it is very unjust
VOL. IV. — 4 P
if he do not observe the terms. Let him know then
that, having despised the oath, and broken the cove¬
nant, he shall not escape. And if the contempt and
violation of such an oath, such a covenant as this,
would be so punished, of how much sorer punish¬
ment shall they be thought worthy, who break co¬
venant with God, (when lo, they had given their
hand upon it that they would be faithful,) who tread
under foot the blood of that covenant as an unholy
thing? Betwixt the covenants there is no comparison.
(3.) It is particularized in divers instances, where¬
in the punishment is made to answer the sin. [1.]
He had rebelled against the king of Babylon, and
the king of Babylon should be his effectual conijuer-
or; in the place where that king dwells, whose
covenant, he broke, even with him i?i the midst of
Babylon he shall die, v. 16. He thinks to get out
of his hands, but he shall fall, more than before,
into his hands. God himself will now take part
with the king of Babylon against him; I will spread
my net ufion him, v. 20. God has a net fer those
who deal pei-fidiously, and think to escape his
righteous judgments, in which they shall be taken
and held, who would not be held by the bond of an
oath and covenant. Zedekiah dreaded Babylon;
“Thither will I bring him,” says God, “ and plead
with him there.” Men will justly b e forced upon
that calamity which they endeavour by sin to fee
from. [2.] He had relied upon the king of Egypt,
and the king of Egypt should be his ineffectual
helper. Pharaoh with his mighty army shall not
make for him in the war, (r. 17.) shall do him no
service, nor give any check to the progress of the
Chaldean forces; he shall not assist him in the siege
by casting up mounts and building forts, nor m
battle by cutting off many persons. Kite, Every
creature is that to us that God makes it to be; and
he commonly weakens and withers that arm of flesh
which we trust in, and stay ourselves upon. Now
was again fulfilled what was spoken on a former
like occasion, (Isa. xxx. 7.) The Egyptians shall
help in vain. They did so; for, though upon the
approach of the Egyptian army, the Chaldeans
withdrew from the siege of Jerusalem, upon their
retreat they returned to it again, and took it. It
should seem, the Egyptians were not hearty, had
strength enough, but no good will to help Zedekiah.
Note, Those who deal treacherously with those who
put confidence in them, will justly be dealt treacher¬
ously with by those they put a confidence in. Yet
the Egyptians were not the only states Zedekiah
stayed himself upon; he had bands of his own to
stand by him; but those bands, though we mat' sup-
Eose they were veteran troops, and the best soldiers
is kingdom afforded, shall become fugitives, shall
quit their posts, and make the best of their way,
and shall fall by the sword of the enemy; and the
retrains of them shall be scattered, v. 21. This was
fulfilled when the city was broken up, and all the
men of war fed, Jer. lii. 7. Then ye shall know
that 1 the Lord have spoken it. Note, Sooner or
later, God’s word will prove itself; and those who
will not believe, shall find by experience the reality
and weight of it.
22. Thus saitli the Lord Goo, I will also
take of the highest branch of the high cedar,
and will set it; I will crop off from the top of
his young twigs a tender one, and will plant
it upon a high mountain and eminent: 23.
In the mountain of the height of Israel will
I plant it; and it shall bring forth boughs,
and bear fruit, and he a goodly cedar: and
under it shall dwell all fowl of every wing;
666
EZEKIEL, XV Ill.
>n the shadow of the branches thereof shall
they dwell. 24. And all the trees of the
field shall know that I the Lord have
Iirought down the high tree, have exalted
the low tree, have dried up the green tree,
and have made the dry tree to flourish: I
the L ird have spoken, and have done it.
When the royal family of Judah was brought to
desolation by tlie captivity of Jehoiachin and Zede-
kiuh, it might be asked, “ What is now become of
tlie covenant of royalty made with David, that his
children should sit u/ion his throne for evermore ?
Do the sure mercies of David prove thus unsure?”
To which it is sufficient, for the silencing of the ob¬
jectors, to answer, that the promise was conditional;
If they will keep my covenant, then they shall con¬
tinue, Ps. cxxxii. 12. But David’s posterity broke
the condition, and so forfeited the promise. But the
unbelief of man shall not invalidate the promise of
God. He will find out another Seed of David, in
which it shall be accomplished; and that is promised
in these verses.
I. The house of David shall again be magnified,
and out of its ashes another phoenix shall arise. The
metaphor of a tree, which was made use of in the
threatening, is here presented in the promise, v. 22,
23. This promise had its accomplishment in part,
when Zerubbabel, a branch of the house of- David,
was raised up to head the Jews in their return out
of captivity, and to rebuild the city and temple,
and re-establish their church and state; but it was
to have its full accomplishment in the kingdom of
the Messiah, who was a Root out of a dry ground,
and to whom God, according to promise, gave the
throne of his father David, Luke i. 32.
1. God himself undertakes the reviving and re¬
storing of the house of David. Nebuchadnezzar
was tiie great eagle that had attempted the re-es¬
tablishing of the house of David, in a dependence
upon him, v. 5. But the attempt miscarried; his
plantation withered, and was plucked up; “Well,”
says God, “ the next shall be of my planting, I will
also take of the highest branch of the high cedar, and
I will set it." Note, As men have their designs,
God also has his designs; but his will prosper when
theirs are blasted. Nebuchadnezzar prided himself
in setting up kingdoms at his pleasure, Dan. v. 19.
But those kingdoms soon had an end, whereas the
God of heaven sets u/i a kingdom that shall never
be destroyed, Dan. ii. 44.
2. The house of David is revived in a tender one
cropped from the top of his young twigs; Zerubba¬
bel was so; that which was hopeful in him, was but
the day of small things, (Zech. iv. 10.) yet before
him great mountains were made plain. Our Lord
Jesus was the highest Branch of the high cedar, the
furthest of all from the root; for, soon after he ap¬
peared, the house of David was all cut off and ex¬
tinguished, but the nearest of all to heaven, for his
kingdom was not of this world. He was taken from
the top of the young twigs, for he is the Man, the
Branch, a tender Plant, and a Root out of a dry
ground, (Isa. liii. 2.) but a Branch of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.
3. This branch is planted in a high mountain,
(v. 22.) in the mountain of the height of Israel;
(t>. 23. ) thither he brought Zerubbabel in triumph,
there he raised up his son Jesus, sent him to gather
the lost sheep of the house of Israel that were scat¬
tered upon the mountains, set him his King upon
his holy hill of Zion, sent forth the gospel from
mount Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem;
there, in the height of Israel, a nation which all its
neighbours had an eye upon as conspicuous and il¬
lustrious, was the Christian church first planted;
the churches of Judea were the most primitive
churches. The unbelieving Jews did what they
could to prevent its being planted there; but who
can pluck up what God will plant?
4. From thence it spreads far and wide. The
Jewish state, though it began very low in Zerub-
babel’s time, was set as a tender branch, which
might easily be plucked up, yet took root, spread
strangely, and after some time became very con¬
siderable; those of other nations, fowl of every wing,
put themselves under the protection of it. The
Christian church was at first like a grain of mustard
seed, but became like this tender branch here, a
great tree; its beginning small, but its latter end in¬
creasing to admiration. When the Gentiles flocked
into the church, then did the fowl of every wing
(even the birds of prey, which those preyed upon, as
the wolf and the lamb feeding together, Isa. xii. 6.)
come and dwell under the shadow of this goodly
cedar. See Dan. iv. 21.
II. God himself will herein be glorified, v. 24.
The setting up of the Messiah’s kingdom in the
world shall discover more clearly than ever to the
children of men that God is the King of all the
earth, Ps. xlvii. 7. Never was there a more full
conviction given of this truth, that all things are
governed by an infinitely wise and mighty Provi¬
dence, than that which was given bv the exaltation
of Christ, and the establishment of his kingdom
among men; for by that it appeared that God has
all hearts in his hand, and the sovereign disposal of
all affairs. All the trees of the field shall know, 1.
That the tree which God w ill have to be brought
down, and dried up, shall be so, though it be ever
so high and stately, ever so green and flourishing.
Neither honour nor wealth, neither external ad
vancements nor internal endowments, will secure
men from humbling, withering providences. 2.
That the trees which God will have to be exalted
and to flourish, shall so be, shall so do, though ever
so low, and ever so dry. The house of Nebuchad
nezzar, that now makes so great a figure, shall be
extirpated, and the house of David, that now makes
so mean a figure, shall become famous again; and
the Jewish nation, that is now despicable, shall be
considerable. The kingdom of Satan, that has
borne so long, so large a sway, shall be broken, and
the kingdom of Christ, that was looked upon with
contempt, shall be established. The Jews, who, in
respect of church-privileges, had been high and
green, shall be thrown out, and the Gentiles, who
had been low and dry trees, shall be taken in their
room, Isa. liv. 1. All the enemies of Christ shall
be abased, and mad? his footstool, and his interests
shall be confirmed and advanced; I the Lord have
spoken, it is the decree, the declared decree, that
Christ must be exalted, must be the Head-Stone of
the corner, and I have done it, I will do it in due
time, but it is as sure to be done as if it were done
already. With men saying and doing are two
things, but they are not so with God. What he
has spoken we may be sure that he will do, nor
shall one iota or tittle of his word fall to the ground,
for he is not a mat i, that he should lie, or the son of
man, that he should repent either of his threatenings
or of his promises.
CHAP. XVIII.
Perhaps, in reading some of the chapters foregoing, we
may have been tempted to think ourselves not much con¬
cerned in them; (though they also were written for our
learning;) but this chapter, at first view, appears highly
and nearly to concern us all — very highly, very nearly;
for without particular reference to Judah and Jerusalem,
it lays down the rule of judgment according to which
God will deal with the children of men in determining
them to their everlasting state; and it agrees with lhat
very ancient rule laid down, Gen. iv. 7. If thou driest
6G7
EZEKIEL, XVIII.
well, shall thou not be accepted ? But, if not, sin, the
punishment of sin, lies at the door. Here is, I. The cor¬
rupt proverb used by the profane Jews, which gave occa¬
sion to the message here sent them, and made it neces¬
sary for the justifying of God in his dealings with them,
v. 1 . . 3. 11. The reply given to this proverb, in which
God asserts in general his own sovereignty and justice,
v. 4. Wo to the wicked, it shall be ill with them, v.
4, 20, But say to the righteous, It shall be well with
them, v. 5.. 9. In particular, as to the case complained
of, he assures us, 1. That it shall be ill with a wicked
man, though he had a good father, v. 10 - • 13, 2. That
it shall be well with a good man, though he had a wick¬
ed lather, v. 14.. 18. And therefore, in this, God is
righteous, v. 19, 20. 3. That it shall be well with peni¬
tents, though they began ever so ill, (v. 21 . .23. ) and
again, v. 27, 28. 4. That it shall be ill with apostates,
though they began ever so well, v. 24, 26. And the use
of all this is, (1.) To justify God, and clear the equity of
all his proceedings, v. 25, 29. (2.) To engage and en¬
courage us to repent of our sins, and turn to God, v.
30. .32. And these are things which belong to our ever¬
lasting peace. 0 that we may understand and regard
them before they be hid from our eyes !
1. 4 ND the word of the Lord came
1 V unto me again, saying, 2. What
mean ye, that ye use this proverb concern¬
ing the land of Israel, saying, The fathers
have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s
teeth are set on edge ? 3. As I live, saith
the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion
any more to use this proverb in Israel. 4.
Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of
the father, so also the soul of the son is
mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die. 5.
But if a man be just, and do that which is
lawful and right, 6 And hath not eaten
upon the mountains, neither hath lifted up his
eyes to the idols of the house of Israel,
neither hath defiled his neighbour’s wife,
neither hath come near to a menstruous
woman, 7. And hath not oppressed any,
but hath restored to the debtor his pledge,
hath spoiled none by violence, hath given
his Dread to ihe hungry, and hath covered
the naked with a garment; 3. He that hath
not given forth upon usury, neither hath
taken any increase, that hath withdrawn his
hand from iniquity, hath executed true judg¬
ment between man and man, 9. Hath
walked in my statutes, and hath kept my
judments, to deal truly; he is just, he shall
surely live, saith the Lord God.
Evil manners, we say, beget good laws; and in
like manner sometimes unjust reflections occasion
just vindications; evil proverbs beget good prophe¬
cies. Here is,
I. An evil proverb commonly used by the Jews
in their captivity. We had one before, {ch. xii.
22.) and a reply to it; here we have another. That
sets God’s justice at defiance, The days are pro-
longed , and every vision fails. The threatenings are
a jest. This charges him with injustice, as if the
judgments executed were a wrong; “ You use this
pr (verb concerning the land of Israel, now that it is
i lid waste by the judgments of God, saying, The
fathers have eaten sour grafies, and the children’s
teeth are set on edge;” we are punished for the sins
of our ancestors, which is as great an absurdity in
the divine regimen, as if the children should have
their teeth set on edge, or stupified, by the fathers’
eating sour grapes, whereas, in the order ot natural
causes, if men eat or drink any thing amiss, thev
only themselves shall suffer by it. Now, 1. It must
be owned that there was some occasion given foi
this proverb. God had often said that he would
visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children,
especially the sin of idolatry, intending thereby to
express the evils of sin, or of that sin, his detesta¬
tion ot it, and just indignation against it, and the
heavy punishments he would bring upon idolaters,
and that parents might be restrained from sin by
their affection to their children, and that children
might not be drawn to sin by their reverence for
their parents. He had likewise often declared by
his prophets, that in bringing the present ruin upon
Judah and Jerusalem he had an eye to the sins of
Manasseh and other preceding kings; for looking
upon the nation as a body politic, and punishing
them with national judgments for national sins, and
admitting the maxim in our law, that a corporation
never dies, reckoning with them now for the iniqui¬
ties of former ages, was but like making a man,
when he is old, to possess the iniquities of his youth,
Job xiii. 26. And there is no unrighteousness with
God in doing so. But, 2. They intended it as a reflec¬
tion upon God, and an impeachment of his equity in
his proceedings against them. Thus far that is right,
which is implied in this proverbial saving, That
they who are guilty of wilful sin, eat sour " grapes,
they do that which they will feel from, sooner or
later. The grapes may look well enough in the
temptation, but they will be bitter as bitterness it¬
self in the reflection. They will set the sinner’s
teeth on edge; when conscience is awake, and sets
the sin in order before them, it will spoil the relish
of their comforts as when the teeth are set on edge.
But they suggest it as unreasonable that the children
should smart for the father’s folly, and feel the pain
of that which they never tasted the pleasure of, and
that God was unrighteous in thus taking vengeance,
and could not justify it. See how wicked the reflec¬
tion is, how daring the impudence; yet see how
witty it is, and how sly the comparison. Many that
are impious in their jeers, are ingenious in their
jests; and thus the malice of hell against God and
religion is insinuated and propagated. It is here
put into a proverb, and that proverb used, com¬
monly used, they had it up ever and anon. And
though it had plainly a blasphemous meaning, yet
they sheltered themselves under the similitude from
the imputation of downright blasphemy. Now by
this it appears that they were unhumbled under the
rod, for, instead of condemning themselves and jus¬
tifying God, they condemned him and justified them¬
selves; but wo to him that thus strives with his
Maker.
I. A just reproof of, and reply to, this proverb;
What mean ye to use it? That is the reproof; ‘‘Do
you intend hereby to try it out with God? Or can
you think any other than that you will hereby pro¬
voke him to be angry with you till he has consumed
you ? Is this the way to reconcile yourselves to him,
and make your peace with him?’’ The replu fol¬
lows, in which God tells them,
1. That the use of the proverb should be taken
away. This is said, it is sworn; (v. 3.) Ye shall not
have occasion any more to use this proverb; or, as
it mav be read, Ye shall not have the use of t/ns
parable. The taking away of this parable is made
the matter of a promise,' Jer. xxxi. 29. Here it is
made the matter of a threatening; there it intimates
that God will return to them in ways cf mercy;
here it intimates that God would proceed against
them in ways of judgment. He will so punish them
for this impudent saying, that they shall not dare to
use it any more; as in another case Jer. xxiii. 34,
663
EZEKIEL, XVIII.
36. God will find out effectual ways to silence
those cavillers. Or, God will so manifest both to
themselves and others that they have wickedness
of their own enough to bring all these desolating
judgments upon them, that they shall no longer for
shame lay it upon the sins of their fathers that they
were thus dealt with; “ Your own consciences shall
tell you, and all your neighbours shall confirm it,
‘hat you yourselves have eaten the same sour
grapes that your fathers ate before you, or else
your teeth had not been set on edge.”
2. That really the saying itself was unjust, and a
causeless reflection upon God’s government. For,
(1.) God does not punish the children for their fa¬
ther’s sins, unless they tread in their steps, and fill
uji the measure of their iniquity, (Matth. xxiii. 32.)
and then they have no reason to complain, for, what¬
ever they suffer, it is less than their own sin has de¬
served. And when God speaks of visiting the
iniquity of the fathers upon the. children, that is so
far from putting any hardship upon children, to
whom he only renders according to their works,
that it accounts for God’s patience with the parents,
whom he therefore does not punish immediately,
because he lays up their iniquity.for their children,
Job xxi. 19. (2.) It is only in temporal calamities
that children (and sometimes innocent ones) fare the
worse for their parents’ wickedness, and God can
alter the property of those calamities, and make
them work for good to those that are visited with
them; but as to spiritual and eternal misery, (and
that is the death here spoken of,) the children shall
by no means smart for the parents’ sins. This is
here showed at large; and it is a wonderful piece
of condescension, that the great God is pleased to
reason the case with such wicked and unreasonable
men, that he did not immediately strike them dumb
or dead, but vouchsafed to state the matter before
them, that he may be clear when he is judged.
Now, in his reply,
[1.] He asserts and maintains his own absolute
and incontestable sovereignty; Behold, all souls are
mine, v. 4. God here claims a propeity in all the
souls of the children of men, one as well as another;
First, Souls are his. He that is the Maker of all
things, is in a particular manner the Father of spirits,
for his image is stamped on the souls of men; it was
so in their creation, it is so in their renovation. He
forms the spirit of man within him, and is therefore
called the God of the spirits of all fesh, of embodied
spirits. Secondly, Ml souls are his, all created by
him and for him, and accountable to him. As the
soul of the father, so the soul of the son, is mine.
Our earthly parents are only th e fathers of our fesh,
our souls are not theirs, God challenges them. Now
from hence it follows, for the clearing of this mat¬
ter, 1. That God may certainly do what he pleases
both with fathers and children, and none may say
unto him, What doest thou! He that gave us our
being does us no wrong if he takes it away again,
much less when he only takes away some of the sup¬
ports and comforts of it; it is as absurd to quarrel
with him as for the thing formed to say to him that
formed it. Why hast thou made me thus? 2. That
God as certainly bears a good will both to father
and son, and will put no hardship upon either. We
are sure that God hates nothing that he has made,
and therefore (speaking of the adult who are capa¬
ble of acting for themselves) he has such a kindness
for alt souls, that none die but through their own de¬
fault. All souls are his, andtherefore he is not par¬
tial in his judgment of them. Let us subscribe to
his interest in us, and dominion over us. He says,
111 souls are mine; let us answer, “ Lord, mv soul
is thine, I devote it to thee to be employed for thee,
and made happy in thee.” It is with good reason
that God s»>'s, “ My son, give me thy heart, for it is
my own;” to which we must yield; “Father, take
my heart, it is thy own.”
[2.] Though God might justify himself, by in¬
sisting upon his sovereignty, yet he waves that, and
lays down the equitable and unexceptionable rule
of judgment, by which he will proceed as to par¬
ticular persons; and it is this,
First, The sinner that persists in sin shall cer¬
tainly die, his iniquity shall be his ruin. The soul
that sins, it shall die, shall die as a soul can die,
shall be excluded from the favour of God, which
is the life and bliss of the soul, and shall lie for ever
under his wrath, which is its death and misery.
Sin is the act of the soul, the body is but the instru¬
ment of unrighteousness, it is called the sin of the
soul. Mic. vi. 7. And therefore the punishment
of sin is the tribulation and anguish of the soul,
Rom. ii. 9.
Secondly, The righteous man that perseveres in
his righteousness, shall certainly live. If a man be
just, have a good principle, a good spirit and dispo¬
sition, and, as an evidence of that, do judgment and
justice, (v. 5.) he shall surely live, saith the Lord
God, v. 9. He that makes conscience of conforming
himself in every thing to the will of God, that makes
it his business to serve God, and his aim to glorify
God, he shall without fail be happy here, and for
ever in the love and favour of God; and wherein he
comes short of his duty, it shall be forgiven him,
through a Mediator.
Now here is part cf the character of this just man.
1. He is careful to keep himself cleatlMrom the
pollutions of sin, and at a distance from all the ap¬
pearances of evil.
(1.) From sins against the secotid commandment.
In the matters of God’s worship he is jealous, for
he knows God is so. He has not only not sacrificed
in the high places to the images there set up, but he
has not so much as eaten upon the mountains, not
had any communion with idolaters by eating things
sacrificed to idols, 1 Cor. x. 20. He would not cnl)
not kneel with them at their altars, but not sit with
them at their tables in their high places. He de¬
tests not only the idols of the heathen, but the idols
of the house o f Israel, which were not only allowed
of, but generally applauded and adored, by those
that were accounted the professing people of God.
He has not only not worshipped those idols, but he
has not so much as lifted up his eyes to them; he has
not given them a favourable look, has had no regard
at all to them, neither desired their favour, nor
dreaded their frowns. He has observed so many
bewitched by them, that he has not dared so much
as to look at them, lest he should be taken in the
snare. The eyes of idolaters are said to go a whor¬
ing, Ezek. vi. 9. See Deut. iv. 19.
(2.) From sins against the seventh commandment.
He is careful to possess his vessel in sanctification
and honour, and not in the lusts o f uncleanness; and
therefore he has not dared to defile his neighbour's
wife, nor said or done any thing which had the least
tendency to corrupt or debauch her, no, nor will he
make any undue approaches to his own wife when
she is put apart for her uncleanness, for it was for¬
bidden by the law, Lev. xviii. 19. — xx. 18. Note,
It is an essential branch of wisdom and justice to
keep the appetite of the body always in subjectu n
to reason and virtue.
(3.) From sins against the eighth commandment.
He is a just man, who has not, bv fraud and under
colour of law and right, oppressed any, and who has
not with force and arms spoiled any by violence;
not spoiled them of their goods or estates, much
less of their liberties and lives, v. 7. Oppression
and violence were the sins of the old world, that
brought the deluge, and are sins of which still God
is, and will be, the Avenger. Nay, he is one that
EZEKIEL, XVIII.
669
Has not lent his money upon usury, nor taken in¬
crease, (t>. 8.) though, being done by contract, it
may seem free from injustice, {Volenti non Jit inju¬
ria— What is done to a person •with his own consent,
is no injury to him,) yet, as far as it is forbidden by
tile law, he dares not do it. A moderate usury
they were allowed to receive from strangers, but
not from their brethren. A just man will not take
advantage of his neighbour’s necessity to make a
prey of him, nor indulge himself in ease and idle¬
ness, to live upon the sweat and toil of others, and
therefore will not take increase from those who
cannot make increase of what he lends them; nor be
rigorous in exacting what was agreed for from those
who by the act of God are disabled to pay it; but
he is willing to share in loss as well as profit; Qui
sentit commodum, sentire debet et onus — He who
enjoys the benefit, should bear the burthen.
2. He makes conscience of doing the duties of his
place. He has restored the pledge to the poor
debtor, according to the law, (Exod. xxii. 26.) “If
thou take thy neighbour's raiment for a pawn, the
raiment that is for necessary use, thou shalt deliver
it to him again, that he may sleep in his own bed¬
clothes. ” Nay, he has not only restored to the poor
that which was their own, but has given his bread
to the hungry. Observe, It is called his bread, be¬
cause it is honestly come bv; that which is given to
some, is not unjustly taken from others; for God has
said, I hate robbery for burnt-offerings. 'W orldly
men insist upon it, that their bread is their own, as
Nabal, who therefore would not give of it to David;
(lSam. xxv. 11.) yet let them know that it is not
so their own but that they are bound to do good to
others with it. Clothes are necessary as well as
food, and therefore this just man is so charitable as
to cover the naked also with a garment, v. 7. The
coats which Dorcas had made for the poor were
produced as witnesses of her charity, Acts ix. 39.
This just man has withdrawn his hands from ini¬
quity; {v. 8.) if at any time he has been drawn in ;
through inadvertency to that which afterward has
appeared to him to be a wrong thing, he does not
persist in it, because he has begun it, but withdraws
his hand from that which he now perceives to be
iniquity; for he executes true judgment between j
man and man, according as his opportunity is of
doing it; as a judge, as a witness, as a juryman, as a
referee, and in all commerce, is concerned that jus¬
tice be done, that no man be wronged, that he who I
is wronged be righted, and that every man have his
own, and is ready to interpose himself, and do any
good office, in order hereunto. This is his charac- j
ter toward his neighbour; yet it will not suffice that
he be just and true to his brother, to complete his
character, he must be so to his God likewise, v. 9.
He has walked in my statutes, those which relate
to the duties of his immediate worship, he has kept
those and all his other judgments, has had respect
to them all, has made it his constant care and en¬
deavour to conform and come up to them all, to deal
truly, that so he may approve himself faithful to his
covenant with God, and, having joined himself to
God, may not treacherously depart from him, or
dissemble’ with him; this is a just man,- and living
he shall live; he shall certainly live, shall have life,
and shall have it more abundantly; shall live truly,
live comfortably, live eternally. Keep the com¬
mandments, and thou shalt enter into life, Matth.
xix. 17.
10. If he beget a son that is a robber, a
shedder of blood, and that doeth the like to
any one of these things, 1 1 . And that doeth
not any of those duties , but even hath eaten
upon the mountains, and defiled his neigh¬
bour’s wife, 12. Hath oppressed the poor
and needy, hath spoiled by violent e, hath
not restored the pledge, and hath lifted up
his eyes to the idols, hath committed abomi¬
nation, 13. Hath given forth upon usury,
and hath taken increase: shall he then live?
he shall not live: he hath done all these
abominations; he shall surely tlie, his blood
shall be upon him. 14. Now, lo, if he be¬
get a son that seeth all his father’s sins
which he hath done, and considered!), and
doeth not such like, 15. That hath not eaten
upon the mountains, neither hath lifted up
his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel,
hath not defiled his neighbour’s wife, 1G.
Neither hath oppressed any, hath not with-
holden the pledge, neither hath spoiled by
violence, but hath given his bread to the
hungry, and hath covered the naked with a
garment, 17. That hath taken off his hand
from the poor, that hath not received usury
nor increase, hath executed my judgments,
hath walked in my statutes; he shall not die
for the iniquity of his father, he shall surely
live. 18. As for his father, because he eru
elly oppressed, spoiled his brother by vio¬
lence, anti did that which is not good among
his people, lo, even he shall die in his ini¬
quity. 19. Yet say ye, Why? doth not the
son bear the iniquity of the father? When
the son hath done that which is lawful and
right, and hath kept all my statutes, and
hath done them, he shall surely live. 20.
The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The
son shall not bear the iniquity of the father,
neither shall the father bear the iniquity of
the son ; the righteousness of the righteous
shall be upon him, and the wickedness of
the wicked shall be upon him.
God, having laid down by the prophet the genera]
rule of judgment, that he will render eternal life to
them that patiently continue in well-doing, but in¬
dignation and wrath to them that do not obey the
truth, but obey unrighteousness, (Rom. ii. 7\ 8.)
comes, in these verses, to show that men’s parentage
and relation shall not alter the case either one way
or other.
I. He applies it largely, and particularly, both
ways. As it was in the royal line of the kings of
Judah, so it often happens in private families, that
godly parents have wicked children, and wicked
parents have godly children. Now here he shows,
1. That a wicked man shall certainly perish in his
iniquity, though he was the son of a pious father.
If that righteous man before described beget a son
whose character is the reverse of his father’s, his
condition will certainly be so too. (1.) It is sup¬
posed, as no uncommon case, but a very melancholy
one, that the child of a very godly father, notwith¬
standing all the instructions given him, the good
education he has had, and the needful rebukes that
have been given him, and the restraints he has been
laid under, after all the pains taken with him, and
prayers put up for him, may yet prove notoriouslv
wicked and vile, the grief of his lather, the sh ime
670
EZEKIICL. XVm.
of his family, and the curse and plague of his gene¬
ration. He is here supposed to allow himself in all
these enormities which his good father dreaded and
carefully avoided, and to shake off all those good
duties which his father made conscience of and took
satisfaction in; he undoes all that his father did, and
goes counter to his example in every thing. He is
here described to be a highwayman, a robber, and
a shedder of blood; an idolater, he has eaten upon
the mountains, ( v . 11.) and has lifted u/i his eyes to
the idols, which his good father never did, and has
come at length not only to feast with the idolaters,
but to sacrifice with them, which is here called
committing abomination, for the way of sin is down¬
hill. He is an adulterer, has defiled his neighbour's
wife; an oppressor even of the floor and needy, he
robs the spital, and squeezes those who, he knows,
cannot right themselves, and takes a pride and
pleasure in trampling upon the weak, and impo¬
verishing those that are poor already. He takes
away from those to whom he should give. He has
sfioi/ed by violence and open force, he has given
forth ufion usury, and so spoiled by contract; and
has not restored the filedge, but unjustly detained it,
even when the debt was paid. Let those good pa¬
rents that have wicked children, not look upon their
case as singular; it is a case put here; and by it we
see that grace does not run in the blood, nor always
attend the means of grace; nor is the race always to
the swift, or the battle to the strong, for then the
children that are well taught would do well, but
God will let us know that his grace is his own, and
his Spirit a free Agent, and that though we are tied
to give our children a good education, he is not tied
to bless it. In this, as much as any thing, appear
the power' of original sin and the necessity of spe¬
cial grace. (2.) We are here assured that this
wicked man shall perish for ever in his iniquity,
notwithstanding his being the son of a good father.
He may perhaps prosper awhile in the world, for
the sake of the piety of his ancestors, but, having
committed all these abominations, and never re¬
pented of them, he shall not live, he shall not be
happy in the favour of God; though he mav escape
the sword of men, he shall not escape the curse of
God, he shall surely die, he shall be for ever miser¬
able; his blood shall be upon him, he may thank
himself, he is his own destroyer; and his relation to
a good father will be so far from standing him in
stead, that it will aggravate his sin and his condem¬
nation. It made his sin the more heinous, nay, it
made him really the more vile and profligate, and,
consequently, will make his misery hereafter the
more intolerable.
2. That a righteous man shall be certain/u hap¬
py, though he is the son of a wicked father.
Though the father did eat the sour grapes, if the
children do not meddle with them, they shall fare
never the worse for that. Here,
(1.) It is supposed, and, blessed be God, it is
sometimes a case in fact, that the son of an ungodly
father may be godly; that, observing how fatal his
tather’s errors were, he may be so wise as to take
warning, and not tread in his father’s steps, v. 14.
Ordinarily, children partake of the parents’ temper,
and are drawn in to imitate their example; but
nere the son, instead of seeing his father’s sins, and,
as is usual, doing the like, seesthem, and dreads do¬
ng the like. Men indeed do not gather grapes of
‘horns, but God sometimes does; t ikes a branch
mm a wild olive, and grafts it into a good one.
Wicked Ahaz begets a good Hezekiah, who sees
ill his father's sins which he has done, and though
he will not, like Ham, proclaim his father’s shame,
or make the worst of it, yet he loathes it, and blushes
at it, and thinks the worse of sin because it was the
reproach and ruin of his own father. He considers,
and does not such like; he considers how ill it be
came his f ither to do such things, what offence it
was to God and all good men, what a wound and
dishonour he get by it, and what calamities he
brought into his family, and therefore he does not
such like. Note, If we did but duly consider the
ways of wicked men, we should all dread being as¬
sociates with them, and followers of them. The
particulars are here again enumerated almost in the
same words with that character given of the just
man, (v. 6, See. ) to show how good men walk in the
same spirit and in the same steps. This just man
here, when he took care to avoid his father’s sins,
took care toimitate his grandfather’s virtues; and if
we look back , we shall find some examples for our im
itation, as well as others for our admonition. This
just man cannot only say, as the Pharisee, lam no
adulterer, no extortioner, no oppressor, no usurer, no
idolater; but he has given his bread to the hungry,
and covered the naked; he has taken off his hand
from the poor; where he found his father had put
hardships upon poor servants, tenants, neighbours,
he eased their burthen; he did not say, “ What my
father has done I will abide by, and if it was a
fault it was his, and net mine;” as Rehoboam, who
continued the taxes his father had imposed: no,
he takes his hand off from the poor, and restores
them to their rights and liberties again, v. 15. — 17.
Thus he has executed God’s judgments, and walk¬
ed in his statutes, not only done his duty for once,
but gone on in a course and way of obedience.
(2.) We are assured that the graceless father
alone shall die in his iniquity, but his gracious son
shall fare never the worse for it. As for his father,
(to 18.) because he was a cruel oppressor, and did
hurt, nav, because, though he had wealth and
power, he did not with it do good among his people;
lo, even he, great as he is, shall die in his iniquity,
and be undone for ever; but he that kept his inte¬
grity shall surety live, shall be easy and happy, and
he shall not die for the iniquity of his father. Per¬
haps his father’s wickedness has lessened his estate,
and weakened his interest, but it shall be no preju¬
dice at all to his acceptance with God and his eter¬
nal welfare.
II. He appeals to themselves then, whether they
did not wrong God with their proverb. Thus plain
the case is, and vet ye say. Does not the son bear the
iniquity of the father ? No, he does not; he shall
not if lie will himself do that which is lawful and
right, v. 19. Rut this people that bare the iniquity
of their fathers, had not done that which is lawful
and right, and therefore justly suffered for their
own sin, and had no reason to complain of God’s
proceedings against them as at all unjust, though
thev had reason to complain of the bad example
their fathers had left them as very unkind. Our
■fathers have sinned, and are not, and we have
borne their iniquity, Lam. v. 7. It is true that
there is a curse entailed upon wicked families, but
it is as true that the entail may be cut off by repen¬
tance and reformation; let the impenitent and nn-
reformed therefore thank themselves it they fall
under it. The settled rule of judgment is therefore
repeated; (n. 20.) The soul that sinneth, it shall
die, and not another for it. What direction God
has given to earthly judges, (Dent. xxiv. 16.) lit
will himself pursue; The son shall not die, not die
eternallv, for the iniquity of the father, if he do not
tread in tlie steps of it, nor the father for the iniquity
of the son, if he endeavour to do his duty for the
preventing of it. In the day of the revelation of the
righteous judgment of God, which ;s now clouded
and eclipsed, the righteousness of the righteous
shall appear, before all the world, to be upon him to
his everlasting comfort and honour, upon him as a
robe, upon him as a crown; and the wickedness oj
671
EZEKIEL, XVIII.
,nc wicked ufion him, to his everlasting confusion, j
ipon him as a cltain, upon him as a load, as a moun-
iin of lead to sink him to the bottomless pit.
21. But if the wicked will turn from nil
nis sins that he hath committed, and keep
all my statutes, and do that which is lawful
and right, he shall surely live, he shall not
die. 22. All his transgressions that he hath
committed, they shall not be mentioned unto
him : in his righteousness that he hath done
he shall live. 23. Have I any pleasure at
all that the wicked should die? saith the
Lord God; and not that he should return
from his ways, and live? 24. But when the
righteous turneth away from his righteous¬
ness, and committeth iniquity, and doeth
according to all the abominations that the
wicked man doeth, shall he live? All his
righteousness that he hath done shall not be
mentioned : in his trespass, that he hath
trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sin¬
ned, in them shall he die. 25. Yet ye say,
The way of the Lord is not equal. Hear
now, O house of Israel, Is not my way
equal ? are not your ways unequal? 26.
When a righteous man turneth away from
his righteousness, and committeth iniquity,
and dieth in them; for his iniquity that he
hath done, shall he die. 27. Again, when
the wicked man turneth away from his wick¬
edness that he hath committed, and doeth
that which is lawful and right, he shall save
his soul alive. 23. Because he considereth,
and turneth away from all his transgressions
that he hath committed, he shall surely live,
he shall not die. 29. Yet saith the house of
Israel, The way of the Lord is not equal.
O house of Israel, are not my ways equal?
are not your ways unequal?
We have here another rule of judgment which
God will go by in dealing with us, by which is fur¬
ther demonstrated the equity of his government.
The former showed that God will reward cr punish
according to the change made in the family or suc¬
cession, for the better or for the worse; here he
shows that he will reward or punish according to
the change made in the person himself, whether for
the better or the worse. While we are in this
world, we are in a state of probation; the time of
trial lasts as long as the time of life, and according
as we ar e found at last , it will be with us to eternity.
Now see here,
I. The case fairly stated, much of it had been be¬
fore; (c/;. iii. 18, 8cc.) and here it is laid down once,
v. 21. — 24. and again, v. 26. — 28. because it is a
matter of vast importance, a matter of life and
death, of life and death eternal. Here we have,
1. A fair invitation given to wicked people, to
turn from their wickedness. Assurance is here
given us, that if the wicked will turn, he shall surely
live, v. 21, 27.
Observe, (1.) What is required to denominate a
man a true convert; how he must be qualified, that
he may be entitled to this act of indemnity. [1.]
The first step toward conversion is consideration; |
(v. 28.) Because he considers, and turns. The
reason why sinners go on in their evil ways is, be¬
cause they do not consider what will be in the end
thereof; but if the prodigal once come to himself if
he sit down, and consider a little how bad his state
is, and how easily it may be bettered, lie will soon
return to his father, (Luke xv. 17.) and the adul¬
teress to her first husband, when she considers that
then it was better with her than now, Hos. ii. 7.
[2.] This considerate n must produce an aversicn
to sin. When he considers he must turn away from
his wickedness, that denotes a change in the heart;
lie must turn from his sins and his transgressions,
.that denotes a change in the life; he must break off
from all his evil courses, and, wherein he has done
iniquity, must resolve to do so no more, and this
from a principle of hatred to sin. What have I to
do any more with idols? [3.] This aversion to sin
must be universal; he must turn from all his sins
and all his transgressions, without a reserve for any
Delilah, any house of Rimmcn. We do not rightly
turn from sin, unless we truly hate it, and we do not
truly hate sin, as sin, if we do not hate all sin.
[4.1 This must be accompanied with a conversion
to God and duty; he must keefi all God’s statutes,
(for the obedience, if it be sincere, will be univer¬
sal,) and must do that which is lawful and right,
which agrees with the word and will of God, which
he must take for his rule, and not the wills of the
flesh, and the way of the world.
(2.) What is promised to those that do thus turn
from sin to God. [1.] They shall save their souls
alive, v. 27. They shall surely live, they shall not
die, (v. 21.) and again, (v. 28.) whereas it was
said, The soul that sins it shall die, yet let not those
that have sinned despair but the threatened death
may be prevented, if they will but turn and repent
in time. When David penitently acknowledges, I
have sinned, he is immediately assured of his par¬
don; “ The Lord has taken away the sin, thou shalt
not die, (2 S im. xii. 13.) thou shalt not die eternal¬
ly.” He shall surely live; he shall be restored to
the favour of God, which is the life of the soul, and
shall not lie under his wrath, which is as messengers
of death to the soul. [2.] The sins they have
repented of, and forsaken, shall not rise up in
judgment against them, nor shall they be so
much as upbraided with them; Jill his trans¬
gressions that he has committed, though nume¬
rous, though heinous, though very provoking to
God, and redounding very much to his dishonour,
yet they shall not be mentioned unto him, (v. 22.)
not mentioned against him; not only they shall not
be imfmted to him to ruin him, but in the great day
they shall not be remembered against him to grieve
or shame him; they shall be covered, shall be
sought for, and not found. This speaks the fulness
of pardoning mercy; when sin is forgiven, it is blot¬
ted out, it is remembered no more. [3.] In their
righteousness they shall live; not for their righteous¬
ness, as if that were the purchase of their pardon
and bliss, and an atonement for their sins, but in
their righteousness, which qualifies them for all the
blessings purchased by the Mediator, and is itself
one of those blessings.
(3.) What encouragement a repenting, returning
sinner has to hope for pardon and life according to
this promise. He is conscious to himself that his
obedience for the future can never be a valuable
compensation for his former disobedience; but he
has this to support himself with, that God’s na¬
ture, firofierty, and delight, is to have mercy and
to forgive, for he has said, (v. 23.) “ Nave I any
pleasure at all that the wicked should die? No, by
no means, you never had any cause given you to
think so.” It is true, God has determined to punish
sinners, his justice calls for it, and, pursuant to that,
672
EZEKIEL, XVIII.
impenitent sinners will lie for ever under Ms wr=>th
and cu^se; tliat is the will of his decree, his conse¬
quent will, but it is not his antecedent will, the will
of his delight; though the righteousness of his go¬
vernment requires that sinners die, yet the goodness
of his nature objects against it; How shall I give
thee up, Ephraim ? It is spoken here comparative¬
ly; he has not pleasure in the ruin of sinners, for he
would rather they should turn from their ways and
live; he is better pleased when his mercy is glori¬
fied in their salvation, than when his justice is glo¬
rified in their damnation.
2. A fair warning given to righteous people, not
to turnfrom their righteousness, v. 24. — 26. Here
is, (1.) The character of an apostate, that turns
away from his righteousness: he never was in sin¬
cerity a righteous man, (as appears by that of the
apostle, (1 John ii. 19.) If they had been of us, they
•would, no doubt, have continued with us,) but he
passed for a righteous man, had the denomination
and all the external marks of a righteous man, he
thought himself one, and others thought him one,
but he throws off his profession, leaves his first love,
disowns and forsakes the truth and ways of God,
and so turns away from his righteousness as one
sick of it, and now shows, what he always had, a
a secret aversion to it; and, having turned away
from his righteousness, he commits iniquity, grows
loose, and profane, and sensual, intemperate, un¬
just, and, in short, does according to all the abomi¬
nations that the wicked man does; for when the un¬
clean spirit recovers his possession of the heart, he
brings with him seven other spirits more wicked
than himself, and they enter in and dwell there,
Luke xi. 26. (2.) The doom of an apostate; Shall
he live because he was once a righteous man? No,
Factum non dicitur quod non perseverat — That
which does not abide, is not said to be done. In his
trespass, (v. 24.) and for his iniquity, (that is the
meritorious cause of his ruin,) for the iniquity that
he has done, he shall die, shall die eternally, v. 26.
The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own
ways. But will not his former professions and per¬
formances stand him in some stead — will they not
avail at least to mitigate his punishment? No, All
his righteousness that he has done, though ever so
much applauded by men, shall not be mentioned so
as to be either a creditor a comfort to him; the
righteousness of an apostate is forgotten, as the
wickedness of a penitent is. Under the law, if a
Nazarite were polluted he lost all his foregoing days
of his separation, (Numb. vi. 12.) so those that
have begun in the spirit and end in the flesh, may
reckon all their past services and sufferings in vain;
(Gal. iii. 3, 4.) unless we persevere we lose what
we have gained, 2 John viii.
II. An appeal to the consciences even of the
house of Israel, though very corrupt, concerning
God’s equity in all these proceedings; for he will be
justified, as well as sinners judged, out of their own
mouths. 1. The charge they drew up against God
is blasphemous, v. 25, 29. The house of Israel has
the impudence to say, The way of the Lord is not
equal; than which nothing could be more absurd as
well as impious. He that formed the eye, shall he
not see? Can his ways be unequal, whose will is the
eternal rule of good and evil, right and wrong?
Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? No
doubt, he shall; he cannot do otherwise. 2. God’s
reasonings with them are very gracious and conde¬
scending, for even these blasphemers God would
rather have convinced and saved than condemned.
One would have expected that God should have
immediately vindicated the honour of his justice by
m iking those that impeached it eternal monuments
of it. Must those be suffered to draw another
breath, that h ive once breathed out such wicked¬
ness as this? Shall thattongue ever speak again any
where but in hell, that has once said, The ways of
the Lord are not equal? Yes, because this is the day
of God’s patience, he vouchsafes to argue with them;
and he requires them to own it, for it is so plain, that
they cannot deny, (1.) The equity of his ways; Are
not my ways equal? No doubt they are. He never
lays upon man more than is right. In the present
punishments of sinners and the afflictions of his own
people, yea, and in the eternal damnation of the
impenitent, the ways of the Lord are equal. (2.)
The iniquity of their ways; Are not your ways une¬
qual? It is plain that they are, and the troubles you
are in you have brought upon your own heads.
God does you no wrong, but you have wronged
yourselves. ” The foolishness of man perverts his
way, makes that unequal, and then his heart frets
against the Lord, as if his ways were unequal,
Prov. xix. 3. In all our disputes with God, and in
all his controversies with us, it will be found that
his ways are equal, but ours are unequal, that he
is in the right, and we are in the wrong.
30. Therefore I will judge you, O house
of Israel, every one according to his ways,
saith the Lord God. Repent, and turn
yourselves from all your transgressions; so
iniquity shall not be your ruin. 31. Cast
away from you all your transgressions,
whereby ye have transgressed; and make
you a new heart and a new spirit: for why-
will ye die, O house of Israel? 32. For i
have no pleasure in the death of him that
dieth, saith the Lord God; wherefore turn
yourselves , and live ye.
We have here the conclusion and application of
this whole matter. After a fair trial at the bar cf
right reason, the verdict is brought in on God’s
side, it appears that his ways are equal; judgment
therefore is next to be given; and one would think
it should be a judgment of condemnation, nothing
short of Go, ye cursed, into everlasting fire; but
behold a miracle of mercy; the day of grace and
divine patience is yet lengthened out; and there¬
fore, though God will at last judge every one ac¬
cording to his ways, yet he waits to be gracious,
and closes all with a call to repentance, and a pre¬
mise of pardon upon repentance.
1. Here are four necessary duties that we are
called to; all amounting to the same. (1.) We
must repent; we must change our mind, and change
our ways; we must be sorry for what we have done
amiss, and ashamed of it, and go as far as we can
toward the undoing of it again. (2.) We must turn
ourselves from all our transgressions, (v. 30. ) and
again, v. 32. Turn yourselves, face about; turn
from sin, nay, turn against it as the enemy you
loathe, turn to God as the Friend you love." (3.)
We must cast away from us all our transgressions,
we must abandon and forsake them with a resolution
never to return to them again; give sin a bill of di¬
vorce, break all the leagues we have made with it,
throw it overboard, as the mariners did Jonah, for it
has raised the storm; cast it out of the soul, and
crucify it, as a malefactor. (4.) We must make us
a new heart, and a 7iew spirit. This wa» the mat¬
ter of a promise, ch. xi. 19. here it is the matter of
a precept; we must do our endeavour, and then
God will not be wanting to us to give us his grace.
St. Austin well explains this precept; Dens non jubet
impossibilia, sed jubendo jnonet et facere quod
possis, et petere quod non possis — God does not en¬
join impossibilities, but by his commands admonishes
673
EZEKIEL, XIX.
•<s to do iv hat is in our power, and to p ay for what
is not.
Here are four good arguments used to enforce
these calls to repentance. (1. ) It is the only way, and
it is a sure way, to prevent the ruin which our sins
have a direct tendency to; So iniquity shall not be
your ruin; which implies that, if we do not repent,
iniquity will be our ruin here and for ever, but that
if we do we are safe, we are snatched as brands from
the burning. (2. ) If we repent not, we certainly pe¬
rish, and our blood will be upon our own heads. Why
will ye die, 0 house of Israel? What an absurd thing
it is for you to choose death and damnation rather
than life "and salvation. Note, The reason why sin¬
ners die is, because they will die, they will go down
the way that leads to death, and not come up to the
terms on which life is offered; herein sinners, espe¬
cially sinners of the house of Israel, are most Unrea¬
sonable, and act most unaccountably. (3.) The
God of heaven has no delight in our ruin, but de-
siies our welfare; (v. 32.) I have no /ileasure in
the death of him that dies, which implies that he
has pleasure in the recovery of those that repent;
which is both an engagement and an encouragement
to us to repent. (4.) We are made for ever, if we
repent; Turn yourselves and live ye. He that
says to us, Repent, thereby says to us, Live, yea,
he says to us, Live ; so that life and death are here
set before us.
CHAP. XIX.
The scope of this chapter is much the same with that of
the 17th, to foretell and lament the ruin of the house of
David , the royal family of Judah, in the calamitous exit
of the four sons and grandsons of Josiah—Jehoahaz,
Jehoiakim, Jeconiah, and Zedekiah, in whom that illus¬
trious line of kings was cut off, which the prophet is here
ordered to lament, v. 1. And he does it by similitudes.
I. The kingdom of Judah and house of David are here
compared to a lioness, and those princes to lions that
were fierce and ravenous, but were hunted down, and
taken in nets, v. 2 . . 9. II. That kingdom and that
house are here compared to a vine, and these princes to
branches, which had been strong and flourishing, but
were now broken off' and burnt, v. 10 . . 14. This ruin of
that monarchy was now in the doing, and this lamenta¬
tion of it was intended to affect the people with it, that
they might not flatter themselves with vain hopes of the
lengthening out of their tranquillity.
[OREOVER, take thou up a la¬
mentation for the princes of Israel,
2. And say, What is thy mother? A lioness:
she lay down among lions, she nourished
her whelps among young lions. 3. And she
brought up one of her whelps : it became a
young lion, and it learned to catch the prey;
it devoured men. 4. The nations also heard
of him ; he was taken in their pit, and they
brought him with chains unto the land of
Egypt. 5. Now, when she saw that she had
waited, and her hope was lost, then she
took another of her whelps, and made him
a young lion. 6. And he went up and down
among the lions, he became a young lion,
and learned to catch the prey, and devoured
men. 7. And he knew their desolate pa¬
laces, and he laid waste their cities; and the
land was desolate, and the fulness thereof,
by the noise of his roaring. 8. Then the
nations set against him on every side from
the provinces, and spread their net over
him: he was taken in their pit. 9. And
Vol. iv. — 4 Q
they put him in ward in chains, and brought
him to the king of Babylon ; they brought
him into holds, that his voice should no more
be heard upon the mountains of Israel.
Here are,
I. Orders given to the prophet to bewail the fall
of the royal family, which had long made so great a
figure by virtue of a covenant of royalty made with
David and his seed, so that the eclipsing and ex¬
tinguishing of it are justly lamented by all who know
what value to put upon the covenant of our God:
as we find, after a very large account of that cove¬
nant with David, (Ps. lxxxix. 3, 20, &c.) a sad
lamentation for the decays and desolations of his
family; (x>. 38, 39.) But thou hast cast off and ab
horred, hast made void the covenant of thy servant,
and profaned his crown, &c. The kings of Judah
are here called princes of Israel; for their glory
was diminished, and they were become but as
princes; and their purity was lost, they were be¬
come corrupt and idolatrous as the kings of Israel,
whose ways they had learned. The prophet must
take up a lamentation for them; he must describe
their lamentable fall, as one that did himself lay it
to heart, and desired that those he preached and
wrote to might do so too. And how can we expect
that others should be affected with that which we
ourselves are not affected with? Ministers, when
they boldly foretell, must yet bitterly lament, the
destruction of sinners, as those that have not desired
the woful day. He is not directed to give advice to
the princes of Israel, (that had been long and often
done in vain,) but, the decree being gone forth, he
must take up a lamentation for them.
II. Instructions given him what to say.
1. He must compare the kingdom of Judah to a
lioness; so wretchedly degenerated was it from what
it had been formerly, when it sat as a queen among
the nations, v. 2. What is thy mother ? Thine, O
king? We read of Solomon’s crown wherewith his
mother crowned him, his people, Cant. iii. 13.
Thine, O Judah? The royal family is as a mother
to the kingdom, a nursing-mother. She is a lioness,
fierce, and cruel, and ravenous. When they had
left their divinity, they soon lost their humanity too;
and when they feared not God, neither did they re¬
gard man. She lay down among lions; God had
said, The people shall dwell alone, but they mingled
themselves with the nations, and learned their works.
She tiourishecl her whelps among young lions,
taught the young princes the way of tyrants, which
was then used by the arbitrary kings of the east,
filled their heads betimes with notions of their abso¬
lute, despotic power, and possessed them with a
belief that they had a right to enslave their subjects,
that their liberty and property lay at their merev:
thus she nourished her whelps among young lions.
2. He must compare the kings of Judah to lions’
whelps, v. 3. Jacob had compared Judah, and es¬
pecially the house of David, to a lion’s whelp, for¬
ks being strong and formidable to its enemies abroad;
(Gen. xlix. 9.) He is an old lion, who shall stir him
tip? And if they had adhered to the divine law and
promise, God had preserved to them the migh',
and majesty, and dominion of a lion; and does it in
Christ, the Lion of the tribe of Judah; but these,
lions’ whelps were so to their own subjects, were
cruel and oppressive to them, preyed upon their
estates and liberties; and when they thus by their
tyranny made themselves a terror to those "whom
they ought to have protected, it was just with God
to make those a terror to them, whom otherwise
they mieht have subdued. Here is lamented,
(1.) The sin and fall of Jehoahaz, one of the
whelps cf this licness. He became a youi,g lion .
674
EZEKIEL, XIX.
v. 3.) he was made king, and thought he was made
so that he might do what he pleased, and gratify his
own ambition, covetousness, and revenge, as he had
a mind; and so he was soon master of all the arts of
tyranny, he learned to catch the prey, and devoured
men; when he got power in his hand, all that had
before in any thing disobliged him were made to
feel his resentments, and become a sacrifice to his
rage. But what came of it? He did not prosper
long in his tyranny: the nations heard of Mm, (x>. 4.)
heard how furiously he drove, at his first coming to
the crown, how he trampled upon all that is just
and sacred, and violated all his engagements, so
that they looked upon him as a dangerous neigh¬
bour, and prosecuted him accordingly, as a multi¬
tude of shepherds is called forth against a lion
roaring on his prey, Isa. xxxi. 4. And he was
taken, as a beast of prey, in their pit. His own
subjects durst not stand up in defence of their own
liberties, but God raised up a foreign power that
soon put an end to his tyranny, and brought him in
chains to the land of Egypt. Thither Jehoahaz
was carried captive, and never heard of more.
(2.) The like sin and fall of his successor Jehoia-
kim. 1’he kingdom of Judah for some time ex¬
pected the return of Jehoahaz out of Egypt, but at
length despaired of it, and then took another of the
lion’s whelps, and made him a young lion, v. 5.
And he, instead of taking warning by his brother’s
fate to use his power with equity and moderation,
and to seek the good of his people, trod in his
brother’s steps; he went up and down among the
lions, v. 6. He consulted and conversed with
those that were fierce and furious like himself, and
took his measures from them, as Rehoboam took
the advice of the rash and hot-headed young men;
and he soon learned to catch the prey, and he de¬
voured men, ( v . 6.) he seized his subjects’ estates,
fined and imprisoned them, filled his treasury by
rapine and injustice, sequestrations and confisca¬
tions, fines and forfeitures, and swallowed up all
that stood in his way; he had got the art of disco¬
vering what effects men had, that lay concealed, and
•vhere the treasures were, which they had hoarded
up; he knew their desolate places, (v. 7.) where
they hid their money, and sometimes hid them¬
selves; he knew where to find both out; and by his
oppression he laid waste their cities, depopulated
them by forcing the inhabitants to remove their fa¬
milies to some place of safety. The land was deso¬
late, and the country villages were deserted; and
though there was great plenty, and a fulness of all
good things, yet people quitted it all for fear of the
?ioise of his roaring. He took a pride in making all
his subjects afraid of him, as the lion makes all the
beasts of the field to tremble, (Amos iii. 8.) and bv
his terrible roaring so astonished them, that they
fell down for fear, and, having not spirit to make
their escape, became an easy prey to him, as they
say the lions do. He hectored, and threatened, and
talked big, and bullied people out of what they had.
Thus he thought to have established his own power,
but it had a contrary effect, it did but hasten his
own ruin; (x1. 8.) The nations set against him on
every side, to restrain and reduce his exorbitant
power, which they joined in confederacy to do for
their common safety; and they spread their net over
him, formed designs against him. God brought
against Jehoiakim bands of the Syrians, Moabites,
and Ammonites, with the Chaldees, (2 Kings xxiv.
2.) and he was taken in their pit. Nebuchadnezzar
bound him in fetters to carry him to Babylon, 2
Chron. xxxvi. 6. They put this lion within gratis,
bound him in chains, and brought him to the king
of Babylon, v. 9. What became of him we know
not, but his voice was no where heard roaring upon
the mountains of Israel. There was an end of his
tyranny; he was buried with the burial of an as *
(Jer. xxii. 19.) though he had been as a lion, the
terror of the mighty in the land of the living. >Jote,
The righteousness of God is to be acknowledged
when those who have terrified and enslaved others
are themselves terrified and enslaved; when those
who by the abuse of their power to destruction
which was given them for edification, make them¬
selves as wild beasts, as roaring lions and ranging
bears, (J'or'such, Solomon says, wicked ruiers ui\
over the poor people, Prov. xxviii. 15.) are treated
as such; when those who, like Ishmael, have then
hand against every man, come at last to have every
man’s hand against them. It was long since ob¬
served that bloody tyrants seldom die in peace, but
haye blood given them to drink, for they are worthy.
Ad generum Ccreris sine ciede et sanguine pauci
Descendunt reges et sicca morte tyranni —
How few of all the boastful men, that reign,
Descend in peace to Pluto’s dark domain! Juv.
10. Thy mother is like a vine in thy blood,
planted by the waters: she was fruitful, and
full of branches, by reason of many waters.
11. And she had strong rods for the scep¬
tres of them that bare rule, and her stature
was exalted among the thick branches, and
she appeared in her height with the multi¬
tude of her branches. 12. But she was
plucked up in fury, she was cast down to
the ground, and the east wind dried up her
fruit; her strong rods were broken and wi¬
thered, the fire consumed them. 13. And
now she is planted in the wilderness, in a
dry and thirsty ground. 14. And fire is gone
out of a rod of her branches, which hath de¬
voured her fruit, so that she hath no strong
rod to be a sceptre to rule. This is a lamenta
tion, and shall be for a lamentation.
Jerusalem, the mother-city, is here represented by
another similitude; she is a vine, and the princes are
her branches. This comparison we had before, ch.xv.
1. Jerusalem is as a vine; the Jewish nation is so;
like a vine in thy blood, (x>. 10.) the blood royal:
like a vine set in blood, and watered with blood,
which contributes very much to the flourishing and
fruitfulness of vines, as if the blood which had been
shed had been designed for the fattening and im¬
proving of the soil; in such plenty was it shed: and
for a time it seemed to have that effect, for she was
fruitful and full of branches, by reason of the wa¬
ters, the many waters near which she was planted.
Places of great wickedness may prosper for awhile:
and a vine set in blood may be full of branches.
Jerusalem was full of able magistrates, men of
sense, men of learning and experience, that were
strong rods, branches of this vine, of uncommon
bulk and strength; or, poles for the support of this
vine; for such magistrates are. The boughs of this
vine were grown to such maturity, that they were
fit to make white staves of, for the sceptres of them
that bare rule, v. 11. And they are strong rods
only that are fit for sceptres, men of strong judg¬
ments and strong resolutions, that are fit for magis¬
trates. When the royal family of Judah was nume¬
rous, and the courts of justice filled with men ot
sense and probity, then Jerusalem’s stature was
exalted among thick branches; wjien the govern-
j ment is in good, able hands, a nation is thereby
made considerable. Then she was not taken for a
weak and lowly vine, but she appeared in her height,
a distinguished city, with the multitude of her
675
EZEKIEL, XX.
branches; Tanquam lenta solent inter vibuma cu-
pressi — Midst humble withies thus the cyfiress soai's.
In thy quietness; so seme read that, v. 10. which
we translate, in thy blood, thou wast such a vine as
this. When Zedekiah was quiet and easy under
the king of Babylon’s yoke, his kingdom flourished
thus. See how "slow God is to anger, how he defers
his judgments, and waits to be gracious.
2. This vine is now quite destroyed. Nebuchad¬
nezzar, being highly provoked by Zedekiah’s
treachery, / ducked it up in fury, (y. 12.) ruined
the city and kingdom, and cut off all the branches
of the royal family that fell in his way. The vine
was cut off close to the ground, though not plucked
up by the roots; the east-wind dried up the fruit
that "was blasted, the young people fell by the
sword, or were carried into captivity. The aspect
of it had nothing that was pleasing, the prospect
nothing that was promising. Her strong rods were
broken and withered, her great men were cut off,
judges and magistrates deposed; the vine itself is
planted in the wilderness, v. 13. Babylon was as a
wilderness to those of the people that were carried
captives thither; the land of Judah was as a wilder¬
ness to Jerusalem, now that the whole country was
ravaged and laid waste by the Chaldean army; a
fruitful land turned into barrenness. It is burnt
with fire, (Ps. lxxx. 16.) and that fireis^onc out
of a rod of her branches; (y. 14.) the king himself,
by rebelling against the king of Babylon, has given
occasion to all this mischief: she may thank herself
for the fire that consumes her; she has by her wick¬
edness made herself like tinder to the sparks of
God’s wrath, so that her own branches serve as fuel
for her own consumption; in them the fire is kin¬
dled, which devoured the fruit, the sins of the elder
being the judgments which destroy the younger;
her fruit is burned with her own branches, so that
she has no strong rod to be a sceptre to rule; none
to be found now that are fit for the government, or
dare take this ruin under their hand, as the com¬
plaint is; (Isa. iii. 6, 7.) none of the house of David
left, that have a right to rule, no wise men, or men
of sense, that are able to rule. It goes ill with any
state, and is like to go worse, when it is thus de¬
prived of the blessings of government, and has no
strong rods for sceptres. IVo unto thee, O land,
when thy king is a child, for it is as well to have no
rod, as not a strong rod. Those strong rods, we
have reason to fear, had been instruments of op¬
pression, assistant to the king in catching the prey,
and devouring men, and now they are destroyed
with him. Tyranny is the inlet to anarchy; and
when the rod of government is turned into the ser¬
pent of oppression, it is just with God to say,
“There shall be no strong rod to be a sceptre to
. rule ; but let men be as are the fishes of the sea, where
the greater devour the lesser.” Note, This is a
lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation. The
prophet was bidden, (v. 1.) to take up a lamenta¬
tion; and having done so, he leaves it to be made
use of by others. “ It is a lamentation to us of this
age, and, the desolations continuing long, it shall be
for a lamentation to those that shall come after us;
the child unborn will rue the destruction made of Ju¬
dah and Jerusalem by the present judgments. They
were a great while in coming, the bow was long in
the drawing; but now that they are come, they will
continue, and the sad effects of them will be entailed
upon posterity. ” Note, Those who fill up the mea¬
sure of their fathers’ sins, are laying up in store for
their children’s sorrows, and furnishing them with
matter for lamentation ; and nothing is more so than
the overthrow of government.
CHAP; XX.
Ii this chapter, I. The prophet is consulted by some of
the elders of Israel, v. 1. II. He is instructed by his
God what answer to give them. He must, 1. Signify
God’s displeasure against them, v. 2, 3. And, 2. He must
show t hem what just cause he had for that displeasure;
by giving them a history of God’s grateful dealings with
their fathers, and their treacherous dealings with God.
(1.) In Egypt, v. 5 . . 9. (2.) In the wilderness, v 10
..26. (3.) In Canaan, v. 27 .. 32. (4.) He must de¬
nounce the judgments of God against them, v. 33 . . 36.
(5.) He must tell them likewise what mercy God had in
store for them, when he would bring a remnant of them
to repentance, re-establish them in tneir own land, and
set up his sanctuary among them again, v. 37 . . 44. (6. )
Here is another word dropped toward Jerusalem, which
is explained and enlarged upon in the next chapter, v.
45 . . 49.
1. A ND it came to pass in the seventh
year, in the fifth month, the tenth
day of the month, that certain of the elders
of Israel came to inquire of the Lord, and
sat before me. 2. Then came the word of
the Lord unto me, saying, 3. Son of man,
speak unto the elders of Israel, and say
unto them, Thus saith the Lord God, Are
ye come to inquire of me? As I live, saith
the Lord God, I will not be inquired of by
you. 4. Wilt thou judge them, son of man?
wilt thou judge them? cause them to know
the abominations of their fathers.
Here is, 1. The occasion of the message which
we have in this chapter. That sermon which we
had, ch. xviii. was occasioned by their presump¬
tuous reflections upon God; this was occasioned by
their hypocritical inquiries after him. Each shall
have his own. This prophecy is exactly dated in
the seventh year of the captivity, about two years
after Ezekiel began to prophesy. God would have
them to keep count how long their captivity lasted,
that they might see how the years went on toward
their deliverance, though very slowly. Certain of
the elders of Israel came to inquire of the Lord , .not
statedly, (as those, ch. viii. 1.) but, as it should
seem, occasionally, and upon a particular emer¬
gency. Whether they were of those that were
now in captivity, or elders lately come from Jeru¬
salem upon business to Babylon, is not certain; but
by what the prophet says to them, (v. 32.) it should
seem, their inquiry was, whether now that they
were captives in Babylon, at a distance from their
own country, where they had not only no temple,
but no synagogue, for the worship of God, it was
not lawful for them, that they might ingratiate
themselves with their lords and masters, to join
with them in their worship, and do as the families
of these countries do, that serve wootf and stone.
This matter was palliated as well as it would bear,
like Naaman’s indenting with Elisha for leave to
bow in the house of Rimmon, in compliment to the
king; but we have reason to suspect that their in¬
quiry drove at this. Note, Those hearts are wretch¬
edly hardened which ask God leave to go on in sin,
and that when they are suffering for it. They came
and sat very demurely, and with a show of devotion,
before the prophet, ch. xxxiii. 31.
2. The purport of this message.
(1.) They must be made to know that Cod is
angry with them; he takes it as an affront that they
are come to inquire of him, when they are resolved
to go on still in their trespasses; jts I live, saith the
Lord God, I will not be inquired of by you, v. S
Their shows of devotion shall be neither acceptable
to God nor advantageous to themselves. God will
not take notice of their inquiries, nor give them any
satisfactory answers. Note, A hypocritical attend¬
ance on God and his ordinances is so far from being
pleasing to him, that it is provoking.
076
EZEKIEL, XX.
(2.) They must be made to know that God is
justly angry with them; (v. 4.) “ Wilt thou judge
them, son of man, wilt thou judge them? Thou art
a prophet, surely thou wilt not plead for them, as
an intercessor with God; but surely thou wilt pass
sentence on them as a judge for God. See, I have
set thee over the nation; wilt thou not declare to
them the judgments of the Lord? Cause them
therefore to know the abominations of their fathers. ”
So the orders run now, as before, ch. xvi. 2. He
must cause them to know their own abominations.
Though their own abominations were sufficient to
justify God in the severest of his proceedings against
them, yet it would be of use for them to know
the abominations of their fathers; that they might
see what a righteous thing it was with God now at
last to cut them off from being a people, who from
the first were such a provoking people.
5. And say unto them, Thus saith the
Lord God, In the day when I chose Israel,
and lifted up my hand unto the seed of the
house of Jacob, and made myself known
unto them in the land of Egypt, when I
lifted up my hand unto them, saying, I am
the Lord your God; 6. In the day that I
lifted up my hand unto them, to bring them
forth of the land of Egypt into a land that
I had espied for them, flowing with milk
and honey, which is the glory of all lands;
7. Then said I unto them, Cast ye away
every man the abominations of his eyes,
and defile not yourselves with the idols of
Egypt: I am the Lord your God. 8. But
they rebelled against me, and would not
hearken unto me : they did not every man
cast away the abominations of their eyes,
neither did they forsake the idols of Egypt:
then I said, I will pour out my fury upon
them, to accomplish mine anger against
them in the midst of the land of Egypt.
9. But I wrought for my name’s sake, that
it should not be polluted before the heathen,
among whom they were, in whose sight 1
made myself known unto them, in bringing
them forth out of the land of Egypt.
The history of the ingratitude and rebellion of
the people of Israel here begins as early as their
beginning; so does the history of man’s apostacy
from his Maker. No sooner have we read the story
of our first parents’ creation, than we immediately
meet with that of their rebellion; so we see here it
was with Israel; a people designed to represent the
body of mankind, both in their dealings with God,
and his with them. Here is,
1. The gracious purposes of God’s law concern¬
ing Israel in Egypt, where they were bond-slaves
to Pharaoh. Be it spoken, be it written, to the im¬
mortal honour of free grace, that then and there,
(1.) He chose Israel to be a peculiar people to him¬
self, though their condition was bad, and their cha¬
racter worse, that he might have the honour of
mending both. He therefore chose them, because
they were the seed of t/ie house of Jacob, the pos¬
terity of that prince with God, that he might keep
the oath which he had sworn unto their fathers,
Deut. vii. 7, 8. (2.) He made himself known to
them, by his name Jehovah, (a new name, Exod.
vi. 3.' when by reason of their servitude they had
almost lost the knowledge of that name by which
he was known to their fathers, God Almighty.
Note, As the foundation of our blessedness is laid
in God’s choosing us, so the first step towards it is
God’s making himself known to us. And whatever
distance we are at, whatever distress we are in, he
that made himself known to Israel even in the land
of Egypt, can find us out, and follow us with the
gracious discoveries and manifestations of his fa¬
vour. (3.) He made over himself to them as their
God in covenant; I lifted up my hand unto them,
saying it, and confirming it with an oath, “ I am
the Lord your God, to whom you are to pay your
homage, and from whom and in whom you are to
expect your bliss.” (4.) He promised to bring them
out of Egypt; and made good what he promis¬
ed. He lifted up his hand, that is, he sware unto
them, that he would deliver them; and they being
very unworthy, and their deliverance very unlikely,
it was requisite that the promise of it should be
confirmed by an oath. Or, He lifted up his hand,
that is, he put forth his almighty power to do it; he
did it with an outstretched arm, Ps. cxxxvi. 12.
(5.) He assured them that he would put them in
possession of the land of Canaan. He therefore
brought them out cf Egypt, that he might bring
them into a land that he had spied out for them; a
second garden of Eden, which was the glory of all
lands; so he found it, the climate temperate, the
soil fruitful, the situation pleasant, and every thing
agreeable, Deut. viii. 7. — xi. 12. However, so he
made it, by setting up his sanctuary in it.
2. The reasonable commands he gave them, and
the easy conditions of his covenant with them at
that time; having told them what they might ex¬
pect from him, he next tells them what was all he
expected from them; it was no more than this, (r.
7. ) Cast ye away every man his images that he
uses for worship, that are the adorations, but should
be the abominations, of his eyes. Let him abomi¬
nate them, and put them out of his sight, and defile
not yourselves with the idols of Egypt. Of these,
it seems, many cf them were fond; the golden calt
was one of them. It was just, and what might
reasonably be expected, that, being delivered from
the Egyptian slavery, they would quit the Egyptian
idolatry; especially when God, at bringing them
out, executed judgment upon the gods of Egypt,
(Numb, xxxiii. 4.) and thereby showed himself
above them. And whatever other idols they might
have an inclination to, one would think they should
have a rooted aversion to the gods of Egypt for
Egypt’s sake, which had been to them a house ct
bondage. Yet, it seems, they needed this caution,
and it is backed with a good reason, I am the Lord
your God, who neither need an assistant, nor will
admit a rival.
3. Their unreasonable disobedience to these com¬
mands, for which God might justly have cut them
off as soon as ever they were formed into a people;
(y. 8.) They rebelled against God; not only refused
to comply with his particular precepts, but shook
off their allegiance, and in effect told him that they
would be at liberty to worship what god they
pleased. And even then when God came down to
deliver them, and sent Moses for that purpose, yet
they would not forsake the idols of Egypt; which per¬
haps made them speak so affectionately of the onions
of Egypt, (Numb. xi. 5.) for among other things the
Egyptians worshipped an onion. It was strange
that all the plagues of Egypt would not prevail to
cure them of their affection to the idols of Egypt.
For this, God said he would pour out his fury upon
them, even while they were yet in the midst of the
land of Egypt. Justly might he have said, ‘‘Let
them die with the Egyptians.” This magnifies the
riches of God’s goodness, that he was pleased to
677
EZEKIEL, XX.
work so great a salvation for them, even then when
he saw them ripe for ruin. Well might Moses tell
them, It is not for your righteousness, Deut. ix.
4, 5.
4. The wonderful deliverance which God wrought
for them, notwithstanding. Though they forfeited
the favour while it was in the bestowing, and when
God would have healed them, then their iniquity
was discovered, (Hos. vii. l.j yet mercy rejoiced
against judgment, and God did what he designed,
purely for his own name’s sake, v. 9. When
nothing in us will furnish him with a reason for his
favours, he furnishes himself with one. God made
himself known to them in the sight of the heathen,
when he ordered Moses publicly to say to Pharaoh,
Israel is my son, my first-born, let them go, that
they may serve me. Now if he should have left
them to perish fortheir wickedness as they deserved,
the Egyptians would have reflected upon him for it,
and his name would have been polluted, which
ought to be sanctified, and shall be so. Note, The
church is secured, even when it is corrupt, because
God will secure his own honour.
1 0. Wherefore 1 caused them to go forth
out of the land of Egypt, and brought them
into the wilderness: 11. And I gave them
my statutes, and shewed them my judg¬
ments, which if a man do, he shall even live
in them. 1 2. Moreover also, I gave them
my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and
them, that they might know that I am the
Lord that sanctify them. 13. But the
house of Israel rebelled against me in the
wilderness: they walked not in my statutes,
and they despised my judgments, which if
a man do, he shall even live in them; and
my sabbaths they greatly polluted: then I
said, I would pour out my fury upon them
in the wilderness, to consume them. 14.
But I wrought for my name’s sake, that it
should not be polluted before the heathen,
in whose sight I brought them out. 15.
Yet also I lifted up my hand unto them in
the wilderness, that I would not bring them
into the land which I had given them, flow¬
ing with milk and honey, which is the glory
of all lands; 16. Because they despised
my judgments, and walked not in my sta¬
tutes, but polluted my sabbaths: for their
heart went after their idols. 17. Never¬
theless mine eye spared them from destroy¬
ing them, neither did I make an end of them
in the wilderness. 18. But I said unto
their children in the wilderness, Walk ye
not in the statutes of your fathers, neither
observe their judgments, nor defile your¬
selves with their idols. 1 9. I am the Lord
your God ; walk in my statutes, and keep
my judgments, and do them; 20. And
hallow my sabbaths; and they shall be a
sign between me and you, that ye may
know that I am the Lord your God. 21.
Notwithstanding the children rebelled
against me: they walked not in my sta¬
tutes, neither kept my judgments to do
them, which if a man do, he shall even live
in them; they polluted my sabbaths: then]
said, I woidd pour out my fury upon them,
to accomplish mine anger against them in
the wilderness. 22. Nevertheless I with¬
drew my hand, and wrought for my name’s
sake, that it should not be polluted in the
sight of the heathen, in whose sight I brought
them forth. 23. I lifted up my hand unto
them also in the wilderness, that I would
scatter them among the heathen, and dis¬
perse them through the countries; 24. Be¬
cause they had not executed my judgments,
but had despised my statutes, and had pol¬
luted my sabbaths, and their eyes were
after their fathers’ idols. 25. Wherefore I
gave them also statutes that icere not good,,
and judgments whereby they should not
live: 26. And I polluted them in their own
gifts, in that they caused to pass through
the fire all that openeth the womb, that T
might make them desolate, to the end that
they might know that I am the Lord.
The history of tire struggle between the sins of
Israel, by which they endeavoured to ruin them-
selves, and the mercies of God, by which he en¬
deavoured to save them and make them happy, is
here continued: and the instances cf that struggle
in these verses have reference to what passed be
tween God and them in the wilderness, in which
God honoured himself, and they shamed themselves.
The story of Israel in the wilderness is referred to
in the New Testament, (1 Cor. x. and Heb. iii.) as
well as often in the Old, for warning to us Christians;
and therefore we are particularly concerned in these
verses. Observe,
1. The great things God did for them, which he
puts them in mind of, not as grudging them his fa¬
vours, but to show how ungrateful they had been.
And we say, If you call a man ungrateful, you can
call him no worse. It was a great favour, (1.)
That God brought them forth out of Egypt; (v.
10. ) though, as it follows, he brought them into the
wilderness, and not into Canaan immediately. It is
better to be at liberty in a wilderness than bond-
slaves in a land of plenty; to enjoy God and our¬
selves in solitude, than to lose both in a crowd: yet
there were many of them who had such base, ser¬
vile spirits as not to understand this, but, when they
met with the difficulties of a desert, wished them¬
selves in Egypt again. (2.) That he gave them the
law upon mount Sinai; \v. 11.) not only instructed
them concerning good and evil, but by his authority
bound them from the evil and to the good. He gave
them his statutes, and a valuable gift it was. Moses
commanded them a law that was the inheritance of
the congregation of Israel, Deut. xxxiii. 4. God made
them to know his judgments; not only enacted laws
for them, but showed them the reasonableness and
equity of those laws; with what judgment they were
formed. The taws he gave them they were en
couraged to observe and obey; for if a man do them,
he shall even live in them; in keeping of God’s com¬
mandments there is abundance of comfort, and a
gTeat reward. Christ says, If thou wilt enter into
life, and enjoy it, keep the commandments. Though
they who are the most strict in their obedience, are
thus far unprofitable! servants, that they do no more
than is their duty to do, yet it is thus richly recom-
B78 ' EZEKIEL, XX.
pensed; This do, and thou shall live. The Chal¬
dee says, He shall live an eternal life in them. St.
Paul quotes this, (Gal. iii. 12.) to show that the law
is nut of faith, but proposes life upon condition of
perfect obedience, which we are not capable to per¬
form, and therefore must have recourse to the grace
of the gospel, without which we are all undone. (3. )
That he revived the ancient institution of the sab-
bath-day, which was lost and forgotten while they
were bond-slaves in Egypt: for their taskmasters
there would by no means allow them to rest one day
in seven. In the wilderness indeed every day was a
day of rest; for what need had they to labour, who
lived upon manna, and whose raiment waxed not
old? But one day in seven must be a holy rest; (y.
12.) I gave them my sabbaths to be a sign between
me ana them. The institution of the sabbath was a
sign of God’s good will to them, and their obser¬
vance of it a sign of their regard to him; that they
might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them.
By this God made it to appear that he had distin¬
guished them from the rest of the world, and de¬
signed to model them for a peculiar people to him¬
self; and by their attendance on God in solemn
assemblies on sabbath-davs they were made to in¬
crease in the knowledge of God, in an experimental
knowledge of the powers and pleasures of his sanc¬
tifying grace. Note, [1.] Sabbaths are privileges,
and are so to be accounted; the church acknow¬
ledges it as a great favour, in that chapter which is
parallel to this, and seems to have a reference to
this; (Neh. ix. 14.) Thou madest known unto them
thy holy sabbaths. [2.] Sabbaths are signs; it is a
sign that men have a sense of religion, and that there
is some good correspondence between them and
God, while they make conscience of keeping holy
the sabbatli-day. [3.] Sabbaths, if duly sanctified,
are the means of our sanctification; if we do the duty
of the day, we shall find, to our comfort, it is the
J.ord that sanctifies us, makes us holy, that is, truly
happy, here, and prepares us to be ha/ifiy, that is,
perfectly holy, hereafter.
2. Their disobedient, undutiful conduct toward
God, for which he might justly have thrown them
out of covenant as soon as he had taken them into
covenant; (y. 13.) They rebelled in the wilderness.
There where they received so much mercy from
God, and had such a dependence upon him, and
were in their way to Canaan, yet there they broke
out in many open rebellions against the God that led
them and fed them. They did not only not walk in
God’s statutes, but they despised his judgments as
not worth observing; instead of sanctifying the sab¬
baths, they polluted them, greatly polluted them ;
one gathered sticks, many went out to gather
manna, on this day. Hereupon God was ready
sometimes to cut them off; he said, more than once,
that he would consume them in the wilderness; but
Moses interceded, so did God’s own mercy more
powerfully, and most of all a concern for his own
glory, that his name might not be polluted and pro¬
faned among the heathen, (y. 14.) that the Egyp¬
tians might not say, either that for mischief he
brought them thus far, or that he was not able to
bring them any further, or that he had no such good
land as was talked of to bring them to, Exod. xxxii.
12. Numb. xiv. 13, &c. Note, God’s strongest rea¬
sons for his sparing mercy are those which are
fetched from his own glory.
3. God’s determination to cut off that generation
of them in the wilderness. He who lifted up his
hand for them, (y. 6.) now lifts up his hand against
them; he who then by an oath confirmed bis pro¬
mise to bring them 'o\it of Egypt, now by an oath
confirmed his threatenings that he would not bring
them into Canaan; ( v . IS, 16.) I lifted up my hand
unto them, saying, As truly as I live, these men
which have tempted me these ten times, shall never
see the land which I sware unto their fathers, Numb,
xiv. 22, 23. Ps. xcv. 11. By their contempt of
God’s laws, and particularly of his sabbaths, they
put a bar in their own door; and that which was at
the bottom of their disobedience to God, and their
neglect of his institutions, was, a secret affection to
the gods of Egypt; Their heart went after their idols.
Note, The bias of the mind toward the world and
the flesh, the money and the belly, those two great
objects of spiritual idolatry, is the root of bitterness,
from which springs all disobedience to the divine
law: the heart that goes after those idols despises
God’s judgments.
4. The reservation of a seed that should be ad¬
mitted upon a new trial, and the instructions given
to that seed, v. 17. Though they thus deserved
ruin, and were doomed to it, yet mine eye spared
them. When he looked upon them he had com¬
passion on them, and did not make an end of them,
but reprieved them till a new generation was reared.
Note, It is owing purely to the mercy of God, that
he has not long ago made an end of us. This new
generation is well educated; Moses in Deuteronomy
reported and enforced the laws which had been
given to those that came out of Egypt, that their
children might have them as it were sounding in
their ears afresh when they entered Canaan; (y.
18.) “I said unto their children in the wilderness,
in the plains of Moab, Walk in the statutes of your
God, and walk not in the statutes of your fathers;
do not imitate their superstitious usages, nor retain
their foolish, wicked customs; away with their vain
conversation, which has nothing else to say for itself,
but that it was received by the tradition of your
fathers, 1 Pet. i. 18. Defile not yourselves with
their idols, for you see how odious they rendered
themselves to God by them. But keep my judg¬
ments, and hallow my sabbaths,” v. 19, 20. Note,
If parents be careless, and do not give their chil¬
dren good instructions as they ought, the children
ought to make up the want by studying the word of
God so much the more carefully and diligently
themselves when they grow up. And the bad ex¬
amples of parents must be made use of by their
children for admonition, and not for imitation.
5. The revolt of the next generation from God,
by which they also made themselves obnoxious to
the wrath of Gcd; ( v . 21.) The children rebelled
against me too. And the same that was said of the
fathers’ rebellion is here said of the children’s, for
they were a seed of evil-doers; Moses told them
that he knew their rebellion and their stiff neck,
Deut. xxxi. 27. And Deut. ix. 24. You have been
rebellious against the Lord from the day that I
knew you. They walked not in my statutes, v. 21.
Nay, They despised my statutes, v. 24. They who
disobey God’s statutes, despise them, they show that
they have a mean opinion of them, and of him
whose statutes they are. They polluted God’s sab¬
baths, as their fathers. Note, The profanation of
the sabbath-day is an inlet to all impiety; those who
pollute holy time will keep nothing pure. It was
said of the fathers, (r>. 16.) that their heart went
after their idols; they worshipped idols because they
had an affection for them. It is said of the children,
(d. 24.) that their eyes went after their fathers’
idols; they were grown atheistical, and had no af¬
fection for any gods at all, but they worshipped their
fathers’ idols because they were their fathers’, and
they had them before their eyes; they were used tc
them: and if they must have gods, they would have
such as they could see, such as they could manage.
And that which aggravated their disobedience to
God’s statutes was, that if they had done them they
might have lived in them, (x\ 21.) might have been
a happy, thriving people. Note, They that go
EZEKIEL, XX.
contrary to their duty, go contrary to their interest;
they will not obey, will not come to Christ, that
they may have life, John v. 40. And it is therefore
just that they who will not live and flourish as they
might in their obedience, should die and perish in
, their disobedience. Now the great instance of that
generation’s rebellion and inclination to idolatry, was
the iniquity of Peor, as that of their fathers was the
golden calf ; then the anger of the Lord was kin¬
dled against Israel, Numb. xxv. 3. Then there
was a plague in the congregation of the Lord, which,
if it had not been seasonably stayed by Phinehas’s
zeal, had cut them all off; and yet they owned, in
Joshua’s time, We are not cleansed from that ini¬
quity unto this day, Josh. xxii. 17. Ps. cvi. 29.
Then it was that God said he would pour out his
fury upon them, ( v . 21.) that he lifted up his hand
unto them in the wilderness, when they were a se¬
cond time just ready to enter Canaan, that he would
scatter them among the heathen. This very thing
he said to them by Moses in his parting song, Deut.
xxxii. 20. Because they provoked him to jealousy
•with strange gods, he said, I will hide my face from
them; and, v. 26, 27. he said, I would scatter them
into corners, were it not that I feared the wrath of
the enemy; which explains this, ( v . 21, 22.) I said
I would pour out my fury upon them, but I with¬
drew my band for my name’s sake. Note, When
the corruptions of the visible church are such, and
So provoking, that we have reason to fear its total
extirpation, yet then we may be confident of this, to
our comfort, that God will secure his own honour,
by making good his purpose, that while the world
stands he will have a church in it.
6. The judgments of God upon them for their re¬
bellion. They would not regard the statutes and
judgments by which God prescribed them their
duty, but despised them, and therefore God gave
them statutes and judgments which were not good,
and by which they should not live, v. 25. By which
we may understand the several ways by which God
punished them while they were in the wilderness —
the plague that broke in upon them, the fiery ser¬
pents, and the like; which, in allusion to the law
they had broken, are called judgments, because in¬
flicted by the justice of God, and statutes, because
he gave orders concerning them, and commanded
desolations, as sometimes he had commanded deli¬
verances, and appointed Israel's plagues, as he had
done the plagues of Egypt. When God said, I will
consume them in a moment, (Numb. xvi. 21.) when
he said, Take the heads of the people, and hang them
up, (Numb. xxv. 4.) when he threatened them with
the curse, and obliged them to say Amen to every
curse, (Deut. xxvii. 28.) then he gave them judg¬
ments bv which they should not live; more is impli¬
ed than is expressed; they are judgments by which
they should die. Those that will not be bound by
the precepts of the law, shall be bound by the sen¬
tence of it ; for one way or other the word of God
will take hold of men, Zech. i. 6.
Spiritual judgments are the most dreadful; and
these God punished them with; the statutes and
judgments which the heathen observed in the wor¬
ship of their idols, were not good, and in practising
them they could not live; and God gave them up to
those; he made their sin to be their punishment;
gave them up to a reprobate mind, as he did the
Gentile idolaters, (Rom. i. 24, 26.) gave them up
to their own hearts’ lust, (Ps. lxxxi. 12.) punished
them for those superstitious customs which were
against the written law, by giving them up to those
which were against the very light and law of nature ;
he left them to themselves to be guilty of the most
impure idolatries, as in the worship of Baal-peor;
(he polluted them, he permitted them to pollute
themselves, in their own gifts, v. 26.) and of the
673
most barbarous idolatries, as in the worship of Mo¬
loch, when they caused their children, especially the
first-born, (which God challenged a particular "pro¬
perty in, The frst-born of thy sons shalt thou give
unto me,) to pass through the fire, to be sacrificed
to their idols; that thus he might make them deso¬
late, not only that he might justly do it, but that he
might do it by their own hands; for this must needs
be a great weakening to their families, and a dimi¬
nution of the honour and strength of their country.
Note, God sometimes makes sin to be its own pun-
ishmenf , and yet is not the Author of sin; and there
needs no more to make men miserable than to give
them up to their own vile appetites and passions.
Let them be put into the hand of their own counsels,
and they will ruin themselves, and make themselves
desolate. And thus God makes them know that he
is the Lord, and that he is a righteous God, which
they themselves will be compelled to own, when
they see how much their wilful transgressions con •
tribute to their own desolations. Note, Those who
will not acknowledge God as the Lord their Rulei ,
shall be made to acknowledge him as the Lord their
Judge when it is too late.
27. Therefore, son of man, speak unto
the house of Israel, and say unto them,
Tlius sailh the Lord God, Yet in this your
fathers have blasphemed me, in that they
have committed a trespass against me. 28.
For when I had brought them into the 1 ind.
for the which I lifted up my hand to give
it to them, then they saw every high hill, and
all the thick trees, and they offered there
their sacrifices, and there they presented the
provocation of their offering: there also they
made their sweet savour, and poured out
there their drink-offerings. 29. Then I said
unto them, What is the high place where-
unto ye go? And the name thereof is called
Bamah unto this day. 30. Wherefore say
unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the
Lord God, Are ye polluted after the man¬
ner of your fathers? and commit ye whore¬
dom after their abominations? 31. Forwhen
ye offer your gifts, when ye make your sons
to pass through the fire, ye pollute yourselves
witli all your idols, even unto this day:
and shall I be inquired of by you, O house
of Israel? rls I live, saith the Lord God, 1
will not be inquired of by you. 32. And that
which cometh into your mind shall not be
at all, that ye say, We will be as the hea¬
then, as the families of the countries, to serve
wood and stone.
Here the prophet goes on with the story of their
rebellions, for their further humiliation, and shows,
1. That they had persisted in them after they
were settled in the land of Canaan. Though God
had so many times Ice tified his displeasure against
their wicked courses. Yet in this, in the very same
thing, your fathers have blasphemed me, continued
to affront me, that they also have trespassed a tres¬
pass against me, v. 27. Note, It is a great aggra¬
vation of sin, when men will not take warning by
the mischievous consequences of sin in those that
have gone before them: this is blaspheming God,
it is speaking reproachfully of his judgments, as if
600
EZEKIEL, XX.
they were of no significancy, and were not worth
regarding.
(1.) God had made good his promise; I brought
'hem into the land that I had sworn to give them.
Though their unbelief and disobedience had made
the performance slow, and much retarded it, yet it
did not make the promise of no effect. They were
often very near being cut off in the wilderness, but
a step between them and ruin, and yet they came
to Canaan at last. Note, Even God’s Israel get to
heaven by hell-gates; so many are their transgres¬
sions, and so strong their corruptions, that it is a
miracle of mercy they are happy at last; as hypo¬
crites go to hell by heaven-gates. The righteous
scarcely are saved. Per tot discrimina rerum ten-
dimus ad ccelum — Ten thousand dangers Jill the
road to heaven.
(2.) They had broken his precept by their abo¬
minable idolatries. God had appointed them to de¬
stroy all the monuments of idolatry, that they might
not be tempted to desert his sanctuary; but, instead
of defacing them, they fell in love with them, and
when they saw every high hill whence they had the
most delightful prospects, and all the thick trees
where they had the most delightful shades, the for¬
mer to show forth their pompous idolatries, the lat¬
ter to conceal their shameful ones, there they offered
their sacrifices, and made their sweet savour, which
should have been presented upon God’s altar only.
There then presented the provocation o f their offer¬
ing, (t. 28.) their offerings, which, instead of paci¬
fying God, or pleasing him, were highly provoking;
sacrifices, which, though costly, yet, being mis¬
placed, were an abomination to the Lord.
(3.) They obstinately pei’sisted herein, notwith¬
standing all the admonitions that were given them;
(y. 29.) “ Then I told them, by my servants the
prophets, told them where the high place was, to
which they went; nay, I put them upon considering
it, and asking their own consciences concerning it,
by putting this question to them, Which is the high
place whereunto you go? What do you find there
so inviting, that you will leave God’s altars, where
he requires your attendance, to frequent such places
as he has forbidden you to worship in? Do you not
know that those high places are of a heathenish ex¬
traction, and that the things which the Gentiles
sacrificed they sacrificed to devils, and not to God?
Did not Moses tell you so? Deut. xxxii. 17. And
will you have fellowship with devils? What is that
high place to which you go when you turn your
back on God’s altars? O foolish Israelites, who or
what has bewitched you, that you will forsake the
Fountain of life for broken cisterns, that worship
which God appoints, and will accept, for that which
he forbids, which he 'abhors, and which he will
punish?” And yet the name is called Bamah unto
this clay; they will have their way, let God and his
prophets say what they please to the contrary; they
are wedded to their high places; even in the best
reigns those were, not taken away; you could not
prevail to take away the name of Bamah, the high
place, out of their mouths, but still they would have
that in the place of their worship. The sin and the
sinner are with difficulty parted.
2. That this generation, after they were unsettled,
continued under the dominion of the same corrupt
inclinations to idolatry, v, 30. He must say to the
present house of Israel, some of whose elders were
now sitting before him, “Are ye polluted after the
manner of your fathers? After all that God has
said against you by a succession of prophets, and
done against you by a series of judgments, yet will
you take no warning? Will you still be as bad as
your fathers were, and commit the same abomina¬
tions that they committed? I see you will; you are
bent upon returning to the old abominations; you
offer your gifts in the high places, and you mak -
your sons to pass through the fire, either you actu ■
ally do it, or you do it in purpose and imagination,
and so you continue idolaters to this day." These
elders seem now to have been projecting a coa¬
lition with the heathen; their hearts they will re- .
serve for the God of Israel, but their knees they
will be at liberty to bow to the gods of the nations
among whom they live, that they may have the
more respect and the fairer quarter among them.
Now the prophet is here prdered to tell those who
were forming this scheme, and were for compound¬
ing the matter between God and Baal, that they
should have no comfort nor benefit from either. ( 1. )
They should have no benefit by their consulting in
private with the prophets of the Lord; for, because
they were hearkening after idols, God would have
nothing to do with them; ( v . 31.) As I live, saith
the Lord God, I will not be inquired of by you;
what he had said before, (v. 3.) having largely
showed how just it was, lie here repeats, as that
which he would abide by. Let them not think that
they honoured him by their inquiries, nor expect
an answer of peace from him, as long as they con¬
tinued in love and league with their idols. Note,
Those reap no benefit by their religion, that are not
entire and sincere in it; nor can we have any com¬
fortable communion with God in ordinances of wor¬
ship, unless we be inward and upright with him
therein. We make nothing of our profession, if it
be but a profession. Nay, (2.) They should have
no benefit from their conforming in public to
the practice of their neighbours; (t>. 32.) “ That
which comes into your mind as a piece of refined
politics in the present difficult juncture, and which
you would be advised to for your own preservation,
and that you may not bv being singular expose your¬
selves to abuses, it shall not be at all, it shall turn
to no account to you. You say, We will be as the
heathen, we will join with them in worshipping
their gods, though at the same time we do not be¬
lieve them to be gods, but wood and stone, and then
we should be taken as the families of the countries,
they will not know, or in a little while will have for¬
gotten, that we are Jews, and will allow us the same
privileges with their own coutrymen.” “Tell
them,” says God, “that this project shall never
prosper. Either their neighbours will not admit
them to join with them in their worship, or, if they
do, will think never the better, but the worse, of
them for it, and will look upon them as dissemblers,
and not fit to be trusted, who are thus false to theit
God, and put a cheat upon their neighbours. ” N ote,
There is nothing got by sinful compliances; and
the carnal projects of hypocrites will stand them
in no stead. It is only integrity and uprightness that
will preserve men, and recommend them to God
and man.
33. As I live, saith the Lord God, surely
with a mighty hand, and with a stretched-
out arm, and with fury poured out, will 1
rule over you; 34. And I will bring you out
from the people, and will gather you out of
the countries wherein ye are scattered, with
a mighty hand, and with a stretched-out
arm, and with fury poured out; 35. And 1
will bring you into the wilderness of the peo¬
ple, and there will I plead with you face to
face. 36. Like as I pleaded with your fa¬
thers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt,
so will I plead with you, saith the Lord God.
37. And I will cause you to pass under the
631
EZEKIEL, XX.
lud, and I will bring you into the bond of
the covenant : 38. And I will purge out from
among you the rebels, and them that trans¬
gress against me: I will bring them forth out
of the country where they sojourn, and they
shall not enter into the land of Israel; and
ye shall know that I am the Loro. 39. As
tor you, O house of Israel, thus saith the
Lord God, Go ye, serve ye every one his
idols, and hereafter also, if ye will not heark¬
en unto me: but pollute ye my holy name
no more with your gifts, and with your idols.
40. For in my holy mountain, in the moun¬
tain of the height of Israel, saith the Lord
God, there shall all the house of Israel, all
of them in the land, serve me: there will I
accept them, and there will I require your
offerings, and the first-fruits of your obla¬
tions, with all your holy things. 41. I will
accept you with your sweet savour, when I
bring you out from the people, and gather
you out of the countries wherein ye have
been scattered; and I will be sanctified in
you before the heathen. 42. And ye shall
know that I am the Lord, when I shall
bring you into the land of Israel, into the
country for the which 1 lifted up my hand
to give it to your fathers. 43. And there
shall ye remember your ways, and all your
doings, wherein ye have been defiled; and
ye shall loathe yourselves in your own sight,
for all your evils that ye have committed.
44. And ye shall know that I am the Lord,
when I have wrought with you for my
name’s sake, not according to your wicked
ways, nor according to your corrupt doings,
O ye house of Israel, saith the Lord God.
The design which was now on foot among the
elders of Israel was, that the people of Israel, being
scattered among the nations, should lay aside all
their peculiarities, and conform to those among
whom they lived; but God had told them that the
design should not take effect, v. 32. Now, in these
verses, he shows particularly how it should be frus¬
trated. They aimed at the mingling of the families
of Israel with the families of the countries; but it
will prove in the issue,
That the wicked Israelites, notwithstanding their
compliances, shall not mingle with them in their
prosperity; but shall be distinguished from them for
destruction; for idolatrous Israelites, that are apos¬
tates from God, shall be sooner and more sorely pu¬
nished than idolatrous Babylonians that never knew
the way of righteousness. Read and tremble at the
doom here passed upon them; it is backed with an
oath not to be re versed ; As I live , saith the Lord
God , thus and. thus will I deal with you. They
think to make both Jerusalem and Babylon their
friends by halting between two; but God threatens
that neither of them shall serve for a rest or refuge
for them.
I. Babylon shall not protect them, nor any of the
countries of the heathen; for God will cast them
out of his protection; and then what prince, what
people, what place, can serve to be a sanctuary to j
them? God was Israel’s King of old, and had they I
Vol. iv — 4 R
continued his loyal subjects, he would have ru.ea
, over them with care and tenderness for their good,
but now with a stretched-out arm, and with fury
/loured out, will I rule over them, v. 33. That pow¬
er which should have been exened for their protec¬
tion, shall be exerted for their destruction. Note,
There is no shaking off God’s dominion, rule he
will, either with the golden sceptre or with the iron
rod; and they that will not yield to the power of his
grace, shall be made to sink under the power of his
wrath. Now when God is angry with them, though
they may think that they shall be lost in the crowd
of the heathen among whom they are scattered,
they will be disappointed; for (v. 34.) I will gather
you out of the countries wherein you are scattered;
as when the rebels are dispersed in battle, those
that have escaped the sword of war, are pursued,
and brought together out of all the places whither
they were scattered, to be punished by the sword
of justice. They shall be brought into the wilder¬
ness of the people, {v. 35.) either into Babylon,
which is called a wilderness, ( ch . xix. 13.) and the
desert of the sea, (Isa. xxi. 1.) or into sime place,
which, though full of people, shall be to them as
the wilderness was to Israel after they came out of
I Egypt, a place where God will plead with them
face to face, as he /decided with their fathers in
the wilderness of Egypt; (v. 36.) where their car¬
cases shall fall, itnd where he will swear concerning
them, that they shall never return to Canaan, as he
sware concerning their fathers, that they should
never come into Canaan; where he will avenge the
breach of his law with as much terror as he gave it
in the wilderness of Sinai. Note, God has a good
action against apostates, and will find not only time,
but a proper place to plead with them in upon that
action, a wilderness even in the midst of the people
for that purpose.
II. Israel shall be no more able to protect them
than Babylon could; nor shall their relation to God’s
people stand them in any more stead for the other
I world, than their compliance with idolaters shall
for this world ; nor shall they stand in the congrega¬
tion of the righteous any more than in the congre¬
gation of evil-doers; for there will come a distin¬
guishing day, when God will Separate between the
precious and the vile; he will cause them, as the
shepherd causes his sheep, to pass under the rod,
when he tithes them, (Lev. xxvii. 32.) that he may
mark which is for God. God will take particular
notice of each of them, one by one, as sheep are
counted, and he will bring them into the bond of the
covenant, (v. 3f.) he will try them, and judge of
them, according to the tenouf of the covenant, and
the difference made between some and others by
the blessings and curses of the covenant. Or, it may
refer to those among them that repented and re¬
formed; he will cause them to pass under the rod of
affliction, and, having done them good by it, he will
bring them again into the bond of the covenant, will
be to them a God in covenant, and use them again
as heirs of promise.
1. He will separate the wicked from among them;
(v. 38.) “I will purge out from among you the
rebels, who have been a grief and scandal to you,
and who have by their rebellions brought all these
calamities upon you.” The judgments of God shall
find them out, and their naming of the name of Is¬
rael shall be no shelter to them. They shall be
brought out of the countries where they sojourn,
and shall not have that rest in them which they
promised themselves. But they shall not enter into
the land of Israel, nor enjoy the benefit of that rest
which God has promised to his people. Note,
Though godly people may share with wicked in
j the calamities of the world, yet wicked people shall
1 have no share with the godly in the heavenly Ca-
C82
EZEKIEL, XX.
naan; but it shall be part of tne blessedness of that
world, that they shall be purged out from among
them, the tares from the wheat, the chaff from the
corn, ch. xiii. 9. But wherever these idolaters of
the house of Israel were contriving to worship both
God and their idols, thinking to please both, God
here protests against it, ( v . 39. ) as Elijah had done
in his name; “If the Lord be God, then follow him,
but if Baal, then follow him; if you will serve your
idols, do, and take what comes of it; but then do
not pretend relation to God, and a religious observ¬
ance of him, nor pollute his holy name with your
gifts at his altar.” Spiritual judgments are the
sorest judgments: two of that kind of judgments are
threatened in this verse against those that were for
dividing between trie God of Israel and the gods of
the nations. (1.) That they should be given uji to
the service of their idols. To them he spake ironi¬
cally, “Since ye will not hearken unto me, go ye,
serve every one his idols, now that you think it will
be for your interest, and hereafter also. You shall
go on in it. Efihraim is joined to idols, let him
alone, let him take his course, and see what he will
get by it at last.” Note, They who think to serve
themselves by sin, will find in the end that they have
but enslaved themselves to sin. (2.) That they
should be cut off from the service of God, and com¬
munion with God; “ You shall not /lollute my holy
name with your vain oblations, lisa. i. 11. You
bring your gifts in your hands, wherewith you pre¬
tend to honour me, but at the same time you bring
your idols in your hearts, and therefore you do but
pollute me; which I will not suffer any more,” Amos
v. 21, 22. Note, Those are justly forbidden God’s
house, that profane his house.
2. He will separate them to himself again. (1.)
He will gather them in mercy out of the countries
whither they were scattered, to be monuments of
mercy, as the incorrigible were gathered to be ves¬
sels of wrath, v. 41. Not one of God’s jewels shall
je lost in the lumber of this world. (2.) He will
bring them to the land of Israel, which he had
promised to give to their fathers; and the discon¬
tinuance of their possession shall be no defeasance
of their right; it is the land of Israel still, and thi¬
ther God will bring them safe again, v. 42. (3.) He
will re-establish his ordinances among them, will
set up his sanctuary in his 'holy mountain, which is
here called the mo untain of the height of Israel, for
though the mount Zion was none of the highest moun¬
tains, yet the temple there was one of the highest
honours, of Israel. It is promised, that they who
preserved their integrity, and would not serve idols
in other lands, shall return to their prosperity, and
shall serve the true God in their own land; All of
them in the land shall serve me. Note, It is the
true happiness of a people, and a sure token for
good to them, when there is a prevailing disposition
in them to serve God. Whereas God had forbid¬
den the idolaters to bring their gifts to his altar, of
these he will require offerings and first-fruits, and
will accept them, v. 40. What he does not require
he will not accept, but what is done with a regard
to his precepts he will be well pleased with. He
will accept them with their sweet savour, or savour
of rest, (v. 41.) as being very grateful to him, and
what he takes a complacency in; whereas to hypo¬
critical worshippers, he says, I will not smell in
your solemn assemblies. (4.) He will give them
true repentance for their sins, v. 43. When they
find how gracious God is to them, they will be over¬
come with his kindness, and blush to think of their
bad behaviour toward so good a God; “There, in
my holy mountain, when you come to enjoy the
privileges of that again, there shall ye remember
uour doings wherein ye have been defiled.” Note,
The more conversant we are with God’s holiness,
the more we shall see of the odious nature of sin
There ye shall loathe yourselves in your own sight.
Note, Ingenuous evangelical repentance makes peo¬
ple loathe themselves for their sins, as Job xlii. 5,
6. (5.) He will give them the knowledge of him
self; They shall know by experience, that he is tin
Lord; that he is a God of almighty power and in
exhaustible goodness; kind to his people, and faith
ful to his covenant with them. Note, All the fa
vours we receive from God should lead us irtn a
more intimate acquaintance with him. (6.; He
will do all this for his own name’s sake, notwith
standing their wideservings and iVJ-deservings; ( v .
44.) he has wrought with them, wrought for them,
wrought in favour of them, wrought in 'concurrence
with them, they doing their endeavour, he has
wrought with them purely for his name’s sake. His
reasons were all fetched from himself. Had he dealt
with them according to their wicked ways and their
corrupt doings, though they were the better and
sounder part of the house of Israel, he had left them
to be scattered and lost with the rest; but he recover¬
ed and restored them for the sake of his own name,
not only that it might not be polluted, (v. 14.) but that
he might be sanctified in them before the heathen,
(k. 41. ) that he might sanctify himself; so the word
is; for it is God’s work to glorify his own name. He
will do well for his people, that he may have the
glory of it; that he may manifest himself to be a
God pardoning sin, and so keeping promise; that
his people may praise him, and that their neigh¬
bours may likewise take notice of him, as they did
when God turned again their captivity, Ps. exxvi.
3. Then said they among the heathen. The Lord
has done great things for them.
45. Moreover, the word of the Lord
came unto me, saying, 46. Son of man, set
thy face toward the south, and drop thy word
toward the south, and prophesy against the
forest of the south field; 47. And say to
the forest of the south, Hear the word of the
Lord, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold,
1 will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall de¬
vour every green tree in thee, and every
dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be
quenched, and all faces from the south to
the north shall be burned therein. 48. And
all flesh shall see that I the Lord have
kindled it: it shall not be quenched. 49.
Then said I, Ah Lord God! they say of
me, Doth he not speak parables?
W e have here a prophecy of wrath against Judah
and Jerusalem, which should more fitly have begun
the next chapter, than have concluded this; for it
has no dependence on what goes before, but that
which follows in the beginning of the next chapter
is the explication of it, when the people complained
that this was a parable which they understood not.
In this parable,
1. It is a forest that is prophesied against, the
forest of the south field, Judah and Jerusalem.
These lay south from Babylon, where Ezekiel now
was, and therefore he is directed to set his face
toward the south, (y. 46.) to intimate to them that
God had set his face against them, was displeased
with them, and determined to destroy them. But
though it be a message of wrath which he has to
deliver, he must deliver it with mildness and ten¬
derness, he must drop his word toward the south:
his doctrine must distil as the rain, (Deut. xxxii.
2.) that people’s hearts might be softened by it, as
633
EZEKIEL, XXL
the earth by the river of God, which drops upon
the pastures of the wilderness, (Ps. lxv. 12. ) and
which a south land more especially calls for, Josh,
xv. 19. Judah and Jerusalem are called forests,
not only because they had been full of people, as a
wood of trees, but because they had been empty of
fruit, for fruit-trees grow not in a forest; and a
forest is put in opposition to a fruitful field, Isa.
xxxii. 15. They that should have been as the gar¬
den of the Lord, and liis vineyard, were become
like a forest, all overgrown with briers and thorns ;
and those that are so, that bring not forth the fruits
of righteousness, God’s word prophesies against.
2. It is a fire kindled in his forest, that is prophe¬
sied of, v. 47. All those judgments which wasted
and consumed both the city and the country, sword,
famine, pestilence, and captivity, are signified by
this fire. (1.) It is a fire of God’s own kindling; I
wilt kindle a fire in thee, the breath of the Lord is
not as a drop, but as a stream of brimstone to set it
on fire, Isa. xxx. 33. He that had been himself a
protecting Fire about Jerusalem, is now a Consum¬
ing Fire in it. All fiesh shall see by the fury of
this fire, and the desolations it shall make, espe¬
cially when they compare it with the sins which
had made them fuel for this fire, that it is the Lord
that has kindled it, (v. 48. ) as a just Avenger of his
own injured honour. (2.) This conflagration shall
be gener;d ; all orders and degrees of men shall be
devoured by it; young and old, rich and poor, high
and low; even green trees, which the fire does not
easily fasten upon, shall be devoured bv this fire;
even good people shall some of them be involved in
these calamities; and if this be done in the green
trees, what shall be done in the dry? The dry trees
shall be as tinder and touch-wood to this fire. All
faces, all that covers the face of the earth from the
south of Canaan to the north, from Beersheba to
Dan, shall be burnt therein. (3.) The fire shall
not be quenched, no attempts to give check to the
dissolution shall prevail. When God will ruin a
nation, who or what can save it?
Now observe, [1.] The people’s reflection upon
the prophet, on occasion of this discourse. They
said, Doth he not speak parables? This was the lan¬
guage either of their ignorance or infidelity, (the
plainest truths were as parables to them,) or of
their malice and ill will to the prophet. Note, It
is common for those who will not be wrought upon
by the word, to pick quarrels with it; it is either too
plhin, or too obscure; too fine, or too homely; too
common, or too singular; something or other is
amiss in it. [2.] The prophet’s complaint to God;
Ah Lord Goa! they say so and so of me. Note, It
is a comfort to us, when people speak ill of us un¬
justly, that we have a God to complain to.
CHAP. XXI.
In this chapter, we have, I. An explication of the prophecy
in the close of the foregoing chapter concerning the fire
in the forest, which the people complained they could
not understand, (v. I . .5.) with directions to the prophet
to show himself deeply affected with it, v. 6, 7. II. A
further prediction of the sword that was coming upon
the land, by which all shall be laid waste; and this ex¬
pressed very emphatically, v. 8.. 17. III. A prospect
given of the king of Babylon’s approach to Jerusalem,
to which he was determined by divination, v. 18. .24.
IV. Sentence passed upon Zedekiah king of Judah, v.
25. .27. V. The destruction of the Ammonites by the
sword foretold, v. 28.. 32. Thus is this chapter all
threatening.
1. i ND the word of the Lord came
il L unto me, saying, 2. Son of man,
set thy face toward Jerusalem, and drop
thy word toward the holy places, and pro¬
phesy against the land of Israel, 3. And
I say to the land of Israel, Thus saith the
Lord, Behold, I am against thee, and will
draw forth my sword out of his sheath, and
j will cut off from thee the righteous and the
wicked. 4. Seeing then that I will cut off
from thee the righteous and the wicked,
therefore shall my sword go forth out of his
sheath against all flesh from the south to the
north; 5. That all flesh may know that 1
the Lord have drawn forth my sword out
of his sheath: it shall not return any more.
6. Sigh, therefore, thou son of man, with the
breaking of thy loins; and with bitterness
sigh before their eyes. 7. And it shall be,
when they say unto thee, Wherefore sighest
thou? that thou shalt answer, For the tid¬
ings, because it cometh: and every heart
shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble,
and every spirit shall faint, and all knees
shall be weak as water: behold, it cometh,
and shall be brought to pass, saith the Lord
God.
The prophet bad faithfully delivered the message
he was intrusted with in the close of the foregoing
chapter, in the terms wherein he received it, not
daring to add his own comment upon it; but when
he complained that the people found fault with him
for speaking parables, the word of the Lord came
to him again, and gave him a key to that figurative
discourse, that with it he might let the people into
the meaning of it, and so silence that objection.
For all men shall be rendered inexcusable at God’s
bar, and every mouth shall be stopped. Note, He
that speaks with tongues, should pray that he may
interpret, 1 Cor. xiv. 13. When we speak to peo¬
ple about their souls, we should study plainness,
and express ourselves as we may be best under¬
stood. Christ expounded his parables to his disci¬
ples, Mark iv. 34.
1. The prophet is here more plainly directed
against whom to level the arrow of this prophecy
He must drop his word toward the holy places, (n
2. ) toward Canaan the holy land, Jerusalem the holy
city, the temple, the holy house. These were
highly dignified above other places; but when they
polluted them, that word which used to drop in
the holy places, shall now drop against them; Pro¬
phesy against the land of Israel. It was the honour
of Israel, that it had prophets and prophecy; but
these, being despised by them, are turned against
them. And justly is Zion battered with her own
artillery, which used to be employed against her
adversaries, seeing she knew not how to value it.
2. He is instructed, and is to instruct the people
in the meaning of the fire that was threatened to
consume the forest of the south: it signified a sword
drawn, the sword of war which should make the
land desolate; (y. 3.) Beholcl, I am against thee, O
land of Israel. There needs no more to make a
people miserable than to have God against them;
for as, if he be for us, we need not fear, whoever
are against us; so, if he be against us, we cannot
hope, whoever are for us. And God’s professing
people, when they revolt from him, set him against
them, who used to be for them. Was the fire there
of God’s kindling? The sword here is his sword,
which he has prepared, and which he will give com •
mission to; it is he that will draw it cut of its sheath,
where it had lain quiet, and threatened no harm.
Note, When the sword is unsheathed among the
<584 EZEKIEL, XXL
nations, God’s hand must be eyed and owned in it.
Did the fire devour every green tree and every dry
tree ? The sword in like manner shall cut off the
righteous and the wicked; good and bad were in¬
volved in the common calamities of the nation; the
righteous were cut off from the land o f Israel, when
they were sent captives in Babylon, though perhaps
few or none of them were cut off from the land of
the living; and it was a threatening omen to the land
of Israel, that in the beginning of its troubles such
excellent men as Daniel and his fellows, and Eze¬
kiel, were cut off from it, and conveyed to Babylon.
But though the sword cut off the righteous and the
wicked, (for it devours one as well as another, 2
Sam. xi. 25.) yet far be it from us to think that the
righteous are as the wicked, Gen. xviii. 25. No,
God’s graces and comforts make a great difference
when his providence seem to make none. The
good Jigs are sent into Babylon for their good, Jer.
xxiv. 5, 6. It is only in outward appearance that
there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked,
Eccl. ix. 2. But it speaks the greatness of God’s
displeasure against the land of Israel. Well might
it be said, His eye shall not spare, when it shall not
spare, no, not the righteous in it. Since there are
not righteous men sufficient to save the land, to
make the justice of God the more illustrious, the
few that are, shall suffer with it, and God’s mercy
shall make it up to them some other way. Did the
fire burn tip all the faces from the south to the
north ? The sword shall go forth against all flesh
from the south to the north; shall go forth, as God’s
sword, with a commission that cannot be contested,
with a force that cannot be resisted. Were all
flesh made to know that God kindled the fire?
They shall be made to know that he has drawn
forth the sword, v. 5. And, lastly. Shall the fire
that is kindled never be quenched ? So when this
sword of the Lord is drawn against Judah and Jeru¬
salem, the scabbard is thrown away, and it shall
never be sheathed; it shall not return any more,
till it has made a full end.
3. The prophet is ordered, by expressions of his
own grief and concern for these calamities that were
coming on, to try to make impressions of the like
upon the people. When he has delivered his mes¬
sage, he must sigh, (v. 6.) must fetch many deep
sighs, with the breaking of his loins; he must sigh
as if his heart would burst, sigh with bitterness,
with other expressions of bitter sorrow, and this
publicly, in the sight of those to whom he delivered
the foregoing message, that this might be a sermon
to their eyes, as that was to their ears; and it was
well if both would work upon them. The prophet
must sigh, though it was painful to himself, and
made his breast sore; and though it is probable that
the profane among the people would ridicule him
for it, and call him a whining, canting preacher.
But if we be beside ourselves, it is to God; and if
this be to be vile, we will be yet more so. Note,
Ministers, if they would affect others with the things
they speak of, must show that they are themselves
in the greatest sincerity affected with them; and
must submit to that which may create uneasiness to
themselves, so that it will promote the ends of their
ministry. The people, observing the prophet to
sigh so much, and seeing no visible occasion for it,
would ask, “ IVherefore sighest thou? These sighs
have some mystical meaning, let us know what it
is;” and he must answer them, (x>. 7.) “It is for
the tidings, the heavy tidings, that we shall hear
shortly ; the tidings come, the judgments come,
which we hear the tidings of, they come apace; and
then you will all sigh: nay, that will not serve, every
heart shall melt, and every spirit fail; your courage
will all be gone, and you will have no animating con¬
siderations to support yourselves with: and when
heart and spirit fail, it will follow of course, that
all hands will be feeble and unable to fight, ana all
knees wi/lbe weak as water and unable to flee, or tc
stand their ground.” Those who have God for
them, when flesh and heart fail, have him to be the
Strength of their heart; but those who have God
against them, have no cordial for a fainting spirit,
but are as Belshazzar when his thoughts troublea
him, Dan. v. 6. But some people are worse fright¬
ened than hurt; may not the case be so here, and
the event prove better than likely? No, behold, it
cometh, and shall be brought to pass. It is not a
bugbear that they are frightened with, but accord¬
ing to the fear so is the wrath, and more grievous
than is feared.
8. Again, the word of the Lord came
unto me, saying, 9. Son of man, prophesy,
and say, Thus saith the Lord; Say, A sword,
a sword is sharpened, and also furbished :
10. It is sharpened to make a sore slaugh¬
ter : it is furbished that it may glitter : should
we then make mirth? it contemneth the rod
of my son, as every tree. 1 1. And he hath
given it to be furbished, that it may be han¬
dled: this sword is sharpened, and it is fur¬
bished, to give it into the hand of the slayer.
12. Cry and howl, son of man ; for it shall
be upon my people, it shall be upon all the
princes of Israel : terrors, by reason of the
sword, shall be upon my people: smite there¬
fore upon thy thigh. 13. Because it is a
trial, and what if the sicorcl contemn even
the rod? it shall be no more , saith the Lord
God. 14. Thou, therefore, son of man,
prophesy, and smite thy hands together, and
let the sword be doubled the third time, the
sword of the slain : it is the sword of the
great men that are slain, which entereth into
their privy chambers. 15. I have set the
point of the sword against all their gates,
that their heart may faint, and their ruins be
multiplied. Ah ! it is made bright, it is wrapt
up for the slaughter. 1 6. Go thee one way or
other, either on the right hand, or on the left,
whithersoever thy face is set. 17. I will
also smite my hands together, and I will
cause my fury to rest: I the Lord have
said it.
Here is another prophecy of the sword, which io
delivered in a very affecting manner; the expres¬
sions here used are somewhat intricate, and perplex
interpreters. The sword was unsheathed in the
foregoing verses, here it is fitted up to do execution,
which the prophet is commanded to lament.
Observe, 1. How the sword is here described.
(1.) It is sharpened, that it may cut and wound
and make a sore slaughter. The wrath of God
will put an edge upon it ; and whatever instill¬
ments God shall please to make use of in executing
his judgments, he will fill them with strength, cou¬
rage, and fury, according to the service they are
employed in. " Out of the mouth of Christ goes a
sharp sword. Rev. xix. 15. (2.) It is furbished,
that it may glitter, to the terror of those against
whom it is drawn. It shall be a kind of flaming
sword. If it have rusted in the scabbard for want
of use, it shall be nibbed and brightened ; for
085
EZEKIEL, XXI.
though the glory of God’s justice may seem to
have been eclipsed for awhile, during the day of
his patience, and the delay of his judgments, yet it
will shine out again, and be made to glitter. (3.)
It is a victorious sword, nothing shall stand before
it; (u. 10.) It contemneth the rod of my son as every
tree. Israel, said God once, is my son, my first¬
born. The government of that people was called
a rod, a strong rod; we read, (c/i. xix. 11.) of the
strong rods they had for sceptres; but when the
sword of God’s justice is drawn, it contemns this
rod, makes nothing of it, though it be a strong rod,
md the rod of his son; it is no more than any other
tree. When God’s professing people are revolted
from him, and in rebellion against him, his sword
les/iises them. What are they to him more than
another people ? The marginal reading gives an¬
other notion of this sword; It is the rod of my son;
and we know of whom God has said, (Ps. ii. 7. )
Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee, and
{v. 9.) Thou shall break them with a rod of iron.
This sword is that rod of iron, which contemns
every tree, and will bear it down. Or, This sword
is the rod of my Son, a correcting rod, for the chas¬
tening oi the transgression cf God’s people, (2 Sam.
vii. 14.) not to cut them off from being a people. It
is a sword to others, a rod to my son.
2. How the sword is here put into the hand of the
executioners; It is the rod of my Son, and he has
given it that it may be handled, (v. 11.) that it may
be made use of for the end for which it was drawn.
It is given into the hand, not of the fencer to be
played with, but of the slayer to do execution with.
The sword of war my Son makes use of as a sword
of justice, and to him all judgment is committed. It
is made bright, (v. 15.) it is wrapped u/i, that it
may be kept safe, and clean, and sharp for the
slaughter, not as Goliath’s sword was wrapped up
in a cloth, only for a memorial, 1 Sam. xxi. 9.
3. How the sword is directed, and against whom
it is sent; (y. 12.) It shall be ufion my people ; they
shall fall by this sword; it is repeated again, as that
which is scarcely credible, that the sword of the
heathen shall be upon God’s own people. Nay, it
shall be u/ion all the princes of Israel; their dig¬
nity and power as princes shall be no mere their
security than their profession of religion as princes
of Israel. But if the sword be at any time upon
God’s people, have they not comfort within suffi¬
cient to arm them against every thing in it that is
frightful? Yes, they have, while they conduct them¬
selves as becomes his people; but these had not done
so, and therefore terrors, by reason of the sword,
shall be upon those that call themselves my people.
Note, While good men are quiet, not only from evil,
but from the fear of it, wicked men are disturbed
not only with the sword, but with the terrors of it,
arising from a consciousness of their own guilt. This
sword is directed particularly against the great men,
for they had been the greatest sinners among them ;
they had altogether broketi the yoke and burst the
bonds, (Jer. v. 5.) and therefore with them in a
special manner God’s controversy is, who had been
the ringleaders in sin. The sword of the slain is
the sword of the great men that are slain, v. 14.
Though they have furnished themselves with places
of retirement, places of concealment, where they
flatter themselves with hopes that they shall be safe,
they will find that the sword will enter into their
hrivy chambers, and find them out there, as the
frogs, when they were one of Egypt’s plagues,
found admission into the chambers of their kings.
The sword, the point of this sword, is directed
against their gates, against all their gates, ( v . 15.)
against all those things with which they thought to
keep it out, and fortify themselves against it. Note,
The strongest gates, though they be gates of brass,
ever so well barred, ever so well guarded, are no
fence against the point of the sword of God’s judg¬
ments. But when that is pointed against sinners,
(1.) They are ready to fear the worst; their hearts
faint, so that they are not able to make any resist¬
ance. (2.) The worst comes; whatever resistance
they make, it is to no purpose, but they are ruined,
and their ruins are multiplied. But what need have
we to observe the particular directions of this sword,
when it has a general commission, is sent with a
running warrant? ( v . 16.) “ Go thee, one way or
other, which way thou wilt, turn to the right hand,
or to the left, thou wilt find those that are obnoxious,
for there are none free from guilt; and thou hast
authority against them, for there are none exempt
from punishment; and therefore, whithersoever thy
face is set, that way do thou proceed, and, like Jo¬
nathan’s sword, from the blood of the slain, from the
fat of the mighty, thou shalt never return empty,”
2 Sam. i. 22. Note, So full is the world of wicked
people, that, which way soever God’s judgments go
forth, they will find work, will find matter to work
upon. That fire will never go out on this earth for
want of fuel. And such various methods God has
of meeting with sinners, that the sword of his justice
is still as it was at first, when it flamed in the hand
of the cherubims, it turns every way, Gen. iii. 24.
4. What is the nature of this sword, and what
are the intentions and limitations of it as to the peo¬
ple of God, v. 13. It is a correction; it is designed
to be so; the sword to others is a rod to them. This
is a comfortable word which comes in in the midst
of these terrible ones, though it be expressed some¬
what obscurely. (1.) The people of God begin to
be afraid that the sword will contemn even the rod;
that the sword will go on with such fury, that it will
despise its commission to be a rod only, will forget
its bounds, and become a sword indeed, even to
God’s own people. They fear lest the Chaldeans’
sword, which is the rod of God’s anger, contemn
its being called a rod, and become as the axe that
boasts itself against him that heweth therewith, or
the staff that lifts up itself as if it were no wood,
Isa. x. 15. Or, “ What if the sword contemn even
the rod? What if this sword make the former rods,
as that of Sennacherib, to be contemned as nothing
to this? What if this should prove not a correcting
rod, but a destroying sword, to make a full end of
our church and nation?” This is that which the
thinking, but timorous few, are apprehensive of.
Note, When threatening judgments are abroad, it
is good to suppose the worst that may be the conse¬
quences of them, that we may provide accordingly.
What if the sword contemn the ‘ tribe or sceptre?
that of Judah and the house of David, so some
think Shebet here signifies; what if it should aim
at the ruin of our government? If it do, the Lord is
righteous, and will be gracious notwithstanding.
But, (2. ) These fears are silenced with an assurance
that it is not so, the sword shall not forget itself, nor
the errand on which it is sent; It is a trial, and it
is no more than a trial. He that sends it, makes
what use of it, and sets what bounds to it, he
pleases. Here shall its preud waves be stayed.
Note, It is matter of comfort to the people of God,
when his judgments are abroad, and they are ready
to tremble for fear of them, that, whatever they are
to ethers, to them they are but trials; and when
they are tried, they shall come forth as gold, and the
proving of their faith shall be the improving of it
5. Here the prophet and the people must show
themselves affected with these judgments threat¬
ened.
(1.) The prophet must be very serious in de¬
nouncing these judgments. He must say, A sword,
a sword, v. 9. Let him not study for fine words,
and a variety of quaint expressions; when the town
686
EZEKIEL, XXI.
is on fire, people do not so give notice of it, but cry,
■with a frightful, doleful voice, Fire, fire. So must
the prophet cry, A sword, a sword; and, (v. 14. )
Let the sword be doubled the third time in thy
preaching. God speaks once, yea, twice, yea,
thrice; it were well if men, after all, would per¬
ceive and regard it: it shall be doubled the third
lime, in God’s providence; for it was Nebuchad¬
nezzar’s third descent upon Jerusalem, that made a
full end of it. Ruin comes gradually, but at last
comes effectually, upon a provoking people. Yet
this is not all, the prophet is not oidy as a herald-
at-arms to proclaim war, and to cry, A sword, a
sword, once and again, and a third time, but, as a
person nearly concerned, he must cry and howl, (y.
12. ) must sadly lament the desolations that the sword
would make, as one that did himself not only sym¬
pathize with the sufferers, but feel from the suffer¬
ings. Again, (i>. 14. ) Prophesy, and smite thy hands
together, wring thy hands, as lamenting the desola¬
tion; or, Clap thy hands, as by thy prophecy insti¬
gating and encouraging those that were to be the
instruments of it; or as one standing amazed at the
suddenness and severity of the judgment. The pro¬
phet must smite his hands together; for (says God)
I will also smite mine hands together, v. 17. God
is in earnest in pronouncing this sentence upon them,
and therefore the prophet must show himself in
earnest in publishing it. God’s smiting his hands
together, as well as the prophet’s, is in token of a
holy indignation at their wickedness, which was
really very astonishing. When Balak’s anger was
kindled against Balaam, h e smote his hands together,
Num. xxiv. 10. Note, God and his ministers are
justly angry at those who might be saved, and yet
will be ruined. Some make it an expression of tri¬
umph and exultation, agreeing with that, (Isa. i.
24.) Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries; and
that, (Prov. i. 26.) I also will laugh at their calamity.
And so it follows here. I will cause my fury to rest;
not only it shall be perfected, but it shall be pleased.
And observe with what solemnity, with what au¬
thority, this sentence is ratified; “ I the Lord have
said it, who can and will make good what 1 have
said. I have said it, and will never unsay it. I have
said it, and who can gainsay it?”
(2.) The people must be very serious in the pros¬
pect of these judgments. An intimation of this
comes in in a parenthesis, v. 10. Should we then make
mirth? Seeing God has drawn the sword, and the
prophet sighs and cries, should we then make mirth?
The prophet seems to give this as a reason why he
sighs, as Neh. ii. 3. Why should not my counte¬
nance be sad, when Jerusalem lies waste? Note, Be¬
fore we allow ourselves to be merry, we ought to
consider whether we should be merry or no. Should
we make mirth, we, who are sentenced to the sword,
who lie under the wrath and curse of God? Shall
we make mirth at other people, who have gone a
whoring from our God? Hos. ix. 1. Should we
now make mirth, when the hand of God is gone out
against us, when God’s judgments are abroad in the
land, and he by them calls to weeping and mourn¬
ing? Isa. xxii. 11, 13. Shall we now make mirth
qs the king and Haman, when the church is in per¬
plexity, (Esther iii. 15.) when we should be griev-
ing.for the affliction of Joseph? Amos vi. 6.
13. The word of the Lord came unto me
again, saying, 19. Also, thou son of man,
appoint thee two ways, that the sword of
the king of Babylon may come: both twain
shall come forth out of one land ; and choose
thou a place, choose it at the head of the
way to the city. 20. Appoint a way, that
the sword may come to Rabbath of the Am
monites, and to Judah in Jerusalem the de-
fenced. 21. For the king of Babylon stood
at the parting of the way, at the head of the
two ways, to use divination : he made his
arrows bright, he consulted with images, he
looked in the liver. 22. At his right hand
was the divination for Jerusalem, to appoint
captains, to open the mouth in the slaugh¬
ter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to ap¬
point battering rams against the gates, to
cast a mount, and to build a fort. 23. And
it shall be unto them as a false divination in
their sight, to them that have sworn oaths: but
he will call to remembrance the iniquity, that
they may be taken. 24. Therefore thus saith
the Lord God, Because ye have made your
iniquity to be remembered, in that your trans¬
gressions are discovered, so that in all your
doings your sins do appear ; because, I say ,
that ye are come to remembrance, ye shall
be taken with the hand. 25. And thou, pro¬
fane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is
come, when iniquity shall have an end ; 26.
Thus saith the Lord God, Remove the dia¬
dem, and takeoff the crown; this shall not
be the same: exalt him that is low, and abase
him that is high. 27. I will overturn, over¬
turn, overturn it; and it shall be no more ,
until he come whose right it is; and I will
give it him.
The prophet, in the verses before, had showed
them the sword coming; he here shows them that
sword coming against them, that they might not flat¬
ter themselves that by some means or other it should
be diverted a contrary way.
I. He must see and show the Chaldean army com¬
ing against Jerusalem, and determined by a supreme
power so to do. The prophet must appoint him
two ways, he must upon a paper draw out two roads,
(v. 19.) as sometimes is done in maps; and he must
bring the king of Babylon’s army to the place where
the roads part, for there they will make a stand.
They both come out of the same land, but when they
come to the place where one road leads to Rabbah,
the head city of the Ammonites, and the other to
Jerusalem, he makes a pause; for though he is re¬
solved to be the ruin of both, yet he is not deter¬
mined which to attack first; here hfs politics and
his politicians leave him at a loss. The sword must
go either to Rabbah, or to Judah in Jerusalem.
Many of the inhabitants of Judah had now taken
shelter in Jerusalem, and all the interests of the
country were bound up in the safety of the city, and
therefore it is called Judah in Jerusalem the de-
fenced; so strongly fortified was it, both by nature
and art, that it was thought impregnable, Lam. iv.
12. The prophet must describe this dilemma that
the king of Babylon is at; (v. 21.) for the king of
Babylon stood; he -shall stand considering what
course to take, at the head of the two ways. Though
he was a prince of great foresight and great resolu¬
tion, yet, it seems, he knew neither his own interest
nor his own mind. Let not the wise man then glory
in his wisdom nor the mighty man in his arbitrary
power, for even those that may do what they will,
seldom know what to do for the best. Now observe,
1. The method he took to come to a resolution ; he
687
EZEKIEL, XXL
aU'd divination, applied himself to a higher and in¬
visible power, perhaps to the determination of Pro¬
vidence by a lot, in order to which he made his
arrows bright, that were to be drawn for the lots, in
honour of the solemnity. Perhaps Jerusalem was
written on one arrow, and Rabbah on the other, and
•hat which was first drawn out of the quiver he cle-
'i rmined to attack first. Or, he applied himself to
i he direction of some pretended oracle; he consulted
’h images or Teraphim, expecting to receive audi¬
ble answers from them. Or, to the observations
which the augurs made upon the entrails of the sacri¬
fices, he looked in the liver, whether the position of
that portended good or ill luck. Note, It is a mor¬
tification to the pride of the wise men of the earth,
that in difficult cases they have been glad to make
their court to heaven for direction; as it is an instance
of their folly, that they have taken such ridiculous
ways of doing it; when in cases proper for an appeal
to Providence, it is sufficient that the lot be cast into
the lap, with that prayer. Give a perfect lot, and a
firm belief that the disposal thereof is not fortuitous,
but of the Lord, Prov. xvi. 33. 2. The resolution
lie was hereby brought to. Even by these sinful
practices God served his own purposes, and directed
him to go to Jerusalem, v. 22. The divination for
Jerusalem happened to be at his right hand, which,
according to the rules of divination, determined him
that way. Note, What services God designs men
for, he will be sure in his providence to lead them
to, though perhaps they themselves are not aware
wiiat guidance they are under. Well, Jerusalem
being the mark set up, the campaign is presently
opened with the siege of that important place. Cap¬
tains are appointed for the command of the forces to
be employed in the siege, who must open the mouth
in the slaughter, must give directions to the soldiers
what to do, and make speeches to animate them.
Orders are given to provide every thing necessary
for carrying on the siege with vigour; battering-
rams must be prepared, and forts built. O what
pains, what cost, are men at to destroy one another!
II. He must show both the people and the prince
that they bring this destruction upon themselves by
their own sin.
1. The people do so, v. 23, 24. They slight the
notices that are given them of the judgment coming.
Ezekiel’s prophecy is to them a false divination ;
they are not moved or awakened to repentance by it.
When they hear that Nebuchadnezzar by his divi¬
nations is directed to Jerusalem, and assured of suc¬
cess in that enterprize, they laugh at it, and continue
secure, calling it a false divination ; because they
1 tave sworn oaths, they have joined in a solemn
league with the Egyptians, and they depend upon
the promise they have made them to raise the siege,
or upon the assurance which the false prophets have
given them that it shall be raised. Or, it may refer
to the oaths of allegiance they had sworn to the king
of Babylon, but had violated; for which treachery
of theirs God had given them up to a judicial blind¬
ness, so that the fairest warnings given them were
slighted by them as false divinations. Note, It is
not strange if those who make a jest of the most
sacred oaths, can make a jest likewise of the most
sacred oracles: for where will a profane mind stop?
But shall their unbelief invalidate the counsel of
God ? Are they safe because they are secure ? By
no means; nay, the contempt they put upon divine
warnings is a sin that brings to remembrance their
other sins, and they may thank themselves if they
be now remembered against them. (1.) Their pre¬
sent wickedness is discovered. N ow that God is con¬
tending with them, so perverse and obstinate are
they, that, whatever they offer in their own defence,
does but add to their offence ; they never conducted
themselves so ill as they did now that they had the
loudest call given them to repent and reform ; so
that in all your doings your sins do appear. Turn
you which way you will you show a black side. This
is too true of every one of us; for not only there is
none that lives and sins not, but there is not a just
man upon earth that does good and sins not. Our
best services have such allays of weakness, and folly,
and imperfection, and so much evil is present with
us even when we would do good, that we may say,
with sorrow and shame. In all our doings, and in all
our sayings too, our sins do appear, and witness
against us, so that if we were under the luw we
were undone. (2.) This brings to mind their for¬
mer wickedness; “You have made your initjuity to
be remembered, not by yourselves th t it might be
repented of, but by the justice of God that it might
be reckoned for. Your own sins make the sins of
your fathers to be remembered against you, which
otherwise you should never have smarted for.”
Note, God remembers former iniquities against
those only who by the present discoveries of their
wickedness show that they do net repent of them.
(3. ) That they may suffer for all together, they are
turned over to the destroyer, that they may be taken;
(v. 23.) “Ye shall be taken with the hand that God
had appointed to seize you and to hold you, and out
of which you cannot escape.” Men are said to be
God’s hand, when they are made use of as the
ministers cf his justice, Ps. xvii. 4. Note, Those
who will not be taken with the word of God’s grace,
shall at last be taken by the hand of his wrath.
2. The prince likewise brings his ruin upon him¬
self. Zedekiah is the prince of Israel, to whom the
prophet here, in God’s name, addresses himself ;
and if he had not spoken in God’s name, he would
not have spoken so boldly, so bluntly; for is it ft to
say to a king, Thou art wicked ?
( 1. ) He gives him his character, v. 25. Thou pro¬
fane and wicked prince of Israel l He was not so
bad as some of his predecessors, and yet bad enough
to merit this character. He was himself profane,
lost to every thing that is virtuous and sacred. And
he was wicked, as he promoted sin among his people;
he sinned, and made Israel to sin. Note, Profane¬
ness and wickedness are bad in any, but worst of all
in a prince, a prince of Israel; who, as an Israelite,
should know better himself, and, as a prince, give a
better example, and have a better influence on these
about him.
(2.) He reads him his doom. His iniquity has an
end, the measure of it is full, and therefore his day is
come, the day of his punishment, the day of divine
vengeance. Note, Though they who are wicked
and profane may flourish awhile, yet their day will
come to fall. The sentence here passed is, [1.] That
Zedekiah shall be deposed; he has forfeited his
crown, and he shall no longer wear it; he has by his
profantness profaned his crown, and it shall be cast
to the ground; (y. 26.) Remove the diadem.
Crowns and diadems are loseable things; it is only
in the other world that there is a crown of glory
that fades not away ; a kingdom that cannot be
moved. The Chaldee Paraphrase expounds it thus.
Take away the diadem from Seraiah the chief priest,
and I will take away the crown from Zedekiah the
king; neither this nor that shall abide in his place,
but shall be removed. This shall not be the same;
not the same he has been ; this not this; so the word
is. Profane and wicked perhaps he is as he has
been, but not prince of Israel as he has been. Note,
Men lose their dignity by their iniquity. Their pio-
faneness and wickedness remove their diadem, and
take off their crown, and make them the reverse of
what they were. [2. ] That great confusion and dis¬
order in the state shall follow hereupon ; every thing
shall be turned upside down. The conqueror shall
take a pride in exalting him that is low, and abasing
633
EZEKIEL, XXI.
him that is high, preserving some, and degrading
others, at his pleasure, without any regard either to
right or merit. [3.] Attempts to re-establish the
government shall be blasted, and come to nothing;
Gedaliah’s particularly, and Ishmael’s, who was of
the seed-royal, (to which the Chaldee Paraphrase
refers this,) neither of tiiem shall be able to make
any thing of it. I will overturn, overturn, overturn,
first one project, and then another; for who can
build up what God will throw down? [4.] This
monarchy will never be restored, till it is fixed for
perpetuity in the hands of the Messiah. There
shall be no more kings of the house of David after
Zedekiah, till Christ comes, whose right the king¬
dom is, who is that Seed of David in whom the
promise was to have its full accomplishment, and I
will give it him. He shall have the throne of his
father David, Luke i. 32. Immediately before the
coming of Christ there was a long eclipse pf the
royal dignity, as there was also a failing of the spirit
of prophecy, that his shining forth in the fulness of
time both as King and Prophet might appear the
more illustrious. Note, Christ has an incontestable
title to the dominion and sovereignty both in the
church and in the world; the kingdom is his right.
And having the right, he shall in due time have tlie
possession; I will give it him; and there shall be a
general overturning of all, rather than he shall come
short of his right; and a certain overturning of all
the opposition that stands in his way, to make room
for him, Dan. ii. 45. 1 Cor. xv. 25. This is men¬
tioned here for the comfort of those who feared that
the promise made in David would fail for evermore.
“No,” says God, “that promise is sure, for the
Messiah’s kingdom shall last for ever.”
23. And thou, son of man, prophesy, and
say, Thus saitli the Lord God concerning
the Ammonites, and concerning their re¬
proach; even say thou, The sword, the
sword is drawn ; for the slaughter it is fur¬
bished, to consume because of the glittering;
29. While they see vanity unto thee, while
they divine a lie unto thee, to bring thee upon
the necksof them that are slain, of the wicked,
whose day is come, when their iniquity shall
ham an end. 30. Shall I cause it to return
into his sheath ? I will judge thee in the
place where thou wast created, in the land
of thy nativity. 31. And I will pour out mine
indignation upon thee; I will blow against
thee in the fire of my wrath, and deliver thee
into the hand of brutish men, and skilful to
destroy. 32. Thou shalt be for fuel to the
fire ; thy blood shall be in the midst of the
land ; thou shalt be no more remembered ;
for I the Lord have spoken it.
The prediction of the destruction of the Ammon¬
ites, which was effected by Nebuchadnezzar about
five years after the destruction of Jerusalem, seems
to come in here upon occasion of the king of Baby¬
lon’s diverting his design against Rabbali, when he
turned it upon Jerusalem; upon this the Ammonites
grew very insolent, and triumphed over Jerusalem;
but the prophet must let them know that forbear¬
ance is no acquittance; the reprieve is not a pardon;
their day also is at hand ; their turn comes next, and
it will be but a poor satisfaction to them, that they
are to be devoured last, to be last executed.
1. The sin of the Ammonites is here intimated;
it is their re/iroach, v. 28. (1.) The reproach they
put upon themselves when they hearkened to their
false prophets, (for such it seems there were among
them as well as among the Jews,) who pretended to
foretell their perpetual safety in the midst of the
desolations that were made of the countries found
about them ; “They see vanity unto thee, and divine
a lie, v. 29. They flatter thee with promises of
peace, and thou art such a fool as to suffer thyself
to be imposed upon by them, and to encourage them
therein by giving credit to them.” Note, Thosi
that feed themselves with a self-conceit in the day
of their prosperity, prepare matter for a self- re
proach in the day of their calamity. (2.) The re
proach they put upon the Israel of God, when the)'
triumphed in their afflictions, and thereby added
affliction to them, which was very barbarous ano
inhuman. Their divines, by puffing them up with
a conceit that they were a better people than Israel,
being spared when they were cut off, and with a
confidence that their prosperity should always con
tinue, made them so very haughty and insolent, that
they did even tread on the necks of the Israelites that
were slain, slain by the wicked Chaldeans, whr
had commission to execute God’s judgments upon
them when their iniquity had an end, when the
measure of it was full; we shall meet with this again.
ch. xxv. 3, &c. Note, Those are ripening apace foi
misery, who trample upon the people of God in then
distress, whereas they ought to tremble when judg
ment begins at the house of God.
2. The utter destruction of the Ammonites if
threatened. For the reproach cast on the church by
her neighbours will be returned into their own
bosom, Ps. lxxix. 12. Let us see how terrible the
threatening is, and the destruction will be. (1.) It
shall come from the wrath of God, who resents the
indignities and injuries done to his people as done
to himself; (v. 31.) I will pour out my indignation
as a shower of fire and brimstone upon thee; the
least drop of divine indignation and wrath will cre¬
ate tribulation and anguish enough to the soul of
man that does evil; what then would a full stream of
that indignation and wrath do ? “I will blow against
thee in the fire of my wrath; I will blow up the fire
of my wrath against thee, it shall burn with theutmest
vehemence. ” Thou shall be for fuel to this fi re, v. 32.
Note, Wicked men make themselves fuel to the fire
of God’s wrath; they are consumed by it, and it is
inflamed by them. (2. ) It shall be effected by the
sword of war; to them lie must cry, as before to Is¬
rael, because they had triumphed in Israel’s over¬
throw, The sword, the sword is drawn; v. 28. (com¬
pare v. 9, 10.) it is drawn to consume because of the
glittering, because it is brandished and glitters, and
is fit to be made use of. Gods executions will answer
his preparations. This sword, when it is drawn,
shall not return into its sheath (n. 30. ) till it has done
the work for which it was drawn. When the sword
is drawn, it does not return till God causes it to re¬
turn, and he is in one mind, and who can turn him ?
Who can change his purpose? (3.) The persons
employed in it are brutish men, and skilful to de¬
stroy. Men of such a bad character as this, who
have the wit of men to do the work of wild beasts;
human reason, which makes them skilful, but no
human compassion, which makes them skilful only
to destroy; though they are the scandal of mankind,
yet sometimes they are made use of to serve God’s
purposes; God delivers the Ammonites into the hands
of such, and justly, for they themselves were brutish,
and delighted in the destruction of God’s Israel.
We have reason to pray, as Paul desired to be
prayed for, that we may be delivered from wicked
and unreasonable men, (2 Thess. iii. 2.) men that
seem made for doing mischief. (4. ) The place where
they should thus be reckoned with; “/ will judge
thee there where thou ; vast created, where thou wast
EZEKIEL, XXII.
first formed into a people, and where thou hast been
settled ever since, and therefore where thou seemest
to have taken root; the land of thy nativity shall be
the land of thy destruction.” Note, God can bring
ruin upon us there where we are most secure; and
turn us out of that land which we thought we had a
title 'to not to be disputed, and a possession of not to
be disturbed; Thy blood shall be shed not only in thy
borders, but in the midst of thy land. Lastly, It
shall be an irreparable ruin; “Though thou mayest
think to recover thyself, it is in vain to think of it,
thou shall be no more remembered with any re¬
spect,” Ps. ix. 6. Justly is their name blotted out,
who would have Israel’s name for ever lost.
CHAP. XXII.
Here are three several messages which God intrusts the
prophet to deliver concerning Judah and Jerusalem, and
all to the same purport, to show them their sins, and the
judgments that were coming upon them for those sins.
I. Here is a catalogue of their sins, by which they had
exposed themselves to shame, and for which God would
bring them to ruin, v. 1 . . 16. II. They are here com¬
pared to dross, and are condemned as dross to the fire, v.
17.. 22. III. All orders and degrees of men amon^
them are here found guilty of the neglect of the duty of
their place, and of having contributed to the national
guilt, which therefore, since none appeared as interces¬
sors, they must all expect to share in the punishment of,
v. 23.. 31. ♦
1. MOREOVER, the word of the Lord
1_vJL came unto me, saying, 2. Now,
thou son of man, wilt thou judge, wilt thou
judge the bloody city? yea, thou shalt shew
her all her abominations. 3. Then say
thou, Thus saith the Lord God, The city
sheddeth blood in the midst of it, that her
time may come; and maketh idols against
herself to defile herself. 4. Thou art be¬
come guilty in thy blood that thou hast shed ;
and hast defiled thyself in thine idols which
thou hast made; and thou hast caused thy
days to draw near, and art come even unto
thy years: therefore have I made thee a
reproach unto the heathen, and a mocking
to all countries. 5. Those that be near, and
those that be far from thee, shall mock thee,
which art infamous and much vexed. 6.
Behold, the princes of Israel, every one
were in thee to their power to shed blood.
7. In thee have they set light by father and
mother; in the midst of thee have they dealt
by oppression with the stranger; in thee
have they vexed the fatherless and the wi¬
dow. 8. Thou hast despised my holy
things, and hast profaned my sabbaths. 9.
In thee are men that carry tales to shed
blood; and in thee they eat upon the moun¬
tains; in the midst of thee they commit
lewdness; 10. In thee have they discovered
their father’s nakedness; in thee have they
humbled her that was set apart for pollu¬
tion. 1 1 . And one hath committed abomi¬
nation with his neighbour’s wife ; and ano¬
ther hath lewdly defiled his daughter-in-
law ; and another in thee hath humbled his
sister, his father’s daughter. 12. In thee
Vol. iv. — 4 S
689
have they taken gifts to shed blood; thou
hast taken usury and increase, and thou
hast greedily gained of thy neighbours by
extortion, and hast forgotten me, saith the
Lord God. 13. Behold, therefore, I have
smitten my hand at thy dishonest gain
which thou hast, made, and at thy blood
which hath been in the midst of thee. 14.
Can thy heart endure, or can thy hands be
strong, in the days that I shall deal with
thee? I the Lord have spoken it, and will
do it. 15. And I will scatter thee among
the heathen, and disperse thee in the coun¬
tries, and will consume thy filthiness out of
thee. 16. And thou shalt take thine inheri¬
tance in thyself in the sight of the heathen,
and thou shalt know that I am the Lord.
In these verses, the prophet by a commission from
Heaven is set as a judge upon the bench, and Jeru¬
salem is made to hold up her hand as a prisoner at the
bar; and if prophets were set over other nations,
much more over God’s nation, Jer. i. 10. This pro¬
phet is authorized to judge the bloody city; the city
of bloods. Jerusalem is so called, not only because
she had been guilty of the particular sin of blood¬
shed, but because her crimes in general were bloody
crimes, ( ch . vii. 23.) such as polluted her in her
blood, and for which she deserved to have blood
given her to drink. Now the business of a judge
with a malefactor is to convict him of his crimes,
and then to pass sentence upon him for them.
These two things Ezekiel is to do here.
I. He is to find Jerusalem guilty of many heinous
crimes here enumerated in a long bill of indictment,
and it is billa vera — a true bill; so he writes upon
it, whose judgment, we are sure, is according to
troth. He must show her all her abominations,
( v . 2.) that God may be justified in all the desola¬
tions brought upon her. Let us take a view of all the
particular sins which Jerusalem here stands charged
with; and they are all exceeding sinful.
1. Murder; The city sheds blood, not only in the
suburbs, where the strangers dwell, but in the midst
of it, where, one would think, the magistrates
would, if any where, be vigilant. Even there peo¬
ple were murdered either in duels or by secret as¬
sassinations and poisonings, or in the courts of jus¬
tice under colour of law, and there was no care ta¬
ken to discover and punish the murderers, accord¬
ing to the law, (Gen. ix. 6.) no, nor so much as the
ceremony used to expiate an uncertain murder,
(Dent. xxi. 1.) and so the guilt and pollution re¬
mains upon the city. Thus thou art become guilty
in thy blood that thou hast shed, v. 4. This crime
is insisted most upon, for it was Jerusalem’s mea¬
sure-filling sin more than any other; it is said to be
that which the Lord would not pardon, 2 Kings
xxiv. 4. (1.) The princes of Israel, who should
have been the protectors of injured innocence, every
one were to their power to shed blood, v. 6. They
thirsted for it, and delighted in it, and whoever
came within their power were sure to feel it; who¬
ever lay at their mercy were sure to find none. (2.)
There were those who carried tales to shed blood,
v. 9. They told lies of men to the princes, to whom
they knew it would be pleasing, to incense them
against them; or betrayed what passed in private
conversation, to make mischief among neighbours,
and set them together by the ears, to bite, and de¬
vour, and worry one another, even to death. Note,
Those who, by giving invidious characters, and
telling ill-natured stories of their neighbours, sow
690
EZEKIEL, XXII.
discord among brethren, will be accountable for all
the mischief that follows upon it; as he th it kindles
a fire will be for all the hurt it does. (3.; There
were those who took gifts to shed blood, (v. 12.)
who would be hired with money to swear a man out
of his life, or, if they were upon a jury, would be
bribed to find an innocent man guilty. When so
much barbarous, bloody work of this kind was done
in Jerusalem, we may well conclude, [1.] That
men’s consciences were become wretchedly profli¬
gate and seared, and their hearts hardened; for they
would stick at no wickedness, who would not stick
at this. [2.] That abundance of quiet, harmless,
good people were made away with, whereby as
the guilt of the city was increased, so the number
of those that should have stood in the gap, to turn
away the wrath of God, was diminished.
2. Idolatry; She makes idols against herself to
destroy herself, v. 3. And again, (v. 4.) Thou hast
defiled thyself in thine idols which thou hast made.
hlote, Those who make idols/br themselves will be
found to have made them against themselves, for
idolaters put a cheat upon themselves, and prepare
destruction for themselves; besides that thereby
they pollute themselves, they render themselves
odious in the eyes of the just and jealous God, and
even their mind and conscience are defiled, so that
to them nothing is pure. Those who did not make
idols themselves, were not found guilty of eating
upon the mountains, or high places, (v. 9. ) in ho¬
nour of the idols, and in communion with idolaters.
3. Disobedience to parents; (v. 7.) In thee have
the children set light by their father and mother,
mocked them, cursed them, and despised to obey
them, which was a sign of a more titan ordinary
corruption of nature as well as manners, and a dis¬
position to all manner of disorder, Isa. iii. 5. They
that set light by their parents, are in the high way
to all wickedness. God tiad made many wholesome
laws for the support of the paternal authority, but
no care was taken to put them in execution; nay,
the Pharisees in their day taught children, under
pretence of respect to the Corban, to set light by
their parents, and refuse to maintain them, Matth.
xv. 5.
4. Oppression and extortion. To enrich them¬
selves, they wronged the poor; (an 7.) They dealt
by oppression and deceit with the stranger, taking
advantage of his necessities, and his ignorance of
the laws and customs of the country. In Jerusalem,
that should have been a sanctuary to the oppressed,
they vexed the fatherless and widows by unrea¬
sonable demands and inquisitions, or troublesome
law-suits, in which might prevails against right;
“ Thou hast taken usury and increase ; { [v . 12.) not
only there are those in thee that do it, but thou hast
done it.” It was an act of the city or community;
the public money, which should have been em¬
ployed in public "charity, is put out to usury, with
extortion. Thou hast greedily gained of thy neigh¬
bours by violence and wrong. For neighbours to
gain by one another in a way of fair trading is well,
but those who are greedy of gain will not be held
within the rules of equity.
5. Profanation of the sabbath and other holy
things. This commonly goes along with the other
sins for which they here stand indicted; (i>. 8.)
Thou hast despised mine holy things, holy oracles,
holy ordinances; the rites which God appointed
were thought too plain, too ordinary, they despised
them, and therefore were fond of the customs of the
heathen. Note, Immorality and dishonesty are
commonly attended with a contempt of religion and
the worship of God; Thou hast profaned my sab¬
baths. There was not in Jerusalem that face of
sabbath -sanctification that one would have expect¬
ed in the holy city. Sabbath-breaking is an iniquity
that is an inlet to all iniquity. Many have owned it
to contribute as much to their own ruin as any
thing.
6. Uncleanness and all manner of seventh-com¬
mandment sins, fruits of those vile affections to
which God in a way of righteous judgment gives
men up, to punish them for their idolatry and pro¬
fanation of holy things. Jerusalem had been famous
for its purity, but now in the midst of thee they com¬
mit lewdness; (v. 9. ) it goes barefaced, though in
the most scandalous instances; as that of a man’s
having his father’s wife, which is the discovery of
the father’s nakedness, (v. 10.) and is a sin not to be
named among Christians without the utmost detes¬
tation, (1 Cor. v. 1.) and was made a capital crime
by the law of Moses, Lev. xx. 11. The time tc
refrain from embracing has not been observed,
Eccl. iii. 6. For they have humbled her that was
set apart for her pollution. They made nothing of
committing lewdness with a neighbour’s wife, with
a daughter-in-law, or a sister, v. 11. And shall
not God visit for these things?
7. Unmindfulness of God was at the bottom of all
this wickedness; (y. 12.) “ Thou hast forgotten
me, else thou wouldest not have done thus.” Note,
Sinners do that which provokes God, because they
forget him; they forget their descent from him, de¬
pendence^ him, and obligations to him; they forget
how valuable his favour is, which they make them¬
selves unfit for; and how formidable his wrath,
which they make themselves obnoxious to. They
that pervert their ways, forget the Lord their God,
Jer. iii. 21.
II. He is to pass sentence upon Jerusalem for these
crimes.
1. Let her know that she has filled up the mea¬
sure of her iniquity, and that her sins are such as
forbid delays, and call for speedy vengeance. She
has made her time to come, (v. 3.) her days to draw
near; and she is come to her years of maturity for
punishment, (y. 4.) as an heir that is come to age,
and is ready for his inheritance. God would have
been longer with them, but they were arrived at such
a pitch of impudence in sin, that God could'not in
honour give them a further day. Note, Abused
patience will at last be weary of forbearing. And
when sinners (as Solomon speaks) grow overmuch
wicked, they die before their time, (Eccl. vii. 17.)
and shorten their reprieves.
2. Let her know that she has exposed herself,
and therefore God has justly exposed her, to the
contempt and scorn of all her neighbours; (v. 4.) 7
have made thee a reproach to the heathen , both that
who are near, who are eye-witnesses of Jerusalem
apostacy and degeneracy; and those afar off, who,
though at a distance, will think it worth taking no¬
tice of, (v. 5. ) they shall all mock thee. While they
were reproached by their neighbours for their ad¬
herence to God, it was their honour, and they
might be sure that God would roll away their re¬
proach. But now that they are laughed at for their
revolt from God, they must lie down in their shame,
and must say. The Lord is righteous. They make
a mock at Jerusalem, both because her sins had
been very scandalous, she is infamous, polluted in
name, and has quite lost her credit; and because
her punishment is very grievous, she is much vexed,
and frets without measure at her troubles. Note,
Those who vex most at their troubles, have com¬
monly those about them who will be so much the
more apt to make a jest of them.
3. Let her know that God is displeased, highlv
displeased, at her wickedness, and does and will
witness against it; ( v . 13.) I have smitten my hand
at thy dishonest gain. God, both by his prophets,
and by his providence, revealed his wrath from
heaven against their ungodliness ar.d unrighteous-
691
EZEKIEL, XXII.
ness; the oppressions they were guilty of, though
they got by them, and their murders , the blood
which has been in the midst of thee; and all their
other sins. Note, God has sufficiently discovered
how angry he is at the wicked courses of his people;
and that they may not say that they have not had
fair warning, he smites his hand against the sin be¬
fore he lays his hand upon the sinner. And this is
a good reason why we should despise dishonest gain,
even the gain of oppression, and shake our hands
from holding of bribes, because these are sins
against which God shakes his hands, Isa. xxxiii. 15.
4. Let her know that, proud and secure as she is,
she is no match for God’s judgments, v. 14. (1.)
She is assured that the destruction she has deserved
will come; I the Lord have s/ioken it, and will do it.
He that is true to his promises, will be true to his
threatenings too, for he is not a man that he should
repent. (2.) It is supposed that she thinks herself
able to contend with God, and to stand a siege
against his judgments; she bade defiance to the day
of the Lord, Isa. v. 19. But, (3.) She is convinced
of her utter inability to make her part good with
him; “Can thine heart endure, or can thine hand be
strong, in the days that I shall deal with thee? Thou
thinkest thou hast to do only with men like thyself,
but shalt be made to know thou fullest into the
hands of a living God.” Observe here, [1.] There
is a day coming when God will deal with sinners, a
day of visitation. He deals with some, to bring
them to repentance, and there is no resisting the
force of convictions when he sets them on ; he deals
with others, to bring them to ruin; he deals with
sinners in this life, when he brings upon them his
sore judgments. But the days of eternity are espe¬
cially the days in which God will deal with them;
when the full vials of God’s wrath will be poured
out without mixture. [2.] The wrath of God
against sinners, when he comes to deal with them,
will be found both intolerable and irresistible.
There is no heart stout enough to -ndure it; it is
none of the infirmities which the spirit of a man will
sustain; damned sinners can neither forget nor des¬
pise their torments, nor have they any thing where¬
with to support themselves under their torments.
There are no hands strong enough either to ward
off the strokes of God’s wrath, or to break the
chains with which sinners are bound over to the
day of wrath. IVho knows the power of God’s an¬
ger?
5. Let her know that, since she has walked in
the way of the heathen, and learned their works,
she shall have enough of them; (d. 15.) “I will
not only send thee among the heathen, out of thine
own land, but I will scatter thee among them, and
disperse thee in the countries, to be abused and in¬
sulted over by strangers.” And since her filthiness
and filthy ones continued in her, notwithstanding all
the methods God had taken to refne her, (she
would not be made clean, Jer. xiii. 27.) he will bv
his judgments consume her flthiness out of her; he
will destroy those that were incurably bad, and re¬
form those that were inclined to be good.
6. Let her know that God has disowned her, and
cast her off; he had been her Heritage and Portion;
but now, (v. 16.) “ Thou shall take thine inheri¬
tance in thyself shift for thyself, make the best
hand thou canst for thyself, for God will no longer
undertake for thee.” Note, Those that give up
themselves to be ruled bv their lusts, will justly be
given up to be portioned by them. They that re¬
solve to be their own masters, let them expect no
other comfort and happiness than what their own
hands can furnish them with, and a miserable por¬
tion it will prove; Verily, I say unto you, They
have their reward. Thou in thy life time receivedst
thu good things. The''’ are the same with this,
“ Thou shall take thine inheritance in thyself and
then when it is too late; and own it in the sight of
the heathen, that lam the Lord, who alone am a
Portion sufficient for my people.” Note, Those
that have lost their interest in God, will know how
to value it.
1 7. And the word of the Lord came unto
me, saying, 1 8. Son of man, the house of
Israel is to me become dross: all they are
brass, and tin, and iron, and lead, in the
midst of the furnace; they are even the dross
of silver. 19. Therefore thus saith the Lord
God, Because ye are all become dross, be¬
hold, therefore, I will gather you into the
midst of Jerusalem. 20. As they gather
silver, and brass, and iron, and lead, and
tin, into the midst of the furnace, to blow
the fire upon it, to melt it; so will I gather
you in mine anger and in my fury, and I
will leave you there , and melt you. 21. Yea,
I will gather you, and blow upon you in the
fire of my wrath, and ye shall be melted in
the midst thereof. 22. As silver is melted
in the midst of the furnace, so shall ye be
melted in the midst thereof; and ye shall
know that I the Lord have poured out my
fury upon you.
The same melancholy string is still harped upon;
and various turns given it, to make it affecting, that
it may be influencing. The prophet must here
show, or at least it is here shown him, that the
whole house of Israel is become as dross, and that
as dross they shall be consumed. What David has
said concerning the wicked ones of the world, is
here said concerning the wicked ones of the church,
now that it is corrupt and degenerate; (Ps. cxix.
119.) Thoup uttest away all the wicked of the earth
like dross.
1. See here how the wretched degeneracy of the
house of Israel is described. That state, in David’s
and Solomon’s time, had been a head of gold; when
the kingdoms were divided, it was as the arms of
silver. But now, Ql. ) It is degenerated into baser
metal, of no value in comparison with what it for¬
merly was; They are all brass, and tin, and iron,
and lead; which some make to signify divers sorts
of sinners among them; their being brass denotes
the impudence of some in their wickedness, thev
are brazen-faced, and cannot blush; their shoes had
been iron and brass, (Deut. xxxiii. 25.) but now
their brow is so, Isa. xlviii. 4. Their being tin de¬
notes the hypocritical profession of piety, with which
many of them cover their iniquity; they have a
specious show, but no intrinsic worth. Their being
iron denotes the cruel disposition of some, and their
delight in war, according to the character of the
iron age. Their being lead denotes their dulness,
sottishness, and stupidity : though soft and pliable to
evil, yet heavy and not moveable to good. How is
the gold become dross l How is the most fine gold
changed! So is Jerusalem’s degeneracy bewaile d,
Lam. iv. 1. Yet this is not the worst; these
metals, though of less value, are yet of good use.
But, (2.) The house of Israel is become dross to me.
So she is in God’s account, whatever she is in her
own and her neighbours’ account. They were
silver, but now they are even the dross of silver;
the word signifies all the dirt, and rubbish, and
worthless stuff, that are separated from the silver
in the washing, melting, and refining of it. Note,
692 EZEKIEL, XXII.
Sinners, and especially degenerate professors, are in
God’s account as dross; vile, and contemptible, and
of no account, as the evil Jigs which could not be
eaten, they were so evil. They are useless and fit
for nothing; of no consistency with themselves, and
no service to man.
2. How the woful destruction of this degenerate
house of Israel is foretold. They are all gathered
together in Jerusalem; thither people fled from all
parts of the country as to a city of refuge, not only
because it was a strong city, but because it was the
holy city. Now God tells them that their flocking
into Jerusalem, which they intended for their secu¬
rity, should be as the gathering of various sorts of
metal into the furnace or crucible, to be melted
down, and to have the dross separated from them.
They are in the midst of Jerusalem, surrounded by
the forces of the enemy; and, being thus enclosed,
(1.) The Jire of God’s wrath shall be kindled upon
this furnace, and it shall be blown, to make it burn
fiercely and strongly, v. 20, 21. God will gather
them in his anger and fury. The blowing of the
fire makes a great noise, so will the judgments of
God upon Jerusalem; when God stirs up himself to
xecute judgments upon a provoking people, from
the consideration of his own glory, and the necessity
of making some examples, then he may be said to
blow the Jire of his wrath against sin and sinners, to
heat the J'urnace seven times hotter. (2.) The
several sorts of metal gathered in it shall be melted;
by a complication of judgments, as by a raging fire,
their constitution shall be dissolved, they shall lose
all their former shape and strength, and shall be
utterly unable to stand before the wrath of God.
The various sorts of sinners shall be melted down
together, and united in a common overthrow, as
brass and lead in the same furnace; as tares are
bound in bundles for the Jire. Thcw came together
into Jerusalem as a place of defence, but God
brought them together there as unto a place of exe¬
cution. (3.) God will leave them in the furnace;
(v. 20.) I will gather you into the furnace, and will
leave you there. When God brings his own people
into the furnace, he sits by them as the refiner by
his gold, to see that they be not continued there any
longer than is fitting and needful; but he will bring
these people into the furnace, as men throw dross
into it, which they design shall be consumed, and
therefore are in no care about it, but leave it there.
Compare with this Hos. v. 14. I will tear and go
away. (4.) Hereby the dross shall be wholly sepa¬
rated, and the good metal purified, the impenitent
shall be destroyed, and the penitent reformed and
fitted for deliverance; Take away the dross from
the silver, and there shall come forth a vessel for the
finer, Prov. xxv. This judgment shall do that in
the house of Israel, for the doing of which other
methods had been tried in vain, and re/irobate silver
shall they no more be called, Jer. vi. 30.
23. And the word of the Lord came unto
me, saying, 24. Son of man, say unto her,
Thou art the land that is not cleansed, nor
rained upon in the day of indignation. 25.
There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the
midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening
the prey: they have devoured souls; they
have taken the treasure and precious things;
they have made her many widows in the
midst thereof. 26. Her priests have violated
my law, and have profaned my holy things:
t hey have put no difference between the
holy and profane, neither have they shewed
difference between the unclean and the
clean, and have hid their eyes from my sab
baths, and I am profaned among them. 27
Her princes in the midst thereof are like
wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood,
and to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain.
28. And her prophets have daubed them
with untempered tnortar , seeing vanity, and
divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith
the Lord God, when the Lord hath not
spoken. 29. The people of the land have
used oppression, and exercised robbery, and
have vexed the poor and needy; yea, they
have oppressed the stranger wrongfully.
30. And J sought for a man among them,
that should make up the hedge, and stand
in the gap before me for the land, that I
should not destroy it; but I found none. 31.
Therefore have I poured out mine indigna¬
tion upon them; I have consumed them with
the fire of my wrath : their own way have I
recompensed upon their heads, saith the
Lord God.
Here is,
I. A general idea given of the land of Israel, bow
well it deserved the judgments coming to destroy
it, and how much it needed these judgments to re¬
fine it. Let the prophet tell her plainly, “ Thou
art the land that is not cleansed, not refined as metal
is, and therefore needest to be again put into the
furnace; means and methods of reformation have
been ineffectual; thou art not rained upon in the
day of indignation.” This was one of the judg¬
ments which God brought upon them in the day of
his wrath, he withheld the rain from them, Jer.
xiv. 4. Or, “When thou art under the tokens of
God’s displeasure, even in the day of indignation
thou art not rained upon; thou hast not received in¬
struction by the prophets, whose doctrine is said to
descend as the rain.” Or, “When thou art cor¬
rected, thou art not cleansed, thy filth is not carried
away as that in the streets is by a sweeping rain.
Nay, though it be a day of indignation with thee,
yet thy filthiness, which should be done away, is
become more offensive, as that of a city is in dry'
weather, when it is not rained upon.” Or, “Thou
hast nothing to refresh and comfort thyself with in
the day of indignation; thou art not rained upon by'
divine consolations.” So the rich man in torment
had not a drop of water, or rain, to cool his tongue.
II. A particular charge drawn up against the
several orders and degrees of men among them,
which shows that they had all helped to fill the
measures of the nation’s guilt, but none had done any¬
thing toward the emptying of it; they are therefore
all alike.
1. They have every one corrupted his way, and
those who should have been the brightest examples
of virtue, were ringleaders in iniquity and patterns
of vice.
(1.) The prophets, who pretended to make known
the mind of God to them, were not only deceivers,
but devourers, ( v . 25.) and hardened them in their
wickedness, both by their preaching, wherein they
promised them impunity and prosperity, and by
their conversation, in which they were as profligate
as any. There is a conspiracy of her prophets
against God and religion, against the true prophets
aiid all good men; they conspired together to be all
in one song, as Allah’s prophets were, to assure them
of peace in their sinful ways. Note, The unity
EZEKIEL, XXII.
which is found among pretenders to infallibility, and
which they so much boast of, is only the result of a
secret conspiracy against the truth. Satan is not
divided against himself. The prophets are in con¬
spiracy with the murderers and oppressors, to
patronize and protect them in their wickedness, and
justify what they did with their false prophecies,
provided they may come in sharers with them in
the profits of it. They are like a roaring lion ra¬
vening the prey; they’ thunder out threats against
them whose ruin is aimed at, terrify them, or make
them odious to the people, and so make themselves
masters, [1.] Of their lives; They have devoured
souls, have been accessary to the shedding of the
blood of many an innocent" person, and so have morff
mam / to become sorrowful widows, who were com¬
fortable wives. They have persecuted those to
death, who witnessed" against their pretensions to
prophecy, and would not be imposed upon by their
counterfeit commission. Or, They devoured souls
bv flattering sinners into a false peace and a vain
hope, and seducing them into the paths of sin, which
would be their eternal ruin. Note, Those who
draw men to wickedness, and encourage them in it,
are the devourers and murderers of their souls.
[2.] Of their estates; when Naboth is slain, they
take possession of his vineyard; They have seized
the treasure and precious things, as forfeited; some
wavs or other I hey had of devouring the widows’
houses, as the Pharisees, Matth. xxiii. 14. Or,
They got this treasure, and all these precious things,
as fees for false and flattering prophecies; for he
that puts not into their mouths, they even prepare
v tar against him, Mic. iii. 5. It was sad with Jerusa¬
lem when such men as these passed for prophets.
(2.) The pi tests, who were teachers by office,
and had the custody of the sacred things, and should
have called the false prophets to account, were as
bad as thev, v. 26. [1.] They violated the law of
God, which they should have observed, and taught
others to observe; they made no conscience of the
law of the priesthood, but openly brake it, and with
contempt, as Hophni and Phinehas. They did what
they had a mind, with an express non obstante —
notwithstanding, to the word of God. And how
should thev teach the people their duty, who lived
in contradiction to their own? [2.] They profaned
God’s holy things, about which they were to minis¬
ter, and which they ought to have restrained others
from the profanation of. They suffered those to
eat of the holy things, who were unqualified by the
law, the table of the Lord was contemptible with
them ; by dealing in holy things with such unhal¬
lowed hands they did themselves profane them.
[3.] They did not themselves put a difference, nor
did they show the people how to put a difference,
between the holy and firofane, the clean and the un¬
clean, according to the directions and distinctions
of the law. They did not exclude those from God’s
courts who were excluded by the law, nor teach the
people to observe the difference the law had made
between food clean and unclean, between times and
places holy and common; but lived at large them¬
selves, and encouraged the people to do so too. [4. ]
They hid their eyes from God’s sabbaths; they
took no care about them, it was all one to them
whether God’s sabbaths were kept holy or no; they
neither gave countenance to those who observed
them, nor check to those who profaned them, nor
did thev themselves show any regard to them, or
veneration for them. Thev winked at those who
did servile works on that dav, and looked another
way when they should have inspected the behaviour
nf the people on sabbath-days. God’s sabbaths
have such a beauty and glorv put upon them by the
divine institution as may command respect; but they
bid their eyes from them, and would not see that
1193
excellency in them. [5.] By all this God himself
was profaned among them; his authority was
slighted, his goodness made light of, and the highest
affront and contempt imaginable put upon his lmli
ness. Note, The profanation of the honour of the
scriptures, of sabbaths and sacred things, is a pro¬
fanation of the honour of God himself, who is inte¬
rested in them.
(3.) The princes, who should have interposed
with their authority to redress these grievances,
were as daring transgressors of the law as any other;
(v. 27.) They are like wolves ravening the prey:
for such is power without justice and goodness to
direct it. All their business was to gratify, [].]
Their own pride and ambition, by making them¬
selves arbitrary and formidable. [2.] Their own
malice and revenge, by shedding blood, and destroy¬
ing souls, sacrificing to their cruelty all those that
stood in their way, or had in any thing disobliged
them. [3.] Their own avarice, all they aim at, is,
to get dishonest gain, by crushing and oppressing
their subjects; I.ucri bonus est odor ex re yualibet.
Rem, rem, yuocunque modorem — Sweet is the odour
of gain, from whatever substance it ascends. Money,
money, by fairness or by fraud, money is the all in
all. But though they had net power sufficient to
carry them on in their oppressive courses, yet how
could they answer it both to their credit and to their
consciences? We are told how ; (y. 28.) The pro¬
phets daubed them with untempered mortar; told
them, in God’s name, (horrid wickedness!) that
there was no harm in what they did, they might
dispose of the lives and estates of their subjects as
they pleased, and could do no wrong; nay, that in
prosecuting such and such whom they had marked
out, they did God service; and thus they stopped
the mouth of their consciences; they also justified
what they did, to the people, nay, and magnified it
as if it were all for the public good, and so saved
their reputation, and kept their oppressed subjects
from murmuring. Note, Daubing prophets are
the great supporters of ravening princes, but will
prove at last their great deceivers, for they daub
with untempered mortar which will not hold, nor
will the wall stand long, that is built up with it.
They pretend to be seers, but they see vanity; they
pretend to be diviners, but they divine lies; they
pretend a warrant from Heaven for what they say,
and that it is all as true as gospel; they say, Thus
saith the Lord God, but it is all a sham, for the
Lord has v.ot spoken any such thing.
(4.) The people that had any power in their hands,
learned of their princes to abuse it, v. 29. They
that should have complained of the oppression of
the subject, and have put in a claim of rights on
behalf of the injured, that should have stood up for
liberty and property, were themselves invaders of
it; The people of the land have used oppression, and
exercised robbery. The rich oppress the poor,
masters their servants, landlords their tenants, and
even parents their own children; nay, the buyers
and sellers will find some way to oppress one an¬
other: this is such a sin as, when it is national, is in¬
deed a national judgment, and is threatened as such;
(Isa. iii. 5.) The people shall be oppressed every
one by his neighbour. It is an aggravation of the
sin, that they have vexed the poor and needy, whom
they should have relieved, and have oppressed the
stranger, and deprived him of his right, to whom
they ought to have been not only just, but kind.
Thus was the apostacy universal, and the disease
epidemical.
2. There is none that appears as an intercessor
for them; (y. 30.) I sought for a man among
them, that should stand hi the gap, but I found
none. Note, (1.) Sin makes a gap in the hedge of
I protection that is about a people, at which good
694
EZEKIEL, XXIII.
tilings run out from them, and evil things pour in
upon them; a gap by which God enters to destroy
them. (2. ) There is a way of standing in the gap,
and making up the breach against the judgments
of God, by repentance, and prayer, and reforma¬
tion. Moses stood in the gap when he made inter¬
cession for Israel to turn away the wrath of God,
Ps. cvi. 23. (3.) When God is coming forth against
a sinful people to destroy them, he expects some to
intercede for them, and inquires if there be but one
that does; so much is it his desire and delight to
show mercy. If there be but a man that stands in
the gap, as Abraham for Sodom, he will discover
him, and be well-pleased with him. (4.) It bodes
ill to a people when judgments are breaking in upon
them, and the spirit of prayer is restrained, so that
not one is found, that will either give them a good
word, or speak a good word for them. (5. ) When
it is so, what can be expected but utter ruin? (v.
31.) Therefore have I floured out mine indignation
u/ion them, have given it full scope, that it may
come upon them in a full stream; yet, whatever
God’s wrath inflicts upon a people, it is their own
way that is therein recompensed upon their heads,
and God deals with them no worse, but even much
better, than their iniquity deserves.
CHAP. XXIII.
This long chapter (as before, cli. 16. and 20.) is a history
of the apostacies of God’s people from him, and the ag¬
gravations of those apostacies under the similitude of
corporal whoredom and adultery. Here the kingdoms
of Israel and Judah, the ten tribes and the two, with
their capital cities, Samaria and Jerusalem, are consi¬
dered distinctly. Here is, I. The apostacy of Israel and
Samaria from God, (v. 1 . .8.) and their ruin for it, v. 9,
10. II. The apostacy of Judah and Jerusalem from
God, (v. 1 1 , . 21.) and sentence passed upon them, that
they shall in like manner be destroyed for it, v. 22 . . 35.
III. The joint wickedness of them both together, (v.
36. .44.) and the joint ruin of them both, v. 45 . .49.
And all that is written for warning against the sins of
idolatry, and confidence in an arm of flesh, and sinful
leagues and confederacies with wicked people, (which
are the sins here meant by committing whoredom,) is,
that others may hear and fear, and not sin after the simi¬
litude of the transgressions of Israel and Judah.
1. t ■''HE word of the Lord came again
JL unto me, saying, 2. Son of man,
there were two women, the daughters of
one mother; 3. And they committed whore¬
doms in Egypt; they committed whoredoms
in their youth: there were their breasts press¬
ed, and there they bruised the teats of their
rirginity. 4. And the names of them were
Aholah the elder, and Aholibah her sister;
and they were mine, and they bare sons and
daughters. Thus were their names, Sama¬
ria is Aholah, and Jerusalem Aholibah. 5.
And Aholah played the harlot when she
was mine; and she doted on her lovers, on
the Assyrians her neighbours, 6. fVhich
were clothed with blue, captains and rulers,
all of them desirable young men, horsemen
riding upon horses. 7. Thus site committed
her whoredoms with them, with all them
that were the chosen men of Assyria, and
with all on whom she doted: with all their
idols she defiled herself. 8. Neither left she
her whoredoms brought from Egypt: for in
her youth they lay with her, and they bruised
the breasts of her virginity, and poured
their whoredom upon her. 9. Wherefore I
have delivered her into the hand of her
lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians, upon
whom she doted. 10. These discovered her
nakedness; they took her sons and her
daughters, and slew her with the sword;
and she became famous among women ; for
they had executed judgment upon her.
God had often spoken to Ezekiel, and by him to
the people, to this effect, but now his word comes
again; tor God speaks the same tiling once, yea,
twice, yea, many a time, and all little enough, and
too little, for man perceives it not. Note, To con¬
vince sinners of the evil of sin, and of their misery
and danger by reason of it, there is need of line upon
line, so loath we are to know the worst of ourselves.
The sinners that are here to be exposed, are, two
women, two kingdoms, sister kingdoms, Israel and
Judah, daughters of one mother, having been for a
long time but one people. Solomon’s kingdom was
so large, so populous, that immediately after his
death it divided into two. Observe,
1. Their character when they were one; (t/. 3.)
They committed whoredoms in Egypt, for there
they were guilty of idolatry, as we read before, ch.
xx. 8. The representing of those sins which are
most provoking to God and most ruining to a peo¬
ple, by the sin of whoredom, plainly intimates what
an exceeding sinful sin uncleanness is, how offensive
how destructive. Doubtless it is itself one of the
worst of sins, for the worst of other sins are erm
pared to it here, and often elsewhere; which should
increase our detestation and dread of all manner of
fleshy lusts, all appearances of them, and ap¬
proaches to them, as warring against the soul, in¬
fatuating sinners, bewitching them, alienating their
minds from God and all that is good, debauching
conscience, rendering them odious in the eyes of the
pure and holy God, and drowning them at last in
destruction and perdition.
2. Their names when they became two, v. f.
The kingdom of Israel is called the elder sister, be •
cause that first made the breach, and separated
from the family both of kings and priests that God
had appointed; the greater sister, (so the word is,)
for ten tribes belonged to that kingdom, and only
two to the other. God says of them both. They
were mine, for they were the seed of Abraham his
friend, and of Jacob his chosen; they were in cove¬
nant with God, and carried about with them the
sign of their circumcision, the seal of the covenant.
They were mine; and therefore their apostacy was
the highest injustice. It was alienating God’s pro¬
perty, it was the basest ingratitude to the best of
Benefactors, and a perfidious, treacherous violation
of the most sacred engagements. Note, Those who
have been, in profession, the people of God, but have
revolted from him, have a great deal to answer for
more than those who never made any such profes¬
sion. They were mine, they were espoused to me,
and to me they bare sons and daughters; there were
many among them that were devoted to God’s ho¬
nour and employed in his service, and were the
strength and beauty of these kingdoms, as children
are of the families they are born in. In this parable,
Samaria and the kingdom of Israel shall bear the
name of Aholah — Her own tabernaae; because the
places of worship which that kingdom had, were
of their own devising, their own choosing, and the
worship itself their own invention; God never owned
it: her tabernacle to herself; (so some render it;)
“Let her take it to herself, and make her best ot
it.” Jerusalem and the kingdom of Judah bear the
name of Aholibah — my tabernacle is in her, because,
EZEKIEL, XXIII.
their temple was the place which God himself had
chosen to jiut his name there. He acknowledged it
to be his, and honoured them with the tokens of his
presence in it. Note, Of those that stand in rela¬
tion to God, and make profession of his name, some
have greater privileges and advantages than others;
ind as those who have greater, are thereby ren¬
dered the more inexcusable if they revolt from God;
so those who have lesser, will not thereby be ren¬
dered excusable.
3. The treacherous departure of the kingdom of
Israel from God; (u. 5.) Aholah played the harlot
when she teas mine. Though the ten tribes had de¬
serted the house of David, yet God owned them for
his still; though Jeroboam, in setting up the golden
calves, sinned, and made Israel to sin, yet, as long
as they worshipped the God of Israel only, though
by images, he did not quite cast them off. But the
way of sin is down-hill. Aholah played the harlot,
brought in the worship of Baal, (1 Kings xvi. 31.)
set up that other god, that dunghill-god, in competi¬
tion with Jehovah, (1 Kings xviii. 21.) as a vile
adulteress dotes on her lovers, because they are well
dressed and make a figure, because they are young
and handsome, (v. 6.) clothed with blue, captains
and rulers, desirable young men, genteel, and that
pass for men of honour. So she doted upon her
neighbours, particularly the Assyrians, who had
extended their conquests near them; she admired
their idols, and worshipped them, admired the
pomp of their courts and their military strength, and
courted alliances with them upon any terms, as if
their own God were not sufficient to be depended
upon. We find one of the kings of Israel giving a
thousand talents to the king of Assyria, to engage
him in his interests, 2 Kings xv. 19. She doted
on the chosen men of Assyria, as worthy to be
trusted and employed in the sendee of the state,
(v. 7. ) and on all their idols with which she defiled
herself. Note, Whatever creature we dote upon,
piv homage to, and put a confidence in, we make
an idol of that creature; and whatever we make an
idol of, we defile ourselves with. And now again,
the conviction looks back as far as the original of
their nation; jYeither left she her whoredoms which
she brought from Egypt, v. 8. Their being idola¬
ters in Egypt was a thing never to be forgotten;
that they should be in love with Egypt’s idols, even
then when they were continually in fear of Egypt’s
tyrants and taskmasters! But (as some have ob¬
served) therefore, at that time, when Satan boasted
of his having walked through the earth as all his
own, to disprove his pretensions, God did not say,
Hast thou considered my people Israel in Egypt?
(For they were become idolaters, and were not to
be boasted of;) but. Hast thou considered my ser¬
vant Job in the land of Uz? And this corrupt dis¬
position in them, when they were first formed into
a people, is an emblem of that original corruption
which is born with us, and is woven into our con¬
stitution, a strong bias toward the world and the
flesh, like that in the Israelites toward idolatry; it
was bred in the bone with them, and was charged
upon them long after, that they left not their whore¬
doms brought from Egypt; it would never be out of
the flesh, though Egypt had been a house of bondage
to them ; thus the corrupt affections and inclinations
which we brought into the world with us, we have
not lost, nor got clear of, but still retain them,
though the iniquity we were born in was the source
of all the calamities which human life is liable to.
4. The destruction of the kingdom of Israel for
their apostacy from God. (u. 9, 10.) I have deli¬
vered her into the hand of her lovers. God first
justly gave her up to her lust, ( Ephraim is joined
to idols, let him alone,) and then gave her up to her
rivers. The neighbouring nations, whose idolatries
6 'Jo
she had conformed to, and whose friendship she had
confided in, and in both had affronted God, are now
made use of as the instruments of her destruction.
The Assyrians, on whom she doled, soon spied out
the nakedness of the land; discovered her blind side,
on which to attack her, stripped her of all her or-
naments and all her defences, and so uncovered her,
and made her naked and bare; carried her sons ar.d
daughters into captivity, slew her with the sword,
and quite destroyed that kingdom, and put an end to
it. We have the story at large, 2 Kings xvii. 6,
&c. where the cause of the ruin of that once flourish¬
ing kingdom by the Assyrians is showed to be their
forsaking of the God of Israel, fearing other gods,
and walking in the statutes of the heathen; it was
for this that God was very angry with them, and
remox'ed them out of his sight, v. 18. And that
the Assyrians, whom they had been so fond of,
should be employed in executing judgments upon
them was very remarkable, and shows' how God, in
a way of righteous judgment, often makes that a
scourge to sinners, which they have inordinately set
their hearts upon. The devil will for ever be a
tormentor to those impenitent sinners who now
hearken to him and comply with him as a tempter.
Thus Samaria became famous among women, or
infamous rather; she became a name; (so the word
is;) not only she came to be the subject of discourse,
and much talked of, as the desolations of cities and
kingdoms fill the newspapers, but she was thus
ruined for her idolatries in terrorem—for warning
to all people to take heed of doing likewise; as the
public execution of notorious malefactors makes
them such a Jiame, such an ill name, as may serve
to frighten others frpm those wicked courses which
have brought them to a miserable and shameful
end. Deut. xxi. 21. All Israel shall hear and fear.
10. And when her sister Aholibali saw
this, she was more corrupt in her inordinate
love than she, and in her whoredoms more
than her sister in her whoredoms. 1 2. She
doted upon the Assyrians her neighbours,
captains and rulers clothed most gorgeously,
horsemen riding upon horses, all of them
desirable young men. 13. Then I saw that
she was defiled, that they took both one way;
14. And that she increased her whoredoms:
for when she saw men pourtraved upon the
wall, the images of the Chaldeans pour-
trayed with vermilion, 15. Girded with gir¬
dles upon their loins, exceeding in dyed
attire upon their heads, all of them princes
to look to, after the manner of the Babylo¬
nians of Chaldea, the land of their nativity:
16. And, as soon as she saw them with her
eyes, she doted upon them, and sent mes¬
sengers unto them into Chaldea. 1 7. And
the Babylonians came to her into the bed
of love, and they defiled her with their
whoredom ; and she was polluted with them,
and her mind was alienated from them.
1 8. So she discovered her whoredoms, and
discovered her nakedness: then my mind
was alienated from her, like as my mind
was alienated from her sistei. 19. Yet she
multiplied her whoredoms, in calling to re¬
membrance the days of her youth, wherein
G96
EZEKIEL, XXII 1.
she had played the harlot in the land of
Egypt. 20. For she doted upon their para¬
mours, whose flesh is ns the flesh of asses,
and whose issue is like the issue of horses.
21. Thus thou calledst to remembrance the
lewdness of thy youth, in bruising thy teats
by the Egyptians for the paps of thy youth.
The prophet Hosea, in his time, observed that the
two tribes retained their integrity in a great mea¬
sure, when the ten tribes had apostatized; (Hus.
xi. 12.) Ephraim indeed compasses me about with
lies, but Judah yet rules -with God, and is faithful
with the saints; and this was justly expected from
them; (Hos. iv. 15.) Though thou Israel play the
harlot, yet let not Judah offend. But this lasted not
long; bv some unhappy matches made between the
house o"f David and the house of Ahab, the worship
of Baal had been brought into the kingdom of Ju¬
dah, but had been by the reforming kings worked
out again; and at the time of the captivity of the
ten tribes, which was in the reign of Hezekiah,
things were in a good posture: but it lasted not long;
in the reign of Manasseb, soon after the kingdom
1, f Judah had seen the destruction of the kingdom of
Israel, they became more corrupt than Israel had
seen, in their inordinate love of idols, u. 11. In¬
stead of being made better by the warning which
that destruction gave them, they were made worse
by it, as if they were displeased because the Lord,
had made that breach upon Israel; and for that
reason became disaffected to him and to his service:
instead of being made to stand, in awe of him as a
jealous God, they therefore grew strange to him,
and liked those gods better, that would admit of
partners with them. Note, Those may justly ex¬
pect God’s judgments upon themselves, who do not
take warning by his judgments upon others; who
see in others what is the end of sin, and yet con¬
tinue to make a light matter of it. But it is bad
indeed with those who are made worse by that
which should make them better, and have their
lusts irritated and exasperated by that which was
designed to suppress and subdue them. Jerusalem
grew worse in her whoredoms than her sister Sa¬
maria had been in her whoredoms. This was ob¬
served before; (ch. xvi. 51.) Neither has Samaria
committed half of thy sins.
1. Jerusalem, that had been a faithful city, be¬
came a harlot, Isa. i. 21. She also doted upon the
Assyrians, (v. 12.) joined in league with them,
joined in worship with them; grew to be in love
with their captains and rulers, and cried up them
as finer and more accomplished gentlemen than any
that ever the land of Israel produced; “See how
richly, how neatly, they are dressed, clothed most
gorgeously; how "well they sit a horse, they are
horsemen 'riding on horses; how charmingly they
look, alt of them desirable young men.” And thus
they grew to affect every thing that was foreign,
and to despise their own nation; and even the reli¬
gion of it was mean and homely, and not to be com¬
pared with the curiosity and gaiety that was in the
heathen temples. Thus she increased her whore¬
doms; she fell in love, fell in league, with the Chal¬
deans. Hezekiah himself was faulty this way, when
he was proud of the court which the king of Baby¬
lon made to him, and complimented his ambassa¬
dors with the sight of all his treasures, Isa. xxxix.
2. And the humour increased; (x>. 14.) she doted
upon the pictures of the Babylonian captains, {v.
15, 16.) joined in alliance with that kingdom, invited
them to come and settle in Jerusalem, that they
might refine the genius of the Jewish nation, and
make it more polite; nay, they sent for patterns of
their images, altars, and temples, and madf use of
them in their worship; thus was she polluted with
her whoredoms, ( v . 17.) and thereby she discovert d
her own whoredom, v. 18. her own strong inclina¬
tion to idolatry. And when she had enough ol
the Chaldeans, and grew tired of them, and dis¬
posed to break her league with them, as Jehoiakim
and Zedekiah did, her mind being alienated from
them, she courted the Egyptians, doted upon their
paramours, {y. 20.) would come into an alliance
with them, and, to strengthen the alliance, would
join with them in their idolatries, and then depend
upon them to be their protectors from all other na¬
tions; for so wise, so rich, so strong, was the Egyp¬
tian nation, and came to such perfection in idolatry,
that there is no nation now which thpy can take
such satisfaction in as in Egypt. Thus they called
to remembrance the days of their youth, {v. 19.)
the lewdness of their youth, v. 21. (1.) They
pleased themselves with the remembrance of it.
When they began to set their affections upc n Egypt,
they encouraged themselves to put a confidence in
that kingdom, because of the old acquaintance they
had with it, as if they still retained the gust anil
relish of the leeks and onions they ate there, or,
rather, of the idolatrous worship they learned there,
and brought up with them from thence. When
they began an acquaintance with Egypt, they re¬
membered how merrily their fathers worshipped
the golden calf, what music and dancing they had at
that sport, which they learned in Egypt; and hoped
they should now have a fair pretence to come to
that again. Thus she multiplied her whoredoms,
repeated her former whoredoms, and encouraged
herself to close with present temptations, by calling
to remembrance the days of her youth. Note,
Those who, instead of reflecting upon their former
sins with sorrow and shame, reflect upon them with
pleasure and pride, contract nev guilt thereby,
strengthen their own corruptions, and in effect bid
defiance to repentance. This is returning with the
dog to his vomit. (2.) They called it God’s remem¬
brance, and provoked him to remember it against
them. God had said indeed that he would reckon
with them for the golden calf, that idol of Egypt;
(Exod. xxxii. 34.) but such was his patience, that
he seemed to have forgotten it, till they, by their
league now with the Egyptians against the Chal¬
deans, did, as it were, put him in mind of it; and
in the day when he visits, he will now, as he has
said, visit for that. It is very observable how this
adulteress changes her lovers; she dotes first on the
Assyrians, then she thought the Chaldeans finer,
and courted them; after awhile her mind was
alienated from them, and she thought the Egyp¬
tians more powerful, ( v . 20.) and she must contract
an intimacy with them; which shows the folly, [1.]
Of fleshly lusts; when they are indulged, thev
grow humoursome and fickle, are soon surfeited,
but never satisfied, they must have variety; and
what is loved one day is loathed the next. Unius
adulterium matrimonium vacant, as Seneca ob¬
serves. [2.] Of idolatry. Those who think one
God too little, will not think a hundred sufficient,
but will still be for trying more, as finding all insuffi¬
cient. [3.] Of seeking to creatures for help; we
go from one to another, but are disappointed in
them all, and can never rest till we have made the
God of Israel our Help.
2. The faithful God justly gives a bill of divorce
to this now faithless city, that is become a harlot.
His jealousy soon discovered her lewdness; (v. 13.)
I saw that she was defiled, that she was debauched;
saw which way her inclination was, that the two sis¬
ters both took one way, and that Jerusalem grew
worse than Samaria; for if we stretch out our hand
to a strange god, shall not God search this out ? Nc
697
EZEKIEL, XXIII.
doubt he shall; and when he has found it, can he
be pleased with it? No, (x>. 18.) Then my mirnl
wan alienated from her, as it was from her sister.
How could the pure and holy God any longer take
delight in such a lewd generation? Note, Sin alien¬
ates God’s mind from the sinner, and justly, for it is
the alienation of the sinner’s mind from God; but
wo, and a thousand woes, to those from whom
God’s mind is alienated; for whom he turns from
lie will turn against.
22. Therefore, O Aholibah, thus saith the
Lord God, Behold, I will raise up thy
lovers against thee, from whom thy mind is
alienated, and I will bring them against
thee on every side ; 23. The Babylonians,
and all the Chaldeans, Pekod, and Shoa,
and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them:
all of them desirable young men, captains
and rulers, great lords and renowned, all of
them riding upon horses. 24. And they
shall come against thee with chariots, wag¬
gons, and wheels, and with an assembly of
people, which shall set against thee buckler,
and shield, and helmet, round about: and I
will set judgment before them, and they
shall judge thee according to their judg¬
ments. 25. And I will set my jealousy
against thee, and they shall deal furiously
with thee: they shall take away thy nose
and thine ears; and thy remnant shall fall
hv the sword : they shall take thy sons and
thy daughters; and thy residue shall be
devoured by the fire. 26. They shall also
strip thee out of thy clothes, and take away
thy fair jewels. 27. Thus will I make thy
lewdness to cease from thee, and thy whore¬
dom brought from the land of Egypt: so that
thou shalt not lift up thine eyes unto them,
nor remember Egypt any more. 28. For
thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will de¬
liver thee into the hand of them whom thou
hatest, into the hand of them from whom
thy mind is alienated: 29. And they shall
deal with thee hatefully, and shall take
away all thy labour, and shall leave thee
naked and bare; and the nakedness of thy
whoredoms shall be discovered, both thy
lewdness and thy whoredoms. 30. I will
do these things unto thee, because thou hast
gone a whoring after the heathen, and be¬
cause thou art polluted with their idols.
31. Thou hast walked in the way of thy
sister; therefore will I give her cup into thy
hand. 32. Thus saith the Lord God, Thou
shalt drink of thy sister’s cup deep and
large: thou shalt be laughed to scorn and
had in derision; it containeth much. 33.
Thou shalt be filled with drunkenness and
sorrow, with the cup of astonishment and
desolation, with the cup of thy sister Sama¬
ria. 34. Thou shalt even drink it, and suck
Vol. IV —4 T
I it out, and thou shalt break the sherds there¬
of, and pluck off thine own breasts: for I
have spoken it, saith the Lord God. 35.
Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Be¬
cause thou hast forgotten me, and cast me
behind thy back, therefore bear thou also
thy lewdness and thy whoredoms.
Jerusalem stands indicted by the name of Aholibah
for that she, as a false traitor to her sovereign Lord
the God of heaven, not having his fear before her
eyes, but moved by the instigation of the devil, had
revolted from her allegiance to him, had compassed
and imagined to shake off his government, had kept
up a correspondence, and joined in confederacy,
with his enemies, and the pretenders to a deity, in
contempt of his crown and dignity: to this indict¬
ment she has pleaded, Not guilty; lam not polluted ,
I have not gone after Baalim. But it is found
against her by the notorious evidence of the fact,
and she stands convicted of it, nor has any thing
material to offer why judgment should not be given,
and execution awarded according to law. In these
verses, therefore, we have the sentence.
1. Her old confederates must be her execution¬
ers; and those whom she had courted to be her
leaders in sin, are now to be employed as instru¬
ments of her punishment; (v. 22.) “'I will raise up
thy lovers against thee; the Chaldeans, whom for¬
merly thou didst so much admire, and covet an ac¬
quaintance with, but from whom thy mind is since
alienated, and with whom thou hast perfidiously
broken covenant.” They are called thy lovers, (u.
22.) and yet, (v. 28.) them whom thou hatest.
Note, It is common for sinful love soon to turn into
hatred; as Amnon’s to Tamar. Those of head¬
strong and unreasonable passions are often very hot
against those persons and things, that a little before
they were as hot for. Fools run into extremes; nay,
and wise men may see cause to change their senti¬
ments. And therefore as we should rejoice and
weep as if we rejoiced not and wept not; so we
should love and hate as if we loved not and hated
not. Ita ama tanquam osurus — Love as one who
may have cause to feel aversion.
2. The execution to be done upon her is very
terrible. Her enemies shall come against her on
every side; (y. 22.) those of the several nations
that constituted the Chaldean army, (t». 23.) all of
them great lords and renowned, whose pomp and
grandeur and splendid appearance made them look
the more amiable, when they came as friends to
protect and patronise Jerusalem, but the more
formidable when they came to chastise its treach¬
ery, and aimed at no less than its ruin. (1.) They
shall come with a great deal of military force, (x>.
24. ) with chariots and wagons, furnished with all
necessary provisions for a camp, with arms and
ammunition, bag and baggage, with a vast army,
and well armed. (2.) They shall have justice on
their sides; “ I will set judgment before them;”
(they shall have right with them as well as might:
for the king of Babylon had just cause to make war
upon the king of Judah, because he had broken his
league with him;) “and therefore they shall judge
thee, not only according to God’s judgments, as the
instruments of his justice, to punish thee for the
indignities done to him, but according to their judg¬
ments, according to the law of nations, to punish
thee for thy perfidious dealings with them.” (3.)
They shall prosecute the war with a great deal of
fury and resentment; it being a war of revenge,
they shall deal with thee hatefully, v. 29. This
will make the execution the more severe, that their
swords will be dipped in poison. Thou hatest the?/!,
S93
EZEKIEL, XXIII.
and they shall deal hatefully with thee; those that
hate, will be hated, and hatefully dealt with. (4. )
God himself will lead them on, and this anger shall
be mingled with theirs; {v. 25.) Iwi 'll set my jeal¬
ousy against thee, that shall kindle this fire, and
then they shall deal furiously with thee. If men
deal ever so hatefully, ever so furiously, with us, if
we have God on our side, we need not fear them,
they can do us no real hurt. But if men deal furi¬
ously with us, and God set his jealousy against us
too, what will become of us?
The particulars of the sentence here passed upon
this notorious adulteress are, [1.] That all she has
shall be seized on. The clothes and the fair jewels,
with which she had endeavoured to recommend
herself to her lovers, these she shall be stripped of,
v. 26. All those things that were the ornaments of
their state, shall be taken away; “ They shall take
away all thy labour, all that thou hast gotten by thy
labour, and shall leave thee naked and bare,” v. 29.
Both city and country shall be impoverished, and
all the wealth of both swept away. [2.] That her
children should go into captivity; “ They shall take
thy sons and thy daughters, and make slaves of
them, (v. 25.) for they are children of whoredoms,
unworthy the dignities and privileges of Israelites,”
Has. ii. 4. [3.] That she shall be stigmatized and
deformed; “They shall take away thy nose and
thine ears; shall mark thee for a harlot, and render
thee for ever odious,” p. 25. This intimates the
many cruelties of the Chaldean soldiers toward the
Jews that fell into their hands; whom, it is probable,
they used barbarously. Some will have this to be
und'erstood figuratively; and by the nose they think
is meant the kingly dignity, and by the ears that of
tlie priesthood. [4.] That she shall be exposed to
shame; Thy lewdness and thy whoredoms shall be
discovered; (v. 29.) as when a malefactor is punish¬
ed, all his crimes are ripped up, and repeated to his
disgrace; what was secret then comes to light, and
what was done long since is then called to mind.
[5.] That she shall be quite cut off and ruined;
“ '1 he remnant of thy people that have escaped the
famine and pestilence, shall fall by the sword; and
die residue of thy houses that have not been bat-
.ered down about thy ears, shall be devoured by the
fire,” v. 25. And this shall be the end of Jeru¬
salem.
3. Because she has trod in the steps of Samaria’s
sins, she must expect no other than Samaria’s fate.
It is common, in giving judgment, to have an eye to
precedents; so has God, in passing this sentence
on Jerusalem; (v. 31, See.) “ Thou hast walked
in the way of thy sister, notwithstanding the warn¬
ing thou hast had given thee, by the fatal conse¬
quences of her wickedness; and therefore I will give
her cufi, her portion of miseries, into thy hand,
the cup of the Lord’s fury, which will be to thee a
cufi of trembling.” Now, (1.) This cup is said to
be deefi and large, and to contain much, (p. 32.)
abundance of God’s wrath, and abundance of mise¬
ries, the fruits of that wrath. It is such a cup as
that which we read of, Jer. xxv. 15, 16. The cufi
of divine vengeance holds a great deal, and so they
will find, into whose hand it shall be put. (2. ) They
shall be made to drink the very dregs of this cup,
as the wicked are said to do; (P's. lxxv. 8.) “ Thou
shalt drink it and suck it out, not because it is
pleasant, but because it is forced upon thee; ( v . 34.)
thou shalt break the sherds thereof, and pluck off
thine own breasts, for indignation at the extreme
bitterness of this cufi, being full of the fury of the
Lord, (Isa. li. 20.) as men in great anguish tear
their hair, and throw every thing from them.
Finding there is no remedy, but it must be drank,
(for I have sfioken it, saiith the Lord God,) thou
shalt have no manner of patience in the drinking of
it.” (3.) They shall be intoxicated by it, made
sick, and be at their wits’ end, as men in drink are,
staggering, and stumbling, and ready to fall; (j.<
33.) Thou shalt be filed with drunkenness and sor¬
row. Note, Drunkenness has sorrow attending it,
to such a degree, that the utmost confusion and as¬
tonishment are here represented by it. Who
would think that that which is such a force upon
nature, such a scandal to it, which deprives men of
their reason, disorders them to the last degree, and
is therefore expressive of the greatest misery,
should yet be with many a beloved sin; that they
should damn their own souls, to distemper their
own bodies? Who has wo and sorrow like them?
Prov. xxiii. 29. (4.) Being so intoxicated, they
shall become as drunkards deserve to be, a laugh¬
ing-stock to all about them; (y. 32.) Thou shalt be
laughed to scorn, and had in derision, as acting
ridiculously in every thing thru goest about. When
God is about to ruin a people, he makes their judges
fools, and fiours contempt on their princes, Job
xii. 17, 21.
4. In all this God will be justified, and by all this
they will be reformed; and so the issue even of this
will be God’s glory and their good. (1.) They have
been bad, very bad, and that justifies God in all that
is brought upon them; ( v . 30.) I will do these
things unto thee, because thou hast gone a whoiing
after the heathen, and, v. 35. Because thou hast for¬
gotten me, and cast me behind thy back. Note,
Forgetfulness of God, and a contempt of him, of
his eye upon us, and authority over us, are at the
bottom of all our treacherous and adulterous depar¬
tures from him. Therefore men wander after idols,
because they forget God, and their obligations to
him; nor could they look with so much desire and
delight upon the baits of sin, if they did not first
cast God behind their back, as not worthy to be re¬
garded. And those who put such an affront upon
God, how can they think but that it should turn
upon themselves at last? Therefore bear thou also
thy lewdness and thy whoredoms; that is, thou shalt
suffer the punishment of it, and thou alone must bear
the blame. Men need no more to sink them than
the weight of their own sins; and they who will not
part with their lewdness and their whoredoms, must
bear them. (2.) They shall be better, much bet¬
ter, and this fire, though consuming to many, shall
be refining to a remnant; (n. 27.) Thus will I
make thy lewdness to cease from thee. The judg¬
ments which were brought upon them by their sins,
parted between them andtheirsins, and taught them
at length to say, What have we to do any more with
idols .7 Observe, [1.] How inveterate the disease
was; Thy whoredoms were brought from the land
of Egypt. Their disposition to idolatry was early
and innate, their practice of it was ancient, and had
gained a sort of prescription by long usage. [2.]
How complete the cure was, notwithstanding;
“ Though it has taken root, yet it shall be made to
cease, so that thou shalt not so much as lift up
thine eyes to the idols again, nor remember Egypt
with pleasure any more.” They shall avoid the
occasions of this sin, for they shall not so much as
look upon an idol, lest their hearts should unawares
walk after their eyes. And they shall abandon all
inclinations to it; They shall not remember Egypt,
thev shall not retain any of that affection for idols,
which they had from the very infancy of their na¬
tion. They got it, through the corruption of na¬
ture, in their bondage in Egypt, and lost it through
the 'grace of God, in their captivity in Babylon,
which this was the blessed fruit of, even the taking
away of sin; of that sin; so that whereas, before
the captivitv, no nation (all things considered) was
more impetuously bent upon idols and idolatry than
they were, after that captivity, no nation was more
EZEKIEL, XXIII. 699
vehemently set against idols and idolatry than they
were; insomuch that at this day the image-worship
which is practised in the church of Rome confirms
the Jews, as much as any thing, in their prejudices
against the Christian religion.
36. The Lord said moreover unto me,
Son of man, wilt thou judge Aholah and
Aholibah ? yea, declare unto them their
abominations; 37. That they have commit¬
ted adultery, and blood is in their hands,
and with their idols have they committed
adultery; and have also caused their sons,
whom they bare unto me, to pass for them
through the Jive, to devour them. 38. More¬
over, this they have done unto me: they
have defiled my sanctuary in the same day,
and have profaned my sabbaths. 39. For
when they had slain their children to their
idols, then they came the same day into my
sanctuary to profane it;- and, lo, thus have
they done in the midst of my house. 40.
And furthermore, that ye have sent for men
to come from far, unto whom a messenger
as sent; and, lo, they came; for whom
thou didst wash thyself, paintedst thine eyes,
and deckedst thyself with ornaments, 41.
And sattest upon a stately bed, and a table
prepared before it, whereupon thou hast set
mine incense and mine oil. 42. And a
voice of a multitude being at ease was witli
her: and with the men of the common sort
were brought Sabeans from the wilderness,
which put bracelets upon their hands, and
beautiful crowns upon their heads. 43.
Then said I unto her that was old in adulte¬
ries, \\ ill they now commit whoredoms
with her, and she with them? 44. Yet they
went in unto her, as they go in unto a wo¬
man that playeth the harlot; so went they in
unto Aholah and unto Aholibah, the lewd
women. 45. And the righteous men, they
shall judge them after the manner of the
adulteresses, and after the manner of wo¬
men that shed blood; because they are
adulteresses, and blood is in their hands.
46. For thus saith the Lord God, I will
bring up a company upon them, and will
give them to be removed and spoiled. 47.
And the company shall stone them with
stones, and despatch them with their swords;
they shall slay their sons and their daugh¬
ters, and burn up their houses with fire. 48.
Thus will 1 cause lewdness to cease out of
the land, that all women may be taught not
to do after your lewdness. 49. And they
shall recompense your lewdness upon you,
and ye shall bear the sins of your idols :
and ye shall know that I am the Lord
God.
After the ten tribes were carried into captivity.
and that kingdom was made quite desolate, the re¬
mains of it by degrees incorporated with the king¬
dom of Judah, and gained a settlement (many of
them) in Jerusalem; so that the two sisters were in
effect become one again: and therefore, in these
verses, the prophet takes those to task jointly, who
were thus conjoined; "Wilt thou judge Aholah and
Aholibah together? v. 36. Wilt thou go about to
excuse for them ? Thou seest the matter is so bad
as not to bear an excuse.” Or, rather, “Thru
shalt now be employed, in God’s name, to judge
them, ch. xx. 4. The matter is rather worse than
better since the union. ”
I. Let them be made to see the sins they are
guilty of; declare unto them openly and boldly their
abominations.
1. They have been guilty of gross idolatry, here
called adultery; With their idols they have com¬
mitted adultery, ( v . 37.) have broken their mar¬
riage-covenant with God; have lusted after the
gratifications of a carnal, sensual mind in the wor¬
ship of God. This is the first and worst of the
abominations he is to charge them with.
2. They have committed the most barbarous
murders, in sacrificing their children to Moloch, a
sin so unnatural, that they deserve to hear of it on
all occasions; Blood is in their hands, innocent
blood, the blood of their own children, which they
have caused to pass through the fire, [y. 37.) not
that they might be dedicated to the idols, but that
they might be devoured; a sign that they loved
their idols better than that which was dearest to
them in the world.
3. They have profaned the sacred things with
which God had dignified and distinguished them;
this they have done unto me, this indignity, this in¬
jury, v. 38. Every contempt put upon that which
is holy, reflects upon him who is the Fountain of
holiness, and from a relation to whom whatever is
called holy has its denomination. God had set up
his sanctuary among them, but they defied it, by
making it a house of merchandize, a den of thieves;
nay, and much worse, there they set up their idols,
and worshipped them, and there they shed the
blood of God’s prophets. God had revealed to them
his holy sabbaths, but they profaned them, by doing
all manner of servile work therein, or perhaps by
sports and recreations on that day, not only prac¬
tised, but allowed and encouraged, by authority.
They defied the sanctuary on the same day that
they profaned the sabbath. To defile the sanc¬
tuary was bad enough on any day, but to do it on
the sabbath-day was an aggravation. We common¬
ly say, the better day, the better deed; but here, the
better day, the worse deed. God takes notice of
the circumstances of sin, which add to the guilt.
He shows ( v . 39.) what was their profanation, both
of the sanctuary and of the sabbath. They slew
their children, and sacrificed them to their idols, to
the great dishonour both of God and of the human
nature; and then came, the same day, their hands
imbrued with the blood of their children, and their
clothes stained with it, to attend in God’s sanctuary ;
not to ask pardon for what they had done, but to
present themselves before him, as other Israelites
did, expecting acceptance with him, notwithstand¬
ing these villanies which they were guilty of; as if
God either did not know their wickedness, or did
not hate it. Thus they profaned the sanctuary, as
if that were a protection to the worst of malefactors;
for thus they did in the midst of his house. Note,
It is a profanation of God’s solemn ordinances, when
those that are grossly and openly profane and vicious,
impudently and impenitently so intrude upon the
services and privileges of them. Give not that
which is holy unto dogs. Friend, how earnest thou
in hither ?
700
EZEKIEL, XXIII.
4. They have courted foreign alliances, being
proud of them, and reposed a confidence in them,
i'his also is represented by the sin of adultery, for
it was a departure from God, not only to whom
alone they ought to f lay their homage, and not to
idols, but in whom alone they ought to put their
trust, and not in creatures. Israel was a peculiar
people, must dwell alone, and not be reckoned
among the nations; and they profane their crown,
and lay their honour in the dust, when they covet to
be like them, or in league with them. But this they
have now done; they have entered into strict al¬
liances with the Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Egyp¬
tians, the most renowned and potent kingdoms at
that time; but they scorned alliances with the petty
kingdoms and states that lay near them, which yet
might have been of more real service to them.
Note, Affecting an acquaintance and correspondence
with great people has often been a snare to good
people. Let us see how ‘Jerusalem courts her high
allies, thinking thereby to make herself consider¬
able.
(1.) She privately requested that a public em¬
bassy might be sent to her; (r>. 40.) You sent a
messenger for men to come from far. It seems,
then, that the neighbours had no desire to come into
a confederacy with Jerusalem, but she thrust her¬
self upon them, and sent underhand to desire them
to court her: and, lo, they came. The wisest and
best may be drawn unavoidably into company and
conversation with profane and wicked people; but
it is no sign either of wisdom or goodness to covet
an intimacy with such, and to court it.
(2.) Great preparation is made for the reception
of these foreign ministers, for their public entry and
public audience; which is compared to the pains
that an adulteress takes to make herself look hand¬
some. Jezebel-like, thou paintedst thy face, and
deckedst thyself with ornaments, v. 40. The king
and princes made themselves new clothes, fitted up
the rooms of state, beautified the furniture, and
made it look fresh. Thou sattest upon a stately
bed, ( v . 41. ) a stately throne; a table was prepared,
whereon thou hast set mine oil and mine incense.
This was either, [1.] A feast for the ambassadors,
a noble treat, agreeable to the other preparations.
There was incense to perfume the room, and oil to
anoint their heads. Or, [2.] An altar already fur¬
nished for the ambassadors’ use in the worship of
their idols; to let them know that the Israelites were
not so strait-laced but that they could allow foreign¬
ers the free exercise of their religion among them,
and furnish them with chapels, yea, and compli¬
mented them so far as to join with them in their de¬
votions; though the law of their God was against it,
yet they could easily dispense with themselves to
oblige a friend. The oil and incense God calls his,
not only because they were the gift of his provi¬
dence, but because they should have been offered at
his altar; which was an aggravation of their sin in
serving idols and idolaters with them. SecHos. ii. 8.
(3.) There was great joy at their coming, as if it
were such a blessing as never happened to Jerusa¬
lem before: (i>. 42.) .4 voice of a multitude being
at ease was with her. The people were very easy,
for they thought themselves veiy safe and happy
now that they had such powerful allies; and there¬
fore attended the ambassadors with loud huzzas and
acclamations of joy. A great confluence of people
there was to the court upon this occasion. The
men of the common sort were there to grace the
solemnity, and to increase the crowd; and with
them were brought Sabeans from the wilderness.
The margin reads it drunkards from the wilderness,
that would drink healths to the prosperity of this
grand alliance, and force them upon others, and be
most noisy in shouting upon this occasion. Who¬
ever they were, in honour of the ambassadors, they
put bracelets upon their hands, and beautiful
crowns upon their heads, which made the cavalcade
appear very splendid.
(4.) God by his prophets warned them against
making these dangerous leagues with foreigners;
(k. 43.) “ Then said I unto her that was old in
adulteries, that from the first was fond of leagues
with the heathen, or matching with their families,
(Judg. iii. 6.) and afterward of making alliances
with their kingdoms; and, though often disappoint¬
ed therein, would never be dissuaded from it; (This
was the adultery she was old in;) I said, Wilt they
now commit whoredoms with her, and she with
them? Surely experience and observation will by
this time have convinced both them and her, that
an alliance between the nation of the Jews and a hea¬
then nation can never be for the ad vantage of either.”
They are iron and clay that will not mix, nor will
God bless it, or smile upon it. But, it seems, her
being old in these adulteries, instead of weaning her
from them, as one would expect, does but make her
the more impudent and insatiable in them; for
though she was thus admonished of the folly of it,
yet they went in unto her, v. 44. A bargain was
soon clapped up, and a league made, first with this,
and then with the other, foreign state. Samaria
did so, Jerusalem did so, like lewd women. They
could not rest satisfied in the embraces of God’s
laws and care, and the assurances of protection he
gave them; they could not think his covenant .with
them security enough. But they must by treaties
and leagues, politic ones (they thought) and well
concerted, throw themselves into the arms of
foreign princes, and put their interests under their
protection. Note, Those hearts go a whoring from
God, that take a complacency in the pomp of the
world, and put a confidence in its wealth, and in an
arm of flesh, Jer. xvii. 5.
II. Let them be made to foresee the judgments
that are coming upon them for these sins; ( v . 45.)
The righteous men, they shall judge them. Some
make the instruments of their destruction to be the
righteous men tha Ushall judge them. The Assyrians
that destroyed Samaria, the Chaldeans that destroy¬
ed Jerusalem, those were comparatively righteous,
had a sense of justice between man and man, and
justly resented the treachery of the Jewish nation;
however, they executed God’s judgments, which,
we are sure, are all righteous. Others understand
it of the prophets, whose office it was, in God’s
name, to judge them, and pass sentence upon them.
Or, we may take it as an appeal to. all righteous
men, to all that have a sense of equity; they shall
all judge concerning these cities, and agree in tfieir
verdict, that, forasmuch as they have been notori¬
ously guilty of adultery and murder, and the guilt
is national, thei'efore they ought to suffer the pains
and penalties which by law are inflicted upon wo¬
men in their personal capacity, that shed blood, and
are adulteresses. Righteous men will say, “ Why
should bloody, filthy cities escape any better than
bloody, filthy persons? Judge, I pray thee,” Isa.
v. 3.
This judgment being given by the righteous men,
the righteous God will award execution. See here,
1. What the execution will be, v. 46, 47. The
same as before, v. 23, &c. God will bring a com¬
pany of enemies upon them, who shall be made to
serve his holy purposes, even then when they are
serving their own sinful appetites and passions.
These enemies shall easily prevail, for God will
give them into theirhands to be removed and spoiled;
this company shall stone them with stones as male
factors; shall smgle them out, and despatch them
with their swords; and, as was sometimes done in
severe executions, (witness that of Achan,) they
701
EZEKIEL, XXIV.
shall slay their children, and bum their houses. 2.
What will be the effects of it. (1.) Thus they shall
suffer for their sins; Their lewdness shall be recom¬
pensed upon them; [y. 49.) and they shall bear the
sins of their idols, v. 35, 49. Thus God will assert
the honour of his broken law and injured govern¬
ment, and let the world know what a just and jealous
God he is. (2. ) Thus they shall be broken off from
their sins; 1 will cause lewdness to cease out of the
land, -v. 27, 48. The destruction of God’s city, like
the death of God’s saints, shall do that for them
which ordinances and providences before could not
do, it shall quite take away their sin; so that Jeru¬
salem shall rise out of its ashes a new lump, as gold
comes out of the furnace, purified from its dross.
(3.) Thus other cities and nations will have fair
warning given them to keep themselves from idols;
that all women may be taught not to do after your
lewdness. This is the end ofthe punishment of male¬
factors, that they may be made examples to others,
who will see and fear. Smite the scorner, and the
simple will beivare. The judgments of God upon
some are designed to teach others, and happy they
who receive instruction from them, not to tread in
the steps of sinners, lest they be taken in their
snares; those who would be taught this, must know
God is the Lord, (y. 49. ) that he is the Governor of
the world, a God that judges in the earth, and with
whom there is no respect of persons.
CHAP. XXIV.
Here are two sermons, in this chapter, preached on a par¬
ticular occasion, and they are both from mount Sinai, the
mount of terror, both from mount Ebal, the mount of
curses; both speak the approaching fate of Jerusalem.
The occasion of them was the king of Babylon’s laying
siege to Jerusalem, and the design of them is to show
that in the issue of that siege he should be not only mas¬
ter of the place, but destroyer of it. I. By the sign of
flesh boiling in a pot over the fire, are showed the mise¬
ries that Jerusalem should suffer during the siege, and
justly, for her filthiness, v. 1. .14. II. By the sign of
Ezekiel’s npt mourning for the death of his wife, is
showed that the calamities coming upon Jerusalem were
too great to he lamented, so great that they should sink
down under them into a silent despair, v. 15. .27.
1 . A GAIN, in the ninth year, in the tenth
jTjL month, in the tenth day of the month,
the word of the Lord came unto me, say¬
ing, 2. Son of man, write thee the name of
the day, even of this same day ; the king of
Babylon set himself against Jerusalem this
same day. 3. And utter a parable unto the
rebellious hoarse, and say unto them, Thus
saith the Lord God, Set on a pot, set it on,
and also pour water into it : 4. Gather the
pieces thereof into it, even every good piece,
the thigh, and the shoulder; fill it with the
choice bones. 5. Take the choice of the
flock, and burn also the bones under it, and
make it boil well, and let them seethe the
bones of it therein. 6. Wherefore thus saith
the Lord God, Wo to the bloody city, to
the pot whose scum is therein, and whose
scum is not gone out of it! bring it out piece
by piece ; let no lot fall upon it. 7. For her
blood is in the midst of her ; she set it upon
the top of a rock ; she poured it not upon
the ground to cover it with dust; 8. That it
might cause fury to come up to take ven¬
geance ; I have set her blood upon the top
of a rock, that it should not be covered. 9.
Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Wo to
the bloody city! I will even make the pile
for fire great. 10. Heap on wood, kindle
the fire, consume the flesh, and spice it well,
and let the bones be burnt. 1 1 . Then set
it empty upon the coals thereof, that the
brass of it may be hot, and may burn, and
that the filthiness of it may be molten in it,
that the scum of it may be consumed. 12.
She hath wearied herself with lies, and her
great scum went not forth out of her: her
scum shall he in the fire. 13. In thy filthi¬
ness is lewdness: because I have purged
thee, and thou wast not purged, thou shall
not be purged from thy filthiness any more,
till I have caused my fury to rest uponjhee.
14. I the Loud have spoken it; it shall
come to pass, and I will do it; I will not go
back, neither w ill I spare, neither will I re¬
pent : according to thy ways, and according
to thy doings, shall they judge thee, saith
the Lord God.
We have here,
I. The notice God gives to Ezekiel in Babylon
of Nebuchadnezzar’s laying siege to Jerusalem, just
at the time when he was doing it; (v. 2.) “ Si on of
mari, take notice, the king of Babylon, who is now
abroad with his army, thou knowest not where, set
himself against Jerusalem this same day.” It was
many miles, it was many days’ journey, from Jeru¬
salem to Babylon; perhaps the last intelligence they
had from the army was, that the design was upon
Rabbath of the children of Ammon, and that tire
campaign was to be opened with the siege of that
city. But God knew, and could tell the prophet,
This day, at this time, Jerusalem is invested, ano
the Chaldean army is set down before it. Note, A,
all times, so all places, even the most remote, are
present with God, and under his view. He tells it
the prophet, that the prophet might tell it the peo¬
ple, that so, when it proved to be punctually true,
as they would find by the public intelligence in a
little time, it might be a confirmation of the pro¬
phet’s mission, and they might infer that, since he
was right in his news, he was so in his predictions,
for he owed both to the same correspondence he had
with Heaven.
II. The notice which he orders him to take of it.
He must enter it in his book, memorandum, that in
the ninth year of Jehoiakin’s captivity, (for thence
Ezekiel dated, ch. i. 2. which was also the ninth
year of Zedekiali’s reign, for he began to reign
when Jehoiakin was earned off,) in the tenth month,
on the tenth day of the month, the king of Babylon
laid siege to Jerusalem; and the date here agrees
exactly with the date in the historv, 2 Kings xxv.
1. See how God reveals things to his servants the
prophets, especially those things which serve to con¬
firm their word, and so to confirm their own faith.
Note, It is good to keep an exact account of the
date of remarkable occurrences, which may some¬
times contribute to the manifesting of God’s glorv
so much the more in them, and the explaining and
confirming of scripture-prophecies. Known unto
God are all his works.
III. The notice which he orders him to give to
| the people thereupon, the purport of which is, that
this siege of Jerusalem, now begun, will infallibly
end in the ruin of it. This he must say to the re-
, bellious house, to those of them that were in Baby¬
lon, to be by them communic ited to these that were
702
EZEKIEL, XXIV.
yet in their own land. A rebellious house will soon
be a ruinous house.
1. He must show them this by a sign; for that
stupid people needed to be taught as children are.
The comparison made use of is that of a boiling
pot. This agrees with Jeremiah’s vision many years
before, when he first began to be a prophet, and,
prob iblv, was designed to put them in mind of that;
( Jcr. i. 13. ) I see a seething pot, with the face to¬
ward the north; and the explanation of it, (x>. 15.)
makes it to signify the besieging of Jerusalem by
the northern nations. And as this comparison is in¬
tended to confirm Jeremiah’s vision, so also to con¬
front the vain confidence of the princes of Jerusa¬
lem, who had said, (c/i. xi. 3.) This city is the
caldron, and we are the Jlcsh; meaning, “We are
as safe here as if we were surrounded with walls of
brass.” “Well,” says God, “it shall be so, you
shall be boiled in Jerusalem, as the flesh in the cal¬
dron, boiled to pieces; let the pot be set on with
water fin it; (x1. 4.) let it be filled with the flesh
of the choice of the flock, (x>: 5.) with the choice
pieces, (xa 4.) and the marrow-bones, and let the
other bones serve for fuel, that, one way or other,
either in the pot or under it, the whole beast may
be made use of.” A fire of bones, though it be a
slow fire, (for the siege was to be long,) is yet a sure
and lasting fire; such was God’s wrath against them,
and not like the crackling of thorns under a pot,
which has noise and blaze, but no intense heat.
They that from all parts of the country fled into
Jerusalem for safety, would be sadly disappointed,
when the siege laid'to it would soon make the place
too hot for them; and yet there was no getting out
of it, but they must be forced to abide by it, as the
flesh in a boiling pot.
2. He must give them a comment upon this sign.
I; is to be construed as a wo to the bloody city, v.
6. And again, (xi. 9.) being bloody, let it ifo to pot,
to be boiled, it is the fittest place for it. Let us here
see,
(1.) What is the course God takes with it. Jeru¬
salem, during the siege, is like a pot boiling over the
fire, all in a heat, all in a hurry. [1.] Care is taken
to keep a good fire under the pot, which signifies
the closeness of the siege, and the many vigorous
attacks made upon the city by the besiegers, and
especially the continued wrath of God burning
against them; (v. 9.) I will make the pile for fire
great. Commission is given to the Chaldeans, (v.
10.) to heap on wood, and kindle the fire; to make
Jerusalem more and more hot to the inhabitants.
Note, The fire which God kindles for the consuming
of impenitent sinners, shall never abate, much less
go out, for want of fuel. Tophet has fire and much
\oood, Isa. xxx. 33. [2.] The meat, as it is boiled,
is taken out, and given to the Chaldeans for them to
feast upon. “ Consume the flesh, let it be thoroughly
boiled, boiled to rags; spice it well, and make it sa¬
voury, for those that will feed sweetly upon it; let
the bones be burnt;” (either the bones under the
pot, let them be consumed with the other fuel, or,
as some think, the bones in the pot;) “let it boil so
furiously, that not only the flesh may be sodden, but
even the bones softened; let all the inhabitants of
Jerusalem be, by sickness, sword, and famine, re¬
duced to the extremity of misery.” And then, (v.
6.) “ Bring it out piece by piece; let every man be
delivered into the enemy’s hand, to be either put to
the sword, or made a prisoner. Let them be an
easy prey to them, and let the Chaldeans fall upon
them as eagerly as a hungry man does upon a good
dish of meat, when it is set before him. Let no lot
fall upon it; every piece in the pot shall be fetched
out, and devoured, first or last, and therefore it is
no matter for casting lots which shall be fetched out
first.” It was a very severe military execution,
when David measured Moab with two tines to put
to death, and one full line to keep alive, 2. Sam. viii.
2. But here is no line, no lot of mercy, made use
of; all goes one way, and that is to destruction. [3.]
When all the broth is boiled away, the pot is set
empty upon the coals, that it may burn too, which
signifies the setting of the city on fire, xa 11. The
scum of the meat, or, as some translate it, the rust
of the metal, is so got into the pot, that there is m
making it clean by washing or scouring it, and there
fore it must be done by fire; so let the filthiness b<
burnt out of it, or, rather, molten in it, and burn!
with it. Let the vipers and their nest be consumed
together.
(2.) What is the quarrel God has with it. He
would not take these severe methods with Jerusa
lem, but that he is provoked to it; she deserves to
be thus dealt with: for,
[1.] It is a bloody city; (x>. 7, 8.) Her blood is in
the midst of her. Many a barbarous murder has
been committed in the very heart of the city; t.ay,
and they have a disposition to cruelty in their hearts;
they inwardly delight in bloodshed, and so it is in
the midst of them. Nay, they commit their mur
ders in the face of the sun, and openly and impu
dently avow them, in defiance of the justice both ol
God and man. She did not pour out the blood she
shed upon the ground, to cover it with dust, as being
ashamed of the sin, or afraid of the punishment.
She did not look upon it as a filthy thing, proper to
be concealed, (Deut. xxiii. 13.)much lessdangerous
Nay, she poured out the innocent blood she shed.
upon a rock, where it would not soak in, upon the
top of a rock, in despite of divine views and ven¬
geance. They shed innocent blood, under colour
of justice; so that they gloried in it, as if they had
done God and the country good service, so put it, as
it were, on the top of a rock; or, it may refer to the
sacrificing of their children on their high places,
perhaps on the top of rocks. Now thus they caused
fury to come up, and take vengeance, xi. 8. It could
not be avoided, but that God must in anger visit for
these things, his soul must be avenged on such a na¬
tion as this. If such impudent murderers as these,
that even dare divine vengeance, go unpunished, it
will be said that God has forsaken the earth. It is
absolutely necessary that such a bloody city as this
should have blood given her to drink, for she is
worthy, for the vindicating of the honour of divine
justice. And the crime having been public and no¬
torious, it is fit that the punishment should be so
too; I have set her blood on the top of a rock. Je¬
rusalem was to be made an example, and therefore
was made a spectacle, to the world; God dealt with
her according to the law of retaliation. It is fit that
those who sin before all, should be rebuked before
all; and that their reputation should not be consulted
by the concealment of their punishment, who were
so impudent as not to desire the concealment of their
sin.
[2.] It is a flthy city. Great notice is taken, in
this explanation of the comparison, of the scum of
this pot, which signifies the sin of Jerusalem, work¬
ing up and appearing when the judgments of God
were upon her. It is the pot whose scum is therein,
and is not gone out of it, v. 6. The great scum that
went not forth out of her, (x>. 12.) that stuck to the
pot when all was boiled away, and was molten in it;
(xc 11.) some of this runs over into the fre, (x>. 12.)
inflames that, and makes it burn the more furiously,
but it shall all be consumed at last, x1. 11. When
the hand of God was gone out against them, instead
of humbling themselves under it, repenting and re¬
forming, and accepting the punishment of their ini¬
quity, they grew more impudent and outrageous in
sin; quarrelled with God, persecuted his prophets,
were fierce to one another, enraged to the last de •
703
EZEKIEL, XXIV.
gree against the Chaldeans, snarled at the stone,
gnawed their chain, and were like a wild bull in a
net. This was their scum; in their distress they
tresfiassed yet more against the Lord; like that king
jihaz, 2 Chron. xxviii. 22. There is little hope of
those who are made worse by that which should
make them better; whose corruptions are excited
and exasperated by those rebukes both of the word
and of the providence of God, which were designed
for the suppressing and subduing of them; or of
those whose scum boiled u/i once in convictions, and
confessions of sin, as if it would be taken off by re¬
formation, but afterward returned again in a revolt
from their good overtures; and the heart that seemed
softened is hardened again.
This was Jerusalem’s case; She has wearied with
lies, wearied her God with purposes and promises
of amendment, which she never stood to, wearied
herself with her carnal confidences, which have all
deceived her, v. 12. Note, Those that follow after
lving vanities, weary themselves with the pursuit.
Now see her doom, v. 13, 14. Because she is in¬
curably wicked, she is abandoned to ruin, without
remedy. First, Methods and means of reformation
had been tried in vain; (y. 13.) “In thy filthiness
is tewdness; thou art become obstinate and impu¬
dent in it; thou hast got a habit of it, which is cor •
firmed by frequent acts. In thy filthiness there is a
rooted lewdness; as appears by this, I have purged
thee, and thou wast not purged. I have given thee
medicine, but it has done thee no good. I have
used the means of cleansing thee, but they have been
ineffectual; the intention of them has not been an¬
swered. ” No' - It is sad to think how many there
are on whom ordinances and providences are all
lost. Secondly, It is therefore resolved that no
more such methods shall be used; Thou shalt not
be purged from thy filthiness any more. The fire
shall no longer be a refining fire, but a consuming
fire, and therefore shall not he mitigated and short¬
ened, as it has been, but shall be continued in ex¬
tremity, till it has done its destroying work. Note,
Those that will not be healed, are justly given up,
and their case adjudged desperate. There is a day
coming when it will be said, He that is filthy, let him
be filthy still. Thirdly, Nothing remains then but
to bring them to utter ruin; I will cause my fury to
rest upon thee. This is the same with what is said
of the latter Jews, that wrath is come upon them to
the uttermost, 1 Thess. ii. 16. They deserve it;
.According to thy doings they shall judge thee, v.
14. And God will do it. The sentence is bound on
with repeated ratifications, that they might be
awakened to see how certain their ruin was; “ I
the l.ord have spoken it, who am able to make
good what I have spoken; it shall come to pass, no¬
thing shall prevent it, for I will do it myself, I will
not go back upon any entreaties, the decree is gone
forth, and I will not spare in compassion to them,
neither will I repent.” He will neither change his
mind nor his way. Hereby the prophet was forbid¬
den to intercede for them, and they were forbidden
to flatter themselves with hopes of an escape. God
hath said it, and he will doit. Note, The declara¬
tions of God’s wrath against sinners are as inviolable
as the assurances he has given of favour to his peo¬
ple; and the case of such is sad indeed, who have
brought it to this issue, that either God must be
false, or they must be damned.
15. Also the word of the Lord came
unto me, saying, 16. Son of man, behold, I
take away from thee the desire of thine eyes
with a stroke : yet neither shalt thou mourn
nor weep, neither shall thy tears run down.
1 7. F orbear to cry, make no mourning for
the dead, bind the tire of thy head upon
thee, and put on thy shoes upon thy feet, and
cover not thy lips, and eat not the bread of
men. 18. So 1 spake unto the people in
the morning; and at even my wife died: and
I did in the morning as I was commanded.
19. And the people said unto me, Y\ iltthou
not tell us what these things are to us, that
thou doest so? 20. Then I answered them,
The word of the. Lord came unto me, say¬
ing, 21. Speak unto the house of Israel,
Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will
profane my sanctuary, the excellency of
your strength, the desire of your eyes, and
that which your soul pitieth ; and your sons
and your daughters whom ye have left shall
fall by the sword. 22. And ye shall do as
J have done : ye shall not cover your lips,
nor eat the bread of men. 23. And your
tires shall be upon your heads, and your
shoes upon your feet: ye shall not mourn
nor weep ; but ye shall pine away for your
iniquities, and mourn one towards another.
24. Thus Ezekiel s unto you a sign : ac¬
cording to all that he hath done shall ye do ;
and when this cometh, ye shall know that I
am the Lord God. 25. Also, thou son of
man, shall it not be in the day when I take
from them their strength, the joy of their
glory, the desire of their eyes, and that
whereupon they set their minds, their sons
and their daughters, 26. That he that es-
capeth in that day shall come unto thee, to
cause thee to hear it with thine ears? 27. In
that day shall thy mouth be opened to him
which is escaped, and thou shalt speak, and
be no more dumb : and thou shalt be a sign
unto them; and they shall know that I am
the Lord.
These verses conclude what we have been upon
all along from the beginning of this book, to wit,
Ezekiel’s prophecies of the destruction of Jerusalem;
for, after this, though he prophesied much concern¬
ing other nations, yet he said no more concerning
Jerusalem, till he heard of the destruction of it, al¬
most three years after, ch. xxxiii. 21. He had as¬
sured them, in the former part of this chapter, that
there was no hope at all of the preventing of the
trouble; here he assures them that they should not
have the ease of weeping for it. Observe here,
I. The sign by which this was represented to
them, and it was a sign that cost the prophet very
dear; the more shame for them, that when he, by a
divine appointment, was at such an expense to affect
them with what he had to deliver, yet they were
not affected by it.
1. He must lose a good wife, that should suddenly
be taken from him bv death. God gave him notice
of it before, that it might be theless surprise to him;
{y. 16. ) Behold, I take away from thee the desire of
thine eyes with a stroke. Note, (1.) A married state
may very well agree with the prophetical office; it
I is honourable in all, and therefore not sinful in mi¬
nisters. (2. ) Much of the comfort of human life lies
i in agreeable relations: no doubt, Ezekiel found a
704
EZEKIEL, XXIV
prudent, tender yoke-fellow, that shared with him
in his griefs and cares, to be a happy companion in
his captivity. (3.) Those in the conjugal relation
must be to each other not only a covering of the
eyes, (Gen. xx. 16.) to restrain wandering looks af¬
ter others; but a desire of the eyes, to engage pleas¬
ing looks on one another. A beloved wife is the
desire of the eyes, which find not any object more
grateful. (4.) That is least safe which is most
dear; we know not how soon the desire of our eyes
may be removed from us, and may become the sor¬
row of our hearts; which is a good reason why those
that have -wives, should he as though they had none,
and those who rejoice in them, as though they re¬
joiced not, 1 Cor. vii. 29, 30. Death is a stroke
which the most pious, the most useful, the most
amiable, are not exempted from. (5.) When the
desire of our eyes is taken away with a stroke, we
must see and own the hand of God in it; I take away
the desire of thine eyes. He takes our creature-
comforts from us when and how he pleases; he gave
them to us, but reserved to himself a property in
them ; and may he not do -what he will with his own ?
(6.) Under afflictions of this kind, it is good for us
to remember that we are sons of men; for so God
cads the prophet here. If thou art a son of Adam,
thv wife is a daughter of Jive, and therefore a dying
creature It is an affliction which the children of
men are liable to; and shall the earth be forsaken for
us? According to this prediction, he tells us, (u. 18.)
I s/take unto the people in the morning; for God
sent his prophets, rising up early, and sending them;
then he thought, if ever, they would be disposed to
hearken to him. Observe, [1.] Though God had
given Ezekiel a certain prospect of this affliction
coming upon him, yet it did not take him off from his
work, but he resolved to go on in that. [2.] We
may the more easily bear an affliction, if it find us
in the way of our duty; for nothing can hurt us, no¬
thing come amiss to us, while we keep ourselves in
the love of God.
2. He must deny himself the satisfaction of mourn¬
ing for his wife, which would have been both an
honour to her and an ease to the oppression of his own
spirit. He must not use the natural expressions of
sorrow, v. 16. He must not give vent to his passion
by weeping, or letting his tears run down; though
tears are a tribute due to the dead, and, when the
body is sown, it is fit that it should thus be watered.
But Ezekiel is not allowed to do this; though he
thought he had as much reason to do it as any man,
and would perhaps be ill thought of by the people
if he did it not. Much less might he use the cus¬
tomary formalities of mourners. He must dress
himself in his usual attire, must bind his turban on
him, here called the tire of his head; must put on
his shoes, and not go barefoot, as was usual in such
cases; he must not cover his lips, not throw a veil
over his face, (as mourners were wont to do, Lev.
xiii. 45.) must not be of a sorrowful countenance,
appearing unto men to fast, Matt. vi. 18. He must
not eat the bread of men, nor expect that his neigh¬
bours and friends should send him in provisions, as
usually (hey did in such cases, presuming the mourn¬
ers had no heart to provide meat for themselves; but,
;f it were sent, he must not eat of it, but go on in his
business as at other times. It could not but be sore
against the grain to flesh and blood, not to lament
the death of one he loved so dearly, but so God com¬
mands; and I did in the morning as I was com¬
manded. He appeared in public, in his usual habit,
and looked as he used to do, without any signs of
mourning. (1.) Here there was something peculiar,
and Ezekiel, to make himself a sign to the people,
must put a force upon himself, and exercise an
extraordinary piece of self-denial. Note, Our ex¬
positions must always submit to God’s directions,
and his command musl be obeyed, even in that
which is most difficult and displeasing to us. (2.
Though mourning for the dead be a duty, yet it
must always be kept under the government of re¬
ligion and right reason, and we must not sorrow as
those that have no hope, nor lament the loss of any
creature, even the most valuable, and that which
we could worst spare, as if we had lost our God, or
as if all our happiness were gone with it; and of this
moderation in mourning, ministers, when it is their
case, ought to be examples. We must at such a
time study to improve the affliction, to accommo¬
date ourselves to it, and tc get our acquaintance with
the other world increased, by the removal of our
dear relations, and learn with holy Job to bless the
name of the Lord, even when he takes as well as
when he gives.
II. The explication and application of this sign.
The people inquired the meaning of it; (v. 19.)
Wilt thou not tell us what these things are to us, that
thou doest so? They knew that Ezekiel was an af¬
fectionate husband, that the death of his wife was a
great affliction to him, and that he would not appear
so unconcerned at it but for some good reason, and
for instruction to them; and perhaps they were in
hopes that it had a favourable signification, and
gave them an intimation that God would now com¬
fort them again according to the time he had afflicted
them, and make them look pleasant again. Note,
When we are inquiring concerning the things of
God, our inquiry must be, “What are those things
to us? What are we concerned in them? What
conviction, what counsel, what comfort, do they
speak to us? Wherein do they reach our case?”
Ezekiel gives them an answer verbatim, as he
had received it from the Lord, who had told him
what he must s/ieak to the house of Israel.
1. Let them know that as Ezekiel’s wife was
taken from him by a stroke, so would God take
from them all that which was clearest to them, v. 21.
If this wer e done to the green tree, what shall be done
to the dry? If a faithful servant of God was thus af¬
flicted only for his trial, shall such a generation of
rebels against God go unpunished? By this awaken¬
ing providence God showed that he was in earnest
in his threatenings, and inexorable. We may sup¬
pose that Ezekiel prayed that, if it were the will of
God, his wife might be spared to him, but God
would not hear him; and should he be heard then in
his intercessions for this provoking people? No, it is
determined; God will take away the desire of your
eyes. Note, The removal of the comforts of ethers
should awaken us to think of parting with ours too;
for art we better than they? We know not how soon
the same cup, or a more bitter one, may be put into
our hands, and should therefore weep with them
that weep, as being ourselves also in the body. God
will take away that which their soul pities, of which
they say, What pity is it that it should be cut eff and
destroyed! That for which your souls are afraid;
(so some read it;) you shall lose that which you most
dread the loss of. And what is that? (i.) That
which was their public pride, the temple; “ I will
profane my sanctuary, by giving that into the ene
my’s hand, to be plundered and burnt.” This was
signified by the death of a wife, a dear wife, to teach
us that God’s sanctuary should be dearer to us, and
more the desire of our eyes, than any creature-com¬
fort whatsoever. Christ’s church, that is his spouse,
should be ours too. Though this people were very
corrupt, and had themselves profaned the sanctuary,
yet it is called the desire of their eyes. Note, Many
that are destitute of the power of godliness, are yet
very fond of the form of it; and it is just with God
to punish them for their hypocrisy by depriving them
of that too. The sanctuary is here called the ex
ccllcncy of their strength; they had many strong
EZEKIEL, XXV.
705
lolds and places of defence, but the temple excelled
them all; it was the pride of their strength; they
prided in it as their strength, that they were the
temple of the Lord, Jer. vii. 4. Note, The church-
privileges that men are proud of, are profaned by
their sins, and it is just with God to profane them by
his judgments. And with these God will takeaway,
(0.) That which was their family pleasure, which
they looked upon with delight; “ Your sons and
your daughters (which are the dearer to you, be¬
cause they are but a few left of many ; the rest hav¬
ing perished by famine and pestilence) shall fall by
the sword of "the Chaldeans.” What a dreadful
spectacle would it be to see their own children,
pieces, pictures of themselves, whom they had taken
such care and pains to bring up, and whom they
loved as their own souls, sacrificed to the rage of
the merciless conquerors ! This, this was the punish¬
ment of sin.
2. Let them know that as Ezekiel wept not for
his affliction, so neither should they weep for theirs.
He must say, Ye shall do as I have done, v. 22.
Ye shall not mourn nor weep, v. 23. Jeremiah had
told them the same, that men shall not lament for
the dead, nor cut themselves; (Jer. xvi. 6.) not that
there shall be any such merciful circumstances •with¬
out, or any such degrees of wisdom and grace within,
as shall mitigate and moderate the sorrow; but they
shall not mourn; for, (1.) Their grief shall be so
great, that they shall be quite overwhelmed with it,
their passions shall stifle them, and they shall have
no power to ease themselves by giving vent to it.
(2.) Their calamities shall come so fast upon them,
one upon the neck of another, that by long custom
they shall b e hardened in their sorrows, (Job vi. 10.)
and perfectly stupifled, and moped (as we say) with
them. (3.) They shall not dare to express their
grief, for fear of being deemed disaffected to the
conquerors, who would take their lamentations as
an affront and disturbance to their triumphs. (4.)
They shall neither have hearts, nor time, nor mo¬
ney, wherewith to put themselves in mourning, and
accommodate themselves with the ceremonies of
grief; “ You will be so entirely taken up with solid,
substantial grief, that you will have no room for the
shadow of it.” (5. ) Particular mourners shall not
need to distinguish themselves by covering their lips,
and laying aside their ornaments, and going bare¬
foot; for it is well known that every body is a
mourner. (6. ) There shall be none of that sense of
their affliction and sorrow for it, which would help
to bring them to repentance, but that only which
shall drive them to despair; so it follows, “ Ye shall
pine away for your iniquities, with seared con¬
sciences and reprobate minds, and ye shall mourn,
not to God in prayer and confession of sin, but one
toward another;” murmuring, and fretting, and com¬
plaining of God, thus making their burthen heavier
and their wound more grievous, as impatient people
do under their afflictions, by mingling their own
passions with them.
III. An appeal to the event, for the confirmation
of all this; (v. 24.) ‘‘When this comes, as it is fore¬
told, when Jerusalem, which is this day besieged, is
quite destroyed and laid waste, which now you can¬
not believe will ever be, then ye shall know that I
am the Lord God, who have given you this fair
warning of it. Then you will remember that Eze¬
kiel was to you a sign.” Note, Those who regard !
not the threatenings of the word when they are
preached, will be made to remember them when
they are executed. Observe,
1. The great desolation which the siege of Jeru¬
salem should end in; (v. 25.) In that day, that tc»
rible day, when the citv should be broken up, I will
. ike from them, (1.) That which they depended on ;
their strength, their walls, their treasures, their for-
Vol. iv. — 4 U
tifications, their men of war, none shall stand them
in stead. (2.) That which they boasted of ; tliey'oy
of their glory, that which they looked upon as most
their glory, and which they most rejoiced in, the
temple of their God, and the palaces of their princes.
(3.) That which they delighted in; which was the
desire of their eyes, and on which they set their
minds. Note, Carnal people set their minds upon
that on which they can set their eyes; they look at,
and dote upon, the things that are seen; and it is
their folly to set their minds upon that which they
have no assurance of, and which may be taken from
them in a moment. Prov. xxiii. 5. ’ Their sons and
their daughters were all this, their strength, and joy,
and glory; and these shall go into captivity.
2. The notice that should be brought to the pro¬
phet, not by revelation, as the notice of the siege
was brought him, (v. 2.) but in an ordinary way;
(y. 26.) He that escapes in that day, shall, by a spe¬
cial direction of Providence, come to thee, to bring
thee intelligence of it; which we find now done, ch.
xxxiii. 21. The ill news came slowly, and yet to
Ezekiel and his fellow-captives it came too soon.
3. The divine impression which he should be un
der, upon the receiving that notice, v. 27. Whereas
from this time to that, Ezekiel was thus far dumb,
that he prophesied no more against the land of Israel,
but against the neighbouring nations, as we shall find
in the following chapters, then he shall have orders
given him to speak against the children of his people,
{ch. xxxiii. 2, 22. ) then his mouth shall be opened.
He was suspended from prophesying against them
in the mean time, because, Jerusalem being besieged,
his prophecies could not be sent into the city; be¬
cause, when God was speaking so loud by the rod,
there was the less need of speaking by the word, and
because then the accomplishments of his prophecies
would be the full confirmation of his mission, and
would the more effectually clear the way for him to
begin again. It being referred to that issue, that
issue must be waited for. Thus Christ forbade liis
disciples to preach openly that he was Christ, till
after his resurrection, because that was to be the full
proof of it. But then thou shalt speak with the greater
assurance, and the more effectually, either to their
conviction, or to their confusion. Note, God’s pro¬
phets are never silenced but for wise and holy ends.
And when God gives them the opening of the mouth
again, (as he will in due time; for even the witnesses
that are slain shall arise,) it shall appear to have
been for his glory that they were for awhile silent,
that people may the more certainly and fully know
that God is the Lord.
CHAP. XXV.
Judgment began at the house of God, and therefore with
them the prophets began, who were the judges ; but it
must not end there , and therefore they must not. Ezekiel
had finished his testimony which related to the destruc¬
tion of Jerusalem. As to that, he was ordered to say no
more, but stand upon his watch-tower, and wait the issue;
and yet he must not be silent; there are divers nations
bordering upon the land of Israel, which he must pro¬
phesy against, as Isaiah and Jeremiah had done before;
and must proclaim God’s controversy with them, chiefly
lor the injuries and indignities which they had done to the
people of God in the day of their calamity. In this chap¬
ter, we have his prophecy, I. Against the Ammonites,
v. 1..7. II. Against the Moabites, v. 8. • 1 1. III. Against
the Edomites, v. II.. 14. IV. Against the Philistines, v.
15.. 17. That whicli is laid to the charge of each of
them, is, their barbarous and insolent conduct toward
God’s Israel; for which God threatens to put the same
cup of trembling into their hand. God’s resenting it thus
would be an encouragement to Israel to believe that
though he had dealt thus severelv with them, yet he had
not cast them off, but would still own them, and plead
their cause.
1. ^ jTMTE word of the Lord came again
JL unto me, saying, 2. Son of man, set
706
EZEKIEL, XXV.
thy face against the Ammonites, and pro¬
phesy against them; 3. And say unto the
Ammonites, Hear the word of the Lord God ;
Thus saith the Lord God, Because thou
saidst, Alia, against my sanctuary, when it
was profaned ; and against the land of Israel,
when it was desolate; and against the house
of Judah, when they went into captivity : 4.
Behold, therefore, I will deliver thee to the
men of the east for a possession, and they
shall set their palaces in thee, and make their
dwellings in thee; they shall eat thy fruit,
and they shall drink thy milk. 5. And I will
make Rabbah a stable for camels, and the
Ammonites a couching-place for flocks ; and
ye shall know that 1 am the Lord. 6. For
thus saith the Lord God, Because thou hast
clapped thy hands, and stamped with the
feet, and rejoiced in heart with all thy despite
against the land of Israel ; 7. Behold, there¬
fore, 1 will stretch out my hand upon thee,
and will deliver thee fora spoil to the heathen;
and I will cut thee off from the people, and
1 will cause thee to perish out of the coun¬
tries: I will destroy thee; and thou shalt
know that I am the Lord
Here,
I. The propnet is ordered to address himself to
the Ammonites, in the name of the Lord Jehovah,
the God of Israel, who is also the God of the whole
earth. But what can Chemosh, the god of the chil¬
dren of Ammon, say, in answer to it? He is bidden
to set his face against the Ammonites, for he is God’s
representative as a prophet, and thus he must signify
that God set his face against them, for the face of the
Lord is against them that do evil, Ps. xxxiv. 16.
He must speak with boldness and assurance, as one
that knew whose errand he went upon, and that he
should be borne out in delivering it. He must there¬
fore set his face as a flint, Isa. 1. 7. He must show
his displeasure against these proud enemies of Israel,
and face them down, though they were very impu¬
dent; and thus must show that though he had pro¬
phesied. so much and so long against Israel, yet still
he was lor Israel, and, while he witnessed against
their corruptions, adhered to, and gloried in, God’s
covenant with them. Note, Those are miserable
that ha ve the preaching and praying of God’s pro¬
phets against them ; against whom their faces are set.
II. He is directed what to say to them. Ezekiel
is now a captive in Babylon, and has been so many
years, and knows little of the state of his own nation,
much less of the nations that were about it; but God
tells him both what they were doing, and what he
was about to do with them. And thus by the spirit
of prophecy he is enabled to speak as pertinently to
their case as if lie had been among them.
1. He must upbraid the Ammonites with their
insolent and barbarous triumphs over the people of
Israel in their calamities, v. 3. The Ammonites
said, when all went against the Jews, Aha, so would
me have it. They were glad to see, (1.) The tem¬
ple burned, the sanctuary profaned by the victo¬
rious Chaldeans; this is put first, to intimate what
was the cause of the controversy, they had an en¬
mity to the Jews for the sake of their religion, though
it was only some poor remains of the profession of it
that were to be found among them. (2. ) The nation
ruined. They rejoiced when the land of Israel mas
made desolate, the cities burnt, the count'} wasted,
and both depopulated, and when the house ci Judah
went into captivity. When they had not power to
oppress God’s Israel themselves, they were pleased
to see the Chaldeans oppress them; partly because
they envied their wealth and the good land they en¬
joyed, partly because they feared their growing
power, and partly because they hated their religion,
and the divine oracles they were favoured with. It
is repeated again, (u. 6. ) They clapped with their
hands, to irritate the rage of the Chaldeans, and to
set them on as dogs upon the game; or, they clapped
their hands in triumph, attended this tragedy with
their Plaudite — Give us your applause, thinking it
well acted; never was there any thing more divert-
ting or entertaining to them. They stamped saith
their feet, ready to leap and dance for joy upon this
occasion; they not only rejoiced in heart, but they
could not forbear showing it; though every one that
had any sense of honour and humanity would cry
shame upon them for it. Especially considering tha<
they rejoiced thus, not for any tiling they got by Is
rael’s fall; if so, they had been the more excusable.
Most people are for themselves. But this was purely
from a principle of malice and enmity; Thou hast
rejoiced in heart with all thy despite, which signifi .s
both scorn and hatred against the land of Israel.
Note, The people of God have always had a great
deal of ill-will borne them by this wicked world;
and their calamities have been their neighbours’ en¬
tertainments. See to what unnatural instances of
malice the enmity that is in the seed of the serpent
against the seed of the woman, will carry them.
The Ammonites, of all people, should not have re
joiced in Jerusalem’s ruin, but should rather have
trembled, because they themselves had such a nar¬
row escape at the same time; it was but cross or
pile* which should be besieged first, Rabbah or Jeru¬
salem, ch. xxi. 20. And they had reason to think
that the king of Babylon would set upon them next.
But thus were their hearts hardened to their ruin,
and their insolence against Jerusalem was to them
an evident token of perdition, Phil. i. 28. It is a
very wicked thing to be glad at the calamities of
any, especially of God’s people, and a sin that God
will surely reckon for ; such delight has God in
showing mercy, and so backward is he to punish,
that nothing is more pleasing to him than to be stop¬
ped in the ways of his judgments by intercessions, nor
any thing more provoking than to help forsvard the
affliction when he is but a little displeased. Zech. i. 15.
2. He must threaten the Ammonites with utter
ruin, for this insolence which they were guilty of.
God turns away his wrath from Israel against them,
as is said, Prov. xxiv. 17, 18. God is jealous for his
people’s honour, because his own is so nearly inter¬
ested in it. And therefore they that touch that,
shall be made to know that they touch the apple of
his eye. He had before predicted the destruction
of the Ammonites, ch. xxi. 28. Had they repented,
that had been revoked; but now it is ratified. (1.)
A destroying enemy is brought against them; I will
deliver thee to the men of the east, first to the Chal¬
deans, who came from the north-east, and whose
army, under the command of Nebuchadnezzar, de¬
stroyed the country of the Ammonites, about five
years after the destruction of Jerusalem; (as Jose¬
phus relates, Antiy. lib. 10. cap. 1 1. ) and then to the
Arabians, who were properly the children of the
east, who, when the Chaldeans had made the country
desolate, and quitted it, came and took possession
of it for themselves, probably with the consent of the
conquerors: s-hepherds’ tents were their palaces,
«hese they set up in the country of the Ammonites,
* A game, in which it is put to chance whether the side of n coin
which bears the cross, or that which bears the reverse, shall lie up¬
ward. — Ed.
707
EZEKIEL, XXV.
there they made their dwellings, v. 4. They en¬
joyed the products of the country ; They shall eat thy
fruit, and drink thy milk; and the milk from the cat¬
tle is the fruit of the ground at second-hand. They
made use even of the royal city for their cattle; (y.
5.) I will make Rabbah, that was a nice and splen¬
did city, to be a stable for camels; for its new mas¬
ters, whose wealth lies all in cattle, will n<4t think
they can put the palaces of Rabbah to a better use.
Rabbah had been a habitation of brutish men, justly
therefore it is now made a stable for camels; and the
country a couching-place for flocks, more innocent
beasts than those with which it had been before re¬
plenished. (2.) God himself acts as an Enemy to
them ; (n. 7. ) I will stretch out mine hand upon thee,
a hand that will reach far, and strike home, which
there is no resisting the blow of, for it is a mighty
hand; nor bearing the weight of, for it is a heavy
hand. God’s hand stretched out against the Am¬
monites will not only deliver them for a spoil to the
heathen, so that their neighbours shall prey upon
them, but will cut them off from the people, and
make them perish out of the countries, so that there
shall be no remains of them in that place. Compare
with this, Jer. xlix. 1, &c. What can sound more
terrible than that resolution, (v. 7.) I will destroy
thee? For the almighty God is able both to save
and to destroy, and it is a fearful thing to fall into
his hands. Both the threatenings here, ( v . 5. and v.
7.) conclude with this, Ye shall know that I am the
Lord. For, [1.] Thus God will maintain his own
honour, and will make it appear that he is the God
of Israel, though he suffers them for a time to be
captives in Babylon. [2.] Thus he will bring those
that were strangers to him, into an acquaintance with
him, and it will be a blessed effect of their calamities.
Better know God, and be poor, than be rich, and
ignorant of him.
8. Thus saith the Lord God, Because that
Moab and Seirdo say, Behold, the house of
Judah is like unto all the heathen ; 9. There¬
fore, behold, I will open the side of Moab
from the cities, from his cities which are on
his frontiers, the glory of the country, Beth-
jeshimoth, Baal-meon, and Kiriathaim, 10.
Unto the men of the east with the Ammon¬
ites, and will give them in possession, that
the Ammonites may not be remembered
among the nations. 1 1. And I will execute
judgments upon Moab; and they shall know
that I am the Lord. 12. Thus saith the
Lord God, Because that Edom hath dealt
against the house of Judah by taking ven¬
geance, and hath greatly offended, and re¬
venged himself upon them: 13. Therefore
thus saith the Lord God, I will also stretch
out my hand upon Edom, and will cut off
man and beast from it ; and I will make it
desolate fromTeman; and they of Dedan
shall fall by the sword. 14. And I will lay
my vengeance upon Edom by the hand of
my people Israel : and they shall do in Edom
according to mine anger, and according to
my fury; and theyshall know my vengeance,
saith the Lord God. 1 5. Thus saith the Lord
God, Because the Philistines have dealt by
revenge, and have taken vengeance with a
despiteful heart, to destroy it for the old
hatred ; 1 6. Therefore, thus saith the Lord
God, Behold, I will stretch out my hand
upon the Philistines, and I will cut off the
Cherethims, and destroy the remnant of the
sea-coast. 1 7. And I will execute great ven¬
geance upon them with furious rebukes; and
they shall knowr that I am the Lord, when
I shall lay my vengeance upon them.
Three more of Israel’s ill-natured neighbours are
here arraigned, convicted, and condemned to de¬
struction, tor contributing to, and triumphing in,
Jerusalem’s fall.
I. The Moabites. Seir, which was the seat of the
Edomites, is joined with them, (re 8.) because they
said the same as the Moabites; hut they were after¬
ward reckoned with by themselves, v. 12. Now ob¬
serve, 1. What was the sin of the Moabites; they said,
Behold, the house of Judah is like unto all the heathen.
They triumphed, ( 1. ) In the apostacies of Israel, were
pleased to see them forsake their God, and worship
idols, and hoped that in a while their religion would
be quite lost and forgotten, and the house of Judah
would be like all the heathen, perfect idolaters.
When those that profess religion walk unworthy of
their profession, they encourage the enemies of re¬
ligion to hope that it will in time sink, and be run
down, and quite abandoned; but let the Moabites
know that though there are those of the house of
Judah who have made themselves like the heathen,
yet there is a remnant that retain their integrity, the
religion of the house of Judah shall recover itself,
its peculiarities shall be preserved, it shall not lose
itself among the heathen, but distinguish itself froir.
them, till it deliver itself honourably into a bettei
institution. (2.) They triumphed in the calamities
of Israel. They said, “The house of Judah is like
all the heathen, in as bad a state as they; their God
is no more able to deliver them from this overflow¬
ing scourge of these parts of the world, than the
gods of the heathen are to deliver them. Where
are the promises they gloried in, and all the won¬
ders which they and their fathers told us of? What
the better are they for the covenant of peculiarity,
upon which they so much valued themselves? They
that looked with so much scorn upon all the heathen,
are now set upon a level with them, or rather sunk
below them.’ Note, Those who judge only by out¬
ward appearance, are ready to conclude that the
people of God have lost all their privileges, when
they have lost their worldly prosperity; which does
not follow, for good men, even in affliction, in cap¬
tivity among the heathen, have graces and comforts
within, sufficient to distinguish them from all the
heathen. Though the event seem one to the right¬
eous and wicked, yet indeed it is vastly different.
2. What should be the punishment of Moab for
this sin; because they triumphed in the overthrow
of Judah, their country shall be in like manner
overthrown with that of the Ammonites, who were
guilty of the same sin; (v. 9, 10.) I will open the
side of Moab, will uncover its shoulder, will take
away all its defences, that it may become an easy
prey to any that will make a prey of it. (1.) See
here how it shall be exposed; the frontier-towns,
that were its strength and guard, shall be demolish¬
ed by the Chaldean forces, and laid open. Some of
the cities are here named, which are said to be the
lory of the country, which they trusted in, and
oasted of, as impregnable; these shall decay, be
deserted, or betrayed, orfall into the enemy’s hand,
so that Moab shall lie exposed, and whoever will,
may penetrate into the heart of the country. Note,
Those who glory in any other defence and protec¬
tion than that ot the divine power, providence, and
708
EZEKIEL, XXVI.
promise, will, sooner or later, see cause to be
ashamed of their glorying. (2.) See here to whom
it shall be exposed; The men of the east, when they
come to take possession of the country of the Am¬
monites, shall seize that of the Moabites too. God,
the Lord of all lands, will give them that land; for
the kingdoms- of men he gives to whomsoever he
will. The Arabians, who are shepherds, and live
quietly, plain men dwelling in tents, shall by an
overruling Providence be put in possession of the
land of the Moabites, who are soldiers, men of war,
and cunning hunters, that live turbulently. The
Chaldeans shall get it by war, and the Arabians
shall enjoy it in peace. Concerning the Ammonites
it is said, They shall no more be remembered among
the nations, (10 10.) for they had been accessary to
the murder of Gedaliah, Jer. xl. 14. But of the
Moabites it is said, I ’will execute judgments upon
Moab; they shall feel the weight of God’s displea¬
sure, but perhaps not to that degree that the Am¬
monites shall; however, so far as that, they shall
know that I am the Lord; that the God of Israel is
a God of power, and that his covenant with his
people is not broken.
II. The Edomites, the posterity of Esau, betwixt
whom and Jacob there had been an old enmity.
And here is,
1. The sin of the Edomites, v. 12. They not
only triumphed in the ruin of Judah and Jerusalem,
as the Moabites and Ammonites had done, but they
took advantage from the present distressed state to
which the Jews were reduced, to do them some real
mischiefs; probably, made inroads upon their fron¬
tiers, and plundered their country; Edom has dealt
against the house of Judah by taking vengeatice.
The Edomites had of old been tributaries to the
Jews, according to the sentence that the elder
should serve the younger. In Jehoram’s time they
revolted; Amaziah severely chastised them, (2
Kings xiv. 7.) and for this they took vengeance; now
they would pay off all the old scores; and not only
incensed the Babylonians against Jerusalem, crying,
Raze it, raze it, (Ps. cxxxvii. 7. ) but cut off those
that escaped; as we find in the prophecy of Oba-
diah, which is wholly directed against Edom, v.
11, 12, &c. It is called here revenging a revenge,
which intimated that they were not only eager upon
it, but very cruel in it, and recompensed to the Jews
more than double. Herein he has greatly offended.
Note, It is a great offence to God for us to revenge
ourselves upon our brother; for God has said, Veti-
f eance is mine. We are forbidden to revenge, or to
ear a grudge. Suppose Judah had been hard upon
Edom formerly, it was a base thing for the Edom¬
ites now, in revenge for it, to smite them secretly:
but the Jews had a divine warrant to reign over the
Edomites, for that therefore they ought not to have
made reprisals; and it was the more disingenuous
for them to retain the old enmity, when God had
particularly commanded his people to forget it,
(Deut. xxiii. 7.) Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite.
2. The judgments threatened against them for
this sin. God will take them to task for it; (?'. 13.)
I will stretch out my hand upon Edom. Their
country shall be desolate from Teman, which lay
in the south part of it; and they shall fall by the
sword unto Dedan, which lay north; the desolations
of war should go through the nation. (1.) They
had taken vengeance, and therefore God will lay
his vengeance upon them ; (x>. 14. ) They shall know
my vengeance. They that will not leave it to God
to take vengeance for them, may expect that he
will take vengeance on them; and they that will not
believe and fear his vengeance, shall be made to
know and feel his vengeance; they shall be dealt
with according to God’s anger, and according to
his fury, not according to the weakness of the in¬
struments that are employed in it, but according io
the strength of the arm that employs them. (2.)
They had taken vengeance on Israel, and God will
lay his vengeance on them by the hand of his peo
pie Israel; they suffered much by the Chaldeans,
which seems to be referred to, Jer. xlix. 8. But be
side that there were saviours to ccme upon moun.
Zion, who should judge the mount of Esau, (Obad
21.) and Israel’s Redeemer comes with dyed gar¬
ments from Bozrah, (Isa. lxiii. 1.) this implies a
promise that Israel should recover itself again, to
that degree as to be in a capacity of curbing the in¬
solence of its neighbours. And we find (1 Mac. v.
3.) that Judas Maccabeus fought against the chil¬
dren of Esau in Idumea, gave them a great over¬
throw, abated their courage, and took their spoil.
And Josephus says ( Antiq . lib. 13. cap. 17.) that
Hircanus made the Edomites tributaries to Israel.
Note, The equity of God’s judgments is to be ob¬
served, when he not only avenges injuries upon
those that did them, but by those against whom
they were done.
III. The Philistines. And, 1. Their sin is much
the same with that of the Edomites; They have
dealt by revenge with the people of Israel, and
have taken vengeance with a despiteful heart, not to
disturb them only, but to destroy them, for the old
hatred, (u. 15.) the old grudge they bore them, or,
as the margin reads it, with perpetual hatred, a
hatred that began long since, and which they re¬
solved to continue; the anger was implacable, they
dealt by revenge, traded in the acts of malice; it
was their constant practice, and their heart, their
spiteful heart, was upon it. 2. Their punishment
likewise is much the same, v. 16. They that were
for destroying God’s people, shall themselves be
cut off and destroyed. And (y. 17.) they that were
for avenging themselves, God will execute great
vengeance upon them. This was fulfilled when that
country was wasted by the Chaldean army, not long-
after the destruction of Jerusalem, which is fore¬
told, Jer. xlvii. It was strange that these nations,
which bordered upon the land of Israel, were net
alarmed by the success of the Chaldean army, and
made to tremble in the apprehensions of their own
danger; when their neighbour’s house was on fire,
it was time to look to their own; but their impietv
and malice made them forget their politics, till God
by his judgments convinced them that the cup was
going round, and they were not the less safe for
their being secure.
CHAP. XXVI.
The prophet had soon done with ihose four nations that
he set his face against in the foregoing chapters; for
they were not at that time very considerable in the world,
nor would their fall make any great noise among the
nations, nor any figure in history. But the city of Tyre
is next set to the bar, which, being a place of vast trade,
was known all the world over; and therefore here are
three whole chapters, this and the two t hat follow, spent
in the prediction of the destruction of Tvre. We have
the burthen of Tyre , Isa. xxiii. It is but just mentioned
in Jeremiah, as snaring with the natives in the common
calamity, ch. xxv. 22. — xxvii. 3. — xlvii. 4. But Ezekiei
is ordered to be large upon that head. In this chapter,
we have, I. The sin charged upon Tyre, which was*
triumphing in the destruction of Jerusalem, v. 2. II.
The destruction of Tyrus itself foretold. 1. The ex¬
tremity of this destruction; it shall be utterly ruined, v.
4. .6, 12. .14. 2. The instruments of this destruction;
many nations, v. 3. and the king of Babylon by name
with his vast victorious army, 7 . . 11. 3. The great sur¬
prise, that this should give to the neighbouring nations,
who would all wonder at the fall of so great a city, and
be alarmed at it. v. 15 . . 21.
1. k ND it came to pass in the eleventh
xSl year, in the first day of the month
that the word of the Lord came nnto me,
709
EZEKIEL, XXVI.
saying, 2. Son of man, because that Ty-
rus hath said against Jerusalem, Aha, she is
broken that was the gates of the people;
she is turned unto me; I shall be replen-
islicd, now she is laid waste: 3. Therefore
thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I am
against thee, O Tyrus, and will cause many
nations to come up against thee, as the sea
causeth his waves to come up. 4. And they
shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break
down her towers: I will also scrape her
dust from her, and make her like the top of
a rock. 5. It shall be a place for the
spreading of nets in the midst of the sea:
for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God;
and it shall become a spoil to the nations.
6. And her daughters which are in the field
shall be slain by the sword; and they shall
know that I am the Lord. 7. For thus
saith the Lord God, Behold, I will bring
upon Tyrus Nebuchadrezzar king of Baby¬
lon, a king of kings, from the north, with
horses, and with chariots, and with horse¬
men, and companies, and much people. 8.
He shall slay with the sword thy daughters
in the field ; and he shall make a fort against
thee, and cast a mount against thee, and
lift up the buckler against thee. 9. He
shall set engines of war against thy walls,
and with his axes he shall break down thy
towers. 10. By reason of the abundance
of his horses their dust shall cover thee :
thy walls shall shake at the noise of the
horsemen, and of the wheels, and of the
chariots, when he shall enter into thy gates,
as men enter into a city wherein is made a
breach. 11. With the hoofs of his horses
shall he tread down all thy streets: he shall
slay thy people by the sword, and thy strong
garrisons shall go down to the ground. 12.
And they shall make a spoil of thy riches,
and make a prey of thy merchandise; and
they shall break down thy walls, and de¬
stroy thy pleasant houses: and they shall
lay thy stones, and thy timber, and thy dust,
in the midst of the water. 13. And I will
cause the noise of thy songs to cease ; and
the sound of thy harps shall be no more
heard. 14. And 1 will make thee like the
top of a rock : thou shalt be a place to spread
nets upon ; thou shalt he built no more : for
1 the Lord have spoken it, saith the Lord
God.
This prophecy is dated in the eleventh year,
which was the year that Jerusalem was taken, and
in the first day of the month, but it is not said what
month; some think the month in which Jerusalem
was taken, was the fourth month, others the month
after; or perhaps it was the first month, and so it
was the first day of the year. Observe here,
I. The pleasure with which the Tyrians looked
upon the rains of Jerusalem. Ezekiel was a great
way oft', in Babylon, but God, told him what Tyrus
said against Jerusalem; (x>. 2.) Aha, she is broken,
broken to pieces, that was the gates of the people,
to whom there was a great resort, and where there
was a general rendezvous of all nations, some upon
one account, and some upon another, and I shall get
by it; all the wealth, power, and interest which
Jerusalem had, it is hoped, shall beGurned to Tyre;
and so now that she is laid waste, I shall be replen¬
ished. We do not find that the Tyrians had such a
hatred and enmity to Jerusalem and the sanctuary
as the Ammonites and Edomites had, or were so
spiteful and mischievous to the Jews; they were
men of business, and of large acquaintance and free
conversation, and therefore were not so bigoted, and
of such a persecuting spirit, as the narrow souls
that lived retired, and knew not the world; all their
care was to get estates, and enlarge their trade, and
they looked upon Jerusalem not as an enemy, but as
a rival. Hiram, king of Tyre, was a good friend
to David and Solomon, and we do not read of any
quarrels the Jews had with the Tyrians; but Tyre
promised herself that the fall of Jerusalem would
be an advantage to her in respect of trade and com¬
merce; that now she shall have Jerusalem's cus¬
tomers, and the great men from all parts that used
to come to Jerusalem for flie accomplishing of them¬
selves, and to spend their estates there, will now
come to Tyre, and spend them there; and whereas
many, since the Chaldean army became so formid¬
able in those parts, had retired into Jerusalem, and
brought their estates thither for safety, as the Re-
chabites did, now they will come to Tyre, which,
being in a manner surrounded with the sea, will be
thought a place of greater strength than Jerusalem;
and thus the prosperity of Tyre will rise out of the
ruins of Jerusalem. Note, To be secretly pleased
with the death or decay of others when we are likely
to get by it, with their fall when we may thrive
upon it, is a sin that does most easily beset us, but is
not thought to be such a bad thing, and so pro¬
voking to God, as really it is. We are apt to say,
when those who stand in our light, in our way, are
removed, when they break, or fall into disgrace,
“We shall be replenished, now that they are laid
waste.” But this comes from a selfish, covetous
principle, and a desire to be placed alone in the
midst of the earth, as if we grudged that any should
live by us. This comes from a want of that love
to our neighbour as to ourselves, which the law of
God so expressly requires, and from that inordinate
love of the world as our happiness, which the love
of God so expressly forbids. And it is just with
God to blast the designs and projects of those who
thus contrive to raise themselves upon the ruins of
others; and we see they are often disappointed.
II. The displeasure of God against them for it.
The providence of God had done well for Tyrus;
Tyre was a pleasant and wealthy city, and might
have continued so, if she had, as she ought to have
done, sympathized with Jerusalem in her calami¬
ties, and sent her an address of condolence; but
when, instead of that, she showed herself pleased
with her neighbour’s fall, and perhaps sent an ad¬
dress of congratulation to the conquerors, then God
says, Behold, I am against thee, 0 Tyrus, v. 3.
And let her not expect to prosper long, if God be
against her.
1. God will bring formidable enemies upon her;
Many nations shall come against thee; an army
made up of many nations, or one nation that shall
be as strong as many. Those that have God against
them, may expect all the creatures against them;
for what peace can they have, with whom God is
at war? They shall come pouring in as the waves
of the sea, one upon the neck of another with au
710
EZEKIEL, XXVI.
irresistible force. The person is named that shall
bring this army upon them; Nebuchadnezzar Icing
of Babylon, a king of kings, that had many kings
tributaries to him, and dependants on him, beside
those that were his captives, Dan. ii. 37, 38. He
is that head of gold. He shall come with a vast
army, horses and chariots, 8cc. all land forces; we
do not find he had any naval force, or any thing
wherewith he«iight attack it by sea, which made
the attempt the more difficult, as we find, ch. xxix.
18. where it is called a great service which he serv¬
ed against Tyrus. He shall besiege it in form, (x1.
8.) make a fort, and cast a mount, and ( v . 9.) shall
set engines of war against the walls. His troops
shall be so numerous as to raise a dust that shall co¬
ver the city, v. 10. They shall make a noise that
shall even shake the walls, and they shall shout at
every attack, as soldiers do, when they enter a city
thatis broken up: the horses shall prance with so
much fury and violence, that they shall even tread
down the streets though ever so well paved.
2. They shall do terrible execution. (1.) The
enemy shall make themselves masters of all their
fortifications, shall destroy the walls, and break
down the towers, v. 4. For what walls are so
strongly built as to be a fence against the judgments
of God? Her strong garrisons shall go down to
the ground, v. 11. And the walls shall be .broken
down, v. 12. The city held out a long siege, but it
was taken at last. (2. ) A great deal of blood shall
be shed; Her daughters which are in the field, the
cities upon the continent, which were subject to
Tyre -as the mother city, the inhabitants ot them
shall be slain by the sword, v. 6. The invaders be¬
gin with them that come first in their way. And,
(v. 11.) he shall stay thy people with the sword; not
only the soldiers that are found in arms, but the
burghers, shall be put to the sword, the king of Ba¬
bylon being highly incensed against them for hold¬
ing out so long. (3.) The wealth of the city shall
all become a spoil to the conqueror; ( v . 12. ) They
made a prey of the merchandise ; it was in hope of
the plunder, that the city was set upon with so
much vigour. See the vanitv of riches, that they
are kept for the owners to their hurt; entice and re¬
compense thieves, and not only cease to benefit
those who took pains for them, and were duly enti¬
tled to them, but are made to serve their enemies,
who were thereby put into a capacity of doing them
so much the more mischief. (4.) The city itself
shall be laid in ruins. All the pleasant houses shall
be destroyed; (y. 12.) such as were pleasantly situ¬
ated, beautified, and furnished, shall become a heap
of rubbish. Let none please themselves too much
in their pleasant houses, for they know not how soon
they may see the desolation of them. Tyre shall
be utterly ruined; the enemy shall not only pull
down the houses, but shall carry away the stones
and the timber, which might serve for the rebuild¬
ing of it, and shall lay them in the midst of the wa¬
ter, not to be recovered, or ever made use of again.
Nay, (x\ 4.) / will scrape her dust from her; not
only shall the loose dust be blown away, but the
very ground it stands upon shall be tom up by the
enraged enemy, carried off, and laid in the midst of
the water, v. 12. The foundation is in the dust,
that dust shall be all taken away, and then the
city must fall of course. When Jerusalem was de¬
stroyed, it was ploughed like a field, Mic. iii. 12.
But the destruction of Tyre is carried further than
that ; the very soil of it shall be scraped away, and
it shall be made like the top of a rock, (y. 4, 14.)
ure rock that has no earth to cover it; it shall only
e a place for the spreading of nets, (v. 5, 14.) it
shall serve fishermen to dry their nets upon, and
mend them. (5.) There shall be a full period to
all its mirth and joy; (v. 13.) I will cause the noise
of thy songs to cease. T yre had been a joyous city,
(Isa. xxiii. 7. ) with her songs she had courted cus¬
tomers to deal with her in a way of trade; but now
farewell all her profitable commerce and pleasant
conversation; Tyre is no more a place either of bu¬
siness or of sport. Lastly, It shall be built no more,
(x>. 14.) not built any more as it had been, with
such state and magnificence; nor built any more in
the same place, within the sea, nor built any where
of a long time; the present inhabitants shall be de¬
stroyed or dispersed, so that this Tyre shall be no
more. For God has spoken it, (x». 5, 14.) and when
what he has said is accomplished, they shall know
thereby that he is the Lord, and not a man that he
should lie, or the son of man that he should repent.
15. Thus saith the Lord God to Tyrus
Shall not the isles shake at the sound of thy
fall, when the wounded ciy, when the
slaughter is made in the midst of thee? 1 6.
Then all the princes of the sea shall come
down from their thrones, and lay away their
robes, and put off their broidered garments:
they shall clothe themselves with trembling;
they shall sit upon the ground, and shall
tremble at every moment, and be astonished
at thee, 17. And they shall take up a la¬
mentation for thee, and say to thee, How
art thou destroyed that least inhabited of sea¬
faring men, the renowned city which wast
strong in the sea, she and her inhabitants,
which cause their terror to be on all that
haunt it! 18. Now shall the isles trem¬
ble in the day of thy fall; yea, the isles that
are in the sea shall be troubled at thy de¬
parture. 19. For thus saith the Lord God,
When I shall make thee a desolate city,
like the cities that are not inhabited ; when
I shall bring up the deep upon thee, and
great waters shall cover thee; 20. When 1
shall bring thee down with them that de¬
scend into the pit, with the people of old
time, and shall set thee in the low parts of
the earth, in places desolate of old, with
them that go down to the pit, that thou be
not inhabited ; and I shall set glory in the
land of the living; 21. I will make thee
a terror, and thou shall be no more: though
thou be sought for, yet shalt thou never be
found again, saith the Lord God.
The utter ruin of Tyre is here represented in
very strong and lively figures, which are exceed¬
ingly affecting.
1. See how high, how great Tyre had been, how
little likely ever to have come to this. The re¬
membrance of men’s former grandeur and plenty is
a great aggravation of their present disgrace and
poverty. Tyre was a renowned city, ( v . 17.) famous
among the nations, the crowning city, (so she is
called, Isa. xxiii. 8.) a city that had crowns in her
gift, honoured all she smiled upon, crowned herself
and all about her; she was inhabited of seas, of those
that trade at sea, of those who from all parts came
thither by sea, bringing with them the abundance
of the seas, and the treasures hid in the sand. She
was strong in the sea; easy of access to her friends,
but to her enemies inaccessible; fortified bv a wal.
EZEKIEL, XXVI. 71 j
of water, which made her impregnable. So that
she with her pomp, and her inhabitants with their
pride, caused their terror to be on all that haunted
that city, and upon any account frequented it. It
was well fortified, and formidable in the eyes of all
that acquainted themselves with it. Every body
stood in awe of the Tyrians, and was afraid of dis¬
obliging them. Note, Those who know their
strength are too apt to cause terror, to pride them¬
selves in frightening those they are an over-match
for.
2. See how low, how little, Tyre is made, v. 19,
20. This renowned city is made a desolate city, is
no more frequented as it has been, there is no more
resort of merchants to it, it is like the cities not in¬
habited, which are no cities, and, having none to
keep them in repair, will go to decay of themselves;
Tyre shall be like a city overflowed by an inunda¬
tion of waters, which cover it, and upon which the
dee/i is brought up. As the waves had formerly
been its defence, so now they shall be its destruction.
She shall be brought down with them that descend
into the flit, with the cities of the old world that
were under water, and with Sodom and Gomorrah,
that lie in the bottom of the Dead Sea. Or, She
shall be in the condition of those who have been
long buried, of the fieofile of old time, who are old
inhabitants of the silent grave, who are quite rotted
away under ground, and quite forgotten above
ground; such shall Tyre be, free among ‘Me dead;
set in the lower fiarts of the earth, humblea, morti¬
fied, reduced. It shall be like the places desolate of
old, as well as like persons dead of old; it shall be
like other cities that have formerly been in like
manner deserted and destroyed. It shall not be in¬
habited again; none shall have the courage to at¬
tempt the rebuilding of it upon that spot, so that it
shall be no more; the Tyrians shall be lost among
the nations, so that people will look in vain for
Tyre in Tyre; Thou sha/t be sought for and never
found again. New persons may build a new city
upon a new spot of ground hard by, which they
may call Tyre, but Tyre, as it is, shall never be
any more. Note, The strongest cities in this world,
the best fortified and best furnished, are subject to
decay, and may in a little time be brought to no¬
thing. In the history of our own island, many cities
are spoken of as in being when the Romans were
here, which now our antiquaries scarcely know
where to look for, and of which there remains no
more evidence, than Roman ums and coins digged
up there sometimes accidentally. But in the other
world we look for a city that shall stand for ever, and
flourish in perfection through all the ages of eternity.
3. See what a distress the inhabitants of Tyre
are in; (i\ 15.) There is a great slaughter made in
the midst of thee, many slain, and great men; it is
probable, when the city was taken, that the gene¬
rality of the inhabitants were put to the sword; then
did the wounded cry, and they cried in vain, to the
pitiless conquerors; they cried quarter, but it would
not be given them ; the wounded are slain without
mercy, or, rather, that is the only mercy that is
showed them, that the second blow shall rid them
out of their pain.
4. See what a consternation all the neighbours are
in, upon the fall of Tyre. This is elegantly ex¬
pressed here, to show how astonishing it should be.
(1.) The islands shall shake at the sound of thy
fall, v. 15. As when a great merchant breaks, all
that he deals with are shocked by it, and begin to
look about them; perhaps they had effects in his
hands, which they are afraid they shall lose. Or,
When they see one fail and become bankrupt of a
sudden, in debt a great deal more than he is worth,
it makes them afraid for themselves, lest they
should do so too. Thus the isles, which thought
| themselves safe in the embraces of the sea, when
they see Tyrus fall, shall tremble, and be troubled,
saying, “ What will become of us?” And it is well
if they make this good use of it, to take warning bv
it not to be secure, but to stand in awe of God and
his judgments. The sudden fall of a great tower
shakes the ground round about it; thus all the
islands in the Mediterranean sea shall feel them¬
selves sensibly touched by the destruction of Tyre,
it being a place they had so much knowledge of,
such interests in, and such a constant correspon¬
dence with. (2.) The princes of the sea shall be.
affected with it, who ruled in those islands; or, the
rich merchants, who live like princes, (Isa. xxiii.
8.) and the masters of ships, who command like
princes, these shall condole the fall of Tyre, in a
most compassionate and pathetic manner; (v. 16.)
They shall come down from their thrones, as ne¬
glecting the business of their thrones, and despising
the pomp of them ; they shall lay away their robes
of state, their broidered garments, and shall clothe
themselves all over with tremblings, with sackcloth
that will make them shiver. Or, They shall by
their own act and deed make themselves to trem¬
ble upon this occasion; they shall sit upon the
ground in shame and sorrow; they shall tremble
every moment at the thought of what has happened
to Tyre, and for fear of what mav happen to them¬
selves; for what island is safe if Tyre be not? They
shall take up a lamentation for thee, shall have ele¬
gies and mournful poems penned upon the fall of
Tyre, v. 17. How art thou destroyed! [1.] It shall
be a great surprise to them, and they shall be af¬
fected with wonder, that a place so well fortified
by nature and art, so famed for politics, and so full
of money, which is the sinews of war, and that
held out so long and with so much bravery, should
be taken at last; (y. 21.) I make thee a terror.
Note, It is just with God to make those a terror to
their neighbours, by the suddenness and strangeness
of their punishment, who make themselves a terror
to their neighbours by the abuse of their power.
Tyre had caused her terror, (y. 17.) and now is
made a terrible example. [2.] It shall be a great
affliction to them, and they shall be affected with
sorrow; (v. 17. ) they shall take up a lamentation
for Tyre, as thinking it a thousand pities that such
a rich and splendid city should be thus laid in ruins.
When Jerusalem, the holy city, was destroyed,
there were no such lamentations for it, it was no¬
thing to them that passed by; (Lam. i. 12.) but
when Tyre, the trading city, fell, it was universally
bemoaned. Note, Those who have the world in
their hearts, lament the loss of great men more
than the loss of good men. [3.] It shall be a loud
alarm to them; They shall tremble in the day of
thy fall, because they shall have reason to think
that their own turn will be next. If Tyre fall whe
can stand? Howl, fir-trees, if such a cedar be shak¬
en. Note, The fall of others should awaken us
out of our security. The death or decay of others
in the world is a check to us, when we dream that
our mountain stands strong, and shall not be moved.
5. See how the irreparable ruin of Tyre is ag¬
gravated by the prospect of the restoration of Is¬
rael. Thus shall Tyre sink, when I shall set glory
in the land of the living, v. 20. Note, (1.) The
holy land is the land of the living; for none but holy
souls are properly living souls; where living sacri¬
fices are offered to the living God, and where the
lively oracles are, there the land of the living is;
there David hoped to see the goodness of the Lord,
Ps. xxvii. 13. That was a type of heaven, which
is indeed the land of the living. (2.) Though this
land of the living may for a time lie under disgrace,
yet God will again set glory in it; the glory that is
departed shall return; and the restoration of what
712
EZEKIEL, XXV II.
they had been deprived of shall be so much more
their glory. Ood will himself be the Glovy of the .
lands that are the lands of the living. (3. ) It will
aggravate the misery of those that have their por¬
tion in the land of the dying, of those that are for
ever dying, to behold the happiness of those, at the
same time, that shall have their everlasting portion
in the land of the living. When the rich man was
himself in torment, he saw Lazarus in the bosom
of Abraham, and glory set for him in the land of
the living.
CHAP. XXVII.
Still we are attending the funeral of Tyre, and the lamen¬
tations made for the fall of that renowned city. Irj this
chapter, we have, 1. A large account of the dignity,
wealth, and splendour of Tyre, while it was in its
strength, the vast trade it drove, and the interest it had
among the nations, (v. 1..25.) which is designed to
make its ruin the more lamentable. II. A prediction
of its fall and ruin, and the confusion and consternation
which all its neighbours shall thereby be put into, v. 26 . .
36. And this is intended to stain the pride of all worldly
glory, and, by setting the one over against the other, to
fet us see the vanity and uncertainty of the riches, ho¬
nours, and pleasures of the world, and what little reason
we have to place our happiness in them, or to be confi¬
dent of the continuance of them; so that all this is writ¬
ten for our learning.
l.rg’iHE word of the Lord came again
I unto me, saying, 2. Now, thou son
of man, take up a lamentation for Tyrus;
3. And say unto Tyrus, O thou that art
situate at the entry of the sea, which art a
merchant of the people for many isles, Thus
saith the Lord God, O Tyrus, thou hast
said, I am of perfect beauty. 4. Thy bor¬
ders are in the midst of the seas, thy build¬
ers have perfected thy beauty. 5. They
have made all thy ship- boards of fir-trees of
Senir : they have taken cedars from Leba¬
non to make masts for thee. 6. Of the oaks
of Bashan have they made thine oars; the
company ot the Ashurites have made thy
benches of ivory, brought out of the isles of
Chittim. 7. Fine, linen, with broidered work
from Egypt, was that which thou spreadest
forth to be thy sail ; blue and purple from
the isles of Elishah was that which covered
thee. 8. The inhabitants of Zidon and Ar-
vad were thy mariners: thy wise men, O
Tyrus, that were in thee were thy pilots. 9.
The ancients of Gebal, and the wise men
thereof, were in thee thy calkers : all the
ships of the sea, with their mariners, were
in thee to occupy thy merchandise. 10.
They of Persia, and of Lud, and of Phut,
Were in thine army thy men of war: they
hanged the shield and helmet in thee; they
set forth thy comeliness. 1 1 . The men of
Arvad, with thine army, were upon thy
walls round about, and the Gammadims
were in thy towers: they hanged their shields
upon thy walls round about ; they have
made thy beauty perfect. 12. Tarshish was
thy merchant by reason of the multitude of
ali kind of riches: with silver, iron, tin, and
lead, they traded in thy fairs. 13. Javan,
Tubal, and Meshech, they were thy mer¬
chants : they traded the persons of men and
vessels of brass in thy market. 1 4. They
of the house of Togarmah traded in thy
fairs with horses, and horsemen, and mules.
1 5. The men of Dedan were thy merchants ;
many isles were the merchandise of thy
hand: they brought thee for a present, horns
of ivory and ebony. 16. Syria was thy mer¬
chant by reason of the multitude of the
wares of thy making: they occupied in thy
fairs with emeralds, purple, and broidered
work, and fine linen, and coral, and agate.
17. Judah, and the land of Israel, they were
thy merchants: they traded in thy market
wheat of Minnith and Pannag, and honey,
and oil, and balm. 18. Damascus was thy
merchant in the multitude of the wares of
thy making, for the multitude of all riches ;
in the wine of Helbon, and white wool. 1 9.
Dan also and Javan, going to and fro, occu¬
pied iijjthy fairs; bright iron, cassia, and ca¬
lamus, were in thy market. 20. Dedan teas
thy merchant in precious clothes for cha¬
riots. 21. Arabia, and all the princes of Ke-
dar, they occupied with thee in lambs, and
rams, and goats; in these were they thy mer-
| chants. 22. The merchants of Sheba and
Raamah, they were thy merchants: they oc¬
cupied in thy fairs with chief oi all spices,
and with all precious stones, and gold. 23.
Haren, and C'anneh, and Eden, the mer¬
chants of Sheba, Asshur, and Chilmad, were
thy merchants. 24. These were thy mer¬
chants in all sorts of things , in blue clothes,
and broidered work, and in chests of rich
i apparel, bound with cords, and made of
cedar, among thy merchandise. 25. The
ships of Tarshish did sing of thee in thy mar¬
ket; and thou wast replenished, and made
very glorious in the midst of the seas.
Here,
I. The prophet is ordered to take up a lamenta¬
tion for Tyrus, v. 2. It was yet in the height of its
prosperity, and there appeared not the least symp¬
tom of its decay; yet the prophet must lament it,
because its prosperity is its snare, is the cause of its
pride and security, 'which will make its fall the
more grievous. Even those that live at ease are to
be lamented, if they are not preparing for trouble.
He must lament it because its rum is hastening on
apace, it is sure, it is near; and though the prophet
foretell it, and justify God in it, yet he must lament
it. Note, We ought to mourn for the miseries of
other nations, as well as of our own, out of an affec¬
tion for mankind in general ; it is a part of the honour
we owe to all men to bewail their calamities, even
those which they have brought upon themselves by
their own folly. . .
II. He is directed what to say, and to say it in the
name of the Lord Jehovah, a name not unknown in
Tyre, and which shall be better known, ch. xxvi. 6.
1. He must upbraid Tvre with her pride; 0
713
EZEKIEL, XXV11.
Tyrus, thou hast said, 1 am of /lcrfict beauty, (v.
3.) of universal beauty, (so the word is,) every way
accomplished, and therefore every where admired.
Zion, that had the beauty of holiness, is called in¬
deed the perfection of beauty, (Ps. 1. 2.) that is the
beatify of the Lord. But Tyre, because well built,
and well filled with money and trade, will set up for
a perfect beauty. Note, It is the folly of the chil¬
dren of this world to value themselves on the pomp
and pleasure they live in, to call themselves beauties
for the sake of them, and, if in these they excel
others, to think themselves perfect. But God takes
notice of the vain conceits men have of themselves
in their prosperity, when the mind is lifted up with
the condition, and often, for the humbling of the
spirit, finds ways to bring down the estate. Let
none reckon themselves beautified any further than
they are sanctified, nor say that they are of perfect
beauty till they come to heaven.
2. Fie must upbraid Tyre with her prosperity,
which was the matter of her pride. In elegies, it is
usual to insert encomiums of those whose fall we la¬
ment; the prophet, accordingly, praises Tyre for
all that she had that was praiseworthy. He has
nothing to say of her religion, her piety, her charity,
her being a refuge to the distressed, or using her
interest to do good offices among her neighbours;
but she lived great, and had a great trade, and all
the trading part of mankind made court to her.
The prophet must describe her height and magni¬
ficence, that God may be the more glorified in her
fall, as the God who looks upon every one that is
proud, and abases them; hides them in the dust
together, and binds their faces in secret, Job xl. 12.
(1.) The city of Tyre was advantageously situ¬
ated, at the entry of the sea, ( 'v . 3. ) having many
commodious harbours each way, not as cities seated
on rivers, which the shipping can come but one way
to. It stood at the end of the Mediterranean, very
convenient for trade by land into all the Levant
parts; so that she became a merchant of the people
for many isles; lying between Greece and Asia, it
became the great emporium, or mart-town, the
rendezvous of merchants from all parts; Thy bor¬
ders are in the heart of the seas, v. 4. It was sur¬
rounded with water, which was a great advantage
to its trade; the darling of the sea, laid in its bosom,
in its heart. Note, It is a great convenience, upon
many accounts, to live in an island; seas are the
most ancient landmarks, not which our fathers have
set, but the God of our fathers, and which cannot be
removed as other landmarks may, nor so easily got
over. The people so situated may the more easily
dwell alone, if they please, may the more easily
traffic abroad, and keep a correspondence with the
nations. We therefore of this island must own that
he who determines the bounds of men’s habitations,
has determined well for us.
(2.) It was curiously built, according as the
fashion then was; and, being a city on a hill, it
made a glorious show, and tempted the ships that
sailed by into her ports; (v. 4.) Thy builders have
perfected thy beauty. They have so improved in
architecture, that nothing appears in the builders
of Tyre that can be found fault with; and yet it
wants that perfection of beauty into which the Lord
does, and will, build up his Jerusalem.
(3.) It had its haven replenished with abundance
of gallant ships, Isa. xxxiii. 21. The ship carpen¬
ters did their part, as well as the house carpenters
theirs. The Tyrians are thought to be the first
that invented the art of navigation; at least, they
improved it, and brought it to as great a perfection
perhaps as it could be without the loadstone. [1.]
They made the boards, or planks, for the hulk of the
ship, of fir-trees fetched from Senir, a mount in the
.'and of Israel, joined with Hermon, Cant. iv. 8.
Vol. IV. — 4 X
Planks of fir were smooth and light, but not so lasting
as our English oak. [2.] They had cedars from
Lebanon, another mountain of Israel, for their masts,
v. 5. [3.] They had oaks from Bashan, (Isa. ii.
13.) to make oars of; for it is probable that their
ships were mostly galleys, that go with oars. The
people of Israel built few ships for themselves, but
they furnished the Tyrians with timber for ship¬
ping. Thus one country uses what another pro¬
duces, and so they are serviceable one to another,
and cannot say to each other, I have no need of
thee. [4.] Such magnificence did they affect in
building their ships, that they made the very benches
of ivory, which they fetched from the isles of
Chittim, from Italy or Greece, and had workmen
from the Ashurites or Assyrians to make them; so
rich would they have their state-rooms in their
ships to be. [5.] So very prodigal were they, that
they made their sails of fine linen fetched from
Egypt, and that embroidered too, v. 7. Or, it may
be meant of thclvfiags, (which they hoisted to notify
what city they belonged to,) which were very
costly. The word signifies a banner as well as a
sail. [6.] They hung those rooms on ship-board
with blue and purple, the richest cloths and rich¬
est colours they could get from the isles they traded
with. For though Tyre was itself famous for pur¬
ple, which is therefore called the Tyrian die, yet
they must have that which was far-fetched.
(4.) These gallant ships were well manned, by
men of great ingenuity and industry. The pilots
and masters of the ships, that had command in
their fleets, were of their own city, such as they
could put a confidence in; (v. 8.) Thy wise men, 6
Tyrus, that were in thee, were thy pilots. But for
common sailors, they had them from ether coun¬
tries; The inhabitants of Jrvad and Zidon were
thy mariners; these came from cities near them;
Zidon was sister to Tyre, not two leagues off, to the
northward; there they bred able seamen, which it
is the interest of the maritime powers to support,
and give all the countenance they can to. They
sent to Gebal in Syria for calkers, or strengthened
of the clefts, or chinks, to stop them when the ships
came home, after long voyages, to be repaired. To
do this, they had the ancients, and wise men, v. 9.
For there is more need of wisdom and prudence to
repair what is gone to decay than to build anew. In
public, matters there is occasion for the ancients and
wise men to be the repairers of the breaches, and
the restorers of paths to dwell in. Nay, all the
countries they traded with were at their service,
and were willing to send men into their pay, or to
fix their youths as apprentices in Tyre, or' to put
them on board their fleets; so that dll the ships in
the sea, with their mariners, were ready to occupy
thy merchandise. Those that give good wages,
shall have hands at command.
(5.) Their city was guarded by a military forct
that was very considerable, v. 10,11. The Tyrians
were themselves wholly given to trade; but it was
necessary that they should have a good army on
foot, and therefore they took those of other states
into their pay, such as were fittest for service;
though they had them from afar, (which perhaps
was their policy,) from Persia, Lud, and Phut.
These bore their arms, when there was occasion,
and in time of peace hanged up the shield and
buckler, in the armoury, as it were to proclaim
peace, and let the world know' that they had at
present no need of them ; but they were ready to be
taken down whenever there was occasion for them.
Their walls were guarded by the men of Jrvad,
their towers were garrisoned by the Gammadims,
robust men, that had a great fleal of strength in
their arms; yet the vulgar Latin renders it pyg¬
mies, men no longer than one’s arm. They hung
714 EZEKIEL, XXVII.
their shields ufion the walls in their magazines,
or places of arms; or hung them out upon the walls
of the city, that none might dare to approach them,
seeing how well provided they were with all things
necessary for their own defence. Thus they set
forth thy comeliness, ( v . 10.) and made thy beauty
perfect, v. 11. It contributed as much as any thing
tn the glory of Tyre, that it had those of all nations
about in its service, except of the land of Israel,
(though it lay next them,) which furnished them
with timber, but we do not find that it furnished
them with men; that would have trenched upon
the liberty and dignity of the Jewish nation, 2
Chron. ii. 17, 18. It was also the glory of Tyre
that it had such a militia, so fit for service, and in
constant pay; and such an armoury, like that in the
tower of David, where hung the shields of mighty
men. Cant. iv. 4. It is observable, that there and
here the armouries are said to be furnished with
shields and helmets, defensive arms, not with swords
and spears, offensive, though it is probable that
there were such; to intimate that the military force
of a people must be intended only for their own pro¬
tection, and not to invade and annoy their neigh¬
bours; to secure their own right, not to encroach
upon the rights of others.
(6. ) They had a vast trade, and a correspondence
witli all parts of the known world. Some nations
they dealt with in one commodity, and some in an¬
other, according as either its products or its manu¬
factures were, and the fruits of nature or art were
witli which it was blessed. This is very much en¬
larged upon here, as that which was the principal
glory of Tvre, and which supported all the rest.
We do not find any where in scripture so many na¬
tions named together, as are here; so that this
chapter, some think, gives much light to the first
account we have of the settlement of the nations
afier the flood, Gen. x. The critics have abundance
of work here to find out the several places and na¬
tions spoken of ; concerning many of them their
conjectures are different, and they leave us in the
d irk, and at much uncertainty; it is well that it is
not material; modern surveys come short of ex¬
plaining the ancient geography. And therefore we
will not amuse ourselves here with a particular en¬
quiry, either concerning the traders, or the goods
they traded in; we leave it to the critical expositors,
and observe that only which is improvable.
[1.] We have reason to think that Ezekiel knew
little, of his own knowledge, concerning the trade
of Tyre; he was a priest, carried away captive far
enough from the neighbourhood of Tyre, we may
suppose when he was young, there he had been
eleven years. And yet he speaks of the particular
merchandises of Tyre as nicely as if he had been
comptroller of the custom-house there; by which
it appears that he was divinely inspired in what he
spoke and wrote. It is God that saith this, v. 3.
[2.] This account of the trade of Tyre intimates
to us that God’s eye is upon men, and that he takes
cognizance of what they do, when they are em¬
ployed in their worldly business; not only when they
are at church, praying and hearing, but when they
are in their markets and fairs, and upon the ex¬
change, buying and selling; which is a good reason
why we should in all our dealings keep a conscience
void of offence ; and have our eye always upon him
whose eve is always upon us.
[3.J We may here observe the wisdom of God,
ana his goodness, as the common Father of mankind,
in making one country to abound in one commodity,
and another in another, and all more or less service¬
able either to the necessity, or to the comfort and
ornament, of human life. Non omnis fe'rt omnia
te/lits — One land does not supply all the varieties
of produce. Providence dispenses its gifts variously,
some to each, and all to none, that ther*. may ,V a
mutual commerce among those whom God has
made of one blood, though they are made to dwell
on all the face of the earth. Acts xvii. 26. Det every
nation therefore thank God for the productions of
its country; though they be not so rich as those of
others, yet there is use tor them in the public ser¬
vice of the world.
[4. ] See what a blessing trade and merchandise
are to mankind, especially when followed in the
fear of God, and with a regard not only to private
advantage, but to a common benefit. The earth is
full of God’s riches, Ps. civ. 24. There is a multi¬
tude of all kind of riches in it, (as it is here, v. 12.)
gathered off its surface, and digged out of its bow-
l els. The earth is also full of the fruits of men’s
ingenuity and industry, according as their genius
J leads them; now by exchange and barter these are
made more extensively useful; thus what can be
spared is helped off, and what is wanted is fetched
in, in lieu of it, from the most distant countries.
Those that are not tradesmen themselves, have
reason to thank God for tradesmen and merchants,
by whom the productions of other countries are
brought to our hands, as those of our own are by
our husbandmen.
[5. ] Beside the necessaries that are here traded
in, see what abundance of things are here mentioned,
that only serve to please fancy, and are made valu¬
able only by men’s humour and custom; and yet
God allows us to use them, and trade in them, and
part with those things for them, which we can spare,
that are of an intrinsic worth much beyond them.
Here are horns of ivory and ebony, (v. 15.) that
are brought for a present, exposed to sale, and
offered in exchange, or, as some think, presented to
the city, or the great men of it, to obtain their fa¬
vour. Here are emeralds, coral, and agate, ( v . 16.)
all precious stones and gold, (i>. 22.) which the
world could better be without than iron and common
stones. Here are, to please the taste and smell, the
chief of all spices, (v. 22.) cassia and calamus,
( v . 19.) and, for ornament, purple, broidered work,
and fine linen; (v. 16.) precious cloths for chariots,
( v . 20.) blue cloths, (which Tyre was famous for,)
broidered work, and chests of rich apparel, bound
with rich cords, and made of cedar, a sweet wood
to perfume the garments kept in them, v. 24. Upon
the review of this invoice, or bill of parcels, we may
justly say, What a great many things are here that
we have no need of, and can live very comfortably
without!
[6.] It is observable that Judah and the land of
Israel were merchants in Tyre too; in a way of
trade they were allowed to converse with the hea¬
then. But they traded mostly in wheat, a substan¬
tial commodity, and necessary; wheat of Minnith
and Pannag, two countries in Cannan famous for
the best wheat, as some think; the whole land in¬
deed was a land of wheat, (Deut. viii. 8. ) it had the
fat of kidnies of wheat, Deut. xxxii. 14. Tyre was
maintained by corn fetched from the land of Israel:
they traded likewise in honey, and oil, and balm, or
rosin; all useful things, and 'not serving to pride or
luxury. And the land which these were the staple
commodities of, was that which was the glory of all
lands, which God reserved for his peculiar people,
not those that traded in spices and precious stones;
and the Israel of God must reckon themselves well
provided for if they have food convenient; for they
that are acquainted with the delights of the children
of God, will not set their hearts on the delights of
the sons and daughters of men, or the treasures of
kings and provinces. We find indeed that the New
Testament Babylon trades in such things as Tyre
traded in. Rev. xviii. 12, 13. For, notwithstanding its
pretensions to sanctity, it is a mere worldly interest.
713
EZEKIEL, XXVII.
[7.1 Though Tyre was a city of great merchan¬
dise, and they got abundance by buying and selling,
importing commodities from one place, and export¬
ing them to another, yet manufacture-trades were
not neglected. The wares of their own making, and
a multitude of such wares, are here spoken of, v.
16, 18. It is the wisdom of a nation to encourage
art and industry, and not to bear hard upon the
handicraft-tradesmen; for it contributes much to
-he wealth and honour of a nation to send abroad
wares of their own making, which may bring them
in the multitude of all riches.
[8.] All this made Tyrus very great and very
proud; The shi/is of Tarshish did sing of thee in
thy market, (x>. 25.) thou wast admired and cried
up by all the nations that had dealings with thee;
for thou wast replenished in wealth and number of
people, was beautified, and made very glorious, in
the midst of the seas. Those that grow very rich
are cried up as very glorious; for riches are glorious
things in the eyes of carnal people, Gen. xxxi. 1.
26. Thy rowers have brought thee into
great waters: the east wind hath broken
thee in the midst of the seas. 27. Thy
riches, and thy fairs, thy merchandise, thy
mariners, and thy pilots, thy calkers, and
the occupiers of thy merchandise, and all
thy men of war, that are in thee, and in all
thy company, which is in the midst of thee,
shall fall into the midst of the seas in the
day of thy ruin. 28. The suburbs shall
shake at the sound of the cry of thy pilots.
29. And all that handle the oar, the mari¬
ners, and all the pilots of the sea, shall
come down from their ships, they shall stand
upon the land; 30. And shall cause their
voice to be heard against thee, and shall
cry bitterly, and shall cast up dust upon
their heads; they shall wallow themselves
in the ashes; 31. And they shall make
themselves utterly bald for thee, and gird
them with sackcloth; and they shall weep
for thee with bitterness of heart and bitter
wailing. 32. And in their wailing they
shall take up a lamentation for thee, and
lament over thee, saying , What city is like
Tyrus, like the destroyed in the midst of
the sea? 33. When thy wares went forth
out of the seas, thou filledst many people:
thou didst enrich the kings of the earth with
the multitude of thy riches and of thy mer¬
chandise. 34. In the time when thou shalt
be broken by the seas in the depths of the
waters, thy merchandise, and all thy com¬
pany in the midst of thee, shall fall. 35. All
the inhabitants of the isles shall be aston¬
ished at thee, and their kings shall be sore
afraid, they shall be troubled in their coun¬
tenance. 36. The merchants among the
people shall hiss at thee; thou shalt be a
terror, and never shalt be any more.
We have seen Tyre flourishing, here we have
Tyre falling; and great is the fall of it, so much the
greater for its having made such a figure in the
world. Note, The most mighty and magnificent
kingdoms and states, sooner or later, have their day
to come down; they have their period: and when
they are in their zenith, they will begin to decline;
but tlie destruction of Tyre was sudden. Her sun
went down at noon. And all her wealth and gran¬
deur, pomp and power, did but aggravate her ruin,
and make it the more grievous to herself, and as¬
tonishing to all about her. Now observe here,
1. How the ruin of Tyrus will be brought about,
v. 26. She is as a great ship richly laden, that is
split or sunk by the indiscretion of her steersmen;
Thy rowers have themselves brought thee into great
and dangerous waters; tire governors of the city, and
those that had the management of their public af¬
fairs, by some mismanagement or other involved
them in that war with the Chaldeans, which was
the ruin of their state; by their insolence, by some
affront given to the Chaldeans, or some attempt
made upon them, in confidence of their own ability
to contend with them, they provoked Nebuchad¬
nezzar to make a descent upon them, and, by their
obstinacy in standing it out to the last, enraged him
to that degree, that he determined the ruin of their
state; and, like an east wind, broke them in the midst
of the seas. Note, It is ill with a people when those
that sit at the stern, instead of putting them into the
harbour, run them aground.
2. How great and general the ruin will be. All
her wealth shall be buried with her, her riches, her
fairs, and her merchandise; (r>. 27.) all that had
any dependence upon her, and dealings with her, in
trade, in war, in conversation, they shall all fall
with her into the tnidst of the seas, in the day of her
ruin. Note, Those who make creatures their con¬
fidence, place their happiness in their interest in
them, and rest their hopes upon them, will of course
fall with them ; happy therefore are they that have
the God of Jacob for their Help, and whose hope is
in the Lord their God, who lives for ever.
3. What sad lamentation would be made for the
destruction of Tyre. The pilots, her princes and
governors, when they see how ill they have con¬
ducted themselves, and how much they have con¬
tributed to their own ruin, shall cry out so loud as
to make even the suburbs shake; (z>. 28.) such a
vexation shall it be to them to reflect upon their
own bad conduct. The inferior officers, that were
as the mariners of the state, shall be forced to come
down from their respective posts, (x>. 29.) and they
shall cry out against thee, as having deceived them,
in not proving so well able to hold out, as they
thought thou hadst been; they shall cry bitterly for
the common ruin, and their own share in it. They
shall use all the most solemn expressions of grief;
they shall cast dust on their heads, in indignation
against themselves, shall wallow themselves in ashes,
as having bid a final farewell to all ease and plea¬
sure; they shall make themselves bald (y. 31.) with
tearing their hair; and, according to the custom of
great mourners, they shall gird themselves with
sackcloth, who used to wear fine linen; and, instead
of merry songs, they shall weep with bitterness of
heart. Note, Losses and crosses are very grievous,
and hard to be borne, to those that have long been
wallowing in pleasure, and sleeping in carnal se¬
curity
4. How Tyre should be upbraided with her for¬
mer honour and prosperity; ( v . 32, 33.) she that
was Tyrus the renowned, shall now be called Tyrus
the destroyed in the midst of the sea. “ HP at city
is like Tyre? Did ever any city come down from
such a height of prosperity to such a depth of ad¬
versity? Time was, when thy wares, those of thine
own making, and those that passed through thy
hands, went forth out of the seas, and were exported
to all parts of the world; then thou flledst many
*16
EZEKIEL, XXVIII.
people, and didst enrich the kings of the earth and
their kingdoms.” The Tyrians, though they bore
such a sway in trade, were yet, it seems, fair mer¬
chants, and let their neighbours not only live, but
thrive, by them. All that dealt with them, were
gainers; they did not cheat or oppress the people,
but did enrich them with the multitude of their
merchandise. “ But now they that used to be en¬
riched by thee, shall be ruined with thee;” (as is
usual in trade;) “ when thou shalt be broken, and
all thou hast is seized on, all thy company shall fall
too,” v. 34. There is an end of Tyre, that made
such a noise and bustle in the world. This great
blaze goes out in a snuff.
5. How the fall of Tyre should be matter of terror
to some, and laughter to others, according as they
were differently interested and affected. Some shall
be sore afraid, and shall be troubled, (y. 35.) con¬
cluding it will be their own turn to fall next. Others
shall hiss at her, (v. 36.) shall ridicule her pride
and vanity, and bad conduct, and think her ruin
just. She triumphed in Jerusalem’s fall, and there
are those that will triumph in hers. When God
casts his judgments on the sinner, men also shall
clap their hands at him, and shall hiss him out of
his place. Job xxvii. 22, 23. Is this the city which
men called the perfection of beauty?
CHAP. XXVIII.
In this chapter, we have, I. A prediction of the fall and
ruin of the king of Tyre, who, in the destruction of that
city, is particularly set up as a mark for God’s arrows,
v. 1 . . 10. II. A lamentation for the king of Tyre, when
he is thus fallen, though he falls by his own iniquity, v.
11.. 19. III. A prophecy of the destruction of Zion,
which was in the neighbourhood of Tyre, anjd had a de¬
pendence upon it, v. 20 . . 23. IV. A promise of the re¬
storation of the Israel of God, though in the day of their
calamity they were insulted over by their neighbours, v.
24. .26.
1. ripHE word of the Lord came again
_JL unto me, saying, 2. Son of man, say
unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the
Lord God, Because thy heart is lifted up,
and thou hast said, I am a god, I sit in the
seat of God, in the midst of the seas ; yet
thou art a man, and not God, though thou
set thy heart as the heart ot God: 3. Be¬
hold, thou art wiser than Daniel : there is
no secret that they can hide from thee: 4.
With thy wisdom and with thine under¬
standing thou hast gotten thee riches, and
hast gotten gold and silver into thy trea¬
sures: 5. By thy great wisdom, and by thy
traffic, hast thou increased thy riches, and
thy heart is lifted up because of thy riches:
6. Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Be¬
cause thou hast set thy heart as the heart of
God; 7. Behold, therefore, I will bring
strangers upon thee, the terrible of the na¬
tions: and they shall draw their swords
against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they
shall defile thy brightness. 3. They shall
bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt
die the deaths of them that are slain in the
midst of the seas. 9. Wilt thou yet say be¬
fore him that slayeth thee, I am God ? but
thou shalt be a man, and no god, in the hand
of him that slayeth thee. 10. Thou shalt
die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the
hand of strangers: for I have spoken it,
saith the Lord God.
We had done with Tyrus in the forgoing chapter,
but now the prince of Tyrus is to be singled out
from the rest; here is something to be said to him
by himself; a message to him from God, which the
prophet must send him, whether he will hear or
whether he will forbear.
I. He must tell him of his pride. His people
were proud, (c/j. xxvii. 3.) and so is he; and they
shall both be made to know that God resists the
proud. Let us see,
1. What were the expressions of his pride; His
heart was lifted up, v. 2. He had a great conceit
of himself, was blown up with an opinion of his own
sufficiency, and looked with disdain upon all abcut
him; out of the abundance of the pride of his heart,
he said, I am a god: he did not only say it in his
heart, but had the impudence to speak it out. God
has said of princes, They are gods; (Ps. lxxxii. 6.)
but it does not become them to say so of themselves;
it is a high affront to him who is God alone, and
will not give his glory to another. He thought that
the city of Tyre had as necessary a dependence
upon him as the world has upon the God that made
it; and that he was himself independent as God, and
unaccountable to any. He thought himself to have
as much wisdom and strength as Gcd himself, and
as incontestable an authority, and that his preroga¬
tives were as absolute, and his word as much a law,
as the word of God. He challenged divine honours,
and expected to be praised and admired as a god,
and doubted not to be deified among ether heroes,
after his death, as a great benefactor to the world.
Thus. the king of Babylon said, I will be like the
Most High, (Isa. xiv. 14.) not like the Most Holy.
Iam the strong God, and therefore will not becon-
tradicted, because I cannot be controlled. I sit in
the scat of God; I sit as high as Gcd, my throne
equal with his. Divisum imperium cum Jove
Csesar habet — Ceesar divides dominion with Jove.
I sit as safe as Gcd, as safe in the heart of the seas,
and as far out of the reach of danger, as he in the
height of heaven. He thinks his guards of men of
war about his throne as pompous and potent as the
hosts of angels that arc about the throne of God.
He is put in mind of his meanness and mortality,
and, since he needs to be told, he shall be told, that
self-evident truth, Thou art a man, and not God, a
depending creature, a dying creature; thou art flesh,
and not spirit, Isa. xxxi. 3. Note, Men must be
made to know that they are but men, Ps. ix. 20.
The greatest wits, the greatest potentates, the
greatest saints, are men, and not gods; Jesus Christ
was both God and man. The king of Tyre, though
he has such a mighty influence upon all about him,
and with the help of his riches bears a mighty
sway, though he lias tribute and presents brought
to his court with as much devotion as if they were
sacrifices to his altar, though he is flattered by his
courtiers, and made a god of by his poets, yet, after
all, he is but a man, he knows it, he fears it; but
he sets his heart as the heart of God; “Thou hast
conceited thyself to be a god, hast compared thy
self with God, thinking thyself as wise and strong
and as fit to govern the world, as he.” It was the
ruin of our first parents, and ours in them, that they
would be as gods, Gen. iii. 5. And still that cor¬
rupt nature which inclines men to setup themselves
as their own masters, to do what they will, and their
own carvers, to have what they will, their own
end, to live to themselves, and their own felicity, to
enjoy themselves, sets their hearts as the heart of
God, invades his prerogatives, and catches at the
flowers of his crown — a presumption that cannot go
unpunished.
EZEKIEL, XXVIII. 717
' We are here told what it was that he was
pri'i d of.
(1 ) His wisdom. It is probable that this prince
of Tyre was a man of very good natural parts, a
philosopher, and well read in all the parts of learn¬
ing that were then in vogue, at least, a politician,
and one that had great dexterity in managing the
affairs of state. And then he thought himself wiser
than Daniel, v. 3. We found, before, that Daniel,
though now but a young man, was celebrated for
his prevalency in prayer, ch. xiv. 14. Here, we
find he was famous for his prudence in the manage¬
ment of the affairs of this world, a great scholar and
statesman, and withal a great saint; and yet not a
prince, but a poor captive. It was strange that un¬
der such external disadvantages his lustre should
shine forth, so that he ‘was become wise to a pro¬
verb. When the king of Tyre dreams himself to
be a god, he says, I am wiser than Daniel. There
is no secret that they can hide from thee. Probably,
he challenged all about him to prove him with ques¬
tions, as Solomon was proved, and he had unriddled
all their enigmas, had solved all their problems,
and none of them all could puzzle him : he had per¬
haps been successful in discovering plots, and diving
into the counsels of the neighbouring princes; and
therefore thought himself omniscient, and that no
thought could be withholden from him; therefore
he said, I am a god. Note, Knowledge puffetli up;
it is hard to know much and not to know it too well,
and to be elevated with it. He that was wiser than
Daniel, was prouder than Lucifer. Those there¬
fore that are knowing must study to be humble, and
to evidence that they are so.
(2.) His wealth. That way his wisdom led him;
it is not said that by his wisdom he searched into the
arcana either of nature or government, modeled
the state better than it was, or made better laws,
or had advanced the interests of the commonwealth
of learning; but his wisdojn and understanding
were of use to him in traffic. As some of the kings
of Judah loved husbandry, (2 Chron. xxvi. 10.) so
the king of Tyre loved merchandise, and by it he
got riches, increased his riches, and filled his trea¬
sures with gold and silver, v. 4, 5. See what the wis¬
dom of this world is; those are cried up as the wisest
men, that know how to get money, and by right or
wrong to raise estates; and yet really this their
way is their folly, Ps. xlix. 13. It was the folly of
the king of Tyre, [1.] That he attributed the in¬
crease of his wealth to himself, and not to the provi¬
dence of God, forgetting him who gave him power
to get wealth, Deut. viii. 17, 18. [2.] That he there¬
fore thought himself a wise man, because he was a
rich man; whereas a fool may have an estate, (Eccl.
ii. 19.) yea, and a fool may get an estate, for the
world has been often observed to favour such, when
bread is not to the wise, Eccl. ix. 11. [3.) That
his heart was lifted up because of his riches; for the
increase of his wealth, which made him so haughty
and secure, so insolent and imperious, and which
set his heart as the heart of God. The man of sin,
when he had a great deal of worldly pomp and pow¬
er, showed himself as a god, 2 Thess. ii. 4. Those
who are rich in this world, have therefore need to
charge that upon themselves, which the word of
God charges upon them, that they be not high-mind¬
ed, 1 Tim. vi. 17.
II. Since pride goes before destruction, and a
haughty spirit before a fall, he must tell him of
that destruction, of that fall, which was now hast¬
ening on, as the just punishment of his presumption
in setting up himself a rival with God. “ Because
thou hast pretended to be a god, (v. 6. ) therefore
thou shalt not be long a man,” v. 7. Observe here,
1. The instruments of his destruction, I will bring
strangers upon thee — the Chaldeans, whom we do
not find mentioned among the many nations and
countries that traded with Tyre, ch. 27. If any of
those nations had been brought against it, they
would have had some compassion upon it for old ac¬
quaintance sake; but these strangers will have none;
they are people of a strange language, which the
king of Tyre himself, wise as he is, perhaps under¬
stands not. They are the terrible of the nations; it
was an army made up of many nations, and it was
at this time the most formidable both for strength
and fury. These God has at command, and these
he will bring upon the king of Tyre.
2. The extremity of the destruction; They shall
draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom,
v. 7. against all those things which thou gloriest in
as thy beauty, and the production of thy wisdom.
Note, It is just with God that our enemies should
make that their prey which we have madeour pride.
The king of Tyre’s palace, his treasury, his city,
his navy, his army, these he glories in as his bright¬
ness, these, he thinks, make him illustrious and glo¬
rious as a god on earth. But all these the v ictori¬
ous enemy shall defile, shall deface, shall deform;
he thought them sacred, things that none durst
touch; but the conquerors shall seize them as com¬
mon things, and spoil the brightness of them. But,
whatever comes of what he has, surely his person is
sacred; no, ( v . 8. ) They shall bring thee down to the
pit, to the grave; thou shalt die the death. And,
(1.) It shall not be an honourable death, but an ig-
nominious one. He shall be so vilified in his death,
that he may despair of being deified after his death.
He shall die the deaths of them that are slain in the
midst of the seas, that have no honour done them at
their death, but their dead bodies are immediately
thrown overboard, without any ceremony or mark
of distinction, to be a feast for the fish. Tyre is like
to be destroyed in the midst of the sea, (ch. xxvii.
32.) and the prince of Tyre shall fare no better than
the people. (2.) It shall not be a happy death, but
a miserable one; he shall die the deaths of the uncir¬
cumcised, ( v . 10.) of those that are strangers to
God, and not in covenant with him, and therefore
that die under his wrath and curse. It is deaths, a
double death, temporal and eternal, the death both
of body and soul. He shall die the second death;
that is dying miserably indeed. The sentence of
death, here passed upon the king of Tyre, is ratified
by a divine authority; I have spoken it, saith the
Lord God. And what he has said he will do.
None can gainsay it, nor will he unsay it.
3. The effectual disproof that this will be of all
his pretensions to deity; (v. 9.) “When the con¬
queror sets his sword to thy breast, and thou seest
no way of escape, wilt thou then say, I am God ?
Wilt thou then have such a conceit of thyself, and
such a confidence in thyself, as thou now hast? No,
thy being overpowered by death, and by the fear cf
it, will force thee to own that thou art not a god,
but a weak, timorous, trembling, dying man. hi
the hand of him that slays thee, (in the hand of God,
and of the instruments that he employed,) thou
shalt be a man, and not God; utterly unable to re¬
sist, and help thyself.” I have said, Ye are gods;
but ye shall die like men, Ps. lxxxii. 6, 7. Note,
Those who pretend to be rivals with God, shall be
forced one way or other to let fall their claims.
Death, at furthest, when we come into his hand,
will make us know that we are men.
1 1 . Moreover, the word of the Lord
came unto me, saying, 12. Son of man,
take up a lamentation upon the king of Ty-
rus, and say unto him, Thus saitli the Lord
God, Thou sealest up the sum, full of wis¬
dom, and perfect in beauty. 1 3. Thou hast
718
EZEKIEL, XXV11J.
been in Eden the garden of God ; every pre¬
cious stone teas thy covering, the sardius, to¬
paz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx,
and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald,
and the carbuncle, and gold : the work¬
manship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was
prepared in thee in the day that thou wast
created. 1 4. Thou art the anointed cherub
that covereth ; and I have set thee so: thou
wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou
hast walked up and down in the midst of
the stones of fire. 15. Thou wast perfect in
thy ways from the day that thou wast crea¬
ted, till iniquity was found in thee. 16. By
the multitude of thy merchandise they have
filled the midst of thee with violence, and
thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee
as profane out of the mountain of God; and
I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from
the midst of the stones of fire. 17. Thy
heart was lifted up because of thy beauty;
thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason
of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the
ground, I will lay thee before kings, that
they may behold thee. 18. Thou hast de¬
filed thy sanctuaries by the multitude of
thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffic;
therefore will I bring forth a fire from the
midst of thee, it shall devour thee; and I
will bring thee to ashes upon the earth, in
the sight of all them that behold thee. 19.
All they that know thee among the people
shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a
terror, and never shalt thou be any more.
As after the prediction of the ruin of Tyre, ( c/i .
xxvi. ) followed a pathetic lamentation for it, ( ch .
xxvii.) so after the ruin of the king of Tyre is fore¬
told, it is bewailed.
I. This is commonly understood of the present
prince of Tyre, spoken to, v. 2. His name was
Ethbaal, or Ithobalus, as Diodorus Siculus calls
him, that was king of Tyre when Nebuchadnezzar
destroyed it. He was, it seems, upon all external
accounts, an accomplished man, very great and fa¬
mous; but his iniquity was his ruin. Many exposi¬
tors have suggested, that beside the literal sense of
this lamentation there is an allegory in it, and that
it is an allusion to the fall of the angels that sinned,
who undid themselves by their pride. And (as is
usual in texts that have a mystical meaning) some
passages here refer primarily to the king of Tyre,
as that of his merchandises, others to the angels, as
that of being in the holy mountain of God. But if
there be any thing mystical in it, (as perhaps there
may,) I shall rather refer it to the fall of Adam,
which seems to be glanced at, (y. 13.) Thou hast
been in Eden the garden of God, and that in the day
thou wast created.
II. Some think that by the king of Tyre is meant
the whole royal family, this including also the fore¬
going kings, and looking as far back as Hiram king
of Tyre. The present governor is called prince;
(v. 2. ) but he that is here lamented is called king.
The court of Tyre and its kings had for many ages
I'een famous. But sins ruins it.
Now we may observe two things here:
1 . What was the renown of the king of Tyre. He
is here spoken of as having lived in great splendour,
v. 12. — 15. He was a man; but it is here owned
that he was a very considerable man, and one that
made a mighty figure in his day. (1.) He far ex
ceeded other men; Hiram and other kings of Tyn
had done so in their time; and the present king per¬
haps had not come short of any of them : Thou sealest
up the sum full oj wisdom, and perfect in beauty:
both the powers of human nature and the prosperity
of human life, seemed in him to have been at tin
highest pitch. He was looked upon to be as wise
as the reason of men could make him, and as happy
as the wealth of this world and the enjoyment of i»
could make him ; in him you might see the utmo .
that both could do; and therefore seal up the sun.
for nothing can be added; he is a complete man.
perfect in suogenere — in his kind. (2.) He seemed
to be as wise and happy as Adam in innocency; [v.
13.) “ Thou hast been in Eden, even in the gardes
oj God; thou hast lived as it were in paradise all
thy days, hast had a full enjoyment of every thing
that is good for food or pleasant to the eyes; and an
uncontroverted dominion over all about thee, av
Adam had.” One instance of the magnificence ot
the king of Tyre, is, that he outdid all other princes
in jewels, which those have the most plenty of that
trade most abroad, as he did; Every precious stone
was his covering. There is a great variety of pre¬
cious stones; but he had of every sort, and in such
plenty, that, beside what were treasured up in his
cabinet, and were the ornaments of his crown, he
had his clothes trimmed with them; they were his
covering: nay, (r>. 14.) he walked up and down in
the midst of the stones of fire, these precious stones,
which glittered and sparkled like fire. His rooms
were in a manner set round with jewels, so that he
walked in the midst of them, and then fancied him¬
self as glorious as if, like God, he had been sur¬
rounded by so many angels, who are compared to a
flame of fire. And if he be such an admirer of
precious stones as to think them as bright as angels,
no wonder that he is such an admirer of himself, as
to think himself as great as God. Nine several
sorts of precious stones are here named, which were
all in the High Priest’s ephod. Perhaps they are
particularly named, because he, in his pride, used
to speak particularly of them, and tell those about
him, with a great deal of foolish pleasure, “ This is
such a precious stone; of such a value, and so and so
are its virtues.” Thus is he upbraided with his
vanity. Gold is mentioned last, as far inferior in
value to those precious stones; and he used to speak
of it accordingly. Another thing that made him
think his palace a paradise, was, the curious music
he had, the tabrets and pipes , hand instruments
and wind instruments; the workmanship of these
was extraordinary, and they were prepared for
him on purpose; prepared in thee, the pronoun is
feminine, in thee, O Tyre; or it denotes that the
king was effeminate in doting on such things.
They were prepared in the day he was created,
that is, either born, or created king; they were
made on purpose to celebrate the joys either of
his birth-day or of his coronation-day. These
he prided himself much in, and would have all
that came to see his palace take notice of them.
(3.) He looked like an incarnate angel; (v. 14.)
Thou art the anointed cherub that covers or protects;
that is, he looked upon himself as a guardian angel
to his people, so bright, so strong, so faithful; ap¬
pointed to their office, and qualified for it; anointed
kings should be to their subjects as anointed cheru¬
bim, that cover them with the wings of their power;
when they are such, God will own them; their ad¬
vancement was from him; I have set thee so. Some
think, because mention was made of Eden, that it
refers to the cherub set on the east of Eden to cover
719
EZEKIEL, XXVIII.
it, Gen. iii. 24. He thought himself as able to
guard his city from all invaders as that angel was
for his charge. Or, it may refer to the cherubim
in the most holy place, whose wings covered the
ark; he thought himself as bright as one of them.
(4. ) He appeared in as much splendour as the High
Priest when he was clothed with his garments for
glory and beauty; “ Thou wast upon the holy moun¬
tain of God, as president of the temple built on that
holy mountain; thou didst look as great, and with as
much majesty and authority, as ever the High
Priest did when he walked in the temple, which
was garnished with precious stones, (2 Chron. iii.
6.) and had his habit on, which had precious stones
both in the breast and on the shoulders; in that he
seemed to walk in the midst of the stones of fire.”
Thus glorious is the king ot Tyre; at least, he
thinks himself so.
2. Let us now see what was the ruin of the king
of Tyre, what it was that stained his glory, and laid
all this honour in the dust; (v. 15.) “ Thou wast
perfect in thy ways; thou didst prosper in all thy
affairs, and every thing went well with thee; thou
hadst not only a clear, but a bright reputation, from
the day thou wast created, the day of thine acces¬
sion to the throne, till iniquity was found in thee;
and that spoiled all." This may perhaps allude to
the deplorable case of the angels that fell, and of
our first parents, who were perfect in their ways till
iniquity was found in them. And when iniquity
was once found in him it increased, he grew worse
and worse; as appears, v. 18. “ Thou hast defied
thy sanctuaries; thou hast lost the benefit of all that
which thou thoughtest sacred, and in which, as in a
sanctuary, thou thoughtest to take refuge; these thou
hast defiled, and so exposed thyself by the multi¬
tude of thine iniquities." Now observe,
(1.) What the iniquity was that was the ruin of
the king of Tyre. [1.] The iniquity of his traffic,
(so it is called, v. 18.) both his and his people’s, for
their sin is charged upon him, because he connived
at it, and set them a bad example; (r. 16.) By the
multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the
midst of thee with -violence, and thus thou hast sin¬
ned. The king had so much to do with his mer¬
chandise, and was so wholly intent upon the gains of
that, that he took no care to do justice, to right
those that suffered wrong, and to protect them from
violence: nay, in the multiplicity of business, wrong
was done to many by oversight; and in his dealings
he made use of his power to invade the rights of
those he dealt with. Note, Those that have much
to do in the world, are in great danger of doing much
amiss; audit is hard to deal with many without vio¬
lence to some. Trades are called mysteries; but
too many make them mysteries of iniquity. [2.]
His pride and vainglory ; ( v . 17.) “ Thine heart
was lifted up because of thy beauty; thou wast in
love with thyself, and thy own shadow. And thus
thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of the
brightness, the pomp and splendour, wherein thou
livedst.” He gazed so much upon this, that it daz¬
zled his eyes, and prevented him from seeing his
way. He appeared so puffed up with his great¬
ness, that it bereaved him both of his wisdom, and
of the reputation of it. He really became a fool in
glorying. Those make a bad bargain for them¬
selves, that part with their wisdom for the gratify¬
ing of their gaiety, and, to please a vain humour,
lose a real excellency.
2. What the ruin was, that this iniquity brought
him to. [1.] He was thrown out of his dignity,
and dislodged from his palace, which he took to be
his paradise and temple; (x>. 16.) I will cast thee as
profane out of the mountain of God. His kingly
power was high as a mountain, setting him above
others; it was a mountain of God, for the powers
that be are ordained of God, and have something in
them that is sacred; but, having abused his power,
he is reckoned profane, and is therefore deposed
and expelled; he disgraces the crown he wears,
and so has forfeited it, and shall be destroyed from
the midst of the stones of fire, the precious stones
with which his palace was garnished, as the tem¬
ple was; and they shall be no protection to him.
[2.] He was exposed to contempt and disgrace,
and trampled upon by his neighbours; I will cast
thee to the ground, (v. 17.) will cast thee among
the pavement-stones, from the midst of the precious
stones, and will lay thee a rueful spectacle before
kings, that they may behold thee, and take warning
by thee not to be proud and oppressive.” [3.] He
was quite consumed; his city, and he in it; 1 will
bring forth a fire from the midst of thee. The con¬
querors, when they have plundered the city, will
kindle a fire in the heart of it, which shall lay it,
and the palace particularly, in ashes. Or, it may
be taken more generally, for the fire of God’s judg¬
ments, which shall devour both prince and people,
and bring all the glory of both to ashes upon the
earth; and this fire shall be brought forth from the
midst of thee. All God’s judgments upon sinners
take rise from themselves; they are devoured by a
fire of their own kindling. [4.] He was hereby
made a terrible example of divine vengeance.
Thus he is reduced in the sight of all them that be¬
hold him; (n. 18.) They that know him shall bt
astonished at him, and shall wonder how one that
stood so high could be brought so low. The king
of Tyre’s palace, like the temple at Jerusalem
when it was destroyed, shall be an astonishment
and a hissing, 2 Cliron. vii. 20, 21. So fell the
king of Tyre.
20. Again the word of the Lord came
unto me, saying, 21. Son of man, set thy
face against Zidon, and prophesy against it,
22. And say, TJius saith the Lord God;
Behold, I am against thee, O Zidon ; and I
will be glorified in the midst of thee: and
they shall know that I am the Lord, when
I shall have executed judgments in her, and
shall be sanctified in her. 23. For I will
send into her pestilence, and blood into her
streets; and the wounded shall be judged
in the midst of her by the sword upon her
on every side; and they shall know that I
am the Lord. 24. And there shall be no
more a pricking brier unto the house of
Israel, nor any grieving thorn of all that arc.
round about them, that despised them; and
they shall know that I am the Lord God.
25. Thus saith the Lord God, When I shall
have gathered the house of Israel from the
people among whom they are scattered, and
shall be sanctified in them in the sight of the
heathen, then shall they dwell in their land
that I have given to my servant Jacob. 26.
And they shall dwell safely therein, and
shall build houses, and plant vineyards; yea,
they shall dwell with confidence, when 1
have executed judgments upon all those
that despise them round about them ; and
they shall know that I am the Lord their
God.
720
EZEKIEL, XXIX.
God’s glory is his great end, both in all the good
and in all the evil which proceed out of the mouth
of the Most High; so we find in these verses,
1. God will be glorified in the destruction of Zi-
don, a city that lay near to Tyre, was more ancient,
but not so considerable, had a dependence upon it,
and stood and fell with it. God says here, I am
against thee, O Zidon, and I will be glorified in the
midst of thee, v. 22. And again, “ They that
would not know by gentler methods, shall be made
to know that lam the Lord, and I alone, and that I
am a just and jealous God, when I shall have exe-
cuted judgments in her, destroying judgments, when
I shall have done execution according to justice,
and according to the sentence passed; and so shall
be sanctified in her.” The Zidonians, it should
seem, were more addicted to idolatry than the Ty¬
rians were, who, being men of business and large
conversation, were less under the power of bigotry
and superstition; the Zidonians were noted for the
worship of Ashtaroth; Solomon introduced it, 1
Kings xi. 5. Jezebel was daughter to the king of
Zidon, who brought the worship of Baal into Israel;
(1 Kings xvi. 31.) so that God had been much dis¬
honoured by the Zidonians. Now, says he, I will
be glorified, I will be sanctified. The Zidonians
were borderers upon the land of Israel, where God
was known, and where they might have got the
knowledge of him, and have learned to glorify him;
but, instead of that, they seduced Israel to the wor¬
ship of their idols. Note, When God is sanctified,
he is glorified; for his holiness is his glory; and
those whom he is not sanctified and glorified by, he
will be sanctified and glorified upon, by executing
judgments upon them, which speak him a just
Avenger of his own and his people’s injured honour.
The judgments that shall be executed upon Zidon
are, war and pestilence, two wasting, depopulating
judgments, v. 23. They are God’s messengers which
he sends on his errands, and they shall accomplish
that for which he sends them. Pestilence and blood
shall be sent into her streets, there the dead bodies
of those shall lie, who perished, some by the plague,
occasioned perhaps through ill diet when the city
was besieged, and some by the s#ord of the enemy,
most likely the Chaldean armies, when the city was
taken, and all were put to the sword. Thus the
wounded shall be judged; when they are dying of
their wounds, they shall judge themselves, and
others shall say, They justly fall; or, as some read
it, They shall be punished by the sword, that sword
which has commission to destroy on every side. It
is God that judges, and he will overcome.
Nor is it Tyre and Zidon only on which God
would execute judgments, but on all those that des¬
pised his people Israel, and triumphed in their ca¬
lamities; for this was now God’s controversy with
the nations that were round about them, v. 26.
Note, When God’s people are under his correcting
hand for their faults, he takes care, as he did con¬
cerning malefactors that were scourged, that they
shall not seem vile to those that are about them, and
therefore takes it ill of those who despise them, and
so help forward the affliction when he is but a little
displeased, Zech. i. 15. God re, gards them even in
their low estate; and therefore let not men despise
them.
2. God will be glorified in the restoration of his
people to their former safety and prosperity. God
had been dishonoured by the sins of his people, and
their sufferings too had given occasion to the enemy
to blaspheme; (Isa. lii. 5.) but God will now both
cure them of their sins, and ease them of their
troubles, and so will be sanctified in them in the sight
of the heathen, will recover the honour of his holi¬
ness, to the satisfaction of all the world, v. 25.
For,
( 1. ) They shall return to the possession of their
own land again; I will gather the house of Israel out
of their dispersions, in answer to that prayer, (Ps.
cvi. 47.) Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us
from among the heathen; and in pursuance of that
promise, (Deut. xxx. 4.) Thence will the Lord thy
God gather thee. Being gathered, they shall be
brought in a body, to dwell in the land that I have
given to my servant Jacob. God had an eye to the
ancient grant, in bringing them back, for that re¬
mained in force, and the discontinuance of the pos¬
session was not a defeasance of the right. He that
gave it, will again give it.
(2.) They shall enjoy great tranquillity there.
When those that had been vexatious to them are
taken off, they shall live in quietness; there shall be
no more a pricking brier, or a grieving thorn, v.
24. They shall have a happy settlement, for they
shall build houses, and plant vineyards; and they
shall enjoy a happy security and serenity there;
they shall dvjcll safely, shall dwell with confidence,
and there shall be none to disquiet them, or make
them afraid, v. 26. This never had a full accom¬
plishment in the body of that people, for after their
return out of captivity, they were ever and anon mo¬
lested by some bad neighbour or other. Nor has
the gospel-church been ever quite free from prick¬
ing 'briers and grieving thorns; yet sometimes the
church has rest; believers always dwell safely un¬
der the divine protection, and may be quiet from the
fear of evil. But the full accomplishment of this
promise is reserved for the heavenly Canaan, when
all the saints shall be gathered together, and every
thing that offends shall be removed, and all griefs
and fears forever banished.
CHAP. XXIX.
Three chapters we had concerning Tyre and its king-, next
follow four chapters concerning Egypt and its king.
This is the first of them. Egypt had formerly been a
house of bondage to God’s people; of late they had had but
•too friendly a correspondence with it, and had depended
too much upon it; and therefore, whether the predic¬
tion reached Egypt or no, it would be of use to Israel,
to take them off' from their confidence in their alliance
with it. The prophecies against Egypt, which are all
laid together in these four chapters, were of five several
dates; the first in the tenth year of the captivity; (v. 1.)
the second in the twenty-seventh; (v. 17.) the third in
the eleventh year, and the first month; (ch. xxx. 20. ) the
fourth in the eleventh year, and the third month; (ch.
xxxi. 1.) the fifth in the twelfth year; (ch. xxxii. 1.) and
another in the same year, v. 17. In this chapter, we have,
I. The destruction of Pharaoh foretold, for his dealing
deceitfullv with Israel, v. 1 . . 7. II. The desolation of
the land of Ejrypt foretold, v. 8 . . 12. III. A promise
of the restoration thereof, in part, after forty years, v.
13. . 16. IV. The possession that should be given to
Nebuchadrezzar of the land of Egypt, v. 17.. 20. V.
A promise of mercy to Israel, v. 21.
1. TN the tenth year, in the tenth vionth ,
I in the twelfth day of the month, the
word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
2. Son of man, set thy face against Pharaoh
king of Egypt, and prophesy against him,
and against all Egypt : 3. Speak, and say,
Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I am
against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the
great dragon that lieth in the midst of his
rivers, which hath said, My river is mine
own, and I have made it for myself. 4.
But I will put hooks in thy jaws, and I will
cause the fish of thy rivers to stick unto thy
scales; and I will bring thee up out of the
midst of thy rivers, and all the fish of thv
721
EZEKIEL, XXIX.
rivers shall stick unto thy scales. 5. And
I will leave thee thrown into the wilderness,
thee and all the fish of thy rivers: thou shalt
fall upon the open fields; thou shalt not be
brought together, nor gathered: I have given
thee for meat to the beasts of the field and
to the fowls of the heaven. 6. And all the
inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am
the Lord, because they have been a staff
of reed to the house of Israel. 7. When
they took hold of thee by the hand, thou
didst break, and rend ail their shoulder:
and when they leaned upon thee thou
brakest, and madest all their loins to be at a
stand.
Here is,
I. The date of this prophecy against Egypt. It
was in the tenth year of the captivity, and yet it is
placed after the prophecy against Tyre, which was
delivered in the eleventh year, because in the ac¬
complishment of the prophecies, the destniction of
Tyre happened before the destniction of Egypt,
and Nebuchadnezzar’s gaining Egypt was the re¬
ward of his service against Tyre; and therefore the
prophecy against Tyre is put first, that we may the
better observe that. But particular notice must be
taken of this, that the first prophecy against Egypt
was just at the time when the king of Egypt was
coming to relieve Jerusalem, and raise the siege,
(Jer. xxxvii. 5.) but did not answer the expectations
of the Jews from them. Note, It is good to foresee
the failing of all our creature-confidences, then
when we are most in temptation to depend upon
them; that we may cease from man.
II. The scope of this prophecy. It is directed
against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and against all
Egypt, v. 2. The prophecy’ against Tyre began
with the people, and then proceeded against the
prince. But this begins with the prince, because it
began to have its accomplishment in the insurrec¬
tions and rebellions of the people against the prince,
not long after this.
III. The prophecy itself. Pharaoh Hophrali
(for so was the present Pharaoh surnamed) is here
represented by a great dragon, or crocodile, that
lies in the midst of his rivers, as Leviathan in the
waters, to play therein, v. 3. Nilus, the river of
Egypt, was famed for crocodiles. And what is the
king of Egypt, in God’s account, but a great dragon,
venomous and mischievous? Therefore says God, 1
am against thee, I am above thee; so it may be read.
How high soever the princes and potentates of the
earth are, there is a higher than they, (Eccl. v. 8. )
a God above them, that can control them, and, if
they be tyrannical and oppressive, a God agamst
them, that will be free to reckon with them. Ob¬
serve here,
1. The pride and security of Pharaoh. He lies
in the midst of his rivers, rolls himself with a great
deal of satisfaction in his wealth and pleasures; and
he says, My river is my own: he boasts that he is
an absolute prince, his subjects are his vassals, Jo¬
seph bought them long ago, Gen. xlvii. 23. That
he is a sole prince, and has neither partner in the
government, nor competition for it; that he is out
of debt, what he has is his own, and none of his
neighbours have any demands upon him; that he is
independent, neither tributary nor accountable to
any. Note, Worldly, carnal minds please them¬
selves with, and pride themselves in, their property,
forgetting that whatever we have, we have only the
use of it, the property is in God; we ourselves are
VOL. IV. — 4 \
not our own, but his; our longues are not our own,
Ps. xii. 4. Our river is not our own, for its springs
are in God. The most potent prince cannot call
what he has, his own, for though it be so against all
the world, it is not so against God. But Pharaoh’s
reason for his pretensions is yet more absurd ; My
river is my own, for I have made it for myself.
Here he usurps two of the divine prerogatives, to be
the author, and the end, of his own being and felici¬
ty. He only that is the great Creator, can say of
this world, and of every thing in it, I have made it
for myself. He calls his river his own, because he
looks not unto the Maker thereof, nor has respect
unto him that fashioned it long ago, Isa. xxii. 11.
What we have, we have received from God, and
must use for God, so that we cannot say, We made
it, much less, We made it for ourselves; and why
then do we boast? Note, Self is the great idol that
all the world worships, in contempt of God and his
sovereignty.
2. The course God will take with this proud
man, to humble him. He is a great dragon in the
waters, and God will accordingly deal with him, v.
4, 5. (1.) He will draw him out of his rivers, for
he has a hook and a cord for this leviathan, with
which he can manage him, though none on earth
can; (Job xli. 1.) “ I will bring thee up out of the
midst of thy rivers; will cast thee out of thy palace,
out of thy kingdom, out of all those things in which
thou takest such a complacency, and placest such a
confidence.” Herodotus relates of this Pharaoh,
who was now king of Egypt, that he had reigned
in great prosperity for twenty-five years, and was
so elevated with his successes, that he said, God
himself cannot cast me out of his kingdom; but he
shall soon be convinced of his mistake, and what he
depended on shall be no defence. God can force
men out of that in which they are most secure and
easy. (2.) All his fish shall be drawn out with
him, his servants, his soldiers, and all that had a
dependence on him, as he thought, but really such
as he had dependence upon; these shall stick to his
scales, adhere to their king, resolving to live and
die with him. But, (3.) The king and his army,
the dragon and all the fish that stick to his scales,
shall perish together, as fish cast upon dry ground,
and shall be meat to the beasts and fowls, v. 5. Now
this is supposed to have its accomplishment soon
after, when this Pharaoh, in defence of Aricius king
of Libya, who had been expelled his kingdom by
the Cyrenians, levied a great army, and went cut
against the Cyrenians, to re-establish his friend, but
was defeated in battle, and all his forces put to flight,
which gave such disgust to his kingdom, that they
rose in rebellion against him. Thus was he left
thrown into the wilderness, he and all the fish of the
river with him. Thus issue men’s pride and pre¬
sumption and carnal security. Thus men justly
lose what they call their own under God, when
they call it their own against him.
3. The ground of the controversy God has with
the Egyptians; it is because they have cheated his
people, they encouraged them to expect relief and
assistance from them when they were in distress,
but failed them; (x>. 6, 7.) because they have been
a staff of reed to the house of Israel. They pre¬
tended to be a staff for them to lean upon, but when
any stress was laid upon them, they were either
weak and could not, or treacherous and would not,
do that for them that was expected. They broke
under them, to their great disappointment and
amazement, so that they rent their shoulder, and
made all their loins to be at a stand. The king of
Egypt, it is probable, had encouraged Zedekiah to
break his league with the king of Babylon, with a
promise that he would stand by him, which when
1! he failed to do to any purpose, it could not but put
722
EZEKIEL, XXIX.
them into a great consternation. God had told
them, long since, that the Egyptians were broken
reeds; (Isa. xxx. 6, 7. ) Rabshakeh had told them
so; (Isa. xxxvi. 6.) and now they found it so. It
was indeed the folly of Israel to trust them, and
they were well enough served when they were de¬
ceived in them. God was righteous in suffering
them to be so. But that is no excuse at all for the
Egyptians’ falsehood and treachery, nor shall it
secure them from the judgments of that God who
is, and will be, the Avenger of all such wrongs. It
is a great sin, and very provoking to God, as well
as unjust, ungrateful, and very dishonourable and
unkind, to put a cheat upon those that put a confi¬
dence in us.
8. Therefore thus saith the Lord God,
Behold, I will bring a sword upon thee, and
cut off man and beast out of thee. 9. And
the land of Egypt shall be desolate and
waste ; and they shall know that I am the
Lord: because he hath said, The river is
mine, and I have made it. 10. Behold,
therefore, I am against thee, and against thy
rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt
utterly waste and desolate, from the tower
of Syene even unto the border of .Ethiopia.
11. No foot of man shall pass through it,
nor foot of beast shall pass through it, nei¬
ther shall it be inhabited forty years. 12.
And I will make the land of Egypt desolate
in the midst of the countries that are deso¬
late, and her cities among the cities that are
laid waste shall be desolate forty years: and
I will scatter the Egyptians among the na¬
tions, and will disperse them through the
countries. 13. Yet thus saith the Lord God,
At the end of forty years will I gather the
Egyptians from the people whither they
were scattered: 14. And I will bring again
the captivity of Egypt, and I will cause them
to return into the land of Pathros, into the
land of their habitation; and they shall be
there a base kingdom. 15. It shall be the
basest of the kingdoms ; neither shall it ex¬
alt itself any more above the nations: for I
will diminish them, that they shall no more
rule over the natiotis. 16. And it shall be
no more the confidence of the house of Is¬
rael, which bringeth their iniquity to re¬
membrance, when they shall look after
them: but they shall know that I am the
Lord God.
This explains the foregoing prediction, which
was figurative, and looks something further. Here
is a prophecy,
1. Of the ruin of Egypt. The threatening of this
is very full and particular; and the sin for which
this ruin shall be brought upon them, is, their pride,
v. 9. They said, The river is mine, and I have
made it; therefore their land shall spue them out.
(1.) God is against them, both against the king and
against the people, against thee and against thy
rivers; waters signify people and multitudes, Rev.
xvii. 15. (2.) Multitudes of them shall be cut off
by the sword of war, a sword which God will bring
upon them, to destroy both man and beast, the
sword of a civil war. (3.) The country shall be
depopulated. The land of Egypt shall be desolate
and waste, ( v . 9.) the country not cultivated, the
cities not inhabited; the wealth of both was their
pride, and that God will take away. It shall be
utterly waste; mates of waste, (so the margin reads
it,) and desolate; (y. 10.) neither men nor beasts
shall pass through it, nor shall it be inhabited, {y.
11.) it shall be desolate in the midst of the countries
that are so, v. 12. This was the effect not so much
of those wars spoken of before, which were made
by them, but of the war which the king of Babylon
made upon them. It shall be desolate from one end
of the land to the other, from the tower of Syene
even unto the border of Ethiopia. The sin of pride
is enough to ruin a whole nation. (4.) The people
shall be dispersed and scattered among the na¬
tions, ( v . 12.) so that they who thought the balance
of power was in their hand, should now become a
contemptible people. Such a fall does a haughty
spirit go before.
2. Of the restoration of Egypt after awhile, v.
13. Egypt shall lie desolate forty years, ( v . 12.)
and then I will bring again the captivity of Egypt,
v. 14. Some date the forty years from Nebuchad¬
nezzar’s destroying Egypt, others from the desola¬
tion of Egypt some time before; however, they end
about the first year of Cyrus, when the seventy
years’ captivity of Judah ended, or soon after.
Then this prediction was accomplished, (1.) That
God will gather the Egyptians out of all the coun¬
tries into which they were dispersed, and make
them to return to the land of their habitation, and
give them a settlement there again, v. 14. Note,
Though God will find out a way to humble the
proud, yet he will not contend for ever, no, not
with them in this world. (2.) That yet they shall
not make a figure again as they have done. Egypt
shall be a kingdom again, but it shall be the basest
of the kingdoms, (v. 15.) it shall have but little
wealth and power, and shall not extend its conquests
as formerly; shall be the tail of the nations, and not
the head. It is a mercy that it shall become a king¬
dom again, but, to humble it, it shall be a despica¬
ble kingdom; it shall be a long time before it reco¬
ver any thing like its ancient lustre. For two rea¬
sons it shall be thus mortified.
[1.] That it may not domineer over its neigh¬
bours, that it may not exalt itself above the nations,
nor rule over the nations, as it has done, but that it
may know what it is to be low and despised. Note,
Those who abuse their power will justly be stripped
of it; and God, as King of nations, will find out a
way to maintain the injured rights and liberties, not
only of his own, but of other nations.
[2.] That it may not deceive the people of God;
(v. 16.) It shall no more be the confidence of the
house of Israel; they shall no more be in tempta¬
tion to trust in it as they have done, which is a sin
that brings their iniquity to remembrance, that is,
provokesTlod to punish them not for that only, but
for all their other sins. Or, it puts them in mind
of their idolatries, to return to them, when they took
to the idolaters, to repose a confidence in them.
Note, The creatures we confide in are often there¬
fore ruined, because there is no other way effectu¬
ally to cure us of our confidence in them. Rather
than Israel shall be ensnared again, the whole land
of Egypt shall be laid waste. He that once gave
Egypt for their ransom, (Isa. xliii. 3.) will now
give Egypt for their cure; and it shall be destroy¬
ed rather than Israel shall not in this particular be
reformed. God, not only in justice, but in wis¬
dom and goodness to us, breaks those creature-
stays which we lean too much upon; and makes
them to be no more, that they may be no more our
confidence.
723
EZEKIEL, XXIX.
1 7. And it c ame to pass in the seven and
twentieth year, in the Li st month , in the first
• lay of the month, the word of the Lord
came unto me, saying, 18. Son of man,
Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon caused
his army to serve a great service against
Tyrus: every head was made bald, and
every shoulder was peeled : yet had he no
wages, nor his army, for Tyrus, for the ser¬
vice that he had served against it: 19.
Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold,
I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebu¬
chadrezzar king of Babylon; and he shall
take her multitude, and take her spoil, and
take her prey; and it shall be the wages for
his army. 20., I have given him the land of
Egypt for his labour wherewith he served
against it, because they wrought for me,
saith the Lord God. 21. In that day will
I cause the horn of the house of Israel to
bud forth, and I will give thee the opening
of the mouth in the midst of them ; and they
shall know that I am the Lord.
The date of this prophecy is observable; it was
in the twenty-seventh year of Ezekiel’s captivity,
sixteen years after the prophecy in the former part
of the chapter, and almost as long after those which
follow in the next chapters; but it comes in here for
the explication of all that was said against Egypt.
After the destruction of Jerusalem, Nebuchadnez¬
zar spent two or three campaigns in the conquests
of the Ammonites and Moabites, and making him¬
self master of their countries. Then he spent thir¬
teen years in the siege of Tyre; during all that time
the Egyptians were embroiled in war with the Cy-
renians and one with another, by which they were
very much weakened and impoverished; and just
at the end of the siege of Tyre, God delivers this
prophecy to Ezekiel, to signify to him, that that
utter destruction of Egypt, which he had foretold
fifteen or sixteen years before, which had been but
in part accomplished hitherto, should now be com*
pletcd by Nebuchadnezzar. The prophecy which
begins here, it should seem, is continued to the
twentieth verse of the next chapter. And Dr.
Lightfoot observes, that it is the last prophecy we
have of this prophet, and should have been last in
the book, but is laid here, that all the prophecies
against Egypt might come together. The parti¬
cular destruction of Pharaoh-Hophrah, foretold in
the former part of this chapter, was likewise fore¬
told, Jer. xliv. 30. This general devastation of
Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar was foretold, Jer. xliii.
10. Observe,
1. What success God would give to Nebuchad¬
nezzar and his forces against Egypt. God gave
him that land, that he might take the s/toil and
prey of it, v. 19, 20. It was a cheap and easy prey,
he subdued it with very little difficulty. The blood
and treasure expended upon the conquest of it were
inconsiderable; but it was a rich prey, and he car¬
ried off a great deal from it that was of value. Their
having been divided among themselves, no doubt,
gave a common enemv great advantage against
them, who, when they had been so long preying
upon one another, soon made a prey of them all.
tin! quo discordia cives perduxit miseros — What
wretchedness does civil discord bring! Jeremiah
foretold that Nebuchadnezzar should array him¬
self with the land of Egypt, as a shepherd puts on
his coat, which intimates what a rich and cheap
prey it should be.
2. Upon what considerations God would give Ne¬
buchadnezzar this success against Egypt; it was to
be a recompense to him for the hard service witf
which be bad caused his army to serve against
Tyre, v. IS.— 20. (1.) Theta king of Tyre was a
tedious piece of work, it cost Nebuchadnezzar
abundance of blood and treasure; it held out thir¬
teen years, all that time the Chaldean army was
hard at it, to make themselves masters of it. A
large current of the sea, between Tyre and the con¬
tinent, was filled up with earth, and many other
difficulties which were thought insuperable they
had to struggle with; but so great a prince, having
begun such an undertaking, thought himself bound
in honour to push it on, whatever it cost him. How
many thousand lives have been sacrificed to such
points of honour as this was! In prosecuting this
siege, every head was made bald, and event shoul¬
der peeled, with carrying burthens, and labouring in
the water, when they had a strong tide and a strong
town to contend with. Egypt, a large kingdom,
being divided within itself, is easily conquered;
I vre, a single city, being unanimous, is with diffi¬
culty subdued. Those that have much to do in the
world, find some affairs go on a great deal more
readily and easily than others. But, (2.) In this
service God owns that they wrought for him, v. 20.
He set them at work, for the humbling of a proud
city and its king; though they meant not so, neither
did their heart think so, who were employed in it.
Note, Even great men and bad men are tools that
God makes use of, and are working for him, even
when they are pursuing their own covetous and
ambitious designs; so wonderfully does God over¬
rule all to his own glory. Yet, (3.) For this service
he had no wages nor his army. He was at a vast
expense to take Tyre; and when he had it, though
it was a very rich city, and he promised himself
good plunder for his army from it, he was disap¬
pointed; the Tyrians sent away by ships their best
effects, and threw the rest into the sea, so that they
had nothing but bare walls. Thus are the children
of this world ordinarily frustrated in their highest
expectations from it. " Therefore, (4. ) He shall
have the spoil of Egvpt to recompense him for his
service against Tyre. Note, God will be behind¬
hand with none for any service they do for him,
but, one way or other, will recompense them for it;
none shall kindle a fire on his altar for naught. The
service done for him by worldlvwnen with worldly
designs, shall be recompensed with a mere worldly
reward, which bis faithful servants that have a sin¬
cere regard to his will and glory, would not be put
off with. This accounts for the prosperity of wicked
men in this world; God is in it paying them for
some service or other, in which he has made use of
them; Verily they have their reward. Let none
envy it them. The conquest of Egypt is spoken of
as Nebuchadnezzar’s full reward, for that com¬
pleted his dominion over the then known world in a
manner; that was the last of the kingdoms he sub¬
dued; when he was master of that, he became the
head of gold.
3. The mercy God had in store for the house of
Israel soon after. When the tide is at the highest,
it will turn, and so it will when it is at the lowest.
Nebuchadnezzar was at the zenith of his glory
when he had conquered Egypt, but within a year
after he ran mad, (Dan. iv. ) was so seven years;
and within a year or two after he had recovered his
senses he resigned his life. When he was at the
highest, Israel was at the lowest, then were they in
the depth of their captivity, their bones dead and
dry; but in that day the horn of the house of Israel
shall bud forth, i1. 21. The day of their deliver-
724
EZEKIEL, XXX.
ance shall begin to dawn, and they shall have some
little reviving in their bondage ; in the honour that
shall be done, (1. ) To their princes; they are the
horns of the house of Israel, the seat of their glory
and power, these began to bud forth when Daniel
and his fellows were highly preferred in Babylon;
Daniel sat in the gate of the city; Shadrach, Me -
shach, and Abednego, were set over the affairs of
the province, (Dan. ii. 49.) these were all of the
king’s seed, and of the princes, Dan. i. 3. And it
was within a year after the conquests of Egypt
that they were thus preferred; and, soon after,
three of them were made famous by the honour
God put upon them in bringing them alive out of
the burning fiery furnace. This might very well
be called the budding forth of the horn of the house
of Israel. And, some years after, this promise had
a further accomplishment in the enlargement and
elevation of Jehoiachin king of Judah, Jer. lii. 31,
32. They were both tokens of God’s favour to Is¬
rael, and happy omens. (2. ) To their prophets; And
I will give thee the opening of the mouth. Though
none of Ezekiel’s prophecies, after this, are record¬
ed, yet we have reason to think he went on prophe¬
sying, and with more liberty and boldness, when
Daniel and his fellows were in power, and would be
ready to protect him not only from the Babylonians,
out from the wicked ones of his own people. Note,
It bodes well to a people when God enlarges the
liberties of his ministers, and they are countenanced
and encouraged in their work.
CHAP. XXX.
jtnthis chapter, we have, I. A continuation of the prophecy
against Egypt, which we had in the latter part of the
foregoing chapter, just before the desolation of that once
flourishing kingdom was completed by Nebuchadrezzar.
In which is foretold the destruction of all her allies and
confederates, all her interests and concerns, and the se¬
veral steps which the king of Babylon should take in
pushing on this destruction, v. 1. .19. II. A repetition
of a former prophecy against Egypt, just before the de¬
solation of it begun by their own bad conduct, which
gradually weakened them, and prepared the way for the
king of Babylon, v. 20. .26. It is all much to the same
purport with what we had before.
1 . r | ''HE word of the Lord came again
jL unto me, saying, 2. Son of man,
prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord God,
Howl ye, Wo worth the day! 3. For the
day A near, even the day of the Lord is
near, a cloudy day; it shall be the time of
the heathen. 4. And the sword shall come
upon Egypt, and great pain shall be in Ethi¬
opia, when the slain shall fall in Egypt, and
they shall take away her multitude, and her
foundations shall be broken down. 5. Ethi¬
opia, and Libya, and Lydia, and all the
mingled people, and Chub, and the men of
the land that is in league, shall fall with
them bv the sword. 6. Thus saith the
Lord, They also that uphold Egypt shall
fall ; and the pride of her power shall come
down : from the tower of Syene shall they
fall in it by the sword, saith the Lord God.
7. And they shall be desolate in the midst
of the countries that are desolate, and her
cities shall be in the midst of the cities that
are wasted. 8. And they shall know that
I am the Lord, when I have set a fire in
Egypt, and when all her helpers shall be de¬
stroyed. 9. In that day shall messengers
go forth from me in ships, to make the care¬
less Ethiopians afraid, and great pain shall
come upon them, as in the day of Egypt
for, lo, it cometh. 1 0. Thus saith the Lord
God, I will also make the multitude of
Egypt to cease by the hand of Nebuchad¬
rezzar king of Babylon. 11. He and his
people with him, the terrible of the nations
shall be brought to destroy the land : and
they shall draw their swords against Egypt
and fill the land with the slain. 12. And ]
will make the rivers dry, and sell the land
into the hand of the wicked; and I will
make the land waste, and all that is there¬
in, by the hand of strangers : I the Lord
have spoken it. 13. Thus saith the Lord
God, I will also destroy the idols, and I will
cause their images to cease out of Nopli
and there shall be no more a prince of the
land of Egypt : and I will put a fear in the
land of Egypt. 14. And I will make Pa-
thros desolate, and will set fire in Zoan, and
will execute judgments in No. 15. And I
will pour my fury upon Sin, the strength of
Egypt; and I will cut off the multitude of
No. 16. And I will set fire in Egypt: Sin
shall have great pain, and No shall be rent
asunder, and Noph shall have distresses
daily. 17. The young men of Aven and
Pi-beseth shall fall by the sword : and these
cities shall go into captivity. 18. At Te-
haphnehes also the day shall be darkened,
when I shall break there the yokes of Egypt:
and the pomp of her strength shall cease in
her : as for her, a cloud shall cover her, and
her daughters shall go into captivity. 1 9.
Thus will I execute judgments in Egypt,
and they shall know that I am the Lord.
The prophecy of the destruction of Egypt is here
very full and particular, as well as, in the general,
very frightful. What can protect a provoking peo¬
ple, when the righteous God comes forth to contend
with them ?
1. It shall be a very lamentable destruction, and
such as shall occasion great sorrow; (i>. 2, 3.) “Howl
ye, ye may justly shriek now that it is coming, for
ye will be made to shriek and make hideous outcries
when it comes. Cry out, Wo worth the day! or.
Ah the day, alas because of the day, the terrible
day! Wo and alas! For the day is near; the day
we have so long dreaded, so long deserved. It is
the day of the Lord, the day in the which he will
manifest himself as a God of vengeance; you have
your day now, when you carry all before you, and
trample on all about you, but God will have his day
now shortly; the day of the revelation of his right¬
eous judgment,” Ps. xxxvii. 13. It will be a cloudy
day, that is, dark and dismal, without the shining
forth of any comfort; and it shall threaten a storm;
fire, and brimstone, and a horrible tempest. It shall
be the time of the heathen, of reckoning with the
heathen, for all their heathenish practices; that
time which David spake of when God would pov,r
72u
EZEKIEL, XXX.
out his fury upon the heathen, (Ps. lxxix. 6.) when
they should sink, Ps. ix. 15.
2. It shall be the destruction of Egypt, and of all
the states and countries in confederacy with her,
and in her neighbourhood. (1.) Egypt herself shall
fall; {y. 4.) The sword shall come ufion Egypt,
the sword of the Chaldeans, and it shall be a victo¬
rious sword, for the slain shall fall in Egypt, fall by
it, fall before it. Is the country populous? They
shall take away her multitude. Is it strong, and well
fixed? Her foundations shall be broken down, and
then the fabric, though built ever so fine, ever so
high, will fall of course. (2.) Her neighbours and
inmates shall fall with her; when the slain fall so
thick in Egypt, great pain shall be in Ethiopia, both
that in Africa, which is in the neighbourhood of
Egypt on one side, and that in Asia, which is near
to it on the other side; when their neighbour’s house
was on fire, they could not but apprehend their own
in danger: nor were their fears groundless, for they
shall all fall with them by the sword; (u. 5. ) Ethi¬
opia, and Libya, (Cush and Phut, so the Hebrew
names are, two of the sons of Ham, who are men¬
tioned,) and Misraim, that is, Egypt, between them,
Gen. x. 6. The Lydians, who were famous arch¬
ers, are spoken of as confederates with Egypt, Jer.
xlvi. 9. These shall fall with Egypt and Chub;
the Chaldeans, the inhabitants of the inner Libya;
these and others were the mingled people ; there
were those of all these and other countries, who
upon some account or other resided in Egypt; as
did also the men of the land that is in league, some
of the remains of the people of Israel and Judah,
the children of the covenant, or league, as they are
called, (Acts iii. 25.) the children of the promise,
Gal. iv. 28. These sojourned in Egypt, contrary to
God’s command, and these shall fall with them.
Note, They that will take their lot with God’s ene¬
mies, shall have their lot with them ; yea, though
they be in profession the men of the land that is in
league with God.
3. All that pretend to support the sinking inter¬
ests of Egypt, shall come down under her, shall
come down with her; {y. 6.) They that uphold
Egypt shall fall, and then Egypt must fall of course.
See the justice of God; Egypt pretended to uphold
Jerusalem when that was tottering, but proved a de¬
ceitful reed; and now they that pretended to uphold
Egypt, shall prove no better. Those that deceive
others are commonly paid in their own coin, they
are themselves deceived. (1.) Does Egypt think
herself upheld by the absolute authority and do¬
minion of her king? The pride of her power shall
come down, v. 6. The power of the king of Egypt
was his pride; but that shall be broken, and hum¬
bled. (2.) Is the multitude of her people her sup¬
port? These shall fall by the sword, even from the
tower of Syene, which is in the utmost corner of the
land, from that side of it by which the enemy shall
enter. Both the countries and the cities, the hus¬
bandmen and the merchants, shall be desolate, (y.
7. ) as before, ch. xxix. 12. Even the multitude of
Egypt shall be made to cease, v. 10. That popu¬
lous country shall be depopulated. The land shall
be even filled with the slain, v. 11. (3.) Is the
river Nile her support, and the several channels of
it a defence to her? I will make the rivers dry, (y.
12.) so that those natural fortifications, which were
thought impregnable, because impassable, shall
stand them in no stead. (4. ) Are, her idols a sup¬
port to her? Those shall be destroyed, those ima¬
ginary upholders shall appear more than ever to be
imaginary, for so images are when they pretend to
be deliverers and strong holds; (v. 13.) I will cause
their images to cease out of Noph. (5.) Is her royal
family her support? There shall be no more a prince
in the land of Egypt; the royal family shall be ex¬
tirpated and extinguished, which had continued so
long. (6.) Is her courage her support, and does she
think to uphold herself bv the bravery of her men
of war, who have now of late been inured to ser¬
vice? That shall fail; I will put a fear in the land
of Egyfit. (7.) Is the rising generation her sup¬
port; is she upheld by her children, and does she
think herself happy because she has her quiver full
of them ? Alas, the young men shall fall by the sword,
(v. 17.) and the daughters shall go into captivity,
(v. 18. ) and so she shall be robbed of all her hopes.
4. God shall inflict these desolating judgments on
Egypt; (f. 8.) They shall know that I am the Lord,
and greater than all gods, than all their gods, when
I have set a fire in Egypt. The fire that consumes
nations is of God’s kindling; and when he sets fire
to a people, all (heir helpers shall be destroyed;
those that go about to quench the fire shall them¬
selves be devoured by it; for who can stand before
him when he is angry? When he pours out his fury
upon a place, when he sets Jire to it, (y. 15, 16.)
neither its strength nor its multitude can stand it in
any stead.
5. The king of Babylon and his army shall be
employed as instruments of this destruction ; The
multitude of Egypt shall be made to cease, and be
quite cut off by the hand of the king of Babylon, v.
10. They that undertook to protect Israel from the
king of Babylon, shall not be able to protect them¬
selves. It is said of the Chaldeans, who should de¬
stroy Egypt, (1.) That they are strangers, (v. 12.)
who therefore shall show no compassion for old ac¬
quaintance-sake, but shall carry it strangely toward
them. (2. ) That they are the terrible of the nations,
(f. 11.) both in respect of force, and in respect of
fierceness; and, being terrible, they shall make ter¬
rible work. (3.) That they are the wicked; who
will not be restrained by reason and conscience, the
laws of nature, or the laws of nations, for they are
without law ; I will sell the land into the hand of the
wicked.' They do violence unjustly, as they are
wicked; yet, so far as they are instruments in God’s
hand of executing his judgments, it is on his part
justly done. Note, God often makes one wicked
man a scourge to another; and even wicked men
acquire a title to prey , jure belli — by the laws of
war, for God sells it into their hands.
6. No place in the land of Egypt shall be ex¬
empted from the fury of the Chaldean army, not
the strongest, not the remotest; The sword shall go
through the land. Divers places are here named:
Pathros, Zoan, and No, (v. 14.). Sin and Noph, (v.
15, 16.) Aven and Phibeseth, (x>. 17.) Tehaphne-
hes, v. 18. These shall be made desolate, shall be
fred, and God’s judgments shall be executed upon
them, and his fury poured out upon them. Their
strength and multitude shall be cut off; they shall
have great pain, shall be rent asunder with fear,
and shall have distresses daily; their day shall be
darkened, their honours, comforts, and hopes shall
be extinguished; their yokes shall be broken, so that
they shall no more oppress and tyrannize as they
have done; the pomp of their strength shall cease,
and a cloud shall cover them; a cloud so thick that
through it they shall not see any hopes, nor shall
their glory be seen, or shine further. And, lastly,
the Ethiopians, who are at a distance from them,
as well as those who are mingled with them, shall
share in their pain and terror; God will by his pro¬
vidence spread the rumour, and the careless Ethio
plans shall be made afraid, v. 9. Note, God can
strike a terror upon those that are most secure;
fearfulness shall, when he pleases, surprise the
most presumptuous hypocrites.
The close of this prediction leaves, (1.) The land
of Egypt mortified; T/ius will I execute judgments
on Egypt, v. 19. The destruction of Egypt is the
726
EZEKIEL, XXXI.
executing of judgments, which intimates not only
that it is done justly, for its sins, but that it is done
regularly and legally, by a judicial sentence. All
the executions God does, are according to his judg¬
ments. (2.) The God of Israel herein glorified;
They shall know that I am the Lord. The Egyp¬
tians shall be made to know it, and the people of
God shall be made to know it better. The Lord is
known by the judgments which he executeth.
20. And it came to pass in the eleventh
year, in the first month , in the seventh day
of the month, that the word of the Lord
came unto me, saying, 21. Son of man, 1
have broken the arm of Pharaoh king of
Egypt; and, lo, it shall not be bound up to
be healed, to put a roller to bind it, to make
it strong to hold the sword. 22. Therefore
thus saitli the Lord God, Behold, I am
against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and will
break his arms, the strong, and that which
was broken ; and I will cause the sword to
fall out of his hand. 23. And I will scatter
the Egyptians among the nations, and will
disperse them through the countries. 24.
And I will strengthen the arms of the king
of Babylon, and put my sword in his hand :
but I will break Pharaoh’s arms, and he
shall groan before him with the groanings
of a deadly-wounded man. 25. But I will
strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon,
and the arms of Pharaoh shall fall down;
and they shall know that I am the Lord,
when I shall put my sword into the hand
of the king of Babylon, and he shall stretch
it out upon the land of Egypt. 26. And I
will scatter the Egyptians among the na¬
tions, and disperse them among the coun¬
tries; and they shall know that I am the
Lord.
This short prophecy of the weakening of the power
of Egypt was delivered about tire time that the army
of the Egyptians, which attempted to raise the siege
of Jerusalem, was frustrated in its enterp rises, and re¬
turned re infecta — without accom/ilishing their pur¬
pose; whereupon the king of Babylon renewed the
siege, and carried his point. The kingdom of Egypt
was very ancient, and had been many ages considera¬
ble. That of Babylon was but lately arrived at its great
pomp and power, being built upon the ruins of the
kingdom of Assyria. Now it is with them as it is
with families and states; some are growing up, others
are declining and going back; one must increase,
and the other must of course decrease.
1 . It is here foretold that the kingdom of Egypt shall
grow weaker and weaker. The extent of his territo¬
ries shall be abridged, his wealth and power shall be
diminished, and he shall become less able than ever
to help either himself or his friend. ( 1. ) This was in
part done already; (y. 21.) I have broken the arm
of Pharaoh some time ago. One arm of that king¬
dom might well be reckoned broken, when the king
of Babylon routed the forces of Pharaoh-Necho at
Carchemish, (Jer. xlvi. 2.) And made himself mas¬
ter of all that pertained to Egijpt from the river of
Egypt to Euphrates, 2 Kings'xxiv. 7. Egypt had
been long in gathering strength, and extending its
dominions, and therefore that there may be a pro¬
portion observed in providence, it loses its strength
slowly and by degrees. It was soon after the king
of Egypt slew good king Josiah, and in the same
reign, that its arm was thus broken, and it received
that fatal blow which it never recovered. Before
Egypt’s heart and neck were broken, its arm was;
God’s judgments come upon a people by steps that
they may meet him repenting. When the arm of
Egypt is broken, it shall not be bound up to be healed,
for none can heal the wounds that God gives, but
himself. Those whom he disarms, whom he dis¬
ables, cannot again hold the sword. (2.) This was
to be done again; one arm was broken before, and
something was done toward the setting of it, toward
the healing of the deadly wound that was given to
the beast. But now ( v . 22.) I am against Pharaoh,
and will break both his arms; both the strong, and
that which was broken and set again. Note, II lesser
judgments do not prevail to humble and reform sin¬
ners, God will send greater. Now God will cause
the sword to fall out of his hand, which he caught
hold of as thinking himself strong enough to hold it.
It is repeated, (v. 24.) I will break Pharaoh’s arms.
He had been a cruel oppressor to the people of God
formerly, and of late the stajf of a broken rod to
them; and now God, by breaking his arms, reckons
with him for both. God justly breaks that power
which is abused either to put wrongs upon people,
or to put cheats upon them. But this is not all; (1. )
The king of Egypt shall be dispirited, when he
finds himself in danger of the king of Babylon’s
forces; he shall groan before him with the groaning
of a deadly wounded man. Note, It is common for
those that are most elevated in their prosperity, to
be most dejected and disheartened in their adversity.
Pharaoh, even before the sword touches him, shall
groan as if he had received his death’s wound. (2.)
The people of Egypt shall be dispersed, (x>. 23.)
and again, (v. 26.) I will scatter them among the
nations. Other nations had mingled with them,
(v. 5. ) now they shall be mingled with other nations,
and seek shelter in them, and so be made to know
that the Lord is righteous.
2. It is here foretold that the kingdom of Babylon
shall grow stronger and stronger, v. 24, 25. It is
said and repeated, that God will, (1.) Put strength
into the king of Babylon’s arms, that lie may be able
to go through the service he is designed for. (2.)
That lie will put a sword, his sword, into the king
of Babylon’s hand, which signified his giving him a
commission, and furnishing him with arms for carry¬
ing on a war, particularly against Egypt. Note,
As judges on the bench, like Pilate, (John xix. 11.)
so generals in the field, like Nebuchadnezzar, have
no power but what is given them from above.
CHAP. XXXI.
The prophecy of this chapter, as the two chapters before,
is against Egypt, and designed for the humbling and
mortifying of Pharaoh. In passing sentence upon great
criminals, it is usual to consult precedents, and to see
what has been done to others in the like case, which serves
both to direct and to justify the proceedings : Pharaoh
stands indicted at the bar of divine justice for his pride
and haughtiness, and the injuries he had done to God’s
people; Dut he thinks himself so high, so great, as not to
be accountable to any authority; so strong, and so well
guarded, as not to be conquerable by any force. The
prophet is therefore directed to make a report to him of the
case of the king of Assyria, whose head city was Nine¬
veh. 1. He must show him how great a monarch the
king of Assyria had been, what a vast empire he had,
what a mighty sway he bore; the king of Egypt, great
as he was, could not go beyond him, v. 3 . . 9. II. He
must then show him how like he was to the king of As¬
syria in pride and carnal security, v. 10. III. He must
next read him the history of the fall and ruin of the king
of Assyria, what a noise it made among the nations, and
what a warning it gave to all potent princes to take heed
of pride, v. 11 . . 17. IV. He must leave the king of
727
EZEKIEL, XXXI.
Egypt to apply all this to himself, to see his own face in
the looking-glass of the king of Assyria’s sin, and to
foresee his own fall through the perspective-glass of his
ruin, v. 18. '
I. k ND it came to pass in the eleventh
year, in the third month , in the first
day of the month, that the word of the Lord
came unto me, saying, 2. Son of man, speak
unto Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to his mul¬
titude; Whom art thou like in thy greatness?
3. Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Leba¬
non with fair branches, and with a shadow¬
ing shroud, and of a high stature ; and his
top was among the thick boughs. 4. The
waters made him great, the deep set him up
on high with her rivers running round about
his plants, and sent out her little rivers unto
all the trees of the field. 5. Therefore his
height was exalted above all the trees of the
field, and his boughs were multiplied, and his
branches became long, because of the mul¬
titude of waters, when he shot forth. 6. All
the fowls of heaven made their nests in his
boughs, and under his branches did all the
beasts of the field bring forth their young,
and under his shadow dwelt all great nations.
7. Thus was he fair in his greatness, in the
length of his branches: for his root was by
great waters. 8. The cedars in the garden
of God could not hide him : the fir-trees were
not like his boughs, and the chesnut-trees
were not like his branches ; nor any tree in
the garden of God was like unto him in his
beauty. 9. I have made him fair by the mul¬
titude of his branches : so that all the trees
of Eden, that were in the garden of God,
envied him.
This prophecy bears date the month before Jeru¬
salem was taken, as that in the close of the forego¬
ing chapter about four months before; when God’s
people were in the depth oi their distress, it would
be some comfort to them, as it would serve likewise
for a check to the pride and malice of their neigh¬
bours, that insulted over them, to be told from
heaven that the cup was going round, even the cup of
trembling, that it would shortly be taken out of the
hands of God’s people, and put into the hands of
those that hated them, Isa. li. 22, 23. In this pro-
pheev,
I. The prophet is directed to put Pharaoh upon
searching the records for a case parallel to his own;
(v. 2.) Speak to Pharaoh , and to his multitude, to
the multitude of his attendants, that contributed so
much to his magnificence, and the multitude of his
armies, that contributed so much to his strength;
these he was proud of, these he put a confidence in,
and they were as proud of him, and tmsted as much
in him. Now ask him, Whom art thou like in thy
greatness ? We are apt to judge of ourselves by com¬
parison. Those that think highly of themselves, fancy
themselves as great and as good as such and such,
that have been mightily celebrated. The flatterers of
princes tell them whom they equal in pomp and gran¬
deur; “Well,” says God, “let him pitch upon the
most famous potentate that ever was, and it shall be
allowed that he is like him in greatness, and no way
inferior to him; but let him pitch upon whom lie
will, he will find that his day came to fall; he will
see there was an end of all hit perfection, and must
therefore expect the end of his own in like manner.”
Note, The falls of others, both into sin and ruin, are
intended as admonitions to us not to be secure or
high-minded, or to think we stand out of danger.
II. He is directed to show him an instance of one
whom he resembled in greatness; and that was the
Assyrian, (y. 3.) whose monarchy had continued
from Nimrod. Sennacherib was one of the might'’
princes of that monarchy; but it sunk down soon afte,
him, and the monarchy of Nebuchadnezzar was built
upon its ruins, or rather grafted upon its stock. Let
us now see what a flourishing prince the king of
Assyria was. He is here compared to a stately
cedar, v. 3. The glory of the house of David is
illustrated by the same similitude, ch. xvii. 3. The
olive-tree, the fig-tree, and the vine, which were all
fruit-trees, had refused to be promoted over the
trees, because they would not leave their fruitfulness;
(Judg. ix. 8, &c. ) and therefore the choice falls
upon the cedar, that is stately and strong, and casts
a great shadow, but bears no fruit.
1. The Assyrian monarch was a tall cedar, such
as the cedars in Lebanon generally were, of a high
stature, and his top among the thick boughs; he was
attended by other princes that were tributaries to
him, and was surrounded by a life-guard of brave
men. He surpassed all the princes in his neighbour¬
hood, they were all shrubs to him; (u. 5.) His
height was exalted above all the trees of the field,
they were many of them very high, but he over¬
topped them all, v. 8. The cedars, even those in
the garden of Eden, where, we may suppose, they
were the best of the kind, would not hide him, but
his top branches outshot theirs.
2. He was a spreading cedar; his branches did
not only run up in height, but rmi out in breadth;
denoting that this mighty prince was not only ex¬
alted to great dignity and honour, and had a name
above the names of the great men of the earth, but
that he obtained great dominion and power; his ter¬
ritories were large, and he extended his conquests
far, and his influences much further. This cedar,
like a vine, sent forth his branches to the sea, to the
river, Ps. lxxx. 11. His boughs were multiplied,
his branches became long; (t>. 5. ) so that he had a
shadowing shroud, v. 3. This contributed very
much to his beauty, that he grew proportionably
large as well as high. He was fair in his greatness,
in the length of his branches, (v. 7.) very comely as
well as very statclv, fair by the multitude of his
branches, v. 9. His large dominions were well
managed, like a spreading tree that is kept in shape
and good order by the skill of the gardener, so as to
be very beautiful to the eye. His government was
as amiable in the eyes of wise men, as it was admira¬
ble in the eyes of all men. Th e fir-trees were not
like his boughs, so straight, so green, so regular;
nor were the branches of the chesnut-trees like his
branches, so thick, so spreading. In short, no tree
in the garden of God, in Eden, in Babylon, (for that
stood where paradise was planted,) there where
there was every tree that was pleasant to the sight,
(Gen. ii. 9.) there was none like to this cedar in
beauty; in all the nations about there was no prince
so much admired, so much courted, and which every
body was so much in love with, as the king of As¬
syria. Many of them did virtuously, but he excelled
them all, outshone them all. All the trees of Eden
envied him, v. 9. When they found they could not
compare with him, they were angry and grieved
that he so far outdid them, and secretly grudged him
the praise due to him. Note, It is the unhappiness
of those who in any thing excel others, that thereby
they make themselves the objects of envy; and who
can stand before envy ?
728
EZEKIEL, XXXI.
3. He was servictable, as far as a standing, grow¬
ing cedar could be, and that was only by his shadow;
(x\ 6.) All the fowls of heaven, some of all sorts,
made their nests in his boughs, where they were
sheltered from the injuries of the weather. The
beasts of the field put themselves under the protec¬
tion of his branches, there they were levant— rising
v/i, and couchant — lying down, there they brought
forth their young; for they had there a natural
covert from the heat and from the storm. The
meaning of all is, Under his shadow dwelt all great
nations; they all fled to him for safety, and were
willing to swear allegiance to him, if he would un¬
dertake to protect them; as travellers in a shower
come under thick trees for shelter. Note, Those
who have power, ought to use it for the protection
and comfort of those whom they have power over;
for to that end they are intrusted with power. Even
the bramble, if he be anointed king, invites the trees
to come, and trust in his shadow, Judg. ix. 15. But
the utmost security that any creature, even the king
of Assyria himself, can give, is but like the shadow
of a tree, which is but a scanty and slender protec¬
tion, and leaves a man many ways exposed. Let us
therefore flee to God for protection, and he will take
us under the shadow of his wings, where we shall
be warmer and safer than under the shadow of the
strongest and stateliest cedar, Ps. xvii. 8. — xci. 4.
4. He seemed to be settled and established in his
greatness and power. For, (1.) It was God that
myde him fair, v. 9. For by him kings reign: he
was comely with the comeliness that God put upon
him. Note, God’s hand must be eyed and owned
in the advancement of the great men of the earth;
and therefore we must not envy them : yet tliat will not
secure the continuance of their prosperity; for he
that gave them their beauty, if they be deprived of
it, knows how to turn it into deformity. (2.) He
seemed to have a good bottom; this cedar was not
like the heath in the desert, made to inhabit the
parched places, (Jer. xvii. 6. ) it was not a root in a
dry ground, Isa. liii. 2. No, he had abundance of
wealth to support his power and grandeur; ( v . 4.)
The waters made him great; he had vast treasures,
large stores and magazines, which were as the deep
that set him up on high, constant revenues coming in
by taxes, customs, and crown-rents, which were as
rivers running rowid about his plants; these enabled
him to strengthen and secure his interests every
where, for he sent out his little rivers, or conduits, to
all the trees of the field, to water them, and when
t hey had maintenance from the king’s palace, (Ezra
iv. 14.) and their country was nourished by the
king’s country, (Acts xii. 20.) they would be ser¬
viceable and faithful to him. Those that have
wealth flowing upon them in great rivers, find them¬
selves obliged to send it out again in little rivers; for,
as goods are increased, they are increased that eat
them, and the more men have, the more occasion
they have for it; yea, and still the more they have
occasion for. The branches of this cedar became
long because of the multitude of waters, which fed
them, {v. 5. and v. 7.) his root was by great waters,
which seems to secure it that its leaf should never
wither, (Ps. i. 3.) that it should not see when heat
comes, Jer. xvii. 8. Note, Worldly people may
seem to have an established prosperity, yet it only
seems so, Job v. 3. Ps. xxxvii. 35.
10. Therefore thus saith the Lord God,
Because thou hast lifted up thyself in height,
and he hath shot up his top among the thick
boughs, and his heart is lifted up in his height;
1 1. I have, therefore, delivered him into the
Hand of the mighty one of the heathen ; he
shall surely deal with him : I have driven
him out for his wickedness. 1 2. And stran¬
gers, the terrible of the nations, have cut him
off, and have left him: upon the mountains and
in the valleys his branches are fallen, and
his boughs are broken by all the rivers of the
land ; and all the people of the earth are gone
down from his shadow, and have left him.
13. Upon his ruin shall all the fowls of the
heaven remain, and all the beasts of the field
shall be upon his branches: 14. To the end
that none of all the trees by the waters exalt
themselves for their height, neither shoot up
their top among the thick boughs, neither
their trees stand up in their height, all that
drink water: for they are all delivered unto
death, to the nether parts of the earth, in
the midst of the children of men, with them
that go down to the pit. 1 5. Thus saith the
Lord God, In the day when he went down
to the grave I caused a mourning: I covered
the deep for him, and I restrained the floods
thereof, and the great waters were stayed ;
and I caused Lebanon to mourn for him,
and all the trees of the field fainted for him.
1 6. I made the nations to shake at the sound
of his fall, when I cast him down to hell with
them that descend into the pit : and all the
trees of Eden, the choice and best of Leba¬
non, all that drink water, shall be comforted
in the nether parts of the earth. 17. They
also went down into hell with him, unto
them, that be slain with the sword ; and they
that were his arm, that dwelt under his
shadow in the midst of the heathen. 18. To
whom art thou thus like in glory and in great¬
ness among the trees of Eden? yet shalt
thou be brought down with the trees of
Eden unto the nether parts of the earth:
thou shalt lie in the midst of the uncircum¬
cised with them, that be slain by the sword.
This is Pharaoh, and all his multitude, saith
the Lord God. I
W e have seen the king of Egypt resembling the
king of Syria in pomp and power and prosperity,
how like he was to him in his greatness; now here
we see,
1. How he does likewise resemble him in his
pride; (v. 10. ) for as face answers to face in a glass,
so does one corrupt, carnal heart to another; and
the same temptations of a prosperous state by which
some are overcome, are fatal to many others too.
Thou, O king of Egypt, hast lifted up thyself hi
height, hast been proud of thy wealth and power,
ch. xxix. 3. And just so, he, the king of Assyria,
when he had shot up his top among the thick boughs,
his heart was immediately lifted up in his height,
and he grew insolent and imperious, set God him¬
self at defiance, and trampled upon his people; wit¬
ness the messages and letter which the great king,
the king of Assyria, sent to Hezekiah, Isa. xxxvi. 4
How haughtily does he speak of himself and his
own achievements, how scornfully of that great and
good man! There were other sins in which the
Egyptians and the Assyrians did concur, particu-
EZEKIEL, XXXI. . :*)
larly that of oppressing God’s people; it is charged
upon them both together, (Isa. lii. 4.) but here that
sin is run up to its cause, and that was, pride; for
it is the contempt of the proud that they are filled
•with. Note, When men’s outward condition rises,
their minds commonly rise with it. And it is very
rare to find an humble spirit in the midst of great
advancements.
II. How he shall therefore resemble him in his
fall; and for the opening of this part of the compa¬
rison,
1. Here is a history of the fall of the king of As¬
syria. For his part, says God, (n. 1\.) I hax<e there¬
fore, because he was thus lifted up, delivered him
into the hand of the mighty one of the heathen. Cy-
axares, king of the Medes, in the 26th year of his
reign, in conjunction with Nebuchadnezzar king of
Babylon, in the 1st year of his reign, destroyed Ni¬
neveh, and with it the Assyrian empire. Nebuchad¬
nezzar, though he was not then, yet afterwards be¬
came, very emphatically, the mighty one of the
heathen; most mighty among them; and most mighty
over them, to prevail against them. (1.) It is God
himself that orders his ruin; I have delivered him
into the hand of the executioner; I have driven him
out. Note, God is the Judge, who puts down one,
and sets up another, Ps. lxxv. 7. And when he
pleases, he can extirpate and expel those who think
themselves, and seem to others, to have taken deep¬
est root. And the mightiest ones of the heathens
could not gain their point against those they con¬
tended with, if the Almighty did not himself deliver
them into their hands. (2.) It is his own sin that pro¬
cures his ruin; I have driven him out for his wicked¬
ness. None are driven out from their honour,
power, and possessions, but it is for their wickedness.
None of our comforts are ever lost, but what have
been a thousand times forfeited. If the wicked are
driven away, it is in their wickedness. (3.) It is a
mighty one of the heathen that shall be the instru¬
ment of his ruin. For God often employs one wicked
man in punishing another. He shall surely deal with
him, shall know how to manage him, great as he is.
Note, Proud, imperious men will, sooner or later,
meet with their match.
Now, in this history of the fall of the Assyrian,
observe,
[1.] A continuation of the similitude of the cedar.
He grew very high, and extended his boughs very
far; but his day comes to fall. First, This stately
cedar was cropped; the terrible of the nations cut
him off; soldiers, who, being both armed and com¬
missioned to kill and slay and destroy, may well be
reckoned among the terrible of the nations; they
have lopped off his branches first; have seized upon
some parts of his dominion, and forced them out of
his hands; so that in all mountains and valleys of
the nations about, in the high-lands and low-lands,
and by all the rivers, there were cities or countries
that were broken off from the Assyrian monarchy,
that had been subject to it, but were either revolted
or recovered from it. Its feathers were borrowed;
and when every bird had fetched back its own, it
was naked like the stump of a tree. Secondly, It
was deserted; All the people of the earth, that had
fled to him for shelter, are gone down from his
shadow, and have left him. When he was disabled
to give them protection, they thought they no longer
owed him allegiance. Let not great men be proud
of the number of those that attend them, and have
a dependence upon them, it is only for what they
can get; when Providence frowns upon them, their
retinue is soon dispersed and scattered from them.
Thirdly, It was insulted over, and its fall triumphed
in; ( v . 13.) Upon his ruin shall all the fowls of the
heaven remain, to tread upon the broken branches
of this cedar. Its fall is triumphed in by the other
VOL. IY. — 4 Z
trees, who were angry to sec themselves over-stript
so much; All the trees of Eden, that were cut down
and fallen before him, all that drank water of the
rain of heaven, as the stump of the tree, that is left
in the south, is said to beiwv with the dew of heave n,
(Dan. i v. 23. ) and to bud through the scent of water;
(Job xiv. 9. ) all these shall be comforted in the nether
parts of the earth, when they see this proud cedar
brought as low as themselves. Solamen miseris
socios habuisse doloris — To have companions in wo
is a solace to those who suffer. But, on the contrary,
the trees of Lebanon, that are yet standing in their
height and strength, mourned for him, and the trees
of the field fainted for him, because they could not
but read their own destiny in his fall. Howl, fir-
trees, if the cedar be shaken, for they cannot expect
to stand long, Zech. xi. 2.
[2.] An explanation of the similitude of the cedar.
By the cutting down of this cedar is signified the
slaughter of this mighty monarch and all his adhe¬
rents and supporters; they are all delivered to death,
to fall by the sword, as the cedar by the axe: he
and his princes, who, he said, were altogether kings,
go down to the grave, to the nether parts of the
earth, in the midst of the children of men, as common
persons of no quality or distinction; they die like
men, (Ps. lxxxii. 7.) they were carried away with
them that go down to the pit, and their pomp did
neither protect them nor descend after them. Again,
( v . 16.) He was cast down to hell with them that de¬
scend into the pit; he went into the state of the dead,
and was buried as others are, in obscurity and obli¬
vion. Again, (v. 17.) They all that were his arm,
on whom he stayed, by whom he acted, and exerted
his power, all that dwelt tinder his shadow, his sub¬
jects and allies, and all that had any dependence on
him, they all went down into ruin, down into the
grave with him, unto them that were slain with the
sword, to those that were cut off by untimely deaths
before them, under the load of guilt and shame.
When great men fall, a great many fall with them,
as a great many in like manner have fallen before
them.
[3.] What God designed, and aimed at, in bring¬
ing down this mighty monarch and his monarchy.
He designed thereby, First, To give an alarm to
the nations about; to put them all to a stand, to put
them all to a gaze; (v. 16.) I made the nations to
shake at the sound of his fall; they were all struck
with astonishment to see so mighty a prince brought
down thus; it gave a shock to all their confidences,
every one thinking his turn would be next. Jl'hen
he %went down to the grave, (v. 15.) I caused a
mourning, a general lamentation, as" the whole
kingdom goes into mourning at the death of the king;
in token of this general grief, I covered the deep for
him, put that into black, gave a stop to business, in
complaisance to this universal mourning; I re¬
strained the floods, and the great waters were stayed,
that they might run in another channel, that of la¬
mentation. Lebanon particularly, the kingdom of
Syria, that was sometimes in confederacy with the
Assyrian, mourned for him; as the allies of Baby¬
lon, Rev. xviii. 9. Secondly, To give an admoni¬
tion to the nations about, and to their kings; (i>. 14’.)
To the end that none of all the trees by the waters,
though ever so advantageously situated, may exalt
themselves for their height, may be proud and con¬
ceited of themselves, and shoot up their top among
the thick boughs, looking disdainfully upon others,
nor stand upon themselves for their height, confid¬
ing in their own policies and powers, as they could
never be brought down. Let them all take warning
by the Assyrian, for he once held up his head as
high, and thought he kept his footing as firm, as any
of them; but his pride went before his destruction,
and his confidence failed him. Note, The fall of
730
EZEKIEL, XXXII.
proud, presumptuous men is intended for warning
to others to keep humble. It had been well for N e-
buchadnezzar, who was himself active in bringing
down the Assyrian, if he had taken the admonition.
2. Here is a prophecy of the fall of the king of
Egypt in like manner, v. 18. He thought him¬
self like the Assyrian in glory and greatness, over¬
topping all the trees of Eden, as the cypress does the
shrubs; but thou also shall be brought down, with
the other trees that are pleasant to the sight, as those
in Eden. Thou shalt be brought to the grave, to
the nether or lower parts of the earth, thou shalt lie
in the midst of the uncircumcised, that die in their
uncleanness, die ingloriously, die under a curse, and
at a distance from God; then shall those whom he
has trampled upon, triumph over him, saying,
“ This is Pharaoh and all his multitude. See how
mean -he looks, how low he lies; see what all his
pomp and pride are come to; here is all that is left
of him.” Note, Great men, and great multitudes,
with the great figure and great noise they make in
the world, when God comes to contend with them,
will soon become little, less than nothing; such as
■ Pharaoh and all his multitude.
CHAP. XXXII.
Still we are upon the destruction of Pharaoh and Egypt ;
which is wonderfully enlarged upon, and with a great
deal of emphasis. When we read so very much of Egypt’s
ruin, no less than six several prophecies at divers times
delivered concerning it, we are ready to think, Surely
there is some special reason for it. And, I. Perhaps it
may look as far hack as the book of Genesis, where we
find (ch. xv. 14.) that God determined to judge Egypt
for oppressing his people; and though that was in part
fulfilled in the plagues of Egypt, and the drowning of
Pharaoh, yet, in this destruction here foretold, those old
scores were reckoned for, and that was to have its full
accomplishment. II. Perhaps it may look as far forward
as the book of the Revelation, where we find that the
great, enemy of the gospel-church, that makes war with
the Lamb, is spiritually called Egypt , Rev. xi. 8. And if
so, the destruction of Egypt and its Pharaoh was a type
of the destruction of that proud enemy; and betwixt this
prophecy of the ruin of Egypt and the prophecy of the
destruction of the antichristian generation there is some
analogy. We have two distinct prophecies in this chap¬
ter, relating to Egypt, both in the same month, one on
the first day, the other that day fortnight, probably both
on the sabbath-day. They are both lamentations, not only
to signify how lamentable the fall of Egypt, should be, but
to intimate how much the prophet himself should lament
it, from a generous principle of love to mankind. The
destruction of Egypt is here represented under two si¬
militudes; t. The killing of a lion, or a whale, or some
such devouring creature, v. 1 . . 16. 2. The funeral of a
great commander or captain-general, v. 17. .32. Jhe
two prophecies of this chapter are much of the same
length.
1. A ND it came to pass in (lie twelfth
l\. year, in the twelfth month, in the
first day of the month, that the word of the
Lord came unto me, saying, 2. Son of
man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh
king of Egypt, and say unto him, Thou art
like a young lion of the nations, and thou
art as a whale in the seas ; and thou earnest
forth with thy rivers, and troubledst the wa¬
ters with thy feet, and fouledst the rivers.
3. Thus saith the Lord God, I will, there¬
fore, spread out my net over thee with a
company of many people; and they shall
bring thee up in my net. 4. Then will I
leave thee upon the land, I will cast thee
forth upon the open field, and will cause all
the fowls of the heaven to remain upon thee, |
and I will fill the beasts of the whole earth
with thee. 5. And I will lay thy flesh upon
the mountains, and fill the valleys with thy
height. 6. I will also water with thy blood
the land wherein thou swimmest, even to the
mountains; and the rivers shall be full ot
thee. 7. And when 1 shall put thee out, I
will cover the heaven, and make the stars
thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a
cloud, and the moon shall not give her light.
8. All the bright lights of heaven vviil I
make dark over thee, and set darkness upon
thy land, saith the Lord God. 9. I will also
vex the hearts of many people, when I shall
bring thy destruction among the nations,
into the countries which thou hast not
known. 10. Yea, I will make many people
amazed at thee, and their kings shall be
horribly afraid for thee, when I shall bran¬
dish my sword before them ; and they shall
tremble at every moment, every man for his
own life, in the day of thy fall. 1 1 . F or thus
saith the Lord God, The sword of the king
of Babylon shall come upon thee. 12. By
the swords of the mighty will I cause thy
multitude to fall, the terrible of the nations,
all of them; and they shall spoil the pomp
of Egypt, and all the multitude thereof shall
be destroyed. 13. I will destroy also all
the beasts thereof from beside the great wa¬
ters; neither shall the foot of man trouble
them any more, nor the hoofs of beasts trou¬
ble them. 1 4. Then will I make their waters
deep, and cause their rivers to run like oil,
saith the Lord God. 15. When I shall
make the land of Egypt desolate, and the
country shall be destitute of that whereof it
was full, when I shall smite all them that
dwell therein, then shall they know that 1
am the Lord. 16. This A the lamentation
wherewith they shall lament her: the daugh¬
ters of the nations shall lament her; they
shall lament for her, even for Egypt, and for
all her multitude, saith the Lord God.
Here,
I. The prophet is ordered to take up a lamenta¬
tion for Pharaoh king ofEgy/it, v. 2. It concerns
ministers to be much of a serious spirit, and, in order
thereunto, to be frequent in taking up lamentations
for the fall and ruin of sinners, as those that have not
desired, but dreaded the woful day. Note, Minis¬
ters that would affect others with the things of God,
must make it appear that they are themselves af¬
fected with the miseries which sinners bring upon
themselves by their sins. It becomes us to weep and
tremble for those that will not weep and tremble for
themselves, to try if thereby we may set them a
weeping, set them a trembling.
II. He is ordered to show cause for that lamenta
tion.
1. Pharaoh has been a troubler of the nations,
even of his own nation, which he should have pro¬
cured the repose of. He is like a young lion of
the nations, (v. 2.) loud and noisy, hectoring and
EZEKIEL, XXXU .
731
threatening, as a lion when lie roars. Great poten¬
tates, if they be tyrannical and oppressive, are, in
God’s account, no better than beasts of prey. He is
like a whale, or dragon, like a crocodile (so some)
in the seas, very turbulent and vexatious, as the
leviathan that makes the deefi to boil like a pot , Job
xli. 31. When Pharaoh engaged in an unnecessary
war with the Cyrcnians, he came forth with his
rivers, with his armies, troubled the waters, dis¬
turbed his own kingdom, and the neighbouring na¬
tions, fouled the rivers, and made them muddy.
Note, A great deal of disquiet is often given to the
world by the restless ambition and implacable re¬
sentments of proud princes. Ahab is he that trou¬
bles Israel, and not Elijah.
2. He that has troubled others, must expect to
lie himself troubled; for the Lord is righteous,
Josh. vii. 25.
(1.) This is set forth hereby a comparison. Is
Pharaoh like a great whale, which, when it comes
up the river, gives great disturbance, a leviathan
which Job cannot draw out with a hook? (Job xli.
1.) Yet God has a net for him, which is large
enough to enclose him, and strong enough to secure
him; (y. 3.) I will s/iread my net over thee, even
the army of the Chaldeans, a company of many
people; they shall force him out of his fastnesses,
dislodge him out of his possessions, throw him like
a great fish upon dry ground, upon the open field,
(t>. 4. ) where, being out of his element, he must die
of course, and be a prey to the birds and beasts, as
was foretold, eh. xxix. 5. What can the strongest
fish do to help itself, when it is out of the water,
and lies gasping? The flesh of this great whale
shall be laid upon the mountains, (y. 5.) and the
valleys shall be filled with his height. Such num¬
bers of Pharaoh’s soldiers shall be slain, that the
dead bodies shall be scattered upon the hills, and
there shall be heaps of them piled up in the valleys.
Blood shall be shed in such abundance as to swell
the rivers in the valleys. Or, Such shall be the
bulk, such the height, of this leviathan, that,
when he is laid upon the ground, he shall fill a val¬
ley. Such vast quantities of blood shall issue from
this leviathan, as shall water the land of Egypt,
the land wherein now he swims, now he sports
himself, v. 6. It shall reach to the mountains, and
the waters of Egypt shall again be turned into
blood, by this means; The rivers shall be full of
thee. The judgments executed upon Pharaoh of
old are expressed by the breaking of the head of
leviathan in the waters, Ps. lxxiv. 13, 14. But
now they go further; this old serpent not only has
now his head bruised, but is all crushed to pieces.
(2.) It is set forth by a prophecy of the deep im¬
pressions which the destruction of Egypt should
make upon the neighbouring nations; it would put
them all into a consternation, as the fall of the
Assyrian monarchy did, ch. xxxi. 15, 16. When
Pharaoh, who had been like a blazing, burning
torch, is put out and extinguished, it shall make all
about him look black, v. 7. The heavens shall be
hung with black, the stars darkened, the sun eclipsed,
and the moon be deprived of her borrowed light. It is
from the upper world that this lower world receives
its light; and therefore, ( v . 8.) when the bright
lights of heaven are made dark above, darkness by
consequence is set upon the land, upon the earth;
so it shall be on the land of Egypt. Here the
plague of darkness, which was upon Egypt of old
for three days, seems to be alluded to, as, before,
the turning of the waters into blood. For when
former judgments are forgotten, it is just that they
should be repeated. When their privy-counsellors,
and statesmen, and those that have the direction of
the public affairs, are deprived of wisdom, and
made fools, and the things that lylong to their peace
arc hid from then eyes, I hen their lights are dark¬
ened, and the land is in a mist. This is foretold,
Isa. xix. 13. The princes ofZoan are become fools.
Now upon the spreading of the report of the fall
of Egypt, and the bringing of the news to remote
countries, countries which they had not known, (i>.
9.) people shall be much affected, and shall feel
themselves sensibly touched by it. [1.] It shall fill
them with vexation to see such an ancient, wealthy,
potent kingdom thus humbled and brought down,
and the pride of worldly glory, which they have
such a value for, stained. The hearts of many peo¬
ple will be vexed to see the word ot the God of
Israel fulfilled in the destruction of Egypt, and that
all the gods of Egypt were not able to relieve it.
Note, The destruction of some wicked people is a
vexation to others. [2.] It shall fill them with ad
miration; (y. 10.) ri hey shall be amazed at thee,
shall wonder to see so great riches and power come
to nothing. Rev. xviii. 17. Note, They that ad¬
mire with complacency the pomp of this world,
will admire with consternation the ruin of that
pomp; which to those that know the vanity of all
things here below is no surprise at all. [3.] It shall
fill them with fear; Even their kings (that think it
their prerogative to be secure) shall be horribly
afraid for thee, concluding their own house to be
in danger, when their neighbour’s is on fire. When
I shall brandish my sword before them, they shall
tremble every man for his own life. Note, When
the sword of God’s justice is drawn against some,
to cut them off, it is thereby brandished before others,
to give them warning. And those that will not be
admonished by it, and made to reform, shall yet be
frightened by it, and made to tremble. They shall
tremble at every moment, because of thy fall.
When others are ruined by sin, we have reason to
quake for fear, as knowing ourselves guilty and ob¬
noxious. Who is able to stand before this holy Lord
God ?
(3.) It is set forth by a plain and express predic¬
tion of the desolation itself that should come upon
Egypt.
[1.] The instruments of the desolation appear
here very formidable. It is the sword of the king
of Babylon, that warlike, that victorious prince,
that shall come upon thee; {y. 11.) the swords of
the mighty, even the terrible of the nations, all of
them, (y. 12.) an army that there is no standing be¬
fore. Note, Those that delight in war, and are
upon all occasions entering into contention, may ex¬
pect, some time or other, to be engaged with those
that will prove too hard for them. Pharaoh had
been forward to quarrel with his neighbour, and to
come forth with his rivers, with his armies, v. 2.
But God will now give him enough of it.
[2.] The instances of the desolation appear here
very frightful; much the same with what we had
before, ch. xxix. 10. — 12. ch. xxx. 7. First, The
multitude of Egypt shall be destroyed; not deci¬
mated, some picked out to be made examples, but
all cut. off. Note, The numbers of sinners, though
they be a multitude, will neither secure them
against God’s power, nor entitle them to his pity.
Secondly, The pomp of Egypt shall be spoiled;
the pomp of their court, what they have been
proud of. Note, In renouncing the pomps of this
world we did ourselves a great kindness, for they
are things that are soon spoiled, and that cheat their
admirers. Thirdly, The cattle of Egypt, that used
to feed by the rivers, shall be destroyed, {v. 13.)
either cut off by the sword, or carried off for a
prey. Egypt was famous for horses, which would
be an acceptable booty to the Chaldeans. The
rivers shall be no more frequented as they’ have
been by man and beast, that came thither to drink.
Fourthly, The waters of Egypt, that used to flow
732
briskly, shall now grow deep and 6low and heavy,
and shall run like oil, (v. 14.) a figurative expres¬
sion signifying that there should be such universal
•adness and heaviness upon the whole nation, that
even the rivers should go softly and silently like
mourners, and quite forget their rapid motion.
Fifthly, The whole country of Egypt shall be
stripped of its wealth; it shall be destitute of that
whereof it was full, (v. IS.) corn and cattle, and
all the pleasant fruits of the earth; when those are
smitten that dwell therein, the ground is unfilled,
and that which is gathered becomes an easy prey
to the invader. Note, God can soon empty those
of this world’s goods that have the greatest fulness
of those things, and are full of them; that enjoy
most, and have their hearts set upon those enjoy¬
ments. The Egyptians were full of their pleasant
and plentiful country, and its rich productions.
Every one that talked with them might perceive
how much it filled them. But God can soon make
their country destitute of that whereof it is full; it
is therefore our wisdom to be full of treasures hi
heaven. When the country is made destitute, 1.
It shall be an instruction to them; Then shall they
know that I am the Ford. A sensible conviction of
the vanitv of the world, and the fading, perishing
nature of* all things in it, will contribute much to
our right knowledge of God as our Portion and
Happiness. 2. It shall be a lamentation to all about
them; The daughters of the nations shall lamlnt
her, (y. 16.) either because, being in alliance with
her, they share in her grievances, and suffer with
her; or, being admirers of her, they at least share
in her grief, and sympathize with her. They shall
lament for Egypt and all her multitude; it shall
excite their pity to see so great a devastation made.
By enlarging the matters of our joy we increase the
occasions of our sorrow.
17. It came to pass also in the twelfth
year, in the fifteenth day of the month, that
the word of the Lord came unto me, say¬
ing, 1 8. Son of man, wail for the multi¬
tude of Egypt, and cast them down, even
her, and the daughters of the famous na¬
tions, unto the nether parts of the earth,
with them that go down into the pit. 1 9.
Whom dost thou pass in beauty? go down,
and be thou laid with the uncircumcised.
20. They shall fall in the midst of them that
are slain by the sword; she is delivered to
the sword: draw her and all her multitudes.
21. The strong among the mighty shall
speak to him out of the midst of hell with
them that help him: they are gone down,
they lie uncircumcised, slain by the sword.
22. Asshur is there, and all her company:
his graves are about him; all of them slain,
fallen by the sword : 23. Whose graves are
set in the sides of the pit, and her company
is round about her grave; all of them slain,
fallen by the sword, which caused terror in
the land of the living. 24. There is Elam,
and all her multitude round about her
grave; all of them "slain, fallen by the
sword, which are gone down uncircumcised
into the nether parts of the earth, which
caused their terror in the land of the living;
yet have they borne their shame with them
,, XXXII.
that go down to the pit. 25. They have set
her a bed in the midst of the slain with all
her multitudes: her graves are round about
him; all of them uncircumcised, slain by
the sword: though their terror was caused
in the land of the living, yet have they
borne their shame with them that go down
to the pit: he is put in the midst of them
that be slain. 26. There is Meshech, Tu¬
bal, and all her multitude: her graves art
round about him; all of them uncircum¬
cised, slain by the sword, though they caus¬
ed their terror in the land of the living.
27. And they shall not lie with the mighty
that are fallen of the uncircumcised, which
are gone down to hell with their weapons
of war; and they have laid their swords
under their heads; but their iniquities shall
be upon their bones, though they were the
terror of the mighty in the land of the living.
28. Yea, thou shalt be broken in the midst
of the uncircumcised, and shalt lie with
them that are slain with the sword. 29.
There is Edom, her kings, and all her prin¬
ces, which with their might are laid by
them that were slain by the sword: they
shall lie with the uncircumcised, and with
them that go down to the pit. 30. There
be the princes of the north, all of them, and
all the Zidonians, which are gone down
with the slain ; with their terror they are
ashamed of their might; and they lie uncir¬
cumcised with them that be slain by the
sword, and bear their shame with them that
go down to the pit. 31. Pharaoh shall see
them, and shall be comforted over all his
multitude, even Pharaoh and all his army
slain by the sword, saith the Lord God.
32. For I have caused my terror in the
land of the living: and he shall be laid in
the midst of the uncircumcised with them
that are slain with the sword, even Pharaoh,
and all his multitude, saith the Lord God.
This prophecy concludes and completes the bur¬
then of Egypt, and leaves it and all its multitude in
the pit of destruction. We are here invited to at¬
tend the funeral of that once flourishing kingdom,
to lament its fall, and to take a view of those who
attend it to the grave, and accompany it in the
grave. This dead corpse of a kingdom is here,
I. Brought to the grave. The prophet is ordered
to cast them down to the pit, (x\ 18.) to foretell it as
one that had authority, as Jeremiah was set over
the kingdoms, Jer. i. 10. He must speak in God’s
name, and as from him who will cast them down.
Yet he must foretell it as one that had an affection¬
ate concern {or them; he must wail for the multi¬
tude of Egypt, even when he casts them down.
When Egypt is slain, let her have an honourable
funeral, befitting her quality; let her be. buried
with the daughters of the famous nations, in their
burying-places, and with the same ceremony; it is
but a poor allay to the reproach and terror of death,
to be buried with those that were famous; yet this
733
EZEKIEL, XXXII.
5 all that is allowed to Egypt. Shall Egypt think
o exempt herself from the common fate of proud
’and imperious nations? No, she must take her lot
with them; (i.\ 19.) “ Whom dost thou pass in
beauty ? Art thou so much fairer than any other
nation, that thou shouldest expect therefore to be
excused? No, others, as fair as thou, are sunk into
the pit; go down therefore, and be thou laid with
the uncircumcised. Thou art like them, and must
lie among them; the multitude of Egypt shall all
fall in the midst of them that are slain with the
sword, now that there is a general slaughter made
among the nations.” Egypt with the rest must
drink of the bloody cup, and therefore she is delivered
to the sword, to the sword of war, (but, in God’s
hand, the sword of justice,) is delivered to be pub¬
licly executed. Draw her and all her multitude;
either draw them as the dead bodies of great men
are drawn in honour to the grave, in a hearse; or, as
malefactors are drawn in disgrace to the place of
execution, on a sledge; draw them to the pit, and
let them be made a spectacle to the world.
II. This corpse of a kingdom is bid welcome to
the grave, and Pharaoh is made free of the con¬
gregation of the dead, and admitted into their re¬
gions, not without some pomp and ceremony, as the
surprising fall of the king of Babylon is illustrated,
Hell from beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at
thy coming, and to introduce thee into those man¬
sions of darkness, Isa, xiv. 9, &c. so here, ( v . 21.)
They shall speak to him out of the midst of hell, as
it were congratulating his arrival, and calling him
to join with them, in acknowledging that which
neither he nor they would be brought to own when
they were in their pomp and pride, that it is in vain
to think of contesting with God, and none ever
hardened their hearts against him, and prospered.
They shall sav to him, and to him that pretended
to help him, Where are you now? What have you
brought your attempts to at last?
Divers nations are here mentioned as gone down
to the grave before Egypt, that are ready to give
her a scornful reception, and upbraid her with
coming to them at last; these nations here spoken
of, probably, were such as had been of late years
mined and wasted by the king of Babylon, and
their princes cut off ;' let Egypt know that she has
neighbour’s fare. When she goes to the grave, she
does but migrare ad p lures — migrate to the majori¬
ty; there are innumerable before her. But it is ob¬
servable that though Judah and Jerusalem were just
about this time, or a little before, utterly mined and
laid waste, yet they are not mentioned here among
the nations that welcome Egypt to the pit; for
though they suffered the same things that these
nations suffered, and by the same hand, yet the
kind intentions of their affliction, and its happy issue
at last, and the mercy God had yet in reserve for
them, altered the property of it; it was not to them
a going down to the pit, as it was to the heathen;
they were not smitten as others were, nor slain ac¬
cording to the slaughter of other nations, Isa. xxvii.
7. But let us see who they are, that are gone to the
grave before Egypt, that lie uncircumcised, slain
by the sword, with whom she must now take up
her lodging.
1. There lie the Assyrian empire, and all the
princes and mighty men of that monarchy; (y. 22.)
Ashur is there, and all her company; all the coun¬
tries that were tributaries to, and had dependence
upon, that crown. That mighty potentate, who
used to lie in state, with his guards and grandees
about him, now lies in obscurity, with his graves
about him, and his soldiers in them, unable any
longer to do him service or honour; they are all of
them slain; fallen by the sword; the number of
their months was cut ofT in the midst, and, being
bloody and deceitful men, they were not suffered
to live out half their days. Their graves were set
in the sides of the pit, all in a row, like beds in a
common chamber, v. 23. All their company is
such, as were slain, fallen by the sword; a vast con¬
gregation of such who had caused terror in the land
of the living: but as the death cf those to whom they
were a terror put an end to their fears, (in the grave
the prisoners rest together, and hear not the voice of
the oppressor, Job iii. 18. ) so the death of these mighty
men puts an end to their terrors; who is afraid of
a dead lion? Note, Death will be a king of terrors
to those who, instead of making themselves bless¬
ings, made themselves terrqrs, in their generation.
2. There lies the kingdom of Persia, which, per¬
haps, within the memory of man at that time, had
been wasted and brought down; There is Elam and
all her multitude, the king of Elam and his nu¬
merous armies, v. 24, 25. They also had caused
their terror in the land of the living, had made a
fearful noise and bluster among the nations in their
day. But Elam has now a grave by herself, and
the graves of the common people round about her,
fallen by the sword; she has her bed iti the midst
of the slain, that went down vrr.ircumcised, un¬
sanctified, unholy, and not in covenant with God.
They have borne their shame with them that go
down to the pit; they are fallen under the common
disgrace and mortification of iffcinkind, that they
die and are buried; nay, they die under particular
marks of ignominy, which God and man put upon
them. Note, They who cause their terror shall,
sooner or later, bear their shame, and be made a ter¬
ror to themselves. The king of Elam is put in the
midst of them that are slain. All the honour he can
now pretend to is, to be buried in the chief sepulchre.
3. There lies the Scythian power, which, about
this time, was busy in the world. Meshech and
Tubal, those barbarous northern nations, had lately
made a descent upon the Medes, and caused their
terror among them, lived among them upon free
quarter for some years, making every thing their
own that they could lay their hands on; but, at
length, Cyaxares, king of the Medes, drew them
by a wile into his power, cut off abundance of them,
and obliged them to quit his country, v. 26. There
lie Meshech and Tubal, and all their multitude;
there is a burying-place for them, with their chief
commander in the midst of them, all of them uncir¬
cumcised, slain by the sword. These Scythians,
dying ingloriously as they lived, are not laid, as the
other nations spoken of before, in the bed of ho¬
nour; ( v . 27.) They shall not lie with the mighty,
shall not be buried in state, as those are, even by
consent of the enemy, that are slain in the field of
battle, that go down to their graves with their wea¬
pons of war carried before the hearse, or trailed
after it, that have particularly their swords laid
under their heads, as if they could sleep the sweeter
in the grave when they laid their heads on such a
pillow; these Scythians are not buried with these
marks of honour, but their iniquities shall be upon
their sons; they shall, for their iniquity, be left un¬
buried; though they were the terror even of the
mighty in the land of the living.
4. There lies the kingdom of Edom, which had
flourished long, but, about this time, at least before
the destruction of Egypt, was made quite desolate,
as was foretold, ch. xxv. 13. Among the sepulchres
of the nations, there is Edom, v. 29. There lie,
not dignified with monuments or inscriptions, but
mingled with common dust, her kings and all her
princes, her wise statesmen, (which Edom was
famous for,) and her brave soldiers; these with their
might are laid by them that were slain by the sword;
their might could not prevent it, nay, their might
helped to procure it, for that both encouraged them
734
EZEKIEL, XXXIIL
to engage in war, and incensed their neighbours
against them, who thought it necessary to curb
their growing greatness. A deal of pains they took
to ruin themselves, as many do, who, with their
might, with all their might, are laid by them that
were slain with the sword. The Edomites retained
circumcision, being of the seed of Abraham. But
that shall stand them in no stead, they shall lie with
the uncircumcised.
5. There lie the princes of the north, and all the
Zidonians. These were as well acquainted with
maritime affairs as the Egyptians were, who relied
much upon that part of their strength, but they are
gone down with the slain , (i>. 30.) down to the pit.
Now they are ashamed of their might, ashamed to
think how much they boasted of it, and trusted to
it; and, as the Edomites with their might, so these
with their terror, are laid with them that are slain
by the sword, and are forced to take their lot with
them. They bear their shame with them that go
down to the pit, die in as much disgrace as those
that are cut off by the hand of public justice.
Lastly, All this is applied to Pharaoh and the
Egyptians, who have no reason to flatter themselves
with hopes of tranquillity, when they see how the
wisest, and wealthiest, and strongest of their neigh¬
bours have been laid waste; (v. 28.) “ Yea, thou
sha/t be broken in Pie midst of the uncircumcised;
when God is pulling down the unhumbled and un¬
reformed nations, thou must expect to come down
with them.” (1.) It will be some extenuation of
the miseries of Egypt, to observe that it has been
the case of so many great and mighty nations be¬
fore; (x>. 31.) Pharaoh shall see them, and be com¬
forted; it will be some ease to his mind, that he is
iiot the first king that has been slain in battle; his
not the first army that has been routed; his not the
first kingdom that has been made desolate. Mr.
Greenhill observes here, “ The comfort which
wicked ones have after death, is poor comfort, not
real, but imaginary.” They will find little satis¬
faction in having so many fellow-sufferers; the rich
man in hell dreaded it. It is only in point of ho¬
nour that Pharaoh can see, and be comforted. (2.)
But nothing will be an exemption from these mise¬
ries; for (v. 32.) I have caused my terror in the
land of the living. Great men have caused their
terror, have studied how to make every body fear
them, Oderint dum metuant — Let them hate, so
that they do but fear. But now the great God has
caused his terror in the land of the living; and
therefore he laughs at theirs, because he sees that
his day is coming, Ps. xxxvii. 13. In this day of
terror, Pharaoh and all his multitude shall be laid
with them that are slain by the sword.
The view which this prophecy gives us of ruined
states, may show us something, [1.] Of this/u'esen?
world, and the empire of death in it. Come, and
see the calamitous state of human life; see what a j
dying world this is; the strong die, the mighty
die, Pharaoh and all his multitude. See what a
killing world this is; They are all slain with the
sword. As if men did not die fast enough of them¬
selves, men are ingenious at finding out ways to de¬
stroy one another. It is not only a great pit, but a
great cock-pit. [2.] Of the other world; though
it is the destruction of nations as such, that perhaps
is principally intended here, yet here is a plain allu¬
sion to the final and everlasting ruin of impenitent
sinners, of those that are uncircumcised in heart;
they are slain by the sword of divine justice; their
iniquity is upon them, and with it they bear their
shame. Those, Christ’s enemies that would not
have him to reign over them, shall be brought forth
and slain before him; though they be as pompous,
though they be as numerous, as Pharaoh and all his
multitude.
CHAP. XXXIII.
The prophet is now come off his circuit, which he went
ns jud^e, in God’s name, to try and pass sentence upon
the neighbouring nations, and, having finished with
them, and read them all their doom, in the eight chap¬
ters foregoing, he now returns to the children of his peo¬
ple, and receives further instructions what to say to
them. I. He must let them know what office he was in
among them as a prophet; that he was a watchman, and
had received a charge concerning them, for which he
I was accountable, v. 1..9. The substance of this we
had before, ch. iii. 17, &c. II. He must let them know
upon what terms they stand with God, that they were
upon their trial, upon their good behaviour; that if a
wicked man repent he shall not perish; but that if a
righteous man apostatize he shall perish, v. 10.. 20. ill.
Here is a particular message sent to those w'ho yet re-
I mained in the land of Israel, and (which is very strange)
grew secure there, and confident that they should take
root there again, to tell them that their hopes would fail
them, because they persisted in their sins, v. 2 1.. 29.
IV. Here is a rebuke to those who personally attended
Ezekiel’s ministry, but were not sincere in their profes¬
sions of devotion, v. SO . . 33.
l. A GAIN the word of the Lord came
JL%. unto me, saying, 2. Son of man,
speak to the children of thy people, and say
unto them, When I bring the sword upon
a land, if the people of the land take a man
of their coasts, and set him for their watch¬
man: 3. If, when he seeth the sword come
upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and
warn the people; 4. Then whosoever hear-
eth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not
warning, if the sword come and take him
away, his blood shall be upon his own head.
5. He heard the sound of the trumpet, and
took not warning, his blood shall be upon
him: but he that taketh warning shall deliver
his soul. 6. But if the watchman see the
sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and
the people be not warned ; if the sword come
and take avy person from among them, he
is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood
will I require at the watchman’s hand. 7.
So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a
watchman unto the house of Israel; there¬
fore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth,
and warn them from me. 8. When I say
unto the wicked, O wicked man , thou shalt
surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn
the wicked from his way, that wicked man
shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will
I require at thy hand. 9. Nevertheless,
if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn
from it; if he do not turn from his way, he
shall die in his iniquity ; but thou hast de¬
livered thy soul.
The prophet had been, by express order from
God, taken off from prophesying to the Jews, just
then when the news came that Jerusalem was invest¬
ed, and close siege laid to it, ch. xxiv. 2 7. But now
that Jerusalem is taken, two years after, he is ap¬
pointed again to direct his speecli to them; and here
his commission is renewed. If God had abandoned
them quite, he would not have sent prophets to
them; nor if he had not had mercy in store foi
them, would he have showed them such things as
these. In these verses we have,
735
EZEKIEL, XXXIII.
1 I ho office of a watchman laid down, the trust
reposed in him, the charge given him, and the con¬
ditions adjusted between him and those that employ
him, v. 2. — 6.
1. It is supposed to be a public danger, that gives
occasion for the appointing of a watchman — when
God brings the sword upon a land, v, 2. The
sword of war, whenever it comes upon a land, is
of God’s bringing; it is the sword of the lxrd, of
his justice, how unjustly soever men draw it. At
such a time, when a country is in fear of a foreign
invasion, that they may be informed of all the mo¬
tions of the enemy, may not be surprised with an
attack, but may have early notice of it, in order to
their being at their arms, and in readiness to give
the invader a warm reception, they set a man of
their coasts, some likely person, that lives upon the
borders of their country, where the threatened dan¬
ger is expected, and is therefore well acquainted
with all the avenues of it, and make him their
watchman. Thus wise are the children of this world
in their generation. Note, One man may be of pub¬
lic service to a whole country. Princes and states¬
men are the watchmen of a kingdom, that are con¬
tinually to employ themselves, and, if occasion be,
as watchmen, to expose themselves, for the public
safety.
2. It is supposed to be a public trust that is lodged
in the watchman, and that he is accountable to the
public for the discharge of it. His business is, (1.)
To discover the approaches and advances of the
enemy; and therefore he must not be blind or asleep,
for then he cannot see the sword coming. (2.) To
give notice of them immediately by sound of trum¬
pet, or, as sentinels among us, by the discharge of
a gun, as a signal of danger. A special trust and
confidence is reposed in him by those that set him
to be their watchman, that he will faithfully do
these two things; and they venture their lives upon
his fidelity. Now, [1.] If he do his part, if he be
betimes aware of all the dangers that fall within his
cognizance, and give warning of them, he has dis¬
charged his trust, and has not only delivered his
soul, but earned his wages. If the people do not
take warning, if they either will not believe the no¬
tice he gives them, will not believe the danger to
be so great, or so near, as really it is, or will not
regard it, and so are surprised by the enemy in
their security, it is their own fault; the blame is not
to^je laid upon the watchman, but their blood is
upon their own head. If any person goes presump¬
tuously into the mouth of danger, though he heard
the sound of the trumpet, and was told by it where
the danger was, and so the sword comes, and takes
him away in his folly, he is felo de se — a suicide;
foolish man, he has 'destroyed himself. But, [2.]
If the watchman do not do his duty; if he might
have seen the danger and did not, but was asleep or
heedless, or looking another way; or, if he did see
the danger, (for so the case is put here,) and shifted
only for his own safety, and blew not the trumpet
to warn the people; so that some are surprised and
cut off in their iniquity, (v. 6. ) cut off suddenly,
without having time to cry, Lord, have mercy upon
me, time to repent and make their peace with God;
(which makes the matter much the worse, that the
poor creature is taken away in his iniquity s') his
blond shall be required at the watchman’s hand; he
shall be found guilty of his death, because he did
not give him warning of his danger. But if the
watchman do his part, and the people do theirs, all
is well; both he that gives warning and he that
takes warning, have delivered their soul.
II. The application of this to the prophet, v. 7.
—9.
1. He is a watchman to the house of Israel. He
had occasionally given warning to the nations about.
but to the house of Israel he was a watchman by
office, for they were the children of the / rrophets and
the covenant. They did not set him for a watin-
man, as the people of the land did, v. 2. (For
they were not so wise for their souls, to secure
the welfare of them, as they would have been for
the protection of their temporal interests.) But God
did it for them; he appointed them a watchman.
2. His business as a watchman is, to give warn¬
ing to sinners of their misery and danger by reason
of sin. This is the word he must hear from God’s
mouth, and speak to them. (1.) God has said,
The wicked man shall surely die; he shall be mis
erable; unless he repent, he shall be cut off from
God, and all comfort and hope in him; shall be cut
off from all good. He shall fall, and lie for ever
under the wrath of God, which is the death of the
soul, as his favour is its life. The righteous God
has said it, and will never unsay it, nor can all the
world gainsay it, that the wages of sin is death.
Sin, when it is fnished, brings forth death. The
wrath of God is revealed from heaven, not only
against wicked nations, speaking ruin to them as
nations, but against wicked persons, speaking ruin
to them in their personal capacity, their personal
interests which pass into the other world, and last
to eternity, as national interests do not. (2.) It is
the will of God that the wicked man should be
warned of this; warn them from me; which inti¬
mates that there is a possibility of preventing it,
else it were a jest to give warning of it; nay, and
that God is desirous it should be prevented. Sinners
are therefore warned of the wrath to come, that they
may fee from it, Matth. iii. 7. (3.) It is the work
of ministers to give him warning; to sav to the
wicked, It shall be ill with thee, Isa. iii. 1 1. God
says in general, The soul that sinneth, it shall die.
The minister’s business is, to apply this to particu¬
lar persons, and to say, “ 0 wicked man, thou shalt
surely die, whoever thou art; if thou go on still in
thy trespasses, they will inevitably be thy ruin. O
adulterer, O robber, O drunkard, O swearer, O
sabbath-breaker, thou shalt surely die.” And he
must say this, not in passion, to provoke the sinner,
but in compassion, to warn the wicked from his way,
warn him to turn from it, that he may live. This
is to be done by the faithful preaching of the word
in public, and by personal application to those whose
sins are open.
3. If souls perish through his neglect of his duty,
he brings guilt upon himself; if the prophet do not
warn the wicked of the ruin that is at the end of his
wicked way, that wicked man shall die in his
iniquity; for though the watchman did not do his
part, yet the sinner might have taken warning from
the written word, from his own conscience, and
from God’s judgments upon others, by which his
mouth shall be stopped, and God will be justified in
his destruction. Note, It will not serve impenitent
sinners to plead in the great day, that their watch¬
men did not give them warning, that they were
careless and unfaithful; for though they were so, it
will be made to appear that God left not himself
without witness. But he shall not perish alone in
his iniquity, the watchman also shall be called to an
account; His blood will I require at thy hand. The
blind leader shall fall with the blind follower into
the ditch. See what a desire God has of the salva¬
tion of sinners, in that he resents it so ill, if those
concerned do not what they can to prevent their de¬
struction. And see what a great deal those minis¬
ters have to answer for another day, who palliate
sin, and flatter sinners in their evil way, and by
their wicked lives countenance and harden them in
their wickedness, and encourage them to believe
that they shall haye peace, though they go on.
4. If he do his duty, he may take the comfort of
736
EZEKIEL, XXXIII.
it, though he do not see the success of it; ( v . 9.)
“ If thou warn the wicked of his way, if thou tell
him faithfully what will be the end thereof, and call
him earnestly to turn from it, and he do not turn,
but persist in it, he shall die in his iniquity, and the
fair warning given him will be an aggravation of
his sin and ruin; but thou hast delivered thy soul.”
Note, It is a comfort to ministers, that they may
through grace save themselves, though they cannot
be instrumental to save so many as they wish of those
that hear them.
1 0. Therefore, O thou son of man, speak
unto the house of Israel, Thus ye speak,
saying, If our transgressions and our sins be
upon us, and we pine away in them, how
should we then live? 11. Say unto them,
As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no
pleasure in the death of the wicked; but
that the wicked turn from his way and live :
turn ye, turn ye, from your evil ways; for
why will ye die, O house of Israel? 12.
Therefore, thou son of man, say unto the
children of thy people, The righteousness of
the righteous shall not deliver him in the
day of his transgression : as for the wicked¬
ness of the wicked, he shall not fall thereby
in the day that he turneth from his wicked¬
ness; neither shall the righteous be able to
live for his righteousness in the day that he
sinneth. 13. When I shall say to the right¬
eous, that he shall surely live; if he trust to
his own righteousness and commit iniquity,
all his righteousness shall not be remember¬
ed ; but for his iniquity that he hath com¬
mitted, he shall die for it. 1 4. Again, when
I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely
die; if he turn from his sin, and do that
which is lawful and light; 15. If the wicked
restore the pledge, give again that he hath
robbed, walk in -the statutes of life, without
committing iniquity; he shall surely live, he
shall not die. 16. None of his sins that he
hath committed shall be mentioned unto
him: he hath done that which is lawful and
right; he shall surely live. ^ 17. Yet the
children of thy people say, The way of the
Lord is not equal: but, as for them, their
way is not equal. 1 8. When the righteous
turneth from his righteousness, and commit-
teth iniquity, he shall even die thereby. 19.
But if the wicked turn from his wickedness,
and do that which is lawful and right, he
shall live thereby. 20. Yet ye say, The
way of the Lord is not equal. O ye house
of Israel, I will judge you every one after
his ways.
These verses are the substance of what we had
before, (ch. xviii. 20, &c.) and they are so full and
express a declaration of the terms on which people
stand with God, (as the former were of the terms
on which ministers stand,) that it is no wonder that
they are here repeated, as those were, though we
had the substance of them before. Observe here,
I. The cavils of the people against God’s pro
ceedings with them. God was now in his provi¬
dence contending with them, but their uncircum¬
cised hearts were not as yet humbled, for they were
industrious to justify themselves, though thereby
they reflected on God. Two things they insisted
upon, in their reproaches of God, and in both they
added iniquity to their sin, and misery to thei'-
punishment.
1. They quarrelled with his promises and favours,
as having no kindness or sincerity in them, v . 10.
God had set life before them, but they plead that he
had set it out of their reach, and therefore did but
mock them with the mention of it. The prophet
had said, some time ago, {ch. xxiv. 23.) Ye shall
fine away for your iniquities; with that word he
had concluded his threatenings against Judah and
Jerusalem; and this they now upbraided him with,
as if it had been spoken absolutely, to drive them to
despair; whereas it was spoken conditionally, to
bring them to repentance. Thus are the sayings of
God’s ministers perverted by men of corrupt minds,
who are minded to pick quarrels. He puts them in
hopes of life and happiness; and herein they would
make him contradict himself; “ For” (say they)
“ if our transgressions and our sins be ufon us, as
thou hast often told us they are; and if we must, as
thou sayest, fine away in them, and wear out a
miserable captivity in a fruitless repentance, how
shall we then live f If this be our doom, there is no
remedy. JVe die, we ferish, we all ferish.” Note,
It is very common for those that have been harden¬
ed with presumption when they were warned against
sin, to sink into despair when they are called to re¬
pent, and to conclude there is no hope of life for
them.
2. They quarrelled with his threatenings and
judgments, as having no justice or equity in them.
They said, The way of the Lord isnot equal, {v. 17,
20.) suggesting that God was partial in his pro¬
ceedings, and that with him there was respect of
persons, and that he was more severe against sin
and sinners than there was cause.
II. Here is a satisfactory answer given to both
these cavils.
1. Those that desf aired of finding mercy with
God, are here answered with a solemn declaration
of God’s readiness to show mercy, v. 11. When
they spake of fining away in their iniquity, God
sends the prophet to them, with all speed, to tell
them that though their case was sad, it was not
desperate, but there was yet hofe in Israel. (1.)
It is certain that God has no delight in the ruin of
sinners, nor does he desire it; if they will destroy
themselves, he will glorify himself in it, but he has
no pleasure in it, but would rather they should turn
and live, for his goodness is that attribute of his
which is most his glory, which is most his delight.
He would rather sinners should turn and live, than
go on and die. He has said it, he has sworn it; that
by these two immutable things, in both which it is
impossible for God to lie, we might have strong
consolation; we have his word and his oath; and
since he could swear by no greater, he swears
by himself; sis I live. They questioned whether
they should live, though they did repent and re¬
form; Yea, says God, as sure as I live, true peni¬
tents shall live also; for their life is hid with Christ
in God. (2. ) It is certain that God is sincere, and
in earnest, in the calls he gives sinners to repent;
Turn ye, turn ye, from your evil way. To repent
is to turn from' our evil way; this God requires sin¬
ners to do; this he urges them to do, by repeated
pressing instances; Turn ye, turn ye. O that they
would be prevailed with to turn, to turn quickly,
without delay ! This he will enable them to do, if
they will but frame their doings to turn to the Lord,
737
EZEKIEL, XXXIII.
Hos. v. 4. For he has said, I will 1 tour out my
S/iirit unto you, Prov. i. 23. And in this he will
accept of them; for it is not only what he commands,
but what he courts them to. (3. ) It is certain that
if sinners perish in their impenitency, it is owing to
themselves; they die, because they will die; and
herein they act" most absurdly and unreasonably;
Why will ye die, 0 house of Israel? God would
have heard them, and they would not be heard.
2. Those that despaired of finding justice with
God, are here answered with a solemn declaration
of the rule of judgment, which God would go by in
dealing with the children of men, which carries
along with it the evidence of its own equity; he that
runs, may read the justice of it. The Jewish nation,
as a nation, was now dead, it was ruined to all in¬
tents and purposes. The prophet must therefore
deal with particular persons, and the rule of judging
concerning them is much like that concerning a na¬
tion, Jer. xviii. 7. — 10. If God speak concerning it,
to build and to plant; if it do wickedly, he will re¬
call his favours, and leave it to ruin. But if he
speak concerning it, to pluck up and destroy, and it
repent, he will revoke the sentence, and deliver it.
So it is here. In short, the most plausible profes¬
sors, if they apostatize, shall certainly perish for
ever in their apostacy from God. And the most no¬
torious sinners, if they repent, shall certainly be
happy for ever in their return to God. This is here
repeated again and again, because it ought to be
again and again considered, and preached over to
our own hearts. This was necessary to be inculca¬
ted upon this stupid, senseless people, that said.
The way of the Lord, is not equal; for these rules
of judgment are so plainly just, that they need no
other confirmation of them than the repetion of them.
( 1. ) If those that have made a great profession of
religion, throw off their profession, quit the good
ways of God, and grow loose and carnal, and sen¬
sual, and worldly, the profession they made, and all
the religious performances with which they had for
a great while kept up the credit of their profession,
shall stand them in no stead, but they shall certainly
oerish in their iniquity, v. 12, 13, 18.
[1. ] God says to the righteous man, that he shall
surely live, v. 13. He says it by his word, by his
ministers; he that lives regularly, his own heart
tells him, his neighbours tell him, He shall live.
Surely such a man as this cannot but be happy.
And it is certain, if he proceed and persevere in his
righteousness, and if, in order to that, he be up¬
right and sincere in it, if he be really as good as he
seems to be, he shall live; he shall continue in the
love of God, and be for ever happy in that love.
[2.] Righteous men, who have very good hopes
of themselves, and whom others have a very good
opinion of, are yet in danger of turning to iniquity,
by trusting to their righteousness. So the case is
put here; If he trust to his own righteousness, and
commit iniquity, and come to make a trade of sin;
if he not only take a false step, but turn aside into a
false way, and persist in it — this may possibly be
the case of a righteous man, and it is the effect of
his trusting to his own righteousness. Note, Many
eminent professors have been ruined by a proud
conceitedness of themselves, and confidence in them¬
selves. He trusts to the merit of his own righteous¬
ness, and thinks he has already made God so much
his Debtor, that now he may venture to commit
iniquity, for he has righteousness enough in stock to
make amends for it; he fancies that whatever evil
deeds he may do hereafter, he can be in no danger
from them, having so many good deeds beforehand
to balance them. Or, He trusts to the strength of
his own righteousness; thinks himself now so well
established in a course of virtue, that he may thrust
himself into any temptation, and it cannot overcome
Vol. iv. — 5 A
him, and so by presuming on his own sufficiency he
is brought to commit iniquity. By making bold on
the confines of sin, he is drawn at length into the
depths of hell. This ruined the Pharisees; they
trusted to themselves that they were righteous, and
that their long prayers, and fasting twice in the week,
would atone for tlieir devouring widow’s houses.
[3.] If righteous men turn to iniquity, and re
turn not to their righteousness, they shall certainly
perish in their iniquity, and all the righteousness
they have formerly done, all their prayers, and all
their alms, shall be forgotten; no mention shall be
made, no remembrance had, of their good deeds,
they shall be overlooked, as if they had never been.
The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver
him from the wrath of God, and the curse of the
law, in the day of his transgression. When he be¬
comes a traitor and a rebel, and takes up arms
against his rightful Sovereign, it will not serve for
him to plead, in his own defence, that formerly he
was a loyal subject, and did many good services to
the government: no, he shall not be able to live; the
remembrance of his former righteousness shall be
no satisfaction either to God’s justice or his own con¬
science, in the day that he sins, but rather shall, in
the estimate of both, highly aggravate the sin and
folly of his apostacy. And therefore for his iniquity
that he committed he shall die, v. 13. And again,
(■y. 18.) He shall even die thereby; and it is owing
to himself.
(2.) If those that have lived a wicked life, repent
and reform, forsake their wicked ways and become
religious, their sins shall be pardoned, and they
shall be justified and saved, if they persevere in their
reformation.
[1.] God says to the wicked, “ Thou shalt surely
die. The way that thou art in leads to destruction.
The wages of thy sin is death, and thine iniquity
will shortly be thy ruin.” It was said to the right¬
eous man, Thou shalt surely live, for his encourage¬
ment to proceed and persevere in the way of right¬
eousness; but he made an ill use of it, and was
imboldened by it to commit iniquity. It was said to
the wicked man, Thou shalt surely die, for warning
to him not to persist in his wicked ways; and he
makes a good use of it, and is quickened thereby to
return to God and duty. Thus, even the threaten-
ings of the word are to some, by the grace of God,
a savour of life unto life, while even the promises of
the word become to others, by their own corruption,
a savour of death unto death. When God says to
the wicked man, Thou shalt surely die, die eternally,
it is to frighten him, not out of his wits, but out of
his sins.
[2.] There is many a wicked man who was
hastening apace to his own destruction, who yet is
wrought upon by the grace of God to return and re¬
pent, and live a holy life. He turns from his sin,
(re 14.) and is resolved that he will have no more
to do with it; and, as an evidence of his repentance
for wrong done, he restores the pledge (v. 15. ) which
he had taken uncharitably from the poor; he gives
again that which he had robbed and taken unjustly
from the rich. Nor does he only cease to do evil,
but he learns to do well; he does that which is law¬
ful and right, and makes conscience of his duty both
to God and man. A great change! Since, awhile
ago, he neither feared God nor regarded man. But
many such amazing changes, and blessed ones,
have been wrought by the power of divine grace;
he that was going on in the paths of death and the
destroyer, now walks in the statutes of life, in the
way of God’s commandments, which has life in it,.
(Prov. xii. 28.) and life at the end of it, Matth. xix.
17. And in this good way he perseveres, without
committing iniquity; though not free from remain¬
ing infirmity, yet under the dominion of no iniquity.
738
EZEKIEL
He repents not of his repentance, nor returns to the
commission of those gross sins which he before al-
lowed himself in.
T3 "1 He that does thus repent and return, shall
escape the ruin he was running into, and his former
sins shall be no prejudice to his acceptance with
God Let him not pine away in his iniquity, tor it
he confess and forsake it, he shall find mercy. He
shall surely live, he shall not die, y. 15. Again,
(v 16.) He shall surely live. Again, (x>. 19.) He
has done that which is lawful and right, and he
shall live thereby. But will not his wickedness be
remembered against him? No, he shall not be
punished for them, v. 12. As for the wickedness of
the wicked, though it was very heinous, yet he shall
not fall thereby, in the day that he turns from his
wickedness. Now that it is become his gnel, it
shall not be his ruin. Now that there is a settled
separation between him and sin, there shall be no
loneer a separation between him and God. May,
he shall not be so much as upbraided with them, v.
16. None of his sins that he has committed shall be
mentioned unto him, either as a clog to his pardon,
or an allay to the comfort of it, or any blemish and
diminution to the glory that is prepared for him.
Now lay all this together, and then judge whether
the way of the Lord be not equal; whether this will
not justify God in the destruction of sinners, and
glorify him in the salvation of penitents. 1 he con¬
clusion of the whole matter is, ( 'v . 20.) “ O ye house
of Israel, though ye are all involved now in the
common calamity, yet there shall be a distinction
of persons made 'in the spiritual and eternal state,
and I will judge you every one after his ways.
Though they were sent into captivity by the lump,
good fish and bad enclosed in the same net, yet there
he will separate between the precious and the vile,
and will render to every man according to his works.
Therefore God’s way is equal and unexceptionable;
but as for the children of thy fieofile, God turns
them over to the prophet, as he did to Moses;
(Exod. xxxii. 7.) “They are thy fieofile, I can
scarcely own them for mine.” As for them, their
wau is unequal; this way which they have got of
quarrelling with God and his prophets, is absui d
and unreasonable. In all disputes between God
and his creatures, it will certainly be found that he
is in the right, and they are in the wrong.
21. And it came to pass in the twelfth
year of our captivity, in the tenth month ,
in the fifth day of the month, that one that
had escaped out of Jerusalem came unto
me, saying, The city is smitten. 22. Now
the hand of the Lord was upon me in the
evening, afore he that was escaped came,
and had opened my mouth, until he came
to me in the morning, and my mouth was
opened, and I was no more dumb. 23.
Then the word of the Lord came unto me,
saying, 24. Son of man, they that inhabit
those wastes of the land of Israel speak,
saying, Abraham was one, and he inherited
the land : but we are many ; the land is given
us for inheritance. 25. "W herefore say unto
them, Thus saith the Lord God, Ye eat
with the blood, and lift up your eyes toward
your idols, and shed blood: and shall ye
possess the land? 26. Ye stand upon your
sword, ye work abomination, and ye defile
every one his neighbour’s wife: and shall ye
XXXIII.
possess the land ? 27. Say thou tnus unto
them, Thus saith the Lord God, - Is I live,
surely they that are in the wastes shall fall
by the sword; and him that is in the open
field will I give to the beasts to be devoured ;
and they that be in the forts, and in the
caves, shall die of the pestilence. 28. F or
I will lay the land most desolate, and the
pomp of her strength shall cease; and the
mountains of Israel shall be desolate, that
none shall pass through. 29. I hen shall
they know that I am the Lord, when 1
have laid the land most desolate, because
of all their abominations, which they have
committed.
Here we have, .
I. The tidings brought to Ezekiel of the burning
of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans. The city was burnt
in the eleventh year of the captivity, and the tilth
month, Jer. hi. 12, 13. Tidings hereof were brought
to the prophet by' one that was an eyre-witness ot the
destruction, in the twelfth year, and the tenth
month, (v. 21.) which was a year and almost five
months after the thing was done; we may well sup¬
pose that, there being a constant correspondence, at
this time more than ever, kept up between Jerusa¬
lem and Babylon, he had heard the news long be¬
fore. But tliis was the first time he had an account
of it from a refugee, from one who escafiea, who
could be fiarticular, and would be fiathetic, in .he
narrative of it. And the sign given him was, the
coming of such a one to him as had himself narrowly
escaped the flames; ( ch . xxiv. 26.) He that escafies
in that day, shall come unto thee, to cause thee to
hear it with thine ears, to hear it more distinctly
than ever, from one that could say, Qutzque ifise
miserrima vidi — These miserable scenes I saw.
II. The divine impressions and influences he was
under, to prepare him for those heavy tidings; (y.
22.) The hand of the Lord was ufion me before he
came, and had ofiened my mouth to speak to the
house of Israel what we had in the former part of
this chapter; and now he was no more dumb, he
prophesied now with more freedom and boldness,
being by the event proved a true prophet, to the
confusion of those that contradicted him. All the
prophecies from ch. 24. to this chapter, having re
lation purely to the nations about, it is probable that
the prophet, when he received them from the
Lord, did not deliver them by word of mouth, but
in writing ; for he could not say to the Ammonites ,
Say unto Tyrus, Say unto Pharaoh, See. so and so,
but by letters directed to the persons concerned; as
Zacharias, when he could not speak, wrote; and
herein he was as truly executing his prophetic office
as ever. Note, Even silenced ministers may be
doing a great deal of good by writing letters and
making visits. But now the prophet s mouth is
aliened, that he may sfieak to the children of his
fieofile. It is probable that he had, during these
three years, been continually' speaking to them as a
friend) putting them in mind of what he had for¬
merly delivered to them, but that he never spake
to them as a prophet, by inspiration, till now, when
the hand of the Lord came ufion him, renewed his
commission, gave him fresh instructions, and ofiened
his mouth, furnished him with power to speak to
the people as he ought to sfieak. .
III. The particular message he was intrusted
with " relating to those Jews that yet remained in
the land of Israel, and inhabited the wastes of that
land, v. 24. See what work sin had made; the
739
EZEKIEL, XXXIII.
nties of Israel were now become the wastes of Is¬
rael, for they lay all in ruins; some few that had
escaped the sword and captivity, still continued
there, and began to think of re-settling. This was
so long after the destruction of Jerusalem, that it
was some time before this, that Gedaliah (a modest,
humble man) and his friends were slain; but, pro¬
bably at this time, Johanan, and the proud men
that joined with him, were at the height, (Jer. xliii.
2.) and before they came to a resolution to go into
Egypt, wherein Jeremiah opposed them, it is pro¬
bable that the project was to establish themselves
in the wastes of the land of Israel, in which Ezekiel
here opposed them, and probably despatched the
message away by the person that brought him the
news of Jerusalem’s destruction. Or, perhaps, those
here prophesied against might be some other party
of Jews, that remained in the land, hoped to take
root there, and to be sole masters of it, after Joha¬
nan and his forces were gone into Egypt.
Now here we have,
1. An account of the pride of these remaining
Jews, who dwell in the wastes of the land of Israel.
Though the providence of God concerning them
had been very humbling, and still was very threat¬
ening, yet they were intolerably haughty and se¬
cure, and promised themselves peace. He that
brought the news to the prophet, that Jerusalem
was smitten, could not tell him (it is likely) what
these people said, but God tells him, They say,
“ The land is given us for our inheritance, v. 24.
Our partners being gone, it is now all our own by
survivorship; or, for want of heirs, it comes to us
as occupants; we shall now be placed alone in the
midst of the earth, and have it all to ourselves.”
This argues great stupidity under the weighty hand
of God, and a reigning selfishness, and narrow-spi-
ritedness; they pleased themselves in the ruin of
their country as long as they hoped to find their own
account of it; cared not though it were all waste, so
that they might have the sole property; a poor in¬
heritance to be proud of ! They have the impudence
to compare their case with Abraham’s, glorying in
this, We have Abraham to our father. “Abraham,”
say they, “ was one, one family, and he inherited
the lank, and lived many years in the peaceable en¬
joyment of it; but sue are many, many families,
more numerous than he, the land is given us for in¬
heritance.” (1.) They think they can make out as
good a title from God to this land as Abraham
could; “ If God gave this land to him, who was but
one worshipper of him, as a reward of his service,
much more will he give it to us, who are many
worshippers of him, as the reward of our service.”
This speaks the great conceit they had of their own
merits, as if they were greater than those of Abra¬
ham their father, who yet was not justified by
works. (2. ) They think they can make good the
possession of this land against the Chaldeans and
all other invaders, as well as Abraham could against
those that were competitors with him for it; “ If he,
who was but one, could hold it, much more shall
we, who are many, and have many more at com¬
mand than his three hundred trained servants.”
This speaks the confidence they had in their own
might; they had got possession, and were resolved
to keep it.
2. A check to this pride. Since God’s providences
did neither humble them nor terrify them, he sends
them a message sufficient to do both.
(1.) To humble them, he tells them of the wick¬
edness they still persisted in, which rendered them
utterly unworthy to possess this land, so that they
could not expect God should give it them. They
had been followed with one judgment after another,
but they had not profited by those means of grace
so as might be expected; they were still unreformed,
and hcfw could they expect that they should possess
the land? “ Shall ye possess the land? What! such
wicked people as ye are? How shall I put thee
among the children, and give thee a pleasant land?
Jer. iii. 19. Surely you never reflect upon your¬
selves, else you would rather wonder that you are
in the land of the living than expect to possess this
land. For do you not know how bad you are?”
[1.] “You make no conscience of forbidden fruit,
forbidden food; you eat with the blood;” directly
contrary to one of the precepts given to Noah and
his sons, then when God gave them possession of
the earth, Gen. ix. 4. [2.] “ Idolatry, that cove¬
nant-breaking sin, that sin which the jealous God
has been in a particular manner provoked by to lay
your country waste, is still the sin that most easily
besets you, and which you have a strong inclination
to. You life up your eyes toward your idols, which
is a sign that though perhaps you do not bow your
knee to them so much as you have done, yet you set
your hearts upon them, and hanker after them.”
[3.] “ You are as fierce and cruel and barbarous as
ever; you shed blood, innocent blood. ” [4.] “You
confide in your own strength, your own arm, your
own bow, and have no dependence on, or regard to,
God and his providence; you stand upon your
sword, (v. 26.) you think to carry all before you,
and make all your own, by force "of arms.” How
can they expect the inheritance of Isaac, (as these
did,) who are of Ishmael’s disposition, that had his
hand against every man, (Gen. xvi. 12.) and Esau’s
resolution to live by his sword? Gen. xxvii. 40.
We met with those, (ch. xxxii. 27.) who, when
they died, thought they could not lie easy under
ground, unless they had their swords under their
heads. Here we meet with those who, while they
live, think they cannot stand firm above ground,
unless they have their swords under their feet,
as if swords were both the softest pillows, and the
strongest pillars; though it was sin that first drew
the sword. But, blessed be God, there are those
who know better, that stand upon the support
of the divine power and promise, and lay their
heads in the bosom of divine love, not trusting in
their own swords, Ps. xliv. 3. [5.] “You are
guilty of all manner of abominations, and, particu¬
larly, you defile every one his neighbour’s wife,
which is an abomination of the first magnitude;
and shall ye possess the land? What! such vile mis¬
creants as you?” Note, They cannot expect to
possess the land, nor to enjoy any true comfort or
happiness here or hereafter, who live in rebellion
against the Lord.
(2.) To terrify them, he tells them of the further
judgments God had in store for them, which should
make them utterly unable to possess this land, so
that they could not stand it out against the enemy.
Do they say that they shall possess the land? No,
God has said it, he has sworn it, As I live, saith the
I.orcl. Though he has sworn that he delights not
in the death of sinners, yet he has sworn also that
those who persist in impenitenev and unbelief, shall
not enter into his rest. [1.] They that are in the
cities, here called the wastes, shall fall by the sword,
either by the sword of the Chaldeans, who come to
avenge the murder of Gedaliah, or by one another’s
swords, in their intestine broils. [2.] They that
are in the open field, shall be devoured by wild
beasts, which swarmefi of course in the country,
when it was dispeopled, and there were none to
master them, and keep them under, Exod. xxiii.
29. When the army of the enemy had quitted the
country, still there was no safety in it. Noisome
beasts was one of the four sore judgments, ch. xiv.
IS. [3.] They that are in the forts and in the
caves , that think themselves safe in artificial or na¬
tural fastnesses, because men’s eyes cannot discover
740
EZEKIEL, XXXIII.
them, or men’s darts reach them, there the arrows
of the Almighty shall find them out; they shall die
of the pestilence. [4. ] The whole land, even the land
of Israel,, that had been the glory of all lands, shall
be most desolate, v. 28. It shall be desolation, de¬
solation, all over as desolate as desolation itself can
make it. The mountains of Israel, the fruitful
mountains, Zion itself, the holy mountain not ex¬
cepted, shall be desolate, the roads unfrequented,
the houses uninhabited, that none shall pass through;
as it was threatened, (Deut. xxviii. 62. ) Ye shall
be left feta in number. [5.] The pomp of her
strength, whatever she glories in as her pomp, and
trusts to as her strength, shall be made to cease.
[6.] The cause of all this was very bad; it is for
all their abominations which they have committed.
It is sin that does all this mischief, that makes na¬
tions desolate; and therefore we ought to call it an
abomination. [7.] Yet the effect of all this will be
very good; Then shall they know that I am the Lord,
am their Lord, and shall return to their allegiance,
when I have made the land most desolate. Those are
untractable, unteachable indeed, that are not made
to know their dependence upon God, when all their
creature-comforts fail them, and are made desolate.
30. Also, thou son of man, the children
of thy people still are talking against thee by
the walls, and in the doors of the houses,
and speak one to another, every one to his
brother, saying, Come, I pray you, and
hear what is the word that cometh forth
from the Lord. 31. And they come unto
thee as the people cometh, and they sit be¬
fore thee as my people, and they hear thy
words, but they will not do them: for with
their mouth they shew much love, but their
heart goeth after their covetousness. 32. And,
lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song
of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can
play well on an instrument: for they heal¬
thy words, but they do them not. 33. And
when this cometh to pass, (lo, it will come,)
then shall they know that a prophet hath
been among them.
The foregoing verses spake conviction to the
Jews who remained in the land of Israel, who were
monuments of sparing mercy, and yet returned not
to the Lord; in these verses, those are reproved
who were now in captivity in Babylon, under divine
rebukes, and yet were not reformed by them. They
are not indeed charged with the same gross enormi¬
ties that the others are charged with: they made
some show of religion and devotion; but their hearts
were not right with God. The thing they are here
accused of is, mocking the messengers of the Lord;
one of their measure-filling sins, which brought this
ruin upon them, and yet they were not cured of it.
Two ways they mocked the prophet Ezekiel;
I. By invidious, ill-natured refections upon him ,
privately among themselves, endeavouring by all
means possible to render him despicable. The
prophet did not know it, but charitably thought
that they who spake so well to him to his face, with so
much seeming respect and deference, would surely
not speak ill of him behind his back. But God
comes, and tells him, The children of thy people are
stilltalking against thee, {v. 30.) or talking of thee,
no good, I doubt. Note, Public persons are a com¬
mon theme or subject of discourse; every one takes
a liberty to censure them at pleasure; and faithful
ministers know not how much ill is said of them
everyday; it is well that they do not; for if they
did, it might prove a discouragement to them in
their work, not to be easily got over. But God
takes notice of all that is said against his ministers;
not only what is decreed against them, or sworn
against them, not only what is written against
them, or spoken with solemnity and deliberation,
but of what is said against them in common talk,
among neighbours when they meet in the even¬
ing, by the walls and in the doors of their houses;
where whatever freedom of speech they use, if
they reproach and slander any of God’s ministers,
God will reckon with them for it; his prophets shall
not be made the song of the drunkards always.
They had no crime to lay to the prophet’s charge,
but they loved to talk of him in a careless, scornful,
bantering way; they said jokingly, “Come, and let
us hear what is the word that comes forth from the
Lord; perhaps it will be something new, and will
entertain us, and furnish us with matter of dis¬
course.” Note, Those have arrived at a great
pitch of profaneness, who can make so great a pri¬
vilege, and so great a duty, as the preaching and
hearing of the word of God, a matter of sport and
ridicule; yea, though it be not done publicly, but in
private conversation among themselves. Serious
things should be spoken of seriously.
II. By dissembling with him in their attendance
upon his ministry. Hypocrites mock God, and
mock his prophets. But their hypocrisy is open be¬
fore God, and the day is coming when, as here, it
will be laid open. Observe here,
1. The plausible profession which these people
made, and the spec.iousness of their pretensions.
They are like those (Mattli. xv. 8.) who draw nigh
to God with their mouths, and honour him with
their lips, but their hearts are far from him. (' '
They were diligent and constant in their attendance
upon the means of grace; They come unto thee as
the people come. In Babylon they had no temple
or synagogue, but they went to the prophet’s house,
{ch. viii. 1.) and there, it is probable, they spent their
new moons and their sabbaths in religious exercises,
2 Kings iv. 23. When the prophet was bound, the
word of the Lord was not bound; and the people,
when they had not the help for their souls that they
wished for, were thankful for what they had; it was
a reviving in their bondage. Now these hypocrites
came, according to the coming of the people, as duly
and as early as any of the prophet’s hearers. Their
being said to come as the people came, seems to in¬
timate that the reason why they came was, because
other people came; they did not come out of con¬
science toward God, but only for company, for
fashion-sake, and because it was now the custom of
their countrymen. Note, Those that have no in¬
ward principle of love to God’s ordinances, may yet
be found much in the external observation of them.
Cain brought his sacrifice as well as Abel; and the
Pharisee went up to the temple to pray as well as
the publican. (2.) They behaved themselves very
decently and reverently in the public assembly;
there were none of them whispering or laughing, or
gazing about them or sleeping. But they sit before
thee as my people, with all the shows of gravity,
and sereneness, and composure of mind. They sit
out the time, without weariness, or wishing the ser¬
mon done. (3.) They were very attentive to the
word preached; “ They are not thinking of some¬
thing else, but they hear thy words, and take no¬
tice of what thou sayest.” (4.) They pretended to
have a great kindness and respect for the prophet.
Though, behind his back, they could not give him
a good word, yet, to his face, they showed much
love to him and his doctrine; they pretended to have
a great concern lest he should spend himself too
much in preaching, or expose himself to the Chal
741
EZEKIEL, XXXIV.
deans; for they would be thought to be some of his
best friends and well-wishers. (5.) They took a
great deal of pleasure in the word; they delighted
to know Goa's word, Isa. xlviii. 2. Herod heard
John Bafitist gladly, Mark vi. 20. Thou art unto
them as a very lovely song. Ezekiel’s matter was
surprising, his language fine, his expressions elegant,
his similitudes apt, his voice melodious, and his de¬
livery graceful; so that they could sit with as much
pleasure to hear him preach, as (if I may speak in
the language of our times) to see a play or an opera,
or to hear a concert of music. Ezekiel was to them
as one that had a pleasant voice, and could sing well,
or play well on an instrument. Note, Men may
have their fancies pleased by the word, and yet not
have their consciences touched, nor their hearts
changed; the itching ear gratijied, and yet not the
corrupt nature sanctified.
2. The hypocrisy of these professions and pre¬
tensions; it is all a sham, it is all a jest. (1.) They
have no cordial affection for the word of God.
While they show much love, it is only with the
mouth, from the teeth outward, but their heart goes
after their covetousness, they are as much set upon
the world as ever, as much in love and league with
it as ever. Hearing the word is only their diver¬
sion and recreation, a pretty amusement now and
then for an hour or two. But still their main busi¬
ness is with their farm and merchandise, the bent
and bias of their souls are toward them, and their
inward thoughts are employed in projects about
them. Note, Covetousness is the ruining sin of
multitudes that make a great profession of religion;
it is the love of the world that secretly eats the love
of God out of their hearts: the cares of this world
and the deceitfulness of riches are the thorns that
choke the seed, and choke the soul too. And those
neither please God nor profit themselves, who,
when they are hearing the word of God, are musing
upon their worldly affairs. God has his eye on
the hearts that do so. (2.) They yield no subjec¬
tion to it. They hear thy words, but it is only a
hearing that they give thee, for they will not do
them, v. 31. And again, (v. 32.) they do them not.
They will not be persuaded by all the prophet can
say, either by authority or argument, to cross them¬
selves in any instance, to part with any one beloved
sin, or apply themselves to any one duty that is
• against the grain to flesh and blood. Note, There
/are many who take pleasure in hearing the word,
( but make no conscience of doing it; and so they
\ build upon the sand, and deceive themselves.
Lastly, Let us see what will be in the end hereof;
Shall their unbelief and carelessness make the word
of God of no effect ? By no means. (1.) God will
confirm the prophet’s word, though they contemn
it, and make light of it, v. 33. What he says will
come to pass, and not one jot or one tittle shall fall
to the ground. Note, The curses of the law, though
they may be bantered by profane wits, cannot be
baffled. (2.) They themselves shall rue their folly
when it is too late. When it comes to pass, they
shall know, shall know to their cost, know to their
confusion, that a prophet has been among them,
though they made no more of him than as one that
had a pleasant voice. Note, Those who will not
consider that a prophet is among them, and who
improve not the day of their visitation while it is
continued, will be made to remember that a pro-
Ehet has been among them, when the things that
elong to their peace are hid from their eyes. The
day is coming when vain and worldly men will have
other thoughts of things than now they have, and
will feel a weight in that which they made
light of. They shall know that a prophet has been
among them, when they see the event exactly an¬
swer the prediction, and the prophet himself shall
be a witness against them, that they had fair warn¬
ing given them, but would not take it. When Eze¬
kiel is gone, whom now they speak against, and
there is no more any prophet, nor any to show them
how long, then they will remember that once they
had a prophet, but knew not how to use him well.
Note, Those who will not know the worth of mer¬
cies by the improvement of them, will justly be
made to know the worth of them by the want of
them; as they who should desire to see one of the
days of the Son of man, which now they slighted,
and might not see it.
CHAP. XXXIV.
The iniquities and calamities of God’s Israel had been
largely and pathetically lamented before, in this book.
Now, in this chapter, the shepherds of Israel, their rulers
both in church and state, are called to an account, as
having been very much accessary to the sin and ruin of
Israel, by their neglecting to do the duty of their place.
Here is, I. A high charge exhibited against them for
their negligence, their unskilfulness and unfaithfulness
in the management of public affairs, (v. 1 • .6.) and again,
v. 8. II. Their discharge from their trust, for their in¬
sufficiency and treachery, v. 7.. 10. III. A gracious
promise that God would take care of his flock, though
they did not, and that it should not always suffer as it
had done, by their mal-administrations, v. 11 .. 16. IV.
Another charge exnibited against those of the flock that
were fat and strong, for the injuries they did to those
1 that were weak and feeble, v. 17. .22. V. Another pro¬
mise, that God would in the fulness of time send the
Messiah, to be the great and good Shepherd of the sheep,
who should redress all grievances, and set every thing
to rights with the flock, v. 23 . .31.
1. 4 ND the word of the Lord came un-
to me, saying, 2. Son of man, pro¬
phesy against the shepherds of Israel, pro¬
phesy, and say unto them, Thus saitli the
Lord God unto the shepherds, Wo be to the
shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves!
should not the shepherds feed the flocks?
3. Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with
the wool, ye kill them that are fed: but ye
feed not the flock. 4. The diseased have
ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed
that which was sick, neither have ye bound
up that which was broken, neither have ye
brought again that which was driven away
neither have ye sought that which was lost ,
but with force and with cruelty have ye
ruled them. 5. And they were scattered,
because there is no shepherd: and they be¬
came meat to all the beasts of the field
when they were scattered. 6. My sheep
wandered through all the mountains, and
upon every high hill: yea, my flock was
scattered upon all the face of the earth,
and none did search or seek after them.
The prophecy of this chapter is not dated, nor
any of those that follow it, till chap. xl. It is most
probable that it was delivered after the completing
of Jerusalem’s destruction, when it would be very
seasonable to inquire into the causes of it.
I. The prophet is ordered to prophesy against
the shepherds of Israel — the princes and magistrates,
the priests and Levites, the great Sanhedrim or
council of state, or whoever they were that had the
direction of public affairs, in a higher or lower
sphere; the kings especially, for there were two of
them now captives in Babylon, who, as well as the
people, must have their transgressions showed them,
742
EZEKIEL, XXXIV.
that they might repent, as Manasseh in his captivi¬
ty. God has something to say to the shepherds, for
they are but under shepherds, accountable to him
who is the great Shepherd of Israel, Ps. lxxx. 1.
And that which he says is, Wo to the shepherds of
Israel! Though they are shepherds, and shepherds
of Israel, yet he must not spare them, must not flat¬
ter them. Note, If men’s dignity and power do not,
as they ought, keep them from sin, they will not
serve to exempt them from reproof, to excuse their
repentance, or to secure them from the judgments
of God if they do not repent. W e had a wo to the
pastors, Jer. xxiii. 1. God will in a particular
manner reckon with them if they be false to their
trust.
II. He is here directed what to charge the shep¬
herds with, in God’s name, as the ground of God’s
controversy with them; for it is not a causeless
quarrel. Two things they are charged with,
1. That all their care was to advance and enrich
themselves, and to make themselves great. Their
business was to take care of those that were com¬
mitted to their charge; Should not the shepherds
feed the flocks? No doubt they should, they betray
their trust if they do not. Not that they are to put
the meat into their mouths, but to provide it for
them, and bring them to it. But these shepherds
made this the least of their care, they fed themselves,
contrived every thing to gratify and indulge their
own appetite, and to make themselves rich and
great, fat and easy. They made sure of the profits
of their places, they did eat the fat, the cream; (so
some;) tor he that feeds a flock eats of the milk of
it; (1 Cor. ix. 7.) and they made sure of the best
of the milk. They made sure of the fleece, and
clothed themselves with the wool, getting into their
hands as much as they could of the estates of their
subjects, yea, and killed them that were well fed,
that what they had might be fed upon, as Naboth
was put to death for his vineyard. Note, There is
a wo to those who are in public trusts, but consult
only their own private interest, and are more in¬
quisitive about the benefice than about the office,
what money is to be got than what good is to be
done. It is an old complaint, All seek their own,
and too many more than their own.
2. That they took no care for the benefit and
welfare of those that were committed to their
charge; Ye feed not the flock. They neither knew
how to do it, so ignorant were they, nor would they
take any pains to do it, so lazy and slothful were
they; nay, they never desired or designed it, so
treacherous and unfaithful were they.
(I.) They did not do their duty to those of the
flock that were distempered, did not strengthen
them, or heal them, or bind them up, v. 4. When
any of the flock were sick or hurt, worried or
wounded, it was- all one to them whether they lived
or died; they never looked after them. The prin¬
ces and judges took no care to right those that suf¬
fered wrong, or to shelter injured innocency. They
took no care of the poor, to see them provided for;
they might starve, for them. The priests took no
care to instruct the ignorant, to rectify the mistakes
of those that were in error, to warn the unruly, or
to comfort the feeble-minded. The ministers of
state took no care to check the growing distempers
of the kingdom, which threatened the vitals of it.
Things were amiss, and out of course, every where,
and nothing was done to rectify them.
(2.) They did not do their duty to those of the
flock that were dispersed , that were driven away
by the enemies that invaded the country, and were
forced to seek for shelter where they could find a
place; or that wandered of choice upon the moun¬
tains and hills, (v. 6.) where they were exposed to
the beasts of prey, and became meat to them, v. 5.
Every one is ready to seize a waif and stray.
Some went abroad and begged, some went abroad
and traded, and thus the country became thin of in¬
habitants, and was weakened and impoverished, and
wanted hands both in the fields of corn and in the
fields of battle, both in harvest and in war; My
flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth,
v. 6. And they were never inquired after, were
never encouraged to return to their own country;
JVone did seek or search after them. Nay, with
force and cruelty they ruled them, which drove
more away, and discouraged those that were driven
away from all thoughts of returning. Their case is
bad, who have reason to expect better treatment
among strangers than in their own country. It may
be meant of those of the flock that went astray from
God and their duty; and the priests, that should
have taught the good knowledge of the Lord, used
no means to convince and reclaim them, so that they
became an easy prey to seducers. Thus were they
scattered, because there was no shepherd, v. 5.
There were those that called themselves shepherds,
but really they were not. Note, Those that do not
do the work of shepherds, are unworthy of the
name. And if those that undertake to be shep¬
herds, are foolish shepherds, (Zech. xi. 15.) if they
are proud and above their business, idle and do not
love their business, or faithless and unconcerned
about it, the case of the flock is as bad as if it were
without a shepherd. Better no shepherd than such
shepherds. Christ complains that his flock were as
sheep having no shepherd, when yet the Scribes and
Pharisees sat in Moses’s seat, Matth. ix. 36. It is
ill with the patient when his physician is his worst
disease; ill with the flock when the shepherds drive
them away, and disperse them, by ruling them
with force.
7. Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word
of the Lord; 8. As I live, saith the Lord
God, surely because my flock became a
prey, and my flock became meat to every
beast of the field, because there was no
shepherd, neither did my shepherds search
for my flock, but the shepherds fed them¬
selves, and fed not my flock : 9. Therefore,
O ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord ;
10. Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I am
against the shepherds; and I will require
my flock at their hand, and cause them to
cease from feeding the flock; neither shall
the shepherds feed themselves any more:
for I will deliver my flock from their mouth,
that they may not be meat for them. 1 1
For thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I,
even I, will both search my sheep, and seek
them out. 12. As a shepherd seeketh out
his flock in the day that he is among his
sheep that are scattered ; so will I seek out
my sheep, and will deliver them out of all
places where they have been scattered in
the cloudy and dark day. 13. And I will
bring them out from the people, and gather
them from the countries, and will bring
them to their own land, and feed them upon
the mountains of Israel by the rivers, and in
all the inhabited places of the country. 1 4.
I will feed them in a good pasture, and
upon the high mountains of Israel shall
EZEKIEL, XXXIV.
their fold be : there shall they lie in a good
fold, and in a fat pasture shall they feed upon
the mountains of Israel. 15. I will feed
my flock, and I will cause them to lie down,
saith the Lord God. 16. I will seek that
which was lost, and bring again that which
was driven away, and will bind up that
which was broken, and will strengthen that
which was sick : but I will destroy the fat and
the strong; I will feed them with judgment.
Upon reading the foregoing articles of impeach¬
ment drawn up, in God’s name, against the shep¬
herds of Israel, we cannot but look upon the shep¬
herds with a just indignation, and upon the flock
with a tender compassion. God, by the prophet,
here expresses both in a high degree; and the
shepherds are called upon (n. 7, 9.) to hear the
ivord of the Lord, to hear this word. Let them
hear how little he regards them who made much of
themselves, and how much he regards the flock
which they made nothing of; both will be humbling
to them. Those that will not hear the word of the
Lord giving them their direction, shall be made to
hear the word of the Lord reading them their
doom. Now see here,
I. How much displeased God is at the shepherds.
Their crimes are repeated, v. 8. God’s flock be¬
came a prey to the deceivers first that drew them
to idolatry, and then to the destroyers that carried
them into captivity; and these shepherds took no
care to prevent either the' one or the other, but
were as if there had been no shepherds; and there¬
fore God says it, (y. 10.) and confirms it with an
oath; (y. 8.) I am against the shepherds. They
had a commission from God to feed the flock, and
made use of his name in what they did, expecting
lie V'ould stand by them; “ No,” says God, “ so far
from that, I am against them.” Note, It is not our
having the name and authority of shepherds, that
will engage God for us, if we do not the work en¬
joined us, and be not faithful to the trust reposed in
us. God is against them, and they shall know it;
for, 1. They shall be made to account for the man¬
ner in which they have discharged their trust; “ I
will require my flock at their hands, and charge it
upon them, that so many of them are missing.”
Note, Those will have a great deal to answer for in
the judgment-day, who take upon them the care of
souls, and yet take no care of them. Ministers
must watch and work, as those that must give ac¬
count, Heb. xiii. 1 7. 2. They shall be deprived
officio et benejicio — both of the work and of the wa¬
ges. They shall cease from feeding the flock,
from pretending to feed it. Note, It is just with
God to take out of men’s hands that power which
they have abused, and that trust which they have
betrayed. But if this were all their punishment,
they could bear it well enough, therefore it is ad¬
ded, “ JVeither shall the shepherds feed themselves
any more, for I will deliver my flock from their
mouth, which, instead of protecting, they had made
a prey of.” Note, Those that are enriching them¬
selves with the spoils of the public, cannot expect
that they shall always be suffered to do so. Nor
will God always permit his people to be trampled
upon by those that should support them, but will
find a time to deliver them from the shepherds their
false friends, as well as from the lions their open
enemies.
II. How much concerned God is for the flock; he
speaks as if he were the more concerned for them,
because he saw them thus neglected, for with him
the fatherless finds mercy. Precious promises are ,
made here upon the occasion, which were to have
their accomplishment in the return of the Jews out
of their captivity, and their re-establishment in
their own land. Let the shepherds hear this word
of the Lord, and know that they have no part or lot
in the matter. But let the poor sheep hear it, and
take the comfort of it. Note, Though magistrates
and ministers fail in doing their part, for the good
of the church, yet God will not fail in doing his; he
will take the flock into his own hand, rather than
the_ church shall come short of any kindness he has
designed for it. The under shepherds may prove
careless, but the Chief Shepherd neither s/utnbers
nor sleeps. They may be false, but God abides
faithful.
1. God will gather his sheep together that were
scattered, and bring them back to the fold that had
wandered from it; “I, even I, who alone can do
it, will do it, and will have all the glory of it.
I will both search my sheep, and find them out, ( v .
11.) as a shepherd does, (x\ 12.) and bring them
back as he does the stray sheep, upon his shoulders,
from all the places where they have been scattered
in the cloudy and dark day.” There are cloudy
and dark days, windy and stormy ones, which scat¬
ter God’s sheep; which send them hither and thither,
to divers and distant places, in quest of secrecy and
safety. But, (1.) Wherever they are, the eye of
God will find them out; for his eyes run to and fro
through the earth, in favour of them. I will seek
out my sheep; and not one that belongs to the fold,
though driven ever so far off, shall be lost. The
Lord knows them that are his; he knows their work,
and where they dwell, (Rev. ii. 13.) and where they
are hidden. (2. ) When his time is come, his arms
will fetch them home; (i>. 13.) I will bring them out
from the people. God will both incline their hearts to
come by his grace, and will by his providence open
a door for them, and remove every difficulty that
lies in the way. They shall not return one by one,
clandestinely stealing away, but they shall return
in a body; “/ will gather them from the countries
into which they are dispersed; not only the most
considerable families of them, but every particular
person, v. 16. I will seek that which was lost, and
bring again that which was driven away.” This
was done when so many thousand Jews returned
triumphantly out of Babylon, under the conduct of
Zerubbabel, Ezra, and others. When those that
have gone astray from God into the paths of sin,
are brought back by repentance, when those that
erred come to the acknowledgment of the truth,
when God’s outcasts are gathered and restored,
and religious assemblies, that were dispensed, rally
again, upon the ceasing of persecution, and when
the churches have rest and liberty, then this pro¬
mise has a further accomplishment.
2. God will feed his people as the sheep of his
pasture, that had been famished. God will bring
the returning captives safe to their own land, (y. 13. )
will feed them upon the mountains of Israel, and
that is a good pasture, and a fat pasture; (v. 14.)
there shall their feeding be; and there shall be their
fold; and it is a good fold. There God will not only
feed them, but cause them to lie down; (x>. 15.)
which denotes a comfortable rest, after they had
tired themselves with their wanderings; and a con¬
stant, continuing residence; they shall not be driven
out again from these green pastures, as they have
been, nor shall they be disturbed, but shall lie down
in a sweet repose, and there shall be none to make
them afraid. Ps. xxiii. 2. He makes, me to lie down
in green pastures. Compare this with the like
promise, (Jer. xxiii. 3, 4.) when God restored them
not only to the milk and honey of their own land, to
the enjoyment of its fruits, but to the privileges of
his sanctuary on mount Zion, the chief of the moun
744
EZEKIEL,
tains of Israel; when they had an altar and a temple
again, and the benefit of a settled priesthood, then
they were fid in a good pasture.
3. He will succour those that are hurt, will bind
up that ' which was broken, and strengthen that
which was sick, will comfort those that mourn in
Zion and with Zion. If ministers, who should speak
peace to those who are of a sorrowful spirit, neglect
their duty, yet the Holy Ghost the Comforter will
be faithful to his office. But, as it follows, the fat
and the strong shall be destroyed. He that has rest
for disquieted saints, has terror to speak to presump¬
tuous sinners. As every valley shall be filled, so
every mountain and hill shall be brought low,
Luke iii. 5.
17. And as for you, O my flock, thus saith
the Lord God, Behold, I judge between
cattle and cattle, between the rams and the
he-goats. 1 3. Seemeth it a small thing unto
you to have eaten up the good pasture, but ye
must tread down with your feet the residue
of your pastures ? and to have drunk of the
deep waters, but ye must foul the residue
with your feet? 19. And as for my flock,
they eat that which ye have trodden with
your feet; and they drink that which ye
have fouled with your feet. 20. Therefore,
thus saith the Lord God unto them, Behold
I, even I, will judge between the fat cattle
and between the lean cattle. 21. Because
ye have thrust with side and with shoul¬
der, and pushed all the diseased with your
horns, till ye have scattered them abroad;
22. Therefore will I save my flock, and they
shall no more be a prey; and I will judge
between cattle and cattle. 23. And I will
set up one Shepherd over them, and he shall
feed them, even my servant David ; he shall
feed them, and he shall be their shepherd.
24. And I the Lord will be their God, and
my servant David a prince among them; 1
the Lord have spoken it. 25. And I will
make with them a covenant of peace, and
will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the
land; and they shall dwell safely in the wil¬
derness, and sleep in the woods. 26. And
I will make them, and the places round
about my hill, a blessing; and I will cause
the shower to come down in his season:
there shall be showers of blessing. 27. And
the tree of the field shall yield her fruit, and
the earth shall yield her increase, and they
shall be safe in their land, and shall know
that I am the Lord, when I have broken
the bands of their yoke, and delivered them
out of the hand of those that served them¬
selves of them. 28. And they shall no more
be a prey to the heathen, neither shall the
beasts of the land devour them : but they
shall dwell safely, and none shall make them
afraid 29. And I will raise up for them a
Plant of renown, and they shall be no more
XXXIV.
consumed with hunger in the land, neither
bear the shame of the heathen any more.
30. Thus shall they know that I the Lord
their God am with them, and that they, even
the house of Israel, are my people, saith the
Lord God. 31. And ye, my flock of my
pasture, are men, and I am your God, saith
the Lord God.
The prophet has no more to say to the shepherds,
but he has now a message to deliver to the flock.
God had ordered him to speak tenderly to them,
and to assure them of the mercy he had in store for
them. But here he is ordered to make a difference
between some and others of them, to separate be¬
tween the precious and the vile, and then to give
them a promise of the Messiah, by whom this dis¬
tinction should be effectually made, partly at his
first coming, for, for judgment he came into this
world, (John xi. 39.) to fll the hungry with good
things, and to send the rich empty away, Luke i.
53. But this distinction shall be completely made
at his second coming, when he shall, as it is here
said, judge between cattle and cattle, as a shepherd
divides between the sheep and the goats, and shall
set the sheep on his right hand, and the goats on his
left, (Matth. xxv. 32, 33.) which seems to have re¬
ference to this. We have here,
I. Conviction spoken to those of the flock that
wer e. fit and strong, the rams and the he-goats, v.
17. Those that, though they had not power, as
shepherds and rulers, to oppress with, yet, being
rich and wealthy, made use of the opportunity
which this gave them, to bear hard upon their poor
neighbours. Those that have much, would have
more, and, if they set to it, will have more, so many
ways have they of encroaching upon their poor
neighbours, and forcing from them the one ewe-
lamb, 2 Sam. xii. 4. Do not the rich oppress the
poor merely with the help of their riches, and
draw them before the judgment-seats? Jam. ii. 6.
Poor servants and tenants are hardly used by their
rich lords and masters. The rams and the he-goats
not only kept all the good pasture to themselves,
ate the fat and drank the sweet, but they would not
let the poor of the flock have any comfortable en¬
joyment of the little that was left them ; they trod
down the residue of the pastures, and fouled the
residue of the waters, so that the flock was fain to
eat that which they had trodden into the dirt, and
drink that which they had muddied, v. 18, 19.
This intimates that the great men, not only by ex¬
tortion and oppression made and kept their neigh¬
bours poor, and scarcely left them enough to subsist
on, but were so vexatious to them, that what little
coarse fare they had, was imbittered to them. And
this seemed a small thing to them; they thought
there was no harm in it, as if it were the privilege
of their quality to be injurious to all their neigh¬
bours. Note, Many that live in pomp and at ease
themselves, care not what straits those about them
are reduced to, so they may but have every thing
to their mind. Those that are at ease, and the
proud, grudge that any body should live by them
with any comfort.
But this was not all; they not only robbed the
poor, to make them poorer, but were troublesome
to the sick and weak of the flock; (v. 21.) they
thrust with side and shoulder those that were fee¬
ble, (for the weakest goes to the wall,) and pushed
the diseased with their horns, because they knew
they could be too hard for them, when they durst
not meddle with their match. It has been ob¬
served concerning sheep, that if one of the flock
be sick and faint, the rest will secure it as they can.
745
EZEKIEL, XXXIV.
and shelter it from the scorching heat of the sun;
but these, on the contrary, were most injurious to
the diseased. Those that they could not serve them¬
selves of, they did svhat they could to rid the coun¬
try of, and so scattered them abroad, as if the floor,
whom Christ says we must have always with us,
were public nuisances, not to be relieved, but sent
far away from us. Note, It is a barbarous thing to
add affliction to the afflicted. Perhaps these rams
and he-goats are designed to represent the Scribes
and Pharisees, for they are such troublers of the
church as Christ himself must come to deliver it
from; (x>. 23.) they devoured widows’ houses, took
away the key of knowledge, corrupted the pure wa¬
ter of divine truths, and oppressed the consciences
of men with the traditions of the elders; besides,
they were continually vexatious and injurious to the
floor of the flock that waited on the Lord, Zech. xi.
11. Note, It is no new thing for the flock of God to
receive a great deal of damage and mischief from
those that are themselves of the flock, and in emi¬
nent stations in it, Acts xx. 30.
II. Comfort spoken to those of the flock that are
floor and feeble, and that wait for the consolation of
Israel; (v. 22.) “/ will save my flock, and they
shall no more be spoiled as they have been by the
beasts of prey, by their own shepherds, or by the
rams and he-goats among themselves. ” Upon this oc¬
casion, as is usual in the prophets, comes in a predic¬
tion of the coming of the Messiah, and the setting up
of his kingdom, and the exceeding great and precious
benefits which the church should enjoy under the pro¬
tection and influence of that kingdom. Observe,
1. What is here foretold concerning the Messiah
himself. (1.) He shall have his commission from
God himself; I will set him u/i, v. 23. I will raise
him ufi, v. 29. He sanctified and sealed him, ap¬
pointed and anointed him. (2.) He shall be the
great Shepherd of the sheep, who shall do that ]
for his flock which no one else could do. He is the
one Shepherd, under whom Jews and Gentiles should
be one fold. (3.) He is God’s Servant, employed j
by him and for him, and doing all in obedience to
his will, with an eye to his glory; his Servant, to re¬
establish his kingdom among men, and advance the
interests of that kingdom. (4.) He is David; one
after God’s own heart, set as his King upon the holy
hill of Zion, made the head of the corner; with
whom the covenant of royalty is made, and to whom
God would give the throne of his father David. He
is both the Root and Offspring of David. (5.) He
is the Plant of renown, because a righteous Branch,
(Jer. xxiii. 5.) a Branch of the Lord, that is beau¬
tiful and glorious, Isa. iv. 2. He has a name above
every name, a throne above every throne, and may
therefore well be called a Branch of renown. Some
understand it of the church, the planting of the
Lord, Isa. lxi. 3. Its name shall be remembered,
(Ps. xlv. 17.) and Christ’s in it.
2. Concerning the great charter by which the
kingdom of the Messiah should be incorporated, and
upon which it should be founded; (x1. 25.) I will
make with them a covenant of peace. The covenant
of grace is a covenant of peace. In it God is at
peace with us, speaks peace to us, and assures us
of peace, of all good, all the good we need to make
us happy. The tenour of this covenant is; “/ the
Lord will be their God, a God all-sufficient to them,
(v. 24.) will own them, and will be owned by them;
in orderto this, my Servant David shall be a Prince
among them, to reduce them to their allegiance, to
receive their homage, and to reign over them, in
them, and for them.” Note, Those, and those only,
that have the Lord Jesus for their Prince, have the
Lord Jehovah for their God. And then they, even
the house of Israel, shall be my people. If we take
God to be our God, he will take us to be h!i fieojile.
Vol. iv. — 5 B
From this covenant between God and Israel there
results communion; “ I the Lord their God am with
them, to converse with them; and they shall know
it, and have the comfort of it.”
3. Concerning the privileges of those that are the
faithful subjects of this kingdom of the Messiah,
and interested in the covenant of peace. These are
here set forth figuratively, as the blessings of the
flock. But we have a key to it, v. 31. They that
belong to this flock, though they are spoken of as
sheep, are really men; men that have the Lord for
their God, and are in covenant with him. Now to
them is promised,
(1.) That they shall enjoy a holy security, under
the divine protection. Christ, our' good Shepherd,
has caused the evil beasts to cease out of the land,
( v. 25.) haying vanquished all our spiritual enemies,
broken their power, and triumphed over them ; the
roaring lion is not a roaring drvouring lion to them ;
they shall no more be a prey to the heathen, nor the
heathen a terror to them; neither shall the beasts of
the land devour them; sin and Satan, death and hell,
are conquered. And then they shall dwell safely,
not only in the folds, but in the fields, in the wilder¬
ness, in the woods, where the beasts of prey are;
they shall not only dwell there, but they shall sleep
there; which denotes not only that the beasts being
made to cease, there shall be no danger, but, then-
consciences being purified and pacified, thev shall
be in no apprehension of danger; not only safe from
evil, but quiet from the fear of evil. Note, Those
may lay them down and sleep securely, sleep at
ease, that have Christ for their Prince; for he will
be their Protector, and make them to dwell in safet}
None shall hurt them, nay, none shall make them
afraid. If God be for us, who can be against us?
Therefore will 7iot we fear, though the earth be re¬
moved. Through Christ, God delivers his people
not only from the things they have reason to fear,
but from their fear even of death itself, from all
that fear that has torment. This safetv from evil
is promised; (v. 27. ) They shall be safe in their land,
in no danger of being invaded and enslaved, though
their great plenty be a temptation to their neigh¬
bours todesire their land; and that which shall make
them think themselves safe is, their confidence in
the wisdom, power, and goodness of God; They
shall know that I am the Lord. All our disquieting
fears arise from our ignorance of God, and mistakes
concerning him; their experience of his particular
care concerning them encourages their confidence in
him; “ I have broken the bands of their yoke, with
which they have been brought, and held down, un¬
der oppression, and have delivered them out of the
hands of those that served themselves of them.
Whence they shall argue. He that has delivered,
does and will, therefore will we dwell safely.” This
,is explained, and applied to our gospel-state, (Luke
i. 74. ) That we, being delivered out of the hand of
our enemies, might serve him without fear, as those
may do, that serve him in faith.
(2.) That they shall enjoy a spiritual plenty of
all good things, the best things, for their comfort
and happiness; They shall no more be consumed with
hunger in the land, v. 29. Famine and scarcity,
when Israel was punished with that judgment, turned
as much to their reproach among the heathen as
any other, because the fruitfulness of Canaan was
so much talked of. But now they shall not bear that
shame of the heathen any more. For the showers
shall come down in their season, even showers of
blessings, v. 26. Christ is a Shepherd that will feed
his people; and they shall go in and out, and find
pasture. [1.] They shall not be consumed with
hunger; for they shall not be put off with the world
for a portion, which is not bread, which satisfies not,
and which occasions those that are put off with it to
746
EZEKIEL, XXXV.
be consumed with hunger. The ordinances of the
ceremonial law are called beggarly elements, for
there was little in them, compared with the Chris¬
tian institutes wherewith the mower Jills his hand,
and he that binds sheaves, his bosom. They that
hunger and thirst after righteousness, shall not
be consumed with that hunger, for they shall be
filled. And he that drinks of the water that Christ
gives him, the still waters by which he leads his
sheep, shall never thirst. [2.] Showers of blessings
shall come upon them, v. 26, 27. The heavens
shall yield their dews, the trees of the field also shall
yield their fruit. The seat of this plenty is God’s
hill, his holy hill of Zion, for on that mountain, in
the gospel-church, it is, that God has made to all
nations a feast; to that those must join themselves,
who would partake of gospel-benefits. The cause
of this plenty is, the showers that come down in their
season, that descend upon the mountains of Zion;
the graces of Christ, his doctrine that drops as the
dew; the graces of Christ, and the gifts and comforts
of his Spirit, by which we are made fruitful in the
fruits of righteousness. The instances of this plenty
are, the blessings of heaven poured down upon us,
and the productions of grace brought forth by us;
our comfort in God’s favour, and God’s glory in our,
fruit-bearing. The extent of this plenty is very large,
to all the places round about my hill; for out of
Zion shall go forth the law, shall go forth light to a
dark world, and the river that shall water a dry and ,
desert world; all that are in the neighbourhood of
Zion, shall fare the better for it; and the nearer the
church, the nearer its God. And lastly. The effect
of this plenty, is, I will make them a blessing, emi- j
nently and exemplarily blessed, patterns of happi¬
ness, "Isa. xix. 24. Or, They shall be blessings to
all about them, diffusively useful. Note, Those that
are the blessed of the Lord must study to make ,
themselves blessings to the world. He that is good,
let him do good; he that has received the gift, the
grace, let him minister the same.
Now this promise of the Messiah and his king¬
dom spake much comfort to those to whom it was '
then made, for they might be sure that God would
not utterly destroy their nation, how low soever it
might be brought, as long as that blessing was in
the womb of it, Isa. lxv. 8. But it speaks much
more comfort to us, to whom it is fulfilled, who are
the sheep of this good Shepherd, are fed in his pas¬
tures, and blessed with all spiritual blessings in hea¬
venly things by him.
CHAP. XXXV.
It was promised, in the foregoing chapter, that when the
time to favour Zion, yea, the set time, should come, es¬
pecially the time for sending the Messiah, and setting
up his kingdom in the world, God would cause the ene¬
mies of the church to cease , and the blessings and com¬
forts of the church to abound. This chapter enlarges upon
the former promise, concerning the destruction of the
enemies of the church; the next chapter upon the latter
promise, the replenishing of the church with blessings.
Mount Seir, that is, Edom , is the enemy prophesied
against in this chapter, but fitly put here, as in the pro¬
phecy of Obadiah, for all the enemies of the church;
for as they all walked in the way of Cain that hated Abel,
so they all walked in the way of Esau, who hated Jacob,
but over whom Jacob, by virtue of a particular blessing,
was to have dominion. Now here we have, I. The sin
charged upon the Edomites, and that was, their spite
and malice to Israel, v. 5, 10. .13. II. The ruin threat¬
ened, that should come upon them for this sin. God will
be against them, (v. 3.) and then their country shall be
laid waste, (v. 4.) depopulated, and made quite deso¬
late, (v. 6. .9.) and left so when other nations that had
been wasted, should recover themselves, v. 14, 15.
I . jV W O R E O V E R , the word of the Lord
came unto me, saying, 2. Son of
man, set thy face against mount Seir, and
prophesj against it, 3. And say unto it,
Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, O mount
Seir, I am against thee, and I will stretch
out my hand against thee, and I will make
thee most desolate. 4. I will lay thy cities
waste, and thou shalt be desolate; and thou
shalt know that I am the Lord. 5. Be¬
cause thou hast had a perpetual hatred, and
hast shed the blood of the children of Israel
by the force of the sword in the time of
their calamity, in the time that their iniquity
had an end : 6. Therefore, as I live, saith
the Lord God, I will prepare thee unto
blood, and blood shall pursue thee : sith thou
hast not hated blood, even blood shall pur¬
sue thee. 7. Thus will I make mount Seir
most desolate, and cut off from it him that
passeth out, and him that returneth. 8.
And I will fill his mountains with his slain
men: in thy hills, and in thy valleys, and in
all thy rivers, shall they fall that are slain
with the sword. 9. I will make thee per¬
petual desolations, and thy cities shall not
return ; and ye shall know that I am the
Lord.
Mount Seir was mentioned as partner with Moab
in one of the threatenings we had before; ( ch . xxv.
8.) but here it is convicted and condemned by itself,
and has woes of its own. The prophet must boldly
set his face against Edom, and prophesy particularly
against it; for the God of Israel has said, O mount
Seir, I am against thee. Note, Those that have
God against them, have the word of God against
them, and the face of his ministers, nor dare they
prophesy any good to them, but evil. The prophet
must tell the Edomites that God has a controversy
with them, and let them know,
1. What is the cause and ground of that contro¬
versy, v. 5. God espouses his people’s cause, and
will plead it; takes what is done against them as
done against himself, and will reckon for it; and it
is upon their account that God now contends with
the Edomites. (1.) Because of the enmity they had
against the people of God, that was rooted in the
heart; “Thou hast had a perpetual hatred to them,
to the very name of an Israelite.” The Edomites
kept up an hereditary malice against Israel, the
same that Esau bore to Jacob, because he got the
birthright and the blessing. Esau had been recon¬
ciled to Jacob, had embraced and kissed him; (Gen.
xxxiii.) and we do not find that ever he quarrelled
with him again. But the posterity of Esau would
never be reconciled to the seed of Jacob, but hated
them with a perpetual hatred. Note, Children will
be more apt to imitate the vices, than the virtues,
of their parents; and to tread in the steps of their
sin than in the steps of their repentance. Parents
should therefore be careful not to set their children
any bad example, for though, through the grace of
God, they may return, and prevent the mischief of
what they have done amiss to themselves, they may
not be able to obviate the bad influence of it upon
their children. It is strange how deeply rooted na¬
tional antipathies sometimes are, and how long they
last; but it is not to be wondered at, that profane
Edomites hate pious Israelites, since the old enmity
that was put between the seed of the womati and the
seed of the serpent (Gen. iii. 15.) will continue to
the end. Marvel not if the world hate you. (2. )
| Because of the injuries they had done to the people
747
EZEKIEL, XXXV.
of God; they shed their blood by the force of the
sword, in the time of their calamity; they did not
attack them as fair and open enemies, but laid wait
for them, to cut off those of them that hud escaped;
(Obad. 14.) or, they drove them back upon the
sword of the pursuers, by which they tell. It was
cowardly, as well as barbarous, to take advantage
of their distress; and for neighbours, with whom
they had lived peaceably, to smite them secretly,
when styangers openly invaded them. It was in the
time that their iniquity had an end, when the mea¬
sure of it was full, and destruction came. Note,
Even those that suffer justly, and for their sins, are
yet to be pitied, and not trampled upon. If the fa¬
ther corrects one .child, he expects the rest should
tremble at it, hot triumph in it.
2. What should be the effect and issue of that
controversy. If God stretch out his hand against
the country of Edom, he will make it most desolate,
v. 3. Desolation and desolation. (1.) The inha¬
bitants shall be slain with the sword; ( v . 6.) I will
lire fare thee unto blood. Edom shall be gradually
weakened, and so be the more easily conquered,
and the enemy shall gather strength, the more ef¬
fectually to subdue it. Thus preparation is in the
making a great while before for this destruction.
Thou hast not hated blood; it implies, “ Thou hast
delighted in it, and thirsted after it. Those that do
not keep up a rooted hatred of sin, when a tempta¬
tion to it is very strong, will be in danger of yield¬
ing to it. Some read it, “ Unless thou /latest blood,”
that is, “ unless thou dost repent, and put off this
bloody disposition, blood shall pursue thee.” And
then it is an intimation that the judgment may yet
be prevented by a thorough reformation. If he turn
not, he will whet his sword, Ps. vii. 12. But if he
turn, he will lay it by. Blood shall pursue thee, the
guilt of the blood which thou hast shed, or the judg¬
ment of blood; thy bloodthirsty enemies shall pur¬
sue thee, which way soever thou seekest to make
thy escape. A great and general slaughter shall be
made of the Idumeans, such as had been foretold;
(Isa. xxxiv. 6.) the mountains and hills, the valleys
and rivers, shall be filed with the slain, v. S. The
pursuers shall overtake those that flee, and shall
give no quarter, but put them all to the sword. Note,
When God comes to make inquisition for blood, those
that have shed the blood of his Israel shall have
blood given them to drink, for they are worthy.
Satia te sanguine quern sitisti — Glut thyself with
blood after which thou hast thirsted. (2.) The
country shall be laid waste. The cities shall be de¬
stroyed, (v. 4. ) the country made desolate; ( v . 7. )
for God will cut off from both him that passes out,
and him that returns; and when the inhabitants are
cut off, that should keep the cities in repair, they
will decay, and go into ruins; and when those are
cut off that should till the land, that will soon be
overrun with briars and thorns, and become a wil¬
derness. Note, Those that help forward the deso¬
lations of Israel, may expect to be themselves made
desolate. And that which completes the judgment
is, that Edom shall be made perpetual desolations,
(v. 9. ) and the cities shall never return to their for¬
mer state, nor the inhabitants of them come back
from their captivity and dispersion. Note, Those
that have a perpetual enmity to God and his people,
as the carnal mind has, can expect no other than
to be made a perpetual desolation. Implacable
malice will justly be punished with irreparable
ruin.
10 Because thou hast said, These two
nations, and these two countries, shall be
mine, and we will possess it; whereas the
Lord was there : 11. Therefore, as I live,
i| saitli the Lord God, I will even do accord¬
ing to thine anger, and according to thine
envy, which thou hast used out of thy hatred
against them; and I will make myself
known among them, when I have judged
thee. 12. And thou shalt know that 1 am
the Lord, and that I have heard all thy
blasphemies which thou hast spoken against
the mountains of Israel, saying, They are
laid desolate, they are given us to consume.
13. Thus with your mouth ye have boasted
against me, and have multiplied your words
against me: 1 have heard than. 14. Thus
saith the Lord God, When the whole earth
rejoiceth, I will make thee desolate. 15. As
! thou didst rejoice at the inheritance of the
house of Israel, because it was desolate, so
will I do unto thee: thou shalt be desolate,
O mount Seir, and all Idumea, even all of
it; and they shall know that I am the Lord.
Here is, 1. A further account of the sin of the
Edomites, and their bad conduct toward the people
of God. We find the church complaining of them
for setting on the Babylonians, and irritating them
against Jerusalem, saying, Raze it, raze it, down
with it, down with it; (Ps. cxxxvii. 7.) inflaming a
rage that needed no spur; here it is further charged
upon them, that they triumphed in Jerusalem’s
ruin, and in the desolations cf the country. Many
blasphemies they spake against the mountain 4 of
Israel, saying, with pride and pleasure, They are
laid desolate, v. 12. Note, The troubles of God’s
church, as they give proofs of the constancy and
fidelity of its friends, so they discover and draw out
the corruptions of its enemies, in whom there then
appears more brutish malice than one would have
thought of.
Now their triumphing in Jerusalem’s ruin is here
said to proceed, (1.) From a sinful passion against
the people of Israel; from anger and envy, and ha¬
tred against them, (x>. 11.) that perpetual hatred
spoken of, v. 5. Though they were not a match
for them, and therefore could not do them a mis¬
chief themselves, yet they were glad when the
Chaldeans did them a mischief. (2. ) From a sinful
appetite to the land of Israel. They pleased them¬
selves with hopes that when the people of Israel
were destroyed, they should be let into the posses¬
sion of their country, which they had so often
grudged and envied them. They thought they
could make out something of a title to it, ob defec¬
tum sanguinis — for want of other heirs. If Jacob’s
issue fail, they think that they are next in the en¬
tail, and that the remainder will be to his brother’s
issue; “ These two nations of Judah and Israel shall
be mine. Now is the time for me to put in for them ;”
however, they hope to come in as first occupants,
being near neighbours; We will possess it, when it is
deserted; Ceditur occupanti — Let us get possession,
and that will be title enough. Note, Those have
the spirit of Edomites who desire the deaths of
others, because they hope to get by them, or are
pleased with their failing, because they expect to
come into their business. When we see the vanity
of the world in the disappointments, losses, and
crosses that others meet with in it, instead of show ■
ingourselves, upon such an occasion, greedy of it, we
should rather be made thereby to sit more loose to
it, and both take our affections off it, and lower
our expectations from it. But in this case of the
I Edomites’ coveting the land of Israel, and gaping
748
EZEKIEL
for it, there was a particular affront to God, when
they said, “ These lands are given us to devour ,
and we shall have our bellies full of their riches.”
God says, You have boasted against me, and have
multiplied your words against me; for they expect¬
ed possession upon a vacancy, because Israel was
driven out, whereas the Lord was still there, v. 10.
His temple indeed was burnt, and the other tokens
of His presence were gone; but his promise to give
that land to the seed of Jacob for an inheritance, was
not made void, but remained in full force and vir¬
tue; and by that promise he did in effect still keep
possession for Israel, till they should in due time be
restored to it. That was Immanuel’s land; (Isa.
viii. 8. ) in that land he was to be born, and therefore
that people shall continue in it, of whom he is to be
born, till he has passed his time in it, and then let
who will take it; The Lord is there, the Lord Jesus
is to be there; and therefore Israel’s discontinuance
of possession is no defeasance of their right, but it
shall be kept for them, and they shall have, hold,
and enjoy it by virtue of the divine grant, till the
promise of this Canaan shall by the Messiah be
changed into the promise of a far better. Note, It
is a piece of presumption highly offensive to God,
for Edomites to lay claim to those privileges and
comforts that are peculiar to God’s chosen Israel,
and are reserved for them. It is blasphemy against
the mountains of Israel, the holy mountains, to say,
because they are for the present made a prey of,
and trodden underfoot of the Gentiles, (Rev. xi. 2. )
even the holy city itself, that therefore the Lord
has forsaken them, their God has forgotten them.
The apostle will by no means admit such a thought
as this, that God hath cast away his people, Rom.
xi. 1. No, though they are cast down for a time,
they are not cast off for ever. Those reproach the
Lord who say they are.
The notice God took of the barbarous insolence
of the Edomites, and the doom passed upon them
for it; I have heard all thy blasphemies, v. 12. And
again, (v. 13.) You have multiplied your words
against me; and I have heard them, I have observed
them, I have kept an account of them. Note, In
the multitude of words, not one escapes God’s cog¬
nizance; let men speak ever so much, ever so fast,
though they multiply words, which they themselves
regard not, but forget immediately, yet none of
them are lost in the crowd, not the most idle words;
but God hears them, and will be able to charge
the sinner with them. All the haughty and hard
speeches particularly which are spoken against the
Israel of God, the words which are magnified, (as
it is in the margin, v. 13.) as well as the words
which ar e. multiplied, God takes notice of. For as
the most trifling words are not below his cognizance,
so the most daring are not above his rebuke; I have
heard all thy blasphemies. This is a good reason
why we should bear reproach as if we heard it not,
because God will hear, Ps. xxxviii. 13, 15. God
has heard the Edomites’ blasphemy, let them there¬
fore hear their doom, v. 14, 15. It was a national
sin; the blasphemies charged upon them were the
sense and language of all the Edomites, and there¬
fore shall be punished with a national desolation.
And (1.) It shall be a distinguishing punishment.
As God has peculiar favours for Israelites, so he has
peculiar plagues for Edomites; so that “ When the
whole earth rejoices, I will make thee desolate; when
other nations have their desolations repaired to
their joy, thine shall be perpetual,” v. 9. (2.) The
punishment shall answer to the sin; “ As thou didst
rejoice in the desolation of the house of Israel, God
will give thee enough of desolation, since thou art so
fond of it, thou shalt be desolate; I will make thee
so.” Note, Those who, instead of weeping with the
mourners, make a jest of their grievances, may
, XXXVI.
justly be made to weep like the mourners, and
themselves to feel the weight, to feel the smart, of
those grievances which they set so light by. Some
read v. 14. so as to complete the resemblance be¬
tween the sin and the punishment; The whole earth
shall rejoice when I make thee desolate, as thou clids.
rejoice when Israel was made desolate. Those that
are glad at the death and fall of others, may expect
that others will be glad of their death, of their fall.
Lastly, In the destruction of the enemies of the
church, God designs his own glory, and we may be
sure that he will not come short of his design. "(1.)
That which he intends is, to manifest himself as a
just and jealous God, firm to his covenant, and faith¬
ful to his people and their injured cause; (x>. 11.) I
will make myself known among them when I have
judged thee. The Lord is, and will be, known by
the judgments which he executes. (2. ) His inten¬
tion shall be fully answered; not only his own peo¬
ple shall be made to know it to their comfort, but
even tbe Edomites themselves, and all the other
enemies of his name and people, shall know that he
is the Lord, v. 4, 9, 15. As the works of creation
and common providence demonstrate that there is
a God, so the care taken of Israel shows that Jeho¬
vah, the God of Israel, is that Gcd alone, the true
and living God.
CHAP. XXXVI.
We have done with mount Seir, and left it desolate, and
likely to continue so, and must now turn ourselves, with
the prophet, to the mountains of Israel , which we find
desolate too, but hope, before we have done with the
chapter, to leave in better plight. Here are two distinct
prophecies in this chapter; I. Here is one that seems
chiefly to relate to the temporal estate of the Jews,
wherein their present deplorable condition is described,
and the triumphs of their neighbours in it; but it is pro¬
mised that their grievances shall be all redressed^ and
that in due time they shall be settled again in their own
land, in the midst of peace and plenty, v. 1 . . 5. II.
Here is another that seems chiefly to concern their spi¬
ritual estate; wherein they are reminded af their former
sins, and God’s judgments upon them, to humble them
for their sins, and under God’s mighty hand, v. 16. .20.
But it is promised, 1. That God would glorify himself in
showing mercy to them, v. 21-.24. 2. That he would
sanctify them by giving them his grace, and fitting them
for his service; and this for his own name’s sake, and in
answer to their prayers, v. 25* .38.
1. A LSO, thou son of man, prophesy unto
J\. the mountains of Israel, and say, Ye
mountains of Israel, hear the word of the
Lord: 2. Thus saith the Lord God ; Be¬
cause the enemy had said against you, Aha,
even the ancient high places are ours in pos¬
session : 3. Therefore prophesy and say,
Thus saith- the Lord God; Because they
have made you desolate, and swallowed
you up on every side, that ye might be a
possession unto the residue of the heathen,
and ye are taken up in the lips of talkers,
and are an infamy of the people : 4. There¬
fore, ye mountains of Israel, hear the word
of the Lord God; Thus saith the Lord
God to the mountains, and to the hills, to
the rivers, and to the valleys, to the desolate
wastes, and to the cities that are forsaken,
which became a prey and derision to the
residue of the heathen thatcre round about;
5. Therefore thus saith the Lord God ,
Surely in the fire of my jealousy have I
spoken against the residue of the heathen,
7-1 9
EZEKIEL, XXXVI.
and against all Idumea, which have ap¬
pointed my land into their possession with
the joy of all their heart, with despiteful
minds, to cast it out for a prey. 6. Prophesy
therefore concerning the land of Israel, and
say unto the mountains, and to the hills, to
the rivers, and to the valleys, Thus saith the
Lord .God; Behold, I have spoken in my
jealousy and in my fury, because ye have
borne the shame of the heathen: 7. There¬
fore thus saith the Lord God ; I have lifted
up my hand, Surely the heathen that are
about you, they shall bear their shame. 8.
But ye, O mountains of Israel, ye shall shoot
forth your branches, and yield your fruit to
my people of Israel; for they are at hand to
come. 9. For behold, I am for you, and I
will turn unto you, and ye shall be tilled
and sown: 10. And I will multiply men
upon you, all the house of Israel, even all of
it: and the cities shall be inhabited, and the
wastes shall be budded : 11. And I will
multiply upon you man and beast; and they
shall increase and bring fruit: and I will
settle you after your old estates, and will
do better unto you than at your beginnings:
and ye shall know that I am the Lord. 1 2.
Yea, I will cause men to walk upon you,
even my people Israel ; and they shall pos¬
sess thee, and thou shalt be their inherit¬
ance, and thou shalt no more henceforth
bereave them of men. 13. Thus saith the
Lord God; Because they say unto you,
Thou land devourest up men, and hast be¬
reaved thy nations; 14. Therefore thou
shalt devour men no more, neither bereave
thy nations any more, saith the Lord God.
1 5. Neither will I cause men to hear in thee
the shame of the heathen any more, neither
shalt thou bear the reproach of the people
any more, neither shait thou cause thy na¬
tions to fall any more, saith the Lord God.
The prophet had been ordered to set his face to¬
ward the mountains of Israel , and prophesy against
them, ch. vi. 2. Then God was coming forth to
contend with his people; but now that God is return¬
ing in mercy to them, he must speak good words
and comfortable words to these mountains, v. 1.
And again, ( v . 4.) Ye mountains of Israel, hear the
word of the Lord; and what he says to them, he
says to the hills, to the rivers, to the valleys, to the
desolate wastes, in the country, and to the cities
that are forsaken, (v. 4.) and again, v. 6. The
people were gone, some one way, and some another;
nothing remained there to be spoken to but the pla¬
ces, the mountains, and valleys; these the Chaldeans
could not carry away with them; The earth abides
for ever. Now, to show the mercy God had in re¬
serve for the people, he is to speak of him as having
a dormant kindness for the place; which if the Lord
had been pleased for ever to abandon, he would not
have called upon it to hear the word of the Lord,
nor would, as at this time, have showed it such things
as these. Here is,
1. The compassionate notice God takes of the
present deplorable condition of the land of Israel.
It is become both a prey and a derision to the hea¬
then that are round about, v. 4. 1. It is become a
prey to them; and they are all enriched with the
plunder of it. When the Chaldeans had conquered
them, all their neighbours flew to the spoil as to a
shipwreck, every one thinking all his own that he
could lay his hands on; (u. 3.) They have made you
desolate, and swallowed you up on every side, that
ye might be a possession to the heathen; to the resi
due ot them, even such as had themselves narrowly
escaped the like desolation. No one thought it any
crime to strip an Israelite; Turba Romae seejuitur
fortunam ut semper — The mob of Rome still
praise the elevated, and despise the fallen. It is the
common cry, when a man is down, Down with him.
2. It is become a derision to them. They took all
they had, and laughed at them when they had done.
The enemy said, “Aha, even the ancient high / daces
are ours in possession, v. 2. Neither the antiquity,
nor the dignity, nor the sanctity, nor the fortifica¬
tions, of the land of Israel are its security, but we
are become masters of it all.” The more honours
that land had been adorned with, and the greater
figure it had made among the nations, the more
pride and pleasure did they take in making a spoil
of it; which is an instance of a base and sordid spirit;
for the more glorious the prosperity was, the more
piteous is the adversity. God takes notice of it here
as an aggravation of the present calamity of Israel;
Ye are taken up in the lips of talkers, and are an
infamy of the people, v. 3. All the talk of the
country about was concerning the overthrow of the
Jewish nation; and every one that spake of it had
some peevish, ill-natured reflection or other upon
them. They were the scorning of them that were
at ease, and the contempt of the proud, Ps. cxxiii.
4. There are some that are noted for talkers, that
have something to say of every body, but cannot
find in their hearts to speak well of any body; God’s
people, among such people, were sure to be a re¬
proach when the crown was fallen from their head.
Thus it was the lot of Christianity, in its suffering
days, to be every where spoken against.
II. The expressions of God’s just displeasure
against those who triumphed in the desolations of
the land of Israel, as many of its neighbours did,
even the residue of the brethren, and Idumea par¬
ticularly.
Let us see, 1. How they dealt with the Israel of
God; they carved out large possessions to them¬
selves out of their land; out of God’s land; for so in¬
deed it was; “ They have appointed my land into
their possession, ( v . 5.) and so not only invaded their
neighbour’s property, but intrenched upon God’s
prerogative.” It was the holy land which they laid
their sacrilegious hands upon. They did not own
any dependence upon God, as the God of that land,
nor acknowledge any remaining interest that Isratl
had in it, but cast it out for a prey, as if they had
won it in a lawful war. And this they did without
any dread of God and his judgments, and without
any compassion for Israel and their calamities, but
with the joy of all their hearts, because they got by
it, and with despiteful minds to Israel that lost by it.
Increasing wealth, by right or wrong, is all the joy
of a worldly heart ; and the calamities of God’s peo¬
ple all the joy of a despiteful mind. And those that
had not an opportunity of making a prey of God’s
people, made a reproach of them ; so that they were
the shame of the heathen, v. 6. Every body ridiculed
them, and made a jest of them; and the truth is,
they had by their own sin made themselves vile; so
that God was righteous herein, but men were un
righteous and very barbarous.
2. How God would deal with them who were
750
EZEKIEL
thus in word and deed abusive to his people. He
has spoken against the heathen; lie has passed sen¬
tence upon them, he lias determined to reckon with
them for it, and this in the fire of his jealousy, both
for his own honour, and for the honour of his people,
v. 5. Having a love for both, strong as death, he
has ‘a jealousy for both, cr.uel as the grave. They
spake in their malice against God’s people, and he
will speak in his jealousy against them; and it is
easy to say which will speak most powerfully. God
will speak in his jealousy and in his fury, v. 6. Fury
is not in God; but he will exert his power against
them, and handle them as severely as men do when
they are in a fury. He will so speak to them in his
wrath as to vex them in his sare displeasure. What
he says, he will stand to, for it is backed with an
oath. He has lifted up his hand, and sworn by him¬
self, has sworn, and will not repent. And what is it
that is said with so much heat, and yet with so much
deliberation? It is this, (t>. 7.) Surely the heathen
that are about you, they shall bear their shame.
Note, The righteous God, to whom vengeance be¬
longs, will render shame for shame. Those that put
contempt and reproach upon God’s people, will,
sooner or later, have it turned upon themselves;
perhaps in this world, either their follies or their
calamities, their miscarriages or their mischances,
shall be their reproach; at furthest, in that day,
when all the impenitent shall rise to shame and
everlasting contempt.
III. The promise of God’s favour to his Israel,
and assurances given of great mercy God had in
store for them. God takes occasion from the out¬
rage and insolence of their enemies, to show himself
so much the more concerned for them, and ready
to do them good; as David hoped that God would
recompense him good for Shimei’s cursing him.
Let them curse, but bless thou. In this way as well
as others, the enemies of God’s people do them real
service, even by the injuries they do them, against
their will, and beyond their intention, We shall
have no reason to complain, if, the more unkind
men are, the more kind God is; if, the more kindly
lie speaks to us by bis word and Spirit, the more
kindly he acts for us in bis providence. The pro¬
phet must say to the mountains of Israel, which
were now desolate and despised, that God is for
them, and will turn to them, v. 9. As the curse of
God reaches the ground for man’s sake, so does the
blessing. Now that which is promised is,
1. That their rightful owners should return to the
possession of them; My jieople Israel are at hand
to come, v. 8. Though they are at a great distance
from their own country, though they are dispersed
in many countries, and though they are detained by
the power of their enemies, yet they shall 'come again
to their own border, Jer. xxxi. 17. The time is at
hand for their return. Though there were above
forty years of the seventy, (perhaps fifty,) yet re¬
maining, it is spoken of as near, because it is sure,
and there were some among them that should live
to see it. A thousand years are with God but as
one day. The mountains of Israel are now deso¬
late; but God will cause *men to walk upon them
again, even his people Israel, not as travellers pass¬
ing over them, but as inhabitants, not tenants, but
freeholders; They shall possess thee, not for term of
life, but for themselves and their heirs; thou shall
be their inheritance. It was a type of the heavenly
Canaan, to which all God’s children are heirs,, every
Israelite indeed, and into which they shall shortly
be all brought together, out of the countries where
they are now scattered.
2. That they should afford a plentiful, comforta¬
ble maintenance for their owners, at their return.
When the land had enjoyed her sabbaths for so many
years, it should be so much the more fruitful after-
„ XXXVI.
ward, as we should be after rest, especially a sab¬
bath-rest; Ye shall be tilled and sown, (v. 9.) and
shall yield your fruit to my people Israel, v. 8.
Note, It is a blessing to the earth, to be made ser-
• viceable to men, especially to good men, that will
serve God with cheerfulness in the use of those good
things which the earth serves up to them.
3. That the people of Israel should have not only
a comfortable sustenance, but a comfortable settle¬
ment in their own land; The cities shall be inhabited,
the wastes shall be bui/ded, v. 10. And I will settle
you after your old estates, v. 11. Their own sin
had unsettled them, but now God’s favour shall re¬
settle them. When the prodigal son is become a
penitent, he is settled again in his father’s house,
according to his former estate; Bring hither the first
robe, and put it on him. Nay, I will do better unto
you now than at your beginnings. There is more
joy for the sheep that is brought back than there
would have been if it had never gone astray. And
God sometimes multiplies his people’s comforts in
proportion to the time that he has afflicted them.
Thus God blessed the latter end of Job more than
his begitming, and doubled to him all he had.
4. That the people, after their return, should be
fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the land, so that
it should not only lie inhabited again, but as thickly
inhabited, and as well peopled, as ever. God will
bring back to it all the house of Israel, even all of
it; observe what an emphasis is laid upon that, ( v .
10.) all whose spirits God stirred up to return; and
those only were reckoned of the house of Israel, the
rest had cut themselves off from it; or, though but
few, in comparison, returned at first, yet afterward,
at divers times, they all returned; and then (says
God) I will multiply these men, {v. 10.) multiply
man and beast; and they shall increase, v. 11. Note,
God’s kingdom in the world is a growing kingdom;
and his church, though for a time it may be dimi¬
nished, shall recover itself, and be again replenished.
5. That the reproach long since cast upon the
land of Israel by the evil spies, and of late revived,
that it was a land that ate up the inhabitants of it by
famine, sickness, and the sword, should be quite
rolled away, and there should never be ant’ more
occasion for it. Canaan was got into a bad name.
It bad of old spued out the inhabitants, (Lev. xviii.
28.) the natives, the Aborigines, which was turned
to its reproach by those that should have put another
construction upon it, Numb. xiii. 32. It bad of late
devoured the Israelites, and spued them out too; so
that it was commonly said of it, It is a land, which,
instead of supporting its nations or tribes that inhabit
it, fiei-ecnfsthem, overthrows them, and causes them
to fall; it is a tenement which breaks all the tenants
that come upon it. This character it had got among
the neighbours; but God now promises that it shall
be so no more; Thou shalt no more bereave them oj
men, (y, 12. ) shalt devour men no more, v. 14. But
the inhabitants shall live to a good old age, and not
have the number of their months cut off in the
midst. Compare this with that promise, Zecli. viii.
4. Note, God will take away the reproach of his
people by taxing away that which was the occasion
of it. When the nation is made to flourish in peace,
plenty , and power, then they hear no more the shame
of t/ie heathen, (v. 15.) especially when it is re¬
formed ; when sin, which is the reproach of any peo¬
ple, particularly of God’s professing people, is taken
away, then thev hear no more the reproach of the
people. Note, When God returns in mercy to a peo
pie that return to him in duty, all their grievances
will soon be redressed, and their honour retrieved.
16. Moreover the word of the Lord came
unto me, saying, 17. Son of man, when
the house of Israel dwelt in their own land,
761
EZEKIEL, XXXVI.
tk ;y defiled it by their own way and by their
doings: their way was before me as the un-
cleanness of a removed woman. 1 8. Where¬
fore I poured my fury upon them for the
blood that they had shed upon the land, and
for their idols wherewith they had polluted
it: 19. And I scattered them among the
heathen, and they were dispersed through
the countries: according to their way and
according to their doings I judged them.
20. And when they entered unto the hea¬
then, whither they went, they profaned my
holy name, when they said to them, These
are the people of the Lord, and are gone
forth out of his land. 21. But I had pity for
my holy name, which the house ot Israel
had profaned among the heathen, whither
they went. 22. Therefore say unto the
house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God ;
I do not this for your sakes, O house of
Israel, but for my holy name’s sake, which
ye have profaned among the heathen, whit her
ye went. 23. And I will sanctify my great
name, which was profaned among the hea¬
then, which ye have profaned in the midst
of them ; and the heathen shall know that I
am the Lord, saith the Lord God, when I
shall be sanctified in you before their eyes.
24. For I will take you from among the
heathen, and gather you out of all countries,
and will bring you into your own land.
When God promised the poor captives a glorious
return, in due time, to their own land, it was a great
discouragement to their hopes, that they were un¬
worthy , utterly unworthy, of such a favour; there¬
fore, to remove that discouragement, God here
shows them that he would do it for them purely for
his own name’s sake, that he might be glorified in
them and by them; that he might manifest and
magnify his mercy and goodness, that attribute
which of all others is most his glory. And the resto¬
ration of that people being typical of our redemption
by Christ, this is intended further to show that the
ultimate end aimed at in our salvation, to which all
the steps of it were made subservient, was, the
glory of God; to this end Christ directed all he did,
in that short prayer. Father, glorify thy name; and
God declared it was his end in all he did, in the im¬
mediate answer given to that prayer, by a voice
from heaven; I have glorified it, and I will glorify
it net again, John xii. 28. Now observe here,
1. How God’s name had suffered both by the sins
and by the miseries of Israel; and this was more to
be regretted than all their sorrow, which they had
brought upon themselves; for the honour of God
lies nearer the hearts of good men than any interests
of their own.
1. God’s glory had been injured by the sin of
Israel when they were in their own land, v. 17. It
was a good land, a holy land, a land that had the
eye of God upon it. But they defied it by their own
way, their wicked way; that is our own way, the
way of our own choice; and we ourselves must bear
the blame and shame of it. The sin of a people de¬
files their land; renders it abominable to God, and
uncomfortable to themselves; so that they cannot
have any holy communion with him or with one
another. What was unclean might not be made use
of; by the abuse of the gifts of God’s bounty to us
we forfeit the use of them ; and, the mind and con¬
science being defiled with guilt, no comfort is al¬
lowed us, nothing is pure to us. Their way in the
eye of God was like the pollution of a woman during
the days of her separation, which shut her out from
the sanctuary, and made every thing she touched
ceremonially unclean, Lev. xv. 19. Sin is that
abominable thing which the Lord hates, and which
he cannot endure to look upon. They shed blood,
and worshipped idols, (tc 18.) and with those sins
defied the land. For this, God poured out his fun/
upon them, scattered them among the heathen; their
own land was sick of them, and they were sent into
other lands. Herein God was righteous, and was
justified in what he did; none could say that he did
them any wrong, nay, he did justice to his own ho¬
nour, for he judged them according to their way and
according to their doings, v. 19. And yet, the mat¬
ter being not rightly understood, he was not glori¬
fied in it; for the enemies did sav, as Moses pleaded
the Egyptians would sav, if he had destroyed them
in the wilderness, that for mischief he brought them
forth. Their neighbours considered them rather as
a holy people than as a sinful people; and ther-'efnre
took occasion from the calamities they were in, in¬
stead of glorifying God, as they might justly have
done, to reproach him, and put contempt upon him;
and God’s name was continually every day blas¬
phemed by their oppressors, Isa. lii. 5.
2. When they entered into the land of the heathen,
God had no glory by them there; but, on the con¬
trary, his holy name was prnfaned, v. 20. (1.) It
was profaned by the sins of Israel; they were no
credit to their profession wherever they went, but,
on the contrary, a reproach to it. The name of God
and his holy religion was blasphemed through them,
Rom. ii. 24. When those that pretended to be in
relation to God, in covenant and communion with
him, were found corrupt in their morals, slaves to
their appetites and passions, dishonest in their deal¬
ings, and false to their words, and the trusts re¬
posed in them, the enemies of the Lord had thereby
great occasion given them to blaspheme , especially
when they quarrelled with their God for correcting
them, than which nothing could be more scandal¬
ous. (2.) It was profaned by the sufferings of
Israel; for from them the enemies of God took oc¬
casion to reproach God, as unable to protect his own
worshippers, and to make good his own grants.
They said, in scorn, “ These are the people of the
land, these wicked people; you see he could not
keep them in their obedience to his precepts; these
miserable people, you see he could not keep them
in the enjoyment of h’s favours. These are the peo¬
ple that came out of Jehovah’s land, they are the
very scum of the nations. Are these they that had
statutes so righteous, whose lives are so unrighteous?
Is this the nation that is so much celebrated for a
wise and understanding fieople, and that is said to
have God so nigh unto them? Do these belong to
that brave, that holy nation, who appear here so
vile, so abject?” Thus God sold his people, and did
not increase his wealth by their price, Ps. xliv. 12.
The reproach they were under reflected upon him.
II. Let us see how God would retrieve his ho¬
nour, secure it, and advance it, by working a great
reformation upon them, and then working a great
salvation for them. He would have scattered them
among the heathen, were it not that he fcMed the
wrath of the enemy , Deut. xxxii. 26, 27. Butthough
they were unworthy of his compassion, yet he had
pity for his own holy name, and a thousand pities it
was that that should be trampled upon and abused.
He looked with compassion on his own honour,
which lay bleeding among the heathen, on that
752
EZEKIEL, XXXVI.
jewel which was trodden into the dirt, which the
house of Israel, even in the land of their captivity,
had firofaned, v. 21. In pity to that, God brought
them out from the heathen, because their sins were
more scandalous there than they had been in their
own land. “ Therefore I will gather you out of all
countries, and bring you into your own land, v. 24.
Not for your sake, because you are worthy of such
a favour, for you are most unworthy, but for my
holy name’s sake, (y. 22.) that I may sanctify my
great name,” v. 23. Observe, by the way, God’s
holy name is his great name; his holiness is his
greatness; so he reckons it himself; nor does any¬
thing make a man truly great but being truly good,
and partaking of God’s holiness. God will magnify
his name as a holy name, for he will sanctify it; “ I
will sanctify mv name which you have profaned.”
When God performs that which he has sworn by
his holiness, then he sanctifies his name. The effect
of this shall be very happy; The heathen shall know
that I am the Lord, when I shall be sanctified in you
before their eyes and yours. When God proves his
own holy name, and his saints praise it, then he is
sanctified in them, and this contributes to the pro¬
pagating of the knowledge of him. Observe, 1.
God’s reasons of mercy are all fetched from within
himself, he will bring his people out of Babylon, not
for their sakes, but for his own name’s sake, because
he will be glorified. 2. God’s goodness takes occa¬
sion from man’s badness to appear so much the more
illustrious; therefore he will sanctify his name by the
pardon of sin, because it has been profaned by the
commission of sin.
25. Then will I sprinkle clean water
upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all
your filthiness, and from all your idols, will
I cleanse you. 26. A new heart also will
I give you, and a new spirit will I put with¬
in you: and I will take away the stony
heart out of your flesh, and I will give you
a heart of flesh. 27. And I will put my
Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in
my statutes, and ye sha# keep my judg¬
ments, and do them. 28. And ye shall dwell
in the land that I gave to your fathers ; and
ye shall be my people, and I will be your
God. 29. I will also save you from all your
uncleannesses: and I will call for the corn,
and will increase it, and lay no famine upon
you. 30. And I will multiply the fruit of
the tree, and the increase of the field, that
ye shall receive no more reproach of famine
among the heathen. 31. Then shall ye re¬
member your own evil ways, and your do¬
ings that were not good, and shall loathe
yourselves in your own sight for your ini¬
quities, and for your abominations. 32. Not
for your sakes do I this , saith the Lord God,
be it known unto you: be ashamed and con¬
founded for your own ways, O house of
Israel 33. Thus saith the Lord God; In
the d%r that I shall have cleansed you from
all your iniquities, I will also cause you to
dwell in the cities, and the wastes shall be
builded. 34. And the desolate land shall
be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the
sight of all that passed by. 35. And they
shall say, This land that was desolate is
become like the garden of Eden ; and the
waste, and desolate, and ruined cities, are
become fenced, anc^ are inhabited. 36. Then
the heathen, that are left round about you.
shall know that I the Lord build the ruineci
places , and plant that that was desolate : I
the Lord have spoken it, and I will do it
37. Thus saith the Lord God, I will yet fot
this be inquired of by the house of Israel to
do it for them; I will increase them with
men like a flock. 38. As the holy flock, as
the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts,
so shall the waste cities be filled with flocks
of men; and they shall know that I am the
Lord.
The people of God might be discouraged in their
hopes of a restoration, by the sense not only of their
unworthiness of such a favour, (which was an¬
swered, in the foregoing verses, with this, that God,
in doing it, would have an eye to his own glory, not
to their worthiness,) but of their unfitness for such a
favour, being still corrupt and sinful; and that is
answered, in these verses, with a promise that God
would by his grace prepare and qualify them for
the mercy, and then bestow it on thdm. And this
was in part fulfilled in that wonderful effect which
the captivity in Babylon had upon the Jews there,
that it effectually cured them ot their inclination to
idolatry. But it is further intended as a draught
of the covenant of grace, and a specimen of those
spiritual blessings with which we are blessed in
heavenly things by that covenant. As, (c5. xxxiv.)
after a promise of their return, the prophecy in¬
sensibly slid into a promise of the coming of Christ,
the great Shepherd, so here it insensibly slides into
a promise of the Spirit, and his gracious influences
and operations; which we have as much need of
for our sanctification as we have of Christ’s merit
for our justification.
1. God here promises that he will work a good
work in them, to qualify them for the good work he
intended to bring about for them, v. 25.— 27. We
had promises to the same purport, ch. xi. 18. — 20.
(1.) That God would cleanse them from the pollu¬
tions of sin; (v. 25.) / will sprinkle clean water
upon you; which signifies both the blood of Christ
sprinkled upon the conscience to purify that, and to
take away the sense of guilt, (as those that were
sprinkled with the water of purification were there¬
by discharged from their ceremonial uncleanness,)
and the grace of the Spirit sprinkled on the whole
soul to purify it from all corrupt inclinations and
dispositions, as Naaman was cleansed from his le¬
prosy by dipping in Jordan. Christ was himself
clean, else his blood could not have been cleansing
to us; and it is a holy Spirit that makes us holy;
From all your filthiness, and from all your idols,
will I cleanse you. And, (x>. 29. ) I will save you
from all your uncleannesses. Sin is defiling, idola¬
try particularly is so; it renders sinners odious to
God, and burthensome to themselves; when guilt is
pardoned, and the corrupt nature sanctified, then
we are cleansed from our filthiness, and there is no
other way of being saved from it. This God pro¬
mises his people here, in order to his being sanctified
in them, v. 23. We cannot sanctify God’s name,
unless he sanctify our hearts; nor live to his glory,
but by his grace. (2.) That God would give them
a new heart; a disposition of mind excellent in it¬
self, and vastly different from what it was before.
God will work an inward change, in order to a uni-
753
EZEKIEL, XXXVI.
versal change. Note, All that have an interest in
the new covenant, and a title to the new Jerusalem,
nave a new heart and a new spirit, and these are
necessary in order to their walking in newness of
life. This is that divine nature which believers are
by the promises made partakers of. (3.) That, in¬
stead ot a heart of stone, insensible and inflexible,
unapt to receive any divine impressions, and to re¬
turn any devout affections, God would give a heart
of Jlesh, a soft and tender heart, that has spiritual
senses exercised, conscious to itself of spiritual pains
and pleasures, and complying in every thing with
the will of God. Note, Renewing grace works as
great a change in the soul as the turning of a dead
stone into living flesh. (4. ) That since, beside our
inclination to sin, we complain of an inability to do
our duty, God will cause them to walk in his statutes,
will not only show them the way of his statutes be¬
fore them, but incline them to walk in it, and tho¬
roughly furnish them with wisdom, and will, and
active powers, for every good work. In order to
this, he will fiut his Sfiirit within them; as a Teach¬
er, Guide, and Sanctifier. Note, God does not
force men to walk in his statutes by external vio¬
lence, but causes them to walk in his statutes by an
internal principle. And observe what use we ought
to make of this gracious power and principle pro¬
mised us, and put within us; Ye shall keefi my
judgments. If God will do his part according to
the promise, we must do ours according to the pre¬
cept. Note, The promise of God’s grace to enable
us for our duty, should engage and quicken our
constant care and endeavour to do our duty. God’s
promises must drive us to his precepts as our rule,
and then his precepts must send us back to his pro¬
mises for strength, for without his grace we can do
nothing.
2. God here promises that he will take them into
covenant with himself. The sum of the covenant
of grace we have, v. 28. Ye shall be my fieofile,
and I will be your God. It is not, “ If you will
be my people, I will be your God,” (though it is
very true that we cannot expect to have God to be
to us a God, unless we be to him a people,) but he
has chosen us, and loved us first, not we him; there¬
fore the condition is of grace, is by promise, as well
as the reward; not of merit, not of works; “ Ye
shall be my fieofile, I will make you so, I will give
yon the nature and spirit of my people, and then I
will be your God. ” And this is the foundation and
top-stone of a believer’s happiness; it is heaven it¬
self, Rev. xxi. 3, 7.
3. He promises that he will bring about all that
good for them, which the exigence of their case
calls for. When they are thus prepared for mercy,
(1.) Then they shall return to their possessions, and
be settled again in them; (k. 28.) Ye shall dwell in
the land that I gave to your fathers. God will, in
bringing them back to it, have an eye not to any
merit of theirs, but to the promise made to the fa¬
thers; for therefore he gave it them at first, Deut.
vii. ", 8. Therefore he is gracious, because he has
said that he will be so. This shall follow upon the
blessed reformation God would work among them;
(x>. 33.) “ In the day that I shall have cleansed you
from all your iniquities, and so shall have made
you meet for the inheritance, I will cause you to
dwell in the cities, and so put you in possession of the
inheritance.” This is God’s method of mercy in¬
deed, first to part men from their sins, and then to
restore them to their comforts. (2.) Then they
shall enjoy a plenty of all good things; when they
are saved from their uncleanness, from their sins
which kept good things from them, then I will call
for the corn, and will increase it, v. 29. Plenty
comes at God’s call, and the plenty he calls for shall
he. still growing; and when he speaks the word,
VOL. IV.— 5 C
the fruit both of the tree and of the field, shau mul-
tifily. As the inhabitants multiply, the produc¬
tions shall multiply for their maintenance; for he
that sends mouths will send meat. Famine was one
of the judgments which they had laboured under,
and it had been as much as any other a refiroach to
them, that they should be starved in a land so
famed for fruitfulness. But now I will lay no famine
ufion you; and -none are under that rod, without
having it laid on by him. Then they shall receive
no more refiroach of famine, shall never be again
upbraided with that; nor shall it ever be said that
God is a Master that keeps his servants to short
allowance. Nay, they shall not only be cleared from
the reproach of famine, but they shall have the cre¬
dit of abundance. The land that had long lain de¬
solate in the sight of all that fiassed by, that looked
upon it, some with contempt and some with com¬
passion, shall again be tilled, (y. 34.) and, having
long lain fallow, it will now be the more fruitful. '
Observe, God will call for the com, and yet they
must till the ground for it. Note, Even promised
mercies must be laboured for; for the promise is
not to supersede, but to quicken and encourage, our
industry and endeavour. And such a blessing will
God command on the hand of the diligent, that all
who pass by shall take notice of it with wonder, v.
35. They shall say, “See what a blessed change
here is, how this land that was desolate is become
like the garden of Eden; the desert turned again
into a paradise.” Note, God has honours in reserve
for his people to be crowned with, sufficient to ba¬
lance the contempt they are now loaded with; and
in them he will be honoured. This wonderful in¬
crease both of the people of the land and of its pro¬
ducts is compared (x’. 38.) to the large focks of
cattle that are brought to Jerusalem, to be sacri¬
ficed at one of the solemn feasts. Even the cities
that now lie waste shall be filled with flocks of men,
not like the flocks with which the pastures are co¬
vered over, (Ps. lxv. 13.) but like the holy fock
which is brought to the courts of the Lord’s house.
Note, Then the increase of the numbers of a people
is honourable and comfortable indeed, when they
are all dedicated to God as a holy flock, to be pre¬
sented to him for living sacrifces. Crowds are a
lovely sight in God’s temple.
4. He shows what shall be the hafifiy effects of
this blessed change. (1.) It shall have a happy
effect upon the people of God themselves, for it
shall bring them to an ingenuous repentance for
their sins; ( v . 31.) Then shall ye remember your
own evil ways, and shall loathe yourselves. See
here what sin is; it is an abomination, a loathsome
thing; that abominable thing which the Lord hates.
See what is the first stefi toward repentance; it is
remembering our own evil ways, reflecting seriously
upon the sins we have committed, and being parti¬
cular in recapitulating them. We must remember
against ourselves not only our gross enormities, our
own evil ways, but our defects and infirmities, our
doings that were not good, not so good as they
should have been; not only our direct violations of
the law, but our coming short of it. See what is
evermore a companion of true repentance, and that
is, self-loathing, a holy shame and confusion of face;
“You shall loathe yourselves in your own sight,
seeing how loathsome you have made yourselves in
the sight of God. ” Self-love is at the bottom of sin,
which we cannot but blush to see the absurdity of;
but our quarrelling with ourselves is in order to our
being, upon good grounds, reconciled to ourselves.
And lastly, see what is the most powerful induce¬
ment to an evangelical repentance, and that is, a
sense of the mercy of God; when God settles them
in the midst of plenty, then they shall loathe them¬
selves for their iniquities. Note, The goodness of
754
EZEKIEL,
God should overcome our badness, and lead us to
repentance. The more we see of God’s readiness to
receive us into favour upon our repentance, the
more reason we shall see to be ashamed of our¬
selves that we could ever sin against so much love.
That heart is hard indeed, that will not be thus
melted. (2.) It shall have a happy effect upon
their neighbours, for it shall bring them to a more
clear knowledge of God; ( v . 36.) “ Then the
heathen that are left round about you, that spake
ignorantly of God, (for so all those do that speak ill
of him,) when they saw the land of Israel desolate,
shall begin to know better, and to speak more intel¬
ligently of God, being convinced that he is able to
rebuild the most desolate cities, and to replant the
most desolate countries; and that though the course
of his favours to his people may be obstructed for a
time, they shall not be cut off for ever. They shall
t be made to know the truth of divine revelation, by the
exact agreement which they shall discern between
God’s word which he has spoken to Israel, and his
yvorks which he has done for them ; I the Lord have
spoken it, and I will do it. With us, saying and
doing are two things, but they are not so with God.
5. He proposes these things to them, not as the
recompense of their merits, but as the return of
their prayers.
(1.) Let them not think that they have deserved
it; Not for your sakes do I this, be it known to you;
(y. 22, 32.) no, be you ashamed and confounded for
your own ways. God is doing this, all this which
he has promised; it is as sure to be done as if it were
done already, and present events have a tendency
towards it. But then, [1.] They must renounce
the tnerit of their own good works, and be brought
to acknowledge that it is not for their sakes that it is
done; so when God brought Israel into Canaan the
first time, an express caveat was entered against
this thought; (Deut. ix. 4. — 6.) It is not for thy
righteousness. It is not for the sake of any of their
good qualities or good deeds, not because God had
any need of them, or expected any benefit by them.
No, in showing mercy, he acts by prerogative, not
for our deserts, but for his own honour. See how
emphatically this is expressed; Be it known to you,
it is not for your sakes; which intimates that we
are apt to entertain a high conceit of our own me¬
rits, and are with difficulty persuaded to disclaim a
confidence in them. But, one way or other, God
will make all his favourites to know and own that
it is his grace, and not their goodness, his mercy,
and not their merit, that made them so; and that
therefore not unto them, not unto them, but unto
him, is all the glory due. [2.] They must repent
of the sin of their own evil ways. They must own
that the mercies they receive from God, are not
only not merited, but that they are a thousand times
forfeited; and therefore they must be so far from
boasting of their good works, that they must be
asha?ned and confounded for their evil ways, and
then they are best prepared for mercy.
(2.) Yet let them know that they must desire and
expect it; (y. 37.) I will yet for this be inquired
of by the house of Israel. God has spoken, and he
will do it, and he will be sought unto for it. He
requires that his people should seek unto him, and
he will incline their hearts to do it, when he is com¬
ing toward them in ways of mercy. [1.] They
must pray for it, for by prayer God is sought unto,
and inquired after. What is the matter of God’s
promises, must be the matter of our prayers. By
asking for the mercy promised we must give glory
to the Donor, express a value for the gift, own our
dependence, and put honour upon prayer, which
God has put honour upon. Christ himsel'f must ask,
and then God will give him the heathen for his in¬
heritance; must pray the Father , and then he will
XXXVII.
send the Comforter; much more must we ask, that
may receive. [2.] They must consult the ora¬
cles of God, and thus also God is sought unto, and
inquired after. The mercy must be, not an act of
providence only, but a child of promise; and there¬
fore the promise must be looked at, and prayer
made for it with an eye of faith fastened upon the
promise, which must be both the guide and the
round of our expectations. Both these ways we
nd God inquired of by Daniel, in the name of the
house of Israel, then when ht was about to do those
great things for them ; he consulted the oracles of
God, for lie understood by books, the book of the
prophet Jeremiah, both what was to be expected,
and when; and then he set his face to seek God by
prayer, Dan. ix. 2, 3. Note, Our communion with
God must be kept up by the word and prayer in all
the operations ot his providence concerning us, and
in both he must be inquired of.
CHAP. XXXVII.
The threatening- of the destruction of Judah and Jerusa¬
lem for their sins, which we had in the former part of
this book, were not so terrible, but the promises of their
restoration and deliverance for the glory of God, which
we have here in the latter part of the book, are as com¬
fortable; and as those were illustrated with many visions
and similitudes , for the awakening of a holy fear, so are
these, for the encouraging of an humble faith. God had
assured them, in the foregoing chapter, that he would
gather the house of Israel, even all of it, and would bring
them out of their captivity, and return them to their own
land; but there were two things that rendered this very
unlikely. I- That they were so dispersed among their
enemies , so destitute of all helps and advantages which
might favour or further their return, and so dispirited
likewise in their own minds; upon all these accounts
they are here, in vision, compared to a valley full of the
dry bones of dead men; which should be brought to¬
gether and raised to life. The vision of this we have,
(v. I . . 10.) and the explication of it, with its applica¬
tion to the present case, v. 11 . . 14. II. That they were
so divided among themselves , too much of the old enmity
between Judah and Ephraim remaining even in their
captivity. But as to this, by a sign of hvo sticks made
one in the hand of the prophet, is foreshown the happy
coalition that should be, at their return, between the two
nations of Israel and Judah, v. 15.. 22. In this there
was a type of the uniting of Jews and Gentiles, Jews
and Samaritans, in Christ and his church. And so the
prophet slides into a prediction of the kingdom of Christ,
which should be set up in the world with God’s taberna¬
cle in it, and of the glories and graces of that kingdom,
v. 23. .28.
the Lord, and set me down in the midst of
the valley' which ivas full of bones, 2. And
caused me to pass by them round about:
and, behold, there were very many in the
open valley; and, lo, they icere very dry.
3. And he said unto me, Son of man, can
these bones live ? And I answered, O Lord
God, thou knovvest. 4. Again he said unto
me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say
unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word
of the Lord. 5. Thus saith the Lord God
unto these bones, Behold, I will cause
breath to enter into you, and ye shall live:
6. And I will lay sinews upon you, and
will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you
with skin, and put breath in you, and ye
shall live; and ye shall know that I am the
Lord. 7. So I prophesied as I was com¬
manded: and as I prophesied there was a
755
EZEKIEL, XXXVII.
noise, and, behold, a shaking, and the bones
came together, bone to his bone. 8. And
when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh
came up upon them, and the skin covered
them above: but there was no breath in them.
0. Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto
the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to
the wind, Thus saith the Lord God, Come
from the four winds, O breath, and breathe
upon these slain, that they may live. 10.
So I prophesied, as he commanded me, and
the breath came into them, and they lived,
and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding
grea'tarmy. 1 1. Then he said unto me, Son
of man, these bones are the whole house of
Israel : behold they say, Our bones are dried,
and our hope is lost; we are cut off for our
parts. 12. Therefore prophesy, and say
unto them, Titus saith the Lord God, Be¬
hold, O my people, I will open your graves,
and cause you to come up out of your
graves, and bring you into the land of Is¬
rael. 13. And ye shall know that I cm the
Lord, when I have opened your graves, O
my people, and brought you up out of your
graves. 14, And shall put my Spirit in
you, and ye shall live ; and I shall place
you in your own land: then shall ye know
that I the Lord have spoken it, and per¬
formed it, saith the Lord.
Here is,
I. The vision of a resurrection from death to life,
and it is a glorious resurrection. This is a thing so
utterly unknown to nature, and so contrary to its
principles, [A privatione ad liabitum non datur re-
qressus — From privation to possession there is no
return,') that we could have no thought of it but by
the word of the Lord; and that it is certain by that
word, that there shall be a general resurrection of
the dead, some have urged from this vision; “ For”
(say they) “ otherwise it would not properly be
made a sign for the confirming of their faith in the
promise of their deliverance out of Babylon, as the
coming of the Messiah is mentioned for the confirm¬
ing of their faith touching a former deliverance,”
Isa. vii. 14. But whether it be a confirmation or no,
it is, without doubt, a most lively representation of
a threefold resurrection, beside that which it is pri¬
marily intended to be the sign of. 1. The resur¬
rection of souls from the death of sin to the life of
"ighteousness, to a holy, heavenly, spiritual, and
divine life, by the power of divine grace going along
with the word of Christ, John v. 24, 25. 2. The
resurrection of the gospel-church, or any part of it,
from an afflicted, persecuted state, especially under
the yoke of the New Testament Babylon, to liberty
and peace. 3. The resurrection of the body at the
great day, especially the bodies of believers that
shall rise to life eternal. Let us observe the par¬
ticulars of this vision.
(1.) The deplorable condition of these dead
bones; the prophet was made, [1.] To take an ex¬
act view of them. By a prophetic impulse and a
divine power he was, in vision, carried out and set
in the midst of a valley, probably that plain spoken
of, ch. iii. 22. where God then talked with him; and
it was full of bones, of dead men’s bones; not piled
up on a heap, as in a charnel-house, but scattered
upon the face of the ground, as if some bloody battle
had been fought here, and the slain left unburied
till all the flesh was devoured or putrefied, and no¬
thing left but the bones, and those disjointed from
one another and dispersed. He passed by them
round about, and he observed not only that they
were very many, (for there are multitudes gone to
the congregation of the dead,) but that, lo, they
were very dry, having been long exposed to the sun
and wind. The bones that had been moistened with
marrow, (Job xxi. 24.) when they have been any
while dead, lose all their moisture, and are dry as
dust; the body is now fenced with bones, (Job x.
11.) but then they will themselves be defenceless.
The Jews in Babylon were like those dead and dry
bones, unlikely ever to come together, to be so
much as a skeleton, less likely to be formed into a
body, and least of all to be a living body. However,
they lay unburied in the open valley, which en¬
couraged the hopes of their resurrection, as of the
two witnesses, Rev. xi. 8, 9. The bones of Gog
and Magog shall be buried, {ch. xxxix. 12, 15.) for
their destruction is final; but the bones of Israel are
in the open valley, under the eye of Heaven, for
there is hope in their end. [2.] He was made to
own their case deplorable, and not to be helped by
any power less than that of God himself; ( v . 3.)
“Son of man, can these bones live? Is it a thing
likely? Canst thou devise how it should be done?
Can thy philosophy reach to put life into dry bones,
or thy politics to restore a captive nation?” “ No,”
says the prophet, “ I know not how it should be
done, but thouknowest.” He does not say, “They
cannot live,” lest he should seem to limit the Holy
One of Israel; but, “ Lord, thou knowest whether
they can, and whether they shall; if thou dost not
put life into them, it is certain that they cannot
live.” Note, God is perfectly acquainted with his
own power and his own purposes, and will have us
to refer all to them, and to see and own that his
wondrous works are such as could not be effected
by any counsel or power but his own.
(2. ) The means used for the bringing of these
dispersed bones together, and these dead arid dry
bones to life. It must be done by prophecy. Eze¬
kiel is ordered to prophesy upon these bones; {v. 4.
and again, v. 9. ) Prophesy to the wind. So he
prophesied as he was commanded, v. 7, 10. [1.]
He must preach, and he did so; and the dead bones
lived by a power that went along with the word of
God which he preached. [2.] He must pray, and
he did so; and the dead bones were made to live in
answer to prayer; for a spirit of life entered into
them. See the efficacy of the word and prayer, and
the necessity of both, for the raising of dead souls.
God bids his ministers prophesy upon the dry bones;
Say unto them, Live; yea, say unto them, Live;
and they do as they are commanded, calling to
them again and again; 0 ye dry bones, hear the
word of the Lord. But we call in vain, still they
are dead, still they are very dry; we must there¬
fore be earnest with God in prayer for the working
of the Spirit with the word; Come, 0 breath, and
breathe upon them. God’s grace can save souls
without our preaching, but bur preaching cannot
save them without God’s grace, and that grace must
be sought by prayer. Note, Ministers must faith¬
fully and diligently use the means of grace, even
with those that there seems little probability of
gaining upon. To prophesy upon dry bones seems
as great a penance as to water a dry stick; and yet,
whether they will hear or forbear, we must dis¬
charge our trust, must prophesy as we are com
manaed, in the name of him who raises the dead,
and is the Fountain of life.
(3.) The wonderful effect of these means. Those
that do as they are commanded, as they arecommis-
756
EZEKIEL, XXXVII.
sioned, in the face of the greatest discouragements,
need not doubt of success, for God will own and en¬
rich his own appointments.
[1.] Ezekiel looked down, and prophesied upon
the bones in the valley, and they became human bo¬
dies. First , That which he had to say to them was,
that God would infallibly raise them to life: Thus
sai'.h the Lord God unto these bones, Ye shall live,
v. 5. and again, Ye shall live, v. 6. And he that
speaks the morel, will thereby do the work; he that
says, They shall live, will make them alive. He
will clothe them with skin and Jlesh, (v. 6. ) as he
did at first, Job x. 11. He that made us so fear¬
fully and wonderfully, and curiously wrought us,
can in like manner new-make us, for his arm is not
shortened. Secondly, That which was immediately
done for them was, that they were moulded anew
into shape. We may well suppose it was with great
liveliness and vigour that the prophet prophesied,
especially when he found what he said began to take
effect. Note, The opening, sealing, and applying
of the promises, are the ordinary means of our par¬
ticipation of a new and divine nature. As Ezekiel
prophesied in this vision, there was a noise, a word
of command, from heaven, seconding what he said;
or, it signified the motion of the angels that were to
be employed as the ministers of the Divine Provi¬
dence in the deliverance of the Jews, and we read
of the noise of their wings, (Ezek. i. 24. ) and the
sound of their going, 2 Sam. v. 24. And behold, a
shaking, or commotion, among the bones; even
dead and dry bones begin to move, when they are
called to hear the word of the Lord. This was ful¬
filled w.hen, upon Cyrus’s proclamation of liberty,
those whose spirits God had stirred up, began to
think of making use of that liberty, and getting
ready to be gone; when there was a noise, behold,
a shaking; when David heard the sound of the go¬
ing on the tops of the mulberry-trees, then lie be¬
stirred himself; then there was a shaking. When
Paul heard the voice saying, Why persecutest thou
me? Behold, a shaking of the dry bones; he trem¬
bled and was astonished. But this was not all. The
bones came together bone to his bone, under a divine
direction; and though there are in man a multitude
of bones, yet of all the bones of all those numerous
slain not one was missing, not one missed its way,
not one missed its place, but, as it were by instinct,
each knew and found its fellow; the dispersed bones
came together, and the displaced bones were knit
together; the divine power supplying that to these
dry bones, which in a living body every joint sup¬
plies. Thus shall it be in the resurrection of the
dead; the scattered atoms shall be arranged and
marshalled in their proper place and order, and
every bone come to his bone, by the same wisdom
and power by which the bones were first formed in
the womb of her that is with child. Thus it was in
the return of the Jews; they that were scattered in
several parts of the province of Babylon, came to
their respective families, and all as it were by con¬
sent, to the general rendezvous, in order to their re¬
turn. By degrees sinews and flesh came upon these
bones, and the skin covered them, v. 8. This was
fulfilled when the captives got their effects about
them, and the men of their place helped them with
silver ande-oW, and whatever they needed for their
remove, Ezra i. 4. But still there was no breath in
them; they wanted spirit and courage for such a
difficult and hazardous enterprize as this was of re¬
turning to their own land.
[2. ] Ezekiel then looked up, and prophesied to the
wind, or breath, or spirit, and said, Come, O breath,
and breathe upon these slain; as good have been
still dry bones, as dead bodies; but as for God, his
work is perfect; he is not the God of the dead, but
of the living; therefore breathe upon them that they
may live. In answer to this request, the breath im ■
mediately came into them, v. 10. Note, The spirit
of life is from God; he at first in the creation
breathed into man the breath of life, and so he wil,
at last in the resurrection. The dispirited, despair
ing captives were wonderfully animated with rcso
lution to break through all the discouragements that
lay in the way of their return, and applied them¬
selves to it with all imaginable vigour. And then
they stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great
army; not only living men, but effective men, fi<
for service in the wars, and formidable to all tha*
gave them any opposition. Note, With God no
thing is impossible. He can out of stones raise uf
children unto Abraham, and out of dead and dr;
bones levy an exceeding great army to fight his bat
ties and plead his cause.
II. The application of this vision to the presen.
calamitous condition of the Jews in captivity,
These bones are the whole house of Israel, both the
ten tribes and the two. See in this what they are,
and what they shall be.
1. The depth of despair to which they are now
reduced, v. 11. They all give up themselves for
lost and gone; they say, “ Our bones are dried, our
strength exhausted, our spirits gone, our hope is
all lost, every thing we looked for succour and re¬
lief from fails us, and we are cut off for our parts.
Let who will cherish some hope, we see no ground
for any.” Note, When troubles continue long, hopes
have been frustrated, and all creature-confidences
fail, it is not strange if the spirits sink; and nothing
but an active faith in the power, promise, and provi¬
dence of God, will keep them from dying away quite.
2. The height of prosperity, to which, notwith¬
standing this, they shall be advanced. “ Therefore,
because things are come thus to the last extremity,
prophesy to them, and tell them, now is God’s time
to appear for them, Jeliovah-jireh, in the mount of
the Lord it shall be seen, v. 12. — 14. Tell them,”
(1.) “ That they shall be brought out of the land of
their enemies, where they are as it were buried
alive; I wilt open your graves.” Those shall be
restored, not only whose bones are scattered at the
grave’s mouth, (Ps. cxli. 7.) but who are buried in
the grave; though the power of the enemy is like the
bars of the pit, which one would think if impossible
to break through, strong as death, and cruel as the
grave, yet it shall be conquered; God can bring bis
people up from the depths of the earth , Ps. lxxi. 20.
(2.) “That they shall be brought into their own
land, where they shall live in prosperity. I will
bring you into the land of Israel, (v. 12.) and place
you there, (v. 14.) and will put my Spirit in you,
and then ye shall live.” Note, Then God puts
spirit in us to good purpose, and so that we shall in¬
deed live, when he puts his Spirit in us. And
( lastly ) in all this God will be glorified; Ye shall
know that I am the Lord, ( v . 13.) that I have
spoken it, and performed it, v. 14. Note, God’s
quickening the dead redounds more than any thing
to his honour, and to the honour of his word, which
he has magnified above all his name; and will mag¬
nify more and more by the punctual accomplish¬
ment of every tittle of it.
1 5. The word of the Lord came again
unto me, saying, 16. Moreover, thou son of
man, take thee one stick, and write upon it,
For Judah, and for the children of Israel his
companions: then take another stick, and
write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephra¬
im, and for all the house of Israel his com¬
panions : 1 7. And join them one to another
into one stick, and they shall become one in
EZEKIEL,
thy hand. 18. And when the children of thy
people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt
thou not shew us what thou meanest by
these? 19. Say unto them, Thus saith the
Lord God, Behold, I will take the stick of
Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim,
and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will
put them with him, even with the stick of Ju¬
dah, and make them one stick, and they shall
be one in my hand. 20. And the sticks where¬
on thou writest shall be in thy hand before
their eyes. 21. And say unto them, Thus
saith the Lord God, Behold, I will take the
children of Israel from among the heathen,
whither they be gone, and will gather them
on every side, and bring them into their own
land : 22. And I will make them one nation
in the land upon the mountains of Israel;
and one king shall be king to them all: and
they shall be no more two nations, neither
shall they be divided into two kingdoms any
more at all : 23. Neither shall they defile
themselves any more with their idols, nor
with their detestable things, nor with any of
their transgressions: but I will save them out
of all their dwelling-places wherein they have
sinned, and will cleanse them : so shall they
be my people, and I will be their God. 24.
And David my servant shall be king over
them: and they all shall have one shepherd:
they shall also walk in my judgments, and
observe my statutes, and do them. 25. And
they shall dwell in the land that I have given
unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers
have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein,
even they and their children, and their chil¬
dren’s children, for ever; and my servant
David shall be their prince for ever. 26.
Moreover, I will make a covenant of peace
with them; it shall bean everlasting cove¬
nant with them : and I will place them, and
multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in
the midst of them for evermore. 27. My
tabernacle also shall be with them ; yea, I
will be. their God, and they shall be my peo¬
ple. 23. And the heathen shall know that I
the Lord do sanctify Israel, when my sanc¬
tuary shall be in the midst of them for ever¬
more.
Here are more exceeding great and precious pro¬
mises made of the happy state of the Jews after
their return to their own land; but they have a fur¬
ther reference to the kingdom of the Messiah, and
the glories of gospel-times.
1. It is here promised, that Ephraim and Judah
shall be happily united in brotherly love and mutual
serviceableness; so that, whereas, ever since the
desertion of the ten tribes from the house of David
under Jeroboam, there had been continual feuds and
animosities between the two kingdoms of Israel and
Judah, and it is to be feared, there had been some
clashings between them even in the land of their
XXXVII. "57
captivity, (Ephraim upon all occasions envying Ju¬
dah, and Judah vexing Ephraim,) now it should be
no longer, but there should be a coalition between
them, and, notwithstanding the old differences that
had been between them, they should agree to love
one another, and to do one another all good offices.
This is here illustrated by a sign; the prophet was
to take two sticks, and write upon one, For Judah,
including Benjamin, those of tne children of Israel
that were his companions ; upon the other, For Jo¬
seph, including the rest of the tribes, v. 16. These
two sticks must be so framed as to fall into one in
his hand, v. 17. The people took notice of this,
and desired him to tell them the meaning of it, for
they knew he did not play with sticks for his diver¬
sion, as children do. Those that would know the
meaning, should ask the meaning, of the word of
God, which they read and hear, and of the instituted
signs by which spiritual and divine things are repre¬
sented to us ; the minister’s lips should keep the
knowledge hereof, and the people should ask it at
their mouth, Mai. ii. 7. It is a necessary question
for grown people, as well as children,. to ask, What
mean ye by this service, by this sign? Exod. xii. 26.
The meaning was, that Judah and Israel should be
come one in the hand of God, v. 19. (1.) They
shall be one; one nation, v. 22. They shall have no
separate interests, and, consequently, no divided
affections. There shall be no mutual jealousies and
animosities, no remembrance, no remains, of their
former discord. But there shall be a perfect har¬
mony between them; a good understanding one of
another, a good disposition one to another, and a
readiness to all good offices and services for one an¬
other’s credit and comfort They had been two
sticks crossing and thwarting one another, nay, beat¬
ing and bruising one another; but now they shall
become one, supporting and strengthening one an¬
other. Vis unita fortior — Force added to force is
proportionally more efficient. Behold, how good
and how pleasant a thing it is to see Judah and Is¬
rael, that had long been at variance, now dwelling
together in unity. Then they shall become accept¬
able to their God, amiable to their friends, and for¬
midable to their enemies, Isa. xi. 13, 14. (2.) They
shall be one in God’s hand; by his power they shall
be united, and being by his hand brought together,
his hand shall keep them together, so that they shall
not fly off, to be separated again. They shall be
one in his hand, for his glory shall be the centre of
their unity, and his grace the cement of it. In him,
in a regard to him, and in his service and worship,
they shall unite, and so shall become one. Both
sides shall agree to put themselves into his hand, and
so they shall be one. Qui conveniunt in aliquo ter-
tio, inter se conveniunt — Those who agree in a.
third, agree with each other. Note, Those are best
united, that are one in God’s hand; whose union
with each other results from their union with Christ,
and their communion with God through him, Eph.
i. x. One in us, John xvii. 21. (3.) They shall be
one in their return out of captivity; (y. 21.) I will
take them from among the heathen, and gather them
on every side, and bring them together incorporated
into one body to their own land. They shall be one
in their separation from the heathen with whom
they had mingled themselves: they shall both agree
to part from them, and take their affections off
from them, and no longer to comply with their
usages, and then they will soon agree to join to
gether in walking according to the rule of God’s
word. Their having been joint sufferers will con¬
tribute to this blessed comprehension, when they
begin to come to themselves, and to consider things.
Put many pieces of metal together into the furnace,
and when they are melted, they will run all together.
Likewise their being joint-sharers in the favour of
758
EZEKIEL,
God, and the great and common deliverance wrought
out for them all, should help to unite them. God’s
loving them all was a good reason why they should
love one another. Times of common joy, as well as
times of common suffering, should be healing, lov¬
ing times. (4.) They shall all be the subjects of
one king, and so they shall become one. The Jews,
after their return, were under one government, and
not divided as formerly. But this certainly looks
further, to the kingdom of Christ; he is that one
King, in allegiance to whom all God’s spiritual Is¬
rael shall cheerfully unite, and under whose protec¬
tion they shall all be gathered. All believers unite
in one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. And the
uniting of Jews and Gentiles in the gospel-church,
their becoming one fold under Christ the one great
Shepherd, is doubtless the union that is chiefly
looked at in this prophecy. By Christ the partition-
wall between them was taken down, and the enmity
slain, and of them twain was made one new man,
Eph. ii. 14, 15.
2. It is here promised that the Jews shall by their
captivity be cured of their inclination to idolatry;
this shall be the happy fruit of that affliction, even
the taking away of their sin; ( v . 23.) JVeither shall
they defile themselves any more with their idols, those
detestable, defiling things, no, nor with any of their
former transgressions. Note, When one sin is sin¬
cerely parted with, all sin is abandoned too, for he
that hates sin, as sin, will hate all sin. And those
that are cured of their spiritual idolatry, their inor¬
dinate affection to the world and the flesh, that no
longer make a god of their money, or their belly,
have a happy blow given to the root of all their trans¬
gressions. Two ways God will take to cure them
of their idolatry; (1.) By bringing them out of the
way of temptation to it; “I will save them out of all
their dwelling-places wherein they have sirmed,
because there they met with the occasion of sin and
allurements to it.” Note, It is our wisdom to avoid
the places where we have been overcome by tempta¬
tions to sin, not to remain in them, or return to them,
but to save ourselves out of them, as we would out
of infected places; See Zech. ii. 7. Rev. xviii. 4.
And it is a great mercy when God, in his provi¬
dence, saves as out of the dwelling-places where we
have sinned, and keeps us from harm, by keeping
us out of harm’s way; in answer to our prayer, Lead,
us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
(2.) By changing the disposition of their mind; “I will
cleanse them ; (n. 28.) I will sanctify them, will
work in them an aversion to the pollutions of sin,
and a complacency in the pleasures of holiness; and
then you may be sure they will not defile themselves
any more with their idols. ” Whom God has cleansed
fie will keep clean.
3. It is here promised that they shall be the peo¬
ple of God, as their God, and the subjects and sheep
of Christ their King and Shepherd. These promises
we had before, and they are here repeated, (v. 23,
24.) for the encouragement of the faith of Israel;
They shall be my people, to serve me, and I will be
their God, to save them, and to make them happy.
David my Servant shall be king over them, to fight
their battles, to protect them from injury, and to
rule them, and overrule all things that concern them
for their good. He shall be their Shepherd, to guide
them, and provide for them; Christ is David, Israel’s
King of old; and those whom he subdues to himself,
and makes willing in the day of his power, he makes
to walk in his judgments, and to keep his statutes.
4. It is here promised that they shall dwell com¬
fortably, v. 25, 26. They shall dwell in the land of
Israel; for where else should Israelites dwell? And
many things will concur to make their dwelling
agreeable. (1.) They shall have it by covenant;
they shall come in again upon their old title, by vir¬
XXXVII.
tue of the grant made unto Jacob, God’s servant
As Christ was David, God’s Servant, so the church
is Jacob, his servant too; and the members of che
church shall come in for a share, as born in God’s
house. He will make a covenant of peace with them,
(i>. 26.) and, in pursuance of that covenant, he will
place them, and multiply them. Note, Temporal
mercies are then doubly sweet, when they come from
the promise of the covenant, and not merely from
common providence. (2.) They shall come to it by
prescription; “ It is the land wherein your fathers
have dwelt, and for that reason you cannot but have
a special kindness for it, which God will graciously
gratify.” It was the inheritance of their ancestors,
and therefore shall be theirs; they are beloved foi
their fathers' sakes. (3. ) They shall have it entailea
upon them and the heirs of their body, and shall
have their families built up, so that it shall not be
lost for want of heirs. They shall dwell therein all
their time, and never be turned out of possession, and
they shall leave it for an inheritance to their children,
and their children’s children for ever, who shall
enjoy it when they are gone, the prospect of which
will be a satisfaction to them. (4.) J hey shall live
under a good government, which will contribute
very much to the comfort of their lives; My servant
David shall be their Prince for ever. This can be
no other than Christ, of whom it was said, when he
was brought into the world, He shall reign over the
house of Jacob for ever, Luke i. 33. Note, It is the
unspeakable comfort of all Christ’s faithful subjects,
that as his kingdom is everlasting, so he is an ever¬
lasting King, he lives to reign for ever; and, as sure
and as long as he lives and reigns, they shall live
and reign also. (5.) The charter by which they
hold all their privileges, is indefeasible. God’s cove¬
nant with them shall be an everlasting covenant;
so the covenant of grace is, for it secures to us an
everlasting happiness.
5. It is here promised that God will dwell among
them; and this will make them dwell comfortably
indeed; I will set my sanctuary in the midst of them
for evermore: my tabernacle also shall be with
them, v. 26, 27. (1.) They shall have the tokens
of God’s special presence with them, and his gra¬
cious residence among them. God will in very deed
dwell with them upon the earth, for where his sanc¬
tuary is, he is; when they profaned his sanctuary,
he took it from them, (Isa. lxiv. 11.) but now that
they are purified, God will dwell with them again.
(2. ) They shall have opportunity of conversing with
God, of hearing from him, speaking to him, and sc
keeping up communion with him, which will be the
comfort of their lives. (3.) They shall have the
means of grace. By the oracles of God in his taber¬
nacle they shall be made wiser and better, and all
their children shall be taught of the Lord. (4.)
Thus their covenant-relation to Gcd shall be im¬
proved, and the bond of it strengthened; '‘I will be
their God, and they shall be my people, and they
shall know it by having my sanctuary among them,
and shall have the comfort of it:”
6. Both God and Israel shall have the honour of
this among the heathen, v. 26. Now the heathen
observe how Israel had profaned their own crown
by their sins, and God has profaned it by his judg¬
ments; but then when Israel is reformed, and God
is returned in mercy to them, the very heathen shall
be made to know that the Lord sanctifies Israel,
has a title to them, and an interest in them, more
than other people, because his sanctuai-y is, and
shall be, in the midst of them. Note, God designs
the sanctification of those among whom he sets up
his sanctuary. And blessed and holy are they who,
enjoying the privileges of the Sanctuary, give such
proofs and evidences of their sanctification, that the
heathen may know it is no less than the almighty
EZEKIEL,
grace of God that sanctifies them. Such have God’s
sanctuarv in the midst of them , the kingdom of God
within them, in the principles of the spiritual life,
and shall have it so tor evermore in the enjoyments
of an eternal life.
CHAP. XXXVIII.
This chapter, and that which follows it, are concerning:
Gog1 and Magog:, a powerful enemy to the people of Is¬
rael, that should make a formidable descent upon them,
and put them into a consternation; but their army should
be routed, and their design defeated; and this prophecy,
it is most probable, had its accomplishment some time
after the return of the people of Israel out of their cap¬
tivity; whether in the struggles they had with the kings
of Syria, especially Antiochus Epiphanes, or perhaps
in some other way not recorded, we cannot tell. If the
sacred history of the Old Testament had reached as far
as the prophecy, we should have been better able to un¬
derstand these chapters, but, for want of that key, we
are locked out of the meaning of them. God had by
the prophet assured his people of happy times after their
return to their own land; but lest they should mistake
the promises which related to the kingdom of the Mes¬
siah, and the spiritual privileges of that kingdom, as if
from them they might promise themselves an uninter¬
rupted temporal prosperity, he here tells them, as Christ
told his disciples, to prevent the like mistake, that in the
world they shall have tribulation, but they may be of
good cheer, for they shall be victorious at last. This
prophecy here of Gog and Magog, is, without doubt,
alluded to in that prophecy which relates to the latter
days, and which seems to be yet unfulfilled, Rev. xx. 8.
That Gog and Magog shall be gathered to battle against
the camp of the saints; as the Old Testament prophecies
of the destruction of Babylon are alluded to, Rev. xviii.
But in both, the Old Testament prophecies had their
accomplishment in the Jewish church, as the New Tes¬
tament prophecies shall have when the time comes in
the Christian church. In this chapter, we have inter¬
mixed, I. The attempt that Gog and Magog should
make upon the lands of Israel, the vast army they should
bring into the field, and their vast preparations, v. 4 . . 7.
Their project and design in it, v. 8- -13. God’s hand in
it, v. 14. II. The great terror that this should strike
upon the land of Israel, v. 15, 16, 18 . . 20. III. The
divine restraint that these enemies should be under, and
the divine protection that Israel should be under, v. 2. .
4. And again, v. 14. IV. The defeat that should be
given to those enemies by the immediate hand of God
(v. 21 . .23.) which we shall hear more of in the next
chapter.
1. A. ND the word of the Lord came
unto me, saying, 2. Son of man,
set thy face against Gog, the land of Ma¬
gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tu¬
bal, and prophesy against him, 3. And say,
Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I am
against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of
Meshech and Tubal: 4. And I will turn
thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and
I will bring thee forth, and all thine army,
horses and horsemen, all of them clothed
with all sorts of armour , even a great com¬
pany with bucklers and shields, all of them
handling swords. 5. Persia, Ethiopia, and
Libya with them; all of them with shield
and helmet: 6. Gomer, and all his bands;
the house of Togarmah of the north quar¬
ters, and all his bands; and many people
with thee. 7. Be thou prepared, and pre¬
pare for thyself, thou, and ail thy company
that are assembled unto thee, and be thou
a guard unto them. 8. After many days
thou shalt be visited: in the latter years
XXXVIII. 75;-
thou shalt come into the land that is brought
back from the sword, and is gathered out
of many people, against the mountains of
Israel, which have been always waste: but
it is brought forth out of the nations, and
they shall dwell safely all of them. 9.
Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm,
thou shalt be like a cloud tv cover the land,
thou and all thy bands, ana many people
with thee. 10. Thus saith the Lord God,
It shall also come to pass, that at the same
time shall things come into thy mind, and
thou shalt think an evil thought: 1 1. And
thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of
unwalled villages; I will go to them that
are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them
dwelling without walls, and having neither
bars nor gates, 12. To take a spoil, and
to take a prey; to turn thy hand upon the
desolate places that are now inhabited, and
upon the people that are gathered out of the
nations, which have gotten cattle and goods,
that dwell in the midst of the land. 13.
Sheba, and Dedan, and the merchants of
Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof,
shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take
a spoil? hast thou gathered thy company to
take a prey? to cany away silver and gold,
to take away cattle and goods, to take a
great spoil?
The critical expositors have enough to do here to
inquire out Gog and Magog; we cannot pretend
either to add to their observations, or to determine
their controversies; Gog seems to be the king, and
Magog the kingdom ; so that Gog and Magog are
like Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Some think they
find them afar off, in Scythia, Tartary, and Russia.
Others think they find them nearer the' land of Israel,
in Syria, and Asia the Less. Ezekiel is appointed
to prophesy against Gog, and to tell him that God is
against him, v. 2, 3. Note, God does not only see
those that are now the enemies of his church, and
set himself against them, but he foresees those that
will be so, and lets them know by his woyd that he
is against them too, and yet is pleased to make use
of them to serve his own purposes, for the glory of
his own name; surely their wrath shall praise him,
and the remainder thereof he will restrain, Ps.
lxxvi. 10. Let us observe here,
I. The confusion which God designed to put this
enemy to; it is remarkable, that this is put first in
the prophecy; before it is foretold that God will
bring him forth against Israel, it is foretold that
God will put hooks into his jaws, and turn him back,
(v. 4.) that they might have assurance of their de¬
liverance before they had the prospect given them
of their danger. Thus tender is God of the com¬
fort of his people, thus careful that they may not
be frightened; even before the trouble begins, he
tells them it will end well.
II. The undertaking which he designed to engage
him in, in order to this defeat and disappointment.
1. The nations that shall be confederate in this
enterprise against Israel, are many, and great, and
mighty; (u. 5, 6.) Persia, Ethiopia, &c. Antiochus
had an army made up of all the nations here named,
and many others. These people had been at vari¬
ance with one another, and yet in combination
?60 EZEKIEL,
against Israel. How are they increased that trouble
God’speople!
2. They are well furnished with arms and am¬
munition, and bring a good train of artillery into the
field; horses and horsemen, ( v . 4.) bravely equip¬
ped with all sorts of armour, bucklers and shields
for defence, and all handling swords for offence.
Orders are given to make all imaginable prepara¬
tion for this expedition; ( v . 7.) “Be thou prepared,
and do thou prepare. See what warlike prepara¬
tions thou hast already in store, and, lest that should
not suffice, make further preparation, thou and all
thy company.” Let Gog himself be a guard to the
rest of the confederates. As commander in chief,
let him engage to take care of them and their safety;
let him pass his word for their security, and take
them under his particular protection. The leaders
of an army, instead of exposing their soldiers need¬
lessly and presumptuously, and throwing away their
lives upon desperate undertakings, should study to
be a guard to them, and, whenever they send them
forth in danger, should contrive to support and
cover them. This call to prepare seems to be ironi¬
cal; Do thy worst, but I will turn thee back; like
that Isa. viii. 9. Gird yourselves, and ye shall be
broken in pieces.
3. Their design is against the mountains of Israel,
(v. 8.) against the land that is brought back from
the sword. It is not long since it was harassed with
the sword of war. and it has been always wasted,
more or less, with one judgment or other; it is but
newly gathered out of many people, and brought
forth out of the nations; it has enjoyed compara¬
tively but a short breathing-time, has scarcely re¬
covered any strength since it was brought down by
war and captivity; and therefore its neighbours
need not fear its being too great, nay, and therefore
it is very barbarous to pick a quarrel with it so soon.
It is a people that dwell safely, all of them, in un-
wa llect villages, very secure, and having neither
bars nor gates, v. 11. It is a certain sign that they
intend no mischief to their neighbours, for they fear
no mischief from them. It cannot be thought that
they will of fend others, who do not take care to de¬
fend themselves; and it aggravates the sin of these
invaders. It is base and barbarous to devise evil
against thy neighbour, while he dwells securely by
thee, and has no distrust of thee, Prov. iii. 29. But
see here how the clouds return after the rain in this
world, and what little reason we have ever to be
secure till we come to heaven. It is not long since
Israel was brought back from the sword of one ene¬
my, and behold, the sword of another is drawn
against it; former troubles will not excuse us from
further troubles; but when we think we have put
off the harness, at least for some time, by a fresh
and sudden alarm we may be called to gird it on
again; and therefore we must never boast, or be off
our guard.
4. That which the enemy has in view, in form¬
ing his project, is, to enrich himself, and to make
himself master, not of the country, but of the
wealth of it, to spoil and plunder it, and make a
Erey of it; At the same time that God intends to
ring this matter about, things shall come into the
mind of this enemy, and he shall think an evil
thought, v. 10. Note, All the mischief men do,
and particularly the mischief they do to the church
of God, arises from evil thoughts that come into
their mind; ambitious thoughts, covetous thoughts,
spiteful thoughts to those that are good, for the sake
of their goodness. It came into Antiochus’s mind
what a singular people these religious Jews were,
and how their worship witnessed against and con¬
demned the idolatries of their neighbours, and
therefore, in enmity to their religion, he would
plague them. It came into his mind what a wealthy
XXXVIII.
people they were, that they had gotten cattle and
goods in the midst of the land, ( v . 12.) and withal
how weak they were, and how unable to make any
resistance, and how easy it would be to carry ofl
what they had, and now much glory this rapine
would add to his victorious sword; these things
coming into his mind, and one evil thought drawing
on another, he came at last to this resolve, (v. 11,
12.) “I will go up to the land of unwalled villages;
yea, that I will, it will cost me nothing to make them
all my own; I will go, and disturb them that are at
rest, without giving them any notice; not to crush
their growing greatness, or chastise their insolence,
or make reprisals upon them for any wrong they
have done us; (they had none of these pretences t«
make war upon them;) but purely to take a spoil,
and to take a prey,” ( v . 12.) in open defiance to all
the laws of justice and equity, as much as the high¬
wayman’s killing the traveller, that he may take his
money. These were the thoughts that came into
the mind of this wicked prince, and God knew
them; nay, he knew them before they came into
his mind, for he understands our thoughts afar off,
Ps. cxxxix. 2.
5. According to the project thus formed, he pours
in all his forces upon the land of Israel; and finds
those that are ready to come in to bis assistance,
with the same prospects; (v. 9.) “ Thou shalt as¬
cend, and come like a storm, with all the force and
fury and fierceness imaginable, and thou shalt be
like a cloud t'o cover the land, to darken it, and to
threaten it. Thou, and not only all thy bands, all
the force thou canst bring into the field, but many
people with thee,” (such as are spoken of, v. 13.)
“ Sheba and Dedan, the Arabians and Edomites,
and the merchants of Tarshish, of Tyre and Sidon,
and other maritime cities, they and their young
lions that are greedy of spoil and live upon it, they
shall say. Art thou come to take the spoil of this
land?” Yes, he is. And therefore they wish him
success; or perhaps they envy him, or grudge it
him. “Art thou come for riches, who art thyself
so rich already?” Or, knowing that God was on
Israel’s side, they thus ridicule his attempts, fore¬
seeing that they would be baffled, and that he
would be disappointed of the prey he promised him¬
self. Or, if he be come to take the prey, they will
come, and join with him, and add to his forces.
When Lysias, who was general of Antiochus’s
army, came against the Jews, the neighbouring na¬
tions joined with him, (1 Mac. iii. 41.) to share in
the guilt, in hopes to share in the prey. When thou
sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with him.
1 4. Therefore, son of man, prophesy and
say unto Gog, Thus saith the Lord God, In
that day when my people of Israel dwell-
eth safely, shalt thou not know it? 15.
And thou, shalt come from thy place out of
the north parts, thou, and many people with
thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great
company, and a mighty army: 16. And
thou shalt come up against my people of
Israel as a cloud to cover the land; it shall
be in the latter days, and I will bring thee
against my land, that the heathen may
know me, when I shall be sanctified in thee,
O Gog, before their eyes. 17. Thus saith
the Lord God, Art thou he of whom 1
have spoken in old time by my servants the
prophets of Israel, which prophesied in
those days viany years, that 1 would bring
7b 1
EZEKIEL,
thee against them? 18. And it shall come
lo pass at the same time, when Gog shall
come against the land of Israel, saith the
Lord God, that my fury shall come up in
my face. 19. For in my jealousy, and in
the fire of my wrath, have I spoken, Surely
in that day there shall be a great shaking in
the land of Israel; 20. So that the fishes
of the sea, and- the fowls of the heaven, and
the beasts of the field, and all creeping
things that creep upon the earth, and all
the men that are upon the face of the earth,
shall shake at my presence ; and the moun¬
tains shall be thrown down, and the steep
places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to
the ground. 21. And. I will call.for a sword
against him throughout all my mountains,
saith the Lord God: every man’s sword
shall be against his brother. 22. And I
will plead against him with pestilence and
with blood; and I will rain upon him, and
upon his bands, and upon the many people
that are with him, an overflowing rain, and
great hailstones, fire and brimstone. 23.
Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify
myself; and I will be known in the eyes of
many nations; and they shall know that I
am the Lord.
The latter part of the chapter is a repetition of
the former; the dream is doubled, for the thing is
certain, and to be very carefully regarded.
I. It is here again foretold that this spiteful ene¬
my should make a formidable descent upon the land
of Israel; (v. 15.) Thou shall come out of the north
fiarts (Syria lay on the north of Canaan) with a
mighty army, shalt come like a cloud, and cover the
land of my fieofile Israel, v. 16. These words, (y.
14.) When my fieofile Israel dwell safely, shalt
thou not know it? may be taken two ways; either,
1. As speaking his inducements to this attempt.
“Thou shalt have intelligence brought thee, how
securely, and therefore how carelessly, the people
of Israel dwell, which shall give rise to thy project
against them; for when thou knowest not only what
a rich, but what an easy prey they are likely to be,
thou wilt soon determine to fall upon them.” Note,
God’s providence is to be acknowledged in the oc¬
casion, the small occasion, perhaps, that is given,
and that not designedly neither, to those first
thoughts from which great enterprises take their
original. God, to bring about his own purposes,
lets men know that which yet he knows they will
make bad use of; as here. Or, 2. As speaking his
disappointment in this attempt; which here, as be¬
fore, the prophecy begins with; “ When my fieofile
Israel dwell safely, not in their own apprehension
only, but in reality, forasmuch as they dwell safely
under the divine protection, shalt not thou be made
to know it by the fruitlessness of thine endeavours
to destroy them? Thou shalt soon find that there is
no enchantment against Jacob, that no weafion
formed against them shall firosfier; thou shalt
know to thy cost, shalt know to thy shame, that
though they have no walls, nor bars, nor gates,
they have God himself, a Wall of fire, round about
him, and that he who touches them, touches the
affile of his eye; whosoever meddles with them,
meddles to his own hurt. ” And it is for the de- 1
Vol. iv. — 5 D
XXXVIIi.
monstrating of this to all the world that God will
bring this mighty enemy against his people. They
that gathered themselves against Israel, said, I.rc
us take the sfioil, and take the firm/, but they knew
not the thoughts of the Lord, Mic. iv. 11, 12. I
will bring thee against my land; This is strange
news, that God will not only permit his enemies to
come against his own children, but will himself
bring them; but, if we understand what he aims at,
we shall be well reconciled even to this, it is, that
the heathen may know me to be the only living and
true God, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog,
in thy defeat and destruction before their eyes; that
all the nations may see, and say, There is none like
unto the God of feshurun, that rides on the hea¬
vens, for thehelfi of his fieofile. Note, God therefore
brings his people into danger and distress, that he
may have the honour of bringing about their deliver¬
ance; and therefore suffers the enemies of his church
to prevail awhile, though they profane his name by
their sin, that he may have the honour of prevail¬
ing at last, and sanctifying his own name in their
ruin. Now it is said, This shall be in the latter days,
in the latter days of the Old Testament church; so
the mischief that Anticchus did to Israel, was; but
in the latter days of the New Testament church,
another like enemy should arise, that should in like
manner be defeated. Note, Effectual securities are
treasured up in the word of God against the trou¬
bles and dangers the church may be brought into a
great while hence, even in the latter days.
II. Reference is herein had to the predictions of
the former prophets; (v. 17.) Art thou he of whom
I have sfioken in old time, of whom Moses spake in
his prophecy of the latter days? (Deut. xxxii. 43.)
He will render vengeance to his adversaries; and
David, (Ps. ix. 15.) The heathen are sunk down
into the flit that they made; and often elsewhere in
' the Psalms. This is the leviathan of whom Isaiah
spake, (Isa. xxvii. 1.) that congress of the nations
of which Joel spake, Joel iii. 1. Many of the pro¬
phets had perhaps sfioken particularly of this event,
though it be not written; as they all had spoken, and
written too, that which is applicable to it. Note,
There is an amiable, admirable harmonv and agree¬
ment between the Lord’s prophets, though they
lived in several ages, for they were all guided by
one and the same Spirit.
III. It js here foretold that this furious, formida¬
ble enemy should be utterly cut off in this attempt
upon Israel, and that it should issue in his own ruin.
This is supposed by many to have its accomplish¬
ment in the many defeats given by the Maccabees
to the forces of Antiochus, and the remarkable
judgments of God executed upon his own person,
tor he died of sore diseases. But these things are
here foretold, as usual, in figurative expressions,
which we are not to look for the literal accomplish¬
ment of, and yet they might be fulfilled nearer the
letter than we know of.
1. God will be highly disfileased with this bold
invader; When he comes ufi in pride and anger
against the land of Israel, and thinks to carry all
before him with a high hand, then God’s fury shall
come ufi in his face; which is an allusion to the
manner of men whose colour rises in their faces
when some high affront is offered them, and they
are resolved to show their resentments of it, v. 18.
God will speak against them in his jealousy for his
people, and in the fire of his wrath against his and
their enemies, v. 19. See how God’s permitting sin,
his laying occasions of sin before men, and his
making use of it to serve his own purposes, consist
with his hatred of sin, and his displeasure against
it. God brings this enemy against his land, letting
him know what an easy prey it might be, and de-
1 termining thereby to glorify himself; and yet, when
762
EZEKIEL, XXXIX.
he comes against the /and, God’s fury comes u/i,
and he speaks to him in the Jire of his wrath. If
any ask, Why does he thus find fault? For who has
resisted his will? It is easy to answer, Nay, but, O
man, who art thou that repliest against God?
2. His forces shall be put into the greatest confu¬
sion and consternation imaginable; (x>. 19.) There
shall be a great shaking of them in the land of Is¬
rael, a universal concussion, (n. 20.) such as shall
affect the fishes and fowls, the beasts and creeping
things, and much more the men that are upon the
face of the earth, who sooner receive impressions
of fear; there shall be such an earthquake as shall
throw down the mountains, those natural heights,
and the steep j ilaces , towers and walls, those artifi¬
cial heights, they shall all fall to the ground. Some
understand this of the fright which the land of Is¬
rael should be put into by the fury of the enemy.
But it is rather to be understood of the fright which
the enemy should be put into by the wrath of God;
all those things which they both raise themselves,
and stay themselves, upon, shall be shaken down,
and their hearts shall fail them.
3. He shall be routed, and utterly ruined; both
earth and heaven shall be armed against him. (1.)
The earth shall muster up its forces to destroy him.
If the people of Israel have not strength and courage
to resist him, God will call fora sword against him,
v. 21. And he has swords always at command, that
are bathed in heaven, Isa. xxxv. 5. Throughout
all the mountains of Israel, where he hoped to meet
with spoil to enrich him, he shall meet with swords
to destroy him, and, rather than fail, every man’s
sword shall be against his brother, as in the day of
Miclian, Ps. lxxxiii. 9. The great men of Syria
shall undermine and overthrow one another, shall
accuse one another, shall fight duels with one ano¬
ther. Note, God can, and often does, make the de¬
stroyers of his people to be their own destroyers,
and the destroyers of one another. However, he
will himself be their Destroyer, will take the work
into his own hand, that it may be done thoroughly;
(v. 22.) I will plead against him with pestilence and
blood. Note, Whom God acts against he pleads
against; he shows them the ground of his contro¬
versy with them, that their mouths may be stopped,
and lie may be clear when he judges. (2.) The
artillery of heaven shall also be drawn out against
them; I will rain upon him an overflowing rain,
v. 22. He comes like a storm upon Israel, v. 9.
But God will come like a storm upon him; will rain
upon him great hailstones, as upon the Canaanites,
(Josh. x. 11.) fire and brimstone, as upon Sodom,
and a horrible tempest, Ps. xi. 6. Thus the Gog
and Magog in the New Testament shall be devoured
with fire from heaven, and cast into the lake, of
brimstone. Rev. xx. 9, 10. That will be the ever¬
lasting portion of all the impenitent, implacable ene¬
mies of God’s church and people.
4. God, in all this, will be glorified. The end
he aimed at, (xo 16.) shall be accomplished; (x>.
23.) Thus will I magnify myself and sanctify my¬
self. Note, In the destruction of sinners, God makes
it to appear that he is a great and holy God, and he
will do so to eternity. And if men do not magnify
and sanctify him as they ought, he will magnify
himself, and sanctify himself; and this we should
desire and pray for daily, Father, glorify thine own
name.
CHAP. XXXIX.
This chapter continues and concludes the prophecy
against Gog and Magog; in whose destruction God
crowns his favour to his people Israel, which shines very
bright after the scattering of that black cloud in the
close of this chapter. Here is, I. An express prediction
of the utter destruction of Gog and Magog, agreeing
with what we had before, v. 1 . . 7. II. An illustration i
of the vastness of that destruction, in three consequences
of it; the burning of their weapons, (v. 8 . . 10.) the bu¬
rying of their slain, (v. 11. . 16.) and the feasting of the
fowls with the dead bodies of those that were unburied,
v. 17.. 22. III. A declaration of God’s gracious pur¬
poses concerning his people Israel, in this and his othei
providences concerning them, and a promise of further
mercy that he had yet in store for them, v. 23. . 29.
1. rgnHEREFORE, thou son of man, pro-
JL pliesy against Gog, and say, Thus
saith the Lord God, Behold, I am against
thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech
and Tubal; 2. And I will turn thee back,
and leave but the sixth part of thee, and
will cause thee to come up from the north
parts, and will bring thee upon the moun
tains of Israel : 3. And I will smite thy
bow out of thy left hand, and will cause
thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand.
4. Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of
Israel, thou, and all thy bands, and the peo¬
ple that is with thee: 1 will give thee unto
the ravenous birds of every sort, and In the
beasts of the field, to he devoured. 5. Thou
shalt fall upon the open field; for I have
spoken it, saith the Lord God. 6. And 1
will send a fire on Magog, and among them
that dwell carelessly in the isles; and they
shall know that I am the Lord. 7. So will
I make my holy name known in the midst of
my people Israel ; and I will not let them
pollute my holy name any more; and the
heathen shall know that I am the Lord,
the Holy One in Israel.
This prophecy begins, as that before, ch. xxxviii.
3, 4. I am against thee, and I will turn thee back;
for there is need of line upon line, both for the con¬
viction' of Israel’s enemies, and the comfort of Is¬
rael’s friends. Here, as there, it is foretold that
God will bring this enemy fro m the north parts, as
■formerlv the Chaldeans were fetched from the
north, Jer. i. 14. ( Omne malum ab aquilone —
Every evil comes from the north,) and, long after
the Roman empire was overrun by the northern na¬
tions; that he will bring him upon the mountains of
Israel; (x>. 2.) first, as a place of temptation, where
the measures of his iniquity shall be filled up, and
then, as a place of execution, where his ruin shall
be completed. And that is it which is here en¬
larged upon.
1. His soldiers shall be disarmed, and so disabled
to carry on their enterprise. Though the men of
might may .find their hands, yet to what purpose,
when they find it is put out of their power to do mis¬
chief, when God shall smite their bow out of their
left hand, and their arrow out of their right? v. 3.
Note, The weapons formed against Zion shall not
prosper.
2. He and the greatest part of his army shall be
slain in the field of battle; (v. 4.) Thou shall fall
upon the mountains of Israel; there they sinned,
and there they shall perish, even upon the holy
mountains of Israel, for there brake he the arrows
of the bow,' Ps. Ixxvi. 3. The mountains of Israel
shall be moistened, and fattened, and made fruit¬
ful, with the blood of the enemies. “ Thou shalt
fall upon the open field, (x\ 5.) and shalt not be
able even there to make thine escape.” Even upon
the mountains he shall not find a pass that he shall
763
EZEKIEL, XXXIX.
oe able to maintain, ana upon the often field he
shall not find a road that he shall be able to make
his escape by. He, and his bands , his regular
troops, and the people that are with him, that fol¬
low the camp to share in the plunder, these shall
all fall with him. Note, Those that cast in their
lot among wicked people, (Prov. i. 14.) that they
may have one purse with them, must expect to
take their lot with them, and fare as they fare, tak¬
ing the worse with the better. There shall be such
a general slaughter made, that but a sixth part
shall be left, (v. 2.) the other five shall all be cut
off. Never was army so totally routed as this. And,
for its greater infamy and reproach, their bodies
shall be a feast to the birds of prey, v. 4. Compare
v. 17. Thou shall fall, for I have spoken it. Note,
Rather shall the most illustrious princes, (Antiochus
was called Epiphanes, the illustrious,) and the most
numerous armies, fall to the ground, than any word
of God; for he that has spoken, will make it good.
3. His country also shall be made desolate; I
will send a fire on Magog, ( v . 6.) and among
them that dwell carelessly, or confidently, in the
isles, the nations of the Gentiles. He designed to
destroy the land of Israel, but shall not only be de¬
feated in that design, but shall have his own de¬
stroyed by some fire, some consuming judgment or
other. Note, Those who invade other people’s
rights, justly lose their own.
4. God will by all this advance the honour of his
own name, (1.) Among his people Israel; they shall
hereby know more of God’s name, of his power and
goodness, his care of them, his faithfulness to them;
his providence concerning them shall lead them
into a better acquaintance with him; every provi¬
dence should do so, as well as every ordinance; /
will make my holy name known in the midst of my
people. In Judah is God known; but those that
know much of God, should know more of him; we
should especially increase in the knowledge of his
name as a holy name. Know him as a God of per¬
fect purity and rectitude, and that hates all sin.
And then it follows, I will not let them pollute my
holy name any more. Note, Those that rightly
know God’s holy name, will not dare to profane it;
for it is through ignorance of it that men make light
of it; and make bold with it. And this is God’s
method of dealing with men; first, to enlighten their
understandings, and by that means to influence the
whole man; he first makes us to know his holy name,
and so keeps us from polluting it, and engages us
to honour it. And this is here the blessed effect of
God’s glorious appearances on the behalf of his
people. Thus he completes his favours, thus he
sanctifies them, thus he makes them blessings in¬
deed; by them he instincts his people, and reforms
them. When the Almighty scattered kings for her,
she was white as snow in Salmon, Ps. lxviii. 14. (2. )
Among the heathen; those that never knew it, or
would not own it, shall know that I am the Lord,
the Holy One in Israel. They shall be made to
know by dear-bought experience, that he is a God
of power, and his people’s God and Saviour; and it
is in vain for the greatest potentates to contend with
him; none ever hardened their heart against him,
and prospered.
8. Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith
the Lord God; this is the day whereof I
have spoken. 9. And they that dwell in the
cities of Israel shall go forth, and shall set
on fire and burn the weapons, both the
shields and the bucklers, the bows and the
arrows, and the hand-staves, and the spears,
and they shall burn them with fire seven
years. 10. So that they shall raKe no wood
out of the field, neither cut down any out
of the forests; for they shall burn the wea¬
pons with fire ; and they shall spoil those
that spoiled them, and rob those that rob¬
bed them, saitli the Lord God. 11. And
it shall come to pass in that day, that I
will give unto Gog a place there of graves
in Israel, the valley of the passengers on the
east of the sea; and it shall^stop the noses
of the passengers : and there shall they bury
Gog, and all his multitude; and they shall
call it, The valley of Hamon-gog. 12. And
seven months shall the house of Israel be
burying of them, that they may cleanse the
land. *13. Yea, all the people of the land
shall bury them; and it shall be to them a
renown, the day that I shall be. glorified,
saith the Lord God. 14. And they shall
sever out men of continual employment,
passing through the land, to bury with the
passengers those that remain upon the face
of the earth, to cleanse it : after the end of
seven months shall they search. 15. And
the passengers that pass through the land,
when any seelh a man’s bone, then shall he
set up a sign by it, till the buriers have bu¬
ried it in the valley of Hamon-gog. 16.
And also the name of the city shall be Ha-
monah. Thus shall they cleanse the land.
17. And thou, son of man, thus saith the
Lord God, Speak unto every feathered
fowl, and to every beast of the field, Assem¬
ble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves
on every side to my sacrifice that I do sa¬
crifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon
the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat
flesh, and drink blood. 18. Ye shall eat the
flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of
the princes of the earth, of rams, of Iambs,
and of goats, of bullocks, all of them fat-
lings of Bashan. 19. And ye shall eat fat
till ye be full, and drink blood till ye be
drunken, of my sacrifice which I have sacri¬
ficed for you. 20. Thus ye shall be filled at
my table with horses and chariots, with
mighty men, and with all men of war, saith
the Lord God. 21. And I will set my glory
among the heathen, and all the heathen
shall see my judgment that»I have executed,
and my hand that I have laid upon them.
22. So the house of Israel shall know that
I am the Lord their God from that day and
forward.
Though this prophecy was to have its accomplish¬
ment in the latter days, yet it is here spoken of as if
it were already accomplished, because it is certain;
(v. 8.) “ Behold, it is come, and it is done; it is as
sure to be done, when the time is come, as if it were
done already; this is the day whereof I have long
and often spoken, and though it has been long ir.
764
EZEKIEL, XXXIX.
coming, yet at length it is come. ” Thus it was said
unto John, (Rev. xxi. 6.) It is done.
To represent the routing of the army of Gog as
very great, here are three things specified as the
consequences of it. It was God himself that gave
tnem the defeat; we do not find that the people of
Israel drew a sword, or struck a stroke: but,
I. They shall burn their weapons; their bows and
arrows, which fell out of their hands, (y. 3.) their
shields and bucklers, their javelins, spears, leading-
staves, truncheons and half-pikes, every thing that
is combustible. They shall not lay them up in their
armories, or reserve them for their own use, lest
they should be tempted to put a confidence in them,
but they shall burn them; not all at once, for a bon¬
fire, (to what purpose would be that waste?) but, as
they had occasion, to use them for fuel in their
houses, instead of other fire-wood, so that they should
have no occasion to take wood out of the field or
forests, for seven years together; (y. 10.) %ich vast
quantities of weapons shall there be left upon the
open field, where the enemy fell, and in the roads,
which they passed in their flight. The weapons
were dry, and fitter for fuel th^n green wood; and
by saving the wood in their coppices and forests,
they give it time to grow. Though the mountains
of Israel produce plenty of all good things, yet it
becomes the people of Israel to be good husbands
of their plenty, and to save what they can for the
benefit of those that come after them, as Providence
shall give them opportunity to do so. We may sup¬
pose that when they who d welt in the cities of Israel
came forth to spoil those who spoiled them, and
make reprisals upon them, they found upon them
silver, and gold, and ornaments; yet no mention is
made of any thing particularly that they converted
to their own use, but the wood of the weapons for
fuel, which is one of the necessaries of human life;
to teach us to think it enough if we be well supplied
with those, though we have but little of the delights
and gaieties of it, and of those things which we may
very well live without. And, every time they put
fuel to the fire, and warmed themselves at it, they
would be pfit in mind of the number and strength of
their enemies, and the imminent peril they were in
of falling into their hands, which would help to en¬
large their hearts in thankfulness to that God who
had so wonderfully, so seasonably, delivered them.
As they sat by the fire with their children about
them, (their fire-side,) they might from it take oc¬
casion to tell them what great things God had done
for them.
II. They shall bury their dead. Usually, after a
battle, when many are slain, the enemy desire time
to bury their own dead. But here the slaughter
shall be so general, that there shall not be a suffi¬
cient number of the enemies left alive to bury the
dead; and besides, the slain lie so dispersed on the
mountains of Israel, that it would be a work of time
to find them out. And therefore it is left to the
house of Israel to bury them as a piece of triumph
in their overthrow.
1. A place shall be appointed on purpose for the
burying them, the valley of the passengers, on the
east of the sea, either the salt sea, or the sea of Ti¬
berias, a valley through which there was great
passing and repassing of travellers between Egypt
and Chaldea; there shall be such a multitude of
dead bodies, putrefying above ground, with such a
loathsome stench, that the travellers who go that
way, shall be forced to stop their noses. See what
vile bodies ours are; when the soul has been a little
while from them, the smell of them becomes offen¬
sive, no smell more nauseous, or more noxious.
There, therefore, where the greatest number lay
slain, shall the burying-place be appointed. In the
place where the tree falls, there let it lie. And it
shall be called, The valley of Hamon-gog, that is,
of the multitude of Gog; for that was the thing
which was in a particular manner to be had in re¬
membrance. How numerous the forces of the ene¬
mies were which God defeated and destroyed for
the defence of his people Israel !
2. A considerable time shall be spent in burying
them, no less than seven months; (v. 12.) which is
a further intimation that the slain of the Lord in
this action should be many; and that great care
should be taken by the house of Israel to leave none
unburied, that so they might cleanse the land from
the ceremonial pollution it contracted by the lying
of so many dead corpses unburied in it; for the pre¬
vention of which it was appointed that those who
were hanged on a tree, should be speedily taken
down, ana buried, Deut. xxi. 23. This is an inti¬
mation that times of eminent deliverances should be
times of reformation. The more God has done for
the saving of a land from ruin, the more the in¬
habitants should do for the cleansing of the land
from sin.
3. Great numbers shall be employed in this work;
All the people of the land shall be ready to lend a
helping hand to it, v. 13. Note, Every one should
contribute the utmost he can in his place toward the
cleansing of the land from the pollutions of it, and
from every thing that is a reproach to it. Sin is a
common enemy which every man should take up
arms against. In publico discrimine unisyuise/ue
homo miles est — In the season of public danger every
man becomes a soldier. And whoever shall assist
in this work, it shall be to them a renown; though
the office of grave-makers, or common scavengers
of the country, seem but meaii, yet, when it is for
the cleansing and purifying of the land from dead
works, it shall be mentioned to their honour. Note,
Acts of humanity add much to the renown of God’s
Israel; it is a credit to religion, when those that
profess it are ready to every good work; and a good
work it is to bury the dead, yea, though they be
strangers and enemies to the commonwealth of Is¬
rael, for even they shall rise again. It shall be a
renown to them in the day when God will be glori¬
fied. Note, It is for the glory of God when his Is¬
rael do that which adorns their profession; others
will see their good works, and glorify their Father,
Matth. v. 16. And when God is honoured, he will
put honour upon his people. His glory is their re¬
nown.
4. Some particular persons shall make it their
business to search out the dead bodies, or any part
of them that should remain unburied. The people
of the land will soon grow weary of burying the pol¬
lutions of the country, and therefore they shall ap¬
point men of continual employment, that shall apply
themselves to it, and do nothing else till the land be
thoroughly cleansed; for otherwise, that which is
every one’s work, would soon become nobody’s
work. Note, Those that are engaged in public
work, especially for the cleansing and reforming of
a land, ought to be men of continual employments,
men that will stick to what they undertake, and ge
through with it, men that will apply themselves to
it; and those that will do good according to their
opportunities, will find themselves continually em¬
ployed.
5. Even the passengers shall be ready to give in¬
formation to those whose business it is to cleanse
the land of what public nuisances they meet with,
which call for their assistance; They that pass
through the land, though they will not stay to burv
the dead themselves, lest they should contract a
ceremonial pollution, will yet give notice of those
that they find unburied. If they but discover a bone,
they will set up a sign, that the buriers may come,
\ and bury it; and that, till it is buried, others mav
EZEKIEL, XXXIX. 765
'.ake heed of touching it; for which reason their
sepulchres among the Jews were whited, that people
might keep at a distance from them. Note, When
good work is to be done, every one should lend a
hand to further it, even the passengers themselves,
who must not think themselves unconcerned in a
common calamity, or a common iniquity, to put a
stop to it.
Those whose work it is to cleanse the land must
not countenance any thing in it that is defiling;
though it were not the body, but only the bone, of a
man, that was found unburied, they must encourage
those who will give information of it, private infor¬
mation, by a sign, concealing the informer, that
they may take it away, and bury it out of sight.
Nav, after the end of seven months, which was al¬
lowed them for this work, when all is taken away
that appeared at first view, they shall search for
more, that what is hidden may be brought to light;
they shall search out iniquity till they find none. In
memory of this, thev shall give a new name to their
city. It shall be called Hamonah — The multitude.
O what a multitude of our enemies have we of this
city buried! Thus shall they cleanse the land, with
all this care, with all this pains, v. 16. Note, After
conquering there must be cleansing. Moses ap¬
pointed those Israelites that had been employed in
the war with the Midianites, to purify themselves,
Numb. xxxi. 24. Having received special favours
from God, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness.
III. The birds and beasts of prey shall rest upon
the carcases of the slain while they remain unburied,
and it shall be impossible to prevent it, v. 17, &c.
We find a great slaughter represented by this figure,
Rev. xix. 17, &c. which is borrowed from this.
1. There is a general invitation given, v. 17. It
is to the fowl of every tuing, and to every beast of
the field, from the greatest to the least, that preys
upon carcases, from the eagle to the raven, from the
lion to the dog; let them all gather themselves on
every side, here is meat enough for them, and they
are all welcome. Let them come to God’s sacrifice,
to his feast; so the margin reads it. Note, The
judgments of God, executed upon sin and sinners,
are both a sacrifice and a feast; a sacrifice to the
justice of God, and a feast to the faith and hope of
God’s people. When God brake the head of levia¬
than, he gave him to be meat to Israel, Ps. lxxiv.
The righteous shall rejoice as at a feast, when he
sees the vengeance, and shall wash his foot, as at a
feast, in the blood of the wicked. This sacrifice is
upon the mountains of Israel; these are the high
places, the altars, where God has been dishonoured
by the idolatries of the people, but where he will
now glorify himself in the destruction of his ene¬
mies.
2. There is great preparation made; They shall
eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of
the princes of the earth, v. 18, 19. (1.) It is the
flesh and blood of men that they shall be treated
with. This has sometimes been an instance of the
rebellion of the inferior creatures against man their
master, which is an effect of his rebellion against
God his Maker. (2.) It is the flesh and blood of
great men, here called rams, and bullocks, and
great goats, all of them fallings of Bashan. It is
the blood of the princes of the earth that they shall
regale themselves with. What a mortification is
this to the princes of the blood, as they call them¬
selves, that God can make that blood, that royal
blood which swells their veins, a feast for the birds
and beasts of prey! (3.) It is the flesh and blood of
wicked men, the enemies of God’s church and peo¬
ple, that thev are invited to. They had accounted
the Israel of God as sheep for the slaughter, and
now they shall themselves be so accounted; they
nad thus used the dead bodies of God’s servants.
(Ps. Ixxix. 2.) or would have done, and now it shall
come upon themselves.
3. They shall all be fed, they shall all be feasted
to the full; (v. 19, 20.) You shall eat fat, and drink
blood, which are satiating, surfeiting things. The
sacrifice is great, and the feast upon the sacrifice is.
accordingly; You shall be filled at my tabic. Note.
God keeps a table for the inferior creatures; he
provides food for all fiesh; the eyes of all wait upon
him, and lie satisfies their desires, for he keeps a
plentiful table. And if the birds and beasts shall be
filled at God’s table, which he has prepared foi
them, much more shall his children.be abundantly
satisfied with the goodness of his house, even of his
holy temple. They shall be filled with horses and
chariots; that is, those who ride in the chariots,
mighty men, and men o f war, who triumphed over
nations, are now themselves triumphed over by the
ravens of the valley and the young eagles, Prov.
xxx. 17. They thought to have made an easy prey
of God’s Israel, and now they are themselves an
easy prey to the birds and beasts. See how evil
pursues sinners even after death. This exposine
of their bodies to be a prey is but a type and sign of
those terrors, which, after death, shall prey upor
their -consciences, (which the poetical fictions repre
sented by a vulture continually pecking at the heart,)
and this shame but an earnest of the everlasting
shame and contempt they shall rise to.
IV. This shall redound very much both to the
glory of God and to the comfort and satisfaction of
his people.
1. It shall be much for the honour of God, for
the heathen shall hereby be made to know that he
is the Lord; (v. 21.) fill the heathen shall see and
observe my judgments that I have executed, and
thereby my glory shall be set among them. This
principle shall be admitted and established among
them more than ever, that the God of Israel is a
great and glorious God. He is known to be so even
among the heathen, that have not, or read not, his
written word, by the judgments which he executes.
2. It shall be much for the satisfaction of his peo¬
ple; for they shall hereby be made to know that he
is their God; (t>. 22.) The house of Israel shall
know, abundantly to their comfort, that I am the
Lord their God from that day and forward. (1.)
He will be so from that day and forward. God’s
present mercies are pledges and assurances of fur¬
ther mercies. If God evidence to us that he is our
God, he assures us that he will never leave us;
This God is our God for ever and ever. (2.) They
shall know it with more satisfaction from that day
and forward. They had sometimes been ready to
question whether the Lord was with them or no;
but the events of this day shall silence their doubts,
and, the matter being thus settled and made clear,
it shall not be doubted of for the future. As boast¬
ing in themselves is hereby for ever excluded, so
boasting in God is hereby for ever secured.
23. And the heathen shall know that the
house of Israel went into captivity for their
iniquity: because they trespassed against
me, therefore hid I my face from them, and
gave them into the hand of their enemies;
so fell they all by the sword. 24. Accord¬
ing to their uncleanness, and according to
their transgressions, have I done unto them,
and hid my face from them. 25. Therefore
thus saith the Lord God, Now will I bring
again the captivity of Jacob, and have mercy
upon the whole house of Israel, and will
be jealous for my holy name; 26. After
766
EZEKIEL, XL.
lhat they have borne their shame, and all
their trespasses, whereby they have tres¬
passed against me, when they dwelt safely
in their land, and none made them afraid.
27. When 1 have brought them again from
the people, and gathered them out of their
enemies’ lands, and am sanctified in them
in the sight of many nations; 23. Then shall
they know that I am the Lord their God,
which caused them to be led into captivity
among the heathen: but I have gathered
them unto their own land, and have left
none of them any more there. 29. Neither
will I hide my face any more from them:
for I have poured out my Spirit upon the
house of Israel, saith the Lord God.
This is the conclusion of the whole matter going
before, and has reference not only to the predictions
concerning Gog and Magog, but to all the prophe¬
cies of this book concerning the captivity of the
house of Israel, and then concerning their restora¬
tion and return out of their captivity.
I. God will let the heathen know the meaning of
his people’s troubles, and rectify their mistake con¬
cerning them, who took occasion from the troubles
of Israel to reproach the God of Israel, as unable to
protect them, and untrue to his covenant with them.
When God, upon their reformation and return to
him, turned again their captivity, and brought them
bacl^to their own land, and, upon their persever¬
ance in their reformation, wrought such great salva¬
tions for them, as that from the attempts of Gog
upon them, then it will be made to appear, even to
the heathen that will but consider and compare
things, that there was no ground at all for their re¬
flection; that Israel went into captivity, not because
God could not protect them, but because they had
by sin forfeited his favour, and thrown themselves
out of his protection; (v. 23, 24.) The heathen shall
know that the house of Israel went into ca/itivity
for their iniquity, that iniquity which they learned
from the heathen their neighbours; because they
tres/iassed against God. That was the true reason
why God hid his face from them, and gave them
into the hand of their enemies. It was according to
their uncleanness, and according to their transgres¬
sions. Now the evincing of this will not only silence
their reflections on God, but will redound greatly to
his honour; when the troubles of God’s people are
over, and we see the end of them, we shall better
understand them than we did at first. And it will
appear much for the glory of God, when the world
is made to know, 1. That God punishes sin even in
his own people, because he hates it most in those
that are nearest and dearest to him, Amos iii. 2. It
is the praise of justice to be impartial. 2. That,
when God gives up his people for a prey, it is to
correct them and reform them, not to gratify their
enemies, Isa. x. 7. — xlii. 24. Let not them there¬
fore exalt themselves. 3. That no sooner do God’s
people humble themselves under the rod, than he
returns in mercy to them.
II. God will give his own people to know what
great favour he has in store for them, notwithstand¬
ing the troubles he had brought them into; (v. 25,
26.) Now will I bring again the captivity of Jacob.
1. Why now? Now God will have mercy upon
he whole house of Israel; (1.) Because it is time for
him to stand up for his own glory, which suffers in
their sufferings; Now will I be jealous for my holy
name, that that may no longer be reproached.
(2.) Because they now repent of their sins; They
have borne their shame, and all their trespasses;
when sinners repent, and take shame to themselves,
God will be reconciled, and put honour upon them.
It is particularly pleasing to God, that these peni¬
tents look a great way back in their penitential re¬
flections, and are ashamed of all their trespasses
which they were guilty of, when they dwelt safety
in their land, and none made them afraid. The
remembrance of the mercies they enjoyed in their
own land, and the divine protection they were under
there, shall be improved as an aggravation of the
sins they committed in that land; they dwelt safely,
and might have continued to dwell so, and none
should have given them any disquiet or disturbance,
if they had continued in the way of their duty.
Nay, therefore they trespassed, because they dwelt
safely; outward safety is often a cause of inward se¬
curity, and that is an inlet to all sin, Ps. lxxiii.
Now this they are willing to bear the shame of, and
acknowledge that God has justly brought them into
a land of trouble, where every one makes them
afraid, because they had trespassed against him in
a land of peace, where none made them afraid.
And when they thus humble themselves under
humbling providences, God will bring again their
captivity; and,
2. What then ? When God has gathered them
out of their enemies’ hands, and brought them home
again;
(I.) Then God will have the praise of it ; I will be
sanctified in them in the sight of many nations, v.
27. As God was reproached in the reproach they
were under during their captivity, so he will be
sanctified in their reformation, and the making of
them a holy people again, and will be glorified in
their restoration, and the making of them a happy
glorious people again.
(2.) Then they shall have the benefit of it; ( v .
28. ) They shall know that I am the lord their God.
Note, The providences of God concerning his peo¬
ple, that are designed for their good, have the grace
of God going along with them, to teach them to eye
God as the Lord, and their God, in all; and then
they do them good. They shall see him as the
Lord, and their God. [1.] In their calamities, that
it was he who caused them to be led into captivity;
and therefore they must not only submit to his will,
but endeavour to answer his end in it. [2.] In their
comfort, that it is he who has gathered them to their
own land, and left none of them among the heathen.
Note, By the variety of events that befall us, if we
look up to God in all, we may come to acquaint our¬
selves better with his attributes and designs.
(3.) Then God and they will never part, v. 29.
[1.] God will pour out his Spirit upon them, to pre¬
vent their departures from him, and returns to folly
again, and to keep them close to their duty. And
then, [2.] He will never bide his face any more
from them, will never suspend his favour as he had
done: he will never turn from doing them good, and,
in order to that, he will effectually provide that they
shall never turn from doing him service. Note,
The indwelling of the Spirit is an infallible pledge
of the continuance of God’s favour. He will hide
his face no more from those on whom he has poured
out his Spirit. When therefore we pray that God
would'never cast us away from his presence, we
must as earnestly pray that, in order to that, he
would never take his Holy Spirit away from us,
lJs. li. 11.
CHAP. XL.
The waters of the sanctuary which this prophet saw m
vision, (ch. x 1 v i i . ].) are a proper representation of this
prophecy. Hitherto, the waters have been sometimes
but to the ankles, in other places to the knees, or to the
loins, but now the waters are risen and are become a
river which cannot be passed over. Here is one con
7G7
EZEKIEL, XL.
‘.inued vision, beginning at this chapter, to the end of
the book, which is justly looked upon to be one of the
most difficult portions of scripture in all the book ol uod.
The Jews will not allow any to read it till they are 30
years old, and tell those who do read it, that, though
they cannot understand every thing in it, when hhas
comes , he will explain it. Many commentators, both
ancient and modern, have owned themselves at a loss
what to make of it, and what use to make of it. But be¬
cause it is hard to be understood, we must not therejore
throw it by, but humbly search concerning it, get as lar
as we can into it, and as much as we can out of it, and,
when we despair of satisfaction in every difficulty we
meet with, bless God that our salvation does not depend
upon it, but that things necessary are plain enough; and
wait till God shall reveal even this unto us. These
chapters are the more to be regarded, because the two
hist chapters of the Revelation seem to have a plain al¬
lusion to them, as Rev. 20. has to the foregoing pro¬
phecy of Gog and Magog. Here is the vision of a glo¬
rious temple; (in this chapter, and ch. xli, and xlu.) ol
God’s taking possession ofit? (ch. xliii.) orders concern¬
ing the priests that are to minister in this temple: (ch.
x)iv.) the division of the land, what portion should be
allotted for the sanctuary, what for the city, and what
for the prince, both in his government of the people and
his worship of God, (ch. xlv.) and further instructions
for him and the people, ch. xlvi. After the vision ol the
holy waters, we have the borders of the holy land, and
the portions assigned to the tribes, and the dimensions
and gates of the nolv city, ch. xlvii, xlviii. borne make
this to represent what had been during the flourishing
6tate of the Jewish church, how glorious Solomon s tem¬
ple was in its best days; that the captives might see "'hat
they had lost by sin, and might be the more humbled.
But that seems not probable. The general scope ol it 1
take to be, 1. To assure the captives that they should not
only return to their own land, and be settled there,
which had been often promised in the foregoing chapters,
but that they should have , and therefore should be en¬
couraged to build, another temple, which God would
own, and where he would meet them, and bless them.
That the ordinances of worship should be revived, and
the sacred priesthood should there attend; and though
they should not have a king to live in such splendour as
formerly, yet they should have a prince or ruler (who
is often spoken of in this vision) who should counte¬
nance the worship of God among them, and should him¬
self be an example of diligent attendance upon it, and
that prince, priests, and people, should have a very com¬
fortable settlement and subsistence in their own land.
2. To direct them to look further than all this, and to
expect the coming of the Messiah, who had before been
prophesied of under the name of David, because he was
the man that projected the building ot the temple, and
that should set up a spiritual temple, even the gospel-
church, the glory of which should far exceed that ot bo-
lomon’s temple, and which should continue to the end
of time. The dimensions of these visionary buildings
bein^ so large, (the new temple more spacious than all
the old Jerusalem, and the new Jerusalem greater than
all the land of Canaan,) plainly intimates, as Dr. Light-
foot observes, that these things cannot be literally, but
must be spiritually understood. And the gospel-temple,
erected by Christ and his apostles, was so closely con¬
nected with the second material temple, was erected so
carefully just at the time when that fell into decay, that
it might be ready to receive its glories when it resigned
them, that it was^proper enough that they should both be
referred to in one and the same vision. Under the type
and figure of a temple and altar, priests and sacrifices, is
foreshown the spiritual worship that should be perlormed
in gospel-times, more agreeably to the nature both ol
God and man; and that perfected at last in the kingdom
of glory, in which perhaps these visions will have their
lull accomplishment; and some think in some happy and
glorious state of the gospel-church on this side heaven,
in the latter days.
In this chapter, we have, I. A general account ot this vision
of the temple and city, v. 1 . .4. II. A particular account
of it entered upon; and a description given, 1. Ol the
outside wall, v. 5. 2. Of the east gate, v. 6. • 19. 3.01
the north gate, v. 20.. 23. 4. Of the south gate, (v.
24.. 31.) and the chambers and other appurtenances
belonging to these gates. 5. Of the inner court, both
toward the east, and toward the south, v. 32 . . 3S. 6. Ol
the tables, v. 39. .43. 7. Of the lodgings for the singers
and the priests, v. 44. .47. 8. Of the porch of the house,
v. 48, 49.
l.TN the five and tvvv.itieth \ ear ot our
X captivity, in the beginning of the year,
in the tenth day of the month, in the four¬
teenth year after that the city was smitten,
in the self-same day the hand of the Lord
was upon me, and brought me thither. 2.
In the visions of God brought he me into the
land of Israel, and set me upon a very high
mountain, by which -was as the frame ol a
city on the south. 3. And he brought me
thither, and, behold, there was a man, whose
appearance was like the appearance ol brass,
with a line of flax in his hand, and a mea¬
suring-reed; and he stood in the gate. 4.
And the man said unto me, Son of man,
hehold with thine eyes, and hear with thine
ears, and set thy heart upon all that I shall
shew thee ; for to the intent that I might shew
them unto thee art. thou brought hither: de¬
clare all that thou seest to the house ot
Israel.
Here is, 1. The date of this vision. It was in the
25th year of Ezekiel’s captivity, (v. 1.) which some
compute to be the 33d year of the first captivity,
and is here said to be the 14 th year after the city
was smitten. See how seasonably the clearest and
fullest prospects of their deliverance were given,
then when they were in the depth of their distress;
and an assurance of the return of the morninj^Bhen
when they were in the midnight of their captivity;
“ Then the hand of the Lord was upon me, and
brought me thither to Jerusalem, now that it was in
ruins, desolate and deserted” — a pitiable sight to the
prophet.
2. The scene where it was laid. The prophet
was brought, in the -visions of God, to the land oj
Israel, v. 2. And it was not the first time that he
had been brought thither in vision; we had him car¬
ried to Jerusalem, to see it in its iniquity and shame;
(ch. viii. 3.) here he is carried thither, to have a
pleasing prospect of it in its glory, though its present
aspect, now that it was quite depopulated, was dis¬
mal. He was set upon a very high mountain, as
Moses upon the top of Pisgah, to view this land,
which was now a second time a land of promise, not
yet in possession. From the top of this mountain
he saw as the frame of a city, the plan and model
of it; but this city was a temple as large as a city. The
new Jerusalem (Rev. xxi. 22.) had no temple
therein; this here is all temple, which comes much
to one. It is a city for men to dwell in; it is a temple
for God to dwell ’in; for in the church on earth God
dwells with men, in that in heaven men dwell with
God. Both these are framed in the counsel of God,
framed by infinite wisdom, and all very good.
3. The particular discoveries of this city (which
he had at first a general view of) were made to him
by a man whose appearance was like the appear¬
ance of brass, ( v . 3.) not a created angel, but Jesus
Christ, who should be found in fashion as a man,
that he might both discover and build the gospel-
temple. He brought him to this city, for it is
tli rough Christ that we have both acquaintance
with, and access to, the benefits and privileges of
God’s house. He it is that shall build the temple of
the Lord, Zech. vi. 13. His appearing like brass inti
mates both his brightness and his strength. John,
in vision, saw his feet like unto fine brass, Rev. i. 15.
4. The dimensions of this city, or temple, and the
several parts of it, were taken with a line of flax.
768
EZEKIEL, XL.
and a measuring-reed , or rod; {y. 3.) as carpenters
have both their line and a wooden measure. The
temple of God is built by line and rule; and those
that would let others into the knowledge of it, must
do it by that line and rule. The church is formed
aocording to the scripture; the pattern in the mount.
That is the line and the measuring-reed that is in
the hand of Christ; with that doctrine and laws
ought to be measured, and examined by that; for
then peace is upon the Israel of God, when they
walk according to that rule.
5. Directions are here given to the prophet to re¬
ceive this revelation from the Lord, and transmit
it pure and entire to the church, v. 4. (1.) He must
carefully observe every thing that was said and
done in this vision. His attention is raised and en¬
gaged ; (i\ 4. ) “ Behold with thine eyes all that is
showed thee; do not only see it, but look intently
upon it; and hear with thine ears all that is said to
thee, diligently hearken to it, and be sure to set thine
heart upon it; attend with a fixedness of thought,
and a close application of mind.” What we see of
the works of God, and what we hear of the word
of God, will do us no good, unless we set our hearts
upon it, as those that reckon ourselves nearly con¬
cerned in it, and expect advantage to our souls by
't. (2.) He must faithfully declare it to the house
of Israel, that they may have the comfort of it;
therefore he receives, that he may give. Thus the
Revelation of Jesus Christ was lodged in the hands
of John, that he might signify it to the churches,
Rev. i. 1. And because he is to declare it as a mes¬
sage from God, he must therefore be fully apprised
of it himself, and much affected with it. Note,
Tha» who are to pleach God’s word to others,
ouglwto study it well themselves, and set their
hearts upon it. Now the reason given why he must
both observe it himself and declare it to the house
of Israel, is, because to this intent he is brought
hither, and has it showed him. Note, When the
things of God are showed us, it concerns us to con¬
sider to what intent they are showed us; and when
A'e are sitting under the ministry of the word, to
consider to what intent we are brought thither, that
we may answer the end of our coming, and mav not
receive the grace of God, in showing us such things,
in vain.
5. And, behold, a wall on the outside of
the house round about, and in the man’s
hand a measuring-reed of six cubits long, by
the cubit; and a hand-breadth: so he mea¬
sured the breadth of the building one reed,
and the height one reed. 6. Then came
he unto the gate which looketh toward the
east, and went up the stairs thereof, and
measured the threshold of the gate, which
was one reed broad, and the other thresh¬
old of the gate , which was one reed broad.
7. And even / little chamber was one reed
long, and one reed broad; and between the
little chambers were five cubits; and the
threshold of the gate, by the porch of the
gate within, was one reed. 8. He measured
.llso the porch of the gate within, one reed.
9. Then measured he the porch of the gate,
eight cubits; and the posts thereof, two cu¬
bits ; and the porch of the gate was inward.
10. And the little chambers of the gate east¬
ward were three on this side, and three on
that side ; they three were of me measure :
and the posts had one measure on this side
and on that side. 11. And he measured the
breadth of the entry of the gate, ten cubits
and the length of the gate, thirteen cubits
1 2. The space also before the little cham¬
bers was one cubit on this side, and the space
wfts one cubit on that side ; and the little
chambers were six cubits on this side, and
six cubits on that side. 13. He measured
then the gate from the roof of one little cham¬
ber to the roof of another: the breadth was
five and twenty cubits, door against door.
14. He made also posts of threescore cubits,
even unto the post of the court round about
the gate. 1 5. And from the face of the gate
of the entrance, unto the face of the porch
of the inner gate, were fifty cubits. 1 6. And
there were narrow windows to the little
chambers, and to their posts within the gate
round about, and likewise to the arches;
and windows were round about inward: and
upon each post were palm-trees. 1 7. Then
brought he me into the outward court, and,
lo, there were chambers, and a pavement
made for the court round about : thirty
chambers were upon the pavement. 18.
And the pavement by the side of the gates,
over against the length of the gates, was the
lower pavement. 19. Then he measured
the breadth, from the fore-front of the lower
gate unto the fore-front of the inner court
without, a hundred cubits eastward and
northward. 20. And the gate of the out¬
ward court, that looked toward the north, lie
measured the length thereof, and the breadth
thereof. 21. And the little chambers there¬
of were three on this side, and three on that
side; and the posts thereof, and the arches
thereof, were after the measure of the first
gate : the length thereof was fifty cubits, and
the breadth five and twenty cubits. 22
And their windows, and their arches, and
their palm-trees, were after the measure of
the gate that looketh towards the east; and
they went up unto it by seven steps ; and the
arches thereof were before them. 23. And
the gate of the inner court was over against
the gate toward the north, and toward the
east; and he measured from gate to gate a
hundred cubits. 24. After that he brought me
toward the south, and, behold, a gate to¬
ward the south : and he measured the posts
thereof, and the arches thereof, according
to these measures. 25. And there were win¬
dows in it, and in the arches thereof round
about, like those windows: the length was
fifty cubits, and the breadth five and twenty
cubits. 26. And there were seven steps to
go up to it, and the arches thereof were be¬
fore them: and it had palm-trees, one on
769
EZEKIEL, XL.
this side, and another on that side, upon the
posts thereof.
The measuring-reed which was in the hand of
tire surveyor-general, was mentioned before, v. 3.
Here we are told, (v. 5.) what was the exact length
of it, which must be observed, because the house
was measured by it. It was six cubits long, rec¬
koning, not by the common cubit, but the cubit of the
sanctuary, the sacred cubit, by which it was fit that
this holy house should be measured, and that was a
hand-breadth, four inches, longer than the common
cubit, tlie common cubit was eighteen inches, this
twenty-two, see ch. xliii. 13. yet some of the critics
contend, that this measuring-reed was but six com¬
mon cubits in length, and one hand-breadth added
to the whole. The former seems more probable.
Here is an account,
I. Of the outer wall of the house, which com¬
passed it round, which was three yards thick, and
three yards high, which denotes the separation be¬
tween tlie church and the world on every side; and
the divine protection which the church is under. If
a wall of this vast thickness will not secure it, God
himself will be a Wall of fire round about it; who¬
ever attack it, it is at their peril.
II. Of the several gates with the chambers ad¬
joining to them. Here is no mention of the outer
court of all, which was called the court of the Gen¬
tiles ; some think, because in gospel-times there
should be such a vast confluence of Gentiles to the
church, that their court should be left unmeasured ,
to signify that the worshippers in that court should
be unnumbered, Rev. vii. 9, 11, 12.
1. He begins with the east gate, because that was
tile usual way of entering into the lower end of the
temple; the holy of holies being at the west end, in
opposition to the idolatrous heathen that worshipped
toward the east. Now, in the account of this gate,
observe,
(1.) That he went up to it by stairs, (d. 6.) for
the gospel-church was exalted above that of the Old
Testament, and when we go to worship God, we
must ascend; so is the call, Rev. iv. 1. Come up
hither; Sursum corda — Up with your hearts.
(2.) That the chambers, adjoining to the gates
were but little chambers, about ten feet square, v.
7. These were for those to lodge in, who attended
the service of the house. And it becomes such as
are made spiritual priests to God, to content them¬
selves with little chambers, and not to seek great
things to themselves: so that we may but have a
place within the verge of God’s court, we have rea¬
son to be thankful though it be in a little chamber, a
mean apartment, though we be but door-keepers
there.
(3.) The chambers, as they were each of them
four-square, denoting their stability and due pro¬
portion, and their exact agreement with the rule,
(for they were each of them one reed long, and one
reed broad,) so they were all of one measure, that
there might be an equality among the attendants on
the service of the house.
(4.) The chambers were very many; for in our
Father’s house there are many mansions, (John xiv.
2.) in his house above, and in that here on earth.
In the secret of his tabernacle shall those be hid,
and in a safe pavilion, whose desire is to dwell in the
house of the Lord all the days of their life, Rs.
xxvii. 4, 5. Some make these chambers to repre¬
sent the particular congregations of believers, which
are parts of the great temple, the universal church,
which are, and must be, framed by the scripture¬
line and rule, and which Jesus Christ takes the mea¬
sure of, -that is, takes cognizance of, for he walks
in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks.
(5.) It is said, {v. 14.) He made also the posts.
Vol. iv. — 5 E
He that now measured them was the same that
made them; for Christ is the Builder of his church,
and therefore is best able to give us the knowledge
of it. And his reducing them to the rule and stand¬
ard is called his making of them, for no account is
made of them further than they agree with tlwit;
To the law, and to the testimony.
(6.) Here are posts of sixty cubits, which, some
think, was literally fulfilled, when Cyrus, in his
edict for rebuilding the temple at Jerusalem, or¬
dered that the height thereof should be sixty cubits,
that is, thirty yards, and more, Ezra vi. 3.
(7.) Here were windows to the little chambers,
and windows to the posts and arches, to the cloisters
below, and windows round about, (v. 16.) to sig¬
nify the light from heaven with which tlie church
is illuminated; divine revelation is let into it for
instruction, direction, and comfort to those that
dwell in God’s house; light to work by, light to walk
by, light to see themselves and one another by.
There were lights to the little chambers; even the
least, and least considerable parts and members of
the church, shall have light afforded them. All thy
children shall be taught of the Lord. But they are
narrow windows, as those in the temple, 1 Kings
vi. 4. The discoveries made to the church on earth
are but narrow and scanty, compared with what
shall be in the future state, when we shall no longer
see through a glass darkly.
(8.) Divers courts are here spoken of; an outer¬
most of all, then an outer court, then an inner, and
then the innermost of all, into which the priests only
entered; which, some think, may put us in mind
“of the diversities of gifts, and graces, and offices,
in the several members of Christ’s mystical body
here; as also of the several degrees of glory in the
courts and mansions of heaven ; as there are stars
in several spheres, and stars of several magnitudes,
in the fixed firmament.” — English Annotations.
Some draw nearer to God than others, and have a
more intimate acquaintance with divine things; but
to a child of God a day in any of his courts is better
than a thousand elsewhere. These courts had
porches, or piazzas, round them, for the shelter of
those that attended in them, from wind and weather;
for when we are in the way of our duty to God, we
may believe ourselves to be under his special pro¬
tection, that lie will graciously provide for us, nay,
that he will himself be to us a Covert from the storm
arid tempest , Isa. iv. 5, 6.
(9.) On the posts were palm-trees engraven, (t*.
16.) to signify that the righteous shall flourish like
the palm-tree, in the courts of God’s house, Ps. xcii.
12. The more they are depressed with the burthen
of affliction, the more strongly do they grow, as they
say of the palm-trees. It likewise intimates the
saints’ victory and triumph over their spiritual ene¬
mies; they have palms in their hands; (Rev. vii. 9.)
but lest they should drop these, or have them
snatched out of their hands, they are here engraven
upon the posts of the temple as perpetual monu¬
ments of their honour; Thanks be to God who al¬
ways causes us to triumph. Nay, believers shall
themselves be made pillars in the temple of our God,
and shall go no more out, and shall have his name
engraven on them, which will be their brightest or¬
nament and honour, Rev. iii. 12.
(10.) Notice is here taken of the pavement of the
court, v. 17, 18. Tlie word intimates that the pave¬
ment was made of porphyry-stone, which was
of the colour of burning coals; for the brightest
and most sparkling glories of this world should be
put and kept under our feet when we draw near to
God, and are attending upon him. The stars are,
as it were, the burning coals, or stones of a fiery
colour, with which the pavement of God’s celestial
temple is laid; and if the pavement of the court be
770
EZEKIEL, XL.
so bright and glittering, how glorious must we con- '
elude the mansions of that house to be!
2. The gates that looked toward the north, ( v .
20.) and toward the south, (x\ 24.) with their ap¬
purtenances, are much the same with that toward
th% east, after the measure of the first gate, v. 21.
But the description is repeated very particularly.
And thus largely was the structure of the tabernacle
related in Exodus, and of the temple in the books
of Kings and Chronicles, to signify the special no¬
tice God does take, and his ministers should take,
of all that belong to his church; his delight is in
them, his eye is upon them. He knows all that are
his, all his living temples, and all that belongs to
them. Observe,
(1.) This temple had not only a gate toward the
east, to let into it the children of the east, that were
famous for their wealth and wisdom; but it had a
gate to the north, and another to the south, for the
admission of the poor and less civilized nations. The
new Jerusalem has twelve gates, three towards each
quarter of the world; (Rev. xxi. 13.) for many shall
come from all parts, to sit down there, Matth.
viii. 11.
(2.) To those gates they went up by steps, seven
ste/is, (u. 22. — 26.) which, as some observe, may
remind us of the necessity of advancing in grace
and holiness, adding one grace to another; going
from step to step, from strength to strength, still
pressing forward toward perfection; upward, up¬
ward, toward heaven, the temple above.
27. And there was a gate in the inner
court toward the south : and he measured
from gate to gate toward the south a hun¬
dred cubits. 28. And he brought me to the
inner court by the south gate : and he mea¬
sured the south gate according to these mea¬
sures ; 29. And the little chambers thereof,
and the posts thereof, and the arches there¬
of, according to these measures : and there
were windows in it, and in the arches there¬
of round about: it was fifty cubits long, and
five and twenty cubits broad. 30. And the
arches round about were five and twenty
cubits long, and five cubits broad : 31. And
the arches thereof were toward the outer
court ; and palm-trees were upon the posts
thereof: and the going up to it had eight
steps. 32. And he brought me into the in¬
ner court toward the east: and he measured
the gate according to these measures. 33.
And the little chambers thereof, and the
posts thereof, and the arches thereof, were
according to these measures; and there were
windovvs therein, and in the arches thereof
round about : it was fifty cubits long, and
five and twenty cubits broad. 34. And the
arches thereof were toward the outward
court; and palm-trees were upon the posts
thereof, and on this side and on that side :
and the going up to it had eight steps.
35. And he brought me to the north gate,
and measured it according to these mea¬
sures : 36. The little chambers thereof, the
posts thereof, and the arches thereof, and
the windows to it round about : the length
was fifty cubits, and the breadth five and
twenty cubits. 37. And the posts thereof
were toward the outer court ; and palm-
trees ivere upon the posts thereof, on this
side, and on that side : and the going up to
it had eight steps. 38. And the chambers,
and the entries (hereof, -were by the posts of
the gates, where they washed the burnt-of¬
fering.
In these verses, we have a delineation cf the in¬
ner court; The survey of the outer court ended
with the south side of it. This of the inner court
begins with the south side, ( v . 2 7. ) proceeds to the
east, (t>. 32.) and so to the north; (y. 35.) for here
is no gate either of the outer or inner court toward
the west; it should seem that in Solomon’s temple
there were gates westward, for we find porters to¬
ward the west, 1 Chron. ix. 24. — xxvi. 18. But Jo¬
sephus says, that in the second temple there was no
gate on the west side. Observe,
1. These gates into the inner court were exactly
uniform with those into the outer court; the dimen¬
sions the same, the chambers adjoining the same,
the galleries or rows round the court the same, the
very engravings on the posts the same. The work
of grace, and its workings, are the same, for sub¬
stance, in grown Christians that they are in young
beginners, only that the former are got so much
nearer their perfection. The faith of all the saints
is alike precious, though it be not alike strong.
There is a great resemblance between one child of
God and another; for all they are brethren, and bear
the same image.
2. The ascent into the outer court at each gate
was by seven steps, but the ascent into the inner
court at each gate was by eight steps. This is ex¬
pressly taken notice of, (v. 31, 34, 37.) to signify
that the nearer we approach to God, the more we
should rise above this world and the things of it.
The people, who worshipped in the outer court,
must rise seven steps above other people, but the
priests, who attended in the inner court, must rise
eight steps above them; must exceed them at least
one step more than they exceed other people.
39. And in the porch of the gate were two
tables on this side, and two tables on that
side, to slay thereon the burnt-offering, and
the sin-offering, and the trespass-offering. 40.
And at the side without, as one goeth up to
the entry of the north gate, ivere two tables ;
and on the other side, which was at the
porch of the gate, ivere two tables. 41.
Four tables were on this side, and four ta¬
bles on that side, by the side of the gate;
eight tables, whereupon they slew their sa¬
crifices. 42. And the four tables ivere of
hewn stone for the burnt-offering, of a cubit
and a half long, and a cubit and a half
broad, and one cubit high : whereupon also
they laid the instruments •wherewith they
slew the burnt-offering and the sacrifice. 43.
And within ivere hooks, a hand broad, fast¬
ened round about : and upon the tables was
the flesh of the offering. 44^ And without
the inner gate were the chambers of the
singers in the inner court, which was at the
side of the north gate ; and their prospect
771
EZEKIEL, XLI.
teas toward the south ; one at the side of the
east gate, having the prospect toward the
north. 45. And he said unto me, This
chamber, whose prospect is toward the
south, is for the priests, the keepers of the
charge of the house. 46. And the cham¬
ber whose prospect is toward the north is
for the priests, the keepers of the charge of
the altar: these are the sons of Zadok,
among the sons of Levi, which come near
to the Lord to minister unto him. 47. So
he measured the court, a hundred cubits
long, and a hundred cubits broad, four¬
square, and the altar that ivas before the
house. 48. And he brought me to the porch
of the house, and measured each post of the
porch, live cubits on this side, and five cu¬
bits on that side: and the breadth of the
gate was three cubits on this side, and three
cubits on that side. 49. The length of the
porch was twenty cubits, and the breadth
eleven cubits: and he brought me by the
steps whereby they went up to it ; and there
were pillars by the posts, one on this side,
and another on that side
In these verses we have an account,
1. Of the tables that were in the porch of the
gates of the inner court. We find no description
of the altars of burnt-offerings in the midst of that
court, till c/i. xliii. 13. But because the one altar
under the law was to be exchanged for a multitude
of tables under the gospel, here is early notice taken
of the tables, at our entrance into the inner court;
for till we come to partake of the table of the Lord,
we are but professors at large; our admission to that
is our entrance into the inner court. But in this
gospel-temple we meet with no altar, till after the
glory of the Lord has taken possession of it, for
Christ is our Altar, that sanctifies every gift. Here
were eight tables provided, whereon to slay the sa¬
crifices, v. 41. We read not of any tables for this
purpose, either in the tabernacle, or in Solomon’s
temple. But here they are provided, to intimate
the multitude of spiritual sacrifices that should be
brought to God’s house in gospel-times, and the
multitude of hands that should be employed in offer¬
ing up those sacrifices. Here were the shambles
for the altar; here were the dressers on which they
laid the flesh of the sacrifice, the knives with which
they cut it up, and the hooks on which they hung it
up, that it might be ready to be offered on the altar,
(n. 43.) and there also they washed the burnt-offer¬
ings, (t>. 38.) to intimate that before we draw near
to God’s altar, we must have every thing in readi¬
ness; must wash our hands, our hearts, those spi¬
ritual sacrifices, and so com/iass God’s altar.
2. The use that some of the chambers mentioned
before, were put to. (1.) Some were for the singers,
v. 44. It should seem, they were first provided for
before anv other that attended this temple-service,
to intimate, not only that singing of psalms should
still continue a gospel-ordinance, but that the gos¬
pel should furnish all that embrace it with abundant
matter for joy and praise, and give them occasion to
break forth into singing, which is often foretold con¬
cerning gospel-times, Ps. xcvi. 1. — cxviii. 1. Chris¬
tians should be singers. Blessed are they that
dwell in God’s house, they will be still firaising him.
[2. ) Others of them were for the priests; both those
that kept the charge of the house, to cleanse it, and
to see that none came into it to pollute it, and to
keep it in good repair, ( v . 45. ) and those that kept
the charge of the altar, ( v . 46.) that came near to
the Lord to minister to him. God will find conve¬
nient lodging for all his servants. Those that do
the work of his house, shall enjoy the comforts of it.
3. Of the inner court; the court of the priests,
which was fifty yards square, v. 47. The altar
that was before the house, was placed in the midst
of this court, over against the three gates, which
standing in a direct line with the three gates of the
outer court, when the gates were set open, all the
people in the outer court might through them be
spectators of the service done at the altar. Christ is
both our Altar and our Sacrifice, to whom we must
look with an eye of faith in all our approaches to
God, and he is Salvation in the midst of the earth,
(Ps. lxxiv. 12.) to be looked unto from all quarters.
4. Of the porch of the house. The temple is
called the house, emphatically, as if no other house
were worthy to be called so. Before this house
there was a (torch, to teach us not to rash hastily
and inconsiderately into the presence of God, but
gradually, that is, gravely, and with solemnity,
passing first through the outer court, then the inner,
then the porch, ere we enter into the houses Be¬
tween this porch and the altar was a place where
the priests used to pray, Joel ii. 17. In the porch,
beside the posts on which the doors were hung,
there were pillars, probably for state and ornament,
like Jachin and Boaz; He will establish; in him is
strength, v. 49. In the gospel-church, every thing
is strong and firm, and every thing ought to be kept
in its place, and to be done decently and in order.
CHAP. XLI.
An account was given of the porch of the house, in the
close of the foregoing chapter, this brings us to the tem¬
ple itself; the description of which here given creates
much difficulty to the critical expositors, and occasions
differences among them. Those must consult them,
who are nice in iheir inquiries into the meaning of the
particulars of this delineation; It shall suffice us to ob¬
serve, I. The dimensions of the house, the posts of it, (v.
1.) the door, (v. 2.) the wall and the side-chambers, (v.
5. 6.) the foundations and wall of the chambers, their
doors, (v. 8 . . 11.) and the house itself, v. 13. II. The
dimensions of the oracle, or most holy place, v. 3, 4. III.
An account of another building over against the sepa¬
rate place, v. 12 . . 15. IV. The manner of the building
of the house, v. 7, 16, 17. V. The ornaments of the
house, v. 18 . . 20. VI. The altar of incense, and the ta¬
ble, v. 22. VII. The doors between the temple and the
oracle, v. 23. . 26. There is so much difference both in
the terms and in the rules of architecture between one
age and another, one place and another, that it ought
not to be any stumbling-block to us, that there is so
much in these descriptions dark, and hard to be under¬
stood, about the meaning of which the learned are not
agreed. To one not skilled in mathematics, the mathe¬
matical description of a modern structure would be
scarcely intelligible; and yet to a common carpenter or
mason among the Jews at that time, we may suppose
that all this, in the literal sense of it, was easy enough.
1. A FTERWARD he brought me to
. 4 the temple, and measured the posts,
six cubits broad on the one side, and six
cubits broad on the other side, which was
the breadth of the tabernacle. 2. And the
breadth of the door was ten cubits; and the
sides of the door were five cubits on the one
side, and five cubits on the other side; and
he measured the length thereof, forty cubits,
and thp breadth, twenty cubits. 3. Then
went he inward, and measured the post of
772
EZEKIEL, XLI.
the door two cubits, and the door six cubits,
and the breadth of the door seven cubits.
4. So he measured the length thereof, twen¬
ty cubits, and the breadth, twenty cubits,
before the temple; and he said unto me,
This is the most holy place. 5. After he
measured the wall of the house six cubits ;
and the breadth of every side-chamber four
cubits, round about the house on every side.
6. And the side-chambers were three, one
over another, and thirty in order; and they
entered into the wall, which was of the
house for the side-chambers round about,
that they might have hold, but they had not
hold in the wall of the house. 7. And there
was an enlarging and a winding about still
upward to the side-chambers ; for the wind¬
ing about of the house went still upward
round about the house : therefore the breadth
of the house ivas still upward, and so in¬
creased from the lowest chamber to the
highest by the midst. 8. I saw also the
height of the house round about: the foun¬
dations of the side-chambers were a full reed
of six great cubits. 9. The thickness of the
wall, which ivas for the side-chamber with¬
out, was five cubits ; and that which ivas left
was the place of the side-chambers that ivere
within. 10. And between the chambers
was the wideness of twenty cubits round
about the house on every side. 11. And
the doors of the side-chambers ivere toward
the place that was left, one door toward the
north, and another door toward the south :
and the breadth of the place that was left
was five cubits round about.
We are still attending a prophet that is under the
guidance of an angel, and therefore attend with re¬
verence, though we are often at a loss to know both
what this is, and what it is to us. Observe here,
1. After the prophet had observed the courts, he
was at length brought to the temple, v. 1. If we
diligently attend to the instructions given us in the
plainer parts of religion, and profit by them, we
shall be led further, into an acquaintance with the
mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. They that are
willing to dwell in God’s courts, shall at length be
brought into his temple. Ezekiel was himself a priest,
but by the iniquity and calamity of the times was cut
short of his birthright-privilege, of ministering in
the temple; but God makes up the loss to him, by
introducing him into this prophetical, evangelical,
celestial temple, and employing him to transmit a
description of it to the church, in which he was dig¬
nified above all the rest of his order.
2. When our Lord Jesus spake of the destroying
of this temple, which his hearers understood of this
second temple of Jerusalem, he spake of the temple
of his body; (John ii. 19, 21.) and with good reason
might he speak so ambiguously, when Ezekiel’s vi¬
sion had ajointrespecttothem both together, includ¬
ing also his mystical body the church, which is
called the house of God, (1 Tim. iii. IS.) and all
the members of that body, which are living tem¬
ples, in whom the Spirit dwells.
3 The very posts of this temple, the door-posts,
were as far one from the other, and, consequently,
the door was as wide, as the whole breadth of the
tabernacle of Moses, (n. 1.) Twelve cubits, Exod.
xxvi. 16, 22, 25. In comparison with what had
been under the law, we may say. Wide is the gate
which leads into the church; the ceremonial law,
that wall of partition which had so much straitened
the gate, being taken down.
4. The most holy place was an exact square,
twenty cubits each way, v. 4. For the New Jeru¬
salem is exactly four-square, (Rev. xxi. 16.) de¬
noting its stability; for we look for a city that can¬
not be moved.
5. The upper stories were larger than the lower,
v. 7. The walls of the temple were six cubits
thick at the bottom, five in the middle story, and
four in the highest, which gave room to enlarge the
chambers the higher they went; but care was taken
that the timber might have fast hold; though God
builds high he builds firm; yet so as not to weaken
one part for the strengthening of another; they had
hold, but not in the trail of the house. By this
spreading gradually, the side-chambers that were
on the height of the house, in the uppermost story
of all, were six cubits; whereas the lowest were but
four; they gained a cubit every story. The higher
we build up ourselves in our most holy faith, the
more should our hearts, those living temples, be
enlarged.
12. Now the building that was before the
separate place, at the end toward the west,
was seventy cubits broad; and the wall of
the building was five cubits thick round
about, and the length thereof ninety cubits.
1 3. So he measured the house, a hundred
cubits long; and the separate place, and the
building, with the walls thereof, a hundred
cubits long; 1 4. Also the breadth of the face
of the house, and of the separate place to¬
ward the east, a hundred cubits. 13. And
he measured the length of the building over
against the separate place which was be¬
hind it, and the galleries thereof on the one
side, and on the other side, a hundred cu¬
bits, with the inner temple, and the porches
of the court; 16. The door-posts, and the
narrow windows, and the galleries round
about on their three stories, over against the
door, ceiled with wood round about, and
from the ground up to the windows, and the
windows were covered; 17. To that above
the door, even unto the inner house and
without, and by all the wall round about,
within and without, by measure. 18. And
it was made with cherubims and palm-trees,
so that a palm-tree ivas between a cherub
and a cherub ; and every cherub had two
faces ; 1 9. So that the face of a man was
toward the palm-tree on the one side, and
the face of a young lion toward the palm-
tree on the other side: it was made through
all the house round about. 20. From the
ground unto above the door were cherubims
and palm-trees made, and on the wall of the
temple. 21. The posts of the temple were
squared, and the face of the sanctuary; the
EZEKIEL, XLII
appearance of the one as the appearance of
the other. 22. The altar of wood was three
cubits high, and the length thereof two cu¬
bits; and the corners thereof, and the length
thereof, and the walls thereof, were of wood :
and he said unto me, This is the table that
is before the Lord. 23. And the temple
and the sanctuary had two doors. 24. And
the doors had two leaves apiece , two turning
leaves ; two leaves for the one door, and two
leaves for the other door. 25. And there
were made on them, on the doors ol the
temple, cherubims and palm-trees, like as
were made upon the walls; and there were
thick planks upon the face of the porch
without. 26. And there were narrow win¬
dows and palm-trees on the one side and on
the other side, on the sides of the porch, and
upon the side-chambers of the house, and
thick planks.
Here is, 1. An account of a building that was be¬
fore the separate place, before the temple, at the
end toward the west, ( v . 12.) which is here mea¬
sured, and compared, (x>. 13.) with the measure of
the house, and appears to be of equal dimensions
with it. This stood in a court by itself, which is
measured, v. 15. and its galleries, or chambers, be¬
longing to it, its posts and windows, and the orna¬
ments of them, v. 15. — 17. But what use was to be
made of this other building, we are not told ; per¬
haps, in this vision, it signified the setting up a
church among the Gentiles, not inferior to the Jew¬
ish temple, but of quite another nature, and which
should soon supersede it.
2. A description of the ornaments of the temple,
and the other building. The walls on the inside
from top to bottom were adorned with cherubims
and palm-trees, placed alternately as in Solomon’s
temple, 1 Kings vi. 29. Each cherub is here said
to have two faces; the face of a man toward the
palm-tree on one side, and the face of a young lion
toward the palm-tree on the other side, x-. 19.
These seem to represent the angels, who have more
than the wisdom of a man, and the courage of a
lion; and in both they have an eye to the palms of
victory and triumph, which are set before them,
and which they are sure of in all their conflicts with
the powers of darkness. And in the assemblies of
the saints angels are in a special manner present, 1
Cor. xi. 10.
3. A description of the posts of the doors, both of
the temple and of the sanctuary; they were squared,
(x>. 21.) not round like pillars; and the appearance
of the one as the appearance of the other. In the
tabernacle, and in Solomon’s temple, the door of the
sanctuary, or most holy, was narrower than that of
the temple; but here it was full as broad; for in
gospel-times the way into the holiest of all is made
more manifest than it had been under the Old Tes¬
tament, (Heb. ix. 8.) and therefore the door is
wider. These doors are described, v. 23, 24. The
temple and the sanctuary had each of them their
door, and they were two-leaved, folding doors.
4. We have here the description of the altar of
incense, here said to be an altar of wood, v. 22. No
mention is made of its being overlaid with gold; but
surely it was intended to be so, else it would not
bear the fire with which the incense was to be
burned; unless we will suppose that it served only
to put the censers upon. Or else it intimates, that
773
the incense to be offered in the gospel-temple shall
be purely spiritual, and the fire spiritual, which
will not consume an altar of wood. Therefore this
altar is called a table; this is the table that is before
the Lord. Here, as before, we find the altar turned
into a table; for the great sacrifice being now of¬
fered, that which we have to do, is, to feast upon
the sacrifice at the Lord’s table.
5. Here is the adorning of the doors and windows
with palm-trees, that they might be of a piece with
the walls of the house, X'. 25, 26. Thus the living
temples are adorned, not with gold or silver, or
costly array, but with the hidden man of the heart,
in that which is not corruptible.
CHAP. XLII.
This chapter continues and concludes the describing anc
measuring of this mystical temple, which it is verv bard
to understand the particular architecture of, and yet
more hard to comprehend the mystical meaning of. Here
is, I. A description of the chambers that were about the
courts, their situation and structure, v. 1 . . 13. And the
uses for which they were designed, v. 13, 14. II. A
survey of the whole compass of ground, which was
taken up with the house, and the courts belonging to it,
v. 15.. 20.
1 . TH^HEN lie brought me forth into the
I outer court, the way toward the
north, and lie brought me into the chamber
that was over against the separate place,
and which was before the building toward
the north. 2. Before the length of a hun¬
dred cubits was the north door, and the
breadth was fifty cubits. 3. Over against
the twenty cubits which were for the inner
court, and over against the pavement which
was for the outer court, was gallery against
gallery in three stories. 4. And before the
chambers ivas a walk of ten cubits breadth
inward, a way of one cubit: and their
doors toward the north. £. Now, the up¬
per chambers were shorter: for the galleries
were higher than these, than the lower, and
than the middlemost of the building. 6.
For they were in three stories, but had no¬
pillars as the pillars of the courts: there¬
fore the building was straitened more than
the lowest and the middlemost from the
ground. 7. And the wall that was without
over against the chambers, toward the outer
court on the fore-part of the chambers, the
length thereof was fifty cubits. 8. For the
length of the chambers that were in the outer
court ivas fifty cubits: and, lo, before the
temple were a hundred cubits. 9. And
from under these chambers ivas the entry
on the east side, as one goeth into them
from the outer court. 1 0. The chambers
were in the thickness of the wall of the court
toward the east, over against the separate
place, and over against the building. 11.
And the way before them was like the ap¬
pearance of the chambers which were to¬
ward the north, as long as they, and as
broad as they; and all their goings-out
I were both according to their fashions, and
774
EZEKIEL, XLII.
according to their doors. 1 2. And accord¬
ing to the doors of the chambers that were
toward the south was a door in the head of
the way, even the way directly before the
wall toward the east, as one entereth into
them. 13. Then said he unto me, The
north chambers and the south chambers,
which are before the separate place, they be
holy chambers, where the priests that ap¬
proach unto the Lord shall eat the most
holy things: there shall they lay the most
holy things, and the meat-offering, and the
sin-offering, and the trespass-offering; for
the place is holy. 14. When the priests
enter therein, then shall they not go out of
the holy place into the outer court, but there
they shall lay their garments wherein they
minister; for they are holy; and shall put
on other garments, and shall approach to
those things which are for the people.
The prophet has taken a very exact view of the
temple and the buildings belonging to it, and is now
brought again into the outer court, to observe the
chambers that were in that square.
I. Here is a description of these chambers; which
(as that which went before) seems to us very per¬
plexed and intricate, through our unacquaintedness
with the Hebrew language, and the rules of archi¬
tecture at that time. We shall only observe, in
general,
1. That about the temple, which was the place
of public worship, there were private chambers, to
teach us that our attendance upon God in solemn
ordinances will not excuse us from the duties of the
closet. We must not only worship in the courts of
God’s house, but must, both before and after our
attendance there, enter into our chambers, enter
into our closets, and read and meditate, and pray to
our Father in secret; and a great deal of comfort the
people of God have found in their communion with
God in solitude.
2. That these chambers were many; there were
three stories of them, and though the higher stories
were not so large as the lower, vet they served as
well for retirement, v. 5, 6. There were many,
that there might be conveniencies for all such de¬
vout people as Anna the prophetess, who departed
not from the temple night or day, Luke ii. 37. In
my Father’s house are many mansions; in his house
on earth there are so; multitudes by faith have
taken lodgings in his sanctuary, and yet there is
room.
3. That these chambers, though they were pri¬
vate, yet were near the temple, within view of it,
within reach of it, to teach us to prefer public wor¬
ship before private — ( The Lord loves the gates of
Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob, and so
must we,) and to refer our private worship to the
ublic. Our religious performances in our chant¬
ers must be to prepare us for the exercises of de¬
votion in public, and to further us in our improve¬
ment of them as our opportunities are.
4. That before these chambers there were walks
of five yards broad, (y. 4.) in which those that had
odgings in these chambers might meet for conversa¬
tion, might walk and talk together for their mutual
edification, might communicate their knowledge and
experiences. For we are not to spend all our time
between the church and the chamber, though a
great deal of time may be spent to very good pur¬
pose in both; but man is made for society, and
Christians for the communion of saints; and the du
ties of that communion we must make conscience of,
and the privileges and pleasures of that communion
we must take the comfort of. It is promised to
Joshua, who was High Priest in the second temple,
that God will give him places to walk in among
them that stand by, Zech. iii. 7.
II. Here is the use of these chambers appointed,
v. 13, 14.
1. They were for the priests, that approach unto
the Lord, that they may be always near their busi¬
ness, and may not be non-residents; therefore they
are called holy chambers, because they were for the
use of them that ministered in holy things, during
their ministration. Those that have public work
to do for God and the souls of men, have need to be
much in private, to fit themselves for it. Ministers
should spend much time in their chambers, in read¬
ing, meditation, and prayer, that their profiting
may appear; and they ought to be provided with
conveniencies for this purpose.
2. There the priests were to deposit the most holy
things, those parts of the offerings which fell to
their share; and there they were to eat them, they
and their families, in a religious manner; for the
place is holy; and thus they must make a difference
between those feasts upon the sacrifice and other
meals.
3. There (among other uses) they were to lay
their vestments, which God had appointed them to
wear when they ministered at the altar; tlieir linen
ephods, coats, girdles, and bonnets. We read of
the providing of priests’ garments after their return
out of captivity, Neh. vii. 70, 72. When they had
ended their service at the altar, they must lay by
those garments, to signify that the use of them
should continue only during that dispensation; but
they must put on other garments, such as other peo¬
ple wear, when they approached to these things
which were for the people, to do that part of their
service which related to the people, to teach them
the law and to answer their inquiries. Their holy
garments must be laid up, that they may be kept
clean and decent for the credit of their service.
15. Now, when he had made an end of
measuring the inner house, he brought me
forth toward the gate whose prospect is to¬
ward the east, and measured it round about.
16. Fie measured the east side with the
measuring-reed, five hundred reeds, with the
measuring-reed round about. 17. He mea¬
sured ’the north side five hundred reeds,
with the measuring-reed round about. 1 8.
He measured the south side five hundred
reeds, with the measuring-reed. 19. He
turned about to the west side, and measured
five hundred reeds, with the measuring-
reed. 20. He measured it by the four sides:
it had a wall round about, five hundred
reeds long, and five hundred broad, to make
a separation between the sanctuary and the
profane place.
We have attended the measuring of this mystical
temple, and are now to see how far the holy ground
on which we tread extends; and that also is here
measured, and found to take in a great compass.
Observe,
1. What the dimensions of it were. It extended
each way 500 reeds, Cv. 16. — 19.) each reed above
three yards and a half, so that it reached every way
about an English measured mile, which, the ground
EZEKIEL, XLIII. 775
lying square, was above four miles round. Thus
large were the suburbs, (as I may call them) of this
mystical temple; signifying the great extent of the
church in gospel-times, when all nations should be
discip/ed, and the kingdoms of the world made
Christ’s kingdoms. Room should be made in God’s
courts for the numerous forces of the Gentiles that
shall flow into them, as was foretold, Isa. xlix. 18. —
lx. 4. It is in part fulfilled already in the accession
of the Gentiles to the church; and we trust it shall
have a more full accomplishment, when the fulness
of the Gentiles shall come in, and all Israel shall be
saved.
2. Why the dimensions of it were made thus
large. It was to . make a separation, by putting a
very large distance between the sanctuary and the
/irofane place; and therefore there was a watl sur¬
rounding it, to keep olf those that were unclean,
and to separate between the precious and the vile.
Note, A difference is to be put. between common
and sacred things, between God’s name and other
names, between his day and other days, his book
and other books, his institutions and other observ¬
ances; and a distance to be put between our worldly
and religious actions, so as still to go about the wor¬
ship of God with a solemn pause.
CHAP. XLIII.
The prophet having given us a view of the mystical temple,
the gospel-church, as he received it from the Lord, that
it might appear not to be erected in vain, comes to de¬
scribe, in this and the next chapter, the worship that
should be performed in it, but under the type of the Old
Testament services. In this chapter, we have, 1. Pos¬
session taken of this temple, by the glory of God filling
it, v. 1 . . 6. II. A promise given of the continuance of
God’s presence with his people, upon condition of their
return to, and continuance in, the instituted way of his
worship, and their abandoning of idols and idolatry, v.
7 . . 12. III. A description of the altar of burnt-offerings,
v. 13.. 17. IV. Directions given for the consecration
. of that altar, v. 18. . 27. Ezekiel seems here to stand
between God and Israel, as Moses the servant of the
Lord die, when the sanctuary was first set up.
1. A FTERWARD lie brought me to
1 jl the gate, even the gate that looketh
l o ward the east: 2. And, behold, the glory
of the God of Israel came from the way of the
east ; and his voice was like a noise of many
waters: and the earth shined with his glory.
3. And it was according to the appearance of
the vision which I saw, even according to
the vision that I saw when I came to de¬
stroy the city; and the visions were like the
vision that I saw by the river Chebar; and
I fell upon my face. 4. And the glory of the
Lord came into the house, by the way of
the gate whose prospect is toward the east.
5. So the spirit took me up, and brought me
into the inner court ; and, behold, the glory
of the Lord filled the house. 6. And j
heard him speaking unto me out of the
house; and the man stood by me.
After Ezekiel had patiently surveyed the temple
of God, the greatest glory of this earth, he is ad¬
mitted to a higher form, and honoured with a sight
of the glories of the upper world; it is said to him,
Come up hither. He has seen the temple, and sees
it to be very spacious and splendid; but till the glory
of God comes into it, it is but like the dead bodies
he had seen in vision, (cA. xxxvii.) that had no
breath, till the Spirit of life entered into them.
j Here therefore he sees the house filled with God’s
glory.
1. He has a vision of the glory of God, (v. 2. )
the glory of the God of Israel, that God who is in
covenant with Israel, and whom they serve and
worship. The idols of the heathen have no glory
but what they owe to the goldsmith or the painter;
but this is the glory of the God of Israel. This
glory came from the way of the east, and therefore
he was brought to the gate that leads toward the
east, to expect the appearance and approach of it.
Christ’s star was seen in the east, and he is that
1 other Angel that ascends out of the east, Rev. vii. 2.
For he is the Morning Star, he is the Sun of Right-
i cousness. Two things he observed in this appear¬
ance of the glory of God. ( 1. ) The power of his
word which he heard; His voice was like a noise of
many waters, which is heard very far, and makes
impressions; the noise of purling streams is grate¬
ful, of a roaring sea dreadful, Rev. i. 15. — xiv. 2.
Christ’s gospel, in the glory of which he shines,
was to be proclaimed aloud, the report of it to be
heard far; to some it is a savour of life, to others of
death, according as they are. (2.) The brightness
of his appearance which he saw; The earth shined
with his glory; for God is Light, and none can bear
the lustre of his light, none has seen or can see it.
Note, That glory of God which shines in the
church, shines on the world. When God appeared
for David, the brightness that was before him dis¬
persed the clouds, Ps. xviii. 12.
This appearance of the glory tf God to Ezekiel
here, he observed to be the same with the vision he
saw, when he first received his commission, (cA. i.
4.) according to that by the river Chebar; (t1. 3.)
because God is the same, he was pleased to mani¬
fest himself in the same manner, for with him is no
variableness. “It was the same” (says he) “as
that which I saw when I came to destroy the city,
that is, to foretell the city’s destruction;” which he
did with such authority and efficacy, and the event
did so certainly answer the prediction, that he
might be said to destroy it. As a judge, in God’s
name, he passed a sentence upon it, which was
soon executed. God appeared in the same manner
when he sent him to speak words of terror, and
when he sent him to speak words of comfort; for in
both God is, and will be, glorified. He kills, and he
makes alive; he wounds, and he heals, Deut. xxxii.
39. To the same hand that destroyed we must look
for deliverance; he has smitten, and he will bind up.
Una eademque manus vulnus opemque tulit — The
same hand inflicted the wound, and healed it.
2. He has a vision of the entrance of this glory
into the temple. When he saw this glory, he fell
upon his face, (v. 3.) as not able to bear the lustre
of God’s glory, or, rather, as one willing to give him
the glory of it by an humble and reverent adora¬
tion. But the Spirit took him up, ( v . 5.) when the
glory of the Lord was come into the house, (v. 4.)
that he might see how the house was filled with it.
He saw how the glory of the Lord in this same ap¬
pearance departed from the temple, because it was
profaned, to his great grief; now he shall see it re¬
turn to the temple to his great satisfaction. See
ch. x. 18, 19. — xi. 23. Note, Though God may
forsake his people for a small moment, he will re¬
turn with everlasting loving-kindness. God’s glory
filled the house as it had filled the tabernacle which
Moses set up, and the temple of Solomon, Exod.
xl. 34. 1 Kings viii. 10. Now we do not find that
ever the Shechinah did in that manner take posses¬
sion of the second temple, and therefore this was to
have its accomplishment in that glory of the divine
grace which shines so bright in the gospel-church,
and fills it. Here is no mention of a cloud filling
the house as formerly, for we now with open face
EZEKIEL, XLI1I.
776
behold the glory of the Lord, in the face of Christ,
and not as of old through the cloud of types.
3. He receives instructions more immediately
from the glory of the Lord; as Moses did when
God had taken possession of the tabernacle; (Lev.
i. 1.) / heard him speaking to me out of the house,
v. 6. God’s glory shining in the church, we must
from thence expect to receive divine oracles. The
man stood by me; we could not bear to hear the
voice of God any more than to see the face of God,
if Jesus Christ did not stand by us as Mediator. Or
if this was a created angel, it is observable that
when God began to speak to Ezekiel, he stood by,
and gave way; having no more to say. Nay, he
stood by the prophet, as a learner with him; tor to
the principalities and powers, to the angels them¬
selves, who desire to look into these things, is known
by the church the manifold wisdom of God, Eph.
iii. 10. The man stood by him to conduct him
thither where he might receive further discoveries,
ch. xliv. 1.
7. And he said unto me, Son of man, the
place of my throne, and the place of the
soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the
midst of the children of Israel for ever, and
my holy name, shall the house of Israel no
more defile, neither they, nor their kings, by
their whoredom, nor by the carcases of their
kings in their high places; 8. In their set¬
ting of their threshold by my thresholds,
and their post by my posts, and the wall
between me and them; they have even de¬
filed my holy name by their abominations
that they have committed: wherefore I
have consumed them in mine anger. 9.
Now let them put away their whoredom,
and the carcases of their kings, far from
me, and 1 will dwell in the midst of them
forever. 10. Thou son of man, shew the
house to the house of Israel, that they may
be ashamed of their iniquities; and let them
measure the pattern. 11. And if they be
ashamed of ail that they have done, shew
them the form of the house, and the fashion
thereof, and the goings-out thereof, and the
comings-in thereof, and all the forms there¬
of, and all the ordinances thereof; and all
the forms thereof, and all the laws thereof:
and write it in their sight, that they may
keep the whole form thereof, and all the
ordinances thereof, and do them. 12. This
is the law of the house; Upon the top of
the mountain, the whole limit thereof round
about shall be most holy. Behold, this is
the law of the house.
God does here, in effect, renew his covenant with
his people Israel, upon his retaking possession of the
house, and Ezekiel negotiates the matter, as Moses
formerly. This would be of great use to the cap¬
tives at their return, both for direction and encou¬
ragement; but it looks further, to those that are
blessed with the privileges of the gospel-temple,
that they may understand how they are before him
on their good behaviour.
1. God, by the prophet, puts them in mind of
their former provocations, for which they had long
lain under the tokens of his displeasure. This con
viction is spoken to them, to make way for the com
forts designed them. Though God gives, and up¬
braids not, it becomes us, when he forgives, to
upbraid ourselves with our unworthy conduct to¬
ward him. Let them now remember therefore,
(1.) That they had formerly defied God's holy
name, had profaned and abused all those sacred
things by which he had made himself known among
them, v. 7. They and their kings had brought con¬
tempt on the religion they professed, and their re¬
lation to God, by their spiritual whoredom, their
idolatry, and by worshipping images, which they
called their kings, for so Moloch signifies; or lords’,
for so Baal signifies; but which were really the
carcases of kings, not only lifeless and useless, but
loathsome and abominable as dead carcases, in their
high places, set up in honour of them. They had
defiled God’s name by their abominations. And
what were they? It was in setting their threshold
by my thresholds, and their post by my posts, add¬
ing their own inventions to God’s institutions, and
urging all to a compliance with them, as if they
had been of equal authority and efficacy; teaching
for doctrines the commandments of men; (Isa.
xxix. 13.) or, rather, setting up altars to their
idols even in the courts of the temple, than which
a more impudent affront could not be put upon the
Divine Majesty. Thus they set up a separation
wall between him and them, which stopped the
current of his favours to them, and spoiled the ac¬
ceptableness of their services to him. See what
an indignity sinners do to God, setting up their wills
in opposition to his, and thrusting him out from
what is his right; and see what injury they do to
themselves; for the nearer any come to God with
their sins, the further they set him at a distance
from them. Some give this sense of it; Though
their houses joined close to God’s house, their posts
and thresholds to his, so that they were in a manner
his next neighbours, there was but a wall between
me and them, (so it is in the margin) so that it
might have been expected they shoidd have ac
quainted themselves with him, and been in care to
please him, yet they were not so much as neigh¬
bourly. Note, It often proves too true, The nearer
the church, the further from God. They were, by
profession, in covenant with God, and yet they had
defiled the place of his throne, and of the soles of his
feet, his temple, where he did both reside and reign.
Jerusalem is called the city of the Great King, (Ps
xlviii. 2.) and his footstool, Ps. xcix. 5. — cxxxii. “
Note, When God’s ordinances are profaned, hi*
holy name is polluted.
(2.) That, for this, God had a controversy
with them in their late troubles. They could not
condemn him, for he had but brought upon them
the desert of their sins; Wherefore I have consum¬
ed them in mine anger. Note, Those that pollute
God’s holy name, fall under his just displeasure.
2. He calls upon them to repent and reform, and,
in order to that, to be ashamed of their iniquities;
(t\ 9.) “ JVow let them put away their whoredom;
now that they have smarted so severely for it, and
now that God is returning in mercy to them, and
setting up his sanctuary again in the midst of them,
now let them cast away their idols, and have no
more to do with them, that they may not again for¬
feit the privileges which they have been taught to
know the worth of by the want of them. Let them
put away their idols, those loathsome carcases of
their kings, far from me; from being a provocation
to me.” This was seasonable counsel now that the
prophet had the platform of the temple to set be¬
fore them; for, (1.) If they see that platform, they
will surely be ashamed of their sins; (y. 10.) when
they see what mercy God has in store for the m,
EZEKIEL, XLill.
n .withstanding their utter unworthiness of it, they
■will be ashamed to think of their disingenuous con¬
duct toward him. Note, The goodness of God to
us should lead us to repentance, especially to a
penitential shame. Let them measure the pattern
themselves; and see how much it exceeds the for¬
mer pattern, and guess by that what great things
iod has in store for them; and surely it will put
diem out of countenance to think what the desert of
their sins was. And then, (2.) If they be ashamed
of their sins, they shall surely see more of the plat¬
form, v. 11. If they be ashamed of all that they
have done, upon a general view of the goodness of
God, let them have a more distinct, particular ac¬
count of it. Note, Those that improve what they
see and know of the goodness of God, shall see and
know more of it. And then, and not till then, we
are qualified for God’s favours, when we are truly
humbled for our own follies. “ Show them the form
of the house, let them see what a stately structure
it will be, and withal show them the ordinances and
laws of it. ” Note, With the foresights of our com¬
forts, it is fit that we should get the knowledge of
our duty; with the privileges of God’s house we
must acquaint ourselves with the rules of it. Show
them these ordinances, that they may keep them,
and do them. Note, Therefore we are made to
know our duty, that we may do it, and be blessed
in our deed.
3. He promises that they shall be such as they
should be, and then he will be to them such as they
would have him to be, v. 7. (1.) The hquse of Is¬
rael shall no more defile my holy name. This is
pure gospel. The precept of the law says, You
must not defile my name: the grace of the gospel
lays. You shall not. Thus what is required in the
covenant, is promised in the covenant, Jer. xxxii.
10. (2.) Then I will dwell in the midst of them
for ever; and the same again, v. 9. God secures
o us his good will by confirming in us his good
vork. If we do not defile his name, we may be
mre that he will not depart from us.
4. The general law of God’s house is laid down,
fy. 12.) That, whereas formerly only the chancel,
>r sanctuary, was most holy, now the whole moun-
ain of the house shall be so. The whole limit
thereof, including all the courts and all the cham¬
bers, shall be as the most holy place; signifying
that in gospel-times, (1.) The whole church shall
have the privilege of the holy of holies, that of a
near access to God. All believers have now, under
the gospel, boldness to enter into the holiest, (Heb.
x. 19.) with this advantage, that, whereas the
High Priest entered in the virtue of the blood of
bulls and goats, we enter in the virtue of the blood
of Jesus, and, wherever we are, we have through
him access to the Father. (2. ) The whole church
shall be under a mighty obligation to press toward
the perfection of holiness, as he who has called us
is holy. All must now be most holy. Holiness be¬
comes God’s house for ever, and in gospel-times
more than ever. Behold, this is the law of the
house; let none expect the protection of it, that
will not submit to this law.
13. And these are the measures of the
altar after the cubits: The cubit is a cubit
and a hand-breadth; even the bottom shall
be a cubit, and the breadth a cubit, and the
border thereof by the edge thereof round
about shall be a span : and this shall be the
higher place of the altar. 14. And from
the bottom upon the ground even to the
lower settle shall be two cubits, and the
breadth one cubit ; and from the lesser set-
Vol iv. — 5 F
777
tie even to the greater settle shall be four
cubits, and the breadth one cubit. 15. So
the altar shall be four cubits; and from the
altar and upward shall be four horns. 16.
And the altar shall be twelve cubits long,
twelve broad, square in the four squares
thereof. 1 7. And the settle shall be four¬
teen cubits long, and fourteen broad in the
four squares thereof; and the border about
it shall be half a cubit; and the bottom
thereof shall be a cubit about; and his stairs
shall look toward the east. 18. And he
said unto me, Son of man, thus saith the
Lord God, These are the ordinances of the
altar in the day when they shall make it, to
offer burnt-offerings thereon, and to sprinkle
blood thereon. 19. And thou shalt give to
the priest the Levites that be of the seed
of Zadok, which approach unto me, to mi¬
nister unto me, saith the Lord God, a
young bullock for a sin-offering. 20. And
thou shalt take of the blood thereof, and
put it on the four horns of it, and on the
four corners of the settle, and upon the bor¬
der round about: thus shalt thou cleanse
and purge it. 21. Thou shalt take the bul¬
lock also of the sin-offering, and he shall
burn it in the appointed place of the house,
without the sanctuary. 22. And on the
second day thou shalt offer a kid of the
goats without blemish for a sin-offering; and
they shall cleanse the altar, as they did
cleanse it with the bullock. 23. When
thou hast made an end of cleansing it, thou
shalt offer a young bullock without blemish,
and a ram out of the flock without blemish.
24. And thou shalt offer them before the
Lord, and the priests shall cast salt upon
them, and they shall offer them up for a
burnt-offering unto the Lord. 25. Seven
days shalt thou prepare every day a goat
for a sin-offering: they shall also prepare a
young bullock, and a ram out of the flock,
without blemish. 26. Seven days shall they
purge the altar, and purify it; and they
shall consecrate themselves. 27. And
when these days are expired, it shall be,
that upon the eighth day, and so forward,
the priests shall make your burnt-offerings
upon the altar, and your peace-offerings;
and I will accept you, saith the Lord God.
This relates to the altar in this mystical temple,
and that is mystical too; for Christ is our Altar.
The Jews, after their return out of captivity, had
an altar long before they had a temple, Ezra iii. 3.
But this was an altar in the temple. Now here we
have,
I. The measures of the altar, v. 13. It was six
yards square at the top, and seven yards square at
the bottom; it was four yards and a half high; it
had a lower bench or shelf, here called a settle, a
773 EZEKIEL, XLIV.
yard from the ground, on whic.h some of the priests
stood to minister, and another two yards above that,
on which others of them stood, and these were each
of them half a yard broad, and had ledges on either
side, that they might stand firm upon them. The
sacrifices were killed at the table spoken of before,
ch. xl. 39. What was to be burnt on the altar, was
given up to those on the lower bench, and handed
by them to those on the higher, and they laid it on
the altar. Thus in the service of God we must be
assistant to one another.
II. The ordinance's of the altar. Directions are
here given,
1. Concerning the dedication of the altar at first;
seven days were to be spent in the dedication of it,
and every day sacrifices were to be offered upon it,
and particularly a goat for a sin-offering , (t>. 25. )
beside a young bullock for a sin-offering on the first
day; ( v . 19.) which teaches us in all our religious
services to have an eye to Christ the great Sin-Of¬
fering. Neither our persons nor our performances
can be acceptable to God, unless sin be taken away,
and that cannot be taken away but by the blood of
Christ, which both sanctifies the altar, (for Christ
entered by his own blood, Heb. ix. 12.) and the gift
upon the altar. There were also to be a bullock
and a ram offered for a burnt- offering, {v. 24.)
which was intended purely for the glory of God, to
teach us to have an eye to that in all our services;
we present ourselves as living sacrifices, and our
devotions as spiritual sacrifices, that we and they
may be to him for a name, and for a praise, and for
a glory.
The dedication of the altar is here called the
cleansing and purging of it, v. 20, 26. Christ, our
Altar, though he had no pollution to be cleansed
from, yet sanctified himself; (John xvii. 19.) and
when we consecrate the altars of our hearts to God,
*o have the fire of holy love always burning upon
them, we must see that they be purified and cleans¬
ed from the love of the world and the lusts of the
flesh. It is observable that there are several differ¬
ences between the rites of dedication here and those
which were appointed, Exod. xxix. to intimate that
the ceremonial institutions were mutable things, and
the changes in them were earnests of their period in
Christ. Only here, according to the general law.
That all the sacrifices must be seasoned with salt,
(Lev. ii. 13.) particular orders are given, (v. 24.)
that the priests shall cast salt upon the sacrifices.
Grace is the salt with which all our religious per¬
formances must be seasoned, Col. iv. 6. An ever¬
lasting covenant is called a covenant of salt, because
it is incorruptible. The glory reserved for us is in¬
corruptible and undefiled; and the grace wrought
in us is the hidden man of the heart in that which is
not corruptible.
2. Concerning the constant use that should be
made of it, when it was dedicated; From hencefor¬
ward the priests shall make their burnt-offerings
and peace-offerings upon this altar, v. 27. for there¬
fore it was sanctified, that it might sanctify the gift
that was offered upon it.
Observe further, (1.) Who were to serve at the
altar; the priests of the seed of Zadok, v. 19. That
family was substituted in the room of Abiathar by
Solomon, and God confirms it. His name signifies
righteous, for they are the righteous seed, that are
priests to God, through Christ the Lord our Righ¬
teousness. (2.) How they should prepare for this
service; (i>. 26.) They shall consecrate themselves;
shall /?// their hand with the offerings, in token of the
giving up of themselves with their offerings to God
and to his service. Note, Before we minister to the
Lord in holy things, we must consecrate ourselves
by getting our hands and hearts filled with those
things. (3.) How they should speed in it; (y. 27.)
I will accept you. And if God now accept our
works, if our services be pleasing to him, it is
enough, we need no more. Those that give then. -
selves to God, shall be accepted of God, their pel -
sons first, and then their performances, through tb :
Mediator.
CHAP. XLIV.
In this chapter we have, I. The appropriating of the east
gate of the temple to the prince, v. I . .3. II. A reproof
sent to the house of Israel for their former profanations
of God’s sanctuary, with a charge to them to be more
strict for the future, v. 4.. 9. III. The degrading of
those Levites that had formerly been guilty of idolatry,
and the establishing of the priesthood in the family of
Zadok, which had kept their integrity, v. 10- .16 ‘ IV.
Divers laws and ordinances concerning the priests v
17. . 31.
1. rg^HEN lie brought me back the way
JL of the gate of the outward sanctuary,
which looketh toward the east, and it was
shut. 2. Then said the Lord unto me,
This gate shall be shut, it shall not be open¬
ed, and no man shall enter in by it ; because
the Lord, the God of Israel, hath entered
in by it, therefore it shall be shut. 3. It is
for the prince; the prince he shall sit in it to
eat bread before the Lord: he shall enter
by the way of the porch of that gate, and
shall go out by the way of the same.
The prophet is here brought to review what he
had before once surveyed; for though we have often
looked into the things of God, they will yet bear to
Ire looked over again, such a co/iiousness there is
in them. The lessons we have learned we should
still repeat to ourselves. Every time we rer iew the
sacred fabric of holy things, which we have in the
scriptures, we shall still find something new which
we did not before take notice of. The prophet is
brought a third time to the east gate, and finds it
shut; which intimates that the rest of the gates
were open at all times to the worshippers. But
such an account is given of this gate’s being shut as
puts honour,
1. Upon the God of Israel. It is for the honour
of him, that the gate of the inner court, at which
his glory entered when he took possession of the
house, was ever after kept shut, and no man was al¬
lowed to enter in by it, v. 2. The difference ever
after made between this and the other gates, that
this was shut when the others were open, was in¬
tended both to perpetuate the remembrance of the
solemn entrance of the glory of the Lord into the
house, (which it would remain a traditional evidence
of the truth of,) and also to possess the minds of
people with a reverence for the Divine Majesty,
and with very awful thoughts of his transcendent
glory; which was designed in God’s charge to Mo¬
ses at the bush, Rut off thy shoe from off thy foot.
God will have a way by himself.
2. Upon the prince of Israel, v. 3. It is an ho-
nour to him, that though he may not enter in by this
gate, for no man may; yet, -(l.) He shall sit in this
gate to cat his share of the peace-offerings, that
sacred food, before the Lord. (2.) He shall enter
by the way of the porch of that gate, by some little
door or wicket, either in the gate, or adjoining to it,
which is called the way of the porch. This was to
signify that God puts some of his glory upon magis¬
trates, upon the princes of his people, for he has
said, Ye are gods. Some by the prince here un¬
derstand the High Priest, or the sagan or second
priest; and that he only was allowed to enter by this
gate, for he was God’s representative. Christ is
779
EZEKIEL, XLIV.
the High Priest of our profession, who entered him¬
self into the holy place, and opened the kingdom of
heaven to all believers.
4. Then brought lie roe the way of the
north gate before the house: 'and I looked,
and, behold, the glory of the Lord filled the
house of the Lord; and I fell upon my
face. 5. And the Lord said unto me, Son
of man, mark well, and behold with thine
eyes, and hear with thine ears, all that I say
unto thee concerning all the ordinances of
the house of the Lord, and all the laws
thereof; and mark well the entering in of
the house, with every going forth of the
sanctuary. 6. And thou shalt say to Jhe
rebellious, even to the house of Israel, Thus
saith the Lord God, O ye house of Israel, let
it suffice you of all your abominations, 7.
In that ye have brought into my sanctuary ,
strangers, uncircumcised in heart, and un¬
circumcised in flesh, to be in my sanctuary,
to pollute \t, even my house, when ye offer
my bread, the fat and the blood, and they
have broken my covenant, because of all
your abominations. 8. And ye have not
kept the charge of my holy things: but ye
have set keepers of my charge in my sanc¬
tuary for yourselves. 9. Thus saith the
Lord God, No stranger, uncircumcised in
heart, nor uncircumcised in flesh, shall en¬
ter into my sanctuary, of any stranger that
is among the children of Israel.
This is much to the some purport with wliat we
had in the beginning of ch. lxiii. As the prophet
must look again upon what he had before seen, so
he must be told again what he had before heard.
Here, as before, he sees the house filled with the
glory of the Lord, which strikes an awe upon turn,
so that he falls prostrate at the sight, the humblest
posture of adoration, and the expression of a holy
awe; I fell upon my face, v. 4. Note, The more
we see of the glory of God, the more low we shall
lie in our own eyes. Now here,
I. God charges the prophet to take a very parti¬
cular notice of all he saw, and all that was said to
him; (v. 5.) “Mark well, set thine heart, apply
thv mind, to the discoveries now made thee.” 1.
“ Behold with thine eyes what is showed thee, par¬
ticularly the entering in of the house, and every go¬
ing forth of it, all the inlets and all the outlets of the
sanctuary;” those he must take special notice of.
Note, In acquainting ourselves with divine things,
wc must notaim so much at an abstract speculation
of things themselves, as at finding the plain, ap¬
pointed way of converse and communion with those
things, that we may go in and out and find pasture.
2. Hear with thine ears all that I say unto thee,
about the laws and ordinances of the house, which
he was to instruct the people in. Note, Those who
are appointed to be teachers, have need to be very
diligent, careful learners, that they may neither for¬
get any of the things they are intrusted with, nor
mistake concerning them.
II. He sends them upon an errand to the people,
to the rebellious, even to the house of Israel, v. 6.
It is sad to think that the house of Israel should de¬
serve this character from him who perfectly knew
them; that a people in covenant with God should
be rebellious against him. Who arc his subjects,
if the house of Israel be rebels! But it is an instance
of God’s rich mercy, that, though they had been re¬
bellious, yet, being the house of Israel, he does not
cast them off, but sends an ambassador to them, to
invite and encourage them to return to their alle¬
giance, which he would not have done if he had
been pleased to kill them. The whole race of man¬
kind is fallen under the character here given of the
house of Israel; but our Lord Jesus, when he as¬
cended on high, received gifts for men, yea, even
for the rebellious also; that, as here, the Lord God
might dwelt among them, Ps. lxviii. 18.
1. He must tell them of their faults; must show
them their rebellions, must show the house of Jacob
their sins. Note, Those that are sent to comfort
God’s people, must first convince them, and so pre¬
pare them for comfort; Let it suffice you of all your
abominations, v. 6. Note, It is time for those that
have continued long in sin, to reckon it long enough,
and too long, and to begin to think of taking up in
time, and leaving off their evil courses. “Let the
time past of your lives suffice, for by this time,
surely, you have surfeited upon your abominations,
and are become sick of them,” 1 Pet. iv. 3.
(1.) That they had admitted those to the privi¬
leges of the sanctuary, that were not entitled to
them; whereas God had said, The stranger that
comes nigh shall be put to death, they had not only
connived at the intrusion of strangers into the sanc¬
tuary, but had themselves introduced them; (y. 7.)
You brought in strangers uncircumcised in , flesh,
and therefore under a legal incapacity to enter into
the sanctuary — which was a breaking of the cove¬
nant of circumcision, throwing down the hedge of
their peculiarity, and laying themselves in common
with the rest of the world. Yet if these strangers
had been devout and good, though they were not
circumcised, the crime had not been so great; but
they were uncircumcised in heart too, unhumbled,
unreformed, and strangers indeed to God and all
goodness. When they came to offer sacrifice, they
brought these with them to feast with them upon
the sacrifice, because they were fond of their com¬
pany, and this was one of their abominations,
wherewith they polluted God's sanctuary; it was
giving that which was holy unto dogs, Matth. vii.
6. Note, The admission of those who are openly
wicked and profane to special ordinances, is a pol¬
luting of God’s sanctuary, and a great provocation
to him.
(2. ) That they had employed those in the service
of the sanctuary, who were not fit for it. Though
none but priests and Levites were to minister in the
sanctuary, yet we may suppose that all who were
priests and Levites did not immediately attend there,
but chosen men of them, who were best qualified,
who were most wise, serious, and conscientious, and
most likely to keep the charge of the holy things
carefully: but, in making this choice, they had not
regard to merit and qualification for the work;
“ You have set keepers of my charge in my sanctua¬
ry for yourselves, such as you had some favour or
affection for, such as you either had got, or hoped
to get, money by, or such as would comply with
your humours, and would dispense with the laws of
the sanctuary to please you; Thus you have not
kept the charge of my holy things.” Note, Those
who have the choice of the keepers of the holy
things, if, to serve some secular, selfish purpose,
they choose such as are unfit and unfaithful, will
justly have it laid at their door, that they have be¬
trayed Che holy things by lodging them in bad
hands.
2. He must tell them their duty; (y. 9.) “ JVb
stranger shall enter into my sanctuary till he has
x^uJSJEL, XL1V.
780
first submitted to the laws of it.” But lest any
should think that this excluded the penitent, be¬
lieving Gentiles from the church, the stranger here
is described to be one that is uncircumcised in heart,
not in sincerity consenting to the covenant, nor put¬
ting away the filth of the flesh; whereas the be¬
lieving Gentiles were circumcised with the circum¬
cision made without hands. Col. ii. 11. This cir¬
cumcision of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter,
was what the unbelieving Jews were strangers to,
and unconcerned about, while yet they were zeal¬
ous to keep out of the sanctuary uncircumcised Gen¬
tiles, witness their rage against Paul when they did
but suspect him to have brought Greeks into the
tem/i/e. Acts xxi. 28.
1 0. And the Levites that are gone away
far from me, when Israel went astray, which
went astray away from me after their idols;
they shall even bear their iniquity. 11. Yet
they shall be ministers in my sanctury, /lav¬
ing charge at the gates of the house, and
ministering to the house : they shall slay the
burnt-offering and the sacrifice for the peo¬
ple, and they shall stand before them to
minister unto them. 12. Because they
ministered unto them before their idols, and
caused the house of Israel to fall into iniqui¬
ty; therefore have 1 lifted up my hand
against them, saith the Lord God, and they
shall bear their iniquity. 13. And they
shall not come near unto me to do the of¬
fice of a priest unto me, nor to come near to
any of my holy things, in the most holy
place ; but they shall bear their shame,
and their abominations which they have
committed: 14. But I will make them
keepers of the charge of the house, for all
the service thereof, and for all that shall be
done therein. 15. But the priests the Le¬
vites, the sons of Zadok, that kept the
charge of my sanctuary when the children
of Israel went astray from me, they shall
come near to me to minister unto and
they shall stand before me to offer uiro me
the fat and the blood, saith the Lord God.
16. They shall enter into my sanctuary,
and they shall come near to my table to
minister unto me, and they shall keep my
charge.
The Master of the house, being about to set up
house again, takes account of his servants the
priests, and sees who are fit to be turned out of their
places, and who to be kept in, and takes a course
with them accordingly.
1. Those who had been treacherous are degraded
and put lower. Those Levites or priests who were
carried down the stream of the apostacy of Israel
formerly, who went astray from God after their
idols, (x>. 10.) who had complied with the idolatrous
kings of Israel or Judah, who ministered to them be¬
fore their idols, ( v . 12.) bowed with them in the
house of Rimmon, or set up altars for them, as
Uriah did for Ahaz, and so caused the house of Is¬
rael to fall into iniquity, led them to sin, and har¬
dened them in sin; for if the priests go astray, many
will follow their pernicious ways. Perhaps in Ba¬
bylon some of the Jewish priests had complied with
the idolaters of the place, to the great scandal of
their religion. Now these priests who had thus pre¬
varicated, were justly put under the marks of God’s
displeasure; or if they were dead, (as it is proba¬
ble that they were, if the crime were committed
before the captivity,) the iniquity was visited upon
their children. Or perhaps it was the whole fa¬
mily of Abiathar that had been guilty of this tres¬
pass, which was now called to account for it. And,
(1.) They are sentenced to be deprived, in part,
of their office, and from the dignity of priests are put
down into the condition of ordinary Levites. God
has lifted up pis hand against them, has said it, and
sworn it, that they shall bear their iniquity, (y. 12.)
assuredly they shall suffer for it, shall suffer dis¬
grace for it; they shall bear their shame; (v. 13.) for
though they have (we charitably hope) repented of
it, yet they shall not come near to do the office of a
priest, those parts of the office that were peculiar
to them, they shall not come near to any of the holy
things within the sanctuary, v. 13. Note, Those
who have robbed God of his honour, will justly be
deprived of their honour. And it is really a great
punishment to be forbidden to come near to God;
and justly might they who have once gone away
from him, be rejected as unworthy ever to come
near to him, and put at an everlasting distance.
(2.) Yet there is a mixture of mercy in this sen¬
tence. God deals not in severity, as he might have
done, with those who had dealt treacherously with
him, but mitigates the sentence, v. 11, 14. They are
deprived, but in part, ab officio — of their office, and,
it should seem, not at all abeneficio — of their emolu¬
ments. They shall help to slay the sacrifice, which
the Levites were permitted to do, and which in this
temple was done, not at the altar, but at the tables ,
ch. xl. 39. They shall be porters at the gates of the
house, and they shall be keepers of the charge of
the house, for all the service thereof Note, Those
who may not be fit to be employed in one kind of
service, may yet be fit to be employed in another;
and even those who have offended may yet be made
use of, and not quite thrown aside, much less
thrown away.
2. Those who had been faithful are honoured and
established, xj. 15, 16. These are remarkably dis¬
tinguished from the other; But the sons of Zadok,
who kept their integrity in a time of general aposta¬
cy, who went not astray when others did, they shall
come near to me, shall come near to my table. Note,
God will put marks of honour upon those who give
proofs of their fidelity and constancy to him in
shaking, trying times, and will employ those in his
service, who have kept close to liis service, when
others deserted it, and drew back. And it ought to
be reckoned a true and great reward of stability in
duty, to be established in it. If we keep close to
God, God will keep us close to him.
1 7. And it shall come to pass, that , when
they enter in at the gates of the inner court,
they shall be clothed with linen garments;
and no wool shall come upon them while
they minister in the gates of the inner court,
and within. 18. They shall have linen bon¬
nets upon their heads, and shall have linen
breeches upon their loins; they shall not
gird themselves with any thing that causeth
sweat. 19. And when they go forth into
the outer court, even into the outer court
to the people, they shall put off their gar¬
ments wherein they ministered, and lay them
781
EZEKIEL, XLIV.
in the holy chambers, and they shall put on
other garments; and they shall not sanctify
the people with their garments. 20. Nei¬
ther shall they shave their heads, nor suffer
their locks to grow long; they shall only poll
their heads. 21. Neither shall any priest
drink wine, when they enter into the inner
court. 22. Neither shall they take for their
wives a widow, or her that is put away:
but they shall take maidens of the seed of
the house of Israel, or a widow that had a
priest before. 23. And they shall teach my
people the difference between the holy and
profane, and cause men to discern between
the unclean and the clean. 24. And in con¬
troversy they shall stand in judgment; and
they shall judge it according to my judg¬
ments: and they shall keep my laws and
my statutes in all mine assemblies; and they
shall hallow my sabbaths. 25. And they
shall come at no dead person to defile them¬
selves: but for father, or for mother, or for
son, or for daughter, for brother, or for sister
that hath had no husband, they may defile
themselves. 26. And after he is cleansed they
shall reckon unto him seven days. 27. And
in the day that he goeth into the sanctuary,
unto the inner court, to minister in the sanc¬
tuary, he shall offer his sin-offering, saith the
Lord God. 28. And it shall be unto them
for an inheritance ; I am their inheritance:
and ye shall give them no possession in Is¬
rael; I am their possession. 29. They shall
eat the meat-offering, and the sin-offering,
and the trespass-offering; and every dedicat¬
ed thing in Israel shall be theirs. 30. And
the first of all the first-fruits of all things, and
every oblation of all, of every sort of your
oblations, shall be the priest’s: ye shall also
give unto the priest the first of your dough,
that he may cause the blessing to rest in
thine house. 31. The priests shall not eat
of any thing that is dead of itself, or torn,
whether it be fowl or beast.
God’s priests must be regulars, not seculars; and
therefore here are rules laid down for them to go¬
vern themselves by, and due encouragement given
them to live up to those rules. Directions are here
given,
I. Concerning their clothes; they must wear linen
garments, when they went in to minister, or do any
service in the inner court, or in the sanctuary, and
nothing that was woollen, because it would cause
sweat, v. 17, 18. They must dress themselves cool,
that they might go the more readily about their
work; and they had the more need to do so, because
they were to attend the altars, which had constant
fires upon them. And they must dress themselves
clean and sweet, and avoid every thing that was
sweaty and filthy, to signify the purity of mind with
which the service of God is to be attended to.
Sweat came in with sin, and was a part of the curse;
In the sweat of thy face shall thou eat bread. Clothes
came in with sin, coats of skins did; and therefore
the priests must use as little and as light clothing
as possible, and not such as caused sweat. When
they had finished their service, they must change
their clothes again, and lay up their linen garments
in the chambers appointed for that purpose, (v. 19. )
as before, ch. xlii. 14. They must not go among
the people with their holy garments on, lest they
should imagine themselves sanctified by the touch
of them; or, They shall sanctify the people, (as it
is explained, ch. xlii. 14. they shall approach to
those things which are for the / teople ,) in their ordi¬
nary garments.
II. Concerning their hair; in that they must avoid
extremes on both hands; (i>. 20.) They must not
shave their heads, in imitation of the Gentile priests,
and as the priests of the Romish church do; nor,
on the other hand, must they suffer their locks to
grow long, as the beaux, or that they might be
thought Nazarites, when really they were not; but
they must be grave and modest, must foil their
heads, and keep their hair, short; if a man, espe¬
cially a minister, wear long hair, it is not becoming,
(1 Cor. xi. 14.) it is effeminate.
III. Concerning their diet; they must be sure to
drink no wine when they went in to minister, lest
they should drink to excess, should drink, and for
get the law, v. 21. It is not for kings to drink
wine, more than will do them good, much less for
priests. See Lev. x. 9. Prov. xxxi. 4, 5.
IV. Concerning their marriages; (v. 22.) here
they must consult the credit of their office, and not
marry one that had been divorced, that was at least
under the suspicion of immodesty, nor a widow,
unless she were a priest’s widow, that had been ac
customed to the usages of the priests’ families.
Others may do that which ministers may not do,
but must deny themselves in, in honour of their cha¬
racter. Their wives as well as themselves must be
of good report.
V. Concerning their preaching and church-go¬
vernment.
1. It was part of their business to teach the peo¬
ple; and herein they must approve themselves both
skilful and faithful; (v. 23.) They shall teach my
people the difference between the holy and the pro¬
fane, between good and evil, lawful and unlawful,
that they may neither scruple what is lawful, nor
venture upon what is unlawful; that they may not
pollute what is holy, nor pollute themselves with
•what is profane. Ministers must take pains to cause
people to discern between the clea?i and the unclean,
that they may not confound the distinctions between
right and wrong, nor mistake concerning them, so
as to put darkness for light, and light for darkness,
but may have a good judgment of discretion con¬
cerning theiiyown actions.
2. It was part of their business to judge upon ap¬
peals made to them; (Deut. xvii. 8, 9.) and in con¬
troversy they shall stand in judgment, v. 24. They
shall have the honesty to stand up for what is right,
and, when they have passed a right judgment, shall
have the courage to stand to it, and stand by it.
They must judge, not according to their own fan¬
cies, or inclinations, or secular interests, but accord¬
ing to my judgments; that must be their rule and
standard. Note, Ministers must decide controver¬
sies according to the word of God, to the law and
to the testimony; Sit liber judex — Let the judge be
unbiassed. Their business is to keep courts in God’s
name, to preside in the congregations of his people.
And herein they must goby the statute-book; They
shall keep my statutes in all mine assemblies. God
calls the assemblies of his people his assemblies, be¬
cause they are held in his name, to his glory. Mi¬
nisters are the masters of those assemblies, are to
preside in them, and in all their acts must ktep
782
EZEKIEL, XLV.
close to God’s laws. Another part ot their work,
as church-governors, is, to hallow God’s sabbaths,
to do the public work of that day with a becoming
care and reverence, as the work of a holy day should
be done; and to see that God’s people also sanctify
that day, and do nothing to pollute it.
VI. Concerning their mourning for dead relations;
the rule here agrees with the law of Moses, Lev.
xxi. 1, 11. A priest shall not come near any dead
body, (for they must be purified from dead works,)
except of his next relations, v. 25. Decent expres¬
sions of a pious sorrow for dear relations, when
they are removed by death, are not disagreeable to
the character of a minister. Yet by this approach
to the dead body of a relation they contracted a
ceremonial pollution, from which they must be
cleansed by a sin-offering, before they went in
again to minister, v. 26, 27. Note, Though sorrow
for the dead is very allowable and commendable,
yet there is danger of sinning in it, either by excess
or dissimulation; and those tears have too often need
to be we/it over again.
VII. Concerning their maintenance; they must
live upon the altar at which they served, and live
comfortably; (d. 28.) “Ye shall give them no pos¬
session in Israel, no lands or tenements, lest they
should be entangled with the affairs of this life;”
for God has said, I am their Inheritance, and they
need no other in reserve; I am their Possession,
and they need no other in hand. Some land was
allowed them, ( ch . xlviii. 10.) but their principal
subsistence was by their office. What God appro¬
priated to himself, they were the receivers ct, for
their own proper use and behoof; they lived upon
the holy things; and so God himself was the Portion
both of their inheritance and of their cup. Note,
Those who have God for their Inheritance and
their Possession, may be content with a little, and
ought not to covet a great deal of the possessions
and inheritances of this earth. If we have God, we
have all; and therefore may well reckon that we
have enough.
Observe, 1. What the priests were to have from
the people, for their maintenance and encourage¬
ment. (1.) They must have the flesh of many of
the offerings, the sin-offering and trespass-offering,
which would supply them and their families with
flesh-meat; and the meat-offerings, which would
supply them with bread. What we offer to God,
will redound to our own advantage. (2.) They must
have every dedicated, devoted thing in Israel, which
was in many cases to be turned into money, and
given to the priest. This is explained, v. 30. every
oblation or free-will-offering, which in times of re¬
formation and devotion would be many and consi¬
derable; Of all, of every sort of your oblations,
shall be the priest’s. _ We have the law concerning
them, Lev. xxvii. (3.) They were to have the
first of the douqh, when it was going to the oven,
as well as the first of their fruits, when they were
going to the barn. God, who is the first, must have
the first; and if it belong to him, his priests must
have it. We may then comfortably enjoy what we
have, when a share of it has been first set apart for
works of piety and charity. To this the apostle’s
rule bears some analogy, to begin the week with lay¬
ing by for pious uses, 1 Cor. xvi. 2. The priests
being so well provided for, it would be inexcusable
in them, if they (contrary to the law which every
Israelite is bound by) should eat that which is torn,
or dead of itself, v. 31. Those that were in want
of necessary food, might perhaps expect to be dis¬
pensed witli in such a case. Poverty has its tempta¬
tions, but the priests were so well provided for,
that they could have no pretence for it.
2. What the people might expect from the priest
for their recompense. They that are kind to a pro¬
phet, to a priest, shall have a prophet’s, a priest’s
reward, that he may cause the blessing to rest in thine
house, (y. 30.) that God may cause it by command¬
ing it, that the priest may cause it by praying for it;
and it was part of the priest’s work to bless the peo¬
ple in the name of the Lord, not only their congre¬
gations, but their families. Note, It is all in all to
the comfort of any house, to have the blessing of God
upon it, and to have the blessing to rest in it; to
dwell where we dwell, and to attend the entail of it
upon those that shall come after us. And the way
to have the blessing of God abide upon our estates,
is to honour God with them, and to give him and
his ministers, him and his poor, their share out of
them. God blesses, he surely blesses, the habitation
of those who thus are just, Prov. iii. 33. And mi¬
nisters, by instructing and praying for the families
that are kind to them, should do their part toward
causing the blessing to rest there. Peace be to this
house.
CHAP. XLV.
In this chapter is further represented to the prophet, in vi¬
sion, 1. The division of the holy land: so much lor the
temple, and the priests that attended the service of it ;
(v. 1 . . 4 .) so much for the Lcvites ; (v. 5.) so much for
the city ; (v. 6.) so much for the prince, and the residue
to the people, v. 7, 8. II. The ordinances of justice that
were given both to prince and people, v. 9 . . 12. III.
The oblations they were to offer, and the prince’s part
in those oblations, v. 13.. 17. Particularly in the be¬
ginning of the year, (v. 18 . . 20.) and in the passover and
the feast of tabernacles, v. 21 . . 25. And all this seems
to point at the new church-state that should be set up
under the gospel, which, both for extent and for purity,
should far exceed that of the Old Testament.
sha
1. 11, B OREOVER, when ye shall divide
by lot the land for inheritance, ye
offer an oblation unto the Lord, a
holy portion of the land: the length shall
be the length of five and twenty thousand
reeds , and the breadth shall be ten thousand.
This shall be holy in all the borders thereof
round about. 2. Of this there shall be for
the sanctuary five hundred in length , with
five hundred in breadth, square round about;
and fifty cubits round about for the suburbs
thereof. 3. And of this measure shalt thou
measure the length of five and twenty thou¬
sand, and the breadth of ten thousand : and
in it shall be the sanctuary and the most
holy place. 4. The holy portion of the land
shall be for the priests, the ministers of the
sanctuary, which shall come near to minis¬
ter unto the Lord; and it shall be a place
for their houses, and a holy place for the
sanctuary. 5. And the five and twenty
thousand of length, and the ten thousand of
breadth, shall also theLevites, the ministers
of the house, have for themselves, for a pos¬
session for twenty chambers. 6. And ye
shall appoint the possession of the city five
thousand broad, and five and twenty thou¬
sand long, over against the oblation of the
holy portion: it shall be for the whole house
of Israel. 7. And a portion shall be for the
prince on the one side and on the other side
of the oblation of the holy portion , and of
the possession of the city, before the oblation
?83
EZEKIEL, XL'7
of the holy portion, and before toe (ictsses-
sion of the city, from the west side west¬
ward, and from the east side eastward ; and
the length shall be over against one of the
portions, from the west border unto the east
border. 8. In the land shall be his posses¬
sion in Israel : and my princes shall no more
oppress my people; and the rest of the land
shall they give to the house of Israel ac¬
cording to their tribes.
Directions are here given for ttie dividing of the
land after their return to it; and, God having war¬
ranted them to do it, it would be an act of faith, and
not of folly, thus to divide it before they had it. And
it would be welcome news to the captives, to hear
that they should not only return to their own land,
but that, whereas they were now but few in number,
they should increase and multiply, so as to replenish
it. But this never had its accomplishment in the
Jewish state after the return out of captivity, but
was to be fulfilled in the model of the Christian
church, which was perfectly new, (as this division
of the iand was quite different from that in Joshua’s
time,) and much enlarged by the accession of the
Gentiles to it; and will be perfected in the heavenly
kingdom, of which the land of Canaan had always
been a type. Now,
1. Here is the portion of land assigned to the
sanctuary, in the midst of which the temple was to
be built, with all its courts and purlieus; the rest
round about it was for the priests. This is called
(x'. 1. ) an oblation to the Lord; for what is given in
works of pietv, for the maintenance and support of
the worship of God and the advancement of religion,
God accepts as given to him, if it be done with a
single eye. It is a holy portion of the land, which
is to be set out first as the first-fruits that sanctify
the lump. The appropriating of lands for the sup¬
port of religion and the ministry, is an act of piety
that bids as fair for perpetuity, and the benefit of
posterity, as any other. This holy portion of the
land was to be measured, and the borders of it fixed,
that the sanctuary itself might not have more than
its share, and in time engross the whole land. So
far the lands of the church shall extend, and no
further; as in our own kingdom donations to the
church were of old limited by the statute of mort¬
main. The lands here allotted to the sanctuary
were 25,000 reeds (so our translation makes it,
though some make them only cubits) in length, and
10,000 in breadth; about eighty miles one way, and
thirty miles another way, say some; twenty-five
miles one way, and ten miles the other wav, so
some. The priests and Levites that were to come
near to minister, were to have their dwellings in this
portion of the land, that was round about the sanc¬
tuary, that they might be near their work; whereas
by the distribution of the land in Joshua’s time, the
cities of the priests and Levites were dispersed all
the nation over. This intimates that gospel-minis¬
ters should reside upon their charge; where their
service lies, there must they live.
2. Next to the lands of the sanctuary, the city-
lands are assigned, in which the holy city was to be
built, and with the issues and profits of which the
citizens were to be maintained; (x>. 6.) It shall be
for the whole house of Israel; not appropriated, as
before, to one tribe or two, but some of all the tribes
shall dwell in the city, as we find they did, Nell. xi.
1, 2. The portion for the city was full as long, but
only half as broad, as that for the sanctuary; tor the
city was enriched by trade, and therefore had the
less need of lands.
1. The next allotment after the church-lands
and tne city-lands, is of the crown-lands, v. 7, 8.
Here is no admeasurement of these, but they are
said to lie on the one side, and on the other side, of
the church-lands and city-lands, to intimate that the
prince with his wealth and power was to be a pro¬
tection to both. Some make the prince’s share equal
to the church’s and city’s share both together; others
make it to be a thirteenth of the rest of the land, the
other twelve beingforthe twelve tribes. The prince
that attends continually to the administration of
public affairs, must have wherewithal to support
his dignity, and have abundance, that he may not
be in temptation to oppress the people; which yet
with many does not prevent that. But the grace of
God shall prevent it, for it is promised here, My
princes shall no more oppress my people; for God
will make the officers peace, and the exactors Right¬
eousness. Notwithstanding this, we find that after
the return of the Jews to their own land, the princes
were complained of for their exactions. But Nehe-
miah was one that did not do as the former gover¬
nors, and yet kept a handsome court, Nell. v. 15,
18. But so much is said of the prince in this mystical
holy state, to intimate that in the gospel-church
magistrates should be as nursing-fathers to it, and
Christian princes its patrons and protectors; and the
holy religion they profess, as far as they are subject
to the power of it, will restrain them from oppressing
God’s people, because they are more his people than
theirs.
4. The rest of the lands were to be distributed to
the people, according to their tribes, who had rea¬
son to think themselves well settled, when they had
both the testimony of Israel so near them, and the
throne of judgment.
9. Thus suith the Lord God, Let it
suffice you, O princes of Israel : remove
violence and spoil, and execute judgment
and justice, take away your exactions from
my people, saith the Lord God. 10. \e
shall have just balances, and a just ephah,
and a just bath. 11. The ephah and the
bath shall be of one measure, that the bath
may contain the tenth part of a homer, and
the ephah the tenth part of a homer : the
measure thereof shall be after the homer.
12. And the shekel shall be twenty gerahs:
twenty shekels, five and twenty shekels,
fifteen shekels shall be your maneh.
We have here some general rules of justice laid
down both for prince and people, the rules of distri¬
butive and commutative justice; for godliness with¬
out honesty is but a form of godliness, will neither
please God, nor avail to the benefit of any people.
Be it therefore enacted, by the authority of the
church’s King and God,
1. That princes do not oppress their subjects, but
duly and faithfully administer justice among them;
(x1. 9.) “ Let it suffice you, O princes of Israel, that
you have been oppressive to the people, and have
enriched yourselves by spoil and violence, that you
have so long fleeced the flock instead of feeding
them, and from henceforward do so no more.”
Note, Even princes and great men that have long
done amiss, must at length think it time, high time,
to reform and amend; for no prescription will jus¬
tify a wrong. Instead of saying that they have been
long accustomed to oppress, and therefore may per¬
sist in it, for the custom will bear them out, they
should say that they have been long accustomed to
it, and therefore as here, Let the time past suffice,
and let them now remove violence and spoil; let
them drop wrongful demands, cancel wrongful
784
EZEKIEL, XLV.
usages, and turn out those front employments under
them, that do violence. J ,et them take away their
exactions, ease their subjects of those taxes which
they find lie heavy upon them, and let them execute
judgment and justice according to law, as the duty
of their place requires. Note, All princes, but es¬
pecially the princes of Israel, are concerned to do
justice; for of their people God says, They are my
people, and they in a special manner rule for God.
2. That one neighbour do not cheat another in
commerce; ( v . 10.) Ye shall have just balances, in
which to weigh both money and goods; a justefihah
for dry measure for corn and flour, a just bath for
the measure of liquids, wine, and oil; and the e/ihah
and bath shall be one measure, the tenth part of a
chomer, or cor, v. 11. So that the ephah and bath
contained (as the learned Dr. Cumberland has com¬
puted) seven wine gallons and four pints, and some¬
thing more. An omer was but the tenth part of an
ephah, (Exod. xvi. 36.) and the 100th part of a
chomer, or homer, and contained about six pints.
The shekel is here settled; (x». 13.) it is twenty
gerahs, just half a Roman ounce; in our money, 2s.
4 frf. and almost the eighth part of a farthing; as the
aforesaid learned man exactly computes it. By the
shekels, the maneh, or pound, was reckoned; which,
when it was set for a mere weight, (says Bishop
Cumberland,) without respect to coinage, contained
just 100 shekels, as appears by comparing 1 Kings x.
17. where it issaidf/tree manehs, or fiounds, of gold,
went to one shield, with the parallel place, 2 Chron.
ix. 16. where it is said 300 shekels of gold went to
one shield. But when the maneh is set for a sum of
money or coin, it contains but sixty shekels, as ap-
ears here; where twenty shekels, twenty-five she¬
ets, and fifteen shekels, which in all make sixty,
shall be the maneh. But it is thus reckoned, be¬
cause they had one piece of money that weighed
twenty shekels, another twenty-five, another fifteen,
all which made up one pound; as a learned writer
here observes. Note, It concerns God’s Israel to
be very honest and just in all their dealings, very
punctual and exact in rendering to all their due, and
very cautious to do wrong to none, because otherwise
they spoil the acceptableness of their profession with
God, and the reputation of it before men.
13. This is the oblation that ye shall of¬
fer; the sixth part of an ephah of a homer
of wheat, and ye shall give the sixth part of
an ephah of a homer of barley. 1 4. Con¬
cerning the ordinance of oil, the bath of oil,
ye shall offer the tenth part of a bath out of
the cor , which is a homer of ten baths; for
ten baths are a homer: 15. And one lamb
out of the flock, out of two hundred, out of
the fat pastures of Israel, for a meat-offer¬
ing, and for a burnt-offering, and for peace-
offerings, to make reconciliation for them,
saith the Lord God. 1G. All the people of
the land shall give this oblation for the prince
in Israel. 17. And it shall be the prince’s
part to give burnt-offerings, and meat-offer¬
ings, and drink-offerings, in the feasts, and
in the new moons, and in the sabbaths, in
all solemnities of the house of Israel : he shall
prepare the sin-offering, and the meat-offer¬
ing, and the burnt-offering, and the peace-
offerings, to make reconciliation forthe house
of Israel. 18. Thus saith the Lord God,
In the first month , in the first day of the
month, thou shall take a young bullock with¬
out blemish, and cleanse the sanctuary : 1 9.
And the priest shall take of the blood of the
sin-offering, and put it upon the posts of the
house, and upon the four corners of the set¬
tle of the altar, and upon the posts of the
gate of the inner court. 20. And so thou
shalt do the seventh day of the month for
every one that erreth, and for him that is
simple: so shall ye reconcile the house. 21
In the first month , in the fourteenth day of
the month, ye shall have the passover, a
feast of seven days ; unleavened bread shall
be eaten. 22. And upon that day shall the
prince prepare for himself, and for all the
people of the land, a bullock for a sin-offer¬
ing. 23. And seven days of the feast he
shall prepare a burnt-offering to the Lord
seven bullocks and seven rams without
blemish, daily the seven days; and a kid of
the goats daily for a sin-offering. 24. And
he shall prepare a meat-offering of an ephah
for a bullock, and an ephah for a ram, and
a bin of oil for an ephah. 25. In the seventh
month , in the fifteenth day of the month,
shall he do the like in the feast of the seven
days, according, to the sin-offering, accord¬
ing to the burnt-offering, and according tc
the meat-offering, and according to the oil.
Having laid down the rules of righteousness to¬
ward men, which is really a branch of true religion,
he comes next to give some directions for their reli¬
gion toward God, which is a branch of universal
righteousness.
I. It is required that they offer an oblation to the
Lord, out of what they have; {v. 13.) All the ]ie,<-
/ lie of the land must give an oblation, v. 16. As
God’s tenants, they must pay a quitrent to their
great Landlord; they had offered an oblation out of
their real estates, (u. 1.) a. holy jiortion of their land;
now they are directed to offer an oblation out of
their fiersonal estates, their goods and chattels, as
an acknowledgment of their receivings from him,
their dependence on him, and their obligations to
him. Note, Whatever our substance is, we must
honour God with it, by giving him his dues out of
it. Not that God has need of, or mav be benefited
by, any thing that we can give him, IPs. 1. 9. No,
it is but an oblation, we only offer it to him, the be¬
nefit of it returns back to ourselves, to his poor,
who, as our neighbours, are ourselves, or to his mi¬
nisters who serve continually for our good.
II. The proportion of this oblation is here deter¬
mined, which was not done by the law of Moses.
No mention is made of the tithe, but only of this
oblation. And the quantum of this is thus settled.
(1.) Out of their corn they were to offer a sixtieth
part; out of every homer of wheat and barley, which
contained ten e/ihahs, they were to offer the sixth
part of one ephah, which was a sixtieth part of the
whole, v. 13. (2.) Out of their oil, (and probably
their wine too) they were to offer an hundredth part,
for this oblation; out of every cor, or homer, which
contained ten baths, they were to offer the tenth
part of one bath, v. 14. This was given to the al¬
tar; for in every meat-offering there was four min¬
gled with oil. (3.) Out of their flocks they were t(
give one lamb cut of 200; that was the smallest pro
EZEKIEL, XLVI.
portion of all, v. 15. But it must be out of the fat
t Pastures of Israel. They must not offer to God
that which was taken up from the common, but the
fattest and best they had, for burnt-offerings and
peace-offerings ; the former were offered for the
giving of glory to God, the latter for the fetching
in of mercy, grace, and peace from God; and in
our spiritual sacrifices these are our two great er¬
rands at the throne of grace; but, in order to the
acceptance of both, these sacrifices were to make
reconciliation for them. Christ is our Sacrifice of
atonement, by whom reconciliation is made, and to
him we must have an eye, in our sacrifices of ac¬
knowledgment.
III. This oblation must be given for the prince in
Israel, v. 16. Some read it to the prince, and un¬
derstand it of Christ, who is indeed the Prince in
Israel, to whom we must offer our oblations, and
into whose hands we must put them, to be presented
to the Father. Or, They shall give it with the
prince; every private person shall bring his obla¬
tion, to be offered with that of the prince. For it fol¬
lows, (x>. 17.) It shall be the prince’s part to provide
all the offerings; to make reconciliation for. the house
of Israel. The people were to bring their obla¬
tions to him, according to the foregoing rules, and
he was to bring them to the sanctuary, and to make
up what fell short out of his own. Note, It is the
duty of rulers to take care of religion, and to see
that the duties of it be regularly and carefully per¬
formed by those under their charge, and that no¬
thing be wanting that is requisite thereto: the ma¬
gistrate is the keeper of both tables; and it is a
happy thing when those that are above others in
power and dignity, go before them in the service of
God.
IV. Some particular solemnities are here ap¬
pointed.
1. Here is one in the beginning of the year, which
seems to be altogether new, and not instituted by
the law of Moses; it is the annual solemnity of
cleansing the sanctuary. (1.) On the first day of
the first month, upon new-year’s-day, they were to
offer a sacrifice for the cleansing of the sanctuary,
(y. 18. ) to make atonement for the iniquity of the
holy things the year past, that they might bring
none of the guilt of them into the services of the
new year; and to implore grace for the preventing
of that iniquity, and for the better performance of
the service of the sanctuary the ensuing year. And,
in token of this, the blood of this sin-offering was
to be put upon the posts of the temple, the four cor¬
ners, not of the altar, but the settle of the altar, and
the posts of the gate of the inner court, (v. 19.) to
signify that by it atonement was intended to be made
for the sins of all the servants that attended that
house, priests, Levites, and people, even the sins
that were found in all their services. Note, Even
sanctuaries on earth need cleansing, frequent cleans¬
ing; that above needs none. Those that worship
God together, should often join in renewing their
repentance for their manifold defects, and applying
the blood of Christ for the pardon of them, and in
renewing their covenants to be more careful for the
future; and it is very seasonable to begin the year
with this work; as Hczekiah did when it had been
long neglected, 2 Chron. xxix. 17. They were
here appointed to cleanse the sanctuary upon the
first day of the month, because on the fourteenth
day of the month they were to eat the passover, an
ordinance which, of all the other Old Testament
institutions, had most in it of Christ and gospel-
grace, and therefore it was very fit that they should
begin to prepare for it a fortnight before, by cleans¬
ing the sanctuary. (2.) This sacrifice was to be
repeated on the seventh day of the first month, v.
20. And then it was intended to make atonement
Vol. IV. - b (t
for every one that errs, and for him that is simple.
Note, He that sins, errs, and is simple; he mistakes,
he goes out of the way, and shows himself to be
foolish and unwise. But here it is spoken of those
sins which are committed through ignorance, mis
take, or inadvertency, whether by any of the priests,
or of the Levites, or of the people. Sacrifices were
appointed to atone for such sins as men were sur¬
prised into, did before they were aware; which they
would not have done, if they had known and re¬
membered aright, which they were overtaken in,
and for which, afterward, they condemn themselves.
But for presumptuous sins, committed with a high
hand, there was no sacrifice appointed, Numb. xv.
30. By these repeated sacrifices ye shall reconcile
the house; God will be reconciled to it, and continue
the tokens of his presence in it, and will let it alone
this year also.
2. The passover was to be religiously observed at
the time appointed, v. 21. Christ is our Passover,
that is sacrificed for us; we celebrate the memorial
of that sacrifice, and feast upon it, triumphing in
our deliverance out of the Egyptian slavery of sin,
and our preservation from the sword of the destroy¬
ing angel, the sword of divine justice, in the Lord’s
supper, which is our passover-feast ; as the >vhole
Christian life is, and must be, the feast of unlea¬
vened bread. It is here appointed that the prince
shall prepare a sin-offering to be offered for him¬
self and the people; a bullock on the first day, (v.
22.) and a kid of the goats every other day, (y. 23.)
to teach us, in all our attendance upon God for com¬
munion with him, to have an eye to the great Sin-
Offering, by which transgression was finished, and
an everlasting righteousness brought in. On every
day of the feast there was to be a burnt-offering,
purely for the honour of God, and no less than se¬
ven bullocks and seven rams, with their meat-offer¬
ing, which were wholly consumed upon the altar,
and yet no waste, v. 23, 24.
3. The feast of tabernacles; that is spoken of
next, (-o. 25. ) and no mention of the feast of pente-
cost, which came between that of the passover and
that of tabernacles. Orders are here given (above
what were given by the law of Moses) for the same
sacrifices to be offered during the seven days of the
passover. See the deficiency of the legal sacrifices
for sin; they were therefore often repeated, not only
every year, but every feast, every day of the feast,
because they could not make the comers thereunto
perfect, Heb. x. 1, 3. See the necessity of our fre¬
quently repeating the same religious exercises.
Though the sacrifice of atonement is offered once for
all, yet the sacrifices of acknowledgment, that of a
broken heart, that of a thankful heart, must be
every day offered, those spiritual sacrifices which
are acceptable to God through Christ Jesus. Wc
should, as here, fall into a method of holy duties,
and keep to it.
CHAP. XLVI.
In this chapter, we have, I. Some further rules given both
to the priests and to the people, relating to their worship,
v. 1. .15. II. A law concerning the prince’s disposal of
his inheritance, v. 16. .18. III. A description of the
places provided for the boiling of the sacrifices, and the
baking of the meat-offerings, v. 19. .24.
I. 7 1 ''HUS saith the Lord -God, The gate
of the inner court that looketh to¬
ward the east shall be shut the six working
days ; but on the sabbath it shall be opened,
and in the day of the new moon it shall be
opened. 2. And the prince shall enter by
the way of the porch of that gate without*
and shall stand by the post of the gate, and
786
EZEKIEL, A.LVI.
the priest shall prepare his burnt-offering
and his peace-offerings, and he shall wor¬
ship at the threshold of the gate ; then he
shall go forth ; but the gate shall not be shut
until the evening. 3. Likewise the people
of the land shall worship at the door of this
gate before the Lord, in the sabbaths, and
in the new moons. 4. And the burnt-offer¬
ing that the prince shall offer unto the Lord
in the sabbath-day shall be six lambs with¬
out blemish, and a ram without blemish. 5.
And the meat-offering shall be an ephah for
a ram, and the meat-offering for the lambs
as he shall be able to give, and a bin of oil
to an ephah. 6. And in the day of the new
moon it shall be a young bullock without
blemish, and six lambs, and a ram : they
shall be without blemish. 7. And he shall
prepare a meat-offering, an ephah for a bul¬
lock, and an ephah for a ram ; and for the
lambs according as his hand shall attain
unto, and a hin of oil to an ephah. 8. And
when the prince shall enter, he shall go in
by the way of the porch of that gate, and
he shall go forth by the way thereof. 9.
But when the people of the land shall come
before the Lord in the solemn feasts, he
that entereth in by the way of the north
gate to worship shall go out by the way of
the south gate ; and he that entereth by the
way of the south gate shall go forth by the
way of the north gate : lie shall not return
by the way of the gate whereby he came
in, but shall go forth over against it. 10.
And the prince in the midst of them, when
they go in, shall go in; and when they go
forth, shall go forth: 11. And in the feasts,
and in the solemnities, the meat-offering
shall be an ephah to a bullock, and an
ephah to a ram ; and to the lambs as he is
able to give, and a hin of oil to an ephah.
12. Now when the prince shall prepare a
voluntary burnt-offering or peace-offerings
voluntarily unto the Lord, one shall then
open him the gate that looketh toward the
east, and he shall prepare his burnt-offering
and his peace-offerings as he did on the sab-
bath-day; then he shall go forth; and after
his going forth one shall shut the gate. 13.
Thou shalt daily prepare a burnt-offering
unto the Lord of a lamb of the first year
without blemish; thou shalt prepare it every
morning. 14. And thou shalt prepare a
meat-offering for it every morning, the sixth
part of an ephah, and the third part of a
hin of oil, to temper with the fine flour ; a
meat-offering continually, by a perpetual
ordinance, unto the Lord. 15. Thus shall
they prepare the lamb, and the meat-offer¬
ing, and the oil, every morning, for a con¬
tinual burnt-offering.
Whether the rules for public worship, here laid
down, were designed to be observed, even in those
things wherein they differed from the law of Moses,
and were so observed under the second temple, is
not certain; we find not in the history of that latter
part of the Jewish church, that they governed them¬
selves in their worship by these ordinances, as one
would think they should have done, but only by the
law of Moses, looking upon this then in the next age
after as mystical, and not literal.
We may observe, in these verses,
I. That the place of worship was fixed, and rules
given concerning that, both to prince and people.
1. The east gate, which was kept shut at other
times, was to be opened on the sabbath-days, in the
new moons, (r>. 1. ) and whenever the prince offered
a voluntary offering, v. 12. Of the keeping of this
gate ordinarily shut we read before; (ch. xliv. 2.)
whereas the other gates of the court were opened
every day, this was opened only on high daijs, and
on special occasions, when it was opened for the
prince, who was to go in by the may of the porch oj
that gate, v. 2, 8. Some think he went in with the
priests and Levites into the inner court, (for into
that court this gate was the entrance,) and they ob¬
serve that magistrates and ministers should join
forces, and go the same way, hand in hand, in pro¬
moting the service of God. But it should rathei
seem that he did not go through the gate, (as the
glory of the Lord had done,) though it was open,
but he went by the may of the porch of the gate,
stood at the post of the gate, and worshipped at the
threshold of the gate, (t. 2.) where he had a full
view of the priests’ performances at the altar, and
signified his concurrence in them, for himself, and
for the people of the land, that stood behind him at
the door of that gate, v. 3. Thus must every prince
show himself to be of David’s mind, who would
very willingly be a door-keeper in the house of his
Gocl, and, as the word there is, lie at the threshold,
Ps. lxxxiv. 10. Note, The greatest of men are less
than the least of the ordinances of God. Even
princes themselves, when they draw near to God,
must worship with reverence and godly fear; own¬
ing that even they are unworthy to approach to him.
But Christ is our Prince, whom God causes to draw
near and approach to him, Jer. xxx. 21.
2. As to the north gate and south gate, by which
they entered into the court of the people, (not into
the inner court,) there was this rule given, that who¬
ever came in at the north gate should go out at the
south gate, and whoever came in at the south gate
should go out at the north gate, v. 9. Some think
this was to prevent thrusting and justling one an¬
other; for God is the God of order, and not of con¬
fusion. We may suppose that they came in at the
gate that was next their own houses, but that when
they went away, God would have them go out at that
gate which would lead them the furthest way about,
that they might have time for meditation; being
thereby obliged to go a great way round the sanc¬
tuary, they might have an opportunity to consider
the palaces of it, and, if they improved their time
well in fetching this circuit, they would call it the
next way home. Some observe that this may re¬
mind us, in the service of God, to be still pressing
forward, (Phil. iii. 13.) and not to look back; and, in
our attendance upon ordinances, not to go back as
we came, but more holy, and heavenly, and spi¬
ritual.
3. It is appointed that the people shall worship at
the door of the east gate, where the prince does, ho
at the head and they attending him, both in the iab
787
EZEKIEL, XL VI.
baths and in the new moons, (v. 3.) and that, when
they come in, and go out, the prince shall be in the
midst of them, v. 10. Note, Great men should by
their constant and reverent attendance on God in
public worship, give a good example to their infe¬
riors, both engaging them and encouraging them to
do likewise. It is a very graceful, becoming thing
for persons of quality to go to church with their
servants, and tenants, and poor neighbours about
them, and to behave themselves there with an air
of seriousness and devotion; and those who thus ho¬
nour God with their honour, he will delight to honour.
II. That the ordinances of worship were fixed.
Though the prince is supposed himself to be a very
hearty, zealous friend to the sanctuary, yet it is not
left to him, no, not in concert with the priests, to
appoint what sacrifices shall be offered, but God
himself appoints them; for it is his prerogative to in¬
stitute the rites and ceremonies of religious worship.
1. Every morning, as duly as the morning came,
they must offer a lamb for a burnt-offering, v. 13.
It is strange that no mention is made of the evening
sacrifice; but Christ being come, and having offered
himself now in the end of the world, (Heb. ix. 26.)
we are to look upon him as the Evening Sacrifice,
about the time of the offering up of which he died.
2. On the sabbath-days, whereas by the law of
Moses four lambs were to be offered, (Numbers
xxviii. 9.) it is here appointed that (at the prince’s
charge) there shall be six lambs offered, and a ram
besides, (d. 4.) to intimate how much we should
abound in sabbath-work, now in gospel-time, and
what plenty of the spiritual sacrifices of prayer and
praise we should offer up to God on that day; and
if with such sacrifices God is well //leased, surely we
have a great deal of reason to be so.
3. On the new moons, in the beginning of their
months, there was, over and above the usual sabbath-
sacrifices, the additional offering of a young bullock,
v. 6. Those who do much for God and their souls,
statedly and constantly, must yet, upon some occa¬
sions, do yet more.
4. All the sacrifices were to be without blemish;
so Christ, the great Sacrifice, was, (1 Pet. i. 19.)
and so Christians who are to present themselves to
God as living sacrifices, should aim and endeavour
to be; blameless, and harmless, and without rebuke.
5. All the sacrifices were to have their meat-offer¬
ings annexed to them; for so the law of Moses had
appointed, to show what a good table God keeps in
his house, and that we ought to honour him with the
fruit of our ground as well as with the fruit of our
cattle, because in both he has blessed us, Deut.
xxviii. 4. In the beginning, Cain offered the one,
and Abel the other. Some observe, that the meat¬
offerings here are much larger in proportion than
they were by the law of Moses. Then it was three
tenth-deals to a bullock, and two to a ram, (so many
tenth parts of an ephah,) and half a hin of oil at the
most; (Numb. xv. 6. — 9.) but here, for every bullock
and every ram, a whole ephah, and a whole hin of
oil, v. 7. These unbloody sacrifices shall be move
abounded in; or, in general, it intimates, that as
now, under the gospel, God abounds in the gifts of
his grace to us, more than under the law, so we
should abound in the returns of praise and duty to
him. But it is observable that in the meat-offering
for the lambs, the prince is allowed to offer as he
shall be able to give, (v. 5, 7, 11.) as his hand should
attain unto. Note, Princes themselves must spend
as they can afford; and even in that which is laid
out in works of piety, God expects and requires but
that we should do according to our ability; every
man as God has firos/iered him, 1 Cor. xvi. 2. God
has not made us to serve with an offering, (Isa. xliii.
23.) but considers our frame and state. Yet this
will not countenance those who pretend a disability
that is not real, or those who by their extravagances
in other things disable themselves to do the good
they should. And we find those praised, who, in an
extraordinary case of charity, went not only to their
/lower, but beyond their power.
16. Thus saith the Lord God, If the prince
give a gift unto any of his sons, the inherit¬
ance thereof shall be his sons’; it shall be
their possession by inheritance. 1 7. But if
he give a gift of his inheritance to one of his
servants, then it shall be his to the year of
liberty; after it shall return to the piince:
but his inheritance shall be his sons’ for them.
18. Moreover, the prince shall not take of
the people’s inheritance by oppression, to
thrust them out. of their possession ; but he
shall give his sons inheritance out of his own
possession; that my people be not scattered
every man from his possession.
We have liere a law for the limiting of the power
of the prince in the disposing of the crown-lands.
1. It he have a son that is a favourite, or has
merited well, he may, if he please, as a token of his
favour, and in recompense for his services, settle
some parts of his lands upon him and his heirs for
ever, (t>. 16.) provided it do not go out of the family:
there may be a cause for parents, when their chil¬
dren are grown up, to be more kind to one than to
another, as Jacob gave to Joseph one portion above
his brethren, Gen. xlviii. 22.
2. Yet if he have a servant that is a favourite, he
may not in like manner settle lands upon him, v. 17.
But if he see cause, he may give him lands to the
year of Jubilee, and then they must return to the
family again, v. 17. The servant might have the
rents, issues, and profits, for such a term, but the
inheritance, the Jus proprietarium — The right of
proprietorship, shall remain in the prince and his
heirs. It was fit that a difference should be put be¬
tween a child and a servant, like that, John viii. 35.
The servant abides not in the house for eter, as the
son does.
3. What estates he gives his children, must be of
his own; ( v . 18.) He shall not take of the people’s
inheritance, under pretence of having many children
to provide for; he shall not find ways to make them
forfeit their estates, or to force them to sell them,
and so thrust his subjects out of their possession; but
let him and his sons be content with their own. It
is far from being a prince’s honour to increase the
wealth of his family and crown, by encroaching
upon the rights and properties of his subjects; nor
will he himself be a gainer by it at last, for he will
be but a poor prince, when the people are scattered
every man from his possession, when they quit their
native country, being forced out of it by oppression,
choosing rather to live among strangers that are free
people, and where what they have they can call
their own, be it ever so little. It is the interest of
princes to rule in the hearts of their subjects, and
then all they have is, in the best manner, at their
] service. It is better for themselves to gain their
affections, by protecting their rights, than to gain
their estates by invading them.
1 9. After he brought me through the entry,
which teas at the side of the gate, into the
holy chambers of the priests, which looked
toward the north: and, behold, there was a
place on the two sides westward. 20. Then
said he unto me, This is the place where the
788
EZEKIEL, XLVI1.
priests shall boil the trespass-offering and
the sin-offering, where they shall bake the
meat-offering; that they bear them not out
into the outer court, to sanctify the people.
21. Then he brought me forth into the outer
court, and caused me to pass by the four
corners of the court; and, behold, in every
corner of the court there was a court. 22. In
the four corners of the court there were ;
courts joined of forty cubits long, and thirty
broad : these four corners were of one mea¬
sure. 23. And there was a new building
round about in them, round about them four,
and it teas made with boiling-places under
the rows round about. 24. Then said lit;
unto me, These are the places of them that
boil, where the ministers of the house shall
boil the sacrifice of the people.
We have here a further discovery of buildings
about the temple, which we did not observe before,
and those were places to boil the flesh of the offerings,
v. 20. He that kept such a plentiful table at his
altar, needed large kitchens; and a wise builder will
provide conveniencies of that kind. Observe,
1. Where those boiling-places were situated.
There were some at the entry into the inner court,
(v. 19.) and others under the rows, in the four cor¬
ners of the outer court, v. 21. — 23. These are the
places, where, it is likely, there was most room to
spare for this purpose; and this purpose was found
for the spare room, that none might be lost. Pity
that holy ground should be waste ground.
2. What use they were put to. In those places
they were to doit the trespass-offering, and the sin-
offering, those parts of them which were allotted to
the priests, and which were more sacred than the
flesh of the peace-offerings, of which the offerers
also had a share. There also they were to bake the
meat-offering, their share of it, which they had from
the altat» for their own tables, v. 20. Care was
taken that they bare them not out into the outer
court, to sanctify the people. Let them not pretend
to sanctify the people with this holy flesh, and so
impose upon them; or let not the people imagine
that by touching these sacred things they were sanc¬
tified, and made ever the better, or more acceptable
to God. It should seem from Hagg. ii. 12. that
there were those who had such a conceit; and there¬
fore the priests must not carry any of the holy flesh
away with them, lest they should encourage that
conceit. Ministers must take heed of doing any
thing to bolster up ignorant people in their supersti¬
tious vanities.
CHAP. XL VII.
In this chapter, we have, I. The vision of the holy waters,
their rise, extent, depth, and healing virtues; the plenty
of fish in them, and an account of the trees growing on
the banks of them, v. 1 . . 12. II. An appointment of
the borders of the land of Canaan, which was to be
divided by lot to the tribes of Israel, and the strangers
that sojourned among them, v. 13 . . 23.
1 . A FTER W ARD lie brought me again
-Lx L unto the door of the house ; and, be¬
hold, waters issued out from under the thresh¬
old of the house eastward: for the fore-front
of the house stood toward the east, and the
waters came down from under, from the right
side of the house, at the south side of the al¬
tar. 2. Then brought he me out of the way
of the gate northward, and led me about the
way without unto the outer gate by the way
that looketh eastward; and, behold, there
ran out waters on the right side. 3. And
when the man that had the line in his hand
went forth eastward, he measured a thou¬
sand cubits, and he brought me through the
waters; the waters were to the ankles. 4.
Again he measured a thousand, and brought
me through the waters; the waters were to
the knees. Again he measured a thousand,
and brought me through: the waters were
to the loins. 5. Afterward lie measured a
thousand ; and it was a river that I could not
pass over : for the waters were risen, waters
to swim in, a river that could not be passed
over. 6. And he said unto me, Son of man,
hast thou seen this? Then he brought me,
and caused me to return to the brink of the
river. 7. Now, when I had returned, behold,
at the bank of the river were very many trees
on the one side and on the other. 8. Then
said lie unto me, These waters issue out to¬
ward the east country, and go down into the
desert, and go into the sea; which being
brought forth into the sea, the waters shall
be healed. 9. And it shall come to pass,
that every tiling that liveth, which movetli,
whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall
live ; and there shall be a very great multi¬
tude of fish, because these waters shall come
thither: for they shall be healed; and every
thing shall live whither the river cometh.
1 0. And it shall come to pass, that the fishers
shall stand upon it, from En-gedi even unto
En-eglaim ; they shall be a place to spread
forth nets: their fish shall be according to
their kinds, as the fish of the great sea, ex¬
ceeding many. 11. But the miry places
thereof, and the marshes thereof, shall not be
healed: they shall be given to salt. 12.
And by the river, upon the bank thereof, on
this side and on that side, shall grow all trees
for meat, whose leaf shall not fade, neither
shall the fruit thereof be consumed : it shall
bring forth new fruit according to his months,
because their waters they issued out of the
sanctuary; and the fruit thereof shall be for
meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine.
This part of Ezekiel's vision must so necessarily
have a mystical and spiritual meaning, that from
thence we conclude the other parts of his vision have
a mystical and spiritual meaning also; for it cannot
be applied to the waters brought by pipes into the
temple for the washing of the sacrifices, the keeping
of the temple clean, and the carrying off of those
waters, for that would be to turn this pleasant river
into a sink or common sewer. That prophecy,
Zech. xiv. 8. may explain it, of living waters, that
shall go out from Jerusalem, half of them toward
the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder
sea. And there is plainly a reference to this in St.
EZEKIEL, XLVI1. 789
John's vision of a pure river of water of life. Rev.
xxii. 1. That seems to represent the glory and
joy, which is grace perfected. This here seems to
represent the grace and joy, which is glory begun.
Most interpreters agree, that these waters signify
the gospel of Christ, which went forth from Jerusa¬
lem, and spread itself into the countries about, and
the gifts and powers of the Holy Ghost which ac¬
companied it, and by virtue of which it spread itself
far, and produced strange and blessed effects. Eze¬
kiel had walked round the house again and again,
and vet did not till now take notice of those waters;
for God makes known his mind and will to his peo¬
ple, not all at once, but by degrees. Now observe,
1. The rise of these waters. He is not put to
trace the streams to the fountain, but has the foun¬
tain-head first discovered to him, (u. 1.) JVaters
issued out from the threshold of the house eastward,
and from under the right side of the house, the south
side of the altar. And again, (y. 2.) There ran out
waters on the right skle; signifying, that from Zion
should go forth the law, and the word of the Lord
from Jerusalem, Isa. ii. 3. There it was that the
Spirit was poured out upon the apostles, and endued
them with the gift of tongues, that they might carry
these waters to all nations. In the temple first they
were to stand, and preach the words of this life,
Acts v. 20. They must preach the gospel to all
nations, but must begin at Jerusalem, Luke xxiv.
47. But that is not all; Christ is the Temple, he is
the Door, from him those living waters flow, out of
his pierced side. It is the water that he gives us,
that i sthe well of water which springs up, John iv. 14.
And it is by believing in him that we receive from
him rivers of living water; and this spake he of the
Spirit, John vii. 38, 39. The original of these wa¬
ters was not above ground, but they sprang up from
under the threshold; for the fountain of a believer’s
life is a mystery, it is hid with Christ in God, Col.
iii. 3. Some observe that they came forth on the
right side of the house, to intimate that gospel-bless¬
ings are right-hand blessings. It is also an encour¬
agement to those who attend at Wisdom’s gates, at
the posts of her doors, who are willing to lie at the
threshold of God’s house, as David was, that they
lie at the fountain-head of comfort and grace; the
very entrance into God’s word gives light and life,
Ps. cxix. 130. David speaks it to the praise of
Zion, All mil springs are in thee, Ps. lxxxvii. 7.
They cam efrom the side of the altar, for it is in and
by Jesus Christ, the great Altar, (who sanctifies our
yifts to God,) that God has blessed us with spiritual
blessings in holy, heavenly places. From God as
the Fountain, in him as the Channel, flows the
river, which makes glad the city of our God, the
holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High, Ps.
xlv’i. 4. But observe how much the blessedness and
joy of glorified saints in heaven exceed those of the
b.est and happiest saints on earth; here the streams
of our comfort arise from under the threshold; there
they proceed from' the .throne, the throne of God
and of the Lamb, Rev. xxii. 1.
2. The progress and increase of these waters.
They went forth eastward, (v. 3.) toward the east
country, (y. 8.) for so they were directed. The
prophet and his guide followed the stream as it ran
down from the holy mountains, and when they had
followed it about a thousand cubits, they went over
across it, to trv the depth of it, and it was to the
ankles, v. 3. Then they walked along on the bank
of the river on the other side, a thousand cubits more,
and then, to try the depth of it, they waded through
it the second time, and it was up to their knees, v.
4. They walked along by it a thousand cubits more,
and then forded it the third time, and then it was
up to their middle; the waters were to the loins.
They then walked a thousand cubits further, and
attempted to repass it the fourth time, but found it
impracticable; the waters were risen, by the addi¬
tion either of brooks that fell into it above ground,
or by springs under ground, so that they were waters
to swim in, a river that could not be passed over, v.
5. Note, ( 1. ) The waters of the sanctuary are run¬
ning waters, as those of a river, not standing waters,
as those of a pond. The gospel, when it was first
preached, was still spreading further; grace in the
soul is still pressing forward; it is an active principle,
plus ultra — onward still, till it comes to perfection.
(2.) They are increasing waters. This river, as it
rails constantly, so, the further it goes, the fuller it
grows. The gospel-church was very small in its
beginnings, like a little purling brook; but by de¬
grees it came to be to the ankles, to the knees, many
were added to it daily, and the grain of mustard-
seed grew up to be a great tree. The gifts of the
Spirit increase by being exercised, and grace, where
it is true, is growing like the light of the morning,
which shines more and more to the perfect day.
(3. ) It is good for us to follow these waters, and
go along with them. Observe the progress of the
gospel in the world; observe the process of the work
of grace in the heart; attend the motions of the
blessed Spirit, and walk after them, under a divine
guidance, as Ezekiel here did. (4.) It is good to be
often searching into the things of God, and trying
the depth of them ; not only to look on the surface
of those waters, but to go to the bottom of them as
far as we can ; to be often digging, often diving, into
the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, as those
who covet to be intimately acquainted with those
things. (5.) If we search into the things of God,
we shall find some things very plain and easy to be
understood, as the waters that were but to the
ankles; others more difficult, and which require a
deeper search, as the waters to the knees, or the
loins; and some quite beyond our reach, which we
cannot penetrate into, or account for, but, despairing
to find the bottom, must, as St. Paul, sit do wn at the
brink, and adore the depth, Rom. xi. 33. It has
been often said, that in the scripture, like these
waters of the sanctuary, there are some places so
shallow, that a lamb may wade through them, and
others so deep, that an elephant may swim in them.
And it is our wisdom, as the prophet here, to begin
with that which is most easy, and get our hearts
washed with those things before we proceed to that
which is dark and hard to be understood; it is good
to take our work before us.
3. The extent of this river; It issues toward the
east country, but from thence it either divides itself
into several streams, or fetches a compass, so that
itg-oes down into the desert, and so goes into the sea,
either into the Dead sea, which lay south-east, or
the sea of Tiberias, which lay north-east, or the
Great sea, which lay west, v. 8. This was accom¬
plished when the gospel was preached with success
throughout all the regions of Judea and Samaria,
(Acts. viii. 1.) and afterward the nations about;
nay, and those that lay most remote, even in the
isles of the sea, were enlightened and leavened by
it The sound of it went forth to the end of the
world; and the enemies of it could no more prevail
to stop the progress of it than that of a mighty river.
4. The healing virtue of this river. The waters
of the sanctuary, wherever they come and have a
free course, will be found a wonderful restorative.
Being brought forth into the sea, the sulphureous
lake of Sodom, that standing monument of divine
vengeance, even those waters shall be healed, (v. 8. )
shall become sweet, and pleasant, and healthful.
This intimates the wonderful and blessed change
that the gospel would make, wheresoever .t came
in its power; as great a change, in respect noth
of character and condition, as the turning of the
790 EZEKIEL, XLVII.
Dead sea into a fountain of gardens. When children
of wrath became children of love, and those that
were dead in trespasses and sins, were made alive,
then this was fulfilled. The gospel was as that salt
which Elisha cast into the spring of the waters of
Jericho, with which he healed them, 2 Kings ii. 20,
21. Christ coming into the world to be its Physi¬
cian, sent his gospel as the great medicine, the Pan-
fiharmacon ; there is in it a remedy for every mala¬
dy. Nay, wherever these rivers come, they make
things to live, ( v . 9. ) both plants and animals; they
are the water of life. Rev. xxii. 1, 17. Christ came,
that we may have life, and for that end he sends his
gospel; every thing shall live whither the river
comes. The grace of God makes dead sinners
alive, and living saints lively; every thing is made
fruitful and flourishing by it. But its effect is ac¬
cording as it is received, and as the mind is pre¬
pared and disposed to receive it; for, (v. 11.) with
respect to the marshes and miry places thereo f, that
are settled in the mire of their own sinfulness, and
will not be healed or settled in the moisture of their
own righteousness, and think they need no healing,
their doom is, they shall not be healed; the same
gospel which to others is a savour of life unto life,
shall to them be a savour of death unto death; they
shall be given to salt, to perpetual barrenness, Deut.
xxix. 23. They that will not be watered with the
grace of God, and made fruitful, shall be abandoned
to their own hearts’ lusts, and left for ever unfruit¬
ful. He that is filthy, let him be filthy still. Never
fruit grow on thee more for ever. They shall be
given to salt, to be monuments of divine justice, as
Lot’s wife, that was turned into a pillar of salt, to
season others.
5. The great plenty of fish that should be in this
river; every living, moving thing shall be found
here, shall live here, (u. 9.) shall come on and
prosper, shall be the best of the kind, and shall in¬
crease greatly, so that there shall be a very great
multitude of fish, according to their kinds, as the
fish of the great sea, exceeding many. There shall
be as great plenty of the river-fish, and as vast shoals
of them, as there is of salt-water fish, v. 10. There
shall be great numbers of Christians in the church,
and those multiplying like fishes in the rising gene¬
rations, and the dew of their youth. In the creation,
the waters brought forth the fish abundantly, (Gen.
i. 20, 21.) and they still live in and by the waters
that produced them; so believers are begotten by
the word of truth, (James i. 18.) and born by it, (1
Pet. i. 23. ) that river of God, by it they live, from
it they have their maintenance and subsistence; in
the waters of the sanctuary they are as in their ele¬
ment, out of them they are as fish ufion dry ground;
so David was, when he thirsted and panted for God,
for the living God. Where the fish are known to
be in abundance, thither will the fishers flock, and
there they will cast their nets; and therefore, to in¬
timate the replenishing of these waters, and their
being made every way useful, it is here foretold that
the fishers shall stand upon the banks of this river,
from Rn-gedi, which lies on the border of the Dead
sea, to Rn-eglaim, another city, which joins to that
sea, and all along shall spread. their nets. The Dead
sea, which before was shunned as noisome and
noxious, shall be frequented; gospel-grace makes
those persons and places which were unprofitable
and good for nothing, to become serviceable to God
and man.
6. The trees that were on the banks of this river;
many trees on the one side and on the other (v. 7.)
made the prospect very pleasant and agreeable to
the eye ; the shelter of these trees also would be a
convenience to the fishery. But that is not all; ( v .
12.) they are trees for meat, and the fruit of them
•ihall not he consumed, for it shall produce fresh
fruit every month. The leaf shall be for medicine,
and it shall not fade. This part of the vision is
copied out into St. John’s vision very exactly, (Rev,
xxii. 2.) where, on either side of the river, is said
to grow the tree of life, which yielded her fruit
every month, and the leaves were for the healing of
the nations. Christians are supposed to be these
trees: ministers especially; trees of righteousness,
the filanting of the Lord, (Isa. lxi. 3.) set by the
rivers of water, the waters of the sanctuary, (Ps. i.
3.) grafted into Christ the Tree of life, and by
virtue of their union with him made trees of life
too, rooted in him, Col. ii. 7. There is a great va¬
riety of these trees, through the diversity of gifts
with which they are endued by that one Spirit who
works all in all. They grow on the bank of the
river, for they keep close to holy ordinances, and
through them derive from Christ sap and virtue..
They are fruit-trees, designed, as the fig-tree and
the olive, with their fruits to honour God and man,
Judg. ix. 9. The fruit thereof shall be for meat, for
the lifts of the righteous feed many. The fruits of
their righteousness are one way or other beneficial.
The very leaves of these trees are for medicine, for
bruises and sores, marg. Good Christians with their
good discourses, which are as their leaves, as well
as with their charitable actions, which are as their
fruits, do good to those about them, they strengthen
the weak, and bind up the broken-hearted. Their
cheerfulness does good like a medicine, not only to
themselves, but to others also. They shall be en¬
abled by the grace of God to persevere in their
goodness and usefulness; their leaf shall note fade,
or lose its medicinal virtue, having not only life in
their root but sap in all their branches; their pro¬
fession shall ■hot wither, (Ps. i. 3.) neither shall the
fruit thereof be consumed; they shall not lose the
principle of their fruitfulness, but shall still bring
forth fruit in old age, to show that the Lord is up¬
right, Ps. xcii. 14, 15. Or, The reward of their
fruitfulness shall abide for ever; they bring forth
fruit that shall abound to their account in the great
day, fruit to life eternal: that is indeed fruit which
shall not be consumed. They bring new fruit ac¬
cording to their months, some in one month, and
others in another; so that still there shall be one or
other found to serve the glory of God for the pur¬
pose he designs. Or, Each one of them shall bring
forth fruit monthly, which denotes an abundant dis¬
position to fruit-bearing; they shall never be weary
of well-doing; and a veiy happy climate, such, that
there shall be a perpetual spring and summer. And
the reason of this extraordinary fruitfulness is, be¬
cause their waters issued out of the sanctuary ; it is
not to be ascribed to any thing in themselves, but to
the continual supplies of divine grace, with which
they are watered every moment; (Isa. xxvii. 3.) for
whoever planted them, it was that which gave the
increase.
13. Thus saith the Lord God, This shall
he the border whereby ye shall inherit the
land, according to the twelve tribes of Is¬
rael: Joseph shall have two portions. 14.
And ye shall inherit it, one as well as an¬
other; concerning the which I lifted up my
hand to give it unto your fathers; and this
land shall fall unto you for inheritance. 15
And this shall he the border of the land to¬
ward the north side, from the great sea, the
way of Hethlon, as men go to Zedad; 16.
Hamath, Berothah, Sibraim, which is be¬
tween the border of Damascus and the bor
791
EZEKIEL, XLVII.
der of Hamath; Hazar-hatticon, which is
by the coast of Hauran. 17. And the bor¬
der from the sea shall be Hazar-enan, the
border of Damascus, and the north north¬
ward, and the bol der of Hamath. And this
is the north side. 18. And the east side ye
shall measure from Hauran, and from Da¬
mascus, and from Gilead, and from the land
of Israel by Jordan, from the border unto the
east sea. And this is the east side. 19.
And the south side southward, from Tamar
even to the waters of strife in Kadesh, the
river to the great sea. And this is the south
side southward. 20. The west side also
shall he the great sea from the border, till a
man come over against Hamath. This is
the west side. 21. So shall ye divide this
land unto you according to the tribes of Is¬
rael. 22. And it shall come to pass, that
ye shall divide it by lot for an inheritance
unto you, and to the strangers that sojourn
among you, which shall beget children
among you ; and they shall be unto you as
born in the country among the children of
Israel; they shall have inheritance with you
among the tribes of Israel. 23. And it shall
come to pass, that in what tribe the stranger
sojourneth, there shall ye give him his in¬
heritance, saith the Lord God.
W e are now to pass from the affairs of the sanc¬
tuary to those of the state; from the city to the
country.
1. The land of Canaan is here secured to them for
an inheritance; (v. 14.) I lifted up mine hand to
give it unto your fathers, promised it upon oath to
them and their posterity. Though the possession
had been a great while discontinued, yet God has
not forgotten Ids oath which he sware to their fa¬
thers. Though God’s providences may for a time
seem to contradict his promises, yet the promise
will certainly take place at last, for God will be
ever mindful of his covenant. I lifted uji mine hand
to give it, and therefore it shall without fail fall to
you for an inheritance. Thus the heavenly Canaan
is sure to all the seed, because it is what God who
cannot lie has promised.
2. It is here circumscribed, and the bounds and
limits of it are fixed, which they must not pass over
to encroach upon their neighbours, and which their
neighbours shall not break through to encroach upon
them. We had such a draught of the borders of
Canaan, when Joshua was to put the people in pos¬
session of it. Numb, xxxiv. 1, &c. That begins
with the salt sea in the south, goes round and ends
there. This begins with Hamath about Damascus
in the north, and so goes round and ends there, v.
20. Note, It is God that appoints the bounds of our
habitation; and his Israel shall always have cause
to say that the lines are fallen to them in pleasant
places. The lake of Sodom is here called the east
sea, for, it being healed by the waters of the sanctu¬
ary, it is no more to be called a salt sea, as it was in
Numbers.
3. It is here ordered to be divided among the
tribes of Israel, reckoning Joseph for two tribes, to
make up the number of twelve, when Levi was
taken out to attend the sanctuary, and had his lot
adjoining to that; (v. 13, 21.) lre shall inherit it.
one as well as another, v. 14. The tribes shall have
an equal share, one as much as another. As the
tribes returned out of Babylon, this seems unequal,
because some tribes were much more numerous than
the other, and indeed the most were of Judah and
Benjamin, and very few of the other ten tribes; but
as the twelve tribes stand, in type and vision, for
the gospel-church, the Israel of God, it was very
equal, because we find in another vision an equal
number of each of the twelve tribes sealed for the
living God, just 12,000 of each, Rev. vii. 5, 8cc.
And to those sealed ones these allotments did be¬
long. It intimates likewise that all the subjects of
Christ’s kingdom have obtained like precious faith.
Male and female, Jew and Gentile, bond and free,
are all alike welcome to Christ, and made partakers
of him.
4. The strangers which sojourn among them,
which shall beget children, and be built up into fa¬
milies, and so help to people their country, shall have
inheritance among the tribes, as if they had been
native Israelites, (v. 22, 23.) which was by no
means allowed in Joshua’s division of the land. This
is an act for a general naturalization, which would
teach the Jews who was their neighbour; not those
only of their own nation and religion, but those, who¬
ever they were, that they had an opportunity of
showing kindness to, because from them they would
be willing to receive kindness. It would likewise
invite strangers to come and settle among them, and
put themselves under the wings of the Divine Ma¬
jesty. But it certainly looks at gospel-times, when
the partition-wall between Jew and Gentile was
taken down, and both put upon a level before God,
both made one in Christ, in whom there is no differ¬
ence, Rom. x. 12. This land was a type of the
heavenly Canaan, that belter country, (Heb. xi. 16.)
in which believing Gentiles shall have a blessed lot,
as well as believing Jews, Isa. lvi. 3.
CHAP. XLVIII.
In this chapter, we have particular directions given for the
distribution of the land, of which we had the metes and
bounds assigned in the foregoing chapter. I. The por¬
tions of the twelve tribes, seven to the north of the sanc¬
tuary, (v. 1 . . 7.) and five to the south, v. 23 . . 29 II.
The allotment of land for the sanctuary, and the priests,
(v. 8.. II.) for the Levites, (v. 12.. 14.) for the city,
(v. 15. .20.) and for the prince, v. 21, 22. Much of this
we had before, ch. xlv. III. A plan of the city, its gates,
and the new name given to it, (v. 30.. 35.) which seals
up and concludes the vision and prophecy of this book.
1 . 1VTOW these are the names of the tribes.
From the north end to the coast
of the way of Hethlon, as one goeth to
Hamath, Hazar-enan, the border of Damas¬
cus northward, to the coast of Hamath, (for
these are his sides east and west,) a portion
for Dan. 2. And by the border of Dan,
from the east side unto the west side, a por¬
tion for Asher. 3. And by the border of
Asher, from the east side even unto the west
side, a portion for Naphtali. 4. And by the
border of Naphtali, from the east side unto
the west side, a portion for Manasseh. 5.
And by the border of Manasseh, from the
east side unto the west side, a portion for
Ephraim. 6. And by the border of Ephraim,
from the east side even unto the west side,
a portion for Reuben. 7. And by the bor¬
der of Reuben, from the east side unto
the west side, a portion for Judah. 8. And
792
EZEKIEL, XLVIII.
by the border of Judah, from the east side
unto the west side, shall be the offering
which they shall offer of five and twenty
thousand reeds in breadth, and in length as
one of the other parts, from the east side
unto the west side : and the sanctuary shall
be in the midst of it. 9. The oblation that ye
shall offer unto the Lord shall be of five
and twenty thousand in length, and of ten
thousand in breadth. 10. And for them,
even for the priests, shall be this holy obla¬
tion ; toward the north five and twenty thou¬
sand in length , and toward the west ten
thousand in breadth, and toward the east
ten thousand in breadth, and toward the
south five and twenty thousand in length:
and the sanctuary of the Lord shall be in
the midst thereof. 11. It shall be for the
priests that are sanctified of the sons of Za-
dok, which have kept my charge, which
went not astray when the children of Is¬
rael went astray, as the Levites went astray.
12. And this oblation of the land that is
offered shall be unto them a thing most holy,
by the border of the Levites. 13. And over
against the border of the priests the Levites
shall have five and twenty thousand in length,
and ten thousand in breadth : all the length
shall be five and twenty thousand, and the
breadth ten thousand. 14. And they shall
not sell of it, neither exchange, nor alienate
the first-fruits of the land: for it is holy unto
the Lord. 15. And the five thousand that
are left in the breadth, over against the five
and twenty thousand, shall be a profane
place for the city, for dwelling, and for sub¬
urbs; and the city shall be in the midst
thereof. 16. And these shall be the mea¬
sures thereof ; the north side four thousand
and five hundred, and the south side four
thousand and five hundred, and on the east
side four thousand and five hundred, and
the west side four thousand and five hun¬
dred. 1 7. And the suburbs of the city shall
be toward the north two hundred and fifty,
and toward the south two hundred and fifty,
and toward the east two hundred and fifty,
and toward the west two hundred and fifty.
1 8. And the residue in length, over against
the oblation of the holy portion , shall be ten
thousand eastward, and ten thousand west¬
ward : and it shall be over against the ob¬
lation of the holy portion ; and the increase
thereof shall be for food unto them that serve
the city. 1 9. And they that serve the city
shall serve it out of all the tribes of Israel.
20. All the oblation shall be five and twenty
thousand by five and twenty thousand : ye
shall offer the holy oblation four-square,
with the possession of the city. 21. And
the residue shall be for the prince, on the
one side and on the other of the holy obla
tion, and of the possession of the city over
against the five and twenty thousand of the
oblation toward the east border, and west¬
ward over against the five and twenty thou¬
sand toward the west border, over against
the portions for the prince: and it shall be
the holy oblation ; and the sanctuary of the
house shall be in the midst thereof. 22.
Moreover, from the possession of the Le¬
vites, and from the possession of the city
being in the midst of that which is the
prince’s, between the border of Judah and
the border of Benjamin, shall be for the
prince. 23. As for the rest of the tribes, from
the east side unto the west side, Benjamin
shall have a portion. 24. And by the border
of Benjamin, from the east side unto the
west side, Simeon shall have a portion. 25.
And by the border of Simeon, from the east
side unto the west side, Issachar a portion.
26. And by the border of Issachar, from the
east side unto the west side, Zebulun a por¬
tion. 27. And by the border of Zebulun,
from the east side unto the west side, Gad
a. portion. 28. And by the border of Gad,
at the south side southward, the border shall
be even from Tamar unto the waters of
strife in Kadesh, and to the river toward
the great sea. 29. This is the land which
ye shall divide by lot unto the tribes of Is¬
rael for inheritance, and these are their por¬
tions, saith the Lord God.
We have here a very short and ready way taken
for the dividing of the land among the twelve tribes,
not so tedious and so far about as the way that was
taken in Joshua’s time; for, in the distribution of
spiritual and heavenly blessings there is not that
danger of murmuring and quarrelling that there is in
the participation of temporal blessings. When God
gave to the labourers every one his penny, those that
were uneasy at it, were soon put to silence with.
May I not do not what I will with my own? And
such is the equal distribution here among the tribes.
In this distribution of the land, we may observe,
1. That it differs very much from the division of
it in Joshua’s time, and agrees not with the order
of their birth, or their blessing by Jacob or Moses.
Simeon here is not divided in Jacob, nor is Zebulun
a haven of shi/is; a plain intimation that it is not
so much to be understood literally as spiritually;
though the mystery of it is very much hidden from
us. In gospel-times old things are passed away,
behold, all things are become ?iew. The Israel of
God is cast into a new method.
2. That the tribe of Dan, which was last provided
for in the first division of Canaan, (Josh. xix. 40.)
is first provided for here, v. 1. Thus in the gospel,
the last shall be first, Matth. xix. 30. God, in the
dispensations of his grace, does not follow the same
method that he does in the disposals of his provi
dence. But Dan had now his portion thereabouts
where he had only one city before, northward, on
the border of Damascus, and furthest of all from
the sanctuary, because that tribe had revolted to
idolatry .
EZEKIEL, XLVII1. 793
3. That all the ten tribes, which were carried
away by the king of Assyria, as well as the two
tribes, which were long after carried to Babylon,
have their allotment in this visionary land; which
some think had its accomplishment in the particular
persons and families of those tribes which returned
with Judah and Benjamin, of which we find many
instances in Ezra and Nehemiah; and it is probable
that there were returns of many more afterward
at several times, which are not recorded; and the
lews having Galilee, and other parts, that had been
the possessions of the ten tribes, put into their hands,
in common with them, they enjoyed them. Grotius
says, If the ten tribes had repented, and returned to
God, as the chief fathers of Judah and Benjamin
did , and the priests and Levites, (Ezra i. 5.) they
should have fared as those two tribes did, but they
forfeited the benefit of this glorious prophecy by
sin. However, we believe it has its designed ac¬
complishment in the establishment and enlargement
of the gospel-church, and the happy settlement of
all those who are Israelites indeed, in the sure and
sweet enjoyment of the privileges of the new cove¬
nant, in which there is enough for all, and enough
for each.
4. That every tribe in this visionary distribution
had its particular lot assigned it by a divine appoint¬
ment; for it was never the intention of the gospel
to pluck up the hedge of property, and lay all in
common; it was in a way of charity, not of legal
right, that the first Christians had all things com¬
mon; (Acts ii. 44.) many precepts of the gospel sup¬
pose that every man should know his own. And
we must not only acknowledge, but acquiesce in
the hand of God, appointing us our lot, and be
well pleased with it, believing it fittest for us. He
shall choose our inheritance for us, Ps. xlvii. 4.
5. That the tribes lay contiguous; by the border
of one tribe was the fiortion of another, all in a row,
in exact order, so that, like stones in an arch, they
fixed, and strengthened, and wedged in, one ano¬
ther. Behold, how good and how pleasant a thing
U is for brethren thus to dwell together! It was a
figure of the communion of churches and saints
under the gospel-government; thus though they are
many, yet they are one, and should hold together in
holy love and mutual assistance.
6. That Reuben, which before lay at a distance
beyond Jordan, now lies next to Judah, and next but
one to the sanctuary; for the scandal he lay under,
for which he was told he should not excel, began
by this time to wear off. What has turned to the
reproach of any person or people, ought not to be
remembered for ever, but should at length be kindly
forgotten.
7. That the sanctuary was in the midst of them;
there were seven tribes to the north of it, and the
Levites, the prince’s and the city’s portion, with
that of five tribes more, to the south of it; so that it
was, as it ought to be, in the heart of the kingdom,
that it might diffuse its benign influences to the
whole, and might be the centre of their unity. The
tribes that lay most remote from each other, would
meet there in a mutual acquaintance and fellowship.
Those of the same parish or congregation, though
dispersed, and having no occasion otherwise to know
each other, yet by meeting statedly to worship God
together should have their hearts knit to each other
in holy love.
8. That where the sanctuary was, the priests
were; For them, even for the priests, shall this holy
oblation be, v. 10. As, on the one hand, this speaks
honour and comfort to ministers, that what is given
for their support and maintenance is reckoned a
holy oblation to the Lord, so it speaks their duty,
which is, that since they are appointed and main¬
tained for the service of the sanctuary, they ought
Vol. iv. — 5 H
to attend continually to this very thing; to reside on
their cures. Those that live upon the altar must
serve at the altar, not take the wages to themselves,
and devolve the work upon others; but how can
they serve the altar, his altar they live upon, if they
do not live near it?
9. Those priests had the priests’ share of these
lands, that had approved themselves faithful to God
in times of trial; (u. 11.) It shall be for the sons
of Zadok, who, it seems, had signalized themselves
in some critical juncture, and went not astray when
the children of Israel, and the other Levites, went
astray. God will put honour upon them, and has
special favours in reserve for them, who keep their
integrity in times of general apostacv. They are
swimming upward, and so they will find at last,
that are swimming against the stream.
10. The land which was appropriated to the mi¬
nisters of the sanctuary, might by no means be
alienated. It was in the nature of the first-fruits
of the land, and was therefore holy to the Lord ; and
though' the priests and Levites hail both the use of
it, and the inheritance of it to them and their heirs,
yet they might not sell it, or exchange it, v. 14. It
is sacrilege to convert that to other uses, which is
dedicated to God.
11. The land allotted for the city and its suburbs
is called a profane place, ( v . 15.) or common; not
but that the city was a holy city above other cities,
for the Lord was there, but, in comparison with the
sanctuary, it was a profane place. Yet it is too
often true in the worst sense, that great cities, even
those which, like this, have the sanctuary near
them, are profane places, and it ought to be sadly
lamented. It was the complaint of old. From Je¬
rusalem is profaneness gone forth into all the land,
Jer. xxiii. 15.
12. The city is made to be exactly four-square,
and the suburbs extending themselves equally on
all sides, as the Levites’ cities did in the first divi¬
sion of the land, (v. 16, 17.) which never being
literally fulfilled in any city, intimates that it is to
be understood spiritually of the beauty and stability
of the gospel-church, that city of the living God,
which is formed according to the wisdom and coun¬
sel of God, and is made firm and immoveable by his
promise.
13. Whereas, before, the inhabitants of Jerusa¬
lem were principally of Judah and Benjamin, in
whose tribe it lay, now, the head city lies not in the
particular lot of any of the tribes, but they that serve
the city, and bear office in it, shall serve it out of all
the tribes of Israel, v. 19. The most eminent men
must be picked out of all the tribes of Israel, for the
service of the city, because many eyes were upon
it, and there was great resort to it from all parts of
the nation, and from other nations. They that live
in the city are said to serve the city, for, wherever
we are, we must study to be serviceable to the place,
some way or other, according as our capacity is.
They must not come out of the tribes of Israel to the
city, to take their ease, and enjoy their pleasures,
but to serve the city, to do all the good they can
thtre, and in so doing they would have a good influ¬
ence upon the country too.
14. Care was taken that those who applied them¬
selves to public business in the city, as well as in the
sanctuary, should have an honourable, comfortable
maintenance; lands are appointed, the increase
whereof shall be food unto them that sej-ve the city,
v. 18. Who goes a warfare at his own charges?
Magistrates, that attend the service of the state, as
well as ministers, that attend the service of the
church, should have all due encouragement and
support in so doing: and for this cause pay we tri¬
bute also.
15. The prince had a lot for himself, suited to
EZEKIEL, XLV1II.
794
the dignity of his high station; (v. 21.) we took an
account of it before, ch. xlv. He was seated near
the sanctuary, • where the testimony of Israel was,
and near the city, where the thrones of judgment
were, that he might be a protection to both, and
might see that the duty of both was carefully and
faithfully done; and herein he was a minister of
God for good to the whole community. Christ is
the church’s Prince, that defends it on every side,
and creates a defence: nay, he is himself a Defence
upon all its glory, and compasses it with his favour.
Lastly, As Judah had his lot next the sanctuary
on one side, so Benjamin had, of all the tribes, his
lot nearest it on the other side; which honour was
reserved for them who adhered to the house of
David and the temple at Jerusalem, when the other
ten tribes went astray from both. It is enough if
treachery and apostacy, upon repentance, be par¬
doned, but constancy and fidelity shall be rewarded
and preferred.
30. And these are the goings out of the
city on the north side, four thousand and
five hundred measures. 31. And the gates
of the city shall be after the names of the
tribes of Israel: three gates northward; one
gate of Reuben, one gate of Judah, one
gate of Levi. 32. And at the east side four
thousand and five hundred: and three
gates ; and one gate of Joseph, one gate of
Benjamin, one gate of Dan. 33. And at
the south side four thousand and five hun¬
dred measures: and three gates; one gate
of Simeon, one gate of Issachar, one gate
of Zebulun. 34. At the west side four
thousand and five hundred, with their three
gates; one gate of Gad, one gate of Asher,
one gate of Naphtali. 35. It was round
about eighteen thousand measures: and the
name of the city from that day shall be,
The Lord is there.
We have here a further account of the city that
should be built for the metropolis of this glorious
land, and to be the receptacle of those who should
come from all parts to worship in the sanctuary ad¬
joining. It is no where called Jerusalem, nor is
the land which we have had such a particular ac¬
count of the dividing of, any where called the land
of Canaan; for the old names are forgotten, to in¬
timate that the old things are done away, behold,
all things are become new.
Now, concerning this city, observe here,
1. The measures of its outlets, and the grounds
belonging to it, for its several conveniencies; each
way its appurtenances extended 4,500 measures,
18,000 in all, v. 35. But what these measures
were, is uncertain; it is never said, in all this chap¬
ter, whether so many reeds, as our translation de¬
termines, by inserting that word, ( v . 8.) each reed
containing six ( ubits and a span; (ch. xl. 5.) and
why should the measurer appear with the measur¬
ing-reed in his hand of that length, if he did not
measure with that, except where it is expressly
said he measured by cubits? Or whether, as others
think, it is so many cubits, because those are men¬
tioned, ch. xlv. 2. and ch. xlvii. 3. Yet that makes
me incline rather to think that where cubits are not
mentioned, it must be intended so many lengths of
the measuring-reed. But those who understand it
of so many cubits, are not agreed whether it be
meant of the common cubit, which was half a yard,
or the geometrical cubit, which, for better expedi
tion, is supposed to be mostly used in surveying
lands, which, some say, contained six cubits, others
about three cubits and a half, so making 1000 cubits
the same with 1000 paces, that is, an English mile.
But our being left at this uncertainty, is an intima¬
tion that these things are to be understood spiritu¬
ally, and that what is principally meant, is, that
there is an exact and just proportion observed by
Infinite Wisdom in modelling the gospel-church,
which though now we cannot discern, we shall
when we come to heaven.
2. The number of its gates. It had twelve gates
in all, three on each side; which was very agreeable
when it lay four-square; and these twelve gates in¬
scribed to the twelve tribes. Because the city was
to be served out of all the tribes of Israel, {v. 19.)
it was fit that each tribe should have its gate; and
Levi being here taken in, to keep to the number
twelve, Ephraim and Manasseh are made one in
Joseph, v. 32. On the north side were the gates
of Reuben, Judah, and Levi, v. 31. On the east,
the gates of Joseph, Benjamin, and Dan, v. 32. On
the south, the gates of Simeon, Issachar, and Zebu¬
lun, v. 33. And on the west, the gates of Gad,
Asher, and Naphtali, v. 34. Conformable to this,
in St. John’s vision, the new Jerusalem (for so the
holy city is called there, though not here) has
twelve gates, three of a side, and on them are writ¬
ten the names of the twelve tribes of the children of
Israel, Rev. xxi. 12, 13. Note, Into the church of
Christ, both militant and triumphant, there is a free
access by faith for all that come of every tribe, from
every quarter. Christ has opened the kingdom of
heaven to all believers. Whoever will may come, and
take of the water of life, of the tree of life, freely.
3. The name given to this city; From that clay,
when it shall be new-erected according to this mo¬
del, the name of it shall be, not as before, Jerusa¬
lem — the vision of peace, but, which is the original
of that, and more than equivalent to it, Jehovah
Shammah — The Lord is there, v. 35. This inti¬
mated,
(1.) That the captives, after their return, should
have manifest tokens of God’s presence with them,
and his residence among them, both in his ordinan¬
ces and in his providences; they should have no
occasion to ask, as their fathers did, Is the Lord
among us, or is he not ? For they shaU see, and
say, that he is with them of a truth. And then,
though their troubles were many and threatening,
they were like the bush, which burned, but was not
consumed, because the Lord was there. But when
God departed from their temple, when he said,
Migramus hinc — Let us go hence, their house was
soon left unto them desolate. Being no longer his,
it was not much longer theirs.
(2.) That the gospel-church should likewise have
the presence of C4od in it, though not in the Shechi-
nah, as of old, yet in a token of it no less sure, than
of his Spirit. Where the gospel is faithfully preach¬
ed, gospel-ordinances duly administered, and God
worshipped in the name of Jesus Christ only, it may
truly be said, The Lord is there; for faithful is he
that has said it, and he will be as good as his word.
Lo, I am with you always, even unto the encl of the
world. The Ford is there in his church to rule and
govern it, to protect and defend it, and graciously
to accept and own his sincere worshippers, and to
be nigh unto them in all that they call upon him for.
This should engage us to keep close to the commu¬
nion of saints, for the Lord is there; and then whi¬
ther else shall we go to mend ourselves ? Nay, it is
true of every good Christian, he dwells in God, and
God in him; whatever soul has in it a living prin¬
ciple of grace, it may be truly said. The Lord is
there.
795
EZEKIEL, XLVIII.
(3. ) That the glory and happiness of heaven
should consist chiefly in this, that the Lord is there.
St. John’s representation of that blessed state does
indeed far exceed this, in many respects. That is
all gold, and pearls, and precious stones; it is much
larger than this, and much brighter, for it needs not
the light of the sun. But in making the presence
of God the principal matter of its bliss, they both
agree. There the happiness of the glorified saints
is made to be, that Goa himself shall be with them,
(Rev. xxi. 3.) that he who sits on the throne shall
dwell among them. Rev. vii. 15. And here it is
made to crown the bliss of this holy city, that the
Lord is there. Let us therefore give all diligence
to make sure to ourselves a place in that city, that
we may be for ever with the Lord-.
AN
EXPOSITION,
WITH
PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS,
OF THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET
DANIEL.
THE book of Ezekiel left the affairs of Jerusalem under a doleful as/iect, all in rums, but with a joyful
prospect of all in glory again. This of Daniel fitly follows. Ezekiel told us what was seen, and what
was foreseen, by him in the former years of the captivity: Daniel tells us what was seen, and foreseen,
in the latter years of the captivity: when God employs different hands, yet it is about the same work.
And it was a comfort to the poor captives, that they had first one prophet among them and then
another, to show them how long , and a sign that God had not quite cast them off. Let us inquire,
I. Concerning this / iro/ihet ; his Hebrew name was Daniel, whicli signifies the judgment of God; his
Chaldean name was Belteshazzar. He was of the tribe of Judah, and, as it should seem, of the royal
family; he was betimes eminent for wisdom and' piety. Ezekiel, his contemporary, but much his
senior, speaks of him as an oracle, when thus he upbraids the king of Tyre with his conceitedness of
himself : Thou art wiser than Daniel, Ezek. xxviii. 3. He is likewise there celebrated for success in
prayer, when Noah, Daniel, and Job are reckoned as three men that had the greatest interest in heaven
of any other, Ezek. xiv. 14. He began betimes to be famous, and continued long so. Some of the
Jewish Rabbins are loath to acknowledge him to be a prophet of the higher form, and therefore rank
his book among the Hagiografiha, not among the prophecies, and would not have their disciples pay
much regard to it. One reason they pretend is, because he did not live such a mean, mortified life as
Jeremiah and some other of the prophets did, but lived like a prince, and was a prime minister of state;
whereas we find him persecuted as other prophets were, (ch. vi. ) and mortifying himself as other
prophets did, when he ate no pleasant bread, ( ch . x. 3. ) and fainting and sick when he was under
the power of the Spirit of prophecy, ch. viii. 27. Another reason they pretend is, because he wrote
his book in a heathen country, and there had his visions, and not in the land of Israel; but, by the same
reason, Ezekiel also must be expunged out of the roll of prophets. But the true reason is, he speaks so
plainly of the time of the Messiah’s coming, that the Jews cannot avoid the conviction of it, and there¬
fore do not care to hear of it. But Josephus calls him one of the greatest of the prophets, nay, the angel
Gabriel calls him a man greatly beloved. He lived long an active life in the courts and councils of
some of the greatest monarchs the world ever had, Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Darius; for we mistake
if we confine the privilege of an intercourse with heaven to speculative men, or those that spend their
time in contemplation; no, who was more intimately acquainted with the mind of God than Daniel, a
courtier, a statesman, and a man of business? The Spirit, as the wind, blows where it lists. And if
those that have much to do in the world, plead that as an excuse for the seldomness and the slightness of
their converse with God, Daniel will condemn them. Some have thought that he returned to Jerusalem,
and was one of the masters of the Greek synagogue; hut nothing of that appears in scripture, it is
therefore generally concluded that he died in Persia, at Susan, where he lived to be very old.
II. Concerning this book. The first six chapters of it are historical, and are plain and easy; the six last
are prophetical, and in them are many things dark, and hard to be understood; which yet would be
more intelligible if we had a more complete history of the nations, and especially the Jewish nation,
from Daniel’s time to the coming of the Messiah. Our Saviour intimates the difficulty of apprehending
the sense of Daniel’s prophecies, when, speaking of them, he says, Let him that readeth understand,
Matth. xxiv. 15. The first chapter, and the three first verses of the second chapter, are in Hebrew;
thence to the eighth chapter is in the Chaldee dialect; from thence to the end is in Hebrew. Mr.
Broughton observes, That, as the Chaldeans were kind to Daniel, and gave cups of cold water to him
when he requested it, rather than the king’s wine, God would not have them lose their reward, but
made that language which they taught him, to have honour in his writings through all the world unto
this day. Daniel, according to his computation, continues the holy story from the first surprising of
Jerusalem by the Chaldean Babel, when he himself was carried away captive, until the last destruction
of it by Rome, the mystical Babel, for so far forward his predictions look, ch. ix. 27. The fables of
Susanna, and of Bel and the Dragon, in both which Daniel is made a party, are apocryphal stories,
which we think we have no reason to give any credit to, they never being found in the Hebrew or
Chaldee, but only in the Greek, nor ever admitted by the Jewish church. There are some, both of the
histories and of the prophecies of this book, that bear date in the latter end of the Chaldean monarchy,
and others of both, that are dated in the beginning of the Persian monarchy. But both Nebuchadnez¬
zar’s dream, which he inteipreted, and his own visions, point at the Grecian and Roman monarchies,
and very particularly at the Jews’ troubles under Antiochus, which it would be of great use to them to
prepare for; as his fixing the very time for the coming of the Messiah, was to all them that waited the
consolation of Israel, and is to us, for the confirming of our belief, That this is he who should come, and
we are to look for no other.
797
DANIEL, I.
CHAP. I.
This chapter gives us a more particular account of the be¬
ginning of Daniel’s life, his original and education, than
we have of any other of the prophets. Isaiah, Jere¬
miah, and Ezekiel began immediately with divine vi¬
sions; but Daniel began with the study of human learn¬
ing, and was afterward honoured with divine visions;
such variety of methods has God taken in training up
men for the service of his church. We have here, I.
Jehoiakim’s first captivity, (v. 1,2.) in which Daniel,
with others of the seed royal, was carried to Babylon.
II. The choice made of Daniel, and some other young
men, to be brought up in the Chaldean literature, that
they might be fitted to serve the government, and the
provision made for them, v. 3.. 7. III. Their pious
refusal to eat the portion of the king’s meat, and their
determining to live upon pulse and water, which, having
tried it, the master of the eunuchs allowed them to do,
finding that it agreed very well with them, v. 8 . . 16.
IV. Their wonderful improvement, above all their fel¬
lows, in wisdom and knowledge, v. 17 . . 21.
1. TTN the third year of the reign of Je-
JL hoiakim king of Judah came Nebu¬
chadnezzar king of Babylon unto Jerusa¬
lem, and besieged it. 2. And the Lord
gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand,
with part of the vessels of the house of God,
which he carried into the land of Shinar,
to the house of his god; and he brought the
vessels into the treasure-house of his god.
3. And the king spake unto Ashpenaz the
master of his eunuchs, that he should bring
certain of the children of Israel, and of the
king’s seed, and of the princes; 4. Chil¬
dren in whom was no blemish, but well-
favoured, and skilful in all wisdom, and
cunning in knowledge, and understanding
science, and such as had ability in them to
stand in the king’s palace, and whom they
might teach the learning and the tongue of
the Chaldeans. 5. And the king appointed
them a daily provision of the king’s meat,
and of the wine which he drank ; so nou¬
rishing them three years, that at the end
thereof they might stand before the king.
G. Now among these were of the children
of Judah, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and
Azariah; 7. Unto whom the prince of the
eunuchs gave names: for he gave unto
Daniel, the name of Belteshazzar; and to
Hananiah, of Shadrach; and to Mishael,
of Meshach ; and to Azariah, of Abed-nego.
We have, in these verses, an account,
I. Of the first descent which Nebuchadnezzar
king of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, made
upon Judah and Jerusalem, in the third year of the
reign of Jehoiakim, and his success in that expedi¬
tion; (d. 1, 2.) he besieged Jerusalem, soon made
himself master of it, seized the king, took whom he
pleased, and what he pleased, away with him, and
then left Jehoiakim to reign as tributary to him,
which he did about eight years longer; but then re¬
belled, and it was his ruin. Now from this first cap¬
tivity, most interpreters think the seventy years
are to be dated, though Jerusalem was not destroyed,
nor the captivity completed, till about nineteen years
after. In that first year Daniel was carried to Ba¬
bylon, and there continued the whole seventy years,
(see v. 21.) during which time all nations shall
serve Nebuchadnezzar, and his son, and his son’s
son, Jer. xxv. 11. So that this one prophet saw
within the compass of his own time, the rise, reign,
and ruin of that monarchy ; so that it was res unius
cetatis — the affair of a single age; such short-lived
tilings are the kingdoms of the earth, but the king¬
dom of heaven is everlasting. The righteous, that
see them taking root, shall see their fall, Job v. 3.
Prov. xxix. 16. Mr. Broughton observes the pro¬
portion of times in God’s government since the com¬
ing out of Egypt; thence to their entering Canaan
forty years, thence seven years to the dividing of the
land, thence seven J ubilees to the first year of Samuel,
in whom prophecy began; thence to this first year ot
the captivity seven seventies of years, 490, (ten Ju¬
bilees,) thence to the return, one seventy, thence to
1 the death of Christ seven seventies more, and from
thence to the destruction of Jerusalem forty years.
II. The improvement he made of this success; he
did not destroy the city or kingdom, but did that
which just accomplished the first threatening of
mischief by Babylon; it was that denounced against
Hezekiah for showing his treasures to the king ot
Babylon’s ambassadors, (Isa. xxxix. 6, 7.) that the
treasures and the children should be carried away,
and if they had been humbled and reformed by this,
hitherto the king of Babylon’s power and success
should have gone, but no further. If lesser judg¬
ments do the work, God will not send greater; but
if not, he will heat the furnace seven times hotter.
Let us see what was now done:
1. The vessels of the sanctuary were carried
away; fiart of them, v. 2. They fondly trusted to
the temple to defend them, though they went on in
their iniquitv. And now, to show them the vanity
of that confidence, the temple is first plundered;
many of the holy vessels which used to be employed
in the service of God, were taken away by the king
of Babylon, those of them, it is likely, which were
most valuable, and he brought them as trophies of
victory to the house of his god, to whom, with a
blind devotion, he gave the praise of his success,
and, having appropriated these vessels, in token of
gratitude, to his god, he put them in the treasury of
his temple. Seethe righteousness of God; his peo¬
ple had brought the images of other gods into his
temple, and now he suffers the vessels of the tem¬
ple to be carried into the treasuries of those other
gods. Note, When men profane the vessels of the
sanctuary with their sins, it is just with God to pro¬
fane them by his judgments. It is probable that the
treasures of the king’s house were rifled, as was
foretold, but particular mention is made of the taking
away of the vessels of the sanctuary, because we
shall find afterward, that the profanation of them
was it which filled up the measure of the Chaldeans’
iniquity, ch. v. 3. But observe, It was only part of
them that went now; some were left them yet upon
trial, to see if they would take the right course to
prevent the carrying away of the remainder. See
Jer. xxvii. 18.
2. The children and young men, especially such
as were of noble or royal extraction, that were
sightly and promising, and of good natural parts,
were carried away. Thus was the iniquity of the
fathers visited upon the children. These were taken
away by Nebuchadnezzar; (1.) As trophies, to be
made a show of for the evidencing and magnifying
of his success. (2.) As hostages, for the fidelity of
their parents in their own land, who would be con¬
cerned to conduct themselves well, that their chil¬
dren might have the better treatment. (3.) As a
seed to serve him; he took them away to train
i them up for employments and preferments under
him; either out of an unaccountable affectation,
which great men often have, to be attended by fo¬
reigners, though they be blacks, rather than by
798
DANIEL, I.
those of their own nation; or because he knew that
there were no such witty, sprightly, ingenious young
men to be found among his Chaldeans, as abounded
among the youtli of Israel; and if that were so, it
was much for the honour of the Jewish nation, as of
an uncommon genius above other people, and a fruit
of the blessing. But it was a shame that a people
which had so much wit, should have so little wisdom
and grace. Now observe,
[1.] The directions which the king of Babylon gave
for the choice of these youths, v. 4. They must
not choose such as were deformed in body, but comely
and well-favoured, whose countenances were indexes
of ingenuity and good humour; but that is not enough,
they must be skilful in all wisdom and cunning, or
well-seen in knowledge, and understanding science,
who were quick and sharp, and could give a ready
and intelligent account of their own country, and of
the learning they had hitherto been brought up in.
He chose such as were young, because they would
be pliable and tractable, would forget their own
people, and incorporate with the Chaldeans. He
had an eye to what he designed them for; they must
be such as had ability in them to stand in the king’s
palace, not only to attend his royal person, but to
preside in his affairs. This is an instance of the
policy of this rising monarch, now in the beginning
of his reign, and was a good omen of his prosperity,
that he was in care to raise up a succession of per¬
sons fit for public business. He did not, like Aha-
suerus, appoint them to choose him out young wo-
men for the service of his lusts, but young meti for
the service of his government. It is the interest of
princes to have wise men employed under them; it
is therefore their wisdom to take care for the find¬
ing out and training up of such. It is the misery of
this world, that so many who are fit for public stations
are buried in obscurity, and so many who are unfit
for them are preferred to them.
[2.] The care which he took concerning them:
first. For their education. He ordered that they
should be taught the learning and tongue of the
Chaldeans. They are supposed to be wise and know¬
ing young men, and yet they must be further taught;
Give instruction to a wise man, and he will increase
in learning. Note, Those that would do good in
the world when they are grown up, must learn
when they are young. That is the learning age; if
that time be lost, it will hardly be redeemed. It
does not appear that Nebuchadnezzar designed they
should learn the unlawful arts that were used among
the Chaldeans, magic and divination; if he did,
Daniel and his fellows would not defile themselves
with them. Nay, we do not find that he ordered
them to be taught the religion of the Chaldeans; by
this it appears that he was at this time no bigot; if
men were skilful and faithful, and fit for his busi¬
ness, it was not material to him what religion they
were of, provided they had but some religion. They
must be trained up in the language and laws of the
country, in history, philosophy, and mathematics;
in the arts of husbandry, war, and navigation; in
such learning as might qualify them to serve their
generation. Note, It is real service to the public
to provide for the good education of youth.
Secondly, For their maintenance. He provided
for them three years, not only necessaries, but dain¬
ties, for their encouragement in their studies; they
had daily provision of the king’s meat, and of the
wine which he drank, v. 5. This was an instance of
his generosity and humanity; though they were his
captives, he considered their birth and quality, their
spirit and genius, and treated them honourably, and
studied to make their captivity easy to them. There
is a respect owing to those who are well-born and
bred, when they are fallen into distress. With a libe-
jl education there should be a liberal maintenance.
III. A particular account of Daniel and his fel¬
lows; they were ot the children of Judah, the royal
tribe, and, probably, of the house of David, which
was grown a numerous family; and God told Heze-
kiah, that of the children that should issue from him,
some should be taken, and made eunuchs, or cham¬
berlains, iti the palace of the king of Babylon. The
prince of the eunuchs changed the names of Daniel
and his fellows, partly to show his authority over
them and their subjection to him, and partly in token
of their being naturalized, and made Chaldeans.
Their Hebrew names, which they received at their
circumcision had something of God, or Jah in them;
Dank! — God is my Judge; Hananiah — The grace
of the Lord; Mishael- — He that is the strong God;
Azariah — The Lord is a Help; to make them forget
the God of their fathers, the Guide of their youth,
they give them names that savour of the Chaldean
idolatry; Belteshazzar signifies, the keeper of the
hid treasures of Bel; Shadrach — The inspiration of
the sun, which the Chaldeans worshipped; Meshuch
— of the goddess Shaca, under which name Venus
was worshipped; Abed-nego — The servant of the
shining fire, which they worshipped also. Thus,
though they would net force them from the religion
of their fathers to that of their conquerors, yet they
did what they could by fair means, insensibly to
wean them from the former, and instil the latter
into them. Yet see how comfortably they were pro¬
vided for: though they suffered for their father’s
sins, they were preferred for their own merits; and
the land of their captivity was made more comfort¬
able to them than the land of their nativity at this
time would have been.
8. But Daniel purposed in his heart that
he would not defile himself with the portion
of the king’s meat, nor with the wine which
he drank: therelbre he requested of the
prince of the eunuchs that he might not de¬
file himself. 9. Now God had brought
Daniel into favour and tender love with the
prince of the eunuchs. 10. And the prince
of the eunuchs said unto Daniel, I fear my
lord the king, who hath appointed your
meat and your drink: for why should he
see your faces worse liking than the chil¬
dren which are of your sort ? then shall ye
make me endanger my head to the king?
1 1. Then said Daniel to Melzar, whom the
prince of the eunuchs had set over Daniel,
Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, 12.
Prove thy servants, I beseech thee, ten
days ; and let them give us pulse to eat,
and water to drink. 13. Then let our coun¬
tenances be looked upon before thee, and
the countenance of the children that cat of
the portion of the king’s meat; and as thou
seest, deal with thy servants. 14. So he
consented to them in this matter, and prov¬
ed them ten days. 15. And at the end of
ten days their countenances appeared fairer
and fatter in flesh than all the children
which did eat the portion of the king’s meat.
16. Thus Melzar took away the portion of
their meat, and the wine that they should
drink, and gave them pulse.
We observe here, very much to our satisfaction,
799
DANIEL, I.
1. That Daniel was a favourite with the prince of
the eunuchs, (v. 9.) as Joseph was with the keeper
of the prison: he had a tender love for him. No
doubt, Daniel deserved it, and recommended him¬
self by his ingenuity and sweetness of temper; he
was greatli/ beloved, ( ch . ix. 23. ) and yet it is said
here, God brought him into favour with the firince
of the eunuchs, for every one does not meet with ac¬
ceptance according to his merits. Note, The inte¬
rest which we think we make for ourselves, we
must acknowledge to be God’s gift, and must as¬
cribe to him the glory of it. Whoever are in favour,
it is God that has brought. them into favour; and it
is by him that they find good understanding. Herein
was again verified that word, (Ps. cvi. 46. ; He made
them to be fiitied of all those that carried them cap-
tives. Let young ones know that the way to be ac¬
ceptable is to’ be tractable and dutiful.
2. That Daniel was still firm to his religion. They
had changed his name, but they could not change
his nature; whatever they pleased to call him, lie
still retained the spirit of an Israelite indeed. He
would apply his mind as closely as any of them all to
his books, and took pains to make himself master of
the learning and tongue of the Chaldeans; but he
was resolved that he would not defile himself with
thefiortion of the Icing’s meat; he would not meddle
with it, nor with the wine which he drank, v. 8. And
having communicated his purpose, with the reasons
of it, to his fellows, they concurred in the same re¬
solution, as appears, v. 11. This was not out of sul¬
lenness, or peevishness, or a spirit of contradiction,
but from a principle of conscience. Perhaps it was
not in itself unlawful for them to eat of the king’s
meat, or to drink of his wine. But, (1.) They were
scrupulous concerning the meat, lest it should be
sinful. Sometimes such meat would be set before
them as was expressly forbidden by their law, as
swine’s flesh; or they were afraid lest it should have
been offered in sacrifice to an idol, or blessed in the
name of an idol. The Jews were distinguished from
other nations very much by their meats; (Lev. xi.
45, 46.) and these pious young men, being in a
strange country, thought themselves obliged to keep
up the honour of their being a peculiar people.
Though they could not keep up their dignity as
princes, they would not lose it as Israelites; for on
that they most valued themselves. Note, When
( God’s people are in Babylon, they have need to take
) special care that they partake not in her sins. Pro¬
vidence seemed to lay this meat before them; being
captives, they must eat what they could get, and
must not disoblige their masters; yet, if the com¬
mand be against it, they must abide by that: though
Providence says. Kill, and eat; conscience says,
Not so, Lord, for nothing common or unclean has
come into my mouth. (2. ) They were jealous over
themselves, lest, though it should not be sinful in
itself, it should be an occasion of sin to them; lest,
by indulging their appetites with these dainties,
they should grow sinful and voluptuous, and in love
with the pleasures of Babylon: they had learned
David’s prayer. Let me not eat of their dainties,
(Ps. cxli. 4.) and Solomon’s precept, Be not desir¬
ous of dainties, for they are deceitful meat; (Prov.
xxiii. 3.) and accordingly they form their resolution.
Note, It is very much to the praise of all, and espe¬
cially of young people, to be dead to the delights of
sense, not to covet them, not to relish them, but to
look upon them with indifference. Those that
would excel in wisdom and piety, must learn be¬
times to keep under the body, and bring it into sub¬
jection. (3.) However, they thought it unseason¬
able now, when Jerusalem was in distress, and they
themselves in captivity. They had no heart to
drink wine in bowls, so much were they grieved for
the affliction of Joseph. Though they had royal
blood in their veins, yet they did not think it proper
to have royal dainties in their mouths when they
were thus brought low. Note, It becomes us to be
humble under humbling providences. Call me not
JVaomi, call me Marah. See the benefit of affliction;
by the account Jeremiah gives of the princes anij
great men now at Jerusalem, it appears that they
were very corrupt and wicked, and defiled them¬
selves with things offered to idpls, while these young
gentlemen that were in captivity, would not defile
themselves, no, not with their portion of the king's
meat. How much better is it with those that retain
their integrity in the depths of affliction than with
those that retain their iniquity in the heights of
prosperity! Observe, The great thing that Daniel
avoided, was, defiling himself with the pollutions
of sin; that is the thing we should be more afraid of
than of any outward trouble. Daniel, having ta¬
ken up this resolution, requested of the prince of the
eunuchs that he might not defile himself, not only
that he might not be compelled to do it, but that he
might not be tempted to do it; that the bait might
not be laid before him; that he might not sec the
portion appointed him of the king’s meats, nor leek
upon the wine when it was red: it will be easier to
keep the temptation at a distance than to suffer it to
come near, and then be forced to put a knife to our
throat. Note, We cannot better improve our in¬
terest in any with whom we have found favour
than to make use of them to keep us from sin.
3. That God wonderfully owned him herein;
when Daniel requested that he might have none of
the king’s meat or wine set before him, the prince
of the eunuchs objected, that if he and his fellows
were not found in as good case as any of their com¬
panions, he should be in danger of having anger,
and of losing his head, v. 10.
Daniel, to satisfy him that there would be no
danger of any bad consequence, desires the matter
might be put to a trial. He applies himself further,
to the under-officer, Melzar, or the steward; "Prove
us for ten days; during that time let us have nothing
but pulse to eat, nothing but herbs and fruits, or
parched peas or lentils, and nothing but water to
drink, and see how we can live upon that, and pro¬
ceed accordingly,”^. 12. People will not believe
the benefit of abstemiousness and a spare diet, nor
how much it contributes to the health of the body,
unless they try it. Trial was accordingly made;
Daniel and his fellows lived for ten days upon pulse
and water, hard fare for young men of genteel ex¬
traction and education, and which one would rather
expect they should have indented against than pe¬
titioned for; but at the end of ten days they were
compared with the other children, and were found
fairer and fatter in flesh, of a more healthful look,
and a better complexion than all those which did eat
the portion of the king’s meat, v. 15. This was in
part a natural effect of their temperance, but it
must be ascribed to the special blessing of God,
which will make a little to go a great way ; a dinner
of herbs better than a stalled ox. By this it appears
that man lives not by bread alone; pulse and water
shall be the most nourishing food if God speak the
word. See what it is to keep ourselves pure from
the pollutions of sin, it is the way to have that com¬
fort and satisfaction which will be health to the navel
and marrow to the bones, while the pleasures of sin
are rottenness to the bones.
4. That his master countenanced him. The
steward did not force them to eat against their con¬
sciences, but, as they desired, gave them pulse and
water, (x>. 16.) the pleasures of which they enjoyed,
and we have reason to think were not envied the
enjoyment. Here is a great example of temperance
and contentment with mean things; and (as Epicu¬
rus said) “He that lives according to nature will
300
DANIEL, II.
never be poor, but he that lives according to opinion
will never be rich.” This wonderful abstemious¬
ness of these young men in the days of their youth
contributed to the fitting of them, (1.) For their
eminent services; hereby they kept their minds
dear and unclouded, and fit for contemplation, and
saved for the best employments a great deal both
of time and thought; and thus they prevented those
diseases which indispose men for the business of
age, that owe their rise to the intemperances of
youth. (2.) For their eminent sufferings. They
that had thus inured themselves to hardship, and
lived a life of self-denial and mortification, could
the more easily venture upon the Jienj furnace and
the den of lions, rather than sin against God.
17. As for these four children, God gave
them knowledge and skill in all learning
and wisdom: and Daniel had understanding
in all visions and dreams. 1 8. Now, at the
end of the days that the king had said lie
should bring them in, then the prince of the
eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchad¬
nezzar. 1 9. And the king communed with
them: and among them all w'as found none
like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Aza-
riah: therefore stood they before the king.
20. And in all matters of wisdom and un- j
derstanding, that the king inquired of them,
he found them ten times better than all the
magicians and astrologers that were, in all
his realm. 21. And Daniel continued even
unto the first year of king Cyrus.
Concerning Daniel and his fellows, we have here,
1. Their great attainments in learning, v. 17.
They were very sober and diligent, and studied
hard; and we may suppose their tutors, finding
them of an uncommon capacity, took a deal of pains
with them, but, after all, their achievements are
ascribed to God only: it was he that gave them
knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom; for
every good and perfect gift is from above, from the
Father oj lights; it is the Lord our God that gives
men power to get this wealth; the mind is furnished
only by him that formed it. The great learning
winch God gave these four children was, (1.) A
balance for their losses; they had, for the iniquity of
their fathers, been deprived of the honours and
pleasures that would have attended their noble ex¬
traction; but, to make them amends for that, God,
in giving them learning, gave them better honours
and pleasures than those they had been deprived of.
(2.) A recompense for their integrity; they kept to
their religion, even in the minutest instances of it,
and would not so much as defile themselves with
the king’s meat or wine, but became, in effect,
Nazarites; and now God rewarded them for it with
an eminency in learning; for God gives to a man
that is good in his sight, wisdom and knowledge,
and joy with them, Eccl. ii. 26. To Daniel he gave
a double portion, he had understanding in visions
and dreams; he knew how to interpret dreams, as
Joseph, not by rules of art, such as are pretended
to be given by the Oneirocritics; but by a divine sa¬
gacity and wisdom which God gave him. Nay, he
was endued with a prophetical spirit, by which he
was enabled to converse with God, and to receive
the notices oi divine things in dreams and visions,
Numb. xii. 6. According to this gift given to
Daniel, we find him, in this book, all along employ¬
ed about dreams and visions, interpreting or enter¬
taining them; for as every one has received the gift,
so shall he have an opportunity, and so should lie
have a heart, to minister the same, 1 Pet. iv. 10.
2. Their great acceptance with the king. After
three years spent in their education, (they being of
some maturity, it is likely, when they came, per¬
haps about twenty years old,) they were presented
to the king with the rest that were of their stand¬
ing, v. 18. And the king examined them, and
communed with them himself, v. 19. He could do
it, being a man of parts and learning himself, else
he had not come to be so great; and he would do it;
for it is the wisdom of princes, in the choice of the
persons they employ, to see with their own eyes, to
exercise their own judgment, and not trust too much
to the representation of others. The king examined
them not so much in the languages, in the rules of
oratory or poetry, as in all matters of wisdom and
understanding, the rules of prudence and true poli
tics: he inquired into their judgment about the due
conduct of human life and public affairs; not, “Were
they wits?” but, “ Were they wise?” And he found
them to excel not only the young candidates for pre
ferment, that were of their own standing, but that
they had more understanding than the ancients,
than all their teachers, Ps. cxix. 99, 100. So far
was the king from being partial to his own country¬
men, to seniors, to those of his own religion, and of
an established reputation, that he freely owned that,
upon trial, he found those poor young captive Jews
ten times wiser and better than all the magicians
that were in all his realm, v. 20. He was soon
aware of something extraordinary in these young
men, and, which gave him a surprising satisfaction,
was soon aware that a little of their true divinity
was preferable to a great deal of the divination he had
been used to. What is the chaff to the wheat, the
magicians’ rods to Aaron’s! There was no compari¬
son between them ; these four young students were
better, were ten times better, than all the old prac¬
titioners — put them all together, that were in all his
realm, and we may be sure that they were notafew.
This contempt did God pour upon the pride of the
Chaldeans, and this honour did he put upon the low
estate of his own people; and thus did he make not
only these persons, but the rest of the nation for
their sakes, the more respected in the land of their
captivity. Lastly, This judgment being given con¬
cerning them, they stood before the king; (y. 19.)
they attended in the presence-chamber, nay, and in
the council-chamber; for to see the king’s face is the
periphrasis of a privy counsellor, Estli. i. 14. This
confirms Solomon’s observation, Seest thou a man
diligent in his business, sober and humble? He
shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before
mean men. Industry is the way to preferment.
How long the other three were about the court, we
are not told; but Daniel, for his part, continued to
the first year of Cyrus, (v. 21.) though not always
alike in favour and reputation. He lived and pro¬
phesied after the first year of Cyrus; but that is
mentioned, to intimate that he lived to see the de¬
liverance of his people out of their captivity, and
their return to their own land. Note, Sometimes
God favours his servants that mourn with Zion in
her sorrows, to let them live to see better times
with the church than they saw in the beginning of
their days, and to share with her in her joys.
CHAP. II.
It was said (ch. i. 17.) that Daniel had understanding in
dreams; and here we have an early and eminent instance
of it, which soon made him famous in the court of Baby¬
lon, as Joseph by the same means came to be so in the
court of Egypt. This chapter is a history, but it is the
history of a prophecy, by a dream, and the interpretation
of it. Pharaoh’s dream, and Joseph’s interpretation of
it, related only to the years of plenty and famine, and
the interest of God’s Israel in them; but Nebuchadnez-
801
DANIEL, II
zur’s dream here, and Daniel’s interpretation of that,
looks much higher, to the four monarchies, and the con¬
cerns of Israel in them, and the kingdom of the Messiah,
which should be set up in the world upon the ruins of
them. In this chapter, we have, I. The great perplexity
that Nebuchadnezzar was put into by a dream which he
had forgotten, and his command to the magicians, to tell
him what it was, which they could not pretend to do, v.
1 . .11. II. Orders given for the destroying of all the
wise men of Babylon, and of Daniel among the rest,
with his fellows, v. 12.. 15. III. The discovery of this
secret to him, in answer to prayer, and the thanksgiving
he offered up to God thereupon, v. 16. .23. IV. His ad¬
mission to the king, and the discovery he made to him
both of his dream, and of the interpretation of it, v.
24.. 45. V. The great honour which Nebuchadnezzar
put upon Daniel, in recompense for this service, and the
preferment of his companions with him, v. 46 . . 49.
AND in the second year of the reign
of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnez¬
zar dreamed dreams, wherewith his spirit
was troubled, and his sleep brake from him.
2. Then the king commanded to call the
magicians, and the astrologers, and the sor¬
cerers, and the Chaldeans, for to shew the
king his dreams. So they came and stood
before the king. 3. And the king said unto
them, I have dreamed a dream, and my
spirit was troubled to know the dream. 4.
Then spake the Chaldeans to the king in
Syriac, O king, live for ever: tell thy ser¬
vants the. dream, and we will shew the in¬
terpretation. 5. The king answered and
said to the Chaldeans, The thing is gone
from me: if ye will not make known unto
me the dream, with the interpretation there¬
of, ye shall be cut in pieces, and your
houses shall be made a dunghill: 6. But if
ye shew the dream, and the interpretation
thereof, ye shall receive of me gifts, and re¬
wards, and great honour: therefore shew
me the dream and the interpretation there¬
of. 7. They answered again, and said, Let
the king tell his servants the dream, and we
will shew the interpretation of it. 8. The
king answered and said, I know of certainty
that ye would gain the time, because ye see
the thing is gone from me. 9. But if ye
will not make known unto me the dream,
there is but one decree for you ; for ye have
prepared lying and corrupt words to speak
before me till the time be changed; there¬
fore tell me the dream, and I shall know
that ye can shew me the interpretation
thereof. 1 0. The Chaldeans answered be¬
fore the king, and said, There is not a man
upon the earth that can shew the king’s
matter: therefore there is no king, lord, nor
ruler, that asked such things at any magi¬
cian, or astrologer, or Chaldean. 11. And
it is a rare thing that the king requireth ;
and there is none other that can shew it
before the king except the gods, whose
dwelling is not with flesh. 12. For this
cause the king was angry and very furious,
Voi„ IV - 5 1
and commanded to destroy all the wise
men of Babylon. 1 3. And the decree went
forth that the wise men should be slain ; and
they sought Daniel and his fellows to be slain.
We meet with a great difficulty in the date of this
story; it is said to be in the second year of the reign
of Nebuchadnezzar, v. 1. Now Daniel was carried
to Babylon in his first year, and, it should seem, he
was three years under tutors and governors, before
he was presented to the king, c/i. i. 5. How then
could this happen in the second year? Perhaps
though three years were appointed for the education
of other children, yet Daniel was so forward, that
he was taken into business when he had been but
one year at school, and so in the second year he be¬
came thus considerable. Some make it to be the
second year after he began to reign alone, but the
fifth or sixth year since he began to reign in part¬
nership with his father. Some read it, And in the
second year, (the second after Daniel and his fel¬
lows stood before the king,) in the kingdom of Ne¬
buchadnezzar, or in his reign, this happened; as Jo¬
seph, in the second year after his skill in dreams,
showed, expounded Pharaoh’s, so Daniel, in the
second year after he commenced master in that art,
did this service. I would much rather take it in
some of these ways, than suppose, as some do, that
it was in the second year after he had conquered
Egypt, which was the thirty-sixth year of his reign,
because it appears, by what we meet with in Eze¬
kiel, that Daniel was famous both for wisdom, and
prevalence in prayer, long before that; and there¬
fore this passage, or story, which shows how he
came to be so eminent for both these, must be laid
early in Nebuchadnezzar’s reign. Now here we
may observe,
1. The perplexity that Nebuchadnezzar was in,
by reason of a dream which he had dreamed, but
had forgotten ; ( v . 1.) He dreamed dreams, a dream
consisting of divers distinct parts, or which filled his
head as much as if it had been many dreams. So¬
lomon speaks of a multitude of dreams, strangely in¬
coherent, in which there are divers vanities, Eccl.
v. 7. This dream of Nebuchadnezzar’s had nothing
in the thing itself but what might be paralleled in
many a common dream, in which are often repre¬
sented to men things as foreign as this here; but
there was something in the impression it made upon
him, which carried with it an incontestable evidence
of its divine original, and its prophetic significancy.
Note, The greatest of men are not exempt from,
nay, they lie most open to, those cares and troubles
of mind, which disturb their repose in the night,
while the sleep of the labouring man is sweet and
sound, and the sleep of the sober, temperate man
free from confused dreams; the abundance of the
rich will not suffer them to sleep at all for care, and
the excesses of gluttons and drunkards will not suf¬
fer them to sleep quietly for dreaming. But this
recorded here was not from natural causes. Ne¬
buchadnezzar was a troubler of God’s Israel, but
God here troubled him ; for he that made the soul
can make his sword to approach to it. He had his
guards about him, but they could not keep trouble
from his spirit. We know not the uneasiness of
many that live in great pomp, and, one would think,,
in pleasure too. We look into their houses, and arc
tempted to envy them; but could we look into their
hearts, we should pity them rather. All the trea¬
sures and all the delights of the children of men,
which this mighty monarch had the command of,
could not procure him a little repose, when by rea¬
son of the trouble of his mind his sleep brake from
him; but God gives his beloved sleep, who return to,
him as their Rest.
802
DANIEL, 11.
2. The trial that he made of his magicians and
astrologers, whether they could tell him what his
dream was, which he had forgotten. They were
immediately sent for, to show the king his dreams, v.
2. There are many things which we retain the
impressions of, and yet have lost the images of the
things; though we cannot tell what the matter was,
we know how we were affected with it; so it was
with this king. His dream had slipped out of his
mind, and he could not possibly recollect it, but was
confident he should know it if he heard it again.
God ordered it so that Daniel might have the more
honour, and, in him, the God of Daniel. Note,
God sometimes serves his own purposes by putting
things out of men’s minds as well as by putting
things into their minds. The magicians, it is likely,
were proud of their being sent for into the king’s
bed-chamber, to give him a taste of their office, not
doubting but it would be for their honour. He tells
them that he had dreamed a dream, v. 3. They
speak to him in the Syriac tongue, which was then
the same with the Chaldee, but now they differ
much. And from henceforward Daniel uses that
language, or dialect of the Hebrew, for the same
reason that those words, Jer. x. 1 1. are in that lan¬
guage, because designed to convince the Chaldeans
of the folly of their idolatry, and to bring them to
the knowledge and worship of the true and living
God, which the stories of these chapters have a di¬
rect tendency to; but ch. viii. and forward, being
intended for the comfort of the Jews, is written in
their peculiar language. They, in their answer,
complimented the king with their good wishes, de¬
sired him to tell his dream, and undertook with all
ossible assurance to interpret it, v. 4. But the
ing insisted upon it, that they must tell him the
dream itself; because he had forgotten it, and could
not tell it them. And if they could not do this, they
should all be put to death as deceivers,' (v. 5. ) them¬
selves cut to pieces, and their houses made a dung¬
hill. If they could, they should be rewarded and
preferred, v. 6. And they knew, as Balaam did
concerning Balak, that he was able to promote them
to great honour, and give them that wages of un¬
righteousness, which, like him, they loved so dearly:
no question therefore that they will do their utmost
to gratify the king; if they do not, it is not for want
of good will, but for want of power; Providence so
ordering it, that the magicians of Babylon might
now be as much confounded and put to shame
as of old the magicians of Egypt had been; that,
how much soever his people were both in Egypt
and Babylon vilified and made contemptible, his
oracles might in both be magnified and made ho¬
nourable, by the silencing of those that set up in
competition with them. The magicians, having
reason on their side, insist upon it, that the king
must tell them the dream, and then, if they do not
tell him the interpretation of it, it is their fault, v.
7. But arbitrary power is deaf to reason; the king
falls into a passion, gives them hard words, and,
without any colour of reason, suspects that they
could tell him, but would not; instead of upbraiding
them with impotency, and the deficiency of their
art, as he might justly have done, he charges them
with a combination to affront him ; Ye have prepar¬
ed lying and corrupt words to speak before me.
How unreasonable and absurd is this imputation! If
they had undertaken to tell him what his dream
was, and had imposed upon him with a sham, he
might have charged them with lying and corrupt
•words; but to say this of them, when they honestly
confessed their own weakness, only shows what
uenseless things indulged passions are, and how apt
great men are to think it is their prerogative to pur¬
sue their humour, in defiance of reason and equity,
and all the dictates of both. When the magicians
begged of him to tell them the dream, though the
request was highly rational and just, he tells them
that they did but dally with him, to gain time, (t>.
8. ) till the time be changed, (to 9.) either till the
king’s desire to know his dream be over, and he
grown indifferent whether he be told it or no,
though now he is so hot upon it, or till they may
hope he has so perfectly forgotten his dream, (the
remaining shades of which are slipping from him
apace as he catches at them,) that they may tell
him what they please, and make him believe it was
his dream, and, when the thing which is going, is
quite gone from him, as it will be in a little time, he
will not be able to disprove them. And therefore,
without delay, they must tell him the dream. In
vain do they" plead, (1.) That there is no man on
earth that can retrieve the king’s dream, v. 10.
There are settled rules by which to discover what
the meaning of the dream was: whether they will
hold or no, is the question. But never were any
rules offered to be given, by which to discover what
the dream was; they cannot work unless they have
something to work upon. They acknowledge that
the gods may indeed declare unto man what is his
thought', (Amos iv. 13.) for he understands bur
thoughts afar off; (Ps. cxxxix. 2.) what they will
be before we think them, what they are when we
do not regard them, and what they have been when
we have forgotten them. But those who can do
this, are gods that/mre not their dwelling with flesh,
( v . 11.) and it is they alone that can do this. As
for men, their dwelling is with flesh, the wisest and
greatest of men are clouded with a veil of flesh
which quite obstructs and confounds all their ac¬
quaintance with spirits, and their powers and opera¬
tions; but the gods, that are themselves pure spirits,
know what is in man. See here an instance of the
ignorance of these magicians, that they speak of
many gods, whereas there is but one, and can be but
one infinite; yet see their knowledge of that which
even the light of nature teaches, and the works of
nature prove; that there is a God, who is a Spirit,
and perfectly knows the spirits of men, and all their
thoughts, so as it is not possible that any man should.
This confession of the divine omniscience is here
extorted from these idolaters, to the honour of
God, and their own condemnation, who, though
they know there is a God in heaven, to whom alt
hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom
no secret is hid, yet offered up their prayers and
praises to dumb idols, that have eyes and see not,
ears and hear not. (2.) That there is no king on
earth that would expert or require such a thing, i'.
10. This intimates that they were kings, lords,
and potentates, not ordinary people, that the magi¬
cians had most dealings with, and at whose devotion
they were, while the oracles of God, and the gospel
of Christ, are dispensed to the poor. Kings and po¬
tentates have often required unreasonable things of
their subjects, but they think that never any re¬
quired so unreasonable a thing as this, and therefore
hope his imperial majesty will not insist upon it.
But it is all in vain, when passion is in the throne
reason is under foot: he was angrij and very fu¬
rious, v. 12. Note, It is very common for those
that will not be convinced by reason, to be provoked
and exasperated by it, and to push on with fury
what they cannot support with equity.
3. The doom passed upon all the magicians of
Babylon; there is but one decree for them all, (v
9. ) they all stand condemned without exception or
distinction ; the decree is gone forth, they must every
man of them be slain, (f. 13.) Daniel and his fel¬
lows (though they knew nothing of the matter) not
excepted. See here, (1.) What are commonly the
unjust proceedings of arbitrary power. Nebuchad
nezzar is here a tyrant in true colours, speaking
803
DANIEL, II.
death when he cannot speak sense, and treating
those as traitors whose only fault is, that they would
serve him but cannot. (2.) What is commonly the
just punishment of pretenders. How unrighteous
soever Nebuchadnezzar was in this sentence, as to
the ringleaders in the imposture, God was righteous:
they that imposed upon men, in pretending to do
what they could not do, are now sentenced to death,
for not being able to do what they did not pretend to.
1 4. Then Daniel answered with counsel
and wisdom to Arioch the captain of the
king’s guard, which was gone forth to slay
the wise men of Babylon: 15. He answered
and said to Arioch the king’s captain, Why
is the decree so hasty from the king? Then
Arioch made the tiling known to Daniel.
1G. Then Daniel went in, and desired of
the king that he would give him time, and
that he would shew the king the interpreta¬
tion. 17. Then Daniel went to his house,
and made the thing known to Hananiah,
Mishael, and Azariah, his companions ; 18.
That they would desire mercies of the God
of heaven concerning this secret, that Daniel
and his fellows should not perish with the
rest of the wise men of Babylon. 1 9. Then
was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a
night-vision. Then Daniel blessed the God
of heaven. 20. Daniel answered and said,
Blessed be the name of God for ever and
ever; for wisdom and might are his: 21.
And he changeth the times and the seasons:
he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he
giveth wisdom unto the wise, and know¬
ledge to them that know understanding:
22. He revealeth the deep and secret things :
he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the
light dwelleth with him. 23. I thank thee,
and praise thee, O thou God of my fathers,
who hast given me wisdom and might, and
hast made known unto me now what we
desired of thee: for thou hast now made
known unto us the king’s matter.
When the king sent for his wise men, to tell him
his dream, and the interpretation of it, {v. 2.)
Daniel, it seems, was not summoned to appear
among them; the king, though he was highly pleas¬
ed with him when he examined him, and thought
him ten times wiser than the rest of his wise men,
yet forgot him when he had most occasion for him;
and no wonder, when all was done in a heat, and
nothing with a cool and deliberate thought. But
Providence so ordered it, that the magicians being
nonplussed he might be the more taken notice of,
and so the more glory might redound to the God of
Daniel. But though Daniel had not the honour to
be consulted with the rest of the wise men, contrary
to all law and justice, by an undistinguishing sen¬
tence he stands condemned with them, and till he
has notice brought him ,o prepare for execution,
knows nothing of the matter. How miserable is the
case of those who live under an arbitrary govern¬
ment, as this of Nebuchadnezzar’s! How happy we,
whose lives are under the protection of the law and
methods of justice, and lie not thus at the mercy of
a peevish and capricious prince!
We have found already in Ezekiel, that Daniel
was famous both for prudence and prayer; as a
prince, he had power with God and man; by prayer
he had power with God, by prudence he had power
with man, and in both he prevailed; thus did he
find favour and good understanding in the sight of
both. In these verses, we have a remarkable in¬
stance of both.
I. Daniel by prudence knew how to deal with
men, and he prevailed with them. When Arioch,
the captain of the guard, that was appointed to slay
all the wise men of Babylon, the whole college
of them, seized Daniel, (for the sword of tyranny,
like the sword of war, devours one as well as an¬
other,) he answered with counsel and wisdom; ( v .
14.) he did not fall into a passion, and reproach the
king as unjust and barbarous, much less did he con¬
trive how to make resistance, but mildly asked.
Why is the decree so hasty? v. 15. And whereas
the rest of the wise men had insisted upon it, that it
was utterly impossible for him ever to have his de¬
mand gratified, which did but make him more out¬
rageous, Daniel undertakes, if he may but have a
little time allowed him, to give the king all the sa¬
tisfaction he desired, v. 16. The king, Geing now
sensible of his error in not sending for Daniel sooner,
whose character he began to recollect, was soon
prevailed with to respite the judgment, and make
trial of Daniel. Note, The likeliest method to turn
away wrath, even the wrath of a king, which is as
the messenger of death, is by a soft answer, by that
yielding which fiacifies great offences; thus, though
where the word of a king is, there is power, yet even
that word may be repelled, and that so as to be re¬
pealed; and so some read it here, (x>. 14.) Then
Daniel returned, and stayed the counsel and edict,
through Arioch, the king's provost-marshal.
II. Daniel knew how by prayer to converse with
God, and he found favour with him, both in peti¬
tion and in thanksgiving, which are the two princi¬
pal parts of prayer. Observe,
1. His humble petition for this mercy, that God
would discover to him what was the king’s dream,
and the interpretation of it. When he had gained
time, he did not go to consult with the rest of the
wise men, whether there was any thing in their art,
in their books, that might be of use in this matter,
but went to his house, there to be alone with his
God, for from him alone, who is the Father of lights,
he expected this great gift.
Observe, (1.) He did not only pray for this dis¬
covery himself, but he engaged his companions to
pray for it too. He made the thing known to them,
who had been all along his bosom friends and asso¬
ciates, that they would desire mercy of God con¬
cerning this secret, v. 17, 18. Though Daniel was,
probably, their senior, and every way excelled
them, yet he engaged them as partners with him in
this matter. Vis unita fortior — The union of
forces produces greater force. See Esth. iv. 16.
Note, Praying friends ai'e valuable friends; it is
good to have an’ intimacy with, an interest in, those
that have fellowship with God, and an interest at
the throne of grace; and it well becomes the great¬
est and best of men to desire the assistance of the
prayers of others for them. St. Paul often bespeaks
his friends to pray for him. Thus we must show
that we put a value upon' our friends, upon prayer,
upon their prayers.
(2.) He was particular in this prayer, but had an
eye to, and a dependence upon, the general mercy
of God; that they would desire mercies of the God
of heaven concerning this secret, v. 18. We ought
in prayer to look up to God as the God of heaven,
a God above us, and who has dominion over us, to
whom we owe adoration and allegiance, a God of
power, who can do every thing. Our Saviour has
804
DANIEL, II.
taught us to pray to God as our Father in heaven.
And whatever good we pray for, our dependence
must be upon the mercies of God for it, and an inte¬
rest in those mercies we must desire; we can expect
nothing by way of recompense for our merits, but all
as the gift of God’s mercies. They desired mercy
concerning this secret. Note, Whatever is the mat¬
ter of our care, must be the matter of our prayer;
we must desire mercy of God concerning this thing
and the other thing, that occasions us trouble and
fear. God gives us leave to be humbly free with
him, and in prayer to enter into the detail of our
wants and burthens. Secret things belong to the
Lord our God, and therefore, if there be any mer¬
cy we stand in need of, that concerns a secret, to
him we must apply ourselves; and though we can¬
not in faith pray for miracles, yet we may in faith
pray to him who has all hearts in his hand, and who
in his providence does wonders without miracles, for
the discovery of that which is out of our view, and
the obtaining of that which is out of our reach, as
far as is for his glory and our good, believing that to
him nothing is hid, nothing is hard.
(3. ) Their plea with God was, the imminent peril
they were in; they desired mercy of God in this
matter, that so Daniel and his fellows might not pe¬
rish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon, that
the righteous might not be destroyed with the wick¬
ed. Note, When the lives of good and useful men
are in danger, it is time to be earnest with God for
mercy for them, as for Peter in prison, Acts xii. 5.
(4.) The mercy which Daniel and his fellows
prayed for, was bestowed. The secret was revealed
unto Daniel in a night-vision, v. 19. Some think
he dreamed the same dream when he was asleep,
that Nebuchadnezzar had dreamed; it should ra¬
ther seem that when he was awake, and continuing
instant in prayer, and watching in the same, the
dream itself, and the interpretation of it, were com¬
municated to him by the ministry of an angel, abun¬
dantly to his satisfaction. Note, The effectual fer¬
vent prayer of righteous men avails much. There
are mysteries and secrets which by prayer we are
let into; with that key the cabinets of heaven are
unlocked, for Christ has said, Thus knock, and it
shall be opened unto you.
2. His grateful thanksgiving for this mercy, when
he had received it; Then Daniel blessed the God of
heaven, v. 19. He did not stay till he had told it to
the king, and seen ,whether he would own it to be
his dream or no, but is confident that it is so, and
that he has gained his point, and therefore he im¬
mediately turns his prayers into praises. As he had
prayed in a full assurance that God would do this
for him, so he gave thanks, in a full assurance that
he had done it; and in both he had an eye to God
as the God of heaven. His prayer was not recorded,
but his thanksgiving is. Observe,
(1.) The honour he gives to God in his thanks¬
giving, which he studies to do in a great variety and
copiousness of expression; Blessed be the name of
God for ever and ever. There is that for ever in
God, which is to be blessed and praised, it is un¬
changeably and eternally in him. And it is to be
blessed for ever and ever; as the matter of praise
is God’s eternal perfection, so the work of praise
shall be everlastingly in the doing. [1.] He gives to
God the glory of what he is in himself; Wisdom
and might are his. Wisdom and courage; so some.
Whatever is fit to be done, he will do; whatever he
will do, he can do, he dares do, and he will be sure
to do it in the best manner; for he has infinite wis¬
dom to design and contrive, and infinite power to
execute and accomplish: with him are strength and
wisdom, which in men are often parted. [2.] He
gives him the glory of what he is to the world of
mankind. He has a universal influence and agency
upon all the children of men, and all their actions
and affairs. Are the times changed? Is the posture
of affairs altered? Does every thing lie open to mu¬
tability? It is God that changes the times and the
seasons, and the face of them. No change comes
to pass by chance, but according to the will and
counsel of God. Are those that were kings re¬
moved and deposed? Do they abdicate? Are they
laid aside? It is God that removes kings? Are the
poor raised out of the dust, to be set among princes?
It is God that sets up kings; and the making and
unmaking of kings is a flower of his crown, who is
the Fountain of all power, King of kings and Lord
of lords. . Are there men that excel others in wis¬
dom, philosophers and statesmen, that think above
the common rate, contemplative, penetrating men?
It is God that gives wisdom to the wise, whether
they be so wise as to acknowledge it or no; they
have it not of themselves, but it is he that gives
knowledge to them that know understanding; which
is a good reason why we should not be proud of our
knowledge, and why we should serve and honour
God with it, and make it our business to know him.
[3.] He gives him the glory of this particular dis¬
covery. H e praises hi m ,
First, For that he could make such a discovery;
( v . 22.) He reveals the deep and secret things, which
are hid from the eyes of all living; it was he that
revealed to man what is true wisdom, when none
else could; (Job xxviii. 27, 28.) it is he that reveals
things to come to his servants the prophets; he does
himself perfectly discern and distinguish that which
is most closely and most industriously concealed, for
he will bring into judgment every secret thing, the
truth will be evident in the great day. He knows
what is in the darkness, and what is done in the dark¬
ness, for that hides not from him, Ps. cxxxix. 11,
12. The light dwells with him, and he dwells in the
light; (1 Tim. vi. 16.) and yet, as to us, he makes
darkness his pavilion. Some understand it of the
light of prophecy and divine revelation, which dwells
with God, and is derived from him; for he is the
Father of lights, of all lights, they are all at home
in him.
Secondly, For that he had made this discovery to
him. Here he has an eye to God as the God of his
fathers; for though the Jews were now captives in
Babylon, yet they were beloved for their fathers’
sake. He praises God who is the Fountain of wis¬
dom and might, for the wisdom and might he had
given him; wisdom to know this great secret, and
might to bear the discovery. Note, What wisdom
and might we have, we must acknowledge it to be
God’s gift; Thou hast made this known to me, v. 23.
What was hid from the celebrated Chaldeans, who
made the interpreting of dreams their profession, is
revealed to Daniel, a captive Jew, a babe, much
their junior. God would hereby put honour upon
the spirit of prophecy then when he was putting-
contempt upon the spirit o f divination. Was Da¬
niel thus thankful to God for making known that to
him, which was the saving of the lives of him and
his fellows? Much more reason have we to be thank¬
ful to him for making known to us the great salva¬
tion of the soul; to us, and not to the world, to us,
and not to the wise and prudent.
(2.) The respect he puts upon his companions in
this thanksgiving. Though it was by his prayers,
! principally, that this discovery was obtained, and to
him that it was made, yet he owns their partnership
with him, both in praying for it, It is what we de¬
sired of thee, and in enjoying of it, Thou hast made
| known unto us the king’s matter. Either they were
present with Daniel when the discovery was made
to him; or, as soon as he knew it, he told it them,
iupiiKx, iufuxx — I have found it, I have found it;
that they who bad assisted him with their prayers.
805
DANIEL, II.
might assist him in their praises; his joining them
with him is an instance of his humility and modesty,
which well become those that are taken into com¬
munion with God. Thus, St. Paul sometimes joins
Sylvanus, Timotheus, or some other minister with
himself in the inscriptions to many of his epistles.
Note, What honour God puts upon us, we should
be willing that our brethren may share with us in.
24. Therefore Daniel went in unto Arioch,
whom the king had ordained to destroy the
wise men of Babylon : he went and said
thus unto him, Destroy not the wise men of
Babylon : bring me in before the king, and
I will shew unto the king the interpreta¬
tion. 25. Then Arioch brought in Daniel
before the king in haste, and said thus unto
him, I have found a man of the captives
of Judah that will make known unto the
king the interpretation. 26. The king an¬
swered, and said to Daniel, whose name
teas Belteshazzar, Art thou able to make
known unto me the dream which I have
seen, and the interpretation thereof? 27.
Daniel answered in the presence of the
king, and said, The secret which the king
hath demanded, cannot the wise men , the
astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers,
shew unto the king ; 28. But there is a God
in heaven that revealeth secrets, and mak-
eth known to the king Nebuchadnezzar
what shall be in the latter days. Thy dream,
and the visions of thy head upon thy bed,
are these ; 29. (As for thee, O king, thy
thoughts came into thy mind upon thy bed
what should come to pass hereafter; and he
that revealeth secrets maketh known to thee
what shall come to pass : 30. But as for me,
this secret is not revealed to me for any wis¬
dom that I have more than any living, but
for their sakes that shall make known the
interpretation to the king, and that thou
mightest know the thoughts of thy heart ;)
We have here the introduction to Daniel’s declar¬
ing of the dream, and the interpretation of it.
1. He immediately bespoke the reversing of the
sentence against the wise men of Babylon, v. 24.
He went with all speed to Arioch, to tell him that
his commission was now superseded; Destroy not
the wise men of Babylon. Though there were those
of them perhaps that deserved to die, as magicians,
by the law of God, yet here, that which they stood
condemned for was not a crime worthy of death or
of bonds; and therefore let them not die, and he
unjustly destroyed, but let them live, and be justly
shamed, as having been nonplussed, and unable to
do that which a prophet of the Lord could do. Note,
Since God shows common kindness to the evil and
good, we should do so too, and be ready to save the
lives even of bad men, Matth. v. 45. A good man
is a common good. To Paul in the ship God gave
the souls of all that sailed with him ; they were
saved for his sake. To Daniel was owing the pre¬
servation of all the wise men, who yet rendered not
according to the benefit done to them, ch. iii. 8.
2. He offered his service, with great assurance,
to gc to the king, and tell him his dream, and the
interpretation of it; and was admitted accordingly,
v. 24, 25. Arioch brought him in haste to the king,
hoping to ingratiate himself by introducing Daniel;
he pretends he had sought him to interpret the king’s
dream, whereas really it was to execute upon him
the king’s sentence that he sought him. But cour¬
tiers’ business is every way to humour the prince,
and make their own services acceptable.
3. He contrived as much as might be to reflect
shame upon the magicians, and to give honour to
God, upon this occasion. The king owned that it
was a bold undertaking, and questioned whether he
could make it good; (v. 26.) Art thou able to make
known unto me the dream? What! Such a babe in
this knowledge, such a stripling as thou art, wilt
thou undertake that which thy seniors despair of
doing? The less likely it appeared to the king that
Daniel should do this, the more God was glorified
in enabling him to do it. Note, In transmitting di¬
vine revelation to the children of men, it has been
God’s usual way to make use of the weak arid fool¬
ish things and persons of the world, and such as
were des/iised and despaired of, to confound the wise
and mighty, that the excellency of the power might
be of him, 1 Cor. i. 27, 28. Daniel frem this takes
occasion,
(1.) To put the king out of conceit with his ma¬
gicians and soothsayers, whom he had such great
expectations from ; (v. 27.) “ This secret they can¬
not show to the king; it is out of their power, the
rales of their art will not reach to it. Therefore let
not the king be angry with them for not doing that
which they cannot do; but rather despise them, and
cast them off, because they cannot do it.” Brough¬
ton reads it generally; “ This secret no sages, as¬
trologers, enchanters, or entrail-cookers, can show
unto the king; let not the king therefore consult
them any more.” Note, The experience we have
of the inability of all creatures to give us satisfac¬
tion, should lessen our esteem of them, and lower
our expectations from them. They are baffled in
their pretensions, we are baffled in our hopes from
them; hitherto they come, and no further: let us
therefore say to them, as Job to his friends, Now ye
are nothing, miserable comforters are ye all.
(2.) To bring him to the knowledge of the one
living and true God, the God whom Daniel wor¬
shipped; “Though they cannot find out the secret,
let not the king despair' of having it found out, for
there is a God in heaven, that rer'eals secrets,” v.
28. Note, The insufficiency of creatures should
drive us to the all-sufficiency of the Creator. There
is a God in heaven, and it is well for us there is,
who can do that for us, and make known that to us,
which none on earth can, particularly the secret
history of the work of redemption, and the secret
designs of God’s love to us therein, the mystery
which was hid from ages and generations; divine
revelation helps us out there where human reason
leaves us quite at a loss, and makes known that, not
only to kings, but to the poor of this world, which
none of the philosophers or politicians of the hea¬
thens, with all their oracles and arts of divination to
help them, could ever pretend to give us any light
into, Rom. xvi. 25, 26.
4. He confirmed the king in his opinion, that the
dream he was thus solicitous to recover the idea of,
was really well worth inquiring after, that it was of
great value, and of vast consequence; not a common
dream, the idle disport of a ludicrous and luxuriant
fancy, not worth remembering or telling again, but
that it was a divine discover)', a ray of light darted
into his mind from the upper world, relating to the
great affairs and revolutions of this lower world.
God in it made known to the king what shall be in
the latter days, (v. 28.) in the times yet to come,
reaching as far as the setting up of Christ’s kingdom
806
DANIEL, II.
in the world, which was to be in the latter clays,
Heb. i. 1. And again, (y. 29.) “ The thoughts
which came into thy mind, were not the repetitions
of what had been before, as our dreams usually
are;”
(Omnia quoo sensu volvuntur vota diurno,
Tempore sopito reddit arnica quies —
The sentiments which we indulge throughout the day, often mingle
with the grateful slumbers of the night. Claudian.)
“ but they were predictions of what should come to
pass hereafter, which he that reveals secrets makes
known unto thee; and therefore thou art in the right
in taking the hint, and pursuing it thus.” Note,
Things that are to come to pass hereafter, are secret
things, which God only can reveal; and what he has
revealed of those things, especially with reference
to the last days of all, to the end of time, ought to
be very seriously and diligently inquired into and
considered by every one of us. Some think that the
thoughts which are said to have come into the king’s
mind upon his bed, what should come to pass here¬
after, were his own thoughts when he was awake.
Just before he fell asleep, and dreamed this dream,
he was musing in his own mind what would be the
issue of his growing greatness, what his kingdom
would hereafter come to; and so the dream was an
answer to those thoughts. What discoveries God
intends to make, he thus prepares men for.
5. He solemnly professes that he could not pre¬
tend to have merited from God the favour of this
discovery, or to have obtained it by any sagacity of
his own; (v. 30.) “ But as for me, this secret is not
found out by me, but is revealed to me, and that not
for any wisdom that I have more than any living,
to qualify me for the receiving of such a discovery.”
Note, It well becomes those whom God has highly
favoured and honoured, to be very humble and low
in their own eyes; to lay aside all opinion of their
own wisdom and worthiness, that God alone may
have all the praise of the good they are, and have,
and do, and that all may be attributed to the free¬
ness of his good will toward them, and the fulness
of his good work in them. The secret was made
known to him not for his own sake, but, (1. ) For the
sake of his people, for their sakes that shall make
known the interpretation to the king; for the sake
of his brethren and companions in tribulation, who
had by their prayers helped him to obtain this dis¬
covery, and so might be said to make known the in¬
terpretation; that their lives might be spared, that
they might come into favour, and be preferred, and
all the people of the Jews might fare the better, in
their captivity, for their sakes. Note, Humble men
will be always ready to thimc that what God does
for them and by them, is more for the sake of others
than for their own. (2.) For the sake of his prince;
and some read the former clause in this sense, “Not
for any wisdom of mine, but that the king may know
the interpretation, and that thou inightest know the
thoughts of thine heart; that thou mightest have
satisfaction given thee as to what thou wast before
considering, and thereby instruction given thee how
to behave toward the church of God.” God re¬
vealed this thing to Daniel, that he might make it
known to the king. Prophets receive, that they may
give; that the discoveries made them may not be
lodged with themselves, but communicated to the
persons themselves that are concerned.
31. Thou, O king, savvest, and, behold, a
great image. This great image, whose
brightness teas excellent, stood before thee,
and the form thereof was terrible. 32. This
image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and
his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs
of brass. 33. His legs of iron, his feet part
of iron and part of clay. 34. Thou sawest
till that a stone was cut out without hands,
which smote the image upon his feet, that
were of iron and clay, and brake them to
pieces. 35. Then was the iron, the clay,
the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to
pieces together, and became like the chaff
of the summer threshing-floors; and the
wind carried them away, that no place was
found for them: and the stone that smote
the image became a great mountain, and
filled the whole earth. 36. This is the
dream; and we will tell the interpretation
thereof before the king. 37. Thou, O king,
art a king of kings: for the God of heaven
hath given thee a kingdom, power, and
strength, and glory. 38. And wheresoever
the children of men dwell, the beasts of the
field, and the fowls of the heaven, hath he
given into thy hand, and hath made thee
ruler over them all. Thou art this head of
gold. 39. And after thee shall arise another
kingdom, inferior to thee, and another third
kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over
all the earth. 40. And the fourth kingdom
shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron
breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things:
and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it
break in pieces and bruise. 41. And where¬
as thou sawest the feet and toes part of pot¬
ter’s clay and part of iron, the kingdom shall
be divided ; but there shall be in it of the
strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou
sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. 42.
And as the toes of the feet were part of iron
and part of clay; so the kingdom shall be
partly strong, and partly broken. 43. And
whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry
clay, they shall mingle themselves with the
seed of men: but they shall not cleave one
to another, even as iron is not mixed with
clay. 44. And in the days of these kings
shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom,
which shall never be destroyed: ancl the
kingdom shall not be left to other people,
but it shall break in pieces and consume all
these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.
45. Forasmuch as thou sawest that the
stone was cut out of the mountain without
hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron,
the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold;
the great God hath made known to the king
what shall come to pass hereafter: and the
dream is certain, and the interpretation
thereof sure.
Daniel here gives full satisfaction to Nebuchad¬
nezzar concerning his dream and the interpretation
of it. That great prince had been kind to this poor
prophet in his maintenance and education ; he had
been brought up at the king’s cost, preferred at
court, and the land of his captivity had hereby been
807
DANIEL, 11.
made much easier to him tnav. to others of his brc-
tliren. And now the king is abundantly repaid for
all the expense he had been at upon him; and for
receiving this prophet, though not in the name of a
prophet, he had a prophet’s reward: such a reward
as a prophet only could give, and for which that
wealthy, mighty prince was now glad to be beholden
to him. Here is,
I. The dream itself, v. 31, 45. Nebuchadnezzar
perhaps was an admirer of statues, and had his
palace and gardens adorned with them ; however,
lie was a worshipper of images, and now, behold, a
great image is set before him in a dream ; which
might intimate to him what the images were, which
he bestowed so much cost upon, and paid such re¬
spect to, they were mere dreams. The creatures
of fancy might do as well to please the fancy. By
the power of imagination he might shut his eyes,
and represent to himself what forms he thought fit,
and beautify them at his pleasure, without the ex¬
pense and trouble of sculpture. This was the image
of a man erect; it stood before him , as a living man;
and because those monarchies which were designed
to be represented by it, were admirable in the eyes
of their friends, the brightness of this image wascr-
cellent; and because they were formidable to their
enemies, and dreaded by all about them, the form
of this image is said to be terrible; both the features
of the face and the postures of the body made it so.
But that which was most remarkable in this image,
was, the different metals of which it was composed.
The head of gold, the richest and most durable
metal; the breast and arms of silver, the next to it
in worth; the belly and sides, or thighs, of brass;
the legs of iron, still baser metals; and lastly, the
feet part of iron and part of clay. See what the
things of this world are; the further we go in them,
the less valuable they appear. In the life of man,
youth is a head of gold, but it grows less and less
worthy of our esteem; and old age is half clay; a
man is then as good as dead. It is so with the world :
later ages degenerate. The first age of the Christian
church, of the reformation, was a head of gold; but
we live in an age that is iron and clay. Some allude
to this in the description of a hypocrite, whose
practice is not agreeable to his knowledge. He has
ahead of gold, but feet of iron and clay; he knows
his duty, but does it not. Some observe that in
Daniel’s visions the monarchies were represented
by four beasts, (ch. 7. ) for he looked upon that wis¬
dom from beneath, by which they were turned to
be earthly and sensual, and a tyrannical power, to
have more in it of the beast than of the man, and so
the vision agreed with his notions of the thing. But
to Nebuchadnezzar, a heathen prince, they were
represented by a gay and pompous image of a man,
for he was an admirer of tiie kingdoms of this world,
and the glory of them. To him the sight was so
charming, that he was impatient to see it again.
But what became of this image? The next part
of the dream shows it us calcined, and brought to
nothing. He saw a stone cut out of the quarry by
an unseen power, without hands, and this stone fell
upon the feet of the image, that were of iron and
clay, and broke them to pieces; and then the image
must fall of course, and so the gold, and silver, and
brass, and iron, were all broken to pieces together,
and beaten so small, that they became like the chaff
of the summer threshing-floors, and there were not
to be found any the least remains of them; but the
stone cut out of the mountain became itself a great
mountain, anil filled the earth. See how God can
bring about great effects by weak and unlikely
causes; when he pleases, a little one shall become a
thousand. Perhaps the destruction of this image
of gold, and silver, and brass, and iron, might be in¬
tended to signify the abolishing of idolatry out of the
world in due time, i he idols of the heathen are
silver and gold, as this image was; and they shall
perish from off the earth, and from under these
heavens, Jer. x. 11. Isa. ii. 18. And whatevei
power destroys idolatry, is in the ready way to
magnify and exalt itself; as this stone, when it had
broken the image to pieces, became a great moun¬
tain.
II. The interpretation of this dream. Let us now
see what is the meaning of this. It was from God,
and therefore from him it is fit that we take the ex¬
plication of it. It should seem Daniel had his fel¬
lows with him, and speaks for them as well as for
himself, when he says, We will tell the interpreta¬
tion, v. 36. Now,
1. This image represented the kingdoms of the
earth, that should successively bear rule among the
nations, and have influence on the affairs of the
Jewish church. The four monarchies were not re¬
presented by four distinct statues, but by one image,
because they were all of one and the same spirit and
genius, and all more or less against the church. It
was the same power, only lodged in four several na¬
tions, the two former lying eastward of Judea, the
two latter westward.
(1.) The head of gold signified the Chaldean
monarchy, which is now in being; (i>. 37, 38.)
Thou, O king, art, or, rather, shalt be, a king of
kings; a universal monarch, to whom many kings
and kingdoms shall be tributaries; or. Thou art the
highest of kings on earth at this time; as a sei-vant
of servants is the meanest servant; thou dost cut-
shine all other kings. But let him not attribute his
elevation to his own politics or fortitude; no, it is
the God of heaven that has given thee a kingdom,
power, and strength, and glory, a kingdom that
exercises great authority, stands firm, and shines
bright, acts by a puissant army with an arbitrary
power.
Note, The greatest of princes have no power but
what is given them from above. The extent of his
dominion is set forth, ( v . 38.) that wheresoever the
children of men dwell, in all the nations of that part
of the world, he was ruler over them all, over them
and all that belonged to them, all their cattle, not
only those which they had a property in, but those
that were ferae naturae • — wild, the beasts of the field,
and the fowls of the heaven. He was lord of all the
woods, forests, and chases, and none were allowed
to hunt or fowl without his leave. Thus thou art
this head of gold; thou, and thy son, and thy son’s
son, for seventy years. Compare this with Jer.
xxv. 9, 11. especially Jer. xxvii. 5. — 7. There were
other powerful kingdoms in the world at this time,
as that of the Scythians; but it was the kingdom of
Babylon that reigned over the Jews, and that began
the government which continued in the succession
here described till Christ’s time. It is called a head,
for its wisdom, eminency, and absolute power, a
head of gold for its wealth; (Isa. xiv. 4.) it was a
golden city. Borne make this monarchy to begin in
Nimrod, and so bring into it all the Assyrian kings,
about fifty monarchs in all, and compute that it
lasted above 1600 years. But it had not been so
long a monarchy of such vast extent and power as
is here described, nor any thing like it; therefore
others make only Nebuchadnezzar, Evil-merodach,
and Belshazzar, to belong to this head of gold; and
a glorious high throne they had, and perhaps exer¬
cised a more despotic power than any of the kings
that went before them. Nebuchadnezzar reigned
forty-five years current, Evil-merodach twenty-
three years current, and Belshazzar three. Babylpn
was their metropolis, and Daniel was with them
upon the spot during the seventy years.
(2.) The breast and arms of silver signified the
monarchy of the Medes and Persians; of which the
808
DANIEL, II.
king is told no more than this, There shall arise an¬
other kingdom inferior to thee, (v. 39. ) not so rich,
owerful, or victorious. This kingdom was founded
v Darius the Mede, and Cyrus the Persian, in al¬
liance with each other, and therefore represented
by two arms, meeting in the breast. Cyrus was
himself a Persian by his father, a Mede by his mo¬
ther. Some reckon that this second monarchy lasted
130 years, others 204 years. The former computa¬
tion agrees best with the scripture-chronology.
(3.) The belly and thighs of brass signified the
monarchy of the Grecians, founded by Alexander,
who conquered Darius Codomanus, the last of the
Persian emperors. This is the third kingdom of
brass, inferior in wealth and extent of dominion to
the Persian monarchy; but in Alexander himself
it shall by the power of the sword bear rule over all
the earth; for Alexander boasted that he had con¬
quered the world, and then sat down and wept be¬
cause he had not another world to conquer.
(4.) The legs and feet of iron signified the Ro¬
man monarchy. Some make this to signify the lat¬
ter part of the Grecian monarchy, the two empires
of Syria and Egypt; the former governed by the
family of the Seleucids, from Seleucus, the latter
by that of the Lagidx, from Ptolemreus Lagus;
these they make the two legs and feet of this image;
Grotius, and Junius, and Broughton, go this way.
But it has been the more received opinion, that it is
the Roman monarchy that is here intended; because
it was in the time of that monarchy, and when it was
at its height, that the kingdom of Christ was set up
in the world by the preaching of the everlasting
gospel. The Roman kingdom was strong as iron,
( v . 40.) witness the prevalency of that kingdom
against all that contended with it for many ages.
That kingdom broke in pieces the Grecian empire,
and afterward quite destroyed the nation of the
Jews. Toward the latter end of the Roman mo¬
narchy, it grew very weak, branched into ten king¬
doms, which were as the toes of these feet. Some
of these were weak as clay, others strong as iron, v.
42. Endeavours were used to unite and cement
them for the strengthening of the empire, but in
vain; They shall not cleave one to another, v. 43.
This empire divided the government for a long time
between the senate and the people, the noble! and
the commons, but they did not entirely coalesce;
there were civil wars between Marius and Sylla,
C;esar and Pompey, whose parties were as iron and
clay. Some refer this to the declining times of that
empire, when, for the strengthening of the empire
against the irruptions of the barbarous nations, the
branches of the royal family intermarried; but the
politics had not the desired effect, when the day of
the fall of that empire came.
2. The stone cut out without hands represented
the kingdom of Jesus Christ, which should be set up
in the world in the time of the Roman empire, and
upon the ruins of Satan’s kingdom in the kingdoms
of the world. This is the stone cut out of the moun¬
tain without hands, for it should be neither raised
nor supported by human power or policy; no visible
hand should act in the setting of it up, but it should
De done invisibly by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts.
This was the stone which the builders refused, be¬
cause it was not cut out bv their hands, but it is now
become the head-stone of the corner.
(1.) The gospel-church is a kingdom, which
Christ is the sole and sovereign Monarch of; in
which he rules by his word and Spirit, to which he
gives protection and law, and from which he receives
Jiomage and tribute. It is a kingdom not of this
world, and yet set up in it; it is the kingdom of God
among men.
(2.) The God of heaven was to set up this king¬
dom, to give authority to Christ to execute judg¬
ment, to set him as King upon his holy hill of Zion,
and to bring into obedience to him a willing people.
Being set up by the God of heaven, it is often in the
JYew Testament called the kingdom of heaven, fo>
its original is from above, and its tendency is upward.
(3. ) It was to be set up in the days of these kings,
the kings of the fourth monarchy; of which particu¬
lar notice is taken, Luke ii. 1. That Christ was
born when, by the decree of the emperor of Rome,
all the world was taxed, which was a plain indica¬
tion that that empire was become as universal as
any earthly empire ever was. When these kings
are contesting with each other, and in all the strug¬
gles each of the contending parties hopes to find its
own account, God will do his own work, and fulfil
his own counsels. These kings are all enemies to
Christ’s kingdom, and yet it shall be set up in defi¬
ance of them.
(4.) It is a kingdom that knows no decay, is in no
danger of destruction, and will not admit any suc¬
cession or revolution. It shall never be destroyed by
any foreign force invading it, as many other king¬
doms are, fire and sword cannot waste it; the com¬
bined powers of earth and hell cannot deprive either
the subjects of their Prince, or the Prince of his
subjects; nor shall this kingdom be left to other peo¬
ple, as the kingdoms of the earth are. As Christ
is a Monarch that has no successor, (for he himself
shall reign for ever,) so his kingdom is a monarchy
that has no revolution. The kingdom of God was
indeed taken from the Jews, and given to the Gen¬
tiles; (Matth. xxi. 43.) but still it was Christianity
that ruled the kingdom of the Messiah. The Chris¬
tian church is still the same; it is fixed on a rock,
much fought against, but never to be prevailed
against by the gates of hell.
(5.) It is a kingdom that shall be victorious over
all opposition. It shall break in pieces and consume
all those kingdoms, as the stone cut out of the moun¬
tain without hands brake in pieces the image, v.
44, 45. The kingdom of Christ shall wear out all
other kingdoms, shall outlive them, and flourish
when they are sunk with their own weight, and so
wasted, that their place knows them no more. All
the kingdoms that appear against the kingdom of
Christ shall be broken with a rod of iron, as a pot¬
ter’s vessel, Ps. ii. 9. And in the kingdoms that sub¬
mit to the kingdom of Christ, tyranny, and idolatry,
and every thing that is their reproach, shall, as far
as the gospel of Christ gets ground, be broken. The
day is coming when Jesus Christ shall have put down
all rule, principality, and power, and have made
all his enemies his footstool; and then this prophecy
will have its full accomplishment, and not till then,
1 Cor. xv. 24, 25. Our Saviour seems to refer to
this, (Matth. xxi. 44.) when speaking of himself as
the Stone set at naught by the Jewish builders, he
says, On whomsoever this stone shall fall, it will
grind him to powder.
(6.) It shall be an everlasting kingdom. Those
kingdoms of the earth that had broken in pieces all
about them, at length came, in their turn, to be in
•like manner broken; but the kingdom of Christ shall
break other kingdoms in pieces, and shall itself
stand for ever. His throne shall be as the days ir,
heaven, his seed, his subjects, as the stars of heaven,
not only so innumerable, but so immutable. Of the
increase of Christ’s government and peace there
shall be no end. The Lord shall reign for ever,
not only to the end of time, but when time and days
shall be no more, and God shall be all in all to
eternity.
Daniel having thus interpreted the dream, to the
satisfaction of Nebuchadnezzar, who gave him no
interruption, so full was the interpretation, that he
had no question to ask, and so plain, that he had no
[I objection to make, he closes all with a solemn asser
J09
DANIEL, II.
tion, [1.] Of the divine original of this dream; The
great God, (so he calls him, to express his own high
thoughts of him, and to beget the like in the mind
of this great king,) he has made known to the king
what shall come to j lass hereafter, which the gods
of the magicians could not do. And thus a full con¬
firmation was given to that great argument which
Isaiah had long before urged against idolaters, and
particularly the idolaters of Babylon, when he chal¬
lenged the gods they worshipped, to show things
that are to come hereafter, that we may know that
ye are gods; (Isa. xli. 23.) and by this proved the
God of Israel to be the true God, that he declares
the end from the beginning, Isa. xlvi. 10. [2.] Of
the undoubted certainty of the things foretold by
this dream. He who makes known these things, is
the same that has himself designed and determined
them, and will by his providence effect them; and
we are sure that his counsel shall stand, and cannot
be altered, and therefore the dream is certain, and
the interpretation thereof sure. Note, Whatever
God has made known, we may depend upon.
46. Then the king Nebuchadnezzar fell
upon his face, and worshipped Daniel, and
commanded that they should offer an obla¬
tion and sweet odours unto him. 47. The
king answered unto Daniel, and said. Of a
truth it is that your God is a God of gods,
and a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets,
seeing thou couldest reveal this secret. 48.
Then the king made Daniel a great man,
and gave him many great gifts, and made
him ruler over the whole province of Baby¬
lon, and chief of tide governors over all the
wise imn of Babylon. 49. Then Daniel re¬
quested of the king, and he set Shadrach,
iVleshach, and Abed-nego, over the affairs
of the province of Babylon : but Daniel sal
in the gate of the king.
One might have expected that when Nebuchad¬
nezzar was contriving to make his own kingdom
everlasting, he would have been enraged at Daniel,
who foretold the fall of it, and that another kingdom
of another nature should be the everlasting kingdom ;
but, instead of resenting it as an affront, he received
it as an oracle, and here we are told what the ex¬
pressions were of the impressions it made upon him.
1. He was ready to look upon Daniel as a little
god. Though he saw him to be a man, yet from
this wonderful discovery which he had made both
of his secret thoughts, in' telling him the dream, and
of things to come, in telling him the interpretation
of it, he concluded that he had certainly a divinity
lodged in him, worthy his adoration; and therefore
h efell ufion his face and worshipped Daniel, v. 46.
It was the custom of the country by prostration to
give honour to kings, because they have something ,
of a divine power in them; I have said. Ye are gods.
And therefore this king, who had often received
such veneration from others, now paid the like to
Daniel, whom he supposed to have in him a divine
knowledge; which he was so struck with an admira¬
tion of, that he could not contain himself, but forgot
both that Daniel was a man, and that himself was
a king. Thus did God magnify divine revelation,
and make it honourable, extorting from a proud po¬
tentate such a veneration but for one glimpse of it.
He worshipped Daniel, and commanded that they
should offer an oblation to him, and burn incense.
Herein he cannot be justified, but may in some mea¬
sure he excused, when Cornelius was thus ready to
Vol. iv. — b K
worship Peter, and John the angel, who both knew
better. But though it is not here mentioned, yet we
have reason to think that Daniel refused these
honours that he paid him, and said, as Peter to Cor¬
nelius, Stand up, I myself also am a man; or, as
the angel to St. John, See' thou do it not; for it is
not said that the oblation was offered unto him,
though the king commanded it, or rather, said it;
for so the word is. He said, in his haste, Let an
oblation be offered to him. And that Daniel did
say something to him which turned his eyes and
thoughts another way, is intimated in what follows,
(x. 47.) The king answered Daniel. Note, It is
possible for those to express a great honour for the
ministers of God’s word, who yet have no true love
for the word. Herod feared John, and heard him
gladly, and yet went on in his sins, Mark vi. 20.
2. He readily acknowledged the God of Daniel to
be the great God, the time God, the only living and
true God. If Daniel will not suffer himself to be
worshipped, he will (as Daniel, it is likely, directed
him) worship God, by confessing, (x. 47.) Of a
truth your God is a God of gods; such a God as
there is no other; above all gods in dignity, over all
gods in dominion. He is a LORD of kings, from
whom they derive their power, and to whom they
are accountable; and he is both a Discoverer and a
Revealer of secrets; what is most secret he sees,
and can reveal; and what he has revealed, is what
was secret, and which none but himself could reveal,
1 Cor. ii. 10.
3. He preferred Daniel; made him a great man,
v. 48. God made him a great man indeed, when
he took him into communion with himself; a greater
man than Nebuchadnezzar cculd make him; but
because God had magnified him, therefore the king
magnified him. Does wealth make men great ?
The king gave him many great gifts; and he had
no reason to refuse them, when they all put him
into so much the greater capacity of doing good to
his brethren in captivity. These gifts were grateful
returns for the good services he had done, and not
aimed at, or intended for, by him, as the rewards
of divination were by Balaam. Does power make
a man great? He made him ruler over the whole
province of Babylon, which, no doubt, had great
influence upon the other provinces; he made him
likewise chancellor of the university, chief of the
governors over all the wise men of Babylon, to in¬
struct them whom he had thus outdone; and since
they could not do what the king would have them
do, they shall be obliged to do what Daniel would
have them do. Thus it is fit that the fool should be
servant to the wise in heart. Seeing Daniel could
reveal this secret, ( v . 47.) the king thus advanced
him. Note, It is the wisdom of princes to advance
and employ those who receive divine revelation, and
are much conversant with it, who, as Daniel here,
showed himself to be well acquainted with the king¬
dom of heaven. Joseph, like Daniel here, was ad¬
vanced in the court of the king of Egypt, for his
interpreting of his dreams; and he called him Zaph-
nath-paaneah — a revealer of secrets, as the king of
Babylon here calls Daniel; so that the preambits to
their patents of honour are the same; for, and in
consideration of, their good services done to the
crown in revealing secrets.
4. He preferred his companions for his sake, and
upon his special instance and request, v. 49. Daniel
himself sat in the gate of the king, as president of
the council, chief justice, or prime minister of state,
or perhaps chamberlain of the household; but he
used his interest for his friends as became a good
man, and procured places in the government for
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. They that
helped him in their prayers shall share with him in
his honours; such a grateful sense had he even of
810
.DANIEL, III.
that service. The preferring of them would be a
great stay and help to Daniel in his place and busi¬
ness. And these pious Jews being thus preferred
in Babylon, had great opportunity of serv ing their
brethren in captivity, and of doing them many good
offices, which, no doubt, they were ready to do.
Tlius, sometimes, before God brings his people into
trouble, he prepares that it may be easy to them.
CHAP. III.
In the close of the foregoing chapter, ive left Daniel’s com¬
panions, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, in honour
and power, princes of the provinces, and preferred for
their relation to the God of Israel, and the interest they
had in him. I know not whether I should say, It were
well if this honour had all the saints • no, (here are many
whom it would not be good for; the saints’ honour is
reserved for another world; but here we have those same
three men as much under the king’s displeasure as then
they were in his favour, and yet more truly, more highly
honoured by their God than there they were honoured
by their prince; both by the grace wherewith he enabled
them rather to suffer than to sin, and by the miraculous
and glorious deliverance which he wrought for them out
of their sufferings. It is a very memorable story, a glo¬
rious instance of the power and goodness of God, and a
great encouragement to the constancy of his people in
trying times. The apostle refers to it when he mentions,
among the believing heroes, those who by faith quenched
the violence of fire. Heb. xi. 34. We have here, I. Ne¬
buchadnezzar^ erecting and dedicating a golden image,
and his requiring all his subjects, of what rank or degree
soever, to fall down and worship it, and the general
compliance of his people with that command, v. 1..7.
II. Information given against the Jewish princes for
refusing to worship this golden image, v. 8.. 12. III.
Their constant persisting in that refusal, notwithstand¬
ing his rage and menaces, v. 13.. IS. IV. Thecasting
of them into the fiery furnace for their refusal, v. 19 . . 23.
V. Their miraculous preservation in the fire by the power
of God, and their invitation out of the fire by the favour
of the king, who was by this miracle convinced of his
error in casting them in, v. 24.. 27. VI. The honour
which the king gave to God hereupon, and the favour
he showed to those faithful worthies, v. 28 . . 30.
l.^VTEBUCHADNEZZAR the king
made an image of gold, whose height
was threescore cubits, and the breadth there¬
of six cubits : he set it up in the plain of
Dura, in the province of Babylon. 2. Then
Nebuchadnezzar the king sent to gather to¬
gether the princes, the governors, and the
captains, the judges, the treasurers, the coun¬
sellors, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the
provinces, to come to the dedication of the
image which Nebuchadnezzar the king had
set up. 3. Then the princes, the governors,
and captains, the judges, the treasurers, the
counsellors, the sheriffs, and all the rulers
of the provinces, were gathered together unto
the dedication of the image that Nebuchad¬
nezzar the king had set up; and they stood be¬
fore’ the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set
up. 4. Then a herald cried aloud, To you it
is commanded, O people, nations, and lan¬
guages, 5. That at what time ye hear the
sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psal¬
tery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall
down and worship the golden image that Ne¬
buchadnezzar the king hath set up : 6. And
whoso falleth not down and worshippeth,
shall the same hour be cast into the midst of
a burning fiery furnace. 7. Therefore at that
time, when all the people heard the sound of
the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and
all kinds of music, all the people, the na¬
tions, and the languages, fell down and wor
shipped the golden image that Nebuchad¬
nezzar the king had set up.
We have no certainty concerning the date of this
story, only, that if this image which Nebuchadnez¬
zar dedicated had any relation to that which he
dreamed of, it is probable that it happened not long
after that; some reckon it to be about the seventh
year of Nebuchadnezzar, a year before Jehoiachin’s
captivity, in which Ezekiel was carried away
Observe,
1. A golden image set vji to be worshipped.
Babylon was full of idols already, yet nothing will
serve this imperious prince, but they must have one
more; for those who have forsaken the one only
living God, and begin to set up many gods, will
find the gods they set up so unsatisfying, and then
desire after them so insatiable, that they will multi¬
ply them without measure, wander after them end¬
lessly, and never know when they have sufficient.
Idolaters are fond of novelty and variety, they choose
new gods. They that have many will wish to have
more. Nebuchadnezzar the king, that he might
exert the prerogative of his crown, to make what
god he thought fit, set u/i this image, v. 1. Ob¬
serve, (1.) The -valuableness of it; it was an image
of gold, not all gold surely; rich as he was, it is
probable that he could not afford that, but overlaid
with gold. Note, The worshippers of false gods
are not wont to mind charges in fitting up images,
and worshipping them; they lavish gold out of the
bag for that purpose, (Isa. xlvi. 6. ) which shames
our niggardliness in the worship of the true God.
(2.) The vastness of it: it was threescore cubits
high, and six cubits broad. It exceeded the ordi¬
nary stature of a man fifteen times ; for that is
reckoned but four cubits, or six feet ; as if its being
monstrous would make amends for its being lifeless.
But why did Nebuchadnezzar set up this image?
Some suggest that it was to clear himself from the
imputation of being turned Jew, because he had
lately spoken with great honour of the God of Israel,
and had preferred some of his worshippers. Or,
perhaps, he set it up as an image of himself, and de¬
signed to be himselt worshipped in it; proud princes
affected to have divine honours paid them; Alexan¬
der did so, pretending himself to be the son of Ju¬
piter Olympius. He was told that in the image he
had seen in his dream, he was represented by the
head of gold, who was to be succeeded by kingdoms
of baser metal; but here he sets up to be himself
the whole image, for he makes it all of gold. See
here, [1.] How the good impressions that were then
made upon him were quite lost, and quickly. He
then acknowledged, that the God of Israel is of a
truth a God of gods, and a Lord of kings; and yet
now, in defiance of the express law of that God, he
sets up an image to be worshipped, not only con¬
tinues in his former idolatries, but contrives new
ones. Note, Strong convictions often come short cf
a sound conversion. Many in a pang have owned
the absurdity and dangerousness of sin, and yet have
gone on in it. [2.] How that very dream and the
interpretation of it, which then made such good im
pressions upon him, now had a quite contrary effect
Then it made him fall down as an humble worship
per of God; now it made him set up for a bold com¬
petitor with God. Then he thought it a great thing to
be the golden head of the image, and owned himself
obliged to God for it; but, his mind rising with his con
dition, now he thinks that too little, and, in contradic¬
tion to God himself and his oracle, he will be all in all.
811
DANIEL, III.
2. A general convention of the states summoned
to attend the solemnity of the dedication of this
image, v. 2, 3. Messengers are despatched to all
parts of the kingdom, to gather together the firinces,
dukes, and lords, all the peers of the realm, with
all officers civil and military, the captains and com¬
manders of the forces, the judges, the treasurers,
or general receivers, the counsellors, and the she¬
riffs, and all the rulers of the provinces; they must
all come to the dedicating of this image, upon pain
and peril of what shall fall thereon. He summons
the great men, for the greater honour of his idol; it
is therefore mentioned to the glory of Christ, that
kings shall bring presents unto him. If he can bring
them to pay homage to his golden image, he doubts
not but the inferior people will follow of course. In
obedience to the king’s summons, all the magistrates
and officers of that vast kingdom leave the services
of their particular countries, and come to Babylon,
to the dedicating of this golden image; long journeys
many of them took, and expensive ones, upon a
very foolish errand; but as the idols are senseless
things, such are the worshippers.
3. A proclamation made, commanding all man¬
ner of persons present before the image, upon the
signal given, to fall down prostrate, and worship
the image, under the style and title of The golden
image which Nebuchadnezzar the king has set tip.
A herald proclaims this aloud throughout this vast
assembly of grandees, with their numerous train
of servants and attendants, and a great crowd of
people, no doubt, that were not sent for; let them
all take notice, (1.) That the king does strictly
charge and command all manner of persons to fall
down, and worship the golden image; whatever
other gods they worship at other times, now they
must worship this. (2.) That they must all do this
just at the same time, in token of their communion
with each other in this idolatrous service; and that,
in order hereunto, notice shall be given by a concert
of music, which would likewise serve to adorn the
solemnity, and to sweeten and soften the minds of
those that were loath to yield, and to bring them to
comply with the king’s command. This mirth
and gaiety in the worship would be very agreeable
to carnal, sensual minds, that are strangers to that
spiritual worship which is owing to God who is a
Spirit.
4. The general compliance of the assembly with
this command, v. 7. They heard the sound of the |
musical instruments, both wind instruments and
hand instruments, the cornet and flute, with the
harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, the melody
of which they thought was ravishing, and fit enough
it was to excite such a devotion as they were then
to pay; and immediately they all, as one man, as
soldiers that are wont to be exercised by beat of
drum, all the people, nations, and languages, fell
down and worshipped the golden image. And no
marvel, when it was proclaimed, That whosoever
would not worship this golden image, should be im¬
mediately thrown into the midst of a burning fiery
furnace, ready prepared for that purpose, v. 6.
Here were the charms of music to allure them into
a compliance, and the terrors of a fiery furnace to j
frighten them into compliance. Thus beset with
temptation, they all yielded. Note, That way that
sense directs, the most will go; there is nothing so
bad which the careless world will not be drawn to
by a concert of music, or driven to by a fiery fur¬
nace. And by such methods as these false worship
has been set up and maintained.
8. Wherefore at that time certain Chal¬
deans came near and accused the Jews. 9.
Theyspake, and said to the king Nebuchad¬
nezzar, O king, live for ever. 10. Thou
O king, hast made a decree, that every man
that shall hear the sound of the cornet, (lute,
harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and
all kinds of music, shall fall down and woi-
sliip the golden image: 11. And whoso
falleth not down and worshippetli, that he
should be cast into the midst of a burning
fiery furnace. 12. There are certain Jews,
whom thou hast set over the affairs of the
province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abed-nego: these men, O king, have not
regarded thee: they serve not thy gods, nor
worship the golden image which thou hast
setup. 13. Then Nebuchadnezzar, in his
rage and fury, commanded to bring Sha¬
drach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. Then
they brought these men before the king. 14.
Nebuchadnezzar spake, and said unto them,
Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-
nego? do not ye serve my gods, nor worship
the golden image which I have set up? 15.
Now, if ye be ready, that at what time ye
hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp,
sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all
kinds of music, ye fall down and worship
the image which I have made, well: but if
ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same
hour into the midst of a burning fiery fur¬
nace: and who is that God that shall deli¬
ver you out of my hands? 16. Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abed-nego, answered and
said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are
not careful to answer thee in this matter.
1 7. If it be so, our God, whom we serve, is
able to deliver us from the burning fiery fur¬
nace; and he will deliver us out of thy
hand, O king. 18. But if not, be it known
unto thee, O king, that we will not serve
thy gods, nor worship thy golden image
which thou hast set up.
It was strange that Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abed-nego would be present at this assembly, when,
it is likefy, they knew for what intent it was called
together. Daniel, we may suppose, was absent,
either his business Calling him away, or having
leave from the king to withdraw; unless we sup¬
pose that he stood so high in the king’s favour, that
none durst complain of him for his non-compliance:
but why did not his companions keep out of the
way? Surely because they would obey the king’s
orders as far as they could, and would be ready to
bear a public testimony against this gross idolatry.
They did not think it enough not to bow down to
the image, but, being in office, thought themselves
obliged to stand up against it, though it was the
image which the king their master set up, and
would be a golden image to them that worshipped
it. Now,
I. Information is brought to the king by certain
Chaldeans against these three gentlemen, that they
did not obey the king’s edict, v. 8. Perhaps these
Chaldeans that accused them, were some of those
magicians or astrologers that were particularly
812
DANIEL, Ill.
called Chaldeans, ( ch . ii. 2, 4.) who bore a grudge
to Daniel’s companions for his sake, because he had
eclipsed them, and so had these his companions.
They by their prayers had obtained the mercy which
saved the lives of these Chaldeans, and behold, how
they requite them, evil for good; for their love they
are their adversaries! Thus Jeremiah stood before
God, to speak good for them who afterward digged
a pit for his life, Jer. xviii. 20. We must not think
it strange if we meet with such ungrateful men.
Or perhaps they were such of the Chaldeans as
expected the places to which they were advanced,
and envied them their preferment; and who can
stand before envy? They appeal to the king himself
concerning the edict, with all due respect to his
majesty, and the usual compliment, O king, live
for ever; (as if they aimed at nothing but his ho¬
nour, and to serve his interest, when really they
were putting him upon that which would endanger
the ruin of him and his kingdom;) they beg leave,
1. To put him in mind of the law he had lately
made, That all manner of persons without excep¬
tion of nation or language, should fall down and
worship this golden image; they put him in mind
also of the penalty which by the law was to be in¬
flicted upon recusants, that they were to be cast into
the midst of the burning fiery furnace, v. 10, 11.
It cannot be denied but that this was the law; whe¬
ther a righteous law or no, ought to be considered.
2. To inform him that these three men, Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abed-nego, had not conformed to
this edict, v. 12. It is probable that Nebuchadnez¬
zar had no particular design to ensnare them in
making the law, for then he would himself ha\ye
had his eye upon them, and would not have needed
this information; but their enemies, that sought an
occasion against them, laid hold on this, and were
forward to accuse them. To aggravate the matter,
and incense the king the more against them, (1.)
They put him in mind of the dignity to which the
criminals had been preferred. Though they were.
Jews, foreigners, captives, men of a despised na¬
tion and religion, yet the king had set them over the
affairs of the province of Babylon. It was there¬
fore very ungrateful, and an insufferable piece of
insolence, for them to disobey the king’s command,
who had shared so much of the king’s favour. And
besides, the high station they were in would make
their refusal the more scandalous, it would be a bad
example, and have a bad influence upon others;
and therefore it was necessary that it should be se¬
verely animadverted upon. Thus princes that are
incensed enough against innocent people, commonly
want not those about them who do all they can to
make them worse. (2.) They suggest that it was
done maliciously, contumaciously, and in contempt
of him and his authority; “They have set no re¬
gard upon thee; for they serve not the gods which
thou servest, and which thou requirest them to
serve, nor worship the golden image which thou hast
set up.”
II. These three pious Jews are immediately
brought before the king, and arraigned and exa¬
mined upon this information. Nebuchadnezzar fell
into a great passion, and in his rage and fury com¬
manded them to be seized, v. 13. How little was
it to the honour of this mighty prince, that he had
rule over so many nations, when at the same time
he had no rule over his own spirit, that there were
so many who were subjects and captives to him,
when he was himself a perfect slave to his own
brutish passions, and led captive by them ! How
unfit was he to rule reasonable men, who could not
himself be ruled by reason! It needed not be a
surprise to him to hear that these three men did not
now serve his gods, for he knew very well they
never had done it, and their religion, which they
had always adhered to, forbade them to do it. Nor
had he any reason to think that they did it in con¬
tempt of his authority, who had in all instances
showed themselves respectful and dutiful to him as
their prince. But it was especially unseasonable at
this time, when he was in the midst of his devotions,
dedicating his golden image, to be in such a rage
and fury, and so much to discompose himself. The
discretion of a man, one would think, should at
least have deferred this anger. True devotion calms
the spirit, cptiets and meekens it, but superstition,
and a devotion to false gods, inflame men’s passions,
inspire them with rage and fury, and turn them intu
brutes. The wrath of a king is as the roaring of a.
lion, so was the wrath of this king; and yet when he
was in such a heat, these three men were brought
before him, and appeared with an undaunted cou¬
rage, and unshaken constancy.
III. The case is laid before them in short, and it
.is put to them whether they will comply or no.
1. The king asked them whether it was true that
they had not worshipped the golden image, when
others did, v. 14. ‘‘Is it of purpose?” (so some
read it,) “Was it designedly and deliberately done,
or was it only through inadvertency, that you have
not served my gods? What! you that I have nou¬
rished and brought up, that have been educated and
maintained at my charge, that I have been so kind
to, and done so much for; you that have been in such
reputation for wisdom, and therefore should better
have known your duty to your prince; what! do not
you serve my gods, nor worshi/i the golden image
which I have set up ?” Note, The faithfulness of
God’s servants to hint has often been the wonder of
their enemies and persecutors, who think it strange,
that they run not with them to the satne excess of
riot. 2. He was willing to admit them to a new
trial; if they did on purpose not do it before, yet it
may be, upon second thoughts, they will change
their minds; it is therefore repeated to them upon
what terms they now stand, v. 15. (1.) The king
is willing that music shall play again, only for their
sakes, to soften them into a compliance; and if they
will not, like the deaf adder, stop their ears, but
will hearken to the voice of the charmers, and will
worship the golden image, well and good, their for¬
mer omission shall be pardoned. But, (2.) The
king is resolved, if they persist in their refusal, that
they shall immediately be cast into the fiery furnace,
and shall not have so much as an hour’s reprieve.
Thus does the matter lie in a little compass, Turn,
or burn; and because he knew they buoyed them¬
selves up in their refusal with a confidence in their
God, he insolently sets him at defiance; And who is
that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?
Let him, if he can. Now he forgot what he himself
once owned, that their God was a God of gods,
and a Lord of kings, ch. ii. 47. Proud men are
still ready to say, as Pharaoh, IVlio is the Lord
that I should obey his voice ? Or, as Nebuchad¬
nezzar, Who is the Lord, that I should fear his
power ?
IV. They give in their answer, which they all
agree in, that they still adhere to their resolution,
not to worship the golden image, v. 16. — 18. We
have here such an instance of fortitude and magna¬
nimity as is scarcely to be paralleled; we call these
the three children, (and they were indeed young
men,) but we should rather call them the three
champions, the first three of the worthies of God’s
kingdom among men. They did not break out into
any intemperate heat or passion against those that
did worship the golden image, did not insult or af¬
front them; nor did they rashly thrust themselves
upon the trial, or go out of their way, to court mar¬
tyrdom, but when they were duly called to the
fiery trial, they quitted themselves bravely, with a
813
DANIEL, III.
conduct and courage that became sufferers for so
good a cause. The king was not so daringly bad in
making this idol, but they were as daringly good
in witnessing against it. They keep their temper
admirably well, do not call the king a tyrant, or an
idolater, (the cause of God needs not the wrath of
man,) but, with an exemplary calmness and sedate¬
ness of mind, they deliberately give in their answer,
which they resolve to abide by. Observe,
1. Their gracious and generous contempt of death,
and the liable negligence with which they look upon
the dilemma that they are put to; O Nebuchadnez¬
zar, we are not careful to answer thee in this mat¬
ter. They do not in sullenness deny him an answer,
nor stand mute; but they tell him that they are in
no care about it. There needs not an answer; (so
some read it;) they are resolved not to comply, and
the king is resolved they shall die if they do not;
the matter therefore is determined, and why should
it be disputed! But it is better read, “ We want not
an answer for thee, nor have it to seek, but come
prepared.” (1.) They needed no time to deliberate
concerning the matter of their answer; for they did
not in the least hesitate whether they should "com¬
ply or no. It was a matter of life and death, and
one would think they might have considered awhile
before they had resolved; life is desirable, and death
is dreadful. But when the sin and duty that were
in the case were immediately determined by the
letter of the second commandment, and no room
was left to question that, the life and death that
were in the case were not to be considered. Note,
Those that would avoid sin, must not parley with
temptation; when that which we are allured or
affrighted to is manifestly evil, the motion is rather
to be rejected with indignation and abhorrence than
reasoned with; stand not to pause about it, but say,
as Christ has taught us, Get thee behind me, Satan.
(2.) They needed no time to contrive how they
should word it; while they were advocates for God,
and were called out to witness in his cause, they
doubted not but it should be given them in that
same hour what they should speak, Matt. x. 19.
They were not contriving an evasive answer, when
a direct answer was expected from them, no, nor
would they seem to court the king not to insist upon
it; here is nothing in their answer that looks like
compliment; they begin not, as their accusers did,
with, 0 king, live for ever, no artful insinuation,
ad captandam benevolentiam — to put him into a
good humour, but every thing that is plain and
downright; O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful
to answer thee. Note, Those that make their duty
their main care, need not be careful concerning the
event.
2. Their believing confidence in God, and their
dependence upon him, v. 17. This was it that ena¬
bled them to look with so much contempt upon
death, death in pomp, death in all its terrors; they
trusted in the living God, and by that faith chose
rather to suffer than to sin; they therefore feared
not the wrath of the king, but endured, because by
faith they had an eye to him that is invisible; (Heb.
xi. .25, 27.) “ If it be so, if we are brought to this
strait, if we must be thrown into the fiery furnace,
unless we serve thy gods, know then,” (i.) “ That
though we worship not thy gods, yet we are not
atheists; there is a God whom we can call ours, to
whom we faithfully adhere.” (2.) “ That w eserve
this God, we have devoted ourselves to his honour,
we employ ourselves in his work, and depend upon
him to protect us, provide for us, and reward us.”
(3.) “Thus we are well assured that this God is
able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace;
whether he will or no, we are sure he can either
prevent our being cast into the furnace, or rescue
us out of it.” Note, The faithful servants of God
will find him a Master able to bear them out in his
service, and to control and overrule all the powers
that are armed against them. Lord, if thou wilt,
thou const, (4.) “That we have reason to hope
he will deliver us; partly, because, in such a vast
appearance of idolatries, it would be very much for
the honour of his great name to deliver them; and,
partly, because Nebuchadnezzar had defied him
to do it; Who is that God that shall deliver you ?
God sometimes appears wonderfully for the silenc¬
ing of the blasphemies of the enemy, as well as for
the answering of the prayers of his people, Ps.
lxxiv. 18, 22. Deut. xxxii. 27. “But if he do not
deliver us from the fiery furnace, he will deliver
us out of thy hand.” He can but torment and kill
the body, and, after that, there is no more that he
can do; then they are got out of his reach, delivered
out of his hand. Note, Good thoughts of God, and
a full assurance that he is with us while we are with
him, will help very much to carry us through suf¬
ferings; and if he be for us, we need not fear what
. man can do unto us. Let him do his worst. God
will deliver us either from death or in death.
3. Their firm resolution, however, to adhere to
their principles; (u. 18.) “ But if not, though God
should not think fit to deliver us irom the fiery fur¬
nace, (which yet we know he can do,) if he should
suffer us to fall into thy hand, and fall by thy hand,
yet be it known unto thee, O king, we will not serve
these gods, though they are thy gods, nor worship
this golden image, though thou thyself hast set it
up. ” They are neither ashamed nor afraid to own
their religion, and tell the king to his face, that they
do not fear him, they will not yield to him; had
they consulted with flesh and blood, much might
have been said to bring them to a compliance, es¬
pecially when there was no other way of avoiding
death, so great a death. (1.) They were not re¬
quired to abjure their own God, or to renounce his
worship, no, nor by any verbal profession or decla¬
ration to own this golden image to be a god, but
only to bow down before it, which they might do
with a secret reserve of their hearts for the God of
Israel, inwardly detesting this idolatry, as Naaman
bowed in the house of Rimmon. (2. ) They were
not to fall into a course of idolatry; it was but cne
single act that was required of them, which would
be done in a minute, and the danger was over, and
they might afterward declare their sorrow for it.
(3.) The king that commanded it had an absolute
power, they were under it not only as subjects, but
as captives, and if they did it, it was purely by
coercion and duress, and that would serve to excuse
them. (4.) He had been their benefactor, had
educated and preferred them, and in gratitude to
him they ought to go as far as they could, though
it were to strain a point, a point of conscience. (5. )
They were now driven into a strange country, and
to those that were so driven out, it was, in effect,
said, Go, and serve other gods, 1 Sam. xxvi. 19. It
was taken for granted, that in their disposition they
would serve other gods, and it was made a part of
the judgment, Deut. iv. 28. They might be ex¬
cused if they go down the stream, when it is so
strong. (6.) Did not their kings, and their princes,
and their fathers, yea, and their priests too, set up
idols even in God’s temple, and worship them there,
and not only bow down to them, but erect altars,
burn incense, and offer sacrifices, even their own
children, to them ? Did not all the ten tribes, for
many ages, worship gods of gold at Dan and Beth-el?
And shall they be more precise than their fathers?
Communis error facit jus — What all do must be
right. (7.) If they should comply, they would save
their lives, and keep their places, and so be in a
capacity to do a great deal of service to their bre¬
thren in Babylon, and to do it long; for they weie
814
DANIEL, III.
young men, and rising men. But there is enough
in that one word of God, wherewith to answer and
silence these and many more such like carnal rea¬
sonings; Thou shall not bow down thyself to any
images, nor ivo>;shi/i them. They know they must
obey God rather than man; they must rather suffer
than sin; and must not do evil, that good may come.
And therefore none of these things move them;
they are resolved rather to die in their integrity
than live in their iniquity. While their brethren,
who yet remain in their own land, were worship¬
ping images of theirs, these here in Babylon would
not be brought. to it by constraint, but as if they
were good by anti/ieristasis,* were most zealous
against idolatry in an idolatrous country. And truly,
all things considered, the saving of them from this
sinful compliance was as great a miracle in the
kingdom ot grace, as the saving of them out of the
fiery furnace was in the kingdom of nature. These
were they who formerly resolved not to defile them¬
selves with the king’s meat, and now they as brave¬
ly resolved not to defile themselves with his gods.
Note, A steadfast, self-denying adherence to God
and duty, in lesser instances, will qualify and pre¬
pare us for the like in greater. And in this we must
be resolute, never under any pretence whatsoever,
to worship images, or to say, A confederacy, with
them that do so.
19. Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of
fury, and the form of his visage was changed
against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-ne-
go: therefore, lie spake, and commanded
that they should heat the furnace one seven
times more than it was wont to be heated.
20. And he commanded the most mighty
men that were in his army to bind Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abed-nego, and to cast them
into the burning fiery furnace. 21. Then
these men were bound in their coats, their
hosen, and their hats, and their other gar¬
ments, and were cast into the midst of the
burning fiery furnace. 22. Therefore, be¬
cause the king’s commandment was urgent,
and the furnace exceeding hot, the flame of
the fire slew those men that took up Shad¬
rach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. 23. And
these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abed-nego, fell down bound into the midst
of the burning fiery furnace. 24. Then
Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonished,
and rose up in haste, and spake and said
unto his counsellors, Did not we cast three
■lien bound into the midst of the fire? They
answered and said unto the king, True, O
king. 25. He answered and said, Lo, I
see four men loose, walking in the midst of
the fire, and they have no hurt; and the
form of the fourth is like the Son of God.
26. Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to
the mouth of the burning fiery furnace, and
spake, and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abed-nego, ye servants of the most high
God, come forth, and come hither. Then
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, came
* The opposition of a contrary quality, by which the quality it op¬
poses becomes heightened. — Ed.
forth of the midst of the fire. 27. And the
princes, governors, and captains, and the
king’s counsellors, being gathered together,
saw these men, upon whose bodies the fire
had no power, nor was a hair of their head
singed, neither were their coats changed,
nor the smell of fire had passed on them.
In these verses, we have,
I. The casting of these three faithful servants nl
God into the fiery furnace. Nebuchadnezzar had
himself known and owned so much of the true God,
that, one would have thought, though his pride and
vanity carried him to make this golden image, and
set it up to be worshipped, yet that what these
young men now said, (whom he had formerly found
to be wiser than all his wise men,) should have re¬
vived his convictions, and at least have engaged him
to dispense with them : but it proved quite other¬
wise.
1. Instead of being convinced by what they said,
he was exasperated, and made more outrageous, v.
19. It made him full of fury, and the form of his
visage was changed against these men. Note,
Brutish passions, the more they are indulged, the
more violent they grow, and even change the coun¬
tenance, to the great reproach of the wisdom and
reason of a man. Nebuchadnezzar, in this heat,
exchanged the awful majesty of a prince upon his
throne, or a judge upon the bench, tor the frightful
fury of a wild bull in a net. Would men in a pas¬
sion but view their faces in a glass, they would blush
at their own folly, and turn all their displeasure
against themselves.
2. Instead of mitigating their punishment, in con¬
sideration of their quality, and the posts of honour
they were in, he ordered it to be heightened, that
thev should heat the furnace seven times more than
it was wont to be heated for other malefactors, that
they should put seven times more fuel to it; which,
though it would not make their death more grievous,
but rather despatch them the sooner, was designed
to signify that the king looked upon their crime as
seven times more heinous than the crimes of others,
and so made their death more ignominious. But
God brought glory to himself out of this foolish in-
i stance of the tyrant’s rage; for though it would not
have made their death the more grievous, yet it did
make their deliverance much more illustiious.
3. He ordered them to be bound in their clothes,
and cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace;
which was done accordingly, v. 20, 21. They were
bound, that they might not struggle, or make any
resistance; were bound in their clothes, for haste,
or that thev might lie consumed the more slowly
and gradually. But God’s providence ordered it for
the increase of the miracle, in that their clothes
were not so much as singed. They were bound in
their coats or mantles, their hosen or breeches, and
their hats or turbans, as if, in detestation of their
crime, they would have their clothes to be burnt
with them. What a terrible death was this — To
be cast bound into the midst of a burning fiery fur¬
nace’. v. 23. It makes one’s'flesh tremble to think
of it, and horror to take hold on one. It is amazing
that the tyrant was so hard- hearted as to inflict such
a punishment, and that the confessors were so stout¬
hearted as to submit to it rather than sin against
God. But what is this to the second death, to that
furnace into which the tares shall be cast in bundles,
to that lake which burns eternally with fire and
brimstone? Let Nebuchadnezzar heat his furnace
as hot as he can, a few minutes will finish the tor¬
ment of those who are cast into it: but hell-fire
tortures, and does not kill; the pain of damned sin¬
ners is more exquisite, and the smoke of their tor
815
DANIEL, III.
merit ascends for ever and ever, and they have no
rest, no intermission, no cessation of their pains,
who have worahi/ified the beast and his image,
(Rev. xiv. 10, 11.) whereas their pain would be
soon over that were cast into this furnace for wor¬
shipping this Babylonian beast and his image.
4. It was a remarkable providence, that the men,
the mighty men, that bound them, and threw them
into the furnace, were themselves consumed or suf¬
focated by the flame, v. 22. The king’s command¬
ment was urgent, that they should despatch them
quickly, and be sure to do it effectually; and there¬
fore they resolved to go to the very mouth of the
furnace, that they might throw thern into the midst
of it, but they were in such haste, that they would
not take time to arm themselves accordingly. The
apocryphal additions to Daniel say that the flame
ascended forty-nine cubits above the mouth of the
furnace. Probably, God ordered it so, that the
rvind blew it directly upon them with such violence
that it smothered them. God did thus immediately
plead the cause of his injured servants, and take
vengeance for them on their persecutors, whom he
punished, not only in the very act of their sin, but
by it. But these men were only the instruments of
cruelty; he that bade them doit had the greater
sin; yet they suffered justly for executing an unjust
decree, and it is very probable that they did it with
pleasure, and were glad to be so employed. Nebu¬
chadnezzar himself was reserved for a further rec¬
koning. There is a day coming when proud tyrants
will be punished, not only for the cruelties they
have been guilty of, but for employing those about
them in their cruelties, and so exposing tlftm to the
judgments of God.
II. The deliverance of these three faithful ser¬
vants of God out of the furnace. When they were
cast bound into the midst of that devouring fire, we
might well conclude that we should hear no more
of them, that their very bones would be calcined;
but, to our amazement, we here find that Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abed-nego are yet alive.
1. Nebuchadnezzar finds them walking in the
fire; He was astonished, and rose u/i in haste, v. 24.
Perhaps the slaying of the men that executed his
sentence, was that which astonished him, as well it
might, for he had reason to think his own turn
would be next; or it was some unaccountable im¬
pression upon his own mind that astonished him,
and made him rise ufi in haste, and go to the fur¬
nace, to see what was become of those he had cast
into it. Note, God can strike those with astonish¬
ment, whose hearts are most hardened, both against
him, and against his people. He that made the
soul, can make his sword to approach to it, even
to that of the greatest tyrant. In his astonishment
he calls his counsellors about him, and appeals
to them whether we did not cast three men bound
into the fire. It seems, it was done by order, not
only of the king, but of the council. They durst
not but concur with him, which he forced them to
do, that they might share with him in the guilt and
odium; “ True, 0 king,” say they; “ we did order
such an execution to be done, and it was done.”
“ But now,” (says the king) “ I have been looking
into the furnace, and I see four men loose, walking
in the midst of the fire,” v. 25. (1.) They were
loosed from their bonds; the fire that did not so
much as singe their clothes, burnt the cords where¬
with they were tied, and set them at liberty: thus
God’s people have their hearts enlarged, through
the grace of God, by those very troubles with
which their enemies designed to straiten and ham¬
per them. (2.) They had no hurt, made no com¬
plaint, felt no pain, or uneasiness in the least: the
flame did not scorch them, the smoke did not stifle
them, they were alive, and as well as ever, in the
midst of the flames. See how the God of nature
can, when he pleases, control the powers of nature,
to make them serve his purposes. Now was fulfil¬
led, in the letter, that gracious promise, Isa. xliii.
2. When thou walkest through the fire, thou shall
not be burnt, neither shall the fame kindle ufion
thee. By faith they quench the violence of the fire,
quench the fiery darts of the wicked. (3.) The)'
walked in the midst of the fire: the furnace was
large, so that they had room to walk; they were
unhurt, so that they were able to walk; their minds
were easy, so that they were disposed to walk, as
in a paradise or garden of pleasure. Can a man
walk ufion hot coals, and his feet not be burnt'/
Prov. vi. 28. Yes, they did it with as much plea¬
sure as the king of Tyrus walked ufi and down in
the midst of his stones of fire, his precious stones
that sparkled as fire, Ezek. xxviii. 14. They were
not striving to get out, finding themselves unhurt,
but leaving it to that God who preserved them in
the fire, to bring them out of it; they walked up
and down in the midst of it, unconcerned. One of
the apocryphal writings relates at large the prayer
which Azariah, one of the three, prayed in the fire,
wherein he laments the calamities and iniquities of
Israel, and entreats God’s favour to his people; and
the song of praise which they all three sang in the
midst of the flames; in both which there are re¬
markable strains of devotion: but we have reason
to think, with Grotius, that they were composed by
some Jew of a later age, not as what were used, but
only as what might have been used, on this occasion,
and therefore we justly reject them as no part of
holy writ. (4.) There was a fourth seen with them
in the fire, whose form, in Nebuchadnezzar’s judg¬
ment, was like the Son of God; he appeared as a
Divine Person, a Messenger from heaven, not as a
Servant, but as a Son. Like an angel; (so some;)
and angels are called sons of God, Job xxxviii. 7.
In the apocryphal narrative of this story it is said,
The angel of the Lord came down into the furnace ;
and Nebuchadnezzar here says, (r. 28.) God sent
his angel, and delivered them; and it was an angel
that shut the lions’ mouths when Daniel was in the
den, ch. vi. 22. But some think it was the eternal
Son of God, the Angel of the covenant, and not a
created angel. He afifieared often in our nature
before he assumed it for good and all; and never
more seasonably, nor to give a more proper indica¬
tion and presage of his great errand into the world
in the fulness of time, than now, when, to deliver
his chosen out of the fire, he came and walked with
them in the fire. Note, Those that suffer for Christ
have his gracious presence with them in their suf¬
ferings, even in the fiery furnace, even in the valley
of the shadow of death, and therefore even there
they need fear no evil. Hereby Christ showed
that what is done against his people he takes as
done against himself; whoever throws them into
the furnace, does, in effect, throw him in. I am
Jesus, whom thou fiersecutest. Acts ix. 5.
2. Nebuchadnezzar calls them out of the furnace;
(v. 26.) He came near to the mouth of the burning
fiery furnace, bids them come forth, and come
hither. Come forth, come; so some read it: he
speaks with a great deal of tenderness and concern,
and stands ready to lend them his hand, and help
them out. He is convinced by their miraculous
preservation, that he did wrong in casting them into
the furnace; and therefore he does not thrust them
out firivily, no, verily, but he will come himself and
fetch them out. Acts xvi. 37. Observe the respect¬
ful title that he gives them; when he was in the
heat of his fury and rage against them, it is proba¬
ble that he called them rebels and traitors, and all
the ill names he could ‘invent; but now he owns
them for the servants of the Most High God; a
816
DANIEL, III.
God who now appears able to deliver them oat of
his hand. Note, Sooner or later, God will convince
the proudest of men, that he is the Most High God,
and above them, and too hard for them, even in
those things wherein they deal proudly and pre¬
sumptuously, Exod. xviii. 11. He will likewise let
them know who are his servants, and that he owns
them, and will stand by them. Elijah prayed, (1
Kings xviii. 36.) Let it be known that thou art
God, and that I am thy servant. Nebuchadnezzar
now embraces those whom he had abandoned, and
is very officious about them, now that he perceives
them to be the favourites of Heaven. Note, What
persecutors have done against God’s servants, when
God opens their eyes, they must as far as they can
undo again.
How the fourth, whose form was like the Son of
God, withdrew, and whether he vanished away, or
visibly ascended, we are not told, but of the other
three we are informed, (1.) That they came forth
out of the midst of the fire, as Abraham their father
out of Ur, the fire of the Chaldees, into which, says
this tradition of the Jews, he was cast, for refusing
to worship idols, and out of which he was delivered,
as those his three children were; when they had
their discharge, they did not tempt God by staying
in any longer, but came forth as brands out of the
burning. (2.) That it was made to appear to the
full satisfaction of all the amazed spectators, that
they had not received the least damage by the fire,
v. 27. All the great men came together to view
them, and found that there was not so much as a
hair of their head singed. Here that was true in
the letter, which our Saviour spake figuratively, for
an assurance to his suffering servants, that they
should sustain no real damage; (Luke xxi. 18.)
There shall not a hair of your head perish. Their
clothes did not so much as change colour, or smell
of fire, much less were their bodies in the least
scorched or blistered: no, the fre had no power on
them. The Chaldeans worshipped the fire, as a
sort of an image of the sun, so that, in restraining
the fire now, God put contempt, not only upon their
king, but upon their god too, and showed that his
voice divides the fames of fre as well as the floods
of water, (Ps. xxix. 7.) when he pleases to make a
way for his people through the midst of it. It is
our God only that is the consuming Fire; (Heb.
xii. 29.) other fire, if he but speak the word, shall
not consume.
28. Then Nebuchadnezzar spake and
said, Blessed he the God of Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abed-nego, who hath sent
his angel, and delivered his servants that
trusted in him, and have changed the king’s
A'ord, and yielded their bodies, that they
might not serve nor worship any god except
their own God. 29. Therefore I make a
decree, That every people, nation, and lan¬
guage, which speak any thing amiss against
the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-
nego, shall be cut in pieces, and their houses
shall be made a dunghill; because there is
no other god that can deliver after this sort.
30. Then the king promoted Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abed-nego, in the province
of Babylon.
The strict observations that were made, super
visum corporis — on inspecting their bodies, by the
princes and governors, and all the great men who
were present upon this public occasion, and who
could not be supposed partial in favour of the con •
fessors, contributed much to the clearing of this mi¬
racle, and the magnifying of the power and grace
of God in it. That indeed a notable miracle has
been done, is manifest, and we cannot deny it, Acts
iv. 16. Let us now see what effect it had upon
Nebuchadnezzar.
1. He gives glory to the God of Israel, as a God
able and ready to protect his worshippers; {y. 28.)
Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and
ylbed-nego. Let him have the honour both of the
faithful allegiance which his subjects bear to him,
and the powerful protection he grants to them,
neither of which can be paralleled between any
other nation and their gods. The king does himself
acknowledge and adore him, and thinks it is fit that
he should be acknowledged and adored by all.
Blessed be the God of Shadrach. Note, God can
extort confessions of his blessedness even from those
that have been ready to curse him to his face. (1.)
He gives him the glory of his power, that he was
able to protect his worshippers against the most
mighty and malignant enemies: There is no other
god that can deliver after this sort, (y. 29.) no, not
this golden image which he had set up. Tor this
reason, there was no other god that obliged his
worshippers to cleave to him only, and to suffer
death rather than worship any other, as the God of
Israel did; for they could not engage to bear them
out in so doing, as he could. If God can work such
deliverance as no other can, he may demand such
obedience as no other may. (2.) He gives him the
glory of his goodness, that he was ready to do it;
(y. 28.) He has setit his angel, and delivered his
servants. Bel could not save his worshippers from
being burnt at the mouth of the furnace, but the
God of Israel saved his from being burnt when they
were cast into the midst of the furnace, bgcause
they refused to worship any other god. By this,
Nebuchadnezzar was plainly given to understand
that all the great success which he had had, and
should yet have, against the people of Israel, which
he gloried in, as if he had therein overpowered the
God of Israel, was owing purely to their sin; if the
body of that nation had faithfully adhered to their
own God, and the worship of him only, as these
three men did, they should all have been delivered
out of his hand as these three men were. And this
was a necessary instruction for him at this time.
2. He applauds the constancy of these three men
in their religion, and describes it to their honour,
{v. 28.) though he is not himself persuaded to own
their God for his, and to worship him; because, if
he do so, he knows he must worship him only, and
renounce all others, and he calls him the God of
Shadrach, not my God; yet he commends them for
cleaving to him, and not serving or worshipping
any other God but their own. Note, There are
many who are not religious themselves, and yet will
own that they are clearly in the right that are reli¬
gious, and are steadfast in their religion. Though
they are not themselves persuaded to close with it,
they will commend those who, having closed with
it, cleave to it. If men have given up their names
to that God who will alone be served, let them keep
to their principles, and serve him only, whatever it
cost them. Such a constancy in the true religion
will turn to men’s praise, even among them that
are without, when unsteadiness, treachery, and
double dealing, are what all men will cry shame on.
He commends them that they did this, (1.) With
a generous contempt of their lives, which they va¬
lued not, in comparison with the favour of God, and
the testimony of a good conscience. They yielded
their own bodies tobe cast into the fiery furnace rather
than they would not only not forsake their God, but
not affront him, by once paying that homage to any
DANIEL, IV.
other, which is due to him alone. Note, Those shall
Have their praise, if not of men, yet of God, who pre¬
fer their souls before their bodies, and will rather lose
their "lives than forsake their God. Those know not
the worth and value of religion, who do not think it
worth suffering for. (2.) They did it witli a glori¬
ous contradiction to their prince: they changed the
king's word, they went contrary to it, and thereby
put contempt upon both his precepts and threaten-
ings, and made him repent and revoke both. Note,
Even kings themselves must own that, when their
commands are contrary to the commands of God,
he is to be obeyed, and not they. (3.) They did it
with a gracious confidence in their God. They
trusted in him that he would stand by them in what
they did, that he would either bring them out of the
fiery furnace, back to their place on earth, or lead
them through the fiery furnace, forward to their
place in heaven; and in this confidence they became
fearless of tile king’s wrath, and regardless of their
own lives. Note, A steadfast faith in God will pro¬
duce a steadfast faithfulness to God. Now this ho¬
nourable testimony, thus publicly borne by the king
himself to these servants of God, we may well think,
would have a good influence upon the rest of the
Jews that were, or should be, captives in Babylon.
Th$ir neighbours could not with any confidence
urge them to do that, nor could they for shame do
that, which their brethren were so highly applaud¬
ed by the king himself for not doing. Nay, and
what God did for these his servants, would help not
only to keep the Jews close to their religion while
they were in captivity, but to cure them of their in¬
clination to idolatry, for which end they were sent
into captivity; and when it had had that blessed
effect upon them, they might be assured that God
would deliver them out of that furnace, as now he i
delivered their brethren out of this.
3. He issues out a royal edict, strictly forbidding
any to speak evil of the God of Israel, v. 29. We
have reason to think that both the sins and the
troubles of Israel had given great occasion, though !
no just occasion, to the Chaldeans to blaspheme the
God of Israel, and, it is likely, Nebuchadnezzar i
himself had encouraged it; but now, though he is
no true convert, nor is wrought upon to worship
him, yet lie resolves never to speak ill of him again,
nor to suffer others to do so; Whoever shall speak
any thing amiss, any error, (so some,) or rather
any reproach or blasphemy, whoever shall speak
with contempt of the God of Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abed-nego, they shall be counted the worst of
malefactors, and dealt with accordingly, they shall
be cut in pieces, as Agag was by the sword of Sa¬
muel, and their houses shall be demolished, and
made a dunghill. The miracle now wrought by
the power of this God, in defence of his worshippers,
publicly in the sight of the thousands of Babylon,
was a sufficient justification of this edict. And it
would contribute much to the ease of the Jews in
their captivity, to be by this law screened from the
fiery darts of reproach and blasphemy, with which
otherwise they would have been continually annoy¬
ed. Note, It is a great mercy to the church, and a
good point gained, when its enemies, though they
have not their hearts turned, yet have their mouths
stopped, and their tongues tied. If a heathen prince
laid such a restraint upon the proud lips of blas¬
phemers, much more should Christian princes do it;
nay, in this thing, one would think that men should
be a law to themselves, and that those who have so
little love to God, that they care not to speak well
of him, yet could never find in their hearts, for we
are sure they could never find cause, to speak any
thing amiss of him.
4. He not only reverses the attainder of these
three men, but restores them to their places in the
Vol. rr. — 5 L
817
government, ( makes them to prosper, so the word
is,) and prefers them to greater and more advanta¬
geous trusts than they had been in before; He pro¬
moted them in the province of Babylon, which was
much to their honour, and the comfort of their
brethren in captivity there. Note, It is the wisdom
of princes to prefer and employ men of steadfastness
in religion; for those are most likely to be faithful to
them, who are faithful to God; and it is likely to be
well with them, when God’s favourites are made
theirs.
CHAP. IV.
The penman of this chapter is Nebuchadnezzar himself;
the story concerning him here recorded is given us in his
own words, as he himself drew it up, and published it;
but Daniel, a prophet, by inspiration, inserts it in his
history, and so it is become a part of sacred writ, and a
very observable part. Nebuchadnezzar was as daring
a rival with God Almighty for the sovereignty as perhaps
any mortal man ever was; but here he fairly owns him¬
self conquered, and gives it under his hand, That the
God of Israel is above him. Here is, I. The preface to
his narrative, wherein he acknowledges God’s dominion
over him, v. 1 . . 3. II. The narrative itself, wherein
he relates, 1. Ilis dream, which puzzled the magicians,
v. 1 . . 18. 2. The interpretation of his dream by Da¬
niel, who showed him that it was a prognostication of
his own fall, advising him therefore to repent and re¬
form, v. 19 . . 27. 3. The accomplishment of it in his
running stark mad for seven years, and then recovering
the use of his reason again, v. 28 . . 36. 4. The conclu¬
sion of the narrative, with an humble acknowledgment
and adoration of God as Lord of all, v. 37. This was
extorted from him by the overruling power of that God
who has all men’s hearts in his hand, and stands upon
record a lasting proof of God’s supremacy, a monument
of his glory, a trophy of his victory, and a warning to
all not to think of prospering, while they lift up or harden
their hearts against God.
guages, that dwell in all the earth ; Peace
be multiplied unto you. 2. I thought it
good to shew the signs and wonders that
the high God hath wrought toward me. 3.
Plow great are his signs ! and how mighty
are his wonders ! his kingdom is an ever¬
lasting kingdom, and his dominion is from
generation to generation.
Here is,
I. Something of form, which was usual in writs,
proclamations, or circular letters, issued out by the
king, v. 1. The royal style which Nebuchadnez¬
zar makes use of, has nothing in it of pomp or
fancy, but isplain, short, and unaffected; Nebuchad¬
nezzar the king. If at other times he made use of
great swelling words of vanity in his title, now he
laid them all aside; for he was old, he was lately
recovered from a distraction which had humbled
and mortified him, and was now in the actual con¬
templation of God’s greatness and sovereignty. The
declaration is directed, not only to his own subjects,
but to all to whom this present writing shall come;
to all people, nations, and languages, that dwell in
all the earth. He is not only willing that they should
all hear of it, though it carry the account of his own
infamy, (which perhaps none durst have published,
if he had not done it himself, and therefore Daniel
published the original paper,) but he strictly charges
and commands all manner of persons to take notice-
of it; for all are concerned, and it may be profitable
to all. He salutes those to whom he’ writes, in the
usual form, Peace be multiplied unto you. Note,.
It becomes kings with their commands to dispense
their good wishes, and, as fathers of the country, to
bless their subjects. So the common form with ust
1 lre send greeting. Omnibus quibus ha presenter.
81rf
DANIEL, IV.
literse pervenerint, salutem — To all to whom these
presents shall come, health; and sometimes, Salutem
sempiternam — Health and salvation everlasting.
II. Something of substance and matter. He writes
this,
1. To acquaint others with the providences of
God that had related to him; (v. 2.) I thought it
good to show the signs and wonders that the high
God (so he calls the true God) has wrought toward
me. He thought it seemly, (so the word is,) that it
was his duty, and did well become him, that it was
a debt he owed to God and the world, now that he
was recovered from his distraction, to relate to dis¬
tant places, and record for future ages, how justly
God had humbled him, and how graciously he had
at length restored him. All the nations, no doubt,
had heard what befell Nebuchadnezzar, and rang
of it; but he thought it fit that they should have a
distinct account of it from himself, that they might
know the hand of God in it, and what impressions
were made upon his own spirit by it, and might
speak of it not as a matter of news, but as a matter
of religion. The events concerning him were not
only wonders to be admired, but signs to be instruct¬
ed by, signifying to the world that Jehovah is
greater than all gods. Note, We ought to show to
others God’s dealings with us, both the rebukes we
have been under, and the favours we have received;
and though the account hereof may reflect disgrace
upon ourselves, as this here did upon Nebuchad¬
nezzar, yet we must not conceal it, as long as it may
redound to the glory of God. Many will be forward
to tell what God has done for their souls, because
that turns to their own praise, who care not for
telling what God has done against them, and how
they deserved it; whereas we ought to give glory
to God, not only by praising him for his mercies,
but by confessing our sins, accepting the punishment
of our iniquity, and in both taking shame to our¬
selves, as this mighty monarch here does.
2. To show how much he was himself affected
with them, and convinced by them, v. 3. We
should always speak of the word and works of God
with concern and seriousness, and show ourselves
affected with those great things of God, which we
desire others should take notice of.
(1.) He admires God’s doings. He speaks of
them as one amazed; How great are his signs and
how mighty are his wonders l Nebuchadnezzar was
now old, had reigned above forty years, and had
seen as much of the world and the revolutions of it
as most men ever did; and yet never till now, when
himself was nearly touched, was he brought to ad¬
mire surprising events as God’s signs and his won¬
ders. Now, How great, how mighty, are they!
Note, The more we see events to be the Lord’s doing,
and see in them the/zrocfort of a divine power, and the
conduct of a divine wisdom, the more marvellous
they will appear in our eyes, Ps. cxviii. 23. — lxvi. 2.
(2.) He infers from thence God’s dominion. This
is that which he is at length brought to subscribe to;
His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom; and notlike
his own kingdom, which he saw, and long since
foresaw, in a dream, hastening towards a period.
He now owns that there is a God that governs the
world, and has an universal, incontestable, absolute
dominion in and over all the affairs of the children
of men. And it is the glory of this kingdom, that it
is everlasting; other reigns are confined to one gene¬
ration, and other dynasties to a few generations, but
God’s dominion is from generation to generation.
It should seem, Nebuchadnezzar here refers to
what Daniel had foretold of a kingdom which the
God of heaven would set up, that should never be
destroyed, ( ch . ii. 44.) which, though meant of the
kingdom of the Messiah, he understood of the pro¬
vidential kingdom. Thus we may make a profitable.
practical use and application of those prophetical
scriptures, which yet we do not fully, and perhaps
not rightly, taking the meaning of.
4. I Nebuchadnezzar was at rest in my
house, and flourishing in my palace: 5. I
saw a dream which made me afraid, and
the thoughts upon my bed and the visions
of my head troubled me. 6. Therefore
made I a decree to bring in all the wise men
of Babylon before me, that they might make
known unto me the interpretation of the
dream. 7. Then came in the magicians,
the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the
soothsayers: and I told the dream before
them; but they did not make known unto
me the interpretation thereof. 8. But at the
last Daniel came in before me, (whose name
was Belteshazzar, according to the name ol
my god, and in whom is the spirit of the
holy gods,) and before him 1 told the dream.
saying, 9. O Belteshazzar, master of the
magicians, because I know that the spirit
of the holy gods is in thee, and no secret
troubleth thee, tell me the visions of my
dream that I have seen, and the interpreta¬
tion thereof. 10. Thus were the visions of
my head in my bed : I saw, and, behold, a
tree in the midst of the earth, and the height
thereof was great. 1 1 . The tree grew, and
was strong, and the height thereof reached
unto heaven, and the sight thereof to the
end of all the earth. 12. The leaves there¬
of were, fair, and the fruit thereof much, and
in it was meat for all : the beasts of the field
had shadow under it, and the fowls of the
heaven dwelt in the boughs thereof, and all
flesh was fed of it. 1 3. I saw in the visions
of my head upon my bed, and, behold, a
watcher and a holy one came down from
heaven. 14. He cried aloud, and said thus,
Hew down the tree, and cut off his branch¬
es, shake off his leaves, and scatter his
fruit: let the beasts get away from under
it, and the fowls from his branches. 15.
Nevertheless, leave the stump of his roots
in the earth, even with a band of iron and
brass in the tender grass of the field ; and
let it be wet with the dew of heaven, and
let his portion be with the beasts in the grass
of the earth. 16. Let his heart be changed
from man’s, and let a beast’s heart be given
unto him; and let seven times pass over
him. 17. This matter is by the decree of
the watchers, and the demand by the word
of the holy ones; to the intent that the liv¬
ing may know that the Most High ruleth in
the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whom¬
soever he will, and setteth up over it the
basest of men. 18. This dream 1 king
Nebuchadnezzar have seen. Now thou,
819
DANIEL, IV.
O Belteshazzar, declare the interpretation
thereof; forasmuch as ail the wise men of
my kingdom are not able to make known
unto me the interpretation: but thou art
able; for the spirit of the holy gods is in
thee.
Nebuchadnezzar, before he relates the judgments
of God that had been brought upon him for his
pride, gives an accent of the fair warning he had
>f them before they came, which if he had duly re¬
garded, they might have,been prevented. But there¬
fore he was told of them, and of the issue of them,
before they came to pass, that, when they did come
to /lass, by comparing them with the prediction of
them, lie might see, and say, that they were the
Lord’s doing, and might be brought to believe that
there is a divine revelation in the world, as well as
a Divine Providence, and that the works of God
agree with his word.
Now, in the account he here gives of his dream,
by which he had notice of what was coming, we may
observe,
I. The time when this alarm was given him; (v.
4. ) it was when he was at rest in his house and flou¬
rishing in his palace. He had lately conquered
Egypt, and with it completed his victories, and
ended his wars, and made himself monarch of all
those parts of the world, which was about the thir¬
ty-fourth or thirty-fifth year of his reign, Ezek.
xxix. 17. Then he had this dream, which was ac¬
complished about a year after; seven years his dis¬
traction continued, upon his recovery from which he
penned this declaration, lived about two years after,
and died in his forty-fifth year. He had undergone
a long fatigue in his wars, had made many a tedious
and dangerous campaign in the field; but now at
length he is at rest in his house, and there is no ad¬
versary, nor evil occurrent. Note, God can reach
the greatest of men with his terrors then when they
are most secure, and think themselves at rest and
flourishing.
II. The impression it made upon him; (v. 5.) /
saw a dream, which made me afraid. One would
think no little thing would frighten him that had
been a man of war from his youth, and used to look
the perils of war in the face without change of coun¬
tenance; yet, when God pleases, a dream strikes a
terror upon him. His bed, no doubt, was soft, and
easy, and well guarded, and yet his own thoughts
u/ion his bed make him uneasy, and the visions of
his head, the creatures of his own imagination, trou¬
ble him. Note, God can make the greatest of men
uneasy, even then when they say to their souls, Take
your ease, eat, drink, and be merry; can make those
that have been the troublers of the world, and have
tormented thousands, to be their own troublers,
their own, tormenters; and those that have been the
terror of the mighty, a terror to themselves. By the
consternation which this dream put him into, and
the impression it made upon him, he perceived it to
be, not an ordinary dream, but sent of God on a spe¬
cial errand.
III. His consulting, in vain, with the magicians
and astrologers concerning the meaning of it. He
had not now forgotten the dream, as before, ch. ii.
He had it ready enough, but he wanted to know the
interpretation of it, and what was prefigured by it,
v. 6. Orders are immediately given to summon all
the wise men of Babylon, that were such fools as to
pretend by magic, divinations, inspecting the en¬
trails of beasts, or observations of the stars, to pre¬
dict things to come; they must all come together,
to see if any, or all of them in consultation, could in¬
terpret the king’s dream. It is probable that these
people had sometimes, in a like case, given the king
some sort of satisfaction, and by the rules of their
art had answered the king’s queries so as to please
him, whether it were right or wrong, hit or missed;
but now that his expectation from them was disap¬
pointed, he told them the dream, (y. 7.) but they
could not tell him the interpretation of it; though
they had boasted, with great assurance, (ch. ii. 4, 7.)
that if they had but the dream told them, they
would without fail interpret it. But the key of this
dream was in a sacred prophecy, (Ezek. xxxi. 3,
&c.) where the Assyrian is compared, as Nebuchad¬
nezzar here, to a tree cut down, for his pride; and
that was a book they had not studied, or acquainted
themselves with, else they might have been let into
the mystery of this dream. Providence ordered it
so that they should be first puzzled with it, that
Daniel’s interpreting it afterwards might redound to
the glory of the God of Daniel. Now was fulfilled
what Isaiah foretold, ch. xlvii. 12, 13. that when the
ruin of Babylon was drawing on, her enchantments
and sorceries, her astrologers and stargazers, should
not be able to do her any service.
IV. The court he made to Daniel, to engage
him to expound his dream to him; At the last
Daniel came in, v. 8. Either he declined associat¬
ing with the rest, because of their badness; or they
declined his company, because of his goodness; or
the king would rather that his own magicians should
have the honour of doing it if they could, than that
Daniel should have it; or, Daniel being govern or of
the wise men, (ch. ii. 48.) was, as is usual, last con¬
sulted. Many make God’s word their last refuge,
and never have recourse to it till they are driven off
from all other succours. He compliments Daniel
Very highly, takes notice of the name which he had
himself given him, in the choice of which he thinks
he was very happy, and that it was a good omen,
his name was Belteshazzar, from Bel, the name of
my god; he applauds his rare endowments, he has
the spirit of the holy gods, so he tells him to his
face; (v. 9.) with which we may suppose that
Daniel was so far from being puffed up, that he was
rather very much grieved to hear that which he
had by gift from the God of Israel, the true and
living God, ascribed to Nebuchadnezzar’s god, a
dunghill deity. Here is a strange medley in Nebu¬
chadnezzar, but such as is commonly found in those
that side with their corruptions against their con¬
victions. 1. He retains the language and dialect of
his idolatry, and therefore, it is to be feared, is no
convert to the faith and worship of the living God.
He is an idolater, and his speech bewrayeth him.
For he speaks of many gods, and is not brought to
acquiesce in one as sufficient, no, not in him who is
all-sufficient. And some think, when he speaks of
the spirit of the holy gods, that he supposes there
are some evil, malignant deities, whom men are
concerned to worship, only to prevent them doing
them a mischief, and some who are good, beneficent
deities, and that by the spirit of them Daniel was
animated. He also owns that Bel was his god still,
though he had once and again acknowledged the
God of Israel to be Lord of all, ch. ii. 47. — iii. 20.
He also applauds Daniel, not as a servant of God,
but as master of the magicians, (v. 9.) supposing
his knowledge to differ from theirs, not in kind, but
only in degree; and he consulted him not as a pro¬
phet, but as a celebrated magician; so endeavouring
to save the credit of the art, when those blundered
and were nonplussed, who were masters of the art.
See how close his idolatry sat to him: he has got a
notion of many gods, and has chosen Bel for his god,
and he cannot persuade himself to quit either his
notion or his choice, though the absurdity of both
had been evidenced to him, more than once, beyond
contradiction. He, like other heathens, would nol
change his gods, though they were no gods, Jer, ii
C20
DANIEL, IV.
11. M.,ny persist in a false way, only because they
think they cannot in honour leave it. See how loose
his convictions sat, and how easily he had dropped
them: he once called the God of Israel a God of
gods, ch. ii. 47, Now he sets him upon a level with
the rest of those whom he calls the holy gods.
Note, If convictions be not speedily prosecuted, it
is a thousand to one but in a little time they are
quite lost and forgotten. Nebuchadnezzar, not go¬
ing forward with the acknowledgments he had
been brought to make of the sovereignty of the true
God, soon went backward, and relapsed to the same
veneration he had always had for his false gods.
And yet, 2. He professes a great opinion of Daniel,
whom he knows to be a servant of the true God,
and of him only. He looked upon him as one that
had such an insight, such a foresight, as none of his
magicians had; I know that no secret troubles thee.
Note, The spirit of prophecy quite outdoes the
spirit of divination, even the enemies themselves
being judges; for so it was adjudged here, upon a
fair trial of skill.
V. The particular account he gives him of his
dream.
1. He saw a stately flourishing tree, remarkably
above all the trees of the wood. This tree was
filanted in the midst of the earth, (y. 10.) fitly re¬
presenting him who reigned in Babylon, which was
about the midst of the then known world. His dig¬
nity and eminency above all his neighbours were
signified by the height of this tree, which was ex¬
ceeding great, it reached unto heaven ; he overtop¬
ped those about him, and aimed to have divine
honours given him; nay, he overpowered those
about him; and the potent armies he had the com¬
mand of, with which he carried all before him, are
signified by the strength of this tree; it grew, and
was strong. And so much were Nebuchadnezzar
and his growing greatness the talk of the nations, so
much had they their eye upon him, (some a jealous
eye, all a wondering eye,) that the sight of this tree
is said to be to the end of all the earth. This tree
had every thing in it that was pleasant to the eye,
and good for food; ( [v . 12.) The leaves thereof were
fair; denoting the pomp and splendour of Nebu¬
chadnezzar’s court, which was the wonder of stran¬
gers, and the glory of his own subjects. Nor was
this tree for sight and state only, but for use. (1.)
For protection; the boughs of it were for shelter,
both to the beasts and to the fowls. Princes should
be a screen to their subjects from the heat, and
from the storm, should expose themselves to secure
them, and study how to make them safe and easy:
if the bramble be promoted over the trees, he invites
them to come, and trust in his shadow, such as it is,
Judg. ix. 15. It is protection that draws allegiance.
The kings of the earth are to their subjects but as
the shadow of a great tree; but Christ is to his sub¬
jects as the shadow of a great rock, Isa. xxxii. 2.
Nay, because that, though strong, may yet be cold,
they are said to be hid under the shadow of his
wings, (Ps. xvii. 8.) where they are not only safe,
but warm. (2.) For provision. The Assyrian was
compared to a cedar, (Ezek. xxxi. 6.) which af¬
fords shadow only; out this tree here had much
fruit, in it was meat for all, and all flesh was fed
of it. This mighty monarch, it should seem by this,
not only was great, but did good; he did not im¬
poverish, but enrich, his country, and by his power
and interest abroad brought wealth and trade to it.
They that exercise authority would be called bene¬
factors, (Luke xxii. 25.) and the most effectual
course they can take to support their authority is,
to be really benefactors. And see what is the best
that great men with their wealth and power can
attain to, and that is, to have the honour of having
many to live upon them, and to be maintained by
them; for as goods are increased, they are increased
that eat them.
2. He heard the doom of this tree read, which he
perfectly remembered, and relates it here, perhaps,
word for word as he heard it. The sentence was
passed upon it by an angel, whom he saw come
down from heaven, and heard proclaim this sen¬
tence aloud. This angel is here called a watcher,
or watchman; not only because angels by their na¬
ture are spirits, and therefore neither slumber nor
sleep, but because by their office they are minister¬
ing spirits, and attend continually to their ministra¬
tions, watching all opportunities of serving their
great Master. They, as watchers, encamp round
them that fear God, to deliver them, and bear them
up in their hands. This angel was a messenger, or
ambassador, (so some read it,) and a holy one. Ho¬
liness becomes God’s house; therefore angels that at¬
tend, and are employed by him, are holy ones; they
preserve the purity and rectitude of their nature,
and are in every thing conformable to the divine will.
Let us review the doom passed upon the tree.
(1.) Orders are given that it be cut down; (v.
14. ) now also the axe is laid to the root of this tree.
Though it is ever so high, ever so strong, that can
not secure it when its day comes to fall ; the beasts
and fowls, that are sheltered in and under the
boughs of it, are driven away and dispersed; the
branches are cropped, the leaves shaken off, and the
fruit scattered. Note, Worldly prosperity in its
highest degree is a very uncertain thing; and it is no
uncommon thing for those that have lived in the
greatest pomp and power, to be stripped of all that
which they trusted to, and gloried in. By the turns
of providence, those who made a figure become cap¬
tives, those who lived in plenty, and above what
they had, are reduced to straits, and live far below
what they had, and those perhaps are brought to be
beholden to others, who once had many depending
upon them, and making suit to them. But the trees
of righteousness, that are planted in the house of the
Lord , and bring forth fruit to him, shall not be cut
down, nor shall their leaf wither.
(2.) Care is taken that the root be preserved; ( v .
15. ) Leave the stump of it in the earth, exposed to
all weathers; there let it lie neglected and buried in
the grass; let the beasts that formerly sheltered
themselves under the boughs, now repose them¬
selves upon the stump; but, that it may not be raked
to pieces, or trodden to dirt, and to show that it is
yet reserved for better days, let it be hooped round
with a band of iron and brass, to keep it firm.
Note, God in judgment remembers mercy; and may
yet have good things in store for those whose condi¬
tion seems most forlorn. There is hope of a tree,
if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, that
through the scent of water it will bud. Job xiv.
7.-9.
(3.) The meaning of this is explained by the an¬
gel himself to Nebuchadnezzar; (v. 16.-) whoever is
the person signified by this tree, he is sentenced to
be deposed from the honour, state, and dignity of a
man, to be deprived of the use of his reason, and to
be and live like a brute, till seven times pass over
him; Let a beast’s heart be given unto him. This
is surely the saddest and sorest of all temporal judg¬
ments, worse a thousand times than death, and
though like it, least felt by those that lie under it,
yet to be dreaded and deprecated more than any
other. Nay, whatever outward affliction God is
pleased to lay upon us, we have reason to bear it
patiently, and to be thankful that he continues to us
the use of our reason, and the peace of our conscien¬
ces. But those proud tyrants who set their heart
as the heart of God , (Ezek. xxviii. 2.) justly may be
deprived of the heart of man, and have a beast's
heart given them.
DANIEL, IV.
(4.) The truth of it is confirmed; (v. 17.) Thin
matter is by the decree of the •watchers, and the de¬
mand by the word of the holy ones. God has deter¬
mined it, as a righteous Judge; he has signed this
edict; pursuant to his eternal counsel, the decree is
gone forth. And, [1.] The angels of heaven have
subscribed to it; as attesting it, approving it, and ap¬
plauding it. It is by the decree of the watchers; not
that the great God needs the counsel or concurrence
of the angels in any thing he determines or does,
but as he uses their ministration in executing his
counsels, so he is sometimes represented, after the
manner of men, as if he advised with them; Whom
shall I send ? Isa. vi. 8. Who shall persuade Ahab ?
1 Kings xxii. 20. So it denotes the solemnity of this
sentence. The king’s breves, or short writs, pass,
Teste me ipso — In my presence; but charters used to
be signed, His testibus — In presence of us whose
names are underwritten; such was Nebuchadnez¬
zar’s doom, it was by the decree of the watchers.
[2.] The saints on earth petitioned for it, as well as
the angels in heaven; The demand is by the word of
the holy ones. God’s suffering people, that had long
groaned under the heavy yoke of Nebuchadnezzar’s
tyranny, cried to him for vengeance; they made the
demand, and God gave this answer to it; for when
the oppressed cry to God, he will hear, Exod. xxii.
27. Sentence was passed, in Ahab’s time, that there
should be no more rain, at Elijah’s word, when he
made intercession against Israel, 1 Kings xvii. 1.
(5.) The design of it is declared; therefore orders
are given for the cutting down of this tree, to the in¬
tent that the living may know that the Most High
rules. This judgment must be executed, to con¬
vince the unthinking, unbelieving world, that verily
there is a God that judges in the earth, a God that
governs the world, that not only has a kingdom of
his own in it, and administers the affairs of that
kingdom, but rules also in the kingdom of men, in
the dominion that one man has over another, and
gives that to whomsoever he will; from him promo¬
tion comes, Ps. lxxv. 6, 7. He advances men to
power and dominion that little expected it, and
crosses the projects of the ambitious and aspiring.
Sometimes he sets up the basest of men, and serves
his own purposes by them; mean men, as David
from the sheep-fold; he raises the poor out of the
dust, to set them among princes, Ps. cxiii. 7, 8. Nay,
sometimes he sets up bad men, to be a scourge to a
provoking people. Thus he can do, thus he may
do, thus he often does, and gives not account of
any of his matters. By humbling Nebuchadnez¬
zar it was designed that the living should be made
to know this. The dead know it, that are gone
to the world of spirits, the world of retribution,
they know that the Most High rules; but the living
must be made to know it, and lay it to heart, that
they may make their peace with God before it be
too late.
Thus has Nebuchadnezzar fully and faithfully re¬
lated his dream, what he saw, and what he heard,
and then demands of Daniel the interpretation of it,
(v. 18. ) for he found that no one else was able to do
it, but is confident that he was; For the spirit of the
holy gods is in thee, or of the Holy God; the pro¬
per title of the God of Israel. Much may be ex¬
pected from those that have in them the Spirit of
the Holy God. Whether Nebuchadnezzar had any
jealousy that it was his own doom that was read by
this dream, does not appear; perhaps he was so vain
and secure as to imagine that it was some other
prince that was a rival with him, of whose fall he
had .the pleasing prospect given him in this dream:
but, be it for him or against him, he is very solicit¬
ous to know the true meaning of it, and depends
upon Daniel to give it him. Note, When God gives
us general warnings of his judgments, we should be
821
desirous to understand his mind in them, to hear the
Ford’s voice crying in the city.
19. Then Daniel, (whose name teas Bel
teshazzar,) was astonished for one hour,
and his thoughts troubled him. The king
spake and said, Belteshazzar, let, not the
dream, or the interpretation thereof, trouble
thee. Belteshazzar answered and said, My
lord, the dream be to them that hate thee
and the interpretation thereof to thine ene¬
mies. 20. The tree that thou sawest, which
grew, and was strong, whose height reach¬
ed unto the heaven, and the sight thereof to
all the earth; 21. Whose leaves were fair,
and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat
for all; under which the beasts of the field
dwelt, and upon whose branches the fowls
of the heaven had their habitation : 22.lt
is thou, O king, that art grown and become
strong: for thy greatness is grown, and
reacheth unto heaven, and thy dominion to
the end of the earth. 23. And whereas the
king saw a watcher and a holy one coming
down from heaven, and saying, Hew the
tree down, and destroy it; yet leave the
stump of the roots thereof in the earth, even
with a band of iron and brass in the tender
grass of the field ; and let it be wet with the
dew of heaven, and let his portion be with
the beasts of the field, till seven times pass
over him ; 24. This is the interpretation, O
king, and this is the decree of the Most
High, which is come upon my lord the king:
25. That they shall drive thee from men,
and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts
of the field, and they shall make thee to eat
grass as oxen, and they shall wet thee with
the dew of heaven, and seven times shall
pass over thee, till thou know that the Most
High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and
giveth it to whomsoever he will. 26. And
whereas they commanded to leave the
stump of the tree-roots; thy kingdom shall
be sure unto thee, after that thou shalt have
known that the heavens do rule. 27. Where¬
fore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable
unto thee, and break off thy sins by righte¬
ousness, and thine iniquities by shewing
mercy to the poor; if it may be a lengthening
of thy tranquillity.
We have here the interpretation of Nebuchadnez¬
zar’s dream; and when once it is applied to himself,
and it is declared that he is the tree in the dream,
( Mutato nomine, de te fabula narratur — Change
but the name, the fable speaks of thee,) when once
it is said, Thou art the man, there needs little more
to be said for the explication of the dream; out of
his own mouth he is judged; so shall his doom be
himself has decided it. The thing was so plain,
that Daniel, upon hearing the dream, was astonish¬
ed for one hour, v. 19. He was struck with amaze¬
ment and terror at so great a judgment coming upon
822
DANIEL, IV.
so great a prince; his flesh trembled for fear of God.
He was likewise struck with confusion, when he
found himself under a necessity of being the man
that must bring to the king these heavy tidings,
which, having received so many favours from the
king, he had rather he should have heard from any
one else; so far is he from desiring the woful day,
that he dreads it, and the thoughts of it trouble
him. They that came after the ruined sinner, are
said to be astonished at his day, as they that went
before, and saw it coming, (as Daniel here,) were
affrighted. Job xviii. 20.
1. The preface to the interpretation is a civil com¬
pliment which, as a courtier, he passes upon the
king. The king observed him to stand as one aston¬
ished, and thinking he was loath to speak out for
fear of offending lnm, he encouraged him to deal
plainly and faithfully with him; Let not the dream,
or the interpretation thereof, trouble thee. This he
speaks either, (1.) As one that sincerely desired to
know the truth. Note, Those that consult the ora¬
cles of God must be ready to receive them as they
are, whether they be for them or against them, and
must accordingly give their ministers leave to be
free with them. Or, (2.) As one that despised the
truth, and set it at defiance; when we see how re¬
gardless he was of this warning afterward, we are
tempted to think that this was his meaning; '‘Let
it not trouble thee, for I am resolved it shall not
trouble me; nor will I lay it to heart.” But whe¬
ther he have any concern for himself or no, Daniel
is concerned for him, and therefore wishes, “ The
dream be to them that hate thee. Let the ill it bodes
light on the head of thine enemies, not on thine
head.” Though Nebuchadnezzar was an idolater,
a persecutor, and an oppressor of the people of God,
yet he was, at present, Daniel’s prince; and there¬
fore, though Daniel foresees, and is now going to
foretell, ill concerning him, he dares not wish ill
to him.
2. The interpretation itself is only a repetition of
the dream, with application to the king. As for
the tree which thou sawest flourishing, [v. 20, 21.)
it is thou, O king, v. 22. And willing enough would
the king be to hear this, as before to hear. Thou art
the head of gold, but for that which follows. He
shows the king his present prosperous state in the
glass of his own dream; Thy greatness is grown,
and reaches as near heaven as human greatness can
do, and thy dominion is to the end of the earth, ch.
ii. 37, 38. As for the doom passed upon the tree,
(d. 23. ) it is the decree of the Most High, which
comes upon my lord the king, v. 24. He must not
only be deposed from his throne, but driven from
men, and being deprived of his reason, and having
a beast’s heart given him, his dwelling shall be with
the beasts of the field, and with them he shall be a
fellow-commoner, he shall eat grass as oxen, .and,
like them, lie out all weathers, and be wet with the
dew of heaven; and this till seven times pass over
him, seven years; and then he shall know that the
Most High rules: and when he is brought to know
and own that, he shall be restored to his dominion
again, v. 26. Thy kingdom shall be sure unto thee,
shall remain as firm as the stump of the tree in the
ground, and thou shalt have it, after thou shalt have
known that the heavens do rule. God is here called
the heavens, because it is in heaven that he has pre¬
pared his throne, (Ps. ciii. 19.) from thence he be¬
holds all the sons of men, Ps. xxxiii. 13. The hea¬
vens, even the heavens, are the Lord's; and the in¬
fluence which the visible heavens have upon this
earth, is intended as a faint representation of the
dominion the God of heaven has over this lower
world; we are said to sin against heaven, Luke xv.
18. Note, Then only we may expect comfortably
to enjoy our right in, and government of, both our¬
selves and others, when we dutifully acknowledge
God’s title to, and dominion over, us and all we
have.
3. The close of the interpretation is the pious
counsel which Daniel, as a prophet, gave the king;
(v. 27. ) whether he appeared concerned or not at
the interpretation of the dream, a word of advice
would be very seasonable, if careless, to awaken
him, if troubled, to comfort him: and it is not incon¬
sistent with the dream and the interpretation of it,
for Daniel knew not but it might be conditional, like
the prediction of Nineveh’s destruction. Observe,
(1.) How humbly he gives his advice, and with
what tenderness and respect; “ 0 king, let my coun¬
sel be acceptable unto thee; take it in good part, as
coming from love, and well meant, and let it not be
misinterpreted.” Note, Sinners need to be courted
to their own good, and accosted gently, to do well
for themselves. The apostle beseeches men to suf¬
fer the word of exhortation, Heb. xiii. 22. W e
think it a good point gained, if people will be per¬
suaded to take good counsel kindly; nay, if they will
take it patiently. (2.) What his advice is; he does
not counsel him to enter into a course of physic, for
the preventing of the distemper in his head, but to
break off a course of sin that he was in; to reform his
life: he wronged his own subjects, and dealt unfairly
with his allies; and he must break o^'this by right¬
eousness, by rendering to all their due, making
amends for wrong done, and not triumphing over
right with might: he had been cruel to the poor, to
God’s poor, to the poor Jews; and he must break off
this iniquity by showing mercy to those poor, pitying
those oppressed ones, setting them at liberty, or
making their captivity easy to them. Note, It is
necessary, in repentance, that we not only cease to
do evil, but learn to do well; not only do no wrong
to any, but do good to all. (3.) What the motive
is, with which he backs this advice; If it may be a
lengthening of thy tranquillity. Though it should
not wholly prevent the judgment, yet by this means
a reprieve may be obtained, as by .dhab’s humbling
himself, 1 Kings xxi. 29. Either the trouble may
be the longer before it comes, or the shorter when
it does come; yet he cannot assure him of this, but
it may be, it may prove so. Note, The very pro¬
bability of preventing a temporal judgment, is in¬
ducement enough to a work so good in itself as the
leaving off our sins, and reforming of our lives,
much more the certainty of preventing our eternal
ruin. “ That will be a healing of thine error;”
(so some read it;) “thus the quarrel will be taken
up, and all will be well again.”
28. All this came upon the king Nebu¬
chadnezzar. 29. At the end of twelve
months he walked in the palace of the king¬
dom of Babylon. 30. The king spake and
said, Is not this great Babylon that I have
built for the house of the kingdom, by the
might of my power, and for the honour of
my majesty? 31. While the word was in
the king’s mouth, there fell a voice from
heaven, saying , O king Nebuchadnezzar, to
thee it is spoken ; The kingdom is departed
from thee: 32. And they shall drive thee
from men, and thy dwelling shall be with
the beasts of the field: they shall make thee
to eat grass as oxen, and seven times shall
pass over thee, until thou know that the
Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men,
and giveth it to whomsoever he will. 33.
82S
DANIEL, IV.
The same hour was the thing fulfilled upon
Nebuchadnezzar: and he was driven from
men, and djd eat grass as oxen, and his body
was wet with the dew of heaven, till his
hairs were grown like eagles 'feathers, and
his nails like birds’ claws.
We have here Nebuchadnezzar’s dream accom¬
plished, and Daniel’s application of it to him justi¬
fied and confirmed. How he took it we are not told,
whether he was pleased with Daniel or displeased;
but here we have,
1. God’s patience with him; All this came upon
him , but not till twelve months after , (x>. 29.) so
long there was a lengthening of his tranquillity ,
though it does not appear that he broke off his sins,
or showed any mercy to the poor captives, for this
was still God’s quarrel with him, that he opened not
the house of his prisoners, Isa. xiv. 17. Daniel hav¬
ing counselled him to repent, God so far confirmed
his word, that he gave him space to repent; let him
alone this year also, this one year more, before he
brought this judgment upon him. Note, God is
therefore long-suffering with provoking sinners, be¬
cause he is not willing that any should perish, but
that all should come to repentance, 2 Pet. iii. 9.
2. His pride and haughtiness, and abuse of that
patience. He walked in the palace of the kingdom
of Babylon, in pomp and pride, pleasing himself
with the view of that vast city, which, with all the
territories thereunto belonging, was under his com¬
mand, and he said, either to himself or to those
about him, perhaps some foreigners to whom he was
showing his kingdom and the glory of it, Is not this
great Babylon? Yes, it is great, of vast extent, no
less than forty-five miles compass within the walls.
It is full of inhabitants, and they full of wealth; it
is a golden city, and that is enough to speak it great,
Isa. xiv. 4. See the grandeur of the houses, walls,
towers, and public edifices; every thing in Babylon
he thinks looks great; and this great Babylon I have
built. Babylon was built many ages before he was
born, but because he had fortified and beautified it,
and we may suppose much of it was rebuilt during
his long and prosperous reign, he boasts that he has
built it ; as Augustus Cresar boasted concerning
Rome, Lateritiam inveni, marmoream reliqui — I
found it brick, but I left it marble. He boasts that
he built it for the house of the kingdom, the metro¬
polis of his empire. This vast city, compared with
the countries that belonged to his dominions, was
but as one house. He built it with the assistance of
his subjects, yet boasts that he did it by the might of
his power; he built it for his security and conveni¬
ence, yet, as if he had no occasion for it, boasts that
he built it purely for the honour of his majesty.
Note, Pride and self-conceitedness are sins that most
easily beset great men, who have great things in the
world. They are apt to take the glory to them¬
selves which is due to God only.
3. His punishment for his pride. When he was
thus strutting, and vaunting himself, and adoring his
own shadow, while the proud word was in the king’s
mouth, the powerful word came from heaven, by
which he was immediately deprived, (1.) Of his
honour as a king; The kingdom is departed from
thee. When he thought he had erected impregna¬
ble bulwarks for the preserving of his kingdom,
now, in an instant, it is departed from him; when
he thought it so well guarded, that none could take
it from him, behold, it departs of itself. As soon as
he becomes utterlv incapable to manage it, it is of
course taken out of his hands. (2.) He is deprived
of his honour as a man; he loses his reason, and by
that means loses his dominion; They shall drive thee
from men, v. 32. And it was fulfilled; (v. 33.) he
was driven from men the same hour. On a sudden
he fell stark mad, distracted in the highest degree
that ever any man was. His understanding and
memory were gone, and all the faculties of a ra¬
tional soul broken, so that he became a perfect brute
in the shape of a man. He went naked, and on all
four, like a brute; did himself shun the society ot
reasonable creatures, and run wild into the fields
and woods; and was driven out by his own servants,
who, after some time of trial, despairing of his re¬
turn to his right mind, abandoned him, and looked
after him no more. He had not the spirit of a beast
of prey, (that of the royal lion,) but of the abject
and less honourable species, for he was made to eat
grass as oxen; and, probably, he did not speak with
human voice, but lowed like an ox. Some think
that his body was all covered with hair; however,
the hair of his head and beard, being never cut or
combed, grew like eagles’ feathers, and his nails like
birds’ claws.
Let us pause a little, and view this miserable spec¬
tacle; and let us receive instruction from it. [1.]
Let us see here what a mercy it is to have the use
of our reason, how thankful we ought to be for it,
and how careful we ought to be not to do any thing
which may either provoke God, or may have a na¬
tural tendency, to put us out of the possession of our
\ own souls. Let us learn how to value our own rea¬
son, and to pity the case of those that are under the
prevailing power of melancholy or distraction, or
are delirious, and to be very tender in our censures
of them and conduct toward them, for it isa tempta¬
tion common to men, and a case which,, some time
or other, may be our own. [2.] Let us see here the
vanity of human glory and greatness; Is this Nebu¬
chadnezzar the Great? What, this despicable ani¬
mal, that is meaner than the poorest beggar? Is
this he that looked so glorious on the throne, so
formidable in the camp, that had politics enough
to subdue and govern kingdoms, and now has not so
much sense as to keep his own clothes on his back;
Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that
did shake kingdoms? Isa. xiv. 16. Never let the
wise man then glory in his wisdom, or the mighty
man in his strength. [3.] Let us see here how God
resists the proud, and delights to abase them, and
put contempt upon them. Nebuchadnezzar would
be more than a man, and therefore God justly makes
him less than a man, and puts him upon a levpl with
the beasts, that set up for a rival with his Maker.
See Job xl. 11. — 13.
34. And at the end of the days, I Nebu¬
chadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven,
and mine understanding returned unto me ;
and I blessed the Most High; and I praised
and honoured him that liveih for ever, whose
dominion is an everlasting dominion, and
his kingdom is from generation to genet a-
tion : 35. And all the inhabitants of the earth
are reputed as nothing: and he doeth ac¬
cording to his will in the army of heaven,
and among the inhabitants of tlje earth; and
none can stay his hand, or say unto him,
What doest thou? 36. At the same time
my reason returned unto me ; and, for the
glory of my kingdom, mine honour and
brightness returned unto me ; and my coun¬
sellors and my lords sought unto me ; and I
was established in my kingdom ; and excel¬
lent majesty was added unto me. 37. Now
I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and
8.24
DANIEL, IV.
nonour (he King of heaven, all whose works
are truth, and his ways judgment: and those
that walk in pride he is able to abase.
We have here Nebuchadnezzar’s recovery from
his distraction, and his return to his right mind, at
the end of the days prefixed, of the seven years; so
long he continued a monument of God’s justice, and
a trophy of his victory over the children of pride;
and lie was made more so by being struck mad, than
if he had been in an instant struck dead with a thun¬
derbolt. Yet it was a mercy to him that he was
kept alive; for, while there is life, there is hope that
we may yet praise God, as he did here; At the end
of the days, (says he,) I lifted up. mine et/es unto
heaven, (v. 34.) looked no longer down toward the
earth as a beast, but began to look up as a man; Os
homini sublime dcdit — Heaven gave to man an erect
countenance. But there was more in it than this;
he looked up as a devout man, as a penitent, as a
humble petitioner for mercy, being perhaps never
till now made sensible of his own misery. And now,
I. He has the use of his reason so far restored to
him, that with it he glorifies God, and humbles him¬
self under his mighty hand. He was told that he
should continue in that forlorn case, till he should
know that the Most High rules, and here we have
him brought to the knowledge of that: Mine under¬
standing returned to me, and I blessed the Most
High. Note, Those may justly be reckoned void
of understanding, that do not bless and praise God;
nor do men ever rightly use their reason till they
begin to be religious, nor live as men till they live
to the glory of God. As reason is the substratum
or subject of religion, (so that creatures which have
no reason, are not capable of religion,) so religion
is the crown and glory of reason, and we have our
reason in vain, and shall one day wish we had never
had it, if we do not glorify God with it. This was
the first act of Nebuchadnezzar’s returning reason;
and when this became the employment of it, he was
then, and not till then, qualified for all the other en¬
joyments of it. And till he was for a great while
disabled to exercise it in other things, he never was
brought to apply it to this, which is the great end
for which our reason is given us. His folly was the
means whereby he became wise; he was not reco¬
vered by his dre^m of this judgment, (that was soon
forgotten like a dream,) but lie is made to feel it,
and then his ear is o/iencd to discipline. To bring
him to himself, he must first be beside himself. And
by this it appears that what good thoughts there
were in his mind, and what good work was wrought
there, were not of himself, (for he was not his own
man,) but it was the gift of God.
Let us see what Nebuchadnezzar is now at length
effectually brought to the acknowledgment of; and
we may learn from it what to believe concerning
God.
1. That the tnost high God lives for ever, and his
being knows neither change nor period, for he has
it of himself. Hts flatterers often complimented
him with, O king, live for ever.' But he is now con¬
vinced that no king lives for ever, but the God of
Israel only, w^io is still the same.
2. That his kingdom is like himself, everlasting,
and his dominion from generation to generation:
there is no succession, no revolution, in his kingdom.
As he lives, so he reigns, for ever, and of his go¬
vernment there is no end.
3. That all nations before him are as nothing; he
has no need of them, he makes no account of them.
The' greatest of men, in comparison with him, are
less than nothing. Those that think highly of God,
think meanly of themselves.
4. That his kingdom is universal, and both the
armies of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth
are his subjects, and under his check and control.
Both angels and men are employed by him, and ac¬
countable to him; the highest angel is not above his
command, nor the meanest of the children of men
beneath his cognizance. The angels of heaven are
his armies, the inhabitants of the earth his tenants.
5. That his power is irresistible, and his sove¬
reignty uncontrollable, for he does according to his
will, according to his design and purpose, according
to his decree and counsel; whatever he pleases that
he does; whatever he appoints that he performs;
and none can resist his will, change his counsel, or
stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou'/
None can arraign his proceedings, inquire into the
meaning of them, or demand a reason for them.
Wo to him that strives with his Maker; that says
to him, What doest thou, or, Why doest thou so?
6. That every thing which God does, is well done;
his works are truth, for they all agree with his word.
His svays are judgment, both wise and righteous,
exactly consonant to the rules both of prudence and
equity, and no fault to be found with them.
7. That he has power to humble the haughtiest
of his enemies that act in contradiction to him, or
competition with him; Those that walk in pride he
is able to abase; (t. 37. ) he is able to deal with those
that are most confident of their own sufficiency to
contend with him.
II. He has the use of his reason so far restored to
him, as with it to re-enjoy himself, and the plea¬
sures of his re-established prosperity; (r1. 36.) At
the same time my reason returned to me; he had
said before, ( v . 34.) that his understanding returned
to him, and here he mentions it again, for the use
of our reason is a mercy we can never be enough
thankful for. Now his lords sought to him; he did
not need to seek to them, and they soon perceived,
not only that he had recovered his reason, and was
fit to rule, but that he had recovered it with advan¬
tage, and was more fit to rule than ever. It is pro¬
bable that the dream and the interpretation of it
were well known, and much talked of, at court;
and, the former part of the prediction being fulfilled,
that he should go distracted, they doubted not but
that, according to the prediction, he should come to
himself again at seven years’ end, and, in confidence
of that, when the time was expired, were ready to
receive him; and then his honour and brightness
returned to him, the same that he had before his
madness seized him. He is now established in his
kingdom as firmly as if there had been no interrup¬
tion given him; he becomes a fool that he may be
wise, wiser than ever; and he that but the other day
was in thy depth of disgrace and ignominy, has now
excellent majesty added to him, beyond what he had
when he went from kingdom to kingdom conquering
and to conquer. Note, 1. When men are brought
to honour God, particularly by a penitent confession
of sin and a believing acknowledgment of his so¬
vereignty, then, and not till then, they may expect
that God will put honour upon them ; will not only re¬
store them to the dignity they lost by the sin of the
first Adam, but add excellent majesty to them from
the righteousness and grace of the second Adam.
2. Afflictions shall last no longer than till they have
done the work for which they were sent. When
this prince is brought to own God’s dominion over
him, he is then restored to a dominion over himself.
3. All the accounts we take and give of God’? deal¬
ing with us ought to conclude with praises to him.
When Nebuchadnezzar is restored to his kingdom,
he praises and extols and honours the King of hea¬
ven, (t». 37.) before he applies himself to his secu¬
lar business. Therefore we have our reason, that
we may be in a capacity of praising him, and there¬
fore our prosperity, that we may have cause to praise
him.
825
DANIEL, V.
It was not long after this that Nebuchadnezzar
ended his life and reign. Abydenus, quoted by Eu¬
sebius, \Pr£p. Evang. 1. 9. ) reports from the tradi¬
tion of the Chaldeans, that upon his death-bed he
foretold the taking of Babylon by Cyrus. Whether
he continued in the same "good mind that here he
seems to have been in, we are not told, nor does any
thing appear to the contrary but that he did : and if
so great a blasphemer and persecutor did find mercy,
he was not the last. And if our charity may reach
so far as to hope he did, we must admire free grace,
by which he lost his wits for awhile, that he might
save his soul for ever.
CHAP. V.
The destruction of the kingdom of Babylon had been long
and often foretold when it was at a distance: in this
chapter we have it accomplished, and a prediction of it
the very same night that it was accomplished. Bel¬
shazzar now reigned in Babylon; some compute he
had reigned seventeen years, others but three; we have
here the story of his exit, and the period of his kingdom.
We must know, that about two years before this, Cyrus,
king of Persia, a growing monarch, came against Baby¬
lon with a great army; Belshazzar met him, fought him,
and was routed by him in a pitched battle. He and his
scattered forces retired into the city, where Cyrus be¬
sieged them: they were very secure, because the river
Euphrates was their bulwark, and they had twenty
years’ provision in the city; but in the second year of
the siege, he took it, as is here related. We have in
this chapter, I. The riotous, idolatrous, sacrilegious
feast which Belshazzar made, in which he filled up the
measure of his iniquity, v. 1..4. II. The alarm given
him in the midst of his jollity by a hand-writing on the
wall, which none of his wise men could read or tell him
the meaning of, v. 5 . . 9. III. The interpretation of the
mystical characters by Daniel, who was at length
brought in to him, and dealt plainly with him, and
showed him his doom written, v.* 10-.28. IV. The im¬
mediate accomplishment of the interpretation in the
slaying of the king and seizing of the kingdom, v. 30, 31.
1. T|l) ELSHAZZAR the king made a
great feast to a thousand of his lords,
and drank wine before the thousand. 2.
Belshazzar, while he tasted the wine, com¬
manded to bring the golden and silver ves¬
sels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had
taken out of the temple which was in Jeru¬
salem ; that the king and his princes, his
wives and his concubines, might drink there¬
in. 3. Then they brought the golden ves¬
sels that were taken out of the temple of the
house of God which was at Jerusalem; and
the king and his princes, his wives and his
concubines, drank in them. 4. They drank
wine and praised the gods of gold, and of
silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.
5. In the same hour came forth fingers of a
man’s hand, and wrote over against the
candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of
the king's palace; and the king saw the
part of the hand that wrote. 6. Then the
king’s countenance was changed, and his
thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of
bis loins were loosed, and bis knees smote
one against another. 7. The king cried
aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chal¬
deans, and the soothsayers. And the king
spake, and said to the wise men of Babylon,
Whosoever shall read this writing, and
Vol. iv. — 5 M
shew me the interpretation thereof, shall be
clothed with scarlet, and have a chain of
gold about bis nepk, and shall be the third
ruler in the kingdom. 8. Then came in all
the king’s wise men: but they could not
read the writing, nor make known to the
king the interpretation thereof. 9. Then
was king Belshazzar greatly troubled, and
his countenance was changed in him, and
his lords were astonished.
We have here Belshazzar the king very gay, but
all of a sudden very gloomy, and in straits in the
fulness of his sufficiency. See how he affronts
God, and God affrights him; and wait what will be
the issue of this contest, and whether he that har¬
dened his heart against God prospered.
I. See how the king affronted God, and put con¬
tempt upon him. He made a great feast, or ban¬
quet of wine; probably, it was some annivfersary-
solemnity, in honour of bis birth-day, or coronation-
day, or some of their idols; historians say that Cy¬
rus, who was now with his army besieging Babylon,
knew of this feast, and, presuming that they then
would be off their guard, somno vinoque sepulti —
buried in sleep and wine, took that opportunity to
attack the city, and so with the more ease made
himself master of it. Belshazzar upon this occasion
invited a thousand of his lords to come and drink
with him. Perhaps they were such as had signal¬
ized themselves in defence of the city against the
besiegers; or these were his great council of war,
with whom, when they had well drunk, he would
advise what was further to be done. And they
were to look upon it as a great favour that he drank
wine before them, for it was the pride of those
eastern kings to be seldom seen. He drank wine
before them, for he made this feast, as Ahasuerus
did, to show the honour of his majesty.
Now, in this sumptuous feast,
1. He put an affront upon the providence of God,
and bade defiance to his judgments. His city was
now besieged, a powerful enemy was at his gates,
his life and kingdom lay at stake. In all this, the
hand of the Lord was gone out against him, and by it
he called him to weeping, and mourning, and gird¬
ing with sackcloth. God’s voice cried in the city,
as Jonah to Nineveh, Yet forty days, or fewer, and
Babylon shall be destroyed. He should therefore,
like the king of Nineveh, have proclaimed a fast;
but, as one resolved to walk contrary to God, he
proclaims a feast, and behold, joy and gladness,
slaying oxen, killing sheep, eating flesh, and drink¬
ing wine, as if he dared the Almighty to do his
worst, Isa. xxii. 12, 13. To show how little fear he
had of being forced to surrender, for want of pr /vi¬
sions, he spent thus extravagantly. Note, Security
and sensuality are sad presages of approaching ruin.
Those that will not be warned by the judgments of
God, may expect to be wounded by them.
2. He put an affront upon the temple of God, and
bade defiance to his sanctuary; (v. 2.) while he
tasted the wine, he commanded to bring the vessels
of the temple, that they might drink in them.
When he tasted how rich and fine the wine was,
“ O,” said he, “ it is pity but we should have holy
vessels to drink such delicate wine as this in ;” which
was looked upon as a piece of wit, and to carry on
the humour, the vessels of the temple were imme¬
diately sent for. Nay, there seems to have been
something more in it than a frolic, and that it was
done in a malicious despite to the God of Israel; the
heart of his people was very much upon these sa¬
cred vessels, as appears from Jer. xxvii. 16, 18.
Their principal care, at their return, was about
826
DANIEL, V.
these, Ezra i. 7. Now, we may suppose, they had
an expectation of their deliverance approaching,
reckoning the seventy years of their captivity near
a period; and some of them might perhaps have
given out some words to that purport, that shortly
they should have the vessels of the sanctuary re¬
stored to them, in defiance of which, Belshazzar
here proclaims them to be his own, will keep them
in store no longer, but make use of them among his
ownfilate. Note, That mirth is sinful indeed, and
fills the measure of men’s iniquity apace, which
profanes sacred things, and jests with them. This
ripened Babylon for ruin — that no songs would
serve them but the song's of Zion, (Ps. cxxxvii. 3. )
no vessels but the vessels of the sanctuary. Let
those who thus sacrilegiously alienate what is dedi¬
cated to God and his honour, know that he will not
be mocked.
3. He put an affront upon God himself, and bade
defiance to his deity; for they drank wine, and
firaised the gods of gold and silver, v. 4. They
gave that glory to images, the work of their own
hands, and creatures of their own fancy, which is
due to the true and living God only. They praised
them either with sacrifices offered to them, or with
songs sung in honour of them. When their heads
were giddy, and their hearts merry with wine, they
were in the fittest frame to jiraise the gods of gold
and silver, wood and stone; for one would think
that men in their senses, who had the command of
a clear and sober thought, could not be guilty of so
gross an absurdity; they must be intoxicated ere
they could be so infatuated. Drunken worshippers,
who are not men, but beasts, are the most proper
for the service of dunghill deities, that are not gods,
but devils. They have erred through wine, Isa.
xxviii. 7. They drank wine, and praised their
idol-fforfs, as if they had been the founders of their
feasts and the givers of all good things to them. Or,
When they were drinking wine, they praised their
gods by drinking healths to them, and the king
drank wine before them, (k. 1.) he began the
health, first to this god, and then to the ether, till
they went through the bead-roll or farrago of them,
those of wood and stone not excepted. Note, Im¬
morality and impiety, vice and profaneness, strength¬
en the hands, and advance the interests, one of an¬
other. Drunken frolics were an introduction to
idolatry, and then idolatrous healths were a shoeing-
horn to further drunkenness.
II. See how God affrighted the king, and struck
a terror upon him. Belshazzar and his lords are in
the midst of their revels, the cups going round
apace, and all upon the merry pin, drinking confu¬
sion, it may be, to Cyrus and his army, and roaring
out huzzas, in confidence of the speedy raising
of the siege; but the hour was come when that
must be fulfilled, which had been long ago said of
the king of Babylon, when his city should be be¬
sieged by the Persians and Medes; (Isa. xxi. 2. — 4.)
The night of my pleasures has been turned into fear
to me. The mirth of this ball at court must be
spoiled, and a damp cast upon their jollity, though
the king himself be master of the revels; imme¬
diately, when God speaks the word, we have him
and ail his guests in the utmost confusion, and the
end of their mirth, heaviness.
1. There appear the fingers of a man’s hand,
writing on the plaster of the wall, before the king’s
face; (v. 5.) the angel Gabriel, say the Rabbins,
directing these fingers and writing by them. “ That
divine hand” (says a rabbin of our own, Dr. Light-
foot) “ that had written the two tables for a law to
his people, now writes the doom of Babel and Bel¬
shazzar upon the walk” Here was nothing sent to
*righten them, which made a noise, or threatened
teir lives; no claps of thunder, nor flashes of light¬
ning; no destroying angel with his sword drawn in
his hand; only a pen in the hand, writing upon the
wall, over against the candlestick, where the)' might
all see it by the light of their own candle. Note,
God’s written word is sufficient to put the proudest,
boldest sinners into a fright, when he is pleased to
give the setting on. The king saw the part of the
hand that wrote, but saw not the person whose
hand it was, which made the thing more frightful.
Note, What we see of God, the part of the hand
that writes in the book of the creatures, and in the
book of the scriptures, (Z.o, these are parts of his
ways. Job xxvi. 14.) may serve to possess us with
awful thoughts concerning that of God which we do
not see. If this be the finger of God, what is his
arm made bare? And what is he!
2. The king is immediately seized with a panic
fear, v. 6. His coyntenance was changed; his co¬
lour went and came; the joints of his loins were
loosed, so that he had no strength in them, but was
struck with a pain in his back, as is usual in a great
fright; his knees smote one against another, so vio¬
lently did he tremble, like an aspen-leaf. But what
was the matter? Why is he in such a fright? He
perceives not what is written, and how does he
know but it may be some happy presage of deliver¬
ance to him and to his kingdom? But the business
was, His thoughts troubled him; his own guilty
conscience flew in his face, and told him that he hacl
no reason to expect any good news from Heaven,
and that the hand of an angel could write nothing
but terror to him. He that knew himself liable to
the justice of God, immediately concludes this is an
arrest in his name, a summons to appear before
him. Note, God can soon awaken the most secure,
and make the heart of the stoutest sinner to trem¬
ble; and there needs no more to do it than to let
loose his own thoughts upon him; they will soon
play the tyrant, and give him trouble enough.
3. The wise men of Babylon are immediately
called in, to see what they can make of this writing
upon the wall, v. 7. The king cried aloud, as one
in haste, as one in earnest, to bring the whole col¬
lege of magicians, to try if they can read this writ¬
ing, and show the interpretation of it: for the king
and all his lords cannot pretend to it, it is out of
their sphere; the study of divine revelation, (such
as they had, or thought they had,) and converse
with the world of spirits, were by the heathen confin¬
ed to one profession, and none other meddled with
it; but what is written to us by the finger of God, is
legible to all; whoever will, may read the mind of
God in the scriptures. To engage these wise men
to exert the utmost of their skill in this matter, and
provoke them to an emulation in the attempt, he
promises, that whoever would give him a satisfac¬
tory account of this writing, should be dignified with
the highest honours of the court. He knew what
these pretenders to wisdom aimed at, and what would
please them, and therefore promises them a scarlet
robe, and a gold chain, glorious things in their eyes
that know no better. Nay, he should be primus jiar
regni — chief minister of state, the third ruler in the
kingdom, next to the king, and his heir apparent.
4. The king is disappointed in his expectations
from them ; they could none of them read the
writing, much less interpret it, {v. 8.) which in¬
creases the king’s confusion; (v. 9.) he likes the
thing yet worse and worse, and fears that mischief
is toward him. His lords also, that had been part¬
ner’s with him in his jollity, are now sharers with
him in his terrors; they also were astonished, and at
their wits’ end ; and neither their numbers nor their
refreshment by wine would serve to keep up their
spirits. The reason why the wise men could not
read the writing was, not because it was written in
any language or characters unknown to them, but
827
DANIEL, V.
God either cast a mist before their eyes, or put such
confusion upon their spirits, that they could not read
it; that the honour of expounding this mystical
writing might be reserved for Daniel. Note, The
terror of an awakened, convinced conscience may
justly be increased by the utter insufficiency of all
creatures to give it ease or satisfaction.
10. Now the queen, by reason of the
words of the king and his lords, came into
the banquet-house; and the queen spake
and said, O king, live for ever: let not thy
thoughts trouble thee, nor let thy counte¬
nance be changed: 11. There is a man in
thy kingdom, in whom is the spirit of the
holy gods: and, in the days of thy father,
light, and understanding, and wisdom, like
the wisdom of the gods, was found in him;
whom the king Nebuchadnezzar thy father,
the king, I say, thy father, made master of
the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, and
soothsayers; 12. Forasmuch as an excel¬
lent spirit, and knowledge, and understand¬
ing, interpreting of dreams, and shewing of
hard sentences, and dissolving of doubts,
were found in the same Daniel, whom the
king named Belteshazzar : now let Daniel
be called, and he will shew the interpreta¬
tion. 13. Then was Daniel brought in be¬
fore the king. And the king spake and said
unto Daniel, Art thou that Daniel, which
art of the children of the captivity of Judah,
whom the king my father brought out of
Jewry ? 14. I have even heard of thee, that
the spirit of the gods is in thee, and that light,
and understanding, and excellent wisdom,
is found in thee. 15. And now the wise
men , the astrologers, have been brought in
before me, that they should read this writ¬
ing, and make known unto me the interpre¬
tation thereof: hut they could not shew the
interpretation of the thing: 16. And I have
heard of thee that thou canst make inter¬
pretations and dissolve doubts: now, if
thou canst read the writing, and make
known to me the interpretation thereof, thou
shalt be clothed with scarlet, and have a
chaifi of gold about thy neck, and shalt be
the third ruler in the kingdom. 1.7: Then
Daniel answered and said before the king,
Let thy gifts be to thyself, and give thy re¬
wards to another; yet I will read the writ¬
ing unto the king, and make known to him
the interpretation. 18. O thou king, the
most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy
father a kingdom, and majesty, and glory,
and honour. 19. And, for the majesty that
he gave him, all people, nations, and lan¬
guages, trembled and feared before him:
whom he would he slew, and whom he
would he kept alive, and whom he would
he set up, and whom he would he put down.
20. But when his heart was lifted up, and
his mind hardened in pride, he was deposed
from his kingly throne, and they took his
glory from him: 21. And he was driven
from the sons of men; and his heart was
made like the beasts, and his dwelling was
with the wild asses: they fed him with grass
like oxen, and his body was wet with the
dew of heaven ; till he knew that the most
high God ruled in the kingdom of men, and
that he appointed) over it whomsoever he
will. 22. And thou his son, O Belshazzar,
hast not humbled thy heart, though thou
knewest all this; 23. But hast lifted up thy¬
self against the Lord of heaven; and they
have brought the vessels of his house before
thee, and thou and thy lords, thy wives and
thy concubines, have drunk wine in them ;
and thou hast praised the gods of silver and
gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which
;see not, nor hear, nor know: and the God
in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are
all thy ways, hast thou not glorified. 24.
Then was the part of the hand sent from
him; and this writing was written. 25.
And this is the writing that was written,
MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHAR-
SIN. 26. This is the interpretation of the
thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy
kingdom, and finished it. 27. TEKEL;
Thou art weighed in the balances, and art
found wanting. 28. PERES; Thy king¬
dom is divided, and given to the Medesand
Persians. 29. Then commanded Belshaz¬
zar, and they clothed Daniel with scarlet,
and put a chain of gold about his neck, and
made a proclamation concerning him, that
he should be the third ruler in the kingdom.
Here is,
I. The information given to the king, by the
queen-mother, concerning Daniel, how fit he was to
be consulted in this difficult case. It is supposed
that this queen was the widow of Evil-merodach,
and was that famous Nitocris whom Herodotus
mentions as a woman of extraordinary prudence.
She was not present at the feast, as the king’s
wives and concubines were; (v. 2.) It was not
agreeable to her age and gravity to keep a merry
night. But tidings of the fright which the king and
his lords were put into being brought to her apart¬
ment, she came herself to the banqueting-house, to
recommend to the king a physician for his melan¬
choly. She entreats him not to be discouraged by
the insufficiency of his wise men to solve this riddle,
for that there was a man in his kingdom, that had
more than once helped his grandfather at such a
dead lift, and, no doubt, could help him, v. 11, 12.
She could not undertake to read the writing herself,
but directs him to one that could; let Daniel be
called now, who should have been called first. Now
observe,
1. The high character she gives of Daniel; He is
a man in whom is the spirit of the holy gods, who
has something in him more than human, not only the
spirit of a man, which, in all, is the candle of the
838 DANIEL, V.
L trd, but a divine spirit. According to the lan¬
guage of her country and religion, she could not give
a higher encomium of any man; she speaks honour¬
ably of him as a man that had, (1.) An admirable
good head; Light and understanding, and wisdom,
like the wisdotn of the gods, were found in him.
Such an insight had he into things secret, and such
a. foresight of things to come, that it was evident he
was divinely inspired; he had knowledge and under¬
standing beyond all the other wise men for inter¬
preting of dreams, explaining enigmas, or hard sen¬
tences, untying knots, and resolving doubts. Solo¬
mon had a wonderful sagacity of this kind: but it
should seem that in these things Daniel had more of
an immediate divine direction; Behold a greater
than Solomon himself is here. Yet what was the
wisdom of them both, compared with the treasures
of the wisdom hid in Christ? (2.) He had an admi¬
rable good heart; yin excellent spirit was found in
him, which was a great ornament to his wisdom and
knowledge, and qualified him to receive that gift;
for God gives to a man that is good in his sight,
wisdom, and knowledge, and joy. He was of an
humble, holy, heavenly spirit, had a devout and
gracious spirit, a spirit of zeal for the glory of God
and the good of men. This was indeed an excellent
spirit.
2. The account she gives of the respect that Ne¬
buchadnezzar had for him; he was much in his fa¬
vour, and was preferred by him; the king thy father,
(that is, thy grandfather, but even to many genera¬
tions Nebuchadnezzar might well be called the
father of that royal family, for he it was that raised
it to such a pitch of grandeur,) the king, I say, thy
father, made him master of the magicians. Per¬
haps Belshazzar had sometimes, in his pride, spoken
slightly of Nebuchadnezzar, and his politics, and
the methods of his government, and the ministers he
employed, and thought himself wiser than he; and
therefore his mother harps upon that. The king,
I say, thy father, to whose good management all
thou hast is owing, he pronounced him chief of, and
gave him dominion over all, the wise men of Baby¬
lon, and named him Belteshazzar, according to the
name of his god, thinking thereby to put honour
upon him : but Daniel, by constantly making use of
his Jewish name himself, (which he resolved to
keep, in token of his faithful adherence to his reli¬
gion,) had worn out that name; only the queen -
dowager remembered it, otherwise he was gene¬
rally called Ddniel. Note, It is a very good office to
revive the remembrance of the good services of
worthy men, who are themselves modest, and wil¬
ling that they should be forgotten.
3. The motion she makes concerning him; Let
Daniel be called, and he will show the interpreta¬
tion. By this it appears that Daniel was now for¬
gotten at court; Belshazzar was a stranger to him,
knew not that he had such a jewel in his kingdom;
with the new king there came in a new ministry,
and the old one was laid aside. Note, There are a
great many valuable men, and such as might be
made very useful, that lie long buried in obscurity;
and some that have done eminent services, that live
to be overlooked, and taken no notice of; but what¬
ever men are, God is not unrighteous to forget the
services done to his kingdom. Daniel being turned
out of his place, lived privately, and sought not any
opportunity to come into notice again; vet he lived
near the court, and within call, though Babylon was
now besieged, that he might be ready, if there were
occasion, to do any good office, by what interest he
had among the great ones, for the children of his
people. But Providence so ordered it, that now,
ju ;t at the fall of that monarchy, he should by the
queen’s means be brought to court again, that he
might lie there ready for preferment in the ensuing
government. Thus do the righteous shine forth out
of obscurity, and before honour is humility.
II. The introducing of Daniel to the king, and his
request to him to read and expound the writing.
Daniel was brought in before the king, v. 13. He
was now near 90 years of age, so that his years, and
honours, and former preferments, might have en¬
titled him to a free admission into the king’s pre¬
sence; yet he was willing to be conducted in, as a
stranger, by the master of the ceremonies. Note,
1. The king asks, with an air of haughtiness, Art
thou that Daniel who art of the children of the cap¬
tivity ? Being a Jew, and a captive, he was loath to
be beholden to him, if he could have helped it. 2.
He tells him what an encomium he had heard of
him, (u. 14.) that the spirit of the gods was in him;
and he had sent for him to try whether he deserved
so high a character or no. 3. He acknowledges
that all his wise men of Babylon were baffled; they
could not read this writing, nor show the interpre¬
tation, v. 15. But, 4. He promises him the same
rewards that he had promised them, if he would dc
it, v. 16. It was strange that the magicians, when
now, and in Nebuchadnezzar’s time, once and again,,
they were nonplussed, did not offer at something, to
save their credit; if they had with a good assurance
said, “ This is the meaning of such a dream, such a
writing;” who could disprove them? but God so or¬
dered it, that they had nothing at all to say, as,
when Christ was born, the heathen oracles were
struck dumb.
III. The interpretation which Daniel gave of
these mystic characters, which was so far from
easing the king of his fears, that we may suppose it
increased them rather. Daniel was now in years,
and Belshazzar was young; and therefore he seems
to take a greater liberty of dealing plainly and
roundly with him than he had done upon the like
occasions with Nebuchadnezzar. In reproving any
man, especially great men, there is need of wisdem
to consider all circumstances: for they are the re¬
proofs of instruction, that are the way of life. In
Daniel’s discourse here,
1. He undertakes to read the writing which gave
them this alarm, and to show them the interpreta¬
tion of it, v. 17. He slights the offer he made him
of rewards, is not pleased that it was mentioned, for
he is none of those that divine for money; what
gratuities Belshazzar gave him afterward, he
thankfully accepted, but he scorned to indent for
them, or to read the writing to the king, for and in
consideration of such and such honours promised
him; No, “ Let thy gifts be to thyself, for they will
not be long thine, and give thy fee to another, to any
of the wise men which thou wouldest have most
wished to earn it; I value it not.” Daniel sees his
kingdom now at its last gasp, and therefore looks
with contempt upon his gifts and rewards. And
thus should we despise all the gifts and rewcMs this
world can give, did we see, as we may by faith, its
final period hastening on. Let it give its perishing
gifts to another, there are better gifts which we have
our eyes and hearts upon; but let us do our duty in
the world, do it all the real service we can, read
God’s writing to it in a profession of religion, and
by an agreeable conversation make known the inter¬
pretation of it, and then trust God for his gifts, his
rewards, in comparison with which all tbe world
can give is mere trash and trifles.
2. He largely recounts to the king God’s dealings
with his father Nebuchadnezzar, which were in¬
tended for instruction and warningtohim, v. 18. — 21.
This is not intended for a flourish or an amusement,
but is a necessary preliminary to the interpretation
of the writing. Note, That we may understand
aright what God is doing with us, it is of use to us
to review what he has done with others.
DANIEL, V.
82‘J
(1.) He describes the great dignity and power to
which the Divine Providence had advanced Nebu¬
chadnezzar; (x. 18, 19.) He had a kingdom, and
majesty, and glory, and honour, for aught we know,
above what any heathen prince ever had before him ;
he thought that he got it by his own extraordinary
conduct and courage, and ascribed his successes to
a projecting, active genius of his own; but Daniel
tells him, who now enjoyed what he had laboured
for, that it was the most high God, the God of gods,
and Lord of kings, as Nebuchadnezzar himself had
called him, that gave him that kingdom, that vast
dominion, that majesty wherewith, he presided in
the affairs of it, and that glory and honour which
by his prosperous management he had acquired.
Note, Whatever degree of outward prosperity any
arrive to, they must own that it is of God’s giving,
not their own getting. Let it never be said, My
might, and the / lower of my hand, hath gotten me
this wealth, this preferment; but let it always be re¬
membered that it is God that gives men /tower to
get wealth, and gives success to their endeavours.
Now the power which God gave to Nebuchadnez¬
zar is here described to be very great in respect
both of ability and of authority. [1.] His ability
was so strong, that it was irresistible; such was the
majesty that God gave him, so numerous the forces
he had at command, and such an admirable dex¬
terity he had at commanding them, that, which way
soever his sword turned, it prospered; he could cap¬
tivate and subdue nations by threatening them,
without striking a stroke, iorall fieo/ile trembled and
feared before him, and would compound with him
for their lives upon any terms. See what force is,
and what the fear of it does. It is that by which
the brutal part of the world, even of the world of
mankind, both governs, and is governed. [2.] His
authority was so absolute, that it was uncontrollable.
The power which was allowed him, which descend¬
ed upon him, or which, at least, he assumed, was
without contradiction, was absolute and despotic.,
none shared with him either in the legislative or in
the executive part of it; but in dispensing punish¬
ments, he condemned or acquitted at pleasure;
Whom he would he slew, and whom he would he
saved alive; though both were equally innocent, or
equally guilty. The Jus vitx et necis — The /lower
of life and death, was entirely in his hand. In dis¬
pensing rewards he granted or denied preferments
at pleasure; Whom he would he set up, and whom
he would fie put down, merely for a humour, and
without giving a reason so much as to himself; but
it is all ex mero motu — of his own good pleasure,
and slat pro ratione voluntas — His will stands for a
reason. Such was the constitution of the eastern
monarchies, such the manner of their kings.
(2.) He sets before him the sins which Nebuchad¬
nezzar had been guilty of, whereby he had pro¬
voked God against him. [1.] He behaved insult¬
ingly toward those that were under him, and grew
tyrannical and oppressive. The description given
of his power intimates his abuse of his power, and
that he was directed in what he did by humour and
passion, not by reason and equity; so that he often
condemned the innocent, and acquitted the guiltv,
both which are an abomination to the Lord. He
deposed men of merit, and preferred unworthy men,
to the great detriment of the public, for this he is
accountable to the most high God that gave him his
power. Note, It is a very hard and rare thing for
men to have an absolute, arbitrary power, and not
to make an ill use of it. Camden has a distich of
Giraldus, wherein he speaks of it as a rare instance,
c oncerning our king Henry the Second of England,
that never any man had so much power, and did So
little hurt with it.
Glorior hoc uno, quod nunquam vidimus unum,
Ncc potuisse inagis, nec nocuisse minus —
Of him I can say, exulting, that with the same power to do harm no
one wus over more inoflensive.
But that was not all. [2.] He behaved insolently
toward the God above him, and grew proud and
haughty; (v. 20.) His heart was lifted up, and
there his sin and ruin began; his mind was hardened
in pride, hardened against the commandments of
God and his judgments; he was wilful and obstinate,
and neither the word of God nor his rod made any
lasting impression upon him. Note, Pride is a sin
that hardens the heart in all other sin, and renders
the means of repentance and reformation ineffectual.
(3.) He reminds him of the judgments of God,
that were brought upon him for his pride and obsti¬
nacy. How he was deprived of his reason, and so
deposed from his kingly throne, (y. 20.) driven from
among men, to dwell with the wild asses, v. 21. He
that would not govern his subjects by rules of reason,
had not reason sufficient for the government of him¬
self. Note, Justly does God deprive men of their
reason, when they become unreasonable, and will
not use it, and of their power, when they become
oppressive, and use it ill. He continued like a
brute, till he knew and embraced that first principle
of religion, That the most high God rules. And it
is rather by religion than reason that man is dis¬
tinguished from, and dignified above, the beasts;
and it is more his honour to be a subject to the su¬
preme Creator than to be lord of the inferior crea¬
tures. Note, Kings must know, or shall be made to
know, that the most high God rules in their king¬
doms, that is an imperium in imperio — an empire
within an empire, not to be excepted against; and
that he appoints over them whomsoever he will.
As he makes heirs, so he makes princes.
3. In God’s name, he exhibits articles of impeach¬
ment against Belshazzar; before he reads him his
doom, from the hand-writing on the wall, he shows
him his crime, that God may be justified when he
speaks, and clear when he judges. Now that which
he lays to his charge is,
(1. ) That he had not taken warning by the judg¬
ments of God upon his father; ( v . 22.) Thou, his
son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart,
though thou knewest all this. Note, It is a great
offence to God, if our hearts be not humbled before
him, to comply both with his precepts and with his
providences, humbled by repentance, obedience,
and patience; nay, he expects from the greatest of
men that their hearts should be bumbled before
him, by an acknowledgment that, great as they are,
to him they are accountable. And it is a great ag¬
gravation of the unhumbledness of our hearts, when
we know enough to humble them, but do not con¬
sider and improve it; particularly when we know
how others have been broken, that would not bend,
how others have fallen, that would not stoop, and
yet we continue stiff and inflexible. It makes the
sin of children the more heinous, if they tread in
the steps of their parents’ wickedness, though they
have seen how dear it has cost them, and how
pernicious the consequences of it have been. Do
we know this, do we know all this, and yet are we
not humbled ?
(2.) That he had affronted God more impudently
than Nebuchadnezzar himself had done; witness
the revels of this very night, in the midst of which
he was seized with this horror; (x. 23.) “ Thou
hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven,
hast swelled with rage against him, and taken up
arms against his crown and dignity, in this particu¬
lar instance, that thou hast profaned the vessels of
his house, and made the utensils of his sanctuary
instruments of thine iniquity', and, in cn actual dt
830
DANIEL, V.
signed contempt of him, hast praised the gods of
silver and gold, which see not, nor hear, nor know
any thing, as if they were to be preferred before
the God that sees, and hears, and knows every
thing.” Sinners that are resolved to go on in sin,
are well enough pleased with gods that neither see,
nor hear, nor know, for then they may sin securely;
but they will find, to their confusion, that though
those are the gods they choose, those are not the
gods they must be judged by, but one to whom all
things are tiaked and open.
(3.) That he had not answered the end of his
creation and maintenance; The God in whose hands
thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou
not glorified. This is a general charge, which
stands good against us all; let us consider how we
shall answer it. Observe, [1.] Our dependence
upon God as our Creator, Preserver, Benefactor,
Owner, and Ruler; not only from his hand our
breath was at first, but in his hand our breath is
still; it is he that holds our souls in life, and if he
take away our breath we die. Our times being in
his hand, so is our breath, by which our times are
measured. In him we live, and move, and have
our being; we live by him, live upon him, and can¬
not live without him. The way of man is not in
himself, not at his own command, at his own dis¬
posal, but his are all our ways; for our hearts are
in his hand, and so are the hearts of all men, even
of kings, who seem to act most as free agents. [2.]
Our duty to God, in consideration of this depen¬
dence; we ought to glorify him, to devote ourselves
to his honour, and employ ourselves in his service;
to make it our care to please him, and our business
to praise him. [3.] Our default in this duty, not¬
withstanding that dependence; we have not done it;
for we have all sinned, and have come short of the
glory of God. This is the indictment against Bel¬
shazzar; there needs no proof, it is made good by
the notorious evidence of the fact, and his own con¬
science cannot but plead guilty to it. And there¬
fore,
4. He now proceeds to read the sentence, as he
found it written upon the wall; “ Then ” (says Da¬
niel) “when thou wast come to such a height of
impiety as thus to trample upon the most sacred
things, then when thou wast in the midst of thy sa¬
crilegious, idolatrous feast, then was the part of the
hand, the writing fingers, sent from him, from that
God whom thou didst so daringly affront, and who
had borne so long with thee, but would bear no
longer; he sent them, and this writing, thou now
seest, was written, v. 24. It is he that now writes
bitter things against thee, and makes thee to possess
thine iniquities,” Job xiii. 26. Note, As the sin
o! sinners is written in the book of God’s omni¬
science, so the doom of sinners is written in the
book of God’s law; and the day is coming when
those books shall be opened, and they shall be judged
by them.
Now the writing was, Mene, Mene, Tekel, Uphar-
si.ii, v. 25. It is well that we have an authentic ex¬
position of them annexed, else we could make little
of them, so concise are they; the signification of
them is, He has numbered, he has weighed, and
they divide. The Chaldean wise men, because they
knew not that there is but one God only, could not
understand who this He should be, and for that rea¬
son (some think) the writing puzzled them.
( 1 . ) Mene; that is repeated, for the thine is cer¬
tain, Mene, Mene; that signifies, both in Hebrew
and Chaldee, He has numbered and finished; which
Daniel explains thus, (n. 26.) “God has numbered
thy kingdom, the years and days of the continuance
of it; these were numbered in the counsel of God,
,nd now they are finished; the term is expired for
and during which thou wast to hold it, and now it
must be surrendered. Here is an end of thy king¬
dom.”
(2.) Tekel; that signifies, in Chaldee, Thou art
weighed, and in Hebrew, Thou art too light. So
Dr. Lightfoot. For this king and his actions are
weighed in the just and unerring balances of divine
equity. God does as perfectly know his true cha¬
racter as the goldsmith knows the weight of that
which he has weighed in the nicest scales. God
does not give judgment against him till he has first
pondered his actions, and considered the merits of
his case; “ But thou art found wanting; unworthy
to have such a trust lodged in thee, a vain, light,
empty man; a man of no weight or consideration.”
(3.) Upharsin; which should be rendered, and
Pharsin, or Peres. Parsin, in Hebrew, signifies
the Persians; Paresin, in Chaldee, signifies divid¬
ing; Daniel puts both together; (xi. 28.) “ Thy
kingdom is divided, is rent from thee, and given to
the Mecles and Persians, as a prey to be divided
among them.”
Now this may, without any force, be applied to
the doom of sinners. Mene, Tekel, Pens, may
easily be made to signify, death, judgment, and
hell. At death, the sinner’s days are numbered and
finished; after death, the judgment, when he will
be weighed in the balance, and found wanting; and
after judgment, the sinner will be cut asunder, and
given as a prey to the devil and his angels. Da¬
niel does not here give Belshazzar such adv ice and
encouragement to repent as he had given Nebu¬
chadnezzar, because he saw the decree was gone
forth, and he would not be allowed any space to
repent.
One would have thought that Belshazzar would
have been exasperated against Daniel, and seeing
his own case desperate, would have been in a rage
against him. But he was so far convicted by his
own conscience of the reasonableness of all he said,
that he objected nothing against it; but, on the con¬
trary, gave Daniel the reward he promised him,
put on him the scarlet gown, and the gold chain,
and proclaimed him the third ruler in the kingdom;
(z'. 29.) because he would be as good as his word,
and because it was not Daniel’s fault if the exposi¬
tion of the hand-writing was not such as he desired.
Note, Many show great respect to God’s prophets,
who yet have no regard to his word. Daniel did not
value these titles and ensigns of honour, yet would
not refuse them, because they were tokens of his
prince’s good will: but we have reason to think that
he received them with a smile, foreseeing how
soon they would all wither with him that bestowed
them. They were like Jonah’s gourd, which came
up in a night, and perished in a night, and there¬
fore it was folly for him to be exceeding glad of
them.
30. In that night was Belshazzar the
king of .the Chaldeans slain. 31. And Da¬
rius the Median took the kingdom, being
about threescore and two years old.
Here is, 1. The death of the king. Reason enough
he had to tremble, for he was just falling into the.
hands of the king of terrors, v. 30. In that night,
when his heart was merry with wine, the besiegers
broke into the city, aimed" at the palace, where they
found the king, and gave him his death’s wound";
he could not find any place so secret as to conceal
him, cr so strong as to protect him. Heathen wri
ters speak of Cyrus’s taking Babylon by surprise,
with the assistance of two deserters that showed
him the best way into the city. And it was foretold
what a consternation it would be to the court, Jer.
C31
DANIEL, VI.
li. 1 1, 39. Note, Death comes as a snare upon those
whose hearts are overcharged with surfeiting and
drunkenness.
2. The transferring of the kingdom into other
hands. From the head of gold we now descend to
the breast and arms of silver. Darius the Mede
took the kingdom in partnership with, and by the
consent of, Cyrus who had conquered it, v. 31.
They were partners in war and conquest, and so
they were in dominion, ch. vi. 28. Notice is taken
of liis age, that he was now sixty-two years old; for
which reason Cyrus, who was his nephew, gave
him the precedency. Some observe, that he being
now sixty-two years old in the last year of the cap¬
tivity, he was bom in the eighth year of it, and that
was the year when Jeconiah was carried captive,
and all the nobles, Sc c. See 2 Kings xxiv. 13, 15.
Just at that time when the most fatal stroke was
given, was a prince born, that in process of time
should avenge Jerusalem upon Babylon, and heal
the wound that was now given. Thus deep are the
counsels of God concerning his people, thus kind
are his designs toward them.
CHAP. VI.
Daniel does not give a continued history of the reigns in
which he lived, nor of the state-affairs of the kingdoms
of Chaldea and Persia, though he was himself a great
man in those affairs; for what are those to us? But he
selects such particular passages of story as serve for the
confirming of our faith in God, and the encouraging of
our obedience to him; for the things written aforetime
were written for our learning. It is a very observable,
improvable story that we have in this chapter, how Da¬
niel by faith stopped the mouths of lions , and so obtained
a good report , Heb. xi. 33. The three children were cast
into the fiery furnace for not committing a known sin,
Daniel was cast into the lion’s den for not omitting a
known duty; and God’s miraculously delivering of both
them and him is left upon record for the encouragement
of his servants in all ages to be resolute and constant,
both in their abhorrence of that which is evil, and in
their adherence to that which is good, whatever it cost
them. In this chapter we have, I. Daniel’s preferment
in the court of Darius, v. 1 . . 3. II. The envy and ma¬
lice of his enemies against him, v. 4, 5. III. The decree
they obtained against prayer for thirty, days, v. 6 . . 9.
IV. Daniel’s continuance and constancy in prayer, not¬
withstanding that decree, v. 10. V. Information given
against him for it, and the casting of him into the den
of lions, v. 11 .. 17. VI. His miraculous preservation
in the lions’ den, and deliverance out of it, v. 18. . 23.
VII. The casting of his accusers into the den, and their
destruction there, v. 24. VIII. The decree which Darius
made upon this occasion in honour of the God of Daniel,
and the prosperity of Daniel afterward, v. 25 . . 28. And
this God is our God for ever and ever.
1. ITT pleased Darius to set over the king-
JL dom a hundred and twenty princes,
which should be over the whole kingdom;
2. And over these, three presidents, of whom
Daniel was first; that the princes might give
accounts unto them, and the king should
have no damage. 3. Then this Daniel was
preferred above the presidents and princes,
because an excellent spirit teas in him ; and
the king thought to set him over the whole
realm. 4. Then the presidents and princes
sought to find occasion against Daniel con¬
cerning the kingdom; but they could find
none occasion nor fault ; forasmuch as he
was faithful, neither was there any error or
fault found in him. 5. Then said these men,
We shall not find any occasion against this
Daniel, except we find it against him con¬
cerning the law of his God.
We are here toxl concerning Daniel,
1. What a great man he was. When Darius,
upon his accession to the crown of Babylon by con¬
quest, new-modelled the government, he made Da¬
niel prime minister of state, set him at the helm,
and made him first commissioner both of the trea¬
sury, and of the great seal. Darius’s dominion was
very large; ail he got by his conquests and acquests
was, that he had so many more countries to take
care of; no more can be expected from himself
than what one man can do, and therefore others
must be employed under him. He set over the king¬
dom 120 princes, (t>. 1.) and appointed them their
districts, in which they were to administer justice,
preserve the public peace, and levy the king’s re¬
venue. Note, Inferior magistrates are ministers of
God to us for good as well as the sovereign; and
therefore we must submit ourselves both to the king
as supreme, and to the governors that are constitut¬
ed and commissioned by him, 1 Pet. ii. 13, 14. Over
these princes there was a triumvirate, or three pre¬
sidents, who were to take and state the public ac¬
counts, to receive appeals from the princes, or cqjn-
plaints against them in case of mal-administration,
that the king should have no damage, (v. 2.) that
he should not sustain loss in his revenue, and that
the power he delegated to the princes might not be
abused to the oppression of the subject, for by that
the king (whether he thinks so or no) receives real
damage, both as it alienates the affections of his
people from him, and provokes the displeasure of
his God against him. Of these three Daniel was
the chief, because he was found to go beyond them
all in all manner of princely qualifications. He was
preferred above the presidents and princes; ( v . 3.)
and so wonderfully well pleased the king was with
his management, that he thought to set him over the
whole realm, and let him place and displace at his
pleasure.
Now, (1.) We must take notice of it to the praise
of Darius, that he would prefer a man thus purelv
for his personal merit, and his fitness for business;
and those sovereigns that would be well served,
must go by that rule. Daniel had been a great man
in the kingdom that was conquered, and for that
reason, one would think, should have been looked
upon as an enemy, and as such imprisoned or ba¬
nished; he was a native of a foreign kingdom, and
a ruined one, and upon that account might have
been despised as a stranger and captive: but Darius,
it seems, was very quick-sighted in judging of men’s
capacities, and was soon aware that this Daniel had
something extraordinary in him, and there* re
though, no doubt, he had creatures of his own. rot
a few, that expected preferment in this newly- con¬
quered kingdom, and were gaping for it, and those
that had been long His confidants would depend upon
it that they should be now his presidents, yet so
well did he consult the public welfare, that finding
D aniel to excel them all in prudence and virtue,
and probably having heard of his being divinely in¬
spired, he made him his right hand. (2.) We must
take notice of it, to the glory of God, that though
Daniel was now very old, (it is above seventy years
since he was brought a captive to Babylon,) yet he
was as able as ever for business both ir body and
mind; and that he who had continued fai .hful to his
religion, through all the temptations of the foregoing
reigns, in a new government was as much respected
as ever. He kept in by being an oak, not by being
a willow; by a constancy in virtue, not by a pliable¬
ness to vice. Such honesty is the best policy, for it
secures a reputation; and those who thus honour
God, lie will honour them.
2. What a good man he was; yin excellent spirit
reas in him, v. 3. And he was faithful to every trust,
dealt fairly between the sovereign and the subject
832
DANIEL, VI.
and took care that neither should be wronged, so |
that there was no error, or fault, to be found in
him, v. 4. He was not only not chargeable with any
treachery or dishonesty, but not even with any mis¬
take or indiscretion. He never made any blunder,
nor had any occasion to plead inadvertency or for¬
getfulness tor his excuse. This is recorded for an
example to all that are in places of public trust, to
approve themselves both careful and conscientious,
that they may be free, not only from fault, but from
error; not only from crime, but from mistake.
3. What ill iui/1 was borne him, both for his great¬
ness and for his goodness. The presidents and
princes envied him, because he was advanced above
them, and, probably, hated him, because he had a
watchful eye upon them, and took care they should
not wrong the government, to enrich themselves.
See here, (1.) The cause of envy; and that is every
thing that is good. Solomon complains of it as a
vexation, that for every right work a man is envied ;
of his neighbour; (Eccl. iv. 4.) that the better a '
man is, the worse he is thought of by his rivals, i
Daniel is envied because he has a more excellent
spirit than his neighbours. (2. ) The effect of envy ;
and that is every thing that is bad. Those that en- !
vied Daniel, sought no less than his ruin; his dis¬
grace would not serve them, it was his death that
they desired. IVrath is cruel, and anger is out¬
rageous ; but who can stand before envy? Prov.
xxvii. 4. Daniel’s enemies set spies upon him, to
observe him in the management of his place ; they
sought to find occasion against him, something on
which to ground an accusation concerning the king¬
dom; some instance of neglect or partiality, some
hasty word spoken, some person borne hard upon,
or some necessary business overlooked. And if they
could but have found the mote, the mole-hill, of a
mistake, it would have been soon improved to the
beam, to the mountain, of an unpardonable misde¬
meanor. But they could find no occasion against
him ; they owned that they could not. Daniel al¬
ways acted honestly, and now the more warily, and
stood the more upon his guard, because of his ob¬
servers, Ps. xxvii. 11. Note, We have all need to
walk circumspectly, because we have many eyes
upon us, and some that watch for our halting. Those
especially have need to carry their cup even, that
have it full. They concluded, at length, that they
should not find any occasion against him, except
concerning the lam of his God, v. 5. It seems then
that Daniel kept up the profession of his religion,
and held it fast without wavering or shrinking; and
yet that was no bar to his preferment: there was no
law that required him to be of the king’s religion,
or incapacitated him to bear office in the state un¬
less he were. It was all one to the king what God
he prayed to, so long as he did the business of his
place faithfully and well ; he was at the king’s ser¬
vice usque ad aras — as far as the altars ; but there
ne left him. In this matter therefore his enemies
noped to insnare him. Queer end um est crimen
lessee religionis ubi majestatis deficit — When treason
could not be charged upon him, he mas accused of
impiety. Grotius. Note, It is an excellent thing,
and much for the glory of God, when those who
profess religion conduct themselves so inoffensively j
in their whole conversation, that their most watch¬
ful, spiteful enemies may find no occasion of blaming
them, save only in the matters of their God, in
which they walk according to their consciences. It
is observable that when Daniel’s enemies could find
no occasion against him concerning the kingdom,
they had so much sense of justice left, that they did
not suborn witnesses against him to accuse him of
crimes he was innocent of, and to swear treason
upon him, wherein they shame many that were
tailed Jems, and are called Christians.
6. Then these presidents and princes as¬
sembled together to the king, and said thus
unto him, King Darius, live for ever. 7. All
the presidents of the kingdom, the governors,
and the princes, the counsellors, and the cap¬
tains, have consulted together to establish a
royal statute, and to make a firm decree,
that whosoever shall ask a petition of any
god or man .for thirty days, save of thee, O
king, he shall be cast into the den of lions
8. Now, O king, establish the. decree, and
sign the writing, that it be not changed, ac¬
cording to the law of the Medes and Per¬
sians, which altereth not. 9. Wherefore king
Darius signed the writing and the decree.
10. Now when Daniel knew that the
writing was signed, he went into his house;
and, his windows being open in his chamber
toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his
knees three times a-day, and prayed, and
gave thanks before bis God, as he did afore¬
time.
Daniel’s adversaries could have no advantage
against him from any law now in being; they there¬
fore contrive a new law, by which they hope to in¬
snare him, and in a matter in which they knew they
should be sure of him; and such was his fidelity to
his God, that they gained their point. Here is,
I. Darius’s impious law. I call it Darius’s be¬
cause he gave the royal assent to it, and otherwise
it had not been in force; but it was not properly his,
he contrived it not, and was perfectly wheedled to
consent to it. The presidents and princes framed
the edict, brought in the bill, and by their manage¬
ment it was agreed to by the convention of the states,
who perhaps were met at this time upon some pub¬
lic occasion; it is pretended that this bill which they
would have to pass into a law, was the result of
mature deliberation; that all the presidents of the
kingdom, the governors, princes, counsellors, and
captains, had consulted together about it, and that
they not only agreed to it, but advised it, for divers
good causes and considerations, that they had done
what they could to establish it for a firm decree,
nay, they intimate to the king, that it was carried
nemine contradicente — unanimously ; All the presi¬
dents are of this mind; and yet we are sure that
Daniel, the chief of the three presidents, did not
agree to it ; and have reason to think that many
more of the princes excepted against it, as absurd
and unreasonable. Note, It is no new thing for that
to be represented, and with great assurance too, as
the sense of the nation, which is far from being so;
and that which fern approve of, is sometimes confi
dently said to be that which all agree to. But oh
the infelicity of kings, who, being under a necessity
of seeing and hearing with other people’s eyes and
ears, are many times wretchedly imposed upon!
These designing men, under colour of doing honoui
to the king, but really intending the ruin of his fa¬
vourite, press him to pass this into a law, and make
it a royal statute, that whosoever shall ask a peti¬
tion of any god or man for thirty days, save of
the king, should be put to death after the most bar¬
barous manner, should be cast into the den of lions,
v. 7. This is the bill they have been hatching, and
they lay it before the king to be signed, and passed
into a law. Now, 1, There is nothing in it that has
the least appearance of good, but that it magnifies
the king, and makes him seem both very great, and
83 3
DANIEL, VI.
very kind to his subjects, which, they suggest, will
De of good service to him now that lie is newly come
to hi > throne, and will confirm his interests. All
men must be made to believe that the king is so
rich, and withal so ready to all petitioners, that
none in any want or distress need apply themselves
either to God or man for relief, but to him only.
And for thirty days together he will be ready to
give audience to all that have any petition to present
to him. It is indeed much for the honour of kings,
to be benefactors to their subjects, and to have their
ears open to their complaints and requests; but if
they pretend to be their sole benefactors, and under¬
take to be to them instead of God, and challenge
that respect from them, which is due to God only,
it is their disgrace, and not their honour. But, 2.
There is a great deal in it that is apparently evil;
it is bad enough to forbid asking a petition of any
man; must not a beggar ask an alms, or one neigh¬
bour beg a kindness of another? If the child want
bread, must he not ask it of his parents, or be cast
into the den of lions if he do? Nay, they that have
business with the king, may they not petition those
about him to introduce them? But it was much
worse, and an impudent affront to all religion, to
forbid asking a petition of any god. It is by prayer
that we give glon ,o God, fetch in mercy from God,
and so keep up our communion with God; and to
interdict prayer for thirty days, is for so long to rob
God of all the tribute he has from man, and to rob
man of all the comfort he has in God. When the
light of nature teaches us that the providence of
God has the ordering and disposing of all our affairs,
does no', the law of nature oblige us by prayer to
acknowledge God, and seek to him? Does not
every man’s heart direct him, when he is in want or
distress, to call upon God, and must this be made
high treason ? We could not live a day without
God; and can men live thirty days without prayer?
Will the king himself be tied up for so long from
praying to God; or if it be allowed him, will he un¬
dertake to do it for all his subjects ? Did ever any
nation thus slight their gods? But see what ab¬
surdities malice will drive men to. Rather than not
bring Daniel into trouble for praying to his God,
they will deny themselves and all their friends the
satisfaction of praying to theirs. Had they proposed
only to prohibit the Jews from praying to their God,
Daniel would have been as etfectually insnared; but
they knew the king would not pass such a law, and
therefore made it thus general. And the king,
puffed up with a fancy that this would set him up as
a little god, was fond of the feather in his cap, (for
so it was, and not a flower in his crown,) and signed
the writing and the decree, (r. 9.) which, being
once done according to the constitution of the united
kingdom of the Medes and Persians, was not upon
any pretence whatsoever to be altered or dispensed
with, or the breach of it pardoned.
II. Daniel’s pious disobedience to this law, v. 10.
He did not retire into the country, or abscond for
some time, though he knew the law was levelled
against him; but because he knew it was so, there¬
fore he stood his ground, knowing that he had now
a fair opportunity of honouring God before men,
and showing that he preferred his favour, and his
duty to him, before life itself. When Daniel knew
that the writing was signed, he might have gone to
the king, and expostulated with him about it; nay,
he might have remonstrated against it, as grounded
upon a misinformation that all the presidents had
consented to it, whereas he that was chief of them,
had never been consulted about it; but he went to
his house, and applied himself to his duty, cheerfully
trusting God with the event. Now observe,
1. Daniel’s constant practice, which we were not
informed of before this occasion, but which we have
Vor. iv. — ‘i N
reason to think was the general practice of the pious
Jews. (1.) He prayed in his house, sometimes him
self alone, and sometimes with his family about him.
and made a solemn business of it. Cornelius was a
man that prayed in his house. Acts x. 30. Note,
Every house not only may be, but ought to be, a
house of prayer; where we have a tent, God must
have an altar, and on it we must offer spiritual sa¬
crifices. (2.) In every prayer Uvgavc thanks; when
we pray to God for the mercies we want, we must
praise him for those we have received. Thanks¬
giving must be a part of every prayer. (3.) In his
prayer and thanksgiving he had an eye to God as
his God, his in covenant; and set himself as in his
presence. He did this before his God, and with a
regard to him. (4.) When he prayed and gave
thanks, he kneeled upon his knees, which is the most
proper gesture in prayer, and most expressive of
humility, and reverence, and submission to God.
Kneeling is a begging posture, and we come to God
as beggars, beggars for our lives, whom it concerns
to be importunate. (5.) He opened the windows of
his chamber, that the sight of the visible heavens
might affect his heart with an awe of that God who
dwells above the heavens: but that was not all; he
opened them toward Jerusalem, the holy city, though
now in ruins, to signify the affection he had for its
very stones and dust, (Ps. cii. 14. ) and the remem¬
brance he had of its concerns daily in his prayers.
Thus, though he himself lived great in Babylon, yet
he testified his concurrence with the meanest of his
brethren the captives, in remembering Jerusalem,
and preferring it before his chief joy, Ps. cxxxvii.
5, 6. Jerusalem was the place which God had
chosen to put his name there; and when the temple
was dedicated, Solomon’s prayer to God was, that
if his people should in the land of their enemies pray
unto him with their eye toward the land which he
gave them, and the city he had chosen, and the
house which was built to his name, then he would
hear and maintain their cause, (1 Kings viii. 48, 49.)
to which prayer Daniel had reference in this cir¬
cumstance of his devotions. (6.) He did this three
times a day, three times every dav, according to the
example of David, (Ps.lv. 17.) Morning, evening,
and at noon I will pray. It is good to have our
hours of prayer, not to bind, but to mind, con¬
science; and if we think our bodies require refresh¬
ment by food thrice a day, can we think seldomer will
serve our souls ? This is surely as little as may be to
answer the command of praying always. (7.) He
did this so openly and avowedly, that all who knew
him, knew_ it to be his practice; and he thus showed
it, not because he was proud of it, (in the place
where he was, there was no room for that tempta¬
tion, for it was not reputation, but reproach, that
attended it,) but because he was not ashamed of it.
Though Daniel was a great man, he did not think
it below him to be thrice a day upon his knees before
his Maker, and to be his own chaplain; though he
was an old man, he did not think himself past it,
nor, though it had been his practice from his youth
up, was he weary of this well-doing. Though he
was a man of business, vast business, for the service
of the public, he did not think that would excuse
him from the daily exercises of devotion. How in¬
excusable then are they who have but little to do in
the world, and yet will not do thus much for God
and their souls ! Daniel was a man famous for
prayer, and for success in it; (Ezek. xiv. 14.) and
he came to be so by thus making a conscience of
prayer, and making a business of it daily; and in
thus doing God blessed him wonderfully.
2. Daniel’s constant adherence to this practice,
even when it was made by the law a capital crime.
When he knew that the writing was signed, he con-
j tinued to do os he did aforetime, and altered not one
334 DANIEL, VI.
circumstance of the performance. Many a man,
yea, and many a good man, would have thought it
prudence to omit it for these thirty days, when he
could not do it without hazard of his life; he might
have prayed so much the oftener when those days
were expired, and the danger was over, or he might
have performed the duty at another time, and
another place, so secretly, that it should not be pos¬
sible for his enemies to discover it; and so he might
both satisfy his conscience, and keep up his commu¬
nion with God, and yet avoid the law, and continue in
his usefulness : but if he had done so, it would have
been thought, both hy his friends and by his enemies,
that he had thrown up. the duty for this time, through
cowardice and base fear, which would have tended
very much to the dishonour of God and the discour¬
agement of his friends. Others who moved in a
lower sphere, might well enough act with caution;
but Daniel, who has so many eyes upon him, must
act with courage; and the rather because he knows
that the law, when it was made, was particularly
levelled against him. Note, We must not omit
duty for fear of suffering, no, nor so much as seem
to come short of it. In trying times, great stress is
laid upon our confessing Christ before men; (Matth.
x. 32. ) and we must take heed, lest, under pretence
of discretion, we be found guilty of cowardice in the
cause of God. If we do not think that this example
of Daniel obliges us to do likewise, yet I am sure
it forbids us to censure those that do, for God
owned him in it. By his constancy to his duty it
now appears that he had never been used to admit
any excuse for the omission of it ; for if ever any
excuse would have served to put it by, this would
have served now. (1.) That it was forbidden by
the king his master, and in honour of the king too;
but it is an undoubted maxim, in answer to that, We
are to obey God rather than men. (2.) That it
would be the loss of his life; but it is an undoubted
maxim, in answer to that, They who throw away
their souls, (as those certainly do, that live without
prayer,) to save their lives, make but a bad bargain
for themselves; and though herein they make them¬
selves, like the king of Tyre, wiser than Daniel, at
their end they will be fools.
1 1 . Then these men assembled, and found
Daniel praying and making supplication be¬
fore his God. 1 2. Then they came near, and
spake before the king concerning the king’s
decree ; Hast thou not signed a decree, that
every man that shall ask a petition of any
god or man within thirty days, save of thee,
O king, shall be cast into the den of lions ?
The king answered and said, The thing is
true, according to the law of the Medes and
Persians, which altereth not. 1 3. Then an¬
swered they, and said before the king, That
Daniel, which is of the captivity of the chil¬
dren of Judah, regardeth not thee, O king, nor
the decree that thou hast signed, but maketh
his petition three times a-day. 14. Then the
king, when he heard these words, was sore dis¬
pleased with himself, and set his heart on Da¬
niel to deliver him; and he labouredtill the go¬
ing down of the sun to deliver hi m. 1 5. Then
these men assembled unto the king, and said
unto the king, Know, O king, that the law
of the Medes and Persians is, That no de¬
cree nor statute which the king establisheth
may be changed. 1 6. Then the king com¬
manded, and they brought Daniel, and cast
him into the den of lions. Now the king
spake and said unto Daniel, Thy God,
whom thou serves! continually, he will de¬
liver thee. 1 7. And a stone was brought, and
laid upon the mouth of the den ; and the king
sealed it with his own signet, and with the
signet of his lords, that the purpose might not
be changed concerning Daniel.
Here is, 1. Proof made of Daniel’s praying to hi*
God, notwithstanding the late edict to the contrary;
(k. 11.) These men assembled; they came tumultu¬
ously together, so the word is, the same that was
used, v. 6. borrowed from Ps. ii. 1. Why do the
heathen rage ? They came together, to visit Daniel,
perhaps under pretence of business, at that time
which they knew to be his usual hour of devotion;
and if they had not found him so engaged, they
would have upbraided him with his faint-hearted¬
ness, and distrust of his God ; but (which they rather
wished to do) they found him on his knees praying
and making supplication before his Cod. Tor his
love they are his adversaries; but like his father Da¬
vid, he gives himself unto prayer, Ps. cix. 4.
2. Complaint made of it to the king. When they
had found occasion against Daniel concerning the
law of his God, they lost no time, but applied them¬
selves to the king, (v. 12.) and having appealed to
him, whether there was not such a law made, and
gained from him a recognition of it, and that it was
so ratified that it might not be altered, they pro¬
ceeded to accuse Daniel, v. 13. They describe
him so, in the information they give, as to exaspe¬
rate the king, and incense him the more against
him; “ He is of the children of the captivity of Ju¬
dah, he is of Judah, that despicable people, and
now a captive in a despicable state, that can call
nothing his own but what he has by the king’s fa¬
vour, and yet he regards not thee, O king, nor the
decree that thou hast signed.” Note, It is no new
thing for that which is done faithfully, in con¬
science toward God, to be misrepresented as done
obstinately and in contempt of the civil powers, that
is, for the best saints to be reproached as the worst
men. Daniel regarded God, and therefore prayed,
and we have reason to think prayed for the king
and his government, yet this is construed as not re¬
garding the king. That excellent spirit which
Daniel was endued with, and that established repu¬
tation which he had gained, could not protect him
from these poisonous darts. They do not say, He
makes his petition to his God, lest Darius should
take notice of that to his praise, but onlv He makes
his petition, which is the thing the law forbids.
3. The great concern the king was in hereupon.
He now perceived that, whatever they pretended,
it was not to honour him, but in spite to Daniel,
that they had proposed that law, and now he is sore
displeased with himself for gratifying them in it, v.
14. Note, When men indulge a proud vainglorious
humour, and please themselves with that which
feeds it, they know not what vexations they are
preparing for themselves; their flatterers may prove
their tormentors, and are but spreading a net for
their feet. Now the king sets his heart to deliver
Daniel; both bv argument and by authority he la
bours till the going down of the sun to deliver him,
to persuade his accusers not to insist upon his prose¬
cution. Note, We often do that, through inconsi¬
deration, which afterward we see cause a thousand
times to wish undone again; which is a good reason
why we should ponder the path of our feet, for then
all our ways will be established.
4. The violence with which the prosecutors de-
835
DANIEL, VI.
manded judgment, v. 15. We are not told what
Daniel said; the king himself is his advocate, he
needs not plead his own cause, but silently commits
himself and it to him that judges righteously; but
the prosecutors insist upon it, that the law must
have its course; it is a fundamental maxim in the
constitution of the government of the Medes and
Persians, which is now become the universal mo¬
narchy, that no decree or statute which the king
establishes may be changed. The same we find
Esth. i. 19. — viii. 8. The Chaldeans magnified the
will of their king, by giving him a power to make
and unmake laws at his pleasure, to slay and keep
alive whom he would. The Persians magnified the
wisdom of their king, by supposing that whatever
law he solemnly ratified, it was so well made, that
there could be no occasion to alter it, or dispense
with it, as if any human foresight could, in framing
a law, guard against all inconveniences. But, it
this maxim be duly applied to Daniel’s case, (as I
am apt to think it is not, but perverted,) while it
honours the king’s legislative power, it hampers his
executive power, and incapacitates him to show
that mercy which upholds the throne, and to pass
acts of indemnity, which are the glories of a reign.
Those who allow not the sovereign’s power to dis¬
pense with a disabling statute, yet never question
his power to pardon an offence against a penal
statute. But Darius is denied this power. See
what need we have to pray for princes, that God
would give them wisdom, for they are often em¬
barrassed with great difficulties, even the wisest
and best are.
5. The executing of the law upon Daniel. The
king himself, with the utmost reluctance, and
against his conscience, signs the warrant for his
execution; and Daniel, that venerable, grave man,
who carried such a mixture of majesty and sweet¬
ness in his countenance, who had so often looked
great upon the bench, and at the council-board, and
greater upon his knees, who had power with God
and man, and had prevailed, is brought, purely for
worshipping his God, as if he had been one of the
vilest of malefactors, and thrown into the den of
lions, to be devoured by them, v. 16. One cannot
think of it without the utmost compassion to the
gracious sufferer, and the utmost indignation at the
malicious prosecutors. To make sure work, the
stone laid upon the mouth of the den is sealed, and
the king (an over-easy mini is persuaded to do it
with his own signet, (v. 17.; that unhappy signet
with which he had confirmed the law that Daniel
falls by. But his lords cannot trust him, unless
they add their signets too. Thus when Christ was
buried, his adversaries sealed the stone that was
rolled to the door of his sepulchre.
6. The encouragement which Darius gave to Da¬
niel to trust in God; Thy God whom thou servest
continually, he will deliver thee, v. 16. Here, (1.)
He justifies Daniel from guilt, owning all his crime
to be serving his God continually, and continuing
to do so, even when it was made a crime. (2. ) He
leaves it to God to free him from punishment, since
he could not prevail to do it; He will deliver thee.
He is sure that his God can deliver him, for he be¬
lieves him to be an almighty God, and lie has rea¬
son to think he will do it, having heard of his deli¬
vering Daniel’s companions in a like case from the
fiery furnace, and concluding him to be always
faithful to those who approve themselves faithful to
him. Note, Those who serve God continually he
will continually preserve, and will bear them out in
his service.
1 8. Then the king went to his palace,
and passed the night fasting: neither were
instruments of music brought before him;
and his sleep went from him. 1 9. Then the
king arose very early in the morning, and
went in haste unto the den of lions. 20.
And when he came to the den, he cried
with a lamentable voice unto Daniel; ana
the king spake ar.d said to Daniel, O Daniel,
servant of the living God, is thy God, whom
thou servest continually, able to deliver thee
from the lions? 21. Then said Daniel unto
the king, O king, live for ever. 22. My God
hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions’
mouths, that they have not hurt me: foras¬
much as before him innocency was found
in me; and also before thee, O king, have 1
done no hurt. 23. Then was the king ex¬
ceeding glad for him, and commanded that
they should take Daniel up out of the den.
So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and
no manner of hurt was found upon him, be¬
cause he believed in his God. 24. And the
king commanded, and they brought those
men which had accused Daniel, and they
cast them into the den of lions, them, their
children, and their wives ; and the lions had
the mastery of them, and brake all their
bones in pieces or ever they came at the
bottom of the den.
Here is, 1. The melancholy night which the king
had, upon Daniel’s account, v. 18. He had said
indeed, that God would deliver him out of the dan¬
ger, but at the same time he could not forgive him¬
self for throwing him into the danger; and justly
might God deprive him of a friend whom he had
himself used so barbarously. He went to his palace,
vexed at himself for what he had done, and calling
himself unwise and unjust for not adhering to the
law of God and nature, with a non obstante — a neg¬
ative, to the law of the Medes and Persians. He
ate no supper, but passed the night fasting: his
heart was already full of grief and fear. He for¬
bade the music; nothing is more unpleasing than
songs sung to a heavy heart. He went to bed, but
got no sleep; was full of tossing to and fro till the
dawning of the day. Note, The best way to have
a good night is, to keep a good conscience; then we
may lay ourselves down in peace.
2. The solicitous inquiry he made concerning
Daniel, the next rooming, v. 19, 20. He was up
early, very early; for how could he lie in bed when
he could not sleep for dreaming of Daniel, nor lie
awake quietly for thinking of him ? And he was no
sooner up than he went in haste to the den of lions,
for he could not satisfy himself to send a servant,
(that would not sufficiently testify his affection to
Daniel,) nor had he patience to stay so long as till a
servant would return. When he comes to the den,
not without seme hopes that God had graciously
undone what he had wickedly done, he cries with a
lamentable voice, as one full of concern and trouble,
O Daniel, art thou alive? He longs to know, yet
trembles to ask the question, fearing to be answered
with the roaring of the lions after more prey; O
Daniel, servant of the living God, has thy God
whom thou servest made it to appear that he’is able
to deliver thee from the lions? If he rightly under¬
stood himself when he called him the living God,
he could not doubt of his ability to keep Daniel
alive, for he that has life in himself, quickens whom
he will; but has he thought fit in this case to ever*
836
DANIEL, VI.
his power? What he doubted of, we are sure of,
that the servants of the living God have a Master
who is well able to protect them, and bear them out
in his service.
3. The joyful news he meets with — that Daniel
is alive, is safe and well, and unhurt in the lions’
den, v. 21, 22. Daniel knew the king’s voice,
though it was now a lamentable voice, and spake to
him with all the deference and respect that were
due to him; 0 king, live for ever. He does not re¬
proach him for his unkindness to him, and his easi¬
ness in yielding to the malice of his prosecutors;
but, to show that he has heartily forgiven him, he
meets him with his good wishes. Note, We should
not upbraid those with the diskindness they have
done us, who, we know, did them with reluctance,
and are very ready to upbraid themselves with
them. The account Daniel gives the king is very
pleasant, it is triumphant.
(1.) God has p reserved his life; by a miracle.
Darius had called him Daniel’s God; ( thy God
•whom thou servestj) to which Daniel does as it were
echo back, Yea, he is my God, whom I own, and
who owns me, for he has sent his angel; the same
bright and glorious Being that was seen in the form
of the son of God with the three children in the
fiery furnace, had visited Daniel, and it is likely in
a visible appearance had enlightened the dark den,
and kept Daniel company all night, and had shut
the lions’ mouths, that they had not in the least
hurt him. The angel’s presence made even the
lions’ den his strong hold, his palace, his paradise;
he never had had a better night in his life. See the
power of God over the fiercest creatures, and be¬
lieve his power to restrain the roaring lion that goes
about continually seeking to devour, from hurting
those that are his. See the care God takes of his
faithful worshippers, especially when he calls them
out to suffer for him. If he keep their souls from
sin, comfort their souls with his peace, and receive
their souls to himself, he does in effect stop the
lions’ mouths, that they cannot hurt them. See
how ready the angels are to minister for the good
of God’s people, for they own themselves their fel¬
low-servants.
(2.) God has therein pleaded his cause. He was
represented to the king as disaffected to him and his
government; we do not find that he said any thing
in his own vindication, but left it to God to clear up
his integrity as the light; and he did it effectually
by working a miracle for his preservation. Daniel,
in what he had done, had not offended either God
or the king; Before him whom I prayed to, inno-
cency was found in me. He pretends not to a meri¬
torious excellence; but the testimony of his con¬
science concerning his sincerity is his comfort; Js
also that before thee, O king, 1 have done no hurt,
nor designed thee any affront.
4. The discharge of Daniel from his confinement.
His prosecutors cannot but own that the law is sa-
tisfed, though they are not, or, if it be altered, it is
by a power superior to that of the Medes and Per¬
sians; and therefore no cause can be shown why
Daniel should not be fetched out of the den; (y. 23. )
The king was exceeding glad to find him alive, and
gave orders immediately' that they should take him
tv.' of the den, as Jeremiah out of the dungeon; and
when they searched, no manner of hurt was found
upon him, he was no where crushed or scarred, but
was kept perfectly well, because he believed in his
God. Note, Those who boldly and cheerfully trust
in God to protect them in the way of their duty,
shall never be made ashamed of their confidence in
him, but shall always find him a present Help.
5. The committing of his prosecutors to the same
prison, or place of execution rather, v. 24. Darius
is animated by this miracle wrought for Daniel, and
now begins to take courage, and act like himself.
Those that would not suffer him to show mercy to
Daniel, shall, now that God has done it for him, be
made to feel his resentments; and he will do justice
for God who had showed mercy for him. Daniel’s
accusers, now that his innocency is cleared, and
Heaven itself is become his Compurgator, have the
same punishment inflicted upon them which they
designed against him, according to the law of retali¬
ation made against false accusers, Deut. xix. 18, 19.
Such they were to be reckoned now that Daniel was
proved innocent; for though the fact was true, yet
it was not a fault. They were cast into the den of
lions, which perhaps was a punishment newly in¬
vented by themselves; however, it was what they
maliciously designed for Daniel. JVec lex est jus-
tior ulla, cjuam necis artifices arte perire sua — Yo
law can be more just than that which adjudges the
devisers of barbarity to perish by it, Ps. vii. 15, 16.
— ix. 15, 16. And now Solomon’s observation is
verified, (Prov. xi. 8.) The righteous is delivered
out of trouble, and the wicked cometh in his stead.
In this execution we may observe, (1.) The king’s
severity in ordering their wives and children to be
thrown to the lions with them. How righteous are
God’s statutes above those of the nations! For God
commanded that the children should not die for the
fathers’ crimes, Deut. xxiv. 16. Yet it was done
in extraordinary cases, as that of Achan, and Saul,
and Haman. (2.) The lions’ fierceness. They had
the mastery of them immediately, and tore them to
pieces before they came to the bottom of the den.
This verified and magnified the miracle of their
sparing Daniel; for hereby it appeared that it was
not because they had not appetite, but because they
had not leave. Mastiffs that are kept muzzled,
are the more fierce when the muzzle is taken off ;
so were these lions. And the Lord is known by
those judgments which he executes.
25. Then king Darius wrote unto all
people, nations, and languages, that dwell
in all the earth; Peace be multiplied unto
you. 26. I make a decree, That in every
dominion of my kingdom men tremble
and fear before the God of Daniel; for he is
the living God, and steadfast for ever, and
his kingdom that which shall not he destroy¬
ed, and his dominion shall be even unto the
end. 27. He delivereth and rescueth, and
he worketh signs and wonders in heaven
and in earth, who hath delivered Daniel
from the power of the lions. 28. So this
Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius,
and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian.
Darius here studies to make some amends for the
dishonour be had done both to God and Daniel,
in casting Daniel into the lion’s den, by doing ho¬
nour to both.
1. He gives honour to God by a decree published
to all nations, by which they are required to fear
before him. And this is a decree which is indeed
fit to be made unalterable, according to the laws of
the Medes and Persians, for it is the everlasting
gospel, preached to them that dwell on the earth.
Rev. xiv. 7. Fear God, and give glory to him.
Observe, (1.) To whom he sends this decree; to all
people, nations, and languages, that dwell in all
the earth, v. 25. These are great words, and it is
true that all the inhabitants of the earth are obliged
to that which is here decreed; but here they mean
no more than every dominion of his kingdom.
which, though it contained many nations, contained
337
DANIEL, VII.
not ail nations; but so it is, those that have much,
are ready to think they have all. (2.) What the
matter ot the decree is; That jnen tremble and fear
before the God of Daniel. This goes further than
Nebuchadnezzar's decree upon the like occasion,
for that only restrained people from speaking amiss
of this God; but this requires them to fear before
him, to keep up and express awful, reverent
thoughts of him. And well might this decree be
prefaced, as it is, with Peace be multiplied unto
you, for the only foundation of true and abundant
peace is laid in the fear of God; for that is true
wisdom. If we live in the fear of God, and walk
according to that rule, peace shall be upon us.
Peace shall be multiplied to us. But though this
decree goes far, it does not go far enough; had he
done right, and come up to his present convictions,
he should have commanded all men not only to
tremble and fear before this God, but to love him
and trust in him, to forsake the service of their idols,
and to worship him only, and call upon him as
Daniel did. But idolatry had been so long and so
deeply rooted, that it was not to be extirpated by
the edicts of princes, not by any power less than
that which went along with the glorious gospel of
Christ. (3. ) What are the causes and considera¬
tions moving him to make this decree. They are
sufficient to have justified a decree for the total sup¬
pression of idolatry, much more will they serve to
support this. There is good reason why all men
should fear before this God; for, [1.] His being is
transcendent. He is the living God; lives as a
God, whereas the gods we worship are dead things,
have not so much as an animal life. [2.] His go¬
vernment is incontestable; he has a kingdom, and a
dominion; he not only lives, but reigns as an abso¬
lute Sovereign. [3. J Both his being and his go¬
vernment are unchangeable. He is himself stead¬
fast for ever, and with him is no shadow of turning.
And his kingdom too is that which shall not be de¬
stroyed by any external force, nor has bis dominion
any thing in itself that threatens a decay or tends
towards it, and therefore it shall be even to the end.
[4. ] He has an ability sufficient to support such an
authority, v. 27. He delivers his faithful servants
from trouble, and rescues them out of trouble; he
works signs and wonders, quite above the utmost
power of nature to effect, both in heaven and on
earth, by which it appears that he is sovereign
Lord of both. [5.] He has given a fresh proof of
all this, in delivering his servant Daniel from the
power of the lions. This miracle, and that of the
delivering of the three children, were wrought in
the eye of the world, were seen, published, and at¬
tested by two of the greatest monarchs that ever
were, and were illustrious confirmations of the first
principles of religion, abstracted from the narrow
scheme of Judaism, effectual confutations of all the
errors of heathenism, and very proper preparations
for pure catholic Christianity.
2. He puts honour upon Daniel; ( v . 28.) So this
Daniel prospered. See how God brought to him
good out of evil. This bold stroke which his ene¬
mies made at his life, was a happy occasion of tak¬
ing them off, and their children too, who other¬
wise would still have stood in the way of his prefer¬
ment, and have been upon all occasions vexatious to
him; and now he prospered more than ever, was
more in favour with his prince and in reputation
with the people; which gave him a great oppor¬
tunity of doing good to his brethren. Thus out of
the eater (and that was a lion too) came forth meat,
and out of the strong sweetness.
CHAP. VII.
Tne six former chapters of this book were historical; we
now enter with fear and trembling upon the six latter,
which are prophetical, wherein are many things dark,
and hard to be understood, which we dare not positively
determine the sense of, and vet many things plain and
profitable, which I trust God will enable us to make a
good use of. In this chapter, we have, I. Daniel’s vision
of the four beasts, v. 1..8. II. His vision of God’s
throne of government and judgment, v. 9. . 14. III. The
interpretation of these visions, given him by an angel
that stood by, v. 15 . .28. Whether those visions look
as far forward as the end of time, or whether they were
to have a speedy accomplishment, is hard to say, nor
are the most judicious interpreters agreed concerning it.
1 . TN the first year of Belshazzar king of
JL Babylon, Daniel had a dream, and
visions of his head upon his bed : then he
wrote the dream, and told the sum of the
matters. 2. Daniel spake and said, I saw
in my vision by night, and, behold, the foui
windsof the heaven strove upon the great sea.
3. And four great beasts came up from the
sea, diverse one from another. 4. The first
was like a lion, and had eagles’ wings: 1
beheld till the wings thereof were plucked,
and it was lifted up from the earth, and
made stand upon the feet as a man, and a
man’s heart was given to it. 5. And, be¬
hold, another beast, a second, like to a bear,
and it raised up itself on one side, and it
had three ribs in the mouth of it between
the teeth of it : and they said thus unto it,
Arise, devour much flesh. . 6. After this I
beheld, and lo, another, like a leopard,
which had upon the back of it four wings of
a fowl: the beast had also four heads; and
dominion was given to it. 7. After this I
saw in the night visions, and, behold, a
fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and
strong exceedingly; and it had great iron
teeth : it devoured and brake in pieces, and
stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it
was diverse from all the beasts that were
before it; and it had ten horns. 8. I con¬
sidered the horns, and, behold, there came
up among them another little horn, before
whom there were three of the first horns
plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in
this horn were eyes like the eyes of man,
and a mouth speaking great things.
The date of this chapter places it before ch. v.
which was in the last year of Belshazzar, and ch. 6.
which was in the first of Darius; for Daniel had
those visions in the first year of Belshazzar, when
the captivity of the Jews in Babylon was drawing
near a period. Belshazzar’s name here is, in the
original, spelled differently from what it used to be;
before it was Bel-she-azar — Bel is he that treasures
up riches. But this is Bel-eshe-azar — Bel is on fire
by the enemy. Bel was the god of the Chaldeans;
he had prospered, but is now to be consumed.
We have, in these verses, Daniel's vision of the
four monarchies that were oppressive to the Jews.
Observe,
I. The circumstances of this vision. Daniel had
interpreted Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, and now he
is himself honoured with like divine discoveries; (c.
1.) He had visions of his head upon his bed, when
he was asleep: so God sometimes revealed himself
838
DANIEL, VII.
and his mind to the children of men, when deep
sleep fell upon them, Job xxxiii. 15. For when we
are most retired from the world, and taken off from
the things of sense, we are most fit for communion
with God. But when he was awake, he wrote the
dream for his own use, lest he should forget it as a
dream which passes away; and he told the sum of
the matters to his brethren the Jews for their use,
and gave it them in writing, that it might be com¬
municated to those at a distance, and preserved for
their children after them, who should see these
things accomplished. The Jews, misunderstanding
some of the prophecies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel,
flattered themselves with hopes, that, after their
return to their own land, they should enjoy a com¬
plete and uninterrupted tranquillity; but that they
might not so deceive themselves, and their calami¬
ties be made doubly grievous by the disappointment,
God by this prophet lets them know that they shall
have tribulation; those promises of their prosperity
were to be accomplished in the spiritual blessings
of the kingdom of grace; as Christ has told his dis¬
ciples they must expect persecution, and the pro¬
mises they depend upon will be accomplished in the
eternal blessings of the kingdom of glory. Daniel
both wrote these things, and spake them, to inti¬
mate that the church should be taught both by the
scriptures, and bv ministers’ preaching, both by the
written word, and by word o f mouth; and ministers
in their preaching are to tell the sum of the matters
that are written.
II. The vision itself, which foretells the revolu¬
tions of government in those nations, which the
church of the Jews, for the following ages, was to
be under the influence of.
1. He observed the four winds to strive u/ion the
great sea, v. 2. They strove which should blow
strongest, and at length blow alone. This repre¬
sents the contests among princes for empire, and
the shakings of the nations by these contests, to
which those mighty monarchies, which he was now
to have a prospect of, owed their rise. One wind
from any point of the compass, if it blow hard, will
cause a great commotion in the sea; but what a tu¬
mult must needs be raised when the four winds
strive for mastery! That is it which the kings of
the nations are contending for in their wars, which
are as noisy and violent as the battle of the winds;
but how is the poor sea tossed and torn, how terri¬
ble are its concussions, how violent its convulsions,
while the winds are at strife which shall have the
sole power of troubling it!
Note, This world is like a stormy, tempestuous
sea; thanks to the proud, ambitious winds that
vex it.
2. He saw four great beasts come up. from the
sea, from the troubled waters, in which aspiring
minds love to fish. The monarchs and monarchies
are represented by beasts, because too often it is by
brutish rage and tyranny that they are raised and
supported. These beasts were diverse one from
another, (v. 3.) of different shape, to denote the
diffei'ent genius and complexion of the nations in
whose hands they were lodged.
(1.) The first beast was like a lion, v. 4. This
was the Chaldean monarchy, that was fierce and
strong, and made the kings absolute. This lion had
eagles' wings, with which to fly upon the prey. It
denotes the wonderful speed that Nebuchadnezzar
made in his conquest of kingdoms. But he soon
sees the wings plucked, a full stop put to the career
of their victorious arms. Divers countries that had
been tributaries to them, revolt from them, and
make head against them; so that this monstrous
animal, this winged lion, is made to stand upon the
feet as a man, and a man's heart is given to it. It
has lost the heart of a lion, which it had been fa¬
mous for, (one of our English kings was called Cedi'-
de Lion — Lion-heart,) has lost its courage, and is
become feeble and faint, dreading every thing, and
daring nothing; they are put in fear, and made to
know themselves to be but men. Sometimes the
valour of a nation strangely sinks, and becomes
cowardly and effeminate, so that what was the head
of the nations, in an age or two becomes the tail.
(2.) The second beast was like a bear, v. 5.
This was the Persian monarchy, less strong and
generous than the former, but no less ravenous.
This bear raised up itself on one side against the
lion, and soon mastered it. It raised up one do¬
minion; so some read it; Persia and Media, which
in Nebuchadnezzar’s image were the two arms in
one breast, now set up a joint government. This
bear had three ribs in the mouth of it between the
teeth, the remains of those nations it had devoured,
which were the marks of its voraciousness; and yet
an indication that though it had devoured much, it
could not devour all; some ribs still stuck in the
teeth of it, which it could not conquer. Whereupon
it was said to it, Arise, devour much flesh; let alone
the bones, the ribs, that cannot be conquered, and
set upon that which will be an easier prey. The
princes will stir up both the kings and the people to
push on their conquests, and let nothing stand be¬
fore them. Note, Conquests, unjustly made, are
but like those of the beasts of prey, and in this much
worse, that the beasts prey not upon those of their
own kind, as wicked and unreasonable men do.
(3.) The third beast was like a leopard, v. 6.
This was the Grecian monarchy founded by Alex¬
ander the Great, active, crafty, and cruel, like a
leopard; he had four wings of a fowl; the lion
seems to have had but two wings; but the leopard
has four, for though Nebuchadnezzar made great
despatch in his conquests, Alexander made much
greater. In six years’ time he gained the whole
empire of Persia, a great part besides of Asia, made
himself master of Syria, Egypt, India, and other
nations; this beast had four heads; upon Alexan¬
der’s death, his conquests were divided among his
four chief captains; Seleucus Nic.anor had Asia the
Great; Perdiccas, and after him Antigonus, had
Asia the Less; Cassander had Macedonia, and
Ptolemeus had Egypt. Dominion was given to this
beast; it was given of God, from whom alone pro¬
motion comes.
(4.) The fourth beast was more fierce, and for¬
midable, and mischievous, than any of them, unlike
any of the other, nor is there any among the beasts
of prey to which it might be compared, v. 7. The
learned are not agreed concerning this anonymous
beast; some make it to be the Roman empire,
which, when it' was in its glory, comprehended ten
kingdoms, Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Britain,
Sarmatia, Panonia, Asia, Greece, and Egypt; and
then the little horn which rose by the fail of three
of the other horns, (t>. 8.) they make to be the
Turkish empire, which rose in the room of Asia,
Greece, and Egypt. Others make this fourth
beast to be the kingdom of Syria, the family of the
Seleucidie, which was very cruel and oppressive to
the people of the Jews, as we find in Josephus and
the history of the Maccabees. And herein that
empire was diverse from those which went before,
that none of the preceding powers compelled the
Jews to renounce their religion, but the kings of Sy¬
ria did, and used them barbarously. Their armies
and commanders were the great iron teeth with
which they devoured and brake in pieces the people
of God, and they trampled upon the residue of them.
The ten horns are then supposed to be ten kings that
reigned successively in Syria; and then the little
horn is Antiochus Epiphanes, the last of the ten,
who by one means or other undermined three of the
839
DANIEL, VII.
kings and got the government. He was a man of
great ingenuity, and therefore is said to have eyes
like the eyes of a man; and was very bold and dar¬
ing, had a mouth s/ieaking great things. We shall
meet with him again in these prophecies.
9. I beheld till the thrones were cast
down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose
garment was white as snow, and the hair
of his head like the pure wool: his throne
teas like the fiery fiame, and his wheels as
burning fire. 10. A fiery stream issued and
came forth from before him: thousand thou¬
sands ministered unto him, and ten thousand
times ten thousand stood before him: the
judgment was set, and the books were
opened. 1 1 . I beheld then, because of the
voice of the great words which the horn
spake; I beheld, even till the beast was slain,
and his body destroyed, and given to the
burning flame. 12. As concerning the rest
of the beasts, they had their dominion taken
away: yet their lives were prolonged for a
season and time. 13. I saw in the night
visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man
came with the clouds of heaven, and came
to the Ancient of days, and they brought
him near before him. 1 4. And there was
given him dominion, and glory, and a king¬
dom, that all people, nations, and languages,
should serve him: his dominion is an ever¬
lasting dominion, which shall not pass away,
and his kingdom that which shall not be
destroyed.
Whether we understand the fourth beast to sig-
n.fy the Syrian empire, or the Roman, or the former
as the figure of the latter, it is plain that these verses
are intended for the comfort and support of the peo¬
ple of God, in reference to the persecutions they
were likely to sustain both from the one and from
the other, and from all their proud enemies, in every
age; for it is written for their learning on whom the
ends of the world are come, that they also, through
patience and comfort of this scripture, might have
hope.
Three things are here discovered, that are very
encouraging.
I. That there is a judgment to come, and God is
the Judge. Now men have their day, and every
pretender thinks he should have his day, and strug¬
gles for it. But he that sits in heaven, laughs at them,
for he sees that his day is coming, Ps. xxxvii. 13.
I beheld, (u. 9.) till the thrones were cast down, not
only the thrones of these beasts, but all rule, autho¬
rity, and power, that are set up in opposition to the
kingdom of God among men; (1 Cor. xv. 24.) such
are the thrones of the kingdoms of the world, in
comparison with God’s kingdom; they that see them
set up, need but wait awhile, and they will see them
cast down. I beheld till thrones were set up, (so it
may as well be read,) Christ’s throne, and the
throne of his Father. One of the rabbins confesses
that these thrones are set up, one for God, another
for the Son of David. It is the judgment that is
here set, v. 10. Now this is intended, 1. To speak
God’s wise and righteous government of the world
by his providence; and an unspeakable satisfaction
it gives to all good men, in the midst of the convul¬
sions and revolutions of states and kingdoms, that i
the Lord has prepared his throne in the heavens, and
his kingdom rules over all; (Ps. ciii. 19.) that verily
there is a God that judges in the earth, Ps. lviii. 11.
2. Perhaps it points at the destruction brought by
the providence of God upon the empire of Syria,
or that of Rome, for their tyrannizing over the peo¬
ple of God. But, 3. It seems principally designed
to describe the last judgment, for though it follow
not immediately upon the dominion of the fourth
beast, nay, though it be yet to come, perhaps many
ages to come, yet it was intended that in every age
the people of God should encourage themselves,
under their troubles, with the belief and prospect
of it. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied
of it, Jude 14. Does the mouth of the enemy speak
great things ? v. 8. Here are far greater things
which the mouth of the Lord has spoken. Many
of the New Testament predictions of the judgment
to come have a plain allusion to this vision here; es¬
pecially St. John’s vision of it, Rev. xx. 11, 12.
(1.) The Judge is the Ancient of days himself,
God the Father, the glory of whose presence is here
described. He is called the Ancient of days, be¬
cause he is God from everlasting to everlasting.
Among men, we reckon that with the ancient is wis¬
dom, and days shall speak; shall not all flesh then
be silent before him who is the Ancient of days?
The glory of the Judge is here set forth by his gar¬
ment, which was while as snow, denoting his splen¬
dour and purity in all the administrations of his jus¬
tice; and the hair of his head clean and white, as
the pure wool; that, as the white and hoary head,
he may appear venerable.
(2.) The throne is very formidable. It is Me Me
fiery flame, dreadful to the wicked that shall be
summoned before it. And the throne being move-
able upon wheels, or, at least, the chariot in which
he rode his circuit, the wheels thereof are as burn-
ingfirc, to devour the adversaries; for our God is
a consuming Fire, and with him are everlasting
burnings, Isa. xxxiii. 14. This is enlarged upon,
v. 10. As to all his faithful friends there proceeds
out of the throne of God and the Lamb a pure river
of water of life, (Rev. xxii. 1.) so to all his im¬
placable enemies tiiere issues and comes forth from
his throne a fiery stream, a stream of brimstone,
(Isa. xxx. 33.) a fire that shall devour before him.
He is a swift Witness, and his word a word upon
the wheels.
(3.) The attendants are numerous ar/d very splen¬
did. The Shechinah is always atttnded with an¬
gels, it is so here; (v. 10.) Thousand thousands
tninister to him; and ten thousand times ten thousand
stand before him. It is his glory that he has such
attendance, but much more his glory that he neither
needs them nor can be benefited by them. See how
numerous the heavenly hosts are, there are thou¬
sands of angels ; and how obsequious they were,
they stand before God, ready to go on his errands,
and to take the first intimation of his will and plea¬
sure. They will particularly be employed as minis¬
ters of his justice in the last judgment; when the
Son of man shall come, and all the holy angels with
him. Enoch prophesied that the Lord should come
with his holy myriads.
(4.) The process is fair and unexceptionable;
The judgment is set, publicly, and openly, that all
may have recourse to it; and the books are opened;
as in courts of judgment among men, the proceed¬
ings are in writing and upon record, which is laid
open when the cause comes to a hearing; the exa¬
mination of witnesses is produced, and affidavits are
read, to clear the matter of fact, the statute and
common law books consulted to find out what is the
law, so, in the judgment of the great day, the equity
of the sentence will be as incontestably evident as
if there were books opened to justify it.
840 DANIEL, VII.
II. That the proud and cruel enemies of the
church of God will certainly be reckoned with, and
brought down in due time, v. 11, 12. This is here
represented to us,
1. In the destroying of the fourth beast. God’s
quarrel with this beast is because of the voice of the
great words which the horn spake, bidding defiance
to Heaven, and triumphing over all that is sacred;
this provokes God more than any thing, for the
enemy to behave himself proudly, Deut. xxxii. 2 7.
Therefore Pharaoh must be humbled, because he
has said, Who is the Lord ? and has said, I will p ur-
sue, I will overtake. Enoch foretold that therefore
the Lord would come to judge the world, that he
might convince all that are ungodly, of their hard
speeches, Jude 15. Note, Great words are but idle
words, for which men must give account in the great
day. And see what comes of this beast that talks
so big; he is slain and his body destroyed, and given
to the burning flame. The Syrian empire, after
Antiochus, was destroyed ; he himself died of a
miserable disease, his family was rooted out, the
kingdom wasted by the Parthians and Armenians,
and at length made a province of the Roman em¬
pire by Pompey. And the Roman empire itself, (if
we take that for the fourth beast,) after it began to
persecute Christianity, declined and wasted away,
and the body of it was destroyed. So shall all thine
enemies perish, 0 Lord, and be slain before thee.
2. In the diminishing and weakening of the other
three beasts; ( v . 12.) They had their dominion ta¬
ken away, and so were disabled to do the mischiefs
they had done to the church and people of God;
but a prolonging in life was given them, for a time
and a season, a set time, the bounds of which they
could not pass. The power of the foregoing king¬
doms was quite broken, but the people of them still
remained in a mean, weak, and low condition; we
may allude to this, in describing the remainders of
sin in the hearts of good people; they have corrup¬
tions in them, the lives of which are prolonged, so
that they are not perfectly free from sin, but the
dominion of them is taken away, so that sin does
not reign in their mortal bodies. And thus God
deals with his church’s enemies ; sometimes he
breaks the teeth of them, (Ps. iii. 7.) when he does
not break the neck of them; crushes the persecu¬
tion, but reprieves the persecutors, that they may
have space to repent. And it is fit that God, in do¬
ing his own work, should take his own time and
way.
III. That the kingdom of the Messiah shall be
set up, and kept up, in the world, in despite of all
the opposition of the powers of darkness. Let the
heathen rage and fret as long as they please, God
will set his King upon his holy hill of Zion. Daniel
sees this in vision, and comforts himself and his
friends with the prospect of it. This is the same
with Nebuchadnezzar’s foresight of the stone cut
out of the mountain without hands, which brake in
pieces the image, but in this vision there is much
more of pure gospel than in that.
1. The Messiah is here called the Son of man;
one like unto the Son of man; for he was made in
the likeness of sinful flesh, was found in fashion as
a man. I saw one like unto the Son of man, one
exactly agreeing with the idea formed in the divine
counsels of him that in the fulness of time was to be
the Mediator between God and man. He is like unto
the Son of man, but is indeed the Son of God. Our
Saviour seems plainly to refer to this vision, when
he says, (John v. 27.) that the Father has therefore
given him authority to execute judgment, because
he is the Son of man, and because he is the person
whom Daniel saw in vision, to whom a kingdom and
dominion were to be given.
2. He is said to come with the clouds of heaven.
Some refer this to his incarnation; he descended in
the clouds of heaven, came into the world unseen,
as the glory of the Lord took possession of the tem-
le in a cloud. The empires of the world were
easts that rose out of the sea; but Christ’s king¬
dom is from above, he is the Lord from heaven. I
think it is rather to be referred to bis ascension;
when he returned to the Father, the eye of his dis¬
ciples followed him, till a cloud received him out of
their sight, Acts i. 9. He made that cloud his cha¬
riot, wherein he rode triumphantly to the upper
world. He comes swiftly, irresistibly, and comes
in state, for he comes with the clouds of heaven.
3. He is here represented as having a mighty in¬
terest in Heaven. When the cloud received him
out of the sight of his disciples, it is worth while t(
inquire (as the sons of the prophets concerning Eli¬
jah in a like case) whither it carried him, whithei
it lodged him; and here we are told, abundantly t(
our satisfaction, that he came to the Ancient of days;
for he ascended to his Father and our Father, to his
God and our God; (John xx. 17.) from him he
came forth, and to him he returns, to be glorified
with him, and to sit down at his right hand. It was
with a great deal of pleasure that he said, JVow 1
goto him that sent me. But was he welcome? Yes,
no doubt he was, for they brought him near before
him; he was introduced into his Father’s presence,
with the attendance and adorations of all the angels
of God, Heb. i. 6. God caused him to draw near
and approach to him, as an Advocate and Under¬
taker for us, (Jer. xxx. 21.) that we through him
might be made nigh. By this solemn near approach
which he made to the Ancient of days, it appears
that the Father accepted the sacrifice he offered,
and the satisfaction he made, and was entirely well
pleased with all he had done. He was brought near,
as our High Priest, who for us enters within the
vail, and as our Forerunner.
4. He is here represented as having a mighty In¬
fluence upon this earth, v. 14. When he went tc
be glorified with his Father, he had a power given
him over all flesh; (John xvii. 2, 5.) with the pros
pect of this, Daniel and his friends are here com¬
forted, that not only the dominion of the church’s
enemies shall be taken away, (r. 12.) but the
church’s Head and best Friend shall have the domi¬
nion given him; to him every knee shall bow, and
every tongue confess, Phil. ii. 9, 10. To him are
given glory and a kingdom, and they are given by
him who has an unquestionable right to give them,
which, some think, with an eye to these words, our
Saviour teaches us to acknowledge in the close of
the Lord’s prayer, For thine is the kingdom, the
power, and the glory. It is here foretold that the
kingdom of the exalted Redeemer shall be, (1.) A
universal kingdom, the only universal monarchy,
whatever others have pretended to, or aimed at;
All people, nations, and. languages shall fear him,
and be under his jurisdiction, either as his willing
subjects, or as his conquered captives; to be either
ruled, or overruled by him. One way or other, the
kingdoms of the world shall all become his king¬
doms. (2.) An everlasting kingdom; His dominion
shall not pass away to any successor, much less to
any invader, and his kingdom is that which shall
not be destroyed. Even the gates of hell, or the in¬
fernal powers and policies, shall not prevail against
it. The church shall continue militant, to the end
of time, and triumphant to the endless ages of eter
nity.
1 5. I Daniel was grieved in my spirit in
the midst of my body, and the visions of my
head troubled me. 16. I came near unto
one of them that stood by, and asked him
841
DANIEL, VII.
I l.o truth of all this. So he told me, and
■ made me know the interpretation of the
things. 17. These great beasts, which are
four, arc four kings, which shall arise out of
the earth. 18. But the saints of the Most
High shall take the kingdom, and possess
the' kingdom for ever, even for ever and
e\er. 19. Then l would know the truth
of the fourth beast, which was diverse from
all the others, exceeding dreadful, whose
teeth ivere of iron, and his nails of brass ;
which devoured, brake in pieces, and stamp¬
ed the residue with his feet ; 20. And ot the
ten horns that ivere in his head, and of the
other which came up, and before whom
three fell ; even of that horn that had eyes,
and a mouth that spake very great things,
whose look was more stout than his fel¬
lows. 21. I beheld, and the same horn
made war with the saints, and prevailed
against them; 22. Until the Ancient of days
came, and judgment was given to the saints
of the Most High ; and the* time came that
the saints possessed the kingdom. 23. Thus
he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth
kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse
from all kingdoms, and shall devour the
whole earth, and shall tread it down, and
break it in pieces. 24. And the ten horns
out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall
arise: and another shall rise after them;
and he shall be diverse from the first, and
he shall subdue three kings. 25. And he
shall speak great words against the Most
High, and shall wear out the saints of the
Most High, and think to change times and
laws : and they shall be given into his hand,
until a time and times and the dividing of
time. 26. But the judgment shall sit, and
they shall take away his dominion, to con¬
sume and to destroy it unto the end. 27.
And the kingdom and dominion, and the
greatness of the kingdom under the whole
heaven, shall be given to the people of the
saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is
an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions
shall serve and obey him. 28. Hitherto is
the end of the matter. As for me Daniel,
my cogitations much troubled me, and my
countenance changed in me : but I kept the
matter in my heart.
Here is,
1. The deep impressions which these visions made
upon the prophet. God in them put honour upon
him, and gave him satisfaction, yet not without a
great allay of pain and perplexity; (v. 15.) I Da¬
niel was grieved in my spirit in the midst of my body.
The word here used for the body properly signifies a
sheath or scabbard, for the body is no more to the
soul; that is the weapon, it is that which we are
principally to take care of. The visions of my head
troubled me, and again, ( v . 28.) my cogitations
VOL. IV — 5 O
much troubled me. The manner in which these
things were discovered to him, quite overwhelmed
him, and put his thoughts so much to the stretch,
that his spirits failed him, and the trance he was in
tired him, and made him faint. The things them¬
selves that were discovered, amazed and astonished
him, and put him into a confusion, till by degrees
he recollected and conquered himself, and set the
comforts of the vision over against the terrors of it.
II. His earnest desire to understand the meaning
of them; (d. 16.) I came near to one of them that
stood by, to one of the angels that appeared attend¬
ing the Son of man in his glory, and asked him the
truth, the true intent and meaning of all this. Note,
It is a very desirable thing to take the right and full
sense of what we see and hear from God; and those
that would know, must ask by faithful and fervent
prayer, and by accomplishing a diligent search.
III. The key that was given him, to let him into
the understanding of this vision. The angel told
him, and told him so plainly, that he made him
know the interpretation of the thing; and so made
him somewhat more easy.
1. The great beasts are great kings and their
kingdoms, great monarchs and their monarchies,
which shall arise out of the earth, as those beasts
did out of the sea, v. 17. They are but Terrse Jilii
— From beneath; they savour of the earth, and their
foundation is in the dust; they are of the earth,
earthy, and they are written in the dust, and to the
dust they shall return.
2. Daniel pretty well understands the three first
beasts, but concerning tile fourth he desires to be
better informed, because it differed so much from
the rest, and was exceeding dreadful, and not only
so, but very mischievous, for it devoured and brake
in pieces, v. 19. Perhaps this was it that put Da¬
niel into such a fright, and this part of the visions of
his head troubled him more than any of the rest.
But especially he desired to know what the little
horn was, that had eyes, and a mouth that spake
very great things, and whose countenance was more
fearless and formidable than that of any of his fel¬
lows, v. 20. And this he was most inquisitive
about, because it was this horn that made war with
the saints, and prevailed against them, v. 21. While
no more is intimated than that the children of men
make war with cue another, and prevail against
one another, the prophet does not show himself so
much concerned; (Let the potsherds strive with the
potsherds of the earth, and be dashed in pieces one
against another;) but when they make war with the
saints, when the precious sons of Zion, comparable
to fine gold, are broken as earthen pitchers, it is
time to ask, “What is the meaning of tips? Will
the Lord cast off his people? Will he suffer their
enemies to trample upon them, and triumph over
them? What is this same horn that shall prevail
so far against the saints?”
To this his interpreter answers, (v. 23. — 25.)
That this fourth beast is a fourth kingdom, that
shall devour the whole earth, or, as it may be read,
the whole land. That the ten horns are ten kings,
and the little horn is another kinr that shall subdue
three kings, and shall be very ab> sive to God and his
people, shall act, (1.) Very impiously toward God;
he shall speak great words against the Most High,
setting him, and his authority, and justice, at defi¬
ance. (2.) Very imperiously toward the people of
God; he shall wear out the s lints of the Most High;
he will not cut them off at .nee, but wear them out
by long oppressions, and a constant course of hard¬
ships put upon them; ruining their estates, and
weakening their families. The design of Satan has
been to wear out the saints of the Most High, that
they may be no more in remembrance; but the at¬
tempt is vain, for while the world stands God will
842
DANIEL, Vll.
have a church in it. He shall think to change times
and lams, to abolish all the ordinances and institu¬
tions of religion, and to bring every body to say and
do just as he would have tnem. He shall trample
upon laws and customs, human and divine; Diruit,
xdificat, mutat, quadrata rotundis — He pulls down,
he builds, he changes square into round, as if he
meant to alter even the ordinances of heaven them¬
selves. And in these daring attempts he shall for a
time prosper, and have success; they shall be given
into his hand until time, times, and half a time, for
three years and a half, that famous prophetical
measure of time which we meet with in the Revela¬
tion, which is sometimes called forty-two months,
sometimes 1260 days, which come all to one. But
at the end of that time the judgment shall sit, and
take away his dominion; ( v . 26.) which he ex¬
pounds, (i\ 11.) of the beast being slain, and his
body destroyed. And, as Mr. Mede reads, (v. 12.)
As to the rest of the beast, the ten horns, especially
the little ruffling horn, (as he calls it,) they had
their dominion taken away.
Now the question is, Who is this enemy, whose
rise, reign, and ruin, are here foretold? Interpreters
are not agreed; some will have the fourth kingdom
to be that of the Seleucidse, and the little horn to be
Antiochus, and show the accomplishment of all this
in the history of the Maccabees; so Junius, Piscator,
Polanus, Broughton, and many others: but others
will have the fourth kingdom to be that of the Ro¬
mans, and the little horn to be Julius Ctesar, and the
succeeding emperors, as Calvin says: the antichrist,
the papal kingdom, says Mr. Joseph Mede, that
wicked one, which, as this little horn, is to be con¬
sumed by the brightness of Christ’s second coining.
The pope assumes a power to change times and
laws, / lotestas aurmpt-r^finii — an absolute and despo¬
tic power, as he calls it; others make the little horn
to be the Turkish empire; so Luther, Vatablus, and
others. Now I cannot prove either side to be in the
wrong; and therefore since prophecies sometimes
have many fulfillings, and we ought to give scripture
its full latitude, (in this as in many other controver¬
sies,) I am willing to allow that they are both in the
right; and that this prophecy has primary reference
to the Syrian empire, and was intended for the en¬
couragement of the Jews who suffered under Antio¬
chus, that they might see even these melancholy
times foretold, but might foresee a glorious issue of
them at last, and the final overthrow of their proud
oppressors; and, which is best of all, might foresee,
not long after, the setting up of the kingdom of the
Messiah in the world, with the hopes of which it
was usual with the former prophets to comfort the
people of God in their distresses. But yet it has a
further reference, and foretells the like persecuting
power and rage in Rome heathen, and no less in
Rome papal, against the Christian religion, that was
in Antiochus against the pious Jews and their reli¬
gion. And St. John, in his visions and prophecies
which point primarily at Rome, has plain reference,
in many particulars, to these visions here.
3. He has a joyful prospect givgn him of the pre¬
valency of God’s kingdom among men, and its vic¬
tory over all opposition at last. And it is very ob¬
servable that in the midst of the predictions of the
force and fury of the enemies, this is brought in
abruptly, (v. 18.) and again, (v. 22.) before it
comes, in the course of the vision, to be interpreted,
v. 26, 27. And this also refers, (1.) To the pros¬
perous days of the Jewish church after it had wea¬
thered the storm under Antiochus, and the power
which the Maccabees obtained over their enemies.
(2. ) To the setting up of the kingdom of the Messiah
in the world by the preaching of his gospel. For
judgment Christ comes into this world, to rule by
his Spirit, and to make all his saints kings and
priests to their God. (3.) To the second coming of
Jesus Christ, when the saints shall judge the world,
shall sit down with him on his throne, and triumph
in the complete downfall of the devil’s kingdom.
Let us see what is here fortold. [1.] The Ancient
of days shall come, v. 22. God shall judge the
world by his Son, to whom he has committed all
judgment; and, as an earnest of that, he comes fot
the deliverance of his oppressed people, comes foi
the setting up of his kingdom in the world. [2. j
The judgment shall sit, v. 26. God will make it to
appear that he judges in the earth, and will, both iri
wisdom and in equity, plead his people’s righteous
cause. At the great day he will judge the world in
righteousness by that Man whom he has ordained
[3.] The dominion of the enemy shall be takei.
away, v. 26. All Christ’s enemies shall be madi
his footstool, and shall be consumed and destroy ea
to the end : these words the apostle uses concerning
the man of sin; (2 Thess. ii. 8.) He shall be con
sumed with the spirit of Christ’s mouth, and cle
strayed with the brightness of his coining. [4.]
Judgment is given to the suints of the Most High.
The apostles are intrusted with the preaching of a
gospel by which the world shall be judged: all the
saints by their faith and obedience condemn an un¬
believing, disobedient world; in Christ their Head
they shall judge the world, shall judge the Iwelvt
tribes of Israel, Matth. xix. 28. See what reason
we have to honour them that fear the Lord; how
mean and despicable soever the saints now appeal
in the eye of the world, and how much contempt
soever is poured upon them, they are the saints of
the Most High; they are near and dear to God, and
he owns them for his, and judgment is given to
them. [5.] That which is most insisted upon, is
that the saints of the Most High shall take the king¬
dom, and possess the kingdom for ever, v. 18. And
again, (v. 22.) The time came that the saints pos¬
sessed the kingdom. And again, (v. 27.) The !■/«§•-
doin and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom
under the whole heavens, shall be given to the peo¬
ple of the saints of the Most High. Far be it from
us to infer from hence, that dominion is founded on
grace, or that this will warrant any, under pretence
of saintship, to usurp kingship; no, Christ’s kingdom
is not of this world; but this speaks the spiritual do¬
minion of the saints over their own lusts and corrup¬
tions, their victories over Satan and his temptations,
and the triumphs of the martyrs over death and its
terrors. It likewise promises that the gospel-king¬
dom shall be set up, a kingdom of light, holiness,
and love, a kingdom of grace; the privileges and
comforts of which now, under the heavens, shall be
the earnest and first-fruits of the kingdom of glory
in the heavens; when the empire became Christian,
and princes used their power for the defence and
advancement of Christianity, then the saints pos¬
sessed the kingdom. The saints rule by the Spirit’s
ruling in them, and this is the victory overcoming
the world, even their faith, and by making the
kingdoms of this world to become Christ’s kingdom.
But the full accomplishment of this will be in the
everlasting happiness of the saints, the kingdom
that cannot be moved, which we, according to his
promise, look for, that is, the greatness of the king¬
dom, the crown of glory that fades not away, this is
the everlasting kingdom. See what an emphasis is
laid upon this; ( v . 18.) The saints shall possess the
kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever: and the
reason is, Because he whose saints they are, is the
Most High, and his kingdom is an everlasting king¬
dom, v. 27. His is so, and therefore theirs shall be
so; Because I live, you shall live also; John xiv. 19.
His kingdom is theirs; they reckon themselves ex¬
alted in his exaltation; and desire no greater honour
and satisfaction to themselves than that all domi-
843
DANIEL, VIII.
> lions should serve and obey him, as they shall do, v.
27. They shall either be brought into subjection to
his golden sceptre, or brought to destruction by his
iron rod.
Daniel, in the close, when he ends that matter,
tells us what impressions this vision made upon him;
it overwhelmed his spirits to th.it degree, that his
countenance was changed, and it made him look
pale; but he he fit the matter in his heart. Note, l'he
heart must be the treasury and storehouse of divine
things; there we must hide God’s word, as the Vir¬
gin Mary kept the sayings of Christ, Luke ii. 51.
Daniel kept the matter in his heart, with a design,
not to keep it from the church, but to keep it for
the church, that what he had received from the
Lord, he might fully and faithfully deliver to the
people. Note, It concerns God’s prophets and
ministers to treasure up the things of God in their
minds, and there to digest them well. If we would
have God’s word ready in our mouths when we
have occasion for it, we must keep it in our hearts
at all times.
CHAP. VIII.
The visions and prophecies of this chapter look only and
entirely at the events that were then shortly to come to
pass in the monarchies of Persia and Greece, and seem
not to have any further reference at all. Nothing is here
said of the Chaldean monarchy, for that was now just at
its period; and therefore this’ chapter is written notin
Chaldee, as the six foregoing chapters were, for the
benefit of the Chaldeans, but in Hebrew, and so are the
rest of the chapters to the end of the book, for the service
of the Jews, that they might know what troubles were
before them, and what the issue of them would be, and
might provide accordingly. In this chapter we have, I.
The vision itself of the ram and the he-goat, and the lit¬
tle horn that should fight and prevail against the people
of God, for a certain limited time, v. I . . 14- II. The
interpretation of this vision by an angel, showing, That
the rain signified the Persian empire, the he-goat the
Grecian, and the little horn a king of the Grecian mo¬
narchy, that should set himself against the Jews and re¬
ligion”, which was Antiochus Epiphanes, v. 15 . . 27. The
Jewish church, from its beginning, had been all along,
more or less, blessed with prophets, men divinely in¬
spired to explain God’s mind to them in his providences,
and give them some prospect of what was coming upon
them; but, soon after Ezra’s time, divine inspiration
ceased, and there was no more any prophet till the gos¬
pel-day dawned. And therefore the events of that time
were here foretold by Daniel, and left upon record, that
even then God might not leave himself without witness,
or them without a guide.
1. TN the third year of the reign of king
8 Belshazzar a vision appeared unto me,
even unto me Daniel, after that which ap¬
peared unto me at the first. 2. And I saw
in a vision ; (and it came to pass, when I
saw, that I was at Shushan in the palace,
which is in the province of Elam;) and I
saw in a vision, and I was by the river of
Ulai. 3. Then I lifted up mine eyes and
saw, and, behold, there stood before the
river a ram which had two horns, and the
tivo horns were, high; but one was higher
than the other, and the higher came up last.
4. I saw the ram pushing westward, and
northward, and southward ; so that no beasts
might stand before him, neither was there
any that could deliver out of his hand ; but
he did according to his will, and became
great. 5. And as I was considering, be¬
hold, a he-goat came from the west, on the
face of the whole earth, and touched not the
ground : and the goa. had a notable horn
between his eyes. 6. And he came to the
ram that had two horns, which I had seen
standing before the river, and ran unto him
in the fury of his power. 7. And I saw him
come close unto the ram, and he was moved
with choler against him, and smote the ram,
and brake his two horns ; and there was no
power in the ram to stand before him, but
lie cast him down to the ground, and
stamped upon him : and there was none that
could deliver the ram out of his hand. 8.
Therefore the he-goat waxed very great :
and when he was strong, the great horn was
broken; and for it came up four notable
ones, toward the four winds of heaven. 9.
And out of one of them came forth a little
horn which waxed exceeding great, toward
the south, and toward the east, and toward
the pleasant land. 10. And it waxed great,
even to the host of heaven ; and it cast down
some of the host and of the stars to the
ground, and stamped upon them. 1 1 . Y ea,
he magnified himself even to the prince of
the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was
taken away, and the place of his sanctuary
was cast down. 12. And a host was given
him against the daily sacrifice by reason of
transgression, and it cast down the truth to
the ground ; and it practised, and prospered.
13. Then I heard one saint speaking, and
another saint said unto that certain saint
which spake, How long shall be the vision
concerning the daily sacrifice , and the trans¬
gression of desolation, to give both the sanc¬
tuary and the host to be trodden under foot ?
14. And he said unto me, Unto two thou¬
sand and three hundred days; then shall the
sanctuary be cleansed.
Here is,
I. The date of this vision, v. 1. It was in the
third year of the reign of Belshazzar, which proved
to be his last year, as many reckon; so that this
chapter also should be, in order of time, before the
fifth. That Daniel might not be surprised at the
destruction of Babylon, now at hand, God gives him
a foresight of the destruction of other kingdoms
hereafter, which in their day had been as potent as
that of Babylon. Could we foresee the changes that
shall be hereafter, when we are gone, we should
the less admire, and be less affected with the
changes in our own day; for that which is done, is
that which shall be done, Eccl. i. 9. Then it was,
that a vision appeared to me, even to me Daniel.
Here he solemnly attests the truth of it; it was to
him, even to him, that the vision was shown; he was
the eye-witness of it. And this vision puts him in
mind of a former vision, which appeared to him at
the first, in the first year of this reign, which he
makes mention of, because this vision was an expli¬
cation and confirmation of that, and points at many
of the same events. That seems to have been a
dream, a vision in his sleep; this seems to have been
when he was awake.
II. The scene of this vision; the place wnettr
344
DANIEL, VIII.
drat was laid, was in Shushan the fialace, one of the
royal seats of the kings of Persia, situated on the
banks of the river Ulai, which surrounded the city;
it was in the province of Elam, and that part of
Persia which lay next to Babylon. Daniel was not
there in person, for he was now in Babylon, a cap¬
tive, in some employment under Belshazzar, and
might not go to such a distant country, especially
being now an enemy’s country; but he was there in
vision; as Ezekiel, when a captive in Babylon, was
often brought, in the spirit, to the land of Israel.
Note, The soul may be at liberty when the body is
in captivity; for when we are bound, the Spirit of
the Lord is not bound. The vision related to that
country, and therefore there he was made to fancy
himself to be as strongly as if he had really been
there.
III. The vision itself, and the process of it.
1. He saw a ram with two horns, v. 3. This was
the second monarchy, of which the kingdom of
Media and Persia were the two horns. The horns
were very high; but that which came up last was
the higher, and got the start of the former. So the
last shall be first, and the first last. The kingdom
of Persia, which rose last, in Cyrus, became more
eminent than that of the Medes.
2. He saw this ram pushing all about him with
his horns, (y. 4. ) westward, toward Babylon, Syria,
Greece, and the lesser Asia; northward, toward
the Lydians, Armenians, and Scythians; and south¬
ward, toward Arabia, Ethiopia, and Egypt; for all
these nations did the Persian empire, one time or
other, make attempts upon for the enlarging of their
dominion. And at last it became so powerful, that
no beasts might stand before him. The ram, which
is of a species of animals often preyed upon, be¬
comes formidable even to the beasts of prey them¬
selves, so that there was no standing before him,
no escaping him, none that could deliver out of his
hand, but all must yield to him. The kings of Per¬
sia did according to their will, prospered in all their
ways abroad, had an uncontrollable power at home,
and became great; he thought himself great, be¬
cause he did what he would: but to do good is that
which makes men truly great.
3. He saw this ram overcome by a he-goat. He
was considering the ram, (wondering that so weak
an animal should come to be so prevalent,) and
thinking what would be the issue; and behold, a
he-goat came, v. 5. This was Alexander the Great,
the son of Philip king of Macedonia; he came from
the west, from Greece, which lay west from Persia;
he fetched a great compass with his army, he came
upon the face of the whole earth; he did in effect
conquer the world, and then sat down and wept be¬
cause there was not another world to be conquered.
Unus Pellteo juveni non sujficit orbis — One world
was too little for the youth of Police. This he-
oat (a creature famed for comeliness in going,
rov. xxx. 31.) went on with incredible swiftness,
so that he touched not the ground, so lighly did he
move; he rather seemed to fly above the ground
than to go upon the ground; or, none touched him
in the earth, he met with little or no opposition.
This he-goat, or buck, had a notable horn between
his eyes, like a unicorn. He had strength, and knew
his own strength; he saw himself a match for all
his neighbours. Alexander pushed his conquests
on so fast, and with so much fury, that none of
the kingdoms he attacked had courage to make a
stand, or give check to the progress of his victorious
arms. In six years he made himself master of the
greatest part of the then known world. Well might
he be called a notable horn, for his name still lives
in history, as the name of one of the most celebrated
commanders in war that ever the world knew.
Alexander’s victories and achievements are still the
entertainment of the ingenious. This he-goat came
to the ram that had two horns, v. 6. Alexander
with his victorious army attacked the kingdom of
Persia, an army consisting of no more than 30,000
foot, and 5,000 horse. He ran unto him, to surprise
him ere he could get intelligence of his motions, in
the fury of his power; he came close to the ram.
Alexander with his army came up with Darius
Codomanus, then emperor of Persia, being moved
with choler against him, v. 7. It was with the
greatest violence that Alexander pushed on his war
against Darius, who, though he brought vast num¬
bers into the field, yet, for want of conduct, was an
unequal match for him, so that Alexander was too
hard for him whenever he engaged him ; smote him,
cast him down to the ground, and stamped upon
him; which three expressions, some think, refer to
the three famous victories that Alexander obtained
over Darius, at Granicus, at Issus, and at Arbela,
by which he was at length totally routed, having, in
the last battle, had 600,000 men killed, so that
Alexander became absolute master of all the Persian
empire; brake his two horns, the kingdoms of Me¬
dia and Persia; the ram that had destroyed all
before him, (t>. 4.) now is himself destroyed; Darius
has no power to stand before Alexander, nor has
he any friends or allies to help to deliver him out
of his hand. Note, Those kingdoms, which, when
they had power, abused it, and, because none could
oppose them, withheld not themselves from the
doing of any wrong, may expect to have their power,
at length, taken from them, and to be served in
their own kind, Isa. xxxiii. 1.
4. He saw that he-goat made hereby very con¬
siderable; but the great horn that had done all this
execution, was broken, v. 8. Alexander was about
twenty years old when he began his wars; when he
was about twenty-six he conquered Darius, and be¬
came master of the whole Persian empire; but
when he was about thirty-two or thirty-three years
of age, when he was strong, in his full strength, he
was broken; he was not killed in war, in the bed of
honour, but died of a drunken surfeit, or, as some
suspect, by poison, and left no child living behind
him, to enjoy that which he had endlessly laboured
for, but left a lasting monument of the vanity of
worldly pomp and power, and their insufficiency to
make a man happy.
5. He saw this kingdom divided into four parts,
and that instead of that one great horn there came
up four notable ones, Alexander’s four captains to
whom he bequeathed his conquests; and he had so
much, that, when it was divided among four, they
had each of them enough for any one man. These
four notable horns were toward the four winds of
heaven, the same with the four heads of the leo¬
pard; ( ch . vii. 6.) the kingdoms of Syria and Egypt,
Asia and Greece — Syria lying to the east. Greece
to the west, Asia Minor to the north, and Egypt to
the south. Note, Those that heap up riches, know
not who shall gather them, nor whose all those
things shall be, which they have provided.
6. He saw a little horn, which became a great
persecutor of the church and people of God; and
this was the principal thing that was intended to be
showed him in this vision, as afterward, ch. xi. 30,
&c. All agree that this was Antiochus Epiphanes;
so he called himself, the illustrious, but others
called him Antiochus Epimanes — Antiochus the fu¬
rious. He is called here (as before ch. vii. 8.) a
little horn, because he was in his original contempti¬
ble; there were others between him and the king¬
dom, and he was of a base* servile disposition, had
nothing in him of princely qualities, and had been
for some time a hostage and prisoner at Rome,
whence he made his escape, and, though the young¬
est brother, and his elder living, got the kwdom.
845
DANIEL, VIII.
He waxed exceeding great toward the south, for
he seized upon Egypt, and toward the east, for
he invaded Persia and Armenia. But that which
is here especially taken notice of, is, the mischief
that he did to the people of the Jews. They are not
expressly named, for prophecies must not be too
plain; but they are here so described that it would
be easy for those who understood scripture-lan¬
guage, to know who were meant; and the Jews hav¬
ing notice of this before, might be awakened to
prepare themselves and their children beforehand,
for these suffering, trying times.
(1.) He set himself against the fileasant land, the
land of Israel, so called, because it was the glory
of all lands, for fruitfulness and all the delights of
human life, but especially for the tokens of God’s
presence in it, and its being blessed with divine re¬
velations and institutions; it was mount Zion that
was beautiful for situation, and the joy of the whole
earth, Ps. xlviii. 2. The pleasantness of that land
was, that there the Messiah was to be born, who
would be both the Consolation and the Glory of his
people Israel. Note, We have reason to reckon
that a /ileasant place, which is a holy place, in
which God dwells, and where we may have oppor¬
tunity of communing with him. Surely, It is good
to be here.
(2.) He fought against the host of heaven, the
people of God, the church, which is the kingdom
of heaven, the church-militant here on earth. The
saints, being bom from above, and citizens of hea¬
ven, and doing the will of God, by his grace, in some
measure, as the angels of heaven do it, may be well
called a heavenly host; or the priests and Levites,
who were employed in the service of the tabernacle,
and there warred a good warfare, were this host of
heaven. These Antiochus set himself against, he
waxed great to the host of heaven, in opposition to
them, and in defiance of them.
(3.) He cast down some of the host, that is, of the
stars, (for they are called the host of heaven,) to the
ground, and stamfied upon them. Some of those
that were most eminent both in church and state,
that were burning and shining lights in their gene¬
ration, he either forced to comply with his idola¬
tries, or put them to death; he got them into his
hands, and then trampled upon them, and triumph¬
ed over them; as good old Eleazar, and the seven
brethren , whom he put to death with cruel tortures,
because they would not eat swine’s flesh, 2 Mac. vi.
7. He gloried in it, that herein he insulted Heaven
itself, and exalted his throne above the stars of
God, Isa. xiv. 13.
(4.) He magnified himself even to the / irince of
the host. He set himself against the High Priest,
Onias, whom he deprived of his dignity; or, rather,
against God himself, who was Israel’s King of old,
who reigns for ever as Zion’s King, who himself
heads his own hosts that fight his battles. Against
him Antiochus magnified himself ; as Pharaoh, when
he said, JVho is the Lord? Note, Those who per¬
secute the people of God, persecute God himself.
(5.) He took away the daily sacrifice; the morn¬
ing and evening lamb, which God appointed to be
offered every day upon his altar, to his honour,
Antiochus forbade and restrained the offering of.
No doubt, he took away all other sacrifices, but the
daily sacrifice only is mentioned, because that was
the greatest loss of all other; for in that they kept
up their constant communion with God, which they
preferred before that which is only occasional.
God’s people reckon their daily sacrifices, their
morning and evening exercises of devotion, the most
needful of their daily business, and the most de¬
lightful of their daily comforts, and would not for
all the world part with them.
C6.) He cast down the place of his sanctuary . He
did not burn and demolish the temple, but he cast it
down, when he profaned it, made it the temple of
Jupiter Olympius, and set up his image in it. He
also cast down the truth to the ground, trampled
upon the book of the law, that word of truth, tore
it, and burnt it, and did what he could to have de¬
stroyed it quite, that it might have been lost and
forgotten for ever. These were the projects of that
wicked prince. In these he practised. And, would
you think it? in these he prospered. He carried the
matter very far, seemed to have gained his point,
and went near to have extirpated that holy religion
which God’s right hand had planted.
But lest he or any other should triumph, as if
herein he had prevailed against God himself, and
been too hard for him, the matter is here explained
and set in a true light. [1.] He could not have
done this, if God had not permitted him to do it;
could have had no power against Israel, unless it
had been given him from above. God put this power
into his hand, and gave him a host against the daily
sacrifice. God’s providence put that sword into his
hand, by which he was enabled thus to bear down
all before him. Note, We ought to eye and own
the hand of God in all the enterprises and all the
successes of the church’s enemies against the church.
They are but the rod in God’s hand. [2.] God
would not have permitted it, if his people had no'
provoked him to do so. It is by reason of trans¬
gression, the transgression of Israel, to correct them
for that, that Antiochus is employed to give them
all this trouble. Note, When the pleasant land and
all its pleasant things are laid waste, it must be ac¬
knowledged that sin is the procuring cause of all the
desolation. Who gave Jacob to the spoil? Did not
the Lord, he against whom we have sinned? Isa.
xlii. 24. The great transgression of the Jews after
the captivity, (when they were cured of idolatry,)
was, a contempt and profanation of the holy things;
snuffing at the service of God, bringing the torn
and the lame for sacrifice, as if the table of the Lord
were a contemptible thing; (so we find, Mai. i. 7,
8, &c.) and that the priests were guilty of this;
(Mai. ii. 1, 8.) and therefore Gcd sent Antiochus to
take away the daily sacrifice, and cast down the
place of his sanctuary. Note, It is just with God to
deprive those of the privileges of his house, who
despise and profane them; and to make them know
the worth of ordinances by the want of them, who
would not know it by the enjoyment of them.
Lastly, He heard the time of this calamity limited
and determined; not the time when it should come,
that is not here fixed, because God would have his
people always prepared for it, but how long it
should last, that, when they had no more any pro-
phets to tell them how long, (Ps. lxxiv. 9. which
psalm seems to have been calculated for this dark
and doleful day,) they might have this prophecy to
give them a prospect of deliverance in due time.
Now concerning this, we have here,
(1.) The question asked concerning it, v. 13.
Observe, [l.j By whom the question was put; 1
heard one saint speaking to this purport, and then
another saint seconded liim; O that we knew how
long this trouble will last! The angels here are
called saints, for they are holy ones, (c/i. iv. 13.)
the holy myriads, Jude 14. The angels concern
themselves in the affairs of the church, and inquire
concerning them ; if, as here, concerning its tempo¬
ral salvations, much more do they desire to look
into the great salvation, 1 Pet. i. 12. One saint
spake of the thing, and another inquired concerning
it. Thus John, who lay in Christ’s bosom, was
beckoned to by Peter, to ask Christ a question,
John xiii. 23, 24. [2.] To whom the question was
put. He said unto Palmoni that spake. Some make
this certain saint to be a superior angel who under
846
DANIEL, VIII.
stood more than the rest, to whom therefore -hey
came with their inquiries. Others make it to be
the eternal Word, the Son of God. He is the un¬
known One. Palmoni seems to be compounded of
Peloni Almoni, which is used, Ruth iv. 1. for Ho,
such a one, and, 2 Kings vi. 8. for such a place.
Christ was yet the nameless One. Wherefore ask-
est thou after my name, seeing it is secret ? Judg.
xiii. 18. He is the JVumberer of secrets, as some
translate it; for from him there is nothing hid; the
wonderful JVumberer, so others. His name is called
Wonderful. Note, If we would know the mind of
God, we must apply ourselves to Jesus Christ, who
lay in the bosom of the Father, and in whom are hid
all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, not hid
from its, but hid for us. [3.] The question itself
that was asked; “ How long shall be the vision con¬
cerning the daily sacrifices How long shall the
prohibition of it continue? How long shall the
Jileasant land be made unpleasant by that severe
interdict? How long shall the transgression of de¬
solation, the image of Jupiter, that great transgres¬
sion which makes all our sacred things desolate,
how long shall that stand in the temple? How long
shall the sanctuary and the host, the holy place and
the holy persons that minister in it, be trodden un¬
der foot by the oppressor?” Note, Angels are con¬
cerned for the prosperity of the church on earth,
anti desirous to see an end of its desolations. The
angels asked, for the satisfaction of Daniel, not
doubting but he was desirous to know, how long
these calamities should last? The question takes it
for granted that they should not last always; the rod
of the wicked shall not rest upon the lot of the
righteous, though it may come upon their lot. Christ
comforted himself in his sufferings with this. The
things concerning me have an end; (Luke xxii. 37.)
and so may the church in hers. But it is desirable
to know how long they shall last, that we may pro¬
vide accordingly.
(2.) The answer given to this question, v. 14.
Christ gives instruction to the holy angels, for they
are our fellow- servants; but here the answer was
given to Daniel, because for his sake the question
was asked; He said unto me. God sometimes gives
in great favours to his people, in answer to the in¬
quiries and requests of their friends for them. Now
Christ assures him, [1.] That the trouble shall end;
it shall continue 2300 days, and no longer; so many
evenings and mornings, (so the word is,) so many
tux&ufttpau, so many natural days, reckoned, as in
the beginning of Genesis, by the evenings and
mornings; because it was the evening and the morn¬
ing sacrifice that they most lamented the loss of,
and thought the time passed very slowly while the)'
wanted them. Some make the morning and the
evening, in this number, to stand for two; and then
2300 evenings and as many mornings will make but
1 1.50 days; and about so many daj s it was that the
daily sacrifice was interrupted, and this comes
nearer to the computation ( ch . vii. 25.) of a time,
times, and the dividing of a lime. But it is less
forced to understand them of so many natural days;
2300 days make six years and three months, and
about eighteen days; and just so long they reckon
from the defection of the people, procured by Mc-
nelaus the High Priest in the 142d year of the king¬
dom of the Seleucidx, the sixth month of that year, j
and the sixth day of the month, (so Josephus dates '
it,) to the cleansing of the sanctuary, and the re¬
establishment of religion among them, which was in
tlie 14Sth year, the ninth month, and the twenty-
fifth day of the month, 1 Mac. iv. 52. God reckons
the time of ids people’s affliction by days, for in all
their afflictions he is afflicted; (Rev. ii. 10.) Thou
shalt have tribulation ten days. [2.] He assures
him, that they should see better days after; Then \
shall the sanctuary be cleansed. Note, The cleans¬
ing of the sanctuary is a happy token for good tc
any people; when they begin to be reformed, they
will soon be relieved. Though the righteous God
may, fur the correction of his people, suffer his
sanctuary to be profaned for awhile, yet the jealous
God will, for his own glory, see to the cleansing of
it in due time. Christ died to cleanse his church,
and he will so cleanse it as at length to present
it blameless to himself.
15. And it came to pass, when I, even I
Daniel, had seen the vision, and sought for
the meaning, then, behold, there stood before
me as the appearance of a man. 16. And
I heard a man’s voice between the banks of
Ulai, which called, and said, Gabriel, make
this man io understand the vision. 17. So
he came near where I stood; and when he
came, I was afraid, and fell upon my face:
but he said unto me, Understand, O son of
man ; for at the time of the end shall be the
vision. 18. Now, as he was speaking with
me, I was in a deep sleep on my face to¬
ward the ground: but he touched me, and
set me upright. 1 9. And he said, Behold,
1 will make thee know what shall be in the
last end of the indignation : for at the time
appointed the end shall be. 20. The ram
which thou sawest having two horns are the
kings of Media and Persia. 21. And the
rough goat is the king of Grecia: and the
great horn that is between his eyes is the
first king. 22. Now that being broken,
whereas four stood up for it, four kingdoms
shall stand up out of the nation, but not in
his power. 23. And in the latter time of
their kingdom, when the transgressors are
come to the full, a king of fierce countenance,
and understanding dark sentences, shall
stand up. 24. And his power shall be
mighty, but not by his own power : and he
shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper,
and practise, and shall destroy the mighty
and the holy people. 25. And through his
policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in
his hand ; and he shall magnify himself in
his heart, and by peace shall destroy many:
he shall also stand up against the Prince of
princes; but he shall be broken without
hand. 26. And the vision of the evening
and the morning which was told is true:
wherefore shut thou up the vision; for it
shall be for many days. 27. And I Daniel
fainted, and was sick certain days: after¬
ward I rose up, and did the king’s business;
and I was astonished at the vision, but none
understood it.
Here we have,
I. Daniel’s earnest desire to have thi.t vision ex¬
plained to him; (t>. 15.) I sought the meaning.
Note, Those that rightly know the things of God
cannot but desire to know more and more of them.
847
DANIEL, VIII.
and to be led further into the mystery of them; and
those that would find the meaning of what they have
seen or heard from God, must seek it, and seek it
diligently; Seek and ye shall find. Daniel considered
the tiring, compared it with the former discoveries,
to try if he could understand it; but especially he
sought by prayer, as he had done; {ch. ii. 13.) and
lie did not seek in vain.
II. Orders given to the angel Gabriel to inform
him concerning this vision; one in the appearance
o f a man, who, some think, was Christ himself, for
who besides could command angels? He orders Ga¬
briel to make Daniel understand this vision. Some¬
times God is pleased to make use of the ministra¬
tion of angels, not only to protect his children, but
to instruct them; to serve the kind intentions, not
onlv of his providence, but of his grace.
III. The consternation that Daniel was in, upon
the approach of his instructor; {v. 17.) When he
came near, I teas afraid. Though Daniel was a
man of great prudence and courage, and had been
conversant with the visions of the Almighty, yet the
approach of an extraordinary messenger frorr hea¬
ven put him into this fright. He fell upon his face,
not to worship the angel, but because he could no
longer bear the dazzling lustre of his glory. Nay,
being prostrate upon the ground, he fell into a deep
sleep, (v. 18.) which came not from any neglect of
the vision, or indifference towards it, but was an
effect of his faintness, and the oppression of spirit he
was under, through the abundance of revelations.
The disciples in the garden slept for sorrow; and
as there, so here, the spirit was willing, but the
flesh was weak. Daniel would have kept awake,
and could not.
IV. The relief which the angel gave to Daniel,
with great encouragement to him to expect a satis-
factory discovery of the meaning of this vision. 1.
He touched him, and set him upon his feet, v. 18.
Thus when John, in a like case, was in a like con¬
sternation, Christ laid his right hand upon him.
Rev. i. 17. It was a gentle touch that the angel
here gave to Daniel, to show that he came not to
hurt him, not to plead against him with his great
power, or with a hand heavy upon him , but to help
him, to put strength into him, (Job xxiii. 6.) which
God can do with a touch. When we are slumber¬
ing and grovelling on this earth, we are very unfit to
hear from God, and to converse with him. But if
God design instruction for us, he will by his grace
awaken us out of our slumber, raise us from things
below, and set us upright. 2. He promised to in¬
form him; “ Understand, 0 son of man, v. 17.
Thou shalt understand, if thou wilt but apply thy
mind to understand.” He calls him son of man, to
intimate that he would consider his frame, and
would deal tenderly with him, accommodating him¬
self to his capacity' as a man. Or, thus he preaches
humility to him; though he be admitted to converse
with angels, he must not be puffed up with it, but
must rememberthat he is a son of man. Or, perhaps,
this title puts an honour upon him; the Messiah
was lately called the Son of man, ( ch . vii. 13.) and
Daniel is akin to him, and a figure of him, as a pro¬
phet, and one greatly beloved. He assures him that
he shall be made to know what shall be in the last end
of the indignation, v. 19. Let it be laid up for a
comfort to those who shall live to see tjjese calami¬
tous times, that there shall be an end of them, the
indignation shall cease, (Isa. x. 25.) it shall be over¬
past, Isa. xxvi. 20. It may intermit and return
again, but the last end shall be glorious; good will
follow it, nay, and good will be brought out of it.
He tells him, (to 17.) “ At the time of the end shall
be the vision; when the last end of the indignation
comes, when the course of this providence is com¬
pleted, then the vision shall be made plain and in¬
telligible by the event, as the event shall be made
plain and intelligible bv the vision.” Or, "At the
time of the end of the Jewish church, in the lattei
days of it, shall this vision be accomplished, three
or four hundred years hcncc; understand it there¬
fore, that thou mayest leave it on record for the
generations to come.” But it he ask more particu¬
larly, “When is the time of the end? And how long
will it be before it arrive?” Let this answer suffice,
(v. 19.) At the time appointed the end shall be; it is
fixed in the divine counsel, which cannot be altered,
and which must not be pried into.
V. The exposition which he gave him of the
vision.
1. Concerning the two monarchies of Persia and
Greece, v. 20. — 22. The ram signified the succes¬
sion of the kings of Media and Persia; the rough
goat signified the kings of Greece; the great horn
was Alexander; the four horns that rose in his
room were the four kingdoms into which his con¬
quests were cantoned, of which before, v. 8. They
are said to stand up out of the nations, but not in
his power; none of them ever made the figure that
Alexander did. Josephus relates, that when Alex¬
ander had taken Tyre, and subdued Palestine, and
was upon his march to Jerusalem, Jaddas, who was
then High Priest, (Nehemiali mentions one of this
name, ch. xii. 11.) fearing his rage, had recourse to
God by prayer and sacrifice for the common safety,
and was by him warned in a dream, that upon Alex¬
ander’s approach he should throw open the gates of
the city, and that he and the rest of the priests
should go forth to meet him in their habits, and all
the people in white. Alexander, seeing this com¬
pany at a distance, went himself alone to the High
Priest, and having prostrated himself before that
God whose name was engraven in the golden plate
of his mitre, he first saluted him; and, being asked
by one of his oyvn captains why he did so, he said,
that while he was yet in Macedon, musing on the
conquest of Asia, there appeared to him a man like
unto this, and thus attired, who invited him into
Asia, and assured him of success in the conquest of
it. The priests led him to the temple, where he
offered sacrifice to the God of Israel as they had di¬
rected him; and there they showed him this book
of the prophet Daniel, that it was there foretold that
a Grecian should come, and destroy the Persians,
which animated him very much in the expedition
he was now meditating against Darius. Hereupon,
he took the Jews and their religion under his pro¬
tection, promised to be kind to those of their reli¬
gion in Babylon and Media, whither he was now
marching; and, in honour of him, all the priests
that had sons born that year, called them Alexan¬
der. Joseph, lib. 11.
2. Concerning Antiochus, and his oppression of
the Jews. This is said to be in the latter time of the
kingdom of the Greeks, when the transgressors are
come to the full; (y. 23.) when the degenerate Jews
have filled up the measure of their iniquity, and are
ripe for this destruction, so that God cannot in
honour bear with them any longer, then shall stand
up this king, to be flagellum Dei — the rod in God’s
hand for the chastising of the Jews. Now observe
here,
(1.) His character; He shall be a king of fierce
countenance, insolent and furious, neither fearing
God nor regarding man; understanding dark sen¬
tences, or, rather, versed in dark practices, the hid¬
den things of dishonesty ; he was master of all the
arts of dissimulation and deceit, and knew the depths
of Satan as well as any man. He was wise to do evil.
(2.) His success; he shall make dreadful havock
of the nations about him ; His power shall be mighty,
bear down all before it, but not by his own power,
(v. 24.) but partly by the assistance of his allies.
843
DANIEL, VIII.
Eumenes and Attalus, partly by the baseness and
treachery of many of the Jews, even of the priests
that came into his interests, and especially by the
divine permission; it wasmot by his own power, but
by a power given him from above, that he destroyed
wonderfully, and thought he made himself a great
man by being a great destroyer. He destroys won¬
derfully indeed, for he destroys, [1.] The mighty
/ ieople , and they cannot resist him by their power.
The princes of Egypt cannot stand before him with
all their forces, but he practises against them and
prospers. Note, The mighty ones of the earth
commonly meet with those at length that are too
hard for them, that are more mighty than they.
Let not the strong man then glory in his strength,
be it ever so great, unless he could be sure that
there were none stronger than he. [2. ] He destroys
the holy people, or the people of the holy ones; and
their sacred character does neither deter him from
destroying them, nor defend them from being de¬
stroyed. All things come alike to all, and there is
one event to the mighty and to the holy in this world.
(3.) The methods by which he will gain this suc¬
cess; not by true courage, wisdom, or justice, but
by his policy and craft, (v. 25.) by fraud and deceit,
and serpentine subtilty; He shall cause craft to
prosper; so cunningly shall he carry on his projects,
that he shall gain his point by the art of wheedling.
By peace he shall destroy many, as others do by
war; under the pretence of treaties, leagues, and al¬
liances with them, he shall encroach on their rights,
and trick them into a subjection to him. Thus
sometimes what a nation truly brave has gained in a
righteous war, a nation truly base has regained in a
treacherous peace, and craft has been caused to
p rosper.
(4.) The mischief that he shall do to religion; He
shall magnify himself in his heart, and think him¬
self fit to prescribe and give law to every body, so
that he shall stand tip against the Prince of princes,
against God himself; he will profane his temple and
altar, prohibit his worship, and persecute his wor¬
shippers. See what a height of impudence some
men’s impiety brings them to; they openly bid de¬
fiance to God himself, though he is the King of
kings.
(5.) The ruin that lac shall be brought to at last;
He shall be broken without hand, without the hand
of man; he shall not be slain in war, nor shall he be
assassinated, as tyrants commonly were, but he
shall fall into the hands of the living God, and die by
an immediate stroke of his vengeance. He, hearing
that the Jews had cast the image of Jupiter Olym-
pius out of the temple, where he had placed it, was
so enraged at the Jews, that he vowed he would
make Jerusalem a common burying-place, and de¬
termined to march thither immediately: but no
sooner had he spoken these proud words, than he
was struck with an incurable plague in his bowels,
worms bred so fast in his body, that whole flakes of
flesh sometimes dropped from him, his torments
were violent, and the stench of his disease such,
that none could endure to come near him. He con¬
tinued in this misery very long; at first, he persisted
in his menaces against the Jews, but, at length, de¬
spairing of his recovery, he called his friends to¬
gether, and acknowledged all those miseries to have
fallen upon him for the injuries he had done to the
Jews and his profaning the temple at Jerusalem;
then he wrote courteous letters to the Jews, and
vowed that if he recovered, he would let them
have the free exercise of their religion. But, find¬
ing his disease grow upon him, when he could no
longer endure his own smell, he said, It is meet
to submit to God, and for man which is mortal not
to set himself in competition with God; and so died
miserably in a strange land, on the mountains of
Pacata near Babylon: so Usher’s Annals, A M.
8840, about 160 years before the birth of Christ.
3. As to the time fixed for the continuance of the
cessation of the daily sacrifice, it is not explained
here, but only confirmed; (v. 26.) That vision of
the evening and morning is true, in the proper
sense of the words, and needs no explication. How
unlikely soever it might be that God should suffer
his own sanctuary to be thus profaned, yet it is true,
it is too true, so it shall be.
Lastly, Here is the conclusion of this vision, and
here,
1. The charge given to Daniel to keep it private
for the present; Shut thou up the vision; let it not
be publicly known among the Chaldeans, lest the
Persians, who were now shortly to possess the king¬
dom, should be incensed against the Jews by it, be¬
cause the downfall of their kingdom was foretold by
it, which would be unseasonable now that the edic-
for their release was expected from the king of Per
sia. Shut it up, for it shall be for many days; it
was about 300 years from the time of this vision to
the time of the accomplishment of it, therefore he.
must shut it up for the present, even from the
people of the Jews, lest it should amaze and perplex
them, but let it be kept safe for the generations to
come, that should live about the time of the accom¬
plishment of it, for to them it would be both most in¬
telligible and most serviceable. Note, What we
know of the things of God should be carefully laid
up, that hereafter, when there is occasion, it may
be faithfully laid out; and what we have not now
any use for, yet wc may have another time; divine
truths should be sealed up among our treasures, that
we ma y find them again after many days.
2. The care he took to keep it private, having
received such a charge; (v. 27.) He fainted, and
was sick, with the multitude of his thoughts within
him occasioned by this vision, which oppressed and
overwhelmed him the more, because he was for¬
bidden to publish what he had seen, so that his belly
was as wine which has no vent, he was ready to
burst like new bottles. Job xxxii. 19. However, he
kept it to himself, stifled and smothered the concern
he was in; so that those he conversed with could not
perceive it, but he did the king’s business according
to the duty of his place, whatever it was. Note,
As long as we live in this world we must have some
thing to do in it; and even those whom God has most
dignified with his favours, must not think themselves
above their business. Nor must the pleasure of
communion with God take us off from the duties of
our particular callings, but still we must in them
abide with God. Those especially that arc intrust¬
ed with public business, must see to it vhat they con¬
scientiously discharge their trust.
CHAP. IX.
In this chapter we have, I. Daniel’s prayer for I he restora¬
tion of the Jews who were in captivity; in which, he con¬
fesses sin, and acknowledges the justice of God in their
calamities, but pleads God’s promises of mercy which he
had yet in store for them, v. 1 . . 19. II. An immediate
answer sent him by an anpel to his prayer; in which, 1.
He is assured of the discharge of the Jews out of their
captivity, v. 20 . • 2 3. And, 2. He is informed concern¬
ing the redemption of the world by Jesus Christ, (of
which that was a type,) what should be the nature of it,
and when it should be accomplished, v. 24 . . 27. And it
is the clearest, brightest prophecy of the Messiah, in all
the Old Testament.
l.TN the first year of Darius, the son of
JL Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes,
which was made king over the realm of the
Chaldeans; 2. In the first year of his reign,
I Daniel understood by books the number
of the years, whereof the word of the Loro
DANIEL, IX. 849
crime to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would
accomplish seventy years in the desolations
of Jerusalem. 3. And I set my face unto
the Lord God, to seek by prayer and sup¬
plications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and
ashes.
We left Daniel, in the close of the foregoing
chapter, employed in the king's business ; but here
we have him employed in better business than any
the king had for him, speaking to God, and hearing
from him, not for himself only, but for the church,
whose mouth he was to God, and for whose use the
oracles of God were committed to him, relating to
the days of the Messiah. Observe,
1. When it was that Daniel had this communion
with God; (v. 1.) in the first year of Darius the
Mede, who was newly made king of the Chaldeans,
Babylon being conquered by him and his nephew,
or grandson, Cyrus. In this year, the seventy years
of the Jews’ captivity ended, but the decree for
their release was not yet issued out; so that this ad¬
dress of Daniel’s to God seems to have been ready
in that year, and, probably, before he was cast into
the lions’ den. And one powerful inducement, per¬
il ips, it was to him then to keep so close to the duty
of prayer, though it cost him his life, that he had
so lately experienced the benefit and comfort of it.
2. What occasioned his address to God by prayer;
(v. 2.) He understood by books, that seventy years
was the time fixed for the continuance of the deso¬
lations of Jerusalem, v. 2. The book by which he
understood this was, the book of the prophecies of
Jeremiah, in which he found it expressly foretold,
(Jer. xxix. 10.) -dfter seventy years be accomplished
in Babylon, (and therefore they must be reckoned
from the first captivity, in the third year of Jehoia-
kim, which Daniel had reason to remember by a
good token, for it was in that captivity that he was
carried away himself, ch. i. 1.) I •will visit you, and
fierform my good word toward you. It was like¬
wise said, (Jer. xxv. 11.) This whole land shall be
seventy years a desolation, ( Chorbath ,) the same
word that Daniel here uses for the desolations of
Jerusalem, which shows that he had that prophecy
before him when he wrote this. Though Daniel
was himself a great prophet, and one that was well
acquainted with the visions of God, yet he was a
diligent student in the scripture, and thought it no
disparagement to him to consult Jeremiah’s pro¬
phecies. He was a great politician, and prime
minister of state to one of the greatest monarchs
upon earth, and yet could find both heart and time
to converse with the word of God. The greatest
and best men in the world must not think themselves
above their Bibles.
3. How serious and solemn his address to God
was, when he understood that the seventy years
were just upon expiring; (for it appears, by Eze¬
kiel’s dating of his prophecies, that they exactly
computed the years of their captivity;) then he set
his face to seek God by prayer. Note, God’s pro¬
mises are intended, not to supersede, but to excite
and encourage, our prayers; and when we see the
day of the performance of them approaching, we
should the more earnestly plead them with God,
and put them in suit. So Daniel did here; he prayed
three times a day, and, no doubt, in every prayer
made mention of the desolations of Jerusalem; yet
he did not think that enough, but even in the midst
of his business set time apart for an extraordinary
application to Heaven on Jerusalem’s behalf. God
had said to Ezekiel, that though Daniel, among
others, stood before him, his intercession should not
prevail to prevent the judgment; (Ezek. xiv. 14.)
vet he hopes, now that the warfare is accomplished,
' Vor.. iv.— 5 P
(Isa. xl. 2.) his prayer may be heard for the re¬
moving of the judgment. When the day of deliver¬
ance dawns, it is time for God’s praying people to
bestir themselves; something extraordinary is then
expected and required from them, beside their
daily sacrifice. Now Daniel sought by prayer and
supplications, for fear lest the sins of the people
should provoke him to defer their deliverance longer
than was intended; or rather, that the people might
be prepared by the grace of God for the deliver¬
ance, now that the providence of God was about to
work it out for them. Now observe, (1.) The in-
tenseness of his mind in this prayer; I set my face
unto the Lord God to seek him; which denotes the
fixedness of his thoughts, the firmness of his faith,
and the fervour of his devout affections, in the duty.
We must, in prayer, set God before us, and set
ourselves as in his presence; to him we must direct
our prayer, and must look up. Probably, in token
of his setting his face toward God, he did, as usual,
set his face toward Jerusalem, to affect his own
heart the more with the desolations of it. (2.) The
mortification of his body in this prayer; in token of
his deep humiliation before God for his own sins,
and the sins of his people, and the sense he had of
his unworthiness, when lie prayed he fasted, put on
sackcloth, and lay in ashes, the more to affect him¬
self with the desolations of Jerusalem, which he
was praying for the repair of, and to make himself
sensible that he was now about an extraordinary
work.
4. And I prayed unto the Lord my God,
and made my confession, and said, O Lord,
the great and dreadful God, keeping the
covenant and mercy to them that love him,
and (o them that keep his commandments;
5. We have sinned, and have committed
iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have
rebelled, even by departing from fhy pre¬
cepts, and from thy judgments: 6. Neither
have we hearkened unto thy servants the
prophets, which spake in thy name to our
kings, onr princes, and our fathers, and to
all the people of the land. 7. O Lord,
righteousness belongeth unto thee; but unto
us confusion of faces, as at this day: to the
men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Je¬
rusalem, and unto all Israel, that are near,
and that are far off, through all the coun¬
tries whither thou hast driven them, because
of their trespass that they have trespassed
against thee. 8. O Lord, to us belongeth
confusion of face, to our kings, to our
princes, and to our fathers, because we
have sinned against thee. 9. To the Lord
our God belong mercies and forgivenesses,
though we have rebelled against him: 10.
Neither have we obeyed the voice of the
Lord our God, to walk in his laws, which
he set before us by his servants the pro¬
phets. 1 1. Yea, all Israel have transgressed
thy law, even by departing, that they might
not obey thy voice ; therefore the curse" is
poured upon us, and the oath that is written
in the law of Moses the servant of God,
because we have sinned against him. 12.
8.50
DANIEL, IN.
Atiil he hath confirm id his words, which he
spake against ns, and against our judges
that judged us, by bringing upon us a great
evil : for under the whole heaven hath not
been clone as hath been done upon Jerusa¬
lem. 13. As it is written in the law of
"Moses, all this evil is come upon us: yet
made we not our prayer before the Lord
our God, that we might turn from our ini¬
quities, and understand thy truth. 14.
Therefore hath the Lord watched upon
the evil, and brought it upon us: for the
Lord our God is righteous in all his works
which he doeth: for we obeyed not his
voice. 15. And now, O Lord our God,
that hast brought thy people forth out of
the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and
hast gotten thee renown, as at this day; we
have sinned, we have done wickedly. 16.
O Lord, according to all thy righteousness,
I beseech thee, let thine anger and thy fury
be turned away from thy city Jerusalem,
thy holy mountain: because for our sins,
and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusa¬
lem and thy people are become a reproach
to all that are about us. 17. Now, there¬
fore, O our God, hear the prayer of thy ser¬
vant, and his supplications, and cause thy
face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is de¬
solate, for the Lord’s sake. 1 8. O my God,
incline thine ear, and hear; open thine eyes,
and behold our desolations, and the city
which is called by thy name: for we do not
present our supplications before thee for our
righteousness, but for thy great mercies. 19.
O Lord, hear ; O Lord, forgive ; O Lord,
hearken, and do; defer not, for thine own
sake, O my God: for thy city and thy peo¬
ple are called by thy name.
We have here Daniel’s prayer to God as his God,
and the confession which he joined with that prayer;
I grayed., and made my confession. Note, In every
prayer we must make confession, not only of the
sins we have been guilty of, (which we commonly
call confession,) but of our faith in God, and de¬
pendence upon him, our sorrow for sin, and our
resolutions against it. It must be our confession,
the language of our own convictions, and that which
we ourselves do heartily subscribe to.
Let us go over the several parts of this prayer,
which we have reason to think that he offered up
much larger than is here recorded; and that these
are only the heads of it.
I. Here is his humble, serious, reverent address
to God; in which he gives glory to God, 1. As a
God to be feared, and whom it is our duty always to
stand in awe of; “ O Lord, the great and dreadful
God, that art able to deal with the greatest and
most terrible of the church’s enemies.” 2. As a
God to be trusted, and whom it is our duty to de¬
pend upon, and put a confidence in; kee/iing the
covenant and mercy to them that love him, and, as
a proof of their love to him, keep, his command¬
ments. If we do our part of the bargain, he will
not fail to do his. He will be to his people as good
as his word, for he keeps covenant with them, ana
not one iota of his promise shall fall to the ground;’
nay, he will be better than his word, for he keeps
mercy to them, something more than was in the
covenant. It was proper for Daniel to have his eye
upon God’s mercy, now that he was to lay before
him the miseries of his people; and upon God’s
covenant now he was to sue tor the performance of
a promise. Note, We should, in prayer, look both
at God’s greatness and his goodness, his majesty and
mercy in conjunction.
II. Here is a penitent confession of sin, the pro¬
curing cause of all the calamities which his people
had for so many years been groaning under, v. 5, 6.
When we seek to God for national mercies, we
ought to humble ourselves before him for national
sins; these are the sins Daniel here laments; and
we may here observe the variety of words he makes
use of to set forth the greatness of their provoca¬
tions; (for it becomes penitents to lay load upon
themselves;) He have sinned in many particular
instances, nay, we have committed iniquity, we
have driven a trade of sin, we have done wickedly
with a hard heart and a stiff neck, and herein we
have rebelled, have taken up arms against the King
of kings, his crown and dignity. Two things ag¬
gravated their sins:
1. That they had violated the express laws God
had given them by Moses; “We have departed
from thy precepts and from thy judgments, and
have not conformed to them. And ( v . 10.) we have
not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.” That
which speaks the nature of sin, that it is the trans¬
gression of the law, does sufficiently speak the
malignity of it; if sin be made to appear sin, it can¬
not be made to appear worse; its sinfulness is its
greatest hatefulness, Rom. vii. 13. God has set his
laws before us plainly and fully, as the copy we
should wi'ite after, yet we have not walked in them,
but turned aside, or turned back.
2. That they had slighted the fair warnings God
had given them by the prophets, which in every
age he had sent to them, rising up betimes, and
sending them; (v. 6.) “ We have not hearkened to
thy servants the prophets, who have put us in mind
of thy laws, and of the sanctions of them; though
they spake in thy name, we have not regarded
them; though they delivered their message faith¬
fully, with an universal respect to all orders and
degrees of men, to our kings and princes, whom
they had the courage and confidence to speak to, to
our fathers, and to all the people of the land, whom
they had the condescension and compassion to speak
to, yet we have not hearkened to them, not heard
them, or not heeded them, or not complied with
them.” Mocking God’s messengers, and despising
his words, was Jerusalem’s measure-filling sin, 2
Chron. xxxvi. 16. This confession of sin is repeat¬
ed here, and much insisted on; penitents should
again and again accuse and reproach themselves till
they find their hearts thoroughly broken. All Is¬
rael have transgressed thy law, v. 11. It is Israel,
God’s professing people, who have known better,
and from whom better is expected; Israel, God’s
peculiar people, whom he has surrounded with his
favours; not here and there one, but it is all Israel,
the generality of them, the body of the people, that
has transgressed by departing and getting out of the
way, that they might not hear, and so might not
obey, thy voice. This disobedience is that which al
true penitents do most sensibly charge upon them
selves; (i». 14. ) We obeyed riot his voice, and (n
15.) we have sinned, we have done wickedly. Those
that would find mercy, must thus confess their sins.
III. Here is a self-abasing acknowledgment of
the righteousness of God in all the judgments that
were brought upon them: and it is evermore the
851
DANIEL, IX.
•way of tme penitents thus to justify God, that he
may be clear when he judges, and the sinner may
bear all the blame.
1. He acknowledges that it was sin that plunged
them in all these troubles. Israel is dis/iersed
through all the countries about, and so weakened,
impoverished, and exposed. God’s hand has driven
them hither and thither, some near, where they are
known, and therefore the more ashamed, others
afar off, where they are not known, and therefore
the more abandoned, and it is because of their tres¬
pass that they have trespassed ; (y. 7.) they mingled
themselves with the nations, that they might be de¬
bauched by them, and now God mingles them with
the nations, that they might be stripped by them.
2. He owns the righteousness of God in it; that he
had done them no wrong in all he had brought upon
them, but had dealt with them as they deserved;
(n. 7.) “0 Lord, righteousness belongs to thee, we
have no fault to find with thy providence, no ex¬
ceptions to make against thy judgments; for, (t*.
14.) the Lord our God is righteous in all his works
which he doeth , even in the sore calamities we are
now under, for we obeyed not the words of his mouth,
and therefore justly feel the weight of his hand. ”
This seems to be borrowed from Lam. i. 18.
3. He takes notice of the fulfilling of the scripture
in what was brought upon them; In very faithful¬
ness he afflicted them; for it was according to the
word which he had spoken. The curse is poured
upon us, and the oath, the curse that was ratified by
an oath in the law of Moses, v. 11. This further
justifies God in their troubles, that he did but in¬
flict tlie penalty of the law, and which he had given
them fair notice of. It was necessary for the pre¬
serving of the honour of God’s veracity, and saving
his government from contempt, that the threaten-
ings of his word should be accomplished, otherwise
they look but as bugbears, nay, they seem not at all
frightful. Therefore he has confirmed his words
which he spake against us, because we broke his
laws, and against our judges that judged us, be¬
cause they did not according to the duty of their
pi ice punish the breach of God’s laws: he told them
many a time, that if they did not execute justice, as
terrors to evil- workers, he must and would take the
work into his own hands; and now he has confirmed
what he said, by bringing upon us a great evil, in
which the princes and judges themselves deeply
shared. Note, It contributes very much to our pro¬
fiting by the judgments of God’s hand, to observe
how exactly they agree with the judgments of his
mouth.
4. He aggravates the calamities they were in,
lest they should seem, having been long used to
them, to make light of them, and so to lose the
benefit of the chastening of the Lord by despising
it; “ It is not some of the common troubles of life
that we are complaining of, but that which has in it
some special marks of divine displeasurej^br under
the whole heaven has not been done, as has been
done upon Jerusalem,” v. 12. It is Jeremiah’s
lamentation, in the name of the church, Was ever
sorrow like unto my sorrow ? This must suppose
another like question, Was ever sin like unto my sin ?
5. He puts shame upon the whole nation, from
the highest to the lowest; and if they will say Amen
to his prayer, as it was fit they should if they would
come in for a share in the benefit of it, they must all
put their hand upon their mouth, and their mouth
in the dust; “ To us belongs confusion of face as at
this day; (y. 7. ) we lie under the shame of the pun¬
ishment at this day, and we ought to accommodate
ourselves to it, and to accept of the punishment of
our iniquity, for shame is our due.” If Israel had
retained their character, and had continued a holy
people, they had been high above all nations in
praise, and name, and honour; (Dtut. xxvi. 19.)
but now that they have sinned and done wickedly,
confusion and disgrace belong to them, to the men
of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the in¬
habitants both of the country and of the city, for
they have been all alike guilty before God; it be¬
longs to all Israel, both to the two tribes, that art
near, by the rivers of Babe Ion, and to the ten tribes,
that are afar off, in the hand of Assyria. Confusion
belongs not only to the common people of our land,
but to ourkings, our princes, and our fathers, (re
8. ) who should have set a better example, and have
used their authority and influence for the checking
of the threatening torrent of vice and profaneneSs.
6. He imputes the continuance of the judgment to
their incorrigibleness under it; (i'. 13, 14.) '■'All this
evil is come upon us, and has lain long upon us, yet
made we not our prayer before the Lord our God,
not in a right manner, as we should have made it,
with an humble, lowly, penitent, and obedient heart;
we have been smitten, but have not returned to him
that smote us;” ( We have not entreated the face of
the Lord our God, so the word is;) “ we have taken
no care to make our peace with God, and reconcile
ourselves to him.” Daniel set his brethren a good
example of praying continuallv, but he was sorry to
see how few there were that followed his example;
in their affliction, it was expected, they would seek
God early, but they sought him not, that they might
turn from their iniquities, and understand his truth.
The errand upon which afflictions are sent, is, to
bring men to turn from their iniquities, and to un¬
derstand God’s truth; so Elihu had explained them,
Job xxxvi. 10. God by them opens men’s ears to
discipline, and commands that they return from
iniquity. And if men were brought rightly to un¬
derstand God’s truth, and to submit to the power
and authority of it, they would turn from the error
of their ways. Now the first step toward this is, to
make our prayer before the Lord our God, that the
affliction may be sanctified before it is removed,
and that the grace of God may go along with the
providence of God, to make it answer the end.
Those who in their affliction make not their prayer
to God, who ay not when he binds them, are not
likely to turn from iniquity, or to understand his
truth; “ Therefore because we have not improved
the affliction, the Lord has watched upon the evil,
as the judge takes care that execution be done ac¬
cording to the sentence; because we have not been
melted, he has kept us still in the furnace, and
watched over it, to make the heat yet more in¬
tense;” for when God judges he will overcome, and
will be justified in all his proceedings.
IV. Here is a believing appeal to the mercy of
God, and to the ancient tokens of favour to Israel,
and the concern of his own glory in their interests.
1. It is some comfort to them, (and not a little,)
that God has been always ready to pardon sin; (v.
9. ) To the Lord our God belong mercies and for¬
givenesses; this refers to that proclamation of his
name, (Exod. xxxiv. 6, 7.) The Lord God, gra¬
cious and merciful, forgiving iniquity. Note, It is
very encouraging to poor sinners, to recollect that
mercies belong to God, as it is convincing and bum¬
bling to them, to recollect that righteousness belongs
to him; and they who give him the glorv of his
righteousness, may take to themselves the comfort
of his mercies, Ps. Ixii. 12. There are abundant
mercies in God, and not only forgiveness but for¬
givenesses; he is a God of pardons; (Neh. ix.' 17.
marg.) he multiplies to pardon, Isa. lv. 7. Though
we have rebelled against him, yet with him there is
mercy, pardoning mercy, even for the rebellious.
2. It is likewise a support to them, to think that
God had formerly glorified himself bv delivering
them out of Egypt; so far he looks back for the en
<152
DANIEL, IX.
couragement of his faith; (v. 15.) “ Thou hast
formerly brought thy people out of Egypt with a
mighty hand; and wilt thou not now with the same
mighty hand bring them out of Babylon? Were
they then formed into a people; and shall they not
now be reformed and new-formed ? Are they now
sinful and unworthy ; and were they not so then ?
Are their oppressors now mighty and haughty; and
were they not so then? And has not God said that
their deliverance out of Babylon shall outshine even
that of Egypt?” Jer. xvi. 14, 15. The force of this
plea lies in that, “ Thou hast gotten the renown,
hast made thee a name,” (so the word is,) “ as at
this day, even to this day, by bringing us out of
Egypt; and wilt thou lose the credit of that by let¬
ting us perish in Babylon? Didst thou get a renown
by that deliverance which we have so often com¬
memorated; and wilt thou not now get thee a re¬
nown by this which we have so often prayed for,
and so long waited for ?”
V. Here is a pathetic complaint of the reproach
that God’s people lay under, and the ruins that
God’s sanctuary lay in, both which redounded very
much to the dishonour of God, and the diminution
of that name and renown which God had gained by
bringing them out of Egypt.
1. God’s holy people were despised; by their sins
and the iniquities of their fathers they had profaned
their crown, and made themselves despicable, and
then though they are, in name and profession, God’s
people, and, upon that account, truly great and ho¬
nourable, yet they are become a reproach to all
that are round about them. Their neighbours
laugh them to scorn, and triumph in their disgrace.
Note, Sin is a reproach to any people, but especi¬
ally to God’s people, that have more eyes upon
them, and have more honour to lose, than other
people.
2. God’s holy place was desolate. Jerusalem, the
holy city, was a reproach; (v. 16.) when it lay in
ruins, it was an astonishment and a hissing to all
that passed by. The sanctuary, the holy house,
was desolate; (v. 17. ) the altars demolished, and all
the buildings laid in ashes. Note, The desolations
of the sanctuary are the grief of all the saints, who
reckon all their comforts in this world buried in the
rains of the sanctuary.
VI. Here is an importunate request to God for the
restoring of the poor captive Jews to their former
enjoyments again. The petition is very pressing,
for God gives us leave in prayer to wrestle with
him; “0 Lord, I beseech thee, v. 16. If ever thou
wilt do any thing for me, do this; it is my heart’s
desire and prayer, now therefore, 0 our God, hear
the prayer of thy servant, and his supplication, ( v .
17.) and grant an answer of peace to it.” Now
what are his petitions? What are his requests?
1. That God would turn away his wrath from
them; that is it which all the saints dread and de¬
precate more than any thing; O let thine anger be
turned away from thy Jerusalem, thy holy moun¬
tain, v. 16. He does not pray for the turning again
of their captivity; (let the Lord do with them as
seems good in his eves;) but they pray first for the
turning away of God’s wrath. Take away the
cause, and the effect will cease.
2. That he would lift up the light of his counte¬
nance upon them ; (y. 17.) Cause thy face to shine
upon thy sanctuary that is desolate, return in mercy
to us, and show that thou art reconciled to us, and
then all shall be well. Note, The shining of God’s
face upon the desolations of the sanctuary, is all in
all towards the repair of it; and upon that founda¬
tion it must be rebuilt. If therefore its friends
would begin their work at the right end, they must
first be earnest with God in prayer for his favour,
and recommend his desolate sanctuary to his smiles;
Cause thy face to shine, and then we shall be saved,
Ps. lxxx. 3.
3. That he would forgive their sins, and then
hasten their deliverance; ( v . 19.) O Lord, hear; O
Lord, forgive. That the mercy prayed for may be
granted in mercy, let the sin that threatens to come
between us and it, be removed; “ 0 Lord, hearken
and do. Not hearken and speak only, but hearken
and do; do that for us which none else can; and that
speedily, defer not, 0 my God.” Now that he sees
the appointed day approaching, he could in faith
pray that God would make haste to them, and not
defer. David often prays, Make haste. O God, to
help me.
VII. Here are several pleas and arguments to en¬
force the petitions. God gives us leave not only to
pray, but to plead with him; which is not to move
him, (he himself knows what he will do,) but to
move ourselves, to excite our fervency, and encou¬
rage our faith.
1. They disdain a dependence upon any righteous¬
ness of their own; they pretend not to merit any
thing at God’s hand but wrath and the curse; (v. 18.)
“ XVe do not present our supplications before thee,
with hope to speed for our righteousnesses, as if we
were worthy to receive thy f ivour for any good in
us, or done by us, or could demand any thing as a
debt; we cannot insist upon our own justification, no,
though we were more righteous than we are; nay,
though we knew nothing amiss of ourselves, yet are
we not thereby justified, nor would we answer, but
we would make supplication to our Judge. ” Moses
had told Israel long before, that, whatever God did
for them, it was not for their righteousness, Deut.
ix. 4, 5. And Ezekiel had of late told them that
their return out of Babylon would be not for their
sakes, Ezek. xxxvi. 22, 32. Note, Whenever we
come to God for mercy, we must lay aside all con¬
ceit of, and confidence in, our own righteousness.
2. They take their encouragement in prayer
from God only; as knowing that his reasons of
mercy are fetched from within himself, and there¬
fore from him we must borrow all our pleas for
mercy, and so give honour to him when we are
suing for grace and mercy from him.
(1.) “Do it for thine own sake, ( v . 19.) for the
accomplishment of thine own counsel, the perform¬
ance of thine own promise, and the manifestation of
thine own glory. ” Note, God will do his own work,
not only in his own way and time, but for his own
sake, and so we must take it.
(2.) “Do it for the Lord’s sake, for the Lord
Christ’s sake;” for the sake of the Messiah pro¬
mised, who is the Lord; so the most and best of our
Christian interpreters understand it. For the sake
of Adonai, so David called the Messiah, (Ps. cx. 1.)
and mercy is prayed for, for the church, for the sake
of the Son of man, (Ps. lxxx. 17.) and for thy
Word’s sake, 2 Sam. vii. 21. Note, Christ is the
Lord, he is Lord of all. It is for his sake that God
causes his face to shine upon sinners, when they re-
t, and turn to him; because of the satisfaction he
made. In all our prayers, that therefore must
be our plea, we must make mention of his righte¬
ousness, even of his only, Ps. lxxi. 16. Look upon
the face of the Anointed. He has himself directed
us to ask in his name.
(3.) “Do it according to all thy righteousness;
(v. 16.) plead for us against our persecutors and op¬
pressors, according to thy righteousness. Though
we are ourselves unrighteous before God, yet with
reference to them we have a righteous cause, which
we leave it with the righteous God to appear in the
defence of.” Or, rather, by the righteousness of
God here is meant his faithfulness to his promise.
God had, according to his righteousness, executed
the threatening; ( v . 11.) “Now, Lord, wilt thou
85 5
DANIEL, IX.
not do according to all thy righteousness? Wilt thou
not be as true to thy promise as thou hast been to
thy threatenings, and accomplish them also?”
(4. ) “ Do it Jor thy great mercies, (v. 18. ) to make
it to appear that thou art a merciful God. ” The
good things we ask of God we call mercies, because
we expect them purely from God’s mercy. And
because misery is the proper .object of mercy, the
prophet here spreads the deplorable condition of
the church before God, as it were to move his com¬
passion; “ Open thine eyes, and behold our desola¬
tions, especially the desolations of the sanctuary.
O look with pity upon a pitiable case.” Note, The
desolations of the church must in prayer be laid
before God, and then left with him.
(5.) “ Do it for the sake of the relation we stand
in to them. The sanctuary that is desolate, is thy
sanctuary, (u. 17.) dedicated to thine honour, em¬
ployed iri thy service, and the place of thy residence;
Jerusalem is thy city and thy holy mountain, (r>.
16.) it is the city which is called by thy name,” v. 18.
(It was the city which God had chosen out of all the
tribes of Israel, to put his name there. ) “1 he peo¬
ple that are become a reproach, are thy people, and
thy name suffers in the reproach cast upon them;
(v. 16.) they are called by thy name, v. 19. Lord,
thou hast a property in them, and therefore art in¬
terested in their interests; wilt thou not provide for
thine own, for those of thine own house? They are
thine, save them,” Ps. cxix. 94.
20. And while I was speaking, and pray¬
ing, and confessing my sin and the sin of
my people Israel, and presenting my sup¬
plication before the Lord my God for the
holy mountain of my God ; 21. Yea, while
1 was speaking in prayer, even the man
Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at
the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly,
touched me about the time of the evening
oblation. 22. And he informed me, and
talked with me, and said, O Daniel, I am
now come forth to give thee skill and under¬
standing. 23. At the beginning of thy sup¬
plications the commandment came forth,
and I am come to shew thee; for thou art
greatly beloved: therefore understand the
matter, and consider the vision. 24. Seventy
weeks are determined upon thy people and
upon thy holy city, to finish the transgres¬
sion, and to make an end of sins, and to
make reconciliation for iniquity, and to
bring in everlasting righteousness, and to
seal up the vision and prophecy, and to
anoint the Most Holy. 25. Know, there¬
fore, and understand, that from the going
forth of the commandment to restore and
to build Jerusalem, unto tbe Messiah the
Prince, shall be seven weeks, and threescore
and two weeks: the street shall be built
again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
26. And after threescore and two weeks
shall Messiah be cut off, but not for him¬
self: and the people of the prince that shall
come shall destroy the city and the sanc¬
tuary; and the end thereof shall be with a
Hood, and unto the end of the war desola¬
tions are determined. 2'. And he slial
confirm the covenant with many for one
week : and in the midst of the week he shall
cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease,
and for the overspreading of abominations
he shall make it desolate, even until the
consummation, and that determined, shall
be poured upon the desolate.
We have here the answer that was immediately
sent to Daniel’s prayer, and it is a very memorable
one, as it contains the most illustrious prediction of
Christ and gospel-grace, that is extant in all the
Old Testament. If John Baptist was the morning
star, this was the day-break to the Sun of righteous¬
ness; the day-spring from on high.
Here is,
I. The time when this answer was given.
1. It was while Daniel was at prayer. This he
observed, and laid a strong emphasis upon; While
I was speaking, [y. 20. ) yea, while I was speaking
in prayer; (n. 21.) before he rose from his knees,
and while there was yet more which he intended to
say. He mentions the two heads he chiefly insisted
upon in prayer, and which perhaps he designed yet
further to enlarge upon. (1.) He was confessing
sin, and lamenting that; both my sin and the sin of
my people Israel. Daniel was a very great and
good man, and yet he finds sin of his own to confess
before God, and is ready to confess it. For there is
not a just man upon earth, that does good, and sins
not; nor that sins, and repents not; St. John puts
himself into the number of these who deceive them¬
selves, if they say that they have no sin, and who
therefore confess their sins, 1 John i. 8. Good men
find it an ease to their consciences, to pour out their
complaints before the Lord against themselves; and
that is confessing sin. He also confessed the sin
of his people, and bewailed that. Those who are
heartily concerned for the glory of God, the welfare
of the church, and the souls of men, will mourn for
the sins of others as well as for their own. (2.) He
was making supplication before the Lord his God,
and presenting it to him as an intercessor for Israel;
and in this prayer his concern was for the holy
mountain of his God, mount Zion. The desolations
of the sanctuary lay nearer his heart than those of
the city and the land; and the repair of that, and
the setting up of the public worship of the God of
Israel again, were what he had in view, in the de¬
liverance he was preparing for, more than the re¬
establishment of their civil interests. Now while
Daniel was thus employed, [1.] He had a grant
made him of the mercy he prayed for. Note, God
is very ready to hear prayer, and to give an answer
of peace. Now was fulfilled what God had spoken,
(Isa. lxv. 24.) While they are yet speaking, I will
hear. Daniel grew very fervent in prayer, and his
affections were very strong, i>. 18, 19. And while
he was speaking with such fervour and ardency,
the angel came to him with a gracious answer.
God is well pleased with lively devotions. We
cannot now expect that God should send us answers
to our prayer by angels, but if we pray with fer¬
vency for that which God has promised, we may
by faith take the promise as an immediate answer
to the prayer; for he is faithful that has promised.
[2. ] He had a discovery made him of a far greater
and more glorious redemption, which God would
work out for his church in the latter day. Note,
Those that would be brought acquainted with
Christ and his grace, must be much in prayer.
2. It was about the time of the evening oblation,
v. 21. The altar was in ruins, and there was no
oblation offered upon it, but, it should seem, the
354
DANIEL, IX.
pious Jews in their captivity were daily thoughtful
of the time when it should have been offered, and
at that hour were ready to weep at the remem¬
brance of it, and desired and hoped that their prayer
should be set forth before God as incense, and "the
lifting u/i of their hands, and their hearts with their
hands, should be acceptable in his sight as the even¬
ing sacrifice, Ps. cxli. 2. The evening oblation
was a type of the great sacrifice which Christ was
to offer in the evening of the world, and it was in the
virtue of that sacrifice, that Daniel’s prayer was ac¬
cepted, when he prayed for the Lord's sake; and
for the sake of that, this glorious discovery of re¬
deeming love was made to him; the Lamb oflened
the seals in the virtue of his own blood.
II. The messenger by whom this answer was
sent. It was not given him in a dream, or by a
voice from heaven, but, for the greater certainty
and solemnity of it, an angel was sent on purpose,
appearing in a human shape, to give this answer to
Daniel. Observe,
1. Who this angel, or messenger, was; it was the
man Gabriel. If Michael the archangel be, as
many suppose, no other than Jesus Christ, this Ga¬
briel is the only created angel that is named in scrip¬
ture. Gabriel signifies, the mighty one of God; for
the angels are great in /tower and might, 2 Pet. ii.
11. It was he whom I had seen in the vision at the
beginning. Daniel heard him called by his name,
and thence learned it; (Dan. viii. 16.) and though
then he trembled at his approach, yet he observed
him so carefully, that now he knew him again,
knew him to be the same that he had seen at the
beginning, and, being somewhat better acquainted
with him, was not now so terrified at the sight of
him as he had been at first. When this angel said
to Zacharias, I am Gabriel, (Luke i. 19.) he in¬
tended thereby to put him in mind of this notice
which he had given to Daniel of the Messiah’s com¬
ing, when it was at a distance, for the confirming
of Iris faith in the notice he was then about to give
of it as at the door.
2. The instructions which this messenger receiv¬
ed from the Father of lights to whom Daniel pray¬
ed; ( v . 23 .) At the beginning of thy su/i/ilications,
the word, the commandment, came forth from God.
Notice was given to the angels in heaven of this
counsel of God, which they were desirous to look
into; and orders given to Gabriel to go immediately,
and bring the notice of it to Daniel. By this it ap¬
pears that it was not any thing which Daniel said that
moved God, for the answer was given as he began
to pray; but God was well pleased with his serious,
solemn address to the duty, and, in token of that,
sent him this gracious message. Or, perhaps, it
was at the beginning of Daniel’s suflfllications, that
Cyrus’s word, or commandment, went forth to re¬
store and to build Jerusalem, that going forth spo¬
ken of, v. 25. The thing is done this vert/ day; the
proclamation of liberty to the Jews is signed this
morning, just then when thou wast praying for it;
and now, at the close of this fast-day, Daniel has
notice of it; as, at the close of the day of atonement,
the jubilee-trumpet sounded to proclaim liberty.
3. The h'^ste he made to deliver his message; He
was caused to fly swiftly, v. 21. Angels are winged
messengers, quick in their motions, and delay not to
execute the orders they receive; they run and rt
turn like a flash of lightning, Ezek. i. 14. But, it
should seem, sometimes they are more expeditious
than at other times, and make a quicker despatch;
as here, the angel was caused to fly swiftly, he was
ordered, and he was enabled, to fly swiftly; angels
do their work in obedience to divine command, and
in dependence upon divine strength. Though they
excel in wisdom, they fly swifter or slower as God
directs; and though they excel in flower, they fly
but as God causes them to fly. Angels themselves
are to us what he makes them to be; they are his
ministers, and do his flleasure. Ps. ciii. 21.
4. The prefaces, or introductions, to his message.
(1.) He touched him, (v. 21.) as before, ( ch .
viii. 18.) not to awaken him out of sleep, aa then,
but to give him a hint to break off his prayer, and
to attend to that which he has to say in answer to it.
Note, In order to the keeping up of our communion
with God, we must not only be forward to sfleak to
God, but as forward to hear what he has to say to
us; when we have prayed, we must look ufl, must
look after our prayers, must set ourselves uflon our
watch-tower.
(2.) He talked with him, (v. 22.) talked fami¬
liarly with him, as one friend talks with another,
that his terror might not make him afraid. He in¬
formed him on what errand he came, that he was sent
from heaven on purpose with a kind message to him ;
“ lam come to show thee, (v. 23.) to tell thee that
which thou didst not know before.” He had show¬
ed him the troubles of the church under Antiochus,
and the period of those troubles, (ch. viii. 19.) but
now he has greater things to show him; for he that
is faithful in a little, shall be intrusted with more;
“ Nay, I am now come forth to give tliee skill and
understanding, (r. 22.) not only to show thee these
things, but to make thee understand them.
(3.) He assures him that he was a favourite (f
Heaven, else he had not had this intelligence sent
him, and he must take it for a f ivour; lam come to
show thee, for thou art greatly beloved. Thou art
a man of great desires; acceptable to God, and
whom he has a favour for. Note, Though God
loves all his children, yet there are some that are
more than the rest greatly beloved. Christ had one
disciple that lay in his bosom ; and that beloved dis-
ciflle was he that was intrusted with the prophetical
visions of the New Testament, as Daniel was with
those of the Old. For what greater token can there
be of God’s favour to any man than for the secrets
of the Lord to be with him? Abraham is the friend
of God; and therefore, Shall I hide from Abraham
that thing which I do? Gen. xviii. 17. Note,
Those may reckon themselves greatly beloved of
God, to whom, and in whom, he reveals his Son.
Some observe that the title which this angel Gabriel
gives to the Virgin Mary, was much the same with
this which he here gives to Daniel, as if he designed
to put her in mind of it; Thou art highly favoured ,
as Daniel, greatly beloved.
(4.) He demands his serious attention to the dis
covery he was now about to make him; Therefor
understand the matter, and consider the vision, v. 23.
This intimates that it was a thing well worthy of
his regard, above any of the visions he had been be ¬
fore favoured with. Note, Those who would un¬
derstand the things of God, must consider them,
must apply their minds to them, ponder upon them,
and compare spiritual things with spiritual. The
reason why we are so much in the dark concerning
the revealed will of God, and mistake concerning it,
is want of consideration. This vision both requires
and deserves consideration.
III. The message itself; it was delivered with
great solemnity, received, no doubt, with great at¬
tention, and recorded with great exactness; but in
it, as is usual in prophecies, there are things dark,
and hard to be understood. Daniel, who understood
bv the book of the prophet Jeremiah the expiration
of the seventy years of the captivity, is now honour¬
ably employed to make known to the church an¬
other more glorious release, which that was but a
shadow of, at the end of another seventy, not years,
but weeks of years. He prayed over that prophecy,
and received this in answer to that prayer. He had
prayed for his fleoflle, and the holy city, that they
855
DANIEL, IX.
might be released, that it might be rebuilt; but God
answers him above what he teas able to ash or think.
God not onl)' grants, but outdoes, the desires of
them that fear him, Ps. xxi. 4.
1. The times here determined are somewhat hard
to be understood. In general, it is seventy weeks,
seventy times seven years, which makes just 490
years ; the great affairs that are yet to come con¬
cerning the people of Israel, and the city of Jerusa¬
lem, will lie within the compass of these years.
These years are thus described by weeks, (1.) In
conformity to the prophetical style, which is, for the
most part, abstruse, and out of the common road
of speaking, that the things foretold might not lie
too obvious. (2.) To put an honour upon the divi¬
sion of time into weeks, which is made purely by the
sabbath-day, and to signify that that should be per¬
petual. (3. ) With reference to the seventy years
of the captivity; as they had been so long kept out
of the possession of their own land, so, being now
restored to it, they should seven times as long be
kept in the possession of it. So much more does
God delight in showing mercy than in punishing.
The land hud enjoyed its sabbaths, in a melancholy
sense, seventy years, Lev. xxvi. 34. But now the
people of the Lord shall, in a comfortable sense, en¬
joy their sabbaths seven times seventy years, and in
them seventy sabbatical years, which make ten
jubilees. Such proportions are there in the dispo¬
sals of Providence, that we might see and admire
the wisdom of him who has determined the times be¬
fore a/i/iointed.
The difficulties that arise about these seventy
weeks, are,
[1.] Concerning the time when they commence,
and whence they are to be reckoned. They are
here dated from the going forth of the command¬
ment to restore and to build Jerusalem, v. 25. I
should most incline to understand this of the edict
of Cyrus, mentioned, Ezra i. 1. for by it the people
were restored; and though express mention be not
made there of the building of Jerusalem, yet that is
supposed in the building of the temple, and was
foretold to be done by Cyrus; (Isa. xliv. 28.) He
shall say to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built. That
was, both in prophecy and in history, the most fa¬
mous decree for the building of Jerusalem; nay, it
should seem, this going forth of the commandment,
(which may as well be meant of God’s command
concerning it as of Cyrus’s,) is the same with that
going forth of the commandment mentioned, v. 23.
which was at the beginning of Daniel’s supplica-
tions. And it looks very graceful, that the seventy
weeks should begin immediately upon the expira¬
tion of the seventy years. And there is nothing to
be objected against this, but that by this reckoning
the Persian monarchy, from the taking of Babylon
by Cyrus to Alexander’s conquest of Darius, lasted
about 130 years; whereas by the particular account
given of the reigns of the Persian emperors, it is
computed that it continued 230 years. So Thucy¬
dides, Xenophon, and others reckon. Those who
fix it to that first edict, set aside these computations
of the heathen historians as uncertain and not to be
relied upon. But others, willing to reconcile them,
begin the 490 years, not at the edict of Cyrus, (Ezra
i. 1.) but at the second edict for the building of Je¬
rusalem, issued out by Darius Nothus above 100
years after, mentioned, Ezra vi. Others fix on the
seventh year of Artaxerxes Mnemon, who sent
Ezra with a commission, Ezra vii. 8. — 12. The
learned Mr. Poole, in his Latin Synopsis, has a vast
and most elaborate collection of what has been said,
pro and con, concerning the different beginnings of
these weeks, with which the learned may entertain
themselves.
[2.] Concerning the period of them; and here
likewise interpreters are not agreed. Some make
them to end at the death of Christ, and think the
express words of this famous prophecy will warrant
us to conclude that from this very hour when Ga¬
briel spake to Daniel, at the time of the evening
oblation, to the hour when Christ died, which was
towards evening too, it was exactly 490 years; and I
am willing enough to be of that opinion. But others
think, because it is said that in the midst of the week,
the last of the seventy weeks, he shall cause the sa¬
crifice and the oblation to cease, they end three years
and a half after the death of Christ, when, the Jews
having rejected the gospel, the apostles turned to the
Gentiles. But they who make them to end precisely
at the death of Christ, read it thus, He shall make
strong the testament to the many; the last seven, oi
the last week, yea, half that seven, or half that
week, (namely, the latter half, the three years and
a half, which Christ spent in his public ministry,)
shall bring to an end sacrifice and oblation. Others
make these 490 years to end with the destruction of
Jerusalem, about thirty-seven years after the death
of Christ; because these seventy weeks are said to
be determined upon the people of the Jews, and the
holy city; and much is said concerning the destruc¬
tion of the city, and the sanctuary.
[3.] Concerning the division of them into seven
weeks, and sixty-two weeks, and one week; and the
reason of this is as hard to account for as any thing
else. In the first seven weeks, or forty-nine years,
the temple and city were built; and in the last single
week, Christ preached his gospel, by which the
Jewish economy was taken down, and the founda¬
tions laid of the gospel city and temple, which were
to be built upon the ruins of the former.
But, whatever uncertainty we may labour under
concerning the exact fixing of these times, there is
enough clear and certain to answer the two great
ends of determining them. First, It did serve then
to raise and support the expectations of believers.
There were general promises of the coming of the
Messiah made to the patriarchs; the preceding pro¬
phets had often spoken of him, as one that should
come, but never was the time fixed for his coming
until now. And though there might be so much
doubt concerning the date of this reckoning, that
they could not ascertain the time just to a year, yet
bv the light of this prophecy they were directed
about what time to expect him. And we find, ac¬
cordingly, that when Christ c.ame, he was general¬
ly looked for, as the Consolation of Israel, and re¬
demption in Jerusalem by him, Luke ii. 25, 38.
There were those that for this reason thought the
kingdom of God should immediately appear; (Luke
xix. 11.) and some think this was it that brought a
more than ordinary concourse of people to Jerusa¬
lem, Acts ii. 5. Secondly, It does save still to re¬
fute and silence the expectations of unbelievers,
who will not own that Jesus is he who should come,
but still look for another; this prediction silenced
them, and will condemn them, for reckon these
seventy weeks from which of the commandments
to build Jerusalem we please, it is certain that they
are expired above 1500 years ago; so that the Jews
are for ever without excuse, who will not own that
the Messiah is come, when they are gone so far be¬
yond their utmost reckoning for his coming. But
by this we are confirmed in our belief of the Mes¬
siah’s being come, and that our Jesus is he, that he
came just at the time prefixed, a time worthy to be
had in everlasting remembrance.
2. The events here foretold are more plain, and
easy to be understood, at least to us now. Observe
what is here foretold, (1.) Concerning the return of
the Jews now speedily to their own land, and their
settlement again there, which was the thing that
Daniel now principally prayed for; and yet it is but
856
DANIEL, IX.
briefly touched upon here in the answer to his
prayer. Let this be a comfort to the pious Jews,
that a commandment shall go forth to restore and
to build Jerusalem, v. 25. And the commandment
shall not be in vain; for though the times will be
very troublous, and this good work will meet with
great opposition, yet it shall be carried on, and
brought to perfection at last; the street shall be built
again, as spacious and splendid as ever it was; and
the walls even in troublous times. Note, As long
as we are here in this world, we must expect
troublous times, upon some account or other; even
then when we have joyous times, we must rejoice
with trembling; it is but a gleam, it is but a lucid
interval of peace and prosperity; the clouds will re¬
turn after the rain; when the Jews are restored in
triumph to their own land, yet there they must ex¬
pect troublous times, and prepare for them. But
this is our comfort, that God will carry on his own
work, will build up his Jerusalem, will beautify it,
will fortify it, even in troublous times: nay, the
troublousness of the times may bv the grace of God
contribute to the advancement of the church. The
more it is afflicted, the more it multiplies.
(2.) Concerning the Messiah and his undertaking.
The carnal Jews looked for a Messiah that should
deliver them from the Roman voke, and give them
temporal power and wealth. Whereas they were
here told, that the Messiah should come upon
another errand, purely spiritual, and upon the ac¬
count of which he should be the more welcome.
[1.] Christ came to take away sin, and to abolish
that. Sin had made a quarrel between God and
man, had alienated man from God, and provoked
God against man; that was it that put dishonour
upon God, and brought misery upon mankind, that
was the great mischief-maker. He that would do
God a real service, and man a real kindness, must
be the destruction of that. Christ undertakes to be
so, and for this purpose he is manifested to destroy
the works of the devil. He docs not say, to finish
your transgressions and your sins, but transgression
and sin in general, for he is the Propitiation not only
for our sins, that are Jews, but for the sins of the
whole world. He came, First, To finish transgres¬
sion; to restrain it; (so some;) to break the power
of it, to bruise the head of that serpent that had done
so much mischief ; to take away the usurped domin¬
ion of that tyrant, and to set up a kingdom of holi¬
ness and love in the hearts of men, upon the ruins of
Sitan’s kingdom there; that, where sin and death
h id reigned, righteousness and life through grace
might reign. When he died he said, It is finished;
sin has now had its death’s wound given it; like
S imsnn’s, Let me die with the Philistines; Animam-
quc in vulnere ponit — He inflicts the wound, and
dies. Secondly, To make an end of sin, to abolish
it, that it may not rise up in judgment against us, to
obtain the pardon of it, that it may not be our ruin;
to seal up sins, (so the margin reads it,) that they
may not appear or break out against us, to accuse
and condemn us. As when Christ cast the devil
into the bottomless pit, he set a seal upon him. Rev.
xx. 3. When sin is pardoned, it is sought for, and
not found, as that which is sealed up. Thirdly,
To make reconciliation for iniquity , as by a sacrifice
to justify the justice of God, and so to make peace,
and bring God and man together; not only as an
Arbitrator, or Referee, who only brings the contend¬
ing parties to a good understanding one of another,
but as a Surety, or Undertaker, for us. He is not
only the Peace-Maker, but the Peace. He is the
Atonement.
[2.] He came to bring in an everlasting right¬
eousness. God might justly have made an end of
the sin by making an end of the sinner; but Christ
found out another way, and so made an end of sin as
to save the sinner from it, by providing a righteous¬
ness for him. We are all guilty before God, and
shall be condemned as guilty, if we have n' t a
righteousness wherein to appear before him. Had
we stood, our innocency would have been our right¬
eousness, but, being fallen, we must have something
else to plead; and Christ has provided us a plea; the
merit of his sacrifice is our righteousness; with this
we answer all the demands of the law; Christ has
died, yea, rather, is riseti again. Thus Christ is the
Lord our Righteousness, for he is made of God to
us Righteousness, that we might be made the right¬
eousness of God in him. By faith we apply this to
ourselves, and plead it with God, and our faith is
imputed to us for righteousness', Rom. iv. 3, 5.
This is an everlasting righteousness for Christ, who
is our Righteousness, and the Prince of our peace is
the everlasting Father. It was from everlasting in
the counsels of it, and will be to everlasting in the
consequences of it. The application of it was from
the beginning, for Christ was the Lamb slain from
the foundation of the world; and will be to the end,
for he is able to save to the uttermost. It is of ever¬
lasting virtue, (Heb. x. 12.) it is the rock that fol¬
lows us to Canaan.
[3.] He came to seal up the vision and prophecy,
all the prophetical visions of the Old Testament,
which had reference to the Messiah; he sealed them
up, he accomplished them, answered to them to a
tittle; all things that were written in the law, the
prophets, and the psalms, concerning the Messiah,
were fulfilled in him; thus he confirmed the truth
of them as well as his own mission. He sealed thetn
up, he put an end to that method of God’s discover¬
ing his mind and will, and took another course by
completing the scripture-canon in the New Testa¬
ment, which is the more sure word of prophecy than
that by vision, 2 Pet. i. 19. Heb. i. 1.
[4.J He came to anoint the Most Holy, himself
the Holy One who was anointed, that is, appointed
to his work, and qualified for it by the Holy Ghost,
that oil of gladness which he received without mea¬
sure above his fellows; or, to anoint the gospel-
church, his spiritual temple, or holy place, to sanc¬
tify and cleanse it, and appropriate it to himself ;
(Eph. v. 26.) or, to consecrate for us a new and
living way into the holiest, by his own blood, (Heb.
x. 20.) as the sanctuary was anointed, Exod. xxx.
25, & c. He is called Messiah, (v. 25, 26.) which
signifies Christ; Anointed, (John i. 41.) because he
received the unction, both for himself and for all
that are his.
[5.] In order to all this, the Messiah must be cut
off, must die a violent death, and so be cut off from
the land of the living, as was foretold, Isa. liii. 8.
Hence, when Paul preaches the death of Christ, he
says that he preached nothing but what the prophets
said should come. Acts xxvi. 22, 23. And thus it
behoved Christ to suffer. He must be cut off, but
not for himself, not for any sin of his own; but, as
Caiaphas prophesied, he must die for the people —
in our stead, and for our good ; not forany advantage
of his own; the glory he purchased for himself was
no more than the glory he had before, John xvii. 4,
5. No, it was to atone for our sins, and to purchase
life for us, that he was cut off
[6.] He must confirm the covenant with many.
He shall introduce a new covenant between God and
man, a covenant of grace; since it was become im¬
possible for us to be saved by a covenant of inno¬
cence. This covenant he shall confirm by his doc¬
trine and miracles, bv his death and resurrection,
by the ordinances of Baptism and the Lord’s Sup¬
per, which are the seals of the New Testament, as¬
suring us that God is willing to accept of us upon
gospel-terms. His death made his testament of
force, and enabled us to claim what is bequeathed
857
DANIEL, X.
by it. He confirmed it to the many, to the common
people; the p >,>r were evangelized, when the rulers
and Pharisees believed not on him. Or, he con¬
firmed it with many, with the Gentile world. The
New Test iment was not (like the Old) confined to
theJewish church, hut was committed to all nations;
Christ gave his life a ransom for many.
[7.] He must cause the sacrifice and oblation to
cease; by offering himself a S icrifice onc.e for all he
shall put an end to all the Levitical sacrifices; shall
supersede them, and set them aside; when the Sub¬
stance is come, the shadows shall be done away.
He causes all the peace-offerings to cease, when he
has made peace by the blood of his cross, and by it
confirmed the covenant of peace and reconciliation.
By the preaching of his gospel to the world, with
which the apostles -were intrusted, he took men off
from expecting remission by the blood of bulls and
goats, and so caused the sacrifice and oblation to
cease. The apostle to the Hebrews shows what a
better priesthood, altar, and sacrifice, we have now
than they had under the law, as a reason why we
should hold fast our profession.
(3. ) Concerning the final destruction of Jerusalem,
and of the Jewish church and nation; and this fol¬
lows immediately upon the cutting off of the Mes¬
siah, not only bi cause it was the just punishment of
those that put him to death, which was the sin that
filled up the measure of their iniquity, and brought
ruin upon them, but because, as things were, it was
necessary to the perfecting of one of the great in¬
tentions of his death. He died to take away the
ceremonial law, quite to abolish that law of com¬
mandments, and to vacate the obligation of it. But
the Jews would not be persuaded to quit it, still they
kept it up with more zeal than ever, they would
hear no talk of parting with it, they stoned Stephen
(the first Christian martyr) for saving that Jesus
should change the customs which Moses delivered
them; (Acts vi. 14.) so that there was no way to
abolish the Mosaic economy but by destroying the
temple, and the holy city, and the Levitical priest¬
hood, and that whole nation which so incurably
doted on them ; this was effectually done in less than
forty years after the death of Christ, and it was a
desolation that could never be repaired to this day.
And this is it which is here largely foretold, that
the Jews who returned out of captivity might not be
overmuch lifted up with the rebuilding of their city
and temple, because in process of time they would
be finally destroyed, and not as now for seventy
years only, but might rather rejoice in hope of the
coming of the Messiah, and the setting up of his
spiritual kingdom in the world, which should never
be destroued. Now, [1.] It is here foretold that the
people of the prince that shall come, shall be the in¬
struments of this destruction, that is, the Homan ar¬
mies, belonging to a monarchy yet to come. Christ
is the Prince that shall come, and they are employed
by him in this service; they are his armies; (Matth.
xxii. 7. ) or, the Gentiles, who, though now strangers,
shall become the people of the Messiah, shall de¬
stroy the Jews. [2. ] That the destruction shall be
by war, and the end of that war should be this deso¬
lation determined. The wars of the Jews with the
Homans were by their own obstinacy made very
long and very bloody, and they issued at length in the
utter extirpation of that people. [3.] That the city
and sanctuary should in a particular manner be de¬
stroyed, andlaid quite waste. Titus, the Roman gen¬
eral would fain have saved the temple, but his soldiers
were so enraged against the Jews, that he could not
restrain them from burning it to the ground, that
this prophecy might be fulfilled. [4.] That all the
resistance that should be made to this destruction,
should be in vain ; The end of it shall be with a flood.
It shall be a deluge of destruction, like that which
Vof iv — 5 Q,
swept away the old world, and which there will be
no making head against. [5.] That hereby the
sacrifice and oblation should be made to cruse. And
it must needs cease, when the family of the priests
was so extirpated, and the genealogies of it were so
confounded, that (tluy say) there is no man in the
world that can prove himself of the seed of Aaron.
[6.] That there should be an overspreading of
abominations, a general corruption of the Jewish
nation, and an abounding of iniquity among them,
for which it should be made desolate, 1 Thess. ii. 16.
Or, it is rather to be understood of the armies of the
Romans, which were abominable to the Jews, they
could not endure them ; which overspread the nation,
and by which it was made desolate. For these are
the words which Christ refers to, Matth. xxiv. 15.
When ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spo¬
ken of by Daniel, stand in the holy place, then let them
which be in Judea, flee, which is explained, Luke
xxi. 20. When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed
with armies, then flee. [7.] That the desolation
should be total and final; He shall make it desolate,
even until the consummation ; he shall make it com¬
pletely desolate. It is a desolation determined, and
it will be accomplished to the utmost. And when
it was made desolate, it should seem, there is some¬
thing more determined, that is to be poured upon
the desolate; ( v . 27.) and what should that be but
the spirit of slumber, (Rom. xi. 8, 25.) that blind¬
ness which is happened to Israel, until the fulness of
the Gentiles shall come in ? And then all Israel
shall be saved.
CHAP. X.
This chapter and the two next (which conclude this book)
make up one entire vision and prophecy, which was com¬
municated to Daniel for the use of the church, not by
signs and figures, as before, (ch. vii. andviii.) but by ex¬
press words; and this was about two years after the
vision in the foregoing chapter. Daniel prayed daily,
but had a vision only noic and then. In this chapter,
we have some things introductory io the prophecy in the
eleventh chapter, the particular predictions, and ch. xii.
the conclusion of it. This chapter shows us, I. Daniel’s
solemn fasting and humiliation, before he had this vision,
v. 1 . . 3. II. A glorious appearance of the Son ol Goa
to him, and the deep impression it made upon him, v.
4 . . 9. III. The encouragement that was given him to
expect such a discovery of future events as should be
satisfactory and useful both to others and to himself ; and
that he should be enabled both to understand the mean¬
ing of this discovery, though difficult, and to bear up
under the lustre of it, though dazzling and dreadful v.
10.. 21.
1. TN the third year of Cyrus king of Per-
JL sia, a thing was revealed unto Da¬
niel, whose name was called Belteshaz-
zar; and the tiling was true, hut the time
appointed was long : and he understood the
thing, and had understanding of the vision.
2. In those days I Daniel was mourning
three full weeks. 3. 1 ate no pleasant bread,
neither came flesh nor wine in my mouth,
neither did I anoint myself at all, till three
whole weeks were fulfilled. 4. And in the
four and twentieth day of the first month, as
I was by the side of the great river, which
is Hiddekel; 5. Then I lifted up mine
eyes, and looked, and, behold, a certain man
clothed in linen, whose loins were girded
with fine gold of Uphaz : 6. His body also
teas like the beryl, and his face as the ap¬
pearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps
358
DANIEL, X.
of fire, and his arms ancl his feet like in
colour to polished brass, and the voice of his
words like the voice of a multitude. 7. And
T Daniel alone saw the vision : for the men
that were with me saw not the vision ; but
a great quaking fell upon them, so that they
fled to hide tlienfiselves. 8. Therefore I
was left alone, and saw this great vision,
and there remained no strength in me : for
my comeliness was turned in me into cor¬
ruption, and I retained no strength. 9. Yet
heard I the voice of his words : and when I
heard the voice of his words, then was I in
a deep sleep on my face, and my face to¬
ward the ground.
This vision is dated in the third year of Cyrus,
th t is, of his feign, after the conquest of Babylon,
his third year since Daniel became acquainted with
him, and a subject to him.
Here is, 1. A general idea of this prophecy; (v. 1.)
The thing was true; every word of God is so; it was
true that 6 miel had such a vision, and that such
and such things were said, this he solemnly at¬
tests upon the word of a prophet; JEt hoc pa-
ratus est verificare — He was prepared to verify
it; and if it was a word s/ioken from heaven, no
doubt it is steadfast, and may be depended upon.
But the time a/ifiointed teas long; as long as to the
end of the reign of Antiochus, which was 300 years,
a long time indeed, when it is looked upon as to
come. Nay, and because it is usual with the pro¬
phets to glance at things spiritual and eternal, there
is that in this prophecy, which looks in type as far
forward as to the end of the world, and the resur¬
rection of the dead; and then he might well say,
The time appointed was long; it was, however,
m ule as plain to him as if it had been a history ra¬
ther than a prophecy; he understood the thing; so
distinctly was it delivered to him, and received by
him, that he could say he had understanding of the
vision: it did not so much operate upon his fancy as
upon his understanding.
2. An account of Daniel’s mortification of himself
before lie had this vision; not in expectation of it,
nor, when he prayed that solemn prayer, ch. ix.
does it appear that he had any expectation of the
vision in answer to it; but purely from, a principle
of devotion, and pious sympathy with the afflicted
people of God. He was mourning full three weeks,
(f. 2.) for his own sins, and the sins of his people,
and their sorrows. Some think that the particular
occasion of his mourning was, the slothfulness and
indifference of many of the Jews, who, though they
had liberty to return to their own land, continued
still in the land of their captivity, not knowing how
to value the privileges offered them ; and perhaps
it troubled him the more, because they that did so
justified themselves by the example of Daniel,
though they had not that reason to stay behind
which he had. Others think that it was because he
heard of the obstruction given to the building of the
temple by the enemies of the Jews, who hired coun¬
sellors against them, to frustrate their purpose,
(Ezra iv. 4, 5.) all the days of Cyrus, and gained
their point from his son Cambyses, or Artaxerxes,
who governed while Cyrus was absent in the Scy¬
thian war. Note, Good men cannot but mourn to
see how slowly the work of God goes on in the
world, and what opposition it meets with; how weak
its friends arc, and how active its enemies. During
the days of Daniel’s mourning, he ate no pleasant
bread; he could not live without meat, but he ate
little, and very sparingly, and mortified himself in
the quality, as well as the quantity, of what lie ate,
which may truly be reckoned fasting, and a token
of humiliation and sorrow. He did not eat the plea
sant bread he used to eat, but that which was coarse
and unpalatable, which he would not be tempted to
eat any more of than was just necessary to support
nature. As ornaments, so delicacies, are very dis¬
agreeable to a day of humiliation. Daniel ate no
flesh, drank no wine, nor anointed himself, for these
three weeks’ time, v. 3. Though lie was now a
very old man, and might plead that the decay of his
nature required what was nourishing; though he
was a very great man, and might plead that, being
used to dainty meats, he could not be without them,
it would prejudice his health if he were, yet, when
it was both to testify and to assist his devotion, lie
could thus deny himself; be it noted, to the shame
of many young ordinary people who cannot per¬
suade themselves thus to deny themselves.
3. A description of that glorious Person whom
Daniel saw in vision; which, it is generally agreed,
could be no other than Christ himself, the eternal
Word; He was bv the side of the river Hiddekel,
(u. 4.) probably walking there, not for diversion,
but devotion and contemplation, as Isaac walked in
the field, to meditate; and, being a person of dis¬
tinction, he had his servants attending him at some
distance. There he looked up, and saw one Alan,
one alone, a certain Alan, even the Alan Christ Je¬
sus; it must be he, for he appears in the same re¬
semblance wherein he appeared to St. John in the
isle of Patmos, Rev. i. 13. — 15. His dress was
priestly, for he is the High Priest of our profession,
clothed in linen, as the High Priest himself was on
the day of atonement, that great day ; his loins were
girded (in St. John’s vision his paps were girded)
with a golden girdle, of the finest gold, that of
Uphaz, for every thing about Christ is the best in
its kind. The girding of the loins denotes his ready
and diligent application to his work, as his Father’s
Servant in the business of our redemption. His
shape was amiable, his body like the beryl, a pre¬
cious stone of a sky-colour; his countenance was
awful, and enough to strike a terror on the behold¬
ers, for his face was as the appearance of lightning,
which dazzles the eyes, both frightens and threat¬
ens; his eyes were bright and sparkling, as lamps
of fire; his arms and feet shone like polished brass,
v. 6. His voice was loud, and strong, and very
piercing, like the voice of a multitude. The Vox
Dei — Voice of God, can overpower the Vox popull
— Voice of the people. Thus glorious did Christ
appear, and it should engage us, (1.) To think
highly and honourably cf him. Now consider how
great this man is, and in all things let him have the
pre-eminence. (2.) To admire his condescension
for us and our salvation. Over all this splendour he
drew a vail, when he took upon him the form of a
servant, and emptied himself.
4. The wonderful influence that this appearance
had upon Daniel and his attendants, and the terror
that it struck upon him and them.
(1.) His attendants saw not the vision, it was not
fit that they should be honoured with the sight of it;
there is a divine revelation vouchsafed to all, from
converse with which none are excluded, who do
not exclude themselves; but such a vision must be
peculiar to Daniel, who was a favourite. Paul’s
companions were aware of the light, but saw no
man, Acts ix. 7. — xxii. 9. Note, It is the honour
of those who are beloved of God, that what is hid
from others is known, to them. Christ manifests
himself to them, but not to the world, John xiv. 22.
But though they saw not the visit n, they were seized
with an unaccountable trembling, either from the
voice they heard, or from some strange concussion
4
859
DANIEL, X.
or vibration, of the air they felt, so it was, that a
great quaking fell u/ion them, so that they fed to
hide themselves, probably among the willows that
grew by the river's side. Note, Many have a spirit
of bondage to fear, who never receive a s/iirit of
adoption, to whom Christ has been, and will be
never otherwise than, a Terror. Now the fright
that Daniel’s attendants were in, is a confirmation
of the truth of the vision; it could not be Daniel’s
fancy, or the product of a heated imagination of his
own, for it had a real, powerful, and strange effect
upon those about him.
(2.) He himself saw it, and saw it alone, but he
was not able to bear the sight of it. It not only daz¬
zled his eyes, but overwhelmed his spirit, so that
there remained no strength in him, v. 8. He said,
as Moses himself, I exceedingly fear and quake.
His spirits were all so employed, either in an in¬
tense speculation of the glory of this vision, or in
the fortifying of his heart against the terror of it, that
his body was left in a manner lifeless and spiritless;
he had no vigour in him, and was but one remove
from a dead carcase; he looked as pale as death,
his colour was gone, and his comeliness in him was
turned into corruption, and he retained no strength.
Note, The greatest and best of men cannot bear the
immediate discoveries of the divine glory; no man
can see it and live, it is next to death to see a
glimpse of it, as Daniel here; but glorified saints
see Christ as he is, and can bear the sight. But
though Daniel was thus dispirited with the vision
of Christ, yet he heard the voice of his words, and
knew what he said. Note, We must take heed lest
our reverence of God’s glory by which we should
be awakened to hear his voice, both in his word
and in his providence, should degenerate into such
a dread of him as will disable or indispose us to
hear it. It should seen! that when the vision of
Christ terrified Daniel, the voice of his words soon
pacified and composed him, silenced his fear, and
laid him to sleep in a holy security and serenity of
mind; It’hen I heard the voice of his words, I fell
into a slumber, a sweet slumber, on my face, and
my face toward the ground. When he saw the
vision, he threw himself prostrate into a posture of
the most humble adoration, and dropped asleep,
not as careless of what he heard and saw, but
charmed with it. Note, How dreadful soever
Christ may appear to those who are under convic¬
tions of sin, and in terror by reason of it, there is
enough in his word to quiet their spirits, and make
them easy, if they will but attend to it, and apply it.
10. And, behold, a hand touched me,
which set me upon my knees and upon the
palms of my hands: 11. And he said unto
me, O Daniel, a man greatly beloved, un¬
derstand the words that I speak unto thee,
and stand upright : for unto thee am I now
sent. And when he had spoken this word
unto me, I stood trembling. 12. Then said
he unto me, Fear not, Daniel; for from the
first day that thou didst set thy heart to un¬
derstand, and to chasten thyself before thy
God, thy words were heard, and I am come
for thy words. 1 3. But the prince of the
kingdom of Persia withstood me one and
twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the
chief princes, came to help me; and I re¬
mained there with the kings of Persia. 14.
Now I am come to make thee understand
what shall befall thy people in the latter
days: for yet the vision is for many days.
1 5. And when he had spoken such words
unto me, I set my face toward the ground,
and I became dumb. 16. And, behold,
one like the similitude of the sons of men
touched my lips: then 1 opened mv mouth
and spake, and said unto him that stood be¬
fore me, O my lord, by the vision my sor¬
rows are turned upon me, and I have re¬
tained no strength. 17. For how can the
servant of this my lord talk with this my
lord? for as for me, straightway there re¬
mained no strength in me, neither is there
breath left in me. 18. Then there came
again and touched me one like the ap¬
pearance of a man, and he strengthened
me, 19. And said, O man greatly beloved,
fear not; peace be unto thee; be strong, yea,
be strong. And when he had spoken unto
me, I was strengthened, and said, Let my
lord speak; for thou hast strengthened me.
20. Then said he, Knowest thou wherefore
I come unto thee ? and now will I return
to fight with the prince of Persia : and when
I am gone forth, lo, the prince of Grecia
shall come. 21. But I will shew thee that
which is noted in the scripture of truth: and
there is none that holdeth with me in these
things, but Michael your prince.
Much ado here is to bring Daniel to be able to
bear what Christ has to say to him; still we have
him in a fright, hardly and very slowly recovering
himself ; but is still answered and supported with
good words and comfortable words. Let us see
how Daniel is by degrees brought to himself and
gather up the several passages that are to the same
purpose.
I. Daniel is in a great consternation, and finds it
very difficult to get clear of it. The hand that
touched him, set him at first upon his knees, and
the palms of his hands, v. 10. Note, Strength and
comfort commonly come by degrees to those that
have been long cast down and disquieted; they are
first helped up a little, and then more, After two
days he will revive us, and then the third day he
will raise us up. And we must not despise the day
of small things, but be thankful for the beginnings
of mercy. Afterward he is helped up, but he stands
trembling, (y. 11.) for fear lest hqfidl again. Note
Before God gives strength and power unto his peo
pie, he makes them sensible of their own weakness.
I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day
of trouble, Hab. iii. 16.
But when, afterward, Daniel recovered so much
strength in his limbs, that he could stand steady,
yet he tells us, ( v . 15. ) that he set his face toward
the ground, ana became dumb; he was as a man
astonished, who knew not what to say, struck dumb
with admiration and fear, and is loath to enter into
discourse with one so far above him; he kept silence,
yea, even from good, till he had recollected h m-
self a little. Well, at length he recovered, not only
the use of his feet, but tbe use of his tongue; and
when he opened his mouth, {y. 16.) that which he
had to say was, to excuse his having been so long
silent, for really he durst not speak, lie could not
speak; “0 my lord,” (so, in great humility, ‘his
prophet calls the ..ngel, though the angels, in fie.it
ttbO DANIEL, X.
humility, called themselves fellow servants to the
prop 'iris, Rev. xxii. 9. ) “ by the visions my sorrows
are turned upon me; they break in upon me with
violence, the sense of my sinful, sorrowful state
turns upon me when I see thy purity and bright¬
ness.” Note, Man, who has lost his integrity, has
re ison to blush, and be ashamed of himself, when
he sees or considers the glory of the blessed angels
tint keep their integrity. “My sorrows turned
upon me, and I have retained no strength to resist
them, or bear up a head against them.” And
again, (d. 17. ) like one half dead with the fright,
he complains; “ As for me, straightway there re¬
mained no strength in me to receive these displays
of the divine glory, and these discoveries of the
divine will; nay, there is no breath left in me. Such
a deliquium did he suffer, that he could not draw
one breath after another, but panted and languished,
and was in a manner breathless. See how well it is
for us, that the treasure of divine revelation is put
into earthen vessels, that God speaks to us by men
like ourselves, and not by angels. Whatever we
may wish, in a peevish dislike of the method God
takes in dealing with us, it is certain that if we
were tried, we should all be of Israel’s mind at
mount Sinai, when they said to Moses, Speak thou
to us, and we will hear, but let not God speak to us
lest we die, Exod. xx. 19. If Daniel could not bear
it, how could we? Now this he insists upon as an
excuse for his irreverent silence, which otherwise
had been blame-worthv; How can the servant of
this my lord, talk with this my lord? v. 17. Note,
Whenever we enter into communion with God, it
becomes us to have a due sense of the vast distance
and disproportion that there are between us and
the holy angels, and of the infinite distance, and no
proportion at all, between us and the holy God, and
to acknowledge that we cannot order our speech by
reason of darkness. How shall we that are dust and
ashes, speak to the Lord of glory!
II. The blessed angel that was employed by
Christ to converse with him, gave him all the en¬
couragement and comfort that could be. It should
seem, it was not he whose glory he saw in vision,
(t>. 5, 6.) that here touched him, and talked with
him, that was Christ, but this seems to have been
the angel Gabriel, whom Christ had once before
ordered to instruct Daniel, ch. viii. 16. That glori¬
ous appearance (as that of the God of glory to Abra¬
ham, Acts vii. 2.) was to give authority unite, gain
attention, to what the angel should say. Christ
himself comforted John, when he in a like case fell
at his feet as dead; (Rev. i. 17.) but here he did it
by the angel, whom Daniel saw in a glory much in¬
ferior to that of the vision in the verses before; for
he was like the similitude of the sons of men, (v.
16.) one like the appear mce of a man, v. 18. When
he onlv appeared^ns he had done before, (ch. ix.
21.) we do not find that Daniel was put into any dis¬
order bv it, as he was by this vision; and therefore
he is here employed a third time with Daniel.
1. He lent him his hand to help him, touched him,
and set him upon his hands and knees, (t». 10.) els-
he had still lain grovelling; touched his lips, (v. 16.)
else he had been still dumb: again he touched him,
(v. 18.) and put strength into him, else he had still
been staggering and trembling. Note, The hand
of God’s power going along with the word of his
grace, is alone effectual to redress all our grievances,
and to rectify whatever is amiss in us. One touch
from heaven brings us to our knees, sets us on our
feet, opens our lips, and strengthens us; for it is
God that works on us, and works in us, both to will
end to do that which is good.
2. He assured him of the great favour that God
had for him; Thou art a man greatly beloved, v. 1 1.
And again, ( v . 19.) O man greatly beloved. Note,
Nothing is more likely, nothing more effectual, to
revive the drooping spirits of the s lints than to be
assured of God’s love to them. Those are greatly
beloved indeed, whom God loves; and it is comfort
enough to know it.
3. Heisilenced his fears, and encouraged his hopes,
with good words and comfortable words. He said
unto him, Fear not, Daniel, v. 12. And again, (t>.
19.) O man greatly beloved, fear not, peace be unto
thee; be strong, yea, be strong. Never did any
tender mother quiet her child, when any thing had
grieved or frightened it, with more compassion and
affection than the angel here quieted Daniel. Those
that are beloved of God, have no reason to be afraid
of any evil; peace is to them; God himself speaks
peace to them; and they ought, upon the warrant of
that, to speak peace to themselves; and that peace,
that joy of the Lord, will be their strength. Will
God plead against us with his great power, will he
take the advantage against us of our being overcome
by his terror? JVb, but he will put strength into us,
Job xxiii. 6. So he did into Daniel here, when, by
reason of the lustre of the vision, no strength of his
own remained in him; and he acknowledges it, ( v .
19.) When he had spoken to me, I was strengthened.
Note, God by his word puts life, and strength, and
spirit into his people; for if he says. Be strong, power
goes along with the word. And now that Daniel has
experienced the efficacy of God’s strengthening word
and grace, he is ready for any thing ; “JVow, let my
lord speak, and I can hear it, and I can bear it, and am
ready to do according to it, for thou hast strength¬
ened me.” Note, To those that (like Daniel here)
have no might, God increases strength, Isa. xl. 29.
And we cannot keep up our communion with God
but by strength derived from him; but when he is
pleased to put strength into us, we must make a
good use of it, and say, Spehk, Lord, for thy servant
hears. Let God enable us to comply with his will,
and then, whatever it is, we will stand complete in it.
Da quod jubes, et jube quod vis — Give what thou
cornmandest, and then command what thou wilt.
4. He assures him that his fastings and prayers
were come up for a memorial before God, as the
angel told Cornelius, (Acts x. 4.) Fear not, Daniel,
v. 12. It is natural to fallen man to be afraid of an
extraordinary messenger from heaven, as dreading
to hear evil tidings thence ; but Daniel needs not
fear, for he has by his three weeks’ humiliation and
supplication sent extraordinary messengers to hea¬
ven, which he may expect to return with an olive-
branch of peace; “From the first day that thou
didst set thine heart to understand the word of God,
that is to be the rule of thv prayers, and to chasten
thyself before thy God, that thou mightest put ; n
edge upon thy prayers, thy words were heard;” as,
before, at the beginning of thy supplication, ch. ix.
23. Note, As the entrance of God’s word is en¬
lightening to the upright, so the entrance of their
prayers is pleasing to him, Ps. cxix. 130. From
the first day that we begin to look toward God in
a way of duty, he is ready to meet us in a way of
merev. Thus ready is God to hear prayer. I said,
I will con fess, and thou forgavest.
5. He tells him that he was sent to him on pur¬
pose to bring him a prediction of the future state of
the church, as a token of God’s accepting his pray¬
ers for the church; Knowest thou wherefore I come
unto thee? If thou knewest on what errand I o me,
thou wouldest not be put into such a consternation by
it. Note, If we rightly understand the meaning of
God’s dealings with us, and the methods of his
rovidence and grace concerning us, we should be
etter reconciled to them. Iam come for thy words,
(v. 12.) to bring thee a gracious answer to thv pray¬
ers; thus, when God’s praying people call to him,
he says, Here I am; (Isa. Iviii. 9 ) what would you
861
DANIEL, XI.
Iiave with me? See the power of prayer, what glo¬
rious things it has, in its time, fetched from heaven,
what strange discoveries l On what errand did this
angel come to Daniel? He tells him, ( v . 14.) I am
come to make thee understand what shall befall thy
fieo/ile in the latter days. Daniel was a curious, in¬
quisitive man, that had all his days been searching
into secret things, and it would be a great gratifica¬
tion to him to be let into the knowledge of tilings to
come. Daniel had always been concerned for the
church, its interests lay much upon his heart, and it
would be a particular satisfaction to him to know
what its state should be, and he would know the
better what to pray for as long as he lived. He was
now lamenting the difficulties which his people met
with in the present day; but that he might not be
offended in those, the angel must tell him what
greater difficulties are yet before them; and if they
be wearied, now that they only run with the foot¬
men, how will they contend with horses? Note, It
would abate our resentment of present troubles, to
consider that we know not but much greater are
before us, which we are concerned to provide for.
Daniel must be made to know what shall befall his
people in the latter days of the church, after the
cessation of prophecy, and when the time drew nigh
for the Messiah to appear, for yet the vision is for
many days; the principal things that this vision was
intended to give the church the foresight of, would
come to pass in the days of Antiochus, near 300 years
after this. Now, that which the angel is intrusted
to communicate to Daniel, and which Daniel is en¬
couraged to expect from him, is not any curious
speculations, moral prognostications, or rational
prospects of his own, though he is an angel, but what
lie has received from the Lord. It was the revela¬
tion of Jesus Christ, that the angel gave to St. John,
to be delivered to the churches. Rev. i. 1. So here,
( v . 21.) I will show thee what is written in the
scri/itures of truth, what is fixed in the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God. The decree of
God is a thing written, it is a scrifiture which re¬
mains, and cannot be altered; What I have written,
I have written. As there are scri/itures for the re¬
vealed will of God, the letters / latent which are
published to the world, so there are scri/itures for
the secret will of God, the close rolls which are
sealed among his treasures; the book of his decrees;
both are scri/itures of truth, nothing shall be added
to, or taken from, either of them. The secret things
belong not to us, only now and then some few para¬
graphs have been copied out from the book of God’s
counsels, and delivered to the prophets for the use
of the church, as here to Daniel; but they are the
things revealed, even the words of this law, which
belong to us, and to our children; and we are con¬
cerned to study what is written in these scri/itures
o f truth, for they are things which belong to our
everlasting /leace.
6. He gives him a general account of the adversa¬
ries of the church’s cause, from whom it might be
expected that troubles would arise; and of its pa¬
trons, under whose protection it might be assured of
safety and victory at last.
(1.) The kings of the earth are, and will be, its
adversaries ; for they set themselves against the
Lord, and against his Anointed, Ps. ii. 2. The angel
tells Daniel that he was to have come to him with
a gracious answer to his prayers, but that the firhice
of the kingdom of Persia withstood him one and
twenty days, just the three weeks that Daniel had
been fasting and praying. Camhyses king of Persia
had been very busy to embarrass the affairs of the
Jews, and to do them all the mischief he could, and
the angel had been all that time employed to coun¬
ter-work him; so that he had been constrained to
defer his visit to Daniel till now, for angels can be
but in one place at a time. Or, as Dr. T ightfi rt says.
This new king of Persia, by hindering the tempi.,
had hindered those good tidings which (.tin rwise > ■
should have brought him. The kings and kingdoms
of this world were indeed sometimes helpful to the
church, but more often they were injurious to it.
“ When I am goqie forth from the kings (f Persia,
when their monarchy is brought down for their un¬
kindnesses to the Jews, then the /irince of Grrc a
shall come,” v. 20. The Grecian monarchy, tin ugh
favourable to the Jews at first, as the Persian was, will
yet come to be vexatious to them; such is the state
of the church militant, when it is got clear of one
enemy, it has another to encounter; and such a
hydra's head is that of the old serpent ; when
one storm is blown over, it is not long before an¬
other rises.
(2.) The God of heaven is, and will be, its Pro¬
tector, and, under him, the angels of heaven its
patrons and guardians.
[1.] Here is the angel Gabriel busy in the service
of the church; m iking his part good in defence of it
twenty-one days, against the prince of Persia, and
remaining there with the kings of Persia, as counsel,
or liege-ambassador, to take care of the affairs of
the Jews in that court, and to do them service, v. 13.
And though much was done against them by the
kings of Persia, (God permitting it,) it is prob ible
that much more mischief would have been d< ne
them, and they would have been quite ruined, (wit¬
ness Haman’s plot,) if God had not prevented it by
the ministration of angels. Gabriel resolves, when
he has despatched this errand to Daniel, that he
will return to fight with the prince of Persia, will
continue to oppose him, and will at length humble
and bring down that proud monarchy, (y. 20.)
though he knows that another as mischievous, even
that of Grecia, will rise instead of it.
[2.] Here is Michael our Prince, the great Pro¬
tector of the church, and the Patron of its just but
injured cause. The first of the chief princes, v. 13.
Some understand it of a created angel, but an arch¬
angel of the highest order, 1 Thess. iv. 16. Jude 9.
Others think that Michael the archangel is no other
than Christ himself, the Angel of the covenant, and
the Lord of the angels, he whom Daniel saw in a
vision, v. 5. He came to help me; (i>. 13.) and
there is none but he that holds with me in these
things, v. 21. Christ is the church’s Prince; angels
are not, Heb. ii. 5. He presides in the affairs of the
church, and effectually provides for its good. He is
said to hold with the angels, for it is he that makes
them serviceable to the heirs of salvation; and if he
were not on the church’s side, its case were bad.
But, says David, and so says the church, The Lord
takes my part with them that help me, Ps. cxviii.
7. The Lord is with them that uphold my soul, Ps.
liv. 4.
CHAP. XI.
The angel Gabriel, in this chapter, performs his promise
made to Daniel in the foregoing chapter, that he would
shoiv him what should befall his people in the latter days,
according to that which was written in the scriptures of
faith : very particularly does he here foretell the succes¬
sion of the kings of Persia and Grecia, and the affairs of
their kingdoms, especially the mischief which Antiochu*
Epiphanes did in his time to the church, which was for.1?
told before, ch. viii. 11, 12. Here is, I. A brief predie
tion of the setting up of the Grecian monarchy upon the
ruins of the Persian monarchy, which was now newly
begun, v. 1 . .4. II. A prediction of the affairs of the
two kingdoms of Egypt and Syria, with reference to
each other, v. 5.. 20. III. Of the rise of Antiochus Epi¬
phanes, and his actions and successes, v. 21 . . 29. IV.
Of the great mischief lhat he should do to the Jewish
nation and religion, and his contempt of all religion, v.
30. . 39 V. Of his fall and ruin at last, when he is in
the heat of his pursuit, v. 40 . . 45.
862
DANIEL, XI.
1 . 4 LSO I, in the first year of Darius the
JVIede, even I, stood to confirm and
to strengthen him. 2. And now will I shew
thee the truth. Behold, there shall stand up
yet three kings in Persia; and the fourth shall
be far richer Than they all : and by his strength
through his riches he shall stir up all against
the realm of Grecia. 3. And a mighty king
shall stand up, that shall rule with great do¬
minion, and do according to his will. 4.
Anil when he shall stand up, his kingdom
shall be broken, and shall be divided toward
the four winds of heaven; and not to his
posterity, nor according to his dominion
which he ruled: for his kingdom shall be
plucked up, even for others besides those.
Here, 1. The angel Gabriel lets Daniel know the
good service he had done to the Jewish nation; (i>.
1.) “In the first year of Darius the Alede, who de¬
stroyed Babj ton, and released the Jews out of that
house of bondage, I stood a strength and fortress to
him, I was instrumental to protect him, and give
him success in his wars, and, after he had conquered
B ibvlon, to confirm him in his resolution to release
the Jews;” which, it is likely, met with much oppo¬
sition. Thus by the angel,' and at the request of
the matcher, the golden head was broken, and the
axe laid to the root of the tree. Note, We must ac¬
knowledge the hand of God in the strengthening of
those that are friends to the church for the service
they are to do it, and confirming them in their good
resolutions; herein he uses the ministry of angels
m ire than we are aware of. And the many in¬
stances we have known of God’s care of his church
formerly, encourage us to depend upon him in future
struts and difficulties.
2. He foretells the reign of four Persian kings;
(v. 2.) Plow I will tell the truth, the true meaning
of tire visions of the great image, and of the four
beasts, and expound in plain terms what was before
represented by dark types. [1.] There shall stand
up three kings in Persia, beside Darius, in whose
reign this prophecy is dated, ch. ix. 1. Mr. Brough¬
ton' makes these three to be Cyrus, Artaxasta, or
Artaxerxes, called by the Greeks Cambyses, and
Ahasueins that married Esther, called Darius, son
of Hystaspes. To these three the Persians gave these
attributes — Cyrus was a father, Cambyses a master,
and Dfirius a hoarder up. So Herodotus. (2.) There
shall be a fourth, far richer than they all, Xerxes,
of whose wealth the Greek authors take notice.
By his strength, his vast army, consisting of 800,000
men at least, and his riches, with which he main¬
tained and paid that vast army, he stirred up all
against the realm of Greece. Xerxes’s expedition
against Greece is famous in history, and his shame¬
ful defeat that he met with. He who, when he
went out, was the terror of Greece, in his return
was the scorn of Greece. Daniel needed not be told
what disappointment he would meet with, for he
was a hinderer of the building of the temple; but,
soon after, about thirty years after the first return
from captivity, Darius, a young king, revived the
building of the temple, owning the hand of God
against his predecessors for hindering it, Ezra vi. 7.
3. He foretells Alexander’s conquests, and the
partition of his kingdom, v. 3. He is that mighty
king that shall stand up against the kings of Persia,
and he shall ride with great dominion over many
kingdoms, and with a despotic power, for he shall
do according to his will, and undo likewise, which
by the law of the Medes and Persians, theii kings
could not. When Alexander, after he had con¬
quered Asia, would be worshipped as a god, thtn
this was fulfilled, that he shall do according to his
will. That is God’s prerogative, but was his pre¬
tension. But (v. 4.) his kingdom shall soon be
broken, and divided into four parts, but not to his
posterity; nor shall any of his successors reign ac¬
cording to his dominion; none of them shall have
such large territories, nor such an absolute power.
His kingdom was plucked up for others besides those
of his own family. Arideus, his brother, was made
king in Macedonia; Olympias, Alexander’s mother,
killed him, and poisoned Alexander’s two sons,
Hercules and Alexander; thus was his family rooted
out by its own hands. See what decaying, perish¬
ing things worldly pomp and possessions are; and
the powers by which they are got. Never was the
vanity of the world and its greatest things showed
more evidently than in the story of Alexander; all
is vanity and vexation of spirit.
5. And the king of the south shall be strong,
and one of his princes; and he shall be strong
above him, and have dominion; his dominion
shall be a great dominion. 6. And in the end
of years they shall join themselves together;
for the king’s daughter of the south shall
come to the king of the north to make an
agreement : but she shall not retain the power
of the arm; neither shall he stand, nor his
arm; but she shall be given up, and they
that brought her, and he that begat her, and
he that strengthened her in these times. 7.
But- out of a branch of her roots shall one
stand up in his estate, which shall come with
an army, and shall enter into the fortress of
the king of the north, and shall deal against
them, and shall prevail; 8. And shall also
carry captives into Egypt their gods, with
their princes, and with their precious vessels
of silver and of gold; and he shall continue
more years than the king of the north. 9. So
the king of the south shall come into his king¬
dom, and shall return into his own land.
1 0. But his sons shall be stirred up, and shall
assemble a multitude of great forces: and
one shall certainly come, and overflow, and
pass through ; then shall he return, and be
stirred up, even to his fortress. 1 1. And the
king of the south shall be moved with choler,
and shall come forth and fight with him,
even with the king of the north: and he shall
set forth a great multitude; but the multitude
shall be given into his hand. 12. And when
he hath taken away the multitude, his heart
shall be lifted up; and he shall cast dowr
many ten thousands: but he shall not be
strengthened by it. 13. For the king of the
north shall return, and shall set forth a mul¬
titude greater than the former, and shall cer¬
tainly come after certain years with a great
army and with much riches. 14. And in
those times there shall many stand up against
the king of the south : also the robbers of thy
people shall exalt themselves to establish
863
DANIEL, XT.
the vision; but they shail fall. 15. So the
king of the north shall come, and cast up a
mount, and take the most fenced cities; and
the arms of the south shall not withstand,
neither his chosen people, neither shall there
be any strength to withstand. 16. But he
that cometh against him shall do according
to his own will, and none shall stand before
him; and he shall stand in the glorious land,
which by his hand shall be consumed. 17.
He shall also set his face to enter with the
strength of his whole kingdom, and upright
ones with him; thus shall he do: and he
shall give him the daughter of women, cor¬
rupting her; but she shall not stand on his
side, neither be for him. 18. After this shall
he turn his face unto the isles, and shall
take many; but a prince for his own behalf
shall cause the reproach offered by him to
cease ; without his own reproach he shall
cause it to turn upon him. 19. Then he
shall turn his face toward the fort of his own
land: but be shall stumble and fall, and
not be found. 20. Then shall stand up in
his estate a raiser of taxes in the glory of
the kingdom: but within few days he shall
be destroyed, neither in anger nor in battle.
Here are foretold,
I. The rise and power of two great kingdoms out
of the remains of Alexander’s conquests, v. 5. 1.
The kingdom of Egypt, which was made consider¬
able by Ptolemasus Lagus, one of Alexander’s cap¬
tains, whose successors were from him called the
Lagidtz. He is called the king of the south, Egypt,
named here, v. 8, 42, 43. The countries that at
first belonged to Ptolemy, are reckoned to be Egypt,
Phoenicia, Arabia, Lvbia, Ethiopia, &c. Theocr.
Idyl. 17. 2. The kingdom of Syria, which was set
up by Seleucus Nicanor, or the conqueror; he was
one of Alexander’s princes, and became stronger
than the other, and had the greatest dominion of all,
was the most powerful of all Alexander’s successors;
it was said that he had no less than seventy-two
kingdoms under him. Both these were strong against
Judah; (the affairs of which are particularly eyed
in this prediction;) Ptolemy, soon after he gained
Egypt, invaded Judea, and took Jerusalem on a sab¬
bath, pretending a friendly visit. Seleucus also gave
disturbance to Judea.
II. The fruitless attempt to unite these two king¬
doms, as iron and clay in Nebuchadnezzar’s image;
(xi. 6.) At the end of certain years, about seventy
after Alexander’s death, the Lagidie and the Se-
leucidie shall associate, but not in sincerity. Ptolemy
Philadelphus, king of Egypt, shall marry his daugh¬
ter Berenice to Antiochus Theos, king of Syria,
who had already a wife called Laodice. Berenice
shall come to the king of the north, to make an
agreement, but it shall not hold; She shall not retain
the flower of the arm; neither she nor her posterity
shall establish themselves in the kingdom of the
north, neither shall Ptolemy her father, nor Anti-
nchus her husband, (betwixt whom there was to be
a great alliance,) stand, nor their arm, but she shall
be given ufi, and they that brought her, all that pro¬
jected that unhafifiy marriage between her and An-
tinchus, which occasioned so much mischief, instead
of producing a coalition between the northern and
southern crowns, as was hoped. Antiochus divorced
Berenice, took his former wife Laodice again, who
soon after poisoned him, procured Berenice and her
son to be murdered, and set up her own sen by An¬
tiochus, to be king, who was called Seleucus Calli
niciis.
III. A war between the two kingdoms; (v. 7, 8.)
a branch from the same root with Berenice shall
stand ufi in his estate. Ptolemtcus Evergetes, the
son and successor of Ptolemtcus Philadelphus, shah
come with an army against Seleucus Callinicus, king
of Syria, to avenge his sister’s quarrel, and shall
prevail. And he shall carry away a rich booty both
of persons and goods into Egypt; and shall continue
more years than the king of the north. This Pto¬
lemy reigned forty-six years; and Justin says that
if his own affairs had not called him home, he had,
in this war, made himself master of the whole king¬
dom of Syria. But ( v . 9.) he shall be forced to
come into his kingdom, and return into his own land,
to keep peace there, so that he can no longer carry
on the war abroad. Note, It is very common for a
treacherous peace to end in a bloody war.
IV. The long and busy reign of Antiochus the
Great, king of Syria. Seleucus Callinicus, that
king of the north, that was overcome, (v. 7.) and
died miserably, left two sons, Seleucus and Anti-
ochus; these are his sons, the sons of the king of the
north, that shall be stirred ufi, and shall assemble a
multitude of great forces, to recover what their fa¬
ther had lost, v. 10. But Seleucus the elder, being
weak, and unable to rule his army, was poisoned by
his friends, and reigned only two years; and his bro¬
ther Antiochus succeeded him, who reigned thirty-
seven years, and was called the Great. And there¬
fore the angel, though he speaks of sons at first,
goes on with the account of one only; who was out
fifteen years old when he began to reign, and he
shall certainly come, and overflow, and overrun,
and shall be restored at length to what his father lost.
1. The king of the south, in this war, shall at first
have very great success. Ptolemxus Philopater,
moved with indignation at the indignities done
by Antiochus the Great, shall (though otherwise a
slothful prince) come forth, and fight with him, and
shall bring a vast army into the field of 70,000 foot,
and 5,000 horse, and 73 elephants. And the other
multitude (the army of Antiochus, consisting of
62,000 foot, and 6,000 horse, and 102 elephants) shall
be given into his hand. Polybius, who lived with
Scipio, has given a particular account of this battle
of Raphia. Ptolenueus Philopater, having gained
this victory, grew very insolent; his heart was lifted
up, then he went into the temple of God at Jerusa¬
lem, and, in defiance of the law, entered the most
holy place; for which God has a controversy with
him, so that, though he shall cast down many myri¬
ads, yet he shall not be strengthened by it, so as to
secure his interest. For, 2. The king of the north,
Antiochus the Great, shall return with a greatet
army than the former; and, at the end of times,
that is, years, he shall come often with a mighty
army, and great riches, against the king of the south,
that is, Ptolemteus Epiphanes, who succeeded Ptole-
mteus Philopater his father, when he was a child,
which gave advantage to Antiochus the Great. In
this expedition, he hid some powerful allies; (t>.
14.) Many shall stand up against the king of the
south; Philip of Macedon was confederate with An¬
tiochus against the king of Egypt, and Scopas his
general, whom he sent into Syria; Antiochus routed
him, destroyed a great part of his army; where¬
upon the Jews willingly yielded to Antiochus, joined
with him, helped him to besiege Ptolemauis’s garri¬
sons; Then the robbers of thy people shall exalt
themselves to establish the vision, to help forward
the accomplishment of this prophecy; but they shall
364
DANIEL, XI.
fall, and shall come to nothing, v. 14. Hereupon,
(v. 15.) the king of the north, this same Antiochus
Magnus, shall carry on his design against the king
of the soutli another way. (1.) He shall surprise
his strong holds; all that he has got in Syria anil Sa¬
maria, and the arms of the south, all the power cf
the king of Egypt, shall not be able to withstand
him. See how dubious and variable the turns of the
scale of war are; like buying and- selling, it is win¬
ning and losing; sometimes one side gets the better,
and sometimes the other; yet neither by chance; it
is not, as they call it, the fortune of war, but ac¬
cording to the will and counsel of God, who brings
some low, and raises others up. (2. ) He shall make
himself master of the land of Judea; (v. 16.) He
that comes against him, that is, the king of the north,
shall carry all before him, and do what he pleases,
and he shall stand, and get footing, in the glorious
land; so the land of Israel was, and by his hand it
was wasted and consumed; for with the spoil of that
good land he victualled his vast army. The land
of Judea lay between these two potent kingdoms of
Egypt and Syria, so that in all the struggles between
them, that was sure to suffer; for to it they both
bore ill will. Yet some read this, By his hand it
shall be perfected; as if it intimated that the land of
Judea, being taken under the protection of this An¬
tiochus, shall flourish, and be in better condition
than it had been. (3.) He shall still push on his
war against the king of Egypt, and set his face to
enter with the strength of his whole kingdom, taking
advantage of the infancy of Ptolemy Epiphanes;
and the ufiright ones, many of the pious Israelites,
siding with him, v. 17. In prosecution of his de¬
sign, he shall give him his daughter Cleopatra to
wife; designing, as Saul in giving his daughter to
David, that she should be a snare to him, and do him
a mischief; but she shall not stand of her father's
side, nor be for him, but for her husband, and so
that plot failed him. (4.) His war with the Ro¬
mans is here foretold; ( v . 18.) He shall turn his
face to the isles, ( v . 18. ) the isles of the Gentiles,
(Gen. x. 5.) Greece and Italy. He took many of
the isles about the Hellespont — Rhodes, Samos,
Delos, &c. which by war or treaty he made himself
master of; but a prince, or state, (so some,) even
the Roman senate, or a leader, even the Roman ge¬
neral, shall return his refiroach with which he
abused the Romans, u/wn himself or shall make his
shame rest on himself; and, without his own shame,
or any disgrace to himself, shall pay him again.
This was fulfilled when the two Scipios were sent
with an army against Antiochus; Hannibal was then
with him, and advised him to invade Italy, and
waste it as he had done; but he did not take his ad¬
vice; and Scipio joined battle with him, and gave
him a total defeat, though Antiochus had 70,000
men, and the Romans but 30,000. Thus he caused
the refiroach offered by him to cease. (5. ) His fall.
When he was totally routed by the Romans, and
was forced to abandon to them all he had in Europe,
and had a very heavy tribute exacted from him, he
turned to his own land, and, not knowing which way
to raise money to pay his tribute, he plundered a
temple of Jupiter, which so incensed his own sub¬
jects against him, that they set upon him, and
killed him; so he was overthrown, and fell, and
was no more found, v. 19. (6.) His next successor,
v. 20. There rose up one in his place, a raiser of
tares, a sender forth of the extortioner, or extorter.
This character was remarkably answered in Se-
leucus Philopater, the elder son of Antiochus the
Great, who was a great oppressor of his own sub¬
jects, aud exacted abundance of money from them;
and when he was told he would thereby lose his
friends, he said, he knew no better friend he had
than money. He likewise attempted to rob the
temple at Jerusalem, which this seems especially to
refer to. But within a few days he shall be destroyed,
neither in anger, nor in battle, but poisoned by He-
liodorus, one of his own servants ; when he had
reigned but twelve years, and dune nothing re¬
markable.
From this let us learn, [1.] That God, in his pro¬
vidence, sets up one, and pulls down another, as he
pleases; advances some from low beginnings, and
depresses others that were very high. Some have
called great men the foot-balls of fortune ; or, ra¬
ther, they are the tools of Providence. [2.] This
world is full cf wars and fightings, which come
from men’s lusts, and make it a theatre of sin and
misery. [3.] All the changes and revolutions of
states and kingdoms, and every event, evtn the most
minute and contingent, were plainly and perfectly
foreseen by the God of heaven, and to him nothing
is new. [4.] No word of God shall fall to the
ground; but what he has designed, what he has de¬
clared, shall infallibly come to pass; and even the
sins of men shall be made to serve his purpose, and
contribute to the bringing of his counsels to birth
in their season; and yet God is not the Author of
sin. [5.] That, for tlie right understanding of some
parts of scripture, it is necessary that heathen au¬
thors be consulted, which give light to the scripture,
and show the accomplishment of what is there fore¬
told; we have therefore reason to bless God for the
human learning, with which many have dene great
service to divine truths.
21. And in his estate shall stand up a vile
person, to whom they shall not give the ho¬
nour of the kingdom: but he shall come in
peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flat¬
teries. 22. And with the arms of a flood
shall they be overflown from before him,
and shall be broken ; yea, also the prince of
the covenant. 23. And afler the league
made with him he shall work deceitfully :
for he shall come up, and shall become
strong with a small people. 24. He shall
enter peaceably even upon the fattest places
of the province ; and he shall do that which
his fathers have not done, nor his fathers'
fathers; he shall scatter among them the
prey, and spoil, and riches; yea , and he
shall forecast his devices against the strong
holds, even for a time. 25. And he shall
stir up his power and his courage against
the king of the south with a great army ;
and the king of the south shall be stirred
up to battle with a very great and mighty
army; but he shall not stand : for they shall
forecast devices against him. 26. Yea, they
that feed of the portion of his meat shall
destroy him, and his army shall overflow;
and many shall fall down slain. 27. And
both these kings’ hearts shall he to do mis¬
chief, and they shall speak lies at one table;
but it shall not prosper: for yet the end
shall he at the time appointed. 28. Then
shall he return into his land with great
riches; and his heart shall be against the
holy covenant ; and he shall do exploits and
return to his own land. 29. At the time
865
DANIEL, XL
appointed he shall return, and come toward
the south : but it shall not be as the former,
or as the latter. 30. For the ships of Chit-
tim shall come against him ; therefore he
shall be grieved, and return, and have in¬
dignation against the holy covenant : so
shall he do; he shall even return, and have
intelligence with them that forsake the holy
covenant. 31. And arms shall stand on his
part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary
of strength, and shall take away the daily
sacrifice , and they shall place the abomina¬
tion that maketh desolate. 32. And such
as do wickedly against the covenant, shall
he corrupt by flatteries: but the people that
do know their God shall be strong, and do
exploits. 33. And they that understand
among the people shall instruct many; yet
they shall fall by the sword, and by flame,
by captivity, and by spoil, many days. 34.
Now when they shall fall, they shall be
holpen with a little help : but many shall
cleave to them with flatteries. 35. And
some of them of understanding shall fall, to
try them, and to purge, and to make them
white, even to the time of the end : because
it is yet for a time appointed. 36. And the
king shall do according to his will ; and he
shall exalt himself, and magnify himself
above every god, and shall speak marvel¬
lous t Pings against the God of gods, and
shall prosper till the indignation be accom¬
plished: for that that is determined shall be
done. 37. Neither shall he regard the God
of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor
regard any god : for he shall magnify him¬
self above all. 38. But in his estate shall
he honour the God of forces; and a god
wh Jm his fathers knew not shall he honour
with gold, and silver, and with precious
stones, and pleasant things. 39. Thus shall
he do in the most strong holds with a strange
god, whom he shall acknowledge and in¬
crease with glory : and he shall cause them
to rule over many, and shall divide the land
for gain. 40. And at the time of the end
shall the king of the south push at him : and
the king of the north shall come against him
like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with
horsemen, and with many ships; and he
shall enter into the countries, and shall over¬
flow and pass over. 4 1 . He shall enter also
into the glorious land, and many countries
shall be overthrown : but these shall escape
out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and
the chief of the children of Ammon. 42.
He shall stretch forth his hand also upon
the countries ; and the land of Egypt shall
not escape. 43. But he shall have power
over the treasures of gold and of silver, and
Vol. iv. — 5 R
over all the precious things of Egypt : and
the Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at
his steps. 44. But tidings out of the east
and out of the north shall trouble him:
therefore he shall go forth with great fury
to destroy, and utterly to make away many.
45. And he shall plant the tabernacles of
his palace bet ween the seas in the glorious
holy mountain ; yet he shall come to his end,
and none shall help him.
All this is a prophecy of the reign of Antiochus
Epiphanes, the little horn spoken of before, [ch. viii.
9.) a sworn enemy to the Jewish religion, and a bit¬
ter persecutor of those that adhered to it. What
troubles the Jews met with in the reigns of the Per¬
sian kings, were not so particularly foretold to
Daniel as these; because then they had living pro¬
phets with them, Haggai and Zecharia, to encou¬
rage them; but these troubles in the days of Antio¬
chus were foretold, because, before that time,
prophecy would cease, and they would find it ne-
nessary to have recourse to the written word. Some
things in this prediction concerning Antiochus are
alluded to in the New Testament predictions of the
antichrist, especially v. 36, 37. And as it is usual
with the prophets, when they foretell the prosperity
of the Jewish church, to make use of such expressions
as were applicable to the kingdom of Christ, and
insensibly to slide into a prophecy of that, so, when
they foretell the troubles of the church, they make
use of such expressions as have a further reference
to the kingdom of the antichrist, the rise and ruin
of that.
Now concerning Antiochus, the angel foretells
here,
I. His character; He shall be a vile person. He
called himself Epiphanes — the illustrious, but his
character was the reverse of his surname. The
heathen writers describe him to be an odd-humour¬
ed man, rude and boisterous., base and sordid. He
would sometimes steal out of the court into the city,
and herd himself with any infamous company, in¬
cognito — in disguise; he made himself a companion
of the common sort, and of the basest strangers that
came to town. He had the most unaccountable
whims, so that some took him to be silly, others to
be mad. Hence he was called Epimanes — the mad
man. He is called a vile person, for he had been a
long time a hostage at Rome for the fidelity of his
father, when the Romans had subdued him; and it
was agreed that when the other hostages were ex¬
changed, he should continue a prisoner at large.
II. His accession to the crown. By a trick he got
his elder brother’s son, Demetrius, to be sent a
hostage to Rome, in exchange for him, contrary to
the cartel; and his elder brother being made awav
with by Heliodorus, (x>. 20.) he took the kingdom.
The states of Syria did not give it him, ( v . 21. ) be¬
cause the)- knew it belonged to his elder brother’s
son, nor did he get it by the sword, but came in
peaceably, pretending to reign for his brother’s
son, Demetrius, then a hostage at Rome. But with
the help of Eumenes and Attalus, neighbouring
princes, he gained an interest in the people, and by
flatteries obtained the kingdom, established himself
in it, and crushed Heliodorus, who made head
against him with the arms of a flood; they that op¬
posed him, were overflown and broken before him:
even the prince of the covenant, his nephew, the
rightful heir, whom he pretended to covenant with,
that he would resign to him whenever he should re
turn, -v. 22. But (v. 23.) after the league made
with him, he shall work deceitfully, as one whose
avowed maxirn it is, that princes ought not to be
b66
DANIEL, XI.
bound by their word any longer than it is for their
interest. And with a small fieo/ile, that at first
cleave to him, he shall become strong, and ( v . 24.)
he shall enter peaceably ufion the fattest places of
the kingdom of Syria, and, very unlike his prede¬
cessors, shall scatter among the people the prey,
and the spoil, and riches, to insinuate himself into
their affections; but at the same time, he shall fore¬
cast his devices against the strong holds, to make
himself master of them, so that his generosity shall
last but for a time; when he has got the garrisons into
his hands, he will scatter his spoil no more, but rule
by force; as those commonly do, that come in by
fraud. He that comes in like a fisc, reigns like a
lion. Some understand these verses of his first ex¬
edition into Egypt, when he came not as an enemy,
ut as a friend and guardian to the young king
Ptolemseus Philometer, and therefore brought with
him but few followers, yet those stout men, and
faithful to his interest, whom he placed in divers of
the strong holds in Egypt, thereby making himself
master of them.
III. His war with Egypt; which was his second
expedition thither. This is described, v. 25. — 27.
Antiochus shall stir up his power and courage
against Ptolemseus Philometer king of Egypt. Pto¬
lemy, thereupon, shall be stirred up to battle against
him, shall come against him with a very great and
mighty army; but Ptolemy, though he has such a
vast army, shall not be able to stand before him : for
Antiochus’s army shall overthrow his, and over¬
power it, and great multitudes of the Egyptian army
shall fall down slain. And no marvel, for the king
of Egypt shall be betrayed by his own counsellors;
they that feed of the portion of his meat, that eat of
his bread, and live upon him, being bribed bv An¬
tiochus, shall forecast devices against him, and even
they shall destroy him; and what fence is there
against such treachery? After the battle, a treaty
of peace shall be set on foot, and these two kings
shall meet at one council-board, to adjust the arti¬
cles of peace between them ; but they shall neither
of them be sincere in it, for they shall, in their pre¬
tences and promises of amity and friendship, lie to
one another, for their hearts shall be at the same
time to do one another all the mischief they can.
And then no marvel that it shall not prosper. The
peace shall not last; but the end of it shall be at the
time appointed in the Divine Providence, and then
the war shall break out again, as a sore that is only
skinned over.
IV. Another expedition against Egypt. From the
former he returned with great riches, {y. 28 J and
therefore took the first occasion to invade Egypt
again, at the time appointed by the Divine Provi¬
dence, two years after, in the eighth year of his
reign, v. 29. He shall come toward the south. But
this attempt shall not succeed, as the two former
did, nor shall he gain his point, as he had done be¬
fore once and again; for, (y. 30.) the ships of Chit-
tim shall come against him, that is, the navy of the
Romans, or only ambassadors from the Roman se¬
nate, who came in ships. Ptolemseus Philometer,
king of Egypt, being now in a strict alliance with
the Romans, craved their aid against Antiochus,
who had besieged him and his mother Cleopatra in
the city of Alexandria. The Roman senate, there¬
upon, sent an embassy to Antiochus, to command
him to raise the siege; which, when he desired
some time to consider of, and consult with his
friends about, Popilius, one of the ambassadors, with
his staff drew a circle about him, and told him, as
one having authority, he should give a positive an¬
swer before he came out of that circle; whereupon,
fearing the Roman power, he was forced immedi¬
ately to give orders for the raising of the siege,
and the retreat of his army out of Egypt. So Livy
and others relate the story which this prophecy re¬
fers to; He shall be grieved, and return; for it was
a great vexation to him to be forced to yield thus.
V. His rage and cruel practices against the Jews.
This is that part of his government, or mis-govern
ment rather, which is most enlarged upon in this
prediction. In his return from his expedition into
Egypt, (which is prophesied of, v. 28.) he did ex¬
ploits against the Jews, in the sixth year of his
reign; then he spoiled the city and temple; but the
most terrible storm was in his return from Egypt,
two years after, prophesied of, v. 30. Then he took
Judea in his way home; and because he could not
gain his point in Egypt by reason of the Romans in¬
terposing, he wreaked his revenge upon the poor
Jews, who gave him no provocation, but had greatly
provoked God to permit him to do it, Dan. viii. 23.
1. He had a rooted antipathy to the Jews’ reli¬
gion; His heart was against the holy covenant, v.
28. And {v. 30.) he had indignation against the
holy covenant; that covenant of peculiarity by which
the Jews were incorporated a people distinct from
all other nations, and dignified above them. He
hated the law of Moses and the worship of the true
God, and was vexed at the privileges of the Jewish
nation and the promises made to them. Note, That
which is the hope and joy of the people of God, is
the envy of their neighbours, and that is, the holy
covenant. Esau hated Jacob because he had got
the blessing. Those that are strangers to the cove¬
nant are often enemies to it.
3. He carried on his malicious designs against the
Jews by the assistance of some perfidious apostate
Jews. He kept up intelligence with them that for¬
sook the holy covenant, (y. 30.) some of the Jews,
that were false to their religion, and introduced the
customs of the heathen, with whom they made a
covenant. See the fulfilling of this, 1 Mac. i. 11. —
15. where it is expressly said concerning those re-
negado Jews, that they made themselves uncircum¬
cised, and forsook the holy covenant. We read (2
Mac. iv. 9.) of Jason, the brother of Onias the
High Priest, who by the appointment of Antiochus
set up a school at Jerusalem, firthe training up of
youth in the fashions of the heathen; and (2 Mac.
iv. 23, &c.) of Menelaus, who fell in with the inter¬
ests of Antiochus, and was the man that helped him
into Jerusalem, now in his last return from Egypt.
We read much in the book of the Maccabees of the
mischief done to the Jews by these treacherous men
of their own nation, Jason and Menelaus, and their
party. These upon all occasions he made use of ;
such as do wickedly against the covenant, such as
throw up their religion, and comply with the hea
then, he shall corrupt with flatteries, to harden
them in their apostacy, and to make use of them as
decoys to draw in others, v. 32. Note, It is not
strange if those who do not live up to their religion,
but in their conversations do wickedly against the
covenant, are easily corrupted by flatteries to quit
their religion. They that make shipwreck of a good
conscience, will soon make shipwreck of the faith.
3. He profaned the temple; Arms stand on his
part, (v. 31.) not only his own army which he now
brought from Egypt, but a great party of deserters
from the Jewish religion that joined with them; and
they polluted the sanctuary of strength, not only the
holy citv, but the temple. The story of this we
have, 1 Mac. i. 21, &c. He entered proudly into
the sanctuary, took away the golden altar, and tht
candlestick, See. And therefore (y. 25.) there was
a great mourning in Israel; the princes and t Iders
mourned. Sec. And (2 Mac. v. 15, &c.) Antiochus
went into the most holy temple, Menelaus, that
traitor to the laws, and to his own country, being his
guide. Antiochus, having resolved to bring all
about him to be of his religion, took away the daily
0G7
DANIEL, XI.
sacrifice, v. 31. Some observe that the word 7a-
midh, which signifies no more than daily, is only
here, and in the p irallel place, used for the daily
sacrifice, as if there were a designed liberty left to
supply it either with sacrifice, which1 was suppressed
by Antiochus, or with gospel-worship, which was
suppressed by the antichrist. Then he set ufi the
abomination of desolation u/ion the altar, (1 Mac.
i. 54.) even an idolater, (v. 59.) and called the tem¬
ple The temple of Jupiter Olympius, 2 Mac. vi. 2.
4. Hepersecuted those who retained their inte¬
grity. Though there are many who forsake the
covenant, and do wickedly against it, yet there is a
people who do know their God, and retain the
knowledge of him, and they shall be strong, arid do
exfiloits; (y. 32.) when others yield to the tyrant’s
demands, and surrender their consciences to his im¬
positions, they bravely keep their ground, resist the
temptation, and make the tyrant himself ashamed
of his attempt upon them. Good old Eleazar, one
of the firincifial scribes, when he had swine’s flesh
thrust into his mouth, bravely spit it out again,
though he knew he must be tormented to death for
so doing; and was so, 2 M ic. vi. 19. The mother
and her seven sons were put to death for adhering
to their religion, 2 M ic. vii. This might well be
called doing exfiloits; for to choose suffering rather
than sin, is a great exfiloit. And it was by faith,
by being strong in faith, that they did those ex¬
filoits; that they were tortured, not accefiting deli¬
verance, as the apostle speaks, probably with refer¬
ence to that story, Heb. xi. 35. Or, it may refer to
the military courage and achievements of Judas
M iccabxus, and others in opposition to them. Note,
The right knowledge of God is, and will be, the
strength of the soul, and, in the strength of that,
gracious souls do exfiloits. They that know his
name, will put their trust in him, and by that trust
will do great things.
Now concerning this people that knew their God,
we are here told, (1.) That they shall instruct
many, v. 33. They shall make it their business to
show others what they have learned themselves of
the difference between truth and falsehood, good and
evil. Note, They that have the knowledge of God
themselves, should communicate their knowledge
to those about them, and this spiritual charity must
be extensive; they must instruct many. Some un¬
derstand this of a society newly erected for the pro¬
pagating of divine knowledge, called Assideans,
godly men, Pietists, (so the name signifies,) that
were both knowing and zealous in the law; these
instructed many. Note, In times of persecution
and apostacy, which are trying times, those that
have Knowledge ought to make use of it for the
strengthening and establishing of others. They that
understand aright themselves, ought to do what
they can to bring others to understand; for know¬
ledge is a talent that must be traded with. Or, They
shall instruct many by their perseverance in their
duty, and their patient suffering for it. Good ex¬
amples instruct many, and with many are the most
powerful instructions. (2.) They shall fall by the
cruelty of Antiochus; shall be put to the torture,
and put to death, by his rage. Though they are so
excellent and intelligent themselves, and so useful
and serviceable to others, yet Antiochus shall show
them no mercy, but they shall fall for some days.
So it may be read, Rev. ii. 10. Thou shalt have
tribulation ten days. We read much, in the books
of the Maccabees, of Antiochus’s barbarous usage
of the pious Jews, how many he slew in wars, and
how many he murdered in cold blood. Women
were fiut to death for having their children circum¬
cised, and their infants were hanged about their
necks, 1 Mac. i. 60, 61. But why did God suffer
this? How can this be reconciled with the justice
and goodness of God? I answer, Very well, if we
consider what it was that God aimed at in this; (v.
35.) Some of them of understanding shall fall; but
it shall be for the good of the church, and for their
own spiritual benefit. It shall be to try them, and
to fiurge, and to make them white. They needed
these afflictions themselves; the best have their
spots, which must be washed off, their dross, which
must be purged out; and their troubles, particularly
their share in the fiublic troubles, help to do this;
being sanctified to them by the grace of God, they
are means of mortifying their corruptions, weaning
them from the world, and awakening them to
greater seriousness, and diligence in religion. They
try them, as silver in the furnace is refined from its
dross; they fiurge them, as wheat in the barn is win¬
nowed from the chaff ; and make them white, as cloth
by the fuller is cleared from its spots. See 1 Pet. i. 7.
Their sufferings for righteousness' sake would try
and fiurge the nation of the Jews, would convince
them of the truth, excellency, and power of that
holy religion which these understanding men died
for their adherence to. The blood of the martyrs is
the seed of the church; it is precious blood, and net
a drop of it should be shed but upon such a valuable
consideration. (3.) The cause of religion, though
it be thus run ufion, shall not be run down. When
they shall fall, they shall not be utterly cast down,
but they shall be holfien with a little helfi, v. 34.
Judas Maccabeus, and his brethren, and a few with
them, shall make head against the tyrant, and as¬
sert the injured cause of their religion; they fiulled
down the idolatrous altars, circumcised the children
that they found uncircumcised, recovered the law out
of the hand of the Gentiles, and the work firosfiered
in their hands, 1 Mac. ii. 45, &c. Note, Those
that stand by the cause of religion when it is threat¬
ened and struck at, though they may not immedi¬
ately be delivered, and made victorious, shall yet
have firesent helfi. And a little helfi must not be
desfiised; but when times are very bad, we must be
thankful for some reviving. It is likewise foretold
that many shalt cleave to them with flatteries; when
they see the Maccabees prosper, some Jews shall
join with them, that are no true friends to religion,
but will only pretend friendship, either with design
to betray them, or in hope to rise with them; but the
fiery trial, {v. 35.) will separate between the pre¬
cious and the vile, and by it they that are perfect
will be made manifest, and they that are not. (4.)
Though these troubles may continue long, yet they
will have an end; they are for a time appointed;
a limited time, fixed In the divine counsels; this
warfare shall be accomplished; hitherto the power
of the enemy shall come, and no further, here shall
its proud waves be staid.
5. He grew very proud, insolent, and profane,
and, being puffed up with the conquests, bade de¬
fiance to Heaven, and trampled upon every thing
that was sacred, v. 36, 8cc. And here some think
begins a prophecy of the antichrist, the papal king¬
dom. It is plain that St. Paul, in his prophecy of
the rise and reign of the man of sin, alludes to this
here, (2 Thess. ii. 4.) which shows that Antiochus
was a type and figure of that enemy, as Babylon also
was; but this being joined in a continued discourse
with the foregoing prophecies concerning Antiochus,
to me it seems probable that to him it principally
refers, and in him had its primary accomplishment,
and has reference to the other only by way of at
commodation.
(1.) He shall impiously dishonour the God of Is
rael, the only living and true God, called here the
God of gods. He shall, in defiance of him and his
authority, do according to his will against his people
and his holy religion; he shall exalt himself above
him, as Sennacherib did, and shall speak marvellous
868
(/lint's against him, and against his laws and institu¬
tions. This was fulfilled when Antiochus forbade
sacrifices to be offered in God’s temfile, and ordered
the sabbaths to be profaned, the sanctuary and the
holy fieople to be polluted, (S' c. to the end they might
forget the law, and change all the ordinances. And
this, upon pain of death, 1 Mac. i. 45.
(2. ) He shall proudly put contempt upon all other
gods; shall magnify himself above every god, even
the gods of the nations. Antiochus wrote to his own
kingdom, that every one should leave the gods he
had worshipped, and worship such as he ordered,
contrary to the practice of all the conquerors that
went before him; (1 Mac. i. 41, 42.) And all the
heathen agreed according to the commandment of
the king; fond as they were of their gods, they did
not think them worth suffering for, but, their gods
oeing idols, it was all alike to them what gods they
worshipped. Antiochus did not regard any god, but
magnified himself above all, v. 37. He was so
proud, that he thought himself above the condition
of a mortal man, that he could command the waves
of the sea, and reach to the stars of heaven, as his in¬
solence and haughtiness are expressed, 2 Mac. ix.
8, 10. Thus he carried all before him, till the in¬
dignation was accomplished, (u. 36.) till he had run
his length, and filled up the measure of his iniquity;
for that which is determined shall be done, and no¬
thing more, nothing short.
(3.) He shall, contrary to the way of the heathen,
disregard the god of his fathers, v. 37. Though an
affection to the religion of their ancestors was, among
the heathen, almost as natural to them as the desire
of women, (for if you search through the isles of
Chittim, you will not find an instance of a nrtfion that
has changed its gods, Jer. ii. 10, 11.) yet mitiochus
shall not regard the god of his fathers; he made
laws to abolish the religion of his country, and to
bring in the idols of the Greeks. And though his
predecessors had honoured the God of Israel, and
given great gifts to the temple at Jerusalem, (2 Mac.
iii. 2, 3.) he did the greatest indignities to God and
his temple. His not regarding the desire of women,
may bespeak either his barbarous cruelty, he shall
spare no age or sex, no, not the tender ones; or, his
unnatural lusts, or, in general, his contempt of every
thing which men of honour have a concern for: or,
it might be accomplished in something we meet not
with in history. Its being joined ta his not regarding
the god of his fathers, intimates that the idolatries
of his country had in them more of the gratifications
of the flesh than those of other countries; (Lucian
has written of the Syrian goddesses;) and yet that
would not prevail to keep him to them.
(4.) He shall set up an unknown god; a new god,
v. 38. In his estate, in the room of the god of his
fathers, (Apollo and Diana, deities of his pleasure,)
he shall honour the god of forces, a supposed deity
of power, a god whom his fathers knew not, nor
worshipped; because he will be thought in wisdom
and strength to excel his fathers, he shall honour
this god with gold, and silver and precious s tones,
thinking nothing too good for the god he had taken
a fancy to. This seems to be Jupiter Olympius;
known among the Phoenicians by the name of Baal-
Bemen, the lord of heaven, but never introduced
among the Syrians till Antiochus did it. Thus shall
he do in the most strong holds, in the temple of Je¬
rusalem, which is called the sanctuary of strength,
(v. 31.) and here the fortresses of munitions; there
he shall set up the image of this strange god. Some
read it, He shall commit the munitions of strength,
or of the most strong God, the city of Jerusalem, to
a strange god; he put it under the protection and
government of Jupiter Olympius. This god he
shall not only acknowledge, but shall increase with
glory, by setting his image even upon God’s altar.
:l, xi.
And he shall cause them that minister to this idol,
to rule over many, shall put them into places of
power and trust, and they shall divide the land for
gain, shall be maintained richly out of the profits of
the country. Some by the Mahuzzim, or god of
forces, that Antiochus shall worship, understand
money, which is said to answer all things, and
which is the great idol of worldly people.
Now here is very much that is applicable to the
man of sin; he exalts himself above all that is called
god, or that is worshipped; magnifies himself above
all: his flatterers call him our lord god the pope.
By forbidding marriage, and magnifying the single
life, he pretends not to regard the desire of women;
and honours th e god of forces, the god Mahuzzim,
or strong holds, saints and angels, whom his fol¬
lowers take for their protectors, as the heathen did
of old their. demons; these they make presidents of
several countries, &c. These they honour with
vast treasures dedicated to them, and therein the
learned Mr. Mede thinks that this prophecy was
fulfilled, and that it is referred to, 1 Tim. iv. ], 2.
VI. Here seems to be another expedition into
Egypt, or, at least, a struggle with Egypt. The
Romans had tied him up from invading Ptolemy,
but now that king of the south pushes at him, (v. 40. )
makes an attempt upon some of his territories;
whereupon Antiochus, the king of the north, comes
against him like a whirlwind, with incredible swift¬
ness and fury, with chariots, and horses, and many
ships, a great force; he shall come through coun¬
tries, and shall overflow and pass over; in this
flying march many countries shall be overthrown by
him; and he shall enter into the glorious land, the
land of Israel; it is the same word that is translated
the pleasant land, ch. viii. 9. He shall make dread¬
ful work among the nations thereabout; yet srme
shall escape his fury, particularly Edom and Meeh,
and the chief of the children of Ammon, v. 41. He
did not put these countries under contribution, be¬
cause they had joined with him against the Jews.
But especially the land of Egypt shall not esca/ie,
but he will quite beggar that, so bare will he strip
it. This some reckon his fourth and last expedition
against Egypt, in the tenth or eleventh year of his
reign, under pretence of assisting the younger bro¬
ther of Ptolemams Philometer against him. We
read not of any great slaughter made in this expedi¬
tion, but great plunder; for, it should seem, that
was it he came for; He shall have power over the
treasures of gold and silver, and all the precious
things of Egypt, v. 43. Polybius, in Athenteus,
relates, that Antiochus, having got together abun¬
dance of wealth, by spoiling young Philometer, and
breaking league with him, and by the contributions
of his friends, bestowed a vast deal upon a triumph,
in imitation of Paulus JEmilius; and describes the
extravagance of it; here we are told how he got
that money which he spent so profusely. Notice is
here taken likewise of the use he made of the Ly-
bians and Ethiopians, who bordered upon Egypt;
they were at his steps, he had them at his foot, had
them at his beck, and they made inroads upon Egypt
to serve him.
VII. Here is a prediction of the fall and ruin of
Antiochus; as before, (ch. viii. 25.) when he is in
the height of his honour, flushed with victory, and
laden with spoils, tidings out of the east, and out of
the north, (out of the north-east,) shall trouble him,
v. 44. Or, He shall have intelligence, both from
the eastern and northern parts, that the king of
Parthia is invading his kingdom. This obliged him
to drop the enterprizes he had in hand, and to go
against the Persians and Parthians that were revolt¬
ing from him; and this vexed him; for now he
thought utterly to have ruined and extirpated the
Jewish nation, when that expedition called him off
860
DANIEL, XII.
m which he perished. This is explained by a pas¬
sage in Tacitus, (though an impious one,) where he
commends Antiochus tor his attempt to take away
the superstition of the Jews , and bring in the man-
tiers of the Greeks among them, (ut terterrimam
genlem in melius mutaret — to meliorate an odious
nation,) and laments that he was hindered from ac¬
complishing it by the Parthian war. Now here is,
1. The last effort of his rage against the Jews;
when he finds himself perplexed and embarrassed
in his affairs, he shall go forth with great fury, to
destroy and utterly to make away many, v. 44.
The story of this we have, 1 Mac. iii. 27, 8cc.
What a rage Antiochus was in, when he heard of
the successes of Judas Maccabxus, and the orders
he gave to Lysias to destroy Jerusalem ! Then he
filanled the tabernacles of his palace, or tents of his
court, between the seas, between the Great sea and
the Dead sea. He set up his royal pavilion at Em-
maus, near Jerusalem, in token, that though he
could not be present himself, yet he gave full power
to his captains to prosecute the war aginst the Jews
with the utmost rigour. He placed his tent there,
as if he had taken possession of the glorious holy
mountain, and called it his own. Note, When im¬
piety grows very impudent, we may see its ruin near.
2. His exit; He shall come to his end, and none
shall help him, God shall cut him off in the midst of
his days, and none shall be able to prevent his fall.
This is the same with that which was foretold, ( ch .
viii. 25.) He shall be broken without hand; where
we took a view of his miserable end. Note, When
God’s time is come to bring proud oppressors to
their end, none shall be able to help them, nor per¬
haps inclined to help them; for those that covet to
be feared by all, when they are in their grandeur,
when they come to be in distress will find themselves
loved by none; none will lend them so much as a
hand, or a prayer, to help them; and if the Lord do
not help, who shall?
Of the kings that came after Antiochus, nothing
is here prophesied, for that was the most malicious,
mischievous enemy to the church, that was a type
of the son of perdition, whom the Lord shall con¬
sume with the breath of his mouth, and destroy
with the brightness of his coming, and none shall
help him.
CHAP. XII.
After the prediction of the troubles of the Jews under An¬
tiochus, prefiguring the troubles of the Christian church
under the antichristian power, we have here, I. Com¬
forts, and very precious ones, prescribed as cordials for
the support of God’s people in those times of trouble;
and they are such as may indifferently serve both for
those former times of trouble under Antiochus, and
those latter which were prefigured by them, v. I . . 4.
II. A conference between Christ and an angel, concern¬
ing the time of the continuance of these events, designed
for Daniel’s satisfaction, v. 5. .7. III. Daniel’s inquiry
for his own satisfaction, v. 8. And the answer he re¬
ceived to that inquiry, v. 9 . . 13.
1. A ND at that time shall Michael stand
1 jL up, the great prince which standeth
for the children of thy people; and there
shall be a time of trouble, such as never
was since there was a nation even to that
same time: and at that time thy people shall
be delivered, every one that shall be found
written in the book. 2. And many of them
that sleep in the dust of the earth shall
awake, some to everlasting life, and some to
shame and everlasting contempt. 3. And
they that be wise shall shine as the bright¬
ness of the firmament; and they that turn
many to righteousness, as the stars for ever
and ever. 4. But thou, O Daniel, shut u
the words, and seal the book, even to the
time of the end: many shall run to and fro
and knowledge shall be increased.
It is usual with the prophets, when they foretell
the grievances of the church, to furnish it at the
same time with proper antidotes; a remedy for
every malady. And no relief is so sovereign, of
such general application, so easily accommodated
to every case, and of such powerful efficacy', as
those that are fetched from Christ and the future
state; thence the comforts here are fetched.
1. Jesus Christ shall appear his church’s Patron
and Protector. At that time, when the persecutior
is at the hottest, Michael shall stand up, v. 1. The
angel had told Daniel what a fast friend Michael
was to the church, ch. x. 21. He all along showed
it in the upper world, the angels knew it; but now
Michael shall stand up in his providence, and work
deliverance for the Jews, when he sees that then-
power is gone, Deut. xxxii. 36. Christ is that great
Prince, for he is the Prince of the kings of the earth.
Rev. i. 5. And if he stand up for his church, who
can be against it? But this is not all; At that time,
soon after, Michael shall stand up for the working
out of our eternal salvation; the S n of God shall be
incarnate, shall be manifested to destroy the works
of the devil. Christ stood for the children of our
people, when he was made Sin and a Curse for
them, stood in their stead as a Sacrifice, bore the
curse for them, to bear it from them. He stands
for them in the intercession he ever lives to make
within the vail; stands up for them, and stands their
Friend. And after the destruction of antichrist,
of whom Antiochus was a type, Christ shall stand
at the latter day upon the earth, shall appear foi
the complete redemption of all his.
2. When Christ appears, he will recompense
tribulation to them that trouble his people. There
shall be a time of trouble, threatening to all, hut ruin¬
ing to all the implacable enemies of God’s kingdom
among men, such trouble as never was since there
was a nation. Which is applicable, (1.) To the
destruction of Jerusalem; which Christ calls (per¬
haps with an eye to this here) such a great tribula¬
tion as was not since the beginning of the world to
this time, Matth. xxiv. 21. This the angel had
spoken much of; ( ch . ix. 26, 27.) and it happened
about the same time, that Christ set up the gospel-
kingdom in the world, that Michael our Prince
stands up. Or, (2.) To the judgment of the great
day; that day that shall burn as an oven, and con¬
sume the proud, and all that do wickedly; that will
be such a day of trouble as never was, to all those
whom Michael our Prince stands against.
3. He will work salvation for his people; “At
that time thy people shall be delivered, delivered
from the mischief and ruin designed them by An¬
tiochus, even all those that were marked for pre¬
servation, that were written among the living,” Isa.
iv. 3. When Christ comes into the world, he will
save his spiritual Israel from sin and hell, and will,
at his second coming, complete their salvation, even
the salvation of as many as were given him, as many
as had their names in the book of life. Rev. xx. 15.
They were written there before the world, and will
be found written there at the end of the world,
when the book shall be opened.
4. There shall be a distinguishing resurrection of
them that sleep in the dust, v. 2. (1.) When God
works deliverance for his people from persecution,
it is a kind of resurrection; so the Jews’ release out
of Babylon was represented in vision, (Ezek.
xxxvii.) and so the deliverance of the Jews from
370
DANIEL, XII.
Antiochus, and other restorations of the church to
outward prosperity; they were as life from the
dead. Many of them who had long slept in the
dust of obscurity and calamity, shall then awake,
some to that life and honour and comfort which will
be lasting, everlasting, but to others, who, when
‘hey return to their prosperity, will return to their
iniquity, it will be a resurrection to shame and con¬
tempt, for the prosperity of fools will but expose
them and destroy them. (2. ) When, upon the ap¬
pearing of Michael our Prince, his gospel is preach¬
ed, many of them who sleep in the dust, both Jews
and Gentiles, shall be awakened by it, to take upon
them a profession of religion, and shall rise out of
their heathenism or Judaism; but since there will
oe always a mixture of hypocrites with true saints,
it is but some of them who are raised to life, to
whom the gospel is a savour of life unto life, but
others will be raised bv it to shame and contempt,
to whom the gospel of Christ will be a savour of
death unto death; and Christ himself set for their
fall. The net of the gospel encloses both good and
bad. But, (3.) It must be meant of the general re¬
surrection at the last day; The multitude of them
that sleep in the dust, shall awake, that is, all, which
shall be a great many. Or, Of them that sleep in the
dust, many shall arise to life, and many to shame.
The Jews themselves understand this of the resur¬
rection of the dead, at the end of time; and Christ
seems to have had an eye to it, when he speaks of
the resurrection of life, and the resurrection of
damnation; (John v. 29.) and upon this the Jews
are said by St. Paul to expect a resurrection of the
dead both of the just and of the unjust. Acts xxiv.
15. And nothing could come in more seasonably
here, for, under Antiochus’s persecution, some
basely betrayed their religion, others bravely ad¬
hered to it. Now it would be a trouble to them,
that, when the storm was over, they could neither
reward the one, nor punish the other; this therefore
would be a satisfaction to them, that they would both
be recompensed according to their works in the re¬
surrection. And the apostle, speaking of the pious
Jews that suffered martyrdom under Antiochus,
tells us, that though they were tortured, yet they
accepted not deliverance, because they hoped to ob¬
tain this better resurrection, Heb. xi. 35.
5. There shall be a glorious reward conferred on
those who, in the day of trouble and distress, being
themselves wise, did instruct many. Such were
taken particular notice of in the prophecy of the
persecution, ( ch . xi. 33.) that they should do emi¬
nent service, and yet should fall by the sword and
by flame; now if there were not another life after
this, they would be of all men most miserable; and
therefore we are here assured that they shall be re¬
compensed in the resurrection of the just; (v. 3.)
They that are wise, (that are teachers, so some read
it, for teachers have need of wisdom, and they that
have wisdom themselves, should communicate it to
others,) they shall thine as the brightness of the fir¬
mament, shall shine in glory, heavenly glory, the
glory of the upper world: and they that by the wis¬
dom they have, and the instructions they give, are
instrumental to turn any, especially to turn many,
to righteousness, shall shine as the stars for ever and
ever. Note, (1.) There is a glory reserved for all
the saints in the future state, for all that are wise,
wise for their sajls and eternity. A man’s wisdom
now makes his face to shine; (Eccles. viii. 1.) but
much more will it do so in that state where its power
shall be perfected, and its services rewarded. (2.)
The more good any do in this world, especially to
the souls of men, the greater will be their re¬
ward in the other world. They that turn men to
righteousness, that turn sinners from the errors of
: heir ways, and help to save their souls front death,
(Jam. v. 20.) will share in the glory of those they
have helped to heaven, which will be a great addi¬
tion to their own glory. (3.) Ministers of Christ,
who have obtained mercy of him to be faithful and
successful, and so are made burning and shining
lights in this world, and shall shine very bright in
the other world, shall shine as the stars. Christ is
the Sun, the Fountain of the lights, both of grace
and glory; ministers, as stars, shine in both, with a
light derived from him, and a diminutive light in
comparison of him; yet to them that are earthen
vessels it will be a glory infinitely transcending
their deserts. They shall shitie as the stars of differ¬
ent magnitudes, some in lesser, others in greater,
lustre; but whereas the day is coming when the
stars shall fall from heaven as leaves in autumn,
these stars shall shine for ever and ever, shall never
set, never be eclipsed.
6. That this prophecy of those times, though seal¬
ed up now, would be of great use to them that
should live then, v. 4. Daniel must now shut up
the words, and seal the book; because the time
would be long ere these things would be accomplish¬
ed: and it was some comfort that the Jewish nation,
though, in the infancy of their return from Babylon,
while they were few and weak, they met with ob¬
structions in their work, were not persecuted for
their religion till a long time after, when they were
grown to some strength and maturity. He must
seal the book, because it would not be understood,
and therefore would not be regarded, till the things
contained in it were accomplished; but he must
keep it safe, as a treasure of great value, laid up for
the ages to come, to whom it would be of great ser¬
vice; for many shall then run to and fro, and know¬
ledge shall be increased. Then this hid treasure
shall be opened, and many shall search into it, and
dig for the knowledge of it, as for silver. They
shall run to and fro, to inquire out copies of it, shall
collate them, and see that they be true and authen¬
tic; they shall read it over and over, shall meditate
upon it, and run it over in their minds; discurrent,
they shall discourse of it, and talk it over among
themselves, and compare notes about it, if by any
means they may sift out the meaning of it, and thus
knowledge shall be increased; by consulting this
prophecy on this occasion they shall be led to search
other scriptures, which shall contribute much to
their advancement in useful knowledge ; for then
shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord,
Hos. vi. 3. Those that would have their knowledge
increased, must take pains, must not sit still in
slothfulness and bare wishes, but run to and fro;
must make use of all the means of knowledge, and
improve all opportunities of getting their mistakes
rectified, their doubts resolved, and their acquain¬
tance with the things of God improved; to know
more, and to know better, what they do know. And
let us here see reason to hope that, (1.) Those
things of God, which are now dark and obscure,
will hereafter be made clear, and easy to be under¬
stood. Truth is the daughter of Time. Scripture-
prophecies will be expounded by the accomplish
ment of them; therefore they are given, and for that
explication they are reserved. Therefore they are
told us before, that when they do come to pass, we
may believe. (2.) Those things of God, which are
despised and neglected, and thrown by as ust less,
shall be brought into reputation, shall be found to
be of great service, and be brought into request; for
divine revelation, however slighted for a time, shall
be magnified and made honourable, and, above all,
in the judgment of the great day, when the books
shall be opened, and that book among the rest.
5.. Then I Daniel looked, and, behold
I there stood other two, the one on this sidf
871
DANIEL, XII.
of the bank of the river, and the othei1 on
that side of the bank of the river. 6. And
one said to the man clothed in linen, which
was upon the waters of the riVfer. How long
shall it be to the end of these wonders? 7.
And I heard the man clothed in linen,
which was upon the waters of the river,
when lie held up his right hand and his left
hand unto heaven, and sware by him that
liveth for ever, that it shall be for a time,
times, and a half; and when he shall have
accomplished to scatter the power of the
holy people, all these things shall be finish¬
ed. 8. And I heard, but I understood not;
then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the
end of these things? 9. And he said, Go thy
way, Daniel ; for the words are closed up
and sealed till the time of the end. 10.
Many shall be purified, and made white,
and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly:
and none of the wicked shall understand;
but the wise shall understand. 11. And
from the time that the daily sacrifice shall
be taken away, and the abomination that
maketh desolate set up, there shall be a
thousand two hundred and ninety days.
12. Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh
to the thousand three hundred and five and
thirty days. 13. But go thou thy way till
the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in
thy lot at the end of the days.
Daniel had been made to foresee the amazing re¬
volutions of states and kingdoms, as far as the Israel
of God was concerned in them; in them he foresaw
troublous times to the church, suffering, trying
times, the prospect of which much affected him,
and filled him with concern: now there were two
questions proper to be asked upon this head; When
snail the end be? And, What shall the end be?
These two questions are asked and answered here,
in the close of the book ; and though the comforts
prescribed in the foregoing verses, one would think,
were satisfactory enough, yet, for more abundant
satisfaction, this is added,
I. The question, When the end shall be? is asked
by an angel, v. 5, 6. Concerning this we may ob¬
serve,
X. Who it was that asked the question. Daniel
had had a vision of Christ in his glory, the Man
clothed in linen, ch. x. 5. But his discourse had
been with the angel Gabriel, and now he looks, and
behold, other two, (xi. 5.) two angels that he had not
seen before; one u/ion the bank of the river on
one side, "and the other on the other side, that, the
river being between them, they might not whisper
to one another, but what they said might be heard.
Christ stood on the waters of the river, (x>. 6.)
between the banks of Ulai; it was therefore proper
that tlie angels his attendants should stand on either
bank, that they might be ready to go one one way,
and the other the other way, as he should order
them. These angels appeared, (1.) To adorn the
vision, and make it the more illustrious; and to add
to the glory of the Son of man, Heb. i. 6. Daniel
had not seen them before, though it is probable that
they were there; but now when they began to
speak, he looked up, and saw them. Note, The
further we look into the things of God, and the
more we converse with them, the more we shall see
of those things, and still new discoveries will be
made to us; they that know much, if they improve
it, shall know more. (2.) To confirm the discovery,
that out of the mouth of two or three witnesses the
word might be established. Three angels appear¬
ed to Abraham. (3. ) To inform themselves, to hear
and ask questions; for the mysteries of God’s king¬
dom are things which the angels desire to look into,
(X Pet. i. 12.) and they are known to the church,
Eph. iii. 10. Now one of these two angels' said,
When shall the end be? Perhaps they both asked, first
one, and then the other, but Daniel heard only one.
2. To whom this question was put; to the man
clothed in linen, of whom we read before; {ch. x.
5.) to Christ our great High Priest, who was ufion
the waters of the river, and whose spokesman, or
interpreter, the angel Gabriel had all this while
been. This river was Hiddekel, {ch. x. 4.) the
same with Tigris, the place whereabout many
of the events prophesied of would happen; there
therefore is the scene laid. Hiddekel was men¬
tioned as one of the rivers that watered the garden
of Eden; (Gen, ii. 14.) fitly therefore does Christ
stand upon that river, for by him the trees in the
paradise of God are watered. Waters signify peo¬
ple, and so his standing upon the waters denotes his
dominion over all; he sits upon the flood, (Ps. xxix.
10.) he treads upon the waters of the sea. Job ix. 8.
And Christ, to show that this was he, in the days
of the flesh, walked upon the waters, Matth. xiv.
25. He was above the waters of the river; (so some
read it;! he appeared in the air over the river.
3. What the question was; How long shall it be
to the end of these wonders? Daniel would not ask
the question, because he would not pry into what
was hidden, nor seem inquisitive concerning the
times and the seasons, which the Father has put in
his own power, Acts i. 7. But that he might have
the satisfaction of the answer, the angel put the
question in his hearing. Our Lord Jesus sometimes
answered the questions which his disciples were
at'r.iid or ashamed to ask, John xvi. 19. The angel
asked as one concerned. How long shall it be?
What is the time prefixed in the divine counsels for
the end of these wonders, these suffering, trying
times, that are to pass over the people of God?
Note, (1.) The troubles of the church are the won¬
der of angels. They are astonished that God will
suffer his church to be thus afflicted, and are anx¬
ious to know what good he will do his church by
its afflictions. (2.) Good angels know no more
of things to come than God is pleased to discover to
them, much less do evil angels. (3.) The holy an¬
gels in heaven are concerned for the church on
earth, and lay to heart its afflictions; how much more
then should we, who are more immediately related
to it, and have so much of our peace in its peace?
4. What answer was returned to it, by him who
is indeed the JVumberer of secrets, and knows
things to come.
(1.) Here is a more general account given of the
continuance of these troubles, to the angel that made
the inquiry; (x'. 7.) that they shall continue for a
time, times, and a half, a year, two years, and a
half year, as was before intimated, {ch. vii. 25.) but
the one half of a prophetical week; some under¬
stand it indefinitely, a certain time for an uncer¬
tain; it shall be for a time, a considerable time, for
times, a longer time yet, double to what it was
thought at first that it would be; and yet indeed it
shall be but half a time, or a part of a time; when
it is over, it shall seem not half so much as was
feared. But it is rather to be taken for a certain
time; we meet with it in the Revelation, under the
title sometimes of three days and a half, put for
d72
DANIEL. XII.
three years and a half; sometimes f.irty-two months,1
sometimes 1260 d ivs. Nuw this determination of
the time is here, [1.] Confirmed by an oath. The
man clothed in linen lifted up both his hands to hea¬
ven, and swure by him that lives for ever and ever,
that it shall be so. Thus the mighty angel whom
St. John saw, is brought in, with a plain reference
to this vision here, standing with his right foot on
the sea, and his left foot on the earth, and with his
.land lifted up to heaven, swearing that there shall
be no longer delay, Rev. x. 5, 6. This Mighty One
that Daniel saw, stood with both feet on the water,
and sware with both hands lifted up. Note, An oath
is of use for confirmation; God only is to be sworn
by, for he is the proper Judge to whom we are to
appeal; and lifting up the hand is a very proper
and significant sign to be used in a solemn oath.
[2.] It is illustrated with a reason; God will suffer
him to prevail till he shall have accomplished to scat¬
ter the power of the holy people. God will suffer him
to do his worst, and run his utmost length, and then
all these things shall be finished. Note, God’s time
to succour and relieve his people, is when their af¬
fairs are brought to the last extremity; in the mount
of the Lord it shall be seen that Isaac is saved just
then when he lies ready to be sacrificed. Now the
event answered the prediction; Josephus says ex¬
pressly, in his book of the wars of the Jews, that
Antiochus, surnamed Epiphanes, surprised Jerusa¬
lem by force, and held it three years and six months,
and is then cast out of the the country by the As-
moneans or Maccabees. Christ’s public ministry
continued three years and a half, during which time
he endured the contradiction of sinners against him¬
self, and lived in poverty and disgrace; and then
when his power seemed to be quite scattered at his
death, and his enemies triumphed over him, he ob¬
tained the most glorious victory, and said, It is
finished.
(2.) Here is something added more particularly
concerning the time of the continuance of those
troubles, in what is said to Daniel, v. 11, 12. Where
we have, [1.] The event fixed from which the
time of the trouble is to be dated; from the taking
away of the daily sacrifice by Antiochus, and the
setting up of the image of Jupiter upon the altar,
which was the abomination of desolation. Then
they must reckon their troubles to begin indeed,
when they were deprived of the benefit of public
ordinances; that was to them the beginning of sor¬
rows, that vvas it which they laid most to heart.
[2.] The continuance of their trouble ; it shall last
1290 days; three years and seven months; or, as some
reckon, three years, six months, and fifteen days;
and then, it is probable, the daily sacrifice was re¬
stored, and the abomination of desolation taken
away, in remembrance of which the feast of dedica¬
tion was observed even to our Saviour’s time, John
x. 22. Though it does not appear by the history,
that it was exactly so long to a day, yet it appears
that the beginning of the trouble was in the one
hundred and forty-fifth year of the Seleucids, and
the end of it in the one hundred and forty-eighth
year; and either the restoring of the sacrifice, and
the taking away of the image, were just so many days
after, or some other previous event that was re¬
markable, which is not recorded. There are many
particular times fixed in the scripture-prophecies,
which it does not appear by any history, sacred or
profane, that the event answered, and vet no doubt
it did punctually; as Isa. xvi. 14. [3.] The com¬
pleting of their deliverance, or at least a further
advance towards it; which is here set forty-five
days after the former, and, some think, points at
the deatli of Antiochus, 1335 days after his pro¬
faning the temple. Blessed is he that waits and
comes to that time. It is said < 1 Mac. vi. 16.) that
Antiochus died in the one hundred and forty ninth
year of the kingdom of the Greeks, and (2 Mac. ix.
28. — x. 1.) that the Maccabees, under a divine
conduct, recovered the temple and the city. Many
good interpreters make these to be prophetical days,
that is, so many years; and date them from the de¬
struction of Jerusalem by the Romans; but what
events they then fall upon they are not agreed.
Others date them from the corruption of the gospel-
worship by the antichrist; whose reign is confined
in the Apocalypse to 1260 days, that is, years, at
the end of which he shall begin to fall; but thirty
years after, he shall be quite fallen, at the end of
1290 days; and whoever lives forty years longer, to
1335 days, will see glorious times indeed. Whether
it looks so far forward or no, I cannot tell; but this,
however, we may learn, First, That there is a time
fixed for the period of the church’s troubles, and
the bringing about of her deliverance, and that this
time will be punctually observed to a day. Se¬
condly, That this time must be waited for with
faith and patience. Thirdly, That, when it comes,
it will abundantly recompense us for our long ex¬
pectations of it. Blessed is he who, having waited
long, comes to it at last, for he will then have reason
to sav, Lo, this is our God, and we have waited
for him.
II. The question, U'hat the end shall be? is asked
by Daniel, and an answer given to it. Observe,
1. Why Daniel asked this question: it was be¬
cause, though he heard what was said to the angel,
yet he did not understand it, v. 8. Daniel was a
very intelligent man, and had been conversant in
visions and prophecies, and yet here he was puz¬
zled; he did not understand the meaning of the
time, times, and the part of a time, at least, not so
clearly and with so much certainty as he wished.
Note, The best men are often much at a loss in
their iniquities concerning divine things, and meet
with that which they do not understand. But the
better they are, the more sensible they are of their
own weakness and ignorance, and the more ready
to acknowledge it.
2. What the question was ; 0 my Lord, What
shall be the end of these things? He directs his
iniquity, not to the angel that talked with him, but
immediately to Christ, for to whom else should we
go with our inquiries? What shall be the final issue
of these events? What do they tend to? What will
they end in? Note, When we take a view of the
affairs of this world, and of the church of God in it,
we cannot but think, What will be the end of these
things? W e see things move as if they would end
in the utter ruin of God’s kingdom among men;
when we observe the prevalence of vice and im¬
piety, the decay of religion, the sufferings of the
righteous, and the triumphs of the ungodly over
them, we may well ask, 0, my Lord, what will be
the end of these things? But this may satisfy us in
general, that all will end well at last. Great is the
truth, and will prevail at long run. All opposing
rule, principality, and power, will be put down, and
holiness and love will triumph, and be in honour, to
eternity. The end, this end, will come.
3. What answer is returned to this question. Be¬
side what refers to the time, (v. 11, 12. ) of which
before, here are some general instructions given to
Daniel, with which he is dismissed from further at¬
tendance.
(1.) He must content himself with the discoveries
that had been made to him, and not inquire any
further; “Go thy way, Daniel; let it suffice thee
that thou hast been admitted thus far to the fore
sight of things to come, but stop here. Go thy way
about the king’s business again, ch. viii. 27. Go thy
way, and record what thou hast seen and heard, for
the' benefit of posterity, and covet not to see and hear
DANIEL, XII. 873
more at present.” Note, Communion with God is
not our continual feast in this world; we sometimes ,
are taken to be witnesses of Christ’s glory, and we
say, It is good to be here; but we must go down from
the mount, and have there no continuing city.
Those that know much, know but in fiart, and still
see there is a great deal that they are kept in the
dark about, and are likely to be so till the vail is rent;
hitherto their knowledge shall go, but no further;
Go thy way, Daniel, satisfied with what thou
hast. ”
(2. ) He must not expect that what had been said ,
to him would be fully understood till it was accom- |
plished; The words are closed ufi and sealed, are in¬
volved in perplexities, and are likely to be so, till
the time of the end, till the end of these things; nay,
till the end of all things. Daniel was ordered to seal
the book to the time of the end, v. 4. The Jews
used to say, JVhen Elias comelh he will tell us all
things. “ They are closed ufi and sealed; the dis¬
covery designed to be made by them is now fully
settled and completed; nothing is to be added to it,
or taken from it, for it is closed ufi and sealed; ask
not therefore after more.” jVcscire velle yute Ma-
gister maximus (locere non vult, erudita inscitia est
— He has learned much, who is willing to be igno¬
rant of those things which the great Teacher does
not choose to imfiart.
(3.) He must count upon no other than that, as
long as the world stands, there will still be in it such
a mixture as now we see there is of good and bad, v.
10. We long to see all wheat, and no tares, in God’s
field; all corn, and no chaff, in God’s floor; but it
will not be till the time of ingathering, till the win¬
nowing-day comes; both must grow together until
the harvest. As it has been, so it is, and will be,
The wicked shall do wickedly, but the wise shall un¬
derstand. In this, as in other things, St. John’s
Revelation closes as D iniel’s did; (Rev. xxii. 11.)
He who is filthy, let him be filthy still; and he who
is holy, let him be holy stilt.
[1.] There is no remedy, but that wicked people
will do wickedly; and such people there are, and
will be, in the world, to the end of time. So said
the firoverb of the ancients, IFickedness firoceeds
from the wicked; (1 Sam. xxiv. 13.) and the obser¬
vation of the moderns says the same. Bad men
will do bad things; and a corrufit tree will never
bring forth good fruit; do men gather grafies of
thorns, or bring forth good things from an evil
treasure in the heart? No, wicked practices are
the natural products of wicked principles and dis¬
positions. Marvel not at the matter then, Eccl.
v. 8. We are told before, that the wicked will do
wickedly, we can expect no better from them; but,
which is worse, none of the wicked shall understand.
This is either, First, A part of their sin; they will
not understand, thev shut their eyes against the
light, and none so blind as they that will not see.
Therefore they are wicked, because they will not
understand. If they did but rightly know the
truths of God, they would readily obey the laws of
God, Ps. lxxxii. 5. Wilful sin is the effect of wil¬
ling ignorance; therefore they will not understand,
becaase they are wicked; therefore they hate the
light, and come not to the light, because their deeds
are evil, John iii. 19. Or, Secondly, It is a part of
their punishment; they will do wickedly, and there¬
fore God has given them up to blindness of mind,
and has said concerning them, They shall not un¬
derstand, nor be converted and healed, Matth. xiii.
14, 15. God will not give them eyes to see, because
they will do wickedly, Deut. xxix. 4.
[2.] Yet, bad as the world is, God will secure to
himself a remnant of good people in it; still there
shall be some, there shall be many, to whom the
providences and ordinances of God shall be a savour
Vol. IV. — 5 S
Wf life unto life, while to others they are a savour
of death unto death.
First, The providences of God shall do them
good; Many shall be fiurfird, and made white, and
tried, bv their troubles, (compare ch. xi. 35.) by
the same troubles which will but stir up the cor¬
ruptions of the wicked, and make them do more
wickedh Note, The afflictions of good people are
designed for their trial; but by these trials they are
fiurfird and made white; their corruptions are
purged out, their graces are brightened, and made
both more vigorous and more conspicuous, and
are found to firaise, and honour, and glory, 1 Pet.
i. 7. To those who are themselves sanctified and
good, every event is sanctified, and works for good,
and helps to make them better.
Secondly, The word of God shall do them good.
When the wicked understand not, but stumble at
the word, the wise shall understand. Those who
are wise in practice, shall understand doctrine;
those who are influenced and governed by the di¬
vine law and love, shall be illuminated with a di¬
vine light. For if any man will do his will, he shall
know the truth, John vii. 17. Give instruction to
a wise man, and he will be yet wiser.
(4.) He must comfort himself’ with the pleasing
prospect of his own happiness in death, in judgment,
and to eternity, v. 13. Daniel was now very old,
and had been long engaged both in an intimate
acquaintance with heaven, and in a great deal of
public business on this earth. And now he must
think of bidding farewell to this present state; Go
thou thy way till the end be. [1.] It is good for us
all to think much of going away from this world;
we are still going, and must be gone shortly, gone
the way of all the earth. That must be our wayv
but this is our comfort, We shall not go till God
calls for us to another world, and till he has done
with us in this world, till he says, “ Go thou thy
way, thou hast finished thy testimony, done thy
work, and accomplished as a hireling thy day;
therefore now. Go thy way, and leave it to others
to take thy room.” [2.] When a good man goes
his way from this world, he enters into rest;
“Thou shalt rest from all thy present toils and toss¬
es, and shalt not see the evils that are coming on
the next generation.” Never could a child of God
say more pertinently than in his dying moments, Re¬
turn unto thy rest, O my soul. [3.] Timeand days
will have an end; not only our time and days will
end very shortly, but all times and days will have
an end at length; yet a little while, and time shall
be no more; but all its revolutions will be numbered
and finished. [4.] Our rest in the grave will be but
till the end of the days; and then the fieaceful rest
will be happily disturbed by a joyful resurrection.
Job foresaw this when he said of the dead, Till the
heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be
raised out of their sleefi: implying that then they
shall. Job xiv. 12. [5.] We must everv one of us
stand in our lot at the end of the days. In the judg¬
ment of the great day, we must have our allotment
according to what we were, and what we did, in the
body; either, Come, ye blessed, or. Go, ye cursed;
and we must stand for ever in that lot. It was a
comfort to Daniel, it is a comfort to all the saints,
that, whatever their lot is in the days of time, thev
shall have a happy lot in the end of the days, shall
have their lot among the chosen. And it ought to
be the great care and concent of every one of us, to
secure a happy lot at last in the end of the days, and
then we may well be content with our firesent lot,
welcome the will of God. [6. ] A believing hope and
prospect of a blessed lot in the heavenly Canaan, at
the end of the days, will be an effectual support to us
when we are going our way out of this world, and
will furnish us with living comforts in dying moments.
AN
EXPOSITION,
WITH
PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS,
OF THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET
HOSE A.
We have now before us,
I. The twelve minor prophets; which some of the ancients, in reckoning up the books of the Old Testa¬
ment, put all together, and reckon but as one book. They are called the lesser prophets, not because
their writings are of any less authority or usefulness than those of the greater prophets, or as if these
prophets were less in Clod’s account, or might be so in ours, than the other, but only because they are
shorter, and less in bulk, than the other. We have reason to think that these prophets Jireached as
much as the others, but that they did not write so much, nor is so mucli of their preaching kept upon
record. Many excellent prophets wrote nothing, and others but little, who yet were very useful in their
day. And so in the Christian church there have been many burning and shining lights, who are not
known to posterity by their writings, and yet were in no way inferior in gifts, and graces, and service¬
ableness, to their own generation, than those who are; and some who have left but little behind them, and
make no great figure among authors, were yet as valuable men as the more voluminous writers. These
twelve small prophets, Josephus says, were put into one volume by the men of the great synagogue in
Ezra’s time, of which learned and pious body of men the three last of these twelve prophets are sup¬
posed to have been themselves members. These are what remained of the scattered pieces of inspired
writing. Antiquaries value the fragmenta veterum — the fragments of antiquity; these are the frag¬
ments of jirofihecy, which are carefully gathered up by the Divine Providence and the care of the
church, that nothing might be lost; as St. Paul’s short epistles after his long ones. The son of Sirach
speaks of these twelve / iro/ihets with honour, as men that strengthened Jacob, Ecclus. xlix. 10. Nine
of these prophets prophesied before the captivity, and the three last after the return of the Jews to their
own land. Some difference there is in the order of these books. We place them as the ancient Hebrew
did; and all agree to put Hosea first; but the ancient Septuagint places the six first in this order — Hosea,
Amos, Micah, Joel, Obadiah, and Jonah; the thing is not material. And if we covet to place them
according to their seniority, as to some of them We shall find no certainty.
II. We have before us the prophecy of Hosea, who was first of all the writing prophets, somewhat before
Isaiah. The ancients say, He was of Beth-shemesh, and of the tribe of Issachar. He continued very
lung a prophet; the Jews reckon that he prophesied near fourscore and ten years; so that, as Jerom
observes, he prophesied of the destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes, when it was at a great dis¬
tance, and lived himself to see and lament it, and to improve it when it was over, for warning to its sister
kingdom. The scope of his prophecy is to discover sin, and to denounce the judgments of God against
a people that would not be reformed. The style is very concise and sententious, above any of the pro¬
phets; and in some places it seems to be like the book of Proverbs, without connexion, and rather to be
called Hosea’s sayings than Hosea’s sermons. And a weighty adage may sometimes do more service
than a laboured discourse. Huetius observes that many passages in the prophecies of Jeremiah and
Ezekiel seem to refer to, and to be borrowed from, the prophet Hosea, who wrote a good while before
them. As Jer. vii. 34. — xvi. 9. — xxv. 10. and Ezek. xxvi. 13. speak the same with Hos. ii. 11. so
Ezek. xvi. 16, 8cc. is taken from Hos. ii. 8. And that promise of serving the Lord their God, and
David their king, Jer. xxx. 8, 9. Ezek. xxxiv. 23. Hosea had before, ch. iii. 5. And Ezek. xix. 12. is
taken from Hos. xiii. 15. Thus one prophet confirms and corroborates another; and all these worketh
that one and the self-same Spirit.
875
HOSEA, ].
CHAP. 1.
The mind of God is revealed to his prophet^ and by him to
the people, in the three first chapters, by signs and types;
but, afterward, only by discourse. In this chapter, we
have, I. The general title of the whole book, v. 1. II.
Some particular instructions which he was ordered to
give to the people of God. 1. He must convince them
of their sin, in going a whoring from God, by marrying
a wife of whoredoms, v. 2, 3. 2. He must foretell the
ruin coming upon them for their sin, in the names of his
sons, which signified God’s disowning and abandoning
of them, v. 4. . 6, 8, 9. 3. He must speak comfortably
to the kingdom of Judah, which still retained, the pure
worship of God, and assure them of the salvation ot the
Lord, v. 7. 4 He must-give an intimation of the great
mercy God had in store both for Israel and Judmi, in
the latter days; (v. 10, II.) for in this prophecy many
precious promises of mercy are mixed with the threaten-
ings of wrath.
l.rpHE word of the Lord that came
JL unto Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the
days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Heze-
kiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of
Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.
Here is, 1. The prophet’s name and surname,
which he himself, as other prophets, prefixes to his
prophecy, for the satisfaction ot all, that he is ready
to attest what he writes to be of God; he sets his
hand to it, as that which he will stand by. His
name Hosea, or Hoshea, (for it is the very same
with Joshua’s original name,) signifies a saviour;
for prophets were instruments ot salvation to the
people of God, so are faithful ministers, they help
to save many a soul from death, by saving it from
sin. His surname was Ben-Beeri, or the son of
Beeri; as with us now, so with them then, some
had their surname from their place, as Micah the
Morashite, Nahum the Elkoshite; others from their
parents, as Joel the son of Bethuel, and here Hosea
the son of Beeri. And perhaps they made use of
that distinction when the eminence of their parents
was such as would derive honour upon them; but it
is a groundless conceit of the Jews, that where a
prophet’s father is named, he also was a prophet.
Beeri signifies a welt, which may put us in mind of
the Fountain of life and living waters from which
prophets are drawn, and must be continually
drawing.
2. Here is his authority and commission; The
word of the Lord came to him. It was to him; it
came with power and efficacy to him; it was re¬
vealed to him as a real thing, and not a fancy or
imagination of his own; in some such way as God
then discovered himself to his servants the pro¬
phets. What he said and wrote was by divine in¬
spiration ; it was by the word of the Lord, as St.
Paul speaks concerning that which he had purely
by revelation, I Thess. iv. 15. Therefore this
book was always received among the canonical
books of the Old Testament, which is confirmed by
what is quoted out of it in the New Testament,
Matth. ii 15. — ix. 13.— xii. 7. Rom. ix. 25, 26. 1
Pet. ii. 10. For the word of the Lord endures for
ever.
3. Here is a particular account of the times in
which he prophesied; in the days of Uzziah, Jo¬
tham, Jhuz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah; and in
the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of
Israel. We have only this general date of his pro¬
phecy, and not the date of any particular part of it,
as before, in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel;
and afterward, in Haggai, and Zechariah. Here is
only one king of Israel named, though there were
many more within this time; because, having men¬
tioned the kings of Judah, there was no necessity of
naming the other; and, they being all wicked, he
took no pleasure in naming them, nor would do
them the honour. Now by this account here given
of the several reigns in which Hosea prophesied,
(and it should seem the word of the Lord still came
to him, more or less, at times, throughout all these
reigns,) it appears,
(1.) That he prophesied a long time; that he be¬
gan when he was very young, which gave him the
advantage of strength and sprightliness; and that he
continued at his work till he was very old, which
gave him the advantage of experience and authority.
It was a great honour to him to be thus long em¬
ployed in such good work, and a great mercy to the
people to have a minister so long among them, that
so well knew their state, and naturally cared for it;
one they had been long used to, and therefore was
the more likely to be useful to them. And yet,
for aught that appears, he did but little good among
them; the longer they enjoyed him, the less they re¬
garded him ; they despised his youth first, and after¬
ward his age.
(2. ) That he passed through variety of conditions.
Some of these kings were very good, and, it is
likely, countenanced and encouraged him; others
very bad, (we may suppose) frowned upon him and
discouraged him; and yet he was still the same.
God’s ministers must expect to pass through honour
and dishonour, evil report and good refort, and
must resolve in both to hold fast their integrity, and
keep close to their work.
(3.) That he began to prophesy at a time when
the judgments of God were abroad, when God was
himself contending in a more immediate way with
that sinful people, who fell into the hands of the
Lord, before they were turned over into the hands
of man; for in the days of Uzziah, and of Jeroboam
his contemporary, the dreadful earthquake was,
mentioned, Zech. xiv. 5. and Amosi. 1. And then
was the plague of locusts, Joel i. 2. — 4. Amos vii. 1.
Hos. iv. 3. The rod of God is sent to enforce the
word, and the word of God is sent to ex plain the
rod, yet neither prevails till God by his Spirit opens
the ear to instruction and discipline.
(4. ) That he began to prophesy in Israel at a time
when their kingdom was in a flourishing, prosper¬
ous condition, for so it was in the reign of Jeroboam
the second, as we find, 2 Kings xiv. 25. He re¬
stored the coast of Israel, and God saved them by
his hand; yet then Hosea boldlv tells them of their
sins, and foretells their destruction. Men are not tc
be flattered in their sinful ways because they pros¬
per in the world, but even then must be faithfully
reproved, and plainly told that their prosperity will
not be their security, nor will it last long if they go
on still in their trespasses.
2. The beginning of the word of the
Lord by Hosea. And the Lord said to
Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whore¬
doms, and children of whoredoms : for the
land hath committed great whoredom, de¬
parting from the Lord. 3. So he went and
took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim ;
which conceived, and bare him a son. 4.
And the Lord said unto him, Call his name
Jezreel; for yet a little, while, and I will
avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house
of Jehu, and will cause to cease the king¬
dom of the house of Israel. 5. And it shall
come to pass at that day, that I w ill break
the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.
6. And she conceived again, and bare a
daughter. And God said unto him, CaU
876
HOSEA, 1.
her name Lo-ruhamah: for I will no more
have mercy upon the house of Israel; hut I
will utterly take them away. 7. But I will
have mercy upon the house of Judah, and
will save them by the Lord their God, and
will not save them by bow, nor by sword,
nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.
These words, The beginning of the word of the
Lord by Hosea, may refer, either, 1. To that glori¬
ous set of prophets which was raised up about this
time. At this time there lived and prophesied Joel,
Amos, Micah, Jonah, Obadiah, and Isaiah;* but
Hosea was the first of them that foretold the de¬
struction of Israel; the beginning of this word of
the Lord was by him. We read in the history of
this Jeroboam here named, (2 Kings xiv. 27.) that
the Lord had not yet said, he would blot out the
name of Israel, but soon after he said he would, and
Hosea was the man that began to say it; which
made it so much the harder task to him, to be the
first that should carry an unpleasing message, and
some time before any were raised up to second him.
Or, rather, 2. To Hosea’s own prophecies. This
was the first message God sent him upon to this
people, to tell them that they were an evil and an
adulterous generation. He might have desired to
be excused from dealing so roughly with them, till
he had gained authority and reputation, and some
interest in their affections. No, he must begin with
this, that they might know what to expect from a
prophet of the Lord. Nay, he must not only preach
this to them, but he must write it, and publish it,
and leave it upon record as a witness against them.
Now here,
I. The prophet must, as it were, in a looking-
glass, show them their sin, and show it to be exceed¬
ing sinful, exceeding hateful. The prophet is or¬
dered to take unto him a wife of whoredoms, and
children of whoredoms, v. 2. And he did so, v. 3.
He married a woman of ill fame, Gomer the daugh¬
ter of Dib/aim; not one that had been married, and
had committed adultery, for then she must have
been put to death, but one that had lived scanda¬
lously in the single state. To marry such a one was
not malum in se — evil in itself but only malum per
accidens — incidentally an evil; not prudent, decent,
or expedient, and therefore forbidden to the priests,
and which, if it were really done, would be an
affliction to the prophet; it is threatened as a curse
on Amaziah, that his wife should be a harlot, (Amos
vii. 17.) but not a sin when God commanded it for
an holy end; nay, if commanded, it was his duty,
ar.d he must trust God with his reputation. But
most think that it was done in vision, or that it is no
more than a parable; and that was a way of teach¬
ing commonly used among the ancients, particularly
prophets; wfvat they meant of others they trans¬
ferred to themselves in a figure, as St. Paul speaks,
1 Cor. iv. 6. He must take a wife of whoredoms,
and have such children by her as every one would
suspect, though born in wedlock, to be children of
whoredoms, begotten in adultery; because it is too
commom for those who have lived lewdly in the
single state, to live no better in the married state.
“ Now,” (saith God,) “ Hosea, this people is to me
such a dishonour, and such a grief and vexation, as
a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms
would be to thee. For the land has committed great
whoredoms.” In all instances of wickedness they
had departed from the Lord; but their idolatry
especially is the whoredom they are here charged
* Whilo sensible that the periods during which these illustrious men
respectively flourished cannot be exactly ascertained, we cannot help
expressing our surprise that Mr. Henry should have supposed them
contemporary. — Ed.
with. Giving that glory to any creature which is
due to God alone, is such an injury and affront to
God as for a wife to embrace the bosom of a stran¬
ger is to her husband. It is especially so in those
that have made a profession of religion, and have
been taken into covenant with God; it is breaking
the marriage-bond, it is a heinous, odious sin, and,
as mijch as any other, besots the mind, and takes
away the heart. Idolatry is great whoredom, worse
than any other; it is departing from the Lord, to
whom we lie under greater obligations than any wife
does, or can do, to her husband. The land has com¬
mitted whoredom; it is not here and there a parti¬
cular person that is guilty of idolatry, but the whole
land is polluted with it; the sin is become national,
the disease epidemical. What an odious thing
would it be for the prophet, a holy man, to have a
whorish wife, and children whorish like her! What
an exercise would it be of his patience, and, if she
persisted in it, what could be expected but that he
should give her a bill of divorce! And is it not then
much more offensive to the holy God, to have such
a people as this to be called by his name, and have
a place in his house? How great is his patience
with them ! And how justly may he cast them off !
It was as if he should have married Gomer the
daughter of Diblaim, who, probably, was at that
time a noted harlot. The land of Israel was like
Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; Gomer signifies
corruption; Deblaim signifies two cakes, or lumps
of figs; this denotes that Israel was near to rain,
and that their luxury and sensuality were the cause
of it. They were as the evil figs that could not be
eaten, they were so evil. It speaks sin to be the
daughter of plenty, and destruction the daughter of
the abuse of plenty. Some give this sense of the
command here given to the prophet; “ Go, take
thee a wife of whoredoms, for if thou shouldest go
to seek for an honest, modest woman, thou wouldest
not find any such, for the whole land, and all the
people of it, are given to whoredom, the usual con¬
comitant of idolatry.”
II. The prophet must, as it were, through a per¬
spective glass, show them their ruin; and this lie
does in the names given to the children born of this
adulteress; for as lust, when it has conceived, bring-
eth forth sin, so sin, when it is finished, bringeth
forth death.
1. He foretells the fall of the royal family in the
name he is appointed to give to his first child,
which was a son; Call his name Jezreel, v. 4. We
find that the prophet Isaiah gave prophetical names
to his children, (Isa. vii. 3. — viii. 3.) so this prophet
here. Jezreel signifies the seed of God; so they
should have been: but it signifies also the scattered
of God; they shall be as sheep on the mountains,
that have no shepherd. Call them not Israel,
which signifies dominion, they have lost all the ho¬
nour of that name; but call "them Jezreel, which
signifies dispersion, for they that have departed
from the Lord, will wander enatess/y. Hitherto
thev have been scattered as seed; let them now be
scattered as chaff. Jezreel was the name of one of
the royal seats of the kings of Israel; it was a beau¬
tiful city, seated in a pleasant valley, and it is with
allusion to that city, that this child is called Jezreel,
for yet a little while and I will avenge the blood of
Jezreel upon the house of Jehu. Observe here,
(1.) Who it is that God has a controversy with;
it is the house of Jehu, from whom the present king,
Jeroboam, was lineally descended. The house of
Jehu smarted for the sins of Jehu, for God often lays
up men’s iniquity for their children, and visits it
upon them. It is the kingdom of the house of Is¬
rael, which may be meant either of the present
royal family, that of Jehu, which God did quickly
cause to cease, for the son of this Jeroboam, Zecha-
877
HOSEA, I.
riah, reigned but six months, and he was the last of
Jehu’s race; or of the whole kingdom in general,
which continued corrupt and wicked, and which
was made to cease, in the reign of Hoshea, about
seventy years after; and with God that is but a little
while. Note, Neither the pomp of kings, nor the
power of kingdoms, can secure them from God’s
destroying judgments, if they continue to rebel
against him.
(2.) What is the ground of this controversy; I
will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of
Jehu, the blood which Jehu shed at Jezreel, when,
by commission from God, and in obedience to his
command, he utterly destroyed the house of Ahab,
and all that were in alliance with it, with all the
worshippers of Baal. God approved of what he
did; (2 Kings x. 30.) Thou hast done well in exe¬
cuting that which was right in mine eyes; and yet
here God will avenge that blood ufion the house of
Jehu, when the time is expired during which it was
promised that his family should reign, even to the
fourth generation. But how comes the same action
to be both rewarded and punished? Very justly;
the matter of it was good; it was the execution of a
righteous sentence passed upon the house of Ahab,
and, as such, it was rewarded; but Jehu did it not
in a right manner; he aimed at his own advance¬
ment, not at tlie glory of God, and mingled his own
resentments with the execution of God’s justice.
He did it with a malice against the sinners, but not
with any antipathy to the sin; for he kept up the
worship of the golden calves, and took no heed to
walk in the law of Clod, 2 Kings x. 31. And there¬
fore when the measure of the iniquity of his house
was full, and God came to reckon with them, the
first article in the account is, (and, being first, it is
put for all the rest,) for the blood of the house of
Ahab, here called the blood of Jezreel. Thus
when the house of Baasha was rooted out, it was
because he did like the house of Jeroboam, and be¬
cause he killed him, 1 Kings xvi. 7. Note, Those
that are intrusted with the administration of justice,
are concerned to see to it, that they do it from a
right principle, and with a right intention, and that
they do not themselves live in those sins which they
punish in others, lest even their just executions
should be reckoned for, another day, as little less
than murders.
(3.) How far the controversy shall proceed; it
shall be not a correction, but a destruction. Some
make those words, I will visit, or appoint, the blood
of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, to signify, not as
we read it, the revenging of that bloodshed, but
the repeating of that bloodshed; “ I will punish the
house of Jehu, as I punished the house of Ahab, be¬
cause Jehu did not take warning by the punishment
of his predecessors, but trod in the steps of their
idolatry. And after the house of Jehu is destroyed,
I will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Is¬
rael; I will begin to bring it down, though now it
flourish.” After the death of Zechariah, the last
of the house of Jehu, the kingdom of the ten tribes
went to decay, and dwindled sensibly. And, in or¬
der to the ruin of it, it is threatened, (in 5.) I will
break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel;
the strength of the warriors of Israel; so the Chal¬
dee. God will disable them either to defend them¬
selves or to resist their enemies. As the bow abiding
in strength, and being renewed in the hand, speaks
a growing power, so the breaking of the bow speaks
a sinking, ruined power. The bow shall be broken
in the valley of Jezreel, where, probably, the ar¬
mory was; or, it may be, in that valley some battle
was fought, wherein the kingdom of Israel was very
much weakened. Note, There is no fence against
God’s controversy; when he comes forth against a
people, their strong bows are soon broken, and their
strong holds broken down. In the valley of Jezreel
they shed that blood which the righteous God would
in that very place avenge upon them; as sc me m to-
rious malefactors are hanged in chains there where
the villany they suffer for was perpetrated; that the
punishment may answer the sin.
2. He foretells God's abandoning the whole n c-
tion in the n ime he gives to the second child. This
was a daughter, as the former was a son, to inti¬
mate that both sons and daughters bad corrupted
their way. Some make it to signify that Israel grew
effeminate, and was thereby enfeebled and made
weak. Call the name c f this daughter, Lo-ruha-
mah — not beloved; so it is translated, (Rom. ix. 25.)
or not having obtained mercy, so it is translated, 1
Pet. ii. 10. It comes all to one. This reads the
doom of the house of Israel; I will no more h ve
mercy upon them. This intimates that Gcd had
showed them great mercy, but they had abused his
favours, and forfeited them, and now he would show
them favour no more. Note, Those that forsake
their own mercies for lying vanities, have reason to
expect that their own mercies should forsake them,
and that they should be left to their lying vanities,
Jonah ii. 8. Sin turns away the mercy of Gc d,
even from the house of Israel, his own professing
people, whose case is sad indeed, when God says
that he will no more have mercy upon them. And
then it follows, I will utterly take them away; will
utterly remove them, (so some,) will utterly pluck
them up, so others. Note, When the streams of
mercy are stopped, we can expect no other than
that the vials of wrath should be opened. Those
whom God will no more have mercy upon, shall be
utterly taken away, as dross and dung. The word
for taking away sometimes signifies to forgive sin;
and some take it in that sense here. I will no more
have mercy upon them, though in pardoning I have
pardoned them heretofore. Though God li-.s borne
long he will not bear always, with a people that
hate to be reformed. Or, I will no more have
mercy upon them, that I should in any wise pardon
them; or (as our margin reads it) that I should al¬
together pardon them. If pardoning mercy is de¬
nied, no other mercy can be expected, for that
opens the door to all the rest. Some make this to
speak comfort; I will no more have mercy upon
them till in pardoning I shall pardon them, till the
Redeemer comes to Zion to turn away ungodliness
from Jacob. The Chaldee reads it, But if they re¬
pent, in pardoning I will pardon them. Even the
greatest sinners, if in time they bethink themselves
and return, will find that there is forgiveness with
God.
III. He must show them what mercy God had in
store for the house of Judah, at the same time that
he was thus contending with the house of Israel;
( v . 7.) But I will have mercy upon the house of
Judah. Note, Though some are justly cast off for
their disobedience, yet God will always secure to
himself a remnant that shall be the vessels and
monuments of mercy. When divine justice is glo¬
rified in some, yet there are others in whom free
grace is glorified. And though some through un¬
belief are broken off, yet God will have a church in
this world till the end of time. It aggravates the
rejection of Israel, that God will have mercy on
Judah, and not on them, and magnifies God’s mercy
to Judah, that though they have also done wickedly,
yet God did not reject them, as he rejected Israel;
I will have mercy upon them, and will save them.
Note, Our salvation is owing purely to God’s mercy,
and not to any merit of our own. Now, 1. This,
without doubt, refers to the temporal salvations
which God wrought for Judah in a distinguishing
way, the favours showed to them, and not to Israel.
When the Assyrian armies had destroyed Samaria.
878
HOSEA, I.
and earned the ten tribes away into captivity, they
proceeded to besiege Jerusalem; but God had mercy
on the house of Judah, and saved them by the vast
slaughter which an angel made, in one night, in the
camp of the Assyrians; then they were saved by
the Lord their God immediately, and not by sword
or bow ; when the ten tribes were continued in their
captivity, and their land was possessed by others,
when, being utterly taken away, God had mercy on
the house of Judah, and saved them, and, after
seventy years, brought them back, not by might or
flower, hut by the S/iirit of the Lord of hosts, Zech.
iv. 6. I will save them by the Lord their God, by
myself. God will be exalted in his own strength, will
take the work into his hands. That salvation is
sure, which he undertakes to be the Author of; for
if he will work, none shall hinder. And that salva¬
tion is most acceptable, which he does by himself.
So the Lord alone did lead him. The less there is
of man in any salvation and the more of God, the
brighter it shines, and the sweeter it tastes. I will
save them in the word of the Lord, (so the Chal¬
dee,) for the sake of Christ, the eternal Word, and
by his power; I will save them not by bow nor by
sword. That is, (1.) They shall be saved when
they are reduced to so low an ebb, .that they have
neither bow nor sword, to defend themselves with,
Judg. v. 8. 1 Sam. xiii. 22. (2.) They shall be
saved by the Lord then when they are brought off
from trusting to their own strength and their wea¬
pons of war, Ps. xliv. 6. (3.) They shall be saved
easily, without the trouble of sword and bow; (Isa.
ix. 5.) I will save them by the Lord their God. In
calling him their God, he upbraids the ten tribes
who had cast him off from being theirs, for which
reason he had cast them off, and intimates what was
the true reason why he had mercy, distinguishing
mercy, for the house of Judah, and saved them; it
was in pursuance of his covenant with them as the
Lord their God, and in recompense for their faithful
adherence to him and to his word and worship.
But, 2. This may refer also to the salvation of Ju¬
dah from idolatry, which qualified and prepared
them for their other salvations. And this is indeed
a salvation by the Lord their God; it is wrought only
by the power of his grace, and can never be wrought
by s^vord or bow. Just at the time that the king¬
dom of Israel was utterly taken away under Hoshea,
the kingdom of Judah was gloriously reformed un¬
der Hezekiah, and was therefore preserved; and in
Babylon God saved them from their idolatry first,
and then from their captivity. 3. Some make this
promise to look forward to the great shlvation which,
in the fulness of time, was to be wrought out by the
Lord our God, Jesus Christ, who came into the
world to sane his fieofile from their sins.
8. Now when site had weaned Lo-ruha-
mah, she conceived, and bare a son. 9.
Then said God, Call his name Lo-ammi:
for ye are not my people, and I will not be
your God. 10. Yet the number of the chil¬
dren of Israel shall be as the sand of the
sea, which cannot be measured nor num¬
bered: and it shall come to pass, that in the
place where it was said unto them, Ye are
not my people, there it shall be said unto
them, Ye are the sons of the living God.
11. Then shall the children of Judah and
the children of Israel be gathered together,
and appoint themselves cne head, and they
shall come up out of the land: for great
shall he the day of Jezreel.
We have here a prediction,
1. Of the rejection of Israel for a time, which is
signified by the name of another child that H isca
had by his adulterous spouse, v. 8, 9. And still we
must observe that those children whose names car¬
ried these direful omens in them to Israel, were all
children of whoredoms, ( y . 2.) all born of the
harlot that Hnsea married, to intimate that the ruin
of Israel was the natural product of the sin of Is¬
rael. If they had not first revolted from God, they
had never been rejected by him; God never leaves
anv till they first leave him.
Here is, 1. The birth of this child; when she had
weaned her daughter, she conceived and bare a son.
Notice is taken of the delay of the birth of this
child, which was to carry in its name a certain pre¬
sage of their utter rejection, to intimate God’s pa¬
tience with them, and his loathness to proceed to
extremity. Some think that her bearing another
son signifies that people’s persisting in their wicked-
edness; lust still conceived and brought forth sin;
they added to do evil; so the Chaldee paraphrase
expounds it; they were old in adulteries, and ob¬
stinate.
2. The name given him. Call him Lo-ammi —
not my fieofile. When they were told that God
would no more have mercy on them, they regard¬
ed it not, but buoyed up themselves with this con¬
ceit, that they were God’s fieofile, whom he could
not but have mercy on. And therefore he plucks
that staff from under them, and disowns all relation
to them; Ye are not my fieofile, and I will not be
your God. I will not be yours; (so the word is;) I
will be in no relation to you, will have nothing to do
with you; I will not be your King, your Father,
your Patron and Protector. We supply it very well
with that which includes all, “/ will not be your
God; I will not be to you what I have been, nor
what you vainly expect I should be, nor what I
would have been if you had kept close to me.”
Observe, “ You are not my fieofile; you do not act
as becomes my people, you are not observant of me,
and obedient to me, as my people should be; you
are not my people, but the people of this and the
other dunghill deity; and therefore I will not own
you for my people, will not protect you, will not put
in any claim to you, not demand you, not deliver
you out of the hands of those that have seized you;
let them take you, you are none of mine; you will
not have me to be your God, but pay your homage
to the pretenders, and therefore I will not be your
God; you shall have no interest in me, shall expect
no benefit from me.” Note, Our being taken into
covenant with God is owing purely to him and to
his grace, for then it begins on bis side; I will be to
them a God, and then they shall be to me a fieofile;
we love him because he first loved us; but our be¬
ing cast out of covenant is owing purely to ourselves
and our own folly. The breach is on man’s side;
You are not mu fieofile, and therefore I will not be
your God; if God hate any, it is because they first
hated him. This was fulfilled in Israel when they
were utterly taken away into the land of Assyria,
and their place knew them no more. They were
no longer God’s fieofile, for they lost their know¬
ledge and worship of him; no prophets were sent
them, no promises made them, as were to the two
tribes in their captivity; nay, they were no longer a
fieofile, but, for aught that appears, were mingled
with the nations into which they were carried, and
lost among them.
II. Of the reduction and restoration of Israel in
the fulness of time. Here, as before, mercy is re¬
membered in the midst of wrath; the rejection, as
it shall not be total, so it shall not be final, (r>. 10,
11.) yet the number of the children of Israel shall
be as the sand of the sea. See how the same hand
879
HOSLA, T.
that wounded is stretched forth to heal, and how
tenderly he that has torn , binds up; though God
cause grief by his threatenings, yet he will have
com/iassion, and will gather with everlasting kind¬
ness. They are very precious promises which are
here made concerning the Israel of God, and which
may be of use to us now.
1. Some think that these promises had their ac¬
complishment in the return ot the Jews out of their
captivity in Babylon, when many of the ten tribes
joined themselves to Judah, and took the benefit of
the liberty which Cyrus proclaimed; came up in
great numbers out of the several countries into
which they were dispersed, to their own land, ap¬
pointed Zerubbabel their head, and coalesced into
one people, whereas before they had been two dis¬
tinct nations. And in their own land, where God
ha.l by his prophets disowned and rejected them as
none of his, he would by his prophets own them
and appear for them as his children; and from all
parts of the country they shall come up to the tem¬
ple to worship. And we have reason to think that
though this promise has a further reference, yet it
was graciously intended and piously used for the
support and comfort of the captives in Babylon, as
giving them a general assurance of mercy which
God had in store for them and their land; their na¬
tion could not be destroyed so long as this blessing
was in it, was in reserve for it.
2. Some think that these promises will not have
their accomplishment, at least not in full, till the
general conversion of the Jews in the latter days,
which is expected yet to come; when the vast, in¬
credible numbers of Jews, that are now dispersed as
the sand of the sea, shall be brought to embrace
the faith of Christ, and be incorporated in the gos¬
pel-church. Then, and not till then, God will own
them as his people, his children, even there where
they had lain under the dismal tokens of their re¬
jection. The Jewish doctors look upon this promise
as not having had its accomplishment yet. But,
3. It is certain that this promise had its accom¬
plishment in the settingup of the kingdom of Christ,
by the preaching of the gospel, and the bringing in
both of Jews and Gentiles to it, for to this these
words are applied by St. Paul, Rom. ix. 25, 26. and
by St. Peter when he writes to the Jews of the dis¬
persion, 1 Pet. ii. 10. Israel here is the gospel-
church, the spiritual Israel, (Gal. vi. 16.) all be¬
lievers who follow the steps, and inherit the bless¬
ing, of the faithful Abraham, who is the father of
all that believe, whether Jews or Gentiles, Rom. iv.
11, 12. Now let us see what is promised concerning
this Israel.
(1.) That it shall greatly multiply, and the num¬
bers of it be increased; it shall be as the sand of the
sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered.
Though Israel according to the flesh be diminished
and made few, the spiritual Israel shall be nume¬
rous, shall be innumerable. In the vast multitudes
that by the preaching of the gospel have been
brought to Christ, both in the first ages of Chris¬
tianity and ever since, this promise is fulfilled; thou¬
sands out of every tribe in Israel, and out of other
nations, a multitude which no man can number,
Rev. vii. 4, 9. Gal. iv. 2 7. In this the promise
made to Abraham, when God called him Abraham
the high father of a multitude, had its full accom¬
plishment, (Gen. xvii. 5.) and that, Gen. xxii. 17.
Some observe, that they are here compared to the
sand of the sea, not only for their numbers, but as
the sand of the sea serves for a boundary to the
waters, that they shall not overflow the earth, so
. the Israelites indeed are a wall of defence to the
places where they live, to keep off judgments.
God can do nothing against Sodom while Lot is
there.
(2.) That God will renew his covenant with the
gospel-Israel, and will incorporate it a church to
himself, by as full and ample a charter as that
whereby tlie Old Testament church was incorpo¬
rated; nav, and its privileges shall be much greater.
“In the place where it was said unto them, Ye are
not mu people, there shall ye be again admitted
into covenant, and owned as my people.” The
abandoned Gentiles in their respective places, and
the rejected Jews in theirs, shall be favoured and
blessed. There where the fathers were cast off for
their unbelief, the children, upon their believing,
shall be taken in. This is a blessed resurrection,
the making of those the people of God, that were
not a people. Nay, but the privilege is enlarged;
now it is not only, IV are my people, as formerly,
hut, Ye are the sons of the living God, whether bv
birth ye were Jews or Gentiles. Israel under the
law was God’s son, his first-born, but then they
were as children under age; now, under the gospel,
they are grown up both to greater understanding
and greater liberty, Gal. iv. 1, 2. Note, [1.] It is
the unspeakable privilege of all believers, that they
have the living God for their Father, the ever-
living God, and may look upon themselves as his
children by grace and adoption. [2.] The sonship
of believers shall be owned and acknowledged; it
shall be said to them, for their comfort and satisfac
tion, nay, and it shall be said for their honour in the
hearing of the world, Ye are the sons of the living
God. Let not the saints disquiet themselves, let not
others despise them ; for, sooner or later, there shall
be a manifestation of the children of God, and all
the world shall be made to know their excellency,
and the value God has for them. [3.] It will add
much to their comfort, very' much to their honour,
when they are dignified with the tokens of God’s
favour in that very place where they had lain long
under the tokens of his displeasure. This speaks
comfort to the believing Gentiles, that they need not
go up to Jerusalem, to be received and owned as
God’s children; no, they may- stay where they
are, and in that place, though it be in the remotest
comer of the earth; “ In that place, where you were
at a distance, where it was said. You are not God’s
people, but are separated from them, (Isa. lvi. 3,
6. ) even there, without leaving your country and
kindred, you may by faith receive the Spirit of
adoption, witnessing with your spirits, that you are
the children of God.”
(3.) That those who had been at variance, should
be happily brought together; (i>. 11.) Then shall the
children of Judah and the children of Israel be ga¬
thered together. This uniting of Judah and Israel,
those two kingdoms that were now so much at vari¬
ance, biting and devouring one another is mention¬
ed only as a specimen, or one instance, if the happy
effect of the setting up of Christ’s kingdom in the
world, the bringing of those that had been at the
greatest enmity one against another, to a good un¬
derstanding one of another, and a good affection
one to another. This was literally fulfilled, when
the Galileans, who inhabited that part of the coun¬
try which belonged to the ten tribes, and, probably,
for the most part, were descended from them, so
heartily joined with those that were probably called
Jews, (that were of Judea,) in following Christ and
embracing his gospel; and his first disciples were
partly Jews, and partly Galileans. The first that
were blessed with the light of the gospel, were of
the land of Zebulun and JVaphtali; (Matth. iv. 15.)
and though there was no good-will at all between
the Jews and the Galileans, yet, upon their believ¬
ing in Christ, they were happilv consolidated, and
there were no remains of the former disaffection
they had to one another; nay, when the Samaritans
believed, though between them and the Jews there
880
HOSE A, II.
was a much greater enmity, yet in Christ there was
a perfect unanimity, Acts viii. 14. Thus Judah
and Israel were gathered together; yet this was but
a type of the much more celebrated coalition be¬
tween Jews and Gentiles, when, by the deatli of
Christ, the partition-wall of the ceremonial law
was taken down. See Eph. ii. 14. — 16. Christ
died, to gather together in one all the children oj
God that were scattered abroad, John. xi. 52. Eph.
i. 10.
(4.) That Jesus Christ should be the Centre of
unity to all God’s spiritual Israel. They shall all
agree to appoint to themselves one Head, which can
be no other than he whom God has appointed,
even Christ. Note, Jesus Christ is the head of the
church, the one only Head of it; not only a Head of
government, as of the body politic, but a Head of
vital influence, as of the natural body. To believe
in Christ is to appoint him to ourselves for our Head,
to consent to God’s appointment, and willingly com-
mit ourselves to his guidance and government; and
this in concurrence and communion with all good
Christians that make him their Head; so that
though they are many, yet in him they are one, and
so become one with each other; Qui conveniunt in
alit/uo tertio, inter se conveniunt — Those who agree
with a third, agree with each other.
(5.) That, having appointed Christ for their
Head, they shall come up out of the land; they shall
come, some of all sorts, from all parts, to join them¬
selves to the church, as, under the Jewish economy,
they came up from all corners of the land of Israel
to Jerusalem, to worship, Ps. cxxii. 4. Thither the
tribes go up; to which there is a plain allusion in
that prophecy of the accession of the Gentiles to
the church, (Isa. ii. 3.) Come, and let us go u/i to
the mountain of the Lord. It speaks not a local
remove, (for they are said to be in the same place,
v. 10. ) but a change of their mind, a spiritual ascent
to Christ. They shall t<i.ne up from the earth; (so
it maybe read,) for those who have given up them¬
selves to Christ as their Head, take their affections
off from this earth, and the things of it, to set them
upon things above; (Col. iii. 1, 2.) for they are not
of the world, (John xv. 19.) but have their conver¬
sation in heaven. They shall come u/i out of the
land, though it be the land of their nativity; they
shall in affection come out from it, that they may
follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes. Thus the
learned Dr. Pocock takes it.
(6.) That, when all comes to pass, Great shall be
the day of Jezreel. Though great is the day of Jet r-
reel’s affliction, (so some understand it,) yet great
shall be the day of Jezreel’s glory. This shall be
Israel’s day; the day shall be their own, after their
enemies have long had their day. Israel is here
called Jezreel, the seed of God, the holy seed, (Isa.
vi. 13.) the substance of the land; this seed is now
sown in the earth, and buried under the clods; but
great shall be its day when the harvest comes.
Great was the church’s day when there were added
to it daily such as should be saved; then did the Al¬
mighty do great things for it.
CHAP. II.
The scope of this chapter seems to he much the same with
that of the foregoing chapter, and to point at the same
events, and the causes of them. As there, so here, I.
God, by tile prophet, discovers sin to them, and charges
it home upon them, the sin of their idolatry, their spi¬
ritual whoredom, their serving idols, and forgetting God,
and their obligations to him, v. 1, 2, 5, 8. II. He threat¬
ens to take away from them that plenty of all good things
with which they had served their idols, and to abandon
them to ruin without remedy, v. 3, 4, 6, 7, 9 . . 13. III.
Yet he promises at last to return in ways of mercy to
them for his own sake, (v. 14.) to restore them to their
former plenty, (v. 15.) to cure them of their inclination
to idolatry, (v. 16, 17.) to renew his covenant with
them, (v. 18.. 20.) and to bless them with all good
things, v. 21 . . 23.
1. CfAY ye unto your brethren, Ammi,
^ and to your sisters, Ruhamah. 2.
Plead with your mother, plead ; for she is
not my wife, neither am I her husband : let
her, therefore, put away her whoredoms out
of her sight, and her adulteries from between
her breasts; 3. Lest 1 strip her naked, and
set her as in the day that she was born, and
make )ier as a wilderness, anti set her like
a dry land, and slay her with thirst. 4. And
I will not have mercy upon her children,
for they be the children of whoredoms. 5.
For their mother hath played the harlot;
she that conceived them ha Ii done shame¬
fully: for she said, I will go after my lovers,
that give me my bread and my water, my
wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.
The first words of this chapter some make the
close of the foregoing chapter, and add it to the
promises which we have here of the great things
God would do for them; when they shall have ap¬
pointed Christ their Head, and centred in him, then
let them say to one another, with triumph and ex¬
ultation, {Let the prophets say it to them, so the
Chaldee,) Comfort ye, comfort ye, my / leo/ile , is
now their commission; say to them, Ammi, and
Ruhamah; call them so again, for they shall no
longer lie under the reproach and doom of Lo-ammi
and Lo-ruhamah; they shall now be my people
again, and obtain mercy. God’s spiritual Israel,
made up of Jews and Gentiles without distinction,
shall call one another brethren and sisters, shall
own one another for the people of God, and beloved
of him, 'and, for that reason, shall embrace one
another, and stir up one another both to give thanks
for, and to walk worthy of, this common salvation
which they partake of. Or, rather, because the
following words seem to have a coherence with
these, these also are designed for conviction and hu
miliation. The mother, (to 2.) seems to be the
same with the brethren and sisters, (z1. 1.) the
church of the ten tribes, the body of the people,
which were brethren, and in a special manner with
the heads and leaders, which were as the mother
by whom the rest were brought up and nursed. But
who are the children that must plead with their mo¬
ther thus? Either, 1. The godly that were among
them, that witnessed against the iniquities of the
times, let them boldly go on to bear their testimony
against the idolatries and gross corruptions that pre¬
vail with them. Let them that had not bowed the
knee to Baal, reason the case with those that had,
and endeavour to convince them with such argu¬
ments as are here put in their mouths. Note, Pri¬
vate persons may, and ought, in their places, to
appear and plead against the public profanations of
God’s name and worship. Children may humbly
and modestly argue with their parents, when they
do amiss, Plead" with your mother, plead, as Jona¬
than with Saul concerning David. Or, 2. The suf¬
ferers among them, that shared in the calamities of
the times, let them not complain of God, let them
not quarrel with him, or lay the blame on him, as
if he had dealt hardly with them, and net like a ten¬
der father; no, let them plead with their mother ,
and lay the fault on her, where it ought to be laid;
compare Isa. 1. 1. “ For her transgressions is your
mother put away; she may thank herself, and yen.
831
HOSEA, II.
may thank her, for all your miseries.” Let us see
now how they must plead with ner
I. They must put her in mind of the relation
ivherein she had stood to God, the kindness he had
had for her, the many favours he had bestowed
upon her, and the further favours he nad designed
her. Let them tell their brethren and sisters, that
they had been Ammi and Ruhamah, that they had
been God’s people, and vessels of his mercy, and
might have been so still, if it had not been their own
fault, v. 1. Note, Our relation to God and depend¬
ence on him, is a great aggravation of our revolts
from him and rebellions against him.
II. They must, in God’s name, charge her with
the violation of the marriage-covenant between her
and God: let them tell her that God does not look
upon her as his wife, nor upon himself as her Hus¬
band, any longer. Tell her (v. 2.) that she is not
my wife, neither am I her husband; that by her
spiritual whoredom she has forfeited all the honour
and comfort of her relation to God, and provoked
him to give her a bill of divorce. Note, No consi¬
deration can be more powerful to awaken us to re¬
pentance than the provocation we have by sin given
to God to disown and cast us off. It is time to look
about us, and to think what course we must take,
when God threatens to reject us; for wo unto us if
he be not our Husband. They must charge this
home upon her, (v. 5.) Their mother has played the
harlot; their congregation has run a whoring after
false prophets, (so the Chaldee,) or, rather, after
idols, wherein they were encouraged by their false
prophets; she that conceived them has done shame -
fully, in making and worshipping idols. An idol is
called a shame, (cA. ix. 10.) and idolatry is a shame¬
ful thing. It is not only an affront to God, but a
reproach to men, to fall down to the stock of a tree,
as the prophet speaks; or it denotes that the sinner
was shameless, impudent in sin, and could not
blush; Jer. vi. 15. Or, She has made ashamed,
has made all that see her ashamed of her; her own
children are ashamed of their relation to her.
III. They must upbraid her with her horrid in¬
gratitude to God her Benefactor, in ascribing to her
idols the glory of the gifts he had given her, and
then giving that for a reason why she paid them the
homage due to him only, v. 5. In this she did shame¬
fully indeed, that she said, I will go after my lo¬
vers that give me my bread and my water. Ob¬
serve here, 1. Her wicked resolution to persist in
idolatry, notwithstanding all that God said, both by
his prophets and bv his providences, to draw her
from it; she said, Whatever is offered to the con¬
trary, I will go after my lovers; or, those that cause
me to love them, whom I cannot but be in love with.
The Chaldee understands it of the nations whose
alliance Israel courted and depended upon, who
supplied them with what they needed. But it is
rather to be understood of the idols they worship¬
ped; to justify their love of which they called them
their lovers. See who do shamefully ; those that are
wilful and resolute in sin, and those that openly pro¬
fess and own their resolution to go on in it. See the
folly of idolaters, to call those their lovers, that had
not so much as life; yet let us learn to call our God
our Lover; let us keep up good thoughts of him,
and put a high value upon our interest in him, and
in his love. 2. The gross mistake upon which this
resolution was grounded; “ I will go after my lovers,
because they give me my bread and my water,
which are necessary to sustain the body, my wool
and my fax, which are necessary to clothe the
body, and pleasant things, my oil, and my drink,
my liquors, ’ (so the word is,) “wine and strong
drink.” Note, (1.) The things of sense are the best
things with carnal hearts, and the most powerful
attractives, in pursuit of which they care not what
Vol. iv.- 5 T
they follow after. The God of Israel set before
them his statutes and judgments, (Dent. iv. 8.)
more to be desired than gold, and sweeter than ho
ney, (Ps. xix. 10.) promised them his favour, which
would put gladness in their hearts more than com,
wine, and oil; (Ps. iv. 7.) but they had no relish at
all for these things; whence they thought their oil
and their drink came, thither they would return
their best affections. 0 curves in terram an inter, et
Ctrl estiu m inanesl — 0 degenerate minds, bending
toward the earth, and devoid of every thing spirit¬
ual.' (2.) It is a great abuse and injury to God, in
pursuance of the pleasures and delights of sense to
forsake him, who not only gives us better things,
but gives us even those things too. The idolaters
made Ceres the goddess of their com, Bacchus the
god of their wine, 8cc. and then foolishly fancied
they had their corn and wine from these, forgetting
the Lord their God, who both gave them that good
land, and gave them power to get wealth out of it.
(3.) Many are hardened in sin by their worldly
prosperity; they had an abundance of. those things
when they served their idols, and then imagined
them to be given them by their idols, which kept
them to their service; thus they argued, (Jer. xliv.
17, 18.) While we burnt incense to the queen of hea¬
ven, we had plenty of victuals.
IV. They must persuade her to repent and re¬
form; God will disown her if she persist in her
whoredoms, let her therefore put away her whore¬
doms, v. 2. Let her be convinced that it is possible
for her to reform; the idols, dear as they are, may
yet be parted with, and it will certainly be well with
her if sve do reform. Note, Our pleading with sin¬
ners must be to drive them to repentance, not to
drive them to despair. Let her put away her whore¬
doms, and her adulteries; the doubling of words to
the same purport, and both plural, denotes the
abundance of idolatries they were guilty of, all
which must be abandoned, ere God would be re¬
conciled to them. Let her put them out of her sight,
as detestable things which she cannot endure to look
upon; let her say unto them, Get ye hence, Isa. xxx.
22. Let her put them from her face, and from be¬
tween her breasts. Let her not do as harlots use to
do, that both discover their own wicked disposition,
and allure others to wickedness, by painting their
faces, and exposing their naked breasts, and adorn¬
ing them; let her not thus, by annexing all possible
gaieties and pleasures to the worship of idols, en¬
gage herself, and allure others, to it. Let her put
away all these. Every sinful course, persisted in,
is an adulterous departure from God. And here we
may see what it is truly to repent of it, and turn
from it. 1. True penitents will forsake both open
sins and secret sins; will put away not only the
whoredoms that lie in sight, but those that lie in se¬
cret between their breasts; the sin that is rolled un¬
der the tongue as a sweet morsel. 2. They will both
avoid the outward occasions of sin, and mortify the
inward disposition to it. Idolaters walked after their
own eyes, which went a whoring after their idols;
(Ezek. vi. 9. Deut. iv. 19.) and therefore they must
put them away out of their sight, lest they should
be tempted to worship them; Look not upon the
wine when it is red. But that is not enough, the axe
must be laid to the root, the corrupt bent and incli¬
nation of the heart must be changed, and it must be
put away from between the breasts, that Christ alone
may have the innermost and uppermost place there,
Cant. i. 13.
V. They must show her the utter ruin that will
certainly be the fatal consequence of her sin, if she
do not repent and reform, ( v . 3.) Lest I strip her
naked. This comes in here not by way of sentence
passed upon her, but by way of warning given to
her, that she may prevent it; Let her put away her
882
HOSEA, II.
whoredoms, that I may not strip her naked; so it
may be read; intimating that God waits to show
mercy to sinners, if they would but qualify them¬
selves for that mercy. It is here threatened that
God will deal with her as the just and jealous hus¬
band at length does with an adulterous wife, that
has filled his house with a s/iurious brood, and will
not be reclaimed; he turns her and her children out
of doors and sends them a begging; I will not have
mercy u/ion her children; ( v . 4. ) the /larticular per¬
sons that share in the calamity of the nation, and
the rising generation, shall be ruined by it, for they
are children of whoredoms, and keep up the vain
conversation received by tradition from their fa¬
thers. Now it is here threatened that they shall be
both stripped and starved; they thought their idols
gave them their bread and their water, their wool
and their flax; but God, by taking them away, will
let them know it was he that gave them.
1. She shall be stripped; Lest I strip her of all
her ornaments which she is proud of, and with which
she courts her lovers; strip her and set her as in the
day that she was bom, send her as naked out of the
world as she came into it; this death does, Job i. 21.
I will strip her, and so expose her to cold, and ex¬
pose her to shame; and justly is she exposed to
shame, that did shamef ully, v. 5. The day when
God brought them out of Egypt, where they were
no better than slaves and beggars, was the day in
which they were born; and God threatens to bring
them back to as low and miserable a condition as he
then found them in. Whatever they had that either
gained them respect, or screened them from con¬
tempt, among their neighbours, should be taken
from them. See Ezek. xvi. 4, 39.
2. She shall be starved; shall be deprived not
only of her honours, but of her comforts and neces¬
sary supports. She shall be famished, shall be made
as a wilderness and a dry land, and slain with
thirst. She that boasted so much of her bread and
water, her oil, and her drinks, which her lovers had
given her, shall not have so much as necessary food.
The land shall not afford subsistence for the inha¬
bitants, for want of the rain of heaven; or, if it do,
it shall be taken from them by the enemy, so that
the rightful owners shall perish for want of it. Some
understand it thus; I will make her as she was in
the wilderness, and set her as she was in the desert
land, where she was sometimes ready to perish for
thirst. So it explains the former part of the verse,
I will set her as in the day that she was born; for it
was in the vast howling wilderness that Israel was
first formed into a people. They shall be in as de¬
plorable a condition as their fathers were in, whose
carcases fell in the wilderness, and, in this respect,
worse, that then the children were reserved to be
heirs of the land of promise, but now, I will not
have mercy upon her children, for their mother has
played the harlot.
6. Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy
way with thorns, and make a wall, that she
shall not find her paths. 7. And she shall
follow after her lovers, but she shall not
overtake them ; and she shall seek them,
but shall not find them: then shall she say,
I will go and return to my first husband ;
for then teas it better with me than now. 8.
For she did not know that I gave her com,
and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver
and gold, ivhich they prepared for Baal. 9.
Therefore will I return, and take away my
corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the
season thereof, and will recover my wool
and my flax given to cover her nakedness.
10. And now will I discover her lewdness
in the sight of her lovers, and none shall de¬
liver her out of my hand. 11. I will also
cause all her mirth to cease, her feast-days,
her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all
her solemn feasts. 12. And 1 will destroy
her vines, and her fig-trees, whereof she
hath said, These are my rewards, that my
lovers have given me : and I will make
them a forest, and the beasts of the field
shall eat them. 13. And I will visit upon
her the days of Baalim, wherein she burnt
incense to them, and she decked herself with
her ear-rings and her jewels, and she went
after her lovers, and forgat me, saith the
Lord.
God here goes on to threaten what he would do
with this treacherous, idolatrous people; and there¬
fore he warns, that he may not wound, therefore
he threatens, that he may not strike. If he turn not,
he will whet his sword; (Ps. vii. 12.) but if he turn,
he will sheathe it. They did not turn, and there¬
fore all this came upon them; and its being threat¬
ened before, shows that it was the execution of a
i divine sentence upon them for their wickedness;
and it is written for admonition to us.
I. They shall be perplexed and embarrassed in
all their counsels, and disappointed in all their ex¬
pectations. This is threatened, v. 6, 7. But to the
threatening is annexed a promise, that this shall be
a means to convince them of their folly, and bring
them home to their duty; and so good shall be
brought out of evil, in token of the mercy God has
yet in reserve for them. And this being the happy
fruit and effect of the distress, it is hard to say whe¬
ther the prediction or the distress itself, should be
called a threatening or a promise.
1. God will raise up difficulties and troubles in
their way, so that their public counsels and affairs
shall have no success, nor shall they be able to get
forward in them; I will hedge up thy way with
thorns, with such crosses as, like thorns and briers,
are the product of sin and the curse, and are
scratching, and tearing, and vexing, and, when the
way we are in is hedged up with them, stop our
progress, and force us to turn back. She said, “1
will go after my lovers; I will pursue my leagues
and alliances with foreign powers, and depend upon
them.” But God says, “She shall be frustrated
in these projects, and not be able to proceed in them.
I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and if that do
not serve, I will make a wall." If some lesser diffi¬
culties be got over, and prevail not to break thy
measures, God will raise greater, for he will over¬
come when he judges. It shall be such a hedge,
and such a wall, that she shall not find her paths.
The change of the person here, I will hedge up
thy way, and then, She shall not find it, is usual in
scripture, especially in an earnest way of speaking.
“Sinner, do thou take notice, I will hedge up thy
way, and all you that are by-standers, take notice
what will be the effect of this, you may observe that
she cannot find her paths.” She shall be as a tra¬
veller that not only knows not which way to go, of
many that are before him, but that finds no way at
all to go forward. And then she shall follow after
her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; she shall
endeavour to make an interest in the Assyrians and
Egyptians, and to have them for her protectors,
but she shall not gain her point; they shall either
i not come into confederacy with her, or not do hei
88.)
HOSEA, II.
service, shall help in vain, and be as the staff of a
broken reed. She shall seek them, but shall not find
them, shall seek to her idols, but shall not find that
satisf iction in them, that she promised herself; the
gods whom she trusted and courted, not only can do
nothing for her, but have nothing to say to her, to
encourage her. Now, (1.) This is such a just judg¬
ment as the Sodomites met with, that were struck
with blindness, and wearied themselves to find the
door, (Gen. xix. 11.) and the Syrians, 2 Kings vi.
18. Note, Those that are most resolute in their
sinful pursuits, are commonly most crossed in them.
Thorns and snares are in the way of the froward;
(Prov. xxii. 5.) and thus with them God shows him¬
self froward, (Ps. xviii. 26. ) and walks contrary to
those that walk contrary to him. Lev. xxvi. 23, 24.
The lamenting prophet complains, He has enclosed
my ways, Lam. iii. 7, 9. The way of God and
duty is often hedged about with thorns, but we have
reason to think it is a sinful way that is hedged ufi
with thorns. (2.) This is such a kind rebuke, and
indeed such a mercy as Balaam met with, when the
angel stood in his way, to hinder his going forward
to curse Israel, Numb. xxii. 22. Note, Crosses and
obstacles in an evil course are great blessings, and
are so to be accounted ; they are God’s hedges, to
keep us from transgressing, to restrain us from wan¬
dering out of the green pastures, to withdraw man
from his purpose, (Job xxxiii. 17.) to make the
wav of sin difficult, that we may not go on in it, and
to keep us from it whether we will or not. We have
reason to bless God for restraining grace, and for
restraining providences.
2. Tliese difficulties that God raises up in their
way, shall raise up in their minds thoughts of turn¬
ing back; “ Then shall she say. Since I cannot over¬
take my lovers, 1 will even go and return to my
first husband, will return to God, and humble my¬
self to him, and desire him to take me in again; for
when I kept close to him, it was every way better
with me than now.” Two things are here extorted
from this degenerate, apostate people. (1.) A just
acknowledgment of the folly of their apostacy. They
are now brought to own that it was better with them
while they kept close to their God than ever it was
since they forsook him. Note, Whoever have ex¬
changed the service of God for the service of the
world and the flesh, have, sooner or later, been
made to own that they changed for the worse, and
that while they continued in good company, and
went on in the way of good duties, and made con¬
science how they spent their time, and what they
said or did, it was better with them, they had more
true comfort and enjoyment of themselves than ever
they had since they went astray. (2. ) A good pur¬
pose to come back again to their duty; I will go,
and return to my first husband; and she knows so
much of his goodness and readiness to forgive, that
she speaks without any doubt of his receiving her
again into favour, and making her condition as good
as ever. Note, The disappointments we meet with
in our pursuits of satisfaction in the creature, should,
if nothing else will do it, drive us at length to the
Creator, in whom alone it is to be had. When Moab
is weary of the high place, he shall go to the sanc¬
tuary, Isa. xvi. 12. And when the prodigal son is
reduced to husks, short allowance indeed, and re¬
members that in his father's house there is bread
enough, then he says, I will arise, and go to my fa¬
ther’s house, Luke xv. 17, 18.
II. The necessary supports and comforts of life
shall be taken from them, because they had disho¬
noured God with them, v. 8, 9. Their land was
plenteous. Now see here,
1. How graciously their plenty was given to them.
God gave them not only com for necessity, but wine
fin- delight, and oil for ornament Nay, he multi¬
plied their silver and gold, wherewith to traffic with
other nations, and bring home their products, and
which they might hoard up for posterity; silver and
gold will keep longer than corn, and wine, and oil.
He gave them wool and fiax too, to cover their na
kedness, and to serve for ornament enough to them,
Ezek. xvi. 10. Note, God is a bountiful Benefac
tor even to those who, he foresees, will be ungrate¬
ful and unthankful to him.
2. How basely their plenty was abused by them.
(1.) They robbed God of the honour of his gifts;
She did not know that I gave her corn and wine;
she did not remember it. The law and the prophets
had told them, again and again, that all their com¬
forts they received from God’s bountiful providence;
but they were so often told by their false prophets
and idolatrous priests, that they had their corn from
such an idol, and their wine from such an idol, 8cc.
that they had quite forgotten their relation to their
great Benefactor, and their obligations to him. She
did not consider it, she would not acknowledge it;
this they were willingly ignorant of, and more
brutish than the ox that knows his owner, and the
ass that knows his master’s crib. She did not know
it, for she did not return thanks to him for his gifts,
nor study what she should render; nor did she give
him his dues out of them, but acted as if she were
ignorant who was the Donor. (2.) They served
and honoured his enemies with them ; they pre¬
pared them for Baal; they adorned their images
with gold and silver, ( Jer. x. 4. ) and adorned them¬
selves for the worship of their images, v. 13. See
Ezek. xvi. 17. — 19. J therewith they trade Baal,
(so the margin reads it,) the image of Baal. Note,
It is a very great dishonour to the God of heaven to
make those gifts of his providence the food and fuel
of our lusts, which he gave us for our support in his
service, and to be oil to the wheels of our obedience.
3. How justly their plenty should be taken from
them; “ Therefore will I return, I will alter my
dealings with them, will take another course, and
will take away my corn, and other good things that
I gave her.” I will recover it; a law-term; as a
man by due course of law recovers what is unjustly
detained from him; or, as when the tenant has com¬
mitted waste, the landlord recovers locum vastatum
— delapidations. Observe, God calls it my com and
my wine, my wool and my flax; they called it
theirs, my bread and my water, v. 5. but God lets
them know that they were not theirs, he only al¬
lowed them the use of them as tenants, intrusted
them with the management of them as stewards,
but still reserved the property in himself; It is my
com and my wine. Note, God will have us to know,
not only that we have all our creature-comforts and
enjoyments from him, but that he has still an incon¬
testable right and title to them, that they are more
his than ours, and therefore are to be used for him,
and accounted for to him. He will therefore take
it away from them, because they have forfeited it
by disowning his right; as a tenant by copy of court-
roll, who holds at the will of his lord, forfeits his
estate if he makes a feoffment of it as though he
were a freeholder. He will recover it, will free or
deliver it, that it may be no longer abused; as the
creature is said to be delwered from the bondage of
corruption, under which it groans, Rom. viiir 21.
He will take it away in the time thereof, and in the
season thereof, then when they expected it, and
thought that they were sure of it. It shall suffer
shipwreck in the harbour; and the harvest shall bt
a heap. He will take it away by unseasonabl.
weather, or by unreasonable men. Note, Those thai
abuse the mercies God gives them to his dishonour,
cannot expect to enjoy them long.
III. They shall lose all their honour, and be ex¬
posed to contempt; (v. 10.) “7 will discover / -»
i!84
HOSEA, II.
lewdness, will bring to light all her secret wicked¬
ness, and make it public, to her shame; I will show
by the punishment of it how heinous, how odious,
how offensive it is. The fact has been denied, but
now it shall appear; the fault has been diminished,
but now it shall appear exceeding sinful. And this
.n the sight of her lovers; in the sight of the neigh-
oouring nations, with whom she courted an alliance,
and on whom she had a dependence; they shall
despise her, and be ashamed of her because of her
weakness, and poverty, and ill conduct; they shall
net think her any longer worthy of their friendship. ”
See this fulfilled, Lam. i. 8. All that honoured her
despise her, because they have seen her nakedness.
Or, in the sight of the sun and moon, which she
worshipped as her lovers, before them shall her
lewdness be discovered. Compare this with Jer.
viii. 1, 2. They shall bring out the bones of their
kings and princes, and spread them before the sun
and moon, whom they have lotted mid served. Note,
Sin will have shame; let those expect it that have
done shamefully. What other lot can this impudent
adulteress expect but that of a common harlot, to be
carted through the town? And when God comes to
deal thus with her, none shall deliver her out of his
hands; neither the gods nor the men they confide
in. Note, Those who will not deliver themselves
into the hand of God’s mercy, cannot be delivered
out of the hand of his justice.
IV. They shall lose all their pleasure, and shall
be left melancholy; (u. 11.) I will cause her mirth
to cease. It seems then, though they had gone a
whoring from their God, yet they could find in their
hearts to rejoice as other people, which is forbidden,
ch. ix. 1. Note, Many who lie under guilt and
wrath, are yet very jocund and merry, and live
jovially; but whether in their laughter their hearts
be sad or no, it is certain that the end of their mirth
will be heaviness; for God will cause all their mirth
to cease. It is as Mr. Burroughs observes here, Sin
and mirth can never hold long together; but if men
will not take away sin from their mirth, God will
take away mirth from their sin.
1. God will take away the occasions of their sa¬
cred mirth; their feast-days, their new moons, their
sabbaths, and all their solemn feasts. These God
instituted to be observed in a religious manner, and
they were to be observed with rejoicing; and, it
seems, though they had departed from the pure
worship of God, yet they kept up the observation
of these; not at God’s temple at Jerusalem, for they
had long since forsaken that, but, probably, at Dan
and Bethel, where the calves were, or in some other
places of meeting that they had. They observed
them, not for the honour of God, or with any true
devotion toward him, but only because they were
times of mirth and feasting, music and dancing, and
meeting of friends, received by tradition from their
fathers. Thus, when they had lost the power of
godliness, and denied that, yet, for the pleasing of a
vain and carnal mind, they kept up the form of it:
and by this means their new moons and their sab¬
baths became an iniquity which God could not
away with, Isa. i. 13. Now observe, (1.) God calls
them their new moons, and their sabbaths, not his,
(he disowns them,) but theirs. (2.) He will cause
them to cease. Note, When men by their sins have
caused the life and substance of ordinances to cease,
it is just with God by his judgments to cause the
remaining show and shadow of them to cease.
2. He will take away the supports of their carnal
mirth. TheJ loved the new moons and the sab¬
baths, only for the sake of good cheer that was
stirring then, not for the sake of any religious exer-
••ise then performed, these they had dropped long
ago; and now God will take away their provisions
Cor these solemnities; ( v . 12.) I will destroy her
vines and her fig-trees. Note, If men destroy God’s
word and ordinance's, by which he should be ho¬
noured on their feast-days, it is just with him to
destroy their vines and fig-trees, with which they
regale themselves. While they took the pleasure
of these, they gave their lovers the praise of them;
“ These are my rewards which my lovers have given
me; I may thank my stars for these, and my wor¬
ship of them; I may thank my neighbours for these,
and my alliance with them.’’ And therefore God
will destroy them, will wither them with a blast, or
bring in a foreign enemy that shall lay their country
waste, so that their vineyards shall become a forest;
the enclosures shall be thrown down, as is usual in
war, all shall be laid in common, so that the beasts
of the field shall eat their grapes and their figs. Or,
they shall be so blasted with the east wind, that
fruit-trees shall be of no more use than forest-trees;
but, being withered and good for nothing, what
fruit there is shall be left to the beasts of the field.
Or, it shall be devoured by their enemies, by men
as barbarous as wild beasts.
Now, (1.) This shall be the ruin of their mirth;
God will cause all her mirth to cease. How will he
do it ? Taking away the new moons and the sab¬
baths will not do it, they can very easily part with
them, and find no loss; but I will destroy her vines
and her fig-trees, will take away her sensual plea¬
sures, and then she will think herself undone in¬
deed. Note, The destruction of the vines and the
fig-trees causes all the mirth of a carnal heart to
cease; it will say, as Micah, You have taken awai
my gods, and what have I more?
(2.) This shall be the punishment of her'idolatry,
v. 13.) "I will visit upon her the days o f Baalim;
will reckon with her for all the worship of the
Baals they have made gods of, from the days of
their fathers unto this day. ” We read of their wor¬
shipping Baal as long ago as the time of the Judges,
and, for aught I know, this may look as far back as
those times, those days of Baalim; for it is in the
second commandment, which forbids idolatry, that
God threatens to visit the iniquities of the fathers
upon the children; and justly is that sin so visited,
more than any other, because it commonly supports
itself by prescription and long usage. Now that the
measure of the iniquity of Israel was full, all their
former sins came into the account, and shall be
required of this generation. Or, the days of Baalim
are the solemn festival-days which they kept in ho¬
nour of their idols. Days of sinful mirth must be
visited in days of mourning. These were the days
wherein she burnt incense to idols, and, to grace
the solemnity, decked herself with her ear-rings and
her jewels; that, appearing honourable, the honour
she did to Baal might be thought the greater. Or,
she was as a wife that decks herself with the ear¬
rings and jewels that her husband gave her, to
make herself amiable to her lovers, whom she fol¬
lows after, and is ever mindful of. But she forgat
me, saith the Lord. Note, Our treacherous de¬
partures from God are owing to our forgetfulness
of him, of his nature and attributes, his relation to
us, and our obligations to him. Many who plead
that they have weak memories, and forget the
things of God, can remember other things well
enough; nay, it is because they are so mindful of
lying vanities that they are so forgetful of their own
mercies.
14. Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness, and
speak comfortably unto her. 15. And I will
give her her vineyards from thence, and the
valley of Aehor for a door of hope; and she
shall sing there, as in the days of her youth,
833
HOSEA, II.
and as in the day when she came up out of
the land of Egypt. 1 6. And it shall be at that
day, saitli the Lord, that thou shalt call
me Islii, and shalt call me no more Baali.
17. F'or I will take away the names of
Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no
more be remembered by their name. 1 8.
And in that day will I make a covenant for
them with the beasts of the field, and with
the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping
things of the ground: and I will break the
bow, and the sword, and the battle out of
the earth, and will make them to lie down
safely. 19. And I will betroth thee unto
me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto
me in righteousness, and in judgment, and
in loving-kindness, and in mercies: 20. I
will even betroth thee unto me in faithful¬
ness; and thou shalt know the Lord. 21.
And it shall come to pass in that day, I will
hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the hea¬
vens; and they ’shall hear the earth; 22.
And the earth shall hear the corn, and the
wine, and the oil ; and they shall hear Jez-
reel. 23. And I will sow her unto me in
the earth; and I will have mercy upon her
that had not obtained mercy; and I will
say to them • which were not my people,
Thou art my people; and they shall say,
Thou art my God.
The state of Israel, ruined by their own sin, did
not look so black and dismal in the former part of
the chapter, but that the state of Israel, restrained
by the divine grace, looks as bright and pleasant
here in the latter part of the chapter; and the more
surprisingly so, as the promises follow thus close
upon the threatenings; nay, which is very strange,
they are by a note of connexion joined to, and in¬
ferred from, that declaration of their sinfulness,
upon which the threatenings of their ruin are
grounded; She went after her lovers, and forgat me,
saith the Lord; therefore I will allure her. Fitly
therefore is that therefore, which is the note of con¬
nexion, immediately followed with a note of admira¬
tion, Behold, I will allure her ! When it was said,
She forgat me, one would think, it should have fol¬
lowed, “ Therefore I will abandon her, I will forget
her, I will never look after her more;” no, There¬
fore, I will allure her. Note, God’s thoughts and
ways of mercy are infinitely above ours; his reasons
are all fetched from within himself, and not from
any thing in us; nay, his goodness takes occasion
from man’s badness to appear so much the more
illustrious, Isa. lvii. 17, 18. Therefore, because she
will not be restrained by the denunciations of wrath,
God will tiy whether she will be wrought upon by
the offers of mercy. Some think it may be translated,
Afterward, or Nevertheless, I will allure her. It
comes all to one; the design is plainly to magnify free
grace to those on whom God will have mercy purely
for mercy’s sake.
Now that which is here promised to Israel is,
I. That, though now they were disconsolate, and
ready to despair, they should again be revived with
comforts and hopes, v. 14, 15. This is expressed
here with an allusion to God’s dealings with that
people when he brought them out of Egypt, through
the wilderness to Canaan; as their forlorn and de¬
plorable condition in their captivity was compand
to their state in Egypt in the day that they were
bom, v. 3. They shall be new-formed by such mi¬
racles of love and mercy as they were first formed
by; and such a transport of joy shall they be in as
they were in then. It is hard to say when this
had its accomplishment in the kingdom of the ten
tribes; but it principally aims, no doubt, at the
bringing in both of Jews and Gentiles into the church
by the gospel of Christ; and it is applicable, najr,
we have reason to think it was designed that it
shoujd be applied, to the conversion of particular
souls to God. Now observe,
1. The gracious methods God will take with
them. (1.) He will bring them into the wilderness,
as he did at first when he brought them out of
Egypt, where he instructed them, and took them
into covenant with himself. The land of their cap¬
tivity shall be to them now as that wilderness was
then, the furnace of affliction, in which God will
choose them. See Ezek. xx. 35, 36. I will bring
you into the wilderness of the people, and there will
I plead with you. God bad said that he would make
them as a wilderness, (v. 3.) which was a threaten¬
ing; now when it is here made part of a promise
that he would bring them into the wilderness, the
meaning may be, that he would by his grace bring
their minds to their condition; They shall have
humble hearts under humbling providences; being
poor, they shall be poor in spirit, shall accept of the
punishment of their iniquity, and then they are
prepared to have comfort spoken to them. When
God delivered Israel out of Egypt, he led them into
the wilderness, to humble them and prove them,
that he might do them good, (Dent. viii. 2, 3, 15,
16.) and so he will do again. Note, Those whom
God has mercy in store for he first brings into a
wilderness, into solitude and retirement, that they
may the more freely converse with him out of the
noise of this world; into distress of mind, through
sense of guilt and dread of wrath, which brings a
soul to be quite at a loss in itself and bewildered,
and by those convictions he prepares for consola¬
tions; and sometimes into outward distress and trou¬
ble, by that to open the ear to discipline. (2.) He
will then allure them, and sfleak comfortably to
them; will persuade them, and speak to their hearts;
he will by his word and spirit incline their hearts to
return to him, and encourage them to do so. He
will allure them with the promises of his favour, as
before he had terrified them with the threatenings
of his wrath; will speak friendly to them, both by
his prophets and by his providences, as before he had
spoken roughly; (Isa. xl. 1, 2.) Bu the hand of my
servants the prophets I will speak comfort to her
heart; so the Chaldee. This refers to the gospel
of Christ, and the offers of divine grace in- the gos¬
pel, by which we are allured to forsake our sins,
and to turn to God, and which speaks to the heart
of a convinced sinner that which is eveiy way suited
to his case; speaks abundant consolation to those
that sorrow for sin, and lament after the Lord. And
when by the Spirit it is indeed spoken to the heart
effectually, and so as to reach the conscience,
(which it is God’s prerogative to do,) O what a
blessed change is wrought by it! Note, The best
way of reducing wandering souls to God is, by fair
means. By the promise of rest in Christ we are
invited to take his yoke upon us; and the work of
conversion may be forwarded by comforts as well
as by convictions. (3.) He will give her her vine¬
yards from thence; from that time, and from that
place where he has afflicted her, and brought hci
to see her folly, and to humble herself, from thence
forward he will do her good; not only speak com
fortably to her, but do well for her, and undo what
be had done against her. He had destroyed her
386
HOSEA, II.
vines, (v. 12.) but now lie will give her whole vine¬
yards, as if for every vine i lestroyed she should have
a vineyard restored, and so be repaid with interest;
she shall not only have com for necessity, but vine¬
yards for delight. These denote the privileges and
comforts of the gospel, which are prepared for
those that come up out of the wilderness leaning
upon Christ as their Beloved, Cant. viii. 5. Note,
God has vineyards of consolation ready to bestow on
those who repent, and return to him; and he can
give vineyards out of a wilderness, which are of all
others the most welcome, as rest to the weary. (4. )
He will give her the valley of Achor for a door of
hope. The valley of Achor was that in which Achan
was stoned; it signifies the valley of trouble, because
he troubled Israel, and there God troubled him.
This was in the beginning of the wars of Canaan;
and their putting away the accursed thing in that
place gave them ground to hope that God would
continue his presence with them, and complete
their victories. So when God returns to his people
in mercy, and they to him in duty, it will be to
them as happy an omen as any other; if they put
away the accursed thing from among them, if by
mortifying sin they stone the Achan that has trou¬
bled their camp, their subduing that enemy within
themselves is an earnest to them of victory over all
the kings of Canaan. Or if the allusion be to the
name, it intimates that trouble for sin, if it be sin¬
cere, opens a door of hope; for that sin which truly
troubles us, shall not ruin us. The valley of Achor
was a very fruitful, pleasant valley, some think the
same with the valley of En-gedi, famous for vine¬
yards, Cant. i. 14. This God gave to Israel as a
pattern and pledge of the whole land of Canaan; so
“ God will by his gospel give to all believers such
gifts, graces, and comforts, in this life, as shall be
a taste of those more perfect good things of the
kingdom of heaven, and shall give them an assured
hope of a full possession of them in due time.” So
the learned Dr. Pocock expounds it; and, to the
same purport, this whole context.
2. The great rejoicing with which they shall re¬
ceive God’s gracious returns toward them; She shall
sing there as in the days of her youth. This plainly
refers to that triumphant and prophetic song, which
Moses and the children of Israel sang at the Red
sea, Exod. xv. 1. When they are delivered out of
captivity, they shall repeat that song, and to them
it shall be a new song, because sung upon a new oc¬
casion, not inferior to the former. God had said
(m 11.) that he would cause all her mirth to cease,
but now he would cause it to revive; she shall sing
as in the day that she came out of Egypt. Note,
When God repeats former mercies, we must repeat
former praises; we find the song of Moses sung in
the New Testament, Rev. xv. 3. This promise of
Israel’s singing has its accomplishment in the gospel
of Christ, which furnishes us with abundant matter
for joy and praise; and, wherever it is received in
its power, enlarges the heart in joy and praise, and
is that land flowing with milk and honey, which the
valley of Achor opens a door of hope to. We re¬
joice in tribulation.
II. That though they had been much addicted to
the worship of Baal, they should now be perfectly
weaned from it, should relinquish and abandon ail
appearances of idolatry, and approaches towaids it,
and cleave to God only, and worship him as he ap¬
points, n. 16, 17. Note, The surest pledge and to¬
ken of God’s favour to any people is, his effectual
parting between them and their beloved sins. The
worship of Baal was the sin that did most easily beset
the people of Israel, it was their own iniquity, the
sin that had dominion over them; but now that idola¬
try shall be quite abolished, and there shall not be
the least remains of it among them.
1. The idols of Baal shall not be mentioned, not
any of the Baals that in the days of Baalim had
made so great a noise with O Baal, hear us; 0
Baal, hear us. The very names of Baalim shall
be taken out of their mouths; they shall be so dis¬
used, that they shall be quite forgotten, as if their
names had never been known in Israel; they shall
be so detested, that people will not bear to mention
them themselves, or to hear others mention them;
so that posterity shall scarcely know that ever there
were such things. They shall be so ashamed of
their former love to Baal, that they shall do all they
can to blot out the remembrance of it. They shall
tie themselves up to the strictest literal meaning of
that law against idolatry, (Exod. xxiii. 13.) Make
no mention of the names of other gods, neither let it
be heard out of thy mouth, as David, Ps. xvi. 4.
Thus the apostle expresses the abhorrence we ought
to have of all fleshly lusts; Let them not be once
named among you, Eph. v. 3. But how can such
a change of the Ethiopian’s skin be wrought? It is
answered, The power of God can doit, and will. I
will take away the names of Baalim, Zech. xiii. 2.
I will cut off the names of the idols. Note, God’s
grace in the heart will change the language by mak¬
ing that iniquity to be loathed which was beloved,
Zeph. iii. 9. 1 will turn to the people a pure lan¬
guage. One of the rabbins savs, This promise re¬
lates to the Gentiles as well as Israel; and we know
it had its accomplishment in the turning of the Gen¬
tiles, by the gospel of Christ, from the idclatries
which they had been wedded to, 1 Thess. i. 9.
2. The very word Baal sh ill be laid aside, even
its innocent signification. God says. Thou shall call
me Ishi, and call meno more Baali; both signifying
my husband, and both had been made use of con¬
cerning God, Isa. liv. 5. Thy Maker is thy Hus¬
band, thy Baal, so the word is, thy Owner, Patron
and Protector. It is probable that many good peo
pie had, accordingly, made use of the word Baali,
in worshipping the God of Israel; when their wicked
neighbours bowed the knee to Baal, they gloried in
this, that God was their Baal; “But,” says God,'
“you shall call me so no more, because I will have
the very names of Baalim taken away.” Note,
That which is very innocent in itself, should, when
it has been abused to idolatry, be abolished, and the
very use of it taken away, that nothing may be done
to keep idols in remembrance, much less to keep
them in reputation. When calling God Ishi will do
as well, and signify as much, as Baali, let that word
be chosen rather, lest by calling him Baali, others
should be put in mind of their quondam Baals.
Some think that there is another reason intimated
why God would be called Ishi, and not Baali; they
both signify my husband, but Ishi is a compellation
of love and sweetness and familiarity, Baali of reve¬
rence and subjection. Ishi is vir mens — my hus¬
band, Baali is clominus mens — my lord. In gospel-
times God has so revealed himself to us as to encou¬
rage us to come boldly to the throne of his grace,
and to use a holy, humble freedom there; w c ought
to call God our Master, for so he is, but we are
more taught to call him our Father. Ishi is a man
the Lord, (Gen. iv. 1.) and intimates that in gospel-
times the church’s Husband shall be the Man Christ
Jesus; made like unto his brethren, and therefore
thev shall call him Ishi, not Baali.
III. That though they had been in continual
troubles, as if the whole creation had been at war
with them, now they shall enjoy perfect peace and
tranquillity, as if they .were in a league of friend¬
ship with the whole creation; (y. 18.) In that day,
when they have forsaken their idols, and put them¬
selves under the divine protection, I will make a
covenant for them. 1. They shall be protected
from evil; nothing shall hurt them, or do them any
887
HOSEA, II.
mischief. Tranquillus Deiis tranquillat omnia —
When God is at peace with us, he makes every crea¬
ture to be so too. The inferior creatures shall do
them no harm, as they had done, when the beasts
of the field ate up their vineyards, (v. 12.) and
when noisome beasts were one of God’s sore judg¬
ments, Ezek. xiv. 15. The fowl and the creeping
things are taken into this covenant, for they also,
when God makes use of them as the instruments of
his justice, may become verv hurtful. But they
shall be no more so; nay, by virtue of this covenant,
they shall be made serviceable to them, and
brought into their interests. Note, God has the
command of the inferior creatures, and brings them
into what covenant he pleases; he can make the
beasts of the field to honour him, (so he has promis¬
ed, Isa. xliii. 20. ) and to contribute to his people’s
comfort. And if the inferior creatures are thus
laid under an engagement to serve us, it is our part
of the covenant not to abuse them, but to serve God
with them. Some think that this had its accom¬
plishment in the miraculous power Christ gave his
disciples to take up serpents, Mark xvi. 17, 18. It
agrees with the promises made particularly to Is¬
rael, in their return out of captivity; (Ezek. xxxiv.
25.) I will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the
land; and the more general ones to all the saints;
(Job v. 22, 23.) The beasts of the field shall beat
peace with thee; and, (Ps. xci. 13.) Thou shall
tread upon the lion and adder. But this is not all;
men are more in danger from one another than
from the brute beasts, and therefore it is further
promised that God will make wars to cease, will dis¬
arm the enemy; I will break the bow, and sword,
and battle. He can do it when he pleases, (Ps.
xlvi. 9.) and will do it for those whose ways please
him, for he makes even their enemies to be at peace
with them, Prov. xvi. 7. This agrees with the pro¬
mises that in gospel-times swords shall be beaten
into ploughshares, Isa. ii. 4. 2. They shall be
quiet from the fear of evil. God will not only keep
them safe, but make them to lie down safely, as
those that know themselves to be under the protec¬
tion of Heaven, and therefore are not afraid of the
powers of hell.
IV. That, though God had given them a bill of
divorce for their whoredoms, yet, upon their repent¬
ance, he would again take them into covenant
with himself, into a marriage-covenant, v. 19, 20.
God’s making a covenant for them with the inferior
creatures was a great favour; but it was nothing to
this, that he took them into covenant with himself,
and engaged himself to do them good. Observe, 1.
The nature of this covenant; it is a marriage-cove¬
nant, founded in choice and love, and founding the
nearest relation; I will betroth thee unto me; and
again, a third time, I will betroth thee. Note, All
that are sincerely devoted to God, are betrothed to
him; God gives them the most sacred and inviolable
security imaginable, that he will love them, protect
them, and provide for them; that he will do the
part of a husband to them; and that he will incline
their hearts to join themselves to him, and will gra¬
ciously accept of them in so doing. Believing souls
are espoused to Christ, 2 Cor. ii. 2. The gospel-
church is the bride, the Lamb’s wife; and they
would never come into that relation to him, if he did
not by the power of his grace betroth them to him¬
self. The separation begins on our side, we alien¬
ate ourselves from God ; the coalition begins on his
side, he betroths us to himself. 2. The duration of
this covenant; I will betroth thee for ever. The
covenant itself shall be inviolable; God will not
break it on his part, and you shall not on yours; and
the blessings of it shall be everlasting. One of the
Jewish rabbins says, This is a promise that she shall
attain to the life of the world to come, which is abso¬
lute eternity or perpetuity. 3. The manner how
this covenant shall be made; (1.) In righteousness
and in judgment; God will deal sincerely and up¬
rightly in covenanting with them; they have broken
covenant, and God is righteous; “ But,” says God,
“ I will renew the covenant in righteousness.” The
matter shall be so ordered, that God may receive
even these backsliding children into his family again,
without any reflection upon his justice; nay, that
being satisfied by the Mediator of this covenant,
very much to the honour of it. But what reason
can there be why God should take a people into
covenant with him, that had so often dealt treacher¬
ously? Will it not reflect upon his wisdom? “No,”
says God, “I will do it in judgment; not rashly,
but upon due consideration; let me alone to give a
reason for it, and to justify my own conduct.” (2.)
In loving-kindness and in mercies. God will deal
tenderly and graciously in covenanting with them;
and will be not only as good as his word, but better;
and as he will be just in keeping covenant with
them, so he will be merciful in keeping them in the
covenant. They are subject to many infirmities,
and, if he be extreme to mark what they do amiss,
they will soon lose the benefit of the covenant. He
therefore promises that it shall be a covenant of
grace, made in a compassionate consideration of
their infirmities, so that every transgression in the
covenant shall not throw them out of covenant; he
will gather with everlasting loving-kindness. (3.)
In faithfulness; every article of the covenant shall
be punctually performed; faithful is he that has
called them, who also will do it, he cannot deny
himself. 4. The means by which they shall be
kept tight and faithful to the covenant on their part;
Thou shall know the Lord. This is not only a pro¬
mise that God will reveal himself to them more
fully and clearly than ever, but that he will give
them a heart to know him; they shall know more
of him, and shall know him in another manner than
ever yet. The ground of their apostacy was, not
knowing God to be their Benefactor; (t*. 8.) there¬
fore, to prevent the like, they shall all be taught of
God to know him. Note, God keeps up his interest
in men’s souls by giving them a good understanding
and a right knowledge of things, Heb. viii. 1 1.
V. That, though the heavens had been to them
as brass, and the earth as iron, now the heavens
shall yield their dews, and by that means the earth
its fruits, v. 21, 22. God having betrothed the gos¬
pel-church, and in it all believers, to himself, how
shall he not with himself and with his Son freely
give them all things, all things pertaining both to
life and godliness, all things they need or can desire?
All is theirs, for they are Christ’s, betrothed to
him; and with the righteousness of the kingdom of
God, which they seek first, all other things shall be
added unto them. And yet this promise of corn
and wine is to be taken also in a spiritual sense; (so
the learned Dr. Pocock thinks;) it is an effusion of
those blessings and graces which relate to the soul,
that is here promised under the metaphor of tem¬
poral blessings; thd dew of heaven, as well as the
fatness of the earth, and that put first, as in the
blessing of Jacob, Gen. xxvii. 28. God had threat¬
ened ( v . 9.) that he would take away the com and the
wine; but now he promises to restore them again,
and that in the common course and order of nature.
While they lay under the judgment of famine, they
call to the earth for corn and wine for the support
of themselves and their families; very gladly would
the earth have supplied them, but she cannot give
unless she receive, cannot produce corn and wine
unless she be enriched with the river of God; (Ps.
lxv. 9.) and therefore she calls to the heavens for
rain, the former and latter rain in their season,
gapes for it, and by her melancholy aspect when
8015
H03EA, ill.
rain is domed, pleads for it; “ But,” say the hea- '
veils, “ we have no rain to give, unless he who has ij
the key of tne clouds, unlock them, and open these
bottles; so that if the Lord do not help you, we ;
cannot.” But when God takes them into covenant
with himself, then the wheel of nature shall be set
agoing again in favour of them, and the streams of
mercy shall flow in the usual channel; Then I will
hear, saith the Lord, I will receive your /irayers:
so the Chaldee interprets the first hearing. God
will graciously take notice of their addresses to him.
And then I will hear the heavens; I will answer
them, (so it may be read,) and then they shall hear
and answer the earth, and pour down seasonable
rain upon it; and then- the earth shall bear the corn
and vines, and supply them with moisture, and
they shall hear Jezreel, and be nourishment and re¬
freshment for them that inhabit Jezreel. See here
the coherence of second causes with one another, as
links in a chain, and the necessary dependence they
all have upon God the first Cause. Note, We must
expect all our comforts from God in the usual me¬
thod and by the appointed means; and when we are
at any time disappointed in them, we must look up
to God; above the hills and the mountains, Psi
cxxi. 1, 2. See how ready the creatures are to
serve the people of God, how desirous of the honour;
the corn cries to the earth, the earth to the heavens,
the heavens to God, and all that they may supply
them. And see how ready God is to give relief; 1 1
will hear, saith the Lord, yea, I will hear. And if
God will hear the cry of t!ie heavens for his people,
much more will he hear the intercession of his Son
for them, who is made higher than the heavens.
See what a peculiar delight those that are in cove¬
nant with God may take in their creature-comforts,
as seeing them all come to them from the hand of
God; they can run up all the streams to the foun-
t tin, and taste covenant-love in common mercies,
which makes them doubly sweet.
VI. That, whereas they were now dispersed, not
only as Simeon and Levi, divided in Jacob and scat¬
tered in Israel, but divided and scattered all the
world over, God will turn this curse, as he did that,
into a blessing; “ I will not only water the earth for
her, but will sow her unto me in the earth; her dis¬
persion shall be not like that of the chaff in the floor,
which the wind drives away, but like that of the
seed in the field, in order to its greater increase;
wherever they are scattered they shall take root
downward, and bear fruit u/iward. The good
seed are the children of the kingdom. I will sow
her unto me.” This alludes to the name Jezreel,
which signifies, sown of God, or for God; as she
was scattered of him, (which is one signification of
the words,) so she shall be sown of him; and to
what he sows he will givethe increase. When in
all parts of the world Christianity got footing, and
every where there were professors of it, then this
promise was fulfilled, I will sow her unto me in the
earth. Note, The greatest blessing of this earth is,
that God has a church in it, and from that arises all
the tribute of glory which he has out of it; it is
what he has sown to himself, and what he will
therefore secure to himself.
VII. That, whereas they had been Lo-ammi and
Lo-ruhamah — not a people, and not finding mercy
with God, now they shall be restored to his favour,
and taken again into covenant with him; [v. 23.)
They had not obtained mercy, but seemed to be
abandoned; they were not my people, not distin¬
guished, not dealt with, as my people, but left to lie
in common with the nations; this was the case of
the rejected Jews; and the same or more deplorable
was that of the Gentile world, (to whom the apostle
applies this, Horn. ix. 24, 25.) that had no hofie, and
were without God in the world; but when great
multitudes both of Jews and Gentiles were, upon
i their believing in Christ, incorporated into a Chris¬
tian church, then, 1. God had mercy on these whc
had not obtained mercy. Those found favc ur with
God, and became the children of his love, who had
been long out of favour, and the children of his
wrath, and if infinite mercy had not interposed,
would have been for ever so. Note, God’s mercy
must not be despaired of any where on this side hell.
2. He took those into a covenant- relation to himself,
who had been strangers and foreigners; He says to
them, “ Thou art my people, whom I will own and
bless, protect and provide for;” and they shall say,
“ Thou art my God, whom I will serve and wor¬
ship, and to whose honour I will be entirely and for
ever devoted.” Note, (1.) The sum total of the
happiness of believers is the mutual relation that is
between them and God, that he is theirs and they
are his; this is the crown of all the promises. (2. )
This relation is founded in free grace; we have not
chosen him, but he has chosen us. He first says,
they are my people, and makes them willing to be
so in the day of his power, and then they avouch
him to be theirs. (3.) As we need desire no more
to make us happy, than to be the people of God, so
we need desire no more to make us easy and cheer¬
ful, than to have him to assure us that we are so; to
say unto us, by his Spirit witnessing with ours,
Thou art my people. (4.) Those that have ac¬
cepted of the Lord for their God, must avouch him
to be so, must go to him in prayer, and tell him so,
Thou art my God, and must be ready to make pro¬
fession before men. (5.) It adds to the comfort of
our covenant with God, that in it there is a com¬
munion of saints, who, though they are many, yet
here they are one. It is not, I will say to them. Ye
are my people; but. Thou art; for he looks upon
them as all one in Christ, and, as such in him, he
speaks to them, and covenants with them; and they
also do not say, Thou art our God, for they look
upon themselves as one body, and desire with one
mind and one mouth to glorify him, and therefore
say, Thou art my God. Or, it intimates that such
a covenant as God made of old with his people Is¬
rael in general, now under the gospel he makes
with particular believers, and says to each of them,
even the meanest, with as much pleasure as he did
of old to the thousands of Israel, Thou art my peo¬
ple, and invites and encourages each of them to say,
Thou art my God, and to triumph therein, as Mo¬
ses and all Israel did; (Exod. xv. 2.) He is my
God, and my father’s God.
CHAP. III.
God is still by the prophet inculcating the same thing upon
this careless people, and much in the same manner as
before, by a type or sign, that of the dealings of a hus¬
band with an adulterous wife. In this chapter, we have,
I. The had character which the people of Israel now had;
they were, as is said of the Athenians, (Acts xvii. 16.)
wholly given to idolatry , v. 1. II. The low condition
which they should be reduced to by their captivity, and
the other instances of God’s controversy with them, v.
2 . . 4. III. The blessed reformation that should at
length be wrought upon them in the latter days, v. 5.
1. npHEN said the Lord unto me, Go
JL yet, love a woman beloved of her
friend, yet an adulteress, according to the
love of the Lord toward the children of Is¬
rael, who look to other gods, and love fla¬
gons of wine. 2. So I bought her to me
for fifteen pieces of silver, and for a homer
of barley, and a half homer of barley. 3.
.And I said unto her, Thou shalt abide for
HOSEA, III. 88b
me many days: thou shalt not play the har¬
lot, and thou shalt not be for another man;
so 7 oil l I also be for thee. 4. For the chil¬
dren of Israel shall abide many days with¬
out a king, and without a prince, and with¬
out a sacrifice, and without an image, and
without an ephod, and without teraphim.
5. Afterward shall the children of Israel re¬
turn, and seek the Lord their God, and
David their king; and shall fear the Lord
and his goodness in the latter days.
Some think that this chapter refers to Judah, the
two tribes, as the adulteress the prophet married
(c/(. i. 3. ) represented the ten tribes; for this was
not to be divorced, as the ten tribes were, but to be
left desolate for a long time, and then to return, as
the two tribes did; but these are called the children
of Israel, which was the ten tribes, and therefore it
is more probable that of them this parable, as well
as that before, is to be understood. Go, and repeat
it, says God to the prophet; Go yet again. Note,
For the conviction and reduction of sinners it is ne¬
cessary that precept be upon precept, and line upon
line. If they will not believe one sign, try another,
Exod. iv. 8, 9.
Now, in this parable, we may observe,
I. God’s goodness and Israel’s badness strangely
serving for a foil to each other, it. 1. Israel is a
woman beloved of her friend, either of him that has
married her, or of him that only courts her, and
net an adulteress; such is the case between God and
Israel. We sav of those whose affection is mutual,
that there is no love lost between them ; but here we
find a great deal of the love, even of Clod himself,
lost and thrown away upon an unworthy, ungrateful
people. The God of Israel retains a very great
love for the children of Israel, and yet they are an
evil and adulterous generation. Be astonished, O
heavens, at this, and wonder, O earth! 1. That
God’s goodness has not put an end to their badness;
the Lord loves them, has a kindness for them, and
is continually showing kindness to them; they know
it, they cannot but own it, that he has been as a
Friend and Father to them; and yet they look to
other gods, gods that they can see, and to the love
of which they are drawn by the eye; they look to
them with an eye of adoration, they offer up all
their services to them, and, with an eye of depend¬
ence, they expect all their comforts from them; if
they were restrained from bowing the knee to idols,
yet thev gave them an amorous glance, and had
eyes full of that spiritual adultery. And they love
flagons of 7 vine; they therefore joined with idola¬
ters, because they lived merrily, and drank hard;
they had a kindness for other gods, for the sake of
the plenty of good wine with which they had been
sometimes treated in their temples. Idolatry and
sensuality commonly go together; those that make a
god of their belly, as drunkards do, will easily be
brought to make a god of any thing else. God’s
priests were to drink no wine when they went in to
minister, and his Nazarites none at all. But the
worshippers of other gods drank wine in bowls;
nay, no less than flagons of wine would content
them. 2. That their badness had not put an end
to God’s goodness, and stopped the current of his
favours to them. This is a wonder of mercy indeed,
that she is thus beloved of her friend, though an
adulteress; such is the love of the Lord toward the
children of Israel. “ Go,” says God, “ love such a
woman, see if thou canst find in thy heart to do it;
no, thou canst not, the breast of no man would ad¬
mit such a love; yet such is my love to the children
Vol. IV. — 5 U
of Israel: it is love to the loveless, to the unlovely,
to those that have a thousand times forfeited it.”
Note, In God’s good will to poor sinners, his thoughts
and ways are infinitely above ours, and his love is
more condescending and compassionate than ours is,
or can be; in this, as much as any thing, he is God
and not mar., Hos. xi. 9.
II. The method found for the bringing of a God
so very good, and a people so very bad, together
again; this is the thing aimed at, and what God
aims at he will accomplish; to our great surprise,
we find a breach thus wide as the sea, effectually
healed; miracles eease not so long as divine mercy
does not cease. Observe here,
1. The course God takes to humble them, and
make them know themselves; (v. 2.) I have bought
her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and a homer
and a half of barley, I courted her to be reconciled,
to leave her ill courses, and return to her first hus¬
band, as ch. ii. 14. I allured her, and spake com¬
fortably to her; as the Levite who wait after his
concubine that had played the harlot from him,
and was run away with another man, spake friendly
to ' her, Judg. xix. 3. But here the present which the
prophet brought her for the purchasing of her fa¬
vour, is observed to be a very small one; but it was
all that was intended for her separate maintenance,
and in it she is reduced to a short allowance, and, to
punish her for her pride, is made to look very
mean. When Samson went to be reconciled to his
wife that had disobliged him, he visited her with a
kid, (Judg. xv. 1.) which was a genteel entertain¬
ment. But the prophet here visited his wife with
fifteen pieces of silver, a small sum, which yet she
must be content to live upon a great while, so long
as till her husband thought fit to restore her to her
first estate. She shall also have a homer and a half
of barley, for bread-corn, and that is all she must
expect till she be sufficiently humbled, and, by a
competent time of trial, satisfactory proof given
that she is indeed reformed. Let her be made sen¬
sible that it is not for her own merit that her hus¬
band makes court to her, it is but at a lame price
that he values her; the price of a servant was thirty
shekels, Exod. xxi. 32. This was but half so much;
yet let her know that it is more than she is worth.
God had given Egypt for Israel’s ransom once, so
precious were they then in his sight, and so honour¬
able, Isa. xliii. 3, 4. But now that they have gone
a whoring from him, he will give but fifteen pieces
of silver for them ; so much have they lost in their
value by their iniquity. Note, Those whom God
designs honour and comfort for, he first makes sen¬
sible of their own worthlessness, and brings them
to acknowledge, with the prodigal, I am no more
worthy to be called thy son. Time was when Israel
was fed with the finest of the wheat, but they grew
wanton, and loved flagons of wine; and therefore,
in order to the humbling and reducing of them, they
must be brought in the land of their captivity to eat
barley-bread, and be thankful they can get it, and
to eat that too by weight and measure, whereas they
did not use to be stinted. Note, Poverty and dis¬
grace sometimes prove a happy means of making
great sinners true penitents.
2. The new terms upon which God is willing to
come with them; (v. 3.) Thou shalt abide for me
many days, and shalt not be for another, so wilt I
be for thee. He might justly have given them a bill
of divorce, and have resolved to have no mere to do
with them; but he is willing to show them kindness,
and that the matter should be compromised; he
deals not with them in strict justice, according to
the rigour of the law, but according to the multi¬
tude of his mercies; and it represents God’s gra¬
cious dealings with the apostate race of mankind,
that had gone a whoring from him; he bought them
890
HOSEA, III.
indeed with an inestimable price, not for their ho¬
nour, but for the honour of his own justice; and
now this is the proposal he makes to them, the co¬
venant of grace he is willing to enter into with
them — they must be to him a people, and he will
be to them a God; the same with the proposal here
made to Israel.
(1.) They must take to themselves the shame of
their apostacy from him, must submit to, and ac¬
cept of, the punishment of their iniquity; Thou shalt
abide for me many days in solitude and silence, as a
widow that is desolate and in sorrow; they must lay
aside their ornaments, and wait with patience and
submission to know what God will do with them,
and whether he will please to admit such unworthy
wretches into his favour again, as they did, Exod.
xxxiii. 4, 5. Their father, their husband, has spit
in their face, (as God said concerning Miriam,) has
put them under the marks of his displeasure, and
therefore, like her, they must be ashamed seven
days, and be shut out of the camp., (Numb. xii. 14.)
till their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, Lev.
xxvi. 41. Let them sit alone and keep silence, load¬
ing for the salvation of the Lord, and in the mean
time let them bear the yoke, Lam. iii. 26. — 28. Let
them not expect that God should speedily return in
mercy to them, as sometimes he has done, that
comfort should come over-cheap and easy to them;
no, let them want it, let them wait for it many days
during all the days of their captivity, and reckon it
a miracle of mercy, and well worth waiting for, if
it come at last. Note, Those whom God designs
mercy for, he will first bring to abase themselves,
and to put a high value upon his favours.
(2.) They must never return to folly again; that
is the condition upon which God will speak peace to
his people, and to his saints, (Ps. lxxxv. 8.) and no
other. “ Thou shalt not play the harlot, shalt not
worship idols in the land of thy captivity, while
thou art there set apart for thine uncleanness.”
Note, It is not enough to take shame to ourselves
for the sins we have committed, and to justify God
in correcting us for them, but we must resolve, in
the strength of God’s grace, that we will not offend
any more, that we will not again go a whoring from
God, after the world and the flesh. Blessed be God,
though it is the law of the covenant, it is not the
condition of it, that we shall never in any thing do
amiss; “But thou shalt not play the harlot, thou
shalt not serve other gods, shalt not be for another
man.” In the land of their captivity, they would
be courted to worship the idols of the country; that
would lie a trial for them, a long trial, many days;
“But if thou keep thy ground, and hold fast thine
integrity, if, when all this is come upon thee, thou
dost not stretch out thy hand to a strange god, thou
wilt be qualified for the returns of God’s favour.”
Note, It is a certain sign that our afflictions are
means of much good to us, and earnests of more,
when we are kept by the grace of God from being
overcome by the temptations of an afflicted state.
(3.) Upon these terms, their Maker will again
be their Husband; so will I also be for thee. This
is the covenant between God and returning sinners,
that, if they will be for him to serve him, he will be
for them to save them. Let them renounce and ab¬
jure all rivals with God for the throne in the heart,
and devote themselves entirely to him, and him
only, and he will be to them a God all-sufficient.
If we be faithful and constant to God in a way of
duty, and will never leave nor forsake him, he will be
so to us in a way of mercy, and will never leave nor
forsake us. And a fairer proposal could not be made.
Now in the two last verses we have the interpre¬
tation of the parable, and the application of it to
Israel.
[1.] They must long sit like a widow, stripped of
all their joy and honours; (Lam. iv. 1, 2.) They
shall abide many days without a king, and without
a prince; and a nation in this condition mav well be
called a widow. They want the blessing, first. Of
civil government; They shall abide without a king,
and without a prince, of their own. There were
kings and princes over them to oppress them and
rule them with rigour, but they had no king nor
prince to protect them, to fight their battles for
them, to administer justice to them, and to take
care of their common safety and welfare. Note,
Magistracy is a very great blessing to a people, and
it is a sad and sore judgment to want it. Secondly,
Of public worship; They shall abide without a sa¬
crifice, and without an image; (or a statue, or pillar;
it is used concerning the pillars Jacob erected, Gen.
xxviii. 18. — xxxi. 45. — xxxv. 20.) and without an
ephod and teraphim. The teraphim being here
closely joined to the ephod, some think the urim
and thummim were meant by it in the breastplate
of the High Priest. The meaning is, that in their
captivity they should not only have no face of a na¬
tion upon them, but no face of a church ; they should
not have (as a learned expositor speaks) liberty of
any public profession or exercise of religion, either
true or false, according to their choice. They shall
have no sacrifice or altar; (so the LXX.) and there¬
fore no sacrifice, because no altar. They shall have
no ephod, or teraphim, no legal priesthood, nr,
means of knowing God’s mind, no oracle to consult
in doubtful cases; but shall be all in the dark. Note,
The case of those is very melancholy, that are de¬
prived of all opportunities to worship God in pub¬
lic. This was the case of the Jews in their cap¬
tivity; and is so far the case of the scattered Jews
at this day, that, though they have their syna
gogues, they have no temple-service. Desolate in
deed is their condition, that are shut out from com
munion with God, that have no opportunity cf di
recting their addresses to God by sacrifice and altar,
and of receiving instructions from him by ephod and
teraphim.
[2.] They shall at length be received again as a
wife; (v. 5.) Afterward, in process c.f time, when
they have gone through this discipline, they shall
return, they shall repent of their idolatries, and
forsake them, they shall apply themselves to God,
and adhere to him, and herein they shall be accepted
of him. Two things are here promised as instances
of their return, and steps toward their acceptance
with God in their return.
First, The inquiries they shall make after God;
They shall seek the Lord their God, and David
their king. Note, Those that would find God, and
find favour with him, must seek him; must ask after
him, covet acquaintance with him, desire to be re¬
conciled to him, set their love on him, and labour in
this, that they may be accepted of him. Their seek¬
ing him implies that they had lost him, that they
were lamenting the loss, and that they were solicit¬
ous to retrieve what they had lost. They shall seek
him as their God; for should not a people seek unto
their God? And they shall seek David their king;
who can be no other than the Messiah, our Lord
Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Root and Off¬
spring of David, whom David himself called Lord,
(Ps. cx. 1.) and to whom God gave the throne of
his father David, Luke i. 32. The Chaldee reads
it, They shall seek the service of the Lord their God,
and shall obey Messiah, the Son of David their
King. Compare this with Jer. xxx. 9. Ezek. xxxiv.
23.— xxxvii. 25. Note, Those that would seek the
Lord so as to find him, must apply themselves to
Jesus Christ, and must seek to him as their King,
and become his willing people, and take an oath ot
fealty and allegiance to (l'm
Secondly, The reverence they shall have of God,
89!
HOSEA, IV.
They shall fear the Lord and his goodness. Some
by his goodness here understand the temple, toward
which they shall look, in worshipping God. The
Jews say, There were three things which Israel
cast off in the days of Rehoboam — the kingdom of
heaven, the family of David, and the house of the
sanctuary; and it will never be well with them, till
they return, and seek them all three, which is here
promised; They shall seek the kingdom of heaven
in the Lord their God, the royal family in David
their King, and the temple in the goodness of the
Lord. Others by his goodness understand Christ;
the same with David their King. But it is rather
to be taken for that attribute of God, which he
showed as his glory, and by which he proclaimed
his name. Note, It is not only the Lord and his
greatness that we are to fear, but the Lord and his
goodness, not only his majesty, but his mercy. They
shall fee for fear to the Lord and his goodness; (so
some take it;) shall flee to it as their city of refuge.
We must fear God’s goodness, we must admire it,
and stand amazed at it, must adore it, and worshi/i
as Moses did at the proclaiming of this name, Exod.
xxxiv. 6. We must be afraid of offending his good¬
ness, of makingany ungrateful returns for it, and so
forfeiting it. There is forgiveness with God, that
he may be feared, Ps. exxx. 4. We must rejoice
with trembling in the goodness of God, must not be
nigh-minded, but fear.
Now this promise had its accomplishment, when
by the gospel of Christ great multitudes both of Jews
and Gentiles were brought home to God, and incor¬
porated in the New Testament church; served God
in Christ, with a filial fear of divine grace, and were
accepted of God as his Israel. And some think it
is to be yet further accomplished in the conversion
of those Jews to the faith of Christ, who shall remain
in unbelief ; when they shall seek their Messiah as
David their king, and by him all Israel shall be
saved, when th e fulness of the Gentiles is brought
in. Time was, when they sought him, to put him
to death, saying, We have no king but Ccesar; but
the day is coming, when they shall seek him, to afi-
fioint him their Head, and to lay their necks under
his yoke. He that has here promised that they
shall do it, will enable them to do it, and bring about
this great work in his own way and time; in the lat¬
ter days of the last times, the times of the Messiah;
but alas, who shall live when God doeth this? How
far we are to expect a general conversion of that na¬
tion, I cannot say; but I am sure we ought to pray
that the Jews may be converted.
CHAP. IV
Prophets were sent to be reprovers, to tell people of their
faults, and to warn them of the judgments of God, to
which by sin they exposed themselves; so the prophet
is employed in this and the following chapters. He is
here, as counsel for the King of kings, opening an in¬
dictment against the people of Israel, and labouring to
convince them of sin, and of their misery and danger be¬
cause of sin, that he might prevail with them to repent
and reform. I. He shows them what were the grounds
of God’s controversy with them; a general prevalency
of vice and profaneness, (v. 1. 2.) ignorance and forget¬
fulness of God, (v. 6. 7.) the worldly-mindedness of the
priests, (v. 8.) drunkenness and uncleanness, (v. 11.)
using divination and witchcraft, (v. 12.) offering sacri¬
fice in the high places, (v. 13.) whoredoms, (v. 14, 18.)
and bribery among magistrates, v. 18. II. He shows
them what would be the consequences of God’s contro¬
versy; God would punish them for these things, v. 9.
The whole land should be laid waste, (v. 3.) all sorts of
people cut off, (v. 5.) their honour lost, (v. 7.) their
creature-comforts unsatisfying, (v. 10.) and them¬
selves made ashamed, v. 19. And, which is several times
mentioned here as the sorest judgment of all, they should
be let alone in their sins, (v. 17.) they shall not reprove
oi '#• another, (v. 4.) God will not punish them, (v. 14.)
nay, he will let them prosper, v. 16. III. He give#
warning to Judah, not to tread in the steps of Israel, be¬
cause they saw their steps went down to hell, v. 15.
1. TTEAR the word of the Lord, ye c.lul-
XI dren of Israel: for the Lord hath
a controversy with the inhabitants of the
land, because there is no truth, nor mercy,
nor knowledge of God, in the land. 2. By
swearing, and lying, and killing, and steal¬
ing, and committing adultery, they break
out, and blood toucheth blood. 3. There¬
fore shall the land mourn, and every one
that dwelleth therein shall languish, with
the beasts of the field, and with the fowls
of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea also
shall be taken away. 4. Yet let no man
strive, nor reprove another : for this people
are as they that strive with the priest. 5.
Therefore shalt thou fall in the day, and the
prophet also shall fall with thee in the night,
and I will destroy thy mother.
Here is,
I. The court set, and both attendance and atten¬
tion demanded; “Hear the word of the Lord, ye
children of Israel, for to you is the word of this con¬
viction sent, whether you will hear, or whether you
will forbear. ” Whom may God expect to give him
a fair hearing, and to take from him a fair warning,
but the children of Israel, his own professing people?
Yea, they will be ready enough to hear when God
speaks comfortably to them; but are they willing to
hear when he has a controversy with them? Yes,
they must hear him when he pleads against them,
when he has something to lay to their charge ; The
Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the
land, of this land, of this holy land. Note, Sin is
the great mischief-maker; it sows discord between
God and Israel. God sees sin in his own people,
and a good action he has against them for it. Some
more particular actions lie against his own people,
which do not lie against other sinners. He has a
controversy with them for breaking covenant with
him, for bringing a reproach upon him, and for an
ungrateful return to him for his favours. God’s
controversy will be /leaded; pleaded by the judg¬
ments of his mouth before they are pleaded by the
judgments of his hand; that he may be justified in
all he does, and may make it appear that he desires
not the death of sinners; and God’s fileadings ought
to be attended to, for, sooner or later, they shall
have a hearing.
II. The indictment read, by which the whole na¬
tion stands charged with crimes of a heinous nature,
by which God is highly provoked. 1. They are
charged with national omissions of the most import¬
ant duties; There is no truth nor mercy; neither jus¬
tice, nor charity; these most weighty matters of the
law, as our Saviour accounts them, (Matth. xxiii.
23.) judgment, mercy, and faith. The generality
of the people seemed to have no sense at all of the
thing called honesty; they made no conscience of
what they said and did, though ever so contrary to
the truth, and injurious to their neighbour. Much
less had they any sense of mercy, or any obligation
they were under to pity and help the poor. And it
is not strange that there is no truth and mercy, when
there is no knowledge of God in the land. What
good can be expected where there is no knowledge
of God ? It was the privilege of that land, that in
Israel God was made known, and his name great,
which was an aggravation of their sin, that they did
8!)2 HOSEA, IV.
not know him , Ps. Ixxvi. 1. 2. Hence follow na-
' 'inn l commissions of the most enormous sins against
b h i the first and second table, for they had no re-
yard at all to either. Swearing, and lying, and kill¬
ing, and stealing, and committing adultery, against
tile third, ninth, sixth, eighth, and seventh com-
m mdments, were to be found in all corners of the
land, and among all orders and degrees of men
among them, v. 2. The corruption was universal;
what good people there were among them were
either Inst, or hid themselves. By these they break
out, they transgress all bounds of reason and con¬
science, and the divine law; they have exceeded;
Job xxxvi. 9.) they have been overmuch wicked,
Eccl. vii. 1". ) they suffer their corruptions to break
out, they themselves break over, and break through,
all that stands in their way, and would stop them in
their, sinful career, as water overflows the banks.
Note, Sin is a violent thing, and its power exorbi-
tantj’when men’s hearts are fully set in them to do
evil, (Eccl. viii. 11.) what will be restrained from
them ? Gen. xi. 6. When they break out thus,
blood touches blood, abundance of murders are com¬
mitted in all parts of the country, and, as it were,
in a constant series and succession. Cades alia aliis
sunt configure — Murders touch murders; a stream
of blood runs down among them, even royal blood;
it was about this time that there was so much blood
sited in grasping at the crown; Shallum slew Zec.ha-
riali, and Menahem slew Shallum, Pekah slew
Pekahiah, and Hoshea slew Pekah; and the like
bloody work, it is likely, there was among other
contenders; so then the land was polluted with blood,
(Ps. cvi. 38.) it was filled with blood from one
end to the other, 2 Kings xxi. 16.
III. Sentence passed upon this guilty and polluted
land; (d. 3.) It shall be utterly destroyed and laid
wast-. The whole land is infected with sin, and
therefore the whole land shall mourn under God’s
sore judgments; shall sit in mourning, being stripped
of all its wealth and beauty. As the valleys are said
to shout for joy, and sing, when there are plenty
and peace, so here they are said to mourn, when by
war and famine they are made desolate. The whole
land shall be brimstone, and salt, and burning, as
was threatened in the law, Deut. xxix. 23. They
had broken all God’s commandments, and now God
threatens to take away all their comforts. The land
tnourns, when there is neither grass for the cattle,
nor herb for the service of man; and then every one
that dwells therein shall languish for want of nice
food to support a wasting life, and fret for want of
the usual dainties for delight. The beasts of the field
will languish, Jer. xiv. 5, 6. Nay, the destruction
of the fruits of the earth shall be so great, that there
shall not be picking for the fowls of the air, to keep
them alive; they shall suffer with man, and their
dying, or growing lean, will be a punishment to
those who used to have their tables replenished with
wild fowl. Nay, the fishes of the sea shall be taken
away, or gathered together, that they may go away
in shoals to some other coast, and then the fishing
trade will be worth nothing. This desolation shall
be in that respect more general than that by Noah’s
flood, for that did not effect the fishes of the sea, but
this shall. It was part of one of the plagues of
Egypt, that he slew their fish; (Ps. cv. 29.) when
the waters are dried, the fish die, Isa. 1. 2. Zeph. i.
2, 3. Note, When man becomes disobedient to
God, it is just that the inferior creatures should be
made unserviceable to man. O what reason have
we to admire God’s patience and mercy to our land,
that though there are in it so much swearing, and
lying, and killing, and stealing, and adultery, yet
there is plenty of flesh, and fish, and fowl, on our
tables!
IV. An order of court, that no pains should be
taken with the condemned criminal to bring him tc
repentance, with the reason for that order. Ob¬
serve,
1. The order itself ; ( v . 4.) Yet let no man strive
or reprove another; let no means be used to reduce
and reclaim them, let their physicians give them up
as desperate and past cure. It intimates that as
long as there is any hope, we ought to reprove sin¬
ners for their sins; it is a duty we owe to one an¬
other to give and to take reproofs, it was one of the
laws of Moses; (Lev. xix. 17.) Thou shall in any
wise rebuke thy neighbour; it is an instance of bro¬
therly love. Sometimes there is need to rebuke
sharply, not only to reprove, but to strive, so loath
are men to part with their sins. But it is a sign that
persons and people are abandoned to ruin, when
God says, Let them not be reproved. Yet this is to
be understood as God’s command sometimes to the
prophets, not to pray for them, notwithstanding
which, they did pray for them; but the meaning is,
They are so hardened in sin, and so ripened for
ruin, that it will be to little purpose, either to deal
with them, or to deal with God for them. Note, It
bodes ill to a people when reprovers are silenced,
and when those who should witness against the sins
of the times, retire into a corner, and give up the
cause. See 2 Chron. xxv. 16.
2. The reasons of this order; Let them not re¬
prove one another; for, (1.) They are determined
to go on in sin, and no reproofs will cure them df
that; Thy people are as they that strive with the
priest; they are grown so very impudent in sin, so
very insolent, and impatient of reproof, that they
will fly in the face even of a priest himself, if he
should but give them the least check, without any
regard to his character and office; and how then can
it be thought that they should take a reproof from
a private person ? Note, Those sinners have their
hearts wickedly hardened, who quarrel with their
ministers for dealing faithfully with them; and those
who rebel against ministerial reproof, which is an
ordinance of God for their reformation, have forfeit¬
ed the benefit of brotherly reproof too. Perhaps
this may refer to the late wickedness of Joash king
of Judah, and his people, who stoned Zecliariah, the
son of Jehoiada, for delivering them a message from
God, 2 Chron. xxiv. 21. He was a priest, with
him they strove, when he was officiating between
the temple and the altar; and Dr. Lightfoot thinks
the prophet had an eye to his case when he spake,
(v. 2.) of blood touching blood; the blood of the
sacrificer was mingled with the blood of the sacrifice.
That, says he, was the apex of their wickedness,
from thence their ruin was to be dated, (Matth.
xxiii. 35.) as this is of their incorrigibleness , that
they are as those who strive with the priest, there¬
fore let no man reprove them; for, (2.) God also is
determined to proceed in their ruin; (v. 5. ) “ There¬
fore, because thou wilt take no reproof, no advice,
thou shall fall, and it is in vain for any to think of
preventing it, for the decree is gone forth. Thou
shalt stumble and fall in the day, and the prophet,
the false prophet that flattered and seduced thee,
shall fall with thee in the night; both thou and thy
prophet shall fall night and day, shall be continual¬
ly falling into one calamity or other; the darkness
of the night shall not help to cover thee from trou¬
ble, nor the light of the day help thee to flee from
it. ” The prophets are blind leaders, and the people
blind followers; and to the blind, day and night are
alike, so that whether it be day or night, both shall
fall together into the ditch. “ Thou shalt fall in the
day, when thy fall is least feared by thyself, and
thou art very secure; and in the day, when it will
be seen and observed by others, and turn most to
thy shame; and the prophet shall fall in the right,
when to himself it will be most terrible.” Note,
89S
HOSEA, IV.
The ruin of those who have helped to ruin others,
\v ill, in a special manner, be intolerable. And did
the children think that when they are in danger of
falling their mother would help them? It shall be
in vain to expect it, for I •will destroy thy mother;
Samaria, the mother-city; the xvhole state, or king¬
dom, which is as a mother to every part. It shall
all be made silent. Note, When all are involved in
guilt, nothing less can be expected, than that all
should be involved in ruin.
6. My people are destroyed for lack of
knowledge: because thou hast rejected
knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou
shalt be no priest to me : seeing thou hast
forgotten the law of thy God, I will also
forget thy children. 7. As they were in¬
creased, so they sinned against me ; there¬
fore will I change their glory into shame.
8. They eat up the sin of my people, and
they set their heart on their iniquity. 9.
And there shall be, like people, like priest:
and I will punish them for their ways, and
reward them their doings. 10. For they
shall eat, and not have enough; they shall
commit whoredom, and shall not increase :
because they have left off to take heed to
the Lord. 1 1 . Whoredom, and wine, and
new wine, take away the heart.
God is here proceeding in his controversy, both
with the priests, and with the people; the people
were as those that strove with the priests, (v. 4.)
when they had priests that did their duty; but the
generality of them lived in the neglect of their duty,
and here is a word for those priests, and for the peo¬
ple that love to have it so, Jer. v. 31. And it is ob¬
servable here, how the punishment answers to the
sin, and how, for the justifying of his own proceed¬
ings, God sets the one over against the other.
1. The people strove with the priests, that should
have taught them the knowledge of God; justly
therefore are they destroyed for lack of knowledge,
v. 6. Note, Those that rebel against the light, can
expect no other than to perish in the dark. Or, it is
a charge upon the priests, who should have been
still teaching the people knowledge, (Eccl. xii. 9.)
but they did not, or did it in such a manner, that it
xvas as if they had not done it at all, so there was no
knowledge of God in the land; and because there
was no x’ision, or none to any purpose, the people
perished, Prov. xxix. 18. Note, Ignorance is so
far from being the mother of devotion, that it is the
mother of destruction; lack of knowledge is ruining
to any person or people. They are my people, that
are thus destroyed; their relation to God as his peo¬
ple, aggravates both their sin in not taking pains to
get the knoxvledgeof that God whose command they
were under and with whom they were taken into
covenant, and their sin likewise, who should have
taught them; God set his children to school to them,
and they never minded them, nor took any pains
xvith them.
2. Both priests and people rejected knowledge;
and justly therefore will God reject them. The rea¬
son why the people did not team, and the priests
did not leach, was, not because they had not the
light, but because they hated it; not because they
had not ways of coming to the knowledge of God,
and of communicating it, but because they had no
heart to it; they rejected it. They desirect not the
knowledge of God’sways, put put it from them, and
shut their eyes against the light; and therefore “I
will also reject thee, I will refuse to take cognizance
of thee, and to own thee; you will not know me, but
bid me depart; I will therefore say, Depart from
me, I know you not. Thou shalt be no finest to
me.” (1.) The priests shall be no longer admitted
to the privileges, or employed in the services, of the
priesthood, nor shall they ever lie received again, as
we find, Ezek. xliv. 13." Note, Ministers that re
ject knowledge, that arc grossly ignorant and scan
dalous, ought not to be owned as ministers; but that
xvhich they seem to have, should b • taken away,
Luke viii. 18. (2.) The people slv.ll be no longer,
as they have been, a kingdom of f/riests, a royal
priesthood, Exod. xix. 6. God’s people, by reject¬
ing knowledge, forfeit their honour, and profane
their own crown.
3. They forgot the law of God, neither desired
nor endeavoured to retain it in mind, or transmit the
remembrance of it to their posterity, and therefore
justly will God forget them and their children; the
people’s children, they did not educate them, as
they ought to have done, in the knowledge of God,
and their duty to him, and therefore God will dis¬
own them, as not in covenant with him. Note, If
parents do not teach their children, when they are
young, to remember their Creator, they cannot ex¬
pect that their Creator should remember them.
Or, it may be meant of the priests' children; they
shall not succeed them in the priests’ office, blit
shall be reduced to poverty, as is threatened against
Eli’s house, 1 Sam. ii. 20.
4. They dishonoured God xvith that which was
their honour, and justly therefore will God strip
them of it, v. 7. It was their honour, that they
were increased in number, xvealth, power, and dig¬
nity ; the beginning of their nation xvas small, but in
process of time it greatly increased, and grexv very
considerable; the family of the priests increased
wonderfully; but as they were increased, so they
sinned against God; the more populous the nation
grew, the more sin xvas committed, and the more
profane they were; their wealth, honour, and poxv< r
did but make them the more daring in sin. There¬
fore, says God, will I chatige their glory into shame.
Are their numbers their glory? God xvill diminish
them, and make them few. Is their xvealth their
glory? God xvill impoverish them, and bring then-
low; so that they shall themselves be ashamed of
that which they gloried in. Their priests shall be
made contemptible and base, Mai. ii. 9. Note, That
xvhich is our honour, if xve dishonour God xvith it,
xvill, sooner or later, be turned into shame to us;
for they that despise God shall be lightly esteemed,
1 Sam. ii. 30.
5. The priests ate up the sin of God’s people;
and therefore they shall eat, and not have enough.
(1.) They abused the maintenance that was allowed
to the priests, to the priests of the house of Aaron,
by the laxv of God, and to the mock-priests of the
calveshy their constitution; (i>. 8.) They eat up
the sin of my fieople , that is, their sin-offerings. If
it be meant of the priests of the calves, it intimates
their seizing that xvhich they had no right to; they
usurped the revenues of the priests though they
xvere no priests. If it be meant of those who xvere
legal priests, it intimates their greediness of the
profits and perquisites of their office, xvhen they
took no care at all to do the duty of it. They feasted
upon their part of the offerings of the Lord, but for¬
got the work for which they xvere so well paid; they
set their hearts upon the people’s iniquities, they
lifted up their soul to them, they xvere glad xvhen
people did commit iniquity, that they might be
obliged to bring an offering to make atonement for
it, xvhich they should have their share of; the more
sins, the more sacrifices, and therefore they cared
not hoxv much sin people xvere guilty of. Instead
804
HOSEA, IV.
of warning; the people against sin, from the consi¬
deration of the sacrifices, which showed them what
an offence sin was to God, since it needed such an
expi ation, they imboldened and encouraged the
people to sin, since an atonement might be made at
so small an expense. Thus they glutted themselves
upon the sins of the people, and helped to kee/i ufi
that which they should have beaten down. Note,
It is a very wicked thing to be well pleased with
the sirs of others, because, some way or other, they
may turn to our advantage. (2.) God will therefore
deny them his blessing upon their maintenance,
(r>. 10.) They shall eat, and not have enough.
Though they have great plenty by the abundance
of offerings that are brought in, yet they shall have
no satisfaction in it. Either their food shall yield
no good nourishment, or their greedy appetites shall
not be satisfied with it. Note, What is unlawfully
gained, cannot be comfortably used; no, nor that
which is inordinately coveted; it is just that the de¬
sires which are insatiable, should always be unsalis-
,/ied; and that those should never have enough, who
never know when they have enough. See Mic. vi.
14. Hag. i. 6.
6. The more they increased, the more they sinned;
( v . 7. ) and therefore though they commit whoredom,
though they take the most wicked methods to mul¬
tiply their people, yet they shall not increase.
Though they have many wives and concubines, as
Solomon had, yet they shall not have their families
built up bv it in a numerous progeny, any more than
he had. Note, Those that hope any way to increase
by unlawful means, will be disappointed. And
therefore God will thus blast all their projects, be¬
cause they have left off to take heed to the Lord;
time was, when they had some regard to God, and
to his authority over them, and interest in them,
but they have left it off; they take no heed to his
word or to his providences, they do not eye him in
either. They forsake him, so as not to take heed to
him; they have apostatized to that degree, that they
have no manner of regard to God, but are perfectly
without Clod in the world. Note, Those that leave
off to take heed to the Lord, leave off all good, and
can expect no other than that all good should leave
them,.
7. The people and the priests did harden one an¬
other in sin; and therefore justly shall they be
sharers in the punishment; ( v . 9.) There shall be,
like people, like priest. So they were in character;
people and priest were both alike ignorant and pro¬
fane, regardless of God and their duty, and addicted
to idolatry; and so they shall be in condition; God
will bring judgments upon them, that shall be the
destruction both of priest and people; the famine
that deprives the people of their meat, shall deprive
the priests of their meat-offerings, Joel i. 9. It is
part of the description of an universal desolation,
that it shall be, as with the people, so nuith the priest,
Isa. xxiv. 2. God’s judgments, when they come
with commission, will make no difference. Note,
Sharers in sin must expect to be sharers in ruin.
Thus God will punish themboth for their ways, and
reward them their doings. God will cause their
doings to return upon them; so the word is; when
a sin is committed, the sinner thinks it is gone, and
he shall hear no more of it, but he shall find it called
over again, and made to return, either to his hu¬
miliation or to his condemnation.
8. They indulged themselves in the delights of
sense, to hold up their hearts; but they shall find
that they take away their hearts; (i>. 11.) Whore¬
dom, and wine, and new wine take away the heart.
Some join this with the foregoing words, They have
forsaken the Lord, to take heed to whoredom, and
wine, and new wine; Or, Because these have taken
away their heart. Their sensual pleasures have
taken them off from their devotions, and drowned
all that is good in them. Or, we may take it as a
distinct sentence, containing a great truth which we
see confirmed by every day’s experience; theft,
drunkenness, and uncleanness, are sins that beset
and infatuate men, weaken and enfeeble them.
They take away both the understanding and the
courage.
12. My people ask counsel at their stocks,
and their staff declareth unto them: for the
spirit of whoredoms hath caused them to
err, and they have gone a whoring from un¬
der their God. 13. They sacrifice upon the
tops of the mountains, and burn incense
upon the hills, under oaks, and poplars,
and elms, because the shadow thereof is
good: therefore your daughters shall commit
whoredom, and your spouses shall commit
adultery. 14. I will not punish your daugh¬
ters when they commit whoredom, nor your
spouses when they commit adultery; for
themselves are separated with whores, and
they sacrifice with harlots, therefore the
people that doth not understand shall fall.
15. Though thou, Israel, play the harlot,
yet let not Judah offend; and come not ye
unto Gilgal, neither go ye up to Beth-aven,
nor swear, The Lord liveth. 16. For Israel
slideth back as a backsliding heifer: now
the Lord will feed them as a lamb in a
large place. 17. Ephraim is joined to idols:
let him alone. 18. Their drink is sour; they
have committed whoredom continually: her
rulers with shame do love, Give ye. 19.
The wind hath bound her up in her wings,
and they shall be ashamed because of their
sacrifices.
In these verses we have, as before,
I. The sins charged upon the people of Israel; for
which God had a controversy witli them. And
they are,
1. Spiritual whoredom, idolatry. They have in
them a spirit of whoredoms, a strong inclination to
that sin; the bent and bias of their hearts are that
way; it is their own iniquity; they are carried out
towards it with an unaccountable violence, and this
causes them to err. Note, The errors and mistakes
of the judgment are commonly owing to the corrupt
affections; men therefore have a good opinion of sin,
because they have a disposition towards it. And,
having such erroneous notions of idols, and such pas¬
sionate motions towards them, no marvel that with
such a head and such a heart, they have gone a
whoring from under their God, v. 12. They ought
to have been in subjection to him as their Head and
Husband, to have been under his conduct and com¬
mand, but they revolted from their allegiance, and
put themselves under the conduct and protection of
false gods. So (v. 15.) Israel has played the harlot;
their conduct in the worship of their idols was like
that of a harlot, wanton and impudent. And (x>. l(i. )
Israel slideth back, as a backsliding heifer; as an
untamed heifer, so some; or, as a perverse or re
fractory one, so others; as a heifer that is turned
loose, runs madly about the pasture; or, if put under
the yoke, (which seems rather to be alluded to here,'
will draw back instead of going forward, will strug
gle to get her neck out of the yoke, and her feet out
89A
HOSUA, IV.
of the furrow. Thus unruly, ungovernable, un-
trac.table, were the people of Israel. They had be¬
gun to draw in the yuke of God’s ordinances, but
they drew back, as children of Belial, that will not
endure the yoke; and when the prophets were sent
with the goads of reproof, to put them forward, they
kicked against the / tricks , and ran backwards. The
sum of all this is, (7/. 17. ) Ephraim is joined to idols,
is perfectly wedded to them, his affections are glued
to them, and his heart is upon them.
There are two instances given of their spiritual
whoredom, in both which they gave that honour to
rheir idols, which is due to God only. (l.)They
i onsulted them as oracles, and used those arts of di-
• ination which they had learned from their idola¬
trous priests; (u. 12.) My / leofile ask counsel at
their stocks, their wooden gods; they apply them¬
selves to them for advice and direction in what they
should do, and for information concerning the event.
They say to a stock. Thou art my father; (Jer. ii.
27.) and if it were indeed a father, it were worthy
of this honour; but it was a great affront to God,
who was indeed their Father, and whose lively ora¬
cles they had among them, with which they had
liberfy to consult at any time, thus to ask counsel at
their stocks. And they expect that their staff should
declare to them what course they should take, and
what the event should be. It is probable that this
refers to some wicked methods of divination used
among the Gentiles, and which the Jews learned
from them, bv a / tiece of wood, or by a staff, like
Nebuchadnezzar’s divining by his arrows, Ezek.
xxi. 21. Note, Those who forsake the oracles of
God, to take their measures from the world and the
flesh, do in effect but consult with their stocks and
their staves. (2.) They offered sacrifice to them as
gods, whose favour they wanted, and whose wrath
they dreaded and deprecated; (v. 13.) They sacri¬
fice to them, to atone and pacify them, and A urn in¬
cense to them, to please and gratify them; and hope
by both to recommend themselves to them. God
had pitched upon the place where he would record
his name; but they, having forsaken that, chose
places for their irreligious rites, which pleased their
own fancies; they chose, [1.] High places, upon the
tofis of the mountains, and u/ion the hills; foolishly
imagining that the height of the ground gave them
some advantage in their approaches toward heaven.
[2.] Shady places, under oaks, and fioftlars, and
elms, because the shadow Mereo/is pleasant to them,
especially in those hot countries, and therefore they
thought it was pleasing to their gods; or they fan¬
cied that a thick shade befriends contemplation,
possesses the mind with something of awe, and
therefore is proper for devotion.
2. Corporal whoredom is another crime here
charged upon them; They have committed whore¬
dom continually, v. 18. They drove a trade of un¬
cleanness; it was not a single act now and then, but
their constant practice, as it is of many that have
eyes full of adultery, and which cannot cease from
that sin, 2 Pet. ii. i4. Now the abominable filthi¬
ness and lewdness that was found in Israel is here
spoken of, (1.) As a concomitant of their idolatry,
their false gods drew them to it; for tire devil whom
they worshipped, though a spirit, is an unclean
spirit. They that worshipped idols, were se/taraled
with whores, and they sacrificed with harlots; for
because they liked not to retain God in their know-
leage, but dishonoured him, therefore God gave
them ufi to vile affections, by the indulging of which
they dishonoured themselves, Rom. i. 24, 28. (2.)
As a punishment of it; The men that worshipped
idols, were separated with whores that attended the
idolatrous rites, as in the worship of Baal-peor,
Numb. xxv. 1, 2. To punish them for that, God
gave up their wives and daughters to the like vile
affections, they committed whoredom and adultery,
(v. 13.) which could not but be a great grief and
reproach to their husbands and parents; tor those
that are not chaste themselves, desire to have their
wives and daughters so; but thus they might reai,
their sin in their punishment, as David’s adultery
was punished in the debauching of his concubines
by his own son, 2 Sam. xii. 11. Note, When the
same sin in others is made men’s grief and affliction,
which they have themselves been guilty ot, they
must own the Lord is righteous.
3. The perverting of justice; (v. 18.) Their ru¬
lers (be it spoken to their shame) do love, Give ye;
they love bribes, and have it continually in their
mouths, Give, give; they are given to filthy lucre;
every one that has any business with them, must ex¬
pect to be asked, What will vou give? Though, as
rulers, they are bound by office to do justice, yet
none can have justice done them without a fee; and
vou may be sure that for a fee they will do injustice.
Vote, The love of money is the ruin of equity, and
the root of all iniquity. But of all men it is a shame
for rulers (who should be men fearing God, and
hating covetousness) to love. Give ye. Perhaps this
is intended in that part of the charge here, Their
drink is sour, it is dead, it is gone. Justice, duly ad¬
ministered, is refreshing, like drink to the thirsty,
but when it is perverted, and rulers take rewards,
either to acquit the guilty, or to condemn the inno¬
cent, the drink is sour; they turn judgment into
wormwood, Amos v. 7. Or, It may refer in general
to the depraved morals of the whole nation; they
had lost all their life and spirit, and were as offen¬
sive to God as dead and sour drink is to us. See
Deut. xxxii. 32, 33.
II. The tokens of God’s wrath against them for
their sins.
1. Their wives and daughters should not be pu¬
nished for the injury and disgrace they did to their
families; (v. 14.) I will not punish your daughters;
and, not being punished for it, they would go on in
it. Note, The impunity of one sinner is sometimes
made the punishment of another. Or, I will not
punish them so as I will punish you; for you must
own, as Judah did concerning his daughter-in-law,
that they are more righteous than you, Gen
xxxviii. 26.
2. They themselves should prosper for awhile,
but their prosperity should help to destroy them.
It comes in as a token of God’s wrath, ( v . 16.) The
Lord will feed them as a lamb in a large place;
they shall have a fat pasture, and a large one, in
which they shall be fed to the full, and fed with the
best, but it shall be only to prepare them for the
slaughter, as a lamb is that is so fed. If they wax
fat and kick, they do but wax fat for the butcher.
But others make them feed as a lamb on the com¬
mon, a large place indeed, but where it is short
grass, and lies exposed. The Shepherd of Israel
will turn them both out of his pastures, and out of
his protection.
3. No means should be used to bring them to re¬
pentance; {v. 17.) Ephraim is joined to idols, is in
love with them, and addicted to them, and there¬
fore, let him alone, as v. 4. Let no man reprove
him. Let him be given up to his own heart’s lusts,
and walk in his own counsels; viewotild have healed
him, and he would not be healed, therefore forsake
him. See what their end will be, Deut. xxxii. 20.
Note, It is a sad and sore judgment for any man to
be let alone in sin, for God to say concerning a sin¬
ner, “ He is joined to his idols, the world and the
flesh, he is incurably proud, covetous, or profane,
an incurable drunkard or adulterer, let him alone;
conscience, let him alone; minister, let him alone;
providences, let him alone. Let nothing awaken
him till the flames of hell do it.” The father cor
896
HOSEA, V.
rects not the rebellious son any more, when he de¬
termines to disinherit him. Those that are not dis¬
turbed in their sin, will be destroyed for their sin.
4. They should be hurried away with a swift and
shameful destruction; (y. 19. ) The wind has bound
he *• u/i in her wings, to carry her away into capti¬
vity, suddenly, violently, and irresistibly; he shall
take them away with a whirlwind, Ps. lviii. 9. And
then they shall be ashamed because of their sacri¬
fices; ashamed of their sin in offering sacrifice to
idols, ashamed of their folly in putting themselves
to such an expense upon gods that have no power to
help them, and thereby to make that God their
Enemy, who has almighty power to destroy them.
Note, There are sacrifices that men will one day be
ashamed of. Those that have sacrificed their time,
strength, honour, and all their comforts, to the world
and the flesh, will shortly be ashamed of it. Yea,
and those that bring to God blind, and lame, and
heartless sacrifices, will be ashamed of them too.
III. The warning given to Judah, not to sin after
the similitude of Israel’s transgression. It is said in
the close of v. 14. They that do not understand,
shall fall; they must needs fall, that do not under¬
stand how to avoid, or get over, the stumbling-blocks
they meet with; and therefore, let him that thinks
he stands, take heed lest he fall, particularly the two
tribes; (v. 15.) Though thou, Israel, filay the har¬
lot, yet let not Judah offend. Though Israel be
given to idolatry, yet let not Judah take the infec¬
tion. Now, 1. This was a very needful caution.
The men of Israel were brethren, and near neigh¬
bours to the men of Judah; Israel was more numer¬
ous, and at this time in a prosperous condition, -and
therefore there was danger lest the men of Judah
should learn their way, and get a snare to their
souls. Note, The nearer we are to the infection of
sin, the more need we have to stand upon our guard.
2. It was a very rational caution; Let Israel filay
the harlot, yet let not Judah do so; for Judah has
greater means of knowledge than Israel has, the
temple and priesthood, and a king of the house of
David; from Judah, Shiloh is to come; and for Ju¬
dah, God has reserved great blessings in store;
therefore let not Judah offend, for more is expected
from them than from Israel, they will have more to
answer for if they do offend, and from them God
will take it more unkindly. If Israel filay the har¬
lot, let not Judah do so too, for then God will have
no professing people in the world. God bespeaks
Judah here, as Christ does the twelve, when many
turned their backs upon him, Will ye also go away?
John vi. 67. Note, Those that have hitherto kept
their integrity, should for that reason still hold it
fast, even in times of general apostacy.
Now, to preserve Judah from offending as Israel
had done, two rules are here given. (1.) That they
might not be guilty of idolatry, they must keep at
a distance from the places of idolativ; Come not ye
unto Gi/gal, where all their wickedness was; (ch.
.x. 15. — xii. 11. ) there they multiplied ‘ransgression,
'Amos iv. 4.) and perhaps they contracted a vene¬
ration for that place, because there it was said to
Joshua, The place where thou standest is holy
ground; (Josh. v. 15.) therefore they are forbidden
to enter into Gi/gal, Amos v. 5. And for the same
reason they must not go ufi to Bethel, here called
the house of vanity, for so Beth-aven signifies, not
the house of God, as Bethel signifies. Note, Those
that would be kept from sin, and not fall into the
devil’s hands, must studiously avoid the occasions
of sin, and not come upon the devil’s ground. (2.)
That they might not be guilty of idolatry, they must
take heed of profaneness, and not swear. The Lord
liveth. They are commanded to swear — The Lord
liveth, in truth and righteousness; (Jer. iv. 2.) and
therefore that which is here forbidden, is swearing
so in untruth and unrighteousness; swearing rashly
and lightly, or falsely and with deceit; or swearing
by the Lord and the idol, Zeph. i. 5. Note, Those
that would be steady in their adherence to God,
must possess themselves with an awe and reverence
of God, and always speak of him with solemnity
and seriousness; for those that can make a jest of
the true God, will make a god of any thing.
CHAP. V.
The scope of this chapter is the same with the foregoing
chapter, to discover the sin both of Israel and Judah,
and to denounce the judgments of God against them. I.
They are called to hearken to the charge, v. 1, 8. II.
They are accused of many sins, which are here aggra¬
vated. I. Persecution, v. 1, 2. 2. Spiritual whoredom,
v. 3, 4. 3. Pride, v. 5. 4. Apostacy from God, v. 7.
5. The tyranny of the princes, and the tameness of the
people in submitting to it, v. 10, 11. III. They are
threatened with God’s displeasure for their sins; he knows
all their wickedness, (v. 3.) and makes known his wrath
against them for it, v. 9. 1. They shall fall in their ini¬
quity, v. 5. 2. God will forsake them, v. 6. 3. Their
portions shall be devoured, v. 7. 4. God will rebuke
them, and pour out his wrath upon them, v. 9, 10. 5.
They shall be oppressed, v. 1 1. 6. God will be as a moth
to them in secret judgments, (v. 12.) and as a lion in
public judgments, v. 14. IV. They are blamed for the
wrong course they took under their afflictions, v. 13.
V. It is intimated that they shall at length take a right
course, v. 15. The more generally these things are
expressed, of so much the more general use they are for
our learning, and particularly for our admonition.
1. TfTEAR ye this, O priests ; and heark-
Jtt en, ye house of Israel ; and give
ye ear, O house of the king; for judgment
is toward you, because ye have been a snare
on Mizpah, and a net spread upon Tabor.
2. And the revolters are profound to make
slaughter, though I have been a rebuker of
them all. 3. I know Ephraim, and Israel
is not hid from me : for now, O Ephraim,
thou committest whoredom, and Israel is
defiled. 4. They will not frame their do¬
ings to turn unto their God : for the spirit
of whoredoms is in the midst of them, and
they have not known the Lord. 5. And
the pride of Israel doth testify to his face :
therefore shall Israel and Ephraim fall in
their iniquity; Judah also shall fall with
them. 6. They shall go with their flocks
and with their herds to seek the Lord; but
they shall not find him : he hath withdrawn
himself from them. 7. They have dealt
treacherously against the Lord ; for they
have begotten strange children : now shal
a month devour them with their portions.
Here,
I. All orders and degrees of men are cited to ap¬
pear and answer to such things as shall be laid to
their charge; (v. 1.) Hear ye this, O priests, whe¬
ther in holy orders, as those in Judah, and perhaps
many in Israel too, for in the ten tribes there were
divers cities of priests and Levites, who, it is pro¬
bable, staid in their own lot after the revolt of the
ten tribes, and did so much of their office as might
be done at a distance from the temple; or firetend¬
ing to holy orders, as the priests of the calves, who,
some think, are included here. Hearken, ye house
of Israel, the common people, and give ear, 0 house
of the king; let them all take notice, for they have
all contributed to the national guilt, and they shall
897
HOSEA, V.
all share in the national judgments. Note, If neither
the sanctity of the priesthood, nor the dignity of the
royal family, will prevail to keep out sin, it cannot
be expected that they should avail to keep out wrath.
If the priests, and the house of the king, though
they bear such noble characters, sin like others,
their noble characters will not excuse them, but
they must smart like others. Nor shall it be any
plea for the house of Israel, that they were misled
by the priests, and princes, but they shall receive
their doom with them, and neither their meanness
nor their multitude shall be their exemption.
II. Witness is produced against them; one instead
of a thousand, it is God’s omniscience; ( v . 3.) I
know Rphraim, and Israel is not hid from me.
They have not known the Lord, (y. 4.) but the
Lord has known them ; knows their true character,
however disguised; knows their secret wickedness,
however concealed. Note, Men’s rejecting the
knowledge of God will not secure them from his
knowledge of them'; and when he contends with
them, he will prove their sins upon them by his own
knowledge, so that it will be .*n vain to plead JVot
guilty.
III. Very bad things are laid to their charge.
1. They had been very ingenious and very indus¬
trious to draw people either into sin, or into trouble;
Ye have been a snare on Mizpah, and a net spread
upon Tabor; (v. 1.) such snares and nets as the
huntsmen use to lay upon those mountains, in pur¬
suit of their game. When the worship of the calves
was set up in Israel, the patrons of that idolatry,
and sticklers for it, contrived by all possible arts
and wiles to draw men into it, and reconcile those
to it, that at first had a dread of it. Note, Those
that allure and entice men to sin, however they may
pretend friendship and good will, are to be looked
upon as snares and ?iets to them, and their hands as
bands, Eccl. vii. 26. But to those whom they could
not seduce into sin they were as a net and a snare,
to bring them into trouble. Some think it was their
practice to set spies in the road, and particularly
upon the mountains of Mizpah and Tabor, at the
times of the solemn feasts at Jerusalem, to watch
if any of their people who were piously affected
went thither, and to inform against them, that they
might be prosecuted for it ; thus doing the devil’s
work, who disquiets those whom he cannot debauch.
2. They had been both very crafty and very cruel
in carrying on their designs; (n. 2.j The revolters
are profound to make slaughter. Note, Those who
have themselves apostatized from the truths of God,
are often the most subtle and barbarous persecutors
of those who still adhere to them. Nothing will
serve them, but to make slaughter; it is the blood
of the saints that they thirst after, and with the ser¬
pent’s sting they have his head, they are profound
to do it. O the depth of the depths of Satan, of the
wickedness of his agents, of those that have deeply
revolted, Isa. xxxi. 6. Now that which aggravated
this, was, the many reproofs and warnings that had
been given them; though I have been a rebuker of
them all. The prophet had been so, a reprover by
office; he had many a time told them of the evil of
their ways and doings, had dealt plainly with them
all, and had not spared either the priests or the
house of the king. God himself had been a Re¬
buker of them all by their own consciences and by
his providences. Note, Sins against reproof are
doubly sinful, Prov. xxix. 1.
3. They had committed whoredom, had defiled
their own bodies with fleshly lusts, had defiled their
own souls with the worship of idols, v. 3. This
God was a Witness to, though secretly committed,
and artfully palliated. Nay, the piercing eye of
God saw the spirit of whoredom that was in the
Vol. IV.— 5 X
midst of them, their secret inclination and disposi¬
tion to those sins, the love they had to their sins,
and the dominion their sins had over them; how
much they were under the power of a spirit of
whoredom, that root of bitterness which bore all
this gall and wormwood, that corrupt and poisoned
fountain.
4. They have no disposition at all to come into
acquaintance and communion with God. The spirit
of whoredoms having caused them to err from him,
keeps them wandering endlessly, v. 4. (1.) They
have not known the Lord, nor desire to know him,
but have rather declined, nay, dreaded, the know¬
ledge of him, for that would disturb them in their
sinful ways. (2.) Therefore they will not frame
their doings to turn to their God, by which it ap¬
peared that they did not know him aright. It speaks
their obstinate persisting in their apostacy from God:
they would not turn to God, though he is their God,
theirs in covenant, by whose name they have been
called, and whom they are obliged to serve. They
would not return to the worship of him, from which
they had turned aside. Nay, they would not frame
their doings to turn to God. They would not con¬
sider their ways, nor dispose themselves into a seri¬
ous temper, nor apply their minds to think of those
things that would bring them to God. It is true,
we cannot by our own power, without the special
grace of God, turn to him; but we may by the due
improvement of our own faculties, and the common
aids of his Spirit, frame our doings to turn to him.
Those that will not do that, that prepare not their
hearts to seek the Lord, (2 Chron. xii. 14.) owe it to
themselves that they are not turned, they die be¬
cause they will die; and to those that will do this,
further grace shall not be wanting.
5. They were guilty of notorious arrogancy, and
insolence in sin; (v. 5.) The pride of Israel doth
testify to his face, doth witness against him, that he
is a rebel to God and his government; the spirit of
whoredoms which was in the midst of them, showed
itself in the gaiety and gaudiness of their worship,
as a harlot is known by her attire, Prov. vii. 10.
The wantonness of her dress testifies to her face,
that she is not a modest woman; or, their pride in
confronting the prophets God ‘sent them, and the
message they brought; (Jer. xliii. 2.) or, a haughty,
scornful conduct toward their brethren, and those
that were under them, this witnessed against them,
that they were not God’s people, and justified God
in all the humbling judgments he brought upon them.
His pride testifies in his face; so some read it, agree¬
ing with Isa. iii. 9. The show of their countenance
doth witness against them. They have that proud
look which the Lord hates.
6. They departed from God to idols, and bred up
their children in idolatry; (v. 7.) They have dealt
treacherously against the Lord, as a wife, who, in
contempt of the marriage-covenant, forsakes her
husband, and lives in adultery with another. Thus
they who are guilty of spiritual adultery, whose god
is their money, whose god is their belly, deal treach¬
erously against the Lord, they violate their engage¬
ments to him, and frustrate his expectations from
them. Note, Wilful sinners are treacherous deal¬
ers. They have begotten strange children ; their
children which they have begotten are estranged
from God, and trained up in a false way of worship,
they are a spurious brood, as children of fornica¬
tion, (John viii. 41.) whom God will disown. Note,
Those deal treacherously with God indeed, who not
only turn from following him themselves, but train
up their children in wicked ways.
IV. Very sad things are made to be their doom;
in general, {y. 1.) “Judgment is toward you, God
is coming forth to contend with you, and to testify
098
HOSEA, V.
his displeasure against you for your sins.” It is time
to hearken when judgment is towards us. In par-
ocular,
1. They shall fall in their iniquity. This follows
upon their/irirfe testifying to their face; ( v . 5. ) there¬
fore shall Israel ana Ephraim fall in their iniquity.
Note, Pride will have a fall; it is the certain pre¬
sage and forerunner of it; they that exalt them¬
selves shall be abased. The face in which pride
testifies, shall be filled with confusion. They shall
not only fall, but fall in their iniquity, the saddest
fall of all other. Their pride kept them from re¬
penting of their iniquity, and therefore they shall
fall in it. Note, Those that are not humbled for
their sins, are likely to perish for ever in their sins.
It is added, Judah also shall fall with them in her
iniquity; as the ten tribes were carried captive into
Assyria for their idolatry, so the two tribes, in pro¬
cess of time, were carried into Babylon for follow¬
ing their bad example; but the former fell, and
were utterly cast down, the latter fell, and were
raised up again. Judah had the temple and priest¬
hood, and yet that shall not secure them, but, if they
sin with Israel and Ephraim, with them they shall
fall.
2. They shall fall short of God’s favour, when
they profess to seek it; (v. 6.) They shall go with
their flocks and with their herds to seek the Lord,
but in vain; they shall not find him. This seems to
be spoken principally of Judah, when they fell into
their iniquity, and when they fell in their iniquity.
(1.) When they fell into their iniquity, they sought
the Lord; but they did not seek him only, and there¬
fore he was not found of them. When they wor¬
shipped strange gods, yet they kept up the show
and shadow of the worship of the true God; they
went as usual, at the solemn feasts, with their flocks
and herds to seek the Lord; but their hearts were
not upright with him, because they were not entire
for him, and therefore he would not accept them ;
for then only shall we find him, when we seek him
with our whole heart; not divided between God and
Baal, Ezek. xiv. 3. (2.) When they fell in their
iniquity, or found themselves falling by it, they
sought the Lord; but they did not seek him early,
and therefore he willtiot be found of them. They
shall see ruin coming upon them, and shall then, in
their distress, flee to God, and think to make him
their Friend with burnt-offerings and sacrifices; but
it will be too late then to turn away his wrath, when
the decree is gone forth. Even Josiah’s reformation
did not prevail to turn away the wrath of God, 2
Kings xxiii. 25, 26. Those that go with their flocks
and their herds only to seek the Lord, and not with
their hearts and souls, cannot expect to find him, for
his favour is not to be purchased with thousands of
rams. Nor shall those speed, who do not seek the
Lord while he may be found, for there is a time
wlmn he will not be found. They shall not find him,
for die has withdrawn himself; he will not be in¬
quired of by them, but will turn a deaf ear to their
prayers, and have no regard to their sacrifices. See
now much it is our concern to seek God early, now
while the accepted time is, and the day of salvation.
3. They and their portions shall all be swallowed
up. They have dealt treacherously against the
Lord, and have thought to strengthen themselves
in it by their alliances with strange children; but
now shall a month devour them with their portions,
their estates and inheritances, all those things which
they have taken, and taken up with as their por¬
tion; or, their portions, their idols whom they chose
for their portion instead of God. Note, They that
make an idol of the world, by taking it for their por¬
tion, will themselves perish with it. A month shall
devour them, or eat them up; a certain time pre¬
fixed, and a short time. When God’s judgments
begin with them, they shall soon make an end; one
month will do their business. How much may a
body be weakened by one month’s sickness, or a
kingdom wasted by one month’s war! Three shep
herds (says God) I cut off in one month, Zecli. xi.
8. Note, The judgments of God sometimes make
quick work with a sinful people. A month devours
more, and more portions, than many years can
repair.
8. Blow ye the cornet in Gibeah, ana
the trumpet in Ilamah: cry aloud at Beth-
aven, after thee, O Benjamin. 9. Ephraim
shall be desolate in the day of rebuke:
among the tribes of Israel have I made
known that which shall surely be. 1 0. The
princes of Judah were like them that re¬
move the bound: therefore I will pour out
my wrath upon them like water. 11.
Ephraim is oppressed and broken in judg¬
ment, because he willingly walked after the
commandment. 12. Therefore will I be
unto Ephraim as a moth, and to the house
of Judah as rottenness. 13. When Ephraim
saw his sickness, and Judah saw his wound,
then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and
sent to king Jareb: yet could he not heal
you, nor cure you of your wound. 14.
For I will be unto Ephraim as a lion, and
as a young lion to the house of Judah: I,
even I, will tear and go away; I will take
away, and none shall rescue him. 15. ]
will go and return to my place till they ac¬
knowledge their offence, and seek my face ;
in their affliction they will seek me early.
Here is,
I. A loud alarm sounded, giving notice of judg¬
ments coming; (i\ 8. ) Blow ye the cornet in Gibeah,
and in Ramah, two cities near together in the con¬
fines of the two kingdoms of Judah and Israel,
Gibeah, a frontier-town of the kingdom of Judah,
Ramah, of Israel; so that the warning is hereby
sent into both kingdoms; Cry aloud at Beth-aven,
or Bethel, which place seems to be already seized
upon by the enemy, and therefore the trumpet is
not sounded there, but you hear the outcries of them
that shout for mastery, mixed with theirs that are
overcome. Let them cry aloud; “After thee, 0 Ben¬
jamin, comes the enemy. The tribe of Ephraim
is already vanquished, and the enemy will be upon
thy back, O Benjamin, in a little time, thy turn
comes next.” The cup of trembling shall go round.
The prophet had described God’s controversy with
them as a trial at law; (ch. iv. 1.) here he describes
it as a trial by battle; and here also when he judges
he will overcome; let all therefore prepare to meet
their God. He had before spoken of the judgments
as certain; here he speaks of them as near; and
when they are apprehended as just at the door, they
are very startling and awakening. The blowing of
this cornet is explained, v. 9. Among the tribes of
Israel have I made known that which shall surely
be, that which is true or certain; so the word is.
Note, The destruction of impenitent sinners is a
thing which shall surely be; it is not mere talk, to
frighten them, but it is an irrevocable sentence.
And it is a mercy to us, that it is made known to us,
that we have timely warning given us of it, that we
may flee from the wrath to come It is the privi-
899
HOSE A, V.
lege of the tribes of Israel, that, as they are told their
duty, so they are told their danger, by the oracles
of God committed to them.
II. The ground of God’s controversy with them.
1. He has a quarrel with the princes of Judah,
because they were daring leaders in sin, v. 10.
They are like them that remove the bound, or the
ancient landmarks. God has given them his law,
to be a fence about his own property ; but they have
sacrilegiously broken through it, and set it aside;
they have encroached even upon God’s rights, have
trampled upon the distinctions between good and
evil, and the most sacred obligations of reason and
equity, thinking, because they were princes, that
they might do any thing, Quicquid libet, licet —
Their will was a law. Or, it may be understood
of their invading the liberty and property of the
subject, for the advancing of the prerogative; which
was like removing the ancient landmarks. Some
have observed that the princes of Judah were more
absolute, and assumed a more arbitrary power,
than the princes of Israel did; now for this, God has
a controversy with them; I will pour out my wrath
upon them like water, in great abundance, like the
waters of the flood, which were poured upon the
giants of the old world, for the violence which the
earth was filled with through them, Gen. vi. 13.
Note, There are bounds which even princes them¬
selves must not remove, bounds both of religion and
justice, which they are limited by, and which if
they break through they must know that there is
a God above them that will call them to account
for it.
2. He has a quarrel with the people of Ephraim,
because they were sneaking followers in sin; (y. 11.)
He willingly walked after the commandment, the
commandment of Jeroboam, and the succeeding
kings of Israel, who obliged all their subjects by a
law to worship the calves at Dan and Bethel, and
never to go up to Jerusalem to worship; this was
the commandment, it was the law of the land, and
backed with reasons of state; and the people not
only walked after it in a blind, implicit obedience to
authority, but they willingly walked after it, from a
secret antipathy they had to the worship of God,
and a strong bias to the worship of idols. Note, An
easy compliance with the commandments of men
that thwart the commandments of God, ripens a
people for ruin as much as any thing else. And
the punishment of the sequacious disobedience (if I
may so call it) answers to the sin; for it is for this
that Ephraim is oppressed, and broken in judg¬
ment: has all his civil rights and liberties broken in
upon, and trodden down; and, (1.) It is just with
God that it should be so; that those who betray
God’s property, should lose their own; and those
who subject their consciences to an infallible judge,
and an arbitrary power, should have enough of
both. (2.) There is a natural tendency in the thing
itself towards it; they that willingly walk after the
commandment, even when it walks contrary to the
command of God, will find the commandment an en¬
croaching thing, and that the more power is given it,
the more it will claim. Note, Nothing gives greater
advantage to a mastiff-like tyranny, that is fierce
and furious, than a spaniel-like submission, that is
fawning and flattering. Thus is Ephraim oppressed
and broken in judgment; he is wronged under a
/ace and colour of right. Note, It is a sad and sore
judgment upon any people to be oppressed, under
pretence of having justice done them. Tliis ex¬
plains the threatening, v. 9. Ephraim shall be
desolate in the day of rebuke. Note, Daring sin¬
ners must expect that a day of rebuke will come,
and such a day of rebuke as will make them deso¬
late: will deprive them of the comfort of all they
have, and all they hope for.
III. The different methods that God would take
both with Judah and Ephraim, sometimes one me¬
thod, and sometimes the other, and sometimes both
together; or, rather, by which, first the one, and
then the other, he would advance toward their com¬
plete ruin.
1. He would begin with lesser judgments, which
should sometimes work silently and insensibly; (y.
12.) I will be, my providences shall be, unto
Ephraim as a moth : nay, (as it might better be sup¬
plied,) they are unto Ephraim as a moth, for it is
such a sickness as Ephraim now sees, v. 13. Note,
The judgments of God are sometimes to a sinful
people as a moth, and as rottenness, or as a worm.
The former signifies the little animals that breed in
clothes, the latter those that breed in wood; as these
consume the clothes and the wood, so shall the
judgments of God consume them. (1.) Silently, so
as not to make any noise in the world, nay, so as
they themselves shall not be sensible of it; they
shall think themselves safe and thriving, but, when
they come to look more narrowly into their state,
shall find themselves wasting and decaying. (2.)
Slowly, and with long delays and intervals, that he
may give them space to repent. Many a nation, as
well as many a person, in the prime of its time, dies
of a consumption. (3. ) Gradually. God comes upon
sinners with lesser judgments, so to prevent greater,
if they will be wise, and take warning; he comes
upon "them step by step, to show he is not willing
that they should perish. (4.) The moth breeds
in the clothes, and the worm or rottenness in
the wood; thus sinners are consumed by a fire of
their own kindling.
2. When it appeared that those had not done
their work, he would come upon them with greater;
(v. 14.) I will be unto Ephraim as a lion, and to
the house of Judah as a young lion; though Judah
is himself, in Jacob’s blessing, a lion’s whelp. Lest
any should think his power weakened, because he
was said to be as a moth to them, he says that he
will now be as a lion to them, not only to frighten
them with his roaring, but to pull them to pieces.
Note, If lesser judgments prevail not to do their
work, it may be expected that God will send
greater. Christ is sometimes a Lion of the tribe
of Judah, here he is a Lion against that tribe; see
what God will do to a people that are secure in sin;
Even I will tear. He seems to glory in it, as his
prerogative, to be able to destroy, as the alone Law¬
giver, Jam. iv. 12. I, even I, will take the work
into my own hand; I say it, that will do it. There
is a more immediate work of God in some judg¬
ments than in others; I will tear, and go away. He
will go away, (1.) As not fearing them; he will go
away in state, and with a majestic face, as the lion
from his prey. (2. ) As not helping them. If God
tear by afflicting providences, and yet by his graces
and comforts stays with us, it is well enough; but
our condition is sad indeed, if he tear, and go away;
if, when he deprives us of our creature-comforts, he
does himself depart from us. When heroes away,
he will take away all that is valuable and dear, for
when God goes, all good goes along with him. He
will take away, and none shall rescue him; as the
prey cannot be rescued from the lion, Mic. v. 8.
Note, None can be delivered out of the hands of
God’s justice but those that are delivered into the
hands of his grace. It is in vain for a man to strive
with his Maker.
IV. The different effects of those different me
thods.
1. When God contended With them by lesset
judgments, they neglected him, and sought to crea
tures for relief, but sought in vain, v. 13. When
God was to them as a moth, and as rottenness, they
perceived their sickness and their wound, after
900
HOSEA, VI.
a while they found themselves going down the hill,
and that they were behindhand in their affairs,
their state was sensibly decaying, and then they
sent to the Assyrian, to come in to their assistance,
made their court to king Jareb, which, some think,
was one of the names of Pul, or Tiglath-pileser,
kings of Assyria, to whom both Israel and Judah ap-
lied themselves for relief in their distress, hoping
y an alliance with them to repair and re-esta¬
blish their declining interests. Note, Carnal hearts,
in time of trouble, see their sickness, and see their
wound, but do not see the sin that is the cause of it,
nor will be brought to acknowledge that, no, nor
to acknowledge the hand of God, his mighty hand,
much less his righteous hand, in their trouble; and
therefore instead of going the next way to the Cre¬
ator, who could relieve them, they take a great deal
of pains to go about to creatures, who can do them
no service. Those who repent not that they have
offended God by their sins, are loath to be beholden
to him in their afflictions, but would rather seek
relief any where than with him. And what comes
of it? Yet could he not heal you, nor cure you of
your ’wound. Note, Those who neglect God, and
seek to creatures for help, will certainly be disap¬
pointed; those who depend upon them for support,
will find them, not foundations, but broken reeds;
those who depend upon them for supply, will find
them, not fountains, but broken cisterns; those who
depend upon them for comfort and a cure, will find
them miserable comforters, and physicians of no
value. The kings of Assyria, whom Judah and
Israel sought unto, distressed them, and helped them
not, 2 Chron. xxxviii. 16, 28. Some make king
Jareb to signify the great, potent, or magnificent
king, for they built much upon his power; others
the king that will plead, or should plead, for they
built much upon his wisdom and eloquence, and in
his interesting himself in their affairs; they had sent
him a present, (c/i. x. 6. ) a good fee, and, having
so retained him of counsel for them, they doubted
not of his fidelity to them, but he deceived them,
as an arm of flesh does those that trust in it, Jer.
xvii. 5, 6.
2. When, to convince them of their folly, God
brought greater judgments upon them, then they
would at length be forced to apply themselves to
him, v. 15. When he has torn as a lion, (1.) He
will leave them; I will go and return to my place,
to heaven, or to the mercy-seat, the throne of grace,
which is his glory. When God punishes sinners,
he comes out of his place; (Isa. xxvi. 21.) but when
he designs them favour, he returns to his place,
where he waits to be gracious, upon their submis¬
sion. Or, he will return to his place, when he has
corrected them, as not regarding them, hiding his
face from them, and not taking notice of their trou¬
bles or prayers; and this, for their further humilia¬
tion, till they are qualified in some measure for the
returns of his favour. (2.) He will at length work
upon them, . and bring them home to himself, by
their afflictions; which is the thing he waits for;
and then he will no longer withdraw from them.
Two things are here mentioned as instances of their
return; [1.] Their penitent confession of sin; Till
they acknowledge their offence; marg. Till they be
guilty; till they be sensible of their guilt, and be
brought to own it, and humble themselves before
God for it. Note, When men begin to complain
more of their sins than of their afflictions, then there
beg’ns to be some hope of them; and this is that
which God requires of us, when we are under his
correcting hand, that we own ourselves in a fault,
and justly corrected. [2.] Their humble petition
for the favour of God ; Till they seek my face, which,
it may be expected, they will do when they are
brought to the last extremity, and they have tried
other helpers in vain; In their affliction they wil.
seek me early, diligently and earnestly, and with
great importunity; and if they seek him thus, and
be sincere in it, though it might be called seeking
him late, because it was long ere they were brought
to it, yet it is not too late, nay, he is pleased to call
it seeking him early, so willing is he to make the
best of true penitents in their return to him. Note,
When we are under the convictions of sin, and the
corrections of the rod, our business is to seek God’s
face, we must desire the knowledge of him, and an
acquaintance with him, that he may manifest him¬
self to us, and for us, in token of his being at peace
with us. And it may reasonably be expected that
affliction will bring those to God, that had long gone
astray from him, and kept at a distance. There¬
fore God for a time turns away from us, that he
may turn us to himself, and then return to us. Is
any among you afflicted ? Let him pray.
CHAP. VI.
The closing words of the foregoing chapter gave us some
hopes that God and his Israel, notwithstanding their sins
and his wrath, might yet be happily brought together
again; that they would seek him, and he would be found
of them: now this chapter carries that matter further,
and some join the beginning of this chapter with the end
of that, They will seek me early, saying, Come, andlelus
return. But God doth again complain of the wicked¬
ness of this people; for though some did repent and re¬
form, the greater part continued obstinate. Observe, I.
Their resolulion to return to God, and the comforts
wherewith they encourage themselves in their return, v.
I • .3. II. The instability of many of them in their pro¬
fessions and promises of repentance, and the severe
course which God therefore took with them, v. 4, 5. III.
The covenant God made with them, and his expectations
from them; (v. 6.) their violation of that covenant, and
frustrating of those expectations, v. 7.. 11.
1. /jCIOME, and let us return unto the
Lord : for he hath torn, and he will
heal us: he hath smitten, and he will bind
us up. 2. After two days will he revive us;
in the third day he will raise us up, and we
shall live in his sight. 3. Then shall we
know, if we follow on to know the Lord :
his going forth is prepared as the morning;
and he shall come unto us as the rain, as
the latter and former rain unto the earth.
These may be taken either as the words of the
prophet to the people, calling them to repentance,
or as the words of the people to one another, excit¬
ing and encouraging one another to seek the Lord,
and to humble themselves before him, in hopes of
finding mercy with him. God had said, In their
affliction they will seek me; now the prophet and
the good people his friends, would strike while the
iron was hot, and set in with the convictions their
neighbours seemed to be under. Note, Those who
are disposed to turn to God themselves, should do
all they can to excite, and engage, and encourage
others to return to him. Observe,
I. What it is they engage to do; “ Come, and let
us return to the Lord, v. 1. Let us go no more to
the Assyrian, nor send to king Jareb, we have
enough of that, but let us return to the Lord, re¬
turn to the worship of him from our idolatries, and
to our hope in him from all our confidences in the
creature.” Note, It is the great concern of those
who have revolted from God, to return to him.
And those who have gone from him Ivy consent, and
in a body, drawing one another to sin, should by
consent, and in a body, return to him, which will
be for his glory and their mutual edification.
II. What inducements and encouragements to do
this they fasten upon, to stir up one another with.
901
HOSEA, VI.
1. The experience they had of his displeasure;
“ Let us return to him, for he has torn, he has smit¬
ten; we have been torn, and it was he that tore us;
we have been smitten, and it was he that smote us;
therefore let us return to him, because it is for our
revolts from him, that he has torn and smitten us in
anger, and we cannot expect that he should be re¬
conciled to us till we return to him; and for this end
he has afflicted us thus, that we might be wrought
upon to return to him; and his hand will be
stretched out still against us, if the people turn not
to him that smites them,” Isa. ix. 12, 13. Note,
The consideration of the judgments of God upon us
and our land, especially when they are tearing
judgments, should awaken us to return to God by
repentance, and prayer, and reformation.
2. The expectation they had of his favour; “He
that has torn, will heal us, that has smitten, will
bind us ufi;” as the skilful surgeon with a tender
hand binds up the broken bone, or bleeding wound.
Note, The same providence of God that afflicts his
people, relieves them, and the same Spirit of God
that convinces the saints, comforts them ; that which
is first a Spirit of bondage, is afterward a Spirit of
adoption. This is an acknowledgment of the
power of God; he can heal though we be ever so ill
torn; and of his mercy he will do it; nay, therefore
he has torn, that he may heal. Some think this
oints particularly to the return of the Jews out of
abylon, when they sought the Lord, and joined
themselves to him, in the prospect of his gracious
return to them in a way of mercy. Note, It will be
of great use to us, both for our support under our
afflictions, and for our encouragement in our repent¬
ance, to keep up good thoughts of God, and of his
purposes and designs concerning us.
Now this favour of God which they are here in
expectation of, is described in several instances.
(1.) They promise themselves that their deliver¬
ance out of their troubles should be to them as life
from the dead; (t>. 2. ) After two days he will re¬
vive us, that is, in a short time, in a day or two,
and the third day, when it is expected that the dead
body should putrefy and corrupt, and be buried out
of our sight, then will he raise us up, and we shall
live in his sight, we shall see his face with comfort,
and it shall be reviving to us. Though he forsake
for a small moment, he will gather with everlasting
kindness. Note, The people of God may not only
be torn and smitten, but left for dead, and may lie
so a great while; but they shall not always lie so,
nor shall they long lie so; God will in a little time
revive them; and the assurance given them of this
should engage them to return, and adhere to him.
But this seems to have a further reference, to the
resurrection of Jesus Christ; and the time limited is
expressed by the two days and the third day, that it
may be a type and figure of Christ’s rising the third
day, which he is said to do according to the scripture,
according to this scripture; for all the prophets wit¬
nessed of the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that
should follow. Let us see and admire the wisdom and
goodness of God, in ordering the prophet’s words so
that when he foretold the deliverance of the church
out of her troubles, he should at the same time point
out our salvation by Christ, which other salvations
were both figures and fruits of; and though they
might not be aware of this mystery in the words, yet,
now that they are fulfilled in the letter of them in
the resurrection of Christ, it is a confirmation to our
faith, that this is he that should come, and we are to
look for no other. And it is every way suitable that
a prophecy of Christ’s rising should be thus ex¬
pressed, He will raise us up, and we shall live, for
Christ rose as the First-fruits, and we revive with
him, we live through him; he rose for our justifica¬
tion, and all believers are said to be risen with
Christ. See Isa. xxvi. 19. And it would serve for
a comfort to the church then, and an assurance
that God would raise them out of their low estate,
for in his fulness of time he would raise his Son
from the grave, who would be the Life and Glory
of his people Israel. A regard by faith to a rising
Christ is a great support to a suffering Christian,
and gives abundant encouragement to a repenting,
returning sinner; for he has said, Because I live,
you shall live also.
(2.) That then they shall improve in the know¬
ledge of God; (y. 3.) Then shall we know, if we
follow on to know, the Lord. Then, when God re¬
turns in mercy to his people, and designs favour for
them, he will, as a pledge and fruit of his favour,
give them more of the knowledge of himself; the
earth shall be full of that knowledge, Isa. xi. 9.
Knowledge shall be increased, Dan. xii. 4. All
shall know God, Jer. xxxi. 34. We shall know,
we shall follow to know, the Lord; so the words are.
And it may be taken as the fruit of Christ’s resur¬
rection, and the life we live in God’s sight by- him,
that we shall have not only greater means of know¬
ledge, but grace to improve in knowledge by those
means. Note, When God designs mercy for a peo¬
ple, he gives them a heart to know him, Jer. xxiv.
7. They that are risen with Christ, have the spirit
of wisdom and revelation given them. And ii we
understand our living in his sight, as the Chaldee
paraphrast does, of the day oj the resurrection of
the dead, it fitly follows, We shall know, we shall
follow to know, the Lord; for in that day we shall
see him as he is, and our knowledge of him shall be
perfected, and yet be eternally increasing. Or,
taking it as we read it, If we follow on to know, we
have here, [1.] A precious blessing promised;
Then shall we know, shall know the Lord; then
when we return to God: those that come to God,
shall be brought into an acquaintance with him.
When we are designed to live in his sight, then he
gives us to know him ; for this is life eternal, to know
God, John xvii. 3. [2.] The way and means of
obtaining this blessing. We must follow on to know
him. We must value and esteem the knowledge of
God, as the best knowledge, we must cry after it,
and dig for it, (Prov. ii. 3, 4.) must seek and inter¬
meddle with all wisdom, (Prov. xviii. 1.) and must
proceed in our inquiries after this knowledge, and
our endeavours to improve in it. And if we do the
prescribed duty, we have reason to expect the pro¬
mised mercy, that we shall know more and more of
God, and be at last perfect in this knowledge.
(3. ) That then they shall abound in divine con¬
solation; His going forth is prepared as the morn¬
ing, the returns of his favour, which he had with¬
drawn from us, when he went and returned to his
place. His out-goings again are prepared and se¬
cured to us as firmly as the return of the morning
after a dark night, and we expect it, as those do
that wait for the morning after a long night, and
are sure it will come at the time appointed, and will
not fail; and the light of his countenance will be
both welcome to us, and growing upon us, unto
the perfect day, as the light of the morning is. He
shall come to us, and be welcome to us, as the rain,
as the latter and fo~mer rain unto the earth, which
refreshes it, and makes it fruitful. Now this looks
further than their deliverance out of captivity, and,
no doubt, was to have its full accomplishment in
Christ, and the grace of the gospel. The Old Tes¬
tament saints followed on to know him, earnestly
looked for redemption in Jerusalem; and, at length,
the out-goings of divine grace in him, in his going
forth to visit this world, were, [1.] As the morning
to this earth when it is dark; for he went forth as
the sun of righteousness, and in him the day-spring
I from on high visited us. His going forth was pre-
902
HOSEA, VI.
pared as the morning, for he came in the fulness of
time; John Baptist was his forerunner, nay, he was
himself the bright and morning Star. [2.] As the
rain to this earth, when it is dry; He shall come
down as the rain upon the mown grass, Ps. lxxii. 6.
In him showers of blessings descend upon this
world, which give seed to the sower and bread to
the eater, Isa. lv. 10. And the favour of God in
Christ is, what is said of the king’s favour, like the
cloud of the latter rain, Prov. xvi. 15. The grace
of Goa in Christ is both the latter and the former
rain, for by it the good work of our fruit-bearing is
both begun and carried on.
4. O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee ?
O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? for
your goodness is as a morning cloud, and
as the early dew it goeth away. 5. There¬
fore have I hewed them by the prophets ; I
have slain them by the words of my mouth :
and thy judgments are as the light that goeth
forth. 6. For I desired mercy, and not
sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more
than burnt-offerings. 7. But they, like men,
have transgressed the covenant : there have
they dealt treacherously against me. 8.
Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity,
and is polluted with blood. 9. And as
troops of robbers wait for a man, so the
company of priests murder in the way by
consent: for they commit lewdness. 10. 1
have seen a horrible thing in the house of
Israel : there is the whoredom of Ephraim,
Israel is defiled. 11. Also, O Judah, he
hath set a harvest for thee, when I return¬
ed the captivity of my people.
Two things, two evil things, both Judah and
Ephraim are here charged with, and justly ac¬
cused of.
I. That they were not .firm to their own convic¬
tions, but were unsteady, unstable as water; ( v . 4,
5.) 0 Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Ju¬
dah, what shall I do unto thee? This is a strange
expression; can Infinite Wisdom be at a loss what
to do? Can it be nonplussed, or put upon taking
new measures? By no means; but God speaks after
the manner of men, to show how absurd and un¬
reasonable they were, and how just his proceedings
against them were. Let them not complain of him
as harsh and severe in tearing them, and smiting
them, as he has done; for what else should he do?
What other course could he take with them? God
had tried various methods with them, ( What could
have been done more to his vineyard than he had
done? Isa. v. 4. ) and very loath he was to let things
go to extremity; he reasons with himself, (as ch.
xi. 8, 9.) How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? God
would have done them good, but they were not
qualified for it ; “What shall I do unto thee? What
else can I do but cast thee off, when I cannot in ho¬
nour save thee?” Note, God never destroys sinners
till he sees there is no other way with them.
See here, 1. What their conduct was toward God;
Their goodness, or kindness, was as the morning
cloud. Some understand it of their kindness to
themselves and their own souls, in their repentance;
it is indeed mercy to ourselves to repent of our sins,
put they soon retracted that kindness to themselves,
undid it again, and wronged their own souls as
much as ever; but it is rather taken for their piety
and religion; what good appeared in them some
times, it soon vanished and disappeared again, as
the morning cloud and the early dew. Such was
the goodness of Israel in Jehu’s time, and of Judah,
in Hezekiah’s and Josiah’s time; it was soon gone.
In time of drought, the morning cloud promises
rain, and the early dew is some present refreshment
to the earth; but the cloud is dispersed, (and hypo¬
crites are compared to clouds without water, Jude
12.) the dew does not soak into the ground, but is
drawn back again into trie air, and the earth is
parched still. What shall he do with them? Shall
he accept their goodness? No, for it passes away;
and Factum non dicitur quod non perseverat — That
which continues not, can scarcely be said to be done.
Note, That goodness never will be either pleasing
to God, or profitable to ourselves, which is as the
morning cloud, and the early dew. When men
promise fair, and do not perform, when they begin
well in religion, and do not hold on, when they leave
their first love, and their first works, or, though
they do not quite cast off religion, are yet unsteady,
uneven, and inconstant in it, then is their goodness
as the morning cloud and the early dew.
2. What course God had taken with them; ( v .
5.) Therefore because they were so rough and lll-
shapen, I have hewed them by the prophets, as tim¬
ber or stone is hewed for use; I have slain them by
the words of my mouth. What the prophets did,
was done by the word of God in their mouths,
which never returned void. By it they thought
themselves slain, were ready to say that the pro¬
phets killed them, or cut them to the heart, when
they dealt faithfully with them. (1. ) The prophets
hewed them by convictions of sin, endeavouring to
cut off their transgressions from them. They were
uneven in religion, (n. 4.) therefore God hewed
them. The hearts of sinners are not only as stone,
but as rough stone, which requires a great deal of
pains to bring it into shape; or as knotty timber,
that is not squared without a deal of difficulty; mi¬
nisters’ work is to hew them, and God by the minis¬
ter hews them, for with the f reward he will show
himself froward. And there are those whom minis¬
ters must rebuke sharply; every word should cut,
and though the chips fly in the face of the work¬
man, though the reproved fly in the face of the re¬
prover, and reckon him an enemy because he tells
the truth, yet he goes on with his work. (2.) They
slew them by the denunciations of wrath, foretelling
that they should be slain, as Ezekiel is said to des¬
troy the city when he prophesied of the destruction
of it, Ezek. xliii. 3. And God accomplished that
which was foretold; “I have slain them by my
judgments, according to the words of my mouth.”
Note, The word of God will be the death either of
the sin or of the sinner; a savour either of life unto life,
or of death unto death. Some read it, “I have hewed
the prophets, and slain them by the words of my
mouth; I have employed them in laborious service for
the people’s good, which has wasted their strength,
they have spent themselves, and hewed away al
their spirits, in their work, and in hazardous sen ice
which has cost many of them their lives.” Note
Ministers are the tools which God makes use of in
working upon people; and though with many they
labour in vain, yet God will reckon for the wearing
out of his tools. (3.) God was hereby justified in
the severest proceedings against them afterward.
His prophets had taken a deal of pains with them,
had admonished them of their sin and warned them
of their danger, but the means used had not the de¬
sired effect; some good impressions perhaps were
made for the present, but they wore off, and passed
away as the morning cloud, and now they cannot
charge God with severity, if he bring upon them
the miseries threatened. The prophet turns to him
903
HOSEA, VI.
and acknowledges. Thy judgments are as the light |
that goeth forth, evidently just and righteous. Note,
Though sinners be not reclaimed by the pains that
ministers take with them, yet thereby God will be
justified when he speaks, and clear when he judges.
See Matth xi. 17. — 19.
II. That they were not faithful to God’s covenant
witli them, v. 6, 7, See. Where observe,
1. What the covenant was, that God made with
them, and upon what terms they should obtain his
favour, and be accepted of him; {v. 6.) I desired
mercy, and not sacrifice, that is, rather than sacri¬
fice, and insisted upon the knowledge of God, more
than upon burnt-offerings. Mercy here is the same
word which we rendered goodness, v. 4. chesed —
piety, sanctity; it is put for all practical religion;
it is the same with charity in the New Testament,
the reigning love of God and our neighbour; and
this accompanied with, and flowing from, the know¬
ledge of God, as he has revealed himself in his
word, a firm belief that he is, and is the Rewarder
of them that diligently seek him, a good affection to
divine things, guided by a good judgment, which
cannot but produce a very good conversation; this is
that which God by his covenant requires, and not
sacrifice and offering. This is fully explained, Jer.
vii. 22, 23. Ispake not to your fathers concerning
burnt-offerings, (that was the smallest of the mat¬
ters I spake to them of, and on which the least stress
was laid,) but this I said. Obey my voice, Mic. vi.
6. — 8. To love God and our neighbour is better than
all burnt-offering and sacrifice, Mark xii. 33. Ps.
li. 16, 17. Not but that sacrifice and offering were
required, and to be paid, and had their use, and
when they were accompanied with mercy and the
knowledge of God, were acceptable to him, but,
without them, God regarded them not, he despised
them, Isa. i. 10, 11. Perhaps this is mentioned here,
to show a difference between the God whom they
deserted and the gods whom they went over to.
The true God aimed at nothing but that they should
be good men, and live good lives for their own good,
and the ceremony of honouring him with sacrifices
was one of the smallest matters of his law; whereas
the false Gods required that only; let their priests
and altars be regaled with sacrifices and offerings,
and the people might live as they list; what fools
were they then that left a God who aimed at giving
his worshippers a new nature, for gods who aimed
at nothing but making themselves a new name! It is
mentioned likewise to show that God’s controversy
with them was not for the omission of sacrifices, ( I
will not refirove thee for them, Ps. 1. 8.) but because
there was no justice, nor mercy, nor knowledge of
God, among them; (cA. iv. 1.) and to teach us all
that the power of godliness is the main thing God
looks at and requires, and without it the form of
godliness is of no avail. Serious piety in the heart
and life is the one thing needful, and, separate from
that, the performances of devotion, though ever so
plausible, ever so costly, are of no account. Our
Saviour quotes this, to show that moral duties are to
be preferred before rituals, whenever they come in
competition, and to justify himself in eating with
publicans and sinners, because it was in mercy to
the souls of men, and in healing on the sabbath-day,
because it was in mercy to the bodies of men, to
which the ceremony of singularity in eating and the
sabbath-rest must give way, Matth. ix. 13. — xii. 7.
2. How little they had "regarded this covenant.
Though it was so well ordered in all things, though
they, and not God, would be the gainers by it; yet
see here what came of it.
(1.) In general they broke with God, and proved
unfaithful ; there were good things committed to
them, to keep the jewels of mercy and piety, and
the knowledge of God, in the cabinet of sacrifice
and burnt-offering, but they betrayed their trust,
kept the cabinet, but pawned the jewels for the
S-atifications of a base lust, and this is that for which
od has justly a quarrel with them; ( v . 7.) They,
like men, have transgressed the covenant, that cove¬
nant which God made with them; they have broken
the conditions of it, and so forfeited the benefit of it.
By casting off mercy and the knowledge of God, and
other instances of disobedience, [1.] They had con¬
tracted the guilt of perjury and covenant-breaking;
they were like men that transgress a covenant by
which they had solemnly bound themselves, which
is a thing that all the world cries out shame on; men
that have done so, deserve not again to be valued, or
trusted, or dealt with; “There, in that tiling, they
have dealt treacherously against me; they have
been perfidious, base, and false children, in whom is
no faith, though I depended upon their being chil¬
dren that would not lie.” [2.] In this they had but
acted like themselves, like men, who are generally
false and fickle, and in whose nature (their corrupt
nature) it is to deal treacherously; all men are liars,
and they are like the rest of that degenerate race,
all gone aside, Ps. xiv. 2, 3. They have transgressed
the covenant like men, like the Gentiles that trans¬
gressed the covenant of nature. Like mean men;
the word here used is sometimes put for men of low
degree, they have dealt deceitfully, like base men
that have no sense of honour. [3.] Herein they
trod in the steps of our first parents ; they, like
Adam, have transgressed the covenant; (so it might
very well be read;) as he transgressed the covenant
of innocency, so they transgressed the covenant of
grace; so treacherously, so foolishly; there in para¬
dise he violated his engagements to God, and there
in Canaan, another paradise, they violated their en¬
gagements. And by their treacherous dealing they,
like Adam, have ruined themselves and theirs.
Note, Sin is so much the worse, the more there is in
it of the similitude of Adam's transgression, Rom.
v. 14. [4.] Low thoughts of God and of his
authority and favour was at the bottom of all this;
for so some read it. They have transgressed the
covenant, as of a man, as if it had been but the cove¬
nant of a man, that stood upon even ground with
them; as if the commands of the covenant were but
like those of a man like themselves, and the kind¬
ness conveyed by it no more valuable than that of a
man. There is something sacred and binding in a
man’s covenant, (as the apostle shows, Gal. iii. 15.)
but much more in the covenant of God, which yet
they made small account of ; and there in that cove¬
nant they dealt treacherously ; promised fair, but
performed nothing. Dealing treacherously with
God, is here called dealing treacherously against
him, for it is both an affront and an opposition. De¬
serters are traitors, and will be so treated; the re¬
volting heart is a rebellious heart.
(2.) Some particular instances of their treachery
are here given. There they dealt treacherously, in
the places hereafter named.
[1.] Look on the other side Jordan to the country
which lay most exposed to the insults of the neigh¬
bouring nations, and where therefore the people
were concerned to keep themselves under the divine
protection; yet there you will find the most daring
provocations of the Divine Majesty, v. 8. Gilead,
which lay in the lot of Gad, and the half tribe of
Manasseh, was a city of the workers of iniquity.
Wickedness was the trade that was driven there;
the country was called Gilead, but it was all called
a city, because they were all as it were incorporated
in one society of rebels against God. Or, (as most
think) Ramoth Gilead is the city here meant, one
of the three cities of refuge on the other side Jordan,
and a Levites’ city; the inhabitants of it, though of
the sacred tribe, were workers of iniquity, contrived
904
HOSEA, VII.
it, and practised it Note, It is bad indeed when a
Levites’ city is a city of those that work iniquity;
when those that are to preach good doctrine, live
bad lives. Particularly it is Jxolluted with blood;
as if that were a sin which the wicked Levites were
in a special manner guilty of. In popish countries
the clergy are observed to be the most bloody per¬
secutors. Or, as it was a city of refuge, by abus¬
ing the power it had tojudge of murders, it became
tiolluted with blood. They would, for a bribe, pro¬
tect those that were guilty of wilful murder, whom
they ought to have put to death; and would deliver
those to the avenger of blood, who were guilty but
of chance-medley, if they were poor, and had no¬
thing to give them; and both these ways they were
Jxolluted with blood. Note, Blood denies the land
where it is shed, and where no inquisition is made,
or no vengeance taken for it. See how the best in¬
stitutions, that are ever so well designed to keep the
balance, even between justice and mercy, are capa¬
ble of being abused and perverted to the manifest
prejudice and violation of both.
[2.] Look among those whose business it was to
minister in holy things ; they were as bad as the
worst, and as vile as the vilest; (y. 9.) The com¬
pany of priests are so, not here and there one that
is the scandal of his order, but the whole order and
body of them, the priests go all one way by consent,
with one shoulder, (as the word is,) one and all;
and they make one another worse, more daring, and
fierce, and impudent, in sin; more crafty, and more
cruel. A company of priests will say and do that in
conspiracy , which none of them would dare to say
or do singly. The companies of priests were as
troops of robbers, as baxxditti, or gangs of highway¬
men, that cut men’s throats to get their money.
First, They were cruel, and bloodthirsty; They
murder those that they have a pique against, or that
stand in their way; nothing less will satisfy them.
Secondly, They were cunning; They laid wait for
men, that they might have a fair opportunity to
compass their mischievous, malicious designs; thus
the company of priests laid wait for Christ, to take
him, saying, Not on the feast-day. Thirdly, They
were concurring as one man; They murder in the
way, in the highway, where travellers should be
safe, there they murder by consent, aiding and
abetting one another in it. See how unanimous
wicked people are in doing mischief ; and should not
ood people be so then in doing good ? They mur-
er in the way to Shechem, (so the margin reads it,
as a proper name,) such as were going to Jerusalem,
(for that way Shechem lay,) to worship. Or, in
the way to Shechem, some think, means in the same
manner that their father Levi, with Simeon his
brother, murdered the Shechemites, (Gen. xxxiv.)
by fraud and deceit; and some understand it of their
destroying the souls of men by drawing them to sin.
Fourthly, They did it with contrivance; They com¬
mit lewdness; the word signifies such wickedness as
is committed with deliberation, and of malice pre¬
pense, as we say. The more there is of device and
design in sin, the worse it is.
[3. ] Look into the body of the people, take a view
of the whole house of Israel, and they are all alike;
(v. 10.) I have seen a horrible thing in the house of
Israel, and, though it be ever so artfully managed,
God discovers it, and will discover it to them; and
who can deny that which God himself says that he
has seen ? There is the whoredom of Ephraim, both
corporal and spiritual whoredom'; there it is too
plain to be denied. Note, The sin of sinners, espe¬
cially sinners of the house of Israel, has enough in it
to make them tremble, for it is a horrible thing, it is
amazing, and it is threatening; to make them blush,
for Israel is thereby defiled, and rendered odious in
the sight of God.
[4.] Look into Judah, and you find them sharing
with Israel; (t». 11.) Also, O Judah, he has set a
harvest for thee ; thou must be reckoned with as
well as Ephraim, thou art ripe for destruction too,
and the time, even the set time, of thy destruction is
hastening on, when thou that hast ploughed ini
quity, and sown wickedness, shalt reaji the same.
The general judgment is compared to a harvest;
(Matth. xiii. 39. ) so are particular judgments, Joel
iii. 13. Rev. xiv. 15. I have appointed a time to
call thee to account, even when I returned the ca/i-
tivity of my Jxeople, when those captives of Judah
which were taken by the men of Israel were re¬
stored in obedience to the command of God sent
them by Oded the prophet, 2 Chron. xxviii. 8. — 15.
When God spared them that time, he set them a
harvest, he designed to reckon with them another
time for all together. Note, Preservations from
present judgments, if a good use be not made of
them, are but reservations for greater judgments.
CHAP. VII.
In this chapter we have, I. A general charge drawn up
against Israel for those high crimes and misdemeanors
by which they had obstructed the course of God’s fa¬
vours to them, v. 1..2. II. A particular accusation,
1. Of the court ; the king, princes, and judges, v. 3. . 7.
2. Of the country. Ephraim is here charged with con¬
forming to the nations, (v. 8.) senselessness and stu¬
pidity under the judgments of God, (v. 9 . . 1 1. ) ingrati¬
tude to God for his mercies, (v. 13.) incorrigibleness
under his judgments, (v. 14.) contempt of God, (v. 15.)
and hypocrisy in their pretences to return to him, v. 16.
They are also threatened with a severe chastisement,
which shall humble them; (v. 12.) and, if that prevail
not? then with an utter destruction, (v. 13.) particularly
their princes, v. 16.
1. ^klLTHEN I would have healed Israel,
▼ t then the iniquity of Ephraim was
discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria:
for they commit falsehood ; and the thief
cometh in, and the troop of robbers spoileth
without: 2. And they consider not in their
hearts that I remember all their wickedness:
now their own doings have beset them
about ; they are before my face. 3. They
make the king glad with their wickedness,
and the princes with their lies. 4. They are
all adulterers, as an oven heated by the
baker, who ceaseth from raising after he hath
kneaded the dough until it be leavened. 5.
In the day of our king the princes have
made him sick with bottles of wine: he
stretched out his hand with scorners. 6. For
they have made ready their heart like an
oven, while they lie in wait: their baker
sleepeth all the night; in the morning it
burneth as a flaming fire. 7. They are all
hot as an oven, and have devoured their
judges: all their kings are fallen; there is
none among them that calleth unto me.
Some take away the last words of the foregoing
chapter, and make them the beginning of this;
“When I returned, or would have returned, the
captivity of my JxeoJxJe, when I was about to come
toward them in ways of mercy, even when I
would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of
Ephraim, the country and common people, was dis¬
covered, and the wickedness of Samaria, the court
and the chief city.
Now, in these verses, we may observe,
I. A general idea given of the present state of
90 h
HOSEA, VII.
Israel, v. 1, 2. See how the case now stood with
them.
1. God graciously designed to do well for them ;
I ii' o it Id have healed Israel. Israel were sick and
wounded, their disease was dangerous and malig¬
nant, and likely to be fatal, Isa. i. 6. But God of¬
fered to be their Physician, to undertake the cure,
and there was balm in Gilead sufficient to recover
the health of the daughter of his people; their case
was bad, but it was not desperate, nay, it was hope¬
ful, when God would have healed Israel. (1.) He
would have reformed them, would have parted be¬
tween them and their sins, would have purged out
the corruptions that were among them, by his laws
and prophets. (2. ) He would have delivered them
out of their troubles, and restored to them their
peace and prosperity. Several healing attempts were
made, and their declining state seemed sometimes
to be in a hopeful way of recovery; but their own
folly put them back again. Note; If sinful, misera¬
ble souls be not healed and helped, but perish in
their sin and misery, they cannot lay the blame on
God, for he both could/ and would, have healed
them, he offered to take the ruin under his hand.
And there are some special seasons when God mani¬
fests his readiness to heal a distempered church and
nation ; now and then a hopeful crisis, which, if
carefully watched and improved, might, even when
the case is very bad, turn the scale for life and
health.
2. They stood in their own light, and put a bar
in their own door ; When God would have healed
them, when they bid fair for reformation and peace,
then their iniquity was discovered, and their wicked¬
ness, and that stopped that current of God’s favours,
and undid all again. (1.) Then, when their case
came to be examined and inquired into, in order to
their cure, that wickedness which had been con¬
cealed and palliated, was found out; not that it was
ever hid from God, but he speaks after the manner
of men; as a surgeon, when he probes a wound in
order to the cure of it, and finds that it touches the
vitals, and is incurable, goes no further in his en¬
deavour to cure it: so, when God came down to see
the case of Israel, (as the expression is, Gen. xviii.
21.) with kind intentions toward them, he found
their wickedness so very flagrant, and them so har¬
dened in it, so impudent and impertinent, that he
could not in honour show them the favour he de¬
signed them. Note, Sinners are not healed, because
they would not be healed ; Christ would have
gathered them, and they would not. (2.) Then,
when some endeavours were used to reform and re¬
claim them, that wickedness which had been re¬
strained and kept under, broke out; and from God’s
steps toward the healing of them they took occasion
to be so much the more provoking. When endea¬
vours were used to reform them, vice grew more
impetuous, more outrageous, and swelled so much
the higher, as a stream when it is dammed up;
when they began to prosper, they grew more proud,
wanton and secure, and so stopped the progress of
their cure. Note, It is sin that turns away good
things from us, then when they are coming towards
us; and it is the folly and ruin of multitudes, that,
when God would do well for them, they do ill for
themselves. And what was it that did them this
mischief? In one word, they commit falsehood, they
worship idols, (so some,) defraud one another, (so
others,) or, rather, they dissemble with God in their
professions of repentance, and regard to him. They
say that they are desirous to be healed by him, and,
in order to that, willing to be ruled by him ; but
they lie unto him with their mouth, and flatter him
with their tongue.
3. A practical disbelief of God’s omniscience and
government was at the bottom of all their wicked-
Vol. iv. — 5 Y
ness; (v. 2.) They consider not in their hearts, they
never say it to their own hearts, never think of this,
that I remember all their wickedness. As if God
either could not see it, though he is all eye, or did.
not heed it, though his name is Jealous, or had for¬
gotten it, though he is an eternal Mind that can
never be unmindful, or would not reckon for it,
though he is the Judge of heaven and earth. This
is the sinner’s atheism; as good say that there is no
God, as say that he is either ignorant or forgetful,
that there is none that judges in the earth, as say
that he remembers not the things he is to give judg¬
ment upon; it is a high affront they put upon God,
it is a damning cheat they put upon themselves;
they say, The Lord shall not see, Ps. xciv. 7. They
cannot but know that God remembers all their
works, they have been told it many a time; nay, if
you ask them, they cannot but own it, and yet they
do not consider it; they do not think of it when they
should, and with application to themselves and their
own works, else they would not, they durst not, do
as they do. But the time will come when those
who thus deceive themselves, shall be undeceived;
“JVow their own doings have beset them about;
they are come at length to such a pitch of wicked¬
ness, that their sins appear on every side of them;
all their neighbours see how bad they are; and can
they think that God does not see it?” Or, rather,
“The punishment of their doings besets them
about, they are surrounded and embarrassed with
troubles, so that they cannot get out; by which
it appears that the sins they smart for are before my
face; not only that I have seen them, but that I am
displeased at them;” for till God by pardoning our
sins has cast them behind his b^ck, they are still
before his face. Note, Sooner or later, God will
convince those who do not now consider it, that he
remembers all their works.
4. God had begun to contend with them by his
judgments, in earnest of what was further coming;
The thief comes in, and the troop of robbers spoils
without. Some take this as an instance of their
wickedness, that they robbed and spoiled one ano¬
ther; Nec hospes hab hospite tutus- — The host and
the guest stand in fear of each other. It seems
rather to be a punishment of their sin; they were
infested with secret thieves among themselves, that
robbed their houses and shops, and picked their
pockets, and troops of robbers, foreign invaders,
that with open violence spoil abroad; so far was
Israel from being healed, that they had fresh
wounds given them daily by robbers and spoilers.
And all this the effect of sin, all to punish them for
robbing God, Isa. xlii. 24. Mai. iii. 8, 11.
II. A particular account of the sins of the court,
the kings and princes, and those about them, and
the tokens of God’s displeasure that they were un¬
der for them.
1. Their king and princes were pleased with the
wickedness and profaneness of their subjects, who
were imboldened thereby to be so much the more
wicked; ( v . 3.) They make the king and princes
glad with their wickedness. It pleased them to see
the people conform to their wicked laws and exam¬
ples, in the worship of their idols, and other in¬
stances of impiety and immorality; and to hear them
flatter and applaud them in their wicked ways.
When Herod saw that his wickedness pleased the
people, he proceeded further in it; much more will
the people do so when they see that it pleases the
prince, Acts xii. 3. Particularly, they made glad
with their lies, with the lying praises with which
they crowned the favourites of the prince, and the
lying calumnies and censures with which they black¬
ened those whom they knew the princes had a dis¬
like to. Those who show themselves pleased with
slanders and ill-natured stories, shall never want
906
HOSEA, VII.
those about them, who will fill their ears with such
stories; Prov. xxix. 12. If a ruler hearken to lies,
all his servants are wicked, and will make him glad
with their lies.
2. Drunkenness and revelling abound much at
the court; ( v . 5.) The day of our king was a merry
day with them, either his birth-day, or his inaugu¬
ration-day, of which it is probable that they had an
anniversary observation; or, perhaps, it was some
holiday of his appointing, which was therefore called
his day; on that day the princes met to drink the
king’s health, and got him among them, to be mer¬
ry, and made him sick with bottles of wine. It
should seem that the king did not ordinarily drink
to excess, but he was now upon a high day brought
to it by the artifices of the princes, tempted by the
goodness of the wipe, the gaiety of the company, or
the healths they urged; and so little was he used to
it, that it made him sick; and it is justly charged as
a crime, as crimen lasa majestatis — treason, upon
those who thus imposed upon him, and made him
sick; nor would it serve for an excuse, that it was
the day of their king, but was rather an aggravation
of the crime, that when they pretended to do him
honour, they dishonoured him to the highest degree.
If it is a great affront and injury to a common per¬
son to make him drunk, and there is a wo to those
that do it, (Hab. ii. 15.) much more to a crowned
head; for the greater any man’s dignity is, the
greater disgrace it is to him to be drunk. It is not
for kings, 0 Lemuel, it is not for kings, to drink
wine, Prov. xxxi. 4, 5. See what a prejudice the
sin of drunkenness is to a man, to a king, (1.) In his
health; it made him sick; it is a force upon nature;
and strange it is by what charms men, otherwise
rational enough, can be drawn to that which, be¬
side the offence it gives to God, and the damage it
does to their spiritual and eternal welfare, is a pre¬
sent disorder and distemper to their own bodies.
(2.) In his honour; for, when he was thus intoxi¬
cated, he stretched out his hand with scorners; then
he that was intrusted with the government of a
kingdom, lost the government of himself, and so far
forgot, [1.] The dignity of a king, that he made
himself familiar with players and buffoons, and
those whose company was a scandal. [2.] The
duty of a king, that lie joined in confederacy with
atheists, and the profane scoffers at religion, whom
he ought to have silenced, and put to shame; he sat
in the seat of the scornful, of those that are arrived
at the highest pitch of impiety; he struck in with
them, said as they said, did as they did, and exerted
his power, and stretched forth the hand of his go¬
vernment, in concurrence with them. Goodness
and good men are often made the song of the drunk¬
ards; (Ps. lxix. 12. — xxxv. 16.) but wo unto thee, O
land, when thy king is such a child as to stretch
forth his hand, with those that make them so,
Eccl. x. 16.
3. Adultery and uncleanness prevailed much
among the courtiers. This is spoken of, v. 4, 6, 7.
and that of drunkenness comes in in the midst of
this article; for wine is oil to the fire of lust, Prov.
xxiii. 33. Those that are inflamed with fleshly
lusts, that are adulterers, ( v . 4.) are here again and
again compared to an oven heated by the baker; (t>.
4.) They have made ready their heart like an oven,
(u. 6.) they are all hot as an oven, v. 7. Note, (1. )
An unclean heart is like an oven heated; and the
unclean lusts and affections of it are as the fuel that
makes it hot. It is an inward fire, it keeps the
heat within itself ; so adulterers and fornicators se¬
cretly burn in lust, as the expression is, Rom. i. 27.
The heat of the oven is an intense heat, especially
as it is here described; he that heats it, stirs up the
fire, and ceases not from raising it up, till the bread
is ready to be put in, being kneaded and leavened.
All which only signifies that they are like an oven
when it is at the hottest. Nay, when it is too hot
for the baker, (so the learned Dr. Pocock,) when
it is hotter than he would have it, so that the raiser
up of the fire ceases so long as while the dough that
is kneaded is in the fermenting, that the heat may
abate a little. Thus fiery hot are the lusts of an un¬
clean heart. (2.) The unclean wait for an oppor¬
tunity to compass their wicked desires ; having
made ready their heart like an oven, they lie in
wait, to catch their prey. The eye of the adulterer
waits for the twilight, Job xxiv. 15. Their baker
sleeps all the night, but in the morning it burns as
a flaming fire. As the baker, having kindled a
fire in his oven, and laid sufficient fuel to it, goes to
bed, and sleeps all night, and in the morning finds
his oven well heated, and ready for his purpose; so
these wicked people, when they have laid some
wicked plot, and formed a design for the gratifying
of some covetous," ambitious, revengeful, or unclean
lusts, have their hearts so fully set in them to do
evil, that, though they may stifle them for awhile,
yet the fire of corrupt affections is still glowing
within, and as soon as ever there is an opportunity
for it, their purposes which they have compassed
and imagined, break out into overt acts, as a fire
flames out when it has vent given it. Thus they are
all hot as an oven. Note, Lust in the heart is like
fire in an oven, puts it into a heat; but the day is
coming when those who thus make themselves like
a fiery oven with their own vile affections, if that
fire be not extinguished by divine grace, shall be
made as a fiery oven by divine wrath, (Ps. xxi. 9.)
when the day comes, that shall burn as an oven,
Mai. iv. 1.
4. They resist the proper methods of reforma¬
tion and redress; They have devoured their judges,
those few good judges that were among them, that
would have put out these fires with which they were
heated, they fell foul upon them, and would not
suffer them to do justice, but were ready to stone
them, and perhaps did so; or, as some think, they
provoked God to deprive them of the blessing of
magistracy, and to leave all in confusion; All their
kings are fallen one after another, and their fami¬
lies with them; which could not but put the king¬
dom into confusion, crumble it into contending par¬
ties, and occasion a great deal of bloodshed ; there
are heart-burnings among them, they are hot as an
oven, with rage and malice at one another, and this
occasions the devouring of their judges, the falling
of their kings; for the transgression of a land many
are the princes thereof, Prov. xxviii. 2. But in the
midst of all this trouble and disorder, there is none
among them that calls unto God, that sees his hand
stretched out against them in these judgments, and
deprecates the strokes of it; none, or next to none,
that stir up themselves to take hold on God, Isa.
lxiv. 7. Note, Those are not only heated with sin,
but hardened in sin, that continue to live without
prayer, even when they are in trouble and distress.
8. Ephraim, lie hath mixed himself among
the people ; Ephraim is a cake not turned.
9. Strangers have devoured his strength,
and he knoweth it not ; yea, gray hairs are
here and there upon him, yet he knoweth
not. 10. And the pride of Israel testified!
to his face; and they do not return to the
Lord their God, nor seek him for all this.
1 1 . Ephraim also is like a silly dove without
heart: they call to Egypt, they go to As¬
syria: 12. When they shall go, l will
spread my net upon them; 1 will bring
007
HOSEA, VII.
them down as the fowls of the heaven ; I will
chastise them as their congregation hath
heard. 13. Wo unto them! for they have
lied from me; destruction unto them! be¬
cause they have transgressed against me:
though I have redeemed them, yet they
have spoken lies against me. 14. And they
have not cried unto me with their heart,
when they howled upon their beds: they
assemble themselves for corn and wine, and
they rebel against me. 1 5. Though I have
bound and strengthened their arms, yet do
they imagine mischief against me. 1 G. They
return, but not to the Most High; they are
like a deceitful bow: their princes shall fall
by the sword for the rage of their tongue.
This shall be their derision in the land of
Egypt.
Having seen how vicious and corrupt the court
was, we now come to inquire how it is with the
country; and we find that to he no better; no mar¬
vel if tile distemper that has so seized the head,
affect the whole body, so that there is no soundness
in it; the iniquity of Ephraim is discovered, as well
as the sin of Samaria, of the people as well as the
princes, of which here are divers instances.
I. They were not peculiar and entire for God, as
they should have been, v. 8. 1. They did not dis¬
tinguish themselves from the heathen, as God
hail distinguished them; Efihraim, he has mingled
himself among the people; has associated with
them, and conformed himself to them, and has in a
manner confounded himself with them, and lost his
character among them. God had said, The fieofile
shall dwell alone; but they mingled themselves with
the heathen, and learned their works, Ps. cvi. 35.
They went up and down among the heathen, to beg
help of one of them against another; (so some;)
whereas, if they had kept close to God, they had
not needed the help of any of them. 2. They were
not entirely devoted to God; Efihraim is a cake not
turned, and so is burnt on one side, and dough on the
other side, but good for nothing on either side. As
in Ahab’s time, so now, they halted between God
and Baal; sometimes they seemed zealous for God,
but at other times as hot for Baal. Note, It is sad
to think how many, who, after a sort, profess reli¬
gion, are made up of contraries and inconsistencies,
as a cake not turned; a constant self-contradiction,
and always in one extreme or the other.
II. They were strangely insensible of the judg¬
ments of God, which they were under, and which
threatened their ruin, v. 9. Observe, 1. The con¬
dition they were in; God was now to them, in his
judgments, as a moth and as rottenness; they were
silently and slowly drawing toward the ruin of their
state; partly by the encroachments of foreigners
upon them; Strangers have devoured his strength,
and eaten him up; they have wasted his wealth
and treasure, lessened his numbers, and consumed
the fruits of the earth. Some devoured them by
open wars, (as 2 Kings xiii. 7. when the king of Sy¬
ria made them like the dust by threshing ,) others by
pretending treaties of peace and amity, in which
they extorted abundance of wealth from them, and
made them pay dear for that which did them no
good, but which afterward they paid dearer for, as
2 Kings xvi. 9. This Ephra,m got by mingling
himself with the heathen, and suffering them to
mingle with him; they devoured that which he
rested upon, and supported himself with. Note,
Those that make not God their Strength, (Ps. lii. 7 . )
make that their strength, which wdl soon be de¬
voured by strangers. They were thus reduced,
partly, by their own mal-administrations among
themselves; Yea, gray hairs are here and there
u/ion him, (are sprinkled upon him, so the word is,)
the sad symptoms of a decaying, declining state,
that is waxing old, and ready to vanish away, and
effects of trouble and vexation. Cura facit canos —
Care turns gray. The almond-tree does not as yet
flourish, but it begins to turn colour, which speaks
aloud to him that the evil days are coming, and the
years of which he shall say, I have no pleasure in
them, Eccl. xii. 1, 5. 2. Their regardlessness of
these warnings; He knows it not; he is not aware
of the hand of God gone out against him; it is lifted
up, but he will not see, Isa. xxvi. 11. He does not
know how near his ruin is, and takes no care to
prevent it. Note, Stupidity under lesser judgments
is a presage of greater coming.
III. They went on frowardly in their wicked
ways, and were not reclaimed by the rebukes they
were under; (x>. 10.) The pride of Israel still testi¬
fies to his face, as it had done before; ( ch . v. 5.)
under humbling providences their hearts were still
unlnimbled, their lusts unmortified ; and it is through
the pride of their countenance that they will not seek
after God; (Ps. x. 4.) they do not return to the
Lord their God by repentance and reformation, nor
do they seek him by faith and prayer for all this;
though they suffer for going astray from him,
though it can never be well with them till they come
back to him, and though they have in vain sought
to others for relief, yet they think not of applying
to God. •
IV. They were infatuated in their counsels, and
took very wrong methods when they were in dis¬
tress; (x'. 11, 12.) Ephraim is like a silty dove with¬
out heart. To be harmless as a dove without gall,
and not to hurt or injure others, is commendable;
but to be sottish as a dove without heart, that knows
not how to defend herself, and provide for her own
safety, is a shame. The silliness of this dove is, 1.
That she laments not the loss of her young that are
taken from her, but will make her nest again in the
same place; so they have their people carried away
by the enemy, and are not affected with it, but con¬
tinue their dealings with those that deal barbarously
with them. 2. That she is easily enticed by the
bait into the net, and has no heart, no understand¬
ing, to discern her danger, as many other fowls do;
(Prov. i. 17.) she hasteth to the snare, and knows
not that it is for her life; (Prov. vii. 23. ) so they
were drawn into leagues with neighbouring nations
that were their min. 3. That, when she is fright¬
ened, she has not courage to stay in the dove-house,
where she is safe, and under the careful protection
of her owner, but flutters and hovers, seeking shel¬
ter, first in one place, then in another, and thereby
exposes herself so much the more: so this people,
when they were in distress, sought not to God, did not
fly like the doves to their windows, where they might
have been secured from all the birds of prey that
struck at them, but threw themselves out of God’s
protection, and then called to Egypt to help them,
and went in all haste to Assyria, to seek for that aid
in vain, which they might, by repentance and pray¬
er, have found nearer home, in their God. Note,
It is a silly, senseless thing for those who have a
God in heaven, to trust to creatures for that refuge
and relief that are to be had in him only; and they
that do so, are a people of no understanding, they
j are without heart.
Now see what comes of this silly dove; (v. 12. )
When they shall go to Egypt and Assyria, I will
spread my net upon them. Note, Those that will
1 not abide by the mercy of God, must expect to be
908
HOSEA, VII.
pursued by the justice of God. Here, (1.) They
are ensnared; “ I will spread my net upon them,
bring them into straits, that they they may see their
folly, and think of returning.” Note, It is common
for those that go away from God, to find snares
there where they expected shelters. (2. ) They are
humbled; they soar upward, proud of their foreign
alliances, and confiding in them; but I will bring
them down, let them fly ever so high, as the fowls of
heaven that are shot flying. Note, God can and
will bring those down, that exalt themselves as the
eagle, Obad. iii. 4. (3.) They are made to smart
for their folly; I will chastise them. Note, The dis¬
appointments we meet with in the creature, when
we put a confidence in it, are a necessary chastise¬
ment, or discipline, that we may learn to be wiser
another time. (4.) In all this, the scripture is ful¬
filled; it is as their congregation has heard; they
have been many a time told by the word of God,
read, and preached, and sung, in their religious as¬
semblies, that vain is the help of man, that in the
son of man there is no help; they have heard both
from the law and from the prophets what judgments
God would bring upon them for their wickedness;
and as they have heard, now they shall see, they
shall feel. Note, It concerns us to take notice of
the word of God, which we hear from time to time
in the congregation, and to be governed by it, for
we must shortly be judged by it; and it will justify
God in the condemnation of sinners, and aggravate
it to them, that they have had plain public warning
given them of it; it is what their congregation has
heard many a time, but they would not take warn¬
ing. “ Son, remember thou wast told what would
come of it; and now thou seest they were not vain
words,” Zech. i. 6.
V. They revolted from God, and rebelled against
him, notwithstanding the various methods he took
to retain them in their allegiance, v. 13. — 15. Where
observe,
1. How kindly and tenderly God had dealt with
them, as a gracious Sovereign towards a people dear
unto him, and whose prosperity he had much at
heart. He had redeemed them; {y. 13.) brought
them, at first, out of the land of Egypt, and, since,
delivered them out of many a distress. He had
bound and strengthened their arms; (y. 15.) when
their power was weakened, like an arm broken or
out of joint, God set it again, and bound it, as the
surgeon does a broken bone, to make it knit. God
had given Israel victories over the Syrians, (2 Kings
xiii. 16, 17.) had restored their coasts, (2 Kings xiv.
25, 26. ) had girded them with strength for battle.
Though I have chastened them, (so the margin
reads it,) sometimes corrected them for their faults,
and thereby taught them, at other times strength¬
ened their arms, and relieved them, though I have
used both fair means and foul to work upon them,
it was all to no purpose, they were mercy-proof and
judgment-proof.
2. How impudent their conduct had been toward
him, notwithstanding; which is described here for
the conviction and humiliation of all those who have
gone on in any way of wickedness, that they may
see how exceeding sinful their sin is, how heinous,
how the God of heaven interprets it, how he resents
it. (1.) He had courted them to him, and taken
them into covenant with himself; but they fed from
him, as if he had been their dangerous Enemy, who
had always approved himself their faithful Friend.
They wandered from him as the silly dove from her
nest; for those who forsake God, will find no rest or
settlement in the creature, but wander endlessly.
They fled from God when they forsook the wor¬
ship of him, and ran away from his service, and
withdrew themselves from their allegiance to him.
(2.) He had given them his laws, which were all
holy, just, and good, by which he designed to keep
them in the right way; but they transgressed against
him, they sinned with a high hand, and a stiff neck,
wilfully and presumptuously; (so the word signifies;)
they broke through the fence of the divine law, and
therein thwarted the design of the divine love. (3.)
He had made known his truths to them, and given
them all possible proofs of the sincerity of his good
will to them; and yet they spake lies against him,
and set up false gods in competition with him,
they denied his providence and power; thus they
belied the Lord, (Jer. v. 12.) they rejected his mes¬
sages sent them by his prophets, and said that they
should have peace, though they went on in sin,
directly against what he said. In their hypocritical
professions of religion, shows of devotion, and pro¬
mises of amendment, they lied to the Lord, which
he took as lying against him. (4.) He was their
rightful Lord and King, and had always ruled in
Jacob with equity, and for the public good; and yet
they rebelled against him, v. 14. They not only
went off from him, but took up arms against him;
would have deposed him if they could, and set up
another. (5.) He designed well for them, but they
imagined mischief against him, v. 15. Sin is a mis¬
chievous thing, it is mischief against God, for it is
treason against his crown and dignity; not that the
sinners can do any thing to hurt their Creator, (as
one of the ancients observes on these words,) but
what they can they do; and it is so much the worse
when it is not done by surprise, or through inad¬
vertency, but designedly, and with contrivance; the
Jews have a saying, which Dr. Pocock quotes here,
The thoughts of transgression are worse than the
transgression. The designing of mischief is doing
it, in God’s account; compassing and imagining the
death of the king is treason by our law. They that
imagine an evil thing, though it proveanam thing,
(Ps. ii. 1.) will be reckoned with for the imagina¬
tion.
3. How they shall be punished for this; (i>. 13.)
Wo unto them! for they have fed from me. Note,
Those who fly from God, have woes sent after them,
and are, without doubt, in a woful case. The wrath
of God is revealed from heaven against them, the
word of God saith, Wo to them ! And observe
what follows immediately, Destruction unto them .'
Note, The woes of God’s word have real effects;
destruction makes them good; the judgments of his
hand shall verify the judgments of his mouth; those
whom he curses, and pronounces woful, they are
cursed, they are woful indeed.
VI. Their shows of devotion and reformation
were but shows, and in them they did but mock
God.
1. They pretended devotion, but it was not sin¬
cere, v. 14. When the hand of God was gone forth
against them, they made some sort of application to
him. When he slew them, then they sought him.
Lord, in trouble have they visited thee; but it was
all in hypocrisy. (1.) When they were under per¬
sonal troubles, and called upon God in secret, they
were not sincere in that; They have not cried unto
me with their heart, when they howled upon their
beds. When they were chastened with pain upon
their beds, and the multitude of their bones with
strong pains, perhaps ill of the wounds they re
ceived in war, they cried, and groaned, and com¬
plained, in the forms of devotion, and, it may be,
they used many good words, proper enough for the
circumstances they were in, they cried, God help
us, and, Lord, look upon us; but they did not cry
with their heart, and therefore God reckons it was
no crying to him. Moses is said to cry unto God,
when he spake not a word, only his heart prayed,
with faith and fervency, Exod. xiv. 15. These
made a great noise, and said a deal, and yet did not
909
HOSEA, VIII.
cry to God, because their hearts were not right with
him, not subjected to bis will, devoted to his ho¬
nour, or employed in his service. To pray is to lift
up the send to God, this is the essence of prayer; if
that be not, words, though ever so well worded, are
but wind; but if there be that, it is an acceptable
prayer, though the groanings cannot be uttered.
Note, Those do not pray to God at all, that do not
pray in the spirit. Nay, God is so far from approv¬
ing it, and accepting of it, that he calls it howling;
some think it intimates the noisiness of their pray¬
ers, (they cried to God, as they used to cry to Baal
when they thought he must be awaked,) or the
brutish, violent passions which they vented in their
prayers; they snarled at the stone, and howled un¬
der the whip, but regarded not the hand; or it de¬
notes that their hypocritical prayers were so far
from pleasing God, that they were offensive to him;
he was angry at their prayers; the songs of the
temple shall be bowlings, Amos viii. 3. God will
be so far from pitying them, that he will justly
laugh at their calamity, who have so often laughed
at his authority. (2.) When they were under pub¬
lic troubles, and met together to implore God’s fa¬
vour, in that also they were hypocritical; they as¬
sembled themselves, for fashion-sake, because it was
usual to call a solemn assembly in times of general
mourning, Zepli. ii. 1. But it was only to pray for
com and wine that they came together, which was
the thing they wanted, and feared being deprived
of by the want of rain, the judgment they now la¬
boured under; they did not pray for the favour and
grace of God, that God would give them repent¬
ance, pardon their sins, and turn away his wrath,
but only that he would not take away from them
their corn and wine. Note, Carnal hearts, in their
prayers to God, covet temporal mercies only, and
dread and deprecate no other but temporal judg¬
ments, for they have no sense of any other.
2. They pretended reformation, but neither was
that sincere, v. 16. Here is, (1.) The sin of Israel.
They return, they make show as if they would re¬
turn, they take on them to repent and amend their
doings, but they make nothing of it; they do not
come home to God, nor turn to their allegiance;
whereas God says, (Jer. iv. 1.) If thou wilt return,
0 Israel, return to me; do not only turn toward
me, but return to me. This dissimulation of theirs
nakes them like a deceitful bow, which looks as if
it were fit for business, and is bent and drawn ac¬
cordingly; but when strength comes to be laid to it,
either the bow or string breaks, and the arrow, in¬
stead of flying to the mark, drops at the archer’s
foot. Such were their essays toward repentance and
reformation. (2.) The sin of the princes of Israel;
that which is charged upon them is, the rage of their
tongue, quarrelling with God and his providence,
and with all about them, when they are crossed.
Princes think they may say what they will, and that
it is their prerogative to huff and bluster, to curse
and rail, and call names at their pleasure, but let
them know there is a God above them that will call
them to an account for the rage of their tongues,
and make their own tongues to fall upon them.
(3.) The punishment of Israel and their princes for
their sin. As for the princes, they shall fall by the
ssvord, either of their enemies, or of their own peo¬
ple, some by one, and some by the other; and this
shall be their derision, this is that for which they
shall be derided in the land of Egypt, when they
flee to the Egyptians for succour, v. 11. Their sin
and punishment shall make them a laughing-stock
to all about them. Note, Those that are treacher¬
ous and deceitful in their dealings with God, and
passionate and outrageous in their carnage towards
men, will justly be made a derision to their neigh¬
bours, for they make themselves ridiculous.
CHAP. VIII.
This chapter, as that before, divides itself into the sins and
punishments of Israel; every verse almost speaks both,
and all to bring them to repentance. When they saw
the malignant nature of their sin, in the descriptions of
that, they could not but be convinced how much it was
their duty to repent of what was so bad in itself; and
when they saw the mischievous consequences of their
sin, in the predictions of them, they could not but see
how much it was their interest to repent for the prevent¬
ing of them. I. The sih of Israel is here set forth, 1.
In many general expressions, v. 1, 3, 12, 14. 2. In many
particular instances; setting up kings without God, (v.
4.) setting up idols against God, (v. 4. .6, 1 1.) and court¬
ing alliances with the neighbouring nations, v. 8. . 10.
3. In this aggravation of it, "that they still kept up a pro¬
fession of religion, and relation to God, v. 2, 13, 14. II.
The punishment of Israel is here set forth as answering
the sin. God would bring an enemy upon them, v. 1, 3.
All their projects shall be blasted, v. 7. Their confidence
both in their idols and in their foreign alliances should
disappoint them, v. 6, 8, 10. Their strength at home
should fail them. v. 14. Their sacrifices should have no
reckoning made of them, and their sins should have a
reckoning made for them , v. 13.
1. QET the trumpet to thy mouth: he
shall come as an eagle against the
house of the Lord, because they have
transgressed my covenant, and trespassed
against my law. 2. Israel shall cry unto
me, My God, we know thee. 3. Israel
hath cast off the thing that is good: the
enemy shall pursue him. 4. They have set
up kings, but not by me; they have made
princes, and I knew it not: of their silver
and their gold have they made them idols,
that they may be cut off. 5. Thy calf, O
Samaria, hath cast thee off; mine anger is
kindled against them ; how long will it be
ere they attain to innocency ! 6. For from
Israel was it also: the workman made it;
therefore it is not God : but the calf of Sa¬
maria shall be broken in pieces. 7. For
they have sown the wind, and they shall
reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk; the
bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield,
the strangers shall swallow it up.
The reproofs and threatenings here are intro¬
duced with an order to the prophet to set the trum¬
pet to his mouth, ( v . 1. ) thus to call a solemn assem¬
bly, that all might take notice of what he had to
deliver, and take warning by it. He must sound an
alarm, must in God’s name proclaim war with this
rebellious nation; an enemy is coming with speed
and fury to seize their land, and he must awaken
them to expect it. Thus the prophet must do the
part of a watchman, that was by sound of trumpet
to call the besieged to stand to their arms, when he
saw the besiegers making their attack, Ezek.
xxxiii. 3. The prophet must lift zip his voice like
a trumpet, (Isa. lviii. 1.) and the people must
hearken to the sound of the trumpet, Jer. vi. 17.
Now,
I. Here is a general charge drawn up against
them as sinners, as rebels and traitors against their
sovereign Lord. 1. They have transgressed my
covenant, v. 1. They have not only transgressed
the command, (every sin does that,) but they have
transgressed the covenant, they have been guilty of
such sins as break the original contract, they have
revolted from their allegiance, and violated the
marriage-covenant by their spiritual whoredom;
910
HOSEA, Vlll.
they have, in effect, declared that they will be no
longer God’s people, nor take him for their God,
that is transgressing the covenant; they have not
only done foolishly, but have dealt deceitfully. 2.
They have tres/mssed against my law, in many
particular instances. God’s law is tire rule by
which we are to walk; and this is the malignity of sin,
that it trespasses upon the bounds set us by that law.
3. They have cast off the thing that is good. They
have /iul away and rejected good; God himself; so
some understand it, and very fitly. He is good, and
does good, and is our Goodness. There is none good
but one, that is God, the Fountain of all good. They
have cast him off, as not desiring to have any thing
more to do with him; God was abandoning them to
ruin, and here gives the reason for it. Note, God
never casts off any till they first cast him off. Or,
as we read it, They have cast off the thing that is
good, they have cast off the service and worship of
God, which is, in effect, casting God off. They
have cast off that which denominates men good;
they have cast off the fear of God, and the regard
of man, and all sense of virtue and honesty. Ob¬
serve; They have transgressed my covenant, it is
come to that at last, for they trespassed against my
law, breaking the command, and made way for
breaking the covenant; and they did that, for they
cast off that which was good; there it began first.
They left off to be wise, and to do good, and then
they went all to naught, Ps. xxxiii. 3. See the
method of apostacy; men first cast off that which
is good; then those omissions make way for com¬
mission; and frequent actual transgressions of God’s
law bring men at length to an habitual renouncing
of his covenant. When men cast off praying, and
hearing, and sabbath-sanctification, and other things
that are good, they are in the high road to a total
forsaking of God.
II. Here are general threat enings of wrath and
ruin for their sin; The enemy shall come as an eagle
against the house of the Lord, and ( v . 3.) shall pur-
sue him. If by the house of the Lord we understand
the temple at Jerusalem, by the eagle that comes
against it we must suppose to be meant either Sen¬
nacherib, who had taken all the fenced cities of Ju¬
dah, laid siege to Jerusalem, and, no doubt, aimed
at the house of the Lord, to lay that waste, as he
had done the temples of the gods of other nations;
or, Nebuchadnezzar, who burnt the temple, and
made a prey of the vessels of the temple; but if we
make it to point at the destruction of the kingdom
of the ten tribes by the king of Assyria, we must
reckon it is the body of that people, which, as Is¬
raelites, to whom pertained the adaption, the glory,
and the covenants, is here called the house of the
Lord. They thought their being so would be their
protection; but the prophetis bid to tell them that
now they had lost the life and spirit of their reli¬
gion, though they still retained the name and form
of it ; they were but as a carcase to which the eagles
and other birds of prey should be gathered together.
The enemy shall pursue them as an eagle, so swiftly,
so strongly, so furiously. Note, Those who break
their covenant of friendship with God, expose
themselves to the enmity of all about them, to whom
they make themselves a cheap and easy prey; and
their having been the house of the Lord, and his liv¬
ing temples, will be no excuse or refuge to them.
See Amos iii. 2.
III. Here is the people’s hypocritical claim of
relation to God, when they were in trouble and
distress; (o. 2.) Israel shall cry unto me ; when
either they are threatened with these judgments,
and would plead an exemption, or when the judg¬
ments are inflicted on them, and they apply
themselves to God for relief, flouring out a firayer,
when God’s chastening is ufion them, they will
plead that among them God is known, and his namt
is great, (Ps. lxxvi. 1.) and in their distress will
pretend to that knowledge of God’s ways, which in
their prosperity they desired not, but desfiised.
They will then cry unto God, will call him their
God, and (as impudent beggars) will tell him they
are well acquainted with him, and have known him
long. Note, There are many who in works deny
God, and disown him; yet, to serve a turn, will pro¬
fess that they know him, that they know more of him
than some of their neighbours do. But what stead
will it stand a man in to be able to say, My God, I
know thee, when he cannot say, “Mv God, I love
thee, and my God, I serve thee, and cleave to thee
only.”
IV. Here is the prophet’s expostulation with
them, in God’s name; (v. 5.) How long will it be
ere they attain to innocency? It is not meant of ab¬
solute innocency; (that is what the. guilty can never
attain to;) but how long will it be ere they repent
and reform; ere they become innocent in this mat¬
ter, and free from the sin of idolatry? They are
wedded to their idols; how long will it be ere they
are weaned from them, ere they are able to get clear
of them? So it might be rendered. This intimates
that custom in sin makes it very difficult for men
to part with it. It is hard to cleanse from that fil¬
thiness either of flesh or spirit, which has been long
wallowed in. But God speaks as if he thought the
time long till sinners cast away their iniquities, and
come to live a new life. He complains of their ou-
stinacy ; that is it that keeps his anger against them
burning, which would soon be turned away if they
did but attain to innocency from those sins that
kindled it. They in trouble cry, How long will it
be ere God return to us in a way of mercy; but
they do not hear him ask, How long will it be ere
they return to God in a way of duty?
V. Here are some particular sins which they are
charged with, are convicted of the folly of, and
warned of the fatal consequences of ; and for which
God’s anger is kindled against them.
1. In their civil affairs; they sett//; kings without
God, and in contempt of him, v. 4. So they did
when they rejected Samuel, in whom the Lord was
their King, and chose Saul, that they might be like
the nations; so they did when they revolted from
their allegiance to the house of David, and set up
Jeroboam, wherein, though they fulfilled God’s se¬
cret counsel, yet they neither aimed at his glory,
nor consulted his oracle, nor applied themselves to
him by prayer for direction, nor had any regard to
his providence, but were led by their own humour,
and hurried on by the impetus of their own passions;
so they did now about the time when Hosea pro¬
phesied; when it seems to have grown fashionable to
set ufi kings, and depose them again, according as
the contenders for the crown could make an interest,
2 Kings xv. 8, &c. Note, We cannot expect com¬
fort and success in our affairs, when we go about
them, and go on in them, without consulting God,
and acknowledge not him in all our ways; “ They
set up. kings, and I know it not; I did not know it
from them, they did not ask counsel at my mouth,
whether they might lawfully do it, or whether it
would be best for them to do it, though they had
prophets and oracles with whom they might have
advised. ” They look not to the Holy One of Israel,
Isa. xxxi. 1. Nor did the princes do as Jephthah,
who, before he took upon him the government, ut¬
tered all his words before the Lord in Mizpeh,
Judg. xi. 11. Note, Those that are intrusted with
public concerns, and particularly with the election
and nomination of magistrates, ought to take God
along with them therein, by desiring his direction,
and designing his honour.
2. In their religious matters they did much worse;
911
HOSEA, VIII.
for they set up calves against God, in competition
with him, and contradiction to him. Of their sil¬
ver and their gold which God gave them, and
multiplied to them, that they might serve and ho¬
nour him with it, they have made them idols; they
called them gods, 1 Kings xii. 28. Behold thy
gods, O Israel; but God calls them idols; the word
signifies griefs, or troubles, because they are offen¬
sive to God, and will be ruining to those that wor¬
ship them; Their silver and their gold they have
made to them idols; so the words are, referring pri¬
marily to the images of their gods, which they made
of gold and silver, especially the golden calves at
Dan and Bethel. Idolaters spare no cost in wor¬
shipping their idols. But they are .very applicable
to the spiritual idolatry of the covetous; Their silver
and their gold are the gods they place their hap¬
piness in, set their hearts upon, to which they pay
their homage, and in which they put their confi¬
dence.
Now, to show them the folly of their idolatry, he
tells them,
(1.) Whence their gods came. Trace them to
their original, and they will be found the creatures
of their own fancies, and the work of their own
hands, v. 6. The calf they worshipped is here
called the calf of Samaria, because it is probable
that, when Samaria, in Ahab’s time, became the
metropolis of the kingdom, a calf was set up there
to be near the court, besides those at Dan and Beth¬
el, or perhaps one of those was removed thither;
for those that are for new gods, will still be for
newer. Now let them consider what this god of
theirs owed its rise and being to. [1.] To their
own invention and institution; From Israel was it
also. Not from the God of Israel, (he expressly
forbade it,) but from Israel; it was a device of
their own, some think, not borrowed from any of
their neighbours, no, not from the Egyptians; for
though they worshipped Apis in a living cow, they
never worshipped a golden calf; that was from Is¬
rael, it was their own iniquity. Now could that be
worthy of their worship, which was a contrivance
of their own 'I It was from Israel; the gold and sil¬
ver of which it was made, were collected from the
people of Israel by a brief; it was a poor god that
wasiframed by contribution. [2.] It was owing to
skill and labour of the craftsman, Deut. xxvii. 15.
The workmen made it, therefore it is not God.
This is a very cogent, conclusive argument, and the
inference so very plain, that one would think their
own thoughts should have suggested it to them, so
as to make them ashamed of their idolatry. What
can be more absurd than for men to worship that as
a god, giving being and good to them, which they
themselves gave being to, (both matter and form,)
but could not give lite to ? A made god is no God.
This is a self-evident truth; and yet St. Paul was
accused as criminal for preaching that they be no
gods, which are made with hands. Acts xix. 26.
And this which should have turned them from their
idols, comes in as a reason why they were insepara¬
bly wedded to them; therefore they, could not at¬
tain to innocency, because it was from themselves;
they were willing to have gods of their own to do
what they pleased with, that they themselves might
do what they pleased.
(2.) What their gods would come to. If they are
not gods, they will not last; nay, if they pretend to
be gods, they will be reckoned with; The calf of
Samaria shall be broken to pieces, and those that
would not yield to the force of the former argument
shall be convinced by this, that it is not God, but an
unprofitable idol, as the Chaldee calls it. It shall
lie broken to shivers, like a potter’s vessel, though
it oe a golden calf. It shall be chips or saw-dust, it
sudll be a spider's web. So St. Jerome. It seems
to allude to Moses’s grinding the golden calf to pow¬
der that was in his time. This shall be served as
that was; Sennacherib boasted what he had done to
Samaria and her idols, Isa. x. 11. Note, Deifying
any creature makes way for the destruction of it. If
they had made vessels and ornaments for them¬
selves of their silver and gold, they might have re¬
mained; but if they make gods of them, they shall
be broken to pieces.
(3.) What their gods would bring them to. The
breaking of them to pieces would be a disappoint¬
ment to those who trusted in them. But that was
not all; They have made themselves idols, that they
may be cut off, ( v . 4.) that their gold and silver,
which they so abused, may be cut off (so some take
it,) nay, that they may themselves be cut off from
God, from their own land, from the land of the living.
Their idolatry will as certainly end in their extirpa¬
tion as if they had purposely designed it. And when
this proves to be the effect of their sin, what relief
will they have from the gods wherein they trusted?
None at all; “ Thy calf, O Samaria, has cast thee
off; it cannot give thee any help in thy distress, and
the pleasure thou now takest in it will vanish, and be
no pleasure to thee.” Those that were justly sent to
gods whom they had chosen, found them miserable
comforters, Judg. x. 14. If men will not quit the
love and service of sin, yet they shall certainly lose
all the delights and profits of it. If Samaria had
continued firm and faithful to the God of Israel; he
would have been a present, powerful Help to her;
but the calf she preferred before him, was a broken
reed. The case will be the same with those that
make their silver and their gold their god. It will
cast them off, and not profit them in the day of
wrath, Ezek. vii. 12. Note, Those that suffer
themselves to be deceived into any idolatries, will
certainly find themselves deceived in them. Car¬
dinal Wolsey owned that if he had served his God
as faithfully as he had served his prince, he would
not have cast him off, as his prince did, in his old age.
Their disappointment in their idols is illustrated
(y. 7.) by a similitude which speaks both that, and
the destruction which God brought upon them for
their idolatry. [1.] They got no good to them¬
selves bv worshipping idols; They have sown the
wind. They have put themselve:s to a great deal
of trouble and expense, to make and worship their
idols, have made a business of it as much as the hus¬
bandman does of sowing his corn, in expectation of
reaping some mighty advantage from it, and that
they should be as prosperous and victorious as the
neighbouring nations were, that worshipped idols.
But it is all a cheat; it is like sowing the wind,
which can yield no increase; they labour in vain,
labour for the wind, Eccl. v. 16. They take great
pains to no purpose, and weary themselves for very
vanity, Hab. ii. 13. They that make an idol of this
world, do so; they set their eyes on that which is
not, which, like the wind, makes a great noise, but
has nothing substantial in it. [2. ] They brought
ruin upon themselves by it; They shall reap the
whirlwind, a great whirlwind, (so'the word signi¬
fies,) which shall hurry them away, and dash
them to pieces. They not only have not their false
gods for them, but they set the true God against
them; their favour will stand them in no more stead
than the wind, but his wrath will do them more
mischief than a whirlwind. As a man sows, so
shall he reap. “ If it may be supposed that a man
should sow the wind, and cover it with earth, or
keep it there for awhile penned up, what could he
expect but that it should be enforced by its being
shut up, and the accession of what might increase its
strength to break forth again in greater quantities
with greater violence?” So Dr. Pocock. They
promise themselves plenty, peace, and victory, by
912
HOSEA, VIII.
worshipping idols, but their expectations come to
nothing; what they sow never comes up; it has no
stalk, no blade, or, if it have, the bud shall yield no
meal, it shall be as ttye thin ears in Pharaoh’s dream,
that were blasted with the east wind, and there was
nothing in them; or, if it yield, if they do prosper
for awhile in their idolatrous courses, the strangers
shall swallow it u/i, it shall be so far from doing
them any service, that it shall be but as a bait to in¬
vite strangers to invade them, and as a spoil to en¬
rich those strangers, and enable them to do so much
the more mischief. Note, The service of idols is an
unprofitable service, and the works of darkness un¬
fruitful; nay, in the end they will be pernicious;
(Rom. vi. 21.) the end of those things is death.
They that sow iniquity, reap vanity: nay, they that
sow to the flesh, reap corruption; the hopes of sin¬
ners will be cheats, and their gains will be snares.
8. Israel is swallowed up: now shall
they be among the Gentiles as a vessel
wherein is no pleasure. 9. For they are
gone up to Assyria, a wild ass alone by
himself: Ephraim hath hired lovers. 10.
Yea, though they have hired among the na¬
tions, now will I gather them, and they shall
sorrow a little for the burden of the king of
princes. 11. Because Ephraim hath made
many altars to sin, altars shall be unto him
to sin. 12. I have written to him the great
things of my law, but they were counted as
a strange thing. 13. They sacrifice flesh
for the sacrifices of mine offerings, and eat
it; but the Lord accepteth them not: now
will he remember their iniquity, and visit
their sins: they shall return to Egypt. 14.
For Israel hath forgotten his Maker, and
buildeth temples; and Judah hath multiplied
fenced cities: but I will send a fire upon his
cities, and it shall devour the palaces
thereof.
It was the honour and happiness of Israel, that
they had but one God to trust to, and he all-suf¬
ficient, in every strait; and but one God to serve,
and he well worthy of all their devotions; but it was
their sin, and folly, and shame, that they knew not
when they were well off; thaf they forsook their
own mercies for lying vanities; for,
I. They multiplied their alliances; (v. 9.) They
have hired lovers, or, as the margin reads. They
have hired loves. They were at great expense to
purchase the friendship of the nations about them,
that otherwise had no value or affection at all for
them, nor cared for having any thing to do with
them, but only upon the Shechemites’ principles;
Shall not their cattle and their substance be ours?
Gen. xxxiv. 23. Had Israel maintained the honour
of their peculiarity, the nations about would have
continued to admire them as a wise and understand¬
ing people; but when they profaned their own
crown, their neighbours despised them, and they
had no interest in them further than they paid dear
for it. But those surely have behaved ill among
their neighbours, who have no loves, no lovers, but
what they hire. See here,
1. The contempt that Israel lay under among the
nations; ( v . 8.) Israel is swallowed up, devoured
by strangers, their land eaten up, (t>. 7.) and them¬
selves too, and being impoverished, they have quite
lost their credit and reputation, like a merchant
that is become a oankrupt, so that they are among
the Gentiles as a vessel wherein is no pleasure , 'a
vessel of dishonour, (2 Tim. ii. 20.) a despised,
broken vessel, Jer. xxii. 28. None of their neigh¬
bours had any value for them, nor care to have any
thing to do with them. Note, Those that have pro¬
fessed religion, if they degenerate, and grow pro¬
fane, are of all men the most contemptible; if the
salt have lost its savour, it is fit for nothing but to be
trodden under foot of men. Or, it denotes their dis
persion and captivity among the Gentiles; they shall
be among them poor and prisoners; and who has
pleasure in such?
2. The court that Israel made to the nations not¬
withstanding; (u, 9. ) They are gone to Assyria, to
engage the king of Assyria to help them ; and herein
they are as a wild ass alone by himself; foolish,
headstrong, and unruly, they will have their way,
and nothing shall hold them in, no, not the bridle
of God’s laws, nothing shall turn them back, no, not
the sword of God’s wrath. They take a course by
themselves, and the effect will be that, like a wild
ass by himself, they will be the easier and surer
prey to the lion. See Job xi. 12. Jer. ii. 24. Note,
Man is in nothing more like the wild ass’s colt than
in seeking for that succour and that satisfaction in
the creature that are to be had in God only.
3. The crosses that they were likely to meet with
in their alliances with the' neighbouring nations; (v.
10.) Though they have hired among the nations,
and hoped thereby to prevent their own ruin, yet
now will I gather them, as the sheaves in the floor,
Mic. iv. 12. So that what they provided for their
own safety, shall but make them the easier prey to
their enemies. Note, There is no fence against the
judgments of God, when they come with commis¬
sion; nay, that which men hire for their own pre¬
servation, often contributes to their own destruction.
See Isa. vii. 20. The king of Assyria, whose friend¬
ship they courted, called himself a king of princes,
Isa. x. 8. Are not my princes altogether kings?
He laid burthens upon Israel, levied taxes upon
them, 2 Kings xv. 19, 29. And for these they shall
sorrow a little; this shall be but a little burthen to
them, in comparison of what they may further ex¬
pect; or, they will be but little sensible of this griev¬
ance, will not lay it to heart, and therefore may
expect heavier judgments. They have begun to be
diminished (so some read it) by the burthen of the
king of princes; but this is only the beginning of
sorrows, (Matth. xxiv. 8.) the beginning of re¬
venges, Deut. xxxii. 42. Note, God often comes
gradually with his judgments upon a provoking
people; that he may show how slow he is to wrath,
and may awaken them to repentance; but they that
are made to sorrow a little, if they are not thereby
brought to sorrow after a godly sort, will another
day be made to sorrow a great deal, to sorrow ever¬
lastingly.
II. They multiplied their altars and temples.
Observe,
1. How they denied the power of godliness, and
wholly cast that off ; ( v . 12.) I have written to him
the great things of my law; that speaks the privi¬
lege they enjoyed, as having God’s statutes and
judgments made known to them, and being intrusted
with the lively oracles. Note, (1.) The things of
God’s law are magnolia Dei — the great things of
God. They are things that speak the greatness of
the Law-Maker, and things of great use and great
importance to us; they are our life, and our eternal
welfare depends upon our observance of them, and
obedience to them ; they will make us great if we
make a right use of them; and they are things which
God will magnify and make honourable. (2-) It is
I a great privilege to have the things of God’s law
| written; thus they are reduced to a greater cer
HOSE A, VIII. 9!3
taluty, spread the further, and last the longer, with
much less danger of being embezzled and corrupted
than if they were transmitted by word of mouth
only. (3.) The things of God’s law are of his own
writing; for Moses and the prophets were his aman¬
uenses, and holy men wrote as they were moved by
the Holy Ghost. (4. ) It is the advantage of those
that are members of the visible church, that these
great things are written to them , are intended for
their direction, and so they must receive them;
what things were written in former ages were writ¬
ten for our learning, and are profitable for us.
And if they were happy, who had the great things
of God’s law written to them, how much happier
are we, who have the much greater things of his
gospel written to us! But see how this privilege
was slighted; these great things of the law were
counted as a strange thing, as unintelligible and un¬
reasonable, which might therefore be slighted, be¬
cause not to be fathomed, not to be accounted for;
or, as foreign, and things of no concernment to them;
things that they had nothing to do with, nor were to
be governed by; they used those things as strangers,
which they were shy of, and knew not how to bid
welcome; JCe desire not the knowledge of thy ways.
Note, [1.] God having written us the great things
of his law, we ought to make them familiar to us,
as our nearest relations; (Prov. vii. 3, 4.) for, there¬
fore we have them written, that they may talk
with us, Prov. vi. 22. [2.] We make nothing of
the things of God’s law, if we make strange of them,
as if they did not affect us, and therefore we need
not be affected with them.
2. How they kefit u/i the form of godliness, not¬
withstanding, and to what little purpose they did so.
(1.) They multiplied their altars; (v. 11.) Eph¬
raim made 'many altars to sin. God appointed that
there should be but one altar for sacrifice; (Deut.
xii. 3, 5. ) but the ten tribes, having forsaken that,
would still be thought very devout, and zealous for
the honour of God, and, as if they would make
amends for the affront they put on God’s altar, they
made many altars, dedicated to the God of Israel,
whom hereby they intended, or, at least, /i retended,
to give glory to; but that would not justify their vio¬
lation of God’s express command, nor would the
example of the patriarchs, who before the law of
Moses had many altars. No, they made many altars
to sin; they did that which turned into sin to them;
and therefore these altars shall be unto him to sin;
God will charge it upon them as a heinous sin, and
put that upon the score of their crimes, which they
designed to be for the expiation of their crimes!
Or, they shall be to him an occasion of further sin.
Their multiplying of altars dedicated to the God of
Israel, would introduce altars dedicated to other
gods. Note, It is a great sin to corrupt the worship
of God, and it will be charged as sin upon them
that do it, how plausible soever their pretensions
may be. And the way of this, as other sins, is
down-hill; those that once deviate from the fixed
rule of God’s commands, will wander endlessly.
(2.) They multiplied their sacrifices, v. 13. Their
altars were smoking altars, and they sacrificed flesh
for the sacrifices of God’s offerings, and they cele¬
brated their feasts upon their sacrifices; they were
at a great expense upon their devotions, and (as
those commonly are, who set up their own inven¬
tions in the room of divine institutions) were very
zealous in their way; as if they hoped by their im¬
positions on themselves to atone for the contempt of
the great atonement, and by their observing a cere¬
monial law of their own to excuse themselves from
the obligation of all God’s moral precepts. But how
does it speed? [1.] God makes no reckoning of
their services; The Lord accepts them not. How
should he, when they did not offer their sacrifice
Vol. IV - 5 Z
| upon that altar which alone sanctified that gift, an 1
when they only sacrificed flesh, but not the spi¬
ritual sacrifice of a penitent, believing heart? Note,
Those services only are acceptable to God, which
are performed according to the rule of his word,
and through Jesus Christ, 1 Pet. ii. 5. [2.] He takes
that occasion to reckon with them tor their sins,
now will he, instead of pardoning their iniquity,
and blotting out their sins, as they expected, re¬
member their iniquity, and visit their sins; such an
abomination to the Lord are the sacrifices of the wick¬
ed, that they provoke him to call them to an account
for all their other abominations; when they think
by their sacrifices to bribe the Judge of heaven and
earth into a connivance at their wickedness, he will
resent that as the highest affrr.nt they can put upon
him, and it shall be the measure-filling sin. Note,
A petition for leave to sin amounts to an impreca¬
tion of the curse for sin, and so it shall be answered,
according to the multitude of the idols, I will punish
their sins; for they shall return to Egypt, they
shall be carried captive into Assyria, which shall be
to them a house of bondage, as Egypt was to their
fathers. Or it refers to Deut. xxviii. 68. where re¬
turning to Egypt is made to close and complete the
miseries of that sinful nation.
(3.) They multiplied their temples; and these
also in honour of the true God, as they pretended,
but really in contempt of the choice he had made
of Jerusalem to put his name there. Israel has for¬
gotten his Maker, v. 14. They pretended to know
him, and yet forgot him, for they liked not to retain
God in their knowledge, when the remembrance
of him would give check to their lusts: it was an
aggravation of their sin in forgetting God, that he
was their Maker, (Deut. xxxii. 15, 18. Job xxxv.
10. ) as nothing obliges us more to remember him
than that he is our Creator, Eccl. xii. 1. He has
forgotten his Maker, and builds temples; he seems
by the temples he builds to be mindful of his Ma¬
ker, and to be desirous still to keep him in mind,
and yet really he has forgotten him, because he
has cast off the fear of him. Some by temples here
understand palaces , for so the word sometimes sig¬
nifies. He has forgotten his Maker, and yet is sa
secure and haughty, that he sets his judgments at
defiance, as Nebuchadnezzar did, when he said, Is
not this great Babylon that I have built? Judah is
likewise charged with multiplying fenced cities, and
trusting in them for safety, when the judgments of
God were abroad. To fortify their cities in subjec¬
tion and subordination to God, was well enough;
but to fortify them in opposition to God, and with¬
out any regard to him or his providence, (Isa. xxii.
11. ) shows their hearts to be desperately har¬
dened through the deceitfulness of sin. But none
ever hardened his heart against God, and prosper¬
ed; nor shall they; God will send a fire upon his
cities, upon the cities both of Judah and Israel,
not only the head cities of Jerusalem and Samaria,
but all the other cities of those two kingdoms, and
it shall devour not only the cottages, but the palaces
thereof; though ever so strong, the fire shall master
them; though ever so stately and sumptuous, the
fire shall not spare them. This was fulfilled when
all the cities of Israel were laid in ashes by the king
of Assyria, and all the cities of Judah. The fires
they both kindled, were of his sending; and when he
judges, he will overcome.
CHAP. IX.
In this chapter, I. God threatens to deprive this degenerate
seed of Israel of all their worldly enjoyments, because
by sin they had forfeited their title to them; so that the»
should have no comfort either in receiving them them¬
selves, or in offering them to God, v. 1 . 5. II. He
dooms them to utter ruin, for their own sins, and the
sins of their prophets, v. 6 . . 8. III. He upbraids them
9H
HOSEA, IX.
with the wickedness of their fathers before them, whose I
steps they trod in, v. 9, 10. IV. lie threatens them with
the destruction of their children, and the rooting out of
their posterity, v. II . . 17.
1. 13 EJOICE not, O Israel, for joy, as
JC%j other people: for thou hast gone a
whoring from thy God; thou hast loved a
reward upon every corn-floor. 2. The floor
and the wine-press shall not feed them, and
the new wine shall fail in her. 3. They
shall not dwell in the Loro’s land; but
Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and they
shall eat unclean things in Assyria. 4. They
shall not offer win e-offerings to the Lord,
neither shall they be pleasing unto him:
their sacrifices shall he unto them as the
bread of mourners; all that eat thereof
shall be polluted: for their bread for their
soul shall not come into the house of the
Lord. 5. What will ye do in the solemn
day, and in the day of the feast of the
Lord? 6. For, lo, they are gone because
of destruction: Egypt shall gather them
up, Memphis shall bury them: the pleasant
places for their silver, nettles shall possess
them: thorns shall be in their tabernacles.
Here,
I. Tlie people of Israel ire charged with spiritual
adultery; 0 heart, thou hast gone a whoring from
thy God, v. 1. Their covenant with God was a
marriage-coven ant, by which they were joined to
him as their God, renouncing all others. But when
they set up idols and worshipped them, when they
fled to creatures for succour, and put a confidence
in them, they went a whoring from God, as their
God, and honoured the pretenders and rivals with
the affection, adoration, and confidence which were
due to God only. Other people were idolaters, but
that sin was not, in them, going a whoring from
God, as it was in Israel that had been married to
him. Note, The sins of those who have made a
profession of religion and relation to God, are more
provoking to him than the sins of others. As a proof
of their going a whoring from God, it is charged
upon them that they loved a reward upon every
corn-Jioor; 1. They.loved to give rewards to their
idols, in the offerings and first-fruits they pre¬
sented to them out of every corn-Jioor. They
took a strange pleasure in serving their idols with
that which they would have grudged to conse¬
crate to God, and employ in his service. Note, It
is common for those that are niggardly in the ex¬
penses of their religion, to be very prodigal in
spending upon their lusts. Or, 2. They loved to
receive rewards from their idols; and such they
reckoned the fruits of the earth to be; These are
my rewards, which my lovers have given me, ch. ii.
12. Note, Those are directly disposed to spiritual
idolatry, that love a reward in the corn-Jioor better
than a reward in the favour of God and eternal life.
II. They are forbidden to rejoice as other people
do; “Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy. Do not expect
to rejoice; What peace, what joy, what hast thou to
do with either, while thy whoredoms and witch¬
crafts are so many?” 2 Kings ix. 19, 22. Be not
disposed to rejoice, for it does not become thee, but
rather to be afflicted, and mourn, and weep. Jam.
iv. 9. Judah, that keeps close to the true God, nay,
and other people, that never knew him, nor could
ever be charged with revolting from him, may be
allowed to rejoice, as not having so much cause to
be ashamed as Israel has, that has gone a whoring
from him. Some think that they had at this tin, .
particular occasions for joy, upon the account eithe:
of some losses recovered, or some advantages gained,
or some league made with a potent ally, for which
they had public rejoicings, as other people used to
have upon such occasions; but God sends to them
not to rejoice. Note, Joy is forbidden fruit to wicked
people. They must not rejoice, because they have
gone a whoring from their God; and therefore, 1.
Whatever it was which they rejoiced in, would be
no security or advantage to them, so long as thev
were at a distance from God, and at war with him.
Note, We are likely to have small joy of any of our
creature-comforts, if we make not Clod our chief
Joy. 2. The sense of sin and dread of wrath ought
to be a damp upon their joy, and a strong allay to ail
their comforts. Note, Those who by departing from
God have made work for repentance, have thereby
marred their own mirth, till they return, and make
their peace with God.
III. They are threatened with destroying judg¬
ments for their spiritual whoredoms, according to
what was said long before; (Ps. lxxiii. 27.) Thou
hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from thee.
It is here threatened,
1. That their land shall not yield its wonted in¬
crease. Canaan, that fruitful land, shall be turned
into barrenness for the wickedness of them that dwell
therein. They love the reward in the corn-floor ,
and are so full of the joy of harvest, that they have
no disposition at all to mourn for their sins; and
therefore God will, for their effectual humiliation,
take away from them, not only their delights and
dainties, but even their necessary fond; (ra 2.) The
floor and the wine-press shall not feed them, much
less feast them; it shall either be blasted by the
hand of God, or plundered by the hand of man; the
new wine with which they used to make merrv,
shall fail in her. Note, When we make the world,
and the things of it, our idol and portion, above
what they were designed for, it is just with God to
deny us even support and nourishment from them,
according to that which they were designed for, to
show us our folly, and correct us for it. Let them
miss of their food in the corn-floor, that look for
their reward in the corn-floor. We forfeit the
good things of this world, if we love them as the
best things.
2. That their land shall not only cease to feed
them, but cease to lodge them, and to be a habitation
for them; it shall spue them out, as it had done the
Canaanites before them; (v. 3.) They shall not
dwell any longer in the Lord’s land; the land of
Canaan was in a peculiar manner the Lord’s land,
the land of the Shechinah, (so the Chaldee,) the
land of the Lord of the world; (so the Arabic;) he
whose all the earth is, (Ps. xxiv. 1.) took that for
his demesne. The land is mine, says God, Lev.
xxv. 23. They had used it, or abused it rather, as
if it had been their own, had not paid the rent, nor
done the services, due to God as their Landlord, and
therefore God justly enters, and takes possession of
it, they having forfeited their lease; “It is my
land,” (says God,) “and I will make it appear, for
they shall be turned off, as bad tenants, and be made
to know that, though they thought themselves free¬
holders, they were but tenants at will. ” Note, It is
for the honour of God’s justice and holiness, that
those who go a whoring from God, should not be
suffered to dwell upon his land; and therefore,
sooner or later, the wicked shall be chased out of the
world. Or, it is called the Lord’s land, because it
was the holy land, Immanuel’s land, the land that
had peculiar tokens of God’s favour to it, and pre¬
sence in it. where God was known, and his name
HOSEA, IX.
was great, where God’s prophets and oracles were;
it was a kind of copy of the earthly paradise, and a
type of the heavenly one. It v. as a great privilege
to have a lot in such a land as this; it was a great
sin and folly to rebel against God, and go a whoring
from him, in such a land as this, to deal unjustly in
a land of uprightness, Isa. xxvi. 10. And it was a
sad and sore judgment to be driven out from such a
land as this; it was like driving our first parents out
of the garden of Eden, and almost amounted to an
exclusion out of the heavenly Canaan. Note, Those
cannot expect to dwell in the Lord’s land , that will
not be subject to the Lord’s laws, nor be influenced
by his love. Those have forfeited the prii ileges of
the church, that conform not to the rules of it.
3. That, when they are turned out of the Lord’s
land, they shall have no rest or satisfaction in any
other land. When Cain was driven out from the
presence of the Lord , he was a fugitive and a va¬
gabond ever after, and dwelt in the 1 ind of trem¬
bling. So Israel here; some shall return into Egypt,
the old house of bondage, thither they shall flee
from the Assyrians, [ch. viii. 13.) and they shall
lose and ruin themselves there where they thought
to hide and help themselves. Others shall be carried
captives to Assyria, and there shall be forced to eat
unclean things; either, (1.) Such things as were not
fit for men to eat, that which is rotten and putrefied;
intimating that they shall be reduced to the utmost
poverty, as the prodigal that would fain have filled
his belly with the husks. Or, (2.) Such things as
were not fit for Jews to eat, being prohibited by
their law. It is probable that while they were in
tii ir own land, however disobedient in other things,
they kept up the distinction of meats, and prided
themselves in that; but since they would not keep
the law of God in other things, they should not be
suffered to keep it in that; and it was a just punish¬
ment of their sin, in eating things offered to idols.
Note, When at any time we suffer in our food, and
either through want, or for our health, are forced
1 1 eat or drink that which is unpleasing, we must
acknowledge that God is righteous, because we have
sinned about our food, and have indulged ourselves
too much in that which is pleasing.
4. That in the land of their enemies, to which
they shall be driven, they shall have no opportunity
either of giving honour to God, or obtaining favour
with God, by offering any acceptable sacrifice to
him; they should not be in a capacity of keeping up
any face or show of religion among them; “And so
(as Dr. Pocock expresses it) “should be as it were
quite cut off from any expression of relation to
him, from all signs of grace, and means of recon¬
ciliation with him, which would be to them a to¬
ken of their being rejected of God, estranged from
him, and no more owned by him as his people.”
( 1. ) They shall have no sacrifices to offer, nor any
altar to offer them on, or priests to offer them ; they
shall not so much as offer drink-offerings to the
Lord, much less any other sacrifices. (2.) If they
should offer them, neither they nor their sacrifices
shall be pleasing to him, for they cannot have any
legal offerings, nor are their hearts humbled. (3.)
Instead of their sacrifices of joy and praise, they
shall eat the bread of mourners; they shall live deso¬
late and disconsolate, mourning for the death of
their relations and their own miseries, so that if they
had opportunity of ‘sacrificing, they should never
be themselves in a frame fit for it; for they were
forbidden to eat of the holy things in their mourning,
Deut. xxvi. 14. All that eat of the bread of mourn¬
ers, are polluted, and incapacitated to partake of the
altar. (4.) Their bread for their soul, the bread
which they must either eat or starve, the bread
which they shall have for the support of their lives,
shall not come into the house of the Lord; they shall
91,1
have no house of the Lord to bring it to, or if they
had, it is such as is not fit to be brought, nor are
they rightly disposed to bring it. (5.) The return
of the days of their sacred and solemn feasts wonld
therefore be very melancholy and uncomfortable to
them; ( v . 5.) What will you do in the solemn day,
in the sabbath, the solemn day of every week, in the
new moons, the solemn days of every month, at the
return of tbe times for keeping the passover, pente-
cost, and feast of tabernacles, the solemn days of
every vear, the days of the feasts of the Lord?
Note, The feasts of the Lord are solemn days; and
when we are invited to those feasts, we ought to
consider seriously what we shall do. But the ques¬
tion is here put to those who were to be deprived of
the benefit and comfort of those solemn feasts;
“ IVhat will you do then ? You will then spend
those days in sorrow and lamentation, which, if it
had not been your fault, you might have been spend¬
ing in joy and praise. You will then be made to
know the worth of mercies by the want of them,
and to prize spiritual bread by being made to feel a
famine of it.” Note, When we enjoy the means of
grace, we ought to consider what we shall do if ever
we should know the want of them; if either they
should be taken from us, or we be disabled to attend
upon them.
5. That they should perish in the land of their
dispersion; (r.'6.) For, lo, they are gone out of the
Lord’s land, where they might have spent both
their sabbath-days and other days with comfort,
gone because of destruction, gone to Egypt, because
of the destruction of their own country by the Assy¬
rians, flattering themselves with hopes that they
shall return when the storm is over; but those hopes
also shall fail them, they shall find there are graves
in Egypt, as their murmuring ancestors said, Exod.
xiv. 11. Graves for them; for Egypt shall gather
them up, as dead men are gathered up, and carried
forth to the grave, and Memphis (one of the chief
cities of Egypt) shall bury them. Gathering • and
burying are put together, Jer. viii. 2. Job xxvii. 19.
Note, Those that think presumptuously to flee from
the judgments of God, are likely enough to meet
their deaths there where they hoped to save their
lives.
6. That their land, which they left behind, and
to which they hoped to return, should become a de¬
solation; As for their tabernacles, where they for¬
merly dwelt, and where they kept their stores, the
pleasant places for their silver, they shall be de¬
molished, and laid in ruins, to that degree, that they
shall be overgrown with nettles; so that if they
should survive the trouble, and return to their own
land again, they would find it neither fruitful nor
habitable, it would afford them neither food nor
lodging. Note, Those that make their money their
god, reckon the places of their silver their pleasant
places, as those that make the Lord their God,
reckon his tabernacles amiable, and his ordinances
their pleasant things, Isa. lxiv. 11. But while the
pleasures of communion with God are out of the
reach of chance and change, the pleasant places of
men’s silver, which were purchased with silver, or
in which they deposited their silver, or which were
beautified and adorned with silver, are liable to be
laid in ruins, in nettles, and therewith all the plea¬
sure men took in them.
7. The days of visitation are come, the
days of recompense are come; Israel shall
know it: the prophet is a fool, the spiritu¬
al man is mad, for the multitude of thinf
iniquity, and the great hatred. 8. The
watchman of Ephraim was with my God
916
HOSEA, IX.
but the prophet is a snare of a fowler in all
his ways, and hatred in the house of his God.
9. They have deeply corrupted themselves ,
as in the days of Gibeah : therefore he will
remember their iniquity, he will visit their
sins. 10. I found Israel like grapes in the
wilderness ; 1 saw your fathers as the first-
ripe in the fig-tree at her first time : but they
went to Baal-peor and separated them¬
selves unto that shame; and their abomina¬
tions were according as they loved.
For their further awakening, it is here threat¬
ened,
I. That the destruction spoken of shall come
speedily ; they shall have no reason to hope for a
long reprieve, for the judgment slumbers not, it is
at the door; (v. 7.) The days of visitation arc come,
and there shall be no more delay; the days of recom¬
pense are come, which they have been so often
warned to expect; their prophets have told them
that destruction would come, and now it is come, and
the time of the divine patience is expired. Note,
1. The day of God’s judgment is both a day of visi¬
tation, in which men’s sins are inquired into, and
brought to light, and a day of recompense, in which
men’s doom will be passed, and a reward given to
every man according to his work; the strict visita¬
tion is in order to a just retribution. 2. This day
of visitation and recompense is hastening on apace;
it is sure, it is near, as if it were already come.
II. That hereby they should be made ashamed
of their sentimentsconcemingtheirprophets. When
the day of visitation comes, Israel shall know it, shall
be made to know that by sad experience, which
they would not by instruction. Israel shall know
then what an evil and bitter thing it is to depart
from God, and what a. fearful thing it is to fall into
his hands; when thy hand is lifted up, they will not
see, but they shall see. Israel shall know the dif¬
ference between true prophets and false. 1. They
shall know then that the pretenders to prophecy,
who flattered them in their sins, and rocked them
asleep in their security, and told them that they
should have peace, though they went on, however
they pretended to be spiritual men, (as Aliab’s pro¬
phets did, 1 Kings xxii. 24.) were fools and mad¬
men, and not true prophets; they deceived them¬
selves, and those to whom they prophesied. But
why would God suffer his people Israel to be im¬
posed upon by those false prophets ? He answers,
“ It is for the multitude of thine iniquity, which, in
contempt of the divine law, thou hast persisted in,
and for the great hatred of the true prophets, that
reproved thee, in God’s name, for it.” Note, Be¬
cause men receive not the love of the truth, but con¬
ceive a hatred of it, and by the multitude of their
iniquity bid defiance to it, therefore God shall send
them strong delusions, to believe a lie, so strong,
that they shall not be undeceived till the day of visi¬
tation and recompense comes, which will convince
them of the folly and madness of those that seduced
them, and of their own folly and madness in suffer¬
ing themselves to be seduced by them. 2. They
shall know then whether the true prophets, that
were really spiritual men, guided by the Spirit of
God, were such as they called and counted them,
fools and madmen; and they shall be convinced that
they were so far from being so, that they were the
men of their times, and God’s faithful ambassa¬
dors to them. When Israel saw that none of
Samuel’s words fell to the ground, they knew he
was established to be a prophet; (1 Sam. iii. 20.) and
so here, when God fulfils the word of his messen¬
gers, by bringing the days of recompense they fore¬
told, then those that despised and ridiculed them,
and thought Bedlam the fittest place for them, will
be ashamed of the multitude of their iniquities of
that kind, and of their great hatred, for which God
brings upon them this swift destruction. Mocking
the messengers of the Lord was the sin they were
punished for, and so made ashamed of.
III. That hereby the wickedness rf the false pro¬
phets themselves should be manifested to their
shame; (i>. 8.) The watchman of Ephraim was
with my God; he had been formerly, they had a set
of worthy, good ministers, that kept close to God,
and maintained communion with him; but now they
have a race of corrupt, malignant, persecuting pro¬
phets, that are the ringleaders of all mischief. Or,
The watchman of Ephraim now pretends to have
been with my God, and prefaces his lies with, Thus
saith the Lord; but he is a snare of a fowler in all
his ways, and is cunning to draw the simple into sin,
and the upright into trouble; and he is so full of
hatred and enmity to goodness and good men, that
he is become hatred itself in the house of his God,
or against the house of his God. Note, Wicked
prophets are of all others the worst of men; their
sins against God are most heinous, and their plots
against religion most dangerous. They may boast
that they are watchmen, speculators, and as far as
speculation goes, they may be right, and with my
God, may have their heads full of good notions; but
look into their lives, and they are the snare of a
fowler in all their ways, catching for themselves,
and making a prey of others; look into their hearts,
and they are hatred in the house of my God; very
malicious and spiteful against good ministers and
good people. Wo unto thee, O land, unto thee, O
church, that hast such watchmen, such prophets;
that are seers, but not doers! Corruptio optimi est
pessima — The best things, when corrupted, become
the worst.
IV. That God would now reckon with them for
the sins of their fathers which they trod in the steps
of, v. 9, 10.
1. They were as bad as their fathers; They have
deeply corrupted themselves, they are rooted and
rivetted in sin, they are far gone in the depths of Sa¬
tan, (Isa. xxxi. 6. ) so that it is next to impossible
that they should be recovered; the stain of their cor¬
ruption is deep, not to be got out, it is as scarlet and
crimson, or as the spots of the leopard; and it is
their own fault, they have corrupted themselves,
have polluted and hardened their own hearts, as in
the days of Gibeah, when the Levite’s concubine
was abused to death by the men of Gibeah, and the
whole tribe of Benjamin patronized the villany ; that
was a time of deep corruption indeed, and such were
the present days. Lewdness and wickedness were
as impudent and daring now as in the days of
Gibeah; and therefore what can be expected but
such vengeance as was then taken on Gibeah ?
Every tribe is now as bad as the tribe of Benjamin
then was, and therefore may expect to be brought
as low as that tribe then was.
2. They shall therefore be reckoned with for
their father’s sins; He will remember their iniquity,
and visit their sins, the iniquity they have by kind
and by entail, the sin that runs in the blood; the sin
of the father shall now be visited upon the children.
From hence God takes occasion to upbraid them
with the degeneracy and apostacy of their ancestors,
their perfidiousness and base ingratitude, v. 10.
Where observe, (1.)- The great honour God put
upon Israel, when he first formed them into a peo¬
ple; I found Israel tike grapes in the wilderness; he
took as much delight and pleasure in them as a poor
traveller would do if he found grapes in a wilder¬
ness, where he most needed them, and least ex
HOSE A, IX. !>l?
pected them. Or, when they were in the wilder¬
ness, he found them as grafes, not precious in them-
si'l res, but precious to him, and pleasant as the first-
ripe grapes to the lord of the vineyard. They were
/ireciotis in his sight, and honourable; (Isa. xliii.
4.) he planted them a choice vine, a right seed,
(Jer. ii. 21.) and found them no better than he him¬
self made them, good grapes at first; I saw them
with pleasure, as the first-rife in the fig-tree at the
first time; good people are compared to the good
things that are first rife, Jer. xxiv. 2. One then is
worth more than many after. This speaks the de¬
light God took in them, and in doing them good; not
for their sakes, but because he loved their fathers.
He preserved them carefully, as a man does the first
and choicest fruits of his vineyard. Now when he
put all this honour upon them, and they stood so fair
for preferment, one would think they should have
maintained their excellency; but, (2.) See the great
disgrace they put upon themselves. God set them
ap irt for himself as a peculiar people, but they went
to B tal-peor, joined with the Moabites in sacrificing
to that dirty dunghill-deity, (Numb. xxv. 2, 3.) and
they sefarated themselves unto that shame, that
shameful idol, so Baal-peor was in a particular
manner, if (as should seem) the whoredom which
the people committed with the daughters of Moab,
was a part of the service done to Baal-peor. Note,
Whatever those separate themselves to, that forsake
God, it will certainly be a shame to them, first or
last. Their abominations are here said to be as
they loved: their practices which were an abomina¬
tion to God, were as the best-beloved of their souls.
Or, When they had once forsaken God, they mul¬
tiplied their abominations, their idols and abomina¬
ble idolatries, at their pleasure. This was the way
of their fathers; God had done well for them, but
they had acted ungratefully toward him, and in the
same manner had the present generation deefly
corrufted themselves.
11. As for Ephraim, their glory shall flee
away like a bird, from the birth, and from
the womb, and from the conception. 1 2. 1
Though they bring up their children, yet
will I bereave them, that there shall not be
a man left: yea, wo also to them when I
depart from them ! 1 3. Ephraim, as I saw
Tyrus, is planted in a pleasant place: but
Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the
murderer. 14. Give them, O Lord: what
wilt thou give ? give them a miscarrying
womb and dry breasts. 1 5. All their wicked¬
ness is in Gilgal ; for there I hated them :
for the wickedness of their doings I will
drive them out of my house, I will love them
no more : all their princes are revolters. 16.
Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up,
they shall bear no fruit; yea, though they
bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved
fruit of their womb. 1 7. My God will cast
them away, because they did not hearken
unto him : and they shall be wanderers
among the nations.
In the foregoing verses, we saw the sin of Israel
derived from their fathers; here we seethe punish¬
ment of Israel derived to their children; for as death
entered by sin at first, so it is still entailed with it.
We may observe in these verses,
I. The sin of Ephraim. Some expressions are
here, which speak that, 1. They did not hearken to
God, (v. 17.) they did not give attention to the
voice either of his word or of his rod. They did
not believe what he said, nor would they be ruled
by him. He told them their duty, their interest,
their danger, but they regarded him not ; all he
said to them by his words and by his prophets, was
to them as a tale that is told; and then no wonder
that we hear, 2. Of the wickedness of their doings,
(v. 15.) the downright malice that was in their sins;
they were not infirmities, but daring presumptions.
How can they but do wickedly, who will not hearken
to the word of God, that would teach and persuade
them to do well? And no wonder that there were
wicked doings among them, when, 3. Their worship
is corrupt ; (u. 15. ) All their wickedness is in
Gilgal; which was a place infamous for idolatry, as
appears, ch. iv. 15. — xii. 11. Amos iv. 4. — v. 5.
It is probable that the idolaters chose that place for
their head-quarters, because it had been famous in
other ages for solemn transactions between God and
Israel, as Josh. v. 2, 10. 1 Sam. x. 8. — xi. 15.
There, where the source of idolatry was, whence it
spread through the kingdom, there it might be said,
that all their wickedness was, for all other wicked¬
ness owed its original to that ; corruptions in wor¬
ship make way for corruptions in morals ; the
mother of harlots is the mother o/- all other abomina¬
tions; Rev. xvii. 5. The learned Grotius conjectures
that there is a mystical sense here. Golgotha in
Syriac is the same with Gilgal in Hebrew, and
therefore he thinks this may have reference to the
putting of Christ to death at Golgotha, which was
the greatest sin of the Jewish nation, and of which
it might truly be said, All their wickedness was
summed up in that. And no wonder that the people
did wickedly, both in worship and conversation,
when, 4. All their frinces were revolters; the whole
succession of the kings of the ten tribes did evil in
the sight of the Lord; or, all the set of judges and
magistrates at this time were wicked; they turned
aside to sinful ways, and persisted in those ways.
II. The displeasure of God against Ephraim for sin.
This is variously expressed here, to show what a
provocation sin is to the pure eyes of his glory, and
how odious it makes the sinner to him. 1. He de¬
farts from them, v. 12. When they revolt from
him, and withdraw from their allegiance to him,
how can they expect but that he should depart from
them, and withdraw both his protection and his
bounty? And well may his threatening be enforced
as it is, and made terrible; Wo also unto them when
I defart from them! Note, Those are in a woful
condition indeed, whom God has forsaken. Our
weal or wo depends upon the gracious presence of
God with us; and if he goes, all weal goes with him,
and all woes come upon us. God has forsaken him;
fersecute and take him. Saul knew this when he
laid such an accent upon this part of his complaint,
The Philistines make war against me, and God is
defarted from me. Nay, he does not only depart
from them, but, 2. He hates them ; in Gilgal, where
all their wickedness is, there I hated them. There
where the abominations of sin are committed, there
God abominates the sinners. In Gilgal he had be¬
stowed many tokens of his favour upon their ances¬
tors, but now that is the place where he hates them
for their base ingratitude. Nay, he not only hates
them, but, 3. He will love them no more, will never
take them into his favour again; the breach between
God and Israel is wide as the sea, which cannot be
healed. This agrees with what he had said, (rA. i.
6, 7.) I will no more have mercy ufon the house of
Israel, the ten tribes. 4. He will discard them, and
have no more to do with them; For the wickedness
of their doings I will drive them out of my house.
He will no longer own them as his, or as belonging
to his family in the world; he will turn them out of
fl8
HOSEA, X.
noovs as unfaithful tenants that pay him no rent, as
unprofitable servants that do him neither credit nor
work. Note, Those that profane God’s house, can
expect no other than to be expelled his house, and
no longer suffered to be either lodgers in it, or re¬
tainers to it. Nay, he will not only drive them out
of liis house, but, 5. He will drive them far enough;
(to 17.) My God will cast them away, not only out
of his house, but out of his sight; he will quite aban¬
don and reject them, they shall be cast-aways. God
said that he would drive them out of his house, and
here the prophet seconds it, as one that knew his
Master’s mind very well ; My God will cast them
away. See with what comfort and pleasure he calls
God his God. Note, When others disown God,
and are disowned by him, it is a very great satisfac¬
tion to good people that they can call God their
God, can cheerfully own him, and see themselves
owned by him; all revolters, all ruined, yet God is
my God.
III. The fruit of this displeasure, in the cutting
off and abandoning of their posterity, which is the
judgment here threatened again and again. Ob¬
serve here,
1. How numerous Ephraim was likely to be; the
name Ephraim is derived from fruitfulness, Gen.
xli. 52. Joseph is a fruitful bough, Gen. xlix. 22.
And Moses’s blessing foretold the ten thousands of
Efihraim, Deut. xxxiii. 17. This was his glory,
(v. 11.) for this he seemed designed by him that ap¬
points the bounds of men’s habitation, for Efihraim,
as I saw Tyrus, is filanted in a fileasant place, to
encourage his increase; which one may expect as
from a tree planted by the river’s side. Ephraim is
as strong and rich as ever Tyre was, and as proud
and secure. The Chaldee Paraphrase gives this
sense of it, The congregation of Israel, while they
observed the law, was like to Tyrus in prosperity
and security.
2. How few Ephraim should be; (tx 11.) Their
glory shall fly away, like a bird ; their children
shall be taken away, and the hopes of their families
cut off. All their glory shall fly as an eagle toward
heaven, swiftly and irrecoverably. Note, Worldly
glory is glory that will fiy away; but they that have
their Go;l their glory, have in him an unfading, ever¬
lasting glory. Ephraim has been as a fruitful tree;
but now Ephraim is smitten, is blasted, their root is
dried up, they shall bear no fruit, v. 16. If the root
be dried, the branch must wither of course.
Observe, (1.) God’s threatening of this judgment,
of the destroying of their children. [1.] They shall
perish of themselves by the immediate hand of God;
(t\ 11.) They shall fly away, from the birth, and
from the womb, and from the conception. Some of
their children shall die as soon as they are bom, the
cradle shall be presently turned into a coffin ; others
of them shall be still-born, or the womb shall be
their grave, and their death there, their mother’s
death too; of others, their mothers shall miscarry
almost as soon as they have conceived, and they
shall be as untimely fruit. See how easily God can,
and how justly we are sure he might, root out the
whole race of mankind, that degenerate, guilty, ob¬
noxious race, and blot out the name of it from under
heaven; it is but doing as he does by Ephraim here,
writing them all childless, making all their glory to
fly away from the birth, the womb, and the concep¬
tion, drying up their root, that they bear no fruit,
and their business is done in a few years. [2.] They
shall perish by the hand of their enemies: they shall
die violent deaths; (tx 12.) Though they bring up
their children to some maturity, though they escape
the diseases and deaths which the infant age is liable i
to, and arc thought to be reared past danger, yet '■
will I bereave them, (tx 12.) by one judgment or!
other, so that there shall not be a man left, to build ;
up their families, and bear up their name. Again,
(tx 13.) Ephraim shall bring forth his children to
the murderer; the mother shall travail with pain to
bear her children, and a deal of care and pains and
cost shall be bestowed upon the nursing of them.
And when a cruel enemy comes, and puts all to the
sword, young and old, without mercy, then they
seem but as lambs that were all this while fed for
the slaughter. Note, It is a great allay to the com¬
fort parents have in their children, that they know
not what they have brought them forth, and brought
them up, for, perhaps for the murderer, or, which
is worse, to be themselves the plagues of their gene¬
ration. It is threatened aga\j), (tx 16.) Though
they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved
fruit of their womb, those children that they are
most fond of. Note, The parents’ love is no secu¬
rity to the children’s lives; nay, sometimes death is
commissioned to take the darlings of the family, and
leave the burthens of it. When sentence was passed
upon Israel in the wilderness, that they should all
perish there, this mercy was mixed with the wrath,
that their children should nevertheless enter into
that rest, which they through unbelief could not
enter into; but this here is a total and final rejection;
even their children shall all be cut off, and the land
shall escheat to the crown, ob defectum sanguinis —
shall be lost for want of heirs. The Chaldee Para¬
phrase, and many of the rabbins, by the murderers
to which the children were brought forth, under¬
stand those that sacrificed their children to Moloch,
a sin which was its own punishment, which showed
the parents void of bowels, and justly left them void
of blessings. [3.] Those few that escape, and re¬
main, shall be dispersed; ( v . 17.) They shall be
wanderers among the nations : so the remains of the
Jews are at this day, and there is no place in the
world where they are it distinct nation.
(2.) The prophet’s prayer relating to it; (tx 14.)
Give them, 0 Lord : what shall I give ? What
shall I ask for a people thus doomed to destruction?
It is this; since the decree is gone forth, that they
must either die from the womb, or be brought forth
for the murderer; of the two let them rather die
from the womb. Rather let them have no children
than have them to be made miserable; for the same
reason when a total ruin was coming on the Jewish
nation, Christ said, Blessed is the womb that never
bare, and the paps that never gave suck, Luke
xxiii. 29. Give therefore a miscarrying womb and
dry breasts: for it is better to fall into the hands of
the Lord, whose mercies are great, than into the
hands of man. Note, Those that arc childless', may
with this reconcile themselves to the will of God
herein, that the time may come, when, if they were
not so, they would wish they had been so.
CHAP. X.
In this chapter, I. The people of Israel are charged with
gross corruptions in the worship of God, and are threat¬
ened with the destruction of their images and altars, v.
1, 2, 5, 6, 8. II. They are charged with corruptions in
the administration of the civil government, and are
threatened with the ruin of that., v. 3, 4, 7. III. They
are charged with imitating the sins of their fathers, and
with security in their own sins, and are threatened with
smarting, humbling judgments, v. 9. . 11. IV. They
are earnestly invited to repent and reform, and are
threatened with ruin if they did not, v. 12.. 15.
1. TSRAEL is an empty vine, he bringeth
A forth fruit unto himself : according; to
the multitude of his fruit lie hath increased
the altars; according to the goodness of his
land they have made goodly images. 2.
Their heart is divided ; now shall they he
found faulty: he shall break down their
HOSEA, X. yia
altars., he shall spoil their images. 3. For
now they shall say, We have uo king, be¬
cause we feared not the Lord; what then
should a king do to us ? 4. They have spoken
words, swearing falsely in making a cove¬
nant: thus judgment springeth up as hem¬
lock in the furrows of the field. 5. The in¬
habitants of Samaria shall fear because of
the calves of Beth-aven : for the people
thereof shall mourn over it, and the priests
thereof that rejoiced on it, for the glory
thereof, because it is departed from it. 6.
It shall be also carried unto Assyria for a
present to king Jareb: Ephraim shall re¬
ceive shame, and Israel shall be ashamed
of his own counsel. 7. As for Samaria, her
king is cut off as the foam upon the water.
8. The high places also of Aven, the sin of
Israel, shall be destroyed: the thorn and the
thistle shall come up on their altars, and
they shall say to the mountains, Cover us ;
and to the hills, Fall on us.
Observe,
I. What the sins are, which are here laid to Is¬
rael’s charge; the national sins which bring down
national judgments. The prophet deals plainly with
them; for what good would it do them to be flat¬
tered ?
1. They were not fruitful in the fruits of righ¬
teousness, to the glory of God. Here all their other
wickedness began; (y. 1.) Israel is an empty vine.
The church of God is fitly compared to a vine,
weak, and of an unpromising outside, yet spreading
and fruitful; believers are branches of that vine,
and partake of its root and fatness. But this was the
character of Israel, they were as an empty vine, a
vine that had no sap or virtue in it, and therefore
none of those good fruits produced by it, that were
expected from it, with which God and man should
be honoured. Note, Then are many who, though
they are not become degenerate vines, are yet empty
vines, have no good in them. A vine is of all trees
least serviceable, if it do not bear fruit. It is thence¬
forth good for nothing, Ezek. xv. 3, 5. And they
that bring forth no grapes, will soon come to bring
forth wild grapes; they that do no good, will do
hurt. He is an empty vine, for he brings forth
fruit to himself. What good there is in him, is not
directed to the glory of God, but he takes the praise
of it to himself, and prides himself in it. Christians
live not to themselves, (Rom. xiv. 6.) but hypo¬
crites make self their centre; they eat and drink to
themselves, Zech. vii. 5, 6. Or, Israel is by the
judgments of God emptied and spoiled of all his
wealth, because he made use of it in the service of
his lusts, and not to the honour of God who gave it
him. Note, What we do not rightly employ we
may justly expect to be emptied of.
2. They multiplied their altars and images, and
the more bountiful God’s providence was to them,
the more prodigal they were in serving their idols;
According to the multitude of his fruit which his
1 ind brought forth, he has increased the altars, and
according to the goodness of his land, they have
made goodly images. Note, It is a great affront to
God, and an abuse of his goodness, when the more
mercies we receive from him, the more sins we
commit against him: and when the more wealth
men have, the more mischief they do. Should not
we be thus abundant in the service of our God, as
they were in the service of their idols? As we find
our estates increasing, we should proportionably
abound the more in works of piety and charity.
3. Their hearts were divided, v. 2. (1.) They
were divided among themselves; they were at vari¬
ance about their idols, some for one, some for an¬
other, at variance about their kings, whose separate
interests made parties in the kingdom, and in them
their very hearts were divided, and alienated one
from another, and there was no such thing as cor¬
dial friendship to be found among them; it follows
therefore, Now shall they be found faulty. Note,
The divisions and animosities of a people are the
causes of much sin, and the presages of ruin. (2. )
They were divided between God and their idols.
They had a remaining affection in their hearts for
God, but a reigning affection for their idols; They
halted between God and Baal, that was the divid¬
ing of their heart. But God is the Sovereign of
the heart, and he will by no means endure a rival;
he will either have all, or none. Satan, like the
pretended mother, says, Let it be neither thine nor
mine, but divide it; but if that be yielded to, God
says, Nay, let him take all. A heart thus divided
will be found faulty, and be rejected as treacherous
in covenanting with God. Note, A heart divided
between God and Mammon, though it may trim the
matter so as to appear plausible, will, in the day of
discovery, be found faulty.
4. They made no conscience of what they said,
and what they did, in the most solemn manner, v.
4. (1.) Not of what they said in swearing, which
is the most solemn swearing; They have spoken
words, and words only, for they meant not as they
said; they did verba dare — give words; they swore
falsely in making a covenant, they were deceitful
m their covenanting with God, the covenant of cir¬
cumcision, the fair promises they made of reforma¬
tion, when they were in distress; and no marvel if
those that were false to their God, were false to all
mankind; they contracted such a habit of treachery,
that they broke through the most sacred bonds, and
made nothing of them; subjects violated their oath?
of allegiance, and their kings their coronation-oaths;
they broke the leagues with the nations they were
in alliance with, nor was any conscience made of
contracts between private persons. (2.) Nor of
what they did in judgment, which is the most solemn
acting; juctice could not take place when men made
nothing of forswearing themselves; for thus judg¬
ment, which should have been a healing, medicinal
plant, and of a sweet smell, sprang up as hemlock,
which is both nauseous and noxious, in the furrows
of the field, in the field that was ploughed and fur¬
rowed for good corn. Note, God is greatly offended
with corruptions, not only in his own worship, but
in the administration of justice between man and
man, and the dishonesty of a people shall be the
ground of his controversy with them as well as their
idolatry and impiety; for God’s laws are intended
for man’s benefit and the good of the community, as
well as for God’s honour. And the profanation of
courts of justice shall be avenged as surely as the
profanation of temples.
II. What the judgments are, with which Israel
should be punished for these sins; they sinned both
in civil and religious matters, and in both thev shall
be punished.
1. They shall have no joy of their kings, and of
their government. Because justice is turned into op¬
pression, therefore those who are intrusted with the
administration of it, and should be blessings to the
state, shall be complained of as the burthens of it,
(x>. 3.) and they that would not rule their people
well, should not be able to protect them; Aero they
shall say, “ IVe have no king; we are as if we hail
none, we have none to do us any good, or stand us in
♦20 HOSEA, X.
any stead, none to keep us from destroying ourselves,
or being d stir jd by our enemies, none to preserve
the public pe<*oe, or to fight our battles; and justly
is this come to us, because we feared not the Lord ,
when we were safe under the protection of our
kings, therefore we are rejected by him; and then
what shall a king do for us? What good can we
expect from a king, when we have forfeited the fa-
v ur of our God?” Note, Those that cast off the
fear of God, are not likely to have joy of any of
their creature-comforts; nor will men’s loyalty to J
their prince befriend them without religion, for
though that may engage him to be for them, what
good will that do them, if God be against them?
Those that keep themselves in the fear and favour
of God, may say, with triumph, “What cun the
greatest of men do against us?” But those that throw
themselves out of his protection, must say, with de¬
spair, “ What can the greatest of men do for us?”
He was a king that said, If the Lord do not helfx
thee , whence should I hel/i thee?” Yet he is a fool
that says. If a king cannot help us, we must perish,
(as these intimate here,} for God can do that for us
whicli kings cannot Time was, when they doted
upon having a king; but now what can a king do for
them, a being who, they thought, could do any
thing? God can make people sick of those creature-
confidences which they were most fond of. This is
their complaint, when their king is disabled to help
them: yet this is not the worst, their civil govern¬
ment shall not only be weakened, but quite de¬
stroyed; (v. 7.) As for Samaria, the royal city,
whicli is now almost all that is left, her king is cut
off as the foam from the water. The foam swims
uppermost, and m ikes a great show upon the face
ot the water, yet it is but a heap of bubbles raised
by the troubling of the water; such were the kings
of Israel, after their revolt from the house of David,
a mere scum, their government had no foundation;
no better are the greatest of kings when they set up
in opposition to God; when God comes to contend ]
with them by his judgments, he can as easily dis¬
perse and dissolve them, and bring them to nothing,
as the froth upon the water.
2. They shall have no joy of their idols, and of
their worship of them. And miserable is the case
ef that people, whose gods fail them when their
kings do.
(1. ) The idols they had made, and the altars they
set up in honour of them, should be broken down,
and spoiled, and carried away, as common plunder,
by the victorious enemy; He shall break down their
altars. God shall do it by the hand of the Assyrian,
the Assyrian shall do it by order from God; he shall
spoil their images, v. 2. Note, What men make
idols of, it is just with God to break down and s/ioil.
But the calf at Bethel was the sovereign idol, that
was it which the inhabitants of Samaria doted most
upon; now it is here foretold that that should be de¬
stroyed; The glory of it is de/iarted from it, (u. 5.)
when it is thrown down and defaced, no more to be
worshipped; but that is not all. It shall also be car¬
ried to Assyria, (as some think the calf at Dan was
some time before, )for a firesent to king Jareb. It
was carried to him as a rich booty, (tor it was a
golden calf, and, probably, adorned with the gifts
and offerings of its worshippers,) and as a trophy of
victory over their enemies; and what more glorious
trophy could they bring than this, or more incon¬
testable proof of an absolute conquest; Thus it is
said, The sin of Israel shall be destroyed, (v. 8. ) the
idols, which they made the matter of their sin; it is
said of them, They became a sin to all Israel, 1
Kings xii. 30. Note, If the grace of God prevail
not to destroy the love of sin in us, it is just that the
providence of God should destroy the food and fuel i
of sin about us. With the idols, the high places
shall be destroyed, high places of Aven, of Beta
aven, ( v . 5.) or Bethel; it was called the house of
Hod, (so Bethel sigrifies,) but now it is culled the
house of iniquity; nay, iniquity itself. The kings
did not, as they ought to have done, take away the
high places, by the sword of justice, and tin reft re
God will take them away by the sword of war. So
that the thorn and the thistle shall come up on thei r
altars; they shall lie in rains. Their altars, while
they stood, were as thorns and thistles, offensive to
God and good men, and fruits of sin and the curst,
justly therefore are they buried in thorns and
thistles.
(2.) The destruction of their idols, their altars,
and their high places, shall be the occasion of sor¬
row and shame and terror to them. [1.] It shall
be an occasion of sorrow to them. When the calf
at Bethel is broken, the people thereof shall mourn
over it. They looked upon the calf to be the pro¬
tector of their nation, and, when that was gone,
thought they must all be undone, which made the
poor ignorant people, that were deluded into the
love of it, take on bitterly as Micah did; (Judg.
xviii. 24.) Ye have taken away my gods, and what
have I more ? The priests that had rejoiced in it,
shall now mourn for it with the people. Note,
Whatever men make a god of, they will mourn for
the loss of; and inordinate sorrow for the loss of any
worldly good is a sign we made an idol of it. They
used to be very merry in the worship of their idols,
but now they shall mourn over them ; for sinful mirth
shall sooner or later be turned into mourning. [2.1
It shall be an occasion of shame to them; (v. 6.)
Ephraim shall receive shame, when he sees the gods
he trusted to carried into captivity, and Israel shall
be ashamed of his own counsel, in putting such con¬
fidence in them, and paying such adoration to them.
God’s ark and altars were never thrown down till
the people rejected them; but the idolatrous altars
were thrown down when the people were doting on
them, which shows that the contempt of the for¬
mer, and the veneration for the latter, were the sins
for which God visited them. [3.] It shall be an
occasion of fear to them; (x>. 5.) The inhabitants
of Samaria shall fear; they shall be in pain for their
gods, and afraid of losing them; or, rather, they
shall be in pain for themselves and their children
and families, when they see the judgments of God
breaking in upon them, and beginning with their
idols, as he executed judgment against the gods
of Egypt, Exod. xii. 12. Thus idolaters are brought
in trembling, when God arises to shake terribly the
earth, Isa. li. 21. And here, (v. 8.) They shall say
to the mountains. Cover us; and to the hills, Ball
on us. The supporters of idolatry (Rev. vi. 15,
16.) are brought in, calling thus in vain to rocks and
mountains to shelter them from God’s wrath.
9. O Israel, thou hast sinned from the
days of Gibeah; there they stood: the battle
in Gibeah against the children of iniquity
did not overtake them. 10. It is in my de¬
sire that I should chastise them; and the
people shall be gathered against them, when
they shall bind themselves in their two fur¬
rows. 1 1. And Ephraim is as a heifer that
is taught, and loveth to tread out the corn ;
but I passed over upon her fair neck : I will
make Ephraim to ride; Judah shall plough,
and Jacob shall break his clods. 12. Sow
to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mer¬
cy ; break up your fallow ground : for it is
time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain
921
HOSE A, X.
righteousness upon you. 13. Ye have
ploughed wickedness, ye have reaped iniqui¬
ty: ye have eaten the fruit of lies: because
thou didst trust in thy way, in the multitude
of thy mighty men. 14. Therefore shall a
tumult arise among thy people, and all thy
fortresses shall be spoiled, as Shalman spoil¬
ed Beth-arbel in the day of battle: the mo¬
ther was dashed in pieces upon her children.
15. So shall Beth-el do unto you because
of your great wickedness: in a morning
shall the king of Israel be utterly cut off.
Here,
I. They are put in mind of the sins of their fathers
and predecessors, for which God would now reckon
with them. It was told them, (r/i. ix. 9.) that they
had corrupted themselves, as in the days of Gibeah,
and here {v. 9. ) 0 Israel thou hast sinned from the
days of Gibeah. Not only the wickedness that was
committed in that age, is revived in this, and re¬
acted, a copy from that original, but the wickedness
that was committed in that age, has been continued
in a constant series and succession through all the
intervening ages down to this; so that the measure
of iniquity had been long in filling; and still there
had been made additions to it. Or, “ Thou hast
sinned more than in the days of Gibeah;” (so it may
be read;) “ the signs of this age exceed those of the
worst of former ages. The case was bad then, for
there they stood, the criminals stood in their own
defence, and the tribes of Israel, who undertook to
chastise them for their wickedness, were at a stand,
when both in the first and in the second battle the
malefactors were the victors; and the battle in Gi¬
beah against the children of iniquity did not overtake
them till the third engagement, and then did not
overtake them all, for 600 made their escape. But
thy sin is worse than theirs, and therefore thou canst
not expect but that the battle against the children of
iniquity should overtake thee, and overcome thee.”
II. They have warning given them, fair warning
of the judgments of God, that were coming upon
them, v. 10. God had hitherto pitied and spared
them; though they had been very provoking, he
had a mind to try whether they would be wrought
upon by patience and forbearance; but now, “ It is
in my desire that I should chastise them; it is what
I have a purpose of, and will take pleasure in.” He
will rejoice over them to do them hurt, Deut. xxviii.
63. Note, Because God does not desire the death
and ruin of sinners, therefore he does desire their
chastisement. And see what the chastisement is;
The people shall be gathered against them, as all the
other tribes were against Benjamin in the battle of
Gibeah. One of the rabbins thus descants upon it,
“ Because they receive not chastisement from me bv
my prophets, who, in my name, rebuke them, I
will chastise them by the hands of the people which
shall be gathered against them, when they shall bind
themselves in their two furrows;” when they shall
think to fortify themselves, as it were, within a
double entrenchment. Or, When I shall bind them
for their two transgressions; so the margin reads
it, meaning their corporal and spiritual whoredom,
which they are so often charged with, or the two
calves at D m and Bethel; or those two great evils
mentioned, Jer. ii. 13. Or, When I shall bind them
to their two furrows; bring them into servitude to
the Assyrians, who shall keep them under the yoke
as oxen in the plough, who are bound to the two
furrows up the field and down it, and dare not, for
fear of the goad, stir a step out of them. The Chal¬
dee says, Those that ar e gathered against them shall
Vol. iv. — 6 A
[ exercise dominion over them, in like manner as a
pair of heifers are tied to their two furrows. Thus
the) th t would not be God’s freemen, shall be their
enemies’ slaves, and shall be made to know the dif¬
ference between God's service and the service of tin
kingdoms of the countries, 2 Chron. xii. 8.
III. They are made to know that their unac¬
quaintedness with sufferings and hardships should
not excuse them from a very miserable captivity, v.
11. See how nice, and tender, and delicate, Eph¬
raim is; he is as an heifer that is taught to tread out
the corn, and loves that work, because being not to
be muzzled, she has liberty to eat at pleasure, and
the work itself was dry and easy, anti both its own
diversion and its own wages. “ But,” says God, “ I
have a yoke to put upon her fair neck, fair as it is.
I will make Ephraim to ride; I will tame them, or
cause them to be ridden by the Assyrians and other
conquerors that shall rule them with rigour, as men
do the beasts they ride upon; (Ps. lxvi. 12.) and Ju¬
dah too shall be made to plough, and Jacob to break
the clods,” they shall be used hardly, but not so
hardly as Ephraim. Note, It is just with God to
make those know what hardships mean, that in¬
dulge themselves too much in their own ease and
pleasure. The learned Dr. Pocock inclines to an¬
other sense of these words, as speaking the tender,
gentle methods God took with his people, to bring
them into obedience to his law, as a reason why they
should return to that obedience; he had managed
them as the husbandman does his cattle that he
trains up for service. Ephraim being as a docile
heifer, fit to be employed, God took hold of her fait
neck to accustom her to the hand; harnessed her,
or put the yoke of his commandments upon her,
gave his people Israel a law, that being trained up
in his institutions, they might not be tempted by the
usages of the heathen; he had used all fair and likely
means with them to keep them in their obedience,
had set Judah to plough, and Jacob to break the
clods, and employed them in the observance of pre¬
cepts proper for them ; and yet they would net be
retained in their obedience, but started aside.
IV. They are invited and encouraged to return
to God by prayer, repentance, and reformation, v.
12, 13. See here,
1. The duties they are called to. They are God’s
husbandry ; (1 Cor. iii. 9.) and the duties are ex¬
pressed in language borrowed from the husband¬
man’s calling. If they would not be brought into
bondage by their oppressors, let them return to
God’s service. (1.) Let them break up the fallow
ground; let them cleanse their hearts from all cor¬
rupt affections and lusts, which are as weeds and
thorns, and let them be humbled for their sins, and
be of a broken and contrite spirit, in the sense of
them; let them be full of sorrow and shame at the
remembrance of them, and prepare to receive the
divine precepts, as the ground that is ploughed is
to receive the seed, that it may take root. See Jer.
iv. 3. (2.) Let them sow to themselves in right¬
eousness; let them return to the practice of good
works, according to the law of God, which is the
rule of righteousness; let them abound in works of
piety toward God, and of justice and charity toward
one another, and herein let them sow to the Spirit,
as the apostle speaks, Gal. vi. 7, 8. Every action
is seed sown; Let them sow in righteousness; let
them sow what they should sow, do what thev should
do, and they themselves shall have the benefit of it.
(3.) Let them seek the Lord; let them look up to
him for his grace, and beg of him to bless the seed
sown. The husbandman must plough and sow with
an eye to God, asking of him rain in the season
thereof.
2. The arguments used for the pressing of these
duties. Consider, (1.) It is time to do it; it is high
922
HOSEA, XI.
time. The husbandman sows in seed-time, and, if j
that time be far spent, he applies himself to it with
the more diligence. Note, Seeking the Lord is to
be every day’s work, but there are some special oc¬
casions given by the providence and grace of God,
when it is, in a particular manner, time to seek him.
(2.) If we do our part, God will do his. If we sow
to ourselves in righteousness, if we be careful and
diligent to do our duty, in a dependence upon his
grace, he will shower down his grace upon us, will
rain righteousness, the very thing that they need
most, who are to sow in righteousness; for by the
grace of God we are what we are. Some apply it
to Christ, who should come in the fulness of time,
and for whose coming they must prepare them¬
selves; he shall come as the Lord our righteousness,
and shall rain righteousness ufion us, that everlast¬
ing righteousness which he has brought in, he will
grant us of it abundantly. It is foretold, (Ps. lxxii.
6.) that he shall come down like rain. (3.) If we
sow in righteousness we shall reap in mercy; which
agrees with that promise, If we sow to the Spirit,
we shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. We
shall reap according to the measure of mercy; (so
the word is;) it shall be a great reward, according
to tire riches of mercy; such a reward, not as be¬
comes such mean creatures as we are to receive,
but as becomes a God of infinite mercy to give, a
reward, not of debt, but of grace. We reap not in
merit, but in mercy. It is what is sown; God gives
a body as it has pleased him. (4.) We have plough¬
ed wickedness, and reaped iniquity; and the time
past of our life may suffice that we have done so,
v. 13. “You have taken a great deal of pains in
the service of sin, have laboured at it in the very
fire; and will you grudge to bear the burthen and
heat of the day in God’s service, and in doing that
which will be for your own advantage? You have
done much to damn your souls; will you not undo it
again, and do something to save them?” (5.) We
never got any thing in the service of sin. They
have ploughed wickedness, they have done the
drudgery of sin ; and they have reaped iniquity,
they have got all that is to be got by it, they have
carried it on to the harvest, and what the better? It
is all a cheat; They have eaten the fruit of lies, fruit
that is but a lie, which looks fair, but is rotten with¬
in ; the works of darkness are unfruitful works,
Eph. v. 11. Rom. vi. 21. Even the gains of sin
yield the sinner no satisfaction. (6.) As our com¬
forts, so our confidences, in the service of sin will
certainly fail us; “ Thou didst trust in thy ways, in
the multitude of thy mighty men; thou hast staid
thyself upon creatures, thy own power and policy,
and therefore hast ventured to plough wickedness,
and thy hopes have deceived thee; come, therefore,
and seek the Lord, and thy hope in him shall not
deceive thee.”
V. They are threatened with utter destruction,
both for their carnal practices, and for their carnal
confidences, v. 14, 15. Therefore, because thou
hast sown wickedness, and trusted in thy own way,
a tumult shall arise among thy people; either by in¬
surrections at home, or invasions from abroad, either
of which will put a kingdom into confusion, and
make a noise, much more both together. 1. Their
cities and strong holds shall be a prey to the enemy;
The fortresses which they confided in, and in which
they had laid up their effects, shall be seized and
rifled, as Shalman spoiled Beth-arbel in the day of
battle. This refers to some event that had lately
happened, not elsewhere recorded; and, probably,
Shalman is the same with Shalmaneser king of As¬
syria, who had lately put some town, or castle, or
house, ( Beth-arbel is the house of Arbel,) under
military execution ; which perhaps he used with
severity in the beginning of his conquests, to terrify
other garrisons into a speedy surrender at the first
summons; God tells them that thus Samaria should
be spoiled. 2. The inhabitants shall be put to the
sword, as it was at Beth-arbel, when it was taken,
the mother was dashed in pieces upon her children ,
that is, they were both dashed in pieces together by
the fury of the soldiers. See what cruel work war
makes. Jusque datum sceleri — Wickedness has free
course. It is strange that any of the human race
could be so inhuman; but see what conies of sin.
Homo homini lupus — Man is a wolf to man; and
then, Homo homini agnus — Man is a lamb to man.
3. Even royal blood shall be mingled with common
gore; In a morning shall the king of Israel utterly
be cut off, v. 15. Hoshea was the last king of Is¬
rael; in him the whole kingdom was cut off, and
came to a period; it may refer either to him, or to
some of his predecessors, that were cut off by treach¬
ery. It shall be done in a morning, in a very little
time, as suddenly as the dawning of the morning.
Or, at the time appointed, for so the morning comes,
punctually at its time. Or, in the morning, when
they think the night of calamity is over, and expect
a returning day, then shall all their hopes be dashed,
by the sudden cutting off of their king, v. 7. Kings,
though gods to us, are men to God, and shall die
like men. And ( lastly ) what does all this desola¬
tion owe its rise to? What is the spring of this
bloodshed? He tells us; ( v . 15.) So shall Bethel do
unto you. Bethel was the place where one of the
calves was; Gilgal, where all their wickedness is
said to have been, was hard by; there was their
great wickedness, the evil of their evil , (so the word
is,) the sum and quintessence of their sin; and that
was it that did this to them, that made all this havock,
for that was it that provoked God to bring it upon
them. He does not say, “ So shall the king of As¬
syria do to you;” but, “ So shall Bethel do to you.”
Note, Whatever mischief is done to us, it is sin that
does it. Are the fortresses spoiled? Are the wo¬
men and children murdered? Is the king cut off? It
is sin that does all this. It is sin that ruins soul,
body, estate, all; So shall Bethel do unto you. It
is thy own wickedness that corrects thee, and thy
backstidings that reprove thee.
CHAP. XI
In this chapter we have, I. The great goodness of God to¬
ward his people Israel, and the great things he had done
for them, v. 1, 3, 4. II. Their ungrateful conduct to¬
ward him, notwithstanding his favours toward them, v.
2. .4, 7, 12. III. Threatenings of wrath against them
for their ingratitude and treachery, v. 5, 6. IV. Mercy
remembered in the midst of wrath, v. 8, 9. V. Promises
of what God would yet do for them, v. 10, 11. VI. An
honourable character given of Judah, v. 12.
1. ^)S7’HEN Israel was a child, then I
v v loved him, and called my son out
of Egypt. 2. As they called them, so they
went from them : they sacrificed unto Baa¬
lim, and burned incense to graven images.
3. I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them
by their arms; but they knew not that I
healed them. 4. I drew them with cords
of a man, with bands of love ; and I was to
them as they that take off the yoke on their
jaws, and I laid meat unto them. 5. Ho
shall not return into the land of Egypt, but
the Assyrian shall be his king, because they
refused to return. G. And the sword shall
abide on his cities, and shall consume his
branches, and devour them, because of theii
own counsels. 7. And my people are bent
92.3
HOSEA, XI.
to backsliding from me : though they called
them to the Most High, none at all would
exalt him.
Here we find,
I. God very gracious to Israel. They were a
people for whom he had done more than for any
people under heaven, and to whom he had given
more; which they are here, I will not say ufibraid-
ed with, (for God gives, and upbraids not,) but put
in mind of, as an aggravation of their sin, and an
encouragement to repentance.
1. He had a kindness for them when they were
young; (n. 1.) When Israel was a child, then I
loved him; when they first began to multiply into a
n ition in Egypt, God then set his love ufion them,
and chose them because he loved them, because he
would love them, Deut. vii. 7, 8. When they were
weak and helpless as children, foolish and froward
as children, when they were outcasts, and children
exposed, then God loved them; he pitied them, and
testified his good will to them, he bore them as the
nurse does the sucking child, nourished them, and
suffered their manners. Note, Those that are grown
up, nay, those that are grown old, ought often to re¬
flect upon the goodness of God to them in their
childhood.
2. He delivered them out of the house of bond¬
age; I called my son out of Egyfit, because a son,
because a beloved son ; when God demanded Is¬
rael's discharge from Pharaoh, he called them his
son. His first-born. Note, Those whom God loves
he calls out of the bondage of sin and Satan into the
glorious liberty of his children. These words are
slid to have been fulfilled in Christ, when, upon
the death of Herod, he and his parents were called
out of Egyfit, (Matth. ii. 15.) so that the words
have a double aspect, speaking historically of the
calling of Israel out of Egypt, and / irofihetically of
the bringing of Christ thence; and the former was
a type of the latter, and a pledge and earnest of the
many and great favours God had in reserve for that
people, especially the sending of his Son into the
world, and the bringing him again into the land of
Israel, when they had unkindly driven him out, and
he might justly never have returned. The calling
of Christ out of Egypt was a figure of the calling
of all that are his, through him, out of spiritual
slavery.
3. He gave them a good education, took care of
them, took pains with them, not only as a father or
tutor, but, such is the condescension of divine grace,
as a mother, or nurse; (y. 3.) I taught Efihraim
also to go, as a child in leading-strings is taught.
When they were in the wilderness, God led them
by the pillar of cloud and fire, showed them the
way in which they should go, and bore them up,
taking them by the arms; he taught them to go in
the way of his commandments, by the institutions
of the ceremonial law, which were as tutors and
governors to that people under age. He took them
by the arms, to guide them, that they might not
stray, and to hold them up, that they might not
stumble and fall. God’s spiritual Israel are thus
supported; Thou hast holden me by my right hand,
Ps. Ixxiii. 23.
4. When any thing was amiss with them, or they
w re ever so little out of order, he was their Physi¬
cian; “I healed them; I not only took a tender care
of them, a friend may do that, but wrought an ef¬
fectual cure, it is a God only that can do that; lam
the Lord that healeth thee, (Exod. xv. 26.) that re-
dresseth all thy grievances.”
5. He brought them into his service by mild and
gentle methods; [y. 4. ) / drew them with cords of
a man, with bands of love. Note, It is God’s work
to draw poor souls to himself; and none can come to
him except he draw them, John vi. 44. He draws.
(1.) With the cords cf a man, with such cords as
men draw with ’that have a principle of humanity;
or, such cords as men are drawn with; he dealt with
them as men, in an equitable, rational way, in an
easy, gentle way, with the cords of Adam. He dealt
with them as with Adam in innocency, bringing
them at once into a paradise, and into covenant witli
himself. (2.) With bands of love, or cart-rofies of
love ; this word signifies stronger cords than the
former. He did not drive them by force into his
service, whether they would or no, nor rule them
with rigour, or detain them by violence, but his at
tractives were all loving and endearing, all sweet
and gentle, that he might overcome them with kind¬
ness. Moses, whom he made their guide, was the
meekest man in the world. Kindnesses among men
we commonly call obligations, or bonds; bonds of
love. Thus God draws with the savour of his good
ointments, (Cant. i. 4.) draws with loving-kindness,
Jer. xxxi. 3. Thus God deals with us, and we must
deal in like manner with those that are under our
instruction and government, deal rationally and
mildly with them.
6. He eased them of the burthens they had been
long groaning under; I was to them as they that take
off the yoke on their jaws, alluding to the care of
the good husbandman, who is merciful to his beast,
and will not tire him with hard and constant labour.
Probably, in those times, the yoke on the neck of
the oxen was fastened with some bridle, or head
stall, over the jaws, which muzzled the mouth of
the ox. Israel in Egypt were thus restrained from
the enjoyments of their comforts, and constrained
to hard labour; but God eased them, removed their
shoulder from the burthen, Ps. lxxxi. 6. Note,
Liberty is a great mercy, especially out of bondage.
7. He supplied them with food convenient; in
Egypt they fared hard, but when God brought them
out, he laid meat unto them, as the husbandman,
when he has unyoked his cattle, fodders them. God
rained manna about their camp, bread from hea¬
ven, angels’ food; other creatures seek their meat,
but God laid meat to his own people, as we do to
our children ; was himself their Caterer and Carver;
prevented them with the blessings of goodness.
II. Here is Israel very ungrateful to God.
1. They were deaf and disobedient to his voice;
he spake to them by his messengers, Moses, and his
other prophets, called them from their sins, called
them to himself, to their work and duty; but as they
called them, so they went from them; they rebelled
in those particular instances wherein they were ad¬
monished; the more pressing and importunate the
prophets were with them, to persuade them to that
which was good, the more refractory they were,
and the more resolute in their evil ways; disobeying
for disobedience sake. This foolishness is bound in
the hearts of children, who, as soon as they are
taught to go, will go from those that call them.
2. They were fond of idols, and worshipped them;
They sacrificed to Baalim, first one Baal, and then
another, and burnt incense to graven images, though
they were called to by the prophets of the Lord
again and again not to do this abominable thing
which he hated. Idolatry was the sin which, from
the beginning, and all along, had most easily beset
them.
3. They were regardless of God, and of his fa¬
vours to them; They knew not that I healed them.
They looked only at Moses and Aaron, the instru¬
ments of their relief, and, when any thing was amiss,
quarrelled with them, but looked not through them
to God who employed them. Or, When God cor¬
rected them, and kept them under a severe disci
pline, thev understood not that it was for their good,
and that God thereby healed them; and it was ne
924 HOSt
cessarv for the perfecting of their cure, else they
would have been better reconciled to the methods
God took. Note, Ignorance is at the bottom of in¬
gratitude, ch. ii. 8.
4. They were strongly inclined to apostacy. This
is the blackest article in the charge; (i>. 7.) My
people are bent to backsliding from me. Every
word here is aggravating. (1.) They backslide.
There is no hold of them, no steadfastness in them;
they seem to come forward towEyd God, but imme¬
diately they slide back again, and are as a deceitful
bow. (2.) They backslide from me, from God,
the chief Good, the Fountain of life and living wa¬
ters, from their God, their Owner, Ruler, and
Benefactor, from God who never turned from them,
nor was as a wilderness to them. (3.) They are
bent to backslide; they are ready to sin, there is in
their natures a propensity to that which is evil; at
the best, they hang in sus/iense between God and
the world, so that a little thing serves to draw them
the wrong way ; they are forward to close with
every temptation. It also intimates that they are
resolute in sin; their hearts are fully set in them to
do evil; the bias is strong that way; and they per¬
sist in their backslidings, whatever is said or done
to stop them; and yet, (4.) “They are, in profes¬
sion, my people; They are called by my name, and
profess relation to me; they are mine whom I have
done much for, and expect much from, whom I
have nourished, and brought ufi as children, and
yet they backslide from me. ” Note, In our repent¬
ance, we ought to lament not only our backslidings,
but our bent to backslide, not only our actual trans¬
gressions, but our original corruption; the sin that
dwells in us, the carnal mind.
5. They were strangely averse to repentance and
reformation. Here are two expressions for that,
(1.) They refused to return, v. 5. So much were
they bent to backslide, that though they could not
but find, upon trial, the folly of their backslidings,
and that when they forsook God, they changed for
the worse, yet they went on frowardly; I have loved
strangers, and after them I will go. They were
commanded to return, were courted and entreated
to return, were promised that if they would, they
should bt kindly received; but they refused. (2.)
Though they called them to the Most High; God’s
prophets and ministers called them to return to the
God from whom they had revolted, to the Most
High God, from whom they had sunk into this
wretched degeneracy; they called them from the
worship of the idols, which were so much below
them, and the worship of whom was therefore their
disparagement, to the true God, who was so much
above them, and the worship of whom was there¬
fore their preferment; they called them from this
earth to high and heavenly things; but they called
in vain, none at all would exalt him. Though he
be the Most High God, they would not acknow¬
ledge him to be so; would do nothing to honour him,
nor give him the glory due to his name. Or, They
would not exalt themselves, would not rise out of
that state of apostacy and misery into which they
had precipitated themselves; but there they con¬
tentedly lay still, would not lift up their heads, nor
lift up their souls. Note, God’s faithful ministers
have taken a great deal of pains, to no purpose,
with backsliding children, have called them to the
Most High; but none would stir, none at all would
exalt him.
III. Here is God very angry, and justly so, with
Israel; see what are the tokens of God’s displeasure,
with which they are here threatened.
1. God, who brought them out of Egypt, to take
them for a people to himself, since they would not
be faithful to him, shall .bring them into a worse
condition than he at first found them in; (y. 5 ) He
A, XI.
shall not return into the land of Egypt, though that
was a house of bondage grievous enough; but lit
shall go into a harder service, for the Assyrian shah
be his king, who will use them worse than evei
Pharaoh did. They shall not return into Egypt ,
which lies near, where they may hear often from
their own country, and whence they may hope
shortly to return to it again; but they shall be car
ried into Assyria, which lies much more remote,
and where they shall be cut off from all corres¬
pondence with their own land, and from all hopes
of returning to it, and justly, because they refused
to return. Note, Those that will not return to the
duties they have left, cannot expect to return to the
comforts they have lost.
2. God, who gave them Canaan, that good land,
and a very safe and comfortable settlement in it,
shall bring his judgments upon them there, which
shall make their habitation unsafe and uncomforta¬
ble; (t>. 6.) The sword shall come upon him, the
sword of war, the sword of a foreign enemy, pre¬
vailing against them, and triumphing over them.
(1. ) Thisjudgment shall spread far; the sword shall
fasten upon his cities, those nests of people and store¬
houses of wealth; it shall likewise reach to his
branches, the country-villages, (so some,) the citi¬
zens themselves, (so others,) or, the bars (so the
word signifies) and gates of their city, or, all the
branches of their revenue and wealth, or, their
children, the branches of their families. (2.) It
shall last long; It shall abide on their cities. David
thought three months flying before his enemies, was
the only judgment of the three that was to be ex¬
cepted against; but this sword here shall abide
much longer than so on the cities of Israel. They
continued their rebellions against God, and there¬
fore God continued his judgments on them. (3. ) It
shall make a full end; it shall consume his branches,
and devour them, and lay all waste, and this be¬
cause of their own counsels, because they w'ould
have their own way, both in worship and conversa¬
tion, would do as they listed, and pursue their own
projects, which God therefore, in away of righteous
judgment, gave them up to. Note, The confusion
of sinners is owing to their contrivance. God’s
counsels would have saved them, but their own
counsels ruined them.
8. How shall I give thee up, Ephraim ?
how shall 1 deliver thee, Israel ? how shall
I make thee as Admah? how shall I set
thee as Zeboim? My heart is turned
within me, my repentings are kindled to¬
gether. 9. I will not execute the fierce¬
ness of mine anger, I will not return to de¬
stroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man;
the Holy One in the midst of thee ; and 1
will not enter into the city. 10. They shall
walk after the Lord ; he shall roar like a
lion : when he shall roar, then the children
shall tremble from the west. 1 1. They shall
tremble as a bird out of Egypt, and as a
dove out of the land of Assyria : and I will
place them in their houses, saith the Lord.
12. Ephraim compasseth me about with
lies, and the house of Israel with deceit:
but Judah yet ruleth with God, and is faith¬
ful with the saints.
In these verses we have,
I. God’s wonderful backwardness to destroy
Israel; (v. 8, 9.) How shall I give thee up? Here
925
HOSEA, XI.
observe, 1. God’s gracious debate within himself
concerning Israel’s case, a debate between justice
and mercy, in which victory plainly inclines to
mercy’s side. Be astonished, O heavens, at this,
and wonder, O earth, at the glory of God’s good¬
ness! Not that there are any such straggles in God
as there are in us, or that he is ever fluctuating or
unresolved; no, he is in one mind, and knows it; but
they are expressions after the manner of men, de¬
signed to show what severity the sin of Israel had
deserved, and yet how divine grace would be glori¬
fied in sparing them notwithstanding. The con¬
nexion of this with what goes before is very sur¬
prising; it was said of Israel, ( v . 7. ) that they were
bent to backslide from God, that though they were
called to him, yet they would not exalt him; upon
which, one would think, it should have followed,
“ Now I am determined to destroy them, and never
show them mercy more;” no, such is the sovereignty
of mercy, such the freeness, the fulness, of divine
grace, that it follows immediately, How shall I give
thee up? See here, (1.) The proposals that justice
m ikes concerning Israel, the suggestion of which is
here implied; Let Ephraim be given up, as an in¬
corrigible son is given up to be disinherited, as an
incurable patient is given over by his physician.
Let him be given up to ruin, let Israel be delivered
into the enemy’s hand, as a lamb to the lion, to be
torn in pieces; let them be made as Admah, and
set as Zeboim, the two cities that with Sodom and
Gomorrah were destroyed by fire and brimstone
rained from heaven upon them; let them be utterly
and irreparably rained, and be made as like these
cities in desolation as they have been in sin. Let
that curse which is written in the law, be executed
upon them, that the whole land shall be brimstone
and salt, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomor¬
rah, Admah and Zeboim, Deut. xxix. 23. Ephraim
and Israel deserve to be thus abandoned, and God
does them no wrong if he deal thus with them. (2.)
The opposition that mercy makes to these pro¬
posals; How shall I do it? As the tender father
reasons with himself, “ How can I cast off my un¬
toward son? For he is my son, though he be unto¬
ward; how can I find in my heart to do it?” Thus,
"‘Ephraim has been a dear son, a pleasant child;
How can I do it ? He is ripe for ruin, judgments
stand ready to seize him, there wants nothing but
giving him up, but I cannot do it. They have been
a people near unto me, there are yet some good
among them, theirs are the children of the cove¬
nant, if they be ruined, the enemy will triumph; it
may be, they will yet repent and reform, and there¬
fore how can I do it?” Note, The God of heaven
is slow to anger, and is especially loath to abandon
a people to utter rain, that has been in special rela¬
tion to him. See how mercy works upon the men¬
tion of those severe proceedings; My heart is turned
within me; as we say, Our heart fails us, when we
come to do a thing that is against the grain with us.
God speaks as if he were conscious to himself of a
strange striving of affections in compassion to Israel,
as Lam. i. 20. My bowels are troubled, my heart
is turned within me. As it follows here. My re-
pentings are kindled together; his bowels yearned
toward them, and his soul was grieved for their sin
and misery, Judg. x. 16. Compare Jer. xxxi. 20.
Since I spake against him, my bowels are troubled
for him. When God was to give up his Son to be
a Sacrifice for sin, and a Saviour for sinners, he did
not say, How shall I give him up? No, he spared
not his own Son; it pleased the Lord to bruise him;
and therefore God spared not him, that he might
spare us: but this is only the language of the day of
his patience, but when men have sinned that away,
and the great day of his wrath comes, then no diffi-
' ulty is made of it, nay, Twill laugh a! their calamity.
2. His gracious determination of this debate. Af¬
ter a long contest, mercy in the issue rejoices against
judgment, has the last word, and carries the day,
v. 9. It is decreed that the reprieve shall be
lengthened out yet longer, and I will not now exe¬
cute the fierceness of mine anger though 1 am angry;
though they shall not go altogether unpunished, yet
' he will mitigate their sentence, and abate the rigour
of it. He will show himself to be justly angry, but
not implacably so; .they shall be corrected, but not
consumed. 1 will not return to destroy Kphraim;
the judgments that have been inflicted shall not be
repeated, shall not go so dee]) as they have de¬
served. He will not return to destroy, as soldiers,
when they have pillaged a town once, return a se¬
cond time, to take more, as when what the palmer-
worm has left, the locust has eaten. It is added in
the close of the verse, I will not enter into the city,
into Sam ria, or any other of their cities; 1 will not
I enter into them as an enemy, utterly to destroy
them, and lay them waste, as Admah and Zeboim
were.
3. The ground and reason of this determination;
For I am God and not man, the Holy One of Israel.
To encourage them to hope that they shall find
mercy, consider, (1.) What he is in himself; he is
God, and not man, as in* other things, so in pardon¬
ing sin, and sparing sinners; if they had offended a
man like themselves, he would not, he could not,
have borne it, his passion would have overpowered
his compassion, and he would have executed the
fierceness of his anger; but lam God, and not man;
he is Lord of his anger, whereas men’s anger com¬
monly lords it over them. If an earthly prince
were in such a strait between justice and mercy, he
would be at a loss how to compromise the matter
between them; but he who is God, and not man,
knows how to find out an expedient to secure the
honour of his justice, and yet advance the honour of
his mercy. Man’s compassions are nothing in com¬
parison with the tender mercies of our God, whose
thoughts and ways, in receiving returning sinners,
are as much above ours as heaven is above the
earth, Isa. lv. 9. Note, It is a great encourage¬
ment to our hope in God’s mercies, to remember
that he is God, and not man. He is the Holy One.
One would think this were a reason why he should
reject such a provoking people; no, God knows
how to spare and pardon poor sinners, not only
without any reproach to his holiness, but very much
to the honour of it; as he is faithful and just to for¬
give us our sins, and therein declares his righteous¬
ness, now Christ has purchased the pardon, and he
has promised it. (2.) What he is to them; he is
the Holy One in the midst of thee; his holiness is en¬
gaged for the good of his church, and even in this
corrupt, degenerate land and age, there were some
that gave thanks at the remembrance of his holi¬
ness, and he required of them all to be holy as he is.
Lev. xix. 2. As long as we have the Holy One in
the midst of us, we are safe and well; but wo to us
when he leaves us! Note, Those who submit to
the influence, may take the comfort, of God’s
holiness.
II. Here is his wonderful forwardness to do good
for Israel; which appears in this, that he will
qualify them to receive the good he designs fot
them; (n. 10, 11.) They shall walk after the Lord.
This respects the same favour with that, (ch. iii. 5.)
They shall return, and seek the Lord their God;
it is spoken of the ten tribes, and had its accom
plishment, in part, in the return of some of them,
with those of the two tribes in Ezra’s time; but it
had its more full accomplishment in God’s spiritual
Israel, the gospel-church, brought together and in¬
corporated by the gospel of Christ. The ancient
Jews referred it to the time of the Messiah; the
926
HOSE A, XII.
learnt cl Dr. Pocock looks upon it as a prophecy of
Christ’s coming to preach the gospel to the dis¬
persed remnant of Israel, the children of God that
were scattered abroad. And then observe,
1. How they were to be called and brought to¬
gether; The Lord shall roar like a lion. The word
of the Lord (so says the Chaldee) shall be as a lion
that roars. Christ is called, the Lion of the tribe
of Judah , and his gospel, in the beginning of it, was
the voice of one crying in the wilderness. When
Christ cried with a loud voice, it was as when a
lion roared. Rev. x. 3. The voice of the gospel
was heard far, as the roaring of a lion, and it was a
mighty voice. See Joel iii. 16.
2. What impression this call should make upon
them, such an impression as the roaring of a lion
makes upon all the beasts of the forest; When he
shall roar, then the children shall tremble; see
Amos iii. 8. The lion has roared, the Lord God
has s/ioken; and then who will not fear? When
they whose hearts the gospel reached, trembled,
and were astonished, and cried out, What shall we
do? When they were by it put upon working out
their salvation, and worshipping God with fear and
trembling, then this promise was fulfilled. The
children shall tremble from the west. The dispersed
Jews were carried eastward, to Assyria and Baby¬
lon, and those that returned, came from the east;
therefore this seems to have reference to the calling
of the Gentiles that lay westward from Canaan, for
that way especially the gospel spread. They shall
tremble; they shall mov e and come with trembling,
with care and haste, from the west, from the na¬
tions that lay that way, to the mountain of the Lord,
(Isa. ii. 3.) to the gospel-Jerusalem, upon hearing
the alarm of the gospel. The apostle speaks of
mighty signs and wonders that were wrought by
tlie preaching of the gospel from Jerusalem round
about to Illyricum, Rom. xv. 19. Then the chil¬
dren trembled from the west. And whereas Israel
after the flesh was dispersed in Egypt and Assyria,
it is promised that they shall be effectually sum¬
moned from thence; (v. 11.) They shall tremble;
they shall come trembling, and with all haste, as a
bird upon the wing out oj Egypt, and as a dove out
of the land of Assyria; a dove is noted for swift and
constant flight, especially when she flies to her
windows, which the flocking of Jews and Gentiles
to the church is here compared to, as it is, Isa. lx.
8. Wherever they are, that belong to the election
of grace, east, west, north, or south, they shall hear
the joyful sound, and be wrought upon by it; they
of Egypt and Assyria shall come together, those
that lay most remote from each other shall meet in
Christ, and be incorporated in the church. Of the
uniting of Egypt and Assyria, it was prophesied,
Isa. xix. 23.
3. What effect these impressions should have
upon them; being moved with fear, they shall flee
to the ark; They shall walk after the Lord; after
the service of the Lord; (so the Chaldee;) they shall
take the Lord Christ for their leader and Com¬
mander, they shall list themselves under him as the
Captain of their salvation, and give up themselves
to the direction of the Spirit as their Guide by the
word; they shall leave all to follow Christ, as be¬
comes cliscip/es. Note, Our holy trembling at the
word of Christ will draw us to him, not drive us
from him. When he roars like a lion, the slaves
tremble, and flee from him, the children tremble,
and flee to him.
4. What entertainment they shall meet with at
their return; (v. 11.) I will place them in their
houses; all those that come at the gospel-call, shall
have a place and a name in the gospel-church, in
the particular churches which are their houses, to
which they pertain; they shall dwell in God, and
be at home in him; both easy and safe, as a man in
his own house. They shall have mansions, for there
are many in our Father’s house, in his tabern.xle
on earth, and his temple in heaven, in everlusting
habitations, which may be called their houses, for
they are the lot they shall stand in at the end of the
days.
ill. Here is a sad complaint of the treachery of
Ephraim and Israel, which may be an intimation
that it is not Israel after the flesh, but the spiritual
Israel, to whotu the foregoing promises belong, for
as for this Ephraim, this Israel, they com/iass God
about with lies and deceit; all their services' of him,
when they pretended to compass his altar, were
feigned and hypocritical; when they surrounded
him with their prayers and praises, every one
having a petition to present to him, they lied to him
with their mouth, and flattered him with their
tongue, their pretensions were so fair, and yet their
intentions so foul, that they would, if possible, have
imposed upon God himself. Their professions and
promises were all a cheat, and yet with these they
thought to compass God about, to enclose him as it
were, to keep him among them, and prevent his
leaving them.
IV. Here is a pleasant commendation of the in¬
tegrity of the two tribes, which they vet held fast,
and which comes in as an aggravation of the per¬
fidiousness of the ten tribes, and a reason why God
had that mercy in store for Judah, which he had
not for Israel; ( ch . i. 6, 7.) for Judah yet rules with
God, and is faithful with the saints, or with tht
Most Holy. 1. Judah rules with God; he serves
God, and the service of God is not only true liberty
and freedom, but it is dignity and dominion. Judah
rules; the princes and governors of Judah rule with
God, they use their power for him, for his honour,
and the support of his interest; those rule with
God, that rule in the fear of God; (2 Sam. xxiii. 3.)
and it is their honour to do so, and their praise shall
be of God, as Judah’s here is. Judah is Israel — a
prince with God. 2. He is faithful with the Holy
God, keeps close to his worship, and to his saints —
to his priests, to his people; faithful with the saints
— with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whose steps
they faithfully tread in. They walk in the way of
good men', and those that do so, rule with Goa,
they have a mighty interest in Heaven. Judah yet
does thus; which intimates that the lime would
come when Judah also would revolt and degenerate.
Note, When we see how many there are that com¬
pass God about with lies and deceit, it may be a
comfort to us to think that God has his remnant that
cleave to him with purpose of heart, and are faith¬
ful to his saints, and for those who are thus faithful
unto death, is reserved a crown of life, when hypo
crites and all liars shall have their portion without.
CHAP. XII.
In this chapter, we have, I. A high charge drawn up both
against Israel and Judah for their sins, which were the
ground of God’s controversy with them, v. 1, 2. Parti¬
cularly the sin of fraud and injustice, which Ephraim is
charged with. (v. 7.) and justifies himself in, v. 8. And
the sin of idolatry, (v. 11.) by which God is provoked to
contend with them, v. 14. II. The aggravations of the
sins they are charged with, taken from the honour God
put upon their father Jacob; (v. 3.. 5.) the advancement
of them into a people from low and mean beginnings;
(v. 12, 13.) and the provision he had made them of helps
for their souls by the prophets he sent them, v. 10. III.
A call to the unconverted to turn to God, v. 6. IV. An
intimation of mercy that God had in store for them, v. 9.
1. BA PHRAIM feedeth on wind, and fol
loweth after the east wind: he daily
increaseth lies and desolation; and they do
make a covenant with the Assyrians, and
927
HOSE A, XII.
oil is carried into Egypt. 2. The Lord
ha tli also a controversy with Judah, and
will punish Jacob according to his ways;i
according to his doings will he recompense I
him. 3. He took his brother by the heel in
the womb, and by his strength he had power
with God: 4. Yea, he had power over the
angel, and prevailed; he wept and made
supplication unto him: he found him in
Beth-el, and there he spake with us; 5.
Even the Lord God of hosts; The Lord
is his memorial. 6. Therefore turn thou to
thy God: keep mercy and judgment, and
wait on thy God continually.
In these verses,
I. Ephraim is convicted of folly, in staying him¬
self upon Egypt and Assyria, when he was in straits;
(u. 1.) Ephraim feeds on wind, feeds himself with
vain hopes of assistance from man, when he is at
variance with God; and when he meets with dis¬
appointments, he still pursues the same game, and
greedily pants and follows after the east wind,
which he cannot catch hold of; nor, if he could,
would it be nourishing, nay, it would be noocious;
we say of the wind in the eact, It is good neither
for man nor beast. It was said, ( ch . viii. 7.) He
sotus the wind; and as he sows, so he rea/is, the
whirlwind; and as he reaps, so he feeds on, the
wind, the east wind. Note, Those that make crea¬
tures their confidence, make fools of themselves,
and take a great deal of pains to put a cheat upon
their own souls, and to prepare vexation for them¬
selves; He daily increaseth lies, multiplies his cor¬
respondences and leagues with his neighbours,
which will all prove deceitful to him; nay, they
will prove desolation to him; those very nations that
he makes his refuge, will prove his ruin. Those
that stay themselves upon lies, will be still co\eting
to increase them, that they may build their hopes
firm upon them; as if many lies twisted together
would make one truth, or many broken reeds and
rotten supports one sound one; which is a great de¬
lusion, and will prove to them a great desolation;
for they that observe lying vanities, the more they
increase them, the more disappointments they pre¬
pare for themselves, and the further they run from
their own mercies. The men of Ephraim did so
when they thought to secure the Assyrians in their
interests by a solemn league, signed, sealed, and
sworn to; they make a covenant with the Assyrians,
but they will find there is no hold of them; that
potent prince will be a slave to his word no longer
than he pleases. They thought to secure the Egyp¬
tians for their confederates by a rich firesent of the
commodities of their country, not only to purchase
their favour, but to show that their friendship was
worth having; Oil is carried into Egypt. But the
Egyptians, when they had got the bribe, dropped
the cause, and Efihraim was never the better for
them. Oleum fierdidit et operam — He has lost both
his money and his labour. This was feeding on
wind; this was increasing lies and desolation.
II. Judah is contended with too, and Jacob, which
includes both Ephraim and Judah; ( v . 2.) The
Lord has also a controversy with Judah; for,
though he had awhile ago ruled with God, and
been faithful with the saints, yet now he begins to
degenerate; or, though in keeping close to the house
of David, and the house of Aaron, and in them to
the covenants of royalty and priesthood, they were
so far in the right, in the former they ruled with
God, and in the latter were faithful to the saints,
yet, upon other accounts, God had a controversy
with them, and wim’d punish them. Note, Men’s
being in the right in some things, in the main things,
shali not exempt them from correction, and there¬
fore should not exempt them from reproof, for those
things wherein they are in the wrong. There were
those of tile seven churches of Asia, which Christ
approved of and commended, and yet he adds,
A'everthe/ess I have something against thee. So
here; though Jacob is a people near to God, yet God
will punish him according to the evil ways he was
found in, and the evil doings he was found guilty
of; for God sees sin even in his own people, and will
reckon with them for it.
III. Both Ephraim and Judah are put in mind ot
their father Jacob, whose seed they were, and
whose name they bore, and it was their honour;
they are put in mind of the extraordinary things he
did, and God did for him; that they might be the
more ashamed of themselves for degenerating from
so illustrious a progenitor, and staining the lustre of
so great a name, and yet that they might be engaged
and encouraged to return to God, the God of their
father Jacob, in hopes for his sake to find favour
with him. He had called this people Jacob, (v. 2.)
threatening to punish them; but how shall I give
them up? How shall that dear name be forgotten?
Three glorious things concerning Jacob the per¬
son, Jacob the people are here put in mind of; but
by brief hints only, for it is presumed that they
knew the story.
1. His struggling with Esau in the womb. There
he took his brother by the heel, v. 3. We have the
story, Gen. xxv. 26. It was an early act of bravery,
and an effort for the best precedency, a pious ambi¬
tion of that birthright in the covenant, which Esau
is justly branded as profane for despising. But his
degenerate seed, by mingling themselves with the
nations, and making leagues with them, profaned
that crown, and laid that honour in the dust, which
he so gloriously put in for. Then it was that the
dominion was given him; The elder shall serve the
younger ; then he was owned of God as his beloved;
Jacoo have I loved, but Esau have I hated; but
they had by their sin forfeited both the love of God,
and dominion over their neighbours.
2. His wrestling with the angel; “Remember
how your father Jacob had power with God by his
own strength, the strength he had by the gift of
God, who pleaded not against him by his great
power, but put strength into him,” Job xxiii. 6.
The angel he wrestled with, is called God, and
therefore is supposed to be the Son of God, the
Angel of the Covenant. “ God was both a Com¬
batant with Jacob, and an Assistant of him, show¬
ing, in the latter regard, greater strength than in
the former, fighting, as it were, against him with
his left hand, and for him with his right, and to
that putting greater force. ” So Dr. Pocock. The
providence of God fought against him, when he
met with one danger after another, in his return
homeward ; but the grace of God enabled liim to go
on cheerfully in his way, and when his faith acted
upon the divine promise that was for him, prevailed
above his fears that arose from the divine provi¬
dences that were against him, then by his strength
he had power with God. But it refers especially to
his prayer for deliverance from Esau, and for a
blessing; He had power over the angel, and pre¬
vailed, for he wept, and made supplication. Here
was a mixture of the greatest courage and the
greatest tenderness; Jacob wrestling like a cham¬
pion, and yet weeping like a child. Note, Prayers
and tears are the weapons with which the saints
have obtained the most glorious victories. Thus
Jacob convinced Israel, a prince with God; his
| posterity was called Israel, but they were unworthy
028
HOSEA, XII.
the name, for they had forfeited and lost their com¬
munion with God, and their interest in him, by re¬
volting from their duty to him.
3. His meeting with God at Bethel; God found
him in Bethel, and there he s/iake with us. God
found him the first time in Bethel, as he went to
Padan-aram, (Gen. xxviii. 10.) and a second time
after his return, Gen. xxxv. 9, &c. It is probable
that this refers to both; for in both God spake to
Jacob, and renewed the covenant with him, and the
prophet might very well say, There he spake with
us who are the seed of Jacob, for both times that
God spake with Jacob at Bethel, he spake with him
concerning his seed; (Gen. xxviii. 14.) Thy seed
shall be as the dust of the earth; and, (Gen. xxxv.
12.) This land will I give unto thy seed. Thus
God then covenanted with him, and his seed after
him. Now justly are they upbraided with this; for
in that very place which their father Jacob called
Bethel — the house of God, in remembrance of the
communion he there had with God, did they set up
one of the calves, and worship it; so thus they
turned that Bethel into a Beth-aven — a house of
iniquity. There God spake with them exceeding
great and precious promises, which they had de¬
spised and lost the benefit of.
Two inferences are here drawn from these stories
concerning Jacob, for instruction to his seed.
(1.) Here is a use of information; from what
passed between God and Jacob, we may learn that
Jehovah, the Lord God of hosts, is the God of Is¬
rael; he was the God of Jacob, and this is his me¬
morial throughout all the generations of the seed of
Jacob; ( v . 5.) the more shame for them who forgot
the memorial of their church, deserted the God of
their fathers, and exchanged a Lord of hosts for
Baalim. Note, Those only are accounted the peo¬
ple of God, that keep up a memorial of God, such
memorials of him as he himself has instituted, by
which he makes himself known, and will have us
to remember him. Here are two memorials of his,
by which he is distinguished from all others, and is
to be acknowledged and adored by us. [1.] The
former speaks his existence of himself. He is Je-
novah, much the same with I AM, the same that '
was, and is, and is to come , infinite, eternal, and
unchangeable. Jehovah is his memorial, his pecu¬
liar name. [2.] The latter speaks his dominion
over all; He is the God of hosts, that has all the
hosts of heaven and earth at his beck and command,
and makes what use he pleases of them. Jacob saw
Mahanaim, God’s two hosts, about the time that he
wrestled with the angel, (Gen. xxxii. 1, 2.) and so
learned to call God the God of hosts, and transmit¬
ted it to us as his memorial. God’s names, titles,
and attributes, are the memorials of him; there is
no need for images to be such. And that which
was a revelation of God to one, is his memorial to
many, to all generations.
(2.) Here is a use of exhortation; (v. 6.) “Is
this so, that Jacob thv father had this communion
with the Lord God of hosts, and is this still his me¬
morial?” [1.] Then let those that have gone astray
from God be converted to him; Therefore turn
thou to thy God. He that was the God of Jacob, is
tlie God of Israel, is thy God, from whom thou hast
unjustly and unkindly revolted; therefore turn thou
to him by repentance and faith, turn to him as
thine, to love him, obey him, and depend upon him.
[2.] Then let those that are converted to him, walk
with him in all holv conversation and godliness;
“Keep mercy and judgment, mercy in relieving and
succouring the poor and distressed, judgment in
rendering to all their due; be kind to all, do wrong
to none. Keep fiiety and judgment ,” (so it may be
read,) “live righteously and godly in this present
world ; be devout, and be honest. Do not only prac¬
tise these occasionally, but be careful and constant,
and conscientious, in the practice of them.” [3.]
Let those that walk with God, be encouraged to
live a life of dependence upon him; “ Wait on thy
God continually, with a believing expectation to
receive from him all the succours and supplies thou
standest in need of.” Those that live a life of con¬
formity to God, may live a life of confidence and
comfort in him, if it be not their own fault. Let our
eyes be ever toward the Lord, and let us preserve a
holy security and serenity of mind under the protec¬
tion of the divine power, and the influence of the
divine favour, looking, without anxiety, for a dubi¬
ous event, and by faith keeping our spirits sedate
and even; that is waiting on God as our God in
covenant, and this we must do continually.
7. He is a merchant, the balances of de¬
ceit are in his hand: he loveth to oppress.
8. And Ephraim said, Yet I am become
rich, I have found me out substance: in all
my labours they shall find none iniquity in
me that were sin. 9. And I, that am the
Lord thy God from the land of Egypt, will
yet make thee to dwell in tabernacles, as in
the days of the solemn feast. 10. I have
also spoken by the prophets, and I have
multiplied visions . and used similitudes, by
the ministry of the prophets. 1 1 . Is there
iniquity in Gilead? surely they are vanity:
they sacrifice bullocks in Gilgal; yea, their
altars are as heaps in the furrows of the
fields. 12. And Jacob fled into the country
of Syria, and Israel served for a wife, and
for a wife he kept sheep. 1 3. And by a
prophet the Lord brought Israel out of
Egypt, and by a prophet was he preserved.
14. Ephraim provoked him to anger most
bitterly: therefore shall he leave his blood
upon him, and his reproach shall his Lord
return unto him.
Here are intermixed, in these verses,
I. Reproofs for sin. When God is coming forth
to contend with a pecple, that he may demonstrate
his own righteousness, he will demonstrate their un¬
righteousness. Ephraim was called to turn to his
God and keep judgment; (v. 6.) now, to show that
he had need of that call, he is charged with turning
from his God by idolatry, and breaking the laws of
justice and judgment.
1. He is here charged with injustice against the
precepts of the second table, v. 7, 8. Where ob¬
serve,
(1.) What the sin is, wherewith he is charged;
He is a merchant. The margin reads it as a pro¬
per name, He is Canaan, or a Canaanite, unworthy
to be denominated from Jacob and Israel, and
worthy to be cast out with a curse from this good
land, as the Canaanites were. See Amos ix. 7. But
Canaan sometimes signifies a merchant, and there¬
fore most likely to do so here, where Ephraim is
charged with deceit in trade. Though God had
given his people a land flowing with milk and ho
ney, yet he did not forbid them to enrich themselves
by merchandise, and they succeeded the Canaanites
in that as well as in their husbandry; they sucked the
abundance of the seas, and the treasures hid in the
sand, Deut. xxxiii. 19. And if they had been fair
merchants, it had been no reproach at all to them,
but an honour and blessing; but he is such a mer¬
chant as the Canaanites were, who were henest
929
HOSEA, XII.
onlv with good looking to, and, if they could, cheat¬
ed all they dealt with. Ephraim does so; he de¬
ceives and o/i/iresses. Note, There is oppression by
fraud as well as oppression by force. It is not only
princes, lords, and masters, that oppress their sub¬
jects, tenants, and servants, but merchants and
traders are often guilty of oppressing those they deal
with, when they impose upon their ignorance, or
take advantage of their necessity, to make them
hard bargains, or are rigorous and severe in exact¬
ing their debts. Ephraim cheated, [1.] With a
great deal of art and cunning; The balances of de¬
ceit are in his hand; he uses balances, and delivers
his goods by weight and measure, as if he would be
very exact; but they are balances of deceits, false
weights and false measures, and thus, under colour
of doing right, he does the greatest wrong. Note,
God has his eye upon merchants and traders when
they are weighing their goods and paying their mo¬
ney, whether they do honestly or deceitfully; he
observes what balances they have in their hand,
and how they hold them; and though those they
deal with may not be aware of that slight of hand
with which they make them balances of deceit,
God sees it, and knows it. Trades by the suit of man
are made mysteries, but it is pity that by the sin of
man they should ever be made mysteries of iniquity.
[2.] With a great deal of pleasure and pride; He
loves to oppress. To opfiress is bad enough, but to
love it is much worse; his conscience does not check
and reprove him for it, as it ought to do; if it did,
though he committed the sin, he could not delight
in it; but his corruptions are so strong, and have so
triumphed over his convictions, that he not only
loves the gain of oppression, but he loves to oppress;
he sins for sinning sake, and takes a pleasure in out¬
witting and overreaching those that suspect him not.
(2. ) How he justifies himself in this sin, v. 8.
Wicked men will have something to say for them¬
selves now when they are told of their faults, some
frivolous turn-off or other, wherewith to evade the
convictions of the word. Ephraim stands indicted
for a common cheat; now see what he pleads to the
indictment; he does not deny the charge, or plead,
Not guilty, yet does not make a penitent confession
of it, and ask pardon, but insists upon his own justi¬
fication. Suppose it were so that he did use balances
of deceit, yet,
[1.] He pleads that he had got a good estate.
Let the prophet say what he pleased of his deceit,
of the sin of it, and the curse of God that attended
it, he could not be convinced there was any harm or
danger in it, for this he was sure of, that he had
thriven in it; “ Yet I am become rich , I have found
me out substance. Whatever you make of it, I have
made a good hand of it.” Note, Carnal hearts are
often confirmed in a good opinion of their evil ways
by their worldly prosperity and success in those
ways. But it is a great mistake; every werd in what
Ephraim says here, speaks his folly. First, It is ;
folly to call the riches of this world substance, for
they are things that are not, Prov. xxiii. 5. Second¬
ly, It is folly to think that we have them of our¬
selves, to say, as some read it, I have made myself
rich, what substance I have is owing purely to my
ingenuity and industry, I have found it, My might
and power of my hand have gotten me this wealth.
Thirdly, It is folly to think that what we have, is
for ourselves. I have found me out substance, as
if we had it for our own proper use and behoof,
whereas we hold in trust, only as his stewards.
Fourthly, It is folly to think that riches are things
to be gloried in, and to say with exultation, I am
become rich. Riches are not the honours of the
soul, are not peculiar to the best men, nor sure to
us; and therefore let not the rich man glory in his
• iches , Jam. i. 9, 10. Fifthly, It is folly to think
Vol. IV. — 6 B
that growing rich in a sinful way either does make
us innocent, or will make us safe, or make us easy,
in that way; for the prosperity of fools deceives and
destroys them. See Isa. xlvii. 10. Prov. i. 32.
[2.] He pleads that he had kept a good reputa¬
tion. It is common for sinners when they are justly
reproved by their ministers, to appeal to their
neighbours, and, because they know no ill of them,
or will say none, or think well of what the prophets
charge them with as bad, fly in the face of their re¬
provers; In all my labours (says Ephraim) they
shall find no iniquity in me, that were sin. Note,
Carnal hearts are apt to build a good opinion of
themselves upon the fair character they have among
their neighbours. Ephraim was very secure, for.
First, All his neighbours knew him to be diligent
in his business; they had an eye upon all his la¬
bours, and commended him for them; Men will
praise thee when thou doest well for thyself. Se¬
condly, None of them knew him to be deceitful in
his business. He acted so well, that nobody could
say to the contrary but that he played fair. For
either, 1. He concealed the fraud, so that none dis¬
covered it. Whatever iniquity there is, they shall
find none; as if no iniquity were displeasing to God,
and damning to the soul, but that which is open and
scandalous before men. What will it avail us that
men shall find no iniquity in us, when God finds a
great deal, and will bring every secret work, even
secret frauds, into judgment. Or, 2. He excuses
the fraud, so that none condemned it. They shall
find no iniquity in me, that were sin, nothing very
bad, nothing but what is very excusable, only some
venial sins, sins not worth speaking of, which they
think God will make nothing of, because they do
not. It is a fashionable iniquity, it is customary, it
is what every body does, it is pleasant, it is gainful,
and this, they think, is no iniquity that is sin, nobody
will think the worse of them for it; but God sees
not as man sees, he judges not as man judges.
2. He is here charged with idolatry against the
precepts of the first table; with that iniquity which
is in a special manner vanity, the making and
worshipping of images, which are vanities; (t>. 11.)
Surely they are vanity; they do not profit, but de¬
ceive. Now the prophet mentions two places noto¬
rious for idolatry. (1.) Gilead on the other side
Jordan, which had been branded for it before, {ch.
vi. 8.) Is there iniquity in Gilead ? It is a thing to
be wondered at, it is a thing to be sadly lamented.
What! iniquity in Gilead! idolatry there? Gilead
was a fruitful, pleasant country; (pleasant to a pro¬
verb, Jer. xxii. 6.) and does it so ill requite the
Lord? It was a frontier country, and lay much ex¬
posed to the insults of enemies, and therefore stood
in special need of the divine protection; what! and
yet by iniquity throw itself out of that protection?
Is there iniquity in Gilead? Yea, (2.) And in Gilgal
too; there they sacrifice bullocks, ( ch . ix. 15.)
and there their altars which they have set up,
either to strange gods, in opposition to God himself,
or to the God of Israel, in opposition to his own ap¬
pointed altar, are as thick as heaps in the furrows
of the field that is to be sown, ch. viii. 11. Is there
iniquity in Gilead only? So some. Is it only in those
remote parts of the nation, that people are so super¬
stitious, where they border upon other nations? No,
they are as bad at Gilgal. In Gilead God protected
Jacob their father (of whom he had been speaking)
from the rage of Laban; and will you there commit
iniquity?
II. Here are threatenings of wrath for sin. Some
make that to be so; (x>. 9.) I will make thee to dwell
in tabernacles as in the days of the appointed time;
I will bring thee into such a condition as Israel was
in, when they dwelt in tents, and wandered for forty
years; that was the time appointed-in the wilder-
930
HOSEA, XII.
n ess. Ephraim forgot that God brought him out of
Egypt, and brought him up to be what he was, and
was proud of his wealth, and took sinful courses to
increase it; and therefore God threatens to bring
him to a tabernacle-state again, to a poor, mean,
desolate, unsettled condition. Note, It is just with
God, when men have by their sins turned their
tents into houses, by his judgments to turn their
houses into tents again. However, that is certainly
a threatening; (n. 14.) Ephraim provoked him to
anger most bitterly. See how men are deceived in
their opinion of themselves, and how they will one
day be undeceived. Ephraim thought that there
was no iniquity in him, that deserved to be called
sin; (y. 8.) but God tells him that there was that in
him, which was sin, and would be found so, if he
did not repent and reform ; for, 1. It was extremely
offensive to his God; Ephraim provoked him to an¬
ger most bitterly with his iniquities, which are so
distasteful to God, and to him too will be bitterness
in the latter end. He was so wilful in sinning against
his knowledge and convictions, that any one might
see, and say, that he designed no other than to pro¬
voke God in the highest degree. 2. It would cer¬
tainly be destructive to himself; that cannot be
otherwise, which provokes God against him, and
kindles the fire of his wrath. Therefore, (1.) He
shall take away his forfeited life; He shall leave his
blood upon him; he shall not hold him guiltless, but
bring upon him that death which is the wages of
sin; his blood shall be upon his own head, (2 Sam.
i. 16.) for his own iniquity has testified against him,
and he alone shall bear it. Note, When sinners
perish, their blood is left upon them. (2.) He shall
take away his forfeited honour; His reproach shall
his Lord return upon him. God is his Lord; he
had by idolatry and other sins reproached the Lord,
and done dishonour to him, and to his name and
family, and had given occasion to others to reproach
him; and now God will return the reproach upon
him, according to the word he has spoken, that
those who despise him, shall be lightly esteemed.
Note, Shameful sins shall have shameful punish¬
ments. If Ephraim put contempt on his God, he
shall be so reduced, that all his neighbours shall
look with contempt upon him.
III. Here are memorials of former mercy, which
come in to convict them of base ingratitude in re¬
volting from God. Let them blush to remember,
1. That God had raised them from meanness.
When Ephraim was become rich, and was proud
of that, he forgot that which God (that he might
not forget it) obliged them every year to acknow¬
ledge, (Deut. xxvi. 5.) A Syrian ready to perish
•was my father. But God here puts them in mind
of it, T'. 12. Let them remember, not only the ho¬
nours of then lather Jacob, what a mighty prince he
was with God, v. 3. (an honour which they had no
share in, while they were in rebellion against God,)
but what a poor servant he was to Laban, which was
sufficient to mortify them that were puffed up with
the estates they had raised. Jacob fled into Syria
from a malicious brother, and there served a covet¬
ous uncle for a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep,
because he had no estate to endow a wife with.
Jacob was poor, and low, and a fugitive; therefore
his posterity ought not to be proud. He was a plain
man, dwelling in tents, and keeping sheep, there¬
fore balances of deceit ill became them; he served
for a wife that was not a Canaanitess, as Esau’s
wives were, therefore it was a shame for them to
degenerate into Canaanites, and mingle themselves
with the nations. God wonderfully preserved him
in his flight, and preserved him in his service, so
that he multiplied exceedingly, and from that root
in a dry ground sprang an illustrious nation, that
bare his name which magnifies the goodness of
God both to him and them, and leaves them under
the stain of base ingratitude to that God who was
their Founder and Benefactor.
2. That God had rescued them from misery; had
raised them to what they were, not only out of po¬
verty, but out of slavery, (v. 13.) which laid them
under much stronger obligations to serve him, and
under a yet deeper guilt in serving other Gods. (1.)
God brought Israel out of Egypt on purpose that
they might serve him, and by redeeming them out
of bondage acquired a special title to them and to
their service. (2.) He preserved them, as sheep
are kept bv the shepherd’s care. He preserved
them from Fharaoh’s rage at the sea, even at the
Red sea, protected them from all the perils of the
wilderness, and provided for them. (3.) He did
this by a prophet, Moses, who, though he is called
king in Jeshurun, (Deut. xxxiii. 5.) yet did what
he did for Israel, as a prophet, oy direction from
God, and by the power of his word. The ensign
of his authority was not a royal sceptre, but the rod
of God; with that he summoned both Egypt’s
plagues and Israel’s blessings. Moses, as a prophet,
was a type of Christ, (Acts iii. 22.) and it is by
Christ as a Prophet that we are brought out of
the Egypt of sin and Satan by the power of his
truth. Now this shows how very unworthy and
ungrateful this people were, [1.] In rejecting their
God, who had brought them out of Egypt, which,
in the preface to the commandments, is particularly
a reason for the first, why they should have no other
gods before him. [2.] In despising and persecuting
his prophets, whom they should have loved and va¬
lued, and have studied to answer God’s end in send¬
ing them, for the sake of that prophet by whom
God had brought them out of Egypt, and preserved
them in the wilderness. Note, The benefit we have
had by the word of God, greatly aggravates our sin
and folly, if we put any slight upon the word of God.
3. That God had taken care of their education as
they grew up. This instance of God’s goodness we
have, v. 10. As by a prophet he delivered them,
so by prophets he still continued to speak to them.
Man, who is formed out of the earth, is fed out of
the earth; so that nation that was formed by pro¬
phecy, by prophecy was fed and taught; beginning
at Moses and so going on to all the prophets through
the several ages of that church, we find that divine
revelation was, all along, their tuition. (1.) They
had prophets raised up among themselves, (Amos
ii. 11.) a succession of them scarcely ever without a
Spirit of prophecy among them more or less, from
Moses to Malachi. (2.) These prophets were
seers; they had visions and dreams, in which God
discovered his mind to them immediately, with a
full assurance that it was his mind, Numb. xii. 6.
(3.) These visions were multiplied; God spake not
only once, yea, twice, but many a time; if one vision
was not regarded, he sent another. The prophets
had variety of visions, and frequent repetitions of the
same. (4.) God spake to them by the prophets;
what the prophets received from the Lord they
plainly and faithfully delivered to them. The peo¬
ple at mount Sinai begged that God would speak to
them by men like themselves; and he did so. (5.)
In speaking to them by the prophets, he used simi¬
litudes, to make the messages he sent by them in¬
telligible, more affecting, and more likely to be re¬
membered. The visions they saw, were often simi¬
litudes, and their discourses were embellished with
very apt comparisons. And as God by his prophets,
so by his Son, he used similitudes, for he opened his
mouth in parables. Note, God keeps an account,
whether we do or no, of the sermons we hear; and
those that have long enjoyed the means of grace in
purity, plenty, and power, that have been frequent¬
ly, faithfully, and familiarly told the mind of God,
931
HOSEA, XIII.
will have a great deal to answer for another day, if
they persist in a course of iniquity.
iV. Here are intimations of further mercy, and
this remembered too in the midst of sin and wrath,
as some understand; (v. 9.) " I that am the Lord
thy God from the land of Egypt, who then and there
took thee to be my people, and have approved my¬
self thy God ever since, in a constant series of mer¬
ciful providences, have yet a kindness for thee, bad
as thou art; and I will make thee to dwell in taber¬
nacles, not as in the wilderness, but as in the days
of the solemn feasts;” the feast of tabernacles, which
was celebrated with great joy, Lev. xxiii. 40. 1.
They shall be. made to see, by the grace of God,
that though they are rich, and have found out sub¬
stance, yet they are but in a tabernacle state, and
have in their worldly wealth no continuing city. 2.
They shall yet have cause to rejoice in God, and
have opportunity to do it in public ordinances. The
feast of tabernacles was the first solemn feast the
Jews kept after their return out of Babylon, Ezra
iii. 4. 3. This, as other promises, was to have its
full accomplishment in the grace of the gospel,
which provides tabernacles for believers in their
way to heaven, and furnishes them with matter of
joy, holy joy, joy in God, such as was in the feast of
tabernacles, Zcch. xiv. 18, 19.
CHAP. XIII.
The same strings, though generally unpleasing ones, are
harped upon in this chapter, that were in those before.
People care not to be told either of their sin, or of their
danger by sin; and yet it is necessary, and for their
good, to be told of both, nor can they better hear of ei¬
ther than from the word of God, and from their faithful
ministers while the sin may be repented of, and the dan¬
ger prevented. Here, I. The people of Israel are re¬
proved and threatened for their idolatry, v. 1 . . 4. II.
They are reproved and threatened for their wantonness,
pride, and luxury, and other abuses of their wealth and
prosperity, v. 5 . .8. III. The ruin that is coming upon
them for these, and all their other sins, is foretold as very
terrible, v. 12, 13, 15, 16. IV. Those among them that
yet retain a respect for their God, are here encouraged
to hope that he will yet appear for their relief, though
their kings and princes, and all their other supports and
succours, fail them, v. 9 . . 11, 14.
1. W^HEN Ephraim spake trembling,
▼ V he exalted himself in Israel ; but
when he offended in Baal, he died. 2. And
now they sin more and more, and have
made them molten images of their silver,
and idols according to their own understand¬
ing, all of it the work of the craftsmen: they
say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss
the calves. 3. Therefore they shall be as
the morning cloud, and as the early dew
that passeth away ; as the chaff that is driven
with the whirlwind out of the floor, and as
the smoke out of the chimney. 4. Yet I
am the Lord thy God from the land of
Egypt, and thou shalt know no God but
me : for there is no saviour besides me.
Idolatry was the sin that did most easily besgt
the Jewish nation, till after the captivity; the ten
tribes from the first were guilty of it, but espe¬
cially after the days of Ahab; and this is the sin
which, in these verses, they are charged with. Ob¬
serve,
1. The provision that God made to prevent their
falling into idolatry. This we have, v. 4. God did
what was fit to be'done, to keep them close to him¬
self; what could have been done more? (1.) He
made himself known to them as the Lord their God,
and took them to be his people in a peculiar man¬
ner; both by his word and by his works all along
from the land of Egypt, he declared, 7 am the
Lord thy God; lie told them so from heaven at
mount Sinai, that he was the Lord, and their God,
who brought them out of the land of Egypt. This
he continued both to declare and to prove to them
by his prophets and by his providences. (2.) He
gave them a law forbidding them to worship any
other; “ Thou shalt know no god but. me; not only
shalt not own and worship any other, but shalt not
acquaint thyself with any other, nor make the rites
and usages of the Gentiles familiar to thee.” Note,
It is a happy ignorance not to know that which we
ought not to meddle with. We find those praised,
who have not known the depths of Satan. (3.) He
gave them a good reason for it; There is no saviour
beside me. Whatever we take for our God, we ex¬
pect to have for our saviour, to make us happy
here and hereafter; as, where we have protection
we owe allegiance, so, where we have salvation, and
hope for it, we owe adoration.
2. The honour that Ephraim had while he kept
himself clear from idolatry; (to 1.) While Ephraim
spake trembling, or with trembling, that is, (as Dr.
Pocock understands it,) while he behaved himself
toward God as his father Jacob did, with weeping
and supplications, and spake not proudly and inso¬
lently against God and his prophets, while he kept
up a holy fear of God and worshipped him in that
fear, so long he exalted himself in Israel, he was
very considerable among the tribes, and made a
figure. Jeroboam, who was of that tribe, exalted
himself and his family; when he spake, there was
trembling, all about him stood in awe of him; so
some understand it. Note, Those that humble
themselves, especially that humble themselves be¬
fore God, shall be exalted. When people speak
with modesty and jealousy of themselves, with ?
diffidence of their own judgment, and a deference to
others, they exalt themselves, they gain a reputa¬
tion. But as for Ephraim, he soon lost himself ;
when he offended in Baal, he died, he lost his repu¬
tation, his honour soon dwindled and sunk, and was
laid in the dust. Baal is here put for all idolatry;
when Ephraim forsook God, and took to worship
images, the state received its death’s wound, and
was never good for any thing after. Note, De¬
serting God is the death of any person or persons.
3. The lamentable growth of idolatry among
them; ( v . 2.) JVow they sin more and more; when
once he began to offend in Baal, the ice was broken,
and he grew worse and worse; coveted more idols,
doted more upon those he had, and grew more ri¬
diculous in the worship of them. Note, The way
of idolatry, as of other sins, is down-hill, and men
cannot easily stop themselves. It is the sad case of
all those who have forsaken God, that they sin yet
more and more. Let us trace them in their apos-
tacy. (1.) They made them molten images, proud
to have Gods that they could cast into what mould
they pleased; probably, these were the calves in
little, like the silver shrines for Diana; the zealots
for the calf-worship earned about with them, it
may be, images of the gods they worshipped, made
on purpose for themselves. (2.) They made them
of their silver, and then doubted not of their pro¬
perty in them, when they purchased them with
their own money, or made them of their own plate
melted down for that purpose. See what cost they
put themselves to in the service of their idols, which
they honoured with the best they had, and there¬
fore made their molten images of silver. (3.) They
made them according to their own understanding,
according to their own fancy; they consulted with
themselves what shape they shoud make it in, and
made it accordingly ; a god, according to the best
of their judgment. Or, according to their own like
932
HOSEA, XIII.
ness, in the form of a man. And when they made
their idols men like themselves, in shape, they made
themselves stocks and stones like them, in reality;
for they that make them, are like unto them, and so
is every one that trusts in them. (4.) It was all the
work of the craftsmen. Their images do not pre¬
tend, like that of Diana, to have come down from
Jupiter, (Acts xix. 35.) no, perhaps the workmen
stamped their names upon them, such an idol was
such a man’s work. See ch. viii. 6. Isa. xliv. 9,
&c. (5.) Though they were thus the work of their
hands, yet they were the beloved of their souls; for
they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice, kiss the
calves. Either the priests called upon the people
thus to pay their homage, or the people who were
not allowed to come so near themselves, called upon
the men that sacrificed, the priests that attended
for them, to kiss the calves in their name and stead,
because they could not reach to do it, so very fond
were they of paying their utmost respects to such
an idol as they were taught to have a veneration for.
Though they were calves, yet, if they were gods,
the worshippers by themselves, or their proxies,
thus made their honours to them. They kissed the
calves, in token of the adoration of them, affection
for them, and allegiance to them, as theirs. Thus
we are bid to kiss the Son, to take him for our Lord
and our God.
4. Threatenings of wrath for their idolatry. The
Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God, and
will not give his glory to another; and therefore all
they that worship images shall be confounded, espe¬
cially if Ephraim do it, Ps. xcvii. 7. Because they
are so fond of kissing their calves, therefore God
will give them sensible convictions of their folly, v.
3. They promise themselves a great deal of safety
and satisfaction in the worship of their idols, and
that their prosperity will thereby be established; but
God tells them that they shall be disappointed, and
driven away in their wickedness. This is illustrated
by four similitudes; They shall be, (1.) As the
morning cloud, which promises showers of rain to
the parched ground. (2.) As the early dew, which
seems to be an earnest of such showers; but both
/lass away, and the day proves as dry and hot as
ever; so fleet and transitory their profession of piety
was, {ch. vi. 4.) and so had they disappointed God’s
expectation from them; and therefore it is just that
so their prosperity should be, and so their expecta¬
tions from their idols should be disappointed, and
so will all theirs be, that make an idol of this world.
(3.) They are as the chaff, light and worthless; and
they shall be driven as the chaff is driven with the
whirlwind out of the floor, Ps. i. 4. — xxxv. 5. Job
xxi. 18. Nay, (4.) They are as the smoke, noisome
and offensive; (see Isa. lxv. 5.) and they shall be
driven away as the smoke out of the chimnies, that is
soon dissipated and disappears, Ps. lxviii. 2. Note,
No solid, lasting comfort is to be expected any
where but in God.
5. I did know thee in the wilderness, in
the land of great drought. 6. According to
their pasture, so were they filled ; they were
filled, and their heart was exalted; therefore
have they forgotten vne. 7. Therefore I will
be unto them as a lion; as a leopard by the
way will I observe them. 8. I will meet
them as a bear that is bereaved of her
whelps , and will rend the caul of their heart,
and there will I devour them like a lion:
the wild beast shall tear them.
We may observe here,
1. The plentiful provision God had made for Is¬
rael, and the seasonable supplies he had blessed
them with; (v. 5.) “/ did know thee in the wilder¬
ness, took cognizance of thy case, and made provi¬
sion for thee, even in a land of great drought, when
thou wast in extreme distress, and when no relief
was to be had in an ordinary way.” See a descrip¬
tion of this wilderness, Deut. viii. 15. Jer. ii. 6. and
say. The God that knew them, and owned them,
and fed them there, was a Friend indeed, for he
was a Friend at need, and an all-sufficient Friend,
that could victual so vast an army, when all ordi¬
nary ways of provision were cut off, and where, if
miracles had not been their daily bread, they must
all have perished. Note, Help at an exigency lays un¬
der peculiar obligations, and must never be forgotten.
2. Their unworthy, ungrateful abuse of God’s fa¬
vour to them. God not only took care of them in
the wilderness, but put them in possession of Ca¬
naan, a good land, a large and fat pasture. And {v.
6.) according to their pasture, so were they filed.
God gave them both plenty and dainties, and they
did not spare it, but, having been long confined to
manna, when they came into Canaan, they fed
themselves to the full. And this was no hopeful
presage, it would have looked better, and promised
better, if they had been more modest and moderate
in the use of their plenty, and had learned to deny
themselves; but what was the effect of it? They
were filled, and their heart was exalted. Their
luxury and sensuality made them proud, insolent,
and secure. The best comment upon this is that of
Moses, Deut. xxxii. 13. — 15. But Jeshurun waxed
fat and kicked. When the body was stuffed up with
plenty, the soul was puffed up with pride. Then
they began to think their religion a thing below
them, and they could not persuade themselves to
stoop to the services of it. The wicked, through
the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God.
When they were poor and lame in the wilderness,
they thought it was necessary for them to keep in
with God, but when they were replenished and es¬
tablished in Canaan, they began to think they had
no further need of him; Their heart was exalted,
therefore have they forgotten me. Note, Worldly
prosperity, when it feeds men’s pride, makes them
forgetful of God; for they remember him only when
they want him. When Israel was filled, what more
could the Almighty do for them ? And therefore
they said to him, Depart from us, Job xxii. 17. It
is sad that those favours' which ought to make us
mindful of God, and studious what we shall render
to him, should make us unmindful of him, and re¬
gardless what we do against him. We ought to know
that we live upon God, when we live upon common
providence, though we do not, as Israel in the wil¬
derness, live upon miracles.
3. God’s just resentment of their base ingrati¬
tude, v. 7, 8. The judgments threatened, (r. 3.)
intimated the departure of all good from them. The
threatenings here go further, and intimate the break¬
ing in of all evils upon them; for God, who had so
much befriended them, now turns to be their Ene¬
my, and fights against them, which is expressed
here very terribly; / will be unto them as a lion, and
as a leopard. The lion is strong, and there is no
resisting him. The leopard is here taken notice of
ts be crafty and vigilant; As a leopard by the way
will I observe them. As that beast of prey lies in
wait by the road side to catch travellers, and devour
them, so will God by his judgments watch over
them to do them hurt, as he had watched over them
to do them good, Jer. xliv. 27. No opportunity
shall be slipped, that may accelerate or aggravate
their ruin; (Jer. v. 6.) A leopard shall watch ovei
their cities. A lynx, or spotted beast, (and such
the leopard is,) is noted for quick-sightedness above
I any creature; {Lynx visus — The eyes of a Lynx;''
933
HOSEA, XIII.
and so it intimates that not only the power, but the
wisdom, of God is engaged against those whom he
has a controversy with. Some read it, (and the
original will bear it,) 1 will be as a leopard in the
way of Assyria. The judgments of God shall sur¬
prise them then when they are going to the Assyri¬
ans, to seek for protection and help from them. It
is added, I will meet them as a bear that is bereav¬
ed, and thereby exasperated, and made more cruel;
(2 Sam. xvii. 8. Prov. xxviii. 15. ) which intimates
how highly God was provoked, and he would make
them feel it; he will rend the caul of their heart.
The lion is observed to aim at the heart of the beasts
he preys upon, and thus will God devour them like
a lion. He will send such judgments upon them
as shall prey upon their spirits, and consume their
vitals. Their heart was exalted, ( v . 6.) but God
will take an effectual course to bring it down; The
•wild beast shall tear them; not only God will be as
a lion and leofiard to them, but the metaphor shall
be fulfilled in the letter, for noisome beasts are one
of the four sore judgments with which God will
destroy a provoking people, Ezek. xiv. 15. Now
all this teaches us, (1.) That abused goodness turns
into the greater severity. Those who despise God,
and affront him, when he is to them as a careful,
tender shepherd, shall find he will be even to his
own flock as the beasts of prey are. Those whom
God has in vain endured with much long-suffering,
and invited with much affection, in them he will
show his wrath, and make them vessels of it, Rom.
ix. 22. Patientia lasa ft furor — Despised patience
will turn into fury. (2. )' That the judgments of
God, when they come with commission against im-
enitent sinners, will be irresistible and very terri-
le. They will rend the caul of the heart, will fill
the soul with confusion, and tear that in pieces; and
we are as unable to grapple with them as a lamb is
to make his part good against a roaring lion; for who
knows the power of God’s anger? Knowing therefore
the terror of the Lord, let us be persuaded to make
peace with him; for are we stronger than he?
9. O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself ;
but iti me is thy help. 10. I will be thy
king: where is any other that may save thee
in all thy cities? and thy judges, of whom
thou saidst, Give me a king and princes ?
1 1 . I gave thee a king in mine anger, and
look him away in my wrath. 12. The ini¬
quity of Ephraim is bound up; his sin is hid.
1 3. The sorrows of a travailing woman shall
come upon him: he is an unwise son; for
he should not stay long in the place of the
breaking forth of children. 14. I will ran¬
som them from the power of the grave; I
will redeem them from death : O death, I
will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy
destruction: repentance shall be hid from
mine eyes. 15. Though he be fruitful among
his brethren, an east wind shall come, the
wind of the Lord shall come up from the
wilderness, and his spring shall become dry,
and his fountain shall be dried up : he shall
spoil the treasure of all pleasant vessels. 1 6.
Samaria shall become desolate ; for she hath
rebelled against her God: they shall fall by
the sword ; their infants shall be dashed in
pieces, and their women with child shall be
ripped up.
The first of these verses is the summary, or con¬
tents, of all the rest, v. 9. Where wc have, 1.
All the blame of Israel’s ruin laid upon themselves;
O Israel, thy perdition is thence; it is of and from
thyself; or, “ It has destroyed thee, 0 Israel ; all
that sin and folly of thine which thou art before
charged with. As thy own wickedness has many a
time corrected thee, so that has now at length de¬
stroyed thee.” Note, Wilful sinners are self-de¬
stroyers; obstinate impenitence is the grossest self-
murder. Those that are destroyed of the destroyer,
have their blood upon their own head; they have
destroyed themselves. 2. All the glory of Israel’s
relief ascribed to God; But in me is thy help. That
is, (1.) It might have been; “ I would have helped
thee, and healed thee, but thou wouldest not be
healed and helped, but wast resolutely set upon
thine own destruction.” This will aggravate the
condemnation of sinners, not only that they did that
which tended to their own ruin, but that they op¬
posed the offers God made them, and the methods
he took with them to have prevented it; I would
have gathered them, and they would not. They
might have been easily and effectually helped, but
they put the help away from them. Nay, (2.) It
may yet be; “Thy case is bad, but it is not despe¬
rate. Thou hast destroyed thyself; but come to me,
and I will help thee.” This is a plank thrown out
after shipwreck, and greatly magnifies not only the
power of God, that he can help when things are at
the worst, can help those that cannot help them¬
selves, but the riches of his grace, that he will help
those that have destroyed themselves, and therefore
might justly be left to perish, that he will help those
that had long refused his help. Dr. Pocock gives
a different reading and sense of this verse; O Is¬
rael, this has destroyed thee, that in me is thy help.
Presuming upon God and his favour has imbold-
ened thee in those wicked ways which have been
thy ruin.
Now, in the rest of these verses, we may see,
I. How Israel destroyed themselves. It is said,
(n. 16.) They rebelled against their God, revolted
from their allegiance to him, entered into a con¬
federacy with his enemies, and took up arms
against him; and this was the thing that ruined
them, for never any hardened themselves against
God, and prospered. Note, Those that rebel
against their God, destroy themselves, for they
make him their Enemy, for whom they are an une¬
qual match.
1. They treasure up wrath against the day of
wrath, and so they destroy themselves; they are do¬
ing that every day, which will be remembered
against them another day; (v. 12.) The iniquity of
Ephraim is bound up, and his sin is hid; God took
notice of it, kept it upon record, and will produce it
against him, and reckon with him for it afterward.
Their former sins contributed to their present des¬
truction; for they were laid up in store with God,
Deut. xxxii. 34, 35. Job xiv. 17. It is laid up in
safety, and will not be forgotten, nor the evidence
against him lost; but it is laid up in secret, it is hid,
the sinner himself is not aware of it. It is bound
up in God’s omniscience, in the sinner’s own con¬
science. Note, The sin of sinners is not forgotten
till it is pardoned, but an exact account is kept of it,
which will be opened in proper time.
2. They make no haste to repent and help them¬
selves, when they are under divine rebukes; there¬
fore they are their own ruin, because they will not
do what they should do toward their own salvation,
v. 13. (1.) They are brought into trouble and dis¬
tress by sin; The sorrows of a travailing woman
shall come upon him; they shall smart for sin, and
so be made sensible of it; they shall be thrown into
pangs and agonies by it, very sharp and severe, and
934
HOSEA, XIII.
yet, like the pains of a woman in labour, hopeful
and promising, and in order to deliverance; and by
these, though God corrects him, yet he designs his
good. He is chastened, that he may not be des¬
troyed. But, (2.) They are not by these forwarded
as they ought to be toward repentance and reforma¬
tion, which would cause their sorrows to issue in true
joy; He is an univise son, for he should not stay long,
as he does, in the / ilace of the breaking forth of chil¬
dren, but, being brought to the birth, should strug¬
gle to get forth, lest he be stifled and still-born at
last. Were the child which the mother is in tra¬
vail of, capable of understanding its own case, we
should reckon it an univise child that would choose
to stay long in the birth; for the captive exile hast-
eth to be loose, lest he die in the pit, Isa. li. 14.
Note, Those may justly be reckoned their own des¬
troyers, who defer and put off their repentance, by
which alone they might help themselves. Those
are in danger of miscarrying in conversion, who de¬
lay it, and will not put forth themselves to speed
the work, and bring it to an issue.
3. Therefore he is destroyed, because he has done
that which would be his certain ruin, and neglected
that which would be his only relief Here is a sad
description of the desolation they are doomed to, v.
15, 16. It is here taken for granted that Ephraim
is fruitful among his children; his name signifies,
fruitfulness. He is fruitful in respect of the plen¬
tiful products of his country, and the great numbers
of its inhabitants; it was both a rich and a populous
tribe, as was foretold concerning it; but sin turns
this fruitful tribe into barrenness. Joseph was a
fruitful bough, but for sin it was blasted. The in¬
strument is an east wind , representing a foreign ene¬
my that should invade it. It is called the wind of
the Lord, not only because it shall be a very great
and strong wind, but because it shall be sent by di¬
vine direction; it shall come from the Lord, and do
whatever he appoints; and see what effect it shall
have upon that flourishing tribe, what desolations
war shall make. (1.) Was it a rich tribe? The
foreign enemy shall make it poor enough. This
wind of the Lord shall come up from the wilderness,
a freezing, blasting wind, and shall dry up the
springs and fountains with which this tree is water¬
ed, shall exhaust the sources of its wealth; the in¬
vader shall waste the country, and so impoverish
the husbandman; shall intercept trade and com¬
merce, and so impoverish the merchant; and let
not the great men, whose wealth lies in their rich
furniture, think that they shall be exempted from
the judgment; for he shall spoil the treasure of all
pleasant vessels. See the folly of those that lay up
their treasure on earth, that lay it up in pleasant
vessels, ( vessels of desire, so the word is,) on which
they set their affections, and in which they place
their comfort and satisfaction. This is treasure that
may be spoiled, and that they may be spoiled of; it
is what either motli or rust may corrupt, or what
thieves and soldiers may steal and carry away ; but
wise and happy they who have laid up their trea¬
sure in heaven, and in the pleasant things of that
world which cannot be spoiled, which they cannot
be stripped of; ever happy are they, and therefore
truly wise. (2.) Was it a populous tribe, and nu¬
merous? The enemy shall depopulate it, and make
its men few; Samaria shall become desolate, without
inhabitants. [1.] Those shall be cut off, who are
the guard and joy of the present generation; the
men who bear arms, shall bear them to no purpose,
for they shall fall by the sword, so that there shall
be none to make head against the fury of the con¬
queror, or to take care of the concerns either of the
public, or of private families. [2.] Those shall be
cut off, who are the seed and hope of the next gene¬
ration, who should rise up in the places of those who
fell by the sword; the whole nation must be rooteu
out, and therefore the infants shall be dashed to
pieces, in the most cruel and barbarous manner,
and, which is, if possible, yet more inhuman, the
women with child shall be ripped up. Thus shall
the glory of Samaria flee away from the birth, and
from the womb, ch. ix. 11. — x. 14. See instances
of this cruelty, 2 Kings viii. 12. — xv. 16. Amos i. 13.
II. Let us now see how God was the Help of this
self-destroying people, how he was their only Help,
v. 10. I will be thy King, to rule and save thee.
Though they had refused to be his subjects, and had
rebelled against him, yet he would still be their
King, and would not abandon them. The business
and care of a good king is, to keep his people, not
only from being ruined by foreign enemies, but from
ruining themselves and one another. Tlius will
God yet be Israel’s King, as he was their King of
old. Note, Our case would be sad indeed, if God
were not better to us than we are to ourselves.
1. God will be their King, when they have no
other king; he will protect and save them, when
those are cut off and gone, who should have been
their protectors and saviours; I will be He, (so y.
10. may be read,) He that si i all help thee. Where
is the king that may save thee in all thy cities, that
may go in and out before thee, and fight thy battles,
when thy cities are invaded by a foreign power, and
suppress the more dangerous quarrels of thy citizens
among themselves? Where are thy judges, who by
administering public justice should preserve the
public peace? (For they are righteousness and
fieace, that kiss each other. ) Where are thy judges
that thou hadst such a desire of, and such a depen¬
dence upon, of whom thou saidst, Give me a king
andprinces? This refers to the foolish, wicked de¬
sire, (1.) Which tlie whole nation had of a kingly
government, being weary of the theocracy, or di¬
vine government, which they had been under during
the time of the Judges, because it looked too mean
for them; they rejected Samuel, and in him the
Lord, when they said, Give us a king like the na¬
tions, whereas the Lord was their King. (2.) To
the desire which the ten tribes had of a kingly gov
ernment different from that of the house of David,
because they thought that was too absolute, and bore
too hard upon them, and they hoped to mend them¬
selves by setting up Jeroboam. Both these are in¬
stances, [1.] Of men’simprovidence for themselves;
when they are uneasy with their present lot, they
are fond of novelty, and think to mend themselves
by a change; but they are commonly disappointed,
and do not find that advantage in the alteration,
which they promised themselves. [2.] Of men’s
impiety toward God, in thinking to refine upon his
appointments, and amend them. God gave Israel
judges and prophets for their conduct; but they
were weary of them, and cried, Give us a king and
princes. God gave them the house of David, and
established it by a covenant of royalty; but they
were soon weary of that too, and cried, We have no
part in David. Those destroy themselves, who
are not pleased with what God does for them, but
think they can do better for themselves. Well, in
both these requests, Providence humoured them;
gave them Saul first, and afterward Jeroboam.
And what the better were they for them? Saul was
given in anger, (given in thunder, 1 Sam. xii. 18,
19.) and soon after was taken away in wrath, upon
mount Gilboa. The kingly government of the tea
tribes was given in anger, not only against Solomon
for his defection, but against the ten tribes that de¬
sired it, for their discontent and disaffection to the
house of David; and God was now about to take
that away in wrath, by the power of the king of As¬
syria. And then, where is thy king? He is gone,
and thou shalt abide many days without a king.
HOSEA, XIV.
and without a prince, ( ch . lii. 4.) shalt have none to
save thee, none to rule thee. Note, First, God of¬
ten gives in anger what we sinfully and inordinately
desire; gives it with a curse, and with it gives us up
to our own hearts’ lusts. Thus he gave Israel
quails. Secondly, What we inordinately desire we
are commonly disappointed in, and it cannot save
us, as we expected it should. Thirdly, What God
gives in .anger, he takes away in wrath; what he
givesbecause we did notdesire it well, he takes away
because we did not use it well. It is the happiness
of the saints, that, whether God gives or takes, it is
all in love, and furnishes them with matter for
praise. To the pure all things are pure. It is the
misery of the wicked, that whether God gives or
takes, it is all in wrath; to them nothing is pure,
nothing is comfortable.
2. God will do that for them, which no other king
could do if they had one; ( v . 14.) I will ransom
them from the power of the grave. Though Israel,
according to the flesh, be abandoned to destruction,
God has mercy in store for his spiritual Israel, in
whom all the promises were to have their accom¬
plishment, and this among the rest, for to them the
apostle applies it, (1 Cor. xv. 55.) and particularly
to the blessed resurrection of believers at the great
day, yet not excluding their spiritual resurrection
from the death of sin, to a holy, heavenly, spiritual,
and divine life. It is promised, (1.) That the cap¬
tives shall be delivered, shall be ransomed from the
power of the grave. Their deliverance shall be
by ransom; and we know who it was that paid their
ransom, and what the ransom was, for it was the
Son of man, that gave his life a ransom for many,
Matth. xx. 28. It is he that thus redeemed them.
Those who, upon their repenting and believing, are,
for the sake of Christ’s righteousness, acquitted
from the guilt of sin, and saved from death and hell,
which are the wages of sin, are those ransomed of
the Lord, that shall, in the great day, be brought
out of the grave in triumph, and it shall be as im¬
possible for the bands of death to hold them as it
was to hold their Master. (2. ) That the conqueror
shall be destroyed; 0 death, I will be thy plague.
Jesus Christ was the Plague and Destruction of
death and the grave, when by death he destroyed
him that had the power of death, and when in his
own resurrection lie triumphed over the grave; but
the complete destruction of them will be in the re¬
surrection of believers at the great day, when death
shall for ever be swallowed up in victory, and it is
the last enemy that shall be destroyed. But the
word which we translate, I will, may as well be
rendered, Ubi nunc — Where now are thy plagues ?
And so the apostle took it; “ O death, where is thy
plague, or sting, with which thou hast so long pes¬
tered the world? O grave, where is thy victory, or
thy destruction, wherewith thou hast destroyed
mankind?” Christ has abolished death, has broken
the power of it, and altered the property of it, and
so enabled us to triumph over it. This promise he
has made, and it shall be made good to all that are
his; for repentance shall be hid from his eyes, he
will never recall this sentence passed on death and
the grave, for he is not a man that he should repent.
Thanks be to God therefore who gives us the vic¬
tory.
CHAP. XIV.
The strain of this chapter differs from that of the foregoing
chapters. Those were generally made up of reproofs
for sin, and threatenings of wrath; but this is made up
of exhortations to repentance, and promises of mercy,
and with these the prophet closes; for all the foregoing
convictions and terrors he had spoken, were designed to
prepare and make way for these; he wounds, that he
may heal; the Spirit convinces, that he may comfort.
This chapter is a lesson for penitents; and some such
935
there were in Israel at this day, bad as things were.
We have here, I. Directions in repenting, what to do,
and what to say, v. 1 . . 3. II- Encouragement to repent,
taken from God’s readiness to receive returning sinners,
(v. 4, 8.) and the comforts he had treasured up for them,
v. 5 - .7. III. A solemn recommendation of these things
to our serious thoughts, v. 9.
1. gfAj ISRAEL, return unto the Lord
'Lr thy God; for thou hast fallen by
thine iniquity. 2. Take with you words,
and turn to the Lord: say unto him, Take
away all iniquity, and receive us graciously :
so will we render the calves of our lips. 3.
Asshur shall not save us; we will not ride
upon horses; neither will we say any more
to the work of our hands, Ye are our gods:
for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy.
Here we have,
I. A kind invitation given to sinners to repent, v.
1. It is directed to Israel, God’s professing people;
they are called to return. Note, Conversion must
be preached even to those that are within the pale
of the church, as well as to the heathen ; “ Thou art
Israel, and therefore art bound to thy God in duty,
gratitude, and interest; thy revolt from him is so
much the more heinous, and thy return to him so
much the more necessary.” Let Israel see, 1.
What work he has made for repentance; “ Thou
hast fallen by thine iniquity . ” Thou hast stumbled;
so some read it. Their idols were their stumbling-
blocks; “Thou art fallen from God into sin, fallen
off from all good, fallen down under the load of
guilt and the curse.” Note, Sin is a fall; and it
concerns those that are fallen by sin, to get up again
by repentance. 2. What work he has to do in his
repentance; “ Return to the Lord thy God; return
to him as the Lord whom thou hast a dependence
upon, as thy God, thine in covenant, whom thou
hast an interest in. ” Note, It is the great concern
of those that have revolted from God, to return to
God, and so to do their first works; Return to him
from whom thou hast fallen, and who alone is able
to raise thee up. Return even to the Lord; or quite
home to the Lord; do not only look to him, or take
some steps toward him, but make thorough work
of it. The ancient Jews had a saying, grounded on
this, Repentance is a great thing, for it brings men
quite up to the throne of glory.
II. Necessary instructions given them how to re¬
pent. 1. They must bethink themselves what to
say to God, when they come to him; Take with you
words. They are required to bring, not sacrifices
and offerings, but penitent prayers and supplications;
the fruit of thy lips; yet not of the lips only, but of
the heart, else words are but wind. One of the rab¬
bins says, They must be such words as proceed
from what is spoken first in the inner man; the heart
must dictate to the tongue. We must take good
words with us, by taking good thoughts and good
affections with us. Verbaque pravisam rem non invi-
ta sequentur — Those who master a subject, are sel¬
dom at a loss for language. Note, When we come to
God, we should consider what we have to say to
him; for if we come without an errand, we are
likely to go without answer; (Ezra ix. 10.) What
shall we say? We must take with us words from
the scripture, take them from the Spirit of grace
and supplication, who teaches us to cry, Abba, Fa¬
ther, and makes intercession in us. 2. They must
bethink themselves what to do. They must not
only take with them words, but must turn to the
Lord; inwardly in their hearts, outwardly in their
lives.
Now, for their assistance herein, and encourage
936
HOSEA, XIV.
ment, God is pleased to put words into their mouths,
to teach them what they shall say; surely we may
hope to speed with God, when he himself has or¬
dered our address to be drawn up ready to our
hands, and his own Spirit has endited it for us; and
no doubt we shall speed, if the workings of our souls
agree with the words here recommended to us.
They are,
(1. ) Petitioning words. T wo things we are here
directed to petition for. [1.] To be acquitted from
guilt. When we return to the Lord, we must say
to him, Lord, take away all iniquity. They were
now smarting for sin, under the load of affliction,
but are taught to pray, not as Pharaoh, Take away
this death, but take away this sin. Note, When
we are in affliction, we should be more concerned
for the forgiveness of our sins than for the removal
of our trouble. “ Take away iniquity, lift it off as
a burthen we are ready to sink under, or as the
stumbling-block which we have often fallen over.
Lord, take it away, that it may not appear against
us, to our confusion and condemnation. Take it all
away by a free and full remission, for we cannot
pretend to strike any of it off by a satisfaction of our
own. ” When God pardons sin, he pardons all that
great debt; and when we pray against sin, we must
ray against it all; and not except any. [2.] To
e accepted as righteous in God’s sight; “ Receive
us graciously. Let us have thy favour and love,
and have thou respect to us and to our performan¬
ces. Receive our firayer graciously ; be well pleased
with that good which by thy grace we are enabled
to do. ” Take good, so the word is; Take it to be¬
stow upon us, so the margin reads it; Give good.
This follows upon the petition for the taking away
of iniquity; for till iniquity is taken away, we have
no reason to expect any good from God; but the
taking away of iniquity makes way for the confer¬
ring of good, removendo firohibens — by taking that
out of the way which hindered. Give good. They
do not say what good, but refer themselves to God;
it is not good of the world’s showing, (Ps. iv. 6.)
but good of God’s giving. “ Give good, that good
which we have forfeited, and which thou hast pro¬
mised, and which the necessity of our case calls
for.” Note, God’s gracious acceptance, and the
blessed fruits and tokens of that acceptance, are to
be earnestly desired and prayed for by us, in our
returning to God. “ Give good, that good which
will make us good, and keep us from returning to
iniquity again.”
(2.) Promising words. These also are put into
their mouths, not to move God, or to oblige him to
show them mercy, but to move themselves, and
oblige themselves to returns of duty. Note, Our
prayers for pardon and acceptance with God should
be always accompanied with sincere purposes and
vows of new obedience. Two things they are to
promise and vow.
[1.] Thanksgiving; Pardon our sins, and accept
of us, so will we render the calves of our lifts. The
fruit of our lifts; so the LXX, a word they used
for burnt-offerings, and so it agrees with the He¬
brew. The Apostle quotes this phrase, (Heb. xiii.
15.) and by the fruit of our lifts understands the
sacrifice of ftraise to God, giving thanks to his name.
Note, Praise and thanksgiving are our spiritual
sacrifice, and if they come from an upright heart,
shall please the Lord better than an ox or bullock,
Ps. lxix. 30, 31. And the sense of our pardon and
acceptance with God will enlarge our hearts in
praise and thankfulness. Those that are received
graciously, may and must render the calves of their
lifts. Poor returns for rich receivings, yet, if sin¬
cere, more acceptable than the calves of the stall.
[2.] Amendment of life. They are taught to
promise, not only verbal acknowledgments, but a j
real reformation. And we are taught here, First
in our returns to God to covenant against sin. We
cannot expect that God should take it away by for¬
giving it, if we do not fiut it away by forsaking it.
Secondly, To be particular in our covenants and
resolutions against sins, as we ought to be in our
confessions; because deceit lies in generals. Third¬
ly, To covenant especially and expressly against
those sins which we have been most subject to,
which have most easily beset us, and which we
have been most frequently overcome by. We must
keep ourselves from, and therefore must thus fortify .
ourselves against, our own iniquity, Ps. xviii. 23.
The sin they here covenant against, owning thereby
that they had been guilty of it, is, giving that glory
to another, which is due to God only; this they
promise they will never do, 1. By putting that con¬
fidence in creatures, which should be put in God
only. They will not trust to their alliances abroad:
Ashur, Assyria, shall not save us. “ We will not
court the help of the Assyrians when we are in dis¬
tress, 'as we have done; ( ch . v. 13. — vii. 11. — viii.
9. ) we will not contract for it, nor will we confide in
it, or depend upon it. Having a God to go to, a
God all-sufficient to trust to, we scorn to be be¬
holden to the Assyrians for help.” They will not
trust to their warlike preparations at home, espe¬
cially not those which they were forbidden to mul¬
tiply; “ JVe will not ride upon horses; we will not
make court to Egypt.” (For thence they fetched
their horses, Deut. xvii. 16. Isa. xxx. 16. — xxxi. 1,
3.) “ When our enemies invade us, we will depend
upon our God to succour our infantry, and will be
in no care to remount our cavalry.” Or, “We
will not post on horseback, for haste, from one
creature to another, to seek relief, but will take the
next way, and the only sure way, by applying our¬
selves to God,” Isa. xx. 5. Note, True repentance
takes us off from trusting to an arm of flesh, and
brings us to rely on God only for all the good we
stand in need of. 2. Nor will they do it by paying
that homage to creatures, which is due to God only.
We will not say any more to the works of our hands.
Ye are our gods. They must promise never to
worship idols again, and for a good reason, because
it is the most absurd and senseless thing in the world
to pray to that as a god, which is the work of our
hands. We must promise that we will not set our
hearts upon the gains of this world, nor pride our¬
selves in our external performances in religion, for
that is, in effect, to say to the works of our hands,
Ye are our gods.
(3.) Pleading words are here put into their
mouths; For in thee the fatherless findeth mercy.
We must take our encouragement in prayer, not
from any merit God finds in us, but purely from the
mercy we hope to find in God. This contains in
itself a great truth , that God takes special care of
fatherless children, Ps. lxviii. 4, 5. So he did in
his law, Exod. xxii. 22. So he does in his provi¬
dence, Ps. xxvii. 10. It is God’s prerogative to
help the helpless; in him there is mercy for such,
for they are proper objects of mercy; in him they
find it, there it is laid up for them, and there they
must seek it; seek and ye shall find. It comes in
here as a good plea for mercy and grace, and an en¬
couraging one to their faith. [1.] They plead the
distress of their state and condition; We are father¬
less orphans, destitute of help. Those may expect
to find help in God, that are truly sensible’ of their
helplessness in themselves, and are willing to ac¬
knowledge it. This is a good step toward comfort.
If we have not yet boldness to call God Father, yet
we look upon ourselves as fatherless without him,
and therefore lav ourselves at his feet, to be looked
upon by him with compassion. [2. ] They plead
God’s wonted loving-kindness to such as were in
037
HOSEA, XIV.
that condition; With thee the fatherless not only
may find, but does find, and shall find, mercy. It
is a great encouragement to our faith and hope, in
returning to God, that it is his glory to father the
fatherless, and help the helpless.
4. I will heal their backsliding, I will
love them freely : for mine anger is turned
away from him. 5. I will be as the dew
unto Israel : he shall grow as the lily, and
cast forth his roots as Lebanon. 6. His
branches shall spread, and his beauty shall
be as the olive-tree, and his smell as Leba¬
non. 7. They that dwell under his shadow
shall return; they shall revive as the corn,
and grow as the vine : the scent thereof
shall be as the wine of Lebanon.
We have here an answer of peace to the prayers
of returning Israel; they seek. God’s face, and they
shall not seek in vain ; God will be sure to meet
them in a way of mercy, who return to him in a
way of duty. If we speak to God in good prayers,
God will speak to us in good promises; as he an¬
swered the angel with good words, and comfortable
words, Zech. i. 13. If we take with us the forego¬
ing words, in our coming to God, we may take
home with us these following words for our faith to
feast upon; and see how these answer those.
I. Do they dread and deprecate God’s displea¬
sure, and therefore return to him? He assures them
that, upon their submission, his anger is turned
away from them. This is laid as the ground of all
the other favours here promised. I will do so and
so, for mine anger is turned away, and thereby a
door is opened lor all good to flow to them, Isa. xii.
1. Note, Though God is justly and greatly angry
with sinners, yet he is not implacable in his anger;
it may be turned away, it shall be turned away,
from those that turn away from their iniquity. God
will be reconciled to those that are reconciled to
him and to his whole will.
II. Do they pray for the taking away of iniquity?
He assures them that he will heal their backslidings ;
so he promised, Jer. iii. 22. Note, Though back¬
slidings from God are the dangerous diseases and
wounds of the soul, yet they are not incurable, for
God has graciously promised, that if backsliding
sinners will apply themselves to him as their Physi¬
cian, and comply with his methods, he will heal
their backslidings. He will heal the guilt of their
backslidings by pardoning mercy, and their bent to
backslide by renewing grace. Their iniquity shall
not be their ruin.
III. Do they pray that God will receive them
graciously? In answer to that, behold, it is pro¬
mised, I will love them freely. God had hated them
while they went on in sin; {ch. ix. 15.) but now
that they return and repent, he loves them; not
only ceases to be angry with them, but takes com¬
placency in them, and designs their good. He loves
them freely; with an absolute, entire love, so some;
so that there are no remains of his former displea¬
sure; with a liberal, bountiful love, so others; he
will be open-handed in his love to them, and will
think nothing too much to bestow upon them, or to
do for them. Or, with a cheerful, willing love; he
will love them without reluctancy or penitency.
He will not say in the day of thy repentance, How
shall I receive thee again ? as he said in the day of
thine apostacy, How shall I give thee up ? Or,
with an unmerited, preventing love. Whom God
loves he loves freely, not because they deserve it,
but of his own good pleasure. He loves because he
will love, Deut. vii. 7, 8.
Vol. iv. — 6 C
IV. Do they pray that God will give good, will
make them good ? In answer to that, behold, it is
promised, I will be as the dew unto Israel, v. 5.
Observe,
1. What shall be the favour God will bestow
upon them. It is the blessing of their father Jacob.
God give thee the dew of heaven, Gen. xxvii. 28.
Nay, what they need God will not only giv>_ them,
but he will himself be that to them, all that which
they need; I will be as the dew unto Israel. This
speaks spiritual blessings in heavenly things; and it
follows upon the healing of their backslidings; for
pardoning mercy is always accompanied with re¬
newing grace. Note, To Israelites indeed God
himself will be as the dew. He will instruct them,
his doctrine shall drop upon them as the dew, Deut.
xxxii. 2. They shall know more and more of him,
for he will come to them as the rain, Hos. vi. 3. He
will refresh them with his comforts, so that their
souls shall be as a watered garden, Isa. lviii. 11.
He will be to true penitents as the dew to Israel,
when they were in the wilderness, dew that had
manna in it, Exod. xvi. 14. Numb. xi. 9. The
graces of the Spirit are the hidden manna, hidden
in the dew; God will give them bread from heaven,
as he did to Israel in the dew, in abundance, John
i. 16.
2. What shall be the fruit of that favour which
shall be produced in them; the grace thus freely
bestowed on them shall not be in vain. Those souls,
those Israelites, to whom God is as the dew, on
whom his grace distils.
(1.) They shall be growing. The bad being by
the grace of God made good, shall by the same
grace be made better; for grace, wherever it is true,
is growing. [1.] They shall grow upward, and be
more flourishing, shall grow as the lily; or, as some
read It, shall blossom as the rose. The growth of
the lily, as that of all bulbous roots, is very quick
and speedy; the root of the lily seems lost in the
ground all winter, but, when it is refreshed with
the dews of the spring, it starts up in a little time; so
the grace of God improves young converts some¬
times very fast. The lily, when it is come to its
height, is a lovely flower; (Matth. vi. 29.) so grace
is the comeliness of the soul, Ezek. xvi. 14. It is
the beauty of holiness that is produced by the dew
of the motming, Ps. cx. 3. [2.] They shall grow
downward, and be more firm. The lily indeed grows
fast, and grows fine, but it soon fades, and is easily
plucked up; and therefore it is here promised to
Israel, that with the flower of the lil}^ he shall have
the root of the cedar; he shall cast forth his roots as
Lebanon; as the trees of Lebanon, which, having
taken deep root, cannot be plucked up, Amos ix.
15. Note, Spiritual growth consists most in the
growth of the root, which is out of sight. The
more we depend upon Christ, and draw sap and
virtue from him, the more we act in religion from a
principle; and the more steadfast and resolved we
are in it, the more we cast forth our roots. [3.]
They shall grow round about; (x1. 6.) His branches
shall spread on all sides. And (d. 7.) he shall
grow as the vine, whose branches extend furthest
of any tree. Joseph was to be a fruitful bough,
Gen. xlix. 22. When many are added to the church
from without, when a hopeful generation rises up,
then Israel’s branches spread. When particular
believers abound in good works, and increase in the
knowledge of God, and in every good gift, then
their branches may be said to spread. The inward
man is renewed day by day.
(2.) They shajl be graceful and acceptable both
to God and man. Grace is an amiable thing, and
makes those that have it truly amiable. They are
here compared to such trees as are pleasant, [1.]
To the sight; his beauty shall be as the olive-tree,
938
HOSEA, XIV.
■which is always green; The Lord called thy name a
green olive-tree, Jer. xi. 16. Ordinances are the
beauty of the church, and in them it is, and shall
be, ever green. Holiness is the beauty of a soul;
when those that believe with the heart, make pro¬
fession with the mouth, and justify and adorn that
profession with an agreeable conversation, then
their beauty is as the olive-tree, Ps. lii. 8. It is a
promise to the trees of righteousness, that their leaf
shall not wither. [2. ] To the smell; His smell shall
lie as Lebanon, (v. 6. ) and his scent as the wine of
Lebanon, v. 7. This was the praise of their father
Jacob; The smell of my son is as the smell of a field
which the Lord has blessed, Gen. xxvii. 27. The
church is compared to a garden of s/iices, (Cant. iv.
12, 14.) which all her garments smell of. True be-
livers are acceptable to God, and approved of men;
God smells a sweet savour from their spiritual sa¬
crifices, (Gen. viii. 21.) and they ar e accepted of
the multitude of their brethren. Grace is the per¬
fume of the soul, the perfume of the name; makes it
like precious ointment, Eccl. vii. 1. The memorial
thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon; (so the
margin reads it;) not only their reviving comforts
now, but their surviving honours when they are
gone, shall be as the wine of Lebanon, that has a
delicate flavour. Flourishing churches have their
faith spoken of throughout the world, (Rom. i. 8.)
and leave their name to be remembered; (Ps. xlv.
17.) and the memory of flourishing saints is blessed,
and shall be so; as theirs who by faith obtained a
good report.
(3.) They shall be fruitful and useful. The
church is compared here to the vine and the olive,
which bring forth useful fruits, to the honour of God
and man. Nay, the very shadow of the church
shall be agreeable; {y. 7.) They that dwell wider
his shadow, shall return. Under God’s shadow, so
some; under the shadow of the Messias, so the
Chaldee. Believers dwell under God’s shadow,
(Ps. xci. 1.) and there they are, and may be, safe
and easy; but it is rather, under the shadow of
Israel, under the shadow of the church. Note,
God’s promises pertain to those, and those only,
that dwell under the church’s shadow, that attend
on God’s ordinances, and adhere to his people; not
that flee to that shadow only for shelter in a hot
gleam, but that dwell under it, Ps. xxvii. 4. We
may apply it to particular believers; when a man is
effectually brought home to God, all that dwell
under his shadow fare the better for it; children,
servants, subjects, friends, This day is salvation
come to this house. They that dwell under the
shadow of this church shall return, their drooping
spirits shall return, and they shall be refreshed and
comforted; he restores my soul, Ps. xxiii. 3. They
shall revive as the corn, which, when it is sown, die's
first, and then revives, and brings forth much fruit,
John xii. 24. It is promised that God’s people shall
be blessings to the world, as corn and wine are.
And a very great and valuable mercy it is to be
serviceable to our generation. Comfort and honour
attend it.
8. Ephraim shall say , What have 1 to do
any more with idols? 1 have heard him. , and
observed him : I am like a green fir-tree.
From me is thy fruit found. 9. Who is wise,
and he shall understand these things? pru¬
dent, and he shall know them? for the ways
of the Lord are right, and the just shall
walk in them: but the transgressors shall
fall therein.
Let us now hear the conclusion of the whole
matter.
I. Concerning Ephraim ; he is spoken of, and
spoken to, v. 8.
1. Here is his repentance and reformation; Eph¬
raim shall say, What have I to do any more with
idols? As some read it, God here reasons and ar¬
gues with him, why he should renounce idolatry;
“ O Ephraim, what to me and idols? What concord
or agreement can there be between me and idols ?
What communion between light and darkness, be¬
tween Christ and Belial? (2 Cor. vi. 14, 15.) There¬
fore thou must break off thy league with them, if
thou wilt come into covenant with me.” As we read
it, God promised to bring Ephraim and keep him
to this, Ephraim shall say, God will put it into his
heart to say it, What have I to do any more with
idols? He had promised (v. 3.) not to say any more
to the works of his hands, Ye are my gods. But
God’s promises to us are much more our security
and our strength for the mortifying of sin, than our
promises to God; and therefore God himself is here
Surety for his servant to good, will put it into his
heart, and into his mouth. And whatever good we
say or do at any time, it is he that works it in us.
Ephraim had solemnly engaged not to call his idols
his gods; but God here engages further for him,
that he shall resolve to have no more to do with
them; he shall abolish them, he shall abandon them,
and that with the utmost detestation; for it is ne¬
cessary not only that in our lives we be turned_/rera
sin, but that in our hearts we be turned against sin.
See here, (1.) The power of divine grace; Ephraim
had been joined to idols, ( ch . iv. 17. ) was so fond of
them, that one would have thought he could never
have fallen out with them; and yet God will work
such a change in him, that he shall loathe them as
much as ever he loved them. (2.) See the benefit
of sanctifed afflictions. Ephraim had smarted for
his idolatry, it had brought one judgment after an¬
other upon him, and this at length is the fruit, even
the taking away of his sin, Isa. xxvii. 9. (3.) See
the nature of repentance ; it is a firm and fixed re¬
solution to have no more to do with sin; this is the
language of a penitent; “lam ashamed that ever I
had to do with sin; but I have had enough of it, I
hate it, and by the grace of God I will never have
any thing to do with it again; no, not with the oc¬
casions of it.’-’ Thou slvalt say to thine idol, Get
thee hence, (Isa. xxx. 22.) shalt say to the tempter,
Get thee behind me, Satan.
2. Here is the gracious notice God is pleased to
take of it; I have heard him, and observed him; 1
have heard, and will look upon him; so some read
it. Note, The God of heaven takes cognizance of
the penitent reflections and resolutions of returning
sinners. He expects and desires the repentance of
sinners, because he has no pleasure in their ruin.
He looks upon men, (Job xxxiii. 27.) hearkens and
hears, Jer. viii. 6. And if there be any disposition
to repent, he is well pleased with it; when Ephraim
bemoans himself before God, he is a dear son, he is
a. pleasant child, Jer. xxxi. 20. He meets penitents
with mercy, as the father of the prodigal met his
returning son. God observed Ephraim, to see whe¬
ther he would bring forth fruits meet for this pro¬
fession of repentance that he made, and whether he
would continue in this good mind. He observed him,
to do him goo’d, and comfort him, according to the
exigencies of his case.
3. Here is the mercy God designed for him, in
order to his comfort, and perseverance in his reso¬
lutions; still God will be all in all to him. Before,
Israel was compared to a tree, now, God compares
himself to one. He will be to his people, (1.) As
the branches of a tree; “ lam like a green fir-tree,
and will be so to thee.” The fir-trees, in those
countries, were exceeding large and thick, and a
shelter against sun and rain. God will be to all true
converts both a Delight and a Defence; under his
939
HOSEA, XIV.
protection and influence they shall both dwell in
safety and dwell at case. He will be either a Sun
and ii Shield, or a Shade and a Shield, according as
their case requires. They shall sit down under his
shadow with delight. Cant. ii. 3. He will be so all
weathers, Isa. iv. 6. (2.) As the root of a tree;
From me is thy fruit found. Which may be under¬
stood either of the fruit brought forth to us — to him
we owe all our comforts; or of the fruit brought
forth by us — from him we receive grace and strength
to enable us to do our duty. Whatever fruits of
righteousness we bring forth, all the praise of them
is owing to God; for he works in us both to will and
to do that which is good.
II. Concerning every one that hears and reads the
words of the prophecy of this book; ( v . 9.) IVho is
wise, and he shall understand these things ? Per¬
haps the prophet was wont to conclude the sermons
he preached with these words, and now he closes
the whole book with them, in which he had com¬
mitted to writing some fragments of the many ser¬
mons lie had preached. Observe,
1. The character.'of those that do profit by the
truths he delivered. Who is wise and prudent ? He
shall understand these things, he shall know them ;
those that set themselves to understand and know
these things, thereby make it to appear that they
are truly wise and prudent, and will thereby be
made more so; and if any do not understand and
know them, it is because they are foolish and un¬
wise. Those that are wise in the doing of their duty,
that are prudent in practical religion, are most
likely to know and understand both the truths and
providences of God, which are a mystery to others.
The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him,
Ps. xxv. 14. Who is wise ? This intimates a de¬
sire that those who read and hear these things,
would understand them; O that they were wise?
And a complaint that few were so, Who has believed
our report ?
2. The excellency of the things concerning which
we are here instructed; The ways of the Lord are
right; and therefore it is our wisdom and duty to
know and understand them. The way of God’s
precepts, in which he requires us to walk, is right,
agreeing with the rules of eternal reason and equity,
and having a direct tendency to our eternal felicity.
The ways of God’s providence, in which he walks
towards us, are all right; no fault is to be found with
any thing that God does, for it is all well done. His
judgments upon the impenitent, his favours to the
penitent, they are all right; however they may be
perverted and misinterpreted, God will at last be
justified and glorified in them all; his ways are equal.
3. The different use which men make of them.
(1.) The right ways of God to those that are
good, are, and will be, a savour of life unto life;
The just shall walk in them; they shall conform to
the will of God both in his precepts and in his pro¬
vidences, and shall have the comfort of so doing.
They shall well understand the mind of God, both
in his words and in his works, they shall be well re¬
conciled to both, and shall accommodate themselves
to God’s intention in both. The just shall walk in
those ways toward their great end, and shall not
come short of it.
(2.) The right ways of God to those that are
wicked, will be a savour of death unto death; The
transgressors shall fall, not only in their own wrong
wavs, but even in the right ways of the Lord. Christ,
that is a Foundation Stone to some, is to others a
Stone of stumbling, and a Rock of offence. That
which was ordained to life, becomes, through their
abuse of it, death to them. God’s providences, be¬
ing not duly improved by them, harden them in sin,
and contribute to their ruin God’s discovery of
himself both in the judgments of his mouth and in
the judgments of his hand, is to us according as we
are affected under it. Recipitur ad modum recipi-
entis — What is received influences according to the
qualities of the receiver. The same sun softens wax
and hardens clay. But of all transgressors those
certainly have the most dangerous, fatal falls, that
fall in the waits of God, that split on the Rock of
ages, and suck poison out of the balm of Gilead.
Let the sinners in Zion be afraid of this.
AN
EXPOSITION,
WITH
PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS,
OF THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET
JOEL.
We are altogether uncertain concerning the time when this prophet prophesied; it is probable that it was
about the same time that Amos prophesied, not for the reason that the rabbins give, Because Amos be¬
gins his prophecy with that wherewith Joel concludes his; The Lord shall roar out of Zion; but for
the reason Dr. Lightfoot gives, Because he speaks of the same judgments of locusts, and drought, and
fire, that Amos laments, which is an intimation that they appeared about the same time, Amos in Israel,
and Joel in Judah. Hosea and Obadiah prophesied about the same time; and it appears that Amos pro¬
phesied in the days of Jeroboam, the second king of Israel, Amos vii. 10. God sent a variety of pro¬
phets, that they might strengthen the hands one of another, and that out of the mouth of two or three
witnesses every word might be established. In this prophecy,
I. The desolation made by hosts of noxious insects is described, ch. i. and part of ch. ii.
II. The people are hereupon called to repentance, ch. ii.
III. Promises are made of the return of mercy upon their repentance, ( ch . ii.) and promises of the pour¬
ing out of the Spirit in the latter days.
IV. The cause of God’s people is pleaded against their enemies, whom God would in due time reckon
with; {ch. iii.) and glorious things are spoken of the gospel-Jerusalem, and of the prosperity and per¬
petuity of it.
JOEL, I.
CHAP. I.
This chapter is the description of a lamentable devastation
made of the country of Judah by locusts and caterpil¬
lars ; some think that the prophet speaks of it as a
thing to come, and gives warning of it beforehand, as
usually the prophets did of judgments coming. Others
think that it was now present, and that his business is
to affect the people with it, and awaken them by it to
repentance. I. It is spoken of as a judgment which
there was no precedent of in former ages, v. 1. .7. II.
All sorts of people sharing in the calamity are called
upon to lament it, v. 8. .13. III. They are directed to
look up to God in their lamentations, and to humble
themselves before him, v. 14. .20.
1. HHHE word of the Lord that came
JL to Joel, the son of Pethuel. 2.
Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye
inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in
your days, or even in the days of your fa¬
thers? 3. Tell ye your children of it, and let
your children tell their children, and their
children another generation ; 4. That which
the palmer-worm hath left, hath the locust
eaten ; and that which the locust hath left,
hath the canker-worm eaten ; and that
which the canker-worm hath left, hath the
caterpillar eaten. 5. Awake, ye drunkards
and weep ; and howl, all ye drinkers of
wine, because of the new wine ; for it is cut
off from your mouth. 6. For a nation is
come up upon my land, strong, and without
number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion,
and he hath the cheek-teeth of a great lion.
7. He hath laid my vine waste, and barked
my fig-tree; he hath made it clean bare,
and cast it away ; the branches thereof are
made white.
It is a foolish fancy which some of the Jews have,
that this Joel the prophet was the same with that
Joel who was the son of Samuel; (1 Sam. viii. 2.)
yet one of their rabbins very gravely undertakes to
941
JOEL, I.
show why Samuel is here called Pethuel. This
Joel was long after that. He here speaks of a sad
and sore judgment which was now brought, or to be
brought, upon Judah, for their sins. Observe,
1. The greatness of the judgment, expressed here
in two things. (1. ) It was such as could not be pa¬
ralleled in the ages that were past; in history, or in
the memory of any living, v. 2. The old men are
appealed to, who could remember what had hap¬
pened long ago; nay, and all the inhabitants of the
land are called on to testify, if they could any of
them remember the like. Let them go further than
any man’s memory, and prepare themselves for the
search of their fathers, (Job viii. 8. ) and they would
not find an account of the like in any record. Note,
Those that outdo their predecessors in sin, may
justly expect to fall under greater and sorer judg¬
ments than any of their predecessors knew. (2. )
It was such as would not be forgotten in the ages to
come; ( v . 3.) “ Tell ye your children of it, let them
know what dismal tokens of the wrath of God you
have been under, that they may take warning, and
may learn obedience by the things which you have
suffered, for it is designed for warning to them also.
Yea, let your children tell their children, and their
children another generation; let them tell it not only
as a strange thing, which may serve for matter of
talk,” (as such uncommon accidents are recorded in
our almanacks — It is so long since the plague, and
fire — so long since the great frost, and the great
wind,) “ but let them tell it, to teach their children
to stand in awe of God and of his judgments, and
to tremble before him.” Note, We ought to trans¬
mit to posterity the memorial of God’s judgments
as well as of lus mercies.
2. The judgment itself ; it is an invasion of the
country of Judea by a great army. Many interpret¬
ers both ancient and modern understand it of armies
of men; the forces of the Assyrians, which, under
Sennacherib, took all the defenced cities of Judah,
and then, no doubt; made havock of the country, and
destroyed the products of it; nay, some make the
four sorts of animals here named, (y. 4.) to signify
the four monarchies, which, in their turns, were op¬
pressive to the people of the Jews, one destroying
what had escaped the fury of the other. Many of
the Jewish expositors think it is a parabolical ex¬
pression of the coming of enemies, and their multi¬
tude, to lay all waste. So the Chaldee Paraphrast
mentions these animals here; (xi. 4.) but afterward,
(c/i. ii. 25.) puts instead of them, Arations, fieofiles,
tongues, languages, potentates, and revenging
kingdoms. But it seems much rather to be under¬
stood literally of armies of insects coming upon the
land, and eating up the fruits of it. Locusts were
one of the plagues of Egypt; of them it is said,
There never were any like them, nor should be,
Exod. x. 14. None such as those in Egypt, none
such as these in Judah; none like those locusts for
bigness, none like these for multitude, and the mis¬
chief they did: that lasted but for a few days, this here
seems to have continued for four years successively,
as some think, because here are four sorts of insects
mentioned, (v. 4.) one destroying what the other
left. But others think they came all in one year.
We are not told, in the history of the Old Testa¬
ment, when this happened, but we are sure that no
word of God fell to the ground; and though a de¬
vastation of these insects is primarily intended here,
yet it is expressed in such language as is very ap¬
plicable to the destruction of the country by a foreign
enemy invading it, because if the people were not
humbled and reformed by that lesser judgment
which devoured the land, God would send this
greater upon them, which would devour the inha-
1 itants; and by the description of that they are bid
to take it for a warning. If this nation of worms
does not reduce them, another nation shall come to
ruin them.
Observe, (1.) What these animals are, that are
sent against them — locusts and caterpillars, palmer-
worms and canker-worms, v. 4. We cannot now de¬
scribe how these differed one from one another; they
were all little insects, any of them despicable, and
which a man might easily crush with his foot or
with his finger; but when they came in vast swarms,
or shoals, they were very formidable, and ate up all
before them. Note, God is Lord of hosts, has all
creatures at his command, and, when he pleases,
can humble and mortify a proud and rebellious peo¬
ple by the weakest and most contemptible crea¬
tures. Man is said to be a worm; and by this it
appears that he is less than a worm, for, when God
pleases, worms are too hard for him, plunder his
country, eat up that for which he laboured, destroy
the forage, and cut off the subsistence of a potent
nation. The weaker the instrument is that God
employs, the more is his power magnified. (2.)
What force and fury they came with. They are
here called a nation, (y. 6.) because they are em¬
bodied, and act by consent, and as it were with a
common design; for though the locusts have no
king, yet go they forth all of them by bands; (Prov.
xxx. 27.) and it is there mentioned as an instance
of their wisdom. It is prudence for those that are
weak severally, to unite and act jointly. They are
strong, for they are without number. The small
dust of the balance is light, and easily blown away,
but a heap of dust is weighty; so a worm can do
little, (yet one worm served to wither Jonah’s
gourd,) but numbers of them can do wonders. They
are said to have the teeth of a lion, of a great lion,
because of the great and terrible execution they do.
Note, Locusts become as lions, when they come
armed with a divine commission. We read of the
locusts out of the bottomless pit, that their teeth
were as the teeth of lions. Rev. ix. 8. (3.) What
mischief they do. They eat up all before them;
(n. 4.) what one leaves, the other devours; they de¬
stroy not only the grass and corn, but the trees; ( v .
7.) The vine is laid waste. These vermin eat the
leaves which should be a shelter to the fruit while it
ripens, and so that also perishes, and comes to no¬
thing. They eat the very bark of the, fig-tree, and
so kill it. Thus the fig-tree does not blossom, nor
is there fruit in the vine.
3. A call to the drunkards to lament this judg¬
ment; (y. 5.) Awake and weep, all ye drinkers of
wine. This intimates, (1.) That they should suffer
very sensibly by this calamity; it should touch
them in a tender part, the new wine which they
loved so well, should be cut off from their mouth.
Note, It is just with God to take away those com¬
forts which are abused to luxury and excess, to re¬
cover the corn and wine which are prepared for
Baal, which are made the food and fuel of a base
lust. And to them judgments of that kind are most
grievous. The more men place their happiness in
the gratifications of sense, the more pressing tempo¬
ral afflictions are upon them. The drinkers of wa¬
ter needed not to care when the vine was laid waste,
they could live as well without it as they had done,
it was no trouble to the Nazarites; but the drinkers .
of wine will weep and howl. The more delights
we make necessary to our satisfaction, the more we
expose ourselves to trouble and disappointment.
(2.) It intimates that they had been very senseless
and stupid under the former tokens of God’s dis¬
pleasure; and therefore they are here called to
awake and weep. They that will not be roused out
of their security by the word of God, shall be roused
by his rod; those that will not be startled by judg¬
ments at a distance, shall be themselves arrested by
i them; and when they are going to take of the for
942
JOEL, 1.
bidden fruit, a prohibition of another nature shall
come between the cu/i and the lip, and cut off the
wine from their mouth.
8. Lament like a virgin girded with sack¬
cloth for the husband of her youth. 9. The
meat-offering and the drink-offering is cut ,
off from the house of the Lord: the priests,
the Lord’s ministers, mourn. 10. The field
is wasted, the land mourneth; for the corn
is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the oil
languished). 11. Be ye ashamed, O ye
husbandmen; howl, O ye vine-dressers, for
the wheat and for the barley; because the
harvest of the field is perished. 12. The
vine is dried up, and the fig-tree languisheth;
the pomegranate-tree, the palm-tree also,
and the apple-tree, even all the trees of the
field, are withered: because joy is withered
away from the sons of men. 1 3. Gird your¬
selves, ancMament, ye priests ; howl, ye mi¬
nisters of the altar; come, lie all night in
sackcloth, ye ministers of my God: for the
meat-offering and the drink-offering is with-
holden from the house of your God.
The judgment is here described as very lamenta¬
ble, and such as all sorts of people should share in;
it shall not only rob the drunkards of their pleasure,
(if that were the worst of it, it might be the better
borne,) but it shall deprive others of their necessary
subsistence, who are therefore called to lament, (d.
8.) as a virgin laments the death of her lover, to
whom she was espoused, but not completely mar¬
ried, yet so that he was in effect her husband; or,
as a young woman lately married, from whom the
husband of her youth, her young husband, or the
husband to whom she was married when she was
young, is suddenly taken away by death. Betwixt
a new-married couple that are young, that married
for love, and that are every way amiable and agree¬
able to each other, there is great fondness, and,
consequently, great grief if either be taken away.
Such lamentation shall there be for the loss of their
corn and wine. Note, The more we are wedded to
our creature-comforts, the harder it is to part with
them. See that parallel place, Isa. xxxii. 10. — 12.
T wo sorts of people are here brought in, as con¬
cerned to lament this devastation, countrymen and
clergymen.
1. Let the husbandmen and vine-dressers lament,
v. 11. Let them be ashamed of the care and pains
they have taken about their vineyards, for it will be
all labour lost, and they shall gain no advantage by
it; They shall see the fruit of their labour eaten up
before their eyes, and shall not be able to save any
of it. Note, Those who labour only for the meat
that / lerishes , will, sooner or later, be ashamed of
their labour. The vine-dressers will then express
their extreme grief by howling, when they see their
vineyards stripped of leaves and fruit, and the vines
withered, so that nothing is to be had, or hoped for,
from them, wherewith they might pay their rent,
and maintain their families. The destruction is
particularly described here; The field is laid waste,
(n. 10. ) all is consumed that it produced, the land
mourns, the ground has a melancholy aspect, and
looks ruefully; all the inhabitants of the land are in
tears for what they have lost, are in fears of perish¬
ing for want, Isa. xxiv. 4. — Jer. iv. 28. The corn,
the bread-corn, which is the staff of life, is wasted;
the new wine, which should be brought into the cel¬
lar for recruits, when the old is drunk, is dried uft,
is ashamed of having promised so fair what it is not
now able to perform; the oil languishes, or is dimi¬
nished, because (as the Chaldee renders it) the
olives are fallen off. The people were not thankful
to God as they should have been for the bread that
strengthens man’s heart, the wine that makes glad
the heart, and the oil that makes the face to shine;
(Ps. civ. 14, 15.) and therefore they are justly
brought to lament the loss and want of them, cf all
the products of the earth, which God had given
them either for necessity or for delight. This is
repeated, v. 11, 12. The wheat and barley, the
two principal grains bread was then made of, wheat
for the rich, and barley for the poor; so that rich
and poor meet together in the calamity. The trees
are destroyed, not only the vine and the Jig-tree, as
before, (v. 7.) which were more useful and neces¬
sary, but other trees also that were for delight;
the pomegranate, palm-tree, and apple-tree, yea all
the trees of the field, as well as those of the orchard,
timber-trees as well as fruit-trees. In short, all the
harvest of the field is perished, v. 11. And by this
means joy is withered away from the children of
men; [y. 11.) the joy of harvest, which is used to
express great and general joy, is come to nothing,
is turned into shame, is turned into lamentation.
Note, The perishing of the harvest is the withering
of the joy of the children of men. Those that
place their happiness in the delights of sense, when
they are deprived of them, or any way disturbed in
the enjoyment of them, lose all their joy; whereas
the children of God, who look upon the pleasures
of sense with holy indifference and contempt, and
know what it is to make God their heart’s delight,
can rejoice in him as the God of their salvation,
even when the fig-tree does not blossom; spiritual
joy is so far from withering then, that it flourishes
more than ever, Hab. iii. 17, 18.
Let us see here, (1.) What perishing, uncertain
things all our creature-comforts are; we can never
be sure of the continuance of them. Here the hea¬
vens had given their rains in due season, the earth
had yielded her strength, and when the appointed
weeks of harvest were at hand, they saw no reason
to doubt but that they should have a very plentiful
crop; yet then they are invaded by these unthought-
of enemies, that lay all waste, and not by fire and
sword. It is our wisdom not to lay up our trea¬
sure in these things, which are liable to so many ill
accidents. (2.) See what need we have to live in a
continual dependence upon God and his providence,
for our own hands are not sufficient for us. When
we see the full corn in the ear, and think we are
sure of it; nay, when we have brought it home, if
he blow upon it, nay, if he do not bless it, we are
not likely to have any good of it. (3.) See what
ruinous work sin makes. A paradise is turned into
a wilderness, a fruitful land, the most fruitful land
upon earth, into barrenness, for the iniquity of them
that dwelt therein.
2. Let the priests, the Lord’s ministers, lament,
for they share deeply in the calamity; Gird your¬
selves with sackcloth; (n. 13.) nay, they do mourn,
v. 9. Observe, The priests are called the ministers
of the altar, for on that they attended, and the mi¬
nisters of the Lord, of my God, says the prophet;
for in attending on the altar they served him, did
his work, and did him honour. Note, They that
are employed in holy things, are therein God’s mi¬
nisters, and on him they attend. The ministers of
the altar used to rejoice before the Lord, and to
spend their time very much in singing; but now they
must lament and howl; for the meat-offering and
drink-offering were cut off fro m the house of the
Lord; ( v . 9.) and the same again, {y. 13.) from
the house of your God. “ He is your God in a par-
943
JOEL, 1.
ticular manner, you are in a nearer relation to him
than other Israelites are; and therefore it is ex¬
pected that you should be more concerned than
others for that which is a hinderance to the service
of his sanctuary.” It is intimated, (1.) That the
people, as long as they had the fruits of the earth
brought in in their season, presented to the Lord his
dues out of them, and brought the offerings to the
altar, and tithes to them that served at the altar.
Note, A people may be filling up the measure of
their iniquity apace, and yet may keep up a course
of external performances in religion. (2.) That,
when the meat and drink failed, the meat-offering
and drink-offering failed of course; and this was the
sorest instance of the calamity. Note, As far as
any public trouble is an obstruction to the course of
religion, it is to be upon that account, more than
any other, sadly lamented, especially by the priests,
the Lord’s ministers. As far as poverty occasions
the decay of piety, and the neglect of divine offices,
and starves the cause of religion among a people, it
is indeed a sore judgment. When the famine pre¬
vailed, God could not have his sacrifices, nor could
the priests have their maintenance; and therefore
let the Lord’s ministers mourn.
14. Sanctify ye a' fast, call a solemn as¬
sembly, gather the elders, and, all the inha¬
bitants of the land, into the house of the
Lord your God, and cry unto the Lord,
1 5. Alas for the day ! for the day of the
Lord is at hand, and as a destruction from
the Almighty shall it come. 16. Is not the
meat cut off before your eyes, yea , joy and
gladness from the house of our God / 17.
The seed is rotten under their clods, the
garners are laid desolate, the barns are
broken down; for the corn is withered. 13.
How do the beasts groan ! the herds of cat¬
tle are perplexed, because they have no
pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made
desolate. 19. O Lord, to thee will I cry:
for the fire hath devoured the pastures of the
wilderness, and the flame hath burnt all the
trees of the field. 20. The beasts of the
field cry also unto thee: for the rivers of
waters are dried up, and the fire hath de¬
voured the pastures of the wilderness.
We have observed abundance of tears shed for
the destruction of the fruits of the earth by the lo¬
custs; now here we have those tears turned into the
right channel, that of repentance and humiliation
before God; the judgment was very heavy, and
here they are directed to own the hand of God in it,
his mighty hand, and to humble themselves under it.
Here is,
I. A proclamation issued out for a general fast
The priests are ordered to appoint one; they must
not only mourn themselves, but they must call upon
others to mourn too; “Sanctify ye a fast; Let
some time be set apart from all worldly business to
be spent in the exercises of religion, in the expres¬
sions of repentance, and other extraordinary in¬
stances of devotion.” Note, Under public judg¬
ments there ought to be public humiliations; for by
them the Lord God calls to weeping and mourning.
With all the marks of sorrow and shame, sin must
be confessed and bewailed, the righteousness of God
must be acknowledged, and his favour implored.
Observe what is to be done by a nation at such a
time. 1. A day is to be appointed for this purpose,
a day of restraint; (so the margin reads it;) a day
in which people must be restrained from their other
ordinary occasions, (that they may the more closely
attend at God’s service,) and from all bodily re¬
freshments; for, 2. It must be a fast, a religious
abstaining from meat and drink, further than is of
absolute necessity. The king of Nineveh appointed
a fast, in which they were to taste nothing, Jonah
iii. 7. Hereby we own ourselves unworthy of our
necessary food, and that we have forfeited it, and
deserve to be wholly deprived of it; we punish our¬
selves and mortify the body which has been the oc¬
casion of sin; we keep it in a frame fit to serve the
soul in serving God; and by the appetite’s craving
food, the desires of the soul toward that which is
better than life, and all the supports of it, are ex¬
cited. This was in a special manner seasonable now
that God was depriving them of their meat and
drink; for hereby they accommodate themselves to
the affliction they were under. When God says.
You shall fast, it is time to say. We will fast. 3.
There must be a solemn assembly. The elders and
the people, magistrates and subjects, must be ga¬
thered together; even all the inhabitants of the land,
that God might be honoured by their public humi¬
liations, that they might thereby take the more
shame to themselves, and that they might excite
and stir up one another to the religious duties of the
day; all had contributed to the national guilt, all
shared in the national calamity, and therefore they
must all join in the professions of repentance. 4.
They must come together in the temple, the house
of the Lord your God, because that was the house
of prayer, and there they might hope to meet with
God, because it was the place which he had chosen
to flat his name there; there they might hope to
speed, because it was a type of Christ and his me¬
diation. Thus they interested themselves in' Solo¬
mon’s prayer for the acceptance of all the requests
that should be put up in or toward this house; in
which their present cas#was particularly mention¬
ed; (1 Kings viii. 37.) If there be locust, if there be
caterpillar. 5. They must sanctify this fast, must
observe it in a religious manner, with sincere devo¬
tion. What is a fast worth, if it be not sanctified ?
6. They must cry unto the Lord. To him they
must make their complaint, and offer up their sup¬
plication to him. When we cry in our affliction,
we must cry to the Lord; this is fasting to him,
Zech. vii. 5.
II. Divers considerations suggested to induce them
to proclaim this fast, and to observe it strictly.
1. God was beginning a controversy with them.
It was time to cry unto the Lord, for the day of the
Lord is at hand, v. 15. Either they mean the con¬
tinuance and consequences of this present judgment
which they now saw but breaking in upon them, or
some greater judgments which this was but a pre¬
face to. However it be, this they are taught to
make the matter of their lamentation; Alas, for the
day! for the day of the Lord is at hand. There¬
fore cry to God. For, (1.) “ The day of his judg¬
ment is very near, it is at hand; it will not slumber,
and therefore you should not. It is time to fast and
pray, for you have but a little time to turn you in. ”
(2.) It will be very terrible, there is no escaping it,
no resisting it; As a destruction from the Almighty
shall it come. See Isa. xiii. 6. It is not a correc¬
tion, but a destruction; and it comes from the hand,
not of a weak creature, but of the Almighty; and
who knows (nay, who does not know) the power of
his anger? Whither should we go with our cries
but to him from whom the judgment we dread
comes? There is no fleeing/rom him but by fleeing
to him; no escaping destruction from the Almighty
but by making our submission and supplication to
94;
JOEL, II.
the Almighty; this is taking hold on his strength,
that me may make peace, Isa. xxvii. 5.
2. They saw themselves already under the tokens
of his displeasure. It is time to fast and pray; for
their distress was very great, v. 16. (1.) Let them
look into their own houses, and there was no plenty
there, as used to be. Those who kept a good table,
were now obliged to retrench; Is not the meat cut
off before our eyes? We see it, wherever we go.
Note, Though it is common for the heart not to
rue what the eye sees not, yet that heart is hard in¬
deed, which trembles not, and humbles not itself,
when God’s judgments are before the eyes. If, when
God’s hand is lifted up, men mill not see, when his
hand is laid on, they shall see. Is not the meat many
a time cut off before our eyes? Let us then labour
for that spiritual meat which is not before our eyes,
and which cannot be cut off. (2.) Let them look
into God’s house, and see the effects of the judg¬
ment there; joy and gladness were cut off from the
house of God. Note, The house of our God is the
proper place of joy and gladness; when David goes
to the altar of Goa, it is to God my exceeding Joy;
but when joy and gladness are cut off from God’s
house, either by the corruption of holy things, or the
persecution of holy persons, when serious godliness
decays, and love waxes cold, then it is time to cry
to the Lord, time to cry, Alas !
The prophet returns to describe the grievousness
of the calamity, in several particulars of it. Corn
and cattle are the husbandman’s staple commodi¬
ties; now here he is deprived of both these. [1.]
The caterpillars have devoured the corn, v. 17.
The garners which they used to fill with corn, are
laid desolate, and the barns broken down, because
the corn is mithered, and the owners think it not
worth while to be at the charge of repairing them
when they have nothing to put in them, nor likely
to have any; for the seed is rotten under the clods,
either through too much rain, or (which was the
more common case in Canaan) for want of rain, or
perhaps some insects underground ate it up. When
one crop fails, the husbandman hopes the next may
make it up; but here they despair of that, the seed-
ness being as bad as the harvest. [2.] The cattle
perish too for want of grass; ( v . 18.) Horn do the
beasts groan ! This the prophet takes notice of,
that the people might be affected with it, and lay to
heart the judgment. The groans of the cattle should
soften their hard and impenitent hearts. The herds
of cattle, the large cattle, (black cattle we call them,)
they are perplexed, nay, even the flocks of sheep,
who will live upon a common, and take up with very
short grass, even they are made desolate. See here
the inferior creatures suffering for our transgres¬
sions, and groaning underthe doubleburthen of being
serviceable to the sin of man, and subject to the
curse of God for it; Cursed is the ground for thy
sake.
III. The prophet stirs them tip to cry to God,
with the consideration of the examples given them
for it.
1. His own example; (u. 19.) O Lord, to thee
mill I cry. He would not put them upon doing that
which he would not resolve to do himself; nay,
whether they would do it or no, he would. Note,
If God’s ministers cannot prevail to affect others
with the discoveries of divine wrath, yet they ought
to be themselves affected with them ; if they cannot
bring others to cry to God, yet they must themselves
be much in prayer. In time of trouble, we must not
only pray, but cry, must be fervent and importu¬
nate in prayer; and to God, from whom both the
destruction is, and the salvation must be, ought our
cry to be always directed. That which engaged
him to cry to God, was, not so much anv personal
affection, as the national calamity; The/fre has de¬
voured the pastures of the wilderness; which seems
to be meant of some parching, scorching heat of the
sun, which was as fire to the fruits of the earth, it
consumed them all. Note, When God calls to con¬
tend by fire, it concerns those that have any interest
in Heaven, to cry mightily to him for relief. See
Numb. xi. 2. Amos vii. 4, 5.
2. The example of the inferior creatures; The
beasts of the field do not only groan, but they cry
unto thee, v. 20. They appeal to thy pity, accord¬
ing to their capacity, and as if, though they are not
capable of a rational and revealed religion, yet they
had something of dependence upon God by natural
instinct. At least, when they groan by reason of
their calamity, he is pleased to interpret it as if they
cried to him; much more will he put a favourable
construction upon thegroan/np-s of his own children,
though sometimes so feeble, that they cannot be ut¬
tered, Rom. viii. 26. The beasts are here said to
cry unto God, as from him the lions seek their meat,
(P's. civ. 21.) and the young ravens. Job xxxviii.
41. The complaints of the brute creatures here are
for want of water. The rivers are dried up, through
the excessive heat, and for want of grass, for the
fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.
And what better are they than beasts, who never
cry to God but for corn and wine, and complain of
nothing but the want of the delights of sense? Yet
their crying to Sod in those cases shames the stu¬
pidity of those who cry not to God in any case.
CHAP. II.
In this chapter, ive have, I. A further description of that
terrible desolation which should be made in the land of
Judah by the locusts and caterpillars, v, 1 . . 11. II. A
serious call to the people, when they are under this sore
judgment, to return and repent, to fast and pray, and tc
seek unto God for mercy, with directions how to do this
aright, v. 12.. 17. III. A promise that, upon their re¬
pentance, God would remove the judgment, would re¬
pair the breaches made upon them by it, and restore
unto them plenty of all good things, v. 18 . . 27. IV. A
prediction of the setting up of the kingdom of the Mes¬
siah in the world, by the pouring out of the Spirit in the
latter days, v. 28. -32. Thus the beginning of this chap¬
ter is made terrible with the tokens of God’s wrath, but
the latter end of it made comfortable with the assur¬
ances of his favour, and it is in the way of repentance,
that this blessed change is made; so that, though it is
only the last paragraph of the chapter that points di¬
rectly at gospel-times, yet the whole may be improved as
a type and figure, representing the curses of the law in¬
vading men for their s*ins, and the comfort of the gospel
flowing in to them upon their repentance.
1. OLOW ye the trumpet in Zion, and
O sound an alarm in my holy moun
tain: let all the inhabitants of the land
tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh
for it is nigh at hand : 2. A day of darkness
and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of
thick darkness, as the morning spread upon
the mountains: a great people and a strong
there hath not been ever the like, neither
shall be any more after it, even to the years
of many generations. 3. A fire devourefh
before them; and behind them a flame burn¬
etii : the land is as the garden of Eden be¬
fore them, and behind them a desolate wil¬
derness ; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
4. The appearance of them is as the ap¬
pearance of horses; and as horsemen, so
shall they run. 5. Like the noise of cha¬
riots on the tops of mountains shall they
leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that de-
94 5
JOEL, II.
voureth the stubble, as a strong people set
in battle array. 6. Before tbeir face the
people shall be much pained; all faces shall
gather blackness. 7. They shall run like
mighty men; they shall climb the wall
like men of war; and they shall march every
one on his ways, and they shall not break
their ranks: 8. Neither shall one thrust an¬
other, they shall walk every one in his path:
and when they fall upon the sword, they
shall not be wounded. 9. They shall run
to and fro in the city; they shall run upon
the wall; they shall climb up upon the
houses ; they shall enter in at the windows
like a thief. 10. The earth shall quake
before them; the heavens shall tremble: the
sun and the moon shall be dark, and the
stars shall withdraw their shining; 1 1. And
the Lord shall utter his voice before his
army; for his camp is very great: for he is
strong that executeth his word : for the day
of the Lord is great and very terrible; and
who can abide it?
Here we have God contending with his own pro¬
fessing people for their sins, and executing upon
them the judgment written in the law; (Deut. xxviii.
42. ) The fruit of thy land shall the locust consume ,
which was one of those diseases of - Egypt that God
would bring upon them, v. 60.
1. Here is the war proclaimed; ( v . 1.) Slow ye
the trumpet in Zion; either to call the invading
army together, and then the trumpet sounds a
charge, or, rather, to give notice to Judah and Jeru¬
salem of the approach of the judgment, that they
might f ire/iare to meet their God in the way of his
judgments, and might endeavour by prayers and
tears, the church’s best artillery, to put by the
stroke. It was the priests’ business to sound the
trumpet, (Numb. x. 8.) both as an appeal to God in
the day or their distress, and a summons to the peo¬
ple to come together to seek his face. Note, It is
the work of ministers to give warning from the word
of God of the fatal consequences of sin, and to reveal
his wrath from heaven against the ungodliness and un¬
righteousness of men. And though it is not the privi¬
lege of Zion and Jerusalem to be exempted from the
judgments of God, if they provoke him, yet it is
their privilege to be warned of them, that they may
make their peace with him. Even in the holy moun¬
tain the alarm must be sounded, and then it sounds
most dreadful, Amos iii. 2. Now, shall a trumfiet
be blown in the city, in the holy city, and the fieofile
not be afraid? Surely they will, Amos iii. 6. Let
all the inhabitants of the land tremble; they shall be
made to tremble by the judgment itself; let them
therefore tremble at the alarm of it.
2. Here is a general idea given of the day of bat¬
tle, which cometh, which is nigh at hand, and there
is no avoiding it. It is the day of the Lord, the day
of his judgment, in which he will both manifest and
magnify himself. It is a day of darkness and
gloominess; (v. 2.) literally so, the swarms of lo¬
custs and caterpillars being so large and so thick as
to darken the sky; (Exod. x. 15.) or, rather, figu¬
ratively, it will be a melancholy time, a time of
grievous affliction. And it will come as the morning
sfircad upon the mountains; the darkness of this day
will come as suddenly as the morning-light, as irre¬
sistibly, will spread as far, and grow upon them as
the morning-light.
Vol. iv. — 6 D
3. Here is the army drawn up in array; (u. 2.)
They are a great people, and a strong. Any one
that sees the vast numbers that there shall be of lo¬
custs and caterpillars, destroying the land, will say,
(as we are all apt to be most itffected with what is
present,) “Surely, never was the like before, nor
ever will be the like again.” Note, Extraordinary
judgments are rare things, and seldom happen,
which is an instance of God’s patience; when God
had drowned the world once, he promised never to
do it again. The army is here described to be, (1.)
Very bold and daring; They are as horses, as war-
horses, that rush into the battle, and are not af¬
frighted; (Job xxxix. 22.) and as horsemen carried
on with martial fire and fury, so they shall run, v.
4. Some of the ancients have observed that the head
of a locust is very like, in shape, to the head of a
horse. (2.) Very loud and noisy ; like the noise of
chariots, of many chariots, when driven furiodsly
over rough ground, on the tops of the mountains, v.
5. Hence is borrowed part of the description of the
locusts which St. John saw rise out of the bottomless
pit; (Rev. ix. 7, 9.) The shapes of the locusts were
like unto horses prepared to the battle; and the
sound of their wings were as the sound of chariots,
of many horses running to the battle. Historians
tell us that the noise made by swarms of locusts in
those countries that are infested with them, has
sometimes been heard six miles off. The noise is
likewise compared to that of a roaring fire; it is like
the noise of a flame that devours the stubble; which
noise is the more terrible, because that which it is
the indication of, is devouring. Note, When God’s
judgments are abroad, they make a great noise; and
it is necessary for the awakening of a secure and
stupid world. (3.) They are very regular, and
keep ranks, in their march; though numerous and
greedy of spoil, yet they are as a strong people set
in battle array; (v. 5. ) They shall march every one
on his ways, straight forward, as if they had been
trained up by the discipline of war to keep their
post, and observe their right-hand man; They shall
not break their ranks, nor one thrust another, v. 7,
8. Their number and swiftness shall breed no con¬
fusion. See how God can make creatures to act by
rule that have no reason to act by, when he designs
to serve his own purposes by them. And see how
necessary it is that those who are employed in any
service for God, should observe order, and keep
ranks, should diligently goon in their own work, and
not stand in one another’s way. (4. ) They are very
swift; they run like horsemen, {v. 4.) run like
mighty men, (v. 7.) they run to and fro in the city,
and run upon the wall, v. 9. When God sends
forth his command on earth, his word runs very
swiftly, Ps. cxlvii. 15. Angels have wings, and so
have locusts, when God makes use of them.
4. Here is the terrible execution done by this for¬
midable army. (1.) In the country, v. 3. View
the army in the front, and you will see a Jire de¬
vouring before them, they consume all as if they
breathed fire; view it in the rear, and you will
see those that come behind as furious as the fore¬
most, behind them a flame burns. When they are
gone, then it will appear what destruction they have
made. Look upon the fields that they have not yet
invaded, and they are as the garden of Eden,
pleasant to the eye, and full of good fruits, they are
the pride and glory of the country; but look upon
the fields that they have eaten up, and they are as
a desolate wilderness. One would not think that
these had ever been like the former, and yet so they
were perhaps but the day before; or that those
should ever be made like these, and yet so they
shall be perhaps by to-morrow night; yea, and no¬
thing shall escape them, that can possibly be made
food for them. Let none be proud of the beauty ot
946
JOEL, 11.
their grounds any more than of their bodies, for God
can soon change the face of bo'.h. (2.) In the city,
they shall climb the wall , (y. 7.) they shall run
upon the houses, and enter in at the windows like a
thief; (y. 9.) whenfigypt was plagued with locusts,
they filled Pharaoh’s houses, and the houses of his
servants, Exod. x. 5, 6. The locusts out of the
bottomless pit, Satan’s emissaries, and missionaries
of the man of sin, do as these locusts. God’s judg¬
ments too, when they come with commission, can¬
not be kept out with bars and bolts; they will find,
or force, their way.
5. The impressions that should hereby be made
upon the people. They shall find it to no purpose
to make opposition; these enemies are invulnerable,
and therefore irresistible; when they fall upon the
sword, they shall not be wounded, v. 8. And those
that cannot be hurt, cannot be stopped; and there¬
fore before their faces the people shall be much
pained, (y. 6.) as the merchants are in pain for
their trading ships, when they hear they are just in
the mouth of a squadron of the enemies. One was
in pain for his field, another for his vineyard, and
all faces gather blackness, which denotes the utmost
consternation imaginable. Men in fear look pale,
but men in despair look black; the whiteness of a
sudden fright, when it is settled, turns into black¬
ness. What is the matter of our pride and pleasure,.
God can soon make the matter of our pain. The
terror that the country should be in, is described
(,■?’. 10.) by figurative expressions; The earth shall
yuake, and the heavens tremble; even the hearts
that seemed undaunted, so firm that nothing would
frighten them, as immoveable as heaven or earth,
shall be seized with astonishment. Or, when the
inhabitants of the land are made to quake, it seems
to them as if all about them trembled too. Through
tae prevalency of their fear, or.for want of the sup¬
ports of life which they used to have, theireye shall
wax dim, and their sight fail them, so that to them
the sun and moon shall seem to be dark, and the
stars to withdraw their shining. Note, When God
frowns upon men, the lights of heaven will be small
joy to them. For man, by rebelling against his
Creator, has forfeited the benefit of all the creatures.
But though this here is to be understood figurative¬
ly, there is a day coming when it will be accom¬
plished in the letter, when the heavens shall be
rolled together like a scroll, and the earth, and all the
works that are therein, shall be burnt up. Particu¬
lar judgments should awaken us to think of the
general judgment.
6. We are here directed to look up to him who is
the Commander in chief of this formidable army,
and that is God himself, v. 11. It is his army, it is
his camp; he raised it, he gives it commission; he
utters his voice before it, as the general gives orders
to his army what to do, and makes a speech to ani¬
mate the soldiers; it is the Lord that gives the word
of command to all these animals, which they ex¬
actly observ e. Some think that with this cloud of
locusts God sent terrible thunder, for that is called,
The voice of the Lord, and was another of the
plagues of Egypt, and this made the heavens and
the earth tremble. It is the day of the Lord, as it
was called, ( v . 1. ) for in this war we are sure he
carries the day; it must needs be his, for his camp is
great and numerous, those whom he makes war
upon, he can, as here, overpower with numbers;
and whoever he employs to execute his word, as the
minister of his justice, is sure to be made strong and
par negotio — eyual to what he undertakes; whom
God gives commission to, he girds with strength for
the executing of that commission. And this makes
the great day of the Lord very terrible to all those,
who in that day are to be made the monuments of
his justice*, for who can abide it? None can escape
the arrests of God’s wrath, can make head against
the force of it, or bear up under the weight of it, 1
Sam. vi. 20. Ps. Ixxvi. 7.
12. Therefore also now, saith the Lord,
Turn ye even to me with all your heart, and
with fasting, and with weeping, and with
mourning; 13. And rend your heart, and
not your garments, and turn unto the Lord
your God; for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and of great kindness, and
repenteth him of the evil. 14. Whoknow-
eth if he will return and repent, and leave a
blessing behind him, even a meat-offering,
and a drink-offering, unto the Lord your
God? 15. Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanc¬
tify a fast, call a solemn assembly: 16.
Gather the people, sanctify the congregation,
assemble the. elders, gather the children, and
those, that suck the breasts ; let the bride¬
groom go forth of his chamber, and the bride
out of her closet : 1 7. Let the priests, the
ministers of the Lord, weep between the
porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare
thy people, O Lord, and give not thy heri¬
tage to reproach, that the heathen should
rule over them: wherefore should they say
among the people, Where is their God ?
We have here an earnest exhortation to repent¬
ance, inferred from that desolating judgment de¬
scribed and threatened in the foregoing verses;
Therefore now turn ye to the Lord. 1. “Thus you
must answer the end and intention of the judgment;
for it was sent for this end, to convince you of your
sins, to humble you for them, to reduce you to your
right minds, and to your allegiance.” God brings
us into straits, that he may bring us to repentance,
and so bring us to himself. 2. “ Thus you may stay
the progress of the judgment. Things are bad with
you, but thus you may prevent their growing worse;
nay, if you take this course, they will soon grow
better. ”
Here is a gracious invitation,
I. To a personal repentance, exercised in the
soul; every family apart, and their wives apart,
Zech. xii. 12. When the judgments of God are
abroad, each person is concerned to contribute his
quota to the common supplications, hav ing con¬
tributed to the common guilt. Every one must
mend one, and mourn for one, and then we should
all be mended, and all found among God’s mour¬
ners.
Observe, 1. What we are here called to; which
will teach us what it is to repent-, for it is the same
that the Lord our God still requires of us, we having
all made work for repentance. (1.) We must be
truly humbled for our sins, must be sorry wc have
by sin offended God, and ashamed we have by sin
wronged ourselves, both wronged our judgments, and
wronged our interest. There must be outward ex¬
pressions of sorrow and shame, fasting, and weep¬
ing, and mourning ; tears for the trouble must be
turned into tears for the sin that procured it. But
what will the outward expressions of sorrow avail,
if the inward impressions be not agreable, and not
only accompanv them, but be the root and spring
of them, and give rise to them ? And therefore it
follows, Rend your heart, and not your garments;
not but that, according to the custom of that age, it
was proper for them to rend their garments, in token
917
JOEL, II.
of great grief for their sins, and a holy indigna- 1
tinn against themselves for their folly; but, “Rest
not in the doing of that, as if that were sufficient,
but lie more in care to accommodate your spirits,
than to accommodate your dress, to a day of fasting
and humiliation; nay, rend nut your garments at all,
unless withal you rend your hearts , for the sign
without the thing signified is but a jest and a mock¬
ery, and an affront to God.”-' Rending the heart is
that which God looks for and requires, that is the
broken and contrite heart which he will not des/iise,
Ps. li. 17. When we are greatly grieved in soul for
sin, so that it even cuts us to the heart to think how
we have dishonoured God, and disparaged ourselves
bv it, when we conceive an aversion to sin, and ear¬
nestly desire and endeavour to get clear of the prin¬
ciples of it, and never to return to the practice of it,
then we rend our hearts for it; and then will God
rend the heavens, and come down to us with mercy.
(2.) We must be thoroughly converted to our God,
and come home to him when we fall out with sin.
Turn ye even to me, saith the Lord, ( v . 12.) and
again, [v. 13.) Turn unto the Lord your God. Our
fasting and weeping are worth nothing, if we do not
with it turn to God as our God. When we are ful¬
ly convinced that it is our duty and interest to keep
in with him, and are heartily S' rry we have ever
turned the back upon him, and, thereupon, by a firm
and fixed resolution make his glory our end, his will
our rule, and his favour our felicity, then we return
to the Lord our God, and this we are commanded
and invited to do, and to do it quickly.
2. What arguments are here used to persuade
this people thus to turn to the Lord, and to turn to
him with all their hearts. When the heart is rent
for sin, and rent from it, then it is prepared to turn
entirely to God, and to be devoted entirely to him,
and he will have it all or none. Now to bring our¬
selves to this, let us consider,
(1.) We are sure that he is, in generd, a good
God, Therefore we must turn to the Lord our God,
not only because he has been just and righteous in
punishing us for our sins, the fear of which should
drive us to him, but because he is gracious and mer¬
ciful in receiving us upon our repentance, the hope
of which should draw us to him. He is gracious
and merciful, delights not in the death of sinners,
but desires they may turn and live. He is slow to
anger against those that offend him, but of great
kindness toward those that desire to please him.
These very expressions are used in God’s procla¬
mation of his name, when he caused his goodness,
and with it all his glory, to pass before Moses, Exod.
xxxiv. 6, 7. He repents him of the evil; not that
1k- changes his mind, but, when the sinner’s mind is
changed, God’s way toward him is changed; the
sentence is reversed, and the curse of the law is
taken off. Note, That is genuine, ingenuous, and
evangelical repentance, which arises from a firm
belief of the mercy of God, which we have sinned
against, and yet are not in despair. Repent, for the
kingdom of heaven is at hand. The goodness of
God, if it be rightly understood, instead of im-
boldening us to go on in sin, will be the most power¬
ful inducement to repentance, Ps. exxx. 4. The
act of indemnity brings those to God, whom the act
of attainder frightened from him.
(2. ) We have reason to hope that he will, upon
our repentance, give us that good which by sin we
have forfeited, and deprived ourselves of; (it. 14.)
that he will return and re/ient, that he will not pro¬
ceed against us as he has done, but will act in favour
of us. Therefore let us refient of our sins agaihst
him, and return to him in a way of dutv, because
then we may hope that he will repent of his judg¬
ments against us, and return to us in a way of mer¬
cy. Now observe, [1.] The manner of the expec¬
tation is very humble and modest; Who knows if he
will? Some think it is expressed thus doubtfully,
to check the presumption and security of the peo¬
ple, and to quicken them to a holy carefulness and
liveliness in their repentance, as Josh. xxiv. 19. Or,
rather, it is expressed doubtfully, because it is the re¬
moval of a temporal judgment that they here pro
mise themselves, of which we cannot be so confi¬
dent as we can that, in general, God is gracious and
merciful. There is no question at all to be made,
but that if we truly repent of r-ur sins, God will for¬
give them, and be reconciled to us; but whether he
will remove this or the other affliction which we
are under, may well be questioned, and yet the pro¬
bability of it should encourage us to repent. Pro¬
mises of temporal good things are often made with
a perid venture; it may be, you shall be hid, Zeph.
ii. 3. David’s sin is pardoned, and yet the child
shall die, and when David prayed for its life, he
said, as here. Who can tell whether God will be
gracious to me in this matter likewise? 2 Sam. xii.
22. The Ninevites repented and reformed, upon
such a consideration as this, Jonah iii. 9. [2.] The
matter of the expectation is veiy pious; they hope
God will return and repent, and leave a blessing be¬
hind him, not as if he were about to go from them,
and they could be content with any blessing in lieu
of his presence, but behind him; that is, “After he
has ceased his controversy with us, he will bestow
a blessing upon us;” and what is it? It is a meat-of¬
fering and a drink-offering to the Lord our God.
The fruits of the earth are called a blessing, (Isa.
lxv. 8.) because they depend upon God’s blessing,
and are necessary blessings to us. They had been
deprived of these, and that which grieved them
most while they were so, was, that God’s altar
wanted its offerings, and God’s priests their mainte¬
nance; that therefore which they comfort themselves
with the prospect of in their return of plenty, is,
that then there should be meat-offerings and drink-
offerings in abundance brought to God’s altar,
which they more desired than to see the wonted
abundance of meat and drink brought to their own
tables. Thus when Hezekiah was in hopes that he
should recover of his sickness, he asked, What is
the sign that I shall go u/i, not to the thrones of
judgment, or to the council-board, but to the house
of the Lord ? Isa. xxxviii. 22. Note, The plentiful
enjoyment of God’s ordinances in their power and
purity, is the most valuable instance of a nation’s
prosperity, and the greatest blessing that can be de¬
sired. If God give the blessing of the meat-offering
and the drink-offering, that will bring along with it
other blessings, will sanctify them, sweeten them,
and secure them.
II. 'They are here called to a public, national re¬
pentance, to be exercised in the solemn assembly,
as a national act, for the glory of God, and the ex¬
citement of one another, and that the neighbouring
nations might know and observe what it was that
qualified them for God’s gracious returns in mercy
to them, which they would be the admiring witness¬
es of. Let us see here,
1. How the congregation must be called together,
v. 15, 16. The trumpet was blown, (v. 1.) to
sound an alarm of war; but now it must be blown
in order to a treaty of peace; God is willing to show
mercy to his people, if he do but find them in a
frame fit for it; and therefore, Call them together,
sanctify a fast. By the law many annual feasts were
appointed, but only one day in the year was to be
observed as a fast, the day of atonement; a day to
afflict the soul, and if they had kept close to God
and their duty, there would have been no occasion
to observe any more; but now that they had bv sin
brought the judgments of God upon them, they arc
often called to'fasting. What was said,T//. i. 14. is
948
JOEL, II.
here repeated; “ Call a solemn assembly, gather the
people, press them to come together upon this
errand, sanctify the congregation, appoint a time
for solemn preparation beforehand, and put them in
mind to prepare themselves; let not the greatest be
excused, but assemble the elders, the judges and
magistrates; let not the meanest be passed by, but
f 'other the children, and those that suck the breasts. ”
t is good to bring little children, as soon as they are
capable of understanding any thing, to religious as¬
semblies, that they may be trained up' betimes in
the way wherein they should go; but these were
brought even when they were at the breast, and
were kefit fasting, that by their cries for the breast
the hearts of the parents might be moved to repent
of sin which God might justly visit upon their chil¬
dren, so that the tongue of the sucking child might
cleave to the roof rf his mouth, (Lam. iv. 4.) and
that on them God might have compassion, as he had
on the infants of Nineveh, Jonah iv. 1 1. New-mar¬
ried people must not be exempted; Let the bride¬
groom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of
'her closet; let not them take state upon them, as
usual, not put on their ornaments, or indulge them¬
selves in mirth, but apply themselves to the duties
of the public fast with as much gravity and sadness
as any of their neighbours. Note, Private joys must
always give way to public sorrows, both those for
affliction, and those for sin.
2. How the work of the dav must be carried on,
v. 17. (1.) The priests, the Lord’s ministers, must
preside in the congregation, and be God’s mouth to
the people, and theirs to God; who besides should
stand in the gap to turn away the wrath of God,
whose business it was to make intercession upon
ordinary occasions? (2.) They must officiate be¬
tween the fiorch and the altar; there they used to
attend about the sacrifices, and therefore now that
they have no sacrifices to offer, or next to none,
there they must offer up spiritual sacrifices. There
the people must see them weeping and wrestling,
like their father Jacob, and be helped into the same
devout frame. Ministers must themselves be af¬
fected with those things wherewith they desire to
affect others. It was between the porch and the al¬
tar, that Zechariah the son of Jehoiada was put to
death for his faithfulness; that precious blood God
would require at their hands, and therefore, to turn
away the judgment theatened for it there, they must
weep. (3.) They must pray; words are here put
into their mouths, which they might in their prayers
enlarge upon. Their petition must be, Spare thy
people , 0 Lord. God’s people, when they are in
distress, can expect no relief against God’s justice,
but what comes from his mercy. They cannot say,
Lord, right us, but, Lord, spare us. We deserve
the correction, we need it, but, Lord, mitigate it.
The sinner’s supplication is, Spare us, good Lord.
Their plea must be taken from the relation where¬
in they stand to God; “They are thy people, and
thine heritage, therefore have compassion on them;”
but especially from the concern of God’s glory in
their trouble. “ Lord, give not thine heritage to re¬
proach, to the reproach of famine; let not the land
of Canaan, that has been so long celebrated for the
glory of all lands, now be made the scorn of all lands;
let not the heathen rule over them, as they will easily
do when thine heritage is thus impoverished, and
disabled to subsist. Let not the heathen make them
a proverb, or a by-word ;” (so some read it;) “ let it
never be said. As poor and beggarly as an Israel¬
ite.” Note, The maintaining of the credit of the
nation among its neighbours, is a blessing to be de¬
sired and prayed for by all that wish well to it. But
that reproach of the church is especially to be
dreaded and deprecated, which reflects upon God:
“ Let them not say among the people,' lYhere is their
God ? that God who has ptomis^d to help them,
whom they have boasted so much of, and put such
a confidence in.” If God’s heritage be destroyed,
the neighbours will say, “ God was either weak, and
could not relieve them, or unkind, and would not.”
God thus triumphs over the pretended deities;
(Deut. xxxii. 37.) Where are now their gods in
whom they trusted? And Sennacherib thus tri¬
umphs over them, Where are now the gods of Ha¬
math and Arp had ? But it must by no means be suf¬
fered, that any should say of Israel, Where is their
God? For we are sure that our God is in the
heavens, (Ps. cxv. 2, 3. ) is in his temple, Ps. xi. 4.
1 8. Then will the Lord be jealous for
his land, and pity his people. 19. Yea, the
Lord will answer, and say unto his peo¬
ple, Behold, I will send you corn, and wine,
and oil, and ye shall be satisfied therewith ,
and I will no more make you a reproach
among the heathen. 20. Bui I will remove
far off from you the northern army, and will
drive him into a land barren and desolate,
with his face toward the east sea ; and his
hinder part toward the utmost sea: and his
stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall
come up, because he hath done great things.
21. F ear not, O land ; be glad and rejoice :
for the Lord will do great things. 22. Be
not afraid, ye beasts of the field : for the pas¬
tures of the wilderness do spring, for the
tree beareth her fruit, the fig-tree and the
vine do yield their strength. 23. Be glad
then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the
Lord your God: for he hath given you the
former rain moderately, and he will cause
to come down for you the rain, the for¬
mer rain, and the latter rain in the first
month. 24. And the floors shall be full of
wheat, and the fats shall overflow with wine
and oil. 25. And I will restore to you the
years that the locust hath eaten, the can¬
ker-worm, and the caterpillar, and the pal¬
mer-worm, my great army, which I sent
among you. 26. And ye shall eat in plenty,
and be satisfied, and praise the name of the
Lord your God, that hath dealt wondrously
with you: and my people shall never be
ashamed. 27. And ye shall know that I
am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the
Lord your God, and none else: and my
people shall never be ashamed.
See how ready God is to succour and relieve his
people, how he waits to be gracious; as soon as ever
they humble themselves under his hand, and pray,
and seek his face, he immediately meets them with
his favours; they prayed that God would spare
them, and see here with what good words and com¬
fortable words he answered them; for God’s pro¬
mises are real answers to the prayers of faith, be
cause with him saying and doing are not two things.
Now observe,
I. Whence this mercy promised shall take rise;
(v. 18.) God will be jealous for his land, and pity
his people. He will have an eye, 1. To his own
honour, and the. reputation of his covenant witli
949
JOEL, II.
Israel, by which he had conveyed to them that good
land, and had given in the value of it very high;
now he will not suffer it to be despised or disparaged,
but will be jealous for the credit of his land and the
inhabitants of it, who had been praised as a happy
people, and therefore must not lie open to reproach
as a miserable people. 2. To their distress; He
will /lily his people, and, in pity to them, he will
restore them their forfeited comforts. God’s com¬
passion is a great encouragement to those that come
humbly to lum as penitents and as petitioners.
II. What his mercy shall be, in several instances.
1. The destroying army shall be dispersed and
defeated; (v. 20.) “I will remove far off from you
the northern army, that army of locusts and cater¬
pillars, that invaded you from the north; brought in
upon the wings of a north wind, an army which you
could put no stop to the progress of ; but when you
have made your peace with God, he will ease you
of these soldiers that are quartered upon you, and
will drive them into a land barren and desolate, into
that vast howling wilderness that Israel wandered
in, where, after having surfeited upon the plenty of
Canaan, they shall perish for want of sustenance;
those that have their face to the east sea, (the Dead
sea, which lay east of Judea,) shall perish in that,
and the rear of the army shall be lost in the great
sea,” called here the utmost sea. They had made
the land barren and desolate, and now God will cast
them into a land barren and desolate. Thus those
whom God employs for the correction of his people,
come afterward to be themselves reckoned with;
and the rod thrown into the fire. Nothing shall
remain of these swarms of insects, but the ill sa¬
vour of them. When Egypt was eased of the plague
of locusts, they were carried away to the Red sea,
Exod. x. 19. Note, When an affliction has done
its work, it shall be removed in mercy, as the
locusts of Canaan were from a penitent people, not
as the locusts of Egypt were removed, in wrath,
from an impenitent prince, only to make room for
another plague. Many interpreters, by this north¬
ern army, understand that of Sennacherib, which
was dispersed, when God by it had accomplished his
whole work upon mount 7Jon, and upon Jerusalem,
Isa. x. 12. This enemy shall be driven away, be¬
cause he has done great things, has done a great
deal of mischief,' and has magnified to do it, has
done it in the pride of his heart; therefore it fol¬
lows, (v. 21.) The Lord will do great things for his
people, as the enemy has done great things against
them; to convince them that wherein they deal
proudly, he is, and will be, above them; that what
great things soever they did, they did no more than
God commissioned them to do; and as when he said
to them, Go, they went, so when he said to them,
Come, they came, to show that they were soldiers
under him.
2. The destroyed land shall be watered and made
fruitful. When the army is scattered, yet what
shall we do if the desolation they have made con¬
tinue? It is therefore promised (v. 22.) that the
pastures of the wilderness, the pastures which the
locusts had left as bare as the wilderness, shall again
spring, and the trees shall again bear their fruit,
particularly the fig-tree and the vine. But when
we see how the country is wasted, we are tempted
to sav, Can these dry bones live? If the Lord should
make windows in heaven, it cannot be; but it shall be,
for (v. 23.) The Lord has given; and will give you
the former rain and the latter rain, and if he give
them in mercy, he will give them moderately, so that
the rain shall not turn into a judgment, and he will
give them in due season; the latter rain in the first
month, when it was wanted and expected. It would
make it comfortable to them, to see it coming from
th< hand of God, and ordered by his wisdom, for
then we are sure it is well ordered. He has given
you a teacher of righteousness; so the margin reads
it, for the same word that signifies the rain, signifies
a teacher, and that which we translate, moderately,
is, according to righteousness; and this teacher of
righteousness, says one of the rabbins, is the King
Messias; and of him many others understand this;
for he is a Teacher come from God, and he shows
us the way of righteousness. But others understand
it of any prophet that instructs unto righteousness;
and some of Hezekiah particularly, others of Isaiah.
Note, It is a good sign that God has mercy in store
for a people, when he sends them teachers of righ¬
teousness, pastors after his own heart.
3. All their losses shall be repaired; {v. 25.) 1
will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten;
you shall be comforted according to the time that
you have been afflicted, and shall have years of
plenty to balance the years of famine.” Thus does
it repent the Lord concerning his servants, when
they repent, and, to show how perfectly he is re¬
conciled to them, he makes good the damage they
have sustained by his judgments, and, like the jailer,
washes their stripes. Though, in justice, he dis¬
trained upon them, and did them no wrong, yet, in
compassion, he makes restitution; ns the father of
the prodigal, upon his return, made up all he had
lost by his sin and folly, and took him into his fa¬
mily, as in his former estate. The locusts and
caterpillars are here called God’s great army which
he sent among them, and he will therefore repair
what they had devoured, because they were his
army.
4. They shall have great abundance of all good
things. The earth shall yield her increase, and
they shall enjoy it. Look into the stores where they
lay up, and you shall find the floors full of wheat,
and the fats overflowing with wine and oil; (v. 24.)
whereas, in the day of their distress, the wine and
oil languished, and the barns were broken down,
ch. i. 10, 17. Look upon their tables where they
lay out what they have laid up, and you shall find
that they eat in plenty, and are satisfied, v. 26.
They do not eat to excess, nor are surfeited; we
hope the drunkards are cured by the late affliction
of their inordinate love of wine and strong drink,
for, though they were brought in howling for the
scarcity, (ch. i. 5.) they are not brought in again
here singing for the plenty of it; but now all shall
have enough, and shall know when they have
enough, for God will make their food nourishing,
and give them to be content with it.
These are the mercies promised, and in these
God doeth great things; (v. 21.) He deals won-
drously with his people, v. 26. Herein he glorifies
his power, and shows that he can relieve his peo¬
ple, though their distress be ever so great, and glo¬
rifies his goodness, that he will do it upon their
repentance, though their provocations were ever
so great. Note, When God deals graciously with
oor sinners that return to him, it must be ac-
nowledged that he deals wondrously, and doeth
great things. Some expositors understand these
promises figuratively, as pointing at gospel-grace,
and having their accomplishment in the abundant
comforts that are treasured up for believers in
the covenant of grace, and the satisfaction of soul
they have therein. When God sends us his pro¬
mises to be the matter of our comfort, his graces to
be the grounds of it, and his Spirit to be the Author
of it, we may well own that he has sent us (accord¬
ing to his promise here, v. 19.) corn, and wine,
and oil, or that which is unspeakably better, and
we have reason to be satisfied therewith.
III. What use shall be made of these returns of
God’s mercy to them, and the good account they
shall turn to.
950 JOEL, II.
1. God shall have the glory of it ; for they shall
rejoice in the Lord their God ; {v. 23.) and what is
the matter of their rejoicing shall be the matter of
their thanksgiving; they shall praise the name of
the Lord their God, {y. 26.) and not praise their
idols, nor call their corn and wine the rewards
that their lovers had given them. Note, Then the
plenty of our creature-comforts is a mercy indeed
to us," when by them our hearts are enlarged in love
and thankfulness to God, who gives us all things
richly to enjoy, though we serve him but poorly.
When God restores to us plenty after we have
known scarcity, as it is doubly pleasant to us, so it
should make us the more thankful to God. When
Israel comes out of a wilderness into a Canaan, and
there eats and is full, surely he will then bless the
Lord, with a very sensible pleasure, for that good
land which he has given them, Deut. viii. 10.
2. They shall have the credit and comfort, and
spiritual benefit of it. When God gives them plenty
again, and gives them to be satisfied with it, (1.)
Their reputation shall be retrieved; they and their
God shall be no more reflected upon as unfaithful
to one another, when they are returned to him in a
way of duty, and he to them in a way of mercy; (y.
19.) “/ will no more make you a reproach among
the heathen, that triumphed in your calamities, and
insulted over you; and v. 26, 27. “ My people shall
never be ashamed, as they have been, of their good
land which they used to boast of, but shall again and
ever have the same occasion to boast of it.” Note,
It redounds much to the honour of God, when he
does that which saves the honour of his people; and
those that are his people indeed, though they may
be for a time, they shall not be always, a reproach
among the heathen ; if we be rightly ashamed of
our sins against God, we shall never be ashamed of
our glorying in God. (2.) Their joys shall be re¬
vived; (v. 23.) Be glad and rejoice, O land, and
ail the inhabitants of it. Times of plenty are times
of joy; yet the favour of God puts gladness into the
heart, more than they have whose corn and wine
and oil increase. But especially be glad then, ye
children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God,
v. 23. They mourned in Zion, (y. 15. ) and there¬
fore there in a particular manner they shall rejoice;
for those that sow in penitential tears, shall cer¬
tainly reap in thankful joys; the children of Zion,
who led the rest in fasting, must lead the rest in
rejoicing. But observe, They shall rejoice in the
Lord their God; not so much in the good things
themselves that are given them, as in the good hand
that gives them, and in the return of his favour to
them, as theirs in covenant, which these good things
are the tokens and pledges of ; the joy of harvest
and the joy of a feast must both terminate in God,
whose love we should taste in all the gifts of his
bounty, that we may make him our chief Joy, as he
is our chief Good, and the Fountain of all good to us.
(3.) Their faith in God shall be confirmed and in¬
creased. When temporal mercies are made bv the
grace of God to be of spiritual advantage to us, and
plenty for the body is so far from being an enemy,
(as with many it proves,) that it becomes a friend,
to the prosperity of the soul, then they are mercies
indeed to us. This is promised here; (y. 27.) Ye
shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, the
Holy One in the midst of thee, (Hos. xi. 9.) and
that I am the Lord your God, and none else. As
it proves that the Lord is God, and there is no
other, because he wounds, and he heals, he forms
light and darkness, he doeth good and evil, (Isa.
xlv. 7. Deut. xxxii. 39.) so it proves him to be the
God of Israel, a God in covenant with his people,
and a Father to them; t]iat as a Father he both cor¬
rects them when they offend, and comforts them
when they repent. It was the burthen of the threat- !
enings in Ezekiel’s prophecy, Such and such evils
I will bring upon you, and you shall know that I
am the Lord; and the same is here made the crown
of the promises; You shall eat, and be satisfied, and
rejoice, and thus ye shall know that I am the Lord.
Note, We should labour to grow in our acquaintance
with God by all providences, both merciful and
afflictive. When God gives to his people plenty, and
peace, and joy, upon their return to him, he thereby
gives them to understand that he is pleased with
their repentance, that he has pardoned their sins,
and that he is theirs as much as ever; that they are
taken into the same covenant with him, for he is
the Lord their God, and into the same communion,
for he is in the midst of them, nigh unto them in all
that they call upon him for, and as the sun in the
centre of the worlds, so in the midst of them, as to
diffuse his benign influences to all the parts of his
land.
3. Even the inferior creatures shall share in it,
and be made easy by it; Tear not, 0 land, v. 21.
Be not afraid, ye beasts efi the field, v. 22. They
had suffered for the sin of man, and for God’s quar¬
rel with him; and now they shall fare the better for
man’s repentance, and God’s reconciliation to him.
Nay, the beasts were said to cry unto God; ( ’ch . i.
20.) and now that cry is answered, and they are bid
not to be afraid, for they shall have plenty of all
that which their nature craves. God, in sparing
Nineveh, had an eye to the cattle, (Jonah iv. 11.)
for the cattle had fasted, ch. iii. 8. This may lead
us to think of the restitution of all things, when the
creature that is now made subject to vanity and
groans under it, shall be brought, though not into
the glorious jov, yet into the glorious liberty, of the
children of God, Rom. viii. 21.
28. And it shall come to pass afterward,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh .
and your sons and your daughters shall
prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams,
your young men shall see visions: 29. And
also upon the servants and upon the hand¬
maids in those days will I pour out my
Spirit. 30. And 1 will show wonders in
the heavens and in the earth, blood, and
fire, and pillars of smoke. 31. The sun
shall be turned into darkness, and the moon
into blood, before the great and the terrible
day of the Lord come. 32. And it shall
come to pass, that whosoever shall call on
the name of the Loud shall be delivered'
for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall
be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and
in the remnant whom the Lord shall call.
The promises of corn mid wine and nil, in the
foregoing verses, would lie very acceptable to a wast¬
ed country; but here we are taught that we must
not rest in those things. God has reserved some
better things for us, and these verses have reference
to those better things; both the kingdom of grace,
and the kingdom of glory, and the happiness of true
believers in both. We are here told,
I. How the kingdom of grace shall be introduced
bv a plentiful effusion of the Spirit, v. 28, 29.
We are not at a loss for the meaning of this promise,
nor in doubt what it refers to, and wherein it had its
accomplishment, for the apostle Peter has given us
an infallible explication and application of it, assur¬
ing us that when the Spirit was poured out upon the
apostles, on the day of Pentecost, (Acts ii. 1, See.)
that was the very thing which was spoken of here
951
JOEL, 11.
by the flroflhet Joel, v. 16, 17. That was the gift
of the Spirit, which, according to this prediction,
was to come, and we are not to look for any other
any more than for another accomplishment of the
promise of the Messiah. Now, 1. The blessing it¬
self here promised, is, the f touring out of the S/iirit
of Gotl, his gifts, graces, and comforts, which the
blessed Spirit is the Author of. We often read in
the Old Testament of the Spirit of the Lord coming
like drops, as it were, upon the judges and prophets
whom God raised up for extraordinary services;
but now the Spirit shall be/i oured out plentifully in
a full stream; as was promised with an eye to gos¬
pel-times; (Isa. xliv. 3. ) / will flour iny S/iirit
ufion thy seed. 2. The time fixed for this is after-
terward; after the fulfilling of the foregoing pro¬
mises, this shall be fulfilled. St. Peter expounds this
of the last days, the days of the Messiah, by whom
the world was to have its last revelation of the divine
will and grace in the last days of the Jewish church,
a little before its dissolution. 3. The extent of this
blessing, in respect of the persons on whom it shall
be bestowed; the Spirit shall be floured out u/ion
all flesh, not as hitherto upon Jews only, but upon
Gentiles also; for in Christ there is no distinction
between Jew and Greek, Rom. x. 11, 12. Hither¬
to, divine revelation was confined to the seed of
Abraham, none but those of the land of Israel had
the Spirit of prophecy; but, in the last days, all
fiesh shall see the glory of God, (Isa. xl. 5.) and
shall come to worshifl before him, Isa. lxvi. 23.
The Jews understand it of all flesh in the land of Is¬
rael, and Peter himself did not fully understand it
as speaking of the Gentiles, till he saw it accom¬
plished in the descent of the Holy Ghost upon Cor¬
nelius and his friends, who were Gentiles, (Acts x.
44, 45.) which was but a continuation of the same
jjift which was bestowed on the day of Pentecost.
The Spirit shall be poured out ufion all flesh, upon
all those whose hearts are made hearts of flesh, soft
and tender, and so prepared to receive the impres¬
sions and influences of the HolyGhost; ufion all flesh,
upon some of all sorts of men; the gifts of the Spirit
shall not be so sparing, or so much confined, as they
have been, but shall be more general and diffusive
of themselves. (1.) The Spirit shall be poured out
upon some of each sex; not your sons only, but
your daughters, shall prophesy; we read of four
sisters in one family, that were prophetesses. Acts
xxi. 9. Not the parents only, but the children,
shall be filled with the Spirit; which intimates the
continuance of this gift for some ages successively in
the church. (2.) Upon some of each age; Your
old men, who are past their vigour, and whose spi¬
rits begin to decay, your young men, who have yet
but little acquaintance with, and experience of, divine
things, yet they shall dream dreams, and see visions;
God will reveal himself by dreams and visions both
to young and old. (3.) Upon those of the meanest
rank and condition; even ufion the servants and the
handmaids; the Jewish doctors say, Profihecy does
not reside on any, but such as are wise, valiant, and
rich, not upon the soul of a floor man, or a man in
sorrow; but in Christ Jesus there is neither bond nor
free. Gal. iii. 28. There were many that were
called, being servants; (1 Cor. vii. 21.) but that
was no obstruction to their receiving the Holy
Ghost. (4. ) The effect of this blessing ; They
shall flroflhesy; they shall receive new discoveries
of divine things, and that not for their own use only,
but for the benefit of the church. They shall in¬
terpret scripture, and speak of things secret, distant,
and future, which, bv the utmost sagacities of rea¬
son, and their natural powers, they could not have
any insight into, or foresight of. By these extraor¬
dinary gifts the Christian church was first founded
and set ufl, and the scriptures written, and ministry
[ settled, by which, with the ordinary operations and
influences of the Spirit, it was to be afterward main¬
tained and kept up.
II. How the kingdom of glory shall be intro¬
duced by the universal change of nature, v. 30, 31.
The pouring out of the Spirit will be very comforta¬
ble to the righteous; but let the unrighteous hear
this and tremble. There is a great and terrible day
of the Lord coming, which shall be ushered in witli
wonders in heaven and earth, blood, and f re, and
flillars of smoke, the turning of the sun into dark¬
ness, and the moon into blood. 'I'll is is to have its
full accomplishment (as the learned Dr. Poceck
thinks) in the day of judgment; at the end of time,
before which these signs will be performed in the
letter of them, yet so that it was accomplished in
part, in the death of Christ, which is called the
judgment of this world, when the earth quaked,
and tiie sun was darkened, and a great and terrible
day it was; and more fully in the destruction of Je
rusalem, which was a type and figure of the general
judgment, and before which there were man)
amazing prodigies, beside the convulsions of states
and kingdoms prophesied of under the figurative
expressions of turning the sun into darkness, and thi
moon into blood, and the wars and rumours of wars,
and distress of nations, which our Saviour spake of
as the beginning of these sorrows, Mattli. xxiv. 6,
7. But before the last judgment there will be won¬
ders indeed in heaven and earth, the dissolution of
both without a metaphor. The judgments of God
upon a sinful world, and the frequent destruction of
wicked kingdoms by fire and sword, are prefaces
to, and presages of, the judgment of the world in
tiie last day. Those on whom the Spirit is poured
out, shall foresee and foretell that great and terrible
day of the Lord, and expound the wonders in hea¬
ven and earth, that go before it; for as to his first
coming, so to his second, did, and do, all the pro¬
phets bear witness, Rev. x. 7.
III. The safety and happiness of all true believers
both in the first and second coming of Jesus Christ,
v. 32. This speaks of particular persons, for to
them the New Testament has more respect, and
less to kingdoms and nations than the Old.
Now observe here,
1. That there is a salvation wrought out; though
the day of the Lord will be great and terrible, yet
in mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be deli¬
verance from the terror of it. It is the day of the
Lord, the day of his judgment, who knows how to
separate between the precious and the vile. In the
everlasting gospel, which went from Zion, in the
church of the first-born typified by mount Zion, and
which is the Jerusalem that is from above, there is
deliverance; a way of escaping the wrath to come,
is found out, and laid open. Christ is himself not
only the Saviour, but the Salvation; he is so to the
ends of the earth. This deliverance, laid up for us
in the covenant of grace, is in performance of the
promises made to the fathers; There shall be deliver¬
ance, as the Lord has said. See Luke i. 72. Note,
This is ground of comfort and hope to sinners, that,
whatever danger there is in their case, there is also
deliverance, deliverance for them, if it be not their
own fault. And if we would share in this deliver¬
ance, we must apply ourselves to the gospel-Zion,
to God’s Jerusalem.
2. That there is a remnant interested in this sal¬
vation, and for whom the deliverance is wrought.
It is in that remnant, that is, among them, that the
deliverance is; or in them, in their souls and spirits,
there are the earnests and evidences of it; Christ in
you, the Hofle of glomj. They are called a remnant,
because they are but a few in comparison with the
multitudes that are left to perish; a little remnant,
but a chosen one, a remnant according to the election
95 2
JOEL, 111.
of grace. And here we are told who they are, that
s.i.dl he delivered in the grett day. (1.) Those
Mat sincerely call u/ion (rod; Whosoever shall call
on the name of the Lord, whether Jew or Gentile,
for the apostle expounds it so, Rom. x. 13. where
lie lavs this down as the great rule of the gospel by
whicii we must all be judged, ) shall be delivered. This
calling on God supposes knowledge of him, faith in
him, desire toward him, dependence on him, and,
as an evidence of the sincerity of all this, a conscien¬
tious obedience to him; for without that, crying
Lord, Lord, will' not stand us in any stead. Note,
It is the fraying remnant that shall be the saved
remnant. And it will aggravate the ruin of those
who perish, that they might have been saved on
such easy terms. (2.) Those that are effectually
called to God. The deliverance is sure to the rem¬
nant whom the Lord shall call; not only with the
common call of the gospel, with which many are
called, that are not chosen; but with a special call
into the fellowship of Jesus Christ, whom the Lord
predestinates, or prepares, so the Chaldee. St.
Peter borrows this phrase. Acts ii. 39. Note,
Those only shall be delivered in the great day, that
are now effectually called from sin to God, from
self to Christ, from things below to things above.
CHAP. III.
In the close of the foregoing chapter, we had a gracious
promise of deliverance in mount Zion and Jerusalem;
now this whole chapter is a comment upon that promise,
showing what that deliverance shall be, how it shall be
wrought by the destruction of the church’s enemies, and
how it shall be perfected in the everlasting rest and joy
of the church. This was in part accomplished, in the
deliverance of Jerusalem from the attempt that Senna¬
cherib made upon it in Hezekiah’s time, and afterward
in the return of the Jews out of their captivity in Baby¬
lon, and other deliverances wrought for the Jewish
church betwixt that and Christ’s coming. But it has a
further reference to the great redemption wrought out
for us by Jesus Christ, and the destruction of our spirit¬
ual enemies, and all their agents, and will have its full
accomplishment in the judgment of the great day. Here
is a prediction, I. Of God’s reckoning with the enemies
of his people for all the injuries and indignities that they
had done them, and returning them upon their own
head, v. 1 . . 8. II. Of God’s judging all nations, when
the measure of their iniquity is full, and appearing pub¬
licly, to the everlasting confusion of all impenitent sin¬
ners, and the everlasting comfort of all his faithful ser¬
vants, v. 9 . . 17. III. Of the provision God has made
for the refreshment of his people, for their safety and
purity, when their enemies shall be made desolate, v.
18 . . 21. These promises were not of private interpre¬
tation only, but were written for our learning, that we,
through patience and comfort of this scripture, might
have hope.
I. BA OR, behold, in those days, and in
JL that time, when I shall bring again
the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, 2.
I will also gather all nations, and will bring
them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat,
and will plead with them there for my peo¬
ple, and fur my heritage Israel, whom they
have scattered among the nations, and part¬
ed my land. 3. And they have cast lots
for my people: and have given a boy for a
harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they
might drink. 4. Yea, and what have ye to
do with me, O T yre, and Zidon, and all the
coasts of Palestine? will ye render me a
recompense? and if ye recompense me,
swiftly and speedily will I return your re¬
compense upon your own head: 5. Because
ye have taken my silver and my gold, and
have carried into your temples my goodly
pleasant things. 6. The children also of
Judah, and the children of Jerusalem, have
ye sold unto the Grecians, that ye might
remove them far from their border. 7. Be¬
hold, I will raise them out of the place
whither ye have sold them, and will return
your recompense upon your own head: 8.
And I will sell your sons and your daugh¬
ters into the hand of the children of Judah,
and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to
a people far off: for the Lord hath spo¬
ken it.
We have often heard of the year of the redeemed,
and the year of recompenses for the controversy of
Zion; now here we have a description of the trans¬
actions of that year, and a prophecy of what shall
be done when it comes, whenever it comes, for it
comes often, and at the end of time it will come once
for all.
I. It shall be the year of the redeemed, for God
will bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusa¬
lem, v. 1. Though the bondage of God’s people
may be grievous, and very long, yet it shall not be
everlasting. That in Egypt ended at length in their
deliverance into the glorious liberty of the children
of God. Let my son go, that he may serve me.
That in Babylon shall likewise end well. And the
Lord Jesus will provide for the effectual redemp¬
tion of poor captivated souls from under the domin¬
ion of sin and Satan, and will proclaim that accepta¬
ble year, the year of jubilee, the release of debts and
servants, and the opening of the prisoti to them that
were bound. There is a day, there is a time, fixed
for the bringing again of the captivity of God’s chil¬
dren, for the redeeming of them from the power of
the grave; and it shall be the last day, and the pe¬
riod of all time.
II. It shall be the year of recompenses of the con¬
troversy of Zion. Though God may suffer the ene¬
mies of his people to prevail against them very far,
and for a long time, yet he will call them to an ac¬
count for it, and will lead captivity captive, (Ps.
Ixviii. 18.) will lead those captive, that lead his
people captive. Rev. xiii. 10.
Observe,
1. Who they are that shall be reckoned with; all
nations, v. 2. This intimates, (1.) That all the na¬
tions had made themselves liable to the judgment of
God for wrong done to his people. Persecution is
the reigning, crying sin of the world; that lying in
wickedness itself is set against godliness. The en¬
mity that is in the old serpent, the god of this world,
against the seed of the woman, appears more or
less in the children of this world; marvel not if the
world hate you. (2.) That whatsoever nation in¬
jured God’s nation, they should not go unpunished;
for he that touches the Israel of God, shall be made
to know that he touches the apple of his eye. Je¬
rusalem will be a burthensome stone to alt people,
Zecli. xii. 3. But the neighbouring nations shall
be particularly reckoned with; Tyre and Sidon,
and alt the coasts of Palestine or the Philistines,
who had been troublesome neighbours to the Israel
of God; (v. 4.) when the more remote and potent
nations that laid Israel waste, are reckoned with,
the impotent malice of these that lay near them, and
helped forward the affliction, (Zech. i. 15.) and
made a hand of it, (Ezek. xxvi. 2.) shall not be
passed by. Note, Little persecutors shall be call¬
ed to an account as well as great ones; and though
933
JOEL, in.
they could not do much mischief, shall be reckoned
with according to the wickedness of their endea¬
vours, and the mischief they would have done.
2. The sitting of this court for judgment. They
shall all be gathered , v. 2. That they who have
combined together against God’s people, with one
consent, (Ps. lxxxiii. 5.) may together receive their
doom. They saall be brought down into the valley
of Jehoshaphat, which lay near Jerusalem, and
mere God will /dead with them. (1.) Because it is
tit that criminals should be tried in the same country
where they did the fact. (2.) For their greater
confusion, when they shall see that Jerusalem which
they have so long endeavoured and hoped for the
ruin of, in spite of all their rage, made a / traise in
the earth. (3.) For the greater comfort and honour
of God’s Jerusalem, which shall see God pleading
their cause. (4.) Then shall be re-acted what God
did for Jehoshaphat, when he gave him victory over
those that invaded him, and furnished him and his
people with matter of joy and praise, in the valley
of Berachah. See 2 Chron. xx. 26. (5. ) It was in
this valley of Jehoshaphat, (as Dr. Lightfoot sug¬
gests,) that Sennacherib’s army, or part of it, lay,
when it was destroyed by an angel. They came to¬
gether to ruin Jerusalem, but God brought them to¬
gether for their own ruin, as sheaves in the floor,
Mic. iv. 12.
3. The plaintiff called, on whose behalf this pro¬
secution is set on foot; it is for my fieoftle, and for
my heritage Israel. It is their cause that God will
now plead with jealousy. Note, God’s people are
his heritage, his fteculiar, his portion, his treasure,
above all people, Exod. xix. 5. Deut. xxxii. 9.
They are his demesne, and therefore he has a good
action against those that trespass upon them.
4. The charge exhibited against them, which is
very particular. Many affronts they had put upon
God by their idolatries; but that for which God
has a quarrel with them is, the affront they have
put upon his people and upon the vessels of his
sanctuary.
( 1. ) They had been very abusive to the people
of Israel, had scattered them among the nations,
and forced them to seek for shelter where they
could find a place, or carried them captive into their
respective countries, and there industriously dis¬
persed them, for fear of their incorporating for their
common safety. They parted their land, and took
every one his share of it as their own ; nay, they
have cast lots for my people, and sold them. When
they had taken them prisoners, [1.] They made a
jest of them, made a scorn of them as of no value,
whom they would not release, and yet thought them
not worth the keeping; they made nothing of play¬
ing them away at dice ; or they made a dividend of
the prisoners by lot, as the soldiers did of Christ’s
garments. [2.] They made a gain of them; when
they had them, they sold them, yet with so much
contempt, that they did not increase their wealth by
their price, but sold them for their pleasure rather
than their profit; they gave a boy taken in war for
the hire of a harlot, and a girl for so many bottles
of wine as would serve them for one sitting; a goodly
price at which they valued them, and goodly pre¬
ferment for a son and daughter of Israel, to be a
■lave and a drudge in a tavern or a brothel. Ob¬
serve here, how that which is got by one sin, is
commonly spent upon another. The spoil which
•hese enemies of tile Jews gathered by injustice and
■ iolenc ■, they scattered and threw away in drink¬
ing and whoring; such is frequently the character,
and such the conversation, of the enemies and per¬
secutors of the people of God. The Tyrians and
Philistines, when they seized any of the children of
Judah and Jerusalem, either took them prisoners in
war, or kidnapped them ; they sold them to the
Vol. IV.— 6 E
Grecians, (with whom the men of Tyre traded in
the persons of men, Ezek. xxvii. 13.) that they
might remove them far front their own border, v. 6.
It was a great reproach to Israel, God’s first-born,
his free-born, to be thus bought and sold among the
heathen.
(2.) They had unjustly seized God’s silver and
gold; (y. 5.) by which sume understand the wealth
of Israel. ’File silve r and gold which God’s people
had, he calls his, because they had received it from
him and devoted it to him; and whosoever robbed
them, God took it as if they had robbed him, and
would make reprisals accordingly. Those who take
away the estates of good men for well-doing, will be
found guilty of sacrilege; they take God’s silver and
gold. But it seems rather to be meant of the vessels
and treasures of the temple, which God here calls
his goodly pleasant things, precious and desirable
to him and all that are his. These they carried
into their temples as trophies of their victory over
God’s Israel, thinking that therein they triumphed
over Israel’s God, nay, and that their idols tri¬
umphed over him. Thus the ark was put in Dagon’s
temple. Thus they did unjustly; “ What have you
to do with me, (n. 4.) with my people; what wrong
have they done you? What provocation have they
given you? You had nothing to do with them, and
yet you do all this against them. Devices are de¬
vised against the quiet in the land, and those offended
and harmed, that are harmless and inoffensive:
Will you render me a recompense?” Can they pre¬
tend that either God or his people have done them
any injur)', for which they may justify themselves
by the law of retaliation, in doing them these mis¬
chiefs? No, they have no colour for it. Note, It is
no new thing for those who have been very civil and
obliging to their neighbours, to find them vex-y un¬
kind and unneighbourly; and for those who do no
injuries to suffer many.
5. The sentence passed upon them. In general,
( y . 4.) “If you recompense me, if you pretend a
quarrel with me, if you provoke me thus to jealousy,
if you touch the apple of mine eye, I will swiftly
and speedily return your recompense upon your
own head. Those that contend with God, will
find themselves unable to make their part good with
him. He will X'ecompense them suddenly, when
they little think of it, and have not time to prevent
it; if he take them to task, he will soon effect their
ruin. Particularly, it is threatened, (1.) That they
shall not gain their end in the mischief they designed
against God’s people. They thought to have re¬
moved them so far from their border, that they
should never return to it again, v. 6. But (says
God) “I will raise them out of the place whither
you have sold them, and they shall not, as you in¬
tended, be buried alive there.” Men’s selling the
people of God will not deprive him of his property
in them, (2.) That they shall be paid in their own
coin, as Adonibezek was; (v. 8.) “I wilt sell your
sons and your daughters into the hand of the chil¬
dren of Judah, you shall lie as much at their mercy,
as tilt v have been at yours.” Isa. lx. 14. Thus the
Jews had rule over them that hated them, Esther
ix. 1. And then they shall justly be sold to the
Sabeans, to a people far off. This (some think)
had its accomplishment in the victories obtained by
the Maccabees over the enemies of the Jews; others
think it looks as far forward as the last day, when the
upright shall have dominion, (Ps. xlix. 14.) and the
saints shall judge the world. It is certain that none
ever hardened his heart against God, or his church,
and prospered long; no, not Pharaoh himself, for the
Lord has spoken it, for the comfort of all his suffer¬
ing servants, that vengeance is his, and he will repay.
9. Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles
954
JOEL, m.
Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let
all the men of war draw near, let them come
up: 10. Beat your plough-shares into swords,
and your pruning-hooks into spears: let the
weak say, I am strong. 1 1 . Assemble your¬
selves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather
yourselves together round about ; thither
cause thy mighty ones to come down, O
Lord. 12. Let the heathen be wakened,
and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat :
for there will I sit to judge all the heathen
round about. 13. Put ye in the sickle; for
the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for
the press is full, the fats overflow ; for the
wickedness is great. 14. Multitudes, multi¬
tudes in the valley of decision : for the day
of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.
1 5. The sun and the moon shall be darkened,
and the stars shall withdraw their shining.
16. The Lord also shall roar out of Zion,
and utter his voice from Jerusalem: and the
heavens and the earth shall shake : hut the
Lord will be the hope of his people, and the
strength of the children of Israel. 17. So
shall ye know that I am the Lord your
God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain :
then shall Jerusalem he holy, and there shall
no strangers pass through her any more.
What the psalmist had long before ordered to be
said among the heathen, (Ps. xcvi. 10.) the prophet
■will have in like manner to be published to all na¬
tions, That the Lord reigns, and that he comes, he
comes to judge the earth, as he had long been judg¬
ing in the earth. The notice here given of God’s
judging the nations, may have reference to the de¬
struction of Sennacherib, Nebuchadnezzar, An-
tiochus, and the antichrist especially, and all the
proud enemies of the Christian church; but some of
the best interpreters, ancient and modern, (particu¬
larly the learned Dr. Pocock,) think the scope of
the verses is to set forth the day of the last judg¬
ment under the similitude of God’s making war
upon the enemies of his kingdom, and his gathering
of the harvest of the earth, both which similitudes
we find used in the revelation, ch. xix. 11. — xiv. 18.
Here we have,
I. A challenge given to all the enemies of God’s
kingdom, to do their worst; to signify to them that
God is preparing war against them, they are called
upon to prepare war against him, v. 9 — 11. When
the hour of God’s judgment is come, effectual
methods shall be taken to gather all nations to the
battle of that great day of God Almighty, Rev. xvi.
14. — xx. 8. It seems to be here spoken ironically;
“ Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles ;” let all the
forces of the nations be summoned to join in con¬
federacy against God and his people.’ It is like
that, Isa. via. 9. “Associate yourselves, O ye peo¬
ple, and gird yourselves, but ye shall be broken to
pieces; prepare war, muster up all your strength,
wake up the mighty men, call them into your ser¬
vice, excite them to vigilance and resolution; let all
the men of war draw near, let them come and enter
the lists with Omnipotence if they dare; let them
not complain for want of weapons, but let them beat
their plough-shares into swords, and their pruning-
hooks into spears. Let them resolve, if they will,
never to return to their husbandry again, but either
to conquer or die; let none plead unfitness to bear
arms, but let the weak say, I am strong, and will
venture into the field of battle.” Thus does a God
of almighty power bid defiance to all the opposition
of the powers of darkness ; let the heathen rage,
and the kings of the earth take counsel together,
against the Lord and his Christ; let them assemble
and come, and gather themselves together; but he
that sits in heaven shall laugh at them, and, while he
thus calls them, he has them in derision, Ps. ii. 1, 4.
The heathen must be wakened, must be raised from
the dead, that they may come up to the valley of
Jehoshaphat, to receive their doom, (t>. 12.) may
come up out of their graves, come up into the air,
to meet the Lord there. Jehoshaphat signifies, the
judgment of the Lord. Let them come to the place
of God’s judgment, which perhaps is the chief rea¬
son for the using of this name here, but it is put
together as a proper name for the sake of allusion
to the place so called, which we observed before;
let them come thither where God will sit to judge
the heathen, to that throne of glory before which
shall b>t gathered all nations ; (Matth. xxv. 32.) for
before the judgment-seat of Christ we must all ap¬
pear. The challenge (v. 9.) is turned into a sum¬
mons, v. 12. It is not only, Come if you dare, but.
You shall come whether you will or no, for there is
no escaping of the judgments of God.
II. A charge given to the ministers of God’s jus¬
tice, to appear and act against these daring enemies
of his kingdom among men. And therefore cause
thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord ; {v. 11.)
when they bring their forces into the field, let God
bring his, let the archangel’s trumpet sound a charge,
to call together his mighty ones, his angels. Per¬
haps it is with reference to this that Christ’s coming
from heaven at the last day is said to be with his
mighty angels, 2 Thess. i. 7. These are the hosts
of the Lord, that shall fight his battles when he shall
put down all opposing rule, principality, and power,
when he shall judge among the heathen, Ps. cx. 6.
■Some think these words, ( v . 9, 10.) Prepare war,
wake up the mighty men, are not a challenge to tlve
enemies’ hosts, but a charge to God’s hosts ; let
them draw near, and come up. When God’s cause
is to be pleaded, either by the law, or by the sword,
he has those ready, that shall plead it effectually;
witnesses ready to appear for him in the court of
judgment, soldiers ready to appear for him in the
field of battle. They shall beat plough-shares into
swords, if need be. However, it is plain that to
them the charge is given, (v. 13.) Put ye in the
sickle, for the harvest is ripe; that is, their wicked¬
ness is great, the measure of it is full, and they are
ripe for ruin. Our Saviour has expounded this,
Matth. xiii. 39. The harvest is the end of the world,
and the reapers are the angels. And they are com¬
manded to thrust in their sickle, their sharfi sickle,
and gather in both the harvest and the vintage.
Rev. xiv. 15, 18. Note, The greatness of men’s
wickedness makes them ripe for God’s judgment.
III. The vast appearance that shall be in that
great and solemn day; (t. 14.) Multitudes, multi¬
tudes in the valley of decision, the same which be¬
fore was called the valley of Jehoshaphat, or of the
judgment of the Lord, for the day of the Lord is
near in that valley. Note, 1. The judgment-day,
that day of the Lord, has all along been looked upon,
and spoken of, as nigh at hand. Enoch said, Be¬
hold, the Lord comes, as if the Judge were then
standing before the door; because it is certain that
that day will come, and will come according to the
appointment, and a thousand years with God are
but as one day; things are ripening apace for it;
we ought always to be reedy for it, becai se our
judgment is at hand. 2. The day of judgment will
be the day of decision, when every man’s eternal
9 5b
JOEL, III.
state will be determined, and the controversy that
has been long depending between the kingdom of
Christ and that of Satan, shall be finally decided,
and an end put to the struggle. The valley of the
distribution of judgment, (so the Chaldee,) when
every man shall receive according to the things done
in the body. The valley of threshing; so the mar¬
gin, carrying on the metaphor of the harvest, v. 13.
The proud enemies of God’s people will then be
crushed and broken to pieces, and madeasthedus^o/
the summer threshing-floors. 3. Innumerable mul¬
titudes will be gathered together, to receive their
final doom in that day. As in the destruction of
Gog we read of the valley of Hamon-Gog, and the
city of Hamonah, fEzek. xxxix. 15, 16.) both sig¬
nifying the multitude of the vanquished enemies; it is
the word here used, Hamonim, Hamonim, expressed
by way of admiration. O what vast multitudes
of sinners will divine justice be glorified in the ruin
of at that dav! A multitude of living, (says one of
the rabbins,) and a multitude of dead, for Christ
shall come to judge both the quick and the dead.
IV. The amazing change that shall then be made
in the kingdom of nature; (v. 15.) The sun and
moon shall be darkened; as before, ch. ii. 31. Their
glory and lustre shall be eclipsed by the far greater
brightness of that glory in which the Judge shall
then appear. Nay, they shall themselves be set
aside in the dissolution of all things; for damned sin¬
ners in hell shall not be allowed their light, being
cast into utter darkness ; and glorified saints in
heaven shall not need their light, for God himself
will be their everlasting Light, Isa. lx. 19. Those
that fall under the wrath of God in that day of
wrath, shall be cut off from all comfort and joy, sig¬
nified by the darkening not only of sun and moon,
but of the stars also.
V. The different impressions which that day will
make upon the children of this world, and the chil¬
dren of God, according as it will be to them.
1. To the wicked it will be a terrible day. The
Lord shall then speak from Zion and Jerusalem,
from tlie throne of his glory, from heaven, where
he manifests himself in a peculiar manner, as some¬
times he had done in the glorious high throne of his
sanctuary, which yet was but a faint resemblance
of the glory of that day. He shall speak from
heaven, from the midst of his saints and angels, (so
some understand it,) the holy society of which may
be called Zion and Jerusalem, for when we come to
the heavenly Jerusalem, we come to the innumera¬
ble company of angels; see Heb. xii. 22, 25. Now
his speaking in that day will be to the wicked as
roaring, terrible as the roaring of a lion, for so the
word signifies ; he long kept silence, but now our
God shall come, and shall not keep silence, Ps. 1. 3,
21. Note, The judgment of the great day will make
the ears of those to tingle, that continue the im¬
placable enemies of God’s kingdom. God’s voice
will then shake terribly both heaven and earth, (Isa.
ii. 21.) yet once more, Hagg. ii. 6. Heb. xii. 26.
This denotes that the voice of God will in the great
day speak such terror to the wicked as were enough
to put even heaven and earth into a consternation.
When God comes to pull down and destroy his
enemies, and make them all his footstool, though
heaven and earth should stand up in defence of
them, and undertake their protection, it shall be all
in vain; even they shall shake before him, and be an
insufficient shelter to those whom he comes forth to
contend with. Note, As blessings out of Zion are
the sweetest blessings, and enough to make heaven
and earth sing, so terrors out of Zion are the sorest
terrors, and enough to make heaven and earth shake.
2. To the righteous it will be a joyful day. When
heaven and earth shall tremble, and be dissolved
and bumc up, then will the Lord be the Hope of his
/ teople , and the Strength of the children of Israel;
(y. 16.) and then shall Jerusalem be holy, v. 17.
The saints are the Israel of God, they are his peo¬
ple, the church is his Jerusalem, they are in cove¬
nant and communion with him; now in the great
day, (1.) Their longings shall be satisfied; The
Lord will be the Hope of his fieo/ile. As be always
was the Founder and Foundation of their hopes, so
he then will be the Crown of their hopes. He will
be the Harbour of his people, (so the word is,)
their Receptacle, Refuge, and Home. The saints
in the great day shall arrive at the desired haven,
shall put to shore after a stormy voyage; they shall
go to be for ever at home with God; to their Fa¬
ther’s house, the house not made with hands. (2. )
Their happiness shall be confirmed; God will be in
that day the Strength of the children of Israel,
enabling them to bid that day welcome, and to bear
up under the weight of its glories and jov. In this
world, when the judgments of God are abroad, and
sinners are falling under them, God is, and will be,
the Hope and Strength of his people; the Strength
of their heart and their Portion, when other men’s
hearts fail them for fear. (3.) Their holiness shall
be completed; (v. 17.) Then shall Jerusalem be
holy, the holy city indeed; such shall the heavenly
Jerusalem be, such the glorious church, without
spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. Jerusalem
shall be holiness; (so the word is;) it shall be per¬
fectly holy, there shall be no remainder of sin in it.
The gospel-church is a holy society, even in its
militant state, but will never be holiness itself, till
it comes to be triumphant. Then, no stranger shall
pass through her any more; there shall not enti r
into the new Jerusalem any thing that defiles, or
works iniquity; none shall be there but those who
have a right to be there, none but its own citizens;
for it shall be an unmixed society. (4.) God shall
in all this be manifested and magnified; So shall ve
know that lam the Lord your God. Bv the sancti¬
fying and glorifying of the church God will be
known in his holiness and glory, as the God that
dwells in his holy mountain, and makes it holy by
dwelling in it; and they that are sanctified and glo¬
rified, are so through the knowledge of him that
called them. The knowledge which true believers
have of God is, [1. ] An appropriating knowledge;
they know that he is the Lord their God, yet not
theirs only, but theirs in common with the whole
church, that he is their God, but dwelling in Zion
his holy mountain; for though faith appropriates,
it does not engross or monopolize, the privileges of
the covenant. [2.] It is an experimental know¬
ledge. They shall find him their Hope and Strength
in the worst of times, and so they shall know that
he is the Lord their God. Those know best the
goodness of God, who have tasted and seen it, and
have found him good to them.
1 8. And it shall come to pass in that day,
that the mountains shall drop down new
wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and
all the rivers of Judah shall flow with wa¬
ters, and a fountain shall come forth of the
house of the Lord, and shall water the
valley of Shittim. 19. Egypt shall be a
desolation, and Edom shall be a desolate
wilderness, for the violence against the chil¬
dren of Judah, because they have shed in¬
nocent blood in their land. 20. But Judah
shall dwell for ever, and Jerusalem from
generation to generation. 21. For I will
cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed:
I for the Lord dwelleth in Zion.
956
JOEL, III.
These promises with which this prophecy con¬
cludes, have their accomplishment in part, in the
kingdom of grace, and the comforts and graces of
all the faithful subjects of that kingdom; but will
have their full accomplishment in the kingdom of
glory; for as to the Jewish church, we know not of
any event concerning that, which answers to the
extent of these promises; and what instances of
peace and prosperity they were blessed with, which
these may be supposed to be a hyperbolical descrip¬
tion of, they were but figures of better things re¬
served for us, that they, in their best estate, with¬
out us might not be made perfect.
I. It is promised that the enemies of the church
shall be vanquished and brought down, v. 19.
Egypt, that old enemy of Israel, and Edom, which
had an inveterate enmity to Israel, derived from
Esau, these shall be a desolation, a desolate wilder¬
ness, no more to be inhabited, they are become the
people of God’s curse; so the Idumeans were, Isa.
xxxiv. 5. No strength or wealth of a nation is
fence against the judgments of God. But what is
the quarrel God has with these potent kingdoms? It
is for their violence against the children of Judah,
and the injuries they had done them; see Ezek.
xxv. 3, 8, 12, 15. — xxvi. 2. They had shed the
innocent blood of the Jews that fled to them for
shelter, or were making their escape through their
country. Note, The innocent blood of God’s peo¬
ple is very precious to him, and not a drop of it
shall be shed, but it shall be reckoned for. In the
last day, this earth, which has been filled with vio¬
lence against the people of God, shall be made a
desolation, when it and all the works that are
therein, shall be burnt ufi. And, sooner or
later, the oppressors and persecutors of God’s Is¬
rael shall be brought down and laid in the dust, nay,
they will at length be brought down and laid in the
Jla rnes.
II. It is promised that the church shall be very
happy; and truly happy it is in spiritual privileges,
even during its militant state, but much more when
it comes to be triumfihant. Three things are here
promised it.
1. Purity. That is put last here as a reason for
the rest, v. 21. But we may consider it first as the
ground and foundation of the rest. I will cleanse
their blood that I have not cleansed, their bloody,
heinous sins, especially shedding innocent blood;
that filth and guilt they had contracted by sin, which
rendered them unfit for communion with God, and
made them odious to his holiness, and obnoxious to
his justice; this thev shall be washed from in the
fountain opened, Zech. xiii. 1. That shall be
cleansed by the blood of Christ, which could not be
cleansed by the sacrifices and purifications of the
ceremonial law. Or if we apply it to the happiness
of the future state, it speaks the cleansing of the
saints from all these corruptions from which they
were not cleansed either by ordinances or provi¬
dences in this world; there shall not be the least
remains of sin in them there. Here, though they
are washing daily, there is still something that is
not cleansed; but in heaven even that also shall be
done away. And the reason is, because the Lord
dwells in Zion, dwells with his church, and much
more gloriously with that in heaven, and holiness
becomes his house for ever, for which reason, where
he dwells there must be, there shall be, a perfection
of holiness. Note, Though the refining and reform¬
ing of the church is work that goes on slowly, and
still there is something we complain of, that is not
cleansed, yet there is a time coming, when every
thing that is amiss shall be amended, and the church
shall be all fair, and no spot, no stain, in her; and
we must wait for that day.
2. Plenty; v. 18. That is put first, because it
speaks the reverse of the judgment threatened in
the foregoi g chapters, (i.) The streams of this
plenty overflow the land, and enrich it; The moun¬
tains shall drop new wine, and the hills shall fow
with milk-; such great abundance shall they have of
suitable provision, both for babes and strong men.
It speaks the abundance of vineyards, and all fruit¬
ful; and the abundance of cattle in the pastures that
fill them with milk. And to make the corn-land
fruitful, the rivers of Judah shall fow with water,
so that the country shall be like the garden of Eden,
well watered every where, and greatly enriched,
Ps. lxv. 9. But this seems to be meant spiritually;
the graces and comforts of the new covenant are
compared to wine and milk; (Isa. lv. 1.) and the
Spirit to rivers of living water, John vii. 38. And
these gifts abound much more under the New Tes¬
tament than they did under the Old; when believ¬
ers receive grace for grace from Christ’s fulness,
when they are enriched with everlasting consola¬
tions, and filled with joy and peace in believing,
then the mountains drop new wine, and the hills
fiow with milk. Drink ye, drink abundantly, O
beloved. When there is a plentiful effusion of the
Spirit of grace, then the rivers of Judah flow with
water, and make glad, not only the city of our God,
(Ps. xlvi. 4.) but the whole land. (2.) The foun¬
tain of this plenty is in the house of God, whence
the streams take their rise; as those waters of the.
sanctuary, (Ezek. xlvii. 1.) from under the thresh¬
old of the house, and the river of life out of the
throne of God and the I-amb, Rev. xxii. 1. The
psalmist, speaking of Zion, says, -ill my springs
are in thee, Ps. lxxxvii. 7. Those that take tem¬
poral blessings to be meant in the former part of the
verse, yet by this fountain out of the house of the
Lord understand the grace of God, which, if we
abound in temporal blessings, we have so much the
more need of, that we may not abuse them. Christ
himself is this Fountain; his merit and grace cleanse
us, refresh us, and make us fruitful. This here is
said to water the valley of Shittim, which lay a
great way off from the temple at Jerusalem, on the
other side of Jordan, and was a dry and barren
valley; which intimates that gospel-grace, flowing
from Christ, shall reach far, even to the Gentile
world, to the most remote regions of it, and shall
make them to abound in the fruits of righteousness,
which had long lain as the barren wilderness. This
grace is a fountain overflowing, overflowing, from
which we may be continually drawing, and yet
need not fear its being drawn dry. This fountain
comes out of the house of the Lord; for those that
would partake of the promised graces and comforts,
must diligently and constantly attend upon instituted
ordinances: and from the house of the I-ord above,
from his temple in heaven, flows all that good which
here we are daily tasting the streams of, but hope
to be shortly, hope to be eternally, drinking at the
fountain-head of.
8. Perpetuity. This crowns all the rest; (v. 20.)
Judah shall dwell forever, (when Egypt and Edom
are made a desolation,) and Jerusalem shall con¬
tinue from generation to generation. This is a
promise, and a precious promise it is, (1.) That the
church of Christ shall continue in the world to the
end of time. As one generation of professing Chris¬
tians passes away, another shall come, in whom the
throne of Christ shall endure for ever, and the
gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (2.) That
all the living members of that church (Judah and
Jerusalem are put for the inhabitants of that city
and country, Matth. iii. 5.) shall be established in
their happiness to the utmost ages of eternity.
This new Jerusalem shall be from generation to
generation, for it is a city that has foundations, not
made with hands, but eternal in the heavens.
AN
EXPOSITION,
WITH
PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS
OF THE PROPHECY OF
AMOS.
Though this prophet appeared a little before Isaiah, yet he was not, as some have mistaken, that Amos,
who was the father of Isaiah, (Isa. LI.) for in the Hebrew their names are very different; their families
too were of a different character; for Isaiah was a courtier, Amos a country farmer. Amos signifies, a
burthen, whence the Jews have a tradition, that he was of a slow tongue, and spake with stammering
lips; we may rather, in allusion to his name, say, that his speech was weighty, and his word the burthen
of the Lord. He was (as most think) of Judah, yet prophesied chiefly against Israel, and at Bethel,
ch. vii. 13. Some think his style savours of his extraction, and is more plain and rustic than that of
some of the other prophets; I do not see it so, but it is plain that his matter agreed with that cf his
contemporary, Hosea, that out of the mouth of these two witnesses the word might be established. It
appears by his contest with Amaziah the priest of Bethel, that he met with opposition in his work; but
was a man of undaunted resolution in it, faithful and bold in reproving sin, and denouncing the judg¬
ments of God for it, and pressing in his exhortations to repentance and reformation. He begins with
threatenings against the neighbouring nations that were enemies to Israel, ch. i. and ii. He then calls
Israel to account; and judges them for their idolatry, their unworthy walking under the favours God
had bestowed upon them, and their incorrigibleness under his judgments, ch. iii. and iv. He calls them
to repentance, (ch. v. ) rejecting their hypocritical sacrifices, unless they did repent. He foretells the
desolations that were coming upon them, notwithstanding their security, (ch. vi.) some particular judg¬
ments, (ch. vii.) particularly on Amaziah; and after other reproofs and threatenings, (ch. viii. and ix. )
concludes with a promise of the setting up of the Messiah’s kingdom, and the happiness of God’s
spiritual Israel therein; just as the prophecy of Joel concluded. These prophets, having opened the
wound in their reproofs and threatenings, which show all wrong, in the promises of gospel-grace open
the remedy, which alone will set all to rights.
AMOS, I
CHAP. I.
In this chapter, we have, I. The general title of this pro¬
phecy, v. 1. with the general scope of it, v. 2. II. God’s
particular controversy with Syria, (v. 3.. 5.) with Pa¬
lestine, (v. 6.. 8.) with Tyre, (v. 9, 10.) with Edom, (v.
11, 12.) and with Ammon, (v. 13.. 15.) for their cruelty
to his people, and the many injuries they had done them.
This explains God’s pleading with the nations, Joel iii. 2.
1 . y 9 ^HE words of Amos, who was among
JL the herdmen of Tekoa, which he
saw concerning Israel in the days of Uz-
ziah king of Judah, and in the days of Jero¬
boam the son of Joash king of Israel, two
years before the earthquake. 2. And he
said, The Lord will roar from Zion, and
utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the
habitations of the shepherds shall mourn,
and the top of Carmel shall wither.
Here is,
1. The general character of this prophecy. It is,
the words which the /irofihel saw. Are words to be
seen? Yes, God’s words are; the apostles speak of
the word of life, which they had not only heard, but
which they had seen with their eyes, which they had
looked ufton, and which their hands had handled;
(1 John i. 1.) such a real, substantial thing is the
word of God. The prophet saw these words, (1.)
They were revealed to him in a vision, as John is
said to see the voice that spake to him; Rev. i. 12.
(2.) That which was foretold bv them, was to him
as certain as if he had seen it with his bodily eyes
958
AMOS, I.
It in i mates how strong he was in that faith which
is tue evidence of things not seen.
2. Ttie person by whom this prophecy was sent;
Amos, who was among the herdmen of Tekoa, and
was one of them. Some think he was a rich dealer
in Cottle; the word is used concerning the king of
Moub; ^2 Kangs iii. 4.) He was a shee/i-masler; it
is probable that he got money by that business, and
yet he must quit it, to follow God as a prophet.
Others think he was a poor keeper of cattle, for we
find, (ch. vii. 14, 15. ) that he was withal a gatherer of
wild Jigs, a poor employment, by which we may
suppose he could but just get his bread, and that
God took him, as he did David, from following the
Jiock, and Elisha from following the plough. Many
were trained up for great employments, in the quiet,
innocent contemplative business of shepherds. When
God would send a prophet to reprove and warn his
people, he employed .ishepherd, a herdsman, to do it,
for they had made themselves as the horse and mule
that have no understanding; nay, worse than the
ox that knows his owner. God sometimes chooses
the foolish things of the world, to confound the wise,
1 Cor. i. 27. Note, Those whom God has endued
with abilities for his service, ought not to be des¬
pised or laid aside for the meanness either of their
original, or of their beginnings. Though Amos him¬
self is not ashamed to own tha. he was a herdsman,
yet others ought not to upbraid him with it, or think
the worse of him for it.
3. The persons concerned in the prophecy of this
book; it is concerning Israel, the ten tribes, who
were now ripened in sin, and ripening apace for
ruin. God had raised them up prophets among
themselves, (ch. ii. 11.) but they regarded them not;
therefore God sends them one from Tekoa, in the
land of Judah, that, coming from another country,
lie might be the more valued, and perhaps he was
tiie Cither sent out of his own country, because there
he was despised for his having been a herdsman.
See Matth. xiii. 55, 57.
4. The time when these prophecies were deliver¬
ed. (1.) The book is dated, as laws used to be, by
the reigns of the kings under whom the prophet
prophesied. It was in the days of Uzziah king of
Judah, when the affairs of that kingdom went very
well, and of Jeroboam the second king of Israel,
when the affairs of that kingdom went pretty welt;
yet then they must both be told both of the sins they
were guilty of, and of the judgments that were com¬
ing upon them for those sins, that they might not
with the present gleam of prosperity flatter them¬
selves into an opinion of their innocence, or a confi¬
dence of their perpetual security. 2. It is dated by
a particular event to which his prophecy had a re¬
ference; it was two years before the earthquake,
that earthquake which is mentioned to have been in
the days of Uzziah, (Zech. xiv. 5.) which put the
nation into a dreadful fright, for it is there said, They
fed before it. But how could they flee from it? Some
conjecture that this earthquake was at the time of
Isaiah’s vision, when the posts of the door were
moved, Isa. vi. 4. The tradition of the Jews is,
that it happened just at the time when Uzziah pre¬
sumptuously invaded the priest’s office, and went in
to burn incense, 2 Chron. xxvi. 16. Josephus men¬
tions this earthquake, Antiq. IX. 11. and says,
“ By it half of a mountain was removed and carried
t.o a plain four furlongs off ; and it spoiled the king’s
gardens.” God by this prophet gave warning of it
two years before, that God by it would shake down
their houses, ch. iii. 15.
5. The introduction to these prophecies, contain¬
ing the general scope of them; (v. 2.) The Lord
wilt roar from Zion. His threatenings by his pro¬
phets, and the executions of those threatenings in
Ids providence, will be as terrible as the roaring
of a lion is to the shepherds and their flocks. Amos
here speaks the sam_ language with his contempo¬
raries, Hosea (ch. xi. 10.) and Joel, ch. iii. 16. 1 lie
lion roars before he tears; God gives warning be¬
fore he strikes. Observe (1.) Whence this warn
ing comes; from Zion and Jerusalem, from the ora¬
cles of God there delivered; for by them is thy ser¬
vant warned, Ps. xix. 11. Our God, whose special
residence is there, will issue out warrants, Liven
at that court, as it were, for the executing t f judg¬
ments on the land. See Jer. xxV. 30. In Zion was
the mercy-seat, thence the Lord roars; intimating
that God’s acts of justice are consistent with mercy,
allayed and mitigated by mercy, nay, as they are
warnings, they are really acts of mercy. We are
chastened, that we may not be condemned. (2.)
What effect the warning has; The habitations of
the shepherds mourn, either because they fear the
roaring lion, or, because they feel what is signified
by that comparison, the consequence of a great
drought, (ch. iv. 7.) which made the top of Carmel,
of the most fruitful fields, to wither, and beci me as
a desert, Joel i. 12, 17.
3. Thus saitli the Lord, For three trans¬
gressions of Damascus, and for four, 1 w ill
not turn away the punishment thereof; be¬
cause they have threshed Gilead with
threshing-instruments of iron: 4. But I will
send a tire into the house of Hazael, which
shall devour the palaces of Ben-hadad. 5.
I will break also the bar of Damascus, and
cut off the inhabitant from the plain of
Aven, and him that holdeth the sceptre
from the house of Eden: and the people of
Syria shall go into captivity unto Kir, saith
the Lord. 6. Thus saith the Lord, For
three transgressions of Gaza, and for four, I
will not turn away the punishment thereof;
because they carried away captive the
whole captivity, to deliver them up to
Edom: 7. But I will send a fire on the wall
of Gaza, which shall devour the palaces
thereof: 8. And I will cut off the inhabit¬
ant from Ashdod, and him that holdeth
the sceptre from Ashkelon; and 1 will turn
my hand against Ekron: and the remnant
of the Philistines shall perish, saith the Lord
God. 9. Thus saith the Lord, For three
transgressions of Tyrus, and for four, I will
not turn away the punishment thereof; be¬
cause they delivered up the wdiole captivity
to Edom, and remembered not t he brother¬
ly covenant: 10. But I will send a fire on
the wall of Tyrus, which shall devour the
palaces thereof. 1 1. Thus saith the Lord,
For three transgressions of Edom, and for
four, I will not turn away the punishment
thereof ; because he did pursue his brother
with the sword, and did cast off all pity,
and his anger did tear perpetually, and kept
his wrath for ever: 12. But I will send a
fire upon Teman, which shall devour the
palaces of Bozrah. 13. Thus saith the
Lord, For three transgressions of the chil¬
dren of Ammon, and for four, I will not
959
AMOS, 1.
turn away the punishment thereof; because
they have ripped up the women with child
of Gilead, that they might enlarge their bor¬
der: 14. But 1 will kindle a fire in the wall
of Kabbah, and it shall devour the palaces
thereof, with shouting in the day of battle,
with a tempest in the day of the whirlwind:
15. And their king shall go into captivity,
he and his princes together, saith the Lord.
What the Lord says here, may be explained by
what he says, Jer. xii. 14. Thus saith the Lord,
against all my evil neighbours that touch the inheri¬
tance of my people Israel, Behold, I mill pluck them
out. Damascus was a near neighbour to Israel on
the north, Tyre and Gaza on the west, Edom on
the south, Ammon and (in the next chapter) Moab
on the east; and all of them had been, one time, one
way, or other, pricking briers and grieving thorns
to Israel, evil neighbours to them; and because God
espouses his people’s cause, he there calls them his
evil neighbours, and here comes forth to reckon
with them. The method taken in dealing with
each of them is, in part, the same, and therefore
we put them together, and yet in each there is
something peculiar.
I. Let us see what is repeated, both by way of
charge, and by way of sentence, concerning them
all. The controversy God has with each of them,
is prefaced with, Thus saith the Lord, Jehovah, the
God of Israel. Though those nations will not wor¬
ship him as their God, yet they shall be made to
know that they are accountable to him as their
Judge. The God of Israel is the God of the whole
earth, and has something to say to them, that shall
make them tremble. Against them the Lord roars
out of Zion. And before God, by the prophet,
threatens Israel and Judah, he denounces judgments
against these nations whom he made use of as
scourges to them for their being so; which might
serve for a check to their pride and insolence, and
a relief to his people under their dejections ; for
hereby they might see that God had not quitted his
interest in them, and therefore might hope they had
not lost their interest in him.
Now as to all these nations here arraigned,
1. The indictment drawn up against them all is
thus far the same, (1.) That they are charged in
general with three transgressions, and with four,
that is, with many transgressions; as by one or two,
we mean a few, so by three or four we mean many,
as in Latin, a man that is very happy, is said to be
terque quaterque beatus — three and four times hap¬
py; or with three and four, that is, with seven trans¬
gressions, a number of perfection; intimating that
they have filled up the measure of their iniquities,
and are ripe for ruin. Or, with three, that is, a va¬
riety of sins, and with a fourth especially, which is
specified concerning each of them, though the other
three are not. AsProv. xxx. 15, 18, 21, 29. where
we read of three things, yea, four, generally one
seems to be more especially intended. (2.) That
the particular sin, which is fastened upon as the
fourth, and which alone is specified, is, the sin of
persecution; it is some mischief or other done to
the people of God, that is particularly charged upon
every one of them; for persecution is the measure¬
filling sin of any people; and it is this sin that will
be particularly reckoned for; I was hungry, and
you gave me no meat ; much more if it may be
said, Iwas hungry, and you took my meat from me.
2. The judgment given against them all, is thus
far the same. (1.) That, their sin being come to
such a height, God will not turn away the punish¬
ment thereof. Though he h >s granted them a long
reprieve, and has often turned away their punish¬
ment, yet now he will turn it away no longer, but
justice shall take its Course, “ I will not revoke it
(so some read it;) 1 will not recall the voice which
is gone forth from Zion and Jerusalem, ( v . 2.)
speaking death and terror to the sinful nations.” It
is an irrevocable sentence; God has spoken it, and
he will not call it back. Note, Though God bear
long, he will not bear always, with these that pro¬
voke him, and when the decree brings forth, it will
bring up. (2.) That God will kindle a fire among
them; this is said concerning all these evil neigh¬
bours, v. 4, 7, 10, 12, 14. God will send a fire into
their cities. When fires are kindled, that lay cities,
towns, and houses in ashes, whether designedly or
casually, God must be acknowledged in it; they are
of his sending; sin stirs up the fire of his jealousy,
and that kindles other fires.
II. Let us see what is mentioned both by way of
charge, and by way of sentence, that is peculiar to
each of them ; that every one may take his portion.
1. Concerning Damascus, the head city of Syria,
a kingdom that was often vexatious to Israel. (1.)
The peculiar sin of Damascus was, using the Gilead¬
ites barbarously; They threshed Gilead with thresh¬
ing-instruments of iron, ( v . 3.) which may be un¬
derstood either literally, of their putting the inhabi¬
tants of Gilead to the torture, or to cruel deaths,
whom they got into their hands; as David put the
Ammonites under saws and harrows, 2 Sam. xii.
31. We read with what inhumanity Hazael king
of Syria prosecuted his wars with Israel; (2 Kings
viii. 12.) he dashed their children, and ripped up
their women with child; and see what desolations
he made ir, their land, 2 Kings x. 32, 33. Or, it
may be taken figuratively, for his laying the coun¬
try waste, and this very similitude is used in the his¬
tory of it; (2 Kings xiii. 7.) He destroyed them, and
made them like the dust by threshing. Note, Men
often do that unjustly and wickedly, and shall be
severely reckoned with for it, which yet God justly
permits them to do. The church is called God’s
threshing, and the corn of his floor; (Isa. xxi. 10.)
but if men make it their threshing, and the chaff of
their floor, they shall be sure to hear of it. (2.)
T\\e peculiar punishment of Damascus is, [I.] That
the fire which shall be sent up, shall fasten upon
the court in the first place, not on the chief city, or
the country towns, but on the house of Hazael,
which he built; and it shall devour the palaces of
Ben-hadad, the royal palaces inhabited by the kings
of Syria, many of whom were of that name. Note,
Even royal palaces are no fence against the judg¬
ments of God, though ever so richly furnished,
though ever so strongly fortified. [2.] That the
enemy shall force his way into the city; (y. 5.) /
will break the bar of Damascus; and then the gate
flies open. Or, it may be understood figuratively;
all that which is depended upon as the strength and
safety of that great city, shall fail, and prove insuf¬
ficient. When God’s judgments come with com¬
mission, it is in vain to think of turning them out.
[3.] That the people shall be destroyed with the
sword; I will cut off the inhabitant from the plain
of Aven, the valley of idolatry, for the gods of the
Syrians wer e gods of the valleys, (1 Kings xx. 23.)
were worshipped in valleys; as the idols of Israel
were worshipped on the hills; him also that ho/detl
the sceptre of power, some petty king or other that
used to boast of the sceptre he held from Beth- Eden;
the house of pleasure. Both those that were given
to idolatry, and those that were given to sensuality,
shall be cut off together. [4.] That the body of
the nation shall be carried off. The people shall
go into captivity unto Kir, which was in the coun¬
try of the Medes. We find this fulfilled, (2 Kings
xvi. 9.) about fifty years after this, when the king
960
AMOS, n.
of Assyria went up against Damascus, and took it,
and carried the /ieo/ile of it ca/itive to Kir, and slew
Rezin, at the instigation of Ahaz king of Judah.
2. Concerning Gaza, a city of the Philistines, and
now the metropolis of that country. (1.) ,The fie-
culiar sin of the Philistines was, carrying away
ca/itive the whole cafitivity, either of Israel or Ju¬
dah, which, some think, refers to that inroad made
upon Jehoram, when they took away all the Icing’s
sons, and all his substance; (2 Chron. xxi. 17.) or,
perhaps it refers to their seizing of those that fled
to them for shelter, when Sennacherib invaded Ju¬
dah, and selling of them to the Grecians, (Joel iii.
4, 6.) or, (as here) to the Edomites, who were al¬
ways sworn enemies to the people of God. They
spared none, but carried off all they could lay their
hands on, designing, if possible, to cut off the name
of Israel, Ps. lxxxiii. 4, 7. (2.) The peculiar
punishment of the Philistines is, that the fire which
God will send, shall devour the palaces of Gaza,
and th it the inhabitants of the other cities of the
Philistines, Ashdod, (or Azotus,) Ashkelon, and
Ekron, should all be cut off, and God would make as
thorough work with them in their ruin as they
would have made with God’s people when they
carried away the whole captivity; for even the
remnant of them shall perish, v. 8. Note, God
will make a full end of those that think to make a
full end of his church and people.
3. Concerning Tyre, that famous city of wealth
and strength, that was itself a kingdom, v. 9. (1.)
The peculiar sin of T yre is, delivering up the whole
captivity to Edom, selling to the Edomites those of
Israel that fled to them for shelter, or any way fell
into their hands; not caring what, hardships they
put upon them, so they could but make gain of them
to themselves. Herein they forgot the brotherly
covenant, the league that was between Solomon and
Hiram king of Tyre, (1 Kings v. 12.) which was so
intimate, that Hiram called Solomon his brother, 1
Kings ix. 13. Note, It is a great aggravation of en¬
mity and malice, when it is the violation of friend¬
ship and of a brotherly covenant. (2.) Here is no¬
thing peculiar in the punishment of Tyrus, but that
the palaces thereof shall be devoured; which was
done when Nebuchadnezzar took it after thirteen
years’ siege. Their merchants were all princes, and
their private houses were as palaces; but the fire
shall make no more of them than cottages.
4. Concerning Edom, the posterity of Esau. (1.)
Their peculiar sin was, an unmerciful, unwearied
pursuit of the people of God, and their taking all ad¬
vantages against them to do them a mischief, v. 11.
He did pursue his brother with the sword, not only
of old, when the king of Edom took up arms to op¬
pose the children of Israel’s passage through his
border, (Numb. xx. 1.) but ever since upon all oc¬
casions; they had not strength and courage enough
to face them in the field of battle, but, whenever any
other enemy had put Judah or Israel to flight, then
the Edomites set in with the pursuers, fell upon the
rear, slew those that were half dead already, and
(as is usual with cowards when they have an enemy
at an advantage) they did cast off all pity. Those
that are least courageous, are commonly most cruel;
Edom was so; his malice destroyed his compassion;
(so the word is;) he stripped himself of the tender¬
ness of a man, and put on the fierceness of a beast
of prey; and, as such a one, he did tear, his anger
did tear perpetually. His cruelty was insatiable,
and he never knew when he had sucked enough of
the blood of Israel, but, like the horse-leech, still
cried, Give, give. Nay, he kept his wrath for ever;
when he wanted objects of his wrath, and opportu¬
nity to show it, yet he kept it in reserve, (it rested
in his bosom,) rolled it under his tongue as a sweet
morsel, and had it ready to spit in the face of Israel
upon the next occasion. Cursed be such cruel wrath
and anger so fierce, so outrageous; which makes
men like the devil, who continually seeks to devour,
and unlike to God, who keeps not his anger for ever.
Edom’s malice was unnatural, for thus lie pursued
his brother, whom he ought to have protected: it
was hereditary, as if it had been entailed upon the
family ever since Esau hated Jacob, and time itself
could not wear it out, no, nor the brotherly conduct
of Israel toward them, (Deut. ii. 4.) and the express
law given to Israel, (Deut. xxiii. 7.) Thou shall not
abhor an Edomite, for he is thy brother. (2.) Here
is nothing peculiar in their punishment; but('u. 12.)
a fire shall be sent to devour their palaces. Note,
The fire of our anger against our brethren kindles
the fire of God’s anger against us.
5. Concerning the Ammonites, v. 13. — 15. (1.)
See how violently the fire of their anger turned
against the people of God; they not only triumphed
in their calamities, (as we find, Ezek. xxv. 2, 6.)
but they did themselves use them barbarously, they
ripped up the women with child of Gilead, a piece
of cruelty, the very mention whereof strikes a hor¬
ror upon one’s mind; one would think it not possible
that any of the human race should be so inhuman.
Hazael was guilty of it, 2 Kings viii. 12. It was
done not only in a brutish rage, which falls without
consideration upon all that comes before it, but with
a devilish design to extirpate the race of Israel by
killing not only all that were born, but all that were
to be born, worse than Egyptian cruelty. It was
that they might enlarge their border, that they might
make the land of Gilead their own, and there might
be none to lay claim to it, or irive them any disturb¬
ance in the possession of it. We find, (Jer. xlix. 1.)
that the Ammonites inherited Gad, that is, Gilead,
under pretence that Israel had no sons, no heirs.
We know how heavy their doom was, and how
heinous their crime, who said, This is the heir, come,
let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours by
occupancy. See what cruelty covetousness is the
cause of; and what horrid practices those are often
put upon, that are greedy to enlarge their own bor¬
der. (2.) See how violently the fire of God’s anger
burned against them; shall not God visit for these
things done to any of mankind, especially when they
are done to his own people? Shall riot his soul be
avenged on such a nation as this ? No doubt it shall.
The fire shall be kindled with shouting in the day
of battle, war shall kindle the fire, it shall be a fire
accompanied with the savord, or a roaring fire,
which shall make a noise like that of soldiers ready
to engage. And it shall be as a tempest in the day
of the whirlwind, which comes swiftly, furiously,
and bears down all before it. Or, This tempest and
whirlwind shall be as bellows to the fire, to make it
burn the stronger, and spread the further. It is
particularly threatened that their king and his
princes shall go together into captivity, carried
away by the king of Babylon, not long after Judah
was. See what changes God’s providence often
makes with men, or, rather, their own sin; kings
become captives, and princes prisoners. Milchom
shall go into captivity; some understand it of the
god of the Ammonites, whom they called Moloch —
a king; he, and his princes, and his priests that at¬
tended him, shall go into captivity ; their id 1 shall
be so far from protecting them, that it shall itself go
into captivity with them. Note, Those who by vio¬
lence and fraud seek to enlarge their own border,
will justly be expelled and excluded their own bor¬
der; nor is it strange if those who make no conscience
of invading the rights of others, be able to make no
resistance against these who invade theirs.
CHAP. II.
In this chapter, I. God, by the prophet, proceeds in a like
controversy with Moab as before with other nations, v.
AMOS, II. %l
I S. II. He shows what quarrel he had with Judah, v.
4, 5. III. He at length begins his charge against Israel,
to which all that goes before is but an introduction. Ob¬
serve, 1. The sins they are charged with — injustice, op¬
pression, whoredom, v. 6..8. 2. The aggravation of
those sins — the temporal and spiritual mercies God had
bestowed upon them, for which they had made him such
ungrateful returns, v. 9.. 12. 3. God’s complaint of
them for their sins, (v. 13.) and his threatenings of their
ruin, and their utter inability to prevent it, v. 14.. 16.
I. r S^IIUS saith the Lord, for three trans-
JL gressions of Moab, and for four, I
will, not turn away the punishment thereof;
because he burnt the hones of the king of
Edom into lime ; 2. But I will send a fire
upon Moab, and it shall devour the palaces
of lvirioth; and Moab shall die with tumult,
with shouting, and with the sound of the
trumpet: 3. And I will cut off the judge
from the midst thereof, and will slay all the
princes thereof with him, saith the Lord.
4. Thus saith the Lord, For three trans¬
gressions of Judah, and for four, I will not
turn away the punishment thereof; because
they have despised the law of the Lord,
and have not kept his commandments, and
their lies caused them to err, after the which
their fathers have walked; 5. But I will
send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour
the palaces of Jerusalem. 6. Thus saith the
Lord, For three transgressions of Israel,
and for four, I will not turn away the punish¬
ment thereof; because they sold the right¬
eous for silver, and the poor for a pair of
shoes; 7. That pant after the dust of the
earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside
the way of the meek; and a man and his
father will go in unto the same maid, to pro¬
fane my holy name: 3. And they lay them¬
selves down upon clothes laid to pledge by
every altar, and they drink the wine m the
condemned in the house of their god.
Here is,
I. The judgment of Moab, another of the nations
that bordered upon Israel. They are reckoned
with, and shall be punished for three transgressions
and for four, as those before. Now, 1. Moab’s
fourth transgression, as theirs who were before set
to the bar, was, cruelty; the instance given refers
not to the people of God, but to a heathen like them¬
selves. The king of Moab burnt the bones of the
king of Edom into lime. We find there was war
between the Edomites and the Moabites, in which
the king of Moab, in distress, and rage, offered his
own son for a burnt-offering, to appease his deity, 2
Kings iii. 26, 27. And it should seem that afterward
he, or some of his successors, in revenge upon the
Edomites for bringing him to that extremity, having
an advantage against the king of Edom, either
seized him alive, and burnt him to ashes, or slew
him, and burnt his body, or digged up the bones of
their dead king, of that particularly who had so
straitened him, and, in token of his rage and fury,
burnt them to lime, and perhaps made use of the
powder of his bones for the white-washing of the
walls and ceiling of his palace, that he might please
himself with the sight ot that monument of his re¬
venge. Est vindicta bonum vita jucundius ipsa —
Revenge is sweeter than life itself. It is barbarous
Vol. iv — 6 F
to abuse human bodies, for we ourselves also are in
the body; it is senseless to abuse dead bodies, nay,
it is impious, for we believe and look for their re¬
surrection. And to abuse the dead bodies of kings,
(whose persons and names ought to be in a particu¬
lar manner respected and had in veneration,) is an
affront to majesty; it is an argument of a base spirit
for those to trample upon a dead lion, who, were he
alive, would tremble before him. 2. Moab’s doom
for this transgression is, (1.) A judgment of death.
Those that deal cruelly shall be cruelly dealt with;
(v. 2.) Moab shall die, the Moabites shall be cut
off with the sword of war, which kills with tumult,
with shouting, and with sound of trumpet, circum¬
stances that make it so much the more terrible; as
the lion’s roaring aggravates his tearing; every bat¬
tle of the warrior is with confused noise, Isa. ix. 5.
(2.) It is a judgment upon their judge, who had pass¬
ed the sentence upon the bones of the king of Edom,
that they should be burnt to lime; I will cut him
off, says God; ( v . 3.) he shall know there is a Judge
that is higher than he. The king, the chief judge,
and all the inferior judges and princes, shall be cut
off together. If the people sometimes suffer for the
sin of their princes, yet the princes themselves shall
not escape, Jer. xlviii. 47. Thus far is the judg¬
ment of Moab.
II. Judah also is a near neighbour to Israel, and
therefore now that justice is riding the circuit, that
shall not be passed by; that nation had made itself
like the heathen, and mingled itself with them, and
therefore the indictment here runs against them in
the same form in which it had run against all the
rest; For three transgressions of Judah, and for
four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof;
their sins are as many as the sins of other nations,
and we find them huddled up with them in the same
character, Jer. ix. 26. Egypt, and Judah, and
Edom, jumble them together, they are all Mike;
the sentence here also is the same; (x>. 5.) I will
send a fire upon Judah, though it is the land where
God is known, and it shall devour the palaces of Je¬
rusalem, though it is the holy city, and God has
been known in its palaces for a refuge, Ps. xlviii. 3.
But the sin here charged upon Judah, is different
from all the rest. The other nations were reckoned
with for injuries done to men, but Judah is reckoned
with for indignities done to God, v. 4. 1. They put
contempt upon his statutes; and persisted in disobe¬
dience to them; They have despised the law of the
Lord, as if it were not worth taking notice of, nor
had any thing in it valuable; and herein they de¬
spised the wisdom, justice, and goodness, as well as
the authority and sovereignty, of the Law-Maker;
this they did, in effect, when they kept not his com¬
mandments, made no conscience of them, took no
care about them. 2. They put honour upon his
rivals, their idols, here called their lies, which
caused them to err; for an image is a teacher-of lies,
Hab. ii. 18. And they that are led away into the
error of idolatrv, are by that led into a multitude of
other errors, lino dato absurdo mille sequuntur —
One absurdity draws after it a thousand. God is an
infinite, eternal Spirit; but when that truth of God
is by idolatry changed into a lie , all his other truths
are in danger of being so changed likewise; thus
their idols caused them to err, and God justly gave
them up to strong delusions; nor was it any excuse
for their sin, that they were the lies after which
their fathers walked, for they should rather have
taken warning, than taken pattern, by those that
perished with these lies in their right hand.
III. We now at length come to the words which
Amos saw concerning Israel; the reproofs and
threatenings having walked the round, here thev
centre, here they settle. He begins with them as
with the rest, For three transgressions o f Israel, and
962 • AMOS, II.
for four, I will not turn away the punishment there¬
of; if all these nations must be punished for their
iniquities, shall Israel go unpunished? Observe here,
what their sins were, for which God would reckon
with them.
1. Perverting justice. This was the sin of those
who were intrusted with the administration of jus¬
tice, the judges and magistrates, and all parties con¬
cerned; they made nothing of selling a righteous
man, and his righteous cause when it came to be
tried before them ;for a piece of silver sentence was
passed, not according to the merits of the cause, but
the bribe always turned the scale, and judgment
was set to sale by auction to the highest bidder.
They would sell the life and livelihood of a poor
man for a pair of shoes, for the least advantage to
themselves that could be proposed to them; give
them but a pair of shoes, and the cause of a poor
man, who could not give them so much as that,
should be betrayed, and left at the mercy of those
that will have no mercy; they will rather play at
small game than sit out; for a piece of bread such a
man will transgress. Note, Those who will wrong
their consciences for any thing, will come at length
to do it for next to nothing, those who begin to sell
justice for silver, will, in time, be so sordid as to
sell it for a pair of shoes, for a pair of old shoes.
2. Oppressing the poor, and seeking to benefit
themselves by doing them a mischief; They pant
after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor;
they swallow up the poor with the utmost greedi¬
ness, and make a prey of them that are in sorrow,
with dust on their heads; poor orphans that are in
mourning for their parents, they catch at them to
get their estates into their hands; they never rest
till they have got the heads of the poor in the dust,
to be trodden on. Or, They pant after the dust of
the earth, silver and gold, white and yellow dust;
they covet it earnestly, and levy it upon the head o f
the poor, by their unjust exactions. Note, Men’s
seeking to enrich themselves by the impoverishing
of others, is a transgression which God will not long
turn away the punishment of. This is turning aside
the way of the meek, contriving to do injury to those
who, they know, are mild and patient, and will bear
injury. They invade their rights, break their mea¬
sures, and obstruct the course of justice in favour of
them, not suffering them to go on with their right¬
eous cause; this is turning aside their way. Note,
The more patiently men bear the injuries that are
done them, the greater is the sin of those that injure
them, and the more occasion they have to expect
that God will right them, and take vengeance for
them. I, as a deaf man, heard not, and then thou
wilt hear.
3. Abominable uncleanness, even incest itself, such
as is not named among the Gentiles, that a man
should have his father’s wife, (1 Cor. v. 1.) his fa¬
ther’s concubine; A man and his father will go in
unto the same young woman, as black an instance as
any other of an unbounded, promiscuous lust; and
yet where the former iniquities of oppression and
extortion are, this also is found; for laws of modesty
seldom hold those that have broken the bands of
justice, and cast away its cords from them. This
wickedness is such a scandal to religion, and the
profession of it, that they who are guilty of it, are
looked upon as designing thereby to profane God’s
holy name, and to render it odious among the hea¬
then, as if he countenanced the villanies which those
who pretend relation to him allow themselves in, and
were altogether such a one as they.
4. Regaling themselves, and yet pretending to
honour their God with that which they had got by
oppression and extortion, v. 8. They add idolatry
to their injustice, and then think to atone for their
injustice with their idolatry. (1.) They make merry
with that which they have unjustly squeezed from
the poor. They lay themselves down at ease, and
in state, and stretch themselves upon clothes laid to
pledge, which they ought to have restored the same
night, according to the law, Deut. xxiv. 12, 13.
And they drink the wine of the condemned, of such
as they have fined and laid heavy mulcts upon;
spending that in sensuality, which they have got by
injustice. (2.) They think to make atonement for
this, by feasting on the gains of oppression before
their altars, and drinking this wine in the house oj
their god, in the temples where they worshipped
their calves, as if they would make God a Partner
in their crimes, by making hjm a Partner of the
profits of them — service good enough for false gods;
but the true God will not thus be mocked; he has
declared that he hates robbery for burnt-offerings,
and cannot be served acceptably but with that which
is got honestly.
9. Yet destroyed I the Amorite before
them, whose height was like the height of
the cedars, and he teas strong as the oaks ;
yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his
roots from beneath. 10. Also I brought you
up from the land of Egypt, and led you forty
years through the wilderness, to possess the
land of the Amorite. 1 1 . And I raised up
of your sons for prophets, and of your young
men for Nazarites. Is it not even thus, O
ye children of Israel ? saith the Lord. 1 2.
But ye gave the Nazarites wine to drink;
and commanded the prophets, saying, Pro¬
phesy not. 13. Behold, I am pressed under
you, as a cart is pressed that is full of
sheaves. 14. Therefore the flight shall pe
rish from the swift, and the strong shall not
strengthen his force, neither shall the mighty
deliver himself; 15. Neither shall he stand
that handleth the bow; and he that is swift
of foot shall not deliver himself: neither shall
he th*t rideth the horse deliver himself : 16.
And he that is courageous among the mighty
shall flee away naked in that day, saith the
Lord.
Here, 1. God puts his people Israel in mind of
the great things he had done for them, in putting
them into possession of the land of Canaan, the
greatest part of which these ten tribes now enjoyed,
v. 9, 10. Note, We need often to be reminded of
the mercies we have received, which are the heavi¬
est aggravations of the sins we have committed.
God gives liberally, and upbraids us not with our
meanness and unworthiness, and the disproportion
between his gifts and our merits; but he justly up¬
braids us with our ingratitude, and ill requital of his
favours, and tells us what he has done for us, to
shame us for not rendering again according to the
benefit done to us. Son, remember ; Israel, remem¬
ber, (1.) “That God brought thee out of a house
of bondage, rescued thee out of the land of Egypt,
where, else, thou hadst perished in slavery.” (2.)
That he led thee forty years through a desert land,
and fed thee in a wilderness, where, else, thou hadst
perished with hunger. Mercies to our ancestors
were mercies to us; for if they had been cut off, we
had not been. (3.) That he made room for them
in Canaan, by extirpating the natives, by a series of
wonders little inferior to those by which they were
redeemed out of Egypt; I destroyed the Amorite
363
AMOS, II.
before them, here put for all the devoted nations.
Observe the magnificence of the enemies that stood
in their way, which is taken notice of, that God
may be the more tnagnified in the subduing of them;
they were of great stature, his height was like the
height of the cedars, and the people of Israel were
as shrubs to them; and of great strength, not only
tall, but well set, he was strong as the oaks ; their
kingdom was eminent among the nations, and over¬
topped all its neighbours; the support and defences
of it seemed impregnable, it was as fine as the
stately cedar, it was as firm as the sturdy oak; yet
when God had a vine to plant there, (Ps. lxxx. 8,
9. ) this Amoritc is not only cut down, but plucked
up; I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots
from beneath, so the Amorites were no more a na¬
tion, nor ever read of any more. Thus highly did
God value Israel; he gave men for them, and' peo¬
ple for their life, Isa. xliii. 4. How ungrateful then
were they, who put such contempt upon him! (4.)
That he made them possess the land of the Amorite,
not only put it into their hands so that they became
masters of it jure belli — by right of conquest, but
ave them a better title to it, so that it became theirs
y promise.
2. He likewise upbraids them with the spiritual
privileges and advantages they enjoyed as a holy
nation, v. 11. They had helps for their souls,
which taught them how to make good use of their
temporal enjoyments, and were therefore more va¬
luable. It is true, the ten tribes had not God’s tem¬
ple, altar, and priesthood, and it was their own
fault that they deserted them, and for that they
might justly have been left in utter darkness; but
God left not himself without witness, or them with¬
out guides, to show them the way. (1.) They had
prophets that were powerful instructors in piety,
divinely inspired and commissioned to make known
the mind ot God to them, to show them what is
pleasing to God, and what displeasing; to reprove
them for their faults, and warn them of their
danger; to direct them in their difficulties, and
comfort them in their tioubles. God raised them
up prophets, spirited them for that work, and em¬
ployed them in it. He raised them up of their sons,
from among themselves, as Moses and Christ were
raised up from among their brethren, Deut. xviii.
15. It was an honour put upon their nation, and
upon their families, that they had children of their
own to be God’s messengers to them, of their own
language, not strangers sent from another country,
whom they might suspect to be prejudiced against
them and their land, but those who they knew
wished well to them. Note, Faithful ministers are
great blessings to any people, and it is God that
raises them up to be so, and they may justly be
reckoned an honour to the families they are of. (2. )
They had Nazarites that were bright examples of
piety; I raised up of your young men for Nazar¬
ites, men that bound themselves by a vow to God
and his service, and, in pursuance of that, denied
themselves many of the lawful delights of sense, as
drinking wine, and eating grapes. There were some
of their young men that were in their prime for the
enjoyment of the pleasures of this life, and yet vo¬
luntarily abridged themselves of them; these God
raised up by tne power of his grace, to be monu¬
ments of his grace, to his glory, and to be his wit¬
nesses against the impieties of that degenerate age.
Note, It is as great a blessing to any place to have
eminent good Christians in it as to have eminent
good ministers in it; for so they have examples to
their rules. We must acknowledge that it bodes
well to any people, when God raises up numbers
of hopeful young people among them, when he
makes their young men Nazarites, devout and con¬
scientious, and mortified to the pleasures of sense; !
those that are such Nazarites, are purer than snow,
whiter than milk, they are indeed the polite young
men, for their polishing is of sapphires, Lam.' iv. 7.
They that have such men, such young men, among
them, have therein such an advantage, both for di¬
rection and encouragement, to be religious, as they
will be called to an account for another day, if they
do not improve. Israel is here reckoned with, not
only for the prophets, but for the Nazarites, rajsed
up among them. Concerning the truth of this, he
appeals to themselves; “ Is it not even thus, O ye
children of Israel? Can ye deny it? Have not you
ourselves been sensible of the advantage you had
y the prophets and Nazarites raised up among
you?” Note, Sinners’ own consciences will be wit¬
nesses for God, that he has not been wanting to them
in the means of grace, so that if they perish, it is
because they have been wanting to themselves in
not improving those means. The men of Judah
shall themselves judge between God and his vine¬
yard, whether he could have done more for it, Isa.
v. 3, 4.
3. He charges them with the abuse of the means
of grace they enjoyed, and the opposition they gave
to God’s designs in affording them those means, v.
12. They were so far from walking in the light,
that they rebelled against it, and did what they
could to extinguish it, that it might not shine in their
faces to their conviction. (1.) They did what they
could to debauch good people ; to draw them off
from their seriousness in devotion, and their strict¬
ness in conversation; Ye gave the Nazarites wine to
drink, contrary to their vow, that, having broken it
in that instance, they might not pretend to keep it
in any other. Some they surprised, or allured, into
it, and with their much fair speech caused them to
yield ; others they forced and frightened into it, re¬
proached and threatened them, if they were more
precise than their neighbours; and by drawing them
in to drink wine they spoiled them for Nazarites.
Note, Satan and his agents are very busy to corrupt
the minds of young people that look heavenward;
and many that we thought would have been Nazar¬
ites, they have overcome by giving them wine to
drink, by drawing them into the love of mirth and
pleasure, and drinking company; multitudes of
young men that bid fair for eminent professors of
religion, have erred through wine, and been undone
for ever. And how do the factors for hell triumph
in the debauching of a Nazarite! (2.) They did
what they could to silence good ministers, and to stop
their mouths; “ You commanded the prophets, say¬
ing, Prophesy not, and threatened them if they did
prophesy, ( ch . vii. 12.) as if God’s messengers were
bound to observe your orders, and might not deliver
their errand unless you gave them leave, and so you
not only received the grace of God, in raising up
those prophets, in vain, but put the highest affront
imaginable upon that God in whose name the pro¬
phets spake.” Note, Those have a great deal to
answer for that cannot bear faithful preaching, and
those much more who suppress it.
4. He complains of the wrong they did him by
their sins; (v. 13.) “ I am pressed under you, I
am straitened by you, and know net what to do,
Hos. xi. 8, 9. I am loaded and burthened bv you,
and can no longer bear it, and therefore I will case
me of my adversaries, Isa. i. 24. I am pressed
under you, and the load of your sins, as a cart is
pressed that is full of sheaves, is loaded with com,
in the midst of the joy of harvest., as long as any
will //> on.” Note, The great God complains of
sin, especially the sins of his professing people, as a
burthen to him. He is grieved with this generation,
(Ps. xcv. 10.) is broken with their whorish heart,
Ezek. vi. 9. A consideration which if it make not
the sinners repentance very deep, it will make his
AMOS, III.
964
ruin very great. The great God that upholds the
world, and never complains that he is pressed under
the weight of it, he jainteth not, neither is weary,
yet complains of the sins of Israel, yea, and of their
hypocritical services too, that he is weary of bearing
them, Isa. i. 14. No wonder the creature groans
being burthened, (Rom. viii. 22.) when the Creator
says, I am pressed under them.
5. He threatens them with unavoidable ruin.
And so some read, v. 13. Behold, I will press or
straiten your place, as a cart full of sheaves presses ;
they shall be loaded with judgments till they shall
sink under them, and shall make a noise, as a cart
overloaded does. They that will not submit to the
convictions of the word, that will neither be won by
that, nor by the conversation of those about them,
shall be made to sink under the weight of God’s
judgments. If God load us daily with his benefits,
and we, notwithstanding that, load him with out-
sins, how can we expect any other than that he
should load us with his judgments ? And it is here
threatened in the three last verses, that when God
comes forth to contend with this provoking people,
••hey shall not be able to stand before him, to flee
from him, or to make their part good with him; for
when God judges, he will overcome. Though his
patience be tired out, his power is not, and so the
sinner shall find, to his cost. When the Assyrian
army comes to lay the country waste by sword and
captivity, none shall escape, but every one shall
have his share in the common desolation. (1.) It
will be in vain to think of fleeing from the enemy
that comes armed with a commission to make all
desolate. Th t flight shall perish from the swift ;
the arts of those that have been famed for happy
escapes and happy retreats, shall now fail them ;
they shall have no time to flee, or shall find no way
to take; or they shall have no strength or spirit to
attempt it. They shall be at their wits’ end, and
then they are soon at their flight’s end. Are they,
as Asahel, as swift of foot as a wild roe ? (2 Sam.
ii. 18.) Yet, like him, they shall run the fasterupon
their own destruction; He that is swift of foot, shall
not deliver himself, v. 15. Or, do they say, (as
those, Isa. xxx. 16.) We will flee upon horses, and
we will ride upon the swift? Yet they shall be for¬
saken; Neither shall he that rides the horse, deliver
himself from the pursuers. A horse is a vain thing
for safety. (2.) It will be in vain to think of fight¬
ing it out. God is at war with them; and are they
stronger than he? Is there any military force that
can pretend to be a match for "Omnipotence? No,
the strong shall not strengthen his force. He that
has a habit of strength, shall not be able to exert it
when he has occasion for it. And the jnighty, who
should protect and deliver others, shall not be able
to deliver himself, to deliver his soul, (so the word
is,) shall not save his life. Let not the strong man
then glory in his strength, nor trust in it, but
strengthen himself in the Lord his God, for in him
is everlasting strength. And as the bodily strength
shall fail, so shall the weapons of war; the ar¬
mour as well as the arm shall become insufficient;
Neither shall he stand that handles the bow, though
he stand at a distance, but shall betake himself to
flight, and not trust to his own bow to save him;
though the arm were ever so strong, and the ar¬
mour ever so well fixed, neither will avail when the
spirit fails; ( v . 16.) He that is courageous among
the mighty, that used to look danger in the face,
and not be dismayed at it, he shall flee away naked
in that day ; not only disarmed, having thrown
away his weapons both offensive and defensive,
but plundered of his treasure, which he thought
to have carried away with him, and he shall think
it as much as bargain, that he has his life for a
prey. Thus when God pleases, he takes away the
heart of the chief of the people of the earth, and
causes them who used to boast of their courage,
and their daring enterprizes in the field, to wander
and sneak in a wilderness where there is no way,
Job xii. 24.
CHAP. III.
A stupid, senseless, heedless people, are, in this chapter,
called upon to take notice, I. Of the judgments of God
denounced against them, and the warnings he gave them
of those judgments; and to be hereby awakened out of
their security, v. 1 . . 8. II. Of the sins that were found
among them, by which God was provoked thus to threat¬
en, thus to punish, that they might justify God in his
controversy with them, and, unless they repented and
reformed, might expect no other than that God should
proceed in his controversy, v. 9 . . 15.
1. WEAR tliis word that the Lord hatl
JLjL spoken against you, O children of
Israel, against the whole family which 1
brought up from the land of Egypt, saying,
2. You only have I known of all the fami¬
lies of the earth: therefore I will punish you
for all your iniquities. 3. Can two walk
together except they be agreed ? 4. Will
a lion roar in the forest when he hath no
prey ? will a young lion cry out of his den
if he have taken nothing ? 5. Can a bird
fall in a snare upon the earth where no
gin is for him? shall one take up a snare
from the earth, and have taken nothing at
all? 6. Shall a trumpet be blown in the
city, and the people not be afraid? shall
there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath
not done it? 7. Surely the Lord God will
do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto
his servants the prophets. 8. The lion hath
roared, who will not fear? the Lord God
hath spoken, who can but prophesy?
The scope of these verses is, to convince the peo
pie of Israel that God had a controversy with them;
that which the prophet has to say to them, is, to let
them know that the Lord has something to say
against them, v. 1. They were his peculiar peo¬
ple above others, knew his name, and were called
by it; nevertheless he had something against them,
and they were called to hear what it is, that they
may consider what answer they shall make; as the
prisoner at the bar is bid to hearken to his indict¬
ment. The children of Israel would not regard the
words of counsel and comfort that God had many a
time spoken to them, and now they shall be made to
hear the word of reproof and threatening that the
Lord has spoken against them; for He will act as
He has spoken.
1. Let them know that the gracious cognizance
God had taken of them, and the favours he had be¬
stowed upon them, should not exempt them from
the punishment due to them for their sins. It is a
family that God brought up out of tlte land of
Egypt, (y. 1.) and it was no more than a family,
when it went down thither; thence God delivered
it, thence he fetched it to be a family to himself.
It is not only the ten tribes, the kingdom of Israel,
that must take notice of this, but that of Judah also,
for it is spoken against the whole family that God
brought up out of Egypt. It is a" family that God
has bestowed distinguishing favours upon, has
owned in a peculiar manner; You only have 1
known of all the families of the earth. Note, God’s
church in the world is a family dignified above a.
AMOS, III. 96*
the families of the earth. Those that know God,
are known of him; in Judah is God known, and
therefore Judah is more than any people known of
God. God has known them ; he has chosen them,
covenanted with them, and conversed with them as
his acquaintance.
Now, one would think, it should follow, “There¬
fore I will spare you, will connive at your faults,
and excuse you.” No, Therefore I will punish
you for all your iniquities. Note, The distinguish¬
ing favours of God to us, if they do not serve to re¬
strain us from sin, shall not serve to exempt us from
punishment: nay, the nearer any are to God in pro¬
fession, and the kinder notice he has taken of them,
the more surely, the more quickly, and the more
severely, will he reckon with them, if they by a
course of wilful sin profane their character, dis¬
grace their relation to him, violate their engage¬
ments, and put a slight upon the favours and ho¬
nours with which they have been distinguished.
Therefore they shall be punished, because their
sins dishonour him, affront him, and grieve him,
more than the sins of others; and because it is ne¬
cessary that God should vindicate his own honour
by making it appear that he hates sin, and hates it
niost in those that are nearest to him; if they be but
as bad as others, they shall be punished worse than
others, because it is justly expected that they should
be so much better than others. Judgment begins at
the house of God, begins at the sanctuary; for God
will be sanctified either by or upon those that come
nigh unto him, Lev. x. 3.
2. Let them know that they could not expect any
comfortable communion with God, unless they first
made their peace with him; ( v . 3.) Can two walk
together except they be agreed? No, how should
they? Where there is no friendship, there can be
no fellowship; if two persons be at variance, they
must first accommodate the matters in difference
between them, before there can be any interchang¬
ing of good offices. Israel had affronted God, had
broken their covenant with him, and ill requited
his favours to them; and yet they expected that lie
should continue to walk with them, should take
their part, act for them, and give them assurances
of his presence with them, though they took no
care by repentance and reformation to agree with
their Adversary, and to turn away his wrath. “ But
how can that be?” (says God,) “ while you continue
to walk contrary to God, you can look for no other
than that he should walk contrary to you,” Lev.
xxvi. 23, 24. Note, We cannot expect that God
should be present with us, or act for us, unless we
be reconciled to him. God and man cannot walk
together, except they be agreed; unless we agree
with God in our end, which is his glory, we cannot
walk with him by the way.
3. Let them know that the warnings God gave
them of judgments approaching, were not causeless
and groundless, merely to amuse them, but certain
declarations of the wrath of God against them,
which (if they did not speedily repent) they would
infallibly feel the effects of; (v. 4.) “ Will a lion
roar in the forest, when he has no prey in view? No,
lie roars upon his prey; nor will a young lion cry out
of his den, if the old lion have taken nothing to
bring home to him ; nor would God thus give you
warning both by the threatenings of his word, and
by lesser judgments, if you had not by your sins
made yourselves a prey to his wrath, nor if he were
not really about to fall upon you with desolating,
destroying judgments.” Note, The threatenings of
the word and providence of God are not bugbears,
to frighten children and fools, but are certain infer¬
ences from the sin of man, and certain presages of
the judgments of God.
4. Let them know that as their own wickedness
was the procuring cause of these judgments, so they
shall not be removed till they have done their work,
v. 5. When God is come forth to contend with a
sinful people, it is necessary that they should un¬
derstand, (1.) That it is their own sin that has en¬
tangled them ; for, can a bird fall in a snare upon
the earth, where no gin is for him? No, nature
does not lay snares for the creatures, but the art of
men; a bird is not taken in a snare by chance, ^ut
with the fowler’s design; so the providence of God
prepares trouble for sinners, and it is in the work of
their own hands that they are snared; affliction dots
not spring out of the dust, but it is God’s justice,
and our own wickedness, that corrects us. (2.) It is
nothing but their own repentance that can disen¬
tangle them; for shall one take up a snare from the
earth, which he laid with design, except he have
taken something as he designed? So neither will
God remove the affliction he has sent, till it have
done its work, and accomplished that for which he
sent it. If our hearts be duly humbled, and we are
brought by our afflictions to confess and forsake our
sins, then the snare has taken something, then the
point is gained, the end is answered, and then, and
not till then, the snare is broken, is taken up from
the earth, and we are delivered in love and mercy.
5. Let them know that all their troubles came
from the hand of God’s providence, and from the
counsel of his will; (u. 6.) Shull there be evil in a
city, in a family, in a nation, and the Lord has not
done it, appointed it, and performed what he ap¬
pointed? The evil of sin is from ourselves, it is our
own doing; but the evil of trouble, personal or pub¬
lic, is from God, and is his doing; whoever are the
instruments, God is the principal Agent. Out of
his mouth both evil and good proceed.
This consideration, That, whatever evil is in the
city, the Lord has done it, should engage us pa¬
tiently to bear our share in public calamities, and
to study to answer God’s intention in them.
6. Let them know that their prophets, who give
them warning of judgments approaching, deliver
nothing to them but what they have received from
the Lord, to be delivered to his people. (1.) God
makes it known beforehand to the prophets; (i>. 7.)
Surely the Lord Jehovah wilt do nothing, none of
that evil in the city spoken of, (r>. 6.) but he reveals
it to his servants the prophets, though to others it is
a secret. Therefore they know not what they do,
who make light of the warnings which the prophets
give them, in God’s name. Observe, God’s pro¬
phets are his servants, whom he employs to go on
his errands to the children of men. The secret of
God is with them; it is in some sense with all the
righteous, (Prov. iii. 32.) with all that fear God,
(Ps. xxv. 14. ) but in a peculiar manner with the
prophets, to whom the Spirit of prophecy is a Spirit
of revelation.
It had put honour enough upon prophets, if it had
been only said, that sometimes God is pleased to
reveal to his prophets what he designs to do; but it
speaks something very great, to say that he doeth
nothing, but what he reveals it to them, as if they
were the men of his counsel. Shall I hide from
Abraham, who is a prophet, the thing which I do?
Gen. xviii. 17. God will therefore be sure to reckon
with those who put contempt on the prophets whom
he puts this honour upon. (2.) The prophets can¬
not but make that known to the people, which God
has made known to them;(t\ 8. ) The Lord God
has spoken; who can but prophesy? His prophets,
to whom he has spoken in secret by dreams and vi¬
sions, cannot but speak in public to the people what
they have heard from God. They are so full of
those things themselves, so well assured concerning
them, and so much affected with them, that they
cannot but speak of them; for out of the abundance
966
AMOS, III.
of the heart the mouth will speak. I believed,
therefore have I spoken, Actsiv. 20. Nay, and be¬
side the prophetic impulse which went along with
the inspiration, and made the word like a fre in
their bones, (Jer. xx. 9.) they received a command
from God to deliver what they had been charged
with; and they had been false to their trust, if they
had not done it. Necessity was laid upon them, as
upon the preachers of the gospel, 1 Cor. ix. 16.
7. Let them know that they ought to tremble be¬
fore God, upon the fair warning he had given them;
as they would, (1.) Upon the sounding of a trum¬
pet, to give notice of the approach of the enemy,
that all may stand upon their guard, and stand to
their arms; Shall a trumpet be blown in the citi/,
and the people not be afraid, or run together? So
some read it, v. 6. Will they not immediately
come together in a fright, to consider what is best to
be done for the common safety? Yet when God by
his prophets gives them notice of their danger, and
summons them to come, and enlist themselves under
his banner, it makes no impression; they will sooner
give credit to a watchman on their walls, than to a
prophet sent of God; will sooner obey the sum¬
mons of the governor of their city, than the orders
given them by the Governor of the world. God
says, Hearken to the voice of the trumpet, but they
will not hearken, nay, and they tell him plainly that
they will not, Jer. vi. 17. (2.) Upon the roaring
of a lion. God is sometimes as a lion, and a young
lion, to the house of Judah, Hos. v. 14. The lion
roars before he tears; thus God warns before he
wounds; if therefore the lion roars upon a poor
traveller, (as he did against Samson, Judg. xiv. 5.)
he cannot but be put in great consternation; yet the
Lord roars out of Zion, ( ch . i. 2.) and none are
afraid, but they go on securely as if they were in no
danger. Note, The fair warning given to a care¬
less world, if it be not taken, will aggravate its con¬
demnation another day. The lion roared, and they
were not moved with fear to prepare an ark. O
the amazing stupidity of an unbelieving world, that
will not be wrought upon, no, not by the terrors of
the Lord.
9. Publish in the palaces at Ashclod, and
in the palaces in the land of Egypt, and
say, Assemble yourselves upon the moun¬
tains of Samaria, and behold the great tu¬
mults in the midst thereof, and the oppress¬
ed in the midst thereof. 1 0. For they know
not to do right, saith the Lord, who store
up violence and robbeiy in their palaces.
11. Therefore thus saith the Lord God, An
adversary there shall be even round about
the land; and he shall bring down thy
strength from thee, and thy palaces shall be
spoiled. 1 2. Thus saith the Lord, As the
shepherd taketh out of the mouth of the lion
two legs, or a piece of an ear ; so shall the
children of Israel be taken out that dwell in
Samaria in the corner of a bed, and in Da¬
mascus in a couch. 1 3. Hear ye, and tes¬
tify in the house of Jacob, saith the Lord
God, the God of hosts. 14. That in the
day that I shall visit the transgressions of
Israel upon him, I will also visit the altars
of Beth-el ; and the horns of the altar shall
be cut off, and fall to the ground. 1 5. And
I will smite the winter-house with the sum¬
mer-house; and the houses of ivory shall
perish, and the great houses shall have an
end, saith the Lord.
The Israelites are here again convicted and con¬
demned, and particular notice given of the crimes
they are convicted of, and the punishment they are
condemned to.
I. Notice is given of it to their neighbours. The
prophet is ordered to publish it in the palaces of
Ashdod, one of the chief cities of the Philistines;
nay, the summons must go further, even to the pa¬
laces in the land of Egypt; the great men of both
those nations that dwell in the palaces, that are in¬
quisitive concerning the affairs of the neighbouring
nations, and are conversant with the public intelli¬
gence, let them assemble themselves upon the moun¬
tains of Samaria, v. 9. There, upon a throne high
and lifted up, the judgment is set; Samaria is the
criminal that is to be tried, let them be present at
the trial, for it shall be (as other trials are) public,
in the face of the country; let them make an ap¬
pointment to meet therefrom all parts, to judge be¬
tween God and his vineyard. God appeals to all
impartial righteous men, Ezek. xxiii. 45. They
will all subscribe to the equity of his proceedings,
when they see how the case stands. Note, God’s
controversies with sinners do not fear a scrutiny;
even Philistines and Egyptians will be made to see,
and say, that the ways of the Lord are equal, but
our ways are unequal. They are likewise sum¬
moned to attend, not only that they may justify God,
and be witnesses for him that he deals fairly, but
that they may themselves take warning; for if judg
ment begin at the house of God, as they see it does
what shall be the end of those that are strangers to
him? 1 Pet. iv. 17. If this be done in a green tree,
what shall be done in a dry? Or, this intimates
that the sin of Israel had been so notorious, that the
neighbouring nations could come in witnesses against
them, and therefore it was fit that their punishment
should be so. If it could have been concealed, we
would have said, Tell it not in Gath, publish it not
in the streets of Ashkelon; but why should their
friends consult their reputation, when they them¬
selves do not consult it? If they are grown impudent
in sin, let them bear the shame; publish it in Ash
dod, in Egypt.
1. Let them see how black the charge is, and how
well proved; let them observe the behaviour of the
inhabitants of Samaria, let them look off from the
adjacent hills, and they may see how rude and bois
terous they are, and hear how loud the cry of their
sin is, as was that of Sodom. (1.) Look into their
streets, and you will see nothing but riot and dis¬
order, great tumults in the midst thereof; reason
and justice are upon all occasions run down by the
noise and fury of an outrageous mob; the dominion
of which is the sin and shame of any people, and is
likely to be their ruin. (2.) Look into their pri¬
sons', and you see them filled with injured innocents;
the oppressed are in the midst thereof thrown down
and crushed by their oppressors, overpowered
and overwhelmed, and they had no comforter,
Eccl. iv. 1. (3.) Look into their courts of justice,
and they who preside in those courts, know no: ,o
do right, because they have always been accustom¬
ed to do wrong; they act as if they had no notion at
all of the thing called justice, are in no care to do
justice themselves, or to see that others do justice.
(4.) Look into their treasures and stores, and you
see them replenished with violence and robbery,
with that which was unjustly got, and is still un
justly kept; thus they have heaped treasure together
for the last days , but it will prove a treasure of
wrath against the day of wrath. It may well be
AMOS, IV. l(>7
said, Those know not to do right, who think to en¬
rich themselves by doing wrong.
2. Let them see how heavy the doom is, and how
well executed, v. 11, 12. (1.) Their country shall
be invaded and ruined; and observe how the pun¬
ishment answers to the sin. [1.] Great tumults are
in the midst of the land, and therefore an adversary
shall be even round about the land; the Assyrian
forces shall surround it, and break in upon it on
every side. Note, When sin is harboured and in¬
dulged in the midst of a people, they can expect no
other than that adversaries should be round about
them, so that, go which way they will, they go into
the mouth of danger, Luke xix. 43. [2.] They
strengthened themselves in their wickedness, but
the enemy shall bring down their strength from
them, that strength which they abused in oppress-
ing the poor, and doing violence to all about them.
Note, That power which is made an instrument
of ynrighteousuess, will justly be brought down and
broken. [3.] They stored up robbery in their pa¬
laces, and therefore their palaces shall be spoiled;
for what is got and kept wrongfully, will not be kept
long. Even palaces will be no protection to fraud
and oppression; but the greatest of men, if they
have spoiled others, shall themselves be spoiled,
for the Lord is the Avenger of all such. (2. ) Their
countrymen shall not escape, v. 12. They shall be
in the hands of the enemy, as a lamb in the mouth
of a lion, all devoured and eaten up, and they shall
be utterly unable to make any resistance; and if
any do make their escape, so as neither to fall by
the sword nor go into captivity, yet they shall be
very few, and those of the meanest and least consi¬
derable, like two legs, or shanks, of a lamb, or, it
may be, a piece of an ear, which the lion drops, or
the shepherd takes from him, when he has eaten the
whole body; so, perhaps, here and there one may
escape from Samaria and from Damascus, when the
king of Assyria shall fall upon them both, but none
to make any account of: and those that do escape,
it shall be with the utmost difficulty and hazard, by
hiding themselves in the corner of a bed or under
the bed’s feet; which intimates that their spirits shall
be quite cowed and broken, and they shall sneak
shamefully in the time of danger; they shall not
hide themselves in dens and caves, but in the cor¬
ner of a bed, or the piece of a bed, such as poor peo¬
ple must be content with. They shall very nar-
nowly escape; as it is foretold concerning the last
destruction of Jerusalem, that there shall be two in
a bed together, one taken, and the other left. Note,
When God’s judgments come forth against a people
with commission, it will be in vain to think of escap¬
ing them. Some make their dwelling in the corner
of a bed, and in a couch, to speak their present se¬
curity and sensuality; they are at ease, as in a bed
or o;i a couch, but when God comes to contend with
them, he shall make them uneasy, shall take them
away out of the bed of their sloth and slumber; those
that stretch themselves lazily upon their couches
when God’s judgments are abroad, shall go captive
with the first that go captive.
II. Notice is given of it to themselves, v. 13. Let
this be testified, and heard, in the house of Jacob,
among all the seed of Israel, for it is spoken by the
Lord God, the God of hosts, who has authority to
ass this sentence, and ability to execute it; let them
now from him, that the day is at hand when God
will visit the transgressions of Israel upon him ;
when he will inquire into them, and reckon for
them: there will come a day of visitation, a day of
punishment, and in that day, all those things they
are proud of, and put confidence in, shall fail them,
and so they shall smart for the sins they have been
guilty of about them.
1. Wo to their altars, for God will visit them.
He will inquire into the sins they have been guilty
of at their altars, and bring into the account all their
superstition and idolatry, all their expenses oivtheir
false gods, and all their expectations from them;
and he will lay the altars themselves under the marks
of his displeasure; for the horns of the altar shall
be cut off, and fall to the ground, and with them the
altar itself demolished, and broken to pieces. We
find the altar at Bethel prophesied against, (1 Kings
xiii. 2. ) and immediately rent; (v. 3. ) and that pro¬
phecy fulfilled when Josiuh burnt men’s bones upoti
it, 2 Kings xxiii. 15, 16. This here seconds that
prophecy, and seems to point at the same event.
Note, If men will not destroy idolatrous altars, God
will, and those with them that had them in venera¬
tion. Some make the horns of the altar to signify
all those things which they^ce to for refuge, and
trust in, and which they make their sanctuary :
they shall all be cut off, so that they shall have no¬
thing to take hold of.
2. Wo to their houses, for God will visit them too.
He will inquire into the sins they have been guilty
of in their houses, the robbery they have stored up
in their houses, and the luxury in which they lived;
and (u. 15.) 1 will smite the winter-house with the
summer-house. Their nobility, and gentry, and
rich merchants, had their winter-houses in the city,
and their summer-houses in the country; so nice
were they in guarding against the inconveniencies of
the winter, wlien the country was thought too cold,
and of the summer, when the city was thought too
hot; though the climate of that good land was so
temperate, like that of ours, that neither the cold
nor heat was ever in extremity. They indulged a
foolish affectation of change and variety; but God
will, either by war, or by the earthquake, smite
both the winter-house and the summer-house; neither
shall serve to shelter them from his judgments; T1
houses of ivory, (so called because either the ceil
ing or wainscot, or some of the ornaments of them,
were edged or inlaid with ivory,) those shall perish,
shall be burnt or pulled down, and the great houses
shall have an end, the most splendid and spacious
houses, the houses of their great men, they shall no
longer be, or, at least, be no longer theirs. Note,
The pomp and pleasantness of men’s houses will be
so far from fortifying them against God’s judgments,
that it will make them the more grievous and vexa¬
tious; as their extravagance about them will be put
to the score of their sins and follies.
CHAP. IV.
In this chapter, I. The oppressors in Israel are threatened
for their oppression of the poor, v. 1. .3. II. The idola¬
ters in Israel, being joined to idols , are given up to their
own heart’s lusts, v. 4? 5. III. All the sins of Israel are
aggravated from their incorrigibleness in them, and their
refusal to return and reform, notwithstanding the vari¬
ous rebukes of Providence which they had been under,
v. 6. .11. IV. They are invited yet at length to humble
themselves before God, since it is impossible for them to
make their part good against him, v. 12, 13.
1. XJEAR this word, ye kineof Baslian,
Jtt that are in the mountain of Sama¬
ria, which oppress the poor, which crush the
needy, which say to their masters, Bring,
and let us drink. 2. The Lord God hath
swrorn by his holiness, that, lo, the days shall
come upon you, that he will take you away
with hooks, and your posterity with fish¬
hooks. 3. And ye shall go out at the
breaches, every cow at that which is before
her ; and ye shall cast them into the palace,
saith the Lord. 4. Come to Beth-el and
968
AMOS, IV.
transgress ; at Gilgal multiply tr tnsgression ;
and bring your sacrifices every morning, and
your tithes after three years; 5. And offer
a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, and
proclaim and publish the free-offerings ; for
(his liketh you, O ye children of Israel, saith
the Lord God.
It is here foretold, in the name of God, that op-
posers shall be humbled, and idolaters shall be har¬
dened.
I. That proud oppressors shall be humbled for
their oppressions; for he that does wrong, shall re¬
ceive accordingto the wrong that he has done. Now
observe,
1. How their sin is described, v. 1. They are
compared to the kine of Bashan, which were a breed
of cattle very large and strong, especially if, though
bred there, they were fed upon the mountain of
Samaria, where the pastures were extraordinarily
fat. Amos had been a herdsman, and he speaks in
the dialect of his calling, comparing the rich and
great men, that lived in luxury and wantonness, to
the kine of Bashan, which were wanton and unruly,
would not be kept within the bounds of their own
pasture, but broke through the hedges, broke down
all the fences, and trespassed upon the neighbour¬
ing grounds; and not only so, but pushed and gored
the lesser cattle that were not a match for him.
They that had their summer-houses uflon the
mountains of Samaria, when they went thither for
fresh air, were as mischievous as the kine upon the
mountains of Bashan, and as injurious to those about
them. (1.) They oflflress the floor and needy them¬
selves; they crush them, to squeeze something to
themselves out of them. They take advantage of their
floverty, and necessity, and inability to help them¬
selves, to make them poorer, and more necessitous
than they are. They make use of their power as
judges and magistrates for the invading of men’s
rights and properties, the poor not excepted; for they
made no conscience of robbing even the hosflital. (2. )
They are in confederacy with them that do so. They
say to their masters, to the masters of the poor, that
abuse them, and violently take from them what they
have, when they ought to have relieved them, they
say to them, “ Bring, and let us drink, let us feast
with you upon the gains of your oppression, and
then we will protect you, and stand by you in it, and
reject the appeals of the poor against you.” Note,
What is got by extortion is commonly made use of
as flrovision for thefiesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof;
and therefore men are tyrants to the poor, because
they are slaves to their appetites; Bring, and let us
drink, is the language of those that crush the needy,
as if the tears of the oflflressed, mingled with their
wine, made it drink the better. And by their asso¬
ciations for drinking, and revelling, and an excess
of riot, they strengthen their combinations for per¬
secution and oppression, and harden the hearts of
one another in it.
2. How their flunishment is described; (v. 2, 3.)
God will take them away with hooks, and their fios-
terity with fish-hooks ; he will send the Assyrian
army upon them that shall make a prey of them,
shall not only enclose the body of the nation in their
net, but shall angle for particular persons, and take
them prisoners and captives as with hooks and fish¬
hooks, shall draw them out of their own land as fish
are drawn out of the water, which is their element,
them and their children with them; or, They in
their day shall be drawn out by one victorious ene¬
my, and their posterity in their day by another; so
that by a succession of destroying judgments they
shall at length be wholly extirpated. These kine
of Bashan thought they could no more be drawn
out with a hook and a cord than the Leviathan can,
Jobxli. 1, 2. But God will make them know that
he has a hook for their nose, and a bridle for their
jaws, Isa. xxxvii. 29. The enemy shall take them
away as easily as the fisherman takes away the little
fish, and shall make it their sport and recreation.
When the enemy has made himself master of Sa¬
maria, then, (1.) Some shall attempt to escape by
flight; Ye shall go out at the breaches made in the
wall of the city, every cow at that which is before
her, to shift for her own safety, and make the best
of their way; and now the unruly kine of Bashati
are tamed, and are themselves crushed, as they
crushed the floor and needy. Note, Those to whom
God has given a good pasture, if they are wanton
in it, will justly be turned out of it; and those who
will not be kept within the hedge of God’s precept,
forfeit the benefit of the hedge of God’s protection,
and will be forced in vain to flee through the breaches
they have themselves fearfully made in that hedge.
(2. ) Others shall think to shelter themselves, or, at
least, their best effects, in the flalace, because it is
a castle well fortified and a garrison well manned;
Ye shall throw yourselves, (so some read it,) or
throw them, your flosterity, your children, or what¬
ever is dear to you, into the flalace, where the ene¬
my will find it ready to be seized. Note, What is
got by oppression cannot long be enjoyed with satis¬
faction.
3. How their sentence to this punishment is rati¬
fied; The Lord God has sworn it by his holiness;
he had often said it, and they regarded it not, they
thought God and his prophets did but jest with
them; therefore he swears it in his wrath, and what
he has sworn he will not revoke. He swears by his
holiness, that attribute of his which is so much his
glory, and which is so much glorified in the punish¬
ment of wicked people; for as sure as God is a holy
God, they that fllough iniquity, and sow wicked¬
ness, shall reafl the same.
II. That obstinate idolaters shall be hardened in
their idolatries; {y. 4, 5.) Come to Bethel, and
transgress. It is spoken ironically; “ Do so, take
your course, multiflly your transgressions by multi¬
plying your sacrifices, for this liketh you; but what
will ye do in the end hereof?” Here we see, 1. How
intent they were upon the service of their idols, and
how willing they were to be at cost upon them ; they
brought their sacrifices, and their tithes, and their
free-offerings, hoping that therein they should be
accepted of God, but it was all an abomination to
him. The profuseness of idolaters in the service
of their false gods may shame our strait-handedness
in the service of the true and living God. 2. How
they mimicked God’s institutions. They had their
daily sacrifice at the altar of Bethel, as God had at
his altar; they had their thank-offerings as God had,
only they allowed leaven in them, which God had
forbidden, because their priests did not like to have
the bread so heavy and tasteless as it would be if it
had not leaven in it, or something to ferment it.
Holy bread would not serve them, unjess it were
pleasant bread. 3. How well pleased they were
with these services themselves; This liketh you,
ye children of Israel. So ye love. What was their
own invention they were fond of, and wedded to,
and thought it must therefore be pleasing to God,
because it was agreeable to their own fancy. 4.
How they are upbraided with it; “Come to Bethel,
to Gilgal, bring the sacrifices and tithes yourselves,
flroclaim and flublish to the nation the free-offer¬
ings, pressing them to bring in abundance of such,
go on in this way;” that is, (1.) “It is plain that
you are resolved to do it, whatever God and con¬
science say to the contrary. ” (2.) “Your prophets
shall let you alone in it, and not admonish you as
they have done, for it is to no purpose; Let ?u man
969
AMOS, IV.
strive or rebuke his neighbour." (3.) “Yourfool-
i sh hearts shall be more and more darkened and be¬
sotted, and you shall be quite given u/i to these
strong delusions to believe a lie." (4.) “ What will
you get by it? Come to Bethel, and multiply your
sacrifices ; and see what the better you will be, what
returns you will have to your sacrifices, what stead
they will stand you in, in the day of distress; You
shall be ashamed of Bethel your confidence," Jer.
xlviii. 13. (5.) “ Come, and transgress, come, and
multi/ily your transgressions, that ye may fill up
the measure of your iniquity, and be ripened for
ruin. Thus Christ said to Judas, What thou doest,
do quickly; and to the Jews, Bill ye up the measure
of your fathers, Matth. xxiii. 32.
6. And I also have given you cleanness
of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread
in all your places; yet have ye not returned
unto me, saith the Loud. 7. And also I
have withholden the rain from you, when
there were yet three months to the harvest:
and I caused it to rain upon one city, and
caused it not to rain upon another city: one
piece was rained upon, and the piece where¬
upon it rained not withered. 8. So two or
three cities wandered unto one city, to drink
water; but they were not satisfied : yet have
ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.
9. I have smitten you with blasting and
mildew : when your gardens, and your vine¬
yards, and your fig-trees, and your olive-
trees increased, the palmer-worm devoured
them • yet have ye not returned unto me,
saith the Lord. 10. I have sent among
you the pestilence, after the manner of
Egypt: your young men have I slain with
the sword, and have taken away your
horses ; and I have made the stink of your
camps to come up unto your nostrils : yet
have ye not returned unto me, saith the
Lord. 1 1. I have overthrown some of you,
as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,
and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of
the burning: yet have ye not returned unto
me, saith the Lord. 12. Therefore thus
will I do unto thee, O Israel : and because
I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy
God, O Israel. 13. For, lo, he that formeth
the mountains, and createth the wind, and
declareth unto man what is his thought, that
maketh the morning darkness, and treadeth
upon the high places of the earth, The
Lord, the God of hosts, is his name.
Here,
I. God complains of his people’s incorrigibleness
under the judgments which he had brought upon
them, in order to their humiliation and reformation.
He had by several tokens intimated to them his dis¬
pleasure, with this design, that they might by re¬
pentance make their peace with him; but it had not
that effect. It is five times repeated in these verses,
as the burthen of the charge, “ Yet have you not re¬
turned unto me, saith the Lord; you have been se¬
veral times corrected, but in vain; you are not re¬
claimed, there is no sign of amendment. You have
Vol. iv — 6 G
been sent for by one messenger after another, but
you have not come back, you have not come home."
1. This intimates that that which God designed in
all his providential rebukes, was, to reduce them to
their allegiance, to influence them to return to him.
2. That, if they had returned to their God, they
should have been accepted, he would have bid them
welcome, and the troubles they were in should have
been removed. 3. That the reason why God sent
further troubles, was, because former troubles had
not done the work, otherwise it is no pleasure to
the ailmighty that he should afflict. 2. That God
was grieved at their obstinacy, and took it unkindly
that they should force him to do that which he did
so unwillingly; “ You have not returned to me from
whom you have revolted, to me with whom you are
in covenant, to me who stand ready to receive you,
to me who have so often called you. ”
Now, to aggravate their incorrigibleness, and to
justify himself in inflicting greater judgments, he re¬
counts the lesser judgments with which he had tried
to bring them to repentance.
( 1. ) There had sometimes been a scarcity of pro¬
visions, though there was no visible cause of it; (y.
6.) “1 have given you cleanness of teeth in all your
cities, for you had no meat to chew, whereby your
teeth might be fouled;” especially no flesh, which
dirties the teeth ; or emptiness of teeth, nothing to fill
vour mouths with. “Bread, the staff of life, has
been wanting, for you have sown much and brought
in little;” as Hag. i. 9. Some think this refers to
that seveti years’ famine that was in Elisha’s time,
which we read of, 2 Kings viii. 1. Now when God
thus took away their corn in the season thereof, be
cause they had prepared it for Baal, they should
have said, We will go and return to our first hits
band, having paid dear for leaving him; but it had
not that effect; They have not returned to me, saith
the Lord.
(2.) Sometimes they had wanted rain, and then
of course they wanted the fruits of the earth. This
evil was of the Lord; I have withholden the rain
from you. God has the key of the clouds, and if
he shut up, who can open ? v. 7. The rain was
withheld when there were yet three months to the
harvest, at the time when they used to have it; and
therefore the withholding of if was an extraord inary
thing, and if the course of nature was altered, they
must therein own the hand of the God of nature;
and it was at a time when they most needed it, and
therefore the want of it was a very sore judgment,
and blasted their expectations of a crop at harvest.
And one circumstance which made this very re¬
markable, was, that when there were some places
that wanted rain, and withered for want of it, there
were other places near adjoining that had it in abun¬
dance. God caused it to rain upon one city, and
7tot upon another, in the same country; nay, he
caused it to rain upon one field, one piece of a field,
and it was thereby mad e fruitful and ^flourishing,
but on the next field, on the other side of the hedge,
nay, on another part of the same field, it rained not
at all, and it was so long without rain, that all the
products of it withered.
No doubt this was literally true, and there were
many instances of it, which were generally taken
notice of. Now, [1.] By this it appeared that the
withholding of the rain was not casual, but by a di¬
vine direction and disposal; that the cloud which
waters the earth is turned round about by the coun¬
sels of God, to do whatsoever he commands it,
whether for correction, or for his land, or for mer¬
cy, Job xxxvii. 12, 18. Rain does not go by planets,
(as common people speak,) but as God sends it by
his winds. [2.] We have reason to think that those
cities on which it rained not, were the most infa¬
mous for wickedness, such as Bethel and Gilgal,
970
AMOS, IV.
(v. 4.) and that those on which it rained, were such
as retained something of religion and virtue among
them. And so in the town-fields it rained, or rained
not, upon the piece, according, as the owner was; for
we are sure the curse of the Lord is in the house,
and upon the ground, of the wicked, but he blesses
the habitation of the just, and his field is a field that
the Lord has blessed. [3.] It would be the greater
griet and vexation to those whose fields withered for
want of rain, to see their neighbour’s fields well
watered and flourishing. My servants shall eat, but
ye shall be hungry, Isa. lxv. 13. The wicked shall
see it, and be grieved. Probably, those that were
oppressed, were rained upon, and so they recovered
their losses, while the oppressors withered, and so
lost their gains. [4.] Yet as to the nation in gene¬
ral, it was a mixture of mercy with the judgment,
and, consequently, strengthened the call to repent¬
ance and reformation, and encouraged them to hope
for all mercy, in their returns to God, since there
was so such mercy even in God’s rebukes of them.
But because they did not make a good use of this
gracious allay to the extremity of the judgment,
they had not the benefit of it, which otherwise they
might have had, for (x>. 8.) Two or three cities
wandered at uncertainty, as beggars, unto one city,
to drink water, and, if possible, to have some to ear¬
ly home with them, but they were not satisfied ; it
was but here and there one city that had water,
while many wanted, and then it was not, as usual,
Usus communis aquarum — IVater is free to all;
they that had it, had occasion for it, or knew not
how soon they might, and therefore could afford but
little to them that wanted, saying, Lest there be not
enough for us and you. They that came drank
water, but they were not satisfied, because they
drank it by measure, and with astonishment ; and
they that drink of this water, shall thirst again,
John iv. Id. They were not satisfied, because their
desires were greedy, and what they had God did
not bless to them, Hag. i. 6.
And now, one would think, when they met with
all this disappointment, they should have considered
their ways, and repented; but it had not that effect;
“Yet have ye not returned to me, no, not so much as
to pray in a right manner for the former and latter
rain,” Zech. x. 1. Sec the folly of carnal hearts;
they will wander from city to city, from one creature
to another, in pursuit of satisfaction, and still they
miss of it; they labour for that which satisfies not,
(Isa. lv. 2.) and yet, after all, they will not return
to God, will not incline their ear to him in whom
they might have satisfaction. The preaching of the
gospel is as rain; God sometimes blesses one place
with it more than another; some countries, some
cities are, like Gideon’s fleece, wet with this dew,
while the ground about is dry; all withers where
this rain is wanting; but it were well if people were
but as wise for their souls as they are for their
bodies, and, when they have not this rain near them,
would go and seek it where it is to be had; if they
seek aright, they shall not seek in vain.
(3.) Sometimes the fruits of their ground were
eaten up by caterpillars, or blasted with mildew;
(t>. 9.) heaven and earth are armed against those
who. have made God their Enemy; when God
pleased, that is, when he was displeased, [1.] They
suffered by a malignant air; the influence of which,
either too hot or too cold, blasted their fruits,
with a force that could be neither discerned nor re¬
sisted, and against which there was no defence. [2.]
They suffered by malignant animals. Their vine¬
yards and gardens yielded their increase in great
abundance, so did their fig-trees and olive-trees , but
the palmer-worm devoured them before the fruits
were ripe, and fit to be gathered in; this was either
the same judgment with that which we read of, Joel
i. 4, 6. or a lesser judgment of the same nature, sent
before to give warning of that. But they did not
take warning; Yet ye have not returned unto me.
(4.) Sometimes the plague had raged among
them, and the sword of war had cut off multitudes,
v. 10. The pestilence is God’s messenger, this he
sent among them, with directions whom to strike
dead, and it was done; it was a pestilence after the
manner of Egypt; deaths were scattered among them
by the hand of a destroying angel at midnight. And
perhaps this pestilence, as that of Egypt, fastened
upon the first-born; in the way of Egypt, so the
margin; when they were making their escape to
Egypt, or going thither to seek tor aid, the pesti¬
lence seized them by the way, and stopped their
journev. The sword of war is likewise the sword
of the Lord; this was drawn among them with com
mission; and then it slew their young men, the
strength of the present generation, and the seed of
the next. God says, I have slain them; he avows
the execution. The slain of the Lord are many.
The enemy took away their horses, and converted
them to their own use; and the dead carcases of
those that were slain either with sword or pes¬
tilence were so many, and for want of surviving
friends, were left so long unburied, that the stench
of their camps came up into their nostrils, and was
both noisome and dangerous, and might put them
in mind of the oft'cnsiveness of their sin to God. And
yet this did not prevail tohumble and reclaim them;
You have not returned Jo him that smites you. Such
a rueful, woful sight as this, prevailed not to make
them religious.
(5.) In these and other judgments some were re¬
markably cut off, and made monuments of justice,
others were remarkably spared, and made monu¬
ments of mercy, the setting of which the one over
against the other, one would have thought likely to
work upon them, but it had not its effect, v. 11.
[1.] Some were quite ruined, their families de¬
stroyed, and themselves in them ; I have overthrown
some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Go¬
morrah, perhaps consumed them with lightning, as
Sodom was, or the houses were, some other way,
burnt to the ground, and the inhabitants in them.
Sodom and Gomorrah, are said to be condemned
with an overthrow, and so made an example, 2 Pet.
ii. 6. God had threatened to destroy the whole
land with such an overthrow as that of Sodom,
Deut. xxix. 23. But he began with some particular
places first, to give them warning, or perhaps with
some particular persons, whose sins went before¬
hand to judgment. [2.] Others very narrowly
escaped; “Ye were many of you as a. firebrand
plucked out of the burning, like Lot out of Sodom,
when the fire had already kindled upon you; and
yet you hate sin never the more for the danger it
has brought you to, nor love God ever the more for
the deliverance he wrought for you; you that have
been so signally delivered, and in such a distinguish¬
ing way, have not returned unto me. ”
II. God, in the close, calls upon his people, now
at length, in this their day, to understand the things
that belong to their peace, before they were hid
from their eyes, v. 12, 13. Observe here,
1. How God threatens them with sorer judgments
than any they had yet been under; “ Therefore, see¬
ing you have been wrought upon by correction
hitherto, thus will I do unto thee, O Israel.” He
does not say how he will do, but it shall be some¬
thing worse than had come yet, John v. 14. Or,
“Thus I will go on to do unto thee, following one
judgment with another, like the plagues of Egypt,
till I have made a full end. ” Nothing else but refor¬
mation will prevent the ruin of a sinful people. If
they turn not to him, his anger is not turned away,
but his hand is stretched out still. I will punish you
971
AMOS, V.
yet seven times more, if you will not be reformed; so
it was written in the law, Lev. xxvi. 23, 24.
2. How he awakens them therefore to think of
making their peace with God: “Seeing I • will do
this unto thee, and there is no remedy, p repare to
meet thy God, 0 Israel that is, (i.) “Consider
how unable thou art to meet him as a combatant .”
Some make it to be spoken by way of irony or chal¬
lenge; “Prepare to meet God, who is coming forth
to contend with thee; what armour of proof canst
thou put on? What courage canst thou steel thy¬
self with ? Alas, it is but putting briers and thorns
before a consuming Fire, Isa. xxvii. 4, 5. Art thou
able with less than 10,000, to meet him that comes
forth against thee with more than 20,000 ?” Luke
xiv. 31. (2.) “ Resolve therefore to meet him as a
fienitent, as a humble supplicant; to meet him as
thy God, in covenant with thee, to submit, and stand
it out no longer.” We must prepare to meet God
in the way of' his judgments, (Isa. xxvi. 8.) to take
hold on his strength, that we may make peace. Note,
Since we cannot flee from God, we are concerned to
prepare to meet him; and therefore he gives us
warning, that we may prepare. When we are to
meet lum in his ordinances, we must prepare to
meet him, prepare to seek him.
3. How he sets forth the greatness and power of
God as a reason why we should prepare to meet
him, v. 13. If he be such a God as he is here de¬
scribed to be, it is folly to contend with him, and our
duty and interest to make our peace with him; it is
good having him our Friend, and bad having him
our Enemy. (1.) He formed the mountains, made
the earth, the strongest, stateliest parts of it, and by
the word of his power still upholds it and them.
Whatever are the products of the everlasting moun¬
tains, he formed them; whatever salvation is hoped
for from hills and mountains, he is the Founder of
it, Ps. lxxxix. 11, 12. He that formed the great
mountains, can make them plain, when they stand
in the way of his people’s salvation. (2. ) He creates
the wind: the power of the air is derived from him,
and directed by him; he brings the wind out of his
treasures, and orders from what point of the com¬
pass it shall blow; and he that made it, rules it; even
the winds and the seas obey him. (3.) He declares
unto man what is his thoughts; he makes known his
counsel by his servants the prophets to the children
of men, the thought of his justice against impenitent
sinners, and the thought of good he thinks toward
those that repent. He can also make known, for
he perfectly knows, the thought that is in man’s
heart; he understands it afar off, and in the day of
conviction will set the evil thoughts among the other
sins of sinners in order before them. (4. ) He often
makes the morning darkness, by thick clouds over¬
spreading the sky immediately after the sun rose
bright and glorious; so when we look for prosperity
and joy, he can dash our expectations with some un¬
looked-for calamity. (5. ) He treads upon the high
places of the earth; is not only higher than the high¬
est, but has dominion over all, tramples upon proud
men, and upon the idols that were worshipped in the
highest places. (6.) Jehovah, the God of hosts is
his name, for he has his being of himself, and is the
Fountain of all being, and all the hosts of heaven
and earth are at his command. Let us humble our¬
selves before this God, prepare to meet him, and
give all diligence to make him our God, for happy
the people whose God he is, who have all this power
engaged for them.
CHAP V.
The scope of this chapter is to prosecute the exhortation
given to Israel in the close of the foregoing chapter, to
; prepare to meet his God; he here tells them, I. What
preparation they must make; they must seek the Lord ,
ano not seek any more to idols; (v. 4.. 8.) they must
seek good, and love it, v. 14, 15. II. Why they must
make this preparation to meet their God. 1. Because,
of the present deplorable condition they were in, v. 1. . 3.
2. Because it was by sin that they were brought into
such a condition, v. 7, 10 . . 12. 3. Because it would be
their happiness to seek God, and he was ready to be
found of them, v. 8,9, 14. 4. Because he would proceed,
in his wrath, to their utter ruin, if they did not seek him,
v. 5, 6, 13, 16, 17. 5. Because all their confidences
would fail them, if thev did not seek unto God, and make
him their Friend. (1.) Their profane contempt of God’s
judgments, and setting them at defiance, would not se¬
cure them, v. 18.. 20. (2.) Their external services in
religion, and the shows of devotion, would not avail to
turn away the wrath of God, v. 21 . . 24. (3.) Their
having been lon^ in possession of church-privileges, and
in a course of holy duties, would not be their protection,
while all along they had kept up their idolatrous customs,
v. 25 . . 27. They have therefore no way left them to
save themselves, but by repentance and reformation.
1. TTEAR ye this word which 1 take up
if $_ against you, even a lamentation, O
house of Israel. 2. The virgin of Israel is
fallen ; she shall no more rise : she is forsaken
upon her land ; there is none to raise her up.
3. For thus saith the Lord God, The city
that went out by a thousand shall leave a
hundred, and that which went forth by a
hundred shall leave ten, to the house of Is¬
rael.
This chapter begins, as those two next foregoing
began, with, Hear this word. Where God has a
mouth to speak, we must have an ear to hear; it is
our duty, it is our interest; yet so stupid are most
men, that they need to be again and again called
upon to hear the word of the Lord; to give audience,
to give attention; hear this word. This convincing,
awakening word must be heard and heeded, as well
as words of comfort and peace; the word that is
taken up against us, as well as that which makes
for us; for, whether we hear or forbear, the word
of God shall take effect, and not a tittle of it shall fall
to the ground. It is the word which I take up — not
the prophet only, but the God that sent him. It is
the word that the Lord has spoken, eh. iii. 1.
The word to be heard is a lamentation, a lamen¬
table account of the present calamitous state of
the kingdom of Israel, and a lamentable predic¬
tion of its utter destruction. Their condition is
sad; The virgin of Israel is fallen, (v. 2.) is
come down from what she was; that state, though
not pure and chaste as a virgin, yet was beautiful
and gay, and had its charms; she looked high her¬
self, and was courted by many as a virgin; but she
is fallen into contempt and poverty, and is univer¬
sally slighted; nay, and their condition is helpless;
She shall no more rise, shall never recover her for¬
mer dignity again. God had lately begun to cut
Israel short, (2 Kings x. 32.) and because they re¬
pented not, it was not long before he cut Israel
down.
1. Their princes, that should have helped them
up, were disabled; She is forsaken upon her land.
Not only those she was in alliance with abroad
failed her, but her friends at home deserted her;
she had not been carried captive into a strange land,
if she had not first been forsaken upon her own
land, and thrown to the ground there, and all her
true interests abandoned by those that should have
had them at heart. There is none to raise her up,
none that can do it, none that cares to lend her a
hand.
2. Their people, that should have helped them
up, were diminished, v. 3. The city that had a
militia a thousand strong, and in the beginning ot
the war, had furnished out a thousand effective
972
AMOS, V.
men, able-bodied and well armed, when they come
to review their troops after the battle, shall find but
a hundred left; and, in proportion, the city that
sent out a hundred, shall have but ten come back;
so great a slaughter shall be made, and so few left to
the house of Israel for the public service and safety.
Scarcely one in ten shall escape of the hands that
should relieve this abject, this dejected nation.
Note, The lessening of the numbers of God’s spi¬
ritual Israel by death or desertion, is just matter for
lamentation; for by whom shall Jacob arise, by
whom shall the decays of piety be repaired, when
ne is thus made small.
4. For thus saith the Lord unto the
house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall
live. 5. But seek not Beth-el, nor enter
into Gilgal, and pass not to Beer-sheba:
for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and
Beth-el shall come to nought. 6. Seek the
Lord, and ye shall live; lest he break out
like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour
it, and there be none to quench it in Beth-el.
7. Ye who turn judgment to wormwood,
and leave off righteousness in the earth, 8.
See/c him that maketh the seven stars and
Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into
the morning, and maketh the day dark with
night: that calleth for the waters of the
sea, and poureth them out upon the face of
the earth : The Lord is his name: 9. That
strengtheneth the spoiled against the strong,
so that the spoiled shall come against the
fortress. 10. They hate him that rebuketh
in the gate, and they abhor him that speak -
eth uprightly. 11. Forasmuch, therefore,
as your treading is upon the poor, and ye
take from him burdens of wheat; ye have
built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not
dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant
vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of
them. 12. For 1 know your manifold trans¬
gressions and your mighty sins : they afflict
the just, they take a bribe, and they turn
aside the poor in the gate from their right.
13. Therefore the prudent shall kfeep silence
m that time; for it is an evil time. 14.
Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live ;
and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be
with you, as ye have spoken. 15. Hate
the evil, and love the good, and establish
judgment in the gate: it may be that the
Lord God of hosts will be gracious unto
the remnant of Joseph.
This is a message from God to the house of Israel,
in which,
I. They are told of their faults, that they might
sec what occasion there was for them to repent and
reform, and that, when they were called to return,
they might not need to ask, Wherein shall we re¬
turn? God tells them in general, (v. 12.) “/ know
your manifold transgressions, and your mighty
sins; and you shall be made to know them too. ’
In our penitent reflections upon our sins, we must
consider, as God does in his judicial remarks upon
them, and will do in the great day, 1. That they
are very numerous; they are our manifold trans¬
gressions; sins of various kinds, and often repeated.
O what a multitude of vain and vile thoughts lodge
within us! What a multitude of idle, foolish, wick¬
ed words have been spoken by us! In what a mul¬
titude of instances have we gratified and indulged
our corrupt appetites and passions! And how many
are our omissions of duty, and in duty! Who can
understand his errors? Who can tell how often he
offends? God kno%vs how many, just how many, our
transgressions are, none of them pass him unob¬
served; we know that they are to us innumerable,
more than the hair's of our head; and we have rea¬
son to see what danger we have brought ourselves
into, and what abundance of work we have made
for repentance, by our manifold transgressions, by
the numberless number of our sins of daily incursion.
2. That some of them are very heinous; they are
our mighty sins; sins that are more exceeding sinful
in their own nature, and by being committed pre¬
sumptuously, and with a high hand; sins against the
light of nature, flagrant crimes, that are mighty to
overpower your convictions, and to pull down judg¬
ments upon you.
He specifies some of these mighty sins. (1.)
They corrupted the worship of God, and turned to
idols; that is implied, v. 5. They had sought to
Bethel, where one of the golden calves was; they
had frequented Gilgal, a place which they chose to
set up idols in, because it had been made famous in
the days of Joshua by God’s wonderful appearances
to, and for, his people. Beer-sheba likewise, a
place that had been famous in the days of the patri¬
archs, was now another rendezvous of idols; as we
find also, ch. viii. 14. And thither they passed,
though it lay at a distance, in the land of Judah.
Now, having thus shamefully gone a whoring
from God, no doubt they should have felt them¬
selves concerned to return to him. (2.) Thev/2er-
verted justice among themselves; (y. 7.) “ IV turn
judgment to wormwood; ye make your adminis¬
trations of justice bitter and nauseous, and highly
displeasing both to God and man.”
That fruit is become a weed, a weed in the gar¬
den; as nothing is more venerable, nothing more
valuable, than justice duly administered, so nothing
is more hurtful, nothing more abominable, than de¬
signedly doing wrong, under colour and pretence
of doing right. Corruptio optimi est pcssima — The
best, when corrupted, becomes the worst. Ye leave
off righteousness in the earth; as if those that do
wrong were accountable to the God of heaven only,
and not to the princes and judges of the earth; thus
it was as before the flood, when the earth was filed
with violence. (3.) They were very oppressive to
the poor, and made them poorer; they tread upon
the poor, (v. 11.) trampled upon them, hectored
over them, made them their footstool, and were
most imperious and barbarous to those that were
most obsequious and submissive; they cared not
what shame and slavery they put them to who
were poor, and such as they could get nothing by.
That was it that the judges aimed at, nothing but to
enrich themselves; and therefore they took from
the poor burthens of wheat, took it by extortion,
either by way of bribe or by usury. The poor had
no other way to save themselves from being trodden
upon, and trodden to dirt, by them, than by pre¬
senting to them horse-loads of that corn which they
and their families should have had to subsist upon;
and they forced them to do it. They took from the
poor debts of wheat; so some read it. It was legally
due either for rent or for corn lent, but they exact
ed it with rigour from those who were disabled by
the providence of God to pay it, as Neh. v. 2, 5.
In demanding and recovering even of a just debt, we
973
AMOS, V.
must take heed lest we act either unjustly or un¬
charitably. This sin of oppression they are again
charged with, (v. 12.) They afflict the just, by
turning the edge of the law and of the sword of
justice against those that are the innocent and quiet
in the land; they therefore hated men, because they
were more righteous than themselves, and he that
departed from evil, thereby made himself a prey to
them. They take a bribe from the rich to patronize
and protect them in oppressing the poor; so that he
who has money in his hand, is sure to have the
judge and judgment on his side, be his cause ever so
bad. Thus they turn aside the poor in the gate, in
the courts of justice, from their right. If the poor
sue for their right, who cannot bribe them, or are
so honest, that they will not, though they have it
ever so clear in view, and ever so near, yet they are
turned away from it by their unrighteous sentence,
and cannot come at it. And therefore the prudent
will keep silence, v. 13. Men will reckon it their
prudence, when they are wronged and injured, to
be silent, and make no complaints to the magis¬
trates, for it will be to no purpose, they shall not
have justice done them. (4. ) They were malicious
persecutors of God’s faithful ministers and people,
v. 10. Their hearts were so fully set in them to do
evil, that they could not bear to be reproved, [1.]
By the ministry of the word; by the reading and ex¬
pounding of the law, and the messages which the
Erophets delivered to them, in the name of the
ord. They hate him that rebukes in the gate, in
the gate of the Lord’s house, or in their coui-ts of
justice, or in the places of concourse, where wisdom
is lifting up her voice, Prov. i. 21. Reprovers in
the gate are reprovers by office; these they hated,
counting them their enemies because they told them
the truth, as Ahab hated Micaiah. They not only
despised them, but had an enmity to them, and
sought to do them mischief. Those that hate re¬
proof, love ruin. [2.] By the conversation of their
honest neighbours. Though things were generally
very bad, yet there were some among them that
spake uprightly, that made conscience of what they
said, and as it was their praise, so it was the shame
of those that spake deceitfully, and condemned
them, as Noah’s faith condemned the unbelief of
the old world, and for that reason they abhorred
them; they were such inveterate enemies to the
thing called honesty, that they could not endure the
sight of an honest man.
All that have any sense of the common interest
of mankind, will love and value such as speak up¬
rightly, for veracity is the bond of human society;
to what a pitch of folly and madness then were
they arrived, who, having banished all notions of
justice out of their own hearts, would have them
banished out of the world too, and so put mankind
into a state of war, for they abhor him that speaks
tiprightly! And for this reason the prudent shall
keep silence in that time, v. 13. Prophets cannot,
dare not, keep silence; the impulse they are under
will not allow them to act on prudential considera¬
tions, they must cry aloud, and not spare; but as
for other wise and good men, they shall keep si¬
lence, and shall reckon it is their prudence to do so,
because it is an evil time. First, They shall think
it dangerous to complain, and therefore shall keep j
silence; this was one way in which they afflicted the
just, that by false suggestions and strained innuen¬
does they made men offenders for a word; (Isa.
xix. 21.) and therefore the prudent, who were wise
as serpents, because they knew not how what they
said might be misinterpreted and misrepresented,
were so cautious as to say nothing, lest they should
run themselves into a pratmunire, because it was
an evil time. Note, Through the iniquity of the
times, as good men are hid, so good men are silent,
and it is their wisdom to be so; little said soon
amended. But it is their comfort that they may
speak freely to God, when they know not whom else
they can speak freely to. Secondly, They shall think
it fruitless to reprove. They 'see what wickedness is
committed, and their spirits are stirred up, as Paul’s
at Athens; but they shall think it prudent not to
bear an open testimony against it, because it is to no
purpose. They are joined to their idols, let them
alone. Let no man strive or rebuke another; for it
is but casting pearls before swine. The cautious
men will say to a bold reprover, as Erasmus to
Luther, Abi in cellam, et die, Miserere mei, Domine
— Away to thy cell, and cry, Have mercy on me, O
Lord. Let grave lessons and counsels be kept for
better men, and better times. And there is a time
to keep silence as well as a time to speak, Eccl. iii.
7. Evil times will not bear plain dealing; that is,
evil men will not. And the men the prophet here
speaks of, had reason to think themselves evil men
indeed, when wise and good men thought it in vain
to speak to them, and were afraid of having any
thing to do with them.
II. They are told of their danger, and what judg¬
ments they lay exposed to for their sins. 1. The
places of their idolatry are in danger of being rained
m the first place, v. 5. Gilgal, the head-quarters
of idolatry, shall go into captivity; not only its in¬
habitants, but its images, and Bethel with its gold¬
en calf, shall come to naught. The victorious ene¬
my shall make nothing of it, so easily shall it be
spoiled; and shall bring it to nothing, so effectually
shall it be spoiled. Idols were always vanity, and
things of naught, and so they shall prove when God
appears to abolish them. 2. The body of the king¬
dom is in danger of being rained with them, v. 6.
There is danger, lest, if you seek him not in time,
he break out like a fire in the house of Joseph, and
devour it; for our God is a righteous Judge, is a
consuming Fire, and the men of Israel, as crimi¬
nals, are stubble before him; wo to those that make
themselves fuel to the fire of God’s wrath! It fol¬
lows, And there shall be none to quench it in Bethel;
there their idols were, and their idolatrous priests,
thither they brought their sacrifices, and there they
offered up their prayers; but God tells them that
when the fire of his judgments kindles upon them,
all the gods they served at Bethel should not be
able to quench it, should not turn away the judg¬
ment, or be any relief to them under it. Thus they
that make an idol of the world, will find it insuffi¬
cient to protect them, when God comes to reckon
with them for their spiritual idolatry. 3. What
they have got by oppression and extortion shall be
taken from them; (v. 11.) “ You have built houses
of hewn stone, which you thought would be lasting;
but ye shall not dweil in them, for your enemies
shall burn them down, or possess them for them¬
selves, or take you into captivity. You have planted
pleasant vineyards, have contrived how to make
them every way agreeable, and have promised
yourselves many a pleasant walk in them; but you
shall be forced to walk off, and shall never drink
wine of them.
The law had tenderly provided that if a man had
built a house, or planted a vineyard , he should be at
his liberty to return from the wars, Deut. xx. 5, 6.
But now the necessity would be so urgent, that it
would not be allowed, all must go to the battle, and
many of those who had lately been building and
planting, should fall in battle, and never enjoy what
they had been labouring for. What is not honestly
got is not likely to be long enjoyed.
III. They are told their duty, and have great
encouragement to set about it in good earnest, and
good reason. The dutieshere prescribed to them are,
godliness and honesty, seriousness in their applica-
974
AMOS, V.
tions to God, and justice in their dealings with men;
and each of these is here pressed upon them with
proper arguments to enforce the exhortation.
1. They are here exhorted to be sincere and de¬
vout in their addresses to God, v. 4. God says to
the house of Israel, See k ye me, and with good rea¬
son; for should not a fieo/ile seek unto their God?
Isa. viii. 19. Whither else should they go but to
their Protector? Israel was a prince with God; let
his descendants seek the Lord, as he did, and they
shall be so too. Now, in order to their doing of this,
they must abandon their idolatries. God is not
sought truly, if he be not sought only, for he will
endure no rivals; “ Seek ye the Lord, and seek not
Bethel, (v. 5.) consult not your idol-oracles, nor
ask. at the mouth of the priests of Bethel; seek not
to the golden calf there for protection, nor bring
your prayers and sacrifices any longer thither, or to
Gilgal, for you forsake your own mercies, if you
observe those lying vanities. But seek the Lord;
(v. 6, 8.) inquire after him, inquire of him ; seek to
know his mind as your rule, to secure his favour as
your felicity.” To press this exhortation, we are
bid to consider, (1.) What we shall get by seeking
God; it will be our life, we shall find him, and shall
be happy in him. So lie tells them himself; ( v . 4.)
Seek ye me, ajid ye shall live. So the prophet tells
them; (i>. 6.) Seek the Lord, and ye shall live,
They that seek perishing gods, shall perish with
them, (d. 5.) but they that seek the living God,
shall live with him: “ You shall be delivered from
the killing judgments which you are threatened
with; your nation shall live, shall recover from its
resent languishings; your souls shall live, you shall
e sanctified and comforted, and made for ever
blessed; Ye shall live.” (2.) What a God he is,
whom we are to seek, v. 8, 9.
[1.] He is a God of almighty power himself.
The idols were impotent things, could do neither
good nor evil, and therefore it was folly either to
fear or trust them ; but the God of Israel does every
thing, and can do any thing, and therefore we ought
to seek to him; he challenges our homage, who has
all power in his hand, and it is our interest to have
him on our side.
Divers proofs and instances are here given of
God’s power, as Creator, in the kingdom of nature,
as both founding and governing that kingdom.
Compare ch. iv. 13. First, The stars are the
work of his hands; those stars which the heathens
worshipped, (x>. 26.) the stars of your god, those
stars are God’s creatures and servants. He makes
the seven stars and Orion, two very remarkable
constellations, which Amos, a herdsman, while he
kept his cattle by night, had particularly observed
the motions of. He made them at the first, he still
jnakes them to be what they are to this earth; and
either binds or looses the sweet influences of Pleiades
and Orion, the two constellations here mentioned,
(Job xxxviii. 31. — ix. 9.) to which passages Amos
seems here to refer, putting them in mind of those
ancient discoveries of the glory of God before he
was called the God of Israel. Secondly, The con¬
stant succession of day and night is under his direc¬
tion, and is kept up lay his power and providence.
It is he that turns the night (which is dark as the
shadow of death,) into the morning by the rising of
the sun, and by the setting of the sun makes the day
dark with night; and the same power can, for hum¬
ble penitents, easily turn affliction and sorrow into
prosperity and joy, but can as easily turn the pros¬
perity of .presumptuous sinners into darkness, into
utter darkness. Thirdly, The rain rises and falls
as he appoints. He calls for the waters of the sea;
out of them vapours are drawn up by the heat of
the sun, which gather into clouds, and are poured
out upon the face of the earth, to water it, and
make it fruitful. This was the mercy that had
been withholden from them of late; (ch. iv. 7.) and
therefore to whom should they apply themselves
but to him who had power to give it? For all the
vanities of the heathen could not give rain, nor could
the heavens of themselves give showers, Jer. xiv.
22. It is God that has made these things; Jehovah
is his 7tame; the name by which the God of nature,
the God of the whole earth, has made himself
known to his people Israel, and covenanted with
them.
[2.] As he is a God of almighty power himself,
so he gives strength and power unto his people that
seek him, and renews strength to those that had
lost it, if they wait upon him for it; for (t>. 9.) he
strengthens the spoiled against the strong, to such a
degree, that the spoiled come against the fortress,
and make bold and brave attacks upon those that
had spoiled them. This is an encouragement to the
people to seek the Lord, that if they do so, they shall
find him able to retrieve their affairs, when they are
brought to the lowest ebb; though they are the
spoiled, and their enemies are the strong, if they
can but engage God for them, they shall soon recruit
so as the next time to be not only the aggressors,
but the conquerors; they come against the fortress,
to make reprisals, and become masters of it.
2. They are here exhorted to be honest and just
in their dealings with men, (v. 14, 15.) where ob¬
serve,
(1.) The duty required; Seek good, and not evil.
Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judg¬
ment in the gate; re-establish it there, whence it
has been banished, v. 7. Note, Things are not so
bad but that they may be amended, if the right
course be taken; we must not despair but that
grievances may be redressed, and abuses rectified ;
justice may yet triumph there where injustice ty¬
rannizes. In order to this, good must be loved and
sought, evil pust be hated, and no longer sought.
We must love good principles, and adhere to them,
love to do good, and abound in it; love good people,
and good converse, and good duties; and, whatever
good we do, we must do it from a principle of love; do
it of choice and with delight. They who thus love
good, will seek it, will contrive to do all the good
they can, inquire for opportunities to do it, and en¬
deavour it to the utmost of their power. They
will also hate evil, will abhor the thought of doing
an unjust thing, and abstain from all appearance
of it.
In vain do we pretend to seek God in our devo¬
tions, if we do not seek good in our whole conversa¬
tions.
(2.) The reasons annexed. [1.] This is the sure
way to be happy ourselves, and to have the con¬
tinual presence of God with us. “ Seek good and
not evil, that you may live, may escape the punish
ment of the evil you have sought and loved; ( righ
teousness^delivereth from death;) that you may have
the favour of God, which is your life, which is bet¬
ter than life itself; that you may have comfort in
yourselves, and may live to some good purpose.
You shall live, for so the Lord God of hosts shall br
with you, and be your Life.” Note, Those that
keep in the way of duty, have the presence of God
with them, as the God of hosts, a God of almighty
power. “ He will be with you as you have spoken,
as you have gloried; you shall have that really,
winch, while you went on in unrighteous ways, you
only seemed to have, and boasted of as if you had.”
They that truly repent and reform, enter into the
enjoyment of that comfort which before they had
only flattered themselves with the imagination of.
Or, “As you have prayed, when you sought the
Lord. Live up to vour prayers, and you shall have
what you pray for.” [2.] This is the likeliest way
975
AMOS, V.
to make the nation happy; “ If you seek and love
that which is good, you may contribute to the saving
of the land from ruin.” It may be, the Lord God
of hosts will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph;
though there is but a remnant left, if God be gra¬
cious to that remnant, it will rise to a great nation
again; and if some among them turn from sin, es¬
pecially if judgment be established in the gate,
though we cannot be certain, yet there is a great
probability, that public affairs will take a new and
happy turn, and every thing will mend if men mend
their lives. Tempora’. promises are made with an
/' may be; and our prayers must be made accord¬
ingly.
1 6. Therefore the Lord, the God of hosts,
the Lord, saith thus, Wailing shall be in
all streets; and they shall say in all the
highways, Alas! alas! And they shall call
the husbandman to mourning, and such as
are skilful of lamentation to wailing. 1-7.
And in all vineyards shall be wailing: for I
will pass through thee, saith the Lord. 1 8.
Wo unto you that desire the day of the
Lord! to what end is it for you? the day
of the Lord is darkness, and not light. 19.
As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear
met him; or went into the house, and leaned
his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.
20. Shall not the day of the Lord be dark¬
ness, and not light? even very dark, and no
brightness in it?
Here is,
I. A very terrible threatening of destruction ap¬
proaching, v. 16, 17. Because they would not take
the right course to obtain the favour of God, God
would take an effectual course to make them feel
the weight of his displeasure. The threatening is
introduced with more than ordinary solemnity, to
strike an awe upon them ; it is not the word of the
prophet only, (if so, it might be made light of,) but
it is the Lord Jehovah, who has an infinite, eternal
being, it is the God of hosts, who has a boundless,
irresistible power, and it is Adonai — the Lord, who
has an absolute, incontestable sovereignty, and an
universal dominion, it is he who says it, who can
and will make his words good, and he has said, 1.
That the land of Israel shall be fiut in mourning,
true mourning; that all places shall be filled with
'amentation for the calamities coming upon them.
Look into the cities, and wailing shall be in all
streets, in the great streets, in the by-streets. Look
into the country, and they shall say in all the high¬
ways, Alas! alas.1 we are all undone ! The lamen¬
tation shall be so great, as not to be confined within
doors, nor kept within the bounds of decency, but
it shall be proclaimed in the streets and highways,
and shall run wild. The husbandman shall be call¬
ed from the plough by the calamities of his country
to the natural expressions of mourning; and be¬
cause those will come short of the merits of the
cause, such as are skilful of lamentation shall be
called to artificial mourning, to put accents upon the
lamentations of the real mourners with their Ahone,
ahone. Even in all the vineyards, where there
used to be nothing but mirth and pleasure, there
shall be general wailing, when a foreign force in¬
vades the country, lays all waste, and there is no
making any head against it, no weapons left but
rayers and tears. 2. That the land of Israel shall
e brought to ruin, and the advances of that ruin
are the occasion of all this wailing ; I will fiass
through thee, as the destroying angel passed through
the land of Egypt to destroy the first-born, but then
passed over the houses of the Israelites. God’s
judgments had often passed by them, but now they
shall pass through them, shall run them through.
II. A just and severe reproof to those who made
light of these threatenings, and impudently bid de¬
fiance to the justice of God and his judgments, v.
18. Wo unto you that desire the day of the Lord,
that really wish for times of war and confusion; as
some do who have restless spirits, and long for
changes, or who choose to fish in troubled waters,
hoping to raise their families, as some had done,
upon the ruins of their country; but the prophet
tells them that this should be so great a desolation,
that nobody could get by it. Or, it is spoken to those
who, in their wailings and lamentations for the ca¬
lamities they were in, wished they might die, and
be rid out of their misery; as Job did, with passion.
The prophet shows them the folly of this. Do they
know what death is to those who are unprepared
for it, and how much more terrible it will be than
any thing that can befall them in this life? Or, ra¬
ther, it is spoken to those who speak jestingly of
that day of the Lord, which the prophet spake so
seriously of; they desired it, they challenged it; they
said, Let him do his worst, let him make speed, and
hasten his work, Isa. v. 19. Where is the promise
of his coming? 2 Pet. iii. 4. It intimates, 1. That
they do not believe it. They say that they wish it
would come, because they do not believe it will ever
come; nor will they believe it unless they see it. 2.
That they do not fear it; though they may have
some belief of it, yet they have so little consideration
of it, and their mind is so intent upon other things,
that they are under no apprehension at all of their
peril from it; instead of having the conscience to
dread it, they have the curiosity to desire it. In an¬
swer to this,
(1.) He shows the folly of those who impudently
wished for any of God's judgments, and made a
jest of any of the terrors of the Lord; “ To what
end is it for you that the day of the Lord should
come? You will find it both certain and sad; not a
thing to be bantered, for it is neither a thing to be
questioned whether it will come or no, nor a thing
to be turned ojf with a slight when it does come.
The day of the Lord is darkness, and not light, v.
18. Shall it not be so? v. SO. Do not your own con¬
sciences tell you that it will be so, that it will be
very dark, and no brightness in it?” Note, The day
of the Lord will be a dark, dismal, gloomy day to
all impenitent sinners; the i lay of judgment will be
so; and sometimes the day of their present trouble. '
And when God makes a day dark, all the world
cannot make it light.
(2.) He shows the follv of those who impatiently
wished for a change of God’s judgments, in hopes
that the next will be better and more tolerable.
They desire the day of the Lord, in hopes to mend
themselves, (though their hearts and lives be not
amended-,) or, however, to know the worst. But
the prophet tells them that they know not what
they ask, v. 19. It is as if a man did flee from a
lion, and a bear met him, a beast of prey more cruel
and ravenous than a lion. Or as if a man, to escape
all dangers abroad, went into the house for security,
and leaned his hand on the wall to rest himself, and
there a serpent bit him. Note, Those who are not
reformed by the judgments of God, will be pursued
by them; and if they escape one, another stands
ready to seize them; fear, and the pit, and a snare
surround them, Isa. xxiv. 17, 18. It is madness
therefore to defy the day of the Lord.
21. I hate, I despise your feast-days, and
I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.
976
AMOS, V.
22. Though ye offer me burnt-offerings, and
your meat-offerings, I will not accept them:
neither will I regard the peace-offerings of
your fat beasts. 23. Take thou away from
me the noise of thy songs; for I will not
hear the melody of thy viols. 24. But let
judgment run down as waters, and righ¬
teousness as a mighty stream. 25. Have
ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings
in the wilderness forty years, O house of
Israel? 26. But ye have borne the taberna¬
cle of your Moloch and Chiun your images,
the star of your god, which ye made to
yourselves. 27. Therefore will I cause you
to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith
the Lord, whose name is The God of
hosts.
The scope of these verses is to show how little
God valued their shows of devotion, nay, how much
he detested them, while they went on in their sins.
Observe,
1. How unpleasing , nay, how displeasing, their
hypocritical services were to God. They had their
feast-days at Bethel, in imitation of those at Jerusa¬
lem, in which they pretended to rejoice before God;
they had their solemn assemblies for religious wor¬
ship, in which they put on the gravity of those who
come before God, as his people come, and sit before
him as his people sit; they offered to God burnt-of¬
ferings. , to the honour of God, together with the
meat-offerings which by the law were to be offered
with them ; they offered the peace-offerings, to im¬
plore the favour of God, and they offered them of
the fat 6eas?.sthat they had, v. 21, 22. In imitation
likewise of the temple-music, they had the noise of
their songs, and the melody of their viols, (v. 23.)
vocal and instrumental music, with which they
praised God; with these services they hoped to
make God amends for the sins they had committed,
and to obtain leave to go on in sin; and therefore
they were so far from being acce/itable to God, that
they were abominable. He hated, he despised, ,
their feast-days, not only despised them as no valua¬
ble services done to him, but hated them as an af¬
front and provocation to him, as we hate to see men
dissemble with us, pretend a respect for us, when |
really they have none.
Nothing more hateful, more despicable, than hy- ;
pocrisy ; he that blesseth his friend with a loud voice,
it shall be counted a curse, when it appears that his
heart is not with him. God will not smell in their
solemn assemblies, for there is nothing in them that
is grateful to him, but a great deal that is offensive.
Their sacrifices are not to him of a sweet-smelling
savour, as Noah’s was, Gen. viii. 21. He will not
accept them, he will not regard them, will not take
any notice of them, he will not hear the melody of
their viols; for when sin is a jar in the harmony, it
grates in his ears; “ Take it away,” says God, “ I
cannot bear it.” Now this speaks, (1.) That sacri¬
fice itself is of small account with God, in compari¬
son with moral duties; to love God and our neigh¬
bour is better than all burnt-offering and sacrifice.
(2.) That the sacrifice of the wicked is really an
abomination to him, Prov. xv. 8. Dissembled piety
is double iniquity, and so it will be found, when, if
any place in hell be hotter than other, that will be
the hypocrite’s portion.
2. What it was that he required in order to the
acceptableness of their saci'ifices, and without which
no sacrifice would be acceptable; (v. 24.) Let
judgment run down as waters among you, and
righteousness as a mighty stream, (1.) “Let there
be a general reformation of manners among you;
let religion, God’s judgment and righteousness, have
their due influence upon you; let your land be wa¬
tered with it, and let it bear down all the opposition
of vice and profaneness; let it run wide as overflow¬
ing waters, and yet run strong as a ?nighty stream.”
(2.) “ In particular, let justice be duly administered
by magistrates and rulers; let not the current of it
be stopped by partiality and bribery, but let it come
freely as waters do, in the natural course, let it be
pure as running waters, not muddied with corrup¬
tion, or whatever may pervert justice; let it run like
a mighty stream, and not suffer itself to be obstruct¬
ed, or its course retarded by the fear of man'; let all
have free access to it as a common stream, and have
benefit bv it, as trees planted by the rivers of wa¬
ters.” The great thing laid to Israel’s charge was,
turning judgment into wormwood; (v. 7.) in that
matter therefore they must reform, Zech. vii. 9.
This was it that God desired more than sacrifices,
Hos. vi. 6. 1 Sam. xv. 22.
3. What little stress God had laid upon the law
of sacrifices, though it was his own law, in compari¬
son with the moral precepts; (v. 25.) Did ye offer
unto me sacrifices in the wilderness forty years?
No, you did not; for the greatest part of that time
sacrifice was very much neglected, because of the
unsettledness of their state: after the second year,
the passover was not kept till they were come into
Canaan, and other institutions were in like manner
intermitted; and yet, because God will have mercy
and not sacrifice, he never imputed the omission to
them as their fault, but continued his care of them,
and kindness to them; it was not that, but their
murmuring and unbelief, for which God was dis¬
pleased with them. He that so owned his people,
though they did not sacrifice, when in other things
they kept close to him, will certainly disown them,
though they do' sacrifice, if in other things they
depart from him. But though ritual sacrifices may
thus be dispensed with, spiritual sacrifices will not ;
even justice and honesty will not excuse for the want
of prayer and praise, a broken heart, and the love
of God. Stephen quotes this passage, (Acts vii. 42.)
to show the Jews that they ought not to think it
strange that the ceremonial law was repealed, when
from the beginning it was comparatively made light
of. Compare Jer. vii. 22, 23.
4. What little reason they had to expect that
their sacrifices should be acceptable to God, when
they and their fathers had been all along addicted
to the worship of ether Gods. So some take v. 25.
Did you offer to me sacrifices, to ME only? No,
and therefore not at all to ME acceptably; for the
law of worshipping the Lord our God, is, Him only
we must serve. “But you have borne the taber¬
nacle of your Moloch, ( v . 26.) little shrines that
you made to carry about with you, pocket-idols for
your private superstition, when you durst not be
seen to do it publicly. You have had the images of
your Moloch — your king,” (probably representing
the sun, that sits king among the heavenly bodies,)
“and Chiun, or Remphan;” as Stephen calls it,
Acts vii. 43. after the LXX. which, it is supposed,
represented Saturn, the highest of the seven planets.
The worship of the sun, moon, and stars, was the
most ancient, most general, and most plausible idola¬
try; they made to themselves the star of their god,
some particular star, which they took to be their god,
or the name of which they gave to their god. This
idolatry Israel was from the beginning prone to;
(Deut. iv. 19.) and those that retain any affection for
false gods, cannot expect the favour of the true God.
5. What punishment God would.inflict upon them
for their persisting in idolatry; Cv. 27.) I will cause
you to go into captivity beyond Damascus. They
977
AMOS, VI.
were led captive by Satan into idolatry, and there¬
fore God caused them to go into captivity among
idolaters, and hurried them into a strange land, who
were. so fond of strange gods. They were carried
beyond Damascus; their captivity by the Assyrians
was far beyond that by the Syrians; for if lesser
judgments do not work that for which they were
sent, God will send greater. Or, the captivity of
Israel under Shalmaneser, was far beyond that of
Damascus under Tiglath-pileser, and much more
grievous and destructive, which was foretold, cb.
i. 5. For, as the sins of God’s professing people are
greater than the sins of others, so it may be expected
that their punishments will be proportionable. We
find the spoil of Damascus, and that of Samaria,
caried off together by the king of Assyria, Isa. viii.
4. Stephen reads it, I will carry you away beyond
Babylon, (Acts vii. 43.) further than Judah shall
be carried, so far further, as not to return. And,
to make this sentence appear both the more certain,
and the more dreadful, he that passes it, calls him¬
self the Lord, whose name is, The God of hosts, and
who is therefore able to execute the sentence, hav¬
ing Hosts at command.
CHAP. VI.
In this chapter we have, I. A sinful people studying to put
a slight upon God’s threatening and to make them ap¬
pear trivial ; confiding in their privileges and pre-emi¬
nences above other nations, (v. 2, 3.) and their power,
/v. 13.) and wholly addicted to their pleasures, v. 4. . 6.
II. A serious prophet studying to put a weight upon
God’s threatenings, and to mal<e them appear terrible ,
by setting forth the severity of those judgments that
were coming upon those sensualists; (v. 7.) God’s ab¬
horring them, and abandoning them and theirs to death,
(v. 8. . . 11.) and bringing utter desolation upon them,
since they would not be wrought upon by the methods he
had taken for their conviction, v. 12. . 14.
i. 'V')t7'0 to them that are at ease in Zion,
▼ V and trust in the mountain of Sa¬
maria, which are named chief of the nations,
to whom the house of Israel came! 2. Pass
ye unto Calneh, and see ; and from thence
go ye to Hamath the great: then go down
to Gath of the Philistines: be they better
than these kingdoms ? or their border greater
than your border ? 3. Ye that put far away
the evil day, and cause the seat of violence
to come near ; 4. That lie upon beds of
ivory, and stretch themselves upon their
couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock,
and the calves out of the midst of the stall ;
5. That chaunt to the sound of the viol,
and invent to themselves instruments of mu¬
sic, like David; 6. That drink wine in
bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief
ointments ; but they are not grieved for the
affliction of Joseph. 7. Therefore now shall
they go captive with the first that go cap¬
tive, and the banquet of them that stretched
themselves shall be removed.
The first words of the chapter are the contents
of these verses; but they sound very strange, and
contrary to the sentiments of a vain world; Wo to
them that are at ease! We are ready to say, Happy
they that are at ease, that neither feel any trouble,
nor fear any, that lie soft and warm, and lay nothing
to heart ; and wise we think are they that do so,
that bathe themselves in the delights of sense, and
care not how tire world goes. They are looked
upon as doing well for themselves, that do well for
Vol. iv. — 6 H
their bodies, and make much of them; but against
them this wo is denounced, and we are here told
what their ease is, and what the wo is.
I. Here is a description of their pride, security,
and sensuality, for which God would reckon with
them.
1. They were vainly conceited of their own
dignities, and thought those would vainly secure
them from the judgments threatened, and be their
defence against the wrath both of God and man.
(I.) Those that dwell in Zion, thought that was
honour and protection enough for them, and they
might there be quiet from all fear of evil, because
it was a strong city, well fortified both by nature
and art, (we read of Zion’s strong holds, and her
bulwarks ,) and because it was a royal city, where
were set the thrones of the house of David; it was
the head-city of Judah, and therefore truly great;
and especially because it was the holy city where
the temple was, and the testimony of Israel; they
that dwelt there doubted not but that God’s sanc¬
tuary would be a sanctuary to them, and would shel¬
ter them from his judgments. The temple of the
Lord are these, Jer. vii. 4. They are haughty be¬
cause of the holy mountain, Zeph. iii. 11. Note,
Many are puffed up with pride, and rocked asleep
in carnal security, by their church-privileges, and
the place they have in Zion. (2.) Those that dwelt
in the tnountain of Samaria, though it was not a
holy hill, like that of Zion, yet they trusted in it,
because it was the metropolis of a potent kingdom,
and, perhaps, in imitation of Jerusalem, was the
head-quarters of its religion ; and by tract of time
the hill of Shemer became with them in as good
repute as the hill of Zion ever was. They hoped
for salvation from these hills and mountains. (3.)
Both these two kingdoms valued themselves upon
their relation to Israel, that prince with God, which
they looked upon as making them the chief of the
nations, more ancient and honourable than any of
them; the first-fruits of the nations, (so the word is,)
dedicated to God, and sanctifying the whole harvest.
The house of Israel came to them, was divided into
those kingdoms, Zion and Samaria were the mother-
cities of. Those that were at ease, were the princes
and rulers, the great men, that were chief of the
nations, chief of those two kingdoms, and to whom
having their residence in Zion and Samaria, the
whole house of Israel applied themselves for judg¬
ment. Note, It is hard to be great, and not to be
proud. Great nations and great men are apt to
overvalue themselves, and to overlook their neigh¬
bours, because they think they a little overtop them.
But, for a check to their pride and security, the
prophet bids them take notice of these cities that
were within the compass of their knowledge, that
had been as illustrious in their time as ever Zion or
Samaria was, and yet were destroyed, v. 2. Go to
Calneh, (which was an ancient city built by Nim¬
rod, Gen. x. 10.) and see what is become of that, it
is now in ruins; so is Hamath the great, one of the
chief cities of Syria; Sennacherib boasts of destroy¬
ing the gods of Hamath. Gath was likewise made
desolate by Hazael, and not long ago, 2 Kings xii.
17. Now were they better than these kingdoms of
Judah and Israel? Yes, they were, and their border
greater than your border, so that they had more
reason than you to be confident of their own safety:
yet you see what is become of them, and dare you
be secure? Art thou better than populous JVo ?
Nah. iii. 8. Note, The examples of others’ ruin
forbids us to be secure.
2. They persisted in their wicked courses, upon a
presumption that they should never be called to an
account for them; (x>. 3.) “You put far away the
evil day, the day of reckoning, as a thing that shall
never come; or, you look upon it as at such a distance.
978
that it makes no impression at all upon you; you
put it far away, and think you can still put it yet
further, and adjourn it de die in diem — -from day to
day, and therefore you cause the seat of violence to
draw near; ye venture upon all acts of injustice
and oppression, and have fellowship with the throne
of iniquity, which frames mischief by a law, Ps.
xciv. 20. “You cause that to come near, as if that
would be your protection from these judgments,
which really ripens you for them.” Note, There¬
fore men take sin to be near them, because they
take judgment to be far off from them; but they
deceive themselves, who thus mock God.
3. They indulged themselves in all manner of
sensual pleasures and delights, n. 4, 6. These Is¬
raelites were perfect epicures and slaves to their
appetites. Their dignities, (in consideration of
which they ought to have been examples of self-
denial and mortification,) they thought, would jus¬
tify them in their sensuality: the gains of their
oppression and violence, they thought, would bear
the charge of it; and they put the evil day at a dis¬
tance, that that might give them no disturbance in it.
That which they are here charged with, is not
in itself sinful, (these things might be soberly and
moderately used,) but they placed their happiness
in the gratification of their carnal appetites ; and
though they were men in office, that had business
to mind, they gave themselves up to their pleasures,
spent their time in them, and threw away their
thoughts, and cares, and estates, upon them ; they
were in these enjoyments as in their element; their
hearts were upon them, they exceeded all bounds
in them, and this at a time when God in his provi¬
dence was calling them to weeping and mourning;
(Isa. xxii. 12, 13.) when they were under guilt and
wrath, and the judgments of God were ready to
break in upon them, they called for wine and strong
drink, presuming that to-morrow shall be as this
day and much more abundant, (Isa. lvi. 12.) thus
walking contrary to God, and setting his justice at
defiance. (1.) They were extravagant in their fur¬
niture; nothing would serve them but beds of ivory,
to sleep upon, or to sit on at their meat, when sack¬
cloth and ashes had better become them. (2. ) They
were lazy, and humoured themselves in the love
of ease; they did not only lie down, but stretched
themselves upon their couches, when they should
have stirred up themselves to their business; they
were willingly slothful, and took a pride in doing
nothing; they abounded in superfluities, (so the
margin reads it,) when manv of their poor brethren
wanted necessaries. (3. ) They were nice and cu¬
rious in their diet, must have every thing of the best,
and abundance of it; they eat the lambs out of the
flock, (lambs by wholesale,) and the calves out of
the midst of the stall, the fattest they could lay their
hand on; and these perhaps not out of their own
flock and their own stall, but taken by oppression
from the poor. (4. ) They were merry and jovial,
and diverted themselves at their feasts with music
and singing ; they chant to the sound of the viol,
sing and play in concert, and they invent new-
fashioned instruments of music, striving herein,
more than in any thing else, to excel their ancestors;
they set their wits on work to contrive how to please
their fancy. Some men never show their ingenuity
but in their luxury; on that they bestow all their
faculty of invention and contrivance. They invent
instruments of music, like David; entertain them¬
selves with that which formerly used to be the en¬
tertainment of kings only. Or, it intimates their
profaneness in their mirth ; thev mimicked the tem-
le-music, and made a jest of that, because, it may
e, it was old-fashioned, and they took a pride in
bantering it, as the Babylonians did when they
urged, the captives to sing them the songs of Zion;
!, VI.
such was Belshazzar’s profaneness, when he drank
wine in temple-bowls, and such theirs that sing vain
and loose songs in psalm tunes, on purpose to ridi¬
cule a divine institution. (5.) They drink to excess,
and never think they can pour down enough ; they
drink wine in bowls, not in glasses or cups; (as Jer.
xxxv. 5.) they hate to be stinted, and must have
large draughts, and therefore make use of vessels,
that they can steal a draught out of. (6.) They
affect the strongest perfumes; they anoint themselves
with the chief ointments, to please the smell, and to
make them more in love with their own bodies, and
to guard against those presages of putrefaction
which they carry about with them while they live.
No ordinary ointments would serve their turn; they
must have the chief, such as were far-fetched and
dear-bought, when cheaper would have served as
well.
4. They had no concern at all for the interests of
the church of God, and of the nation, that were
sinking, and going to decay; They are not grieved
for the affliction of Joseph; the church of God, in¬
cluding both the kingdoms of Judah and Israel,
(which are callyd Joseph, Ps. lxxx. 1.) was in dis¬
tress, invaded, insulted, and broken in upon; their
own kingdom which they were intrusted with the
government of, the affairs of which they were the
directors of, the peace of which they were the con¬
servators of, great breaches were made upon it,
upon its peace and welfare; and they were so besot¬
ted, that they were not aware of them, so indulgent
of their pleasures, that they never laid them to
heart, and had such an aversion to the thing called
business, that they were in no care or concern to get
them repaired. It is all one to them whether the
nation sink or swim, so that they can but lie at ease,
and live in pleasure. Particular persons that be¬
longed to Joseph, were in affliction, and they took
no cognizance of their case, of the wrongs and hard¬
ships they sustained, and the troubles they were in,
nor took any care to relieve them and right them;
contrary to the temper of holy Job, who, when he
was in prosperity, wept with him that was in misery,
and his soul was grieved for the poor, Job xxx. 25.
Some think that in calling the afflicted church Jo¬
seph, there is an allusion to the story of Pharaoh’s
butler, who, when he was preferred to give the cup
again into his master’s hand, remembered not Jo¬
seph, but forgat him, Gen. xl. 21, 23. Thus these
drank wine in bowls, but were not grieved for the
affliction of Joseph. Note, Those are commonly
careless of the troubles of others, who are set upon
their own pleasures; and it is a great offence to God
when his church is in affliction, and we are not
grieved for it, nor lay it to heart.
II. Here is the doom passed upon them; (y. 7.)
Therefore now shall they go captive with the first
that go captive, and shall fall into all the miseries
that attend captives; and the banquet of them that
stretched themselves upon their couches, shall be re¬
moved. Their plenty shall be taken from them,
and they from it, because they made it the food and
fuel of their lusts. 1. Those who lived in luxury,
shall lose even their liberty ; and by being brought
into servitude, shall be justly punished for the abuse
of their dignity and dominion. 2. Those who trusted
in the delights and pleasures of their own land, shall
be carried away into a strange land, and so made
ashamed of their pride and confidence; they shall
go captive. 3. Those who placed their happiness
in the pleasures of sense, and set their hearts upon
them, shall be deprived of those pleasures; their
banquet shall be removed, and they shall know what
it is to fare hard. 4. Those who stretched them¬
selves, shall be made to contract themselves, and to
come into a less compass. 5. Those who put the
evil day far from them, shall find it nearer to them
979
AMOS, VI.
than it is to others; they shall go captive with the
Jirst, who flattered themselves with hopes that if
trouble did come, they would be the last who should
be seized by it. Those are ripening apace for trou¬
ble themselves, who lay not to heart the troubles
of others, and of the church of God. Those who
give themselves to mirth, when God calls them to
mourning, will find it is a sin that shall not go un¬
punished, Isa. xxii. 14.
8. The Lord God hath sworn by himself,
saith the Lord, the God of hosts, I abhor
the excellency of Jacob, and hate his pa¬
laces: therefore will I deliver up the city,
with all that is therein. 9. And it shall
come to pass, if there remain ten men in one
house, that they shall die. 1 0. And a man’s
uncle shall take him up, and he that burnetii
him, to bring out the bones out of the house,
and shall say unto him that is by the sides
of the house, Is there yet any with thee ?
and he shall say, No. Then shall he say,
Hold thy tongue; for we may not make
mention of the name of the Lord. 11. For,
behold, the Lord commandeth, and he will
smite the great house with breaches, and
the little house with clefts. 12. Shall horses
run upon the rock? will one plough there
with oxen? for ye have turned judgment
into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into
hemlock. 13. Ye which rejoice in a thing
of nought, which say, Have we not taken
to us horns by our own strength ? 14. But,
behold, 1 will raise up against you a nation,
O house of Israel, saith the Lord, the God
of hosts; and they shall afflict you from the
entering in of Hamath unto the river of the
wilderness.
In the former part of the chapter, we had these
secure Israelites loading themselves with pleasures,
as if they could never be made merry enough; here
we have God loading them with punishments, as if
they never could be made miserable enough. And
observe,
I. How strongly this burthen is bound on, not to
be shaken off by their presumption and security; for
it is bound by the Lord, the God of hosts, by his
mighty, his almighty hand, which none can resist;
it is bound with an oath, which puts the sentence
past revocation; The J.ord God has sworn, and he
will not repent, and since he could swear by no
greater, he has sworn by himself. How dreadful,
how miserable, is the case of those whose ruin,
whose eternal ruin, God himself has sworn, who
can execute his purpose, and cannot alter it!
II. How heavy this burthen lies! Let us see the
particulars.
1. God will abhor and abandon them; and that
speaks misery enough, all misery; I abhor the ex¬
cellency of Jacob; all that which they are proud of,
and value themselves upon, and for which they call
and count themselves the chief of the nations. Their
visible church-membership, and the privileges of
that, their temple, altar, and priesthood, these were,
more than any thing, the excellencies of Jacob; but
when these were profaned and polluted by sin, God
abhorred them, he hated and despised them, ch. v.
21. Note, God abhors that form of godliness which
nypocrites keep up, while they abhor the power of
it. And if he abhors their temple, for the iniquity
of that, no marvel that he hates their palaces, for the
injustice and oppression he finds there. Note, That
creature which we take such complacency, and put
such a confidence in, as to make it a rival with God,
is thereby made abominable to him. He hates the
palaces of sinners, for the sake of the wickedness
of them which dwell therein, Prov. iii. 33. The
curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked. And
if God abhor them, immediately it follows, He will
deliver up the city with all that is therein, deliver it
up into the hands of the enemy, that will lay it
waste, and make a prey of all its wealth. Note,
Those that are abhorred and abandoned of God,
are undone to all intents and purposes.
2. There shall be a great and general mortality
among them; (t>. 9.) If there remain ten men in
one house, that have escaped the sword of the ene¬
my, yet they shall be met with another way; they
shall all die by famine or pestilence. In the most
sickly times, if there be ten in a house, one may
hope that at least the one half of them will escape,
according to the proportion of two in a bed, one
taken and the other left; but here not one of te?i
shall live to bury the rest. Another instance of the
greatness of the mortality, is, ( v . 10.) that the near¬
est relations of the dead shall be forced with their
own hands to wind up their bodies, and bury them,
for want of other hands to be employed in it; that is
all that the next of kin, to whom the right of re¬
demption belongs, can do for them, and with great
reluctance will they do that. It intimates that the
young people shall be cut off soonest; for the uncle
that survives, is, ordinarily, the senior relation.
When the uncle comes with the sexton, (or him
that burns,) to bring out the bones out of the house,
he shall say to him that he sees next about the
house, “Is there yet any with thee? Are there any
left alive?” And he shall say, “No, this is the last;
now the whole family is cut off by death, and nei¬
ther root nor branch remains.” But that which
makes this judgment the more grievous, is, that
their hearts seem to be hardened under it. When
he that was found by the sides of the house, began
to enter into discourse with those that were carrying
off the dead, they shall say, “Hold thy tongue; do
not stand preaching to us about the hand of Provi¬
dence in this calamity, for we may not tnake men¬
tion of the name of the Lord; God is so angry with
us, that there is no speaking to him, he is so extreme
to mark what we do amiss, that we dare not so
much as make mention of his name.” Thus the
foolishness of men perverts their way, and brings
them into distress, and then their heart frets against
the Lord. Even then they will not take notice of
his hand, nor suffer those about them to do it.
Perhaps it was forbidden by some of the idola¬
trous kings to make mention of the name of Jeho¬
vah, as by the law of Moses it was forbidden to
make mention of the names of the heathen gods;
We may not do it without incurring the penalty.
Note, Those hearts are wretchedly hardened in¬
deed, that will not be brought to make mention of
God’s name, and to worship him, when the hand of
God is gone out against them, and when, as here,
sickness and death are in their families. Thus those
heap up wrath, who cry not when God binds them.
3. Their houses shall be destroyed, v. 11. God
will smite the great house with breaches, and the lit¬
tle house with clefts; they shall both be cracked so as
to lose their beauty and strength, and to be hasten¬
ing towards a fall. The princes’ palaces are not
above the rebukes of divine justice, nor the poor
men’s cottages beneath it; neither shall escape when
sin has marked them for ruin, God will find ways
to bring it about. It is by order from him that
breaches are made.
980
AMOS, VII.
III. How justly they are thus burthened; if we
understand the matter aright, we shall say, The
Lord is righteous.
1. The method used for their reformation had
been all fruitless and ineffectual; (n. 12.) Shall
horses run upon the rock, to hurl or harrow the
ground there? Or will one plough therewith oxen ?
No, for there will be no profit to countervail the
pains. God had sent them his prophets, to break
up their fallow-ground; but they found them as
hard and inflexible as the rock, rough and rugged,
and they could do no good with them, nor work
upon them, and therefore they shall not attempt it
any more. They will not be reclaimed, and there¬
fore shall not be reproved, but quite abandoned.
Note, Those who will not be husbanded as fields
and vineyards, shall be rejected as barren rocks and
deserts, Heb. vi. 7, 8.
2. They had abused their power to the wrong
and oppression of many, whose injured cause the
sovereign Judge would not only right, but revenge;
Ye have turned judgment into gall, which is nause¬
ous, and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock,
which is noxious; it would make one sick to see how
those that were intrusted with the administration
of public justice, bear down equity with that power
with which they ought to have defended and sup¬
ported it, and so turned its own artillery against
itself. Note, When our services of God are soured
with sin, his providences will justly be imbittered
to us.
3. They had set the judgments of God at defiance,
and confiding in their own strength, thought them¬
selves a match for Omnipotence, v. 13. They re¬
joiced in a thing of naught, pleased themselves with
a fancy that no evil should befall them, though they
had no ground at all for that confidence, nothing to
trust to that would bear any weight. They said,
“ Have we not taken to us horns, are we not arrived
to great dignity and dominion, have we not pushed
down our enemies, and pushed on our victories, and
this by our own strength, our own conduct and
courage, our own wealth and military force? Who
then need we be afraid of? Who then need we make
court to? Not God himself.” Note, Prosperity
and success commonly make men secure and haugh¬
ty; and those that have done much think they can
do any thing, any thing without God, nay, any
thing against him: But those who trust in their own
strength rejoice in a thing of naught, and so they
will find. Probably they did not say this with their
lips, totidem verbis, but it was the language of their
hearts, and of their actions, both which God under¬
stands.
IV. How easily and effectually this burthen shall
be brought upon them, v. 14. He that brings it
upon them is the Lord, the God of hosts, who both
may do, and can do, what he pleaseth; who has all
creatures at his command, and who, when he has
work to do, will not want instruments to do it with;
though they are the house of Israel, yet he will
raise up against them a nation which they feared
not, but had many a time hoped in, even the Assy¬
rians, and this nation shall afflict them, bring them
into straits, and put them to pain, from the enter¬
ing in of Hamath, in the north, to the river of the
•wilderness, the river of Egypt, Sihor, or Nile, in
the south. The whole nation hath shared in the
iniquity, and therefore must expect to share in the
calamity. Note, When men are any way instru¬
ments of affliction to us, we must see God raising
them up against us, for they are his hand, the rod,
the sword in his hand. The Lord hath bidden Shi-
mei curse David.
CHAP. VII.
In this chapter, we have, I. God contending with Israel,
by the judgments brought on their land. 1. They are
threatened with lesser judgments, but are reprieved, and
the judgments turned away at the prayer of Amos, v.
1 . . 6. 2. God’s patience is at length worn out by their
obstinacy, and they are rejected, and sentenced to utter
ruin, y. 7 . .9. II. Israel contending with God, by the
opposition given to his prophet. 1. Amaziah informs
against Amos, (v. 10, 11.) and does what he can to rid
the country of him as a public nuisance, (v. 12, 13.) 2.
Amos justifies himself in what he did as a prophet, (v.
14, 15.) and denounces the judgments of God against
Amaziah his prosecutor, (v. 16, 17.) for when the con¬
test is between God and man, it is easy to foresee, it is
very easy to foretell, who will come oil' with the worst
of it.
1. npHUS hath the Lord God shewed
JL unto me; and, behold, he formed
grasshoppers in the beginning of the shoot¬
ing up of the latter growth; and, lo, it was
the latter growth after the king’s mowings.
2. And it came to pass, that when they had
made an end of eating the grass of the land,
then I said, O Lord God, forgive, I beseech
thee; by whom shall Jacob arise? for he is
small. 3. The Lord repented for this : it
shall not be, saith the Lord. 4. Thus hath
the Lord God shewed unto me ; and, be¬
hold, the Lord God called to contend by
fire, and it devoured the great deep, and did
eat up a part. 5. Then said I, O Lord
God, cease, I beseech thee; by whom shall
Jacob arise? for he is small. G. The Lord
repented for this: This also shall not be,
saith the Lord God. 7. Thus lie shewed
me ; and, behold, the Lord stood upon a
wall made by a plumb-line, with a plumb-
line in his hand. 8. And the Lord said
unto me, Amos, what seest thou ? And I
said, A plumb-line. Then said the Lord,
Behold, I will set a plumb-line in the midst
of my people Israel: I will not again pass
by them any more : 9. And the high places
of Isaac shall be desolate, and the sanctua¬
ries of Israel shall be laid waste ; and I will
rise against the house of Jeroboam with the
sword.
We here see that God bears long, but that he
will not bear always, with a provoking people; both
these God here showetj the prophet; Thus hath the
Lord God showed me, v. 1, 4, 7. He showed him
what was present, foreshowed him what was to
come; gave him the knowledge both of what he did,
and of what he designed; for the Lord God reveals
his secret to his seri'ants the prophets, ch. iii. 7.
I. W e have here two instances of God’s sparing
mercy, remembered in the midst of judgment, the
narratives of which are so like one another, that
they will be best considered together, and very con¬
siderable they are.
1. God is here coming forth against this sinful
nation, first by one judgment, and then by another.
(1.) He begins with the judgment of famine; the
prophet saw this in vision. He saw God forming
grasshoppers, or locusts, and bringing them' up upon
the land, to eat up the fruits of it, and so to strip it
of its beauty, and starve its inhabitants, v. 1. God
formed these grasshoppers, not only as they were
his creatures, (am' much of the wisdom and power
of God appears in the formation of minute animals,
as much in the structure of an ant as of an elephant,
98 r
AMOS, VII.
but as they were instruments of his wrath. God is
said to frame evil against a sinful people, Jer. xviii.
11. These grasshoppers were framed on purpose
to eat up. the grass of the land; and vast numbers of
them were prepared accordingly. T hey were sent in
the beginning of the shooting up of the tatter growth,
after the king’s mowings. See here how the judg¬
ment was mitigated by the mercy that went before,
it. God could have sent these insects to eat up the
grass at the beginning of the first growth, in the
spring, when the grass was most needed, was most
plentiful, and was the best in its kind; but God suf¬
fered that to grow, and suffered them to gather it in;
the king’s mowings were safely housed, for the king
himself is served from the field, (Eccl. v. 9.) and
could as ill be without his mowings as without any
other branch of his revenues. Uzziah was now king
of Judah, who loved husbandry, 2 Chron. xxvi. 10.
But the grasshoppers were commissioned to eat up
only .the ' latter growth, the edgrew, (we call it in
the country,) the after-gvass, which is of little va¬
lue, in comparison with the former.
The mercies which God gives us, and continues
to us, are more valuable than those he removes
from us; which is a good reason why we should
be thankful, and not complain. The remem¬
brance of the mercies of the former growth should
make us submissive to the will of God, when we
meet with disappointments in the latter growth.
The prophet, in vision, saw this judgment prevail¬
ing far. These grasshoppers eat up the grass of the
land, which should have been for the cattle; which
the owners must of course suffer by. Some under¬
stand this figuratively, of a wasting, destroying army
brought upon them. In the days of Jeroboam, the
kingdom of Israel began to recover itself from the
desolations it had been under in the former reigns;
(2 Kings xiv. 25.) the latter growth shot up, after
the mowings of the kings of Syria, which we read
of, 2 Kings xiii. 3. And then God commissioned the
king of Assyria with an army of caterpillars to
come upon them, and lay them waste; that nation
spoken of, ch. vi. 14. which afflicted them from the
entering of Hamath to the river of the wilderness,
which seems to refer to 2 Kings xiv. 25. where Jero¬
boam is said to have restored their coast from the
entering of Hamath to the sea of the plain. God
can then bring all to ruin, when we think all is in
some good measure repaired.
(2.) He proceeds to the judgment of fire, to show
that he has many arrows in his quiver, many ways
of humbling a sinful nation; (y. 4.) The Lord God
called to contend by fire. He contended; for God’s
judgments upon a people are his controversies with
them ; in them he prosecutes his action against them ;
and his controversies are neither causeless nor
groundless. He called to contend; he did by his
prophets give them notice of his controversy, and
drew up a declaration, setting forth the meaning of
it. Or, he called for his angels, or other ministers
of his justice, that were to be employed in it. A
fire was kindled among them; by which is meant,
either a great drought, the heat of the sun, which
should have warmed the earth, scorched it, and
burnt up the roots of the grass which the locusts
had eaten the spires of ; or, a raging fever, which
was as a fire in their bones, which devoured and
ate up multitudes: or, lightning, fire from heaven,
which consumed their houses, as Sodom and Go¬
morrah were consumed ; (ch. i v. 1 1. ) or, it was the
burning of their cities, either by accident, or by the
hand of the enemy, for fire anti sword used to go
together; thus were the towns wasted, as the coun¬
try was by the grasshoppers. This fire which God
called for, did terrible execution; it devoured the
great deep, as the fire that fell from heaven on Eli¬
jah’s altar, licked up the water that was in the
trench. Though the water designed for the stop¬
ping and quenching of this fire was as the water of
the great deep, yet it devoured it; for who, or what,
can stand before a fire kindled by the wrath of God ?
It did cat up a part, a great part, of the cities
where it was sent; or, it was as the fire at Taberah,
which ronsumrd the uttermost parts of the camp;
(Numb. xi. 1.) when some were overthrown, others
were as brands plucked out of the fire. All de¬
served to be devoured, but it ate up only a part, for
God does not stir up all his wrath.
2. The prophet goes forth to meet him in the way
of his judgments, and by prayer seeks to turn away
his wrath, v. 2. When he saw, in vision, what
dreadful work these caterpillars made, that they
had eaten up in a manner all the grass of the land,
(he foresaw they would do so, if suffered to go on,)
then he said, 0 Lord God, forgive, I beseech thee ;
(y. 2.) cease , I beseech thee, v. 5. He that foretold
the judgment in his preaching to the people, yet de¬
precated it in his intercessions for them. Jde is a
prophet, and he shall pray for thee. It was the bu
siness of prophets to pray for these whom they pro¬
phesied to, and so to make it appear that though
they denounced, they did not desire, the woful day.
Therefore God showed his prophets the evils com¬
ing, that they might befriend the people, not only
by warning them, but by praying for them, and
standing in the gap, to turn away God’s wrath,
as Moses, that great prophet, often did. Now ob¬
serve here,
(1.) The prophet’s prayer; O Lord God, [l.j
Forgive, I beseech thee, and take away the sin, v.
2. He sees sin at the bottom of the trouble, and
therefore concludes that the pardon of sin must be
at the bottom of the deliverance, and prays for that
in the first place. Note, Whatever calamity we
are under, personal or public, the forgiveness of sin
is that which we should be most earnest with God
for. [2.] Cease, I beseech thee, and take away the
judgment; cease the fire, cease the controversy;
cause thine anger towards us to cease. This follows
upon the forgiveness of sin. Take away the cause,
and the effect will cease. Note, Those whom God
contends with, will soon find what need they have
to cry for a cessation of arms ; and there are hopes
that though God has begun, and proceeded far, in
his controversy, yet it may be obtained.
(2.) The prophet’s plea to enforce this prayer;
By whom shall Jacob arise, for he is small ? v. 2.
And it is repeated, (y. 5.) and yet no vain repeti¬
tion. Christ, in his agony, prayed earnestly, say-
ing the same words again and again. [1.] It is Ja¬
cob that he is interceding for, the professing people
of God, called by his name, calling on his name,
the seed of Jacob, his chosen, and in covenant with
him. It is Jacob’s case that is in this prayer spread
before the God of Jacob. [2.] Jacob is small, very
small already, weakened and brought low by for¬
mer judgments; and therefore if these come, he
will be quite ruined, and brought to nothing. The
people are few, the dust of Jacob is now soon count¬
ed, which once was innumerable. Those few are
feeble ; (it is the worm Jacob, Isa. xli. 14.) they are
unable to help themselves or one another. Sin will
soon make a great people small; will diminish the
numerous, impoverish the plenteous, and weaken
the courageous. [3.] By whom shall he arise ? He
is fallen, and cannot help himself up, and he has no
friend to help him, none to raise him, unless the
hand of God do it; what will become of him then,
if the hand that should raise him be stretched
out against him? Note, When the state of God’s
church is very low and very helpless, it is proper
to be recommended by our prayers to God’s pity.
3. God graciously lets fall his controversy, in an¬
swer to the prophet’s prayer, once and again; (y. 3.)
982
AMOS, VII.
The Lord repented for this; he did not change
his mind, for he is in one mind, and who can turn
him? But he changed his way, took another course,
and determined to deal in mercy, and not in wrath.
He said, It shall not be. And again, (y. 6.) This
also shall not be. The caterpillars were counter¬
manded, were remanded, a stop put to the progress
of the fire, and thus a reprieve was granted. See
the power of prayer, of effectual, fervent prayer,
and how much it avails, what great things it pre¬
vails for! A stop has many a time been put to a
judgment by making supplication to the Judge.
This was not the first time that Israel’s life was
begged, and so saved. See what a blessing praying
people, praying prophets, are to a land, and there¬
fore how highly they ought to be valued. Ruin had
many a time broken in, if they had not stood in the
breach, and made good the pass. See how ready,
how swift, God is to show mercy, how he waits to
be gracious. Amos moves for a reprieve, and obtains
it, because God inclines to grant it, and looks about to
see if there be any that will intercede for it, Isa. lix.
16.- Nor are former reprieves objected against fur¬
ther instances of mercy, but are rather encourage¬
ments to pray and hope for them. This also shall
not be, any more than that. It is the glory of God,
that he multiplies to pardon, that he spares, and
forgives, to more than seventy times seven times.
II. We have here the rejection of those at last,
who had been often reprieved, and yet never re¬
claimed, reduced to straits, and yet never reduced
to their God and their duty. This is represented to
the prophet by a vision, (v. 7, 8. ) and an express
prediction of utter ruin, v. 9.
1. The vision is of a plumb-line, a line with a
plummet at the end of it, such as masons and brick¬
layers use, to run up a wall by, that they may work
it straight and true, and by rule. (1.) Israel was a
wall, a strong wall, which God himself had reared,
as a bulwark, or wall of defence, to his sanctuary,
which he set up among them. The Jewish church
says of herself, (Cant. viii. 10.) I am a wall, and
my breasts like towers. This avail was made by a
plumb-line, very exact and firm. So happy was its
constitution, so well compacted, and every thing
so well ordered according to the model; it had
long stood fast as a wall of brass; but (2.) God
now stands upon this wall, not to hold it up, but
to tread it down; or rather, to consider what he
should do with it; he stands upsn it with a plumb-
line in his hand, to take measure of it, that it may
appear to be a bowing, bulging wall, Recti est in¬
dex sui et obliqui — This plumb-line would disco¬
ver where it was crooked. Thus God would bring
the people of Israel to the trial, would discover their
wickedness, and show wherein they erred; and he
would likewise bring his judgments upon them ac¬
cording to equity, would set a plumb-line in the
midst of them, to mark how far their wall must be
pulled down; as David measured the Moabites with
a line, (2 Sam. viii. 2.) to put them to death. And
when God is coming to the ruin of a people, he is
said to lay judgment to the line, and righteousness
to the plummet; for when he punishes, it is with
exactness. It is now determined, I will not again
pass by them any more ; they shall not be spared
and reprieved as they have been; their punishment
shall not be turned away, ch. i. 3. Note, God’s pa¬
tience, which has long been sinned against, will at
length be sinned away ; and the time will come
when those that have been spared often, shall be
no longer spared. My spirit shall not always strive.
After frequent reprieves, yet a day of execution will
come.
2. The prediction is of utter ruin, v. 9. (1.) The
body of the people shall be destroyed, with all those
things that were their ornament and defence. They
are here called, Isaac as well as Israel ; the house
of Isaac ; (v. 16. ) some think, in allusion to the sig¬
nification of Isaac’s name; it is laughter ; they shall
become a jest among all their neighbours; they
shall laugh at them. The desolation shall fasten
upon their high places, and their sanctuaries ; ei¬
ther their castles, or their temples, both built on
high places; their castles they thought safe, and
their temples sacred as sanctuaries ; these shall be
laid waste, to punish them for their idolatry, and to
make them ashamed of their carnal confidences,
which were the two things for which God had a
controversy with them. When these were made
desolate, they might read their sin and folly in their
punishment. (2.) The royal family shall sink first,
as an earnest ol the ruin of the whole kingdom; 1
will rise against the house of Jeroboam, Jeroboam
the second, who was now king of the ten tribes; his
family was extirpated in his son Zccharias, who
was slain with the sword before the people, by Shal-
lum, who conspired against him, 2 Kings xv. 10.
How unrighteous soever the instruments were,
God was righteous, and in them God rose up
against that idolatrous family. Even king’s houses
will be no shelter against the sword of God’s wrath.
10. Then Amaziah, the priest of Beth-el,
sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying,
Amos hath conspired against thee in the
midst of the house of Israel ; the land is not
able to bear all his words. 11. For thus
Amos saith, Jeroboam shall die by the
sword, and Israel shall surely be led away
captive out of their own land. 12. Also
Amaziah said unto Amos, O thou seer, go,
flee thee away into the land of Judah, and
there eat bread, and prophesy there : 13.
But prophesy not again any more at Beth¬
el : for it is the king’s chapel, and it is the
king’s court. 14. Then answered Amos,
and said to Amaziah, I teas no prophet, nei¬
ther was I a prophet’s son; but I was a
herdman, and a gatherer of sycamore-fruit :
1 5. And the Lord took me as I followed
the flock, and the Lord said unto me, Go,
prophesy unto my people Israel. 16. Now,
therefore, hear thou the word of the Lord :
Thou sayest. Prophesy not against Israel,
and drop not thy word against the house of
Isaac. 1 7. Therefore thus saith the Lord,
Thy wife shall be a harlot in the city, and
thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the
sword, and thy land shall be divided by
line; and thou shalt die in a polluted land :
and Israel shall surely go into captivity forth
of his land.
One would have expected that what we met with
in the former part of the chapter, should, 1. Have
awakened the people to repentance, when they saw
that therefore they were reprieved, that they might
have space to repent, and that they could mt obtain
a pardon unless they did repent. 2. That it should
have endeared the prophet Amos to them, who had
not only showed his good will to them, in praying
against the judgments that invaded them, but had
prevailed to turn away those judgments; which, if
they had had any sense of gratitude, would have
gained him an interest in their affections; but it fell
out quite contrary; they continue impenitent, and
983
AMOS, VII.
1 he next news we hear of Amos, is, that he is perse-
secuted. Note, As it is the praise of great saints,
that they pray for those that are enemies to them,
so it is tlie shame of many great sinners, that they
are enemies to those who pray for them, Ps. xxxv.
13, 15. cix. 4. We have here,
1. The malicious information brought to the king
against the prophet Amos, v. 10, 11. The informer
was Amaziah the priest of Bethel , the chief of the
priests that ministered to the golden calf there, the
president of Bethel, (so some read it,) that had the
principal hand in civil affairs there. He complained
against Amos, not only because he prophesied with¬
out license from him, but because he prophesied
against his altars, which would soon be deserted
and demolished, if Amos’s preaching could but have
gained credit. Thus the shrine-makers at Ephesus
hated Paul, because his preaching tended to spoil
their trade. Note, Great pretenders to sanctity are
commonly the worst enemies to those who are really
sanctified. Priests have been the most bitter perse¬
cutors. Amaziah brings an information to Jeroboam
against Amos. Observe,
1. The crime he is charged with, is no less than
treason; “Amos has conspired against thee, to de¬
pose and murder thee, he aims at succeeding thee,
and therefore is taking the most effectual way to
weaken thee. He sows the seeds of sedition in the
hearts of the good subjects of the king, and makes
them disaffected to him and his government, that
he may draw them by degrees from their allegi¬
ance; upon this account the land is not able to bear
his words.” It is slily insinuated to the king, that
the country was exasperated against him, and it is
given in as their sense, that his preaching was into¬
lerable, and such as nobody could be reconciled to,
such as the times would by no means bear, that is,
the men of the times would not. Both the impudence
of his supposed treason, and the ill influence it would
have upon the country, are intimated in that part
of the charge, that he conspired against the king in
the midst of the house of Israel. Note, It is no new
thing for the accusers of the brethren to misrepre¬
sent them as enemies to the king and kingdom, as
traitors to their prince, and troublers of the land,
when really they are the best friends to both. And
it is common for designing men to assert that as the
sense of the country, which is far from being so.
And yet here, I doubt, it was too true, that the
people could not bear plain dealing with any more
than the priests.
2. The words laid in tht ■'iu.ictment, for the sup¬
port of this charge; ( v . 11.) Amos says, and they
have witnesses ready to prove it, Jeroboam shall
die by the sword, and Israel shall be led away cap¬
tive ; and hence they infer that he is an enemy to
his king and countin', and not to be tolerated. See
the malice of Amaziah; he does not tell the king
how Amos had interceded for Israel, and by his in¬
tercession had turned away, first one judgment and
then another, and did not let fall his intercession till
he saw the decree was gone forth: he does not tell
him that these threatenings were conditional, and
that he had often assured them, that if they would
repent and reform, the ruin should be prevented.
Nay, it was not true that he said, Jeroboam shall
die' by the sword, nor did he so die, (2 Kings xiv.
28.) but that God would rise against the house of
Jeroboam with the sword, v. 9. God’s prophets
and ministers have often had occasion to make Da¬
vid’s complaint, (Ps. lvi. 5.) Every day they wrest
my words. But shall it be made the watchman’s
crime, when he sees the sword coming, to give
warning to the people, that they may get themselves
secured? Or the physician’s crime, to tell his pa¬
tient of the danger of his disease, that he may use
means for the cure of it? What enemies are fool¬
ish men to themselves, to their own peace, to their
best friends! It does not appear that Jeroboam
took any notice of this information; perhaps he
reverenced a prophet, and stood mere in awe ot
the divine authority than Amaziah his priest did.
II. The method he used to persuade Amos to
withdraw, and tpiit the country; (x>. 12, 13.) when
he could not gain his point with the king to have
Amos imprisoned, banished, or put to death, or at
least to have him frightened into silence or flight,
he tried what he could do by fair means to get rid
of him; insinuated himself into his acquaintance,
and with all the arts of wheedling endeavoured to
persuade him to go prophesy in the land of Judah,
and not at Bethel. He owns him to be a seer, and
does not pretend to enjoin him silence, but suggests
to him, 1. That Bethel was not a proper place for
him to exercise his ministry in, for it was the king's
chapel, or sanctuary, where lie had his idols, and
their altars and priests; and it was the king’s court ,
or the house of the kingdom, where the royal family
resided, and where were set the thrones of judg¬
ment; and therefore prophesy not any more here.
And why not? (1.) Because Amos is too plain and
blunt a preacher for the court and the king’s cha¬
pel. They that wear silk and fine clothing, and
speak silken soft words, are fit ior kings’ palaces.
(2.) Because the worship that is in the king’s cha¬
pel will be a continual vexation and trouble to
Amos, let him therefore get far enough from it, and
what the eye sees not, the heart grieves not for.
(3.) Because it was not fit that the king and his
house should be affronted in their own court and
chapel by the reproofs and threatenings which Amos
was continually teazing them with in the name of
the Lord; as if it were the prerogative of the prince,
and the privilege of the peers, when they are run¬
ning headlong upon a precipice, not to be told of
their danger. (4. ) Because he could not expect any
countenance or encouragement there, but, on the
contrary, to be bantered and ridiculed by some, and
to be threatened and brow-beaten by others; how¬
ever, he could not think to make any converts there,
or to persuade any from that idolatry which was
supported by the authority and example of the king.
To preach his doctrine there, was but (as we say)
to run his head against a post; and therefore pro¬
phesy no more there. But, 2. He persuades him,
that the land of Judah was the fittest place for him
to set up in; Flee thee away thither with all speed,
and there eat bread, and pro/ihesy there ; there thou
wilt be safe, there thou wilt be welcome, the king’s
court and chapel there are on thy side; the prophets
there will second thee, the priests and princes will
take notice of thee, and allow thee an honourable
maintenance. See here, (1.) How willing wicked
men are to get clear of their faithful reprovers, and
how ready to say to the seers, See not, or see not for
us; the two witnesses were a torment to them that
dwelt on the earth, (Rev. xi. 10.) and it were in¬
deed a pity that men should be tormented before the
time, but that it is in order to the preventing of
eternal torment. (2.) How apt worldly men are to
measure others by themselves; Amaziah, as priest,
aimed at nothing but the profits of his place, and he
thought Amos, as a prophet, had the same views,
and therefore advises him to prophesy there where
he might eat bread, where he might be sure to have
as much as he chose; whereas Amos was to pro¬
phesy where God appointed him, and where there
was most need of him, not where he would get
most money. Note, Those that make gain their
godliness, and are governed by the hopes of wealth
and preferment themselves, are ready to think
these the most powerful inducements with others
also.
III. The reply which Amos made to these sug
984
AMOS, VIII.
gestions of Amaziah’s; he did not consult with flesh
and blood, nor was it his care to enrich himself, but
to make full proof of his ministry, and to be found
faithful in the discharge of it, not to sleep in a
whole skin, but to keep a good conscience; and
therefore he resolves to abide by his post, and, in
answer to Amaziah,
1. He justifies himself in his constant adherence
to his work, and to his place; (u. 14, 15.) and that
which he is sure will not only bear him out, but
bind him to it, is, that he had a divine warrant and
commission for it; I was no prophet, or prophet’s
son, neither born or bred to the office, not originally
designed for a prophet, as Samuel and Jeremiah,
not educated in the schools of the prophets, as many
others were; but I was a herdman, a keeper of cat¬
tle, and a gatherer of sycamore-fruit. Our syca¬
mores bear no fruit, but, it seems, theirs did, which
Amos gathered, either for his cattle, or for himself
and his family, or to sell; he was a plain country¬
man, bred up and employed in countiy work, and
used to country fare. He followed the flocks as well
as the herds, and thence God took him, and bid him
go prophesy to his people Israel, deliver to them
such messages as he should from time to time re¬
ceive from the Lord. God made him a prophet,
and a prophet to them; appointed him his work, and
appointed him his post. Therefore he ought not to
be silenced, for, (1.) He could produce a divine
commission for what he did; he did not run before
he was sent, but pleads, as Paul, that he was called
to be an apostle; and men will find it is at their peril
if they contradict and oppose any that come in God’s
name; if they say to his seers, See not, or silence
those whom he has bid speak, such fight against
God. An affront done to an ambassador is an affront
to the prince that sends him. Those that have a
warrant from God, ought not to fear the face of man.
(2.) The mean character he wore before he re¬
ceived that commission, strengthened his warrant,
so far was it from weakening it. [1.] He had no
thoughts at all of ever being a prophet, and there¬
fore his prophesying could not be imputed to a raised
expectation, or a heated imagination, but purely to
a divine impulse. [2.] He was not educated or in¬
structed in the art or mystery of prophesying, and
therefore he must have his abilities for it immedi¬
ately from God, which is an undeniable proof that
he had his mission from him. The apostles, being
originally unlearned and ignorant men, evidenced
that they owed their knowledge to their having been
with Jesus, Acts iv. 13. When the treasure is put
into such earthen vessels, it is thereby made to ap¬
pear that the excellency of the /tower is of God, and
not of man, 2 Cor. i v.7. [3.] He had an honest
calling, by which he could comfortably maintain
himself and his family, and therefore did not need
to prophesy for bread, as Amaziah suggested, ( 'v .
12.) did not take it up as a trade to live by, but as a
trust to honour God and do good with. [4.] He
had all his days been accustomed to a plain, homely
way of living, among poor husbandmen, and never
affected either gaieties or dainties, and therefore
would not have thrust himself sonearthe king’s court
and chapel, if the business God had called him to,
had not called him thither. [5. ] Having been so
meanly bred, he could not have had courage to
speak to kings and great men, especially to speak
such bold and provoking things to them, if he had
not been animated by a greater spirit than his own.
If God that sent him had not strengthened him, he
could not thus have set his face as a flint, Isa. 1. 7.
Note, God often chooses th eweak ana foolish things
of this world to confound the wise and mighty; and
a herdman of Tekoa puts to shame a priest of Bethel,
when he receives from God authority and ability to
act for him.
2. He condemns Amaziah for the opposition h<
gave him, and denounces the judgments of Gut-
against him; not from any private resentment or re¬
venge, but in the name of the Lord, and by autho¬
rity from him, v. 16, 17. Amaziah would not suffer
Amos to preach at all, and therefore he is particu¬
larly ordered to preach against him; now therefore
Viear thou the word of the Lord, hear it and tremble.
Those that cannot bear general woes, may expect
woes of their own. The sin he is charged with is,
forbidding Amos to prophesy; we do not find that
he beat him or put him in the stocks, only he en¬
joined him silence. Prophesy not against Israel, and
drop Jiot thy word against the house of Isaac; he
must not only not thunder against them, but he must
not so much as drop a word against them; he cannot
bear, no, not the most gentle distilling of that rain,
that small rain. Let him therefore hear his doom.
(1.) For the opposition he gave to Amos, God
will bring ruin upon himself and his family. This
was the sin that filled the measure of his iniquity.
[1.] He shall have no comfort in any of his rela¬
tions, but be afflicted in those that were nearest to
him. His wife shall be a harlot; either she shall be
forcibly abused by the soldiers, as the Levite’s con¬
cubine by the men of Gibeah, (they ravish the wo¬
men in Zion, Lam. v. 11.) or she shall herself wick¬
edly play the harlot, which, though her sin, her
great sin, would be his affliction, his great affliction
and reproach, and a just punishment upon hinvfor
promoting spiritual whoredom. Sometimes the sins
of our relations are to be looked upon as the judg¬
ments of God upon us. His children, though they
keep honest, yet shall not keep alive; His sons and
his daughters shall fall by the sword of war, and he
himself shall live to see it. He had trained them
tip in iniquity, and therefore God will cut them off
in it. [2.] He shall be stripped of all his estate, it
shall fall into the hands of the enemy, and be di¬
vided by line, toy lot among the soldiers. What is
ill got will not be long kept. [3.] He shall himself
perish in a strange country, not in the land of Is¬
rael, which had been holiness to the Lord, but in a
polluted land, in a heathen country, the fittest place
for such a heathen to end his days in, that hated and
silenced God’s prophets, and contributed so much
to the polluting of his own land with idolatry.
(2.) Notwithstanding the opposition he gave to
Amos, God will bring ruin upon the land and nation;
he was accused for saying, Israel shall be led away
captive, (y. 11.) but he stands to it, and repeats it;
for the unbelief of man shall not make the word of
God of no effect; the burthen of the word of the
Lord may be striven with, but it cannot be shaken
off; let Amaziah rage, and fret, and say what he
will to the contrary, Israel shall surely go into cap¬
tivity forth of his land. Note, It is to no purpose
to contend with the judgments of God; for when
God judges he will overcome. Stopping the mouth
of God’s ministers will not stop the progress of
God’s word, for it shall not return void.
CHAP. VIII.
Sinful times are here attended with sorrowful limes, so lie
cessary is the connexion between them; it is threatened
here again and again that the laughter shall be turned
into mourning. I. By the vision of a basket of summer-
fruit is signified the hastening on of the ruin threatened,
(v. 1. .3.) and that shall change their note. II. Oppres¬
sors are here called to an account for their abusing of the
poor; and their destruction is foretold, which will set
them mourning, v. 4.. 10. III. A famine of the word
of God is here made the punishment of a people that go
a whoring after other gods; ,(v. 11. .14.) yet for this,
which is the most mournful judgment of all, they are
not here brought in mourning.
1. rpHUS hath the Lord God shewed
JL unto me: and, behold, a basket o<
AMOS, VIII. 906
summer-fruit. 2. And lie said, Amos, what
seest thou? And 1 said, A basket of sum¬
mer-fruit. Then said the Lord unto me,
The end is come upon my people of Israel;
1 will not again pass by them any more. 3.
And the songs of the temples shall be bowl¬
ings in that day, saith the Lord God: there
shall be many dead bodies in every place ;
they shall cast them forth with silence.
The great reason why sinners defer their repent¬
ance de die in diem— from day to day, is, because
they think God thus defers his judgments, and there
is no song wherewith they so effectually sing them¬
selves asleep as that, My Lord delays his coming;
and therefore God, by his prophets, frequently re¬
presents to Israel the day of lus wrath not only as
just and certain, but as very jiear and hastening on
apace; so he does in these verses.
1. Tiie approach of the threatened ruin is repre¬
sented by a basket of summer-fruit which Amos
saw in a vision; for the Lord showed it him, ( v . 1.)
and obliged him to take notice of it; (x>. 2.) Amos,
what seest thou? Note, It concerns us to inquire
whether we do indeed see that which God has been
pleased to show us, and hear what he has been
pleased to say to us; for many a thing God speaks,
God shows once, yea, twice, and men //erceive it not.
Are .we in the midst of the visions of the Almighty?
Let us consider what we see. He saw a basket of
summer-fruit gathered and ready to be eafen ;
which signified, (1.) That they were rife for de¬
struction, rotten ripe, and it was time for God to
put in the sickle of his judgments, and to cut them
off; nay, the thing was in effect done already, and
they lay ready to be eaten up. (2.) That the year
of God’s patience was drawing towards a conclu¬
sion ; it was autumn with them, and their year would
quickly have its period in a dismal winter. (3.)
Those we call summer fruits that will not keep till
winter, but must be used immediately; an emblem
of this people, that had nothing solid or consistent
in them.
2. The intent and meaning of this vision is no
more than this. It signifies that the end is come ujion
my f ieople Israel. The word that signifies the end,
is ketz, which is of near affinity with kitz, the word
used for summer-fruit. God had long spared them,
and borne with them, but now his patience is tired
out: they are indeed his / ieople Israel, but their end,
that latter end they had been so often reminded of,
but had so long forgotten, is now come. Note, If
sinners do not make an end of sin, God will make an
end of them, yea, though they be his people Israel.
What was said, ch. vii. 8. is here repeated as God’s
determined resolution ; I will not again pass by them
any more, they shall not be connived at as they have
been, nor the judgment coming turned away.
3. The consequence of this shall be a universal
desolation; (y. 3.) When the end is come, sorrow
and death shall ride in triumph, they are accustom¬
ed to go together, and shall at length go away toge¬
ther, when in heaven there shall be no more death,
nor sorrow, Rev. xxi. 4. But here in a sinful world,
in a sinful nation, (1.) Sorrow reigns; reigns to that
degree, that the songs of the temple shall be bowl¬
ings ; the songs of God’s temple at Jerusalem, or,
rather, of their idol-temples, where they used,
when, in honour of the golden calves, they had
eaten and drunk, to rise up to play. They were
perhaps wanton, profane songs ; and it is certain
that sooner or later those will be turned into bowl¬
ings. Or if they had a sound or show of piety and
religion, yet, not coming from the heart nor being
sung to the glory of God, he valued them not, but
Vol. IV. — 6 I
would justly turn them into bowlings. Note, Mourn¬
ing will follow sinful mirth, yea, and sacred mirth
too, if it be not sincere. And when God’s judg¬
ments are abroad, they will soon turn the greatest
joy into the greatest heaviness; the temple-songs,
which used to sound so pleasant, not only into sighs
and groans, but into loud bowlings which sound dis¬
mally. They shall come to the temple, and, finding
that in ruins, there they shall howl most bitterly.
(2.) Death reigns; reigns to that degree, that there
shall be dead bodies, many dead bodies in every
place, (Ps. cx. 6.) slain by sword or pestilence; so
many, that the survivors shall not bury them with
the usual pomp and solemnity of funerals, they shall
not so much as have the bell tolled, but they shall
cast them forth with silence; shall bury them in the
dead of the night, and charge all about them to be
silent, and to take no notice of it; either because
they have not wherewithal to bear the charges of a
funeral, or because, the killing disease being infec¬
tious, none will come near them; or for fear the
enemy should be provoked, if they should be known
to lament their slain. Or, they shall charge them¬
selves and one another silently to submit to the hand
of God in these desolating judgments, and not to re¬
pine and quarrel with him. Or, it may be taken
not for a patient but a sullen silence; their hearts
shall be hardened, and all these judgments shall not
extort from them one word of acknowledgment,
either of God’s righteousness or their own unright¬
eousness.
4. Hear this, O ye that swallow up the
needy, even to make the poor of the land
to fail, 5. Saying, When will the new moon
be gone, that we may sell coin? and the
sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, mak¬
ing the ephah small, and the shekel great,
and falsifying the balances by deceit? 6.
That we may buy the poor for silver, and
the needy for a pair of shoes ; yea , and sell
the refuse of the wheat? 7. The Lord hath
sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely
I will never forget any of their works. 8.
Shall not the land tremble for this, and
everyone mourn thatdwelleth therein? and
it shall rise up wholly as a flood; and it
shall lie cast out and drowned, as by the
flood of Egypt. 9. And it shall come to
pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that 1
will cause the sun to go down at noon, and
I will darken the earth in the clear day :
10. And 1 will turn your feasts into mourn¬
ing, and all your songs into lamentation ;
and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins,
and baldness upon every head ; and I will
make it as the mourning of an only son , and
the end thereof as a bitter day.
God is here contending with proud oppressors,
and showing them, I. The heinousness of the sin
they were guilty of; in short, they had the charac¬
ter of the unjust judge, (Luke xviii. 2.) that neither
feared God nor regarded man.
1. Observe them in their devotions, and you will
say, “ They have no reverence for God.” Bad as
they are they do indeed keep up a show and form
of godliness, they observe the sabbath and the new
moon, they put some difference between those days
and other days; but they were soon weary of them,
and had no affection at all to them, for their hearts.
086
AMOS, VIII.
were wholly set upon the world and the things of it.
It is a sad character which this gives of them, that
they said, When will the sabbath be gone, that we
may sell corn ? Yet it is still the character of many
that are called Christians. (1.) They were weary
of sabbath-days; When will they be gone? They
were weary of the restraints of the sabbaths and
the new moons, and therefore wished them over,
because they might do no servile wor/c therein.
They were weary of the wor/c and business of the
sabbaths and new moons, snuffed at it, (Mai. i. 13.)
and were as Doeg, detained before the Lord; (1 Sam.
xxi. 7. ) they would rather have been any where
else than about God’s altars. Note, Sabbath-days
and sabbath- work are a burthen to carnal hearts,
that are always afraid of doing too much for God
and eternity. Can we spend our time better than
in communion with God? And how much time do
we spend pleasantly with the world? Will not the
sabbath be gone before we have done the work of it,
and reaped the gains of it? Why then should we be
in such haste to part with it? (2.) They were fond
of market-days; they longed to be selling corn, and
setting forth wheat. When they were employed in
religious services, they were thinking of their mar¬
ketings, their hearts went after their covetousness,
(Ezek. xxxiii. 31. ) and thus made my Father’s house
a house of merchandise, nay, a den of thieves.
Therefore they were weary of holy duties, because
their worldly business stood still the while; in which
they were as in their element, but in God’s sanctu¬
ary as a fish upon dry ground. Note, Those are
strangers to God, and enemies to themselves, that
love market-days better than sabbath-days, that
would rather be selling corn than worshipping God.
2. Observe them in their conversations, and you
will see they have no regard to man; and this com¬
monly follows upon the former; those that have lost
the savour of piety, will not long retain the sense of
common honesty. These here neither do justly,
nor love mercy.
(1.) They cheat those they deal with. When
they sell their corn, they impose upon the buyer,
both in giving out the goods, and in receiving the
money for them. They jneasure him the corn by
their own measure, and pretend to give him what
he agreed for, but they make the efihah small.
The measure is scanty, and not statute measure,
and so they wrong him that way; when they receive
his money, they must weigh it in their own scales,
by their own weights, and their shekel they weigh
by, is above standard; they make the shekel great,
so that the money, being found too light, must have
more added to it; and so they cheat that way too,
and this under colour and pretence of exactness in
doing justice. By such wicked practices as these,
men show such a greediness of the world, such a
love of themselves, such a contempt of mankind in
general, of the particular persons they deal with,
and of the sacred laws of justice, as speak them to
have in their hearts neither the fear nor the love of
that God who has so plainly said that false weights
and balances are an abomination to him. Another
instance of their fraudulent dealing is, that they sell
the refuse of the wheat, and, taking the advantage
of their neighbours’ ignorance or necessity, make
them take it at the same price at which they sell
the finest of the wheat.
(2.) They are barbarous and unmerciful to the
poor; they swallow ufi the needy, and make the
floor of the land to fail. [1.] They valued them¬
selves so much on their wealth, that they looked
upon all that were poor with the highest contempt
imaginable; they hated them, could not endure
them, but abandoned them; and therefore did what
they could to make them cease; not by relieving
them to make them cease to be poor, but by ban¬
ishing and destroying them, to make them cease to
be, or, at least, to be in their land. But he who
thus refiroaches the poor, despises his Maker, in
whose hands rich atid poor meet together. [2. ]
They were so eager to increase their wealth, and
make it more, that they robbed the poor to en ■
rich themselves; and therefore they fastened upon
the poor, to make a prey of them, because they
were not able to right themselves, nor to resist
or revenge the violence of their oppressors. Those
riches that are got by the ruin of the poor, will
bring ruin on those that get them. They swallowed
up the poor by making them hard bargains, and
cheating them in those bargains; for therefore they
falsify the balances by deceit, not only that tliey
may enrich themselves, may have money at com¬
mand, and so may have every thing else (as they
think) at command too, but that they may impo¬
verish those about them, and bring them so low,
that they may force them to become slaves to them,
and so having drained them of every thing else, they
may have their labour for nothing, or next to no¬
thing: thus they buy the poor for silver, they bring
them and their children into bondage, because they
have not wherewithal to pay for the com they have
bought; see Neh. v. 2, 5. And there were so many
that were reduced to this extremity, that the price
was very low; and the oppressors had beaten it
down so, that you might buy a poor man to be your
slave for a pair of shoes. Property was first inva¬
ded, and then liberty: it is the method of oppressors
first to make men beggars, and then to make them
their vassals. Thus is the dignity of the human
nature lost in the misery of those that are trampled
on, and the tenderness cf it in the sin of those that
trample on them.
II. Observe the grievousness of the punishment
that shall be inflicted on them for this sin. When
the poor are injured, they will cry unto God, and
he will hear their cry, and reckon with those that
are injurious to them ; for, they being his receivers,
he takes the wrongs done to them as done to him¬
self, Exod. xxii. 23, 24.
1. God will remember their sin against them; He
has sworn by the excellency of Jacob, (v. 7. ) by
himself, for lie can swear by no greater; and who
but he is the Glory and Magnificence of Jacob? He
has sworn by those tokens ot his presence with
them, and his favour to them, which they had pro¬
faned and abused, and had done what they could to
make them detestable to him; for he is said (ch. vi.
8. ) to abhor the excellency of Jacob. He swears in
his wrath, swears by his own name, that name
which was so well known, and was so great in Israel:
he swears, Surely I will never forget any of their
works; but upon all occasions they shall be remem¬
bered against them, for more .s implied than is ex¬
pressed. I will never forget them, is as much as to
say, I will never forgive them; and then it speaks
the case of these unjust, unmerciful men, to be mi¬
serable indeed, eternally miserable; wo, and a
thousand woes, to that man that is cut off by an oath
of God from all benefit by pardoning mercy; and
those have reason to fear judgment without mercy,
that have showed no mercy.
2. He will bring utter ruin and confusion upon
them. It is here described largely, and in a great
variety of emphatical expressions, that, if possible,
they might be frightened into a sincere repentance
and reformation.
(1.) There shall be a universal terror and con¬
sternation; Shall not the land tremble for this, (y
8.) this land, out of which you thought t'> have
driven the poor? Shall not everyone mourn, that
dwells therein ? Certainly they shall. Note, Those
that will not tremble and mourn as they ought tor
I national sins, shall be made to tremble and mourn
987
AMOS
for national judgments; those that look unconcerned i
upon the sins of the oppressors, which should make
them tremble, and upon the miseries of the oppress¬
ed, which should make them mourn, God will find j
out a way to make them tremble at the fury of ,
those that oppress them, and mourn for their own I
losses and sufferings by it.
(2. ) There shall be a universal deluge and deso- ,
lation; when God comes forth against them, the
waters of trouble and calamity shall rise u/i wholly
as a flood, that swells when it is dammed up, and
soon overflows its banks. Every thing shall make
against them; that with which they thought to check
the progress of God’s judgments, shall but make
them rise the higher. Judgments shall force their
way, as the breaking forth of waters. The whole
land shall be cast out, and drowned, and laid under
water, as the land of Egypt is every year by the
overflowing of its river Nile. Or, the expressions
may allude to some former judgments of God; Their
ruin shall rise up wholly as a flood, as Noah’s flood,
which overwhelmed the whole world, so shall this
the whole land; and the land shall be cast out and
drowned, as by the flood of Egypt, as Pharaoh and
his Egyptians were buried in the Red sea, which
was to "them the flood of Egypt; both which judg¬
ments, as this here threatened, were the punish¬
ment of violence, and oppression, which the Lord is
the Avenger of.
3. It shall surprise them, and come upon them
when they little think of it; (i>. 9.) I will cause the
sun to go down at noon, when it is in its full strength
and lustre; at their noon, when they promise them¬
selves a long afternoon, and think they have at least
half a day good before them. The earth shall be
darkened in the clear day; when every thing looks
pleasant and hopeful. Thus uncertain are all our
creature-comforts and enjoyments, even life itself;
the highest degree of health and prosperity often
proves the next degree to sickness and adversity;
Job’s sun went down at noon; many are taken away
in the midst of their days, and their sun goes down
at noon; in the midst of life we are in death. Thus
terrible are the judgments of God to those that sleep
in security; they are to them as the sun’s going
down at noon; the less they are expected, the more
confounding they are: when they cry peace and
safety, then sudden destruction comes, comes as a
snare, Luke xxi. 35.
4. It shall change their note, and mar all their
mirth; (v. 10.) I will turn your feasts into mourn¬
ing, asv. 3. the songs of the temple into bowlings.
Note, The end of the sinner’s mirth and jollity is
heaviness. As to the upright, there arises light in
the darkness, which gives them the oil of joy for
mourning, so on the wicked there falls darkness in
the midst of light, which turns their laughter into
mourning, their joy into heaviness. So great, so
general shall the desolation be, that sackcloth shall
he brought upon all loins, and baldness upon every
head, instead of the well-set hair, and the rich gar¬
ments they used to wear. The mourning at that
day shall be as mourning for an only son, which
speaks the most bitter and lasting lamentation.
But are there no hopes that when things are at the
worst they will mend, and that at evening time it
will yet be light? No, even the end thereof shall be
as a bitter day; a day of bitter mourning; the state
of impenitent sinners grows worse and worse; and
the last of all will be the worst of all. This shall
ye have at my hand, ye shall lie down in sorrow.
11. Behold, the days come, saith the
Lord God, that I will send a famine in the
land ; not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for
water, but ol hearing the words of the Lord :
, VIII.
j 1 2. And they shall wander from sea to
| sea, and from the north even to the east:
they shall run to and fro to seek the word
! of the Lord, and shall not find it. 13. in
that day shall the fair virgins and young
men faint for thirst. 14. They that swear
by the sin of Samaria, and say, Thy God,
O Dan, liveth; and, The manner of Beer-
shebaliveth; even they shall fall, and never
rise up again.
In these verses is threatened,
I. A general judgment of spiritual famine coming
upon the whole land; a famine of the word of God;
the failing of oracles, and the scarcity of good
preaching. This is spoken of as a thing at some
distance; The days come, they will come hereafter,
when another kind of darkness shall come upon
that land of light. When Amos prophesied, and
for a considerable time after, there was great plenty
of prophets, abundant opportunities of hearing the
word of God, in season and out of season, they had
precept upon precept, and line upon line; pro¬
phecy was their daily bread; and it is probable that
they surfeited upon it, as Israel on the manna, and
therefore God threatens that hereafter he will de¬
prive them of this privilege. Probably in the land
of Israel there were not so many prophets, about the
time that their destruction came upon them, as
there were in the land of Judah; and when the ten
tribes went into captivity, they saw not their signs,
there were no more any prophets, none to show
them how long, Ps. lxxiv. 9. The Jewish church,
after Malachi, had no prophets for many ages; and
some think this threatening looks further yet, to
the blindness which is in part happened to Israel in
the days of the Messiah, and the vail that is on the
heart of the unbelieving Jews. They reject the
gospel, and the ministers of it that God sends to
them, and covet to have prophets of their own, as
their fathers had, but they shall have none; the
kingdom of God being taken from them, and given
to another people. Observe here,
1. What the judgment itself is, that is threatened.
It is a famine, a scarcity, not of bread and water,
(which are the necessary supports of the body, and
the want of which is very grievous,) but a much
sorer judgment than that, even a famine of hear¬
ing the words of the Lord. There shall be no
congregations for ministers to preach to, nor any
ministers to preach, nor any instructions and abili¬
ties given to those that do set up for preachers, to
enable them for their work. The word of the
Lord shall be precious and scarce, there shall be
no vision, 1 Sam. iii. 1. They shall have the writ¬
ten word, Bibles to read, but no ministers to explain
and apply it to them; the water in the well, but no¬
thing to draw. It is a gracious promise, (Isa. xxx.
20. ) that though they have a scarcity of .bread, they
shall have plenty of the means of grace. God will
give them the bread of adversity ', and the water of
affliction, but their eyes shall see their teachers;
and it was a common saying among the Puritans,
that brown bread and tire gospel is good fare; but it
is here a threatening, that on the contrary they
should have plenty enough of bread and water, and
yet their teachers should be removed. Now, (1.)
This was the departure of a great part of their
glory from their land. This made their nation
great and high, that to them were committed the
oracles of God; but when those were taken from
them, their beauty was stained, and their honour
laid in the dust. (2.) This was a token of God’s
highest displeasure against them; surely he was
988
AMOS, VIII.
angry indeed with them, when he would no more
speak to them as he had done, and had abandoned
them to ruin, when he would no more afford them
the means of bringing them to repentance. (3.)
This made all the other calamities that were upon
them truly melancholy, that they had no prophets
to instruct and comfort them from the word of God,
nor to give them any hopeful prospect. We should
say at any time, and will say in a time of trouble,
that a famine of the word of God is of all others the
sorest famine, the heaviest judgment.
2. What will be the effect of this; ( v . 12.) They
shall wander from sea to sea, from the sea of Ti¬
berias to the great sea, from one border of the coun¬
try to another, to see if God will send them pro¬
phets, either by sea or land, from other countries;
since they have none among themselves, they shall
go from the north to the east; when they are disap¬
pointed in one place, they shall try another, and
shall run to and fro, as men at a loss, and in a hot
pursuit to seek the word of the Lord, to inquire if
there be any prophets, any prophecy, any message
from God, but they shall not find it. (1.) Though
to many this is no affliction at all, yet some will be
very sensible of it as a great grievance, and will
gladly travel far to hear a good sermon; but they
shall sensibly feel the loss of those mercies which
others have foolishly sinned away. (2. ) Even those
that slighted prophets when they had them, shall
wish for them, as Saul did for Samuel, when they
are deprived of them : many never know the worth
of mercies till they feel the want of them. Or, it
may be meant thus, Though they should thus wander
from sea to sea, in quest of the word of God, yet
they shall not find it. Note, The means of grace
are moveable tilings; and the candlestick, when we
think it stands most firm, may be removed out of
its place; (Rev. ii. 5.) and those that now slight the
days of the son of man, may wish in vain to see
them. And in the day of this famine the fair -vir¬
gins and the young men shall faint for thirst; (v.
13.) those who, one would think, could well enough
have borne the toil, shall sink under it. The Jewish
churches, and the masters of their synagogues, some
take to be meant by the virgins and the young
men; these shall lose the word of the Lord, aiid the
benefit of divine revelation, and shall faint away for
want of it, shall lose all their strength and beauty.
Those that trust in their own merit and righteous¬
ness, and think they have no need of Christ, others
take to be meant by the fair virgins and the choice
young men; those shall faint for thirst, when those
that hunger and thirst after the righteousness of
Christ shall be abundantly satisfied and filled.
II. The particular destruction of those that were
ringleaders in idolatry, v. 14. Observe, 1. The sin
they are charged with. They swear by the sin of
Samaria, by the god of Samaria, the idol that was
worshipped at Bethel, not far off from Samaria;
thus did they glory in their shame, and swear by
that as their god, which was their iniquity, thinking
that that Could help them, which would certainly
ruin them, and giving the highest honour to that
which they should have looked upon with the ut¬
most abhorrence and detestation. They say, Thy
god, 0 Dan, liveth; that was the other golden calf, a
dumb, dead idol, and yet caressed and compliment¬
ed as if it had been the living and the true God.
They say, The manner, or way, of Beer-sheba
liveth; they swear by the religion of Beer-sheba,
the way and manner of worship used there, which
they looked upon as sacred, and therefore swear by,
and appealed to as a judge of 'controversy. Thus
the Papists swear by the mass, as the manner of
Beer-sheba. 2. The destruction they are threat¬
ened with; those who thus give that honour to idols,
which is due to God alone, will find that the God
they affront is thereby made their enemy, so that
they shall fall, and that the gods they serve cannot
stand their friends, so that they shall never rise
again. They will find that God is jealous, and
will resent the indignity done him; and that he will
be victorious, and it is to no purpose to contend with
him.
CHAP. IX.
In this chapter we have, I. Judgments threatened, which
the sinner shall not escape, (v. 1 . . 4.) which an almighty
power shall inflict, (v. o, 6.) which the people of Israel
have deserved as a sinful people; (v. 7, 8.) and yet it
shall not be the utter ruin of their nation, (v. 8.) "for a
remnant of good people shall escape, v. 9. But the
wicked ones shall perish, v. 10. 11. Mercy promised,
which was to be bestowed in the latter days, (v. 11 . . 15.)
as appears by the application of it to thedays ofthe Mes¬
siah, Acts xv.. 16. And with those comfortable pro¬
mises, after all the foregoing rebukes and threatenings,
the book concludes.
l.T SAW the Lord standing upon the
JL altar: and lie said, Smite the lintel ot
the door, that the posts may shake: and cut
them in the head, all of them; and I will
slay the last of them with the sword: he
that fleeth of them shall not flee away; and
he that eseapeth of them shall not be deli
vered. 2. Though they dig into hell, thence
shall my hand take them ; though they climb
up to heaven, thence will 1 bring them
down: 3. And though they hide them
selves in the top of Carmel, I will search
and take them out thence; and though
they be hid from my sight in the bottom of
the sea, thence w ill I command the serpent,
and he shall bite them : 4. And though
they go into captivity before their enemies
thence will I command the sword, and it
shall slay them: and I will set mine eyes
upon them for evil, and not for good. 5.
And the Lord God of hosts is he that touch
eth the land, and it shall melt, and all that
dwell therein shall mourn ; and it shall rise
up wholly like a Hood, and shall be drowned,
as by the flood of Egypt. 6. It is he that
buildeth his stories in the heaven, and hath
founded his troop in the earth; he that call-
eth for the waters of the sea, and poureth
them out upon the face of the earth ; The
Lord is his name. 7. Are ye not as chil¬
dren of the Ethiopians unto me, O children
of Israel ? saith the Lord. Have not 1
brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt,
and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the
Assyrians from Kir? 8. Behold, the eyes of
the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom,
and I will destroy it from off the face of the
earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy
the house of Jacob, saith the Lord. 9.
For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the
house of Israel among all nations, like as
corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the
least grain fall upon the earth. 10. All the
sinners of my people shall die by the sword,
989
AMOS, IX.
which say, The evil shall not overtake nor
prevent us.
We have here the justice of God passing sentence
upon a provoking people; and observe,
1. With what solemnity the sentence is passed.
The prophet saw in vision the Lord standing u/ion
the altar, (y. 1.) the altar of burnt-offerings; for the
Lord has a sacrifice, and multitudes must fall as
victims to his justice. He is removed from the
mercy-seat between the cherubims, and stands upon
the altar, the judgment-seat, on which the fire of
God used to fall, to devour the sacrifices. He
stands upon the altar, to show that the ground of
his controversy with his people was their profana-
t’on of his holy things; here he stands to avenge the
quarrel of his altar; as also to signify that the sin of
the house of Israel, like that of the house of Eli,
shall nof be purged with sacrifice nor offering for
ever, 1 Sam. iii. 14. He stands on the altar, to pro¬
hibit sacrifice. Now the order given, is, Smite the
lintel of the door of the temple, the chapiter, smite
it with such a blow, that the posts may shake, and
cut them, wound them in the head, all of them;
break down the door of God’s house, or of the courts
of his house, in token of this — that he is going out
from it, and forsaking it, and then all judgments are
breaking in upon it. Or it signifies the destruction
of thdse in the first place, that should be as the door¬
posts to the nation for its defence, so that, they be¬
ing broken down, it becomes as a city without gates
and bars. Smite the king, who is as the lintel of the
door, that the princes, who are as the posts, may
shake; cut them in the head, cleave them down, all
of them, as wood for the fire; and I will slay the last
of them, the posterity of them, them and their fami¬
lies, or the least of them, them and all that are em¬
ployed under them; or, I will slay them all, them
and all that remain of them, till it comes to the last
man; the slaughter shall be general. There is no
living for those of whom God has said, I will slay
them; no standing before his sword.
2. What effectual care is taken that none shall
escape the execution of this sentence. This is en¬
larged upon here, and is intended for warning to all
that provoke the Lord to jealousy: let sinners read
it, and tremble; as there is no fighting it out with
God, so there is no fleeing from him. His judg-
nents, when they come with commission, as they
will overpower the strongest that think to outface
them, so they will overtake the swiftest that think
to outrun them, v. 2. Those of them that flee, and
take to their heels, shall soon be out of breath, and
shall not fl.ee away out of the reach of danger; for
as sometimes the wicked flee when none pursues, so
he cannot flee away when God pursues, though he
would fain flee out of his hand. Nay, he that es¬
capes of them, that thinks he has gained his point,
he shall not be delivered; evil pursues sinners, and
will arrest them.
Tnis is here, enlarged upon by showing that
wherever sinners flee for shelter from God’s justice,
it will overtake them, and the shelter will prove but
a refuge of lies; what David says of the ubiquity of
God’s presence, (Ps. cxxxix. 7, 10.) is here said of
the extent of God’s power and justice. ( 1. ) Hell it¬
self, though it has its name in English from its be¬
ing hilled, or covered over, or hidden, cannot hide
them; (y. 2.) “ Though they dig into hell, into the
centre of the earth, or the darkest recesses of it, yet
thence shall my hand take them, and bring them
forth to be made public monuments of divine jus¬
tice. ” The grave is a hiding-place to the righteous
from the malice of the world, (Job iii. 17.) but it
shall be no hiding-place to the wicked from the jus¬
tice of God; from thence God’s hands shall take
them, when they shall rise in the great day to ever¬
lasting shame and contempt. (2.) Ijeaven, though
it has its name from being heaved, or lifted up, shall
not put them out of the reach of God’s judgments
as hell cannot hide them, so heaven will not
Though they climb up to heaven in their own con
ceit, yet thence will I bring them down. Those
whom God brings to heaven by his grace, shall ne¬
ver be brought down; but those who climb thither
themselves, by their own presumption, and confi¬
dence in themselves, will be brought down, and
filled with shame. (3. ) The top of Carmel, one of
the highest parts of the dust of the world in that
country, shall not protect them; “ Though they
hide themselves there, where they imagine nobody
will look for them, I will search, and take them out
thence; neither the thickest bushes, nor the darkest
caves, in the top of Carmel, will serve to hide
them.” (4.) The bottom of the sea shall not serve
to conceal them; though they think to hide them¬
selves there, even there the judgments of God shall
find them out, and lay hold on them ; Thence will L
command the serpent, and he shall bite them; the
crooked serpent, even the dragon that is in the sea,
Isa. xxvii. 1. They shall find their plague and
death there where they hope to find shelter and
protection; diving will stand them in no more stead
than climbing. (5.) Remote countries will not be¬
friend them, nor shall lesser judgments excuse them
from greater; (x>. 4.) Though they go into captivity
before their enemies, who carry them to places at a
great distance, and mingle them with their own
people, among whom they seem to be lost, yet that
shall not serve their turn; Thence will I command
the sword, and it shall slay then:; the sword of the
enemy, or one another’s sword; when God judges,
he will overcome. That which binds on all this,
and makes their escape impossible, and their ruin
inevitable, is, that God will set his eyes upon them
for evil, and not for good. His eyes are in every
place, are upon ail men, and upon all the ways of
men, upon some for good, to show himself strong
on their behalf, but upon others for evil, to take no¬
tice of their sins, (Job xiii. 27.) and take all oppor¬
tunities of punishing them for their sins. Their case
is truly miserable, who have the providence of God,
and all the dispensations of it, against them, working
for their hurt.
3. What a great and mighty God lie is, that pass
es this sentence upon them, and will take the exe¬
cuting of it into his own hands. Threatenings are
more or less formidable, according to the power of
him that threatens. We laugh at impotent wrath;
but the wrath of God is not so, it is omnipotent
wrath; who knows the power of it? What he had
before said he would do, (c/i. viii. 8.) is here repeat¬
ed, that he would make the land melt and tremble,
and all that dwell therein mourn, that the judgment
should rise up wholly like a flood, and the country
should be drowned, and laid under water, as by the
flood of Egypt, v. 5. But is he able to make his
words good? Yes, certainly he is, he does but touch
the land, andiV melts, touch the mountains and they
smoke; lie can do it with the greatest ease, for, (1.)
He is the Lord God of hosts, who undertakes to do
it; the God who has all the power in his hand, and
all creatures at his beck and call, who, having made
them all, and given them their several capacities,
makes what use he pleases of them, and all their
powers. Very miserable is the case of those who
have the Lord of hosts against them, for they have
hosts against them, the whole creation at war with
them. (2.) He is the Creator and Governor of the
upper world. It is he that builds his stories in the
heavens, the celestial orbs or spheres, one over an¬
other, as so many stories in a high and stately pa¬
lace; they are his, for he built them at first, when
i he said, Let there be a firmament, and he made the
990
AMOS, IX.
firmament, and he builds them still, is continually
building them, not that they need repair, but by his
providence he still upholds them ; his power is the
pillars of heaven, by which it is borne up. Now he
that has the command of those stories, is certainly to
be feared, for from thence, as from a castle, he "can
fire u/wn his enemies, or cast upon them great hail
stones, as on the Canaanites, or make the stars in
their courses, the furniture of those stories, to fight
against them, as against Sisera. (3.) He has the
conduct and command of this lower world too, in
which we dwell, the terraqueous globe, both earth
and sea, so that, which way soever his enemies think
to make their escape, he will meet them, or to
make opposition, he will match them. Do they
think to make a land-fight of it? He has sounde'd
his trooji in the earth, his troop of guards, which he
has at command, and makes use of for the protec¬
tion of his subjects, and the punishment of his ene¬
mies. All the creatures on earth make one bundle,
(as the margin reads it,) one bundle of arrows, out
of which he takes what he pleases to discharge
against the persecutors, Ps. vii. 13. They are all
one army, one body; so closely are they connected,
and so harmoniously and so much in concert do
they act for the accomplishing of their Creator’s
purposes. Do they think to make a sea-fight of it?
He will be too hard for them there, for he has the
waters of the sea at command: even its waves, the
most tumultuous, rebellious waters, do obey him.
He calls for the waters of the sea in the course of
his common providence, causes vapours to ascend
out of it, and/io«rs them out in showers, the small
rain and the great rain of his strength, upon the
face of the earth; this was mentioned before as a
reason why we should seek the Lord, ( ch . v. 8.)
and make him our Friend, as it is here made a
reason why we should fear him, and dread having
him our Enemy.
4. How justly God passes this sentence upon the
people of Israel. He does not destroy them by an
act of sovereignty, but by an act of righteousness;
for, (v. 8.) it is a sinful kingdom, and the eyes of
the Lord are upon it, discovering it to be so; he sees
the great sinfulness of it, and therefore he will des¬
troy it from off the face of the earth. Note, When
those kingdoms that in name and profession were
holy kingdoms, and kirgdoms of priests, as Israel
was, become sinful kingdoms, no other can be ex¬
pected than that they should be cut oflF and aban¬
doned. Let sinful kingdoms, and sinful families,
and sinful persons too, see the eyes of the Lord upon
them, observing all their wickedness, and reserving
the notice of it for the day of reckoning and recom¬
pense. This being a sinful kingdom, see how light
God makes of it, v. vii. (i.) Of the relation
wherein he stood to it; Are ye not as children of
the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel? A
sad change! children of Israel become as children
of the Ethiopians? [1.] They were so in themselves,
that was their sin; it is a thing to be greatly lament¬
ed, that the children of Israel often become as chil¬
dren of the Ethiopians; the children of godly pa¬
rents degenerate, and become the reverse of those
that went before them. Those that were well edu¬
cated and trained up in the knowledge and fear of
God, and set out well, and promised fair, throw off
their profession, and become as bad as the worst.
How is the gold become dim! [2.] They were so in
God’s account, and that was their punishment ; he
valued them no more, though they were children
of Israel, than if they had been children of the
Ethiopians. W e read of one in the title of Ps. vii.
that was Cush, (an Ethiopian, so some understand
it,) and yet a Benjamite. Those that by birth and
profession are children of Israel, if they degenerate,
and become wicked and vile, are to God no more
than children of the Ethiopians. This is an intima
tion of the rejection of the unbelieving Jews in the
days of the Messiah; because they embraced not the
doctrine of Christ, the kingdom of God was taken
from them, they were unchurched and cast out of
covenant, became as children of the Ethiopians, and
are so to this day. And it is true of those that are
called Christians, but do not live up to their name
and profession, that rest in the form of piety, but
live under the power of reigning iniquity, that they
are to God as children of the Ethiopians; he rejects
them, and their services. (2.) See how light he
makes of the favours he had conferred upon them ;
they thought he would not, he could not, cast them
off, and put them upon a level with other nations,
because he had done that for them which he had
not done for other nations, whereby they though'
he was bound to them, so as never to leave them.
No, says he, The favours showed you are not so dis
tinguishing as you think they are; Have not I
brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt? It is
true, I have; but I have also brought the Philis¬
tines from Caphtor, or Cappadocia, where they
were either natives, or captives, or both; they are
called the remnant of the country of Caphtor, "(Jer.
xlvii. 4.) and the Philistines are joined with the
Caphtorim, Gen. x. 14. In like manner, the Syrians
were brought up from Kir, when they had been
carried away thither, 2 Kings xvi. 9! Note, If
God’s Israel lose the peculiarity of their holiness,
they lose the peculiarity of their privileges; and
what was designed as a favour of special grace shall
be set in another light, shall have its property alter¬
ed, and shall become an act of common providence ;
if professors liken themselves to the world, God
will level them with the world. And if we live not
up to the obligation of God’s mercies, we forfeit the
honour and comfort of them.
How graciously God will separate between the
precious and the vile, in the day of retribution.
Though the wicked Israelites shall be as the wicked
Ethiopians, and their being called Israelites shall
stand them in no stead, yet the pious Israelites shall
not be as the wicked ones; no, the Judge of all the
earth will do right, more right than to slay the righ¬
teous with the wicked, Gen. xviii. 25. His eyes are
upon the sinful kingdom, to spy out those in it who
preserve their integrity, and swim against the
stream, who sigh and cry for the abominations of
their land, and they shall be marked for preserva¬
tion, so that the destruction shall not be total; I will
not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, not ruin them
by wholesale, and in the gross, good and bad to¬
gether, but I will distinguish, as becomes a righ¬
teous Judge. The house of Israel shall be sifted as
corn is sifted; they shall be greatly hurried, and
shaken, and tossed, but still in the hands of God, in
both his hands, as the sieve in the hands of him that
sifts; (i\ 9.) I will sift the house of Israel among
all nations; wherever they are shaken and scatter¬
ed, God will have his eye upon them, and will take
care to separate between the corn and chaff, which
was the thing he designed in sifting them. (1.)
The righteous ones among them, that are as the
solid wheat, shall none of them perish; they shall
be delivered either from, or through, the common
calamities of the kingdom ; not the least grain shall
fall on the earth, so as to be lost and forgotten; not
"the least stone, so the word is, .for the good com is
weighty as a stone, in comparison with that which
we call light corn. Note, Whatever shakings there
may be in the world, God does, and will, effectually
provide that none who are truly his, shall be truly
miserable. (2.) The wicked ones among them,
who are hardened in their sins, shall all of them
perish, v . 10. See what a height of impiety they
are come to; They say, The evil shall net overtake
991
AMOS, IX.
and / irevent us, They think they are innocent, and
do not deserve punishment, or, that the profession
they make of relation to God will be their exemp¬
tion and security from punishment, or, that they
shall be able to make their part good against the
judgments of God, that they shall flee so swiftly
from them, that they shall not overtake them, or
guard so carefully against them, that they shall not
prevent or surprise them. Note, Hope of impuni¬
ty is the deceitful refuge of the impenitent. But see
what it will come to at last; all the sinners that thus
flatter themselves, and affront God, shall die by the
sword, the sword of war, which to them shall be the
sword of divine vengeance; yea, though they be the
sinners of my people; for their profession shall not
be their protection. Note, Evil is often nearest
those that put it at the greatest distance from them.
1 1 . *In that day will I raise up the taber¬
nacle of David that is fallen, and close up
the breaches thereof ; and I will raise up his
ruins, and I will build it as in the days of
old: 12. That they may possess the rem¬
nant of Edom, and of all the heathen, which
are called by my name, saith the Lord that
doeth this. 13. Behold, the days come,
saith the Lord, that the ploughman shall
overtake the reaper, and the treader of
grapes him thatsoweth seed ; and the moun¬
tains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills
shall melt. 14. And I will bring again the
captivity of my people of Israel, and they
shall build the waste cities, and inhabit
them ; and they shall plant vineyards, and
drink the wine thereof ; they shall also make
gardens, and eat the fruit of them. 15. And
1 will plant them upon their land, and they
shall no more be pulled up out of their land
which I have given them, saith the Lord
thy God.
To Him to whom all the prophets bare witness,
this prophet, here in the close, bears his testimony,
and speaks of that day, those days that shall come,
in which God will do great things for his church,
by the setting up of the kingdom of the Messiah,
for the rejecting of which the rejection of the Jews
was foretold in the foregoing verses. The promise
here is said to agree to the planting of the Christian
church, and in that to be fulfilled, Acts xv. 15, 17.
1. It is promised that in the Messiah the kingdom
of David shall be restored; (r. 11.) the tabernacle
of David it is called, his house and family, which,
though great and fixed, yet, in comparison with
the kingdom of heaven, was mean and moveable as
a tabernacle. The church militant, in its present
state, dwelling as in shepherds’ tents, to feed, as in
soldiers’ tents, to fight, is the tabernacle of David.
God’s tabernacle is called the tabernacle of David,
because David desired and chose to dwell in God’s
tabernacle for ever, Ps. lxi. 4. Now, (1.) These
tabernacles were fallen and gone to decay, the roy¬
al family was so impoverished, its power abridged,
its honour stained, and laid in the dust; for many of
that race degenerated, and in the captivity it lost
the imperial dignity; sore breaches were made upon
it, and at length it was laid in ruins. So it was with
the church of the Jews; in the latter days of it, its
glory was departed, it was like a tabernacle broken
down, and brought to ruin, in respect both of purity
and of prosperity. (2.) By Jesus Christ these ta¬
bernacles were raised and rebuilt. In him God’s
covenant with David had its accomplishment; and
the glory of that house, which was not only sullied,
but quite sunk, revived again, the breaches ot it
were closed, and its ruins raised up, as in the days
of old; nay, the spiritual glory of the family of Christ
far exceeded the temporal glory of the family of
David, when it was at its height. In him also God’s
covenant with Israel had its accomplishment, and
in the gospel-church the tabernacle of God was set
up among men again, and raised up out of the ruins
of the Jewish state. This is quoted in the first coun¬
sel at Jerusalem, as referring to the calling in of the
Gentiles, and God’s taking out of them a people for
his name. Note, While the world stands, God will
have a church in it, and if it be fallen down in one
place, and among one people, it shall be raised up
elsewhere.
2. It is promised that that kingdom shall be en¬
larged, and the territories of it shall extend far, by
the accession of many countries to it; (f. 12.) that
the house of David may possess the remnant of
Edom, and of all the heathen, that is, that Christ
may have them given him for his inheritance, even
the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession,
Ps. ii. 8. Those that had been strangers and ene¬
mies, shall become willing, faithful subjects to the
son of David, shall be added to the church, or those
of them that are called by my name, saith the Lord,
that belong to the election of grace, and are ordained
to eternal life; (Acts xiii. 48.) for it is true of the
Gentiles as well as of the Jews, that the election hath
obtained, and the rest were blinded, Rom. xi. 7.
Christ died to gather together in one the children of
God that were scattered abroad, here said to be
those that were called by his name; the promise is
to all that were afar off, even as many of them aC
the Lord our God shall call, Acts ii. 39. St. James
expounds this as a promise, that the residue of men
should seek after the Lord, even all the Gentiles upon
whom my name is called. But may the promise be
depended upon ? Yes, the Lord saith this, who
doeth this; who can do it, who has determined to do
it, the power of whose grace is engaged for the doing
of it, and with whom saying and doing are not two
things, as they are with us.
3. That in the kingdom of the Messiah there shall
be great plenty, and abundance of all good things,
that the country produces, (to 13.) The ploughman
shall overtake the reaper; there shall be such a
plentiful harvest every year, and so much corn to
be gathered in, that it shall last all summer, even
till autumn, when it is time to begin to plough again ;
and in like manner the vintage shall continue till
seed-time; and there shall be such abundance of
grapes, that even the mountains shall drop new wine
into the vessels of the grape-gatherers, and the hills
that were dry and barren, shall be moistened, and
shall melt with the fatness, or mellowness (as we
call it) of the soil. Compare this with Joel ii. 24.
and iii. 18. This must certainly be understood of
the abundance of spiritual blessings in heavenly
things, which all those are, and shall be, blessed
with, who are in sincerity added to Christ and his
church; they shall be abundantly replenished with
the goodness of God’s house, with the graces and
comforts of his Spirit; they shall have bread, the
bread of life, to strengthen their hearts, and the wine
of divine consolations to make them glad; meat in¬
deed, and drink indeed, all the benefit that comes to
the souls of men from the word and Spirit of God;
these had been long confined to the vineyard of the
Jervish church, divine revelation, and the power
that attended it, were to be fqpnd only within that
enclosure; but in gospel-times, the mountains and
hills of the Gentiie world shall be enriched with
these privileges by the gospel of Christ preached,
992
AMOS, IX.
and professed, and received in the power of it.
When great multitudes were converted to the faith
of Christ, and nations were born at once, when the
preachers of the gospel were always caused to tri¬
umph in the success of their preaching, then the
ploughman overtook the reaper ; and when the
Gentile churches were enriched in all utterance,
and in all knowledge, and all manner of sjiiritual
gifts, (1 Cor. i. 5.) then the mountains dropped
sweet wine.
4. That the kingdom of the Messiah shall be well
peopled; as the country shall be replenished, so
shall the cities be; there shall be mouths for this
meat, v. 14. Those that were carried captives,
shall be brought back out of their captivity ; their
enemies shall not be able to detain them in the land
of their captivity, nor shall they themselves incline
to settle in it, but the remnant shall return, and
shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them, shall
form themselves into Christian churches, and set up
pure doctrine, worship, and discipline among them,
according to the gospel-charter, by which Christ’s
cities are incorporated; and they shall enjoy the
benefit and comfort thereof, they shall plant vine
yards, and make gardens; though the mountains
and hills drop wine, and the privileges of the gospel-
church are laid in common, yet they shall enclose
for themselves, not to monopolize these privileges,
to the exclusion of others, but to appropriate and
improve these privileges, in communion with others,
and they shall drink the wine, and eat the fruit, of
their own vineyards and gardens; for they that take
pains in religion, as men must do about their vine¬
yards and gardens, shall have both the pleasure and
the profit of it. The bringing again of the captivi
ty of God’s Israel, which is here promised, may re
fer to the cancelling of the ceremonial law, which
had been long to God’s Israel as a yoke of bondage,
and the investing of them in the liberty wherewith
Christ came to make his church free, Gal. v. 1.
5. That the kingdom of the Messiah shall take
such deep rooting in the world, as never to be root¬
ed out of it; (d. 15.) I will plant them upon their
land. God’s spiritual Israel shall be planted, by the
right hand of God himself, upon the land assigned
them, and they shall no more be pulled up out of it, as
the old Jewish church was. God will preserve them
from throwing themselves out of it by a total apos-
tacy, and will preserve them from being thrown out
of it by the malice of their enemies; the church may
be corrupted, but shall not quite forsake God, may
be persecuted, but shall not quite be forsaken of
God, so that the gates of hell, neither with their
temptations, nor with their terrors, shall prevail
against it. T wo things secure the perpetuity of the
church; (1.) God’s grants to it; It is the land which
I have given them; and God will confirm and main¬
tain his own grants. The part he has given to his
people, is that good part which shall never be'taken
from them; he will not revoke his grant, and all the
powers of earth and hell shall not invalidate it. (2.)
Its interest in him; He is the Lord thy God, who
has said it, and will make it good, thine, 0 Israel,
who shall reign for ever, as thine unto all genera¬
tions. And because he lives, the church shall live
also.
AN
EXPOSITION,
WITH
PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS,
OF THE PROPHECY OF
OBADI AH.
This is the shortest of all the books of the Old Testament, the least of those tribes; and yet it is not to be
passed by, or thought meanly of, for this penny has Ccesar’s image and superscription upon it; it is
stamped with a divine authority. There may appear much of God in a short sermon, in a little book;
and much good may be done by it; multum in parvo — much in a little. Mr. Norris says, “ If angels
were to write books, we should have few folios;” that may be very precious, which is not voluminous.
This book is entitled, The Vision of Obadiah. Who this Obadiah was, does not appear from any other
scripture; some of the ancients imagined him to be the same with that Obadiah that was steward to
Ahab’s household; (1 Kings xviii. 3.) and if so, he that hid and fed the prophets, had indeed a prophet’s
reward, when he was himself made a prophet. But that is a conjecture which has no ground. This
Obadiah, it is probable, was of a later date; some think cotemporary with Hosea, Joel, and Amos; others
think he lived about the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, when the children of Edom so barbarously
triumphed in that destruction. However, what he -wrote was what he saw; it is his vision; probably,
there was much more, which he was divinely inspired to speak , but this is all he was inspired to
write; and all he writes is concerning Edom. It is a foolish fancy of some of the Jews, that because he
prophesies only concerning Edom, he was himself an Edomite by birth, but a proselyte to the Jewish
religion: other prophets prophesied against Edom, and some of them seem to have borrowed from him
in their predictions against Edom, as Jer. xlix. 7. &c. Ezek. xxv. 12. &c. Out of the mouth of these
two or three witnesses every word will be established.
OBADIAH.
This book is wholly concerning Edom; a nation nearly
allied , and near adjoining to Israel, and yet an enemy to
the seed of Jacob, inheriting the enmity of their father
Esau to Jacob. Now here we have, after the preface,
v. 1. I. Threatenings against Edom, 1. That their pride
should be humbled, v. 2. .4. 2. That their wealth should
be plundered, v. 5. • 7. 3. That their wisdom should be
infatuated, v. 8, 9. 4. That their spiteful conduct to¬
ward God’s Israel should be avenged, v. 10.. 16. II.
Gracious promises to Israel; that they shall be restored
and reformed, and shall be victorious over the Edomites,
and become masters of their land and the lands of their
either neighbours, (v. 17 . .20.) and that the kingdom
of the Messiah shall be set up by the bringing in of the
great salvation, v. 21.
1. FJ^HE vision of Obadiah. Thus saith
JL the Lord God concerning Edom,
We have heard a rumour from the Lord,
and an ambassador is sent among the hea-
Iben, Arise ye, and let us rise up against her
Vol. iv. — 6 K
in battle. 2. Behold, I have made thee
small among the heathen: thou art greatly
despised. 3. The pride of thy heart hath
deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the
clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high;
that saitli in his heart, Who shall bring me
down to the ground ? 4. Though thou exalt
thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy
nest among the stars, thence will I bring
thee down, saith the Lord. 5. If thieves
came to thee, if robbers by night, (how art
thou cut off!) would they not have stolen
till they had enough ? if the grape-gatherers
came to thee, would they not leave some
grapes? 6. How are the things of Esau
searched out ! how are his hidden things
994
OBADIAH.
sought up ! 7. All the men of thy confede¬
racy have brought thee even to the border:
the men that were at peace with thee have
deceived thee, and prevailed against thee;
they that eat thy bread have laid a wound
under thee: there is none understanding in
him. 8. Shall I not in that day, saith the
Lord, even destroy the wise men out of
Edom, and understanding out of the mount
of Esau? 9. And thy mighty men, OTeman,
shall be dismayed, to the end that every one
of the mount of Esau may be cut off by
slaughter.
Edom is the nation against which this prophecy
is levelled, and which, some think, is put tor all the
enemies of Israel, that shall be brought down first
or last. The rabbins by Edom understand Home,
Rome Christian they understand it of, and have an
implacable enmity to it as such; but if we under¬
stand it of Rome anti-christian, we shall find the
passages of it applicable enough. And though Edom
was mortified in the time of the Maccabees, as it
had been before by Jehoshaphat, yet its destruction
seems to have been typical, as their father Esau’s
rejection, and to have had further reference to the
destruction of the enemies of the gospel-church;
for so shall all God’s enemies perish; and we find
(Isa. xxxiv. 5.) the sworcl of the Lord coming down
upon Idumea, to signify the general day of God’s
recompenses for the controversy of Zion, v. 8.
Some have well observed, that it could not but be a
great temptation to the people of Israel, when they
saw themselves, who were the children of beloved
Jacob, in trouble, and the Edomites, the seed of
hated Esau, not only prospering, but triumphing
over them in their troubles; and therefore God
gives them a prospect of the destruction of Edom,
which should be total and final, and of a happy issue
of their own correction.
Now we may observe here,
I. A declaration of war against Edom; (v. 1.)
IVe have heard a rumour, or rather, an order,
from the Lord, the God of hosts; he has given the
word of command, it is his counsel and decree,
which can neither be reversed nor resisted, that all
who do mischief to his people, shall certainly bring
mischief upon themselves. We have heard a re¬
port, that God is raised up out of his holy habita¬
tion, and is preparing his throne for judgment; and
an ambassador is sent among the heathen, a herald
rather, some minister or messenger of Providence,
to alarm the nations, or the Lord’s prophets, who
gave each nation its burthen. Those whom God
employs, cry to each other. Arise ye, stir up your¬
selves and one another, and let us rise up against
Edom in battle. The confederate forces under
Nebuchadnezzar thus animate themselves and one
another to make a descent upon that country; Ga¬
ther ye together, and come against her; so it is in
the parallel place, Jer. xlix. 14. Note, When God
has bloody work to do among the enemies of his
church, he will find out and fit up both hands and
hearts to do it.
II. A prediction of the success of that war. Edom
shall certainly be subdued, and spoiled, and brought
down; for all her confidences shall fail her, and
stand her in no stead, and in like manner shall all
the enemies of God’s church be disappointed in
those things which they stayed themselves upon.
1. Do they depend upon their grandeur, the figure
they make among the nations, their influence upon
them, and interest in them? That shall dwindle;
(v. 2. ) “ Behold, I have made thee small among the
heathen, so that none of thy neighbours will court
thy friendship, or court an alliance with thee; thou
art greatly despised among them, and looked upon
with contempt, as an infatuated and unfaithful na¬
tion.” And thus (i>. 3.) the pride of thine heart has
deceived thee. Note, (1.) Those that think well of
themselves, are apt to fancy that others think well
of them too; but when they come to make trial of
them, they will find themselves mistaken, and thus
their pride deceives them, and by it slays them. (2. )
God can easily lay those low, that have magnified
and exalted themselves; and will find out a way to
do it, for he resists the proud; and we often see
those small and greatly despised, who once looked
very big, and were greatly caressed and admired.
2. Do they depend upon the fortifications of their
country, both by nature and art, and glory in the
advantages they have thereby? Those also shall
deceive them. They dwelt in the clefts of the rock,
as an eagle in her nest, and their habitation was
high, not only exalted above their neighbours,
which was the matter of their pride, but fortified
against their enemies, which was the matter of
their security, so high as to be out of the reach of
danger. Now observe, (1.) What Edom says in
the pride of his heart; Who shall bring me down to
the ground? He speaks with a confidence of his
own strength, and a contempt of God’s judgments,
as if almighty power itself could not overpower him.
As for alt his enemies, even God himseif, he puffs
at them, (Ps. x. 5.) sets them all at defiance. Their
father Esau had sold his birthright, and yet they
lifted up themselves, as if to them had still pertain¬
ed the excellency of dignity and power. Many
forfeit their privileges, and yet boast of them. Be¬
cause Edom is high and lifted up, he imagines none
can bring him down. Note, Carnal security is a
sin that most easily besets men in the day of their
pomp, power, and prosperity; and does, as much as
any thing, both to ripen men for l-uin, and aggravate
it when it comes. (2.) What God says to this, v.
4. If men will dare to challenge omnipotence, their
challenge shall be taken up; Who shall bring me
down? says Edom. “I will,” says God; “ Though
thou exalt thyself as the eagle that soars high, and
builds high, nay, though thou set thy nest among the
stars, higher than ever any eagle flew, it is but in
thine own imagination, and thence will I bring thee
down.” This we had, Jer. xlix. 15, 16. Note,
Sinners will certainly be made ashamed of their
pride and security; of their pride when it has a fall,
and of their security when their confidences fail
their expectation.
3. Do they depend upon their wealth and trea¬
sure, the abundance of which is looked upon as the
sinews of war? Is their money their defence? Is
that their strong city? It is so but in their own con¬
ceit, for it shad rather expose them than protect
them; it shall be made a prey to the enemy, and
they for the sake of it, v. 5, 6. Much to this pur¬
port we had, Jer. xlix. 9, 10. Only here comes in
a parenthesis, (Hot v art thou cut off!) thou and all
thy stores. The prophet foretells it, but laments it,
that the thread of their prosperity was cut off. How
art thou fallen, and how great is thy fall! How art
thou stupified ! So the Chaldee words it. How
senseless art thou under these desolating judgments,
as if they were but common strokes! But he shows
that it should be an utter ruin, not a usual calami¬
ty; for, (1.) It is indeed a usual calamity for those
that have wealth, to have it stolen, and to lose a
little out of their great deal. Thieves came to them,
(for where the carcase is, there will the birds of
prey be gathered together,) robbers come by night,
and they steal till they have enough, what they
have occasion for, what they have a mind for; they
steal no more than they think they can carry away.
OBADIAH.
995
and out of a great stock it is scarcely missed. Those
that rob orchards, or vineyards, carry off what they
think fit; but they leave some grapes, some fruit for
the owner, who easily bears his loss perhaps, and
soon recruits it; but, (2.) It shall not be so with
Edom; his wealth shall all be taken away, and
nothing shall escape the hands of the destroying ar¬
my, not that which is most precious and valuable,
v. 6. How are the things of Esau, the things he
sets his heart upon, and places his happiness in, his
good things, his best things, how are these things,
which were so carefully treasured up and concealed,
how searched out by the enemy and seized! How
are his hid things , his hid treasures, plundered,
rifled, and sought ufi l His hoards, that had not
seen the light for many years, are now a spoil to
the enemy. Note, Treasures on earth, though ever
so fast locked up, and ever so artfully hidden, can¬
not be so safely laid up but that thieves may break
through and steal; it is therefore our wisdom to lay
ufi for ourselves treasures in heaven.
4. Do they depend upon their alliances with
neighbouring states and potentates? Those also shall
fail them; (n. 7.) “The men of thy confederacy,
all of them, the Ammonites and Moabites, and other
thy high allies that were at ficace with thee, that
entered into a league offensive and defensive with
thee, that solemnly engaged not only to do thee no
hurt, but to do thee all the service they could; they
did eat thy bread, were magnificently treated and
entertained by thee, lived upon thee, their soldiers
had free quarter in thy country, and took pay as
thine auxiliaries; they have brought thee even to
the border of thy land; were very respectful to
thine ambassadors, and brought them on their way
home, even to the utmost limits of their country;
they seemed forward to serve thee with their forces
when thou liadst occasion for them, and came along
with thee to the border, till thou wast just ready to
engage the invading enemy; but then,” (1.) “They
have deceived thee; they flew back and retreated
when thou wast in extremity, and proved as a
broken reed to the traveller tnat is weary, and as
the brooks in summer to the traveller that is thirsty;
they bear no weight, yield no relief.” Nay, (2.)
“They have prevailed against thee; they were too
hard for thee in the treaty, imposed upon thee, and
by cheating thee ruined thee; brought thee into
danger, and there left thee an easy prey to thine
enemy.” Note, Those that make flesh their arm,
arm it against them. Yet this was not the worst.
(3.) “They have laid a wound under thee; they
have laid that under thee for a stay and support, for
a foundation to rely on, for a pillow to repose on,
which will prove a wound to thee; not as thorns
only, but as swords.” If God lay under us the
arms of his power and love, these will be firm and
easy under us, the God of our covenant will never
deceive us; but if we trust to the men of our confe¬
deracy, and what they will lay under us, it may
prove to us a wound and dishonour. And observe
the just censure here passed upon Edom for trusting
to those who thus played tricks with him ; There is
no understanding in him, or else he would never
have put it into their power to betray him by putting
such a confidence in them. Note, Those show they
have no understanding in them, who, when they are
encouraged to trust in the Creator, put a cheat upon
themselves by reposing a confidence in the creature.
5. Do they depend upon the politics of their
counsellors? These shall fail them, v. 8. Edom
had been famous for great statesmen, men of learn¬
ing and experience, that sat at the helm of govern¬
ment, and were masters of all the arts of manage¬
ment, that in all treaties used to outwit their
neighbours; but now the counsellors are become
fools, and the wise God makes fhem so; Shall I riot
in that day destroy the wise men out of Edom; As
men, they shall fall by the sword in common with
others, (9s. xlix. 10.) and their wisdom shall not
secure them; us w se i nen, they shall be infatuated
in all their counsels, their best-laid designs shall be
baffled, their measures broken, and those very pro¬
jects by which they thought to establish themselves
and the public interests, shall be the ruin of both.
Thus wisdom perishes from Teman, as it is in the
parallel place, Jer. xlix. 7. This was, (1.) The
just punishment of their folly in trusting to an arm
of flesh; There is no understanding in them, v. 7.
They have not sense to trust in a living God, and
the God of truth, but put confidence in men that
are frail, fickle, and false; and therefore God will
destroy their understanding. Note, God will justly
deny those understanding to keep out of the way of
danger, that will not use their understanding to
keep out of the way of sin. He that will be foolish,
let him be foolish still. (2.) It was the forerunner
of their destruction. A nation is then marked for
ruin, when God hides the things that belong to its
peace from the eyes of those that are intrusted with
its counsels. Quos Deus vult perdere, eos demen-
tat — God infatuates those whom he designs to de¬
stroy, Job xii. 17.
6. Do they depend upon the strength and courage
of their soldiers? They are not only able-bodied,
but men of spirit and courage, they can face an
enemy, and stand their ground; but now, ( [v . 9.)
Thy mighty men, O Teman, shall be dismayed,
their courage shall fail them, to the end that every
one of the mount of Esau may be cut off by slaugh¬
ter, and none escape; the weak and feeble and un¬
armed must fall of course into the hand of the de¬
stroyer, when the mighty men are dismayed, and
not only lose the day, but lose their lives, because
they have lost their spirit. Howl, fir-trees, if the
cedars be shaken. Note, The death or disuniting
of the mighty, often proves the death and destruc¬
tion of the many; and it is in vain to depend upon
mighty men for our protection, if we have not an Al¬
mighty God for us, much less if we have an Almigh¬
ty God against us.
10. For thy violence against thy brother
Jacob, shame shall cover thee, and thou
slialt be cut off for ever. 11. In the clay
that thou stoodest on the other side, in the
day that the strangers carried away captive
his forces, and foreigners entered into his
gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem, even
thou wast as one of them. 12. But thou
shouldest not have looked on the day of thy
brother, in the day that he became a stran¬
ger; neither shouldest thou have rejoiced
over the children of Judah in the day of
their destruction ; neither shouldest thou
have spoken proudly in the day of distress
13. Thou shouldest not have entered into
the gate of my people in the day of their
calamity; yea, thou shouldest not have
looked on their affliction in the day of their
calamity, nor have laid hands on their
substance in the day of their calamity'
14. Neither shouldest thou have stood
in the cross-way, to cut off those of his
that did escape; neither shouldest thou have
delivered up those of his that did remain in
the day of distress. 15. For the day of the
996
OB ADI AH.
Lord is near upon all the heathen : as thou
Last done, it shall be done unto thee; thy
reward shall return upon thine own head.
16. For as ye have drunk upon my holy
mountain, so shall all the heathen drink
continually; yea, they shall drink, and they
shall swallow down, and they shall be as
though they had not been.
When we have read Edom’s doom, no less than
utter ruin, it is natural to ask, Why, what evil has
he done? What is the ground of God’s controversy
with him? Many things, no doubt, were amiss in
Edom, they were a sinful people, and a people laden
with iniquity; but that one single crime which is
laid to their charge, as filling their measure, and
bringing this ruin upon them, that for which they
here stand indicted, of which they are convicted, and
for which they are condemned, is, the injuries and
wrongs they had done to the people of God; (re 10.)
“ It is for thy violence against thy brother Jacob,
that ancient and hereditary grudge which thou hast
borne to the people of Israel, that is it for which all
this shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off
for ever.” Note, Injuries to men are affronts to
God, the righteous God that loveth righteousness,
and hateth wickedness; and, as the Judge of all the
earth, he will do right for those that suffer wrong,
and take vengeance upon those that do wrong. All
violence, all unrighteousness, is sin; but it is a great
aggravation of the violence, if it be done either, 1.
Against any of our own people; it is violence against
thy brother, thy near relation, to whom thou snould-
cst be a Gael — a redeemer, whom it is thy duty to
right,, if others wronged him; how wicked is it then
for thee thyself to wrong him ! Thou s/anderest and
abusest thine own mother’s son; this makes the sin
exceeding sinful, Ps. 1. 20. Or, 2. Much more if it
be done against any of God’s people; it is thy bro¬
ther Jacob, that is in covenant with God, and dear
to him. Thou hatest him whom God has loved,
and because God has loved him; him whose cause
God espouses, and will plead with jealousy; and in
whose interests God is pleased so far to interest him¬
self, that he takes the violence done to him as done
to himself; whoso touches Jacob, touches the apple
of the eye of Jacob’s God. So that it is crimen loses
inajestatis — high treason; for which, as for high
treason, let Edom expect an ignominious punish¬
ment; Shame shall cover thee, and a ruining one,
thou shalt be cut off for ever.
In the following verses we are told more particu¬
larly,
1. What the violence was which Edom did against
his brother Jacob, and what are the proofs of his
charge. It does not appear that the Edomites did
themselves invade Israel, but that was more for
want of power than will, they had malice enough to
do it, but were not a match for them ; but that which
is laid to their charge, is, their barbarous conduct
toward Judah and Jerusalem, when they were in
distress, and read) to be destroyed, probably, by the
Chaldeans; or upon occasion of the other calamities
of the Jews; for this seems to have been always their
temper toward them. See this charged upon the
Edomites, (Ps. cxxxvii. 7.) that in the day of Jeru¬
salem, they said, Naze it, raze it, and Ezek. xxv.
12. They arc here told particularly what they did,
by being told what they should not have done; {y.
12. — 14.) Thou shouldest not have looked, thou
shouldest not have entered; but thou didst do so.
Note, In reflecting upon ourselves, it is good to com¬
pare what we have done with what we should have
done, our practice with the rule, that we may dis¬
cover wherein we have done amiss, have done those
things which we ought not to have done; we should
not have been where we were at such a time, should
not have been in such and such company, should not
have said what we said, nor have taken the liberty
that we took. Sin thus looked upon in the glass of
the commandment, will appear exceeding sinful.
Let us see,
1. What was the case of Judah and Jerusalem,
when the Edomites behaved themselves thus basely,
and insulted over them. (1.) It was a day of dis¬
tress with them; (y. 12.) it was the day of their ca¬
lamity, so it is called three times, v. 13. With the
Edomites it was a day of prosperity and peace, when
with the Israelites it was a day of distress and ca¬
lamity, for judgment commonly begins at the house of
God. Children are corrected when strangers are let
alone. (2.) It was the day of their destruction, (y. 12.)
when both city and country were laid waste, were laid
in ruins. (3.) It was a day when foreigners enter¬
ed into the gates of Jerusalem, when the city, after
a long siege, was broken up, and the great officers
of the king of Babylon’s army came, and sat in the
gates, as judges of the land; when they cast lots
upon the spoils of Jerusalem, as the soldiers for
Christ’s garments, what shares each of the conquer¬
ors shall have, what share of the lands, what share
of the goods; or, cast lots, to determine themselves
when and where they should attack it. (4.) It was
a day when the strangers carried away captive his
forces, (t>. 11.) took the men of war prisoners of
war, and carried them off, in poverty and shame, te
their own country; or such a multitude of captives,
that they were as an army. (5.) It was a day when
thy brother himself, that had long been at home, at
rest in his own land, became a stranger, an exile in
a strange land. Now when this was the woful case of
the Jews, the Edomites, their neighbours and bre¬
thren, should have pitied them and helped them,
condoled with them and comforted them ; and should
have trembled to think that their own turn would
come next: for if this were done in the green tree,
what shall be done in the dry ? But,
2. See what was the conduct of the Edomites to¬
ward them when they were in this distress, for
which they are here condemned. ( 1. ) They looked
with pleasure upon the affliction of God’s people;
they stood on the other side, (y. 11.) afar off, when
they should have come in to the relief of their dis¬
tressed neighbours, and looked upon them, and their
day, looked on their affliction, ly. 12, 13.) with a
careless, unconcerned eye, as the priest and Levite
looked upon the wounded man, and passed by on the
other side; those have a great deal to answer for,
that are idle spectators of the troubles and afflictions
of their neighbours, when they are capable of being
their active helpers. But this was not all; they
looked upon it with a scornful eye, with an eye
of complacency and satisfaction; they looked and
laughed to see Israel in distress, saying, Aha, so
would we have it; they fed their eyes with the rue¬
ful spectacle of Jerusalem’s ruins, and looked at it
as those that had long looked for it, and often wished
to see it. Note, We must take heed with what eye
we look upon the afflictions of our brethren; if we
cannot look upon them with a gracious eye of sym¬
pathy and tenderness, it is better not to look upon
them at all; Thou shouldest not have looked as thou
didst upon the day of thy brother. (2.) They
triumphed and insulted over them, upbraided their
brethren with their sorrows, and made themselves
and their companions merrv with them. They re¬
joiced over the children of Judah in the day of then
destruction ; they had not the good manners to con
ceal the pleasure they took in Judah’s destruction,
and to dissemble it, but openly declared it, and rude¬
ly and insolently declared it to them; they rejoiced
over them, crowed, and hectored, and trampled
OBADIAH.
997
upon them. Those have the spirit of Edomites, that
can rejoice over any, especially over Israelites, in
the day of their calamity. (3.) They spake proudly,
magnified the mouth., (so the word is,) against Is¬
rael; talked with a great disdain of the suffering Is¬
raelites, and with an air of haughtiness of the present
safety and prosperity of Edom; as if it might be in¬
ferred from their present different state that the
tables were turned, and now Esau was beloved, and
the favourite of Heaven, and Jacob hated and re¬
jected. Note, Those must expect to be some way
or other effectually humbled and mortified them¬
selves, that are puffed up and made proud bv the
humiliations and mortifications of others. (4.) They
went further yet, for they entered into the gate of
God’s people in the day of their calamity, and laid
hands on their substance; though they did not help
to conquer them, they helped to plunder them, and
put in for a share in the prey, v. 13. Jerusalem was
thrown open, and then they entered it; its wealth
was thrown about, and they seized it for themselves,
excusing it with this, that they might as well take
it as let it be lost; whereas it was taking what was
not their own. Babylon lays Jerusalem waste, but
Edom, by meddling with the spoil, becomes parti-
ce/is criminis — partaker of the crime , and shall be
reckoned with as an accessary ex post facto — after
the fact. Note, Those do but impoverish themselves,
that think to enrich themselves by the ruins of the
people of God; and those deceive themselves, who
think they may call all that substance their own,
which they can lay their hands on in a day of ca¬
lamity. (5.) They did yet worse things; they not
only robbed their brethren, but murdered them, in
the day of their calamity; laid hands not only on
their substance, but on their persons, v. 14. When
the victorious sword of the Chaldeans was making
bloody work among the Jews, many made their es¬
cape, and were in a fair way to save themselves by
flight; but the Edomites basely intercepted them,
stood in the cross-way where several roads met, by
each of which the trembling Israelites were making
the best of their way from the fury of the pursuers,
and there they stopped them : some they barbarously
and coward-like cut off themselves; others they took
prisoners, and delivered up to the pursuers, only to
ingratiate themselves with them, because they were
now the conquerors. They should not have been
thus cruel to them that lay at their mercy, and never
had done, nor were ever likely to do, them any hurt;
they should not have betrayed those whom they had
such a fair opportunity to protect; but such are the
tender mercies of the wicked. One cannot read this
without a high degree of compassion toward those
who were thus basely abused, who, when they fled
from the sword of an open enemy, and thought they
were got out of the reach of it, fell upon, and fell
by, the sword of a treacherous neighbour, whom
they were not apprehensive of any danger from.
Nor can one read this, without a high degree of in¬
dignation toward those who were so perfectly lost
to all humanity, as to exercise such cruelty upon
such proper objects of compassion. (6.) In all this
they joined with the open enemies and persecutors
of Israel; Even thou i east as one of them, an acces¬
sary equally guilty with the principals. He that
joins in with evil-doers, and is aiding and abetting in
their evil deeds, shall be reckoned, and shall be rec¬
koned with, as one of them.
II. What the shame is, that shall cover them for
this violence of theirs. 1. They shall soon find that
the cup is going round, even the cup of trembling;
and when they come to be in the same calamitous
condition that the Israel of God is now in, they will
bo ashamed to remember how they triumphed over
thent; (r. 15.) The day of the Lord is near upon all
the heathen, when God will recompense tribulation
to the troublers of his church. Though judgment
begins at the house of God, it shall not end there.
This should effectually restrain us from triumphing
over others in their misery, that we know not how
soon it may be our own case. 2. Their enmity to
the people of God, and the injuries they have done
them, shall be recompensed into their own bosoms;
yds thou hast done it shall be done unto thee. The
righteous God will render both to nations and to par¬
ticular persons according to their works; and the
punishment is often made exactly to answer to the
sin — and those that have abused others, come to be
themselves abused in like manner. The just and
jealous God will find out a time and way to avenge
the wrongs done to his people, on those that have
been injurious to them. As ye have drunk upon my
holy mountain; (r. 16.) that is, God’s professing
people, who inhabit the holy mountain, have drunk
deep of the cup of affliction, (and they being of the
holy mountain would not excuse them,) so shall all
the heathen drink, in their turn, of the same bitter
cup; for if God bring evil on the city that is called
by his name, shall they be unpunished, that never
knew his name? See Jer. xxv. 29. And it is part
of the burthen of Edom; (Jer. xlix. 12.) They
whose judgment was not to drink of the cup, who
had reason to promise themselves an exemption from
it, have assuredly drunken; and shall Edom go un¬
punished, that is the generation of God’s wrath?
No, thou shalt surely drink of it; the cup of trem¬
bling shall be taken out of the hand of God’s people,
and put into the hand of them that afflict them, Isa.
li. 22, 23. Nay, they may expect their case to be
worse in the day of their distress than that of Israel
was in their day; for, (1.) The afflictions of God’s
people were but for a moment, and soon had an end,
but their enemies shall drink continually the wine
of God’s wrath. Rev. xiv. 10. (2.) The dregs of
the cup are reserved for the wicked of the earth :
(Ps. lxxv. 8.) they shall drink and swallow down,
or sup up, (as the margin reads it,) shall drink it to
the bottom. (3. ) The people of God, though they
may be made to drink of the wine of astonishment
for awhile, (Ps. lx. 3.) shall yet recover it, and
come to themselves again; but the heathen shall
drink, and be as though they had not been, there
shall be neither any remains nor any remembrance
of them, but they shall be wholly extirpated and
rooted out. So let all thine enemies perish, 0 Lord;
so they shall perish, if they turn not.
17. But upon mount Zion shall be de¬
liverance, and there shall be holiness; and
the house of Jacob shall possess their pos¬
sessions. 18. And the house of Jacob shall
be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame,
and the house of Esau for stubble, and they
shall kindle in them, and devour them; and
there shall not be any remaining of the
house of Esau : for the Lord hath spoken
it. 19. And they of the south shall possess
the mount of Esau ; and they of the plain
the Philistines: and they shall possess the
fields of Ephraim, and the fields of Samaria ;
and Benjamin shall possess Gilead. 20. And
the captivity of this host of the children of
Israel shall possess that of the Canaanites,
even unto Zarephath; and the captivity of
Jerusalem, which is in Sepharad, shall pos¬
sess the cities of the south. 21. And sa¬
viours shall come up on mount Zion to
998
OBADIAH.
judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom
shall be the Lord’s.
After the destruction of the church’s enemies is
threatened, which will be completely accomplished
in the great day of recompense, and that judgment
for which Christ came once, and will come again,
into this world, here follow precious promises of the
salvation of the church, with which this prophecy
concludes, as those of Joel and Amos did, which,
nowever they might be in part fulfilled in the return
of the Jews out of Babylon, notwithstanding the tri¬
umphs of Edom in their captivity, as if it were per¬
petual, are yet, doubtless, to have their full accom¬
plishment in that great salvation wrought out by
Jesus Christ, to which all the prophets bare witness.
It is promised here,
1. That there shall ha salvation upon mount Zion,
that holy hill where God sets his anointed King;
(Ps. ii. 6.) Upon mount Zion shall be deliverance,
v. 17. There shall be those that esca/ie; so the
margin. A remnant of Israel, u/ion the holy moun¬
tain, shall be saved, v. 16. Christ said, Salvation
is of the Jews, John iv. 22. God wrought deliver¬
ances for the Jews, typical of our redemption by
Christ. But mount Zion is the' gospel-church, from
thence the New Testament law went forth, Isa. ii. 3.
Their salvation shall be preached and prayed for; to
the gospel-church those are added, who shall be saved ;
and for those who come in faith and hope to this
mount Zion, deliverance shall be wrought from wrath
and the curse, from sin, and death, and hell, while
those who continue afar off, shall be left to perish.
2. That, where there is salvation, there shall be
sanctification in order to it. And there shall be holi¬
ness, to prepare and qualify the children of Zion for
this deliverance; for wherever God designs glory,
he gives grace. Temporal deliverances are then
wrought for us in mercy, when with them there is
holiness; when there is wrought in us a disposition
to receive them with love and gratitude to God;
when we are sanctified, they are sanctified to us.
Holiness is itself a great deliverance, and an earnest
of that eternal salvation which we look for. There,
upon mount Zion, in the gospel-church, shall be ho¬
liness; for that is it which becomes God’s house for
ever, and the great design of the gospel, and its
grace, is, to plant and promote holiness. There
shall be the holy Spirit, the holy ordinances, the
holy Jesus, and a select remnant of holy souls, in
whom, and among whom, the holy God will delight
to dwell. Note, Where there is holiness, there shall
be deliverance.
3. That this salvation and sanctification shall
spread, and prevail, and get ground, in the world;
The house of Jacob, even this mount Zion, with the
deliverance and the holiness there wrought, shall
possess their f tossessions ; the gospel-church shall be
set up among the heathen, and shall replenish the
earth; the apostle'- of Christ by their preaching
shall gain possession of the hearts of men, for him
whose messengers and ministers they are; and when
they possess their hearts, they shall possess their
possessions, for those who have given up themselves
to the Lord, give up all they have to him. When
Lydia’s heart was opened to Christ, her house was
open to his ministers. When the Gentile nations be¬
came nations of them that were saved, were disci-
oled, walked in the light of the Lord, and brought
Jieir glory and honour into the new Jerusalem,
(Rev. xxi. 24.) then the house of Jacob possessed
their possessions. This is in part fulfilled by the
planting of the Christian religion in the world, and
shall be fulfilled yet more and more by the setting
up of Christ’s throne there where Satan’s seat is,
and the erecting of the trophies of his victory upon
the ruins of the devil’s kingdom.
Now here is foretold, (1.) How this possession
shall be gained, and the opposition given to it, got
over; (y, 18.) The house of Jacob shall be a [fire,
and the house of Joseph a flame, for their God is,
and will be, a consuming Fire; and the house ol
Esau shall be for stubble, easily devoured and con
sumed by this fire. This is fulfilled, [1.] In the
conversion of multitudes by the grace of Christ; the
gospel, preached in the house of Jacob and Joseph,
and there owned and professed, shall be as a fire
and a flame to melt and soften hard hearts, to burn
up the dross of sin and corruption, that they may
be purified and refined with the spirit of judgment
and the spirit of burning. Christ, when he comes,
shall be as a refiner’s fire, Mai. iii. 1, 2. [2.] In
the confusion of all the impenitent, implacable ene¬
mies of the gospel of Christ, that oppose it, and do
all they can to hinder the setting tip of the kingdom
of the Messiah by it. The gospel-day is a day
that burns like an oven, in which all the proud,
and all that do wickedly, shall be as stubble, Mai.
iv. 1. Jacob and Joseph shall be as a fire and a
flame; for those that meddle with them, to do them
hurt, will find it is at their peril; they shall be to
them as a torch of fire in a sheaf Zech. xii. 6.
The word of God in the mouth of his ministers is
said to be like fire, and the people as wood to be de¬
voured by it, Jer. v. 14. And the man of sin is to be
consumed by the breath of Christ’s mouth, 2 Thess.
ii. 8. Those that arc not refined as gold by the
fire of the gospel, shall be consumed as dross by it;
for it will be a savour either of life or of death.
When idols and idolatry were abolished, and the
wealth and power of the nations were brought
into the service of Christ and his gospel, and the
spoils of the strong man armed were divided by bin
that was stronger than he, then the house of Jacob
and Joseph devoured the house of Esau, so that
there was none of them left remaining. This the
Lord spake by his prophets, and this he did by his
apostles. (2. ) How far this possession shall extend,
v. 19, 20. This is described in Jewish language,
which speaks the accession made to the land of Is
rael, after the return out of captivity in Babylon.
The captivity of this host of Israel, this host of Is¬
rael that has been so long in captivity, and, now
they are come back, are still called the children of
the captivity, these shall not only recover their own
land, but shall gain ground upon their neighbours
adjoining to them, some of whom shall become
proselytes, and shall incorporate with the Jews,
who, by possessing them in a holy communion,
possess their land. We must reckon ourselves
truly enriched by the conversion of our neighbours
to the fear of God, and the faith of Christ, and
their coming to join with us in the worship of God.
Such an accession to our Christian communion we
must reckon to be more our wealth and strength
than an accession to our estates. Or, The ancient
inhabitants of those lands that were carried away
into captivity being lost, and never returning to
their estates, the children of Israel shall take pos¬
session of that which lies next them; for their num¬
bers shall so increase, that their own land shall be
too strait for them, and their neighbours’ estates
shall escheat to them ob defectum sanguinis —
through default of heirs. They shall enter upon
that which' is adjoining to them. The country of
Esau shall be possessed by them of the south parts
of Canaan, for to them it lies contiguous. _ They of
the plain, on the west of Canaan, which was a
champaign country, shall enter upon the land of the
Philistines, their neighbours. They of Judah, which
was the chief of the two returning tribes, shall pos¬
sess the field of Ephraim and Samaria, which be¬
fore belonged to the ten tribes; and Benjamin, the
| other tribe, shall possess Gilead on the other sidt
OBADIAH.
999
Tordan, which had belonged to the two tribes and a
naif. The kingdom of Israel shall join with that of
Judah, both in civil and sacred interests, and, as
friends and brethren, shall mutually possess and
enjoy one another; and both together shall / wssess
the Canaanites, even to Zarepliath, which belongtlh
to Zidon; and Jerusalem shall possess the cities
the south, even to Sepharad. Thus did the Jews
enlarge their borders on all sides. The modern
rabbins teach their scholars by Zarepliath and
Sepharad to understand France and Spain, ground¬
ing upon this a foolish, groundless expectation, that,
some time or other, the Jews shall be master of
those countries; and they call and count the Chris¬
tians Edomites, over whom they are to have domi¬
nion. But the promise here, no doubt, has a spiritual
signification, and had its accomplishment in the set¬
ting up of the Christian church, the gospel Israel, in
the world, and shall have its accomplishment more
and more in the enlargement of it, and the additions
made to it, till the mystical body is completed.
When ministers and Christians prevail with their
neighbours to come to Christ, to yield themselves to
the Lord, they fiossess them. The converts that
Abraham made, are said to be the souls that he had
gotten, Gen. xii. 5. The possession is gained, not
vi et armis — by force and arms; for the weapons of
our warfare are not carnal, but spiritual; it is by
the preaching of the gospel, and the power of divine
grace given along with it, that this possession is
got and kept.
4. That the kingdom of the Redeemer shall be
erected and maintained, to the comfort of his loyal
subjects, and the terror and shame of all his ene¬
mies; 21.) The kingdom shall be the Lord’s,
the Lord Christ’s. God shall give it him, by putting
all things into his hand, all power both in heaven
! and in earth; men shall give it him, by resigning
themselves to him as his willing people, and ap¬
pointing him their Head. Now the work of kings
is to protect their subjects and suppress their ene¬
mies; and this Christ will do; he will both reward
and punish. (1.) The mountain of Zion shall be
saved; on it saviours shall come; the preachers of
the gospel, who are called saviours, because their
business is to save themselves and those that hear
them; and in this they are workers together with
Christ, but to little purpose, if he by Ins grace did
not work together with them. (2.) The mountain
of Esau shall be judged; and the same that come
as saviours on mount Zion, shall judge the mountain
of Esau; for the word of the gospel in their mouth,
that saves believers, judges unbelievers, convinces
and condemns them. Christ’s ministers are saviours
on mount Zion, when they preach that he that be¬
lieves shall be saved; but they judge the mount of
Esau, when they preach, that he that believeth not
shall be damned, which they are not only commis¬
sioned, but commanded to do, Mark xvi. 16. And
in the course of God’s providence his scripture is
fulfilled; when God raises up friends to the church
in her distress, (as he raised up judges to deliver
Israel of old, Judg. ii. 16.) then saviours come on
mount Zion, to save it from being sunk and ruined;
and when the enemies of the church are brought
down, and their power broken, then is the mount
of Esau judged; and this shall be done in eveiy age
in such a way as God thinks best; we may depend
upon it, that the gates of hell shall not prevail
against the church, but the church shall prevail
against them; for the kingdom shall be the Lord’s,
the kingdom of the world shall become his, and he
has taken and will take to himself his great power
and reign.
AN
EXPOSITION,
WITH
PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS
OF THE BOOK OF
J ON AH.
This book of Jonah, though it be placed here m the midst of the prophetical books of scripture, is yet
rather a history than a prophecy; one line of prediction there is in it, Yet forty days, and Nineveh
shall be overthrown; the rest of the book is a narrative of the preface to, and the consequences of, that
prediction. In the midst of the obscure prophecies before and after this book, wherein are many things
dark, and hard to be understood, which are puzzling to the learned, and are strong meat for strong
men, comes in this plain and pleasant story, which is entertaining to the weakest, and milk for babes.
Probably Jonah was himself the penman of this book, and he, as Moses and other inspired penmen
records his own faults, which is an evidence that in these writings they designed God’s glory, and not
their own. We read of this same Jonah, 2 Kings xiv. 25. where we find that he was of Gath-hepher
in Galilee, a city that belongs to the tribe of Zebulun; in a remote corner of the land of Israel: for the
Spirit, which like the wind blows where it listeth, will as easily find out Jonah in Galilee as Isaiah at
Jerusalem. We find also that he was a messenger of mercy to Israel, in the reign of Jeroboam the
second; for the success of his arms, in the restoring of the coast of Israel, is said to be according to
the word of the Lord, which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah the prophet. Those prophecies
were not committed to writing, but this against Nineveh was, chiefly for the sake of the story that
depends upon it, and that is recorded chiefly for the sake of Christ, of whom Jonah was a type; it
contains also very remarkable instances of human infirmity in Jonah; and of God’s mercy, both in
pardoning repenting sinners, witness Nineveh, and in bearing with repining saints, witness Jonah.
JONAH, I.
CHAP. I.
In this chapter we have, I. A command given to Jonah to
preach at Nineveh; v. 1, 2. II. Jonah’s disobedience
to that command, v. 3. III. The pursuit and arrest of
him for that disobedience by a storm, in which he was
asleep, v. 4.-6. IV. The discovery of him, and his
disobedience, to be the cause of the storm, v. 7 . . 10.
V. The casting of him into the sea, for the stilling of the
storm, v. 11 .. 16. VI. The miraculous preservation of
his life there in the belly of a fish, (v. 17.) which was
his reservation for further services.
l-XJOW t*ie W01'd °f Lord came
unto Jonah, the son of Amittai,
saying, 2. Arise, go to Nineveh, that great
city, and cry against it ; for their wicked¬
ness is come up before me. 3. But Jonah
rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the pre¬
sence of the Lord, and went down to
Joppa ; and he found a ship going to Tar¬
shish : so he paid the fare thereof, and went
down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish
from the presence of the Lord.
1. The honour God put upon Jonah, in giving him
a commission to go and prophesy against Nineveh.
Jonah signifies, a dove; a proper name for all God’s
prophets, all his people, who ought to be harmless
as doves, and to mourn as doves for the sins and
calamities of the land. His father’s name was
Amittai — My truth; for God’s prophets should be
sons of truth. To him the word of the Lord came,
to him it was, (so the word signifies,) for God’s
100!
JONAH, I.
Word is a real thing; men’s words are but wind, but
(Jod’s words are substance. He had been before
acquainted with the word of the Lord, and knew
his voice from that of a stranger; the orders, now
given Irin were, Ji rise, go to Nineveh, that great
city, v. 2. Nineveh was at this time the metropolis
of the Assyrian monarchy, an eminent city, (Gen.
x. 11.) a great city, that great city, forty-eight
miles in compass; some make it much more: great
is the number of the inhabitants, as appears bv the
multitude of infants in it; (ch. iv. 11.) great in
wealth, there was no end of its store; (Nab. ii. 9.)
great in power and dominion, it was the city that for
some time ruled over the kings of the earth. But
great cities, as well as great men, are under God’s
government and judgment. A great city, and yet a
heathen city, without the knowledge and worship of
the true God. How many great cities and great
nations are there, that sit in darkness, and in the
valley of the shadow of death! This great city was
a wicked city; Their wickedness is come up before
me; (their malice, so some read it;) their wickedness
was / iresumptuous , and they sinned with a high
hand. It is sad to think what a great deal of sin is
committed in great cities, where there are many
sinners, who are not only all sinners, but making
one another sin. Their wickedness is come u/i,
that is, it is come to a high degree, to the highest
pitch, the measure of it is full to the brim; their
wickedness is come up, and then it is time for ven¬
geance to come down. Or, The cry of their wick¬
edness is come u/i, as that of Sodom, Gen. xviii. 20,
21. It is come up before me; to my face; (so the
word is;) it is a bold and open affront to God: it is
sinning against him, in his sight, therefore Jonah
must cry against it; he must witness against their
great wickedness, and must warn them of the de¬
struction that was coming upon them for it. God
is coming forth against it, and he sends Jonah be¬
fore, to proclaim war, and to sound an alarm, Cry
aloud, spare not. He must not whisper his mes¬
sage in a corner, but publish it in the streets of
Nineveh; he that has ears to hear, let him hear
what God has to say by his prophet against that
wicked city; When the cry of sin comes up to God,
the cry of vengeance comes out against the sinner.
He must go to Nineveh, and cry there upon the
spot, against the wickedness of it. Other prophets
were ordered to send messages to the neighbouring
nations, and the prophecy of Nahum is particularly
the burthen of Nineveh; but Jonah must go, .and
carry the message himself; “ Arise quickly, apply
thyself to the business with speed and courage, and
the resolution that becomes a prophet, arise, and go
to Nineveh. Those that go on God’s errands, must
rise and go; must stir up themselves to the work
cut out for them. The prophets were sent first to
the lost sheep of the house of Israel, yet not to
them only; they had the children’s bread, but
Nineveh eats of the crumbs.
V 2. The dishonour Jonah did to God in refusing to
obey his orders, and to go on the errand on which
he was sent; ( v . 3.) But Jonah, instead of rising to
go to Nineveh, rose up to go to Tarshish, to the sea,
not bound for any port, but desirous to get away
from the ftresence of the Lord; and if he might but
do that, he cared not whither he went; not as if he
thought he could go any whither from under the eye
of God’s inspection, but from his sfiecial presence,
from the spirit of prophecy, which, when it put him
upon this work, he thought himself haunted with,
and coveted to get out of the hearing of. Some
think Jonah went upon the opinion of some of the
Jews, that the spirit of prophecy was confined to
the land of Israel; (which in Ezekiel and Daniel
was effectually proved to be a mistake;) and there¬
fore he hoped he should get clear of it, if he could
Vol. iv. — 6 L
but get out of the borders of that land. (1 ) Jonah
would not go to Niniveh, to cry against it; either
because it was a long and dangerous journey thither,
and in a road he knew not; or because he was afraid
it would be as much as his life was worth to deliver
such an ungrateful message to that great and potent
city; he consulted with flesh and blood, and declined
the embassy, because he could not go with safety;
or because he was jealous for the pr. rogatives of his
country, and not willing that any other nation should
share m the honour of divine revelation; he feared
it would be the beginning of the removal of the
kingdom of God from the Jews to another nation
that would bring forth more of the fruits of it. He
owns himself, [ch. iv. 2.) that the reason of his aver¬
sion to this journey, was, because he foresaw that
the Ninevites would repent, and God would forgive
them, and take them into favour, which would be a
slur upon the people of Israel, who had been so long
a peculiar people to God. (2. ) He therefore went
to Tarshish; to Tarsus in Cilicia, (so some,) pro¬
bably because he had friends and relations there,
with whom he hoped for some time to abscond; he
went to Joppa, a famous sea-port in the land of Is¬
rael, in (pie st of a ship bound for Tarshish; and
there he found one. Providence seemed to favour
his design, and give him an opportunity to escape;
we may be out of the way of duty, and yet may
meet with a favourable gale. The ready way is not
always the right way; he found the ship just ready
to weigh anchor, perhaps, and to set sail for Tar¬
shish; and so he lost no time, but, perhaps, there¬
fore he went to Tarshish, because he found the ship
going thither, otherwise all places were alike to
him; he did not think himself out of his way, the
way he would go, provided he was not in his way,
the way he should go. So he fiaid the fare thereof;
for he did not regard the charge, so he could but
gain his point, and get to a distance from the pre¬
sence of the Lord; he went with them, with the
mariners, with the passengers, with the merchants,
whoever they were that were going to Tarshish.
Jonah, forgetting his dignity, as well as duty, herded
himself with them, and went down into the ship, to
go with them to Tarshish. See what the best of
men are, when God leaves them to themselves, and
what need we have, when the word of the Lord
comes to us, to have the Spirit of the Lord come
along with the word, to bring every thought within
us into obedience to it. The prophet Isaiah owns
that therefore he was not rebellious, neither turned
away back, because God not only spake to him,
but opened his ear, Isa. 1. 5. Let us learn hence,
to cease from man, and not to be too confident either
of ourselves, or others, in a time of trial; but let
him that thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall.
4. But the Lord sent out a great wind
into the sea, and there was a mighty tem¬
pest in the sea, so that the ship was like to
be broken. 5. Then the mariners were
afraid, and cried every man unto his god,
and cast forth the wares that were, in the
ship into the sea, to lighten it of them : but
Jonah was gone down into the sides of the
ship ; and he lay, and was fast asleep. 6.
So the shipmaster came to him, and said
unto him. What meanest thou, O sleeper?
arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God
will think upon us, that we perish not. 7.
And they said every one to his fellow,
Come, and let us cast lots, that we may
know for whose cause this evil is upon us
1002 JONAH, I.
So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jo¬
nah. 8. Then said they unto him, Tell us,
we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is
upon us. What is thine occupation? and
whence contest thou? what is thy country?
and of what people art thou? 9. And he
said unto them, I am a Hebrew ; and I
fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which
hath made the sea and the dry land. 10.
Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and
said unto him, Why hast thou done this?
(for the men knew that he fled from the
presence of the Lord, because he had told
them.)
When Jonah was set on ship-board, and under
sail for Tarshish, he thought himself safe enough;
but here we find him pursued and overtaken, dis¬
covered and convicted, as a deserter from God, as
one that had run his colours.
I. God sends a pursuer after him, a mighty tem¬
pest in the sea, v. 4. God has the winds in his trea¬
sure, (Ps. cxxxv. 7.) and out of these treasures
God sent forth, he cast forth, (so the word is,) with
force and violence, a great wind into the sea; even
stormy winds fulfil his word, and are often the mes¬
sengers of his wrath; he gathers the winds in his
fist, (Prov. xxx. 4.) where he holds them, and
whence he scjucezes them when he pleases ; for
though, as to us, the wind blows where it listeth,
yet not as to God, but where he directs. The effect
of this wind was a mighty tempest; for when the
winds rise, the waves rise. Note, Sin brings storms
and tempests into the soul, into the family, into
churches and nations; it is a disquieting, disturbing
thing. The tempest prevailed to that degree, that
the ship was like to be broken, the mariners expected
no other; that ship, (so some read it,) that and no
other; other ships were upon the same sea at the
same time, yet, it should seem, that ship in which
Jonah was, was tossed more than any other, and
was more in danger. This wind was sent after Jo-v
nah, to fetch him back again to God and to his duty;
and it is a great mercy to be reclaimed and called
home, when we go astray, though it be by a tempest.
II. The ship’s crew were alarmed by this mighty
tempest, but Jonah only-, the person concerned, was
unconcerned, v. 5. The mariners were affected
with their danger, though it was not with them that
God had this controversy; (1.) They were afraid;
though, their business leading them to be very much
conversant with dangers of this kind, they used to
make light of them, yet now the oldest and stoutest
of them began to tremble, being apprehensive that
there was something more than ordinary in this
tempest, so suddenly did it rise, so strongly did it
rage. Note, God can strike a terror upon the most
daring, and make even great men and chief captains
call for shelter from rocks and mountains. 2. They
cried every man unto his god; this was the effect of
their fear; many will not be brought to prayer till
they are frightened to it; he that would learn to
pray, let him go to sea. Lord, in trouble have they
visited thee. Every man of them prayed, they were
not some praying and others res iling, but every man
engaged; as the danger was general, so was the ad¬
dress to Heaven, there was not one praying for them
all, but every one for himself They cried every
man to his god, the god of his country or city, or his
own tutelar deity; it is a testimony against atheism,
that every man had a god, and had the belief of a
god; but it is an instance of the folly of paganism,
that thev had gods many, every man the god he had
a fancy for; whereas there can be but one God,
there needs be no more. But though they had lost
that dictate of the light of nature — that there is but
one God, they still were governed by that direction
of the law of nature — that Gcd is to be prayed to,
( Should not a people seek unto their God? Isa. viii.
19.) and that he is especially to be prayed to when
we are in distress and danger. Call upon me in the
time of trouble. Is any afflicted? Is any fright
ened? Let him pray. 3. I'heir prayers for deli
verance were seconded with endeavours, and, hav¬
ing called upon their gods to help them, they did
what they could to help themselves: for that is the
rule, Help thyself, and God will help thee. They
cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the
sea, to lighten it of them; as Paul’s mariners in a
like case cast forth even the tackling of the shi/i,
and the wheat, Acts xxvii. 18, 19, 38. These here
were making a trading voyage, as it should seem,
and were laden with many goods and much mer¬
chandise, by which they hoped to get gain; but now
they are content to suffer loss by throwing them all
overboard, to save their lives. See how powerful
the natural love of life is; Skin for skin, and all that
a man has, will he give for it; and shall we not put
a like value upon the spiritual life, the life of the
soul, reckoning that the gain of all the world can¬
not countervail the loss of the soul? See the vanity
of worldly wealth, and the uncertainty of its con
tinuance with us. Riches make themselves wings,
and flee away; nay, and the case may be such, that
we may be under a necessity of making them wings
and driving them away, as here, when they could
not be kept for the owners thereof, but to their hurt,
so that they themselves are glad to be rid of them ,
and sink that which otherwise would sink them
though they have no prospect of ever recovering
it. O that men would be thus wise for their souls,
and would be willing to part with that wealth, plea- 1
sure, and honour, which they cannot keep without
making shipwreck of faith and a good conscience,
and ruining their souls for ever! They that thus
quit their temporal interests for the securing of their
spiritual welfare, will be unspeakable gainers at
last; for what they lose upon those terms, they shall
find again to life eternal.
But where is Jonah all this while? One would have
expected him busier than any there, but we find
him gone down into his cabin, nay, into the hold,
between the sides of the ship, and there he lies, and
is fast asleep; neither the noise without, nor the
sense of guilt within, waked him. Perhaps for some
time before he had avoided sleeping, for the fear of
God’s speaking to him again in a dream; and now
that he imagined himself out of the reach of that
danger, he slept so much the faster. Note, Sin is
of a stupefying nature, and we are concerned to
take heed lest at any time our hearts be hardened by
the deceitfulness of it. It is the policy of Satan,
when by his temptations he has drawn men from
God and their duty, to rock them asleep in carnal
security, that they may not be sensible of their
misery and danger. It concerns us all to watch
therefore.
III. The master of the ship called Jonah up to his
prayers, v. 6. The shipmaster came to him, and ■
bid him for shame get up, both to pray for life, and
to prepare for death; he gave him, 1. A just re¬
proof and necessary chiding; What meanest thou,
0 sleeper? Here we commend the shipmaster, who
gave him this reproof, for though he was a stranger
to him, he was, for the present, as one of his family;
and whoever has a precious soul, we must help, as
we can, to save it from death. We pity Jonah, who
needed this reproof; as a prophet ot the Lord, if he
had been in his place, lie might have been reprov¬
ing the king of Nineveh, but being out of the way
JONAH, I.
1003
of his duty, he does himself lie open to the reproofs
of ;i sorry shipmaster. See how men by their sin
and folly diminish themselves, and make themselves
mean. Yet we must admire God’s goodness in send¬
ing him this seasonable reproof, for it was the first
step toward his recovery; as the crowing of the
cock was to Peter. Note, Those that sleep in a
storm, may well be asked what they mean. 2. A
pertinent word of advice; "Arise, call u/ion thy
God; we are here crying every man to his god, why
dost not thou get up, and cry to thine ? Art not thou
equally concerned with the rest, both in the danger
dreaded, and in the deliverance desired?” Note, The
devotions of others should quicken ours; and those
who hupe to share in a common mercy, ought in all
reason to contribute their quota toward the prayers
and supplications that are made for it. In times of
public distress, if we have any interest at the throne
of grace, we ought to improve it for the public good.
And the servants of God themselves have some¬
times need to be called and stirred up to this part of
their duty. 3. A good reason for this advice; If so
be that (rod will think upon us, that sue / lerish not.
It should seem the many gods they called upon were
considered by them but as mediators between them
and the supreme God, and intercessors for them with
him; for the shipmaster speaks of one God still,
from whom he expected relief. To engage prayer,
he suggests that the danger was very great and im¬
minent; “ We are all likely to fierish; there is but
a step between us and death, and that just ready to
be ste/it.” Yet he suggests that there was some
hope remaining, that their destruction might be pre¬
vented, and we may not perish; while there is life,
there is hope, and while there is hope, there is room
for prayer. He suggests also it was God only that
could effect their deliverance, and it must come
from his power and his pity. If he think upon us,
and act for us, we may yet be saved. And there¬
fore to him we must look, and in him we must put
our trust, when the danger is ever so imminent.
IV. Jonah is found out to be the cause of the
storm.
1. The mariners observed so much peculiar and
uncommon either in the storm itself, or in their own
distress by it, that they concluded it was a messen¬
ger of divine justice sent to arrest some one of them
that were in that ship, as having been guilty of some
enormous crime; judging as the barbarous people,
Acts xxviii. 4. “ JVo doubt, one of us is a murderer,
or guilty of sacrilege, or perjury, or the like, who
is thus pursued by the vengeance of the sea, and it
is for his sake that we all suffer.” Even the light
of nature teaches, that in extraordinary judgments
the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against
some extraordinary sins and sinners. Whatever
evil is upon us at any time, we must conclude there
is a came for it; there is evil done by us, or else this
evil would not be upon us; there is a ground for
God’s controversy.
2. They determined to refer it to the lot, which
of them was the criminal that had occasioned this
storm ; Let us cast lots, that we may know for whose
cause this evil is upon us. None of them suspected
himself, or said. Is it I, Lord? is it I? But they
suspected one another, and would find out the man.
Note, It is a desirable thing, when any evil is upon
us, to know for what cause it is upon us, that what
is amiss may be amended, and, the grievance being
redressed, the grief may be removed. In order to
this, we must look up to Heaven, and pray, Lord,
show mb wherefore thou contendest with me; that
which I see not, teach thou me. These mariners
desired to know the person that was the dead weight
in their ship, the accursed thing, that that one man
might die for the people, and that the whole ship
might not be lost; this was not only expedient, but
highly just. In order to this, they cast lots, by which
they appealed to the judgment of God, to whom all
hearts are open, and from whom no secret is hid;
agreeing to acquiesce in his discovery and determi¬
nation, and to take that for truth which the h t
spoke; for they knew by the light of nature, what
the scripture tells us, that the lot is cast into the lap,
but the whole disposal thereof is of the Lord. Even
the heathen looked upon the casting of lots to be a
sacred thing, and to be done with seriousness and
solemnity, and not to be made a sport of. It is a
shame for Christians, if they have not a like reve¬
rence for an appeal to Providence.
3. The lot Jell upon Jonah, who could have saved
them this trouble, if he would but have told them
what his own conscience told him, Thou art the man;
but, as is usual with criminals, he never confesses
till he finds he cannot help it, till the lot falls upon
him. We may suppose there were those in the ship,
who, upon other accounts, were greater sinners than
Jonah, and yet he is the man that the tempest pur¬
sues, and that the lot pitches upon; for it is his own
child, his own servant, that the parent, that the
master corrects, if they do amiss, others that offend
he leaves to the law. The storm is sent after Jonah,
because God has work for him to do, and it is sent
to fetch him back to it. Note, God has many ways
of bringing to light concealed sins and sinners, and
making manifest that folly which was thought to be
hid from the eyes of all living. God’s right hand
will find out all his servants that desert him, as well
as all his enemies that have designs against him; yea,
though they flee to the utmost parts of the sea, or go
down to the sides of the ship.
4. Jonah is hereupon brought under examination,
before the masters and mariners. He was a stran¬
ger, none of them could say that they knew the pri¬
soner, or had any thing to lay to his charge, and
therefore they must extort a confession from him,
and judge him out of his own mouth; and for this
there needed no rack, the shipwreck they were in
danger of was sufficient to frighten him, so as to
make him tell the truth. Though it was discovered
by the lot, that he was the person for whose sake
they were thus damaged and exposed, yet they did
not fly outrageously upon him, as one would fear
they might have done, but calmly and mildly in¬
quired into his case. There is a compassion owing
to offenders when they are discovered and convict¬
ed; they gave him no hard words, but, Tell us, we
pray thee, what is the matter? Two things they
inquire of, (1.) Whether ha would himself own that
he was the person for whose sake the storm was
sent, as the lot had intimated; “ Tell us for whose
cause this evil is upon us; is it indeed for thy cause,
and if so, for what cause ? What is the offence for
which thou art thus prosecuted?” Perhaps the
gravity and decency of Jonah’s aspect and behaviour
made them suspect that the lot had missed its man,
had missed its mark, and therefore they would not
trust it, unless he would himself own his guilt; they
therefore beg of him that he would satisfy them in
this matter. Note, Those that would find out the
cause of their troubles, must not only begin, but
pursue the inquiry, must descend to particulars, and
accomplish a diligent search. (2.) What his cha¬
racter was; both as to his calling and as to his coun¬
try. [1.] They inquire concerning his calling; What
is thine occupation ? This was a proper question to
be put to a vagrant. Perhaps they suspected his
calling to be such as might bring this trouble upon
them; “Art thou a diviner, a sorcerer, a student in
the black art? Hast thou been conjuring for this
wind? Or what business art thou now going on? Is
it like B ilaam’s, to curse any of God’s people, and
is this wind sent to stop thee?” [2.] They inquire •
concerning his country; one asked, Whence earnest
1004
JONAH, I.
th'.u ? Another, not having patience to stay for an \
answer to that, asked, What is thy country ? A third
to the same purport, “ Of what people art thou? Art
thou of the Chaldeans that were noted for divina¬
tion; or of the Arabians that were noted for steal¬
ing?” They wish to know of what country he was,
that, knowing who was the god of his country, they
might guess whether he was one that could do them
any kindness in this storm.
5. In answer to these interrogatories, Jonah makes
a full discovery. (1.) Did they inquire concerning
his country? He tells them he is a Hebrew, (v. 9.)
not only of the nation of Israel, but of their religion
which they have received from their fathers. He
is a Hebrew, and therefore is the more ashamed to
own that he is a criminal; for the sins of Hebrews,
that make such a profession of religion, and enjoy
such privileges, are greater than the sins of others,
and more exceeding sinful. (2.) Did they inquire
concerning his calling. What is his occupation? In
answer to that, he gives an account of his religion,
for that was his calling, that was his occupation,
that was it that he made a business of; “ I jear the
Lord Jehovah, that is the God I worship, the God
I pray to, even the God of heaven, the sovereign
Lord of all, that has made the sea and the dry land,
and has the command of both.” Not the god of
one particular country, which they inquired after,
and such as the gods were, that they had been every
man calling upon, but the God of the whole earth;
who, having made both the sea and the dry land,
makes what work he pleases in both, and makes
what use he pleases of both. This he mentions,
not only as condemning himself for his folly in flee¬
ing from the presence of this God, but as designing
to bring these mariners from the worship and ser¬
vice of their many gods to the knowledge and obe¬
dience of the one only living and true God. When
we are among those that are strangers to us, we
should do what we can to bring them acquainted
with God, by being ready upon all occasions to own
our relation to him, and our reverence for him. (3. )
Did they inquire concerning his crime, for which
he is now prosecuted? He owns that he fed from
the presence of the Lord, that he was here running
away from his duty, and the storm was sent to fetch
him back. We have reason to think that he told
them this with sorrow and shame, justifying God,
and condemning himself, and intimating to the
mariners what a great God Jehovah is, who could
send such a messenger as this tempest was after a
runagate servant.
6. We are told what impression this made upon
the mariners; The men were exceedingly afraid,
and justly, for they perceive, (1.) That God is
angry, even that God that made the sea and the dry
land. This tempest comes from the hand of of¬
fended justice, and therefore they have reason to
fear it will go hard with them. Judgments inflicted
for some particular sin have a peculiar weight and
terror in them. (2.) That God is angry with one
that fears and worships him, only for once running
from his work in a particular instance; this made
them afraid for themselves. “ If a prophet of the
Lord be thus severely punished for one offence,
what will become of us that have been guilty of so
many, and great and heinous offences?” If the
righteous be thus scarcely saved, and for a single
act of disobedience thus closely pursued, where
shall the ungodly and the sinner appear ? 1 Pet. iv.
17, 18. They said to him, “ Why hast thou done
this ? If thou fearest the God that made the sea and
the dry land, why wast thou such a fool as to think
thou couldest flee from his presence? What an ab¬
surd, unaccountable thing it is;” Thus he was re¬
proved, as Abraham by Abimelech; (Gen. xx. 16.)
for if the professors of religion do a wrong thing,
they must expect to hear of it from those that make
no such profession. “ Why hast thou done this to
us? (So it may be taken.) “Why hast thou in¬
volved us in the prosecution?” Note, Those that
commit a wilful sin, know not how far the mis¬
chievous consequences of it may reach, nor what
mischief may be done by it.
11. Then said they unto him, What shall
we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm
unto us? (for the sea wrought, and was
tempestuous.) 12. And he said unto them.
Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea;
so shall the sea be calm unto you: for 1
know that for my sake this great tempest
is upon you. 13. Nevertheless, the men
rowed hard to bring it to the land; but they
could not: for the sea wrought, and was
tempestuous against them. 14. Wherefore
they cried unto the Lord, and said, We
beseech thee, O Lord, we beseech thee,
let us not perish for this man’s life, and lay
not upon us innocent blood : for thou, O
Lord, hast done as it pleased thee. 1 5.
So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth
into the sea; and the sea ceased from her
raging. 16. Then the men feared the Lord
exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto
the Lord, and made vows. 17. Now the
Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow
up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of
the fish three days and three nights.
It is plain that Jonah is the man for whose sake
this evil is upon them, but the discovery of him to be
so was not sufficient to answer the demands of this
tempest; they had found him out, but something
more was to be done, for still the sea wrought, and
was tempestuous, (v. 11.) and again, (r. 13.) it
grew more and more tempestuous, so the margin
reads it; for if we discover sin to be the cause of our
troubles, and do not forsake it, we do but make bad
worse. Therefore they go on with the prosecution.
1. They inquire of Jonah himself what he thought
they must do with him; (u. 11.) What shall we do
unto thee that the sea may be calm to us? They
perceive that Jonah is a prophet of the Lord, and
therefore will not do any thing, no, not in his own
case, without consulting him. He appears to be a
delinquent, but he appears also to be a penitent, and
therefore they would not insult over him, or offer
him any rudeness. Note, We ought to act with
great tenderness toward those that are overtaken in
a fault, and are brought into distress by it. They
would not cast him into the sea, if he could think of
any other expedient by which to save the ship. Or,
perhaps, thus they would show how plain the case
was, that there was no remedy but he must be
thrownroverboard; let him be his own judge, as he
had bfen his own accuser, and he himself will say
so. '-Note, When sin has raised a storm, and laid
us under the tokens of God’s displeasure, we are
concerned to inquire what we shall do, that the sea
may be calm ; and what shall we do? We must pray
and believe, when we are in a storm, and study to
answer the end for which it was sent, and then the
storm shall become a calm. But especially we must
consider what is to be done to the sin that raised the
storm; that must be discovered, and penitently con¬
fessed, that must be detested, disclaimed, and ut
100.0
JONAH, J.
terly forsaken. What have I to do any more with
it? Crucify it, crucify it, for this evil it hus done.
2. Jonah reads his own doom; ( v . 12.) Take me
up, and cast me forth into the sea. He would not
himself leap into the sea, but he puts himself into
their hands, to cast him into the sea, assures them
that then the sea would be calm, and not otherwise.
He proposed this, in tenderness to the mariners,
that they might not suffer for his sake; “ Let thy
hand be upon me,” (says David, 1 Chron. xxi. 17.)
“ who am guilty, let me die for my own sin, but let
not the innocent suffer for it.” This is the lan¬
guage of true penitents, who earnestly desire that
none but themselves may ever smart, or fare the
worse, for their sins and follies. He proposed it
likewise in submission to the will of God, who sent
this tempest in pursuit of him; and therefore judges
himself to be cast into the sea, because to that he
plainly saw God judging him, that he might not be
judged of the Lord to eternal misery. Note, Those
who are truly humbled for sin, will cheerfully sub¬
mit to the will of God, even in a sentence of death
itself. If Jonah sees this to be the punishment of
his iniquity, he accepts it, he subjects himself to it,
and justifies God in it. No matter though the Jiesh
be destroyed, no matter how it is destroyed, so that
the spirit may but be saved in the day of the Lord
Jesus, 1 Cor. v. 5. The reason he gives, is, For I
know that for my sake this great tempest is upon
you. See how ready Jonah is to take all the guilt
upon himself, and to look upon all the trouble as
theirs; “ It is purely for my sake, who have sinned,
that this tempest is upon you; therefore cast me
forth into the sea: for,” (1.) “I deserve it; I have
wickedly departed from my God, and it is upon my
account that he is angry with you; surely I am un¬
worthy to breathe in that air which for my sake has
been hurried with winds, to live in that ship which
for my sake has been thus tossed; cast me into the
sea after the wares which for my sake you have
thrown int.. it; drowning is too good for me, a single
death is punishment too little for such a complicated
offence. ” (2. ) “ Therefore there is no other way of
having the sea calm. If it is I that have raised the
storm, it is not casting the wares into the sea, that
will lay it again; no, you must cast me thither.”
When conscience is awakened, and a storm raised
there, nothing will turn it into a calm but parting
with the sin that occasioned the disturbance, and
abandoning that. It is not parting with our money
that will pacify conscience; no, it is the Jonah that
must be thrown overboard. Jonah is herein a type
of Christ, that he gives his life a ransom for many;
but with this material difference, that the storm
Jonah gave himself up to still, was of his own rais¬
ing; that storm which Christ gave himself up to
still, was of our raising. Yet as Jonah delivered
himself up to be cast into a raging sea, that it might
be calm, so did our Lord Jesus, when he died, that
we might live.
3. The poor mariners did what they could to
save themselves from the necessity of throwing
Jonah into the sea, but all in vain; (v. 13.) They
rowed hard to bring the ship to the land, that if they
must part with Jonah, they might set him safe on
shore; but they could not, all their pains were to no
purpose, for the sea wrought harder than they
could, and was tempestuous against them, so that
.ney could by no means make the land; if they
thought sometimes they had gained their point, they
were quickly thrown off to sea again; still their ship
was overladen, their lightening it of the wares made
it never the lighter as long as Jonah was in it. And
besides, they rowed against wind and tide, the wind
of God’s vengeance, the tide of his counsels; and it
is in vain to contend with God, in vain to think of
saving ourselves any other way than by destroying
our sins. By this it appears that these mariners
were very loath to execute Jonah’s sentence upon
himself, though they knew it was for his sake that
this tempest was upon them. They were thus very
backward to it, partly from a dread of bringing
upon themselves the guilt of blood, and partly from
a compassion they could not but have for poor Jonah,
as a good man, as a man in distress, and as a man
of sincerity. Note, The more sinners humble and
abase themselves, judge and condemn themselves,
the more likely they are to find pity both with God
and man. The more forward Jonah was to say.
Cast me into the sea, the more backward they are
to do it.
4. When they found it necessary to cast Jonah
into the sea, they first grayed to God that the guilt
of his blood might not lie upon them, or be laid to
their charge, v. 14. When they found it in vain
to row hard, they quitted their oars, and went to
their prayers; l therefore they cried unto the Lord,
unto Jehovah, the true and living God, and no more
to the gods many, and lords many, that they cried
to, v. 5. They prayed to the God of Israel, being
now convinced, by the providence of God concern¬
ing Jonah, and the information he had given them,
that he is God alone. Having determined to cast
Jonah into the sea, they first enter a protestation
in the court of heaven, that they do not do it wil¬
lingly, much less maliciously, or with any design to
be revenged upon him, because it was Jor his sake
that the tempest was upon them; no, His God for¬
give him, as they do! But they are forced to it se
aefendendo — in self-defence, having no other way
to save their own lives; and they do it as ministers
of justice, both God and himself having sentenced
him to so great a death. They therefore present a
humble petition to the God whom Jonah feared,
that they might not perish for his life. See, (1.)
What a fear they had of contracting the guilt of
blood, especially the blood of one that feared God,
and worshipped him, and had fellowship with him,
as they perceived Jonah had, though in a single in¬
stance he had been faulty. Natural conscience
cannot but have a dread of blood-guiltiness, and
make men very earnest in prayer, as David was, to
be delivered from it, Ps. li. 14. So they were here;
JVe beseech thee, O Lord, we beseech thee, lay not
upon us innocent blood. They are now as earnest in
praying to be saved from the peril of the sin as they
were before in praying to be saved from the peril
of the sea, especially because Jonah appeared to
them to be no ordinary person, but a very good
man, a man of God, a worshipper of the great
Creator of heaven and earth, upon which account
even these rude mariners conceived a veneration
for him, and trembled at the thought of taking
away his life. Innocent blood is precious, but saint s’
blood, prophets’ blood, is much more precious, and
so they will find to their cost, that any way bring
themselves under the guilt of it. The mariners saw
Jonah pursued by divine vengeance, and yet could
not without horror think of being his executioners.
Though his God has a controversy with him, yet,
think they, Let not our hand be upon him. The
Israelites were at this time killing the prophets for
doing their duty, (witness Jezebel’s late persecu¬
tion,) and were prodigal of their lives, which is ag¬
gravated by the tenderness these heathens had for
one whom they perceived to be a prophet, though
he was now out of the way of his duty. (2. ) What
a fear they had of incurring the wrath of God; they
were jealous lest he should be angry, if' they should
be at the death of Jonah, for he had said. Touch
not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm; it
is at your peril if you do. Lord,” say they, “ let
us not fierish for this man’s life. Let it’ not be such
a fatal dilemma to us; we see we must perish if we
1006
JONAH, II.
spure his life, O let us not perish for taking away
his life ” And their plea is good; “ For thou, O
Lord, hast done as it pleased thee, thou hast laid us
under a necessity of doing it; the wind that pursued
him, tlie lot that discovered him, were both under
thy direction, which we are herein governed by;
we are but the instruments of Providence, and it is
sorely against our will that we do it; but we must
say, The will of the Lord be done.” Note, When
we are manifestly led by Providence to do things
contrary to our own inclinations, and quite beyond
our own intentions, it will be some satisfaction to us,
to be able to say. Thou, 0 Lord, hast done as it
pleased thee. And if God please himself, we ought
to be satisfied, though he do not please us.
5. Having deprecated the guilt they dreaded, they
proceeded to execution; (n. 15.) They took it ft Jo¬
nah, and cast him forth into the sea. They cast him
out of their ship, out of their company, and cast him
into the sea, a raging, stormy sea, that cried, “ Give,
give; surrender the traitor, or expect no peace.”
We may well think what confusion and amazement
poor Jonah was in, when he saw himself ready to be
hurried into the presence of that God as a Judge,
whose presence as a Master he was now fleeing
from. Note, Those know not what ruin they run
upon, that run away from God. Wo unto them!
for they have fed from me. When sin is the Jonah
that raises the storm, that must thus be cast forth
into the sea; we must abandon it, and be the death
of it, must drown that which otherwise will drown
us in destruction and perdition. And if we thus by
a thorough repentance and reformation cast our sins
forth into the sea, never to recall them, or return
to them again, God will by pardoning mercy subdue
our iniquities, and cast them into the depths of the
sea too, Mic. vii. 19.
6. The throwing of Jonah into the sea immediately
put an end to the storm. The sea has what she
came for, and therefore rests contented; she ceases
from her raging. It is an instance of the sovereign
flower of God, that he can soon turn the storm into a
calm; and of the equity of his government, that
when the end of an affliction is answered and attain¬
ed, the affliction shall immediately be removed.
H will not contend for ever, will not contend any
longer than till we submit ourselves and give up the
cause. If we turn from our sins, he will soon turn
from his anger.
7. The mariners were hereby more confirmed in
their belief that Jonah’s God was the only true God;
( v . 16.) Then the men feared the Lord with a
great fear, were possessed with a deep veneration
for the God of Israel, and came to a resolution that
they would worship him only for the future; for
there is no other God that can destroy, that can de¬
liver after this sort. When they saw the power of
God in raising and laying the tempest, when they
saw his justice upon Jonah his own servant, and
when they saw his goodness to them in saving them
from tne brink of ruin, then they feared the Lord,
Jer. v. 22. As an evidence of their fear of him, they
offered sacrifice to him when they came ashore
again in the land of Israel, and for the present made
vows, that they would do so, in thankfulness for
their deliverance, and to make atonement for their
souls. Or, perhaps, they had something yet on
board, which might be for a sacrifice to God imme¬
diately; or, it may be meant of the spiritual sacri¬
fices of prayer and praise, with which God is better
pleased than with that of an ox or bullock that has
horns and hoofs. See Ps. cvii. 22, &c. We must
make vows, not only when we are in the pursuit of
mercy, but, which is much more generous, when we
have received mercy, as those that are still studying
what we shall render.
Lastly, Jonah’s life, after all, is saved by a mira¬
cle, and we shall hear of him again for all this. In
the midst of judgment God remembers mercy; Jonah
shall be worse frightened, than hurt, not so much
punished for his sin as reduced to his duty. Though
lie flees from the presence of the Lord, and seems to
fall into his avenging hands, yet God has more work
for him to do, and therefore has prepared a great
fish to swallow up Jonah, v. 17. A whale, our Sa¬
viour calls it, (Matth. xii. 40.) one of the largest
sorts of whales, that have wider throats than others;
in the belly of which has sometimes been found the
dead body of a man in armour. Particular notice
is taken, in the history of the creation, of God’s
creating great whales, (Gen. i. 21.) and the levia¬
than in the waters made to play therein, Ps. civ. 26.
But God finds work for this leviathan, has prepared
him, has numbered him, (so the word is,) has ap¬
pointed him to be Jonah’s receiver and deliverer.
Note, God has command of all the creatures, and can
make any of them serve his designs of mercy to his
people; even the fishes of the sea, that are most from
under man’s cognizance, even the great whales, that
are altogether from under man’s government. This
fish was prepared, lay ready under water close by
the ship, that he might keep Jonah from sinking to
the bottom, and save him alive, though he deserves
to die. Let us all stand still, and see this salvation
of the Lord, and admire Ids power, that he could
thus save a drowning man, and his pity, that he
would thus save one that was running from him and
had offended him. It was of the Lord’s mercies,
that Jonah was not now consumed. The fish swal¬
lowed up Jonah, not to devour him, but to protect
him; Out of the eater comes forth meat; for Jonah
was alive and well in the belly of the fish three days
and three nights, not consumed by the heat of the
animal, or suffocated for want of air; it is granted
that to nature this was impossible, but not to the
God of nature, with whom all things are possible.
Jonah by this miraculous preservation was designed
to be made, (1.) A monument of divine mercy, for
the encouragement of those that hav e sinned, and
gone away from God, to return and repent. (2.) A
successful preacher to Nineveh; and this miracle
wrought for his deliverance, if the tidings of it
reached Nineveh, would contribute to his success.
(3.) An illustrious type of Christ, who was buried
and rose again according to the scriptures, (1 Cor.
xv. 4. ) according to this scripture, for as Jonah was
three dcys and three nights in the whale's belly, so
was the Son of man three days and three nights in
the heart of the earth , Matth. xii. 40. Jonah’s
burial was a figure of Christ’s. God prepared Jo¬
nah’s grave, so he did Christ’s, when it was long
before ordained that he should make his grave with
the rich, Isa. liii. 9. Was Jonah’s grave a strange
one, a new one? So was Christ’s, one in which
never man before was laid. Was Jonah there the
best part of three days and three nights ? So was
Christ; but both in order to their rising again for
the bringing of the doctrine of repentance to the
Gentile world. Come, see the place where the Lord
lay.
CHAP. II.
We left Jonah in the belly of the fish, and had reason to
think we should hear no more of him, that if he were not
destroyed bv the waters of Ihe sea, he would be consumed
in the bowels of that lexnathan, out of whose bowels g o
burning lamps , and sparks of fire, and whose breath kindles
coals, Job xii. 19, 21. But God brings his people through
fire and through water ; (Ps. lxvi. 12.) and by his power,
behold, Jonah the prophet is yet alive, and is heard of
again. In this chapter, God hears from him, for we find
him praying; in the next, Nineveh hears from him, foi
we find him preaching. In his prayer, we have, I. The
great distress and danger he was in, v. 2, 3, 5,6. II.
The despair he was thereby almost reduced to, v. 4. III.
The encouragement he took to himself, in this deplora
1007
JONAH, II.
tie condition, v. 4,7. IV. The assurance he had of
God’s favour to him, v. 6, 7. V. The warning and in¬
struction he gives to others, v. S. VI. The praise and
lory of all given to God, v. 9. In the last verse, we
ave Jonah’s deliverance out of the belly of the lish,
and his coming safe and sound upon dry land again.
1. J'a^HEN Jonah prayed unto the Lord
JL his God out of the fish’s belly, 2.
And said, I cried by reason of mine afflic¬
tion unto the Lord, and he heard me ; out
of the belly of hell ci ied I, and thou heardest
my voice. 3. F or thou hadst cast me into
the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the
floods compassed me about : all thy billows
and thy waves passed over me. 4. Then I
said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will
look again toward thy holy temple. 5. The
waters compassed me about even to the soul :
the depth closed me round about, the weeds
were wrapped about my head. 6. I went
down to the bottoms of the mountains; the
earth with her bars was about me for ever:
yet hast thou brought up my life from cor¬
ruption, O Lord my God. 7. When my
soul fainted within me I remembered the
Lord ; and my prayer came in unto thee,
into thy holy temple. 3. They that observe
lying vanities forsake their own mercy. 9.
But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice
of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have
vowed. Salvation is of the Lord.
God and his servant Jonah had parted in anger,
and the quarrel began on Jonah’s side; he run his
country, that he might outrun his work; but we
hope to see them both together again, and the re¬
conciliation begins on God’s side. In the close of
the foregoing chapter, we found God returning to
Jonah, in a way of mercy, delivering him from go¬
ing down to the flit, having found a ransom : in
this chapter, we find Jonah returning to God in a
way of duty; he was called uf in the former chapter
to pray to his God, but we are not told that he did
so; however, now at length he is brought to it. Now
observe here,
I. When he prayed; (v. 1.) Then Jonah prayed;
then when he was in trouble, under the sense of
sin, and the tokens of God’s displeasure against him
for sin; then he prayed. Note, When we are in
affliction, we must pray; then we have occasion to
pray, then we have errands at the throne of grace,
and business there. Then, if ever, we shall have a
disposition to pray, when the heart is humbled and
softened, and made serious; then God expects it;
In their affliction they will seek me early, seek me
earnestly; and though we bring our afflictions upon
ourselves by our sins, yet, if we pray in humility
and godly sincerity, we shall be welcome to the
throne of grace, as Jonah was. Then when he was
in a hofeful way of deliverance, being preserved
alive by a miracle, a plain indication that he was
reserved for further mercy, then he prayed. An ap¬
prehension of God’s good will to us, notwithstanding
our offences, gives us boldness of access to him, and
opens the lips in prayer, which were closed with
tne sense of guilt, and dread of wrath.
II. Where he prayed; in the fish’s belly. No
place is amiss for prayer. I will that men /tray
every where; wherever God casts us, we may find a
way open heavenward, if it be not our own fault;
Undique ad Ctelos tantundem est via — The heavens
are equally accessible from every fart of the earth .
He that has Christ dwelling in his heart by faith,
wherever he goes carries his Altar along with him,
that sanctifies the gift, and is himself a living tern -
fie. Jonah was here in confinement ; the belly of
the fish was his prison, was a close and dark dungeon
I to him, yet there he had freedom of access to God,
i and walked at liberty in communion with him.
Men may shut us out from communion with one
another, but not from communion with God. Jonah
was now in the bottom of the sea, yet out of the
defths he cries to God; as Paul and Silas prayed in
the prison in the stocks.
III. To whom he prayed; to the Lord his God.
He had been fleeing from God, but now he sees the
folly of it, and returns to him; by prayer he draws
near to that God whom he had gone aside from, and
engages his heart to ujifroach him. In prayer he
has an eye to him, not only as the Lord, but as his
God; a God in covenant with him, for, thanks be to
God, every transgression in the covenant does not
throw us out of covenant. This encourages even
backsliding children to return, (Jer. iii. 22.) Be¬
hold, we come unto thee, for thou art the Lord our
God.
IV. What his prayer was: he afterward recol¬
lected the substance of it, and left it upon record.
He reflects upon the workings of his heart toward
God, when he was in his distress and danger, and
the conflict that was then in his breast between faith
and sense, between hope and fear.
1. He reflects upon the earnestness of his prayer,
and God’s readiness to hear and answer; (v. 2.) He
said, I cried, by reason of mine affliction, unto the
Lord. Note, Many that prayed not at all, or did
but whisper prayer, when they were in prosperity,
are brought to fray, nay, are brought to cry, by
reason of their affliction; and it is for this end that
afflictions are sent, and they are in vain if this end
be not answered. Those heaf uf wrath, who cry
not when God binds them, Job xxxu. 13. Out of
the belly of hell, and the grave, cried I. The fish
might well be called a grave, and as it was a prison
to which Jonah was condemned for his disobedience,
and in which he lay under the wrath of God, it
might well be called the belly of hell. Thither this
good man was cast, and yet thence he cried to God,
and it was not in vain; God heard him, heard the
voice of his affliction, the voice of his supplication.
There is a hell in the other world, out of which
there is no crying to God with any hope of being
heard; but whatever hell we may be in, in the belly
of, in this world, we may from thence cry to God.
When Christ lay, as Jonah, three days and three
nights in the grave, though he prayed not, as Jonah
did, yet his very lying there cried to God for poor
sinners, and the cry was heard.
2. He reflects upon the very deplorable condition
that he was in, when he was in the belly of hell;
which, when he lay there, he was verv sensible of,
and made particular remarks upon. Note, If we
would get good by our troubles, we must take notice
of our troubles, and of the hand of God in them.
Jonah observes here,
(1.) How low he was thrown; (v. 3.) Thoti hadst
cast me into the deef. The mariners cast him
there; but he looked above them, and saw the hand
of God casting him there. Whatever deeps we are
cast into, it is God that casts us into them, and he it
is, who, after he has killed, has fower to cast into
hell. He was cast into the midst of the seas, the
heart of the seas, (so the word is,) and from thence
Christ borrows that Hebrew phrase, when he ap¬
plies it to his own lying so long in the heart of the
earth. For he that is laid dead in the grave, though
ever so ebb, is cut off as effectually from the land of
the living as if he were laid in the heart of the earth.
1008
JONAH, II.
(2.) How terrible he was beset; The floods com¬
passed me about. The channels and springs of the
waters of the sea, these surrounded him on every
side; it was always high-water with him. God’s
dear saints and servants are sometimes com/iassed
with the floods of affliction, with troubles that are
very forcible and violent, that bear down all before
them, and that run constantly upon them, as the
waters of a river in a continual succession, one trou¬
ble upon the neck of another, as Jub’s messengers of
evil tidings: these enclosed them on all sides, as the
church complains, Lam. iii. 7. He has hedged me
about, that I cannot get out, nor see which way I
may flee for safety. All thy billows and thy waves
passed over me. Observe, He calls them God’s
billows and his waves, not only because he made
them, The sea is his, and he made it; and because
he rules them, for even the winds and the seas obey
him; but because he had now commissioned them
against Jonah, and limited them, had ordered them
to afflict and terrify him, but not to destroy him.
These words are plainly quoted by Jonah from Ps.
xlii. 7. where, though the translations differ a little,
in the original David’s complaint is the same verba-
tim with this of Jonah’s, All thy billows and thy
waves passed over me. What David spoke figura¬
tively and metaphorically, Jonah applies to himself
as literally fulfilled. F or the reconciling of ourselves
to our afflictions, it is good to search precedents, that
we may find there has no temptation taken us, but
such as is common to men. If ever any man’s case
was singular, and not to be paralleled, surely Jonah’s
was, and yet, to his great satisfaction, he finds even
the man after God’s own heart making the same
complaint of God’s waves and billows going over
him, that he has now occasion to make. When
God performs the thing that is appointed for us, we
shall find that many such things are with him , that
even our path of trouble is no untrodden path, and
that God deals with us no otherwise than as he uses
to deal with those that love his name. And there¬
fore for our assistance in our addresses to God, when
we are in trouble, it is good to make use of the com-
laints and prayers which the saints that have been
efore us. made use of in the like case. See how
good it is to be ready in the scriptures; Jonah, when
he could make no use of his bible, by the help of
his memory furnished himself from the scripture
with a very proper representation of his case; All
thy billows and thy waves passed over me. To the
same purport, v. 5. The wafers compassed me
about even to the soul; they threatened his life,
which was hereby brought into imminent danger;
or they made an impression upon his spirit; he saw
them to be tokens ot God’s displeasure, and in them
the terrors of the Almighty set themselves in array
against him; this reached to his soul, and put that
into confusion. And this also is borrowed from Da¬
vid’s complaint, (Ps. lxix. 1.) The waters are come
in unto my soul. When without are fightings, it is
no marvel that within are fears. Jonah , in the fish’s
bellv, finds the depths closimr him round about, so
that if he would get out of his prison, yet he must
unavoidably perish in the waters. He feels the sea¬
weed (which the fish sucked in with the water) [
wrapped about his head, so that he had no way to i
help himself, nor hope that any one else could help |
him. Thus are the people of God sometimes per¬
plexed and entangled, that they may learn not to
trust in themselves, but in God that raises the dead,
2 Cor. i. 8, 9.
(3.) How fast he was held; (v. 6.) He went
down to the bottom of the mountains, to the rocks
in the sea, upon which the hills and promontories
by the sea-side seem to be bottomed; he lay among
them, nay, he lay under them; the earth with her
bars was about him, so close about him, that it was
likely to be about him for ever. The earth was so
shut and locked, so barred and bolted, against him,
that he was quite cut off from any hope of ever re¬
turning to it. Titus helpless, thus hopeless, did
Jonah’s case seem to be. Those whom God con¬
tends with, the whole creation is at war with.
3. He reflects upon the very black and melan¬
choly conclusion he was then ready to make con¬
cerning himself, and the relief he obtained against
it, v. 4, 7. (1.) He began to sink into despair, and
to give up himself for gone and undone to all intents
and purposes. When the waters compassed him
about even to the soul, no marvel that his soul faint¬
ed within him, fainted away, so that he had not any
comfortable enjoyments or expectations; his spirits
quite failed, and he looked upon himself as a dead
man. Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight, and
the apprehension of that was the thing that made
his spirit faint within him. He thought God had
quite forsaken him, would never return in mercy to
him, nor show him any token for good again. He
had no example before him of any that were brought
alive out of a fish’s belly; if he thought of Job upon
the dunghill, Joseph in the pit, David in the cave,
vet these did not come up to his case. Nor was
there any visible way of escape open for him but by
miracle; and what reason had he to expect that a
miracle of mercy should be wrought for him, who
was now made a monument of justice. -His own
conscience told him that he had wickedly fled from
the presence of the Lord, and therefore he might
justly cast him away from his presence, and, in
token of that, take away his holy Spirit from him,
never to visit him more. What hopes could he have
of deliverance out of a trouble which his own ways
and doings had procured to himself? Observe,
When Jonah would say the worst he could of his
case, he says this, lam cast out of thy sight; those,
and those only, are miserable, whom God has cast
out of his sight, whom he will no longer own and
favour. What is the misery of the damned in hell
but this, that they are cast out of God’s sight? For
what is the happiness of heaven but the vision and
fruition of Godr Sometimes the condition of God’s
people may be such in this world, that they may
think themselves quite excluded from God’s pre¬
sence, so as no more to see him, or to be regarded
by him. Jacob and Israel said, My way is hid
from the Lord, and my judgments is passed over
from my God, Isa. xl. 27. Zion said, The Lord
has forsaken me, my God has forgotten me, Isa.
xlix. 14. But it is only the surmise of unbelief, for
God has not cast away his people whom he has
chosen. (2.) Yet he recovered himself from sink¬
ing into despair, with some comfortable prospects
of deliverance. Faith corrected and controlled the
surmises of fear and distrust. Here was a fierce
struggle between sense and faith, but faith had the
last word, and came off a conqueror. In trying
times, the issue will be good at last, provided our
faith do not fail; it was therefore the continuance
of that in its vigour, that Christ secured to Peter; 1
have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not, Luke
xxii. 32. David had fainted if he had not believed,
Ps. xxvii. 13. Jonah’s faith said, Yet I will look
again toward thy holy temple. Thus, though he
was perplexed, yet not in despair; in the depth of
the sea he had this hope in him, as an anchor of the
soul, sure and steadfast. That which he supports
himself with the hope of, is, that he shall vet look
again toward God’s holy temple. [1.] That he
shall live; he shall look' again heavenward, shall
again see the light of the sun, though now he seems
to be cast into utter darkness; thus against hope he
believed in hope. [2.1 That he shall live, and
praise God; and a good man does not desire to live
for any other purpose, Ps. cxix. 175. That he shal'
1009
JONAH, II.
enjoy communion with God again in holy ordinances,
shall look toward, and go up to, the holy temple,
there to inquire, there to behold the beauty r of the
Lord. When Hezekiah desired that he might be
assured of his recovery, he asked, What is the sign
that I shall go up to the house of the Lord? (Isa.
xxxviii. 22.) As if that were the only thing for the
sake of which he wished for health: so Jonah here
hopes he shall look again toward the temple ; that
way he had looked many a time with pleasure, re¬
joicing when he was called to go up to the house of
the Lord; and the remembrance of it was his com¬
fort, that, when he had opportunity, he was no
stranger to the holy temple. But now he could not
so much as look towards it; in the fish’s belly he
could not tell which way it lay, but he hopes he
shall be again able to look towards it, to look on it,
to look into it. Observe, How modestly Jonah ex¬
presses himself ; as one conscious to himself of guilt
and unworthiness, he dares not speak of dwelling in
God’s house, as David, knowing that he is no more
worthy to be called a son, but he hopes he may be
admitted to look towards it. He calls it the holy
temple, for the holiness of it was, in his eye, the
beauty of it, and that for the sake of which he loved
and looked towards it. The temple was a type of
heaven; and he promises himself that though, being
now a captive exile, he should never be loosed, but
die in the pit, yet he should look towards the hea¬
venly temple, and be brought safe thither; though
he die in t^ie fish’s belly, in the bottom of the sea,
yet from thence he hopes his soul shall be carried
by angels into Abraham’s bosom. Or, these words
niay be taken as Jonah’s vow when he was in dis¬
tress, and he speaks (r. 9.) of paying what he vowed;
his vow is, that if God deliver him, he will praise
him in the gates of the daughter of Zion, Ps. ix. 13,
14. His sin for which God pursued him, was, fee¬
ing from the presence of the Lord, the folly of which
he is now convinced of, and promises, not only that
he will never again look toward Tarshish, but that
he will again look toward the temple, and will go
from strength to strength till he appear before God
there. And thus we see how faith and hope were
his relief, in his desponding condition; to this he
added prayer to God; (m 7.) “ When my soul
fainted within me, then I remembered the Lord, I
betook myself to that cordial.” He remembered
what he is, how nigh to those that seem to be thrown
at the greatest distance by trouble, how merciful to
those that seem to have thrown themselves at a dis¬
tance from him by sin. He remembered what he
had done for him, what he had done for others,
what he could do, what he had promised to do; and
this kept him from fainting. Remembering God,
he made his addresses to him; “My prayer came in
unto thee; I sent it in, and expected to receive an
answer to it.” Note, Our afflictions should put us
in mind of God, and thereby put us upon prayer to
him. When our souls faint, we must remember
God; and when we remember God, we must send
up a prayer to him, a pious ejaculation at least;
when we think on his name we should call on his
name.
4. He reflects upon the favour of God to him,
when thus in his distress he sought to God and
trusted in him. (1.) He graciously accepted his
prayer, and gave admission and audience to it; (t>.
7.) My prayer, being sent to him, came in unto
him, even into his holy temple; it was heard in the
highest heavens, though it was prayed in the lowest
deeps. (2.) He wonderfully wrought deliverance
for him, and, when he was in the depth of his mise¬
ry, gave him the earnest and assurance of it; (y. 6.)
Yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption,
0 Lord my God. Some think he said this when he
was vomited up on dry ground; and then it is the
Vot iv — 6 M
language of his thankfulness, and he sets it over
against the great difficulty of his case, that the
power of God might be the more magnified in his
deliverance; The earth with her bars was about me
for ever, and yet thou hast brought up my life from
the pit, from the bars of the pit; or, rather, we may
suppose it spoken wlnle he was yet in the fish’s
belly, and then it is the language of his faith;
“Thou hast kept me alive here, in the pit, and
therefore thou canst, thou wilt, bring up my life
from the pit: and he speaks of it with as much as¬
surance as if it were done already; Thou hast
brought up my life. Though he has not an express
promise of deliverance, he has an earnest of it, and
on that he depends; he has life, and therefore be¬
lieves his life shall be brought up from corruption;
and this assurance he addresses to God; Thou hast
done it, 0 Lord my God. Thou art the Lord, and
therefore canst do it for me; my God, and therefore
wilt do it. Note, If the Lord be our God, he will
be to us the Resurrection and the Life, will redeem
our lives from destruction, from the power of tin
grave.
5. He gives warning to others, and instnicts them
to keep close to God; ( v . 8.) They that observe
lying vanities, forsake their own mercy. That is,
(1.) They that worship other gods, as the heathen
mariners did, and call upon them, and expect re¬
lief and comfort from them, they forsake their own
mercy, they stand in their own light, they turn theii
back upon their own happiness, and go quite out ol
the way of all good. Note, Idols are lying vanities,
and those that pay that homage to them, which is
due to God only, act as contrarily to their interest as
to their duty. Or, (2.) They that follow their own
inventions, as Jonah himself had done, when he fed
from the presence of the Lord to go to Tarshish,
they forsake their own mercy, that mercy which
they might find in God, and might have such a co¬
venant-right and title to it, as to be able to call it
their own, if they would but keep close to God and
their duty. They that think to go any where, to be
from under the eye of God, as Jonah did, that think
to mend themselves by deserting his service, as
Jonah did, and that grudge his mercy to any poor
sinners, and pretend to be wiser than he in judging
who are fit to have prophets sent them, and who
not, as Jonah did, they observe lying vanities, are
led away by foolish, groundless fancies, and, like
him, they forsake their own mercy, and no good can
come of it. Note, They that forsake their own
duty, forsake their own mercy; they that run away
from the work of their place and day, run away from
the comfort of it.
6. He solemnly binds his soul with a bond, that
if God work deliverance for him, the God of his
mercies shall be the God of his praises, v. 9. He
covenants with God, (1.) That he will honour him
in his devotions witli the sacrifce of thanksgiving;
and God has said, for the encouragement of those
that do so, that they that offer praise, glorify him.
He will, according to the law of Moses, bring a sa¬
crifce of thanksgiving, and will offer that according
to the law of nature, with thenozce of thanksgiving.
The love and thankfulness of the heart to God arc
the life and soul of this duty; without it neither the
sacrifce of thanksgiving, nor thevoice of thanksgiv¬
ing, will avail any thing; but it was then, by a di¬
vine appointment, to be expressed by a sacrifce, in
which the offerer presented the beast slain to God,
not in lieu of himself, but in token of himself ; and it
is now to be expressed by the voice of thanksgiving,
the calves of our lips, (Hos. xiv. 2.) the fruit of our
lips, (Heb. xiii. 15.) speaking forth, singing forth,
the high praises of our God. This Jonah here pro¬
mises, that with the sacrifice of thanksgiving he win
mention the loving-kindness of the I.ord, to his
1010
JONAH, 111.
glory, and the encouragement of others. (2.) That
he will honour him in his conversation by a punctual
erformance of his vows which he made in the fish’s
elly. Some think it was some work of charity
that he vowed, or such a vow as Jacob’s was. Of all
that thou hast given me, I will give a tenth unto
thee. More probably, his vow was, that if God
would deliver him, he would readily go wherever
he should please to send him, though it were to
Nineveh. When we smart for deserting our duty,
it is time to promise that we will adhere to it, and
abound in it. Or, perhaps, the sacrifice of thanks¬
giving is the thing he vowed, and that is it which he
will fiay, as David, Ps. cxvi. 17. — 19.
7. He concludes with an acknowledgment of God
as the Saviour of his people; Salvation is of the
Lord; it belongs to the Lord, Ps. iii. 8. He is the
God of salvation, Ps. lxviii. 19, 20. He only can
work salvation, and he can do it, be the danger and
distress ever so great; he has promised salvation to
nis people that trust in him. All the salvations of
nis church in general, and of particular saints, were
wrought by him; he is the Saviour of them that be¬
lieve, 1 Tim. iv. 10. Salvation is still of him, as it
has always been: from him alone it is to be expected,
and on him we are to depend for it. Jonah’s expe¬
rience shall encourage others, in all ages, to trust in
God, as the God of their salvation; all that read
this story, shall say it with assurance, say it with
admiration, that salvation is of the Lord, and is sure
to all that belongs to him.
10. And the Lord spake unto the fish,
and it vomited out Jonah upon tiie dry land.
We have here Jonah’s discharge from his impri¬
sonment, and his deliverance from that death which
there he was threatened with; his return, though
not to life, for he lived in the fish’s belly, yet to the
land of the living, for from that he seemed to be
quite cut off; his resurrection, though not from
death, yet from the grave, for surely never man was
so buried alive as Jonah was in the fish’s belly. His
enlargement may be considered,
1. As an instance of God’s power over all the crea¬
tures; God spake to the fish, gave him orders to re¬
turn him, as before he had given him orders to re¬
ceive him. God speaks to other creatures and it is
done, they are all his ready, obedient servants; but
to man he speaks once, yea, twice, and he perceives
it not, regards it not, but turns a deaf ear to what he
says. Note, God has all creatures at his command,
makes what use he pleases of them, and serves his
own purposes by them.
2. As an instance of God’s mercy to a poor peni¬
tent, that in his distress prays to him. Jonah had
sinned, had done foolishly, very foolishly; his own
backslidings did now correct him, and it appears by
bis after-conduct that his foolishness was not quite
driven from him, no, not by the rod of this correc¬
tion: and yet, upon his praying, and humbling him¬
self before God, here is a miracle in nature wrought
for his deliverance, to intimate what a miracle of
grace, free grace, God’s reception and entertain¬
ment of returning sinners are. When God had him
at his mercy, he showed him mercy, and did not
contend for ever.
3. As a type and figure of Christ’s resurrection.
He died and was buried, to lay the storm which our
sin had raised, and lay in the grave, as Jonah did,
three days and three nights, a prisoner for our debt;
but the third day he came forth, as Jonah did, by
his messengers to preach repentance, and remission
of sins, even to the Gentiles. And thus was another
scripture fulfilled, After two days he will receive
us, and the third day he will raise us up, Hos. vi.
2. The earth trembled as if full of her burthen as
the fish was of Jonah.
CHAP. III.
In this chapter we have, I. Jonah’s mission renewed, and
the command a second time given him to go preach at
Nineveh, v. 1, 2. II. Jonah’s message to Nineveh faith¬
fully delivered, by which its speedy overthrow was
threatened, v. 3, 4. III. The repentance, humiliation,
and reformation of the Ninevites hereupon, v. 5 . . 9.
IV. God’s gracious revocation of the sentence passed
upon them, and the preventing of the ruin threatened
v. 10.
1. 4 ND the word of the Lord came
l\- unto Jonah the second time, saying,
2. Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city,
and preach unto it the preaching that I bid
thee. 3. So Jonah arose, and went unto
Nineveh, according to the word of the
Lord. (Now Nineveh was an exceeding
great city, of three days’ journey.) 4. And
Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s
journey; and he cried, and said, Yet forty
days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
We have here a further evidence of the reconci¬
liation between God and Jonah, and that it was a
thorough reconciliation, though the controversy be¬
tween them had run high.
1. By this it appears that God was perfectly re¬
conciled to Jonah, that he employed him again in
his service; and the commission anewtgiven him
was an evidence of the remission of his former dis¬
obedience. Among men, it has been justly pleaded,
that the giving of a commission to a criminal con¬
victed is equivalent to a pardon, so it was to Jonah;
( v . 1.) The word of the Lord came unto Jonah the
second time; for, (1.) Jonah must be fried whether
he do indeed repent of his former disobedience or
no; and whether he have gotten the gpod designed
him, both by his strange punishment and by his
strange deliverance. He had deserted his work and
duty, and had been under an arrest for it, had re¬
ceived a sentence of death within himself; but, upon
his submission, God had released him, had given
him his life, had given him his liberty; but it is upon
his good behaviour that he is released, and he must
again be put upon the trial whether he will follow
the will of God or his own will. After he has been
thrown into the sea, and thrown out of it again, God
comes, and asks him, “Jonah, wilt thou goto Ni¬
neveh now?” For when God judges, he will over¬
come; he will gain his point, he will bring the dis¬
obedient, stubborn child to his foot at last. Note,
When God has afflicted us, and delivered us out of
affliction, we must hear his voice, saying to us. Now
return to the duties which before you neglected,
and which by these providences you are called to.
God now said, in effect, to Jonah, as Christ said to
the impotent man, when he had healed him, “Now
go, and sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto
thee, (John v. 14.) a worse thing than lying three
days and three nights in the whale’s belly.” God
looks upon men, when he has afflicted them, and
has delivered them out of their affliction, to see
whether they will mend of that fault, particularly,
for which they were corrected; and therefore in
that thing we are concerned to see to it that we re¬
ceive not the grace of God in vain, neither in the
correction nor in the deliverance, for both are de¬
signed to be means of grace. (2.) Jonah shall be
trusted, in token of God’s favour to him. God might
justly have said concerning Jonah, as we should
concerning one that had cheated us, and dealt trea¬
cherously with us, that, though we would not pro¬
ceed to the rigour of the law against him, nor ruin
him, yet we would never again repose a confidence
in him; justly might the Spirit of prophecy, which
1011
JONAH, III.
Jonah had resisted and rebelled against, depart
from him, with a resolution never to return to him
any more. One would have expected that though
his life was spared, yet he should be laid under a
disability and incapacity ever to serve the govern¬
ment again in the character of a prophet. But be¬
hold! the word of the Lord comes to him again, to
show that when God forgives, he forgets, and whom
he forgives he gives a new heart and a new spirit to;
he receives those into his family again, and restores
them to their former estate, that had been prodigal
children and disobedient servants. Note, God’s
making use of us is the best evidence of his being at
peace with us. Hereby it will appear that our sins
are pardoned, and we have the good will of God
towards us; does his good word come unto us, and
do we experience his good work in us? If so, we
have reason to admire the riches of free grace, and
to own our obligations to the Lord Jesus, who re¬
ceived gifts for men, yea, even for the rebellious
also, that the Lord God might dwell even among
them, and employ them in his work, Ps. lxviii. 18.
2. By this it appeal's that Jonah was well recon¬
ciled to God, that he was not now, as he had been
before, disobedient to the heavenly vision, did not
flee from the presence of the Lord, as he had done;
he neither endeavoured to avoid hearing the com¬
mand, nor did he decline obeying it, he made no
objections, as he had done, that the journey was
long, the errand invidious, the delivery of it peril¬
ous, and, if the threatened judgment did not come,
he should be reproached as a false prophet, and the
impenitence of his own nation would be upbraided,
which he had objected, ch. iv. 2. But now, without
murmuring and disputing, Jonah arose, and went
unto Nineveh, accordijig to the word of the Lord,
v. 3. See here, (1.) The nature of repentance; it is
the change of our mind and way, and a return to
our work and duty, from which we had turned aside ;
it is doing that good which we had left undone. (2. j
The benefit of affliction; it reduces those to their
place, that had deserted it. Jonah might truly say
with David, “ Before I was afflicted I went astray,
but now have I kept thy word; and therefore,
though it was dreadful, though it was painful to me,
and for the present not joyous, but grievous, yet it
was good, very good for me, that I was afflicted.”
(3.) See the power of divine grace working with
affliction, for otherwise affliction of itself would ra¬
ther drive men from God than bring them to him;
but God by his grace can turn the disobedient to the
wisdom of the just, and make those willing in the
day of his power, freely willing to come under his
yoke, whose neck had been as an iron sinew. (4. )
See the duty of all those to whom the word of the
Lord comes; they must in all points conform them¬
selves to it, and yield a cheerful, faithful obedience
to the orders God gives them; Jonah arose, and did
not sit still in sloth or sullenness; he went directly
to Nineveh, though it was a great way off, and a
place where it is likely he never was before; yet
thither he took his journey, according to the word
of the Lord. God’s servants must go where he
sends them, come when he calls them, and do what
he bids them; whatever appears to be the word
of the Lord, we must conscientiously do according
to it.
Let us now see what were the command and
commission given him, and what he did in prosecu¬
tion of it.
I. He was sent as a herald at arms, in the name
of the God of heaven, to proclaim war with Nine¬
veh; (v 2.) Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city,
that metropolis, and preach unto it, preach against
it; so the Chaldee. What is against us, is preached
to us, that we may hear it, and take warning; and
what is preached to us, if we do not give ear ta it,
and mix faith with it, will prove to be against us.
Jonah is sent to Nineveh, which was at this time the
chief city of the Gentile world, as an indication ot
God’s gracious intentions in process of time to make
the light of divine revelation to shine in those dark
regions. God knew that if Sodom and Gomorrah,
Tyre and Sidon, had had the means of grace, they
would have repented, and yet he denied them those
means, Mattli. xi. 21, 23. He knew that if Nineveh,
had now the means of grace, they would repent,
and he gave them those means, sent Jonah, though
not to preach repentance to them expressly, (for we
find not that he had that in his commission,) yet
to preach them to repentance, for that 'was the
happy effect of what he had in commission. If God
thus in dispensing his favours, in giving the means
of grace to some places and not to others, and
the Spirit of grace to some persons and not to
others, acts by prerogative and in a way of sover¬
eignty, who may say unto him, What doest thou?
May he not do what he will with his own ? He is
Debtor to no man. Go, and preach (says God) the
preaching that I bid thee. That is, 1. “The preach¬
ing that I did bid thee when I first ordered thee to go
thither; {ch. i. 2.) go, and cry against it, denounce
divine judgments against it, tell the men of Nine¬
veh that their wickedness is come up to God, and
God’s vengeance is coming down upon them.” This
was the message Jonah was then very loath to de¬
liver, and therefore flew off, and went to Tarshish;
but when he is brought to it the second time, God
does not at all alter the message, to gratify him, or
make it the more passable with him, no, he must
now preach the very same that he was then ordered
to preach and would not. Note, The word of God
is an unalterable thing, and will not be made to
bend to the humours either of its preachers or of its
hearers; it shall never comply with their humours
and fancies, but they must comply with its truths
and laws. SeeJer. xv. 19. Let them return unto
thee, but return not thou unto them. Or, 2. “The
preaching that I shall bid thee, when thou comest
thither.” This was an encouragement to him in
his undertaking, that God would go along with him,
that the Spirit of prophecy should abide upon him,
and be ready upon him, when he was at Nineveh,
to give him all the further instructions that were
needful for him. This intimated that he should
hear from him again, which would be his great sup¬
port in this hazardous expedition; as when God sent
Abraham to offer up Isaac, he gave him a like inti¬
mation, by telling him he must do it upon one of the
mountains which he would afterward direct him to.
The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord,
he leads his people step by step, and so he expects
they should follow him. Jonah must go with an
implicit faith, though he knows whither he goes;
he shall not know, till he comes thither, what mes¬
sage he must deliver, but, whatever it is, he must
deliver it, be it pleasing or displeasing. Thus God
will keep us in a continual dependence upon him¬
self, and the directions of his word and providence;
what he does, and what he will have us to do, we
know not now, but we shall know hereafter. Ad¬
mirals, sometimes, when they are sent abroad, are
not to open their commission till they are got so
many leagues off at sea; so Jonah must go to Nine¬
veh, and, when he comes there, shall be told what
to say.
II. He faithfully and boldly delivered his errand.
When he came to Nineveh, he found his diocese
large, it was an exceeding great city of three days
journey; (y. 3.) a city great to God, so the He¬
brew phrase is, meaning no more than as we render
it, exceeding great; this honour that language does
to the great God, that great things derive their de¬
nomination from him. The greatness of Nineveh
1012
JONAH, III.
consisted chiefly in the extent of it; it was much
larger than Babylon; such a city, says Diodorus Si¬
culus, as no man ever after built; it was 150 furlongs
long, and ninety broad, and 480 in compass; the
walls 100 feet high, and so thick, that three chariots
might go abreast upon them; on them were 1500
towers, each of them 200 feet high. It is here said
to be of three days’ journey ; for the compass of the
walls, as some relate, was 480 furlongs, which, al¬
lowing eight furlongs to a mile, makes sixty miles,
which may well be reckoned three days’ journey
for a footman, twenty miles a day. Or, walking
slowly and gravely as Jonah must when he went
about preaching, it would take him up at least three
days, to go through all the principal streets and
lanes of the city, to proclaim his message, that all
might have notice of it. When he came thither,
he tost no time; he did not come to look about him,
but applied himself closely to his work; and when
he began to enter into the city, he did not retire into
an inn, to refresh himself after his journey, but
opened his commission immediately, according to
his instructions, and he cried, and said, Yet forty
days, and JYineveh shall be overthrown. This, no
doubt, he had particular warrant and direction to
say; whether he enlarged upon this text, as it is
most probable, showing them the controversy God
had with them, and how provoking their wicked¬
ness was, and what reason they had to expect de¬
struction, and to give credit to this warning, or whe¬
ther he only repeated these words again and again,
is not certain, but this was the purport of his mes¬
sage. 1. He must tell them that this great city shall
be overthrown; he meant, and they understood
him, that it should be overthrown, not by war, but
by some immediate stroke from heaven; either by
an earthquake, or by fire and brimstone as Sodom
was. The wickedness of cities ripens them for de¬
struction, and their wealth and greatness cannot
protect them from destruction, when the measure
of their iniquity is full, and the day of vengeance is
come. Great cities are easily overthrown when the
great God comes to reckon with them. 2. He must
tell them that it shall shortly be overthrown; at the'
end of forty days. It has a reprieve granted; so
long God will wait to see if, upon this alarm given,
they will humble themselves, and amend their
doings, and so prevent the ruin threatened. See
how slow God is to wrath: though Nineveh’s wick¬
edness cried for vengeance, yet it shall be spared
for forty days, that it may have space to repent,
and meet God in the way of his judgments. But
he will wait no longer; if in that time they turn not,
they shall know that he has whet his sword, and made
it ready. Forty days is a long time for a righteous
God to defer his judgments, yet it is but a little time
for an unrighteous people to repent and reform in,
and so turn away the judgments coming. The fix¬
ing of the day thus, with all possible assurance,
would help to convince them that it was a message
from God, for no man durst be so positive in /ire-
fixing a time, however he might prognosticate the
.hing itself ; it would also startle them into a pre¬
paration for it. It may justly awaken secure sin¬
ners by a sincere conversion to prevent their own
ruin, when they see they have but a little time
to turn them in. And should it not awaken us to
get ready for death, to consider that the thing itself
s certain, and the time fixed in the counsel of God,
but that we are therefore kept in the dark and at
uncertainty about it, that we may be always ready?
We cannot be so sure that we shall live forty days
as Nineveh now was that it should stand forty days;
nay, I think it is more probable that we shall die
within thirty or forty days than that we should live
thirty or forty years; and so many years in the day
of our security we are apt to promise ourselves.
Fleres, si scirea unum tua tempora mensem;
Rides, cum non sit forsitan una dies —
We Bhould be alarmed if we were sure not to live a month, and yet
we are careless, though we are not sure to live a day.
5. So the people of Nineveh believed
God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on
sackcloth, from the greatest of them even
to the least of them. 6 For word came
unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose
from his throne, and he laid his robe from
him, and covered him with sackcloth, and
sat in ashes. 7. And he caused it to be
proclaimed and published through Nineveh,
(by the decree of the king and his nobles,)
saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor
flock, taste any thing; let them not feed, nor
drink water. 8. But let man and beast be
covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily
unto God: yea, let them turn every one
from his evil way, and from the violence
that is in their hands. 9. Who can tell if
God will turn and rep'ent, and turn away
from his fierce anger, that we perish not ?
10. And God saw their works, that they
turned from their evil way; and God repent¬
ed of the evil that he had said that he would
do unto them ; and he did it not.
Here is,
I. A wonder of divine grace in the repentance
and reformation of Nineveh, upon the warning given
them of their destruction approaching. Verily 1
say unto you, we have not found so great an instance
of it, no, not in Israel; and it will rise up in judg¬
ment against the men of the gospel-g-enerarion, and
condemn them; for the Nmevites repented at the
preaching of Jonas, but, behold, a greater than Jonas
is here, Matth. xii. 41. Nay, it did condemn the
impenitence and obstinacy of Israel at that time.
God sent many prophets to Israel, and those well
known among them to be mighty in word and deed;
but to Nineveh he sent only one, and him a stran¬
ger, whose aspect was mean, we may suppose,
and his bodily presence weak, especially after the
fatigue of so long a journey; and yet they repented,
but Israel repented not. Jonah preached but one
sermon, and we do net find that he gave them any
sign or wonder, by the accomplishment of whicli
his word might be confirmed; and yet they were
wrought upon, while Israel continued obstinate,
whose prophets chose out words wherewith to rea¬
son with them, and confirmed them by signs fol¬
lowing. Jonah only threatened wrath and ruin; we
do not find that he gave them any calls to repent¬
ance, or directions how to repent, much less any en¬
couragements to hope that they should find mercy
if they did repent, and yet they repented; but Israel
persisted in impenitence, though the prophets sent
to them, drew them with cords of a man, and with
bands of love, and assured them of great things
which God would do for them if they did repent
and reform.
Now let us see what was the method of Nineveh’s
repentance, what were the steps and particular in
stances of it.
1. They believed God; they gave credit to the
word which Jonah spake- to them in the name cf
God; they believed that though they had many that
they called gods, yet there was but one living and
true God; the sovereign Lord of all; that to him
they were accountable; that they had sinned agaiov*
1013
JONAH, III.
him, and were become obnoxious to his justice; that
this notice sent them of ruin approaching came
from him, and, consequently, that the ruin itself
would come from him at the time prefixed., if it
were not prevented by a timely repentance; that he
is a merciful God, and there might be some hopes
of the turning away of the wrath threatened, if they
did turn away from the sins for which it was threat¬
ened. Note, They that come to God, that come
back to him after they have revolted from him, must
believe, must believe that he is, that he is recon-
cileable, that he will be theirs if they take the right
course. And observe what great faith God can work
by very small, weak, and unlikely means; he can
bring even Ninevites by a few threatening words to
be obedient to the faith. Some think the Ninevites
heard, from the mariners, or others, or from Jonah
himself, of his being cast into the sea, and delivered
thence by miracle, arid that this served for a con¬
firmation of his mission, and brought them the
more readily to believe God speaking by him. But
of this we have no certainty; however, Christ’s re¬
surrection, typified by that of Jonah’s, served for
the confirmation of his gospel, and contributed abun¬
dantly to their great success, who in his name
preached repentance and remission of sins to all na¬
tions, beginning at Jerusalem.
2. They brought word to the king of Nineveh,
who, some think, was at this time Sardanapalus,
others Pul, king of Assyria. Jonah was not directed
to go to him first, in respect to his royal dignity;
crowned heads, when guilty heads, are before God
upon a level with common heads; and therefore Jo¬
nah is not sent to the court, but to the str"- ‘s of
Nineveh, to make bis proclamation. Howe\ an
account of his errand is brought to the king of Nine¬
veh, not by way of information against Jonah, as a
disturber of the public peace, that he might be si¬
lenced and punished, which perhaps would have
been done if he had cried thus m the streets of Jeru¬
salem, who killed God’s prophets, and stoned them
that were sent unto her; no, the account was
brought him of it, not as of a crime, but as a mes¬
sage from heaven, by some that were concerned for
the public welfare, and whose hearts trembled for
it. Note, Those kings are happy, who have such
about them as will give them notice of the things
that belong to the kingdom’s peace, of the warnings
both of the word and of the providence of God, and
of the tokens of God’s displeasure which they are
under; and those people are happy, who have such
kings over them as will take notice of those things.
3. The king set them a good example of humilia¬
tion; ( v . 6.) When he heard of the word of God
sent to him, he rose from his throne; as Eglon king
of Moab, who, when Ehud told him he had a mes¬
sage to him from God, rose up out of his seat. The
king of Nineveh rose from his throne, not only in
reverence to a word from God in general, but in fear
of a word of wrath in particular, and in sorrow and
shame for sin, by which he and his people were be¬
come obnoxious to his wrath. He rose from his royal
throne, and laid aside his royal robe, the badge of
bis imperial dignity, as an acknowledgment that,
having not used his power, as he ought to have done,
for the restraining of violence and wrong, and the
maintaining of right, he had forfeited his throne and
robe to the justice of God, had rendered himself un¬
worthy of the honour put upon him, and the trust
reposed in him as a king, and that it was just with
( lod to take it from him. Even the king himself
disdained not to put on the garb of a penitent, for he
avered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes, in
token of his humiliation for sin, and his dread of di¬
vine vengeance. It well becomes the greatest of
men to abase themselves before the great God.
4. The people conformed to the example of the
; king, nay, it should seem, they led the way, for
I they first began to put on sackcloth, from the great¬
est of them even to the least of them, v. 5. The least
of them, that had least to lose in the overthrow of
the city, did not think themselves unconcerned in
the alarm; and the greatest of them, that had used
to lie at ease, and live in state, did not think it be¬
low them to put on the marks of humiliation. The
wearing of sackcloth, especially to those who were
used to fine linen, was a very uneasy thing, and
they would not have done it, if they had not had a
deep sense of their sin, and their danger by reason
of sin, which hereby they designed to "express-
Note, Those that would not be ruined, must be
humbled; those that would not destroy their souls,
must afflict their souls; when God’s judgments
threaten us, we are concerned to humble ourselves
under his mighty hand; and though bodily exercise
alone profits nothing, and a man’s spreading sack¬
cloth and ashes under him, if that be all, is but a
jest, (it is the heart that God looks at, Isa. lviii. 5.)
yet on solemn days of humiliation, when God in his
providences calls to mourning and girding with
sackcloth, we must by the outward expressions of
inward sorrow, glorify God with our bodies; at
least, by laying aside the ornaments.
5. A general fast was proclaimed and observed
throughout that great city, v. 7. — 9. It was order¬
ed by the decree of the king and his nobles; the whole
legislative power concurred in appointing it, and
the whole body of the people concurred in observ¬
ing it, and both these ways it became a national act,
and it was necessary that it should be so when it
was to prevent a national ruin. We have here the
contents of this proclamation, and it is very observ¬
able. See here,
(1.) What it is that is required by it. [1.] That
the fast (properly so called) be very strictly observ¬
ed; on the day appointed for this solemnity, let
neither man nor beast taste any thing; let them not
take the least refreshment, no, not so much as drink
water; let them not plead that they cannot fast so
long without prejudice to their health, or that they
cannot bear it, let them try for once. What if they
do feel it an uneasiness, and feel from it for some
time after? It is better to submit to that than be
wanting in any act or instance of that repentance
which is necessary to save a sinking city. Let them
make themselves uneasy in body by putting on
sackcloth, as well as by fasting, to show how uneasy
they are in mind, through sorrow for sin, and the
fear of divine wrath. Even the beasts must do pen¬
ance as well as man; because they had been made
subject to vanity, as instruments of man’s sin; and
that, either by their complaints, or their silent pin¬
ing for want of meat, they might stir up their own¬
ers, and those that attended them, to the expres¬
sions of sorrow and humiliation. Those cattle that
were kept within doors, must not be fed and wa¬
tered as usual, because no meat must be stirring on
that day. Things of that kind must be forgotten,
and not minded. As when the Psalmist was intent
upon the praises of God, he called upon the inferior
creatures to join with him therein, so when the
Ninevites were full of sorrow for sin, and dread of
God’s judgments, they would have the inferior
creatures concur with them in the expressions of it.
The beasts that used to be covered with rich and
fine trappings, which were the pride of their mas¬
ters, and theirs too, must now be covered with sack¬
cloth; for the great men will (as becomes them) lay
aside their equipage. [2. ] With their fasting and
mourning they must join prayer and supplication to
God; for the fasting is designed to fit the body for
the service of the soul in the duty of prayer, which
is the main matter, and to which the ether is but
preparatory, or subservient. Let them cry mightily
1014
JONAH, IV.
to God ; let even the brute creatures do it according
to their capacity, let their cries and moans for want
of food be graciously construed as cries to God, as
the criesofthe young ravens are, (Job xxxviii. 41.)
and of the young lions, Ps. civ. 21. But especially
let the men, women, and children, cry to God ; let
them cry mightily for the pardon of the sins which
cry against them, and the preventing of the judg¬
ments which were by Jonah cried against them.
It was time to cry to God, when there was but a
step between them and ruin — high time to seek the
Lord. In prayer we must cry mightily, with a fix¬
edness of thought, firmness of faith, and fervour of
pious and devout affections. By crying mightily
we wrestle with God, who take hold of him; and
we are concerned to do so when he is not only de¬
parting from us as a Friend, but coming forth
against us as an Enemy. It therefore concerns us
in prayer to stir uji all that is within us. Yet this is
not all; [3.] They must to their fasting and praying
add reformation and amendment of life. Let them
turn every one from his evil way, the evil way he
has chosen, the evil way he is addicted to and
walks in, the evil way of his heart, and the evil way
of his conversation, and particularly from the vio¬
lence that is in their hands; let them restore what
they have unjustly taken, and make reparation for
what wrong they have done, and let them not any
more oppress those they have power over, or de¬
fraud those they have dealings with; let the men
in authority, at the court end of the town, turn from
the violence that is in their hands, and not decree
unrighteous decrees, or give wrong judgment upon
appeals made to them. Let the men of business,
at the trading end of the town, turn from the vio¬
lence in their hands, and use no unjust weights or
measures, nor impose upon the ignorance or neces¬
sity of those they trade with.
Note, It is not enough to fast for sin, but we
must fall from sin, and, in order to the success of
our prayers, must no more regard iniquity in our
hearts, Ps. lxvi. 18. This is the only fast that God
has chosen, and will accept, Isa. lviii. 6. Zech. vii.
5, 9. The work of a fast-day is not done with the,
day; no, then the hardest and most needful part of
the work begins, which is, to turn from sin, andtolive
a new life, and not return with the dog to his vomit.
(2.) Upon what inducement this fast is proclaim¬
ed and religiously observed; (-n. 9.) Who can tell if
God will return and refient ? Observe, [1.] What
it is that they hope for; that God will, upon their
repenting and turning, change his way toward them,
and revoke his sentence against them; that he will
turn from his fierce anger, which they own they
deserve, and yet humbly and earnestly deprecate;
and that thus their ruin will be prevented, and they
perish not.
They cannot object against the equity of the judg¬
ment, they pretend not to set it aside by appealing
to a higher court, but hope in God himself, that he
will repent, and that his own mercy (to which they
fly) shall rejoice against judgment. They believe
that God is justly angry with them, that, their sin
being very heinous, his anger is very fierce, and
that, if he proceed against them, there is no reme¬
dy, but they die, they perish, they all perish, and
are undone; for who knows the power of his anger?
It is not therefore the threatened overthrow that
they pray for the prevention of, but the anger of
God that they pray for the turning away of. As
when we pray for the favour of God, we pray for
all good, so when we pray against the wrath of
God, we pray against all evil. [2.] What degree
of hope they had of it; Who can tell if God will
turn to us? Jonah had not told them, they had not
among them any other prophets to tell them, so that
they could not be so confident of finding mercy upon
their repentance, as we may be, who have the pro¬
mise and oath of God to depend upon, and especially
the merit and mediation of Christ to trust to, for
pardon upon repentance. Yet they had a general
notion of the goodness of God’S nature, his mercy to
man, and his being pleased with the repentance and
conversion of sinners; and from this they raised
some hopes that he would spare them; they dare
not presume, but they will not despair. ' Note,
Hope of mercy is the great encouragement to repent¬
ance and reformation; and though there be but some
glimmerings of hope mixed with great fears aris¬
ing from a sense of our own sinfulness, and unworthi¬
ness, and long abuse of divine patience, yet they
may serve to quicken and engage our serious repent¬
ance and reformation. Let us boldly cast ourselves
at the footstool of free grace, resolving that, if we
perish, we will perish there; yet who knows but
God will look upon us with compassion?
II. Here is a wonder of divine mercy in the spar¬
ing of these Ninevites, upon their repentance; (y.
10. ) God saw their words; he not only heard their
food words, by which they professed repentance,
ut saw their good works, by which they brought
forth fruit meet for repentance; he saw that they
turned from their evil way, and that was the thing
he looked for and required; if he had not seen that,
their fasting and sackcloth would have been as no¬
thing in his account; he saw there was among them
a general conviction of their sins, and a general reso¬
lution not to return to them, and that for some days
they lived better, and there was a new face of
things upon the city; and this he was well pleased
with. Note, God takes notice of every instance of
the reformation of sinners, even those instances that
fall not under the cognizance and observation of the
world. He sees who turn from their evil way , and
who do not, and meets those with favour, that meet
him in a sincere conversion; when they repent of
the evil of sin committed by them, he repents of the
evil of judgment pronounced against them. Thus
he spared Nineveh, and did not the evil which he
said he would do against it. Here were no sacri¬
fices offered to God, that we read of, to make
atonement for sin, but the sacrifice of God is a bro¬
ken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, such as
the Ninevites now had, is what he will not despise,
it is what he will give countenance to, and put ho¬
nour upon.
CHAP. IV.
We read, with a great deal of pleasure, in the close of the
foregoing chapter, concerning the repentance of Nine¬
veh; but in this chapter, we read, with a great deal of
uneasiness, concerning the sin of Jonah; and as there is
joy in heaven and earth for the conversion of sinners,
so there is grief for the follies and infirmities of saints.
In all the book of God we scarcely find a servant of the
Lord (and such a one we arc sure Jonah was, for the
scripture calls him so) so very much out of temper as he
is here, so very peevish and provoking to God himself.
In the first chapter, we had him fleeing from the face of
God; but here we have him, in effect, flying in the face
of God: and, which is more grieving to us, there ws had
an account of Ms repentance, and return to God; but
here, though no doubt he did repent, yet, as in Solo¬
mon’s case, no account is left us of his recovering him¬
self; but while we read with wonder of his perverseness,
we read with no less wonder of God’s tenderness toward
him, by which it appeared that he had not cast him off.
Here is, I. Jonah’s repining at God’s mercy to Nineveh,
and the fret he was in about it, v. 1 . . 3. II. The gentle
reproof God gave him for it, v. 4. III. Jonah’s discon¬
tent at the withering of the gourd, and his justifying of
himself in that discontent, v. 5 . . 9. IV. God’s improv¬
ing of it for his conviction, that he ought not to be angry
at the sparing of Nineveh, v. 10, 11. Man’s badness and
God’s goodness serve here for a foil to each other, that
the former may appear the more exceeding sinful, and
the latter the more exceeding gracious.
1015
JONAH, IV.
1 "O UT it displeased Jonah exceedingly,
Bl and he was very angry. 2. And
he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray
thee, O Lord, was not this my saying when
1 was yet in my country? Therefore I fled
before unto Tarshish : for I knew that thou
art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to
anger, and of great kindness, and repentest
thee of the evil. 3. Therefore now, O
Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from
me : for it is better for me to die than to
live. 4. Then said the Lord, Doest thou
well to be angry?
See here,
I. How unjustly Jonah quarrelled with God for
his mercy to Nineveh, upon their repentance. This
gives us occasion to suspect that Jonah had only de¬
livered the message of wrath against the Ninevites,
and had At at all assisted or encouraged them in
their repentance, as one would have thought he
should have done; for, when they did repent, and
found mercy,
1. Jonah grudged them the mercy they found;
( v . 1.) It displeased Jonah exceedingly ; and (would
you think it?) he mas very angry; was in a great
heat about it. It was very wrong, (1.) That he
had so little government of himself as to be displeas¬
ed and very angry; he had no rule over his own
spirit, and therefore, as a city broken damn, lay ex¬
posed to temptations and snares. (2.) That he had
so little reverence of God as to be displeased and
angry at what he did; as David was when the
Lord had made a breach upon Uzza ; whatever
pleases God, should please us, and though we cannot
account for it, yet we must acquiesce in it. (3.)
That he had so little affection to men as to be dis¬
pleased and very angry at the conversion of the
Ninevites, and their reception into the divine fa¬
vour.
This was the sin of the scribes and Pharisees,
who murmured at our Saviour because he entertain¬
ed publicans and sinners; but is our eye evil, be¬
cause his is good? But why was Jonah so uneasy at
it, that the Ninevites repented, and were spared?
It cannot be expected that we should give any good
reason for a thing so very absurd and unreasotiable;
no, nor any thing that has the face or colour of
reason; but we may conjecture what the provoca¬
tion was; hot spirits are usually high spirits; only
by pride comes contention both with God and man.
It was a point of honour, that Jonah stood upon,
and that made him angry. [1.] He was jealous for
the honour of his country; the repentance and re¬
formation of Nineveh shamed the obstinacy of Is¬
rael that repented not, but hated to be reformed;
and the favour God showed to these Gentiles, upon
their repentance, was an ill omen to the Jewish na¬
tion, as if they should be (as at length they were)
rejected and cast out of the church, and the Gen¬
tiles substituted in their room.
When it was intimated to St. Peter himself, that
he should make no difference between Jews and
Gentiles, he startled at the thing, and said, JVot so,
Lord; no marvel then that Jonah looked upon it
with regret that Nineveh should become a favourite.
Jonah herein had a zeal for God as the God of Israel
in aparticular manner, but not according to know¬
ledge. Note, Many are displeased with God, un¬
der pretence of concern for his glory. [2.] He was
jealous for his own honour; fearing lest, if Nineveh
was not destroyed within forty days, he should be
accounted a false prophet, and stigmatized accord¬
ingly; whereas he needed not be under any discon¬
tent about that, for in the threatening of ruin it was
implied that, for the preventing of it, they should
repent, and if they did it should be prevented.
And no one will complain of being deceived by him
that is better than his word; and he would rather
gain honour among them, by being instrumental to
save them, than fall under any disgrace. But me¬
lancholy men, (and such a one Jonah seems to have
been,) are apt to make themselves uneasy, by fan¬
cying evils to themselves that are not, nor are ever
likely to be. Most of our frets, as well as our
frights, are owing to the power of imagination; and
those are to be pitied as perfect bond-slaves, that
are under the power of such a tyrant.
2. He quarrelled with God about it; when his
heart was hot within him, he spake unadvisedly with
his tips; and here he tells us what he said; (v. 2, 3.)
He prayed unto the Lord, but it is a very awkward
prayer, not like that which he prayed in the fish’s
belly; for affliction teaches us to pray submissively,
which Jonah now forgot to do. Being in discontent,
he applied himself to the duty of prayer, as he used
to do in his troubles, but his corruptions got head of
his graces, and when he should have been praying
for benefit by the mercy of God himself, he was
complaining of the benefit others had by that mercy.
Nothing could be spoken more unbecomingly.
(1.) He now begins to justify himself in fleeing
from the presence of the Lord when he was first
ordered to go to Nineveh, for which he had before,
with good reason, condemned himself; “Lord,”
said he, “ was not this my saying when I was in my
own country ? Did I not foresee that if I went to
preach at Nineveh, they would repent, and thou
wouldest forgive them, and then thy word would be
reflected upon and reproached as yea and nay?”
What a strange sort ot man was Jonah, to dread the
success of his ministry ! Many have been tempted
to withdraw from their work because they have de¬
spaired of doing good by it, but Jonah declined
preaching because he was afraid of doing good by
it; and still he persists in the same corrupt notion,
for it seems the whale’s belly itself could not cure
him of it. It was his saying when he was in his
own country, but it was a bad saying; yet here he
stands to it; and, very unlike the other prophets,
desires the woful day which he had foretold, and
grieves because it does not come. Even Christ’s
disciples know not what manner of spirit they are
of; they did not, who wished for fire from heaven
upon the city that did not receive them, much less
did Jonah, who wished for fire from heaven upon
the city that did receive him, Luke ix. 55.
Jonah thinks he has reason to complain of that,
when it is done, which he was before afraid of; so
hard is it to get a root of bitterness plucked out of the
mind, when once it is fastened there. And why did
Jonah expect that God would spare Nineveh ? Be¬
cause I Knew that thou mast a gracious God, indul¬
gent, and easily pleased, that thou wasl slow to an¬
ger and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the
evil. All this is very true; and Jonah could not but
know it by God’s proclamation of his name, and the
experiences of all ages; but it is strange and very
unaccountable , that that which all the saints had
made the matter of their joy and praise, Jonah
should make the matter of reflection upon God; as
if that were an impeifection of the divine nature,
which is indeed the greatest glory of it— that God is
gracious and merciful. The servant that said, I
knew thee to be a hard man, said that which was
false, and yet, had it been true, it was net the pro¬
per matter of a complaint; but Jonah, though he
says what is true, yet, speaking it by way of re¬
proach, speaks very absurdly.
Those have a spirit of contention and contradic-
1016
JONAH, IV.
tion indeed, that can find in their hearts to quarrel
with the goodness of God, and his sparing, pardon¬
ing mercy, to which we all owe it that we are out
oj hell. This is making that to be to us a savour
of death unto death, winch ought to be a savour of
life unto life.
(2.) In a passion he wishes for death, v. 3. A
strange expression of his causeless passion ! “Now,
O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me. If
Nineveh must live, let me die, rather than see thy
word and mine disproved, rather than see the glory
of Israel transferred to the Gentiles.” As if there
were not grace enough in God both for Jews and
Gentiles, or as if his countrymen were the further
off from mercy for the Ninevites being taken into
favour. When the prophet Elijah had laboured in
vain, he wished he might die, and it was his infirmi¬
ty, 1 Kings xix. 4. But Jonah labours to good pur¬
pose, saves a great city from ruin, and yet wishes he
might die, as if, having done much good, he were
afraid of living to do more; he sees of the travail of
his «ou/,. and is dissatisfied. What a perverse spirit
is mingled with every word he says! When Jonah
was brought alive out of the whale’s belly, he
thought life a very valuable mercy, and was thank¬
ful to that God who brought up his life from corrup¬
tion, ( ch . ii. 6.) and a great blessing his life had
been to Nineveh; yet now, for that very reason, it is
become a burthen to himself, and he begs to be eased
of it; pleading, It is belter for me to die than to live.
Such a word as this may be the language of grace,
as it was in Paul, who desired to depart and be with
Christ, which is far better ; but here it was the lan¬
guage of folly and passion, and strong corruption;
and so much the worse.
[1.] Jonah being now in the midst of his useful¬
ness, and therefore ft to live; he was one whose
ministry God wonderfully owned and prospered.
The conversion of Nineveh might give him hopes
of being instrumental to convert the whole kingdom
of Assyria; it was therefore very absurd for him to
wish he might die, when he had a prospect of living
to so good a purpose, and could be so ill spared.
[2.] Jonah being now so much out of temper, and
therefore unfit to die. How durst he think of dying,
and going to appear before God’s judgment-seat,
when he was actually quarrelling with him ? Was
this a frame of spirit proper for a man to go out of
the world in ? But those who passionately desire
death, commonly have least reason to do it, as being
very much unprepared for it. Our business is to
get ready to die by doing the work of life, and then
to refer ourselves to God to take away our life when
and how he pleases.
II. See how justly God reproved Jonah for this
heat that he was in; (v. 4.) The Lord said, Doest
thou well to be angry ? Is doing well a displeasure
to thee ? So some read it. What ! doest thou repent
of thy good deeds ? God might justly have rejected
him for this impious heat which he was in, might
justly have taken him at his word, and have struck
him dead when he wished to die; but he vouchsafes
to reason with him for his conviction, and to reduce
him to a better temper. As the father of the pro¬
digal reasoned with his elder son, when, as Jonah
here, he murmured at the remission and reception
of his brother. Doest thou well to be angry ? See
how mildly the great God speaks to tliisfoolish man
— to teach us to restore those that are fallen, with a
spirit of meekness, and with soft answers to turn
away wrath. God appeals to himself and to his
own conscience, “ Doest thou well ! Thou knowest
thou dost not.”
We should often put this question to ourselves, Is
it well to say thus, to do thus ? Can I justify it ?
Must I not unsay it, and undo it again by repent¬
ance, or be undone for ever ? Ask,
1. Do I well to be angry ? When passion is up,
let it meet with this check, “Do I well to be so
soon angry, so often angry, so long angry, to put
myself into such a heat, and to give others such ill
language in my anger ? Is this well, that I suffer
these headstrong passions to get dominion over
me?”
2. “Do I well to be angry at the mercy of God
to repenting sinners ?” That was Jonah’s crime. Do
we well to be angry at that which is so much for the
glory of God, and the advancement of his kingdom
among men ? To be angry at that which angels re¬
joice in, and for which abundant thanksgivings will
be rendered to God ? We do ill to be angry at that
grace which we ourselves need, and are undone
without: if room were not left for repentance, and
hope given of pardon, upon repentance, what would
become of us? let the conversion of sinners, which is
the joy of Heaven, be our joy, and never our grief.
5. So Jonah went out of the city, and sat
on the east side of the city, and there made
him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow,
till he might see what would become of the
city. 6. And the Lord God prepared a
gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah,
that it might be a shadow over his head, to
deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was
exceeding glad of the gourd. 7. But God
prepared a worm, when the morning rose
the next day, and it smote the gourd that it
withered. 8. And it came to pass, when
the sun did arise, that God prepared a
vehement east wind ; and the sun beat upon
the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and
v/ished in himself to die, and said, It is bet¬
ter for me to die than to live. 9. And God
said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry
for the gourd ? And he said, I do well to
be angry, even unto death. 10. Then said
the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd,
for the which thou hast not laboured, neither
madest it grow ; which came up in a night,
and perished in a night: 11. And should
not 1 spare Nineveh, that great city, where¬
in are more than sixscore thousand persons
that cannot discern between their right
hand and their left hand; and also much
cattle ?
Jonah persists here in his discontent; for the be¬
ginning of strife both with God and man is as the
letting forth oj waters, the breach grows wider and
wider, and, when passion gets head, bad is made
worse; it should therefore be silenced and suppress¬
ed at first. We have here,
1. Jonah’s sullen expectation of the fate of Nine¬
veh. W e may suppose that the Ninevites, giving
credit to the message he brought, were ready to
give entertainment to the messenger that brought it,
and to show him respect, that they would have bid
him welcome to the best of their houses and tables;
but Jonah was out of humour; would not accept their
kindness, nor behave toward them with common
civility; which one might have feared would have
prejudiced them against him and his word; but when
there is not only the treasure put into earthen ves¬
sels, but the trust lodged with men subject to like
passions as wcaret and yet the point gained, it must
1017
JONAH, IV.
lie owned that the excellency of the power appears '
so much the more to be of Goa, and not of man.
Jonah retires, goes out of the city, sits alone, and
keeps silence, because he sees the Ninevites repent
and reform, v. 5. Perhaps he told those about him,
that he went out of the city for fear of perishing in
the ruins of it; but he went to see what would be¬
come of the city; as Abraham went up to see what
would become of Sodom, Gen. xix. 27. The forty
days were now expiring, or expired, and Jonah
hopes that if Nineveh be not overthrown, yet that
some judgment or other shall come upon it, sufficient
to save his credit; however, it is with great uneasi¬
ness that he waits the issue. He will not sojourn in
a house, expecting it would fall upon his head, but
he makes him a booth of the boughs of trees, and sits
in that, though there he would lie exposed to wind
and weather. Note, It is common for those that
have fretful, uneasy spirits, industriously to create
inconveniencies themselves, that, resolving to com¬
plain, they may still have something to complain
of
2. God’s gracious provision for his shelter and re¬
freshment, when he thus foolishly afflicted himself,
and was still adding yet more and more to his own
affliction, v. 6. Jonah was sitting in his booth, fret¬
ting at the cold of the night and the heat of the day,
which were both grievous to him, and God might
have said. It is his own choice, l-.is own doing, a
house of his own building, let him make the best of
it; but he looked on him with compassion, as the
tender mother does on the froward child, and re¬
lieved him against the grievances which he by his
own wilfulness created to himself.
He prepared a gourd, a plant with broad leaves,
and full of them, that suddenly grew up, and cover¬
ed his hut or booth, so as to keep off much of the
injury of the cold and heat. It was a shadow over
his head, to deliver him from his grief, that, being
refreshed in body, he might the better guard against
the uneasiness of his mind, which outward crosses
and troubles are often the occasion and increase of.
See how tender God is of his people in their afflic¬
tions, yea, though they are foolish and froward, nor
is he extreme to mark what they do amiss.
God had before prepared a great fish to secure
Jonah from the injuries of the water, and here a
great gourd to secure him from the injuries of the
air, for he is the Protector of his people against evils
of every kind, has the command of plants as well as
animals, and can soon prepare them, to make them
serve his purposes, can make their growth sudden,
which, in a course of nature, is slow and gradual.
A gourd, one would think, was but a slender fortifi¬
cation at the best, yet Jonah was exceeding glad of
the gourd; for,
(1. ) It was really at that time a great comfort to
him. A thing in itself small and inconsiderable,
et, coming seasonably, may be to us a very valua-
le blessing. A gourd in the right place may do us
more service than a cedar. The least creatures
may be great plagues, (as flies and lice were to
Pharaoh,) or great comforts, (as the gourd to
Jonah,) according as God is pleased to make them.
(2.) He being now much under the power of
imagination, took a greater complacency in it than
there was cause for. He was exceeding glad of it,
was proud of it, and triumphed in it.
Note, Persons of strong passions, as they are apt
to be cast down with a trifle that crosses them, so
they are apt to be lifted up with a trifle that pleases
them. A small toy will serve sometimes to pacify a
cross child, as the gourd did Jonah. But wisdom
and grace would teach us both to weep for our
troubles as though we wept not, and to rejoice in our
comforts as though we rejoiced not. Creature-com¬
forts we ought to enjoy and be thankful for, but we
Vol. IV. — 6 i\
need not be exceeding glad of them, it is God only
that must be our exceeding Joy, Ps. xliii. 4.
3. The sudden loss of this provision which God
had made for his refreshment, and the return of his
trouble, i». 7, 8. God that had provided comfort for
him, provided also an affliction for him in that very
thing which was his comfort; the affliction did not
come by chance, but by divine direction and ap
pointment.
( 1. ) God prepared a worm to wither the gourd.
He that gave, took away, and Jonah ought to have
blessed his name in both; but because, when he took
the comfort of the gourd, he did not give God the
praise of it, God depriv ed him of the benefit of it,
and justly. See what all our creature-comforts are,
and what we may expect them to be; they are
gourds, have their root in the earth, are but a thin
and slender defence compared with the rock of ages;
they are withering things, they perish in the using,
and we are soon deprived of the comfort of them.
The gourd withered the next dau after it sprang up;
our comforts come forth like flowers, and are soon
cut down; when we please ourselves most with them,
and promise ourselves most from them, we are dis¬
appointed. A little thing withers them, a small
worm at the root destroys a large gourd. Something
unseen and undiscerned does it; our gourds wither,
and we know not what to attribute it to. And per¬
haps those wither first that we have been exceeding
glad of; that proves least safe that is most dear.
God did not send an angel to pluck up Jonah’s
gourd, but sent a worm to wither it; there it grew
still, but it stood him in no stead. Perhaps our
creature-comforts are continued to us, but they are
imbittered; the creature is continued, but the com¬
fort is gone; and the remains, or ruins of it rather,
do but upbraid us with our folly in being exceeding
glad of it.
(2.) He prepared a wind to make Jonah feel the
want of the gourd, v. 8. It was a vehement east-
wind, which drove the heat of the rising sun violent¬
ly upon the head of Jonah. This wind was not as a
fan to abate the heat, but as bellows to make it
more intense. Thus poor Jonah lay open to sun and
wind.
4. The further fret that this put Jonah into; (y.
8.) He fainted, and wished in himself that he might
die. “ If the gourd be killed, if the gourd be dead,
kill me too, let me die with the gourd.” Foolish
man, that thinks his life bound up in the life of a
weed!
Note, It is just that those who love to complain,
should never be left without something to complain
of, that their folly may be manifested and corrected,
and, if possible, cured. And see here how the pas¬
sions that run into an extreme one way, commonly
run into an extreme the other way. Jonah, who
was in transports of joy when the gourd flourished,
is in pangs of grief when the gourd is withered. In¬
ordinate affection lays a foundation for inordinate af¬
fliction; what we are over-fond of when wq have it,
we are apt to over-grieve lor when we lose it, and
we may see our folly in both.
5. The rebuke God gave him for this; he again
reasoned with him; Doest thou well to be angry for
the gourd? v. 9. Note, The withering of a gourd
is a thing which it does not become us to be angry
at; when afflicting providences deprive us of our re¬
lations, possessions, and enjoyments, we must bear
it patiently; must not be angry at God, must not be
angry for the gourd; it is comparatively but a small
loss, the loss of a shadow, that is the most we can
make of it. It was a gourd, a withering tiling, we
could expect no other than that it should wither.
Our being angry for the withering of it will not re¬
cover it; we ourselves shall shortly wither like it.
If one gourd be withered, another gourd may spring
1018
JONAH, IV.
up in the room of it; but that which should espe¬
cially silence our discontent, is, that though our
gourd be gone, our God is not gone, and there is
enough in him to make ufi all our losses.
Let us therefore own that we do ill, that we do
very ill, to be angry for the gourd; and let us under
such events quiet ourselves as a child that is weaned
from his mother.
6. His justification of his passion and discontent;
and it is very strange, v. 9. He said, I do well to
be -angry, even unto death. It is bad to speak amiss,
yet if it be in haste, if what is said amiss be imme¬
diately recalled and unsaid again, it is the more ex¬
cusable; but to speak amiss and stand to it, is bad
_ndeed. So Jonah did here, though God himself
rebuked him, and by appealing to his conscience
expected he should have rebuked himself.
See what brutish things ungoverned passions are,
and how much it is our interest, and ought to be our
endeavour, to chain up these roaring lions, and
ranging bears. Sin and death are two very dread¬
ful things, yet Jonah, in his heat, makes light of
them both.
(1.) He has so little regard for God, as to fly in
the face of his authority, and to say that he did well
in that which, God said, was ill done. Passion of-
•ten overrules conscience, and forces it, when it is
appealed to, to give a false judgment, as Jonah
here did.
(2. ) He has so little regard to himself, as to aban¬
don his own life, and to think it no harm to indulge
his passion even to death, to kill himself with fret¬
ting. We read of wrath that kills the foolish man,
and envy that slays the silly one; (Job v. 2.) and
foolish, silly ones indeed they are, that cut their own
throats with their own passions, that fret themselves
into consumptions and other weaknesses, and put
themselves into fevers with their own intemperate
heats.
7. The improvement of it against him for his con¬
viction, that he did ill to murmur at the sparing of
Nineveh. Out of his own mouth God will judge
him; and we have reason to think it overcame him;
for he made no reply, but, we hope, returned to his
right mind, and recovered his temper, though he
could not keefi it, and all was well.
Now let us see how God argued with him; (i». 10,
11.) “ Thou hast had pity on the gourd, hast spared
it,” (so the word is,) “ didst what thou couldest, and
wouldest have done more, to keep it alive, and
saidest, What pity it is, that this gourd should ever
wither? and should not I then spare JVineveh?
Should not I have as much compassion upon that as
thou hadst upon the gourd, and forbid the earth¬
quake which would ruin that, as thou wouldest have
forbidden the worm that withered the gourd? Con¬
sider,”
(1.) “ The gourd thou hadst pity on, was but one;
but the inhabitants of Nineveh, whom I have pity
on, are numerous.” It is a great city and very po¬
pulous, ap appears by the number of the infants,
suppose from two years old and under; there are a
hundred and twenty thousand such in Nineveh, that
are not come to so much use of understanding, as to
know their right hand from their left, for they are
yet but babes.
These are taken notice of, because the age of in¬
fants is commonly looked upon as the age of inno¬
cence. So many there were in Nineveh, that had
not been guilty of any actual transgression, and,
consequently, had not themselves contributed to the
common guilt; and yet, if Nineveh be overthrown ,
will all be involved in the common calamity, and
shall not I spare Nineveh then, with an eye to them?
God has a tender regard to little children, and is
ready to pity and succour them, nay, here a whole
city is spared for their sakes; which may encourage
parents to present their children to God by faith and
prayer, that though they are not capable of doing
him any service, (for they cannot discern between
their right hand and their left, between good and
evil, sin and duty,) yet they are capable of partici¬
pating of his favours, and of obtaining salvation.
The great Saviour discovered a particular kind¬
ness for the children that were brought to him, when
he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon
them, and blessed them. Nay, God took notice of
the abundance of cattle too, that were in Nineveh,
which he had more reason to pity and spare than
Jonah had to pity and to spare the gourd, inasmuch
as the animal life is more excellent than the vege-
table.
(2.) The gourd which Jonah was concerned for
was none of his own, it was that for which he did
not labour, and which he made not to grow; but the
persons in Nineveh, whom God had compassion on,
were all the work of his own hands, whose beings
he was the Author of, whose lives he was the Pre¬
server of, whom he planted and made to grow; he
made them, and his they were, and therefore he had
much more reason to have compassion on them, for
he cannot despise the work of his own hands; (Job
x. 3.) and thus Job there argues with him; {v. 8, 9.)
Thy hands have made me, and fashioned me, have
made me as the clay; and wilt thou destroy me,
wilt thou bring me into dust again? And thus he
here argues with himself.
(3.) The gourd which Jonah had pity on, was of
a sudden growth, and therefore of less value, it came
up in a night, it was the son of a night; (so the word
is;) but Nineveh is an ancient city, of many ages
standing, and therefore cannot be so easily given up;
the persons I spare have been many years in grow¬
ing up, not so soon reared as the gourd; and shall
not I then have pity on them that have been so many
years the care of my providence, so many years my
tenants?
(4. ) The gourd which Jonah had pity on, perished
in a night, it withered, and there was an end of it;
but the precious souls in Nineveh, that God had pity
on, are not so short-lived, they are immortal, and
therefore to be carefully and tenderly considered.
One soul is of more value than the whole world, and
the gain of the world will not countervail the loss of
it; surely then one soul is of more value than many
gourds, of more value than many sparrows; so God
accounts, and so should we, and therefore have a
greater concern for the children of men than for any
of the inferior creatures, and for our own and others’
precious souls than for any of the riches and enjoy¬
ments of this world.
From all this we may learn, [1.] That though
God may suffer his people to fall into sin, yet he will
not suffer them to lie still in it, but will take a course
effectually to show them their error, and to bring
them to themselves, and to their right mind again.
We have reason to hope that Jonah, after this, was
well reconciled to the sparing of Nineveh, and was
as well pleased with it as ever he had been displeased.
[2.] That God will justify himself in the methods
of his grace toward repenting, returning sinners,
as well as in the course his justice takes with them
that persist in their rebellion; though there are
those that murmur at the mercy of God, because
they do not understand it, (for his thoughts and
ways therein are as far above ours as heaven
above the earth,) vet he will make it evident that
therein he acts like himself, and will be justified
when he speaks. See what pains he takes with Jo¬
nah, to convince him that it was very fit that Nine- '
veh should be spared: Jonah had said, I do well to
be angry, but he could not prove it; God says it,
qnd proves it, I do well to be merciful; and it is a
great encouragement to poor sinners to hope that
1019
JONAH, IV.
they shall find mercy with him, that he is so ready
to justify himself in showing mercy, and to triumjiii
in those whom he makes the monuments of it, against
those whose eye is evil because his is good. Such
murmur era shall be made to understand this doc
trine, that, how narrow soever their souls, their
principles, are, and how willing soever they are t i
engross divine grace to themselves and those of their
own way, there is one Lord over all, that is rich in
mercy to all that call u/ion him, aitd in every nation ,
in Nineveh as well as in Israel, he that fears God,
end works righteousness, is accepted of him; he that
vepents, and turns from his evil way, shall find mercy
i vith him.
EXPOSITION,
WITH
PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS,
OF THE PROPHECY OF
MIC AH.
Wc shall have some account of this prophet, in the first verse of the book of his prophecy; and therefore
shall here only observe, that being contemporary with the prophet Isaiah, (only that he began to pro¬
phesy a little after him,) there is a near resemblance between that prophet’s prophecy and this; and
there is a prediction of the advancement and establishment of the gospel-church, which both of them
have, almost in the same words, that out of the mouth of two such witnesses so great a word might be
established. Compare Isa. ii. 2, 3, with Mic. iv. 1, 2. Isaiah’s prophecy is said to be concerning
Judah and Jerusalem, but Micah’s concerning Samaria and Jerusalem; for though his prophecy be
dated only by the reigns of the kings of Judah, yet it refers to the kingdom of Israel, the approaching
ruin of which, in the captivity of the ten tribes, he plainly foretells and sadly laments. What we find
here in writing, was but an abstract of the sermons he preached during the reigns of three kings. The
scope of the whole is,
I. To convince sinners of their sins, by setting them in order before them, charging both Israel and Judah
with idolatry, covetousness, oppression, contempt of the word of God: and their rulers especially, both
in church and state, with the abuse of their power; and also by showing them the judgments of God
ready to break in upon them for their sins.
II. To comfort God’s people with promises of mercy and deliverance, especially with an assurance of the
coming of the Messiah, and of the grace of the gospel through him. It is remarkable concerning this
prophecy, and confirms its authority, that we find two quotations out of it, made publicly upon very
solemn occasions, and both referring to very great events. 1. One is, a prediction of the destruction
of Jerusalem, ( ch . iii. 12.) which we find quoted in the Old Testament, by the elders of the land, (Jer.
xxvi. 17, 18. ) m justification of Jeremiah, when he foretold the judgments of God coming upon Jerusa¬
lem, and to stay the proceedings of the court against him. Micah (say they) foretold that Zion should
be /iloughed as a field, and Hezekiah did not put him to death; why then should we punish Jeremiah
for saying the same? 2. Another is a chief prediction of the birtli of Christ, {ch. v. 2.) which we find
quoted in the New Testament, by the chief priests and scribes of the people, in answer to Herod’s in¬
quiry, where Christ should be born; (Matth. ii. 5, 6.) for still we find that to him bear all the prophets
witness.
MICAH, I.
CHAR I.
In this chapter we have, I. The title of the book, (v. 1.)
and a preface demanding attention, v. 2. II. Warning
given of desolating judgments, hastening upon the king¬
doms of Israel ana Judah, (v. 3, 4.) and all for sin, v. 5.
III. The particulars of the destruction specified, v. 6, 7.
IV. The greatness of the destruction illustrated, 1. By
the prophet’s sorrow for it, v. 8, 9. 2. By the general
sorrow that should be for it, in the several places that
must expect to share in it, v. 10. . 16. These prophecies
of Micah might well be called his lamentations.
1. v B N IE word of the Lord that came to
A Micah the Morasthite, in the days
of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of
Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria
and Jerusalem. 2. Hear, all ye people;
hearken, O earth, and all that therein is:
and let the Lord God be witness against
you, the Lord from his holy temple. 3
>021
MICAH, I.
For, behold, the Lord cometh forth out of
his place, and will come down, and tread
upon the high places of the earth. 4. And
the mountains shall be molten under him,
and the valleys shall he cleft, as wax before
the tire, and as the waters that are poured
down a steep place. 5. For the transgres¬
sion of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of
the house of Israel. What is the transgres¬
sion of Jacob? is it not Samaria? and what
are the high places of Judah? are they not
Jerusalem? 6. Therefore I will make Sa¬
maria as a heap of the field, and as plantings
of a vineyard: and I will pour down the
stones thereof into the valley, and I will dis¬
cover the foundations thereof. 7. And all
the graven images thereof shall be beaten to
pieces, and all the hires thereof shall be
burnt with the fire, and all the idols thereof
will 1 lay desolate: for she gathered it of
the hire of a harlot, and they shall return to
the hire of a harlot.
Here is,
I. A general account of this prophet and his pro¬
phecy, v. 1. This is prefixed for the satisfaction
of all that read and hear the prophecy of this book,
who will give the more credit to it, when they
know the author and his authority. 1. The pro¬
phecy is the word of the Lord, it is a divine revela¬
tion. ’ Note, What is written in the Bible, and what
is preached by the ministers of Christ, according to
what is written there, must be heard and received,
not as the word of dying men, which we may be
judges of, but as the word of the living God, which
we must be judged by, for so it is. This word of
the Lord came to the prophet, came plainly, came
powerfully, came in a preventing way, and he saw
it, saw the vision in which it was conveyed to him,
saw the things themselves which he foretold, with
as much clearness and certainty as if they had been
already accomplished. 2. The prophet is Micah
the Mcrasthite; his name Micah is a contraction
of Micaiah, the name of a prophet some ages be¬
fore, in Ahab’s time; (1 Kings xxii. 8.) his sur¬
name, the Morasthite, signifies that he was born or
lived, at Moresheth, which is mentioned here, v.
14. or Mareshah, which is mentioned, v. 15. and
Josh. xv. 44. The place of his abode is mentioned,
that any one might inquire in that place, at that
time, aiid might find there was, or had been, such
a one there, who was generally reputed to be a
prophet. 3. The date of his prophecy is in the
reigns of three, kings of Judah, Jotham, Ahaz, and
Hezekiah. Ahaz was one of the worst of Judah’s
kings, and Hezekiah one of the best; such variety
of times pass over God’s ministers, times that
frown and times that smile, to each of which they
must study to accommodate themselves, and to arm
themselves against the temptations of both. The
promises and threatenings of this book are inter¬
woven, by which it appears that even in the wicked
reign he preached comfort, and said to the right¬
eous then, that it should be well with them; and
that in the / lions reign he preached conviction, and
said to the wicked then, that it should be ill with
them; for, however the times change, the word of
the Lord is still the same. 4. The parties concerned
in this prophecy; it is concerning Samaria and Je¬
rusalem, the head-cities of the two kingdoms of
Israel and Judah, under the influence of which the
kingdoms themselves were. Though tne ten tribes
have deserted the houses both of David and Aaron,
yet God is pleased to send prophets to them.
II. A very solemn introduction to the following
prophecy, v. 2. In which, 1. The people are sum¬
moned to draw near, and give their attendance, as
upon a court of judicature; Hear, all ye people.
Note, Where God has a mouth to speak, we must
have an ear to hear; we all must, for we are all
concerned in what is delivered. "Hear, ye people ,”
tall of them, so the margin reads it,) “ all ye that
ave now within hearing, and all others that hear it
at second hand.” It is an unusual construction; but
those words with which Micah begins his prophecy,
are the very same in the original with those where¬
with Micaiah ended his, 1 Kings xxii. 28. 2. The
earth is called upon, with all that therein is, to hear
what the prophet has to say; Hearken, 0 earth.
The earth shall be made to shake under the stroke
and weight of the judgments coming; sooner will
the earth hear, than this stupid, senseless people;
but God will be heard when he pleads. If the
church, and those in it, will not hear, the earth,
and those in it, shall, and shame them. 3. God
himself is appealed to, and his omniscience, power,
and justice, are vouched in testimony against this
people; “ Let the Lord God be Witness against you;
a Witness that you had fair warning given you, that
your prophets did their duty faithfully as watch¬
men, but you would not take the warning; let the
accomplishment of the prophecy be a witness
against your contempt and disbelief of it, and prove,
to your conviction and confusion, that it was the
word of God, and that no word of his shall fall to
the ground.” Note, God himself will be a Wit¬
ness, by the judgments of his hand, against those
that would not receive his testimony in the judg¬
ments of his mouth. He will be a Witness from
his holy temple in heaven, when he comes down to
execute judgment (d. 3.) against those that turned
a deaf ear to his oracles, wherein he witnessed to
them, out of his holy temple at Jerusalem.
III. A terrible prediction of destroying judg¬
ments, which should come upon Judah and Israel;
which had its accomplishment soon after in Israel,
and at length in Judah; for it is foretold, 1. That
God himself will appear against them, v. 3. They
boast of themselves and their relation to God, as if
that would secure them; but though God never de¬
ceives the faith of the upright, he will disappoint
the presumption of the hypocrites, for behold, the
Lora comes forth out of his place, quits his mercy-
seat, where’ they thought they had him fast, and
prepares his throne for judgment; his glory departs,
for they drive it from them. God’s way toward
this people had long been a way of mercy, but now
he changes his way, he comes out of his /ilace, and
will come down. He had seemed to retire, as one
regardless of what was done, but now he will show
himself, he will rend the heavens, and will come
down ; not, as sometimes, in surprising mercies, but
in surprisingywrfg'mrats, to do things not for them,
but against them, which they looked not for, Isa.
lxiv. 1. — xxvi. 21. 2. That when the Creator ap¬
pears against them, it shall be in vain for any crea¬
ture to appear for them. He will tread with con¬
tempt and disdain upon the high places of the earth,
upon all the powers that are advanced in competi¬
tion with him, or in opposition to him; and he will
so tread upon them, as to tread them down, and
level them. High places, set up for the worship of
idols, or for military fortifications, shall all be trod¬
den down, and trampled into the dust. Do men
trust to the height and strength of the mountains
and rocks, as if they were sufficient to bear up their
hopes, and bear off their fears. They shall be
molten under him, melted down as wax before thr.
1022
MICAH, 1.
Jire, Ps. Ixviii. 2. Do they trust to the fruitfulness
of the valleys, and their products? They shall be
cleft, or rent, with those fiery streams that shall
come pouring down from the mountains when they
are melted; they shall be ploughed and washed
away, as the ground is by the waters that are pour¬
ed down a steep place. God is said to cleave the
earth with rivers, Hab. iii. 9. Neither men of high
degree, as the mountains, nor men of low degree, as
the valleys, shall be able to secure either themselves
or the land from the judgments of God, when they
are sent with commission to lay all waste, and, like
a sweeping rain, to leave no food, Prov. xxviii. 3.
This is applied particularly to the head-city of Is¬
rael, which they hoped would be a protection to the
kingdom; (x>. 6.) I will make Samaria, that is now
a rich and populous city, as a heap of the field, as
a heap of dung, laid there to be spread, or as a
heap of stones gathered together to be earned
away, and as plantings of a vineyard, as hillocks
of earth raised to plant vines in. God will make
of that city a heap, of that defenced city a ruin,
Isa. xxv. 2. Their altars had been as heaps in the
furrows of the field, (Hos. xii. 11.) and now their
houses shall be so, as ruinous heaps. The stones in
the city are poured down into the valley by the fury
of the conqueror, who will thus be revenged on
those walls that so long held out against him. They
shall be quite pulled down, so that the very foun¬
dations shall be discovered, that had been covered
by the superstructure; and not one stone shall be
left upon another.
IV. A charge of sin upon them, as the procuring
cause of these desolating judgments; (y. 5.) For
the transgression of Jacob is all this. If it be asked,
“ Why is God so angry, and why are Jacob and
Israel thus brought to ruin by his anger?’* The an¬
swer is ready; Sin has done all the mischief, sin has
laid all waste; all the calamities of Jacob and Israel
are owing to their transgressions; if they had not
gone away from God, he had never appeared thus
against them. Note, External privileges and pro¬
fessions will not secure a sinful people from the
judgments of God. If sin be found in the house of
Israel, if Jacob be guilty of transgression and rebel¬
lion, God will not spare them; no, he will punish
them first, for their sins are of all others most pro¬
voking to him, for they are most reproaching. But
it is asked, What is the transgression of Jacob'/
Note, When we feel the smart of sin, it concerns
us to inquire what the sin is which we smart for,
that we may particularly war against that which
wars against us. And what is it? 1. It is idolatry,
it is the high places, that is the transgression , the
great transgression, which reigns in Israel, that is
spiritual whoredom, the violation of the marriage-
covenant, which merits a divorce. Even the high
places of Judah, though not so bad as the transgres¬
sion of Jacob, were yet offensive enough to God,
and a remaining blemish upon some of the good
reigns; howbeit the high places were not taken away.
2. It is the idolatry of Samaria and Jerusalem, the
royal cities of those two kingdoms; those were the
most populous places, and where there were most
people, there was most wickedness, and they made
one another worse; these were the most pompous
places, there men lived most in wealth and pleasure,
and they forgat God. These were the places that
had the greatest influence upon the country, by au¬
thority and example; so that from them idolatry
tand profaneness went forth throughout all the land,
Jer. xxiii. 15. Note, Spiritual distempers are most
contagious in persons and places that are most con¬
spicuous. If the head-city of a kingdom, or the
chief family in a parish, be vicious and profane,
many will follow their pernicious ways, and write
after a bad copy, when great ones set it them. The
vices of leaders and rulers are leading, ruling v,ces,
and therefore shall be surely and sorely punished.
Those have a great deal to answer for indeed, that
not only sin, but make Israel to sin. Those must
expect to be made examples, that have been exam¬
ples of wickedness. If the transgressioti of Jacob is
Samaria, therefore shall Samaria become a heap.
Let the ringleaders in sin hear this, and fear.
V. The punishment made to answer the sin, in
the particular destruction of the idols, v. 7. 1. The
gods they worshipped shall be destroyed; the gra¬
ven images shall be beaten to pieces by the army of
the Assyrians, and all the idols shall be laid deso¬
late. Samaria and her idols were ruined togethei
by Sennacherib, (Isa. x. 11.) and their gods cast
into the fire, for they were no gods: (Isa. xxxvii.
19.) and this was the Lord’s doing; I will lay the
idols desolate. Note, If the law of God prevail noi
to make men in authority destroy idols, God will
take the work into his own hands, and will do i
himself. (2.) The gifts that passed between then,
and their gods shall be destroyed; for all the hire:\
thereof shall be burnt with fire: which may bi
meant, either of the presents they made to theii
idols for the replenishing of their altars, and the
adorning of their statues and temples, these shall
become a prey to the victorious army, they shall
rifle not only private houses, but the houses of their
gods; or, of the corn, and wine, and oil, which they
called the rewards, or hires, which their idols, theii
lovers, gave them, (Hos. ii. 12.) these shall be
taken from them by him whom (by ascribing them
to their dear idols) they had defrauded of the ho¬
nour due to him. Note, That cannot prosper, by
which men either are hired to sin, or hire others tc
sin; for the wages of sin will be death. She gather¬
ed it of the hire of the harlot, and it shall return tc
the hire of a harlot. They enriched themselves by
their leagues with the idolatrous nations who gave
them advantages, to court them into the service ol
their idols, and their idols’ temples were enriched
with gifts by those who went a whoring after them.
And all this wealth shall become a prey to the idol¬
atrous nations, and so be the hire of an harlot again;
wages to an army of idolaters, which shall take it
as a reward given them by their gods. It shall be
a present to king Jareb, Hos. x. 6. What they
ave to their idols, and what they thought they got
y them, shall be as the hire of an harlot ; the curse
of God shall be upon it, and it shall never prosper,
or do them any good. It is common that what is
squeezed out by one lust, is squandered away upon
another.
8. Therefore 1 will wail and howl, I will
go stripped and naked: I will make a wail¬
ing like the dragons, and mourning as the
owls. 9. For her wound is incurable; for
it is come unto Judah : he is come unto the
gate of my people, even to Jerusalem. 10.
Declare ye it not at Gath, weep ye not at
all: in the house of Aphrah roll thyself in
the dust. 1 1. Pass ye away, thou inhabit¬
ant of Saphir, having thy shame naked; the
inhabitant of Zaanan came not forth in the
mourning of Beth-ezel ; he shall receive of
you his standing. 12. For the inhabitant
of Maroth waited carefully for good; but
evil came down from the Lord unto the
gate of Jerusalem. 13. O thou inhabitant
of Lachish, bind the cnariot to the. swift
beast: she is the beginning of the sin to the
MIC AH, I. 1023
daughter of Zion: for the transgressions of
Israel were found in thee. 14. Therefore
shalt thou give presents to Moresheth-gath :
the houses of Achzib shall be a he to the
kings of Israel. 15. Yet will I bring an
heir unto thee, O inhabitant of Mareshah :
he shall come unto Adullam the glory of
Israel. 16. Make thee bald, and poll thee
,for thy delicate children ; enlarge thy bald¬
ness as the eagle; for they are gone into
captivity from thee.
We have here a long train of mourners attending
the funeral of a ruined kingdom.
I. The prophet is himself chief mourner; (v. 8, 9. )
1 will wail and howl, I will go strifified and naked,
as a man distracted with grief. The prophets usually
expressed their own grief for the public grievances,
partly to mollify the predictions of them, and to
make it appear it was not out of ill will that they
denounced the judgments of God — so far were they
from desiring the woful day, that they dreaded it
more than any thing; partly to show how very
dreadful and mournful the calamities would be, and
to stir up in the people a holy fear of them, that by
repentance they might turn away the wrath of God.
Note, We ought to lament the punishment of sin¬
ners as well as the sufferings of saints in this world;
the weeping prophet did so, (Jer. ix. 1.) so did this
prophet, he makes a wailing like the dragons, or.
lather the jackals, ravenous beasts, that in those
c ountries used to meet in the night, and howl, and
make hideous noises; he mourns as the owls, the
screech-owls, or ostriches, as some read it. Two
things the prophet here thus dolefully laments. 1.
That Israel’s case is desperate; Her wound is in¬
curable, it is ruin without remedy; man cannot help
her, God will not, because she will not by repent¬
ance and reformation help herself. There is indeed
balm in Gilead, and a Physician there; but they
will not apply themselves to the Physician, nor ap¬
ply the balm to themselves, and therefore the wound
is incurable. 2. That Judah likewise is in danger.
The cup is going round, and is now put into Judah’s
hand; The enemy is come to the gate of Jerusalem.
Soon after the destruction of Samaria and the ten
tribes, the Assyrian army, under Sennacherib laid
siege to Jerusalem, came to the gate, but could not
force their way any further: however, it was with
great concern and trouble that the prophet foresaw
the fright, so dearly did he love the peace of Jeru¬
salem.
II. Other places are here brought in mourning,
and are called upon to mourn; but with this proviso,
that they should not let the Philistines hear them;
<v. 10.) Declare it not in Gath; this is borrowed
from David’s lamentation for Saul and Jonathan;
2 Sam. i. 20. Tell it not in Gath, for the uncircum¬
cised will triumph in Israel’s tears. Note, One
would not, if. it could be helped, gratify those that
make themselves and their companions merry with
the sins or with the sorrows of God’s Israel. David
was silent, and stifled his griefs, when the wicked
were before him, Ps. xxxix. 1. But though it may
be prudent not to give way to a noisy sorrow, yet it
is duty to admit a silent one, when the church of
God is in distress. Roll thyself in the dust, as great
mourners used to do, and so let the house of Judah
and every house in Jerusalem become a house of
Aphrah, a house of dust; covered with dust, crum¬
bled into dust. When God makes the house dust,
it becomes us to humble ourselves under his mighty
hand, and to put our mouths in the dust. Thus ac¬
commodating ourselves to the providences that con¬
cern us. Dust we are; God brings us to the dust,
that we may know it, and own it.
Divers other places are here named, that should
be sharers in this universal mourning; the names
of some of which we do not find elsewhere,
whence it is conjectured that they are names put
upon them by the prophet, the signification of which
might either indicate or aggravate the miseries
coming upon them; thereby to awaken this secure
and stupid people to a holy fear of divine wrath.
We find Sennacherib’s invasion thus described, in
the prediction of it, by the impressions of terror it
should make upon the several cities that fell in his
way, Isa. x. 28, 29, &c. Let us observe the par¬
ticulars here. 1. The inhabitants of Saphir, which
signifies neat and beautiful. ( Thou that dwellest
fairly, so the margin reads it,) shall pass away
into captivity, or be forced to flee, stripped of all
their ornaments, and having their shame naked.
Note, Those who appear ever so fine and delicate,
know not what contempt they may be exposed to;
and the more grievous will the shame be to those
who have been inhabitants of Saphir. 2. The in¬
habitants of Zaanan, which signifies the country of
flocks, a populous country, where the people are as
numerous and thick as flocks of sheep, shall yet be
so taken up with their own calamities, felt or
feared, that they shall not come forth in the mourn¬
ing of Beth-ezel, which signifies a place near, shall
not condole with, orbring any succour to their next
neighbours in distress; for he shall receive of you
his standing; the enemy shall encamp among you,
O inhabitants of Zanaan, shall take up a station
there, shall find footing among you. They may
well think themselves excused from helping their
neighbours, who find they have. enough to do to
help themselves and to hold their own. 3. As for
the inhabitants of Maroth, which, some think, is
put for Ramoth; others, that it signifies the rough
places; they waited carefully for good, and were
grieved for the want of it, but were disappointed;
for evil came from the Lord unto the gate of Jeru¬
salem, when the Assyrian army besieged it, v. 12.
The inhabitants of Maroth might well overlook
their own particular grievances, when they saw the
holy city itself in danger; and might well overlook
the Assyrian, that was the instrument, when they
saw the evil coming from the Lord. 4. Lachish
was a city of Judah, which Sennacherib laid siege
to, Isa. xxxvi. 1, 2. The inhabitant of that city is
called to bind the chariot to the swift beast, to pre¬
pare for a speedy flight, as having no other way
left to secure themselves and their families; or, it is
spoken ironically; “You have had your chariots
and your swift beasts, but where are they now?”
God’s quarrel with Lachish is, that she is the be¬
ginning of the sin, probably the sin of idolatry, to
the daughter of Zion; (t>. 13.) they had learned it
from the ten tribes, their near neighbours, and so
infected the two tribes with it. Note, Those that
help to bring sin into a country, do but thereby pre¬
pare for the throwing of themselves out of it. They
must expect to be first in the punishment, who have
been ringleaders in sin. The transgressions of Israel
were found in thee; when they came to be traced
up to their original, they were found to take rise
very much from that city. God knows at whose
door to lay the blame of the transgressions of Israel,
and whom to find guilty. Lachish, having been so
much accessary to the sin of Israel, shall certainly
be reckoned with; Thou shalt give presents to
Moresheth-gath, a city of the Philistines, which
perhaps had a dependence upon Gath, that famous
Philistine city; thou shalt send to court those of that
city to assist thee, but it shall be in vain; for, (x\
14.) the houses of Achzib (a city which joined to
Mareshah, or Moresheth, and is mentioned with it,
1024
MICAH, II.
Josh. xv. 44.) shall be a lie to the kings of Israel;
though they depend upon their strength, yet they
shall fail them; here there is an allusion to the
name, Achzib signifies a lie, and so it shall prove to
those that trust in it. 5. Mareshah, that could not,
or would not, help Israel, shall herself be made a
prey; (u. 15.) “ I mill make a?i heir an enemy, that
shall take possession of thy lands, with as much as¬
surance as if he were heir-at-law to them, and he
shall come to Adullam, and to the glory of Israel,
to Jerusalem the head city;” or, “ The glory of
Israel shall come to be as Adullam, a poor despica¬
ble place;” or, “ The king of Assyria, whom Israel'
had gloried in, shall come to Adullam, in laying
the country waste.” 6. The whole land of Judah
seems to be spoken to, (v. 16.) and called to weep¬
ing and mourning; “ Make thee bald, by tearing thy
hair and shaving thy head; fioll thee for thy delicate
children, that had been tenderly and nicely brought
up; enlarge thy baldness as the eagle when she casts
her feathers, and is all over bald, for they are gone
into captivity from thee, and are not likely to return;
and their captivity will be the more grievous to
them, because they have been brought up deli¬
cately, and have not been inured to hardship.” Or
this is directed particularly to the inhabitants of
Mareshah, as v. 15. That was the prophet’s own
city, and yet he denounces the judgments of God
against it; for it shall be an aggravation of its sin,
that it had such a prophet, and knew not the day
of its visitation. Its being thus privileged, since it
improved not the privilege, shall not procure favour
for it either with God or with his prophet.
CHAP. II.
In this chapter, we have, I. The sins with which the people
of Israel are charged, covetousness and oppression,
fraudulent and violent practices, (v. 1,2.) dealing bar¬
barously, even with women and children, and other
harmless people, v. 8, 9. Opposition of God’s prophets,
and silencing them, (v. 6, 7.) and delighting in false pro¬
phets, v. 11. II. The judgments with which they are
threatened for those sins, that they should be humbled
and impoverished, (v. 3.. 5.) and banished, v. 10. 111.
Gracious promises of comfort, reserved for the good
people among them, in the Messiah, v. 12, 13. And this
is the sum and scope of most of the chapters of this and
other prophecies.
1. ■VITO to' them that devise iniquity,
TT and work evil upon their beds!
when the morning is light they practise it,
because it is in the power of their hand. 2.
And they covet fields, and take them by vio¬
lence ; and houses, and take them away : so
they oppress a man and his house, even a
man and his heritage. 3. Therefore thus
saith the Lord, Behold, against this family
do I devise an evil, from which ye shall not
remove your necks; neither shall ye go
haughtily: lor this time is evil. 4. In that
day shall one take up a parable against you,
and lament with a doleful lamentation, and
say, We be utterly spoiled ; he hath changed
the portion of my people: how hath he re¬
moved it from me! turning away he hath
divided our fields. 5. Therefore thou shalt
have none that shall cast a cord by lot in
the congregation of the Lord.
Here is,
I. Theinjustice of man contriving the evil of sin,
v. 1, 2. God was coming forth against this people
to destroy them, and here he shows what was the
ground of his controversy with them, it is that which
is often mentioned as a sin that hastens the ruin of
nations and families as much as any other, the sin
of oppression. Let us see the steps of it: 1. They
eagerly desire that which is not their own — that is
the root of bitterness, the root of all evil; (v. 2.)
They covet fields and hozises, as Ahab did Naboth’s
vineyard. “O that such a one’s field and house
were mine! It lies convenient for me, and I would
manage it better than he does; it is fitter for me
than tor him.” 2. They set their wits on work, to
invent ways of accomplishing their desire; (v. 4.)
they devise iniquity with a great deal of cursed art
and policy, they plot how to do it effectually, and
yet so as not to expose themselves, or bring them¬
selves into danger, or under reproach by it. This
is called working evil; they are working it in their
heads, in their families, and are as intent upon it,
and with as much pleasure, as if they were doing
it, and are as confident of their success (so wisely do
they think they have laid their scheme) as if it were
assuredly done. Note, It is bad to do mischief
upon a sudden thought, but much worse to devise
it, to do it with design and deliberation; when the
craft and subtilty of the old serpent appears with
his poison and venom, it is wickedness in perfec¬
tion. They devised in upon their beds, when they
should have been asleep; care to compass a mis¬
chievous design held their eyes waking; upon their
beds, where they should have been remembering
God, and meditating upon him, where they should
have been communing with their own heart, and ex¬
amining them, they were devising iniquity. It is of
great consequence to improve and employ the hours
of our retirement and solitude in a proper manner.
3. They employ their power in executing what
they have designed and contrived; they practise the
iniquity they have devised, because it is in the pawn
of their hand; they find that they can compass it by
the help of their wealth, and the authority and into
rest they have, and that none dare control them, or
call them to an account for it; and this, they think,
will justify them, and bear them out in it. Note, It
is the mistake of many, to think that as they car,
do, they may do; whereas no power is given for
destruction, but all for edification. 4. They are
industrious and very expeditious in accomplishing
the iniquity they have devised; when they have set¬
tled the matter in their thoughts, in their beds,
they lose no time, but, as soon as the morning is
light, they practise it; they are early up in the prose¬
cution of their designs, and what ill their hand finds
to do they do it with all their might; which shames
our slothfulness and dilatoriness in doing good, and
should shame us out of it. In the service of God,
and our generation, let it never be said that we left
that to be done to-morrow, which we could do to¬
day. 5. They stick at nothing, to compass thei'
designs; what they covet they take away, if they
can, and, (1.) They cat-e not what wrong they do,
though it be never so gross and open; they take
away a man’s fields by violence; not only by fraud,
and underhand practices, and colour of law, but by
force and with a. high hand. (2.) They care net
'whom they do wrong to, nor how far the iniquity
extends, which they devise; they oppress a man
and his house, they rob and ruin those that have
numerous families to maintain, and are not con¬
cerned, though they send them and their wives and
children a begging. They oppress a man and his
heritage; they take away from men that which thev
have an unquestionable title to, having received it
from their ancestors, and which they have but in
trust to transmit it to their posterity; but those op¬
pressors care not how many they impoverish, so
they may but enrich themselves. Note, If covet¬
ousness reigns in the heart, commonly all compas-
102.',
MIC AH, II.
Sion is banished from it; and if any man love thin
world, as the love of the Father, so the love of his
neighbour, is not in him.
11. The justice of God contriving the evil of pun¬
ishment for this sin; (v. 3.) Therefore thus saith
the Lord, the righteous God, that judges between
man and man, and is an Avenger on them that do
wrong; Behold, against this family do I devise an
evil, against the whole kingdom, th e house of Israel,
and particularly those families in it that were cruel
and oppressive: they unjustly devise evil against
their brethren, and God will justly devise evil
against them. Infinite wisdom will so contrive the
punishment of their sin, that it shall be very sure,
and such as cannot be avoided, very severe, and such
as they cannot bear, very signal and remarkable,
and such as shall be universally observed to answer
to the sin. The more there appears of a wicked wit
in the sin, the more there shall appear of a holy
wisdom and conduct in the punishment; for the
Lord will be known by the judgments he executes,
he will be owned by them. 1. He finds them very
secure, and confident that they shall some way or
other escape the judgment, or, though they fall
under it, shall soon throw it off, and get clear of it,
and therefore he tells them, It is an evil from which
they shall not remove their neck. They were chil¬
dren of Belial, that would not endure the easy yoke
of God’s righteous commands, but broke those bonds
asunder, and cast away those cords from them; and
therefore God will lay upon them the heavy yoke
of his righteous judgments, and they shall not be
able to withdraw their necks from that; those that
will not be overruled shall be overcome. 2. He
finds them very / iroud and stately, and therefore he
tells them that they shall not go haughtily with
stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and
mincing as they go; (Isa. iii. 16. ) for this time is
evil, and the events of it were very humbling and
mortifying, and such as will bring down the stoutest
spirit. 3. He found them very merry and jovial,
and therefore tells them their note shall be changed,
their laughter shall be turned into mourning, and
their joy into heaviness; (y. 4.) In that day, when
God comes to punish you for you oppression, shall
one take ufi a parable against you, and lament with
a doleful lamentation, with a lamentation of lamen¬
tations, (so the word is,) a most lamentable lamen¬
tation; as a song of songs is a most pleasing song.
Their enemies shall insult over them, and make a
jest of their griefs, for they shall take up a parable
against them. Their friends shall mourn over
them, and lay to heart their calamities, and this
shall be the general cry, “ We be utterly spoiled,
we are all undone.” Note, They that were
most haughty and secure in their prosperity, are
commonly most dejected, and most ready to des¬
pair, in their adversity. 4. He found them very
rich in houses and lands, which they had gained by
oppression, and therefore tells them that they shall
be stripped of all. (1.) They should, in their des¬
pair, give it all up; they shall say, JVe are utterly
spoiled; he has changed the portion of my people,
so that it is now no longer theirs, but it is in the
possession and occupation of their enemies. How
has he removed it from me! How suddenly, how
powerfully. What is unjustly got by us, will not
long continue with us; the righteous God will re¬
move it. Turning away from us in wrath, he has
divided our fields, and given them into the hands
of strangers. W o to those from whom God turns
away. The margin reads it, “ Instead of restoring,
he has divided our fields; instead of putting us again
in the possession of our estates, he has confirmed
those in the possession of them, that have taken
them from us.” Note, Lt is just with God, that
’hose who have dealt fraudulently and violently with
Vol. iv. — 6 O
others, should themselves be dealt fraudulently and
violently with. (2.) God shall ratify what they
say in their despair; [v. 5. ) so it shall be: Thou shall
have none to cast a cord by lot, in the congregation
of the Lord; none to divide inheritances, because
there shall be no inheritances to divide, no courts
to try titles to lands, or determine controversies
about them, or cast lots upon them, as in Joshua’s
time, for all shall be in the cnem\ ’s hand. This
land, which should be taken from them, they had
not only an unquestionable title to, but a very com¬
fortable enjoyment of, for it was in the congrega-
tion of the Lord, or, rather, the congregation of the
Lord was in it; it was God’s land, it was a holy
land, and therefore it was the more grievous to
them to be turned out of it. Note, Those are to be
reckoned the sorest calamities, which cut us off
from the congregation of the Lord, or cut us short
in the enjoyment of the privileges of it.
6. Prophesy ye not, say they to them that
prophesy : they shall not prophesy to them
that they shall not take shame. 7. O thou
that art named The house of Jacob, is the
Spirit of the Lord straitened? are these
his doings? do not my words do good to
him that walketh uprightly? 8. Even of
late my people is risen up as an enemy : ye
pull off the robe with the garment from
them that pass by securely as men averse
from war. 9. The women of my people
have ye cast out from their pleasant houses;
from their children have ye taken away my
I glory for ever. 10. Arise ye, and depart;
j lor this is not your rest: because it is pol¬
luted, it shall destroy you, even with a sore
destruction. 11. If a man, walking in the
spirit and falsehood do lie, saying , I will
prophesy unto thee of wine, and of strong
drink; he shall even be the prophet of this
people.
Here are two sins charged upon the people rf
Israel, and judgments denounced against them fer
each, such judgments as exactly answer the <in
— persecuting God’s prophets, and oppressing Gtd’s
poor.
I. Persecuting God’s prophets; suppressing and
silencing them is a sin that provokes God as much
as any other, for it not only spits in the face of his
authority over us, but spurns at the bowels of his
mercy to us; for his sending prophet' to us is a sure
and valuable token of his good will. Now observe
here,
1. What the obstruction and opposition were,
which this people gave to God’s prophets. They
said to them that prophesy, Prophesy ye not, as
Isa. xxx. 10. They said to the seers, “ See not; do
not trouble us with accounts of what you have seen ,
nor bring us any such frightful messages.” They
must not prophesy at all, or they must prophesy
only what they please. The word for prophesying,
here, signifies dropping, for the words of the pro¬
phets dropped from heaven as the dew. Note
Those that hate to be reformed, hate to be reprov
ed, and do all they can to silence faithful ministers
Amos was forbidden to prophesy, Amos vii. 10,
&c. Therefore persecutors stop their breath, be ■
cause they have no othrr way to stop their mouths,
(for if they live they will preach,) and torment
them that dwell on the earth, as the two witnesses
did, Rev. xi. 10. Some read it, Prophesy not, let
1026
MICAH, II
these prophesy; Let not those prophesy, that tell us
of our faults, and threaten us, but let these firojthesy ,
that will flatter us in our sins, and cry fieace to us.
They will not say that they will have no ministers
at all, but they will have such as would say just
what they would have them, and go their way.
This they are charged with, v. 11. that when they
silenced and frowned upon the true prophets, they
countenanced and encouraged pretenders, and set
them up, and made an interest for them, to con¬
front God’s faithful prophets; If a man walk in the
s/iirit of falsehood , pretend to have the Spirit of
God, while really it is a spirit of error, a spirit of
delusion, and he himself knows that he has no com ¬
mission, no instruction, from God, yet, if he says,
I will prophesy unto thee of wine and strong drink,
if he will but assure them that they shall have wine
and strong drink enough, that they need not fear
the judgments of war and famine, which the other
prophets threatened them with, that they should
always have plenty of the delights of sense, and ■
never know the want of them; and if he will but;
tell them that it is lawful for them to drink as much
as they please of their wine and strong drink, and
they need hot scruple being drunk, and they shall \
have fieace, though they go on, and add drunken¬
ness to thirst, such a prophet as this is a man after
their own heart, who will tell them that there is
neither sin nor danger in the wicked course of life
they lead, he shall even be the profihet of this peo¬
ple; such a man they would have to be their pro¬
phet, that will not only associate himself with them
in their rioting and revellings, but will pretend to
consecrate it by his prophecies, and so harden them
in their security and sensuality. Note, It is not
strange if people that are vicious and debauched,
covet to have ministers that are altogether such as
themselves, for they are willing to believe God is
so too, Ps. 1. 21. But how are sacred things pro¬
faned, when they are prostituted to such base pur¬
poses, when prophecy itself shall be pressed into the i
service of a lewd and profane crew ! But thus that
servant who said, My Lord delays his coming, by
the spirit of falsehood, smote his fellow-servants,
and ate and drank with the drunken.
2. How they are here expostulated with upon
this matter; (u. 7.) “0 thou that art named the
house of Jacob, does it become thee to say and do
thus? Wilt thou silence them that prophesy, and
forbid them to speak in God’s name?” Note, It is
an honour and privilege to be named of the house
of Jacob; Thou art called a Jew, Rom. ii. 17. But
when those who are called by that worthy name
degenerate, they commonly prove the worst of men
themselves, and the worst enemies to God’s pro¬
phets. The Jews who were named of the house of
Jacob, were the most violent persecutors of the first 1
preachers of the gospel. Upon this, the prophet
here argues with the opposers of the word of God,
and shows them, (1.) What an affront they herebv
put upon God, the God of the holy prophets; "Is
the Lord’s Spirit straitened ? In silencing the Lord’s
prophets, you do what you can to silence his Spirit
too; hut do you think you can do it? Can you make
the Spirit of God your Prisoner and your Servant?
Will you prescribe to him what he shall say, and
forbid him to say what is displeasing to you? If you
silence the prophets, yet cannot the Spirit of the
Lord find out other ways to reach your consciences?
Can your unoelief frustrate the divine counsels?”
(2.) What a scandal it was to their profession as
Jews; “ You are named the house of Jacob, and it is
your honour; but are these his doings ? Are these
the doings of your father Jacob? Do you herein I
tread in his steps? No; If you were indeed his chil¬
dren, you would do his works; but now you seek to
kill and silence a man that tells you the truth, in ,
God’s name; This did not Abraham," John viii. 39,
40. This did not Jacob. Or, “ Are these God’s do¬
ings? Are these doings that will please him? Are
these the doings of his people? No, you know the ,
are not, however some may be so strangely blindt d
and bigoted as to kill God’s ministers, and think
that therein they do him service,” John xvi. 2. (3.)
Let them consider how unreasonable and absurd
the thing was in itself ; Do not my words do good
to them that walk uprightly ? Yes, certainly they
do; it is an appeal to the experiences of the genera¬
tion of the upright; “Call now if there be any of
them that will answer you, and to which of the
saints will you turn? Turn to which y< u will, and
you will find they all agree in this, that the word of
God does good to them that walk uprightly ; and
will you then oppose that which does good, so much
good as preaching does; Herein you wrong God,
who owns the words of the prophets to be his words,
(they are my words,) and who by them aims and
designs to do good to mankind, (Ps. cxix. 68.) And
will you hinder the great Benefactor from doing
good ? Will you put the light of the world under
a bushel? You might as well say to the sun, Shine
not, as say to the seers. See not. Herein you wrong
the souls of men, and deprive them of the benefit
designed them by the word of God.” Note, Those
are enemies not only to God, but to the world, they
are enemies to their country, that silence good mi¬
nisters, and obstruct the means of knowledge and
grace; for it is certainly for the public, common
good of states and kingdoms, that religion should
b£ encouraged. God’s words do good to them that
■ walk uprightly; it is the character of good people,
that they walk uprightly, _Ps. xv. 2. And it is their
comfort, that the words of God are good, and do
good to them; they find comfort in them. God’s
words are good words to good people, and speak
comfortably to them. But they that opposed the
words of God, and prohibited the prophets, pleaded,
in justification of themselves, that God’s words were
unprofitable and unpleasant to them, and did them
no good, nor prophesied any good concerning them,
but evil, as Ahab complained of Micaiah: in an¬
swer to which, the prophet here tells them that it
was their own fault ; they might thank themselves;
they might find it of good use to them, if they were
but disposed to make a good use of it; if they would
but walk uprightly, as they should, and so qualify
themselves for comfort, the word of God would
speak comfortably to them. Do that which is good,
and thou shall have praise for the same.
3. What they are threatened with for this sin;
God also will choose their delusions, and, (1.) They
will be deprived of the benefit of a faithful ministry.
Since they say. Prophesy not, God will take them
at their word, and they shall not prophesy to them,
their sin shall be their punishment; if men will si¬
lence God’s ministers, it is just with God to silence
them, as he did Ezekiel, and to say. They shall no
more be reprovers and monitors to them. Let the
physician no longer attend the patient that will not
be healed, for he will not be ruled. They shall not
prophesy to them, and then they will not take shame.
As it is the work of magistrates, so is it also of mi¬
nisters, to put men to shame when they do amiss,
(Judg. xviii. 7.) that, being made ashamed of their
folly, they may not return again to it; but when ( lod
gives men up to be impudent and shameless in sin,
he savs to his prophets, They are joined to idols, let
them alone. (2.) They shall be given up to the blind
guidance of an unfaithful ministrv. We may un¬
derstand v. 11. as a threatening; If a man be found
walking in the spirit of falsehood, having such a
lying spirit as was in the mouth of Allah’s prophets,
that will strengthen tjieir hands in their wicked
ways, he shall be the prophet of this people, that is,
1027
MICAH, II.
God will leave them to themselves to hearken to
such; since they will be deceived, let them be de¬
ceived; since they will not admit the truth in the
love of it, God will send them strong delusions, to
believe a tie, 2 Thess. li. 10, 11. They shall have
prophets that will prophesy to them for wine and
strong drink, (so some read it,) that will give you
a cast of their office to your mind, for a bottle of
wine, or a flagon of ale; will soothe sinners in their
sins, if they will but feed them with the gratifica¬
tion of their lusts; to have such prophets, and to be
ridden by them, is as sad a judgment as any people
can be under, and as bad a preface of ruin approach¬
ing as it is to a particular person to be under the
influence of a debauched conscience.
II. O/i/iressing God’s floor is another sin they
are charged with, as before; (v. 1, 2.) for it is a sin
doubly hateful and provoking to God. Observe,
1. How the sin is described; (t>. 8, 9.) when they
contemned God’s prophets and opposed them, they
broke out into all other wickedness; what bonds
will hold those that have no reverence for God’s
word? They who formerly rose ufi against the ene¬
mies of the nation, in defence of their country, and
therein behaved themselves bravely, now of late
rose ufi as enemies of the nation, and, instead of de¬
fending it, destroyed it, and did it more mischief
(as usually such vipers in the bowels of a state do)
than a foreign enemy could do. They made a prey
of men, women, and children. (1.) Of men, that
were travelling on the way, that fiass by securely,
as men averse from war, that were far from any
bad designs, but went peaceably about their lawful
occasions; those they set upon, as if they had been
dangerous, obnoxious people, and {lulled off the robe
with the garment from them, they stripped them
both of the upper and the inner garment, took away
their cloak, and would have their coat also; thus
b irb irously did they use those that were quiet in
the land, who, being h armless, were fearless, and
so the more easily made a prey of. (2.) Of women,
whose sex should have been their protection; ( v .
9.) The women of my fieo/ile have ye cast out from
their fileasant houses; they devour widows’ houses,
(Matth. xxiii. 14.) and so turn them out of the pos¬
session of them, because they were fileasant houses,
and such as they had a mind for. It was inhuman
to deal thus barbarously with women; but that
which especially aggravated it was, that they were
the women of God’s fieofile, whom they knew to
be under his protection. (3.) Of children, whose
age entitles them to a tender usage; From their
children have you taken away my glory for ever.
It was the glory of the Israelites’ children, that they
were free, but they enslaved them; that they were
born in God’s house, and had a right to the privi¬
leges of it, but they sold them to strangers, sent
them into idolatrous countries, where they were de¬
prived for ever of that glory, at least, the oppres¬
sors designed their captivity should be fier/ietual.
Note, The righteous God will certainly reckon for
injuries done to the widows and fatherless, who,
being helpless and friendless, cannot otherwise ex¬
pect to be righted.
2. What the sentence is, that is passed upon them
for it; (u. 10.) “Arise ye, and defiart; prepare to
quit this land, for you shall be forced out of it, as
you have forced the women and children of my fieo-
file out of their possessions; it is not, it shall not, be
your rest, as it was intended that Canaan should be,
rs. xcv. 11. You shall have neither contentment
nor continuance in it, because it is fiolluted by your
wickedness.” Sin is defiling to a land, and sinners
cannot expect to rest in a land which they have
polluted, but it will spue them out, as this land
spued out the Canaanites of old, when they had pol-
li ted it with their abominations. Lev. xviii. 2 7, 28.
“Nay, you shall not only be obliged to depart out
of this land, but it shall destroy you even with a sore
destruction; you shall either be turned out of it, or
(which is all one) you shall be ruined in it.” We
may apply this to our state in this present world; it
is fiolluted, there is a great deal of corrufition in
the world, through lust, and therefore we should
arise, and defiart out of it, keep at a distance from
the corruption that is in it, and keefi ourselves un-
sfiotted from it; it is not our rest, it was never in¬
tended to be so; it was designed for our passage, but
not for our portion, our inn, but not our home; here
we have no continuing city ; let us therefore arise
and defiart, let us sit loose to it, and live above it,
and think of leaving it, and seek a continuing city
above.
12. I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all
of thee; I will surely gather the remnant of
Israel; I will put them together as the sheep
of Bozrah, as the flock in the midst of their
fold: they shall make great noise by reason
of the multitude of men. 1 3. The breaker
is come up before them : they have' broken
up, and have passed through the gate, and
are gone out by it: and their King shall
pass before them, and the Lord on the
head of them.
After the threatenings of wrath, the chapter here
concludes, as is usual in the prophets, with promises
of mercy, which were in part fulfilled when the
Jews returned out of Babylon, and had their full ac¬
complishment in the kingdom of the Messiah. Their
grievances shall be all redressed.
1. Whereas they were dispersed, they shall be
brought together again, and shall jointly receive the
tokens of God’s favour to them, and shall have com¬
munion with each other, and comfort in each other;
{v. 12.) “/ will surety assemble, O Jacob, all of
thee, all that belong to thee, all that are named of
the house of Jacob, (v. 7.) that are now expelled
your country, v. 10. I will bring you together again,
and not one of you shall be lost, not one of you shall
be missing. I will surely gather the remnant of
Israel, that remnant that is designed and reserved
for salvation, they shall be brought to incorporate
in one body; I will fiut them together as the sheefi
of Bozrah.” Sheep are inoffensive and sociable
creatures; they shall be as the flock in the midst of
their fold, their own fold, where they are safe under
the shepherd’s eye and care; and they shall make
great noise, as numerous flocks and herds do, with
their bleating and lowing, by reason of the multi¬
tude of men, (for the sheep are men, as the prophet
explains this comparison, Ezek. xxxiv. 31.) not
by reason of their strifes and contentions, but by
reason of their great numbers. This was accom¬
plished, when Christ bv his gospel gathered toge¬
ther in one all the children of God that were scat¬
tered abroad, and united both Jews and Gentiles in
one fold, and under one Shepherd; when all the
complaint was, that the filace was too strait for
them — that was the noise, by reason of their multi¬
tude; (Isa. xlix. 19, 20.) when there were some
added to the church from all parts of the world,
and all men were drawn to Christ by the attrac¬
tive power of his cross; which shall be done yet
more and more, and perfectly done, when he shall
send forth his angels to gather in his elect from the
four winds.
2. Whereas God had seemed to desert them, and
cast them off, now he will own them, and head
them, and help them through all the difficulties
that are in the way of their return and deliverance;
1028
MICAH, III.
(t\ 12.) The breaker is come up before them , to
break down all opposition, and clear the road for
them; and under his guidance they have broken up,
and have passed through the gate, the door of es¬
cape out ot their captivity, and are gone out by it
with courage and resolution, having Omnipotence
for their Vanguard. Their King shall pass before
them, to lead them the way, even Jehovah, (he is
their King,) on the head of them, as he was on the
head of the armies of Israel, when they followed
the pillar of cloud and fire through the wilderness,
and when he appeared to Joshua, as Captain of the
Lord’s hosts. Christ is the church’s King; he is
Jehovah; he heads them; passes before them; brings
them out of the land of their captivity; brings them
into the land of their rest. He is the Breaker, that
broke in upon the powers of darkness, and broke
through them; that rent the vail, and opened the
kingdom of heaven to all believers. The learned
Bishop Pearson applies it to the resurrection of
Christ, bv which he obtained the power and be¬
came the Pattern of our resurrection. The Breaker
is gone up before us out of the grave, and has car¬
ried away its gates, as Samson did Gaza’s, bar and
all, and by that breach we go out. The learned Dr.
Pocock mentions it as the sense which some of the
ancient Jews give of it, that the breaker is Elias,
and their King the Messiah, the Son of David; and
he thinks we may apply it to Christ and his fore¬
runner John the Baptist. John was the breaker, he
broke the ice, prepared the way of the Lord by the
baptism of repentance; in him the gospel began,
from his time the kingdom of heaven suffered vio¬
lence; and so the Christian church is introduced,
with Messiah the Prince before it, on the head of
it, going forth conquering and to conquer.
CHAP. III.
JVhat the apostle says of another of the prophets, is true
of this, who was also his contemporary. Esaias is very
bold, Rom. x. 20. So, in this chapter, Micah is very bold ,
in reproving and threatening the great men that were
the ringleaders in sin; and he gives the reason, (v. 8.)
why he was so bold, because he had commission and in¬
struction from God to say what he said, and was carried
out in it by a higher spirit and power than his own. Ma¬
gistracy and ministry are two great ordinances of God,
for good to his church, but these were both corrupted,
and the intentions of them perverted; and upon those
that abused them, and so abused the church with them,
the prophet is very severe, and justly so. 1. He gives
them their lesson severally, reproving and threatening
princes, (v, I ..4.) and false and flattering prophets, v.
5. .7. II. He gives them their lesson jointly, putting
them together, as acting in conjunction for the ruin of
the kingdom, which they should see the ruins of, v. 9. •
12.
1. A ND I said, Hear, I pray you, O
heads of Jacob, and ye princes of
the house of Israel ; Is it not for you to
know judgment ? 2. Who hate the good,
and love the evil; who pluck off their skin
from off them, and their flesh from off their
bones; 3. Who also eat the flesh of my
people, and flay their skin from off them ;
and they break their bones, and chop them
in pieces as for the pot, and as flesh within
the caldron. 4. Then shall they cry unto
the Lord, but he will not hear them ; he
will even hide his face from them at that
time, as they have behaved themselves ill
n their doings. 5. Thus saith the Lord
concerning the prophets that make my peo¬
ple err, lhat bite with their teeth, and cry,
I Peace : and he that putteth not into their
mouths, they even prepare war against him :
6. Therefore night shall be unto you, that
ye shall not have a vision ; and it shall be
dark unto you, that ye shall not divine; and
the sun shall go down over the prophets,
and the day shall be dark over them. 7.
Then shall the seers be ashamed, and the
diviners confounded ; yea, they shall all
cover their lips : for there is no answer of
God.
Princes and prophets, when they faithfully dis¬
charge the duty of their office, are to be highly ho¬
noured above other men; but, when they betray
their trust, and act contrary to it, they should hear
of their faults as well as others, and shall be made
to know that there is a God above them, to whom
they are accountable; at his bar, the prophet here,
in his name, aiTaigns them.
I. Let the princes hear their charge and their
doom. The heads of Jacob, and the princes of the
house of Israel, are called upon to hear what the
prophet has to say to them, v. 1. The word of God
has reproofs for the greatest of men, which the mi¬
nisters of that word ought to apply as there is occa¬
sion. The prophet here has comfort in the reflec¬
tion upon it, that, whatever the success was, he had
faithfully discharged his trust; And I said, Hear, O
Princes. He had the testimoay of his conscience
for him, that he had not shrunk from his duty, for
fear of the face of men. He tells them, 1. W hat
was expected from them; Is it not for you to know
judgment? He means, to do judgment, for other¬
wise the knowledge of it is of no avail. “ Is it not
your business to administer justice impartially, and
not to know faces,” (as the Hebrew phrase is, for
partiality and respect of persons,) “but to know
judgment, and the merits of everv cause?” Or, it
may be taken for granted, that the heads and rulers
are well acquainted with the rules of justice, what¬
ever others are; for they have these means of know¬
ledge, and have not those excuses for ignorance,
which some others have, that are poor and foolish;
(Jer. v. 4.) and if so, their transgression of the laws
of justice is the more provoking to God, for they sin
against knowledge. “Is it not for vou to know
judgment? Yes, it is; therefore stand still, and hear
your own judgment, and judge, if it be not right,
whether any thing can be objected against it.” 2.
How wretchedly they had transgressed the rules of
judgment, though they knew what they were. Their
principle and disposition are bad, they hate the good,
and love the evil; they hate good in others, and hate
it should have any influence on themselves; they
hate to do good, hate to have any good done, and
hate those that are good, and do good; and they love
the evil, delight in mischief, and in those that do
mischief. This being their principle, their prac¬
tice was accordingly; they are very cruel and se¬
vere toward those that are under their power: and
whoever lies at their mercv, will find that they have
none. They barbarously devour those whom they
should protect, and, as unfaithful shepherds, fleece
the flock they should feed; nay, instead of feeding
it, they feed upon it, Ezek. xxxiv. 2. It is fit in¬
deed that he who feeds a flock, should eat of the
milk of the flock, (1 Cor. ix. 7.) but that will not
content them, Thev eat the flesh of my people; it
is fit that they should be clothed with the wool; but
that will not serve, They flay the skin from off
them , ( v . 3.) by imposing heavier taxes upon them
than they can bear, and exacting them with rigour;
by mulcts and fines, and corpir d punishments, for
1 029
MICAH, III.
pretended crimes, they ruined the estates and fami¬
lies of their subjects, took away from some their
lives, from others their livelihoods, and were to
their subjects as beasts of prey, rather than shep¬
herds. They break their bones to come to the mar¬
row, and chop, the flesh in fiiecesas for the pot. I bis
shows them to be, (1.) Very ravenous and greedy
for themselves, indulging themselves in luxury and
sensuality. (2.) Very barbarous and cruel to those
that were under them, not caring whom they beg¬
gared, so they could but enrich themselves; such
evil is the love of money the root of. 3. How they
might expect that God should deal with them, who
had been thus cruel to his subjects; the rule is fixed,
They shall have judgment without mercy, that have
snowed no mercy; (o. 4.) They shall cry to the
Lord, but he evil l not hear them, in the day of their
distress, as the poor cried to them in the day of their
prosperity, and they would not hear them. There
will come a time, w’hen the most proud and scorn¬
ful sinners will cry to the Lord, and sue for that
mercy, which they once neither valued nor copied
out; but it will then be in vain, God will even hide
his face from them at that time, that time when they
need his favour, and see themselves undone without
it. At another time they would have turned their
back upon him; but at that time he will turn his
back upon them, as they have behaved themselves
ill in their doings. Note, Men cannot expect to do
ill, and fare well, but may expect to find, as Adoni-
bezek did, that done to them, which they did to
others, for he is righteous who takes vengeance; with
the froward God will show himself froward, and he
often giv es up cruel and unmerciful men into the
hands of those who are cruel and unmerciful to
them, as themselves have formerly been to others.
This agrees witli Prov. xxi. 13. Whoso stoppeth his
ears at the cry of the poor, he shall cry himself, and
shall not be heard; but the merciful have reason to
hope that they shall obtain mercy.
III. Let the prophets hear their charge too, and
their doom ; they were such as prophesied falsely,
and the princes bare rule by their means. Ob¬
serve,
1. What was their sin. (1.) They made it all
their business to flatter and deceive the people:
They make my people err, lead them into mistakes,
both concerning what they should do, and concern¬
ing what God would do with them; it is ill with a
people, when their leaders cause them to err, and
those draw them out of the way, that should guide
them, and go before them, in it. They make them
to err by crying peace, by telling them that they do
well, and that all shall be well with them; whereas
they are in the paths of sin, and within a step of
ruin. They cry peace, but they bite with their teeth;
which perhaps is meant of their biting their own
lifts, as we are apt to do, when we would suppress
something which we are ready to speak; when they
cried peace, their own hearts gave them the lie, and
they were just ready to eat their own words, and to
contradict themselves, but they bit with their teeth,
and kept it in. They were not blind leaders of the
blind, for they saw the ditch before them, and yet
led their followers into it. (2.) They made it all
their aim to glut themselves, and serve their own
belly, as the seducers in St. Paul’s time; (Rom. xvi.
18.) for their god is their belly, Phil. iii. 19. They
bite with their teeth and cry peace; they will flatter
and compliment those that will feed them with good
bits, will give them something to eat; but as for
those that put not into their mouths, that are not
continually cramming them, they look upon them
as their enemies, to them they do not cry peace, as
they do to th >se whom they look upon as their bene¬
factors, but they even prepare war against them;
against them they denounce the judgments of God;
they preach either comfort or terror to men. net ac¬
cording as they are to God, but as they are to them;
as the craft)- priests of the church of Rome, in some
places, make their image either to smile or frown
upon the offerer, according as his offering is. Justly
is it insisted on as a necessary qualification of a mi¬
nister, (1 Tim. iii. 3. and again, Tit. i. ". ) that he
be not greedy of Jilthy lucre.
2. What is the sentence passed upon them for this
sin, v. 6, 7. It is threatened, (1.) That they shall
be involve^ in troubles and miseries with those to
whom they had cried peace; .Yight shall be upon
them, a dark, cold night of calamity, such as they,
in their flattery, led the people to hope would never
come; It shall be dark unto you, darker to you than
to others; the sun shall go down over the prophets,
shall go down at noon; all comfort shall depart from
them, and they shall be deprived of all hope of it.
The day shall be dark over them, in which they
promised themselves light. Nor shall they only be
surrounded with outward troubles, but their minds
shall be full of confusion, and they shall be brought
to their wits’ end; their heads shall be clouded, and
their own thoughts shall trouble them; and that is
trouble enough. They kept others in the dark; and
now God will bring them into the dark. (2.) That
thereby they shall be silenced, and all their preten¬
sions to prophecy for ever shamed. They never
had any true vision; and now, the event disproving
their predictions of peace, it shall be made to appear
that they never had any, that there never was an
answer of God to them, but it was all a sham, and
they were cheats and impostors. Their reputation
being thus quite sunk, their confidence would of
course fail them. And their spirits being ruffled
and confused, their invention would fail them too;
and by reason of this darkness both within and with¬
out too, they shall not divine, they shall not have so
much as a counterfeit vision to produce, they shall
be ashamed and confounded, and cover their lips,
as men that are quite baffled, and have nothing to
say for themselves. Note, Those who deceive others,
are but preparing confusion for their own faces.
8. But truly I am full of power by the
Spirit of the Loud, and of judgment, and
of might, to declare unto Jacob his trans¬
gression, and to Israel his sin. 9. Hear
this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of
Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel,
that abhor judgment, and pervert all equity.
1 0. They build up Zion with blood, and Je¬
rusalem with iniquity. 11. The heads there¬
of judge for reward, and the priests thereof
teach for hire, and the prophets thereof di¬
vine for money : yet will they lean upon the
Lord, and say, Is not the Lord among us?
none evil can come upon us. 12. There¬
fore shall Zion for your sake be ploughed as
■\ field ; and Jerusalem shall become heaps;
and the mountain of the house as the high
places of the forest.
Here,
I. The prophet experiences a divine power going
along with him in his work, and he makes a solemn
profession and protestation of it, as that which would
justify him, and bear him cut, in his plain dealing
with the princes and rulers. He would not, he durst
not, make thus bold with the gre it men, but that he
was carried out to do it by a prophetical impulse
and impression. It was not he that said it, but G-xl
by him, and he could not but speak the word t! at
1030
MICAH, III.
God put into his mouth. It comes in likewise by
way of opposition to the false prophets, who were full
of shame when they lived to see themselves proved
liars, and who never had courage to deal faithfully
with the people, but flattered them in their sins;
they were sensual, not having the Spirit, but truly
(says Micah) I am full of power by the Spirit of
the Lord, v. 8. Having in himself an assurance
of the truth of what he said, he said it with assur¬
ance. Compare him with those false prophets, and
you will say, There is no comparison between them,
IVhat is the chaff to the wheat ? Jer. xxiii. 28.
What is painted fire to real fire? Observe here, 1.
What the qualifications were, with which this pro¬
phet was endued; he was full of power and of judg¬
ment and of might: he had an ardent love to God
and to tlie souls of men, a deep concern for his glory
and their salvation, and a flaming zeal against sin.
He had likewise courage to reprove it, and witness
against it, not fearing the wrath either of great men
or of great multitudes; whatever difficulties or dis¬
couragements he met with, they did not deter him or
drive him from his work ; none of these things
moved him; and all this was guided by judgment
and discretion; he was a man of conduct as well as
courage; in all his preaching there was light, as
well as heat, and a spirit of wisdom as well as of
zeal ; thus was this man of God thoroughly fur¬
nished for every good word he had to say, and every
good work he had to do. Those he preached to,
could not but perceive him to be full both of power
and judgment, for they found both their understand¬
ings opened, and their hearts made to burn within
them; with such evidence and demonstration, and
with sucli power, did the word come from him. 2.
Whence he had these qualifications; not from and
of himself, but lie was full of power by the Spirit
of the Lord. Knowing that it was indeed the Spirit
of the Lord that was in him, and spake by him,
th it it was a divine revelation that he delivered, he
spake it boldly, and as one having authority, set his
face as a flint, knowing he should be justified and
borne out in what he said, Isa. 1. 7, 8. Note, Those
who act honestly, may act boldly; and those who
are sure that they have a commission from God,
need not be afraid of opposition from men. Nay,
he had not only a spirit of prophecy, which was the
ground of his boldness, but the Spirit of sanctifica¬
tion endued him with the boldness and wisdom which
were requisite for him. It was not in any strength
jf his own that he was strong; for who is sufficient
for these things? But in the Lord, and in the power
of his might ; for from him all our sufficiency is.
Are we full of power at any time, for that which
is good? It is purely by the Spirit of the Lord, for
of ourselves we are weak as water; it is the God of
Israel that gives strength and power both to his peo¬
ple and to his ministers. 3. What use he made of
these qualifications — this judgment and this power;
he declared to Jacob his transgression, and to Israel
bis sin. If transgression be found in Jacob and Is¬
rael, they must be told of it, and it is the business
jf God’s prophets to tell them of it; to cry aloud,
and not to spare, Isa. lviii. 1. Those who come to
hear the word of God, must be willing to be told of
their faults, and must not only give their ministers
leave to deal plainly and faithfully with them, but
cake it kindly, and be thankful; but because few
have meekness enough to receive reproof, those have
need of a great deal of boldness, who are to give ,
reproofs, and must pray for a Spirit both of wisdom
and might.
II. The prophet exerts this power in dealing with
the heads of the house of Jacob, both the princes
and the prophets , whom he had drawn up a high
charge against, in the former part of the chapter,
he repeats the summons of their attendance and at¬
tention, (v. 9.) the same that we had, v. 1. direct
ing himself to the princes of the house of Israel, yet
he means those of Judah; for it appears (Jer. xxvi.
18, 19. where v. 12. is quoted) that this was spo¬
ken in Hezekiah’s kingdom; but, the ten tribes be¬
ing gone into captivity, Judah is all that is now left
of Jacob and Israel. The prophet speaks respect¬
fully to them; Hear, I pray you, and gives them
their titles of heads and princes. Ministers must be
faithful to great men in reproving them for their
sins, but they must not be rude and uncivil to them.
Now observe here,
1. The great wickedness that these heads of the
house of Jacob were guilty of, princes, priests, and
prophets; in short, they were covetous, and prosti¬
tuted their offices to their love of money. (1.) The
princes abhorred all judgment; they would net be
governed by any of its laws, either in their own
practice or in passing sentence upon appeals made
to them; they perverted all equity, and scorned to
be under the rf/rection or correction of justice, when
it could not be made pliable to their secular in¬
terests. When, under pretence of doing right, they
did the most palpable wrongs, then they perverted
equity, and made it serve a purpose contrary to the
intention of the Founder of magistracy and fountain
of power. It is laid to their charge, (v. 10.) that
they build up Zion with blood. They pretend, in
justification of their extortion and oppressions, that
they build up Zion and Jerusalem, they add nr"'
streets and squares to the holy cities, and ad. i •
them; they establish and advance the public inter¬
ests both in church and state, and think that therein
they do God and Israel good service. But it is with
blood and with iniquity, and therefore it cannot
prosper; nor will their intentions of good to the city
of God justify their contradictions to the law of God.
They mistake, who think that a burning, flaming
zeal for the holy church, and the propagating of the
faith, will serve to consecrate robberies and mur¬
ders, massacres and depredations; no, Zion’s walls
owe those no thanks, that build them up with blond
and iniquity. The sin of man works not the right¬
eousness of God. The office of the princes is to
judge upon appeals made to them; but they judge
for reward, (v. 11.) they give judgment on their side
that give the bribe; the most righteous cause shall
not be carried without a fee, and for a fee the most
unrighteous cause shall be carried. Miserable is
the people’s case, when the judge’s inquiry upon a
cause, is not, “What is to be done in it?” but
“ What is to be got by it?” (2.) The priests’ work
was to teach the people, and for that the law had
provided them a very honourable, comfortable
maintenance; but that will not content them, they
teach for hire over and above, and will be hired to
teach any thing, as an oracle of God, which they
know will please, and gain them an interest. (3.)
The prophets, it should seem, had honorary fees
given them by way of gratuity, 1 Sam. ix. 7, 8. But
these prophets govern themselves in their prophesy¬
ing by the prospect of temporal advantage, and that
was the main thing they had in their eye; They di¬
vine for money, their tongues were mercenary, they
would either prophesy, or let it alone, according as
they found it most for their advantage; and a man
might have what oracle he would from them, if he
would but pay them for it; the successors of Balaam,
who loved the wages of unrighteousness. Note,
Though that which is wicked can never be consecra¬
ted by a zeal for the church, yet that whicli is sacred
may be, and often is, desecrated, bv the love of the
world. When men do that which in itself is good,
but do it for filthy lucre, it loses its excellency, and
becomes an abomination both to God and man.
2. Their vain presumption and carnal confidence,
notwithstanding; They lean upon the Lord, and
i03 1
MICAH, IV.
Decause they are, in profession, his people, they j
think there is neither harm nor danger in these
their wicked praetices. Faith builds upon the
Lord, rests in him, and relies upon him, as the soul’s
Foundation; presumption only leans upon the Lord
as a Prop, makes use of him to serve a turn, while
still the world is the foundation that is built ufion.
They speak with a great deal of confidence, (1. ) Of
their honour; “ Is not the Lord among us? Have
we not tokens of his presence with us, his temple,
his ark, his lively oracles?” They are haughty be¬
cause of the holy mountain, and its dignities, (Zeph.
iii. 11.) as if their church-privileges would palliate
the worst of practices; or as if God’s presence with
them were intended to make the priests and people
rich with the sale of their performances. It was
true that the Lord was among them by his ordinan¬
ces, and this puffed them up with pride; but if they
imagined that he was among them by his favour and
love, they were mistaken; but it is a cheat the chil¬
dren of men often put upon themselves, to think they
have God with them, when they have by their sin
provoked him to depart from them. (2. ) They are
confident of their own safety ; No evil can come
ufion us. Many are rocked asleep in a fatal security i
by their church-privileges, as if those would protect
them in sin, and shelter them from punishment,
which are really, and will be, the greatest aggrava¬
tions both of their sin and of their punishment. If
men’s having the Lord among them will not restrain
them from doing evil, it can never secure them
from suffering evil for so doing; and it is very ab¬
surd for sinners to think that their imfiudence will
be their imfiunity.
3. The doom passed upon them for their real
wickedness, notwithstanding their imaginary pro¬
tection; (v. 12.) Therefore shall Zion for your sake
be ploughed as a field. This is that passage which
is quoted as a bold word spoken by Micah, (Jer.
xxvi. 18.) which yet Hezekiah and his princes took
well, though in another reign it might have gone
near to cost him his head; nay, they repented and
reformed, and so the execution of this threatening
was prevented, and did not come in those days.
( 1. ) It is the ruin of holy places that is here foretold,
laces that had been highly honoured with the to-
ens of God’s presence, and the performances of
his worship; it is Zion that shall be ploughed as a
field, the building burnt to the ground, and levelled
with it. Some observe that this was literally ful¬
filled in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Ro¬
mans, when the ground was ploughed up, on which
the city stood, in token of its utter desolation, and
that no city should be built upon that ground with¬
out the emperor’s leave. Even Jerusalem, the holy
city, shall become heaps of ruins, and the moun¬
tain of the house on which the temple is built, shall
be overgrown with briers and thorns, as the high
places of the forest. If sacred places be polluted
by sin, they must expect to be wasted and ruined by
the judgments of God. (2.) It is the wickedness
of those who preside in them, that brings the ruin;
“It is for your sake, that Zion shall be ploughed
as a field; you pretend to build up Zion, but doing
it by blood and iniquity, you pull it down.” Note,
The sin of priests and princes is often the ruin of
states and churches. Delirunt reges, plectuntur
Achivi — The kings are bemaddened, and the people
suffer for it.
CHAP. IV.
Comparing this chapter with the close of the foregoing
chapter, the comfortable promises here with the terrible
threatenings there, we may, with the apostle, behold the
goodness and severity of God ; (Rom. xi. 22.) toward the
Jewish church, which fell, severity , when Zion was
ploughed as a field; but toward the Christian church,
which wa9 built upon the ruins of it, goodness , great
goodness; for it is here promised, 1. That it shall be
advanced and enlarged by the accession of the nations
to it, v. 1,2. II. That it shall be protected in tranquilli¬
ty and peace, v. 3, 4. III. That it shall be kept close,
and constant, and faithful to God, v. 5. IV. That, under
Christ’s government, all its grievances should be re¬
dressed, v. 6, 7. V. That it shall have an ample and
flourishing dominion, v. 3. VI. That its troubles should
be brought to a happy issue at length, v. 9, 10. VII.
That its enemies should be disquieted, nay, that they
should be destroyed in and by their attempts against it,
v. 11 . . 13.
1. IjJ UT in the last clays it shall come to
jLJ pass, that the mountain of the house
of the Lord shall be established in the
top of the mountains, and it shall be exalt¬
ed above the hills; and people shall flow
unto it. 2. And many nations shall come
and say, Come, and let us go up to the
mountain of the Lord, and to the house of
the God of Jacob ; and he will teach us of
his ways, and we will walk in his paths :
for the law shall go forth of Zion, and
the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 3.
And he shall judge among many people,
and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they
shall beat their swords into plough-shares,
and their spears into pruning-hooks : nation
shall not liftupaswordngainstnation, neither
shall they learn war any more. 4. But
they shall sit every man under his vine, and
under his fig-tree; and none shall make
them afraid: for the mouth of the Lord of
hosts hath spoken it. 5. For all people
will walk every one in the name of his god,
and we will walk in the name of the Lord
our God for ever and ever. G. In that day,
saith the Lord, will I assemble her that
halteth, and I will gather her that is driven
out, and her that I have afflicted; 7. And I
will make her that halted a remnant, and
her that was cast far off a strong nation :
and the Lord shal I reign over them in mount
Zion from henceforth, even for ever.
It is a very comfortable but with which this chap¬
ter begins, and very reviving to those who lay the
interests of God’s church near their heart, and are
concerned for the welfare of it. When we some¬
times see the corruptions of the church, especially
of church-rulers, princes, priests, and prophets,
seeking their own things, and not the things of God;
and when we soon after see the desolations of the
church, Zion, for their sakes, ploughed as a field,
we are ready to fear that it will one day perish be¬
tween both, that the name of Israel shall be no more
in remembrance; we are ready to give up all for
gone, and to conclude the church will have neither
root nor branch upon earth .■ but let not our faith
fail in this matter; out of the ashes of the church
another phcenix shall arise. In the last words of
the foregoing chapter, we left the mountain of the
house as desolate and waste as the high places of
the forest; and is it possible that such a wilderness
should ever become a fruitful field again? Yes, the
first words of this chapter bring in the mountain of
the Lord’s house as much dignified by being fre¬
quented, as ever it had been disgraced by being de¬
serted. Though Zion be ploughed as a field, yet
1032
M1CAH, IV.
God nas not cast off his people, but by the fall of
the Jews salvation is come to the Gentiles, so that
it proves to be the riches of the world, Rom. xi. 11,
12. '1 his is the mystery which God by the prophet
here shows us, and he says the very same in the
three first verses of this chapter, which another
prophet said by the word of the Lord at the same
time, (Isa. ii. 2. — 4.) that out of the mouth of these
two witnesses these promises might be established;
and very precious promises they are, relating to the
gospel-church, which have been in part accomplish¬
ed, and will be yet more and more, for he is faith¬
ful, that has promised.
1. That there shall be a church for God set up in
tlie world, after the defection and destruction of the
Jewish church, and this in the last days; that is, as
some of the rabbins themselves acknowledge, in the
days of the Messiah. The people of God shall be
ncorporatcd by a new charter, a new spiritual way
if worship shall be enacted, and a new institution of
offices to attend it; better privileges shall be grant¬
ed by this new charter, qnd better provision made
for enlarging and establishing the kingdom of God
among men, than had been made by the Old Tes¬
tament constitution; The mountain of the house of
the Lord shall again appear firm ground for God' s
faithful worshippers to stand, and go, and build
upon, in their attendance on him, v. 1. And it
shall be a centre of unity to them; a church shall
be set up in the world, to which the Lord will be
daily add ng such as shall be saved.
2. That this church shall be firmly founded and
well built; It shall be established in the to/i of the
mountains; Christ himself will build it upon a rock,
it snail be an impregnable fort upon an immovable
foundation, so that the gates of hell shall neither
overthrow the one, nor undermine the other;
(M.itth. xvi. IS.) its foundations are still in the holy
mountains, (Ps. lxxxvii. 1.) the everlasting moun¬
tains, which cannot, which shall not, be removed.
It sh ill be established, not, as the temple, upon one
mountain, but upon many; for the foundations of
the church, as they are sure, so they are large.
3. That it shall be highly advanced, and become
eminent and conspicuous; It shall be exalted above
the hills, observed with wonder for its growing
greatness from small beginnings; the kingdom of
Christ shall shine with greater lustre than ever any
of the kingdoms of the earth did. It shall be as a
city on a hill, which cannot be hid, Matth. v. 14.
The glory of this latter house is greater than that
of the former, Hag. ii. 9. See 2 Cor. iii. 7, 8, See.
4. That there shall be a great accession of con¬
verts to it, and succession of converts in it. Peo¬
ple shall flow unto it as the waters of a river
are continually flowing ; there shall be a con¬
stant stream of believers flowing in from all parts
into the church, as thepeople-of the Jews flowed into
the temple, while it was standing, to worship there.
Then many tribes came to the mountain of the
house, to inquire of God’s temple; but in gospel-
times many nations shall flow into the church, shall
fix / like a cloud, and as the doves to their windows;
for ministers shall Ire sent forth to disciple all na¬
tions, and they shall not labour in vain; for multi¬
tudes being wrought upon to believe the gospel and
embrace the Christian religion, they shall excite
and encourage one another, and shall say, “ Come,
and let us go up to the .mountain of the Lord now
raised among us, even to the house of the God of Ja¬
cob; the spiritual temple which we need not travel
far to, for it is brought to our doors, and set up in
the midst of us.” Thus shall people be made wil¬
ting in the day of his power , (Ps. cx. 3.) and shall
do what they can to make others willing, as Andrew
invited Peter, and Philip Nathanael, to be acquaint¬
ed with Christ. They shall call the people to the
mountain (Deut. xxxiii. 19.) for there is in Christ
enough for all, enough for each. Now observe
what it is, (1.) Which these converts expect. la find
in the house of the God of Jacob; they come thither
for instruction; “He will teach us of his ways,
what is the way in which he would have us to walk
with him, and in which we may depend upon him
to meet us graciously.” Note, Where we come to
worship God, we come to be taught of him. (2.)
Which they engage to do when they are thus taught
of God; iVe will walk in his paths. Note, Those
may comfortably expect that God will teach them,
who are firmly resolved by his grace to do as they
are taught.
5. That, in order to this, a new revelation shall
be published to the world, on which the church
should be founded, and by which multitudes should
be brought into it; For the law shall go forth of
Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
The gospel is here called the word of the I-ord, for
the l^ord gave the word, and great was the company
of them that published it, rs. lxviii. 11. It was
of a divine original, a divine authority, it began to
he spoken by the Lord Christ himself, Heb. ii. 3.
And it is a law, a law of faith, we are under the law
to Christ; this was to go forth from Jerusalem,
from Zion, the metropolis of the Old Testament
dispensation, where the temple and altars and ora¬
cles were, and whither the Jews went to worship
from all parts; thence the gospel must take rise, to
show the connexion between the Old Testament
and the New, that the gospel is not set up in oppo¬
sition to the law, but is an explication and illustra¬
tion of it, and a branch growing out of its roots. It
was in Jerusalem that Christ preached and wrought
miracles, there he died, rose again, and ascended,
there the Spirit was poured out, and those that
were to preach repentance and remission of sins .o
all nations, were ordered to begin at Jerusalem, so
that thence flowed the streams that were to water
the desert world.
6. That a convincing power should go along with
the gospel of Christ, in all places where it should
he preached; (v. 2.) He shall judge among many
people. Messiah, the Lawgiver, (x>. 3.) is here
the Judge, for to him the Father committed all judg¬
ment, x\n& for judgment he came into this world; his
word, the word of his gospel, that was to go forth
from Jerusalem, was the golden sceptre by which
he shall rule and judge, when he sits as King on
the holy hill of Zion, Ps. ii. 6. By it he shall rebuke
strong nations afar off; for the Spirit working with
the word, shall reprove the world, John xvi. 8. It
is promised to the Son of David that he shall judge
among the heathen, (Ps. cx. 6.) which lie does when
in the chariot of his everlasting gospel he goes forth,
and goes on, conquering and to conquer.
7. That a disposition to mutual peace and love
should be the happy effect of the setting up of the
kingdom of the Messiah ; They shall beat their
swords into plough-shares; angry, passionate men,
that have been fierce and furious, shall be wonder¬
fully sweetened, and made mild and meek, Tit. iii.
2, 3, They who, before their conversion, did inju¬
ries, and would bear none, after their conversion,
can bear injuries, but will do none. As far as the
gospel prevails, it makes men peaceable, for such is
the wisdom from above, it is gentle and easy to be
entreated. And if nations were but leavened by it,
there would be universal peace. When Christ was
born, there was universal peace in the Ri man em¬
pire; those that were first brought into the gospel-
church, were all of one heart and o f one soul. Acts
iv. 32. And it was observed of the primitive Chris¬
tians, how well they loved one another: in heaven
this will have its accomplishment. It is promised,
(1.) That none shall be quaiTelsome; the art of
1033
MIC AH, IV.
war, instead uf being improved, (which some reckon the
glory uf u kingdom,) shall lie forgotten and laid aside
as useless ; they shall not learn war any more as they
had done, for they shall have no need to defend them¬
selves, nor any inclination to e/fend their neighbours ;
JVu'ion shall no longer lift tip sword ugainst nation ;
not that the gospel will make men cowards, but it will
make men peaceable. ('2.) That all shall be quiet,
both from evil and from the fear of evil ; (v. 4.) They
shall sir safely, and none shall disturb them ; they shall
sit securely, and shall not disturb themselves, every man
qnder his vine, and under his fig-tree, enjoying the
fruit of them, and needing no other shelter than the
.eaves of them. jYone shall make them afraid; not
only there shall be nothing that is likely to frighten
rhem, but they shall not be disposed to fear; under
the dominion of Christ, as th it of Solomon, there
shall be abundance of peace. Though his followers
have trouble in the world, in aim they enjoy great
tranquillity. If this seem unlikely, yet we may de¬
pend upon it, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken
it, and no word of his shall fall to the ground; what
he has spoken by his word, he will do by bis provi¬
dence and grace. He that is the Lord of hosts, will
be the God of peace; and those may well be easy,
whom the Lord of hosts, of all hosts, undertakes the
protection of.
8. That the churches shall be constant in their
duty, and so shall make a good use of their tran¬
quillity, and shall not provoke the Lord to deprive
them of it, v. 5. When the churches have rest, they
shall he edified, and confirmed, and comforted, and
shall he resolved to be as firm to their God, as other
nations are to theirs, though they be no gods.
Where we find the foregoing promises, Isa. ii. 2, &c.
it follows, ( v . 5.) O house of Jacob, come ye, and
let us walk in the light of the Lord, and here, tve
will walk in the name of the Lord our God. Note,
Then peace is a blessing indeed, when it strengthens
our resolution to cleave to the Lord. Observe, (1.)
How constant other nations were to their gods; All
people will walk every one in the name of his god,
will own their god, and cleave to him, will worship
their god, and serve him, will depend upon him,
and put confidence in him. Whatever men make
a god of they will make use of, dhd take his name
along with them in all their actions and affairs.
The mariners, in a storm, cried every man to his
god, Jonah i. 5. And no instance could be found of
a nation’s changing their gods, Jer. ii. 11. If the
hosts of heaven were their gods, they loved them,
and served them, and walked after them, Jer. viii. 2.
(2. ) How constant God’s people now resolve to be
to him; “ We will walk in the name of the Lord our
God, will acknowledge him in all our ways, and
govern ourselves by a continual regard to him, doing
nothing but what we have warrant from him for,
and openly professing our relation to him.” Ob¬
serve, Their resolution is peremptory, it is not a
thing that needs be disputed; We will walk in the
name of the Lord our God; it is just and reasona¬
ble; He is our God; and it is a resolution for a per¬
petuity; “We will doit for ever and ever, and will
never leave him. He will be ours for ever, and
therefore so we will be his, and never repent our
choice.”
9. That, notwithstanding the dispersions, distress,
and infirmities of the church, it shall be formed and
established, and made very considerable, v. 6, 7.
( 1. ) The state of the church had been low and weak,
and very helpless, in the latter times of the Old Tes¬
tament, partly through the corruptions of the Jewish
nation, and partly through the oppressions under
which they groaned. They were like a flock of
sheep that were maimed, worried, and scattered,
Ezek. xxxiv. 16. Jer. 1. 6, 17. The good people
among them, and in other places, that were well
VOL. IV — 6 P
inclined, were dispersed, were very infirm, and in
a manner lost and cast far off. (2.) It is promised
that all these grievances shall be redressed, and
the distemper healed. Christ will come himself,
(Matth. xv. 24.) and send his apostles to the lost
sheep of the house of Israel, Matth. x. 6. From
among the Jews that halted, or that, for want of
strength, could not gc upright, God gathered a
remnant, (y. 7. ) that remnant according to the elec
tion of grace, which is spoken of in Rom. xi. 7.
which embraced the gospel of Christ. And from
among the Gentiles that were cast far off, (so the
Gentiles are described to be, Eph. ii. 13. Acts ii.
39.) he raised a strong nation; greater numbers of
them were brought into the church than of the Jews,
Gal. iv. 27. And such a strong nation the gospel-
church is, that the gates of hell shall never be able
to prevail against it. The church of Christ is more
numerous than any other nation, and strong in the
Lord, and in the power of his might.
10. That the Messiah shall be the King of this
kingdom, shall protect and govern it, and order all
the affairs of it tor the best, and this to the end of
time. The Lord Jesus shall reign over them in
mount Zion by his word and Spirit in his ordinances,
and this from henceforth and for ever, for of the
increase of his government ana tteace there shall be
no end.
8. And tliou, O tower of the flock, the
strong hold of the daughter of Zion, unto
thee shall it come, even the first dominion ;
the kingdom shall come to the daughter of
Jerusalem. 9. Now why dost thou cry out
aloud ? is there no king in thee ? is thy coun¬
sellor perished ? for pangs have taken thee
as a woman in travail. 10. Be in pain, and
labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion,
like a woman in travail ; for now shalt thou
go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell
in the field, and thou shalt go even to' Baby¬
lon; there shalt thou be delivered; there
the Lord shall redeem thee from the hand
of thine enemies. 1 1. Now also many na¬
tions are gathered against thee, that say,
Let her be defiled, and let our eye look
upon Zion. 12. But they know not the
thoughts of the Lord, neither understand
they his counsel : for he shall gather them
as the sheaves into the floor. 13. Arise and
thresh, O daughter of Zion ; for I will make
thy horn iron, and I will make thy hoofs
brass; and thou shalt beat in pieces many
people: and I will consecrate their gain
unto the Lord, and their substance unto the
Lord of the whole earth.
These verses concern Zion and Jerusalem, here
called the tower of the flock, or the tower of Edar;
we read of such a place, (Gen. xxxv. 21.) near
Bethlehem; and some conjecture it is the same
place where the shepherds were keeping their
flocks when the angels brought them tidings of the
birth of Christ, and some think Bethlehem itself is
here spoken of, as ch. v. 2. Some think it is a tower
at that gate of Jerusalem which is called the sheep-
gate, (Neh. iii. 32.) and conjecture that through
that gate Christ rode in triumph into Jerusalem.
However, it seems to be put for Jerusalem itself, or
for Zion the tower of David; all the sheep of Israel
flocked thither three times a year; it watMhe strong
1031
MICAH, IV.
hold ( Ojihel, which is also a name of a place in Jeru¬
salem, Neh. iii. 27.) or castle, of the daughter of
Zion. Now here,
I. We have a promise of th e glories of the spiritual
Jerusalem, the gospel-church, which is the tower
of the flock, that one fold in which all the sheep of
Christ are protected under one Shepherd ; Unto
thee shall it come, that which thou hast long wanted
and wished for, even the first dominion, a dignity
and power equal to that of David and Solomon, by
whom Jerusalem was first raised; that kingdom
shall again come to the daughter of Jerusalem,
which it was deprived of at the captivity. It shall
make as great a figure, and shine with as much
lustre among the nations, and have as much influ¬
ence upon them, as ever it had; this is the first or
chief dominion; now this had by no means its accom¬
plishment in Zerubbabel, his was nothing like the
first dominion, either in respect of splendour and
sovereignty at home, or the extent of power abroad;
and therefore it must refer to the kingdom of the
Messiah, (and to that the Chaldee Paraphrase re¬
fers it,) and had its accomplishment when God gave
to our Lord Jesus the throne of his father David,
^Luke i. 32.) set him King u/ion the holy hill of
Zion, and gave him the heathen for his inheritance,
(Ps. ii. 6.) made him his First-born, higher than
the kings of the earth, Ps. lxxxix. 27. Dan. vii. 14.
David, in spirit, called him Lord, and (as Dr. Po-
cock observes) he witnessed of himself, and his wit¬
ness was true, that he was greater than Solomon,
none of their dominions being like his for extent and
duration. The common people welcomed Christ
into Jerusalem with hosannas to the son of David,
to show that it was the first dominion that came to
the daughter of Zion; and the evangelist applies it
to the promise of Zion’s king coming to her, Matth.
xxi. 5. Zech. ix. 9. Some give this sense of the
words to Zion, and Jerusalem that tower of the
flock; To the nation of the Jews came the first do¬
minion; that is, there the kingdom of Christ was
first set up, the gospel of the kingdom was first
preached, (Luke xxiv. 47.) there Christ was first
called King of the Jews.
II. This is illustrated by a prediction of the ca¬
lamities of the literal Jerusalem, to which some
favour and relief should be granted, as a type and
figure of what God would do for the gospel-Jerusa-
lem in the last days, notwithstanding its distresses.
We have here,
1. Jerusalem put in pain by the providences of
God; she cries out aloud, that all her neighbours
may take notice of her griefs. Because there is no
king in her, none of that honour and power she used
to have, instead of ruling the nations, as she did
when she sat a queen, she is ruled by them, and be¬
come a captive; her counsellors are perished, she is
no longer at her own disposal, but is given up to the
will of her enemies, and is governed by their coun¬
sellors; Pangs have taken her. (1.) She is carried
captive to Babylon, and there is in pangs of grief;
she goes forth out of the city, and is constrained to
dwell in the field, exposed to all manner of inconve-
niencies; she goes even to Babylon, and there wears
out seventy tedious years in a miserable captivity,
all that while in pain, as a woman in travail, wait¬
ing to be delivered, and thinking the time very long.
(2.) When she is delivered out of Babylon, and re¬
deemed from the hand of her enemies there, yet
still she is in pangs of fear, the end of one trouble
is but the beginning of another; for now also, when
Jerusalem is in the rebuilding, many nations are
fathered against her; (t». 11.) they were so in
izra and Nehemiah’s time, and did all they could
to obstruct the building of the temple and the
wall; they were so in the time of the Maccabees,
they said, Let her be defiled, let her be looked upon
i as a place polluted with sin, and be forsaken and
abandoned both of God and man; let her holy places
be profaned, and all her honours laid in the dust;
let our eye look upon Zion, and please itself with the
sight of its ruins, as it is said of Edom, (Obad. 12.)
Thou shouldest not have looked upon the day of thy
brother; let our eyes see our desire upon Zion, the
day we have long wished for. When they hear the
enemies thus combine against them, and insult over
them, no wonder that they are in pain, and cry
aloud; Without are fightings, within are fears.
2. Jerusalem made easy by the promises of God,
“ Why dost thou cry out aloud? Let thy griefs and
fears be silenced, indulge not thyself in them, for
though things are bad with thee, they shall end well;
thy pangs are great, but they are like those cf a
woman in travail, (v. 9.) that labours to bring
forth, (v. 10.) the issue of which will be good at
last.” Jerusalem’s pangs are not as dying agonies,
but as travailing throes, which after awhile will be
forgotten, for joy that a child is born into the world.
Let the literal Jerusalem comfort herself with this,
that, whatever straits she may be reduced to, she
shall continue until the coming of the Messiah, for
there his kingdom must be first set up ; and she
shall not be destroyed while that blessing is in her,
and when at length she is ploughed as a field, and
become heaps, (as is threatened, ch. iii. .12. ) vet her
privileges shall be resigned to the spiritual Jerusa¬
lem, and in that the promises made to her shall be
fulfilled. Let Jerusalem be easy then, for,
(1.) Her captivity in Babylon shall have an end,
a happy end; (v. 10.) There shall thou be delivered,
and theLord shall redeem thee from the hand of thine
enemies there. This was done by Cyras, who acted
therein as God’s servant; and that deliverance was
typical of our redemption by Jesus Christ, and the re¬
lease from our spiritual bondage, which is proclaimed
in the everlasting gospel, that acceptable year of the
Lord, in which Christ himself preached liberty to
the captives, and the opening of the prison to them
that were bound, Luke iv. 18, 19.
(2. ) The designs of her enemies against her after¬
ward shall be baffled, nay, they shall turn upon
themselves, v. 12, 13. They promise themselves a
day of it, but it shall prove God’s day. They are
gathered against Zion, to destroy it, but it shall
prove to their own destruction, which Israel and his
God shall have the glory of. [1.] Their coming
together against Zion shall be the occasion of their
rum. They associate themselves, and gird them¬
selves , that they may break Jerusalem in pieces,
but it shall prove that they shall be broken in pieces,
Isa. viii. 9. They know not the thoughts of the
Lord. When they are gathering together, and Pro¬
vidence favours them in it, they little think what
God is designing by it, nor do they understand his
counsel, they know what they aim at, in coming to¬
gether, but they know not what God aims at in
bringing them together; they aim at Zion’s ruin,
but God aims at theirs. Note, When men are made
use of as instruments of Providence in accomplishing
its purposes, it is very common for them to intend
one thing, and for God to intend quite the contrary.
The king of Assyria is to be a rod in God’s hand for
the correction of his people, in order for their re¬
formation; howbeit he means not so, nor does his
heart think so, Isa. x. 7. And thus it is here ; the
nations are gathered against Zion, as soldiers into
the field, but God gathers them as sheaves into the
floor, to be beaten to pieces; and they could not
have been so easily, so effectually destroyed, if they
had not gathered together against Zion. Note, The
designs of enemies for the rain of the church often
prove raining to themselves; and thereby they pre¬
pare themselves for destruction, and put themselves
in the way of it ; they are snared in the work of
MICAH. V.
1035
their own hands. [2.] Zion shall have the honour
of being victorious over them, v. 13. When they
ar e gathered as sheaves into the floor , to be trodden
down, as the corn then was by the oxen, then
“ Arise and thresh , O daughter of Zion; instead of
fearing them, and fleeing from them, boldly set
upon them, and take the opportunity Providence
favours thee with of trampling upon them. Plead
not thine own weakness, and that thou art not a
match for so many confederated enemies, God will
make thy horn iron, to push them down; and thy
hoofs brass, to tread upon them when they are down;
and thus thou shalt beat in flieces many fleoflle, that
have long been beating thee in pieces.” Thus when
God pleases, the daughter of Babylon is made a
threshing-floor, (it is time to thresh her, Jer. li. 33.)
and the worm Jacob is made a threshing instrument
with which God will thresh the mountains, and
make them us chaff, Isa. xli. 14, 15. How strangely,
how happily, are the tables turned, since Jacob was
the threshing-floor, and Babylon the threshing-
instrument! Isa. xxi. 10. Note, When God has
conquering work for his people to do, he will furnish
them with strength and ability for it, will make the |
horn iron, and the hoofs brass; and when he does
so, they must exert the power he gives them, and
execute the commission; even the daughter of Zion
must arise, and thresh. [3.] The glory of the vic¬
tory shall redound to God. Zion shall thresh these
sheax’es in the floor, but the corn threshed out shall
be a meat-offering at God’s altar; I will consecrate
their gain unto the Lord, (I will have it conse¬
crated,) and their substance unto the Lord of the
whole earth. The spoils gained by Zion’s victory
shall be brought into the sanctuary, and devoted to
God, either in part, as those of Midian, Numb,
xxxi. 28.) or in whole, as those of Jericho, Josh,
vi. 17. God is Jehovah, the Fountain of being, he
is the Lord of the whole earth, the Fountain of
power; and therefore needs not any of our gain or
substance, but may challenge and demand it all if
he pleases; and with ourselves we must devote all
we have to his honour, to be employed as he directs.
Thus far all we have must have holiness to the Lord
written upon it, all our gain and substance must be
consecrated to the Lord of the whole earth, Isa.
xxiii. 18. And extraordinary successes call for ex¬
traordinary acknowledgments, whether they be of
spoils in war or gains in trade. It is God that gives
us flower to get wealth, which way soever it is
honestly got, and therefore he must be honoured
with what we get. Some make all this to point at
the defeat of Sennacherib when he besieged Jerusa¬
lem, others to the destruction of Babylon, others to
the success of the Maccabees; but the learned Dr.
Pocock and others think it had its full accomplish¬
ment in the spiritual victories obtained by the gospel
of Christ over the powers of darkness that fought
against it. The nations thought to have ruined
Christianity in its infancy, but it was victorious over
them; those that persisted in their enmity, were
broken to flieces, (Matth. xxi. 44.) particularly the
Jewish nation: but multitudes by divine grace were
gained to the church, and they and their substance
were consecrated to the Lord Jesus, the Lord of the
whole earth.
CHAP. V.
In this chapter, we have, I. A prediction of the troubles
and distresses of the Jewish nation, v. 1. II. A promise
of the Messiah, and of his kingdom, to support the peo¬
ple of God in the day of these troubles. 1. Of the birth
of the Messiah, v. 2, 3. 2. Of his advancement, v. 4. 3.
Of his protection of his people, and his victory over his
and their enemies, v. 5, 6. 4. Of the great increase of
the church, and the blessings that shall come to the
world by it, v. 7. 6. Of the destruction of the enemies
of the church, both those without, that attack it, and
those within, that expose it, v. 8. .15.
l.XfOW gather thyself in troops, O
_L^I daughter of troops: he hath laid
siege against us; they shall smite the Judge
of Israel with a rod upon the cheek. 2. But
thou, Beth-lehem Ephratah, though thou he
little among the thousands of Judah, yet out
of thee shall he come forth unto me that in
to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have
been from of old, from everlasting. 3. There¬
fore will he give them up, until the time
that she which travaileth hath brought forth:
then the remnant of his brethren shall re¬
turn unto the children of Israel. 4. And he
shall stand and feed in the strength of the
Lord, in the majesty of the name of the
Lord his God; and they shall abide: for
now shall he be great unto the ends of the
earth. 5. And this man shall be the peace,
when the Assyrian shall come into our land ;
and, when he shall tread in our palaces, then
shall we raise against him seven shepherds,
and eight principal men. 6. And they shall
waste the land of Assyria with the sword,
and the land of Nimrod in the entrances
thereof : thus shall he deliver us from the
Assyrian, when he cometh into our land,
and when he treadeth within our borders.
Here, as before, we have,
I. The abasement and distress of Zion, v. 1. The
Jewish nation, for many years before the captivity,
dwindled, and fell into disgrace; Now gather thy¬
self in troofls, O daughter of troofls. It is either a
summons to Zion’s enemies, that had troops at their
service, to come, and do their worst against her,
God will suffer them to do it; or a challenge to
Zion’s friends, that had troops too at command, to
come, and do their best for her, let them gather in
troofls, yet it should be to no purpose; for, says the
prophet, in the name of the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
He has laid seige against us; the king of Assyria
has, the king of Babylon has, and we know not
which way to defend ourselves; so that the enemies
shall gain their point, and prevail so far as to smite
the judge of Israel, the king, the chief justice, and
the other inferior judges, with a rod uflon the cheek,
in contempt of them and their dignity; having made
them prisoners, they shall use them as shamefully
as any of the common captives. Complaint had
been made of the judges of Israel, (ch. iii. 11.) that
they were corrupt, and took bribes, and this dis¬
grace came justly upon them for abusing their
power; yet it was a great calamity to Israel, to have
their judges treated thus ignomimously. Some make
this the reason why the troops shall lay siege to
Jerusalem, that is, the Roman army, because the
Jews shall smite the judge of Israel uflon the cheek,
because of the indignities they shall do to the Mes¬
siah, the Judge of Israel, whom they smote on the
cheek, saying, Proflhesy who smote thee. But the
former sense seems more probable, and that it is
meant of the besieging of Jerusalem, not by the Ro¬
mans, but the Chaldeans, and was fulfilled in the
indignities done to king Zedekiah and the princes
of the house of David.
II. The advancement of Zion’s King; having
showed how low the house of David should be
brought, and how vilely the shield of that mighty
t' in ly should be cast away, as though it had not
. been anointed with oil; to encourage the faith of
1036
MICAH, V.
Clod’s people, who might be tempted now to think
tii.it his covenant with David and his house was ab¬
rogated, (according to the Psalmist’s complaint, Ps.
lxxxix. 38, 39. ) he adds an illustrious prediction of
the Messiah and his kingdom, in whom that cove¬
nant shoula be established, and the honours of that
house should be revived, advanced, and perpetu¬
ated. Now let us see,
1. How the Messiah is here described; it is he
that is to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth
have been from of old, from everlasting, from the
days of eternity, as the word is. Where we have,
(1.) His existence from eternity, as God; His goings
forth, or emanations, as the going forth of the beams
from the sun were, or have been, of old, from ever¬
lasting; which (says Dr. Pocock) is so signal a de¬
scription of Christ’s eternal generation, or his going
forth as the Son of God, begotten of his Father be¬
fore all worlds, that this prophecy must belong onlv
to him, and could never be verified of any other. It
certainly speaks of a going forth that was now past,
when the prophet spake, and cannot but be read as
we read it, his outgoings have been; and the putting
of both these words together, which severally are
used to denote eternity, plainly shows that they
must here be taken in the strictest sense, the same
with Ps. xc. 2. From everlasting to everlasting thou
art God; and can be applied to no other than to
him who was able to say, Before Abraham was, I
am, John viii. 58. Dr. Pocock observes, that the
going forth is used, Deut. viii. 3. for a word which
/u-jceeds out of the mouth, and is therefore very
fitly used to signify the eternal generation of him
who is called the Word of God, that was in the be¬
ginning with God, John i. 1, 2. (2.) His office as
Mediator; he was to be Ruler in Israel, King of his
church; he was to reign over the house of Jacob for
ever, Luke i. 32, 33. The Jews object, that our
L a d Jesus could not be the Messiah, for he was so
far from being Ruler in Israel, that Israel ruled over
him, and put him to death, and would not have him
to reign over them; but he answered that himself,
when he said, My kingdom is not of this world, John
xviii. 36. And it is a spiritual Israel that he reigns
over, the children of promise, all the followers of
believing Abraham and praying Jacob; in the hearts
of these he reigns by his Spirit and grace; and in the
society of these by Iris word and ordinances. And
was not he Ruler in Israel, whom winds and seas
obeyed, and legions of devils were forced to truckle
to, and who commanded away diseases from the
sick, and called the dead out of their graves ? None,
except him whose goings forth were from of old,
from everlasting, was fit to be Ruler in Israel, to
be Head of the church, and Head over all things to
the church.
2. What is here foretold concerning him.
(1.) That Bethlehem should be the place of his
nativity, v. 2. This was the scripture which the
scribes went upon, when with the greatest assurance
they told Herod where Christ should be born;
(Matth. ii. 6.) and hence it was universally known
among the Jews, that Christ should come out of the
town of Bethlehem where David was, John vii. 42.
Beth-lehem signifies the house of bread, the fittest
place for Him to be born in, who is the Bread of
life. And because it was the city of David, by a
special providence it was ordered that he should be
born there, who was to be the Son of David, and
his Heir and Successor for ever. It is called Beth¬
lehem Efihratah, both names of the same city, as
appears, Gen. xxxv. 19. It was little among the
thousands of Judah, not considerable either for the
number of the inhabitants, or the figure they made;
it had nothing in it worthy to have this honour put
upon it; but God in that, as in other instances, chose
to exalt them of low degree, Luke i. 52. Christ
would give honour to the place of his birth, and not
derive honour from it; Though thou be little, yet
this shall make thee great; and, as St. Matthew
reads it, Thou art not the least among the princes
of Judah, but upon this account art really honoura¬
ble above any of them. A relation to Christ will
magnify those that are little in the world.
(2.) That in the fulness of time he should be born
of a woman; ( v . 3.) Therefore will he give them up,
he will give up his people Israel to distress and
trouble, and will defer their salvation, which has
been so long promised and expected, until the time,
the set time, that she who travils has brought forth,
or, as it should be read, that she who shall bring
forth, shall have brought forth; that the blessed
virgin, who was to be the mother of the Messiah,
shall have brought him forth at Bethlehem, the place
appointed. This Dr. Pocock thinks to be the most
genuine sense of the words. Though the outgoings
of the Messiah were from everlasting, yet the re¬
demption in Jerusalem, the consolation of Israel,
must be waited for, (Luke ii. 25, 38.) until the time
that she who should bring forth, (so the Virgin
Mary is called, as Christ is himself called, He that
shall come,) shall bring forth; and in the mean time
he will give them up. Divine salvations must be
waited for until the time fixed for the bringing of
them forth.
(3.) That the remnant of his brethren shall thm
return to the children of Israel. The remnant of
the Jewish nation shall return to the spirit of the
true, genuine children of Israel, a people in covenant
with God; the hearts of the children shall be turned
to the fathers, Mai. iv. 6. Some understand it of
all believers, Gentiles as well as Jews, they shall all
be incorporated into the commonwealth of Israel;
and as they are all brethren to one another, so he
is not ashamed to call them brethren, Heb. ii. 11.
(4.) That he shall be a glorious prince, and his
subjects shall be happy under his government; (v.
4.) He shall stand and feed, he shall both teach and
rule, and shall continue to do so, as a good Shepherd,
with wisdom, and care, and love; so it was foretold.
He shall feed his flock like a shepherd, shall provide
green pastures for them, and under-shepherds to
lead them into these pastures. He is the good Shep¬
herd that goes before the sheep, and presides among
them. He shall do this, not as an ordinary man, but
in the strength of the Lord, as one clothed with a
divine power, to go through his work, and break
through the difficulties in his way, so as not to fail
or be discouraged; he shall do it in the majesty of
the name of the Lord his God, so as plainly to evi¬
dence that God’s name'was in him, (Exod. xxiii.
21.) the majesty of his name, for he taught as one
having authority, and not as the scribes. The pro¬
phets prefaced their message with. Thus saith the
Lord; but Christ spake, not as a Servant, but as a
Son; Verily, verily, I say unto you. This was feed¬
ing in the majesty of the name o f the Lord his God,
all power was given him in heaven and in earth, a
power over all flesh, by virtue of which he still
rules in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God,
a name above every name. Christ’s government
shall be, [1.] Very happy for his subjects, for they
shall abide; they shall be safe and easy, and continue
so for ever; because he lives, they shall live also.
They shall lie down in the green pastures to which
he shall lead them; shall abide in God’s tabernacle
for ever, Ps. lxi. 4. His church shall abide, and he
in it, and with it, always, even to the end of the
world. [2.] It shall be very glorious to himself;
Now shall he be great to the ends of the earth. Now
that he stands, and feeds his flock, now shall he be
great. For Christ reckons it his greatness to do
good. Now he shall be great to the ends of the
earth, for the uttermost parts of the earth shall be
1037
MIC AH, V.
given him for his possession, and the ends, of the
world shall see his salvation.
(5.) That he shall secure the peace and welfare
of his church and people against the attempts of his
and their enemies; ( v . 5, 6.) This man, as King and
Ruler, shall be the Peace when the Assyrian shall
,ome into oar land. This refers to the deliverance
af Hezekiah and his kingdom from the power of
Sennacherib, who invaded them, in the type; but,
under the shadow of that, is a promise of the safety
of the gospel-church and of all believers from the
designs and attempts of the powers of darkness,
Satan and all his instruments, the dragon and his
angels, that seek to devour the church of the first¬
born, and all that belong to it. Observe, [1.] The
peril and danger which Christ’s subjects are sup¬
posed to be in; The Assyrian, a potent enemy,
comes into their land, ( v . 5, 6.) treads within their
borders, nay, prevails so far as to tread in their
fialaces; it was a time of treading down and of per-
filexity, when Sennacherib made a descent upon
Judah, took all the defenced cities, and laid siege
to Jerusalem, Isa. xxxvi. 1. — xxxvii. 3. This re¬
presented the gates of hell fighting against the king¬
dom of Christ, comfiassing the camfi of the saints
and of the holy city, and threatening to bear down
all before them. When the terrors of the law set
themselves in array against a convinced soul, when
the temptations of Satan assault the people of God,
and the troubles of the world threaten to rob them
of all their comforts, then the Assyrian comes into
their land, and treads in their palaces; without are
fightings, within are fears. [2.] The protection
and defence which his subjects are then sure to be
under; First, Christ will himself be their Peace.
When the Assyrian comes with such a force into a
1 md, can there be any other peace than a tame sub¬
mission and an unresisted desolation? Yes, even
then the church’s King will be the Conservator of
the church’s peace, will be for a hidmg-place, Isa.
xxxiii. 1, 2. Christ is our Peace as a Priest,
making atonement for sin, and reconciling us to
God; and he is our Peace as a King, conquering our
enemies, and commanding down disquieting tears
and passions; he creates the fruit of the lifts, fteace.
Even when the Assyrian comes into the land, when
we are in the greatest distress and danger, and have
received a sentence of death within ourselves, yet
this man may be the Peace. In me, says Christ,
you shall have peace, when in the world you have
tribulation; at such a time our souls may dwell at
ease in him. Secondly, He will find out proper in¬
struments to be employed for their protection and
deliverance, and the defeat of their enemies; Then
shall we raise against him seven shepherds and eight
principal men, a competent number of persons,
proper to oppose the enemy, and make head against
him, and protect the church of God in peace; men
that shall have the care and tenderness of shepherds,
and the courage and authority of principal men, or
princes of men. Seven and eight are a certain
number tor an uncertain. Note, When God has
work to do, he will not want fitting instruments to
do it with; and when he pleases, he can do it by a
few; he needs not raise thousands, but seven or
eight principal men may serve the turn, if God be
with them. Magistrates and ministers are shepherds
and principal men, raised in defence of religion’s
righteous cause against the powers of sin and Satan
in the world. Thirdly, The opposition given to
the church shall be got over, and the opposers
brought down. This is represented by the laying
of Assyria and Chaldea waste, which two nations
were the most formidable enemies to the Israel of
God, of any other; and the destruction of them sig¬
nified the making of Christ’s enemies his footstotn;
They shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword,
and the land of JVimrod in the entrance thereof ,
they shall make inroads upon the land, and put to
the sword all that they find in arms. Note, Tin sc
that threaten ruin to the church of God, h isten
ruin to themselves. And their destruction is thr
church’s salvation; Thus shall he deliver us from
the Assyrian. When Satan fell as lightning from
heaven before the preaching of the gospel, and
Christ’s enemies, that would not have him to reign
over them, were slain before him, then this wasful
filled.
7. And the remnant of Jacob shall be in
the midst of ‘many people as a dew from the
Lord, as the showers upon the grass, that
tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the
sons of men. 3. And the remnant of Jacob
shall be among the Gentiles in the midst ol
many people, as a lion among the beasts of
the forest, as a young lion among the flocks
of sheep; who, if he go through, both tread-
eth down and teareth in pieces, and none
can deliver. 9. Thy hand shall be lifted up
upon thine adversaries, and all thine ene¬
mies shall be cut off. 10. And it shall come
to pass in that day, saith the Lord, that 1
will cut off thy horses out of the midst ol
thee, and I will destroy thy chariots: 11.
And I will cutoff the cities of thy land, and
throw down all thy strong holds: 12. And
I will cut off witchcrafts out of thy hand ;
and thou shalt have no more soothsayers:
13. Thy graven images also will I cut off,
and thy standing images, out of the midst
of thee; and thou shalt no more worship the
work of thy hands. 14. And I will pluck
up thy groves out of the midst of thee : so
will I destroy thy cities. 15. And I will
execute vengeance in anger and fury upon
the heathen, such as they have not heard.
Glorious things are here spoken of the remnant
of Jacob; that remnant which was raised of her that
halted, ch. iv. 7. And it seems to be that remnant
which the Lord our God shall call, (Joel ii. 32.) on
whom the Spirit shall be poured out; the remnant
that shall be saved, Rom. ix. 27. Note, God’s peo¬
ple are but a remnant, a small number, in compari¬
son with the many that are left to perish; a little
flock; but they are the remnant of Jacob, a people
in covenant with God, and in his favour.
Now concerning this remnant it is here promised,
1. That they shall be as a dew in the midst of
the nations, v. 7. God’s church is dispersed all the
world over; it is in the midst of many people, as gold
in the ore, wheat in the heap. Israel, according to
the flesh, dwelt alone, and was not numbered among
the nations; but the spiritual Israel lies scattered in
the midst of many people, as the salt of the earth,
or as seed sown in the ground, here a grain and
there a grain, Hos. ii. 23. Now this remnant shall
be as dew from the 1-ord. (1.) They shall be of a
heavenly extraction, as dew from the Lord, who is
the Father of the rain, and has begotten the drops
of the dew, Job xxxviii. 28. They are born from
above, and are not of the earth, savouring the things
of the earth. (2.) They shall be numerous as the
drops of dew in a summer’s morning; (Ps. cx. 3.)
Thou hast the dew of thy youth. (3.) They sh ill
be pure and clear, not muddy and corrupt but
1038
MICAH, VI.
cryst tl drops, as the water of life. (4.) They shall
l>e produced silently and without noise, as the dew
th it distils insensibly, we know not how; such is the
way of the Spirit. (5.) They shall live in a con-
tinu d dependence upon God, and he still deriving
from him, as the dew which tarries not for man,
nor waits for the sons of men; they should not rely
upon human aids and powers, but on divine grace;
for they are, and own that they are, no more than
what the free grace of God makes them every day.
(6.) They shall be great blessings to those among
whom they live, as the dew and the showers are to
the grass, to make it grow without the help of man,
or the sons of men. Their doctrine,' example, and
prayers, shall make them as dew, to soften and
moisten others, and make them fruitful. Their
speech shall distil as the dew, (Deut. xxxii. 2.) and
all about them shall wait for them as for the rain.
Job xxix. 23. The people among whom they live
shall be as the grass, which flourishes only by the
blessing of God, and not by the art and care of man:
they shall be beneficial to those about them, by
drawing down God’s blessings on them, as Jacob on
Laban’s house, and by cooling and mitigating God’s
wrath, which otherwise would burn them up, as
the dew preserves the grass from being scorched
by the sun; so Dr. Pocock. They shall be mild
and gentle in their behaviour, like their Master,
who comes down like rain upon the new-mown
grass, Ps. lxxii. 6.
2. That they shall be as a lion among the beasts
of the forest, that treads down, and tears in pieces,
v. 8. As they shall be silent, and gentle, and commu¬
nicative of all good to those that receive the truth
in the love of it, so they shall be bold as a lion in
witnessing against the corruptions of the times and
places they live in, and strong as a lion in the
strength of God, to resist and overcome their spi¬
ritual enemies. The weapons of their warfare are
mighty, through God, to the pulling down of strong
holds, 2 Cor. x. 4, 5. They shall have courage,
which all their adversaries shall not be able to re¬
sist; (Luke xxi. 15. ) as when the lion tears, none
can deliver. When infidelity is silenced, and all
iniquity made to stop her mouth, when sinners are
convinced and converted by the power of the gos¬
pel, in the doctrine of its ministers, and the conver¬
sation of its professors, then the remnant of Jacbb is
like a lion. This is explained, v. 9. Thine hand
shall be lifted up upon thine adversaries; the church
shall have the upper hand at last of all that oppose
her. Her enemies shall be cut off, they shall cease
to be enemies, their enmity shall be cut off. Christ’s
arrows of conviction shall be sharp in their hearts,
so that they shall fall under him, they shall yield
themselves subjects to him, (Ps. xlv. 5.) and be
happily conquered and subdued, Ps. cx. 2.
3. That they shall be brought off from all carnal
confidences, which they had relied on; that by the
providence of God they should enjoy such a secu¬
rity, that they should not need them; and by the
grace of God they should be brought to see the folly
of them, and come off from them. It was the sin
of Israel, that they furnished themselves extrava¬
gantly with horses and chariots, and were soothsay¬
ers and idolaters; see Isa. ii. 6. — 8. But here it is
promised that they shall not regard them any more.
The tranquillity of the kingdom of Christ is intend¬
ed in that promise, which explains this, Zech. ix.
10. I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and
the horse from Jerusalem. Note, It is a great mercy
to be deprived of those things which we have re¬
posed a confidence in, in competition with God;
which wc have made our arm, and after which we
have gone a whoring from God. Let us observe the
p irticulars. (1.) They had trusted in chariots and
horses, and multiplied them; (Ps. xx. 7.) but now
Go 1 will cut off their horses, and destroy their Dta
riots, {V. 10.) as David houghed the chariot-horses
2 Sam. viii. 4. They shall not have them, lest they
should be tempted to trust in them. (2.) They de¬
pended upon their strong holds, and fortified cities,
for their security; but God will take care that they
be demolished; {v. 11.) I will cut off the cities of
thy land, I will throw down thy strong holds. They
shall have them fur habitations, but not for gain
sons, for God will be their only Place of defence,
their high Tower, and their Deliverer. (3.) Many
of them depended much upon the conduct and ad¬
vice of their conjurers, diviners, and fortune-tellers;
and those God will cut off, not only as weak th ngs,
and insufficient to relieve them, but as wicked things,
and sufficient to ruin them; (u. 12.) “/ will cut off
witchcrafts out of thine hand, that thou shalt no
more take hold of them, and stay thyself upon them,
and thou shall have no more soothsayers, for thou
shalt be convinced that all their pretensions are a
cheat.” The justice of the nation shall cut them
off according to the law, Lev. xx. 27. The preach¬
ing of the gospel brought men off from using curi¬
ous arts, Acts xix. 19. (4.) Many of them had
said to the work of their hands, IV are our gods;
but now idolatry shall be abolished and abandoned;
( v . 13.) “ Thy graven images will I cut off, and
thy standing images, both those that were movea
bte, and those that were fixed; they shall be dc
strayed by the power of the law of Moses, and de¬
serted by the power of theigospel of Christ, so that
thou shalt no more worship the work of thy hands,
but be ashamed that ever thou hast been so de¬
luded. Among other monuments of idolatry, I will
pluck up thy groves out of the midst of thee,” v.
14. These were planted and preserved in honour
of their idols, and used in the worship of them; these
they were ordered to burn, (Deut. xii. 2, 3.) and if
they do not, God will, so that they shall not have
them to trust to. And so will I destroy thy cities,
meaning the cities that wc.e dedicated to the idols,
to some dunghill-deity or other, which they confided
in for their protection.
4. That those who stand it out against the gospel
of Christ, and continue in league with their idola¬
tries and witchcrafts, shall fall under the wrath of
God, and be consumed by it; ( v . 15.) I will execute
vengeance in anger and fury upon the heathen,
(upon heathenism,) such as they have not heard;
idolatries shall be done away, and idolaters put to
shame. I will execute vengeance upon the heathen
which have not heard, (so some read it,) or which
would not hear and receive the doctrine of Christ.
God will give his Son either the hearts or the necks
of his enemies, and make them either his friends or
his footstool.
CHAP. VI.
After the precious promises, in the two foregoing chapters,
relating to the Messiah’s kingdom, the prophet is here
directed to set the sins of Israel in order before them,
for their conviction and humiliation, as necessary to
make way for the comfort of gospel -grace. Christ’s
forerunner was a reprover, and pleached repentance,
and so prepared his wav. Here, I. God enters an action
against his people for their base ingratitude, and the bad
returns they had made him for his favours, v. 1 . . 5. II.
He shows them the wrong course they took, when they
were under conviction, and the frivolous proposals they
made, in answer to his charge, and what course they
should have taken, v. 6 . . 8. III. He calls upon them
to hear the voice of his judgments, and sets the sins in
order before them, for which he still proceeded in his
controversy with them, (v. 9.) their injustice, ( v. 10 . . 15.)
and their idolatry, (v. 16.) for both which ruin w as com¬
ing upon them.
1. TTEAR ye now what the Lord saillr
JlX Arise, contend thou before the nioun
1039
MICAH, VI.
lains, and let the hills hear thy voice. 2.
Hear ye, O mountains, the Lord’s contro¬
versy, and ye strong foundations of the
earth: for the Lord hath a controversy
with his people, and he will plead with Is¬
rael. 3. O my people, what have 1 done
unto thee? and wherein have I wearied
thee ? testify against me. 4. For I brought
thee up out of the land of Egypt, and re¬
deemed thee out of the house of servants;
and 1 sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and
Miriam. 5. O my people, remember now
what Balalc king of Moab consulted, and
what Balaam the son of Beor answered
him from Shittim unto Gilgal; that ye may
know the righteousness of the Lord.
Here,
I. The prefaces to the message are very solemn,
and such as may engage our most serious attention.
1. The people are commanded to give audience;
Hear ye now what the Lord saith. What the pro¬
phet speaks, he speaks from God, and in his name;
they are therefore bound to hear it, not as the word
of a sinful, dying man, but of the holy, living God.
Hear now what he saith, for, first or last, he will
be heard. 2. The prophet is commanded to speak
in earnest, and to put an emphasis upon what he
said; Arise, contend thou before the mountains,
or with the mountains, and let the hills hear thy
voice, if it were possible: contend with the moun¬
tains and hills of Judea, with the inhabitants of those
mountains and hills; and, some think, reference is
had to those mountains and hills on which they
worshipped idols, and which were thus polluted.
But it is rather to be taken more generally, as ap¬
pears by his call, not only to the mountains, but to
the strong foundations of the earth, pursuant to the
instructions given him. This is designed, (1.) To
excite the earnestness of the prophet; he must speak
as vehemently as if he designed to make even the
hills and mountains hear him, must cry aloud, and
not spare; what he had to say in God’s name, he
must proclaim publicly before the mountains, as
one that was neither ashamed nor afraid to own his
message; he must speak as one concerned, as one
that desired to speak to the heart, and therefore
appeared to speak from the heart. (2.) To expose
the stupidity of the people; “ Let the hills hear thy
voice, for this senseless, careless people will not hear
it, will not heed it. Let the rocks, the foundations
of the earth, that have no ears, hear, since Israel,
that has ears, will not hear.” It is an appeal to the
mountains and hills; let them bear witness that Is¬
rael has fair warning given them, and good counsel,
if they would but take it. Thus Isaiah begins with,
Hear, 0 heavens, and give ear, O earth. Let them
judge between God and his vineyard.
II. The message itself was very affecting; he is
to let all the world know that God has a quarrel
with his people, good ground for an action against
them. Their offences are public, and therefore so
are the articles of impeachment exhibited against
them. Take notice, the Lord has a controversy
with his people, and he will plead with Israel, will
plead by his prophets, plead by his providences, to
make good his charge. Note, 1. Sin begets a con¬
troversy between God and man. The righteous
God has an action against every sinner, an action of
debt, an action of trespass, an action of slander. 2.
If Israel, God’s own professing people, provoke him
ov sin, he will let them know that he has a contro-
| versy with them; he sees sin in them, and is dis
pleased with it, nay, their sins are more displeasing
to him than the sins of others, as they are a greater
grief to his Spirit, and dishonour to his name. 3.
God will plead with those whom he has a contro¬
versy with, wdl plead with his people Israel, that
they may be convinced, and that he may be justified.
In the close of the foregoing chapter he pleaded
with the heathen in anger and fury, to bring them
to ruin; but here he pleads with Israel in compas¬
sion and tenderness, to bring them to repentance.
Come now and let us reason together. God rea¬
sons with us, to teach us to reason with ourselves.
See the equity of God’s cause; it will bear to be
pleaded, and sinners themselves will be forced tc
confess judgment, and to own that God’s ways are
equal, but their ways are unequal, Ezek. xviii. 25.
Now, (1.) God here challenges them to show
what he had done against them, which might give
them occasion to desert him. They had revolted
from God, and rebelled against him; but had they
any cause to do so? (v. 3.) “O my people, what
have I done unto thee? Wherein have I wearied
thee? If subjects quit their allegiance to their
prince, they will pretend, as the ten tribes did,
when they revolted from Rehoboam, that his yoke
is too heavy for them; but can you pretend any
such thing? What have I done to you, that is un¬
just or unkind? Wherein have I wearied you, with
the impositions of service, or the exactions of tri¬
bute? Have I made you to serve with an offering?
Isa. xliii. 23. What iniquity have your fathers fauna
in me?” Jer. ii. 5. He never deceived us, or disap¬
pointed our expectations from him; never did us
wrong, or put disgrace upon us; why then do we
wrong and dishonour him, and frustrate his expecta¬
tions from us? Here is a challenge to all that ever
were in God’s service, to testify against him, if they
have found him, in any thing, a hard Master, and
his demands unreasonable.
(2.) Since they could not show any thing that he
has done against them, he will show them a great
deal that he had done for them, which should have
engaged them for ever to his service, v. 4, 5. They
are directed, and we in them, to look a great way
back in their reviews of divine favour; let them re¬
member their former days, their first days, when
they were formed into a people, and the great things
God did for them.
[1.] When he brought them out of Egypt, the
land of their bondage, v. 4. They were content
with their slavery, and almost in love with their
chains, for the sake of the garlic and onions they
had plenty of; but God brought them up, inspired
them with an ambition of liberty, and animated
them with a resolution by a bold effort to shake off
their fetters. The Egyptians held them fast, and
would not let the people go; but God redeemed
them, not by price, but by force; out of the house
of servants, or, rather, the house of bondage, for it
is the same word that is used in the preface of the
ten commandments; which insinuates that the con¬
siderations which are arguments for duty, if they
be not improved by us, will be improved against us
as aggravations of sin. When lie brought them
out of Egypt into a vast howling wilderness, as he
left not himself without witness, so he left not them
without guides, for he sent before them Moses,
Aaron, and Miriam, three prophets, says the Chal¬
dee Paraphrase; Moses the great prophet of the Old
Testament, Aaron his prophet, (Exod. vii. 1.) and
Miriam a prophetess, Exod. xv. 20. Note, When
we are calling to mind God’s former mercies to us,
we must not forget the mercy of good teachers and
governors when we were young, let those be made
mention of, to the glory of God who went before us,
saying. This is the way, walk in it; it was God that
1040
MICAH, VI.
tent them before us, to prepare the way of the Lord,
and to prepare a people for him.
[2.] When he brought them into Canaan. God
no less glorified himself, and honoured them, in
what he did for them when he brought them into the
land of their rest, than in what he did for them when
he brought them out of the land of their servitude.
When Moses, Aaron, and Miriam were dead, yet
they found God the same. Let them remember now
what God did for them, First, In baffling and de¬
feating the designs of Balak and Balaam against
them, which he did by the power he has over the
hearts and tongues of men, v. 5. Let them remem¬
ber what Balak the king of Moab consulted, what
mischief he devised, and designed to do to Israel,
when they encamped in the plains of Moab; that
which he consulted was, to curse Israel, to divide
between them and their God, and to disengage him
from the protection of them. Among the heathen,
when they made war upon any people, they endea¬
voured by magic charms or otherwise to get from
them their tutelar gods, as to rob Troy of its Palla¬
dium. Macrobius has a chapter, de ritu evocandi
Deos — concerning the solemnity of calling out the
Gods. Balak would try this against Israel; but re¬
member what Balaam the son of Bear answered
him, how contrary to his own intention and inclina¬
tion; instead of cursing Israel, he blessed them, to the
extreme confusion and vexation of Balak. Let them
remember the malice of the heathen against them,
and for that reason' never learn the way of the hea¬
then, or associate with them; let them remember
the kindness of their God to them, how he turned
the curse into a blessing; ( because the Lord thy God
loved thee, as it is, Deut. xxiii. 5.) and for that
reason never forsake him. Note, The disappoint¬
ing of the devices of the church’s enemies ought
always to be remembered to the glory of the
church’s Protector, who can make the answer of
the tongue directly to cotitradict the /irefiaration
and consultation of the heart, Prov. xvi. 1. Secondly,
In bringing them from Shittim, their last lodgement,
out of Canaan, unto Gilgal, their first lodgement
in Canaan. There it was, between Shittim and
Gilgal, that, upon the death of Moses, Joshua, a
type of Christ, was raised up to put Israel in pos¬
session of the land of promise, and to fight their bat¬
tles; there it was that they passed over Jordan
through the divided waters, and renewed the cove¬
nant of circumcision; these mercies of God to their
fathers they must now remember, that they may
know the righteousness of the Lord, his righteous¬
ness, so the word is; his justice in destroying the
Canaanites, his goodness in giving rest to his peo¬
ple Israel, and his faithfulness to his promise made
unto the fathers. The remembrance of what God
had done to them might convince them of all this,
and engage them for ever to his service. Or, they
may refer to the controversy now pleaded between
God and Israel; let them remember God’s many
favours to them and their fathers, and compare
with them their unworthy, ungrateful conduct to¬
ward him, that they may know the righteousness of
the Lord in contending with them, and it may ap¬
pear that in this controversy he has right on his
side; hi? ways are equal, for he will be justified
when bespeaks, and clear when he judges.
6. Wherewith shall I come before the
Lord, and bow myself before the high God ?
shall I come before him with burnt-offer¬
ings, with calves of a year old ? 7. Will
the Lord be pleased with thousands of
rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil ?
shall I give my first-born for my transgres¬
sion, the fruit of my body for the sin of my
soul? 8. He hath shewed thee, O map,
what is good ; and what doth the Lord re
quire of thee, but to do justly, and to love
mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ?
Here is the proposal for accommodation between
God and Israel, the parties that were at variance in
the beginning of the chapter. Upon the trial, judg¬
ment is given against Israel; they are convicted ot
injustice and ingratitude toward God, the crimes
with which they stood charged; it is too plain to be
denied, too bad to be excused, and therefore,
I. They express their desires to be at peace with
God, upon any terms; (t>. 6, 7.) Wherewith shall 1
come before the Lord?
Being made sensible of the justice of God’s con¬
troversy with them, and dreading the consequences
of it, they were inquisitive what they might do to be
reconciled to God, and to m ake him their Friend.
They apply themselves to a proper person, with this
inquiry, to the prophet, the Lord’s messenger, by
whose ministry thev had been convinced; who so
fit to show them their way as be that had made
them sensible of their having missed it? And it is
observable that each one speaks for himself ; Where¬
with shall I come? Knowing every one the plague
of his own heart, they ask not, What shall this man
do ? But, What shall I do ? Note, Deep convic¬
tions of guilt and wrath will put men upon careful
inquiries after peace and pardon, and then, and not
till then, there begins to be some hope of them.
They inquire wherewith they may come before the
Lord, and bow themselves before the high God.
They believe there is a God, that he is Jehovah,
and that lie is the high God, the Most High.
They whose consciences are convinced, have learn¬
ed to speak very honourably of God, whom before
they spake slightly of. Now, 1. We know we must
come before God; he is the God with whom we havt
to do; we must come as subjects, to pay cur ho¬
mage to him, as beggars, to ask alms from him,
nay, we must come before him as criminals, to re¬
ceive our doom from him, must come before him as
our Judge. 2. When we come before him, we
must bow before him; it is our duty to be very hum
ble and reverent in our approaches to him; and
when we come before him, there is no remedy but
we must submit; it is to no purpose to contend with
him. 3. When we come, and bow before him, it is
our great concern to find favour with him, and to be
accepted of him; their inquiry is, What will the
Lord be pleased with? Note, All that rightly un¬
derstand themselves and their own interest, cannot
but be solicitous what they must do to please God,
to avoid his displeasure, and to obtain bis good will.
4. In order to God’s being pleased with us, our care
must be, that the sin by which we have displeased
him, may be taken away, and an atonement made
for it. The inquiry here is, What shall I give for
my transgression, for the sin of my soul? Note,
T he transgression we are guilty of, is the sin of out
soul; for the soul acts it; without the soul’s act it is
not sin; and the soul suffers by it, it is the disorder,
disease, and defilement of the soul, and threatens to
be the death of it; What shall I give for my trans¬
gressions? What will be accepted as a satisfaction
to his justice, reparation of his honour? And what
will avail to shelter me from bis wrath? 5. We
must therefore ask, 'Wherewith may we come before
him ? We must not appear before the Lord empty.
What shall we bring with us? In what manner must
we come? In whose name must we come? We
have not that in ourselves which will recommend us
to him, but must have it from another. What
righteousness then shall we appear before bin' in’
1041
MICAH, VI.
II. They make proposals, such as they are, in
order to it; their inquiry was very good and right,
and what we are all concerned to make; but their
proposals betray their ignorance, though they show
their zeal; let us examine them:
1. They bid high. They offer, (1.) That which
is very rich and costly, thousands of rams. God
required one ram for a sin-offering, they proffer
flocks of them, their whole stock, will be content to
make themselves beggars, so that they may but be
at peace with God. They will bring the best they
have, the rams, and the most of them, till it come
to thousands. (2.) That which is very dear to them,
and which they would be most loath to part with.
They could be content to part with their first-born
for their transgressions, if that would be accepted
as an atonement; and the fruit of their body for the
sin of their soul. To them that were become vain
in their imaginations this seemed a probable expe¬
dient of making satisfaction for sin, because our
children are pieces of ourselves; and therefore the
heathen sacrificed their children to appease their
offended deities. Note, Those that are thoroughly
convinced of sin, of the malignity of it, and of their
misery and danger by reason of it, would give all
the world, if they had it, for peace and pardon.
2. Yet they do not bid right. It is true, some of
these tilings were instituted by the ceremonial law,
as the bringing of burnt-offerings to God’s altar,
and calves of a year old, rams for sin-offerings, and
oil for the meat-offerings; but these alone would not
recommend them to God. God had often declared
that to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken
than the fat of rams; that sacrifice and offering he
mould not; the legal sacrifices had their virtue and
value from the institution, and the reference they
had to Christ the great Propitiation; but otherwise,
of themselves, it was impossible that the blood of
bulls and goats should take away sin. And as to
the other things here mentioned, (1.) Some of them
are impracticable things, as rivers of oil, which na¬
ture has not provided, to feed men’s luxury, but
rivers of water, to supply men’s necessity. AH the
proposals of peace but those that are according to
the gospel, are absurd. One stream of the blood
of Christ is worth ten thousand rivers of oil. (2. )
Some of them are wicked tilings, as to give our
first-born and th e fruit of our body to death, which
would but add to the transgression, and the sin of
the soul. He that hates robbery for burnt-offerings,
much more hates murder, such murder; what right
have we to oav first-born, and th c fruit of our body ?
Do they not belong to God? Are they not his al¬
ready, and born to him? Are they not sinners by
nature, and their lives forfeited upon their own ac¬
count? How then can they be a ransom for ours?
(3.) They are all external things, parts of the bodi¬
ly exercise which profiteth little, and which could
not make the comers thereunto perfect. (4.) They
are all insignificant, and insufficient to attain the
end proposed; they could not answer the demands
of divine justice, nor satisfy the wrong done to God
in his honour by sin, nor would they serve in lieu
of the sanctification of the heart and the reformation
of the life. Men will part with any thing rather
than their sins, but they part with nothing to God’s
acceptance, unless they part with them.
III. God tells them plainly what he demands,
and insists upon, from those that would be accepted
of him, v. 8. Let their money perish with them,
that think the pardon of sin and the favour of God
may be so purchased; no, God has showed thee, 0
man, what is good. Here we are told,
1. That God has made a discovery of his mind
and will to us, for the rectifying of our mistakes,
and the directing of our practice. (1.) It is God
himself that has showed us what we must do. We
Vol. iv. — 6 G
need not trouble ourselves to make proposals, the
terms are already settled and laid down. He whom
we have offended, and to whom we are accountable,
has told us upon what conditions he will be recon¬
ciled to us. (2.) It is to man that he has showed
it; not only to thee, O Israel, but to thee, O man,
Gentiles as well as Jews. To men, who are ra¬
tional creatures, and capable of receiving the disco¬
very, and not to brutes; to men, for whom a remedy
is provided, not to devils, whose case is desperate.
What is spoken to all jnen every where in general,
must by faith be applied to ourselves in particular,
as if it were spoken to thee, 0 man, by name, and
to no other. (3.) It is a discovery of that which is
good, and which the Lord requires of us. He has
showed us our end, which we should aim at, in
showing us what is good, wherein our true happi
ness does consist; he has showed us our way in
which we must walk toward that end, in showing
us what he requires of us. There is something
which God requires we should do for him, and de¬
vote to him; and it is good; it is good in itself.
There is an innate goodness in moral duties, ante¬
cedent to the command; they are not, as ceremonial
observances, therefore good, because they are com¬
manded; but therefore commanded, because they
are good, consonant to the eternal rule and reason
of good and evil, which are unalterable. It has
likewise a direct tendency to our good; cur con¬
formity tc it is not only the condition of our future
happiness, but it is a great expedient of our present
happiness; in keeping God’s commandments there
is a great reward, as well as after keeping them.
(4.) It is showed us. God has not only made it
known, but made it plain; he has discovered it to
us with such convincing evidence as amounts to a
demonstration. Lo, this, we have searched it, so it is.
2. What that discovery is. The good which God
requires of us is, not the paying of a price for the
pardon of sin and acceptance witli God, but doing
the duty, which is the condition of our interest in
the pardon purchased. (1.) We must do justly,
must render to all their due, according as our rela¬
tion and obligation to them are; we must do wrong
to none, but do right to all, in their bodies, goods,
and name. (2.) We must love mercy; not only be
just to all we deal with, but kind to all that need
us, and that we are in a capacity of doing good to.
Nor must we only show mercy, but we must love
mercy, we must delight in it, as our God does, must
be glad of an opportunity to do good, and do it
cheerfully. Justice is put before mercy, for we
must not give that in alms, which is wrongfully got,
or with which our debts should be paid. God hates
robbery for a burnt-offering. (3. ) We must walk
humbly with our God; this includes all the duties
of the first table. We must take the Lord for our
God in covenant, must attend on him, and adhere
to him, as ours, and must make it our constant care
and business to please him. Enoch’s walking with
God is interpreted, (Heb. xi. 5.) his pleasing God;
we must, in the whole course of our conversation,
conform ourselves to the will of God, keep up our
communion with God, and study to approve our¬
selves to him in our integrity; and this we must do
humbly; (submitting our understandings to the
truths of God, and our wills to his precepts and pro¬
vidences;) we must humble ourselves to walk with
God; (so the margin reads it;) every thought within
us must he brought down, to be brought into obedi¬
ence to God, if we would walk comfortably with
him. This is that which God requires, and without
which the most costly services are vain oblatims;
this is more than all burnt-offerings and sacrifices.
9. The Lord’s voice crieth unto the city,,
and the man of wisdom shall see thy name:
1042
MICAH, VI.
hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it.
1 0. Are there yet the treasures of wicked¬
ness in the house of the wicked, and the
scant measure that is abominable? 11.
Shall I count them pure with the wicked
balances, and with the bag of deceitful
weights? 12. For the rich men thereof are
full of violence, and the inhabitants thereof
have spoken lies, and their tongue is deceit¬
ful in their mouth. 13. Therefore also will
I make thee sick in smiting thee, in making
thee desolate because of thy sins. 1 4. Thou
shalt eat, but not be satisfied; and thy cast¬
ing down shall be in the midst of thee; and
thou shalt take hold, but shalt not deliver ;
and that which thou deliverest will 1 give
up to the sword. 1 5. Thou shalt sow, but
thou shalt not reap; thou shalt tread the
olives, but thou shalt not anoint thee with
oil; and sweet wine, but shalt not drink
wine. 16. For the statutes of Omri are
kept, and all the works of the house of
Ahab, and ye walk in their counsels ; that I
should make thee a desolation, and the in¬
habitants thereof a hissing: therefore ye
shall bear the reproach of my people.
God having showed them how necessary it was
that they should do justly, here shows them how-
plain it was that they had done unjustly; and since
they submitted not to his controversy, nor went
the right way to have it taken up, here he proceeds
in it. Observe,
I. How the action is entered against them, v. 9.
God speaks to the city, to Jerusalem, to Samaria;
his voice cries to it by his servants the prophets,
who were to cry aloud, and not spare. Note, The
voice of the prophets is the Lord's voice, and that
cries to the city, cries to the country; Doth not Wis¬
dom cry; Prov. viii. 1. When the sin of a city cries
to God, his voice cries against the city; and when
the judgments of God are coming upon a city, his
voice first cries unto it; he warns before he wounds,
because he is not willing that any should perish.
Now observe, 1. How the voice of God is discerned
by some; The man of wisdom will see thy name.
When the voice of God cries to us, we may by it see
his name, may discern and perceive that by which
he makes himself known. Yet many see it not, are
not aware of it, because they do not regard it. God
speaks once, yea, twice, and they perceive it not;
(Job xxxiii. 14.) but they that are men of wisdom,
will see it, and perceive it, and make a good use of
it. Note, It is a point of true wisdom to discover
the name of God in the voice of God, and to learn
what he is, from what he says; Wisdom shall see thy
name, for the knowledge of the holy is understand¬
ing. 2. What this voice of God says to all; “Hear
ye the rod, and who hath appointed it. Hear the
rod when it is coming, hear it at a distance before
you see it and feel it; and be awakened to go forth
to meet the Lord in the way of his judgments. Hear
the rod when it is come, and is actually upon you,
and you are sensible of the smart of it; hear what it
says to you, what convictions, what counsels, what
cautions, it speaks to you.” Note, Every rod has a
voice, and it is the voice of God that is to be heard
in the rod of God; and it is well for them that un¬
derstand the language of it; which if we would do,
we must have an eye to him that appointed it. Note,
Every rod is appointed, of what kind it shall be,
where it shall light, and how long it shall lie. God
in every affliction permits the thing that is appoint
ed for us, (Job xxiii. 14. ) and to him therefore We
must have an eye, to him we must have an ear; we
must hear what he says to us by the affliction, hear
it, and know it for thy good, Job v. 6. The work
of ministers is to explain the providences of God,
and to quicken and direct men to learn the lessons
that are taught by them.
II. What is the ground of the action, and what
are the things that are laid to their charge.
1. They are charged with injustice, a sin against
the second table. Are there yet to be found among
them the marks and means of fraudulent dealing?
What, after all the methods that God has taken to
teach them to do justly, will they yet deal unjustly?
It seems they will, v. 10. And shall I count them
pure? v. 11. No, this is a sin which will by no
means consist with a profession of purity. Those
that are dishonest in their dealings, have not the
spots of God’s children, and shall never be rec¬
koned pure, whatever shows of devotion they may
quake. Be not deceived, God is not mocked. When
a man is suspected of theft, or fraud, the justice of
peace will send a warrant to search his house. God
here does, as it were, search the houses of these
citizens, and there he finds, (1.) Treasures of wick¬
edness; abundance of wealth, but it is ill got, and
not likely to prosper; for treasures of wickedness
profit nothing. (2.) A scant measure, by which
they sold to the poor, and so exacted upon them,
and cheated them. (3.) They had wicked balances
and a bag of false weights, by which, under a pre¬
tence of weighing what they sold, and giving the
buyer what was right, they did him the greatest
wrong, v. 11. (4.) Those that had wealth and
power in their hands, abused it to oppression and
extortion; The rich men thereof are full of violence;
for they that have much, would have more, and are
in a capacity of making it more, by the power
which their abundance of wealth gives them. They
are full of violence, they have their houses full of
that which is got by violence. (5.) Those that had
not advantage of doing wrong by their wealth, yet
found means of defrauding those they dealt with;
The inhabitants thereof have spoken lies; if they
are not able to use force and violence, they use
fraud and deceit; the inhabitants have spoken lies,
and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth; they
do not stick at a deliberate lie, to make a good bar¬
gain. Some understand it of their speaking falsely
concerning God, saying, The Lora seeth not, he
hath forsaken the earth, Ezek. viii. 12.
2. They are charged with idolatry; (y. 6.) The
statutes of Omri are kept, and all the work of the
house of Ahab; both these kings were wicked, and
did evil in the sight of the Lord; but the wickedness
which they estatdished by a law, concerning which
they made statutes, and which was the peculiar
work of that house, was idolatry. Omri walked in
the way of Jeroboam, and in his sin of provoking
God to anger with their vanities, 1 Kings xvi. 26.
and v. 31. Ahab introduced the worship of Baal.
These reigns were some ages before the time when
this prophet lived, and yet the wickedness which
they established by their laws and examples, re¬
mained to this day; those statutes were still kept
and that work was still done; and the princes and
people still walked in their counsels, took the same
measures, and governed themselves and the people
by the same politics. Observe, (1.) The same
wickedness continued from one generation to
another. Sin is a root of bitterness soon planted,
but not so soon plucked up again. The iniquity of
former ages is often transmitted to, and entailed
upon, the succeeding ones. Those that make cor-
1043
MICAH, VII.
rapt laws, and bring in corrupt usages, are doing
that which perhaps may prove the ruin of the child
unborn. (2.) It was nevertheless evil in itself,
provoking to God, and dangerous to the sinners, for
its having been established and confirmed by the
laws of princes, the examples of great men, and a
long prescription. Though the worship of idols is
enacted by the statutes of Omni, recommended by
the practice of the house of Ahab, and pleads that
it has been the usage of many generations, yet it is
still displeasing to God, and destructive to Israel;
for no laws or customs are of force against the di¬
vine command.
III. What is the judgment given upon this. Being
found guilty of these crimes, the sentence is, that
that which God had given them warning of, (x>. 9. )
shall be brought upon them; (x;. 13.) Therefore also
will I make thee sick, in smiling thee. As they had
smitten the poor with the rod of their oppressions,
so would God in like manner smite them, so as to
make them sick, sick of the gains they had unjustly
gotten, so that though they had swallowed down
riches, they should vomit them up again, Job xx.
15. Their doom is,
1. That what they have, they shall not have any
comfortable enjoyment of, it shall do them no good;
they grasped at more than enough, but when they
have it, it shall not be enough to make them easy
and happy; what is got by fraud and oppression
cannot be kept or enjoyed with any satisfaction. (1. )
Their food shall not nourish them; Thou shalt eat
but not be satisfied; either because the food shall
not digest, for want of God’s blessing going along
with it, or because the appetite shall by disease be
made insatiable and still craving, tire just punish¬
ment of those that were greedy of gain, and en¬
larged their desires a^ hell. Men may be. surfeited
with tire good things of this world, and yet not sa¬
tisfied, Eccl. v. 10. Isa. lv. 2. (2.) Their country
shall not harbour and protect them; “ Thy casting
down shall be in the midst of thee, thou shalt be
broken and ruined by intestine troubles, mischiefs
at home enough to cast thee down, though thou
shouldest not be invaded by a foreign force.” God
can cast a nation down by that which is in the midst
of them, can consume them by a fire in their own
bowels. (3.) They shall not be able to preserve
what they have from a foreign force, or to recover
what they have lost; “ Thou shalt take hold of what
is about to be taken from thee, but thou shalt not
hold it fast, shalt catch at it, but shalt not deliver
it, shalt not retrieve it.” It is meant of their wives
and children, that were very dear to them, which
they took hold of, as resolved not to part with them,
but there is no remedy, they must go into cafitivity.
Note, What we hold closest we commonly lose
soonest, and that proves least safe which is most
dear. (4.) What they save for a time, shall be
reserved for a future and sorer stroke; That which
thou deliverest out of the hand of one enemy, will I
give up to the sword of another enemy; for God has
many arrows in his quiver, if one miss the sinner,
the next shall not. (5.) What they have laboured
for, they shall not enjoy; (1). 15. ) “ Thou shalt sow,
but thou shalt not rea/i; either it shall be blasted
and withered, and there shall be nothing to reap, or
an enemy shall come, and reap it for himself, or
thou shalt be carried into captivity, and leave it to
be reaped by thou knowest not whom; thou shalt
tread the olives, but thou shalt not anoint thee with
oil; having no heart to make use of ornaments and
refreshments, when all is going to ruin. Thou shalt
tread out the sweet wine, but shalt not drink wine,
for many things may fall between the cup and the
lip.” Note, It is very grievous to be disappointed
of our expectations, and not to have the pleasure of
that which we have taken pains for; and this will
be the just punishment of those that frustrate God’s
expectations from them, and answer not the cost he
has been at upon them. See this threatened in the
law; (Lev. xxvi. 16. Deut. xxi. 30, 38, &c.) and
compare Isa. lxii. 8, 9.
2. That all they have, shall at length be taken
from them; (v. 13.) Thou shalt be made desolate be¬
cause of thy sins; and v. 16, a desolation and a
hissing. Sin makes a nation desolate; and when a
people that have been famous and flourishing, are
made desolate, it is the astonishment of some and the
triumph of others; some lament it, and others hiss
at it. Thus ye shall bear the reproach of my people.
Their being the people of God, in name and pro¬
fession, while they kept close to their duty, and kept
themselves in his love, was an honour to them, and
all their neighbours thought it so; but now that they
have corrupted and ruined themselves, now that
their sins and God’s judgments have made their
land desolate, their having been once the people of
God does but turn so much the more to their re¬
proach; their enemies will say, These are the people
of the Lord, Ezek. xxxvi. 20. Note, If professors
of religion ruin themselves, their ruin will be the
most reproachful of any other; and they in a special
manner will rise at the last day to everlasting shame
and contempt.
CHAP. VII.
In this chapter, I. The prophet, in the name of the church,
sadly laments the woful decay of religion in the age
wherein he lived, and the deluge of impiety and immor¬
ality which overwhelmed the nation, which levelled the
differences, and bore down the fences, of all that is just
and sacred, v. 1 . . 6. II. The prophet, for the sake of
the church, prescribes comforts, which may be of use at
such a time, and gives counsel what to do. 1. They
must have an eye to God, v. 7. 2. They must courage¬
ously bear up against the insolences of the enemy, v.
8 . . i0. 3. They must patiently lie down under the re¬
bukes of their God, v. 9. 4. They must expect no other
than that the trouble would continue long, and must en¬
deavour to make the best of it, v. 1 1 . . 13. 5. They must
encourage themselves with God’s promises, in answer
to the prophet’s prayers, v. 14, 15. 6. They must foresee
the fall of their enemies, that now triumph over them,
v. 16, 17. 7. They must themselves triumph in the
mercy and grace of God, and his faithfulness to his cove¬
nant; (v. 18.. 20.) and with that comfortable word the
prophecy concludes.
1. is me! for I am as when they
V t have gathered the summer-fruits,
as the grape-gleanings of the vintage: there
is no cluster to eat: my soul desired the
first-ripe fruit. 2. The good man is perished
out of the earth ; and there is none upright
among men : they all lie in wait for blood ;
they hunt every man his brother with a net.
3. That they may do evil with both hands
earnestly, the prince asketh, and the judge
askeih for a reward ; and the great man he
uttereth his mischievous desire: so they
wrap it up. 4. The best of them is as a brier ;
the most upright is sharper than a thorn-
hedge : the day of thy watchmen and thy visi¬
tation cometh ; now shall be their perplexity.
5. Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not con¬
fidence in a guide ; keep the doors of thy
mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom. 6.
For the son dishonoured! the father, the
daughter riseth up against her mother, the
daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law,
1044
MICAH, VII.
a man’s enemies are the men of his own
house.
This is such a description of bad times, as, some
think, could scarcely agree to the times of Heze-
kian, when this prophet prophesied; and therefore
they rather take it as a prediction of what should be
in the reign of Manasseh. But we may rather sup-
nose it to be in the reign of Ahaz, (and in that reign
lie prophesied, ch. i. 1.) or in the beginning of
Hezekiah’s time, before the reformation he was in¬
strumental in; nay, in the best of his days, and when
he had done his best to purge out corruptions, still
there was much amiss. The prophet cries out, I Vo
is me! He bemoans himself that his lot was cast in
such a degenerate age, and thinks it his great unhap¬
piness that he lived among a people that were ripen¬
ing apace for a ruin which many a good man would
unavoidably be involved in. Thus David cries out,
JVo is me, that I sojourn in Mesech! He laments it,
1. That there was so few good people to be found,
even among those that were called God’s people ;
and this was their reproach. The good man is
perished out of the earth, or out of the land, the
land of Canaan, it was a good land, and a land of
uprightness, (Isa. xxvi. 10.) but there were few
good men in it, none upright among them, v. 2.
Thetpjod man is a. godly man, and a tnerciful man;
the word signifies both. Those are completely
good men, that are devout toward God, and com¬
passionate and beneficent toward men; that love
mercy and walk with God. These are perished;
those few honest men that some time ago enriched
and adorned our country, are now dead and gone,
and there are none risen up in their stead, that
tread in their steps; honesty is banished, and there
is no such thing as a good man to be met with.
Those that were of religious education, are degene¬
rated, and become as bad as the worst; the godly
man ceases, Ps. xii. 1. This is illustrated by a com¬
parison; ( v . 1.) They were as when they have gath¬
ered the summer-fruits; it was as hard a thing to
find a good man as to find any of the summer-fruits,
(which were the choicest and best, and therefore
must carefully be gathered in,) when the harvest is
over. The prophet is ready to say, as Elijah in his
time, (1. Kings xix. 10.) I, even I only, am left.
Good men, who used to hang in clusters, are now
as the grape-gleanings of the vintage, here and
there a berry, Isa. xvn. 6. You can find no societies
of them as bunches of grapes, but those that are,
are single persons, there is no cluster to eat; and the
best and fullest grapes are those that grow in large
clusters. Some think that this intimates not only
that good people were few, but that those, few who
remained, who went for good people, were good for
little; like the small withered grapes, the refuse
that were left behind, not only by the gatherer, but
by the gleaner. When the prophet observed this
universal degeneracy, it made him desire the first-
ripe fruit; he wished to see such worthy, good men
as were in the former ages, were the ornaments of
the primitive times, and as far excelled the best of
all the present age as the first and full-ripe fruits do
those of the latter growth, that never come to ma¬
turity. When we read and hear of the wisdom and
zeal, the strictness and conscientiousness, the devo¬
tion and charity, of the professors of religion in
former ages, and see the reverse of this in those of
the present age, we cannot but sit down and wish
with a sigh, 0 for primitive Christianity again!
Where are the plainness and integrity of those that
went before us? Where are the Israelites indeed,
without guile? Our souls desire them; but in vain.
The golden age is gone, and past recall; we must
make the best of what is, for we are not likely to
see such times as have been.
2. That there were so many wicked, mischievous
people among them; not only none that did any
good, but multitudes that did all the hurt they could ;
They all lie in wait for blood, and hunt every man
his brother. To get wealth to themselves, they
care not what wrong, what hurt, they do to their
neighbours and nearest relations. They act as if
mankind were in a state of war, and force were the
only right. They are as beasts of prey to their
neighbours, for they all lie in wait for bjood as lions
for their prey, they thirst after it, make nothing of
taking away any man’s life or livelihood to serve a
turn for themselves, and lie in wait for an opportu¬
nity to do it. Their neighbours are as beasts of
prey to them, for they hunt every man his brother
with a net, they persecute them as noxious crea¬
tures, fit to be taken and destroyed, though they
are innocent, excellent ones. We say of him that
is outlawed, Caput gerit lupinum — He is to be
hunted as a wolf. Or, they hunt them as men do
the game, to feast upon it; they have a thousand
cursed arts of ensnaring men to their ruin, so that
they may but get by it. Thus they do mischief
with both hands earnestly; their hearts desire it,
their heads contrive it, and then both hands are
ready to put it in execution. Note, The more eager
and intent men are upon any sinful pursuit, and the
more pains they take in it, the more provoking it is.
o. That the magistrates, who by their oifice ought
to have been the patrons and protectors of right,
were the practisers and promoters of wrong; that
they may do evil with both hands earnestly, to ex¬
cite and animate themselves in it, the prince asketh,
and the judge asketh, for a reward, for a bribe, with
which they will be hired to exert all their power
for the supporting and carrying on of any wicked
design with both hands; they do evil with both hands
well; so some read it. They do ill with a great deal
of art and dexterity, they praise themselves for do¬
ing it so well: others thus, To do evil they have
both hands, (they catch at an opportunity of doing
mischief,) but to do good the prince and the judge
ask for a reward; if they do any good offices, they
are meicenary in them, and must be paid for them.
The great man, who has wealth and power to do
good, he is not ashamed to utter his mischievous de¬
sire in conjunction with the prince and the judge,
who are ready to support him, and stand by him, in
it; so they wrap it up, they perplex the matter, in¬
volve it, and make it intricate, (so some understand
it,) that they may lose equity in a mist, and so make
the cause turn which way they please. It is ill with
a people, when their princes and judges and great
men are in a confederacy to pervert justice. And
it is a sad character that is given of them, ( v . 4.)
that the best of them is as a brier, and the most up¬
right is sharper than a thorn-hedge; it is a danger¬
ous thing to have any thing to do with them, he that
touctes them, must be fenced with iron, (2 Sam.
xxiii. 6, 7.) he shall be sure to be scratched, to have
his clothes torn, and his eyes almost pulled out.
And if this be the character of the best and most
upright, what are the worst? And when things are
come to this pass, the day of the watchmen comes,
that is, as it follows, the day of thy visitation, when
God will reckon with thee for all this wickedness;
which is called the day of the watchmen, because
their prophets, whom God set as watchmen over
them, had often warned them of that day. When
all flesh have corrupted their way, even the best
and the most upright, what can be expected but a
day of visitation, a deluge of judgments, as that
which drowned the old world when the earth was
filled with violence ?
4. That there was no faith in man, people were
grown so universally treacherous, that one knew not
I whom to repose any confidence in, v. 5. “Those
1045
MICAH, VII.
that have any sense of honour, or sparks of virtue,
remaining in them, have a firm regard to the laws
of friendship, they would not discover what passed
in private conversation, nor divulge secrets, to the
prejudice of a friend; but those things are now made
a jest of, you will not meet with a friend that you
dare trust, whose word you dare take, or who will
have any tenderness or concern for you; so that wise
men shall give it and take it for a ride, Trust ye not
in a friend, for you will find him false, you can trust
him no further than you can see him; and even him
that passes for an honest man you will find to be so
only with good Looking to. Nay, as for him that
undertakes to be your guide, to lead you into any
business which he professes to understand better
than vou, you cannot put a confidence in him, for
he will be sure to mislead you if he can get any
thing by it.” Some by a guide understand a hus¬
band, who is called the guide of thy youth; and
that agrees well enough with what follows, “ Keep
the doors of thy lips from her that lieth in thy bo¬
som, from thy own wife; take heed what thou say-
est before her, lest she betray thee, as Delilah did
Samson; lest she be the bird of the air, that carries
the voice of that which thou sayest in thy bed-cham¬
ber,” Eccl. x. 20. It is an evil time indeed, when
the prudent are obliged even thus far to keep silence.
5. That children were abusive to their parents,
and men had no comfort, no satisfaction, in their
own families, and their nearest relations, v. 6. The
times are bad indeed, when the son dishonours the
father, gives him bad language, exposes him, threat¬
ens him, and studies to do him a mischief, when the
daughter rises up in rebellion against her own mo¬
ther, having no sense of duty, or natural affection;
and no marvel that then the daughter-in-law quar¬
rels with her mother-in-law, and is vexatious to her.
Either they cannot agree about their property and
Interest, or their humours and passions clash, or,
from a spirit of bigotry and persecution, the brother
shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father
the child, Matth. x. 4. Luke xxi. 16. It is sad when
a man’ 8 betrayers and worst enemies are the men of
his own house, his own children and servants, that
should be his guard and his best friends. Note, The
contempt and violation of the laws of domestic du¬
ties are a sad symptom of universal corruption of
manners. Those are never likely to come to good,
that are undutiful to their parents, and study to be
provoking to them, and cross them.
7. Therefore I will look unto the Lord;
I will wait for the God of my salvation ;
my God will hear me. 8. Rejoice not
against me, O mine enemy : when I fall, [
shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord
shall be a light unto me. 9. I will bear the
indignation of the Lord, because I have
sinned against him, until he plead my cause,
and execute judgment for me : he will bring
me forth to the light, and I shall behold his
righteousness. 10. Then she that is mine
enemy shall see it, and shame shall cover
her which said unto me, Where is the Lord
thy God ? mine eyes shall behold her : now
shall she be trodden down as the mire of
the streets. 11 .In the day that thy walls
are to be built, in that day shall the decree
be far removed. 12. In that day also he
shall come even to thee from Assyria, and
from the fortified cities, and from the fortress
even to the river, and from sea to sea, and
from mountain to mountain. 13. Notwith¬
standing, the land shall be desolate, be¬
cause of them that dwell therein, for the fruit
of their doings.
The prophet, having sadly complained of the
wickedness of the times he lived in, here fastens
upon some considerations for the comfort of him
self and his friends, in reference thereunto. The
case is bad, but it is not desperate; yet now there is
hope in Israel, concerning this thing.
I. Though God be now displeased, he shall be
reconciled to us, and then all will be well, v. 7, 9.
We are now under the indignation of the Lord,
God is angry with us, and justly, because we have
sinned against him. Note, It is our sin against God
that provokes his indignation against us; and we
must see it, and own it, whenever we are under di¬
vine rebukes, that we may justify God, and may
study to answer his end in afflicting us, by repent¬
ing of sin, and breaking off from it. Now, at such
a time,
1. W e must have recourse to God under our trou¬
bles; (v. 7.) Therefore I will look unto the Lord.
When a child of God has ever so much occasion to
cry, l Vo is me, (as the prophet here, v. 1.) yet it
may be a comfort to him, that he has a God to look
to, a God to come to, to fly to, in whom he may re¬
joice, and have satisfaction. All may look bright
above him, when all looks black and dark about
him. The prophet had been complaining that there
was no comfort to be had, no confidence to be put,
in friends and relations on earth, and this drives him
to his God; Therefore I will look unto the Lord.
The less reason we have to delight in any creature,
the more reason we have to delight in God. If
princes are not to be trusted, we may say, Happy
is the man that has the God of Jacob for his Help,
and happy am I, even in the midst of my present
woes, if he be my Help. If men be false, this is
our comfort, that God is faithful; if relations be
unkind, he is and will be gracious. Let us there¬
fore look above and beyond them, and overlook our
disappointment in them, and look unto the Lord.
2. We must submit to the will of God in our
troubles; “ I will bear the indignation of the Lord,
will bear it patiently, without murmuring and re¬
pining, because I have sinned against him.” Note,
Those that are truly penitent for sin, will see a great
deal of reason to be patient under affliction. Where¬
fore should a man complain, for the punishment of
his sin ? When we complain to God of the badness
of the times, we ought to complain against ourselves
for the badness of our own hearts.
3. We must depend upon God to work deliver¬
ance for us, and put a good issue to our troubles in
due time; we must not only look to him, but look for
him; “ I will wait for the God of my salvation, and
for his gracious returns to me.” In our greatest dis¬
tresses, we shall see no reason to despair of salva¬
tion, if by faith we eye God as the God of our sal¬
vation, who is able to save the weakest, upon their
humble petition, and willing to save the worst, upon
their true repentance. And if we depend on God
as the God of our salvation, we must wait for him,
and for his salvation, in his own way and his own
time. Let us now see, what the church is here
taught to expect and promise herself from God,
even then when things are brought to the last ex¬
tremity. (1.) My God will hear me; if the Lord
be our Goa, he will hear our prayers, and grant an
answer of peace to them. (2.) “ When I fall, and
am in danger of being dashed in pieces by the fall,
et I shall arise, and recover myself again. I .fall,
ut am not utterly cast down,” Ps. xxxvii. 24.' (3.)
1046
MICAH, VII.
“ iVhen I sit in darkness, desolate and disconsolate,
melancholy and perplexed, and not knowing what
to do, or which way to look for relief, yet then the
Lord shall be a Light to me, to comfort and revive
me, to instruct and teach me, to direct and guide
me, as a Light to mine eyes, a Light to my feet, a
Light in a dark place.” (4.) He will /dead my
cause, and execute judgment for me, v. 9. If we
heartily espouse the cause of God, the just but in-
j ured cause of religion and virtue, and make it our
cause, we may hope he will own our cause, and
plead it. The church’s cause, though it seem for
a time to go against her, will at length be pleaded
with jealousy, and judgment not only given against,
but executed upon, the enemies of it. (5.) “He
will bring me forth to the light, make me shine emi¬
nently out of obscurity, and become conspicuous;
will make my righteousness shine evidently from
under the dark cloud of calumny, Ps. xxxvii. 6.
Isa. lviii. 10. The morning of comfort shall shine
forth, out of the long and dark night of trouble. ”
(6.) “/ shall behold his righteousness; I shall see
the equity of his proceedings concerning me, and
the performance of his promises to me.”
II. Though enemies triumph and insult, they
shall be silenced and put to shame, v. 8, 10. Ob¬
serve here,
1. How proudly the enemies of God’s people
trampled upon them in their distress: they said,
Where is the Lord their God? As if because they
were afflicted, God had forsaken them, and they
knew not where to find him with their prayers, and
he knew not how to help them with his favours.
This David’s enemies said to him, and it was a
sword in his bones; (Ps. xlii. 10.) and see Ps. cxv. 2.
Thus, in reproaching Israel as an abandoned peo¬
ple, they reflected on the God of Israel, as an un¬
kind, unfaithful God.
2. How comfortably the people of God by faith
bear up themselves under these insults; (z>. 8.)
“ Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy; I am now
down, but shall not be always so, and when my God
appears for me, then she that is mine enemy shall
see it, and be ashamed,” (not only being disappointed
in her expectations of the church’s utter ruin, but
having the same cup of trembling put into her
hand,) “ then mine eyes shall behold her in the same
deplorable condition that I am now in; now shall
she be trodden down.” Note, The deliverance of
the church will be the confusion of her enemies;
and their shame shall be double, when, as they have
trampled upon God’s people, so they shall them¬
selves be trampled upon.
III. Though the land continue a great while de¬
solate, yet it shall at length be replenished again,
when the time, even the set time, of its deliverance
comes. 1. Its salvation shall not come till after it
has been desolate; so the margin reads it, v. 13.
God has a controversy with the land, and it must
lie long under his rebukes, because of them that
dwell therein; it is their iniquity that makes their
land desolate; (Ps. cvii. 34.) it is for the fruit of
their doings, their evil doings which they have been
themselves guilty of, and the evil fruit of them, the
sins of others, which they have been accessary to
by their bad influence and example. For this they
must expect to smart a great while, for the world
shall know that God hates sin even in his own peo¬
ple. 2. When it does come, it shall be a complete
salvation; and it seems to refer to their deliverance
out of Babylon by Cyrus, which Isaiah about this
time prophesied of, as a type of our redemption by
Christ. (1.) The decree shall be far removed. God’s
decree concerning their captivity, and Nebuchad¬
nezzar’s decree concerning the perpetuity of it, his
resolution never to release them; these shall be set
aside and revoked, and you shall hear no more of
’ them; they shall no more lie as a yoke upon thy
neck. (2.) Jerusalem and the cities of Judah shall
be again reared; Then thy walls shall be built; walls
for habitation, walls for defence, house-walls, town-
walls, temple-walls: it is in order to these, that the
decree is repealed, Isa. xliv. 28. Though Zion’s
walls may lie long in ruins, there will come a day
when they shall be repaired. (3.) All that belong
to the land of Israel, whithersoever dispersed, and
howsoever distressed, far and wide over the face of
the whole earth, shall come flocking to it again; (v.
12.) He shall come even to thee, having libertv to
return, and a heart to return, from Assyria, whither
the ten tribes were carried away, though it lay re¬
mote; and from the fortified cities, and from the for¬
tress, those strong holds in which they thought they
had them fast: for when God’s time is come, though
Pharaoh will not let the people go, God will fetch
them out with a high hand. They shall come from
all the remote parts, from sea to sea, and from moun¬
tain to mountain, not turning back for fear of your
discouragements, but they shall go from strength te
strength till thev come to' Zion. Thus in the great
day of redemption, God will gather his elect from
the four winds. .
14. Feed thy people with thy rod, the
flock of thy heritage, which dwell solitarily
in the wood, in the midst of Carmel : let
them feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the
days of old. 1 5. According to the days of
thy coming out of the land of Egypt will 1
shew unto him marvellous things. 16. The
nations shall see, and be confounded at all
their might : they shall lay their hand upon
their mouth, their ears shall be deaf. 17.
They shall lick the dust like a serpent, they
shall move out of their holes like worms of
the earth : they' shall be afraid of the Lord
our God, and shall fear because of thee. 1 8.
Who is a God like unto thee, that pardon
eth iniquity, and passeth by the transgres
sion of the remnant of his heritage? he re-
taineth not his anger for ever, because he
delighteth in mercy. 19. He will turn again,
he will have compassion upon us; he will
subdue our iniquities : and thou wilt cast all
their sins into the depths of the sea. 20.
Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and
the mercy to Abraham, which thou hast
sworn unto our fathers from the days of
old.
Here is,
I. The prophet’s prayer to God, to take care of
his own people, and of their cause and interest, v.
14. When God is about to deliver his people, he
stirs up their friends to pray for them, and pours
out a spirit of grace and supplication, Zech. xii.
10. And when we see God coming towards us in
ways of mercy, we must go forth to meet him by
prayer. It is a prophetic prayer, which amounts to
a promise of the good prayed for; what God di¬
rected his prophet to ask, no doubt he designed to
give. Now, 1. The people of Israel are here called
the flock of God's heritage, for they are the sheep
of his hand, the sheep of his pasture, his little flock,
in the world; and they are his heritage, his portion
in the world; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. 2.
This flock dwells solitarily in the wood, or forest, in
the midst of Carmel, a high mountain; Israel was a
1047
MICAH, VII.
peculiar people that dwelt alone, and was not rec¬
koned among the nations, like a flock of sheep in a
wood. They were now a desolate people, ( v . 13. )
were in the land of their captivity as sheep in a fo¬
rest, in danger of being lost, and made a prey of to
the beasts of the forest. They are scattered upon
the mountains as sheefi having no she/iherd. 3. He
prays that God would feed them there i with his rod,
that he would take care of them in their captivity,
would protect them, and provide for them, and do
the part of a good Shepherd to them; Let thy rod
and staff comfort them, even in that darksome val¬
ley; and even there let them want nothing that is
good for them. Let them be governed by thy rod,
not the rod of their enemies, ior they are thy peo-
file.” 4. He prays that God would in due time
bring them back to feed in the plains of Bashan and
Gilead, no longer to be fed in the woods and moun¬
tains. Let them feed in their own country again, as
in the days of old. Some apply this spiritually, and
make it either the prophet’s prayer to Christ, or his
Father’s charge to him, to take care of his church,
as the great Shepherd of the sheep, and to go in and
out before them while they are here in this world
as in a wood, that they may find pasture as in Car¬
mel, as in Bashan and Gilead.
II. God’s firomise, in answer to this prayer; and
we may well take God’s promises as real answers
to the prayers of faith, and embrace them accord¬
ingly, for with him saying and doing are not two
things. The prophet prayed that God would feed
them, and do kind things for them ; but God answers
that he will show them marvellous things, (x'. 15.)
will do for them more than they are able to ask or
think, will out-do their hopes and expectations; he
will show them his marvellous loving-kindness, Ps.
xvii. 7.
1. He will do that for them, which shall be the
re/ietition of the wonders and miracles of former
ages; according to the days of thy coming out of the
land of Egyfit. Their deliverance out of Babylon
shall be a work of wonder and grace, not inferior to
their deliverance out of Egypt, nay, it should eclipse
the lustre of that, (Jer. xvi. 14, 15.) much more
should the work of redemption by Christ be so.
Note, God’s former favours to his church are pat¬
terns of future favours, and shall again be copied
cut as there is occasion.
2. He will do that for them, which shall be mat¬
ter of wonder and amazement to the firesent age, v.
16, 17. The nations about shall take notice of it,
and it shall be said among the heathen, The Lord
has done great things for them, Ps. cxxvi. 2. The
impression which the deliverance of the Jews out
of Babylon shall make upon the neighbouring na¬
tions, shall be very much for the honour both of
God and his church. (1.) Those that had insulted
over the fieofi/e of God in their distress, and gloried
that when they had them dowir, they would keep
them down, shall be confounded, when they see
them thus surprisingly rising up; they shall be con¬
founded at all the might with which the captives
shall now exert themselves, whom they thought for
ever disabled. They shall now lay their hand upon
their mouths, as being ashamed of what they have
said, and not able to say any more, by way of
triumph over Israel. Nay, their cars shall be deaf
too, so much shall they be ashamed at the wonder¬
ful deliverance, they shall stop their ears, as being
not willing to hear any more of God’s wonders
wrought for that people, which they had so despised
and insulted over. (2.) Those that had impudently
confronted God himself, shall now be struck with a
fear of him, and thereby brought, in profession at
least, to submit to him; (i>. 17. ) They shall lick the
dust like a serpent, they shall be so mortified, as if
they were sentenced to the same curse the serpent I
was laid under; (Gen. iii. 14.) Upon thy belly shall
thou go, and dust shall thou eat. They shall be
brought to the lowest abasement imaginable, and
shall be so dispirited, that they shall tamely submit
to them. His enemies shall lick the dust, Ps. lxxii.
9. Nay, they shall lick the dust of the church’s
feet, Isa. xlix. 23. Proud oppressors shall now be
made sensible how mean, how little they are, before
the great God, and they shall with trembling and
the lowest submission move out of the holes into
which they had crept, (Isa. ii. 21.) like worms of
the earth as they are, being ashamed and afraid to
show their heads; so low shall they be brought, and
such objects shall they be, when they are abased.
When God did wonders for his church, many of the
people of the land became Jews, because the fear of
the Jews, and of their God, fell upon them, Estli.
viii. 17. So it is promised here; They shall be
afraid of the Lord our God, and shall fear because
of thee, 0 Lord. Forced submissions are often but
feigned submissions; yet they redound to the glory
of God and the church, though not to the benefit of
the dissemblers themselves.
III. The prophet’s thankful acknowledgment of
God’s mercy, in the name of the church, with a be¬
lieving dependence upon his promise, v. 18. — 20.
We are here taught,
1. To give to God the glory of his pardoning
mercy, v. 18. God having promised to bring back
the captivity of his people, the prophet, on that oc¬
casion, admires pardoning mercy, as that which was
at the bottom of it. As it was their sin that brought
them into bondage, so it was God’s pardoning their
sin that brought them out of it; Ps. lxxxv. 1, 2. and
Isa. xxxiii. 24. — xxxviii. 17. — xl. 1, 2. The par¬
don of sin is the foundation of all other covenant
mercies, Heb. viii. 12. This the prophet stands
amazed at, while the nations about stood amazed
only at those deliverances which were but the fruits
of this. Note, (1.) God’s people, who are the rem¬
nant of his heritage, stand charged with many trans¬
gressions; being but a remnant, a very few, one
would hope they should all be very good, but they
are not so; God’s children have their spots, and
often offend their Father. (2.) The gracious God
is ready to pass by and pardon the iniquity and
transgression of his people, upon their repentance
and return to him. God’s people are pardoned pe<r-
ple, and to this they owe their all. When God par¬
dons sin, he passes it by, does not punish it as justly
he might, nor deal with the sinner according to
the desert of it. (3.) Though God may for a time
lay his own people under the tokens of his displea¬
sure, yet he will not retain his anger for ever, but
though he cause grief, he will have compassion; he
is not implacable; yet against those that are not of
the remnant of his heritage that are unpardoned, he
will keep his anger for ever. (4.) The reasons why
God pardons sin, and keeps not his anger for ever,
are all taken from within himself; it is because he
delights in mercy , and the salvation of sinners is
what he has pleasure in, not their death and dam¬
nation. (5.) The glory of God in forgiving sin is,
as in other things, matchless and without compare.
There is no God like unto him for this; no magis¬
trate, no common person, forgives as God does. In
this his thoughts and ways are infinitely above ours;
in this he is God, and not man. (6.) All those that
have experienced pardoning mercy, cannot but ad¬
mire that mercy; it is what we have reason to stand
amazed at, if we know what it is. Has God for¬
given us our transgressions? We may well say, llrho
is a God like unto thee? Our holy wonder of par¬
doning mercy will be a good evidence of our interest
in it.
2. To take to ourselves the comfort of that mercy,
and all the grace and truth that go along with it.
1048
M1CAH, VII.
God’s people here, as they look back with thankful¬
ness upon God’s pardoning their sins, so they look
forward with assurance upon what he would yet
further do for them. His mercy endures for ever,
and therefore as he has showed mercy, so he will, v.
19, 20. (1.) He will renew his favours to us, he
will turn again, he will have compassion, he will
again have compassion upon us, as formerly he had;
his compassions shall be new every morning: he
seemed to be departing from us in anger, but he will
turn again, and pity us. He will turn us to himself,
and then will turn to us, and have mercy upon us.
(2.) He will renew us, to prepare and quality us for
his favour; He will subdue our iniquities; when he
takes away the guilt of sin, that it may not damn us,
he will break the power of sin, that it may not have
dominion over us; that we may not fear sin, or be
led captive by it. Sin is an enemy that fights against
us, a tyrant that oppresses us; nothing less than al¬
mighty grace can subdue it, so great is its power in
fallen man, and so long has it kept possession. But
if God forgive the sin that has been committed by
us, he will subdue the sin that dwells in us, and in
that, there is none like him in forgiving; and all
those whose sins are pardoned, earnestly desire and
hope to have their corruptions mortified, and their
iniquities subdued, and please themselves with the
hopes of it. If we be left to ourselves, our iniquities
will be too hard for us; but God’s grace, we trust,
shall be sufficient for us to subdue them, so that they
shall not rule us, and then they shall not ruin us.
(3. ) He will confirm this good work, and effectually
provide that his act of grace shall never be repealed;
Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depth of the sea;
as when he brought them out of Egypt, (to which
he has an eye in the promises here, v. 15.) he sub¬
dued Pharaoh and the Egyptians, and cast them into
the depth of the sea. It intimates that when God
forgives sin, he remembers it no more, and takes
care that it never be remembered more against the
sinner; (Ezek. xviii. 22.) His transgressions shall
not be mentioned unto him, they are blotted out as
a cloud which never appears more. He casts them
into the sea, not near the shore-side, where they
may appear again next low water, but into the depth
of the sea, never to rise again. Jill their sins shall
be cast there without exception, for when God for¬
gives sin, he forgives all. (4.) He will perfect that
which concerns us, and with this good work will do
all that for us, which our case requires, and which
he has promised; ( [v . 20.) Then wilt thou perform
thy truth to Jacob, and thy mercy to Abraham. It
is in pursuance of the covenant, that our sins are
pardoned, and our lusts mortified; from that spring
all these streams flow, and with these he shall freely
give us all things. The promise is said to be mercy
to Abraham, because, as made to him first, it was
mere mercy, preventing mercy, considering what
state it found him in. But it was truth to Jacob,
because the faithfulness of God was engaged to make
good to him and his seed, as heirs to Abraham, all
that was graciously promised to Abraham. See
here, [1.] With what solemnity the covenant of
grace is ratified to us; it was not only spoken, writ¬
ten, and sealed, but, which is the highest confirma¬
tion, it was sworn to our fathers; nor is it a modern
project, but is confirmed by antiquity too, it was
sworn from the days of old; it is an ancient charter.
[2.] With what satisfaction it may be applied and
relied upon by us; we may say with the liigliest as¬
surance, Thou wilt perform the truth ana mercy,
not one iota or tittle of it shall fall to the ground;
faithful is he that has promised, who also will do it
AN
EXPOSITION,
WITH
PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS
OF THE PROPHECY OF
NAHUM.
I'he name of this prophet signifies a comforter; for it was a charge given to all the prophets, Com fort ye,
comfort ye my fieofile; and even this prophet, though wholly taken up in foretelling the destruction of
Nineveh, which speaks terror to the Assyrians, is, even in that, comforter to the ten tribes of Israel,
who, it is probable, were now lately carried captives into Assyria. It is very uncertain at what time
he lived and prophesied, but it is most probable that he lived in the time of Hezekiah, and prophesied
against Nineveh, after the captivity of Israel by the king of Assyria, which was in the ninth year of
Hezekiah, and before Sennacherib’s invading Judah, which was in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah,
for to that attempt, and the defeat of it, it is supposed, the first chapter has reference; and it is proba¬
ble that it was delivered a little before it, for the encouragement of God’s people in that day of treading
down and perplexity. It is the conjecture of the learned Huetius, that the two other chapters of this
book were delivered by Nahum some years after, perhaps in the reign of Manasseh, and m that reign
the Jewish chronologies generally place him; somewhat nearer to the time when Nineveh was con¬
quered, and the Assyrian monarchy reduced, by Cyaxares and Nebuchadnezzar, some time before the
first captivity of Judah. It is probable that Nahum did by word of mouth prophesy many things con¬
cerning Israel and Judah, as it is certain that Jonah did, (2 Kings xiv. 25.) though we have nothing of
either of them in writing, but what related to Nineveh, of which, though a great and ancient city, yet,
probably, we should never have heard in sacred writ, if the Israel of God had not had some concern in it.
NAHUM, I.
CHAP. 1.
In this chapter we have, I. The inscription of the book, v.
I. II. A magnificent display of the glory of God, in a
mixture of wrath and justice against the wicked, and
mercy and grace toward his people, and the discovery
of his majesty and power in both, v. 2. . 8. III. A par¬
ticular application of this (as most interpreters think) to
the destruction of Sennacherib and the Assyrian army,
when they besieged Jerusalem, which was a very memo¬
rable and illustrious instance of the power both of God’s
justice and of his mercy, and spake abundance of terror
to his enemies, and encouragement to his faithful ser¬
vants, v. 9 . . 16.
1 . f l^HE burden of Nineveh. The book
JL of the vision of Nahum the El-
koshite.
This title directs us to consider,
1. The great city against which the word of the
L,ord is here delivered; it is the burthen of JVineveh;
Vol. iv. — 6 R
not only a prophecy, and a weighty one, but a bur-
thensome prophecy, a dead weight to JVineveh, a
mill-stone hanged about its neck. JVineveh was the
place concerned, and the Assyrian monarchy,
which that was the royal seat of. About a hundred
years before this, Jonah had, in God’s name, fore¬
told the speedy overthrow of this great city; but
then the Ninevites repented, and were spared, and
that decree did not bring forth; the Ninevites then
saw clearly how much it was to their advantage, to
turn from their evil way, it was the saving of their
city; and yet, soon after, they returned to it again;
it became worse than ever, a bloody city, and full
of lies and robbery; they repented of their repent¬
ance, returned with the dog to his vomit, and at
length grew worse than ever they had been; then
God sent them not this prophet, as Jonah, but this
prophecy, to read them their doom, which was now
irreversible. Note, The reprieve will not be con¬
tinued, if the repentance be not continued in. If
men turn from the good they began to do, they can
1050
NAHUM, 1.
expect no other than that God should turn from the
favour he began to show, Jer. xviii. 10.
2. The floor prophet by whom the word of the
Lord is here delivered; it is the book of the vison of
Nahum the Rlkoshite. The burthen of Nineveh
was what the prophet plainly foresaw, for it was his
vision, and what he left upon record; it is the book
of the vision, that, when he was gone, the event
might be compared with the prediction, and might
confirm it. All the account we have of the prophet
himself, is, that he was an Rlkoshite, of the town
called Rlkes, or Ricos, which, St. Jerome says, was
in Galilee. Some observe, that the scripture ordi¬
narily says little of the prophets themselves, that
our faith might not stand upon their authority, but
upon that of the blessed Spirit by whom their pro¬
phecies were endited.
2. God zsjealous, and the Lord revengeth;
the Lord revengeth, and is furious: the Lord
will take vengeance on his adversaries, and
he reserveth wrath for his enemies. 3. The
Lord U slow to anger, and great in power,
and will not at all acquit the wicked: the
Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and
in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of
his feet. 4. He rebuketh the sea, and
maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers:
Baslian languisheth, and Carmel, and the
flower of Lebanon languisheth. 5. The
mountains quake at him, and the hills melt,
and the earth is burnt at his presence, yea,
the world, and all that dwell therein. 6.
Who can stand before his indignation ] and
who can abide in the fierceness of his an¬
ger ? his fury is poured out like fire, and the
rocks are thrown down by him. 7. The
Lord is good, a strong hold in the day of
trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in
him. 8. But with an over-running flood he
will make an utter end of the place thereof,
and darkness shall pursue his enemies.
Nineveh knows not God, that God that contends
with her, and therefore is here told what a God he
is; and it is good for us all to mix faith with that
which' is here said concerning him, which speaks a
great deal of terror to the wicked, and comfort to
good people; for this glorious description ' of the
Sovereign of the world, like the pillar of cloud and
fire, has a bright side towards Israel, and a dark
side toward the Egyptians. Let each take his por¬
tion from it; let sinners read it and tremble, let
saints read it and triumph. The wrath of God is
here revealed from heaven against his enemies, his
favour and mercy are here assured to his faithful,
loyal subjects, and his almighty power in both,
making his wrath very terrible, and his favour very
desirable.
I. He is a God of inflexible justice, a jealous God,
and will take vengeance on his enemies; let Nine¬
veh know this, and tremble before him. Their idols
are insignificant things, there is nothing formidable
in them; but the God of Israel is greatly to be
feared; for, 1. He resents the affronts and indigni¬
ties done him by those that deny his being or any of
his perfections, that set up other gods in competition
with him, that destroy his laws, arraign his pro¬
ceedings, ridicule his word, or are abusive to his
people. Let such know that Jehovah, the one only
living and true God, is a jealous God, and a Re¬
venger; he is jealous for his own honour in the mat
ters of his worship, and will not endure a rival; he is
jealous for the comfort of his worshippers, jealous for
his land, (Joel ii. 18. ) and will not have that injured.
He is a Revenger, and he is furious; he has fury,
(so the word is,) not as man has it, in whom it is an
ungoverned passion, (so he has said, fury is not in
me, Isa. xxvii. 4. ) but he has it in such a way as
becomes the righteous God, to put an edge upon his
justice, and to make it appear more terrible to those
who otherwise would stand in no awe of it. He is'
Lord of anger; so the Hebrew phrase is, for that
which we read, he is furious: he has anger, but he
has it at command and under government; our an
ger is often lord over us, as theirs that have no rule
over their own sfiirits, but God is always Lord of
his anger, and weighs a path to it, Ps. lxxviii. 50.
2. He resolved to reckon with those that put those
affronts upon him. We are told here, not only that
he is a Revenger, but that he will take vengeance;
he has said he will, he has sworn it, Deut. xxxii.
40, 41. Whoever are his adversaries and enemies
among men, he will make them feel his resentments;
and though the sentence against his enemies is not
executed speedily, yet he reserves wrath for them,
and reserves them for it in the day of wrath.
Against his own people, who repent, and humble
themselves before him, he keeps not his anger for
ever, but against his enemies he will for ever let out
his anger. He will not at all acquit the wicked that
sin, and stand to it, and do not repent, v. 3. Those
wickedly depart from their God, that depart, and
never return; (Ps. xviii. 21.) and these he will not
acquit. Humble supplicants will find him gracious,
but scornful beggars will not find him easy, or that
the door of mercy will be opened to a loud, but late.
Lord, Lord. This revelation of the wrath of God
against his enemies is applied to Nineveh, (v. 8.)
and should be applied by all those to themselves,
who go on still in their trespasses; With an over¬
running flood he will make an utter end of the place
thereof. The army of the Chaldeans shall overrun
the country of the Assyrians, and lay it all waste.
God’s judgments, when they come with commission,
are like a deluge to any people, which they cannot
keep off, or make head against. Darkness shall
pursue his enemies, terror and trouble shall follow
them, whithersoever they go, shall pursue them to
utter darkness; if they think to flee from the dark¬
ness that pursues them, they will but fall into that
which is before them.
II. He is a God of irresistible power, and is able
to deal with his enemies, be they ever so many,
ever so mighty, ever so hardy. He is great in
power, (z>. 3.) and therefore it is good having him
our Friend, and bad having him our Enemy. Now
here,
1. The power of God is asserted and proved by
divers instances of it in the kingdom of nature,
where we always find its visible effects in the ordi¬
nary course of nature, and sometimes in the sur¬
prising alterations of that course. (1.) If we look
up into the regions of the air, there we shall find
proofs of his power, for he has his ways in the whirl¬
wind and the storm; which way soever God goes,
he carries a whirlwind and a storm along with him,
for the terror of his enemies, Ps. xviii. 9, &c. And
wherever there is a whirlwind and a storm, God
has the command of it, the control of it, makes his
way through it, goes on his way in it, and serves his
own purposes by it. He spake to Job out of the
whirlwind, and even stormy winds fulfil his word.
He has his way in the whirlwind, he goes on undis¬
cerned, and the methods of his providence are to us
unaccountable; as it is said, His way is in the sea.
The clouds are the dust of his feet, he treads on
them, walks on them, raises them when he pleases.
1051
NAHUM, I.
as a man with his feet raises a cloud of dust. It is
hut by permission, or usurpation rather, that the
devil is the prince of the power of the air, for that
power is in God’s hand. (2. ) If we cast our eye
upon the great deeps, there we find that the sea is
his, for he made it; for when he pleases, he rebukes
the sea, and makes it dry, by drying up all the
rivers with which it is continually supplied. He
gave those proofs of his power when he divided the
Red sea and Jordan, and can do the same again
whenever he pleases. (3.) If we look round us on
this earth, we find proofs of his power, when either
by the extreme heat and drought of summer, or the
cold and frost of winter, Bashan languishes, and
Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon languishes, the
choicest and strongest flower languishes. His power
is often seen in earthquakes, which shake the moun¬
tains, (y. 5.) melt the hills and melt them down,
and level them with the plains. When he pleases,
the earth is burnt at his presence by the scorching
heat of the sun, and he could burn it with fire from
heaven, as he did Sodom, and at the end of time he
will burn the world and all that dwell therein. The
earth and all the works that are therein shall be
burnt up. Thus great is the Lord, and of great
power.
2. This is particularly applied to his anger. If
God be an almighty God, we may thence infer, (v.
6.) IVho can stand before his indignation? The
Ninevites had once found God slow to anger, (as he
says, v. 3.) and perhaps presumed upon the mercy
they then had experience of, and thought they
might make bold with him; but they will find he is
just and jealous as well as merciful and gracious,
and, having showed the justice of his wrath, in the
next he shows the power of it, and the utter insuf¬
ficiency of his enemies to contend with him. It is
in vain for the stoutest and strongest of sinners to
think to make their part good against the power of
God’s anger. (1.) bee God here, as a consuming
fire, terrible and mighty. Here is his indignation
against sin, and the fierceness of his anger, his fury
poured out, not like water, but like fire, like the
fire and brimstone rained on Sodom, Ps. xi. 6. Hell
is the fierceness of God’s anger, Rev. xvi. 19. God’s
anger is so fierce, that it beats down all before it;
the rocks are thrown down by him, which seemed
unmoveable. Rocks have sometimes been rent by
the eruption of subterraneous fires, which is a faint
resemblance of the fierceness of God’s anger against
sinners whose hearts are rocky, for none ever har¬
dened their hearts against him and prospered. (2. )
See sinners here, as stubble before the fire, weak
and impotent, and a very unequal match for the
wrath of God. [1.} They are utterly unable to
bear up against it, so as to resist it, and put by the
strokes of it; Who can stand before his indignation?
Not the proudest and most daring sinner; not the
world of the ungodly, no, not the angels that sin¬
ned. [2.] They are utterly unable to bear up under
it, so as to keep up their spirits, and preserve any
enjoyment of themselves; IVho can abide in the
fierceness of his anger ? As it is irresistible, so it is
intolerable. Some of the effects of God’s displea¬
sure in this world a man may bear up under, but
the fierceness of his anger, when it fastens imme¬
diately upon the soul, who can bear it? Let us
therefore fear before him, let us stand in awe, and
not sin.
III. He is a God of infinite mercy; and in the
midst of all this wrath mercy is remembered. Let
the sinners in Zion be afraid, that go on still in their
transgressions, but let not those that trust in God,
tremble before him. For, 1. He is slow to anger,
(t'. 3.) not easily provoked, but ready to show mer¬
cy to those who have offended him, and to receive
them into favour upon their repentance. 2. When
the tokens of his rage against the wicked are abroad,
he takes care for the safety and comfort of his own
people; (v. 7.) The Lord is good to those that are
good, and to them he will be a strong hold in t/u
day of trouble. Note, The same almighty powet
that is exerted for the terror and destruction of the
wicked is engaged, and shall be employed, for the
protection and satisfaction of his own people; he is
able both to save and to destroy. In the day of
public trouble, when God’s judgments are in the
earth, laying all waste, he will be a Place of de¬
fence to those that by faith put themselves under
his protection, those that trust in him in the way of
their duty, that live a life of dependence upon him,
and devotedness to him; he knows them, he owns
them for his, he takes cognizance of their case,
knows what is best for them, and what course to
take most effectually for their relief. They are
perhaps obscure and little regarded in the world,
but the Lord knows them, Ps. i. 6.
9. What do ye imagine against the Lord?
lie will make an utter end: affliction shall
not rise up the second time. 10. For while
they be folden together as thorns, and while
they are drunken as drunkards, they shall
be devoured as stubble fully dry. 1 1. There
is one come out of thee that imagineth evil
against the Lord, a wicked counsellor.
12. Thus saith the Lord, Though they be
quiet, and likewise many, yet thus shall
they be cut down, when he shall pass
through. Though I have afflicted thee, 1
will afflict thee no more. 13. For now will
I break his yoke from off thee, and will
burst thy bonds in sunder. 14. And the
Lord hath given a commandment concern¬
ing thee, that no more of thy name be sown :
out of the house of thy gods will I cut off
the graven image, and the molten image; 1
will make thy grave; for thou art vile. 15.
Behold upon the mountains the feet of him
that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth
peace! O Judah, keep thy solemn feasts,
perform thy vows : for the wicked shall no
more pass through thee ; he is utterly cut off.
These verses seem to point at the destruction of
the army of the Assyrians under Sennacherib,
which may well be reckoned a part of the burthen
of Nineveh, the head city of the Assyrian empire,
and a pledge of the destruction of Nineveh itself
about an hundred years after: and this was an event
which Isaiah, with whom, probably, this prophet was
contemporary, spake much of. Now observe here,
1. The great provocation which the Assyrians
gave to God, the just and jealous God, for which,
though slow to anger, he would take vengeance;
(y. 11.) There is one come out of thee, and imagines
evil against the Lord — Sennacherib and his spokes¬
man Rabshakeh; they framed an evil letter and an
evil speech, not only against Hezekiah and his peo¬
ple, but against God himself ; reflecting upon him
as level with the gods of the heathen, and unable to
protect his worshippers, dissuading his people from
putting confidence in him, and urging them rather
to put themselves under the protection of the great
king, the king of Assyria; they contrived to alter
the property of Jerusalem, that it should be no
j longer the city of the Lord, the holy city. Th.-s
1 one, this mighty one, so he thinks himself, that
1052
NAHUM, I.
comes out of Nineveh, imagining evi. against the
Lord , brings upon Nineveh this burden ; never was
the glorious Majesty of heaven and earth more
daringly, more blasphemously affronted than by
Sennacherib at that time: he was a wicked counsel¬
lor, who counselled them to despair of God’s pro¬
tection, and surrender themselves to the king of As¬
syria, and endeavoured to put them out of conceit
with Hezekiah’s reformation; (Isa. xxxvi. 7.) with
this wicked counsellor he here expostulates, (v. 9.)
What do you imagine against the Lord? What a
foolish, wicked tiling is it for you to plot against God,
as if you could outwit divine wisdom, and overpower
Omnipotence itself !” Note, There is a great deal
imagined against the Lord by the gates of hell, and
against the interests of his kingdom in the world;
but it will prove a vain thing, Ps. ii. 1. 2. He that
sits in heaven, laughs at the imaginations of the pre¬
tenders to politics against him, and will turn their
counsels headlong.
2. The great destruction which God will bring
upon them for it; not immediately upon the whole
monarchy, (the ruin of that was deferred till the
measure of their iniquity was full,) but, (1.) Upon
the army; God will make an utter end of that; it
shall be totally cut off and rained at one blow; one
fatal stroke of the destroying angel shall lay them
dead upon the spot; affliction shall not rise ufi the
second time, for it shall not need. With some sin¬
ners God makes a quick despatch, does their busi¬
ness at once; divine vengeance goes not by one cer¬
tain rule, nor in one constant track; but, one way or
other, by acute diseases or chronical ones, by slow
deaths or lingering ones, he will make an utter end
of all his enemies, who persist in their imaginations
against him. We have reason to think that the
Assyrian army were mostly of the same spirit, and
spake the same language, with their general, and
now God would take them to task, though they did
but say as they were taught; and it shall appear
that they have laid themselves open to divine wrath
by their own act and deed, v. 10. [1.] They are
as thorns that entangle one another, and are folden
together; they make one another worse, and more
inveterate against God and his Israel, harden one
another’s hearts, and strengthen one another’s
hands, in their impiety; and therefore God will do
with them as the husbandman does with a bush of
thorns, when he cannot part them, he puts them all
into the fire together. [2.J They areas drunken men,
intoxicated with pride and rage; and such as they
shall be irrecoverably overthrown and destroyed.
They shall be as drunkards, besotted to their own
ruin, and shall stumble and fall, and make them¬
selves a reproach, and be justly laughed at. [3.]
They shall be devoured as stubble fully dry, which
is irresistibly and irrecoverably consumed by the
flame. The judgments of God are as devouring fire
to those that make themselves as stubble to them.
It is again threatened concerning this great army,
(v. 12.) that though they be quiet and likewise
many, very secure, not fearing the sallies of the
besieged upon them, because they are numerous,
yet thus shall they be cut down, or certainly shall
they be cut down, as grass and corn are cut down,
with as little ado, when he shall pass through,
even the destroying angel that is commissioned to
cut them down. Note, The security of sinners,
and their confidence in their own strength, are
often presages of ruin approaching. (2.) The
destruction comes upon the king; he imagined evil
against the Lord, and shall he escape? No, ( v . 14.)
“The Lord has given a commandment concerning
thee, the decree is gone forth, that thy name be no
more sown, that thy memory perish, that thou be
no more talked of as thou hast been, and that the
report of thy mighty action., be dispersed upon the
wings of fame, and celebrated with her trumpet.’
Because Sennacherib’s son reigned in his stead,
some make this to point at the overthrow of the
Assyrian empire not long after. Note, They that
imagine evil against the Lord, hasten evil upon
themselves and their own families and interests, and
ruin their, own names by dishonouring his name. It
is further threatened, [1.] That the images he
worshipped should be cut off from their temple;
the graven image and the molten image out of the
house of his gods, which, some think, was fulfilled
when Sennacherib was slain by his two sons, as he
was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god;
by which barbarous parricide we may suppose the
temple was looked upon as defiled, and was there¬
fore disused, and the images cut off from it, the
worshippers of those images no longer attending
there. Or, it may be taken more generally to speak
the utter ruin of Assyria; the army of the enemy
shall lay all waste, and not spare even the images of
their gods; by which God would intimate to them
that one of the grounds of his controversy with
them was, their idolatry. [2.] That Sennacherib's
grave shall be made there, some think in the house
of his god; there he was slain, and there he shall
be buried, for he is vile; lie lies under this perpetual
mark of disgrace, that he had so far lost his inter¬
est in the natural affection of his own children, that
two of them murdered him. Or, it may be meant
of the ignominious fall of the Assyrian monarchy
itself, upon the rains of which that of Babylon was
raised; what a noise was made about the grave of
that once formidable state, but now despicable, is
largely described, Ezek. xxxi. 3, 11, 15, 16. Note,
Those that make themselves vile by scandalous sins,
God will make them vile by shameful punishments.
3. The great deliverance which God would here¬
by work tor his own people, and the city that was
called by his name. The ruin of the church’s ene¬
mies is the salvation of the church, and a very great
salvation it was, that was wrought for Jerusalem by
the overthrow of Sennacherib’s army. (1.) The
siege shall hereby be raised; “Now will I break
his yoke from off thee, by which thou art kept in
servitude, and will burst thy bonds in sunder, by
which thou seemest bound over to the Assyrian’s
wrath.” That vast victorious army, when it forced
free quarters for itself throughout all the land of
Judah, and lived at discretion there, was as yokes
and bonds upon them. Jerusalem, when it was be¬
sieged, was, as it were, bound and fettered by it;
but when the destroying angel had done his work,
Jerusalem's bonds were burst asunder, and it was
set at liberty again : this was a figure of the great
salvation, by which the Jerusalem that is above is
made free, is made free indeed. (2. ) The enemy
shall be so weakened and dispirited, that they shall
never make any such attempt again, and the end of
this trouble shall be so well gained by the grace of
God, that there shall be no more occasion for such
a severe correction. [1.] God will not again afflict
Jerusalem, his anger is turned away, and he says.
It is enough; for he has by this fright accom/i/ished
his whole work upon mount Zion, (Isa. x. 12.) and
therefore, though I have afflicted thee, 1 will af¬
flict thee no more; the bitter portion shall not be
repeated, unless there be need, and the patient’s
case shall call for it; for God doth not afflict wil¬
lingly. [2.] The enemy shall not dare again to
attack Jerusalem; (v. 15.) The wicked shall no
more pass through thee as they have done, to lay all
waste, for he is utterly cut off, and disabled to do it.
His army is cut off. His spirit cut off, and at length
he is himself cut off. Lastly, The tidings of this
great deliverance shall be published and welcomed
with abundance of joy throughout the kingdom, a’.
15. While Sennacherib prevailed, and carried all
1053
NAHUM, 11.
before him, every day brought bad news; but now,
behold upon the mountains the feet of him that bring-
eth good tidings, the feet of the evangelist; he is seen
coming at a distance upon the mountains, as fast as
his feet will carry him; and how pleasant a sight is
it once more to see a messenger of peace, after we
have received so many of Job’s messengers! We
find these words made use of by another prophet,
to illustrate the mercy of the deliverance of the
people of God out of Babylon; (Isa. lii. 7.) not that
the prophets stole the word one from another, (as
those did, Jer. xxiii. 30. ) but, speaking by the same
Spirit, they often used the same expressions: and it
may be of good use for ministers to testify their
consent to wholesome truths, (1 Tim. vi. 3.) bj' con¬
curring in the same forms of sound words, 2 lim. i.
13. These words are also quoted by the apostle,
both from Isaiah and Nahum, and applied to the
great redemption wrought out for us by our Lord
Jesus, and the publishing of it to the world by the
everlasting gospel, Rom. x. 15. Christ’s ministers
are those messengers of good tidings that preach
peace by Jesus Christ; how beautiful are the feet
of those messengers ! How welcome their message
to those that see their misery and danger by reason
of sin! And observe, He that brings these good
tidings, brings with them a call to Judah to keep her
solemn feasts, and perform her vows. During the
trouble, [1.] The ordinary feasts had been inter¬
mitted. Inter arma silent leges — The voice of law
cannot be heard amidst the shouts of battle. While
Jerusalem was compassed with armies, they could
not go thither to worship; but now that the embargo
is taken off, they must return to the observation of
their feasts; and the feasts of the Lord will then be
doubly sweet to the people of God, when they have
been for some time deprived of the benefit of them,
and God graciously restores them their opportuni¬
ties again; for we are taught the worth of such mer¬
cies by the want of them. [2.] They had made
vows to God, that if he would deliver them out of
this distress, they would do something extraordina¬
ry in his service, to his honour; and now that the
deliverance is wrought, they are called upon to per¬
form their vows; the promise they had then made
must now be made good, for better it is not to vow,
than to vow and not to pay. And those words. The
wicked shall no more pass through thee, may be ta¬
ken as a promise of the perfecting the good work of
reformation, which Hezekiali had begun; the wick¬
ed shall not, as they have done, walk on every side,
but they shall be cut off. Thesi the baffling of the
attempts from the wicked enemies abroad is a mer¬
cy indeed to a nation, when it is accompanied with
the restraint and reformation of the wicked at home,
who are its more dangerous enemies.
CHAP. TI.
We now come closer to Nineveh, that great city; she took
not warning by the destruction of her armies, and the
fall of her king, and therefore may expect, since she per¬
sists in her enmity to God, that he will proceed in his
controversy with her. Here is foretold, I. The approach
of the enemy that should destroy Nineveh, and the ter¬
ror of his military preparations, v. 1 . .5. II. The tak¬
ing of the city, v. 6. III. The captivity of the queen,
the flight of the inhabitants, the seizing of all its wealth,
and the consternation it should be in, v. 7.. 10. IV.
All this is run up to its true causes, their sinning against
God, and God’s appearing against them, v. 11 ..13. All
this was fulfilled when Nebuchadnezzar, in the first year
of his reign, in conjunction with Cyaxares, or Ahasue-
rus, king of the Medes, conquered Nineveh, and made
himself master of the Assyrian monarchy.
1 • TTE that dasheth in pieces is come up
before thy face: keep the munition,
watch the way, make thy loins strong, for¬
tify thy power mightily. 2. For the Lord
hath turned away the excellency of Jacob,
as the excellency of Israel : for the emptiers
have emptied them out, and marred their
vine branches. 3. The shield of his mighty
men is made red, the valiant men are in
scarlet: the chariots shall be with flaming
torches in the day of his preparation, and
the fir-trees shall be terribly shaken. 4.
The chariots shall rage in the streets, they
shall justle one against another in the broad
ways: they shall seem like torches, they
shall run like the lightnings. 5. He shall
recount his worthies : they shall stumble in
their walk; they shall make haste to the
wall thereof, and the defence shall be pre¬
pared. 6. The gates of the rivers shall be
opened, and the palace shall be dissolved
7. And Huzzab shall be led away captive,
she shall be brought up, .and her maids shall
lead her as with the voice of doves, tabering
upon their breasts. 8. But Nineveh is of
old like a pool of water; yet they shall flee
away. Stand, stand, shall they cry; but
none shall look back. 9. Take ye the spoil
of silver, take the spoil of gold ; for there is
none end of the store and glory out of all the
pleasant furniture. 10. She is empty, and
void, and waste; and the heart melteth, and
the knees smite together, and much pain is
in all loins, and the faces of them all gather
blackness.
Here is,
1. An alarm of war sent to Nineveh, v. 1. The
prophet speaks of it as just at hand, for it is neither
doubtful nor far distant; “Look about thee, and
see, he that dashes in pieces is come before thy face.
Nebuchadnezzar, who is noted, and will be yet
more so, for dashing nations in pieces, begins with
thee, and will dissipate and disperse thee;” so some
render the word. Babylon is called the hammer of
the whole earth, Jer. 1. 23. The attempt of Nebu¬
chadnezzar upon Nineveh is public, bold, and dar¬
ing; “ He is come up before thy face, avowing his
design to ruin thee; and therefore stand to thine
arms, O Nineveh; keep the munition, secure thy
towers and magazines, watch the way, set guards
upon all tlie avenues to the city, make thy loins
strong, encourage thy soldiers, animate thyself and
them, fortify thy power mightily, as cities do when
an enemy is advancing against them,” (this is spo¬
ken ironically,) “do the utmost thou canst ; yet
though shalt not be able to put by the stroke of this
judgment, for there is no counsel or strength against
the Lord.” a
2. A manifesto published, showing the causes of
the war; (y. 2.) The Lord has turned away the
excellency of Jacob, as the excellency of Israel] that
is, (1.) The Assyrians have been abusive to Jacob,
tlie two tribes, (have humbled and mortified them,)
as well as to Israel, the ten tribes; have emptied
them, and marred their vine-branches; for this, God
will reckon with them; though done long since, it
shall come into the account nbw against that king
dom, and Nineveh the head city of it; God’s quar
rel with them is for the violence done to Jacob.
Or, (2.) God is now by Nebuchadnezzar abcut to
1054
NAHUM, II.
turn away the pride of Jacob, by the captivity of
the two tribes, as he did the pride of Israel, by their
captivity; lie has done it, lie has determined to do
it, to bring cmfitiers upon them, and the enemy that
is to do it must begin with Nineveh, and reduce
that first, and humble the pride of that. God is
looking upon proud cities, and abasing them, even
those that were nearest to him. Samaria is hum¬
bled, Jerusalem is to be humbled, and their pride
brought low; and shall not Nineveh, that proud
city, be brought down too? Jimptiers have emptied
the cities, and marred the vine-branches, in the
country of Jacob and Israel; and must not the ex¬
cellency of Nineveh, that is so much her pride, be
turned away too?
3. A particular account given in of the terrors
wherein the invading enemy shall appear against Ni¬
neveh; everything shall contribute to make him for¬
midable. (1.) Th e shields of his mighty men are made
red, and, probably, their other arms and array; as
if they were already tinctured with the blood they
had shed, or intended hereby to signify they would
put all to the sword; they hung out a red flag, in
token that they would give no quarter. (2.) The
valiant men 'are in scarlet; not only red clothes, to
intimate what bloody work they designed to make,
but rich clothes, to intimate the wealth of the army,
and that is the sinews of war. (3.) The chariots
shall be with flaming torches in the day of his pre¬
paration; when they are making their approaches,
they shall fly as swift as lightning, the wheels shall
strike fire upon the stones, and those that drive
them shall drive furiously with a flaming indigna¬
tion, as Jehu drove. Or, they carried flaming
torches with them in the open chariots, when they
make their approach in the night, as Gideon’s sol¬
diers carried lamps in their pitchers, to be both a
guide to themselves, and a terror to their enemies,
and with them to set all on fire, wherever they
went. (4.) The fir-trees shall be terribly shaken;
the great men of Nineveh, that overtop their neigh¬
bours, as the stately firs do the shrubs; or, the very
standing trees shall be made to shake lay the violent
concussions of the earth, which that great army
shall cause. (5. ) The chariots of war shall be very
terrible; ( v . 4.) They shall rage in the streets, that
is, those that drive them shall rage, you would think
the chariots themselves raged; they shall be so nu¬
merous, and drive with so much fury, that even in
the broad ways, where, one would think, there
should be room enough, they shall justle one ano¬
ther; and these iron chariots shall be made so
bright, that in the beams of the sun they shall seem
like torches in the night; they shall run like the
lightnings, so swiftly, so furiously. Nebuchadnez¬
zar’s commanders are here called his worthies, his
gallants, (so the margin reads it,) his heroes; those
he shall recount, and order them immediately and
without fail to render themselves at their respective
posts, for he is entering upon action, is resolved to
take the field immediately, and to open the cam¬
paign with the siege of Nineveh. His worthies
shall remember, (so some read it,) they shall be
mindful of the duty of their place, and the charge
they have received, and shall thereby be made so
intent upon their business, that they shall stumble
in their walks, shall make more haste than good
speed; they stumble, but shall not fall; for they
shall make haste to the wall thereof, shall open the
trenches; and the defence, or tlie covered way,
shall be prepared, (something to shelter them from
the darts of the besieged,) and they shall so closely
carry on the siege, and with so much vigour, that
at length the gates of the rivers shall be opened; (y.
6.) those gates of Nmeveh, which opened upon the
river Tigris, (on whichNineveh was built,) shall be
first forced by, or betrayed to, the enemy; and by
those gates they shall enter. And then the palace
shall he dissolved, either the king’s house, or the
house of Nisroch his god; the same word signifies
both a palace and a temple. When the God of hea¬
ven goes forth to contend with a people, neither the
palaces nor their kings, neither the temples nor their
gods, can protect and shelter them, but must all in¬
evitably fall with them.
4. A prediction of the consequences of this; and
it is easy to guess how dismal those will be. (1.) The
queen shall fall into the handset the enemy; (it. 7.)
Huzzab shall be led away captive; she that was es¬
tablished, (so some read it,) thought herself safe,
because she was concealed, and shut up in secret,
shall be discovered, (so the margin reads it,) and
shall be led away captive, in greater disgrace than
that of common prisoners; she shall be brought up
in a mock-state, and her maids of honour shall leal
her, because she is weak and faint, not able to bear
such frights and hardships, which are doubly hard
and frightful to those that have not been used to
them; they shall attend her, not to speak cheerfully
to Iter and to encourage her, but murmuring and
moaning themselves, as with the voice of doves, the
doves of the valleys, (Ezek. vii. 16.) noted for their
mourning, Isa. xxxviii. 14. — lix. 11. They shall
be tabering upon their breasts, beating their own
breasts in grief and vexation, as if they were drum¬
ming upon them, for so the word signifies. (2. ) The
inhabitants, though numerous, shall none of them
be able to make head against the invaders, or stand
their ground; {y. 8.) Nineveh is of old like a pool
of water, replenished with people as a pool with
water, (and waters signify multitudes, Rev. xvii.
15.) or as those waters with fish; it was long ago a
populous city, in Jonah’s time there were 120,000
little children in it, (Jonah iv. 11.) and, ordinarily,
cities and countries are increasing in their number
every year; but though they have so many hands to
be employed in the public service, yet they shall
not be able to inspire one another with courage, but
they shall fiee away like cowards. Their command¬
ers shall do what they can to animate them; they
shall cry, “ Stand, stand, have a good heart on it,
and we shall do well enough;” but none shall so
much as look back; they shall not have the least
spark of courage remaining, but every one shall
think it his wisest course to make his best of the
opportunity to escape; they shall not so much as
look back to see who calls for them. Note, God
can dispirit the strongest and boldest, in the day
of distress, so that they shall not be what one would
expect from them, but like a pool of water, the
water whereof is dried up and gone. (3.) The
wealth of the city shall become a prey, and all its
rich furnitures shall fall into the hands of the victo¬
rious enemy; (v. 9.) they shall thus animate and
excite one another to plunder, Take the spoil of sil¬
ver, take the spoil of gold; thus the officers shall
stir up the soldiers to improve their opportunity;
here are silver and gold enough for them, for there
is no end of the store of money and plate. Nineveh,
having been of old like a pool of water, has gather¬
ed a vast deal' of mud; and abundance of glory it has
out of all the pleasant furniture, all the vessels of
desire, which they have gloried in, and which shall
now be a prey and a pride to the conquerors. Note,
Those who prepare raiment as the clay, and heap
up silver as the dust, know not who may put on the
raiment, and divide the silver, Job xxvii. 16, 17.
Thus this rich city is empty, and void, and waste,
v. 10. See the vanity of worldly wealth; instead
of defending its owners, it does but expose them,
and enable their enemies to do them so much the
more mischief. (4.) The soldiers and people shall
have no heart to appear for the defence of the city.
Their spirits shall melt away like wax before the
10-35
JN'AHUM, 111.
firt, their knees shall smite together, (as Belshaz¬
zar’s did in his agony, Dan. v. 6.) so that they shall
not be able to stand their ground, no, nor to make
their escape; much fiain shall be in all loins, as is
the case in extreme frights, so that they shall not
be able to hold up their backs. And the faces of
them all shall gather blackness, like that of a pot
that is every day over the fire; so the word signifies. I
Note, Guilt in the conscience will fill men with ter¬
ror in an evil day, and those who place their happi¬
ness in the wealth of this world, and set their hearts
upon it, think themselves undone when their silver
and their gold and their pleasant furniture are taken
from them.
1 1 . Where is the dwelling of the lions,
and the feeding-place of the young lions,
where the lion, even the old lion, walked,
and the lion’s whelp, and none made them
afraid? 12. The lion did tear in pieces
enough for his whelps, and strangled for his
lionesses, and filled his holes with prey and
his dens with ravin. 1 3. Behold I am against
thee, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will
burn her chariots in the smoke, and the
sword shall devour thy young lions; and
I will cut off thy prey from the earth, and
the voice of thy messengers shall no more
be heard.
Here we have Nineveh’s ruin,
1. Triumphed in by its neighbours, who now re¬
member against it all the oppressions and abuse of
power it had been guilty of in its pomp and pros¬
perity; (y. 11, 12.) Where is the dwelling of the
lions ? It is gone, there appears no remnants, no
footsteps of it; Where is the feeding-place of the
young lions, where they glutted themselves with
prey; The princes of Nineveh had been as lions,
as beasts of prey; cruel tyrants are no better, nay,
in this respect much worse — that, being men, hu¬
manity is expected from them; nay, if they were
indeed lions, they would not prey upon those of
their own kind; Soevis inter se convenit ursat — Fierce
bears agree together. But in the shape of men they
have the cruelty of lions: they walked in Nineveh
as a lion in the woods, and none made them afraid;
every one stood in awe of them, and they were
under no apprehensions of danger from any; though
no body loved them, every body feared them, and
that was all they desired; Oderint, dum metuant —
Let them hate, so that they do but fear. The king
himself, and every prince, made it their business,
by all the arts of violence and extortion, to enrich
himself, and raise his family; he did tear in pieces
enough for his whelps, (and no little would be
enough for them,) and he. strangled for his lionesses,
killed all that came near him, and seized what they
had for his children, for his wives and concubines,
and filled his holes with prey, and his dens with
ravin, as lions are wont to do. Note, Many make
it an excuse for their rapine and injustice, that they
have wives and children to provide for, whereas
what is so got will never do them any good; they
that fear the Lord, and get what they have ho¬
nestly, shall not want a competency for themselves
and theirs, verily they shall be fed, when the young
lions, though dens and holes were filled with prey
and ravin for them, shall lack and suffer hunger,
Ps. xxxiv. 10.
2. It is avowed by the righteous Judge of heaven
and earth, it is his doing, and let all the world take
notice that it is so; (y. 13.) Behold, lam against
thee, saith the Lord of hosts. And what good can
hosts do for her in her defence, when the Lord of
hosts is against her for her destruction? The op¬
pressors in Nineveh thought they only set their
neighbours against them, who were not a match for
them, and whom they could easily overpower; but
it proved they set God against them, who is, and
will be, the Asserter of right, and the Avenger of
wrong. God is against the princes of Nineveh, and
then, (1.) These military preparations will stand
them in no stead; I will burn her chariots in the
smoke; he does not say in the fire, hut in contempt
of them, the very smoke of God’s indignation shall
serve to burn their chariots; they shall be consumed
as soon as the fire of his indignation is kindled,
while as yet it does but smoke, and not flame out.
Or, The drivers of the chariots shall be smothered
and stifled with the smoke; then the chariots of
their glory shall be the shame of their families, Isa.
xxii. 18. (2.) Their children, the hopes of their
families, shall be cut off; The sword shall devour
the young lions, whom they were so solicitous to
provide for by oppression and extortion. Note, It
is just with God to deprive those of their children,
or (which is all one) of comfort in them, that take
sinful courses to enrich them, and (as has been said
of some) damn their souls to make their sons gen¬
tlemen. (3. ) The wealth they have heaped up by
fraud and violence, shall neither be enjoyed by
them, nor employed for them ; I will cut off thy prey
from the earth; not only thou shalt not be the bet¬
ter for it, but no one else shall. Some understand
it of the disabling of them for the future to prey
upon their neighbours. (4.) Their agents abroad
shall not have that respect from their neighbours,
and that influence upon them, which sometimes
they had had; The voice of thy messengers shall no
more be heard, no more be heeded. Which some
think refers to Rabshakeh, one of Nineveh’s mes¬
sengers, that had blasphemed the living God, an ini¬
quity which was remembered against Nineveh long
after. Those are not worthy to be heard again that
have once spoken reproachfully of God.
CHAP. III.
This chapter goes on with the burthen of Nineveh, and
concludes it. I. The sins of that great city are charged
upon it, murder, (v. 1.) whoredom and witchcraft, (v. 4.)
and a general extent of wickedness, v. 19. II. Judgments
are here threatened against it, blood for blood, (v. 2, 3.)
and shame for shameful sins, v. 5.. 7. III. Instances
are given of the like desolations brought upon other
places for the like sins, v. 8.. 11. IV. The overthrow
of all those things which they depended upon, and put
confidence in, is foretold, v. 12 . . 19.
l.”V^jTO to the bloody city! it is all full
V 1 of lies and robbery; the prey de-
parteth not; 2. The noise of a whip, and
the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and
of the prancing horses, and of the jumping
chariots. 3. The horseman lifteth up both
the bright sword and the glittering spear:
and there is a multitude of slain, and a great
number of carcases; and there is none end
of their corpses; they stumble upon their
corpses: 4. Because of the multitude of the
whoredoms of the well-favoured harlot, the
mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations
through her whoredoms, and families through
her witchcrafts. 5. Behold, I am against
thee, saith the Lord of hosts; and I will
discover thy skirts upon thy face, and 1 will
shew the nations thy nakedness, and the
1056
NAHUM, III.
kingdoms thy shame. 6. And I will cast
abominable filth upon thee, and make thee
vile, and will set thee as a gazing-stock. 7.
And it shall come to pass, that all they
that look upon thee shall flee from thee,
and say, Nineveh is laid waste: who will
bemoan her? whence shall I seek comfort¬
ers for thee ?
Here is,
I. Nineveh arraigned and indicted; it is a high
charge ‘.hat is here drawn up against that great
city, and neither her numbers nor her grandeur
shall secure her from prosecution. 1. It is a city
of blood, in which a great deal of innocent blood is
shed, either by unrighteous war, or under colour
and pretence of public justice, or by suffering bar¬
barous murders to go unpunished; for this the righ¬
teous God will make inquisition. 2. It is all full of
lies, truth is banished from among them, there is no
such thing as honesty, one knows not whom to be¬
lieve, nor whom to trust. 3. It is all full of rob¬
bery and rapine; no man cares what mischief he
does, nor to whom he does it; The prey departs not,
they never know when they have got enough by
spoil and oppression. They shed blood, and told
lies, in pursuit of the prey, that they might enrich
themselves. 4. There is a multitude of whoredoms
in it, that is, idolatries, spiritual whoredoms, by
which she defied herself, and to which she seduced
the neighbouring nations, as a well-favoured harlot,
and sold, and ruined nations through her whore¬
doms. 5. She is a mistress of witchcrafts, and by
them she sells families, v. 4. That which Nine¬
veh aimed at was, a universal monarchy, to be the
metropolis of the world, and to have all her neigh¬
bours under her feet; to compass this, she used not
only arms, but arts, compelling some, but deluding
others, into subjection to her, and wheedling them
as a harlot by her charms, to lay their necks under
her yoke, suggesting to them that it would be for
their advantage; she courted them to join with her
in her idolatrous rites, to tie them the faster to her
interests; and made use of her wealth, power, and
greatness, to draw people into alliances with her,
by which she gained advantages over them, and
made a hand of them. These were the whoredoms,
like those of Tyre, Isa. xxiii. 15, 17. These were
her witchcrafts, with which she unaccountably
gained dominion. And for this, it is that God has a
quarrel with her, who, having made of one blood all
nations of men, never designed one to be a nation
of tyrants, and another of slaves, and who claims
it as his prerogative to be universal Monarch.
II. Nineveh condemned to ruin, upon this indict¬
ment. Wo to this bloody city ! v. 1. See what this
wo is,
1. Nineveh had with her cruelties been a terror
and destruction to others, and therefore destruction
and terror shall be brought upon her. Those that
are for overthrowing all that come in their way,
will, sooner or later, meet with their match. (1.)
Hear the alarm with which Nineveh shall be ter¬
rified, v. 2. It is a formidable army that advances
against it, you may hear them at a distance, the
noise of the whip, driving the chariot-horses with
fury; you may hear the noise of the rattling of the
wheels, the prancing of the horses, and the jump¬
ing chariots; the very noise is frightful, but much
more so when they know that all this force is com¬
ing with all this speed against them, and they are
not able to make head against it. (2.) See the
slaughter with which Nineveh shall be laid waste,
(v, 3.) the sword drawn, with which execution
shall be done, the bright sword lifted up, and the
glittering spear, the dazzling brightness of which
is very terrible to those whom they are lifted up
against. See what havock these make, when they
are commissioned to slay; There is a great num¬
ber of carcases, for the slain of the land shall be
many, there is no end of their corpses, there is such
a multitude of slain, that it is vain to go about to
take the number of them, they lie so thick, that
passengers are ready to stumble upon their corpses
at every step. The destruction of Sennacherib’s
army, which, in the morning, wer call dead corpses,
is perhaps looked upon here as a figure of the like
destruction that should afterwards be in Nineveh;
for they that will not take warning by judgments at
a distance, shall have them come nearer.
2. Nineveh had with her whoredoms and witch¬
crafts drawn others to shameful wickedness, and
therefore God will load her with shame and con¬
tempt; ( v . 5. — 7.) The Lord of hosts is against her,
and then she shall be exposed to the highest degree
of disgrace and ignominy, shall not only lose all her
charms, but shall be made to appear very odious.
When it shall be seen that while she courted her
neighbours, it was with design to ruin their liberty
and property, when all her wicked artifices shail
be brought to light, then her shame is discovered to
the nations. When her proud pretensions are baf¬
fled, and her vain towering hopes of an absolute
and universal dominion brought to nought, and she
appears not to have been' so strong and considerable
as she would have been thought to be, then to see
the nakedness of thy land do they come, and it ap¬
pears ridiculous. Then do they cast abominable
filth upon her, as upon a carted strumpet, and
make her vile as the offscouring of all things; that
great city, which all the nations had made court to,
and coveted an alliance with, is become a gazing-
stock, a laughing-stock. They that formerly looked
upon her, and fled to her, in hopes of protection
from her, now look upon her, and flee from her,
for fear of being ruined by her. Note, Those that
abuse their honour and interest, will justly be dis¬
graced and abandoned, and, because miserable, will
be made contemptible, and thereby be made more
miserable. When Nineveh is laid waste, who will
bemoan her? Her trouble will be so great, and
her sense of it so deep, as not to admit of relief
from sympathy, or any comforting considerations;
or, if it would, none shall do any such good office;
licence shall I seek comforters for thee? Note,
Those that showed no pity in the day of their power,
can expect to find no pity in the day of their fall.
When those about Nineveh, that had been deceived
by her wiles, come to be undeceived in her ruin,
every one shall insult over her, and none bemoan
her. " This was Nineveh’s fate, when she was made
a spectacle or gazing-stock. Note, The greater
men’s show was in the day of their abused prosperi¬
ty, the greater will their shame be in the day
of their deserved destruction. J will make thee an
example; so Drusius reads it. Note, When proud
sinners are humbled and brought down, it is de¬
signed that ethers should take example by them
not to lift up themselves in security and insolence,
when they prosper in the world.
8. Art thou better than populous No, that
was situate among the rivers, that had the
waters round about it, whose rampart was
the sea, and her wall was from the sea? 9.
Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength, and
it teas infinite; Put and Lubim tvere thy
helpers. 1 0. Yet was she carried away, she
went into captivity: her young children also
were dashed in pieces at the top of all the
1057
NAHUM, III.
streets; and they cast lots for her honoura¬
ble men, and all her great men were bound
in chains. 1 1. Thou also shalt be drunken:
thou shalt be hid, thou also shalt seek
strength because of the enemy. 12. All
thy strong holds shall be like fig-trees with
the first-ripe figs: if they be shaken, they
shall even fall into the mouth of the eater.
13. Behold, thy people in the midst of thee
are women: the gates of thy land shall be
set wide open unto thine enemies: the fire
shall devour thy bars. 1 4. Draw thee wa¬
ters for the siege, fortify thy strong holds: go
into clay, and tread the mortar, make strong
the brick-kiln. 15. There shall the fire de¬
vour thee; the sword shall cut thee off; it
shall eat thee up like the canker-worm:
make thyself many as the canker-worm,
make thyself many as the locusts. 16.
Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above
the stars of heaven: the canker-worm spoil-
eth, and fleeth away. 17. Thy crowned
are as the locusts, and thy captains as the
great grasshoppers, which camp in the
hedges in the cold day; but when the sun
ariseth the) flee away, and their place is not
known where they are. 1 8. Thy shepherds
slumber, O king of Assyria; thy nobles shall
dwell in the dust: thy people is scattered
upon the mountains, and no man gathereth
them. 1 9. There is no healing of thy bruise ;
thy wound is grievous : all that hear the
bruit of thee shall clap the hands over thee:
for upon whom hath not thy wickedness
passed continually?
Nineveh has been told that God is against her, and
then none can be for her, to stand her in any stead;
yet she sets God himself at defiance, and his power
and justice, and says, I shall have peace. Threat¬
ened folks live long; therefore here the prophet
largely shows how vain her confidences would prove,
and insufficient to ward off the judgment of God.
To convince them of this,
1. He shows them that other places, which had
been as strong and as secure as they, could not keep
their ground against the judgments of God. Nine¬
veh shall fall unpitied and uncomforted, (for miser¬
able comforters will they prove, who speak peace to
those on whom God will fasten trouble,) and she
shall not be able to help herself; Art thou better
than populous No? v. 8. He takes them off from
their vain confidences by quoting precedents. The
city mentioned is No, a great city in the land of
Egypt; (Jer. xlvi. 25.) No-Ammon, so some read it,
both there and here. We read of it, Ezck. xxx.
14. — 16. Some think it was Diospo/is, others Alex¬
andria. As God said to Jerusalem, Go, see what
I did to Shiloh, (Jer. vii. 12.) so to Nineveh that
great city, Go, see what I did to populous No.
Note, It will help to keep us in a holy fear of the
judgments of God, to consider that we are not bet¬
ter than those that have fallen under those judg¬
ments before us. We deserve them as much, and are
as little able to grapple with them. This also should
help to reconcile us to afflictions. Are we better
than such and such, who were in like manner exer-
Vol. IV. — 6 S
cised? Nay, were not they better than we, and less
likely to be afflicted? Now concerning No, observe,
1. How firm her standing seemed to be, v. 8.
I She was fortified both by nature and art, was
situate among the rivers. Nile, in several branches,
not only watered her fields, but guarded her wall;
her rampart was the sea, the lake of Mureolis, an
Egyptian sea, like the sea of Tiberias; her wall was
from the sea, it was fenced with a wall which was
thought to make the place impregnable; it was
also supported by its interests and alliances abroad,
v. 9. Ethiopia, of Arabia, was her strength, cithei
by the wealth brought to her in a way of trade, or
by the auxiliary forces furnished for military
service; the whole country of Egypt also contri¬
buted to the strength of tins populous city; so that
it was infinite, and there was no end of it; (so it
might be rendered;) she set no bounds to her am¬
bition, and knew no end of her wealth and strength;
people flocked to her endlessly, arid she thought
there never would be any end of it; but it is God’s
prerogative to be infinite. Put and Lubim were
thy helpers, two neighbouring countries of Africa,
Mauritania, and Libya, this is, Libya Cyrenica, a
country that Egypt had much dependence upon.
No, thus helped, seemed to sit as a queen, and was
not likely to see any sorrow. But,
2. See how fatal her fall proved to be; (re 10.)
Yet, was she carried away, and her strength failed
her; even she that was so strong, so secure, yet went
into captivity. This refers to some destruction of
that city, which was then well known, and, proba¬
bly, fresh in memory, though not recorded in his¬
tory; for the destruction of it by Nebuchadnezzar,
(if we should understand this prophetically,) could
not be made an example to Nineveh; for the re¬
ducing of Nineveh was one cf the first of his vic¬
tories, and that of Egypt one of the last. The
strength and grandeur of that great city could not
be its protection from military execution; (1.) Not
from that which was most barbarous; for her young
children had no compassion showed them, but were
dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets by the
merciless conquerors. (2.) Not from that which
was most inglorious and disgraceful; they cast lots
for her honourable men that were made prisoners
of war, who should have them for their slaves. So
many had they of them, that they knew not what
to do with them, but they made sport with throw¬
ing dice for them; all her great men, that used to
be adorned on state-days with chains of gold, were
now bound in chains of iron; they were pinioned or
handcuffed, (so the word properly signifies,) not
only as slaves, but as condemned malefactors.
What a mortification was this to populous No, to
have her honourable men andgreal men, that were
her pride and confidence, thus abused! Now hence
he infers against Nineveh, (v. 11.) “Thou also
shalt be intoxicated, infatuated, thou also shalt red
and stagger; as drunk with the cup of the Lord’s
fury, that shall be put into thy hand; (See Jer. xxv.
1 ", 27.) “ Thou shalt fall and rise no more. The
cup shall go round, and come to thy turn, O Nine¬
veh, to drink of at last, and shall be to thee as the
waters of jealousy.”
II. He shows them that all those things which
they reposed a confidence in, should fail them.
1. Did the men of Nineveh trust to their own
magnanimity and bravery? Their hearts should
sink and fail them; They shall be hid, shall abscond
for shame, beingin disgrace; abscond for fear, being
in distress and danger, and not able to face the ene¬
mies; because of whose strength and terror, having
no strength of their own, they shall seek strength,
shall come sneaking to their neighbours, to beg their
assistance in a time of need. Thus God can cut off
! the spirit of princes, and take away their heart.
1053
NAHl
2. Did they depend upon their barrier, the gar¬
risons a.nd strong holds they had, which were regu¬
larly fortified, and bravely manned? Those shall
prove but paper walls, and like the frsl-ripe Jigs,
which, if you give the tree but a little shake, will
fallinto the mouth of the eater that gapes for them;
so easily will their strong holds be made to surren¬
der to the advancing enemy, upon the first sum¬
mons, v. 12. Note, Strong holds, even the strongest,
are no fence against the judgments of God, when
they come with commission. The rich man’s wealth
is his strong city, and a high wall, but only in his
own conceit, Prov. xviii. 10. They are supposed
to make their strong holds as strong as possible, and
are challenged to do their utmost to make them
tenable, and serviceable to them against the inva¬
der; (it. 14. ) Draw the water for the siege, lay in
great quantities of water, that that which is so ne¬
cessary to the support of human life, may not be
wanting; it is put here for all manner of provision,
with which Nineveh is ironically bid to furnish her¬
self, in expectation of a siege. “Take ever so
much care that thou mayest not be starved out, and
forced by famine to surrender, yet that shall not
avail; fortify the strong holds, by adding out- works
to them, or putting men and arms into them, as
with us by planting cannon upon them ; go into clay,
and tread the mortar, and make strong the brick¬
kiln, take all the pains thou canst in erecting new
fortifications, but it shall be all in vain, for (y. 15.)
there shall even the fire devour thee, if the strong
hold be burnt, or the sword cut thee off, if it be
taken by storm.” It is by fire and sword that in
time of war the great devastations are made.
3. Did they put confidence in the multitude of
their inhabitants? Were their number and valour
reckoned their strongest walls and fortifications?
Alas! these shall stand them in no stead, they shall
but sink the sooner under the weight of their own
numbers; (v. 13.) Thy fieofile in the midst of thee
are women; they have no conduct, no courage, they
shall be fickle, feeble, and faint-hearted, as women
commonly are in such times of danger and distress;
they shall be at their wits’ end, adding to their
griefs and fears by the power of their own imagina¬
tion, and utterly unable to do any thing for them¬
selves; the valiant men shall become cowards. O
vert Phrygia, neque enim Phryges — Phrygian
dames, not Phrygian men. Though they make
themselves many, (t>. 15.) as the canker-worm and
as the locust, that come in vast swarms, though
thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars
of heaven, though thy exchange be thronged with
wealthy traders, who having so much money to
stand up in defence of, and so much to lay out in the
means of their defence, should, one would think,
give the enemy a warm reception; yet their hearts
shall fail them too; though they be numerous as
caterpillars, yet the fire and sword shall eat them
up easily and irresistibly as the canker-worm, v.
15. They are as numerous as those wasting insects,
but their enemies shall be mischievous like them.
He adds, (v. 16. ) The canker-worm spoils, or
spreads herself, and flies away. Both the mer¬
chants and the enemies were compared to canker-
worms. The enemies shall spoil Nineveh, and
carry away the spoil, without opposition, or any
hope of recovering it. Or, The rich merchants
who have come from abroad to settle in Nineveh,
and have raised vast estates there, out of which it
was hoped they would contribute largely for the
defence of the city, when they see the country in¬
vaded, and the city likely to be besieged, will send
away their effects, and remove themselves to some
other place, will spread their wings, and fiy away
where they may be safe, and Nineveh shall be
never the better for them. Note, It is rare to find
JM, Ill.
even those that have shared with us in out joys,
willing to share with us in our griefs too. The
canker-worms will continue upon the field while
there is any thing to be had, but they are gone when
all is gone. Those that men have got by, they do
not care to lose by. Nineveh’s merchants bid her
farewell in her distress. Riches themselves are as
the canker-worms, which on a sudden fly away as
the eagle toward heaven, Prov. xxiii. 5.
4. Did they put a confidence in the strength of
their gates and bars? What fence will those be
against the force of the judgments of God? v. 13.
The gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto
thine enemies, the gates of thy rivers, ( ch . ii. 6.) the
flood-gates, or the passes and avenues, by which
the enemy would make his entrance into the coun
try; or the gates of the cities; these, though ever so
strong and well guarded, shall not answer their
end; the fire shall devour thy bars, the bars of thy
gates, and then they shall fly open.
5. Did they put a confidence in their king and
princes? They should do them no service; (i>. 17.)
Thy crowned are as the locusts; those that had pomp
and power, as crowned heads, were enfeebled, and
had no power to make resistance, when the enemy
came in like a flood. Thy captains, that should lead
thy forces into the field, are great indeed, and look
great, but they are as the great grasshoppers, the
maximum quod sic — the largest specimens of that
species; still they are but grasshoppers, worthless
things, that can do no service. They camp in the
hedges in the cold day, the cold weather; but when
the sun rises, they fee away, and are gone nobody
knows whither. So these mercenary soldiers that
lay slumbering about Nineveh, when trouble arises,
flee away, and shift for their own safety ; the hireling
fees, because he is a hireling. The king of As¬
syria is told, and it is a shame he needs to be told
it, (who might observe it himself,) that his shep¬
herds slumber; they have no life or spirit to appear
for the flock, and are very remiss in the discharge
of the duty of their place, and the tnist reposed in
them; Thy nobles shall dwell in the dust, and be
buried in silence.
6. Did they hope that they should yet recover
themselves, and rally again? In this also they should
be disappointed; for when the shepherds are smit¬
ten, the sheep are scattered, the people are dis¬
persed upon the mountains, and no man gathers
them, nor will they ever come together of them¬
selves, but will wander endlessly, as scattered sheep
do. The judgment they are under is as a wound,
and it is incurable; there is no relief for it, no heal¬
ing of thy bruise, no possibility that the wound,
which is so grievous and painful to thee, should be
so much as skinned over; thy case is desperate,
(v. 19.) and thy neighbours, instead of lending a
hand to help thee, shall clap their hands over thee,
and triumph in thy fall; and the reason is, because
thou hast been one way or other injurious to them
all; “ Upon whom has not thy wickedness passed
continually ? Thou hast been always doing mis¬
chief to those about thee, there is none of them but
what thou hast abused and insulted; and therefore
they shall be so far from pitying thee, that they
shall be glad to see thee reckoned with.” Note,
Those that have been abusive to their neighbours,
will, one time or another, find it come to them; they
are but preparing enemies to themselves against
their day comes to fall; and these that dare not lay-
hands on them themselves, will clap their hands
over them, and upbraid them with their former
wickedness, for which they are now well enough
served, and paid in their own coin. The troublers
shall be troubled, will be the burthen of many, as
here, the burthen of Nineveh.
AN
EXPOSITION,
WITH
PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS,
OF THE PROPHECY OF
HABAKKUK.
It is a very foolish fancy of some of the Jewish rabbins, that this prophet was the son of the Shunamite
woman, that was at first miraculously given, and afterward raised to life, by Elisha; (2 Kings 4.) as
they say also that the prophet Jonah was the son of the widow of Zarephath, which Elijah raised to
life. It is a more probable conjecture of their modem chronologers, that he lived and prophesied in
the reign of king Manasseh, when wickedness abounded, and destruction was hastening on; destmction
by the Chaldeans, whom this prophet mentions as the instruments of God’s judgments; and Manasseh
was himself carried to Babylon, as an earnest of what should come afterward. In the apocryphal story
of Bel and the Dragon, mention is made of Habakkuk the prophet in the land of Judah, who was carried
thence by an angel to Babylon, to feed Daniel in the den; those who give credit to that story, take
pains to reconcile our prophet’s living before the captivity, and foretelling it, with that. Huetius
thinks that that was another of the same name, a prophet, this is of the tribe of Simeon, that of Levi;
others, that he lived so long as to the end of the captivity, though he prophesied of it before it came.
And some have imagined that Habakkuk’s feeding Daniel in the den, is to be understood mystically,
that Daniel then lived by faith, as Habakkuk had said the just should do; He was fed by that word,
Hab. ii. 4. The prophecy of this book is a mixture of the prophet’s addresses to God in the people’s
name, and to the people in God’s name; for it is the office of the prophets to carry messages both ways.
We have in it a lively representation of the intercourse and communion between a gracious God anil a
gracious soul. The whole refers particularly to the invasion of the land of Judah by the Chaldeans,
which brought spoil upon the people of God, a just punishment of the spoil they had been guilty of
among themselves; but it is of general use, especially to help us through that great temptation with
which good men have in all ages been exercised, arising from the powerhnd prosperity of the wicked,
and the sufferings of the righteous by it.
HABAKKUK, I.
1. 7 1 ''HE burden which Habakkuk the
A prophet did see. 2. O Lord, how
long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear!
even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou
wilt not save! 3. Why dost thou shew me
iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance l
for spoiling and violence are before me: and
there are that raise up strife and contention.
4. Therefore the law is slacked, and judg¬
ment doth never go forth: for the wicked
doth compass about the righteous ; there¬
fore wrong judgment proceedeth.
We are told, in the title of this book, (which we
have, v. 3. V that the p nman was a firofihrt, a
CHAP. I.
(n this chapter, I. The prophet complains to God of the vio¬
lence done by the abuse of the sword of justice among
his own people, and the hardships thereby put upon
many good people, v. 1 . . 4. II. God bv him foretells
the punishment of that abuse of power by the sword of
t oar, and the desolations which I he army of the Chal¬
deans should make upon them, v 5.. 11. III. Then
the prophet complains of that loo, and is grieved that
the Chaldeans prevail so far; (v. 12. . 17.) so that he
scarcely knows which is more to be lamented, the sin,
or the punishment of it, for in both many harmless,
good people are very great sufl’erers. It is well that
there is a day of judgment, and a future stale, before us,
in which it shall be eternally well with all the righteous,
and with them only, and ill with all the wicked, and
them only; so the present seeming disorders of provi¬
dence shall be set to rights, and there will remain no
matter of complaint whatsoever.
IOGO
HABAKKUK, 1.
man divinely inspired and commissioned, which is
enough; if that be so, we need not ask concerning
his tribe or family, or the place of his birth: we are
also told that the book itself is the burthen which he
6 aw; he was as sure of the truth of it as if he had
seen it with his bodily eyes already accomplished.
Here, in these verses, the prophet sadly laments
the iniquity of the times, as one sensibly touched
with gi-ief for the lamentable decay of religion and
righteousness. It is a very melancholy complaint
which he here makes to God.
1. That no man could call what he had his own;
but, in defiance of the most sacred laws of property
and equity, he that had power on his side, had what
he had a mind to, though lie had no right on his
side: the land was full of violence, as the old world
was, Gen. vi. 11. The prophet cries out of vio¬
lence; ( v . 2.) iniquity and grievance, spoil and vio¬
lence. In families and among relations, in neigh¬
bourhoods and among friends, in commerce and in
courts of law, every thing was carried with a high
hand, and no man made any scruple of doing wrong
to liis neighbour, so that he could but make a good
hand of it for himself. It does not appear that the
prophet himself had any great wrong done him, (in
losing times it fared best with those that had nothing
to lose,) but it grieved him to see other people
wronged, and he could not but mingle his tears with
those of the oppressed. Note, Doing wrong to
harmless people, as it is an iniquity in itself, so it is
a great grievance to all that are concemed for God’s
Jerusalem, who sigh and cry for abominations of
this kind. He complains, {y. 4.) that the wicked
doth compass about the righteous. One honest man,
one honest cause, shall have enemies besetting them
on every side ; many wicked men, in confederacy
against it, run them down; nay, one wicked man
(tor it is singular) with so many various arts of mis¬
chief sets upon a righteous man, that he perfectly
besets him.
2. That the kingdom was broken into parties and
factions, that were continually biting and devouring
one another. This is a lamentation to all the sons
of peace; There are that raise up strife and conten¬
tion, (v. 3.) that foment divisions, widen breaches,
incense men against one another, and sow discord
among brethren, by doing the work of him that is
the accuser of the brethren. Strifes and conten¬
tions that have been laid asleep, and begun to be
forgotten, they awake, and industriously raise up
again, and blow up the sparks that were hid under
the embers. And if blessed are the peace-makers,
cursed are such peace-breakers, that make parties,
and so make mischief that spreads further, and lasts
longer, than they can imagine. It is sad to see bad
men warming their hands at those flames which are
devouring all that is good in a nation, and stirring
up the fire too.
3. That the torrent cf violence and strife ran so
strong as to bid defiance to the restraints and regu¬
lations of laws, and the administration of justice, v. 4.
Because God did not appear against them, nobody
else would, therefore the law is slacked, is silent, it
breathes not, its pulse beats not, (so, it is said, the
word signifies,) it intermits, and judgment does not
go forth as it should ; no cognizance is taken of
those crimes, no justice done upon the criminals;
nay, wrong judgment proceeds; if appeals be made
to the courts of equity, the righteous shall be con¬
demned, and the wicked justified, so that the
remedy proves the worst disease. The legislative
power takes no care to supply the deficiencies of
tlie law, for the obviating of those growing, threat¬
ening mischiefs; the executive power takes no care
to answer the good intentions of the laws that are
made; the stream of justice is dried up by violence,
and has r >• ts free course.
4. That all this was open and public, and impu¬
dently avowed ; it was barefaced. The prophet,
complains that this iniquity was showed him, he
beheld it which way soever he turned his eyes, not
could he look off it; spoiling and violence are before
me. Note, The abounding wickedness in a nation
is a very great eye-sore to good people, and if they
did not see it, they could not believe it to be so bad
as it is. Solomon often complains cf the vexation
of this kind, which he saw under the sun; and the
prophet would therefore gladly turn hermit, that he
might not see it, Jer. ix. 2. But then must we needs
go out of the world, which therefore we should long
to do, that we may remove to that world where ho¬
liness and love reign eternally, and no spoiling and
violence shall be before us.
5. That he complained < f this to God, but could
not obtain a redress of those grievances; “Lord,”
says he, “ why dost thou show me iniquity? Why
hast thou cast my lot in a time and place when and
where it is to be seen, and why do 1 continue to so¬
journ in Mesech and Kedar; I cry to thee of this
violence, I cry aloud, I have cried long; but thou
wilt not hear, thou wilt not save; thou dost not take
vengeance on the oppressors, nor do justice to the
oppressed, as if thine arm were shortened, or thine
ear heavy.” When God seems to connive at the
wickedness of the wicked, nay, and to countenance
it, by suffering them to prosper in their wickedness,
it shocks the faith of good men, and proves a sore
temptation to them to say, We have cleansed our
hearts in vain, (Ps. lxxiii. 13.) and hardens those
in impiety, who say,. God has forsaken the earth.
We must not think it strange, if wickedness be suf¬
fered to prevail far, and prosper long. Gcd has
reasons, and we are sure they are good reasons,
both for the reprieves of bad men, and the rebukes
of good men; and therefore, though we plead with
him, and humbly expostulate concerning his judg¬
ments, yet we must say, “ He is wise, and righteous,
and good, in all ; and must believe the day will
come, though it may be long deferred, when the cry
of sin will be heard against those tiiat do wrong,
and the cry of prayer fur those that suffer it.
5. Behold ye among the heathen, and re¬
gard, and wonder marvellously; for 1 will
work a work in your days, which ye will not
believe, though it be told you. 6. For, lo, I
raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and
hasty nation, which shall march through the
breadth of the land, to possess the dw filing-
places that are not theirs. 7. They are ter¬
rible and dreadful : their judgment and
their dignity shall proceed of themselves.
8. Their horses also are swifter than the
leopards, and are more fierce than the even¬
ing wolves : and their horsemen shall spread
themselves, and their horsemen shall come
from far; they shall fly as the eagle that
hasteth to eat. 9. They shall come all for
violence : their faces shall sup up as the east
wind, and they shall gather the captiv ity as
the sand. 10. And they shall scoff at the
kings, and the princes shall be a scorn unto
them : they shall deride every strong hold ;
for they shall heap dust, and take it. 11.
Then shall his mind change, and he shall
pass over, and offend, imputing this his
power unto his god.
1061
HABAKKUK, I.
We have here an answer to the prophet’s com¬
plaint, giving him assurance that, though God bore
long, he would not bear always, with this pro¬
voking people; for the day of vengeance was in his
heart, and lie must tell them so, th it they might by
repentance and reformation turn away the judgment
they were threatened with.
I. The preamble to the sentence is very awful;
(v. 5.) Behold, ye among the heathen, and regard.
Since they will nut be brought to repentance by the
long-suffering of God, he will take another course
with them. No resentments are so keen, so dee/i, as
those of abused patience. The Lord will inflict
upon them, 1. A public punishment, which shall be
beheld and regarded among the heathen, which the
neighbouring nations shall take notice of, and stand
amazed at, see Deut. xxix. 24, 25. This will ag¬
gravate the desolations of Israel, that they will
thereby be made a spectacle to the world. 2. An
amazing punishment, so strange and surprising, and
so much out of the common road of Providence,
that it shall not be paralleled among the heathen,
shall be sorer and heavier than what God has usually
inflicted upon the nations that know him not; nay,
it shall not be credited, even by those that had the
prediction of it from God, before it comes, or the
report of it from those that were eye-witnesses of it,
when it is come; you will not believe it, though it be
told you ; it will be thought incredible that so many
judgments should combine in one, and every cir¬
cumstance so strangely concur to enforce and aggra¬
vate it, that so great and potent a nation should be
so reduced and broken, that God should deal so se¬
verely with a people that had been taken into the
bond of the covenant, and that he had done so much
for. The punishment of God’s professing people
cannot but be the astonishment of all about them.
3. A speedy punishment; I will work a work in
your days, now quickly; this generation shall not
iss till the judgment threatened be accomplished.
he sins of former days shall be reckoned for in
your days; for now the measure of the iniquity is
full, Matth. xxiii. 36. 4. It shall be a punishment
in which much of the hand of God shall appear; it
shall be a work of his own working, so that all who
see it shall say, This is the Lord's doing; and it will
be found a fearful thing to fall into his hands; wo
to those whom he takes to task. 5. It shall be such
a punishment as will typify the destruction to be
brought upon the despisers of Christ and his gos¬
pel, for to that these words are applied, (Acts xiii.
41.) Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish.
The ruin of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans for their
idolatry, was a figure of their ruin by the Romans
for rejecting Christ and his gospel, and it is a
very marvellous thing, and almost incredible. Is
there not a strange punishment to the workers of
iniquity ?
II. 'fhe sentence itself is very dreadful and par¬
ticular; (v. 6.) Lo, I raise up the Chaldeans. There
were those that raised up a great deal of strife and
contention among them, which was their sin; and
now God will raise up the Chaldeans against them,
who shall strive and contend with them, which shall
be their punishment. Note, When God’s profess¬
ing people quarrel among themselves, snarl at and
devour one another, it is just with God to bring the
common enemy upon them, that shall make peace
by making an universal devastation. The contend¬
ing parties in Jerusalem were inveterate one against
another, when the Romans came, and took away
their place and nation. The Chaldeans shall be
the instruments of the destruction threatened, who,
though themselves acting unrighteously, shall exe¬
cute the righteousness of the Lord, and punish the
unrighteousness of Israel. Now here we have,
X. A description of the people that shall be raised
[up against Israel, to be a scourge to them. (1.)
1 hey are a bitter and hasty nation, cruel and fierce,
and what they do is done with violence and fury;
thev are precipitate in their counsels, vehement in
their passions, and push cn with resolution in their
enterprizes; they show no mercy, and they spare no
pains. Miserable is the case of those that are given
up into the hand of these cruel ones. (2.) They are
strong and therefore formidable, and such as there
is no standing before, and yet no fleeing from; ( v .
7. ) They are terrible and dreadful, famed for the
gallant troops they bring into the field; (y. 8.) Their
horses are swifter than leopards to charge and pur¬
sue, and more fierce than the evening-wolves; and
wolves are observed to be the most ravenous toward
the evening, after they have been kept hungry all
day, waiting for that darkness under the protection
of which all the beasts of the forest creep forth, Ps.
civ. 20. Their squadrons of horse shall he very nu¬
merous; Their horsemen shall spread themselves a
great way, for they shall come from far, from all
parts of their own country, and shall be dispersed
into all parts of the country they invade, to plunder
it, and enrich themselves with the spoil of it. And
in making speed to spoil, they shall hasten to the
prey, (as those, Isa. viii. 1. margin,') for they shall
fly as the eagle toward the earth when she hastens
to eat, and strikes at the prey she has an eye upon.
(3.) Their own will is a law to them, and, in the
fierceness of their pursuits, they will not be governed
by any laws of humanity, equity, or honour; Their
judgment and their dignity shall proceed of them¬
selves, v. 7. Appetite and passion rule them, and
not reason or conscience ; their principle is, Quicquid
libet licet — My will is my law. And Sic volo, sic
jubeo, s tat pro ratione voluntas — This is my wish,
this is my command, it shall be done because I choose
it. What favour can be hoped for from such an
enemy ? Note, Those who have been unjust and
unmerciful, among whom the law is slacked, and
judgment doth not go forth, will justly be paid in
their own coin, and fall into the hands of those who
will deal unjustly and unmercifully with them.
2. A prophecy of the terrible execution that
should be made by this terrible nation; They shall
march through the breadth of the earth; (so it may
be read;) for in a little time the Chaldean forces
subdued all the nations in those parts, so that they
seemed to have conquered the world; they overran
Asia and part of Africa. Or, through the breadth
of the land of Israel, which was wholly laid waste
by them. It is here foretold, (1.) That they shall
seize all as their own that they can lay their hands
on. They shall come to possess the dwelling-places
that are not theirs, which they have no right to, but
that which their sword gives them. (2.) That they
shall push on the war with all possible vigour; They
shall all come for violence, (v. 9.) not to determine
any disputed right by the sword, but right or wrong,
to enrich themselves with the spoil; Their faces shall
sup up as the east wind; their very countenances
shall be so fierce and frightful, that a look will serve
to make them masters of all they have a mind to; so
that they shall swallow up all, as the east wind nips
and blasts the buds and flowers. Their faces shall
look toward the east; (so some read it;) thev shall
still have an eye to their own country, which lay
eastward from Judea, and all the spoil they seize
they shall remit thither. (3.) That they shall take
a vast number of prisoners, and send them into
Babylon; They shall gather the captivity as the sand
for multitude, and shall never know when they have
enough, as long as there are any more to be had.
(4.) That they shall make nothing of the opposition
that is given to them, v. 10. Do the distressed
Jews depend upon their great men to make a stand,
and with their conduct and courage to give check to
1062
HABAKKUK, I.
the victorious arms of the Chaldeans? Alas, they
will make nothing of them. They shall scoff ( he
shall, so it is in the original, meaning Nebuchadnez¬
zar, who, being puffed up with his successes, shall
scoff) at the kings and commanders of the forces
that think to make head against him; and the prin¬
ces shall be a scorn to them, so unequal a match shall
they appear to be. Do they depend upon their gar¬
risons and fortified towns ? He shall deride every
strong hold, for to him it shall be weak, and he shall
heap dust, and take it; a little soil, thrown up for
ramparts, shall serve to give him all the advantage
against them that he can desire; he shall make but
a jest of them, and a sport of taking them. (5.) By
all this he shall be puffed up with an intolerable
pride, which shall be his destruction; (u. 11.) Then
shall his mind change for the worse. The Spirit
both of the people and of the king shall grow more
haughty and insolent. Those that will not be con¬
tent with their own rights, will not be content when
they have made themselves masters of other peo¬
ple’s rights too; but as the condition rises, the mind
rises too; this victorious king shall pass over all the
bounds of reason, equity, and modesty; and break
through all their bonds, and thereby he shall offend,
shall make God his Enemy, and so prepare ruin for
himself by imputing this his power to his god,
whereas he had it from the God of Israel. Bel and
JVebo were the gods of the Chaldeans, and to them
they gave the glory of their successes; they were
hardened in their idolatry, and blasphemously
argued, that because they had conquered Israel,
their gods were too strong for the God of Israel.
Note, It is a great offence (and the common offence
of proud people) to take that gloiy to ourselves, or
give it to gods of our own making, which is due to
the living and true God only. These closing words
of the sentence give a glimpse of comfort to the af¬
flicted people of God; it is to be hoped that they
will change their minds, and grow better, and ripen
for deliverance; and they did so. However their
enemies will change their minds, and grow worse,
and ripen for destruction, which will inevitably
come in God’s due time; for a haughty spirit, lifted
up against God, goes before a fall.
12. Art thou not from everlasting, O
Lord my God, my Holy One? we shall
not die. O Lord, thou hast ordained them
for judgment ; and, O mighty God, thou hast
established them for correction. 13. Thou
art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and
canst not look on iniquity : wherefore look-
est thou upon them that deal treacherously,
and boldest thy tongue when the wicked
devoureth the man that is more righteous
than he? 14. And makest men as the
fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that
have no ruler over them? 15. They take
up all of them with the angle, they catch
them in their net, and gather*them in then-
drag; therefore they rejoice and are glad.
1G. Therefore they sacrifice unto their net,
and burn incense unto their drag; because
by them their portion is fat, and their meat
plenteous. 17. Shall they therefore empty
1 heir net, and not spare continually to slay
the nations?
The prophet, having received of the Lord that
which he was to deliver to the people, now turns to
God, and again addresses himself to him for the ease
of his own mind under the burthen which he saw
And still he is full of complaints. If he look about
him, he sees nothing but violence done by Israel; if
he look before him, he sees nothing but violence done
against Israel, and it is hard to say which is the
more melancholy sight; his thoughts of both he pours
out before the Lord. It is our duty to be affected
both with the iniquities and with the calamities of
the church of God, and of the times and places
wherein we live; but we must take heed lest we
grow peevish in our resentments, and carry them
too far, so as to entertain any hard thoughts of God,
or lose the comfort of our communion with him.
The world is bad, and always was so, and will be
so; it is out of our power to mend it; but we are sure
that God governs the world, and will bring glory to
himself out of all, and therefore we must resolve to
make the best of it, must be ourselves better, and
long for the better world. The prospect of the pre¬
valence of the Chaldeans drives the prophet to his
knees, and he takes the liberty to plead with God
concerning it. In his plea we may observe,
I. The truths which he lays down, which he re¬
solves to abide by, and with which he endeavours to
comfort himself and his friends, under the growing,
threatening power of the Chaldeans; and tney will
furnish us with pleasing considerations for our sup¬
port in the like case.
1. However it be, yet God is the Lord our God,
and our Holy One. The victorious Chaldeans im¬
pute their power to their idols, but we are taught to
tell them that the God of Israel is the true God, the
living God, Jer. x. 10, 11. (1.) He is Jehovah,
the Fountain of all being, power, and perfection;
our Rock is not as theirs. (2.) He is my God. He
speaks in the people’s name; every Israelite may
say, “ He is mine; though we are thus sore broken,
and all this is come upon us, yet have we not for¬
gotten the name of our God, nor quitted our relation
to him, yet have we not disowned him, nor hath he
disowned us, Ps. xliv. 17. We are an offending
people, he is an offended God, yet he is ours and we
will not entertain any hard thoughts of him or of his
service, for all this.” (3.) He is my Holy One; this
intimates that the prophet loved God as a holy God,
loved him for the sake of his holiness; “ He is mine,
because he is a Holy One; and therefore he will be
mv Sanctifier and my Saviour, because he is my
Hloly One. Men are unholy, but my God is holy.'”
2. Our God is from everlasting. This he pleads
with him; Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord
my God ? It is matter of great and continual com¬
fort to God’s people, under the troubles of this pre¬
sent life, that their God is from everlasting. This
speaks, (1. ) The eternity of his nature; if he is from
everlasting, he will be to everlasting, and we must
have recourse to this first principle, when things
seen, which are temporal, are discouraging, that we
have hope and help sufficient in a God that is not
seen, thatis eternal; “ Art thou not from everlasting,
and then wilt thou not make bare thine everlasting
arm, in pursuance of thine everlasting counsels, to
make unto thyself an everlasting name ?” (2.) The
antiquity of his covenant; “ Art thou not from of
old, a God in covenant with thy people;” (so some
understand it;) “ and hast thou not done great things
for them in the days of old, which we have heard
with our ears, and wliich our fathers have told us
of; and art thou not the same God still, that thou
ever wast ? Thou art God, and changest not.”
3. While the world stands, God will have a
church in it. Thou art from everlasting, and then
we shall not die. The Israel of God shall not be
extirpated, nor the name of Israel blotted cut,
though it may sometimes seem to be very near it;
like the apostle’s, (2 Cor. vi. 9.) chastened, and not
killed; chastened sore, but not delivered over to
HABAKKUK, I.
1063
death, Ps. cxviii. 18. See how the prophet infers
the perpetuity of the church from the eternity of
God; for Christ lias said, Because I live, and there¬
fore, as long as I live, ye shall live also, John xiv. 19.
He is the Rock on which the church is so firmly
built, that the gates of hell shall not, cannot, prevail
against it. Ire shall not die.
4. Whatever the enemies of the church may do
against her, it is according to the counsel of God,
and is designed and directed for wise and holy ends;
Thou hast ordained them, thou hast established them.
It was God that gave the Chaldeans their power,
made them a formidable people, and in his counsel
determined what they should do, nor had they any
power against his Israel, but what was given them
front above. He gave them their commission to
take the spoil, and to take the prey, Isa. x. 6. Here¬
in God appears a mighty God, that the power of
mighty men is derived from him, depends upon
him, and is under his check; he says concerning it,
Hitherto shall it come and no further. They whom
God ordains, shall do no more than what God has
ordained, which is a great comfort to God’s suffer¬
ing people. Men are God’s hand, the rod in his
hands, rs. xvii. 14. And he has ordained them for
judgment, and for correction. God’s people need
correction, and deserve it, they must expect it, they
shall have it; when wicked men are let loose against
them, it is not for their destruction, that they may
be ruined, but for their correction, that they may
be reformed: they are not intended for a sword, to
cut them off, but for a rod, to drive out the foolish¬
ness that is found in their hearts, though they mean
not so, neither doth their heart think so, Isa. x. 7.
Note, It is matter of great comfort to us, in refer¬
ence to the troubles and afflictions of the church,
that whatever mischief men design to them, God
designs to bring good out of them, and we are sure
that his counsel shall stand.
5. Though the wickedness of the wicked may
prosper for awhile, yet God is a holy God, and does
not approve of that wickedness; (re 13.) Thou art
of purer eyes than to behold evil. The prophet,
observing how very vicious and impious the Chal¬
deans were, and yet what great success they had
against God’s Israel, found a temptation arising from
it to say, “ It is vain to serve God, and it is indiffer¬
ent to him what men are.” But he soon suppresses
the thought, by having recourse to his first princi¬
ple, That God is not, that he cannot be, the Author
or Patron of sin; as he cannot do iniquity himself, so
he is of purer eyes than to behold it with any allow¬
ance or approbation: no, it is that abominable thing
which the Lord hates. He sees all the sin that is
committed in the world, and it is an offence to him,
it is odious in his eyes, and those that commit it are
thereby made obnoxious to his justice. There is in
the nature of God an antipathy to those dispositions
and practices that are contrary to his holy law; and
though an expedient is happily found out for his
being reconciled to sinners, yet he never will or can
be reconciled to sin. And this principle we must
resolve to abide by, though the dispensations of his
providence may for a time, and in some instances,
seem to be inconsistent with it. Note, God’s conni¬
vance at sin must never be interpreted into a giving
countenance to it; for he is not a God that has plea¬
sure in wickedness, Ps. v. 4, 5. The iniquity which,
it is here said, God does not look upon, may be
meant especially of the mischief done to God’s peo¬
ple by their persecutors; though God sees cause to
permit it, yet he does not approve of it; so it agrees
with that of Balaam, (Numb, xxiii. 21.) He has not
beheld iniquity against Jacob, nor seen, with allow¬
ance, perverseness against Israel; which is very
comfortable to the people of God, in their afflictions
Dy the rage of men, that they cannot infer God’s
anger from it; though the instruments of their
trouble hate them, it does not therefore follow that
God does; nay, he loves them, and it is in love that
he corrects tliem.
II. The grievances he complains of, and finds
hard to reconcile with these truths; “Since we are
sure that thou art a holy God, why have atheists
temptation given them to question whether thr.u art
so or no ? Wherefore lookest thou upon the Chal¬
deans that deal treacherously with thy people, and
givest them success in their attempts upon us?
Why dost thou suffer thy sworn enemies, who blas¬
pheme thy name, to deal thus cruelly, thus perfidi¬
ously, with thy sworn subjects, who' desire to fear
thy name? What shall we say to this?” This
was a temptation to Job; ( ch . xxi. 7. — xxiv. 1.) to
David; (Ps. lxxiii. 2, 8.) to Jeremiah, ch. xii. 1, 2.
1. That God permitted sin, and was patient with
the sinners. He looked upon them, he saw all their
wicked doings and designs, and did not restrain or
punish them, but suffered them to speed in their
purposes, to go on and prosper, and to carry all be¬
fore them. Nay, his looking upon them intimates
that he not only gave them no check or rebuke, but
that he gave them encouragement and assistance, as
if he smiled upon them, and favoured them. He
held his tongue when they went on in their wicked
courses, said nothing against them, gave no orders
to stop them. These things thou hast done, and I
kept silence.
2. That his patience was abused, and, because
sentence against these evil works and workers was
not executed speedily, therefore their hearts were
the more fully set in them to do evil.
(1.) They were false and deceitful, that there
was no credit to be given them, nor any confidence
to be put in them. They deal treacherously ; un¬
der colour of peace and friendship, they prosecute
and execute the most mischievous designs, and
make no conscience of their word in any thing.
(2.) They hated and persecuted men because
they were better than themselves, as Cain hated
Abel because his own works were evil, and his bro¬
ther’s righteous. The wicked devours the mat i that
is more righteous than he, for that very reason, be¬
cause he shames him; they have an ill will to the
image of God, and therefore devour good men, be¬
cause they bear that image. Though many of the
Jews were as bad as the Chaldeans themselves, and
worse, yet there were those among them that were
much more righteous, and yet were devoured by
them.
(3.) They make no more of killing men than of
catching fish. The prophet complains that Provi¬
dence having delivered up the weaker to be a prey
to the stronger, they were, in effect, made as the
Jishes of the sea, v. 14. So they had been among
themselves, preying upon one another as the greater
fishes do upon the lesser; (r. 3.) and they were
made so to the common enemy. They were as the
creeping things, or swimming things, (for the word
is used for fish, Gen. i. 20.) that have no ruler over
them, either to restrain them from devouring one
another, or to protect them from being devoured by
their enemies. They are given up to the Chaldeans
as fish to the fishermen. Those proud oppressoi s
make no conscience of killing them, any more than
men do of pulling fish out of the water, so small ac
count do they make of human lives. They mak"
no difficulty of killing them, but do it with as much
ease as men catch fish, that make no resistance, but
are unguarded and unarmed, and it is rather a pas¬
time, than any pains, to take them. They make
no distinction among them, but all is fish that conies
to their net; and they reckon every thing their own
that they can lay their hands on. They have va¬
rious ways of spoiling and destroying, as men have
10G4
HABAKKUK, II.
of t iking fish. Some they take up with the angle,
r-y. 15.) one by one; others they catch in shoals, and
by wholesale, in their net, and gather them in their
drag, their enclosing net. Such variety of methods
have they to destroy those by whom they hope to
enrich themselves.
(4.) They gloried in what they got, and pleased
themselves with it, though it was got dishonestly;
Their / lortion is fat, and their meat plenteous, they
prosper in their oppression and fraud, they have a
great deal, and it is of the best; their land is good,
and they have abundance of it. And therefore, [1.]
They have great complacency in themselves, and
are very pleasant, they live merrily; (r. 15.) There¬
fore they rejoice and are glad, because their wealth
is great, and their projects succeed, for the increase
of it, Job xxxi. 25. Soul, take thine ease, Luke xii.
19. [2.] They have a great conceit of themselves,
are very much in love with themselves, and are
great admirers of their own ingenuity and conduct;
They sacrifice to their own net and burn incense to
their own drag; they applaud themselves for hav¬
ing got so mucli money, though ever so dishonestly.
Note, There is a proneness in us to take the glory
of our outward prosperity to ourselves, and to say,
My might, and the power of my hands, have gotten
me this wealth, Deut. viii. 17. 1 his is idolizing
ourselves, sacrificing to the drag-net, because it is
our own, which is as absurd a piece of idolatry as
sacrificing to Neptune or Dagon. That which
makes them ad re their net thus, is, because by it
their portion is fat. They that make a god of their
money, will make a god of their drag-net, if they
can but get money by it.
Lastly, The prophet, in the close, humbly ex¬
presses his hope that God will not suffer these des¬
troyers of mankind always to go on and prosper
thus, and expostulates with God concerning it; (t>.
If.) “ Shall they therefore empty their net? Shall
thev enrich themselves, and fill their own vessels,
with that which they have by violence and oppres¬
sion taken away from their neighbours? Shall they
empty their net of what they have caught, that they
may cast it into the sea again, to catch more? And
wilt thou suffer them to pioceed in this wicked
course? Shall they not spare continually to slay the j
nations? Must the numbers and wealth of nations l
be sacrificed to their net? As if it were a small
th'ng to rob men of their estates, shall they rob God
of his glory? Is not God the King of nations, and
will he not assert their injured rights? Is he not
jealous for his own honour, and will he not main¬
tain that?” The prophet lodges the matter in God’s
hand, and leaves it with him, as the Psalmist does,
(Ps. lxxiv. 22.) Arise, 0 God, plead thine own
cause.
CHAP. II.
In this chapter we have an answer expected by the pro¬
phet, (v. 1.) and returned by the Spirit of God, to the
complaints which the prophet made of the violences and
victories of the Chaldeans, in the close of the foregoing
chapter. The answer is, I. That after God has served
his own purposes by the prevailing power of the Chal¬
deans, has tried the faith and patience of his people, and
distinguished between the hypocrites and the sincere
among them, he will reckon with the Chaldeans, will
humble and bring down, not only that proud monarch
Nebuchadnezzar, but that proud monarchy, for their
boundless and insatiable thirst after dominion and
wealth, for which they themselves should at length be
made a prey, v. 2 . . 8. 11. That not they only, but all
other sinners like them, should perish under a divine
wo. 1. Those that are covetous, are greedy of wealth
and honours, v. 9, 11. 2. Those that are injurious and
oppressive, and raise estates by wrong and rapine, v.
12 . . 14. 3. Those that promote drunkenness, that they
may expose their neighbours to shame, v. 15. . 17. 4.
Those that worship idols, v. 18. . 20.
1. WILL stand upon my watch, and
1 set me upon the tower, and will
watch to see what he will say unto me, and
what I shall answer when 1 am reproved.
2. And the Lord answered me, and said,
Write the vision, and make it plain upon
tables, that he may run that readeth it. 3,
For the vision is yet for an appointed time,
but at the end it shall speak, and not lie:
though it tarry, wait for it ; because it will
surely come, it will not tarry. 4. Behold,
his soul which is lifted up is not upright in
him: but the just shall live by his faith.
Here,
1. The prophet humbly gives his attendance upon
God; (y. 1.) “I will stand upon my watch, as a
sentinel on the walls of a besieged city, or in the
borders of an invaded country, that is very solicitous
to gain intelligence. I will look up, will lock round,
will look within, and watch to see what he will say
unto me, will listen attentively to the words of his
mouth, and carefully observe the steps oi his provi¬
dence, that I may not lose the least hint of instruc¬
tion or direction. I will watch to see what he will
say in me,” (so it may be read,) “ what the Spirit
of prophecy in me will dictate to me, by way of an¬
swer to my complaints. Even in an ordinary way,
God not only speaks to i(s by his word, but speaks
in us by our own consciences, whispering to us,
This is the way, walk in. it cand we must attend to
the voice of God in both. The prophet’s standing
upon his tower, or high pi a Gy, sp. aks his prudence,
in making use of the helps anu means lie had within
his reach, to know the mind of God, and to be in¬
structed concerning it. Those that expect to hear
from God, must withdraw from tlye world, and get
above it, must raise their attention, fix their thought,
study the scriptures, consult experiences and the
experienced, continue instant in prayer, and thus
set themselves upon the tower. His standing upon his
watch, speaks his patience, his constancy and reso¬
lution; he will wait the time, and weather the point,
as a watchman does, but he will have an answer;
he will know what God will say to him, not only for
his own satisfaction, but to enable him as a prophet
to give satisfaction to others, and answer their ex¬
pectations, when he is reproved, or argued with.
Herein the prophet is an example to us. 1. When
we are tossed and perplexed with doubts concern
ing the methods of Providence, are tempted to think
that it is fate, or fortune, and not a wise God, that
governs the world, or that the church is abandoned,
and God’s covenant with his people cancelled and
laid aside, then we must take pains to furnish our¬
selves with considerations proper to clear this mat¬
ter, we must stand upon our watch against the
temptation, that it may not get ground upon us, must
set ourselves upon the tower, to see if we can disco¬
ver that which will silence the temptation, and
solve the objected difficulties, must do as the Psalm¬
ist, consider the days of old, and make a diligent
search, (Ps. Ixxvii. 6.) must go into the sanctuary
oj God, and there labour to understand the end of
these things; (Ps. lxxiii. 17.) we must not give
way to our doubts, but struggle to make the best of
our way out of them. 2. When we have been at
prayer, pouring out our complaints and requests be¬
fore God, we must carefully observe what answers
God gives by his word, liis Spirit, and his provi¬
dences, to our humble representations; (when David
says, I will direct my prayer unto thee, as an ar¬
row to the mark, he adds, I will look up, will look
after my prayer, as a man does after the arrow he
1063
HABAKKUK, II
tas shot, Ps. v. 5.) we must hear what God the I
l.nrd will s/ieak, Ps. lxxxv. 8. 3. When wc go to !
read and hear the word of God, and so to consult j
the lively oracles, we must set ourselves to observe
what God will thereby say unto us, to suit cur case;
what word of conviction, caution, counsel, and com-*
fort, he will bring to our soulSj%hat we may receive
it, and submit to the power of it, and may consider |
what we shall answer, what returns we shall make
to the word of God, when we are re/iroved by it.
4. When we are attacked by such as quarrel with
God and his providence, as the prophet here seems
to have been beset by, besieged as in a tower by
hosts of objectors, we should consider how to an¬
swer them, fetch our instructions from God, hear
what he says to us for our satisfaction, and have
that ready to say to others, when we are reproved,
to satisfy them, as a reason of the hope that is in us,
(1 Pet. iii. 15. ) and beg of God a mouth and wisdom,
and that it may be given us in that same hour what
we shall sfieak.
II. God graciously gives him the meeting; for he
will not disappoint the believing expectations of his
people that wait to hear what he will say unto them,
but will speak peace, will answer them with good
words and comfortable words, Zech. i. 13. The
prophet had complained of the prevalence of the
Chaldeans, which God had given him a prospect of;
now, to pacify him concerning it, he here gives him
a further prospect of their fall and ruin, as Isaiah,
before this, when he had foretold the captivity in
Babylon, foretold also the destruction of Babylon.
Now this great and important event being made
known to him by a vision, care is taken to publish
the vision, and transmit it to the generations to
come, who should see the accomplishment of it.
1. The prophet must write the vision, v. 2.
Thus when St. John had a vision of the New Jeru¬
salem, he was ordered to write. Rev. xxi. 5. He
must write it, that he might imprint it on his own
mind, and make it more clear to himself; but espe¬
cially that it might be notified to those in distant
places, and transmitted to those in future ages.
What is handed by tradition, is easily mistaken,
and liable to corruption; but what is written, is re¬
duced to a certainty, and preserved safe and pure.
We have reason to bless God for written visions,
that God has written to us the great things of his
prophets as well as of his law. He must write the
vision, and make it plain upon tables, must write
it legibly, in large characters, so that he who runs
may read it, that those who will not allow them¬
selves leisure to read it deliberately, may not avoid
a cursory view of it. Probably, the prophets were
wont to write some of the most remarkable of their
predictions in tables, and to hang them up in the
temple, Isa. viii. 1. Now the prophet is bid to
write this very plain. Note, Those who are em¬
ployed in preaching the word of God, should study
plainness as much as may be, so as to make them
intelligible to the meanest capacities. The things
of our everlasting peace, which God has written to
us, are made plain, they are all plain to him that
understands, (Frov. viii. 9.) and they are published
with authority; God himself has prefixed his im¬
primatur to them; he has said, Make them plain.
2. The people must wait for the accomplish¬
ment of the vision; (v. 3.) “ The vision is yet for
an appointed time to come. You shall now be told
of your deliverance by the breaking of the Chal¬
deans’ power, and that the time of it is fixed in the
counsel and decree of God; there is an appointed
time, but it is not near, it is yet to be deferred a
great while;” and that comes in here as a reason
why it must be written; that it may be reviewed
afterwards, and the event compared with it. Note,
God has an appointed time for his appointed work,
Vol. iv. — 6 T
and will be sure to do the work when the lime
comes; it is not for us to anticipate his appointments,
but to wait his time. And it is a great encourage¬
ment to wait with patience, that, though the pro¬
mised favour be deterred long, it will come at last,
and be an ahuml mt recompense to us for our waiting;
.it the end it shall speak, and not lie; we shall not
be disappointed of it, for it will c me at the time
appointed, nor shall we be disappi inted in it, for it
will fully answer our believing expectations. The
promise may seem silent a great while, but at the
end it shall speak; and therefore though it tarry
longer than we expected, yet we must continue
waiting for it; being assured it will come, and wil¬
ling to tarry until it does come. The day that God
has set for the deliverance of his people, and the
destruction of his and their enemies, is a day, (1.)
That will surely come at last; it is never adjourned
sine die — without fixing another day, but it will
without fail come at the fixed time, and the fittest
time. (2.) It will not tarry, for God is not slack,
as some count slackness: (2 Pet.1 iii. 9.) though it
tarry past our time, yet it does not tarry past God’s
time, which is always the best time.
3. This vision, the accomplishment of which is
so long waited for, will be such an exercise of faith
and patience, as will try and discover men what
they are, v. 4. (1.) There are some who will
proudly disdain this vision, whose hearts are so lift¬
ed up, that they scorn to take notice of it; if God
will work for them immediately, they will thank
him, but they will not give him credit; their hearts
are lifted up toward vanity, and since God puts
them off, they will shift for themselves, and not be
beholden to him; they think their own hands suf
ficient for them, and God’s promise is to them an
insignificant thing. That man’s soul that is thus
lifted up, is not upright in him; it is not right with
God, is not as it should be. Those that either dis¬
trust or despise God’s all-sufficienby, will not walk
uprightly with him, Gen. xvii. 1. But, (2.) Those
who are truly good, and whose hearts are upright
with God, will value the promise, and venture their
all upon it; and, in confidence of the truth of it, will
keep close to God and duty in the most difficult,
trying times, and will then live comfortably in com¬
munion with God, dependence on him, and expec¬
tation of him. The just shall live by faith; during
the captivity good people shall support themselves,
and live comfortably, by faith in these precious pro¬
mises, while the performance of them is deferred.
The just shall live by his faith, by that faith which
he acts upon the word of God. This is quoted in
the New Testament, (Rom. i. 17. Gal. iii. 11.
Heb. x. 38. ) for the proof of the great doctrine of
justification by faith only, and of the influence
which the grace of faith lias upon the Christian life.
Those that are made just by faith, shall live, shall
be happy here and for ever; while they are here,
they live by it, when they come to heaven, faith
shall be swallowed up in vision.
3. Yea also, because he transgresseth by
wine, he is a proud man, neilhei keepeth at
home, who enlargeth his desire as hell, and
is as death, and cannot he satisfied, but ga-
thereth unto him all nations, and heapeth
unto him all people: 6. Shall not all these
take up a parable against him, and a taunt¬
ing proverb against him, and say, Wo to him
that increaseth that which is not his! how
long? and to him that ladeth himself with
thick clay! 7. Shall they not rise up sud¬
denly that shall bite thee, and awake that
10Gb
HABAKKUK, II.
shall vex thee, and thou slialt he for booties
unto them? 8. Because thou hast spoiled
many nations, all the remnant of the people
shall spoil thee; because of men’s blood,
and for the violence of the land, of the city,
and of all that dwell therein. 9. Wo to
him that coveteth an evil covetousness to
his house, that he may set his nest on high,
that he may be delivered from the power
of evil! 10. Thou hast consulted shame to
thy house by cutting off many people, and
hast sinned against thy soul. 11. For the
stone shall cry out of the wall, and the
beam out of the timber shall answer it. 12.
Wo to him thatbuildeth a town with blood,
and established! a city by iniquity! 13. Be¬
hold, is it not of the Lord of hosts that the
people shall labour in the very fire, and the
people shall weary themselves for very
vanity? 14. For the earth shall be filled
with the knowledge of the glory of the
Lord, as the waters cover the sea.
The prophet having had orders to write the vi¬
sion, and the people to wait for the accomplishment
of it, the vision itself follows; and it is, as divers
other prophecies we have met with, the burthen of
Babylon, and Babylon’s king; the same that was
said to pass over and offend, ch. i. 11. It reads the
doom, some think, of Nebuchadnezzar, who was
principally active in the destruction of Jerusalem;
or of that monarchy, or of the whole kingdom of the
Ch ddeans, or of all such proud and oppressive pow¬
ers as bear hard upon any people, especially upon j
God’s people. Observe,
I. The charge laid down against this enemy, upon
which the sentence is grounded; (y. 5.) The lusts
of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and the firide of life, '
are the entangling snares of men, and great men
especially; and we find him that led Israel captive,
himself led captive by each of these. For, 1. He
is sensual and voluptuous, and given to his plea¬
sures; he transgresses by wine; drunkenness is it¬
self a transgression, and is the cause of abundance
of transgression. We read of those that err through
wine, Isa. xxviii. 7. Belshazzar (in whom particu¬
larly this prophecy had its accomplishment) was in
the height of his transgression by wine, when the
hand-writing upon the wall signed the warrant for
his immediate execution, pursuant to this sentence,
Dan. v. 1. 2. He is haughty and imperious, he is
a fraud man, and his pride is a certain presage of
his fall coming on. If great men be proud men, the
great God wiil make them know he is above them.
His transgressing by wine is made the cause of his
arrogance and insolence, therefore he is a proud
man. When a man is drunk, though he makes
himself as mean as a beast, yet lie thinks himself as
great as a king, and prides himself in that by which
lie shames himself. We find the crown of pride
upon the head of the drunkards of Ephraim, and a
wo to both, Isa. xxviii. 1. 3. He is covetous and
greedy of wealth, and this is the effect of his pride;
he thinks himself worthy to enjoy all, and therefore
makes it his business to engross all. The Chaldean
monarchy aimed to be a universal one. He keeps
not at home, is not content with his own, which he
has an incontestable title to, but thinks it too little,
and so enjoys it not, nor takes the comfort he might
in his own palace, in his own dominion; his sin is his
punishment, and his ambition his perpetual uneasi¬
ness. Though the home be a palace, yet to a dis
contented mind it is a prison. He enlarges his de¬
sires as hell, or the gro-^e, which daily receives *he
body of the dead, and yet still cries, Owe, give; he
is as death, which continues to devour, and cannot
be satisfied. Note, It is the sin and folly of many
who have a great d<?al of the wealth of this world,
that they do not know when they have enough; but
the more they have, the more they would have, and
the more eager they are for it. And it is just with
God, that the desires which are insatiable, should
still be unsatisfied; it is the doom passed on those
that love silver, that they shall never be satisfied
with it, Eccl. v. 10. They that will not be content
with their allotments, shall not have the comfort of
their achievements. This proud prince is still ga¬
thering to him all nations, and heaping to him all
people, invading their rights, seizing their proper
ties, and they must not be, unless they will be his,
and under his command. One nation will not satisfy
him unless he has another, and then another, and all
at last; as those in a lower sphere, to gratify the
same inordinate desire, lay house to house, and field
to field, that they may be placed alone in the earth.
Isa. v. 8. And it is hard to say which is more to
be pitied; the folly of such ambitious princes as
place their honour in enlarging their dominions, and
not in ruling them well, or the misery of those nations
that are harrassed and pulled to pieces by them.
II. The sentence passed upon him; (y. 6.) Shall
not all these take up a parable against him? His
doom is, 1. That since pride has been his sin, dis¬
grace and dishonour shall be his punishment, and
he shall be loaded with contempt, shall be laughed
at and despised by all about him ; as those that look
big, and aim high, deserve to be, and common¬
ly are, when they are brought down and baffled.
2. That since he has been abusive to his neighbours,
those very persons whom he has abused shall be the
instruments of his disgrace; All those shall take up
a taunting proverb against him. They shall have
the pleasure of insulting over him, and he the shame
of being trampled upon by them.
Those that shall triumph in the fall of this great
tyrant, are here furnished with a parable and a
taunting proverb, to take up against him. He shall
say, he that draws up the insulting ditty, shall say
thus. Ho, he that increases that which is not his ! Aha,
what is gone with him now? So it may be read in
a taunting way. Or, He shall say, the just who
lives by his faith, he to whom the vision is written
and made plain, with the help of that shall say this;
shall foretell the enemy’s fall, even when he sees
him flourishing, and suddenly curse his habitation,
even when hd is taking root, Job v. 3. He shall in¬
deed denounce woes against him.
(1.) Here is a wo against him for increasing his
own possessions by invading his neighbour’s rights,
v. 6. — 8. He increases that which is not his, but
other people’s. Note, No more of what we have is to
be reckoned ours, than what we came honestly by;
nor will it long be ours, for wealth gotten by vanity
will be diminished. Let not those that thrive in the
world be too forward to bless themselves in it, for
if they do not thrive lawfully, they are under a wo.
See here, [1.] What this prosperous prince is doing;
he is lading himself with thick clay. Riches are but
clay, thick clay; what are gold and silver but white
and yellow earth? They that travel through thick
clay, are both retarded and dirtied in their journey ;
so are they that go through the world in the midst
of an abundance of the wealth of it; but as if that
were not enough, what fools are they that load
themselves with it, as if this trash would be their
treasure! They burthen themselves with continual
care about it, with a great deal of gu.lt in getting,
saving, and spending it, and with a heavy acci uni
HABAKKUK, II.
1067
which they must give of it another day. They
tverload their ship with this thick clay, and so sink it
and themselves into destruction and perdition. [2.]
See what people say of him, while he is thus in¬
creasing his wealth; they cry, How long ? How
long will it be ere he has enough? They cry to God,
How long wilt thou suffer this proud oppressor to
trouble the nations? Or, they say to one another,
See how long it will last, how long he will be able
to keep what he gets thus dishonestly. They dare
not speak out, but we know what they mean when
they say, How long? [3.] See what will be in the
end hereof ; what he has got by violence from
others, others shall take by violence from him. The
Modes and Persians shall make a prey of the Chal¬
deans, as they had done of other nations, v. 7, 8.
“There shall be those that will bite thee, and -vex
thee; they from whom thou didst not fear any dan¬
ger, that seemed asleefl, shall rise ufi and awake to
be a plague to thee. They shall rise up suddenly
when thou art most secure, and least prepared to
receive the shock, and ward off the blow. Shall
they not rise u/i suddenly ? No doubt they shall, and
thou thyself hast reason to expect it, to be dealt
with as thou hast dealt with others; that thou shalt
be for booties unto them, as others have been unto
thee; that, according to the law of retaliation, as
thou hast spoiled many nations, so thou shalt thy¬
self be spoiled; (v. 8.) all the remnant of the people
shall spoil thee. The king of Babylon thought he
had brought all the nations round about him so low,
that none of them should have been able to make
reprisals upon him; but though they were but a
remnant of people, a very few left, yet these shall
be sufficient to spoil him, when God has such a con¬
troversy with him. First, For men’s blood, and the
thousands of lives that have been sacrificed to his
ambition and revenge, especially for the blood of
Israelites, which is in a special manner precious to
God. Secondly, For the violence of the land, his
laying waste so many countries, and destroying the
fruits of the earth, especially in the land of Israel.
Thirdly, For the violence of the city, the many cities
that he had turned into ruinous heaps, especially
Jerusalem the holy city, and of all that dwelt there¬
in, who were ruined by him. Note, The violence
done by proud men, to greaten and enrich them¬
selves, will be called over again, (and must be Ac¬
counted for,) another day, by him to whom ven¬
geance belongs.
(2.) Here is a wo against him for coveting still
more, and aiming to be still higher, v. 9. — 11. The
crime for which this wo is denounced, is much the
same with that in the foregoing article — an insatia¬
ble desire of wealth and honour; it is coveting an
evil covetousness to his house, grasping at an abun¬
dance for his family. Note, Covetousness is a very
evil thing in a famdy; it brings disquiet and uneasi¬
ness into it; he that is greedy of gain, troubles his
own house; and, which is worse, it brings the curse
of God upon it, and upon all the affairs of it. Wo
to him that gains an evil gain; so the margin reads
it. There is a lawful gain, which by the blessing
of God may be a comfort to a house; (a good man
leaves an inheritance to his children’s children ;•) but
what is got by fraud and injustice is ill-got, and will
be bad gain, will not only do no good to a family,
but will bring poverty and ruin upon it. Now ob¬
serve,
[1.] What this covetous wretch aims at; it is to
set his nest on high, to raise his family to some
greater dignity than it had before arrived at; or to
set it, as he apprehends, out of the reach of danger,
that he maybe delivered from the power of evil;
that it may not be in the power of the worst of his
enemies to do him a mischief, or so much as to dis¬
turb his repose. Note, It is common for men to
pretend it as an excuse for their covetousness and
ambition, that they only consult their own safety, and
aim to secure themselves: and yet they do but de¬
ceive themselves, when they think their wealth will
be a strong city to them, anti a high wall, for it is so
only in their own conceit, Prov. xviii. 11.
[2.] What he will get by it; Thou hast consulted,
not safety, but shame, to thy house, by cutting off
many people, v. 10. Note, An estate raised by
iniquity is a scandal to a family. Those that cut off,
or undermine others, to make room for themselves,
that impoverish others to enrich themselves, do
but consult shame to their houses, and fasten upon
them a mark of infamy. Yet that is not the worst
of it; “ Thou hast sinned against thine own soul,
hast brought that under guilt and wrath, and en¬
dangered that.” Note, Those that do wrong to
their neighbour, do a much greater wrong to their
own souls. But if the sinner pleads, Not guilty, ann
thinks he has managed his frauds and violence with
so much art and contrivance, that they cannot be
proved upon him, let him know that if there be no
other witnesses against him, the stones shall cry out
of the wall against him, and the beam out of the
timber in the roof shall answer it, shall second it,
shall witness it, that the money and materials where¬
with he built the house, were unjustly gotten, v. 11.
The stones and timber cry to heaven for vengeance,
as the whole creation groans under the sin of man,
and waits to be delivered from that bondage of cor¬
ruption.
(3.) Here is a wo against him for building a town
and a city by blood and extortion; (v. 12.) He
builds a town, and is himself lord of it; he establishes
a city, and makes it his royal seat: so Nebuchad¬
nezzar did; (Dan. iv. 30.) Is not this great Babylon
that I have built for the house of the kingdom ? But
it is built with the blood of his own subjects, win m
he has oppressed, and the blood of his neighbours,
whom he has unjustly invaded; it is established by
iniquity, by the unrighteous laws that are made f r
the security of it. Wo to him that doeth so; for
the towns and cities thus built can never be esta¬
blished, they will fall, and their founders be buried
in the ruins of them. Babylon, which was built by
blood and iniquity, did not continue long, its day
soon came to fall; and then this wo took effect,
when that prophecy, which is expressed as a his¬
tory, (Isa. xxi. 9.) proved a history indeed; Baby¬
lon is fallen, is fallen!
And the destruction of that city was,
[1.] The shameof the Chaldeans, who had taken
so much pains, and were at such a vast expense, to
fortify it; (v. 13.) Is it not of the Lord of hosts, that
the people who have laboured so hard to defend
their citv shall labour in the very fire, shall see the
out- works which they confided in the strength of set
on fire, and shall labour in vain to save them? Or,
they, in their pursuits of worldly wealth and ho¬
nour, put themselves to great fatigue, and ran a
great hazard, as they that labour in the fire do.
The worst that can be said of the labourers in God’s
vineyard is, that they have borne the burthen and
heat of the day; (Matth. xx. 12.) but those that are
eager in their worldly pursuits, labour in the very
fire, make themselves perfect slaves to their lusts.
There is not a greater drudge in the world than he
that is under the power of reigning covetousness.
And what comes of it? Though they take a world
of pains, they are but poorly paid for it; for, after
all, they wearied themselves for very vanity; they
were told it was vanity, and when they find them¬
selves disappointed of it, and disappointed in it,
they will own it is worse than vanity, it is vexation
of spirit.
[2.] It was the honour of God, as a Grd of im¬
partial justice and irresistible power; for by the ruin
1068
HABAKKTJK, II.
of the Chaldean monarchy (which all the world
could not hut take notice of) the earth was filled with
the knowledge of the glory of the Lord , v. 14. The
Lord is known by these judgments which he exe¬
cutes; especially when he is pleased to look u/ion
proud men , and abase them, tor he thereby proves
himself to be God alone, Job xl. 11, 12. bee what
good God brings out of the staining and sinking of
earthly glory; he thereby manifests and magnifies
his own glory, and fills (he earth with the knowledge
of it as plentifully as the waters cover the sea, which
lie deep, spread far, and shall not be dried up until
time shall be no more. Such is the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, given
by the gospel; (2 Cor. iv. 6.) and such was the
knowledge of his glory by the miraculous ruin of
Babylon. Note, Such as will not be taught the
knowledge of God’s glory by the judgments of his
mouth, shall be made to know and acknowledge it
by the judgments of his hand.
15. Wo unto him that giveth his neigh¬
bour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him , and
makest him drunken also, that thou mayest
look on their nakedness! 16. Thou art
filled with shame for glory: drink thou also,
and let thy foreskin be uncovered: the cup
of the Lord’s right hand shall be turned
unto thee, and shameful spewing shall be on
thy glory. 17. For the violence of Lebanon
shall cover thee, and the spoil of beasts,
which made them afraid, because of men’s
blood, and for the violence of the land, of
the city, and of all that dwell therein. 1 8.
What profiteth the graven image, that the
maker thereof hath graven it; the molten
image, and a teacher of lies, that the maker
of his work trusteth therein, to make dumb
idols? 19. Wo unto him that saith to the
wood, Awake ; to the dumb stone, Arise, it
shall teach ! Behold, it is laid over with
gold and silver, and there is no breath at all
in the midst of it. 20. But the Lord is in
his holy temple; let all the earth keep si¬
lence before him.
The three foregoing articles, upon which the
woes here are grounded, are very near akin to each
other. The criminals charged by them, are op¬
pressors and extortioners, that raise estates by ra¬
pine and injustice; and it is mentioned here again,
(d. 17.) the very same that was said, v. 8. For that
is the crime upon which the greatest stress is laid;
it is because of men’s blood, innocent blood, barba¬
rously and unjustly shed, which is a provoking, cry¬
ing thing; it is for the violence of the land, of the
city, and of all that dwell therein, which God will
certainly reckon for, sooner or later, as the Asserter
of right, and the Avenger of wrong.
But here are two articles more, of a different na¬
ture, which carry a wo to all those in general to
whom they belong, and particularly to the Babylo¬
nian momrehs, by whom the people of God were
taken and held captives.
I. The firomoters of drunkenness stand here im¬
peached and condemned. Belshazzar was one of
those; he was so, remarkably, that very night that
the prophecy of this chapter was fulfilled in the pe¬
riod of his life and kingdom, when he drank wine
before a thousand of his lords, (Dan. v. 1.) began
the healths and forced them to pledge him. And
perhaps it was one reason why the succeeding mo-
narchs of Persia made it a law of their kingdom,
that in drinking none should com/tel, but they should
do according to every man’s fileasurc, (as we find,
Esth. i. 8.) because they had seen in the kings of
Babylon the mischievous consequences of forcing
healths, and making people drunk. But the wo
here stands firm and very fearful against all those,
whoever they are, who are guilty of this sin at any
time, and in any place, from the stately palace
(where that was) to the paltry ale-house. Observe,
1. Who the sinner is, that is here articled against;
it is he that makes his neighbour drunk, v. 15. To
give a neighbour drink, who is in want, who is
thirsty and poor, though it be but a cup of cold wa¬
ter to a disciple in the name of a disciple; to give
drink to a weary traveller; nay, and to give strong
drink to him that is ready to perish, and wine to
them that are of heavy heart, is a piece of charity,
which is required of us, and shall be recompensed
tons; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; but to
give a neighbour drink, who has enough already,
and more than enough, with design to intoxicate
him, that he may expose himself, may talk foolishly,
and make himself ridiculous, may disclose secret
concerns, or be drawn in to agree to a bad bargain
for himself — this is abominable wickedness ; and
those who are guilty of it, who make a practice of
it, and take a pride and pleasure in it, are rebels
against God in heaven, and his sacred laws, factors
for the devil in hell, and his cursed interests, and
enemies to men on earth, and their honour and wel¬
fare; they are like the son of Nebat, who sinned
and made Israel to sin. To entice others to drun¬
kenness, to put the bottle to them, that they may be
allured to it by its charms, by looking on the wine
when it is red, and gives its colour in the cup; or to
force them to it, obliging them by the rules of the
club (and club-laws indeed they are) to drink so
many glasses, and so filled, is to do what we can,
and perhaps more than we know of, toward the
murder both of soul and body: and those that do
so, have a great deal to answer for.
2. What the sentence is, that is here passed upon
him. There is a wo to him, (t>. 15.) and a punish¬
ment, (t». 16.) that shall answer to the sin. (1.)
Does he put the cup of drunkenness into the hand
of nis neighbour? The cup of fury, the cup of trem¬
bling, the cup of the Lord’s right hand, shall be
turned unto him; the power of God shall be armed
against him. That cup which had gone round
among the nations, to make them a desolation, an
astonishment, and a hissing, which had made them
stumble and fall, so that they could rise no more,
shall at length be put into the hand of the king of
Babylon, as was foretold, Jer. xxv. 15, 16, 18, 26,
27. Thus the New Testament Babylon, which had
made the nations drunk with the cup of her forni¬
cations, shall have blood given her to drink, for she
is worthy. Rev. xviii. 3, 6. (2.) Does he take a
pleasure in putting his neighbour to shame? He shall
himself be loaded with contempt. “ Thou art filled
with shame for glory, with shame instead of glory,
or art filled now with shame, more than ever thru
wast With glory; and the glory thou hast been filled
with, shall but serve to make thy shame the more
grievous to thyself, and the more ignominious in the
eves of others. Thou also shall drink of the cup
of trembling, and shalt expose thyself by thy fear
and cowardice, which shall be, as the uncovering
of thy nakedness, to thv shame; and all about thee
shall load thee with disgrace, for shameful spewing
shall be on thy glory, on that which thou hast most
prided thyself in, thy dignity, wealth, and domi¬
nion; those whom thou hast made drunk, shall them¬
selves spew upon it. For the violence of Lebanon
shall cover thee, and the spoil of beasts; (v. 17.)
1069
HABAKKUK, III.
thou shilt be hunted and run down with as much
violence as ever any wild beasts in Lebanon were,
shalt be spoiled as they are, and thy fall made a
sport of; for thou art as one of the beasts that made
them afraid, and therefore they triumph when they
have got the mastery of thee.” Or, “ It is because
of the violence thou hast done to Lebanon, that is,
the land of Israel, (Deut. iii. 25.) and the temple,
(Zech. xi. 1.) that God now reckons with thee;
that is the sin that now covers thee.”
II. The firomoters of idolatry stand here im¬
peached and condemned ; and this also was a sin
that Bubvlon was notoriously guilty of; it was the
mother of harlots; Belshazzar, in his revels, praised
his idols. And for this, here is a wo against them,
and in them against all others that do likewise, par¬
ticularly the New Testament Babylon. Now see here,
1. What they do to promote idolatry; they are
mad upon their idols; So the Chaldeans are said to
be, Jer. 1. 38. For, (1.) They have a great variety
of idols, their graven images, and molten images,
that people may take their choice which they like
best. (2. ) They are very nice and curious in the
framing of them; The maker of the work has per¬
formed his part admirably well, the fashioner of his
fashion, (so it is in the margin,) that contrived the
model in the most significant manner. (3.) They
are at great expense in beautifying and adorning
them; They lay them over with gold and silver;
because they are things people love and dote upon,
wherever they meet with them; they dress up their
idols in them, the more effectually to court the ado¬
ration of the children of this world. (4.) They
have great expectations from them; The maker of
the work trusts therein as his god, puts a confidence
in it, and gives honour to it as his god. The wor¬
shippers of God give honour to him, by offering up
their prayers to him, and waiting to receive instruc¬
tions and directions from him; and these honours
they give to their idols. [1.] They pray to them,
they say to the wood, Awake for our relief, awake to
hear our prayers; and to the dumb stone, .Arise,
and save us, as the church prays to her God, Awake,
O Lord, arise, Ps. xliv. 23. They own their images
to be a god, by praying to it. Deliver me, for thou
art my god, Isa. xliv. 17. Deos qui rogat ille facit
— That to which a man addresses petitions, is to him
a god. [2.] They consult them as oracles, and ex-
p >ct to be directed and dictated to by them; they
say to the dumb stone, though it cannot speak, Yet
it shall teach. What the wicked demon, or no less
wicked priest, speaks to them from the image, they
receive with the utmost veneration, as of divine au¬
thority, and are ready to be governed by it. Thus
is idolatry planted and propagated under the spe¬
cious show of religion and devotion.
2. How the extreme folly of this is exposed. God,
by Isaiah, when he foretold the deliverance of his
people out of Babylon, largely showed the shame¬
ful stupidity and sottishness of idolaters, and so he
does here by the prophet, on the like occasion. ( 1. )
Their images, when they have made them, are but
mere matter, which is the meanest, lowest rank of
being; and all the expense they are at upon them,
cannot advance them one step above that: they are
wholly void both of sense and reason, lifeless and
speechless; it is a dumb idol, a dumb stone, and
there is no breath at all in the midst of it, so that
the most minute animal, that has but breath and
motion, is more excellent than they. They have
not so much as the spirit of a beast. (2.) It is not
in their power to do their worshippers anv good;
(v. 18.) What profits the graven image; Though
it be mere matter, if it were cast in some other form,
it might be serviceable to some purpose or other of
human life; but as it is made a god of, it is of no
profit at all, nor Can do its worshippers the least
kindness. Nay, (3.) It is sot ir from profiting th-m,
that it puts a cheat upon them, and keeps them un¬
der the power of a strong delusion; they s-.y, It
shall teach, but it is a teacher of lies; for it repre¬
sents God as having a body, as being finite, visible,
and dependent; whereas he is a Spirit, infinite, in¬
visible, and independent; and it confirms those that
become vain in their imaginations, in the false no¬
tions they have of God, and makes the idea of God
to be a precarious thing, and what every man pleases;
if we may say to the works of our hands. Ye are
our gods, we may say so to any of the creatures of
our own fancy, though the chimera be ever so ex¬
travagant. An image is a doctrine of vanities, it is
falsehood, and a work of errors, Jer. x. 8, 14, 15.
It is therefore easy to see what their religion is, and
what they aim at, who recommend those teachers
of lies ns laymen’s books, which they are to study
and govern themselves by, when they h ive locked
up from them the book of the scriptures in an un¬
known tongue.
3. How the people of God triumph in him, and
therewith support themselves, when the idolaters
thus shame themselves; (v. 20.) But the Lord is in
his holy temple. (1.) Our Rock is not as their rock,
Deut. xxxii. 31. Theirs are dumb idols, ours is
Jehovah, a living God, that is what he is, and not,
as theirs, what men please to make him. He is in
his holy temple in heaven, the residence of his glory,
where we have access to him in the way, not which
we have invented, but which he himself has insti¬
tuted. Compare Ps. cxv. 3. But our God is in
the heavens, Ps. xi. 4. (2.) The multitude of their
gods which they set up, and take so much pains to
support, cannot thrust out our God; he is and will
be in his holy temple still, and glorious in holiness.
They have laid waste his temple at Jerusalem ; but
he has a temple above, that is out of the reach of
their rage and malice, but within the reach of his
people’s faith and pravers. (3.) Our God will make
all the world silent before him; will strike the idola¬
ters as dumb as their idols, convicting them of their
folly, and covering them with shame. He will si¬
lence the fury of the oppressors, and check their
rage against his people. (4.) It is the dutv of his
people to attend him with silent adorings, (Ps. lxv.
1.) and patiently to wait for his appearing to s ve
them in his own wav and time. Be still, and know
that he is God, Zech. ii. 13.
CHAP. III.
Still the correspondence is kept up between God and his
prophet. In the first chapter, he spoke to God, then God
to him, and then he to God again; in the second chap¬
ter, God spake wholly to him by the spirit of prophecy;
now in this chapter, he speaks wholly to God by the
spirit of prayer ; for he would not let the intercourse
drop on his side, like a genuine son of Abraham, who
returned not to his place until God had left communing
icith, him , Gen. xviii. 33. The prophet’s prayer, in this
chapter, is in imitation of David’s Psalms, for it is di¬
rected to the chief musician , and is set to musical instru¬
ments. The prayer is left upon record for the use of
the church, and particularly of the Jews in their cap¬
tivity, while they were waiting for their deliverance, pro¬
mised by the vision in the foregoing chapter. I. He
earnestly begs of God to relieve and succour his people
in affliction, to hasten their deliverance, and to comfort
them in the mean time, v. 2. II. He calls to mind tlv
experience which the church formerly had of God’s glo-
rious and gracious appearances on her behalf, when he
brought Israel out of Egypt through the wilderness to
Canaan, and there rnanv a time wrought wonderful sal¬
vations for them, v. 3. .15. III. He affects himself with
a holy concern for the present troubles of the church,
but encourages himself and others to hope that ihe is¬
sue will be comfortable and glorious at last, though all
visible means fail. v. 16. .19.
1. 4 PRAYER of Hahakkuk the pro-
jl\. phet upon Sbigionoth. 2. O Lord.
1070
HABAKKUK, III.
I have heard thy speech, and was afraid :
O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of
the years, in the midst of the years make
known ; in wrath remember mercy.
This chapter is entitled, a prayer of Habakkuk;
it is a meditation with himself, an intercession for
the church. Prophets were praying men, this pro¬
phet: was so. He is a / iro/ihet and he shall pray for
thee; (Gen. xx. 7.) and sometimes they prayed for
even those whom they prophesied against. They
that were intimately acquainted with the mind of
God concerning future events, knew better than
others how to order their prayers, and what to pray
f ir, and, in the foresight of troublous times, coidd
lay up a stock of prayers, that might then receive
a gracious answer, and so be serving the church by
their prayers when their prophesying was over.
This prophet had found God ready to answer his
requests and complaints before, and therefore now
repeats his applications to him. Because God has
inclined his ear to us, we must resolve that therefore
we will call upon him as long as we live.
1. The prophet owns the receipt of God’s answer
to his former representation, and the impression it
made upon him; ( v . 2.) “ O Lord, I have heard
thy speech, thy hearing,” (so some read it,) “that
which thou wouldest have us hear, the decree that is
gone forth for the afflicting of thy people ; I re¬
ceived thine, and it is before me.” Note, Those
that would rightly order their speech to God, must
carefully observe, and lay before them his speech to
them. He had said, (c/i. ii. 1.) I will watch to see
what he will say; and now he owns, Lord, I have
beard thy speech; for if we turn a deaf ear to God’s
word, we can expect no other than that he should
turn a deaf ear to our prayers, Prov. xxviii. 9. I
heard it, and was afraid. Messages immediately
from heaven, commonly struck even the best and
boldest men into a consternation; Moses, Isaiah, and
Daniel, did exceedingly fear and quake; but beside
that, the matter of this message made the prophet
afraid, when he heard how low the people of God
should be brought, under the oppressing power of
the Chaldeans, and how long they should continue
under it; he was afraid lest their spirits should quite
fail, and lest the church should be utterly rooted
out and run down, and being kept low so long, should
be lost at length.
2. He earnestly prays that for the elect’s sake
these days of trouble might be shortened, or the
trouble of these days mitigated and moderated, or
the people of God supported and comforted under
it. He thinks it very long *to wait till the end of
the years; perhaps he refers to the seventy years
fixed for the continuance of the captivity, and there¬
fore, “Lord,” (says he,) “do something on our
behalf, in the midst of the years, those years of our
distress; though we be not delivered, and our op¬
pressors destroyed, yet let us not be abandoned and
castoff.” (1.) “ Do something for thine own cause;
revive thy work, thy church;” (that is the work
of God's own hand, formed by him, formed for
him;) “ revive that, even when it walks in the midst
of trouble, Ps. cxxxviii. 7, 8. Grant thy people a
little reviving in their bondage, Ezra ix. 8. Ps.
lxxxv. 6. Preserve alive thy work; (so some read
it;) “though thy church be chastened, let it not be
killed, though it have not its liberty, yet continue its
life, save a remnant alive, to be a seed of another
generation. Revive the work of thy grace in us, by
sanctifying the trouble to us, and supporting us un¬
der it, though the time be not yet come, even the
set time for our deliverance out of it; whatever be¬
comes of us, though we be as dead and dry bones,
Lord, let thy work be revived, let not that sink, and
go back, and come to nothing.” (2.). “ Do some¬
thing forthineown honour; in the midst of the years
make known, make thyself known, h r now verily
thou art a God that hidesl thyself; (Isa. xlv. 15. )
make known thy power, thy pity, thy promise, thy
providence in the government of the world, for the
safety and welfare of thy church. Though we be
buried in obscurity, yet, Lord, make thyself known;
whatever becomes of Israel, let not the God of Is¬
rael be forgotten in the world, but discover himself
even in the midst of the dark years, before theu art
expected to appear.” When in the midst of the
years of the captivity God miraculously owned the
three children in the fiery furnace, and humbled
Nebuchadnezzar, this prayer was answered, In the
midst of the years make known. (3.) “Do some¬
thing for thy people’s comfort; In wrath remember
mercy, and make that known: show us thy mercy,
O Lord,” Ps. lxxxv. 7. They see God’s displea¬
sure against them in their troubles, and that makes
them grievous indeed; there is wrath in the bitter
cup, that therefore they deprecate, and are earnest
in begging that in the midst of wrath God would
remember mercy to them, would make it appear
that he is a merciful God, and they are vessels of
his mercy. Note, Even those that are under the
| tokens ofi God’s wrath, must not despair of his
; mercy; and mercy, mere mercy, is that which we
must flee to for refuge, and rely upon as our only
plea. He does not say, Remember our merit, but,
Lord, remember thy own mercy.
3. God came from Teman, and the Holy
One from mount Paran. Selali. His glory
covered the heavens, and the earth was lull
of his praise. 4. And his brightness was as
the light; lie had horns coming out of his
hand : and there was the hiding of his power.
5. Before him went the pestilence, and
burning coals went forth at his feet. 6. He
stood and measured the earth : he beheld,
and drove asunder the nations; and the
everlasting mountains were scattered, the
perpetual hills did bow : his ways are ever¬
lasting. 7. I saw the tents of Cushan in
affliction: and the curtains of the land of
Midian did tremble. 8. Was the Lord
displeased against the rivers ? was thine an¬
ger against the rivers? teas thy wrath against
the sea, that thou didst ride upon thy horses,
and thy chariots of salvation? 9. Thy bow
was made quite naked, according to the
oaths of the tribes, even thy word. Selah.
Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers. 10.
The mountains saw thee, and they trem¬
bled ; the overflowing of the water passed
by: the deep uttered his voice, and lifted
up his hands on high. 11. The sun and
moon stood still in their habitation : at the
light of thine arrows they went, and at the
shining of thy glittering spear. 12. Thou
didst march through the land in indignation,
thou didst thresh the heathen in anger. 13.
Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy
people, even for salvation with thine anoint
ed ; thou woundedst the head out of the
house of the wicked, by discovering the
HABAKKUK, III.
1071
foundation unto the ireck. Selah. 1 4. Thou j1
didst strike through with his staves the head
of his villages; they came out as a whirl¬
wind to scatter me: their rejoicing was as
to devour the poor secretly. 1 5. Thou didst
walk through the sea with thy horses,
through the heap of great waters.
It has been the usual practice of God’s people, ;
when they have been in distress, and ready to fall j
into despair, to help themselves by recollecting their
experiences, ard reviving them, considering the
days of old, and the years of ancient times, (Ps.
Ixxvii. 5.) and pleading them with God in prayer,
as he is pleased sometimes to plead them with him¬
self; (Isa. lxiii. 11.) Then he remembered the days
of old. This is that which the prophet does here,
and he looks as far back as the first forming them ■
into a people, when they were brought by miracles
out of Egypt, a house of bondage through the wil¬
derness, land of drought, into Canaan, then pos- |
sessed by mighty nations. He that thus brought
them at first into' Canaan through so much difficul¬
ty, can now bring them thither again out of Baby-
Ion, how great soever the difficulties are that lie in
the way. Those works of wonders, wrought of old,
are here most magnificently described, for the
greater encouragement to the faith of God’s people
in their present straits.
1. God appeared in his glory, so as he never did ;
before or since; (v. 3, 4.) He came from Teman,
even the Ho. ; One from mount Paran. This refers
to the visible’ display of the glory of God, when he
gave the law upon mount Sinai, as appears by Deut.
xxxiii. 2. whence these expressions are borrowed.
Then the Lord came down upon mount Sinai in a
cloud, (Exod. xix. 20.) and his glory was as the de¬
vouring fire; not only to enforce the law he then
gave diem, but to avow the deliverance he had
wrought for them, and to magnify it; for the first
word he said there, was, “ I am the Lord thy God,
that brought thee out of the land of Egyfit. I that
appear in this glory, am the Author of that work. ”
Then his glory covered the heaxiens, which shone
with the reflection of that glorious appearance of
his; the earth also was full of his praise, or of his
splendour, as some read it. People at a distance
saw the cloud and fire on the top of mount Sinai,
and praised the God of Israel, or the earth was full
of those works of God, which were to be praised.
His brightness was as the light, as the light of the
sun when he goes forth in his strength ; he had horns,
or bright beams, (so it should be rendered,) coming
nut of his side or hand; rays of glory were darted
forth around him; and with some rays borrowed
thence it was that Moses’s face shone when he came
down from that mount of glory. Some by the horns,
the two horns (for the word is, dual) coming out of
his hand, understand the two tables of the law,
which perhaps, when God delivered them to Moses,
though they were tables of stone, had a glory round
them; those books were gilt with beaYns, and so it
agrees with Deut. xxxiii. 2. From his right hand
went a fiery law for them. It is added, And there
was the hiding of his power; there was his hidden
power, in the rays that came out of his hand; the
operations of his power, compared with what he
could have done, were rather the hiding of it than
the discovery of it; the secrets of his power, as well
as of his wisdom, are double to that which is. Job
xi. 6.
2. God sent plagues on Egvpt, for the humbling
of proud Pharaoh, and the obliging of him to let the
people go; (r\ 5.) Before him went the pestilence,
which slew all the first-born of Egypt in one night;
and burning coals went forth at his feet, when, in
the plague of hail, there was fire mingled with hail;
burning diseases, (so the margin readsit,) some think,
those that wasted Egypt; others, those with which
the number of the Canaanites was diminished before
Israel was brought in upon them. These were at
his feet, at his coming, tor they are at his command)
he says to them. Go, and they go, Come, and they
come. Do this, and they do it.
3. He divided the land of Canaan to his people
Israel, and expelled the heathen from before them;
(t>. 6. ) He stood and measured the earth, measured
that land, to assign it for an inheritance to Israel his
people; (Deut. xxxii. 8, 9.) He beheld, and drove
asunder the nations that were in possession of it;
though they combined together against Israel, God
dispersed and discomfited them before Israel. Or,
He exerted such a mighty power as was enough to
shake in pieces all the nations of the earth. Then
the everlasting mountains were scattered, and the
perpetual hills did bow; the mighty princes and
potentates of Canaan, that seemed as high, as strong,
and as firmly fixed, as the mountains and hills, were
broken to pieces, they and their kingdoms were to¬
tally subdued. Or, The power of God was so ex¬
erted, as to have shaken the mountains and hills;
nay, and Sinai did tremble, and the adjacent hills;
see Ps. lxviii. 7, 8. To this he adds, His ways are
everlasting; all the motions of his providence are
according to his eternal counsels; and he is the same
for ever, that which he was yesterday and to-day.
His covenant is unchangeable, and bis mercy en¬
dures for ever. When he drove asunder the nations
of Canaan, one might have seen the tents ofCushan
in affliction , and the curtains of the land of Midian
trembling, all the inhabitants of the neighbouring
countries taking the alarm; and though they were
not in the commission given to Israel to destroy, nor
their land within the warrant given to Israel to pos¬
sess, yet they thought their own house in danger,
when their neighbour’s house was on fire, and there¬
fore they were in a great fright, v. 7. Balak the
king of Moab was so, Numb. xxii. 3, 4. Some make
the tents of Cushan to be in affliction, when, in the
days of judge Othniel, God delivered Cushan-risha-
thaim into his hand; (Judge iii. 8.) and the curtains
of the land of Midian to tremble, when, in the days
of judge Gideon, a barley cake, in a dream, over¬
threw the tent af Midian, Judg. vii. 13.
4. He divided the Red sea and Jordan, when th v
stood in the way of Israel’s progress, and yet fetched
a river out of a rock, when Israel wanted it, v. 8.
One would have thought that God was displeased
with the rivers, and that his wrath was against the
sea, for he made them give way and flee before him,
when he rode upon his horses and chariots of salva¬
tion, as a general at the head of his forces, mighty
to save. Note, God’s chariots are not so much cha¬
riots of state to himself as chariots of salvation to
his people; it is his glory to be Israel’s Saviour.
This seems to be referred to again, (t. 15.) Thou
didst walk through the sea, through the Red sea,
with thine horses, in the pillar of cloud and fire;
(that was his chariot borne by angels;) thus thou
didst walk secure, and so as to accommodate thyself
to the slow pace that Israel could go, as Jacob ten¬
derly drove, in consideration of his children and
cattle; Thou didst walk through the heap, or mud,
of great waters; and Israel likewise wasled through
the deep as a horse in the wilderness, Isa. lxiii. 13,
14. When they came to enter Canaan, the over¬
flowing of the water passed by; that is, Jordan,
which at that time overflowed all his banks, was di¬
vided, Josh. iii. 15. Note, When the difficulties in
the wav of perfecting the salvation of Israel seem
most insuperable, when they rise to the height, and
overflow, yet then God can pu* them by, break
1072
HABAKKUK, III.
through them, and get over them. Then the deep
uttered his voice, when the Red sea and Jordan
being divided, the waters roared and made a noise,
as if they were sensible of the restraint they were
under from proceeding in their natural course, and
complained of it. They lifted up their hands, or
sides, on high, (for the waters stood tip on a heap,
Josh. iii. 16.) as if they would have made opposition
to the orders given them ; they lifted up their voice,
lifted up their waves; but in vain, the Lord on high
•was mightier than they, Ps. xc. 3, 4. With the di¬
viding of the sea and Jordan, notice is again taken
of the trembling of the mountains, as if the stop
given to the waters gave a shock to the adjacent
hills; they are put together, Ps. cxiv. 3, 4. When
the sea saw it, and fled, and Jordan was driven
back, the mountains skipped like rams, and the littli
hills like lambs. The whole creation yielded, earth
and waters trembled at the presence of the Lord, at
the presence of the mighty God of Jacob. But (as
Mr. Cowley paraphrases it)
Fly where thou wilt, thou sea, an.l Jordan’s current cease;
Jordan, there is no need of thee;
For at God’s word, whene’er he please,
The rocks shall weep new waters forth instead of these.
So here, Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers;
channels were made in the wilderness, such as
seemed to cleave the earth, for the waters to run in,
which issued out of the rock, to supply the camp of
Israel, and which followed them in all their re¬
moves. Note, The God of nature can alter and con¬
trol the powers of nature which way he pleases; can
turn waters into crystal rocks, and rocks into crystal
streams.
5. He arrested the motion of the sun and moon,
to befriend and complete Israel’s victories; (v. 11.)
The sun and moon stood still at the prayer of Joshua,
that the Canaanites might not have the benefit of
the night to favour their escape; they stood still in
their habitation in the heaven, (Ps. xlx. 4.) but with
an eye to Gibeon and the valley of Ajalon, where
God’s work was in the doing, and of which they,
though at so vast a distance, attended the motions.
At the light, at the direction of thine arrows, they
•went, and at the shining of thy glittering spear; they
followed Israel’s arms, to favour them; according
to the intimation of the arrows God shot, (as Jona¬
than’s arrows, 1 Sam. xx. 20. ) and which way so¬
ever his spear pointed, (the glittering light of which
they acknowledged to outshine theirs,) that way
they directed their influences, benign to Israel, and
malignant against their enemies, as when the stars
in their courses fought against Sisera. Note, The
heavenly bbdies, as well as earth and seas, are at
God's command, and, when he pleases, at Israel’s
service too.
6. He carried on, and completed, Israel’s victories
over the nations of Canaan, and their kings; he slew
great kings and famous, Ps. cxxxvi. 17, 18. This
is largely insisted upon here, as a proper plea with
God, to enforce the present petition, that he would
restore them again to that land, which they were, at
the expense of so many lives, so many miracles, first
put in possession of. Many expressions are here
used, to set forth the conquest of Canaan. (1.)
God’s bow was made quite naked, taken out of the
case, to be employed for Israel; we should say, his
sword w is quite unsheathed, not drawn out a little
way, to frighten the enemy, and then put up again;
but quite drawn out, not to be returned till they are
all cut off. (2.) He marched through the land from
end to end, in indignation, as scorning to let that
wicked generation of Canaanites any longer possess
so good a land. He marched cum fastidio — with
disdain; (so some;) despising their confederacies.
(3.) He threshed the heathen in anger; trod them
down, nay, he trod them out, as corn in the floor;
to give them, and what they had, to be meat to his
people Israel; Mic. iv. 13. (4.) He wounded the
heads out of the house of the wicked; he destroy ed
the families of the Canaanites, and wounded their
princes, the heads of their families; nay, he cut off
the heads, and so discovered the foundations of them,
even to the neck. Are they a building? They are
razed even to the foundation. Are they a body?
They are plunged m deep mire even to the neck, so
that they cannot get out, or help themselves. He
brake the heads of the leviathan in pieces, Ps. lxxiv.
14. Some apply this to Christ’s victories over Sa¬
tan and the powers of darkness, in which he wound¬
ed the heads over many countries, Ps. cx. 6. (5.)
He struck through with his staves the head of the
villages; (y. 14.) with Israel’s staves God struck
through the head of the villages of the enemies,
whether Egypt or Canaan. Staves shall do the
1 same execution as swords, when God pleases to
make use of them. The enemy came out with the
itmost force and fury, as a whirlwind to scatter me;
(says Israel;) for many a time have they thus afflict
ed me, thus attacked me, from my youth, Ps. cxxix.
1. Pharaoh, when he pursued Israel to the Red
sea, came out as a whirlwind; so did the kings of
Canaan in their confederacies against Israel. Their
rejoicing was as to devour the poor secretly ; they
were as confident of success in their enterprize as
ever any great man was of devouring a poor man,
that was no way a match for him; and his design
against him was carried on with secrecy. But God
disappointed them, and their pride did but make
their fall the more shameful, and God’s care of his
power the more illustrious. (6. ) He walked to the
sea with his horses; (so some read it, v. 15.) he car¬
ried Israel’s victories to the great sea, which was
opposite to that side of Canaan at which they enter¬
ed; so that they went quite through it, and made
themselves masters of it all; or, rather, God made
them so, for they got it not by their own sword, Ps.
xliv. 3.
Now there were three things that God had an eye
to, in giving Israel so many bloody victories over the
Canaanites. [1.] He would hereby make good his
promise to the fathers, it was according to the oaths
of the tribes, even his word, v. 9. He had sworn to
give this land to the tribes of Israel; it was his oath
to Isaac, confirmed to Jacob, and repeated many a
time to the tribes of Israel; Unto thee will I give the
land of Canaan. This word God will accomplish,
though Israel be ever so unworthy, (Deut. ix. 5.)
and their enemies ever so many and mighty. Note,
What God does for his tribes, is according to the
oaths of the tribes, according to what he has said
and sworn to them; for he is faithful that promised.
[2.] He would hereby show his kindness to his peo¬
ple, because of their relation to him, and his inte¬
rest in them; Thou wentest forth for the salvation
of thy people, v. 13. All the powers of nature are
shaken, and the course of nature changed, and every
thing seems to be thrown into disorder, and all is for
the salvation of God’s people. There are a people
in the world, who are God’s people, and their sal¬
vation is that which he has in his eye, in all the ope¬
rations of his providence. Heaven and earth shall
sooner come together than any of the links in the
golden chain of their salvation shall be broken; and
even that which seems most unlikely, shall by an
overruling hand be made to work for their salvation,
Phil. i. 19. [3.] He would hereby give a type and
figure of the redemption of the world by Jesus
Christ. It is for salvation with thine anointed;
with Joshua, who led the armies of Israel, and was
a figure of him whose name he bare, even Jesus, our
Joshua. What God did for his Israel of old, was
done with an eye to his Anointed, for the sake of
the Mediator, who was both the Founder and Frun
1073
HABAKKCJK, III.
dation of the covenant made with them. It was sal¬
vation with him, for, in all the salvations wrought
for them, God looked ufion the face of (he Anointed,
aud did them by him.
1 6. When I heard, my belly trembled ;
my tips quivered at the voice: rottenness
entered into my bones, and I trembled in
myself, that I might rest in the day of trou¬
ble: when he cometh up unto the people,
he will invade them with his troops. 17.
Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, nei¬
ther shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of
the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield
no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the
fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls:
18. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will
joy in the God of my salvation. 19. The
Lord God is my strength, and he will make
my feet like hinds’ feet, and he will make
me to walk upon my high places. To the
chief singer on my stringed instruments.
Within the compass of these few lines we have
the prophet in the highest degree, both of trembling
and triumphing; such are the varieties both of the
state and of the spirit of God’s people in this world.
In heaven there shall be no more trembling, but
everlasting triumphs.
I. The prophet had foreseen the prevalence of
the church’s enemies, and the long continuance of
the church’s troubles; and the sight made him trem¬
ble, v. 16. This goes on with what he had said,
(v. 2.) “I have heard thy speech, and was afraid;
when I heard what sad times were coming upon the
church, my belly trembled, tny lips quivered at the
voice; the news made such an impression, that it
put me into a perfect ague-fit” — the blood retiring
to the heart, to succour that when it was ready to
faint, the extreme parts were left destitute of spirits,
so that his lips quivered. Nay, he was so weak,
and so unable to help himself, that he was as if rot¬
tenness had entered into his bones, he had no strength
left in him, could neither stand nor go, he trembled
in himself, trembled all over him, trembled within
him; he yielded to his trembling, and troubled him¬
self, as our Saviour did; his flesh trembled for fear
of God, and he was afraid of his judgments, Ps.
cxix. 120. He was touched with a tender concern
for the calamities of the church, and trembled for
fear lest they should end at length in its ruin, and
that the name of Israel would be blotted out. Nor
did he think it any disparagement to him, or a re¬
proach to his courage, but freely owned he was one
of those that trembled at God’s word, for to them
he will look with favour ; I tremble in myself that I
might rest in the day of trouble. Note, When we
see a day of trouble approaching, it concerns us to
provide accordingly, and to lay up something in
store, by the help of which we may rest in that
day; and the best way to make sure rest for our¬
selves in the day of trouble, is, to tremble within
ourselves at the word of God, and the threatenings
of that word. He that has joy in store for them
that sow in tears, has rest in store for them that
tremble before him. Good hope through grace is
founded in a holy fear. Noah, who was moved with
fear, and trembled within himself at the warning
given him of the deluge coming, had the ark for his
resting place in the day of that trouble. The pro¬
phet tells us what he said in his trembling: his fear
was, that, when he comes up to the people, when the
Chaldean comes up to the people of Israel, he will
Vol. iv. — 6 U
invade them, will surround them, will break in upon
them, nay, as it is in the margin, he will cut them
in pieces with his troops; he cried out, We are all
undone, the whole nation of the Jews is lost and
gone. Note, When things look bad, we are too apt
to aggravate them, and make the worst of them.
II. He had looked back upon the experiences of
the church in former ages, and had observed what
great things God had done for them, and so he re¬
covered himself out of his fright, and not only re¬
trieved his temper, but fell into a transport of holy
joy, with an express non obstante — although to the
calamities he foresaw coming, and this, not for him¬
self only, but in the name of every faithful Israelite.
1. He supposes the ruin of all his creature-com¬
forts and enjoyments, not only of the delights of this
life, but even of the necessary supports of it, v. 17.
Famine is one of the ordinary effects of war, and
those commonly feel it first and most, that sit still,
and are quiet; the prophet and his pious friends,
when the Chaldean army comes, will be plundered
and stripped of all they have. Or, he supposes
himself deprived of all by blasting and unseasonable
weather, or some other immediate hand of God.
Or, that the captives in Babylon have not that
plenty of all good things as in their own land. (1.)
He supposes the fruit-tree to be withered and be¬
come barren; the fig-tree (which used to furnish
them with much of their food, hence we often read
of cakes of figs ) shall not so much as blossom, nor
shall fruit be in the vine, from which they had their
drink, that made glad the heart: he supposes the
labour of the olive should fail, their oil, which was
to them as butter is to us; the labour of the olive
shall lie, (so it is in the margin,) their expectations
from it shall be disappointed. (2.) He supposes the
bread-corn to fail; the fields shall yield no meat,
and since the king himself is served of the field, it'
the productions of that be withdrawn, every one
will feel the want of them. (3.) He supposes the
cattle to perish, either for want of the food which
the field should yield, and does not, or by disease,
or being destroyed and carried away by the enemy;
the flock is cut off from the fold, and there is no
herd in the stall. Note, When we are in the full
enjoyment of our creature-comforts, we should con¬
sider that there may come a time when we shall be
stripped of them all, and use them accordingly, as
not abusing them, 1 Cor. vii. 29, 30.
2. He resolves to delight and triumph in God not¬
withstanding; when all is gone, his God is not gone;
( v . 18.) “Yet will I rejoice in the Lord, I shall
have him to rejoice in, and will rejoice in him.”
Destroy the vines and the fig-trees, and you make
all the mirth of a carnal heart to cease, Hos. ii. 11,
12. But those who, when they were full, enjoyed
God in all, when they are emptied and impoverish¬
ed, can enjoy all in God; and can sit down upon a
melancholy heap of the ruins of all their creature-
comforts, and even then can sing to the praise and
glory of God, as the God of their salvation. This is
the principal ground ol our joy in God, that he is
the God of our salvation, our eternal salvation, the
salvation of the soul; and if he be so, we may re¬
joice in him as such in our greatest distresses, since
by them our salvation cannot he hindered, but may
be furthered. Note, Joy in God is never out of
season, nay, it is in a special manner seasonable
when we meet with losses and crosses in the w orld,
that it may then appear that our hearts are not set
upon these things, nor our liappin-ss bound up in
them. See how the prophet triumphs in God; The
I.ord God is my strength, v. 19. He that is the
God of our salvation in another world, will be our
Strength in this world, to carry us on in our jour¬
ney thither, and help us over the difficulties and
oppositions we meet with in bur way. Even then
1074
HABAKKUK, III.
when provisions are cut off, to make it appear that
man lives not by bread alone, we may have the
want of bread supplied by the graces and comforts
of God’s Spirit, and with the supplies of them.
(1.) We shall be strong for our spiritual warfare
and work; The Lord God is my Strength, the
Strength of my heart. (2.) We shall be swift for
Tiur spiiitual race; “He will make my feet like hinds’
feet, that with enlargement of heart I may run the
way of his commands, and outrun my troubles.”
(3.) We shall be successful in our spiritual enter¬
prises; “He will make me to walk upon my high
places; I shall gain my point, shall be restored unto
my own land, and tread upon the high places of the
enemy,” Deut. xxxii. 13. — xxxiii. 29. Thus the
prophet, who began his prayer with fear and trem¬
bling, concludes it with joy and triumph; for prayer
is heart’s ease to a gracious soul. When Hannah had
prayed, she went her way, and did eat, and her
countenance was no more sad. This prophet, find¬
ing it so, publishes his experience of it, and puts it
into the hand of the chief singer for the use qf the
church, especially in the day of our captivity. And
though then the harps were hung upon the willow-
trees, yet in the hope that they would be resumed,
and their right hand retrieve its cunning, which it
had forgotten, he set his song upon Shigionoth, (v.
1.) wandering tunes, according to the variable songs,
and upon Neginoth, (x>. 19.) the stringed instru
ments. He that is afflicted, and has prayed aright,
may then be so easy, may then be so merry, as to
sing psalms.
AN
EXPOSITION,
WITH
PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS,
OF THE PROPHECY OF
ZEPHANIAH.
This prophet is placed last, as he was last in time, of all the minor prophets before the captivity, and not
long before Jeremiah, who lived at the time of the captivity. He foretells the general destruction of Judah
and Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, and sets their sins in order before them, which had provoked God to
bring their ruin upon them; calls them to repentance; threatens the neighbouring nations with the like
destructions, and gives encouraging promises of their joyful return out of captivity in due time, which
have a reference to the grace of the gospel. We have, in the first verse, an account ot the prophet,
and the date of his prophecy, which supersedes our inquiry concerning them here.
ZEPHANIAH, I.
CHAP. I.
After the title of the book, (v. 1.) here is, I. A threatening
of the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem, an utter de¬
struction, by the Chaldeans, v. 2 . .4. II. A charge
against them for their gross sin, which provoked God to
bring that destruction upon them ; (v. 5, 6.) and so he
goes on in the rest of the chapter, setting both the judg¬
ments before them, that they might prevent them or pre¬
pare for them ; and the sins that destroy them, that they
might judge themselves, and justify God in what was
brought upon them. 1. They must hold their peace be¬
cause they had greatly sinned, v. 7. . . 9. But, 2. They
shall howl because the trouble will be ^reat. The day
of the Lord is near, and it will be a terrible day, v. 10 . .
18. Such fair and timely warning as this did God give
to the Jews of the approaching captivity ; but they har¬
dened their neck, which made their destruction reme¬
diless.
1 . y | ^HE word of the Lord which came
JL unto Zephaniah the son of Cushi,
the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah,
the son of Hizkiah, in the days of Josiah
the son of Anion king of Judah. 2. I will
utterly consume all things from off the land,
saith the Lord. 3. I will consume man
and beast; I will consume the fowls of the
heaven, and the fishes of the sea; and the
stumbling-blocks with the wicked; and I
will cut off man from off the land, saith the
Lord. 4. I will also stretch out my hand
upon -L'dah. and upon all the inhabitants of
Jerusalem ; and I will cut off the remnant
of Baal from this place, and the name of the
Chemarims with the priests; 5. And them
that worship the host of heaven upon the
house-tops; and them that worship and that
swear by the Lord, and that swear by
Malcham; 6. And them that are turned
back from the Lord ; and those that have
not sought the Lord, nor inquired for him.
Here is,
I. The title-page of this book, ( v . 1.) in which
we observe, 1. What authority it has, and who
gave it that authority; it is from heaven and not of
men. It is the word of the Lord. 2. Who was the
instrument of conveying it to the church. His name
Ze/ihaniah, which signifies the servant of the Lord,
for God revealed his secrets to his servants the Jiro-
phets. The pedigree of other prophets, whose ex¬
traction we have an account of, goes no further back
than their father, except Zecharias, whose grand¬
father also is named. But this of Zephaniah goes
back four generations, and the highest mentioned is
Hizkiah; it is the very same name in the original
with that of Hezekiah king of Judah, (2 Kings
xviii. 1.) and refers, probably, to him; if so, our
prophet, being lineally descended from that pious
prince, and being of the royal family, could with
the better grace reprove the folly of the king's chil¬
dren as he does, v. 8. 3. When this prophet pro¬
phesied; in the days of Josiah king of Judah, who
reigned well, and in the twelfth year of his reigr,
1076
ZEPHANIAH, I.
began vigorously, and carried on a work of reforma¬
tion, in which he destroyed idols and idolatry. Now
it does not appear whether Zephaniah prophesied
in the beginning of Iris reign; if so, we may suppose
his prophesying had a great and good influence in
that reformation. When he, as God’s messenger,
reproved the idolatries of Jerusalem, Josiah, as
God’s vicegerent, removed them; and reformation
is likely then to go on and prosper, when both ma¬
gistrates and ministers do their part towards it. If it
were toward the latter end of his reign that he pro¬
phesied, we sadly see how a corrupt people relapse
into their former distempers. The idolatries Josiah
had abolished, it should seem, returned in his own
time, when the heat of the reformation began a little
to abate and wear off. What good can the best re¬
formers do with a people that hate to be reformed,
as if they longed to be ruined?
II. The summary, or contents, of this book; the
general proposition contained in it, is, that utter de¬
struction is coming apace upon Judah and Jerusalem
for sin. Without preamble, or apology, he begins
abruptly, (v. 2.) By taking away I will make an
end of all things from off the face of the land, saith
the Lord. Ruin is coming, utter ruin; destruction
from the Almighty; he has said it, who can, and
will, make good what he has said; “I will utterly
consume all things. I will gather all things;” (so
some;) “I will recall all the blessings I have be¬
stowed, because they have abused them, and so for¬
feited them. ”
The consuniption determined shall take away,
1. The inferior creatures; I will consume the
beasts, the fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the
sea; ( v . 3.) as, in the deluge, even / living substance
was destroyed that was upon the face of the ground,
Gen. vii. 23. The creatures were made for man’s
use, and therefore when he has perverted the use
of them, and made them subject to vanity, God, to
show the greatness of his displeasure against the
sin of man, involves them in his punishment. The
expressions are figurative, speaking universal deso¬
lation. Those that fly ever so high, as the fowls of
heaven, and think themselves out of the reach of the
enemies’ hand; those that hide ever so close, as the
fishes of the sea, and think themselves out of the
reach of the enemies’ eye, shall yet become a prey
to them, and be utterly consumed.
2. The children of men; “7 will consume man, I
will cut off man from the land. The land shall be
dispeopled and left uninhabited; I will destroy, not
only Israel, but man. The land shall enjoy her
sabbaths. I will cut off, not only the wicked men,
but all men; even the few among them that are
good, shall be involved in this common calamity.
Though they shall not be cut off from the Lord,
vet they shall be cut off from the land.” It is with
Judah and Jerusalem that God has this quarrel,
both city and country, and upon them he will stretch
out his hand, the hand of his power, the hand of his
wrath; and who knows the power of his anger? v.
4. They that will not humble themselves under
God’s mighty hand, shall be humbled and brought
down by it. Note, Even Judah, where God is
known, and Jerusalem, where his dwelling-place is,
if they revolt from him, and rebel against him, shall
have his hand stretched out against them.
3. All wicked people, and all those things that are
the matter of their wickedness; (x'. 3.) “ I will
consume the stumbling-blocks with the wicked, the
idols with the idolaters, the offences with the of¬
fenders.” Josiah had taken away the stumbling-
blocks, and, as far as he could, had purged the land
of the monuments of idolatry, hoping that there
would be no more idolatry, but the wicked will do
wickedly, the dog will return to his vomit, and
therefore, since the sin will not otherwise be cured,
the sinners must themselves be consumed; even the
wicked with the stumbling-blocks of their iniquity,
Ezek. xiv. 3. Since it was not done by the sword
of justice, it shall be done by the sword of war.
See who the sinners are, that shall be consumed.
(1.) The professed idolaters, who avowed idola¬
try, and were wedded to it. The remnant of Baal
shall be cut off, the images of Baal, and the wor¬
shippers of those images. Josiah cut off a great
deal of Baal; but that which was so close as to es¬
cape the eye, or so bold as to escape the hand, of
his justice, God will cut off, even all the remains
of it. The Chaldeans would spare none of the
images of Baal, or the worshippers of those images.
The Chemarims shall be cut off; we read of them
in the history of Josiah’s reformation; (2 Kings xxiii.
5.) He put down the idolatrous priests, the word is
the Chemarim. The word signifies black men;
some think because they wore black clothes, af¬
fecting to appear grave; others, because their faces
were black with attending the altars, or the fires in
which they burnt their children to Moloch. They
seem to have been immediate attendants upon the
service of Baal; they shall be cut off with the
priests, the regulars with the seculars. The very
name of them shall be cut off; the order shall be
quite abolished, so as to be forgotten, or remem¬
bered with detestation. And among other idolaters,
the worshippers of the host of heaven upon the house¬
tops shall be cut off, (v. 5.) who justified themselves
in their idolatry with them that did not worship
images, the work of their own hands, but offered
their sacrifices, and burnt their incense, to the sun,
moon, and stars, immediately upon the tops of their
houses; but God will let them know that he is a
jealous God, and will not endure any rival; and
though some have thought that the most specious
and plausible idolatry, yet it will appear as great
an offence to God, to give divine honours to a star,
as to give them to a stone or a stock. Even the wor¬
shippers of the host of heaven shall be consumed as
well as the worshippers of the beasts of the earth,
or the fiends of hell. The sin of the adulteress is
not the less sinful for the gaiety of the adulterer.
(2.) Those also shall be consumed, that think to
compound the matter between God and idols, and
keep an even hand between them ; that halt between
God and Baal, and worship between Jehovah and
Moloch, and swear by both; or, as it might better
be read, swear to the Lord, and to Malcham. They
bind themselves by oath and covenant to the ser¬
vice both of God and idols; they have a good opin¬
ion of the worship of the God of Israel, it is the
religion of their country, and has been long so, and
therefore they will by no means quit it; but they
think it will be very much improved and beautified
if they join with it the worship of Moloch, for that
also is much used in other countries, and travellers
admire it, there is a great deal of good fancy and
strong flame in it. They cannot keep always to the
worship of a God whom they have no visible repre¬
sentation of, and therefore they must have an image:
and what better than the image of Moloch — a king?
They think they shall effectually atone for their
sin, if they swear to Moloch, and, pursuant to that
oath, bum their children in sacrifice to that idol;
and yet if they do amiss in that, they hope to atone
for it in worshipping the God of Israel too. Note,
Those that think to divide their affections and ado¬
rations between God and idols, will not only come
short of acceptance with God, but will have their
doom with the worst of idolaters; for what com¬
munion can there be between light and darkness,
Christ and Belial, God and Mammon? She whose
own the child is not, pleads for the dividing of it,
for if Satan have half, he will have all; but the true
mother says, Divide it not, for if God have but
1077
ZEPHANIAH, 1.
half, he will have none. Such waters will not be
long sweet, it they come i rom a fountain that sends
forth bitter water too; what have they to do to swear
by the Lord, that swear by Malcham?
(3.) Those also shall be consumed, that have
apostatized from God, together with those that ne¬
ver gave up their names to him, i'. 6. I will cut
off, [1. ] Them that are turned back from the Lord;
that were well taught, and began well, that had
given up their names to him, and set out at first in
the worship of him, but have flown off, and turned
aside, and fallen in with idolaters, but deserted
those good ways of God, which they were brought
up in, and despised them; those God will be sure to
reckon with, who are renegadoes from his service,
who began in the Spirit, and ended in the flesh;
they shall be treated as deserters, to whom no
mercy is showed. [2.] Those that have not sought
the Lord, nor ever inquired for him, never made
any profession of religion, and think to excuse
themselves with that, shall find that this will not ex¬
cuse them; nay, that is the thing laid to their charge;
they are atheistical, careless people, that live with¬
out God in the world; and those that do so, are cer¬
tainly unworthy to live upon God in the -world .
7. Hold thy peace at the presence of the
Lord God; for the day of the Lord is at
hand : for the Lord hath prepared a sacri-
fide, lie hath bid his guests. 8. And it shall
come to pass in the day of the Lord’s sa¬
crifice, that I will punish the princes, and
the king’s children, and all such as are cloth¬
ed with strange apparel. 9. In the same
day also will 1 punish all those that leap on
the threshold, which fill their masters’
houses with violence and deceit. 10. And
it shall come to pass in that day, saith the
Lord, that there shall be the noise of a cry
from the fish-gate, and a howling from the
second, and a great crashing from the hills.
11. Howl, ye inhabitants of Maktesh, for
all the merchant people are cut down; all
they that bear silver are cut off. 12. And
it shall come to pass at that time, that I will
search Jerusalem with candles, and punish
the men that are settled on their lees; that
say in their heart, The Lord will not do
good, neither will he do evil. 13. Therefore
their goods shall become a booty, and their
houses a desolation: they shall also build
houses, but not inhabit them; and they shall
plant vineyards, but not drink the wine
Inereof.
Notice is here given to Judah and Jerusalem, that
God is coming forth against them, and will be with
them shortly; his presence, as a just Avenger, his
day, the day of his judgment, and his wrath, are
not far off, v. 7. Those that improve not the pre¬
sence of God with them as a Father, but sin away
that presence, may expect his presence with them
as a Judge, to call them to an account for the con¬
tempt put upon his grace. The day of the Lord
will come; men have their day now, when they take
a liberty to do what they please, but God’s day is
at hand; it is here called his sacrifice, a sacrifice of
his preparing; for the punishing of presumptuous
sinners is a sacrifice to the justice of God, some re¬
paration to his injured honour; they that brought
their offerings to other gods, were justly made
themselves victims to the true God. On a day of
sacrifice great slaughter was made; so shall there
be in Jerusalem, men shall be killed up as fast as
lambs for the altar, with as little regret, with as
much pleasure; The slain of the Lord shall be
many. On a day of sacrifice great feasts were made
upon the sacrifices; so the inhabitants of Judah and
Jerusalem shall be feasted upon by their enemies
the Chaldeans; these are the guests God has pre¬
pared and invited to come and glut themselves —
their revenge with slaughter, and their covetousness
with plunder. Now observe,
I. Who they are, that are marked to b e sacrificed,
that shall be visited and punished in this day of
reckoning, and what it is they shall be called to an
account for.
1. The royal family, because of the dignity of
their place, shall be first reckoned with for their
pride, and vanity, and affectation; (i'. S. ) I will
punish the princes, and the king's children, who
think themselves exempt from punishment; they
shall find themselves accountable to God, and that,
high as they are, he is above them. They shall be
punished, and all such as, like them, are clothed
with strange apparel, such as, in contempt of their
own country, (where, probably, it was the custom
to go in a very plain dress, as became the seed of
Jacob that plain man,) affected to appear in the
fashion of other nations, and introduced their modes
in apparel; studying to resemble those from whom
God had appointed them, even in their clothes, in¬
dustriously to distinguish themselves. The princes
and the king’s children, scorned to wear any home¬
made stuffs, though God had provided them fine
linen and silks, (Ezek. xvi. 10.) but they must send
abroad to strange countries for their clothes, which
would not please unless they were far-fetched and
dear-bought; and even those of inferior rank af¬
fected to imitate the princes, and the king’s chil¬
dren. Pride in apparel is displeasing to God, and
a symptom of the degeneracy of a people.
2. The noblemen, and their stewards and ser
vants, come next to be reckoned with; (v. 9.) In
the same day will I punish those that leap on the
threshold; a phrase, no doubt, well understood
then, which probably signified the invading of their
neighbours’ rights; entering their houses by force
and violence, and seizing their possessions, they
leap on the threshold; as much as to say, the house
is their own, and they will keep their hold of it;
and, accordingly, they make all in it their own that
thej’ can lay their hands on, and so fill their mas¬
ters’ houses with goods gotten by violence and de¬
ceit, and with all the goods thereby contracted. Nor
shall it suffice them to say, that the ill-gotten gains
were not for themselves, but for their masters,
and that what they did was by their order; for the
obligations we lie under to keep God’s command¬
ments, are prior and superior to the obligations
we lie under to serve the interests of any master on
earth.
3. The trading people, and the rich merchants,
are next called to account; iniquity is found in their
end of the town, among the inhabitants of Maktesh,
a low part of Jerusalem, deep like a mortar; (for so
the word signifies;) the goldsmiths lived there,
(Neh. iii. 32.) and the merchants: and they are now
cut down, they are broken, and have shut up their
shops, and become bankrupts; nay, All they that
bear silver are cut off, in the first place, by the in¬
vaders, for the sake of the silver they carry, which
is so far from being a protection to them, that it will
expose and betray them. The conquerors aimed
at the wealthy men, and carried them off first,
while the poor of the land escaped. Or, it may be
meant of a general decay of trade, which was a pre
1078
ZEPHANIAH, I.
face and introduction to the general destruction of
the land. It is the token of a declining state, when
great dealers are cut down, and great bankers are
cut off, and become bankrupts, who cannot fall
alone, but with themselves ruin many.
4. All the secure and careless people, the sons of
pleasure, that live a loose, idle life, are next reckon¬
ed with; ( v . 12.) they come from all parts of the
country, to take up their quarters in the head-quar¬
ters of the kingdom, where they take private lodg¬
ings, and indulge themselves in ease and luxury;
but God will find them out, and punish them; jit
that time I will search Jerusalem with candles, to
discover them, that they may be brought out to con¬
dign punishment. This intimates that they conceal
themselves, as being either ashamed of the sin, or
afraid of the punishment of it; when the judgments
of God are abroad, they hope to escape by abscond¬
ing, and getting out of the way; but God will search
Jerusalem, as search is made for a malefactor in
disguise, that is harboured by his accomplices;
God’s hand will find out all his enemies, wherever
they lie hid, and will punish not only the secret
idolaters, but the secret epicures and profane; and
those are they that are here described, and marks
are given by which they will be discovered when
strict search is made for them. (1.) Their dispo¬
sitions are sensual; they are settled on their lees; in¬
toxicated with their pleasures, strengthening them¬
selves in their wealth and wickedness, they are
secure and easy, and, because they have had no
changes, they fear none, as Moab, Jer. xlviii. 1 1.
They had not been emfilied from vessel to vessel.
They fill themselves with wine and strong drink,
and banish all thought, saying, To-morrow shall be
as this day, Isa. lvi. 12. " Their being settled on
their lees, signifies the same with being enclosed in
their own fat, Ps. xvii. 10. (2.) Their notions are
atheistical; they could not live such loose lives, but
that they say in their heart, The Lord will not do
good, neither will he do evil; that is, He will do no¬
thing. They deny his providential government in
the world; “ What good and evil there is in the
world, comes by the wheel of fortune, and not by
the disposal of a wise and supreme Director. ” They
deny his moral government, and his dispensing of
rewards and punishments; “ The Lord will not do
good to those that serve him, nor do evil to those
that rebel against him; and therefore there is no¬
thing got by religion, nor lost by sin.” This is the
effect of their sensuality; if they were not drowned
in sense, they could not be thus senseless, nor could
they be so stupid, if they had not stupified them¬
selves with the love of pleasure. It was also the
cause of their sensuality; men would not make a
god of their belly, if they had not at first become so
vain, so vile in their imaginations, as to think the
God that made them altogether such a one as them¬
selves. But God will fiunish them, their end is de¬
struction, Phil. iii. 19.
II. What the destruction will be, with which
God will punish these sinners, and what course he
will take with them. 1. He will silence them; (v.
7.) Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord. He
will force them to hold their peace, will strike them
dumb with horror and amazement: they shall be
speechless, all the excuses of their sin, and excep¬
tions against the sentence, will be overruled, and
they shall not have a word to say for themselves. 2.
He will sacrifice them, for it is the daxj of the Lord’s
sacrifice; (y. 8.) he will give them into the hands
of their enemies, and glorify himself thereby. 3. He
will fill both city and country with lamentations;
(z>. 10.) In that day there shall be the noise of a cry
from the fish-gate, so called because near either to
the fish-ponds or to the fish-market. It belonged
to the city of David; (2 Chron. xxxiii. 14. Neh. in
3.) perhaps tne same with that which is called the
first-gate, (Zech. xiv. 10.) and if so, it will explain
what follows here, And a howling from the second,
that is, the second gate, which was next to that fish
gate. The alarm shall go round the walls of Jeru
salem, from gate to gate; and there shall be a great
crashing from the hills, a mighty noise from the
mountains round about Jerusalem, either from the
acclamations of the victorious invaders, or from the
lamentations of the timorous invaded, or from both.
The inhabitants of the city, even of the closest,
safest part of the city, shall howl; ( [v . 11.) so cla
morous shall the grief be. 4. They shall be strip,
ped of all they have, it shall be a prey to the enemy;
(v. 13.) Their household goods, and shop goods,
shall become a booty, and a rich booty they shall be,
their houses shall be levelled with the ground, and
be a desolation; those of them that have built new
houses, shall not inherit them, but the invaders shall
get and keep possession of them. And the vineyards
they have planted they shall not drink the wine of,
but instead of having it for the relief of their friends
that faint among them, they shall part with it for
the animating of their foes that fight against them,
Deut. xxviii. 30.
14. The great day of the Lord is near,
it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice
of the day of the Lord : the mighty man
shall cry there bitterly. 15. That day is a
day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress
a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of
darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds
and thick darkness. 16. A day of the
trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities,
and against the high towers. 17. And I
will bring distress upon men, that they shall
walk like blind men, because they have
sinned against the Lord : and their blood
shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh
as the dung. 18. Neither their silver nor
their gold shall be able to deliver them in
the day of the Lord’s wrath ; but the whole
land shall be devoured by the fire of his
jealousy : for he shall make even a speedy
riddance of all them that dwell in the land
Nothing could be expressed with more spirit and
life, nor in words more proper to startle and awaken
a secure and careless people, than the warning here
given to Judah and Jerusalem, of the approaching
destruction by the Chaldeans. That is enough to
make the sinners in Zion tremble — that it is the day
of the I-ord, the day in which he will manifest him¬
self by taking vengeance on them. It is the great
day of the Lord, a specimen of the day of judgment,
a kind of doom’s-day, as the last destruction of Jeru¬
salem by the Romans is represented to be in our
Saviour’s prediction concerning it, Matt. xxiv. 27.
1. This day of the Lord is here spoken of as very '
near; the vision is not for a great while to come, as
those imagine who put the evil day far from them;
they deceive themselves who look upon it as a thing
at a distance, for it is near, it is near, it hastens
greatly. The prophet gives the alarm like one
that is' in earnest, like one that awakens a family
with the cry of, Fire, fire, when it is at next door
that the danger is; “It is near, it is near, and there -
fore it is high time to bestir yourselves, and do
what you can for your own safety before it be too
late.” It is madness for those to slumber, whose
1079
ZEPHAJNIAH, II.
damnation slumbers not, and to linger when it has-
.ens.
2. It is spoken of as a very dreadful day; the
very voice of this day of the Lord , the noise of it,
when it is coming, shall be so terrible, as to make
the mighty men cry there bitterly, cry for fear as
children do. It shall be a vexation to hear the re¬
port of it. In the’last great day of the Lord the
mighty men shall cry bitterly to rocks and mountains
to shelter them; but in vain. Observe how em¬
phatically the prophet speaks of this day approach¬
ing; (d. 15.) It is a day of wrath, God’s wrath,
wrath in perfection, wrath to the utmost. It will
be a day of trouble and distress to the sinners, they
shall be in pain, and shall see no ways of easing or
helping themselves. The miseries of the damned
are summed up (perhaps with reference to this
here,) in the indignation and wrath of God, which
is the cause, and the tribulation and anguish of the
sinner’s soul, which is the effect, Rom. ii. 8, 9. It
will be a day of trouble and distress to the inhabi¬
tants, and a day of wasteness and desolation to the
whole land; that fruitful land shall be turned into a
wilderness. It shall be a day of darkness and
gloominess, every thing shall look dismal, and there
shall not be the least gleam of comfort, or glimpse of
hope; look round, and it is all black. It is a day of
clouds and thick darkness; there is not onlv nothing
encouraging, but every thing threatening; tne thick
clouds are big with storms and tempests.
3. It is spoken of as a destroying day, 16, 17.
It shall be destroying, (1.) To places, even cne
strongest and best fortified; A day of the trumpet
and alarm against the fenced cities, to break into
them, and against the high towers, to bring them
down; for what forts, what fences can hold out
against the wrath of God? (2.) To persons; [y. 17.)
I will bring distress upon men, the strongest and
stoutest of men; their hearts and hands shall fail
them; they shall walk like blind men, wandering
endlessly because they have sinned against the Lord.
Note, Those that walk as bad men, will justly be
left to walk as blind men, always in the dark, in
doubt and danger, without any guide or comfort,
and falling at length into the aitch. Because they
have sinned against the Lord he will deliver them
into the hands of cruel enemies, that shall pour out
their blood as dust, so profusely, and with as little
regret, and their flesh shall be thrown as dung upon
the dunghill.
4. The destruction of that day will be unavoida¬
ble and universal, v. 18. (1.) There shall be no
escaping it by ransom ; Neither their silver nor their
gold, which they have hoarded up so covetously
against the evil day, or which they have spent so
prodigally, to make friends for such a time, shall be
able to deliver them in the day of the Lord's wrath.
Another prophet borrowed these words from this,
with reference to the same event, Ezek. vii. 19.
Note, Riches profit not in the day of wrath, Prov.
xi. 4. Nay, riches expose to the wrath of men,
(Eccl. v. 13.) and riches abused to the wrath of
God. (2.) There shall be no escaping it by flight
or concealment; for the whole land shall be devour¬
ed by the flre of his jealousy; and where then can a
hiding-place be found? See what the fire of God’s
jealousy is, and what the force of it: it will devour
whole lanes; how then can particular persons stand
before it? He shall make riddance, a speedy rid¬
dance, of all them that dwell in the land; as the hus¬
bandman, when he rids his ground, cuts up all the
briers and thorns for the fire. Note, Sometimes the
judgments of God make riddance, even utter rid¬
dance, with sinful nations, a speedy riddance; their
destructio i is effected, is completed, in a little time.
Let not snners be laid asleep by the patience of
God, for whev fhe measure of their iniquity is full.
his justice will both overtake and overcome; will
make quick work and thorough work.-
CHAP. II.
In this chapter we have, I. An earnest exhortation to the
nation of the Jews to repent and make their peace with
God, and so to prevent the judgments threatened before
it was too late, (v. 1 . . 3.) and this inferred from the re¬
velation of God’s wrath against them in the foregoing
chapter. II. A denunciation of the judgments of God
against divers of the neighbouring nations that had as¬
sisted, or rejoiced, in the calamity of Israel. 1. The
Philistines, v. 4 . . 7. 2. The Moabites and Ammonites,
v. 8. .11. 3. The Ethiopians and Assyrians, v. 12 . . 15.
All these shall drink of the same cup of trembling, that
is put into the hands of God’s people, as was also fore¬
told by other prophets before and after.
1. 4^1 ATHER yourselves together, yea,
VJT gather together, O nation not de¬
sired; 2. Before the decree bring forth, be¬
fore the day pass as the chaff, before the
fierce anger of the Lord come upon you,
before the day of the Lord’s anger come
upon you. 3. Seek ye the Lord, all ye
meek of the earth, which have wrought his
judgment; seek righteousness, seek meek¬
ness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day
of the Lord’s anger.
Here we see what the prophet meant in that ter¬
rible description of the approaching judgments,
which we had in the foregoing chapter, from first to
last; his design was, not to drive the people to des¬
pair, but to drive them to God and to their duty, not
to frighten them out of their wits, but to frighten
them out of their sins. In pursuance of that, he
here calls them to repentance, national repentance,
as the only way to prevent national ruin.
Observe,
1. The summons given them to a national assem¬
bly; (u. 1.) Gather yourselves together. He had
told them, in the last words of the foregoing chap¬
ter, that God would make a speedy riddance of all
that dwelt in the land, upon which, one would think,
it should follow, “ Disperse yourselves, and flee for
shelter where you can find a place.” When the
decree was absolutely gone forth for the last destruc¬
tion of Jerusalem by the Romans, that was the ad¬
vice given, (Matth. xxiv. 16.) Then let them which
be in Judea, fee into the mountains; but here it is
otherwise. God warns, that he may not wound,
threatens, that he may not strike, and therefore
calls to the people to use means for the turning away
of his wrath. The summons is given to a nation
not desired. The word signifies either, (1.) Not
desiring, that has not any desires toward God, or
the remembrance of his name, is not desirous of his
favour and grace, but very indifferent to it, has no
mind to repent and reform; “Yet come together,
and see if you can stir up desires in one another. ”
Thus God is often found of those that sought him
not, nor asked for him, Isa. lxv. 1. Or, (2.) Not
desirable, no ways lovely, nor having any thing in
them amiable, or which might recommend them to
God. The land of Israel had been a pleasant land,
a land of delight; (Dan. xi. 41.) but now it is un¬
lovely, it is a nation not desired, to which God
might justly say, Depart from me; but he says,
“Gather together to me, and let us see if any expe¬
dient can be found out for the preventing of the
ruin. Gather together, that you may in a body
humble yourselves before God, may fast, and pray,
and seek his face. Gather together, to consult
among voursclves what is to be done in this critical
1080
ZEPHAMAH, II.
juncture, tnat every one may consider of it, may
give and take advice, and s/iea/c his mind; and that
what is done may be done by consent, and so may
be a national act.” Some read it, “ Inquire into
yourselves, yea, inquire into yourselves; examine
your consciences, look into your hearts, search and
try your ways; inquire into yourselves, that, you
may find out the sin by which God has been pro¬
voked to this displeasure against you, and may find
jut the way of returning to him.” Note, When
God is contending with us, it concerns us to inquire
into ourselves.
2 Arguments urged to press them to the utmost
seriousness and expedition herein; (u. 2.) “Doit
in earnest, do it with all speed before it be too late,
before the decree bring forth, before the day pass.”
The manner of speaking here is very lively and
awakening, designed to make them apprehensive,
(as all sinners are concerned to be.) (1.) That their
danger is very great, that their all lies at stake, that
it is a matter of life and death, which therefore well
requires and well deserves the closest application
of mind that can be. It is not a trifle, and therefore
is not a thing to be trifled about. It is the fierce
anger of the Lord that is kindled against them, and
is just ready to kindle upon them; that devouring
fire which none can dwell with, which none can
make head against, or hold up their head under.
“ It is the day of the Lord’s anger, the day set for
the pouring out of the full vials of it, that you are
threatened with, that great day of the Loril,” spo¬
ken of, ch. i. 14. “ Are you not concerned to pre¬
pare for that day ?” (2.) That it is very imminent;
“ Bestir yourselves now quickly, before the decree
bring forth, and then it will be too late, the oppor¬
tunity will be lost, and never retrieved. The de¬
cree is as it were big with child, and it will bring
forth the day, the terrible day, which shall fiass as
chaff, which shall hurry you away into captivity, as
chaff before the wind.” We know not what a day
may bring forth, (Prov. xxvii. 1.) but we do know
what the decree will bring forth against impenitent
sinners, whom therefore it highly concerns to repent
in time, in the accefited time. Note, It is the wis¬
dom of those whom God has a controversy with, to
agree with him quickly, while they are in the way,
before his fierce anger comes upon them, not to be
turned away. In a case of this nature delays are
highly dangerous, and may be fatal; they will be
so if by them the heart is hardened. How solicitous
should we all be to make our peace with God be¬
fore the Spirit withdraw from us, or cease to strive
with us; before the day of grace be over, or the day
of life; before our everlasting state shall be deter¬
mined on the other side the great gulf fixed !
3. Directions prescribed for the doing of this ef¬
fectually. It is not enough to gather together in a
consternation, but they must seriously and calmly
apply themselves to the duty of the day; (y. 3.)
Seek ye the Lord: that they might find mercy with
God they are here put upon seeking; for so is the
rule, Seek, and ye shall find. A general call was
given to the whole nation, to gather together, but
little good is to be expected from the far greater
part of them; if the land be saved, it must be by the
interest and intercession of the pious few, and there¬
fore to them the exhortation here is particularly di¬
rected. And observe, ( 1. ) How they are described
— they are the meek of the earth, or of the land. It
is the distinguishing character of the people of God,
that they are the meek ones of the earth; this is
their badge, it is their livery: they are modest, and
humble, and low in their own eyes, they are mild
and gentle, and yielding to others, not soon angry,
not very angry, not long angry, they are the quiet
in the land, Ps. xxxv. 20. And they are subject
and submissive to their God, to all his precepts
and all providences; actuated by this principle am)
disposition, they have wrought his judgments,
have obeyed his laws, observed his institutions,
have made conscience of their duty to him, and
have laid out themselves for the advancement of his
honour and interest in the world. (2. ) What they
are required to do; they must seek; which denotes
both a careful inquiry, and a constant endeavour,
that they may know and do their duty. [1.] They
must seek the Lord, seek his favour and grace, ad¬
dress him upon all occasions, ask of him what they
need, seek him early, seek him diligently, and con¬
tinue seeking him. [2. ] They must seek righteous¬
ness; “ Seek to God for the performance of his pro¬
mises to you, and see to it that you abound yet more
in duty to him, seek for the righteousness of Christ
to be imputed to you, for the graces of God’s Spirit
to be implanted in you; hunger and thirst after
them.” [3.] They must seek meekness; this is a
grace they were so eminent for, that they were de¬
nominated the meek of the land; and yet this they
must seek. Note, Those that are ever so good,
must still strive to be better, those that have ever
so much grace, must still be praying and labouring
for more. Nay, those that excel in any particular
grace, must still seek to excel yet more in that, be¬
cause in that most assaults will be made upon them
by their enemies, in that most is expected from
them by their friends, and in that they are most
apt to be themselves secure. Si diocisti, suffcit,
periisti — Say but, I am all that I ought to be, and
you are undone. In the difficult, trying times ap¬
proaching, the meek will find exercise for all the
meekness they have, and all little enough, and
therefore should seek it earnestly, and pray that
when God in his providence gives them occasion for
it, he would by his grace enable them to exercise it,
to show all meekness to all men, in all instances;
that as the day is, so may the strength be.
4. Encouragements given to take these directions,
It may be, you shall be hid in the day of the Lord’s
anger. (1.) “You particularly that are the meek
of the earth; though the day of the Lord’s anger do
come upon the land, yet you shall be safe, you
shall be taken under special protection; verily it
shall be well with thy remnant, Jer. xv. 11. Thu
life wilt I give unto thee for a prey, Jer. xlv. 5. I
will deliver thee in that day, Jer. xxxix. 17. It
may be, you shall be hid; if any be hid, you shall.”
Good men cannot be sure of temporal preservation,
for all things come alike to all, but they are most
likely to be hid, and stand fairest for a distinguish¬
ing care of Providence. It is expressed thus doubt¬
fully, to try if they will trust the goodness of God’s
nature, though they have but the ‘it may be’ of a pro¬
mise; and to keep up in them a holy fear and
watchfulness, lest they should seem to come short,
and should do any thing to throw themselves out of
the divine protection. Note, Those that hold fast
their integrity in times of common iniquity, have
reason to hope that God will find out a hiding-place
for them, where they shall be safe and easy in times
of common calamity. They shall be hid (as Luther
says) aut in ctelo, aut sub cielo — either in heaven, or
under heaven, either in the possession of heaven, or
under the protection of heaven. Or, (2.) “ You of
this nation, though it be a nation not desired, yet, in
the day of the Lord’s anger with the neighbouring
nations, when his judgments are abroad, you shall
be hid, your land shall be preserved for the sake of
those few meek ones that stand in the gap, to turn
away the wrath of God.” It concerns us all to
make it sure to ourselves, that we shall be hid in
the great day of God’s wrath; and if we hide our¬
selves in chambers of duty, God will hide us in
chambers of safety, Isa, xxvi. 20. If we prepare
an ark, that shall be our hiding-place, Gen. vii. 1.
108 1
ZEPHAN1AH, 11.
4. For Gaza shall be forsaken, and Ash-
Kelon a desolation: they shall drive out Ash-
dod at the noon-day, and Ekron shall be
rooted up. 5. Wo unto the inhabitants of
the sea-coast, the nation of the Cherethites!
the word of the Lord is against you ; O
Canaan, the land of the Philistines, I will
even destroy thee, that there shall be no in¬
habitant. 6. And the sea-coast shall be
dwellings and cottages for shepherds, and
folds for Hocks. 7. And the coast shall be
for the remnant of the house of Judah ; they
shall feed thereupon : in the houses of Ash-
kelon shall they lie down in the evening;
for the Lord their God shall visit them,
and turn away their captivity.
The prophet here comes to foretell what share
the neighbouring nations should have in the destruc¬
tions made upon those parts of the world by Nebu¬
chadnezzar and his victorious Chaldees, as other
of the prophets did at that time; which is designed,
(1.) To awaken the people of the Jews, by making
them sensible how strong, how deep, how large,
the inundation of the calamities should be, that the
day of the Lord, which was near, might appear the
more dreadful, and they might thereby be quick¬
ened to prepare for it as for a general deluge. (2.)
To comfort them with this thought, that their case,
though sad, should not be singular; ( Solamen mi-
seris socios habuisse doloris — the wretched find it
consolatory to have compatiions of their wo;) and
much more with this, that though God' had seemed
to be their Enemy, and to fight against them, yet
he was still so far their Friend, and an Enemy to
their enemies, that he resented, and would revenge,
the indignities done them.
In these verses, we have the doom of the Philis¬
tines, who were near neighbours, and old enemies,
to the people of Israel. Five lordships there were
in that country; only four are here named, Gaza
and Ashkelon, Ashdod and Ekron; Gath, the fifth,
is not named; some think, because it was now sub¬
ject to Judah. They were the inhabitants of the
sea-coasts, (v. 5.) for their country lay upon the
Great sea. The nation of the Cherethites is here
joined with them, which bordered upon them, (1
Sam. xxx. 14.) and fell with them, as is foretold
also, Ezek. xxv. 16. The Philistines’ land is here
called Canaan, for it belonged to that country which
God gave to his people Israel, and was inserted in
the grant made to them. Josh. xiii. 3. This land is
yet to be possessed, {fve lords of the Philistines,)
so that they wrongfullv kept Israel out of the pos¬
session of it, (Judg. hi. 3.) which is now remem¬
bered against them. For though the rights of
others may be long detained unjustly, the righteous
God will at length avenge the wrong.
1. It is here foretold that the Philistines, the
usurpers, shall be dispossessed and quite extirpated.
In general, here is a wo to them, (r. 5. ) which,
coming from God, speaks all misery; The word of
the Lord is against them — the word of the former
prophets, which, though not yet accomplished,
will be in its season, Isa. xiv. 31. This word, now
by this prophet, is against them. Note, Those are
really in a woful condition that have the word of
the Lord against them, for no word of his shall fall
to the ground They that rebel against the pre¬
cepts of God’s word shall have the threatenings of
the word against them. The effect will be no less
than their destruction, (1.) God himself will be the
Author of it: “I will even destroy thee, who can
Vol. IV. — 6 X
make good what I say and will.” (2.) It shall be a
universal destruction, it shall extend itself to all
parts of the land, both city and country. Gaza
shall be forsaken, though now a populous city; it
was foretold, (Jer. xlvii. 6.) that baldness should
come upon Gaza; Alexander the great razed that
city, and we find, (Acts viii. 26.) that Gaza was a
desert. Ashkelon shall be a desolation, a pattern
of desolation. Ashdod shall be driven out at noon¬
day; in the extremity of the scorching heat they
shall have no shade, no shelter to protect them;
but then, when most incommoded by the weather,
they shall be forced away into captivity, which will
be an aggravating circumstance of it. Ekron like¬
wise shall be rooted up, that had been long taking
root. The land of the Philistines shall be dispeo¬
pled, there shall be no inhabitant, a. 5. God made
the earth to be inhabited, (Isa. xlv. 18.) otherwise
he had made it in vain; but if men do not answer
the end of their creation, in serving God, it is just
with God that the earth should not answer the end
of its creation, in serving them for a habitation;
man’s sin has sometimes subjected it to this vanity.
(3.) It shall be an utter destruction. The sea-coast,
which used to be a harbour for ships, and a habita¬
tion for merchants, shall now be deserted, and be
only cottages for shepherds, and folds for flocks,
(i>. 6.) and then perhaps put to better use than
when it was possessed by the lords of the Philis¬
tines.
2. It is here foretold that the house of Judah, the
rightful owners, shall recover the possession of it, v.
7. The remnant of them that shall return out of
captivity, when God visits them, shall be made to
lie down in safety in the houses of Ashkelon; to lie
down in the evening, when they are weary and
sleepy. There they shall feed themselves and their
flocks. Note, God will at length restore his people
to their rights, though they may be long kept out
from them.
8. I have heard the reproach of Moab,
and the revilings of the children of Ammon,
whereby they have reproached my people,
and magnified themselves against their bor¬
der. 9. Therefore, as 1 live,.saith the Lord
of hosts, the God of Israel, Sufely Moab
shall be as Sodom, and the children of Am¬
mon as Gomorrah, even the breeding of net¬
tles,- and salt-pits, and a perpetual desola¬
tion : the residue of my people shall spoil
them, and the remnant of my people shall
possess them. 10. This shall they have for
their pride, because they have reproached
and magnified themselves against the people
of the Lord of hosts. 11. The Lord will
be terrible unto them : for he will famish all
the gods of the earth ; and men shall wor¬
ship him, every one from his place, even all
the isles of the heathen.
The Moabites and Ammonites were both of the
posterity of Lot; their countries joined; and, both
adjoining to Israel, they are here put together in
the prophecy against them.
1. They are both charged with the same crime,
and that was, reproaching and reviling the people
of God, and triumphing in their calamities; ( v . 8.)
They have reproached my people; while God’s
people kept close to their duty, it is probable that
they reproached them for the singularities of their
religion; and now that they had revolted from God,
1082
ZEPHANIAH, II.
and were fallen under his displeasure, they re¬
proached them for that too. It has been the com¬
mon lot of God’s people in all ages, to be reproached
and reviled upon one account or other; thus the old
serpent spits his venom; and pride is at the bottom
of it, it is in their pride that they have magnified
themselves against the people of the Lord of hosts,
thinking themselves as good as they, as great, and
every way as happy. It is the contempt of the proud
that God’s people are filled with, Ps. cxxiii. 4.
They have spoken big (so some read it, magna
loculi sunt — they have spoken great things) against
theirborder;(v. 8. ) against those of them that bor¬
dered upon their country, whom upon all occasions
they insulted; or against the property they claimed,
which they disputed, or the protection they boasted
of, which they ridiculed; they spake big against the
people of the Lord of hosts as a deserted, abandoned
people; great swelling words of vanity are the
genuine language of the church’s enemies. “ But I
have heard them,” (says God,) “ and will let you
know that I have heard them, I have heard, and I
will reckon for them,) Jude 15. And if God hears
the reproaches and revilings we are under, it is a
good reason why we should be as a deaf man that
hears not, Ps. xxxviii. 14, 15. Nay, God not only
takes notice of, but interests himself in, the re¬
proaches cast on his people, because they are his;
and it is certain, that they who look with disdain
upon the people of the Lord of hosts, thereby disho¬
nour the Lord of hosts himself. See this very thing
charged on Moab and Ammon, Ezek. xxv. 3, 8.
2. They are both laid under the same doom. As¬
sociates in iniquity may expect to be such in desola¬
tion. See with what solemnity sentence is pro¬
nounced upon them, v. 9. It is the Lord of hosts,
the sovereign Lord of all, who has authority to pass
this sentence, and ability to execute it; it is the God
of Israel who is jealous for their honour, it is he
that has said it, nay, he has sworn it. As I live,
said the Lord. The sentence is, (1.) That the
Moabites and Ammonites shall be quite destroyed;
they shall be as Sodom and as Gomorrah, the marks
of whose ruins in the Dead sea lay near adjoining to
the countries of Moab and Ammon; they shall,
though not by the same means, (even fire from
heaven,) yet almost in the same manner, be laid
waste; not again to be inhabited, or not of a long
time. The country shall produce nothing but net¬
tles, instead of corn; and thei'e shall be brine-pits,
instead of the pleasant fountains of water, with which
the country had abounded. (2. ) That Israel shall
be too hard for them; shall spoil them of their goods,
and possess their country by lawful war. Note,
Proud men sometimes, by the just judgment of God,
fall under the mortification of being trampled upon
themselves by those whom once they haughtily
trampled upon. And this shall they have for their
pride.
3. Other nations shall in like manner be humbled,
that the Lord alone may be exalted; (v. 11.) The
Lord will be terrible unto the Moabites and Am¬
monites in particular, who have made themselves a
terror to his Israel. (1.) Heathen gods must be
abolished; they have long had possession, and their
worshippers have both glorified them, and gloried
in them. But the Lord will famish all the gods of
the earth, will starve them out of their strong holds.
The Pagans had a fond conceit, that their idols
were regaled by their offerings, and did eat the fat
of their sacrifices, Deut. xxxii. 38. Omnia comesta
a Belo — Bel has eaten all. But it is here promised
that when the Christian religion is set up in the
world, men shall be turned from the service of these
dumb idols, shall forsake their altars, and bring no
more sacrifices to them, and thus they shall be
famished, or made lean, as the word is; their priests
shall. This speaks the vanity of those idols, it lLs
in the power of their worshippers to famish them;
whereas the true God says, If I were hungry, i
would not tell thee. It speaks also the victory of
the God of Israel over them; Now know we, that he
is greater than all gods. (2. ) Heathen nations must
be converted; when the gospel gets ground, by it
men shall be brought to worship him who lives for
ever, (for that is the command of the everlasting
gospel, Rev. xiv. 7.) every one from his place; they
shall not need to go up to Jerusalem, to worship the
God of Israel, but, wherever they are, they may
have access to him. I will that men pray every
where. God shall be worshipped, not only by all
the tribes of Israel, and the strangers who join
themselves to them, but by all the isles of the hea¬
then; this is a promise which looks favourably upon
our native country, for it is one of the most consi¬
derable of the isles of the Gentiles, by which God
will be glorified.
12. Ye Ethiopians also, ye shall he slain
by my sword. 13. And he will stretch out
his hand against the north, and destroy As¬
syria; and will make Nineveh a desolation,
and dry like a wilderness. 14. And flocks
shall lie down in the midst of her, all the
beasts of the nations: both the cormorant
and the bittern shall lodge in the upper
lintels of it; their voice shall sing in the
windows; desolation shall be in the thresh¬
olds: for lie shall uncover the cedar-work.
1 5. This is the rejoicing city that dwelt care¬
lessly: that said in her heart, I am and there
is none beside me: how is she become a
desolation, a place for beasts to lie down
in! every one that passeth by her shall hiss,
and wag his hand.
The cup is going round, when Nebuchadnezzar
is going on conquering and to conquer: and not only
Israel’s near neighbours, but those that lay more
remote, must be reckoned with for the wrongs they
had done to God’s people; the Ethiopians and the
Assyrians are here taken to task.
1. The Ethiopians, or Arabians, that had some¬
times been a terror to Israel, (as in Asa’s time, 2
Chron. xiv. 9.) must now be reckoned with. They
shall be slain by my sword, v. 12. Nebuchadnez¬
zar was God's sword, the instrument in his hand,
with which these and other enemies were subdued
and punished, Ps. xvii. 14.
2. The Assyrians, and Nineveh the head city of
their monarchv, are next set to the bar, to rece ve
their doom. He that is God’s sword, will stretch
out his hand against the north, and destroy Assyria,
and make himself master of it. Assyria had been
the rod of God’s anger against Israel, and now Ba¬
bylon is the rod of God’s anger against Assyria, Isa.
x. 5. He will make JVineveh a desolation, as lias
been lately and largely foretold by the phophet Na¬
hum. Observe,
(1.) How flourishing Nineveh’s estate had for¬
merly been, (y. 15.) This is the rejoicing city that
dwelt carelessly. Nineveh was so strong, that she
feared no evil, and therefore dwelt carelessly, and
set danger at defiance; she was so rich, that she
thought herself sure of all good, and therefore was
a rejoicing city, full of mirth and gaiety; and she
had such a dominion, that she admitted no rival,
but said in her heart, "lam, and there is none be¬
side me that can compare with me, no city in the
world that can pretend to be equal with me. ” God
1083
ZEPHANIAH, 111.
can with his judgments frighten the most secure,
humble the most haughty, and mar the mirth of
those that most laugh now.
(2.) How complete Nineveh’s ruin shall now be;
it shall be made a desolation, v. 13. Such a heap
of ruins shall this once pompous city be, that it shall
be, [1.] A receptacle tor beasts, such a wilderness,
that flocks shall lie down in it; nay, such a waste,
desolate, frightful place, that wild beasts, the beasts
of the nations, all kinds of beasts, shall take up their
abode there; the melancholy birds, as the cormo¬
rant and bittern, shall make their nests in what re¬
mains of the houses, as they sometimes do in old
ruinous buildings that are uninhabited and unfre¬
quented. The lintels, or chapiters of the pillars,
the windows and thresholds, and all the fine cedar-
work curiously engraven, shall lie exposed; and on
them these rueful, ominous birds shall perch, and
their voice shall sing. How are the songs of mirth
turned into hideous, horrid noises! What little rea¬
son have men to be proud of stately buildings, and
rich furniture, when they know not what all the
pomp of them may come to at last. [2.] A deri¬
sion to travellers. They that had come from far,
to gratify their curiosity with the sight of Nineveh’s
splendour, shall now look on her with as much con¬
tempt as ever they looked upon her with admira¬
tion; (x\ 15.) Every one that fiasses by shall hiss at
her, and wag his hand, making light of her deso¬
lations, nay, and making sport with them; “ There
is an end of proud Nineveh.” They shall not
wee/i, and wring their hands, ( their adversities are
unpitied and unlamented, who were insolent and
haughty in their prosperity,) but they shall hiss and
wag their hands, forgetting that perhaps their own
ruin is not far off.
CHAP. III.
We now return to Jerusalem, and must again hear what
God has to say to her, I. By way of reproof and threat¬
ening, for the abundance of wickedness that was found
in her; of which divers instances are given, with the
aggravations of them, v. I ..7. II. By way of promise
of mercy and grace, which God had yet in reserve for
them. Two general heads of promises here are, 1. That
God would bring in a glorious work of reformation
amon°f them, cleanse them from their sins, and bring
them home to himself ; many promises of this kind here
are, v. 8 . . 13. 2. That he would bring about a glorious
work of salvation for them, when he had thus prepared
them for it, v. 14. .20. Thus the Redeemer shall come
to Zion, and, to clear his own way, shall turn away un¬
godliness from Jacob. These promises were to have
their full accomplishment in gospel-times and gospel-
graces.
1. to her that is filthy and polluted,
▼ T to the oppressing city ! 2. She
obeyed not the voice ; she received not cor¬
rection : she trusted not in the Lord ; she
drew not near to her God. 3. Her princes
within her are roaring lions; her judges are
evening wolves; they gnaw not the bones
till the morrow. 4. Her prophets are light
and treacherous persons: her priests have
polluted the sanctuary, they have done vio¬
lence to the law. 5. The just Lord is in
the midst thereof; he will not do iniquity:
every morning doth he bring his judgment
to light, he faileth not; but the unjust know-
eth no shame. 6. I have cut off the na¬
tions: their towers are desolate; I made
their streets waste, that none passeth by:
their cities are destroyed, so that there is no
man, that there is none inhabitant 7. 1
said, Surely thou wilt fear me, thou wilt re¬
ceive instruction: so their dwelling should
not be cut off, howsoever 1 punished them:
but they rose early, and corrupted all their
doings.
One would wonder that Jerusalem, the holy city
where God was known, and his name was great,
should be the city of which this black character is
here given; that a place which enjoyed such plenty
' of the means of grace, should become so very cor¬
rupt and vicious, and that God should permit it to
be so; yet so it is, to show that the law made nothing
perfect; but if this be the true character of Jerusa¬
lem, as no doubt it is, (for God’s judgments will
make none worse than they are,) it is no wonder
that the prophet begins with wo to her. For the
holy God hates sin in those that are nearest to him,
nay, in them he hates it most. A sinful state is,
and will be, a woful state.
I. Here is a very bad character given of the city
in general; how is the faithful city become a harlot!
1. She shames herself; she is filthy and polluted,
has made herself infamous; (so some read it; v. 1.)
the gluttonous city, (so the margin,) always cram¬
ming, and making provision for the flesh, to fulfil
the lusts of it. Sin is the filthiness and pollution of
persons and places, and makes them odious in the
sight of the holy God. 2. She wrongs her neigh¬
bours and inhabitants; she is the oppressing city;
never any place had statutes and judgments so
righteous as this city had, and yet, in the adminis¬
tration of the government, never was more un¬
righteousness. 3. She is very Jirovoking to her
God, and in every respect walks contrary to him, v.
2. He has given his law, and spoken to her by
his servants the prophets, telling her what is the
good she should do, and what the evil she should
avoid; but she obeyed not his voice, nor made con¬
science of doing as he commanded her, in any thing.
He has taken her under an excellent discipline,
both of the word and of the rod; but she did not' re¬
ceive the instruction of the one, or the correction of
the other; did not submit to God’s will, nor answer
his end in either. He encouraged her to depend
upon him, and his power and promise, for deliver¬
ance from evil, and supply with good; but she
trusted not in the Lord; her confidence was placed
in her alliances with the nations more than in her
covenant with God. He gave her tokens of his
presence, and instituted ordinances of communion
for her with himself ; but she drew not near to her
God, did not meet him where he appointed, and
where he promised to meet her. She stood at a
distance, and said to the Almighty, Depart.
I I. Here is a very bad character of the leading men
in it; those that should by their influence suppress
vice and profaneness there, are the great patterns
and patrons of it; and those that should be her physi¬
cians, are really her worst disease. 1. Her princes
are ravenous and barbarous as roaring lions that
make a prey of all about them; and they are univer¬
sally feared and hated ; they use their power for de¬
struction, and notfor edification. 2. Her judges, who
should be the protectors of injured innocence, are
evening wolves, rapacious and greedy, and their
cruelty and covetousness both insatiable ; They
gnaw not the bones till the morrow; they take so
much delight and pleasure in cruelty and oppres¬
sion, that when they have devoured a good man,
they reserve the bones, as it were, for a sweet mor¬
sel, to be gnawed the next morning, Job xxxi. 31.
3. Her prophets, who pretended to be special mes¬
sengers from heaven to them, were light and trea¬
cherous persons, fanciful, and of a vain imagination,
1084
ZEPHANIAH, III.
frothy and airy, and of a loose conversation, men of
no consistency with themselves, in whom one could
put no confidence; they were so given to bantering,
that it was hard to say when they were serious.
Their pretended prophecies were all a sham, and
they secretly laughed at those that were deluded by
them. 4. Her fi riests, who were teachers by office,
and had the charge of the holy things, were false to
their trust, and betrayed it: they were to preserve
the purity of the sanctuary, but they did themselves
pollute it, and the sacred offices of it, which they
were to attend upon; such priests as Hophni and
Phinehas, who by their wicked lives made the sacri¬
fices of the Lord to be abhorred. They were to
expound and apply the law, and to judge according
to it; but in their explications and applications of it,
they did violence to the law; they corrupted the
sense of it, and perverted it to the patronizing of
that which was directly contrary to it; by forced
constructions, they made the law to speak what
they pleased, to serve a turn, and so, in effect, made
void the Law.
III. We have here the aggravations of this gene¬
ral corruption of all orders and degrees of men in
Jerusalem.
1. They had the tokens of God’s presence among
them, and all the advantages that could be of know¬
ing his will, with the strongest inducements possible
to do it, and yet they persisted in their disobedi¬
ence, v. 5. (1.) They had the honour and privi¬
lege of the Shechinah, God’s dwelling in their land,
so as he dwelt not with any other people; “ The
just Lord is in the midst o f thee, to take cognizance
of all thou doest amiss, and give countenance to
all thou doest well ; he is in the midst of thee as a
holy God, and therefore thy pollutions are the more
offensive, Deut. xxiii. 14. He is in the midst of
thee as a just God, and therefore will punish the
affronts you put upon him, and the wrongs and in¬
juries you do to one another.” (2.) They had God’s
own example set before them, in the discovery he
made of himself to them, that they might conform
to it; He will not do iniquity, and therefore you
should not; for this was the great rule of their in¬
stitution, “ Be ye holy, for lam holy. God will be
true to you, be not you then false to him.” (3.) He
sent to them his prophets, rising up early and send¬
ing them; Every morning he brings his judgment
to light, as duly as the morning comes, he fails not;
he shows them plainly what the good is which he
requires of them, and puts them in mind of it; he
•wakens morning by morning, (Isa. 1. 4.) wakens
his prophets with the rising sun, to bring to light the
things which belong to their peace. So that upon
the whole matter, what more could have been done
to his vineyard, to make it fruitful? Isa. v. 4. And
yet, after all, the unjust know no shame; they that
have been unjust are unjust still, and are not asham¬
ed of their unrighteousness, neither can they blush.
If they had any sense of honour, any shame left in
them, they would not go so directly contrary to
their profession, and to the instructions given them.
But they that are past shame are past cure.
2. God has set before their eyes some remarkable
monuments of his justice, which were designed for
warning to them; (v. 6.) / have cut off the nations,
the seven nations of Canaan, which the land spewed
out for their wickedness; upon which they had this
caution given them, to take heed lest it spew them
out also. Lev. xviii. 28. Or, it may refer to some
of the neighbouring nations that were mhde desolate
for their wickedness, especially to the nation of Is¬
rael, the ten tribes; their towers were desolate,
their high towers, their strong towers, their pride
and power broken, their streets wasted, so that
none passed along through them; the cities were
destroued and laid in ruins, no man was to be found
in them, no inhabitant, all were slain, or carried
into captivity. The enemies did it, but God avows
it; I cut them off, says he. And God designed
this for an admonition to Jerusalem; (Ezek. xxiii.
9, 11.) “I said, Surely thou wilt fear me, surely
these judgments upon others will deter thee from
the like wicked practices; surely thou wilt receive
instruction by these providences; it ought reasona¬
bly to be expected, that thou wouldest not continue
to sin like the nations, when thou seest the ruin
which their sin brought upon them.” They could
not but see their own house in danger, when their
neighbour’s was on fire: and when we are frightened
God should be feared.
3. He had set before them life and death, good
and evil, both in his word and in his providence.
(1. ) He had assured them of the continuance of
their prosperity, if they would fear him and receive
instruction, for so their dwelling would not be cut
off as their neighbour’s was; if they took the warn¬
ing given them, and reformed, what was past should
be pardoned, and their tranquillity lengthened out.
(2.) He had made them feel the smart of the rod,
though he reprieved them from the sword; Howso¬
ever I punish them, that, being chastened, they
might not be condemned: such various methods did
God take with them, to reclaim them, but all in
vain; they were not won upon by gentle methods,
nor had severe ones any effect, for they rose early,
and corrupted all their doings; they were more re¬
solute and eager in their wicked courses than ever;
more studious and solicitous in making provision fot
their lusts, and let slip no opportunity for the grati¬
fication of them. God rose up early to send them
his prophets, to reduce and reclaim them, but they
were up before him, to shut and bolt the door against
them. Their wickedness was universal; all their
doings were corrupted, and it was all owing to
themselves, they could not lay the blame upon the
tempter, but they alone must bear it; they them¬
selves wilfully and designedly corrupted dll their
doings; for every man is tempted, when he is drawn
aside of his own lust and enticed.
8. Therefore wait ye upon me, saith the
Lord, until the day that I rise up to the
prey, for my determination is to gather the
nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms,
to pour upon them mine indignation, even
all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall
be devoured with the fire of my jealousy.
9. For then will I turn to the people a pure
language, that they may all call upon the
name of the Lord, to serve him with one
consent. 10. From beyond the rivers of
Ethiopia my suppliants, even the daughter
of my dispersed, shall bring mine offering.
1 1. In that day shalt thou not be ashamed
for all thy doings, wherein thou hast trans¬
gressed against me: for then I will take
away out of the midst of thee them that re¬
joice in thy pride; and thou shalt no more
be haughty because of my holy mountain.
12. I will also leave in the midst of thee an
afflicted and poor people, and they shall
trust in the name of the Lord. 1 3. The
remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, noi
speak lies; neither shall a deceitful tongue be
found in their mouth: for they shall feed and
lie down, and none shall make them afraid
1086
ZEPHANIAH, III.
Things looked very bad with Jerusalem in the
foregoing verses; she is got into a very bad name,
and seems to be incorrigible, incurable, mercy-
proof and judgment-proof. Now one would think
it should follow, therefore expect no ether but that
she should be utterly abandoned and rejected, as
reprobate silver; since they will not be wrought
upon by prophets or providences, let them be made
a desolation as their neighbours have been : but be¬
hold, and wonder at, the riches of divine grace,
which takes occasion, from man’s badness, to ap¬
pear so much the more illustrious. They still grew
worse and worse; therefore wait ye upon me, saith
the Lord, v. 8. Since the law, it seems, will make
nothing perfect, the bringing in of a better hope
shall; let those that lament the corruptions of the
church, wait upon God, till he send his Son into
the world, to save his people from their sins, till he
send his gospel to reform and refine his church, and
to purify to himself a peculiar people both of Jews
and Gentiles. And there were those who, accord¬
ing to this direction and encouragement, waited for
redemption, for this redemption in Jerusalem; and
long-looked for came at last, Luke ii. 38. For judg¬
ment Christ will come into this world, John ix. 39.
I. To avenge what has been done amiss against
his church, to bring down and destroy the enemies
of it, its spiritual enemies; of which the destruction
of Babylon, and other the oppressors of God’s peo- •
pie, in the Old Testament times, was a type, and
would be a happy presage. He will rise up to the
prey, to lead captivity captive, (Ps. lxviii. 18. ) to
conquer and spoil the powers of darkness, and the
powers on earth, that set themselves against the
Lord and his anointed; he will break them with a
rod of iron, (Ps. ii. v. 9. — xi. 5, 6.) his determina¬
tion is to gather the nations, and to assemble the
kingdoms. By the gospel of Christ preached to
every creature all nations are summoned, as it were,
to appear in a body before the Lord Jesus, who is
about to set up his kingdom in the world. But since
the greatest part of mankind will not obey the sum¬
mons, he will pour upon them his indignation, for
he that believes not is condemned already. At the
time of the setting up of the kingdom of the Messiah,
there shall be on earth distress of nations with per¬
plexity, (Luke xxi. 25.) great tribulation, such as
never was, or ever shall be, Matth. xxiv. 21. Then
God pours upon the nations his indignation, even
all his fierce anger for their indignation and fierce
anger against the Messiah and lus kingdom, Ps. ii.
1, 2. Then all the earth shall be devoured with the
fire of his jealousy. Both Jews and Gentiles shall
be reckoned with for their enmity to the gospel.
Principalities and powers shall be spoiled, and made
a show of openly, and the victorious Redeemer
shall triumph over them. The end of those that
continue to be of the earth, and to mind earthly
things, after God has set up the kingdom of heaven
among men shall be destruction, (Phil. iii. 19.) they
shall be devoured with the fire of God's jealousy .
II. To amend what he finds amiss in his church.
When God intends the restoration of Israel, and the
revival of their peace and prosperity, he makes way
for it by their reformation, and the revival of their
virtue and piety; for this is God’s method, both
with particular persons and with communities, first,
to make them holy, and then to make them happy.
These promises were in part accomplished after
the return of the Jews out of Babylon, when by their
captivity they were thoroughly cured of their idola¬
try; and this was all the fruit, even the taking away
of sin; but it looks further, to the blessed effects of
the gospel, and the grace of it, to those times of re¬
formation in which we live, Heb. ix. 10.
1. It is promised that there shall be a reformation
.n men’s discourse, which had been generally cor¬
rupt, but should now be with grace seasoned with
salt; (y. 9.) Then will I turn to the people a pure
language; 1 will turn the people to such a language,
from that evil communication which had almost
ruined all good manners among them. Note, Con¬
verting grace refines the language, not by making
the phrases witty, but the substance wise. Among
the Jews, after the captivity, there needed a re¬
formation of the dialect, for they had mingled the
language of Canaan with that of Ashdod; (Neh. iii.
24.) and that grievance shall be redressed. But
that is not all; their language shall be purified from
all profaneness, filthiness and falsehood; I will turn
them to a choice language; so some read it; they
shall not speak rashly, but with caution and delibe¬
ration; they shall choose out their words. Note, An
air of purity and piety in common conversation is a
very happy omen to any people; other graces, other
blessings, shall be given where God gives a pure lan¬
guage to those that have been a. people of unclean lips
2. That the worship of God, according to his will,
shall be more closely applied to, and more unani
mously concurred in. Instead of sacrifice and in
cense, they shall call upon the name of the Lord,
prayer is the spiritual offering with which God must
be honoured; and to prepare and fit us for that duty,
it is necessary that we have a pure language. We
are utterly unfit to take God’s name into our lips,
unless they be pure lips. The purifying of the
language in common conversation, is necessary to
the acceptableness of the words of our mouth, and
the meditation of our heart in our devotion; for how
can sweet waters and bitter come out of the same
fountain? James iii. 9. — 12. It is likewise promised
that their language being thus purified, they shall
serve God with one consent; with one shoulder, so
the word is; alluding to oxen in the yoke, that draw
even; when Christians are unanimous in the service
of God, the work goes on cheerfully. This is the
effect of the pure language, purified from passion,
envy, and censoriousness. Note, Purity is the way
to unity; the reformation of manners the way to a
comprehension; the wisdom from above is first pure,
then peaceable.
3. That those that were driven from God, shall
return to him, and be accepted of him; ( y . 10.)
From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia; from Egypt,
so described, (Isa. xviii. 1.) or from some other very
remote country, my suppliants, even the daughter
of my dispersed, shall bring mine offering. Those
that by reason of their distance had almost forgotten
God, and their obligations to him, shall be put in
mind of him, as the prodigal son was of his father’s
house, in the far country. These that by reason of
their dispersion, under the tokens of his displeasure,
might be afraid of coming to him, yet even they
shall be gathered under his wings; the daughter of
his dispersed, that is afar off, will be found among
those whom the Lord our God shall call; and
though they are dispersed he will own them for his;
his calling them my dispersed, puts honour upon
them, sufficient to balance all the disgrace of their
dispersion. These shall come, (1.) With their
humble petitions; They are my suppliants. Note,
True converts are suppliants to God; they do not
plead, but make supplication to their Judge; (Job
ix. 15.) and, wherever they are, though beyond the
rivers of Ethiopia, a great way off from his house
of prayer, he has his eye upon them, and his ear
open to them, they are his suppliants. (2.) With
their spiritual sacrifices they shall bring mine offer¬
ing; shall bring themselves as spiritual sacrifices to
God, Rom. xii. 1. The conversion of the Gentiles
is called the offering up of the Gentiles, (Rom. xv.
16.) and with themselves they shall bring the gos¬
pel-sacrifices of prayer, and praise, and alms, with
which God is well pleased.
1086
ZEPHANIAH, III.
4. That sin and sinners shall be purged out from
among them, v. 11. God will take away, (1.) Their
just reproach; In that day shalt thou not be ashamed
for all thy doings. They shall he ashamed as peni¬
tents, and shall continue to be so, (see Ezek. xvi.
63. ) but they shall not be ashamed as sinners that
return to folly again; “ Thou shalt not be ashamed,
thou shalt no more do a shameful thing, as thou hast
done.” The guilt of sin being taken away by par¬
doning mercy, the reproach of it shall be rolled
away from the sinner’s own conscience, that being
purified, and pacified, and cleansed from dead
works. When wickedness and wicked people
abound in a nation, those few in it that are good, are
ashamed of them, and of their land; but when sin¬
ners are converted, and the land reformed, that
shame and the cause of it are removed. (2.) Their
unjust glorying; "I will take away out of the midst
of thee, not only the profane, who are a shame to
thy land, but the hypocrites, who appear beautiful
outwardly, and rejoice in thy pride, in the holy city,
the holy house;” these were indeed Israel’s glory,
but they made them their pride, and rejoiced in
them, as if they were an invincible bulwark, to se¬
cure them in their sinful ways; they relied on them
as their righteousness and strength, boasting of the
temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord; (Jer.
vii. 4.) they were haughty because of the holy
mountain; were conceited of themselves, scornful
of others, and set even the judgments of God at de¬
fiance. Note, Church-privileges, when they are
not duly improved as they ought to be, are often
made the matter of men’s pride, and the ground of
their security. But that haughtiness is of all other
the most offensive to God, which is supported and
fed by the pretensions of holiness. This God will
silence and take away.
5. That God will have a remnant of holy, hum¬
ble, serious people among them, that shall have the
comfort of their relation to him, and interest in him ;
(y. 12.) I will leave in the midst of thee an afflicted,
and poor people. When the Chaldeans- carried
away the Jews into captivity, they left the poor of
the land for vine-dressers and husbandmen, a type
and figure of God’s distinguished remnant, whom he
sets apart for himself; they are afflicted and poor,
low in the world; such God has chosen, James ii. 5.
The poor are evangelized, low in their own eyes,
afflicted for sin, poor in spirit. They are God’s
leaving, for it is a remnant according to the election
of grace. I have reserved them to myself, says God,
(Rom. xi. 4, 5.) and they shall trust in the name of
the Lord. Note, Those whom God designs for the
glory of his name, he enables to trust in his name.
And the greater their affliction and poverty in the
world are, the more reason they see to trust in God,
having nothing else to trust to, 1 Tim. v. 5.
6. That this select remnant shall be blessed with
purity and peace, v. 13. (1.) They shall be blessed
with purity, both in words and actions; they shall
neither do iniquity, nor speak lies. Justice and ve¬
racity shall command them, and govern them,
though it be ever so much against their secular in¬
terest. They shall not only not speak a direct, de¬
liberate lie, hut there shall not be a deceitful tongue
found in their mouth, not in the mouth of any of
them; not the least equivocation shall come from
them. (2.) They shall be blessed with peace.
They shall, as the sheep of God’s pasture, feed, and
lie down, and none shall make them afraid. They
shall not be fearful themselves, nor shall any about
them be frightful to them. Note, Those that are
careful not to do iniquity, need not be afraid of any
calamity, for it cannot hurt them, and therefore
should not terrify them.
14. Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O
Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the
heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. 15. The
Lord hath taken away thy judgments, he
hath cast out thine enemy: the king of Is¬
rael, even the Lord, is in the midst of thee :
thou shalt not see evil any more. 16. In
that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear
thou not ; and to Zion, Let not thy hands be
slack. 17. The Lord thy God in the midst
of thee is mighty; lie will save, he will re¬
joice over thee with joy ; he will rest in his
love ; he will joy over thee with singing. 1 8.
I will gather them that are sorrowful for the
solemn assemby who are of thee, to whom
the reproach of it was a burden. 19. Be¬
hold, at that time I will undo all that afflict
thee ; and I will save her that halteth, and
gather her that was driven out; and I will
get them praise and fame in every land
where they have been put to shame. 20.
At that time will 1 bring you again , even in
the time that I gather you : for I will make
you a name and a praise among all people
of the earth, when I turn back your cap¬
tivity before your eyes, saith the Lord.
After the promises of taking away of sin, here
follow promises of the taking away of trouble; for
when the cause is removed, the effect will cease.
What makes a people holy, will make them happy
of course. The precious promises here made to the
purified people, were to have their full accomplish¬
ments in the comforts of the gospel; in the hope, and
much more in the enjoyment, of which, they are
here called upon, (1.) To rejoice and sing; (y. 14.)
Sing, 0 daughter of Zion, sing for joy, shout, O Is¬
rael, in a holy transport and exultation ; be glad and
rejoice with all the heart; let the joy be inward, let
it be great; those that love God with all their heart
have occasion with all their heart to rejoice in him.
It was promised, ( v . 13.) that their sins should be
mortified, and their fears silenced, and then follows,
Sing and rejoice. Note, Those 'that reform, have
cause to rejoice; whereas Israel cannot rejoice for
joy as other people, while she goes a whoring from
her God. God’s promises, applied by faith, fur¬
nish the saints with constant and abundant matter
for joy; they are filled with joy and peace in believ¬
ing them. (2.) To throw off all their discourage¬
ments; (v. 10. ) In that day it shall be said to Jeru¬
salem, God will say it by his prophets, by his pro¬
vidences, their neighbours shall say it, they shall say
it to one another, “Tear thou not, be not disposed
to fear, do not easily admit the impressions of it;
when things are bad, fear not their being worse, but
hope they will mend; frighten not thyself upon every
occasion. Let not thy hands be slack or faint; wring
not thy hands in despair, drop not thy hands in de¬
spondency, disfit not thyself for thy work and war¬
fare, by giving way to doubts and fears. Pluck up
thy spirits, and, in token of that, lift up thy hands,
the hands that hang down, Heb. xii. 12. Isa. xxxv.
2. Lift up thy hands in prayer to God, lift up thy
hands to help thyself.” Tear makes the hands
slack, but faith and hope make them vigorous, and
the joy of the Lord will be our strength both for
doing and suffering.
Let us now see what these precious promises are,
which are here made to the people of God, for the
banishing of their griefs and fears, and the er.ccunig-
1087
ZEPHANIAH, III.
ing of their hopes and joys; and to us are these pro¬
mises made as well as to them.
1. An end shall be put to all their troubles and
distresses; (x>. 15.) “ The Lord has taken away thy
judgments; has removed all the calamities thou
hast been groaning under, which were the punish¬
ments of thy sin; the noise of war shall be silenced,
the reproach of famine done away, and the captivi¬
ty brought back. Though some grievances remain,
they shall be only afflictions, and not judgments, for
sin shall be pardoned. He has cast out thine enemy,
that has thrust himself into thy land, and triumphed
over thee. He has swept out thine enemy , (so
some read it,) “as dirt is swept out of the house to
the dunghill.” When they sweep out their sins
with the besom of reformation, God will sweep out
their enemies with the besom of destruction. If they
should need correction, they shall fall into the hands
of the Lord, whose mercies are great, and shall not
again fall into the hands of man, whose tender mer¬
cies are cruel; Thou shalt not see evil any more, not
such evil days as thou hast seen. Note, The way
to get clear of the evil of trouble, is to keep clear
from the evil of sin; and to them that do so, trouble
has no real evil in it.
2. God will give them the tokens of his presence
with them; though he has long seemed to stand at a
distance, (they having provoked him to withdraw,)
he will make it to appear that he is with them of a
truth; “ The Lord is in the midst of thee, O Zion, of
thee, O Jerusalem, as the sun in the centre of the
universe, to diffuse his light and influence upon
every part. He is in the midst of thee, to preside in
all thine affairs, and to take care of all thine inter¬
ests.” And, (1.) “He is the King of Israel, {v.
15. ) and is in the midst of thee as a King in the
midst of his people.” With an eye to this, our
Lord Jesus is called the King of Israel; (John i.
49. ) and he is, and will be, in the midst of his church
always, even to the end of the world, to receive the
homage of his subjects, and to give out his favours
to them, even where but two or three are. gathered
together in his name. (2.) “He is the Lord thy
God, thine in covenant, and he is in the midst
of thee as thy God, whom thou hast an interest in,
and whose own thou art. He has put himself into
dear relations to thee, laid himself by promise under
obligations to thee, and, that thou mayest have abun¬
dant comfort in both, he is in the midst of thee, nigh
at hand to answer both.” (3.) “ He that is in the
midst of thee as thy God and King, is mighty, is al¬
mighty, is able to do all that for thee that thou need-
est, and canst desire.” (4.) “ He has engaged his
power for thy succour; He will save; he will be Je¬
sus; will answer the name, for he will save his peo¬
ple from their sins.”
3. God will take delight in them, and in doing
them good. The expressions of this are very lively
and affecting; ( v . If.) He will rejoice over thee with
joy, will not only be well pleased with thee upon
thy repentance and reformation, and take thee into
favour, but will take a complacency in thee, as the
bridegroom does in his bride, or the bride in her or¬
naments, Isa. lxii. 3. — 5. The conversion of sinners
and the consolation of saints are the joy of angels,
for they are the joy of God himself. The church
should be the joy of the whole earth, (Ps. xlviii. 2.)
for it is the joy of the whole heaven. He will rest
in his love, will be silent in his love; so the word is.
“ I will not rebuke thee as I have done, for thy sins;
I will acquiesce in thee, and in my relation to thee.”
I know not where there is the like expression of
Christ’s love to his church, unless in that song of
songs, Cant. iv. 9. Thou hast ravished my heart,
my sister, my spouse, with one of thine eyes. O the
condescensions of divine grace ! The great God not
onlv loves his saints, but he- loves to love them, is
pleased that he has pitched upon tnese objects of
his love. He will joy over them with singing. He
that is grieved for the sin of sinners, rejoices in the
graces and services of the saints, and is ready to ex¬
press that joy, by singing over them. The Lord
takes pleasure in them that fear him, and in them
Jesus Christ will shortly be glorified and admired.
4. God will comfort Zion’s mourners, who sym¬
pathize with her in her griefs, and will wipe away
their tears; {y. 18.) I will gather them who are sor¬
rowful for the solemn assemblies, to whom the re¬
proach' of it was a burthen. Sec, (1.) Who are
they whom God will rejoice in, and make to rejoice:
they are such as are sorrowful. They only must
expect to reap in joy, that sow in tears. The sor¬
rowful now shall be for ever joyful. (2.) What is
the great matter of sorrow to Zion’s mourners, when
Zion is in mourning. Many are her calamities — •
the city is ruined, and the palaces are demolished;
trade is at an end, and the administration of public
justice; but all these are nothing to them, in com¬
parison with the desolations of the sanctuary, the
destruction of the temple and the altar; to attend on
which, in solemn feasts, all Israel used to come to¬
gether three times a year. It is for those sacred,
solemn assemblies that they are sorrowful. [1.] Be¬
cause they are dispersed; there is no temple to come
up to, or, if there were, no people to come up to it;
so that the solemn feasts and sabbaths are forgotten
in Zion, Lam. ii. 6. Note, The restraining of pub¬
lic assemblies for religious worship, the scattering
of them by their enemies, or the forsaking of them
by their friends, so that either there are no assem
blies, or not solemn ones, is a very sorrowful thing
to all good people. If the ways of Zion mourn, the
sons of Zion mourn too. And hereby they make it
to appear that they are indeed of Zion, living mem¬
bers of that body with the grievances of which they
are so sensibly affected. [2. ] Because they are de¬
spised; the reproach of the solemn assemblies is a
burthen to them. It had been the lot of the solemn
assemblies to lie under a great deal of reproach. Sa¬
tan arift his instruments having a particular spite at
them, as the great support of the interest of God’s
kingdom among men. Black and odious characters
have been put upon those assemblies; and this is a
burthen to all those that have a cordial concern for
the glory of God, and the welfare of the souls of
men. They reckon that the reproaches of those
who reproach the solemn assemblies, fall upon
them, fall foul upon them.
5. God will recover the captives out of the hands
of their oppressors, and bring home the banished
that seemed to be expelled, v. 19, 20. (1.) Their
enemies shall be disabled to detain them in bondage.
“At that time I will undo all that afflict thee, will
break their power, and blast their counsels, so tha*
they shall be forced to surrender the prey they have
taken.” Confciam — “I will take them to task, I
will be doing with them shortly, and so as to make
an end of them.” Note, Those that abuse and op¬
press God’s people, take the ready way to undo
themselves. (2.) They shall be enabled to assert
and recover their liberty, and all the difficulties in
the way of it shall be surmounted. Is the church
weak and wounded ? I will save her that halts, as
was promised, Mic. iv. 7. He will help her when
she cannot help herself ; even the lame shall take the
prey, Isa. xxxiii. 23. Is she dispersed, and not
likely to incorporate for her common benefit ? I will
gather her that was driven out, and bring her ogain,
at the lime that I gather her. One act of mercy
and grace shall serve both to collect them out of
their dispersions and to conduct them to their own
land. When the people’s hearts are prepared, the
work will be done suddenly; and who can hinder it,
if God undertake to effect it ? “I will turn back your
ZEPHAN1AH, 111
i 083
cafitivity before your eyes, saith the Lord ; you shall
plainly discern the hand of God in it, and say, This
is the Lord’s doing.”
6. God will by all this put honour upon them,
and gain them respect from all about them. Israel
was at first made high above all nations in / iraise
and fame, Deut. xxvi. 19. The reptoach brought
upon them was therefore one of the sorest of their
grievances: (nothing cuts deeper to those that are
in honour, than disgrace does;) and therefore, when
God returns in mercy to his church, it is here pro¬
mised that she shal regain her credit; all the re¬
proach shall be for ever rolled away, as Israel’s at
Gilgal, Josh. v. 9. The church shall be as honour¬
able as ever she has been despicable. (1.) Even
those that have reproached her, shall be made to re-
s/iect her; I will give them /iraise and fame in every
land, where they have been put to shame; that the
same who were the witnesses of their disgrace, may
see cause to change their mind concerning them.
They that said, “This is Zion whom no man looks
after,” shall say, “ This is Zion whom the great God
looks after.” And she that was looked upon to be
the offscouring of the earth, now appears to be the
darling of heaven. (2.) Even those that never
knew her, shall be brought to honour her; (d. 20.)
I will make you a name and a praise among all peo
pie of the earth; so the Jewish church was, when
the fear of the Jews fell upon their neighbours,
(Esth. viii. 17.) and some of all nations said, We will
go with you, for we have heard that God is with
you, Zech viii. 23. So the Christian church was,
when it was made to flourish in the world, for there
is that in it, which may justly recommend it to the
value and esteem of all the people of the earth.
And so the universal church of the first-born will
be in the great day; when the saints shall be brought
together to Christ, that he may be admired and
glorified in them, and they admired and glorified in
him before angels and men. Then will God’s Is
rael be made a name and a praise to eternity.
AN
9
EXPOSITION,
WITH
PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS,
OF THE PROPHECY OF
H A G G A I.
Vhe captivity of Babylon gave a very remarkable turn to the affairs of the Jewish church, both in history
and prophecy. It is made a signal epocha in our Saviour’s genealogy, Matth. i. 17. Nine of the twelve
minor prophets, whose oracles we have been hitherto consulting, lived and preached before their cap¬
tivity, and most of them had an eye to it in their prophecies, foretelling it as the just punishment of
Jerusalem’s wickedness. But the three last (in whom the Spirit of prophecy took its period, until it
revived in Christ’s forerunner) lived and preached after the return out of captivity; not immediately
upon it, but some time after. Haggai and Zechariah appeared much about the same time, eighteen
years after the return, when the building of the temple was both retarded by its enemies, and neglected
by its friends. Then the f irophets , Haggai the prophet, and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied
unto the Jews that were in Jerusalem, in the name of the God of Israel, even unto them, (so we read
Ezra v. 1. ) to reprove them for their remissness, and to encourage them to revive that good work when
it had stood still for some time, and to go on with it vigorously, notwithstanding the opposition they met
with in it. Haggai began two months before Zechariah, who was raised up to second him, that out of
the mouth of two witnesses the word might be established. But Zechariah continued longer at the
work; for all Haggai’s prophecies, that are recorded, were delivered within four months, in the second
year of Darius, between the beginning of the sixth month and the end of the ninth. But we have
Zechariah ’s prophecies dated above two years after, Zech. vii. 1. Some have the honour to lead, others
to last, in the work of God. The Jews ascribe to these two prophets the honour of being members of
the Great Synagogue, (as they call it,) which was formed alter the return out of captivity; we think
it more certain, and it was their honour, and a much greater honour, that they prophesied of Christ.
Haggai spake of him as the Glory of the latter house, and Zechariah as the Man, the Branch. In them
the light of that Morning-Star shone more bright than in the foregoing prophecies, as they lived nearer
the time of the rising of the Sun of righteousness, and now began to see his day approaching. The
LXX. make Haggai and Zechariah to be the penman of Ps. cxxxviii. and of Ps. cxlvi, cxlvii. and cxlviii.
HAGGAI, I.
CHAP. I.
In this chapter, after the preamble of the prophecy, we
have, I. A reproof of the people of the Jews for their
dilatoriness and slolhfulness in building the temple,
which had provoked God to contend with them by the
judgment of famine and scarcity ; with an exhortation
to them to resume that good work, and to prosecute it in
good earnest, v. 1.. 11. II. The good success- of this
sermon, appearing in the people’s return and close appli¬
cation to that wo A, wherein the prophet, in God’s name,
animated and encouraged them, assuring them that God
was with them, v. 12 . . 15.
I.TN the second year of Darius the king,
X in the sixth month, in the first day of
Vot iv. — 6 Y
the month, came the word of the I ord, oy
Haggai the prophet, unto Zerubbabel the
son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to
Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest,
saying, 2. Thus speaketh the Lord of
hosts, saying, This people say, The time is
not come, the time that the Lord’s house
should be built. 3. Then came the word
of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, say¬
ing, 4. Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in
your ceiled houses, and this house lie waste ?
1090
HAGGAT, I.
5. Now, therefore, thus saith the Lord of
hosts, Consider your ways. 6. Ye have
sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but
ye iiave not enough ; ye drink, but ye are
not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but I
there is none warm; and he that earneth '
wages, earneth wages to put it into a bag ^
with holes. 7. Thus saith the Lord of
hosts, Consider your ways. 8. Go up to
the mountain, and bring wood, and build 1
the house; and 1 will take pleasure in it,
and I will be glorified, saith the Lord. 9.
Ye looked for much, and lo, it came to little;
and when ye brought it home, I did blow
upon it. Why? saith the Lord of hosts.
Because of my house that is waste, and ye
run every man unto his own house. 10.
Therefore the heaven over you is stayed
from dew, and the eartli is stayed from her
fruit. 1 1. And 1 called for a drought upon
the land, and upon the mountains, and upon
the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon
the oil, and upon that which the ground
bringeth forth, and upon men, and upon
cattle, and upon all the labour of the hands. I
It whs the complaint of the Jews in Babylon, that
they saw not their signs, and there was no more any \
prophet, (Ps. lxxiv. 9.) which was a just judgment .
upon them for mocking and misusing the prophets.
We read of no prophets they had in their return, as '
there were in their coming out of Egypt, Hos. xii. j
13. God stirred them up immediately by his Spirit
to exert themselves in that escape; (Ezra i. 5.) for
though God makes use of prophets, he needs them
not, he can do his work without them. But the
lamp of Old Testament prophecy shall yet make
some bright and glorious efforts before it expire; and
Haggai is the first that appears under the character
of a special messenger from heaven, when the word
of the Lord had been long / irecious , (as when pro¬
phecy began, 1 Sam. iii. 1.) and there had been no
open vision. In the reign of Darius Hystaspes, the
third of the Persian kings, in the second year of his
reign, the prophet was sent; and the word of the
Lord came to him, and came by him, to the leading
men among the Jews, who are here named, v. 1.
The chief governor, 1. In the state; that was Ze-
rubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, of the house of David,
who was commander-in-chief of the Jews, in their re¬
turn out of captivity. 2. In the church; and that was
Joshua the son of Josedech, who was now high priest.
They were great men, and good men, and yet were
to be stirred up to their duty when they grew re¬
miss. What the people also were faulty in they
must be told of, that they might use their power and
interest for the mending of it. The prophets, who
were extraordinary messengers, did not go about to
set aside the ordinary institutions of magistracy and
ministry, but endeavoured to render both more ef
fectual for the ends to which they were appointed,
for both ought to be supported. Now observe,
1. What the sin of the Jews was at this time, v.
2. As soon as they came up out of captivity, they
set up an altar for sacrifice, and within a year after
laid the foundations of a temple, (Ezra iii. 10. ) they
then seemed very forward in it, and it was likely
enough that the work would be done suddenly; but
being served with a prohibition some time after
from the Persian court, and charged not to go on
with it, they not only yielded to the force, wher
they were actually under it, which might be ex¬
cused, but, afterward, when the violence of the
opposition was abated, they continued very indiffer¬
ent *o it. had no spirit or courage to set about it
again, but seemed glad that they bad a pretence to
let it stand still. Though they who are employed
for God, may be driven off from their work by
storm, yet they must return to it as soon as the
storm is over. These here did not do so, but con¬
tinued loitering, until they were afresh reminded of
their duty. And that which they suggested one to
another was, The time is not come, the time that the
Lord’s house should be built; that is, 1. “ Our time
is not come for the doing of it, because we have not
yet recovered, after our captivity, our losses are not
repaired, nor have we yet got beforehand in the
world; it is too great an undertaking for new begin¬
ners in the world, as we are — let us first get our
own houses up, before we talk of building churches;
and in the mean time let a bare altar serve us, as it
did our father Abraham.” They did not say that
they would not build a temple at all, but, “Not
yet; it is all in good time.” Note, Many a good
word is put by by being put off, as Felix put off the
prosecution of his convictions to a more convenient
season. They do not say that they will never repent
and reform, and be religious, but, “Not yet.” And
so the great business we were sent into the world to
do, is not done, under pretence that it is all in good
time to go about it. 2. "God’s lime is not come for
the doing of it; for (say they) the restraint laid upon
us by authority in a legal way is not broken off,
therefore we ought not to proceed, though there bp
a present connivance of authority.” Note, There
is an aptness in us to misinterpret providential dis¬
couragements in our duty, as if they amounted to a
discharge from our duty, when they are only in¬
tended for the trial and exercise of our courage and
faith. It is bad to neglect our duty, but it is worse
to vouch Providence for the patronizing of our ne
gleets.
II. What the judgments of God were, by which
they were punished for this neglect, v. 6, 9. — 11.
They neglected the building of God’s house, and
put that off, that they might have time and money
for their secular affairs. They desired to be ex¬
cused from such an expensive piece of work, under
this pretence, that they must provide for their fami¬
lies; their children must have meat and portions
too, and until they have got beforehand in the world,
they cannot think of rebuilding the temple. Now
that the punishment might answer to the sin, God
in his providence kept them still behindhand. And
that poverty which they thought to prevent by not
building the temple, God brought upon them for not
building it. They were sensible of the smart of the
judgments, and every one complained of the unsea¬
sonable weather, and the great losses they sustained
in their corn and cattle, and the decay of trade; but
they were not sensible of the cause of the judgment,
and the ground of God’s controversy with them;
they did not, or would not, see and own that it was
for their putting off of the building of the temple
that they lay under these manif -it tokens of God’s
displeasure; and therefore God here gives them
notice that this was it for which he contended with
them. Note, We need the help of God’s prophets
and ministers to expound to us, not only the judg¬
ments of God’s mouth, but the judgments rf his
hands, that we may understand his mind and mean
ing in his rod as well as in his word; to discover to
us, not only wherein we have offended God, but
wherein God shows himself offended at us. Let us
observe,
1. How God contended with them. He did not
send them into captivity again, nor bring a foreign
HAGGAJ, J.
enemy upon them, ns they deserved, but took the cor- 1
recting of them into his own hands; for his mercies
are great. ( 1. ) He that gives seed to the sower, de- ]
nied his blessing upon the seed sown, and then it
never prospered; they had nothing, or next to no¬
thing, from it. They sowed much, v. 6. kept a deal
of ground in tillage, which, they might expect, j
would turn to a better advantage than usual, because :
their land had long lain fallow, and had enjoyed its
sabbaths. Having so wed much, they looked for much
from it, enough to sfiend, and enough to s/iare too; |
but they were disappointed; they bring in little, \ ery
little; (an 6. ) when they have made the utmost of it,
it comes to little; {y. 9.) it did not yield as they expect¬
ed, Isa. v. 10. The seed of an homer shall yield an
efihah, a bushel’s sowing shall yield a peck. Note,
Our expectations from the creature are often most
frustrated when they are most raised; and then when
we look for much it comes to little, that our expecta¬
tion may be from God only, in whom it will be out¬
done. We are here told how they came to be dis¬
appointed; ( y . 10.) The heaven over you is staid
from dew; he that has the key of the clouds in his
hands, shut them up, and withheld the rain, when
the ground called for it, the former or the latter
rain, and then of course the earth is staid from her
fruit, for if the heaven be as brass, the earth is
as iron. The corn perhaps came up very well, and
promised a very plentiful crop, but, for want of the
dews at earing-time, it never tilled, but was parched
with the heat of the sun, and withered away. The
restored captives, who had long been kept bare in
Babylon, thought they should never want, when
they had got their own land in possession again, and
had that at command. But what the better are
they for it, unless they had the clouds at command
too; God will make us sensible of our necessary and
constant dependence upon him, throughout all the j
links in the chain of second causes, from first to last;
so tiiat we can at no time say, “Now we have no
further occasion for God and his providence.” See
Hos. ii. 21. But God not only withheld the cooling
rains, but he appointed the scorching heats, (v.
11.) I called for a drought ufion the land, ordered
the weather to be extremely hot, and then the fruits
of the earth were burnt up. See how every crea¬
ture is that to us, that God makes it to be, either
comfortable or afflictive, serving us, or incommod¬
ing us. Nothing among the inferior creatures is so
necessary and beneficial to the world as the heat of
the sun; that is it that puts life into the plants, and
renews the face of the earth at spring. And yet, if
that go into an extreme, it undoes all again. Our
Creator is our best Friend; but if we make him our
Enemy, we make the best friends we have among
the creatures our enemies too. This drought God
calls for, and it came at the call; as the winds and
the waves, so the rays of the sun, obey him. It was
universal, and the ill effects of it were general; it was
a drought upon the mountains, which, lying high,
were first affected with it, the mountains were
their pasture-grounds, and used to be covered over
with flocks, but now there is no grass for them. It
was upon the corn, the new wine, and the oil; all
failed through the extremity of the hot weather,
even all that the ground brought forth, it was all
withered. Nay, it had a bad influence upon men;
the hot weather enfeebled some, and made them
weary and faint, and spent their spirits; it inflamed
others, and put them into fevers. It should seem it
brought diseases upon cattle too. In short, it spoiled
all the labour of their hands, which they hoped to
eat of, and maintain their families by. Note, Meat
for the belly is meat that perishes, and if we labour
for that only, we are in danger of losing our labour;
but we are sure our labour shall not be in vain in
the Lord, if we labour for the meat which endures to
I Ob!
eternal life. For the hand of the diligent, in the
business of religion, will infallibly make rich, where¬
as, in the business of this life, the most solicitous
and the most industrious often lose the labour of
their hands. The race is not to the swift, nor the
battle to the strong. (2.) He that gives bread to
the eater, denied his blessing upon the bread they
ate, and then that did not nourish them. The cause
of the withering and failing of the corn in the field
was visible — it was for want of rain ; but, beside
that, there was a secret blast and curse attending that
which they brought home. [1.] When they had it
in the barn, they were not sure of it; I dal blow
upon it, saith the Lord of hosts, (v. 9.) and that
withered it, as buds are sometimes blasted in the
spring by a nipping frost, which we see the effects
of, but know not the way of. I did blow it away;
so the margin reads it. When men have heaped
wealth together, God can scatter it with the breatli
of his mouth as easily as we can blow away a
feather. Note, We can never be sure of any thing
in this world; it is exposed, not only when it is in
the field, but when it is housed; for there moth and
rust corrupt, Matth. vi. 19. And if we would have
the comfort and continuance of our temporal enjoy¬
ments, we must make God our Friend; for if he
bless them to us, they are blessings indeed, but it
he blow upon them, we can expect no good from
them, they make themselves wings and fly away.
[2.] When they had it upon the board, it was not
that to them that they expected; “Ye eat, but ye
have not enough, either because the meat is washy,
and not satisfying, or because the stomach is greedy,
and not satisfied; you eat, but you have no good
digestion, and so are not nourished by it, nor does it
answer the end, or you have not enough, because
you are not content, nor think it enough. Ye drink,
but are not cooled and refreshed by it, ye are not
filled with drink; ye arc stinted, and have not
enough to quench your thirst. The new wine is cut
off from your mouth, (Joel i. 5.) nay, and you
drink your water too by measure, and with astonish¬
ment; you have no comfort of it, because you have
no plenty of it, but are still in fear of falling short.”
[3.] That which they had upon their backs, did
them no good there; “Ye clothe you, but there h
none warm, your clothes soon wear out, and wax
old, and grow thin, because God blows upon them;'
contrary to what Israel’s did in the wilderness whei
God blessed them. It is God that makes our gar¬
ments warm upon us, when he quiets the earth.
Job xxxvii. 17. [4.] That which they had in
their hags, which was not laid out, but laid up, they
were not sure of ; he that earns wages by hard
labour, and has it paid him in ready current money,
puts it into a bag with holes; it drops through, and
wastes away insensibly. Every thing is so scarce
and dear, that they spend their money as fast as
they get it. Those that lay up their treasure on
earth, put it into a bag with holes; they lose it as they
go along, and they that come after them pick it up.
But if we lay up our treasure in heaven, we provide
for ourselves bags that wax not old, Luke xii. 33.
2. Observe wherefore God thus contended with
them, and stopped the current of the favours pro¬
mised them at their return; (Joel ii. 24.) they pro¬
voked him to do it; It is because of my house that is
waste. That is the quarrel God has with them;
the foundation of the temple is laid, but the building
does not go on; “ Every man runs to his own house,
to finish that, and to make that convenient and fine,
and no care is taken about the Lord’s house; and
therefore it is that God crosses you thus in all
your affairs, to testify his displeasure against you for
that neglect, and to bring you to a sense of your sin
and folly.” Note, As they who seek first the king¬
dom of God and the righteousn- ss thereof, shall n- 1
1092
HAGGAI, I.
only find them, but are most likely to have other
things added to them, so they who neglect and post¬
pone those things, will not only lose them, but will
justly have other things taken away from them.
And if God cross us in our temporal affairs, and we
meet with trouble and disappointment, we shall find
this is the cause of it — the work we have to do for
God and our own souls is left undone, and we seek
our own things more than the things of Jesus Christ,
Phil. ii. 21.
III. The reproof which the prophet gives them
for their neglect of the temple-work, (v. 4.) “Is it
time for you, O ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses,
to have them beautiful and adorned, and your fami¬
lies settled in them?” They were not content with
walls and roofs for necessity, but they must have
for gaiety and fancy. “ It is high time,” says one,
“that my house were wainscotted.” “It is high
time,” says another, “that mine were painted.”
And God’s house, all this time, lies waste, and no¬
thing is done at it. “ What,” says the prophet, “is
it time that you should have your humour pleased,
and not time you should have your God pleased?”
How much was their disposition the reverse of Da¬
vid’s, who could not be easy in his house of cedar,
while the ark of God was in curtains, (2 Sam. vii.
2.) and of Solomon, who built the temple of God,
before he built a palace for himself. Note, Those
are very much strangers to their own interest, who
prefer the conveniencies and ornaments of the tem¬
poral life before the absolute necessities of the spi¬
ritual life, who are full of care to enrich their own
houses, while God’s temple in their hearts lies
waste, and nothing is done tor it or in it.
IV. The good counsel which the prophet gives to
them who thus despised God, and whom God was
therefore justly displeased with.
1. He would have them reflect; JVow therefore
consider your ways, (v. 5.) and again, v. 7. “Be
sensible of the hand of God gone out against you,
rnd inquire into the reason; think what you have
done, that has provoked God thus to break in upon
your comforts; and think what you will do, to testify
"your repentance, that God may return in mercy
to you.” Note, It is the great concern of every one
of us, to consider our ways; to set our hearts to our
ways, (so the word is,) to think on my ways, (Ps.
cxix. 59.) to search and try them, (Lam. iii. 40.)
to fionder the path of our' feet, (Prov. iv. 26.) to
apply our minds with all seriousness to the great
and necessary duty of self-examination, and com¬
muning with our own hearts concerning our spi¬
ritual state, our sins that are past, and our duty for
the future; for sin is what we must answer for, duty
is what we must do; about these therefore we must
be inquisitive, rather than about events which we
must leave to God. Many are quick-sighted to pry
into other people’s ways, who are very careless of
their own; whereas our concern is to prove every
one his own work, Gal. vi. 4.
2. He would have them reform; (v. 8.) “Go up
to the mountain, to Lebanon, and bring wood, and
other materials that are wanting, and build the
house with all speed, put it off no longer, but set to
it in good earnest.” Note, Our considering of our
ways must issue in the amending of whatever we
find amiss in them. If any duty has been long ne¬
glected, that is not a reason why it should still be
so, but why now at length it should be revived;
better late than never. For their encouragement
to apply themselves in good earnest to this work,
he assures them, (1.) That they should be accepted
of him in it; Build the house, and I will take plea¬
sure in it; and that was encouragement enough to
apply themselves to it with alacrity and resolution,
and to go through with it, whatever it cost them.
Note, Whatever God will take pleasure in, when
it is done, we ought to take pleasure in the doing of,
and to reckon that inducement enough to set about it,
and go on with it in good earnest; for what greatei
satisfaction can we have in our own bosoms than ir
contributing any thing toward that which God will
take pleasure in? It ought to have b-en the top of
our ambition to be accepted of the Lord, 2 Cor. v. 9.
Though they had foolishly neglected the house of
God, yet, if at length they will resume the care of
it, God will not remember against them their for¬
mer neglects, but will take pleasure in the work of
their hands. Those who have long deferred their
return to God, if at length they return with all their
heart, must not despair of his favour. (2. ) That he
would be honoured by them in it; I will be glorified,
saith the Lord. He will be served and worshipped
in the temple when it is built, and sanctified in them
that come nigh to him. It is worth while to bestow
all possible care, and pains, and cost, 'upon that by
which God may be glorified.
12. Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel,
and Joshua the son of Josedech, the high
priest, with all the remnant of the people,
obeyed the voice of the Lord their God,
and the words of Haggai the prophet, (as
the Lord their God had sent him,) and the
people did fear before the Lord. 13. Then
spake Haggai, the Lord’s messenger, in
the Lord’s message unto the people, saying,
I am with you, saith the Lord. 14. And
the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubba¬
bel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah,
and the spirit of Joshua the son of Josedech,
the high priest, and the spirit of all the rem¬
nant of the people; and they came, and did
work in the house of the Lord of hosts,
their God, 15. In the four and twentieth
day of the sixth month, in the second year
of Darius the king.
As an ear-ring of gold, (says Solomon,) and an
ornament of fine gold, so amiable, so acceptable, in
the sight of God and man, is a wise reprover upon
an obedient ear, Prov. xxv. 12. The prophet here
was a wise but faithful reprover, in God’s name,
and he met with an obedient ear. The foregoing
sermon met with the desired success among the peo¬
ple, and that met with due encouragement from God.
Observe,
1. How the people returned to God in a way of
duty. All those to whom that sermon was preach
ed, received the word in the love of it, and were
wrought upon by it. Zerubbabel, the chief gover¬
nor, did not think himself above the check and
command of God’s word; he was a man that had
been eminently useful in his day, and serviceable tc
the interest of the church, yet did not plead his for¬
mer merits, in answer to this reproof for his present
remissness, but submitted to it. Joshua’s business,
as high priest, was to teach, and yet he was willing
himself to be taught, and willingly received admo¬
nition and instruction. The remnant of the people,
(and the whole body of them was but a remnant, t
very few of the many thousands of Israel,) they als<
were very pliable, they all obeyed the voice of th.
Lord their God, and bowed their neck to the yok<
of his commands; and it is here recorded to then
honour, v. 12. Their father said, Sons, go work
to-day in my vineyard, in mv temple; and they m
only say, We go, sir, but they went immediately.
(1.) They looked upon the prophet tc be tin
Lord's messenger, and the word he delivered to bi
109.'}
HAGGAI, II.
th ■ Lord’s message to them; and therefore received
it, not as the word of man , but as the word of Al¬
mighty God; they obeyed his words, as the Lord
their God hud sent him, v. 12. Note, In attending
to God’s ministers, we must have an eye to him that
sent them, and receive them for his sake, while
they act according to their commission.
(2.) They did fear before the Lord. Prophecy
was a new thing with them, they had had no special
messenger from heaven of a great while, and there¬
fore now that they had one, and but one, they paid
an extraordinary regard to him ; whereas their
fathers, who had many prophets, mocked and mis¬
used them. It is sometimes so, that when good
preaching is most scarce, it does most good, whereas
the manna that is rained in plenty, is loathed as
light bread. And because they so readily received
this prophet, God, within a month or two after,
raised them up another, Zech. i. 1. They feared
before the Lord; they had a great regard to divine
authority, and a great dread of the divine wrath,
and were of those that trembled at God’s word.
The judgments of God which they had been under,
though very severe, had not prevailed to make
them fear before the Lord, until the word of God
was sent to expound his providences, and then they
feared; then when they saw their own sin to be
the cause of those judgments, then they feared.
Note, A holy fear of God will have a great influ¬
ence upon our obedience to him. Serve the Lord
with fear; if we fear him not, we shall not serve
him.
(3.) The Lord stirred u/i their s/iirits, v. 14.
[1.] He excited them to their duty, and put it into
their hearts to go about it. Note, Then the word
of God has its success, when God by his grace stirs
ufi our s/iirits to comply with it; and without that
grace we should remain stupid, and utterly averse
to every thing that is good. It is in the day of a
divine power that we are made willing. [2.] He
encouraged them in their duty, and with those en¬
couragements enlarged their hearts, Ps. cxix. 32.
When they heard the word, they feared; but, lest
they should sink under the weight of that fear, God
stirred them ufi, and made them cheerful and bold
to encounter the difficulties they might meet with.
Note, When God has work to do, he will either
find or make men fit to do it, and stir them up to it.
(4.) They applied themselves to their work with
all possible vigour; They came, and did work in the
house of the Lord of hosts their God; every one,
according as his capacity or ability was, lent a hand,
some way or other, to further that good work; and
this they did with an eve to God as the Lord of
hosts, and as their God, the God of Israel. The
consideration of God’s sovereign dominion in the
world by his providence, and his covenant-relation
to his people by his grace, should stir up our spirits
to act for him, and for the advancement of the in¬
terest of his kingdom among men, to the utmost of
our power.
(5. ) They did this speedily ; it was but on the
first day of the sixth month that Haggai preached
them this sermon, and by the twenty-fourth of the
same month, little more than three weeks after,
they were all busy, working in the house of the
Lord their God, v. 15. To show that they were
ashamed of their delays hitherto, now that they
were convinced and called, they were resolved to
delay no longer, but to strike while the iron was hot,
and to set about the work while they were under
convictions. Note, Those that have lost time, have
need to redeem time; and the longer we have loiter¬
ed in that which is good, when we are convinced of
our folly, the more haste we should make.
2. How God met them in a way of mercy. The
same p rouhe t th at b r-uglit them the reproof, brought
them a very comforting, encouraging word; (v. 13 )
Then sfiake Haggai, the Lord’s messenger, in the
Lord’s message, in bis name, and as Irem him, saij-
ing, lam with you, saith the Lord. 1 hat is all he
has to say, and that is enough; as that word of Christ
to his disciples is, (Mattli. xxviii. 20.) “ Lo, lam
with you alway, even to the end oj the world. I am
with 'you; I will forgive your neglectshitherto, and
they shall not be remembered against you; 1 will
remove the judgments you have been under for
those neglects, and will appear for you, as I have
in them appeared against you. I am with you, tc
protect you against your enemies that bear ill wiu
to your work, and to prosper you, and to give you
success in it; with you, to strengthen your hands,
and bless the work of them, without which blessing
they labour in vain that build.” Note, Those that
work for God have God with them; and if he be
for us, who can be against us? If he be with us,
what difficulty can stand before us?
CHAP. 11.
In this chapter, we have three sermons preached by the
prophet Haggai, for the encouragement of those that are
forward to build the temple. In the first, he assures the
builders that the glory of the house they were now build¬
ing should, in spiritual respects, though not in outward,
exceed that of Solomon’s temple, in which he has an eye
to the coming of Christ, v. 1. .9. In the second, he as¬
sures them that though their sin, in delaying to build the
temple, had retarded the prosperous progress of all their
other affairs, yet now that they had set about it in good
earnest, he would bless them, and give them success, v.
10. .19. In the third, he assures Zerubbabel that, as a
reward of his pious zeal and activity herein, he should
be a favourite of Heaven, and one of the ancestors of
Messiah the Prince, whose kingdom should be setup on
the ruins of all opposing powers, v. 20. .23.
1. TN the seventh month , in the one and
B twentieth day of the month, came the
word of the Lord by the prophet Haggai,
saying, 2. Speak now to Zerubbabel the
son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to
Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest,
and to the residue of the people, saying, 3.
Who is left among you that saw this house
in her first glory? and how do ye see it now?
is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as
nothing? 4. Yet now be strong, O Zerub¬
babel, saith the Lord ; and be strong, O
Joshua son of Josedech, the high priest :
and be strong, all ye people of the land,
saith the Lord, and work: for I am with
you, saith the Lord of hosts. 5. Accord
ing to the word that I covenanted with you
when ye came out of Egypt, so my. Spirit
remaineth among you: fear ye not. 6. Foi
thus saith the Lord of hosts, Yet once, if
is a little while, and I will shake the hea
vens, and the earth, and the sea, and the
dry land; 7. And I will shake all nations
and the Desire of all nations shall come
and I will fill this house with glory, saith
the Lord of hosts. 8. The silver is mine
and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of
hosts. 9. The glory of this latter house
shall be greater than of the former, saith
the Lord of hosts: and in this place will 1
give peace, saith the Lord of hosts.
1094
HAGGAI, II.
Here is,
I. The date of this message, v. 1. It was sent
on the twenty-first day of the seventh month, when
the builders had been about a month at work, (since
the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month,) and had
got it in some forwardness. Note, Those that are
hearty in the service of God shall receive fresh en¬
couragements from him to proceed in it, as their
case calls for them. Set the wheels agoing, and
God will oil them.
II. The direction of this message, v. 2. The en¬
couragements here are sent to the same persons to
whom the reproofs in the foregoing chapter are di¬
rected; for they that are wounded by the convic-
'ions of the word, shall be healed and bound up by
nis consolations. Speak to Zerubbabel and Joshua,
and the residue of the people, the very same that
obeyed the voice of the Lord, ( ch . i. 12. ) and whose
spirits God stirred up to do so; ( ch . i. 14.) to them
are sent these words of comfort.
III. The message itself. In which observe,
1. The discouragements which they laboured un¬
der, who were employed in this work; that which
was such a damp upon them, and an allay to their
joy, when the foundation of the temple was laid,
was still a clog upon them — that they could not build
such a temple now as Solomon built, not so large,
so stately, so sumptuous a one as that was. This
fetched tears from the eyes of many, when the di¬
mensions of it were first laid; (Ezra iii. 12.) and
still it made the work go on heavdy — that the glory
of this house, in comparison with that of the for¬
mer, was as nothing, v. 3. It was now about se¬
venty years since Solomon’s temple was destroyed,
(for that was in the nineteenth year of the captivity,
and this about the nineteenth after the captivity,)
so that there might be some yet alive who could re¬
member to have seen it, and still they would be up¬
braiding themselves and their brethren with the
great disparity between this house and that; one
could remember the gold with which it was over¬
laid; another the precious stones with which it was
garnished; one could describe the magnificence of
the porch, another of the pillars — and where are
these now? This weakened the hands of the build¬
ers; for though our gracious God is pleased with us,
if we do in sincerity as well as we can in his service,
yet our proud hearts will scarcely let us be pleased
with ourselves, unless we do as well as others, whose
abilities far exceed ours. And it is sometimes the
fault of old people, to discourage the services of the
present age, by crying up too much the perform¬
ances and attainments of the former age; with which
others should be provoked to emulation, but not ex¬
posed to contempt. Say not thou, that the former
days were better than these, (Eccles. vii. 10.) but
thank God that there is any good in these, bad as
they are.
2. The encouragement that is given them to go
on in the work, notwithstanding; (x>. 4.) Yet now,
though this house is likely to be much inferior to
the former, yet be strong, 0 Zerubbabel, and be
strong, O Joshua. Let not these leading men give
way to this suggestion, or be disheartened by it, but
do as well as they can, when they cannot do so well
as they would; and let all the people of the land be
strong too, and work; and if the leaders have but a
good heart on it, it is hoped that the followers will
have the better heart. Note, Those that work for
God ought to exert themselves with vigour, and
then to encourage themselves with hope that it will
end well.
3. The grounds of these encouragements. God
himself says to them, Fear ye not; {v. 5.) and he
gives good reason for it.
(1.) They have God with them, his Spirit and
his special presence; Be strong, for lam with you,
saith the Lord of hosts, v. 4. This he had said be
fore; {ch. i. 13.) I am with you. But we need to
have these assurances repeated, that we may have
strong consolation. The presence of God with us,
as the Lord of hosts, is enough to silence all oui
fears, and to help us over all the discouragements
we may meet with in the way of our duty. The
Jews had hosts against them, but they had the Lord
of hosts with them, to take their part and plead
their cause. He is with them, for, [1.] He adheres
to his promise; his covenant is inviolable; and he
will be always theirs, and will appear and act for
them, according to the word that he covenanted with
them when they came out of Egypt. Though he
chastens their transgressions with the rod, yet he
will not make his faithfulness to fail. [2.] He
dwells among them by his Spirit, the Spirit of pro¬
phecy; when he first formed them into a people, he
gave his good Spirit to instruct them; (Noli. ix. 20.)
and still the Spirit, though often grieved, and pro¬
voked to withdraw, remained among them. It was
the Spirit of God that stirred up their spirits to
come out of Babylon, (Ezra i. 5.) and now to build
the temple, Hag. i. 14. Note, We have reason to
be encouraged as long as we have the Spirit of God
remaining among us to work upon us, for so lrng
we have God with us to work for us.
(2.) They shall have the Messiah among them
shortly — him that should come. To him hare all
the prophets witness, and this prophet particularly
here, v. 6, 7. Here is an intimation of the time of
his coming, that it should not be long ere he came;
Yet once, it is a little while, and he shall come. The
Old Testament church has but one stage more (if
we may say so) to travel; five stages were now past,
from Adam to Noah, thence to Abraham, thence to
Moses, thence to Solomon’s temple, thence to the
captivity, and now yet one stage more, its sixth
day’s journey, and then comes the sabbatism of the
Messiah’s kingdom. Let the Son of man, when he
comes, find faith on the earth, and let the children
of promise continue still looking for him, for now it
is but a little while, and he will come; hold out, faith
and patience, yet awhile, for he that shall come,
will come, and will not tarry. And as he then said
of his first appearance, so now of his second. Surely
I come quickly.
Now concerning his coming it is here foretold,
[1.] That it shall be introduced by a general
shaking; (v. 6.) Twill shake the heavens, and the
earth, and the sea, and the dry land. This is ap¬
plied to the setting up of Christ’s kingdom in the
world, to make way for which, he vi\\\ judge among
the heathen, Ps. cx. 6. God will once again do for
his church as he did when he brought them out of
Egypt ; he then shook the heavens and earth at
mount Sinai; with thunder and lightnings and earth¬
quakes he shook the sea and the dry land, when
lanes were made through the sea, and streams fetch¬
ed out of the rock. This shall be done again, when,
at the sufferings of Christ, the sun shall be dark¬
ened, the earth shake, the rocks rend; when, at the
birth of Christ, Herod and all Jerusalem are trou¬
bled, (Matth. ii. 3.) and he is set for the fall and
rising again of many. When his kingdom was set
up, it was with a shock to the nations; the oracles
were silenced, idols were destroyed, and the pow¬
ers of the kingdoms were moved and removed,
Heb. xii. 27. It speaks the removing of the things
that are shaken. Note, The shaking of the nations
is often in order to the settling of the church, and
the establishing of the things that cannot be shaken.
[2.] That it shall issue in a general satisfaction.
He shall come, as the Desire of all nations — desira¬
ble to all nations, for in him shall all the families of
the earth be blessed with the best of blessings —
long expected and desired by the good people in all
1095
HAGGAI, 11.
nations, that had any intelligence from the Old Tes¬
tament predictions concerning him. Balaam, in the
land of Moab, had spoken of a Star that should
arise out of Jacob, and Job, in the land of Uz, of
his living Redeemer; the concourse of devout men
from all parts at Jerusalem, (Acts ii. 5.) was in ex¬
pectation of the setting up of the Messiah’s king¬
dom about that time. All the nations that are
brought into Christ, and discipled in his name, have
called him, and will call him, all their Salvation,
and all their Desire. This glorious title of Christ
seems to refer to Jacob’s prophecy, (Gen. xlix. 10. )
that to him shall the gathering of the people be.
(3.) The house they were now building shall be
filled with glory, to that degree, that its glory shall
exceed that of Solomon’s temple. The enemies of
the Jews followed them with reproach, and cast
contempt upon the house they were building; but
they might very well endure that, when God under¬
took to Jill it with glory. It is God’s prerogative to
fill with glory; the glory that comes from him. is
-atisfyiug, and not vainglory. Moses’s tabernacle
ind Solomon’s temple were filled with glory, when
God in a cloud took possession of them; but this
house shall be filled with glory of another nature.
[1.] Let them not be concerned that this house
had not so much silver and gold about it as Solo¬
mon’s temple had, v. 8. God needs not the silver
and gold to adorn his temple, for, (says he,) The
silver is mine, and the gold is mine. All the silver
and gold in the world are his; all that is hid in the
bowels of the earth, for the earth is the Lord's, and
the fulness thereof. All that is laid up in the ex¬
chequers, banks, and treasuries of the children of
men, and all that circulates for the maintaining of
trade and commerce; it is the Lord's. Every penny
bears his image as well as Ctesar’s: and therefore
when gold and silver are dedicated to his honour,
and employed in his service, no addition is made to
him, for it was his before. When David and his
princes offered vast sums for the service of the
house of God, they acknowledge, It is all thine own,
and of thine own. Lord, have we given thee, I Chron.
xxix. 14, 16. Therefore God needs not sacrifice,
for every beast of the forest is his, Ps. 1. 10. Note,
If we have silver and gold, we must serve and ho¬
nour God with it, for it is all his own, we have but
the use of it, the property remains in him; but if we
have not silver and gold to honour him with, we
must honour him with such as we have, and he will
accept us, for he needs it not; all the silver and gold
in the world are his already. The earth is full of
his riches, so is the great and wide sea also.
[2.] Let them be comforted with this, that though
this temple had less gold in it, it should have more
glory than Solomon’s; (u. 9.) The glory of this lat¬
ter house shall be greater than of the former. This
was never true in respect of outward glory; this
latter house was indeed in its latter times very much
beautified and enriched by Herod, and we find the
disciples admiring the stones and buildings of the
temple, how fine they were; (Mark xiii. 1.) but it
was nothing in comparison with Solomon’s temple;
and besides, the Jews own that several of the di¬
vine glories of the first temple were wanting in this
— the Ark, the Urim and Thummim, the fire from
heaven, and the Shechinah; so that we cannot con¬
ceive how the glory of this latter house should in
any thing exceed that of the former, but in that
which would indeed excel all the glories of the first
house — the presence of the Messiah in it, the Son
of God, his being presented there the Glory of his
fieofile Israel, his attending there at twelve years
old, and afterward his preaching and working mira¬
cles there, and his driving the buyers and sellers
uut of it. It was necessary, then, that the Messiah
should come while the second temple stood; but,
that being long since destroyed, we must conclude
that our. Lord Jesus is the Christ, is he that should
come, and we are to look for no other. It was also
the glory of this latter house, First, That, before
the coming of Christ, it was always kept free from
idols and idolatries, and never polluted with those
abominable things, as the first temple often was,
(2 Kings xxiii. 11, 12.) and in this its glory excelled
all the glory of that. Note, The purity of the
church, and the strict adherence to divine institu¬
tions, are much more its glory than external pomp
and splendour. Secondly, That, after Christ, the
gospel was preached in it by the apostles, even all
the words of this life, Acts v. 20. In the tem/ile
Jesus Christ was daily fireachecl, Acts v. 42. Now
the ministration of righteousness and life by the gos¬
pel was unspeakably more glorious than the law,
which was a ministration of death and condemna¬
tion, 2 Cor. iii. 9, 10. Note, That is the most valu¬
able glory, which arises from our relation to Christ,
and our interest in him. As where Christ is, behold,
a greater than Solomon is there, so the heart in
which he dwells, and makes a living temple, behold,
it is more glorious than Solomon’s temple, and will
be so to eternity.
(4.) They should see a comfortable end of their
present troubles, and enjoy the pleasure of a happy
settlement; In this place will I give fieace, saith the
Lord of hosts. Note, God’s presence with his peo¬
ple in bis ordinances secures to them all good. If
God be with us, peace is with us. But the Jews
under the latter temple had so much trouble, that
we must conclude this promise to have its accom¬
plishment in that spiritual peace which Jesus Christ
has by his blood purchased for, and by his last will
and testament bequeathed to, all believers, (John
xiv. 27.) that peace which Christ himself preached,
as the Prophet of peace, and gives, as the Prince
of peace. God will give peace in this place; he
will give his Son to be the Peace, Eph. ii. 14.
10. In the four and twentieth day of the
ninth month , in the second year of Darius,
came the word of the Lord by Haggai the
prophet, saying, 11. Thus saitli the Lord
of hosts. Ask now the priests concerning
the law, saying, 12. If one bear holy flesh
in the skirt of his garment, and with his
skirt do touch bread, or pottage, or wine,
or oil, or any meat, shall it be holy ? And
the priests answered and said, No. 13.
Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by
a dead body touch any of these, shall it be
unclean? And the priests answered and
said, It shall be unclean. 14. Then an¬
swered Haggai, and said, So is this people,
and so is this nation before me, saith the
Lor d ; and so is every work of their hands ;
and that which they offer there is unclean.
15. And now, I pray you, consider from this
day and upward, from before a stone was
laid upon a stone in the temple of the Lord;
16. Since those days were, when one came
to a heap of twenty measures, there were
but ten: when one came to the press-fat, for
to draw out fifty vessels out of the press,
there were but twenty. 1 7. I smote you
with blasting, and with mildew, and with
hail, in all the labours of your hands ; yet ye
1096
HAGGAI, II.
'urned not to me, saitli the Lord. 1 8. Con¬
sider now from this day and upward, from
.he four and twentieth day of the ninth
month , even from the day that the foundation
of the Lord’s temple was laid, consider it.
19. Is the seed yet in the barn? yea, as yet
the vine, and the fig-tree, and the pome¬
granate, and the olive-tree, hath not brought
forth : from this day will 1 bless you.
This sermon was preached two months after that
in the former part of the chapter. The priests and
Levites preached constantly, but the prophets
preached occasionally: both were good and need¬
ful; we have need to be taught our duty in season,
and out of season. The people were now going on
vigorously with the building of the temple, and in
hopes shortly to have it ready for their use, and to
be employed in the services of it; and now God
sends them a message by his prophet, which would
be of use to them,
I. By way of conviction and caution. They were
now engaged in a very good work, but they are con¬
cerned to see to it, not only that it be good for the
matter of it, but that it be done in a right manner,
for otherwise it would not be accepted of God.
God sees' there are many among them that spoil
this good work, by going about it with unsanctified
hearts and hands, and are likely to gain no advan¬
tage to themselves by it; these are here convicted,
and all are warned thereby to purify the hands they
employ in this work, for to the /lure only all things
are pure, and from the pure only that comes which
is pure. This matter is here illustrated by the
established rules of the ceremonial law, in putting
a difference between the clean and the unclean,
about which many of the appointments of the law
were conversant. Hereby it appears that a spi¬
ritual use is to be made of the ceremonial law, and
that it was intended, not only as a divine ritual to
the Jews, but for instruction in righteousness to all,
even to us upon whom the ends of the world are
come, to discover to us both sin and Christ, both
our disease and our remedy. Now observe here,
1. What the rule of the law was. The prophet
is ordered to inquire of the priest concerning it; (v.
11.) for their lips should keep this knowledge, and
the people should inquire the law at their mouth,
Mai. ii. 7. Haggai himself, though a prophet, must
ask the priest concerning the law. His business, as
an extraordinary messenger, was, to expound the
providences of God, and to give directions con¬
cerning particular duties, as he had done, ch. 1. 8,
9. But he would not take the priests’ work out of
their hands, who were the ordinary ministers, and
whose business it was to expound the ordinances of
God, and to teach the people the meaning of them,
and to give the general rules for the observation of
them. In a case of that nature, Haggai must him¬
self consult them. Note, God has given to his mi¬
nisters diversities of gifts, and calls them out to do
diversities of services, so that they have need one
of another, should make use one of another, and be
helpful one to another. The prophet, though di¬
vinely inspired, cannot say to the priest, I have no
need of thee, nor can the priest say so to the pro¬
phet. Perhaps Haggai was therefore ordered to
consult the priests, that out of their own mouths he
might judge both them and the people committed
to their charge, and convict them of worse than
ceremonial pollution. See Lev. x. 10, 11.
Now the rules of the law, in the cases pro¬
pounded, are,
( 1. ) That he that has holy flesh in his clothes,
cannot by the touch of his clothes communicate ho¬
liness; (n. 12.) If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of
his garment, though the garment is thereby so far
made a devoted thing, as that it is not to be put to
common use till it has first been washed in the holy
place, (Lev. vi. 27. ) yet it shall by no means trans
unit a holiness to either meat or drink, so as to make
them ever the better to those that use them.
(2.) That he that is ceremonially unclean by the
touch of a dead body, does by his touch communi
cate that uncleatmess. The law is express, (Numb,
xix. 22.) Whatsoever the unclean person touches
shall be unclean; yet this Haggai will have from
the priest’s own mouth; for concerning those things
that we find very plain in our Bibles, yet it is good
to have the advice of our ministers. The sum of
these two rules is, that pollution is easier communi¬
cated than sanctification; that is, (says Grotius,)
There are many ways of vice, but only <Jne of vir¬
tue, and that a difficult one. Bonum oritur ex in-
tegris, malum ex quolibet defectu — Good implies
perfection, evil commences with the slightest defect.
Let not men think that living among good people
will recommend them to God, if they are not good
themselves, but let them fear that touching the un¬
clean thing will defile them, and therefore let them
keep at a distance from it.
2. How it is here applied; ( v . 14.) So is this peo¬
ple, and so is this nation, before me. He does not
call them his people, and his nation, (they are un¬
worthy to be owned by him,) but this people, and
this nation. They have been thus before God; they
thought their offering of sacrifices on the altar would
sanctify them, and excuse their neglect to build the
temple, and remove the curse which by that ne¬
glect they had brought upon their common enjoy¬
ments; “No,” says God, “your holy flesh and
your altar will be so far from sanctifying your meat
and drmk, your wine and oil, to you, that your con¬
tempt of God’s temple will bring a pollution, not
only on your common enjoyments, but even on your
sacrifices too; so that while you continued in that
neglect, all was unclean to you, nay, and so is this
people still: and so they will be; on these terms they
will still stand with me, and on no other — that if
they be profane and sensual, and morally impure,
if they have wicked hearts, and live wicked lives,
though they work ever so hard at the temple while
it is building, and though they offer ever so many
and costly sacrifices there when it is built, yet that
shall not serve to sanctify their meat and drink te
them, and to give them a comfortable use of it; nay,
the impurity of their hearts and lives shall make
even that work of their hands, and all their offer
ings, unclean, and an abomination to God.” And
the case is the same with us. They whose devo¬
tions are plausible, but whose conversation is wick¬
ed, will find their devotions unable to sanctify their
enjoyments, but their wickedness prevailing to pol¬
lute them. Note, When we are employed in any
good work, we should be jealous over ourselves,
lest we render it unclean by our corruptions and
mismanagements.
II. By way of comfort and encouragement. If
their hearts be right with God, and their eye single
in his service, they shall have the benefit of it. God
will take away the judgment of famine wherewith
they have been corrected for their remissness, and
will restore them great plenty. This they are
called to consider, and to observe whether God
would not be to the utmost as good as his word, and
by his providence remarkably countenance and re¬
compense their reformation in this matter. To
make this the more signal, let them set down the
day when they began to work at the building of the
temple, to raise the structure upon the foundations
that had been laid some time before. On the twen¬
ty-fourth day of the sixth month, they began to pre-
1097
HAGGAI, IL
pare materials, (ch. i. 15.) and now on the twenty-
fourth day of the ninth month, they began to lay a
stone upon a stone in the temple of the Lord; let
them take notice of this day, and observe,
1. How they were gone behindhand in their
estates before this day. Let them remember the
time when there was a sensible waste and decay in
all they had, v. 16. A man came to his garner,
expecting to find a heap of twenty measures of corn,
so much he used to have from such a piece of
ground, or so much used to be left at that time of
the year, or so much he took it for granted there
was when he fetched the last from it; but he found
it unaccountably diminished, and when he came to
measure it, there were but ten measures; it was run
in, and dried away, in the keeping; or vermin had
eaten it, or it was stolen. In like manner, he went
to the wine-press, expecting to draw fifty vessels of
wine, for so much he used to have from such a
quantity of grapes; but they did not yield as usual,
for he could get but twenty. This agrees with what
we had, ch. i. 9. Ye looked for much, and it came
to little. Note, It is our folly that we are apt to
raise our expectation from the creature, and to
think to-morrow must needs be as this day, and
much more abundant, but we are commonly disap¬
pointed, and the more we expect, the more grievous
the disappointment is. In the stores and treasures
of the new covenant we need not fear being disap¬
pointed, when we come by faith to draw from
them.
But this was not all; God did visibly contend with
them in the weather; (n. 17.) / smote you with
blastings, winds and frosts, which made every
green thing to wither, and with mildew, which
choked the corn when it was knitting, and with hail,
which battered it down, and brake it, when it was
grown to some maturity; thus they were disap¬
pointed in all the labour of their hands, while they
neglected to lay their hand to the work of God,
and to labour in that. Note, While we take no
care of God’s interest, we cannot expect he should
take care of ours. And when he thus walks con¬
trary to us, he expects that we should return to
him, and to our duty. But this people either saw
not the hand of God in it, (imputing it to chance,)
or saw not their own sin as the provoking cause ot
it, and therefore turned not to him. They were a
long time incorrigible and unhumbled under these
rebukes, so that God’s hand was stretched out still,
for the people turned not to him that smote them,
Isa. ix. 12, 13. They might easily observe, that as
long as they continued in neglect of the temple-
work, all their affairs went backward. But,
2. Let them now observe, and they should find
that from this day forward God would bless them;
( v . 18, 19.) “ Consider now, whether when you be-
in to change your way toward God, you do not
nd God changing his way toward you; from this
day, when you fall to work about the temple, consi¬
der it, I say, and you shall find a remarkable turn
given for the better to aH your affairs. Is thy seed
yet in the barn? Yes it is, and not yet thrown into
the ground; the fruit-trees do not as yet bud, the
vine and the fig-tree and the olive-tree have not as
yet brought forth, so that nothing appears to pro¬
mise a good harvest and vintage next year; nature
does not promise it: but now that you begin to ap¬
ply yourselves in good earnest to your duty, the God
of nature promises it; he has said, From this day I
will bless you. It is the best day’s work you ever
did in your lives, for from hence you may date the
return of your prosperity.” He does not say what
they shall be, but, in general, I will bless you; and
those that know what are the fruits flowing from
God’s blessing, know they can desire no more to
make them happy. “I will bless you, and then
Vol v 6Z
you shall soon ivcovcr all your losses, shall thrive
as fast as before you went backward; for the blessing
of the Lord, that maketh rich, and those whom he
blesseth, are blessed indeed.” Note, When we begin
to make conscience of our duty to God, we may ex¬
pect his blessing: and this tree of life is so known
by its fruits, that one may discern almost to a day a
remarkable turn of Providence, in favour of those
that return in a way of duty; so that they and
others may say that from this day they are blessed.
See Mai. iii. 10. And whoso is wise will observe
these things, and understand by them the loving¬
kindness of the Lord.
20. And again the word of the Lord
came unto Haggai, in the four and twentieth
day of the month, saying, 21. Speak to
Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, 1
will shake the heavens and the earth; 22.
And I will overthrow the throne of king¬
doms; and l will destroy the strength of the
kingdoms of the heathen; and I will over¬
throw the chariots, and those that ride in
them; and the horses and their riders shall
come down, every one by the sword of his
brother. 23. In that day, saith the Lord
of hosts, will I take thee, O Zerubbabel my
servant, the son of Shealtiel, saith the Lord,
and will make thee as a signet: for I have
chosen thee, saith the Lord of hosts.
After Haggai’s sermon ad populum — to the peo¬
ple, here follows one, the same day, ad magistra-
tum — to the magistrates; a word directed particu¬
larly to Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah, who
was a leading, active man in this good work which
the people now set about, and therefore he shall
have some particular marks put upon him; ( v . 21.)
Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, speak to
him by himself; he has thoughts in his head, far
above those of the common people, as wise princes
are wont to have, who move in a higher and larger
sphere than others. The people of the land are in
care about their corn-fields and vineyards; God has
assured them that they shall prosper, and we hope
that will make them easy; but Zerubbabel is con¬
cerned about the community and its interests, about
the neighbouring nations, and the revolutions of
their governments, and what will become of the
few and feeble Jews in those changes and convul¬
sions, and how such a poor prince as he is, should
be able to keep his ground, and serve his country.
“ Go to him,” says God, “ and tell him it shall be
well with him and his remnant, and let that make
him easy.”
1. Let him expect to hear of great commotions in
the nations of the earth, and let them not be a sur¬
prise to him; behold, he is told of them before; (v.
21, 22.) I will shake the heavens and the earth.
This he had said before, ( v . 6, 7.) and now says it
again to Zerubbabel; let him expect shaking times,
universal concussions; the world is like the sea, like
the wheel, always in motion, but sometimes in a
special manner turbulent. But, blessed be God, if
the earth be shaken, it is to shake the wicked out of
it. Job xxxviii. 13. In the apocalyptic visions,
earthquakes bode no ill to the church. Here the
heavens and the earth are shaken, that proud op¬
pressors may be broken and brought down; I will
overthrow the throne of kingdoms. The Chaldean
monarchy, which had been the throne of kingdom^
a great while, was already overthrown, and tin
powers that are, and are yet to come, shall in lik:
1098
HAGGAI, II
manner be overthrown; their day will come to fall.
( 1. ) Though they be ever so powerful, the strength
of their kingdoms shall be destroyed; they trust in
chariots and horses, (Ps. xx. 7.) but their chariots
shall be overthrown, and those that ride in them, so
that they shall not be able to attack the people of
God, whom they persecute, or to escape the judg¬
ments of God, which persecute them. (2.) Though
there appear none likely to be the instruments of
theit destruction, yet God will bring it about, for
• hey shall be brought down, every one by the sword
f his brother. This reads the doom of all the ene¬
mies of God’s church, that will not repent to give
him glory; it seems likewise designed as a promise
of Christ’s victory over the powers of darkness; his
overthrow of Satan’s throne, that throne of king¬
doms, the throne of the god of this world; the taking
from him all the armour wherein he trusted, and
dividing the spoil. And all opposing rule, princi¬
pality, and power shall be put down, that the king¬
dom may be delivered up to God, even the Father.
2. Let him depend upon it, that he shall be safe
under the divine protection, in the midst of all these
commotions, v. 23. Zerubbabel was active to build
God a house, and therefore God makes the same
promise to him as he did to David on the like occa¬
sion — that lie would build him a house, and establish
it, even in that day when heaven and earth are
shaken; this promise refers to this good man him¬
self and to his family. He honoured God, and God
would honour him; his successors likewise in the
government of Judah might take encouragement
from it; though their authority was very precarious
as to men, yet God would confirm it. And this
would contrioute to the stability of the people over
whom God had set them. But this promise has
special reference to Christ, who lineally descended
from Zerubbabel, and is the sole Builder of the gos¬
pel-temple. (1.) Zerubbabel is here owned as
God’s servant, and it is an honourable mention that
is hereby made of him, as Moses and David my
servants. When God destroys his enemies, he will
prefer his servant. Our Lord Jesus is his Father’s
Servant in the work of redemption, but faithful as
a Son, Isa. xlii. 1. (2.) He is owned as God’s elect;
I have chosen thee into this office; and whom God
makes choice of, he will make use of. Our Lord
Jesus is chosen of God, 1 Pet. ii. 4. And he is
the Head of the chosen remnant; in him they are
chosen. (3.) It is promised that, being chosen, God
will make him as a signet. Jeconiah had been as the
signet on God’s right hand, but was plucked thence,
(jer. xxii. 24.) and now Zerubbabel is substituted
in the room of him. He shall be near and dear to
God, precious in his sight, and honourable, and his
family shall continue till the Messiah spring out of
it, who is the Signet on God’s right hand. This
speaks, [1.] The delight the Father has in him; in
him he once and again declared himself to be well-
pleased. He is set as a seal upon his heart, a seal
upon his arm, is brought near unto him, (Dan. vii.
13.) is hid in the shadow of his hand, Isa xlix. 2.
[2. J The dominion the Father has intrusted him
with. Princes sign their edicts, grants, and com¬
missions, with their signet-rings, Esth. iii. 10. Our
Lord Jesus is the Signet on God’s right hand, for all
power is given to him, and derived from him. By
him the great charter of the gospel is signed and
ratified, and it is in him that all the promises of
God are yea and amen.
AH
EXPOSITION,
WITH
PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS,
OF THE PROPHECY OF
ZECHARIAH.
This prophet was colleague with the prophet Haggai, and a worker together with him in forwarding
the building of the second temple; (Ezra v. 1.) for two are better than one. Christ sent forth his dis¬
ciples, two and two. Zechariah began to prophesy some time after Haggai. But he continued longer,
soared higher in visions and revelations, wrote more, and prophesied more particularly concerning
Christ, than Haggai had done; so the last shall be first: the last in time sometimes proves first in dig¬
nity. He begins with a plain, practical sermon, expressive of that which was the scope of his prophe¬
sying in the five first verses; but afterward, to the end of ch. vi. he relates the visions he saw, and the
instructions he received immediately from heaven by them. At ch. vii. from an inquiry made by the
Jews concerning fasting, he takes occasion to show them the fluty of their present day, and to encourage
them to hope for God’s favour, to the end of ch. viii. After which there are two sermons, which are
both called burthens of the word of the Lord; one begins with ch. ix. the other with ch. xii. which,
probably, were preached some time after; the scope of which is to reprove for sin, and threatens God’s
judgments against the impenitent, and to encourage those that feared God, with assurances of the mercy
God had in store for his church, and especially of the coming of the Messiah, and the setting up of his
kingdom in the world.
ZECHARIAH, I.
CHAP. I.
In this chapter, after the introduction, (▼. 1.) we have, I.
An awakening call to a sinful people, to repent of their
sins, and return to God, v. 2. .6. II. Great encourage¬
ment given to hope for mercy. 1. By the vision of the
horses, v. 7. .11. 2. By the prayer of the angel for Je¬
rusalem, and the answer to that prayer, v. 12. . 17. 3.
By the vision of the four carpenters that were employed
to cut off the four horns, with which Judah and Jerusa¬
lem were scattered, v. 18. . 21.
1. IN the eighth month, in the second year
JL of Darius, came the word of the Lord
unto Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the
son of Iddo the prophet, saying, 2. The
Lord hath been sore displeased with your
fathers. 3. Therefore say thou unto them,
Thus saith the Lord of hosts. Turn ye unto
me, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will turn
unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. 4. Be ye
not as your fathers, unto whom the former
prophets have cried, saying, Thus saith the
Lord of hosts, Turn ye now from your evil
ways, and from your evil doings: but they
did not hear, nor hearken unto me, saitli the
Lord. 5. Your fathers, where are they?
and the prophets, do they live for ever ? 6.
But my words and my statutes, which I
commanded my servants the prophets, did
they not take hold of your fathers ? and they
returned, and said, Like as the Lord of
hosts thought to do unto us, according to our
ways, and according to our doings, so hath
he dealt with us.
’100
ZECHARIAH, 1.
He.'e is,
I. The foundation of Zechariah’s ministry; it is
laid in a divine authority; The word of the Lord
came to him. He received a divine commission to
be God’s mouth to the people, and with it instruc¬
tions what to say. He received of the Lord that
which also he delivered unto them. The word
if the Lord was to him: it came in the evidence
and demonstration of the Spirit, as a real thing,
and not a fancy. For the ascertaining of this we
have here,
1. The time when the word of the Lord came
first to him, or, when the word that next follows,
came to him: it was in the second year of Darius.
Before the captivity, the prophets dated their writ¬
ings by the reigns of the kings of Judah and Israel;
but now, by the reigns of the kings of Persia, to
whom they were subjects. Such a melancholy
change had sin made of their circumstances. Ze-
rubbabel took not so much upon him as to have pub¬
lic acts dated by the years of his government. In
things of this nature the prophets, as is fit, complied
with the usage of the time, and scrupled not to
reckon by the years of the heathen kings, as Dan.
vii. 1. — viii. 1. Zechariah preached his first ser¬
mon in the eighth month of this second year of Da¬
rius; Haggai preached his in the sixth month of the
same year, Hag. i. 1. The people being readily
obedient to the word of the Lord in the mouth of
Haggai, God blessed them with another prophet;
for to him that hath, and uses well what he has,
more shall be given.
2. The name and family of the prophet to whom
the word of the Lord came; he was Zechariah the
son of Barachiah, the son of Iddo, and he was the
firojihet; as Haggai is called the firofihet, Hag. i.
1. For though in former ages there was one Iddo
a prophet, (2 Chron. xii. 15.) yet we have no rea-
s :n to think that Zechariah was of his progeny, or
should be denominated from him. The learned
Mr. Pemble is clear of opinion, that this Zechariah,
the son of Barachiah, is the same that our Saviour
says w is slain between the temple and the altar ,
perhaps many years after the rebuilding of the tem¬
ple, (Matth. xxiii. 35.) and that our Saviour does
not mean (as is commonly thought) Zechariah the
son of Jehoiada, for why should Jehoiada be called
Barachiah? And he thinks the manner of Christ’s
account persuades us to think so; for, reckoning up
the innocent blood shed by the Jews, he begins at
Abel, and ends even in the last of the holy pro¬
phets. Whereas after Zechariah the son of Jehoia¬
da, many prophets and righteous men were put to
death by them. It is true, there is no mention made
in any history of their slaying this Zechariah, but
Josephus might industriously conceal that shame
of his nation. Perhaps what Zechariah spake in
his prophesying concerning Christ, of his being
sold, his being wounded in the house of his friends,
and the shepherd being smitten, was verified in the
prophet himself, and so he became a type of Christ.
Probably, being assaulted by his persecutors, he
took sanctuary in the court of the priests, (and some
think he was himself a priest,) and so was slain be¬
tween the porch and the altar.
II. The first-fruits of Zechariah’s ministry. Be¬
fore he came to visions and revelations, and deli¬
vered his prophetic discourses, he preached that
which was plain and practical; for it is best to begin
with that. Before he published the promises of mer¬
cy, he published calls to repentance, for thus the
way o f the Lord must be prepared. Law must be
first preached, and then gospel.
Now, 1. The prophet here puts them in mind of
the controversy God had had with their fathers;
(u. 2.) “ The Lord has been sore displeased with
your fathers, and has laid them under the tokens
of his displeasure. You have heard with yout
ears, and your fathers have told you of it; you have
seen with your eyes the woful remains of it. God’;
quarrel with you has been of long standing, and
therefore it is time for you to think of taking it up.”
Note, The judgments of God, which those that went
before us were under, should be taken as warnings
to us not to tread in their steps, and calls to repent¬
ance, that we may cut off the entail of the curse, and
get it turned into a blessing.
2. He calls them in God’s name, to return to him,
and make their peace with him, v. 3. God by him
says that to his backsliding people, which he had
often said by his servants the prophets; “ Turn ye
to me in a way of faith and repentance, duty and
obedience, and I will turn to you in a way of fa¬
vour and mercy, peace and reconciliation.” Let
the rebels return to their allegiance, and they shall
be taken under the protection of the government,
and enjoy all the privileges of good subjects. Let
them change their way, and God will change his.
See Mai. iii. 7. But that which is most observable
here is, that God is called here the Lord of hosts
three times; “ Thus saith the Lord of hosts. It is
he that speaks, and therefore ye are bound to re¬
gard what he says.” Turn ye to me, saith the
Lord of hosts; that- speaks the authority and obliga¬
tion of the command; and I will turn to you, saith
the Lord of hosts; that speaks the validity and value
of the promise; so that it is no vain repetition.
Note, The consideration of God’s almighty power
and sovereign dominion should both engage and en¬
courage sinners to repent, and turn to him. It is
very desirable to have the Lord of hosts our F riend,
and very dreadful to have him our Enemy.
3. He warns them not to persist in their impeni¬
tence, as their fathers had done; (v. 4.) Be ye no:
as your fathers. Instead ot being hardened in theii
evil courses by the example of their fathers’ sins,
let them rather be deterred from them by the ex¬
ample of their fathers’ punishment. We are apt
to be governed very much by precedent, and we
are well or ill governed according to the use we
make of the precedents before us. The same ex¬
amples to some are a savour of life unto life, to
others a savour of death unto death. Some argued,
“ Shall we be wiser than our fathers? They never
minded the prophets, and why then shall we mind
them? They made laws against them, and why
should we ro/crate them?” But they are here taught
how they should argue; “Our fathers slighted the
prophets, and Gcd was sore displeased with them
for it; therefore let us the more carefully regard
what God says to us by his prophets.” Review what
is past, and observe,
(1.) What was the message that God sent by his
servants the prophets to your fathers; The former
prophets cried to your fathers, cried aloud, and did
not spare, not spare themselves, not spare your fa¬
thers; they cried as men in earnest, as men that
would be heard; they spake not as from themselves,
but in the name of the Lord of hosts; and this was
the substance of what they said, the burthen of
every song, the application of every sermon — Turn
yc now from your evil ways, and from your evil
doing; the very same that we now preach to you.
Be persuaded to leave your sins, resolve to have no
more to do with them. A speedy reformation is the
only way to prevent an approaching ruin; “ Turn
ye now from sin to God without delay.”
(2.) How little this message was regarded by
your fathers; But they did not hear, they did not
heed. They turned a deaf ear to these calls; “ They
would not hearken unto me,” saith the Lord,
“ They would not be reclaimed, would not be ruled,
by the word I sent them ; say not then that you will
do as your fathers did, for they did amiss;” see Jer.
ZECHARIAH, I.
110!
xliv. 17. Note, We must not follow the examples
of our dear fathers, unless they were God’s dear
children, nor any further than they were dutiful
and obedient to him.
(3.) What is become both of your fathers, and of
the prophets that preached to them? They are all
dead and gone, v. 5. [1.] Your fathers, where are
they? The whole generation of them is swept away,
and their place knows them no more. Note, When
we think of our ancestors, that are gone through
ihe world, and gone out of it before us, we should
think, Where are they? Here they were, in the
towns and countries where we live, passing and re¬
passing in the same streets, dwelling in the same
houses, trading in the same shops and exchanges,
worshipping God in the same churches. But where
are they? They are somewhere still; when they
died, there was not an end of them; they are in
eternity, in the world of spirits, the unchangeable
world, to which we are hastening apace; Where
are they? Those of them that lived and died in sin,
are in torment, and we are warned by Moses and
the prophets, Christ and his apostles, to look to it
that we come not to that filace of torment, Luke xvi.
28, 29. Those of them that lived and died in Christ,
are in /laradise; and if we live and die as they did,
we shall be with them shortly, with them eternally.
[2.] The firofihets also, did they live forever? No,
they are gone too. The treasure is put into earthen
vessels, the water of life into earthen pitchers, often
cracked, and brought home broken at last. Christ
is a Prophet that lives for ever, but all other pro¬
phets have a period put to their office. Note, Min¬
isters are dying men, and live not for ever in this
world. They are to look upon themselves as such,
and to preach accordingly, as those that must be
silenced shortly, and know not which sermon may
be the last; people are to look upon them as such,
and to hear accordingly, as those that yet a little
while have the light with them, that they may
walk and work while they have the light. O that
this weighty consideration had its due weight given
it, that we are dying ministers dealing with dying
people about the concerns of immortal souls, and an
awful eternity, which both they and we are stand¬
ing upon the brink of! It concerns us to think of the
prophets that are gone, that were before us of old,
Jer. xxviii. 8. They that were the glory of men,
withered and fell; but the word of the Lord en¬
dures for ever, 1 Pet. i. 24, 25. The prophets that
are now, do we live forever? (So some read it.)
No, Haggai and Zechariah will not be long with
you; and prophecy itself shall shortly cease. In
another world, both we and our prophets sh ill live
for ever; and to prepare for that world, ought to
be our great care and business in this.
(4.) What were the effects of the word which
God spake to 'them by his prophets, v. 6. The
preachers died, and the hearers died, but the word
of God died not; that took effect, and not one iota
or tittle of it fell to the ground. As the rain and
enow from heaven, it shall not return void, Isa. lv.
11. He appeals to themselves; they knew very
well, [1.] That the judgments God had threatened,
were executed upon their fathers, and they were
made to feel what they would not believe and fear;
My statutes which I commanded my servants the
firofihets, the precepts, with the penalties annexed,
which I charged them with the delivery of, did
they not take hold of your fathers? Though God’s
prophets could not fasten convictions upon them,
the calamities threatened overtook them, and they
could not escape them, or get out of the reach of
them. God’s words took hold of them, as the bailiff
arrests the debtor, and takes him in execution for
contempt. Note, The unbelief of man cannot make
'he threatenings of God’s word of no effect, but,
sooner or later, they will take place, if the pivscrib?
ed course be not taken to prevent the execution of
them. God’s anger will certainly take hold of these
that will not be taken hold of by his authority; I r
when he judges, he will overcome. [2.] That they
themselves could not but own the accomplishment
of the word of G.,cl in the judgments of God tli.t
were upon them, and that therein he was righteous,
and had done them no wrong; They returned and
said, (they changed their mind, and when it was too
late to prevent the ruin of their nation, they ac¬
knowledged,) Like as the Lord of hosts thought to
do unto us according* to our ways and doings, to
reckon with us for them, so that he dealt with us,
and we must acknowledge both his truth and his
justice; must blame ourselves only, and have no
blame to lay to him. Sero safiiunt Phryges — It is
late before the Phrygians become wise. This after¬
wit, as it is a proof of the truth of God, so it is a
proof of the folly of men who will look no furthei
than they can see. They would ne\er be persuaded
to say in time, “God will be as good as his word,
for he is faithful; he will deal with us according to
our deserts, fur he is righteous.” But now they see
both plain enough, when the sentence is executed;
now he that runs may read, and publish the exact
agreement that appears between the present pro\ i-
dences and the former predictions which then were
slighted, between the present punishments and the
former sins which then were persisted in. Now
they cannot but say, The Lord is righteous, Dan.
xi. 11—13.
7. Upon the four and twentieth day of the
eleventh month, which is the month Sebat,
in the second year of Darius, came the
word of the Lord unto Zechariah, the son
of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet,
saying, 8. I saw by night, and, Dehold, a
man riding upon a red horse, and he stood
among the myrtle-trees that were in the bot¬
tom; and behind him were there red horses,
speckled, and white. 9. Then said I, O
my lord, what are these? And the angel
that talked with me said unto me, I will
shew thee what these be. 10. And the
man that stood among the myrtle-trees an¬
swered and said, These are they whom the
Lord hath sent to walk to and fro through
the earth. 11. And they answered the an¬
gel of the Lord that stood among the myr¬
tle-trees, and said, We have walked to and
fro through the earth, and, behold, all the
earth sitteth still, and is at rest. 1 2. Then
the angel of the Lord answered and said,
O Lord of hosts, how long wilt thou not
have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities
of Judah, against which thou hast had indig¬
nation these threescore and ten years? 13.
And the Lord answered the angel that
talked with me with good words, and com¬
fortable words. 1 4. So the angel that com¬
muned with me said unto me, Cry thou,
saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I am
jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a
great jealousy. 15. And I am very sore
displeased with the heathen that are at ease:
1102
ZECHARI4H, T.
for I was but a little displeased, and they
helped forward the affliction. 16. There¬
fore thus saith the Lord, I am returned to
Jerusalem with mercies: my house shall be
built in it, saith the Lord of hosts, and a
line shall be stretched forth upon Jerusalem.
1 7. Cry yet, saying, Thus saith the Lord
of hosts, My cities through prosperity shall
vet be spread abroad; and the Lord shall
yet comfort Zion, and shall yet choose Je¬
rusalem.
We now come to visions and revelations of the
Lord ; for in that way God chose to speak by Zecha-
riali, to awaken the people’s attention, and to en¬
gage the humble reverence of the word, and their
humble inquiries into it, and to fix it the more in
their minds and memories. Most of the following
visions seem designed for the comfort of the Jews,
now newly returned out of captivity, and their en¬
couragement to go on with the building of the tem¬
ple. The scope of this vision (which is as an intro¬
duction to the rest) is to assure the Jews of the care
God took of them, and the eye of his providence
that was upon them for good, now in their present
state, when they seemed to be deserted, and their
case deplorable. The vision is dated ( v . 7.) the
twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, three
months after he preached that sermon (v. 1.) in
which he called them to repentance, from the con¬
sideration of God’s judgments. Finding that the
sermon had a good effect, and that they returned to
God in a way of duty, the assurances he had given
them are confirmed, that God would return to them
in a way of mercy. Now observe here,
1. What the prophet saw, and the explication of
that.
1. He saw a grove of myrtle-trees; a dark shady
grove, down in a bottom, hid by the adjacent hills,
so that you were not aware of it, till you were just
upon it. This represented the low, dark, solitary,
melancholy condition of the Jewish church at this
time. They were overtopped by all their neigh¬
bours, buried in obscurity; what friends they had
were hidden, and there appeared no way of relief
and succour for them. Note, The church has not
been always visible, but sometimes hid, as the wo¬
man in the wilderness, Rev. xii. 6.
2. He saw a man mounted upon a red horse,
standing in the midst of this shady myrtle-grove.
This man is no other than the Man Christ Jesus;
the same that appeared to Joshua, with his sword
drawn in his hand as Captain of the host of the
Lord, (Josh. v. 13, 14.) and to St. John, with his
bow and his crown. Rev. vi. 2. Though the church
was in a low condition, yet Christ was present in the
midst of it. Was it hid by the hills? He was much
more hid in the myrtle-grove, yet hid as in an am¬
bush, ready to appear for the seasonable relief of
his people, to their happy surprise. Compare Isa.
xlv. 15. Verily, thou art a God that hidest thyself,
and yet Israel’s God and Saviour at the same time,
their Holy One in the midst of them. He was rid¬
ing, as a man of war; as a man ir haste; riding on
the heavens, for the helfi of his people, Deut. xxxiii
26. He rode on a red horse; either naturally so,
or dyed red with the blood of war, as this same vic¬
torious Prince appeared red in his apparel, Isa.
lxiii. 1, 2. Red as a fiery colour, denoting that he
is jealous for Jerusalem, (v. 14.) and very angry at
her enemies. Christ, under the law, appeared on
a red horse, denoting the terror of that dispensation,
and that he had yet his conflict before him, when
lie was to resist unto blood. But, under the gospel,
he appears on a white horse, (Rev. vi. 2. and again,
ch. xix. 11.) denoting that he has now gained the
victory, and rides in triumph; and hangs cut the
white, not the bloody, flag.
3. He saw a troop of horse attending him, ready
to receive and obey his orders. Behind him there
were some red horses, and some speckled, and some
white; angels attending the Lord Jesus, ready to be
employed by him for the service of his church,
some in acts of judgment, others of mercy, others in
mixed events. Note, The King of the church has
angels at command, not only to do him honour, but
to minister for the good of those that are his.
4. He inquired into the signification of this vision.
He had an angel talking with him, as his instructor,
beside those he saw in the vision; so had Ezekiel,
(ch. xl. 3.) and Daniel, ch. viii. 16. Zechariah
asked him, (i’. 9.) 0 my Lord, what are these?
And it should seem, this angel that talked with him,
was Christ himself ; the Man on the red horse,
whom the rest were attendants on; to him imme¬
diately Zechariah addresses himself. Would we
be acquainted with the mysteries of the kingdom of
heaven, ~we must make our application, not to an¬
gels, (they are themselves learners,) but to Christ
himself, who is alone able to take the book, and open
the seals, Rev. v. 7. The prophet’s question implies
an humble acknowledgment of his own ignorance,
and an earnest desire to be informed. O let me
know what these are! This he desired, not for the
satisfying of his curiosity, but that he might be fur¬
nished with something proper for the comfort and
encouragement of the people of God, in their pre¬
sent distress.
5. He received from the angel that talked with
him, (z>. 9.) and from the man that stood among the
myrtle-trees, (v. 10.) the interpretation of this vi¬
sion. Note, Jesus Christ is ready to instruct those
that are humbly desirous to be taught the things of
God. He immediately said, I will show thee what
these be. What knowledge we have, or may have,
concerning the world of spirits, we are indebted to
Christ for. The account given him was, These are
they whom the Lord has sent, they are his messen¬
gers, his envoys, appointed (as his eyes are said to
do, 2 Chron. xvi. 9.) to walk, to run, to fly swiftly,
through the earth, to observe what is done in ft,
and to execute the divine commands. God needs
them not, but he is pleased to employ them, and
we need the comfort arising from the doctrine of
their administration.
II. What the prophet heard, and what instruc¬
tions were thereby given him. Faith comes by
hearing, and, generally, in visions there was some¬
thing said.
1. He heard the report or representation which
the angels made to Christ of the present state of the
world, v. 11. They had been out abroad, as flying
posts, (being hastened by the King of kings’ com¬
mandment, Esth. iii. 15.) and, being returned, they
give this account to the Angel that stood among the
myrtle-trees, (for to the Lord Jesus angels them¬
selves are accountable,) We have walked to and fro
through the earth, and behold, all the earth sits still,
and is at rest. We are taught to pray that the
will of God may be done by men on earth as it is
done by the angels in heaven; and here we see what
need we have to pray so, for it is far from being so.
For, (1.) We find the world of angels here very
busy. Those that are employed in the court above.
rest not day nor night from praising God, which is
their business there; and those that are employed in
the camp below, are never idle, nor lose time, they
are still ascending and descending upon the Son of
man, (John i. 51. as on Jacob’s ladder, Gen. xxviii.
12.) they are still walking to and fro through the
earth. Thus active, thus industrious, Satan owns
1103
ZF.CHARIAH, 1.
himself to be to do mischief, Job i. 7. It is well for
us that good angels bestir themselves as much to do
good, and that here in this earth, we have guar¬
dians going about continually seeking to do us a kind¬
ness, as we have adversaries which, as roaring lions,
go about continually, seeking to devour us. 1 hough
holy angels in this earth meet with a great deal that
is disagreeable, yet, while they are going on God’s
errands, they hesitate not to walk to and Jro
through it. Their own habitation, which those
that fell liked not, they will like the better when
they return. (2.) We find the world of mankind
here very careless; All the earth sits still and is at
rest, while all the church is made uneasy, tossed
with tempests, and not comforted. Those that are
strangers to the church, are secure; those that are
enemies to it, are successful. The Chaldeans and
Persians dwell at ease, while the poor Jews are con¬
tinually alarmed; as when the king and Hainan sat
down to drink, but the city Shushan was perplexed.
The children of men are merry and jovial, but none
f rieved for the affliction of God’s children. Note,
t is sad to think what a deep sleep the world is
cast into, what a spirit of slumber has seized the
generality of mankind, that are under God’s wrath
and Satan’s power, and yet secure and unconcerned !
They sit still, and are at rest! Luke xvii. 26, 8cc.
2. He heard Christ’s intercession with the Father
for his afflicted church, v. 12. The angels related
the posture of affairs in this lower world, but we
read not of any prayers they made for the redress
of the grievances they had made a remonstrance of;
no, it is the Angel among the myrtle-trees that is
the great Intercessor. Upon the report of the an-
fels, he immediately turned heavenward, and said,
.ord, wilt thou not have mercy on thv church? (1.)
The thing he intercedes'for is, mercy; as Ps. lxv.
7. Show us thy mercy, 0 Lord. Note, God’s
mercv is all in all to the church’s comfort; and all
his mercy must be hoped for through Christ’s me-
* diation. (2. ) The thing he complains of is, the de¬
lay of his mercy; how long wilt thou not have mer¬
cy! He knows that mercies through him shall be
built u/i for ever, (Ps. Ixxxix. 2.) but thinks it long
that the building is deferred. (3. ) The objects of
compassion recommended to the divine mercies are,
Jerusalem, the holy city, and the other cities of Ju¬
dah, that were now in ruins; for God had had in¬
dignation against them, now threescore and ten
years. He mentions seventy years, because that
was the time fixed in the divine counsels for the
continuance of the captivity; so long the indignation
lasted, and though now for a little sfiace grace had
been showed them from the Lord their God, to give
them some reviving, (Ezra ix. 8.) yet the scars of
• those seventy years’ captivity still remained so deep,
so painful, that that is the melancholy string they
still harp upon — the divine indignation during those
seventy years. Dr. Lightfoot thinks that whereas
the seventy years of the captiv ity were reckoned
from Jehoiakim’s fourth year, and ended in the first
of Cyrus; these seventy years are to be computed
from the eleventh of Zedekiah, when Jerusalem
and the temple were burnt, about nineteen years
after the first captivity, and which ended in this se¬
cond yeat of Darius Hvstaspes, art out seventeen
years after Cyrus’s proclamation; as that seventy
years mentioned ch. vii. 5. was about nineteen years
after; the captivity went off, as it came on, gradual¬
ly: Lord, we are still under the burthen of the se¬
venty years’ wrath, and wilt thou be angry with us
for ever?
3. He heard a gracious reply given to this inter¬
cession of Christ’s for his church; for it is a prevail-
intercession, always acceptable, and him the Father
heareth always; (v. 13.) The Lord answered the
Angel, this Angel of the covenant, with good words,
and comfortable words, with promises of mercy
and deliverance, and the perfecting of what he had
begun in favour to them. These were comfortabli
words to Christ, who is grieved in the grievances of
his church, and comfortable to all that mourn witn
Zion. God often answers prayer with good words,
when he does not immediately appear in great
works; and those good words are real answers to
prayer. Men’s good words will not feed the body,
(Jam. ii. 16.) but God’s good words will feed the
faith, for saving and doing with him are not two
things, though they are with us.
4. He heard that reply which was given to the
Angel, repeated to himself, with a commission to
publish it to the children of his people, for their
comfort. The revelation of Jesus Christ which God
gave to him he signified to his servant John, and by
him to the churches. Rev. i. 1, 4. Thus all the
good words and comfortable words of the gospel we
receive from Jesus Christ, as he received them from
the Father, in answer to the prayer of his blood, and
his ministers are appointed to preach them to all the
world. Now that God would sfieak comfortably to
Jerusalem, Zechariah is the voice of one crying in
the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord.
The voice said. Cry. Cry then. The prophets
must now cry as loud to show God’s people theii
comforts, as ever they did formerly, to show them
their transgressions, Isa. xl. 2, 3, 6. And if he ask,
What shall / cry ? He is here instructed.
(1.) He must proclaim the wrath God lias in
store for the enemies of Jerusalem. He is jealous
for Zion with great jealousy, v. 14. He takes
himself to be highly affronted by the injuries and
indignities that are done to his church, as he had
been formerly by the iniquities found in his church.
The earth sat still, and was at rest, (v. ll.).not re¬
lenting at all, or showing the least remorse, for all
the mischief they had done to Jerusalem; as Joseph’s
brethren, who, when they had sold him, sat down
to eat bread; and this God took very ill; (v. 15.) I
am very sore displeased with the heathen, that are
at ease, and have no concern for the afflicted church.
Much more will he be displeased with those that
are at ease in Zion, (Amos vi. 1.) with Zion’s own
sons, that sympathize not with her in her sorrows.
But this was not all; they were not only not con¬
cerned for her, but they were concerned against
her; I was but a little displeased with mv people,
and designed to correct them moderately; but those
that were employed as instruments of the correc¬
tion, cast off all pity, and with the greatest rage
and malice helped forward the affliction, and added
to it, persecuting those whom God had smitten,
(Ps. lxix. 26.) and insulting over those whom he
had troubled. See Isa. xlvii. 6. — x. 5. Ezek. lii.
12, 15. Note, God is displeased with those who
help forward the affliction even of such as suffer
justly; for true humanity, in such a case, is good
divinity.
(2.) He must proclaim the mercy God has in
store for Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, v. 16.
He must cry, “ Thus saith the Lord, lam return
ed to Jerusalem with mercies. I was going away in
wrath, but I am now returning in love. Cry yet to
the same purport, v. 17. There must now be line
upon line for consolation, as formerly there had
been for conviction. The Lord, even the Lord of
hosts, assures them, [1.] That the temple shall be
built, that is now but in the building. This good
work which they are now about, though it meet with
much discouragement, shall be perfected, and they
shall have the tokens of God’s presence, and oppor¬
tunities of conversing with him, and worshipping
him, as formerly. Note, It is good news indeed to
any place, to hear that God will build his house in
it. [2 ] That Jerusalem shall again be builded as
1104
ZECHARIAH, II.
a city compact together, which had formerly been
its glory, Ps. cxxii. 3. A line shall be stretched
forth upon Jerusalem, in order to the rebuilding of
it with great exactness and uniformity. [3.] That
the nation shall again become populous and rich,
though now diminished and impoverished; not only
Jerusalem, but other cities that are reduced and lie
in a little compass, shall yet spread abroad, or be
diffused; their suburbs shall extend far, and colo¬
nics shall be transplanted from them; and this
through prosperity ; they shall be so numerous, and
so wealthy, that there shall not be room for them;
they shall complain that the place is too strait, Isa.
xlix. 20. As they had been scattered and spread
abroad, through their calamities, so they should
now be so through their prosperity. Let thy foun¬
tains be dispersed, Prov. v. 16. The cities that
should thus increase, God calls his cities; they are
blessed by him, and they are fruitful, and multiply,
and replenish the land. [4. ] That all their present
sorrows should not only be balanced, but for ever
silenced, by divine consolations; The Lord shall yet
comfort Zion. Yet, at length, though her griefs
and grievances may continue long, God has com¬
forts in reserve for Zion, and all her mourners. [5.]
That all this will be the fruit of God’s preventing,
distinguishing favour; He shall yet choose Jerusa¬
lem, shall renew his choice, renew his covenant, and
make it appear that he has chosen Jerusalem. As he
first built them up into a people, when he brought
them out of Egypt, so he will now rebuild them,
when he brings them out of Babylon; not for any
worthiness of theirs, but in pursuance of his own
choice, Dent. vii. 7, 8. Jerusalem is the city he has
chosen, and he will not cast it off.
18. Then lifted I up mine eyes, and saw,
and, behold, four horns. 19. And I said
unto the angel that talked with me, What
be these ? And he answered me, These are
the hornswhich have scattered Judah, Israel,
and Jerusalem. 20. And the Lord shewed
me four carpenters. 21. Then said I, What
come these to do ? And he spake, saying,
These are the horns which have scattered
Judah, so that no man did lift up his head:
but ti.ese are cofne to fray them, to cast out
the horns of the Gentiles, which lifted up
their horn over the land of Judah to scatter it.
It is the comfort and triumph of the church, (Isa.
lix. 19.) that, when the enemy shall come in like a
flood, with mighty force and fury, then the Spirit
of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.
Now, in this vision, (the second which this prophet
had,) we have an illustration of that; God’s Spirit
making a stand, and making head, against the for¬
midable power of the church’s adversaries.
1. We have here the enemies of the church bold
and daring, and threatening to be its death, to cut
off the name of Israel; such the people of God had
lately been insulted by; I looked, and, behold, four
horns, {y. 18.) which are explained, v. 19. They
are the horns which have scattered Judah, Israel,
and Jerusalem; that is, the Jews both in the coun¬
try and in the city, because they were the Israel of
God. They have tossed them, (so some read it,) as
furious bulls with their horns toss that which they
are enraged at. They have scattered them, so that
no man did lift tip his head, v. 21. No man durst
show his face, for fear of them, much less give
them any opposition, or make head against them.
Thev are horns, denoting their dignity and domi¬
nion, horns exalted; denoting also their strength
and power and violence. They are four horns, for
the Jews are surrounded with them on every side;
when they avoid one horn that pushes at them, they
run upon another. The men of Judah and the in¬
habitants of Jerusalem, and many of Israel that
joined themselves to them, set about the building
of the temple; but the enemies of that work from
all sides pushed at them, and drove them from it
Rehum, and Shimshai, and the other Samaritans
that opposed the building of the temple, were these
horns, Ezra iv. 8. So were Sanballat and Tobiah,
and the Ammonites and Arabians, that opposed the
building cf the wall, Neh. iv. 7. Note, The church’s
enemies have horns, and use them to the hinderance
of every good work. The great enemy of the New
Testament church has seven heads and ten horns;
(Rev. xvii. 3.) so that they who endeavour to do the
church any service, must expect to be pushed at.
2. We have here the friends of the church active
and prevailing. The prophet did himself lift up
his eyes, and see the four horns, and saw them so
formidable, that he began to despair of the safety
of every good man, and the success of every good
work; but the Lord then showed him four carpen¬
ters, or smiths, who were empowered to cut off these
horns, v. 20, 21. With an eye of sense we see the
power of the enemies of the church; look which
way we will, the world shows us that; but it is with
an eye of faith that we see it safe, notwithstanding.
It is the Lord that shows us that, as he opened the
eyes of the prophet’s servant, to see the angelic
guards round about his master, 2 Kings vi. 17.
Observe, Those that were to fray or break the
horns of the Gentiles, and to cast them out, were,
(1.) Carpenters, or smiths, (for they are supposed
by some to have been horns of iron,) men who had
skill and ability to do it; whose proper business it
was, and who understood their business, and had
tools at hand, to do it with. Note, God calls those to
serve the interests of his church, whom he either,
finds, or makes, fit for it. If there be horns against
the church, by which are denoted the force and fury
of beasts, there are carpenters for the church, by
whom are denoted the wisdom and forecast of men,
by which they find ways to master the strongest
beasts, for every kind of beasts is tamed, and has
been tamed, of mankind, Jam. iii. 7. (2.) They
were four carpenters: as manv horns, so many
hands to saw them off. Note, Which way soever
the church is threatened with mischief, and opposi¬
tion given to its interests, Gcd can find out ways and
means to check the force, to restrain the wrath, and
make it turn to his praise. Some by these four
carpenters understand Zerubbabel and Joshua, Ezra
and Nehemiah, who carried on the work of God,
in despite of opposition given to it. Those horned
beasts broke into God’s vineyard, to tread it down;
but the good magistrates and the good ministers
whom God raised up, though they had not power to
cut of the horns of the wicked, (as David did, Ps.
lxxv. 5, 10.) yet they frightened them, and cast
them out.
Note, When God has work to do, he will raise
up some to do it, and others to defend it, and pro¬
tect those that are emploved in the doing of it.
CHAP. II.
In this chapter, we have, I. Another vision which the pro¬
phet saw, not for his own entertainment, hut for his
satisfaction, and the edification of the se to whom he was
sent, v. 1, 2. II. A sermon upon it in the rest, of the
chapter; 1. By way of explication of the vision, showing
it to be a prediction of the replenishing of Jerusalem,
and of its safety and honour, v. 3 . . i. 2. By way of
application. Here is, (1.) A use of exhortation to the
Jews that were yet in Babylon, pressing them to hasten
their return to their own land, v. 6 . . 9. (2.) A use of
consolation to those that were returned, in reference to
the many difficulty « they had to struggle with, v. to 12.
llOi
ZECHARIAH, II.
(3.) A use of caution to all not to prescribe to God, or
limit him, but patiently to wait for him, v. 13.
l. IT LIFTED up mine eyes again, and
I looked, and, behold, a man with a
measuring-line in his hand. 2. Then said I,
Whither goest thou ? And he said unto me,
To measure Jerusalem, to see what is the
breadth thereof, and what is the length there¬
of. 3. And, behold, the angel that talked with
me went forth, and another angel went out
to meet him, 4. And said unto him, Run,
speak to this young man, saying, Jerusalem
shall be inhabited as towns without walls
for the multitude of men and cattle therein.
5. For I, saith the Lord, will be unto her
a wall of fire round about, and will be the
glory in the midst of her.
This prophet was ordered, in God’s name, to
assure the people, {ch. i. 16.) that a line should be
stretched forth ufion Jerusalem: now here we have
that promise .illustrated and confirmed, that the
prophet might deliver that part of his message to
the people with the more clearness and assurance.
I. He sees, in a vision, a man going to measure
Jerusalem; ( v . 1, 2.) He lifted uji his eyes again,
and looked. God had showed him that which was
very encouraging to him, ch. i. 20. and therefore
now he lifted up his eyes again, and looked. Note,
The comfortable sights which by faith we have had
of God’s goodness made to pass before us should en¬
gage us to lift up our eyes again, and to search
further into the discoveries made us of the divine
grace; for there is still more to be seen. In the
close of the foregoing chapter, he had seen Jerusa¬
lem’s enemies baffled and broken, so that now he
begins to hope she shall not be ruined. But that is
not enough to make her happy, and therefore that
is not all that is promised. Here is more carpenter’s
work to be done. When David had resolved to cut
off the horns of the wicked, he engaged likewise that
tne horns of the righteous should be exalted, Ps.
lxxv. 10. And so does the Son of David here; for
he is the Man, even the Alan Christ Jesus, whom
tlie prophet sees with a measuring-line in his hand;
for he is the Master-Builder of his church, (Heb.
lii. 3.) and he builds exactly by line and level.
Zechariah took the boldness to ask him whither he
was going, and what he designed to do with that
measuring-line? And he readily told him that he
was going to measure Jerusalem; to take a particu¬
lar account of the dimensions of it each way; that it
night be computed what was necessary for the
making of a wall about it, and that it might appear,
ny comparing its dimensions with the vast numbers
.hat should inhabit it, what additions were necessary
to be made for the receiving and containing of
them ; when multitudes flock to Jerusalem, (Isa. lx.
4. ) it is time for her to enlarge the place of her tent,
Isa. liv. 2. Note, God takes notice of the extent of his
church, and will take care that, whenever so many
guests are brought in to the wedding-supper, still
there shall be room, Luke xiv. 22. In the A’ew
Jerusalem, my Father’s house above, there are many
mansions.
II. He is informed that this vision means well to
Jerusalem; that the measuring-line he saw was not
a !:ne of confusion, (as that, Isa. xxxiv. 11.) not a
line to mete out for destraction, as when God pur¬
posed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion,
he stretched out a line; (Lam. ii. 8.) but it is as
when he divided the inheritance by line, Ps. lxxviii.
55. The angel that talked with the prophet went
Vol iv. — 7 A
forth, as he designed, to measure Jerusalem, but
another angel went out to meet him, to desire that
he would first explain this vision to the prophet,
that it might not occasion him any uneasy specula¬
tions; Run, and speak to this young man; (for, it
seems, the prophet entered upon his prophecy when
he was young, yet no man ought to despise his
youth, when God thus highly honoured it;) he is a
young man, not experienced, and may be ready to
fear the worst; therefore bid him hope the best, tell
him that Jerusalem shall be both safe and great.
1. As safe and great as numbers of men can make
it; (t>. 4.) Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns
without walls; the inhabitants of it shall increase
and multiply and replenish it, to admiration, so as
to extend itself far beyond the present dimensions,
which now there is an account taken of. The walls
of a city, as they defend it, so they straiten and
confine it, and keep its inhabitants from multiplying
beyond such a pitch; but Jerusalem, even when it
is walled, to keep off the enemy, shall be inhabited
as towns without walls; the city shall be in a man¬
ner lost in the suburbs, as London is, where the out-
parishes are more populous than those within the
walls; so shall it be with Jerusalem; it shall be ex¬
tended as freely as if it had no walls at all, and yet
shall be as safe as if it had the strongest walls, such
a multitude of men (which are the best walls of a
city) shall there be therein; and of cattle too, to be
not only food, but wealth too, for those men. Note,
The increase of the numbers of a people is a great
blessing, is a fruit of God’s blessing on them, and an
earnest of further blessings; (Ps. cvii. 38.) They
are multiplied, for he blesses them.
2. As safe and great as the presence of God can
make it, v. 5. (1. ) It shall be safe, for God himself
will be a Wall of fre round about it. Jerusalem
had no walls about it at this time, but lay naked and
exposed; formerly, when it had walls, the enemies
not only broke through them, but broke them down;
but now God will be unto her a Wall of fire. Some
think it alludes to shepherds that made fifes about
their flocks, or travellers that made fires about their
tents in desert places, to frighten wild beasts from
them. God will not only make a hedge about them
as he did about Job, {ch. i. 10.) not only make walls
and bulwarks about them, Isa. xxvi. 1. (those may
be battered down,) not only be as the mountains
round about them, Ps. cxxv. 2. (mountains may be
got over,) but he will be a Wall of fire round them,
which can neither be broken through, nor scaled,
nor undermined, nor the foundations of it sapped, not
can it be attempted, or approached, without danger
to the assailants. God will not only make a wall of
fire about her, but he will himself be such a Wall;
for our God is a consuming Tire to his and his
church’s enemies. He is a Wall of fire, not on one
side only, but round about on every side. (2.) It
shall be great, for God himself will be the Glory in
the midst of it. His temple, his altar, shall be set
up and attended there, and his institutions observed,
and there then shall the tokens of his special pre¬
sence and favour be, which will be the glory in the
midst of them, will make them truly admirable ir
the eyes of all about them. God will have honour
from them, and put honour upon them. Note,
Those that have God for their God, have him foi
their Glory; those that have him in the midst of
them, have glory in the midst of them, and thence
the church is said to be all glorious within. And
those persons and places that have God to be the
Glory in the midst of them, have him for a Wall of
fire round about them, for upon all that glory there
is, and shall be, a defence, Isa. iv. 5. Now all this
was fulfilled in part, in that Jerusalem, in process
of time, became a very flourishing city, and made a
very great figure in those parts of the world, much
1106
ZECHAR1AH, 11
beyond what could have been expected, considering
how low it was brought, and how long it was ere it
-ecovered itself. But it was to have its full accom¬
plishment in the gospei-cnurch, which is extended
far, as towns without walls, by the admission of the
Gentiles into it; and which has God, the Son of
God, for its Prince and Protector.
6. Ho, ho, come forth , and flee from the
land of the north, saith the Lord: for I
have spread you abroad as the four winds of
the heaven, saith the Lord. 7. Deliver thy¬
self, O Zion, that dwellest with the daughter
of Babylon. 8. For thus saith the Lord
of hosts, After the glory hath he sent me
unto the nations which spoiled you ; for he
that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his
eye. 9. For, behold, I will shake my hand
upon them, and they shall be a spoil to their
servants: and ye shall know that the Lord
of hosts hath sent me.
One would have thought that Cyrus’s proclama¬
tion, which gave liberty to the captive Jews to re¬
turn to their own land, should have sufficed to bring
them all back, and that, as when Pharaoh gave
them leave to quit Egypt and their house of bondage
there, they should not have left a hoof behind; but
it seems it had not that effect: there were about
40,000 whose spirits God stirred up to go, and they
went; but many, perhaps the greater part, stayed
behind; the land of their captivity was to most of
them the land of their nativity, they had taken root
there, had gained a settlement, and many of them a
very comfortable one; some perhaps had got estates
and preferments there, and they did not think they
could mend themselves by returning to their own
land. Patria est ubicunque bene est — My country
is every spot where I feel myself happy. They had
no great affection to their own land, and apprehend¬
ed the difficulties in their way to it insuperable.
This proceeded from a bad cause — a distrust of the
power and promise of God, a love of ease and world¬
ly wealth, and an indifference to the religion of their
country, and to the God of Israel himself; and it had
a bad effect, for it was an implicit censure of those
as foolish, rash, and given to change, that did return,
and a weakening of their hands in the work of God;
such as these could not sing, (Ps. cxxxvii.) in their
captivity, for they had forgotten thee, O Jerusalem,
and were so far from preferring thee before their
chief joy, that they preferred any joy before thee.
Here is therefore another proclamation issued out
by the God of Israel, strictly charging and com¬
manding all his free-born subjects, wherever they
were dispersed, speedily to return into their own
land, and render themselves at their respective posts
there. They are loudly summoned, ( v . 6.) Ho, ho,
come forth, and flee from the land of the north, saith
the Lord. This fitly follows upon the promise of
the rebuilding and enlarging of Jerusalem. If God
will build it for them and their comfort, they must
come and inhabit it for him and his glory, and not
continue sneaking in Babylon. Note, The promises
and privileges with which God’s people are blessed,
should engage us, whatever it cost us, to join our¬
selves to them, and cast in our lot among them.
When Zion is enlarged, to make room for all God’s
Israel, it is the greatest madness imaginable for any
of them to stay in Babylon. The captivity of a sin¬
ful state is by no means to be continued in, though a
man be ever so easy upon temporal accounts; no,
come forth, and flee with all speed, and lose no
time! Escape for thy life, look not behind thee.
To induce them to hasten their return, let them
consider,
1. They are now dispersed, and were concerned
to incorporate themselves for their mutual common
defence; ( v . 6.) “I have spread you abroad as the
four winds of heaven, sent some into one corner of
the world, and some into another; this has been your
condition a long time, and therefore you should now
think of coming together again, to help one an¬
other.” God owns that his scattering them was in
wrath, and therefore they must take this invitation
as a token of God’s being willing to be reconciled to
them again; so that they kicked at his kindness, in
refusing to accept the call.
2. They are now in bondage, and were concerned
to assert their own liberty; and therefore, “ Deliver
thyself, O Zion, flee from the oppressor, and make
the best of thy way. Let us see some such bold ef¬
forts and struggles to help thyself as become the
generous, gracious seed of Abraham,” v. 7. Note,
When Christ has proclaimed that deliverance to
the captives, which he has himself wrought out, it
then concerns each of us to deliver ourselves, to
loose ourselves from the bonds of our necks, (Isa. lii.
2.) and, since we are under grace, to resolve that
sin shall not have dominion over us. Zion herself
is here said to dwell with the daughter of Babylon,
because many of the Jirecious sons of Zion dwelt
there; and where the people of God are, there the
church of God is, for it is not tied to places. Now
it is not fit that Zion should dwell with the daughter
of Babylon ; what communion can light have with
darkness? Zion will be in danger of partaking with
the daughter of Babylon, both in her sins, and in her
plagues; and therefore, “ Come out of her, my peo¬
ple, Rev. xviii. 4. Deliver thyself, O Zion, by a
speedy return to thy own land, and do not destroy
thyself by continuing in that polluted, devoted land.”
Those that would be found among the generation of
God’s children, must save themselves from the un¬
toward generation of this world; it was St. Peter’s
charge to his new converts, Acts ii. 40.
3. They have seemed to be forsaken and forgot¬
ten of God; but God will now make it to appear
that he espouses their cause, and will plead it with
jealousy, v. 8, 9. It was a discouragement to those
who remained in Babylon, to hear of the difficulties
and oppositions which their brethren met with, that
were returned, by which they were still in danger
of being crushed and overpowered. “ And we
might as well sit still” (think they) “ as rise up and
fall.” In answer to this objection, the Angel that
talked with the prophet, that is, Jesus Christ, tells
him what he had commission to do for their protec¬
tion, and the perfecting of their salvation, and herein
he has an eye to the great redemption which, in the
fulness of time, he was to be the Author of. Christ,
who is Jehovah, and the Lord of hosts, of all the
hosts of heaven and earth, in both which he has a
sovereign power, says He, the Father, has sent me.
Note, What Jesus has done, and does, for his church
against his enemies, he was sent and commissioned
by the Father to do. With great satisfaction he
often speaks of the Father that sent him.
(1.) He is sent after the glory. After the glorious
beginning of their deliverance he is sent to perfect
it, for he is the Finisher of that work which he is
the Author of. Christ is sent, in the first place, to
the nation and people of the Jews, to whom pertain¬
ed the glory. Rom. ix. 4. And he was himself the
Glory of his people Israel. But after the glory, af¬
ter his care of them, he is sent to the nations, to be
a Light to lighten the Gentiles, by the power of his
gospel to captivate them, and bring them, and every
high thought among them, into obedience to himself.
(2.) He is sent to the nations that spoiled them, to
take vengeance on them for the wrongs done to Zion,
1107
ZECHARIAH, II.
when the year of his redeemed comes, and the year
of recompenses for the controversy of Zion, Isa.
xxxiv. 8. He is sent to shake his hands upon them,
to lift up his mighty hand against them, and to lay
upon them his heavy hand, to bruise them ivith a
rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter’s
vessel, Ps. ii. 9. Some think it intimates how easily
God can subdue and humble them with the turn of
his hand; it is but shaking his hand over them and
the work is done. They shall be a spoil to their ser¬
vants, shall be enslaved to those whom they had en¬
slaved, and be plundered by those they had plunder¬
ed. In Esther’s time this was fulfilled, when the
Jews had rule over them that hated them; (Esth.
ix. 1.) and often in the time of the Maccabees. And
the promise is further fulfilled in Christ’s victory
over our spiritual enemies, his spoiling principali¬
ties and powers, and making a show of them openly.
Col. ii. 15. And it is still in force to the gospel-
church. Christ will reckon with all that are ene¬
mies to it, and, sooner or later, will make them his
footstool, Ps. cx. 1. Rev. iii. 9.
(3.) What he will do for his church, shall be an
evident proof of God’s tender care of it, and affec¬
tion to it; He that touches you, touches the apple of
his eye. This is a high expression of God’s love to
his church. By his resentment of the injuries done
to her, it appears how dear she is to him, how he
interests himself in all her interests, and takes what
is done against her, not only as done against himself,
but as done against the very apple of his eye, the
tenderest part, which nature has made very fine,
has put a double guard upon, and taught us to be in
a special manner careful of, and which the least
touch is a great offence to. This encourages the
people of God to pray, (with David, Ps. xvii. 8.)
Keep me as the apple of thine eye; and engages them
to do as Solomon directs, (Prov. vii. 2.) to keep his
law as the apple of their eye. Some understand it
thus; “ He that touches you, touches the apple of
his own eye; whoever do you an injury, will prove
in the issue, to have done the greatest injury to them¬
selves.”
(4.) It shall be an evident proof of Christ’s mis¬
sion; Ye shall know that the Lord of hosts has sent
me to be the Protector of his church; that the pro¬
mises made to the church are yea and amen in him.
Christ’s victory over our spiritual enemies proves
that the Father sent him, and was with him.
10. Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion :
for, lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst
of thee, saith the Lord. 11. And many
nations shall be joined to the Lord in that
day, and shall be my people: and J will
dwell in the midst of thee; and thou shalt
know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me
unto thee. 12. And the Lord shall inherit
Judah his portion in the holy land, and shall
choose Jerusalem again. 1 3. Be silent, O
all flesh, before the Lord: for he is raised
up out of his holy habitation.
Here is,
I. Joy proclaimed to the church of God; to the
daughter of Zion, that had separated herself from
the daughter of Babylon. The Jews that were re¬
turned, were in distress and danger, their enemies
in the neighbourhood were spiteful against them,
their friends that remained in Babylon were cool to¬
ward them, shy of them, and declined coming in
to their assistance; and yet they are bid to sing, and
to rejoice even in tribulation. Note, Those that
have recovered their purity, and integrity, and spi¬
ritual liberty, though they have not yet recovered
their outward prosperity, have reason to sing and
rejoice, to give glory to God, and take comfort to
themselves.
1. God will have a people among them. If their
brethren in Babylon will not come to them, those of
other nations shall, and shall replenish Jerusalem
and the cities of Judah; Many nations shall be joined
to the Lord in that day, that are now at a distance
from him, and strangers to him. The Jewish na¬
tion, after the captivity, multiplied very much, by
the accession of proselytes to it, that were natural¬
ized, and were entitled to all the privileges of native
Israelites, and perhaps they were equal in number
and therefore Paul mentions it as an honour to him,
which many Jews had not — that he was of the tribe
of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, Phil. iii.
5. And this was an earnest of the bringing in of the
Gentiles into the Christian church; and in that, this
and other like promises were to have their full ac¬
complishment. It was therefore strange that that
should be so great an offence to the Jews as we find
it was in the apostles’ times, which was promised
them as a blessing in the prophets’ times — that many
nations should be joined to the Lord. And as there
had been one law, so should there be one gospel,
for the stranger and for those born' in the land :
whatever nation they come from, when they join
themselves to the Lord, they shall be my people, as
dear to God, as ever Israel had been. Note, God
will own those for his people, who with purpose of
heart join themselves to him; and when many do so,
we ought to look upon them, not with a jealous eye,
but with a joyful one. Angels rejoice, and there¬
fore so should the daughter of Zion, when many na¬
tions are joined to the Lord.
2. They shall have his presence among them;
Sing and rejoice, for I come. Those to whom God
comes, have reason to rejoice, for he will be to them
their chief Joy. God will come, not to make them
a visit only, but to reside with them, and preside
over them ; I will dwell in the midst of thee; (v.
10.) and it is repeated, (v. 11.) because it was to
have a double accomplishment; (1.) In the dedica¬
tion of the temple, in their regular observing all
God’s institutions there, and God’s owning them
therein. Those have God dwelling in the midst of
them, that have his ordinances administered in their
purity, and a divine power going along with them;
with these tokens of God’s presence the Jewish
church was blessed, after this, as much as ever.
(2. ) In the incarnation %f Christ, He that here pro¬
mises to dwell among them, is that Lord, whom the
Lord of hosts has sent, ( v . 11.) and therefore must
be the Lord Jesus, who came, and dwelt in the midst
of the Jewish nation, the eternal Word, that was
made flesh, and dwelt among us. This was the
great honour reserved for that nation in its last days;
the promise of it effectually secured their continu¬
ance till it was accomplished. They could not be
destroyed while that Blessing was in them; and the
prospect of it, according to the promise, was the
great support and comfort of them who looked for
redemption in Jerusalem. It is promised that when
Christ comes, and dwells among them, they shah
know that the Lord of hosts has sent him; all that
were Israelites indeed, were made to know it; suffi¬
cient proofs were given of it by the miracles Christ
wrought, so that they might have known it, and yet
there were those that perished in ignorance and un¬
belief, that would not know it, for if they had known
it, they would not have crucified the I.ord of g'ory.
3. They shall have all their ancient dignities and
privileges restored to them again, v. 12. (1.) Ca¬
naan shall be a holy land again; not polluted by si\
as it had been formerly, not profaned by the enemies
as it had been of late: it shall be an enclosure again,
1108
ZECHARIAH, III.
and not laid in common. (2.) Judah shall be in this
holy land, shall inhabit it, and enjoy the comfort of
it, and no longer be lost and scattered in Babylon.
(3.) Judah shall be God’s portion, which he will
delight in, which shall be dear to him, by which he
will be served, and in which he will be glorified.
The Lord’s portion is his people. (4.) God will in¬
herit Judah again as his portion; will claim his in¬
terest/ and recover the possession out of the hands
of those that had invaded his right. He will protect
his people and govern them as a man does his in¬
heritance, and will be at home among them. (5.)
He will choose Jerusalem again, as he had chosen it
formerly, to put his name there; he will renew and
confirm the choice, and continue it a chosen place,
till it must resign its honours to the Jerusalem that
is from above. Though the election seemed to be
set aside for awhile, yet it shall dbtain.
II. Here is silence proclaimed to all the world be¬
sides, v. 13. The daughter of Zion must sing, but
all flesh must be silent. Observe here, 1. A very
awtul description of God’s appearances for the re¬
lief of his people. He is raised up out of his holy
habitation; as a man out of sleep, (Ps. xliv. 23. —
lxxviii. 65.) or as a man entering with resolution
upon a business that he will go through with. Heaven
is his holy habitation above, thence we must expect
him to appear, Isa. lxiv. 1. His temple is so in this
lower world, thence from between the cherubim he
will shine forth, Ps. lxxx. 1. He is about to do
something unusual, unexpected, and very surprising,
and to plead his people’s cause, which had long
seemed neglected. 2. A seasonable caution and di¬
rection at such a time; Be silent, O all flesh, before
the Lord — before Christ and his grace; let not flesh
object against the methods he takes — before God
and his providence; the enemies of the church shall
be silenced, all iniquity shall stop her mouth, the
friends of the church must be silent. Leave it to
God to take his own way, and neither prescribe to
him what he should do, nor quarrel with him what¬
ever he does. Be still, and know that he is God.
Stand still, and see his salvation. See Hab. ii. 20.
Zeph. i. 7. Silently acquiesce in his holy will, and
patiently wait the issue, as those who are assured
that when God is raised up out of his holy habitation,
he will not retreat, or sit down again, till he has
accomplished his whole work.
CHAP. III.
The vision, in the foregoing ^hapter, gave assurances of
the re-establishing of the civil interests of the Jewish na¬
tion, the. promises of which terminated in Christ. Now,
the vision, in this chapter, concerns their church-state,
and their ecclesiastical interests, and assures them that
they shall be put into a good posture again ; and the pro¬
mises of this also have an eye to Christ, who is not only
our Prince, but the High Priest of our profession, of
whom Joshua was a type. Here is, I. A vision relating
to Joshua, as the representative of the church in his time,
representing the disadvantages he laboured under, and
the people in him, with the redress of the grievances of
both. 1. He is accused by Satan, but is brought off by
Christ, v. 1, 2. 2. He appears in filthy garments, but
had them changed, v. 3. -5. 3. He is assured of being
established in his office, if he conduct himself well, v. 6,
7. II. A sermon relating to Christ, who is here called
the Branch , who should be endued with all perfections
for his undertaking, should be carried triumphantly
through it., and by whom we should have pardon and
peace, v. 8. . 10.
1. A ND he shewed me Joshua the high
TJl priest standing before the angel of
the Lord, and Satan standing at his right
hand to resist him. 2. And the Lord said
. unto Satan, The Lord rebuke thee, O Sa¬
tan ; even the Lord that hath chosen Jeru¬
salem rebuke thee: is not this a brand
plucked out of the fire? 3. Now Joshua
was clothed with filthy garments, and stood
before the angel. 4. And he answered and
spake unto those that stood before him, say¬
ing, Take away the filthy garments from
him. And unto him he said, Behold, I have
caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and
I will clothe thee with change of raiment.
5. And I said, Let them set a fair mitre
upon his head. So they set a fair mitre
upon his head, and clothed him with gar¬
ments. And the angel of the Lord stood
by. 6. And the angel of the Lord protest¬
ed unto Joshua, saying, 7. Thus saith the
Lord of hosts, If thou wilt walk in my
ways, and if thou wilt keep my charge, then
thou shalt also judge my house, and shalt
also keep my courts ; and I will give thee
places to walk among these that stand by.
There was a Joshua that was a principal agent in
the first settling of Israel in Canaan; here is another
of the same name, very active in their second settle¬
ment there after the captivity; Jesus is the same
name, and it signifies, Saviour; and they were both
figures of him that was to come, our chief Captain
and our chief Priest. The angel that talked with
Zechariah, showed him Joshua the high priest; it is
probable that the prophet saw him frequently, that
he spake to him, and that there was a great intima¬
cy between them; but, in his common views, he
only saw how he appeared before men; if he must
know how he stands before the Lord, it must be
showed him in vision; and so it is showed him. And
men are really as they are with God, not as they ap¬
pear in the eye of the world. He stood before the
angel of the Lord, before Christ, the Lord of the
angels, to whom even the high priests themselves,
of Aaron’s order, were accountable. He stood be¬
fore the angel of the Lord, to execute his office, to
minister to God' under the inspection of the angels.
He stood to consult the oracle on the behalf of Is¬
rael, whom, as high priest, he was agent for.
Guilt and corruption are our two great discou¬
ragements when we stand before God. By the guilt
of the sins committed by us, we are become obnox¬
ious to the justice of God; by the power of the sin
that dwells in us, we are become odious to the holi¬
ness of God. All God’s Israel are in danger upon
these two accounts. Joshua was so here, for the
law made men priests that had infirmity , Heb. vii.
28. And as to both, we have relief from Jesus
Christ, who is made of God to us both Righteous¬
ness and Sanctification.
I. Joshua is accused as a criminal, but is justified.
1. A violent opposition is made to him. Satan
stands at his right hand, to resist him; to be a Satan
to him, a law-adversary. He stands at his right
hand, as the prosecutor, or witness, at the right
hand of the prisoner. Note, The devil is the accu¬
ser of the brethren, that accuses them before God,
day and night, Rev. xii. 10. Some think the chief
priest was accused for the sin of many of the inferior
priests, in marrying strange wives, which they were
much guilty of after their return out of captivity,
Ezra ix. 1, 2. Nell. xiii. 28. When God is about to
re-establish the priesthood, Satan objects the sins
that were found among the priests, as rendering
them unworthy the honour designed them. It is by
our own folly that we give Satan advantage against
us, and furnish him w;th matter for reproach and
1109
ZECHARIAH, III.
accusation, and if any thing be amiss, especially
with the priests, Satan will be sure to aggravate it,
and make the worst of it. He stood to resist him,
to oppose the service he was doing for the public
good. He stood at his right hand, the hand of ac¬
tion, to discourage him, and raise difficulties in his
way. Note, When we stand before God, to minister
to him, or stand up for God, to serve his interests,
we must expect to meet with all the resistance that
Satan’s subtilty and malice can give us. Let us then
resist him that resists us, and he shall flee from us.
2. A victorious defence is made for him; (x>. 2.)
The Lord, the Lord Christ, said unto Satan, The
Lord rebuke thee. Note, It is the happiness of the
saints, that the Judge is their Friend; the same that
they are accused to, is their Patron and Protector,
and an Advocate for them, and he will be sure to
bring them off. ( 1. ) Satan is here checked by one
that has authority, that has conquered him, and
many a time silenced him. The accuser of the
brethren, of the ministers and the ministry, is cast
out, his indictments are quashed, and his sugges¬
tions against them, as well as his suggestions to
them, showed to be malicious, frivolous, and vexa¬
tious; The Lord rebuke thee, 0 Satan. The Lord
said, the Lord our Redeemer; The Lord rebuke
thee, the Lord the Creator. The power of God is
engaged for the making of the grace of Christ effec¬
tual. “The Lord restrain thy malicious rage, re¬
ject thy malicious charge, and revenge upon thee
thine enmity to a servant of his.” Note, Those that
belong to Christ, have him ready to appear vigor¬
ously for them, then when Satan appears most ve¬
hement against them. He does not parley with
him, but stops his mouth immediately with this
sharp reprimand; The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan.
This is the best way of dealing with that furious
enemy; Get thee behind me, Satan. (2.) Satan is
here argued with. He resists the priest, but let
him know that his resistance, [1.] WMbe fruitless;
it will be to no purpose to attempt any thing against
Jerusalem, for the Lord has chosen it, and he will
abide by his choice. Whatever is objected against
God’s people, God saw it, he foresaw it when he
chose them, and yet he chose them; and therefore
that can be no inducement to him now to reject
them; he knew the worst of them when he chose
them; and his election shall obtain. [2.] It is un¬
reasonable: for is not this a brand /ducked out of the
fire? Joshua is so, and the priesthood, and the
people, whose representative he is. Christ has not
that to say for them, for which they are to be
praised, but that for which they are to be pitied.
Note, Christ is ready to make the best of his peo¬
ple, and takes notice of every thing that is pleadable
in excuse of their infirmities; so far is he from being
extreme to mark what they do amiss. They have
been lately in the fire; no wonder that they are
black and smoked, and have the smell of the fire
upon them, but they are therefore to be excused,
not to be accused. One can expect no other than
that those who but the other day were captives in
Babylon, should appear very mean and despicable.
They have been lately brought out of great afflic¬
tion; and is Satan so barbarous as to desire to have
them thrown into affliction again ? They have been
wonderfully delivered out of the fire, that God
might be glorified in them; and will he then cast
them off, and abandon them ? No, he will not
quench the smoking flax, the smoking fire-brand;
for he snatched it out of the fire, because he intend¬
ed to make use of it. Note, Narrow escapes from
imminent danger are happy presages and powerful
pleas for more eminent favours. A converted soul
is a brand plucked out of the fire by a miracle of
free grace, and therefore shall not be left to be a
prey to Satan.
II. Joshua appears as one polluted, but is puri¬
fied; for he represents the Israel of God, who are
all as an unclean thing, till they are washed and
sanctified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the
Spirit of our God. Now observe here,
1. The impurity wherein Joshua appeared; (x'
3. ) He was clothed, not only in coarse but in fUt/n,
garments, such as did very ill become the dignity of
his office, and the sanctity of his work. By the
law of Moses the garments of the high priest were
to be for glory and for beauty, Exod. xxviii. 2. But
Joshua’s garments were a shame and reproach to
him; yet in them he stood before the Angel of the
Lord; he had no clean linen wherein to minister and
do the duty of his place. Now this intimates, not
only that the priesthood was poor and despised, and
loaded with contempt, but that there was a great
deal of iniquity cleaving to the holy things. The
returned Jews were so taken up with their troubles,
that they thought they needed not complain of their
sins, and were not aware that those were the great
hinderances of the progress of God’s work among
them; because they were free from idolatry, they
thought themselves chargeable with no iniquity, but
Gcd shows them there were many things amiss in
them, which retarded the advances of God’s favours
toward them. There were spiritual enemies war¬
ring against them, more dangerous than any of the
neighbouring nations. The Chaldee Paraphrase
says, Joshua had sons who took unto them wives,
which were not lawful for the priests to take; and
we find it was so, Ezra x. 18. And, no doubt, there
were other things amiss in the priesthood; (Mai.
ii. 1.) yet Joshua was permitted to stand before the
Angel of the Lord. Though his children did not as
they should, yet the covenant of priesthood was not
broken. Note, Christ bears with his people, whose
hearts are upright with him, and admits them into
communion with himself, notwithstanding their
manifold infirmities.
2. The provision that was made for his cleansing.
Christ gave orders to the angels that attended him,
and were ready to do his pleasure, to put Joshua
into a better state. Joshua presented himself before
the Lord in his filthy garments, as an object of his
pity; and Christ graciously looked upon him with
contpassion, and not, as justly he might have done,
with indignation. Christ loathed the filthiness of
Joshua’s garments, yet did not put him away. Thus
God by his grace does with those whom he chooses
to be priests to himself; he parts between them and
their sins, and so prevents their sins parting between
them and their God; he reconciles himself to the
sinner, but not to the sin.
Two things are here done for Joshua, representing
a double work of divine grace wrought in and for
believers.
(1. ) His filthy garments are taken from him; (xi.
4. ) the meaning of this is given us in what Christ
said, and he said it as one having authority, Behold,
I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee. The
guilt of it is taken away b'y pardoning mercy, (the
stench and stain of it by peace spoken to the con
science,) and the power of it broken by renewing
grace. When God forgives our sins, he causes out
iniquity to pass from us, that it may not appear
against us, to condemn us; it passes from us as far
as the east is from the west. When he sanctifies the
nature, he enables us to put off the old man, to cast
away from us the filthy rags of our corrupt affec¬
tions and lusts, as things we will never have any
thing more to do with, will never gird to us, or ap¬
pear in. Thus Christ washes those from their sins
in his own blood, whom he makes to our God kings
and priests, Rev. i. 5, 6. Either we must be
cleansed from the pollutions of sin, or we shall, as
I polluted, be put from that priesthood, Ezra ii. 62
1110
ZECHAR1AH, III.
(2. ) He is clothed anew, has not only the shame
of his filthiness removed, but the shame of his
nakedness covered, I will clothe thee with change
of raiment. Joshua had no clean linen of his own,
but Christ will provide for him, for he will not let a
priesthood of his own instituting be lost, be either
contemptible before men, or unacceptable before
God. The change of raiment here is rich, costly
raiment, such as is worn on high days. Joshua shall
appear as lovely as everheappeard loathsome: they
that minister in holy things, shall not only cease to do
evil, but learn to do well; God will make them wise,
and humble, and diligent, and faithful, and exam¬
ples of every thing that is good; and then Joshua is
clothed with change of raiment. Thus those whom
Christ makes spiritual firiests, are clothed with the
spotless robe of his righteousness, and appear before
God in that; and with the graces of his Spirit, which
are ornaments to them. The righteousness of saints,
both imputed and implanted, is the fine linen, clean
and white, with which the bride, the Lamb's wife,
is arrayed, Rev. xix. 8.
III. Joshua is in danger of being turned out of of¬
fice; but, instead of that, he is re-installed and es¬
tablished in his office. He not only has his sins par¬
doned, and is furnished with grace sufficient for
himself, but, as rectus in curia — acquitted in court,
he is restored to his former honours and trusts.
1. The crown of the priesthood is put upon him,
v. 5. This was done at the special instance and re¬
quest of the prophet; I said, “Let them set a fair
mitre upon his head, as a badge of his office. Now
that he looks clean, let him also look great; let him
be dressed up in all the garments of' the high
priest.” Note, When God designs the restoring
and reviving of religion, he stirs up his prophets and
people to pray for it, and does it in answer to their
prayers. Zechariah prayed that the angels might
tse ordered to set the mitre on Joshua’s head, and
they did it immediately, and clothed him with the
riestly garments; for no man took this honour to
imself, but he that was called of God to it. The
Angel of the Lord stood by, as having the oversight
of the work which the created angels were em¬
ployed in. He stood by, as one well pleased with
it, and resolved to stand by the orders he had given
for the doing of it, and to continue his presence with
that priesthood.
2. The covenant of the priesthood is renewed
with him, which is called God’s covenant of peace,
Num. xxv. 12. Mr. Pemble calls it the patent of
his office, which is here declared and delivered to
him before witnesses, v. 6, 7. The angel of the
Lord, having taken care to make him fit for his
office, (and all that God calls to any office he either
finds fit, or makes so,) invests him in it. And
though he is not made a priest with an oath, (that
honour is reserved for him who is a Priest after the
order of Melchisedek, Heb. vii. 21.) yet being a
type of him, he is inaugurated with a solemn decla¬
ration of the terms upon which he held his office,
l’he angel of the Lord protested to Joshua, that if
hp would be sure to do the duty of his place, he
should enjoy the dignity and reward of it. Now see,
(1.) What the conditions are, upon which he en-
t( rs into his office. Let him know that he Is upon
hisg’ood behaviour; he must walk in God’s ways,
he must live a good life, and be holy in all manner
of conversation; he must go before the people in the
paths of God’s commandments, and walk circum¬
spectly. He must also keep God’s charge, must
carefully do all the services of the priesthood, and
must see to it that the inferior priests performed the
duties of their place decently and in order. He must
take heed to himself, and to all the flock, Acts xx.
28. Note, Good ministers must be good Christians;
yet that is not enough, they have a trust committed
to them, they are charged with it, and they must
keep it with all possible care, that they may give up
their account of it with joy, 1 Tim. vi. 14.
(2.) What the privileges are, which he maj ex¬
pect, and be assured of, in the due discharge of his
office. His patent runs, Quam diu se bene gesserit
-—During good behaviour. Let him be sure to do
his part, and God will own him. [1.] “ Thou shall
judge my house; thou shalt preside in the affairs of
the temple, and the inferior priests shall be under
thy direction.” Note, The power of the church,
and of church-rulers, is not a legislative, but only a
judicial power. The high priest might not make
any new laws for God’s house, nor ordain any other
rites of worship than what God had ordained; but
he must judge God’s house, he must see to it that
God’s laws and ordinances were punctually ob¬
served, must protect and encourage those that did
observe them, and inquire into and punish the vio¬
lation of them. [2.] “ Thou shalt also keep my
courts; thou shalt have oversight of what is done
in all the courts of the temple, and shall keep them
pure and in good order for the worship to be per¬
formed in them.” Note, Ministers are God’s stew¬
ards, and they are to keep his courts , in honour of
him who is the chief Lord, and for the preserving
of equity and good order among his tenants. [3.]
“I will give thee places to walk among those that
stand by, among these angels that are inspectors and
assistants in this instalment.” They shall stand by
while Joshua is at work for God, and shall be as a
guard to him; or, he shall be highly honoured and
respected as an angel of God, Gal. iv. 14. Minis¬
ters are called angels. Rev. i. 20. They that walk
in God’s ways, may be said to walk among the an¬
gels themselves, for they do the will of God as the
angels do it, that are in heaven, and are their fel¬
low-servants, Rev. xix. 10. Some make it a pro¬
mise of eternal life, and of a reward of his fidelity
in the future state. Heaven is not only a palace, a
place to repose in, but a paradise, a garden, a place
to walk in; and there are walks among the angels,
in society with that holy and glorious company. See
Ezek. xxviii. 14.
8. Hear now, O Joshua the high priest,
thou and thy fellows that sit before thee :
for they are men wondered at; for, behold, I
will bring forth my servant, The BRANCH.
9. For, behold, the stone that I have laid
before Joshua; upon one stone shall be seven
eyes: behold, I will engrave the graving
thereof, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will
remove the iniquity of that land in one day.
10. In that day, saith the Lord of hosts,
shall ye call every man his neighbour under
the vine and under the fig-tree.
As the promises made to David often slide insensi¬
bly into promises of the Messiah, whose kingdom
David’s was a type of, so the promises here made to
Joshua immediately rise as far upward, and look as
far forward, as to Christ, whose priesthood Joshua’s
was now a shadow of; not only in general as it kept
up the line of Aaron’s priesthood, but especially as
it was the reviving of that happy method of corres¬
pondence between heaven and earth, to which a
great interruption had been given by the iniquity
and captivity of Israel. Christ is a High Priest, as
Joshua was, for sinners and sufferers, to mediate for
those that have been under guilt and wrath. And
it was fit that Joshua should understand the priest
hood of Christ, because all the virtue of his priest¬
hood, its value and usefulness to the church, depend
Till
ZECHARIAH, III.
ed upon, and was derived from, the priesthood of
Christ. See,
I. To whom this promise of Christ is directed;
(v. 8.) “ Hear now, 0 Joshua. Thou hast heard
with pleasure what belongs to thyself; but behold,
a greater than Joshua is at hand, hear now concern¬
ing him; thou, and the rest of the priests, thy fellows,
who sit before thee, at thy feet, as learners, but
whom thou art to look upon as thy fellows, for all ye
are brethren; let the high priest, and all the in¬
ferior priests, take notice of this, for they are men
wondered at.” They are set for signs, for types
and figures of Christ’s priesthood: what God now
did for Joshua aud his fellows, was a happy omen
of the coming of the Messiah promised, and would
be so interpreted, with a pleasing wonder, by all
that had understanding at the times: or, they are
men wondered at for their singularity, hooted at as
strange sort of people, because they run not with
others to the same excess of riot; (1 Pet. iv. 4.) or
for their strange afflictions, and surprising deliver¬
ance out of them, as Ps. lxxi. 7. I am as a wonder
unto many. They are men of wonder, they are a
wonder to themselves, are amazed to think how
happily their condition is altered. God’s people
and ministers are, upon many accounts, men won¬
dered at. The high priest and his fellows here, (as
the prophet and his children, Isa. viii. 18.) are for
signs and for wonders. But men’s wonder at them
will cease when the Messiah comes, as the stars are
eclipsed by the light of the sun; for his name shall
be called Wonderful.
II. The promise itself, which consists of several
parts, all designed for the comfort and encourage¬
ment of Joshua and his friends, in that great and
good work of building the temple, which they were
now engaged in. An eye to Christ, and a believing
dependence upon the promises relating to him and
his kingdom, would carry them through the difficul¬
ties they met with in that and their other services.
1. The Messiah shall come; Behold, 1 will bring
forth my servant the Branch. He has been long
hid, but the fulness of time is now at hand, when he
shall be brought forth into the world, brought forth
among his people Israel. God himself undertakes
to bring him forth, and therefore, no doubt, he will
own him, and stand by him. He is God’s Servant,
employed in his work, obedient to his will, and en¬
tirely devoted to his honour and glory. He is the
Branch; so he was called, Isa. iv. 2. The Branch
of the Lord, (Isa. xi. 1.) A Branch out of the roots
of Jesse, (Jer. xxiii. 5.) A righteous Branch; and,
Jer. xxiii. IS. The Branch oj righteousness; whose
beginning was small as a tender branch, but in time
should become a great tree, and fill the earth, Isa.
liii. 2. He is the Branch from which all our fruit
must be gathered.
2. Many eyes shall be upon him. He is the Stone
laid before Joshua, alluding to the foundation, or
chief corner-stone, of the temple, which, probably,
was laid, with great solemnity, in the presence of
Joshua. Christ is not only the Branch, which is the
beginning of a tree, but the Foundation, which is
the beginning of a building; and, when he shall be
brought forth, seven eyes shall be upon him. The
eye of lus Father was upon him, to take care of
him, and protect him, especially in his sufferings;
when he was buried in the grave, as the foundation-
stones are under ground, the eyes of Heaven were
still upon him; buried out of men’s sight, but not
out of God’s. The eyes of all the prophets and
Old Testament saints were upon this one stone;
Abraham rejoiced to see Christ’s day, and he saw
it, and was glad. The eyes of all believers are
upon him, they look unto him, and are saved, as the
eyes of the stung Israelites were upon the brazen
serpent. Some understand this one stone to have
the seven eyes in it, as the wheels had in Ezekiel’s
vision, and thinks it denotes that perfection of wis¬
dom and knowledge which Jesus Christ was endued
with, for the good of his church; his eyes run to arid
fro through the earth.
3. God himself will beautify him, and put honour
upon him; I will engrave the graving thereof, saith
the Lord of hosts. This Stone the builders refused,
as rough and unsightly; but God undertakes to
smooth and polish it, nay, and to carve it so that it
shall be the Head Stone of the corner, the most
beautiful in all the building. Christ was God’s
Workmanship; and abundance of his wisdom ap¬
pears in the contrivance of our redemption, which
will appear when the engraving is / infected . This
stone is a precious stone, though laid for a Founda¬
tion; and the graving of it seems to allude to the
precious stones in the breastplate of the high priest,
which had the names of the tribes graven upon
them; as the engraving of a signet, Exod. xxviii.
21, 22. In that breastplate there were twelve
stones laid before Aaron, and for aught that appears,
those were lost: but there shall be one worth them
all laid before Joshua; and that is Christ himself;
this precious Stone shall sparkle as if it had seven
eyes; there shall appear a perfection of wisdom and
prudence in the oracles that proceed from the breast¬
plate of judgment: and God will engrave the en¬
graving thereof; he will intrust Christ with all his
elect, and he shall appear as their Representative,
and Agent for them, as the high priest did when he
went in before the Lord, with the names of all Is¬
rael engraven in the precious stones of his breast¬
plate. When God gave a remnant to Christ, to be
brought through grace to glory, then he engraved
the graving of this precious stone.
4. By him sin shall Ire taken away, both the guilt
and the dominion of it; I will remove the iniquity
of that land in one day. When the high priest had
the names of Israel engraven on the precious stones
he was adorned with, he is said to bear the iniquity
of the holy things; (Exod. xxviii. 38.) but the law
made nothing perfect, Heb. x. 3. He bore the ini-
iquity of the land, as a type of Christ; but he could
not remove it, the doing of that was reserved for
Christ, that blessed Lamb of God, that takes away
the sin of the world; and he did it in one day, that
day in which he suffered and died; that was done
by the sacrifice offered that day, which could not
be done by the sacrifices of ages before, no, not by
all the days of atonement which from Moses to
Christ returned every year. This agrees with the
angel’s prediction, (Dan. x. 24.) He shall finish
transgressions, and make an end of sin. And some
make the engravings wherewith God engraved him,
to signify the wounds and stripes which were given to
his blessed body, which he underwent for our trans¬
gression, for our iniquity, and by which we arc healed.
5. The effect of all this shall be the sweet enjoy¬
ment which all believers shall have of themselves,
and the sweet communion they shall have with one
another; Iv. 10.) In that day ye shall call every
man his neighbour under the vine, and the fg-tree,
which yields most pleasant fruit, and whose leaves
also afford a refreshing shade for arbours. When
iniquity is taken away, (1.) We reap precious bene
fits and” privileges from our justification, more pre
cious than the products of the vine or the fig-tree,
Rom. v. 1. (2.) We repose ourselves in a sweet
tranquillity, and are quiet from the fear of evil.
What should terrify us when iniquity is taken away,
when nothing can hurt us? We sit down under
Christ’s shadow with delight, and by it are shelter¬
ed from the scorching heat of the curse of the law.
We live as Israel in the peaceable reign of Solomon;
(1 Kings iv. 24, 25.) for he is the Prince of peace.
(3.) We ought to invite others to come to partake
1112
ZECHAR1AH, 111.
with us in the enjoyment of these privileges, to call
> very man his neighbour to come and sit with him,
for mutual converse, under the vine and fig-tree,
and to share with him in the fruits he is surrounded
with. Gospel-grace, as far as it comes with power,
makes men neighbourly ; and those that have the
comfort of acquaintance with Christ themselves,
and communion with God through him, will be for¬
ward to court others to it. Let us go unto the house
of the Lord.
CHAP. IV.
In this chapter we have another comfortable vision, which,
as it was explained to the prophet, had much in it for the
encouragement of the people of God in their present
straits, which were so great, that they thought their case
helpless, that their temple could never be rebuilt nor
their city replenished ; and therefore the scope of the
vision is to show that God would, by his own power,
perfect the work, though the assistance given to it by its
friends were ever so weak, and the resistance given to
it by its enemies were ever so strong. Here is, I. The
awakening of the prophet to observe the vision, v. 1. II.
The vision itself, of a candlestick with seven lamps, which
were supplied with oil, and kept burning, immediately
from two olive-trees that grew by it, one bn either side,
v. 2, 3. III. The general encouragement hereby intend¬
ed to be given to the builders of the temple to go on in
that good work, assuring them that it should be brought
to perfection at last, v. 4 . . 10. IV. The particular ex¬
plication of the vision, for the illustration of these as¬
surances, v. 11 . . 14.
1. i ND the angel that talked with me
f\_ came again and waked me, as a
nan that is wakened out of his sleep, 2.
Aid said unto me, W hat seest thou? And
1 said, I have looked, and behold a candle¬
stick all of gold, with a bowl upon the top
of it, and his seven lamps thereon, and
seven pipes to the seven lamps which were
upon the top thereof; 3. And two olive-
trees by it, one upon the right side of the
bowl, and the other upon the left side there¬
of; 4. So I answered and spake to the
angel that talked with me, saying, What
are these, my lord? 5. Then the angel that
talked with me answered and said unto me,
Knowest thou not what these be? And 1
said, No, my lord. 6. Then he answered
and spake unto me, saying, This is the word
of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not
by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit,
saith the Lord of hosts. 7. Who art thou,
O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou
shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth
the head-stone thereof with shoutings, cry¬
ing, , Grace, grace, unto it. 8. Moreover,
the word of the Lord came unto me, say¬
ing, 9. The hands of Zerubbabel have
laid the foundation of this house, his hands
shall also finish it; and thou shalt know that
the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you.
10. For who hath despised the day of small
things? for they shall rejoice, and shall see
the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with
those seven; they arc the eyes of the Lord,
which run to and fro through the whole
earth.
Here is,
I. The prophet prepared to receive the discovery
that was to be made him; The angel that talked
with him came and waked him, v. 1. It seems
though he was in conference with an angel, and about
matters of great and public concern, yet he grew
dull, and fell asleep, as it should seem, while the
angel was yet talking with him. Thus the disciples,
when they saw Christ transfigured, were heavy
with s/ee/i, Luke ix. 32. The prophet’s spirit, no
doubt, was willing to have attended to that which
was to be seen and heard; but the flesh was weak ;
his body could not keep pace with his soul in divine
contemplations; the strangeness of the visions per¬
haps stupified him, and so he was overcome with
sleep, cr perhaps the sweetness of the visions com¬
posed him, and even sung him asleep. Daniel was
in a deep sleep when he heard the voice of the angel’s
words, Dan. x. 9. We shall never be fit for con¬
verse with spirits till we are got clear of these bodies
of flesh. It should seem, the angel let him lose
himself a little, that he might be fresh to receive
new discoveries; but then waked him, to his sur¬
prise, as a man that is waked out of his sleep.. Note,
We need the Spirit of God, not only to make known
to us divine things, but to make us take notice ot
them. He wakens morning by morning, he wakens
mine ear, Isa. 1. 4. We should beg of God that,
whenever he speaks to us, he would awaken us, and
we should then stir up ourselves.
II. The discovery that was made to him, when
he was thus prepared. The angel asked him, What
seest thou ? v. 2. When he was awake, perhaps
he had not taken notice of what was presented to
his view, if he had not thus been excited to look
about him. When he observed, he saw a golden
candlestick; such a one as was in the temple for¬
merly, and with the like this temple should in due
time be furnished. The church is a candlestick,
set up for the enlightening of this dark world, and
the holding forth of the light of divine revelation
to it; the candle is God’s, the church is but the can¬
dlestick, but all of gold, denoting the great worth
and excellence of the church of God. This golden
candlestick had seven lamps branching out from it,
so many sockets, in each of which was a burning
and shining light. The Jewish church was but one,
and though the Jews that were dispersed, it is pro¬
bable, had synagogues in other countries, yet they
were but as so many lamps belonging to one candle¬
stick; but now, under the gospel, Christ is the Cen¬
tre of unity, and not Jerusalem, or any place; and
therefore seven particular churches are represent¬
ed, not as seven lamps, but as seven several golden
candlesticks, Rev. i. 20. This candlestick had one
bowl, or common receiver, on the top, into which
oil was continually dropping, and from it, by seven
secret pipes, or passages, it was diffused to the se¬
ven lamps. So that, without any further care,
they received oil as fast as they wasted it; (as in
those which we call fountain ink-horns, or foun¬
tain-pens;) they never wanted, nor were ever glut¬
ted, and so kept always burning clear. And the
bowl too was continually supplied, without any care
or attendance of a man ; for (v. 3. ) he saw two olive-
trees, one on each side the candlestick, that were
so fat and fruitful, that of their own accord they
oured plenty of oil continually into the bowl, which
y two larger pipes ( v . 12.) dispersed the oil to
lesser ones, and so to the lamps: so that nobody need¬
ed to attend this candlestick, to furnish it with oil,
it tarried not for man, nor waited for the sons of
men; the scope of which is to show that God easily
can, and often does, accomplish his gracious pur¬
poses concerning his church by his own wisdom and
power, without any art or labour of man; and that
though sometimes he makes use of instruments, yet
1113
ZECHARIAH, IV.
he neither needs them, nor is tied to them, but can
do his work without them, and will, rather than it
shall be undone.
III. The inquiry which the prophet made con¬
cerning the meaning of this, and the gentle reproof
given him for his dulness; (v. 4.) I answered and
spake to the angel, saying, What are these, my
lord ? Observe how respectfully he speaks to the
angel; he called him my lord; those that would be
taught, must give honour to their teachers; he saw
what these were, but asked what these signified.
Note, It is very desirable to know the meaning of
God’s manifestations of himself and his mind, in his
word, by his ordinances and providences; What
mean ye by these services, by these signs? And
those that would understand the mind of God, must
be inquisitive — Then shall we know, if we follow
on to know, if we not only hear, but, as Christ, ask
questions upon what we hear, Luke ii. 46. The
angel answered him with i question, Knowest thou
not what these be? Intin. -:.ng that if he had con¬
sidered and compared spiritual things with spiritual,
he might have guessed at the meaning of these
things; for he knew that there was a golden can¬
dlestick in the tabernacle, which it was the priests’
constant business to simply with oil, and to keep it
burning, fur the use of the tabernacle: when there¬
fore he saw, in vision, such a candlestick, with
lamps always kept burning, and yet no priest to at¬
tend it, nor any occasion for them, he might discern
the meaning of this to be, that though God had set
up the priesthood again, yet he could carry on his
own work for, and in, his people, without them.
Note, We have reason to be ashamed of ourselves,
that we do not more readily apprehend the meaning
of divine discoveries. The angel asked the prophet
this question, to draw from him an acknowledg¬
ment of his own dulness and darkness, and slowness
to understand, and he had it immediately; “I said,
JVo, my lord; I know not what these be.” Visions
had their significance, but often dark, and hard to
be understood, and the prophets themselves were
not always aware of it at first. But those that would
be taught of God, must see and acknowledge their
own ignorance, and their need to be taught, and
must apply themselves to God for instruction. To
him that gave us the cabinet we must apply our-
'selves for the key wherewith to unlock it. God will
teach the meek and humble, not those that are
conceited of themselves, and lean on the broken
reed of their own understanding.
IV. The general intention of this vision. With¬
out a critical descant upon every circumstance of
the vision, the design of it is to assure the prophet,
and by him the people, that this good work of build¬
ing the temple should, by the special care of Divine
Providence, and the immediate influence of divine
grace, be brought to a happy issue, though the ene¬
mies of it were many and mighty, and the friends
and furtherers of it few and feeble. Note, In the
explication of visions and parables, we must look
at the principal scope of them, and be satisfied with
that, if that be clear, though we may not be able
to account for every circumstance, or accommodate
it to our purpose. The angel lets the prophet know,
in general, that this vision was designed to illustrate
a word which the Lord had to say to Zerubbabel,
.o encourage him to go on with the building of the
temple. Let him know that he is a worker together
with God in it, and that it is a work which God will
own and crown.
1. God will carry on and complete this work, as
he had begun their deliverance from Babylon, not
by external force, but by secret operations and in¬
ternal influences upon the minds of men. He says
this, who is the Lord of hosts, and could do it vi ei
armis — by force, has legions at command; but he
VoL. IV. — 7 B
will do it, not by human might or {tower, but by his
own Spirit. What is done by his Sjiirit is done by
might and power, but it stands in opposition to visi¬
ble force. Israel was brought out of Egypt, and
into Canaan, by might and power, in both these
works of wonder great slaughter was made; but
they were brought out of Babylon, and into Canaan,
the second time, by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts
working upon the spirit of Cyrus, and inclining him
to proclaim liberty to them, and working upon the
spirits of the captives, and inclining them to accept
the liberty offered them. It was by the Spirit of
the Lord of hosts that the people were excited and
animated to build the temple; and therefore they
are said to be helped by the prophets oj God, be¬
cause, as the Spirit’s mouth spake to their hearts,
Ezra v. 2. It was by the same Spirit that the
heart of Darius was inclined to favour and further
that good work, and that the sworn enemies of
it were infatuated in their counsels, so that they
could not hinder it as they designed. Note, The
work of God is often carried on very successfully,
when yet it is carried on very silently, and without
the assistance of human force; the gospel-temple is
built, not by might or power, (for the weapons of
our warfare are not carnal,) but by the Spirit of
the Lord of hosts, whose work on men’s consciences
is mighty to the pulling down of strong holds; thus
the excellency of the power is of God, and not of
man. When instruments fail, let us therefore leave
it to God to do his work himself by his own Spirit.
2. All the difficulties and oppositions that lie in
the way, shall be got over and removed, even those
that seem insuperable; ( v . 7.) Who art thou, O
great mountain ? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt be¬
come a plain. See here, (1.) How the difficulty is
represented; it is a great mountain, unpassable and
immoveable. A heap of rubbish, like a great moun¬
tain, which must be got away, or the work cannot
go on. The enemies of the Jews are proud and hard
as great mountains; but when God has work to do,
the mountains that stand in the way of it shall
dwindle into mole-hills; for see here, (2.) How these
difficulties are despised; “Who art thou, 0 great
mountain, that thou shouldest stand in God’s way,
and think to stop the progress of his work? Who
art thou that lookest so big, that thus threatenest,
and art thus feared? Before Zerubbabel, when he
is God’s agent, thou shalt become a plain. All the
difficulties shall vanish, and all the objections be got
over; every mountain and hill shall be brought low,
when the way of the Lord is to be prepared ,” Isa.
xl. 4. Faith will remove mountains, and make them
plains. Christ is our Zerubbabel; mountains of dif¬
ficulty were in the way of his undertaking, but be¬
fore him they were all levelled; nothing is too hard
for his grace to do.
3. The same hand that has begun this good work,
will perform it; He shall bring forth the head-stone;
(y. 7.) and again, (v. 9.) The hands of Zerubbabel
have laid the foundation of this house, be it spoken
to his honour; perhaps with his own hands he laid
the first stone, though it has been long retarded,
and is still much opposed, yet it shall be finished at
last, he shall live to see it finished, nay, and his
hands shall also finish it; herein he is a type of
Christ, who is both the Author and the Finisher of
our faith; and his being the Author of it is an assur¬
ance to us that he will be the Finisher, for, as for
God, his work is perfect; has he begun, and shall
he not make an end? Zerubbabel shall himself
bring forth the head-stone with shoutings, and loud
acclamations of joy, among the spectators. The
acclamations are not huzzas, but Grace, grace;
that is the burthen of the triumphant songs which
the church sings. It may be taken, (1.) As mag¬
nifying free grace, and giving to that all the glory
1114
ZECHARI AH, IV.
of what is done; when the work is finished, it must
be thankfully acknowledged that it was not by any
policy or power of our own that it was brought to
perfection, but that it was grace that did it — God’s
good will towards us, and his good work in us and
for us. Grace, grace, must be cried, not only to the
head-stone, but to the foundation-stone, the corner-
rtone, and indeed to every stone in God’s building;
Irom first to last it is nothing of works, but all of
grace, and all our crowns must be cast at the feet
of free grace. JVot unto us, O Lord, not unto us.
(2.) As depending upon free grace, and desiring
the continuance of it, for what is yet to be done.
Grace, grace, is the language of prayer as well as
of praise; now that this building is finished, all hap¬
piness attend it! Peace be within its walls, and m
order to that, grace. Let the beauty of the Lord
our God be upon it! Note, What comes from the
grace of God, may, in faith, and upon good grounds,
be committed to the grace of God, for God will not
forsake the work of his own hands.
4. This shall be a full ratification of the pro¬
phecies which went before concerning the Jews’ re¬
turn, and their settlement again. When the temple
is finished, then thou shalt know that the Lord of
hosts has sent me unto you. Note, The exact accom¬
plishment of scripture-prophecies is a convincing
proof of their divine original. Thus God confirms the
word of his servant, by saying to Jerusalem, Thou
shalt be built, Isa. xliv. 26. No word of God shall
fall to the ground, nor shall there fail one iota or tittle
of it; Zechariah’s prophecies of the approaching day
of deliverance to the church, would soon appear,
bv the accomplishment of them, to be of God.
5. This shall effectually silence those that looked
with contempt upon the beginning of this work, v.
10. Who, where, is he now that despised the day
of small things, and thought his work would never
come to any thing? The Jews themselves despised
the foundation of the second temple, because it was
likely to be so far inferior to the first, Ezra iii. 12.
Their enemies despised the wall, when it was in
the building, Neh. ii. 19. — iv. 2, 3. But let them
not do it. Note, In God’s work, the day of small
things is not to be despised. Though the instru¬
ments be weak and unlikely, God often chooses
such, by them to bring about great things. As a
great mountain becomes a plain before him, when
he pleases, so a little stone, cut out of a mountain
without hands, comes to fill the earth, Dan. ii. 35.
Though the beginnings be small, God can make the
latter end greatly to increase; a grain of mustard-
seed may become a great tree. Let not the dawn¬
ing light be despised, for it will shine more and
more to the perfect day f he day of small things
is the day of precious things, and will be the day of
great things.
6. This shall abundantly satisfy all the hearty
well-wishers to God’s interest, who will be glad to
see themselves mistaken in despising the day of
small things. They that despaired of the finishing
of the work, shall rejoice, when they see the plum-
met in the hand of Zerubbabel, when they see him
busy among the builders, giving orders and direc¬
tions what to do, and taking care that the work be
done with great exactness, that it may be both fine
and firm. Note, It is matter of great rejoicing to
all good people, to see magistrates careful and ac¬
tive for the edifying of the house of God, to see the
plummet in the hand of those who have power to
do much, if they have but a heart according to it;
we see not Zerubbabel with the trowel in his hand,
(that is left to the workmen, the ministers,) but we
see him with the plummet in his hand, and it is no
disparagement, but an honour, to him. Magistrates
are to inspect ministers’ work, and to speak com-
f~~'ably to the Leviles that do their duty.
7. This shall highly magnify the wisdom and care
of God’s providence, which is always employed for
the good of his church. Zerubbabel does his part,
does as much as man can do to forward the work,
but it is with those seven, those ^even eyes of the
Lord, which we read of, ch. iii. 9. He could do
nothing, if the watchful, powerful, gracious provi¬
dence of God did not go before him, and go along
with him in it. Except the Lord had built this
house, Zerubbabel and the rest had laboured in
vain, Ps. cxxvii. 1. These eyes of the Lord are
they that run to and fro through the whole earth,
that take cognizance of all the creatures and all
their actions, (2 Chron. xvi. 9.) and inspire and di¬
rect all, according to the divine counsels. Note,
W e must not think that God is so taken up with
the affairs of his church as to neglect the world; but
it is a comfort to us, that the same all-wise, almighty
Providence that governs the nations of the earth, is
in a particular manner conversant about the church.
Those seven eyes that run through the earth, are all
upon the stone that Zerubbabel is laying straight
with his plummet, to see that it be well laid. And
those that have the plummet in their hand, must
look up to those eyes of the Lord, must have a
constant regard to Divine Providence, and act in
dependence upon its guidance, in submission to its
disposals.
11. Then answered I, and said unto him,
What are these two olive-trees upon the
right side of the candlestick, and upon the
left side thereof ? 12. And I answered again,
and said unto him, What be these two olive-
branches, which, through the two golden
pipes, empty the golden oil out of them¬
selves ? 1 3. And he answered me and said,
Knowest thou not what these be? And I
said, No, my lord. 14. Then said he, These
are the two anointed ones, that stand by the
Lord of the whole earth.
Enough is said to Zechariah, to encourage him,
and to enable him to encourage others, with refer¬
ence to the good work of building the temple which
they were now about, and that was the principal
intention of the vision he saw;- but still he is inqui¬
sitive about the particulars, which we will ascribe,
not to any vain curiosity, but to the value he had for
divine discoveries, and the pleasure he took in ac¬
quainting himself and them. Those that know much
of the things of God, cannot but have a humble de¬
sire to know more. Now observe,
1. What his inquiry was. He understood the
meaning of the candlestick and its lamps. It is Je¬
rusalem, it is the temple, and their salvation that is
logo forth as a lamp that burns; but he wants to
know what are these two olive-trees, ( v . 11.) these
two olive-branches, v. 12. Observe here, (1. )*He
asked. Note, Those that would be acquainted with
the things of God, must be inquisitive concerning
those things. Ask, and you shall be told. (2. ) He
asked twice; his first question having no reply given
to it. Note, If satisfactory answers be not given to
our inquiries and requests quickly, we must renew
them, and repeat them, 'and continue instant and
importunate in them, and the vision shall at length
speak, and not lie. (3.) His second query varied
somewhat from the former. He first asked. What
are these two olive-trees, but afterward, What are
these two olive-branches? Those boughs of the tree,
that hung over the bowl, and distilled oil into it.
When we inquire concerning the grace of God, it
must be rather as it is communicated to us by the
fruitful boughs of the word and ordinances, foi
1115
ZECHARIAH, V.
Lhat is one of the things revealed, which belong to
us and to our children, than as it is resident in the
good Olive where all our springs arc, for that is one
of the secret things, which belong not to us. (4. )
In his inquiry, he mentions the observations he had
made upon the vision; he took notice not only of
what was obvious at first sight, that the two olive-
trees grew, one on the right side, and the other on
the left side, of the candlestick -, (so nigh, so ready, is
divine grace to the church,) but he observed fur¬
ther, upon a more narrow inspection, that the two
olive-branches from which in particular the candle¬
stick did receive of the root and fatness of the olive,
(as the apostle says of the church, Rom. xi. 17.)
did empty the golden oil, the clear bright oil, the
best in its kind, and of great value, as if it were
aurum potabile — liquid gold, out of themselves
through the two golden j li/ies . Or, as the margin
reads it, which by the hand of the two golden pipes
em/ity out of themselves oil into the gold, into the
golden bowl on the head of the candlestick. Our
Lord Jesus emptied himself, to fill us; his precious
blood is the golden oil in which we are supplied
with all we need.
2. What answer was given to his inquiiy. Now
again the angel obliged him expressly to own his ig¬
norance, before he informed him; ( v . 13.) “Knowest
thou not what these be? If thou knowest the church
to be the candlestick, canst thou think the olive-
trees, that supply it with oil, to be any other than
the grace of God?” But he owned he either did not
fully understand it, or was afraid he did not rightly
understand it; I said, JVo, my Lord, how should 1 ',
exce/it sotne one guide me? And then he told him,
(u. 14.) These are the two sons of oil, (so it is in
the original,) the two anointed ones, (so we read it,)
rather, the ty>° oily ones. That which we read
(Isa. v. 1.) a. very fruitful hill, is, in the original,
the horn of the son of oil, a fat and fattening soil.
(1.) If by the candlestick we understand the visible
church, particularly that of the Jews at that time,
for whose comfort it was primarily intended, these
sons of oil, that stand before the Lord of the whole
earth, are the two great ordinances and offices of
the magistracy and ministry, at that time lodged in
the hands of those two great and good men, Zerub-
babel and Joshua. Kings and priests were anointed;
this prince, this priest, were oily ones, endued with
the gifts and graces of God’s Spirit, to qualify them
for the work to which they were called. They
stood before the Lord of the whole earth, to minister
to him, and to receive direction from him; and a
great influence they had upon the affairs of the
church at that time ; their wisdom, courage, and
zeal were continually emptying themselves into the
golden bowl, to keep the lamps burning; and when
they are gone, others shall be raised up to carry on
the same work; Israel shall no longer be without
prince and priest. Good magistrates and good min¬
isters, that are themselves anointed with the grace
of God, and stand by the Lord of the whole earth,
as faithful adherents to his cause, contribute very
much to the maintaining and advancing of religion,
and the shining forth of the word of life. (2. ) If by
the candlestick we understand the church of the
first-born, of true believers, these sons of oil may
be meant of Christ and the Spirit, the Redeemer
and the Comforter. Christ is not only the Messiah,
the Anointed One himself, but he is the Good Olive
to his church; and from his fulness we receive,
John i. 16. And the Holy Spirit is the Unction or
Anointing which we have received, 1 John ii. 20, 27.
From Christ, the Olive-Tree, by the Spirit, the
Olive-Branch, all the golden oil of grace is com¬
municated to believers, which keeps their lamps
burning, and without a constant supply of which
they would soon go out. They stand by the Lord
of the whole earth, who is in a special manner the
church's Lord; for the Son was to be sent by the
Father, and so was the Holy Ghost, in the time
appointed, and they stand by him ready to go.
CHAP. V.
Hitherto, we have seen visions of peace only, and all the
words we have heard, have been good words, and com¬
fortable words. But the pillar of cloud and fire has a
black and dark side toward the Egyptians,- as well as a
bright and pleasant side toward Israel; so have Zecha-
riah’s visions; for God’s prophets are not only his am¬
bassadors, to treat of peace with the sons of peace, but
heralds, to proclaim war against those that delight in
war, and persist in their rebellion. In this chapter, we
have two visions, by which the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness
of men. God will do great and kind things for his.
which the faithful sons of Zion shall rejoice in ; but let
the sinners of Zion be afraid; for, I. God will reckon
severely' with those particular persons among them that
were wicked and profane, and that hated to be reformed
in these times of reformation ; while God is showing
kindness to the body of the nation, and loading that with
his blessings, they and their families shall, notwith¬
standing that, lie under the curse, which the prophet sees
in a fly mg roll, v. 1. .4. II. If the body of the nation
hereafter degenerate, and wickedness prevail among
them, it shall be carried oft' and hurried away with a
swift destruction, under the pressing weight of divine
wrath, represented by a talent of lead , upon the mouth
of an epliah , carried upon the wing I know not where,
v. 5. .11.
THEN I turned, and lifted up mine
eyes, and looked, and behold, a fly¬
ing roll. 2. And he said unto me, What
seest thou ? And I answered, I see a flying
roll ; the length thereof is twenty cubits,
and the breadth thereof ten cubits. 3. Then
said he unto me, This is the curse that goeth
forth over the face of the whole earth: for
every one that stealeth shall be cut off as
on this side, according to it; and every one
that sweareth shall be cut off as on that
side, according to it. 4. I will bring it forth,
saith the Lord of hosts, and it shall enter
into the house of the thief, and into the
house of him that sweareth falsely by my
name: and it shall remain in the midst of
his house, and shall consume it, with the
timber thereof, and the stones thereof.
We do not find that the prophet now needed to be
awakened, as he did, ch. iv. 1. Being awakens
then, he kept wakeful after; nay, now he needs not
be so much as called to look about him, for of his
own accord he turns, and lifts up his eyes. This
good men sometimes get by their infirmities, they
make them the more careful and circumspect after¬
wards. Now observe,
I. What it was that the prophet saw; he looked
up into the air, and behold, a flying roll; a vast
large scroll of parchment which had been rolled
up, and is therefore called a roll, was now unrolled
and expanded; this roll was flying upon the wings
of the wind, carried swiftly through the air in open
view, as an eagle that shoots down upon her prey;
it is a roll like Ezekiel’s, that was written within
and without, with lamentations, and mourning,
and wo, Ezek. ii. 9, 10. As the command of the
law is in writing, for certainty and perpetuity, so is
the curse of the law, it writes bitter things against
the sinner; “What I have written, I have written,
and what is written remains.” The angel, to en¬
gage the prophet’s attention, and to raise in him a
desire to have it explained, asks him what he sees?
1116
ZECHARIAH, V.
And he gives him this account of it, I sec a flying
roll, and as near as he can guess by his eye, it is
wenty cubUs long, that is ten yards, and ten cubits
broad, thajt is five yards. The scriptures of the Old
Testament and the New are rolls, in which God has
written to us the great things of his lam and gospel.
Christ is the Master of the rolls; they are large
rolls, have much in them ; they are .flying rolls —
the angel that had the everlasting gospel to preach,
flew in the midst of heaven, Brv. xiv. 6. God’s
word runs very swiftly, Ps. cxlvii. 15. Those that
would be let into the meaning of these rolls, must
first tell what they see, must go as far as they can
themselves; What is written in the law, how readest
thou? T ell me that, and thou shalt be made to un¬
derstand what thou readest.
II. How it was expounded to him, v. 3, 4. This
flying roll is a curse; it contains a declaration of
the righteous wrath of God against those sinners
especially who by swearing affront God’s majesty,
or by stealing invade their neighbour’s property.
Let every Israelite rejoice in the blessings of his
country with trembling; for if he swear, if he steal,
if he live in any course of sin, he shall see them with
his eyes, but shall not have the comfort of them,
for against him the curse is gone forth. If I be
wicked , wo to me for all this. Now observe here,
1. The extent of this curse; the prophet sees it
flying; but which way does it steer its course? It
goes forth over the face o f the whole earth; not only
of the land of Israel, but the whole world; for those
that have sinned against the law written in their
hearts only, shall by that law be judged, though
they have not the book of the law. Note, All man¬
kind areliabletothejudgmentofGod; and, wherever
sinners are, any where upon the face of the whole
earth, the curse of God can and will find them out,
and seize them. O that we could with an eye of
faith see the flying rolls of God’s curse hanging over
the guilty world as a thick cloud, not only keeping
off the sun-beams of God’s favour from them, but
big with thunders, lightnings, and storms, ready to
destroy them ! How welcome then would the tid¬
ings of a Saviour be, who came to redeem us from
the curse of the law, by being himself made a curse
for us, and, like the prophet, eating this roll!
The vast length and breadth of this roll intimate
what a multitude of curses sinners lie exposed to;
God will make their plagues wonderful, if they turn
not.
2 The criminals against whom particularly this
curse is levelled. The world is full of sin in great
variety, so was the Jewish church at this time ; but
two sorts of sinners are here specified as the objects
of this curse. (1.) Thieves; it is for every one that
steals, that by fraud or force takes that which is
not his own, especially that robs God, and converts
to his own use what was devoted to God and his
honour, which was a sin much complained of among
the Jews at this time. Mai. iii. 8. Neh. xiii. 10.
Sacrilege is, without douot, tne worst kind of
thievery. He also that robs his father or mother,
and sai'th, It is no transgression, (Prov. xxviii. 24.)
let him know that against him this curse is directed,
for it is against every one that steals. The letter of
the eighth commandment has no penalty annexed
to it; but the curse here is a sanction to that com¬
mand. (2.) Swearers. Sinners of the former class
offend against the second table, these against the
first; for the curse meets those that break either
table. He that swears rashly and profanely, shall
not be held guiltless, much less he that swears
falsely; (y. 4.) he imprecates the curse upon him¬
self by his perjury, and so shall his doom be; God
will say Amen to his imprecation, and turn it upon
his own head. He has appealed to God’s judgment,
which vs always according to truth, for the confirm
ing of a lie, and to that judgment he shall go, which
he has so impiously affronted.
3. The enforcing of this curse, and the equity oi
it; I will bring it forth, saith the Lord of hosts, v.
4. He that pronounces the sentence, will take care
to see it executed. His bringing it forth denotes,
(1.) His giving it commission: it is a righteous curse,
for he is a righteous God that warrants it. (2.) His
giving it the setting on; he brings it forth with
power, and orders what execution it shall do: and
who can put by or resist the curse which a God of
almighty power brings forth?
4. The effect of this curse; it is very dreadful.
(1.) Upon the sinner himself; Every one that steals
shall be cut off, not corrected, but destroyed, cut off
from the land of the living. The curse of God is a
cutting thing, a killing thing. He shall be cut off as
on this side, cutoff from this place, from Jerusalem,
and so he that steals from this side; (it is the same
word;) from this place; God will not spare the sin¬
ners he finds among his own people; nor shall the
holy city be a protection to the unholy; or, they
shall be cut off from hence, from the face of the-
whole earth over which the curse flies. Or, He
that steals shall be cut off on this side, and he that
swears on that side; they shall all be cut off, one as
well as another, and both according to the curse;
for the judgments of God’s hand are exactly agreea¬
ble with the judgments of his mouth. (2.) Upon
his family; It shall enter into the house of the thief
and him that, swears. God’s curse comes witn a
warrant to break open doors, and cannot be kept
out by bars or locks. There where the sinner is
more secure, and thinks himself out of danger,
there where he promises himself refreshment by
food or sleep, there, in his own house, shall the
curse of God seize him; nay, it shall fall not upon
him only, but upon all about him for his sake.
Cursed shall be his basket and his store, and cursed
the fruit of his body, Deut. xxviii. 17, 18. The
curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked, Prov.
iii. 33. It shall not only beset his house, or lie at
the door, but shall remain in the midst of his house,
and diffuse its malignant influences to ali parts of it;
it shall dwell in his tabernacle because it is none of
his, Job xviii. 15. It shall dwell where he dwells,
and be his constant companion at bed and board, to
make both miserable to him. Having got posses¬
sion, it shall keep it, and unless lie repent and re¬
form, there is no way to throw it out, or cut off the
entail of it. Nay, it shall so remain in it as. to coti-
sume it with the timber thereof, and the stones there¬
of, which, though ever so strong, though the timber
be heart of oak, and the stones hewn out ef the
rocks of adamant, yet they shall not be able to stand
before the curse of God. We heard the stone and
the timber complaining of the owner’s extortion and
oppression, anrl groaning under the burthen of it.
Hub. ii. 11. Now here we have them delivered
from that bondage of corruption. While they were
in their strength and beauty, they supported, sorely
against their will, the sinner’s pride and security:
but, when they are consumed, their ruins will, to
their satisfaction, be standing monuments of God’s
justice, and lasting witnesses of the sinner’s injus¬
tice. Note, Sin is the ruin of houses and families;
especially the sins of injury and perjury. Who
knows the power of God’s anger, and the operations
of his curse ? Even timber and stones have been
consumed by them; let us therefore stand in awe,
and not sin.
5. Then the angel that talked with me
went forth, and said unto me, Lift up now
thine eyes, and see what is (his that goeth
forth. 6. And I said, What is it ? And he
1117
ZEOHARIAH, V.
said, This is an ephah that goeth forth. He
said moreover, This is their resemblance
through all the earth. 7. And, behold, there
was lifted up a talent of lead: and this is a
woman that sitteth in the midst of the
ephah. 8. And he said, this is wickedness.
And he cast it into the midst of the ephah,
and he cast the weight of lead upon the
mouth thereof. 9. Then lifted I up mine
eyes, and looked, and, behold, there came
out two women, and the wind was in their
wings ; (for they had wings like the wings
of a stork;) and they lifted up the ephah be¬
tween the earth and the heaven. 10. Then
said I to the angel that talked with me,
Whither do these bear the ephah ? 11. And
he said unto me, To build it a house in the
land of Shinar; and it shall be established,
and set there upon her own base.
The foregoing vision was very plain and easy, but
in this are things dark, and hard to be understood;
and some think that the scope of it is to foretell the
final destruction of the Jewish church and nation,
and the dispersion of the Jews, when, by crucifying
Christ and persecuting his gospel, they should have
filled up the measure of their iniquities; therefore
it is industriously set out in obscure figures and ex¬
pressions, “lest the plain denunciation of the second
overthrow of temple and state, might discourage
them too much from going forward in the present
restoration of both.” So Mr. Pemble.
The prophet was contemplating the power and
terror of the curse which consumes the houses of
thieves and swearers, when he is bid to turn, and
he shall see greater desolations than these made by
the curse of God for the sin of man; Lift up. thine
eyes now, and see what is here, v. 5. What is this
that goeth forth? Whether over the face of the
whole earth, as the flying roll, ( v . 3.) or only over
Jerusalem, is not certain. But, it seems, the pro¬
phet now, through either the distance or the dimness
of his sight, could not well tell what it was, but
asked, IVhat is it? v. 6. And the angel tells him
both what it is, and what it means.
1. He sees an ephah; a measure wherewith they
measured corn; it contained ten omers, (Exod. xvi.
36.) and was the tenth part of a homer; (Ezek.
xlv. 1 1. ) it is put for any measure used in commerce,
Deut. xxv. 14. And this is their resemblance, the
resemblance of the Jewish nation, over all the earth,
wherever they are now dispersed, or, at least, it
will be so when their ruin draws near. They are
filling up the measure of theii; iniquity, which God
has set them; and when it is full as'the ephah of
corn, they shall be delivered into the hands of those
to whom God had sold them for their sins; they are
meted to destruction, as an ephah of corn measured
to the market, or to the mill. And some think that
the mentioning of an ephah, which is used in buying
and selling, intimates that fraud and deceit, and ex¬
tortion in commerce, was a sin abounding much
among them, as that people are known to be noto¬
riously guilty of it at this day. This is a proper re¬
presentation of them through all the earth. There
is a measure set them, and they are filling it up
apace. See Matth. xxiii. 32. 1 Thess. ii. 16.
2. He sees a woman sitting in the midst of the
ephah; representing the sinful church and nation of
the Jews in their latter and degenerate age, when
the faithful city became a harlot. He that weighs
the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance,
measures nations and churches as in an ephah; so
exact is he in his judicial dealings with them. God’s
people are called, The corn of his floor, Isa. xxi.
10. And here he puts this corn into the bushel,
in order to his parting with it. The angel says of
the woman in the ephah. This is wickedness, it is a
wicked nation, else God would not have rejected it
thus; it is as wicked as wickedness itself, it is abom¬
inably wicked. How is the gold become dim! Is¬
rael was holiness to the Lord; (Jer. ii. 3.) but now
this is wickedness; and wickedness is no where so
scandalous, so odious, and, in many instances, so
outrageous, as when it is found among professors of
religion.
3. He sees the woman thrust down into the ephah,
and a talent, or large weight of lead, cast upon the
mouth of it, by which she is secured, and made a
close prisoner in the ephah, and utterly disabled to
get out of it. This is designed to show that the
wrath of God against impenitent sinners is, (1.)
Unavoidable, and what they cannot escape; they
are bound over to it, concluded under sin, and shut
up under the curse, as this woman in the ephah; he
would fain flee out of his hand, (Job xxvii. 22.) but
he cannot. (2.) It is insupportable, and what they
cannot bear up under. Guilt is upon the sinner as
a talent of lead, to sink him to the lowest hell.
When Christ said of the things of Jerusalem’s peace.
Now they are hid from thine eyes, that threw a ta¬
lent of lead upon them.
4. He sees the ephah with the woman thus press¬
ed to death in it, carried away into some far country.
(1.) The instruments employed to do it were, two
women, who had wings like those cf a stork, large
and strong, and, to make them fly the more swiftly,
they had the wind in their wings, denoting the great
violence and expedition with which the Romans de¬
stroyed the Jewish nation. God has not only winged
messengers in heaven, but he can, when he pleases,
give wings to those also whom he employs in this
lower world; and when he does so, he forwards
them with the wind in their wings; his providence
carries them on with a favourable gale. (2.) They
bore it up in the air; denoting the terrors which
pursued the wicked Jews, and their being a public
example of God’s vengeance to the world. They
lifted it up between the earth and the heaven, as
unworthy of either, and abandoned by both ; for the
Jews, when this was fulfilled, pleased not God, and
were contrary to all men, 1 Thess. ii. 15. This is
wickedness, and this comes of it; heaven thrust out
wicked angels, and earth spued out wicked Canaan-
ites. (3.) When the prophet inquired whithei
they carried their prisoner whom they had now in
execution, (i'. 10. ) he was told that they designed
to build it a house in the land o f Shinar. This inti¬
mates that the punishment of the Jews should be a
final dispersion; they should be hurried out of their
own country, as the chaff which the wind drives
away, and should be forced to dwell in far countries,
particularly in the country of Babylon, whither
many of the scattered Jews went, after the destruc¬
tion of their country by the Romans, as they did
also to other countries, especially in the Levant
parts; not to sojourn, as in their former captivity,
for seventv years, but to be nailed down for per¬
petuity. There the ephah shall be established, and
set upon her own base. Which intimates, [1.]
That their calamity shall continue from generation
to generation, and that they shall be so dispersed,
that they shall never unite or incorporate again;
they shall settle in a perpetual unsettlement, and
Cain’s doom shall be theirs, to dwell in the land of
shaking. [2.] That their iniquity shall continue
too, and their hearts shall be hardened in it; blind¬
ness is happened unto Israel, and they are settled
upon the iees of their own unbelief; their wicked
1118
ZECHARIAH, VI.
ness is established upon its own basis. God has
given them a sfiiri! of slumber, (Rom. xi. 8.) lest at
any time they should convert, and be healed.
CHAP. VI.
The two kingdoms of providence and grace are what we
are all very nearly interested in, and therefore are con- i
cerned to acquaint ourselves with— -all our temporal af¬
fairs being in a necessary subjection to Divine Provi¬
dence, and all our spiritual and eternal concerns in a
necessary dependence upon divine grace; and these two
are represented to us in this chapter— the former by a
vision, the latter by a type. Here is, I. God, as King of
nations, ruling the world by the ministry of angels, in
the vision of the four chariots, v. 1 ..S. II. God, as
King of saints, ruling the church by the mediation of
Christ, in the figure of Joshua the high priest crowned,
the ceremony performed, and then explained concerning
Christ, v. 9 . . 15.
I. A ND I turned, and lifted up mine
eyes, and looked, and, behold, there
came four chariots out from between two
mountains; and the mountains were moun¬
tains of brass. 2. In the first chariot were
red horses, and in the second chariot black
horses, 3. And in the third chariot white
horses, and in the fourth chariot grisled and
bay horses. 4. Then I answered and said
unto the angel that talked with me, What
art these, my lord? 5. And the angel an¬
swered and said unto me, These are the
four spirits of the heavens, which go forth
from standing before the Lord of all the
earth. 6. The black horses which are
therein go forth into the north country : and
the white go forth after them; and the
grisled go forth toward the south country.
7. And the bay went forth, aflid sought to
go, that they might walk to and fro through
the earth: and he said, Get ye hence, walk
to and fro through the earth. So they walk¬
ed to and fro through the earth. 8. Then
cried he upon me, and spake unto me, say¬
ing, Behold, these that go toward the north
country have quieted my spirit in the north
country.
The prophet is forward to receive this vision, and,
as if he expected it, he turned, and lifted up. bis
eyes, and looked. Though this was the seventh vi¬
sion he had had, yet he does not think he has had
enough; for the more we know of God and his will,
if we know it aright, the more desirous we shall be
to get a further acquaintance with God. Now ob¬
serve here,
1. The sight that the prophet had of four cha¬
riots drawn by horses of divers colours; together
with the explication of the sight, v. 1. — 5. He did
not look long, but he discovered that which was
worth seeing, and which would serve very much
for the encouraging of himself and his friends, in
this dark day. We are very much in the dark con¬
cerning the meaning of this vision. Some by the
four chariots understand the four monarchies; and
then they read, (y. 5.) These are the four winds of
the heavens, and suppose that therein reference is
had to Dan. vii. 2. where Daniel saw, in vision, the
four winds of the heavens striving upon the great
sea, representing the four monarchies. The Baby¬
lonian monarchy, they think, is here represented by
the red horses, which are not afterward mentioned,
because that monarchy was now extinct. The se¬
cond chariot with the black horses, is the Persian
monarchy, which went forth northward against the
Babylonians, and quieted God’s Spirit in Che north
country, by executing his judgments on Babylon,
and freeing the Jews from their captivity. The
white, the Grecians, go forth after them in the north,
for they overthrow the Persians. The grisled,
the Romans, who conquered the Grecian empire, are
said to go forth toward the south country ; because
Egypt, which lay' southward, was the last branch
of the Grecian empire that was subdued by the Ro¬
mans. The bdy horses had been with the grisled,
but afterward went forth by themselves; and by
these they understand the Goths and Vandals, who
with their victorious arms walked to and fro through
the earth; or the Seleucidse and Lagidie, the two
branches of the Grecian empire. Thus Grotius
and others.
But 1 incline rather to understand this vision more
generally, as designed to represent the administration
of the kingdom of providence in the government of
this lower world. The angels are often called the
chariots of God, as Ps. lxxviii. 17. — xviii. 10. The
various providences of God concerning nations and
churches, are represented by the different colours
of horses, Rev. vi. 2, 4, 5, 8. And so we may ob¬
serve here,
1. That the counsels and decrees of God are the
spring and original of all events, and they are im¬
moveable, as mountains of brass. The chariots
came from between two mountains; for God per¬
forms the thing that is appointed for us; his ap¬
pointments are the originals, and his performances
are but copies from them; he doeth all according to
the counsel of his will. We could as soon grasp the
mountains in our arms, as comprehend the divine
counsels in our finite understandings; and as soon
remove mountains of brass as alter any of God’s
purposes; for he is in one mind, and who can turn
him? Whatever the providences of God are con¬
cerning us, as to public or private affairs, we should
see them all coming from between the mountains of
brass, and therefore see it as much our folly to
quarrel with them as it is our duty to acquiesce in
them. Who may say to God, What doest thou, or
why doest thou so? Acts ii. 23. — iv. 28.
2. That God executes his decrees in the works
of providence, which are as chariots, in which he
rides as a Prince in an open chariot, to show his
glory to the world; in which, as in chariots of war,
he rides forth conquering, and to conquer, and tri¬
umphing over all the enemies of his glory and gov¬
ernment. God is great and terrible in his doings;
(Ps. lxvi. 3.) and in them we see the goings of our
God, our King, Ps. lxviii. 24. His providences
move swiftly and strongly as chariots, but all di¬
rected and governed by his infinite wisdom and
sovereign will, as chariots by their drivers.
3. That the holy ahgels are the ministers of God’s
providence, and are employed by him, as the armies
of heaven, for the executing of his counsels among
the inhabitants of the earth; they are the chariots,
or, which comes all to one, they are the horses that
draw the chariots, great in power and might, and
who, like the horse that God himself describes,.
(Job xxxix. 19, &c. ) are clothed with thunder; are
terrible, but cannot be terrified, or made afraid,
they are chariots of fire, and horses of fire, to carry
one prophet to heaven, and guard another on earth.
They are so observant of, and obsequious to, the
will of God, as well managed horses are to their
rider or driver. Not that God needs them or their
services, but he is pleased to make use of them,
that he may put honour upon them, and encourage
our trust in his providence.
4. That the events of providenee have different
1)19
ZECHARIAH, VI.
aspects, and the face of the times often changes.
The horses in the frst chariot were red, signifying
war and bloodshed, blood to the horse-bridles, Rev.
xiv. 20. Those in the second chariot were black,
signifying the dismal, melancholy consequences of
war; it puts all into mourning, lays all waste, intro¬
duces famines and pestilences, and desolations, and
makes whole lands to languish. Those in the third
chariot . were white, signifying the return of comfort,
and peace, and prosperity,, after these dark and dis¬
mal times; though God cause grief to the children
of men, yet will he have compassion. Those in the
fourth chariot were of a mixed colour, grislcd and
bay; some speckled and s/iotted, and ash-coloured,
signifying eventsof different complexions interwoyen
and counterchanged; a day of prosperity, and a day
of adversity, set the one over against the other; the
cup of providence in the hand of the Lord is full of
mixture, Ps. lxxv. 8.
5. That all the instruments of Providence, and
all the events of it, come from God, and from him
they receive their commissions and instructions; (v.
5.) These are the four spirits of heaven, the four
winds, (so some,) which seem to blow as they list, i
from tlie various points of the compass; but God
has them in hisfsts, and brings them out of his trea¬
suries. Or, rather, These are the a ngels that go
forth from standing before the Lord of all the earth,
to attend upon him, aiid minister to him: to behold
his glory in the upper world, which is their blessed¬
ness, and to serve his glory in this lower world,
which is their business. They stand before him as
the Lord of the whole earth, to receive orders from
him, and give up their accounts to him concerning
their services on this earth, for it is all within his
jurisdiction. But, when he appoints, they go forth
as messengers of his counsels, and ministers of his
justice and mercy. Those secret motions and im¬
pulses upon the spirits of men, by which the designs
of Providence are carried on, some think, are these
four spirits of the heax>ens, which go forth from
God, and fulfil what he appoints, who is the God of
the spirits of all flesh.
6. That there is an admirable beauty in provi¬
dence, and one event serves for a balance to another;
(u. 6. ) The black horses went forth, carrying with
them very dark and melancholy events, such as
made every person and every thing look black; but
presently the white went forth after them, carrying
joy to them that mourned, and by a new turn given
to ’ affairs, making them to look pleasant again.
Such are God’s dealings with his church and people;
if the black horses go forth, the white ones presently
go after them, for as affliction abounds, consolation
much more abounds.
7. That the common, general aspect of provi¬
dence is mixed and compounded. The grisled
and bay horses were both in the fourth chariot; [y.
8.) and though they went forth, at first, toward the
south country, yet, afterward, they sought to walk
to and fro through the earth, and were directed to
do so, v. 7. If we go to and fro through the earth,
we shall find the events of providence neither all
black, nor all white, but ash-coloured, or grey,
mixed of black and white — such is the world we
live in, that before us is unmixed. Here we are
singing, at the same time, of mercy and judgment,
and we must sing unto God of both, (Ps. ci. 1.) and
labour to accommodate ourselves to God’s will and
design in the mixtures of providence, rejoicing in
our comforts as though we rejoiced not, because
they have their allays, and weeping for our afflic¬
tions as though we- wept not, because there is so
much mercy mixed with them.
8. That God is well pleased with all the opera¬
tions of his own providence; (v. 8.) These have
quieted my spirit, these black horses which speak
extraordinary judgments, and the white ones which
speak extraordinary deliverances, both which went
toward the north country, while the common mixed
providences went all the world over. These have
quieted my spiritin the north country, which had of
late been the most remarkable scene of action with
reference to the church; that is, by these uncommon
appearances and actings of providence God’s wrath
is executed upon the enemies of the church, and his
favours are conferred upon the church, both which
had long been deferred, and in both God had fulfill¬
ed his will, accomplished his word, and so quieted
his Spirit. The Lord is well pleased foi his right¬
eousness’ sake: and, as he speaks, Isa. i. 24. made
himself easy.
9. And the word of the Lord came unto
me, saying, 10. Take of them of the cap¬
tivity, even of Heldai, of Tobijah, and of
Jedaiah, which are come from Babylon, and
come thou the same day, and go into the
house of Josiali the son of Zcphaniah ; 11.
Then take silver and gold, and make
crowns, and set them upon the head of
Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest;
12. And speak unto him, saying, Thus
speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Behold
the man, whose name is The BRANCH :
and he shall grow up out of his place, and he
shall build the temple of the Lord: 13.
Even he shall build the temple of the Lord ,
and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and
rule upon his throne ; and he shall be a priest
upon his throne: and the counsel of peace
shall be between them both. 14. And the
crowns shall be to Helem, and to Tobijah,
and to Jedaiah, and to Hen the son of Zepli-
aniah, for a memorial in the temple of the
Lord. 15. And they that are far off shall
come and build in the temple of the Lord;
and ye shall know that the Lord of hosts
hath sent me unto you. And this shall come
to pass, if ye will diligently obey the voice
of the Lord your God.
God did not only at sundry times, but in divers
manners, speak in time past by the prophets to his
church. In the former part of this chapter, he
spake by a vision, which the prophet only saw him¬
self; here, in this latter part, he speaks by a sign,
or type, which many saw, and which, as if was ex¬
plained, was an illustrious prediction of the Mes¬
siah, as the Priest and King of his church. Here is,
I. The significant ceremony which God appoint¬
ed — and that was, the coronation of Joshua the
high priest, v. 10, 11. It is observable that there
should be two eminent types of Christ in the Old
Testament, that were both named Joshua, the same
name with Jesus; and by the LXX, and in the New
Testament, rendered Jesus, Acts vii. 45. Joshua,
the chief captain, a type of Christ, the Captain of
our salvation, and Joshua, the chief priest, a type
of Christ, the high priest of our profession; and
both, in their day, saviours, and leaders into Ca¬
naan. And this is peculiar to Joshua the high priest,
that here was something done to him by the divine
appointment, on purpose that he might be a type
of Christ; a priest after the order of Melchizedek,
who was both a king and a priest. Joshua was far
from being ambitious of a crown, and the people of
U20
ZECHAR1AH, VI.
having a crowned head over them; but the prophet,
to the great surprise of both, is ordered to crown
Joshua as if he had been a king. And as Zerubba-
bel’s prudence and piety kept this from being any
affront to him, (as the setting up of a rival with
him,) so God’s providence kept the kings of Persia
from taking umbrage at it, as raising a rebellion
against them. In doing what we are sure is God’s
pleasure, as this was, we may well venture men’s
displeasure.
1. Here were some Jews come from Babylon, that
brought an offering to the house of God; some of the
captivity, here named to their honour, that came
from Babylon on a visit to Jerusalem: they ought
to have bid a final farewell to Babylon, and to have
come and settled with their brethren in their own
land; and for their remissness and indifference in not
doing so, they thought to atone by this visit. Per¬
haps they came as ambassadors from the body of
the Jews that were in Babylon, who lived there in
ease and fulness; and hearing that the building of
the temple went on slowly for want of money, they
sent them with an offering of gold and silver for the
service of the house of God. Note, Those that by
reason of distance, or otherwise, cannot forward a
good work by their persons, must, as they are able,
forward it by their purses; if some find hands, let
others fill them.
2. Time and place are appointed for the prophet
to meet them. They thought to bring theirpresent
to the /iriest, God’s ordinary minister; but God has
a firo/ihet, an extraordinary one, ready to receive
them and it; which would be an encouragement to
them, who, in their captivity, had so often com¬
plained. ]Ve see not our signs, there is no more any
prophet; and would invite them and others to re¬
settle in their own land, which then began to look
like itself, ' like a holy land, when the Spirit of pro¬
phecy was revived in it. Zechariah was ordered to
give them the meeting, the same day they came,
(for when they were arrived, they would lose no
time, but present their offering immediately,) and to
bid them welcome, assuring them that God now ac¬
cepted their gifts. He was to meet them in the
house of Josiah, the son of Zephaniah, who, proba¬
bly, was receiver-general for the temple, and kept
the treasures of it. They brought their gold and
silver, to be employed about the temple; but God
ordered it to be used in honour of One greater than
the temple, Matth. xii. 6.
3. Crowns are to be made, and put upon the head
of Joshua, v. 11. It is supposed that there were
two crowns provided, one of silver, and the other of
gold; the former- (as some think) denoting his
priestly dignity, the latter his kingly dignity; or,
rather, he being a priest already, and having a
crown of gbld, of pure gold, already, to signify his
honour and power as a priest, these crowns of silver
and gold botli signify the royal dignity; the crown
of silver being, perhaps, designed to typify the
kingdom of the Messiah, when lie was here on
earth, for then he was the King of Israel, (John i.
49.) but the crown of gold his kingdom in his ex¬
alted state, the glory of which as far exceeded that
of the former as gold does silver. The sun shines
as gold, when he goes forth in his strength; and the
beams of the moon, when she walks in brightness,
we call silver beams. Those Jhat had worshipped
the sun and moon; shall now fall down before the
golden and silver crowns of the exalted Redeemer,
before whom the sun shall be ashamed, and the
moon confounded, being both outshone.
II. Thie signification which God gave of this
ceremony. Every one would be ready to ask,
"What is the meaning of Joshua’s being crowned
thus?” And the prophet is as ready to tell them the
meaning of it. Upon this speaking sign is grafted
a prediction, and the sign was used, to make it the
more taken notice of; and the better remembered.
Now the promise is,
1. That God will, in the fulness of time, raise up
a great high priest, like Joshua. Tell Joshua that
he is but the figure of one that is to come, a faint
shadow of him ; ( v . 12. ) Speak unto him in the name
of the Lord of hosts, that Man whose name is, The
BRANCH, shall grow up out of his place, out of
Bethlehem the city of David, the place appointed
for his birth; though the family be a root in a dry
ground, yet this Branch shall spring out of it; as.
in the spring, when the sun returns, the flowers
spring out of the roots, in which they lay buried out
of sight, and out of mind. He shall grow up for him¬
self (so some read it,) propria virtute — by his own
vital energy; shall be exalted in his own strength.
2. That as Joshua was an active, useful instru¬
ment in building the temple, so the Man, the
Branch, shall be the Master-Builder, the sole Builder
of the spiritual temple, the gospel-church. He
shall build the temple of the Lord; and it is repeated
again, ( v . 13.) Even he shall build the temple of
the Lord: he shall grow up to do good, to be an in¬
strument of God’s glory, and a great Blessing to man¬
kind. Note, The gospel-church is the temple of
the Lord, a spiritual house, (1 Pet. ii. 5.) a holy
temple, Eph. ii. 21. In the temple God made dis¬
coveries of himself to his people, and there he re¬
ceived the service and homage of his people; sc, in
the gospel-church, the light of divine revelation
shines by the word, and the spiritual sacrifices of
prayer and praise are offered. Now Christ is not
only the Foundation, but the Founder, cf this tem¬
ple, by his Spirit and grace.
3. Thajt Christ shall bear his glory. Glory is a
burthen, but not too heavy for him to bear, who up¬
holds all things. The cross was his glory, and he
bore that; so was the crown an exceeding weight
of glory, and lie bears that. The government is
upon his shoulders, and in it he bears the glory,
Isa. ix. 6. They shall hang upon him all the glory
of his Father’s house, Isa. xxii. 24. It becomes him,
and he is par negotio — well able to bear it. The
glory of the priesthood and royalty had been divided
between the house of Aaron and that of David; but
now he alone shall bear all the glory of both. That
which he shall bear, which he shall undertake,
shall be indeed the glory of Israel; and they must
wait for that, and, in prospect of it, must be con¬
tent in the want of that external glory which they
formerly had. He shall bear such a glory as shall
make the glory of this latter house greater than
that of the former. He shall lift up the glory; (so
it may be read;) the glory of Israel had been thrown
down and depressed, but he shall raise it out of the
dust.
4. That he should have a throne, and be both
Priest and King upon his throne. A throne denotes
both dignity anci dominion, an exalted honour, with
an extensive power. (1.) This Priest shall be a
King; and his office as a Priest shall be no diminu¬
tion to his dignity as a King. He shall sit and rule
upon his throne'. Christ, as a Priest, ever lives to
make intercession for us; but he does it sitting at his
Father’s right hand, as one having authority, Heb.
viii. 1. We have such a High Priest as Israel
never had, for he is set on the right hand of the
throne of the Majesty in the heavens, which puts a
prevailing virtue into his mediation; he that appears
for us within the vail, is one that sits and rules
there. Christ, who is ordained to offer sacrifices
for us, is authorized to give law to us. He will not
save us unless we be willing that he should govern
us. God has prepared him a throne in the heavens;
and if we would have any benefit by that, we must
prepare him a throne in our hearts, and be willing
ZECHARIAH. VII.
1121
and glad that he should sit and rule u/ion that
t.'none: and to him every thought within us must be
brought into obedience. (2.) This King shall be a
Priest: a Priest u/ion his throne: with the majesty
and power of a King, he shall have the tenderness
and simplicity of a Priest, who, being taken from
among men, is ordained for men, and can have
compassion on the ignorant, Hub. v. 1, 2. In all
the acts of his government as a King, he prosecutes
the intentions of his grace as a Priest. Let not there¬
fore those that are his, look upon his throne, though
a throne of glory and a throne of judgment, with
terror and amazement; for as there is a rainbow
about the throne, so he is a Priest upon the throne.
5. That the counsel of peace s 'lould be between them
both. That is, (1.) Between Jehovah, and the Man,
the Branch; between the Father and the Son; the
counsels concerning the peace to be made between
God and man, by the mediation of Christ, shall be
concerted, shall appear to have been concerted, by
infinite wisdom in the covenant of redemption; the
Father and the Son understood one another per¬
fectly well in that matter: or, rather, (2.) Between
the Priest an l the throne, between the priestly and
kingly office of Jesus Christ. The Alan , and Branch,
must grow up to carry on a counsel of peace, peace
on earth, and, in order to that, peace with heaven.
God's thoughts towards us were thoughts of peace,
and, in prosecution of them, he exalted his Son
Christ Jesus to be both a prince and a Saviour: he
gave him a throne, but with this proviso, that he
should be a Priest upon his throne; and by execut¬
ing the two offices of a Priest and King, should
bring about that great undertaking of man’s recon¬
ciliation to God, and happiness in God. Some think
it alludes to the former government of the Jews’
state, wherein the king and priest, several officers,
did take counsel one with and of another, for the
maintenance of peace and prosperity in church and
state, as did Zerubbabel and Joshua now, I may
add, the prophets of God helping them; so shall the
eace and welfare of the gospel-church, and of all
elievers, be wrought, though not by two several
persons, yet by virtue of two several offices meeting
in one — Christ purchasing all peace by his priest¬
hood, and maintaining and defending it by his king¬
dom; so Mr, Pemble. And his prophetic offices
serviceable to both in this great design.
6. That there should be a happy coalition be¬
tween Jews and Gentiles in the gospel-church, and
they should both meet in Christ, the Priest upon his
throne, as the Centre of their unity; (v. 15.) They
that are far off, shall come, and build in the temple
of the Lord. Some understand it of the Jews that
were now afar off in Babylon, that staid behind in
captivity, to the great discouragement of their
brethren that were returned, who wanted their help
in building the temple. Now God promises that
many of them, and some of other nations too, prose¬
lyted to the Jewish religion, should come in, and
lend a helping hand to the building of the temple,
and many hands would make light work. The
kings of Persia contributed to the building of the
temple, (Ezra vi. 8.) and the furnishing of it, Ezra
vii. 19, 20. And, in after-times, Herod the Great,
and others that were strangers, helped to beautify
and enrich the temple. But it has a further refer¬
ence to that temple of the Lord, which the Alan,
the Branch, was to build: the Gentiles, strangers
afar off, shall help to build it, for from among them
God will raise up ministers that shall be workers
together with Christ about that building; and all
the Gentile converts shall be stones added to this
building, so that it shall grow up to a holy temple,
Eph. ii. 20. — 22. When God’s temple is to be
built, he can fetch in those that are afar off, and
employ them in the building of it.
Vol. iv. — 7 C
7. That the accomplishment of this would be a
strong confirmation ot the truth of God’s word; Ye
shall know that the Lord of hosts has sent me unto
you. That promise, that those that were afar off
should come, and assist them in building the temple
of the Lord, was, as it were, the giving of them' a
sign; by this they might be assured that the other
promises should be fulfilled in due time; this should
be fulfilled now very speedily; it was so, for these
that had been their enemies and accusers, in obe¬
dience to the king’s edict, became their helpers,
and did speedily what they were ordered to do for
the furtherance of the work, and by that means the
work went on, and was finished; see Ezra vi. 13,
14. Now by this surprising assistance which they
had from afar off in building the temple, they might
know that Zechariah, who told them of it before,
was sent of God, and that therefore his word con¬
cerning the Man, the Branch, should be fulfilled.
8. That these promises were strong obligations to
obedience; “ For this shall come to pass — you shall
have help in building the temple, if you will dili¬
gently obey the voice of the Lord your God. Ycu
shall have the help of foreigners in building the
temple, if vou will but set about it in good earnest
yourselves.’’ The assistance of others, instead of
being an excuse for our slothfulness, should be a
spur to our industry. “ You shall have the benefit
and comfort of all those promises, if you make con¬
science of your duty.” They must know that they
are upon their good behaviour; and though their
God is coming toward them in a way of mercy, they
cannot expect him to proceed in it, unless they con¬
form to his laws. Note, That which God requires
of us, to qualify us for his favour, is, obedience to his
revealed will ; and it must be a diligent obedience.
We cannot obey the voice of God without a great
deal of care and pains, nor will our obedience be ac¬
cepted of God unless it be laboured by us.
III. The provision that was made to preserve
the remembrance of this. The crowns that were
used in this solemnity, were not given to Joshua, but
must be kept fora memorial in the temple of the
Lord, v. 14. Either they were laid up in the tem¬
ple-treasury, or, (as the Jew’s tradition is,) they
were hung up in the windows of the temple, in the
view of all, in perpetuam rei memoriam—for a per¬
petual memorial; for a traditional evidence of the
promise of the Messiah, and this typical transaction
used for the confirmation of that promise. The
crowns were delivered to them who found the mate¬
rials, (and some think their names were engraven
on the crowns,) to be preserved as a public testi¬
mony of their pious liberality, and an encourage¬
ment to others in like manner to bring presents to
the house of God. Note, Various means were used
for the support of the faith of the Old Testament
saints, who waited for the consolation of Israel, till
the time, the set time, for it came.
CHAP. VII.
We have done with the visions , but not with the revela¬
tions , of this book ; the prophet sees no more such signs
as he had seen, but still the word of the Lord came to
him. In this chapter, we have, I. A case of conscience
proposed to the prophet by the children of the captivity
concerning fasting; whether they should continue their
solemn fasts which they had religiously observed during
the 70 years of their captivity, v. 1 . . 3. II. The answer
to this question; which is given in this and the next
chapter, and this answer was given, not all at once, but
by piece-meal, and, it should seem, at several times, for
here are four distinct discourses, which have all of them
reference to this case, each of them prefaced with the
word of the Lord came , in this chapter, v 4 . . 8. and ch.
viii. 1, 18. The method of them is very observable. In
this chapter, 1- The prophet sharply reproves them for
the mismanagements of their fasts, v. 4 . . 7. 2. He ex¬
horts them to reform their lives, which would be the
best way of fasting, and to take heed of these sins which
1122
ZECHARIAH, VII.
brought those judgments upon them, which they kept
these fasts in memory of, v. 8. . 14. And then, in the
next chapter, having searched the w ound, he binds it up,
anil heals it, with gracious assurances of great mercy
God had yet in store for them, by which he would turn
‘ their fasts into feasts.
1. 4 ND it came to pass, iti the fourth
year of king Darius, that the word
of the Lord came unto Zechariah in the
fourth day of the ninth month, even in Chis-
leu ; 2. When they had sent unto the house
of God, Sherezer and Regem-melech, and
their men, to pray before the Lord, 3. And
to speak unto the priests which ivere in the
house of the Lord of hosts, and to the pro¬
phets, saying, Should I weep in the fifth
month, separating myself, as I have done
these so many years? 4. Then came the
word of the Lord of hosts unto me, say¬
ing, 5. Speak unto all the people of the
land, and to the priests, saying, When ye
fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh
month , even those seventy years, did ye at
all fast unto me, even to me? 6. And when
ye did eat, and when ye did drink, did not
ye eat for yourselves, and drink for your¬
selves? 1. Should ye not hear the words
which the Lord hath cried by the former
prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited
and in prosperity, and the cities thereof
round about her, when men inhabited the
south and the plain?
This occasional sermon, which the prophet
preached, and which is recorded in this and tire j
next chapter, was above two years after the former,
in which lie gave them an account of his visions, as
appears by comparing the date of this, (V. 1.) in
the ninth month of the fourth year of Dariuj, with
tlie date of that, (ch. i. 1.) in "the eighth month of
the second vear of Darius; not that Zechariah was
idle all that while, (it is expressly s lid that he and
Haggai continued prophesyitig till the temple was
finished in the sixth year of Darius, Ezra vi. 14, 15.)
but during that time he did not preach any sermon
that was afterward published, and left upon record,
as this is. God may be honoured, his work done,
and his interests served, by word of mouth as well
as by writing; and by inculcating and pressing what
has "been taught, as well as by advancing something
new. Now here we have,
1. A case proposed concerning fasting. Some
persons were sent to inquire of the priests and pro¬
phets, whether they should continue to observe their
yearly fasts, particularly that in the fifth month, as
they had done. It is uncertain whether the case
was put by those that yet remained in Babylon, who,
being deprived of the benefit of the solemn feasts
which God’s ordinances appointed them, made up
the want by the solemn fasts which God’s provi¬
dences called them to; or by those that were re¬
turned, but lived in the country, as some rather in¬
cline to think, because they are called the people of
the land, v. 5. But as to that, the answer given to
the messengers qf the captive Jews, might be di¬
rected, not to them only, but to all the people. Ob¬
serve,
I. Who they were, that came with this inquiry —
Sherezisr and Regem-melech; persons of some rank
and figure; for they came with their men, and did
not think it below them, or any disparagement to
them, to be sent on this errand, but rather an addi¬
tion to their honour, to be, (1.) Attendants in God’s
house, there to do duty, and receive orders. The
greatest of men are less -han the least cf the ordi¬
nances of Jesus Christ. (2.) Agents for God’t
people, to ncgociate their affairs. Men of estates,
having more leisure than men of business, ought t;,
employ their time in the service of the public, ant:
by doing good they make themselves truly great i
the messengers of the churches were the glory oj
Christ, 2 Cor. viii. 23.
2. What tlie errand was, upon which they came
They were sent, perhaps, not with gold and silver,
(as those, ch. vi. 10, 11.) or if they were, that is
not mentioned, but upon the two great errands
which should bring us all to the house of God, (1.)
To intercede with God for his mercy. They were
sent to /tray, before the Lord, and, some think, (ac¬
cording to the usage then,) to offer sacrifice, with
which they offered up their prayers. The Jews, in
captivity, prayed toward the temple; (as appears,
Dan. vi. 10.) but now that it was in a fair way to be
rebuilt, they sent their representatives to pray in it,
remembering that God had said that his house
should be called a house of prayer for all people,
Isa. lvi. 7. In prayer, we must set ourselves as be¬
fore the Lord, must see his eye upon us, and have
our eye up to him. (2.) To int/uire of God con¬
cerning ins mind. Note, When we offer up our re¬
quests to God, it must be with a readiness to receive
instructions from him; for if we turn away our ear
from hearing iris law, we cannot expect that our
prayers should be acceptable to him. We must
therefore desire to dwell in the house cf the Lord
all the days of our life, that we may inquire there,
(Ps. xxvi. 4.) asking, not only, Lord, what wilt thou
do for me? but, Lord, what wilt thou have me to
do ?
3. Whom they consulted. They spake to the
priests that were in the house of the Lord, and to
the prophets ; the former were an oracle for ordi¬
nary cases, the latter for extraordinary; they were
blessed with both, and would trv if either could ac¬
quaint them with the mind of God in this case.
Note, God having given diversities of gifts to men,
and all to profit with, we should make use of all as
there is occasion. They were not so wedded to the
priests, their stated ministers, as to distrust the pro¬
phets, who appeared, by tbe gifts given them, well
qualified to serve the church; nor yet were they so
much enamoured with the prophets as to despise the
priests, but they spake both to the priests and to the
prophets, and, in consulting both, gave glory to tlie
God of Israel, and that one Spirit who works all in
all. God might speak to them either by Urim, or
by prophets, (1 Sam. xxviii. 6.) and therefore they
would not neglect either. The priests and tlie pro¬
phets were not jealous one of another, nor had any
difference among themselves; let not tbe people then
make differences between them, but thank God
they had both. The prophets did indeed reprove
what was amiss in tlie priests, but at the same time
told the people that the priests’ lips should keep
knowledge, and they must inquire the law at his
mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts,
Mai. ii. 7. Note, Those that would know God’s
mind, should consult God’s ministers, and in doubt¬
ful cases ask advice of those whose special business
it is to search the scriptures.
4. What tlie case was, which they desired satis¬
faction in; (t>. 3.) Should I weep in the fifth month,
separating myself, as I have done these so many
years. Observe, (1.) What had been their past
practice, not only during the seventy years of tbe
captivity, but to this time, which was twenty years
after the liberty proclaimed them; they kept up so
1123
ZECHARTAH, VII.
lemn, stated fasts for humiliation and prayer, which
they religiously observed, according as their oppor¬
tunities were, in their closets, families, or such as¬
semblies for worship as they had. In the case here,
they mentioned only one, that of the fifth month;
but it appears by ch. viii. 19. that they observed
four anniversary fasts. One in the fourth month,
{June 17.) in remembrance of the breaking up of
the wall of Jerusalem; (Jer. lii. 6.) another in the
fifth month, {July 4.) in remembrance of the burn¬
ing of the temple; (Jer. lii. 12, 13.) another in the
seventh month, {September 3.) in remembrance of
the killing of Gedaliah, which completed their
dispersion; and another in the tenth month, {De¬
cember 10.) in remembrance of the beginning of
the siege of Jerusalem, 2 Kings xxv. 1. Now it
was very commendable in them to keep those
fasts, thus to humble themselves under those
humbling providences, by which God called them
to weeping and mourning ; thus to accommodate
themselves to their troubles and prepare themselves
for deliverance. It would likewise be a means of
possessing their children betimes with a due sense
of the hand of the Lord gone out against them.
5. What was their present doubt — whether they
should continue these fasts or no. The case is put
as by a single person: Should I weefi? But it was
the case of many, and the satisfaction of one would
be a satisfaction to the rest; or, perhaps, many had
left it off; but the querist will not be determined by
the practice of others, if God will have him con¬
tinue it, he will, whatever others do. His fasting
is described by his weeping, separating himself. A
religious fast must be solemnized, not only by absti¬
nence, here called a separating ourselves from the
ordinary, lawful comforts of life, but by a godly sor¬
row for sin, here expressed by weeping. Should I
still keep such days to afflict the soul as I have done
these so many years ? It is said {v. 5. ) to be seventy
years, computed from the last captivity, as before,
ch. i. 12. The inquiry intimates a readiness to con¬
tinue it, if God so appoint, though it be a mortifica¬
tion to the flesh. (1.) Something is to be said for
the continuance of these fasts; fasting and praying
are good work at any time, and do good; we have
always both cause enough, and need enough, to
humble ourselves before God. To throw off these
fasts would be an evidence of their being too secure,
and a cause of their being more so. They were
still in distress, and under the tokens of God’s dis¬
pleasure; and it is unwise for the patient to break
off his course of physic, while he is sensible of such
remains of his distemper. But, (2.) There is some¬
thing to be said for the letting fall of these fasts.
God had changed the method of his providences
concerning them, and was returned, in ways of
mercy to them ; and ought not they then to change
the method of their duties; Now that the bride¬
groom is returned, why should the children of the
bride-chamber fast ? Every thing is beautiful in its
season. And as to the fast of the fifth month, (which
is that they particularly inquire of,) that, being
kept in remembrance of the burning of the temple,
might seem to be superseded rather than any of the
other, because the temple was now in a fair way to
be rebuilt. But, having long kept up this fast, they
would not leave it off without advice, and without
asking and knowing God’s mind in the case. Note,
A good method of religious services, which we have
found beneficial to ourselves and others, ought not
to be altered without good reason, and therefore not
without mature deliberation.
II. An answer given to this case. It should seem
that though the question looked plausible enough,
they who proposed it were not conscientious in it,
for they were more concerned about the ceremony
than about the substance; they seemed to boast of
their fisting, and to upbraid God Almighty with it,
that he had not sooner returned, in mercy, to them;
for we have done it these so many years. As those,
Isa. lviii. 3. U'herefore have sue fasted, and thou
seest note And some think that unbelief, and dis¬
trust of the promises of God, were at the bottom
of their inquiry; for, if they had given them tlv
credit that was due to them, they needed not to
doubt but that their fasts ought to be laid aside, now
that the occasion of them was over.
And therefore the first answer to their inquiry is
a very sharp reproof of their hypocrisy, directed,
not only to the people of the land, but to the priests,
who had set up these fasts, and perhaps some of
them were for keeping them up, to serve some pur
pose of their own. Let them all take notice that,
whereas they thought they had made God verv
much their Debtor by these fasts, they were much
mistaken, for they were not acceptable to him, un¬
less they had been observed in a better manner, and
to better purpose.
1. What they did that was good, was not done
aright; {v. 5.) You fasted and mourned. They
were not chargeable with the omission or neglect of
the duty, though it was displeasing to the body;
(Thy fasts were continually before me, Ps. 1. 8.)
but they Jjad not managed them aright. Note,
Those that come to inquire of their duty, must be
willing first to be told of their faults. And those
that seem zealous for the outside of a duty, ought
to examine themselves faithfully whether they have
the regard they ought to have to the inside of it.
(1.) They had not an eye to God in their fasting;
Did ye at all fast unto tne, even to me ? He appeals
to their own consciences, they will witness against
them, that they had not been sincere in it, much
more will God, who is greater than the heart, and
knows all things. You know very well that you did
not at all fast to me; in fasting did you fast to me ?
There was the carcase and form of the duty, but
none of the life, and soul, and power, of it. Was
it to me, even to me ? The repetition intimates what
a great deal of stress is laid upon this as the main
matter, in that and other holy exercises, that they
be done to God, even to him, with an eye to his
word as our rule, and his glory as our end, in them,
seeking to please him and to obtain his favour, and
studious by the sincerity of our intentions to approve
ourselves to him. When this was wanting, every
fast was but a jest. To fast, and not fast to God,
was to mock him and provoke him, and could not
be pleasing to him. Those that make fasting a
cloak for sin, as Jezebel’s fast, or by it make their
court to men for their applause, as the Pharisees,
or that rest in outward expressions of humiliation,
while their hearts are unhumbled, as Ahab, do they
fast to God, even to him? Is this the fast that God
has chosen? Isa. lviii. 5. If the solemnities of our
fasting, though frequent, long, and severe, do not
serve to put an edge upon devout affections, to
quicken prayer, to increase godly sorrow, and to
alter the temper of our minds, and the course of
our lives, for the better, they do not at all answer
the intention, and God will not accept them as per¬
formed to him, even to him.
(2.) They had the same eye to themselves in their
fasting, that they had in their eating and drinking;
{v. 6.) “ When ye did eat, and when ye did drink,
on other days, (nay, perhaps, on your fast-days, in
the observation of which you could, when you saw
cause, dispense with yourselves, and take a" libertv
to eat and drink,) did ye not eat for yourselves and
drink for yourselves ? Have ye not always done as
you had a mind yourselves? Why then do ye now
pretend a desire to know the mind of God? In your
religious feasts and thanksgivings ye have had no
more an eye to God than in your fasts.” Or, rathei
1124
ZECHARIAH, VII.
it refers to their common meals; they; did no more
design the honour of God in their fasting and pray¬
ing than they did in their eating and drinking; but
self was still the centre in which the lines of all
their actions, natural, civil, and religious, met.
They needed not be in such care about the continu¬
ance of their fasts, unless they had kept them bet¬
ter. Note, We miss our end in eating and drink¬
ing, when we eat to ourselves, and drink to our¬
selves, whereas we should eat and drink to the glory
of God, (1 Cor. x. 31.) that our bodies may be fit
to serve our souls in his service.
2. The principal good thing they should have
done was left undone; (v. 7.) “Should you not
hear the words -which the Lord has cried by the for¬
mer prophets? Yes, that you should have done on
your fast-days; it was not enough to weep and sepa¬
rate yourselves on your fast-days, in token of your
sorrow for the judgments you were under, but you
should have searched the scriptures of the prophets,
that you might have seen what was the ground of
God’s controversy with your fathers, and might
have taken warning by their miseries not to tread
in the steps of their iniquities. You ask, Shall we
do as we have done, in fasting? No, you must do that
which you have not yet done, you must repent of
your sins, and reform your lives, that is it that we
now call you to, and it is the same that the former
pronhets called your fathers to.” To affect them
the more with the mischief that sin had done them,
that they might be brought to repent of it, he puts
them in mind of the former flourishing estate of
their country; Jerusalem was then inhabited, and
in prosperity, that is now ‘desolate and in distress;
the cities round about, that are now in ruins, were
then inhabited too and in peace; the country like¬
wise was very populous. Men inhabited the south
of the plain, which was not at all fortified, and yet
they lived safely, and which was fruitful, and so
they lived plentifully; but then God by the prophets
cried to them, as one in earnest, and importunate
with them, to amend their ways and doings, or else
their prosperity would soon be at an end. “ Now,”
says the prophet, “you should have taken notice
of that, and have inferred that what was required
of them for the preventing of the judgments, and
which they did not, is required of you for the re¬
moval of the judgments; and if you do it not, all
your fasting and weeping signify nothing.” Note,
The words of the late prophets "agree with those of
the former; and, whether people are in prosperity
or adversity, they must be called upon to leave their
sins, and do their duty; this must still be the burthen
of every song.
8. And the word of the Lord came unto
Zechariah, saying, 9. Thus speaketh the
Lord of hosts, saying, Execute true judg¬
ment, and shew mercy and compassions
every man to his brother : 1 0. And oppress
not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stran¬
ger, nor the poor; and let none of you ima¬
gine evil against his brother in your heart.
11. But they refused to hearken, and pulled
away the shoulder, and stopped their ears,
that they should not hear. 12. Yea, they
made their heart as an adamant-stone, lesj
they should hear the law, and the words
which the Lord of hosts hath sent in his
Spirit by the former prophets : therefore
r ame a great wrath from the Lord of hosts.
1 3. Therefore it is come to pass, that , as he
cried, and they would not hear; so they
cried, and I would not hear,saith the Lord
of hosts. 14. But I scattered them with a
whirlwind among all the nations whom they
knew not : thus the land was desolate after
them, that no man passed through nor return¬
ed ; for they laid the pleasant land desolate.
Wbat was said, v. 7. that they should have heard
the words of the former prophets, is here enlarged
upon, ior warning to these hypocritical inquirers,
who continued their sins, when they very precisely
asked, whether they should continue their fasts.
This prophet had before put them in mind of their
fathers’ disobedience to the calls of the prophets,
and what came of it; ( ch . i. 4. — 6.) and now' here
again, for others harms should be our warnings.
God’s judgments upon Israel of okl for their sins
were written for admonition to us Christians: ( 1 Cor.
10, 11.) and the same use we should make of the
like providences in our own day.
1. This prophet here repeats the heads of the
sermons which the former pr< phets preached to
their fathers, (d. 9, 10.) because the very same
things were required of them now. Thus does the
Lord of hosts speak to you now, and thus he did
speak to vour fathers, saying, Execute true judg¬
ment. The duties here required of them, which
would have been the lengthening of the tranquillity
of their fathers, and must be the restoring ot theii
tranquillity, are, not keeping fasts and offering sa¬
crifices, but doing justly and loving meray; duties
which they were bound to by the light and law ol
nature, though there had been no prophets sent to
insist upon them; duties which had a direct tenden
cy to the public welfare and peace, and which they
themselves would be the gainers by, and not God.
(1.) Magistrates must administer justice impartially,
according to the maxims of the law, and the merits
of the cause, without respect of persons; “Judge
judgment of truth, and execute it when you have
judged it.” (2.) Neighbours must have a tender
concern for one another, and must not only do one
another no wrong, but be ready to do one another
all the good offices that lie in their power. They
must show mercy and compassion, every man to his
brother, as the case called for it. The infirmities
of others as well as their calamities, are to be looked
upon with compassion. Hanc veniam petimusyue
damusque vicissim — This kindness we ask and exer¬
cise. (3.) They must not bear hard upon those
whom they have advantage against, and wh*>, they
know, are not able to help themselves. They must
not, either in commerce, or in course of law, oppress
the widow, the fatherless, the stranger, and the poor,
v. 10. The weakest must not therefore be thrust
to the wall, because they are weakest. No thanks
to men, not to deny right to those who are in a ca¬
pacity to demand it, and recover it; but we must,
not only for wrath, but also for conscience’ sake,
give those their own, who have not power to force it
from us. Or, it intimates that that which is but ex¬
actness with others, is exaction upon the widows and
the fatherless; nay, that not relieving and helping
them as we ought, is, in effect, oppressing them.
(4.) They must not only not do wrong to any, but
they must not so much as desire it, or think of it;
“ Let none of you imagine evil against his brother
in your heart.' Do not project it, do not wish it,
nay, do not so much as please yourself with the
fancy of it.” The law of God lays a restraint upon
the heart, and forbids the entertain ,ng, forbids the
admitting, of a malicious, spiteial, ill-natun d
thought; (Deut. xv. 9.) Beware that there be not o
thought in thy P.eli"' heart against thy brother.
1125
ZECHARIAH, VIII.
2. He describes the wilfulness and disobedience
■ ii their fathers, who persisted in all manner of
wickedness and injustice, notwithstanding these ex¬
hortations and admonitions frequently given them in
God’s name; various expressions to this purport are
here heaped up, (v. 11, 12.) setting forth the stub¬
bornness of that carnal mind which is enmity against
God, and is not in subjection to the law of God,
neither indeed can be. They were obstinate and re¬
fractory, and persisted in their transgressions of the
law, purely from a spirit of contradiction to the law.
(1.) They would not, if they could help it, come
within hearing of the prophets, but kept at a dis-
tince; or, if they could not avoid hearing what they
said, vet they resolved they would not heed it; they
refused to hearken, and looked another way as if
they had not been spoken to. (2.) If they did hear
what was said to them, and, as it seemed, inclined
at first to comply with it, yet they flew off when it
came to the setting to, and, like a bullock unaccus¬
tomed to the yoke, they (lulled away the shoulder,
and would not submit to the easy yoke and light bur¬
then of God’s commandments. They gave a with¬
drawing shoulder; (so the word is;) they seemed to
lay their shoulder to the work, but they presently
withdrew it again, as those, Jer. xxxiv. 10, 11.
They were like a deceitful bow, as that son that
said, I go, Sir; but went not. (3.) They filled
their own minds with prejudices against the word
of God, and had some objection or other ready
wherewith to fortify themselves against every ser¬
mon they heard. They sto/ified their ears, that they
should not hear, as the deaf adder; (Ps. lviii. 4.) and
none are so deaf as those that will not hear, that
make their own ear heavy, as the word is. (4.)
They resolved that nothing which was said to them,
for the enforcing of these injunctions, should make
any impression upon them; They made their hearts
as an adamant-stone, as a diamond, the hardest of
stones to be wrought upon; or as a flint, which the
mason cannot hew into shape as he can other stone
out of the quarry. Nothing is so hard, so unmalea-
ble, so inflexible, as the heart of a presumptuous
sinner; and they whose hearts are hard, may thank
themselves, they are of their own hardening; and it
is just with God to give them over to a reprobate
sense, to the hardness and impenitence of their own
hearts. These stubborn sinners hardened their
hearts on purpose, lest they should hear what God
said to them bv the written word, by the law of
Moses, and by the words of the prophets that preach¬
ed to them; they had Moses and the firofihets, but
resolved they would hear neither, nor would they
have been fiersuaded, though one had been sent to
them from the dead. The words of the firofihets
were not regarded by them, though they were words
which the Lord of hosts sent and directed to them,
though he sent them immediately by his Sfiirit in
the prophets; so that in despising them they affront¬
ed God himself, and resisted the Holy Ghost. Note,
The reason why men are not good, is, because they
will not be so, they will not consider, they will not
comply; and therefore if thou scornest, thou alone
shall bear it.
3. He shows the fatal consequences of it to their
fathers; Therefore came great wrath from the Lord
of hosts. God was highly displeased with them, and
justly; he required nothing of them but what was
reasonable in itself, and beneficial to them; and yet
they refused, and in a most insolent manner too.
What master could bear to be so abused by his own
servant? Such an implacable enmity to the gospel
as this was to the law and the prophets, was that
which brought wrath to the uttermost upon the last
generation of the Jewish church, 1 Thess. ii. 16.
Great sins against the Lord of hosts, whose autho¬
rity is incontestable, bring great wrath from the
I Lord of hosts, whose power is irresistible. And the
| effect was, (1.) As they had turned a deaf ear to
God’s word, so God turned a deaf ear to their
prayers, v. 13. As he cried to them in their pros-
Jcrity, to leave their sins, and they would not hear,
rut persisted in their iniquities; so they cried to him
in the day of their trouble, to remove his judgments,
and he would not hear, but lengthened out their ca¬
lamities. Even they that set God at defiance in the
height of their pride, when pangs came upon them
cried unto him. Lord, in trouble have they visited
thee. But God has said it, and will abide by it. He
that turns away hisear from hearing the law, even his
prayer shall be an abomination, Prov. xxviii. 9. —
i. 24, 8cc. Iniquity, regarded in the heart, will cer¬
tainly spoil the success of prayer, Ps. lxvi. 18. (2.)
As they flew off from their duty and allegiance to
God, and were of desultory and unsettled spirits, so
God dissipated them, and threw them about as chaff
before a whirlwind ; he scattered them among all
the nations whom they knew not, and whom there¬
fore they could not expect to receive any kindness
from, v. 14. (3.) As they violated all the laws of
their land, so God took away all the glories of it;
Their land was desolate after them, and no man
passed through or returned. All that country that
was the kingdom of the two tribes, after the dis¬
persion of the remaining Jews, upon the slaughter
of Gedaliah, was left utterly uninhabited; there was
not man, woman, or child in it, till the Jews return¬
ed at the end of seventy years’ captivity; nay, it
should seem, the very roads that lay through the
country, were deserted; none passed or repassed;
which, as it had an intimation of mercy in it, (though
they were cast out of it, yet it was kept empty for
their return,) so, for the present, it made the judg¬
ment appear much the more dismal; for what a
horrid wilderness must a land be, that had been so
many years uninhabited! And they might thank
themselves; it was they that by their own wicked¬
ness laid the pleasant land desolate. It was not so
much the Chaldeans that did it, no, they did it them¬
selves; the desolations of a land are owing to the
wickedness of its inhabitants, Ps. evii. 34. This
came of their wilful disobedience to the law of God.
And the present generation saw how desolate sin had
made that pleasant land, and yet would not take
warning.
CHAP. VIII.
The work of ministers is, rightly to divide the word of
truth, and to give every one his portion. So the pro¬
phet is here instructed to do, in the further answer he
gives to the case of conscience proposed about continu¬
ing the public fasts. His answer in the foregoing chap¬
ter, is by way of reproof to those that were disobedient,
and would not obey the truth. But here he is ordered
to chafige his voice, and to speak by way of encourage¬
ment to the willing and obedient. There are two words
here from the Lord of hosts, and they are both good words ,
and comfortable words. In the first of these messages
(v. 1.) God promises that Jerusalem shall be restored,
reformed, replenished; (v. 2 . . 8.) that the country shal
be rich, and the affairs of the nation shall be successful
their reputation retrieved, and their state in all respects
the reverse of what it had been for many years past;
(v. 9. . 15.) he then exhorts them to reform what was
amiss among them, that they might be ready for these
favours designed them, v. 16, 17. In the latter of these
messages, (v. 18.) he promises that their fasts should be
superseded by the return of mercy, v. 19. And that
thereupon they should be replenished, enriched, and
strengthened by the accession of foreigners to them, v.
20 . . 23.
1. A GATN the word of the Lord of
Jl L hosts came to me, saying, 2. Thus
saith the Lord of hosts, I was jealous for
Zion with great jealousy, and I was jealous
I 12G
ZKCHAR1AH, VIIJ.
inr her with great fury. 3. Thus saith the
Lord, I am returned unto Zion, and will
dwell in the midst of Jerusalem; and Jeru¬
salem shall be called, A city of truth; and
the mountain of the Loud of hosts, The
holy mountain. 4. Thus saith the Lord of
hosts, There shall yet old men and old wo¬
men dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and
every man with his staff in his hand for very
age. 5. And the streets of the city shall be
full of boys and girls playing in the streets
thereof. 6. Thus saith the Lord of hosts,
If it be marvellous in the eyes of the rem¬
nant of this people in these days, should it
also be marvellous in my eyes? saith the
Lord of hosts. 7. Thus saith the Lord of
hosts, Behold,! will save my people from
the east country, and from the west coun¬
try; 8. And I will bring them, and they
shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem; and
they shall be my people, and I will be their
God, in truth and in righteousness.
The prophet, in his foregoing discourses, had left
his hearers under a high charge of guilt and a deep
sense of wrath; he had left them in a melancholy
view of the desolations of their pleasant land, which
was the effect ot their fathers’ disobedience: but,
because he designed to bring them to repentance,
not to drive then: to despair, he here sets before
them the great things God had in store for them,
encouraging them hereby to hope that their case of
conscience would shortly determine itself, and that
God’s providence would as loudly call them to joy
and gladness as ever it called them to fasting and
mourning.
I. It is here promised that God will appear for
Jems ilem, and will espouse and plead her cause.
1. He will be revenged on Zion’s enemies; (v. 2.)
I was jealous for Zion, or o/Zion; that is, “ I have
of late been heartily concerned for her honour and
interests, with great jealousy. The great wrath
that was against her, (ch. vii. 12.) now turns against
her adversaries. I am now jealous for her with
great fury, and can no more bear to have her abused
in her afflictions than I could bear to be abused by
her provocations.” Thishehad said before, (ch. i. 14,
15.) that they might promise themselves as much
from the power of his anger, when it was turned to
them, as they had felt from it, when it was against
them. The sins of Zion were her worst enemies,
and had done her the most mischief; and therefore
God, in his jealousy for her honour and comfort,
will take away her sins, and then, whatever other
enemies injured her, it was at their peril. 2. He
vill be resident in Zion’s palaces; (t>. 3.) “ lam re¬
turned to Zion, after I had seemed so long to stand
at a distance, and -I will again dwell in the midst of
Jerusalem as formerly.” This secures to them the
tokens of his presence in his ordinances, and the in¬
stances of his favour in his providences.
II. That there shall be a wonderful reformation
in Jerusalem, and religion, in the power of it, shall
prevail and flourish there, Jerusalem, that had dealt
treacherously both with God and man, shall become
so famous for fidelity and honesty, that it shall be
c died and known by the name of a city of truth,
and the inhabitants of it shall be called children that
will not lie. Th e faithful city had become a harlot,
(Isa. i. 21.) but shall now become a. faithful city
again; faithful to the God of Israel, and to the wor¬
ship of him only. This was fulfilled; for the Jews,
after the captivity, though there was much amiss
among them, were never gnilty of idolatry. Jeru¬
salem shall be called the mountain of the Lord of
hosts, owning him and owned by him, and therefore
the holy mountain, cleared from idols, and conse¬
crated to God, and not, as it had been, the mount
of corruption, 2 Kings xxiii. 13. Note, The city of
God ought to be a city of truth, and the mountain
.of the Lord of hosts a holy mountain. Those that
profess religion and relation to God, must study to
adorn their profession by all instances of godliness
and honesty.
III. That there shall be in Jerusalem a great in¬
crease of people, and all the marks and tokens of a
profound tranquillity. When it is become a city of
truth, and a mountain of holiness, it is then peacea¬
ble and prosperous, and every thing in it looks blight
and pleasant. 1. You may look with pleasure upon
the generation that is going off the stage, and see
them fairly quitting it m the ordinary course of na¬
ture, and not driven off it by war, famine, or pesti¬
lence; (v. 4.) In the streets of Jerusalem, that had
been filled with the bodies of the slain, or deserted
and left desolate, shall now dwell old men, and old
women, who have not been cut off by untimely
deaths, (either through their own intemperance or
God’s vengeance,) but have the even thread of their
days spun out to full length; they shall feel no dis¬
temper but the decay of nature, and go to their grave
in a full age, as a shock of corn in his season. They
shall have every one his staff in his hand, for very
age, to support him, as Jacob, who •worshipped,
leaning upon the top of his staff, Hob. xii. 21. Old
age needs a support, and should not be ashamed to
use it, but should furnish itself with divine graces,
which will be the strength of the heart, and abetter
support than a staff' in the hand. Note, The hoary
head, as it is a crown of glory to those that wear it,
so it is to the places where they live. It is a grace¬
ful thing to a city, to see abundance of old people in
it; it is a sign, not only of the healthfulness of the
air, but of the prevalence of virtue, and the suppres¬
sion and banishment of those many vices which cut
off the number of men’s months in the midst; it is a
sign, not only that the climate is temperate, but that
the people are so. 2. You may look with as much
pleasure upon the generation that is rising up in
their room; (t. 5.) The streets of the city shall be
full o f boys and girls playing in the streets. This
intimates, (1.) That they shall be blessed with a
multitude of children; their families shall increase
and multiply, and replenish the city, which was an
early product of the divine blessing, Gen. i. 28.
Happy the man, happv the nation, whose quiver is
full of these arrows! They shall have of both sexes,
boys and girls, in whom their families shall after¬
ward be joined, and another generation raised up.
(2.) That their children shall be healthful, and
strong, and active; their boys and girls shall not lie
sick in bed, or sit pining in the corner, but (which is
a pleasant sight to parents) shall be hearty and
cheerful, and play in the streets. It is their pleasant
playing age, let us not grudge it them, much good
may it do them, and no harm; evil days will come
time enough, and years of which they will say that
they have no pleasure in them; in consideration of
which, they are concerned not to spend all their time
in play, but to remember their Creator. (3.) That
they shall have great plenty, and meat enough for
all their mouths. In time of famine, we find the
children swooning, as the wounded, in the streets of
the city, Lam. ii. 11, 12. If they are playing in tlie
streets, it is a good sign that they want for nothing.
(4.) That they shall not be terrified with the alarms
of war, but enjoy a perfect security. There shall be
no breaking in of invaders, no going out of desert
112?
ZECHARIAH, VIII.
ers, no complaining in the streets; (Ps. cxliv. 14.)
for when there is playing in the streets, it is a sign
that there is little care or fear there. Time was,
when the enemy hunted their steps so close, that
they could not go in their streets; (Lam. iv. 18.)
but now they shall /t lay in the streets, and fear no
evil. (5.) That they shall have love and peace
among themselves. The boys and girls shall not be
fighting in the streets, as sometimes in cities, that
are divided into factions and parties, the children
soon imbibe and express the mutual resentments of
the parents; but they shall be innocently and loving¬
ly playing in the streets; not devouring, but divert¬
ing, one another. (6.) That the sports and diver¬
sions used, shall be all harmless and inoffensive; the
boys and girls shall have no other play than what
they are willing that persons should see .in the
streets, no play that seeks corners, no playing the
fool, or playing the wanton, for it is the mountain of
the Lord, the holy mountain, but honest and modest
recreations, which they have no reason to be
ashamed of. (7.) That childish, youthful sports
shall be confined to the age of childhood and youth.
It is pleasing to see the boys and girls filaying in the
streets, but it is ill-favoured to see men and women
playing there, who should fill up their time with
work and business. It is well enough for children
to be sitting in the market-place, crossing questions;
(Matth. xi. 16, 17.) but it is no way fit that men,
who are able to work in the yard, should stand all
the day idle there, Matth. xx. 3.
IV. That the scattered Israelites should be
brought together again from all parts whither they
were dispersed; (x». 7.) “/ will save my people
from the east country, and from the west; I will
save them from being lost, or losing themselves, in
Babylon, or in Egypt, or in any other country whi¬
ther they were driven; they shall neither be de¬
tained by the nations among whom they sojourn, nor
shall they incorporate with- them; but I will save
them , will separate them, and will bring them to
their own land again; by the prosperity of their
land I will invite them back, and at the same time
incline them to return; and they shall dwell in the
midst of Jerusalem, shall choose to dwell there, be¬
cause it is the holy city, -though upon many other
accounts, it was more eligible to dwell in the coun¬
try; and therefore we find (Neh. xi. 2.) that the
people blessed all the men who willingly offered
themselves to dwell at Jerusalem.
V. That God would renew his covenant with
them, would be faithful to them, and make them so
to him; They shall be my people, and I will be their
God. That is the foundation and crown of all these
promises, and is inclusive of all happiness. They
shall obey God’s laws, and God will secure and ad¬
vance all their interests. This contract shall be
made, shall be new-made, in truth, and in right¬
eousness. Some think that the former speaks God’s
jart of the covenant: he will be their God in truth,
re will make good all his promises of favour to
them; the latter, it is thought, speaks man’s part of
the covenant; they shall be his people in righteous¬
ness, they shall be a righteous people, and shall
abound in the fruits of righteousness, and shall not,
as they have done, deal treacherously and unjustly
with their God. See Hos. ii. 19, 20. God will never
leave nor forsake them in a way of mercy, as he has
iromised them ; and they shall never leave or forsake
lim in a way of duty, as they have promised him.
These promises were fulfilled in the flourishing state
of tl>e Jewish church, for some ages, betwixt the
captivity and Christ’s time; they were to have a
further and a fuller accomplishment in the gospel-
church, that heavenly Jerusalem, which is from
above, is free, and is the mother of us all; but the full¬
est accomplishment of all will be in the future state.
All these precious promises are here ratified, and
the doubts of God’s people silenced, with that ques¬
tion, (xi. 6.) "If it oe marvellous in the eyes of this
people, should it be man’e/lous in mine eyes? If it
seem unlikely to you that ever Jerusalem should be
thus repaired, should be thus replenished, is it there¬
fore impossible witli God?” The remnant of this peo¬
ple, (and God’s people in this world are but a rem¬
nant,) being few and feeble, thought all this was too
good news to be true, especially in these days, these
difficult days, these cloudy and dark days. Consider¬
ing how bad the times are, it is highly improbable, it
is morally impossible, they should overcome to be so
good as the prophet speaks. How can these things
be? How can dry bones live? But should it there¬
fore appear so in the eyes of God? Note, We do
both God and ourselves a deal of wrong, if we think
that, when we are nonplussed, he is so, and that he
cannot get over the difficulties which to us seem in¬
superable. With men this is impossible, but with
God all things are possible; so far are God’s
thoughts and ways above ours.
9. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Let your
hands be strong, ye that hear in these days
these words by the mouth of the prophets,
which were in the day that the foundation of
the house of the Lord of hosts was laid, that
the temple might be built. 10. For before
these days there was no hire for man, nor any
hire for beast; neither was there any peace to
him that went out or came in, because of the
affliction: for I set all men every one against
his neighbour. 11. But now I will not be
unto the residue of tnis people as in the
former days, saith the Lord of hosts. 12.
For the seed shall be prosperous; the vine
shall give her fruit, and the ground shall give
her increase, and the heavens shall give
their dew; and I will cause the remnant of
this people to possess all these things. 13.
And it shall come to pass, that as ye were a
curse among the heathen, O house of Judah,
and house of Israel ; so will I save you, and
ye shall be a blessing: fear not, but let your
hands be strong. 14. For thus saith the
Lord of hosts, As I thought to punish you,
when your fathers provoked me to wrath,
saith the Lord of hosts, and I repented not;
1 5. So again have I thought in these days
to do well unto Jerusalem, and to the house
of Judah: fear ye not. 16. These are the
things that ye shall do, Speak ye every man
the truth to his neighbour; execute the
judgment of truth and peace in your gates:
1 7. And let none of you imagine evil in your
hearts against his neighbour; and love no
false oath: for all these are things that _
hate, saith the Lord.
God, by the prophet, here gives further assurances
of the mercy he had in store for Judah and Jerusa¬
lem. Here is line upon line for their comfort, as
before there was for their conviction. These verses
contain strong encouragements, ivitli reference to
the difficulties they now laboured under. And we
may observe,
I. Who they were, to whom these encourage
1128
ZECHARIAH, VIII.
ments did belong — to those who, in obedience to the
call of God by his prophets, applied themselves in
good earnest to the building of the temple; ( v . 9.)
“Let your hands be strong, that are busy at work
for God; you that hear in these days these words by
the mouth of the prophets, and are not disobedient
to them as your fathers were, in the former days, to
the words of those prophets that were sent to them ;
ou may take the comfort of the promises, and shall
ave the benefit of them, who have obeyed the pre¬
cepts given you in the day that the foundation of
the house of the Lord was laid, when you were toid
that, having begun with it, you must go on; that
the tem/i/e might be built; God told you that you
must go on with it, and you have laboured hard at it
for some time, in obedience to the heavenly vision:
now you are they whose hands must be strengthen¬
ed, and whose hearts must be comforted, with these
precious promises; to you is the word of this consola¬
tion sent.” Note, Those, and those only, that are
employed for God, may expect to be encouraged by
him; those who lay their hands to the plough of
duty, shall have them strengthened with the pro¬
mises of mercy; and those who avoid their fathers’
faults, not only cut off the entail of the curse, but
have it turned into a blessing.
II. \V hat the. discouragements were, which they
had hitherto laboured under, v. 10. These are
mentioned as a foil to the blessings God was now
about to bestow upon them, to make them appear
the more strange — to the glory of God, and the
more sweet — to their comfort. The truth was, the
times had long been very bad, and the calamities
and difficulties of them were many and great. 1.
Trade was dead; there was nothing to be done, and
therefore nothing to be got. Before these days of
reformation began, there was no hire for man, nor
anu hire fur beasts. The fruits of the earth (though
it had long lain fallow, and therefore, one would
think, should be more fertile) were thin and poor;
so that the husbandman had no occasion to hire
harvest-people to reap his corn, or teams to carry it
home, for he could be scarcely said to have any.
Merchants had no goods to import or export, so
that they needed not to hire either men or beasts;
hence the poor people, who lived by their labour,
had no way of getting bread for themselves and their
families. 2. Travelling was dangerous, so that all
commerce both by sea and land was cut off ; nay,
none durst stir abroad so much as to visit their
friends, for there was no peace to him that went out,
or came in, because of the affliction. The Samari¬
tans, and Ammonites, and their other evil neigh¬
bours, made inroads upon them in small parties,
and seized all they could lay their hands on; the
roads were infested with highwaymen, and both city
and country with house-breakers, so that neither
men’s persons nor their goods were safe at home or
abroad. 3. There was no such thing us friendshi/i
or good neighbourshi] among them ; I set all men
every one against his neighbour. In this there was
a great deal of sin, for these wars and fightings came
from men’s lusts, anu this God was not the Author
of ; but there was in it a great deal of misery also,
and so God was in it a just Avenger of their disobe¬
dience to him; because they were of an evil sfiirit
toward him, a spirit of contradiction to his laws,
God sent among them an evil spirit, to make them
vexatious one to another; those that throw off the
love of God, forfeit the comfort of brotherly love.
III. What encouragement they shall now have
to proceed in the good work they are about, and to
hope that it shall vet be well with them; “ Thus
and thus you have been harassed and afflicted, but
now God will change his way towards you, v. 1 1.
Now that you return to your duty, God will comfort
you according to the time that he has afflicted you;
the ebbing tide shall flow again.” 1. God will not
proceed in his controversy with them; I will not be
to them as in my former days. Note, It is with us
well or ill, according as God is to us; for every
creature is that to us, which he makes it to be.
And if w e walk not contrary to God as in the former
days, he will not walk contrary to us as in the for
mer days; for it is only with the froward that he
will wrestle. 2. They shall have great plenty and
abundance of all good things; (x\ 12.) The seed sown
shall be firosperous, and yield a great increase; the
vine shall give her fruit, which makes glad the
heart, and the ground its products, which strength¬
en the heart; they shall have all they can desire,
not only for necessity, but for ornament and delight.
The heavens shall give their dew, without which
the earth would not yield her increase; which is a
constant intimation to us of the beneficence of the
God of heaven to men on earth, and of their de¬
pendence upon him. It is said of a sweeping rain,
that it leaves no food; (Prov. xxviii. 3.) but here
the gentle dew waters the earth, that it may give
seed to the sower and bread to the eater. And thus
God will cause the remnant of this people to possess
all these things. They are but a remnant, a residue,
very few, one would think scarcely worth looking
after; but now that they are at work for God, he
will take care that they shall want nothing which is
fit for them. This confirms what the prophet's
colleague had said, a little before, (Hag. ii. 16, 19. '
From this day wilt I bless you. Note, God’s peo
pie that serve him faithfully, have great possessions;
“All is yours, for you are Christ’s.” 3. They shall
recover their credit among their neighbours; ( v . 13.)
Ye were a curse among the heathen. Every one
censured and condemned them, spake ill of them,
and wished ill to them, upon the account of the
great disgrace that they were under; some think
that they were made a form of execration, so that
if a man would load his enemy with the heaviest
curse, he would say, God make thee like a Jew!
“ But now, I will save you, and you shall be a bless¬
ing. Your restoration shall be as much taken no¬
tice of to your honour, as ever your desolation and
dispersion were to your reproach; you shall be ap¬
plauded and admired as- much as ever you were
vilified and run down; shall be courted and caress¬
ed as much as ever you were slighted and abandon¬
ed. ” Most men smile or frown upon their neigh¬
bours, according as Providence smiles or frowns
upon them; but those whom God plainly blesses as
his own, shows favour to, and puts honour upon, we
ought also to respect and be kind to. The blessed
of the Lord are the blessing of the land, and should
be so accounted by us. This is here promised to the
house both of Israel and Judah; for many of the ten
tribes returned out of captivity with the two tribes,
and shared with them in those blessings; and, it is
probable, beside what came at first, many, very
many, flocked to them afterward, when they saw
their affairs take this turn. 4. God himself will
determine to do them good, v. 14, 15. All their
comforts take rise from the thoughts of the love that
God had toward them, Jer. xxix. 11. Compare
these promises with the former threatenings. (1.)
When they provoked him to anger with their sins,
he said that he would punish them, and so he did;
it was his declared purpose to bring destroying
judgments upon them, and because they repented
not of their rebellions against him, he repented not
of his threatenihgs against them, but let the sentence
of the law take its course. Note, God’s punishing
of sinners is never a sudden and hasty resolve, but
is always the product of thought, and there is a
counsel in that part of the will of God. If the sinner
turn ndt, God will not turn. (2.) Now that they
pleased him with their services, he said that he
1129
ZECHARIAH, VIII.
do them good; and will he not be as true to
•«is promises as he was to his threatenings? No
loubt, he will; “So again have I thought to do well
o Jerusalem in those days, when you begin to heark¬
en to the voice of God speaking to you by his pro¬
phets; and these thoughts also shall be performed.”
IV. The use they are to make of these encou¬
ragements.
1. Let them take the comfort which these pro¬
mises give to them; Tear ye not, v. 15. Let your
hands be strong; (v. 9.) and both together, (v. 13.)
Lear not, but let your hands be strong; (1.) The
difficulties they met with in their work must not
drive them from it, or make them go on heavily in
t, for the issue would be good and the reward great.
Let this therefore animate them to proceed with
vigour and cheerfulness. (2.) The dangers they
were exposed to from their enemies must not terri¬
fy them; those that have God for them, engaged to
do them good, need not fear what man can do
against them.
2. Let them do the duty which those promises
call for from them, v. 16, 17. The very same du¬
ties which the former prophets pressed upon their
fathers, from the consideration of the wrath threat¬
ened, (eh. vii. 9, 10.) this prophet presses upon
them, from the consideration of the mercy promis¬
ed; “ Leave it to God to perform for you what he
has promised, in his own way and time, but upon
condition that you make conscience of your duty.
These are the things then that ye shall do; this is
your part of the covenant; the articles which you
are to perform, fulfil, and keep, that you may not
put a bar in your own door, and stop the current of
God’s favours.” (1.) “You must never tell a lie,
but always speak as you think, and as the matter is,
to the best of your knowledge. Speak ye every man
the truth to his neighbour, both in bargains and in
common converse; dread every word that looks like
a lie.” This precept the apostle quotes, (Eph. iv.
25.) and backs it with this reason, IVe are members
one of another. (2.) Those that are intrusted with
•.he administration of public justice, must see to it,
not only that none be wronged by it, but that those
whoare wronged, be righted by it; Execute the judg¬
ment of truth and [trace in your gates. Let the
judges that sit in the gates, in all their judicial pro¬
ceedings have regard both to truth and to [trace; let
them take care to do justice, to accommodate differ¬
ences, and to prevent vexatious suits. It must be a
judgment of truth in order to fteace, and making
those friends that were at variance; and a judgment
of fteace, as far as is consistent with truth, and no
further. (3.) No man must bear malice against
his neighbour, upon any account; this is the same
with what we had, ch. vii. 10. We must not only
keep our hands from doing evil, but we must watch
over our hearts, that they imagine not any evil
igainst our neighbour, Prov. iii. 29. Injury and
mischief must be crushed in the thought, in the em¬
bryo. (4.) Great reverence must be had for an
oath, and conscience made of it; “Never take a
false oath, nay, love no false oath; hate it, dread it,
keep at a distance from it. Love not to impose
oaths upon others, lest they swear falsely; love not
that any should take a false oath for vour benefit,
and forswear themselves, to do you a kindness.” A
very good reason is annexed against all these cor-
-upt and wicked practices; “For all these are things
hat I hate, and therefore you must hate them, if
fou expect to have God your Friend.” These
.liings here forbidden are all of them found among
•he seven things which the Lord hates, Prov. vi.
16. — 19. Note, We must forbear sin, not only be¬
cause God is angry at it, and therefore it is danger¬
ous to us, but because he hates it, and therefore it
11 becomes us, and is a very ungrateful thing.
Vol. iv.— 7 D
18. And the word of the Lord of hosts
came unto me, saying, 19. Thus saith the
Lord of hosts, The fast of the fourth month ,
and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the
seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be to
the house of Judah joy and gladness, and
cheerful feasts: therefore love the truth and
peace. 20. Thus saith the Lord of hosts,
It shall yet come to pass, that there shall
come people and the inhabitants of many
cities: 21. And the inhabitants of one city
shall go to another, saying, Let us go
speedily to pray before the Lord, and to
seek the Lord of hosts; 1 will go also. 22.
Yea, many people and strong nations shall
come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusa¬
lem, and to pray before the Lord. 23.
Thus saith the Lord of hosts, In those days
it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take
hold, out of all languages of the nations,
even shall take hold of the skirt of him that
is a Jew, paying, We will go with you; for
we have heard that God is with you.
These verses contain two precious promises, for
the further encouragement of those pious Jews that
were hearty in building the temple.
I. That a happy period should be put to their
fasts, and there should be no more occasion for
them, but they shall be converted into thanksgiving
days, v. 19. This is a direct answer to the inquiry
concerning their fasts, ch. vii. 3. Those of them
that fasted in hypocrisy, had their doom in the fore¬
going chapter; but those that in sincerity humbled
themselves before God, and sought his face, have
here a comfortable assurance given them rf a large
share in the happy times approaching. The four
yearly feasts which they had religiously observed,
should be to the house of Judah joy and gladncs*
and solemn feasts, and those cheerful ones. Note,
Joyous times will come to the church after troublous
times; if weeping endure for more than a night, and
joy come not next morning, yet the morning will
come, that will introduce it at length. And when
God comes towards us in ways of mercy, we must
meet him with joy and thankfulness; when God
turns judgments into mercies, we must turn fasts into
festivals, and thus walk after the Lord. And those
who sow in tears with Zion, shall reap in joy with
her; those who submit to the restraints of her
solemn fasts while they continue, shall share in the
triumphs of her cheerful feasts when they come,
Isa. lxvi. 10. The inference from this promise, is,
“ Therefore love the truth and peace; be faithful and
honest in all your dealings, and let it be a pleasure
to you to be so, though thereby you cut yourselves
short of those gains which you see others get disho¬
nestly; and, as much as in you lies, live peaceably
with all men, and be in your element when you :.re
in charity. Let the truths of God rale in your heads,
and let the peace of God rule in your hearts.”
II. That a great accession shall be made to me
church by the conversion of many foreigners, v.
20. — 23. This was fulfilled but in part, when, in
the latter times of the Jewish church, there were
abundance of proselytes, from all the countries
about, and some that lay very remote, who came
yearly to worship at Jerusalem ; which added very
much both to the grandeur and wealth of that city
and contributed greatlv to the making of it so cop.
siderable as it came to be before ourSaviourL time.
1130
ZECHARIAH, IX.
though now it was but just peeping out of its ruins.
But it would be accomplished much more fully in
the conversion of the Gentiles to the faith of Christ,
and the incorporating of them with the believing
Jews in one great body, under Christ the Head; a
mystery which is made manifest by the scri/itures
of the firofihets, (Rom. xvi. 26.) and by this among
the rest, which makes it strange that, when it was
accomplished, it was so great a surprise and stumb¬
ling-block to the Jews. Observe,
1. Who they are, that shall be added to the
church; / leofle , and the inhabitants of many cities;
(y, 20.) not only a few ignorant country people that
may be easily imposed upon, or some idle people
that have nothing else to do; but intelligent, inquisi¬
tive citizens, men of business and acquaintance with
the world, shall embrace the gospel of Christ; yea ,
many feofle and strong nations, (v. 22.) some of
alt languages, v. 23. By this it appears that they
are brought into the church, not by human persua¬
sion, for they are of different languages, not by ex¬
tern al force, fur they are strong nations, able to
have kept their ground if they had been so attack¬
ed, but purely by the effectual working of divine
truth and grace. Note, God has his remnant in all
parts; and in the general assembly of the church of
the first-born some will be found out of all nations
and kindreds. Rev. vii. 9. • ,
2. H nv their accession to the church is describ¬
ed; They shall come to fray before the Lord, and
to seek the Lord of hosts; (u. 21.) and, to show that
this is the main matter in which their conversion
consists, it is repeated, (r>. 22.) They shall come to
seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem, and to fray be¬
fore the Lord. No mention is made of their offer¬
ing s icrifices, not only because these were not ex¬
pected from the froselytes of the gate, but because,
when the Gentiles should be brought in, sacrifice
and offering should be quite abolished. See who
are to be accounted converts to God, and members
of the church: and all that are converts to God are
members of the church. (1.) They are such as
seek the Lord of hosts, such as inquire for God
their Maker, covet and court his favour, and
are truly desirous to know his mind and will, and
sincere, y devoted to his honour and glory; this is the
generation of them that seek him. (2.) They are
such as fray before the Lord; such as make con¬
science, and make a business, of the duty of prayer;
such as dare not, would not, for all the world, live
without it; such as by prayer pay their homage to
G xl, own their dependence, upon him, maintain
their communion with him, and fetch in mercy and
grace from him. (3.) They are such as herein
ii tve an eve to the divine revelation and institution;
which is signified by their doing this in Jerusalem,
the place which God had chosen, where his word
was, where his temple was — that type of Christ and
his mediation, which all faithful worshippers will
have a believing regard to.
3. How unanimous they shall be in their acces¬
sion to the church, and how zealous in exciting one
another to it; (y. 21.) The inhabitants of one city
shall go to another, as formerly when they went up
from all parts of the country to worship at the year¬
ly feasts; and they shall say. Let us go sfeedily to
fray before the Lord, I will go also. This inti¬
mates, (1.) That those who are brought into an ac¬
quaintance with Christ themselves, should do all
they can to bring others acquainted with him; thus
Andrew invited Peter to Christ, and Philip invited
Nathanael. True grace hates monopolies. (2.)
That those who are rightly sensible of their need of
Christ, and of the favour of God through him, will
stir up themselves and others without delay to hasten
to him; Let us go sfeedily to fray; It is for our
lives, and the lives of our souls, that we are to peti¬
tion, and therefore it concerns us to lose no time; in
a matter of such moment, delays are dangerous.
(3.) That our communion with God is very much
assisted and furthered by the communion of saints.
It is pleasant to go to the house of God in com f any;
(Ps. lv. 14. with the multitude, Ps. xlii. 4.) and it is
of good use to those that do so, to excite one another
to go sfeedily, and lose no time; we should be glad
when it is said to us, Let us go, Ps. exxii. 1. As
iron sharpens iron, so may good men sharpen the
countenances and spirits of another in that which is
good. (4. ) That those who stir up ethers to that
which is good, must take heed that they do not turn
off, or tire, or draw back themselves; he that says,
Let us go, says, I will go also. What good we put
others upon doing, we must see to it that we do our¬
selves, else we shall be judged out of cur own
mouths. Not, “Do you go, and I will stay at
home;” but, “ Do you go, and I will go with you.”
A sirigu/ar fattern (says Mr. Pemble) of zealous
charity, that neither leaves others behind, tior turns
others before it.
4. Upon what inducement they shall join them¬
selves to the church; not for the church’s sake, but
for his sake who dwells in it; (re 23.) Ten men of
different nations and languages shall take hold of the
skirt of him that is a Jew, begging of him not to out¬
go them, but to take them along with him; this
speaksthegreat honour they havefora Jew, asoneof
the chosen people of God, and therefore well worthy
their acquaintance; they cannot all come to take him
by the hand, or embrace him in their arms, but
are ambitious to take hold of the skirt of bis robe, to
touch the hem of bis garment, saying, We will go
with you, for we have heard that God is with you.
The gospel was preached to the Jews first, (for of
that nation the apostles were,) and by them it was
carried to the Gentiles. St. Paul was a Jew whose
skirt many took hold of, when they welcomed him
as an angel of God, and begged him to take them
along with him to Christ; thus the Greeks took
hold of Philip’s skirt, saying, Sir, we would see
Jesus, John xii. 21. Note, It is the privilege of the
saints, that they have God with them, have him
among them — the knowledge and fear and worship
of him; they have his favour and gracious presence;
and this should invite us into communion with them;
it is good being with those who have God with
them, and those who join themselves to the I.ord,
must join themselves to his disci /lies; if we take God
for our God, we must take his people for our peo¬
ple, cast in our lot among them, and be willing to
take our lot with them.
CHAP. IX.
At this chapter begins another sermon, which is continued
to the end of ch. xi. It is called, The burtheyi of the
word of the Lord; for every word of God has weight in
it, to those who regard it, and will be a heavy weight
upon those who do not, a dead weight. Here is, I. V
prophecy against the Jews’ unrighteous neighbours-
the Syrians, Tyrians, Philistines, and others, (v. 1 . . 6 *
with an intimation of mercy to some of them, in their
conversion, (v. 7.) and a promise of mercy to God’s
people, in their protection v. 8. II. A prophecy of their
righteous King, the Messiah, and his coming, with a de¬
scription of him, (v. 9.) and of his kingdom, the nature
and extent of it, v. 10. III. An account of the obliga¬
tion the Jews lay under to Christ for their deliverance
out of their captivity in Babylon, v. 11, 12. IV. A pro¬
phecy of the victories and successes God would grant to
the Jews over their enemies, as typical of onr great de¬
liverance by Christ, v. 13.. 15. V. A promise of great
plenty, and ioy, and honour, which God had in reserve
for his people, (v. 16, 17.) which was written for their
encouragement.
1. npHE burden of the word of the Lord
JL in the land ofHadraoh, and DamaS'
cus shall be the rest thereof: when the eyes
1131
ZECHAUIAH, IX.
of man, as of all the tribes of Israel, shall
be toward the Lord. 2. And Hamath also
shall border thereby; Tyrus, and Zidon,
though it be very wise. 3. And Tyrus did
build herself a strong hold, and heaped up
silver as the dust, and fine gold as the mire
of the streets. 4. Behold, the Lord will
cast her out, and he will smite her power in
the sea; and she shall be devoured with
fire. 5. Ashkelon shall see it, and fear;
Gaza also shall see it, and be very sorrow¬
ful; and Ekron, for her expectation, shall
be ashamed; and the king shall perish from
Gaza, and Ashkelon shall not be inhabited.
G. And a bastard shall dwell in Ashdod;
anti I will cutoff the pride of the Philistines.
7. And I will take away his blood out of
his mouth, and his abominations from be¬
tween his teeth: but he that remaineth,
even he, shall be for our God; and he shall
be as a governor in Judah, and Ekron as a
Jebusite. 8. And I will encamp about my
house because of the army, because of him
that passeth by, and because of him that re-
turneth ; and no oppressor shall pass through
them any more: for now have I seen with
mine eyes.
After the precious promises we hud in the forego¬
ing chapter, of favour to God’s people, their perse¬
cutors, who hated them, come to be reckoned with;
those particularly that bordered close upon them.
I. The Syrians had been bad neighbours to Israel,
and God has a controversy with them. The word
of the Lord shall be a burthen in the land of Ha-
drach, that is, of Syria; but it does not appear why
it was so called. That that kingdom is meant, is
pi un, because Damascus, the metropolis of that
kingdom, is said to be the rest of this burthen; that
is, the judgments here threatened shall light and lie
upon that city. Those are miserable, upon whom
the burthen of the word of the Lord rests, upon
whom the wrath of God abides, (John iii. 36.) for it
is a weight that they can neither shake off, nor bear
up under; there are those whom God causes his
fury to rest upon; whom the wrath of God makes
its mark, it will be sure to hit; whom it makes its
rest, it will be sure to sink. And the reason of this
burthen’s resting on Damascus, is, because the eyes
of man, as of all the tribes of Israel, (or rather, even
of all the tribes of Israel ,) are toward the Lord; be¬
cause the people of God by faith and prayer look
up to him for succour and relief, and depend upon
him to take their part against their enemies. Note,
It is a sign that God is about to appear remarkably
for his people, when he raises their believing ex¬
pectations from him and dependence upon him; and
when by his grace he turns them from idols to him¬
self; (Isa. xvii. 7, 8.) At that day shall a matt look
to his Maker. It may be read thus, for the Lord
has an eye ufion man, and u/ion all the tribes of Is¬
rael; he is King of nations as. well as King of saints;
he governs the world as well as the church, and
therefore will punish the sins of other people as well
as those of his own people. God is Judge of all,
and therefore all must give account of themselves to
him. When St. Paul was converted at Damascus,
and preached there, and disputed with the Jews,
then the word of the Lord might be said to rest
there, and then the eyes of men, of other men beside
the tribes of Israel, began to be toward the Lord;
see Acts ix. 22. Hamath, a country which lay
north of Damascus, and which we often read ot,
shall border thereby; [y. 2.) it joins to Syria, and
shall share in the burthen of the word of the Lord,
that rests upon Damascus. The Jews have a pro¬
verb, IVo to the wicked tnan, and wo to his neigh¬
bour, who is in danger of partaking in his sins and
in his plagues; wo to the land of Hadrach, and wo
to Hamath that borders thereby.
II. Tyre and Zidon come next to be called to an
account here, as in other prophecies, v. 2. — 4. Ob¬
serve here,
1. Tyrus flourishing, thinking herself very safe,
and ready to set God’s judgments, not only at a dis¬
tance, but at defiance; for, (1.) She is very wise;
it is spoken ironically; she thinks herself very wise,
and able to outwit even the wisdom of God; it is
granted that her king is a great politician, and that
iier statesmen are so, Ezek. xxviii. 3. But with all
their wit and policy they shall not be able to evade
the judgments of God, when they come with com¬
mission; there is no wisdom or counsel against the
Lord; nay, it is his honour to take the wise in their
own craftiness. (2.) She is very strong, and well
fortified both by nature and art; Tyrus did buiUl
herself a strong hold, which, she thought, could
never be brought down, or got over. (3.) She is
very rich, and money is a defence, it is the sinews
of war, Eccl. vii. 12. By her vast trade she has
hea/ied up silver as the dust, and fine gold as the
mire of the streets: she has an abundance of it;
heaps of silver as common as heaps of sand. Job
xxvii. 16. Solomon made silver to be in Jerusalem
as th e. stones of the streets; but Tyre went further,
and made fine gold to be as the mire of the streets.
It were well if we could all learn so to look upon it,
in comparison with the merchandise of wisdom and
grace, and the gains thereof.
2. Tyrus falling, after all; her wisdom, and
wealth, and strength, shall not be able to secure
her; (x>. 4.) The Lord will cast her out of that
strong hold wherein she has fortified herself, will
make her poor; (so some read it;) there have been
instances of those that have fallen from the height
of plenty to the depth of poverty, and great riches
have come to nothing. God will smite her power
in the sea; her being surrounded by the water shall
not secure her, but she shall be devoured with fire,
and burnt down to the ground. Tyrus, being seated
in the midst of the water, was, one would have
thought, in danger of being some time or other over¬
flowed or washed away by that; yet God chooses to
destroy it by the contrary element; sometimes he
brings ruin upon his enemies by those means which
they least expect. Water enough was nigh at hand
to have quenched the flames of Tyre, and yet by
them she shall be devoured; for who can put out the
fire which the breath of the Almighty blows up?
III. God next contends with the Philistines, with
their great cities and great lords, that bordered
southward upon Israel.
1. They shall be alarmed and affrighted by the
word of the Lord lighting and resting upon Damas¬
cus; (y. 5. ) the disgraces of Israel had many a time
been published in the streets of Ashkelon, and they
had triumphed in them; but now Ashkelon shall see
the ruin of her friends and allies, and shall fear;
Gaza also shall see it, and be very sorrowful, and
Ekron; concluding that their own turns come next,
now that the cup of trembling goes round; what will
become of their house when their neighbour’s is on
fire? They had looked upon Tyre and Zidon as a
barrier to their country; but, when those strong
cities were ruined, their expectations from them
were ashamed; as our expectations from all crea¬
tures will be in the issue.
1132
ZEOHARIAH IX.
2. They shall themselves be ruined and wasted.
(1.) The government shall be dissolved; The king
shall perish from Gaza, not only the present king
shall be cut off, but there shall be no succession, no
successor. (2.) The cities shall be dispeopled; Ash-
kelon shall not be inhabited, the rightful owners
shall be expelled, either slain, or carried into cap¬
tivity. (3.) Foreigners shall take possession of their
land, and become masters of all its wealth; ( v . 6.)
A bastard shall dwell in Ashdod, a spurious brood
of strangers shall enter upon the inheritances of the
natives, which they have no more right to than a
bastard has to the estates of the legitimate'children.
And thus God will cut off the firide of the Philis¬
tines, all the strength and wealth which they prided
themselves in, and which were the ground of their
confidence in themselves, and their contempt of
the Israel of God. This prophecy of the destruc¬
tion of the Philistines, and of Damascus, and Tyre,
was accomplished, not long after this, by Alex¬
ander the Great, who ravaged all these countries
witli his victorious army, took the cities, and
planted colonies in them; which Quintus Curtius
gives a particular account of in the history of his
conquests. And some think he is meant by the bas¬
tard that shall dwell in Ashdod, for his mother
Olympia owned him begotten in adultery, but pre¬
tended it was by Jupiter. The Jews afterward got
ground of the Philistines, Syrians, and their other
neighbours, took some of their cities from them and
possessed their countries, as appears by the histories
of Josephus and the Maccabees, and this was fore¬
told before, Zeph. ii. 4, &c. Obad. v. 20.
3. Some among them shall be converted and
brought home to God, by his gospel and grace; so
some underst md tc 7. as a promise, (1.) That God
would t ike away the sins of these nations; their
blood and their abominations, their cruelties and
their idolatries. God will part between them and
these sins which they have rolled under their tongue
as a sweet morsel, and are as loath to part with as
men are to part with the meat out of their mouths;
and which they held fast between their teeth. No¬
thing is too hard for the grace of God to do. (2.)
That he would accept of a remnant of them for his
own; He that remains shall be for our God. God
would preserve a remnant even of these nations,
that should be the monuments of his mercy and
grace, and be set apart for him; and the disadvan¬
tages of their birth shall be no bar to their accept¬
ance with God, but a Philistine shall be as accepta¬
ble to God, upon gospel-terms, as one of Judah, nay,
as a governor, or chief one, in Judah, and a man of
Ekron shall be as a Jebusite, ora man of Jerusalem,
as a proselyted Jebusite, as Araunah the Jebusite,
2 Sam. xxiv. 16. In Christ Jesus there is no distinc¬
tion of nations, but all are one in him, all alike wel¬
come to him.
IV. In all this, God intends mercy for Israel, and
it is in kindness to them that God will deal thus with
the neighbouring nations, to avenge their quarrel
for what is passed, and to secure them for the fu¬
ture. Thus some understand the seventh verse, as
intimating, 1. That thus God would deliver his peo¬
ple from their bloody adversaries who hated them,
and to whom they were an abomination, then when
they were just ready to devour them, and make a
prey of them; I will take away his blood, the blood
of Israel, out of the mouth of the Philistines, and
from between their teeth, (Amos iii. 12.) when; in
their hatred of them and enmity to them, they were
greedily devouring them. 2. That he would thus
give them victory and dominion over them; and he
that remains, the remnant of Israel, shall be for
our God, shall be taken into his favour, shall own
him, and be owned by him, and he shall be as a go¬
vernor in Judah ; though the Jews have been long
in servitude, they shall recover their ancient dig¬
nity, and be victorious, as David, and other gover¬
nors in Judah formerly were; and Ekron, that is,
the Philistines, shall be as the Jebusites, and the
rest of the devoted nations were brought into subjec¬
tion under them.
However, this is plainly the sense of v. 8. that
God will take his people under his special protec¬
tion, and therefore will weaken their neighbours,
that it may not be in their power to do them a mis¬
chief; I will encam/i about my house because of the
army. Note, God’s house lies in the midst of an
enemy’s country, and his church is a lily among
thorns; and therefore God’s power and goodness are
to be observed in the special preservation of it. The
caw/i of the saints, being a little flock in comparison
with the numerous armies of the powers of dark¬
ness that are set against it round about, would cer¬
tainly be swallowed up, if the angels of God did not
encamp about it, as they did about Elisha, to deliver
it. Rev. xx. 9. Ps. xxxiv. 7. When the times are
unusually perilous, when armies are marching and
counter-marching, and all bearing ill will to Zion,
then Providence will as it were double its guards
upon the church of God, because of him that passes
by, and because of him that returns, that, whether
he return a conqueror or conquered, he may do it
no harm. And as none that pass by shall hurt them,
so no oppressor shall pass through them any more;
they shall have no enemy within themselves to rule
them with rigour, and to make their lives bitter to
them with sore bondage, as of old in Egypt. This
was fulfilled, when, for some time after the strug¬
gles of the Maccabees, Judea was a free and flou¬
rishing state; or perhaps when Alexander the Great,
struck with an awe of Jaddus the high priest, fa¬
voured the Jews, and took them under his protec¬
tion, at the same time when he wasted the neigh¬
bouring countries. And the reason given for all this
is, “/’or now have I seen with mine eyes, now have
I carefully distinguished between my people and
other people, with whom before they seemed to have
had their lot in common, and have made it to appear
that I know them that are mine.” This agrees with
Ps. xxxiv. 15. The eyes of the Lord are upon the
righteous; now his eyes, which run to and fro
through the earth, shall fix upon them, that he may
show himself tender of them, and strong on their
behalf, 2 Chron. xvi. 9.
9. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion:
shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold,
thy King cometh unto thee; lie is just, and
having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an
ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass. 1 0.
And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim,
and the horse from Jerusalem, and the bat¬
tle-bow shall be cut off : and he shall speak
peace unto the heathen; and his dominion
shall be from sea even to sea, and from the
river even to the ends of the earth. 1 1 . As
for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant I
have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit
wherein is no water.
That here begins a prophecy of the Messiah and
his kingdom, is plain from the literal accomplish¬
ment of the ninth verse in, and its express applica¬
tion to, Christ’s riding in triumph into Jerusalem,
Matth. xxi. 5. John xii. 15.
1. Here is notice given of the approach of the
Messiah promised, as matter of great joy to the
Old Testament church; Behold, thy king cometh
ZECHARIAH, IX.
1133
unto thee. Christ is a King; invested with regal
powers and prerogatives; a sovereign Prince, an
absolute Monarch; having all power both in heaven
and on earth. He is Zion’s King; God has set him
u/ion his holy hill of Zion, Ps. li. 6. In Zion his
glory as a King shines; thence his law went forth,
even the word of the Lord; in the gospel-cl'iurch,
his spiritual kingdom is administered; it is by him
that the ordinances of the church are instituted, and
its officers commissioned; and it is taken under his
protection, he fights the church’s battles, and se¬
cures its interests, as its King. “ This King has
been long in coming, but now behold, he cometh; he
is at the door, there are but a few ages more to run
out, and he that shall come, will come; he cometh
unto thee; the Word will shortly be made flesh, and
dwell within thy borders; he will come to his own.
And therefore rejoice, rejoice greatly, and shout for
joy, look upon it as good news, and be assured it is
true; please thyself to think that he is coming, that
he is on his way toward thee; and be ready to go
forth to meet him with acclamations of joy; as one
not able to conceal it, it is so great, nor ashamed to
own it, it is so just; cry Hosanna to him.” Christ’s
approaches ought to be the church’s applauses.
2. Here is such a description of him as renders
him very amiable in the eyes of all his loving sub¬
jects, and his coming to them very acceptable. (1.)
He is a righteous Ruler; all his acts of government
will be exactly according to the rules of equity, for
he is just. (2.) He is a powerful Protector to all
those that bear faith and true allegiance to him, for
he has salvation, he has it in his power, he has it to
bestow upon all His subjects; he is the God of salva¬
tion; treasures of salvation are in him. He is serva-
tus; saved himself; (so some read it;) rising out of
tne grave by his own power, and so qualifying him¬
self to be our Saviour. (3.) He is a meek, humble,
tender Father to all his subjects as his children; he
is lowly; he is poor and afflicted; (so the word sig¬
nifies;) so it denotes the meanness of his condition;
having emptied himself, he was despised and reject¬
ed of men. But the evangelist translates it so as to
speak the temper of his spirit; he is meek, not
taking state upon him, or resenting injuries, but
humbling himself from first to last; condescending
to the mean, compassionate to the miserable; this
was a bright and excellent character of him as a
Prophet; (Matth. xi. 29.) Learn of me, for 1 am
meek and lowly in heart, and no less so as a King.
It was a proof of this, that, when he made his pub¬
lic entry into his own city, (and it was the only pas¬
sage of his life that had any thing in it magnificent
in the eye of the world,) he chose to ride, not upon
a stately horse, or in a chariot, as great men used
to ride, but upon an ass, a beast of service indeed,
but a poor silly and contemptible one, low and slow,
and in those days ridden only by the meaner sort of
people; nor was it an ass fitted for use, but an ass’s
colt, a little, foolish, unmanageable thing, that would
be more likely to disgrace his rider than be any cre¬
dit to him, and that not his own neither; nor helped
off, as sometimes a sorry horse is, by good furniture,
for he had no saddle, no housings, no trappings, no
equipage, but his disciples’ clothes thrown upon the
colt; for he made himself of no reputation when he
visited us in great humility.
3. His kingdom is here set forth in the glory of
it; this King has, and will have, a kingdom, not of
this world, but a spiritual kingdom, a kingdom of
heaven. (1.) It shall not be set up and advanced
by external force, by an arm of flesh or carnal wea¬
pons of warfare; no, he will cut off the chariot from
Kphraim, and the horses from Jerusalem, (v. 10.)
for he shall have no occasion for them while he him¬
self rides upon an ass. He will, in kindness to his
people, cut off their horses and chariots, that they
may not cut themselves off from God bv putting
that confidence in them, which they should put in
the power of God only. He will himself iiuth rtake
their protection, will himself bea If 'all of fire about
Jerusalem, and give his angels charge concerning
it; (those chariots of fire and horses off re;) and
then the chariots and horses they had had in their
service, shall be discarded and cut off as altogether
needless. (2.) It shall be propagated and established
by the preaching of the gospel, the speaking of
peace to the heathen; for Christ came, and preached
peace to them that were 7 far off, and to them that
were nigh, and so established his kingdom by pro
claiming on earth peace, and good will toward men.
(3.) His kingdom, as far as it prevails in the minds
of men, and has the ascendant over them, will make
them peaceable, and slay all enmities; it will rut
off the battle-bow, and beat swords into plough¬
shares; it will not only command the peace, but will
create the fruit of the lips, peace. (4.) It shall ex¬
tend itself to all parts of the world, in defiance of
the opposition given to it. The chariot and horse
that came against Ephraim and Jerusalem, to op¬
pose the progress of Zion’s King, shall be cut rff ;
liis gospel shall be preached to the world, and be
received among the heathen, so that his dominion
shall be from sea to sea, and from the river even to
the ends of the earth, as was foretold by David, Ps.
lxxii. 8. The preachers of the gospel shall carry
it from one country, one island, to another, till s< me
of the remotest cnrnersof the world are enlightened
and reduced by it.
4. Here is an account of the great benefit procured
for mankind by the Messiah, which is redemption
from extreme misery, typified by the deliverance
of the Jews outof their captivity in Babylon; (v. 11.)
Hs for thee also, thee, O daughter of Jerusalem; or
thee, O Messiah the Prince, by the blood of thy
covenant, by force and virtue of the covenant made
with Abraham, sealed with the blood of circum¬
cision, and the covenant made with Israel at mount
Sinai, sealed with the blood of sacrifices, in pursu¬
ance and performance of that covenant, I. have now
of late sent forth thy prisoners, thy captives out of
Babylon, which was to them a most uncomfortable
place, as a pit in which was no water. It was
part of the covenant, that if in the land of their cap¬
tivity they sought the Lord, he would be found cf
them, Lev. xxvi. 42, 44, 45. Dcut. xxx. 4. It was
by the blood of that covenant, typifying the blood of
Christ, in whom all God’s covenants with man are
yea and amen, that they were released out of cap¬
tivity; and this was but a shadow of the great salva¬
tion wrought out by thy king, O daughter of Zion.
Note, A sinful state is a state of bondage; it is a
spiritual prison; it is a pit, ora dungeon, in which
there is no water, no comfort at all to be had; we
are all by nature prisoners in this pit; the scripture
has concluded us all under sin, and bound us over to
the justice of God. God is pleased to deal upon
new terms with these prisoners, to enter into an¬
other covenant with them; the blood of Christ is
the blood of that covenant, purchased it for us, and
all the benefits of it; by that blood of the covenant
effectual provision is made for the sending forth ot
these prisoners upon easy and honourable terms,
and proclamation made of liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to them that were
bound, like Cyrus’s proclamation to tne Jews in
Babylon, which all those whose spirits God stirs up,
will come, and take the benefit of.
12. Turn ye to the strong hold, ye prison¬
ers of hope : even to-day do I declare, that
I will render double unto thee; 13. When
I have bent Judah for me. filled the bov
1 134
ZECHARIAH, IX.
with Ephraim, and raised up thy sons, O
Zion, against tiiy sons, O Greece, and made
thee as the sword of a mighty man. 14.
And the Loro shall be seen over them, and
his arrow shall go forth as the lightning : and
the. Lord God shall blow the trumpet, and
shall go with whirlwinds of the south. 15.
The Lord of hosts shall defend them; and
they shall devour, and subdue with sling-
stones ; and they shall drink, and make a
noise as through wine ; and they shall be
filled like bowls, and as the corners of the
altar. 16. And the Lord their God shall
save them in that day as the flock of his
people: for they shall be as the stones of a
crown, lifted up as an ensign upon his land.
1 7. For how great is his goodness, and how
great is his beauty ! Corn shall make the
young men cheerful, and new wine the
maids.
The prophet, having taught those that were re¬
turned out of captivity, to attribute their deliver¬
ance to the blood of the covenant, and to the pro¬
mise of the Messiah, (for therefore they were so
wonderfully helped, because that blessing was in
them, was vet in the womb of their nation,) now
comes to encourage them with the prospect of a joy¬
ful and happy settlement, and of glorious times be¬
fore them; and such a happiness they did enjoy, in
a great measure, for some time; but these promises
have their full accomplishment in the spiritual bless¬
ings of the gospel which we enjoy by Jesus Christ.
I. They are invited to look unto Christ, and flv
unto him, as their City of refuge; (u. 12.) Turn
uou to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope. The
Jews that were returned out of captivity into their
own land, were yet, in effect, but prisoners; ( We
are servants this day, Neh. ix. 36.) yet prisoners of
hope or expectation', for God had given them a little
reviving in their bondage, Ezra ix. 8, 9. Those
that yet continued in Babylon, detained by their af¬
fairs there, yet lived in hope some time or other to
see their own land again; now both these are direct¬
ed to turn their eyes upon the Messiah, set before
them in the promise as their strong Hold to shelter
themselves in him, and stay themselves upon him,
for the perfecting of the mercy which by his grace,
and for his sake, was so gloriously begun; Look
unto him, and be ye saved, Isa. xlv. 22. The pro¬
mise of the Messiah was the strong hold of the faith¬
ful long before his coming; they saw his day at a
distance, and were glad, and the believing expecta¬
tion of this redemption in Jerusalem was long the sup¬
port and consolation of Israel, Luke ii. 25, 38.
They, in their dangers and distresses, were ready
to turn toward this and the other creature for relief;
but the prophets directed them still to turn to
Christ, and to comfort themselves with the joy of
their King coming to them with salvation. But as
their deliverance was typical of our redemption by
Christ, (x>. 11.) so this invitation to the strong hold
speaks the language of the gospel-call. Sinners are
prisoners, but they are prisoners of hope; their case
is sad, but it is not desperate; yet now there is hope
in Israel concerning them, Christ is a strong Hold
for them, a strong Tower, in whom they may be
safe and quiet from the fear of the wrath of God,
the curse of the law, and the assaults of their spirit-
a il enemies; to him they must turn by a lively faith,
tc him they must fly, and trust in his name.
II. They are assured of God’s favour to them;
“ Even to-day do I declare, when things are at the
worst, .and you think your case deplorable to the
last degree, yet I solemnly promise, that I will ren¬
der double unto thee; to thee, O Jerusalem, to every
one of you prisoners cf hope, I will giv e you com
forts double to the sorrows you have experienced;
or, blessings double to what I ever bestowed upon
your fathers, when their condition was at the best;
the glory of your latter state, as well as of your lat¬
ter house, shall be greater, shall be twice as great
as that of your former.” And so it was no other¬
wise than by the coming of the Messiah, the preach¬
ing of his gospel, and the setting up of his kingdom;
these spiritual blessings in heavenly things were
double to what they had ever enjoyed in their most
prosperous state. As a pledge of this, in the fulness
of time, God here promises to the Jews victory,
plenty, and joy, in their own land, which yet should
be but a type and shadow of more glorious victories,
riches, and joys, in the kingdom of Christ.
1. They shall triumph over their enemies; the
Jews, after their return, were surrounded with ene¬
mies on all sides, they were as a speckled bird, all
the birds of the field were against them, their land
lay between the two potent kingdoms of Syria and
Egypt, branches of the Grecian monarchy, and
what frequent dangers they should be in between
them, was foretold, D in. xi. But it is here promised
that out of them all the Lord would deliver them;
this promise had its primary accomplishment in the
times of the Maccabees, when the Jews made head
against their enemies, kept their head above water,
and, after many struggles and difficulties, came to
be head over them. It is promised,
(1.) That they shall be instruments in God’s
hand, for the defeating and baffling of their prose
cutors; “I have bent Judah for me, as my bow ol
steel, that bow I have filled with Ephraim as my
arrows, have drawn it up to its full bent, till the ar¬
row be at the head;” for some think that that is sig¬
nified by the phrase of filling the bow; the expres¬
sions here are very fine, and the figures lively; Ju
dah had been' taught the use of the bow, (2 Sam. i.
18.) and Ephraim had been famous for it, Ps.
lxxviii. 9. But let them not think that they gain
their successes by their own bow, for they them¬
selves are no more than God’s bow and his arrows;
tools in his hands, which he makes use of, and
manages, as he pleases, which he holds as his bow,
and directs to the mark as his arrows. The best
and bravest of men are but what God makes them,
and do no more service than he enables them to do.
The preachers of the gospel were the bow in
Christ’s hand, with which he went forth, he went
on, conquering and to conquer. Rev. vi. 2. The
following words explain this; I have raised up and
spirited thy sons, 0 Zion, against thy sons, 0
Greece. This was fulfilled when against Antiochus,
one of the kings of the Grecian monarchy, the peo¬
ple that knew their God, were strong, and did ex¬
ploits, Dan. xi. 32. And they in the hand of an
almighty God were made as the sword of a mighty
man, which none can stand before; wicked men are
said to be God’s sword, (Ps. xvii. 13.) and some¬
times good men are made so, for he employs both as
he pleases.
2. That God will be Captain, and Commander in
chief, over them, in every expedition and engage¬
ment; {v. 14.) The Lord shall be seen over them, he
shall make it appear that he presides in their af
fairs, and that in all their motions they are under his
direction, as apparently, though not as sensibly, as
he was seen over Israel in the pillar of cloud and
fire, when he led them through the wilderness.
[1.] Is their army to be raised, or mustered, and
brought into the field ? The Lord shall blow the
trumpet, to gather the forces together, to proclaim
1 135
ZECHARIAH, X.
the war, to sound the alarm, and to give directions
which way to march, which way to move; for if God
blow the trumpet, it shall not give an uncertain
sound, or a feeble, ineffectual one. [2.] Is the
army taking the field, and entering upon action ?
Whatever enterprise the campaign is opened with,
God shall go forth at the head of their forces, with
whirlwinds of the south, which were of incredible
swiftness and fierceness; and before these whirl¬
winds, thy sons, O Greece shall be as chaff. [3.]
Is the army actually engaged ? God’s arrows shall
go forth as lightning, so strongly, so suddenly, so
irresistibly: his lightnings shall go forth as arrows;
see Ps. xviii. 14. He sent out his arrows, and scat¬
tered them; he shot out his lightnings, and discom-
fted them. This alludes to that which God had
none for Israel of old, when he brought them out of
Egypt, and into Canaan, and had its accomplish-
ment, partly in the wonderful successes which the
Jews had against their neighbours that attacked
them in the time of the Maccabees, by the special
appearances of the Divine Providence for them; and
perfectly in the glorious victories gained by the
cross of Christ, and the preaching of the cross over
Satan and all the powers of darkness, whereby we
are made more than conquerors. [4.] Are they in
danger of being overpowered by the enemy? The
Lord of hosts shall defend them, v. 15. The Lord
their God shall save them, (xc 16.) so that their
enemies shall not prevail over them, or prey upon
them. God shall be unto them for de fence as well
as o/Tence, the Shield of their hel/i as well as the
Sivord of their excellency; and this as the Lord of
.hosts, who has power to defend them, and as their
God, who is engaged by promise to defend them,
and by the property he lias in them. He shall save
them in that day, that critical, dangerous day, as
the flock of his fieofile, with the same care and ten¬
derness that the shepherd protects his sheep with.
Those are safe whom God saves. [5.] Did their
enemies hope to swallow them up ? It shall- be
turned upon them, and they shall devour their ene¬
mies, and shall subdue with sling-stones, for want
of better weapons, those that come forth against
them. The stones of the brook, when God pleases,
shall do as great execution as the best train of artil¬
lery; for the stars in their courses shall fight on the
same side. Goliath was subdued with a sling-stone.
Having subdued, they shall devour, shall drink the
blood of their enemies, as it were, and, as conquer¬
ors are wont to do, they shall make a noise as
through wine. It is usual for conquerors, with loud
huzzas and acclamations to glory in their victories,
and proclaim them. We read of those that shout
for mastery, and of the shout of a king among God’s
people. They shall be filled with blood and spoil,
as the bowls and basins of the temple, or the corners
of the altar, were used to be filled with the blood of
the sacrifices; for their enemies shall fall as victims-
to divine justice.
2. They shall triumfih in their God. They shall
take the comfort, and give God the glory, of their
successes. So some read v. 15. They shall eat, they
shall quietly enjoy what they have got; God will give
them power to eat it, after they have subdued the
sling-stones, that is, their enemies that slung stones
at them; and they shall drink, and make a noise, a
joyful noise, before the Lord their Maker and Pro¬
tector, as through wine, as men are merry at a ban¬
quet of wine. Being not drunk with wine, wherein
is excess, but filled with the Sjiirit, they- shall speak
to themselves and one another in psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs, as those that are drunk do with
vain and foolish songs, Eph. v. 18, 19. And, in the
fnlness of their joy, they shall offer abundance of
sicrificcs to the honour of God, so that they shall
fill both the bowls and the corners of the altar with
the fat and blood of their sacrifices. And when they
thus triumph in their successes, their joy shall ter¬
minate in God as their God, tiie God of their salva
tion. They shall triumph,
(1.) In tiie love he has for them, and the relation
wherein they stand to him; that they are the flock
of his people, and he is their Shepherd, and that
they are to him as the stones of a crown, which are
very precious, and of great value, and which are
kept under a strong guard: never was any king so
pleased with the jewels of his crown, as Gcd is, and
will be, with his people, who are near and dear unto
him, and in whom he glories. They are a crown
of glory, and a royal diadem, in his hand, Isa. lxii.
2, 3. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord, in
that day, when I make up my jewels, Mai. iii. 17.
And they shall be lifted up as an ensign upon his
land, as the royal standard is displayed in token of
triumph and joy. God’s people are his glory, so he
is pleased to make them, so he is pleased to reckon
them. He sets them up as a banner upon his own
land, waging war against those who hate him, to
whom it is a flag of defiance, and a centre of unity
to all that love him, to all the children of God, that
are scattered abroad, who are invited to come, and
enlist themselves under this banner, Isa. xi. 10, 12.
(2.) In the provision he makes for them, v. 15.
This is the matter of their triumph; (v. 17.) For
how great is his goodness, and how great is his beau¬
ty! This is the substance, this the burthen, of the
songs wherewith they shall make a noise before the
Lord. We are here taught, [1.] To admire and
praise the amiableness of Gnd’s being. How great
is his beauty! All the perfections of God’s nature
conspire to make him infinitely lovely in the eyes of
all that know him. They are to him as the stones
of a crown; but what is he to them ? Our business
in the temple is to behold the beauty of the Ixjrd;
(Ps. xxvii. 4.) and how great is that beauty ! How
far does it transcend all other beauties, particularly
the beauty of his holiness. This may refer to the
Messiah, to Zion’s King that cometh. See that King
in his beauty, (Isa. xxxiii. 17.) who is fairer than
the children of men, the fairest of ten thousand, and
altogether lovely. Though, in the eye of the world,
he had no form or comeliness, in the. eye of faith,
how great is his beauty ! [2. ] To admire, and give
thanks for, the gifts of God’s favour and grace; his
bounty as well as his beauty; for how great is his
goodness! How rich in mercy is he! How deep, how
full, are its springs! How various, how plenteous,
how precious, are its streams! What a great deal
of good does God do! How rich in mercy is he!
Here is an instance of his goodness to his people;
Corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new
wine the maids; that is, God will bless his people
with an abundance of the fruits of the earth, where¬
as they had been afflicted with scarcity to that de¬
gree, that the young men and the tnaidens were
ready to swoon and faint away for hunger and thirst,
Lam. ii. 12, 21. — iv. 7, 8. — v. 10. Now they shall
have bread enough and to spare; not water only, but
wine, new wine, which shall make the young peo¬
ple grow, and be cheerful; and (which some have
observed to be the effect of plenty and the cheapness
of corn) the poor will be encouraged to marry, and
re-people the land, when they shall have where¬
withal to maintain their families. Note, What
good gifts God bestows upon ns, we must serve him
cheerfully with, and must trace the streams up
to the fountain, and, when we are refreshed with
corn and wine, must say, How great is his good¬
ness!
CHAP. X.
The scope of this chapter is much the same with t hat of the
chapter before — to encourage the Jews that were re¬
turned, with hopes that, though thev had b^en under
1136
ZECHARIAH, X.
divine rebukes for Iheir negligence in rebuilding the I
temple,, and were now surrounded with enemies and
dangers, yet that God would do them good, and make I
them prosperous at home and victorious abroad. Now, i
1. They are here directed to eye the ^reat God in all
events that concerned them; and, both in the evils they
suffered, and in the comforts they desired, to acknow¬
ledge his hand, v. 1 . . 4. II. They are encouraged to
expect strength and success from him, in all their strug- (
gles with the enemies of their church and state, and to j
nope that the issue would be glorious at last, v. 5 . . 12.
1. A SK ye of the Lord rain in the time
1 TL of the latter rain ; so the Lord shall
make bright clouds, and give them showers
of rain, to every one grass in the field. 2.
For the idols have spoken vanity, and the
diviners have seen a lie, and have told false
dreams; they comfort in vain: therefore
they went their way as a flock, they were
troubled, because there was no shepherd.
3. Mine anger was kindled against the
shepherds, and I punished the goats: for the
Lord of hosts hath visited his flock the
house of Judah, and hath made them as his
goodly horse in the battle. 4. Out of him
came forth the corner, out of him the nail,
out of him the battle-bow, out of him every
oppressor together.
Gracious tilings and glorious ones, very glorious
and very gracious, were promised to this poor af¬
flicted people, in the foregoing chapter; now here
he intimates to them that he will, for these things,
be inquired of by them, and that he expects they
should acknowledge him in all their ways, and in
all his ways, toward them ; him, and not idols that
were rivals with him for their respects.
1. He directs them to apply themselves to God by
prayer for rain in the season thereof. He had pro¬
mised, in the close of the foregoing chapter, that
there should be great plenty of corn and wine,
whereas, for several years, by reason of unseasona¬
ble weather, there had been great scarcity of both;
but the earth will not yield its fruits, unless the
heavens water it, and therefore they must look up
to God for the dew of heaven, in order to the fatness
and fruitfulness of the earth; (y. 1.) yls/c ye of the
Lord rain. Do not pray to the clouds or to the stars
for rain, but to the Lord ; for he it is that hears the
heavens, when they hear the earth, Hos. ii. 21.
Seasonable rain is a great mercy, which we must
ask of Clod; rain, in the time of the latter rain, when
there is most need of it; the former rain fell at the
seed-time, in autumn; the latter fell in th e spring,
between March and May, which brought the corn
to an ear, and filled it. If either of these rains'
failed, it was very bad with that land; for from the
end of Mav to September they never had any rain
at all. Jerome, who lived in Judah, says, that he
never saw any rain there in June or July. They are
directed to ask for it in the time when it used to
come. Note, We must, in our prayers, dutifully at¬
tend the course of Providence; we must ask for
mercies in their proper time, and not expect that
God should go out of his usual way and method for
us. But since sometirfies God denied rain in the
usual time, as a token of his displeasure, they must
Sfor it then as a token of his favour, and they
not pray in vain. Ask, and it shall be given
you; so the Lord shall make bright clouds, which,
though they are without rain themselves, are yet
presages of rain; lightnings, (so the margin reads
it,) for he maketh lightnings for the rain. He will
give them showers of rain in great abundance, and
so give to every one grass in the field; for God ii
universally good, and makes his rain to fall upon
the just and the unjust.
2. He shows them the folly of making their ad¬
dresses to idols, as their fathers had done; (y. 2.)
The idols have sftoken vanity; the Teraphim, which
they courted and consulted in their distress, were so
far from being able to command rain for them, that
they could not so much as tell them when they
should have rain. They pretended to promise them
rain at such a time, but it did not come. The di
viners, who were the prophets of those idols, have
seen a tie; their visions were all a cheat and a sham,
and they have told false dreams, such as the event
did not answer, which proved that they were not
from God. Thus they comforted in vain those that
consulted the lying oracles; all the vanities of the
heathen put together could not give rain, Jer. xiv.
22. Yet this was not the worst of it; they not only
got nothing by the false gods, but they lost the fa¬
vour of the true God; for therefore they went their
way into captivity as a flock driven into the fold,
and they were troubled with one vexation after an¬
other, as scattered sheep are, because there was no
shefiherd, no prince, to rule them, no priest to inter¬
cede for them, none to take care of them, and keep
them together. They that wandered after strange
gods, were made to wander into strange nations.
3. He shows them the hand of God in all the
events that concerned them, both those that made
against them, and those that made for them, v. 3.
Let them consider, ( 1. ) When every thing went cross,
it was God that walked contrary to them; (v. 3.)
Mine anger was kindled against the shepherds that
should have fed the flock, but neglected it, and
starved it. “ I was displeased at the wicked magis¬
trates and ministers, the idol shepherds.” The
captivity in Babylon was a token of God’s anger
against them; in it likewise he punished the goats,
those of the flock that were filthy and mischievous,
they were set on the left-hand, to go away into pun¬
ishment. Though the body of the nation suffered
in the captivity, yet it was only the goats and \X\e shep¬
herds that God was angry with, and that he pun¬
ished; the same affliction to others came from the
love of God, and was but a fatherly chastisement,
which to them came from his wrath, and was a
judicial punishmetit. (2.) When things began to
change for the better, it was God that gave them
the happy turn. He has now visited his flock with
favour, to inquire after them, and provide what he
finds proper tor them, and he has made them as his
goodly horse in the battle; has beautified them,
taken care of them, managed and made use of them,
as a man does the horse he rides on; has made them
valuable in themselves, and formidable to those
about them, as his goodly horse. It is God that
makes us what we are, and it is with us as he ap¬
points.
4. He shows them that every creature is to them
what God makes it to be; (y. 4.) Out of him came
forth the corner, out of him the nail. (1.) All the
power that was engaged against them was from
God; out of him came all the combined force of
their enemies; every oppressor together (and the
oppressors of Israel were not a few) did but what
his hand and his counsel determined before to be
done; nor could they have had such power against
them, unless it had been given them from above.
(2.) All the power likewise that was engaged for
them, was derived from him, and depended on him.
Out of him came forth the corner-stone of the build¬
ing, the power of magistrates, which keeps the
several parts of the state together. Princes are
often called the. corners of the people, as 1 Sam. xiv.
38. marg. Out of him came forth the nail that fixes
the state, the nail in the sure place, (Isa. xxii. 23.)
1137
ZECHARIAH, X.
the i ail in his holy place, Ezra ix. S. Out of him
came forth the battle-bow, the military power, and
out of him every oppressor, or exactor, that has the
civil power in his hand; and therefore to God, the
Fountain of power, we must always have an eye, and
see every man’s judgment proceeding from him.
5. And they shall be as mighty men, which
tread down their enemies in the mire of the
streets in the battle: and they shall fight,
because the Lord is with them, and the
riders on horses shall be confounded. 6.
And I will strengthen the house of Judah,
and I will save the house of Joseph, and I
will bring them again to place them: for I
have mercy upon them; and they shall be
as though I had not cast them off : for I am
the Lord their God, and will hear them.
7. And they of Ephraim shall be like a
mighty man , and their heart shall rejoice as
through wine: yea, their children shall see
it and be glad; their heart shall rejoice in the
Lord. 8. I will hiss for them, and gather
them; fori have redeemed them: and they
shall increase as they have increased. 9.
And I will sow them among the people: and
they shall remember me in far countries:
and they shall live with their children, and
turn again. 10. I will bring them again also
out of the land of Egypt, and gather them
out of Assyria ; and l will bring them into
the land of Gilead and Lebanon, and place
shall not be found for them. 1 1 . And he
shall pass through the sea with affliction,
and shall smite the waves in the sea, and all
the deeps of the river shall dry up; and the
pride of Assyria shall be brought down, and
t he sceptre of Egypt shall depart away. 1 2.
And I will strengthen them in the Lord;
and they shall walk up and down in his
name, saith the Lord.
Here are divers precious promises made to the
people of God, which look further than to the state
of the Jews in the latter days of their church, and
have certain reference to the spiritual Israel of God,
the gospel-church and all true believers.
1. They shall have God’s favour and presence,
and shall be owned and accepted of him. This is
the foundation of all the rest; The Lord is with
them, v. 5. He espouses their cause, takes their
part, is on their side; and, if he be for them, who
can be against them? Again, (y. 6 .) I have mercy
upon them. All their dignity and joy are owing
purely to God’s mercy; and mercy, as it supposes
misery, so it excludes merit. They had been cast
off, the effect of which could not but be misery;
they had been justly cast off, and therefore could
pretend to merit nothing at God’s hand but wrath
and the curse; yet it is promised, They shall be as
though I had not cast them off. The transgressions
of their fathers, for which they had been rejected,
shall not only not be visited upon them, but shall
not be so much as remembered against them. God
will be as perfectly reconciled to them as if he had
never contended with them, and the falling out of
these lovers shall rather be the renewing, than the
weakening, of love. They shall have such a full as-
Vol. IV.— 7 E
surance of God’s being reconciled to them, and, upon
that, shall be so well reconciled to themselves, that,
they shall be as easy as if they had never been cast
off ; and their condition, after their restoration to
the divine favour, shall be so very happy, that there
shall not remain the least scar from the wounds
which were given them by their being cast off. Such
favour does God show to returning, repenting sin
ners, who were by nature at a distance, and chil¬
dren of wrath; such fellowship are they admitted
into, and such freedom does he use with them, that
they are as though they had never been cast off.
(1.) The covenant they are admitted into, is the
same as ever it was; I am the Lord their God, ac¬
cording to the original contract, the covenant made
with their fathers. (2.) The communion they are
admitted into, is the same that ever it was; I will
hear them. They shall be as welcome hs ever to
speak to him, and as sure as ever to receive from
him an answer of peace; for as he never did, so
he never will, say to Jacob’s seed, Seek ye me in
vain.
2. They shall be victorious over their enemies,
that would draw them from either their duty to
God, or their comfort in God; (v. 5.) They shall
be as mighty men, that are both strong in body, and
bold in spirit, men of vigour, men of valour, effective
men. They of Ephraim, as well as they of Judah,
shall be like a mighty man, ( v . 7.) that dares to
go about a difficult enterprize, and is able to go
through with it. They shall, as mighty men, tread
down their enemies in the battle, as the dirt that is
thrown out of the houses is trodden with other dirt
in the mire of the streets. And they shall therefore
fight, because the Lord is with them. Some would
argue that they may therefore sit still and do nothing,
because the Lord is with them, who can, and will,
do all. No, God’s gracious presence with us to help
us, must not supersede, but quicken and animate,
our endeavours to help ourselves ; and we must
therefore work out our salvation with fear and
trembling, because it is God that works in us both
to will and to do. They shall fight with readiness
and resolution, because if God be with them, they
are sure to be conquerors. For then the riders on
horses shall be confounded. The cavalry of the
enemies shall be routed, and put into disorder, by
the infantry of the Jews. The preachers of the
gospel of Christ went forth to war a good warfare,
they charged bravely, because God was with them;
and the riders on horses, that opposed them, were
confounded, for God chose the weak and foolish
things of the world to confound the wise and mighty.
But whence have they all this might ? How come
they to be so able, so active? It is in the Lord, and
in the power of his might, that they are so; (n. 6.)
I will strengthen the house of Judah, and so I will
save the house of Joseph. Note, God saves us by
strengthening us, and works out our happiness by
working in us to do our duty. And thus we are en¬
gaged to the utmost diligence in using the strength
God gives us; and yet, when all is done, God must
have the glory of all. God is our Strength, and so
becomes both our Song and our Salvation.
3. Those of them that are dispersed, shall be
gathered together into one body; ( v . 6.) I will
bring them again to place them; bring them from
other lands to place them in their own land. This
was a token of their being perfectly restored to all
their other ancient privileges — they shall be re¬
stored to the possession of their own land. This
was fulfilled when the children of God, that were
scattered abroad, were by faith in Christ incor¬
porated in the gospel-church, and Jews and Gen¬
tiles became onefold, John x. 16. In order to this,
(v. 8.) I will hiss for them, or, rather, whistle for
them, as the shepherd with his pipe calls his sheep
1138
ZECHARIAH, X.
together, that know his voice; and so I will gather
them. The preaching of the gospel was, as it were,
God’s hissing for souls to come to Jesus Christ, his
calling in his scattered sheep to the green pastures;
I will gather them, for 1 have redeemed them.
Note, Whom Christ has redeemed by his blood God
will gather by his grace, as a hen gathers her brood
under her wings. This promise is enlarged upon,
v. 10. I will bring them again also out of the land
of Egypt. Some think this was literally fulfilled
when Ptolemteus Philadelphus king of Egypt sent
120,000 Jews out of his country into their own land,
as was the promise of gathering them out of Assyria
by Alexander the son of Antiochus Epiphanes.
But it has its spiritual accomplishment in tire gather¬
ing in of precious souls out of a bondage worse than
that of Egypt or Assyria, and bringing of them into
the glorious liberties of the children of God and
their enjoyments, which are as the beautiful, fruit¬
ful pastures in the land of Gilead and Lebanon.
All the land of promise is theirs, even Gilead, the
utmost border of it eastward, and Lebanon the ut¬
most border northward. But how shall this be ?
How shall a people so dispersed be got together ?
How shall they that are set at such a distance from
their own country, be brought to it again ? It is
true, the difficulties seem insuperable, but they shall
be got over as easily, as effectually, as those that
lay in the way of their deliverance out of Egypt,
and their entrance into Canaan ; He shall pass
through the sea with affliction, as of old through
the Red sea, to the sore affliction of Pharaoh and
his hosts; or to the sore affliction of the sea, the
waves whereof he shall smite, so that it shall be
driven back, as when the sea saw and fed, Ps. cxiv.
3. And all the deeps of the river, all the rivers,
though ever so deep, shall dry up, as Jordan did,
to make way for Israel’s passage into that good
land which God had given them. Does the pride
of Assyria stand in the way of their deliverance?
He shall give check to it, who sets bounds to the
proud waves of the sea, and it shall be brought
down. Does the sceptre of Egypt oppose it? That
shall depart away, so that it shall not be able to
obstruct the gathering in of God’s Israel, when his
time is come for the doing of it; when the gospel-
church was to be gathered out of all nations by the
preaching of the gospel, great opposition was given
to it by the enraged, combined powers of earth and
hell. Insuperable difficulties seemed to be in the
way of it; but by a divine power going along with
the doctrine of Christ, it became mighty to the pull¬
ing down of strong holds, and the conversion and
salvation of thousands. Then the sea fled, and Jor¬
dan was driven back at the presence of the Lord.
4. They shall greatly multiply, and the church,
that new world, shall be replenished; (v. 8.) They
shall increase as they have increased formerly in
Egypt, and great additions shall be made to their
numbers, as in the days of David and Solomon.
When God gathers his redeemed ones to himself,
they shall help to gather in others with them, and
their motion homeward shall be like that of a snow¬
ball. Crescit eundo — The f urther it goes the larger
it grows by accretion. I will gather them, and they
shall increase. Note, The church of Christ is a
growing body, as long as it is in the present state
of minority, til! it comes to the measure of the
stature of the fulness of Christ. There are added
to it daily such as shall be saved. (1.) It shall
spread to distant places. It shall fill Canaan, even
to the lands of Gilead and Lebanon, so that no more
place, no more room, shall be found for it there, v.
10. In Judah only God had been known, and his
name was great in Israel only; here only he re¬
vealed his statutes and judgments: but in gospel-
times that place shall be quite too strait; the
church’s tent must be enlarged, and its cords
lengthened; then I will sow them among the people,
v. 9. Their scattering shall be like the scattering
of seed in the ground, not to bury it, but to increase
it, that it may bring forth much fruit. The Jews
are said to be dispersed int. every nation under
heaven; (Acts ii. 5.) and as it was their troubles
that dispersed some of them, so perhaps others
transplanted themselves into colonies, because the
land of Israel was too strait for them ; and many
were natives of other nations, but proselyted to the
Jewish religion; now these were sown among the
people, Hos. ii. 23. And this contributed very much
to the spreading of the gospel. The Jews that came
from all parts to worship at Jerusalem, fetched
thence the gospel light and fire to their own coun¬
tries, as those, Acts ii. and the eunuch, Acts viii.
And their own synagogues in the several cities of
the Gentiles were the first receptacles of the apos¬
tles and their preaching, wherever they came.
Thus when God sowed them among the people,
that they might not get hurt by the Gentiles but do
good to them, he took care that they should remem¬
ber him, and make mention of his name in far coun¬
tries; and by keeping up the knowledge of God
among them, as he had revealed himself in the Old
Testament, they would be the more ready to admit
the knowledge of Christ, as he has revealed him
self in the New Testament. (2.) It shall last to
future ages. The church shall not be res unius
atatis — a temporary system, but a seed in it shall
serve the Lord, v. 7. Yea, their children shall sec
it, and be glad; and they shall live with their chil¬
dren, and turn again, v. 9. Converts to Christ,
shall have their children about them, whom they
shall teach the knowledge of the Lord, and bring
with them when they turn again to the holy land,
and the way of holiness. It was said to those to
whom the gospel was first preached, 'The promise
is to you and to your children, Acts ii. 39. They
shall be so sown among the people, as never to be
extirpated. Christ’s family upon earth shall never
be extinct, nor his purchased possession lost for
want of heirs.
5. God himself will be both their Strength and
their Song. (1.) In him they shall be comforted,
and shall have abundant satisfaction; (r. 7.) Their
heart shall rejoice as through wine; for Christ’s
love, which is their joy, is better than wine. They
shall be like a mighty man, and their heart shall
rejoice. When Ave resolutely resist, and so over¬
come, our spiritual enemies, then our hearts shall
rejoice. But we ruin our own joy, if our resistance
be feeble, and we yield to the temptations of Satan.
Their heart shall rojoice, and then they shall be as a
mighty man; for the joy of the Lord will be our
strength. And with their grace their joys shall be
propagated; Their children shall see it, and be glad,
and their hearts also shall rejoice in the Lora. It
is good to acquaint children betimes with the de¬
lights of religion, and to make the services of it as
pleasant as may be to them; that, learning betimes
to rejoice in the Lord, they may with purpose of
heart cleave to him. (2.) By him they shall be
carried on with vigour, and enlargement of heart,
in his service; (v. 12.) I will strengthen them in the
Lord, strengthen them for their walk and work,
as well as for their warfare. It is the God of Israel
that gives strength and power unto his people, that
strengthens all their powers and faculties for spi¬
ritual performances, above what they are by nature,
and against what they are by the corruption of na
ture. Now observe, [1.] How they are thus ena
bled and invigorated for their duty; I the Lord will
strengthen them in the Lord; in the Messiah, who
is Jehovah our Strength, as well as Jehovah our
Righteousness. Strength is treasured up for us in
1139
ZECHARIAH, XI.
Christ, and from him it is derived to us. It is '
through Christ strengthening us, that we can do
ail things, and without him we can do nothing.
His strength is commanded him for this purpose,
Ps. lxviii. 28. [2.] What good use they shall make
of this strength given unto them. They shall walk
up and down in his name. If God strengthens us,
we must bestir ourselves; must walk u/i and down
in all the duties of the Christian life, must be active
and busy in the work of God, must walk up and
down as industrious men do, losing no time, and let¬
ting slip no opportunity. But still we must walk up
and. down in the name of Christ, must do all by
warrant from him, and in dependence on him, with
an eye to his word as our rule, and his glory as our
end. To us to live must be Christ; and whatever
we do in word or deed, we must do all in the name
of the I^ord Jesus, that we receive not the strength¬
ening grace of God in vain. See Ps. lxxx. 17, 18.
CHAP. XI.
God’s prophet, who in the chapters before was an ambas¬
sador sent to promise peace , is here a herald sent to de¬
clare war. The Jewish nation shall recover its pros¬
perity, and shall flourish for some time, and become
considerable; it shall be very happy, at length, in the
coming of the long expected Messiah, in the preaching
of his gospel, and in the settingup of his standard there.
But when thereby the chosen remnant among them are |
effectually called in, and united to Christ, the body of |
the nation, persisting in unbelief, shall be utterly aban¬
doned, and given up to ruin, for rejecting Christ; and
that is it that is foretold here in this chapter, — the Jews
rejecting Christ, which was their measure-filling sin,
and the wrath which for that sin came upon them to the
uttermost. Here is, I. A prediction of the destruction
itself that should come upon the Jewish nation, v. 1 . . 3.
II. The putting of it into the hands of the Messiah. 1.
He is charged with the custody of that flock, v. 4. . 6. 2. .
He undertakes it, and bears rule in it, v. 7,8. 3. Finding
it perverse, he gives it up, (v. 9.) breaks his shepherd’s
staff, {v. 10, 11.) resents the indignities done him, and
the contempt put upon him, (v. 12, 13.) and then breaks
his other staff, v. 14. 4. He turns them over into the
hands of foolish shepherds, who, instead of preventing,
shall complete their ruin, and both the blind leaders
and the blind followers shall fall together into the
ditch, v. 15.. 17. This is foretold to the poor of the
flock before it comes to pass, that when it does come to
pass, they may not be offended.
1. zf'kPEN thy doors, O Lebanon, that the
fire may devour thy cedars. 2.
Howl, fir-tree ; for the cedar is fallen; be¬
cause all the mighty are spoiled: howl, O
ye oaks of Bashan ; for the forest of the vin¬
tage is come down. 3. There is a voice of
the howling of the shepherds; for their glory
is spoiled: a voice of the roaring of young
lions ; for the pride of Jordan is spoiled.
In dark and figurative expressions, as is usual in
the scripture predictions of things at a distance,
that destruction of Jerusalem, and of the Jewish
church and nation, is here foretold, which our Lord
Jesus, when the time was at hand, prophesied of
very plainly and expressly. We have here,
1. Preparation made for that destruction; ( v . 1.)
“Often thy doors, O Lebanon. Thou wouldest not
open them, to let thy King in, he came to his own,
and his own received him not; now thou must open
them, to let thy ruin in. Let the gates of the forest,
and all the avenues to it, be thrown open, and let
the fire come in, and devour its glory.” Some by
Lebanon here understand the temple, which was
built of cedars from Lebanon, and the stones of it
white as the snow of Lebanon. It was burnt with
fire by the Romans, and its gates were forced open
by the fury of the soldiers. To confirm this, they
tell a story, that forty years before the destruction
of the second temple, the gates of it opened of their
own accord; upon which prodigy, Rabbi Johanan
made this remark, (as it is found in one of the Jew¬
ish authors,) “Now I know,” said he, “ that the
destruction of the temple is at hand, according to the
prophecy of Zechariah, Often thy doors, 0 Leba¬
non, that the fire may devour thy cedars.” Others
understand it of Jerusalem, or, rather, of the whole
land of Canaan, to which Lebanon was an inlet on
the north. All shall lie open to the invader, and
the cedars, the mighty and eminent men, shall be
devoured ; which cannot but alarm those of an infe¬
rior rank; (i>. 2.) If the cedars are fallen, if all the
mighty are sftoiled, and brought to ruin, let the fir-
tree howl. How can the slender fir-trees stand, if
stately cedars fall? If cedars are devoured by fire,
it is time for the fir-trees to howl; for no wood is so
combustible as that of the fir. And let the oaks of
Bashan, that lie exposed to every injury, howl, for
the forest of the vintage, or the flourishing vine¬
yard, that used to be guarded with a particular care,
is come down. Or, as some read it, when the de-
fenced forests, such as Lebanon was, are come
down. Note, The falls of the wise and good into
sin, and the falls of the rich and great into trouble,
are loud alarms to those that are every way their
inferiors, net to be secure.
2. Lamentation made for the destruction; ( v . 3.)
There is a voice of howling. Those who are fallen,
howl for grief ana shame, and those who see their
own turn coming, howl for fear. But the great men
especially; receive the alarm with the utmost confu¬
sion. Those who were roaring in the day of their
revels and triumphs, are howling in the day of
their terrors; for now they are tormented more than
others. Those great men were by office shepherds,
and such should have protected God’s flock com¬
mitted to their charge; it is the duty both of princes
and priests: but they were as young lions, that made
themselves a terror to the flock with their roaring,
and the flock a prey to themselves with their tear¬
ing. Note, It is sad with a people, when those who
should be as shepherds to them, are as young lions
to them. But what is the issue? The shepherds
howl, for their glory is spoiled. Their pastures, and
the flocks which covered them, which were the
glory of the swains, are laid waste. The young
lions howl, for the pride of Jordan is spoiled. The
pride of Jordan was the thickets on the banks, in
which the lions reposed themselves; and therefore
when the river overflowed, and spoiled them, the
lions came up from them, (as we read, Jer. xlix.
19.) and they came up roaring. Note, When those
who have power, proudly abuse their power, and,
instead of being shepherds, are as young lions, they
may expect that the righteous God will humble
their pride, and break their power.
4. Thus saith the Lord my God, Feed
the flock of the slaughter, 5. Whose pos¬
sessors slay them, and hold themselves not
guilty; and they that sell them say, Blessed
be the Lord; for I am rich: and their own
shepherds pity them not. 6. For I will no
more pity the inhabitants of the land, saith
the Lord; but, lo, I will deliver the men
every one into his neighbour’s hand, and
into the hand of his king; and they shall
smite the land, and out of their hand I will
not deliver them. 7. And I will feed the
flock of slaughter, even you, O poor of the
flock. And I took unto me two staves; the
one I called Beauty, and the other I called
1140
ZECHARIAH, XI.
Bands: and I fed the flock. 8. Three shep¬
herds also 1 cut off in one month ; and my
soul loathed them, and their soul also ab¬
horred me. 9. Then said I, I will not feed
you : that that dieth, let it die; and that that
is to be cut off, let it be cut off; and let the
rest eat every one the flesh of another. 1 0.
And I took my staff, even Beauty, and cut
it asunder, that I might break my covenant
which I had made with all the people. 11.
And it was broken in that day : and so the
poor of the flock that waited upon me knew
that it ms the word of the Lord. 12.
And I said unto them, If ye think good, give
me my price; and if not, forbear. So they
weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver.
1 3. And the Lord said unto me, Cast it
unto the potter: a goodly price that I was
prized at of them. And I took the thirty
pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter
in the house of the Lord. 1 4. Then I cut
asunder mine other staff, even Bands, that I
might break the brotherhood between Ju¬
dah and Israel.
The prophet here is made a type of Christ, as
the prophet Isaiah sometimes was; and the scope
of these verses is to show that for Judgment Christ
came into this world; (John ix. 39.) for judgment to
the Jewish church and nation, which were, about
the time of his coming, wretchedly corrupted and
degenerated by the worldliness and hypocrisy of
their rulers. Christ would have healed them, but
they would not be healed, they are therefore left
desolate, and abandoned to ruin. Observe here,
1. The desperate case of the Jewish church, un¬
der the tyranny of their own governors. Their
slavery in their own country made them as misera¬
ble as their captivity in strange countries had done;
Their possessors slay them, and sell them, v. 5. In
Zechariah’s time we find the rulers and the nobles
justly rebuked for exacting usury of their brethren;
and the governors, even bv their servants, oppres¬
sive to the people, Neh. v. 7, 15. In Christ’s time,
the chief priests and the elders, who were the pos¬
sessors of the flock, by their traditions, the com¬
mandments of men, and their impositions on the
consciences of the people, became perfect tyrants,
devoured their houses, engrossed their wealth, and
fleeced the flock instead of feeding it. The Sad-
ducees, who were deists, corrupted their judg¬
ments. The Pharisees, who were bigots for super¬
stition, corrupted their morals, by making void the
commandments of God, Matth. xv. 16. Thus they
slew the sheep of the flock, thus they sold them.
They mattered not what became of them, so they
could but gain their own ends, and serve their own
interests. And, 1. In this they justified themselves:
they slay them, and hold themselves not guilty.
They think that there is no harm in it, and that
they shall never be called to an account for it by
the chief Shepherd; as if their power were given
them for destruction, which was designed only for
edification; and as if, because they sat in Moses’s
seat, they were not under the obligations of Moses’s
law, but might dispense with it, and with them¬
selves in the breach of it, at their pleasure. Note,
Those have their minds wofully blinded indeed,
who do ill, and justify themselves in it; but God
will not hold them guiltless, who hold themselves
so. 2. In this they affronted God, by giving him
thanks for the gain of their oppression; They said,
Blessed be the ford, for lam rich. As if, because
they prospered in their wickedness, got money by it,
and raised estates, God had made himself Patron
of their unjust practices, and Providence was be¬
come Particeps criminis — The Associate of their
guilt. What is got honestly we ought to give God
thanks for, and to bless him whose blessing makes
rich and adds no sorrow with it. But with what
face can we go to God, either to beg a blessing upon
the unlawful methods of getting wealth, or to return
him thanks for success in them? They should rather
have gone to God, to confess the sin, to take shame
to themselves for it, and to vow restitution, than
thus to mock him, by making the gains of sin the
gift of God, who hates robbery for burnt-offerings,
and reckons not himself praised by the thanksgiv¬
ing, if he be dishonoured, either in the getting or
the using of that which we give him thanks for. 3.
In this they put contempt upon the people of God,
as unworthy their regard or compassionate consi¬
deration; Their own shepherds pity them not; they
make them miserable, and then do not commis¬
erate them. Christ had compassion on the multi¬
tude, because they fainted, and were scattered
abroad, as if they had no shepherd; (as really they
had worse than none;) but their own shepherds
pitied them not, nor showed any concern for them.
Note, It is ill for a church, when its pastors have
no tenderness, no compassion for precious souls,
when they can look upon the ignorant, the foolish,
the wicked, the weak, without pity.
II. The sentence of God’s wrath passed upon
them for their senselessness and stupidity in this
condition. There was a general decay, nay, a de¬
struction of religion among them; and it was all one
to them, they regarded it not; My people loved to
have it so, Jer. v. 31. Though they were oppressed
and broken in judgment, yet they willingly walked
after the commandment, Hos. v. 11. And as their
shepherds pitied them not, so they did not bemoan
themselves; therefore God says, (u. 6.) I will no
more pity the inhabitants of the land. They have
courted their own destruction, and so let their doom
be. But those are truly miserable, whom the God
of mercv himself will no more have compassion
upon. They who are willing to have their con¬
sciences oppressed by those who teach for doctrines
the commandments of men, (as the Jews were, who
called them Rabbi, Rabbi, that did so, Matth. xv.
9. — xxiii. 7.) are often punished by oppression in
their civil interests, and justly, for they forfeit their
own rights, who tamely give up God’s rights. The
Jews did so, the Papists do so; and who can pity
them if they be ruled with rigour? God here
threatens them, 1. That he will deliver them into
the hand of oppressors; every one into his neighbour’s
hand, so that they shall use one another barbarously.
The several parties in Jerusalem did so; the zealots,
the seditious, as they were called, committed greater
outrages than the common enemy did; as Josephus
relates in his history of the wars of the Jews. They
shall be delivered every one into the hand of his
king, the Roman emperor, whom thev chose to
submit to rather than to Christ, saying, We have no
king but Ctzsar. Thus they thought to ingratiate
themselves with their lords and masters. But, for
this, God brought the Romans upon them, who took
away their place and nation. 2. That he will not
deliver them out of their hands; They shall smite
the land, the whole land; and out of their hand I wilt
not deliver them; and if the Lord do not help them,
none else can, nor can they help themselves.
III. A trial yet made, whether their ruin might
be prevented by sending Christ among them as a
Shepherd; God had sent his servants to them in
1141
ZECHARIAH, XL
vain, but last of all he sent unto them his Son, saying,
They will reverence my Son, Matth. xxi. 37. Divers
of the prophets had spoken of him as the Shepherd
of Israel, Isa. xl. 11. Ezek. xxxiv. 23. He himself
told the Pharisees that he was the Shepherd of the
sheep, and that they who pretended to be shepherds,
were thieves and robbers; (John x. 1, 2, 11.) appa¬
rently referring to this passage. Where we have,
1. The charge he received from his Father to try
what might be done with this flock; (v. 4.) Thus
saith the Lord my God, (Christ called his Father
his God because he acted in compliance with his
will, and with an eye to his glory in his whole un¬
dertaking,) Feed the flock of the slaughter. The
Jews were God’s flock, but they were the flock of
slaughter, for their enemies had killed them all the
day long, and accounted them as sheep for the
slaughter; their own possessors slew them, and God
himself had doomed them to the slaughter; yet
feed them by reproof, instruction, and comfort;
provide wholesome food for them who have been so
long soured with the leaven of the scribes and Pha¬
risees. Other sheep he had, which were not of this
fuld, and which afterward must be brought; but he
is first sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,
Matth. xv. 24. 2. His acceptance of this charge,
and his undertaking pursuant to it, v. 7. He does
as it were say, Lo, I come to do thy will, O my God;
and since this is thy will, it is mine, I will feed the
flock of slaughter. Christ will care for these lost,
sheep; he will go about among them, teaching and
healing even you, 0 poor of the flock. Christ did
not neglect the meanest, or overlook them for their
meanness; the shepherds that made a prey of them,
regarded not the poor, they were conversant with
those only that they could get by; but Christ preach¬
ed his gospel to the poor, Matth. xi. 5. It was an
instance of his humiliation, that his converse was
mostly with the inferior sort of people; his disci¬
ples, who were his constant attendants, were of the
poor of the flock. 3. His furnishing himself with
tools proper for the charge he had undertaken; I
took unto me two staves, pastoral staves; other
shepherds have but one crook, but Christ had two,
denoting the double care he took of his flock, and
what he did both for the souls and for the bodies of
men. David speaks of God’s rod and his staff, (Ps.
xxiii. 4.) a correcting rod and a supporting staff.
One of these staves was called Beauty, denoting the
temple, which is called the beauty of holiness, and
one of its gates, beautiful; which Christ called his
Father’s house, and for which he showed a great
zeal, when he cleared it of the buyers and sellers;
the other he called Bands, denoting their civil state,
and the incorporate society of that nation, which
Christ also took care of by preaching love and peace
among them. Christ, in his gospel, and in all he
did among them, consulted the advancement both of
their civil and of their sacred interests. 4. His execu¬
tion of his office, as the chief Shepherd; He fed the
flock, (v. 7.) and he displaced those under-shep¬
herds that were false to their trust; (v. 8.) Three
shepherds I cut off in one month. Through the
deficiency and uncertainty of the history of the Jew¬
ish church, in its latter ages, we know not what
particular event this had its accomplishment in; in
general, it seems to be an act of power and justice
for the punishment of the sinful shepherds, and the
redress of the grievances of the abused flock. Some
understand it of the three orders of princes, priests,
and scribes, or prophets, who, when Christ had
finished his work, were laid aside for their unfaith¬
fulness. Others understand it of the three sects
among the Jews, of Pharisees, Sadducees, and He-
rodians, all whom Christ silenced in dispute, (Matth.
xxii.) and soon after cut off, all in a little time.
IV. Their enmity to Christ, and making them¬
selves odious to him. He came to his own, the
sheep of his own pasture; it might have been ex¬
pected that between them and him there should
have been an entire affection, as between the shep¬
herd and his sheep; but they conducted themselves
so ill, that his soul loathed them, was straitened to¬
ward them; (so it may be read;) he intended them
kindness, but could not do them the kindness he in¬
tended them, because of their unbelief, Matth. xiii.
58. He was disappointed in them, discouraged
concerning them, grieved for them; not only for the
shepherds, whom he cut off, but for the people,
whom Christ often looked upon with grief in his
heart and tears in his eyes. Their provocations even
wore out his patience, and he was weary of that
faithless and perverse generation. Their soul also
it abhorred me; and therefore it was that his soul
loathed them; for, whatever estrangement there is
between God and man, it begins on man’s side. The
Jewish shepherds rejected this chief Shepherd, as
the Jewish builders rejected this chief Corner-Stone.
They had indignation at Christ’s doctrine and mira¬
cles, and his interest in the people; to whom they
did all they could to make him odious, as they had
made themselves odious to him. Note, There is a
mutual enmity between God and wicked people;
they are hateful to God, and haters of God; nothing
speaks more the sinfulness and misery of an unre¬
generate state than this does. The carnal mind,
the friendship of the world, are enmity to God, and
God hates all the workers of iniquity; and it is easy
to foresee what this will end in, if the quarrel be not
taken up in time, Isa. xxvii. 4, 5.
V. Christ’s rejecting of them as incurable, and
leaving them their house desolate, Matth. xxiii. 38.
The things of their peace are now hid from their
eyes, because they knew not the day of their visita¬
tion. Here we have,
1. The sentence of their rejection past; (u. 9.)
'‘Then said I, I will not feed you, I will take no
further care of you, you shall not see me again;
take your own course. As I will not feed you, so I
will not cure you; that that dieth, let it die; (the
Shepherd will do nothing to save its forfeited life;)
that that is to be cut off, let it be cut off; that that
will make itself a prey to the wolf, let it be a prey;
and let the rest so far forget their own mild and gen¬
tle nature, as to eat the flesh of one another; let
these sheep fight like dogs.” Those that reject
Christ, will be certainly and justly rejected by him,
and then are miserable of course.
2. A sign of it given; (a1. 10.) I look my staff,
even Beauty, and cut it in sunder, in token of this,
that he would be no longer a Shepherd to them; as
the lord high steward determines his commission
by breaking his white staff, and as Moses breaking
the tables of the law put a stop, for the present, to
the treaty between God and Israel. The breaking
of this staff signified the breaking of God’s covenant
which he had made with all the people; the cove¬
nant of peculiarity made with all the tribes of Is¬
rael, and all other people, who, by being proselyted
to their religion, were incorporated into their nation.
The Jewish church was now stripped of all its glory,
its crown is profaned, and cast to the ground, and all
its honour laid in the dust; for God is departed from
it, and will no more own it for his. When Christ
told them plainly that the kingdom of God should
be taken from them and given to another people
then he broke the staff of Beauty, Matth. xxi. 43.
And it was broken in that day, though Jerusalem
and the Jewish nation held up forty years longer,
yet from that day we may reckon the staff of Beauty
broken, v. 11. And though the great men did not,
or would not, understand it as a divine sentence, but
thought to put it by with a cold God forbid, (Luke
, xx. 16.) yet the poor of the flock, the disciples cl
1142
ZECHARIAH, XL
Christ that waited on him, and understood with
what authority he spake, and could distinguish the
voice of their Shepherd from that of a stranger,
they knew that it was the word of the Lord, and
treipbled at it, and were confident that it should not
fall to the ground. Note, Christ is waited on by
the floor of the flock; he chose them to be with him,
to be his pupils, to be his witnesses; the poor re¬
ceived him and his gospel, when those that had great
possessions turned their backs upon him. And those
that wait upon Christ, that sit at his feet, to hear
and receive his words, they shall know of the doc¬
trine whether it be of God, John vii. 17.
3. A further reason given for their rejection. It
was said before, Their souls abhorred him; and
here we have an instance of it, their buying and sell¬
ing him for thirty pieces of silver; either thirty Ro¬
man pence, or rather thirty Jewish shekels; this is
here foretold in somewhat obscure expressions; as
it is fit that such particular prophecies should be
delivered, lest otherwise the plainness of the pro¬
phecy might prevent the accomplishment of it.
Here, (1.) The shepherd comes to them for his
wages; (x\ 12.) “ If ye think good, give me my
price; you are weary of me, pay me off and dis¬
charge me; and if not, forbear; if you be willing to
continue me longer in your service, I will continue,
or if to turn me off without wages, I am content.”
Christ was no hireling, and yet the labourer is wor¬
thy of his hire. Compare with this what Christ
said to Judas, when he was going to sell him.
“ What thou doest, do quickly; be at a word with
the chief priests, let them either take the bargain or
leave it,” John xiii. 27. Those that betray Christ,
are not forced to it, they might have chosen. (2.)
They value him at thirty pieces of silver; many
years’ service he had done them as a Shepherd, yet
this is all they will now turn him off with — “A good¬
ly price that I and all my care and pains was valued
at by them.” If Judas fixed this sum in his demand,
it is observable that his name is Judah, the same
name with that of the body of the people, for it was
a national act; or if (as it rather seems) the chief
priests pitched upon this sum in their proffers, they
were the representatives of the people; it was part
of the priest’s office to put a value upon the devoted
things , (Lev. xxvii. 8.) and thus they valued the
Lord Jesus. It was the ordinary price of a slave,
Exod. xxi. 32. Making light of Christ, and under¬
valuing the love of that great and good Shepherd,
are the ruin of multitudes, and justly so. (3.) The
silver being no way proportionable to his worth, it
is thrown to tfte potter with disdain; “Let him take
it to buy clay with, or for any use that a little money
will serve to, for it is not worth hoarding; it may be
enough for a potter’s stock, but not for the pay of
such a Shepherd, much less for his purchase.” So
the prophet cast the thirty pieces of silver to the pot¬
ter in the house of the Lord; “ Let him take them,
and do what he will with them.” Now we find a
particular accomplishment of this in the history of
Christ’s sufferings, and reference is had to this pro¬
phecy, Matth. xxvii. 9, 10. Thirty pieces of silver
was the very sum for which Christ was sold to the
chief priests; the money, when Judas would not
keep it, and the chief priests would not take it back,
was laid out in the purchase of the potter's field.
Even that sudden resolve of the chief priests was
according to an ancient prophecy, and the more
ancient counsel and fore-knowledge of God.
4. The completing of their rejection, in the cut¬
ting assunder of the other staff, v. 14. The former
spake the ruin of their church by breaking the
covenant between God and them — that defaced their
beauty; this speaks the ruin of their state, by break¬
ing the brotherhood between Judah and Israel, by
reviving animosities and contention among them,
such as were of old between Judah and Israel, the
writing of whom, as one stick in the hand of the
Lord, was one of the blessings promised after their
return out of captivity, Ezek. xxxvii. 19. But that
union shall now be dissolved, they shall be crumbled
into parties and factions, exasperated one against
another; and their kingdom, being thus divided,
shall be brought to desolation. (1.) Nothing ruins
a people so certainly, so inevitably, as the breaking of
the staff of Bands, and the weakening of the bro¬
therhood, among them; for hereby they become an
easy prey to the common enemy. (2.) This follows
upon the dissolving of the covenant between God
and them, and the decay of religion among them;
when iniquity abounds, love waxes cold. No won¬
der if those fall out among themselves, that have
provoked God to fall out with them. When the
staff of Beauty is broken, the staff of Bands will not
hold long. An unchurched people will soon be an
undone people.
15. And the Lord said unto me, Take
unto thee yet the instruments of a foolish
shepherd: 16. For, lo, I will raise up a
shepherd in the land, which shall not visit
those that be cut off, neither shall seek the
young one, nor heal that that is broken, nor
feed that that slandeth still ; hut he shall eat
the flesh of the fat, and tear their claws in
pieces. 17. Wo to the idle shepherd that
leaveth the flock! the sword shall be upon
his arm, and upon his right eye : his arm
shall be clean dried up, and his right eye
shall be utterly darkened.
God, having showed the misery of this people in
their being justly abandoned by the good Shepherd,
here shows their further misery in being shamefully
abused by foolish shepherds. The prophet is him¬
self to personate and represent this pretended shep¬
herd, (v. 15.) Take unto thee the instruments or
accoutrements of a foolish shepherd, that are no way
fit for the business; such a shepherd’s coat, and bag,
and staff, as a foolish shepherd would appear in; for
such a shepherd shall be set over them, (v. 16.)
who, instead of protecting them, shall oppress them,
and do them mischief. (1.) They shall be under
the inspection of unfaithful ministers; their scribes,
and priests, and doctors of their law shall bind
heavy burthens upon them, and grievous to be
borne; and with their traditions imposed, shall
make the ceremonial law much more a yoke than
God had made it. The description here given of
the foolish shepherd suits very well with the charac¬
ter Christ gives of the scribes and Pharisees, Matth.
xxiii. (2. ) They shall be under the tyranny of un¬
merciful princes, that shall rule them with rigour,
and make their own land as much a house of bond¬
age to them as ever Egypt or Babylon was; when
they had rejected him by whom princes decree jus¬
tice, it was just that they should be turned over to
them who decree unrighteous decrees. (3.) They
shall be imposed upon and deluded by false christs
and false prophets, as our Saviour foretold, Matth.
xxiv. 5. Many such there were, who by their sedi¬
tious practices provoked the Romans, and hastened
the ruin of the Jewish nation; but it is observable
that they were never cheated by a counterfeit Mes¬
siah, till they had refused and rejected the true
Messiah. Now observe,
(1.) What a curse this foolish shepherd should
be to the people, v. 16. God will, for their punish¬
ment, raise up a foolish shepherd, who will not
do the dutv of a shepherd, he will not visit those
that are cut off, nor go after those that go astray.
1 143
ZECHARI
nor seek those that are missing, to find them out,
and bring them home, as the good shepherd does,
Matth. xviii. 12, 13. They take no care of the
young ones , that need their care, and are well
worthy of it, as Christ does, Isa. xl. 11. They do
not heal that which was broken, which was worried
and torn, but let it die of its bruises, when a little
thing, in time, would have saved it. They do not
feed those who, through weakness, stand still, and
are ready to faint, and cannot get forward, but leave
them behind, let who will take them up; they do
not carry that which stands still; (so some read it;)
they never do any thing to support the weak, and
comfort the feeble-minded; but, on the contrary,
( 1. ) They are luxurious themselves; they eat of the
flesh of the fat, they will have of the best for them¬
selves; and, like that wicked servant that said, My
lord delays his corning, they eat and drink with the
drunken, and serve their own bellies. (2.) They
are barbarous to the flock; their passions are as ill-
governed as their appetites, for, when they are in a
rage against any of the flock, they tear their very
claws in pieces by over-driving them, they beat
their hoofs; they smite their fellow-servants. Wo
unto thee, O land, when thy king is such a child'.
2. What a curse this foolish shepherd should
bring upon himself; (y. 17.) I Vo to the idol shep¬
herd, who, like an idol, has eye%, and sees not; who,
like an idol, receives abundance of respect and ho¬
mage from the people, and the chief ot their offer¬
ings, but neither can, nor will, do them any kind¬
ness. He leaves the flock when they most need his
care, leaves them destitute, and flees, because he is
a hireling; his doom is, that the sword of God’s
justice shall be upon his arm and his right eye, so
that he shall quite lose the use of both. His arm
shall wither, and be dried up; so that he who would
not help his friends, when it was required, shall not
know how to help himself ; his right eye shall be
utterly darkened, that he shall not discern the dan¬
ger that his flock is in, nor know which way to look
for relief. This was fulfilled when Christ said to
he Pharisees, I am come, that they which see may
oe made blind, John ix. 39. Those that have gifts
which qualify them to do good, if they do not do
good with them, shall be deprived of them; those
hat should have been workmen, but were slothful,
and would do nothing, will justly have their arm
dried up; and those that should have been watch¬
men, but were sleepy, and would never look about
them, will justly have their eye blinded.
CHAP. XIT.
The apostle (Gal. iv. 25, 26.; distinguishes between Jeru¬
salem which now is , and is in bondage with her children
—the remaining carcase of the Jewish church that re¬
jected Christ, and Jerusalem that is from abovei that is
free , and is the mother of us all — the Christian church,
the spiritual Jerusalem, which God has chosen to put his
name there; in the chapter before, we read the doom of
the former, and left that carcase to be a prey to the eagles
that should be gathered to it. Now, in this chapter, we
have the blessings of the latter, many precious promises
made to the gospel-Jerusalem by him who (v. 1.) declares
his power to make them good. It is promised, I. That
the attempts of the church’s enemies against her, shall
be to their own ruin, and they shall find that it is at their
peril if they do her any hurt, v. 2. .4, 6. II. That the
endeavours of the church’s friends and patrons for her
good shall be pious, regular, and successful, v. 5. III.
That God will protect and strengthen the meanest and
weakest that belong to his church, and work salvation
for them, v. 7, 8. IV. That, as a preparative for all this
mercy, and a pledge of it, he will pour upon them a
spirit of prayer and repentance, the effect of which shall
be universal and very particular, v. 9. .14. These pro¬
mises were of use then to the pious Jews that lived in the
troublous times under Antiochus, and other persecutors
and oppressors; and they are still to be improved in every
age for the directing of our orayers, and the encourag¬
ing of our hopes with reference to the gospel-church.
AH, XII.
1. f 9 "'HE burden of the word of the Loud
JL for Israel, saith the Lord, which
stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the
foundation of the earth, and formeth the
spirit of man within him. 2. Behold, I will
make Jerusalem a cup of trembling untc-
all the people round about, when the}' shall
be in the siege both against Judah and
against Jerusalem. 3. And in that day will
I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone fo:
all people: all that burden themselves with
it shall be cut in pieces, though all the peo¬
ple of the earth be gathered together against
it. 4. In that day, saith the Lord, I will
smite every horse with astonishment, and
his rider with madness ; and 1 will open
mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and
will smite every horse of the people with
blindness. 5. And the governors of Judah
shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of
Jerusalem shall he my strength in the Lord
of hosts their Cod. 6. In that day will 1
make the governors of Judah like a hearth
of fire among the wood, and like a torch of
file in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the
people round about, on the right hand and
on the left: and Jerusalem shall be inha¬
bited again in her own place, even, in Jerusa¬
lem. 7. The Lord also shall save the tents
of Judah first, that the glory of the house
of David, and the glory of the inhabitants
of Jerusalem do not magnify themselves
against Judah. 8. In that day shall the
Lord defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem;
and he that is feeble among them at that
day shall be as David ; and the house of
David shall be as God, as the angel of the
Lord before them.
Here is,
I. The title of this charter of promises made to
God’s Israel; it is the burthen of the word of the
Lord, a divine prediction; it is of weight in the de¬
livery of it; it is to be pressed upon people, and
will be very pressing in the accomplishment of it;
it is a burthen, a heavy burthen, to all the church’s
enemies, like that talent of lead, ch. v. 7, 8. But it
is for Israel; it is for their comfort and benefit. As
even the fiery law, (Deut. xxxii. 2.) so the fiery
prophecies and fiery providences that come from
God’s right hand, come for them; the word that
speaks terror to their enemies, speaks peace to
them; as the pillar of cloud and fire, which turned
a bright side toward the Israelites, to direct and en¬
courage them, but a black side toward the Egyp¬
tians, to terrify and dispirit them. Happy they
that have even the burthens of God’s word for
them, as well as the blessings of it.
II. The title of him that grants this charter,
which is prefixed to it, to show that he has both au¬
thority to make these promises, and ability to make
them good, for he is the Creator of the world, and
our Creator; and therefore has an incontestable, ir¬
resistible dominion. 1. He stretehes out the hea¬
vens; not only he did so at the first, when he said.
Let there be a firmament, and he made the firma¬
ment, but he does so still, he keeps them stretched
1 1 44
ZECHARIAH, XII.
t
out like a curtain, keeps them trom running in, and
will do so till the end comes, when the heavens shall
be rolled together as a scroll. No bounds can be
set to his power who stretches out the heavens, nor
can any thing be too hard for him. 2. He lays the
foundation of the earth, and keeps it firm and fixed
on its own basis, or, rather, on its own axis, though
it is founded on the seas, (Ps. xxiv. 1, 2.) nay,
though it is hung upon nothing. Job xxvi. 7. The
Founder of this earth is, no doubt, the Ruler of it,
and judges in it, and they deceive themselves, who
say. The Lord has forsaken the earth, for if he had,
it would have sunk, since it is he that not only did
lav its foundations at first, but does still lay them,
still uphold them. 3. He forms the spirit of man
within him. He made us these souls, Jer. xxxviii.
16. He not only breathed into the first man, but
still breathes into every man the breath of life; the
body is derived from the fathers of our flesh, but
the soul is infused by the father of spirits, Heb. xii.
9. He fashions men’s hearts; they are in his hand,
and he turns them as the rivers of water, and casts
them into what mould he pleases, so as to serve his
own purposes with them ; and he can therefore save
his church by inspiriting his friends, and dispiriting
his enemies, and will eternally save all his chosen
by forming their spirits anew.
III. The promises themselves that are here made
them, by which the church shall be secured, and in
which all its friends may enjoy a holy security.
1. It is promised that whatever attacks the ene¬
mies of the church may make upon her purity or
peace, they will certainly issue in their own confu¬
sion. The enemies of God and of his kingdom bear
a great deal of malice and ill will to Jerusalem, and
form designs for its destruction; but it will prove at
last that they are but preparing ruin for themselves;
Jerusalem is in safety, and they are in all the dan¬
ger, who fight against it. This is here illustrated
by three comparisons.
(1.) Jerusalem shall be a cup of trembling to all
that lay siege to it, v. 2. They promise themselves
that it shall be to them a cup of wine, which they
shall easily and with pleasure drink off, and they
thirst for its spoils, nay, they thirst for its blood, as
for such a cup; but it shall prove a cup of slumber,
nay, a cup of poison, to them, which, when they
take it' into their hands, and think it is all their own,
they shall not be able to drink off, the fumes of it
shall give them enough. When the kings were as¬
sembled against her, and saw how God was known
in her palaces for a Refuge, they trembled, and
hasted away , fear took hold upon them, as we find,
Ps. xlviii. 3. — 6. Thus Alexander the Great was
struck with amazement when he met Jaddus the
high priest, and was deterred thereby from offer¬
ing any violence to Jerusalem. When Sennacherib
laid siege against Judah and Jerusalem, he found
them such a cup of stupifying wine as laid all his
mighty men asleep, Ps. lxxvi. 5, 6. Some read it,
I will make Jerusalem a post of contrition or break¬
ing. They that make any attempts upon Jerusa¬
lem, do but run their heads against a post, which
they cannot move, but are sure to hurt themselves.
The blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against
the wall, (Isa. xxv. 4. ) broken by it, but not shaking
it. God’s church is a cup of consolation to all her
friends, (Isa. lxvi. 11.) but a cup of trembling to
all that would either debauch her by errors and cor¬
ruptions, or destroy her by wars and persecutions.
See Isa. li. 22, 23.
(2.) Jerusalem shall be a burthensome stone to all
that attempt to remove it, or carry it away; (v. 3.)
All the people of the earth are here supposed to be
gathered together against it; some one time, and
some another; there has been a succession of ene¬
mies, from age to age, making war up^n 'he church;
but, though they were all at once in a confederacy
against it, and had formed a resolution to cut off
the name of Israel, that it should be no more in re¬
membrance, (Ps. lxxxiii. 4.) they will find it a task
too hard for them. They that are for keeping up
and advancing the kingdom of sin in the world, look
upon Jerusalem, even the church of God, as the
great obstacle to their designs, and they must have
it out of the way; but the)' will find it heavie, than
they think it is; so that, [].] They cannot remove
it. God will have a church in the world, in spite
of them; it is built upor. a rock, and is as mount
Zion that abides for ever, Ps. exxv. 1. This stone,
cut out of the mountain without hands, will not only
keep its ground, but fill the earth, Dan. ii. 35. Nay,
[2.] It will break m pieces all that burthen them¬
selves with it, as that stone smote the image, Dan.
ii. 45. All that think themselves a match for it,
shall be cut in pieces by it. Some think it is an al¬
lusion to a sport, which Jerome, upon this place,
says, was in use among the Jews, as among us:
young men tried their strength, and strove for mas¬
tery, by heaving up great stones, which if they
roved too heavy for them, fell upon them, and
raised them. Those that make a jest of religion,
and banter sacred things, will find them a burthen-
some stone, that it is ill jesting with edged tools, and
though they makediglit of it, (saying, Am not I in
sport?) they bring upon themselves an insupportable
sinking load of guilt. Our Saviour seems to allude to
these words, when he speaksof himself as a burthen-
some Stone to those that would not have him for their
Foundation Stone, which shall fall upon them, and
grind them to powder, Matth. xxi. 44.
(3.) The governors of Judah shall be among theii
enemies like a hearth of fire among the wood, and
a torch of fire in a sheaf, v. 6. Not that their
own passions shall make them incendiaries and fire¬
brands to all about them; .no, Zion’s King is meek
and lowly, and all subordinate governors must be
like him; but God’s justice will make them aveng¬
ers of his cause, and theirs, upon their enemies.
They that contend with them, will find it is like an
opposition given by briers and thorns to a consum¬
ing fire, Isa. xxvii. 4. It will go through them, and
burn them together. It is God’s wrath, and not
theirs, that is the fire which devours the adversa¬
ries. God’s fire is said to be in Zion, and his fur¬
nace in Jerusalem , Isa. xxxi. 9. The enemies
thought to be as water to this fire, to extinguish it,
and put it quite out; but God will make them as
wood, nay, as a sheaf of corn, (which is more com¬
bustible,) to this fire, not only to be consumed by it,
but to be made thereby to burn the more strongly.
When God would make Abimelech and the men of
Shechem one another’s destroyers, fire is said to
come out from the one to devour the other, Judg. ix.
20. So here, fire shall come out from the gover¬
nors of Judah, to devour all the people round about,
as from the mouth of God’s witnesses, to consume
those who offer to hurt them, Rev. xi. 5. The per¬
secutors of the primitive church found this fulfilled
in it, witness Lactantius’s history of God’s judg¬
ments upon the primitive persecutors, and the con¬
fession of Julian the Apostate at last, Thou hast
overcome me, O thou Galilean; the church’s motto
may be, Nemo me impune lacessit — He that assails
me', does it at his peril. If you are weary of your
life, persecute the Christians, was once a proverb.
2. It is promised that God will infatuate the coun¬
sels, and enfeeble the courage, of the church’s ene¬
mies; (v. 4.) In that day, when the people of the
earth are gathered together against Jerusalem, I
will smite every horse with astonishment, and his
rider with madness; and again, I will smite emery
horse o f the people with blindness, so that they shall
be no way serviceable to them; blinding the horses
11 'id
ZECHAR1AH, XII.
will be as bad as houghing them. The horses and
their horsemen shall both forget the military exer¬
cise to which they were trained, and, instead of
keeping ranks, and observing the rules of their dis¬
cipline, they shall both grow mad, and rain them¬
selves. The church’s infantry shall be too hard for
the enemy’s cavalry; and those who are upbraided
with trusting in horses, shall be baffled by those who
were forbidden to multiply horses.
3. It is promised that Jerusalem shall be repeo¬
pled and replenished; (v. 6.) Jerusalem shall be in¬
habited again in her own /dace, even in Jerusalem.
The natives of Jerusalem shall not incorporate in a
colony in some other country, and build a city there,
and call that Jerusalem, and see the promises ful¬
filled in that, as those in New England called their
towns bv the names of towns in Old England; no,
they shall have a new Jerusalem upon the same
foundation, the same spot of ground, with the old
one. They had so after their return out of captivity,
but this was to have its full accomplishment in the
gospel-church, which is a Jerusalem inhabited in its
own /dace; for, the gospel being to be preached to
all the world, it may call avery place its own.
4. It is promised that the inhabitants of Jerusalem
shall be enabled to defend themselves, and yet shall
be taken under the divine protection, v. 8. See
here in what method God preserves his church, and
those that are his, from the gates of hell, to, and
through the gates of heaven. (1.) He does him¬
self secure them; In that day shall the Lord defend
the inhabitants of Jerusalem ; not only Jerusalem
itself from being taken and destroyed, but every in¬
habitant of it from being any way damaged. God
will not only be a Wall of fire about the city, to for¬
tify that, but he will compass fiarticular fiersons with
his favour as with a shield, so that no dart of the be¬
siegers shall touch them. (2. ) He does it by giving
them strength and courage to help themselves; what
God works in his people by his grace, contributes
more to their preservation and defence than what
he works for them by his providence. The God of
Israel gives strength and /lower to his Jieo/ile, that
they may do their part, and then he will not be
wanting to do his. It is the glory of God to strengthen
the weak, that most need his help, that see and own
their need of it, and will be the most thankful for it.
1. ] In that day the feeblest of the inhabitants of
erusalem shall be as David; shall be men of war,
as bold and brave, as skilful and strong, as David
himself ; shall enterprise and accomplish great
things, as David did, and become as serviceable to
Jerusalem in guarding it as David himself was in
founding it, and as formidable as he was to the ene¬
mies of it. See what divine grace does; it makes
children not only men, but champions; makes weak
saints to be not only good soldiers, but great soldiers,
like David. And see how God often doeS his own
work as easily and effectually, and more to his own
glory, by weak and obscure instruments than by the
most illustrious. [2. ] The house of David shall be
as God, as the angel of the Lord, before him. Ze-
rubbabel was now the top branch of the house of
David, he shall be endued with wisdom and grace
for the service to which he is called, and shall go
before the people as an angel; as that angel (so
some think) which went before the people of Israel
through the wilderness, which was God himself,
Exod. xxiii. 20. God will increase the gifts and
abilities both of the people and princes, in propor¬
tion to the respective services for which they are
designed. It was said of David, that he was as an
angel of God, to discern good and bad, 2 Sam. xiv.
17. Such shall now the house of David be. The
inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be as strong, and fit
for action, as nature made David, and their magis¬
trates as wise, and fit for counsel, as grace made 1
Vol. iv. — 7 F
him. But this was to have its full accomplishment
in Christ; now the nouse of David looked little anc
mean, and its glory was eclipsed, but in Christ the
house of David shone more bright than ever, and
its countenance was as that of an angel; in him it
became more blessed, and more a olessing, than
ever it had been.
5. It is promised that there shall be a very good
understanding between the city and the country,
and that the balance shall be kept even between
them; there shall be no mutual envies or jealousies
between them; they shall not keep up any separate
interests, but shall heartily unite in their counsels,
and act in concert for the common good; and this
happy agreement between the city and the country,
the head and the body, is very necessary to the
health, welfare, and safety of any nation.
(1.) The governors of Judah, the magistrates
and gentry of the country, shall think honourably
of the citizens, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the
merchants and tradesmen; they shall not run them
down, and contrive how to keep them under, but
they shall say in their hearts, not in compliment, but
in sincerity, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be
my strength, the strength of my country, of my
family, in the Lord of hosts their God, v. 5. They
will therefore, upon all occasions, pay respect and
deference to Jerusalem, as the mother-city, the rul¬
ing-city, and the city that is to be first served, be¬
cause they look upon it to be the bulwark of the na¬
tion, and its strongest fortification in times of pub¬
lic danger and distress; which therefore the)' would
all come in to the assistance of, and come under the
protection of; and this, not so much because it was
a rich city, and money is the sinews of war, or be¬
cause it was a populous city, and could bring the
greatest numbers into the field, or because its in¬
habitants were generally the most ingenious, active
men, the best soldiers, and the best commanders;
( Of Zion it shall be said, This and that brave man
was born there;') but because it was ,a holy city;
where God’s house and household, the temple and
the priests, were, where his worship was kept up,
and his feasts were observed; and because it should
now be, more than ever, a p raying city, for upon
the inhabitants of Jerusalem God will pour a spirit
of supplication; ( v . 10.) therefore the governors of
Judah shall say, These are my strength; they are so
upon the account of their relation to, their interest
in, and their communion with, the Lord of hosts
their God. Because the Lord of hosts is in a par¬
ticular manner their God, (for in Salem is his taber¬
nacle, and his dwelling-place in Zion,) therefore
they shall be my strength. Note, It is well with a
kingdom when its great men know how to value its
good men, when its governors look upon religion
and religious people to be their strength, and that it
is their interest to support them, and learn to call
godly, praying people, and skilful, faithful minis¬
ters, the chariots and horsemen of Israel, as Joash
called Elisha, and not the troublers of the land, as
Ahab called Elijah.
(2.) The court and the city shall not desj ,se, or
look with contempt upon, the inhabitants of the
country, no, not the meanest of them, much less
upon the governors of Judah. For God will put sig¬
nal honour upon Judah, and so save them from the
contempt of their brethren. As Jerusalem was dig¬
nified by special ordinances, so Judah shall be dig¬
nified with special providences. God says, (v. 4.)
I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah ; upon
the poor country people. Proud men scornfully
overlook them, but the great God will graciously
look upon them, and look after them Nay, (y. 7.)
the Lord shall save the tents of Juda.r, first. They
that dwell in tents, lie most exposed; but God will
1 remarkably protect and deliver them before those
1146
ZECHAR1AH, XII.
that dwell in Jerusalem. He will appear glorious
in what he does for the inhabitants of his villages in
Israel, Judg. v. 11. Thus, in the mystical body,
God gives more abundant honour to that fart which
.ached, that there may be no schism in the body; (see
1 Cor. xii. 22. — 25.) which is the reason here given,
that the glory of the house of David, which has
great power, and the glory of the inhabitants of Je¬
rusalem, who have great wealth, and both which
live in great pomp and pleasure, may not magnify
themselves against Judah, and the tents of Judah,
the dwellers in which work hard, and fare hard,
and perhaps are not so well bred. Note, Courtiers
and citizens ought not to despise country people, or
look with disdain upon those whom God opens his
eyes ufon, and who are frst saved; while it is so
hard for the rich and great to enter the kingdom of
God. If God by his grace has magnified the dwell¬
ers in the tents of Judah, having chosen the weak
and foolish things of the world, and chosen to em¬
ploy them, we affront him if we vilify them, or
magnify ourselves against them, Jam. ii. 5, 6. This
promise lias a further reference to the gospel-
church, in which no difference shall be made be¬
tween high and low, rich and poor, bond and free,
circumcision and uncircumcision, but all shall be
alike welcome to Christ, and partake of his benefits,
Col. iii. 11. Jerusalem shall not then be thought,
as it had been, more holy than other parts of the
land of Israel.
9. And it shall come to pass in that day,
that I will seek to destroy all the nations
that come against Jerusalem. 10. And I
will pour upon the house of David, and
upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit
ol grace and of supplications; and they shall
look upon me whom they have pierced, and
they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth
for his only son, and shall be in bitterness
for him, as one that is in bitterness for his
first-born. 11. In that day shall there be
a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the
mourning of Hadad-rimmon in the valley of
Megiddon. 12. And the land shall mourn,
every family apart; the family of the house
of David apart, and their wives apart; the
family of the house of Nathan apart, and
their wives apart; 13. The family of the
house of Levi apart, and their wives apart;
the family of Shimei apart, and their wives
apart; 14. All the families that remain,
every family apart, and their wives apart.
The day here spoken of, is the day of Jerusalem’s
defence and deliverance, that glorious day when
God will appear for the salvation of his people;
which, if it do refer to the successes which the Jews
had against their enemies, in the time of the Mac¬
cabees, yet certainly it looks further, to the gospel-
day, to Christ’s victories over the powers of dark¬
ness, and the great salvation he has wrought for his
chosen. Now we have here an account of two re¬
markable works designed in that day.
I. A glorious work of God to be wrought for his
people; I will seek to destroy all the nations that
come against Jerusalem, v. 9. Nations came against
Jerusalem, many and mighty nations; but they shall
all be destroyed, their power shall be broken, and
their attempts baffled; the mischief they intend,
shall return upon their own head. God will seek to
destroy them; not as if he were at a loss for ways
and means to bring it about, (Infinite WAdom was
never nonplussed,) but his seeking to do it, intimates
that he is very earnest and intent upon it, (he is
jealous for Zion with great jealousy, and has the
day of vengeance in his heart,) and that he over¬
rules means and instruments, and all the motions
and operations of second causes, in order to it. He
is framing evil against them; when he seems to be
setting them up, he is seeking to destroy them. In
Christ’s first coming, he sought to destroy him that
had the power of death, and did destroy him, bruis¬
ed the serpent’s head, and broke all the flowers of
darkness that fought against God’s kingdom among
men, and against the faithful friends and subjects of
that kingdom; he s/ioiled them, and made a show
of them ofienly. In his second coming, he will
complete their destruction, when he shall put dow k
all opposing rule, principality, and power, and
death itself shall be swallowed up in that victory.
The last enemy shall be destroyed of all that fought
against Jerusalem.
II. A gracious work of God to be wrought in his
people, in order to the work that is to be wrought
for them. When he seeks to destroy their enemies,
he will pour upon them the Spirit of grace and sup¬
plication. Note, When God intends great mercy
for his people, the first thing he does is to set them
a praying; thus he seeks to destroy their enemies by
stirring them up to seek to him that he would do it
for them; because, though he has purposed it, and
promises it, and it is for his own glory to do it, yet
he will for this be inquired of by the house of Israel,
Ezek. xxxvi. 37. Ask, and it shall be given; this
honour will he have to himself, and thishunour will
he put upon prayer and upon praying people. And
it is a happy presage to the distressed church, of
deliverance approaching, and is, as it were, the
dawning of its day, when his people are stirred up
to cry mightily to him for it.
But this promise has reference to, and is perform¬
ed in, the graces of the Spirit given to all believers,
Isa. xliv. 3. I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed,
which was fulfilled when Jesus was glorified, John
vii. 39. It is a promise of the Spirit, and with him
of all spiritual blessings in heavenly things by Christ.
Now observe here,
1. On whom these blessings are poured out; (1.)
On the house of David, on the great men; for they
are no more, and no better, than the grace of God
makesthem. It was promised (v. 8.) that the house
of David shall be as the angel of the Lord. Now, in
order to that, the Spirit of grace is poured upon
them; for the more the saints have of the Spirit of
grace, the more like they are to the holy angels.
When God was about to appear for the land, he
poured his Spirit of grace upon the house of David,
the leading men of the land. It bodes well to a
people when they go before the rest in that which
is good, as 2 Chron. xx. 5. The house of David is
all summed up in Jesus Christ, The Son of David;
and upon him, as the Head, the Spirit of grace is
poured out, from him to be diffused to all his mem
bers; from his fulness we receive, and grace for
grace. (2.) On the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the
common people; for the operations of the Spirit are
the same upon the mean and weak Christians that
they are upon the strong and more grown. The
inhabitants of Jerusalem cannot influence public af¬
fairs by their powers and policies, so as the great,
men of the house of David may, yet they may do
good service by their prayers, and therefore upon
them the Spirit shall be poured out. The church
is Jerusalem, the heavenly Jerusalem; all true be¬
lievers, that have their conversation in heaven, are
inhabitants of this Jerusalem, and to them this pro
mise belongs, God will pour his Shirit upon them.
1147
ZECHARIAH, XII.
This is that earnest which all that believe in Christ
shall receive; thus they are sanctified, thus they are
sealed.
2. What these blessings are; I will / tour upon
them the Spirit. That includes all good things, as
it qualifies us for the favour of God, and all his
other gifts. He will pour out the Spirit, (1.) Asa
Spirit of grace, to sanctify us, and to make us gra¬
cious. (2.) As a Spirit of supplications, inclining
us to, instructing and assisting us in, the duty of
prayer. Note, Wherever the Spirit is given as a
Spirit of grace, he is given as a Spirit of sanctifica¬
tion. Wherever he is a Spirit of adoption, he
teaches to cry, Abba, Father. As soon as ever Paul
was converted, Behold, he prays, Acts ix. 11. You
may as soon find a living man without breath as a
living saint without prayer. There is a more plen¬
tiful effusion of the Spirit of prayer now under the
gospel than was under the law ; and the further the
work of sanctification is carried in us, the better is
the work of supplication carried on by us.
3. What the effect of them will be; I will pour
upon them the Spirit of grace. One would think
that it should follow, “ And they shall look on him
whom they have believed, and shall rejoice;” (and
it is true, that that is one of the fruits of the pouring
out of the Spirit, whence we read of the joy of the
Holy Ghost;) but it follows, They shall mourn; for
there is a holy mourning, that is the effect of the
pouring out of the Spirit; a mourning for sin, which
is of use to quicken faith in Christ, and qualify for
joy in God. It is here made the matter of a pro¬
mise, that they shall mourn, for there is a mourn¬
ing that will end in rejoicing, and has a blessing
entailed upon it. This mourning is a fruit of the
Spirit of grace, an evidence of a work of grace in
the soul, and a companion of the Spirit of supplica¬
tion, as it expresses living affections working in
prayer; hence prayers and tears are often put to¬
gether, 2 Kings xx. 5. Jacob, that wrestled with
God, wept and made supplication. But here is a
mourning for sin, that is the effect of the pouring
out of the Spirit.
(1.) It is a mourning grounded upon a sight of
Christ; They shall look on me whom they have
pierced, and shall mourn for him. Here, [1.] It is
foretold that Christ should be pierced, and this scrip¬
ture is quoted as that which was fulfilled when
Christ’s side was pierced upon the cross; see John
xix. 37. [2.] He is spoken of as one whom we
have pierced; it is spoken primarily of the Jews,
who persecuted him to the death; (and we find that
they who pierced him are distinguished from the
other kindreds of the earth, that shall wail because
of him. Rev. i. 7.) yet it is true of us all as sinners,
we have pierced Christ; inasmuch as our sins were
the cause of his death, for he was wounded for our
transgressions, and they are the grief of his soul;
he is broken with the whorish heart of sinners, who
therefore are said to crucify him afresh, and put him
to open shame. [3.] Those that truly repent of
sin, look upon Christ as one whom they have pierc¬
ed, who was pierced for their sins, and is pierced
by them; and this engages them to look unto him,
as those that are deeply concerned for him. [4. ]
This is the effect of their looking to Christ, it makes
them mourn. This was particularly fulfilled in
those to whom Peter preached Christ crucified;
when they heard it, they who had had a hand in
piercing him, were pricked to the heart, and cried
out. What shall we do? It is fulfilled in all those who
sorrow for sin after a godly sort; they look to Christ,
and mourn for him, not so much for his sufferings
as for their own sins that procured them. Note,
The genuine sorrows of a penitent soul flow from
.lie believing sight of a pierced Saviour. Looking
by faith upon the cross of Christ will set us a mourn¬
ing for sin after a godly sort.
(2.) It is a great mourning. [1.] It is like the
mourning of a parent for the death of a beloved
child. They shall mourn for sin as one mourns for
an only son, in whose grave the hopes of his family
are buried, and shall be inwardly in bitterness as
one that is in bitterness for his first-born, as the
Egyptians were, when there was a cry throughout
all their land for the death of their first-born. The
sorrow of children for the death of their parents is
sometimes counterfeited, is often small, and soou
wears off, and is forgotten; but the sorrow of pa¬
rents for a child, for a son, for an only son, for a
first-boni, is natural, sincere, unforced, and unaf¬
fected, it is secret and lasting; such are the sorrows
of a true penitent, flowing purely from love to Christ
above any other. [2.1 It is like the mourning of a
people for the death of a wise and good prince. It
shall be like the mourning of Hadad-rimmon in the
valley of Megicldon, where good king Josiali was
slain, for whom there was a general lamentation,
( v . 11.) and perhaps the greater because they were
told that it was their sin that provoked God to de¬
prive them of so great a blessing; therefore they
cried out, The crown is fallen from our head; Wo
unto us, for we have sinned! Lam. v. 16. Christ
is our King; our sins were his death, and, for that
reason, ought to be our grief.
(3.) It is a general, universal mourning; (n. 12.)
The land shall mourn. The land itself put on
mourning at the death of Christ, for there was then
darkness over all the land, and the earth trembled;
but this is a promise, that, in consideration of the
death of Christ, multitudes shall be effectually
brought to sorrow for sin, and turn to God; it shall
be such a universal gracious mourning as was when
all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord, 1
Sam. vii. 2. Some think this is yet to have its com¬
plete accomplishment in the general conversion of
the Jewish nation.
(4.) It is also a private, particular mourning.
There shall be not only a mourning of the land, by
its representatives in a general assembly, (as Judg.
11. 5. when the place was called Bochim — A place
of weepers ,) but it shall spread itself into all corners
of the land; Every family apart shall mourn; (x\
12. ) all the families that remain, v. 14. All have
contributed to the guilt, and therefore all shall share
in the grief. Note, The exercises of devotion should
be performed by private families among themselves,
besides their joining in public assemblies for reli¬
gious worship. National fasts must be observed,
not only in our synagogues, but in our houses. In
the mourning here foretold, the wives mourn apart
by themselves, in their own apartment, as Esther
and her maids. And some think it intimates their
denying themselves the use even of lawful delights
in a time of general humiliation, 1 Cor. vii. 5.
Four several families are here specified as exam¬
ples to others, in this mourning. [1.] Two of them
are royal families; the house of David, in Solomon,
and the house of Nathan, another son of David,
brother to Solomon, from whom Zerubbabel de¬
scended, as appears by Christ’s genealogy, Luke
iii. 27, 31. The house of David, particularly that
of Nathan, which is now the chief branch of that
house, shall go before in this good work. The
greatest princes must not think themselves exempt¬
ed from the law of repentance, but rather obliged
most solemnly to express it, for the exciting of
others; as Hezekiah humbled himself, 2 Chron.
xxxii. 26. The princes and the king, (2 Chron.
xii. 6.) and the king of Nineveh, Jonah iii. 6. [2. J
Two of them are sacred families; ( v . 13.) the fa¬
mily of the house of Levi, which was God’s tribe.
1148
ZECHARIAH, XIII.
and in it particularly the family of Shimei, which
was a branch of the tribe of Levi, (1 Chron. vi. 17.)
and, probably, some of the descendants of that fa¬
mily were now of note for preachers to the people,
or ministers to the altar. As the princes must
mourn for the sins of the magistracy, so must the
priest for the iniquity of the holy things. In times
of general tribulation and humiliation, the Lord’s
ministers are concerned to weep between the {torch
and the altar , (Joel ii. 17.) and not only there, but
in their houses apart; for in what families should
godliness, both in the form and in the power of it, be
found, if not in ministers’ families?
CHAP. XIII.
In this chapter, we have, I. Some further promises relat¬
ing to gospel-times. Here is a promise of the remission
of sins, (v. 1.) of the reformation of manners, (v. 2.)
and particularly of the convicting and silencing of false
prophets, v. 2 . . 6. II. A clear prediction of the suffer¬
ings of Christ, and the dispersion of his disciples there¬
upon, (v. 7.) of the destruction of the greater part of the
Jewish nation not long after, (v. 8.) and of the purifying
of a remnant of them, a peculiar people, to God, v. 9.
1. TIN that clay there shall be a fountain
A opened to the house of David, and to
the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for
uncleanness. 2. And it shall come to pass
in that day, saith the Lord of hosts, that I
will cut off the names of the idols out of the
land, and they shall no more be remem¬
bered; and also I will cause the prophets
and the unclean spirit to pass out of the
land. 3. And it shall come to pass, that
when any shall yet prophesy, then his fa¬
ther and his mother that begat him shall say
unto him, Thou shalt not live; for thou
speakest lies in the name of the Lord: and
his father and his mother that begat him
shall thrust him through when he prophesi-
eth. 4. And it shall come to pass in that
day ,tkat the prophets shall be ashamed every
one of his vision, when he hath prophesied :
neither shall they wear a rough garment to
deceive: 5. But he shall say, I am no pro¬
phet, I am a husbandman ; for man taught
me to keep cattle from my youth. 6. And
one shall say unto him, What are these
wounds in thy hands ? Then he shall an¬
swer, Those with which I was wounded in
the house of my friends.
Behold the Lamb of God taking away the sin of
the world, the sin of the church; for therefore was
the Son of God manifested, to take away our sin,
1 John iii. 5.
I. He takes away the guilt of sin by the blood of
his cross; ( v . 1.) In that day, in the_ gospel-day,
there shall be a fountain opened, provision made, for
the cleansing of all those from the pollutions of sin,
who truly repent, and are sorry for them. In that
day, when the Spirit of grace is poured out, to set
them a mourning for their sins, they shall not
mourn as those who have no hope, but they shall
have their sins pardoned, and the comfort of it in
their bosoms. Their consciences shall be purified
and pacified by the blood of Christ, which cleanses
from all sin, 1 John i. 7. For Christ is exalted to
give both repentance and remission of sins; and
where he gives the one, no doubt, he gives the
other. This fountain opened is the pierced side of
Jesus Christ, spoken of just before, (ch. xii. 10.) for
thence came there out blood and water, and both
for cleansing. And those who look u/ion Christ
pierced, and mourn for their sins that pierced him,
and are therefore in bitterness for him, may look
again upon Christ pierced, and rejoice in him, be¬
cause it pleased the Lord thus to smite this Rock,
that it might be to us a Fountain of living waters.
See here, 1. Hnw we are polluted; we are all so;
we have sinned, and sin is uncleanness, it defiles the
mind and conscience, renders us odious to God, and
uneasy in ourselves, unfit to be employed in the
service of God, and admitted into communion with
him, as those who were ceremonially unclean were
shut out of the sanctuary. The house of David and
the inhabitants of Jerusalem are under sin, which is
uncleanness. The truth is, we are all as an unclean
thing, and deserve to have our portion with the un¬
clean. 2. How we maybe purged. Behold, there
is a fountain opened for us to wash in, and there are
streams flowing to us from that fountain, so that if
we be not made clean, it is our own fault. The
blood of Christ, and God’s pardoning mercy in that
blood, revealed in the new covenant, are, (1.) A
fountain; for there is in them an inexhaustible ful¬
ness. There is mercy enough in God, and merit
enough in Christ, for the forgiving of the greatest
sins and sinners, upon gospel-terms. Such were
some of you, but you are washed, 1 Cor. vi. 11.
Under the law, there was a brazen laver, and a
brazen sea, to wash in; those were but vessels, but
we have a fountain to apply ourselves to, overflow¬
ing, everflowing. (2.) It is a fountain opened; for,
whoever will, may come, and take the benefit of it;
it is opened, not only to the house of David, but to
the inhabitants of Jerusalem; to the poor and mean
as well as to the rich and great; or, it is opened for
all believers, who, as the spiritual seed of Christ,
are of the house of David, and, as living mem¬
bers of the church, are inhabitants of Jerusalem.
Through Christ all that believe are justified, are
washed from their sins in his blood, that they may
be made to our God kings and priests, Rev. i. 5, 6.
II. He takes away the dominion of sin by the
power of his grace, even of beloved sins; this ever¬
more accompanies the former; those that are wash¬
ed in the fountain opened, as they are justified , so
they are sanctified; the water came with the blood
out of the pierced side of Christ. It is here promised
that in that day,
1. Idolatry shall be quite abolished, and the peo¬
ple of the Jews shall be effectually cured of their
inclination to it; ( v . 2.) I will cut off the names of
the idols out of the land. The worship of the idols
of their fathers shall be so perfectly rooted out, that
in one generation or two it shall be forgotten that
ever there were such idols among them; they shall
either not be named at all, or not with any respect;
they shall no more be remembered, as was promised,
Hos. ii. 17. This was fulfilled in the rooted aver¬
sion which the Jews had, after the captivity, to
idols and idolatry, and still retain to this day; it
was fulfilled also in the ready conversion of many to
the faith of Christ, by which they were taken off
from making an idol of the ceremonial law, as the
unbelieving Jews did; and it is still in the fulfilling,
when souls are brought off from the world and the
flesh, those two great idols, that they may cleave to
God only.
2. False prophecy shall also be brought to an
end; I will cause the prophets and the unclean spi¬
rit, the prophets that are under the influence of the
unclean spirit, to pass out of the land; the devil is
an unclean spirit, sin and uncleanness are from him;
he has his prophets, that serve his interests, and re
1 14!)
ZECHARIAH, XIII.
ceive their instructions from him. Take away the
unclean spirit, and the prophets would not deceive as
they do; take away the false prophets that produce
sham commissions, and the unclean spirit could not
do the mischief he does. When God designs the
silencing of the false prophets, he banishes the un¬
clean spirit out of the land, that wrought in them,
and was a rival with him for the throne in the heart.
The church of the Jews, when they were addict¬
ed to idols, did also dote much upon false prophets,
who flattered them in their sins with promises of
impunity and peace; but here it is promised, as a
blessed effect of the promised reformation, that they
should be very much set against false prophets, and
zealous to clear the land of them; they were so after
the captivity, till, through the blindness of their
zeal against false prophets, they had put Christ to
death under that character, and, after that, there
arose many false christs and false prophets, and
deceived many, Matth. xxiv. 11. It is here fore¬
told,
(1.) That false prophets, instead of being in¬
dulged and favoured, should be bi'ought to condign
punishment even by their nearest relations, which
would be as great an instance as any other of fla¬
grant zeal against those deceivers; ( v . 3.) J Vhen any
shall set up for a prophet, and shall speak lies in the
name of the Lora, shall preach that which tends to
draw people from God, and to confirm them in sin,
his own parents shall be the first and most forward
to prosecute him for it, according to law, (Deut.
xiii. 6. — 11.) If thy son entice thee secretly from
God, thou shalt surely kill him. Show thy indigna¬
tion against him, and prevent any further temptation
from him. His father and his mother shall thrust
him through when he prophesies. Note, We ought
to conceive, and. always to retain, a very great de¬
testation and dread of every thing that would draw
us out of the way of our duty into by-paths, as those
who cannot bear that which is evil, Rev. ii. 2. And
holy zeal for God and godliness will make us hate
sin, and dread temptation, most in those whom na¬
turally we love best, and who are nearest to us;
there our danger is greatest, as Adam’s from Eve,
Job’s from his wife; and there it will be the most
praiseworthy to show our zeal, as Levi, who, in the
cause of God, did not acknowledge his brethren, or
know his own children, Deut. xxxiii. 9. Thus we
must hate and forsake our nearest relations, when
they come in competition with our duty to God,
Luke xiv. 26. Natural affections, even the strong¬
est, must be overruled by gracious affections.
(2.) That false prophets should be themselves
convinced of their sin and folly, and let fall their
pretensions; (v. 4.) The prophets shall be ashamed
every one of his visio?i: they shall not repeat it, or
insist upon it, but desire that it may be forgotten
and no more said of it, being ready themselves to
own it was a sham; either because God has by his
grace awakened their consciences, and showed
them their error, or because the event disproves
their predictions, and gives them the lie, or, be¬
cause their prophecies do not meet with such a fa¬
vourable reception as they used to meet with, but
are generally despised and detested; they perceive
the people ashamed of them, which makes them
begin to be ashamed of themselves. And there¬
fore they shall no longer wear a rough garment, or
garment of hair, as the true prophets used to do, in
imitation of Elijah, and in token of their being mor¬
tified to the pleasures and delights of sense. The
pretenders had appeared in the habit of true pro¬
phets; but, their folly being now made manifest,
they shall lay it aside, no more to deceive and im¬
pose upon unthinking, unwary people by it. A
modest dress is a very good thing, it it be the ge¬
nuine indication of a humble heart, and is to instruct:
but it is a bad thing, if it be the hypocritical dis¬
guise of a proud, ambitious heart, and is to de¬
ceive. Let men be really as good as they seem to
be, but not seem to be better than really they are.
This pretender, as a true penitent, [1.] Shall un¬
deceive those whom he had imposed upon; He shall
say, “/ am no prophet, as I have pretended to be,
was never designed or set apart to the office, never
educated or brought up for it, never conversant
among the sons of the prophets; I am a husband¬
man, and was bred to that business; I was never
taught of God to prophecy, but taught of matt to
keep cattle.” Amos was originally such a one too,
and yet was afterward called to be a prophet.
Amos vii. 14, 15. But this deceiver never had any
such call. Note, Those who sorrow after a godly-
sort for their having deceived others, will be for¬
ward to confess their sin, and will be so just as to
rectify the mistakes which they have been the
cause of. Thus they who had used curious arts,
when they were converted showed their deeds, and
by what fallacies they had cheated the people, Acts
xix. 18. [2.] He shall return to his own proper
employment, which is the fittest for him; I will be
a husbandman; (so it may be read;) “I will apply
myself to my calling ?gain, and meddle no more
with things that belong not to me; for man taught
me to keep cattle from my youth, and cattle I will
again keep, and never set up for a preacher any
more.” Note, When we are convinced that we are
gone out of the way of our duty, we must evidence
the truth of our repentance by returning to it again,
though it be the severest mortification to us. [3.]
He shall acknowledge those to be his friends, who
by a severe discipline were instrumental to bring
him to a sight of his error, v. 6. When he who
with the greatest assurance had asserted himself so
lately to be a prophet, suddenly drops his claims,
and says, I am no prophet, every body will be sur¬
prised at it, and some will ask, “ What are these
wounds, or marks of stripes, in thine hands ? How
earnest thou by them? Hast thou not been ex¬
amined by scourging? And is not that it that has
brought thee to thyself?” {Vex alio dat intellec-
tum — Vexation sharpens the intellect.) “Hast thou
not been beaten into this acknowledgment? Was
it not the rod and reproof that gave thee this wis¬
dom?” And he shall own, “Yes, it was, these are
the wounds with which I was wounded in the house
of my friends, who bound me, and used me hardly-
and severely, as a distracted man, and so brought
me to my senses.” By this it appears that those
parents of the false prophet, that thrust him through,
{v. 3.) did not do it till they had first tried to re¬
claim him by correction, and he would not be re¬
claimed; for so was the law concerning a disobedient
son — his parents must first have chastened him in
vain, before they were allowed to bring him forth to
be stoned, Deut. xxi. 18, 19. But here is another,
who was reduced by stripes, and so prevented the
capital punishment; and he had the sense and ho¬
nesty to own that they were his friends, his real
friends, who thus wounded him, that they might
reclaim him; for faithful are the wounds of a friend,
Prov. xxvii. 6. Some good interpreters, observing
how soon this comes after the mention of Christ’s
being pierced, think that these are the words of that
reat Prophet, not of the false prophet spoken of
efore. Christ was wounded in his hands, when
they were nailed to the cross, and, after his resur¬
rection, he had the marks of these wounds; and
here he tells how he came by them ; he received
them as a false prophet, for the chief priests called
him a deceiver, and upon that account would have
him crucified; but he received them in the house of
his friends — the Jews, who should have been his
friends; for he came to his own: and though thev
1150
ZECHAR1AH, XIII.
were his bitter enemies, yet he was pleased to call
them his friends , as he did Judas; ( Friend , where¬
fore art thou come?) because they forwarded his
sufferings for him; as he called Peter, Satan — an
adversary, because he dissuaded him from them.
7. Awake, O sword, against my Shep¬
herd, and against the man that is my fellow,
saith the Loud of hosts: smite the Shep¬
herd, and the sheep shall be scattered; and
I will turn my hand upon the little ones.
8. And it shall come to pass, that in all the
land, saith the Lord, two parts therein shall
be cut off, and die ; but the third shall be
left therein. 9. And I will bring the third
part through the fire, and will refine them
as silver is refined, and will try them as gold
is tried: they shall call on my name, and 1
will hear them; I will say, It is my people;
and they shall say, The Lord is my God.
Here is a prophecy,
1. Of the sufferings of Christ, of him who was to
be pierced and was to be the Fountain opened.
Awake, O sword, against my Shepherd, v. 7.
These are the words of God the Father, giving or¬
der and commission to the sword of his justice to
awake against his Son, when he had voluntarily
made his soul an offering for sin; for it pleased the
Lord to bruise him, and put him to grief; and he
was stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted, Isa. liii.
4, 10. Observe, (1.) How he calls him. As God,
he is my Fellow; for he thought it no robbery to be
equal with God, he and the Father are one. He
was from eternity by him, as one brought up with
him, and, in the work of man’s redemption, he was
Ms Elect, in whom his soul delighted, and the coun¬
sel of peace was between them both. As Mediator,
he is my Shepherd, that great and good Shepherd
that undertook to feed the flock, ch. xi. 7. He is
the Shepherd that was to lay down his life for the
sheep. (2.) How he uses him; Awake, O sword,
against him. If he will be a Sacrifice, he must be
slain, for without the shedding of blood, the life¬
blood, there was no remission. Men thrust him
through as a foolish shepherd; God thrust him
through as the Good Shepherd, (compare v. 3.)
that he might purchase the flock of God with his
own blood, Acts xx. 28. It is not a charge given to
a rod to correct him, but to a sword to slay him;
for Messiah the Prince must be cut off, but not for
himself, Dan. ix. 26. It is not the sword of war,
that receives this charge, that he may die in the
bed of honour, but the sword of justice, that hemav
die as a criminal, upon an ignominious tree. This
sword must awake against him; he having no sin
of his own to answer for, the sword of justice had
nothing to say to him of itself, till by particular or¬
der from the Judge of all. it was warranted to brand¬
ish itself against him. He was the Lamb slain from
the foundation of the world, in the decree and coun¬
sel of God; but the sword designed against him had
long slumbered, till now at length it is called upon
to awake, not, “Awake, and frighten him,” but,
“Awake, and smile him; strike home; not with a
drowsy blow, but an awakening one;” for God
spared not his own Son.
2. Of the dispersion of the disciples thereupon;
Smite the Shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.
This our Lord Jesus himself declares to have been
fulfilled, when all his disciples were offended because
of him in the night wherein he was betrayed, Matth.
xxvi. 31. Mark xiv. 27. They all forsook him, and
.fled. The smiting of the Shepherd is the scatter¬
ing of the sheep. They were scattered every one to
his own, and left him alone, John xvi. 32. Herein
they were like timorous sheep; yet the Shepherd
thus provided for their safety, for he said, If ye seek
me, let these go their way. Some make another ap¬
plication of this; Christ was the Shepherd of the
Jewish nation; he was smitten, they themselves
smote him, and therefore they were justly scattered
abroad, and dispersed among the nations, and re¬
main so at this day. These words, I will turn my
hands upon the little ones, may be understood either
as a threatening, (as Christ suffered, so shall his
disciples, they shall drink of the cup that he drank
of, and be baptized with the baptism that he was
baptized with,) or as a promise that God would
gather Christ’s scattered disciples together again,
and he should give them the meeting in Galilee.
Though the little ones among Christ’s soldiers may
be dispersed, they shall rally again, the lambs of his
flock, though frightened by the beasts of prey, shall
recover themselves, shall be gathered in his arms,
and laid in his bosom. Sometimes, when the sheep
are scattered and lost in the wilderness, yet the little
ones, which, it was feared, would be a prey, (Num.
xiv. 31.) are brought in, are brought home, and God
turns his hand upon them.
3. Of the rejection and ruin of the unbelieving
Jews; (u. 8.) and this word has and shall have, its
accomplishment, in the destruction of the corrupt
and hypocritical part of the church. It shall come
to pass that in all the land of Israel two parts shall
be cut off, and die; the Roman army laid the coun¬
try waste, and slew at least two-thirds of the Jews.
Some understand by the cutting off, and dying, of
two parts in all the earth, the abolishing of heathen¬
ism and Judaism, that Christianity, the third fiart,
might be left to reign alone. The Jewish worship
was quite taken away by the destruction of Jerusa¬
lem and the temple. And, some time after, pagan
idolatry was in a manner extirpated, when the em¬
pire became Christian.
4. Of the reformation and preservation of the
chosen remnant, those of them that believed, and
the Christian church in general; (y. 9.) The third
part shall be left; when Jerusalem and Judea were
destroyed, all the Christians in that country, having
among them the warning Christ gave them to flee
to the mountains, shifted for their own safety, and
were sheltered in a city called Pella, on the other
side Jordan. We have here, first, the trials, and
then, the triumphs, of the Christian church, and of
all the faithful members of it. (1.) Their trials;
I will bring that third part through the fire of af¬
fliction, and will refine and try them as silver and
gold are refined and tried. This was fulfilled in the
persecutions of the primitive church, the fiery trial
which tried the people of God then, 1 Pet. iv. 12.
Those whom God sets apart for himself must pass
through a probation and purification in this world;
they must be tried that their faith may be found to
praise and honour, (1 Pet. l. 6, 7.) as Abraham’s
faith was when it was tried by the command given
him to offer up Isaac; Mow know I that thou fearest
me. They must be tried, that both they that are
perfect, and they that are not, may be made mani¬
fest. They must be refined from their dross, their
corruption must be purged out, they must be
brightened and bettered. (2.) Their triumphs.
[1.] Their communion with God is their triumph;
They shall call on my name, and I will hear them.
They write to God by prayer, and receive from him
answers of peace, and thus keep up a comfortable
communion with him; this honour have all his
saints. [2.] Their covenant with God is their
triumph; “ I will say, It is my people, whom I have
chosen and loved, and will own; and they shall say,
The Lord is my God, and a God all-sufficient to
ZECHARIAH, XIV. 1151
me; and in him they shall boast every day, and all
the day long. This God is our God for ever and
ever. ”
CHAP. XIV.
Livers things were foretold, in the two foregoing chapters,
which should come to pass in that day ; this chapter
speaks of a day of the Lord that cometh. a day of his judg¬
ment; and ten times in the foregoing chapters, and seven
times in this, it is repeated, in that day; but what that
day is, that is here meant, is uncertain, and perhaps will
be so (as the Jews speak) till Elias comes; whether it re¬
fer to the whole period of time, from the prophet’s days
to the days of the Messiah, or to some particular events
in that time, or to Christ’s coining, and the setting up
of his kingdom upon the ruins of the Jewish policy, we
cannot determine; but divers passages here seem to look
as far forward as gospel-times. Now the day of the
Lord brings with i£ both judgment and mercy; mercy to
his clnirch, judgment to her enemies and persecutors. I.
The gates of hell are here threatening the church, (v. 1,
2.) and yet not prevailing. II. The power of heaven ap¬
pears here for the church, and against the enemies of it,
v. 3. .5. III. The events concerning the church are here
represented as mixed, (v. 6, 7.) but issuing well at last.
IV. The spreading of the means of knowledge is here
foretold, and the setting up of the gospel-kingdom in the
world, (v. 8, 9.) which shall be the enlargement and es¬
tablishment of another Jerusalem, v. 10, 11. V. Those
shall be reckoned with, that fought against Jerusalem,
(v. 12.. 15 ) and those that neglect his worship there, v.
17, 19. VI. It is promised that there shall be great re¬
sort to the church, and great purity and piety in it, v.
16, 20, 21.
1. jOEHOLD, the day of the Lord
JiJ cometh, and thy spoil shall be di¬
vided in the midst of thee. 2. For I will
gather all nations against Jerusalem to bat¬
tle; and the city shall be taken, and the
houses rifled, and the women ravished ; and
half of the city shall go forth into captivity,
and the residue of the people shall not be
cut off from the city. 3. Then shall the
Lord go forth, and fight against those na¬
tions, as when he fought in the day of bat¬
tle. 4. And his feet shall stand in that day
upon the mount of Olives, which is before
Jerusalem on the east ; and the mount of
Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof to¬
ward the east and toward the west, and
there shall be a very great valley; and half
of the mountain shall remove toward the
north, and half of it toward the south. 5.
And ye shall flee to the valley of the moun¬
tains; for the valley of the mountains shall
reach unto Azal; yea, ye shall flee, like as
ye fled from before the earthquake in the
days of Uzziah king of Judah; and the
Lord my God shall com e,and all the saints
with thee. 6. And it shall come to pass in
that day, that the light shall not be clear,
nor dark: 7. But it shall be one day which
shall be known to the Lord, not day, nor
night: but it shall come to pass, that at
evening-time it shall be light.
God’s providences concerning his church are here
represented as strangely changing, and strangely
mixed.
I. As strangely changing. Sometimes the tide
runs high and strong against them, but presently it
turns, and comes to be in favour of them; and God
has, for wise and ho]y ends, set the one over
against the other.
1. God here appears against Jerusalem; judgment
begins at the house of God; when the day of the
Lord comes, ( v . 1.) Jerusalem must pass through
the fire to be refined. God himself gathers all na¬
tions against Jerusalem, to battle; (v. 2.) he gives
them a charge as he did Sennacherib, to take the
s/ioil, and to take the prey, (Isa. x. 6.) for the peo¬
ple of Jerusalem are now become the people of hit
wrath. And who can stand before him, or before
nations gathered by him? Where he gives commis¬
sion he will give success; the city shall be taken by the
Romans, who have nations at command; the houses
shall be rifled, and all the riches of them taken
away by the enemy, and, to gratify an insatiable lust
of uncleanness as well as avarice, the women shall be
ravished; as if victory were a license to the worst
of vallanies, Jusyue datum sceleri — And crimes mere
sanctioned by law. One half of the city shall then
be carried into captivity, to be sold or enslaved, and
shall not be able to help itself, such is the destruc¬
tion that shall be made in the great and terrible day
of the Lord.
2. He presently changes his way, and appears for
Jerusalem; for though judgment begins at the house
of God, yet, as it shall not end there, so it shall not
make a full end there, Jer. iv. 27. — xxx. 11.
(1.) A remnant shall be spared; the same with
that third part spoken of, ch. xiii. 8. One half
shall go into captivity, whence they may hereafter
be fetched back; and the residue of the people shall
not be cut off, as one would have feared, from the
city. Many of the Jews shall receive the gospel,
and so shall prevent their being cut off from the city
of God, his church upon earth. In it shall be a tenth,
Isa. vi. 13. See Ezek. v. 3.
(2.) Their cause shall be pleaded against their
enemies; (v. 3.) Then when God has made use of
these nations as a scourge to his people, he shall go
forth, and./? ght against them, by his judgments, as
when he fought against the enemies of his church
formerly, in the day of battle, with the Egyptians,
Canaanites, and others. Note, The instruments of
God’s wrath will themselves be made the objects of
it; for it will come to their turn to drink of the cup
of trembling; and whom God fights against he will
be sure to overcome, and be too hard for. And
every former day of battle, which God has made to
his people a day of triumph, as it is an engagement
to God to appear for his people, because he is the
same, so it is an encouragement to them to trust in
him. It is observable that the Roman empire never
flourished after the destruction of Jerusalem as it
had done before, but in many instances God fought
against it.
(3.) Though Jerusalem and the temple be de¬
stroyed, yet God will have a church in the world,
into which Gentiles shall be admitted, and with
whom the believing Jews shall be incorporated, v.
4, 5. These verses are dark, and hard to be under¬
stood; but divers good expositors take this to be the
meaning of them. [1.] God will carefully inspect
Jerusalem, even then when the enemies of it are
laying it waste ; His feet shall stand in that day
upon the mount of Olives, whence he may take a
full view of the city and temple, Mark xiii. 3.
When the refiner puts his gold into the furnace he
stands by it, and has his eye upon it, to see that it
receive no damage; so when Jerusalem, God’s gold,
is to be refined, he will have the oversight of it. He
will stand by upon the mount of Olives; this was
literally fulfilled when our Lord Jesus was often
upon this mountain, especially when from thence he
ascended up into heaven. Acts i. 12. It was the
last place on which his feet stood on this earth, the
place from which he took rise. [2.] The partition-
1152
ZECHAR1AH, XIV.
wall between Jews and Gentiles shall be taken
away. The mountains about Jerusalem, and par¬
ticularly this, signified it to be an enclosure, and
that it stood in the way of those who would approach
to it. Between the Gentiles and Jerusalem this
mountain of Bether, of division, stood. Cant. ii. 17.
But by the destruction of Jerusalem this mountain
shall be made to cleave in the midst, and so the
Jewish pale shall be taken down, and the church
laid in common with the Gentiles, who were made
one with the Jews by the breaking down of this
middle mall of partition, Eph. ii. 14. Who art
thou, O great mountain? And a great mountain the
ceremonial law was in the way of the Jews’ conver¬
sion, which, one would think, could never have been
got over; yet before Christ and his gospel it was
made plain : this mountain departs, this hill re¬
moves, but the covenant of peace cannot be broken;
for peace is still preached to him that is afar off, and
to them that are yiigh. [3.] A new and living way
shall be opened to the New Jerusalem both to see
it, and to come into it. The mountain being divided,
one half toward the north, and the other half toward
the south, there shall be a very great valley, a broad
way of communication opened between Jerusalem
and the Gentile world; by which the Gentiles shall
have free admission into'the gospel-Jerusalem, and
the word of the Lord, that goes forth from Jerusa¬
lem, shall have a free course into the Gentile world.
Thus the way of the Lord is prepared, for every
mountain and hill shall be brought low, and plain
and pleasant valleys shall come in the room of them,
Isa. xl. 4. [4.] Those of the Jews that believe
shall come in, and join themselves to the Gentiles,
and incorporate with them in the gospel-church;
Ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains, that
valley that is opened between the divided halves of
the mount of Olives; they shall hasten into the
church with the Gentiles, as formerly the Gentiles
with them, ch. viii. 23. The valley of the moun¬
tains is the gospel-church, to which there were
added of the Jews daily such as should be saved,
who fled to that valley as to their refuge. This
valley of the mountains is said to reach unto Azat,
or to the separate place, to all those whom God has
set apart for himself When God makes his moun¬
tains a way, (Isa. xlix. 11.) bv making them a
valley, the way shall be opened to all the way¬
faring men, (Isa. xxxv. 8.) and, though fools, they
shall not err therein. Or, to those that are now
separated from God this valley shall reach; for the
Gentiles, who are afar off, shall be made nigh with
the Jews, who are a people ?iear unto him, and both
have an access, a mutual access, to each other, and
a joint access to God as a Father by one Spirit,
Eph. ii. 18. [5.] They shall flee to the valley of
the mountains, to the gospel-church, under dreadful
apprehensions of their danger from the curse of the
law. They shally?^e from the wrath to come, from
the avenger of blooc., vho is in pursuit of them, to
the church as to a city iff refuge, or as doves to their
windows, as they fled from before the earthquake in
the days of Uzziah, Amos i. i. Therefore the gos¬
pel reveals the wrath of God from heaven, (Rom. i.
18.) that we might be awakened to escape for our
lives, to flee as from an earthquake, for we feel the
earth ready to sink under us, and we can find no
firm footing in it, and therefore must flee to Christ*
in whom alone we can stand fast, and be easy.
(4.) God shall appear in his glory, for the ac¬
complishing of all this; The Lord my God shall
come, and all the saints with thee; which mav refer
to his coming to destroy Jerusalem, or to destroy
the enemies of Jerusalem, or his coming to set up
his kingdom in the world, which is called the com¬
ing o f the Son of man, (Matth. xxiv. 37.) or to his
last coming, at the end ef time; however, it teaches
us, (1.) That the Lord will come; it has been the
faith of all the saints. Behold, the Lord comes to
fulfil every word that he has spoken in its season.
(2.) When he comes, all his saints come with him;
they attend his motions, and are ready to serve his
interests; Christ will come at the end of time with
ten thousand of his saints, as when he came to give
the law upon mount Sinai. [3.] Every particular
believer, being related to God as his God, may tri
umph in the expectation of his coming, and speak
of it with pleasure, The Lord my God shall come,
shall come, to the comfort of all that are his; for,
“ Blessed Lord, all the saints shall be with thee, and
it shall be their everlasting happiness to dwell in
thy presence; and therefore come Lord Jesus.” And
some think that this may be read as a prayer, Yet,
O Lord my God, come, and bring all the saints with
! thee.
II. God’s prpvidences appear here strangely
mixed; (v. 6, 7.) In that day of the Lord the light
shall not be clear nor dark, not day nor night; but
at evening-time it shall be light. Some refer this
to all the time from hence to the coming of the
Messiah; the Jewish church had neither perfect
peace nor constant trouble, but a cloudy day, nei¬
ther rain nor sunshine. But it may be taken more
generally, as designed to represent the method God
usually takes in the administration of the kingdom
both of providence and grace. Here is,
1. An idea of the usual course and tenour of God’s
dispensations; the day of his grace and the day oj
his providence are neither clear nor dark, not day
nor night. It is so with the church of God in this
world; where the Sun of righteousness is risen, it
cannot be dark night, and yet, short of heaven, it
will not be clear day. It is so with particular saints,
they are not darkness, but light in the Lord, and
yet, while there are so much error and corruption
remaining in them, it is not perfect day. So it is as
to the providences of God that relate to his church-
in general the affairs of the church are neithei
good nor bad in any extremity, but there is a mix
ture of both, we are singing both of mercy and judg
ment, and are uncertain which will prevail; who
ther it be an evening or a morning twilight. We
are between hope and fear, not knowing what tc
make of things.
2. An intimation of comfort with reference here
unto, It shall be one day which shall be known tr
the Lord. This intimates, (1.) The beauty and bar-
many of such mixed events; there is one and the
same design and tendency in all; all the wheels
make but one wheel; all the revolutions but one day.
(2.) The brevity of them: it is as it were but foi
one day, for a little moment; the cloud that darkens
the light will soon blow over. (3.) The eye God has
upon all these events, and the hand he has in then-
all; they are known to the Lord; he takes notice of
them, and orders and disposes of all for the best, ac¬
cording to the counsel of his will.
3. An issue very joyful secured at last; At even¬
ing-time it shall be light; it shall be clear light, and
no longer dark; we are sure of it in the other world,
and we hope for it in this world — at evening-time,
when our hopes are quite spent with waiting all day
to no purpose, nay, when we fear it will be quite
dark, when things are at the worst, and the case of
the church is most deplorable. As to the church’s
enemies, the sun goes down at noon, so to the church
it rises at night; unto the upright springs light out
of darkness, (Ps. cxii. 4.) deliverance comes when
the tale of bricks is doubled, and when God’s peo¬
ple had done looking for it, and so it comes will, a
pleasing surprise.
8. And it shall be in that day, that living
waters shall go out from Jerusalem ; half of
1153
ZECHARIAH, XIV.
lh,;m toward the former sea, and half of
them toward the hinder sea: in summer and
in winter shall it be. 9. And the Lord
shall be king over all the earth: in that day
shall there be one Lord, and his name
one. 10. All the land shall be turned as
a plain from Geba to Rimmon, south of
Jerusalem: and it shall be lifted up, and in¬
habited in her place, from Benjamin’s gate
unto the place of the first gate, unto the
corner gate, and from the tower of Hana-
neel unto the king’s wine-presses. 11. And
vim shall dwell in it, and there shall be no
more utter destruction; but Jerusalem shall
be safely inhabited. 12. And this shall be
the plague wherewith the Lord will smite
all the people that have fought against Je¬
rusalem; Their flesh shall consume away
while they stand upon their feet, and then-
eyes shall consume away in their holes, and
their tongue shall consume away in their
mouth. 13. And it shall come to pass in
that day, that a great tumult from the Lord
shall be among them; and they shall lay
hold every one on the hand of his neigh¬
bour, and his hand shall rise up against the
hand of his neighbour. 14. And Judah also
shall fight at Jerusalem : and the wealth of
all the heathen round about shall be ga¬
thered together, gold, and silver, and appa¬
rel, in great abundance. 15. And so shall be
the plague of the horse, of the mule, of the
camel, and of the ass, and of all the beasts
that shall be in these tents, as this plague.
Here are,
1. Blessings promised to Jerusalem, the gospel-
Jei-usalem, in the day of the Messiah, and to all the
earth, by virtue of the blessings poured out on Je¬
rusalem, especially to the land of Israel.
1. Jerusalem shall be a spring of living waters
to the world; it was made so when there the Spirit
was poured out upon the apostles, and thence the
word of the Lord diffused itself to the nations about;
(n. 8. ) Living waters shall go out from Jerusalem;
tor there they began, and thence they set out, who
were to preach repentance and remission of sins
unto all nations, Luke xxiv. 47. Note, Where the
gospel goes, and the graces of God’s Spirit go along
with it, there living waters go; those streams that
make glad the city of our God, make glad the coun¬
try also, and make it like paradise, like the garden
of the Lord, which was well watered. It was the
honour of Jerusalem, that from thence the word of
the Lord went forth; (Isa. ii. 3. ) and thus far, even
in its worst and most degenerate age, for old ac¬
quaintance-sake, it was made a blessing, and to be
so is to be blessed. Half of these waters shall go
toward the former sea, and half toward the hinder
sea, as all rivers bend their course toward some sea
or other, some eastward, others westward; the gos¬
pel shall spread into all parts of the world, some
that lie remote from Jerusalem one way, and others
that lie as far off another way; for the dominion of
the Redeemer, which was thereby to be set up,
must be from sea to sea, (Ps. lxxii. 8.) and the
earth must be full of the knowledge of the Lord,
Vol. iv. — 7 G
as the waters cover the sea, and as the waters that
in various channels run to the sea. The knowledge
of God shall diffuse itself, (1.) Every way. These
living waters shall produce both eastern churches
and western churches, that shall each of them in
their turn be illustrious. (2.) Every day ; in sum¬
mer and in winter it shall be. Note, Those who are
employed in spreading the gospel, may find them¬
selves work both whiter and summer, and are to
serve the Lord therein at all seasons, Acts xx. 18.
And such a divine power goes along with these liv¬
ing waters, that they shall not be dried up, or the
course of them be obstructed, either by the droughts
in summer, or by the frosts in winter.
2. The kingdom of God among men shall be a
universal and united kingdom, v. 9. (1.) It shall
be a universal kingdom; The Lord shall be King
over all the earth. He is, and ever was so, of right;
and in the sovereign disposals of his providence, his
kingdom rules over all, and none are exempt from
his jurisdiction; but it is here promised that he shall
be so, by actual possession of the hearts of his sub¬
jects; he shall be acknowledged King by all in all
places; his authority shall be owned and submitted
to, and allegiance sworn to him. This will have its
accomplishment with that word, (Rev. xi. 15. ) The
kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms
of our Lord arid of his Christ. (2.) It shall be a
united kingdom; There shall be one Lord, and his
name one. All shall worship one God only, and not
idols, and shall be unanimous in the worship of him.
All false gods shall be abandoned, and all false ways
of worship abolished; and as God shall be the Cen¬
tre of their unity, in whom they shall all meet, so
the scripture shall be the rule of their unity, by
which they shall all walk.
3. The land of Judea, and Jerusalem, its mother-
city, shall be repaired and replenished, and taken
under the special protection of Heaven, v. 10, 11.
Some think this speaks particular favour to the peo¬
ple of the Jews, and points at their conversion, and
restoration in the latter days; but it is rather to be
understood figuratively of the gospel-church, typi¬
fied by Judah and Jerusalem, and it signifies "the
abundant graces with which the church shall be
crowned, and the fruitfulness of its members and
the vast numbers of them. (1.) The church shall
be like a fruitful country, abounding in all the rich
products of the soil. The whole land of Judea,
which is naturally uneven and hilly, shall be turned
as a plain; it shall become a smooth, level valley,
from Geba, or Gibeah, its utmost border north,
to Rimmon which lay south of Jerusalem, and was
the utmost southern limit of Judea. The gospel of
Christ, where it comes in its power, levels the
ground, mountains and hills are brought low by it,
that the Lord alone may be exalted. (2.) It shall
be like a populous city. As the holy land shall be
levelled, so the holy city shall be peopled, shall be
rebuilt and replenished. Jerusalem shall be lifted
up out of its low estate, shall be raised out of its
ruins; when the land is turned as a plain, and not
only the mount of Olives removed, (n. 4.) but other
mountains too, then Jerusalem shall be lifted up,
shall appear the more conspicuous; she shall be in¬
habited in her place, even in Jerusalem, ch. xii. 6.
The whole city shall be inhabited in the utmost ex¬
tent of it, and no part of it left to lie waste. The
utmost limits of it are here mentioned, betwixt
which there shall be no ground lost, but all built
upon, from Benjamin’s gate north-east, to the cor¬
ner-gate north-west, and from the tower of Hana-
neel in the south, to the king’s wine-presses in the
north; when the churches of Christ in all places are
replenished with great numbers of holy, humble,
serious Christians, and many such are daily addea
to it, then this promise is fulfilled. (3.) This coun
1154
ZECHARIAH, XIV.
try and this city shall both be safe, both the meat
in the country, and the mouths in the city; they that
dwell in it shall dwell securely, and there shall be
none to make them afraid; there shall be no more
of that utter destruction that has laid both town
and country waste, no more anathema, (as some
read it,) no more cutting olf, no more curse, or se¬
paration from God to evil, no more such desolating
'udgments as you have been groaning under, but
erusalem shall be safely inhabited; there shall be
no danger, nor any apprehension of it; neither shall
its friends be fearful to disquiet themselves, nor its
enemies formidable to disquiet them. That promise
of Christ explains this — that the gates of hell shall
not prevail against the church; and so do the holy
security and serenity of mind which believers enjoy
in relying on the divine protection.
II. Here are judgments threatened against the
enemies of the church, that have fought, or do
fight, against Jerusalem; and the threatening of
these judgments is in order to the preservation of
the church in safety. Men that read and hear of
these plagues, will be afraid of fighting against Je¬
rusalem, much more, when these threatenings are
fulfilled , in some, will others hear and fear. Those
that fight against the city of God, and his people,
will be found fighting against God, against whom
none ever hardened his heart, and prospered; ( v .
12.) This shall be the plague wherewith the Lord
will smite all the people that have fought against
Jerusalem; whoever they are, God will punish them
for the affront done to him, and avenge Jerusalem
upon them.
1. They shall waste away under grievous and lan¬
guishing diseases; Their flesh shall consume away,
and they shall be miserably emaciated, even while
they stand on their feet, so that they shall be walk¬
ing skeletons, nothing shall remain but skin and
bones. The flesh which they pampered and in¬
dulged, and made provision for, when they were
fed to the full with the spoils of God’s people, shall
now consume away, that it cannot be seen, and the
bones that were not seen shall stick out, Job xxxiii.
21. They keep their feet, and hope to keep their
ground, crawling about as long as they can; but
they must yield at last. The organs of sight,
the outlets of sin, their eyes, shall consume away,
in their holes, shall sink into their heads, or per¬
haps start out of them; their envious, malicious,
adulterous eyes, the eyes they had so often fed with
spectacles of misery, these shall consume, which
shall make not only their countenances ghastly, but
their lives wretched. The organs of speech, the
outlets of sin, their tongue, shall consume away in
their mouth; whereby God will reckon with them
for all their blasphemies against himself, and invec¬
tives against his people. Thus their own tongues
shall fall upon them, and their punishment shall
be legible in their sin, as his was, whose tongue was
tormented in hell flames. Thus Antiochus and He¬
rod consumed away.
2. They shall be dashed in pieces one against
another; (v. 13.) A great tumult from the Lord
shall be among them. But are tumults from the
Lord, who is the God of order, and not of confu¬
sion As they are the sin of those that raise them,
they are not from the Lord, but from the wicked
one, and from men’s own lusts; but as they are the
punishment of those that suffer by them, they are
from the Lord, who serves His own purposes, and
carries on his intentions, by the sins and follies, and
restless spirits, of men. It is of themselves that
they bite and devour one another, but it is of the
Lord, the righteous Judge, that thus they are con¬
sumed one of another; (Gal. v. 15.) as Ahab was
deceived by a lying spirit from the Lord, so Abime-
lech and the men of Shechem were divided, and so
destroyed, by an evil spirit from the Lord, Judg
ix. 23. Note, Those that are confederate and com¬
bined against the church, will justly be separated,
and set against one another; and their tumults
raised against God will be avenged in tumults among
themselves. And they shall lay hold every one on
the hand of his neighbour, to hold him from strik¬
ing, or to bind him as his prisoner; nay, his hand
shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour, to
strike and wound him. Note, Those that aim to
destroy the church, are often made to destroy one
another; and every man’s sword is sometimes set
against his fellow, by him whose sword they all are.
Some think this was fulfilled in the factions and
dissensions that were among the Jews, when the Ro
mans were destroying them all; for they had fough,
against the spiritual Jerusalem, the gospel-church,
and to that well enough agrees v. 14. Thou also,
0 Judah, shalt fight against Jerusaletn ; the Jewish
nation shall be ruined by itself, shall die by its own
hands; the city and country shall be at war with
each other, and so both shall be destroyed. Suis el
ipsa Roma viribusruit — Rome was urged into ruin
by its very strength.
3. The plunder of their camp shall greatly enrich
the people of God, or the spoils of their country;
(v. 14.) Judah also shall eat at Jerusalem, (so one
learned interpreter reads it,) people shall come
from all parts to share in the prey; as when Senna¬
cherib’s army was routed before Jerusalem, there
was the prey of a great spoil divided, (Isa. xxxiii.
23.) so it shall be now; the wealth of all the heathen
round about, that had spoiled Jerusalem, shall be
gathered together, gold, and silver, and ap/iarel,
in great abundance, that an equal dividend may
be made among all the parties entitled to a share of
the prize. Note, The wealth of the sinner is often
laid up for the just, and the Israel of God enriched
with the spoil of the Egyptians.
4. The very cattle shall share in the plague with
which the enemies of God’s church shall be cut off;
as they did in divers of the plagues of Egypt; (i>.
15.) All the beasts that shall be in the tents of these
wicked men, when God comes to contend with
them, shall perish with them; not only beasts used
in war as the horse, but those used for travel, or in
the plough, as the mule, the camel, and the ass.
Note, The inferior creatures often suffer for the sin
of man, and in his plagues. Thus God will show
his indignation against sin, and will make the crea¬
ture that is thus subject to vanity, groan to be de¬
livered into the glorious liberty of the children of
God, Rom. viii. 21, 22.
16. And it shall come to pass, that every
one that is left of all the nations which came
against Jerusalem, shall even go up from
year to year to worship the King, the I jORD
of hosts, and to keep the feast of taberna¬
cles. 17. And it shall be, that whoso will
not come up of all the families of the earth
unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the
Lord of hosts, even upon them shall be no
rain. 1 8. And if the family of Egypt go not
up, and come not, that have no rain, there
shall be the plague wherewith the Lord
will smite the heathen that come not up to
keep the feast of tabernacles. 1 9. This shall
be the punishment of Egypt, and the punish¬
ment of all nations that come not up to keep
the feast of tabernacles. 20. In that day
shall there be upon the bells, of the horses.
1155
ZECHAR1AH, XIV
HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD; and
the pots in the Lord’s house shall be like
the howls before the altar. 21. Yea, every
pot in Jerusalem, and in Judah, shall be
Holiness unto the Lord of hosts ; and all
they that sacrifice shall come and take of
them, and seethe therein : and in that day
there shall be no more theCanaanite in the
house of the Lord of hosts.
Three things are here foretold.
I. That a gospel-way of worship being set up in
the church, there shall be a great resort to it, and
a general attendance upon it. Those that were
left of the enemies of religion, shall be so sensible
of the mercy of God to them in their narrow escape,
that they shall apply themselves to the worship of
the God of Israel, and pay their homage to him, v.
16. Those that were not consumed, shall be con¬
verted, and this makes their deliverance a mercy
indeed, a double mercy; it is a great change that
the grace of God makes upon them; they that had
come against Jerusalem, finding their attempts vain
and fruitless, shall become as much her admirers,
as ever they had been her adversaries, and shall
come to Jerusalem, to worship there, and go in con¬
currence with those whom they had gone contrary
to. Note, As some of Christ’s foes shall be made
his footstool, so others of them shall be made his
friends; and when the principle of enmity is slain
in them, their former acts of hostility are pardoned
to them, and their services are admitted and ac¬
cepted, as though they had never fought against
Jerusalem. They shall go up to worship at Jeru¬
salem, because that was the place which God had
chosen, and there the temple was, which was a
type of Christ and his mediation. Converting grace
sets us right, 1. In the object of our worship. They
shall no longer worship the Molochs and Baals, the
kings and lords, that the Gentiles worship, the
creatures of their own imagination, but the King,
the Lord of hosts, the everlasting King, the King
of kings, the sovereign Lord of all. 2. In the ordi¬
nances of worship, those which God himself has ap¬
pointed. Gospel-worshift is here represented by
the keeping of the feast of tabernacles, for the sake
of those two great graces which were in a special
manner acted and signified in that feast — contempt
of the world, and joy in God, Neh. viii. 17. The
life of a good Christian is a constant feast of taber¬
nacles, and, in all acts of devotion, we must retire
from the world, and rejoice in the Lord; worship as
in that feast. 3. In the Mediator of our worship;
we must go to Christ our Temple with all our of¬
ferings, for in him only our spiritual sacrifices are
acceptable to God, 1 Pet. ii. 5. If we rest in our-
• selves, we come short of pleasing God; we must^o
up to him, and mention Iris righteousness only. 4.
In the time of it; we must be constant. They shall
go up from year to year, at the times appointed for
this solemn feast. Every day of a Christian’s life
is a day of the feast of tabernacles, and every Lord’s
day especially, that is the great day of the feast;
and therefore every day we must worship the Lord
of hosts, and every Lord’s day with a peculiar so¬
lemnity.
II. That those who neglect the duties of gospel-
worship, shall be reckoned with for their neglect.
God will compel them to come and worship before
him, by suspending his favours from those that keep
not his ordinances; Upon them there shall be no rain,
v. 17. Some understand it figuratively; The rain
of heavenly doctrine shall be withheld, and of the
heavenly grace which should accompany that doc¬
trine. God will command the clouds, that they rain
no rain upon them. Note, It is a righteous thing
with God to withhold the blessings of grace from
those that do not attend the means of grace; to deny
the green pastures to those that attend not the
shepherds' tents. Or, we may take it literally; On
them there shall be no rain, to make their ground
fruitful. Note, The gifts of common providence
are justly denied to those that neglect and despise
instituted ordinances. Those that neglected to build
the temple, were punished with the want of rain,
(Hag. ii. 17.) and so were they that neglected to
attend there when it was built. If we be barren
and unfruitful toward God, justly is the earth made
so to us. Many are crossed, and go backward, in
their affairs, and this is at the bottom of it — they do
not keep close tothe worship of God, as they should;
they go off from God, and then he walks contrary
to them. If we omit or postpone the duties he ex¬
pects from us, it is just with him to deny the favours
we expect from him.
But what shall be done to the defaulters of the
land of Egypt, to whom the threatening cf the want
of rain is no threatening, for they have no rain at
any time, they need none, they desire none; the
river Nilus is to them instead of the clouds of hea¬
ven, waters their land, and makes it fruitful, so that
what is a punishment to others, is none to them, x'.
18, 19. It is threatened that if the family of Egypt
go not zip, that have no rain, yet God will find out
a way to meet with them, for there shall be, in ef¬
fect, the same plague wherewith other nations are
smitten for their neglect. God can, and often did,
restrain the overflowing of the river, which was
equivalent to the shutting up of the clouds; or if the
river did its part, and'rose as high as it used to do,
God had other ways of bringing famine upon them,
and destroying the fruits of their ground, as he did
by divers of the ten plagues of Egypt, so that this,
that is, the same, shall be the punishment of Egypt
that is the punishment of other nations, who come
not up to keep the feast of tabernacles. Note,
Those who think themselves least indebted to, and
depending on, the mercy of Heaven, cannot there¬
fore think themselves guarded against the justice
of Heaven. It does not follow that those who can
live without rain, can therefore live without God;
for not the heavens only, but all other creatures are
that to us, (and no more,) that God makes them to
be; nor can any man’s way of living enable them to
set light by the judgments of God. This shall be
the punishment \margin,) This shall be the sin of
Egypt, and the sin of all nations, that come not up
to keep the feast of taberziacles. The same word
signifies both sin and the punishment of sin, so close
and inseparable is the connexion between them;
(as Gen. iv. 7.) and sin is often its own punishment.
Note, Omissions are sins, and we must come into
judgment for them; those contract guilt, that^o not
up to worship at the times appointed, as they have
opportunity; and it is a sin that is its own punish¬
ment, for those who forsake the duty, forfeit the
privilege, of communion with God.
III. That those who perform the duties of gospel-
worship, shall have grace to adorn their profession
by the duties of a gospel-conversation too. This is
promised, (x>. 20, 21.) and it is necessary to the
completing of the beauty and happiness of thi
church. In general, all shall be holiness to thi
Lord. 1. The name and character of holiness shall
not be so confined as it had been; Holiness to the
Lord had been written only upon the High Priest’s
forehead, but now it shall not be so appropriated.
All Christians shall be living temples, and spiritual
priests, dedicated to the honour of God, and em¬
ployed in his service. 2. Real holiness shall be
more diffused than it had been; because there shall
be more powerful means of sanctification, more ex
1156
ZECHARIAH, XIV.
cellent rules, more cogent arguments, and brighter
patterns, of holiness; and because there shall be a
more plentiful effusion of the Spirit of holiness and
sanctification, after Christ’s ascension, than ever
before.
(1.) There shall be holiness introduced into com¬
mon things; and those things shall be devoted to
God, that seemed very foreign.
[1.] The furniture of their horses shall be con¬
secrated to God; Upon the bells of the horses shall
be engraven, Holiness to the Lord, or upon the
bridles of the horses, (so the margin,) or the trap¬
pings. The horses used in war shall no longer be
used against God and his people, as they have been,
but for him and them. Even their wars shall be
holy wars; their troopers serving under God’s ban¬
ner. Their great men, who ride in state with a
pompous retinue, shall reckon it their greatest or¬
nament to honour God with their honours. Holi¬
ness to the Lord shall be written on the harness of
their chariot-horses, as great men have sometimes
their coat of arms with their motto painted on their
coaches; every gentleman shall take the High
Priest’s motto for his, and glory in it, and make it a
memento to himself not to do any thing unworthy
of it. Travellers shall have it upon their bridles
with which they guide their horses, as those who
desire always to be put in mind of it, by having it
continually before them, and to guide themselves in
all their motions by this rule. The bells _ of the
horses, which are designed to quicken them in their
journey, and to give notice of their approach, shall
have Holiness to the Lord upon them, to signify
that this is that which weoughtto be influenced by
ourselves, and make profession of to others, where-
ever we go.
[2.] The furniture of their houses too shall be
consecrated to God, to be employed in his service.
First, The furniture of the priests’ houses, or apart¬
ments adjoining to the house of the Lord. The
common drinking-cups they used shall be like the
bowls before the altar, that were used either to re¬
ceive the blood of the sacrifices, or to present the
wine and oil in, which were for the drink-offerings.
The vessels which they used at their own tables,
shall be used in such a religious manner, with such
sobriety and temperance, such devotedness to the
glory of God, and such a mixture of pious thoughts
and expressions, that their meals shall look like
sacrifices, they shall eat and drink, not to them¬
selves, but to him that spreads their tables, and fills
their cups. And thus, in ministers’ families espe¬
cially, should common actions be done after a godly
sort, however they are done in other families. Se¬
condly, The furniture of other houses, those of the
common people; Every pot in Jerusalem and in
Judah shall be holiness to the Lord. The pots, in
which they boiled their meat, the cups out of which
they drank their wine, Jer. xxxv. 5. In these.
God’s good creatures shall never be abused to ex ¬
cess, nor that made the food and fuel of lust, which
should have been oil to the wheels of obedience, as
had formerly been, when all tables were full of
vomit arid filthiness, Isa. xxviii. 8. What they eat
and drink out of these shall nourish their bodies for
the service of God; and out of these they shall give
liberally for the relief of the poor: then are they
Holiness to the Lord, as the merchandise and the
hire of the converted Tyrians are said to be; (Isa.
xxiii. 18.) for both in our gettings and in our spend¬
ings we must have an eye to the will of God as our
rule, and the glory of God as our end. Thirdly,
When there shall be such an abundance of real ho¬
liness, people shall not be nice and curious about
ceremonial holiness; They that sacrifice, shall come,
and take of these common vessels, and seethe their
sacrifices therein, making no distinction between
them and the bowls before the altar. In gospel-
times the true worshippers shall worship God in
spirit and in truth, and neither in this mountain,
nor yet at Jerusalem, John iv. 21. One place shall
be as acceptable to God as another. I will that men
pray every where; and one vessel shall be as ac¬
ceptable as another. Little regard shall be had to
the circumstance, provided there be nothing inde¬
cent or disorderly, while the substance is religiously
preserved and adhered to. Some think it intimates
that there should be greater numbers of sacrifices
offered than the vessels of the sanctuary would serve
for; but rather than any should be turned back or
deferred, they shall make no difficulty at all of
using common vessels, as the Levites in a case cf
necessity helped the priests to kill the sacrifices, 2
Chron. xxix. 34.
(2.) There shall be no unholiness introduced into
their sacred things, to corrupt them. In that day
there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house
of the Lord of hosts. Some read it, There shall be
no more the merchant; for so a Canaanite sometimes
signifies; and they think it was fulfilled when Christ
once and again drove the buyers and sellers out of
the temple. Or, though those that wereCanaanites.
strangers and foreigners, shall be brought into the
house of the Lord, yet they shall cease to be Ca-
naanites; they shall have nothing of the spirit or
disposition of Canaanites in them. Or, it intimates
that though in gospel-times people should grow in¬
different as to holy vessels, yet they should be very
strict in church-discipline, and careful not to admit
the profane to special ordinances, but to separate
between the precious and the vile, between Israel¬
ites and Canaanites. Yet this will net have its full
accomplishment, short of the heavenly Jerusalem,
that house of the Lord of hosts, into which no un¬
clean thing shall enter! for at the end of time, and
not before, Christ shall gather out of his kingdom
every thing that offends; and the tares and wheat
shall be perfectly and eternally separated.
aN
EXPOSITION,
WITH
PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS,
OF THE PROPHECY OF
M A L A C H I.
God’s prophets were his witnesses to his church, each in his day, for several ages; witnesses for him ana
his authority, witnesses against sin and sinners, attesting the true intents of God’s providences in his
dealings with his people then, and the kind intentions of his grace concerning his church in the days of
the Messiah, to whom all the prophets bare witness; for they all agreed in their testimony; and now
we have only one witness more to call, and we have done with our evidence; and though he be the last,
and in him prophecy ceased, yet the Spirit of prophecy shines as clear, as strong, as bright, in him, as
in any that went before; and his testimony challenges an equal regard. The Jews say, Prophecy con¬
tinued forty years under the second temple, and this prophet they call the seal of prophecy, because in
him the series or succession of prophets broke off, and came to a period. God wisely ordered it so,
that divine inspiration should cease for some ages before the coming of the Messiah, that that great
Prophet might appear the more conspicuous and distinguishable, and be the more welcome . Let us
consider,
I. The person of the prophet; we have only his name, Malachi, and no account of his country or parent¬
age. Malachi signifies, my angel; which has given occasion for a conjecture that this prophet was in¬
deed an angel from heaven, and not a man; as that. Judges ii. 1. But there is no just ground for the
conjecture. Prophets were messengers, God’s messengers; this prophet was so; his name is the very
same with that which we find in the original, c/i. iii. 1. for my messenger; and perhaps from that word
he might (though, probably, he had another name) be called Malachi. The Chaldee Paraphrase, and
some of the Jews, suggest that Malachi was the same with Ezra; but that also is groundless. Ezra was
a scribe, but we never read that he was a prophet. Others, yet further from probability, make him tc
be Mordecai. But we have reason to conclude he was a person whose proper name was that by which
he is here called; the tradition of some of the ancients is, that he was of the tribe of Zebulon, and that
he died young.
II. The scope of the prophecy. Haggai and Zechariah were sent to reprove the people for delaying to
build the temple; Malachi was sent to reprove them for the neglect of it, when it was built, and for
their profanation of the temple-service; for from idolatry and superstition they ran into the other ex¬
treme of impiety and irreligion; and the sins he witnesses against are the same that we find complained
of in Nehemiah’s time, with whom, it is probable, he was contemporary. And now that prophecy
was to cease, he speaks more clearly of the Messiah as nigh at hand, than any other of the prophet;
had done; and concludes with a direction to the people of God to keep in remembrance the law of
Moses, while they were in expectation of the gospe' of Christ.
1 168
MALACHI, I.
CHAP. I.
This prophet is sent, first to convince, and then to comfort,
first to discover sin, and to reprove for that, and then to
promise the coming of him who shall take away sin; and
this method the blessed Spirit takes, in dealing with
souls, John xvi. 8. He first opens the wound, and then
applies the healing balm. God had provided (and one
would think effectually) for the engaging of Israel to
himself by providences and ordinances; but it seems, by
the complaints here made of them, that they received the <
grace of God in both these, in vain. I. They were very
ungrateful to God for his favours to them, and rendered
not again according to the benefit they received, v. 1 . .
5. II. They were very careless and remiss in the observ¬
ance of his institutions; the priests especially were so,
who were in a particular manner charged with them, v.
6.. 14. And what shall we say of those whom neither
providences nor ordinances work upon, and who affront
God in those very things wherein they should honour
him ?
1 . npHE burden of the word of the Lord
JL to Israel by Malachi. 2. I have
loved you, saith the Lord: yet ye say,
Wherein hast thou loved us ! Was not
Esau Jacob’s brother ? saith the Lord : yet
I loved Jacob, 3. And I hated Esau, and
laid his mountains and his heritage waste
for the dragons of the wilderness. 4. Where¬
as Edom saith, We are impoverished, but
we will return and build the desolate places ;
thus saith the Lord of hosts, They shall
build, but I will throw down •, and they shall
call them, The border of wickedness, and,
The people against whom the Lord hath
indignation for ever. 5. And your eyes
shall see, and ye shall say, The Lord will
be magnified from the border of Israel.
The prophecy of this book is entitled, The burthen
of the word of the Lord, (v. 1. ) which intimates, 1.
That it was of great weight and importance; what
the false prophets said, was light as the chaff, what
the true prophets said, was ponderous as the wheat,
Jer. xxiii. 28. 2. That it ought to be often repeated
to them and by them, as the burthen of a song. 3.
That there were those to whom it was a burthen,
and a reproach; they were weary of it, and found
themselves so aggrieved by it, that they were not
able to bear it. 4. That to them it would prove a
burthen indeed, to sink them to the lowest hell, un-
■ess they repented. 5. That to those who loved it
and embraced it, and bid it welcome, though it was
a light burthen, as our Saviour calls it, (Matth. xi.
30.) yet it was a burthen. This burthen of the word
of the Lord was sent, (1.) To Israel, for to them
pertained the lively oracles of prophecy, as well as
those of the written word. Many prophets God had
sent to Israel, and now he will try them with one
more. (2.) By Malachi; by the hand of Malachi; as
if it were not a message by word of mouth, but a let¬
ter put into his hand, for the greater certainty.
In these verses, they are charged with ingrati¬
tude, in that they were not duly sensible of God’s
distinguishing goodness to them; and such a charge
as this may well be called a burthen, for it is a
heavy one.
I. God asserts the great kindness he had, and had
><ften expressed, for them; ( v . 2.) I have loved you,
saith the Lord. Thus abruptly does the sermon
begin, as if God intended, whatever reproofs should
be given them, to reconcile them to his love, and to
take care that they should still have good thoughts
of him; As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten.
Thus kindly does the sermon begin. God will have
his people satisfied that ne loves them, and is ever
mindful of his love. This is the same with what he
said of old to the virgin of Isiael, that he might en¬
gage her affections to himself, (Jer. xxxi. 3, 4.)
Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. In
this one word God sums up all his gracious dealings
with them; love was the spring of all; he loved them
because he would love them, (Deut. vii. 7, 8.) loved
them in their childhood, Hos. xi. L His delight
was in them, Isa. lxii. 4. “I have loved you, but
you have not loved me, nor made any suitable re¬
turns for my love.” Note, God’s people need to
be often reminded of his love to them.
II. They question his love, and diminish the in¬
stances of it, and seem to quarrel with him for tell¬
ing them of it; Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved
us? As God runs up all his favours to them to the
fountain, which was his love, so he runs up all their
sins against him to the fountain, which was their
contempt of his love. Instead of acknowledging his
kindness, and studying what they shall render, they
scorn to own that they had been beholden to him;
challenge him to produce proofs of his love, that
were material, and think and speak very slightly of
the instances they had had of his kindness, as if they
were so few, so small, as not to be worth taking no¬
tice of, and no more than what they had sufficiently
made returns for, or, at least, than he had sufficient¬
ly balanced with instances of his wrath. “ Have we
not been wasted, impoverished, and ctffried captive;
and wherein then hast thou loved us ?” Note, God
justly takes it very ill to have his favours slighted,
as not worth speaking of ; and it is very absurd for
us to ask wherein he has loved us, when, which way
soever we look, we meet with the proofs and instan¬
ces of his love to us.
III. He makes it out, bevond contradiction, that
he had loved them, loved them in a distinguishing
way, which was in a special manner obliging. For
proof of this, he shows the difference he had made,
and would still make, between Jacob and Esau, be¬
tween Israelites and Edomites. Some read their
question, JVherefore hast thou loved us ? as if they
did indeed own that he had loved them, but withal
insinuate that there was a reason for it — that he
loved them because their father Abraham had loved
him, so that it was not a free love, but a love of
debt; to which he replies, “ Was not Esau as near
akin to Abraham as you are ? Was he not Jacob’s
own brother, his elder brother? And therefore if
there were any right to a recompense for Abra¬
ham’s love, Esau had it, and yet I hated Esau und
loved Jacob.
1. Let them see what a difference God had made
between Jacob and Esau. Esau was Jacob’s brother,
his twin-brother; “Yet L loved Jacob, and hated
Esau, took Jacob into covenant, and entailed the
blessing on him and his, but I refused and rejected
Esau. ” Note, Those that are taken into covenant
with God, that have the lively oracles, and the
means of grace, committed to them, have reason to
look upon these as tokens of his love. Jacob is
loved, for he has these, Esau hated, for he has not.
The apostle quotes this, (Rom. ix. 13.) and com¬
pares it with what the oracle said to Rebecca, con¬
cerning her twins, (Gen. xxv. 23.) The elder shall
serve the younger, to illustrate the doctrine of God’s
sovereignty in dispensing his favours; for may he not
do what he will with his own ? Esau was justly
hated, but Jacob freely loved: even so, Father, be¬
cause it seemed good in thine eyes, and it is not for
us to ask why or wherefore.
2. Let them see what he was now doing, and
would do with them, pursuant to its original differ¬
ence.
( 1. ) The Edomites shall be made the monuments
of God’s justice, and he will be glorified in their ut-
I 1 59
MALACHI, I.
er destruction; For Esau have 1 hated; I laid his
mountains waste, the mountains of Seir, which were
his heritage. When all that part of the world was
ravaged by the Chaldean army, the country of
Edom was, among the rest, laid in ruins, and be¬
came a habitation for the dragons of the wilderness,
so perfectly desolate was it; as was foretold, Isa.
xxxiv. 6, 11. The Edomites had triumphed in Jeru¬
salem’s overthrow, (Ps. cxxxvii. 7.) and therefore
it was just with God to put the same cup of trem¬
bling into their hands. And though Edom’s ruins
were last, yet they were lasting, and tire desolation
fierfietual; and iii this the difference was made be¬
tween Jacob and Esau, and is made between the
righteous and the wicked, to whom otherwise all
things come alike, and there seems to be one event.
Jacob’s cities are laid waste, but they are rebuilt;
Edom’s are laid waste, and never rebuilt: the suf¬
ferings of the righteous will have an end and will
end well, all their grievances shall be redressed,
and their sorrow turned into joy; but the sufferings
of the wicked will be endless and remediless, as
Edom’s desolations, v. 4. Observe here, [1.] The
vain hopes of the Edomites, that they shall have
their rums Repaired as well as Israel, though they
had no promise to build their hope upon. They
say, “ It is true, we are imfioverished, it is the com¬
mon chance, and there is no remedy; but we will
return, and build the desolate places, we are re¬
solved we will;” (not so much as asking God leave;)
“ we will, whether he will or no; nay, we will do it
in defiance to God’s curse, and that sentence pro¬
nounced upon Edom, (Isa. xxxiv. 10.) From gene¬
ration to generation it shall lie waste.” They build
presumptuously, as Hiel built Jericho in direct con¬
tradiction to the word of God; (1 Kings xvi. 34.)
and it shall speed accordingly. Note, It is common
for those whose hearts are unhumbled under hum¬
bling providences, to think to make their part good
against God himself, and to build and plant, and
flourish again as much as ever, though God has said
that they shall be imfioverished. But see, [2.] The
dashing of these hopes, and the disappointment of
them. They say, We will build; but what says the
Lord of hosts ? For we are sure his word shall
stand, and not theirs; and he says, First, Their at¬
tempts shall be baffled; They shall build, but I will
throw down. Note, Those that walk contrary to
God, he will walk contrary to them ; for who ever
hardened his heart against God and firosficred ?
When the Jews had rejected Christ and his gospel,
they became Edomites, and this word was fulfilled
in them, for when, in the time of the emperor
Adrian, they attempted to rebuild Jerusalem, God
by earthquakes and eruptions of fire threw down
what they built, so that they were forced to quit the
enterprize. Secondly, They shall be looked upon
by all as abandoned to utter ruin; all that see them
shall call them the border of wickedness, a sinful
nation, incurably so, and therefore the people
against whom the Lord has indignation for ever.
Since their wickedness is such as will never be re¬
formed, their desolations shall be such as are never
to be repaired. Against Israel God was a little dis¬
pleased, (Zech. i. IS.) but against Edom he has in¬
dignation, and will have for ever, for they are the
people of his curse, Isa. xxxiv. 5.
(2.) The Israelites shall be made the monuments
of his mercy and he will be glorified in their salva¬
tion; ( v . 5.) “Edomites shall be stigmatized as a
people hated of God, but your eyes shall see your
doubts concerning his love to you for ever silenced;
for you shall say, and have cause to say, The Lord
is and will be magnified from the border of Israel,
from every part and border of the land of Israel.”
The border of Edom is a border of wickedness, and
therefore the Lord will have indignation against it
for ever; but the border of Israel is a border of
holiness, the border of the sanctuary, (Ps. lxxviii.
54.) and therefore God will make it to appear
(though it may for a time lie desolate) that he has
mercy in store for it, and from thence he will be
magnified ; he will give his people Israel both
cause, and hearts, to praise him. When the border
of Edom remains still desolate, and the border of
Israel is repaired and replenished, then it will ap¬
pear that God has loved Jacob. Note, [1.] These
who doubt of God’s love to his people, shall, sooner
or later, have convincing and undeniable proofs
given them of it; “Your own eyes shall see what
you will not believe.” [2.] Deliverances out of
trouble are to be reckoned proofs of God’s good will
to his people, though they may be suffered to fall
into trouble, Ps. xxxiv. 19. [3.] Distinguishing
favours are very obliging. If God rear up again the
border of Israel, but leave the border of Edom in
ruins, let no Israelite ask, for shame, Wherein hast
thou loved us? [4.] The dignifying of Israel is
the tnagnifying of the God of Israel, and, one way
or other, God will have honour from his professing
people. [5.] God’s goodness being his glory, when
he does us good we must proclaim him great; for
that is magnifying him. It is an instance of his
goodness, that he has pleasure hi the prosperity of
his seri’ants, and for this they that love his salvation,
say, The Lord be magnified, Ps. xxxv. 27.
6. A son honoureth his father, and a
servant his master: if then I he a father,
where is mine honour? and i f I be a master,
where is my fear ? saith tiie Lord of hosts
unto you, O priests, that despise my name.
And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy
name? 7. Ye offer polluted bread upon
mine altar; and ye say, Wherein have we
polluted thee ? In that ye say, The table of
the Lord is contemptible. 8. And if ye
offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil ?
and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not
evil ? offer it now unto thy governor : will
he be pleased with thee, or accept thy per¬
son? saith the Lord of hosts. 9. And now,
I pray you, beseech God that he will be
gracious unto us : this hath been by your
means : will he regard j oin1 person ? saith
the Lord of hosts. 10. Who is there even
among you that would shut the doors for
nought? neither do ye kindle fire on mine
altar for nought. I have no pleasure in you,
saith the Lord of hosts, neither will I accept
an offering at your hand. 11. For from the
rising of the sun, even unto the going down
of the same, my name shall be great among
the Gentiles; and in every place incense
shall be offered unto my name, and a pure
offering: for my name shall be great among
the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts. 12.
But ye have profaned it, in that ye say,
The table of the Lord is polluted ; and the
fruit .thereof, even his meat, is contemptible.
13. Ye said also, Behold, what a weariness
is it! and ye have snuffed at it, s'hith the
Lord of hosts: and ye brought that which
teas torn, and the lame, and the sick ; thus
1160
MALACHI, I.
ye brought an offering: should I accept
this of your hand? saith the Lord. 14.
But cursed be the deceiver, which hath in
his Hock a male, and voweth, and sacri-
ficeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing : for
I am a great King, saith the Lord of
hosts, and my name is dreadful among the
heathen.
The prophet is here, by a special commission,
calling the priests to account, though they were
themselves appointed judges, to call the people to
an account. Let the rulers in the house of God
know that there is one above them , who will reckon
with them for their mal-administrations. Thus
saith the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, v. 6. God
will have a saying to unfaithful ministers; and it
concerns them who speak from God to his people,
to hear and heed what he says to them, that they
may save themselves in the first place ; otherwise
how should they help to save them that hear them.
It is a severe and, no doubt, a just reproof, that is
here given to the priests, for the profanation of the
holy things of God, with which they were intrusted;
and if this was the crime of the priests, we have
reason to fear the people also were guilty of it; so
that what is said to the priests, is said to all, nay,
it is said to us, who, as Christians, profess ourselves,
not only the people of God, but priests to him. Ob¬
serve here,
I. What it was, that God expected from them,
and with what good reason he expected it; ( v . 6.)
A son honours his father, because he is his father;
nature has written this law in the hearts of children,
before God wrote it at mount Sinai; nay, a servant,
though his obligation to his master is not natural,
but by voluntary compact, yet thinks it his duty to
honour him; to be observant of his orders, and true
to his interests. Children and servants pay respect
to their parents and masters; every one cries out
shame on them if they do not, and their own hearts
cannot but reproach them too; the order of families
is thus kept up, and it is their beauty and advan-
tage.
But the priests, who are God’s children and his
servants, do not fear and honour him. They were
fathers and masters to the people, and expected to
be called so, (Judges xviii. 19. Mattli. xxiii. 7, 10.)
and to be reverenced and obeyed as such; but they
forgot their Father and Master in heaven, and the
duty they owe to him. We may each of us charge
upon ourselves what is here charged upon the
priests. Note, 1. We are every one of us to look
upon God as our Father and Master, and upon our¬
selves as his children and servants. 2. Our rela¬
tion to God as our Father and Master strongly
obliges us to fear and honour him. If w'. honour
and fear the fathers of our flesh, much, mv ~e the
Father and Master of our spirits, Heb. xii. 9. 3.
It is a thing to be justly complained of, and la¬
mented, that God is so little feared and honoured
even by those that own him for their Father and
Master. Where is his honour ? Where is his fear?
II. What the contempt was, which these priests
put upon God. This is that, in general, which is
charged upon them. 1. They despised God’s name;
their familiarity with it, as priests, bred contempt
of it, and served them only to gain a veneration by
it for themselves, and their own name, while. God’s
name was of small account with them. God’s name
is all that whereby he has made himself known — his
word anti ordinances; these they had low thoughts
of, and vilified that which it was their business to
magnify; and no wonder that when they despised
it themselves, they did that which made it despica¬
ble to others; even the sacrifices of the Lord to be
abhorred, as Eli’s sons did. 2. They profanea
God’s name, v. 12. They polluted it, v. 7. They
not only made no account of sacred things, but they
made an ill use of them, and perverted them to the
service of the worst and vilest purposes — their own
ride, covetousness, and luxury; There cannot
e a greater provocation to God than the profanation
of his name ; for it is holy and reverend. His
purity cannot be polluted by us, for he is unspotted,
but his name may be profaned; and nothing pro¬
fanes it more than the misconduct of priests, whose
business it is to do honour to it.
This is the general charge exhibited against
them; to this they plead, P/ot guilty, and challenge
God to prove it upon them, and to make good the
charge; which added daring impudence to their
daring impiety; Ye say, Wherein have we despised
thy name? v. 6. Anil wherein have we polluted
thee? v. 7. It is common with proud sinners, when
they are reproved, to stand thus upon their own jus¬
tification; these priests had most horridly profaned
sacred things, and yet, like the adulterous woman,
say that they have done no wickedness; either they
were so inobservant of themselves , that thev re¬
membered not, or reflected not upon, their own
acts; or, they were so ignorant of the divine law,
that they thought there was no harm in them, and
that what they did could not be construed into des¬
pising God’s name; or, they were so atheistical as
to imagine that though they knew their own guilt,
yet God did not; or, they were so scornful in their
conduct toward God and his prophets, that they
took a pride in bantering a serious and just reproof,
and turning it off with a jest. They either laugh
at the reproof, as those that despise it, and harden
their hearts against it ; or, they laugh it off, as
those that resolve they will not be touched by it, or
will not seem to be so. Which way soever we take
it, their defence was their o/fence, and in justifying
themselves, their own tongues condemned them,
and their saying, Wherein have we despised thy
name? proved them proud and perverse. Had they
asked this question with a humble desire to be told
more particularly wherein they had offended, it
had been an evidence of their repentance, and had
given hopes of their reformation; but to ask it thus
in disdain and defiance of the word of God, argues
their hearts fully set in them tS do evil. Note, Sin¬
ners ruin themselves by studying to baffle their own
convictions; but they will find it hard to kick against
the pricks.
Justly might they have been convicted and con¬
demned upon the general charge, and their plea
thrown out as frivolous; but God will not only over¬
come, but will be clear, will be justified, when he
judges, and therefore he shows them very particu¬
larly wherein they had despised his name, and what
the contempt was, that they cast upon him. As
formerly, when he charged them with idolatry, so
now, when he charges them with profaneness, he
bids them see their way in the valley, and know
what they have done, Jer. ii. 23.
1. They despised God’s name in what they said,
in the low opinion they had of his institutions;' “Ye
say in your hearts, and perhaps speak it out when
your priests get together over your cups, out of.the
hearing of the people, The table of the Lord is con¬
temptible; (t>. 7. and again, v. 12.) ye say, The
table of the Lord is polluted, it is to be no more re¬
garded than any other table.” Either the table in
the temple, on which the show-bread was placed,
is that which they reflected upon; not understand¬
ing the mystery of it, they despised it as an insig¬
nificant thing; or, rather, the altar of burnt-offer¬
ings is here called the table, for there God, and his
priests, and his people, did, as it were, “east to-
1 1G1
MALACHI, 1.
gether upon the sacrifices, in token of friendship;
this, they thought, was contemptible. Formerly,
in the days of superstition, it was thought con¬
temptible, in comparison with the idolatrous altars
that the heathen had, and was set aside to make
room for a new-fashioned one; (2 Kings xvi. 14, 15.)
now it is thought contemptible, in comparison with
their own tables, and those of their great men; The
fruit thereof, even his meat, is contemptible. They
who served at the altar, were to live upon the altar;
but they complained that they lived poorly and
meanly, and that it was not worth while to attend
the service of the altar, for the fruit and meat of it,
for it was very ordinary, and always the same
again; they had no dainties, no varieties, no nice
dishes. Nay, that part of the sacrifices which was
given to God, the blood and the fat, they looked
upon with contempt, as not worthy the multitude
of laws God had made about them; they asked,
“What need is there of so much ado about burning
the fat, and pouring out the blood?” Note, Those
greatly profane and pollute God’s name who des¬
pise the business of religion, though it is very ho¬
nourable, as not worth taking pains in, and the
advantages of religion, though highly valuable, as
not worth taking pains for. Those who live in a
careless neglect of holy ordinances, who come to
them, and attend on them, irreverently, and go
away from them, never the better, and under no
concern, do, in effect, say, “ The table of the Lord
is contemptible, there is neither virtue nor value in
•t, neither credit nor comfort from it.”
2. They despised God’s name, in what they did,
which was of a piece with what they said, and
flowed from it; corrupt principles and notions are
roots of bitterness, which bear the gall and worm¬
wood of corrupt practices. They looked upon
the table and altar of the Lord as contemptible,
and then,
(1.) They thought any thing would serve for a
sacrifice, though ever so coarse and mean; and were
so far from bringing the best, as they ought to have
done, that they picked out the worst they had,
which was fit neither for the market, nor for their
own tables, and offered that at God’s altar. With
every sacrifice they were to bring a meat-offering
of fine flour mingled with oil; but they brought
polluted bread, (x>. 7.) coarse bread, servants’
bread, perhaps it was dry and mouldy, or made of
the refuse of the wheat, which they thought good
enough to be burnt upon the altar; for had it been
better, they would have said, To what purpose is
this waste? And as to the beasts they offered,
though the law was express, that what was offered
in sacrifice, should not have blemish, yet they
brought the blind, and the lame, and the sick, (v. 8.
and again, v. 13.) the torn, and the lame, and the
sick, that was ready to die of itself. They looked
no further than the burning of the sacrifice, and
they pleaded that it was a pity to burn it, if it was
good for any thing else. The people were so far
convinced of their duty, that they would bring sacri¬
fices; they durst not wholly omit the duty, but they
brought vain oblations, mocked God, and deceived
themselves, by bringing the worst they had; and
the priests, who should have taught them better,
accepted the gifts brought to the altar, and offered
them up there; because, if they should refuse them,
the people would bring none at all, and then they
would lose their perquisites; and therefore, having
more regard to their own profit than to God’s
honour, they accepted that which they knew he
would not accept of. Some make v. 8. to be a con¬
tinuance of what the priests profanely said, v. 7.
Ye say to the people, If ye offer the blind for sacri¬
fice is it not evil; or, the lame and the sick, is it not
evil. Note, It is a very evil thing, whether men
Vol. IV.— 7 H
think so or no, to offer the blind and the lame, the
torn and the sick, in sacrifice to God. If we wor¬
ship God ignorantly, and without understanding,
we bring the blind for sacrifice; if we do it care¬
lessly, and without consideration, if we are cold, and
dull, and dead in it, we bring the sick; if we rest in
the bodily exercise, and do not make heart-work of
it, we bring the lame; and if we suffer vain thoughts
and distractions to lodge within us, we bring the
torn. And is not this evil? Is it not a great affront
to God, and a great wrong and injury to our own
souls? Do not our books tell us, nay, do not cur
hearts tell us, that this is evil? For God, who is the
best, ought to be served with the best we have.
(2.) They would do no more of their work than
what they were paid for. The priests would offer the
sacrifices that were brought to the altar, because
they had their share of them ; but as for any other
service of the temple, that had not a particular fee
belonging to it, they would not stir a step, or lend a
hand to it; and this was the general temper of them,
v. 10. There is not a man among the priests that
would shut the doors, or kindle a fire, for naught.
If he were bid to do the smallest piece of service,
he would ask, How shall I be paid for it? They
would do nothing gratis, but were all for what they
could get, every one for his gain from his quarter,
Isa. lvi. 11. Note, Though God has given order
that his servants be well paid in this world, yet
\ those are not acceptable servants to him, who are
mercenary, and would never do the work but for
wages.
(3.) Their work was a perfect drudgery to them;
( v . 13.) Yesaid also, Behold, what a weariness is it l
; Both priests and people were of this mind, that they
thought God imposed too hard a task upon them;
the people grudged the charge of providing the
sacrifice, and the priests grudged the pains of offer¬
ing it; they thought the feasts of the Lord came too
thick, and they were forced to attend too often, and
too long, in the courts of the Lord; the priests
thought it a severe penance imposed upon them, to
purify themselves as was required when they at¬
tended the altar, and ate of the holy things; they
thought the dutv of their office toilsome and trouble¬
some, and snuffed at it as unreasonable, and bearing
hard upon them; they did it, but it was grudgingly,
and with reluctance. God speaks of it, in justifica¬
tion of his law, that he had not made them to serve
with an offering, nor wearied them with incense,
Isa. xliii. 23. Wherein have I wearied thee? Mic.
vi. 3. But their own wicked hearts made it a wea¬
riness; and they were, as Doeg, detained before the
Lord, they would rather have been any where else.
Note, Those are highly injurious, both to God and
themselves, who are weary of his service and wor¬
ship, and snuff at it.
III. Observe how God expostulates, and reasons
the case, with them, for their conviction and hu¬
miliation.
1. Would they, durst they, affront an earthly
prince thus? “You offer to God the lame and the~
sick; offer it now unto thy governor, (v. 8.) either
as tribute, or as a present, when thou art entreating
his favour, oi in gratitude for some favour received;
will he be pleased with thee ? Or, rather, will he not
take himself to be affronted by it?” Note, Those
who are careless and irreverent in the duties of re¬
ligious worship, should consider what a shame it is
to offer that to their God, which they would scorn
to offer to their governor; and to be more observant
of the laws of breeding and good manners than of
the la ws of religion ; and more afraid of being rude
than of being profane.
2. Could they imagine that such sacrifices as these
would be pleasing to God, or answer the end of sa¬
crifices? “ Should I accept this of your hands, saith
1162
MALACH1, I.
the Lord ? v. 13. Have you any reason to think I
should either not discern, or not resent, the affront;
that I should connive at the violation of my own
laws? No, ( v . 10.) I have no pleasure in you, and
therefore I will not accept an offering, such an of¬
fering, at your hand.” If God has no pleasure in
the person, if the person is not in a justified state,
if he is not sanctified, God will not accept the offer¬
ing; God had respect to Abel first, and then to his
sacrifice. Note, In order to our acceptance with
God, it is not enough to do that which, tor the mat¬
ter of it, is good, but we must do it from a right
principle, in a right manner, and for a right end.
It was the ancient rule laid down, (Gen. iv. 7.) If
thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted ? Now If
we be not accepted of God, in vain do we worship
him; it is all lost labour; nay, we are all undone,
for ever undone, if we come short of God’s accept¬
ance; those therefore make a bad bargain for them¬
selves, who, to save charges in their religion, miss
all the ends cf it, and, by thinking to go the next
way to work, bring nothing to pass. Those who
make it the top of their ambition, as we all ought to
do, whether present or absent, to be accepted o f the
Lord, will not dare to bring the torn, and the lame,
and the sick, for sacrifice.
3. How could they expect to prevail with God in
their intercessions for the people, when they thus
affronted God in their sacrifices? So some under¬
stand v. 9. as spoken ironically, “ And now if you
will do the duty of priests, and stand in the gap, to
turn away the judgments of God, that you see ready
to pour in upon us, I pray you, beseech God that he
will be gracious to us, and to our land which is al¬
most eaten up with locusts and caterpillars;” (as
appears ch. iii. 11.) “Try now what interest you
have at the throne of grace, improve it for the re¬
moving of this plague, for it has been by your means,
you have provoked God to send it; but as you go on
thus to profane his sacred things, will he regard
your persons or your prayers? No, you cannot pre¬
vail with him to command it away.” For if we re¬
gard iniquity in our hearts, God will not hear us,
either for ourselves or for others.
4. Had God deserved this at their hands? No, he
had provided comfortably for them, and had given
them such encouragement in their work as might
have engaged them to do it cheerfully and well; so
some understand it, v. 10. “ Who is there among
you, that shall shut a door, or kindle a fire, for
naught ? No, God does not expect you should serve
him for nothing, you are well paid for it, and shall
be so; not a cup of cold water, given for the honour
of God, shall lose its reward.” Note, The conside¬
ration of our constant receivings from God, and the
present rewards of obedience in obedience, very
much aggravates our slothfulness and niggardliness
in our returns of duty to God.
IV. He calls them to repentance for their profa¬
nations of his holy name. So we may understand
it. 9. “ JVow, I pray you, beseech God that he will
be gracious to us. Humble yourselves for your sin,
cry mightily to God for pardon, and make up, in the
faith and fervency of your prayers, what has been
wanting in the worth and value of your sacrifices;
for all the rebukes of Providence we are under, are
by your means.” Note, Those who have by their
sins helped to kindle a fire, are highly concerned by
their repentance, prayers, and personal reforma¬
tion, to help to quench it. We must see how much
God’s judgments are by our means, and be awaken¬
ed thereby to be earnest with him to return in mercy;
and if we take not this course, how can we think
he should regard our persons ?
V. He declares his resolution, both to secure the
glory of his own name, and to reckon with those
who profane it. Those who put contempt upon God
and religion, and think to run down sacred things,
let them know,
1. That they shall not gain their point; God will
magnify his law, and make it honourable, though
they vilify it, and make it contemptible; for (v. li.)
from the rising of the sun to the going down of the
same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles.
It might be said, “ If these are not the worshippers
whom God will accept, then he has no worship¬
pers. ” As if he must make the best of their ser¬
vice, or else he would have no service done him ;
and then what will he do for his great name ? But
let him alone for that; though Israel be not faithful,
be not gathered, yet God will lie glorious; though
these priests provoke him to take down the ceremo¬
nial economy, and to abolish that law of command-
metits, which could not make the comers thereunto
perfect, yet he will be no loser by that, at the long
run; for, (1.) Instead of those carnal ordinances,
which they profaned, a spiritual way of worship
shall be introduced and established; Incense shall
be offered to God’s name, (which signifies prayer
and praise, Ps. cxli. 2. Rev. viii..3.) instead of the
blood and fat of bulls and goats. And it shall be a
pure offering, refined, not only from the corruptions
that were in the priests’ practice, but from the mere
bodily exercise that was in the institutions them¬
selves, which were called carnal ordinances, im¬
posed till the time of reformation, Heb. ix. 10.
When the hour came, in which the true worship¬
pers worshipped the Father in spirit and in truth,
then this incense was offered, even this pure offer¬
ing. (2.) Instead of his being worshipped and
served among the Jews only, a small people in a
corner of the world, he will be served and worship¬
ped in all places, from the rising of the sun to the
going down of the same; in every place, in every
part of the world, incense shall be offered to his
name; nations shall be discipled, and shall speak of
the wonderful works of God, and have them spoken
to them in their own language. This is a plain pre¬
diction of that great revolution in the kingdom of
grace, by which the Gentiles, who had been stran¬
gers and foreigners, came to be fellow-citizens with
the saints, and of the household of God, and as wel¬
come to the throne of grace as ever the Jews had
been. It is twice said, (for the thing was certain,)
My name shall be great among the Gentiles, where¬
as hitherto in Judah only he was known, and his
name great, Ps. lxxvi. 1. God’s name shall be de¬
clared to them, the declaration of it shall be re¬
ceived and believed, and there shall be those among
the Gentiles who shall magnify and glorify the
name of God, better than ever the Jews had done,
even the priests themselves.
2. That they shall not go unpunished, v. 14.
Here is the doom of those who do like these priests
here, for the sentence on them is a sentence on all
such. Observe, (2.) The description of profane
and careless worshippers. They are such as vow
and sacrifice to the Lord a corrupt thing, when they
have in their flock a male; they have of the best,
wherewith to serve and honour him, so bountiful
has he been in his gifts to them, but they put him
off with the worst, and think that good enough for
him, so ungrateful are they in their return to him.
This was the fault of the people, but the priests
connived at it, and indulged them in it. We find a
distinction in the law, which allowed that to be of¬
fered for a free-will offering, which should not be
accepted for a vow. Lev. xxii. 23. But the priests
would accept it, though God would not, pretending
to be more indulgent than he was, for which he will
give them no thanks another day. (2.) The cha¬
racter given of such worshippers; they are deceiv¬
ers, they deal falsely and fraudulently with God,
they play the hypocrite with him; they pretend to
1163
MALACHI, II.
honour him, in making the vow, but when it comes
to be performed, they put an affront upon him, to
that degree, that it had been better not to have vow¬
ed than to vow and thus to pay; but let not such be
themselves deceived, for God is not mocked; those
who think to put a cheat upon God, will prove, in
the end, to have put a damning cheat upon their
own souls. Hypocrites are deceivers, and they will
prove self-deceivers, and so, self-destroyers. (3.)
l'he doom passed upon them; They are cursed;
they expect a blessing, but will meet with a curse,
the tokens of God’s wrath, according to the judg¬
ment written. (4._) The reason of this doom; “For
I am a great King, saith the Lord of hosts, and
therefore will reckon with those who deal with me
but as a man like themselves; my name is dreadful
among the heathen, and therefore I will not bear
that it should be contemptible among mine own peo¬
ple.” The heathen paid more respect to their gods,
though idols, than the Jews did to theirs, though the
only true living God. Note, The consideration of
God’s universal dominion, and the universal acknow¬
ledgment of it, should restrain us from all irreve¬
rence in his service.
CHAP. II.
There are two great ordinances which divine wisdom has
instituted, the wretched profanation of both which is
complained of, and sharply reproved, in this chapter. I.
The ordinance of the ministry, which is peculiar to the
church, and is designed for the maintaining and keeping
up of that; this was profaned by those who were them¬
selves dignified with the honour of it, and intrusted with
the business of it. The priests profaned the holy things
of God; this they are here charged with, their sin is ag¬
gravated, and they are severally threatened for it, v. 1..
9. II. The ordinance of marriage , which is common
to the world of mankind, and was instituted for the
maintaining and keeping up of that; this was profaned
both by the priests and by the people, in marrying stran¬
gers, (v. 11, 12.) treating their wives unkindly, (v. 13.)
putting them away, (v. 16.) and herein dealing treache¬
rously, v. 10, 14, 15. And that which was at the bottom
of this and other instances of profaneness, was, down¬
right atheism, thinking God altogether such a one as
themselves, which was, in effect, to say, There is no
God, v. 17. And these reproofs to them are warnings
to us.
1 . 4 ND now, O ye priests, this command-
ment is for yon. 2. If ye will not
hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to
give glory unto my name, saith the Lord
of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you,
and will curse your blessings; yea, I have
cursed them already, because ye do not lay
it to heart. 3. Behold, I will corrupt your
seed, and spread dung upon your faces,
even the dung of your solemn feasts, and
one shall take you away with it. 4. And
ye shall know that I have sent this com¬
mandment unto you, that my covenant
might be with Levi, saith the Lord of hosts.
5. My covenant was with him of life and
peace ; and I gave them to him for the fear
wherewith he feared me, and was afraid
before my name. 6. The law of truth was
in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in
his lips : he walked with me in peace and
equity, and did turn many away from ini¬
quity. 7. For the priest’s lips should keep
Knowledge, and they should seek the law at
his mouth : for he is the messenger of the
Lord of hosts. 8. But ye are departed out
of the way ; ye have caused many to stum¬
ble at the law; ye have corrupted the cove
nant of Levi, saith the Lord of hosts. 9.
Therefore have I also made you contempti¬
ble and base before all the people, accord¬
ing as ye have not kept my ways, but have
been partial in the law.
What was said in the foregoing chapter, was di
rected to the priests; (ch. i. 6. ) Thus saith the Lora
of hosts to you, O priests that despise my name:
but the crimes there charged upon them they were
guilty of, as sacripcers, and for those they might
think it some excuse, that they offered what the
people brought, and therefore that, if they were not
so good as they should be, it was not their fault, hut
the people’s : and therefore here the corruptions,
there complained of, are traced to the source and
spring of them — the faults the priests were guilty
of as teachers of the people, as expositors of the law
and the lively oracles; and this is a part of their of¬
fice, which still remains in the hands of gospel-
ministers, who are appointed to be pastors and
teachers, like the priests under the law, though not
sacripcers, like them; and therefore by them the
admonition here is to he particularly regarded. If
the priests had given the people better instructions,
the people would have brought better offerings; and
therefore the blame returns upon the priests; “Ana
now, O ye priests, this commandment is purely ./or
you, (z). 1.) who should have taught the people the
good knowledge of the Lord, and how to worship
him aright.” Note, l’he governors of the churches
are under God’s government, and to him they are
accountable. Even fcr them who command, God
has commandments. Nay, (i>. 4.) ye shall know
that I have sent these commandments for you. They
should know it, either, 1. By the power of the Spirit
working with the word for their conviction and re¬
formation; “You shall know its original by its effi¬
cacy, whence it comes by what it does.” When the
word of God to us brings about, and carries on, the
work of God in us, then we cannot but know that
he sent it to us, that it is not the word of JSlalachi —
God’s messenger, but it is indeed the word of God,
and is sent, not only in general to all, but in parti¬
cular to us. Or, 2. By the accomplishment of the
threatenings denounced against them ; “ You shall
know, to your cost, that I have sent this command¬
ment to you, and it shall not return void.”
Let us now see what this commandment is, which
is for the priests, which, they must know, was sent
to them; and let us put into method the particulars
of the charge.
1. Here is a recital of the covenant God made
with that sacred tribe; which was their commission
for their work, and the patent of their honour. The
Lord of hosts sent a commandment to them, for the
establishing of this covenant; (xe 4.) for his cove
nant is said to be the word which he commanded;
(Ps. cv. 8.) and he sent this commandment by the
prophet at this time, for the re-establishing of it,
that it might not be cut off for their persisting in the
violation of it. Let the sons of Levi know then (and
particularly the sons of Aaron) what honour God
put upon their family, and what a trust he reposed
in them: (x> 
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